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WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Bt   GEORGE    BRANDES 


Some  Press  Opinions 

TIm  Times. — "On  the  whole  an  admirable  piece  of  work.    It  U  baied  ob 

and  not  on  fandet;  it  takes  into  account  the  historical  conditions  under 

„M,     the  playt  were  written,  which  it  illustrates  with  remarkable  fulness  of  know- 

*~'*-^    and  it  is  singularly  free  from  a  priori  theories.     Dr.  Brandes's  leaming  is 

his  ingenuity  never  at  a  loss,   and  where   so  much  is  problematic,  he 

Uy  has  a  right  eye  for  the  probabilities  of  a  qtiestion." 

The  Athensum. — "On  these  volumes  as  a  whole  we  can  bestow  he^rty 
ie  and  commendation.  No  other  sinf  le  work  on  Shakespeare  includes  so  much, 
'lo  mach  that  is  raluable.    Dr.  Brandes  is  a  good,  a  first-rate,  *  sdl-rotind  man.' 

Ire  is  no  side  of  his  subject  which  he  neclects.     He  is  both  an  antiqnary  and 

ft  «iftic,  interested  in  the  smallest  details  of  biography,  and  also  taking  broad  and 

3yreheniive  views  of  Shakespeare's  thought  and  style.     His  book  is  in  its  way 
dopsdic,  and  we  ventare  to  say  that  there  are  few  people — few  scholars — who 
d  not  find  themseWes  the  better  informed  and  the  wiser  for  its  perasaL     He 
eqnipped  himself  for  his  task  by  wide  study  and  research ;  and  on  all  the 
he  has  amassed  he  has  brought  to  bear  a  jndgment  well  balanoed  and 
oos,  and  a  mind  liberal  and  independent     It  is  many  years  since  there  hat 
any  contribution  to  Shakespearean  Hterature  of  such  importance  as  this.    These 
\  Tolumes  are  of  solid  woAh,  and  deserve  a  place  in  every  Shakespearean 
•leiait's  library." 

i;  The  Academy. — "It  is  an  admirable  and  exhaustive  survey  of  its  subjeo^ 

d  out  in  accordance  with  modern  method,  and  on  the  level  of  modern  in* 

tion.    It  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  Shakespearean  Hterature,  and  etsential 

fvery  reader  who  is  competent  to  distingubh  what  in  it  is  £sct  from  what  is 

y  a  Icgitimate  exercise  of  reconstructive  conjectures." 

The  Spectator« — "The  points  of  disagreement  between  any  man  who  lovet 
Mi  Shakespeare  and  Dr.  Branaes  will  be  few,  the  points  of  sympathy  numberle«. 
Thf  book  IS  not  merely  a  big  book,  nor  merely  a  good  book,  but,  in  so  far  as  one 
Mli  £airly  apply  the  term  to  criticism,  a  great  book.** 

jQuardlaa. — "This  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  Shakespearean  litermture. 
Sfei'  Brandes  bring«  to  his  task  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  subject,  together  ¥rith 
■■irh  industry  and  skilL     He  has  mastered  the  ncts  of  the  case,  and  ne  w>flrf*«ftH 

Ön  weil  The  matter  is  not  more  copious  than  the  manner  is  dear.  Add  to  this 
;  be  has  made  himself  acquainted  with  and  understands  how  to  utilise  the  labous 
if  f>thers  in  the  same  sphere,  and  there  needs  no  saying  that,  for  the  information 
Wftained  in  it,  his  book  should  find  a  place  on  the  shelves  of  every  Student." 

turday   Review.— "His  book  sums  up,  with  masterly  luddity,  all  that 
larship^  has  contrived  to  secure  regarding  the  life  and  aims  of  the  greatest  of 
It  is  wdl  that  we  possess  at  last  a  translation  so  eminently  satisfactory  of  what 
ly  the  best  existing  general  view  of  the  life  and  labours  of  Shakespeare.'* 

Standard.  —  "In    the    most   important   qualification    for    a    Shakespearean 

: — a  knowledge  of  English  history,  English  Hterature,  and  EngHsh  life — Dr. 

des  b  not  ladcing.    Apart  from  the  subject  and  style  of  each  play,  he  seixes 

explains  all  the  allusions  to  affairs  of  the  day  in  which  the  comic  portions  of 

y  of  the  plays  abonnd.     He  know%  too,  all  that  has  been   vritten  in  England 

other  conntries  abont  Shakespear.^  himself.     No  work  on  Shakespeare  suggests 

itrongly  as  does  this  masterly  book  of  Dr.  Brandes,  how  rauch  one  must  know 

ve  it  is  possiUe  completely  to  understand  him.     No  one  takes  in  at  once  the 

ire  meaning  and  signincance     '  a  Shakespearean  play.    To  be  able  to  do  so  in 

fallest  poisiUe  manner  it  \.ould  be  necessary  to  possess  the  insight,  the  power 

[appredation,  the  infonnr4:ion  and  the  desire  for  nirther  knowledge  whicn  dis- 

ibh  Dr.  Brandes.     In/iddition  to  his  other  merits,  he  is  a  wonderniUy  attractive 

[er:  every  reader  wil^thank  him  for  pladng  at  his  disposal,  in  so  orderly  % 

'~tt  and  so  agreeablera  style,  the  treasnres  of  hb  vast  enidition."  * 


Momlng  Pojt« — "It  evinces  a  rare  and  often  an  original   insight    ^tr 
character  of  Shakespeare  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet,  and  an  adequate  appreci^/üV 
all  the  best  and  most  auüioritative  critical  interpretatioDs  of  his  poetiy  as  pres4 
by  English  and  Continental  writers." 

Daily  Chronicie.— '*  Dr.  Brandes  has  sifted  the  whole  mass  of  Shakespei 
criticism — English,  American,  German,  French,  historical,  acsthetic,  ethical,  chi 
logical,  textual,  metrical,  and  eren  Baconian.  Wnaterer  eise  its  raloe,  theo 
book  is  a  reritable  enqrclopeedia  of  Shakespearean  Information.  It  u  a  woi 
well-nourished  scholarship  if  ever  there  was  one.  It  is  not  distended  by  wi 
ethical,  and  sesthetic  sermonisings,  bat  is  at  all  points  real  and  rital,  fuU  of  dei 
exposition  and  sound  argument 

Pall  Mall  Qazette. — '*Dr.  Brandes  is  so  well  known  as  an  exponei 
Shakespeare,  that  it  does  not  surprise  one  as  much  as  it  ought  to  do  to  fii 
foreigner  possessing  such  extraordinary  insight  into  English  literature  as  is  rev< 
in  these  two  volumes.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  realise  that  the  author 
foreigner  as  one  wanders  with  him  throogh  the  obscure  byways  of  Elizabe 
history  or  culls  the  flowers  of  English  speech  from  every  period  of  its  litera 
There  are  few,  eren  in  this  country,  who  could  boast  so  much  familiarity  with 
poeu  Surely  here,  if  nowhere  eh»e,  a  man  may  tracc  liie  complete  Shakesp 
The  comse  of  derelopment,  the  scheme  of  characterisation  is  most  luddly  wo 
out,  and  the  life  of  the  man  himself  is  fully  reflected  from  his  plays." 

Notes  and  Queries. — "  One  of  the  most  erudite  and  exhaustire  studies  of  Sh 
tpeare  that  hare  yet  seen  the  ligfat  Dr.  Brandes  has  enriched  our  literature  wi 
wie  work,  and  a  werk  which  the  Student  will  do  well  to  hare  ever  at  his  elbow." 

Obaerver. — "The  great  merit  of  Dr.  Brandes's  work  is  that  it  makes  the  po 
of  Shakespeare  teil  the  story  of  his  life,  so  that  through  the  veil  of  the  pla^ 
tee  the  romance  of  hb  personality,  his  struggles  and  triumphs,  the  bitter  expene 
which  distempered  hu  philosophy  to  a  pitch  that  even  modern  pessimism  has  ra 
known,  his  relations  to  the  social  and  religious  movements  of  the  time,  and 
attitade  towards  the  contemporary  makers  of  history.  Dr.  Brandes  is  no  idoli 
His  appreciation  of  Shakespeare's  genius  is  eminently  sane,  and  his  cril 
examination  of  the  plays  is  marked  1^  true  insight  It  is  a  pleasure  to  mei 
critic  who  cmn  trace  the  artistic  Umitadons  of  Üie  poet  insteui  of  rhapsodt 
aboat  his  sublimity." 

Scotsman. — "  While  the  book  instmcts  a  reader  in  criticism  and  literary  bist 
it  charms  as  well  as  interests  him  by  stud3ring  the  man's  life.  Dr.  Brandes,  w 
leaving  no  essential  aspect  of  his  subject  untouched,  has  succeeded  in  giving  a  cril 
study  of  Shakespeare  a  much  wider  and  a  much  keener  interest  tlum  such  tb 
ordinarily  assume." 

Outlook* — **  There  woold  be  no  need  to  protest  against  the  constant  accumuli^ 
of  books  conceming  Shakespeare  if  any  tolerable  proportion  of  them  could  com| 
with  that  which  we  owe  to  I>r.  Brandes.  His  work  exceeds  the  promise  of  its  1; 
for  he  ofTers  us  mudi  more  than  a  critical  study  of  his  subjeci :  he  reconstitutcflr 
CBtire  sodal  faJstoiy  of  the  age,  sets  the  poet  in  his  right  atmosphere,  and  does  Y 
with  remarkable  leaming^  and  insight.  His  two  rolumes  are  a  perfect  armour 
^^  Suggestion,  and  oritidsm.  The  best  informed  of  his  readers  will  leam  üi 
from  this  monument  of  intelligent  research  and  brilliant  commentary." 


^ 

1 


t 


WILLIAM 
SHAKESPEARB 


I 

l 


BY  THE  SAMR  AUTHOR 

MAIN  CURRENTS  OF  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

LITERATURE  (Hauptstromungkn).  Translated  by  Diana 
White,  z.  Emigrant  Literaturb.  a.  The  Romantic 
ScHooL  in  Germany.  3.  The  Rb-action  in  France. 
4.  Naturalism  in  England.  5.  The  Romantic  School 
IN  France.  6.  Young  Germant.  New  and  Cheaper  Illus- 
trated  Edition,  in  Six  Volunies,  Price  5s.  net  each. 

HENRIK    IBSEN.      BJÖRNSTJfERNE    BJÖRNSON. 

Critical  Studies.  Authoriied  Translation  from  tbe  Danish.  With 
Introductions  bj  William  Archer.  In  One  Volume,  demy  8vo. 
Rozburgh,  gilt  top,  er  buckram,  uncut.    zos.  net. 

POLAND.    A  Study  of  the  Law,  People,  and  Literaturc.    Demy 
8va    las.  net. 

RECOLLECTIONS     OF     MY       CHILDHOOD    AND 

YOÜTH.    Demy  8vo.     los.  net 

FERDINAND   LASSALLE.     Demy  8vo.    65.  net. 

FRIEDRICH   NIETZSCHE.    Demy  8to.    6s.  net. 

ANATOLE   FRANCE.     Crown  870.     is.  6d.  net. 

LONDON:    WILLIAM    HEINEMANN 
as  BBDFORD  STREET,  W.C.  a 


WILLIAM 


SHAKBSPEABE 


BT 


GEORGE  BRANDES 


i:s^tT^rMf^:^J^-i^ 


LONDON 

WILLIAM  HEINEMANN 


'C 


Tnb  Daniih  original  «f  tkit  work  was  pub* 
lished  in  three  volumes  repreiented  by  the 
Three  Bookt  of  thit  translation.  The  Firat 
Book  and  half  of  the  Second  are  tranilated 
hy  Mri  William  Arcmb«  ;  the  last  half  of 
Che  Seeoüd  Book  by  Mr.  Aliciiftt,  ataiited  by 
Miss  Maet  MoanoN ;  the  Third  Book  by 
Mist  Diana  Whits,  also  with  the  assistance 
of  Miss  MoaisoN.  The  proofs  of  the  whole 
Work  have  been  revised  by  Dr.  Beanobs 
kimaelf. 

Krti  Edition,  %  yoh.     1898.    N€wEditio$u 
I  P9I.     1899. 

New  Iwt^uiiom,  1901,  1905^  ^^^7$  >909» 
1911,  1914»  1916. 

Ntw  Imprettim,  revit§d  mnd  with  two 
Apptndictt,  1917« 


Cf^rigkt  1898  bf  Wiluam  HiintMANit. 


I 


i 

t 


4 .  ü^<^^*^^-^^^^ 


Undergraduate 
Library 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  FIRST 

wusm 
U  A    BIOGRAPHY    OF    SHAKESPEARE    DIFFICULT    BUT    NOT    IM- 

POSSIBLS 2     ' 

I  IL  STRATFORD'PARENTAGE— BOYHOOD 5 

III.  BCARRIAGE-H5IR  THOMAS  LUCY — DEPARTURE  FROM  STRATFORD        lO 

lY.  LONDON— BUILDINGS,  COSTUMES,  MANNERS     ....        13 

y.  POLITICAL  AND    RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS—ENGLAND'S  GROW- 

;  ING  GREATNESS l6 

I  Tl.  SHAEXSPEARB  AS   ACTOR  AND   RETOUCHER  OF  OLD  PLAYS— 

GREENE'S  ATTACK  .  l8 

^^L  THE  ''HENRY  VI."  TRILOGY 7 

I  VIIL  CHRISTOPHER     MARLOWE     AND     HIS     LIFE- WORK  —  TITUS 

ANDRONICUS 

DL  SHAKESPEARE^S    CONCEPTION    OF    THE    RELATIONS    OF   THE       21) 

.  SSXXS— HIS  MARRIAGE  VIEWED   IN   THIS   LIGHT—LOVE'S 

Li'jLBOUR'S    LOST— ITS    MATTER    AND    STYLE— JOHN    LYLY 

AND  EUPHUI8M— THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  .        ^ai^ 

Z.  LOTE'S  LABOUR'S  WON  :   THE  FIRST  SKETCH  OF  ALL'S  WELL 

Tft^J  ENDS  WELL— 'THE  COMBDY  OF  ERRORS— THE  TWOj 

QBMTLBMSN  OF  VERONA d[  V-a3I 

XI.  VENUS.  AND  ADONIS :  DESCRIPTIONS  OF  NATURE— THIScOWING 

OF  LUCRECE :  RELATION  TO  PAINTING       •         .PESSIMISM, 

v"^  r  MiPSigiMini  rimirc»-:»  ^**f     • 239 

^^^      9TANCBS— rrs  ^ 


(xuhki 


^^MEO  AT 


iii  CONTENTS 

CNAP. 

XIV.  LATT£R-DAY  ATTACKS   UPON   SHAKESPEARE— THE  BACONIA^^ 
THBORY— SHAKESPEARB'S     KNOWLEDGE,    PHYSICAL    AN«> 

PHILOSOPHICAL 

XY.  THE  THEATRES — THEIR  SITUATION  AND  ARRANGEMENTS — 
THE  PLAYERS— THE  POETS — POPULÄR  AUDIENCES — THE 
ARISTOCRATIC    PUBUC  —  SHAKESPEARE'S     ARISTOCRATIC 

PRINCIPLES 

XYL  THE  THEATRES  CLOSBD  ON  ACCOITNT  OF  THE   PLAGUEr— DID 
SHAKESPEARE  VISIT   ITALY  ?— PASSAGES   WHICH    FAVOUR 

THIS  CONJECTURE 

IVIL^HAKESPEARE  TURNS  TO  HISTORIC  DRAMA^HIS  RICHAEP  H- 
^'^"'^^         AND  MARLOWEfS  EDWARD  II.— LACK  OF  HUAOUR  AND  OF 

CONSISTENCY  OF  STYIj— ENGLISH  NATIOnJIl  PRIDE 
XYin.  RICHARD     IIL— -PSYCHOLOGY    AND    MONOLOGUES  —  SHAKE- 
SPEARE'S  POWER  OF  SELF-TRANSFORMATION— CONTEMPT 
^     FOR    WOMEN— THE    PRINCIPAL    SCENES— THE     CLASSIC 

TENDENCY  cqF^^S.J3LAGSDY 

XUL  SHAKESPEARE  LOSES  HIS  SON— TRACES  OF  HIS  GRIEF  IN 
KING  JOHN— THE  OLD  PLAY  OF  THE  SAME  NAME— 
DISPLACEMENT  OF  ITS  CENTRE  OF  GRAVITY— EUMINA- 
TION  OF  REUGIOUS  POLEMICS— RETENTION  OF  THE 
NATIONAL  BASIS  —  PATRIOTIC  SPIRIT  —  SHAKESPEARE 
KNOWS  NOTHING  OF  THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN 
NORMANS     AND      ANGLO-SAXONS,     AND     IGNORES     THE 

MAGNA  CHARTA 

iOL  ''THX   TAMING    OF  ^THE    SHREW"    AND    ''THE    MERCHANT 

^-  OF     VENICEl*  —  SHAKESPEARES     PREOCCUPATION     WITH 

THOÜÖHT8  «OF    PROPERTY     AND    GAIN  — HIS    GRDWING 

PR08PERITY— HIS   ADMISSION   TO   THE    RANKS   OF    THE 

''^BNTRY*— HIS    PURO^ASfi    OF    HOUSES    AND    LANI>— 

^  TRANSACnONS  Al^  LAWSUITS 

"^'       -^iTg  ggyRrni— qrs  char- 

-MOONtlOHT   AMD 


Ctf^riike  1S98  Bf  Wiluam  Himi 


CMS  or 


CONTENTS  üt 


I 
) 


\ 


UFE  IN  THB  HISTORIC  DRABfA— WHV  THE  SÜBJBCT 
APPEALBD  TJUJttIM--T^XiyERN  UFE  —  SHAKESPEAREfS 
aRCLE  —  s(p  T^FN  '^T.STAf  —  FALSTAFF  AND  THE 
ORACIOSO—OF  THE  SPANISH  DRAMA  —  RABELAIS  AND 
SHAEESPEARE— PANURGE  AND  FALSTAFF .  .  .  ./^I? 

III.  HENRY  PJtRCY— THE  MASTERY  OF  THE  CHARACTER  DRAW 

ING-=iQaOTSPUR  AND  ACHILLES    .  .  .  .       •  .\    187 

XXIV.  PRINOt   HENRY— THE   POINT  OF  DEPARTURE    FOR    SHAKE- 

SPEARB'S   IMAGINATION— A  TYPICAL  ENGLISH  NATIONAL 

HERO  — THE     FRESHNESS     AND     PERFECTION    OF     THE 

*     PLAY       . 19s 

XXY.  "KINO  HEW^Y  IV.,*»  SBpOND  PART— OLD  AND  NEW  CHAR- 
ACTERS  In'^IT— DETAILS- "HENRY  V.,"  A  NATIONAL 
DRAMA— PATRIOTISM  AlfD  CHAUVINISM— THE  VISION  OF 

A  GREATER  ENGLAND .  .     20S 

XXYI.  ELIZABETH     AND     FALSTAFF — "THE     MERRY     WIVES '   OF 

WINDSOR" — THE    PROSAIC    AND     BOURGEOIS     TONE     0K4. 

THE  PIECE — THE  FAIRY  SCENES 2o8 

XXYll.  SHAKESPEARE^S  MOST  BRILLIANT  PERIOD— THE  FEMININE 
TYPES  BELONGING  TO  IT— WITTY  AND  HIGHBORN  YOUNG 
WOMEN-nMUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING — SLAVISH  FAITH- 
FULNESa  TO  HIS  SOURCES— fi^EDICK  AND  BEATRICE— 
SPIRITUAL  DEVELOPMENT— THE  LOW-COMEDY  FIGURES  .     2I5 


'  SIXVIIL  THE     INTERVAL     OF     SERENITY  —  AS     YOU     LIKE     IT  — THE 

\ 
>  ROVING    SPIRIT— THE     LONGING     FOR     NATURE— J 


AND  SHAKESPEARE— THE  PLAY  A  FEAST  OF  WIT 


•Si 


XXIX.  CONSUMMATE  SPIRITUAL  HARMONY— TWELFTH  NIGHT— 
JIBES  AT  PURITANISM— THE  LANGUISHING  CHARACTS|(S 
— VIOLA'S  INSINUATING  GRACE— FAREWELL  TO  MIRTH  V^ajl 
XXX.  THE  REVOLUTION  IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  SOUL— THE  GROWING 
MBLANCHOLY  OF  THE  FOLLOWING  PERIOD — PESSIMISM, 
MISANTHROPV        •  •  .j| 239 


% 


CONTENTS 


CMAr. 

I. 

II. 
III. 

IV. 
V. 

VI. 
VII. 

VIII. 


XX. 
XXI. 


XXII. 


BOOK  SECOND 

INTRODüCriON — THE   ENGLAND  OF   ELIZABETH    IN   SHAKE- 

speare's  YOUTH 

ELIZABETH'S   OLD  ACE 

ELIZABETH,   ESSEX,   AND   BACON  ...» 

THE  FATE  OF  ESSEX   AND  SOUTHAMPTON 

THE     DEDICATION     OF    THE     SONNETS — THE     FRIEND     TO 

WHOM   THEY  ARE   ADDRESSED        .... 
THE   "DARK   LADY"   OF  THE   SONNETS 
PLATONISM,      SHAKESPEARE'S      AND       MICHAEL      ANGELO'S 

SONNETS — ^THE  TECHNIQUE  .... 

JULIUS    CjBSAR — THE     FUNDAMENTAL     DBFBCT     OF     THE 

DRAMA  

THE   MERITS   OF  THE   DRAMA — BRUTUS 

BEN  JONSON  AND   HIS    ROMAN   PLAYS 

HAMLET:   ITS    ANTECEDENTS    IN    FICTION,     HISTORY,    AND 

DRAB&A  .....••. 

HAMLET — MONTAIGNE-    AND     GIORDANO      BRUNO — ANTE 

CEDENTS   IN   ETHNOGRAPHY 

THE   PERSONAL  ELEMENT   IN   HAMLET         •  • 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   HAMLET 

HAMLET  AS   A   DRAMA 

HAMLET  AND  OPHELIA 

HAMLET's  INFLUENCE  ON   LATER   TIMES 

HAMLET  AS  A   CRITIC 

ALL'S     well     THAT     ENDS      well  —  ATTACKE     ON      PURI 

TANISM 

MEASURE  FOR    MEASURE — ^ANGBLO  AND  TARTUFFE. 
ACCESSION  OF  JAMES  AND  ANNE — RALEIGH'S  FATE — SHAKB- 

SPEARB'S  COMPANY  BBCOMB  HIS  BIAJBSTY'S  SERVANTS — 

SCOTCH   INFLUENCE       .  .  .  •        . 

MACBETH  —  MACBETH      AHD      HAMLET  —  DIFFICULTIBS 

ARISING   FROM  THE  STATB  OF  THB  TEXT 
OTflELLO  —  THB      CHARAGTBR      AND      SIONIFICANCB      OF 

lAGO  .  .  ^. 

QTHKLLQ ^THE    THEMB    AMD    ITS     TRBATMBWT — A    MONO- 

GJIAPH   IN   THE   GREAT   STYLE 

^^^ffiii  i^f^^  —  "^^^     /GELING      UNDBRLYING      IT  —  THE 

CHRONICLE — SIDNEY'S   ARCADIA    AND  THB  OLD   PLAY     . 

KING  LEAR — THE   TRAGEDY  OF  A  WORLD-CATASTROPHE     . 


rAOB 

242 
246 

257 

265 
276 

285 

302 

315 
325 

341 

349 
361 

366 

374 
380 

383 
387 

393 

401 


410 


30 


433 
437 


CONTENTS 


XI 


yXXVIiy  AWTOHY  AND  CLBOPATRA— WHAT  ATTRACTKD  SHAKESPEARE 

^^""■^^  TO  THE  SUBJECT 461 

«XTin.  THE  DARE  LADY  AS  A  MODEL—THE  FALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

A  WORLD-CATASTROPHB       •••••••     470 


I  • 

\ 


L 

IL 

III. 

IV. 

▼. 

▼L 


TIIL 


XVL 
ETIL 


XVIIL 


BOOK    THIRÖ 

DISCORD  AND  SCORN  .....•• 

THE  CX)URT~THE  KING'S  FAVOURITES  AND  RALEIGH  . 
THE  KING'S  THEOLOGY  AND  IMPECUNIOSITY—HIS  DISPUTES 

WITH  THE  HOUSX  OF  GOlCliONS  •         •         •         •         • 

THE  CUSTOMS  OF  THE  COURT 

ARABELLA  STUART  AND  WILUAM  SEYlfOUR  •  •  • 

ROCHXSTER  AND  LADY  ESSEX 

CONTEMPT  OF  WOMEN— TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA   . 
TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA^THE  HISTORICAL  MATERIAL  . 
SHAKESPEARE  AND  CHAPMAN— SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOMER 
SCORN  OF  WOMAN'S  GUILE  AND  PUBLIC  STUPIDITY 
EATH  OF  SHAKESPEAREfS  MOTHER— CORIOLANUS— HATRKD 

OF  THE  MASSES «         •         . 

iRIOLANUS  AS  A  DRAMA 

TIMON  OF  ATHENS— -HATRED  OF  MANKIND    . 
CONVALESCENCEr— TRANSFORMATION— THE  NEW  TYPE. 
PXRICLES— COLLABORATION  WITH  WILKINS  AND   ROWLEY— 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  CORNEILLE  . 
FRANCIS  BEAUMONT  AND  JOHN  FLBTCHER 
SHAKESPEARE  AND  FLETCHER— THE  TWO   NOBLE  KINSMEN 

AND  HENRY  VIII 

EI^E— THE    THEME~THE    POINT^  OF    DEPARTÜlUfc— 

THE   MORAL— THE  IDYLL— IMOGEN— SHAKESPEARE  AND 

GOErrUE— SHAKESPEARE  AND 


477 

480 

4«3 
488 

490 
492 
501 
508 
512 
533 

53a 
551 

556 
571 

57$ 
593 

605 


615 


WINTER'S   TALE— AN    EPIC   TURN— CHILDLIKE  FORMS— THE 
PLAY  AS   A   MUSICAL  STUDY— SHAKESPEARB'S  ^BTHBTIC 

CONFBSSION  OF  FAITH 

B   TEMPEST— WRITTEN   FOR   THE    PRINCESS    EUZABBTH'S 
WEDDING , 


635 


•     ^^ 


/ 


xii  ^CONTENTS 

souR<3s_OF  TOE  rairasT__.i  ^ 


«  • 


THE  TBMPBST  AS  A  PLAY— SHAKESPEARE  AND  PROSPERO 
FARSWBLL  TO  ART  .... 

XXIII.  THX  RIDS  TO  STRATFORD 

XXIV.  STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 

XXV.  THX  LAST  YKARS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE 

XXVI.  SHAKBSPEARX'S  DEATH      •         •          •          . 
XXVII.  CONCLUSION 

APPENDIX     I 

APPENDIX  II 

INDEX 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


BOOK  FIRST 

The  same  year  which  saw  the  death  of  Michael  Angelo  in  Rome, 
saw  the  birth  of  WiUiam  Shakespeare  at  Stratford-on-Avon. 
The  great  artist  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  the  man  who  painted 
the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  was  replaced,  as  it  were,  by 
the  great  artist  of  the  English  Renaissance,  the  man  who  wrote 
King  Lear. 

Death  overtook  Shakespeare  in  bis  native  place  on  the  same 
date  on  which  Cervantes  died  in  Madrid.  The  two  great  creative 
artists  of  the  Spanish  and  the  English  Renaissance,  the  men  to 
whom  we  owe  Don  Quixote  and  Hamlet,  Sancho  Panza  and 
Falstaff,  were  simultaneously  snatched  away. 

Michael  Angelo  has  depicted  mighty  and  suffering  demigods 
in  solitary  grandeur.  No  Italian  has  rivalled  bim  in  sombre 
lyrism  or  tragic  sublimity. 

The  finest  creations  (jf  Cervantes  stand  as  monufnents  of  a 
humour  so  exalted  that  it  marks  an  epoch  in  the  literature  of  the 
World.  No  Spaniard  has  rivalled  him  in  type-creating  comic 
force. 

Shakespeare  Stands  co-equal  with  Michael  Angelo  in  pathos 
and  with  Cervantes  in  humour.  This  of  itself  gives  us  a  certain 
Standard  for  measuring  the  height  and  ränge  of  bis  powers. 

It  is  three  bundred  years  since  bis  genius  attained  its  füll 
development,  yet  Europe  is  still  busied  with  him  as  thougb 
with  a  contemp)orary.  His  dramas  are  actcd  and  read  wberever 
civilisation  extends.  Perhaps,  however,  lie  exercises  the  strongest 
fascination  upon  the  reader  whose  natural  bent  of  mind  leads 
him  to  delight  in  searching  out  the  human  spirit  concealed  and 
revealed  in  a  great  artist's  work.  ^  "  I  will  not  let  you  go  until 
you  have  confessed  to  me  the  secret  of  your  being " — these  are 
the  words  that  rise  to  the  lips  of  such  a  reader  of  Shakespeare. 
Ranging  the  plays  in  their  probable  order  of  production,  and 
revicwing  the  poet's  life-work  as  a  whole,  he  feels  constrained 
to  form  for  himself  some  image  of  the  spiritual  experience  of 
wbkh  it  is  the  expression. 


I 

A  BIOGRAPHY  OF  SHAKESPEARE-  DIFFICULT 

BUT  NOT  IMPOSSIBLE 

When  we  pass  from  the  notabilities  of  the  nineteenth  Century 
to  Shakespeare,  all  our  ordinary  critical  methods  leave  us  in  the 
lurch.  We  have,  as  a  rule,  no  lack  of  trustworthy  infomiation 
as  to  the  productive  spirits  of  our  own  day  and  of  the  past  two 
centuries.  We  know  the  lives  of  authors  and  poets  from  their 
own  accounts  or  those  of  their  contemporaries ;  in  many  cases 
we  have  their  letters ;  and  we  possess  not  only  works  attributed 
to  them,  but  works  which  they  themselves  gave  to  the  press. 
We  not  only  know  with  certainty  their  authentic  writings,  but 
are  assured  that  we  possess  them  in  authentic  form.  If  dis* 
concerting  errors  occur  in  their  works,  they  are  only  misprints, 
which  they  themselves  or  others  happen  to  have  overlooked. 
Insidious  though  they  may  be,  there  is  no  particular  difSculty 
in  correcting  them.  Bemays,  for  example,  has  weeded  out  not  a 
few  from  the  text  of  Goethe. 

It  is  otherwise  with  Shakespeare  and  his  fellow-dramatists  of 
Elizabethan  England.  He  died  in  i6f6,  and  the  first  biography 
of  him,  a  few  pages  in  length,  dates  from  1709.  This  is  as  though 
the  first  sketch  of  Goethe's  life  were  not  to  be  written  tili  the  ycar 
1925.  We  p>ossess  no  letters  of  Shakespeare's,  and  only  one  (a 
business  letter)  addressed  to  him.  Of  the  manuscripts  of  his 
works  not  a  single  line  is  eztant.  Our  sole  specimens  of  his 
handwriting  consist  of  five  or  six  signatures,  three  appended  to 
his  will,  two  to  contracts,  and  one,  of  very  doubtful  authenticity, 
on  the  copy  of  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne,  which  is  sbown 
at  the  British  Museum.  We  do  not  know  exactly  how  far  several 
of  the  works  attributed  to  Shakespeare  are  really  his.  In  the 
case  of  such  plays  as  Tttus  Andronicus,  the  trilogy  of  Henry  Vf., 
PericleSy  and  Henry  Vlll.f  the  question  of  authorship  presents 
great  and  manifold  difficulties.  In  his  youth  Shakespeare  had  to 
adapt  or  retouch  the  plays  of  others ;  in  later  life  he  sometimes 
coUaborated  with  younger  men.  And  worse  than  this,  with  the 
exception  of  two  short  narrative  poems,  which  Shakespeare  him- 
self  gave  to  the  press,  not  one  of  his  works  is  known  to  have 
been  published  under  his  own  supervision.  He  seems  never  to 
have  sanctioned  any  publication,  or  to  have  read  a  single  proof- 


SOURCES  FOR  A  BIOGRAPHY  3 

Sheet.  The  1623  folio  of  bis  plays,  issued  after  his  death  by  two 
of  his  actor-friends,  purports  to  be  printed  *'  according  to  the  Tnie 
Originall  Copies;"  but  this  assertion  is  demonstrably  false  in 
numerous  instances  in  which  we  can  test  it — where  the  folio,  that 
is  to  sayi  presents  a  simple  reprint,  often  with  addidonal  blunders, 
of  the  old  pirated  quartos,  which  must  have  been  based  either  on 
the  surreptitious  notes  of  stenographers  or  on  ''  prompt  copies " 
dishonestly  acquired. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  to  say,  not  without  some  show  of 
justice,  that  we  know  next  to  nothing  of  Shakespeare's  life.  Wc 
do  not  know  for  certain  either  when  he  left  Stratford  or  when  he 
retumed  to  Stratford  from  London.  We  do  not  know  for  certain 
whether  he  ever  went  abroad,  ever  visited  Italy.  We  do  not  know 
the  name  of  a  Single  woman  whom  he  loved  during  all  his  years 
in  London.  We  do  not  know  for  certain  to  whom  his  Sonnets  are 
addressed.  We  can  see  that  as  he  advanced  in  life  his  prevailing 
mood  became  gloomier,  but  we  do  not  know  the  reason.  Later 
on,  his  temper  seems  to  grow  more  serene,  but  we  cannot  teil 
why.  We  can  form  but  tentative  conjectures  as  to  the  order  in 
which  his  works  were  produced,  and  can  only  with  the  greatest 
difficulty  determine  their  approximate  dates.  We  do  not  know 
what  made  him  so  careless  of  his  fame  as  he  seems  to  have  been. 
We  only  know  that  he  himself  did  not  publish  his  dramatic  works, 
and  that  he  does  not  even  mention  them  in  his  will. 

On  theother  band,  enthusiastic  and  indefatigable  research  has 
gradually  brought  to  light  a  great  number  of  indubitable  facts, 
which  fumish  us  with  points  of  departure  and  of  guidance  for  an 
outline  of  the  poet's  life.  We  possess  documents,  contracts,  legal 
records;  we  can  cite  utterances  of  contemporaries,  allusions  to 
works  of  Shakespeare's  and  to  passages  in  them,  quotations, 
fierce  attacks,  outbursts  of  spite  and  hatred,  touching  testimonies 
to  his  worth  as  a  man  and  to  the  lovableness  of  his  nature, 
evidence  of  the  early  recognition  of  his  talent  as  an  actor,  of  his 
repute  as  a  narrative  poet,  and  of  his  popularity  as  a  dramatist. 
We  have,  rooreover,  one  or  two  diaries  kept  by  contemporaries, 
and  among  others  the  account-book  of  an  old  theatrical  manager 
and  pawnbroker,  who  supplied  the  players  with  money  and 
dresses,  and  who  has  carefiilly  dated  the  production  of  many 
plays. 

To  these  contemporary  evidences  we  must  add  that  of 
tradition.  In  1662  a  clergyman  named  John  Ward,  Vicar  of 
Stratford,  took  some  notes  of  information  gathered  from  the  in- 
habitants  of  the  district;  and  in  1693  a  Mr.  Dowdall  recorded 
some  details  which  he  had  leamt  from  the  octogenarian  sexton 
and  verger  of  Stratford  Church.  But  tradition  is  mainly  repre- 
sented  by  Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  tardy  biographer.  He  refers 
in  particular  to  three  sources  of  information.  The  earliest  is  Sir 
WUliam  Davenant,  Poet  Laureate,  who  did  nothing  to  discoun« 


4  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tenanoe  the  rumour  which  gave  him  out  to  be  an  illegitimate  son 
of  Shakespeare.  His  contributions,  however,  can  have  reached 
Rowe  only  at  second  band,  since  he  died  before  Rowe  was  born. 
Naturally  enough,  then,  the  greater  part  of  what  is  related  on  his 
authority  proves  to  be  questionable.  Rowe's  second  source  of 
information  was  Aubrey,  an  antiquary  after  the  fashion  of  his 
day,  who,  half  a  Century  after  Shakespeare's  death,  visited  Strat- 
ford  on  one  of  his  riding-tours.  He  wrote  numerous  short 
biographies,  all  of  which  contain  gross  and  demonstrable  errors, 
so  that  we  can  scarcely  put  implicit  faith  in  the  insignificant 
anecdotes  about  Shakespeare  preserved  in  his  manuscript  of 
1680.  Rowe's  most  important  source  of  information,  however, 
is  Betterton  the  actor,  who,  about  1690,  made  a  journey  to 
Warwickshire  for  the  express  purpose  of  collecting  whatever 
oral  traditions  with  regard  to  Shakespeare  might  linger  in  the 
district.  His  gleanings  form  the  most  valuable  part  of  Rowe's 
biography;  contemporary  documents  subsequently  discovered 
have  in  several  instances  lent  them  curious  confirmation. 

We  owe  ity  then,  to  a  little  group  of  worthy  but  by  no  means 
brilliant  men  that  we  are  able  to  sketch  the  outline  of  Shake- 
speare's career.  They  have  preserved  for  us  anecdotes  of  little 
worth,  even  if  they  are  true,  white  leaving  us  entirely  in  the 
dark  as  to  important  points  in  his  outward  history,  and  throwing 
little  or  no  light  upon  the  cöurse  of  his  inner  life. 

It  is  true  that  we  possess  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  a  group  of 
poems  which  bring  us  more  directly  into  touch  with  his  person« 
ality  than  any  of  his  other  works.  But  to  determine  the  value 
of  the  Sonnets  as  autobiographical  documents  requires  not  only 
historical  knowledge  but,  critical  instinct  and  tact,  since  it  is  by 
no  means  self-evident  that  the  poet  is,  in  a  literal  sense,  speaking 
in  his  own  name. 


/ 


II 

STRA  TFORD—PA  REN  TA  GE-^BO  YHOOD 

William  Shakespeare  was  a  child  of  the  country.    He  was 

bom  in  Stratford-on-Avon,  a  little  town  of  fourteen  or  fifteen 
hundred  inhabitants,  lying  in  a  pleasant  and  undulating  tract  of 
oounti7i  rieh  in  green  meadows  and  trees  and  leafy  hedges,  the 
natural  features  of  which  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  had  in  his 
mind's  eye  when  he  wrote  the  descriptions  of  scenery  in  A  Mid- 
smnmer  Nights  Dream^  As  You  Like  It^  and  A  Wintet^s  Tale, 
His  first  and  deepest  impressions  of  nature  he  received  from  this 
scoia-y;  and  he  associated  with  it  his  earliest  poetical  impres- 
sions, gathered  from  the  folk-songs  of  the  peasantry,  so  often 
alluded  to  and  reproduced  in  his  plays.  The  town  of  Stratford 
lies  upon  the  ancient  high-road  from  London  to  Ireland,  which 
here  Grosses  the  river  Avon.  To  this  circumstance  it  owes  its 
name  (Street-ford).  A  handsome  bridge  spanned  the  river.  The 
picturesque  houses,  with  their  gable-roofs,  were  either  wooden 
or  frame-built.  There  were  two  handsome  public  buildings,  which 
still  remain :  the  fine  old  church  close  to  the  river,  and  the  Guild- 
hall,  with  its  chapel  and  Grammar  School.  In  the  chapel,  which 
poftsessed  a  pleasant  peal  of  bells,  there  was  a  set  of  frescoes 
— probably  the  first  and  for  long  the  only  paintings  known  to 
Shakespeare. 

For  the  rest,  Stratford-on-Avon  was  an  insanitary  place  of 
reddence.  There  was  no  sort  of  Underground  drainage,  and 
street-sweepers  and  scavengers  were  unknown.  The  waste  water 
from  the  houses  flowed  out  into  badly  kept  gutters ;  the  streets 
were  fuU  of  evil-smelling  pools,  in  which  pigs  and  geese  freely 
disported  themselves;  and  dunghills  skirted  the  highway.  The 
first  thing  we  learn  about  Shakespeare's  father  is  that,  in  April 
1552,  he  was  fined  twelvepence  for  having  formed  a  great  midden 
outside  his  house  in  Henley  Street — a  circumstance  which  on  the 
one  band  proves  that  he  kept  sheep  and  cattle,  and  on  the  other 
indicates  bis  scant  care  for  deanliness,  since  the  common  dunghill 
lay  only  a  stone's-throw  from  his  house.  At  the  time  oC  bi^ 
Ml^iest  prosperity,  in  1558,  he,  along  with  some  olYv^t  c\\L\uxk%/\% 
agiin  fined  /buipeoce  for  the  same  misdemeanour. 

The  matter  is  aot  witfaout  intercst,  since  ll  \a  \u  «Ä  v^o\s«X>ÄVi 

s 


6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  these  defects  of  sanitation  that  Shakespeare's  early  deat. 
be  ascribed.  '^ 

Both  on  bis  fatber's  and  bis  motber's  side,  tbe  poe 
descended  from  yeoman  families  of  Warwicksbire.  His  g 
fatber,  Riebard  Sbakespeare,  lived  at  Snitterfield,  wbe 
rented  a  small  property.  Ricbard's  second  son,  John  S 
speare,  removed  to  Stratford  about  I55i>  and  went  into  bu: 
in  Henley  Street  as  a  tanner  and  glover.  In  tbe  year  15 
circumstances  were  considerably  improved  by  bis  marriag( 
Mary  Arden,  tbe  youngest  daugbter  of  Robert  Arden,  a  well 
yeoman  in  the  neigbbourbood,  wbo  bad  died  a  few  montbs  h 
On  his  deatb  sbe  bad  inberited  bis  property  of  Asbies  at  V\ 
cote ;  and  sbe  bad,  besides,  a  reversionary  interest  in  a  large 
perty  at  Snitterfield.  Asbies  was  valued  at  ;£^224,  and  brouj 
a  rental  of  £28,  or  about  ;£^I40  of  our  modern  money. 
inventory  appended  to  ber  fatber's  will  gives  us  a  good  ii 
into  tbe  domestic  economy  of  a  rieb  yeoman's  family  of 
days :  a  Single  bed  witb  two  mattresses,  five  sbeets,  tbree  t< 
&c.  Garments  of  linen  tbey  do  not  seem  to  bave  poss 
Tbe  eating  Utensils  were  of  no  value :  wooden  spoons  and  w 
platters.  Yet  tbe  bome  of  Shakespeare's  mother  was,  accc 
to  the  Standard  of  tbat  day,  distinctly  well-to-do. 

His  marriage  enabled  Jobn  Shakespeare  to  extend  his 
ness.  He  bad  large  transactions  in  wool,  and  also  dealt,  as 
sion  offeredy  in  com  and  otber  commodities.  Aubrey's  stat 
tbat  he  was  a  butcher  seems  to  mean  no  more  than  tbat  b( 
seif  fattened  and  killed  the  animals  wbose  skins  be  used 
trade.  But  in  those  days  tbe  different  occupations  in  a 
Englisb  country  town  were  not  at  all  strictly  discriminate 
man  who  produced  tbe  raw  material  would  generaUy  wor 
as  welL 

John  Shakespeare  gradually  rose  to  an  influential  posii 
the  little  town  in  which  he  had  settled.  He  first  (in  1557)  I 
one  of  tbe  ale-tasters,  swom  to  look  to  tbe  quality  of  bre, 
beer ;  in  the  foUowing  year  be  was  one  of  the  four  "  pett^ 
Stahles"  of  the  town.  In  1561  be  was  Chamberlain,  in 
Alderman,  and  finally,  in  i  $68,  High  Bailiff. 

William  Shakespeare  was  his  parents'  tbird  child. 
sisters,  who  died  in  infancy,  preceded  bim.  He  was  ba 
on  the  26th  of  April  1564;  we  do  not  know  bis  birthda^ 
cisdy.  Tradition  gives  it  as  the  23rd  of  April ;  more  prc 
it  was  the  22nd  (in  the  new  style  tbe  4th  of  May),  sii 
Shakespeare  had  died  upon  bis  birtbday,  his  epitaph 
doubtless  bave  mentioned  the  circumstance,  and  would  not 
stated  that  he  died  in  his  fifty-tbird  year  [/Etatis  53]. 

Neither  of  Shakespeare's  parents  possessed  any  school  1 
tion ;  neither  of  them  seems  to  bave  been  able  to  write  his  • 
own  name.    Tbey  desired,  however,  that  their  eldest  8on  1 


BOYHOOD  7 

Bot  lack  the  education  they  themselves  had  been  denied,  and 
therefore  sent  the  boy  to  the  Free  School  or  Grammar  School 
of  Stratford,  where  children  from  the  age  of  seven  upwards  were 
grounded  in  Latin  grammar,  leamed  to  construe  out  of  a  school* 
bock  called  Sententia  Pueriles^  and  afterwards  read  Ovid,  Virgil, 
and  Cicero.  The  school -hours,  both  in  summer  and  winter, 
occupied  the  whole  day,  with  the  necessary  intervals  for  meals 
and  recreation.  An  obvious  reminiscence  of  Shakespeare's 
schooldays  is  preserved  for  us  in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
(iv.  l),  where  the  schoolmaster,  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  hears  little 
WiUiamn  bis  HiCy  HceCj  Hoc^  and  assures  himself  of  his  knowledge 
that  pulcher  means  fair,  and  lapis  a  stone.  It  even  appears  that 
his  teacher  was  in  fact  a  Welshman. 

The  district  in  which  the  child  grew  up  was  rieh  in  his- 
torical  memories  and  monuments.  Warwick,  with  its  Castle, 
renowned  since  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  was  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood.  It  had  been  the  residence,  in  his  day,  of  the 
Earl  of  Warwick  who  distinguished  himself  at  the  battle  of 
Shrewsbury  and  negotiated  the  marriage  of  Henry  V.  The 
district  was,  however,  divided  during  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
Warwick  for  some  time  sided  with  York,  Coventry  with  Lan- 
caster.  With  Coventry,  too,  a  town  rieh  in  memories  of  the 
period  which  he  was  afterwards  to  summen  to  life  on  the  stage. 
Shakespeare  must  have  been  acquainted  in  his  boyhood.  It  was  in 
Coventry  that  the  two  adversaries  who  appear  in  his  Richard  IL 
Henry  Bolingbroke  and  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  had  their  famous 
encounter.  But  in  another  respect  as  well  Coventry  must  have 
had  great  attractions  for  the  boy.  It  was  the  scene  of  regulär 
theatrical  representations,  which,  at  first  organised  by  the  Church, 
afterwards  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  guilds.  Shakespeare 
must  doubtless  have  seen  the  half-mediaeval  religious  dramas 
aometimes  alluded  to  in  his  works — plays  which  placed  before  the 
eyes  of  the  audience  Herod  and  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents, 
souls  buming  in  hell,  and  other  startling  scenes  of  a  like  nature  ^ 
{Henry  V.,  ii.  3  and  iii.  3). 

Of  royal  and  princely  splendour  Shakespeare  had  probably 
certain  glimpses  even  in  his  childhood.  When  he  was  cight  years 
cid  Elizabeth  paid  a  visit  to  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote,  in 
the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Stratford  —  the  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy  who  was  to  have  such  a  determining  influencc  upcn  Shr.ke- 
speare's  career.  In  any  case,  he  must  doubtless  have  visited  the 
neigfabouring  Castle  of  Kenilworth,  and  seen  something  of  the 
great  festivities  organised  by  Leicester  in  Elizabeth's  honour, 
during  her  visit  to  the  Castle  in  1575.  We  know  that  the 
Shakespeare  family  possessed  a  near  and  influential  kinsman  in 

*  We  find  reminiscences  of  these  scenes  in  Hamlet's  expressionv  "  He  outherods 
Hcfod,'*  and  in  the  coiaparison  of  a  flea  on  Bardolph's  nose  to  a  black  soul  buming 
i&  kcU-fire. 


8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Leicester's  trusted  attendant,  Edward  Arden,  who  soon  after« 
wardSi  apparently  on  account  of  the  strained  relations  which 
arose  between  the  Queen  and  Leicester  after  the  f&tes,  incuired 
the  suspicion  or  displeasure  of  his  master,  and  was  ultimately 
executed. 

Nor  was  it  only  mediaeval  mysteries  that  the  future  poet,  during 
his  boyhood,  had  opportunities  of  seeing.  The  town  of  Stratford 
showed  a  marked  taste  for  secular  theatricals.  The  first  travelling 
Company  of  players  came  to  Stratford  in  the  year  when  Shake- 
speare's  father  was  High  BaiHff,  and  between  1569  and  1587  no 
fewer  than  twenty-four  strolling  troupes  visited  the  town.  The 
companies  who  came  most  frequently  were  the  Queen's  Men  and 
the  servants  of  Lord  Worcester,  Lord  Leicester,  and  Lord  War- 
wick.  Custom  directed  that  they  should  first  wait  upon  the  High 
Bailiff  to  inform  him  in  what  nobleman's  Service  they  were  en- 
rolled;  and  their  first  Performance  took  place  beforc  the  Town 
Council  alone.  A  writer  named  Willis,  bom  in  the  same  year 
as  Shakespeare,  has  described  how  he  was  present  at  such  a 
representation  in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Gloucester,  Standing 
between  his  father's  knees ;  and  we  can  thus  picture  to  ourselves 
the  way  in  which  the  glories  of  the  theatre  were  for  the  first  time 
revealed  to  the  future  poet. 

As  a  boy  and  youth,  then,  he  no  doubt  had  opportunities  of 
making  himself  familiär  with  the  bulk  of  the  old  English  reper- 
tory,  partly  composed  of  such  pieces  as  he  afterwards  ridicules — 
for  instance,  the  Cambyses,  whose  rant  Falstaff  parodies — partly 
of  pieces  which  subsequently  became  the  foundation  of  his  own 
plays,  such  as  The  Supposes^  which  he  used  in  The  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,  or  The  Troublesome  Raigne  of  King  fohn^  or  the 
Fatnous  Victories  of  Henry  the  Fißh,  which  supplied  some  of  the 
material  for  his  Henry  IV, 

Probably  Shakespeare,  as  a  boy  and  youth,  was  not  content 
with  seeing  the  Performances,  but  sought  out  the  players  in  the 
difFerent  taverns  where  they  took  up  their  quarters,  the  "  Swan," 
the  *'  Crown,"  or  the  "  Bear." 

The  school  course  was  generally  over  when  a  boy  reached  his 
fourteenth  year.  It  appears  that  when  Shakespeare  was  at  this 
age  his  father  removed  him  from  the  school,  having  need  of  him 
in  his  business.  His  father's  prosperity  was  by  this  time  on  the 
wane. 

In  the  year  1578  John  Shakespeare  mortgaged  his  wifc's 
property,  Asbies,  for  a  sum  of  £/^o^  which  he  seems  to  have 
engaged  to  repay  within  two  years,  though  this  he  himself  denied. 
In  the  same  year  the  Town  Council  agrees  that  he  shall  be 
required  to  pay  only  one-half  of  a  tax  (6s.  8d.  in  all)  for  the 
^uipment  of  soldiers,  and  absolves  him  altogether  from  payment 
of  a  poor-rate  levied  on  the  other  Aldermen.  In  the  following 
year  he  cannot  pay  even  his  half  of  the  pikemen-tax.     In  1579 


FINANCIAL  DIFFICULTIES  OF  HIS  FATHER       9 

he  sold  the  reversion  of  a  piece  of  land  falling  to  him  on  his 
mother-in-law's  death.  In  the  following  year  he  wanted  to  pay 
off  the  mortgage  on  Asbies ;  but  the  mortgagee,  a  certain  Edmund 
Lambert,  declined  to  receive  the  nioney,  i'ov  the  reason,  or  under 
the  pretext,  that  it  had  not  been  tendered  within  the  stipulated 
time,  and  that  Shakespeare  had,  moreover,  borrowed  other  sums 
of  him.  In  the  course  of  the  consequent  lawsuit,  John  Shake- 
speare described  himself  as  a  person  of  "small  wealthe,  and  verey 
fcwe  frends  and  alyance  in  the  countie."  The  result  of  this  law- 
suit  ia  unknown,  but  it  seems  as  though  the  father,  and  the  son 
after  him,  took  it  much  to  heart,  and  feit  that  a  great  injustice 
had  been  done  them.  In  the  Induction  to  7/ie  Taining  of  the 
Shrew,  Christopher  Sly  calls  himself  **  Old  Sly's  son  ot  Burton 
Heath."  But  Barton-on-the-Heath  was  precisely  the  place  where 
lived  Edmund  Lambert  and  his  son  John,  who,  after  his  death  in 
1587,  carried  on  the  litigation.  And  this  utterance  of  the  chief 
cbaracter  in  the  Induction  is,  significantly  enough,  one  of  the  few 
which  Shakespeare  added  to  the  Induction  to  the  old  play  he  was 
here  adapting. 

From  this  time  forward  John  Shakespeare's  position  goes 
from  bad  to  worse.  In  the  year  1586,  when  his  son  was  pro- 
bably  already  in  London,  his  goods  are  distrained  upon,  and  no 
fewcr  than  three  Warrants  are  issued  for  his  arrest ;  he  seems  for 
a  time  to  have  been  imprisoned  for  debt.  He  is  removed  from 
his  Position  as  Alderman  because  he  has  not  for  a  long  time 
attended  the  meetings  at  the  Guildhall.  He  probably  dared  not 
put  in  an  appearance  for  fear  of  being  arrested  by  his  creditors. 
He  seems  to  have  lost  a  considerable  sum  of  money  by  Standing 
surety  for  his  brother  Henry.  There  was,  moreover,  a  commercial 
crisis  in  Stratford.  The  cloth  and  yarn  trade,  in  which  most  of 
the  Citizens  were  engaged,  had  become  much  less  remunerative 
than  before. 

We  find  evidence  of  the  painful  position  in  which  John 
Shakespeare  remained  so  late  as  the  year  1 592,  in  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy's  report  with  reference  to  the  inhabitants  of  Stratford  who 
did  not  obey  her  Majesty's  order  that  they  should  attend  church 
once  a  month«  He  is  mentioned  as  one  of  those  who  ''  coom  not 
to  Churche  for  fear  of  processe  for  debtte." 

It  is  probable  that  the  young  William,  when  his  father 
removed  him  from  the  Grammar  School,  assisted  him  in  his 
trade;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that,  as  a  somewhat  dubious 
allusioD  in  a  contemporary  seems  to  imply,  he  was  for  some  time 
a  derk  in  an  attorney's  oflBce.  His  great  powers,  at  any  rate, 
doubtless  revealcd  themselves  very  early;  he  must  have  taken 
early  to  writing  verses,  and,  like  most  men  of  genius,  must  have 
ripcned  early  in  every  respect. 


III 


MARRIAGE^SIR  THOMAS  LUCY-^DEPARTURB 

FROM  STRATFORD 

In  December  1582,  being  then  only  eighteen,  William  Shake- 
speare married  Anne  Hathaway,  daughter  of  a  well-to-do  yeoman, 
recently  deceased,  in  a  neighbouring  hamlet  of  the  same  parish. 
The  marriage  of  a  boy  not  yet  out  of  his  teens,  whose  father 
was  in  embarrassed  circumstances,  while  he  himself  had  probably 
nothing  to  live  on  but  such  scanty  wages  as  he  could  earn  in  his 
father's  Service,  seems  on  the  face  of  it  somewhat  precipitate ;  and 
the  arrangements  ior  it,  moreover,  were  unusually  hurried.  In  a 
document  dated  November  28,  15S2,  two  friends  of  the  Hathaway 
family  give  a  bond  to  the  Bishop  of  Worcester's  Court,  declaring, 
under  relatively  heavy  penalties,  that  there  is  no  legal  impediment 
to  the  solemnisation  of  the  marriage  after  one  publication  of  the 
banns,  instead  of  the  statutory  three.  So  far  as  we  can  gather,  it 
was  the  bride's  family  that  hurried  on  the  maniage,  while  the 
bridegroom's  held  back,  and  perhaps  even  opposed  it.  This  haste 
is  the  less  surprising  when  we  find  that  the  first  child,  a  daughter 
named  Susanna,  was  born  in  May  1583,  only  five  months  and 
three  weeks  after  the  wedding.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  a 
formal  betrothal,  which  at  that  time  was  regarded  as  the  essential 
part  of  the  contract,  had  preceded  the  marriage. 

In  1585  twins  were  born,  a  girl,  Judith,  and  a  boy,  Hamnet 
(the  name  is  also  written  Hamlet),  no  doubt  called  after  a  friend 
of  the  family,  Hamnet  Sadler,  a  baker  in  Stratford,  who  is 
mentioned  in  Shakespeare's  will.  This  son  died  at  the  age  of 
deven. 

It  was  probably  soon  after  the  birth  of  the  twins  that  Shake- 
speare was  forced  to  quit  Stratford.  According  to  Rowe  he  had 
"  faUen  into  ill  Company,"  and  taken  part  in  more  than  one  deer- 
stcaling  raid  upon  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  park  at  Charlecote.  "  For 
this  he  was  prosecuted  by  that  gentleman,  as  he  thought,  some- 
what too  severely,  and  in  order  to  revenge  that  ill-usage  he  made 
a  ballad  upon  him.  .  .  .  It  is  said  to  have  been  so  very  bitter  that 
it  redoubled  the  prosecution  against  him  to  that  degree  that  he 
was  obliged  to  leave  his  business  and  family  in  Warwickshire  for 
Bome  time  and  shelter  himself  in  London."     Rowe  believed  this 


DEPARTURE  FROM  STRATFORD  ii 

ballad  to  be  lost,  but  what  purports  to  be  the  first  verse  of  it  has 
been  preserved  by  Oldys,  on  the  authority  of  a  very  old  man 
who  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford.  It  may  p)OSsibly  be 
genuine.  The  coincidence  between  it  and  an  unquestionable  gibe 
at  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  rendcrs  it 
probable  that  it  has  been  more  or  less  correctly  remembered.^ 
Although  poaching  was  at  that  time  regarded  as  a  comparatively 
innocent  and  pardonable  misdemeanour  of  youth,  to  which  the 
Oxford  students,  for  example,  were  for  many  generations  greatly 
addicted,  yet  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  who  seems  to  have  newly  and 
not  over-plentifully  stocked  his  park,  deeply  resented  the  depreda- 
tions  of  young  Stratford.  He  was,  it  would  appear,  no  favourite 
in  the  town.  He  never,  like  the  other  landowners  of  the  district, 
requited  with  a  present  of  game  the  offerings  of  sah  and  sugar 
which,  as  we  leam  from  the  town  accounts,  the  burgesses  were  in 
the  habit  of  sending  him.  Shakespeare's  misdeeds  were  not  at 
that  time  punishable  by  law;  but,  as  a  great  landowner  and  justice 
of  the  peace,  Sir  Thomas  had  the  young  fellow  in  his  power,  and 
there  is  every  probability  in  favour  of  the  tradition,  pieserved  by 
the  Rev.  Richard  Davies,  who  died  in  1708,  that  he  "had  him  oft 
whipt  and  sometimes  impnsoned."  It  is  confirmed  by  the  sub- 
stantial  correctness  of  Davies'  further  Statement :  '*  His  reveng 
was  so  great,  that  he  is  his  Justice  Clodpate  [Shallow],  .  .  .  that 
in  allusion  to  his  name  bore  three  louses  rampant  for  his  arms.'' 
Wc  find,  in  fact,  that  in  the  opening  scene  ^f  The  Merry  Wives^ 
Justice  Shallow,  who  accuses  Falstafif  of  having  shot  his  deer, 
has,  according  to  Slender's  account,  a  dozen  white  luces  (pikes) 
in  his  coat-of-arms,  which,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Wclshman,  Sir 
Hugh  Evans,  become  a  dozen  white  louses — the  word-play  being 
ezactly  the  same  as  that  in  the  ballad.  Three  luces  argent  were 
the  cognisance  of  the  Lucy  family. 

The  attempt  to  cast  doubt  upon  this  old  tradition  of  Shake- 
speare's  poaching  exploits  becomes  doubly  unreasonable  in  face 
of  the  fact  that  precisely  in  1585  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  spoke  in 
Parliament  in  favour  of  more  stringent  game-laws. 

The  essential  point,  however,  is  simply  this,  that  at  about  the 
age  of  twenty-one  Shakespeare  leaves  his  native  town,  not  to 
retum  to  it  permanently  until  his  life's  course  is  nearly  run. 
Even  if  he  had  not  been  forced  to  bid  it  farewell,  the  impulse  to 
devdop  his  talents  and  energies  must  ere  long  have  driven  him 

^  It  niiits*- 

**  A  parliament  member,  a  justice  of  peace, 
At  home  a  poor  scare-crow,  at  London  an  asse ; 
If  lowsie  is  Lncy,  as  some  volke  miscalle  it, 
Then  Lucy  is  lowsie,  whatever  befall  it ; 

He  Üiinkes  himself  greate 

Yet  an  asse  in  his  State 
We  allowe  by  his  eares  bat  with  asses  to  niatc. 
If  Lucy  is  lowsie,  as  lome  volke  miscalle  it. 
Sing  lowsie  Lnqr,  whatever  befalle  it  — 


la  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

fortb.    Young  and  inexperienced  as  he  was,  at  all  events,  he  had 
DOW  to  betake  himself  to  the  capital  to  seek  his  fortune. 

Whether  he  left  any  great  happiness  behind  hixn  we  cannot 
teil ;  but  it  is  scarcely  probable.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  in 
the  peasant  girl,  almost  eight  years  older  than  himself,  whom  he 
married  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  Shakespeare  found  the  woman 
whO|  even  for  a  few  years,  could  fill  his  life.  Everything,  indeed, 
points  in  the  opposite  direction.  She  and  the  children  remained 
behind  in  Stratford,  and  he  saw  her  only  when  he  revisited  his 
native  place,  as  he  did  at  long  intervals,  probably,  at  first,  but 
afterwaixls  annually.  Tradition  and  the  internal  evidence  of  his 
writings  prove  that  he  lived,  in  London,  the  free  Bohemian  life 
of  an  actor  and  playwright  We  know,  too,  that  he  was  soon 
plunged  in  the  business  cares  of  a  theatrical  manager  and  part- 
proprietor.  The  woman's  part  in  this  life  was  not  played  by 
Anne  Hathaway.  On  the  other  band,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Shakespeare  never  for  a  moment  lost  sight  of  Stratford,  and 
that  he  had  no  sooner  made  a  footing  for  himself  in  London  than 
he  set  to  work  with  the  definite  aim  of  acquiring  land  and  property 
in  the  town  from  which  he  had  gone  forth  penniless  and  humi- 
liated.  His  father  should  hold  up  his  head  again,  and  the  family 
hoDOur  be  re-established. 


IV 


LONDON— BUILDINGS,  COSTUMES,  MANNERS 

So  the  young  man  rode  from  Stratford  to  London.  He  pro- 
bably,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  poorer  travellers  of  that 
time,  sold  bis  horse  on  his  arrival  at  Smithfield ;  and,  as  Halli- 
well-Phillips  ingeniously  suggests,  he  may  have  sold  it  to  James 
Burbagei  who  kept  a  livery  stable  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  may 
have  been  this  man,  the  father  of  Richard  Burbage,  afterwards 
Shakespeare's  most  famous  fellow-actor,  who  employed  ^Shake- 
speare to  take  Charge  of  the  horses  which  his  customers  of  the 
Smithfield  district  hired  to  ride  to  the  play.  James  Burbage 
had  built,  and  now  owned,  the  first  playhouse  erected  in  London 
(1576),  known  as  TAs  ThecUre ;  and  a  well-known  tradition, 
which  can  be  traced  to  Sir  William  Davenant,  relates  that  Shake- 
speare was  driven  by  dire  necessity  to  hang  about  the  doors  of  the 
theatre  and  hold  the  horses  of  those  who  had  ridden  to  the  play. 
The  district  was  a  remote  and  disreputable  one,  and  swarmed 
witb  horse-thieves.  Shakespeare  won  such  favour  as  a  horse- 
holder,  and  was  in  such  general  demand,  that  he  had  to  engage 
boys  as  assistants,  who  announced  themselves  as  ''  Shakespeare's 
boys,"  a  style  and  title,  it  is  said,  which  long  clung  to  them.  A 
fact  which  speaks  in  favour  of  this  much-ridiculed  legend  is  that, 
at  the  time  to  which  it  can  be  traced  back,  well  on  in  the  seven- 
teenth  Century,  the  practice  of  riding  to  the  theatres  had  entirely 
fallen  into  disuse.     People  then  went  to  the  play  by  water. 

A  Stratford  tradition  represents  that  Shakespeare  first  entered 
the  theatre  in  the  character  of  "servitor"  to  the  actors,  and 
Malone  reports  "  a  stage  tradition  that  his  first  ofBce  in  the  theatre 
was  that  of  prompteres  attendant,"  whose  business  was  to  give 
the  players  notice  of  the  time  for  their  entrance.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  he  soon  rose  above  these  menial  stations. 

The  London  to  which  Shakespeare  came  was  a  town  of  about 
300,000  inhabitants.  Its  main  streets  had  quite  recently  been 
paved,  but  were  not  yet  lighted  ;  it  was  surrounded  with  trenches, 
walls,  and  gates ;  it  had  high-gabled,  red-roofed,  two-story  wooden 
houses,  distinguished  by  means  of  projecting  signs,  from  which 
they  took  their  names — ^houses  in  which  benches  did  duty  for 
chairs,  and  the  floors  were  carpeted  with  rushes.  The  streets 
were  usually  thronged,  not  with  whed-traffic,  for  the  first  carriage 


14  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

was  imported  into  England  in  this  very  reign,  but  with  peoplc 
foot,  on  horsebacky  or  in  litters ;  while  the  Thames,  still  blue 
clear,  in  spite  of  the  already  large  consiunption  of  coal,  was  < 
with  thousands  of  boats  threading  their  way,  amid  the  waterm 
shrill  cries  of  "  Eastward  hoe ! "  or  "  Westward  hoc ! "  thro 
bevies  of  swans  which  put  forth  from,  and  retumed  to,  the  gi 
meadows  and  beautiful  gardens  bordering  the  steam. 

There  was  as  yet  only  one  bridge  over  the  Thames,  the  mi| 
London  Bridge,  situated  not  far  from  that  which  now  bears 
name.  It  was  broad,  and  lined  with  buildings;  while  on 
tall  gate-towers  heads  which  had  fallen  on  the  block  were  all 
always  displayed.  In  its  neighbourhood  lay  Eastcheap,  the  s1 
in  which  stood  Falstaffs  tavem. 

The  central  points  of  London  were  at  that  time  the  n< 
erected  Exchange  and  St.  Paul's  Church,  which  was  rega 
not  only  as  the  Cathedral  of  the  city,  but  as  a  meeting-place 
promenade  for  idlers,  a  sort  of  club  where  the  news  of  the 
was  to  be  heard,  a  hiring-fair  for  servants,  and  a  sanctuar} 
debtors,  who  were  there  secure  from  arrest.  The  streets, 
füll  of  the  many-coloured  life  of  the  Renaissance,  rang  witl 
cries  of  'prentices  inviting  custom  and  hawkers  proclaiming 
wares ;  while  through  them  passed  many  a  procession,  civil,  e 
siastical,  or  military,  bndal  companies,  pageants,  and  troop 
crossbow-men  and  men-at-arms. 

Elizabeth  might  be  met  in  the  streets,  driving  in  her  1 
State  carriage,  when  she  did  not  prefer  to  sail  on  the  Thamc 
her  magnificent  gondola,  foUowed  by  a  crowd  of  gaily  decoi 
boats. 

In  the  City  itself  no  theatres  were  tolerated.  The  civic  au 
rities  regarded  them  with  an  unfriendly  eye,  and  had  banu 
them  to  the  outskirts  and  across  the  Thames,  together  with 
rough  amusements  with  which  they  had  to  compete :  cock-figh 
and  bear-baiting  with  dogs. 

The  handsome,  parti-coloured,  extravagant  costumes  of 
periöd  are  well  known.  The  puffed  sleeves  of  the  men, 
women's  stifT  ruffs,  and  the  fantastic  shapes  of  their  hooped  sk 
are  still  to  be  seen  in  stage  presentations  of  plays  of  the  t 
The  Queen  and  her  Court  set  the  example  of  great  and  unreai 
able  luxury  with  respect  to  the  number  and  material  of  costui 
The  ladies  rouged  their  faces,  and  often  dyed  their  hair.  Aub 
as  the  Queen's  colour,  was  the  most  fashionable.  The  coi 
niences  of  daily  life  were  very  meagre.  Only  of  late  had  firepl 
begun  to  be  substituted  for  the  open  hearths.  Only  of  late 
proper  bedsteads  come  into  general  use;  when  Shakespei 
weü-to-do  grandfather,  Richard  Arden,  made  bis  will,  in  the  ;; 
IS 56»  there  was  only  one  bedstead  in  the  house  where  he  1 
with  his  seven  daughters.  People  slept  on  straw  mattresseSi  y 
a  bilJet  ofwood  under  their  heads  and  a  für  rüg  over  them. 


MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  15 

only  decoration  of  the  rooms  of  the  wealthier  dasses  was  the 
tapestry  on  the  walls,  behind  which  people  so  often  conceal  them- 
selves  in  Shakespeare's  plays. 

The  dinncr-hour  was  at  that  time  eleven  in  the  moming,  and 
it  was  reckoned  fashionable  to  dine  early.  Those  who  could 
afford  it  ate  rieh  and  heavy  dishes ;  the  repasts  would  often  last 
an  inordinate  time,  and  no  regard  whatever  was  paid  to  the  minor 
decencies  of  life.  Domestic  Utensils  were  very  mean.  So  late  as 
I592f  wooden  trenchers,  wooden  platters,  and  wooden  spoons 
were  in  common  use.  It  was  just  about  this  time  that  tin  and  silver 
began  to  supplant  wood.  Table-knives  had  been  in  general  use 
since  about  i  $63 ;  but  forks  were  still  unknown  in  Shakespeare's 
time — ^fingers  supplied  their  place.  In  a  description  of  five  months' 
travels  on  the  Continent,  published  by  Coryat  in  161 1,  he  teils 
how  surprised  he  was  to  find  the  use  of  forks  quite  common  in 
Italy  :— 

"I  obserued  a  custome  in  all  those  Italian  Cities  and  Townes 
through  which  I  passed,  that  is  not  vsed  in  any  other  country  that  I 
saw  in  my  traueis,  neither  doe  I  thinke  that  any  other  nation  of  Christen- 
dome doth  vse  it,  but  only  Italy.  The  Italian  and  also  most  strangers 
that  are  commorant  in  Italy  doe  alwaies  at  their  meales  vse  a  little  forke 
when  they  cut  their  meate.  For  while  with  their  knife  which  they  hold 
in  one  band  they  cut  the  meate  out  of  the  dish,  they  fasten  their  forke 
which  they  hold  in  their  other  band  vpon  the  same  dish,  so  that  what- 
soeuer  he  be  that  sitting  in  the  Company  of  any  others  at  meale,  should 
vnaduisedly  touch  the  dish  of  meate  with  bis  fingers  from  which  all  at 
the  table  doe  cut,  he  will  giue  occasion  of  o£fence  vnto  the  Company, 
as  hauing  transgressed  the  lawes  of  good  manners,  in  so  much  that  for 
his  error  he  shall  be  at  the  least  brow-beaten,  if  not  reprehended  in 
wordes.  .  .  .  The  reason  of  this  their  curiosity  is,  because  the  Italian 
cannot  by  any  means  indure  to  haue  his  dish  touched  with  fingers, 
seing  all  men's  fingers  are  not  alike  cleane."  ^ 

Wc  See,  too,  that  Coryat  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  new 
appliance  into  his  native  land.  He  teils  us  that  he  thought  it 
best  to  imitate  the  Italian  fashion  not  only  in  Italy  and  Germany, 
but  "often  in  England"  after  his  retum;  and  he  relates  how  a 
leamed  and  jocular  gentleman  of  his  acquaintance  ralUed  him  on 
that  account  and  called  him  "  Furcifer."  In  one  of  Ben  Jonson's 
plays,  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  dating  from  1614,  the  use  of  forks  is 
mentioned  as  lately  imported  from  Italy,  in  order  to  save  napkins. 
We  must  conceive,  then,  that  Shakespeare  was  as  unfamiliar  with 
the  use  of  the  fork  as  a  Bedouin  Arab  of  to-day. 

He  does  not  seem  to  have  smoked.  Tobacco  is  never  men- 
tioned in  his  works,  although  the  people  of  his  day  gathered  in 
tobacco-shops  where  Instruction  was  given  in  the  new  art  of 
Smoking,  and  although  the  gallants  actually  smoked  as  they  sal 
on  the  stage  of  the  theatre. 

'  C&ryafs  CrwditUs^  ed.  1776,  to\.  \.  >  Wfb* 


V 

POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIO  US  CONDITIONS^ 
ENGLAND'S  GROWING  GREATNESS 

The  period  of  Shakespeare  s  arrival  in  London  was  momentous 
both  in  politics  and  religion.  It  is  the  period  of  England's  de- 
vclopment  into  a  great  Protestant  power.  Under  Bloody  Mary, 
the  wife  of  Philip  IL  of  Spain,  the  government  had  been  Spanish- 
Catholic ;  the  persecutions  directed  against  heresy  brought  many 
victims,  and  among  them  sonic  of  the  most  distinguished  men  in 
England,  to  the  scaffold,  and  even  to  the  stake.  Spain  made  a 
cat's-paw  of  England  in  her  contest  with  France,  and  reaped  all 
the  benefit  of  the  alliance,  while  England  paid  the  penalty. 
Calais,  her  last  foothold  on  the  Continent,  was  lost. 

With  Elizabeth,  Protestantism  ascended  the  throne  and  be 
came  a  power  in  the  world^    She  rejected  Philip's  courtship ;  she 
knew  how  unpopulär  the  Spanish  marriage  had  made  her  sister. 
In  the  struggle  with  the  Papal  power  she  had  the  Parliament  on 
her  sidc.     Parliament  had  at  once  recognised  her  as  Queen  by  the 
law  of  God  and  the  country  whilst  the  Pope,  on  her  accession, 
denied  her  right  to  the  throne.     The  Catholic  world  took  his  par 
against  her ;  first  France,  then  Spain.     England  supported  Pro 
testant  Scotland  against  its  Catholic  Queen  and  her  Scottisb 
French    army,   and    the   Reformation    triumphed   in    Scotlan 
Afterwards,  wheo  Mary  Stuart  had  ceased  to  rule  over  Scotl^ 
and|taken  refuge  in  England,  in  the  hop>e  of  there  finding  h< 
it  was  no  longer  France  but  Philip  of  Spain  who  stood  by  Y 
He  saw  his  despotism  in   the   Netherlands   threatened   by 
victory  of  Protestantism  in  England. 

Political  interest  led  Elizabeth's  Government  to  throw 
into  prison.     The  Pope  excommunicated  Elizabeth,  absolve 
subjects  from  their  oath  of  allegiance,  and  declared  her  a  u 
in  her  own  kingdom.     Whoever  should  obey  her  commar 
excommunicated  along  with  her,  and  for  twenty  years  on 
Catholic  conspiracy  against  Elizabeth  treads  on  another* 
Mary  Stuart  being  involved  in  almost  all  of  them. 

In  1585  Elizabeth  opened  the  war  with  Spain  by  ser 
fleet  to  the  Netherlands,  with  her  favourite,  Leicester,  in 
of  the  troops.     In  the  beginning  of  the  foUowing  yti 
Drake,  who  in  iS77-io  had  for  the  first  üme  c\rcumaa\ 


POLltICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CONDiTlONS       17 

World,  surprised  and  took  San  Domingo  and  Carthagena.  The 
ship  in  which  he  had  achieved  his  great  voyage  lay  at  anchor 
in  the  Thames  as  a  memoria!  of  the  feat;  it  was  often  visitedi 
by  Londonersy  and  no  doubt  by  Shakespeare  among  them. 

In  the  years  immediately  foUowing,  the  springtide  of  thc- 
national  spirit  burst  into  füll  bloom.  Let  us  try  to  picture 
to  ourselves  the  Impression  it  must  have  made  upon  Shake- 
speare in  the  year  1587.  On  the  8th  of  February  1587  Mary 
Stuart  was  ezecuted  at  Fotheringay,  and  the  breach  between 
England  and  the  Catholic  world  was  thus  made  irreparable.  On 
the  i6th  of  February,  England's  noblest  knight  and  the  flower 
of  her  chivalry,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the  hero  of  Zutphen,  and  the 
Chief  of  the  Anglo-Italian  school  of  poets,  was  buried  in  St.  Paulis 
Cathedral,  with  a  pomp  which  gave  to  the  event  the  Character  of 
a  national  solemnity.  Sidney  was  an  ideal  representative  of  the 
aristocracy  of  the  day.  He  possessed  tlie  widest  humanistie 
culture,  had  studied  Aristotle  and  Plato  no  less  than  geometry 
and  astronomy,  had  travelled  and  seen  the  world,  had  read  and 
thought  and  written,  and  was  not  only  a  scholar  but  a  soldier  to 
boot.  As  a  cavalry  officer  he  had  saved  the  English  army  at 
Gravellnes,  and  he  had  been  the  friend  and  patron  of  Giordano 
BnmO|  the  freest  thinker  of  his  time.  The  Queen  herseif  was 
present  at  his  funeral,  and  so,  no  doubt,  was  Shakespeare. 

In  the  foUowing  year  Spain  fitted  out  her  great  Armada  and 
despatched  it  against  England.  As  regards  the  size  of  the  ships 
and  the  number  of  the  troops  they  carried,  it  was  the  largest  fleet 
that  had  ever  been  seen  in  European  waters.  And  in  the  Nether- 
lands,  at  Antwerp  and  Dunkerque,  transports  were  in  readiness 
for  the  conveyance  of  a  second  vast  army  to  complete  the  de- 
stniction  of  England.  But  England  was  equal  to  the  occasion. 
Elizabeth's  Government  demanded  fifteen  ships  of  the  city  of 
London ;  it  fitted  out  thirty,  besides  raising  a  land  force  of  30,CXX> 
men  and  lending  the  Government  ;^52,ocx:)  in  ready  money. 

The  Spanish  fleet  numbered  one  hundred  and  thirty  huge 
galleons,  the  English  only  sizty  sail,  of  lighter  and  less  cumbrous 
build.  The  young  English  noblemen  competed  for  the  privilege 
of  serving  in  it.  The  great  Armada  was  ill  designed  for  defying 
wind  and  weather  in  the  English  Channel.  It  manceuvred 
awkwardly,  and,  in  the  first  encounters,  proved  itself  powerless 
against  the  lighter  ships  of  the  English.  A  couple  of  fire-ships 
were  sufficient  to  throw  it  into  disorder;  a  season  of  storms 
set  in,  and  the  greater  number  of  its  galleons  were  swept  to 
destniction. 

The  greatest  Power  in  the  world  of  that  day  had  broken 
down  in  its  attempt  to  crush  the  gröwing  might  of  England,  and 
the  whole  nation  revelled  in  the  exultant  sense  of  victory. 


VI 

SHAKESPEARE  AS  ACTOR  AND  RETOÜCHER  OF 
OLD  PLAYS'-GREENE'S  ATTACK 

Between  1586  and  IS92  we  lose  all  trace  of  Shakespeare.  We 
know  only  that  he  must  have  been  an  active  member  of  a  Company 
of  players.  It  is  not  proved  that  he  ever  belonged  to  any  other 
Company  than  the  Earl  of  Leicester's,  which  owned  the  Black- 
friarsy  and  afterwards  the  Globe,  theatre.  It  is  proved  by  several 
passages  in  contemporary  writings  that,  parüy  as  actor,  partly  as 
adapter  of  older  plays  for  the  use  of  the  theatre,  he  had,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-eight,  made  a  certain  name  for  himself,  and  had 
therefore  become  the  object  of  envy  and  hatred. 

A  passage  in  Spenser's  Coün  Clonts  Cotne  Home  Again^  re- 
ferring  to  a  poet  whose  Muse  "  doth  like  himself  heroically  sound/' 
may  with  some  probability,  though  not  with  certainty,  be  applied 
to  Shakespeare.     The  theory  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  the 
Word  ''  gentle  "  is  here,  as  so  often  in  after-life,  attached  to  bis 
Personality.     Against  it  we  must   place  the  circumstance  tha< 
the  poem,  although  not  published  tili  1594,  seems  to  have  beei 
composed  as  early  as  1591,  when  Shakespeare's  muse  was  as  yc 
scarcely  heroic,  and  that  Dra3rton,  who  had  written  under  th 
Pseudonym  of  Rowland,  may  have  been  the  poet  alluded  to. 

The  first  indubitable  allusion  to  Shakespeare  is  of  a  quite  ' 
ferent  nature.     It  occurs  in  a  pamphlet  written  on  his  death 
by  the  dramatist  Robert  Greene,  entitled  A   Groafs   Wortt 
Wit  bought  with  a  Million  of  Repentance  (August  1 592).     f 
the  utterly  degraded  and  penniless  poet  calls  upon  his  fr 
Marlowe,  Lodge  or  Nash,  and  Peele  (without  mentioning 
names)|  to  give  up  their  vicious  life,  their  blasphemy,  anc 
"getting  many  enemies  by  bitter  words,"  holding  himself 
a  deterrent  example ;  for  he  died,  after  a  reckless  life,  o^ 
ness  Said  to  have  been  induced  by  immoderate  eating,  anc 
misery  that  he  had  to  borrow  money  of  his  landlord,  a  pc 
maker,  while  his  landlord's  wife  was  the  sole  attendai 
dying  hours.     He  was  so  poor  that  his  clothes  had  f 
to  procure  him  food.     He  sent  his  wife  these  lines : — 

^  Doli,  I  Charge  thee,  by  the  loue  of  our  youth  and  t 
rest,  that  thou  wilte  see  this  man  paide ;  for  if  hee  and  his  y 
tuccoofed  me,  I  had  died  in  the  streetes.  Robert 

s8 


GREENE'S  ATTACK  19 

The  passage  in  which  he  wams  his  friends  and  fellow-poets 
against  the  ingratitude  of  the  players  runs  as  follows : — 

'*  Yes,  trust  them  not :  for  there  is  an  upstart  crow,  beautified  with 
OUT  feathers,  that  with  his  lygers  hcart  wrapt  in  a  Players  hide^  sup- 
poses  he  is  as  well  able  to  bumbast  out  a  blanke  Verse  as  the  best  of 
you :  and  being  an  absolute  Johannes  fac  totum^  is  in  his  owne  conoeit 
the  only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie." 

The  allusion  to  Shakespeare's  name  is  unequivocal,  and  the 
words  about  the  tiger's  heart  point  to  the  outburst,  "  Oh  Tyger's 
hart  wrapt  in  a  serpents  hide ! ''  which  is  found  in  two  places : 
first  in  the  play  called  The  True  Tragedie  of  RicJiard  Duke  of 
Yorke^  and  the  Death  of  the  good  King  Henrie  the  Sixt^  and 
thcn  (with  "womans"  substituted  for  "serpents"),  in  the  third 
part  of  King  Henry  VI.,  founded  on  the  True  Tragedie,  and 
attributed  to  Shakespeare.  It  is  preposterous  to  interpret  this 
passage  as  an  attack  upon  Shakespeare  in  his  quality  as  an  actor ; 
Greene's  words,  beyond  all  doubt,  convey  an  accusation  of  literary 
dishonesty.  Everything  points  to  the  belief  that  Greene  and 
Marlowe  had  collaborated  in  the  older  play,  and  that  the  former 
saw  with  disgust  the  success  achieved  by  Shakespeare's  adapta- 
tion  of  their  text         < 

But  that  Shakespeare  was  already  highly  respected,  and  that 
the  attack  aroused  general  Indignation,  is  proved  by  the  apology 
put  forth  in  December  1592  by  Henry  Chettle,  who  had  published 
Greene's  pamphlet.  In  the  preface  to  his  Kind-harfs  Dreame  he 
expressly  deplores  his  indiscretion  with  regard  to  Shakespeare : — 

"  I  am  as  sory  as  if  the  originall  fault  had  beene  my  fault,  because 
roy  seife  haue  seene  his  demeanor  no  lesse  ciuill  than  he  exelent  in 
the  qualitie  he  professes.  Besides,  diuers  of  worship  haue  reported  his 
vprightnes  of  dealing,  which  argues  his  honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace 
in  writing,  that  aprooues  his  Art." 

We  see,  then,  that  the  Company  to  which  Shakespeare  had 
attached  himself,  and  in  which  he  had  already  attracted  notice  as 
a  promising  poet,  employed  him  to  revise  and  furbish  up  the  older 
pieces  of  their  repertory.  The  theatrical  announcements  of  the 
period  would  show  us,  even  if  we  had  no  other  evidence,  that  it 
was  a  constant  practice  to  recast  old  plays,  in  order  to  heighten 
their  powers  of  attraction.  It  is  announced,  for  instance,  that 
such-and-such  a  play  will  be  acted  as  it  was  last  presented  before 
her  Majesty,  or  before  this  or  that  nobleman.  Poets  sold  their 
works  outright  to  the  theatre  for  such  sums  as  five  or  ten  pounds, 
or  for  a  share  in  the  receipts.  As  the  interests  of  the  theatre 
demanded  that  plays  should  not  be  printed,  in  order  that  rival 
oompanies  might  not  obtain  possession  of  them,  they  remained  in 
manuscript  (unless  pirated),  and  the  players  could  accordingly  do 
what  they  pleased  with  the  text. 


»O  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Noue  the  less,  of  course,  was  the  older  poet  apt  to  resent  the 
re-touches  made  by  the  younger,  as  we  see  from  this  outburst 
of  Greenc's,  and  probably,  too,  from  Ben  Jonson's  epigram,  On 
Poet^Ape^  even  though  this  cannot,  with  any  show  of  reason,  bc 
applied  to  Shakespeare. 

In  the  view  of  the  time,  theatrical  productions  as  a  whole 
were  not  classed  as  literature.  It  was  regarded  as  dishonourable 
for  a  man  to  seil  bis  work  first  to  a  theatre  and  then  to  a  book- 
seller,  and  Thomas  Heywood  declares,  as  late  as  1630  (in  the 
preface  to  his  Lucretia\  that  he  has  never  been  guilty  of  this 
misdemeanour.  We  know,  too,  how  much  ridicule  Ben  Jonson 
incurred  when,  first  among  English  poets,  he  in  16 16  published 
his  plays  in  a  folio  volume. 

On  the  other  band,  we  see  that  not  only  Shakespeare's  geniuSi 
but  his  personal  amiability,  the  loftiness  and  charm  of  his  nature, 
disarmed  even  those  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  had  spoken 
disparagingly  of  his  activity.  As  Chettle,  after  printing  Greene's 
attack,  hastened  to  make  public  apology,  so  also  Ben  Jonson, 
to  whose  ill-will  and  cutting  allusions  Shakespeare  made  no 
retort,^  became,  in  spite  of  an  unconquerable  jealousy,  his 
tnie  friend  and  admirer,  and  after  his  death  spoke  of  him 
warmly  in  prose,  and  with  enthusiasm  in  verse,  in  the  noble 
eulogy  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio.  His  prose  remarks  upor 
Shakespeare's  character  are  introduced  by  a  critical  observa 
tion: — 

"I  remember  the  players  have  often  mentioned  it  as  an  hono 
to  Shakespeare,  that  in  his  writing  (whatsoever  he  penned)  he  nei 
blotted  out  a  line.     My  answer  hath  been,  Would  he  had  blottec 
thousand.     Which  they  thought  a  malevolent  speech.     I  had  not  t 
posterity  this  but  for  their  ignorance,  who  chose  that  circumsta 
to  commend  their  friend  by,  wherein  he  most  faulted ;  and  to  jw 
mine  own  candour :  for  I  loved  the  man,  and  do  honour  his  mexr 
on  this  side  idolatry,  as  much  as  any.     He  was  (indeed)  honest, 
of  an  open  and  füll  nature ;  had  an  excellent  phantasy,  brave  not 
and  gentle  expressions;   wherein   he  flowed  with  that  facilitj, 
sometimes  it  was  necessary  he  should  be  stopped :  Sufflaminandf 
as  Augustus  said  of  Haterius." 

^  He  it  nid  to  have  procured  the  production  of  Jonson's  fint  plmj. 


VII 

THE  ''HENRY   Vi:'   TRILOGY 

One  might  expect  that  it  would  be  with  the  early  plays  in  which 
Shakespeare  only  coUaborated  as  with  those  Italian  pictures  of  the 
best  period  of  the  Renaissance,  in  which  the  connoisseur  identifies 
(for  ezample)  an  angeVs  head  by  Leonardo  in  a  Crucifixion  of 
Andrea  del  Verrocchio's.  The  work  of  the  pupil  Stands  out  sharp 
and  clear,  with  pure  contours,  a  picture  within  the  picture,  quite 
at  odds  with  its  style  and  spirit,  but  impressing  us  as  a  promise 
for  the  future.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  is  no  analogy 
between  the  two  cases. 

A  mystery  hangs  over  the  Henry  VI.  trilogy  which  neither 
Grcene's  venomous  attack  nor  Chettle's  apology  enables  us  to 
clear  up. 

Of  all  the  works  attributed  to  Shakespeare,  this  is  certainly 
the  one  whose  origin  affords  most  food  for  speculation.  The 
inclusion  of  the  three  plays  in  the  First  Folio  shows  clearly  that 
his  comrades,  who  had  füll  knowiedge  of  the  facts,  regarded  them 
as  his  literary  property.  That  the  two  earlier  plays  which  arc 
preserved,  the  First  Part  of  the  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedie 
(answering  to  the  second  and  third  parts  of  Henry  VL),  cannot 
be  entirely  Shakespeare's  work  is  evidenced  both  by  the  imprint 
of  the  anonymous  quartos  and  by  the  Company  which  is  stated 
to  have  produced  them ;  for  none  of  Shakespeare's  genuine  plays 
was  published  by  this  publisher  or  played  by  this  Company.  It 
is  proved  quite  clearly,  too,  by  internal  evidence,  by  the  free  and 
unrhymed  versification  of  these  plays.  At  the  period  from  which 
they  date,  Shakespeare  was  still  extremely  addicted  to  the  use  of 
rhyme  in  his  dramatic  writing. 

Nevertheless,  the  great  majority  of  German  Shakespeare 
students,  and  some  English  as  well,  are  of  opinion  that  the  older 
plays  are  entirely  Shakespeare's,  either  his  first  drafts  or,  as  is 
more  commonly  maintained,  stolen  texts  carelessly  noted  down. 

Some  English  scholars,  such  as  Malone  and  Dyce,  go  to  the 

opposite  extreme,  and  regard  the  second  and  third  parts  of  Henry 

VI.  as  the  work  of  another  poet.      The  majority  of  English 

students  look  upon  these  plays  as  the  result  of  Shakespeare's 

retouching  of  another  man's,  or  rather  other  men's,  work. 

The  affair  is  so  complicated  that  none  of  these  hypotheses  is 
quite  satisfactory. 

M 


22  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Though  there  are  doubtless  in  the  older  plays  portions  un- 
worthy  of  Shakespeare,  and  more  like  the  handiwork  of  Greene, 
while  others  strongly  suggest  Marlowe,  both  in  matter,  style,  and 
versification,  there  are  also  passages  in  them  which  cannot  be  by 
any  one  eise  than  Shakespeare.  And  while  most  of  the  alterations 
and  additions  which  are  found  in  the  second  and  third  parts  of 
Henry  VI,  bear  the  mark  of  unmistakable  superiority,  and  are 
Shakespearian  in  spirit  no  less  than  in  style  and  versification, 
there  are  at  the  same  time  others  which  are  decidedly  un-Shake- 
spearian  and  can  almo$t  certainly  be  attributed  to  Marlowe.  He 
must|  then,  have  collaborated  with  Shakespeare  in  the  adaptation, 
unless  we  suppose  that  his  original  text  was  carelessly  printed 
in  the  earlier  quartos,  and  that  it  here  reappears,  in  the  Shake- 
spearian Henry  VI.,  corrected  and  completed  in  accordance  with 
his  manuscript. 

I  agree  with  Miss  Lee,  the  writer  of  the  leading  treatise  *  on 
these  plays,  and  with  the  commentator  in  the  Irving  Edition,  in 
holding  that  Shakespeare  was  not  responsible  for  all  the  altera- 
tions in  the  definitive  text.  There  are  several  which  I  cannot 
possibly  believe  to  be  his. 

In  the  old  quartos  there  appears  not  a  line  in  any  foreign 
language.      But  in  the  Shakespearian  plays  we  find  lines  and 
exclamations  in  Latin  scattered  here  and  there,  along  with  one  in 
French.*     If  the  early  quartos  are  founded  on  a  text  taken  down 
by  ear,  we  can  readUy  understand  that  the  foreign  expressions, 
not  being  understood,  should  be  omitted.    Such  foreign  sentences 
are  extremely  frequent  in  Marlowe,  as  in  Kyd  and  the  other 
older  dramatists ;  they  appear  in  season  and  out  of  season,  but 
always  in  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  sounder  taste  of  our 
time.     Marlowe  would  even  suffer  a  dying  man  to  break  out  in  r 
French  or  Latin  phrase  as  he  gave  up  the  ghost,  and  this  occur 
here  in  two  places  (at  Clifford's  death  and  Rutland's).     Shake 
speare,  who  never  bedizens  his  work  with  un-English  phrase 
would  certainly  not  place  them  in  the  mouths  of  dying  men,  p 
Icast  of  all  foist  them.  upon  an  earlier  purely  English  text. 

Other  additions  also  seem  only  to  have  restored  the  older  f< 
of  the  plays — those,  to  wit,  which  really  add  nothing  new, 
only  elaborate,  sometimes  more  copiously  than  is  necessar} 
tasteful,  a  thought  already  clearly  indicated.     The  original  oi 
sion  in  such  instances  appears  almost  certainly  to  have 
dictatcd  by  considerations  of  convenience  in  acting.    One  ex 
is  Queen  Margaret's  long  speech  in  Part  IL,  Act  ÜL  2,  wl 
new  with  the  exception  of  the  first  fourteen  lines.  ^ 

But  there  is  another  class  of  additions  and  alterations 
surprises  us  by  being  unmistakably  in  Marlowe's  style.     ' 

'  New  Shakspere  SocietyU  Transtutiom^  1875-76,  pp.  219-303. 
*  '*  Tantaene  animis  coeleslibus  irae  1 — Medice,  te  ipsum  I — Gelidus  tim 
artus — La  fin  couronne  les  oeuvres — Di  faciant  1  laudii  summa  tit  ista  tu«. 


THE  "HENRY  VI."  TRILOGY  23 

additions  are  really  by  Shakespeare,  he  must  have  been  under 
the  influence  of  Marlowe  to  a  quite  extraordinary  degree.  Swin- 
bume  has  pointed  out  how  entirely  the  verses  which  open  the 
fourth  act  of  the  Second  Part  are  Marlowesque  in  rhythm,  ima- 
gination,  and  choice  of  words ;  but  characteristic  as  are  these 
lines — 


<c 


And  now  loud  howling  wolves  arouse  the  jades 
That  drag  the  tragic  melancholy  night/' 

they  are  by  no  means  the  only  additions  which  seem  to  point  to 
Marlowe.  We  feel  his  presence  particularly  in  the  additions  to 
Iden's  Speeches  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  act,  in  such  lines  as — 

"  Set  limb  to  limb,  and  thou  art  far  the  lesser ; 
Thy  band  is  but  a  finger  to  my  fist ; 
Thy  1^  a  stick,  compared  with  this  truncheon ; " 

and  especially  in  the  concluding  speech : — 

"  Die,  damned  wretch,  the  curse  of  her  that  bare  thee  I 
And  as  I  thrust  thy  body  in  with  my  sword. 
So  wish  I,  I  might  thrust  thy  soul  to  hell. 
Hence  will  I  drag  thee  headlong  by  the  heels 
Unto  a  dunghill,  which  shall  be  thy  grave, 
And  there  cut  oflf  thy  most  ungracious  head" 

rhere  is  Marlowesque  emphasis  in  this  wildness  and  ferocity, 
which  reappears,  in  conjunction  with  Marlowesque  Icarning^  in 
Young  ClifTord's  lines  in  the  last  act : — 

"  Meet  I  an  Infant  of  the  house  of  York, 
Into  as  many  gobbets  will  I  cut  it, 
As  wild  Medea  young  Absyrtus  did : 
In  cruelty  will  I  seek  out  my  fame  " — 

and  in  those  which,  in  Part  III.,  Act  iv.  2,  are  placed  in  the 
mouth  of  Warwick : — 

"  Our  scouts  have  found  the  adventure  very  easy : 
That  as  Ulysses,  and  stout  Diomede, 
With  sleight  and  manhood  stole  to  Rhesus'  tents, 
And  brought  from  thence  the  Thracian  fatal  steeds ; 
So  we,  well  cover'd  with  the  night's  black  mantle, 
At  unawares  may  beat  down  Edward's  guard, 
And  seize  himself " 

And  as  in  the  additions  there  are  passages  the  whole  style  of 
which  belongs  to  Marlowe,  or  bears  the  strongest  traces  of  his 
influencei  so  also  there  are  passages  in  the  earlier  text  which  in 
every  respect  recail  the  manner  of  Shakespeare.  For  examplei 
in  Part  IL,  Act  iii.  2,  Warwick'g  gpeech :— 


24  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  Who  finds  the  heifer  dead,  and  bleeding  fresh, 
And  sees  fast  by  a  butcher  with  an  axe, 
But  will  suspect  'twas  he  that  made  tbe  slaughter?" 

or  Sufiblk's  to  Margaret : — 

"  If  I  depart  from  thee,  I  cannot  live ; 
And  in  thy  sight  to  die,  what  were  it  eise, 
But  like  a  pleasant  slumber  in  thy  lap  ? 
Here  could  I  breathe  my  soul  into  the  air, 
As  mild  and  gentle  as  the  cradle-babe, 
Dying  with  mother's  dug  between  its  lips.** 

Most  Shakespearian,  too,  is  the  manner  in  which,  in  Part  IIL, 
Act  ii.  I,  York's  two  sons  are  made  to  draw  their  charactersi 
each  in  a  single  line,  when  they  receive  the  tidings  of  their 
father's  death : — 

"  Edward.  O,  speak  no  more !  for  I  have  heard  too  much. 
Richard,  Say,  how  he  died,  for  I  will  hear  it  all." 

Again,  we  seem  to  hear  the  voice  of  Shakespeare  when  Mar- 
garet, after  they  have  murdered  her  son  before  her  eyes,  bursts 
forth  (Part  III.,  Act  v.  $)  :— 

"  You  have  no  children,  butcliers !  if  you  had 
The  thought  of  them  would  have  stirred  up  rcniorse." 

This  passage  anticipates,  as  it  were,  a  celebrated  speech  in 
Macbeth,     Most  remarkable  of  all,  however,  are  the  Cade  scenc 
in  the  Second  Part.     I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  the&e  we 
not  from  the  very  first  the  work  of  Shakespeare.     It  is  evide 
that  they  cannot  proceed  from  the  pen  of  Marlowe.     An  attem 
haa  been  made  to  attribute  them  to  Greene,  on  the  ground  t 
there  are  other  folk-scenes  in  his  works  which  display  a  si* 
strain  of  humour.     But  the  difference  is  enormous.     It  is 
that  the  text  here  foUows  the  chroiiicle  with  extraordinary  fid 
but  it  was  precisely  in  this  ingcnious  adaptation  of  materir 
Shakespeare  always  showcd   his  strength.      And  these 
answer  so  completely  to  all  the  other  folk-scenes  in  Shak« 
and  are  so  obviously  the  outcome  of  the  habit  of  political 
which  runs  through  his  whole  life,  bcconiing  ever  more  a 
pronounced,  that  we  cannot  possibly  accept  them  as  sho' 
the  trivial  alterations  and  retouches  wliich  elsewhere  c 
his  text  from  the  older  version.      ^ 

These  admissions  made,  however,  there  is  on  the 
difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  work  of  other  hands 
texts.     We  can  cnjoy,  point  by  point,  not  only  S' 
superiority,  but  his  peculiar  style,  as  we  here  find  i 
process  of  development ;  and  we  can  study  his  who 
work  in  the  text  which  he  ultimately  produces. 


THE  "HENRY  VI."  TRILOGY  25 

We  have  here  an  almost  unique  opportunity  of  observing  him 
in  the  character  of  a  critical  artist.  We  see  what  improvements 
he  makes  by  a  trivial  retouch,  or  a  mere  rearrangement  of  words. 
ThuSy  when  Gloucester  says  of  bis  wife  (Part.  IL,  Act  ii.  4) — 

^  Uneath  may  she  endure  the  flinty  streets, 
To  tread  them  with  her  tender-feeling  feet,* 

all  bis  sympathy  speaks  in  tbese  words.  In  the  old  text  it  is  she 
who  says  this  of  herseif.  In  York's  great  soliloquy  in  the  first 
act,  beginning  "  Anjou  and  Maine  are  given  to  the  French/'  the 
first  twenty-four  lines  are  Shakespeare's ;  the  rest  belong  to  the 
old  text.  From  the  second  "Anjou  and  Maine"  onwards,  the 
verse  is  conventional  and  monotonous;  the  nieaning  ends  with 
the  end  of  each  line,  and  a  pause,  as  it  were,  ensues ;  whereas 
the  verse  of  the  opening  passage  is  füll  of  draniatic  movement, 
life,  and  fire. 

Again,  if  we  turn  to  York's  soliloquy  in  the  third  act  (sc.  i) — 


t< 


Now,  York,  or  never,  steel  thy  fearful  thoughts," 


and  compare  it  in  the  two  texts,  we  find  their  metrical  differences 
so  marked  that,  as  Miss  Lee  has  happily  put  it,  the  critic  can  no 
more  doubt  that  the  first  version  belongs  to  an  earlier  stage  in  the 
development  of  dramatic  poetry,  than  the  geologist  can  doubt  that 
a  Stratum  which  contains  simpler  organisms  indicates  an  eariiei 
stage  of  the  earth's  development  than  one  containing  higher  forma 
of  organic  life.  There  are  portions  of  the  Second  Part  which  no 
one  can  believe  that  Shakespeare  wrote,  such  as  the  old-fashioned 
fooling  with  SimfKOx,  which  is  quite  in  the  manner  of  Greene. 
There  are  others  which,  without  being  unworthy  of  Shakespeare, 
not  only  indicate  Marlowe  in  their  general  style,  but  are  now 
and  then  mere  variations  of  verses  known  to  be  bis.  Such,  for 
example,  is  Margaret's  line  in  Part  IIL,  Act  i. : — 

"  Stern  Faulconbridge  commands  the  narrow  seas," 

which  clearly  echoes  the  line  in  Marlowe's  Edward  IL  : — 

"The  haughty  Dane  commands  the  narrow  street" 

What  interests  us  most,  perhaps,  is  the  relation  between  Shake- 
speare and  bis  predecessor  with  respect  to  the  character  of 
Gloucester.  It  cannot  be  denied  or  doubted  that  this  character, 
the  Richard  III.  of  after-days,  is  completely  outlined  in  the  earlier 
text ;  so  that  in  reality  Shakespeare's  own  tragedy  of  Richard  III.^ 
written  so  much  later,  is  still  quite  Marlowesque  in  the  funda- 
mental conception  of  its  protagonist.  Gloucester's  two  great 
8oliloquies  in  the  third  part  of  Henry  VL  are  especially  instnic- 
tive  to  study.     In  the  first  (iii.  2)  the  kcynote  of  the  passion  is 


26  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

indeed  stnick  by  Marlowe,  but  all  the  finest  passages  are  Shake- 
speare's.     Take,  for  ezample,  the  following : — 

"  Why  then,  I  do  but  dream  on  sovereignty ; 
Like  one  that  Stands  upon  a  promontory, 
And  spies  a  far-o£f  shore  where  he  would  tread, 
Wishing  his  foot  were  equal  with  bis  eye ; 
And  chides  the  sea  that  sunders  bim  from  thence, 
Saying — ^he'U  lade  it  dry  to  have  his  way : 
So  do  I  wish  the  crown,  being  so  far  off, 
And  so  I  chide  the  means  that  keep  me  from  it ; 
And  so  I  say — I'll  cut  the  causes  ofi^ 
Flattering  me  with  impossibilities." 

The  last  soliloquy  (v.  6),  on  the  other  band,  belongs  entircly 
to  the  old  play.  A  thoroughly  Marlowesque  turn  of  phrase  meets 
US  at  the  very  beginning : — 

"  See,  how  my  sword  weeps  for  the  poor  king*s  death." 

Shakespeare  has  here  left  the  powerful  and  admirablc  text 
untouched,  except  for  the  deletion  of  a  Single  superfluous  and 
weakening  verse,  '*  I  had  no  father,  I  am  like  no  father,"  whicli 
is  foUowed  by  the  profoundest  and  most  remarkable  lines  in  the 

pfey: — 

* 
"  I  have  no  brother,  I  am  like  no  brother ; 

And  this  word  love,  which  greybeards  call  divine, 
Be  resident  in  men  like  one  another, 
And  not  in  me :  I  am  myself  alonc" 


VIII 

CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  AND  HIS  LIFEWORK— 

TITUS  ANDRONICUS 

The  man  who  was  to  be  Shakespeare's  first  master  in  the  drama 
— a  master  whose  genius  he  did  not  at  the  outset  fully  under- 
stand — was  born  two  months  before  hini.  Christopher  (Kit) 
Marlowe,  the  son  of  a  shoemaker  at  Canterbury,  was  a  founda- 
tion  Scholar  at  the  King's  School  of  his  native  town ;  matricu- 
lated  at  Cambridge  in  1580;  took  the  degree  of  B.A.  in  1583, 
and  of  M.A.  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  after  he  had  left  the 
University;  appeared  in  London  (so  we  gather  from  an  old  ballad) 
as  an  actor  at  the  Curtain  Theatre;  had  the  misfortune  to  break 
his  leg  upon  the  stage ;  was  no  doubt  on  that  account  compelled 
to  give  up  acting;  and  seems  to  have  written  his  first  dramatic 
work,  Tamburlaine  the  Greai^  at  tatest  in  1587.  His  development 
was  much  quicker  than  Shakespeare's,  he  attained  to  comparative 
maturity  much  earlier,  and  his  culture  was  more  systematic.  Not 
for  nothing  had  he  gone  through  the  classical  curnculum;  the 
influence  of  Seneca,  the  poet  and  rhetorician  through  whom 
English  tragedy  comes  into  relation  with  the  antique,  is  clearly 
recognisable  in  him,  no  less  than  in  his  predecessors,  the  authors 
of  Gorbaduc  and  Tancred  and  Gismunda  (the  former  composed 
by  two,  the  latter  by  five  poets  in  collaboration) ;  only  that  the 
construction  of  these  plays,  with  their  monologues  and  thcir 
chorus,  is  directly  imitated  from  Seneca,  while  the  more  inde- 
pendent  Marlowe  is  influcnced  only  in  his  diction  and  choice  of 
material. 

In  him  the  two  streams  begin  to  unite  which  have  their 
sources  in  the  Biblical  dramas  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  later 
allegorical  folk-plays  on  the  one  band,  and,  on  the  other  band,  in 
the  Latin  plays  of  antiquity.  But  he  entirely  lacks  the  comic 
vein  which  we  find  in  the  first  English  imitations  of  Plautus  and 
Tcrcnce — in  Ralph  Rotster  Doister  and  in  Gammer  Gurtoris 
Ne^dle,  acted,  respectively,  in  the  middle  of  the  Century  and  in 
th(^  middle  of  the  sixties,  by  Eton  schoolboys  and  Cambridge 
students. 

/  Kit  Marlowe  is  the  creator  of  English  tragedy.  He  it  was 
yikho  established  on  the  public  stage  the  use  of  the  unrhymed 
u^mbic  Pentameter  as  the  medium  of  English  drama.     He  did  aot 

'  1 


I 


18  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

invent  English  blank  verse — the  Earl  of  Surrey  (who  d 
1 547)  had  used  it  in  bis  translation  of  tbe  ^neid^  and  it  bai 
employed  in  tbe  old  play  of  Gorboduc  and  otliers  wbicb  ba< 
peiformed  at  court.  But  Marlowe  was  tbe  first  to  addre 
great  public  in  tbis  measure,  and  be  did  so,  as  appears  fro 
prologue  to  Tamburlaine^  in  express  contempt  for  ''  tbe  j 
veins  of  rbyming  motber-wits  "  and  ''  sucb  conceits  as  clo 
keeps  in  pay/'  seeking  deliberately  for  tragic  empbasis  and 
astounding  terms  "  in  wbicb  to  express  tbe  rage  of  Tambur 

Before  bis  day,   rbymed  couplets  of  long-drawn  foi 
syllable  verse  bad  been  common  in  drama,  and  tbe  monot 
these  rbymes  naturally  bampered  tbe  dramatic  life  of  tbe 
Sbakespeare  does  not  seem  at  first  to  bave  appreciated  Mai 
reform,  or  quite  to  bave  understood  tbe  importance  of  tl 
jection  of  rhyme  in  dramatic  writing.     Little  by  little  b€ 
fully  to  realise  it.     In  one  of  bis  first  pla^'s,  Lovis  Labour'^ 
tbere  are  nearly  twice  as  many  rbymed  as  unrbymed  > 
more  tban  a  tliousand  in  all;   in   bis  latest  works  rbym< 
disappeared.     Tbere  are  only  two  rbymes  in  Tke  TempeSi 
in  A  Winter' s  Tale  none  at  all. 

Similarly,  in  bis  first  plays  (like  Victor  Hugo  in  bis 
Odes)y  Sbakespeare  feels  bimself  bound  to  make  tbe  sens< 
witb  tbe  end  of  tbe  verse;  as  time  goes  on,  be  gradually  1 
an  ever  freer  movement.  In  Lav^s  Labout^s  Lost  tber 
eigbteen  end-stoppcd  verses  (in  wbicb  the  meaning  ends 
tbe  line)  for  every  one  in  wbicb  tbe  sense  runs  on ;  in  Cym 
and  A  Wintet^s  Tale  tbey  are  only  about  two  to  one. 
gradual  development  afibrds  one  metbod  of  determining  tb( 
of  production  of  otberwise  undated  plays. 

Marlowe  seems  to  bave  led  a  wild  life  in  London,  and  to 
been  entirely  lacking  in  tbe  commonplace  virtues.  He  is  si 
bave  indulged  in  a  perpetual  round  of  dissipations,  to  bave 
dressed  to-day  in  silk,  to-morrow  in  rags,  and  to  bave  liv 
audacious  defiance  of  society  and  tbe  Cburcb.  Certain  it  i! 
be  was  killed  in  a  brawl  wben  only  twenty-nine  years  old. 
is  Said  to  bave  found  a  rival  in  Company  witb  bis  mistress 
to  bave  drawn  bis  dagger  to  stab  bim ;  but  tbe  other,  a  o 
Francis  Arcber,  wrested  tbe  dagger  from  bis  grasp,  and  tbr 
tbrougb  bis  eye  into  bis  brain.  It  is  furtber  related  of  bin 
he  was  an  ardent  and  aggressive  atbeist,  who  called  Mo 
juggler  and  said  tbat  Christ  deserved  death  more  tban  Bara 
These  reports  are  probable  enougb.  On  the  other  band 
assertion  tbat  he  wrote  books  against  tbe  Trinity  and  u1 
blaspbemies  witb  bis  latest  breath,  is  evidently  inspire 
Puritan  batred  for  tbe  theatre  and  everything  concemed  w 
Tbe  sole  autbority  for  these  fables  is  Beard's  Theatre  of 
JudgmefUs  ( 1 597),  tbe  work  of  a  clergyman,  a  fanatical  Pu 
which  appeared  six  years  after  Marlowe's  deatb. 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE  29 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Marlowe  led  an  extremely  irregulär 
life,  but  the  legend  of  his  debaucheries  must  be  much  ezaggerated, 
if  only  from  the  fact  that,  though  he  was  cut  off  before  his  thirtieth 
year,  he  has  yet  left  behind  him  so  large  and  puissant  a  body  of 
werk.  The  legend  that  he  passed  his  last  hours  in  blaspheming 
God  is  rendered  doubly  improbable  by  Chapman's  express  State- 
ment that  it  was  in  compliance  with  Marlowe's  dying  request  that 
he  continued  his  friend's  paraphrase  of  Hero  and  Leander.  The 
passionate,  defiant  youth,  surcharged  with  genius,  was  fair  game 
for  the  bigots  and  Pharisees,  who  found  it  only  too  easy  to 
besmirch  his  memory. 

It  is  evident  that  Marlowe's  gorgeous  and  violent  style,  espe- 
cially  as  it  bursts  forth  in  his  earlier  plays,  made  a  profound 
Impression  upon  the  youthful  Shakespeare.  After  Marlowe's 
death,  Shakespeare  made  a  kindly  and  moumful  allusion  to  him 
in  As  You  Like  It  (iii.  5),  where  Phebe  quotes  a  line  from  his 
Hero  and  Leander: — 

"  Dead  shepherd  1  now  I  find  thy  saw  of  roight : 
*  Who  ever  lov'd,  that  lov'd  not  at  first  sight  ? ' " 

Marlowe's  influence  is  unmistakable  not  only  in  the  style  and 
versification  but  in  the  sanguinary  action  of  Titus  Androntcus^ 
dearly  the  oldest  of  the  traeedies  attributed  to  Shakespeare. 

The  evidence Tor  the  Shakespearian  authorship  of  this  drama 
of  horrorSi  though  mainly  extemal,  is  weighty  and,  it  would  seem, 
decisive.  Meres,  in  1598,  names  it  among  the  poet's  works,  and 
his  friends  induded  it  in  the  First  Folio.  We  know  from  a  gibe 
in  Ben  Jonson's  Induction  to  his  Bartholomew  Fair  that  it 
was  ezceedingly  populär.  It  is  one  of  the  plays  most  frequently 
alluded  to  in  contemporary  writings,  being  mentioned  twice  as 
oflten  as  Twelfih  Night ,  and  four  or  five  times  as  often  as 
Measure  for  Measure  or  Timon.  It  depicts  savage  deeds, 
ezeculed  with  the  suddenness  with  which  people  of  the  six- 
teenth  Century  were  wont  to  obey  their  Impulses,  cruelties  as 
heartles5  and  systematic  as  those  which  characterised  the  age 
of  Machiavelli.  In  short,  it  abounds  in  such  callous  atrocities 
as  could  not  fail  to  make  a  deep  impression  on  iron  nerves  and 
hardened  natures. 

These  horrors  are  not,  for  the  most  part,  of  Shakespeare's 
inveation. 

An  entry  in  Henslowe's  diary  of  April  11,  1592,  mentions  for 
the  first  time  a  play  named  Titus  and  Vespasian  (''tittus  and 
vespacia"),  which  was  played  very  frequently  between  that  date 
and  January  1593,  and  was  evidently  a  prime  favourite.  In  its 
Engtish  form  this  play  is  lost ;  no  Vespasian  appears  in  our  Titiis 
Amdronicus.  But  about  1600  a  play  was  ptT^OTmtdLvaCi&TtcAxi^^ 
by  Ei^lisb  actots,  which  has  been  preserved  \m^T  ^<t  <v\\ä^  Evä* 


30  WILLIAM   SHAREäfeARE 

$ekr  klägliche  Tragoedia  von  Tito  Andronico  und  der  hoffen 
Kayserin,  darinnen  denckwürdige  actiones  zubefinden^  and  in 
play  a  Vespasian  duly  appears,  as  well  as  the  Moor  Aaron,  u 
the  name  of  Morian;  so  that|  clearly  enough,  we  have  he 
translation,  er  rather  a  free  adaptation,  of  the  old  play  im 
formed  the  basis  of  Shakespeare's. 

We  see,  then,  that  Shakespeare  himself  invented  only  a 
of  the  horrors  which  form  the  substance  of  the  play.  The  ac 
as  he  presents  it,  is  briefly  this : —        ^ 

Titus  Andronicus,  returning  to  Rome  after  a  victory  ove^ 
Goths^  is  hailed  as  Emperor  by  the  populace,  but  magnanimc^ 
hands  over  the  crown  to  the  rightful  heir,  Saturninus.  '^ 
even  wants  to  give  him  his  daughter  Lavinia  in  mamage,  althot 
she  is  already  betrothed  to  the  Emperor's  younger  brother  B 
sianus,  whom  she  loves.  When  one  of  Titus's  sons  opposes  t 
scheme,  his  father  kills  him  on  the  spot. 

In  the  meantime,  Tamora,  the  captive  Queen  of  the  Goths 
brought  before  the  young  Emperor.  In  spite  of  her  prayc 
Titus  has  ordered  the  execution  of  her  eldest  son,  as  a  sacrii 
to  the  manes  of  his  own  sons  who  have  fallen  in  the  war ;  1 
as  Tamora  is  more  attractive  to  the  Emperor  than  his  destii 
bride,  the  young  Lavinia,  Titus  makes  no  attempt  to  enforce 
promise  he  has  just  made,  and  actually  imagines  that  Tamora 
sincere  when  she  pretends  to  have  forgotten  all  the  injuries  he  1 
done  her.  Tamora,  moreover,  has  been  and  is  the  mistress  of 
cruel  and  crafty  monster  Aaron,  the  Moor. 
^  At  the  Moor's  instigation,  she  induces  her  two  sons  to  tt 
advantage  of  a  hunting  party  to  murder  Bassianus ;  whereup 
they  ravish  Lavinia,  and  tear  out  her  tongue  and  cut  off  1 
hands,  so  that  she  cannot  denounce  them  either  in  speech 
writing.  They  remain  imdetected,  until  at  last  Lavinia  unmai 
them  by  writing  in  the  sand  with  a  stick  which  she  holds  in  1 
mouth.  Two  of  Titus's  sons  are  thrown  into  prison,  fals 
accused  of  the  murder  of  their  brother-in-law ;  and  Aaron  gl' 
Titus  to  understand  that  their  death  is  cejtain  unless  he  ransc 
rhem  by  cutting  off  his  own  right  band  and  sending  i^  to 
Emperor.  Titus  cuts  off  his  band,  only  to  be  informed  by  Aar 
with  mocking  laughter,  that  his  sons  are  already  beheaded— 
can  have  their  heads,  but  not  themselves.      j» 

He  now  devotes  himself  entirely  to  revenge.  Pretend 
madness,  after  the  manner  of  Brutus,  he  lures  Tamora's  sons 
his  house,  ties  their  hands  behind  their  backs,  and  Stabs  th 
like  pigs,  while  Lavinia,  with  the  stumps  of  her  arms,  hold 
basin  to  catch  their  blood.  He  bakes  their  heads  in  a  pie,  \ 
serves  it  up  to  Tamora  at  a  feast  given  in  her  honour,  at  wh 
he  appears  disguised  as  a  cook. 

In  the  slaughter  which  now  sets  in,  Tamora,  Titus,  and 
Emperor  are  killed.     UUimately  A^aroiv,  'vvYvo  Vv^:&  \.\\«!d  lo  ^ave 


"TITUS  ANDRONICÜS"  31 

butard  Tamora  has  secretly  borne  him,  !s  condemned  to  be  buried 
alive  up  to  the  waist,  and  thus  to  starve  to  death.  Titus's  son 
Lucius  is  proclaimed  Emperor.  r 

It  will  be  Seen  that  not  only  are  we  here  wading  ankle-deep 
in  blood,  but  that  we  are  quite  outside  all  historical  reality. 
Among  the  many  changes  which  Shakespeare  has  made  in  the 
old  play  is  the  dissociation  of  this  niotley  tissue  of  horrors  from 
the  name  of  the  Emperor  Vespasian.  The  part  which  he  plays  in 
the  older  drama  is  here  shared  between  Titus's  brother  Marcus 
and  his  son  Lucius,  who  succeeds  to  the  throne.  The  woman 
who  answers  to  Tamora  is  of  similar  character  in  the  old  play,  ^ 
but  is  Queen  of  Ethiopia.  Among  the  horrors  which  Shakespeare 
found  ready  made  are  the  rape  and  mutilation  of  Lavinia  and  the 
way  in  which  the  criminals  are  discovered,  the  hewing  off  of 
Titus's  band,  and  the  scenes  in  which  he  takes  his  revenge  in 
the  dual  character  of  butcher  and  cook. 

The  old  English  poet  evidently  knew  his  Ovid  and  his  Seneca. 
The  mutilation  of  Lavinia  comes  from  the  Metamorphoses  (the 
Story  of  Procne),  and  the  cannibal  banquet  from  the  same 
source,  as  well  as  from  Seneca's  Thyestis,  The  German  version 
of  the  tragedy,  however,  is  written  in  a  wretchedly  flat  and  anti- 
quated  prose,  while  Shakespeare's  is  couched  in  Marlowesque 
Pentameters. 

The  example  set  by  Marlowe  in  Tamburlaine  was  no  doubt 
in  scMne  measure  to  blame  for  the  lavish  effusion  of  blood  in  the 
play  adapted  by  Shakespeare,  which  may  in  this  respect  be 
bracketed  with  two  other  contemporary  dramas  conceived  under 
the  influence  of  Tamburlaine^  Robert  Greene's  Alphonsus  King 
of  Arragon  and  George  Peele's  Battle  of  Alcazar,  Peele's  tra- 
gedy has  also  its  barbarous  Moor,  Muley  Hamet,  who,  like  Aaron, 
is  probably  the  offspring  of  Marlowe's  malignant  Jew  of  Malta 
and  his  henchman,  the  sensual  Ithamore.   ^^, 

Amofig~  the  horrors  added  by  Shakespeare,  there  are  two 
which  deserve  a  moment's  notice.  The  first  is  Titus's  sudden 
and  unpremeditated  murder  of  his  son,  who  ventures  to  oppose 
his  will.  Shocking  as  it  seems  to  us  to-day,  such  an  incident  did 
not  surprise  the  sizteenth  Century  public,  but  rather  appealed  to 
them.  as  a  toucIT  of  nature.  Such  lives  as  Benvenuto  Cellini's 
show  that  even  in  highly  cultivated  natures,  anger,  passion,  and 
revenge  were  apt  to  take  instantaneous  eSect  in  sanguinary 
deeds.  Men  of  action  were  in  those  days  as  ungovemable  as 
they  "^Tcre  barbarously  crud  when  a  sudden  fury  possessed 
them. 

The  other  added  trait  is  the  murder  of  Taraora's  son.     We 
are  reminded  of  the  scene  in  Henry   P7.,  in  which  the  young 
Prince  Edward  is  murdered  in  the  presence  of  Queen  Nla5:^gax^\.\ 
and  Tamora's  entreaties  fpr  her  son  are  scavoTv%  iJaoafc  n«^ää  m 
tbe  plsLy  which  poeaesu  the  truc  Shakespeanaxv  tvivft- 


32  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Certain  peculiar  turns  of  phrase  in  Tttus  Androntciis  rer 
U8  of  Peele  and  Marlowe.^  But  whole  lines  occur  which  Sh 
speare  repeats  almost  word  for  word.     Thus  the  verses— 

*'  She  is  a  woman,  therefore  may  be  woo'd ; 
She  is  a  woman,  therefore  may  be  won," 

reappear  vcry  slightly  altered  in  Henry  F7.,  Part  I.:— 

"  She's  beautiful,  and  therefore  to  be  woo'd ; 
She  is  a  woman,  and  therefore  to  be  won ; " 

while  a  similar  turn  of  phrase  is  found  in  Sonnet  XLI.  :— 

^  Gentle  thou  art,  and  therefore  to  be  won ; 
Beauteous  thou  art,  therefore  to  be  assailed ; " 

and,  finally,  a  closely  related  distich  occurs  in  Richard  the  Third 
famous  soliloquy : 

^  Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  woo'd  ? 
Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  won  ?  " 

It  is  tnie  that  the  phrase  ''She  is  a  woman,  therefore  may  l 
wen,"  occurs  several  times  in  Greene's  romances,  of  earlier  da 
than  Titus  Androntcus^  and  this  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  « 
catchword  of  the  period. 

Although,  on  the  whole,  one  may  certainly  say  that  this  rougl 
hewn  drama,  with  its  piling-up  of  extemal  efiects,  has  very  litt 
in  common  with  the  tone  qi€  spirit  of  Shakespeare's  matui 
tragedies,  yet  we  find  scattered  through  it  lines  in  which  th 
most  diverse  critics  have  professed  to  recognise  Shakespeare 
revising  touch,  and  to  catch  the  ring  of  his  voice. 

Few  will  question  that  such  a  line  as  this,  in  the  first  scene  < 
the  play — 

"  Romans — friends,  followers,  favourers  of  my  right ! " 

comes  from  the  pen  which  ailerwards  wrote  Julius  Cäsar.  I  ma 
mention,  for  my  own  part,  that  lines  which,  as  I  read  the  pla 
through  before  acquainting  myself  in  detail  with  English  criticiso 
bad  Struck  me  as  patently  Shakespearian,  proved  to  be  predsel 
the  lines  which  the  best  English  critics  attribute  to  Shakespear 
To  one's  own  mind  such  coincidences  of  feeling  naturally  carr 
conviction.     I  may  cite  as  an  example  Tamora's  speech  (iv.  4)  :- 


^  "GftUopi*tbe  todiftc**  (ii.  i,  line  7)  occurs  twice  in  Peele.     Tbe  phrase  '* 
tbousäüJ  dcMtha  "  (same  icene,  liac  79)  «ppemn  Vn  VL«x\ofie'%  Tam^WatMe, 


"TITUS  ANDRONICUS*  33 

^  ^  King,  be  thy  thoughts  imperious,  like  thy  name. 

I  Is  the  sun  dimm'd,  that  gnats  do  fly  in  it? 

I  The  eagle  sufifers  little  birds  to  sing, 

And  is  not  careful  what  they  mean  thereby; 
i  Knowing  that  with  the  shadow  of  his  wings 

I  He  can  at  pleasure  stint  their  melody. 

Even  so  may'st  thou  the  giddy  men  of  Rome.** 


I 


i 

/ 


Unmistakably  Shakespearian,  too,  are  Titus's  moving  lament 
(iü.  i)  when  he  leams  of  Lavinia's  mutilation^  and  his  half-dis- 
traught  outbursts  in  the  foUowing  scene  foreshadow  even  in 
detail  a  Situation  belonging  to  the  poet's  culminating  period, 
the  scene  between  Lear  and  Cordelia  when  they  are  both 
prisoners.    Titus  says  to  his  hapless  daughter: 

*•  Lavinia,  go  with  me : 
m  to  thy  closet ;  and  go  read  with  thee 
Sad  stories  chanced  in  the  times  of  old." 

In  just  the  same  spirit  Lear  ezdaims : 

"  Come,  let's  away  to  prison  .  .  . 

so  we^  ÜTe, 
And  pray,  and  sing,  and  teil  old  tales.** 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  for  any  Opponent  of  blind  or  exagger- 
ated  Shakespeare-worship  to  demonstrate  to  us  the  impossibility 
of  bringing  Titus  Andronicus  into  harmony  with  any  other  than 
a  barbarous  conception  of  tragic  poetry.  But  although  the  play 
is  simply  omitted  without  apology  from  the  Danish  translation  ot. 
Shakespeare's  works,  it  must  by  no  means  be  overlooked  by  tbe 
Student,  whose  chief  interest  lies  in  observing  the  genesis  and 
development  of  the  poet's  genius.  The  lower  its  point  of  de- 
parture,  the  more  marvellous  its  soaring  ilight. 


IX 


SHAKBSPBARB'S  CONCBPTION  OP  THB  RBLATIONS  OP  THB 
SBXBS^HIS  MARRIAGB  VI  BW  BD  IN  THIS  LIGHT -^ 
LOVB'S  LABOÜR'S  LOST-^ITS  MATTBR  AND  STYLB-^ 
JOHN  LYLY  AND  BUPHUISM—THB  PBRSONAL  BLB- 
MBNT 

DURING  these  early  years  in  London,  Shakespeare  must  have 
been  conscious  of  spiritual  growth  with  every  day  that  passed. 
With  bis  inordinate  appetite  for  learning,  he  must  every  day  have 
gathered  new  impressions  in  his  many-sided  activity  as  a  hard- 
working  actor,  a  furbisher-up  of  old  plays  in  accordance  with  the 
taste  of  the  day  for  scenic  effects,  and  finally  as  a  budding  poet, 
in  whose  heart  every  mood  thrilled  into  melody,  and  every  con- 
ception  clothed  itself  in  dramatic  form.  He  must  have  feit  his 
spirit  light  and  free,  not  least,  perhaps,  because  he  had  escaped 
from  his  home  in  Stratford.^ 

Ordinary  knowledge  of  the  World  is  suf&cient  to  suggest  that 
his  association  with  a  village  girl  eight  years  older  than  himself 
could  not  satisfy  him  or  £11  his  life.    The  study  of  his  works 
confirms  this  conjeeture.     It  would,  of  course,  be  unreasonable 
to  attribute  conscious  and  deliberate  autobiographical  import  t 
Speeches  torn  from  their  context  in  different  plays;  but  the 
are  none  the  less  several  passages  in  his  dramas  wluch  may  faii 
be  taken  as  indicating  that  he  regarded  his  marriage  in  the  lig 
of  a  youthful  foUy.    Take,  for  ezample,  this  passage  in  TtveO 
Night  (ii.  4) : — 

"  Duke.  What  kind  of  woman  is't  ? 

Vio,  Of  your  complexion. 

Duke.  She  is  not  worth  thee  then.     What  years,  i'  faith  ? 

Vio.  About  your  years,  my  lord. 

Duke.  Too  old,  by  Heaven.     Let  still  the  woman  take 
An  eider  than  herseif;  so  wears  she  to  him, 
'  So  sways  she  level  in  her  husband's  heart : 
For,  boy,  however  we  do  praise  ourselves, 
Our  fancies  are  more  giddy  and  unfirm, 
More  longing,  wavering,  sooner  lost  and  wom, 
Than  women's  are. 

Vio,  I  think  it  well,  my  lord. 

'  See  Appendix  I.  p.  694. 


SHAKESPEARES  CONCEPTION  OF  LOVE         35 

Duke.  Then,  let  thy  love  be  younger  than  thyself, 
Or  thy  afiection  cannot  hold  the  bent ; 
For  women  are  as  roses,  whose  fair  flower, 
Being  once  display'd,  doth  fall  that  very  hour." 

And  this  is  in  the  introduction  to  the  Fool's  exquisite  song 
about  the  power  of  love,  that  song  which  "  The  spinsters  and  the 
knitters  in  the  sun  And  the  free  maids,  that  weave  their  thread 
with  bones,  Do  use  to  chant " — Shakespeare's  loveliest  lyric. 

There  are  passages  in  other  plays  which  seem  to  show  traces 
of  personal  regret  at  the  memory  of  this  early  marriage  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  came  about.  In  the  Tempest^  for 
instance,  we  have  Prospero's  warning  to  Ferdinand  (iv.  i) : — 

"  If  thou  dost  break  her  virgin-knot  before 
All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may, 
With  füll  and  holy  rite,  be  minister'd, 
No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall 
To  make  this  contract  grow,  but  harren  hate, 
Sour-ey'd  disdain,  and  discord,  shall  bestrew 
The  Union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly» 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both." 

Two  of  the  comedies  of  Shakespeare's  first  period  are,  as  we 
might  expect,  imitations,  and  even  in  part  adaptations,  of  older 
plays.  By  comparing  them,  where  it  is  possible,  with  these 
earlier  works,  we  can  discover,  among  other  things,  the  thoughts 
to  which  Shakespeare,  in  these  first  years  in  London,  was  most 
intent  on  giving  utterance.  It  thus  appears  that  he  held  strong 
views  as  to  the  necessary  Subordination  of  the  female  to  the 
male,  and  as  to  the  trouble  caused  by  headstrong,  foolish,  or 
jealous  women. 

His  Cotnedy  of  Errors  is  modelied  upon  the  MenachnU  of 
Flautus,  or  rather  on  an  English  play  of  the  same  title  dating 
from  1580,  which  was  not  itself  taken  direct  from  Plautus,  but 
from  Italian  adaptations  of  the  old  Latin  farce.  Following  the 
ezample  of  Plautus  in  the  Amphitruo^  Shakespeare  has  supple- 
mented  the  confusion  between  the  two  Antipholuses  by  a  parallel 
and  wildly  improbable  confusion  between  their  serving-men,  who 
both  go  by  the  same  name  and  are  likewise  twins.  But  it  is  in 
the  contrast  between  the  two  female  figures,  the  married  sister 
Adriana  and  the  immarried  Luciana,  that  we  catch  the  personal 
note  in  the  play.  On  account  of  the  confusion  of  persona,  Adriana 
rages  against  her  husband,  and  is  at  last  on  the  point  of  plunging 
him  into  lifelong  misery.  To  her  complaint  that  he  has  not  come 
home  at  the  appointed  time,  Luciana  answers : — 

''  A  man  is  master  of  his  liberty : 
Time  is  their  master;  and«  when  they  see  tkcub« 
TbcTfl]  got  or  come :  if  la  be  paüenL  m\«c« 


36  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Adriana,  Why  should  their  liberty  than  ours  be  more  ? 

Luäana,  Because  their  business  still  lies  out  o'  door. 

Adr,  Look,  when  I  serve  him  so,  he  takes  it  ilL 

Luc.  O  !  know  he  is  the  bridle  of  your  will. 

Adr.  There's  none  but  asses  will  be  bridled  so. 

Luc,  Why,  headstrong  liberty  is  lash'd  with  woe. 
There's  nothing  situate  under  heaven's  eye 
But  hath  his  bound,  in  earth,  in  sea,  in  sky : 
The  beasts,  the  fishes,  asd  the  winged  fowla, 
Are  their  males'  subjects,  and  at  their  controls. 
Men,  more  divine,  the  masters  of  all  these, 
Lords  of  the  wide  world,  and  wild  wat'ry  seas« 

Are  masters  to  their  females,  and  their  lords : 
Then,  let  your  will  attend  on  their  accords." 

In  the  last  act  of  the  comedy,  Adriana,  speakiug  to  the  Abbesa 
accuses  her  husband  of  running  after  other  women : — 

*'  Abbess.  You  should  for  that  have  reprehended  him. 

Adriana.  Why,  so  I  did. 

Abb.  Ay,  but  not  rough  enough. 

Adr.  As  roughly  as  my  modesty  would  let  me. 

Abb.  Haply,  in  private. 

Adr.  And  in  assemblies  too. 

Abb.  Ay,  but  not  enough. 

Adr.  It  was  the  copy  of  our  Conference. 
In  bed,  he  slept  not  for  my  urging  it : 
At  board,  he  fed  not  for  my  urging  it ; 
Alone,  it  was  the  subject  of  my  theme ; 
In  Company,  I  often  glanced  it : 
Still  did  I  teil  him  it  was  vile  and  bad. 

Abb.  And  therefore  came  it  that  the  man  was  mad : 
The  venom  clamours  of  a  jealous  woman 
Poison  more  deadly  than  a  mad  dog*s  tooth. 
It  seems,  his  sleeps  were  hindernd  by  thy  railing, 
And  thereof  comes  it  that  his  head  is  light. 
Thou  say'st,  his  meat  was  sauc'd  with  thy  upbraidings : 
Unquiet  meals  make  ill  digestions ; 
Thereof  the  raging  fire  of  fever  bred : 
And  what's  a  fever  but  a  fit  of  madness?* 

At  least  as  striking  is  the  culminating  point  of  Shakespc 
adaptation  of  the  old  play  called  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew. 
took  very  lightly  this   piece  of  task-work,  executed,  it   • 
seem,  to  the  order  of  his  fellow-players.     In  point  of  dict? 
metre  it  is  much  less  highly  finished  than  others  of  his  y 
comedies ;  but  if  we  compare  the  Shakespearian  play  (ir 
title  the  Shrew  receives  the  definite  instead  of  the  in 
Mrticle)  point  by  point  with  the  original,  we  obtain  an  in\ 


SHAKESPEARETS  CONCEPTION  OF  LOVE         37 

glimpse  into  Shakespeare's  comic,  as  formerly  into  bis  tragic» 
Workshop.     Few  ezamples  are  so  iDstnictive  as  this. 

Many  readers  have  no  doubt  wondered  what  was  Shake- 
speare's  design  in  presenting  tbis  piece,  of  all  others,  in  the 
framework  which  we  Danes  know  in  Holberg's  '^Jeppepcui  Bjerget. 
The  answer  is,  that  he  had  no  particular  design  in  the  matter. 
He  took  the  framework  ready-made  from  the  earlier  play,  which, 
how  ever,  he  througbout  remodelled  and  improved,  not  to  say  re- 
crea  ted.  It  is  not  only  far  rüder  and  coarser  than  Shakespeare's, 
but  does  not  redeem  its  crude  puerility  by  any  raciness  or  power. 

Nowhere  does  the  difference  appcar  more  decisively  than  in 
the  great  speech  in  which  Katharine,  cured  of  her  own  shrewish- 
ness,  closes  the  play  by  bringing  the  other  rebellious  women  to 
reason.  In  the  old  play  she  begins  with  a  whole  cosmogony: 
"The  first  world  was  a  form  without  a  form,"  until  God,  the 
King  of  kings,  "  in  six  days  did  frame  bis  heavenly  work  " : — 

*'  Then  to  bis  Image  he  did  make  a  man, 
Olde  Adam,  and  from  bis  side  asleepe 
A  rib  was  taken,  of  which  the  Lord  did  make 
The  woe  of  man,  so  termd  by  Adam  then, 
Woman  for  that  by  her  came  sinne  to  vs. 
And  for  her  sin  was  Adam  doomd  to  die. 
As  Sara  to  her  husband,  so  should  we 
Obey  them,  loue  them,  keepe  and  nourish  them 
If  they  by  any  meanes  doo  want  our  helpes, 
Laying  our  handes  vnder  theire  feete  to  tread, 
If  that  by  that  we  might  procure  there  ease." 

And  she  herseif  sets  the  example  by  placing  her  band  under  her 
husband's  foot. 

Shakespeare  omits  all  this  theology  and  skips  the  Scriptural 
authorities,  but  only  to  arrive  at  the  self-same  result : — 

"  Fie,  fie !  unknit  that  threatening  unkind  brow, 
And  dart  not  scomful  glances  from  those  eyes, 

To  wound  thy  lord,  thy  king,  thy  govemor. 

*■•••. 

A  woman  mov'd  is  like  a  fountain  troubled, 
Muddy,  ill-seeming,  thick,  bereft  of  beauty ; 
And,  while  it  is  so,  none  so  dry  or  thirsty 
Will  deign  to  sip,  or  touch  one  drop  of  it 
Thy  husband  is  thy  lord,  thy  life,  thy  keeper, 
Thy  head,  thy  sovereign ;  one  that  cares  for  thee^ 
And  for  thy  maintenance ;  commits  bis  body 
To  painful  labour,  both  by  sea  and  land, 
To  watch  the  night  in  storms,  the  day  in  cold, 
Whilst  thou  liest  warm  at  home,  secure  and  safe ; 


*  Ludm  Holberg  (1684-1754),  the  great  oomedy-wnlei  o^I>«vtiv»xV^%sAWQKA» 
of  tbe  VtauMh  stugc—iTRANs.) 


3«  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

And  craves  no  other  tribute  at  thy  handa^ 
But  love,  fair  looks,  and  true  obedience^ 
Too  little  pa3rment  for  so  great  a  debt 
Such  duty  as  the  subject  owes  the  prince, 
Even  such  a  woman  oweth  to  her  husband ; 
And  when  she's  froward,  peevish,  suUen,  sour, 
And  not  obedient  to  his  honest  will, 
What  is  she  but  a  foul  contending  rebel, 
And  graceless  traitor  to  her  loving  lord  ?  " 

In  these  adapted  plays,  then,  partly  from  the  nature  of  their 
subjects  and  partly  because  his  thoughts  ran  in  that  direction,  we 
find  Shakespeare  chiefly  occupied  with  the  relation  between  man 
and  woman,  and  speciaUy  between  husband  and  wife.  They  are 
not,  however,  his  first  works.  At  the  age  of  five-and-twenty  or 
thereabouts  Shakespeare  began  his  independent  dramatic  pro- 
duction,  and,  following  the  natural  bent  of  youth  and  youthfui 
vivacity,  he  began  it  with  a  light  and  joyous  comedy. 

We  have  several  reasons,  partly  metrical  (the  frequency  of 
rhymes),  partly  technical  (the  dramatic  weakness  of  the  play),  for 
supposing  Lovis  Labaut^s  Lost  to  be  his  earliest  comedy.  Many 
allusions  point  to  1589  as  the  date  of  this  play  in  its  original  form. 
For  instance,  the  dancing  horse  mentioned  in  i.  2  was  first  exhi- 
bited  in  1589;  the  names  of  the  characters,  Biron,  Longaville, 
Dumain  (Duc  du  Maine),  suggest  those  of  men  who  were  promi- 
nent in  French  politics  between  1581  and  1590;  and,  finally, 
when  we  remember  that  the  King  of  Navarre,  as  the  Princess's 
betrothed,  becomes  heir  to  the  throne  of  France,  we  cannot  but 
conjecture  a  reference  to  Henry  of  Navarre,  who  mounted  that 
throne  precisely  in  1589.  The  play  has  not,  however,  reached 
US  in  its  earliest  form;  for  the  title-page  of  the  quarto  edition 
shows  that  it  was  revised  and  enlarged  on  the  occasion  of  its 
Performance  before  Elizabeth  at  Christmas  1597.  There  are  not 
a  few  places  in  which  we  can  trace  the  revision,  the  original  fom 
having  been  inadvertently  retained  along  with  the  revised  text 
This  is  apparent  in  Biron's  long  speech  in  the  fourth  act,  sc.  3: — 

"  For  when  would  you,  my  lord,  or  you,  or  you, 
Have  found  the  ground  of  study's  excellence, 
Without  the  beauty  of  a  woman's  face  ? 
From  women's  eyes  this  doctrine  I  derive  : 
They  are  the  ground,  the  books,  the  academes, 
From  whence  doth  spring  the  tnic  Promethean  fire." 

This  belongs  to  the  older  text,     Farther  on  in  the  sp^ 
where  we  find  the  same  ideas  repeated  in  another  and  l 
form,  we  have  evidently  the  revised  Version  before  us : — 

"  For  when  would  you,  my  li^e,  or  you,  or  you. 
In  IcMden  contemplation  have  found  out 


"LOVFS  LABOUR'S  LOST"  39 

Such  fiery  numbers,  as  the  prompting  eyes 
Of  beaut/s  tutors  have  enrich'd  you  with  ? 

From  women's  eyes  this  doctrine  I  derive : 
They  sparkle  stiU  the  right  Promethean  fire, 
They  are  the  books,  the  arts,  the  academes, 
That  show,  contain,  and  nourish  all  the  world ; 
Else  none  at  all  in  aught  proves  excellent" 

The  last  two  acts,  which  far  surpass  the  earlier  ones,  have 
evidently  been  revised  with  special  care,  and  some  details,  espe- 
dally  in  the  parts  assigned  to  the  Princess  and  Biron,  now  and 
then  reveal  Shakespeare's  maturer  style  and  tone  of  feeling. 

No  original  source  has  been  found  for  this  first  attempt  of  the 
young  Stratfordian  in  the  direction  of  comedy.  For  the  first,  and 
perhaps  for  the  last  time,  he  seems  to  have  sought  for  no  extemal 
Stimulus,  but  set  himself  to  evolve  everything  from  within.  The 
result  is  that,  dramatically,  the  play  is  the  slightest  he  ever  wrote. 
It  has  scarcely  ever  been  performed  even  in  England,  and  may, 
indeedy  be  described  as  unactable. 

It  is  a  play  of  two  motives.  The  first,  of  course,  is  love — 
what  eise  should  be  the  theme  of  a  youthful  poet's  first  comedy  ? 
— but  love  without  a  trace  of  passion,  almost  without  deep  per- 
sonal feeling,  a  love  which  is  half  make-believe,  tricked  out  in 
word-plays.  For  the  second  theme  of  the  comedy  is  languagc 
itself,  poetic  ezpression  for  its  own  sake — a  subject  round  which 
all  the  meditations  of  the  young  poet  must  necessarily  have 
centred,  as,  in  the  midst  of  a  cross-fire  of  new  impressions,  he 
set  about  the  formation  of  a  vocabulary  and  a  style. 

The  moment  the  reader  opens  this  first  play  of  Shakespeare's, 
he  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  in  several  of  his  characters  the 
poet  is  ridiculing  absurdities  and  artificialities  in  the  manner  of 
speech  of  the  day,  and,  moreover,  that  his  personages,  as  a  whole, 
display  a  certain  half-sportive  luxuriance  in  their  rhetoric  as 
well  as  in  their  wit  and  banter.  They  seem  to  be  speaking,  not 
in  Order  to  inform,  persuade,  or  convince,  but  simply  to  relieve 
the  pressure  of  their  Imagination,  to  play  with  words,  to  worry 
at  them,  split  them  up  and  recombine  them,  arrange  them  in 
alliterative  sequences,  or  group  them  in  almost  identical  antithetic 
dauses;  at  the  same  time  making  sport  no  less  fantastical  with 
the  ideas  the  words  represent,  and  illustrating  them  by  new  and 
iar-fetched  comparisons ;  until  the  dialogue  appears  not  so  much  a 
part  of  the  action  or  an  introduction  to  it,  as  a  tournament  of 
words,  clashing  and  swaying  to  and  fro,  while  the  rhythmic  music 
of  the  verse  and  prose  in  tums  expresses  exhilaration,  tendemess, 
afTectation,  the  joy  of  life,  gaiety  or  scom.  Although  there  is  a 
certain  superficiality  about  it  all,  we  can  recognise  in  it  that 
exuberance  of  all  the  vital  spirits  which  characlen^eiä  \)[v^^txi'a^ 
tanoe.    To  the  appeal— 


40  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

**  White-handed  mistress,  one  sweet  woxd  with  thee^** 

oomes  the  answer — 

**  Hooey»  and  milk,  and  sugar :  there  are  three." 

And  well  may  Boyet  say  (v.  2) : — 

^  The  tongues  of  mocking  wenches  are  as  keen 
As  is  the  razor's  edge  invisible, 
Cutting  a  smaller  hair  than  may  be  seen ; 
Above  the  sense  of  sense,  so  sensible 
Seemeth  their  Conference ;  their  conceits  have  wings 
Fleeter  than  arrows,  buUets,  wind,  thought,  swifter  things.** 

Boyet's  words,  however,  refer  merely  to  the  youthful  gaiety 
and  quickness  of  wit  which  may  be  found  in  all  pcriods.  We 
have  here  something  more  than  that :  the  diction  ol  the  leading 
characters,  and  the  various  extravagances  of  ezpression  culti- 
vated  by  the  subordinate  personages,  bring  us  face  to  face  with 
a  linguistic  phenomenon  which  can  be  understood  only  in  the 
light  of  history. 

The  Word  Euphuism  is  employed  as  a  common  designation  for 
these  eccentricities  of  style — a  word  which  owes  its  origin  to  John 
Lyiys  romance,  Euphues,  the  Anatomy  of  Wit^  publisbed  in  1578. 
Lyly  was  also  the  author  of  nine  plays,  all  written  before  1589, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  ezercised  a  very  important  influence 
upon  Shakespeare's  dramatic  style. 

Hut  it  is  a  very  narrow  view  of  the  matt^  which  finds  in  him 
the  sole  originator  of  the  wave  of  mannerism  which  swept  over 
the  English  poetry  of  the  Renaissance. 

The  movement  was  general  throughout  Europe.    It  took  its 
rise  in  the  new-bom  enthusiasm  for  the  antique  literatures,  in 
comparison  with  whose  dignity  of  utterance  the  vemacular  seemed 
low  and  vulgär.     In  order^to  approximate  to  the  Latin  modeis, 
men  devised  an  exaggerated  and  dilated  phraseology,  heavy  with 
images,  and  even  sought  to  attain  amplitude  of  style  by  placin^ 
side  by  aide  the  vemacular  word  and  the  more  exquisite  foreig 
expression  for  the  same  object.    Thus  arose  the  alto  estilo^  the  estii 
culto.     In  Italy,  the  disciples  of  Petrarch^  with  their  concetti^  we' 
dominant  in  poetry;  in  Shakespeare's  own  time,  Marini  came  to  ^ 
front  with  his  antitheses  and  word-plays.    In  France,  Ronsard 
his  school  obeyed  the  general  tendency.     In  Spain,  the  new  s 
was  represented  by  Guevara,  who  directly  influenced  Lyly. 

John  Lyly  was  about  ten  years  older  than  Shakespeare, 
was  bom  in  Kent  in  1553  or  1554,  of  humble  parentage.  N 
theless  he  obtained  a  füll  share  of  the  literary  culture  of  his 
studied  at  Oxford,  probably  by  the  assistance  of  Lord  Bui 
took  his  Master's  degree  in  1575,  afterwards  went  to  Cam^ 
mnd  erentuaUy,  no  doubt  on  account  of  the  success  of  his  E 


EUPHUISM  41 

found  a  position  at  the  court  of  Elizabeth.  For  a  period  of  ten 
years  he  was  Q)urt  Poet,  what  in  our  days  would  be  called  Poet 
Laureate.  But  bis  position  was  without  emolument  He  was 
always  hoping  in  vain  for  the  post  of  Master  of  the  Revels, 
and  two  touching  letters  to  Elizabeth,  the  one  dated  1590,  the 
other  1593,  in  which  he  petitions  for  this  appointment,  show 
that  after  ten  years'  labour  at  court  he  feit  himself  a  ship- 
wrecked  man,  and  after  thirteen  years  gave  himself  up  to  despair. 
All  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  the  office  he  coveted  were 
heaped  upon  him,  but  he  was  denied  the  appointment  itself.  Like 
Greene  and  Marlowe,  he  lived  a  miserable  life,  and  died  in  1606, 
poor  and  indebted,  leaving  bis  family  in  destitution. 

His  book,  EuphueSy  is  written  for  the  court  of  Elizabeth. 
The  Queen  herseif  studied  and  translated  the  ancient  authors, 
and  it  was  the  fashion  of  her  court  to  deal  incessantly  in  mytho- 
logical  comparisons  and  allusions  to  antiquity.  Lyly  shows  this 
tendency  in  all  his  writings.  He  quotes  Cicero,  imitates  Plautus, 
dtes  numberless  verses  from  Virgil  and  Ovid,  reproduces  almost 
Word  for  word  in  bis  Euphues  Plutarch's  Treatise  on  Education^ 
and  borrows  from  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  the  themes  of  several 
of  his  plays.  In  A  Midsumnur  Night s  Dream^  when  Bottom 
appears  with  an  ass's  head  and  exclaims,  "  I  have  a  reasonable 
good  ear  for  music ;  let's  have  the  tongs  and  the  bones,"  we  may 
doubtless  trace  the  incident  back  to  the  metamorphosis  of  Midas 
in  Ovid,  but  through  the  medium  of  Lyly*s  Mydas. 

It  was  not  merely  the  relation  of  the  age  to  antiquity  that 
produced  the  fashionable  style.  The  new  intercourse  between 
country  and  country  had  quite  as  much  to  do  with  it.  Before  the 
invention  of  printing,  each  country  had  been  spiritually  isolated ; 
but  the  international  ezchange  of  ideas  had  by  this  time  become 
very  much  easier.  Every  European  nation  begins  in  the  sixteenth 
Century  to  provide  itself  with  a  library  of  translations.  Foreign 
manners  and  fashions,  in  language  as  well  as  in  costume,  came 
into  vogue,  and  helped  to  produce  a  heterogeneous  and  motley  style. 

In  England,  moreover,  we  have  to  note  the  very  important 
fact  that,  precisely  at  the  time  when  the  Renaissance  began  to 
bear  literary  fruit,  the  throne  was  occupied  by  a  woman,  and  one 
who,  without  possessing  any  delicate  literary  sense  or  refined 
artistic  taste,  was  interested  in  the  intellectual  movement  Vain, 
and  inclined  to  secret  gallantries,  she  demanded,  and  received, 
incessant  homage,  for  the  most  part  in  extravagant  mythological 
terms,  from  the  ablest  of  her  subjects — from  Sidney,  from  Spenser, 
from  Raleigh — and  was  determined,  in  short,  that  the  whole  litera- 
ture  of  the  time  should  tum  towards  her  as  its  central  point. 
Shakespeare  was  the  only  great  poet  of  the  period  who  absolutely 
declined  to  comply  with  this  demand. 

It  foUowed  from  the  relation  in  whidi  ^ltt^X>XE^  ^X<c^A  \5^ 
EKzabetb  ifaat  it  addressed  itself  as  a  wVio\e  to  yromtx^  «xl^  «ss^^ 


42  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARL 

cially  to  ladies  of  positioiL  Euphues  is  a  ladies'  book.  The  new 
style  may  be  describedi  not  inaptly,  as  the  development  of  a  more 
refined  method  of  address  to  the  fair  sex. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  a  masque,  had  done  homage  to  Elizabeth, 
then  forty-five  years  old,  as  "the  Lady  of  the  May."  A  letter 
which  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  after  his  disgrace,  addressed  from  bis 
prison  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil  on  the  subject  of  Elizabeth,  affords  a 
particularly  striking  ezample  oi  the  Euphuistic  style,  admirably 
fitted  as  it  certainly  was  to  express  the  passion  affected  by  a 
soldier  of  forty  for  the  maiden  of  sizty  who  held  his  fate  in  her 
hands : — 

"  While  she  was  yet  nigher  at  band,  that  I  might  hear  of  her  once  in 
two  or  three  days,  my  sorrows  were  the  less ;  but  even  now  my  haart  is 
cast  into  the  depth  of  all  misery.  I  that  was  wont  to  behold  her  riding 
like  Alexander,  hunting  like  Diana,  Walking  like  Venus,  the  gentle  wind 
blowing  her  fair  hair  about  her  pure  cheeks  like  a  nymph ;  sometime 
sitting  in  the  shade  like  a  goddess ;  sometime  singing  like  an  angel ; 
sometime  playing  like  Orpheus.  Behold  the  sorrow  of  this  world! 
Once  amiss,  hath  bereaved  me  of  alL"  ^ 

The  German  scholar  Landmann,  who  has  devoted  special 
study  to  Euphuism,*  has  justly  pointed  out  that  the  greatest 
extravagances  of  style,  and  the  worst  sins  against  taste,  of  that 
period  are  always  to  be  found  in  books  written  for  ladies,  cele- 
brating  the  charms  of  the  fair  sex,  and  seeking  to  please  by  means 
of  highly  elaborated  wit. 

This  may  have  been  the  point  of  departure  of  the  new  style ; 
but  it  soon  ceased  to  address  itself  specially  to  feminine  readers, 
and  became  a  means  of  gratifying  the  propensity  of  the  men  of 
the  Renaissance  to  mirror  their  whole  nature  in  their  speech, 
making  it  peculiar  to  the  point  of  afiectation,  and  affected  to  the 
point  of  the  most  daring  mannerism.  Euphuism  ministered  to 
their  passion  for  throwing  all  they  said  into  high  and  highly 
coloured  relief,  for  polishing  it  tili  it  shone  and  sparkled  like  reaJ 
or  paste  diamonds  in  the  sunshine,  for  making  it  ring,  and  sing 
and  chime,  and  rhyme,  without  caring  whether  reason  took  anj 
share  in  the  sport. 

As  a  slight  but  characteristic  Illustration  of  this  tendenc^ 
note  the  reply  of  the  page,  Moth,  to  Armado  (iii.  i) : — 

"  Moth.  Master,  will  you  win  your  love  with  a  French  brawl  ? 

^^  Arm,  How  meanest  thou?  brawling  in  French? 

"  Moth,  No,  my  complete  master;  but  to  jig  off  a  tune  at  the  tonr 
end,  canary  to  it  with  your  feet,  humour  it  with  tuming  up  your  ey 
«gh  a  note,  and  sing  a  note ;  sometime  through  the  throat,  as  ii 

^  Ralof^t  by  Edmund  Gooe  (English  Worthies  Series),  p.  57 
*  Ngw  Shaksp^  Sodii/M  Thamaetüm,  i8So-86^  Pt  ii  p.  241. 


EUPHUISM  43 

swallowed  love  with  singing  love;  sometime  through  the  nose,  as  if 
you  snuffed  up  love  by  smelling  love;  with  your  hat,  penthouse-like. 
o'er  the  shop  of  your  eyes ;  with  your  arms  crossed  on  your  thin  belly- 
doublet,  like  a  rabbit  on  a  spit;  or  your  hands  in  your  pocket,  like  a 
man  after  the  old  painting ;  and  keep  not  too  long  in  one  tune,  but 
a  snip  and  away.  These  are  complements,  these  are  humours,  these 
betray  nice  wenches,  that  would  be  betrayed  without  these,  and  make 
them  men  of  note  (do  you  note  me  ?),  that  most  are  affected  to  these." 

Landmann  has  conclusively  proved  that  John  Lyly's  Euphues 
is  only  an  imitation,  and  at  many  points  a  very  close  Imitation,  of 
the  Spaniard  Guevara's  book,  an  imaginary  biography  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  which,  in  the  fifty  years  since  its  publication,  had  been 
six  times  translated  into  English.  It  was  so  populär  that  one  of 
these  translations  passed  through  no  fewer  than  twelve  editions. 
Both  in  style  and  matter  Euphues  foUows  Guevara's  book,  which, 
in  Sir  Thomas  North's  adaptation,  bears  the  title  of  The  Dial  of 
Princes. 

The  Chief  characteristics  of  Euphuism  were  parallel  and  asso- 
nant  antitheses,  long  strings  of  comparisons  with  real  or  imaginary 
natural  phenomena  (borrowed  for  the  most  part  from  Pliny's 
Natural  History\  a  partiality  for  Images  from  antique  history 
and  mythology,  and  a  love  of  alliteration. 

Not  tiU  a  later  date  did  Shakespeare  ridicule  Euphuism  pro- 
pcrly  so  called — to  wit,  in  that  well-known  passage  in  Henry  IV,^ 
Part  I.,  where  Falstaif  plays  the  king.  In  his  Speech  beginning 
"Pcace,  good  pint-pot!  peace,  good  tickle-brain !"  Shakespeare 
deliberately  parodies  Lyiys  similes  from  natural  history.  FsdstaflF 
says: — 

**  Harry,  I  do  not  only  marvel  where  thou  spendest  thy  time,  but 
also  how  thou  art  accompanied :  for  though  the  camomile,  the  more 
it  is  trodden  on,  the  faster  it  grows,  yet  youth,  the  more  it  is  wasted, 
the  sooner  it  wears." 

Compare  with  this  the  following  passage  from  Lyly  (cited  by 
Landmann) : — 

"Too  much  Studie  doth  intoxicate  their  braines,  for  (say  they) 
although  yron,  the  more  it  is  used,  the  brighter  it  is,  yet  silver  with 
much  wearing  doth  wast  to  nothing  .  .  .  tibough  the  Camomill,  the 
more  it  is  troden  and  pressed  downe,  the  more  it  spreadeth,  yet  the 
Violet,  the  oftner  it  is  handeled  and  touched,  the  sooner  it  withereth 
and  decayeth." 

Falsta£f  continues  in  the  same  exquisite  strain : — 

**  There  is  a  thing,  Harry,  which  thou  hast  often  heard  of,  and  it  ii 
known  to  many  in  our  land  by  the  name  of  pitch :  this  pitch,  as  ancient 
writers  do  report  doth  defile ;  so  doth  the  Company  thou  keepest" 


44  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

This  citation  of  "  ancient  writers  "  in  proof  of  so  recondite  a 
phenomenon  as  the  stickiness  of  pitch  is  again  pure  Lyly.  Yet 
again,  the  adjuration,  ''Now  I  do  not  speak  to  thee  in  drink,  but 
in  tears ;  not  in  pleasure,  but  in  passion ;  not  in  words  only,  but 
in  woes  also/'  is  an  obvious  travesty  of  the  Euphuistic  style. 

Strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  against  Euphuism  itself  that  Shake- 
speare's  youthful  satire  is  directed  in  Love's  Laboui^s  Lost,  It  is 
certain  collateral  forms  of  artificiality  in  style  and  utterance  that 
are  aimed  at.  In  the  first  place,  bombast,  represented  by  the 
ridiculous  Spaniard,  Armado  (the  Suggestion  of  the  Invincible 
Armada  in  the  name  cannot  be  unintentional) ;  in  the  nezt  place, 
pedantry,  embodied  in  the  schoolmaster  Holofernes,  for  whom 
tradition  states  that  Florio,  the  teacher  of  languages  and  trans- 
lator  of  Montaigne,  served  as  a  model — a  supposition,  however, 
which  seems  scarcely  probable  when  we  remember  Florio's  close 
connection  with  Shakespeare's  patron,  Southampton.  Further, 
we  find  throughout  the  play  the  over-luxuriant  and  far-fetched 
method  of  ezpression,  universally  characteristic  of  the  age,  which 
Shakespeare  himself  had  as  yet  by  no  rneans  succeeded  in  shaking 
off.  Only  towards  the  close  does  he  rise  above  it  and  satirise  it. 
That  is  the  intent  of  Biron's  famous  speech  (v.  2)  ;— 

''  Taffata  phrases,  silken  terms  precise, 
Three-pil'd  hyperboles,  spruce  affectation, 
Figures  pedantical :  these  summer-flies 
Have  blown  me  füll  of  maggot  ostentation. 
I  do  forswear  them ;  and  I  here  protest, 
By  this  white  glove,  (how  white  the  band,  God  knows) 
Henceforth  my  wooing  mind  shall  be  express'd 
In  russet  yeas,  and  honest  kersey  noes.'' 

In  the  very  first  scene  of  the  play,  the  King  describes  Armado, 
in  too  indulgent  terms. 


"  A  refined  traveller  of  Spain ; 
A  man  in  all  the  world's  new  fashion  planted, 
That  hath  a  mint  of  phrases  in  bis  brain ; 
One,  whom  the  music  of  bis  own  vain  tongue 
Doth  ravish  like  enchanting  harmony." 

Holofemes  the  pedant,  nearly  a  Century  and  a  half  be 
Holberg^s  Else  Skolemesters,^  ezpresses  himself  very  muc] 
she  does : — 

"  Holofemes,  The  posterior  of  the  day,  most  generous  sir,  is  ' 
congraent,  and  measurable  for  the  aftemoon :  the  word  is  well 
chose;  sweet  and  apt,  I  do  assure  you,  sir;  I  do  assure." 

'  The  tchoolmaiter'i  wifb  in  Lndvig  Holber^s  inimitable  comedy,  Bt 

»(TiANS.) 


"LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST'  45 

Armado's  bombast  may  probably  be  accepted  as  a  not  too 
extravagant  caricature  of  die  bombast  of  the  period.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  schoolmaster  Rombus,  in  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Lady  of 
the  May^  addresses  the  Queen  in  a  strain  no  whit  less  ridiculoua 
than  that  of  Holofernes.  But  what  avails  the  justice  of  a  parody 
if,  in  spite  of  the  art  and  care  lavished  upon  it,  it  remains  as 
tedious  as  the  mannerism  it  ridicules  1  And  this  is  unfortunately 
the  case  in  the  present  instance.  Shakespeare  had  not  yet 
attained  the  maturity  and  detachment  of  mind  which  could  ehable 
him  to  rise  high  above  the  follies  he  attacks,  and  to  sweep  them 
aside  with  füll  authority.  He  buries  himself  in  them,  circum- 
stantially  demonstrates  their  absurdities,  and  is  still  too  in- 
experienced  to  realise  how  he  thereby  inflicts  upon  the  spectator 
and  the  reader  the  füll  bürden  of  their  tediousness.  It  is  very 
characteristic  of  Elizabeth's  taste  that,  even  in  1598,  she  could 
still  take  pleasure  in  the  play.  All  this  fencing  with  words 
appealed  to  her  quick  intelligence ;  while,  with  the  unabashed 
sensuousness  characteristic  of  the  daughter  of  Henry  VIII.  and 
Anne  Boleyn,  she  found  entertainment  in  the  playwright's 
freedom  of  speech,  even,  no  doubt,  in  the  equivocal  badinage 
between  Boyet  and  Maria  (iv.  i). 

As  was  to  be  expected,  Shakespeare  is  here  more  dependent 
on  modeis  than  in  his  later  works.  From  Lyly,  the  most  populär 
comedy-writer  of  the  day,  he  probably  borrowed  the  idea  of  his 
Armado,  who  answers  pretty  closely  to  Sir  Tophas  in  Lyiys 
Endyntüm,  copied,  in  his  turn,  from  Pyrgopolinices,  the  boastful 
soldier  of  the  old  Latin  comedy.  It  is  to  be  noted,  also,  that 
the  braggart  and  pedant,  the  two  comic  figures  of  this  play,  are 
permanent  types  on  the  Italian  stage,  which  in  so  many  ways 
influenced  the  development  of  English  comedy. 

The  personal  element  in  this  first   sportive   production   is, 

however,  not  düBcult  to  recognise :  it  is  the  young  poet's  mirthful 

protest  against  a  life  immured  within  the  hard-and-fast  rules  of 

an  artificial  asceticism,  such  as  the  King  of  Navarre  wishes  to 

impose  upon  his  little  court,  with  its  perpetual  study,  its  vigils, 

its  fasts,  and  its  exclusion  of  womankind.     Against  this  life  of 

unnatural  constraint  the  comedy  pleads  with  the  voice  of  Nature, 

especially  through  the  mouth  of  Biron,  in  whose  speeches,  as 

Dowden  has  rightly  remarked,  we  can   not   infrequently  catch 

the  accent  of  Shakespeare  himself.     In  Biron  and  his  Rosaline 

we  have  the  first  hesitating  sketch  of  the  masterly  Benedick  and 

Beatrice  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,     The  best  of  Biron's 

Speeches,  those  which  are  in  unrhymed  verse,  we  evidently  owc 

to  the  revision  of  1598;   but  they  are  conceived  in  the  spirit  of 

the  original  play,  and  merely  express  Shakespeare's  design  in 

stronger  and  clearer  terms  than  he  was  at  first  able  to  compass. 

Even  at  the  end  of  the  third  act  Biron  is  still  combating  as  well 

as  he  can  the  power  of  love : — 


46  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

*'  What !    I  love !     I  sue !     I  seek  a  wife  1 
A  woman,  that  isl  like  a  Gerznan  clock, 
Still  a  repairingy  ever  out  of  frame, 
And  never  going  aright,  being  a  watch, 
But  being  watch'd  that  it  may  stUl  go  right ! " 

But  bis  great  and  splendid  speech  in  the  fourth  act  is  like 
a  hymn  to  that  Grod  of  Battles  who  is  named  in  the  title  of  the 
play,  and  whose  outpost  skirmishes  form  its  matter  :^- 

^  Other  slow  arts  entirely  keep  the  brain, 
And  therefore,  finding  harren  practisers, 
Scarce  show  a  harvest  of  their  heavy  toil ; 
But  love,  first  leamed  in  a  lady's  eyes, 
lives  not  alone  immured  in  the  brain, 
But,  with  the  motion  of  all  elements, 
Courses  as  swift  as  thought  in  every  power» 
And  gives  to  every  power  a  double  power, 
Above  their  Functions  and  their  offices. 
It  adds  a  precious  seeing  to  the  eye ; 
A  lover's  eyes  will  gaze  an  eagle  blind ; 
A  lover's  ear  will  hear  the  lowest  sound, 
When  the  suspicious  head  of  theft  is  stopp'd: 
Love's  feeling  is  more  soft,  and  sensible, 
Than  are  the  tender  homs  of  cockled  snails. 

•  •••■• 

Never  durst  poet  touch  a  pen  to  write, 
Until  his  ink  were  temper'd  with  Love's  sighs ; 
O !  then  his  lines  would  ravish  savage  ears, 
And  plant  in  tyrants  mild  humility." 

We  must  cake  Biron-Shakespeare  at  his  word,  and  believe 
that  in  these  vivid  and  tender  emotions  he  found,  during  hia 
early  years  in  London,  the  Stimulus  which  taught  him  to  open 
his  Ups  in  song. 


X 

LOVE'S  LABÖÜRS  WON:  THE  FIRST  SKETCH  OP 
ALUS  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL— THE  COMEDY 
OF  ERRORS—THE  TWO  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA 

As  a  coimterpart  to  the  comedy  of  Lov^s  Labaur^s  Lost^  Shake- 
speare soon  after  composed  another,  entitled  Lov^s  Labour's 
Won,  This  we  leam  from  the  celebrated  passage  in  Francis 
Meres'  PaUadis  Tamia^  where  he  enumerates  the  plays  which 
Shakespeare  had  written  up  to  that  date,  1598.  We  know,  how- 
ever,  that  no  play  of  that  name  is  now  included  among  the  poet'a 
works.  Since  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  a  play  of  Shake« 
speare's,  once  acted,  should  have  been  entirely  lost,  the  only 
question  is,  which  of  the  eztant  comedies  originaUy  bore  that  title. 
But  in  reality  there  is  no  question  at  all :  the  play  is  AWs  Well 
that  Ends  Well — ^not,  of  course,  as  we  now  possess  it,  in  a  form 
and  style  belonging  to  a  quite  mature  period  of  the  poet's  life, 
but  as  it  stood  before  the  searching  revision,  of  which  it  shows 
evident  traces. 

We  cannot,  indeed,  restore  the  play  as  it  originally  issued 
from  Shakespeare's  youthful  Imagination.  But  there  are  passages 
in  it  which  evidently  belong  to  the  older  Version,  rhymed  conver- 
sations,  or  at  any  rate  fragments  of  dialogue,  rhymed  letters  in 
sonnet  form,  and  numerous  details  which  entirely  correspond  with 
the  style  of  Love^s  Labaut's  Lost. 

The  piece  is  a  dramatisation  of  Boccaccio's  stoiy  of  Gillette  of 
Narbonne,  Only  the  comic  parts  are  of  Shakespeare's  invention; 
he  has  added  the  characters  of  Parolles,  Lafeu,  the  Clown,  and  the 
Countess.  Even  in  the  original  sketch  he  no  doubt  gave  new 
depth  and  vitality  to  the  leading  characters,  who  are  mere  outlines 
in  the  story.  The  comedy,  as  we  know,  has  for  its  heroine  a 
young  woman  who  loves  the  haughty  Bertram  with  an  unrequited 
and  despised  passion,  eures  the  King  of  France  of  a  dangerous 
sickness,  Claims  as  her  reward  the  right  to  choose  a  husband  from 
among  the  courtiers,  chooses  Bertram,  is  repudiated  by  him,  and, 
after  a  nocturna!  meeting  at  which  she  takes  the  place  of  another 
woman  whom  he  believes  himself  to  have  seduced,  at  last  over- 
comes  his  resistance  and  is  acknowledged  as  bis  wife. 

Shakespeare  has  here  not  only  shown  the  unquestioning  ao- 
oeptance  of  his  original,  which  was  usual  even  in  his  riper  yearsi 


48  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

but  has  transferred  to  bis  play  all  its  peculiarities  and  impro- 
babilities.  Even  the  psychological  crudities  be  bas  swallowed  as 
tbey  stand — ^such,  for  instance,  as  the  fact  of  a  delicate  woman 
forcing  herseif  under  cover  of  night  upon  the  man  wbo  bas 
left  his  home  and  country  for  the  express  purpose  of  escaping 
from  her. 

Shakespeare  has  drawn  in  Helena  a  patient  Griselda,  that 
type  of  loving  and  cruelly  maltreated  womanhood  which  reappears 
in  German  poetry  in  Kleist's  Käthchen  von  Heilbronn — the  woman 
wbo  suffers  everything  in  inexhaustible  tendemess  and  humility, 
and  never  falters  in  her  love  until  in  the  end  she  wins  the  rebel- 
lious  heart 

The  pity  is  that  the  unaccommodating  theme  compelled  Shake« 
speare  to  make  this  pearl  among  women  in  the  end  enforce  her 
rights,  after  the  man  she  adores  bas  not  only  treated  her  with 
contemptuous  brutality,  but  bas,  moreover,  shown  himself  a  liar 
and  bound  in  bis  attempt  to  blacken  the  character  of  the  Italian 
girl  whose  lover  be  believes  himself  to  have  been. 

It  is  very  characteristic  of  the  English  renaissance,  and  of  the 
public  which  Shakespeare  had  in  view  in  his  early  plays,  that  he 
should  make  this  noble  heroine  take  part  with  ParoUes  in  the  long 
and  jocular  conversation  (L  i)  on  the  nature  of  virginity,  which  is 
one  of  the  most  indecorous  passages  in  bis  works.  This  dialogue 
must  certainly  belong  to  the  original  version  of  the  play. 

We  must  remember  that  Helena,  in  that  Version,  was  in  all 
probability  very  different  from  the  high-souled  woman  she  became 
in  the  process  of  revision.  She  no  doubt  expressed  berself  freely, 
according  to  Shakespeare's  youthful  manner,  in  rhyming  reverics 
on  love  and  fate,  such  as  the  foUowing  (i.  i)  : — 

*•  Our  remedies  oft  in  ourselves  do  lie 
Which  we  ascribe  to  Heaven :  the  fated  sky 
Gives  US  free  scope ;  only,  doth  backward  pull 
Our  slow  designs,  when  we  ourselves  are  duU. 
Wbat  power  is  it  which  mounts  my  love  so  high ; 
That  makes  me  see,  and  cannot  feed  mine  eye  P 
The  migbtiest  space  in  fortune  Nature  brings 
To  join  like  likes,  and  kiss  like  native  tbings. 
Impossible  be  stränge  attempts  to  those 
That  weigb  their  pains  in  sense,  and  do  suppose, 
Wbat  hath  been  cannot  be.     Wbo  ever  strove 
To  show  her  merit,  that  did  miss  her  love?" 

Or  eise  be  made  her  pour  forth  multitudinous  swarms  of  Images, 
cacb  treading  on  the  other's  heels,  like  those  in  wbicb  sbc  fore 
casts  Bertrames  love-adventures  at  the  court  of  France  (L  i) : — 


u 


Tbere  sball  your  master  bave  a  thousand  loves, 
A  motber,  and  a  mistress,  and  a  friend, 
A  Phoenix,  captain,  and  an  enemy. 


**LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON"  49 

A  guide,  a  goddess,  and  a  sovereign, 
A  counsellor,  a  traitrese,  and  a  dear ; 
His  humble  ambition,  proud  humility, 
His  jarring  concord,  and  his  discord  dulcet, 
His  faith,  his  sweet  disaster ;  with  a  world 
Of  pretty,  fond,  adoptious  christendoms, 
That  blinking  Cupid  gossips.** 

Lov^s  Labour's  Won  was  probably  conccived  throughout  in 
this  lighter  tone. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  figure  of  Parolles  was  also 
sketched  in  the  earlier  play.  It  forms  an  excellent  counterpart 
to  Armado  in  Lov^s  Labout^s  Lost,  And  in  it  we  have  un- 
doubtedly  the  first  faint  outline  of  the  figure  which,  seven  or  eight 
years  later,  becomes  the  imjnortal  FalstafF.  Parolles  is  a  humor- 
ous  liar,  braggart,  and  "  misleader  of  youth,"  like  Prince  Henry's 
fat  friend.  He  is  put  to  shame,  just  like  Falstafi)  in  an  ambuscade 
devised  by  his  own  comrades ;  and  being,  as  he  thinks,  taken  pri- 
soner,  he  deserts  and  betrays  his  master.  FalstafF  hacks  the  edgc 
of  his  sword  in  order  to  appear  valiant ;  and  Parolles  says  (iv.  l), 
"  I  would  the  cutting  of  my  garments  woüld  serve  the  tum,  or 
the  breaking  of  my  Spanish  sword." 

In  comparison  with  Falstaff  the  character  is,  of  course,  meagre 
and  faint.  But  if  we  compare  it  with  such  a  figure  as  Armado  in 
Love^s  Labour's  Losty  we  find  it  sparkling  with  gaiety.  It  was, 
in  all  probability,  touched  up  and  endowed  with  new  wit  during 
the  revision. 

On  the  other  band,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  quite  youthful 
whimsicality  in  the  speeches  of  the  Clown,  especially  in  the  first 
act,  which  there  is  no  difBculty  in  attributing  to  Shakespeare's 
twenty-fifth  year.  The  song  which  the  Fool  sings  at  this  point 
(i.  3)  seems  to  belong  to  the  earlier  form,  and  with  it  the  speeches 
to  which  it  gives  rise : — 

"  Countess.  What !  one  good  in  ten  ?  you  corrupt  the  song,  sirrah. 

"  Clown,  One  good  woman  in  ten,  madam,  which  is  a  purifying  o' 
the  song.  Would  God  would  serve  the  world  so  all  the  year !  we'd 
find  no  fault  with  the  tithe-woman,  if  I  were  the  parson.  One  in  ten, 
quoth  'a !  an  we  might  have  a  good  woman  bom  but  for  every  blazing 
Star,  or  at  an  earthquake,  *t  would  mend  the  lottery  well." 

In  treating  of  Love^s  Labour's  Won,  we  must  necessarily  fall 
back  upon  more  or  less  plausible  conjecture.  But  we  possess 
other  comedies  dating  from  this  early  period  of  Shakespeare's 
career  in  which  the  improvement  of  his  technique  and  his  steady 
advance  towards  artistic  maturity  can  be  clearly  traced. 

First  and  foremost  we  have  his  Corrudy  of  Errors,  which  must 
belong  to  this  earliest  period,  even  if  it  comes  after  the  two  Love's 
Labour  comedies.  It  is  written  in  a  highly  polished,  poetical  style ; 
Jt  contains  fewcr  lipes  of  prose  than  any  other  of  Shakespeare's 


so  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

comedie^ ;  but  its  diction  is  füll  of  dramatic  movement,  the  ifajrn 
do  not  impede  the  lively  flow  of  the  dialogue,  and  it  has  th 
times  as  many  unrhymed  as  rhymed  verses. 

Yet  it  must  follow  pretty  dose  upon  the  plays  we  have  j 
reviewed.  Certain  phrases  in  the  burlesque  portrait  of  the 
Cook  drawn  by  Dromio  of  Syracuse  (iii.  2)  help  to  put 
on  the  track  of  its  date.  His  remark,  that  Spain  sent  wh 
^'armadoes  of  caracks''  to  ballast  themselves  with  the  rub 
and  carbuncles  on  her  nose,  indicates  a  time  not  far  remote  fb 
the  Armada  troubles.  A  more  exact  indication  may  be  found 
the  answer  which  the  servant  gives  to  his  master's  question 
to  where  France  is  situated  upon  the  globe  suggested  by  1 
cook's  spherical  figure.  "  Where  France  ?  "  ask«  Antipholus ;  a 
Dromio  replies,  "In  her  forehead;  arm'd  and  reverted,  maki 
war  against  her  heir."  Now,  in  1589,  Henf/  of  Navarrc  rea 
ceased  to  be  the  heir  to  the  French  throne,  ilthough  his  stnig] 
for  the  possession  of  it  lasted  until  his  aco^ptance  of  Catholici 
in  1 593.  Thus  we  may  place  the  date  fii  the  play  somewh« 
between  the  years  1589  and  1591. 

This  comedy  on  the  frontier-line  of  farce  shows  with  wl 
giant  strides  Shakespeare  progresses  in  the  technique  of  his  a 
It  has  the  blood  of  the  theatre  in  its  veins ;  we  can  a^  eady  discc 
the  experienced  actor  in  the  dexterity  with  which  che  threads 
the  intrigue  are  involved,  and  woven  into  an  ever  more  intrie 
tangle,  until  the  simple  Solution  is  arrived  at.     While  La 
Labouf^s  Lost  still  dragged  itself  laboriously  over  the  boa? 
here  we  have  an  impetus  and  a  brio  in  all  the  dramatic  pass; 
which  reveal  an  artist  and  foretell  a  master.    Only  the  rough 
lines  of  the  play  are  taken  from  Plautus;  and  the  motive 
possibility  of  incessant  confusion  between  two  masters  and 
servants,  is  manipulated  with  a  skiU  and  certainty  which  asf 
US  in  a  beginner,  and  sometimes  with  quite  irresistible  wl 
cality.     No  doubt  the  merry  play  is  founded  upon  an  ei 
improbability.     So  exact  is  the  mutual  resemblance  of  eai 
of  twins,  no  less  in  dothing  than  in  feature,  that  not  a 
person  for  a  moment  doubts  their  identity.     Astonish' 
semblances  between  twins  do,  hoirever,  occur  in  real  Vü 
when  once  we  have  accepted  the  premises,  the  conse 
devdop  naturally,  or  at  any  rate  plausibly.     We  may  c 
that  in  the  art  of  intrigue-spinning,  which  was  aflerwar 
what  foreign  and  unattractive  to  him,  the  poet  here  shf 
sdf  scarcdy  inferior  to  the  Spaniards  of  his  own  or  ' 
day,  remarkable  as  was  their  dexterity. 

Now  and  then  the  movement  is  suspended  for  the  i 
exchange  of  word-plays  between  master  and  servant 
generally  short  and  entertaining.     Now  and   then 
pauses  to  let  Dromio  of  Syracuse  work  off  one  of  hia  < 
mttidams,  b8  for  example  (üL  2) :«— 


"THE  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS"  $1 

**  JDrümso  S.  And  yet  she  is  a  wondrous  fiat  marriage. 

**  Antipholm  S.  How  dost  thou  mean  a  fat  marriage  ? 

^  Dro.  S.  Marry,  sir,  she's  the  kitchen-wench,  and  all  grease;  and 
know  not  what  use  to  put  her  to,  but  to  make  a  lamp  of  her»  and 
n  from  her  by  her  own  light.  I  Warrant,  her  rags,  and  the  tallow  in 
em,  will  bum  a  Poland  winter :  if  she  lives  tili  doomsday,  she'll  bum 
longer  than  the  whole  world." 


As  a  rule,  however,  the  interest  is  so  evenly  snstained  that 
e  spectator  is  hdd  in  constant  curiosity  and  suspense  as  to  the 
»hot  of  the  adventure. 

At  one  Single  point  the  style  rises  to  a  beauty  and  intensity 
hich  show  that,  though  Shakespeare  here  abandons  himself  to 
e  light  play  of  intrigue,  it  is  a  diversion  to  which  he  only  con- 
sscends  for  the  moment.  The  passage  is  that  between  Ludana 
id  Antipholus  of  S3rracuse  (iii.  2),  with  its  tender  erotic  cadences. 
isten  to  such  verses  as  these : — 

**  Ant,  S,  Sweet  mistress  (what  your  name  is  eise,  I  know  not, 
Nor  by  what  wonder  you  do  hit  of  mine), 
Less  in  your  knowledge,  and  your  grace,  you  show  not, 
Than  our  earth's  wonder ;  more  than  earth  divine. 
Teach  me,  dear  creature,  how  to  think  and  speak : 
Lay  open  to  my  earthy-gross  conceit, 
Smother'd  in  errors,  feeble,  shallow,  weak, 
The  folded  meaning  of  your  words'  deceit 
Against  my  soul's  pure  truth,  why  labour  yoo 
To  make  it  wander  in  an  unknown  field  ? 
Are  you  a  god  ?  would  you  create  me  new  ? 
Transform  me  then,  and  to  your  power  I'U  jaeld.** 

.  ,  Since  the  play  was  first  published  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  it  is,  of 
nirse,  not  impossible  that  Shakespeare  may  have  worked  over 
08  lovely  passage  at  a  later  period.  But  the  whole  structure  of 
te  verses,  with  their  interwoven  rhymes,  points  in  the  opposite 
rection.  We  here  catch  the  first  notes  of  that  music  which  is 
K»n  to  fiU  Romeo  and  Juliet  with  its  harmonies. 

The  play  which  in  all  probability  Stands  next  on  the  chrono- 
gkal  list  of  Shakespeare's  works,  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona^ 

also  one  in  which  we  catch  several  anticipatory  glimpses  of 
ter  productions,  and  is  in  itself  a  promising  piece  of  work.  It 
trpasses  the  earlier  comedies  in  two  respects :  first,  in  the  beauty 
lldcleamess  with  which  the  two  young  women  are  outlined, 
KTlhen  in  the  careless  gaiety  which  makes  its  first  triumphant 
^earance  in  the  parts  of  the  servants.  Only  now  and  then,  in 
le  or  two  detached  scenes,  do  Speed  and  Launce  bore  us  with 
i{diuistic  word-torturings ;  as  a  rule  they  are  quite  entertaining 
QowSy  who  seem  to  announce,  as  with  a  flourish  of  trumi^eta^ 
tat,  unlike  either  Lyly  or  Marlowe,  Shake&peate  ^^o$a«&afi&  ^^ 
iboni  gBiety,  the  keen  aense  of  humouTi  tbe  vpaxV&cm  '^^Bzj^xike* 


51  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

ness,  which  are  to  enable  him,  without  any  strain  on  bis  in^ 
to  kindle  the  laughter  of  bis  audiences,  and  send  it  flashing 
the  tbeatre  from  the  groundlings  to  tbe  gods.  He  does  i 
yet  display  any  particular  talent  for  individualising  bis  cl 
Nevertbeless  we  notice  tbat,  wbile  Speed  impresses  us  < 
by  bis  astonishing  volubilityi  tbe  true  Englisb  bumour  mal 
entrance  upon  tbe  Sbakespearian  stage  wben  Launce  ap 
dragging  bis  dog  by  a  string. 

Note  tbe  torrent  of  eloquence  in  tbis  speecb  of  Sj 
enumerating  tbe  Symptoms  from  wbicb  be  concludes  tb 
master  is  in  love : — 

''First,  you  bave  leam'd,  like  Sir  Proteus,  to  wreatb  your 
like  a  malcontent ;  to  relish  a  love-song,  Hke  a  robin-redbreast ;  t 
alone,  like  one  that  bad  tbe  pestilence ;  to  sigh,  like  a  scbool-b< 
bad  lost  bis  A  B  C ;  to  weep,  like  a  young  wencb  that  had  buri 
grandam ;  to  fast,  like  one  that  takes  diet ;  to  watch,  like  one  thi 
robbing;  to  speak  puling,  like  a  beggar  at  Hallowmas.  Yoi 
wont,  wben  you  laugh'd,  to  crow  like  a  cock;  wben  you  wall 
walk  like  one  of  the  lions;  wben  you  fasted,  it  was  presentl; 
dinner ;  when  you  look'd  sadly,  it  was  for  want  of  money ;  an 
you  are  metamorphosed  with  a  mistress,  that,  when  I  look  on 
can  hardly  think  you  my  master." 

All  tbese  similes  of  Speed's  are  apt  and  accurate;  it  l 
tbe  way  in  wbicb  be  piles  tbem  up  that  makes  us  laugb. 
when  Launce  opens  bis  mouth,  unbridled  whimsicality  al 
takes  tbe  upper  band.    He  comes  upon  tbe  scene  with  bis  d 

"  Nay,  'twill  be  tbis  bour  ere  I  bave  done  weeping ;  all  the  1 
the  Launces  bave  tbis  very  fault  ...  I  think  Grab,  my  dog, 
sourest-natured  dog  that  lives :  my  mother  weeping,  my  father  ^ 
my  sister  crying,  our  maid  howling,  our  cat  wringing  her  hands,  i 
our  house  in  a  great  perplexity,  yet  did  not  tbis  cruel-hearted  cv 
one  tear.     He  is  a  stone,  a  very  pebble-stone,  and  has  no  more 
him  than  a  dog;  a  Jew  would  have  wept  to  have  seen  our  p 
why,  my  grandxun,  having  no  eyes,  look  you,  wept  herseif  blind 
parting.     Nay,  Fll  show  you  the  manner  of  it     Tbis  shoe  is  my 
— ^no,  tbis  left  shoe  is  my  father; — no,  no,  tbis  left  shoe  is  my  mot 
nay,  that  cannot  be  so,  neither: — yes,  it  is  so,  it  is  so;  it  haththe 
sole.     This  shoe,  with  the  hole  in  it,  is  my  mother,  and  tbis  my 
A  vengeance  on  't !  there  't  is  :  now,  sir,  this  staff  is  my  sister ;  fo: 
you,  she  is  as  white  as  a  lily,  and  as  small  as  a  wand :  this  luit  i 
our  maid :  I  am  the  dog ; — no,  the  dog  is  himself,  and  I  am  tfa 
— O !  the  dog  is  me,  and  I  am  myself :  ay,  so,  so." 

Here  we  have  nothing  but  joyous  nonsense,  and  yet  noi 
of  a  bighly  dramatic  nature.  That  is  to  say,  here  reigni 
youtbful  exuberance  of  spirit  wbicb  laughs  with  a  cbildlike 
even  wbere  it  condescends  to  tbe  petty  and  low ;  exuberai 
of  one  wbo  glories  in  the  very  fact  of  existence,  and  rejoi 
feel  Ufe  puising  and  seething  in  bis  veins;  ezuberanoe  si 


«THE  TWO  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA-  53 

belongs  of  right,  in  some  degree,  to  every  well-constituted  man 

in  the  light-hearted  days  of  his  youth — how  much  more,  then,  to 

I      one  who  possesses  the  double  youth  of  years  and  genius  among 

a  people  which  is  itself  young,  and  more  than  young :  liberated» 

I      emandpated,  enfranchised,  like  a  colt  which  has  broken  its  tether 

I      and  scampers  at  large  through  the  luxuriant  pastures. 

The   Two  GentUnun   of  Verona  —  which,   by  the  way,   is    ,  >^' 
I      Shakespeare's  first  declaration  of  love  to  Italy  —  is  ,a  graceful,  ^.  '  ^\ 
entertaining,  weakly  constructed  comedy,  dealing  with  faithful 
and  faithless  love,  with  the  treachery  of  man  and  the  devotion 
of  woman.     Its  hero,  a  noble  and  wrongfully-banished  youth, 
comes  to  live  the  life  of  a  robber  captain,  like  Schiller's  Karl  von 
Moor  two  centuries  later,  but  without  a  spark  of  his  spirit  of 
I      rebellion.     The  Solution  of  the  imbroglio,  by  means  of  the  instant    91^ 
I      and  unconditional  forgiveness  of  the  villain,  is  so  naive,  so  sense-    ^^^ 
lessly  conciliatory,  that  we  feel  it  to  be  the  outcome  of  a  joyous, 
untried,  and  unwounded  spirit. 

Shakespeare  has  borrowed  part  of  his  matter  from  a  novel 
entitled  Diana^  by  the  Portuguese  Montemayor  (1520- 1562). 
The  translation,  by  Bartholomew  Yong,  was  not  printed  until 
1598,  but  the  preface  states  that  it  had  then  been  completed  for 
fully  sixteen  years,  and  manuscript  copies  of  it  had  no  doubt 
passed  from  band  to  band,  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  time. 
On  comparing  the  essential  portion  of  the  romance^  with  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona^  we  find  that  Proteus's  infidelity  and  Julians 
idea  of  following  her  lover  in  male  attire,  with  all  that  comes  of  it, 
belong  to  Montemayor.  Moreover,  in  the  novel,  Julia,  disguised 
as  a  page,  is  present  when  Proteus  serenades  Sylvia  (Celia  in  the 
original).  She  also  goes  to  Sylvia  at  Proteus's  orders  to  plead 
his  cause  with  her;  but  in  the^  novel  the  fair  lady  falls  in  love 
with  the  messenger  in  male  attire — an  incident  which  Shake- 
speare reserved  for  Twelfth  Night  We  even  find  in  Diana  a 
Sketch  of  the  second  scene  of  the  first  act,  between  Julia  and 
Lucetta,  in  which  the  mistress,  for  appearance'  sake,  repudiates 
the  letter  which  she  is  burning  to  read. 

One  or  two  points  in  the  play  remind  us  of  Lovis  Labout^s 
Won,  which  Shakespeare  had  just  completed  in  its  original  form ; 
for  example,  the  joumey  in  male  attire  in  pursuit  of  the  scomful 
loved  one.  Many  things,  on  the  other  band,  point  forward  to 
Shakespeare's  later  work.  The  inconstancy  of  the  two  men  in 
A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  is  a  Variation  and  parody  of 
Proteus's  fickleness  in  this  play.  The  beginning  of  the  second 
scene  of  the  first  act,  where  Julia  makes  Lucetta  pass  judgment 
on  her  different  suitors,  is  the  first  faint  outline  of  the  masterly 
scene  to  the  same  efFect  between  Portia  and  Nerissa  in  Tlu 
Merchant  of  Venice,    The  conversation  between  Sylvia  and  Julia^ 

1  TU  SkiphenUss  FiUsmma  In  HaxUtt't  Siukübwtix  LArttrY«^^  V  ^«^V 


54  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which  brings  the  iburth  act  to  a  dose,  answers  exactly  to 

between  OUvia  and  Viola  in  the  first  act  of  Twelfth  N 

I  Finally,  the  fact  that  Valentine,  after  leaming  the  fuU  extei 

his  fabe  friend's  treacheiy,  offers  to  resign  to  him  his  beai 

betrothed^  Sylvia,  in  order  to  prove  by  this  sacrifice  the  stre 

of  his  friendship,  however  foolish  and  meaningless  it  may  ap 

in  the  play,  is  yet  an  anticipation  of  the  humble  renunciatic 

the  beloved  for  the  sake  of  the  friend  and  of  friendship,  ik 

impresses  us  so  painfully  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets. 

y     In  almost  eveiy  utterance  of  the  young  women  in  this  coe 

f^we  see  nobility  of  soul,  and  in  the  lyric  passages  a  certain 

^Raphaelite  grace.    Take,  for  example,  what  Julia  says  of  her 

in  the  last  scene  of  the  second  act : — 

''The  current,  that  with  gentle  murmur  glides, 
Thou  know'st,  being  stopp'd,  impatienüy  doth  rage ; 
But,  when  his  fair  course  is  not  hindered, 
He  makes  sweet  music  with  the  enamell'd  stones, 
Giving  a  gentle  kiss  to  every  sedge 
He  overtaketh  in  his  pilgrimage. 

•  •••■• 

I'Il  be  as  patient  as  a  gentle  stream. 
And  make  a  pastime  of  each  weary  step, 
Till  the  last  step  have  brought  me  to  my  love ; 
And  there  I'll  rest,  as,  after  much  turmoil, 
A  blessed  soul  doth  in  Elysium." 

And  although  the  men  are  here  of  inferior  interest  to 
women,  we  yet  find  in  the  mouth  of  Valentine  outbursts  of  g 
lyric  beauty.     For  example  (iii.  i) : — 

''  Except  I  be  by  Silvia  in  the  night, 
There  is  no  music  in  the  nightingale ; 
Unless  I  look  on  Silvia  in  the  day, 
There  is  no  day  for  me  to  look  upon. 
She  is  my  essence ;  and  I  leave  to  be, 
If  I  be  not  by  her  fair  influence 
Foster'd,  illumin'd,  cherish'd,  kept  alive." 

Besides  the  strains  of  passion  and  of  gaiety  in  this  L 
acting  play,  a  third  note  is  clearly  Struck,  the  note  of  oati 
There  is  fresh  air  in  it,  a  first  breath  of  those  fragrant  midi 
memories  which  prove  that  this  child  of  the  country  must  mao 
time  have  said  to  himself  with  Valentine  (v.  4) : — 

"  How  use  doth  breed  a  habit  in  a  man  1 
This  shadowy  desert,  unfrequented  woods, 
I  better  brook  than  flourishing  peopled  towns.** 

In  many  passages  of  this  play  we  are  conscious  for  the  f 
time  of  that  keen  love  of  nature  which  never  afterwards  de« 
Shakespeare,  and  which  gives  to  some  of  the  most  mannered 
his  early  efiTorts,  as,  for  example,  to  his  shoit  narrative  poe 
thw  chkf  interest  and  value. 


thal 

t  <A  \ 

dftil  \ 
igth 


1  ot 
lieh  ; 


lovc 


/ 


XI 


«iy  j       VENUS  AND  ADONIS.-    DBSCRIPTIONS  OF  NATURB 
?^  ^^THE     RAPE     OF     LUCRECE :      RELATION    TO 


PAINTING 


Although  Shakespeare  did  not  publish  Vent^  andAdonis  until 
the  spring  of  1593,  when  he  was  twenty-nine  years  old,  the  poem 
must  certainly  have  been  conceived,  and  probably  written,  several 
years  earlier.  In  dedicating  it  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  then 
a  youth  of  twenty,  he  calls  it  "  the  first  heire  of  my  invention ; " 
but  it  by  no  means  foUows  that  it  is  literally  the  first  thing  he 
ever  wrote.  The  expression  may  merely  imply  that  his  work  for 
the  theatre  was  not  regarded  as  an  independent  exercise  of  his 
poetic  talent.  But  the  over-luxuriant  style  betrays  the  youthfiil 
hand|  and  we  place  it,  therefore,  among  Shakespeare's  writings  of 
about  1590^1. 
^^  He  had  at  this  period,  as  we  have  seen,  won  a  firm  footing  as 

^^  ,  an  actor,  and  had  made  himself  not  only  useful  but  populär  as 
an  adapter  of  old  plays  and  an  independent  dramatist.  But  the 
\  drama  of  that  time  was  not  reckoned  as  literature.  There  was 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  a  ''  play wright "  and  a  real 
poet.  When  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  about  the  year  1600,  extended 
and  remodelled  the  old  University  Library,  and  gave  it  his  name, 
he  decreed  that  no  such  ''  rifTe-rafTes  "  as  playbooks  should  ever 
find  admittance  to  it. 

Without  being  actually  ambitious,  Shakespeare  feit  the  highly 
^t  natural  wish  to  niake  a  name  for  himself  in  literature.    He  wanted 

re.  to  take  his  place  among  the  poets,  and  to  win  the  approval  of  the 

nd  young  noblemen  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  in  the  theatre. 

f  si    .        He  also  wanted  to  show  that  he  was  familiär  with  the  spirit  of 
antiquity. 

Spenser(bom  1553)  had  just  attracted  general  attention  by 

Publishing  the  first  books  of  his  great  narrative  poem.    What 

'       more  natural  than  that  Shakespeare  should  be  tempted  to  measure 

f3l  his  strength  against  Spenser,  as  he  already  had  against  Marlowe, 

1^  his  first  master  in  the  drama  ? 

of    ,  The  little  poem  of  Venus  (xnd  Adanis^  and  its  companion- 

Qs^  piece,  Tht  Rafe  o/Lucrecip  which  appeared  m  Xhe  (oYLomn^i^st^ 

have  this  grcat  value  for  üb,  that  here»  and  \itxe  ocX^ ,  «x^  ^^  ^^"^ 


S6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tain  of  possessing  a  text  exactly  as  Shakespeare  wrote  it,  since  he 
himself  superintended  its  publication. 

Italy  was  at  this  time  the  centre  of  all  culture.  The  lyric 
and  minor  epic  poetty  of  England  were  entirely  under  the  influ- 
ence  of  the  Italiau  style  and  taste.  Shakespeare,  in  Venus  and 
AdoniSf  aims  at  the  insinuating  sensuousness  of  the  Italians. 
He  tries  to  strike  the  tender  and  languorous  notes  of  his  Southern 
forerunners.  Among  the  poets  of  antiquity,  Ovid  is  naturally  his 
model.  He  takes  two  lines  from  Ovid's  Amores  as  the  motto  of 
his  poem,  which  is,  indeed,  nothing  but  an  expanded  version  of  a 
scene  in  the  Metamorp/toses, 

The  name  of  Shakespeare,  like  the  names  of  ^schylus, 
Michael  Angelo,  and  Beethoven,  is  apt  to  ring  tragically  in  our 
ears.  We  have  almost  forgotten  that  he  had  a  Mozartean  vein 
in  his  nature,  and  that  his  contemporaries  not  only  praised  his 
personal  gentleness  and  ''  honesty/'  but  also  the  "  sweetness  "  of 
bis  singing. 

In  Venus  and  Adonis  glows  the  whole  fresh  sensuousness  of 
the  Renaissance  and  of  Shakespeare's  youth.  It  is  an  entirely 
erotic  poem,  and  contemporaries  aver  that  it  lay  on  the  table  of 
every  light  woman  in  London. 

The  conduct  of  the  poem  presents  a  series  of  opportunities 
and  pretexts  for  voluptuous  situations  and  descriptions.  The 
tneffectual  blandishments  lavished  by  Venus  on  the  chaste  and 
frigid  youth,  who,  in  his  sheer  boyishness,  is  as  irresponsive  as  2 
bashful  woman — her  kisses,  caresses,  and  embraces,  are  depictec 
in  detail.  It  is  as  though  a  Titian  or  Rubens  had  painted  a 
model  in  a  whole  series  of  tender  situations,  now  in  one  attitude, 
now  in  another.  Then  comes  the  suggestive  scene  in  which 
Adonis's  horse  breaks  away  in  order  to  meet  the  challenge  of  a 
mare  which  happens  to  wander  by,  together  with  the  goddess's 
comments  thereupon.  Then  new  advances  and  solicitations, 
almost  inadraissibly  daring,  according  to  the  taste  of  our  day. 

An  Clement  of  feeling  is  introduced  in  the  portrayal  of  Venus's 
anguish  when  Adonis  expresses  his  Intention  of  hunting  the  boar. 
But  it  is  to  sheer  description  that  the  poet  chiefly  devotes  himself 
— description  of  the  charging  boar,  description  of  the  fair  young 
body  bathed  in  blood,  and  so  forth.  There  is  a  fire  and  rapture 
of  colour  in  it  all,  as  in  a  picture  by  some  Italian  master  of  a 
hundred  years  before. 

Quite  unmistakable  is  the  insinuating,  luscious,  almost 
saccharine  quality  of  the  writing,  which  accounts  for  the  fact 
that,  when  his  immediate  contemporaries  speak  of  Shakespeare's 
diction,  honey  is  the  similitude  that  first  suggests  itself  to 
them.  John  Weever,  in  1595,  calls  him  "  honey-tongued,"  and 
in  1598  Francis  Meres  uses  the  same  term,  with  the  addition  of 
"  mellifluous/' 

There  is,  indeed,  an  extraordinary  sweetness  in  these  stroph< 


•'VENUS  AND  ADONIS"  57 

Tendemess,  evcry  here  and  there,  finds  really  entrancing  uttcr- 
ance.  When  Adonis  has  for  the  first  time  harshly  repulsed 
VenuSy  in  a  speech  of  some  length : — 

«  «What!  canst  thou  talk?'  quoth  she,  'hast  thou  a  tongue? 

O,  would  thou  hadst  not,  or  I  had  no  hearing ! 

Thy  mermaid's  voice  hath  done  me  double  wrong ; 

I  had  my  load  before,  now  press'd  with  bearing : 
Melodious  discord,  heavenly  tune  harsh-sounding, 
Ear's  deep-sweet  music,  and  heart's  deep-sore  wounding/  " 

But  the  style  also  exhibits  numberless  instances  of  tasteless 
Italian  artificiality.  Breathing  the  "heavenly  moisture''  of 
Adonis's  breath,  she 

"  Wishes  her  cheeks  were  gardens  füll  of  fiowers, 
^  So  they  were  dew'd  with  such  distilling  showew." 

Of  Adonis's  dimples  it  is  said  : — 

"  These  lovely  caves,  these  round  enchanting  pits, 
Open'd  thdr  mouths  to  swallow  Venus*  liking." 

**My  love  to  love,"  says  Adonis,  "is  love  but  to  disgrace  it* 
Venus  enumerates  the  delights  he  would  afford  to  each  of  her 
senses  separately,  supposing  her  deprived  of  all  the  rest,  and 
concludes  thus : — 

"  *  But,  O,  what  banquet  wert  thou  to  the  taste, 

Being  nurse  and  feeder  of  the  other  four 

Would  they  not  wish  the  feast  might  ever  last, 

And  bid  Suspidon  double-lock  the  door. 
Lest  Jealousy,  that  sour  unwelcome  guest, 
Should,  by  his  stealing  in,  disturb  the  feast  ?  *  *• 

Such  lapses  of  taste  are  not  infrequent  in  Shakespeare's  early 
comedies  as  well.  They  answer,  in  their  way,  to  the  riot  of 
horrors  in  Titus  Andronicus — analogous  mannerisms  of  an  as 
yet  undeveloped  art. 

At  the  same  tiroe,  the  puissant  sensuousness  of  this  poem  is 
as  a  prelude  to  the  large  utterance  of  passion  in  Romeo  andjultet, 
and  towards  its  dose  Shakespeare  soars,  so  to  speak,  symbolically, 
from  a  ddineation  of  the  mere  fever  of  the  senses  to  a  forecast  of 
that  love  in  which  it  is  only  one  dement,  when  he  makes  Adonis 
•ay: — 

"  '  Love  comforteth  like  sunshine  after  rain, 
But  Lust's  efiect  is  tempest  after  sun ; 
Love's  gentle  spring  doth  always  fresh  remain, 
Lust's  winter  comes  ere  summer  half  be  done : 
Love  surfeits  not,  Lust  like  a  glutton  dies ; 
Love  is  all  truth,  Lust  füll  of  forged  lies.'  * 


58  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

It  wouldy  of  course,  be  absurd  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  t 
edifying  antitheses  in  this  unedifying  poem.  It  b  more  impoi 
to  note  that  the  descriptions  of  animal  life — ^for  example,  thi 
the  hare's  flight — are  unrivalled  for  truth  and  delicacy  of  obse 
tion,  and  to  mark  how,  even  in  this  early  work,  Shakespei 
style  now  and  then  rises  to  positive  greatness. 

This  is  espedally  the  case  in  the  descriptions  of  the  boar 
of  the  horse.    The  boar — ^his  back  "  set  with  a  battle  of  bri 
pikes/'  his  eyes  like  glow-worms,  his  snout  **  digging  sepuld 
where'er  he  goes,^  his  neck  short  and  thick,  and  his  onset 
fierce  that 

^  The  thomy  brambles  and  embradng  bushes, 
As  fearfnl  of  him,  part ;  through  which  he  rushes  " 

— this  boar  seems  to  have  been  painted  by  Snyders  in  a  hunti 
piece,  in  which  the  human  figures  came  from  the  brush  of  Rub 
Shakespeare  himself  seems  to  have  realised  with  what  mast 
he  had  depicted  the  stallion  ;  for  he  says : — 

**  Looky  when  a  painter  would  surpass  the  life. 
In  limning  out  a  well-proportion'd  steed, 
His  art  with  nature's  workmanship  at  strife, 
As  if  the  dead  the  living  should  exceed ; 
So  did  this  horse  excel  a  common  one, 
In  shape,  in  courage,  colour,  pace,  and  hone." 

We  can  feel  Shakespeare's  love  of  nature  in  such  a  stanza 
this: — 

"  Round-hoofdy  short-jointed,  fetlocks  shag  and  long, 
Broad  breast,  füll  eye,  small  head,  and  nostril  wide, 
High  crest,  short  ears,  straight  legs,  and  passing  strong, 
Thin  mane,  thick  tail,  broad  buttock,  tender  hide : 
Look,  what  a  horse  should  have,  he  did  not  lack, 
Save  a  proud  rider  on  so  proud  a  bacL" 

How  consummate,  too,  is  the  description  of  all  his  movementa 

''  Sometime  he  scuds  far  oS,  and  there  he  Stares ; 
Anon  he  Starts  at  stirring  of  a  feather." 

We  hear  ''the  high  wind  singing  through  his  mane  and  U 
We  are  almost  reminded  of  the  magnificent  picture  of  the  hc 
at  the  end  of  the  Book  of  Job :  "  He  swalloweth  the  ground  ^ 
fierceness  and  rage.  ...  He  smelleth  the  battle  afar  off,, 
thunder  of  the  captains,  and  the  shouting."  So  great  is  the  o 
pass  of  style  in  this  little  poem  of  Shakespeare's  youth:  fi 
Ovid  to  the  Old  Testament,  from  modish  artificiality  to  grandi 
simplicity. 

Lucrece,  which  appeared  in  the  foUowing  year,  was,  like  Ve 
and  AdoniSf  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  in  distin* 


-LUCRECE"  59 

more  familiär,  though  still  deferential  terms.    The  poem  is  de- 

signed  as  a  counterpart  to  its  predecessor.     The  one  treats  of 

of  l       male,  the  other  of  female,  chastity.    The  one  portrays  ungovem- 

1^.  t       able  passion  in  a  woman ;  the  other,  criminal  passion  in  a  man. 

>3  But  in  Lucrece  the  theme  is  seriously  and  morally  bandled.     Ic 

is  almost  a  didactic  poem,  dealing  with  the  havoc  wrought  by 

unbridled  and  brutish  desire. 

It  was  not  so  populär  in  its  own  day  as  its  predecessor,  and  it 
does  not  afibrd  the  modern  reader  any  very  lively  satisfaction. 
It  shows  an  advance  in  metrical  accomplishment.  To  the  six- 
line  stanza  of  Venus  and  Adonis  a  seventh  line  is  added,  which 
heightens  its  beauty  and  its  dignity.  The  strength  of  Lucreu 
lies  in  its  graphic  and  gorgeous  descriptions,  and  in  its  sometimes 
microscopic  psychological  analysis.  For  the  rest,  its  pathos  con- 
nsts  of  daborate  and  far-fetched  rhetoric. 

The  lament  of  the  heroine  after  the  crime  has  been  committed 
IS  pure  dedamation,  extremely  eloquent  no  doubt,  but  copious 
and  artifidal  as  an  oration  of  Cicero's,  rieh  in  apostrophes  and 
antitheses.  The  sorrow  of  ''Collatine  and  his  consorted  lords" 
is  portrayed  in  laboured  and  quibbling  speeches.  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  and  mastery  are  most  clearly  seen  in  the  reflections 
scattered'through  the  narrative — such,  for  instance,  as  the  follow- 
ing  profound  and  exquisitely  written  stanza  on  the  softness  of  the 
feminine  nature : — 

"  For  men  have  marble,  women  waxen  minds, 
And  therefore  are  they  form'd  as  marble  will ; 
The  weak  oppress'd,  Üie  impression  of  stränge  kinds 
Is  form'd  in  Üiem  by  force,  by  fraud,  or  skill : 
Then  call  them  not  the  authors  of  their  ill, 
No  more  than  wax  shall  be  accounted  evil, 
Wherein  is  stamp'd  the  semblance  of  a  deviL" 

In  point  of  mere  technique  the  most  remarkable  passage  in  the 
poem  is  the  long  series  of  stanzas  (lines  1366  to  1568)  describing 
a  painting  of  the  destruction  of  Troy,  which  Lucrece  contemplates 
in  her  despair.  The  description  is  marked  by  such  force,  fresh- 
ness,  and  nalvet^  as  might  suggest  that  the  writer  had  never  seen 
a  picture  before : — 

"  Here  one  man's  band  leaned  on  another's  head, 
His  nose  being  shadowed  by  his  neighbour's  ear." 

So  dense  is  the  throng  of  figures  in  the  picture,  so  deceptive  the 
presentation, 

*'  That  for  Achilles'  image  stood  his  spear, 

Grip'd  in  an  armed  hsmd :  himself  behind 

Was  left  unseen,  save  to  the  eye  of  mind. 

A  band,  a  foot,  a  face,  a  leg,  a  head, 

Stood  for  the  whole  to  be  ii — = — ' " 


6o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Here,  as'in  all  other  places  in  which  Shakespeare  men 
pictorial  or  plastic  art,  it  is  realism  carried  to  the  point  of  ilh 
that  he  admires  and  praises.  The  paintings  in  the  Guild  Cl 
Et  Stratford  were,  doubtless,  as  before  xnentioned,  the  first  he 
saw.  He  may  also,  during  his  Stratford  period,  have  seen  Yi 
of  art  at  Kenilworth  Castle  or  at  St.  Mary^s  Church  in  Cove: 
In  London,  in  the  Hall  belonging  to  the  Merchants  of  the  S 
Yard,  he  had  no  doubt  seen  two  greatly  admired  picture 
Holbein  which  hung  there.  Moreover,  there  were  in  Lond< 
that  time  not  only  numerous  portraits  by  Dutch  masters,  but 
a  few  Italian  pictures.  It  appears,  for  example,  from  a  li: 
"Pictures  and  other  Works  of  Art "  drawn  up  in  1613  by  , 
Emest,  Duke  of  Saze- Weimar,  that  there  hung  at  Whiteh 
painting  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  another  of  Lucretia,  said  to 
been  "very  artistically  executed."  This  picture  may  pos 
have  suggested  to  Shakespeare  the  theme  of  his  poem.  Li 
compositions  were  no  doubt  familiär  to  him  in  the  tapestri« 
the  period  (the  hangings  at  Theobald's  presented  scenes 
Roman  history) ;  and  he  may  very  likely  have  seen  the  exce 
Dutch  and  Italian  pictures  at  Nonsuch  Palace,  then  in  the  h( 
of  its  glory. 

His  reflections  upon  art  led  him,  as  aforesaid,  to  the  conch 
that  it  was  the  artist's  business  to  keep  a  close  watch  upon  na 
to  master  or  transcend  her.  Again  and  again  he  ranks  tru 
nature  as  the  highest  quality  in  art.  He  evidently  cared  not 
for  allegorical  or  religious  painting;  he  never  so  much  as  ; 
tions  it.  Nor,  with  all  his  love  for  *'  the  concord  of  sweet  soui 
does  he  ever  allude  to  church  music. 

The  description  of  the  great  painting  of  the  fall  of  Troy  i 
mere  irrelevant  decoration  to  the  poem ;  for  the  fall  of  Troy  1 
bolises  the  fall  of  the  royal  house  of  Tarquin  as  a  consequen 
Sextus's  crime.  Shakespeare  did  not  look  at  the  event  fron 
point  of  view  of  individual  morality  alone;  he  makes  us  feel 
the  honour  of  a  royal  family,  and  even  its  dynastic  existence 
hazarded  by  criminal  aggression  upon  a  noble  house.  All 
conceptions  of  honour  belonging  to  mediaeval  chivalry  are  ti 
ferred  to  ancient  Rome.  "  Knights,  by  their  oaths,  should  : 
poor  ladies'  harms,"  says  Lucrece,  in  calling  upon  her  kinsmi 
avenge  her. 

In  his  picture  of  the  sack  of  Troy,  Shakespeare  has  foll< 
the  second  book  of  VirgiFs  ^neid;  for  the  groundwork  o 
poem  as  a  whole  he  has  gone  to  the  short  but  graceful 
sympathetic  rendering  of  the  story  of  Lucretia  in  Ovid's  j 
(iL  685-852). 

A  comparison  between  Ovid's  style  and  that  of  Shakes; 
certainly  does  not  redound  to  the  advantage  of  the  modern  ] 
In  Opposition  to  this  semi-barbarian,  Ovid  seems  the  embodii 
of  classic  scwenty.     Shakespeare's  antithetical  conceits  and  c 


I 


SENSE  OF  RIVALRY  6i 

lapses  of  taste  are  painfully  obtrusive.     Every  here  and  there  wc 
come  upon  such  stumbling-blocks  as  these : — 

"  Some  of  her  blood  still  pure  and  red  remain'd, 
And  some  look'd  black,  and  that  false  Tarquin  stain'd ;  ** 

or, 

•*  If  children  pre-decease  progenitors, 
We  are  their  offspring,  and  they  none  of  ours." 

This  lack  of  nature  and  of  taste  is  not  only  characteristic  of  the 
age  in  general,  but  is  bound  up  with  the  great  excellences  and 
rare  capacities  which  Shakespeare  was  now  developing  with  such 
amazing  rapidity.  His  momentary  leaning  towards  this  style 
was  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  influence  of  his  fellow-poets,  his 
friends,  his  rivals  in  public  favour — the  influence,  in  short,  of 
that  artistic  microcosm  in  whose  atmosphere  his  genius  shot  up 
to  sudden  maturity. 

We  talk  of  "  schools  "  in  literature,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  every  period  of  rieh  productivity  presupposes  a  school 
or  schools.  But  the  word  ''  school/'  beautiful  in  its  original  Greek 
signification,  has  been  narrowed  and  specialised  by  modern  usage. 
We  ought  to  say  "  forcing-house  "  instead  of  "  school " — to  talk 
of  the  classic  and  the  romantic  forcing-house,  the  Renaissance 
forcing-house/  and  so  forth.  In  very  small  communities,  where 
there  is  none  of  that  emulation  which  alone  can  call  forth  all  an 
artist's  energies,  absolute  mastery  is  as  a  rule  unattainable.  Under 
such  conditions,  a  man  will  often  make  a  certain  mark  early  in 
life,  and  find  his  success  his  ruin.  Others  seek  a  forcing-house 
outside  their  native  land — Holberg  in  Holland,  England,  and 
France;  Thorvaldsen  in  Rome;  Heine  in  Paris.  The  moment 
he  set  foot  in  London,  Shakespeare  was  in  such  a  forcing-house. 
Hence  the  luxuriant  burgeoning  of  his  genius. 

He  lived  in  constant  intercourse  and  rivalry  with  vivid  and 
daringly  productive  spirits.  The  diamond  was  polished  in  diamond 
dust« 

The  competitive  instinct  (as  Rümelin  has  rightly  pointed  out) 
was  strong  in  the  English  poets  of  that  period.  Shakespeare 
could  not  but  strive  from  the  first  to  outdo  his  fellows  in  strength 
and  skilL  At  last  he  comes  to  think,  like  Hamlet :  however  deep 
they  dig — 

"  it  shall  go  hard 
But  I  will  delve  one  yard  below  their  mines  " 

— one  of  the  most  characteristic  utterances  of  Hamlet  and  of 
Shakespeare. 

This  sense  of  rivalry  contributed  to  the  formation  of  Shake- 
speare's  early  manner,  both  in  his  narrative  poems  and  in  K\& 

1  Tbe  «otbor*!  ides  if,  I  think,  best  lendered  bv  Üus  Uleiil  \xiai<&\»iiVa^\  \iqSl  ^Sm^ 
Dtttkb  word  Drivius  iä  mach  Jen  cnmbrous  tKi^  iti  "Riig^WV  «^^«XcqX.— ^^^^Mik^ 


62  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

plays.  Hence  arose  that  straining  afiter  subtleties,  that  absorp 
in  quibbleSy  that  wantoning  in  word-plays,  that  bandying  to 
fro  of  shuttlecocks  of  speech.  Hence,  too,  that  State  of  o 
heated  passion  and  over-stimulated  fancy,  in  which  image  bei 
image  with  a  headlong  fecundity,  like  that  of  the  low  organi 
which  pullulate  by  mere  scission. 

This  man  of  all  the  talents  had  the  talent  for  word-pla3rs 
thought-quibbles  among  the  rest ;  he  was  too  richly  endowec 
be  behind-hand  even  here.    But  there  was  in  all  this  sometl 
foreign  to  bis  true  seif.    When  he  reaches  the  point  at  which 
inmost  personality  begins  to  reveal  itself  in  bis  writings,  we 
at  once  conscious  of  a  far  deeper  and  more  emotional  nature  tl 
that  which  finds  expression  in  the  teeming  conceits  of  the  nai 
tive  poems  and  the  incessant  scintillations  of  the  early  comedic 


XII 


A  MIDSÜMMER  NIGHTS  DREAM—ITS  HISTORICAL 
CIRCUMSTANCES—ITS  ARISTOCRATIC,  POPULÄR, 
COMIC.  AND  SUPERNATURAL  ELEMENTS 


In  spite  of  the  fame  and  popularity  which  Venus  and  Adonis  and 
Lucreu  won  for  Shakespeare,  he  quickly  understood,  with  his 
instinctive  self-knowledge,  that  it  was  not  narrative  but  dramatic 
poetry  which  offered  the  füllest  scope  for  his  powera 

And  now  it  is  that  we  find  him  for  the  first  time  rising  to  the 
füll  height  of  his  genius.  This  he  does  in  a  work  of  dramatic 
form ;  but,  significantly  enough,  it  is  not  as  yet  in  its  dramatic 
Clements  that  we  recognise  the  master-hand,  but  rather  in  the 
rieh  and  incomparable  lyric  poetry  with  which  he  embroiders  a 
thin  dramatic  canvas. 


His  first  masterpiece  is  a  masterpiece  of  grace,  both  lyrical 


i        and  com 


before  the  masque  became  an  estab- 

lished  art-form,  to  celetuaElhgjaarnagg  ^(  ft  pöble  patron:  pro« 
bably  for  the  May  festival  after  the  private  märnage  oJ[  Essex 
with  the  widow  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  the  year  1590.  In 
Oberon's  great  speech  to  Puck  (iL  2)  there  is  a  significant 
passage  about  a  throned  vestal,  invulnerable  to  Cupid's  darts, 
which  is  obviously  a  flattering  reference  to  Elizabeth  in  relation 
to  Leicester ;  whUe  the  lines  about  a  little  flower  wounded  by  the 
fiery  shafl,  of  love  moumfully  allude,  in  the  like  allegorical  fas^ion, 
to  Essex's  mother  and  her  marriage  with  Leicester,  after  his  court- 
ship  had  been  rejected  by  the  Queen.  Other  details  also  point  to 
Essex  as  the  brid^;room  typified  in  the  person  of  Theseus. 

How  is  one  to  speak  adequately  of  A  Midsummer  Nigkfs 
Dream  ?  It  is  idle  to  dwell  upon  the  slightness  of  the  character» 
dniwing,  for  the  poet's  eflbrt  is  not  aiter  cnaractensanon :  and^ 
whatever  its  weak  points,  the  poem  as^a  whole  is  one  of  the 
tenderest,  most  original,  and  most  perfect  Shakespeare  ever 
produced. 

It  IS 


f  64 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


JlitfiibltaUutfiie 


We  have  here  an  element  o 
prm 
have 
formance 
di 

ment  o 
1 


n  u 


and  their  couit«. 


,  treated«4¥i<ih  ffakU  iron^ 
cur.     And  ^^"^i  fiBilllYi  Wr  ^^"^  ^^^ 

jM|  Cubiiuli  midiMust 
niirr  Wiilii  hn»>  thn—minnTr 


f^^/ 


the  leading  ac 


scents,  under  tb 


tne  sraiiy  ni 


Ji^biuiV^cl^  ^^  happy  Inspiration  contains  the  germs  of  innui 
able  romantic  achievements  in  England/ Germany,  and  Denm 
more  than  two  centuries  later. 

There  is  in  French  literature  a  graceful  mythological  pla 
somewhat  later  date — Moliere's  Psycho — in  which  the  exqui 
love-verses  which  stream  from  the  heroine's  lips  were  writter 
the  sexagenarian  Corneille.  It  is,  in  its  way,  an  admirable  p 
of  work.  But  read  it  and  compare  it  with  the  nature-poetr 
A  Midsuntmer  Night s  Dreant,  and  you  will  feel  how  far 
great  Englishman  surpasses  the  greatest  Frenchmen  in  pure 
rhetorical  lyrism  and  irrepressibly  playful,  absolutely  poel 
poetry,  with  its  scent  of  clover,  its  taste  of  wild  honey,  and 
aiiy  and  shifting  dream-pageantry. 

We  have  here  no  pathos.  The  hurricane  of  passion  does 
as  yet  sweep  through  Shakespeare's  wor£     No ; ^uLglfaBIlbL 


ütmagig 
rlrmrnt  nf  jiaMyHjafatHfltiflQ.  and  ilT 


[an  IS 


Mä^b  its  i 

)y  nature  a  t> 


with  no  inward  COmpaSS,  IH   agfray  hy  Viiq  insfin^^  and  dret 

and  for  ever  deceived  either  by  himself  or  by  others.    This  Sh; 
speare  realises,  but  does  not,  as  yet,  take  the  matter  very  tr 
cally.     Thus  the  characters  whom  he  here  presents,  even 
rather  cspecially,  in  their  love-afFairs,  appear  as  anything 
reasonable  beings.     The  lovers  seek  and  avoid  each  othei 
tums,  they  love  and  are  not  loved  again ;  the  couples  attfact  < 
other  at  cross-purposes ;  the  youth  runs  after  the  maiden 
shrinks  from  him,  the  maiden  flees  from'  ^e  man  who  adores  1 
and  the  poet's  delicate  irony  makes  the  confusion  reach  its  he 
and  find  its  symbolic  expression  when  the  Queen  of  the  ifai 
in  the  intoxication  of  a  love-dream,  recognises  her  ideal  1 
joumeyman  weaver  with  an  ass's  head. 
^It  is  th^  love  be^otten  of  imagination  that  here  bears  »1 
Hrace  these  words  oif  Theseus  (v.  i) :— 


•'A  MIDSUMMER  NICHTS  DREAM"  65 

**  Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seethjng  brains>^ 
Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends. 
The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet, 
Are  of  Imagination  all  compact." 

And  then  follows  Shakespeare's  first  deliberate  utterance  as  to 
the  nature  and  art  of  the  poet.  He  is  not,  as  a  rule,  greatly  con- 
cerned  with  the  dignity  of  the  poet  as  such.  Quite  foreign  to  him 
is  the  self-idolatry  of  the  later  romantic  poets,  posing  as  the 
Spiritual  pastors  and  masters  of  the  world.  Where  he  introduccs 
poets  in  his  plays  (as  in  Julius  Cäsar  and  Titnon)^  it  is  generally 
to  assign  them  a  pitiful  part.  But  here  he  places  in  the  mouth  of 
Theseus  the  famous  and  exquisite  words : — 

**  The  poet^s  evCt  in  a  fine  frenzy  roUing, 
Doth  ßlfnce  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to  heaven ; 
And,  as  Imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
Tums  them  to  shapes,  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name. 
Such  tricks  hath  strong  imagination." 

When  he  wrote  this  he  feit  that  his  wings  had  grown. 

As  A  Midsutntner  Nighfs  Dream  was  not  published  untü 
i6cx)y  it  is  impossible  to  assign  an  exact  date  to  the  text  we 
possess.  In  aÜ  probability  the  piece  was  altered  and  amplified 
before  it  was  printed. 

Attention  was  long  ago  drawn  to  the  following  lines  in 
Thcseus's  speech  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  act : — 

**  The  thrice  three  Muses  tnourningfor  the  deaih 
Of  Learning,' iate  decea^d  in  beggary, 
This  is  some  satire,  keen  and  critical." 

Several  commentators  have  seen  in  these  lines  an  allusion  to 
the  death  of  Spenser,  which,  however,  did  not  occur  untü  1 599, 
so  late  that  it  can  scarcely  be  the  event  alluded  to.  Others  have 
conjectured  a  reference  to  the  death  of  Robert  Greene  in  1592. 
The  probability  is  that  the  words  refer  to  Spenser's  poem,  The 
Tearsoftht  Muses^  published  in  1591,  which  was  a  complaint  of 
the  indifference  of  the  nobility  towards  the  fine  arts.  If  the  play, 
as  we  have  so  many  reasons  for  supposing,  was  written  for  the 
marriage  of  Essex,  these  lines  must  have  been  inserted  later,  as 
they  might  easily  be  in  a  passage  like  this,  where  a  whole  series 
of  different  subjects  for  masques  is  enumerated. 

The  important  passage  (ii.  2)  where  Oberon  recounte  his  vtslow 
has  already  been  mentioned.     It  follows  Oberoti^^  d^iicn:^NAoacA 
tbe  mermaid  aeated  on  a  dolphin's  back-~ 


66  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres," 

— ^an  allusion,  not,  as  some  have  supposed,  to  Mary  Stuart,  wl: 
married  to  the  Dauphin  of  France,  but  to  the  festivities  anc 
work  displays  which  celebrated  Elizabeth's  visit  to  Kenilwo 
1575.  The  passage  is  interesting,  among  other  reasons,  bc 
we  have  here  one  of  the  few  allegories  to  be  found  in  Shakes 
— an  allegory  which  has  taken  that  form  because  the  matt« 
which  it  alludes  could  not  be  directly  handled.  Shakespe 
here  referring  back,  a$  English  criticism  has  long  ago  pointei 
to  the  allegory  in  Lyly's  mythological  play,  Endymion,  Thei 
be  no  doubt  that  Cynthia  (the  moon-goddess)  in  Lyly's  play  j 
for  Queen  Elizabeth,  while  Leicester  figures  as  Endymion,  \ 
represented  as  hopelessly  enamoured  of  Cynthia.  Tellui 
Floscula,  of  whom  the  one  loves  Endymion's  ^'  person,"  the 
his  "  virtues,"  represent  the  Countesses  of  Sheffield  and  I 
who  stood  in  amatory  relations  to  Leicester.  The  play  i 
tissue  of  adulation  for  Elizabeth,  but  is  so  constructed  as  2 
same  time  to  flatter  and  defend  Leicester.  In  defiance  c 
actual  fact,  it  exhibits  the  Queen  as  entirely  inaccessible  t 
adorer's  homage,  and  Leicester's  intrigue  with  the  Counti 
Sheffield  as  a  mere  mask  for  his  passion  for  the  Queen ;  in 
words,  it  represents  these  relations  as  the  Queen  would  wi 
have  them  understood  by  the  people,  and  Leicester  by  the  C 
The  Countess  of  Essex,  who  was  afterwards  to  play  so  large  1 
in  Leicester's  life,  plays  a  very  small  part  in  the  drama.  He 
finds  expression  only  in  one  or  two  unobtrusive  phrases,  su 
her  cry  of  joy  on  seeing  Endymion,  after  the  forty  years'  sli 
which  he  has  grown  an  old  man,  rejuvenated  by  a  Single  kiss 
Cynthia's  lips. 

The  relation  between  Leicester  and  Lettice,  Countess  of  i 
must  certainly  have  made  a  deep  Impression  upon  Shakes] 
By  Leicester's  contrivance,  her  husband  had  been  for  a  lon{ 
banished  to  Ireland,  first  as  Commander  of  the  troops  in  L 
and  afterwards  as  Earl-Marshal ;  and  when  he  died,  in  \\ 
commonly  thought,  though  without  proof,  to  have  been  poi 
— his  widow,  after  a  lapse  of  only  a  few  days,  went  through  a  \ 
marriage  with  his  supposed  murderer.  When  Leicester,  t 
years  later,  met  with  a  sudden  death,  also,  according  to  po 
belief,  by  poison,  the  event  was  regarded  as  a  judgment  on  a 
criminal.  In  all  probability,  Shakespeare  found  in  these  e 
one  of  the  motives  of  his  Hatnlet.  Whether  the  Countess  L 
was  actually  Leicester's  mistress  dunng  her  husband's  lif 
is,  of  course,  uncertain ;  in  any  case,  the  Countess's  relati 
Robert,  Earl  of  Essex,  her  son  by  her  first  marriage,  was  al 

1  N.  J.  Halpin  :  Oberan's  Vision  in  Üü  Midmmmer  Night s  Dnam^  Oh 


"A  MIDSÜMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM" 


tj 


of  the  best.  She  was,  however,  punished  by  the  Queen's  dis- 
pleasure,  which  was  so  vehement  that  she  was  forbidden  to  show 
herseif  at  court. 

Shakespeare  has  retained  Lyly's  names,  merely  translating 
them  into  English.  Cynthia  has  become  the  moon,  Tellus  the 
earth,  Floscula  the  little  flower ;  and  with  this  commentary,  we 
are  in  a  position  to  admire  the  delicate  and  poetical  way  in  which 
he  has  touched  upon  the  family  circumstances  of  the  supposed 
bridegroom,  the  Earl  of  Essex : — 

'^  Oberen.  That  very  time  I  saw  (but  thou  couldst  not^ 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth, 
Cupid  all  arm'd  :  a  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 
And  loos'd  bis  love-shaft  smartly  from  bis  bow, 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts. 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  sbaft 
Quench'd  in  the  chaste  b^ms  of  the  wat'ry  moon, 
And  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on, 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free. 
Yet  mark'd  I  where  the  holt  of  Cupid  feil : 
It  feil  upon  a  little  westem  flower, 
Before  milk-white,  now  purple  with  love's  wound, 
And  maidens  call  it  Love-in-idleness." 


tis  flower  that  Oberon  makes  every  one 
it  falls  dote  upon  the  first  living  creature  they 


The  poet's  design  in  the  flattery  addressed  to  Elizabeth — one 
of  the  very  few  instances  of  the  kind  in  bis  works — was  no  doubt  to 
dbpose  her  favourably  towards  bis  patron's  marriage,  or,  in  other 
words,  to  deprecate  the  anger  with  which  she  was  in  the  habit 
of  regarding  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  her  favourites,  or  even  of 
ordinary  courtiers,  to  marry  according  to  their  own  inclinations. 
Essex  in  particular  had  stood  very  close  to  her,  since,  in  1587,  he 
had  suppianted  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  her  favour ;  and  although 
the  Queen,  now  in  her  fifty-seventh  year,  was  fully  thirty-four 
years  older  than  her  late  adorer,  Shakespeare  did  not  succeed 
in  averting  her  anger  from  the  young  couple.  The  bride  was 
conunanded  ^*  to  live  very  retired  in  her  mother's  house.'' 

ler  Night s  Dream  is  the  first  consummate  and 
^ce  which  Shakespeare  produced. 

and  do  not  ii^^|g||millllgftiiMHAlMB*«»y  particular  sympathy,  is  a 
fault  that  we  easily  g||g|]||gkpHax&id^  the  countless  beauties  of 
the  play.    'ffltSwNilMilüA^^lMMifas  in  the  lovers'  feelings  are 

K  typifyingilliil^gjjceg^jli^^ 
icance  as 


68  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


|Of  Titania  as  desperately  enamoured  of  Bottom  with  his  ass's 
biead.  Nay,  more;  in  the  lovers*  ever-changing  attractions  and 
repulsions  we  may  find  a  whole  sportive  love-philosophy. 
I  The  fustic  and  populär  element  in  Shakespeare^s  genius  hcre 
Mppears  more  prominently  than  ever  before.  Thd  6:)untry-bred 
louth's  whole  feeling  for  and  knowledge  of  nature  comes  to  the 
lurface,  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  poetry.  The  play  swarms 
Arith  allusions  to  plants  and  insects,  and  all  that  is  said  of  them 
IS  closely  observed  and  intimately  feit.  In  none  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  are  so  m"äny  species  of  flowers,  fruits,  and  trees  men- 
tioned  and  characterised.  H.  N.  Ellacombe,  in  his  essay  on 
The  Seasons  of  Shaksper^s  Plays^  reckons  no  fewer  than 
forty-two  species.  Images  borrowed  from  nature  meet  us  on 
every  band.  For  example,  in  Helena's  beautiful  description  of 
her  school  friendship  with  Hermia  (iii.  2),  she  says:— 

"  So  we  grew  together, 
Like  to  a  double  cherry,  seeming  parted, 
But  yet  an  union  in  partition ; 
Two  lovely  berries  moulded  on  one  stem" 

When  Titania  exhorts  her  elves  to  minister  to  every  desire  of 
her  asinine  idol,  she  says  (iii.  i): — 

"  Be  kind  and  courteous  to  this  gentleman : 
Hop  in  his  walks,  and  gambol  in  his  eyes ; 
Feed  him  with  apricocks,  and  dewberries, 
With  purple  grapes,  green  figs,  and  mulberries. 
The  honey-bags  steal  from  the  humble-bees, 
And  for  night-tapers  crop  their  waxen  thighs, 
And  light  them  at  the  fiery  glow-worm's  eyes, 
To  have  my  love  to  bed,  and  to  arise ; 
And  pluck  the  wings  from  painted  butterflies, 
To  fan  the  moonbeams  from  his  sleeping  eyes. 
Nod  to  him,  elves,  and  do  him  courtesies." 

The  populär  element  in  Shakespeare  is  closely  interwovcn 
wUUMi^!jil4itaaiii4MMMM>^.  He  has  here  plunged  deep  into  folk- 
lore,.^airiMHKupon  the  If^SS^^i^lSIfmtmBmftntUifiifi  as  they 

the  delicate  creations  of  artificial  poetry,  with  Oberon,  who  is  of 
French  descent  ("  Auberon,"  from  Vaube  du  jour\  and  Titania,  a 
name  which  Ovid  gives  in  his  Metaynorphoses  (iii.  173)  to  Diana 
as  the  sister  of  the  Titan  Sol.  The  Maydes  Metamorphosis,  a 
>lay  attributed  to  Lyly,  although  not  printed  tili  1600,  may  bc 
>lder  than  A  Midsummer  Night' s  Dreatn,  In  that  case  Shake- 
jpeare  may  have  found  the  germ  of  some  of  his  fairy  dialogue  in 
the  pretty  fairy  song  which  occurs  in  it.     There  is  a  marked 

'  JVif»  Shaks^i  Society i  TroMstuitons,  i88a-86,  p.  67. 


"A  MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM" 


«9 


similarity  even  in  details  of  dialogue.  For  examplc,  this  con- 
versation  between  Bottom  and  the  fairies  (iü.  i)  reminds  us  of 
Lyly  1 :— 


u 


'Bot,  I  cry  your  worship's  mercy,  heartily. — I  beseech  your  worship's 
name. 

"  Cod,  Cobweb. 

"  Bot.  I  shall  desire  you  of  more  acquaintance,  good  Master  Cobweb. 
If  I  cut  my  finger,  I  shall  make  bold  with  you.  Your  name,  honest 
gentleman  ? 

**Beas,  Pease-blossom. 

"  Bot,  I  pray  you,  commend  me  to  Mistress  Squash,  your  mother, 
and  to  Master  Peascod,  your  father.  Good  Master  Pease-blossom,  I 
shall  desire  you  of  more  acquaintance  too. — ^Your  name,  I  beseech 
you,  sir. 

**Mus.  Mustard-seed. 

**  Bot.  Good  Master  Mustard-seed,  I  know  your  patience  well :  that 
same  cowardly,  giant-like  oxbeef  hath  devoured  many  a  gentleman  of 
your  house.  I  promise  you,  your  kindred  hath  made  my  eyes  water 
ere  now.     I  desire  you  of  more  acquaintance,  good  Master  Mustard- 


V 


The  contrast  between  the 

quently  imitated  in  the  ninetelSirfn  Century:  in  Germany  by  Ticck ; 
in  Denmark  by  J.  L.  Heiberg,  who  has  written  no  fewer  than 
three  imitations  of  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dreani — The  Elves^j 
The  Day  of  the  Seven  Sleepers^  and  The  Nutcrackers,  y 

The  fairy  dement  introduced  into  the  comedy  brings  in  its 
train  not  only  the  "^^T'-^^'^^"ii?Jn°^^^  i  '  i*' ■"<  ^'-  *^»id  |>-'»^*-*^«*i 
forms  ""^  ttiailTTir^'Tgflr  iS  wHI  People  are  bcguiled  by  wandenng 
voices,  led  astravjn  jjj,p  jiidnighi.  ^YnH,  ^^^  ^;7;^ri;Wrrftt>»*i— 

innoceüHways.'    The  fairies  retain  from  first  to  last  their 

>ut  th< 


and  sDort^Y^^^s.  but  tne  mqividuzgTnTysrogRömi^gT^r^  ^|^,g  s^ 
of  Shakespeare's  development,  are  as  yet  soraewhat  lacking  in 
expression.     BtiAkgijfiQyi^j^Ä&tgj^  mere  shadow  in  comparison 

with  a  creation  of  twenty  yeara  Jater,  the  inimqrtaLAJÜldLÄf  ,J3^ 

^Bnlliantas  is  the  picture  of  the  fairy  world  in  A  Midsutm 
Nighfs  Dreantf  the  mastery  to  which  Shakespeare  had  attain« 
18  most  clearly  displayed  in  the  burlesque  scenes,  dealing  witl 
the  little  band  of  worthy  artisans  who  are  moved  to  represent  th< 
history  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  at  the  marriage  of  Theseus  an^ 

^  The  pusage  in  Ths  Maydis  Metam&rphosis  runs  as  foUowi  :^ 

*'  Mopso.  I  pray  you,  what  might  I  call  you  ? 
ist  Fairy,  My  name  is  Penny. 
Mopso.  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  puise  you. 
Frisco,  I  pray  you,  sir,  what  might  I  call  yoa? 
^nd  Fairy,  iky  naüOkt  is  Cricket. 
i^xA»  i  iPOUAf  J  vere  a  efaiamey  for  youx  «ikft.*^ 


70  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hippolyta.  Never  before  has  Shakespeare  risen  to  the  sparkling 
and  genial  humour  with  which  these  excellent  simpletons  are 
portrayed.  He  doubtless  drew  upon  childish  memories  of  the 
plays  he  had  seen  performed  in  the  market-place  at  Coventry  and 
elsewhere«  He  also  introduced  some  whimsical  strokes  of  satire 
upon  the  older  English  drama.  For  instance,  when  Quince  says 
(i.  2),  "  Marry,  our  play  is — The  most  lamentable  comcdy,  and 
most  cruel  death  of  Pyramus  and  Thisby/'  there  is  an  obvious 
reference  to  the  long  and  quaint  title  of  the  old  play  of  Catnbyses: 
'*A  lamentable  tragedy  mixed  füll  of  pleasant  mirth/'  ^  &c 

Shakespeare's  elevation  of  mind,  however,  is  most  clearly  appa- 
rent  in  the  playful  irony  with  which  he  treats  his  own  art,  the  art 
of  acting,  and  the  theatre  of  the  day,  with  its  scanty  and  imper- 
fect  appliances  for  the  production  of  Illusion.  The  artisan  wbo 
plays  Wall,  his  fellow  who  enacts  Moonshine,  and  the  excellent 
amateur  who  represents  the  Lion  are  deliciously  whimsical  types. 

It  was  at  all  times  a  favourite  device  with  Shakespeare,  as 
with  his  Imitators,  the  Geman  romannasts  of  two  centuries  later, 
to  introduce  a  play  within  a  play.  The  device  is  not  of  his  own 
invention.  We  find  it  already  in  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedie  (per- 
haps  as  early  as  1584),  a  play  whose  fustian  Shakespeare  often 
ridicules,  but  in  which  he  nevertheless  found  the  germ  of  his  own 
Hamlet,  But  from  the  very  first  the  idea  of  giving  an  air  of 
greater  solidity  to  the  principal  play  by  introducing  into  it  a 
Company  of  actors  had  a  great  attraction  for  him.  We  may 
compare  with  the  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  scenes  in  this  play  the 
appearance  of  Costard  and  his  comrades  as  Pompey,  Hector, 
Alexander,  Hercules,  and  Judas  Maccabseus  in  the  fifth  act  of 
Lovis  Labouf^s  Lost.  Even  there  the  Princess  speaks  with  a 
kindly  tolerance  of  the  poor  amateur  actors : — 

"  That  Sport  best  pleases,  that  doth  least  know  how : 
Where  zeal  strives  to  content,  and  the  Contents 
Die  in  the  zeal  of  them  which  it  presents, 
Their  form  confounded  makes  most  form  in  mirth; 
When  great  things  labouring  perish  in  their  birth." 

Nevertheless,  there  is  here  a  certain  youthful  cruelty  in  the 
courtiers'  ridicule  of  the  actors,  whereas  in  A  Midsummer  Night* s 
Drtam  ever}rthing  passes  off  in  the  purest,  airiest  humour.  What 
can  bc  more  perfect,  for  example,  than  the  Lion's  reassuring 
address  to  the  ladies  ? — 

'' '  You,  ladies,  you,  whose  gentle  hearts  do  fear 
The  smallest  monstrous  mouse  that  creeps  on  floor, 


*  The  pasaon  for  alUteimtkm  in  hb  oontempoimries  is  ntirised  in  thete  liaef  ol 
the  prologne  to  Pyramus  and  TküU  : —    • 


«<  Whcreat  with  Uad^  with  bloody  blamdiü  bbde. 
He  bnvdy  faracfa'd  hb  boüing  bloody  biMst' 


M 


"A  MIDSUMMER  NICHTS  DREAM''  71 

May  now,  perchance,  both  quake  and  tremble  here, 
When  lion  rough  in  wildest  rage  doth  roar. 
Theo  know,  that  I,  one  Snug  the  joiner,  am 
No  lion  feil,  nor  eise  no  lion's  dam : 
For,  if  I  should  as  lion  come  in  strife 
Into  this  place,  't  were  pity  on  my  life/  " 

And  how  pleasant,  when  he  at  last  comes  in  with  bis  roar, 
is  Demetrius*  comment,  of  proverbial  fame,  '*Well  roared, 
lion ! " 

It  is  tnie  that  A  Midsummer  Night' s  Dream  is  rather  to  bc 
described  as  a.dramatic  lyric  than  a  drama  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  Word.     It  is  a  lightly-tlowingy  sportive,  lyrical  fantasy,  dej 
with  iQve  as  a  dream^  a  fever,  an  illusion,  an  infatuatioi 
makiiig  merry,  in  especialfwith  the  irrational  nature  of  t 
stinct.     That  is  why  Lysander,  tuming,  under  the  influence 
the  magic  flower,  from  Hermia,  whom  he  loves,  to  Helena, 
is  nothing  to  him,  but  whom  he  now  imagines  that  he  adoreOf  •»" 
made  to  exclaim  (ii.  3) : — 

^"  The  will  of  man  is  by  his  reason  sway^dj 
1  And  reason  says  you  are  the  worthier  mnidiS 

Here,  more  than  anywhere  eise,  he  is  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
poct's  irony.     ^halgpgpf|;are  is  far  from  regarding  love  as  aq^wf 
pression  of  human  reason;  throughout  his  works,  indee<r^    it-ii 
omy  by  way  ot  exception  that  he  makes  reason  the  determining 
factor  in  human  conduct.     He  early  fdt  and  divine3^fiow~much 
wider  is  the  domain  of  the  unconscious  than  of  the  conscious  life, 
and  saw  that  our  moods  and  passions  have  their  root  in  the  un- 
conscious.    The  germs  of  a  whole  philosophy  of  life 
the  wayward  love-scenes  of  A  Midsumim 

And  it  is  now  that  Shakespeare,  on  the  farther  limit  of  early 
youth,  and  immediately  after  writing  A  Midsummer  Nights 
Dream^  for  the  second  time  takes  the  most  potent  of  yoüthful 
emotions  as  his  theme,  and  treats  it  no  longer  as  a  thing  of 
fantasy,  but  as  a  matter  of  the  deadliest  moment,  as  a  glowing, 
entrandng,  and  annihilating  passion,  the  source  of  bliss  and 
agony,  of  life  and  death.  It  is  now  that  he  writes  his  first  inde- 
pendent.  tragedy,  Romeo  and  Juliet^  that  unique,  imperishable 
love-poem,  which  remains  to  this  day  one  of  the  loftiest  summits 
of  the  world's  literature.  As  A  Midsummer  Nights  Dream  is 
the  triumph  of  grace,  so  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  the  apotheosis  of 
pure  passion. 


XIII 

ROMEO  AND  yULIET  —  THE  TWO  QUARTOS  —  ITS 
ROMANESQUE  STRUCTURE—THE  USE  OF  OLD 
MOTIVES—THE   CONCEPTION   OF  LOVE 

Romeo  and  Juliet^  in  its  original  form,  must  be  presumed  to  date 
from  1591,  or,  in  other  words,  from  Shakespeare's  twenty-seventh 
year. 

The  matter  was  old  ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  a  novel  by  Masuccio 
of  Salemo,  published  in  1476,  which  was  probably  made  use  of 
by  Luigi  da  Porta  when,  in  1530,  he  wrote  his  Hystoria  novella- 
nunte  ritrovata  di  dui  nobili  Atnanti,  After  him  came  Bandello, 
with  his  tale,  La  sfortunata  tnorte  di  due  infelicissitni  atnanti; 
and  upon  it  an  English  writer  founded  a  play  of  Romeo  and 
Julietf  which  seems  to  have  been  populär  in  its  day  (before  1562), 
but  is  now  lost. 

An  English  poet,  Arthur  Brooke,  found  in  Bandello's  Novella 
the  matter  for  a  poem :  The  tragicall  Historye  of  Romeus  and 
Juliety  written  first  in  Italian  by  Bandeil  and  now  in  Englisht 
by  Ar.  Br.  This  poem  is  composed  in  rhymed  iambic  verses  of 
twelve  and  fourteen  syllables  alternately,  whose  rhythm  indeed 
jogs  somewhat  heavily  along,  but  is  not  unpleasant  and  not  too 
monotonous.  The  method  of  narration  is  very  artless,  loquacious, 
and  diffuse ;  it  resembles  the  närrative  style  of  a  clever  child,  who 
describes  with  minute  exactitude  and  circumstantiality,  going  into 
every  detail,  and  placing  them  all  upon  the  same  plane.^ 

Shakespeare  founded  his  play  upon  this  poem,  in  which  the 
two  leading  characters,  Friar  Laurence,  Mercutio,  Tybalt,  the 
Nurse,  and  the  Apothecary,  were  ready  to  his  band,  in  faint 
outlines.  Romeo's  fancy  for  another  woman  immediately  before 
he  meets  Juliet  is  also  here,  set  forth  at  length ;  and  the  actioQ 
as  a  whole  foUows  the  same  course  as  in  the  tragedy. 

The  First  Quarto  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  was  published  in  IS97| 

^  Here  b  a  spedmen.     Romeo  says  to  Juliet — 

**  Since,  lady,  that  you  like  to  honor  me  so  much 
As  to  accept  me  for  your  spouse,  I  yeld  my  seife  for  such. 
In  true  witness  whereof,  because  I  must  depart, 
Till  that  my  deed  do  prove  my  woord,  I  leave  in  pawne  my  hart 
Tomorrow  eke  bestimes,  before  the  sunne  arise, 
To  Fryer  Lawrence  will  I  wende,  to  leame  his  sage  advise," 

7« 


"ROMEO  AND  JULIET"  73 

with  the  following  title :  An  excellent  conceited  Tragedie  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  As  it  hath  been  often  {with  great  applause)  plaid 
fubliquely^  by  the  right  Honourable  the  L.  of  Hunsdon  his  Ser- 
uants,  Lord  Hunsdon  died  in  July  1596,  during  his  tenure  of 
Office  as  Lord  Chamberlain ;  his  successor  in  the  title  was  ap- 
pointed  to  the  office  in  April  1597;  in  the  interim  his  Company 
of  actors  was  not  called  the  Lord  Chamberlain's,  but  only  Lord 
Hunsdon's  servants,  and  it  must,  therefore,  have  been  at  this 
time  that  the  play  was  first  acted. 

Many  things,  however,  suggest  a  much  earlier  origin  for  it, 
and  the  Nurse's  allusion  to  the  earthquake  (i.  3)  is  of  especial 
importance  in  determining  its  date.     She  says— 

"  Tis  since  the  earthquake  now  eleven  years;" 

and  a  little  later — 

"  And  since  that  time  it  is  eleven  years." 

There  had  been  an  earthquake  in  England  in  the  year  1580.  But 
we  must  not,  of  course,  take  too  literally  the  babble  of  a  garrulous 
old  servant. 

But  even  if  Shakespeare  began  to  work  upon  the  theme  in 
1591,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  according  to  his  frequent  practice, 
he  went  through  the  play  again,  revised  and  remoulded  it,  some- 
where  between  that  date  and  1599,  when  it  appeared  in  the 
Second  Quarto  almost  in  the  form  in  which  we  now  possess  it 
This  Second  Quarto  has  on  its  title-page  the  words,  '*newly  cor- 
rected,  augmented  and  amended."  Not  until  the  fourth  edition 
does  the  author's  name  appear. 

No  one  can  doubt  that  Tycho  Mommsen  and  that  excellent 
Shakespeare  scholar  Halliwell-Phillips  are  right  in  declaring  the 
1597  Quarto  to  be  a  pirated  edition.  But  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  the  complete  text  of  1599  already  existed  in  1597,  and  was 
merely  carelessly  abridged.  In  view  of  those  passages  (such  as 
the  seventh  scene  of  the  second  act)  where  a  whole  long  sequence 
of  dialogue  is  omitted  as  superfluous,  and  where  the  old  text  is 
replaced  by  one  totally  new  and  very  much  better,  this  Impres- 
sion will  not  hold  ground. 

We  have  herc,  then,  as  elsewhere — but  seldom  so  indubitably 
and  obviously  as  here — a  play  of  Shakespeare's  at  two  different 
stages  of  its  development. 

In  the  first  place,  all  that  js  merely  sketched  in  the  earlier 
edition  is  elaborated  in  the  later.  Descriptive  scenes  and  Speeches, 
which  afford  a  background  and  foil  to  the  action,  are  added.  The 
Street  skirmish  in  the  beginning  is  much  developed ;  the  scene 
between  the  servants  and  the  scene  with  the  musicians  are  added. 
The  NursCi  too,  has  become'  more  loquacious  and  much  more 
Comic;  Mercutio's  wit  has  been  enriched  by  some  of  its  most 


74  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

characteristic  touches;  old  Capulet  has  acquired  a  more  lifelike 
physiognomy;  the  part  of  Friar  Laurence,  in  particulari  has 
grown  to  almost  twice  its  original  dimensions;  and  we  feel  in 
these  amplifications  that  care  on  Shakespeare's  part,  which 
appears  in  other  places  as  well,  to  prepare,  in  the  course  of 
revision,  for  what  is  to  come,  to  lay  its  foundations  and  fore- 
shadow  it.  The  Friar's  reply,  for  example,  to  Romeo's  vehement 
outburst  of  joy  (iL  6)  is  an  added  touch  : — 

"  These  violent  delights  have  violent  ends, 
And  in  their  triumphs  die :  like  üre  and  powder, 
Which,  a^they  kiss,  consume." 

New,  too,  is  his  reflection  on  Juliet's  lightness  of  foot  :— 

"  A  lover  may  bestride  the  gossamer 
That  idles  in  the  wanton  summer  air, 
And  yet  not  fall ;  so  light  is  vanity." 

With  the  exception  of  the  first  dozen  lines,  the  Friar's 
splendidly  eloquent  speech  to  Romeo  (iii.  3)  when,  in  his  despair, 
he  has  drawn  his  sword  to  kill  himself,  is  almost  entirely  new. 
The  added  passage  begins  thus : — 

"  Why  rairst  thou  on  thy  birth,  the  heaven,  and  earth  ? 
Since  birth,  and  heaven,  and  earth,  all  three  do  meet 
In  thee  at  once,  which  thou  at  once  wouldst  lose. 
Fie,  fie !  thou  sham'st  thy  shape,  thy  love,  thy  wit ; 
Which,  like  an  usurer,  abound'st  in  all, 
And  usest  none  in  that  true  use  indeed 
Which  should  bedeck  thy  shape,  thy  love,  thy  wit" 

New,  too,  is  the  Friar's  minute  description  to  Juliet  (iv.  i)  of 
the  ^ction  of  the  sleeping-draught,  and  his  account  of  how  she 
will  be  borne  to  the  tomb,  which  paves  the  way  for  the  masterly 
passage  (iv.  3),  also  added,  where  JuUet,  with  the  potion  in  her 
band,  conquers  her  terror  of  awakening  in  the  grisly  Underground 
vault. 

But  the  essential  change  lies  in  the  additional  eamestness,  and 
consequent  beauty,  with  which  the  characters  of  the  two  lovers 
have  been  endowed  in  the  course  of  the  revision.  For  example, 
Juliet's  speech  to  Romeo  (ii.  2)  is  inserted : — 

**  And  yet  I  wish  but  for  the  thing  I  have. 
My  bounty  is  as  boundless  as  the  sea, 
My  love  as  deep ;  the  more  I  give  to  the^ 
The  more  I  have,  for  both  are  infinite." 

In  the  passage  (ii.  5)  where  Juliet  is  awaiting  the  retum  of 
the  Nurse  with  a  message  from  Rc<meo^  almost  the  whole  expres- 
aioQ  of  her  impatienoe  is  new ;  for  t:2rampk|  the  " 


1 


-'ROMEO  AND  JUUET"  75 

**  Had  she  aflfections,  and  warm  youthful  blood, 
She'd  be  as  swift  in  motion  as  a  ball ; 
My  words  would  bandy  her  to  my  sweet  love, 
And  bis  to  me : 

But  old  folks,  many  feign  as  they  were  dead ; 
Unwieldy,  slow,  heavy  and  pale  as  lead." 

In  Juliet's  celebrated  soliloquy  (iii.  2),  where,  with  that  mizture 
of  innocenoe  and  passion  which  forms  the  groundwork  of  her 
character,  she  awaits  Romeo's  first  evening  visit,  only  the  four 
opening  lines,  with  their  mythological  imagery,  are  found  in  the 
earlier  text : — 

^Jul.  Gallop  apace,  you  fiery-footed  steeds, 
Towards  Phoebus'  lodging :  such  a  waggoner 
As  Phaethon  would  whip  you  to  the  west, 
And  bring  in  cloudy  night  immediately." 

Not  tili  he  put  his  final  touches  to  the  work  did  Shakespeare 
find  for  the  young  girl's  love-longing  that  marvellous  utterance 
which  we  all  know : — 

**  Spread  thy  dose  curtain,  love-performing  night ! 
That  runaways'  eyes  may  wink,  and  Romeo 
Leap  to  these  arms,  untalk'd-of,  and  unseen ! 

•  ••••• 

Hood  my  unmann'd  blood,  bating  in  my  cheeks, 
With  thy  black  mantle ;  tili  stränge  love,  grown  bold, 
Think  true  love  acted  simple  modesty. 
Come,  night !  come,  Romeo !  come,  thou  day  in  night ! " 

Almost  the  whole  of  the  following  scene  between  the  Nurse 
and  Juliet,  in  which  she  leams  of  Tybalt's  death  and  Romeo's 
banishment,  is  likewise  new.  Here  occur  some  of  the  most 
daring  and  passionate  ezpressions  which  Shakespeare  has  placed 
in  Juliet's  mouth : — 

^  Some  word  there  was,  worser  than  Tybalt's  death» 
That  murder'd  me.    I  would  forget  it  fain. 

•  •  •  •  • 

That '  banished,'  that  one  word  *  banished,' 
Hath  slain  ten  thousand  Tjrbalts.    Tybalt's  death 
Was  woe  enough,  if  it  had  ended  there : 
Cr, — ^if  sour  woe  delights  in  fellowship, 
And  needly  will  be  rank'd  with  other  griefs» — 
Why  follow^d  not,  when  she  said — ^Tybalt's  dead, 
Thy  fisither,  or  thy  mother,  nay,  or  both, 
Which  modern  lamentation  nnght  have  mov'd  ? 
But,  with  a  rearward  foUowing  Tybalt's  death, 
'Romeo  is  banished !' — to  sfwak  that  word, 
Is  fiiuher,  mother,  Tybah,  Romeo,  Juliet, 
AU  slain,  all  dead'' 


76  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

To  the  original  version,  on  the  other  band,  belong  not  only 
the  highly  indecorous  witticisms  and  allusions  with  which  Mer- 
cutio  garnishes  the  first  scene  of  the  second  act,  but  also  die 
majority  of  the  speeches  in  which  the  conceit-virus  rages.  The 
uncertainty  of  Shakespeare's  taste,  even  at  the  date  of  the  revision, 
is  apparent  in  the  fact  that  he  has  not  only  let  all  these  speeches 
stand,  but  has  interpolated  not  a  few  of  equal  extravagance. 

So  little  did  it  jar  upon  him  that  Romeo,  in  the  original  tezt, 
should  thus  apostrophise  love  (i.  i)— 

**  O  heavy  lightness !  serious  vanity ! 
Misshapen  chaos  of  well-seeming  forms  1 
Feather  of  lead,  bright  smoke,  cold  üre,  sick  health ! 
Still-waking  sleep,  that  is  not  what  it  is  ! " 

that  in  the  course  of  revision  he^  must  needs  place  in  Juliet's 
mouth  these  quite  analogous  ejaculations  (iii.  2) : — 

**  Beautiful  tyrant !  fiend  angelical  I 
Dove-feather'd  raven  !  wolvish-ravening  lamb  1 
Despised  substance  of  divinest  show ! '' 

Romeo  in  the  old  text  indulges  in  this  deplorably  afTected 
outburst  (i.  2) : — 

"  When  the  devout  religion  of  mine  eye 
Maintains  such  falsehood,  then  turn  tears  to  fires ; 
And  these,  who,  often  drown'd,  could  never  die, 
Transparent  heretics,  be  burnt  for  liars." 

In  the  old  text,  too,  we  find  the  barbarously  tasteless  speech 
in  which  Romeo,  in  bis  despair,  envies  the  fly  which  is  free  to 
kiss  Juliet's  band  (iii.  2) : — 

"  More  validity, 
More  honoürable  State,  more  courtship  lives 
In  Carrion  flies,  than  Romeo  :  they  may  seize 
On  the  white  wonder  of  dear  Juliet's  band, 
And  steal  immortal  blessing  from  her  ups ; 
Who,  even  in  pure  and  vestal  modesty. 
Still  blush,  as  thinking  their  own  kisses  sin ; 
But  Romeo  may  not ;  he  is  banished. 
Flies  may  do  tlus,  but  I  from  this  must  fly : 
They  are  free  men,  but  I  am  banished." 

It  is  astonishing  to  come  upon  these  lapses  of  taste,  which  are 
not  surpassed  by  any  of  the  absurdities  in  which  the  French 
Prdcieuses  Ridicules  of  the  next  Century  delighted,  side  by  side 
with  outbursts  of  the  most  exquisite  lyric  poetry,  the  most  brilliant 
wit,  and  the  purest  pathos  to  be  found  in  tbe  literature  of  any 
country  or  of  any  age. 

Romeo  and  JuUet  is  perhaps  nd  such  a  flawless  work  of  art 


"ROMEO  AND  JULIET"  77 

as  A  Midsummer  Night' s  Dream.  It  is  not  so  delicately,  so  abso- 
lutely  harmonious.  But  it  is  an  achievement  of  much  greater 
significance  and  moment ;  it  is  the  great  and  typical  love-tragedy 
of  the  World. 

It  soars  immeasurably  above  all  later  attempts  to  approach  it 
The  Danish  critic  who  should  mention  such  a  tragedy  as  Axil 
and  Valborg  in  the  same  breath  with  this  play  would  show  more 
patriotism  than  artistic  sense.  Beautiful  as  Oehlenschläger's 
drama  is,  the  very  nature  of  its  theme  forbids  us  to  compare  it 
with  Shakespeare's.  It  celebrates  constancy  rather  than  love; 
it  is  a  poem  of  tender  emotions,  of  womanly  magnanimity  and 
chivalrous  virtue,  at  war  with  passion  and  malignity.  It  is 
not,  like  Romeo  and  Juliet^  at  once  the  paean  and  the  dirge  of 
passion. 

Roineo  and  Juliet  is  the  drama  of  youthful  and  impulsive  love^V 
at-first-sighty  so  passionate  that  it  bursts  every  barrier  in  its  path, 
so  determined  that  it  knows  no  middle  way  between  happiness 
and  death,  so  strong  that  it  throws  the  lovers  into  each  other's  . 
arms  with  scarcely  a  moment's  pause,  and,  lastly,  so  ill-fated  that 
.^eath  follows  straightway  upon  the  ecstasy  of  union. 

Here,  more  than  anywhere  eise,  has  Shakespeare  shown  in 
all  its  intensity  the  dual  action  of  an  absorbing  love  in  filling 
the  soul  with  gladness  to  the  point  of  intoxication,  and,  at  the    \ 
same  timc,  with  despair  at  the  very  idea  of  parting. 

While  in  A  Midsummer  Night' s  Dream  he  dealt  with  the 
imaginative~sMe  öf  love,  its  fantastic  and  illusive  phases,  he  here 
regards  it  in  its  more  passionate  aspect,  as  the  source  of  rapture. 
and  of  doom. 

His  material  enabled  Shakespeare  to  place  his  love-story  in 
the  setting  best  fitted  to  throw  into  rehef  the  beauty  of  the 
emotion,  using  as  his  background  a  Vendetta  between  two  noble 
families,  which  has  grown  from  generation  to  generation  through 
one  sanguinary  reprisal  after  another,  until  it  has  gradually  in- 
fected  the  whole  town  around  them.  According  to  the  traditions 
of  their  race,  the  lovers  ought  to  hate  each  other.  The  fact  that, 
on  the  contrary,  they  are  so  passionately  drawn  together  in 
mutual  ecstasy,  bears  witness  from  the  outset  to  the  strength 
of  an  emotion  which  not  only  neutralises  prejudice  in  their  own 
minds,  but  continues  to  assert  itself  in  Opposition  to  the  prejudices 
of  their  Surround ings.  This  is  no  peaceful  tendemess.  It  flashes 
forth  like  lightning  at  their  first  meeting,  and  its  violence,  under 
.the  hapless  circumstances,  hurries  these  young  souls  straight  to 
th«ii;^tragic  end^       ,.  -. 

Between  the  lovers  and  the  haters  Shakespeare  has  placed 
Friar  Laurence.  ^^no/^f  i"g  «n^c»  H#>ii'gh»fiii  orr^Ki^^jynents  of  reason^ 

►uch  figures  are  rare  in  his  plays,  as  they  are  in  life,  but  oughis.^ 
not  to  be  overlooked,  as  they  have  been,  for  example,  by  Taine  ^ 
in  his  somewhat   one-sided   estimate  of  Shakespeare's  great*  \ 


\ 


78  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

uess.  Shakespeare  knows  and  understands  passionlessness ;  biit 
he  always  places  it  on  the  second  plane.  It  comes  in  vexy 
naturally  here,  in  the  person  of  one  who  is  obliged  by  bis  age 
and  bis  calling  to  act  as  an  onlooker  in  the  drama  of  life.     Friar 

^  Laurence  is  füll  of  goodness  and  natural  piety,  a  monk  such  as 
Spinoza  or  Groethe  would  have  loved,  an  undogmatic  sage»  with 
the  astuteness  and  benevolent  Jesuitism  of  an  old  confessor — 
brought  up  on  the  milk  and  bread  of  philosophy,  not  on  the  fieiy 
liquors  of  religious  fanaticism. 

It  is  very  characteristic  of  the  freedom  of  spirit  which  Shake- 
speare early  acquired,  in  the  sphere  in  which  freedom  was  then 
hardest  of  attainment,  that  this  monk  is  drawn  with  so  delicate 
a  touch,  without  the  smallest  iU-will  towards  conquered  Catholi- 
cism,  yet  without  the  smallest  leaning  towards  Catholic  doctrine 
— the  emancipated  creation  of  an  emancipated  poet  The  poet 
here  rises  immeasurably  above  bis  originali  Arthur  Brooke,  wbo^ 
in  bis  natvely  moralising  "Address  to  the  Reader/'  makes  the 
Catholic  rehgion  mainly  responsible  for  the  impatient  passion  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet  and  the  disasters  which  result  from  it.^ 

It  would  be  to  misunderstand  the  whole  spirit  of  the  play  if 
we  were  to  reproach  Friar  Laurence  with  the  not  only  romantic 
but  preposterous  nature  of  the  means  he  adopts  to  help  the  lovers 
— the  sleeping-potion  administered  to  Juliet  This  Shakespeare 
simply  accepted  from  his  original,  with  bis  usual  indifference  to 
ezternal  detail 
'■      The  poet  has  placed  in  the  mouth  of  Friar  Laurence  a  tranquil 

X  life-philosophy,  which  he  first  expresses  in  general  terms,  and 
then  applies  to  the  case  of  the  lovers.  He  enters  his  cell  with  a 
basket  füll  of  herbs  from  the  garden.  Some  of  them  have  curative 
properties,  others  contain  death-dealing  Juices;  a  plant  which  has 
k  sweet  and  salutary  smell  may  be  poisonous  to  the  taste;  for 
good  and  evil  are  but  two  sides  to  the  same  thing  (ii.  3) : — 

j  \  •  Virtue  itself  tums  vice,  being  misapplied, 
And  vice  sometimes  's  by  action  dignified. 
Within  the  infant  rind  of  this  sweet  flower 
Poison  hath  residence,  and  mediane  power : 
•x^  For  this,  being  smelt,  with  that  part  cheers  each  part; 
JBeing  tasted,  slays  aU  senses  with  the  heart 
Two  such  opposed  kings  encamp  them  still 
In  man  as  well  as  herb^ — grace,  and  rüde  will ; 
And  where  the  worser  is  predominant, 
yj  FuU  soon  the  canker  death  eats  up  that  plant" 


*  *' Acoople  of  ▼nfbrtniiate  louers,  thralling  themselves  to  ▼nhonettdedie^  negleeC- 
ing  tbe  anthoritie  and  aduise  of  parents  and  frendes,  oonferring  their  prindpall 
counaels  with  dronken  gotsyppei  and  superstitioiis  friert  (the  naturally  fitte  initm- 
mentes  of  unchastitie),  attemptyng  all  adaentnres  of  penrll  for  thattaynyng  of  thdif 
wMed  loMt,  rtjDg  «tujoiler  oontokm  (the  key  of  whoradom  and  treaion).  .  .  •** 


"ROMEO  AND  JULIET"  79 

When  RomeOy  immediately  before  the  marriage,  defies  sorrow 
and  death  in  the  speech  beginning  (ii.  6) — 

"  Amen,  Amen !  but  come  what  sorrow  can, 
It  cannot  countervail  the  exchange  of  joy 
That  one  short  minute  gives  me  in  her  sight," 

Laurence  seizes  the  opportunity  to  apply  his  view  of  life.  He 
fears  this  overflowing  flood-tide  of  happiness,  and  expounds  his 
philosophy  of  the  golden  mean — that  wisdom  of  old  age  which  is 
summed  up  in  the  cautious  mazim,  ''Love  me  little,  love  me  long." 
Here  it  is  that  he  utters  the  above-quoted  words  as  to  the  violent 
ends  ensuing  on  violent  delights,  like  the  mutual  destruction 
wrought  by  the  kiss  of  fire  and  gunpowder.  It  is  remarkable 
how  the  idea  of  gunpowder  and  of  explosions  seems  to  have 
haunted  Shakespeare's  mind  while  he  was  busied  with  the  fate  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet.  In  the  original  sketch  of  Juliet's  soliloquy  in 
the  fifth  scene  of  the  second  act  we  read : — 

"  Loue's  heralds  should  be  thoughts, 
And  runne  more  swift,  than  hastie  powder  fierd, 
Doth  hurrie  from  the  fearfuU  cannons  mouth." 

When  Romeo  draws  his  sword  to  kill  himself,  the  Friar  says 
(iii.  3) :- 

"Thy  wit,  that  omament  to  shape  and  love, 
Misshapen  in  the  conduct  of  them  both, 
Like  powder  in  a  skilless  soldier's  flask, 
Is  set  a-fire  by  thine  own  ignorance. 
And  thou  dismember'd  with  thine  own  defence." 

Romeo  himself,  finally,  in  his  despair  over  the  false  news  of 
Juiiet's  death,  demands  of  the  apothecary  a  poison  so  strong  that 

"  the  tnink  may  be  discharg'd  of  breath 
As  violently,  as  the  hasty  powder  fir'd, 
Doth  hnrry  from  the  üaLtal  cannon's  womb." 


.1  In  other  words,  these  young  creatures  have  gunpowder  in  their 
l  veinsy  undamped  as  yet  by  the  mists  of  life,  and  love  is  the  fire 
which  kindles  it.     Their  catastrophe  is  inevitable,  and  it  was 
Shakespeare's  deliberate  purpose  so  to  represent  it;  but  it  is 
not  deserved,  in   the  moral  sense  of  the  word:   it  is  not  a 
^^punishment  for  guilt     The  tragedy  does  not  afTord  the  smallest 
arranty  for  the  pedantically  moralising  interpretation  devised  ^ 

Gervinus  and_others. . — —  '      ' 

Romeo  and  Julütf  as  a  drama,  still  represents  in  many  ways 
the  Italianising  tendency  in  Shakespeare's  art.     lAol  oxA*^  ^iii^ 
rfaymed  couplets  and  stanzas  and  the  aboundmg  conUtix  \^^sxi 


8o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Italian  influence:  the  wholc  structure  of  the  tragedy  is  vcry 
Romanesque.  All  Romanesque,  like  all  Greek  art,  produces  itt 
effect  by  dint  of  order,  which  sometimes  goes  the  length  of  actual 
symmetry.  Purely  English  art  has  more  of  the  freedom  of  lifc 
itself ;  it  breaks  up  symmetry  in  order  to  attain  a  more  delicate 
and  unobtrusive  harmony,  much  as  an  excellent  prose  style  shuns 
the  symmetrica!  regularity  of  verse,  and  aims  at  a  subUer  music 
of  its  own. 

The  Romanesque  type  is  apparent  in  all  Shakespeare's  earlier 
plays.  He  sometimes  even  goes  beyond  his  Romanesque  modeis. 
In  Lov^s  Labour's  Lost  the  King  with  his  three  courtiers  is 
opposed  to  the  Princess  and  her  three  ladies.  In  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona  the  faithful  Valentine  has  his  counterpart  in 
the  faithless  Proteus,  and  each  of  them  has  his  comic  servant  In 
the  Menachmi oi^\zMXx\%  there  is  only  one  slave;  in  The  Comedyof 
Errors  the  twin  masters  have  twin  servants.  In  A  Midsummer 
Nighfs  Dream  the  heroic  couple  (Theseus  and  Hippolyta)  have 
as  a  counterpart  the  fairy  couple  (Oberon  and  Titania);  and, 
further,  there  is  a  complex  symmetry  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
Athenian  lovers,  Hermia  being  at  first  wooed  by  two  men,  while 
Helena  Stands  alone  and  deserted,  whereas  afterwards  it  is 
Hermia  who  is  left  without  a  lover,  while  the  two  men  centre 
their  suit  upon  Helena.  Finally,  there  is  a  fifth  couple  in 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  represented  by  the  artisans,  who  in  bur- 
lesque  and  sportive  fashion  complete  the  symmetrical  design. 

The  French  critics  who  have  seen  in  Shakespeare  the  anti- 
thesis  to  the  Romanesque  principle  in  art  have  overlooked  these 
his  beginnings.  Voltaire,  after  more  careful  study,  need  not  have 
expressed  himself  horrified ;  and  if  Taine,  in  his  able  essay,  had 
gone  somewhat  less  summarily  to  work,  he  would  not  have  found 
everywhere  in  Shakespeare  a  fantasy  and  a  technique  entirely 
fj^meign  to  the  genius  of  the  Latin  races. 

The  composition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  quite  as  symmetrical 
as  that  of  the  comedies,  indeed  almost  architectural  in  its  equi- 
poise.  First,  two  of  Capulet's  servants  enter,  then  two  of  Mon- 
tague's ;  then  Benvolio,  of  the  Montague  party ;  then  Tybalt,  of 
the  Capulets ;  then  Citizens  of  both  parties ;  then  old  Capulet  anid 
his  wife ;  then  old  Montague  and  his ;  and  finally,  as  the  "  key- 
stone  of  the  arch,"  the  Prince,  the  central  figure  around  whom  all 
the  characters  ränge  themselves,  and  by  whom  the  fate  of  the 
lovers  is  to  be  determined.^ 

Büt  it  is  not  as  a  drama  that  Romeo  and  Juliet  has  won  all 
hearts.  Although,  from  a  dramatic  point  of  view,  it  Stands  high 
above  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream^  yet  it  is  in  virtue  of  its 
exquisite  lyrism  that  this  erotic  masterpiece  of  Shakespeare's 
youth,  like  its  fantastic  predecessor,  has  bewitched  the  worldL 
It  is  from  the  lyrical  portions  of  the  tragedy  that  the  magic 

^  SeeDowden:  Shakspire:  his  Mind tmd  Ari^  ^  ^ 


"ROMEO  AND  JULIET"  8i 

»f  romance  proceeds,  which  sheds  its  glamour  and  its  glory  over 
he  whole. 

The  finest  lyrical  passages  are  these :  Romeo's  declaration  of 
ove  at  the  baU,  Juliet's  soliloquy  before  their  bridal  night,  and 
heir  parting  at  the  dawn. 

Gervinus,  a  conscientious  and  leamed  Student,  in  spite  of  his 
endency  to  see  in  Shakespeare  the  moralist  specially  demanded 
>y  the  Germany  of  his  own  day,  has  followed  Halpin  in  pointing 
Mit  that  in  all  these  three  passages  Shakespeare  has  adopted  age* 
»Id  lyric  forms.  In  the  first  he  almost  reproduces  the  ItaUan 
lonnet;  in  the  second  he  approaches,  both  in  matter  and  fomii 
o  the  bridal  song,  the  Epithalamium ;  in  the  third  he  takes  as 
118  model  the  mediaeval  Dawn-Song,  the  Tagelied.  But  we  may 
«  sure  that  Shakespeare  did  not,  as  the  commentators  think, 
leliberately  choose  these  forms  in  order  to  give  perspective  to 
he  Situation,  but  instinctively  gave  it  a  deep  and  distant  back- 
^und  in  his  effort  to  find  the  truest  and  largest  utterance  for 
he  emotion  he  was  portraying. 

.  The  first  colloquy  between  Romeo  and  Juliet  (i.  5),  being 
nerely  the  artistic  idealisation  of  an  ordinary  passage  of  ball- 
00m  gallantry,  tums  upon  the  prayer  for  a  kiss,  which  the 
Loglish  fashion  of  the  day  authorised  each  cavalier  to  demand 
\i  his  lady,  and  is  cast  in  a  sonnet  form  more  or  less  directly 
lerivcd  from  Petrarch.  But  whereas  Petrarch's  style  is  simple 
ad  pure,  here  we  have  far-fetched  turns  of  speech,  quibbling 
ppeals,  and  expressions  of  admiration  suggested  by  the  intellect 
atiier  than  the  feelings.  The  passage  opens  with  a  quatrain  of 
inspeakable  tenderness : — 

^^  Romeo,  If  I  profane  with  my  unworthiest  hand 
This  holy  shrine,  the  gentle  fine  is  this ; 
My  lips,  two  blushing  pilgrims,  ready  stand 
To  smooth  that  rough  touch  with  a  tender  kiss.** 

Lud  though  the  scene  proceeds  in  the  somewhat  artificial  style  of 
tie  later  Italian: 


"  Romeo,  Thus  from  my  Ups,  by  thine,  my  sin  is  purg*d. 

{Kissing  her.] 
%  Juliet  Then  have  my  lips  the  sin  that  they  nave  took. 

Rom,  Sin  from  my  lips  ?     O  trespass  sweetly  uxg'd  1 
Give  me  my  sin  again. 
Jul.     ,  You  kiss  by  the  book " 

-yct  so  much  soul  is  breathed  into  the  Italian  love-fencing  that 
oder  its  somewhat  affected  grace  we  can  distinguish  the  pulse- 
tirobs  of  awakening  desire. 

Juliet's  soliloquy  before  the  bridal  night  (iii.   2)  lacks  only 
byme  to  be,  in  good  set  form,  an  epithalamium  of  the  period. 
compositions  spoke  of  Hymen  and  Cupid,  and  told  how 


82  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hymen  at  first  appears  alone,  while  Cupid  lurks  conoealed,  untü, 
at  the  door  of  the  bridal  Chamber,  the  eider  brother  gives  place  to 
the  younger. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  mythological  opening  lines,  wfaich 
belong  to  the  earlier  form  of  the  play,  contain  a  clear  reminitoence 
of  a  passage  in  Marlowe's  King  Edward  IL     Marlowe's 

*'  Gallop  apace,  bright  Phoebus,  through  the  sky  1 " 

reappears  in  Shakespeare  in  the  form  of 

"Gallop  apace,  you  fiery-footed  steeds, 
Towards  Phoebus'  lodging ! " 

The  rest  of  the  soliloquy,  as  we  have  seen  above,  ranks  amoog 
the  loveliest  things  Shakespeare  ever  wrote.  One  of  its  mott 
delicately  daring  expressions  is  imitated  in  Milton's  Camus ;  and 
the  difTerence  between  the  original  and  the  imitation  is  curiously 
typical  of  the  difference  between  the  poet  of  the  Renaissance  and 
the  poet  of  Puritanism.  Juliet  implores  love-performing  night 
to  spread  its  close  curtain,  that  Romeo  may  leap  unseen  to  her 
arms;  for — 

''  Lovers  can  see  to  do  their  amorous  rites 
By  their  own  beauties ;  or,  if  love  be  blind, 
It  best  agrees  with  night." 

Milton  annexes  the  thought  and  the  tum  of  phrase ;  but  the  pait 
played  by  beauty  in  Shakespeare,  Milton  assigns  to  virtue : — 

"  Virtue  could  see  to  do  what  virtue  wouid 
By  her  own  radiant  light" 

There  is  in  Juliet's  utterance  of  passion  a  healthful  delicacj 
that  ennobles  it ;  and  it  need  not  be  said  that  the  presence  of  this 
very  passion  in  Juliet's  monologue  renders  it  infinitely  more  chaste 
than  the  old  epithalamiums. 

The  exquisite  dialogue  in  Juliet's  Chamber  at  daybreak  (üi.  5) 
is  a  Variation  on  the  motive  of  all  the  old  Dawn-Songs.  Thqr 
always  tum  upon  the  struggle  in  the  breasts  of  two  lovers  who 
have  secretly  passed  the  night  together,  between  their  reluctance 
to  part  and  their  dread  of  discovery — a  struggle  which  sets  them 
debating  whether  the  light  they  see  comes  from  the  sun  or  (he 
moon,  and  whether  it  is  the  nightingale  or  the  lark  whose  seng 
they  hear. 

How  gracefully  is  this  motive  here  employed,  and  what 
added  depth  is  given  to  the  Situation  by  our  knowledge  that 
the  banished  Romeo's  life  is  forfeit  if  he  lingers  until  day ! — 

^^  Juliet  Wilt  thou  be  gone?  it  is  not  yet  near  day : 
It  was  the  nightingale,  and  not  the  lark, 
That  pierc'd  the  fearful  hoUow  of  thine  ear ; 
Nighüy  she  sings  on  yon  pomegranate-tree : 
BeUeve  me,  love,  it  was  the  nightingale. 


*<  ROMEO  AND  JULIET"  83 

Romeo,  It  was  the  lark,  the  herald  of  the  morn, 
No  nightingale :  look,  love,  wbat  envious  streaks 
Do  laoe  the  severing  douds  in  yonder  east" 

Romeo  is  a  well-bom  youth,  richly  endowed  by  nature,  enthu- 
iastic  and  reserved.    At  the  beginning  of  the  play  we  find  himj 
idifferent  as  to  the  family  feud,  and  absorbed  in  bis  hopel< 
incy  for  a  lady  of  the  hostUe  house,  Capulet's  fair  niece,  RosalineJ 
rhom  Mercutio  describes  as  a  pale  wench  with  black  eyes.    Tl 
losaline  of  Lav^s  Labaut^s  Lost  is  also  described   by  Biron, 
t  the  end  of  the  third  act,  as 

•*A  whitely  wanton  with  a  vclvet  brow, 
With  two  pitch-balls  stuck  in  her  face  for  eyes,** 

o  that  the  two  namesakes  may  not  improbably  have  had  a 
ommon  modeL 

Shakespeare  has  retained  this  first  passing  fancy  of  Romeo'Si 
rhich  he  found  in  bis  sources,  because  he  knew  that  the  heart  is 
lever  more  disposed  to  3deld  to  a  new  love  than  when  it  is  bleed- 
Dg  from  an  old  wound,  and  because  this  early  feeling  already 
hows  Romeo  as  indined  to  idolatry  and  self-absorption.     The^ 
'oung  Italian,  even  before  he  has  seen  the  woman  who/is  to  [ 
le  bis  fate,  is  reticent  and  melancholy,  fuU  of  tender  löngings   > 
nd  forebodings  of  evil.     Then  he  is  seized  as  though  with  an  j 
qrerwhelming  ecstasy  at  the  first  glimpse  of  Rosaline's  girl-kina- 
foman« 

Romeo's  character  is  less  resolute  than   Juliet's;    pas8ion^\ 
avages  it  more  fiercely ;  he,  as  a  youth,  has  less  control  over^  \ 
limaelf  than  she  as  a  maiden.     But  none  the  less  is  bis  whole       v 
lature  elevated  and  beautified  by  bis  relation  to  her.     He  finds^^     \ 
acpressions  for  bis  love  for  Jiiliet  quite  different  from  those  he         \ 
lad  used  in  the  case  of  Rosaline.    There  occur,  indeed,  in  the         \ 
wicoaj  scene,  one  or  two  outbursts  of  the  eztravagance  so  natural  \ 

o  the  rhetoric  of  young  love.     The  envious  moon  is  sick  and         / 
lale  with  grief  because  Juliet  is  so  much  more  fair  than  she ; 
wo  of  the  fairest  stars,  having  some  business,  do  entreat  her  eyes         1 
3  twinkle  in  their  -spheres  tili  they  retum.     But  side  by  side        / 
nük  these  coneeitä  we  find  immortal  lines,  the  most  exquisite       i 
wrds  of  love  t^t  ever  were  penned : —  \ 

**^ed  äove's  light  wings  did  I  o'erperch  these  waUs; 

Fta  th(ony  limits  cannot  hold  love  out  •  •  ." 
ii  thi 
^"^  s;  itt 

•*  I>.  .  Qny  soul  that  calls  upon  my  name : 
Hd  %ilver-8weet  sound  lovers*  tongues  by  night» 
lili^^oftest  music  to  attending  ears  1 " 

mtj 

Us  tvety  wm    is  steeped  in  a  sensuous-spiritual  ecatasy.  ' 


84 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Juliet  has  grown  up  in  an  unquiet  and  not  too  agreeable 
home.  Her  testy,  unreasonable  father,  though  not  devoid  of 
kindliness,  is  yet  so  brutal  that  he  threatens  to  beat  her  and  tum 
her  out  of  doors  if  she  does  not  comply  with  his  wishes ;  and  her 
mother  is  a  cold-hearted  woman,  whose  first  thought,  in  her  rage 
against  Romeo,  is  to  have  him  put  out  of  tbe  way  by  means  of 
poison.  She  has  thus  been  left  for  the  most  part  to  the  care 
i^  of  the  humorous  and  plain-spoken  Nurse,  one  of  Shakespeare's 
most  masterly  figures  (foretelling  the  Falstaff  of  a  few  years 
later),  whose  babble  has  tended  to  prepare  her  mind  for  love  in 
its  frankest  manifestations. 

Although  a  child  in  years,  Juliet  has  the  young  Italian's 
mastery  in  dissimulation.  When  her  mother  proposes  to  have 
Romeo  poisoned,  she  agrees  without  moving  a  muscle,  and  thus 
secures  the  promise  that  no  one  but  she  shall  be  allowed  to  mix 
the  potion.  Her  beauty  must  be  conceived  as  dazzling.  I  saw 
her  one  day  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  in  all  the  freshness  of  her 
fourteen  years.  My  companion  and  I  looked  at  each  other,  and 
exclaimed  with  one  consent,  *'  Juliet ! "  Romeo's  exclamation  on 
first  beholding  her — 

'*  Beauty  too  rieh  for  use,  for  earth  too  dear/' 

conveys  an  instant  impression  of  nobility,  high  mental  gifts,  and 
unsullied  purity,  combined  with  the  utmost  ardour  of  temperar 
ment     In  a  few  days  the  child  ripens  into  a  heroine. 

We  make  acquaintance  with  her  at  the  ball  in  the  palace  of 
the  Capulets,  and  in  the  moonlit  garden  where  the  nightingale 
sings  in  the  pomegranate-tree — surroundings  which  harmonise  as 
completely  with  the  whole  spirit  and  tone  of  the  play  as  the  biting 
wintry  air  on  the  terrace  at  Kronborg,  filled  with  echoes  of  the 
King's  carouse,  harmonises  with  the  spirit  and  tone  of  Ifamlei. 
But  Juliet  is  no  mere  creature  of  moonshine.  Sfae  is  practiod. 
While  Romeo  wanders  off  into  high-strung  raptures  ol  vague 
enthusiasm,  she,  on  the  contrary,  promptly  suggests  a  secret 
marriage,  and  promises  on  the  instant  to  send  the  Nurse  to  him 
to  make  a  more  definite  arrangement.  After  the  killing  of  her 
kinsman,  it  is  Romeo  who  despairs  and  she  who  takes  up  the 
battle,  daring  all  to  escape  the  marriage  Vith  Paris.  .  With  a  fir 
band  and  a  steadfast  heart  she  drains  the  sleejljfi 
arms  herseif  with  her  dagger,  so  that,  if  all  eise  f 
still  be  mistress  of  her  own  person. 

How  shall  we  describe  the  love  that  indues  hei 
strength? 

Modern  critics  in  Geniiany  and  Sweden  are 
ing  it  as  a  purely  sensual  passion,  by  no  means/  admir 
nay,  essentially  reprehensible.    They  insist  that  tfafere  is 
absence  of  maidenly  modesty  in  Juliet's  manner  pf  Ifeelio' 


-potion,  ' 
ils,  she  I 

ithaU 


m  I 


"ROMEO  AND  JULIET*  85 

iQg,  speaking,  and  acting.  She  does  not  really  know  Romeo, 
they  say ;  is  there  anything  more,  then,  in  this  unbashful  love 
tban  the  attraction  of  mere  bodily  beauty  ?  ^ 

As  if  it  were  possible  thus  to  analyse  and  discriminate  I  As  if, 
in  such  a  case,  body  and  soul  were  twain !  As  if  a  love  which, 
from  the  first  moment,  both  lovers  feel  to  be,  for  them,  the  arbiter 
of  life  and  death,  were  to  be  decried  in  favour  of  an  aflfection 
founded  on  mutual  esteem — the  variety  which,  it  appears,  "  our 
age  demands." 

Ah  no!  these  virtuous  philosophers  and  worthy  professors 
have  no  feeling  for  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance :  they  are  alto- 
gether  too  remote  frdm  it.  The  Renaissance  means,  among  many 
other  things,  a  new  birth  of  warm-blooded  humanity  and  pagan, 
innocence  of  imagination. 

It  is  no  love  of  the  head  that  Juliet  feels  for  Romeo,  no  ad- 
miring  affection  that  she  reasons  herseif  into ;  nor  is  it  a  senti- 
mental love,  a  riot  of  idealism  apart  from  nature.  But  still  less 
is  it  a  mere  ferment  of  the  senses.  It  is  based  upon  instinct,  the 
infalliUe  instinct  of  the  child  of  natufe^and  it  is  in  her,  as  in  him, 
a  Vibration  of  the  whole  being  in  longing  and  desire,  a  quivenng 
of  all  its  chords,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  so  intense  that 
neither  he  nor  she  can^tell  where  body  ends  and  soul  begins. 

Romeo  and  Juliet  dominate  the  whole  tragedy;  but  the  two 
minor  creations  of  Mercutio  and  the  Nurse  are  in  no  way  inferior 
to  them  in  artistic  value.  In  this  play  Shakespeare  manifests  for 
the  first  time  not  only  the  füll  majesty  but  the  many-sidedness  of 
bis  genius,  the  suppleness  of  style  which  is  äqual  at  once  to  the 
wit  of  Mercutio  and  to  the  racy  garrulity  of  the  Nurse.  Titus 
Andranicus  was  as  monotonously  sombre  as  a  tragedy  of  Mar- 
Iowe's.  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  a  perfect  orb,  embracing  the  twin 
bemispheres  of  the  tragic  and  the  comic.  It  is  a  symphony  so 
rieh  that  the  strain  from  fairyland  in  the  Queen  Mab  speech  har- 
mcmises  with  the  note  of  high  comedy  in  Mercutio's  sparkling, 
q^cal,  and  audacious  sallies,  with  the  wanton  flutings  of  farce 
in  the  Nurse's  anecdotes,  with  the  most  rapturous  descants  of 
passion  in  the  antiphonies  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  with  the 

1  Edward  Ton  Hartmann,  from  the  lofty  Standpoint  of  G«nnan  morality,  has 
banched  a  diatribe  against  Juliet  He  asserts  her  imroeasurable  moral  inferiority  to 
tbe  typkal  Gennan  maiden,  both  of  poetry  and  of  real  life.  Schiller's  Thekia  has 
tdeniaMy  less  warm  blood  in  her  veins. 

A  Swedish  professor,  Henrik  Schuck,  in  an  able  work  on  Shakespeare,  says  of 
Jaliet :  "On  ezaminii^  into  the  nature  of  the  love  to  which  she  owes  all  this  strength, 
tbe  impffejndioed  reader  cannot  but  recognise  in  it  a  purely  sensual  passion.  .  .  .  A 
few  words  from  the  Ups  of  this  well-favoured  youth  are  sufficient  to  awaken  in  its 
fallest  strength  the  slnmbering  desire  in  her  breast.  But  this  love  possesses  no 
pfchkal  basis ;  it  is  not  founded  on  any  harmony  of  souls.  They  scarcely  know 
<Mh  other.  .  .  .  Can  their  love,  then,  be  anything  more  than  the  merehr  sensual 
pnnoo  aroosed  by  the  contemplation  of  a  beautiful  bod}r?  ...  So  much  I  say  with 
«ofidcoce,  that  tbe  woman  wno,  inacoessible  to  the  Spiritual  dement  in  love,  lets 
\$näd  be  carried  away  od  tbis  first  iMeting  by  the  joy  of  tbe  tenses  .  «  .  diat 
ii  ifMnat  of  tba  love  which  our  age  demanda." 


7^ 


86  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

deep  organ-tones  in   the   soliloquies   and    speeches    of   Friar 
Laurence. 

How  intense  is  the  life  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  in  their  environ- 
ment !  Hark  to  the  gay  and  yet  warlike  hubbub  around  them, 
the  sport  and  merrimenty  the  high  words  and  the  ring  of  steel  in 
the  streets  of  Verona  I  Hark  to  the  Nurse's  strident  laughter, 
cid  Capulet's  jesting  and  chiding,  the  low  tones  of  the  Friar,  and 
the  irrepressible  rattle  of  Mercutio's  wit  1  Feel  the  magic  of  the 
whole  atmosphere  in  which  they  are  plunged,  these  embodiments 
of  tumultuous  youth,  living  and  dying  in  love,  in  magnanimity, 
in  passion,  in  despair,  under  a  glowing  Southern  sky,  softening 
into  moonlight  nights  of  sultry  fragrance — and  realise  that  Shake- 
speare had  at  this  point  completed  the  first  stage  of  his  triumphal 
progress! 


f  - 


XIV 

^ER'DAY  ATTACKS  UPON  SHAKESPEARE— THE 
BACONIAN  THEORY  —  SHAKESPEARE'S  KNOW- 
LEDGE, PHYSICAL  AND  PHILOSOPHICAL 

»ne  of  his  sonnets  Robert  Browning  says  that  Shakespeare's 
c,  like  the  Hebrew  name  of  God,  ought  never  to  bc  taken  in 
•  A  timely  monition  to  an  age  which  has  seen  this  great 
e  besmirched  by  American  and  European  imbecility ! 
[t  is  well  known  that  in  recent  days  a  troop  of  less  than  half- 
ated  people  have  put  forth  the  doctrine  that  Shakespeare  lent 
name  to  a  body  of  poetry  with  which  he  had  really  nothing 
[o  —  which  he  could  not  have  understood,  much  less  have 
ten.  Literary  criticism  is  an  Instrument  which,  like  all  deücate 
\f  must  be  handled  carefuUy,  and  only  by  those  who  have  a 
.tion  for  it.  Here  it  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  raw  Americans 
fknatical  women.  Feminine  criticism  on  the  one  band,  with 
ack  of  artistic  nerve,  and  Americanism  on  the  other  band, 
its  lack  of  Spiritual  delicacy,  have  declared  war  to  the  knife 
QSt  Shakespeare's  personality,  and  have  within  the  last  few 
8  found  a  considerable  number  of  adherents.  We  have  here 
her  proof,  if  any  were  needed,  that  the  judgment  of  the  multi- 
,  in  questions  of  art,  is  a  negligible  quantity.^ 
iefore  the  middle  of  this  Century,  it  had  occurred  to  no  human 
g  to  doubt  that — trifling  exceptions  apart — the  works  attri- 
d  to  Shakespeare  were  actually  written  by  him.  It  has  been 
rved  for  the  last  forty  years  to  see  an  ever-increasing  stream 
>loquy  and  contempt  directed  against  what  had  hitherto  been 
nost  honoured  name  in  modern  literature. 
\X  first  the  attack  upon  Shakespeare's  memory  was  not  so 
liatic  as  it  has  since  become.  In  1848  an  American,  Hart  by 
e,  gave  utterance  to  some  general  doubts  as  to  the  origin  of 
>lays.    Then,  in  August  1852,  tbere  appeared  in  Chafkbtr^fs 

^^oeording  to  W.  H.  Wyman's  Bibli^graphy  of  flu  Baeon-Skaketpean  Comir»' 
(Qndniuiti,  1884),  there  had  been  published  np  to  thftt  date  21^5  boc^  pmm- 
I,  «nd  essays  as  to  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare'a  plays.  In  Amenca  l6l  treatiMi 
inderable  bulk  had  been  devoted  to  the  question,  and  in  England  69.  Of  theie» 
9«  deddedly  opposed  to  Shakespeare's  authorship,  while  65  left  the  qnestion 
enmned.  In  other  words,  out  of  161  books,  only  23  were  in  £avoar  of  Shako- 
i»    And  nnot  then  the  proportioD  has  no  dovbt  renuoned  mucfa  the  samt. 


88  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Edinburgh  Journal  an  anonymous  article,  the  author  of  which 
declared  his  conviction  that  William  Sliakespeare,  uneducated  as 
he  was,  must  have  hired  a  poet,  some  penniless  famished  Chatter- 
ton, who  was  willijg  to  seil  him  his  genius,  and  let  him  take  to 
himself  the  credl.  for  its  creations.  We  see,  he  says,  that  his 
plays  steadily  improve  as  the  series  proceeds,  until  suddenly 
Shakespeare  leaves  London  with  a  fortune,  and  the  series  comes 
to  an  abrupt  end.  In  the  case  of  so  strenuously  progressive  a 
genius,  can  we  account  for  this  otherwise  than  by  supposing  that 
the  poet  had  died,  while  his  employer  survived  him  ? 

This  is  the  first  definite  expression  of  the  fancy  that  Shake- 
speare was  only  a  man  of  straw  who  had  arrogated  to  himself  the 
renown  of  an  unknown  immortaL 

In  1856  a  Mr.  William  Smith  issued  a  privately-printed  letter 
to  Lord  Ellesmere,  in  which  he  puts  forth  the  opinion  that  William 
Shakespeare  was,  by  reason  of  his  birth,  his  upbringing,  and  his 
lack  of  culture,  incapable  of  writing  the  plays  attributed  to  him. 
They  must  have  been  the  work  of  a  man  educated  to  the  highest 
point  by  study,  travel,  knowledge  of  books  and  men — a  man  like 
Francis  Bacon,  the  greatest  Englishman  of  his  tinie.  Bacon  had 
kept  his  authorship  secret,  because  to  have  avowed  it  would  have 
been  to  sacrifice  his  position  both  in  his  profession  and  in  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  he  saw  in  these  plays  a  means  of  strengthening  his 
economic  position,  and  he  used  the  actor  Shakespeare  as  a  man 
of  straw.  Smith  maintains  that  it  was  Bacon  who,  after  having 
fallen  into  disgrace  in  1621,  published  the  First  Folio  edition  of 
the  plays  in  1623. 

If  there  were  no  other  objection  to  this  far-fetched  theory,  wc 
cannot  but  remark  that  Bacon  was  scrupulously  careful  as  to  the 
form  in  which  his  works  appeared,  rewrote  them  over  and  ovcr 
again,  and  corrected  them  so  carefully  that  scarcely  a  single  error 
of  the  press  is  to  be  found  in  his  books.  Can  he  have  been  re- 
sponsible  for  the  publication  of  these  thirty-six  plays,  which 
swarm  with  misreadings  and  contain  about  twenty  thousand  errorr 
of  the  press  1 

The  delusion  did  not  take  serious  shape  until,  in  the  sa: 
year,  a  Miss  Delia  Bacon  put  forward  the  same  theory  in  Arne 
can  magazines :  her  namesake  Bacon,  and  not  Shakespeare,  t 
the  author  of  the  renowned  dramas.     In  the  following  year 
published  a  quite  unreadable  book  on  the  subject,  of  nearl 
pages.     And  close  upon  her  heels  foUowed  her  disciple,  , 
Nathaniel  Holmes,  also  an  American,  with  a  book  of  no 
than  696  pages,  füll  of  denunciations  of  the  ignorant  va^ 
William  Shakespeare,  who,  though  he  could  scarcely  v 
own   name  and  knew  no  other  ambition  than  that  of 
grubbing,    had    appropnated    half   the    renown    of    ."b 
Bacon. 

The  assumption  is  always  the  same :  Shakespeare, ' 


THE  BACONIAN  THEORY  89 

provincial  tot^n,  of  illiterate  parentSi  his  father  being,  among  other 
things,  a  butcher,  was  an  Ignorant  boor,  a  low  fellow,  a  "  butcher- 
boy,''  as  his  assailants  currently  call  him.  In  HolmeS|  as  in  later 
writers,  the  main  method  of  proving  Bacon's  authorship  of  the 
Shakespearian  plays  is  to  bring  together  passages  of  somewhat 
similar  import  in  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  in  total  disregard  of 
contezty  form,  or  spirit. 

Miss  Delia  Bacon  literally  dedicated  her  life  to  her  attack  upon 
Shakespeare.  She  saw  iti  his  works,  not  poetry,  but  a  great 
philosophico-political  System,  and  maintained  that  the  proof  of  her 
doctrine  would  be  found  deposited  in  Shakespeare's  grave.  She 
had  discovered  in  Bacon's  letters  the  key  to  a  cipher  which  would 
dear  up  everything;  but  unfortunately  she  became  insane  before 
she  had  imparted  this  key  to  the  world,^  She  went  to  Stratford, 
obtained  permission  to  have  the  grave  opened,  hovered  about  it 
day  and  night,  but  at  last  left  it  undisturbed,  as  it  did  not  appear 
to  her  large  enough  to  contain  the  posthumous  papers  of  the 
Elizabeth  Club.  She  did  not,  however,  expect  to  find  in  the 
grave  the  original  manuscripts  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  No! 
she  exclaims  in  her  article  on  "William  Shakespeare  and  his 
Plays"  {JPutnanis  Magazine^  January  1856),  Lord  Leicester's 
groom,  of  course,  cared  nothing  for  them,  but  only  for  the  profit 
to  be  made  out  of  them.  What  was  to  prevent  him  from  lighting 
the  fire  with  them  ?  "  He  had  those  manuscripts !  .  .  .  He  had 
the  original  Hamlet  with  its  last  finish ;  he  had  the  original  Lear 
with  his  own  final  readings ;  he  had  them  all,  as  they  came  from 
the  gods.  .  .  .  And  he  left  us  to  wear  out  our  youth  and  squander 
our  lifetime  in  poring  over  and  setting  right  the  old  garbled  copies 
of  the  playhouse !  .  .  .  Traitor  and  miscreant !  what  did  you  do 
with  them  ?  You  have  skulked  this  question  long  enough.  You 
will  have  to  account  for  them.  .  .  .  The  awakening  ages  will  put 
you  on  the  stand,  and  you  will  not  leave  it  until  you  answer  the 
question,  *  What  did  you  do  with  them  ? '  " 

It  is  hard  to  be  the  greatest  dramatic  genius  in  the  world's 

*  One  of  her  many  followere,  an  American  lawyer,  Ignatius  Donelly  fonnerly 
Member  of  Congress  and  Senator  from  Minnesota,  Claims  to  have  found  the  kev. 
His  crazy  book  is  called  Ttu  Greni  Cryptogram :  Francis  BacotCs  Cipher  in  tki 
99<€UUd  Shakespeare  Plays,  Donelly  Claims  that  among  Bacon's  papers  he  has 
disoorered  a  dpher  which  enahles  him  to  extract  here  and  there  from  the  First 
Fidio  letters  wnich  form  words  and  phrases  distinctly  statin?  that  Bacon  is  the 
aathor  of  the  dramas,  and  how  Bacon  embodied  in  the  First  Folio  a  cipher-confession 
of  his  authorship.  Apart  from  the  general  folly  of  such  a  proceeding,  Bacon  must 
thas  have  made  theeditors,  Heminge  and  Condell,  his  accomplices  in  his  meaningless 
deoeption,  and  must  eyen  have  induced  Ben  Jonson  to  confirm  it  by  his  enthusiastic 
iatroductory  poem.  Donelly  has  the  impudence  to  declare  that  he  won't  communicate 
the  key,  lest  anybodv  eise  shall  be  able  to  read  the  parts  of  the  Cryptogram  not  yet 
interpreted,  and  in  that  wav  deprive  him  of  his  remuneration.  During  the  first  three 
BODUis  of  publication  of  this  two-volame  work,  no  less  than  20,000  copies  were  soM 
8C  two  pounds» 


90  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

history,  and  then,  two  centuries  and  a  half  after  your  death,  to 
be  called  to  account  in  such  a  tone  as  this  for  the  fact  that  your 
manuscripts  have  disappeared.     As  regards  purely  externa!  evi- 
dence,  it  is  worth  mentioning  that  the  greatest  Student  of  Bacon's 
works,  his  editor  and  biographer,  James  Spedding,  being  chal- 
lenged  by  Holmes  to  give  his  opinion,  made  a  Statement  which 
begins  thus: — ''I  have  read  your  book  on  the  authorship  of 
Shakespeare  faithfully  to  the  end,  and  ...  I  must  declare  myself 
not  only  unconvinced  but  undisturbed.     To  ask  me  to  believe 
that '  Bacon  was  the  author  of  these  dramas '  is  like  asking  me  to 
believe  that  Lord  Brougham  was  the  author  not  only  of  Dickens' 
novels,  but  of  Thackerays  also,  and  of  Tennyson's  poems  be- 
sides.     I  deny,"  he  concludes,  "  that  a  primd  fade  case  is  made 
out  for  questioning  Shakespeare's  title.     But  if  there  were  any 
reason  for  supposing  that  somebody  eise  was  the  real  author,  I 
think  I  am  in  a  condition  to  say  that,  whoever  it  was,  it  was  not 
Bacon"  {Reviews and Discussions^  1879,  pp.  369-374). 

What  most  amazes  a  critical  reader  of  the  Baconian  imperti- 
nences  is  the  fact  that  all  the  difierent  arguments  for  the  impossi- 
bility  of  attributing  these  plays  to  Shakespeare  are  founded  upon 
the  universality  of  knowledge  and  insight  displayed  in  them, 
which  must  have  been  unattainable,  it  is  urged,  to  a  man  of 
Shakespeare's  imperfect  scholastic  training.  llius  all  that  these 
detractors  bring  forward  to  Shakespeare's  dishonour  serves» 
rightly  considered,  to  show  in  a  clearer  light  the  wealth  of  his 
genius. 

On  the  other  band,  the  arguments  adduced  in  support  of 
Bacon's  authorship  are  so  ridiculous  as  almost  to  elude  critidsm. 
Opponents  of  the  doctrine  have  dwelt  upon  such  details  as  the 
philistinism  of  Bacon's  essays  ''Of  Love,"  "Of  Marriage  and 
Single  Life/'  contrasted  with  the  depth  and  the  wit  of  Shakesperian 
utterances  on  these  subjects;  or  they  have  cited  certain  lines 
from  the  miserable  translations  of  seven  Hebrew  psalms  which 
Bacon  produced  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  contrasting  them 
with  passages  from  Richard  IIL  and  Hamlet^  in  which  Shake- 
speare has  dealt  with  exactly  similar  ideas  —  the  harvest  that 
follows  from  a  seed-time  of  tears,  and  the  leaping  to  light  of 
secret  crimes.  But  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  go  into  details.  Any 
one  who  has  read  even  a  few  of  Bacon's  essays  or  a  stanza  or 
two  of  his  verse  translations,  and  who  can  discover  in  them  any 
trace  of  Shakespeare's  style  in  prose  or  verse,  is  no  more  fitted  to 
have  a  voice  on  such  questions  than  an  inland  bumpkin  is  fitted 
to  lay  down  the  law  upon  navigation. 

Even  putting  aside  the  conjecture  with  regard  to  Bacon,  an^ 
looking  merely  at  the  theory  that  Shakespeare  did  not  Moite  the 
plays,  we  cannot  but  find  it  unrivalled  in  its  ineptitude.  How 
can  we  conceive  that  not  only  contemporaries  in  general,  but 
those  with  whom  Shakespeare  was  in  daily  intercourse  —  tbe 


SHAKESPEARE«  KNOWLEDGE  OF  LAW  91 

plajera  to  whom  he  gave  these  dramas  for  production,  who 
recdved  his  instructions  about  them,  who  saw  his  manuscripts 
and  havc  described  them  to  us  (in  the  forcword  to  the  First 
Folio) ;  the  dramatists  who  were  constantly  with  him,  his  rivals 
and  afterwards  his  comrades,  like  Drayton  and  Ben  Jonson ;  the  ^ 
people  who  discussed  his  works  with  him  in  the  theatre,  or,  over 
the  evening  glass,  debated  with  him  concerning  his  art;  and, 
finally,  the  young  noblemen  i¥hom  his  genius  attracted  and  who 
became  his  patrons  and  afterwards  his  friends — how  can  we  con- 
oeive  that  none  of  these,  no  single  one,  should  ever  have  observed 
that  he  was  not  the  man  he  pretended  to  be,  and  that  he  did  not 
even  iinderstand  the  works  he  fraudulently  declared  to  be  his  I 
How  can  we  conceive  that  none  of  all  this  intelligent  and  critical 
drcle  should  ever  have  discovered  the  yawning  gulf  which  sepa- 
rated  his  ordinary  thought  and  speech  from  the  thought  and  style 
of  his  alleged  works ! 

In  siuHi  then,  the  only  evidence  against  Shakespeare  lies  in 
the  fact  that  his  works  give  proof  of  a  too  many-sidoi  knowledge 
and  insight  1 

The  knowledge  of  English  law  which  Shakespeare  displays  is 
so  surprising  as  to  have  led  to  the  belief  that  he  must  for  some 
time  in  his  youth  have  been  a  clerk  in  an  attome^s  office — a 
theory  which  was  thought  to  be  supported  by  the  belief,  now  dis- 
creditedi  that  an  attack  by  the  satirist  Thomas  Nash  upon  lawyers 
who  had  deserted  the  law  for  poetry  was  directed  against  him.^ 

Shakespeare  shows  a  quite  unusual  fondness  for  the  use  of 
legal  ezpressions.  He  knows  to  a  nicety  the  technicalities  of  the 
bar,  the  formulas  of  the  bench.  WhUe  most  English  writers 
of  his  period  are  guilty  of  frequent  blunders  as  to  the  laws  of 
marriage  and  inheritance,  lawyers  of  a  later  date  have  not  suc« 
ceeded  in  finding  in  Shakespeare's  references  to  the  law  a  single 
error  or  deficiency.  Lord  Campbell,  an  eminent  lawyer,  has  written 
a  book  on  Shakespeares  Legal  Acquirements,  And  it  was  not 
through  the  lawsuits  of  Shakespeare's  riper  years  that  he  attained 
this  knowledge.  It  is  to  be  found  even  in  his  earliest  works.  It 
appears,  quaintly  enough,  in  the  mouth  of  the  goddess  in  Venus 
and  Adams  (verse  86,  &c.),  and  it  obtrudes  itself  in  Sonnet  zlvi., 
with  its  somewhat  tasteless  and  wire-drawn  description  of  a  formal 
lawsuit  between  the  eye  and  the  heart     It  is  characteristic  that 

^  The  passa^e  runs  thus :  "  It  is  a  common  practice  now  a  dajrs  among  a  sort  of 
■hifting  oompamons  that  ran  through  every  art  and  thriye  by  none,  to  leave  the  trade 
of  mtverint,  whereto  they  were  bom,  and  busy  themselyes  with  the  endeavonrs  of  art, 
that  conld  scarcely  latinize  their  neck-yerse  if  they  should  haye  need ;  yet  Englidi 
Scoeca,  read  by  candlelight,  ^elds  many  good  sentences,  as  Blood  is  a  beggar^  and  so 
Ibith;  and  if  you  entreat  him  fair  in  a  frosty  moming,  he  will  afforayou  whole 
Hmmiits^  I  should  say  handfiils,  of  tragical  speeches."  Although  this  passage  seems 
li  fint  sight  an  evident  gibe  at  Shakespeare,  it  has  in  reality  no  referenoe  to  lum, 
änoe  An  EpistU  U  tke  GtniUmen  ShuUnts  of  both  üniversitUs,  by  Thomas  Nash» 
•Itfaoag^  not  printed  tili  1589,  can  be  proyed  to  haye  been  written  as  early  as  1587» 

jtais  booie  Shatopeaie  lo  mnch  as  thoogfat  of  HamUt,  /         .,..  ^  y^ 


9»  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

his  knowledge  does  not  eztend  to  the  laws  of  foreign.countrfes; 
otherwise  we  should  scarcely  find  Measure  for  Measure  founded 
upon  such  an  impossible  State  of  the  law  as  that  which  is  described 
as  obtaining  in  Vienna.  Shakespeare's  accurate  knowledge  begins 
and  ends  with  what  comes  within  the  sphere  of  his  personal 
Observation. 

He  seems  equally  at  home  in  all  departments  of  human  life. 
If  we  might  conclude  from  his  knowledge  of  law  that  he  had  been 
a  lawyer,  we  might  no  less  confidently  infer  from  his  knowledge 
of  typography  that  he  had  been  a  printer's  devil.  An  English 
printer  named  Blades  has  written  an  instructive  book,  Shakespeare 
and  Typography^  to  show  that  if  the  poet  had  passed  his  whole 
life  in  a  printing-office  he  could  not  have  been  more  familiär  with 
the  many  peculiarities  of  nomenclature  belonging  to  the  handicraft. 
Bishop  Charles  Wordsworth  has  written  a  highly  esteemed,  very 
pious,  but,  I  regret  to  say,-  quite  unreadable  work,  Shakespeare^ s 
Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible,  in  which  he  makes  out  that  the 
poet  was  impregnated  with  the  Biblical  spirit,  and  possessed  a 
unique  acquaintance  with  Biblical  forms  of  expression. 

Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  nature  is  not  simply  such  as  can 
be  acquired  by  any  one  who  passes  his  childhood  and  youth  in 
the  open  air  and  in  the  country.  But  even  of  this  sort  of  know- 
ledge he  has  an  astonishing  störe.  Whole  books  have  been  written 
as  to  his  familiarity  with  insect  life  alone  (R.  Patterson :  The 
Natural  History  ofthe  Insects  mentioned  by  Shakespeare;  London, 
1841),  and  his  knowledge  of  the  characteristics  of  the  larger 
animals  and  birds  seems  to  be  inexhaustible.  Appleton  Morgan, 
one  of  the  commentators  of  the  Baconian  theory,  adduces  in  The 
Shakespearean  Myth  a  whole  series  of  examples. 

In  Much  Ado  (v.  2)  Benedick  says  to  Margaret — 

"  Thy  wit  is  as  quick  as  the  greyhound's  moüth ;  it  catches." 

The  greyhound  alone  among  dogs  can  seize  its  prey  while  in 
füll  career. 

In  As  You  Like  It  (i.  2)  Celia  says — 

^  Here  comes  Monsieur  Le  Beau. 

Rosalind.  With  his  mouth  füll  of  news. 

Celia.  Which  he  will  put  on  us  as  pigeons  feed  their  young." 

Pigeons  have  a  way,  peculiar  to  themselves,  of  passing  foo« 
down  the  throats  of  their  young. 

In  Twelfth  Night  (iii.  i)  the  Clown  says  to  Viola— 

"Fools  are  as  like  husbands,  as  pilchards  are  to  herrings, 
bttsband's  the  bigger." 


SHAKESPEARE'S  KNOWLEDGE  OF  NATURE      93 

The  pilchard  is  a  fish  of  the  herring  family,  which  is  caught 
in  the  Channel ;  it  is  longer  and  has  larger  scales. 
In  the  same  play  (ii.  5)  Maria  says  of  Malvoli< 


"  Here  comes  the  trout  that  must  be  caught  with  tickling.** 

When  a  trout  is  tickled  on  the  sides  or  the  belly  it  becomes 
so  stupefied  that  it  lets  itself  be  caught  in  the  band. 

In  Much  Ada  (iii.  i)  Hero  says — 

"  For  look  where  Beatrice,  like  a  lapwing,  runs 
Close  by  the  ground,  to  hear  our  Conference." 

The  lapwing,  which  runs  very  swiftly,  bends  its  neck  towarda 
the  ground  in  running,  in  order  to  escape  Observation. 
In  King  Lear  (i.  4)  the  Fool  says — 

"  The  hedge-sparrow  fed  the  cuckoo  so  long, 
That  it  had  its  head  bit  off  by  its  young" 

In  England,  it  is  in  the  hedge-sparrow's  nest  that  the  cuckoo 
lays  its  eggs. 

In  Alts  WeU  that  Ends  WtU  (ü.  S)  Lafeu  says— 

"  I  took  this  lark  for  a  bunting." 

The  English  bunting  is  a  bird  of  the  same  colour  and  appear« 
ance  as  the  lark,  but  it  does  not  sing  so  well. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  that  Shakespeare  was  as  familiär 
with  the  characteristics  of  plants  as  with  those  of  animals. 
Strangely  enough,  people  have  thought  this  knowledge  of  nature 
so  improbable  in  a  great  poet,  that  in  order  to  explain  it  they  have 
jumpcd  at  the  conclusion  that  the  author  must  have  been  a  man 
of  science  as  well.       J 

More  comprehensible  is  the  astonishmcnt  which  has  been 
awakened  by  Shakespeare's  insight  in  other  domains  of  nature 
not  lying  so  open  to  immediate  Observation.  His  medical  know* 
ledge  early  attracted  attention.  In  1 860  a  Doctor  Bucknill  devoted 
a  whole  book  to  the  subject,  in  which  he  goes  so  far  as  to  attribute 
to  the  poet  the  most  advanced  knowledge  of  our  own  time,  or, 
at  any  rate,  of  the  'sixties,  in  this  depärtment  '  Shakespeare's 
representations  of  madness  surpass  all  those  of  other  poets. 
Alienists  are  füll  of  admiration  for  the  accuracy  of  the  Symptoms 
in  Lear  and  Ophelia.  Nay,  more,  Shakespeare  appears  to  have 
divined  the  more  intelligent  modern  treatment  of  the  insane,  as 
opposed  to  the  cruelty  prevalent  in  his  own  time  and  long  after. 
He  even  had  some  notions  of  what  we  in  our  days  caU  medical 
jurisprudence ;  he  was  familiär  with  the  Symptoms  of  violent  deatb 


94  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  contradistinction  to  death  from  natural  causes.     Warwick  i 
io  thc  second  part  of  Henry  VI.  (iii.  2) : — 

"  See,  how  the  blood  is  settled'  in  bis  face. 
Oft  have  I  seen  a  timely-parted  ghost, 
Of  ashy  semblance,  meagre,  pale,  and  bloodless, 
Being  all  descended  to  tbe  labouring  beart." 

These  lines  occur  in  tbe  oldest  text      In  tbe  later  text, 
doubtedly  the  result  of  Sbakespeare's  revision,  we  read  : — 

"  £ut  see,  bis  face  is  black,  and  füll  of  blood ; 
His  eye-balls  furtber  out  tban  wben  be  liv'd, 
Staring  füll  gbastly  like  a  strangled  man : 
His  bair  uprear'd,  bis  nostrils  stretcb'd  witb  stniggling ; 
His  bands  abroad  displa/d,  as  one  tbat  grasp'd 
And  tugg'd  for  life,  and  was  by  strengtb  subdued. 
Look,  on  tbe  sbeets,  bis  bair,  you  see,  is  sticking ; 
His  well-proportion'd  beard  made  rougb  and  rugged, 
like  to  Üie  summer's  corn  by  tempest  lodg'd. 
It  cannot  be  but  be  was  murder'd  bere ; 
Tbe  least  of  all  tbese  signs  were  probable." 

Shakespeare  seems,  in  certain  instances,  to  be  not  only  abn 
of  the  natural  science  of  his  time,  but  in  advance  of  it.  Pe< 
have  had  recourse  to  the  Baconian  theory  in  order  to  explain 
surprising  fact  tbat  altbough  Harvey,  who  is  commonly  rej 
sented  as  the  discoverer  of  the  circiUation  of  tbe  blood,  did 
announce  his  discovery  until  1619,  and  published  his  book  upo 
so  late  as  1628,  yet  Shakespeare,  who,  as  we  know,  died  in  it 
in  many  passages  of  bis  plays  alludes  to  the  blood  as  circulat 
through  the  body.  Thus,  for  example,  in  Julius  C(ssar  (iL 
Brutus  says  to  Portia — 

^  You  are  my  tnie  and  bonourable  wife ; 
As  dear  to  me  as  are  tbe  ruddy  drops 
That  Visit  my  sad  beart" 

A^g;ain,  in  Coriolanus  (Li)  Menenius  makes  the  belly  sa] 
its  food — 

*'  I  send  it  through  tbe  rivers  of  your  blood, 
Even  to  tbe  court,  tbe  beart,  to  tbe  seat  o'  tbe  brain ; 
And,  through  tbe  cranks  and  Offices  of  man, 
Tbe  strongest  nerves,  and  small  inferior  veins, 
From  me  receive  tbat  natural  competency 
Wbereby  tbey  live," 

But  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  highly  gifted  and  unl] 
Servetus,  whom  Calvin  bumed,  had,  between  1530  and  1540^ ; 
the  discovery  and  lectured  upon  it,  all  men  of  culture  in  Er 
knew  very  well  before  Harvey's  time  that  the  blood  üowef 
äuit  It  circulated^  and»  more  particularly » that  \t  ^a&  drm 


SHAKESPEARE'S  KNOWLEDGE  OF  SCIENCE      95 

the  heart  to  the  different  limbs  and  organs;  only,  it  was  generally 
conceived  that  the  blood  passed  from  the  heart  through  the  veins, 
and  not,  as  is  actually  the  case,  through  the  arteries.  And  there 
is  nothing  in  the  seventy-odd  places  in  Shakespeare  where  the 
drculation  of  the  blood  is  mentioned  to  show  that  he  possessed 
this  ultimate  insight,  although  his  general  understanding  of  these 
questions  bears  witness  to  his  high  culture. 

Another  point  which  some  people  have  held  inezplicable,  ex- 
cept  by  the  Baconian  theory,  may  be  stated  thus:  Although  the 
law  of  gravitation  was  first  discovered  by  Newton,  who  was  bom 
in  1642,  or  fully  twenty-six  years  after  Shakespeare's  death,  and 
although  the  general  conception  of  gravitation  towards  the  centre 
of  the  earth  had  been  unknown  before  Kepler,  who  discovered  his 
third  law  of  the  mechanism  of  the  heavenly  bodies  two  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  nevertheless  in  Troilus  and  Cressida  (iv.  2) 
the  heroine  thus  expresses  herseif: — 

"  Time,  force,  and  death, 
Do  to  this  body  what  extremes  you  can, 
But  the  strong  base  and  building  of  my  love 
Is  as  the  very  centre  of  the  earth, 
Drawing  all  things  to  it" 

So  carelessly  does  Shakespeare  throw  out  such  an  extraordi- 
naiy  divination.  His  achievement  in  thus,  as  it  were,  rivalling 
Newton  may  seem  in  a  certain  sense  even  more  extraordinary 
than  Goethe's  botanical  and  osteological  discoveries ;  for  Goethe 
had  enjoyed  a  very  dififerent  education  from  his,  and  had,  more- 
over,  all  desirable  leisure  for  scientific  research.  But  Newton 
cannot  rightly  be  said  to  have  discovered  the  law  of  gravitation ; 
he  only  applied  it  to  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 
Even  Aristotle  had  defined  weight  as  ''the  striving  of  heavy 
bodies  towards  the  centre  of  the  earth."  Among  men  of  clas- 
sical  culture  in  England  in  Shakespeare's  time,  the  knowledge 
that  the  centre  point  of  the  earth  attracts  everything  to  it  was 
quite  common.  The  passage  cited  only  afifords  an  additional 
proof  that  several  of  the  men  whose  society  Shakespeare  fre- 
quented  were  among  the  most  highly-developed  intellects  of  the 
period.  That  his  astronomical  knowledge  was  not,  on  the  whole, 
in  advance  of  his  time  is  proved  by  the  expression,  "  the  glorious 
planet  Sol "  in  Troilus  and  Cressida  (i.  3).  He  never  got  beyond 
the  Ptolemaic  System. 

Another  confirmation  of  the  theory  that  Bacon  must  have 
written  Shakespeare's  plays  has  been  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
poet  dearly  had  some  conception  of  geology ;  whereas  geology, 
as  a  science,  owes  its  origin  to  Niels  Steno,  who  was  bom  in 
1638,  twenty-two  years  after  Shakespeare's  death.  In  the  second 
psrt  oi  Henry  IV.  (iii.  i),  King  Henry  say&i — 


96  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  O  God !  that  one  might  read  the  book  of  fate. 
And  see  the  revolution  of  the  times 
Make  mountains  level,  and  the  continent, 
Weary  of  solid  firmness,  melt  itself 
Into  the  sea !  and,  other  times,  to  see 
The  beachy  girdle  of  the  ocean 
Too  wide  for  Neptune's  hips ;  how  chances  mock, 
And  changes  fill  the  cup  of  alteration 
With  divers  Liquors ! " 

The  purport  of  this  passage  is  simply  to  show  that  in  nature^ 
as  in  human  life,  the  law  of  transformation  reigns ;  but  no  doubt 
it  is  implied  that  the  history  of  the  earth  can  be  read  in  the  earth 
itself,  and  that  changes  occur  through  upheavals  and  depressions. 
It  looks  like  a  forecast  of  the  doctrine  of  Neptunism. 

.  Here,  again,  people  have  gone  to  extremities  in  order  artifici- 
ally  to  enhance  the  impression  made  by  the  poet's  brilliant  divina- 
tion.  It  was  Steno  who  first  systematised  geological  conceptions ; 
but  he  was  by  no  means  the  first  to  hold  that  the  earth  had  been 
formed  little  by  little,  and  that  it  was  therefore  possible  to  trace 
in  the  record  of  the  rocks  the  course  of  the  earth's  development 
His  Chief  Service  lay  in  directing  attention  to  stratification,  as 
affording  the  best  evidence  of  the  processes  which  have  fashioned 
the  crust  of  the  globe. 

It  iSy  no  doubt,  a  sign  of  Shakespeare's  many-sided  genius 
that  here,  too,  he  anticipates  the  scientific  vision  of  later  times ; 
but  there  is  nothing  in  these  lines  that  presupposes  any  special 
or  technical  knowledge.  Here  is  an  analogous  case :  In  Michael 
Angelo's  picture  of  the  creation  of  Adam,  where  God  wakens  the 
first  man  to  life  by  touching  the  figure's  outstretched  finger-tip 
with  his  own,  we  seem  to  see  a  clear  divination  of  the  electric 
spark.  Yet  the  induction  of  electricity  was  not  known  until  the 
eighteenth  Century,  and  Michael  Angelo  could  not  possibly  have 
any  scientific  understanding  of  its  nature. 

Shakespeare's  knowledge  was  not  of  a  scientific  cast  He 
leamed  from  men  and  from  books  with  the  rapidity  of  genius. 
Not,  we  may  be  sure,  without  energetic  efibrt,  for  nothing  can  bc 
had  for  nothing ;  but  the  efibrt  of  acquisition  must  have  come  easy 
to  him,  and  must  have  escaped  the  Observation  of  all  around  him. 
There  was  no  time  in  his  life  for  patient  research  ;  he  had  to  devote 
the  best  part  of  his  days  to  the  theatre,  to  uneducated  and  uncon- 
sidered  players,  to  entertainments,  to  the  tavern.  We  may  fancy 
that  he  must  have  had  hiraself  in  mind  when,  in  the  introductory 
scene  to  Henry  F.,  he  makes  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  thus 
describe  his  hero,  the  young  king: — 

**  Hear  him  but  reason  in  divinity, 
And,  all-admiring,  with  an  inward  wish 
You  would  desire  the  king  were  made  a  prelate : 
Hetr  him  debate  of  Commonwealth  affiäirs, 


SHAKESPEARE'S  MANY-SIDED  GENIUS  97 

You  would  say,  it  hath  been  all-in-all  bis  study : 

List  his  discourse  of  war,  and  you  shall  hear 

A  fearful  battle  render'd  you  in  music : 

Turn  bim  to  any  cause  of  policy, 

Tbe  Gordian  knot  of  it  be  will  unloose, 

Familiär  as  bis  garter ;  tbat,  wben  be  speaks, 

Tbe  air,  a  cbarter'd  libertine,  is  still, 

And  tbe  mute  wonder  lurketh  in  men's  ears, 

To  steal  bis  sweet  and  boney'd  sentences ; 

So  tbat  tbe  art  and  practic  part  of  life 

Must  be  tbe  mistress  to  tbis  tbeoric : 

Wbicb  is  a  wonder,  bow  bis  grace  sbould  glean  it, 

Since  bis  addiction  was  to  courses  vain ; 

His  companies  unletter'd,  rüde,  and  sbsdlow ; 

His  bours  fiird  up  witb  riots,  banquets,  sports ; 

And  never  noted  in  bim  any  study, 

Any  retirement,  any  Sequestration 

From  open  baunts  and  popularity." 

To  this  tbe  Bishop  of  Ely  answers  very  sagely,  "The  straw- 
bcrry  grows  underneath  tbe  nettle."  We  cannot  but  conceivCi 
however,  tbat,  by  a  beneficent  provision  of  destiny,  Shakespeare's 
genius  found  in  tbe  highest  culture  of  his  day  precisely  tbe  nour- 
isbment  it  required. 


XV 


THE  THEATRES-'THEIR  SITUATION  AND  ARRANGEMENTS^ 
THE  PLAYERS— THE  POETS— POPULÄR  AÜDIENCBS^THB 
ARISTOCRATIC  PUBLIC— SHAKESPEARE'S  ARISTOCRATIC 
PRINCIPLES 

On  swampy  ground  beside  the  Thames  lay  the  theatresi  of  which 
the  largest  were  wooden  sheds,  only  half  thatched  with  rusheSi 
with  a  trench  around  them  and  a  flagstafif  on  the  nx)f.  After 
the  middle  of  the  fifteen-seventies,  when  the  first  was  built,  they 
shot  up  rapidly,  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  new  Century 
theatre-building  took  such  a  Start  that,  as  we  leam  from  Prynne's 
Histriomastix^  there  were  in  1633  no  fewer  than  nineteen  per- 
manent theatres  in  London,  a  number  which  no  modern  town  of 
300,000  inhabitants  can  equal.  These  figures  show  how  keen 
and  how  widespread  was  the  interest  in  the  drama. 

More  than  a  hundred  years  before  the  first  theatre  was  buOt 
there  had  been  professional  actors  in  England.  Their  calling  had 
developed  from  that  of  the  travelling  jugglers,  who  varied  their 
acrobatic  Performances  with  "  plays."  The  earliest  scenic  repre» 
sentations  had  been  given  by  the  Church,  and  th&  Guilds  had 
inherited  the  tradition.  Priests  and  choir-bo3rs  were  the  first 
actors  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  after  them  came  the  mummers  of 
the  Guilds.  But  none  of  these  performers  acted  except  at  peri- 
odical  festivals;  none  of  them  were  professional  actors.  From 
the  days  of  Henry  the  Sixth  onwards,  however,  members  of  the 
nobility  began.  to  entertain  companies  of  actors,  and  Henry  VII. 
and  Henry  VIII.  had  their  own  private  comedians.  A  *'  Master  of 
the  Revels''  was  appointed  to  superintend  the  musical  and  dramatk 
entertainments  at  court.  About  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  Cen- 
tury, Parliament  begins  to  keep  an  eye  upon  theatrical  representa- 
tions.  It  forbids  the  Performance  of  anyithing  conflicting  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  prohibits  miracle-plays,  but  does 
not  object  to  songs  or  plays  designed  to  attack  vice  and  represent 
virtue.  In  other  words,  dramatic  art  escapes  condemnation  when 
it  is  emphatically  moral,  and  thrives  best  when  it  keeps  to  purdy 
aecular  matters. 

Under  Mary,  religious  plays  once  more  came  into  honour. 
Elizabeth  began  by  strictly  prohibiting  all  dramatic  represents« 
tions,  but  sanctioned  them  again  in  156Q,  subjecting  them,  how* 

9l 


THE  THEATRES  99 

ever,  to  a  censorship.  This  measure  was  dictated  at  least  as 
much  by  political  as  by  religious  motives.  The  censorship  must, 
boweveri  have  been  exercised  somewhat  loosely,  since  a  Statute 
>f  1572  declared  that  all  actors  who  were  not  attached  to  the 
iervice  of  a  nobleman  should  be  treated  as  ''rogues  and  vaga- 
x>nds/'  er,  in  other  words,  might  be  whipped  out  of  any  town  in 
MThich  they  appeared.  This  decree,  of  course,  compelled  all  actors 
o  enter  the  service  of  one  or  other  great  man,  and  we  see  that 
he  aristocracy  feit  bound  to  protect  their  art.  A  large  number 
>f  the  first  men  in  the  kingdom,  during  Elizabeth's  reign,  had 
sach  bis  Company  of  actors.  The  player  received  from  the  noble- 
nan  whose  "servant''  he  was  a  cloak  bearing  the  arms  of  the 
amily.  On  the  other  band,  he  received  no  salary,  but  was  simply 
>aid  for  each  Performance  given  before  bis  patron.  We  must 
hus  conceive  Shakespeare  as  bearing  on  bis  cloak  the  arms  of 
jdcester,  and  afterwards  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  until  about 
118  fortieth  year.  From  1604  onwards,  when  the  Company  was 
iromoted  by  James  I.  to  be  "  His  Majestys  Servants,"  it  was  the 
loyal  arms  that  he  wore.  One  is  tempted  to  say  that  he  ex- 
iianged  a  livery  for  a  uniform. 

In  1574  Elizabeth  had  given  permission  to  Lord  Leicester's 
Servants  to  give  scenic  representations  of  all  sorts  for  the  delecta- 
km  of  herseif  and  her  lieges,  both  in  London  and  anywhere  eise 
Q  England.  But  neither  in  London  nor  in  other  towns  did  the 
ocal  authorities  recognise  this  patent,  and  the  hostile  attitude 
}i  the  Corporation  of  London  forced  the  players  to  erect  their 
bcatres  outside  its  Jurisdiction.  For  if  they  played  in  the  City 
taelf,  as  had  been  the  custom,  either  in  the  great  halls  of  the 
xuilds  or  in  the  open  inn-yards,  they  had  to  obtain  the  Lord 
Ifayor's  sanction  for  each  individual  Performance,  and  to  band 
ifvcr  half  their  receipts  to  the  City  treasury. 

It  was  with  anything  but  satisfaction  that  the  peaceable  bur- 
pesses  of  London  saw  a  playhouse  rise  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
beir  homes.  The  theatre  brought  in  its  train  a  loose,  frivolous, 
ind  rowdy  population.  Around  the  playhouses,  at  the  hoiu^  of 
Msrformance,  the  narrow  streets  of  that  period  became  so  crowded 
hat  business  suffered  in  the  shops,  processions  and  funerals  were 
»bstructed,  and  perpetual  causes  of  complaint  arose.  Houses 
if  ill-fame,  moreover,  always  clustered  round  a  theatre;  and, 
Ithough  the  Performances  took  place  by  day,  there  was  always 
he  danger  of  fire  inseparable  from  theatres,  and  especially  from 
rooden  erections  with  thatched  roofs. 

But  the  Chief  Opposition  to  the  theatres  did  not  come  from 
he  mere  Philistinism  of  the  industrious  middle-class,  but  from 
he  fanatical  Puritanism  which  was  now  rearing  its  head.  It  is 
he  Puritans  who  have  killed  the  old  Merry  England,  abolishing 
tm  May-games,  its  populär  dances,  its  numerous  rustic  sport^ 
tkey  could  not  look  on  with  e<}uanimity,  and  see  the  dranu^ 


loo  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which  had  oncc  been  a  spiritual  institutioiii  become  a  platfonn 
for  mere  worldliness. 

Their  chief  accusation  against  the  dramatic  poets  was  that 
they  lied.  For  intelligences  of  this  order,  there  was  no  differenoe 
between  a  fiction  and  a  falsehood.  The  players  they  attacked  oo 
the  ground  that  when  they  played  female  parts  they  appeared 
in  women's  attire,  which  was  expressly  forbidden  in  the  Bible 
(Deut.  xxii.  5)  as  an  abomination  to  the  Lord.  They  saw  in  this 
masquerading  in  the  guise  of  the  other  sex  a  symptom  of  un- 
natural and  degi  ading  vices.  They  not  only  despised  the  actors 
as  jugglers  and  loathed  them  as  persons  living  beyond  the  pale 
of  respectability,  but  they  further  accused  them  of  cultivating  in 
private  all  the  vices  which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  portraying 
on  the  stage. 

There  can  De  no  doubt  that  from  a  very  early  period  the 
influence  of  Puritanism  made  itself  feit  in  the  attitude  of  the  City 
authorities. 

It  can  easily  be  understood,  then,  that  the  leaders  of  the  new 
theatrical  industry  tried  to  escape  from  their  Jurisdiction ;  and 
this  they  did  by  choosing  Sites  outside  the  City,  and  yet  as  near 
its  boundaries  as  possible.  To  the  south  of  the  Thames  lay  a 
Stretch  of  land  not  belonging  to  the  City  but  to  the  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  a  spiritual  magnate  who  tried  to  make  his  territory 
as  profitable  as  he  could  without  inquiring  too  closely  as  to  the 
uses  to  which  it  was  put.  Here  lay  the  Bear  Garden;  here 
were  numerous  houses  of  ill-fame ;  and  here  arose  the  different 
theatres,  the  "Hope,"  the  "Swan,"  the  "Rose,"  &c.  When 
James  Burbage's  successors,  in  the  year  1598,  found  themselves 
compelled,  after  a  lawsuit,  to  pull  down  the  building  known  as 
the  Theatre  (in  Bishopsgate  Street),  they  employed  the  material 
to  erect  on  this  artistic  no-man's-land  the  celebrated  Globe 
Theatre,  which  was  opened  in  1599. 

The  theatres  were  of  two  classes,  one  known  as  private,  the 
other  as  public,  a  distinction  which  was  at  one  time  rather 
obscure,  since  the  difference  was  clearly  not  that  admission  to 
the  private  theatres  took  place  by  invitation,  and  to  the  public 
ones  by  pa3rment.  A  nobleman  could  hire  any  theatre,  n^ether 
private  or  public,  and  engage  the  Company  to  give  a  Performance 
for  him  and  his  invited  guests.  The  real  distinction  was,  that  the 
private  theatres  were  designed  on  the  model  of  the  Guildhalls  or 
Town  Halls,  in  which,  before  the  period  of  special  buüdingSi 
representations  had  been  given ;  while  the  public  theatres  were  • 
fonstructed  on  the  lines  of  the  inn-yard.  The  private  theatres, 
then,  were  fully  roofed,  and,  being  the  more  fashionable,  had 
seats  in  every  part  of  the  house,  including  the  parterre,  here 
known  as  the  pit.  Being  roofed,  they  could  be  used  not  only 
in  the  daytime,  but  by  artificial  light.  In  the  public  theatre% 
oj^  the  other  band^  as  in  ancient  Greece  and  to  this  day  in  tlie 


THE  THEATRES:   THEIR  ARRANGEMENTS     loi 

Fyrol,  only  the  stage  was  roofed,  the  auditorium  being  open  to 
tbe  sky,  so  that  Performances  could  be  given  only  by  daylight. 
But  in  Greece  the  air  is  pure,  the  climate  mild;  in  tlie  Tyrol 
Performances  take  place  only  on  a  few  summer  days.  Here 
[days  were  acted  while  rain  and  snow  feil  upon  the  spectators, 
fogs  enwrapped  them,  and  the  wind  plucked  at  their  gaiinents. 
!l8  the  prototype  of  these  theatres  was  the  old  inn-yard,  in  which 
some  of  the  spectators  stood,  while  others  were  seated  in  the 
)pen  galleries  running  all  round  it,  the  parterre,  which  re- 
ained  the  name  oi  yard^  was  here  devoted  to  the  poorest  and 
"oughest  of  the  public,  who  stood  throughout  the  Performance, 
irfafle  the  galleries  {scaffolds\  running  along  the  waUs  in  two  or 
lirce  ticrs,  oflFered  seats  to  wealthier  playgoers  of  both  sexes. 

The  days  of  Performance  at  these  theatres  were  announced 
>y  the  hoisting  of  a  flag  on  the  roof.  The  time  of  beginning  was 
hree  o'clock  punctually,  and  the  Performance  went  straight  on, 
mintemipted  by  entr'actes.  It  lasted,  as  a  rule,  for  oniy  two 
lours  or  two  hours  and  a  half 

Close  to  the  Globe  Theatre  lay  the  Bear  Garden,  the  rank 
(ineU  from  which  greeted  the  nostrils,  even  before  it  came  in 
dght.  The  famous  bear  Sackerson,  who  is  mentioned  in  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor^  now  and  then  broke  his  chain  and 
mt  female  theatre-goers  shrieking  to  flight 

Tickets  there  were  none.  A  penny  was  the  price  of  admission 
o  standing-room  in  the  yard ;  and  those  who  wanted  better  places 
»ut  their  money  in  a  box  held  out  to  them  for  that  purpose,  the 
imount  varying  from  a  penny  to  half-a-crown,  in  accordance  with 
he  places  required.  When  we  remember  that  one  Shilling  of 
2ueen  Elizabeth's  was  equivalent  to  five  of  Queen  Victoria's,  the 
iricc  of  the  dearer  places  seems  very  considerable  in  comparison 
nth  those  current  to-day.  The  wealthiest  spectators  gave  more 
han  twelve  Shillings  (in  modern  money)  for  th\sir  places  in  the 
iroscenium-boxes  on  each  side  of  the  stage.  At  the  Globe  Theatre 
be  orchestra  was  placed  in  the  upper  proscenium-box  on  the 
ight ;  it  was  the  largest  in  London,  consisting  of  ten  performers, 
JI  distinguished  in  their  several  lines,  playing  lutes,  oboes, 
nimpets,  and  drums. 

The  most  fashionable  seats  were  on  the  stage  itself,  approached, 
LOt  by  the  ordinary  entrances,  but  through  the  players'  tiring-room. 
rhcrc  sat  the  amateurs,  the  noble  patrons  of  t!  'j  theatre,  Essex, 
Southampton,  Pembroke,  Rutland;  there  snobs,  upstarts,  and  fops 
ook  their  places  on  chairs  or  stools ;  if  there  were  not  seats  enough, 
hey  spread  their  cloaks  upon  the  pine-sprigs  that  strewed  the 
»oards,  and  (like  Bracchiano  in  Webster's  Vittoria  Corambond) 
ty  upon  them.  There,  too,  sat  the  author's  livals,  the  dramatic 
loets,  who  had  free  admissions ;  and  there,  lastly,  sat  the  short- 
land  writers,  commissioned  by  piratical  booksellers,  vrVio,  \3XkdL<^x 
netence  of  making  ciitical  notes,  secretly  took  do^u  \h^  dnaXo^^^ 


I02  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

— men  who  were  a  nuisance  to  the  players  and,  as  a  rule,  a  thorn 
in  the  side  to  the  poets,  but  to  whom  posterity  no  doubt  owes  tbe 
preservation  of  many  plays  which  would  otherwise  have  been  löst 

All  these  notabilities  on  the  stage  carry  on  half-audlble  con- 
versations,  and  make  the  servitors  of  the  theatre  bring  them 
drinks  and  light  their  pipes,  while  the  actors  can  with  difficulty 
thread  their  way  among  them — arrangements  which  cannot  have 
heightened  the  illusion,  but  perhaps  did  less  to  mar  it  than  we 
might  imagine. 

For  the  audience  is  not  easily  disturbed,  and  does  not  demand 
any  of  the  Illusion  which  is  supplied  by  modern  mechanism. 
Movable  scenery  was  unknown  before  1660.  The  walls  of  the 
stage  were  either  hung  with  loose  tapestries  or  quite  uncovcred, 
so  that  the  wooden  doors  which  led  to  the  players'  tiring-rooms 
at  the  back  were  clearly  visible.  In  battle-scenes,  whole  armies 
entered  triumphant,  or  were  driven  off  in  confusion  and  defeat, 
through  a  Single  door.  When  a  tragedy  was  acted  the  stage  was 
usually  hung  with  black ;  for  a  comedy  the  hangings  were  blue. 

As  in  the  theatre  of  antiquity,  rüde  machines  were  employed 
to  raise  or  lower  actors  through  the  stage ;  trap-doors  were  cer- 
tainly  in  use,  and  probably  *'  bridges/'  or  small  pIatformS|  which 
could  be  elevated  into  the  upper  regions.  In  somewhat  earlier 
times  stiU  rüder  appliances  had  been  in  vogue.  For  example,  in 
the  religious  and  allegorical  plays,  Hell-mouth  was  represented 
by  a  huge  face  of  painted  canvas  with  shining  eyes,  a  large  red 
nose,  and  movable  jaws  set  with  tusks.  When  the  jaws  opened, 
they  seemed  to  shoot  out  flames,  torches  being  no  doubt  waved 
behind  them.  The  theatrical  property-room  of  that  time  was  in- 
complete  without  a  "  rybbe  coUeryd  red  "  for  the  mystery  of  the 
Creation.  But  in  Shakespeare's  day  scarcely  anything  of  this 
sort  was  required.  It  was  Inigo  Jones  who  first  introduced 
movable  scenery  and  decorations  at  the  court  entertainments. 
They  were  certainly  not  in  use  at  the  populär  playhouses  at  any 
time  during  Shakespeare's  connection  with  the  stage. 

Audiences  feit  no  need  for  such  aids  to  Illusion ;  their  Imagina- 
tion instantly  supplied  the  want.  They  saw  whatever  the  poet 
required  them  to  see — as  a  child  sees  whatever  is  suggested  to  its 
fancy,  as  little  girls  see  real-life  dramas  in  their  games  with  their 
dolls.  For  the  spectators  were  children  alike  in  the  freshness 
and  in  the  force  of  their  imagination.  If  only  a  placard  were 
hung  on  one  of  the  doors  of  the  stage  bearing  in  lai*ge  letters  the- 
name  of  Paris  or  of  Venice,  the  spectators  were  at  once  trana- 
ported  to  France  or  Italy.  Sometimes  the  Prologue  informed 
them  where  the  scene  was  placed.  Men  of  classical  culture,  who 
insisted  on  unity  of  place  in  the  drama,  were  offended  by  the 
continual  changes  of  scene  and  the  pitiful  appliances  by  which 
they  were  indicated.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  his  Defense  of  Poi^^ 
publisbed  in  1583,  ridicules  the  plays  vn  'wViicYv  "Xom  sVv^l  ba.v« 


THE  THEATRES:    fHEIR  ARRANGEMENTS     103 

Asia  of  the  one  side,  and  Afric  of  the  other,  and  so  many  other 
under-kingdoms,  that  the  player^  when  he  cometh  in,  must  ever 
begin  with  telling  where  he  is,  or  eise  the  tale  will  not  be 
conceived." 

This  alacrity  of  imagination  on  the  part  of  populär  audiences 
was  unquestionably  an  advantage  to  the  English  stage  in  its 
youth.  If  an  actor  made  a  movement  as  though  he  were  plucking 
a  flower,  the  scene  was  at  once  understood  to  be  a  garden ;  as  in 
Henry  VL^  where  the  adoption  of  the  red  rose  and  white  rose  as 
party  badges  is  represented.  If  an  actor  spoke  as  though  he 
were  Standing  on  a  ship's  deck  in  a  heavy  sea,  the  Convention 
was  at  once  accepted ;  as  in  the  famous  scene  in  Pericles  (iii.  2). 
Shakespeare,  though  he  did  not  hesitate  to  take  advantage  of  this 
acoommodating  humour  on  the  part  of  bis  public,  and  made  no 
attempt  at  illusive  decoration,  nevertheless  ridiculed,  as  we  have 
Seen,  in  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream^  the  meagre  scenic  appa- 
ratus  of  bis  time  (especially,  we  may  suppose,  on  the  provin- 
dal  stage) ;  while  in  the  Prologue  to  bis  Henry  V.  he  deplores 
and  apologises  for  the  narrowness  of  bis  stage  and  the  poverty 
of  bis  resources : — 

"Pardon,  gentles  all, 
The  flat  unraised  spirits  that  have  dar'd 
On  this  imworthy  scaffold  to  bring  forth 
So  great  an  object :  can  this  cockpit  hold 
The  vasty  fields  of  France  ?  or  may  we  cram 
Within  this  wooden  O  the  very  casques, 
That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agincourt  ? 
O,  pardon !  since  a  crooked  figure  may 
Attest  in  little  place  a  million ; 
And  let  us,  ciphers  to  this'great  accompt, 
On  3rour  imaginary  forces  work. 
Suppose,  within  the  girdle  of  these  walls 
Are  now  confin'd  two  mighty  monarchies." 

These  monarchies,  then,  were  mounted  in  a  frame  formed  of 
young  noblemen,  critics  and  stage-struck  gallants,  who  bantered 
the  boy-heroines,  fingered  the  embroideries  on  the  costumes, 
smoked  their  clay  pipes,  and  otherwise  made  themselves  entirely 
at  their  ease. 

A  curtain,  which  did  not  rise,  but  parted  in  the  middle,  sepa- 
rated  the  stage  from  the  auditorium. 

The  only  extant  drawing  of  the  interior  of  an  Elizabethan 
theatre  was  recently  discovered  by  Karl  Gaedertz  in  the  University 
Library  at  Utrecht.  It  is  a  sketch  of  the  Swan  Theatre,  executed  in 
1596  by  the  Dutch  scholar,  Jan  de  Witt.  The  s(tage,  resting  upon 
streng  posts,  bas  no  other  fumiture  than  a  Single  bench,  on  which 
one  of  the  performers  is  seated.  The  background  is  formed  by 
the  tiring-house,  into  which  two  doors  lead.  Over  it  \^  ^  Toe^^tA 
iialcoDy,  which  could  be  used,  ao  doubt,  both  by  lYi^  ^Vacjcx^  vA 


I04  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

by  the  audience.  Above  the  roof  of  the  tiring-house  rises  a  second 
Story,  crowned  by  a  sort  of  hutchi  over  whicli  waves  a  flag  bear- 
ing  the  Image  of  a  swan.  At  an  open  door  of  the  hutch  is  seen  a 
trumpeter  giving  a  Signal  of  some  sort.  The  theatre  is  oval  in 
shape,  and  has  three  tiers  of  seats,  while  the  pit  is  left  open  for 
the  Standing  ''  groundlings." 

The  balcony  over  the  tiring-house  answers  in  this  case  to  the 
inner  stage  of  other  and  better-equipped  theatres. 

This  smaller  raised  platform  at  the  back  of  the  principal  stage 
was  exceedingly  useful,  and,  in  a  certain  measure,  supplied  the 
place  of  the  scenic  apparatus  of  later  times.  Tieck,  who  probably 
went  further  than  any  other  critic  in  his  dislike  for  modern 
mechanism  and  his  enthusiasm  for  the  primitive  arrangements  of 
Shakespeare's  day,  has  elaborately  reconstructed  it  in  his  novel, 
Der  junge  Tischlermeister. 

In  the  middle  of  the  deep  stage,  according  to  him,  rose  two 
wooden  pillars,  eight  or  ten  feet  high,  which  supported  a  sort 
of  balcony.  Three  broad  steps  led  from  the  front  stage  to 
the  inner  alcove  under  the  balcony,  which  was  sometimes  open, 
sometimes  curtained  ofT.  It  represented,  according  to  circum- 
stances,  a  cave,  a  room,  a  summer-house,  a  family  vault,  and  so 
forth.  It  was  here  that,  in  Macbeth^  the  ghost  of  Banquo  appeared 
seated  at  the  table.  Here  stood  the  bed  on  which  Desdemona 
was  smothered.  Here,  in  Hantlet^  the  play  within  a  play  was 
acted.  Here  Gloucester's  eyes  were  put  out.  On  the  balcony 
above,  Juliet  waited  for  her  Romeo,  and  Sly  took  his  place  to  see 
714^  Tanting  of  the  Sßirew.  Wlien  the  siege  of  a  town  had  to  be 
represented,  the  defenders  of  the  walls  stood  and  parleyed  on  this 
balcony,  while  the  assailants  were  grouped  in  the  foreground. 

It  is  probable  that  at  each  side  a  pretty  broad  flight  of  steps 
led  up  to  this  balcony.  Here  sat  Senates,  Councils,  and  princes 
with  their  courts.  It  needed  but  few  figures  to  fill  the  inner 
stage,  so  narrow  were  its  dimensions.  Macbeth  mounted  these 
stairs,  and  so  did  Falstaff  in  the  Merry  IVives,  Melancholy  or 
contemplative  personages  leaned  against  the  pillars.  The  struc- 
ture  oflFered  a  certain  facility  for  effective  groupings,  somewhat 
like  that  in  Raffaelle's  "  School  of  Athens."  Figures  in  front  did 
not  obstruct  the  view  of  those  behind,  and  groups  gathered  to  the 
right  and  left  of  the  main  stage  could,  without  an  overstrain  of 
make-believe,  be  supposed  not  to  see  each  other. 

The  only  department  of  decoration  which  involved  any  con- 
siderable  expense  was  the  costumes  of  the  actors.  On  these 
such  large  sums  were  lavished  that  the  Puritans  made  this  extra- 
vagance  one  of  their  chief  points  of  attack  upon  theatres.  In 
Henslowe's  Diary  we  find  such  entries  as  jC4f  I4s.  for  a  pair  of 
breeches,  and  j£i6  for  a  velvet  cloak.  It  is  even  on  record  that 
a  famous  actor  once  gave  jC^o,  ios.  for  a  mantle.  In  an  inven- 
tory  of  the  property  belonging  to  the  Lord  AdmiraFs  Company  in 


THE  THEATRES :   THE  COSTUMES  105 

the  year  1598,  we  find  many  splendid  dresses  enumerated:  for 
ezample,  **  i  psiyr  of  camatyon  satten  Venesyons  [breeches]  layd 
with  gold  lace,"  and  "  i  orenge  taney  [tawnyj  satten  düblet,  layd 
thycke  with  gowld  lace."^  The  sums  paid  for  these  costutnes  are 
glaringly  out  of  keeping  with  the  paltry  fees  allotted  to  the  author. 
Up  to  the  year  1600  the  ordinary  price  of  a  play  was  from  five  to 
six  pounds — scarcely  more  than  the  cost  of  a  pair  of  breeches  to 
bc  wom  by  thp  actor  who  played  the  Prince  or  King. 

In  the  boxes  ('*rooms")  sat  the  better  sort  of  spectators, 
officers,  City  merchants,  sometimes  with  their  wives ;  but  ladies 
always  wore  a  mask  of  silk  or  velvet,  partly  for  protection  against 
sun  and  air,  partly  in  order  to  blush  (or  not  to  blush)  unseen,  at 
the  frivolous  and  often  licentious  things  that  were  said  upon  the 
stage.  The  mask  was  then  as  common  an  article  of  female  attire 
as  is  the  veil  in  our  days.  But  the  front  rows  of  what  we  should 
now  call  the  first  tier  were  occupied  by  beauties  who  had  no 
desire  whatever  to  conceal  their  countenances,  though  they  might 
use  the  mask  (as  in  later  times  the  fan)  for  purposes  of  coquetry. 
These  were  the  kept  mistresses  of  men  of  quality,  and  other 
gorgeously  decked  ladies,  who  resorted  to  the  playhouse  in  order 
to  make  acquaintances.  Behind  them  sat  the  respectable  Citizens. 
But  in  the  gallery  above  a  rougher  public  assembled — sailors, 
artisans,  soldiers,  and  loose  women  of  the  lowest  class. 

No  women  ever  appeared  upon  the  stage. 

The  frequenters  of  the  pit,  with  their  coarse  boisterousnesSy 
were  the  terror  of  the  actors.  They  all  had  to  stand — coal- 
heavers  and  bricklayers,  dock-labourers,  serving-men,  and  idlers. 
Refreshment-sellers  moved  about  among  them,  supplying  them 
with  sausages  and  ale,  with  applcs  and  nuts.  They  ate  and 
dranky  drew  corks,  smoked  tobacco,  fought  with  each  other,  and 
often,  when  they  were  out  of  humour,  threw  fragments  of  food, 
and  even  stones,  at  the  actors.  Now  and  then  they  would  come 
to  loggerheads  with  the  fine  gentlemen  on  the  stage,  so  that  the 
Performance  had  to  be  interrupted  and  the  theatre  closed.  The 
sanitary  arrangements  were  of  the  most  primitive  description,  and 
the  groundlings  resisted  all  attempts  at  reform  on  the  part  of  the 
management.  When  the  evil  smells  bccame  intolerable,  juniper- 
berries  were  bumt  by  way  of  freshening  the  atmosphere. 

The  theatrical  public  made  and  executed  its  own  laws.  There 
was  no  police  in  the  theatre.  Now  and  then  a  pickpocket  would 
be  caught  in  the  act,  and  tied  to  a  post  at  the  corner  of  the  stage 
beside  the  railing  which  divided  it  from  the  auditorium. 

The  beginning  of  the  Performance  was  announced  by  threc 
tnimpet-blasts.  The  actor  who  spoke  the  Prologue  appeared  in  a 
long  doak,  with  a  laurel-wreath  on  his  head,  probably  because 
this  duty  was  originally  performed  by  the  poet  himself.  After  the 
play,  the  Clown  danced  a  jig,  at  the  same  time  singing  some  comic 

^  See  Appendix  to  Diary  ef  PhiUp  Htmlcme  (Sbakspere  Society'»  Publicatioiift/. 


io6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

jingle  and  accompanying  himself  on  a  small  drum  and  flute.  The 
Epilogue  consisted  of,  or  ended  in,  a  prayer  for  the  Queen,  in 
which  all  the  actors  took  part,  kneeling. 

Elizabeth  herseif  and  her  court  did  not  visit  these  theatres. 
There  was  no  Royal  box,  and  the  public  was  too  mixed.  On  the 
other  band,  the  Queen  could,  without  derogating  from  her  State, 
summon  the  players  to  court,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Com- 
pany, to  which  Shakespeare  belonged,  was  very  often  commanded 
to  perform  before  her,  especially  upon  festivals  such  as  Christmas 
Day,  Twelfth  Night,  and  so  forth.  Thus  Shakespeare  is  known 
to  have  acted  before  the  Queen  in  two  comedies  presented  at 
Greenwich  Palace  at  Christmas  1594.  He  is  mentioned  along 
with  the  leading  actors,  Burbage  and  Kemp. 

Elizabeth  paid  for  such  Performances  a  fee  of  twenty  nobles, 
and  a  further  gratuity  of  ten  nobles — in  all,  jC^O. 

As  the  Queen,  however,  was  not  content  with  thus  witnessing 
plays  at  rare  intervals,  she  formed  companies  of  her  own,  the  so- 
caUed  Children's  Companies,  recruited  from  the  choir-boys  ot  the 
Chapels-Royal,  whose  music-schools  thus  developed,  as  it  were, 
into  nurseries  for  the  stage.  These  half-grown  boys,  who  were, 
of  course,  specially  fitted  to  represent  female  characters,  won  no 
small  favour,  both  at  court  and  with  the  public ;  and  we  see  that 
one  such  troupe,  consisting  of  the  choir-boys  of  St.  Paul's,  for 
some  time  competed,  at  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  with  Shake- 
speare's  Company.  We  may  gather  from  the  bitter  complaint  in 
Hamlet  (ii.  2)  how  serious  was  this  competition : — 

^^  Hamlet  Do  they  [the  players]  hold  the  same  estimation  they  did 
when  I  was  in  the  city?    Are  they  so  foUowed? 

"  Rosencrantz,  No,  indeed,  they  are  not 

^*Ham,  How  comes'it?    Do  they  grow  nisty? 

"i?^j.  Nay,  their  endeavour  keeps  in  the  wonted  pace :  büt  there  is, 
sir,  an  aery  of  children,  little  eyases,  that  cry  out  on  the  top  of  question, 
and  are  most  tyrannically  clapped  for  't :  these  are  now  the  fashion ; 
and  so  berattle  the  common  stages  (so  they  call  them),  that  many 
wearing  rapiers  are  afraid  of  goose-quills,  and  dare  scarce  come  thither 

^^  Harn.  Do  the  boys  carry  it  away? 

"  Ro5.  Ay,  that  they  do,  my  lord ;  Hercules  and  his  load  too;*  * 

The  number  of  players  in  a  Company  was  not  great — not 
more,  as  a  rule,  than  eight  or  ten ;  never,  probably,  above  twehne« 
The  players  were  of  difierent  grades.  The  lowest  were  the  so- 
called  hirelings,  who  received  wages  from  the  others  and  were  in 
some  sense  their  servants.  They  appeared  as  supernumeraries 
or  in  small  speaking  parts,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  man* 

^  A  figure  of  Hercules  with  the  globe  oq  his  Shoulders  served  as  sign  to  tht 
Globe  Theatre. 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  ACTOR  I07 

agement  of  the  theatre.  The  actors,  properly  so  calledi  differed 
in  Standing  according  as  they  shared  in  the  receipts  only  as  actors, 
or  were  entitled  to  a  further  share  as  part-proprietors  of  the 
theatre.  There  was  no  manager.  The  actors  themselves  decided 
what  plays  should  be  performed,  distributed  the  parts,  and  divided 
the  receipts  according  to  an  established  scale.  The  most  advan- 
tageous  Position,  of  course,  was  that  of  a  shareholder  in  the 
theatre;  for  half  of  the  gross  receipts  went  to  the  shareholders, 
who  provided  the  costumes  and  paid  the  wages  of  the  hirelings. 

Shakespeare's  comparatively  early  rise  to  affluence  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  assuming  that,  in  his  dual  capacity  as 
poet  and  player,  he  must  quickly  have  become  a  shareholder  in 
the  theatre. 

As  an  actor  he  does  not  seem  to  have  attained  the  highest 
eminence — fortunately,  for  if  he  had,  he  would  probably  have 
found  very  little  time  for  writing.  The  parts  he  played  appear  to 
have  been  dignified  characters  of  the  second  order ;  for  there  is 
no  evidence  that  he  was  anything  of  a  comedian.  We  know  that 
he  played  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet — a  part  of  no  great  length,  it  is 
true,  but  of  the  first  importance.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  he 
played  old  Adam  in  As  You  Like  It^  and  pretty  certain  that 
he  played  old  Kjiowell  in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  His 
Humour.  It  may  possibly  be  in  the  costume  of  Knowell  that  he 
is  represented  in  the  well-known  Droeshout  portrait  at  the  begin- 
ning  of  the  First  Folio.  Tradition  relates  that  he  once  played 
his  own  Henry  IV.  at  court,  and  that  the  Queen,  in  passing  over 
the  stage,  dropped  her  glove  as  a  token  of  her  favour,  whereupon 
Shakespeare  handed  it  back  to  her  with  the  words :— - 

*'And  though  now  bent  on  this  high  embassy, 
Yet  stoop  we  to  take  up  our  cousin's  glove." 

In  all  lists  of  the  players  belonging  to  his  Company  he  is  named 
among  the  first  and  most  important. 

Not  least  among  the  marvels  connected  with  his  genius  is 
the  fact  that,  with  all  his  other  occupations,  he  found  time  to 
write  so  much.  His  momings  would  be  given  to  rehearsals,  his 
aftemoons  to  the  Performances;  he  would  have  to  read,  revise, 
accept  or  reject  a  great  number  of  plays ;  and  he  often  passed 
his  evenings  either  at  the  Mermaid  Club  or  at  some  tavem ;  yet 
for  eighteen  years  on  end  he  managed  to  write,  on  an  average, 
two  plays  a  year — ^and  such  plays ! 

In  Order  to  understand  this  we  have  to  recoUect  that  although 
between  1557  and  1616  there  were  forty  noteworthy  and  two 
hundred  and  thirty-three  inferior  English  poets,  who  issued 
works  in  epic  or  lyric  form,  yet  the  characteristic  of  the  period 
was  the  immense  rush  of  productivity  in  the  direction  of  dramatic 
art.     Every  Englishman  of  talent  in  Elizabeth's  time  oould  write 


io8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  tolerable  play,  just  as  every  second  Greek  in  the  age  of  Pericies 
could  model  a  tolerable  statue,  or  as  every  European  of  to-day 
can  write  a  passable  newspaper  article.  The  Englishmen  of  that 
time  were  born  dramatists,  as  the  Greeks  were  bom  sculptorSi 
and  as  we  hapless  moderns  are  born  joumalists.  The  Greek, 
with  an  inborn  sense  of  form,  had  constant  opportunities  for 
observing  the  nude  human  body  and  admiring  its  beauty.  If  he 
saw  a  man  ploughing  a  field,  he  received  a  hundred  impressions 
and  ideas  as  to  the  play  of  the  muscles  in  the  naked  leg.  The 
modern  European  possesses  a  certain  command  of  lahguage,  is 
practised  in  argument,  has  a  knack  of  putting  thoughts  and  events 
into  words,  and  is,  finally,  a  confirmed  newspaper-reader-— all 
characteristics  which  make  for  the  multiplication  of  newspaper 
articles.  The  Englishman  of  that  day  was  keenly  observant  of 
human  destinies,  and  of  the  passions  which,  after  the  fall  of  Catho- 
licism  and  before  the  triumph  of  Puritanism,  revelled  in  the  brief 
freedom  of  the  Renaissance.  He  was  accustomed  to  see  men 
foUowing  their  instincts  to  the  last  extremity — which  was  not 
infrequently  the  block.  The  high  culture  of  the  age  did  not 
ezclude  violence,  and  this  violence  led  to  dramatic  vicissitudes  of 
fortune.  It  was  but  a  short  way  from  the  palace  to  the  scaffold 
— witness  the  fate  of  Henry  VIIl.'s  wives,  of  Mary  Stuart,  of 
Elizabeth's  great  lovers,  Essex  and  Raleigh.  The  Englishman 
of  that  age  had  always  before  his  eyes  pictures  of  extreme 
prosperity  followed  by  sudden  ruin  and  violent  death.  Life 
itself  was  dramatic,  as  in  Greece  it  was  plastic,  as  in  our 
days  it  is  journalistic,  Photographie — that  is  to  say,  striving  in 
vain  to  give  permanence  to  formless  and  everyday  events  and 
thoughts. 

A  dramatic  poet  in  those  days,  no  less  than  a  Journalist  in 
ourSy  had  to  study  his  public  closely.  All  the  intellectual  conflicts 
of  the  period  were  for  sixty  years  fought  out  in  the  theatre,  as 
they  are  nowadays  in  the  press.  Passionate  controversies  be- 
tween  one  poet  and  another  were  cast  in  dramatic  form.  Rosen* 
Crantz  says  to  Hamlet,  "  There  was,  for  a  while,  no  money  bid 
for  argument,  unless  the  poet  and  the  player  went  to  cuffs  in  the 
question."  The  eßlorescence  of  the  drama  on  British  soil  was  of 
Short  duration — as  short  as  that  of  painting  in  Holland.  But 
while  it  lasted  the  drama  was  the  dominant  art-form  and  medium 
of  intellectual  expression,  and  it  was  consequently  supported  by  a 
large  public. 

Shakespeare  never  wrote  a  play  "  for  the  study,"  nor  could  he 
have  imagined  himself  doing  anything  of  the  sort.  As  playwright 
and  player  in  one,  he  had  the  stage  always  in  his  eye,  and  what 
he  wrote  had  never  long  to  wait  for  Performance,  but  took 
scenic  shape  forthwith.  Although,  like  all  productive  spirits,  he 
thought  first  of  satisfying  himself  in  what  he  wrote,  yet  he  must 
necessarily  have  bome  in  mind  the  public  to  whom  the  play 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ARISTOCRATIC  PRINCIPLES     109 

appealed.  lie  could  by  no  means  avoid  considering  the  tastes  of 
the  average  playgoer.  The  average  playgoer,  indeed,  made  no 
bad  audience,  but  an  audience  which  had  to  be  amused,  and  which 
could  not,  for  too  long  at  a  Stretch,  endure  unrelleved  seriousness 
or  lofty  flights  of  thought.  For  the  sake  of  the  .common  people, 
then,  scenes  of  grandeur  and  refinement  were  interspersed  with 
passages  of  burlesque.  To  please  the  many-headed,  the  Clown 
was  brought  on  at  every  pause  in  the  action,  much  as  he  is  in  the 
circus  of  to-day.  The  points  of  rest  which  are  now  marked  by 
the  fall  of  the  curtain  between  the  acts  were  then  indicated  by 
conversations  such  as  that  between  Peter  and  the  musicians  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet  (iv.  5) ;  it  merely  implies  that  the  act  is  over. 

For  the  rest,  Shakespeare  did  not  write  for  the  average  spec- 
tator.  He  did  not  value  his  judgment.  Hamlet  says  to  the  First 
Player  (ii.  2) : — 

"  I  heard  thee  speak  me  a  speech  once, — but  it  was  never  acted ; 
or,  if  it  was,  not  above  once ;  for  the  play,  I  remember,  pleased  not  the 
million ;  'twas  caviare  to  the  general :  but  it  was  (as  I  received  it,  and 
others,  whose  judgments  in  such  matters  cried  in  the  top  of  mine)  an 
excellent  play." 

All  Shakespeare  lies  in  the  words,  "  It  pleased  not  the 
million." 

The  English  drama  as  it  took  shape  under  Shakespeare's 
band  addressed  itself  primarily  to  the  best  elements  in  the 
public.  But  "the  best"  were  the  noble  young  patrons  of  the 
theatre,  to  whom  he  personally  owed  a  great  deal  of  his  culture, 
almost  all  his  repute,  and,  moreover,  the  insight  he  had  attained 
into  the  aristocratic  habit  of  mind. 

A  young  English  nobleman  of  that  period  must  have  been  one 
of  the  finest  products  of  humanity,  a  combination  of  the  Belvedere 
Apollo  with  a  prize  racehorse ;  he  must  have  feit  himself  at  once 
a  man  of  action  and  an  artist. 

We  have  seen  how  early  Shakespeare  must  have  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Essex,  before  his  fall  the  mightiest  of  the  mighty. 
He  wrote  A  Midsutnmer  Night s  Dreatn  for  his  marriage,  and 
he  introduced  a  compliment  to  him  into  the  Prologue  to  the  fifth 
act  of  Henry  V,    England  received  her  victorious  King,  he  says — 

"  As,  by  a  lower  but  loving  likelihood, 
Were  now  the  general  of  our  gracious  empress 
(As,  in  good  time,  he  may)  from  Ireland  Coming, 
Bringing  rebellion  broached  on  his  sword, 
How  many  would  the  peaceful  city  ouit« 
To  welcome  him  ! " 

We  have  seen,  moreover,  how  early  and  how  intimate  was  his 
Gonnection  with  the  young  Earl  of  Soutbampton,  to  whom  he 


HO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

dedicated   the  only  two   books  which  he  himseif  gave  to  thc 
press. 

It  must  have  been  from  young  aristocrats  such  as  these  that 
Shakespeare  acquired  his  aristocratic  method  of  regarding  the 
course  of  history.  How  eise  could  he  regard  it  ?  A  large  part 
of  the  middle  class  was  hostile  to  him,  despised  his  calling,  and 
treated  him  as  one  outside  the  pale ;  the  clergy  condemned  and 
persecuted  him ;  the  common  people  were  in  his  eyes  devoid  of 
judgment.  The  ordinary  life  of  his  day  did  not,  on  the  whole, 
appeal  to  him.  We  find  him  totally  opposed  to  the  realistic 
dramatisation  of  everyday  scenes  and  characters,  to  which  many 
contemporary  poets  devoted  themselves.  This  sort  of  truth  to 
nature  was  foreign  to  him,  so  foreign  that  he  suffered  for  lack  of 
it.  Towards  the  close  of  his  artistic  career  he  was  outstripped 
in  popularity  by  the  realists  of  the  day. 

His  heroes  are  princes  and  noblemen,  the  kings  and  barons 
of  England.  It  is  always  they,  in  his  eyes,  who  make  history,  of 
which  he  shows  throughout  a  nalvely  heroic  conception.  In  the 
wars  which  he  presents,  it  is  always  an  individual  leader  and  hero 
on  whom  everything  depends.  It  is  Henry  V.  who  wins  the  day 
at  Agincourt,  just  as  in  Homer  it  is  Achilles  who  conquers  before 
Troy.  Yet  the  whole  issue  of  these  wars  depended  upon  the 
foot-soldiers.  It  was  the  English  archers,  14,000  in  number,  who 
at  Agincourt  defeated  the  French  army  of  50,000  men,  with  a  loss 
of  only  1600,  as  against  10,000  on  the  other  side.  Shakespeare 
certainly  did  not  divine  that  it  was  the  rise  of  the  middle  classes 
and  their  spirit  of  enterprise  that  constituted  the  strength  of 
England  under  Elizabeth.  He  regarded  his  age  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  man  who  was  accustomed  to  see  in  richly  endowed 
and  princely  young  noblemen  the  very  crown  of  humanity,  the 
patrons  of  all  lofty  effort,  and  the  originators  of  all  great  achieve- 
ments.  And,  with  his  necessarily  scanty  historic  culture,  he  saw 
bygone  periods,  of  Roman  as  well  as  of  English  history,  in  thc 
same  light  as  his  own  times. 

This  tendency  appears  already  in  the  second  part  of  Henry  VI. 
Note  the  picture  of  Jack  Cade's  rebellion  (iv.  2),  which  contains 
some  inimitable  touches : — 

^  Code.  Be  brave  then ;  for  your  captain  is  brave,  and  vows  reforma- 
tion.  There  shall  be  in  England  seven  halfpenny  loaves  sold  for  a 
penny ;  the  three-hooped  pot  shall  have  ten  hoops ;  and  I  will  make  it 
felony  to  diink  small  beer.  All  the  realm  shall  be  in  common,  and  in 
Cheapside  shall  my  palfrey  go  to  grass.  And,  when  I  am  king  (as  king 
I  will  be),— 

"  AlL  God  save  your  majesty  \ 

"  Cade,  I  thank  you,  good  people : — ^there  shall  be  no  money ;  all 
shall  eat  and  drink  on  my  score ;  and  I  will  apparel  them  all  in  one 
Hvery,  that  they  may  agree  like  brothers,  and  worship  me  their  lord* 

^^Didt.  The  first  tUng  we  do,  let's  kill  all  the  lawyers. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ARISTOCRATIC  PRINCIPLES     in 

**  Code.  Nay,  that  I  mean  to  do.  Is  not  this  a  lamentable  thing, 
tfaat  of  the  skin  of  an  innocent  lamb  should  be  made  parchment  ?  that 
paichment,  being  scribbled  o'er,  should  undo  a  man  ? 

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  • 

"Enter  some^  bringing  in  the  Clerk  of  Chatham. 

**  Smith,  The  clerk  of  Chatham:  he  can  write  and  read,  and  cast 
accompt 

*'  Code»  O  monstrous  I 

"  Smith  We  took  him  setting  of  boys*  copies. 

"  Cade»  Here's  a  villain ! 

*' Smith  Has  a  book  in  his  pocket,  with  red  letters  in  't 

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  • 

"  Code,  Let  me  alone. — Dost  thou  use  to  write  thy  name,  or  hast 
thou  a  mark  to  thyself,  like  an  honest  plain-dealing  man  ? 

"  Clerk,  Sir,  I  thank  God,  I  have  been  so  well  brought  up,  that  I 
can  write  my  name. 

"  AlL  He  hath  confessed:  away  with  himi  he's  a  villain  and  a 
traitor. 

*^  Code.  Away  with  him,  I  say :  hang  him  with  his  pen  and  ink-hom 
about  his  neck." 

What  is  so  remarkable  and  instnictive  in  these  brilliant  scenes 
is  that  Shakespeare  here,  quite  against  his  custom,  departs  from 
his  authority.  In  Holinshed,  Jack  Cade  and  his  foUowers  do  not 
appear  at  sdl  as  the  crazy  Calibans  whom  Shakespeare  depicts. 
The  Chief  of  their  grievances,  in  fact,  was  that  the  King  alienated 
the  crown  revenues  and  lived  on  the  taxes ;  and,  moreover,  they 
complained  of  abuses  of  all  sorts  in  the  execution  of  the  laws  and 
the  raising  of  revenue.  The  third  article  of  their  memoria!  Stands 
in  striking  contrast  to  their  action  in  the  play ;  for  it  points  out 
that  nobles  of  royal  blood  (probably  meaning  York)  are  exciuded 
from  the  King's  *'dailie  presence,"  while  he  gives  advancement  to 
"other  meane  persons  of  lower  nature,"  who  close  the  King's  ears 
to  the  complaints  of  the  country,  and  distribute  favours,  not  ac- 
cording  to  law,  but  for  gifts  and  bribes.  Moreover,  they  complain 
of  interferences  with  freedom  of  election,  and,  in  short,  express 
themselves  quite  temperately  and  constitutionally.  Finally,  in 
more  than  one  passage  of  the  complaint,  they  give  utterance  to 
a  thoroughly  English  and  patriotic  resentment  of  the  loss  of 
Normandy,  Gascony,  Aquitaine,  Anjou,  and  Maine. 

But  it  did  not  at  all  suit  Shakespeare  to  show  a  Jack  Cade  at 
che  head  of  a  populär  movement  of  this  sort.  He  took  no  interest 
in  anything  constitutione  or  parliamentary.  In  order  to  find  the 
colours  he  wanted  for  the  rebellion,  he  hunts  up  in  Stow's  Sum- 
marie  ofthe  Chronicles  of  England  the  picture  of  Wat  Tyler*s  and 
Jack  StraVs  risings  under  Richard  IL,  two  outbursts  of  wild 
communistic  enthusiasm,  reinforced  by  religious  fanatidsm.  From 
tbis  souroe  he  borrows,  ahnest  word  for  word,  some  of  the  rebels* 


112  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Speeches.  In  these  risings,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  ''inen  of  law, 
justices,  and  Jurors "  who  feil  into  the  hands  of  the  leaders  were 
beheadedi  and  all  records  and  muniments  bumt,  &o  that  owners 
of  property  might  not  in  future  have  the  means  of  establishing 
their  rights. 

This  contempt  for  the  judgment  of  the  masses,  this  anti- 
democratic  conviction,  having  early  taken  possession  of  Shake- 
speare's  mind,  he  keeps  on  instinctively  seeking  out  new  evidences 
in  its  favour,  new  testimonies  to  its  truth  ;  and  therefore  he  trans- 
forms  factSy  where  they  do  not  suit  his  view,  on  the  model  of  other 
facts  which  do. 


XVI 

THB  THBATRES  CLOSED  ON  ACCOUNT  OP  THE  PLAGÜB— 
DID  SHAKESPEARE  VISIT  ITALY f-^PASSAGBS  WHICH 
PAVOUR  THIS  CONJECTÜRE 

From  the  autumn  of  1592  until  the  summer  of  1593  all  the 
London  theatres  were  closed.  That  frightful  scourge,  the  plague, 
from  which  England  had  so  long  been  free,  was  raging  in  the 
capital.  Even  the  sittings  of  the  Law  Courts  had  to  be  suspended. 
At  Christmas  1 592  the  Queen  refrained  from  ordering  any  plays 
at  court,  and  the  Privy  Council  had  at  an  earlier  date  issued  a 
proclamation  forbidding  all  public  theatrical  Performances,  on  the 
reasonable  ground  that  convalescents,  weary  of  their  long  confine- 
ment,  made  haste  to  resort  to  such  entertainments  before  they 
were  properly  out  of  quarantine,  and  thus  spread  the  conf igion. 

The  matter  has  a  particular  bearing  upon  the  biography  of 
Shakespeare,  since,  if  he  ever  travelled  on  the  contlnent  of 
Europe,  it  was  probably  at  this  period,  while  the  theati^  were 
closed. 

That  it  must  have  been  now,  if  ever,  there  can  be  no  great 
doubt.  But  it  remains  exceedingly  difficult  to  determine  whethcr 
Shakesp)eare  ever  crossed  the  Channel. 

We  have  noticed  what  an  attraction  Italy  possessed  for  htm, 
even  from  the  beginning  of  his  career.  To  this  The  Twc  GentU" 
men  of  Verona  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  bear  witness.  But  in  these 
plays  we  as  yet  find  nothing  which  points  definitely  to  the  con- 
clusion  that  the  poet  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  the  country  in 
which  his  action  is  placed.  It  is  different  with  the  dramas  of 
Italian  scene  which  Shakespeare  produces  about  the  year  1596— 
the  adaptation  of  the  old  Taming  of  a  Shrew  and  714^  Merchant 
of  Venice;  it  is  different,  too,  with  Othello^  which  comes  much  later. 
Hcre  we  find  definite  local  colour,  with  such  an  abundance  of 
details  pointing  to  actual  vision  that  it  is  hard  to  account  for  them 
otherwise  than  by  assumtng  a  visit  on  the  poet's  part  to  such 
eitles  as  Verona,  Venice,  and  Pisa. 

It  is  on  the  face  of  it  highly  probable  that  Shakespeare  should 
wish  to  see  Italy  as  soon  as  he  could  find  an  opportunity.  To 
the  Englishman  of  that  day  Italy  was  the  goal  of  every  longing. 
It  was  the  great  home  of  culture.  Men  studied  its  literature  and 
imitated  its  poetry.    It  was  the  beautiful  land  where  dwelt  the  joy 

»3  ^ 


114  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  life.  Venice  in  especial  exercised  a  fascination  stronger  than  that 
of  Paris.  It  needed  no  great  wealth  to  make  a'pilgrimage  to  Italy. 
One  could  travel  inexpensively,  perhaps  on  foot,  like  that  Coryat 
who  discovered  the  use  of  the  fork ;  one  could  pass  the  night  at 
cheap  hostelries.  Many  of  the  distinguished  men  of  the  time  are 
known  to  have  visited  Italy — men  of  science,  like  Bacon,  and 
afterwards  Harvey ;  authors  and  poets  like  Lyly,  Munday,  Nash, 
Greene,  and  Daniel,  the  form  of  whose  sonnets  determined  that 
of  Shakespeare's.  Among  the  artists  of  Shakespeare's  time,  the 
widely-travelled  Inigo  Jones  had  made  a  stay  in  Italy.  Most  of 
these  men  have  themselves  given  us  some  account  of  their  travels ; 
but  as  Shakespeare  has  left  us  no  biographical  records  whatcvcr, 
the  absence  of  any  direct  mention  of  such  a  joumey  on  his  part 
is  of  little  momenty  if  other  significant  facts  can  be  adduced  in  its 
favour. 

And  such  facts  are  not  wanting. 

There  were  in  Shakespeare's  time  no  guide-books  for  the  usc 
of  travellers.  What  he  knows,  then,  of  foreign  lands  and  their 
customs  he  cannot  have  gathered  from  such  sources.  Of  Venicc, 
which  Shakespeare  has  so  livingly  depicted,  no  description  was 
published  in  England  until  after  he  had  written  his  Merchant  qf 
Ventee,  Lewkenor's  description  of  the  city  (itself  a  mere  com- 
pilation  at  second  band)  dates  from  1598,  Coryat's  from  1611, 
Moryson's  from  161 7. 

In  Shakespeare's  Taming  of  the  ShreWy  we  notice  with  sur- 
prise  not  only  the  correctness  of  the  Italian  names,  but  the 
remarkable  way  in  which,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  play, 
several  Italian  cities  and  districts  are  characterised  in  a  single 
phrase.  Lombardy  is  "the  pleasant  garden  of  great  Italy;** 
Pisa  is  "renowned  for  grave  Citizens;"  and  here  the  epithet 
"  grave  "  is  especially  noteworthy,  since  many  testimonies  concur 
to  show  that  it  was  particularly  characteristic  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Pisa.  C.  A.  Brown,  in  Shakespeare^ s  Autobiographical  Poems^ 
has  pointed  out  the  remarkable  form  of  the  betrothal  of  Petruchio 
and  Katherine  (namely,  that  her  father  joins  their  hands  in  the 
presence  of  two  witnesses),  and  observes  that  this  form  was  not 
English,  but  peculiarly  Italian.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
older  play,  the  scene  of  which,  however,  is  laid  in  Athens. 

Special  attention  was  long  ago  directed  to  the  following  speech 
at  the  end  of  the  second  act,  where  Gremio  reckons  up  all  the 
goods  and  gear  with  which  his  house  is  stocked : — 

"  First,  as  you  know,  my  house  within  the  city 
Is  richly  fumished  with  plate  and  gold : 
Basins,  and  ewers,  to  lave  her  dainty  hands ; 
My  hangings  all  of  Tyrian  tapestry ; 
In  ivory  coffers  I  have  stuff 'd  my  crowas : 
In  cypress  chests  my  arras,  counterpomts. 


DID  SHAKESPEARE  VISIT  ITALY  il$ 

Costly  apparel,  tents,  and  canopies, 
Fine  linen,  Turkey  cushions  boss'd  with  pearl, 
Valance  of  Venice  gold  in  needlework, 
Pewter  and  brass,  and  all  things  that  belong 
To  house,  or  housekeeping." 

Lady  Morgan  long  ago  remarked  that  she  had  seen  literally  all 
of  these  artides  of  luzury  in  the  palaces  of  Venice,  Genoa,  and 
Florence.  Miss  Martineau,  in  ignorance  alike  of  Brown's  theory 
and  Lady  Moi^gan's  Observation,  expressed  to  Shakespeare's  biog- 
rapher,  Charles  Knight,  her  feeling  that  the  local  colour  of  The 
Taming  ofthe  Shrew  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice  displays  such  an 
intimate  acquaintance,  not  only  with  the  manners  and  customs  of 
Italy,  but  with  the  minutest  details  of  domestic  life,  that  it  cannot 
possibly  have  been  gleaned  from  books  or  from  mere  conversa- 
tions  with  this  man  or  that  who  happened  to  have  floated  in  a 
gondola. 

On  such  a  question  as  this,  the  decided  impressions  of  feminine 
readers  are  not  without  a  certain  weight. 

Brown  has  pointed  out  as  specifically  Italian  such  small  traits 
as  lago's  scoffing  at  the  Florentine  Cassio  as  "  a  great  arithme- 
tidan,**  "a  counter-caster,"  the  Florentines  being  noted  as  masters 
of  arithmetic  and  bookkeeping.  Another  such  trait  is  the  present 
of  a  dish  of  pigeons  which  Gobbo,  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice^ 
brings  to  bis  son's  master. 

Karl  Elze,  who  has  strongly  insisted  upon  the  probability  of 
Shakespeare's  having  travelled  Italy  in  the  year  1593,  dwells 
particularly  upon  his  apparent  familiarity  with  Venice.  The  name 
of  Gobbo  is  a  genuine  Venetian  name,  and  suggests,  moreover, 
the  kneeling  stone  figure,  "  II  Gobbo  di  Rialto,"  that  forms  the 
base  of  the  granite  pillar  to  which,  in  former  days,  the  decrees  of 
the  Republic  were  affixed.  Shakespeare  knew  that  the  Exchange 
was  held  on  the  Rialto  island.  An  especially  weighty  argument 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  study  of  the  Jewish  nature,  to  which  his 
Shylock  bears  witness,  would  have  been  impossible  in  England, 
where  no  Jews  were  permitted  by  law  to  reside  since  their  expul- 
sion,  begun  in  the  time  of  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  and  completed 
in  129a  Not  until  CromwelFs  time  was  the  embargo  removed  in 
a  few  cases.  On  the  other  band,  there  were  in  Venice  more  than 
deven  hundred  Jews  (according  to  Coryat,  as  many  as  from  five 
to  six  thousand).^ 

One  of  the  most  striking  details  as  regards  The  Merchant  of 
Venice  is  this:  Portia  sends  her  servant  Balthasar  with  an  im- 
portant  message  to  Padua,  and  Orders  him  to  ride  quickly  and 
mect  her  at  "  the  common  ferry  which  trades  to  Venice."  Now 
Portia's  palace  at  Belmont  may  be  concdved  as  one  of  the 

^  A  Tery  few  Jews  were,  indeed,  tolented  in  England  in  ipite  of  die  prohiUtioo» 
Imt  it  ii  not  piouble  that  Shaknpeare  knew  anj  of  thcBL 


Ii6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

summer  residences,  rieh  in  art  treasures,  which  the  merdiant 
princes  of  Venice  at  that  time  possessed  on  the  banks  of  the 
Brenta.  From  Dolo,  on  the  Brenta,  it  is  twenty  miles  to  Venice 
— just  the  distance  which  Portia  says  that  she  must  ''measure" 
in  Order  to  reach  the  city.  If  we  conceive  Belmont  as  situated  at 
Dolo,  it  would  be  just  possible  for  the  servant  to  ride  rapidly  to 
Padua,  and  on  the  way  back  to  overtake  Portia,  who  would  travel 
more  slowly,  at  the  ferry,  which  was  then  at  Fusina,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Brenta.  How  exactly  Shakespeare  knew  this,  and  how 
uncommon  the  knowledge  was  in  his  day,  is  shown  in  the  expre&- 
sions  he  uses,  and  in  the  misunderstanding  of  these  expressions 
on  the  part  of  his  printers  and  editors.  The  lines  in  the  fourth 
scene  of  the  third  act,  as  they  appear  in  all  the  Quartos  and  FolioSi 
are  these : — 

''  Bring  them,  I  pray  thee,  with  imagined  speed 
Unto  the  tranect,  to  the  common  ferry, 
Which  trades  to  Venice." 

"Tranect,"  which  means  nothing,  is,  of  course,  a  misprint  for 
"traject,"  an  uncommon  expression  which  the  printers  cleariy 
did  not  understand.  This,  as  Elze  has  pointed  out,  is  simply  the 
Venetian  word  traiihetto  (Italian  tragitto),  How  should  Shake- 
speare have  known  either  of  the  word  or  the  thing  if  he  had  not 
been  on  the  spot  ? 

Other  details  in  the  second  of  these  plays,  written  immediately 
after  his  conjcctured  return,  strengthen  this  Impression.  In  the 
Induction  to  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew^  where  the  nobleman 
proposes  to  show  Sly  his  pictures,  there  occur  the  lines : — 

"  We  '11  show  thee  lo  as  she  was  a  maid, 
And  how  she  was  beguiled  and  surpris'd, 
As  lively  painted  as  the  deed  was  done." 

These  lines,  as  Elze  has  justly  urged,  convey  the  Impression  that 
Shakespeare  had  seen  Correggio*s  famous  picture  of  Jupiter 
and  lo.  This  is  quite  possible  if  he  travelled  in  North  Italy 
at  the  time  suggested,  for  from  1585  to  1600  the  picture  was 
in  the  palace  of  the  sculptor  LeonI  at  Milan,  and  was  aofOr 
stantly  visited  by  travellers.  If  we  add  that  Shakespeare*8 
numerous  references  to  sea-voyages,  storms  at  sea,  the  agonies 
of  sea-sickness,  &c.,  together  with  his  lUustrations  and  metaphore 
borrowed  from  provisions  and  dress  at  sea,^  point  to  his  hav- 
ing  made  a  sea-passage  of  some  length,'  we  cannot  but  regard 
it  as  highly  probable  that  he  possessed  a  closer  knowledge  of 


>  See  Pericles,  The  Tempest,  Cymbelin$  (i.  7),  As  Vau  Lik§  It  (ii.  7), 
(v.  2). 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  sea  roote  to  Italy  was  practically  cloted  by 
Spamsh  cruisers. 


DID  SHAKESPEARE  VISIT  ITALY  117 

lUly  than  oould  be  gained  from  oral  descriptions  and  from 
books. 

It  is  impossiblei  however,  to  arrive  at  any  certainty  on  the 
potnt  His  pictures  of  Italy  are  sometixnes  notably  lacking  in 
traits  which  could  scarcdy  have  been  overlooked  by  one  who 
knew  the  plaoes.  And  the  reader  cannot  but  feel  a  certain 
soepticism  when  he  observes  how  scholars  have  converted  every 
seeming  piece  of  ignorance  on  Shakespeare's  part  into  a  proof 
of  his  miraculous  knowledge. 

In  virtue  of  this  determination  to  make  every  apparent  blot 
in  Shakespeare  redound  to  his  advantage,  it  could  be  shown 
that  he  had  been  in  Italy  before  he  began  to  write  plays  at 
all.  In  The  Two  Gentlenten  of  Verona  it  is  said  that  Valentine 
takes  ship  at  Verona  to  go  to  Milan.  This  seems  to  betray  a 
gross  ignorance  of  the  geography  of  Italy.  Karl  Elze,  however, 
has  discovered  that  in  the  sixteenth  Century  Verona  and  Milan 
were  actually  connected  by  a  canal.  In  Romeo  and  Juliet  the 
heroine  says  to  Friar  Laurence,  ''  Shall  I  come  again  at  evening 
mass  ? "  This  sounds  stränge,  as  the  Catholic  Church  knows 
nothing  of  evening  masses ;  but  R.  Simpson  has  discovered  that 
they  were  actually  in  use  at  that  time,  and  especially  in  Verona. 
Shakespeare  probably  knew  no  more  of  these  details  than  he  did 
of  the  fact  that,  about  1270,  Bohemia  possessed  provinces  on  the 
Adriatic,  so  that  he  could  with  an  easy  conscience  accept  from 
Grcene  the  voyage  to  the  coast  of  Bohemia  in  The  Wintet^s 
Tale. 

On  the  whole,  scholars  have  been  far  too  eager  to  find  con- 
firmation  of  every  trivial  detail  in  Shakespeare's  allusions  to 
Italian  localities.  Knight,  for  instance,  declared  that  "  the  Sagit- 
tary,"  mentioned  in  Othello ,  ''  was  the  residence  at  the  arsenal  of 
the  commanding  officers  of  the  navy  and  army  of  the  Republic," 
and  that  Shakespeare  had  "  probably  looked  upon ''  the  figure  of 
an  archer  over  the  gates ;  whereas  it  now  appears  that  the  com- 
manding officer  never  had  any  residence  in  the  arsenal,  and  that 
no  figure  of  an  archer  ever  existed  there.  Elze,  again,  has  gone 
into  most  uncritical  raptures  over  Shakespeare's  marvellously 
exact  characterisation  of  Giulio  Romano  {The  Winter' s  Tale^  v.  2) 
as  that  ''rare  Italian  master  who,  had  he  himself  eternity,  and 
could  put  breath  into  his  works,  would  beguile  Nature  of  her 
custom,  so  perfectly  he  is  her  ape."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Shake- 
speare has  simply  attributed  to  an  artist  whose  fame  had  reached 
his  ears  that  characteristic  which,  as  we  have  seen  above,  he^ 
regarded  as  the  highest  in  pictorial  art.  Giulio  Romano,  with 
his  crude  superficiality,  could  not  possibly  have  aroused  his 
admiration  had  he  known  his  work.  That  he  did  not  know 
it  is  sufiiciently  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  has  made  him 
a  sculptor,  and  praised  him  in  that  capacity,  and  not  as  a 
painter. 


Ii8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Elze,  confronted  with  this  fact,  takes  refuge  in  a  Latin  epitaph 
on  Romano,  quoted  by  Vasari,  which  speaks  of  "  Corpora  sculpta 
pictaque"  by  him,  and  here  again  finds  a  testimony  to  Shake- 
speare's  omniscience,  since  he  knew  of  works  of  sculpture  by 
Romano  which  no  one  eise  has  seen  or  heard  of.  We  can  only 
see  in  this  a  new  proof  of  the  fact  that  critical  idolatry  of  departed 
greatness  can  now  and  then  lead  the  Student  as  far  astray  aa 
uncritical  prejudice. 


X 


XVII 

SHAKESPEARE  TURNS  TO  HISTORIC  DRAMÄ-^HIS  RICHARD 
IL  AND  MARLOWE*S  EDWARD  IL-^LACK  OP  HUMOUR  AND 
OP  CONSISTENCY  OP  STYLE— ENGLISH  NATIONAL  PRIDE 

About  the  age  of  thirty,  even  men  of  an  introspective  disposi- 
tion  are  apt  to  tum  their  gaze  outwards.  When  Shakespeare 
approaches  his  thirtieth  year,  he  begins  to  occupy  himself  in 
eamest  with  history,  to  read  the  chronicles,  to  project  and  work 
out  a  whole  series  of  historical  plays.  Several  years  had  now 
passed  since  he  had  revised  and  furbished  up  the  old  dramas  on 
the  subject  of  Henry  VI.  This  task  had  whetted  his  appetite, 
and  had  cultivated  his  sense  for  historic  character  and  historic 
uemesis.  Having  now  given  expression  to  the  high  spirits,the 
lyrism,  and  the  passion  of  youth,  in  lyrical  and  dramatic  produc- 
tions  of  scintillant  diversity,  he  once  more  tumed  his  attention  to 
the  history  of  England.  In  so  doing  he  obeyed  a  dual  vocation, 
both  as  a  poet  and  as  a  patriot. 

Shakespeare's  plays  founded  on  English  history  number  ten 
in  all,  four  dealing  with  the  House  of  Lancaster  (Richard  //.,  the 
two  parts  of  Henry  IV.  and  Henry  V.),  four  devoted  to  the  House 
of  York  (the  three  parts  oi Henry  VL  and  Richard  III, )^  and  two 
which  stand  apart  from  the  main  series,  King  John,  of  an  earlier 
historic  period,  and  Henry  VIII,  of  a  later. 

The  Order  of  production  of  these  plays  is,  however,  totally 
unconnected  with  their  historical  order,  which  does  not,  therefore, 
concem  us.  At  the  same  time  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  all 
these  plays  (with  the  Single  exception  of  Henry  VIIL)  were 
produced  in  the  course  of  one  decade,  the  decade  in  which 
England's  national  sentiment  burst  into  flower  and  her  pride 
was  at  its  highest.  These  English  "histories"  are,  however, 
of  very  unequal  value,  and  can  by  no  means  be  treated  as  Stand- 
ing on  one  plane. 

Henry  VI.  was  a  first  attempt  and  a  mere  adaptation.  Now, 
in  the  year  1594,  Shakespeare  attacks  the  theme  oi  Richard  II,  ; 
and  in  this,  his  first  independent  historical  drama,  we  see  his 
originality  still  struggling  with  the  tendency  tö  Imitation. 

Thcrc  were  older  plays  on  the  subject  of  Richard  11,^  but 

Shakespeare  does  not  seem  to  have  made  any  use  of  them.     The 

model  he  had  in  his  mind's  eye  was  Marlowe's  finest  tragedy,  his 

119 


I20  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Edward  IL  Shakespeare's  play  is,  however,  much  more  than  a 
clever  Imitation  of  Marlowe's ;  it  is  not  only  better  composed,  with 
a  more  concentrated  action,  but  has  also  a  great  advantage  in  the 
full-blooded  vitality  of  its  style.  Marlowe's  style  is  here  mono» 
tonously  dry  and  sombre.  Swinbume,  moreover,  has  done  Shake- 
speare an  injustice  in  preferring  Marlowe's  character-drawing  to 
that  of  Richard  IL 

The  first  half  of  Marlowe's  drama  is  entirely  taken  up  with  the 
King's  morbid  and  unnatural  passion  for  his  favourite  Gaveston ; 
Edward's  every  speech  either  expresses  his  grief  at  Gaveston's 
banishment  and  his  longing  for  his  retum,  or  consists  of  gloWing 
outbursts  of  joy  on  seeing  him  again.  This  passion  makes 
Edward  dislike  his  Queen  and  loathe  the  Barons,  who,  in  their 
aristocratic  pride,  contemn  the  low-bom  favourite.  He  will  risk 
everything  rather  than  part  from  one  who  is  so  dear  to  himself 
and  so  obnoxious  to  his  surroundings.  The  half-erotic  fervour 
of  his  partiality  renders  the  King's  character  distasteful,  and 
deprives  him  of  the  S3rmpathy  which  the  poet  demands  for  him 
at  the  end  of  the  play. 

For  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  acts,  weak  and  unstable  though 
he  be,  Edward  has  all  Marlowe's  sympathies.  There  is,  indeed, 
something  moving  in  his  loneliness,  his  grief,  and  his  brooding 
self-reproach.     *'  The  griefs,"  he  says, 

"  of  private  men  are  soon  alla3^d ; 
But  not  of  kings.    The  forest  deer,  being  Struck, 
Runs  to  an  herb  that  closeth  up  the  wounds : 
But  when  the  imperial  lion's  flesh  is  gor'd, 
He  rends  and  tears  it  with  his  ¥nrathful  paw." 

The  simile  is  not  true  to  nature,  like  Shakespeare's,  but  it 
forciblj-  expresses  the  meaning  of  Marlowe's  personage.  Now 
and  then  he  reminds  us  of  Henry  VI.  The  Queen's  relation  to 
Mortimer  recalls  that  of  Margaret  to  Suffolk.  fhe  abdication- 
scene,  in  which  the  King  first  vehemently  refuses  to  lay  down 
the  crown,  and  is  then  forced  to  consent,  gave  Shakespeare  the 
model  for  Richard  the  Second's  abdication.  In  the  murder-scene, 
on  the  other  band,  Marlowe  displays  a  reckless  naturalism  in  the 
description  and  representation  of  the  torture  inflicted  on  the  King, 
an  unabashed  effect-hunting  in  the  contrast  between  the  King's 
magnanimity,  dread,  and  gratitude  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
murderers'  h3rpocritical  cruelty  on  the  other,  which  Shakespeare, 
with  his  gentler  nature  and  his  almost  modern  tact,  has  rejected. 
It  is  true  that  we  find  in  Shakespeare  several  cases  in  which  the 
severed  head  of  a  person  whom  we  have  seen  alive  a  rooment 
before  is  brought  upon  the  stage.  But  he  would  never  place 
before  the  eyes  of  the  public  such  a  murder-scene  as  this,  in 
which  the  King  is  thrown  down  upon  a  feather-bed,  a  table  ia 


"RICHARD  IL''  121 

oveitumed  upon  him,  and  the  murderers  trample  upon  it  until 
he  is  crushed. 

Marlowe's  more  callous  nature  betrays  itself  in  such  details, 
while  something  of  his  own  wild  and  passionate  temperament 
has  passed  into  the  minor  characters  of  the  play — the  violent 
Barons,  with  the  younger  Mortimer  at  their  head — ^who  are  drawn 
with  a  firm  hand.  The  time  had  scarcely  passed  when  a  murder 
was  reckoned  an  absolute  necessity  in  a  drama.  In  1581,  Wilson, 
one  of  Lord  Leicester's  men,  received  an  order  for  a  play  which 
should  not  only  be  original  and  entertaining,  but  should  also 
include  ''  all  sorts  of  murders,  immorality,  and  robberies." 

Richard  IL  is  one  of  those  plays  of  Shakespeare's  which 
have  never  taken  firm  hold  of  the  stage.  Its  exclusively  political 
action  and  its  lack  of  female  characters  are  mainly  to  blame  for 
this.  But  it  is  exceedingly  interesting  as  his  first  attempt  at  in- 
dependent  treatment  of  a  historical  theme,  and  it  rises  far  above 
the  play  which  served  as  its  model. 

The  action  follows  pretty  faithfully  the  course  of  history  as 
the  poet  found  it  in  Holinshed's  Chronicle.  The  character  of  the 
Queen,  however,  is  quite  unhistorical,  being  evidently  invented 
by  Shakespeare  for  the  sake  of  having  a  woman  in  his  play. 
He  wanted  to  gain  sympathy  for  Richard  through  his  wife's 
devotion  to  him,  and  saw  an  opportunity  for  pathos  in  her 
parting  firom  him  when  he  is  thrown  into  prison.  In  1398, 
when  the  play  opens,  Isabella  of  France  was  not  yet  ten  years 
old,  though  she  had  nominally  been  married  to  Richard  in  1396. 
Finally,  the  King's  lend,  fighting  bravely,  swQrd  in  hand,  is  not 
historical:  he' was  starved  to  death  in  prison',  in  order  that  his 
body  might  be  ezhibited  without  any  wound. 

Shakespeare  has  vouchsafed  no  indication  to  facilitate  the 
spectators'  understanding  of  the  characters  in  this  play.  Their 
action  often  takes  us  by  surprise.  But  Swinbume  has  done 
Shakespeare  a  great  wrong  in  making  this  a  reason  for  praising 
Marlowe  at  his  expense,  and  exalting  the  subordinate  characters 
in  Edward  IL  as  consistent  pieces  of  character-drawing,  while 
he  represents  as  inconsistent  and  obscure  such  a  personage  as 
Shakespeare's  York.  We  may  admit  that  in  the  opening  scene 
Norfolk's  figure  is  not  quite  clear,  but  here  all  obscurity  ends. 
York  is  self-contradictory,  unprincipled,  vacillating,  composite, 
and  incoherent,  but  in  no  sense  obscure.  He  in  the  first  place 
upbraids  the  King  with  his  faults,  then  accepts  at  his  hands  an 
o£Sce  of  the  highest  confidence,  then  betrays  the  King's  trust, 
while  he  at  the  same  time  overwhelms  the  rebel  Bolingbroke 
with  reproaches,  then  admires  the  King's  greatness  in  his  fall, 
then  hastens  his  dethronement,  and  finally,  in  virtuous  Indigna- 
tion over  Aumerle's  plots  against  the  new  King,  rushes  to  him  to 
assure  him  of  his  fidelity  and  to  clamour  for  the  blood  of  his  own 
80D.    There  lies  at  the  root  of  this  conception  a  profound  political 


122  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

bittemess  and  an  early-acquired  experience.  Shakespeare  must 
have  studied  attentively  that  portion  of  English  history  which 
lay  nearest  to  him^  the  shufflings  and  vacillations  that  went  on 
under  Mary  and  Elizabeth,  in  order  to  have  received  so  deep  an 
impression  of  the  pitifuhiess  of  political  instability. 

The  character  of  old  John  of  Gaunti  loyal  to  his  ^ing,  but  still 
more  to  his  country,  gives  Shakespeare  his  first  opportunity  for 
expresslng  his  exultation  over  England's  greatness  and  his  pride 
in  being  an  Englishman.  He  places  in  the  mouth  of  the  dying 
Gaunt  a  superbly  lyrical  outburst  of  patriotism,  deploring  Richard's 
reckless  and  tyrannical  policy.  All  comparison  with  Marlowe  is 
here  at  an  end.  Shakespeare's  own  voice  makes  itself  clearly  heard 
in  the  rhetoric  of  this  speech,  which,  with  its  self-controlled  vehe- 
mence,  its  equipoise  in  unrest,  soars  high  above  Marlowe's  wild 
magniloquence.  In  the  thunderous  tones  of  old  Gaunt's  invective 
against  the  King  who  has  mortgaged  his  English  realm,  we  can 
hear  all  the  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  young  England  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth : — 

"  This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptr'd  isle^ 
This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 
This  other  Eden,  demi-paradise, 
This  fortress,  built  by  Nature  for  herseif, 
Against  infection,  and  the  band  of  war ; 
This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world» 
This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea, 
Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall, 
Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house, 
Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands ; 
This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 
This  nurse,  this  teeming  womb  of  royal  kings, 
Fear'd  by  their  breed,  and  famous  by  their  birth, 
•  •••••  • 

This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 
Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  world, 
Is  now  leas'd  out,  I  die  pronouncing  it, 
Like  to  a  tenement,  or  pelting  farm. 
England,  bound  in  with  the  triumphant  sea, 
Whose  rocky  shore  beats  back  the  envious  siege 
Of  watery  Neptune,  is  now  bound  in  with  shame, 
With  inky  blots,  and  rotten  parchment  bonds : 
That  England,  that  was  wont  to  conquer  others, 
Hath  made  a  shameful  conquest  of  itself. 
Ah !  would  the  scandal  vanish  with  my  life, 
How  happy  then  were  my  ensuing  death ! "  (ii.  i). 

Here  we  have  indeed  the  roar  of  the  young  Hon,  the  Vibration 
of  Shakespeare's  own  voice. 

But  it  is  upon  the  leading  character  of  the  play  that  the  poet 
has  centred  all  his  strength ;  and  he  has  succeeded  in  giving  m 


I 


I.-»  t 


**  RICHARD  IL'*  123 

Tirid  and  many-sided  picture  of  the  Black  Prince's  degenerate  but 
interesting  son.  As  the  protagonist  of  a  tragedy,  however,  Richard 
has  exactly  the  same  ddfects  as  Marlowe's  Edward.  In  the  first 
half  of  the  play  he  so  repels  the  spectator  that  nothing  he  can 
do  in  the  second  half  suffices  to  obliterate  the  unfavourable  im- 
pression.  Not  only  has  he,  before  the  opening  of  the  piece,  com- 
mitted  such  thoughtless  and  politically  indefensible  acts  as  have 
proved  him  unworthy  of  the  great  position  he  holds,  but  he  behaves 
with  such  insolence  to  the  dying  Gaunt,  and,  after  his  uncle's 
death,  displays  such  a  low  and  despicable  rapacity,  that  he  can 
is  :  no  longer  appeal,  as  he  does,  to  his  personal  right.  It  is  true  that 
the  right  of  which  he  holds  himself  an  embodiment  is  very  diffe- 
rent  from  the  common  earthly  rights  which  he  has  overridden.  He 
is  religiously,  dogmaticaUy  convinced  of  his  inviolability  as  a  king 
by  the  grace  of  God.  But  since  this  conviction,  in  his  days  of 
prosperity,  has  brought  with  it  no  sense  of  correlative  duties  to 
the  crown  he  wears,  it  cannot  touch  the  reader's  sympathies  as  it 
ought  to  for  the  sake  of  the  general  effect 

We  see  the  band  of  the  beginner  in  the  way  in  which  the  poet 
here  leaves  characters  and  events  to  speak  for  themselves  without 
any  attempt  to  ränge  them  in  a  general  scheme  of  perspective. 
He  conceals  himself  too  entirely  behind  his  work.  As  there  is 
no  gleam  of  humour  in  the  play,  so,  too,  there  is  no  guiding  and 
harmonising  sense  of  style. 

It  is  from  the  moment  that  the  tide  begins  to  turn  against 
Richard  that  he  becomes  interesting  as  a  psychological  study. 
After  the  manner  of  weak  characters,  he  is  altemately  downcast 
and  overweening.  Very  characteristically,  he  at  one  place  an- 
swers  Bolingbroke's  question  whether  he  is  content  to  resign 
the  crown:  "Ay,  no; — ^no,  ay."  In  these  syllables  we  see  the 
whole  man.  But  his  temperament  was  highly  poetical,  and  mis- 
fortune  reveals  in  him  a  vein  of  reverie.  He  is  sometimes  pro- 
found  to  the  point  of  paradox,  sometimes  fantastically  overwrought 
to  the  verge  of  superstitious  insanity  (see,  for  instance,  Act  iii.  3). 
His  brooding  melancholy  sometimes  reminds  us  of  Hamlet's 

**  Of  comfort  no  man  speak : 
Let  's  talk  of  graves,  of  worms,  and  epitaphs; 
Make  dust  our  paper,  and  with  rainy  eyes 
Write  sorrow  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth. 
Let  's  choose  executors,  and  talk  of  wills : 

For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  teil  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings : — 
How  some  have  been  depos'd,  some  slain  in  wat, 
Some  haunted  by  the  ghosts  they  have  depos'd. 
Some  poison'd  by  their  wives,  some  sleeping  kiU'd, 
All  murder'd : — for  within  the  hollow  crown, 
That  rounds  the  mortal  temples  of  a  kiag, 


I 


124  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Keeps  Death  his  court,  and  there  the  antick  siti, 
Scoffing  his  State,  and  grinning  at  his  pomp ; 
Allowing  him  a  breath,  a  little  scene, 
To  monarchise,  be  fear'd,  and  kill  with  looks  "  (üL  2), 

In  these  moods  of  depression,  in  which  Richard  gives  his  wit 
and  intellect  free  play,  he  knows  very  well  that  a  king  is  only  a 
human  being  like  any  one  eise : — 

"  For  you  have  but  mistook  me  all  this  while : 
I  live  with  bread  like  you,  feel  want,  taste  grief, 
Need  friends.    Subjected  thus, 
How  can  you  say  to  me,  I  am  a  king? "*  (iii.  a). 

« 

But  at  other  times,  when  his  sense  of  majesty  and  his  monarchi- 
cal  fanaticism  master  him,  he  speaks  in  a  quite  different  tone : — 

"  Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough  rüde  sea 
Can  wash  the  balm  from  an  anointed  king ; 
The  breath  of  worldly  men  cannot  depose 
The  deputy  elected  by  the  Lord. 
For  every  man  that  Bolingbroke  hath  press'd, 
To  lift  shrewd  steel  against  our  golden  crown, 
God  for  his  Richard  hath  in  heavenly  pay 
A  glorious  angel "  (iii.  2). 

Thus,  too,  at  their  first  meeting  (iii.  3)  he  addresses  the  vic- 
torious  Henry  of  Hereford,  to  whom  he  immediately  after  "  de- 
bases  himself  " : — 

"  My  master,  God  omnipotent, 
Is  mustering  in  his  clouds  on  our  behalf 
Armies  of  pestilence ;  and  they  shail  strike 
Your  children  yet  unbom,  and  unbegot, 
That  lift  your  vassal  hands  against  my  head« 
And  threat  the  glory  of  my  precious  crown." 

Many  centuries  after  Richard,  King  Frederick  William  IV.  of 
Pnissia  displayed  just  the  same  mingling  of  intellectuality,  super- 
stition,  despondency,  monarchical  arrogance,  and  fondness  for 
declamation. 

In  the  fourth  and  fifth  acts,  the  character  of  Richard  and  the 
poet's  art  rise  to  their  highest  point.  The  scene  in  which  the 
groom,  who  alone  has  remained  faithful  to  the  fallen  King,  visits 
him  in  his  dungeon,  is  one  of  penetrating  beauty.  What  can  be 
more  touching  than  his  description  of  how  the  "  roan  Barbary," 
which  had  been  Richard's  favourite  horse,  carried  Henry  of  Lan- 
caster  on  his  entry  into  London,  "  so  proudly  as  if  he  had  dis- 
dained  the  ground."  The  Arab  steed  here  symbolises  with  fine 
simplidty  the  attitude  of  all  those  who  had  sunned  themselves  in 
the  prosperity  of  the  now  fallen  King. 

The  scene  of  the  abdication  (iv.  i)  is  admirable  by  reason  of 
the  delicacy  of  feeling  and  Imagination  which  Richard  displays. 


"RICHARD  II."  125 

His  speech  when  he  and  Henry  have  each  one  hahd  upon  the 
crown  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  Shakespeare  has  ever  written: — 

^  Now  is  this  golden  crown  like  a  deep  well, 
That  owes  two  buckets  filling  one  another ; 
The  emptier  ever  dancing  in  the  air, 
The  other  down,  unseen,  and  füll  of  water : 
That  hucket  down,  and  füll  of  tears,  am  I, 
Drinking  my  griefs,  whilst  you  mount  up  on  high." 

This  scene  is,  however,  a  downright  imitation  of  the  abdica- 
tion-scene  in  Marlowe.  When  Northumberland  in  Shakespeare 
addresses  the  dethroned  King  with  the  word  "lord,"  the  King 
answers,  "  No  lord  of  thine."  In  Marlowe  the  speech  is  almost 
identical :  "  Call  me  not  lord !  " 

The  Shakespearian  scene,  it  should  be  mentioned,  has  its  his- 
tory.  The  censorship  under  Elizabeth  would  not  sufifer  it  to  be 
printed,  and  it  first  appears  in  the  Fourth  Quarto,  of  1608.^  The 
reason  of  this  veto  was  that  Elizabeth,  stränge  as  it  may  appear, 
was  often  compared  with  Richard  IL  The  action  of  the  censor- 
ship renders  it  probable  that  it  was  Shakespeare's  Richard  IL 
(and  not  one  of  the  earlier  plays  on  the  same  theme)  which,  as 
appears  in  the  trial  of  Essex,  was  acted  by  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain's  Company  before  the  conspirators,  at  their  leaders'  command, 
on  the  evening  before  the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion  (February  7, 
1601).  There  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  this  theory  in  the  fact 
that  the  players  then  called  it  an  old  play,  which  was  already  '*  out 
of  use ; "  for  the  interval  between  1 593-94  and  1601  was  sufficienti 
according  to  the  ideas  of  that  time,  to  render  a  play  antiquated. 
Nor  does  it  conflict  with  this  view  that  in  the  last  scenes  of  the 
play  the  King  is  sympathetically  treated.  On  the  very  points  on 
which  he  was  comparable  with  'Elizabeth  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  he  was  in  the  wrong ;  while  Henry  of  Hereford  figures  in 
the  end  as  the  bearer  of  England's  future,  and,  for  the  not  over- 
sensitive  nerves  of  the  period,  that  Vas  sufficient.  He,  who  was 
soon  to  play  a  leading  part  in  two  other  Shakespearian  dramas, 
is  here  endowed  with  all  the  qualities  of  the  successful  usurper 
and  ruler :  cunning  and  insight,  power  of  dissimulation,  ingrati- 
ating  manners,  and  promptitude  in  action. 

In  a  Single  speech  (v.  3)  the  new-made  Henry  IV.  sketches 
the  character  of  his  "unthrifty  son,"  Shakespeare's  hero :  he 
passes  his  time  in  the  tavems  of  London  with  riotous  boon-com- 
panions,  who  now  and  then  even  rob  travellers  on  the  highway ; 
but,  being  no  less  daring  than  dissolute,  he  gives  certain  ''  sparks 
of  hope  "  for  a  nobler  future. 

1  lU  title  nins,  «'The  Treeedie  of  King  Richard  the  Second  :  with  new  additiooi 
of  the  Parliament  Sceane,  and  the  deposing  of  King  Richard,  As  it  hath  been  latdy 
acted  by  the  Kinges  Maiesties  Semantes,  at  the  Globe.  By  William  Shakenipeaic. 
At  London.  Pnnted  by  W.  W.  For  Mathew  Law,  and  are  to  be  lold  at  hii  diop  fai 
Fralet  Chmcb-yard,  at  the  Signe  of  the  Foxe.    1608." 


XVIII 

RICHARD  IIL  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MONOLOGÜBS^SHAKB" 
SPEARB'S  POWER  OF  SELF-TRANSFORMATION  —  CON- 
TEMPT  FOR  WOMEN-^THE  PRINCIPAL  SCBNES^THB 
CLASSIC  TEN  DEN  CY  OF  THE  TRAGEDY 

In  the  year  1594-95  Shakespeare  retums  to  the  material  which 
passed  through  his  hands  during  his  revision  of  the  Second  and 
Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI.  He  once  more  takes  up  the  character 
of  Richard  of  York,  there  so  firmly  outlined ;  and,  as  in  Richard  IL 
he  had  foliowed  in  Marlowe's  footsteps,  so  he  now  sets  to  work 
with  all  his  might  upon  a  Marlowesque  figure,  but  only  to  execute 
it  with  his  own  vigour,  and  around  it  to  construct  his  first  historic 
tragedy  with  well-knit  dramatic  action.  The  earlier  *'  histories  ^ 
were  still  half  epical ;  this  is  a  true  drama.  It  quickly  became 
one  of  the  most  effective  and  populär  pieces  on  the  stage,  and  has 
imprinted  itself  on  the  memory  of  all  the  world  in  virtue  of  the 
monumental  character  of  its  protagonist. 

The  immediate  occasion  of  Shakespeare's  taking  up  this  theme 
was  probably  the  fact  that  in  the  year  1594  an  old  and  worthless 
play  on  the  subject  was  published  under  the  title  of  Tke  True 
Tragedy  of  Richard  IIL  The  publication  of  this  play  may  have 
been  due  to  the  renewed  interest  in  its  hero  awakened  by  the 
Performances  of  Henry  VI. 

It  is  impossible  to  assign  a  precise  date  to  Shakespeare's  play. 
The  first  Quarto  of  Richard  IL  was  entered  in  the  Stationers* 
Register  on  the  29th  August  1597,  and  the  first  edition  of 
Richard  IIL  was  entered  on  the  20th  October  of  the  same  year. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  that  its  earliest  form  is  of  much  older  date. 
The  diversities  in  its  style  indicate  that  Shakespeare  worked  over 
the  text  even  before  it  was  first  printed ;  and  the  difierence  be- 
tween  the  text  of  the  first  Quarto  and  that  of  the  first  Folio 
bears  witness  to  a  radical  revision  having  taken  place  in  the 
interval  between  the  two  editions.  It  is  certainly  to  this  play  that 
John  Weever  alludes  when,  in  his  poem,  Ad  Gulielmum  Shake^ 
speare^  written  as  early  as  1595,  he  mentions  Richard  among  the 
poet's  creations. 

From  the  old  play  of  Richard  IIL  Shakespeare  took  nothiqg 
at  all,  or,  to  be  precise,  possibly  one  or  two  lines  in  the  first  sceK 
of  the  second  act.     He  throughout  foliowed  Holinshed,  whoee 


"RICHARD  III."  127 

Chroniclc  is  here  copied  word  for  word  from  Hall,  who,  in  his 
tum,  merely  translated  Sir  Thomas  More's  history  of  Richard  III. 
We  can  even  teil  what  edition  of  Holinshed  Shakespeare  used, 
for  he  has  copied  a  slip  of  the  pen  or  error  of  the  press  which 
appears  in  that  edition  alone.  In  Act  v.  scene  3,  line  324,  he 
writes : — 

"  Long  kept  in  Bretagne  at  our  maihet^s  cost,** 

instead  of  brotfur^s. 

The  text  of  Richard  III .  presents  no  slight  difficulties  to  the 
editors  of  Shakespeare.  Neither  the  first  Quarto  nor  the  greatly 
amended  Folio  is  free  from  gross  and  baffling  errors.  The  editors 
of  the  Cambridge  Edition  have  attempted  to  show  that  both  the 
texts  are  taken  from  bad  copies  of  the  original  manuscripts.  It 
would  not  surprise  us,  indeed,  that  the  poet's  own  manuscript, 
being  perpetually  handled  by  the  prompter  and  stage-manager, 
should  quickly  become  so  ragged  that  now  one  page  and  now 
another  would  have  to  be  replaced  by  a  copy.  But  the  Cambridge 
editors  have  certainly  undervalued  the  augmented  and  amended 
text  of  the  First  Folio.  James  Spedding  has  shown  in  an  excel- 
lent  essay  {The  New  ShaksJ>ere  Society' s  Transactions^  1875-76, 
pp.  l-i  19)  that  the  changes  which  some  have  thought  accidental 
and  arbitrary,  and  therefore  not  the  work  of  the  poet  himself,  are 
due  to  his  desire,  sometimes  to  improve  the  form  of  the  verse, 
sometimes  to  avoid  the  repetition  of  a  word,  sometimes  to  get  rid 
of  antiquated  words  and  tums  of  phrase. 

Every  one  who  has  been  nurtured  upon  Shakespeare  has  from 
his  youth  dwelt  wonderingly  upon  the  figure  of  Richard,  that 
fiend  in  human  shape,  striding,  with  savage  impetuosity,  from 
murder  to  murder,  wading  through  falsehood  and  hypocrisy  to 
ever-new  atrocities,  becoming  in  turn  regicide,  fratricide,  tyrant, 
murderer  of  his  wife  and  of  his  comrades,  until,  besmirched  with 
treachery  and  slaughter,  he  faces  his  foes  with  invincible  greatness. 

When  J.  L.  Heiberg  refused  to  produce  Richard  III.  at  the 
Royal  Theatre  in  Copenhagen,  he  expressed  a  doubt  whether 
''  we  could  ever  accustom  ourselves  to  seeing  Melpomene's  dagger 
converted  into  a  butcher's  knife."  Like  many  other  critics  before 
and  after  him,  he  took  exception  to  the  line  in  Ricbard's  opening 
soliloquy,  ''  I  am  determined  to  prove  a  villain."  He  doubted, 
justly  enough,  the  psychological  possibility  of  this  phrase;  but 
the  monologue,  as  a  whole,  is  a  non-realistic  unfolding  of  secret 
thoughts  in  words,  and,  with  a  very  slight  change  in  the  form  of 
expression,  the  idea  is  by  no  means  indefensible.  Richard  does 
not  mean  that  he  is  determined  to  be  what  he  himself  regards  as 
criminal,  but  merely  declares  with  bitter  irony  that,  since  he  can- 
not  "  prove  a  lover  To  entertain  these  fair  well-spoken  days,"  he 
will  play  the  part  of  a  villain,  and  give  the  rein  to  his  hatred  for 
the  "  idle  pleasures"  of  the  time« 


128  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

There  is  in  the  whole  utterance  a  straightforwardness,  as  of  a 
Programme,  that  takes  us  aback.  Richard  comes  forward  naively 
in  the  character  of  Prologue,  and  foreshadows  the  matter  of  the 
tragedy.  It  seems  almost  as  though  Shakespeare  had  determined 
to  guard  himself  at  the  outset  against  the  accusation  of  obscurity 
which  had  possibly  been  brought  against  his  Richard  IL  But 
we  must  remember  that  ambitious  m'en  in  his  day  were  less  com- 
posite  than  in  our  times,  and,  moreover,  that  he  was  not  here 
depicting  even  one  of  his  own  contemporaries,  but  a  character 
which  appeared  to  his  imagination  in  the  light  of  a  historical 
monster,  from  whom  his  own  age  was  separated  by  more  than  a 
Century.  His  Richard  is  like  an  old  portrait,  dating  from  the 
time  when  the  physiognomy  of  dangerous,  no  less  than  of  noble, 
characters  was  simpler,  and  when  even  intellectual  eminence  was 
still  accompanied  by  a  bull-necked  vigour  of  physique  such  as  in 
later  times  we  find  only  in  the  savage  chieftains  of  distant  comers 
of  the  World. 

It  is  against  such  figures  as  this  of  Richard  that  the  critics 
who  contest  Shakespeare's  rank  as  a  psychologist  are  fondest 
of  directing  their  attacks.  But  Shakespeare  was  no  miniature- 
painter.  Minutely  detailed  psychological  painting,  such  as  in 
our  days  Dostoyevsky  has  given  us,  Vas  not  his  afifair;  though, 
as  he  proved  in  Hamlet^  he  could  on  occasion  grapple  witb 
complex  characters.  Even  here,  however,  he  gets  his  effect  of 
complexity,  not  by  unravelling  a  tangle  of  motives,  but  by  pro- 
ducing  the  impression  of  an  inward  infinity  in  the  character.  It 
is  clear  that,  in  his  age,  he  had  not  often  the  chance  of  observing 
how  drcumstances,  experience,  and  changing  conditions  cut  and 
polish  a  Personality  into  shimmering  facets.  With  the  exceptiöa. 
of  Hamlet,  who  in  some  respects  Stands  alone,  his  characters  have 
sides  indeed,  but  not  facets. 

Take,  for  instance,  this  Richard.     Shakespeare  builds  him  up 
from  a  few  simple  characteristics :  deformity,  the  potent  conscious- 
ness  of  intellectual  superiority,  and  the  lust  for  power.     His  whole 
mality  can  be  traced  back  to  these  simple  Clements. 

He  is  courageous  out  of  self-esteem;  he  plays  the  lover  out 
/oJr  ambition ;  he  is  cunning  and  false,  a  comedian  and  a  blood- 
l  hound,  as  cruel  as  he  is  hypocritical — and  all  in  order  to  attain 
^"^ie  that  despotism  on  which  he  has  set  his  heart. 

Shakespeare  found  in  Holinshed's  Chronide  certain  funda^ 
mental  traits :  Richard  was  bom  with  teeth,  and  could  bite  befi^ 
he  could  smile ;  he  was  ugly ;  he  had  one  Shoulder  higher  than 
another ;  he  was  malicious  and  witty ;  he  was  a  daring  and  open» 
handed  general;  he  loved  secrecy ;  he  was  false  and  hypocritical 
out  of  ambition,  cruel  out  of  policy. 

AU  this  Shakespeare  simplifies  and  exaggerates,  as  evefy 
artist  must  Delacroix  has  finely  said,  "  Vart^  dest  texagiraikm 
Apropos* 


"RICHARD  III."  i 

The  Richard  of  the  tragedy  is  deformed;  he  is  undersia 
and  crooked,  has  a  hump  on  his  back  and  a  withered  arm. 

He  is  not,  like  so  many  other  hunchbacks,  under  any  iUusion 
as  to  his  appearance.  He  does  not  think  himself  handsome,  nor 
is  he  loved  by  the  daughters  of  Eve,  in  whom  deformity  is  so  apt 
to  awaken  that  instinct  of  pity  which  is  akin  to  love.  < 

No,  Richard  feels  himself  maltreated  by  Nature;  from  his\ 
birth  upwards  he  has  suffered  wrong  at  her  hands,  and  in  spite  i 
of  his  high  and  strenuous  spirit,  he  has  grown  up  an  outcast./ 
He  has  from  the  first  had  to  do  without  his  mother's  love,  and  toi 
listen  to  the  gibes  of  his  enemies.  Man  have  pointed  at  his 
shadow  and  laughed.  The  dogs  have  barked  at  him  as  he  haltea 
by.  But  in  this  luckless  frame  dwells  an  ambitious  soul.  Other 
peopk's  paths  to  happiness  and  enjoyment  are  closed  to  him. 
But  he  will  nile;  for  that  he  was  bom.  Power  is  everything  tot 
him,  his  fixed  idea.  ^Qjjgj^alone  can  give  him  his  rexfilige  upon  ^^ 
the  people  around  him,  whom  he  hates,  or  despises,  or  both.  The 
glory  of  the  diadem  shall  rest  upon  the  head  that  crowns  this 
misshapen  body.  He  sees  its  golden  splendour  afar  off.  Many 
lives  stand  between  him  and  his  goal ;  but  he  will  shrink  from  no 
falsehood,  no  treachery,  no  bloodshed,  if  only  he  can  reach  it. 

Into  Ulis  character  Shakespeare  transforms  himself  in  Ima- 
gination. It  is  the  mark  of  the  dramatic  poet  to  be  always  able 
to  get  out  of  his  own  skin  and  into  another's.  But  in  later  times 
some  of  the  greatest  dramatists  have  shrunk  shuddering  from 
the  out-and-out  criminal,  as  being  too  remote  from  them.  For 
example,  Goethe.  His  wrong-doers  are  only  weaklings,  like 
Weisungen  or  Clavigo ;  eveh  his  'MepfiTsfopheles  is  not  really 
eviL  Shakespeare,  on  the  other  band,  made  the  effort  to  feel 
like  Richard.  How  did  he  set  about  it  ?  Exactly  as  we  do  when 
we  strive  to  understand  another  personality ;  for  example,  Shake- 
speare himself.  He  imagines  himself  into  him  ;  that  is  to  say,  he 
projects  his  mind  into  the  other's  body  and  lives  in  it  for  the  time 
being.  The  question  the  poet  has  to  answer  is  always  this  :  How 
should  I  feel  and  act  if  1  were  a  prince,  a  woman,  a  conqueror, 
an  outcast,  and  so  forth  ? 

Shakespeare  takes,  as  his  point  of  departure,  the  ignominy 
inflicted  by  Nature ;  Richard  is  one  of  Nature's  victims.  How  can 
Shakespeare  feel  with  him  here — Shakespeare,  to  whom  deformity 
of  body  was  unknown,  and  who  had  been  immoderately  favoured 
by  Nature  ?  But  he,  too,  had  long  endured  humiliation,  and  had 
lived  under  mean  conditions  which  afforded  no  scope  either  to 
his  will  or  to  his  talents.  Poverty  is  itself  a  deformity ;  and  the 
condition  of  an  actor  was  a  blemish  Hke  a  hump  on  llts^back. 
Thus  he  is  in  a  position  to  enter  with  ease  into  the  feelings  ot 
one  of  Nature's  victims.  He  has  simply  to  give  free  course  to 
all  the  moods  in  his  own  mind  which  have  beeu  e.>9oVL^  Vi 
personal  humiliation,  aDd  to  Jet  them  ferment  and  Tun  t\oX. 

\ 


I30  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Next  comes  the  consciousness  of  superiority  in  Richard,  and 
the  lust  of  power  which  Springs  from  it  Shakespeare  cannot 
have  lacked  the  consciousness  of  his  personal  superiority,  and, 
like  every  man  of  genius,  he  must  have  had  the  lust  of  power  in 
his  souly  at  least  as  a  rudimentary  organ.  Ambitious  he  must 
assuredly  have  been,  though  not  after  the  fashion  of  the  actors  and 
dramatists  of  our  day.  Their  mere  jugglery  passes  for  art,  while 
his  art  was  regarded  by  the  great  majority  as  mere  jugglery. 
His  artistic  self-esteem  received  a  check  in  its  growth ;  but  none 
the  less  there  was  ambition  behind  the  tenacity  of  purpose  which 
in  a  few  years  raised  him  from  a  servitor  in  the  theatre  to 
a  shareholder  and  director,  and  which  led  him  to  develop  the 
greatest  productive  talent  of  his  country,  tili  he  outshone  all 
rivals  in  his  calling,  and  won  the  appreciation  of  the  leaders  of 
fashion  and  taste.  He  now  transposed  into  another  sphere  of 
life,  that  of  temporal  rule,  a  habit  of  mind  which  was  his  own. 
The  instinct  of  his  soul,  which  never  sufifered  him  to  stop  or 
pause,  but  forced  him  from  one  great  intellectual  achievement  to 
another,  restlessly  onward  from  masterpiece  to  masterpiece — ^the 
fierce  instinct,  with  its  inevitable  egoism,  which  led  him  in  bis 
youth  to  desert  his  family,  in  his  matunty  to  amass  property 
without  any  tenderness  for  his  debtors,  and  {perfas  et  nefas)  to 
attain  his  modest  patent  of  gentility — ^this  instinct  enables  him 
to  understand  and  feel  that  passion  for  power  which  defies  and 
tramples  upon  every  scruple.  And  all  the  other  characteristics 
(for  example,  the  hypocrisy,  which  in  the  Chronicle  holds  the 
foremost  place)  he  uses  as  mere  Instruments  in  the  Service  of 
ambition. 

Note  how  he  has  succeeded  in  individualising  this  passion.  It 
is  hereditary.  In  the  Second  Part  of  Henry  VI.  (üi.  i)  Richard'« 
father,  the  Duke  of  York,  says — 

"  Let  pale-fac'd  fear  keep  with  the  mean-bom  man, 
And  find  no  harbour  in  a  royal  heart. 
Faster  than  spring-time  showers  comes  thought  on  thought, 
And  not  a  thought  but  thinks  on  dignity. 


Well,  nobles,  well ;  't  is  politicly  done, 

To  send  me  packing  with  an  host  of  men : 

I  fear  me,  you  but  wann  the  starved  snake, 

Who,  cherish'd  in  your  breasts,  will  sting  your  hearts.* 

In  the  Third  Part  of  Henry  VI.,  Richard  shows  himself  the 
true  son  of  his  father.  His  brother  runs  after  the  smiles  of 
women ;  he  dreams  only  of  might  and  sovereignty.  If  there  was 
no  crown  to  be  attained,  the  world  would  have  no  joy  to  oflfer 
bim.     He  says  himself  (iii.  2)— 


"RICHARD  III."  131 

••  Why,  love  forswore  me  in  my  mother's  womb : 
And,  for  I  should  not  deal  in  her  soft  laws, 
She  did  comipt  frail  nature  with  some  bribe, 
To  shrink  mine  arm  up  like  a  wither'd  shrub ; 
To  make  an  envious  mountain  on  my  bacL 
•  ••••• 

To  disproportion  me  in  every  part ; 
Like  to  a  chaos,  or  an  unlick'd  bear-whelp, 
That  carries  no  impression  like  the  dam. 
And  am  I  then  a  man  to  be  belov'd  ? 

0  monstrous  fault,  to  harbom'  such  a  thought ! 
Then,  since  this  earth  affords  no  joy  to  me 
But  to  command,  to  check,  to  o'erbear  such 
As  are  of  better  person  than  myself, 

1  '11  make  my  heaven  to  dream  upon  the  crown." 

The  lust  of  power  is  an  inward  agony  to  him.  He  compares 
himself  to  a  man  '*  lost  in  a  thomy  wood,  Thstt  rends  the  thoms 
and  is  rent  by  the  thorns ; "  and  he  sees  no  way  of  deliverance 
ezcept  to  "  hew  bis  way  out  with  a  bloody  axe"  Thus  is  he 
tormented  by  bis  desire  for  the  crown  of  England ;  and  to  achieve 
it  he  will  ''drown  more  sailors  than  the  mermaid  shall;  •  .  . 
Deceive  more  slyly  than  Ulysses  could ;  .  .  •  add  colours  to  the 
chameleon;  .  .  .  And  send  the  murd'rous  Machiavel  to  school." 
(The  last  touch  is  an  anachronism,  for  Richard  died  fifty  years 
before  TAe  Prince  was  published.) 

If  this  is  to  be  a  villain,  then  a  villain  he  is.     And  for  th^ 
sake  of  the  artistic  effect,  Shakespeare  has  piled  upon  Richard's  I 
head  far  more  crimes  than  the  real  Richard  can  be  historically  ^ 
proved  to  have  committed.     This  he  did,  because  he  had  no 
doubt  of  the  existence  of  such  characters  as  rose   before  bis 
Imagination  while  he  read  in  Holinshed  of  Richard's  misdeeds. 
He  believed  in  the  existence  of  viUains — a  belief  largely  under- 
mined  in  our  days  by  a  scepticism  which  greatly  facilitates  thet^^^ 
villains'  Operations.     He   has   drawn   more   villains   than   one:       > 
Edmund  in  Lear^  who  is  influenced  by  bis  illegitimacy  as  Richard  ^^ 
is  by  bis  deformity,  and  the  grand  master  of  all  evil,  lago  intX 
Othello. 

But  let  US  get  rid  of  the  empty  by-word  villain,  which  Richard  \ 
applies  to  himself.     Shakespeare  no  doubt  believed  theoretically 
in  the  free-will  which  can  choose  any  tourse  it  pleases,  and 
villainy  among  the  rest ;  but  none  the  less  does  he  in  practice 
assign  a  cause  to  every  effect. 

On  three  scenes  in  this  play  Shakespeare  evidently  expended 
particular  care — the  three  which  imprint  themselves  on  the 
meroory  after  even  a  Single  attentive  reading. 

The  first  of  these  scenes  is  that  in  which  Richard  wins  over 
the  Lady  Anne,  widow  of  one  of  bis  victims,  Prince  Edward, 
and  daughter-in-law  of  another,  Henry  VL     Shakespeare  has 


^ 

< 


132  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

here  carried  the  Situation  to  its  utmost  eztremity.  It  is  whik 
Anne  is  accompanying  the  hier  of  the  murdered  Henry  VL  that 
the  murderer  confronts  her,  stops  the  funeral  procession  with 
drawn  sword,  calmly  endures  all  the  outbursts  of  hatred,  loathingi 
and  contempt  with  which  Anne  overwhelms  him,  and,  having 
shaken  off  her  invectives  like  water  from  a  duck's  back,  advances 
bis  suity  plays  bis  comedy  of  love,  and  there  and  then  so  tums 
the  current  of  her  will  that  she  allows  bim  to  hope,  and  even 
accepwS  his  ring. 

The  scene  is  historically  impossible,  since  Queen  Mai^garet 
took  Anne  with  her  in  her  flight  after  the  battle  of  Tewkesbury, 
and  Clarence  kept  her  in  concealment  until  two  years  after  the 
\  death  of  Henry  VI.,  when  Richard  discovered  her  in  Londo^Lj 
It  has,  moreover,  something  astonishing,  or  rat  her  bewildering, 
about  it  at  the  first  reading,  appearing  as  though  written  for  a 
wager  or  to  outdo  some  predecessor.  Nevertheless  it  is  by  no 
means  unnatural.  What  may  with  justice  be  objected  to  it  is 
that  it  is  unprepared...  'Fhe  mistake  is,  that  we  are  first  intro- 
duced  to  Anne  in  the  scene  itself,  and  can  consequently  form 
no  judgment  as  to  whether  her  action  does  or  does  not  accord 
with  iier  character.  The  art  of  dramatic  writing  consists  almost 
entirely  in  preparing  for  what  is  to  come,  and  then,  in  spite  of, 
nay,  in  virtue  of  the  preparation,  taking  the  audience  by  surprise. 
Surprise  without  preparation  loses  half  its  effect 

<^  ^'-  But  this  is  .o]ily..^Jechnical  flaw  which  so  great  a  master 
would  in  riper  years  have  remedied  with  ease.  The  essential 
f  feature  of  the  scene  is  its  tremendous  daring  and  strength,  or, 
Xpsychologically  speaking,  the  depth  of  early-developed  contempt 
for  womankind  into  which  it  affords  us  a  gUmpse.  For  the  very 
reason  that  the  poet  has  not  given  any  individual  characteri£tics 
to  this  woman,  it  seems  as  though  he  would  say :  Such  is  feminine 
human  nature.  It  is  quite  evident  that  in  his  younger  3'ears  he 
was  not  so  much  alive  to  the  beauties  of  the  womanly  character 
as  he  became  at  a  later  period  of  his  life.  He  is  fond  of  draw- 
ing  unamiable  women  hke  Adnana  in  The  Comedy  of  Errors^ 
violent  and  corrupt  women  like  Tamora  in  Tttus  AndrontcuSf  and 
Margaret  in  Henry  VL^  or  scolding  women  like  Katherine  in 
The  fatning  of  the  Shrew.  Here  he  gives  us  a  picture  of 
peculiarly  feminine  weakness,  and  personifies  in  Richard  his 
own  contempt  for  it. 

Exasperate  a  woman  against  you  (he  seems  to  say),  do  her 
all  the  evil  you  can  think  of^  kill  her  husband,  deprive  her  thereby 
of  the  succession  to  a  crown,  üll  her  to  overflowing  with  hatred 
and  e::ecration — ^then  if  you  can  only  cajole  her  into  believing  that 
in  all  you  have  done,  crimes  and  everything,  you  have  been 
actuated  simply  and  solely  by  buming  passion  for  her,  by  the 
hope  of  approaching  her  and  winning  her  band — why,  then  the 
game  is  yours,  and  sooner  or  later  she  will  give  in.     Her  vanity 


"RICHARD  III."  133 

cannot  hold  out  If  it  is  proof  against  ten  measures  of  flattery, 
it  will  succumb  to  a  hundred ;  and  if  even  that  is  not  enough,  then 
pile  on  more.  Every  woman  has  a  price  at  which  her  vanity  is 
for  sale;  you  have  only  to  dare  greatly  and  bid  high  enough. 
So  Shakespeare  makes  this  crookbacked  assassin  accept  Anne's 
insults  without  winking  and  retort  upon  them  his  declaraüon  of 
love — ^he  at  once  seems  less  hideous  in  her  eyes  from  tlie  fact 
that  his  crimes  were  committed  for  her  sake.  Shakespeare  makes 
him  band  her  his  drawn  sword,  to  pierce  him  to  the  heart  if  she 
will;  he  is  sure  enough  that  she  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort. 
She  cannot  withstand  the  intense  volition  in  his  glance ;  he 
hypnotises  her  hatred;  the  exaltation  with  which  his  !ust  of 
power  inspires  him  bewilders  and  overpowers  her,  and  he 
becomes  ahnost  beautiful  in  her  eyes  when  he  bares  his  breast 
to  her  revenge.  She  yields  to  him  under  the  influence  of  an 
attraction  in  which  are  niingled  dizziness,  terror,  and  perverted 
sensuality.  His  very  hideousness  becomes  a  Stimulus  the  more. 
There  is  a  sort  of  fearful  billing-and-cooing  in  the  stichomythy 
in  the  style  of  the  antique  tragedy,  which  begins : — 


M 


Anne,  I  would  I  knew  thy  heart 
Glaucester,  'Tis  figured  in  my  tongue. 
Anne.  I  fear  me  both  are  false. 
GUntcester,  Then  never  man  was  true." 

But  triumph  seethes  in  his  veins — 

''  Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  wooed  ? 
Was  ever  woman  in  this  humour  won  ?  " 

— triumph  that  he,  the  hunchback,  the  monster,  has  needed  but 
to  show  himself  and  use  his  polished  tongue  in  order  to  stay  the 
curses  on  her  Ups,  dry  the  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  awaken  desire   | 
in  her  soul.     This  courtship  has  procured  him  the  intozicating 
Sensation  of  irresistibility. 

The  fact  of  the  marriage  Shakespeare  found  in  the  Chronide ; 
and  he  led  up  to  it  in  this  brilliant  fashion  because  his  poetic 
instinct  told  him  to  make  Richard  great,  and  thereby  possible 
as  a  tragic  bero.  In  reality,  he  was  by  1^0  me^s  so  daemonic. 
His  motive  for  paying  court  to  Anne^  wa^  itkitx  cupidity.  ^Both 
Qarence  and  Gloucester  had  schemed  to  possess  themselves  of 
the  vast  fortune  left  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  although  the 
Countess  was  still  alive  and  legally  entitled  to  the  greater  part 
of  it  Clarence,  who  had  married  the  eider  daughter,  was 
certain  of  his  part  in  the  inheritance,  bat  Richard  thought  that 
by  marrying  the  younger  daughter,  Prince  Edward's  widow, 
he  would  secure  the  rigbt  to  go  halves.  By  aid  of  an  Act  of 
Parliament,  the  matter  was  arranged  so  that  each  of  the  brothers 
leodved  his  share  in  the  booty.     For  this  low  rapacity  in  Richard« 


134  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  has  substituted  the  hunchback's  personal  exultation 
on  finding  himself  a  successful  wooer. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  bis  intention  to  represent  Richard  as 
superior  to  all  feminine  wiles.  This  of)ening  scene  has  its  counter- 
part  in  the  passage  (iv.  4)  where  the  King,  after  having  rid  himself 
by  poison  of  the  wife  he  has  thus  won,  proposes  to  Elizabeth,  the 
widow  of  Edward  IV.,  for  the  band  of  her  daughter. 

The  scene  has  the  air  of  a  repetition.  Richard  has  made  away 
with  Edward's  two  sons  in  order  to  clear  bis  path  to  the  throne. 
Here  again,  then,  the  murderer  woos  the  nearest  kinswoman  of 
his  victims,  and,  in  this  case,  through  the  intermediary  of  their 
mother.  Shakespeare  has  lavished  his  wbole  art  on  this  passage. 
Elizabeth,  too,  expresses  the  deepest  loathing  for  bim.  Richard 
answers  that,  if  he  has  deprived  her  sons  of  the  throne,  he  will 
now  make  amends  by  raising  her  daughter  to  it.  Here  also  the 
dialogue  takes  the  form  of  a  stichomythy,  which  clearly  enough  indi- 
cates  that  these  passages  belong  to  the  earliest  form  of  the  play : — 

"  King  Richard,  Infer  fair  England's  peace  by  this  alliance. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  Which  she  shall  purchase  with  still  lasting  war. 
K,  Rieh,  Teil  her,  the  king,  that  may  command,  entreats. 
Q,  Elis,  That  at  her  hands,  which  the  king^'  King  forbids." 

Richard  not  only  asserts  the  purity  and  strength  of  his  feelings, 
but  insists  that  by  this  marriage  alone  can  he  be  prevented  from 
bringing  misery  and  destruction  upon  thousands  in  the  kingdom. 
Elizabeth  pretends  to  yield,  and  Richard  bursts  forth,  just  as  in 
the  first  act — 

**  Relenting  fool,  and  shallow  changing  woman !" 

But  it  is  he  himself  who  is  overreached.  Elizabeth  has  only 
made  a  show  of  acquiescence  in  order  immediately  after  to  offer 
her  daughter  to  his  mortal  foe. 

The  second  unforgetable  passage  is  the  Baynard*s  Castle 
scene  in  the  third  act.  Richard  has  cleared  away  all  obstades  on 
his  path  to  the  throne.  His  eider  brother  Clarence  is  murdered 
— drowned  in  a  butt  of  wine.  Edward's  young  sons  are  presently 
to  be  Strangled  in  prison.  Hastings  has  just  been  hurried  to  the 
scafTold  without  trial  or  form  of  law.  The  thing  is  now  to  avoid 
all  appearance  of  complidty  in  these  crimes,  and  to  seem  austerely 
disinterested  with  regard  to  the  crown.  To  this  end  he  makes  his 
rascally  henchman,  Buckingham,  persuade  the  simple-minded  and 
panic-stricken  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  with  other  Citizens  of  re- 
pute,  to  implore  bim,  in  spite  of  his  seeming  reluctance,  to  mount 
the  throne.  Buckingham  prepares  Richard  for  their  approach 
(iü.  7) :- 

'*  Intend  some  fear ; 
Be  not  you  spoke  with  but  by  mighty  suit : 
And  look  you  get  a  prayer-book  in  your  band, 


''RICHARD  IIL**  135 

And  stand  between  two  churchmen,  good  my  lord : 
For  on  that  ground  I'U  make  a  holy  descant : 
And  be  not  easily  won  to  our  requests ; 
Play  the  maid's  part,  still  answer  nay,  and  take  it" 

Then  come  the  Citizens.  Catesby  bids  them  retum  another  time. 
His  grace  is  closeted  with  two  right  reverend  fathers;  he  is 
''  divinely  bent  to  meditation/'  and  must  not  be  disturbed  in  his 
devotions  by  any  "worldly  suits."  They  renew  their  entreaties 
to  his  messenger,  and  implore  the  favour  of  an  audience  with  his 
grace  "  in  matter  of  great  moment." 

Not  tili  then  does  Gloucester  show  himself  upon  the  balcony 
between  two  bishops. 

When,  at  the  election  of  1868,  which  tumed  upon  the  Irish 
Church  question,  Disraeli,  a  very  different  man  from  Richard,  was 
relying  on  the  co-operation  of  both  English  and  Irish  prelates, 
Punch  depicted  him  in  fifteenth-century  attire,  standing  on  a 
balcony,  prayer-book  in  band,  with  an  indescribable  expression  of 
sly  humility,  while  two  bishops,  representing  the  English  and  the 
Irish  Church,  supported  him  on  either  band.  The  legend  ran,  in 
the  words  of  the  Lord  Mayor :  '*  See  where  his  grace  Stands  'twcen 
two  clergymen ! " — whereupon  Buckingham  remarks — 

•*  Two  props  of  virtue  for  a  Christian  prince, 
To  stay  him  from  the  fall  of  vanity ; 
And,  see,  a  book  of  prayer  in  his  band, 
True  Ornament  to  know  a  holy  man.'' 

The  deputation  is  stemly  repulsed,  until  Richard  at  last  lets 
mercy  stand  for  justice,  and  recalling  the  envoys  of  the  City, 
yields  to  their  insistence. 

The  third  master-scene  is  that  in  Richard's  tent  on  Bosworth  1 
Field  (v.  3).     It  seems  as  though  his  hitherto  immovable  seif-  \ 
confidence  had  been  shaken ;  he  feels  himself  weak ;  he  will  not  I 
sup.     ''  Is  my  beaver  easier  than  it  was  ?  .  .  .  Pill  me  a  bowl  of/ 
wine.  .  .  .  Look  that  my  staves  be  sound  and  not  too  heavyjr 
Again :  ''  Give  me  a  bowl  of  wine." 

"  I  have  not  that  alacrity  of  spirit,  4/ 

Nor  cheer  of  mind,  that  I  was  wont  to  have." 

Then,  in  a  visioa»  as  he  lies  sleeping  on  his  couch,  with  his\ 
armour  on  and  his  sword-hilt  grasped  in  his  band,  he  sees,  one  ] 
by  one,  the  spectres  of  ^  those  he  has  done  to  death.  He  wakens  J 
in  terror.  His  conscience  has  a  thousand  tongues,  and  ererW 
tongue  condemns  him  as  a  perjurer  and  assassin : — 

'*  I  shall  despsir. — ^There  is  no  creature  lores  me ; 
And  if  I  die  no  soul  shall  pity  me." 


136  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

^These  are  such  pangs  of  conscience  as  would  sometimes  beset 
even  the  strengest  and  most  resolute  in  those  days  when  faith 
and  superstition  were  still  powerful,  and  when  even  one  who 

fsroffed  at  religion  and  made  a  tool  of  it  had  no  assurance  in  his 
irt  of  hearts.  There  is  in  these  words,  too,  a  purely  human 
ise  of  loneliness  and  of  craving  for  afifection,  which  is  valid  for 
time. 
Most  admirable  is  the  way  in  which  Richard  summons  up  his 
manhood  and  restores  the  courage  of  those  around  him.  These 
are  the  accents  of  one  who  will  give  despair  no  footing  in  his 
aoul: — 

/l'  Conscience  is  but  a  word  that  cowards  use, 
\1  Devis'd  at  first  to  keep  the  strong  in  awe ;  ** 

and  there  is  in  his  harangue  to  the  soldiers  an  irresistible  roll 
of  fierce  and  spirit-stirring  martial  music ;  it  is  constructed  like 
atrophes  of  the  Marseillaise : — 

"  Remember  whom  you  are  to  cope  withal ; — 

A  sort  of  vagabonds,  rascals,  runaways. 
{Que  veut  cette  horde  d*esdaves  f) 

You  having  lands,  and  bless'd  with  beauteous  wives, 

They  would  restrain  the  one,  distain  the  other. 
(igprger  vosfils^  vos  campagnes,) 

Lefs  whip  these  stragglers  o'er  the  seas  again." 

But  there  is  a  ferocity,  a  scorn,  a  populär  eloquenoe  in 
Richard's  words,  in  comparison  with  which  the  rhetoric  of 
the  Marseillaise  seems  declamatory,  even  academic  His  last 
Speeches  are  nothing  less  than  süperb : — 

**  Shall  these  enjoy  our  lands  ?  lie  with  our  wives  ? 
Bavish  our  daughters? — [Drum  afar  oß]    Hark;   I  hear  theix 

drum. 
Fight,  gentlemen  of  England !  fight,  bold  yeomen  1 
Draw,  archers,  draw  your  arrows  to  the  head ! 
Spur  your  proud  horses  hard,  and  ride  in  blood : 
Amaze  the  welkin  with  your  broken  staves  1 

Enier  a  Messenger. 

Wbat  says  Lord  Stanley?  will  he  bring  his  power? 

Mess,  My  lord,  he  doth  deny  to  come. 

K.  Rieh,  Off  with  his  son  Geoige's  head  1 

Noffalk.  My  lord,  the  enemy  is  pass'd  th«  marsh : 
After  the  battle  let  Geoige  Stanley  die.     ^ 

JT.  Rieh,  A  thousand  hearts  are  great  within  my  bosom. 
Advance  our  Standards  1  set  upon  our  foes ! 
Our  ancient  word  of  courage,  fair  Saint  Gooige^ 
Inqnre  us  with  the  spieen  of  fiery  dragons  1 
Upon  them  I    Victory  sits  on  our  heims.    « 


( 


''RICHARD  III."  137 

K*  Rieh,  A  horse  1  a  horse !  my  kingdom  for  a  hone  I 
Catesfy.  Withdraw,  my  lord ;  TU  help  you  to  a  hone. 
K,  Ruh.  Slave !  I  have  set  my  life  upon  a  cast, 

And  I  will  stand  the  hazard  of  the  die. 

I  think  there  be  six  Richmonds  in  the  field ; 

Five  have  I  slain  to-day,  instead  of  him. — 

A  hone  1  a  hone !  my  kingdom  for  a  hone ! " 

In  no  other  play  of  Shakespeare's»  we  may  surely  say,  is  the 
leading  character  so  absolutely  predominant  as  here.  He  absorbs 
almost  the  whole  of  the  interest,  and  it  is  a  triumph  of  Shake- 
speare's  art  that  he  makes  us,  in  spite  of  everything,  foUow  him 
with  sympathy.  This  is  partly  because  several  of  bis  victims 
are  so  worthless  that  their  fate  seems  well  deserved.  Anne's 
weakness  deprives  her  of  our  S3rmpathy,  and  Richard's  crime 
loses  somethlng  of  its  horror  when  we  see  how  lightly  it  is 
forgiven  by  the  one  who  ought  to  take  it  most  to  heart.  In 
spite  of  all  bis  iniquities,  he  has  wit  and  courage  on  bis  side 
— a  wit  which  sometimes  rises  to  Mephistophelean  humour,  a 
courage  which  does  not  fall  him  even  in  the  moment  of  disaster, 
but  sheds  a  glory  over  bis  fall  which  is  lacking  to  the  triumph 
of  bis  coldly  correct  Opponent  However  false  and  hypocritical 
he  may  be  towards  others,  he  is  no  hypocrite  to  himself.  He 
is  chemically  free  from  self-delusion,  even  applying  to  himself 
the  most  derogatory  terms;  and  this  candour  in  the  depths  of  ^- 
bis  nature  appeals  to  us.  It  must  be  said  for  bim,  too,  that 
threats  and  curses  recoil  from  him  innocuous,  that  neither  hatred 
nor  violence  nor  superior  force  can  dash  bis  courage.  Stre^gth 
of  character  is  such  a  rare  quality  that  it  arouses  sympathy  even 
in  a  criminal«  If  Richard's  reign  had  lasted  longer,  he  would 
perhaps  have  figured  in  history  as  a  ruler  of  the  type  of  Louis  XI. : 
crafty,  always  wearing  bis  religion  on  bis  sleeve,  but  far-seeing 
and  resolute.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  history  as  in  the  drama, 
bis  whole  time  was  occupied  in  defending  himself  in  the  position 
to  which  he  had  fought  bis  way,  like  a  bloodthirsty  beast  of  prey. 
His  figure  Stands  before  us  as  his  contemporaries  have  drawn 
it:  small  and  wiry,  the  right  Shoulder  higher  than  the  left, 
wearing  his  rieh  brown  hair  long  in  order  to  conceal  this  mal- 
formation,  biting  his  under-lip,  always  restless,  always  with  his 
band  on  his  dagger-hilt,  sliding  it  up  and  down  in  its  sheath, 
without  entirdy  drawing  it  Shakespeare  has  succeeded  in 
throwing  a  halo  of  poetry  around  this  tiger  in  human  shape. 

The  figures  of  the  two  boy  princes,  Edward's  sons,  stand  in     >v 
the  strongest  contrast  to  Richard.     The  eldest  child  already        * 
shows  greatness  of  soul,  a  kingly  spirit,  with  a  deep  feeling  for 
tlie  Import  of  historic  achievement.    The  fact  that  Julius  CKsar 
buflt  the  Tower,  he  says,  even  were  it  not  registered,  ought  to 
five  from  age  to  age.   He  is  fuU  of  the  thought  that  while  Caetar*» 


138  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  valour  did  enrich  his  wit,"  yet  it  was  his  wit  "  that  made  his 
valour  live/'  and  he  exclaims  with  enthusiasm,  "  Death  makes  no 
conquest  of  this  conqueror."  The  younger  brother  is  childishiy 
witty,  imaginative,  füll  of  boyish  mockery  for  his  uncle's  grim- 
ness,  and  eager  to  play  with  his  dagger  and  sword.  In  a  very 
few  touches  Shakespeare  has  endowed  these  young  brothers  with 
the  most  exquisite  grace.  The  murderers  "  weep  like  to  children 
in  their  death's  sad  story  " : — 

"  Their  lips  were  four  red  roses  on  a  stalk, 
And,  in  their  summer  beauty,  kiss'd  each  other." 

Finally,  the  whole  tragedy  of  Richard's  life  and  death  is 
enveloped,  as  it  were,  in  the  mouming  of  women,  permeated  with 
their  lamentations.  In  its  internal  structure,  it  bears  no  slight 
resemblance  to  a  Greek  tragedy,  being  indeed  the  concluding 
portion  of  a  tetralogy. 

Nowhere  eise  does  Shakespeare  approach  so  nearly  to  the 
classicism  on  the  model  of  Seneca  which  had  found  some  ad- 
herents  in  England. 

The  whole  tragedy  Springs  from  the  curse  which  York,  in 
the  Third  Part  of  Henry  VI.  (i.  4),  hurls  at  Margaret  of  Anjou. 
She  has  insulted  her  captive  enemy,  and  given  him  in  mockery  a 
napkin  soaked  in  the  blood  of  his  son,  the  young  Rutland,  stabbed 
to  the  heart  by  ClifTord. 

Therefore  she  loses  her  crown  and.  her  son,  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  Her  lover,' SuiTolk,  she  has  already  lost.  Nothing  re- 
mains  to  attach  her  to  life. 

But  now  it  is  her  tum  to  be  revenged. 

The  poet  has  sought  to  iucamate  in  her  the  antique  Nemesis, 

has  given  her  supematural  proportions  and  set  her  free  from  the 

conditions  of  real  life.     Though  exiled,  she  has  retumed  un- 

questioned  to  England,  haunts  the  palace  of  Edward  IV.,  and 

gives  free  vent  to  her  rage  and  hatred  in  his  presence  and  that 

y  of  his  kinsfolk  and  his  courtiers.     So,  too,  she  wanders  around 

/  ander  Richard's  rule,  simply  and  solely  to  curse  her  enemies — 

(     and  even  Richard  himself  is  seized  with  a  superstitious  shudder 

^wit-^ese  anathemas. 

Never  again  did  Shakespeare  so  depart  from  the  possible  in 
idfder  to  attain  a  scenic  efiect  And  yet  it  is  doubtfiil  whether 
/the  efiect  is  really  attained.  In  reading,  it  is  true,  these  curses 
I  strike  US  with  extraordinaiy  force;  but  on  the  stage,  where  she 
l  only  disturbs  and  retards  the  action,  and  takes  no  eflfective  pait 
\in  it,  Margaret  camiot  but  prove  wearisome. 

Yet,  though  she  herseif  remains  inactive,  her  curses  are 
efiectusd  enough.  Death  overtakes  aU  those  on  whom  they  fall 
— the  King  and  his  children,  Rivers  and  Dorset,  Lord  Hastingli, 
and  the  rest  '*' 


[: 


"RICHARD  III."  139 

She  encounters  the  Duchess  of  York,  the  mother  of  Edward 
IV.,  Queen  Elizabeth,  his  widow,  and  finally  Anne,  Richard's 
daringly-won  and  quickly-repudiated  wife.  And  all  these  women, 
like  a  Greek  chorus,  give  utterance  in  rh3rmed  verse  to  impreca- 
tions  and  lamentations  of  high  lyric  fervour.  In  two  passages  in 
particular  (ii.  2  and  iv.  i)  they  chant  positive  Choral  ödes  in 
dialogue  form.  Take  as  an  example  of  the  lyric  tone  of  the 
diction  these  lines  (iv.  i): — 

^^Ihichess  of  York  [To  Dorset']  Go  thou  to  Richmond,  and  good 

fortune  guide  thee ! — 
To  Anne.']  Go  thou  to  Richard,  and  good  angels  tend  thee  I — 
\To  Q,  Elizabeth^]    Go    thou  to  sanctuary,   and    good    thoughts 

possess  thee ! — 
I  to  my  grave,  where  peace  and  rest  lie  with  me  1 
Eighty  odd  years  of  sorrow  have  I  seen, 
And  each  hour's  joy  wrack'd  with  a  week  of  teen." 

Such  is  this  work  of  Shakespeare's  youth,  firm,  massive,  and 
masterful  throughout,  even  though  of  very  unequal  merit.  Every- 
thing  is  here  worked  out  upon  the  surface ;  the  characters  them- 
selves  teil  us  what  sort  of  people  they  are,  and  proclaim  themselves 
evil  or  good,  as  the  case  may  be.  They  are  all  transparent,  all 
self-conscious  to  epccess.  They  expound  themselves  in  soliloquies, 
and  each  of  them  is  judged  in  a  sort  of  Choral  ode.  The  time  is 
yet  to  come  when  Shakespeare  no  longer  dreams  of  making  his 
characters  formally  band  over  to  the  spectators  the  key  to  their 
mystery — when,  on  the  contrary,  with  his  sense  of  the  secrets 
and  inward  contradictions  of  the  spiritual  life,  he  sedulously  hides 
that  key  in  the  depths  of  personality. 


i- 


XIX 

SHAKESPEARE  LOSES  HIS  SON^TRACES  OP  HIS  GRIBP  IS 
KING  JOHN^THE  OLD  PLAY  OP  THE  SAME  NAME- 
DISPLACEMENT  OP  ITS  CENTRE  OP  GRA  VITY^ELIMINA- 
TION  OP  RELIGIO  US  POLEMICS-^RETENTION  OP  THE 
NATIONAL  BASIS^PATRIOTIC  SPIRIT—SHAKESPEARE 
KNOWS  NOTHING  OP  THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN 
NORMANS  AND  ANGLO^AXONS,  AND  IGNORES  THE 
MAGNA  CHARTA 

In  the  Parish  Register  of  Stratford-on-Avon  for  1596,  under  the 
heading  of  burials,  we  find  this  entry,  in  a  clear  and  elegant 
handwriting : — 

** August  II,  Hamnetfilius  Wüliam  Shakespeare'' 

Shakespeare's  only  son  was  born  on  the  2nd  of  Febniary 
158s  ;  he  was  thus  only  eleven  and  a  half  when  he  died. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  this  loss  was  a  grievous  one  to  a  man 
of  Shakespeare's  deep  feeling ;  doubly  grievous,  it  would  seem, 
because  it  was  his  constant  ambition  to  restore  the  fallen  fortunes 
of  his  family,  and  he  was  now  left  without  an  heir  to  his  name. 

Traces  of  what  his  heart  must  have  suffered  appear  in  the 
work  he  now  undertakes,  Kingjahn,  which  seems  to  date  from 

1596-97. 

One  of  the  main  themes  of  this  play  is  the  relation  between 

John  Lackland,  who  has  usurped  the  English  crown,  and  the 

rightful  heir,  Arthur,  son  of  John's  eider  brother,  in  reality  a 

boy  of  about  fourteen  at  the  date  of  the  action,  but  whom 

Shakespeare,  for  the  sake  of  poetic  effect,  and  influenced,  per* 

haps,  by  his  private  preoccupations  of  the  moment,  has  nuuie 

considerably   younger,    and    consequently   more    childlike    and 

touching. 

The  King  has  got  Arthur  into  his  power.    The  most  famous 

scene  in  the  play  is  that  (iv.  i)  in  which  Hubert  de  Burgb,  the 

King's  chamberlain,  who  has  received  Orders  to  sear  out  the  eyes 

of  tihe  little  captive,  enters  Arthur's  prison  with  the  irons,  and 

aocompanied  by  the  two  servants  who  are  to  bind  the  chfld  to 

a  chair  and  hold  him  fast  while  the  atrocity  is  being  committed. 

The  little  prinoei  who  has  no  mistrust  of  Hubert,  but  00^  a 


"KING  JOHN"  141 

genenü  dread  of  bis  uncle's  malice,  as  yet  divines  no  danger, 
and  18  füll  of  sympathy  and  childlike  tendemess.  The  passage 
is  one  of  cxtraordincry  grace  :— 

"  Arthur,  You  are  aad. 

Hubert,  Indeed,  I  have  been  merrier. 
Arth,  Macy  on  me 

MethinkSy  nobody  should  be  sad  but  I : 

•  •  .  •  •  • 

I  would  to  Heaven, 
I  were  your  son,  so  you  would  love  me,  Hubert 

Hub,  [Asüü,]  If  I  talk  to  him,  with  bis  innocent  piate 
He  will  awake  my  mercy,  which  lies  dead : 
Therefore  I  will  be  sudden,  and  despatch. 

ArtÄ,  Are  you  sick,  Hubert?  you  look  pale  tOKlay. 
In  sooth,  I  would  you  were  a  little  sick, 
That  I  might  sit  all  night,  and  watch  with  you : 
I  Warrant,  I  love  you  more  than  you  do  me." 

Hubert  gives  him  the  royal  mandate  to  read : — 

**  Hubert,  Can  you  not  read  it?  is  it  not  fair  writ? 

Arthur,  Too  fairly,  Hubert,  for  so  foul  effect 
Must  you  with  bot  irons  bum  out  both  mine  eyes? 

Hub.  Young  boy,  I  must. 

Arth,  And  will  you  ? 

Hub.  And  I  will 

Arth,  Have  you  the  heart?    When  your  head  did  but  achc^ 
I  knit  my  handkerchief  about  your  brows, 
(The  best  I  had,  a  princess  wrought  it  me,) 
And  I  did  never  ask  it  you  again ; 
And  with  my  band  at  midnight  held  your  head." 

Hubert  summons  the  executioners,  and  the  child  promises  to 
sit  still  and  ofTer  no  resistance  if  only  he  will  send  these  "  bloody 
men  "  away.  One  of  the  servants  as  he  goes  out  speaks  a  word 
of  pity,  and  Arthur  is  in  despair  at  having  ''  chid  away  bis  fnend." 
In  heart-breäking  accents  he  begs  mercy  of  Hubert  until  the  iron 
has  grown  cold,  and  Hubert  has  not  the  heart  to  heat  it  afresh. 

Arthur's  entreaties  to  the  rugged  Hubert  to  spare  bis  eyes, 
must  have  represented  in  Shakespeare's  thought  the  prayers  of 
his  little  Hamnet  to  be  suffered  still  to  see  the  light  of  day,  or 
rather  Shakespeare's  own  appeal  to  Death  to  spare  the  child — 
prayers  and  appeals  which  were  all  in  vain. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  lamentations  of  Arthur's  mother, 
Constance,  when  the  child  is  carried  away  to  prison  (iii.  4),  that 
WC  most  clearly  recognise  the  accents  of  Shakespeare's  sorrow :— • 


M 


Pandulph,  Lady,  you  utter  madness,  and  not  sorrow. 
Constance,  I  am  not  mad :  this  hair  I  tear  is  mine. 


I 


142  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

If  I  were  mad,  I  should  folget  my  son, 
Or  madly  think,  a  babe  of  douts  were  he. 
I  am  not  mad :  too  well,  too  well  I  feel 
The  different  plague  of  each  calamity." 

She  pours  forth  her  anguish  at  the  thought  of  his  sufferings 
m  prison : — 

"  Now  wül  canker  sorrow  eat  my  bud, 
And  chase  the  native  beauty  from  his  cheek. 
And  he  wül  look  as  hoUow  as  a  ghost, 
As  dim  and  meagre  as  an  ague's  fit, 
And  so  hell  die. 
•  •  .  •  • 

Fandulph,  You  hold  too  heinous  a  respect  of  griel 

Constana.  He  talks  to  me,  that  never  had  a  son. 

K.  Fhilip,  You  are  as  fond  of  grief  as  of  your  child. 

Const  Grief  fills  the  room  up  of  my  absent  child, 
Lies  in  his  bed,  walks  up  and  down  with  me, 
Puts  on  his  pretty  looks,  repeats  his  words, 
Remembers  me  of  all  his  gradous  parts, 
StufEs  out  his  vacant  gannents  with  his  form.*' 

It  seems  as  though  Shakespeare's  great  heart  had  found  an 
outlet  for  its  own  sorrows  in  transfusing  them  into  the  heart  of 
Constance. 

Shakespeare  used  as  the  basis  of  his  King  John  an  old  play 
on  the  same  subject  published  in  1591.^  This  play  is  quite 
artless  and  spiritless,  but  contains  the  whole  action,  outlines 
all  the  characters,  and  suggests  almost  all  the  prindpal  scenes. 
The  poet  did  not  require  to  trouble  himsdf  with  the  invention 
of  extemal  traits.  He  could  concentrate  his  whole  effort  upon 
vitalising,  spiritualising,  and  deepening  everything.  Thus  it 
happens  that  this  play,  though  never  one  of  his  most  populär 
(it  seems  to  have  been  but  seldom  performed  during  his  ÜfetimCi 
and  remained  in  manuscript  until  the  appearance  of  the  First 
Folio),  nevertheless  contains  some  of  his  finest  character-studies 
and  a  multitude  of  pregnant,  imaginative,  and  exquisitdy  worded 
Speeches. 

The  old  play  was  a  mere  Protestant  tendency-drama  directed 
against  Catholic  aggression,  and  füll  of  the  crude  hatred  and 
coarse  ridicule  of  monks  and  nuns  characteristic  of  the  Reforma- 
tion period.  Shakespeare,  with  his  usual  tact,  has  suppressed 
the  religious  dement,  and  retained  only  the  national  and  political 
attack  upon  Roman  Catholidsm,  so  that  the  play  had  no  slight 
actuality  for  the  Elizabethan  public     But  he  has  also  displaoed 

^  The  Ulli  title  nins  thus :  ^'The  Troublesome  Raigne  oijohn,  King  of  Et^ituu^ 
with  the  disoonerie  of  King  Ridiard  Cordelions  Base  lonne  (vulgarly  named  Tbe 
Bastard  Fawconbridge) :  also  the  death  of  King  John  at  Swinstead  Abbey.  As  k 
was  (sundiy  timet)  publikely  acted  by  the  Queenet  Maiesties  Playeis,  in  tM  hoiM» 
able  Otie  of  London." 


«•KING  JOHN"  14 J 

ihc  centre  of  gravity  of  the  old  play.  Everything  in  Shakespeare 
tums  upon  John's  defective  right  to  the  throne :  therein  hes  the 
motive  for  the  atrocity  he  plans,  which  leads  (although  it  is  not 
carried  out  as  he  intended)  to  the  barons'  desertion  of  his  cause. 

Despite  its  great  dramatic  advantages  over  Richard  11.^  the 
play  suffers  from  the  same  radical  weakness,  and  in  an  even 
greater  degree:  the  figure  of  the  King  is  too  unsympathetic  to 
serve  as  the  centre-point  of  a  drama.  His  despicable  infirmity 
of  purpose,  which  makes  him  kneel  to  receive  his  crown  at  the 
hands  of  the  same  Papal  legate  whom  he  has  shortly  before 
defied  in  blusterous  terms;  his  infamous  scheme  to  assassinate 
an  innocent  child,  and  his  repentance  when  he  sees  that  its 
supposed  execution  has  alienatcd  the  chief  supporters  of  his 
throne — all  this  hideous  baseness,  unredeemed  by  any  higher 
characteristics,  leads  the  spectator  rather  to  attach  his  interest 
to  the  subordinate  characters,  and  thus  the  action  is  frittered 
away  before  his  eyes.  It  lacks  unity,  because  the  King  is  power- 
less  to  hold  it  together. 

He  himself  is  depicted  for  all  time  iü  the  masterly  scene 
(üL  3)  where  he  seeks,  without  putting  his  thought  into  piain 
wordsi  to  make  Hubert  understand  that  he  would  fain  have 
Arthur  murdered : — 

"  Or  if  that  thou  couldst  see  me  without  eyes, 
Hear  me  vdthout  thine  ears,  and  make  reply 
Without  a  tongue,  using  conceit  alone, 
Without  eyes,  ears,  and  harmful  sound  of  words : 
Then,  in  despite  of  brooded-watchful  day, — 
I  would  into  thy  bosom  pour  my  thoughts. 
But,  ah !  I  will  not : — yet  I  love  thee  welL" 

Hubert  protests  his  fidelity  and  devotion.  Even  if  he  were  to 
die  for  the  deed,  he  would  execute  it  for  the  Kingfs  sake.  Then 
John's  manner  becomes  hearty,  almost  affectionate.  ''  Good 
Hubert,  Hubert!"  he  says  caressingly.  He  points  to  Arthur, 
bidding  Hubert  "  throw  his  eye  on  yon  young  boy ; "  and  then 
foUows  this  masterly  dialogue : — 

"  I'll  teil  thee  what,  my  friend, 
He  is  a  very  serpent  in  my  way ; 
And  wheresoe'er  this  foot  of  mine  doth  tread, 
He  lies  before  me.     Dost  thou  understand  me? 
Thou  art  his  keeper. 

Hub,  And  111  keep  him  so^ 

That  he  shall  not  offend  your  majesty. 

K.John.  Death. 

Hub,  My  Lord. 

K,  John.  A  grave. 

Hub,  He  shall  not  live. 

K.John.  Enough. 


144  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

J  couldhe  merry  naw,     Hubert,  I  love  thee; 
Well,  I'll  not  say  what  I  intend  for  thee : 
Remember. — Madam,  fare  you  well : 
111  send  those  powers  o'er  to  your  majesty. 
EUnor,  My  blessing  go  with  thee !  ** 

The  character  that  bears  the  weight  of  the  piece,  as  an  acting 
play,  is  the^Üleeitimate  son  of  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  Philip 
Faulconbridge^  ;  He  is  John  Bull  himself  in  the  guise  of  a 
mediaeval  knight,  equipped  with  great  strength  and  a  racy 
English  humour,  not  the  wit  of  a  Mercutio,  a  gay  Italianising 
cavalier,  but  the  irrepressible  ebullitions  of  rüde  health  and  blunt 
gaiety  befitting  an  English  Hercules.  The  scene  in  the  firat  act, 
in  which  he  appears  along  with  his  brother,  who  seeks  to  deprive 
him  of  his  inheritance  as  a  Faulconbridge  on  the  ground  of  his 
alleged  illegitimacy,  and  the  subsequent  scene  with  his  mother, 
from  whom  he  tries  to  wring  the  secret  of  his  patemity,  both 
appear  in  the  old  play ;  but  in  it  eveiything  that  the  Bastard  says 
is  in  grim  earnest — the  embroidery  of  wit  belongs  to  Shakespeare 
alone.  It  is  he  who  has  placed  in  Faulconbridge's  mouth  such 
sayings  as  this : — 

"  Madam,  I  was  not  old  Sir  Robertos  son : 
Sir  Robert  might  have  eat  his  part  in  me 
Upon  Good  Friday,  and  ne'er  broke  his  fast"* 

And  it  is  quite  in  Shakespeare's  spirit  when  the  son,  after  her 
confession,  thus  consoles  his  mother : — 

"  Madam,  I  would  not  wish  a  better  father. 
Some  sins  do  bear  their  privilege  on  earth, 
And  so  doth  yours." 

In  later  years,  at  a  time  when  his  outlook  upon  life  was  darkened, 
Shakespeare  accounted  for  the  villainy  of  Edmund,  in  King  Lear^ 
and  for  his  aloofness  from  anything  like  normal  humanity,  on  the 
ground  of  his  irregulär  birth ;  in  the  Bastard  of  this  play,  on 
the  contrary,  his  aim  was  to  present  a  picture  of  all  that  health, 
vigour,  and  full-blooded  vitality  which  populär  belief  attributes  to 
a'Move-child." 

The  antithesis  to  this  national  hero  is  Limoges,  Archduke  of 
Austria,  in  whom  Shakespeare,  foUowing  the  old  play,  has  mixed 
up  two  entirely  distinct  personal! ties :  Vidomar,  Viscount  of 
Limoges,  at  the  siege  of  one  of  whose  Castles  Richard  Coeur- 
de-Lion  was  killed,  in  1199,  and  Leopold  V.,  Archduke  of 
Austria,  who  had  kept  Coeur-de-Lion  in  prison.  Though  the 
latter,  in  fact,  died  five  years  before  Richard,  we  here  find  him 
figuring  as  the  dastardly  murderer  of  the  heroic  monardi.  In 
memory  of  this  deed  he  wears  a  lion's  skin  on  his  Shoulders,  and 


''KING  JOHN"  145 

thu8  brings  down  upon  himself  the  indignant  scom  of  Constance 
and  Fauloonbridge's  taunting  insults : — 

*'  Constana,  Thou  wear  a  lion's  hide !  doff  it  for  shame, 
And  hang  a  calTs-skin  on  those  recreant  limbs. 
Austria,  O,  that  a  man  should  speak  those  words  to  me  1 
Bastard,  And  hang  a  calf  s-skin  on  those  recreant  limbs. 
Aust  Thou  dar'st  not  say  so,  yillain,  for  thy  life. 
Bast,  And  hang  a  calf  s-skin  on  those  recreant  limbs." 

Every  time  the  Archduke  tries  to  get  in  a  word  of  waming  or 
counsel,  Faulconbridge  silences  him  with  this  coarse  sarcasm. 

Faulconbridge  is  at  first  füll  of  youthful  insolence,  the  tnie 
mediaeval  nobleman,  who  despises  the  burgess  class  simply  as 
such.  When  the  inhabitants  of  Angiers  refuse  to  open  their 
gates  either  to  King  John  or  to  King  Philip  of  France,  who  has 
espoused  the  cause  of  Arthur,  the  Bastard  is  so  indignant  at  this 
peace-loving  circumspection  that  he  urges  the  kings  to  join  their 
forces  against  the  unlucky  town,  and  cry  truce  to  their  feud 
until  the  ramparts  are  levelled  to  the  earth.  But  in  the  course 
of  the  action  he  ripens  more  and  more,  and  displays  ever  greater 
and  more  estimable  qualities — humanity,  right-mindedness,  and  a 
fidelity  to  the  King  which  does  not  inteifere  with  generous  freedom 
of  speech  towards  him. 

His  method  of  expression  is  always  highly  imaginative,  more 
so  than  that  of  the  other  male  characters  in  the  play.  Even  the 
most  abstract  ideas  he  personifies.     Thus  he  talks  (iii.  i)  of — 

**01d  Time,  the  clock-setter,  that  bald  sexton  Time." 

In  the  old  play  whole  scenes  are  devoted  to  his  execution  of  the 
task  here  allotted  him  of  visiting  the  monasteries  of  England  and 
lightening  the  abbots'  bursting  money-bags.  Shakespeare  has 
suppressed  these  ebullitions  of  an  anti-Catholic  fervour,  which  he 
did  not  share.  On  the  other  band,  he  has  endowed  Faulconbddge 
with  genuine  moral  superiority.  At  first  he  is  only  a  cheery, 
fresh-natured,  robust  personality,  who  tramples  upon  all  social 
Conventions,  phrases,  and  affectations ;  and  indeed  he  preserves 
to  the  last  something  of  that  contempt  for  "  cockered  silken 
wantons"  which  Shakespeare  afterwards  elaborates  so  magnifi- 
cently  in  Henry  Percy.  But  there  is  real  greatness  in  his  attitudc 
when,  at  the  close  of  the  play,  he  addresses  the  vacillating  John 
in  this  manly  strain  (v.  i): — 

"  Let  not  the  world  see  fear,  and  sad  distrust, 
Govem  the  motion  of  a  kingly  eye : 
Be  stirring  as  the  time ;  be  fire  with  fire ; 
Threaten  the  threateher,  and  outface  the  brow 
Of  bragging  horror :  so  shall  inferior  eyes, 
That  borrow  their  behaviours  from  the  great, 
Grow  great  by  your  example,  and  put  od 
The  dauntless  spirit  of  resolution." 


146  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Faulconbridge  is  in  this  play  the  spokesman  of  the  patriotic 
spirit.  But  we  realise  how  strong  was  Shakespeare's  determiiia- 
tion  to  make  this  string  sound  at  all  hazards,  when  we  find  that 
the  first  eulogy  of  England  is  placed  in  the  mouth  of  England's 
enemy,  Limoges,  the  slayer  of  Coeur -de- Lion,  who  speaks 
(ü  i)  of — 

"  that  pale,  that  white-fac'd  shore, 
Whose  foot  spums  back  the  ocean's  roaring  tidea^ 
And  coops  from  other  lands  her  islanders, 
.  .  .  that  England,  hedg'd  in  with  the  main, 
That  water-walled  bulwark,  still  secure 
And  confident  from  foreign  purposes." 

How  slight  is  the  difference  between  the  eulogistic  style  of  the 
two  mortai  enemies,  when  Faulconbridge,  who  has  in  the  mean- 
time  killed  Limoges,  ends  the  play  with  a  speech,  which  is,  how- 
cver,  only  slightly  adapted  from  the  older  text : — 

"  This  England  never  did,  nor  never  shall, 
Lie  at  the  proud  foot  of  a  conqueror. 
•  ••••• 

Come  the  three  comers  of  the  world  in  arms, 

And  we  shall  shock  them.     Naught  shall  make  us  nie, 

If  England  to  itself  do  rest  but  tiue" 

Next  to  Faulconbridge,  Constance  is  the  character  who  bears 
the  weight  of  the  play ;  and  its  weakness  arises  in  great  part  £rom 
the  fact  that  Shakespeare  has  killed  her  at  the  end  of  the  third 
act.  So  lightly  is  her  death  treated,  that  it  is  merely  announced 
in  passing  by  the  mouth  of  a  messenger.  She  does  not  appear 
at  all  after  her  son  Arthur  is  put  out  of  the  way,  possibly  because 
Shakespeare  feared  to  lengthen  the  list  of  sorrowing  and  vengeful 
mothers  already  presented  in  bis  earlier  histories. 

He  has  treated  this  figure  with  a  marked  predilection,  such 
as  he  usually  manifests  for  those  characters  which,  in  one  way  or 
another,  forcibly  oppose  every  compromise  with  lax  worldliness 
and  euphemistic  conventionality.  He  has  not  only  endowed  her 
with  the  most  passionate  and  enthusiastic  motherly  love,  but  with 
a  wealth  of  feeling  and  of  imagination  which  gives  her  words  a  oer- 
tain  poetic  magnificence.  She  wishes  that  '*  her  tongue  were  in  the 
thunder's  mouth,  Then  with  a  passion  would  she  shake  the  world  " 
(iii.  4).     She  is  sublime  in  her  grief  for  the  loss  of  her  son  :— 

"  I  will  instruct  my  sorrows  to  be  proud, 
For  grief  is  proud,  and  makes  bis  owner  stoop. 
To  me,  and  to  the  State  of  my  great  grief, 
Let  kings  assemble ; 
•  •••■• 

Here  I  and  sorrows  sit ; 
Here  is  my  tiirone,  bid  kings  come  bow  to  it 

[Seats  herseif  im  the  grüuni? 


''  KING  JOHN ''  147 

Yet  Shakespeare  is  already  preparing  xis,  in  the  overstrained 
violence  of  these  expressions,  for  her  madness  and  death. 

The  third  figure  which  fascinates  the  reader  of  King^  John  is 
that  of  Arthur.  All  the  scenes  in  which  the  child  appears  are 
contained  in  the  old  play  of  the  same  name,  and,  among  the  rest, 
the  first  scene  of  the  second  act,  which  seems  to  dispose  of  Fleay's 
conjecture  that  the  first  two  hundred  lines  of  the  act  were  hastily 
inserted  after  Shakespeare  had  lost  his  son.  Nevertheless  almost 
all  that  is  gracious  and  touching  in  the  figure  is  due  to  the  great 
reviser.  The  old  text  is  at  its  best  in  the  scene  where  Arthur 
meets  his  death  by  jumping  from  the  walls  of  the  Castle.  Shake- 
speare has  here  confined  himself  for  the  most  part  to  free  curtail- 
ment;  in  the  old  King  John^  his  fatal  fall  does  not  prevent  Arthur 
from  pouring  forth  copious  lamentations  to  his  absent  mother  and 
prayers  to  "sweete  lesu."  Shakespeare  gives  him  only  two  lines 
to  speak  after  his  fall. 

In  this  play,  as  in  almost  all  the  works  of  Shakespeare's 
younger  years,  the  reader  is  perpetually  amazed  to  find  the  finest 
poetical  and  rhetorical  passages  side  by  side  with  the  most  in- 
tolerable  euphuistic  afiectations.  And  we  cannot  allege  the  excuse 
that  these  are  legacies  from  the  older  play.  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  nothing  of  the  kind  to  be  found  in  it ;  they  are  added  by  Shake- 
speare, evidently  with  the  express  purpose  of  displaying  delicacy 
and  profundity  of  thought.  In  the  scenes  before  the  walls  of 
Angiers,  he  has  on  the  whole  kept  close  to  the  old  drama,  and 
has  even  followed  faithfully  the  sense  of  all  the  more  important 
Speeches.  For  example,  it  is  a  Citizen  on  the  ramparts,  who, 
in  the  old  play,  suggests  the  marriage  between  Blanch  and  the 
Dauphin ;  Shakespeare  merely  re-writes  his  speech,  introducing 
into  it  these  beautiful  lines  (ii.  2) : — 

•*  If  lusty  love  should  go  in  quest  of  beauty, 
Where  should  he  find  it  fairer  than  in  Blanch  ? 
If  zealous  love  should  go  in  search  of  virtue, 
Where  should  he  find  it  purer  than  in  Blanch  ? 
If  love  ambitious  sought  a  match  of  birth, 
Whose  veins  bound  richer  blood  than  Lady  Blanch  ?  " 

The  surprising  thing  is  that  the  same  band  which  has  just  written 
these  verses  should  forthwith  lose  itself  in  a  tasteless  tangle  of 
afiectations  like  this : — 

''  Such  as  she  is,  in  beauty,  virtue,  birth, 
Is  the  young  Dauphin  every  way  complete : 
If  not  complete  o^  say,  he  is  not  she ; 
And  she  again  wants  nothing,  to  name  want, 
If  want  it  be  not,  that  she  is  not  he : " 

and  this  profound  thought  is  further  spun  out  with  a  profusion  of 
Images.    Can  we  wonder  that  Voltaire  and  the  Frencb  critics  of 


148  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  eighteenth  Century  were  o£fended  by  a  style  like  this,  even  to 
the  point  of  letting  it  blind  them  to  the  wealth  of  genius  elaewhere 
manifested  ? 

Even  the  touching  scene  between  Arthur  and  Hubert  is  dis- 
figured  by  false  clevemess  of  this  sort.  The  little  boy,  kneeling 
to  the  man  who  threatens  to  sear  out  bis  eyes,  introduces,  in  tbe 
midst  of  the  most  moving  appeals,  such  far-fetched  and  contoited 
phrases  as  this  (iv.  i): — 

"  The  iron  of  itself,  though  heat  red-hot, 
Approaching  near  these  eyes,  would  drink  my  tears. 
And  quench  this  fiery  Indignation 
Even  in  the  matter  of  mine  innocence ; 
Nay,  after  that,  consume  away  in  rust, 
But  for  containing  fire  to  härm  mine  eye.'' 

And  again,  when  Hubert  proposes  to  reheat  the  iron  :— 

"  An  if  you  do,  you  will  but  make  it  blush, 
And  glow  with  shame  of  your  proceedings,  Hubert  ** 

The  taste  of  the  age  must  indeed  have  pressed  strongly  upon 
Shakespeare's  spirit  to  prevent  him  from  feeling  the  impossibÜity 
of  these  quibbles  upon  the  lips  of  a  child  imploring  in  deadly  fear 
that  his  eyes  may  be  spared  to  him. 

As  regards  their  ethical  point  of  view,  there  is  no  essential 
difference  between  the  old  play  and  Shakespeare's.  The  King's 
defeat  and  painful  death  is  in  both  a  punishment  for  his  wrong- 
doing.  There  has  only  been,  as  already  mentioned,  a  certain 
displacement  of  the  centre  of  gravity.  In  the  old  play,  the  dying 
John  stammers  out  an  explicit  confession  that  from  the  moment 
he  surrendered  to  the  Roman  priest  he  has  had  no  more  happiness 
on  earth ;  for  the  Pope's  curse  is  a  blessing,  and  his  blessing  a 
curse.  In  Shakespeare  the  emphasis  is  laid,  not  upon  the  King's 
weakness  in  the  religio-political  struggle,  but  upon  the  wrong  to 
Arthur.  Faulconbridge  gives  utterance  to  the  fundamental  idea 
of  the  play  when  he  says  (iv.  3) : — 

"  From  forth  this  morsel  of  dead  royalty, 
The  life,  the  right,  and  tnith  of  all  this  realm 
Is  fled  to  heaven." 

Shakespeare's  political  Standpoint  is  precisely  that  of  the 
earlier  writer,  and  indeed,  we  may  add,  of  his  whole  age. 

The  most  important  contrasts  and  events  of  the  period  he 
seeks  to  represent  do  not  exist  for  him.  He  nalvely  accepts  the 
first  kings  of  the  House  of  Plantagenet,  and  the  Norman  princes 
in  general,  as  English  national  heroes,  and  has  evidently  no 
suspidon  of  the  deep  gulf  that  separated  the  Normans  from  the 
Anglo-Sazons  down  to  this  very  rejgn,  when  the  two  hostUe 


"KING  JOHN'*  149 

races,  equally  oppressed  by  the  King's  tyrannyi  began  to  fuse 
into  one  people.  What  would  Shakespeare  have  thought  had  he 
known  that  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion's  favourite  formula  of  denial 
was  "  Do  you  take  me  for  an  Englishman  ?  "  while  his  pet  oath| 
and  that  of  his  Norman  foUowers,  was  **  May  I  become  an  Eng^ 

lishman  if ,"  &c.  ? 

Nor  does  a  Single  phrase,  a  Single  syllable,  in  the  whole  play, 
refer  to  the  event  which,  for  all  after-times,  is  inseparably  asso- 
ciated  with  the  memory  of  King  John — the  signing  of  the  Magna 
Charta.  The  reason  of  this  is  evidently,  in  the  fifst  place, 
that  Shakespeare  kept  close  to  the  earlier  drama,  and,  in  the 
second  place,  that  he  did  not  attribute  to  the  event  the  impor- 
tance  it  really  possessed,  did  not  understand  that  the  Magna 
Charta  laid  the  foundation  of  populär  liberty,  by  calling  into  exist- 
ence  a  middle  class  which  supported  even  the  House  of  Tudor 
in  its  struggle  with  an  overweening  oligarchy.  But  the  chief 
reason  why  the  Magna  Charta  is  not  mentioned  was,  no  doubt, 
that  Elizabeth  did  not  care  to  be  reminded  of  it.  She  was  not 
fond  of  any  limitations  of  her  royal  prerogative,  and  did  not  care 
to  recall  the  defeats  suffered  by  her  predecessors  in  their  struggles 
with  warlike  and  independent  vassals.  And  the  nation  was  willing 
enough  to  humour  her  in  this  respect.  People  feit  that  they  had 
to  thank  her  govemment  for  a  great  national  revival,  and  there^ 
fore  showed  no  eagemess  either  to  vindicate  populär  rights  against 
her,  or  to  see  them  vindicated  in  stage-history.  It  was  not  until 
long  after,  under  the  Stuarts,  that  the  English  people  began  to 
cultivate  its  Constitution.  The  chronicle-writers  of  the  period 
touch  very  lightly  upon  the  barons'  victory  over  King  John  in  the 
struggle  for  the  Great  Charter;  and  Shakespeare  thus  foUowed 
at  once  his  own  personal  bias  with  regard  to  history,  and  the 
current  of  his  age. 


XX 

''THE  TA  MINO  OP  THE  SHREW  AND  ''THE  MERCHANT  OP 
VENICE  "  —  SHA  KESPEA  RE'S  PREOCC  ÜPA  TION  WITH 
THOUGHTS  OP  PROPERTY  AND  GAIN—HIS  GROWING 
PROSPERITY^HIS  A  DM  ISSION  TO  THE  RANKS  OP  THE 
*'GENTRY''^HIS  PÜRCHASE  OP  HOÜSES  AND  LAND-- 
MONEY  TRANSACTIONS  AND  LAWSÜITS 

The  first  plays  in  which  we  seem  to  find  traces  of  Italian  travel 
are  TAe  Taming  ofthe  Shrew  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice^  the 
former  written  at  latest  in  1 596,  the  latter  almost  certainly  in  that 
or  the  foUowing  year. 

Enough  has  already  been  said  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 
It  is  only  a  free  and  spirited  reconstruction  of  an  old  piece  of 
scenic  architecture,  which  Shakespeare  demolished  in  order  to 
erect  from  its  materials  a  spacious  and  airy  hall.  The  old  play 
itself  had  been  highly  populär  on  the  stage ;  it  took  new  life  under 
Shakespeare's  hands.  His  play  is  not  much  more  than  a  farce, 
but  it  possesses  movement  and  fire,  and  the  leading  male  charac* 
ter,  the  somewhat  coarsely  masculine  Petrucliio,  Stands  in  amusing 
and  typical  contrast  to  the  spoilt,  headstrong,  and  passionate  little 
woman  whom  he  masters. 

The  Merchant  of  Venice^  Shakespeare's  first  impprtantjrgmedy, 
is  a  piece  of  work  of  a  very  different  order,  and  is  elaborated  to  a 
vcry  different  degree.  There  is  far  more  of  his  own  inmost  nature 
in  it  than  in  the  light  and  facile  farce. 

No  doubt  he  found  in  yidiX\Qi79€^  few  of  Malta  the  first,  purdy 
literary,  impulse  towards  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  In  Marlowe's 
play  the  curtain  rises  upon  the  chief  character,  Barabas,  sitting  in 
his  counting-house,  with  piles  of  gold  before  him,  and  revelling 
in  the  thought  of  the  treasures  which  it  takes  a  soliloquy  of 
nearly  fifty  lines  to  enumerate — pearls  like  pebble-stones,  opals, 
sapphires,  amethysts,  jacinths,  topazes,  grass-green  emeralds,  beau- 
teous  rubies  and  sparkling  diamonds.  At  the  beginning  ofthe  play, 
he  is  possessed  of  all  the  riches  wherewith  the  Genie  of  the  Lamp 
endowed  Aladdin,  which  have  at  one  time  or  another  sparkled  in 
the  dreams  of  all  poor  poets. 

Barabas  is  a  Jew  and  usurer,  like  Shylock.  Like  Shylock,  he 
has  a  daughter  who  is  in  love  with  a  poor  Christian ;  and,  like 
him.  he  thirsts  for  revenge.    But  he  is  a  monster,  not  a  man. 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDING  OF  ACTORS  151 

When  he  has  been  misused  by  the  Christians,  and  robbed  of  his 
whole  fortune,  he  becomes  a  criminal  fit  only  for  a  fairy-tale  or 
for  a  madhouse :  he  uses  his  own  daughter  as  an  instrument  for 
his  revenge,  and  then  poisons  her  along  with  all  the  nuns  in 
whose  cloister  she  has  taken  refuge.  Shakespeare  was  attracted 
by  the  idea  of  making  a  real  man  and  a  real  Jew  out  of  this 
intolerable  demon  in  a  Jew's  skin. 

But  this  slight  impulse  would  scarcely  have  set  Shakespeare's 
genius  in  motion  had  it  found  him  engrossed  in  thoughts  and 
images  of  an  incongruous  nature.  It  took  effect  upon  his  mind 
because  it  was  at  that  moment  preoccupied  with  the  ideas  of 
acquisition,  property,  money- making,  wealth.  He  did  not,  like 
the  Jew,  who  was  in  all  countries  legally  incapable  of  acquiring 
real  estate,  dream  of  gold  and  jewels;  but,  like  the  genuine 
country-bom  Englishman  he  was,  he  longed  for  land  and  houses, 
meadows  and  gardens,  money  that  yielded  sound  yearly  interest, 
and,  finally,  a  corresponding  advancement  in  rank  and  position. 

We  have  seen  with  what  indifference  he  treated  his  plays,  how 
little  he  thought  of  winning  fame  by  their  publication.  All  the 
editions  of  them  which  appeared  in  his  lifetime  were  issued  with- 
out  his  co-operation,  and  no  doubt  against  his  will,  since  the  sale 
of  the  books  did  not  bring  him  in  a  farthing,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
diipinished  his  profits  by  diminishing  the  attendance  at  the  theatre 
on  which  his  Uvelihood  depended.  Furthermore,  when  we  see  in 
his  Sonnets  how  discontented  he  was  with  his  position  as  an  actor, 
and  how  humiUated  he  feit  at  the  contempt  in  which  the  stage  was 
held,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  caUing  into  which  he  had  drifted 
in  his  needy  youth  was  in  his  eyes  simply  and  solely  a  means  of 
making  money.  It  is  true  that  actors  like  himself  and  Burbage 
were,  in  certain  circles,  welcomed  and  respected  as  men  who  rose 
above  their  calling ;  but  they  were  admitted  on  sufferance,  they 
had  not  füll  rights  of  citizenship,  they  were  not  "gentlemen." 
There  is  eztant  a  copy  of  verses  by  John  Davies  of  Hereford, 
b^nning,  "  Players^  I  love  yee,  and  your  Qualitie**  with  a  mar- 
ginal note  citing  as  examples  "W.  S.,  R.  B."  [William  Shake- 
speare, Richard  Burbage];  but  they  are  clearly  looked  upon  as 
cxceptions: — 

**  And  though  the  stage  doth  staine  pure  gentle  bloud^ 
Yet  generous  yee  are  in  tninde  and  moodeP 

The  calling  of  an  actor,  however,  was  a  lucrative  one.  Most 
of  the  leading  players  became  well*to-do,  and  it  seems  clear  that 
this  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  they  were  evilly  regarded.  In 
The  Retum  front  Pamassus  (1606),  Kemp  assures  two  Cam- 
bridge students  who  apply  to  him  and  Burbage  for  instruction 
in  acting,  that  there  is  no  better  calling  in  the  world,  from  a 
finandal  point  of  view,  than  that  of  the  player.  In  a  pamphlet 
cf  the  ssme  year,  Rats^s  Ghosi,  the  executed  thief,  with  a 


152  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

satirical  allusion  to  Shakespeare,  advises  a  strolling  {dayer  to 
buy  property  in  the  country  when  he  is  tired  of  play-acting, 
and  by  that  means  attain  honour  and  dignity.  In  an  epigram 
entitled  Theatrum  Licentia  (in  Laqun  Ridiculosi^  1616),  we  read 
of  the  actor's  calling : — 

''  For  here's  the  spring  (saith  he)  whence  pleasures  flow 
And  brings  them  damnable  excessive  gains." 

The  primary  object  of  Shakespeare's  aspirations  was  neitber 
renown  as  a  poet  nor  popularity  as  an  actor,  but  worldly  pros- 
perity,  and  prosperity  regarded  specially  as  a  means  of  social 
advancement.  He  had  taken  greatly  to  heart  bis  father's  decline 
in  property  and  civic  esteem ;  from  youth  upwards  he  had  been 
passionately  bent  on  restoring  the  sanken  name  and  fame  of  bis 
family.  He  had  now,  at  the  age  of  only  thirty-two,  amassed  a 
small  capital,  which  he  began  to  invest  in  the  most  advantageous 
way  for  the  end  he  had  in  view — that  of  elevating  himself  above 
bis  calling. 

His  father  had  been  afraid  to  cross  the  street  lest  he  should 
be  arrested  for  debt.  He  himself,  as  a  youth,  had  been  whipped 
and  consigned  to  the  lock-up  at  the  command  of  the  lord  of  the 
manor.  The  little  town  which  had  witnessed  this  disgrace 
should  also  witness  the  rehabilitation.  The  townspeople,  who 
had  heard  of  his  equivocal  fame  as  an  actor  and  playwright, 
should  See  him  in  the  character  of  a  respected  householder  and 
landowner.  At  Stratford  and  elsewhere,  those  who  had  classed 
him  with  the  Proletariat  should  recognise  in  him  a  gentUnum, 
According  to  a  tradition  which  Rowe  reports  on  the  authority  of 
Sir  William  Davenant,  Lord  Southampton  is  said  to  have  laid 
the  foundation  of  Shakespeare's  prosperity  by  a  gift  of  £\QCO. 
Though  Bacon  received  more  than  this  from  Essex,  the  magni- 
tude  of  the  sum  discredits  the  tradition — it  is  equivalent  to  some- 
thing  like  £^000  in  modern  money.  No  doubt  the  young  Earl 
gave  the  poet  a  present  in  acknowledgment  of  the  dedication 
of  his  two  poems ;  for  the  poets  of  that  time  did  not  live  OQ 
royalties,  but  on  their  dedications.  But  as  the  ordinary  acknow- 
ledgment of  a  dedication  was  only  ;f  5,  a  gift  of  even  £^0  would 
have  been  reckoned  princely.  What  is  practically  certain  is,  that 
Shakespeare  was  early  in  a  position  to  become  a  shareholder  in 
the  theatre ;  and  he  evidently  had  a  special  talent  for  putting  the 
money  he  eamed  to  profitable  usi.  His  firm  determination  to 
work  his  way  up  in  the  world,  combined  with  the  Engliahman'a 
inbom  practicality,  made  him  an  excellent  man  of  business ;  and 
he  soon  develops  such  a  decided  talent  for  finance  as  only  two 
other  great  national  writers,  probably,  have  ever  possessed— te 
wit,  Holberg  and  Voltaire. 

It  is  from  the  year  1596  onwards  that  we  find  evidences  of  kis 
growing  prosperity.     In  this  year  his  flither,  no  doubt  prompted 


SHAKESPEARE'S  GROWING  PROSPERITY      #53 

and  supplied  with  means  by  Shakespeare  himself,  makes  appii- 
cation  to  the  Heraids'  College  for  a  coat-of-arms,  the  sketch  of 
which  is  preserved,  dated  October  1596.  The  conferring  of  a 
coat-of-arms  implied  formal  admittance  into  the  ranks  of  "the 
gentry."  It  was  necessary  before  either  father  or  son  could 
append  the  word  "  gentleman  "  (armiger)  to  his  name,  as  we  find 
Shakespeare  doing  in  legal  documents  after  this  date,  and  in  his 
will.  But  Shakespeare  himself  was  not  in  a  position  to  apply  for 
a  coat-of-arms.  That  was  out  of  the  question — a  player  was  far 
too  mean  a  person  to  come  within  the  cognisance  of  heraldry. 
He  therefore  adopted  the  shrewd  device  of  furnishing  his  father 
with  means  for  making  the  application  on  his  own  behalf. 

According  to  the  ideas  and  regulations  of  the  time,  indeed,  not 
even  Shakespeare  senior  had  any  real  right  to  a  coat-of-arms. 
But  the  Garter-King-at-Arms  for  the  time  being,  Sir  William 
Dethick,  was  an  exceedingly  compliant  personage,  probably  not 
inaccessible  to  pecuniary  arguments.  He  was  sharply  criticised 
in  his  own  day,  and  indeed  at  last  superseded,  on  account  of  the 
facility  with  which  he  provided  applicants  with  armorial  bearings, 
and  we  possess  his  defence  in  this  very  matter  of  the  Shakespeare 
coat-of-arms.  All  sorts  of  small  falsehoods  were  alleged;  for 
instance,  that  John  Shakespeare  had,  twenty  years  before,  had 
"his  auncient  cote  of  arms  assigned  to  him/'  and  that  he  was 
then  "  Her  Majestie's  officer  and  baylefe,"  whereas  his  office  had 
in  fact  been  merely  municipal.  Nevertheless,  there  must  have 
been  some  hitch  in  the  negotiations,  for  in  1597  John  Shake- 
speare is  still  described  as  yeoman^  and  not  until  1 599  did  the 
definite  assignment  of  the  coat-of-arms  take  place,  along  with  the 
pennission  (of  which  the  son,  however,  did  not  avail  himself)  to 
impale  the  Shakespeare  arms  with  those  of  the  Arden  family. 
The  coat-of-arms  is  thus  described: — "Gould  on  a  bend  sable 
a  speare  of  the  first,  the  po3mt  steeled,  proper,  and  for  creast 
or  cognizance,  a  faulcon,  his  wings  displayed,  argent,  Standing 
on  a  wreathe  of  his  couUors,  supporting  a  speare  gould  steled 
as  aforesaid."  The  motto  runs  (with  a  suspidon  of  irony),  Nan 
SOHS  droüt    Yet  to  what  insignia  had  not  he  the  right  1 

In  the  spring  of  1^97 1  William  Shakespeare  bought  the  man- 
aion  of  New  Place,  the  largest,  and  at  one  time  the  handsomest, 
house  in  Stratford,  which  had  now  fallen  somewhat  out  of  repair, 
and  was  therefore  sold  at  the  comparatively  low  price  of  £60. 
He  thoroughly  restored  the  house,  attached  two  gardens  to  it, 
and  80on  extended  his  domain  by  new  purchases  of  land,  some 
of  it  arable;  for  we  see  that  during  the  com-famine  of  1598 
(Febniary),  he  appears  on  the  register  as  owner  of  ten  quarters 
crf*  com  and  malt — that  is  to  say,  the  third  largest  stock  in  the 
town.  The  house  stood  opposite  the  Guild  Chapel,  the  sound  oi 
wboae  bells  must  have  been  among  his  earliest  memories. 

At  the  same  time  he  gives  his  father  money  to  revive  the  law*- 


154  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

suit  against  John  Lambert  conceming  the  property  of  Asbie^ 
mortgaged  nineteen  years  before — ^that  lawsuit  whose  unfavour- 
able  issue  young  Shakespeare  had  taken  so  mach  to  heart,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  he  introduced  a  gibe  at  the  Lambert  family 
into  the  Induction  to  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  now  just 
completed. 

A  letter  of  January  24,  IS97-8,  written  by  a  certain 
Abraham  Sturley  in  Stratford  to  his  brother-in-law,  Richard 
Quiney,  whose  son  afterwards  married  Shakespeare's  yoimgest 
daughter,  shows  that  the  poet  already  passed  for  a  man  of  sub- 
stance,  since  one  of  his  fellow-townsmen  sends  him  a  message 
recommending  him,  instead  of  buying  land  at  Shottery,  to  lease 
part  of  the  Stratford  tithes.  This  would  be  advantageous  both  to 
him  and  to  the  town,  for  the  purchase  of  tithes  was  generally 
a  good  investment,  and  the  character  of  the  purchaser  was  of 
importance  to  the  town,  since  a  portion  of  the  sum  raised  went 
into  the  municipal  treasury.^ 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  purchase-money  required  was 
still  beyond  Shakespeare's  means,  for  not  until  seven  years  latei^ 
in  1605,  does  he  buy,  for  the  considerable  sum  of  ;^440,  a  moiety 
of  the  lease  of  the  tithes  of  Stratford,  Old  Stratford,  BishoptoOi 
and  Welcombe.  These  tithes  originally  belonged  to  the  Church, 
but  passed  to  the  town  in  1554,  and  from  1580  onwards  were 
farmed  by  private  persons.  As  might  have  been  expected,  the 
purchase  of  them  involved  Shakespeare  in  several  lawsuits. 

In  a  letter  of  1598  or  1599,  Adrian  Quiney,  of  Stratfordp 
writes  to  his  son  Richard,  who  looked  after  the  interests  of  his 
fellow-townsmen  in  the  capital :  "  Yff  yow  bargen  with  Wm.  Sha. 
or  receve  money  therfor,  brynge  youre  money  homme  that  yow 
maye."  This  Richard  Quiney  is  the  writer  of  the  only  extant 
letter  addressed  to  Shakespeare  (probably  never  de^patched),  in 
which  he  begs  his  "loveinge  contreyman,"  in  moving  and  pious 
terms,  for  a  loan  of  £$0,  promising  security  and  interest  An- 
other  letter  from  Sturley,  dated  November  4,  1598,  mentions 
the  news  "that  our  countriman  Mr.  Wm.  Shak.  would  procure 
US  monei,  which  I  will  like  of  as  I  shall  heare  when,  and  whearCf 
and  howe." 

All  these  documents  render  it  sufficiently  apparent  that  Shake- 
speare did  not  share  the  loathing  of  interest  which  it  was  the 
fashion  of  his  day  to  affect,  and  which  Antonio,  in  The  Merckani 
of  Venice^  flaunts  in  the  face  of  Shylock.  The  taking  of  interest 
was  at  that  time  regarded  as  forbidden  to  a  Christian,  but  was 

^  Sturley  writes: — ''This  is  one  spedaU  remembrance  from  ur  fathers  motiiNk 
Itt  srnneth  bi  him  that  our  countriman,  Mr.  Shaksper,  is  willinge  to  disburse  tome 
monei  upon  some  od  yarde  land  or  other  att  Shotterie  or  neare  about  us ;  he  thinketii 
it  a  veri  fitt  patteme  to  move  him  to  deale  in  the  matter  of  our  tithes.  Bi  the  i»> 
■truccions  u  can  geve  him  theareof,  and  bi  the  frendes  he  can  make  thereÜore.  ve 
thinke  it  a  £ure  marke  for  him  to  shoote  att,  and  not  uapossible  to  hitt  It  dbtuMA 
would  adYanoe  him  in  deede.  and  would  do  ui  nraehe  giMd.'* 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  MAN  OF  BUSINESS         155 

nsual  nevertheless ;  and  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  charged  the 
current  rate,  namely,  ten  per  cent. 

During  the  following  years  he  continued  to  acquire  still  more 
land.  In  1602  he  buys,  at  Stratford,  arable  land  of  the  value  of 
no  less  than  ;f320,  and  pays  ;{^6o  for  a  house  and  a  piece  of 
ground.  In  1610  he  adds  twenty  acres  to  his  property.  In  1612, 
in  partnersbip  with  three  others,  he  buys  a  house  and  garden  in 
London  for  ;^I40. 

And  Shakespeare  was  a  strict  man  of  Business.  We  find  him 
proceeding  by  attomey  against  a  poor  devil  named  Philip  Rogers 
of  Stratford,  who  in  the  years  1603-4  had  bought  small  quantities 
of  malt  from  him  to  the  total  value  of  ;^i,  19s.  lod.,  and  who  had 
besides  borrowed  two  Shillings  of  him.  Six  Shillings  he  had  re- 
paid ;  and  Shakespeare  now  sets  the  law  in  motion  to  recover  the 
balance  of  £if  155.  lod.  In  1608-9  he  again  brings  an  action 
against  a  Stratfbrd  debtor.  This  time  he  gets  a  verdict  for  £6, 
with  £1,  4s.  of  costs;  and  as  the  debtor  has  absconded,  Shake- 
speare proceeds  against  his  security. 

All  these  details  show,  in  the  first  place,  how  closely  Shake- 
speare kept  up  his  connection  with  Stratford  during  his  residence 
in  London.  By  the  year  1599  he  has  succeeded  in  restoring  the 
credit  of  his  family.  He  has  made  his  poor,  debt-burdened  father 
a  gentleman  with  a  coat-of-arms,  and  has  himself  become  one  of 
the  largest  and  riebest  landowners  in  his  native  place.  He  con- 
tinues  steadily  to  increase  his  capital  and  his  property  at  Strat- 
ford ;  and  it  is  obviously  a  mere  corollary  to  this  whole  course  of 
action  that  he  should,  while  still  in  the  füll  vigour  of  manhood, 
leave  London,  the  theatre,  and  literature  behind  him,  to  return  to 
Stratford  and  pass  his  last  years  as  a  pfosperous  landowner. 

We  next  observe  Shakespeare's  eagerness  to  rise  above  his 
calling  as  a  player.  From  1599  onwards,  he  had  the  satisfaction 
of  being  able  to  write  himself  down :  Wm.  Shakespeare  of  Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon  in  the  Caunty  of  Warwick,  gentleman.  But  it 
must  not,  of  course,  be  understood  that  he  was*  now  in  a  position 
of  equality  with  men  of  genuinely  noble  birth.  So  little  was  this 
the  case,  that  even  in  the  "Epistle  Dedicatorie"  to  the  Folio  of 
1623,  the  two  actors,  his  comrades,  who  issue  the  book,  describe 
him  as  the  "servant"  of  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery, 
whose  "dignity"  they  know  to  be  "greater  than  to  descend  to 
the  reading  of  these  trifles "  They  nevertheless  inscribe  the 
"  trifles"  to  the  "  incomparaßle  paire  of  brethren  "  out  of  gratitude 
for  the  great  '*indulgence"  and  "favour"  which  they  had  "used" 
to  the  deceased  poet. 

The  chief  interest,  however,  of  these  old  contracts  and  busi- 

ness  letters  lies  in  the  insight  they  give  us  into  a  region  of  Shake- 

speare's  soul,  the  existence  of  which,  in  their  absence,  we  should 

•ßcver  have  divined.     We  see  that  he  may  very  well  have  been 

thinking  of  himself  when  he  makes  Hamlet  (v.   i)  say  beside 


156  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Ophdia's  open  grave :  "  This  fellow  might  be  in  's  time  a  great 
buyer  of  land,  with  bis  Statutes,  bis  recognizances,  bis  fines,  bis 
double  voucbers,  bis  recoveries :  is  tbis  tbe  fine  of  bis  fines,  and 
tbe  recovery  of  bis  recoveries,  to  bave  bis  fine  pate  fuU  of  fine 
dirt  ?  " 

And — to  retum  to  our  point  of  departure — we  see  tbat  wben 
Shakespeare,  in  The  Merchant  of  VenicCy  makes  tbe  wbole  play 
turn  upon  tbe  difierent  relations  of  different  men  to  property, 
Position,  and  wealtb,  tbe  problem  was  one  witb  wbich  he  was  at 
the  moment  personally  preoccupied. 


XXI 

THB  MBRCHANT  OP  VENICB  —  tTS  SOVRCBS—ITS  CHAR- 
ACTBRS,  ANTONIO,  PORTIA,  SHYLOCK—MOON LIGHT  AND 
MÜSIC-SHAKBSPBARB'S  RELATION  TO  UUSIC 


We  leam  from  Ben  Jonson's   Volpone  (iv,   i) 
wbo  arrived  in  Venice  first  rented  apartnients, 
to  a  Jew  dealer  for  the  furniture.     If  the  iraveÜer 
a  poet,  he  would  thus  have  an  opportunhy,  whii 
England,  of  studying  the  Jewish  character  and 
üon.     Shakespeare  seems  lo  have  availed 
names  of  the  Jews  and  Jewesses  who  appcaj 
Venice  he  has  taken  from  the  Old  " 
(x.  24)  the  nanie  Salah  (Hebrew  Schelacl 
as  the  name  ol'  a  Maronite  from  ' 
Shakespeare  has  tnade  Shylock 
occurs  the   name    Iscah   (she  who 
"Jeska"  in  the   English   translati 
«tiich  he  niade  hi»  Jessica,  tli 


appearing 

t  of  which 

Ti\.  29)  there 

who  spies),  spell 

and   1551,  out  of 

'Shylock  accuses  of  a 


fondness  for  "cbmbering  up  lo 'eiscniihfe"  and  "thrusting  her 
head  into  the  public  streei  "  lo  kc^  tli?  masquers  pass, 

Shakespearc's  audienccs  were  fimdlfas:  with  several  versions 


ofthe  Story  of  the  Jew  who  rele: 
flesh  pledged  to  him  by  his  Chri: 
empty  and  bafiled  away,  and  ei 
The  Story  has   bcen  found   in 
adventure  of  the  Threc  Caski,.. 
many  believe  that  it  came  loM\ 
ever.  have  migrated  in  just  l(£ 
as  o'-.'  of  Shakespcaic 
take  payment  In  i!ic  I1f 
the  Twelve  Table: 
antique  trait  was  qui 
transferred  it  from  old 
hU  owj»  day. 

"^iKe  Story  illustrai 
forcemKnt  of  strict  li 
Thus  it  affordcd  an  < 
justice  and  mcrcy,  v 


manded  the  pound  of 

ir,  and  was  at  last  sent 

to  become  a  Christian. 

legends  (along  with  the 

interwovcn  wilh  it),  and 

Vom  India.     It  may,  how- 

.      „.^„Ite  direction.     Certain  it  is, 

thoiitiea  poinls  out,  that  the  right  to 

f'äiftinsolvent  debtor  was  admitled  in 

aadei)  (  Rome.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  thi» 

lal,  and  Shakespeare  has  only 

barbarous  timea  to  the  Venice  of 


a  fcom  the  unconditional  cn- 
modern  principle  of  equitjf. 
'ortia's  eloquent  TOniraSl  ftelwceu   ' 
blic  understood  as  an  assertion  of 


ISS 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


( 


the  superiority  of  Christian  ethics  to  the  Jewish  insistence  o&  An 
letter  of  the  law.  '"""^v 

One  of  the  sources  on  which  Shakespeare  drew  for  the  figun 
of  Shylock,  and  especiaJly  for  his  speeches  in  the  trial  scene,  ii 
Tlu  Orator  of  Alexander  Silvayn.  The  951h  Declamation  of  this 
work  bears  the  title :  "  Of  a  Jew  who  would  for  his  debt  havc  a 
pound  of  the  fiesh  of  a  Christian."  Since  an  English  translatioo 
of  Silvayn's  book  by  Anthony  Munday  appeared  in  1596,  and 
The  Merchant  of  Venice  is  mentioned  by  Meres  in  1598  as  one 
of  Shakespeare's  works,  there  can  scarcely  he  any  doubt  that  the 
play  was  produced  between  these  dates. 

In  The  Orator  both  the  Merchant  and  the  Jew  make  Speeches, 
and  the  invective  against  the  Jew  is  interesting  in  so  far'as  it 
gives  a  lively  impression  of  the  current  accusations  of  the  period 
agaiofCtbe  Israelitish  race : — 

if  this  lace  be  so  obstinat  and  cniell  against 

purpose  to  offend  our  God  whom  they  have 

lerefore  ?     Because  he  was  holie,  as  he  is  yct  so  re- 

lyTurkish  nation  :  bul  what  shall  I  say?    Tb«r  own 

:liion  against  God,  against  their  Priests,  Judges, 

laEdid  not  the  verie  PaCriarks  themselves,  fram  whom 


they  have  theit  be^i 


riiey  sold  their  brother.  .  . 


'  &C. 


tiiority,  however,  for  the  whole  [day 

'  Gianetto,  which  occurs  in  the  cc^o 

Ser  Giovanni  Fiorentino,  publiabed 


Shakcspeaf^.'f 
was  obviously  tiM 
tion  entitled  //  i 
in  Milan  in  1558. 

Ä  young  merchanl' J4rne'<rQ'aiictto  comes  witb  a  richly  laden 
ahip  to  a  harbour  nearthe  oaätlc  of  Beimonte,  where  dwells  « 
lovely  young  widow.  ihe  has  innny  suitors,  and  is,  indeed,  pre- 
pared  to  surrender  hec  h^d  nnd  her  fortune,  but  only  on  one 
condition,  which  no  ooft  has  bi:li':rr'i  succeeded  in  fitlfilling,  and 
which  is  stated  with  niLdiseVai*  iiupliciiy  and  directness.  Shechal- 
lenges  the  aspirant,  at  nighlftV.  to  share  her  bed  and  make  her 


;  but  at  the  saml 
which  plunges  him  in  pro! 
hia  head  touches  the  pillol 
his  ship  and  its  cargo  to  t! 
despoiled  and  put  to  sha 
This  misfortune  h: 


love  that  he  returns  to  Vcnii-e 
Ansaldo,  to  fit  out  another  shi;_ 
Beimonte  ends  no  less  disastroi 
to  make  a  third  attempt  his  fostei 
ducats  from  a  Jew,  upon  the  ci 
foUowing  the  advice  of  a  kindh 
young  man  this  dme  escapes  the 
groom,  and  in  his  rapture  forgets 


le  gives  hira  a  sleeping-draught 
asciousness  from  the  moment 
at  daybreak  lie  has  forfeited 
dy,  and  is  sent  on  his  way» 


to  Gianetto;  but  he  is  so  deeply  ii 


kind  foster-father, 
lut  his  second  visit  to 
Order  to  enable  hhn 
irced  to  borrow  IC^OOO 
hich  we  know.  By 
waiting-woman,  tbe 
;omes  a  happy  bride- 
>b1tgatioD  to  die  Jew* 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE*  159 

He  is  not  reminded  of  it  until  the  very  day  when  it  falls  due,  and 
then  his  wife  insists  that  he  shall  instantly  Start  for  Venice,  taking 
with  him  a  sum  of  100,000  ducats.  She  herseif  presently  foUows, 
dressed  as  an  advocate,  and  appears  in  Venice  as  a  young  lawyer  of 
great  reputation,  from  Bologna.  The  Je w  rejects  every  proposition 
for  the  deliverance  of  Ansaldo,  even  the  100,000  ducats.  Then 
the  trial-scene  proceeds,  just  as  in  Shakespeare ;  Gianetto^s  young 
wife  dclivers  judgment,  like  Portia ;  the  Jew  receives  not  a  stiver, 
and  dares  not  shed  a  drop  of  Anssddo's  blood.  When  Gianetto, 
in  his  gratitude,  ofTers  the  young  advocate  the  whole  100,000 
ducats,  she,  as  in  the  play,  deraands  nothing  but  the  ring  which 
Gianetto  has  received  from  his  wife ;  and  the  tale  ends  with  the 
same  gay  unravelling  of  the  sportive  complication,  which  gives 
Shakespeare  the  matter  for  his  fifth  act. 

Being  unable  to  make  use  of  the  condition  imposed  by  the 
fair  lady  of  Belmonte  in  //  Pecorone^  Shakespeare  cast  about  for 
another,  and  found  it  in  the  Gesta  Romanarutn^  in  the  tale  of  the 
three  caskets,  of  gold,  silver,  and  lead.  Here  it  is  a  young  girl 
who  makes  the  choice  in  order  to  win  the  Emperor's  son.  The 
inscription  on  the  golden  casket  promises  that  whoever  chooses 
that  shall  find  what  he  deserves.  The  girl  rejects  this  out  of 
humility,  and  rightly,  since  it  proves  to  contain  dead  men's 
bones.  The  inscription  on  the  silver  casket  promises  to  whoever 
chooses  it  what  his  nature  craves.  The  girl  rejects  that  also ;  for, 
as  she  says  naively,  "My  nature  craves  for  fleshly  ddights/' 
Finally,  the  leaden  casket  promises  that  whoever  chooses  it  shall 
find  what  God  has  decreed  for  him ;  and  it  proves  to  be  füll  of 
jewels. 

In  Shakespeare,  Portia,  in  accordance  with  her  father's  will, 
makes  her  suitors  choose  between  the  three  caskets  (here  fumished 
with  other  legends),  of  which  the  humblest  contains  her  portrait. 

It  is  not  probable  that  Shakespeare  made  any  use  of  an  older 
play,  now  lost,  of  which  Stephen  Gosson,  in  his  School  0/ Abuse 
(1579),  says  that  it  represented  "the  grreedinesse  of  worldly 
chusers,  and  the  bloody  mindes  of  usurers." 

The  great  value  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  lies  in  the  depth 
and  seriousness  which  Shakespeare  has  imparted  to  the  vague 
outlines  of  character  presented  by  the  old  stories,  and  in  the 
ravishing  moonlight  melodies  which  bring  the  drama  to  a  close. 

In  /^tQp^  the  royal  merchant,  who,  amid  all  his  fortune  and 
qdendour,  is  a  victim  to  melancholv  and  spleen  induced  by  fore» 
bodings  of  Coming  disaster,  Shakespeare  has  certainly  expressed 
•ometiBingl3f  Ins  uwu  nature.  Antonio's  melancholy  is  closely 
ndated  to  that  which,  in  the  years  immediately  following,  we 
shall  find  in  Jaques  in  As  Yau  Like  It^  in  the  Duke  in  TwelfA 
ifighi^  and  in  Hamlet.  It  forms  a  sort  of  moumful  undercurrent 
tl>  the  joy  of  life  which  at  this  period  is  still  dominant  in  Shake- 
i's  soul.     It  leads,  after  a  certain  time,  to  tYi^  SM\)S\iXM^oxk  dL 


i6o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

dreaming  and  brooding  heroes  for  those  men  of  action  and  resolu* 
tion  who,  in  the  poet's  brighter  youth,  had  played  the  leading 
parts  in  bis  dramas.  For  the  rest,  despite  the  princely  elevation 
of  bis  nature,  Antonio  is  by  no  means  faultless.  He  has  insulted 
and  baited  Shylock^  in  the  most  brutal  fashion  on  account  of  bis 
TSiUth  a&d  his  bloody  We"*  realise  the  ferocity  and  violence  of  the 
meaiaeväl  prejudice  against  the  Jews  when  we  find  a  man  of 
Antonio's  magnanimity  so  entirely  a  slave  to  it.  And  when,  with 
a  little  more  show  of  justice,  he  parades  his  loathing  and  con- 
tempt  for  Shylock's  money-dealings,  he  strangely  (as  it  seems  to 
us)  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  Jews  have  been  carefully  excluded 
from  all  other  means  of  livelihood,  and  have  been  systematically 
allowed  to  scrape  together  gold  in  order  that  their  hoards  may 
always  be  at  band  when  circumstances  render  it  convenient  to 
plunder  them.  Antonio's  attitude  towards  Shylock  cannot  pos- 
sibly  be  Shakespeare's  own.  Shylock  cannot  understand  Antonio, 
and  characterises  him  (iii.  3)  in  the  words — 

"  This  is  the  fool  that  lent  out  money  gratis.'' 

But  Shakespeare  himself  did  not  belong  to  this  class  of  fools. 
He  has  endowed  Antonio  with  an  ideality  which  he  had  neither 
the  resolution  nor  the  desire  to  emulate.  Such  a  man's  conduct 
towards  Shylock  explains  the  outcast's  hatred  and  thirst  for 
revenge. 

Shakespeare  has  lavished  peculiar  and  loving  care  upon  the 
figure  of  Portia.  Both  in  the  circumstances  in  which  she  is 
placed  at  the  outset,  and  in  the  conjuncture  to  which  Shylock*s 
bond  gives  rise»  there  is  a  touch  of  the  fairy  tale.  In  so  far,  the 
two  sides  of  the  action  harmonise  well  with  each  other.  Now-a- 
days,  indeed,  we  are  apt  to  find  rather  too  much  of  the  nursery 
Story  in  the  preposterous  will  by  which  Portia  is  bound  to  marry 
whoever  divines  the  very  simple  answer  to  a  riddle — to  the  effect 
that  a  showy  outside  is  not  always  to  be  trusted.  The  fable  of 
the  three  caskets  pleased  Shakespeare  so  much  as  a  means  of 
expressing  and  enforcing  his  hatred  of  all  empty  show  that  he 
ignored  the  grotesque  improbability  of  the  method  of  selecting  a 
bridegroom. 

His  thought  seems  to  have  been:  Portia  is  not  only  nobly 
bom  ;  she  is  thoroughly  genuine,  and  can  therefore  be  won  only 
by  a  suitor  who  rejects  the  show  for  the  substance.  This  is  sug- 
gested  in  Bassanio's  long  speech  before  making  his  choice  (iii.  2). 
If  there  is  anything  that  Shakespeare  hated  with  a  hatred  some- 
what  disproportionate  to  the  triviality  of  the  matter,  a  hatred 
which  finds  expression  in  every  stage  of  his  career,  it  is  the  use 
of  rouge  and  false  hair.  Therefore  he  insists  upon  the  fact  that 
Portia's  beauty  owes  nothing  to  art;  with  others  the  casc  ia 
different : — 


"THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE»  16 1 

"  Look  on  beauty, 
And  you  shall  see  'tis  purchas'd  by  the  weight ; 
•  •  •  •  •  • 

So  are  those  crisped  snaky  golden  locks, 

Which  make  such  wanton  gambols  with  the  wind, 

Upon  supposed  fairness,  often  known 

To  be  the  dowry  of  a  second  head, 

The  skull  that  bred  them,  in  the  sepulchre.** 

And  he  deduces  the  moral : — 

**  Thus  Ornament  is  but  the  guiled  shore 
To  a  most  dangerous  sea." 

Before  the  choice,  Portia  dares  not  openly  avow  her  feelings 
towards  Bassanio,  but  does  so  nevertheless  by  means  of  a  grace- 
ful  and  sportive  slip  of  the  tongue : — 

"  Beshrew  your  eyes, 
They  have  o'erlook'd  me,  and  divided  me : 
One  half  of  me  is  yours,  the  other  half  yours, — 
Mine  own,  I  woüld  say ;  but  if  mine,  then  yours, 
And  so  all  yours  ! " 

Bassanio  answers  by  begging  permission  to  make  instant  choice 
between  the  caskets,  since  he  lives  upon  the  rack  until  his  fate  is 
sealed;  whereupon  Portia  makes  some  remarks  as  to  confessions 
on  the  rack,  which  seem  to  allude  to  an  occurrence  of  a  few  years 
earlier,  the  barbarous  execution  of  Elizabeth's  Spanish  doctor, 
Don  Roderigo  Lopez,  in  1594,  after  two  ruflians  had  been  racked 
into  making  confessions  which,  no  doubt  falsely,  incriminated 
him.     Portia  says  jestingly — 

"  Ay,  but  I  fear,  you  speak  upon  the  rack, 
Where  men,  enforced,  do  speak  any thing ; " 

and  Bassanio  answers — 

'*  Promise  me  life,  and  111  confess  the  truth." 

When  the  choice  has  been  made  and  has  fallen  as  she  hoped 
and  desired,  her  attitude  clearly  expresses  Shakespeare's  ideal  of 
womanhood  at  this  period  of  his  life.  It  is  not  Juliet's  passionate 
self-abandonment,  but  the  perfect  surrender  in  tehdemess  öf  the 
wise  and  delicate  woman.  For  her  own  sake  she  does  not  wish 
berself  better  than  she  is,  but  for  him  "  she  would  be  trebled 
twenty  times  herseif/'    She  knows  that  she — 

**  Is  an  unlesson'd  girl,  unschooFd,  unpractis'd : 
Happy  in  this,  she  is  not  yet  so  old 
But  she  may  leam ;  happier  than  this, 
She  is  not  bred  so  dull  but  she  can  leam ; 
Happiest  of  all  is,  that  her  gentle  spirit 
Commits  itself  to  yours  to  be  directed, 
As  from  her  lord,  her  govemor,  her 


i62  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  such  humility  does  she  loVe  this  weak  spendthrift,  whose  sde 
motive  in  seeking  her  out  was  originally  that  of  Clearing  oflf  thc 
debts  in  which  his  frivolity  had  involved  him.  It  thus  happens, 
quaintly  enough,  that  what  her  father  thought  to  prcvent  by  his 
Strange  device,  namely,  that  Portia  should  be  won  by  a  mercenaiy 
suitor,  is  the  very  thing  that  happens — though  it  is  true  that  her 
personal  charms  throw  his  original  motive  into  the  background. 

In  spite  of  Portia's  womanly  self-surrender  in  love,  there  is 
somethiiig  independent,  almost  masculine,  in  her  character.  Shc 
has  the  orphan  heiress's  habit  and  power  of  looking  after  herseif, 
directing  others,  and  acting  on  her  own  responsibility  without  seek- 
ing ad  vice  or  taking  account  of  Convention.  The  poet  has  borrowed 
traits  from  the  ItaHan  novel  in  order  to  make  her  as  prompt  in 
counsel  as  she  is  magnanimous.  How  much  money  does  Antonio 
owe?  she  asks.  Three  thousand  ducats?  Give  the  Jew  six 
thousand,  and  tear  up  the  bond. 

Shakespeare  has  equipped  her  with  the  bright  and  victonous 
temperament  with  which  he  henceforth,  for  a  certain  time,  endows 
nearly  all  the  heroines  of  his  comedies.  To  another  of  these 
ladies  it  is  said,  *'  Without  question,  you  were  bom  in  a  merry 
hour."  She  answers,  "  No,  sure,  my  lord,  my  mother  cried ;  but 
then  there  was  a  star  danced,  and  under  that  I  was  bom."  All 
these  young  women  were  bom  under  a  star  that  danced.  Even 
the  most  subdued  of  them  overflows  with  the  rapture  of  existence. 

Portia's  nature  is  health,  its  utterance  joy.  Radiant  happi- 
ness  is  her  dement.  She  is  descended  from  happiness,  she  has 
grown  up  in  happiness,  she  is  surrounded  with  all  the  means  and 
conditions  of  happiness,  and  she  distributes  happiness  with  both 
hands.  She  is  noble  to  the  heart's  core.  She  is  no  swan  bom  in 
the  duck-yard,  but  is  in  complete  harmony  with  her  surroundings 
and  with  herseif. 

Shylock's  riches  consist  of  gold  and  jewels,  easy  to  conceal 
or  to  transport  at  a  moment's  notice,  but  also  inviting  to  robbery 
and  rapine.  Antonio's  riches  consist  in  cargoes  tossed  on  many 
seas,  and  exposed  to  danger  from  storms  and  from  pirates.  What 
Portia  owns  she  owns  in  secunty :  estates  and  palaces  inherited- 
from  her  fathers.  There  has  needed,  perhaps,  as  much  as  a  Cen- 
tury of  direct  preparation  for  the  birth  of  such  a  creaturc.  Her 
noble  forefathers  for  generations  back  must  have  led  free  and 
stainless  lives,  favoured  by  destiny,  prosperous  and  happy,  in 
Order  to  amass  the  riches  which  are  her  pedestal,  to  gain  the 
respect  which  is  her  throne,  to  gather  the  household  whidi  forms 
her  retinue,  to  decorate  the  palace  in  which  she  rules  as  a  prinoestp 
and  to  endow  her  mind  with  the  high  faculty  and  culture  befitting 
a  reigning  sovereign.  \She  is  healthy,  though  she  is  delicate;  she 
is  S^y>  although  she  ismentally  a  head  taller  than  any  of  Üiose 
around  her;  and  she  is  young,  although  she  is  wise.  She  is  of  a 
fresher  stock  than  the  nervous  women  of  to-day.    Sbc  is  bome 


"THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE"  163 

iloft  by  an  unfailing  sereoity  of  oature,  which  has  Derer  sufTered 
any  rüde  disturbance.  It  manifests  itself  in  her  gaiety  under 
drcumstances  of  painful  uncertainty,  in  her  self-control  in  over- 
vhelming  joy,  and  in  her  promptitude  of  action  in  Bn  unforeseen 
and  threatening  conjuncture.  She  has  inezhasstible  resources  in 
her  soul,  a  profusion  of  ideas  and  inspiratione,  an  great  a  super- 
abundance  of  wit  as  of  weallh.  In  contradisZi'nction  to  her  lover, 
she  never  makes  a  display  of  what  is  not  her  own  to  command. 
Hence  her  equilibrium  and  queenly  repose.  If  we  do  not  reahse 
this  radiant  joy  of  life  in  the  inmost  ^Chambers  of  her  soul,  we  are 
apt,  even  from  her  first  scene  with  Nerissa,  to  think  her  jesting 
forced  and  her  wit  far-fetched,  and  en  almost  ready  to  make  the 
criticism  that  only  a  poor  intelligeDce  plays  tricks  with  speech 
and  fantasticates  in  words.  But  wheo  we  have  looked  into  the 
depths  of  this  well- spring  ol  bealth,  we  understand  how  her 
thoughts  gush  forth,  flashinf,  and  plashing,  as  freely  and  inevi- 
tably  as  the  jets  of  a  fountsin  rise  into  the  air.  She  evokes  and 
discards  image  after  image,  as  one  plucks  and  throws  away  flowers 
in  a  iuxuriant  garden.  She  delights  to  wreath  and  plait  her  words, 
as  she  wreaths  and  plaiCs  her  hair. 

It  harmonises  with  her  whole  nature  when  she-^ays  (i.  2): 
"  The  brain  may  devise  laws  for  the  blood ;  but  a  hot  temper 
leaps  o'er  a  cold  decree :  such  a  hare  is  madness,  the  youth,  to 
skip  o'er  the  meshes  of  good  counsel,  the  ctipple."  Such  phrases 
must  be  conceivetf  as  springing  from  a  dehght  in  laughter  and 
sport  for  the  sport't  säke;  otherwise  they  would  be  stiff  and 
cutnbrous.     In  the  same  way,  such  a  sally  as  this  (iv.  i)— 

"Yonrwife  would  give  you  little  thanks  for  that, 
If  ihe  were  by  to  hear  you  make  the  offer," 

must  be  taken  u  apringing  from  a  gleeful  assurance  of  victory, 
eise  it  might  swm   to  show  callous   indüference   to   Antonio'6 

apparently  ho|.eles=  plight.  "Qiercjs.^as  _  innglc -harmony^jn 
Portia'3a«(^;  biii  it  i&  fuU-toned,  complcx,  and  woven  of  strongly 
contrasr^l'^nwnis,  so  that  it  requircs  some  imagination  to  re- 
irselves.  There  is  something  in  the  harmonious 
I  pliysiognomy  which  reminds  us  of  Lionardo's' 
•  Dignity  and  tendemess,  the  power  to  cotnmand  j 
Bacuteness  such  as  thrives  in  wurts,  and  simple^ 
f  an  alniost  inflexible  seriousness  and  an  almost 
■  gaiety,  are  here  cunningly  commingied  and  com- 

himself  would  have  us  regard   her  may 

enthusiasm  with  which  he  makes  Jessica 

icr  lover  (iÜ.  s).     When  one  young  woman  so 

another,  we  may  safely  assume  that  hex  1 

e,     "  }t  is  very  meet,"  she  say», 


i64  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

/      "TV  Lord  Bassanio  live  an  uptight  Üfe, 
^'  For,  having  such  a  blessing  in  his  lady, 

He  ßnds  the  joys  of  heaven  here  on  eaith  ; 
And,  if  on  earth  he  do  not  mean  it,  then 
In  reaso'i  be  «hould  never  come  to  heaven, 
Why,  if  two  gods  should  play  some  heavenly  otatch, ' 
And  on  tte  wagcr  lay  two  earthly  women, 
And  Portüi  one,  there  must  be  something  eise 
Pawn'd  with  ihe  other,  for  the  poor  nide  world 
Hath  not  her  fellow." 

The  central  fi^ure  of  tlie  play,  however,  in  the  eyes  of  modern 
readers  and  spectators,  is  oi'äurse  bhylock^  though  tliere  can 
be  no  doubt  that  he  appeared  to  ShäEu^peafe's  contemporaries  a 
Comic  personage,  and,  sincc  he  mtlfes  his  final  exit  before  the  laat 
act,  by  no  means  the  protagonlat.  In  the  humaner  view  of  a  laCer 
age,  Shylock  appears  as  a  *"''*'-paÜ"^ifi  ^'"'""'""1  °  c^-ap^■f^v^g^, 
a  victim ;  to  the  Elizabethan  public,  with  his  i^pacity~and  his 
miserliness,  his  usury  and  his  eagerriess  to  dig  for  another  the 
pit  into  which  he  himself  falls,  he  seemed,  not  terrible,  but  ludi- 
crous.  They  did  not  even  take  him  seriously  enough  to  feel  any 
real  uneasiness  as  to  Antonio's  l'ate,  since  tliey  all  knejH-before- 
hand  the  issue  of  the  adventure.  They  laughed  when  he  went 
to  Bassanio's  feast "  in  hate,  to  feed  upon  the  prodigal  Christian ; " 
they  iaughed  when,  in  the  scene  with  Tubal,  he  'tuffcred  himself 
to  be  bandied  about  betwcen  exultation  over  Antonio's  misfortunes 
and  rage  over  the  prodigality  of  liis  runan-ay  dcughter;  and  tliey 
found  him  odious  when  he  exclaimed,  "I  woild  my  daughter 
were  dead  at  my  foot  and  the  jewcis  in  her  ear!"  He  was, 
rsiinply  as  a  Jew,  a  despised  crcature;  he  belonged  to  the  race 
jwhich  had  crucified  God  himself;  and  he  was  doubly  despised 
(as  an  cxtortionate  usurer.  For  the  rest,  the  Enghsh  public— 
like  the  Nonvegian  public  so  laCely  as  the  firat  half -of  this  Century 
— had  jio  acquaintance  with  Jews  except  in  boolcE  and  on  the 
stage.  l'^rom  1290  until  the  middle  of  the  stvestcciiüi  Century 
the  Jews  were  entirely  excluded  frora  England.  E^H^prcjudice 
against  them  was  free  to  flourish  unchecked.       (^ 

Did  Shakespeare  in  a  certaiii  measure  shatl 
prejudices,  as  he  seems  to  have  sliared  the  patl 
against  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  if,  indeed,  he  is  rt 
part  she  plays  in  Henry  VI.?  We  may  be  :■ 
very  slightly  affected  by  them,  if  at  all.  Had  he% 
undisguised  effort  to  place  himself  at  ShyJock's  Sia 
ccnsorship,  on  the  one  band,  would  have  interv'cnel 
the  other  band,  the  public  would  have  been  b^siHiflBi'' 
alienated.  It  is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  age  thAD(Elif}«k!«l}|«ld 
Buffier  the  punishment  which  befalls  him.  To  p^^m!'  roiilbw&s 
stifF-necked  vengefuhiess,  he  is  mulcted  not  onljHc:  4iiu  filoscbe 
leot  Antonio,  but  of  half  his  fortune,  and  is  fioall  j^/M|jB  ^iiWtWre'a 


''THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE''  i6s 

Jfw  of  Malta^  compelled  to  ^h^"gr  *^if^  p>iigi^i^  The  latter 
detail  gives  something  of  a  shock  to  the  moaefh  reader.  But 
»hi>  r^gp^t  f/||-  p^rs^^ai  conviction,  whcn  it  conflicted  with  Ortho« 
doxy,  did  not  cxist  in  Shakespeare's  time.  It  was  not  very  long 
sTnce  Jews  had  been  forced  to  choose  between  kissing  the  crudfix 
and  mounting  the  faggots;  and  in  Strasburg,  in  1349,  nine  hun* 
dred  of  them  had  in  one  day  chosen  the  latter  alternative.  It  is 
Strange  to  reflect,  too,  that  just  at  the  time  when,  on  the  English 
stage,  one  Mediterranean  Jew  was  poisoning  his  daughter,  and 
another  whetting  his  knife  to  cut  his  debtor's  flesh,  thousands  of 
heroic  and  enthusiastic  Hebrews  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  who, 
after  the  expulsion  of  the  3(X),000  at  the  beginning  of  the  Century, 
had  secretly  remained  faithful  to  Judaism,  were  sufTering  them- 
selves  to  be  tortured,  flayed,  and  bumt  alive  by  the  Inquisition, 
rather  than  forswear  the  religion  of  their  race. 

It  is  the  high-minded  Antonio  himself  who  proposes  that  -* 
Shylock  shall  be  forced  to  become  a  Christian.  This  is  done 
for  his  good ;  for  baptism  opens  to  him  the  possibility  of  salva- 
tion  after  xieath :  and  his  Uhnstian  antagonists.  who.  bv  dint  of 
the  most  childish  sophisms,  have  despoiled  him  of  his  goods  and 
forced  him  to  forswear  his  God,  can  still  pose  as  representing  the 
Christian  principle  of  mercy,  in  Opposition  to  one  who  has  taken 
his  stand  upon  the  Jewish  basis  of  formal  law. 

That  Shakespeare  himself,  however,  in  nowise  shared  the 
fanatical  belief  that  a  Jew  was  of  necessity  damned,  or  could  be 
saved  by  compulsory  conversion,  is  rendered  clear  enough  for  the 
modern  reader  in  the  scene  between  Launcelot  and  Jessica  (üL  5), 
where  Launcelot  jestingly  avers  that  Jessica  is  damned.  There 
is  only  one  hope  for  her,  and  that  is,  that  her  father  may  not  bn 
her  father : —  3pe^ 

^^  Jessica,  That  were  a  kind  of  bastard  hope,  indeed :  so  theservice 
my  mother  should  be  visited  upon  me.  g  logic, 

"  Launcelot,  Tnily  then  I  fear  you  are  damned  both  by  f  the  con- 
mother:  thus  when  I  shun  Scylla,  your  father,  I  fall  into  ^dramatic 
your  mother.     Well,  you  are  gone  both  ways.  ^^  iovm, 

"yjfj.  I  shall  be  saved  by  my  husband;  he  hath  n^gtic  trait 
Christian. 

"Zaun.  Truly,  the  more  to  blame  he:  we  were  Chris/'^PP^-^'"^ 
before;  c'cn  as  many  as  could  well  live  one  by  another.  IV  .^"^  r^ 
of  Christians  will  raise  the  price  of  hogs:  if  we  grow  aV  "^*  voice; 
eaters,  we  shall  not  shortly  have  a  rasher  on  the  coals  fo-^temally  and 

♦  type  of  his  race 

And  Jessica  repeats  Launcelot's  saying  to  Lo* 

.siurth  act  in  order  that 

♦'  He  teUs  me  flatly,  there  is  no  mercy  ^  conduding  scenes.     By 
am  a  Jew^s  daughter :  and  he  says,  ^«^aissipates  any  preponderance 
Commonwealth,  for,  in  Converting  Impression  of  the  play. 
prioe  of  pork."         [■■■■■F^pc  thrilled  with  music.     It  is 


i66  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

No  believer  would  ever  speak  in  this  jesting  tone  of  matters  that 

must  seem  to  him  so  momentous. 

\.     .     It  is  none  the  less  astounding  how  much  right  in  wrong,  how 

^juch  human ity  in  inhumanity,  Shakespeare  has  succeeded  in  im- 

parting  to  Shylock.     The  spectator  sees  clearly  that,  with  the 

treatment  he  has  suffered,  he  could  not  but  become  what  he  is. 

Shakespeare  has  rejected  the  notion  of  the  atheistically-minded 

Marlowe,  that  the  Jew  hates  Christianity  and  despises  Christians 

as  fiercer  money-grubbers  than  himself.     With  his  calm  humanity, 

VShakespeare  makes  Shylock's  hardness  andcrueltv  cesult  at  once 

Ifrom  hiis  passionate  nature  and  his  abnormaTpositioh ;  sojHat^in 

Ispite  of  everythmg,  he  häs~cölirc"tö  appear  iüTEF  eyes  ofTater 

kimes  asT^ft'of  tragfc  symbol  oi  the  degradatlon  luiid^  vengt^ful- 

V  iiess  cSTäri  oppressed  race. 

There  is  not  in  air  Shakespeare  a  greater  example  of  trenchant 
and  incontrovertible  eloquence  than  Shylock's  famous  speech 
(iii.  i): — 

'*  I  am  a  Jew.  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  hath  not  a  Jew  hands,  organSi 
dimensions,  senses,  afTections,  passions  ?  fed  with  the  same  food,  huit 
with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the  same  diseases,  healed  \x^  the 
same  means,  warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  winter  and  summer,  as  a 
Christian  is  ?  If  you  prick  us,  do  we  not  bleed  ?  if  you  tickle  us,  do  we 
«not  laugh?  if  you  poison  us,  do  we  not  die?  and  if  you  wrong  us,  shall 
we  not  revenge  ?  If  we  are  like  you  in  the  rest,  we  will  resemble  you  in 
that  If  a  Jew  wrong  a  Christian,  what  is  his  humility  ?  revenge.  If 
a  Christian  wrong  a  Jew,  what  should  his  sufferance  be  by  Cf^stian 
example?  why,  revenge.  The  villany  you  teach  me,  I  will  execute; 
and  it  shall  go  hard  but  I  will  better  Üie  instruction.'* 

1  whi^ut  what  is  most  surprising,  doubtless,  is  the  instinct  of  genius 

[as  awhich  Shakespeare  has  seized  upon  and  reproduced  racial 

like  tireristics,  and  emphasised  what  is  peculiarly  Jewish  in.  Shy- 

— had  ulture.     While  Marlowe,  accoraing  to  his  custom,  made 

stage.    )as  revel  in  mythological  similes,  Shakespeare  indicates 

the  Jewlock^sjEutoie  is  founded  entirelv  upon  the  Old  Testa«» 

against  vj  makes^ommerce  his  only  point  of  contact  with  the 

Did  n  of  later  times.     All  his  parallels  are  drawn  from  the 

prejudics  and  the  Prophets.     With  what  unction  he  speaks  when 

against  es  himself  by  the  example  of  Jacob  I     His  own  race  is 

.    part  she  nr  sacred  nation/'  and  he  feels  that  "the  curse  has 

f   very  slightlyoon  it "  until  his  daughter  fled  with  his  treasures. 

,    undisguised  en^ylock's  respect  for,  and  obstinate  insistence  on, 

censorship,  on  thir.  his  reliance  upon  sta^^itory  rightSp  which  are, 

the  othcr  band,  the  society  allows  him,  and  the  partly  instinc- 

alienated.     It  is  quite  iii-tjon  of  his  moral  idcas  to  the  principle 

suflfer  the  punishment  whic^-y  animal ;  he  is  no  heathen  who 

stiflF-nccked  vengefulness,  hc  ^^^igrinsgicts';  his  hatreJlsBSt 

lent  Antonio,  but  of  half  his  fortMHHMmkg^ 


"THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE "  167 

tecajge.  He  is  entirely  lacking,  indeed,  in  the  freedom  and 
screnity,  the  easy-going,  light-hearted  carelessness  which  charac- 
terises  a  niling  caste  in  its  virtues  and  its  vices,  in  its  charities 

Ias  in  its  prodigalities ;  butjiejias  not  a  single  twinge  of  conscience 
about  ajnything  that  he  doesY  his~actions  äfem'perlecf  hannony 
with  his  ideüs.  ""  "         ~  ""         *  ^'^■■•■ 

Sundered  from  the  regions,  the  social  forms,  the  language,  in 
which  his  spirit  is  at  home,  he  has  yet  retained  his  Oriental 
character.  Passion  is  the  kernel  of  his  nature.  It  is  his  passion 
that  has  enricfied  him ;  he  is  passionate  in  actiony  in"carcüIiätion, 
in  sensatjon,  in  hatrecT.  in  revenge.  in  everytlifng.  Hi^vengeful- 
ness  is  inanv  times  ffreater  than  his  rapacitv." " Avaricious  thouffh 


many  times  greater  than  his  rapacity.     Avaricious  though 
he  be,  money  is  nothing^to  him  in  comparison  with  revengei     iFls 
not  untilTie  Is  exäsperated  by  his  daüghtePs  roEbery  and  flight 
that  he  takes  such  hard  measures  against  Antonio,  and  refuses  to 
accept  three  times  the  amount  of  the  loan.     His  conception  o7~^ 
honour  may  be  unchivalrqus  enough,  but,  such  aslt  is,TTrsTiönöür    ] 
IS  not  to  be  bought  for  money.    His  hatrecl  oT Antonio  is  far  morc  j 
intense  than  his  love  for  his  je  weis ;   and  it  is  this  passionate 
hatied.  not  avarice,  that  makes  him  the  mbiister  He  becomes. 

From  this  Hebrew  passionäteiiess,  which  can  be  traced  even 
in  details  of  diction,  arises,  among  other  things,  his  loathing  of 
sloth  and  idleness.  To  realise  how  essentially  Jewish  is  this 
U9ll  WC  utul  ^ly  refer  to  the  so-caJled  Proverbs  of  Solomon. 
Shylock  dismisses  Launcelot  with  the  words,  **  Drones  hive  not 
with  me."  Oriental,  rather  than  speciaUy  Jewish,  are  the  images 
in  which  he  gives  his  passion  utterance,  approaching,  as  they  so 
often  do,  to  the  parable  form.  (See,  for  example,  his  appeal  to 
Jacob's  cunning,  or  the  speech  in  vindication  of  his  claim,  which 
begins,  "  You  have  among  you  many  a  purchased  slave.**)  Spe^ 
dally  Jewish,  on  the  other  band,  is  the  way  in  whick,thifi  ardenf 
passion  throurfiout  employs  its  images^nd  parables  in  the  Service 
of  a  curioüsly  soberl=aliuudlisuj,'So^that  a  sharp  and  biting  logic, 
which  retorts  every  accusation  with  interest,  is  always  the  Con- 
trolling forcc.  This  sober  logic,  moreover,  never  lacks  dramatic 
impetus.  Shylock's  course  of  thought  perpetually  takes  the  form 
of  question  and  answer,   a  subordinate  but  characteristic  trait 

which  appgM«»-tn  the  stylte  üf  ttie^Qld  T^gtament,  and  rpj3pp<*arg 

to  this  day  in  representations  of  primitiveTewS:  One  can  fecl 
through  his  words  that  there  is  a  chanting  quality  in  his  voice ; 
his  movements  are  rapid,  his  gestures  large.  Extemally  and 
intemally,  to  the  inmost  fibre  of  his  being,  he  is  a  type  of  his  race 
in  its  degradation. 

Shylock  disappears  with  the  end  of  the  fourth  act  in  order  that 
DO  discord  may  mar  the  harmony  of  the  conduding  scenes.  By 
means  of  his  fifth  act,  Shakespeare  dissipates  any  preponderance 
of  pain  and  gloom  in  the  genend  Impression  of  the  play. 

This  act  is  a  moonlit  landscape  thrilled  with  music.     It  is 


^ 


r68  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

altogether  given  over  to  music  and  moonshine.  It  is  an  image  of 
Shakespeare's  soul  at  that  point  of  time.  Everything  is  here  re- 
conciledy  assuaged,  silvered  over,  and  bome  aloft  upon  the  wings 
of  music. 

The  Speeches  melt  into  each  other  like  voices  in  part-singing:— 

"  Lorenzo.  The  moon  shines  bright — In  such  a  night  as  thia^ 
When  the  sweet  wind  did  gently  kiss  the  trees, 
And  they  did  make  no  noise,  in  such  a  night, 
Troilus,  methinks,  mounted  the  Trojan  walls, 
And  sigh'd  his  soul  toward  the  Grecian  tents, 
Where  Cressid  lay  that  night. 

Jessica,  In  such  a  night 

Did  Thisbe  fearfuUy  o'ertrip  the  dew ; 

•  •■••• 

Lor.  In  such  a  night 

Stood  Dido  with  a  willow  in  her  hand ; " 

and  so  on  for  four  more  speeches — the  very  poetry  of  moonlight 
arranged  in  antiphonies. 

The  conclusion  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  brings  us  to  the 
threshold  of  a  term  in  Shakespeare's  life  instinct  with  high- 
pitched  gaiety  and  gHadness.  In  this,  his  brightest  period,  he 
fervently  celebr^es  strength  and  wisdom  in  man^intellect  and  wit 
in  wQ^an ;  and  these'mObT  -Üf ttfiaKl "^yeaf s  of  his  Kfeaieala»  the 
most  müsicäl.  His  poetry,  his  whole  existence,  seem  now  to  be 
given  over  to  music,  to  harmony. 

He  had  been  early  familiär  with  the  art  of  music,  and  must 
have  heard  much  music  in  his  youth.^  Even  in  his  earliest  plays, 
such  as  The  Two  Gentlenten  of  Verona^  we  find  a  considerable 
insight  into  musical  technique,  as  in  the  conversation  between 
Julia  and  Lucetta  (i.  2).  He  must  often  have  heard  the  Queen's 
choir,  and  the  choirs  maintained  by  noble  lords  and  ladies,  like 
that  which  Portia  has  in  her  palace.  And  he  no  doubt  heard 
much  music  performed  in  private.  The  English  were  in  his  day, 
what  they  have  never  been  since^  a  musical  people.  It  was  the 
Puritans  who  cast  out  music  from  the  daily  life  of  England.  The 
spinet  was  the  favourite  instrument  of  the  time.  Spinets  stood 
in  the  barbers'  shops,  for  the  use  of  customers  waiting  their  tum. 
Elizabeth  herseif  played  on  the  spinet  and  the  lute.  In  his 
Sonnet  cxxviii.,  addressed  to  the  lady  whom  he  caressingly 
calls  "  my  music/'  Shakespeare  has  described  himself  as  Standing 
beside  his  mistress's  spinet  and  envying  the  keys  which  could 
kiss  her  fingers.  In  all  probability  he  was  personally  acquainted 
with  John  Dowland,  the  chief  English  musician  of  the  time, 
although  the  poem  m  which  he  is  named,  published  as  Shake- 

^  F&nter:  Shahtspmre  umd  die  Tütthmtt^  Shakespeare 'JakrbuclL  iL  icc;  Kall 
-    :  WilUam  Skmk^peare,  p.  474 :  Henrik  Schttck :  IViifi^  *SAa4«f/«nr,  ^  315. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  LOVE  OF  MUSIC  169 

spetre^s  in  The  P€Ustonate  Pügrim^  is  not  by  him,  but  by  Richard 
Birnfidd. 

In  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (iii.  i),  written  just  before  The 
Merchant  of  Venke^  he  had  utilised  bis  knowledge  of  singing  and 
lute-playing  in  a  scene  of  gay  comedy.  ''  The  cause  why  music 
was  ordained/'  says  Lucentio — 

*'  Was  it  not  to  refresh  the  mind  of  man, 
After  bis  studies,  or  bis  usual  pam?" 

Its  influence  upon  mental  disease  was  also  known  to  Shakespeare, 
and  noted  both  in  King  Lear  and  in  The  TempesL  But  bere,  in 
The  Merchant  of  Venice^  where  music  is  wedded  to  moonlight,  bis 
praise  of  it  takes  a  higher  flight : — 

^  How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank  1 
Here  we  will  sit,  and  let  the  sounds  of  music 
Creep  in  our  ears :  soft  stillness,  and  the  night, 
Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony." 

And  Shakespeare,  who  never  mentions  church  music,  which  aeems 
to  bave  had  no  message  for  bis  soul,  here  makes  the  usually 
unimpassioned  Lorenzo  launch  out  into  genuine  Renaissance 
rhapsodies  upon  the  music  of  the  spheres : — 

^  Sit^-^essica :  look,  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold. 
There  's  not  the  smallest  orb,  which  thou  behold'st, 
But  in  bis  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-ey'd  cherubins ; 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls ; 
But,  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Dodi  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it" 

Sphere-barmony  and  soul-harmonyi  not  bell-ringing  or  psalm- 
singingi  are  for  bim  the  highest  music. 

Shakespeare's  love  of  music,  so  incomparably  expressed  in 
the  last  scenes  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice j  appears  at  other  points 
in  the  play.  Thus  Portia  says,  when  Bassanio  is  about  to  make 
his  choice  between  the  caskets  (iii.  2) : — 

^  Let  music  sound,  while  he  doth  make  his  choioe ; 
Then,  if  he  lose,  he  makes  a  swan-like  end, 
Fading  in  music 

•  ••••• 

He  may  win ; 
And  what  is  music  then  ?  then  music  is 
Even  as  the  flourish  when  true  subjects  bow 
To  a  new-crowned  monarch." 

It  seems  as  though  Shakespeare,  in  this  play,  had  set  himself 
to  xeveal  for  the  first  time  bow  deeply  his  whole  nature  was 


\ 


I70  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

penetrated  with  musical  feeling.  He  places  in  the  roouth  of  thc 
frivolous  Jessica  these  profound  words,  "  I  am  never  merry  when 
I  hear  sweet  music."  And  he  makes  Lorenzo  answer,  "The 
reason  is,  your  spirits  are  attentive."  The  note  of  the  tnimpet, 
he  says,  will  calm  a  wanton  herd  of  **  unhandled  colts ; "  and 
Orpheus,  as  poets  feign,  drew  trees  and  stones  and  floods  to 
foUow  him: — 

"  Since  nought  so  stockish,  hard,  and  füll  of  rage, 
But  music  for  the  time  doth  change  his  nature. 
The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  mov'd  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  ; 
The  motions  of  his  spirit  are  dull  as  night, 
And  his  affections  dark  as  Erebus. 
Let  no  such  man  be  trusted. — Mark  the  music* 

This  must  not,  of  course,  be  taken  too  literally.  But  note  the 
^  characters  whom  Shakespeare  makes  specially  iniffujRiral :  in  this 
play^  bhylock,  who  loathes  "the  vile  squeaking  of  the  wry-necked 
jSfe ; "  tHen  Hotspur,  the  hero-barbarian ;  Benedick,  the  would- 
bc  woman-hater;  Cassius,  the  fanatic  politician ;  Othello,  the 
half-civilised  African ;  and  finally  creatures  like  Caliban,  who  are 
nevertheless  enthralled  by  music  as  though  by  a  wizard's  spell. 

On  the  other  band,  all  his  more  delicate  creations  are  musical. 
In  the  First  Part  of  Henry  IV,  (iii.  i)  we  have  Mortimer  and  his 
Welsh  wife,  who  do  not  understand  each  other's  speech : — 

"  But  I  will  never  be  a  truant,  love, 
Till  I  have  leam'd  thy  language ;  for  thy  tonguc 
Makes  Welsh  as  sweet  as  ditties  highly  penn'd, 
Sung  by  a  fair  queen  in  a  summer's  bower,  ] 

With  ravishing  division,  to  her  lute." 

Musical,  too,  are  the  pathetic  heroines,  such  as  Ophelia  and 
Dcsdemona,  and  characters  like  Jaques  in  As  You  Like  It,  and 
thc  Duke  and  Viola  in  Twelfth  Ni^ht  The  last-named  comedy, 
indeed,  is  entirely  interpenetrated  with  music.  The  keynote  of 
musical  passion  is  Struck  m  tbe  opening  speecn : — 

"  If  music  be  the  food  of  love,  play  on ; 
Give  me  excess  of  it,  that,  surfeiting, 
The  appetite  may  sicken,  and. so  die. — 
That  stndn  again !  it  had  a  dying  fall : 
O !  it  came  o'er  my  ear  like  the  sweet  south 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odour." 

Here,  too,  Shakespeare's  love  of  the  folk-song  finds  expifessioii, 
when  he  makes  the  Duke  say  (ii.  4) :— 


SHAKESPEARE'S  LOVE  OF  MUSIC  171 

"  Now,  good  Cesario,  but  that  piece  of  song, 
That  old  and  antique  song,  we  heard  last  night ; 
Methought,  it  did  relieve  my  passion  much, 
More  than  light  airs,  and  recollected  terms, 
Of  these  most  brisk  and  giddy-paced  times : 
Come ;  but  one  verse." 

No  less  sensitive  and  devoted  to  music  than  the  Duke  in 
Twelfth  Night  or  Lorenzo  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice  must 
thcir  Creator  himself  have  been  in  the  short  and  happy  interval 
in  which,  as  yet  unmastered  by  the  melancholy  latent  in  his  as 
in  all  deep  natures,  he  feit  his  talents  strengthening  and  un- 
folding,  his  life  every  day  growing  fuller  and  more.  significant, 
his  inmost  soul  quickening  with  creative  impulse  and  instinct 
with  harmony.  The  rieh  concords  which  bring  The  Merchant 
of  Venice  to  a  dose  symbolise,  as  it  were,  the  feeling  of  inward 
wealth  and  equipoise  to  which  he  had  now  attained. 


XXII 

^'EDWARD  IIL**  AND  ''ARDBN  OP  rBVERSHAM^-SHAKB^ 
SPEARE*S  DICTION-^THE  FIRST  PART  OF  ''HENRY  IVJ" 
--FIRST  INTRODÜCTION  OF  HIS  OWN  EXPERIBNCBS  OP 
LIFE  IN  THE  HISTORIC  DRAMA^WHY  THE  SÜBJECT 
APPBALED  TO  HIM-^TAVBRN  LIFBSHAKBSPBARBS 
CIRCLB—SIR  JOHN  FALSTAPF^FALSTAFP  AND  THE 
GRACIOSO  Oh  THE  SPANISH  DRAMA-^RABELAIS  AND 
SHAKESPEARE  --PANURGE  AND  FALSTAFF 

There  is  extant  a  historical  play,  dating  from  IS96,  entitied 
The  Raigne  of  King  Edward  third.  As  it  hath  bin  sundrie 
times  plaied  about  the  Citie  of  London^  which  several  English 
students  and  critics,  among  them  Halliwell-Phillips,  have  attri- 
buted  in  part  to  Shakespeare,  arguing  that  the  better  scenes,  at 
leasty  must  have  been  carefuUy  retouched  by  hiro,  Although 
the  drama,  as  a  whole,  is  not  much  more  Shakespearean  in  style 
than  many  other  Elizabethan  plays,  and  although  Swinbume,  the 
highest  of  all  English  authorities,  has  declared  the  piece  to  be 
the  werk  of  an  imitator  of  Marlowe,  yet  there  is  a  good  deal  to 
be  Said  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis  that  Shakespeare  had  some 
band  in  Edward  III,  His  touch  may  be  recognised  in  several 
passages ;  and  especially  noteworthy  are  the  following  Hnes  from 
a  speech  of  Warwick*s : — 

"  A  spacious  field  of  reasons  could  I  urge 
Between  his  glory,  daughter,  and  thy  shame : 
That  poison  shows  worst  in  a  golden  cup ; 
Dark  night  seems  darker  by  the  lightning  flash; 
Lilies  that  fester  smeUfar  warse  than  weeds^ 
And  every  glory  that  inclines  to  sin, 
The  shame  is  treble  by  the  opposite." 

The  italicised  verse  reappears  as  the  last  line  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  xciv. ;  and  as  this  Sonnet  seems  to  refer  (as  we  shall 
afterwards  see)  to  circumstances  in  Shakespeare's  life  which  did 
not  arise  until  1600,  we  cannot  suppose  that  it  was  one  of  thoae 
written  at  an  earlier  date  and  circulated  in  manuscripL  The 
probability  is  that  Shakespeare  simply  reclaimed  this  line  from  ä 
speech  contributed  by  him  to  another  man's  play. 


SHAKESPEARES  DICTION  173 

It  is  natural  that  a  foreign  Student  should  shrink  from  oppos- 
ing  bis  judgment  to  that  of  English  criticSi  wbere  English  diction 
and  style  are  in  question.  Nevertheless  he  is  sometimes  driven 
into  dissent  with  regard  to  the  many  Elizabethan  plays  wbicb 
DOW  one  critic,  and  now  another,  has  attributed  wboUy  or  in 
part  to  Shakespeare.  Take,  for  instance,  Arden  of  Fevershafn^ 
xrtainly  one  of  the  most  admirable  plays  of  that  rieb  period, 
trhose  merit  impresses  one  even  wben  one  reads  it  for  the  first 
;ime  in  uncritical  youth.  Swinbume  wntes  of  it  {Study  of 
Shakespeare^  p.  141): — 

"  I  cannot  but  finally  take  heart  to  say,  even  in  the  absence  of  all 
acternal  or  traditional  testimony,  that  it  seems  to  me  not  pardonable 
nerely  nor  permissible,  but  simply  logical  and  reasonable,  to  set  down 
bis  poem,  a  young  man's  work  on  the  face  of  it,  as  the  possible  work 
ff  no  man's  youthful  band  but  Shakespeare's." 

However  small  my  authority  in  comparison  with  Swinbumc's 
ipon  such  a  question  as  this,  I  find  it  impossible  to  share  bis 
iew.  Highly  as  I  esteem  Arden  of  Feversham^  I  cannot  believe 
hat  Shakespeare  wrote  a  Single  line  of  it.  It  was  not  like  bim  to 
hoose  such  a  subject,  and  still  less  to  treat  it  in  such  a  fashion. 
rhe  play  is  a  domestic  tragedy,  iti  which  a  wife,  after  repeated 
ittempts,  murders  her  kind  and  forbearing  husband,  in  order 
reely  to  in  du  Ige  her  passion  for  a  worthless  paramour.  It  is 
i  dramatisation  of  an  actual  case,  the  facts  of  which  are  closely 
oUowed,  but  at  the  same  time  animated  with  great  psychological 
nsight.  That  Shakespeare  had  a  distaste  for  such  subjects  is 
)roved  by  his  consistent  avoidance  of  them,  except  in  this  prob- 
ematical  instance;  whereas  if  he  had  once  succeeded  so  well 
vith  such  a  theme,  he  would  surely  have  repeated  the  experiment. 
rhe  Chief  point  is,  however,  that  only  in  a  few  places,  in  the 
»oliloquies,  do  we  find  the  peculiar  note  of  Shakespeare's  style — 
iiat  wealth  of  Imagination,  that  luxuriant  lyrism,  which  plays 
ike  sunlight  over  his  Speeches.  In  Arden  of  Feversham  the 
>tyle  is  a  uniform  drab. 

Shakespeare's  great  characteristic  is  precisely  the  resilience 
vhich  he  gives  to  every  word  and  to  every  speech.  We  take  one 
(tep  on  earth,  and  at  the  next  we  are  soaring  in  air.  His  verse 
ilways  tends  towards  a  rieh  and  stately  melody,  is  never  flat  or 
rommonplace.  In  the  English  historical  plays,  his  diction  some- 
;imes  verges  upon  the  style  of  the  bailad  or  romance.  There  is 
i  continual  undercurrent  of  emotion,  of  enthusiasm,  or  of  pure 
antasy,  which  carries  us  away  with  it.  We  are  always  far  remote 
Vom  the  humdrum  monotony  of  everyday  speech.  Fof  everyday 
ipeech  is  devoid  of  fantasy,  and  all  Shakespeare's  characters, 
irith  the  exception  of  those  whose  humour  lies  in  their  stupidity, 
lave  a  highly-coloured  Imagination. 

We  could  find  no  better  proof  of  this  than  the  dictioo  of  the 


174  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

great  work  which  he  undertakes  immediately  after  The  MträuaA 
of  Venice — the  First  Part  of  Henry  IV, 

Harry  Percy  in  this  play  is  placed  in  Opposition  to  the  mag- 
niloquent,  visioriAl'y,  lliaumalui'gcnjlendower,  as  flicT  man'lrf' 
sober  intelli^ence,  who  Iceeps  to  the  common  earth,  and  believes^ 
only  in  what  his  senses  aver  and  his  reason  accepis.  Büt 
"  there  is  nevertheless  a  spring  within  him  wfiich  tieed^only  bc 
touched  in  order  to  send  him  soaring  into  almost  dithyrambic 
poetry.  The  King  (i.  3)  has  called  Mortimer  a  traitor;  whcre- 
upon  Percy  protests  that  it  was  no  sham  warfare  that  Mortiiiier 
waged  against  Glendower : — 

**  To  prove  that  tnie, 
Needs  no  more  but  one  tongue  for  all  those  woundSi 
Those  mouthed  wounds,  which  valiantly  he  took, 
When  on  the  gentle  Sevem's  sedgy  bank. 
In  Single  Opposition,  band  to  band, 
He  did  confound  the  best  part  of  an  hour 
In  changing  hardiment  with  great  Glendower. 
Three  times  they  breath'd,  and  three  times  did  they  drink, 
Upon  agreement,  of  swift  Severn's  flood, 
Who  then,  affrighted  with  their  bloody  looks, 
Ran  fearfully  among  th^  trembling  reeds, 
And  hid  his  crisp  head  in  the  hoUow  bank 
Blood-stained  with  these  valiant  combatants." 

Thns  Homer  sings  of  the  Scamander. 

Worcester  broaches  to  Percy  an  enterprise 

"  As  füll  of  peril  and  adventurous  spirit, 
As  to  o'er-walk  a  current,  roaring  loud, 
On  the  unsteadfast  footing  of  a  spear ; " 

whcreon  Percy  bursts  forth  : — 

"  Send  danger  from  the  east  \yr\\f\  i-l^^  xmt^t^ 
^>ononour  cross  i**  fr^TP  ^^^  nnrth  fn  c/Mt»K^ 

And  let  thfim   g^Pr^**  '        C\\    \\m^  K^r>/^/^  tyi^i-^  efi^^ 

To  rouse  a  lion  than  to  start  a  harp," 

Northumberland  then  says  of  him  that  **  Imagination  of  some 
at  exploit  Drives  him  beyond  the  bounds  3 

tfcy  answers  !— 

"  By  Heaven,  methinks.  it  were  an  #>agy  l#>flp 


o  piucK  bnghi  honour  frqm  the  pale-fac'd  mooo. 
Ur  oive  mto  the  bottom  of  the  deep, 
Where  fathom-liqe  could  never  touch  ^"^^  pTftV^i 
Ä&d  pluck  up  drowned  honour 


IS 


•VjiftiHifTP 


What  a  profusion  of  imagery  is  placed  in  the  mouth  of  this 
despiser  of  rhetoric  and  music  I  From  the  comparatively  weak 
metapbor  of  the  speaJdng  wounds  up  to  actual  myth-makingl  Tht 


"HENRY  IV/*  175 

ver,  afirighted  by  the  bloody  looks  of  the  combatantSi  hides  its 
"isp  head  in  the  reeds — a  naiad  fantasy  in  classic  style.  DangeTi 
ishing  from  east  to  west,  hurtles  against  Honour,  crossing  it 
t)m  north  to  south— two  northem  Valkyries  in  füll  career.  The 
Teath  of  honour  is  hung  on  the  crescent  moon — a  metaphor  from 
le  tilting-yard,  expressed  in  terms  of  fairy  romance.  Drowned 
[oDOur  is  to  be  plucked  up  by  the  locks  from  the  bottom  of  the 
eep — having  now  become,  by  a  daring  personification,  a  damsel 
'ho  has  fallen  into  the  sea  and  must  be  rescued.  And  all  this  in 
iree  short  speeches ! 

Where  this  irrepressible  vivacity  of  fancy  is  lacking,  as  in 
\rden  of  Fevers/mm^  Shakespeare's  sign-manual  is  lacking  along 
dth  it.  Even  when  his  style  appears  sober  and  measured,  it  is 
aturated  with  what  may  be  called  latent  fantasy  (as  we  speak  of 
Ltent  electricity),  which  at  the  smallest  opportun  ity  bursts  its 
ounds,  explodes,  flashes  forth  before  our  eyes  like  the  figures  in 
pyrotechnic  set-piece,  and  fills  our  ears  as  with  the  music  of  a 
iishing,  leaping  waterfall.^ 

In  1 598  appeared  a  Quarto  with  the  following  title :  Tke 
Jistory  of  Henrie  Üu  Fovrth  ;  With  the  battell  at  Shrewsburie, 
etweene  the  King  and  Lord  Henry  Percy^  surnanud  Henrie 
{otspur  of  the  North,  With  the  hnmorous  conceits  of  Sir 
okn  Falstaffe,  At  London.  Printed  by  P.  S^  for  Andrew 
'Vise^  dwelling  in  Paules  Churchyard^  at  the  signe  of  the 
IngelL  1598.  This  was  the  First  Part  of  Shakespeare's 
ienry  /F.,  which  must  have  been  written  in  1597 — the  play 
[1  which  Shakespeare  first  attains  his  great  and  overwhelming 
ttdividuality.  At  the  age  of  thirty-three,  he  Stands  for  the  first 
ime  at  the  summit  of  his  artistic  greatness.  In  wealth  of  charac- 
er,  o£_wit  of  genius,  this  play  has  never  been  surpassed.  Its 
Iramatic  structure  is  somewhat  loose,  though  closer  knit  and 
echnically  stronger  than  that  of  the  Second  Part.  But,  as  a 
K>etical  creation,  it  is  one  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  the  world's 
iterature,  at  once  heroic  and  burlesque,  thrüling  and  side-split- 
ing.  And  these  contrasted  elements  are  not,  as  in  Victor  Hugo's 
Iramas,  brought  into  hard-and-fast  rhetorical  antithesis,  but  move 
ind  mingle  with  all  the  freedom  of  life. 

When  it  was  written,  the  sixteenth  Century,  that  great  period 
n  the  history  of  the  human  spirit,  was  drawing  to  its  close ;  but 
10  one  had  then  conceived  the  cowardly  idea  of  making  the  end 
>f  a  Century  a  sort  of  symbol  of  decadence  in  energy  and  vitality. 
^cver  had  the  waves  of  healthy  self-confidence  and  productive 
x>wer  run  higher  in  the  English  people  or  in  Shakespeare's  own 
nind.     Henry  /F.,  and  its  sequel  Henry  V.,  are  written  through- 

^  It  was  tbis  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  style,  at  tbe  period  we  are  now  con- 
ideriog,  that  so  deeply  influenced  Goethe  and  the  contemporaries  of  his  youth,  Lest 
aid  Klinger  (and,  in  Denmark,  Hauch  and  Bredahl),  determinin^  the  diction  of  thidur 
ngie  dramas.    Bjömion  ihows  tnoes  of  the  same  influence  in  \nft  Moria  Stuart  «b&. 


176  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

out  in  a  major  key  which  we  have  not  hitherto  heard  in  Shake- 
speare, and  which  we  shaU  not  hear  again. 

Shakespeare  finds  the  matter  for  these  plays  in  Holinsbed's 
Chronicle,  and  in  an  old,  quite  puerile  play,  The  Famous  Victorüs 
of  Henry  thefifth^  conteining  the  Honorable  Battell  of  Agin-court^ 
in  which  the  young  Prince  is  represented  as  frequenting  the  com- 
.  pany  of  roisterers  and  highway  robbers.  It  was  this,  no  doubt, 
that  suggested  to  him  the  novel  and  daring  idea  of  transferring 
direct  to  the  stage,  in  historical  guise,  a  series  of  scenes  from  the 
everyday  life  of  the  streets  and  taverns  around  him,  and  blending 
them  with  the  dramatised  chronicle  of  the  Prince  whom  he  re- 
garded  as  the  national  hero  of  England.  To  this  blending  we 
owe  the  matchless  freshness  of  the  whole  picture. 

For  the  rest,  Shakespeare  found  scarcely  anything  in  the 
foolish  old  play,  acted  between  1580  and  1588,  which  could  in 
any  way  serve  his  purpose.  He  took  from  it  only  the  anecdote 
of  the  box  on  the  ear  given  by  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  the  Lord 
Chief-Justice,  and  a  few  names — the  tavern  in  Eastcheap,  Gads- 
hill,  Ned,  and  the  name,  not  the  character,  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle, 
as  Falstaff  was  originally  called. 

Shakespeare  feit  himself  attracted  to  the  hero,  the  young 
Prince,  by  some  of  the  most  deep-rooted  sympathies  of  his 
nature.  We  iiave  seen  how  vividly  and  persistently  the  oon- 
trast  between  appearance  and  reality  preoccupied  him;  we  saw 
it  last  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  In  proportion  as  he  was 
irritated  and  repelled  by  people  who  try  to  pass  for  more  than 
tbey  are,  by  creatures  of  affectation  and  show,  even  by  women 
who  resort  to  artificial  colours  and  false  hair  in  quest  of  a  beauty 
not  their  own,  so  his  heart  beat  warmly  for  any  one  who  had  ap- 
pearances  against  him,  and  concealed  great  qualities  behind  an 
unassuming  and  misinterpreted  exterior.  His  whole  Ufe,  indeed, 
was  just  such  a  paradox — his  soul  was  replete  with  the  greatest 
treasures,  with  rieh  humanity  and  inexhaustible  genius,  while 
extemally  he  was  little  better  than  a  light-minded  mountebank, 
touting,  with  quips  and  quiddities,  for  the  ha'pence  of  the  mob. 
Now  and  then,  as  his  Sonnets  show,  the  pressure  of  this  out- 
ward prejudice  so  weighed  upon  him  that  he  came  near  to  being 
ashamed  of  his  position  in  life,  and  of  the  tinsel  world  in  which 
his  days  were  passed;  and  then  he  feit  with  double  force  the 
inward  need  to  assure  himself  how  great  may  be  the  gulf  between 
the  apparent  and  the  real  worth  of  human  character. 

Moreover,  this  view  of  his  material  gave  him  an  occasion, 
before  tuning  the  heroic  string  of  his  l3rre,  to  put  in  a  word  for  the 
right  of  high-spirited  youth  to  have  its  fling,  and  indirectly  to  pro- 
test  against  the  hasty  judgments  of  narrow-minded  moralista  and 
Puritans.  He  would  here  show  that  great  ambitions  and  heroic 
enei^  could  pass  unscathed  through  the  dangers  even  of 
cecdingly  questionable  diversions.     This  Prince  of  Wales 


SHAKESPEARES  TAVERN  LIFE  177 

merry  England "  and  **  martial  England  "  in  one  and  the  same 
UBon. 

[^  For  the  young  noblemen  among  the  audience,  again,  nothing 
»uld  be  roore  attractive  than  to  see  this  great  King,  in  his  youth, 
lunting  such  resorts  as  they  themselves  frequented,  and  yet,  as 
le  best  of  them  also  tried  to  do,  preserving  the  consciousness  of 
B  high  dignity,  the  hope  of  a  great  future,  and  the  determination 
»  achieve   renown,   even   while  associating  with   Falstaff  and 
ardolph;  Dame  Quickly  and  Doli  Tearsheet. 
I^hese  young  English  aristocrats,  who  in  Shakespeare  appear 
iiäer  the  names  of  Mercutioand  Benedick,  Gratiano  and  Lorenzo, 
lade  pleasure  their  pursuit  through  the  whole  of  the  London  day. 
»ressed  in  silk  or  ash-coloured  velvet,  and  with  gold  lace  on  his 
oak,  the  young  man  of  fashion  began  by  riding  to  St.  Paul's  and 
romenading  half-a-dozen  times  up  and  down  its  middle  aisle. 
[e  then  **  repaired  to  the  Exchange,  and  talked  pretty  Euphuisms 
)  the  Citizens'  daughters/'  or  looked  in  at  the  bookseller's  to  in- 
pect  the  latest  play-book  or  pamphlet  against  tobacco.     Next  he 
xle  to  the  ordinary  where  he  had  appointed  to  meet  his  friends 
ad  dine.    At  dinner  he  discussed  Drake's  expedition  to  Portugal, 
r  Essex's  exploits  at  Cadiz,  or  told  how  he  had  yesterday  broken 
lance  with  Raleigh  himself  at  the  Tilt-yard.     He  would  mingle 
[latches  of  Italian  and  Spanish  with  his  talk,  and  let  himself 
e  persuaded,  after  dinner,  to  recite  a  sonnet  of  his  own  composi- 
on.     At  three  he  betook  himself  to  the  theatre,  saw  Burbage  as 
Lichard  IIL,  and  applauded  Kemp  in  his  new  jig;  after  which  he 
rould  spend  an  hour  at  the  bear-garden.   Then  to  the  barber's,  to 
ave  his  hair  and  beard  trimmed,  in  preparation  for  the  carouse  of 
le  evening  at  whichever  tavern  he  and  his  friends  had  selected — 
le  "  Mitre,"  the  "  Falcon,"  the  "  ApoUo,"  the  "  Boar's  Head,"  the 
Dcvil,"  or  (most  famous  of  all)  the   "Mermaid/'  where  the 
terary  club,  the  Syren,  founded  by  none  other  than  Sir  Walter 
Laleigh  himself,  held  its  meetings.^     In  these  places  the  young 
ristocrat  rubbed  Shoulders  with  the   leading  players,  such  as 
(urbage  and  Kemp,  and  with  the  best-known  men  of  letters, 
uch  as  John   Lyly,   George   Chapman,  John    Florio,   Michael 
>rayton,   Samuel    Daniel,  John   Marston,  Thomas  Nash,   Ben 
onson,  William  Shakespeare. 

Thornbury  has  aptly  remarked  that  the  characteristic  of  the 
Uizabethan  age  was  its  sociability.  People  were  always  meeting 
t  St  Paul's,  the  theatre,  or  the  tavern.  Family  intercourse,  on 
he  other  band,  was  almost  unknown;  women,  as  in  ancient 
ii^eece,  played  no  prominent  part  in  society.  The  men  gathered 
t  the  tavern  club  to  drink,  talk,  and  enjoy  themselves.  The 
estive  bowl  circulated  freely,  even  more  so  than  in  Denmark, 
rhicb  nevertheless  passed  for  the  toper's  paradise.  (Compare 
be  utterances  on  this  subject  in  Hamlet^  i.  4,  and  Othello^  iL  3.) 

^  Thombnry :  Shdkiptr^s  Eniland^  i  104,  et  seq. 


178  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  tavems  were,  moreover,  favourite  places  for  the  rcndezvoos 
of  court  gallants  with  Citizens'  wives ;  fast  young  men  would  tning 
their  mistresses  with  them,  and  here,  after  supper,  gambling  went 
on  merrily. 

At  the  tavernsy  writers  and  poets  met  in  good  fellowship,  and 
carried  on  wordy  wars,  battles  of  wit,  sparkling  with  mirth  and 
fantasy.  They  were  like  tennis-rallies  of  words,  in  which  the 
great  thing  was  to  tire  out  your  adversary ;  they  were  skirmishes 
in  which  the  combatants  poured  into  each  other  whole  volIeys.of 
conceits.  Beaumont  has  celebrated  them  in  some  verses  to  Ben 
Jonson,  who»  both  as  a  great  drinker  and  as  an  entertaining  ma^gis^ 
ter  üötfuü,  was  much  admired  and  fdted : — 

"  What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid !  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  füll  of  subtile  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest 
And  had  resol^d  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Ofhisdulllife." 

In  his  comedy  Every  Man  out  of  His  Humour  (v.  4),  Ben 
Jonson  has  introduced  either  himself  or  Marston,  under  the  name 
of  Carlo  Buffone,  waiting  alone  for  his  friends  at  the  ''  Mitre/'  and 
has  placed  these  words  in  Carlo's  mouth  when  the  waiter,  George^ 
has  brought  him  the  wine  he  had  ordered : — 

"  Carlo  {drinks),  Ay,  marry,  sir,  here's  purity ;  O  George — I  could 
bite  off  his  nose  for  this  now,  sweet  rogue,  he  has  drawn  nectar,  the 
very  soul  of  the  grape !  1*11  wash  my  temples  with  some  on't  presentiy, 
and  drink  some  half  a  score  draughts ;  'twill  heat  the  brain,  kindle  my 
imagination,  I  shall  talk  nothing  but  Crackers  and  fireworks  to-night 
So,  sir  1  please  you  to  be  here,  sir,  and  I  here :  so.  (Sets  the  iwo  atp$ 
asunder^  drinks  with  the  one^  and  pledges  with  the  other ^  speaking  for  eaA 
of  the  cups^  and  drinking  altemately,y* 

Well  known  and  often  quoted  is  the  passage  in  Fuller's 
Worthies  as  to  the  many  wit-combats  between  Shakespeare  and 
the  leamed  Ben : — 

"Which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish great  Gallion  and  an  EngUsk 
man  of  War:  Mzsüex  Johnson  (like  the  former)  was  built  far  liigher  in 
Leaming ;  Solide  but  Siow  in  his  Performances.  Shake-spear^  with  the 
English  man  of  War,  lesser  in  butk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  tum 
with  all  tides,  tack  about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by  the 
quickness  of  his  Wit  and  Invention." 

Although  Füller  was  not  himself  present  at  these  s}rmpoaa9 
yet  his  account  of  them  bears  the  stamp  of  complete  authentidty. 

Among  the  members  of  the  circle  which  Shakespeare,  in  bis 
youth  frequented,  there  must,  of  course,  have  been.types  of  eveiy 


SHAKESPEARE'S  CIRCLE  179 

Idad,  from  tfae  genius  down  to  the  grotesque;  and  there  were 
tame^  no  doubt,  in  whom  the  genius  and  the  grotesque,  the  wit 
and  the  butt,  must  have  quaintly  intermingled.  As  every 
great  household  had  at  that  time  its  jester,  so  every  convivial 
drcle  had  its  clown  or  buffoon.  The  jester  was  the  terror  of  the 
kitchen — ^for  he  would  steal  a  pudding  the  moment  the  cook's  back 
was  tumed — and  the  delight  of  the  dinner-table,  where  he  would 
mimic  voices,  crack  jokes,  play  pranks,  and  dissipate  the  spieen 
of  the  noble  Company.  The  comic  man  of  the  tavem  circle  was 
both  witty  himself  and  the  cause  of  wit  in  others.  He  was  always 
the  butt  of  the  others'  merriment,  yet  he  always  held  his  own  in 
the  contest,  and  ended  by  getting  the  best  of  his  tormentors. 

To  Shakespeare's  circle  Chetüe  must  doubtless  have  belonged, 
that  Chettle  who  in  bygone  days  had  published  Greene's  Groats- 
worth  of  IVü,  and  afterwards  made  amends  to  Shakespeare  for 
Greene's  coarse  attack  upon  him.  In  Dekker's  tract,  A  Knights 
Confuringf  dating  from  1607,  ^^  figures  among  the  poets  in 
Elysium,  where  he  is  introduced  in  the  following  terms: — "In 
comes  Chettle  sweating  and  blowing,  by  reason  of  his  fatnes;  to 
welcome  whom,  because  hee  was  of  olde  acquaintance,  all  rose  vp, 
and  feU  presentlie  on  their  knees,  to  drinck  a  health  to  all  the 
louers  of  Hellicon."  Elze  has  conjectured,  possibly  with  justice, 
that  in  this  puffing  and  sweating  old  tun  of  flesh,  who  is  so 
whimsically  greeted  with  mock  reverence  by  the  whole  gay  Com- 
pany, we  have  the  very  model  from  whom  Shakespeare  drew  his 
demigod,  the  immortal  Sir  John  Falstaff,  beyond  comparison  the  X 
gayest,  most  concrete,  and  most  entertaining  figure  in  European 
comedy. 

In  his  close-woven  and  unflagging  mirthfulness,  in  the  inex- 
haustible  wealth  of  drollery  concentrated  in  his  person,  Falstaff  V 
surpasses  all  that  antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages  have  produced  in 
the  way  of  comic  character,  and  all  that  the  stage  of  later  times 
can  show. 

There  is  in  him  something  of  the  old  Greek  Silenus,  swag- 
bellied  and  infinitely  jovial,  and  something  of  the  Vidushakas  of 
the  old  Indian  drama,  half  court-fool,  half  friend  and  comrade  to 
the  hero.  He  unites  in  himself  the  two  comic  types  of  the  old 
Roman  comedy,  Artotrogus  and  Pyrgopolinices,  the  parasite  and 
the  boastful  soldier.  Like  the  Roman  scurra^  he  leaves  his  patron 
to  pay  the  reckoning,  and  in  retum  entertains  him  with  his  jests, 
and,  like  the  Miles  GloriosuSf  he  is  a  braggart  above  all  braggarts, 
a  liar  above  all  liars.  Yet  he  is  in  his  single  person  richer  and 
more  entertaining  than  aU  the  ancient  Silenuses  and  court-fools 
and  braggarts  and  parasites  put  together. 

In  the  Century  after  he  came  into  existence,  Spain  and  France 
eadi  developed  its  own  theatre.  In  France  there  is  only  one 
quaint  and  amusing  person,  Moron  in  Moliire's  La  Princesu 
kAtitU^  who  bears  some  iaint  resemblance  to  Falstaff.    In  Spain» 


l8o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

where  the  great  and  delightful  character  of  Sancho  Panza  aflfoids 
the  starting-point  for  the  whole  series  of  comic  figures  in  the 
works  of  Calderon,  the  Gracioso  Stands  in  perpetual  contrast  to 
the  hero,  and  here  and  there  reminds  us  for  a  moment  of  Faistaff, 
but  always  only  as  an  abstraction  of  one  side  or  another  of  bis 
nature,  or  because  of  some  external  similarity  of  Situation.  In 
La  Dama  Duende  he  is  a  drunkard  and  coward;  in  La  Gran 
Cenobia  he  boasts  fantastically,  and,  like  Falstaff,  becomes  en- 
tangled  in  bis  lies.  In  La  Puente  de  Mantible  he  actually  becomes 
(as  it  appears  from  the  scenes  with  the  Chief  Justice  and  Colevile 
that  FalstafT  also  was)  renowned  and  dreaded  for  his  militaiy 
valour;  yet  he  is,  like  Falstaff,  extremely  ill  at  ease  when  there  is 
any  fighting  to  be  done,  often  creeping  into  cover,  hiding  himself 
behind  a  bush,  or  climbing  a  tree.  In  La  Hija  del  Ayre  and  El 
Principe  Constante  he  uses  precisely  the  device  adopted  by  Fal- 
staff  and  certain  lower  animals,  of  lying  down  and  shamming 
death.  Hernando  in  Los  Empeüos  de  un  Acaso  (like  Moliire's 
Moron)  expresses  sentiments  very  similar  to  those  of  FalstafT  in 
his  celebrated  discourse  upon  honour.  FalstafTs  airs  of  protec- 
tion, his  bland  fatherliness,  we  find  in  Fabio  in  El  Secreto  a  Voces. 
Thus  Single  characteristics,  detached  sides  of  FalstafTs  character, 
have'  to  do  duty  as  complete  personages.  Calderon  as  a  rule  looks 
with  fatherly  benevolence  upon  his  Gracioso.  Yet  he  sometimes 
loses  patience,  as  it  were,  with  his  bufibon's  epicurean,  unchris- 
tian,  and  unchivalrous  view  of  life.  In  La  Vida  es  SueHo^  for 
instance,  a  cannon-ball  kills  poor  Clarin,  who  has  crept  behind  a 
bush  during  the  battle ;  the  moral  being  that  the  coward  does  not 
escape  danger  any  more  than  the  brave  man.  Calderon  bestowa 
on  him  a  very  solemn  funeral  speech,  almost  as  moral  as  King 
Henry's  parting  words  to  Falstaff. 

It  is  certain,  of  course,  that  neither  Calderon  nor  Moli^re  knew 
anything  of  Shakespeare  or  of  Falstaff;  and  3bakespeare,  for  his 
part,  was  equally  uninfluenced  by  any  of  his  predecessors  on  the 
Comic  stage,  when  he  conceived  his  fat  knight. 

Nevertheless  there  is  among  Shakespeare's  predecessors  a 
great  writer,  one  of  the  greatest,  with  whom  we  cannot  but  com- 
pare  him ;  to  wit,  Rabelais,  the  master  spirit  of  the  early  Renais- 
sance in  France.  He  is,  moreover,  one  of  the  few  great  writers 
with  whom  Shakespeare  is  known  to  have  been  acquainted.  He 
alludes  to  him  in  As  You  Like  It  (iii.  2),  where  Celia  says,  when 
Rosalind  asks  her  a  dozen  questions  and  bids  her  answer  in  one 
Word:  "You  must  borrow  me  Gargantua's  mouth  first:  'tis  a 
Word  too  great  for  any  mouth  of  this  age's  size." 

If  we  compare  Falstaff  with  Panurge,  we  see  that  Rabelais 
Stands  to  Shakespeare  in  the  relation  of  a  Titan  to  an  Olympian 
god.  Rabelais  is  gigantic,  disproportioned,  potent,  but  formless.' 
Shakespeare  is  smaller  and  less  ezcessive,  poorer  in  ideas,  thougb 
Midier  in  fancies,  and  moulded  with  the  utmost  firmuess  of  outline. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  RABELAIS  i8i 

Rabdais  died  at  the  age  of  seventy,  ten  years  before  Shake^ 
speare  was  bom;  there  is  between  them  all  the  difTerence  be- 
tween  the  moming  and  the  noon  of  the  Renaissance.  Rabelais 
is  a  poet|  philosopher,  polemist,  reformeri  "even  to  the  very  fire 
ezdusively/'  but  always  threatened  with  the  stake.  Shakespeare's 
coarseness  compared  with  Rabelais's  is  as  a  manure-bed  com- 
pared  with  the  Chaca  Maxima.  Burlesque  uncleanness  pours  in 
floods  from  the  Frenchman's  pen. 

His  Panurge  is  larger  than  FalstafT,  as  Utgard-Loki  is  larger  , 
than  Asa-LokL  Panurge,  like  Falstaff»  is  loquacious,  witty, 
crafty,  and  utterly  unscnipulous,  a  humorist  who  stops  the 
mouüis  of  all  around  him  by  unblushing  effrontery.  In  war, 
Panurge  is  no  more  of  a  hero  than  FalstafT,  but,  like  Falstaif,  he 
Stabs  the  foemen  who  have  already  fallen.  He  is  superstitious, 
yet  his  bufToonery  holds  nothing  sacred,  and  he  steals  from  the 
church-plate.  He  is  thoroughly  selfish|  sensual,  and  slothful, 
shameless,  revengeful,  and  light-fingered,  and  as  time  goes  on 
becomes  ever  a  greater  poltroon  and  braggart. 

Pantagniel  is  the  noble  knight,  a  king's  son,  like  Prince  Henry. 
Like  the  Prince,  he  has  bne  foible :  he  cannot  resist  the  attrac- 
tions  of  low  Company.  When  Panurge  is  witty,  Pantagniel  can- 
not deny  himself  the  pleasure  of  laughing  at  his  side-splitting 
drolleries. 

But  Panurge,  unlike  Falsta£f,  is  a  satire  on  the  largest 
Scale.  In  representing  him  as  a  notable  economist  or  master 
of  finance,  who  calls  borrowing  credit-creating,  and  has  63 
methods  of  raising  money  and  214  methods  of  spending 
ity  Rabelais  made  him  an  abstract  and  brief  chronicle  of  the 
French  court  of  his  day.  In  giving  him  a  yearly  revenue  from 
his  barony  of  "6,789,106,789  royaulx  en  deniers  certain,"  to  say 
nothing  of  the  fluctuating  revenue  of  the  locusts  and  periwinkles, 
'^montant  hon  an  mal  an  de  2,435,768  k  2,435,769  moutons  k  la 
grande  laine,"  Rabelais  was  aiming  his  satire  direct  at  the  un- 
blushing extortion  which  was  at  that  time  the  glory  and  delight 
of  the  French  feudal  nobility. 

Shakespeare  does  not  venture  so  far  in  the  direction  of  satire. 
He  is  only  a  poet,  and  as  a  poet  Stands  simply  on  the  defensive. 
The  only  power  he  can  be  said  to  attack  is  Puritanism  {Twelfth 
Night y  Measure  for  Measure,  &c.),  and  that  only  in  self-defence. 
His  attacks,  too,  are  exceedingly  mild  in  comparison  with  those 
of  the  cavalier  poets  before  the  victory  of  Puritanism  and  after 
the  reopening  of  the  theatres.  But  Shakespeare  was  what 
Rabelais  was  not,  an  artist;  and  as  an  artist  he  wa^  a  very 
Prometheus  in  his  power  of  creating  human  beiiigs. 

As  an  artist  he  has  also  the  exuberant  fertility  which  we  find 
in  Rabelais,  even  surpassing  him  in  some  respects.  Max  Müller 
has  long  ago  remarked  upon  the  wealth  of  his  vocabulary«  In 
this  he  seems  to  suipass  all  other  writers.    An  IXaliäaxi  ov(x%i» 


i8j  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

libretto  seldom  contains  more  than  600  or  700  words.  A  wdl- 
educated  modern  Englishmani  in  social  intercourse,  will  nun^ 
use  more  than  3000  or  4000.  It  has  been  calcnlated  that  aoits 
thinkers  and  great  orators  in  England  are  masters  of  as  many  is 
lo,OCX>  words.  The  Old  Testament  contains  only  5642  wordi. 
Shakespeare  has  employed  more  than  I5|000  words  in  bis  poemi 
and  plays;  and  in  few  of  the  latter  do  we  find  such  overflowiDg 
fulness  of  expression  as  in  Henry  IV, 

In  the  original  form  of  the  play,  Falstaffs  name,  as  already 
mentionedi  was  Sir  John  Oldcastle.  A  trace  of  this  remains  in 
the  second  scene  of  the  first  act  (Part  L),  where  the  Prince  calls 
the  fat  knight  "  my  old  lad  of  the  Castle."  In  the  second  scene 
of  the  second  act  the  hne,  "  Away,  good  Ned,  FalstafT  sweats  to 
death/'  is  short  of  a  syllable,  because  the  dissyllable  Falsta£f  bat 
been  substituted  for  the  trisyllable  Oldcastle.  In  the  eailiest 
Quarto  of  the  Second  Part,  the  contraction  Old,  has  been  kft 
before  one  of  Falstaff's  speeches;  and  in  Act  ii.  Sc.  2  of  ibe 
same  play,  it  is  said  of  FalstafT  that  he  was  page  to  Thomas 
Mowbray,  Duke  of  Norfolk,  a  position  which  the  historic  Oldcasde 
actually  held.  Oldcastle,  however,  was  so  far  from  being  the  booo 
companion  depicted  by  Shakespeare  that  he  was,  at  the  instanoe 
of  Henry  V.  himself,  handed  over  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts  as 
an  adherent  of  Wicklif  s  heresies,  and  roasted  over  a  slow  fire 
outside  the  walls  of  London  on  Christmas  morning  1417.  His 
descendants  having  protested  against  the  degradation  to  which 
the  name  of  their  ancestor  was  subjected  in  the  play,  the  fat 
knight  was  rechristened.  Therefore,  too,  it  is  stated  in  the 
Epilogue  to  the  Second  Part  that  the  author  intends  to  produoe 
a  further  continuation  of  the  story,  "  where,  for  anything  I  know, 
FalstafT  shall  die  of  a  sweat  .  .  .  for  OldcastU  died  a  martyr^ 
and  this  is  not  the  manP 

Under  the  name  of  FalstafT  he  became,  after  the  lapse  of  hall* 
a  Century,  the  most  populär  of  Shakespeare's  creations.  Between 
1642  and  1694  he  is  more  frequently  mentioned  than  any  other  of 
Shakespeare's  characters.  But  it  is  noteworthy  that  in  his  own 
time,  although  populär  enough,  he  was  not  alluded  to  nearly  so 
often  as  Hamlet,  who,  up  to  1642,  is  mentioned  forty-five  times 
to  FalstafiTs  twenty;  even  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Romeo  and 
Juliet  are  mentioned  oftener  than  he,  and  Lucrece  quite  as  oflen.^ 
The  dement  of  low  comedy  in  his  figure  made  it,.accordingto 
the  notions  of  the  day,  obviously  less  distinguished,  and  peojde 
stood  too  near  to  FalstafT  to  appreciate  him  fuUy. 

He  was,  as  it  were,  the  wine-god  of  merry  England  at  the 
meeting  of  the  centuries.  Never  before  or  since  has  England 
enjoyed  so  many  sorts  of  beverages.  There  was  ale,  and  all  other 
kinds  of  strong  and  small  beer,  and  apple-drink,  and  honey-drink| 
and  strawberry-drink,  and  three  sorts  of  mead  (meath,  metfaegim, 

^  Frtsh  AUuswm  t0  Skakespean^  pi  372. 


SIR  JOHN  FALSTAFF  183 

iiydromel),  and  every  drink  was  fragrant  of  fiowers  and  spiced 
mth  herbs.  In  white  meath  alone  there  was  infuscd  rosemary 
ind  thymCi  sweet-briar,  pennyroyal,  bays,  water-cresses,  agri- 
nony,  marsh-mallow,  liverwort,  maiden-hair,  betony,  eye-bright, 
scabious,  ash-leaves,  eringo  roots,  wild  angelica,  rib-wort,  sennicle, 
Etoman  wormwood,  tamarisk,  mother  thyme,  saxifrage,  philipen- 
iula;  and  strawberries  and  violet-leaves  were  often  added. 
Cherry-wine  and  sack  wcre  mixed  with  gillyflower  syrup.^ 

There  were  fifty-six  varieties  of  French  wine  in  use,  and 
thirty-siz  of  Spanish  and  Italian,  to  say  nothing  of  the  many 
tiome*made  kinds.  Biit  among  the  foreign  wines  none  was  so 
famous  as  FalstafiTs  favourite  sherris-sack.  It  took  its  name  from 
Keres  in  Spain,  but  differed  from  the  modern  Sherry  in  being  a 
sweet  wine.  It  was  the  best  of  its  kind»  possessing  a  much  finer 
bouquet  than  sack  from  Malaga  or  the  Canary  Islands  (Jeppe  paa 
Bjergets,  '' Canari-Ssek ''),'  although  these  were  stronger  and 
iweeter.  Sweet  as  it  was  too,  people  were  in  the  habit  of  putting 
sugar  into  it  The  English  taste  has  never  been  very  delicate. 
Falstaffalways  put  sugar  into  his  wine.  Hence  his  words  when 
he  is  playing  the  Prince  while  the  Prince  impersonates  the  king 
[Pt.  First,  ii.  4) : — "  If  sack  and  sugar  be  a  fault,  God  help  the 
wicked/'  He  puts  not  only  sugar  but  toast  in  his  wine:  ^'Go 
fetch  me  a  quart  of  sack,  put  a  toast  in  it "  {Merry  IVives,  iii.  5). 
On  the  other  band,  he  does  not  like  (as  others  did)  to  have  it  mulled 
with  eggs :  "  Brew  me  a  pottle  of  sack  .  .  .  simple  of  itself ;  I'U 
no  puUet-sperm  in  my  brewage "  (Merry  Wives^  iii.  5).  And  no 
less  did  he  resent  its  sophistication  with  Urne,  an  ingredient  which 
the  vintners  used  to  increase  its  strength  and  make  it  keep :  ''  You 
rogue,  here's  lime  in  this  sack,  too.  .  .  .  A  coward  is  worse  than 
X  cup  of  sack  with  lime  in  it ''  (I.  Henry  IV.j  ii.  4).  Falilirffaptaa  \y 
g;r€at  a  wine-knower  and  wine-lover  as  Silenus  himself.  But  he  is 
infinitely  more  than  that. 

He  is  one  of  the  brightest  and  wittiest  spirits  England  has 
sver  produced.  He  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  creations  thatl 
ever  sprang  from  a  poet's  brain.  There  is  much  rascality  and 
tnuch  genius  in  him,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  mediocrity.  He  is 
always  superior  to  his  surroundings,  always  resourceful,  always 
witty,  always  at  his  ease,  often  put  to  shame,  but,  thanks  to  his 
inventive  effrontery,  never  put  out  of  countenance.  He  has  fallen 
below  his  social  position;  he  lives  in  the  worst  (though  also  in 
the  best)  society;  he  has  neither  soul,  nor  honour,  nor  moral 
aense;  but  he  sins,  robs,  lies,  and  boasts,  with  such  splendid 
exuberance,  and  is  so  far  above  any  serious  attempt  at  hypocrisy, 
that  he  seems  unfailingly  amiable  whatever  he  may  choose  to  do. 

^  Thornbaxy :  Skakspir^s  England,  L  227  ;  Nathan  Drake,  Shakapeart  and  His 
Times,  iL  131. 

*  Jeppe  paa  Bjerget,  a  Danish  Abou  Hassan  or  Chzistopher  Sly,  is  the  heio  of 
of  Holbergfs  moit  admirable  comedies. 


l84  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

lerefore  he  charms  every  one,  although  he  is  a  butt  for  ihe  wk 
alL  He  perpetually  surprises  us  by  the  wealth  of  bis  natuie. 
He  is  old  and  youthful,  comipt  and  harmlesS|  cowardly  and 
daring,  ''a  knave  without  malicey  a  liar  without  deceit;  and  a 
knight,  a  gentleman,  and  a  soldier,  without  either  dignity,  deoengr» 
or  honour."  ^  The  young  Prince  shows  good  taste  in  always  and 
m  spite  of  everything  seelung  out  bis  Company. 

'How  witty  he  is  in  the  brilliant  scene  where  Shakespeare  is 
daring  enough  to  let  bim  parody  in  advance  the  meeting  between 
Prince  Henry  and  bis  offended  father  I  And  with  what  sly  humour 
does  Shakespeare,  through  bis  mouth,  poke  fun  at  Lyly  and 
Greene  and  Üie  old  play  of  King  Cambyses !  How  delightfui  is 
FalstafTs  unabashed  self-mockery  when  he  thus  apostrophiaes 
the  hapless  merchants  wbom  he  is  plundering : — 

"Ab!  whoreson  caterpillars !  bacon-fed  knaves!  they  hate  us 
youth:  down  with  them ;  fleecethem.  .  .  .  Hang  ye^  gorbellied  kna^es, 
Are  ye  undone?  No,  ye  fat  chuffs;  I  would  your  störe  were  heret 
On,  bacons,  on  1    What  1  ye  knaves,  young  men  must  live." 

And  what  humour  there  is  in  bis  habit  of  self-pitying  regret  that 
his  youth  and  inexperience  sbould  have  been  led  astray : — 

"  I'U  be  damned  for  never  a  king's  son  in  Christendom.   .    •   •  I 
bave  forswom  his  Company  hourly  any  time  this  two-and-twenty  yean, 
and  yet  I  am  bewitched  with  the  rogue's  Company.   .   .   •   Company, 
illamous  Company,  hath  been  the  spoil  of  me." 

But  if  he  has  not  been  led  astray,  neither  is  be  the  "  abomin- 

^     able  misleader  of  youth  "  wbom  Prince  Henry,  impersonating  the 

'    King,  makes  bim  out  to  be.     For  to  this  character  there  belongs 

Jmalicious  intent,  of  which  Falstaif  is  innocent  enough.     It  is  un- 

jmistakable,  however,  that  while  in  the  First  Part  of  Henry  IV. 

Shakespeare  keeps  Falstaff  a  purely  comic  figure,  and  dissipates 

in  the  ether  of  laughter  wbatever  is  base  and  unclean  in  his  nature^ 

the  longer  he  works  upon  the  character,  and  the  more  he  feels  the 

necessity  of  contrasting  the  moral  strength  of  the  Prince's  natuie 

mth  the  worthlessness  of  his  early  surroundings,  the  more  ia  he 

tempted  to  let  Falstaff  deteriorate.     In  the  Second  Part  his  wit 

becomes  coarser,  his  conduct  more  indefensible,  his  cynicism  less 

genial;  while  his  relation  to  the  bostess,  wbom  he  cozens  and 

plunders,   is  wholly  base.     In  the  First  Part  of  the  play  he 

takes  a  whole-hearted  delight  in  himself,  in  bis  jollifications,  his 

drolleries,  bis  ezploits  on  the«  bighway,  and  bis  almost  purposeless 

mendacity ;  in  the  Second  Part  be  falls  more  and  more  under  the 

y  suspicion  of  making  capital  out  of  the  Prince,  while  he  is  found  in 

^  Maurice  Morgtim :  An  Einof  üt$  tki  Dramatü  CkaraeUr  cf  Sir  Jgkm  Pkbkf% 
p.  iSa 


SIR  JOHN  FALSTAFF  185 

ev^  worse  and  worse  Company.  The  scheme  of  tfae  wbole,  in- 
deed,  demands  that  there  shall  come  a  moment  when  the  Prinoei 
irho  has  succeeded  to  the  throne  and  its  attendant  responsibilitieSy 
■hall  put  on  a  serious  countenance  and  brandish  the  thunderbolts 
of  retribution. 

But  here,  in  the  First  Part,  Falstaff  is  still  a  demi-god,  suprei 
alike  in  intellect  and  in  wit  With  this  figure  the  populär  drama 
which  Shakespeare  represented  won  its  first  dedsive  battle  ov< 
the  literary  drama  which  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Seneca. 
can  actuaUy  hear  the  laughter  of  the  "yard''  and  the  gallery 
surging  aroimd  bis  Speeches  like  waves  around  a  boat  at  sea.  It 
was  the  old  sketch  of  ParoUes  in  Love^s  Labaut's  Won  (see  above, 
p.  49),  which  had  here  taken  on  a  new  amplitude  of  flesh  and 
blood.  There  was  much  to  delight  the  groundlings — Falstaff  is  ^ 
so  fat  and  yet  so  mercurial,  so  old  and  yet  so  youthful  in  all  bis 
tastes  and  vices.  But  there  was  far  more  to  delight  the  spectators 
of  higher  culture,  in  bis  marvellous  quickness  of  fence,  which  can 
parry  every  thrust,  and  in  the  readiness  which  never  leaves  bim 
tongue-tied,  or  allows  bim  to  confess  bimself  beaten.  Yes,  there 
was  something  for  every  class  of  spectators  in  this  mountain  of 
flesh|  exuding  wit  at  every  pore,  in  this  bero  witbout  shame  or 
conscience,  in  this  robber,  poltroon,  and  liar,  wbose  mendacity  is 
quite  poetic,  Münchausenesque,  in  this  cynic  with  the  brazen 
forehead  and  a  tongue  as  supple  as  a  Toledo  blade.  His  talk  is 
like  Bellman's  after  bim : — 

"  A  dance  of  all  the  gods  upon  Olympus, 
With  fauns  and  giaces  and  the  muses  twined."  ^ 

The  men  of  the  Renaissance  revelled  in  his  wit,  much  as  the  men 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  enjoyed  the  populär  legends  of  Reinecke 
Fuchs  and  bis  rogueries. 

Falstaff  reaches  his  higbest  point  of  wit  and  droUery  in  that/^ 
typical  soliloquy  on  honour,  in  which  he  indulges  on  the  battle- 
field  of  Sbrewsbury  (I.  Henry  IV.,  v.  i),  a  soliloquy  which  almost 
categorically  sums  bim  up,  in  contradistinction  to  the  other  leading 
personages.  For  all  the  characters  here  stand  in  a  certain  relatioiA 
to  the  idea  of  honour — the  King,  to  whom  honour  means  dignity ;  j 
Hotspur,  to  whQm  jt  m^^anfi  (}^p  hiU  ttf  rtnoTTn  •  the  Prince,  who 
loves  it  as  the  opposite  of  outward  show ;  and  Falstaff,  who,  in  bis 
passionate  appetite  for  the  material  good  things  of  life,  rises  en- 
tirely  superior  to  it  and  shows  its  notbingness : — 

*'  Honour  pricks  me  on.  Yea,  but  how  if  honour  prick  me  off  when 
I  come  on  ?  how  then  ?  Can  honour  set  to  a  leg  ?  No.  Or  an  arm  ^ 
No.  Or  take  away  the  grief  of  a  wound  ?  No.  Honour  bath  no  and 
in  surgery  then  ?    No.    What  is  honour  ?    A  word.    What  is  that 

>  From  a  poem  by  Tegn^r  on  BeUman,  the  Swediih  ooixwvwkl  W^^^  ^ 

^  4d  be  coü- 


i86  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

[  honour?  Air.  A  trim  reckoning! — Who  hath  it?  He  that  died  & 
Wednesday.  Doth  he  feel  it ?  No.  Doth  he  hetr  it?  No.  Isitin- 
1  sensible  then?  Yea,  to  the  dead  Bat  will  it  not  live  with  the  living? 
!Na  Why?  Detraction  will  not  suffer  it — Therefore,  111  none  of  it: 
\honoiir  is  a  mere  scutcheon ;  and  so  ends  my  catechism.'' 

I  FalstafTwill  be  no  slave  to  honour;  he  will  rather  do  without 
ft  altogether.  He  demonstrates  in  practice  how  a  man  can  live 
Vithout  it^  and  we  do  not  miss  it  in  him,  so  perfect  is  he  in  his 
vray* 


\ 


11 

k 

1 
r 


p.iSa 


L. 


XXIII 

BBNRY  PBRCY—THB  UASTBRY  OP  THB  CHARACTBR" 
DRAWINQ— HOTSPÜR  AND  ACHILLBS 

In  contrast  to  Falstaff,  Shakespeare  has  placed  the  man  whom 
bis  ally  Douglas  expressly  calls  ''the  kinfj;  of  h9j;|(^iir" — a  figure 
as  firmly  moulded  and  as  great  as  the  Achilles  of  the  Greeks  or 
Donatello's  Italian  St  George — "^'n  H^tT"^  ^f  ^^^  N^rth/^  an 

fe  äironicle  and  the  ballad  of  Douglas  and  Percy  gave 
Shakespeare  no  more  than  the  name  and  the  dates  of  a  couple  of 
battles.  He  seized  upon  the  name  Harry  Percy,  and  although 
its  bearer  was  not  historically  of  the  same  age  as  Prince  Henry, 
but  as  9ld  as  bis  father,  the  King,  he  docked  him  of  a  score  of 
years,  with  the  poetical  design  of  opposing  to  the  hero  of  the 
play  a  rival  who  should  be  his  peer,  and  should  at  first  seem  to 
outshine  him. 

is  he  who  would  have  found  it  easy  to  pluck  down  honour  from  ^ 
the  moon  or  drag  it  up  from  the  depths  of  the  sea.     But  he  is  of   f 
an  open,  confiding,  simple  nature,  with  nothing  of  the  diplomatist  J 
about  him.     He  is  hasty  and  impetuous ;  his  spur  is  never  cold  r 
until  he  is  dead.     Under  the  mistaken  impression  that  women  \ 
cannot  keep  their  counsel,  he  is  retit!cnt  towards  his  wif%  in  whom    \ 
he  might  quite  well  confide,  since  she  adores  him,  and  calls  him/ 
"the  miracle'of  men."     On  the  other  band,  he  suffers  himself  to^ 
be  driven  by  the  King's  sour  suspiciousness  into  foolhardy  rebel-^ 
lion,  and  he  is  so  simple-minded  as  to  trust  to  his  father  and  his 
unde  Worcester,  one  of  whom  deserts  him  in  the  hour  of  need, 
white  the  other  plays  a  double  game  with  him. 

Shakespeare  has  thrown  himself  so  passionately  into  the  crea- 
tion  of  this  character  that  he  has  actually  painted  for  us  Hotspur's 
exterior,  giving  him  a  peculiar  walk  and  manner  of  speech.  The 
warmth  of  the  poet's  sympathy  has  rendered  his  hero  irresistibly 
attractive,  and  made  him,  in  his  manliness,  a  pattem  for  the  youth 
of  the  whole  country. 

Henry  Percy  enters  (ii.  3)  with  a  letter  in  his  hand^  and 
reads: — 

M — *  But,  for  mine  own  part,  my  lord,  I  conld  be  well  contented  to 
be  there,  in  respect  of  die  love  I  betr  your  house.' — He  coold  be  con- 


l88  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tented, — why  is  he  not  then?  In  respect  of  the  love  he  bean  oai 
bouse : — ^he  shows  in  this,  he  loves  his  own  harn  better  than  he  loiw 
our  house^  Let  me  see  some  more.  '  The  purpose  you  tmdertake  h 
dangerous ; ' — ^why,  that's  certain :  'tis  dangerous  to  take  a  oold,  to 
tleep,  to  drink ;  but  I  teil  you,  my  lord  fool,  out  of  this  nettle»  dangn 
we  pluck  this  flower,  safety.  '  The  purpose  you  undertake^  is  dangeRMü ; 
the  friends  you  have  named»  uncertain ;  the  time  itself  unsorted»  aod 
your  whole  plot  too  light  for  the  counterpoise  of  so  great  an  Opposition.' 
— Say  you  so,  say  you  so  ?  /  say  unto  you  agatn^  you  are  a  shaHaw^ 
cowardiy  kind^  and  you  He,  What  a  lack-brain  is  tlus !  By  the  Lord, 
our  plot  is  as  good  a  plot  as  ever  was  laid ;  our  friends  true  and  con- 
stant :  a  good  plot,  good  friends,  and  füll  of  expectation ;  an  ezceUent 
plot,  very  good  friends.  ...Oll  could  divide  m3rself  and  go  to 
buffets,  for  moving  such  a  dish  of  skimmed  milk  with  so  honouraUe 
an  action.  Hang  him  1  let  him  teil  the  King ;  we  are  prepared.  I 
will  set  forward  to-night** 

We  can  see  him  before  cur  eyes,  and  hear  his  voice.  He 
strides  up  and  down  the  room  as  he  reads,  and  we  can  hear  in 
the  rhythm  of  his  speech  that  he  has  a  peculiar  galt*  of  his  own. 
Not  for  nothing  is  Henry  Percy  called  Hotspur ;  whether  on  foot 
or  on  horseback,  his  movements  are  equally  impetuous.  There- 
fore  his  wife  says  of  him  after  his  death  (IL  Henry  IV.^  iL  3): — 


¥ 


"  He  was,  indeed,  the  glass 
^  Wherein  the  noble  youth  did  dress  themselves« 
^  He  hßd  no  legs^  thatpracHsed  not  his  gaW* 


Everything  is  here  consistent,  the  bodily  movements  and  the 
tone  of  speech.  We  can  hear  in  Hotspur's  soliloquy  how  his 
sentences  stumble  over  each  other ;  how,  without  giving  himself 
time  to  articulate  his  words,  he  stammers  from  sheer  impatience, 
and  utters  no  phrase  that  does  not  hear  the  stamp  of  his  choleric 
temperament : — 

"  And  speaking  thick,  which  nature  made  his  blemish, 
Became  the  accents  of  the  valiant ; 
For  those  that  could  speak  low,  and  tardily, 
Would  tum  their  own  perfection  to  abuse, 
To  seem  like  him :  so  that,  in  speech,  in  galt, 
In  diet,  in  affections  of  delight, 
In  military  mies,  humours  of  blood. 
He  wa§  the  mark  and  glass,  copy  and  book, 
That  fashion'd  others.*" 

Shakespeare  found  no  hint  of  these  eztemal  traits  in  the 
chronide.  He  bodied  forth  Hotspur's  idiosyncrasy  with  such 
ardour  that  everything,  down  to  his  outward  habit,  shaped 
itself  accordantly.  Hotspur  speaks  in^  impatient  ejaculatioiis; 
he  ia  absent  and  forgetful  out  of  sheer  passionateness, 
^p.*»iMPiytfe  impetuousness  shows  itself  in  s^ach  littlc 


HOTSPUR  189 

bis  inahility  tff  rt^m^rnh^r  »h#^  Hf^pCS  hc  WantS  tO  dtC      Whcn 

are  portioninijr  out  the  country  betwe^p  thgm^  h#>  »tartA 

has  SOmetfimg^orelat^,  he  ia  so  ahgnrh#>H  in  thi>  grjaf  nf  hia  matter^ 

^d  so  impatient  to  get  at  iythat  the  intermediate  Steps  escape  his 
^maiy  (h  3): — 


"  Why,  look  you,  I  am  whipp'd  and  scourg'd  with  rodi. 
Nettled)  and  stung  with  pismires,  when  I  hear 
Of  this  vile  politician,  Bolingbroke. 
In  Richard* s  time, — what  doye  call  the  place  t^^ 
A  plague  upon  ^t-r-it  is  in  Glostershire : — 
'Twas  where  the  madcap  Duke  his  uncle  kept^ 
Bis  uncle  York^ — where  I  first  bow'd  my  knee 
Unto  this  king  of  smiles,  this  Bolingbroke." 

When  another  person  speaks  to  bim,  he  listens  for  a  moment, 
but  presently  his  thoughts  are  away  on  their  own  affairs;  he 
forgets  where  he  is  and  what  is  said  to  him;  and  when  Lady 
Percy  has  finished  her  long  and  moving  appeal  (ii.  3)  with  the 
words — 

"  Some  heavy  business  hath  my  lord  in  band, 
And  I  must  know  it,  eise  he  loves  me  not," 

all  the  reply  vouchsafed  her  is : — 

«« Hotspur,  What,  ho ! 

EnUr  Servani. 

Is  Gilliams  with  the  packet  gone  ? 
Sero.  He  is,  my  lord,  an  hour  ago. 
Hot  Hath  Butler  brought  those  horses  from  the  sberiff?"  && 

Perpetually  baulked  of  an  answer,  she  at  last  cannot  help 
Coming  out  with  this  caressing  menace,  which  gives  us  in  one 
touch  the  whole  relation  between  the  pair  of  married  lovers : — 

«« In  faith,  Fll  break  thy  litüe  finger,  Harry, 
An  if  thou  wilt  not  tdl  me  all  üiings  true." 

And  this  absence  of  mind  of  Perc/s  is  so  far  from  being  accidental 
or  momentary  that  it  is  the  very  trait  which  Prince  Henry  seizes 
apon  to  characterise  him  (ii.  4) : — 

^  I  am  not  yet  of  Percy's  mind,  the  Hotspur  of  the  North ;  he  that  kills 
me  some  six  or  seven  dozen  of  Scots  at  a  breakfast,  washes  his  hands, 
and  says  to  his  ?rife, — '  Fie  upon  this  quiet  life !  I  want  work.'  '  O  my 
sweet  Hany,'  says  she^  'how  many  hast  thou  killed  today?'  'Give  my 
tauk  hone  a  droich,'  says  he,  and  answers,  'Some  fourteen,'  an  hour 
;  'a  trifle^  a  trifle.'" 


I90  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  has  put  forth  all  his  poetic  strength  in  giving 
to  Perc/s  Speeches,  and  espedally  to  his  descriptions,  tbe  most 
graphic  definiteness  of  detail,  and  a  naturalness  which  raises  into 
a  higher  sphere  the  racy  audacity  of  Faulconbridge.  Hotspar 
sets  about  explaining  (i.  3)  how  it  happened  that  he  refused  to 
band  over  his  prisoners  to  the  King,  and  begins  his  defenoe  by 
describing  the  courtier  who  demanded  them  of  him : — 

••  When  I  was  dry  with  rage  and  extreme  toil, 
Breathless  and  faint,  leaning  upon  my  sword, 
Game  there  a  certain  lord,  neat,  trimly  dress'd, 
Fresh  as  a  bridegroom ;  and  his  ehin,  new  reap'd, 
ShoVd  like  a  stubble-land  at  harvest-home. 
He  was  perfumed  like  a  milliner." 

But  he  is  not  content  with  a  general  outline,  or  with  relating 
what  this  personage  said  with  regard  to  the  prisoners ;  he  gives 
an  example  even  of  his  talk :-» 

"  He  made  me  mad, 
To  see  him  shine  so  brisk,  and  smell  so  sweet, 
And  talk  so  like  a  waiting-gentlewoman 
Of  guns,  and  drums,  and  wounds,  God  save  the  mark  1 
And  telling  me,  the  sovereign'st  thing  on  earth 
Was  parmacity  for  an  inward  bruise ; 
And  that  it  was  great  pity,  so  it  was, 
That  villainous  saltpetre  should  be  digg'd 
Out  of  the  bowels  of  the  harmless  earth." 

Why  this  spermaceti  ?  Why  this  dwelling  upon  so  trivial  and 
ludicrous  a  detail  ?  Because  it  is  a  touch  of  reality  and  begets 
Illusion.  Precisely  because  we  cannot  at  first  see  the  reason  why 
Percy  should  recall  so  trifling  a  circumstance,  it  seems  impos- 
sible  that  the  thing  should  be  a  mere  invention.  And  from  this 
insignificant  word  all  the  rest  of  the  speech  hangs  as  by  a  chain* 
If  this  be  real,  then  all  the  rest  is  real,  and  Henry  Percy  Stands 
before  our  eyes,  covered  with  dust  and  blood,  as  on  the  field  of 
Holmedon.  We  see  the  courtier  at  his  side  holding  his  nose  as 
the  bodies  are  carried  past,  and  we  hearhim  giving  the  young 
Commander  his  medical  advice  and  irritating  him  to  the  vei*ge  of 
frenzy. 

With  such  solicitude,  with  such  minute  attention  to  tricks, 
flaws,  whims,  humours,  and  habits,  all  deduced  from  his  tempera- 
ment,  from  the  rapid  flow  of  his  blood,  from  his  build  of  body, 
and  from  his  life  on  horseback  and  in  the  field,  has  Shakespeare 
executed  this  heroic  character.  Restless  galt,  Stammering  speech» 
forgetfulness,  absence  of  mind,  he  overlooks  nothing  as  bdnjs 
too  trivial  Hotspur  portrays  himself  in  every  phrase  he  utteiB, 
without  ever  saying  a  word  directly  about  himself;  and  belvod 
his  outward,  superficial  peculiarities,  we  see  into  the  decper  aad 


HOTSPUR  191 

lore  significant  characteristics  from  which  they  spring.  These, 
K>y  are  dosely  interwoven  ;  these,  too,  reveal  themselves  in  bis 
ghtest  words.  We  hear  this  same  hero  whom  pride,  sense  of 
onouTi  spirit  of  independencei  and  intrepidity  inspire  with  the 
ublimest  utterances,  at  other  times  chattingi  jesting,  and  even 
dking  nonsense.  The  jests  and  nonsense  are  an  integral  part 
f  the  real  human  being ;  in  them,  too,  one  side  of  bis  nature 
sveals  itself  (iii.  i): — 

^*  Hotspur,  Come,  Kate,  111  have  your  song  too. 

LcuLy  Fercy.  Not  mine,  in  good  sootb. 

Hot  Not  yours,  in  good  sootb  I    'Heart !  you  swear  like  a  comfit- 
laker's  wife.     'Not  you,  in  good  sootb;'  and,  'As  true  as  I  livej' 
od,  'As  God  sball  mend  me;'  and,  'As  sure  as  day :' 
•  •  •  •  .  • 

Swear  me,  Kate,  like  a  lady  as  tbou  art, 

A  good  moutb-filUng  oath ;  and  leave  '  in  sootb,* 

And  such  protest  of  pepper-gingerbread, 

To  vdvet-guards,  and  Sunday-citizens." 

In  a  dassical  tragedy,  French,  German,  or  Danish,  the  hero  is 
00  solemn  to  talk  nonsense  and  too  lifdess  to  jest. 

In  spite  of  bis  soaring  energy  and  ambition,  Hotspur  is  sober, 
ationalistic,  scepticaL  He  scofis  at  Glendower's  belief  in  spirits 
jid  pretended  power  of  conjuring  them  up  (ÜL  l).  His  is  to 
he  inmost  fibre  a  trutb-loving  nature : — 

^  Glend.  I  can  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep. 
Hot  Wby,  so  can  I,  or  so  can  any  man ; 

But  will  they  come^  wben  you  do  call  for  them  ? 

GletuL  Wby,  I  can  teach  you,  cousin,  to  command  the  deviL 
Hot  And  I  can  teach  thee,  coz,  to  shame  the  devil, 

By  telling  truth :  teil  truth,  and  shame  the  deviL" 

rhere  is  a  militant  rationalism  in  these  words  which  was  rare, 
^ly  rare,  in  Sbakespeare's  time,  to  say  nothing  of  Hotspur's  own. 
^"^ne  has  also,  no  doubt,  the  defects  of  bis  qualities. 
x)Dtentious,  quarrel«  th<*  n^pm^y^»  y^^  ^  thwi^rt^  frvf r  thr 

^*^ftO^Y  ^^^^  hff?  ^^^  ^Q  ^  ^Q'^«  ^^^  then.  having  gained 
Joint,  gives  up  his  sbare  in  the  spoila.  Ht»  |fj  jtLnhiii'r-tiriTtfi 
imhltion,  cannot  bear  to  near  anv  or**  tlfwpraised^  and  would 
ike  tolaee  Han^vot  JMonmouth  poiag^fid  ^n^li  n  p^t  ^f  alf  p  ff^ 
tgjie  ol'hfeariiy  bim  spoken  of.  Qje  judges  bastilv^  accord« 


ag  to  appearances ;  he  has  tbfi  p"^*ou"dest  con^empt  for  the 
mnfT  m  Wafg«  ui]  rtrrftiiiit  Irfthr  Ir^ty  nf  hi3  üfe/  and  does 
aot  divine  what  lies  bebind  it :  He  of  course  lacks  all  sestbetic 
imculty.  He  is  a  bad  Speaker,  änd  sentiment  is  as  fordgn  to  bim 
18  doquence.  He  prefers  bis  dogfs  howling  to  music,  and  dedares 
Jiat  tfae  tuming  of  braas  candlesticks  does  not  set  his  teeth  od 
idge  so  mach  as  4ie  rhyming  of  balladmongers. 


\ 


192  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Yet|  with  all  his  faults,  he  is  the  greatest  figure  of  bis  time. 
Even  the  Kingi  his  enemy,  becomes  a  poet  when  he  speaks  of 
bim  (iii.  2). : — 

"  Thrice  hath  this  Hotspur,  Mars  in  swathing-dothesi 
This  Infant  warrior,  in  his  enteiprises 
Discomfited  great  Douglas :  ta'en  him  once, 
Enlarged  him,  and  made  a  friend  of  him." 

The  King  longs  daily  that  he  could  exchange  his  son  for 
Northumberland's ;  Hotspur  is  worthier  than  Prince  Henry  to 
be  heir  to  the  throne  of  England. 

From  first  to  last,  from  top  to  toe,  Hotspur  is  the  bero  of 

-— -— — — —  .1--  — — .— — -^ —  I  I,  _  _ 

theTeudal  ayes    "  .         . 

ranng  neitt^er  for  State,  king,  nnr  rnnrnions  ^  ^  rel;>^l,  not  fnr  t|ifl 
calr#>  nf  any  pnlitiral^  JHfia^   hiit  hprans<>  iriH^ppnHence  is  all  in  all 

to  hiroj  a  proud^  self-reliant,  unscrupulous  vassal,  wbo.  himself  a 
sprt  of  sub-kinf^/has  deposed  one  king,  and  wants  to  oepose  the 
usurper  he  has  exalted^  because  he  ha«^  not  kept  his  promises. 
Qothed  in  renown,  and  ever  more  insatiate  of  military  honour, 
jgJSJX'^n^  f''^"^  inrliap^nriAnr^  n^  «pioLand  tnitHtul  out  of  pride. 

jg^.jpflrvpllnn«;   figiin>   as    .^halfpc^pi;^^^   h«^   pmjl*^«iw1    Ifiin^ 

Stammering.  absenL^urbulent,  wittv.  now  simplg,  pnp  ninfTniln. 
quent  Hj«;  Hanb^yk  rlattpr«  on  bis  breast,  his  spurs  jingle  at  his 
beeil  wit  flashes  from  his  lips,  while  he  moves  and  has  his  being 
in  a  golden  nimbus  of  renown. 

Individual  as  he  is,  Shakespeare  has  embodied  in  him  the 
national  type.  From  the  r|-nwn  nf  hi'c  h^A  tn  tv^^^  ^rA^^  ^f  hf^  fa^t, 
Hotspur  is  an  Engli>tinian.  He  unites  the  national  impetuosity 
and  bravery  with  sound  understanding ;  he  is  English  in  his 
ungallant  but  cordial  relation  to  his  wife ;  in  the  form  of  his 
chivalry,  which  is  Northern,  not  Romanesque ;  ip  his  Vilrin£r,b'lrp 
l^vp  nf  hattlf^  fnr  hnttlii'fi  nnfl  honour's  salcff^  apart  figyn  any^ 
^atiia?"^^^  desire  for  a  fair  lady's  applause. 

But  Shakespeare's  especial  desig^Tnvas  to  present  in  him  a 
master-type  of  manliness.  He  is  so  profoundly,  so  thoroughly  a 
man  that  he  forms  the  one  counterpart  in  modern  poetry  to  the 
Achilles  of  the  Greeks.  Achilles  is  the  bero  of  antiquity,  Henry 
Percy  of  the  Middle  Ages.^The  ambition  of  both  is  entirely 
personal  and  regardless  of  the  common  weal.  For  the  rest,  they 
are  equally  noble  and  high-spirited.  The  one  point  on  whidb 
Hotspur  is  inferior  to  the  Greek  demigod  is  that  of  free  natuial- 
ness.  His  soul  has  been  cramped  and  hardened  by  being  strapped 
into  the  hamess  of  the  feudal  ages.  Hero  as  he  is,  he  is  at  the 
same  time  a  soldier,  obliged  and  accustomed  to  be  over-bold, 
forced  to  restrict  his  whole  activity  to  feuds  and  fights.  He 
cannot  weep  like  Achilles,  and  he  would  be  ashamed  of  himself 
ifbe  could.    He  cannot  play  the  lyre  iike  Achilles^  and  he  wouM 


HOTSPUR  AND  ACHILLES  193 

Ehink  himself  bewitched  if  he  could  be  brought  to  adinit  that 
onasic  sounded  sweeter  in  bis  ears  than  the  baying  of  a  dog  or 
the  mewing  of  a  cat.^  He  compensates  for  these  deficiencies  by 
^e  UDyielding»  restless,  untiring  energy  of  bis  cbaracter,  by  the 
spirit  of  enterprise  in  bis  manly  soul,  and  by  bis  healthy  and 
unply  justified  pride.  It  is  in  virtue  of  these  qualities  that  he 
ran,  without  shrinking,  sustain  comparison  with  a  demigod. 

So  deep  are  the  roots  of  Hotspur's  character.  Eccentric  in 
sxtemals,  he  is  at  bottom  typical.  The  untamed  and  violent 
spirit  of  feudal  nobility,  the  reckless  and  adventurous  activity  of 
he  English  race,  the  masculine  nature  itself  in  its  uncompromising 
^enuineness,  all  those  vast  and  infinite  forces  which  lie  deep 
Inder  the  surface  and  determine  the  life  of  a  whole  period,  a 
pirhole  people,  and  one  half  of  humanity,  are  at  work  in  this 
:haracter.  Elaborated  to  infinitesimal  detail,  it  yet  includes  the 
mmensities  into  which  thought  must  plunge  if  it  would  seek  for 
he  conditions  and  ideals  of  a  historic  epoch. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this,  Henry  Percy  is  by  no  means  the  hero 
)f  the  play.     He  is  only  tl^e  foil  to  the  hero^  throw»*Tg  intn  "^^'*"^ 

:hC  yOUng  rrince's  UnprelP^^lftllS  hamtY*  hic  /^nralacn -apcSting 
aBth   ranfr    ^nd    ^'g"^*^yj    ^'"   ^'g^^  hanrfp^    rnntpmpf   fnr  all    rnn« 

/entional  honour.  all  show  and  appearance.     Everv  garland  with 

which  HnfrRpnr  wrf>athp<;  bis  heim  is  destined  jp  thii)  md  tn  drrlr 

he  brows  of  Henry  of  Wales.  The  answer  to  Hotspur's  question 
LS  to  what  has  .*>ecome  ot  the  madcap  i'rince  oi  Walesluid  his 
:omrade8,  shows  what  colours  Shakespeare  has  held  in  reserve 
br  the  portraiture  of  bis  true  hero.  Even  Vernon,  an  enemy 
)f  the  Prince,  thus  depicts  bis  setting  forth  on  the  campaign 
TV.  I) :- 

'*  All  furnished,  all  in  anns, 
All  plum'd  like  estridges  that  wing  the  wind ; 


1  <'  And  Achilles  at  last 
Brake  suddittly  forth  into  weepingy  and  turned  from  bis  comrades  aside, 
And  sat  by  the  cold  grey  sea,  looking  fortb  o'er  the  harve&tless  tide.*" 

Ilitui^  i.  348. 


n 


U 


So  when  to  the  tents  and  the  ships  of  the  Myrmidon  host  the^  had  wen, 
They  found  him  delighting  his  soul  as  rang  to  the  sweep  of  his  hand 
His  beautiful  rich-wrought  lyre  with  a  dlver  cross-bar  spanned, 
Which  he  chose  from  the  spoils  of  the  war  when  he  smote  Eetion's  town. 
Sweetly  it  rang  as  he  sang  old  deeds  of  bero-renown." 

Iliad,  ix.  185. 

So  Greek  and  so  musical  is  he  who  can  yet  give  this  answer  to  the  dying  Hectot  f 
tppeal: — 

*' '  Knee  me  no  knees,  thou  dog,  neither  prate  of  my  parents  to  me  I 
Would  God  my  spirit  within  me  would  leave  my  fury  free 
To  eure  the  flesh  of  thee  raw,  and  devoar,  for  the  deeds  thou  hast  done.' " 

Iliad^  xxiL  345. 

(TnDsbtedby  Kiürax^^vs^ 


194  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Bated  like  eagles  having  lately  bath'd ; 
Glittering  in  golden  coats,  like  images ; 
As  füll  of  spirit  as  the  month  of  May, 
And  gorgeous  as  the  sun  at  midsummer ; 
Wanton  as  youthful  goats,  wild  as  young  bulls. 
I  saw  young  Harry,  with  his  beaver  on, 
His  cuisses  on  his  thighs,  gallantly  arm'd, 
Rise  from  the  ground  like  feather'd  Mercury, 
And  vaulted  with  such  ease  into  his  seat, 
As  if  an  angel  dropp'd  down  from  the  clouds, 
To  turn  and  wind  a  fiery  Pegasus, 
And  witch  the  world  with  noble  horsemanship." 


XXIV 

PRINCB  HENRY  ^  THE  POINT  OP  DEPARTÜRB  POR 
SHAKBSPBARE'S  IMAGINATION -^A  TYPICAL  ENGLISH 
NATIONAL  HERO  —  THE  PRESHNESS  AND  PERPEC- 
TION  OP  THE  PLAY 

Menry  V.  was,  in  the  populär  conception,  tlie  national  hero  of 
England.  He  was  the  man  whose  glorious  victohes  had  brougiit 
France  under  English  rule.  His  name  had  a  ring  like  that  of 
Valdemar  in  Denmark,  bringing  with  it  memories  of  a  time  of 
widespread  dominion,  which  the  weakness  of  his  successors 
had  suiTered  to  shrink  again.  As  a  matter  of  history,  Henry  had 
been  a  soldier  almost  from  his  boyhood,  had  been  stationed  on 
the  Weish  borders  from  his  sixteenth  to  his  one-and-twentieth 
year,  and  had  afterwards,  in  London,  enjoyed  the  füll  confidence 
of  his  father  and  of  the  Parliament.  But  there  was  some  hint 
in  the  old  chronicles  of  his  having,  in  his  youth,  frequented  bad 
Company  and  led  a  wild  life  which  gave  no  foretaste  of  his  Coming 
greatness.  This  hint  had  been  elaborated  in  the  old  and  worth- 
less  play,  TAe  Famous  Victories ;  and  no  more  was  needed  to 
sei  Shakespeare's  imagination  to  work,  and  render  it  productive. 
He  revelled  in  the  idea  of  representing  the  young  Prince  of  Wales 
roistering  among  drunkards  and  demireps,  only  to  rise  all  the 
more  brilliantly  and  superbly  into  the  irreproachable  sovereign, 
the  greatest  soldier  among  England's  kings,  the  humiliator  of 
France,  the  victor  of  Agincourt. 

No  doubt  Shakespeare's  imagination  here  started  from  a  basis 
of  personal  experience.  As  a  young  player  and  poet,  he  in  all 
probability  lived  a  Bohemian  life  in  London,  not,  indeed,  of  de- 
bauchery,  but  füll  of  such  passions  and  dissipations  as  his  vigorous 
temperament,  his  overflowing  vitality,  and  his  position  beyond 
the  pale  of  staid  and  respectable  citizenship,  would  tend  to  throw 
in  his  way.  The  Sonnets,  which  speak  so  plainly  of  vehement 
and  fateful  emotions  on  his  part,  also  hint  at  temptations  which 
he  did  not  resist.     We  read,  for  instance,  in  Sonnet  cxix. : — 

"  What  potions  have  I  drunk  of  Siran  tears, 
Distiird  from  limbecks  foul  as  hell  within, 
Applying  fears  to  hopes,  and  hopes  to  fears, 
StiU  losing  when  I  saw  myself  to  ma\ 


196  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

What  wretched  errors  hath  my  heart  committed, 
Whilst  it  hath  thought  itself  so  blessed  never ! 
How  have  mine  eyes  out  of  their  spheres  been  fitted, 
In  the  distiaction  of  this  madding  fever  1 " 

And  again  in  Sonnet  cxxix. : — 

**  The  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste  of  shame 
Is  lust  in  action ;  and  tili  action,  lust 
Is  perjur'd,  murderous,  bloody,  füll  of  blame^ 
Savage,  extreme,  rüde,  cruel,  not  to  trust; 
Enjo/d  no  sooner  but  despised  straight ; 
Fast  reason  hunted ;  and  no  sooner  had» 
Fast  reason  hated,  as  a  swalloVd  bait, 
On  purpose  laid  to  make  the  taker  mad : 


I 


All  this  the  world  well  knows ;  yet  none  knows  well 
To  shun  the  heaven  that  leads  men  to  this  hell." 

This  is  the  philosophy  of  the  morrow,  of  the  reaction.  But 
Shakespeare  had  also,  no  doubt,  his  hours  of  light-hearted  enjoy- 
ment|  when  such  moralising  reflections  were  far  enough  from  his 
mind.  We  have  evidence  of  this  in  more  than  one  anecdote.  In 
the  diaiy  of  John  Manningham,  of  the  Middle  Temple,  the  foUow- 
ing  entry  occurs,  under  the  date  March  13,  1602  : — 

**  Upon  a  tyme  when  Burbidge  played  Rieh.  3,  there  was  a  Citizen 
grone  soe  farr  in  liking  with  him,  that  before  shee  went  from  the  plaj 
shee  appointed  him  to  come  that  night  vnto  hir  by  the  name  of  Ri:  the  3. 
Shakespeare  ouerhearing  their  condusion  went  before,  [and]  was  inter- 
tained  .  .  .  ere  Burbidge  came.  Then  message  being  brought  that 
Rieh,  the  3^  was  at  the  dore,  Shakespeare  caused  returne  to  be  made 
that  William  the  Conquerour  was  before  Rieh,  the  3.  Shakespere's  name 
was  William." 

Aubrey,  who,  however,  did  not  write  until  1680,  is  the  autho* 
rity,  supported  by  several  others  (Pope,  Oldys,  &c.),  for  the  legend 
that  Shakespeare,  on  his  yearly  journeys  from  London  to  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon  and  back,  by  way  of  Oxford  and  Woodstock,  used 
to  alight  at  the  "Crown"  tavem,  kept  by  one  Davenant  in 
Oxford,  and  there  won  the  heart  of  his  hostess,  the  buxom  and 
merry  Mrs.  Davenant,  who  "  used  much  to  delight  in  his  pleasant 
Company."  According  to  this  tradition,  the  young  William 
Davenant,  afterwards  a  poet  of  note,  commonly  passed  in  Ox« 
ford  for  Shakespeare's  son,  and  was  said  to  bear  some  resem- 
blance  to  him.  Sir  William  himself  was  not  unwilling  to  have 
it  believed  that  he  was  "more  than  a  poetic  child  only"  of 
Shakespeare's.^ 

^  This  tradition  seems  in  no  way  improbable,  and  its  probability  is  not  Htmlw^KHI 
by  the  &ct  that  an  anecdote  connected  with  it  has  been  shown  by  Halliwell-Phillks 
to  be  an  old  Joe  MiUer,  merely  adapted  to  the  case  in  ^int.     "  One  day  an  OM 


PRINCE  HENRY  197 

Be  this  as  it  mayi  Shakespeare  had  certainly  sufficient  per- 
sonal experience  to  enable  him  to  sympathise  with  this  princely 
youth,  who,  despite  the  consciousness  of  his  high  aims,  revels  in 
his  freedom,  shuns  the  court  life  and  ceremonial  which  await  him, 
throws  his  dignity  to  the  winds,  riots  in  reckless  high  spirits, 
böxes  the  ears  of  the  Lord  Chief-Justice,  and  has  yet  self- 
command  enough  to  suffer  arrest  without  resistance,  takes  part 
in  a  tourney  with  a  common  wench's  glove  in  his  heim — in 
Short,  does  everything  that  most  conflicts  with  his  people's  sense 
of  propriety  and  his  father's  doctrines  of  prudence,  but  does  it 
without  coarseness,  with  a  certain  innocence,  and  without  ever 
having  to  reproach  himself  with  any  actual  seif  -  degradation. 
Henry  IV.  misunderstands  his  son  as  completely  as  Frederick  ^ 
William  of  Prussia  misunderstood  the  young  Frederick  the  Greät. 

We  see  him,  indeed,  plunging  into  the  most  boyish  and 
thoughtless  diversions,  in  Company  with  topers,  tavem-wenches, 
and  pot-boys;  but  we  see,*  also,  that  he  is  magnanimous,  and  füll 
of  profound  admiration  for  Hany  Percy,  that  admiration  (or  sl  \ 
rival  of  which  Percy  himself  was  incapable.  And  he  rises,  ere 
long,  above  this  world  of  triviality  and  make-believe  to  the  true 
height  of  his  nature.  His  alert  self-esteem,  his  immovable  self- 
confidence,  can  early  be  traced  in  minor  touches.  When  Falstaff 
asks  him  if  **  his  blood  does  not  thrill "  to  think  of  the  alliance 
between  three  such  formidable  foes  as  Percy,  Douglas,  and  Glen- 
dower,  he  dismisses  with  a  smile  all  idea  of  fear.  A  little  later,  he  "^ 
plays  upon  his  truncheon  of  command  as  upon  a  fife.  He  has  the 
great  carelessness  of  the  great  natures;  he  does  not  even  lose  it 
when  he  feels  himself  unjustly  suspected.  At  bottom  he  is  a  good 
brother,  a  good  son,  a  great  patriot ;  and  he  has  the  makings  of 
a  great  ruler.  He  lacks  Hotspur^s  optimism  (which  sees  some 
advantage  even  in  his  father's  desertion),  nor  has  he  his  impetuous 
pugnacity ;  yet  we  see  outlined  in  him  the  daring,  typically  £ng- 
Ush  conqueror,  adventurer,  and  politician,  unscrupulous,  and,  on 
occasion,  cniel,  undismayed  though  the  enemy  outnumber  him 
tenfold — the  prototype  of  the  men  who,  a  Century  and  a  half  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  achieved  the  conquest  of  India. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Shakespeare  could  find  no  other  way  of  dis- 
playing  his  military  superiority  to  Percy  than  simply  to  make  him 
a  better  swordsman  and  let  him  kill  his  rival  in  Single  combat 
This  is  a  retum  to  the  Homeric  conception  of  martiad  prowess. 
It  was  by  such  traits  as  this  that  Shakespeare  repelled  Napoleon. 
These  things  appeared  to  him  childish.  He  found  more  **  poUtics** 
in  Corneille. 

With  complete  magnanimity,  Prince  Henry  leaves  to  Falstaff 

lowDsniaxi,  observing  the  bojr  numing  homewArd  almoit  ont  of  breath,  asked  him 
whither  he  was  Pptdiie  in  that  heat  and  hurry.    He  anawet^i  to  iet\na  gMEdsSont 
Shaketpeare.    '  liiere  ua^ood  bor/ add  the  other  ;*  bat  ba.^iLcax«^SbaXTM^^«^ 
lake  Gt^iOMme  in  nUo '"  lOUfys). 


198  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the    lionour  of  having  slain  Hotspur,   t)int    h^npur  whose  tnie 


forms  the  central  theme  of  thp_  whole  play,  alihou^ 
'Lire  idcd  is'^hoWft^fe  ionnulated  in  any  individual  speech.  But 
aftei"  Henry  Pticy'la  death,  bnakespeare,  strangely  enough,  some* 
times  actually  transfers  to  Henry  Plantagenet  his  fallen  rival's 
characteristics.  He  says,  for  example  \Henry  K,  iv.  3),  "  If  it  be 
a  sin  to  covet  honour,  I  am  the  most  ofifending  soul  aiive."  He 
declares  that  he  understands  neither  rh3ane  nor  metre.  He  woos 
his  bride  as  ungallantly  as  Hotspur  talks  to  his  Kate,  and  he 
answers  the  challenges  of  the  French  with  a  boastfulness  that 
throws  Hotspur's  into  the  shade.  In  Henry  V.  Shakespeare 
strikes  the  key  of  pure  panegyric.  The  play  is  a  National  Anthem 
in  five  acts. 

We  must  remember  that  Shakespeare  from  the  first  could  not 
treat  this  character  with  perfect  freedom.  There  is  a  touch  of 
reverence,  of  patriotic  religion  in  his  tone,  even  where  he  shows 
the  Prince  given  over  to  wild  and  wanfon  frolics.  At  the  close  of 
the  Second  Part  oi  Henry  IV.  he  is  already  transformed  by  his 
sense  of  responsibility ;  and  he  develops,  as  Henry  V.,  a  sin- 
cerely  religious  frame  of  mind,  based  on  personal  humility  and 
on  the  consciousness  of  his  father's  defective  right  to  the 
throne,  which  no  one  could  ever  have  divined  in  the  light-hearted 
Prince  Hai. 

These  later  plays,  however,  are  not  to  be  compared  with  this 
First  Part  of  Henry  IV.^  whfch  in  its  day  made  so  great  and  wcU- 
deserved  a  success.  It  presented  life  itself  in  all  its  fulness  and 
variety,  great  typical  creations  and  figures  of  racy  reality,  which« 
without  Standing  in  symmetrical  antithesis  or  parallelism  to  each 
other,  moved  freely  over  the  boards  where  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
history  was  enacted.  Here  no  fundamental  idea  held  t3rrannical 
sway,  forcing  every  word  that  was  spoken  into  formal  relation  to 
the  whole ;  here  nothing  was  abstract.^  No  sooner  has  the  rebel- 
lion  been  hatched  in  the  royal  palace  than  the  second  act  opens 
with  a  scene  in  an  inn-yard  on  the  Dover  road.  It  is  just  day- 
break ;  some  carriers  cross  the  yard  with  their  lantems,  going  to 
the  Stahle  to  saddle  their  horses;  -they  hail  each  other,  gossip, 
and  teil  each  other  how  they  have  passed  the  night.  Not  a  word 
do  they  say  about  Prince  Henry  or  Falstaff ;  they  talk  of  the  pricc 
of  oats,  and  of  how  ''  this  house  is  tumed  upside  down  since  Robin 
ostler  died."  Their  Speeches  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  action; 
they  merely  sketch  its  locality  and  put  the  audience  in  tune  for  it ; 
but  seldom  in  poetry  has  so  much  been  effected  in  so  few  words^ 
The  night  sky,  with  Charles's  Wain  "  over  the  new  chimney/'  tht 
flickering  gleam  of  the  lantems  in  the  dirty  yard,  the  fresh  air  of 
the  early  dawn,  the  misty  atmosphere,  the  mingled  odour  of  damp 
peas  and  beans,  of  bacon  and  ginger,  all  comes  straight  home  t6 
cur  senses.  The  Situation  takes  hold  of  us  with  all  the  irresistibk 
force  ofresdity.  i 


CHARACTER  OF  HENRY  IV.  199 

Shakespeare  must  have  written  this  drama  with  a  feeling  of 
ümost  infallible  Inspiration  and  triumphant  ease.  We  under- 
>tand  in  reading  it  what  his  contemporaries  say  of  his  manu- 
»cripts :  he  did  not  blot  a  single  line. 

The  political  developments  arising  from  Henry  IV.'s  wrongful 
seizure  of  the  throne  of  Richard  IL  afford  the  groundwork  of  the.  ' 
>lay. 

The  King,  situated  partly  like  Louis  Philippe,  partly  like 
Napoleon  IIL,  does  all  he  can  to  obliterate  the  memory  of  his 
isurpation.  But  he  does  not  succeed.  Why  not  ?  Shake- 
speare gives  a  twofold  answer.  First  there  is  the  natural, 
luman  reason:  the  relation  of  characters  and  circumstances. 
Fhe  King  has  risen  by  the  "  feil  working "  of  his  friends ;  he 
s  afraid  of  falling  again  before  their  power.  His  position  forces 
lim  to  be  mistrustful,  and  his  mistrust  repels  every  one  from 
lim,  first  Mortimer,  then  Percy,  then,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
lis  own  son.  Secondly,  we  have  the  prescribed  religious 
-eason :  that  wrong  avenges  itself,  that  punishment  foUows  upon 
hc  heels  of  guilt — in  a  word,  the  so-called  principle  of  "poetic 
ustice."  If  only  to  propitiate  the  censorship  and  the  police, 
Shakespeare  could  not  but  do  homage  to  this  principle.  It  was 
>ad  enough  that  the  theatres  should  be  suffered  to  exist  at  all; 
f  they  so  far  forgot  themselves  as  to  show  vice  unpunished  and 
nrtue  unrewarded,  the  playwright  would  have  to  be  stemly 
>rought  to  his  senses. 

The  character  of  the  King  is  a  masterpiece.  He  is  the 
^hrewd,  mistrustful,  circumspect  ruler,  who  has  made  his  way 
o  the  throne  by  dint  of  smiles  and  pressures  of  the  band, 
las  employed  every  artifice  for  making  an  impression,  has  first 
ngratiated  himself  with  the  populace  by  his  affability,  and  has 
hen  been  sparing  of  his  personal  presence.  Hence  those  words 
)f  his  which  so  deeply  impressed  Sören  Kierkegaard,^  who 
lespised  and  acted  in  direct  Opposition  to  the  principle  they 
brmulated  (Pt.  i.  iii.  2) : — 

"  Had  I  so  lavish  of  my  presence  been, 
So  common-hackne3r'd  in  the  eyes  of  men, 
So  stale  and  cheap  to  vulgär  Company, 
Opinion,  that  did  help  me  to  the  crown, 
Had  still  kept  loyal  to  possession, 
And  left  me  in  reputeless  banishment, 
A  fellow  of  no  mark,  nor  likelihood. 
By  being  seldom  seen,  I  could  not  stir, 
But  like  a  comet  I  was  wonder'd  af 

He  thus  illustrates,  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  old  diplomatist, 

^  A  Danish  ethical  and  theoloncal  thinker,  a  Northern  Paici\,  «iIA  \»  \n?i«  >0D^ 
NMBe  wtaBme  miggpgied  to  Ibten  tbe  chaiacter  of  Bund« 


300  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  injury  bis  son  does  himself  by  flaunting  it  among  bis  dis- 
reputable  associates. 

Yet  the  son  is  not  so  unlike  tbe  fatber  as  the  father  believes. 
Shakespeare  has  made  him,  in  bis  own  way,  adopt  a  scarcely 
less  diplomatic  policy :  that  of  establishing  a  false  opinion  about 
himself',  letting  himself  pass  for  a  friypious.  debaucbee,  in  order 
to  make  all  the  deeper  Impression  by  bis  firmness  and  energy  as 
soon  as  an  opportunity  offers  of  sbowing  what  is  in  bim.  Evea 
in  bis  first  sohloquy  (i.  2)  he  lays  down  tbis  line  of  policy  with 
a  definiteness  wbich  is  psychologically  feeble : — 

"  I  know  you  all,  and  will  awbile  uphold 
The  unyok'd  humour  of  your  idleness. 
Yet  herein  will  I  Imitate  tbe  sun, 
Who  doth  permit  the  base  contagious  clouds 
To  smotber  up  bis  beauty  from  the  world, 
That  when  he  please  again  to  be  himself, 
Being  wanted,  he  may  be  more  wondered  aU" 

Tbis  self-consciousness  on  Henry's  part  was  to  some  extent 
imposed  upon  Shakespeare.  Without  it,  be  could  scarcely  bave 
brought  upon  tbe  stage,  in  such  questionable  Company,  a  prince 
who  bad  become  a  national  hero.  Yet  if  tbe  Prince  bad  acted 
with  tbe  cut-and-dried  deliberation  of  purpose  wbich  he  bere 
attributes  to  himself,  we  sbould  bave  to  write  bim  down  an 
unmitigated  charlatan. 

Here,  as  in  a  former  instance  of  psychological  crudity — 
Richard  IIL's  description  of  himself  as  a  villain — we  must  allow 
for  Shakespeare's  use  of  tbe  soliloquy.  He  frequently  regards 
it  as  an  indispensable  stage-convention,  wbich  does  not  really 
reveal  tbe  inmost  thoughts  of  tbe  Speaker,  but  only  serves  to 
place  the  bearer  at  a  certain  point  of  view,  and  to  give  bim 
Information  wbich  be  needs.  Furtbermore,  such  a  soliloquy  as 
tbis  ought  to  be  spoken  with  a  good  deal  of  sophisticai  self- 
justification  on  tbe  Prince's  part,  or  eise,  as  tbe  German  actor, 
Josef  Kainz,  treats  it,  in  a  tone  of  gay  raillery.  Finally,  it  is 
to  be  regarded  as  a  first  bint — ratber  a  broad  one,  it  must  be 
admitted — wbich  Shakespeare  gives  us  thus  early  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  the  improbability  be  found  in  tbe  Cbronicle,  wbere  tbe 
Prince  is  instantanj^usly  and  miraculously  transformed  tbrough 
a  Single  resolve.  (the  soliloquy  is  introduced  at  tbis  point  to 
ensure  the  coherence  of  bis  character,  lest  tbe  spectator  sbould 
feel  that  the  Prince's  conversion  to  a  totally  different  manner  of 
life  was  mechanically  tacked  on  and  bad  no  root  in  bis  inner 
natura  And  it  must  bave  been  one  of  tbe  chief  attractions  of 
the  theme  for  Shakespeare  to  show  precisely  tbis  conversion. 
No  doubt  be  enjoyed  depicting  bis  bero's  gay  and  tboughtless 
life,  at  war  with  all  the  morality  wbich  is  founded  on  mere  social 
Convention;  but  at  least  as  grcat  must  bave  been  the  pleaaim 


PRINCE  HENRY  20i 

he  took,  as  a  man  of  ripe  experience,  in  vindicating  that  morality 
which  he  now  feit  to  be  the  determining  factor  in  human  life — 
the  morality  of  voluntary  self-reform  and  self-control,  without 
which  there  can  be  no  concentration  of  purpose  or  systematic 
activity.  When  the  new-crowned  king  will  no  longer  recognise 
Falstaff,  when  he  repulses  him  with  the  words : — 

'*  How  ill  white  hairs  become  a  fool  and  jester.  .  •  • 
Reply  not  to  me  with  a  fool-bom  jest; 
Presume  not  that  I  am  the  thing  I  was,'* 

he  speaks  out  of  Shakespeare's  own  soul.  Behind  the  words 
there  glows  a  new-bom  warmth  of  feding.  The  calm  sense  of 
justice  of  the  Island  king  makes  haste  to  express  itself,  and 
to  refuse  all  further  dallying  with  evil.  He  grants  Falstaff  a 
maintenance  and  banishes  him  from  his  presence.  Shakespeare's 
hero  is  at  this  point  a  living  embodiment  of  that  eamestness 
and  sense  of  responsibility  which  the  poet,  whom  one  of  his 
greatest  and  ablest  admirers  (Taine)  has  represented  as  being 
devoid  of  moral  feeling,  held  to  be  the  indispensable  condition 
of  all  high  endeavour« 


XXV 

*'KING  HENRY  IV^  SBCOND  PART-^OLD  AND  NEW  CHAR- 
ACTE  RS  IN  IT— D  ET  AI  LS-'"' HENRY  V^"  A  NATIONAL 
DRAMA^PATRIOTISM  AND  CHAÜVINISM-^THE  VISION 
OB  A  GREATBR  ENGLAND 

The  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV.,  which  must  have  been  written 
in  1598,  since  Justice  Silence  is  mentioned  in  Ben  Jonson's 
Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour^  acted  in  1599,  abounds,  no  less 
than  the  First  Part,  in  poetic  power,  but  is  only  a  drama- 
tised  chronicle,  not  a  drama.  In  its  serious  scenes,  the  play 
is  more  faithfui  to  history  than  the  First  Part,  and  it  is  not 
'  Shakespeare's  fault  that  the  historical  characters  are  here  of 
less  interest.  In  the  comic  scenes,  which  are  very  amply  de- 
veloped,  Shakespeare  has  achieved  the  feat  of  bringing  Falstafi 
a  second  time  upon  the  stage  without  giving  us  the  least  sense 
of  anticlimax.  He  is  incomparable  as  ever  in  his  scenes  with 
the  Lord  Chief-Justice  and  with  the  women  of  the  tavern ;  and 
when  he  goes  down  into  Gloucestershire  in  his^  character  of 
recruiting-officer,  he  is  still  at  the  height  of  his  genius.  As 
new  comrades  and  foils  to  him,  Shakespeare  has  here  created 
the  two  contemptible  country  Justices,  Shallow  and  Silence. 
Shallow  is  a  masterpiece,  a  compact  of  mere  stupidity,  foolish- 
ness,  boastfulness,  rascality,  and  senility;  yet  he  appears  a 
genius  in  comparison  with  the  ineffable  Silence.  Here,  as  in 
the  First  Part,  the  poet  evidently  drew  his  comic  types  from  the 
life  of  his  own  day.  Another  very  amusing  new  personage,  who, 
like  Falstaff,  was  much  imitated  by  the  minor  dramatists  of  the 
time,  is  FalstaflTs  Ancient,  the  braggart  Pistol,  whose  talk  is  an 
anthology  of  playhouse  bombast.  This  inept  affectation  not  only 
makes  him  a  highly  comic  personage,  but  gives  Shakespeare 
an  opportunity  of  girding  at  the  robustious  style  of  the  earlier 
tragic  poets,  which  had  become  repulsive  to  him.  He  parodies 
Marlowe's  Tamburlaine  in  Pistol's  outburst  (ii.  4) : — 

"  Shall  packhorses, 
And  hollow  pamper'd  jades  of  Asia, 
Which  cannot  go  but  Üiirty  miles  a-day, 
Compare  with  Caesars  and  with  Cannibalsi 
And  Trojan  Greeks  ?  " 


"HENRY  IV."  203 

The  passage  in  Tamburlaine  (Second  Part,  ii.  4)  runs  thus : — 

"  Holla,  ye  pamper'd  jades  of  Asia, 
What  ?  can  ye  draw  but  twenty  miles  a  day  ?  " 

He  makes  fun  of  Peele's  Turkish  Mahomet  and  Hyren  the 
fair  Greek^  when  Pistol,  alluding  to  his  sword,  exclaims,  "  Have 
we  not  Hiren  here?"  And  again  it  is  George  Peele  who  is 
aimed  at  when  Pistol  says  to  the  hostess  : — 

"  Then  feed  and  be  fat,  my  fair  Calipolis ; 
Come,  give*s  some  sack." 

In  The  BattU  of  Alcazar  (see  above,  p.  31),  Muley  Mahomet 
brings  his  wife  some  flesh  on  the  point  of  his  sword  and  says — 

"  Hold  thee,  Calipolis,  feed  and  faint  no  more  1 " 

But  Falstaff  himself  is,  and  must  ever  remain,  the  chief 
attraction  of  the  comic  scenes.  Never  was  the  Fat  Knight 
wittier  than  when  he  answers  the  Lord  Chief- Justice,  who 
has  told  him  that  his  figure  bears  '^  all  the  characters  of  age " 
(i.  2) :- 

"  My  Lord,  I  was  bom  about  three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon, 
with  a  white  head,  and  something  a  round  belly.  For  my  voice,  I 
have  lost  it  with  hollaing  and  singing  of  anthems.  To  approve  my 
youth  further,  I  will  not:  the  truth  is,  I  am  only  old  in  judgment 
and  understanding ;  and  he  that  will  caper  with  me  for  a  thousand 
marks,  let  him  lend  me  the  money,  and  have  at  him." 

The  play  is  a  mere  bündle  of  individual  passages,  but  each 
of  these  passages  is  admirable.  A  great  example  is  King 
Henry*s  soliloquy  which  opens  the  third  act,  the  profoundly 
imaginative  apostrophe  to  sleep: — 

"  O  thou  duU  god  !  why  liest  thou  with  the  vile, 
In  loathsome  beds,  and  leav'st  the  kingly  couch, 
A  watch-case,  or  a  common  'lamm  bell  ? 
Wilt  thou  upon  the  high  and  giddy  mast 
Seal  up  the  ship-boy's  eyes,  and  rock  his  brains 
In  cradle  of  the  rüde  imperious  surge, 
And  in  the  Visitation  of  the  winds, 
Who  take  the  rufiian  billows  by  the  top, 
Curling  their  monstrous  heads,  and  hanging  them 
With  deafning  clamours  in  the  slippery  clouds, 
That  with  the  hurly  death  itself  awakes  ? 
Canst  thou,  O  partial  sleep !  give  thy  repose 
To  the  ^et  sea-boy  in  an  hour  so  rüde ; 
And  in  the  calmest  and  most  stillest  night, 
With  all  appliances  and  means  to  boot, 
Deny  it  to  a  king?    Then,  happy  low,  lie  do^iml 
Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown/* 


204  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Throughout  this  Second  Part,  the  King,  besieged  by  cam 
and  living  in  the  shadow  of  death,  is  richer  in  thought  and 
wisdom  than  ever  before.  What  he  says,  and  what  is  said 
to  him,  seems  drawn  by  the  poet  from  the  very  depths  of  bis 
own  experience,  and  addressed  to  men  of  the  like  experience  and 
thought.  Every  word  of  that  first  scene  of  the  third  act  is  in 
the  highest  degree  significant  and  admirabie.  It  is  here  that 
the  King  tums  to  what  we  now  call  geology  (see  above,  p.  95) 
for  an  image  of  the  historical  mutability  of  all  things.  When  he 
mournfully  reminds  bis  attendants  that  Richard  IL,  whom  he 
displacedy  prophesied  a  Nemesis  to  come  from  those  who  had 
helped  him  to  the  throne,  and  that  this  Nemesis  has  now  over- 
taken  bim,  Warwick  answers  with  the  profound  and  astonishingly 
modern  reflection  that  history  is  apparently  govemed  by  laws» 
and  that  each  man's  life — 

"  Figures  the  nature  of  the  times  deceas'd ; 
The  which  observ'd,  a  man  may  prophesy, 
With  a  near  aim,  of  the  main  chance  of  things 
As  yet  not  come  to  life." 

To  this  the  King  retums  the  no  less  philosophical  answer:«- 

''Are  these  things,  then,  necessities? 
Then  let  us  meet  them  like  necessities." 

But  it  is  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  act,  where  news  of  the  total 
defeat  of  the  rebels  is  brought  to  the  dying  King,  that  he  utters 
what  is  perhaps  bis  most  profoundly  pessimistic  speech,  compiain- 
ing  that  Fortune  never  comes  with  both  hands  fuU,  but  **  writes 
her  fair  words  still  in  foulest  letters,"  so  that  life  is  like  a  feast  at 
which  either  the  food  or  the  appetite  [or  the  guests]  are  alwaji 
lacking. 

From  the  moment  of  King  Henry's  death,  Shakespeare  con- 
centrates  all  bis  poetical  strength  upon  the  task  of  presenting  in 
his  great  son  the  pattem  and  ideal  of  Rncrlish  IrinprRViin      ^^  mSL 

iier  Histories  the  Kin^  had  g^ayr  ^**^'^^»'^  \  ^Uol>^op^«i^^«> 

applies  himself,  witn  warm  and  undisguised  enthusiasm,  to  the 
portrayal  of  a  king  without  a  flaw. 

His  Henry  V.  is  a  glorification  of  this  national  ideaLl  The 
ive  choruses  which  introduce  the  acts  are  patnöCU  pSflOS^I^bake- 
speare's  finest  heroic  lyrics;  and  the  play  itself  is  an  epic  in 
dialogue,  without  any  sort  of  dramatic  structure,  developm«iit|  er 
conflict.  It  is  an  English  eyiou/uoi',  a  dramatic  monument,  ai 
was  the  PerscB  of  ^scbylus  for  ancient  Athens.  As  a  work 
of  Creative  art,  it  cannot  be  compared  with  the  two  preceding 
Histories,  to  which  it  forma  a  Supplement.  Its  theme  is 
English  patriotism,  and  its  appeal  is  to  England  rather  than  to 
the  World. 

The  allusion  to  Essex's  command  in  Ireland  in  fhe  pixdogae 


"HENRY  V.' 


205 


0  the  fifth  act  gives  us  beyond  a  doubt  the  date  of  its  first  per- 
ormance.  Essex  was  in  Ireland  from  the  I5th  of  April  1599  to 
he  28th  of  September  in  the  following  year.  As  we  find  the 
Jay  alluded  to  by  other  poets  in  1600,  it  must  in  all  probability 
lave  been  produced  in  1599. 

How  strongly  Shakespeare  was  impressed  by  the  greatness 
}{  bis  theme  appears  in  bis  reiterated  expressions  of  humility  in 
ipproaching  it.  He  begins,  like  the  epic  poets  of  antiquity,  with 
in  invocation  of  the  Muse ;  he  implores  forgiveness,  not  only  for 
he  imperfection  of  bis  scenic  apparatus,  but  for  the  "  flat  unraised 
ipirits ''  in  which  he  treats  so  mighty  a  theme.  And  in  the  pro- 
ogue  to  the  fourth  act  he  retums  to  the  subjeet  of  his  unworthi- 
less  and  the  pitiful  limitations  of  the  stage.  Throughout  the 
thonises,  he  has  done  his  utmost,  by  dint  of  vivid  imagery  and 
yric  impetus  and  splendour,  to  make  up  for  the  sacrifice  of  unity 
ind  cohesion  involved  in  his  faithfuiness  to  history.  Shakespeare 
vas  evidently  unconscious  of  the  na)fvet6  of  the  lecture  on  the 
Salic  law,  establishing  Henryks  daim  to  the  crown  of  France, 
rith  which  the  Archbishop  opens  the  play ;  no  doubt  he  thought 
t  absolutely  imposed  upon  him. 

For  he  here  strives  to  make  Henry  an  epitome  of  all  the 
rirtues  he  himself  most  highly  values.  Even  in  the  last  act  of 
he  Second  Part  o{  Henry  IV.  he  had  endowed  him  with  traits 
>f  irreproachable  kingly  magnanimity.  Henry  confirms  in  his 
»ffice  Üie  Cfhief-Justice,  who,  in  the  execution  of  his  duty,  had 
irrested  the  Prince  of  Wales,  addresses  him  with  the  deepest 
espect,  and  even  calls  him  "father."  In  reality  this  Chief- 
ustice  was  dismissed  at  the  King's  accession.  Henry  V,  com- 
detes  the  evolution  of  the  royal  butterfly  from  the  h 

tapres  of  the  earlier  plays.  1  Pienrv   is   at  once 

Qonarcn  who  always  thinks  royally,  and  never  forgets  his  p 

LS  fth— gepresentative  of  the  English  people^  the  man  with  no 
!me  or  arrogance,  who  bears  himseli  simplyftalks  modestly,  acts 
«ergetically,  and  thinks  piously ;  the  soldier  who  endures  priva- 
ions  like  the  meanest  of  his  foUowers,  is  downright  in  his  jesting 
ind  his  wooing,  and  enforces  discipline  with  uncompromising 
trictness,  even  as  against  his  own  old  comrades;  and  finally, 
he  Citizen  who  is  accessible  alike  to  small  and  great,  and  in 
7hom  the  youthful  frolicsomeness  of  earlier  days  has  become 
he  humounst's  relish  for  a  practical  Joke,  Jit—ihw|ü^fphW»4ie 

aKespeare  shows  him. 


Mir-MIKjKlfl«  §»•*••'-« 


ike  a  military  Haroun  AI  Raschid,  seeking  personally  to  in- 
inuate  himself  into  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  his  foUowers ; 
nd — what  is  very  unlike  him — he  manifests  no  disapproval 
rhere  the  King  sinks  far  below  the  ideal,  as  when  he  Orders 
he  frightful  massacre  of  all  the  French  prisoners  taken  at 
Lgincourt.  Shakespeare  tries  to  pass  the  deed  oflf  as  a  \sA.^ä>xc^ 
f  necessity. 


2o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  reason  of  this  is  that  the  spirit  which  here  prevails  is  not 
pure  patriotisiDy  but  in  many  points  a  narrow  Chauvinism.  King 
Henry's  two  speeches  before  Harfleur  (iii.  i  and  iii.  3)  arc  bom- 
bastici  savage,  and  threatening  to  the  point  of  frothy  bluster;  and 
wherever  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  are  brought  into  contrast, 
the  French,  even  if  they  at  that  time  showed  themselves  inferior 
soldierSi  are  treated  with  obvious  injustice.  With  bis  sharp  eye 
for  national,  as  for  personal  peculiaritiesi  Shakespeare  has  of 
course  seized  upon  certain  weaknesses  of  the  French  character; 
but  for  the  most  part  bis  Frenchmen  are  mere  caricatures  for  the 
diversion  of  the  gallery.  Quite  childish  is  the  way  in  which  he 
makes  the  Frenchmen  mix  fragments  of  French  in  their  speeches. 
But  it  is  consistent  enough  with  the  national  and  populär  design 
of  the  play  that  not  a  little  of  it  should  seem  to  be  addressed  to 
the  common,  uneducated  public — for  instance,  the  scene  in  which 
the  miserable  blusterer  Pistol  makes  pnsoner  a  French  nobleman 
whom  he  has  succeeded  in  overawing,  and  that  in  which  the 
young  Princess  Katherine  of  France  takes  lessons  in  English 
from  one  of  her  ladies-in-waiting.  This  passage  (iii.  4)  and 
the  wooing  scene  between  King  Henry  and  the  Princess  (v.  2) 
are  incidentally  interesting  as  giving  us  a  good  idea  of  Shake- 
speare's  acquaintance  with  French.  No  doubt  he  could  read 
French,  but  he  must  have  spoken  it  very  imperfectly.  He  is  per- 
haps  not  to  blame  for  such  blunders  as  lepossession  and  ä  Us  a$tgis. 
On  the  other  band,  it  was  doubtless  he  who  placed  iti  the  mouth 
of  the  Princess  such  comically  impossible  expressions  as  these 
when  Henry  has  kissed  her  band : — 

^^Je  ne  veux  point  que  vous  abbaissez  vostre  grandeur^  en  baisant  U 
main  d^uru  vostre  indigne  serviteurj* 

And  this : — 

''Zftf  dames^  et  damoiselles^  pour  estre  baistes  devant  leur  ftopces^  ä 
rCest  pas  le  cos  turne  de  France." 

According  to  bis  custom,  and  in  order  to  preserve  continuity 
of  style  with  the  foregoing  plays,  Shakespeare  has  interspersed 
Henry  V,  with  comic  figures  and  scenes.  Falstaff  himself  does 
not  appear,  bis  death  being  announced  at  the  beginning  of  the 
play ;  but  the  members  of  bis  gang  wander  around,  as  living  and 
ludicrous  mementos  of  him,  until  they  disappear  one  by  oq^  by 
way  of  the  gaUows,  so  that  nothing  may  survive  to  recall  the 
great  king's  frivolous  youth.  To  console  us  for  their  loss,  we  arc 
here  introduced  to  a  new  drcle  of  comic  figures — soldiers  from 
the  different  English-speaking  countries  which  make  up  what  we 
now  call  the  United  Kingdom.  Each  of  them  speaks  bis  own 
dialect,  in  which  resides  much  of  the  comic  effect  for  Englisb 
ears.    We  have  a  Welshman,  a  Scot,  and  an  Irishman.    The 


"HENRY  V."  207 

Welshman  is  intrepid,  phlegraatic,  soraewhat  pedanüc,  but  all 
fire  and  flame  for  discipline  and  righteousness ;  the  Scot  is  im- 
movable  in  bis  equilibrium,  even-tempered,  sturdy,  and  trust- 
worthy ;  the  Irishman  is  a  true  Celt,  fiery,  passionate,  quarrelsome 
and  apt  at  misunderstanding.  Fluelleni  the  Welshman,  with 
bis  Comic  phlegm  and  manly  severity,  is  the  most  elaborate  of 
these  figures. 

But  in  placing  on  the  stage  these  representatives  of  the 
dififerent  English-speaking  peoples,  Shakespeare  had  another  and 
deeper  purpose  than  that  of  merely  amusing  bis  public  with  a 
medley  of  dialects.  At  that  tirae  the  Scots'were  still  the  heredi- 
tary  enemies  of  England,  who  always  attacked  her  in  the  rear 
whenever  she  went  to  war,  and  the  Irish  were  actually  in  open 
rebellion.  Shakespeare  evidently  dreamed  of  a  Greater  England, 
ES  we  nowadays  speak  of  a  Greater  Britain.  Whcn  he  wrote 
this  play,  King  James  of  Scotland  was  busily  courting  the  favour 
of  the  English,  and  the  question  of  the  succession  to  the  throne, 
when  the  old  Queen  should  die,  was  not  definitely  settled.  Shake- 
speare clearly  desired  that,  with  the  Coming  of  James,  the  old 
national  hatred  between  the  Scotch  and  the  English  should  cease. 
Essex,  in  Ireland,  was  at  this  very  time  carrying  out  the  policy 
which  was  to  lead  to  bis  destruction— that,  namely,  of  smoothing 
away  hatred  by  means  of  leniency,  and  trying  to  come  to  an 
arrangement  with  the  leader  of  the  Catholic  rebellion.  South- 
ampton  was  with  bim  in  Ireland  as  bis  Master  of  the  Horse,  and 
we  cannot  doubt  that  Shakespeare's  heart  was  in  the  campaign. 
Bates  in  this  play  (iv.  i)  probably  expresses  Shakespeare's  own 
political  ideas  when  he  says — 

**  Be  friends,  you  English  fools,  be  friends :  we  have  French 
[Spanisb]  quarreis  enow,  if  you  could  teil  how  to  reckon." 

Henry  V.  is  not  one  of  Shakespeare's  best  plays,  but  it  is 
one  of  his  most  amiable.  He  here  shows  himself  not  as  the 
almost  superhuman  genius,  but  as  the  English  patriot,  whose 
enthusiasm  is  as  beautiful  as  it  is  simple,  and  whose  prejudices, 
even,  are  not  unbecoming.  The  play  not  only  points  back  ward 
to  the  greatest  period  of  England's  past,  but  forward  to  King 
James,  who,  as  the  Protestant  son  of  the  Catholic  Mary  Stuart, 
was  to  put  an  end  to  religious  persecutions,  and  who,  as  a 
Scotchraan  and  a  supporter  of  the  Irish  policy  of  Essex,  was  for 
tTTe  first  time  to  show  the  World  not  only  a  sturdy  England,  but 
a  powerful  Great  Britain. 


XXVI 

ELIZABETH  AND  PALSTAPP^THB  MERRY  WIVBS  OP 
WINDSOR^THE  PROSA  IC  AND  BOURGEOIS  TONS  OP 
THE  PIECE—THE  PAIRY  SCENES 

Shakespeare  must  have  written  TAe  Metry  Wives  of  Windsor 
immediately  after  Henry  V.,  probably  about  Christmas  1 599 ;'  for 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  on  whom  the  poet  here  takes  his  revengei 
died  in  1600,  and  it  is  improbable  that  Shakespeare  would  have 
cared  to  gird  at  him  after  his  death.  He  almost  certainly  did  not 
write  the  piece  of  his  own  motive,  but  at  the  Suggestion  of  one 
whose  wish  was  a  command.  There  is  the  strongest  internal 
evidence  for  the  truth  of  the  tradition  which  states  that  the  play 
was  written  at  the  request  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  first  Quarto 
of  1602  has  on  its  title-page  the  words,  "  As  it  hath  been  divers 
times  acted  by  the  right  honourable  my  Lord  Chamberlain's 
servants.  Both  before  Her  Majesty,  and  elsewhere."  A  Century 
later  (1702),  John  Dennis,  who  published  an  adaptation  of  the 
play,  writes,  ''  I  know  very  well  that  it  had  pleased  one  of  the 
greatest  queens  that  ever  was  in  the  world.  .  .  .  This  comedy 
was  written  at  her  command  and  by  her  direction,  and  she  was 
so  eager  to  see  it  acted,  that  she  commanded  it  to  be  finished 
in  fourteen  days."  A  few  years  later  (1709)  Rowe  writes,  "She 
was  so  well  pleased  with  that  admirable  character  of  Falstaff 
in  the  two  parts  oi  Henry  /F.,  that  she  commanded  him  to  con- 
tinue  it  for  one  play  more  and  show  him  in  love.  This  is  said 
to  be  the  occasion  of  his  writing  The  Merry  Wives.  How  well 
she  was  obeyed,  the  play  itself  is  an  admirable  proof." 

Old  Queen  Bess  can  scarcely  have  been  a  great  judge  of 
art,  or  she  would  not  have  conceived  the  extravagant  notion  of 
wanting  to  see  Falstaff  in  love ;  she  would  have  understood  that 
if  there  was  anything  impossible  to  him  it  was  this.  She  would 
also  have  realised  that  his  figure  was  already  a  rounded  whole 
and  could  not  be  reproduced.  It  is  true  that  in  the  Epilogue 
to  Henry  IV.  (which,  however,  is  probably  not  by  Shakespeare) 
a  continuation  of  the  history  is  promised,  in  which,  "  for  anything 
I  know,  Falstaff  shall  die  of  a  sweat,  unless  already  he  be  killed 
with  your  hard  opinions;"  but  no  such  continuation  is  to  be 
found  in  Henry  V.,  evidently  because  Shakespeare  feit  that 
FalstBtf  bad  played  out  his  part    Neither  is  Tßui  Merry  Wnm 


••THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR"         209 

the  promised  continuation,  for  Falstaff  does  not  die,  and  the 
action  is  conceived  as  an  earlier  episode  in  bis  life,  though  it  is 
entirely  removed  from  its  historical  setting  and  brought  forward 
into  tbe  poet's  own  time,  so  unequivocally  tbat  tbere  is  evea  in 
tbe  fiftb  act  a  direct  mention  of  "  our  radiant  queen  "  in  Windsor 
Castle. 

Tbe  poet  must  have  set  bimself  unwillingly  to  the  fulfilment  of 
tbe  "radiant  queen's"  barbarous  wisb,  and  tried  to  make  tbe  best  of 
a  bad  business.  He  was  compelled  entirely  to  ruin  bis  inimitable 
Falstaff,  and  degrade  the  fat  knigbt  into  an  ordinary  avaricious, 
wine-bibbing,  amatory  old  fool.  Along  with  him,  he  resuscitated 
the  whole  merry  Company  from  Henry  V.,  who  bad  all  come  to 
an  unpleasant  end — Bardolph,  Pistol,  Nym,  and  Dame  Quickly — 
making  the  men  repeat  themselves  with  a  difference,  endowing 
Pistol  with  the  splendid  phrase  "  The  world's  mine  oyster,  which 
I  with  sword  will  open/'  and  giving  to  Dame  Quickly  softened 
and  more  commonplace  lineaments.  From  the  Second  Part  of 
Henry  IV. ^  too,  he  introduces  Justice  Shallow,  placing  him  in  a 
less  friendly  relation  to  Falstaff,  and  giving  him  a  highly  comic 
nephew,  Slender,  who,  in  bis  vanity  and  pitifulness,  is  like  a  first 
sketch  for  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  in  Twelfth  Night. 

His  task  was  now  to  entertain  a  queen  and  a  court  "with 
their  hatred  of  ideas,  their  insensibility  to  beauty,  their  hard, 
efficient  manners,  and  their  demand  for  impropriety."  ^  As  it 
amused  the  London  populace  to  see  kings  and  princes  upon  the 
stage,  so  it  entertained  the  Queen  and  her  court  to  have  a  glimpse 
into  the  daily  life  of  the  middle  classes,  so  remote  from  their  own, 
to  look  into  their  rooms,  and  hear  their  chat  with  the  doctor  and 
the  parson,  to  see  a  picture  of  the  prosperity  and  contentment 
which  flourished  at  Windsor  right  under  the  Windows  of  the 
Queen's  summer  residence,  and  to  witness  the  downright  virtue 
and  merry  humour  of  the  red-cheeked,  buxora  townswomen. 
Thus  was  the  keynote  of  the  piece  determined.  Thus  it  became 
more  prosaic  and  bourgeois  than  any  other  play  of  Shakespeare's. 
The  Merry  Wives  is  indeed  the  only  one  of  his  works  which  is 
almost  entirely  written  in  prose,  and  the  only  one  of  his  comedies 
in  which,  the  scene  being  laid  in  England,  he  has  taken  as 
his  subject  the  contemporary  life  of  the  English  middle  classes. 
It  is  not  quite  unlike  the  more  farcical  of  Moli^re's  comedies, 
which  also  were  often  written  with  an  eye  to  royal  and  courtly 
audiences.  All  the  more  significant  is  the  fact  that  Shake- 
si)eare  has  found  it  impossible  to  content  himself  with  thus 
dwelling  on  the  common  earth,  and  has  introduced  at  the  close 
a  fairy-dance  and  fairy-song,  as  though  from  the  Midsummer 
Night s  Dream  itself,  executed,  it  is  true,  by  children  and  young 
girls  dressed  up  as  elves,  but  preserving  throughout  the  air  and 
style  of  genuine  fairy  scenes. 

^  DawdcD:  SMaispen-^Us  Äiind  and  Art^  p,  3*}0. 

O 


jiio  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  had  just  been  trying  his  band  in  Henry  V.  U 
writing  the  broken  English  spoken  by  a  Welshman  and  by  a 
Frenchman.  He  knew  that  at  court|  where  people  prided  them- 
selves  on  the  purest  pronunciation  of  their  mother-tonguei  he 
would  find  an  audience  exceedingly  alive  to  the  comic  effects  thus 
obtained,  and  he  therefore,  while  he  was  in  the  vein,  intrcxiuced 
into  this  hasty  and  occasional  production  two  not  unkindly  carica- 
tures — the  Welsh  priest,  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  in  whom  he  perhaps 
immortalised  one  of  his  Stratford  schoolmasters,  and  the  French 
Doctor  CaiuSy  a  thoroughly  farcical  eccentric,  who  pronouncet 
everything  awry. 

The  hurry  with  which  Shakespeare  wrote  this  comedy  has  led 
him  into  some  confusion  as  to  the  process  of  time.  In  Act  ÜL  4, 
when  Dame  Quickly  is  sent  to  Falstaff  to  make  a  second  appoint- 
ment  with  him,  it  is  the  aftemoon  of  the  second  day;  in  the 
foUowing  scene,  when  she  comes  to  him,  it  is  the  moming  of 
the  third  day.  But  this  haste  has  also  given  the  play  an  unusually 
dramatic  swing  and  impetus;  it  is  quite  free  from  the  episodes 
in  which  the  poet  is  at  other  times  apt  to  loiter. 

Nevertheless  Shakespeare  has  here  woven  together  no  fewer 
than  three  dififerent  actions — FalstafTs  advances  to  the  two  Merry 
Wives,  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Page,  and  all  the  consequences  a[  his 
ill-timed  rendezvous ;  the  rivalry  between  the  foolish  doctor,  the 
imbecile  Slender,  and  young  Fenton  for  the  band  of  fair  Anne 
Page ;  and  finally,  the  burlesque  duel  between  the  Welsh  priest 
and  the  French  doctor,  which  is  devised  and  set  afoot  by  the 
jovial  Windsor  innkeeper.. 

Shakespeare  has  himself  invented  much  more  than  usual  of 
the  complicated  intrigue.  But  Falstaff's  concealment  in  the  bück- 
basket  was  suggested  by  a  similar  incident  in  Fiorentino's  // 
Pecorone,  from  which  Shakespeare  had  already  borrowed  in  tbe 
Merchant  of  Venice;  and  the  idea  of  making  Falstaff  incessantly 
confide  his  designs  and  his  rendezvous  to  the  husband  of  the 
lady  in  question  came  from  another  Italian  story  by  Straparola, 
which  had  been  published  some  ten  years  earlier,  under  the  title 
of  Two  Lovers  o/Pisa^  in  Tarlton's  News  ofPurgatory. 

The  invention  is  not  always  very  happy.  For  instance,  it  is 
a  highly  unpleasing  and  improbable  touch  that  Ford,  as  Master 
Brook,  should  bribe  Falstaff  to  procure  him  possession  of  the 
woman  (his  own  wife)  whom  he  affects  to  desire,  and  whom  Falstaff 
also  is  pursuing.  Ford's  jealousy,  moreover,  is  altogether  too 
stupid  and  crude  in  its  manifestations.  But  we  have  espedaUy 
to  deplore  that  the  nature  of  the  intrigue  and  the  moral  tendency 
to  be  impressed  on  the  play  should  have  made  Falstaff,  who  used 
to  be  quickness  and  ingenuity  personified,  so  preternaturally 
dense  that  his  incessant  defeats  afford  his  opponents  a  very 
poor  triumph. 

He  is  ignorant  of  eveiything  it  would  have  been  his  interest 


«THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDbüK"  21 1 

to  kbow,  and  he  ia  perpetually  committing  afresh  the  same  in- 
conceivable  blunders.  It  is  foolish  enough,  in  the  first  place,  to 
write  two  identical  love-letters  to  two  women  in  the  same  little 
town,  who,  as  he  ought  to  know,  are  bosom  friends.  It  is  incre- 
dibly  stupid  of  him  to  walk  three  times  in  succession  straight  into 
the  coarse  trap  which  they  set  for  him ;  in  doing  so  he  betrays 
such  a  monstrous  vanity  that  we  find  it  impossible  to  recognise 
in  him  the  ironical  Falstaff  of  the  Histories.  It  is  inexpres- 
sibly  guileless  of  him  never  to  conceive  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  *'  Master  Brook,"  who,  being  his  only  confidant,  is  therefore 
the  only  man  who  can  have  betrayed  him  to  the  husband.  And 
finally,  it  is  not  only  childish,  but  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
keen  understanding  of  the  earlier  Falstaff,  that  he  should  believe 
in  the  supematural  nature  of  the  beings  who  pinch  him  and  burn 
him  by  night  in  the  park. 

On  the  other  band,  the  old  high  spirits  and  the  old  wit  now  and 
again  flame  forth  in  him,  and  a  few  of  his  speeches  to  Shallow, 
to  Pistol,  to  Bardolph  and  others  are  exceedingly  amusing.  He 
shows  a  touch  of  his  old  seif  when,  after  having  been  soused  in 
the  water  along  with  the  foul  linen,  he  protests  that  drowning  is 
"  a  death  that  I  abhor,  for  the  water  swells  a  man,  and  what  a 
thing  should  I  have  been  when  I  had  been  swelled ! "  And  he 
has  a  highly  humorous  outburst  in  the  last  act  (v.  5)  when  he 
declares,  **  I  think  the  devil  will  not  have  me  damned,  lest  the  oil 
that  is  in  me  should  set  hell  on  fire."  But  what  are  these  little 
flashes  in  comparison  with  the  inexhaustible  whimsicality  of  the 
true  Falstaff! 

The  play  is  more  consistently  farcical  than  any  earlier  comedy 
of  Shakespeare's,  TAe  Taming  of  the  Shrew  not  excepted.  The 
graceful  and  poetical  passages  are  few.  We  have  in  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Page  a  pleasant  English  middle-class  couple;  and  though 
the  young  lovers,  Fenton  and  Anne  Page,  have  only  one  short 
scene  together,  they  display  in  it  some  attractive  qualities. 
Anne  Page  is  an  amiable  middle-class  girl  of  Shakespeare's 
day,  one  of  the  healthy  and  natural  young  women  whom  Words- 
worth  has  celebrated  in  the  nineteenth  Century.  Fenton,  who  is 
Said  (though  we  cannot  believe  it)  to  have  been  at  one  time  a 
comrade  of  Prince  Hai  and  Poins,  is  certainly  attached  to  her; 
but  it  is  very  characteristic  that  Shakespeare,  with  his  keen  sense 
for  the  value  of  money,  sees  nothing  to  object  to  in  the  fact  that 
Fenton,  as  he  frankly  confesses,  was  first  attracted  to  Anne  by 
her  wealth.  This  is  the  same  trait  which  we  found  in  another 
wooer,  Bassanio,  of  a  few  years  earlier. 

Finally,  there  is  real  poetry  in  the  short  fairy  scene  of  the  last 
act.  The  poet  here  takes  his  revenge  for  the  prose  to  which  he 
has  so  long  been  condemned.  It  is  fuU  of  the  aromatic  wood- 
scents  of  Windsor  Park  by  night.  What  is  altogether  tcl^*&\. 
vsluable  in  The  Merty  Wives  is  its  streng  EinacV  oi  >ütv!t  "Ea^^^s^ 


212  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

soiL  The  play  appeals  to  us,  in  spite  of  the  drawbacks  inse- 
parabk  from  a  work  hastOy  written  to  order,  because  the  poet 
has  here  for  once  remained  faithfui  to  bis  own  age  and  bis  own 
coimtry,  and  has  g^ven  us  a  picture  of  the  contemporaxy  middle- 
dassy  in  its  sturdy  and  honest  worth,  which  even  the  atmosphere 
of  farce  cannot  quite  obscure. 


«         A«        . 


XXVII 

SHAKBSPBARB^S  MOST  BRILLIANT  PBRIOD—THB  PBMININB 
TYPBS  BBLONGING  TO  IT-^WITTY  AND  HIGH  BORN 
YOUNG  WOMBN^MÜCH  ADO  ABOÜT  NOTHING^SLA  VISH 
PAITHPULNBSS  TO  HIS  SOÜRCBS-^BBNBDICK  AND  BBA^ 
TRICB-^PIRITUAL  DBVBLOPMBNT—THB  LOW-COMBDY 
PIGÜRBS 

Shakespeare  now  enters  upon  the  stage  in  his  career  in  which 
his  wit  and  brilliancy  of  spirit  reach  a  perfection  hitherto  un- 
attained.  It  seems  as  though  these  years  of  his  life  had  been 
bathed  in  sunshine.  They  certainly  cannot  have  been  years  of 
stniggle,  and  still  less  of  sorrow ;  there  must  have  been  a  sort 
of  lull  in  his  existence — a  tranquil  zone,  as  it  were,  in  the  troubled 
waters  of  life.  He  seems  for  a  short  time  to  have  revelled  in  his 
own  genius  with  a  sort  of  pensive  happiness,  to  have  drunk 
exhilarating  draughts  of  his  own  Inspiration.  He  heard  the 
nightingales  warbling  in  the  sacred  grove  of  his  spirit  His 
whole  nature  burst  into  flower. 

In  the  Republican  Calendar  one  of  the  months  was  named 
Flor^al.  There  is  such  a  flower-month  in  almost  every  human 
life ;  and  this  is  Shakespeare's. 

He  was  doubtless  in  love  at  this  time — as  he  had  probably 
been  all  his  life  through — but  his  love  was  not  an  overmastering 
passion  like  Romeo's,  nor  did  it  depress  him  with  that  half- 
despairing  feeling  of  the  unworthiness  of  its  object  which  he 
betrays  in  his  Sonnets;  nor,  again,  was  it  the  airy  ecstasy  of 
youthful  Imagination  that  ran  not  in  A  Mübummer  Nights 
Dream.  No,  it  was  a  happy  love,  which  filled  his  head  as  well 
as  his  beart,  accompanied  with  joyous  admiration  for  the  wit  and 
vivadty  of  Üie  beloved  one,  for  her  gradousness  and  distinction. 
Her  coquetry  is  gay,  her  heart  is  excellent,  and  her  intelligence 
so  quick  that  sbe  seems  to  be  wit  incamate  in  the  form  of  a 
woman. 

In  his  early  years  he  had  presented  not  a  few  unamiable, 
mannish  women  in  his  comedies,  and  not  a  few  ambitious,  blood- 
thirsty,  or  oomipt  women  in  his  serious  plays — ^figures  such  as 
Adriana  and  the  shrewisb  Katharine  on  the  one  band,  Tamora 
and  Margaret  of  Anjou  on  the  other  handi  who  Ihln^  i^  ^  «»>oSSL- 
oed^d  ivili^  ao J  a  cerfaiii  violenoe  of  maxuienk   lAÜiit\8X«c^«uc% 


214  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  his  ripe  manhood  he  displays  a  preference  for  young  women 
who  are  nothing  but  soul  and  tendemess,  silent  natures  without 
wit  or  sparkle,  figures  such  as  Ophelia,  Desdemona,  and  Cordelia. 

Between  these  two  strongly-marked  groups  we  come  upon  a 
bevy  of  beautiful  young  women,  who  all  have  their  heart  in  the 
right  place,  but  whose  chief  attraction  lies  in  their  sparkling 
quickness  of  wit.  They  are  often  as  lovable  as  the  most  faithful 
friend  can  be,  and  witty  as  Heinrich  Heine  himself,  though  with 
another  sort  of  wit.  We  feel  that  Shakespeare  must  have  admired 
with  all  his  heart  the  modeis  from  whom  he  drew  these  women, 
and  must  have  rejoiced  in  them  as  one  brilliant  mind  rejoices  in 
another.  These  types  of  delicate  and  aristocratic  womanhood 
cannot  possibly  have  had  plebeian  modeis. 

In  his  first  years  in  London,  Shakespeare,  as  an  underling  in  a 
Company  of  players,  can  have  had  no  opportunity  of  associating 
with  other  women  than,  firstly,  those  who  sat  for  his  Mistress 
Quickly  and  Doli  Tearsheet ;  secondly,  those  passionate  and  daring 
women  who  make  the  first  advances  to  actors  and  poets;  and, 
thirdly,  those  who  served  as  modeis  for  his  "  Merry  Wives,"  with 
their  sound  bourgeois  sense  and  not  over  delicate  gaie^.  But 
the  ordinary  citizen's  wife  or  daughter  of  that  day  oifered  the 
poet  no  sort  of  spiritual  sustenance.  They  were,  as  a  rule,  quite 
iUiterate.  Shakespeare's  younger  daughter  could  not  even  write 
her  own  name. 

But  he  was  presently  discovered  by  men  like  Southampton  and 
Pembroke,  cordially  received  into  their  refined  and  thoroughly 
cultivated  circle,  and  in  all  probability  presented  to  the  ladies  cf 
these  noble  families.     Can  we  doubt  that  the  tone  of  conversatioo    • 
among  these  aristocratic  ladies  must  have  enchanted  him,  that  he    j 
must  have  rejoiced  in  the  nobility  and  elegance  of  their  mannen^    ' 
and  that  their  playful  freedom  of  speech  must  have  afiforded  him    \ 
an  object  for  imitation  and  idealisation  ? 

The  great  ladies  of  that  date  were  exceedingly  accomplished.  > 
They  had  been  educated  as  highly  as  the  men,  spoke  Italian,  Frendi, 
and  Spanish  fluently,  and  were  not  infrequently  acquainted  with 
Latin  and  Greek.  Lady  Pembroke,  Sidney's  sister,  the  mother  of 
Shakespeare's  patron,  was  regarded  as  the  most  intellectual  woman 
of  her  time,  and  was  equally  celebrated  as  an  author  and  as  a 
patroness  of  authors.  And  these  ladies  were  not  oppressed  by 
their  knowledge  or  affected  in  their  speech,  but  natural,  rieh  in 
ideas  as  in  acquirements,  free  in  their  wit,  and  sometimes  in  their 
morals ;  so  that  we  can  easily  understand  how  a  daring,  high-bred, 
womanly  intelligence  should  have  been,  for  a  series  of  yearB,  the 
object  which  it  most  delighted  Shakespeare  to  portray.  He  Sup- 
plements this  intellectual  superiority,  in  var3nng  measuresi  with 
independence,  goodness  of  heart,  pride,  humility,  tendemess^  fbe 
joy  of  life ;  so  that  from  the  central  conception  there  radiates  a 
hm ' like  semidrcle  of  difierent  personaiVüe^.     It  ^kza  of  sudi 


XXVIII 

THB  INTBRVAL  OP  SBRBNITY-^AS  YOÜ  LIKB  IT-^THB 
ROVING  SPIRIT^THB  LOSGING  FOR  NATÜRB^JAQÜBS 
AND  SHAKBSPBARB—THB  PLAY  A  PBAST  OP  WIT 

N£VER  had  Shakespeare  produced  with  such  rapidity  and  ease 
as  in  this  bright  and  happy  interval  of  two  or  three  years.  It  is 
positively  astounding  to  note  all  that  he  accomplished  in  tbe  year 
1600,  when  he  stood,  not  exactly  at  the  height  of  his  poetical 
power,  for  that  steadily  increased,  but  at  the  height  of  his  poetical 
serenity.  Among  the  exquisite  comedies  he  now  writes,  As  Yau 
Like  It  is  one  of  the  most  exquisite. 

The  play  was  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register,  along  with 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing ^  on  the  4th  of  August  1600,  and  must 
in  all  probability  have  been  written  in  that  year.  Meres  does  not 
mention  it,  in  1598,  in  his  list  of  Shakespeare's  plays;  it  contains 
(as  already  noted,  page  36)  a  quotation  from  Marlowe's  Htro  and 
Leander^  published  in  1598 — 

"  Who  ever  lov'd,  that  lov'd  not  at  first  sight  ?" 

a  quotation,  by  the  way,  which  sums  up  the  matter  of  the  comedy ; 
and  we  find  in  Celia's  words  (L  2),  ''  Since  the  little  wit  that  fools 
have  was  silenced,"  an  allusion  to  the  public  and  judicial  buming 
of  satirical  publications  which  took  place  on  the  ist  of  June  1599. 
As  there  does  not  seem  to  be  room  in  the  year  1599  for  more 
works  than  we  have  already  assigned  to  it,  As  You  Ltke  It  must 
be  taken  as  dating  from  the  first  half  of  the  foUowing  year. 

As  usual,  Shakespeare  took  from  another  poet  the  whole 
material  of'this  enchanting  comedy.  His  contemporary,  Thomas 
Lc>dge  (who,  after  leaving  Oxford,  became  first  a  player  and  play- 
wright  in  London,  then  a  lawyer,  then  a  doctor  and  writer  on 
medical  subjects,  until  he  died  of  the  plague  in  the  year  1625), 
had  in  1590  published  a  pastoral  romance,  with  many  poems 
interspersed,  entitled  Euphues  golden  Legacie^  found  after  his 
death  in  his  Cell  at  SiUxedra^  which  he  had  written,  as  he  sets 
forth  in  his  Dedication  to  Lord  Hunsdon,  "  to  beguile  the  time  ^ 
on  a  voyage  to  the  Canary  Islands.  The  style  is  laboured  and 
exceedingly  diffuse,  a  true  pastoral  style;  but  Lodge  had  that 

^  Kcprinted  in  Ha^tt'f  Sii«kespeaie'i  libnry,  ed.  l^S»  V^iXl  V^n^^ 


222  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

gift  of  mere  external  invention  in  which  Shakespeare,  with  aU  his 
powers,  was  so  deficient.  All  the  different  stories  which  the  play 
contains  or  touches  upon  are  found  in  Lodge,  and  likewise  all  the 
characters,  with  the  exception  of  Jaques,  Touchstone,  and  Audrey. 
Very  remarkable  to  the  attentive  reader  is  Shakespeare's  uniform 
passivity  with  regard  to  what  he  found  in  his  sources,  and  his 
unwillingness  to  reject  or  alter  anything,  combined  as  it  is  with 
the  most  intense  intellectual  activity  at  the  points  upon  which  he 
concentrates  his  strength. 

We  find  in  As  You  Like  It.  as  in  Lodge.  a  wicked  Duke  who  has 
expelled  his  virtuous  brother,  the  lawful  ruler,  from  his  domains. 
The  banished  Duke,  with  his  adherents,  has  taken  refuge  in  the 
Forest  of  Arden,  where  they  live  as  free  a  life  as  Robin  Hood  and 
his  merry  men,  and  where  they  are  presently  sought  out  by  the 
Duke's  daughter  Rosalind  and  her  cousin  Celia,  the  daughter  of  the 
usurper,  who  will  not  let  her  banished  friend  wander  forth  alone. 
In  the  circle  of  nobüity  subordinate  to  the  princes,  there  is  also  a 
wicked  brother,  Oliver,  who  seeks  the  life  of  his  virtuous  younger 
brother,  Orlando,  a  hero  as  modest  and  amiable  as  he  is  brave. 
He  and  Rosalmd  fall  in  love  with  each  other  the  moment  they 
meet,  and  she maikes sport  with  him  throughout  theplay,  disguised 
as_aJM^.  These  scenes  should  probably  be  acled  as  thouglTTie 
half  recognised  her.  At  last  all  ends  happily.  The  wicked  Duke 
most  conveniently  repents ;  the  wicked  brother  is  all  of  a  sudden 
converted  (quite  without  rhyme  or  reason)  when  Orlando,  whom 
he  has  persecuted,  kills  a  lioness — a  lioness  in  the  Forest  of 
Arden  I — which  is  about  to  spring  upon  him  as  he  lies  asleep. 
And  the  caitifT  is  rewarded  (no  less  unreasonably),  either  for 
his  villainy  or  for  his  conversion,  with  the  band  of  the  lovely 
Celia. 

This  whole  story  is  perfectly  unimportant ;  Shakespeare,  that 
is  to  say,  evidently  cared  very  little  about  it.     We  have  here  no 
/attempt  at  a  reproduction  of  reality,  but  one  long  festival  of  gaiety 
(and  wit,  a  soulful  wit  that  vibrates  into  feeling. 

First  and  foremostpthe  play  typifies  Shakespeare^s  longing, 
the  longing  of  this  great  spirit,  to  fi[et  away  ff^pi  thp  nnng^^^iiral 
city  life,  away  from  the  false  and  ungrateful  city  folk,  intent  on 
busmess  and  on  gain,  away  from  flattery  and  falsehood  and  deceit, 
ni|t  infn  thfi  rniir|tryj  where  sjmple  manners  still  endure,  where  it 
is  easier  to  realise  the  dream  of  füll  freedom,  and  where  the  scent 
of  the  woods  is  so  sweet  There  the  babble  of  the  brooks  has 
a  subtler  eloquence  than  any  that  is  heard  in  cities ;  there  the 
trees  and  even  the  stones  say  more  to  the  wanderer's  heart  than 
the  houses  and  streets  of  the  capital ;  there  he  finds  "  good  in 
everything." 

The  roving  spirit  has  reawakened  In  his  breast — the  spirit 
which  in  bygone  days  sent  him  wandering  with  his  gun  througfa 
Charlcote  Park — and  out  yonder  in  the  lap  of  Nature»  but  in  a 


1 


"AS  YOU  LIKE  IT" 


remoter,  richer  Nature  than  that  which  he  has  known,  hejjxßams 
of  a  communion  between  the  best  and  ablest  men|  the  fairest  and 
m^st  dHigatp  Wft!n^"i  in  ideal  fantastic  surroundings,  far  from  the 
ugly  Glamours  of  a  public  career,  and  the  oppression  of  everyday 
cares.  Aüfeof  hunting  and  song,  and  simple  repasts  in  the 
open  aiTy  accompaniea  witlTwitty  talk;  and  at  the^samejjj 
Tife  julI  tö^c  6rim  with  the  (freämy  nappmess  of  love.  And 
wiflPthls  life,  ihe  creaiion  ol  bis  roving  spirit,  his  gaiety  and 
bis  longing  for  Nature,  hg^^nimate^  a  fantastic  Forest  of  Arden.     f    . 

But  with  this  he  is  not  contentT  He  dreams  out  the  dream,  W/ 
and  feels  that  even  such  an  ideal  and  untiammelled  life  could  notr^ 
satisfy  that  stränge  and  unaccountable  spirit  lurking  in  the  inmost 
depths  of  his  nature,  which  turps  everything  into  food  for  melan» 
choly  and  satire.  From  this  n^  ttien,  taken  from  his  own  side, 
he  creates  the  figure  of  Jaques/mnknown  to  theromance,  andsets 
him  wandering  ini'öllgh  his  pastoral  comedy,  loncly^  retiring.  seif- 
ab,SQrhed,  a  misanthrope  from  excess  ot  tendemess,  sensitiyeness, 
and  ynagination. 

Jaques  is  Uke  the  first  light  and  brilliant  pencil-sketch  for 
Hamlet.  Taine,  and  others  after  him,  have  tried  to  draw  a 
parallel  between  Jaques  and  Alceste — of  all  Moli&re's  creations, 
ao  doubt,  the  one  who  contains  most  of  his  own  nature.  But 
there  is  no  real  analogy  between  them.  In  Jaques  everything 
wears  the  shimmering  hues  of  wit  and  fantasy,  in  Alceste  every- 
thing is  bitter  eamest.  Indignation  is  the  mainspring  of  Alceste's 
misanthropy.  He  is  disgusted  at  the  falsehood  around  him,  and 
outraged  to  see  that  the  scoundrel  with  whom  he  is  at  law, 
although  despised  by  every  one,  is  nevertheless  everywhere 
received  with  open  arms.  He  declines  to  remain  in  bad  Company, 
evea  in  the  hearts  of  his  friends;  therefore  he  withdraws  from 
them.     He  loathes  two  classes  of  people : 

''  Les  uns  parcequ'ils  sont  m^hants  et  malfaisants, 
Et  les  autres  pour  ^tre  aux  m^hants  complaisants." 

These  are  the  accents  of  Timon  of  Athens,  who  hated  the 
wicked  for  their  wickedness,  and  other  men  for  not  hating  the 
wicked. 

It  is,  then,  in  Shakespeare's  Timon,  of  many  years  later,  that 
we  can  alone  find  an  instructive  parallel  to  Alceste.  Alceste's 
nature  is  keenly  logical,  classically  French ;  it  consists  of  sheer 
uncompromising  sincerity  and  pride,  without  sensibility  and 
without  melancholy. 

,       The  melancholy  of  Jaques  is  a  poetic  dreaminess.     He  is 

?Wescribed"to  us  (ii.  i)  before  we  see  him«    The  banished  Duke 

has  just  been  blessing  the  adversity  which  drove  him  out  into  the 

forest,  where  he  is  exempt  from  the  dangers  of  the  envious  court 

He  18  on  the  point  of  setting  forth  to  hunt|  ^Vi^u  Yi^  \^BrDiä  >icL^ 


224  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  mdancholy  Jaques  repines  at  the  cruelty  of  the  cbaaei  and 
calls  him  in  that  respect  as  great  a  usurper  as  the  brother  who 
drove  him  from  his  dukedom.  The  courtiers  have  found  him 
stretched  beneath  an  oak,  and  dissolved  in  pity  for  a  poor 
wounded  stag  which  stood  beside  the  brook,  and  '*  heaved  forth 
such  groans  That  their  discharge  did  Stretch  his  leathem  coat 
Almost  to  bursting."  Jaques,  they  continue,  ''moralised  this 
spectade  into  a  thousand  similes : '' — 

''Theo,  being  there  alone, 
Left  and  abandon'd  of  faäs  velvet  friends ; 
"Tis  right,'  quoth  he ;  '  thus  misery  doth  part 
The  flux  of  Company.'    Anon,  a  careless  herd. 
Füll  of  the  pasture,  jumps  along  by  him, 
And  never  stays  to  greet  him.    '  Ay/  quoth  Jaquesi 
'  Sweep  on,  you  fat  and  greasy  Citizens ; 
Tis  just  the  fashion :  wherefore  do  you  look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there?* 

His  bittemess  Springs  from  a  too  tender  sensibility,  a  sensibility 
like  that  of  Sakya  Mouni  before  him,  who  made  tendemess  to 
animals  part  of  his  religion,  and  like  that  of  Shelley  after  him, 
who,  in  his  pantheism,  realised  the  kinship  between  his  own  soul 
and  that  of  the  brüte  creation. 

Thus  we  are  prepared  for  his  entrance.  He  introduces  himsdf 
into  the  Duke's  circle  (ii.  7)  with  a  glorification  of  the  fool's 
motley.  He  has  encountered  Touchstone  in  the  forest,  and  is 
enraptured  with  him.  The  motley  fool  lay  basking  in  the 
sun,  and  when  Jaques  said  to  him,  "Good  morrow,  fooll''  he 
answered,  ''Call  me  not  fool  tili  heaven  have  sent  me  fortune.** 
Then  this  sapient  fool  drew  a  dial  from  his  pocket,  and  said 
very  wisely — 

"  *  It  is  ten  o'clock : 
Thus  may  we  see,'  quoth  he,  *  how  the  world  wags  t 
Tis  but  an  hour  ago  since  it  was  nine, 
And  after  one  hour  more  'twill  be  eleven ; 
And  so  from  hour  to  hour  we  ripe  and  ripe, 
And  then  from  hour  to  hour  we  rot  and  rot, 
And  thereby  hangs  a  tale.' '' 

"  O  noble  fool  I "  Jaques  exclaims  with  enthusiasm.  "  A  woithy 
fool  I     Motley's  the  only  wear." 

In  moods  of  humorous  melancholy,  it  must  have  seemed  to 
Shakespeare  as  though  he  himsdf  were  one  of  these  jesters,  who 
had  the  privilege  of  uttering  truths  to  great  people  and  on  the 
stage,  if  only  they  did  not  blurt  them  out  directly,  but  disguised 
them  under  a  mask  of  folly.  It  was  in  a  similar  mood  that 
Heinrich  Heine,  centuries  later,  addressed  to  the  German  people 
tbese  words :  *'  Ich  bin  dein  Kunz  yon  der  Rosen«  dein  Narr.'* 


1 


"AS  YOÜ  LIKE  IT-  225 

Therefore  it  is  that  Shakespeare  makes  Jaques  cxclaim — 

"  O,  that  I  were  a  fool ! 
I  am  ambitious  for  a  motley  coat** 

When  the  Duke  answers,  *'  Thou  shalt  have  one,"  he  declares 
that  it  is  the  one  thing  he  wants,  and  that  the  others  must  **wee<^ 
thejr  judgments  ^  of  the  opinion  that  he  is  wise : — 

"  I  must  have  libertv 
Withal,  as  laige  a  charter  as  the  wind, 
To  blow  on  whom  I  please ;  for  so  fools  have : 
And  they  that  are  most  galled  with  my  foUy, 
They  most  must  laugh. 

•  ••••• 

Invest  me  in  my  motley :  give  me  leave 

To  speak  my  mind,  and  I  will  through.  and  through 

Cleanse  the  foul  body  of  the  infected  world, 

If  they  will  patiently  receive  my  medicine." 

It  is  Shakespeare's  own  mood  that  we  hear  in  these  words. 
The  voice  is  his.  The  utterance  is  far  too  large  for  Jaques: 
he  is  only  a  mouthpiece  for  the  poet.  Or  let  us  say  that  his 
figure  dilates  in  such  passages  as  this,  and  we  see  in  him  a 
Hamlet  avanl  la  lettre. 

When  the  Duke,  in  answer  to  this  outburst,  denies  Jaques' 
right  to  chide  and  satirise  others,  since  he  has  himself  been 
''a  libertine,  As  sensual  as  the  brutish  sting  itself,"  the  poet 
evidently  defends  himself  in  the  reply  which  he  places  in  the 
mouth  of  the  melancholy  philosopher : — 

"  Why,  who  cries  out  on  pride, 
That  can  therein  tax  any  private  party? 
Doth  it  not  flow  as  hugely  as  the  sea, 
Till  that  the  weary  very  means  do  ebb  ? 
What  woman  in  the  dty  do  I  name, 
When  that  I  say,  the  city-woman  bears 
The  cost  of  princes  on  unworthy  Shoulders  ? 
Who  can  come  in,  and  say  that  I  mean  her, 
When  such  a  one  as  she,  such  is  her  neighbour  ?  ^ 

This  exactly  anticipates  Holberg's  self-defence  in  the  character 
of  Philemon  in  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck,  The  poet  is  evidently 
rebutting  a  common  prejudice  against  his  art.  And  as  he  makes 
Jaques  ayi  aHvnratff  fnr  thg}  freedom  which  poetry  must  claim. 
80  also  he  employs  him  as  a  champion  of  the  actor^s  mis- 
judged  caliing,  in  placing  in  his  mouth  the  magnificent  speech 
on  the  Seven  Ages  of  Man.  AUuding,  no  doubt,  to  the  motto 
of  Totus  Mundus  Agit  Histrianem,  inscribed  under  the  Hercules 
as  Atlas,  which  was  the  sign  of  the  Globe  Theater,  \3cvV&  ^^t^ 
opens  with  the  words :— - 

Tb 


226  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  All  the  world's  a  stage, 
And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players  ; 
They  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances ; 
And  one  man  in  bis  time  plays  many  parts." 

Ben  Jonson  is  said  to  have  inquired,  in  an  epigram  against 
the  motto  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  where  the  spectators  were  to 
be  found  if  all  the  men  and  women  were  players  ?  And  an 
epigram  attributed  to  Shakespeare  gives  the  simple  answer  that 
all  are  players  and  audience  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Jaques' 
survey  of  the  life  of  man  is  admirably  condse  and  impressive. 
The  last  line — 

*'  Sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  everything  " — 

with  its  half  French  equivalent  for  "without,"  is  imitated  from 
the  Henriade  of  the  French  poet  Garnier,  which  was  not  trans- 
latedy  and  which  Shakespeare  must  consequently  have  read  in 
the  original. 

This  same  Jaques,  who  gives  evidence  of  so  wide  an  outlook 
over  human  life,  is  in  daily  intercourse,  as  we  have  said,  ner- 
vously  misanthropic  and  formidably  witty.  He  is  sick  of  polite 
Society,  pines  for  solitude,  takes  leave  of  a  pleasant  companion 
with  the  words :  "  I  thank  you  for  your  Company ;  but,  good 
faith,  I  had  as  lief  have  been  myself  alone."    Yet  we  must  not 

Itake  bis  melancholy  and  bis  misanthropy  too  seriously.  His 
melancholy  is  a  comedy-melancholy,  his  misanthropy  is  only  the 
humourist's  craving  to  give  free  vent  to  his  satirical  inspirations. 
And  there  is,  as  aforesaid,  only  a  certain  part  of  Shakespeare's 
inmost  nature  in  this  Jaques,  a  Shakespeare  of  the  future,  a 
Hamlet  in  germ,  but  not  that  Shakespeare  who  now  bathes  in 
the  sunlight  and  lives  in  uninterrupted  prosperity,  in  growing 
favour  w^ith  the  many,  and  borne  aloft  by  the  admiration  and 
goodwill  of  the  few.  We  must  seek  for  this  Shakespeare  in  the 
interspersed  songs,  in  the  drollery  of  the  fool,  in  the  lovers' 
rhapsodies,  in  the  enchanting  babble  of  the  ladies.  He  is,  like 
•Providence,  everywhere  and  nowhere. 

i^  When  Celia  says  (i.  2),  '^  Let  us  sit  and  mock  the  good  house- 
wife,  Fortune,  from  her  wheel,  that  her  gifts  may  henceforth  be 
bestowed  equally,"  she  strikes,  as  though  with  a  tuning-fork,  the 
keynote  of  the  comedy.  The  sluice  is  opened  for  that  torrent  of 
jocund  wit,  shimmering  with  all  the  rainbows  of  fancy,  which  is 
now  to  rush  seething  and  swirling  along. 
^  -^Thc  Fool  is  essen tial  to  the  scheme :  for  the  Fool's  stupidiCy 
H  is  the  grindstone  of  wit,  and  the  FooFs  wit  is  the  touchstODe  of 
character.     Hence  his  name. 

The  ways  of  the  real  world,  however,  are  not  forgotten.  The 
good  make  enemies  by  their  very  goodness,  and  the  words  of  the 
old  servant  Adam  (Shakespeare's  own  part)  to  his  young  master 
Orlando  (ii.  3)1  sound  sadly  enough : — 


r 

^  "AS  YOÜ  LIKE  IT-  227 

**  Your  praise  is  come  too  swiftly  home  before  you« 
Know  you  not,  master,  to  some  kind  of  men 
Their  graces  serve  them  but  as  enemies  ? 
No  more  do  yours :  your  virtues,  gentle  master, 
Are  sanctified,  and  holy  traitors  to  you. 
O,  what  a  world  is  this,  when  what  is  comely 
Envenoms  him  that  bears  it ! " 

But  soon  the  poet's  eye  is  opened  to  a  more  consolatory  life- 
philosophy,  combined  with  an  unequivocal  contempt  for  school- 
philosophy.  There  seems  to  be  a  scoffing  allusion  to  a  book  of 
the  time,  which  was  füll  of  the  platitudes  ot  celebrated  philosophers. 

William  (v.  i),  "Ihe  heathen  philö- 


in   1  ouchstone's  speech  to  William 

sopher,  when  he  had  desire  to  eat  a  grape,  would  open  his  lips 
when  he  put  it  into  his  mouth,  meaning  thereby  that  grapes  were 
made  to  eat  and  lips  to  open ; "  but  no  doubt  there  also  lurks  in 
this  speech  a  cettain  lack  of  respect  for  even  the  much-belauded 
wisdom  of  tradition.  The  relativity  of  all  things,  at  that  time  a| 
new  idea,  is  expounded  with  lofty  humour  by  the  Pool  in  his  answerk^ 
to  the  question  what  he  thinks  of  this  pastoral  life  (iii.  2) : —  ' 

"  Truly,  shepherd,  in  respect  of  itself  it  is  a  good  life,  but  in  respect 
that  it  is  a  shepherd's  life,  it  is  naught.  In  respect  that  it  is  solitary,  I 
^ke  it  very  well ;  but  in  respect  that  it  is  private,  it  is  a  very  vile  life. 
Now,  in  respect  it  is  in  the  fields,  it  pleaseth  me  well ;  but  in  respect  it 
is  not  in  the  court,  it  is  tedious.  As  it  is  a  spare  life,  look  you,  it  fits 
my  humour  well ;  but  as  there  is  no  more  plenty  in  it,  it  goes  much 
against  my  stomach.     Hast  any  philosophy  in  thee,  shepherd?" 

The  shepherd's  answer  makes  direct  sport  of  philosophy,  in 
the  style  of  Moli^re's  gibe,  when  he  accounts  for  the  narcotic 
effect  of  opium  by  explaining  that  the  drug  possesses  a  certain 
facultas  domtitativa  : — 

"  Corin,  No  more,  but  that  I  know,  the  more  one  sickens,  the  worse 
at  ease  he  is ;  and  that  he  that  wants  money,  means,*  and  content,  is 
without  three  good  friends ;  that  the  property  of  rain  is  to  wet,  and  fire 
to  burn ;  that  good  pasture  makes  fat  sheep,  and  that  a  great  cause  of 
the  night  is  lack  of  the  sun.  ... 

"  Tauchstaru.  Such  a  one  is  a  natural  philosopher.** 

This  8ort  of  philosophy  leads  up,  as  it  were,  to  Rosalind's  sweet 
gaiety  and  heavenly  kindness. 

The  two  cousins,  Rosalind  and  Celia,  seem  at  first  glance  like 
variations  of  the  two  cousins,  Beatrice  and  Hero,  in  the  play 
Shakespeare  has  just  finished.  Rosalind  and  Beatrice  in  parti- 
cular  are  akin  in  their  victorious  wit  Yet  the  difference  between 
them  is  very  great ;  Shakespeare  never  repeats  himself.  The  wit 
of  Beatrice  is  aggressive  and  challenging ;  we  see,  as  it  were,  the 
gleam  of  a  rapier  in  it.  Rosalind's  wit  is  gaiety  without  a  sting ; 
the  gleam  in  it  is  of  that  sweet  radiance  ^  which  Oehlenschläger 


228  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

attributed  to  Freia;  her  sportive  nature  masks  the  depth  of  her 

love.     Beatrice  can  be  brought  to  love  because  she  is  a  womaDi 

and  Stands  in  no  respect  apart  from  her  sez ;  but  she  is  not  of 

an  amatory  nature.    Rosalind  is  seized  with  a  passion  for  Orlando 

the  instant  she  sets  eyes  on  him.    From  the  moment  of  Beatrice's 

first  appearance  she  is  defiant  and  combative,  in  the  highest  of 

^spirits.     We  are  introduced  to  Rosalind  as  a  poor  bird  with  a 

/   drooping  wing ;  her  father  is  banished,  she  is  bereft  of  her  birth- 

/    right,  and  is  living  on  sufferance  as  companion  to  the  usurper^s 

/      daughter,  being,  indeed,  half  a  prisoner  in  the  palace,  where  tili 

l       lately  she  reigned  as  princess.     It  is  not  until  she  has  donned  the 

\      doublet  and  hose,  appears  in  the  Ukeness  of  a  page,  and  wanders 

\     at  her  own  sweet  will  in  the  open  air  and  the  greenwood,  that  she 

X  recovers  her  radiant  humour,  and  roguish  merriment  flows  from 

1  her  lips  like  the  trilling  of  a  bird. 

\  Nor  is  the  man  she  loves,  like  Benedick,  an  overweening 
gallant  with  a  sharp  tongue  and  an  unabashed  bearing.  This 
youth,  though  brave  as  a  hero  and  strong  as  an  athlete,  is  a 
child  in  inexperience,  and  so  bashful  in  the  presence  of  the 
woman  who  instantly  captivates  him,  that  it  is  she  who  is  the 
first  to  betray  her  sympathy  for  him,  and  has  even  to  take  the 
chain  from  her  own  neck  and  hang  it  around  his  before  he  can 
so  mach  as  muster  up  courage  to  hope  for  her  love.  So,  too^ 
we  find  him  passing  his  time  in  hanging  poems  to  her  upon 
the  trees,  and  carving  the  name  of  Rosahnd  in  their  bark.  She 
amuses  herseif,  in  her  page's  attire,  by  making  herseif  his  con- 
fidant,  and  pretending,  as  it  were  in  jest,  to  be  his  Rosalind. 
She  cannot  bring  herseif  to  confess  her  passion,  although  she  can 
think  and  talk  (to  Celia)  of  no  one  but  him,  and  although  his 
delay  of  a  few  minutes  in  keeping  tryst  with  her  sets  her  besidc 
herseif  with  impatience.  She  is  as  sensitive  as  she  is  intelligenty 
in  this  differing  from  Portia,  to  whom,  in  other  respects,  she  bears 
some  resemblance,  though  she  lacks  her  persuasive  eloquence^ 
and  is,  on  the  whole,  more  tender,  more  virginal.  She  faints 
when  Oliver,  to  excuse  Orlando's  delay,  brings  her  a  handker- 
chief  stained  with  his  blood ;  yet  has  suificient  self-mastery  tp 
say  with  a  smile  the  moment  she  recovers,  "  I  pray  you  teil  yoür 
brother  how  well  I  counterfeited."  She  is  quite  at  her  ease  in 
her  male  attire,  like  Viola  and  Imogen  after  her.  The  fact  that 
female  parts  were  played  by  youths  had,  of  course,  somethk^  to 
do  with  the  frequency  of  these  disguises. 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  her  wit  (iii.  2).  Orlando  has  evaded  the 
page's  question  what  o'clock  it  is,  alleging  that  there  are  no  clock? 
in  the  forest 

"  Rosalind.  Then,  there  is  no  tme  lover  in  the  forest ;  eise  sif^ung 
every  minute,  and  groaning  every  hour,  would  detect  the  laiy  fobt  ^ 
Time  as  well  as  a  docL  •....• 


'*AS  YOÜ  LIKte  IT^  ^  129 

^*Orlafuh.  And  why  not  th6  swift  foot  of  Time  ?  had  not  that  been 

**  ^&f.  By  no  means,  sir.  Time  travels  in  divers  paces  with  divers 
persons.  FH  teil  you,  wfao  Time  ambles  withal,  who  Time  trots  withal, 
who  Time  gaßops  withal,  and  who  he  Stands  still  withaL 

**  OH,  I  pr'ythee,  who  doth  he  trot  withal  ? 

^  J^os,  Mbttj,  he  trots  hard  with  a  young  maid,  between  the  contract 
of  her  marriage,  and  the  day  it  is  solemnised :  if  the  interim  be  but  a 
se'nnight,  Time's  pace  is  so  hard  that  it  seems  the  length  of  seven 
years. 

^Orl  Who  ambles  Time  withal  ? 

.**  R&s.  With  a  priest  that  lacks  Latin,  and  a  rieh  man  that  hath  not 
the  gout ;  for  the  one  sleeps  easily,  because  he  cannot  study ;  and  the 
other  lives  merrily,  because  he  feels  no  pain.  .  .  • 

"  OrL  Who  doth  he  gaUop  withal  ? 

**  Ras.  With  a  thief  to  the  gallows ;  for  though  he  go  as  softly  as  foot 
catt  fall,  he  thinks  himself  too  soon  there. 

"  Orl  Who  stays  it  stiU  withal  ? 

''  Ras.  With  lawyers  in  the  vacation ;  for  they  sleep  between  term 
and  term,  and  then  they  perceive  not  how  Time  moves." 

She  is  unrivalled  in  vivadty  and  inventiveness.  In  every 
answer  she  discovers  gunpowder  anew,  and  she  knows  how  to 
use  it  to  boot.  She  explains  that  she  had  an  old  uncle  who 
warned  her  against  love  and  women,  and,  from  the  vantage- 
ground  of  her  doublet  and  hose,  she  declares — 

^  I  thank  God,  I  am  not  a  woman,  to  be  touched  with  so  many  giddy 
offences,  as  he  hath  generally  taxed  their  whole  sex  withaL 

*<  OrL  Can  you  remember  any  of  the  principal  evils  that  he  laid  to 
the  Charge  of  women  ? 

'*  Ras,  There  were  none  principal :  they  were  all  like  one  another,  as 
half-pence  are ;  every  one  fault  seeming  monstrous,  tili  its  fellow  fault 
came  to  match  it 

**  OrL  I  pr'ythee,  recount  some  of  them. 

**Ros.  No ;  I  will  not  cast  away  my  physic  but  on  those  that  are  sick. 
There  is  a  man  haunts  the  forest,  that  abuses  our  young  plants  with 
carving  Rosalind  on  their  barks;  hangs  ödes  upon  hawthoms,  and 
elegies  on  brambles ;  all,  forsooth,  deifying  the  name  of  Rosalind :  if  I 
could  meet  that  fancy-monger,  I  would  give  him  some  good  counsel, 
for  he  seems  to  have  the  quotidian  of  love  upon  him." 

Orlando  admits  that  he  is  the  culprit,  and  they  are  to  meet 
daily  that  she  may  ezorcise  his  passion.  She  bids  him  woo 
her  in  jest,  as  though  she  were  indeed  Rosalind,  and  answers 
(iv.  I):— 

"  Ras,  Well,  in  her  person,  I  say — I  will  not  have  you. 
''  OrL  Then,  in  mine  own  person,  I  die. 

^^Ros.  No,  Taith,  die  by  attomey.     The  poor  wotld  \s  %&m!C^\.  «ck 
thousand  years  old,  and  in  all  this  time  there  was  not  «st}  tEAXk  ^vtt\ 


230  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  his  own  person,  videlicet^  in  a  love-cause.  Troilus  had  his 
dashed  out  with  a  Grecian  club;  yet  he  did  what  he  could  to  die 
before,  and  he  is  one  of  the  pattems  of  love.  Leander,  he  would  have 
lived  many  a  fair  year,  though  Hero  had  turned  nun,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  a  hot  midsummer  night ;  for,  good  youth,  he  went  but  forth  to  wash 
him  in  the  Hellespont,  and,  being  taken  with  the  cramp,  was  drowned, 
and  the  foolish  chroniclers  of  that  age  found  it  was — Hero  of  Sestos. 
But  these  are  all  lies :  men  have  died  from  time  to  time,  and  worms 
have  eaten  them,  but  not  for  love." 

What  Rosalind  says  of  women  in  general  applies  to  hersdf  in 
particular :  you  will  never  find  her  without  an  answer  until  you 
find  her  without  a  tongue.  And  there  is  always  a  bright  and 
merry  fantasy  in  her  answers.  She  is  literally  radiant  with 
youth,  Imagination,  and  the  joy  of  loving  so  passionately  and 
being  so  passionately  beloved.  And  it  is  marvellous  how 
thoroughly  feminine  is  her  wit-  Too  many  of  the  witty  women 
in  books  written  by  men  have  a  man's  intelligence.  Rosalind's 
wit  is  tempered  by  feeling. 

bhe  has  no  monopoly  of  wit  in  this  Arcadia  of  Arden.  Every 
one  in  the  play  is  witty,  even  the  so-called  simpletons.  It  is  a 
festival  of  wit.  At  some  points  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  fol- 
Iowed  no  stricter  principle  than  the  simple  one  of  making  each 
interlocutor  outbid  the  other  in  wit  (see,  for  example,  the  oon- 
versation  between  Touchstone  and  the  country  wench  whom  he 
befools).  The  result  is  that  the  piece  is  bathed  in  a  sunshiny 
humour.  And  amid  all  the  gay  and  airy  wit-skirmishes,  amid 
the  cooing  love-duets  of  all  the  happy  youths  and  maidens,  the 
poet  intersperses  the  melancholy  solos  of  his  Jaques : — 

"  I  have  neither  the  scholar's  melancholy,  which  is  emulation ;  nor 
the  musician's,  which  is  fantastical ;  nor  the  courtier's,  which  is  proud ; 
nor  the  soldier^s,  which  is  ambitious ;  nor  the  lawyer's,  which  is  politic ; 
nor  the  lady's,  which  is  nice ;  nor  the  lover's,  which  is  all  these ;  but  it 
is  a  melancholy  of  mine  own,  compounded  of  many  simples,  extracted 
fi-om  many  objects." 

This  is  the  melancholy  which  haunts  the  thinker  and  the  great 
creative  artist ;  but  in  Shakespeare  it  as  yet  modulated  with 
into  the  most  engaging  and  delightful  merriment 


XXIX 

CONSUMMATB    SPIRITUAL    HARMONY'-TWBLPTH    mQHJr^f^,U 
JIBBS   AT   PÜRITANISM—THB    LANGÜISHING    CHARAO      OlJf^* 
TERS—VIOLA'S    INSINÜATING    GRACB-^PARBWBLL    TG 
MIRTH 

If  the  reader  would  picture  to  himself  Shakespeare's  mood  during 
this  Short  space  of  time  at  the  end  of  the  old  Century  and  begin- 
ning  of  the  new,  let  him  recall  some  moming  when  he  has  awakened 
with  the  Sensation  of  complete  physical  well-being,  not  only 
feeling  no  definite  or  indefinite  pain  or  uneasiness,  but  with  a 
positive  consciousness  of  I^j^ppY  actiYit;y  ip  all  hi«  nrgang*  when 

he  drew  bis  hrpatlTTTgfitly/  his  head  was  ripar  anrl  frp«^  his  heart 

beal;  peacefully;  when  the  mere  acLijf  Irring  wasa  de.light:  when 
the  soul  dwelt  on  happy  moments  injhe  past  and  dreamed  of  joys 
to  come.  Recall  such  a  moment,  and  then  conceive  it  intensified 
an  hundredfold — conceive  vourmemory.  imagination,  Observation, 
acuteness,  and  powert  expresIHüll  u  liuuüied-iÜQgs  multiplied 
and  you  may  divine  Sixakgspeare's  prevailin 
when  the  brighter  and  na^ipISF' yiU^  ol  liS^liatUre  were  tumed  to 
the  sun. 

There  are  days  when  the  sun  seems  to  have  put  on  a  new 
and  festal  splendour,  when  the  air  is  like  a  caress  to  the  cheek, 
and  when  the  glamour  of  the  moonlight  seems  doubly  sweet ; 
days  when  men  appear  manlier  and  wittier,  women  fairer  and 
more  delicate  than  usual,  and  when  those  who  are  disagreeable 
and  even  odious  to  us  appear,  not  formidable,  but  ludicrous — so 
that  we  feel  ourselves  exalted  above  the  level  of  our  daily  life, 
emancipated  and  happy.  Such  days  Shakespeare  was  now  passing 
through.  ^ 

It  is  at  this  period,  too,  that  he  makes  sport  of  his  adversaries* 
the  Puritansjothout  bittemessTwltSlfiMüISite^umour.      isven 
in  As  You  Like  Tr^iii.  2),  we  find  a  Uttle  allusion  to  them,  where 
Rosalind  says,  ''  O  most  gentle  Jupiter! — what  tedious  homily  of 
love  have  you  wearied  your  parishioners  withal,  and  never  cried, 
'  Have  patience,  good  people ! ' "    In  his  next  play,  the  typica], 
solemn,  and  self-righteous  Puritanis  held  up  to  ridicule  in  the  ^ 
Don-Quixote-likenpeAbOliaü'tiT^RKg'moralising^d  pompous  Hfl^  ^ 
volio^  who  Urtaunched  upon  a  billowy  sea  of  buriesque  i\t\XA.i\Qtv%«. 
OTcourse  the  poet  goes  to  work  with  the  g;reatesl  oxotccl^V^^^^u 


m 


232  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Sir  Toby  has  made  some  inquiry  about  Malvolio,  to  which  Maria 

answers  (iL  3) : — 

« 

"  Maria.  Many,  sir,  sometimes  he  is  a  kind  of  Puritan. 

"  .SSr>  Andrew.  O !  if  I  thought  that,  I'd  beat  him  like  a  dog. 

*'  Sir  Taby,  What,  for  being  a  Puritan  ?  thy  exquisite  reason,  dear 
knight? 

"  Sir  And.  I  have  no  exquisite  reason  for't,  but  I  have  reason  good 
enough. 

"  Mar.  The  devil  a  Puritan  that  he  is,  or  anything  constantly  bot 
a  time-pleaser ;  an  afiectioned  ass,  that  cons  State  withoot  book,  and 
utters  it  by  great  swarths." 

Not  otherwise  does  Moli^re  expressly  insist  that  Tartuffe  is  not 
a  dergyman,  and  Holberg  that  Jacob  von  Tyboe  is  not  an  officer. 

A  forged  letter,  purporting  to  be  written  by  his  noble  mistress, 
is  made  to  fall  into  Malvolio's  hands,  in  which  she  bggäjprjiis 
loye,  and  Jnstructs  him,  ..as  a  sign,  of  his  affectipn  towards  her. 
always  to  smile,  and  to  wear  crpss-gartered  ycdlpw  stockjngs. 
iTe^siniles  his  face  into  more  lines . than  are  in  the  new  map 
[of  j  1598]  with  the  augmentation  of  the  Indiesj,'^  he  wears  his 
preposterous  garters  in  the  most  preposterous  ÜEishion.  The  con- 
spirators  pretend  to  think  him  mad,  and  treat  him  accordingly. 
The  Clown  comes  to  visit  him  disguised  in  the  cassock  of  Sir  Topas 
the  curate.  "  Well/'  says  the  mock  priest  (not  without  intentioD 
on  the  poet's  part),  when  Maria  gives  him  the  gown, ''  FlI  put  it 
on,  and  I  will  dissemble  myself  in't;  and  I  would  I  were  the  first 
that  ever  dissembled  in  such  a  gown/' 

It  is  to  Malyolio,  too,  that  the  merry  and  mellow  Sir  Toby» 
amid  the  applause  of  the  Qown,  addresses  the  taunt : — 

"  ^Irir  Toby.  Dost  thou  think,  because  thou  art  virtuou^  there  shall 
be  no  more  cakes  and  ale? 

*'  Clown.  Yes,  by  Saint  Anne ;  and  ginger  shall  be  bot  i'  the  mouth 
too." 

In  these  words,  which  were  one  day  to  serve  as  a  motto  to 
Byron's  Donjuan^  there  lies  a  gay  and  daring  declaration  of  rights. 

Twelfth  Ntghtf  or  Whatyou  WiU^  must  have  been  written  in 
1601,  for  in  the  above-mentioned  diary  kept  by  John  Manningham, 
of  the  Middle  Temple,  we  find  this  entry,  under  the  date  Feb« 
ruary  2,  1602:  "At  our  feast  wee  had  a  play  called  Twelve 
Night,  or  what  you  will,  mücH  like  the  commedy  -of  .enaiea»^r 
Menechmi  in  Plautus,  but  most  like  and  aeere  to  that  in  Italian 
caUed  tnganni.    A  good  practise  in  it  lo  make.  the  iteimSjE^ 
leeve  his  lady  widdqwe  was  in  love  with  him/'  &&  -  That  the  play 
cänuctlliave  been  written  much  earlier  is.provcd  bj  tbejact  that 
the  song,  "  Farewellj  dear  heart,  since  I  must  necds  be  gcüe^ 
whicfi  Ts  sung  by  Sir  Toby  and .  the.  Clown  (iL  ^.  firsL  appeareJL 
in  a  song-book(ZfaJB^flig^^j^r#g)4)ublishcdJbj.Robert  J<^^ 


"TWELFTH  NIGHT"  «33 

LondoDi  i6oi.  Shakespeare  has  altered  its  wording  very  slightly. 
(n  all  probaMiity  Twdfth  Night  was  one  of  the  four  plays  which 
vrere  performed  before  the  court  at  Whitehall  by  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain's  Company  at  Christmastide,  1601-2,  and  no  doubt  It  was 
acted  for  the  first  time  on  the  evening  from  which  it  takes  its  pame. 

Among  several  Italian  plays  which  bore  the  name  oi  Gf 
Ingannt  there  is  one  by  Curzio  Gonzaga«  published  in  Venice  in 
1592,  in  which  a  sister  dresses  herseif  as  her  brother  and  takes 
the  name  of  Cesare — in  Shakespeare,  Cgsario— and  another,  pub* 
lished  in  Venice  in  1537,  the  action  of  which  bears  a  general 
resemblance  to  that  of  Twelfth  Njghi^  In  this  play,  too,  passing 
mention  is  made  of  one  **  Malevolti."  whp  may  have  suggested  to 
Shakespeare  the  name  Malvolior  rtt  4UiJU 

The  matter  of  the  play  is  found  in  a  novel  of  Bandello'Si 
translated  in  Belleforest's  Histoires  Tragiquts ;  and  also  in 
Barnabe  Rieh's  translation  of  Cinthio's  Hecatomithi^  published 
b  1 581,  which  Shakespeare  appears  to  have  used.  The  whole 
Comic  part  of  the  action,  and  the  characters  of  Malvolio,  Sir  Toby, 
Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  and  the  Clown,  are  of  Shakespeare's  own 
invention. 

There  occurs  in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  out  ofhis  Humaur 
a  Speech  which  seems  very  like  an  allusion  to  Twelfth  Night ; 
but  as  Jonson's  play  is  of  earlier  date,  the  speech,  if  the  allusion 
be  not  fanciful,  must  have  been  inserted  later.^ 

As  was  to  be  expected,  Twelfth  Night  became  exceed- 
ingly  populär.  The  leamed  Leonard  Digges,  the  translator  of 
Qaudian,  enumerating  in  bis  verses,  ''  Upon  Master  William 
Shakespeare  "  (1640),  the  poet's  most  populär  characters,  mentions 
only  three  from  the  comedies,  and  these  from  Much  Ado  and 
Twelfth  Night.     He  says : — 

"  Letbut  Beatrice 
And  Benedickeht  seene,  loe  in  a  trice 
Ifee  Cockpit,  Gallenes,  Boxes,  all  a^rej^ 
To^bear  Malboglio^  that  Crosse  garter^d  Gull.* 

Twelfth  Night  is  perhaps  themost  graceful  and  harmonious 
eomedy  Shakespeare  ever  wrote.  It  is  certarnlv  Ihät  in  wETcITall 
the  notes  the  poet  strikes,  the  note  of  seriousness  and  of  raillery, 
of  passion,  of  tenderness,  and  of  laughter,  blend  in  the  riebest 
uid  füllest  concord.  It  is  like  a  syrophony  in  which  no  strain  can 
be  dispensed  with,  qr  like  a  picture  veiled  in  a  golden  haze,  into 
which  all  the  colours  resolve  themselves.  The  play  does  not 
werflow  with  wit  and  gaiety  like  its  predecessor;  we  feel  that 
Shakespeare's  joy  of  life  has  culminated  and  is  about  to  pass  over 

^  Tliere  is  some  (ironic)  discussion  of  a  potrible  criticism  that  migfat  be  bronght 
inmst  a  playwright :  "That  the  aigument  of  his  eomedy  might  have  been  of  some 
Duer  nature,  as  of  a  dake  to  be  in  love  with  a  countess,  and  that  countess  to  be  in 
iore  with  the  dnke's  son,  and  the  son  to  lore  the  ladjr*  s  waiting-maid ;  some  such 
DKi«  womng,  with  a  down  to  their  senringmao.  •  •  ." 


234  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

into  melancholy ;  but  there  is  far  more  unity  in  it  than  in  As  Ym 
e  It,  and  it  is  a  great*deal  more  dramatic. 
A.  W.  Schlegel  long  ago  made  the  penetrating  Observation  that, 
in  the  opening  speech  of  the  comedy,  Shakespeare  reminds  us 
how  the  same  word,  "  fancy,"  was  applied  in  his  day  both  to  love 
and  to  fancy  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term ;  whence  the  critic 
argued,  not  without  ingenuit\sfthfit  love.  regarded  as  an  aflFair  of 

^  Cy  the  imagjnation  rather  than  of  the  heärt,^is  the  fundamental  theme 
runninfa^through  all  the  variations  of  the  pl^!  Others  have  since 
sought  to  prove  that  capricious  fantasy  is  tHe  fundamental  trait  in 
the  physiognomy  of  all  the  characters.  Tieck  has  compared  the 
play  to  a  great  iridescent  butterfly,  fluttering  through  pure  blue 
air,  and  soaring  in  its  golden  glory  from  the  many-coloured  flowers 
into  the  sunshine. 

Twelfth  Night,  in  Shakespeare's  time,  brought  the  Christmas 
festivities  of  the  upper  classes  to  an  end ;  among  the  common  people 
they  usually  lasted  nntit  Candlemas.  On  Twelfth  Night  all  sorts 
of  Sports  took  place.  The  one  who  chanced  to  find  a  bean  baked 
into  a  cake  was  hailed  as  the  Bean  King,  chose  himself  a  Bean 
Queen,  introduced  a  reign  of  unbridled  frivolity,  and  issued  whim- 
sical  commands,  which  had  to  be  punctually  obeyed.  Ulrici  has 
sought  to  discover  in  this  an  indication  that  the  play  represents  a 
sort  of  lottery,  in  which  Sebastian,  the  Duke,  and  Maria  chance 
to  win  the  great  prize.  The  bibulous  Sir  Toby,  however,  can 
gcarcely  be  regarded  as  a  particularly  desirable  prize  for  Maria ; 
and  the  second  title  of  the  play,  What  you  Will,  indicates  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  lay  any  stress  upon  the  Twelfth  Night, 

This  comedy  is  connected  by  certain  filaments  with  its  prc- 

decessor,  As  You  Like  It,    The  pagsion  which  Viola,  in  her  male 

attire,  awakens  in  Olivia,  reminds  us  of  that  with  which  feosalind 

inspires  Phebe^     üut  the  motive  is  quite  differently  handled. 

hile  Rosalmä"  gaily  and  unfeelingly  repudiates  Phebe's  burning 

Viola  is  füll  of  tender  compassion  for  the  lady  whom^lier 

>    <*  disguise  has  led  astray.     In  the  admirably  worked-up  confiision 

between  Viola  and  her  twin  brother  Sebastian,  an  effect  from  the 

Comedy  of  Errors  is  repeated ;  but  the  different  circumstances 

and  method  of  treatment  make  this  motive  also  practically  new. 

With  a  careful  and  even  afTectionate  band,  Shakespeare  has 

^       elaborated  each  one  of  the  many  characters  in  the  play. 

K(^ ^        ine  amiable  and  gentle   Duke  languishes,  sentimental  and 

jP(^  fancy-sick,  in  hopeless  enamounneht.  He  is  devoted  to  the  fair 
Countess  Olivia,  who  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  him,  and  whom 
he  none  the  less  besieges  with  his  suit  An  ardent  lover  of 
music,  hf>  tiims  tc\  \t  fnr  c^i^spl^j^on ;  and  among  the  songs  sung 
to  him  by  the  Clown  andotn^s^  there  occurs  the  delicate  little 
poem,  of  wonderful  rhythmic  beauty,  '*  Come  away,  come  away, 
death.''  It  ezactly  expresses  the  soft  and  melting  mood  in  whidi 
his  days  pass,  lapped  in  a  nerveless  melancholy.    To  the  mdod|7 


fef  ^^love,  Vi< 


"TWELFTH  NIGHT"  235 

abiding  in  it  we  may  apply  the  lovdy  words  spoken  by  Viola  of 
the  mclody  which  preludes  it : — 

"  It^ves  a  very  echo  to  tbe  seat 
Where  love  is  throned." 

In  bis  fruitless  passion,  the  Duke  has  become  nervous  and  ex- 
citable,  inclined  to  violent  self-contradictions.  In  one  and  the 
lame  scene  (ii.  4)  he  first  says  that  man's  love  is 

"  More  giddy  and  unfirm, 
More  longing,  wavering,  sooner  lost  and  wom  " 

than  woman's ;  and  theo,  a  little  further  on,  he  says  of  bis  own 

love — 

"  There  is  no  woman's  sides 
Can  bide  the  beating  of  so  strong  a  passion 
As  love  doth  gjye  my  heart  -  nO  wnman^g  ht^rt 
So  big  to  hold  so  y^nrh  -  fhf^y  larlr  rpt^ntinn.» 

The  Countftfis  Qlivia  forms  a  pendant  to  the  Duke ;  she^  lik^^yi^ 

ming  meläncholy.     With  an  ostentatious  exag^  ^ 


hin^  ift  fyll  ^f  y^^ming  meläncholy. 

geradon  of  sisterly  love,  she  has  vowed  to  pass  seven  whole  years 
veiled  like  a  nun,  consecrating  her  whole  life  to  sorrow  for  her 
dead  brother.  Yet  we  find  in  her  speeches  no  trace  of  this  de- 
vouring  sorrow ;  she  jests  with  her  household,  and  rules  it  ably 
and  well,  until,  at  the   first  sight  of  the  disguised  Viola,  she 

hfcr  sex,  takes  the  most  daring  steps  to  win  the  supposed  youth.  -^ 
She  is  conceived_ag_M|jinba]Ancrd  rhnrnrtrr,  who  pmnrn  nt  n  CJy 
holend  from  exaggerated  hatred_for  all  worldly  things  jp  ^gtal  / 
forgetfulness  ^^  hfl^  W^'er-to-be-forgOttftn    g^rrnw      Yet  she   is 
not  TxönTcliice  raebc;'^för  Shakespeare  lias^  indicated  that  it  is 
the  SSebastian  type^  foresha^owed  in  the  disguised  Viola^  which  ia 
irresistible  to  her;  and  Sebastian,  wf?  g^f>,  at  nnrp. 
love  which  bis  sister  had  to  r^ect.     Her  utterance  of 
moreover,  is  always  poetically  beautiful, 

Yet  while  she  is  sighing  in  vain  for  Viola,  she  necessarily 
appcars  as  though  seized  with  a  mild  erotic  madness,  similar  to 
that  of  the  Duke :  and  tltf  follv  of  each  is  parodied  in  a  wittv  and  -jfe 
ddightful  fashion  by  Mfl]|volio's  entirely  ludicrous  love  for  his 
^g^ress^  and  vain  conndence  thS^ she  returns  it     01iyja_feejs"_ ._ 
and  says  thjs  ^erself,  wb^^^  ^^^  ^Trlaima  (iii   >|J — 


(^vi    biiat    II.    la 

ola^  jebickiaL  ^ 

requites  th»^V 
JbfiLpassionj^ 


'*  Go  call  bim  hither. — I  am  as  mad  as  he 
If  sad  and  merry  madness  equal  be." 


M^olio'a 


comparable  certainty  of  touch.     He  is  unforgetable  in  bis  tiirkey- 
Hke  pomposity^  and  the  heartless  practical  )oke  n^VAcVv  \^  xAac^nft^^. 


236  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

upon  him  is  developed  with  the  riebest  comk  effect    The 

JP^init^bk  1^v<^-!<^<^^<^ry  whirh  Maria  inditfiS  tn  hitp  in  a  hanAwm^^ 

like  thalofihe  Countesis»  Jbrings  to  light  all  the  lurking  vanity  Jn 

bis  natUjre» .and  malrp«  his  Rp1f-^gt#>oTn^  whirti  wa^ff  pftCDt  CDOiyh 

beforej  assume  the  mögt  extravagant  forms.    The  scene  in  whiA 

h£J^E£LPiäCb£SLjQliyia,.and  triiimphaptjy  gnofff^  ^^^  PTpr^w/^n«  in 
lllfij£&ter»..ll^elIow  «^tnrlf ingQ/'  anH  <<  rrpss-gartf  n'i:^/'  yr}\\\^  ^^^^ 

Word  copfirms  her  in  the  belief  4hat-iie  is  mad,46  one  of  the  moet 
«^(ectLye  pa.-thfi  r^w^iV  g^ag#> — Still  more  irresistible  is  the  iccne 
(iv.  2)  Jn  which  Malvolio  is  imprisoned  as  a  madman  in  a  dark_ 
riopiDj_jyhilf^_lh&.. Clown  outside  now . assiimps  the  vnire  of  thf - 

£uXätC».^]ld-S££ks  ta  exorrise  the  devil  in   him^   anH  again^   in  hift.. 

Qwn  voice.  converses.witlLlh& supposed  Curate,  sings  songSp  tiJ 
pa)niises.JMy-QliQ  to  carry  messages^  for  him.     We  have  bcre 

SLGQmcJeu  iä&./i^tori)Lthejfirstj)rdcr* 

In  harmony  with  the  general  tone  of  the  play.  the  Clown  is  less 
witty  and  more  musical  than  Touchstone  in  As   Vd^  Xtkrit 
He  is  "keenly  älive  to  the  dignity  of  his  calling:._^*FMleIy^.si^l_ 
döä~walk  about  the  orb  like  the  sun:   it  sh.inea_Äyfirywhßtß^" 
Hs3j^!insL^y.'ddigbt7u^  as  for  examplci  "  Many-a-good- 

hanging  prevents  a  bad  marriage/',pr  the.fQllQwing:jdeinQnst]:atiQiL 
(v.  t}'  {hat  oneTft  the  l^ettgr  ihr  x>ne's.fbeft,  aod  the  .worsfc  Satsm£^' 
frifindft  >. — 

"  Marry,  sir,  my  friends  praise  me,  and  make  an  ass  of  me ;  now,  mj 
foes  teil  me  plainly  I  am  an  ass :  so  that  by  my  foes,  sir,  I  profit  in  the 
knowledge  of  myself,  and  by  my  friends  I  am  abused :  so  that,  ood- 
clusions  to  be  as  kisses,  if  your  four  negatives  make  your  two  affirma* 
tives,  why  then,  the  worse  for  my  friends,  and  the  better  for  my  foes.* 
■«  ■ 

Shakespeare  even  departs  from  bis  usual  practice,  ancL  as 
thougkio  guard.against  any  misunderstanding  oh  the'part'^r  )t}# 
publici  makes  Viola  expouud  quite  dogmatically.  that  it  fi 
kind  of  wit "  to  play  the..ii)ol.(iü.  l) : — 

"  He  must  observe  their  mood  on  whom  he  jests, 
The  quality  of  persons,  and  the  time, 
And,  like  the  haggard,  check  at  every  feather 
That  comes  before  his  eye.     This  is  a  practice 
As  füll  of  labour  as  a  wise  man's  art" 

ifr  The  Clown  forms  a  sort  of  connecting«link  between  the  serii 
diaracters  an*}!  the  exclusiv^^y  roniic  ligiSea  of  the  Hflfl^^ 
pair  0/  knights,  Sir. Toby  Beleb  and  Sir  Andrew  Agüecheex^  who 
are  entirely  of  Shakespeare's  own  invention..  They .aie -.shaiply 
oontrasted.     Sir  Toby,  sanguine,  red-nosed,  burly,. 


I 


•--joker,  always  ready  for  "a  hair  of  thedogtiiat  bit  him^'*  a  figure_ 
Wi^ .tfie  fiörle  oiTBeUmän ; ^  JSir.  AnHfrw,  päV  äaThbligh  ^wSuuSi^ 

^  SeeMUr,  pu  185. 


•TWELFTH  NIGHT- 

gg^.with   thin,    Smooth,   «traw-rnlnnrprf   hair^   t 

ancompoop,  who  values  himself  on   his_danciDg""^d  tegaag, 
[uarrelsöme  jmd^icYen-hearted,  boasiful  and  timid  in  the  saPi^ 
ireatti,  and  grblesque  in  hisTevery  movement.     HtT  is  a  mere. 
!cho  and"  shadQg_i:)t-.tlie-^€goe&-(rf  ^fe  admiratkpj-j^      "^^ 
Bc  sport  ot  ms  associates,  jtheiiLjtuppett  iand_t£c^^ 
yhile  he  is  söjirainlrss  aC4o-thiak  4t^possible  he  may  win  th^ 
^ve  of  the  bpaiiHfnl  Olivia^  hp  ha<i  a»  ft^f>  gf^me  time  an  inwar 
aispicion   of  his  own   stupidity  which   now  ^nd  theg^  comga 
lefreshingly ;  <*MpfrVii'nlrc  ip^mfttimps  T  have  no  more  wit  than 
!3gistian  or  an  ordinary  man  has ;  but  I  am  a  great  eater  of  bee?^ 
indj  I  belieyey  that  does  harm-tQ  my  wit-  (i.  3).     He  does  not 
mderstand  the  simplest  phrase  he  hearSf  and  is  such  a-mere 
Reflex  and  p(^"^*  *hat  **  T  tnn  '*  \<^^  a^Q  it  were,  the  watchword  of 
ijs  existence,     Shakespeare  has  immortalised  him  once  for  all 

n   his  reply  Whftn    -^'^  Tnhy  Kriacfro  th^t  Ma^n'a    gHnr#><f  Viiqi  (ji    3)^ 

*  I  was  adored  once  too."     f^jr  Tnhy  Rums  him  up  in  the  phras^  : 

"For  Andrew,  if  he  were  opened,  and  you  find  so  much  blood 
n  his  liver  as  will  clog  the  foot  of  a  flea,  111  eat  the  rest  of  the 
inatomy." 


The  central j:hMacterjnj7zyg/y?A  Night  isryioWof  whom  her 

>rother  dn^s  not  9Ay  a  wnyd  tP^  ninrh^whpn^  thmking  that  JBhfi 

las  been  drowned^  he  exclaims^  **$t]fi  bn^^  ^  mind  that  ßiuQr 
»iild  not  but  call  fair.^ 

Shipwrecked  oy>  the  coast  of  Illyria^  her  firat,  wiah  L^  1q 

he  Service  of Jhe  young.Countess]  but  leaming  that  Oliyiajj 
naccessible,  she  determines  to  dresa  aA  a.  page  (a  aunuch)  ani 
tpproach  the  voung  unmarried  Duke,  of  whom  sh^haa  Jieard  ^^fß 
nthf!-  ?p?ak  wit^  wam^tv*      He  at  onre  malre^  the  deepcat  im* 
Mission  upon  her  hcart|  but  being  Ignorant  of  4ier  sex»  doeo  not 


Iream  of  what  is  passing_jyithin  her;  so  that  she  is  perpfituall^^yy 
>^oed  in  the  painful  pösition  örbefng  employed  as  a  me8senger}y 
rom  the  man  sne  loves  to  anotner  woman.  She  givpaHrttewuic^ 
o  her  love  in  carefuUy  disguised  and  touching  words 


**  My  father  had  a  daughter  lov'd  a  man, 
As  it  might  be,  perhaps,  were  I  a  woman, 
I  should  your  lordship. 
Duke,  And  what's  her  history? 

Vio,  A  blank,  my  lord.  j  She  never  told  her  love,— 
But  let  concealment,  like  a  worm  i*  the  bud, 
Feed  on  her  damask  cheek :  she  pin*d  in  thought: 
And,  with  a  green  and  yellow  melancholy, 
She  sat  like  Patience  on  a  monument, 
Smiling  at  grief." 

Put  thr  paBnion  whiclL,  possesses  her  makes  her  ji  taqt^ 
Joquent  messenjyr  «f  l^vr  ^Han  ghg  jjfsjgoa  JfiÜEftx .  ^o  OYvraL^ 


238  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

question  as  to  what  she  would  do  if  she  loved  her  as  her  master 
does,  she  answers  (i.  5) : — 

Make  me  a  willow  cabin  at  your  gate, 
And  call  upon  my  soul  within  the  house ; 
Write  loyal  cantons  of  contemned  love, 
And  sing  them  loud  even  in  the  dead  of  night ; 
Holla  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills, 
And  make  the  babbling  gossip  of  the  air 
Gry  out,  Olivia !     O !  you  should  not  rest 
Between  the  elements  of  air  and  earth, 
But  you  should  pity  me." 

In_shortf  if  sh6  were  a  maiij  she  would  display_alLJhe-eiiexgy 

whichthe^  Duke.,  lacks. ^^  wonder  iJbiati- jLgainst  Jieii-Qgn jgrill, 

e  awakens  .Qlivia'jSL  love^— Sheherself,^  as-4i  womany  is  con» 
gmnefj   tQ  passivity ;    her.  Invp  is  wordlf>RRj   df^p^  -nnH   p-atiVnt 

n  spite  of  her  sound . uoderstanding,  she  ia  a  creanirf?  nf  pmotion. 
It  is  a  very.  chararteristir  tonrh  whe%  ift-the-sc-ene  (üL  5)  whcre 
Anton iO|_taking  her  for  .Sphastiany. -recaUs -the  Services  he  ha»- 

renderedj.  aP^  hf-QS,  for  a<t«6i<;fanrpin-hii^  nf>f>H^  g}i#>  ^-rrlflirnft  that^ 

there  is  nothing,  not  even  *Mjang^ainq^sSy  bahhlinjor  Hrupk^n- 
ness,  or  anv  taint  öT  vice.^^^at  she  h^t^^  so  yniirh  as  ingrntitnHf?. 
Hnwpv^V  bright  her  jntHhgenre,  her  soul  irom  Järst-taJaaLjQUt- 
shiges^it.  Her  incognito,  which  dpes  not  b^"g  hfir  jny  ?ff  it  dof* 
to  Rosalind,  but  onty-trouble  and  sorrow.  jconceals  the  most 
d^icate  womanlin^js«. .  Sbe.n£yer»JU^ke.-RQsalinäZo£Ifiäi&aoC 

utters.an  «nHarions  or  wanton  word.  Her  heart-winning  charm^ 
more  than  makeSJUp  fnr  th#>  high  «pirit«;  anH  y^par^^Ti"g  h^l^Qff^ 

ie'eaflfciiheminfiß.     Sl\ejs^healthful  and  beautifuliJü^fiLlbfiac 

her  somewhat  eldej^  sisters ;  änd  she  has"  also  their  humoroA» 
eloquence^^Ä_  she_prQyes  in  her.^first  srene  with^THTviä^  ^St 
there  "rests  upon  her  lovely  figure  a  tinge  of  melancholy,  She 
[ia^aajinpersonatipn  of  thät  "farewell  to  mirth^  which  an  a^^ 

'Qßiisk_critic  discems  in  this.  last  iiomedy  pf  Shakeapeare'a 
briightest  yearsJ 

^  "  It  is  in  some  sort  a  farewell  to  mirth,  and  the  mirth  is  of  the  finest  qnalitj,  n 
incomparable  ending.  Shakespeare  has  done  greater  things,  bat  he  hu  nerer  doot 
anythijig  more  delightful." — Arthur  Sytnons, 


XXX 

HE  REVOLUTION  IN  SHAKESPEARES  SOUL^THE  GROW- 
ING  MELANCHOLY  OP  THE  POLLOWING  PERIOD- 
PESSIMISM,  MISANTHROPY 

'OR  the  time  is  now  approaching  when  mirth,  and  even  the 
>y  of  life,  are  extinguished  in  his  soul.  Heavy  clouds  have 
lassed  themselves  on  his  mental  horizon — their  nature  we  can 
Qly  divine — and  gnawing  sorrows  and  disappointments  have 
leset  him.  We  see  his  melancholy  growing  and  extending ;  we 
bserve  its  changing  expressions,  without  knowing  its  causes. 
rhis  only  we  know,  that  the  stage  which  he  contemplates  with 
lis  mind's  eye,  like  the  material  stage  on  which  he  works,  is 
iow  hung  with  black.  A  veil  of  melancholy  descends  over 
oth. 

He  no  longer  writes  comedies,  but  sends  a  train  of  gloomy 
ragedies  across  the  boards  which  so  lately  echoed  to  the  laughter 
f  Beatrice  and  Rosalind. 

From  this  point,  for  a  certain  period,  all  his  impressions  of 
ife  and  humanity  become  ever  more  and  more  painfuL  We  can 
ee  in  his  Sonnets  how  even  in  earlier  and  happier  years  a  restless 
lassionateness  had  been  constantly  at  war  with  the  serenity  of  his 
oul,  and  we  can  note  how,  at  this  time  also,  he  was  subject  to 
j:cesses  of  stormy  and  vehement  unrest.  As  time  goes  on,  we 
an  discem  in  the  series  of  his  dramas  how  not  only  what  he 
aw  in  public  and  political  life,  but  also  his  private  experience, 
»egan  to  inspire  him,  partly  with  a  burning  compassion  for 
lumanity,  partly  with  a  horror  of  mankind  as  a  breed  of  noxious 
^ild  animals,  partly,  too,  with  loathing  for  the  stupidity,  falsity, 
ind  baseness  of  his  fellow-creatures.  These  feelings  gradually 
rystallise  into  a  large  and  lofty  contempt  for  humanity,  until, 
ifter  a  space  of  eight  years,  another  revolution  occurs  in  his 
>revailing  mood.  Tlie  extinguished  sun  glows  forth  afresh,  the 
>lack  heaven  has  become  blue  again,  and  the  kindly  interest  in 
sverything  human  has  retumed.  He  attains  peace  at  last  in  a 
»ublime  and  melancholy  deamess  of  vision.  Bright  moods, 
(unny  dreams  from  the  days  of  his  youth,  retum  upon  him, 
>ringing  with  them,  if  not  längster,  at  least  smilea.  H^h- 
ipirited  gaiety  has  for  ever  vanished ;  but  his  imai^xk^SooD^^»^- 
Qg  itself  less  constraiiied  than  of  old  by  the  \«m^  oK  t^fl^^^^ 


240  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

moves  lightly  and  at  ease,  though  a  deep  eamestness  now  under- 
lies  ity  and  much  ezperience  of  life. 

But  this  inward  emancipation  from  the  burthen  of  earthly  life 
does  not  occur,  as  we  have  said,  until  about  eight  years  after  the 
point  which  we  have  now  reached. 

For  a  little  time  longer  the  strong  and  genial  joy  of  life  is  still 
dominant  in  his  mind.  Then  it  begins  to  darken,  and,  after  a 
Short  tropical  twilight,  there  is  night  in  his  soul  and  in  all  his 
works. 

In  the  tragedy  oi  Julius  Ccßsar  there  still  reigns  only  a  manly 
seriousness.  The  theme  seems  to  have  attracted  him  on  aiccount 
of  the  analogy  between  the  conspiracy  against  Csesar  and  the 
conspiracy  against  Elizabeth.  Despite  the  foolish  precipitancy 
of  their  action,  the  leaders  of  this  conspiracy,  men  like  Essex 
and  his  comrade  Southampton,  had  Shakespeare's  füll  personal 
S3rmpathy ;  and  he  transferred  some  of  that  sympathy  to  Brutus 
and  Cassius.  He  created  Brutus  under  the  deeply-imprinted  con- 
viction  that  unpractical  magnanimity,  like  that  of  his  noble  friends, 
is  unfitted  to  play  an  effective  part  in  the  drama  of  history,  and 
that  errors  of  policy  revenge  themselves  at  least  as  stemly  as 
moral  delinquencies. 

In  Hantlet  Shakespeare's  growing  melancholy  and  bittemess 
take  the  upper  band.  For  the  hero,  as  for  the  poet,  youth's  brig^t 
outlook  upon  life  has  been  overclouded.  Hamlet's  belief  and  trust 
in  mankind  have  gone  to  wreck.  Under  the  disguise  of  apparent 
madness,  the  melancholy  life-lore  which  Shakespeare,  at  his  fortieth 
year,  had  stored  up  within  him,  here  iinds  expression  in  words  of 
Spiritual  profundity  such  as  had  not  yet  been  thought  or  uttered 
in  Northern  Europe. 

We  catch  a  glimpse  at  this  point  of  one  of  the  subsidiary  causes 
of  Shakespeare's  melancholy.  As  actor  and  playwright  he  Stands 
in  a  more  and  more  strained  relation  to  the  continually  growing 
Free  Church  movement  of  the  age,  to  Puritanism,  which  he  comes 
to  regard  as  nothing  but  narrow-mindedness  and  h3rpocri8y.  It 
was  the  deadly  enemy  of  his  calling ;  it  secured,  even  in  his  life- 
time,  the  prohibition  of  theatrical  Performances  in  the  provinoes, 
a  prohibition  which  after  his  death  was  extended  to  the  capitaL 
From  Twelßh  Night  onwards,  an  unremitting  war  against  Puri- 
tanism, conceived  as  hypocrisy,  is  carried  on  through  Hamiit^ 
through  the  revised  Version  of  AU's  Well  that  Ends  Well^  and 
through  Measure  for  Measure,  in  which  his  wrath  rises  to  a 
terapestuous  pitch,  and  creates  a  figure  to  which  Moliire's  Tap- 
tuffe  can  alone  supply  a  parallel. 

What  Struck  him  so  forcibly  in  these  years  was  the  pitifulneti 
of  earthly  life,  exposed  as  it  is  to  disasters,  not  allotted  by  destuqr, 
but  brought  about  by  a  conjuncdon  of  stupidity  with  malevolenoSt 

It  is  especially  the  power  of  malevolence  that  now  looms  laige 
before  his  eyea.    We  see  this  in  Hamlet's  astonisliment  that  jt  ii 


SHAKESPEARE'S  PESSIMISM  241 

possible  for  a  man  ''  to  smile  and  smile  and  be  a  villain."    Still 
morc  strongly  is  it  apparent  in  Measurefor  Measure  (v.  i) : — 

"  Make  not  impossible 
That  which  but  seems  unlike.     Tis  not  impossible, 
But  one,  the  wicked'st  caitiff  on  the  ground, 
May  seem  as  shy,  as  grave,  as  just,  as  absolute^ 
As  Angelo ;  even  so  may  Angelo, 
In  all  his  dressings,  characts,  titles,  forms, 
Be  an  arch-villain." 

It  is  this  line  of  thought  that  leads  to  the  conception  of  lago, 
Goneril,  and  Regan,  and  to  the  wild  outbursts  of  Timon  of  Athens. 

Macbeth  is  Shakespeare's  first  attempt,  after  Hamlet^  to  ex- 
plain  the  tragedy  of  life  as  a  product  of  brutality  and  wickedness 
in  conjunction — that  is,  of  brutality  multiplied  and  raised  to  the 
highest  power  by  wickedness.  ,JL^dy^  Macbeth  poisons  her  hus- 
band's  mind, — Wickedness  instils  drops  of  venom  irito  brutality, 
which,  in  its  inward  essence,  may  be  either  weakness,  or  brave 
savagery,  or  stupidity  of  manifold  kinds.  Whereupon  brutality 
falls  a-raving,  and  becomes  terrible  to  itself  and  others. 

The  same  ^t^my\\^  «prfissfff  ^^^  ^^lafri'^n  Kpt^^n  Ot^f^llo 
and  lago. 

Othello  was  a  monograph.  Lear  is  a  world-picture.  Shakes- 
peare tums  from  Othello  to  Lear  in  virtue  of  the  artist's  need  to 
Supplement  himself,  to  follow  up  every  creation  with  its  counter- 
part  or  foil. 

Lear  is  the  greatest  problem  Shakespeare  had  yet  proposed  to 
himself,  all  the  agonies  and  horrors  of  the  world  compressed  into 
five  Short  acts.  The  impression  of  Lear  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  words:  a  world -catastrophe.  Shakespeare  is  no  longer 
minded  to  depict  anything  eise.  What  is  echoing  in  his  ears, 
what  is  iilling  his  mind,  is  the  crash  of  a  ruining  world 

This  becomes  even  clearer  in  his  next  play,  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra, This  subject  enabled  him  to  set  new  words  to  the  music 
within  him.  In  the  history  of  Mark  Antony  he  saw  the  deep 
downfall  of  the  old  world-republic — the  might  of  Rome,  austere 
and  rigorous,  collapsing  at  the  touch  of  Eastem  luxury. 

By  the  time  Shakespeare  had  written  Antony  and  Cleopatra^ 
his  melancholy  had  deepened  into  pessimism.  Contempt  becomes 
his  abiding  mood,  an  all-embracing  scom  for  mankind,  which 
impregnates  every  drop  of  blood  in  his  veins,  but  a  potent  and 
creative  scorn,  which  hurls  forth  thunderbolt  after  thunderbolt. 
Troilus  and  Cressida  strikes  at  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  Coriolanus 
at  polidcal  life;  until  all  Ihat,  in  these  years,  Shakespeare  has 
endured  and  experienced,  thought  and  sufTered,  is  concentrated 
into  the  one  great  despairing  figure  of  Timon  of  Athens,  ^'mis- 
anthropos,"  whose  savage  rhetoric  is  like  a  dark  «itcttX\OTi  ^V 
plotted  blood  and  gaU,  drawn  off  to  assuage  paVa. 


BOOK  SECOND 


I 


INTRODUCTION—THE  ENGLAND  OF  ELIZABETH 

IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  YOUTH 

EVERYTHING  had  flourished  in  the  England  of  Elizabeth  while 
Shakespeare  was  young.  The  sense  of  belonging  to  a  people 
which,  with  great  memories  and  achievements  behind  it,  was 
now  making  a  decisive  and  irresistible  new  departure — the 
consciousness  of  living  in  an  age  when  the  glorious  culture  of 
antiquity  was  being  resuscitated,  and  when  great  personalities 
were  vindicating  for  England  a  lofty  and  assured  position,  alike 
in  the  practica!  and  in  the  intellectual  departments  of  life— these 
feelings  mingled  in  his  breast  with  the  vemal  glow  of  youth  itse]£ 
He  saw  the  star  of  his  fatherland  ascending,  with  his  own  star  in 
its  train. 

It  seemed  to  him  as  though  men  and  women  had  in  that 
day  richer  abilities,  a  more  daring  spirit,  and  fuUer  powers  of 
enjoyment  than  they  had  possessed  in  former  times.  They  had 
more  fire  in  their  blood,  more  insatiable  longings,  a  keener 
appetite  for  adventure,  than  the  men  and  women  of  the  past 
They  knew  how  to  rule  with  courage  and  wisdom,  like  the  Queen 
and  Lord  Burghley;  how  to  live  nobly  and  iight  gloriously,  to 
love  with  passion  and  sing  with  enthusiasni,  like  the  beautiful 
hero  of  the  younger  generation,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who  found  an 
carly  Achilles-death.  They  were  bent  on  enjoying  existence 
with  all  their  senses,  comprehending  it  with  all  their  powers, 
revelling  in  wealth  and  splendour,  in  beauty  and  wit;  or  they 
set  forth  to  voyage  round  the  world,  to  see  its  marvels,  conquef 
its  treasures,  give  their  names  to  new  countries,  and  display  the 
flag  of  England  on  unknown  seas. 

Statesmanship  and  generalship  were  represented  among  them 

by  the  men  who,  in  these  years.  had  humbled  Spain,  rescued 

Hollandy  held  Scotland  in  awe.    They  were  sound  and  vigorouB 

natures.     Although  they  all  had  the  literary  prodivities  of  the 

Renaissance,  they  were  before  everything  ptactical  men«  keen 


ENGI-AND  IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  YOUTH         243 

observers  of  the  signs  of  the  times,  firm  and  wary  in  advcrsity, 
in  prosperity  prudent  and  temperate. 

Shakespeare  had  seen  Spenser's  faithful  friend,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  next  to  himself  and  Francis  Bacon  the  most  brilliant  and 
interesting  Englishman  of  his  day,  after  covering  himself  with 
renown  as  a  soldier,  a  viking,  and  a  discoverer,  win  the  favour  of 
Elizabeth  as  a  courtier,  and  the  admiration  of  the  people  as  a 
bero  and  poet  Shakespeare  no  doubt  laid  to  heart  these  lines  in 
his  elegy  on  Sidney : — 

"  England  doth  hold  thy  limbs,  that  bred  the  same ; 
Flanders  thy  valour,  where  it  last  was  tried ; 
The  camp  thy  sorrow,  where  thy  body  died : 
Thy  friends  thy  want ;  Üie  world  thy  virtues'  fame." 

For  Raleigh,  too,  was  a  poet,  as  well  as  an  orator  and  historizin. 
"We  picture  him  to  ourselves/'  says  Macaulay,  "sometimes  re- 
triewing  the  Queen's  guard,  sometimes  giving  chase  to  a  Spanish 
galleon,  then  answering  the  chiefs  of  the  country  party  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  then  again  murmuring  one  of  his  sweet  love- 
songs  too  near  the  ears  of  her  Highness's  maids  of  honour,  and 
soon  after  poring  over  the  Talmud,  or  collating  Polybius  with 
Livy."  1 

And  Shakespeare  had  seen  the  young  Robert  Devereux,  Earl 
of  Essex,  who  in  1577,  when  only  ten  years  old,  had  made  a 
Sensation  at  court  by  wearing  his  hat  in  the  Queen's  presence 
and  denying  her  request  for  a  kiss ;  at  the  age  of  eighteen  win 
renown  for  himself  as  a  cavalry  general  under  Leicester  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  depose  Raleigh  from  the 
highest  place  in  Elizabeth's  favour.  He  played  ''cards  or  one 
game  or  another  with  her  .  .  .  tili  birds'  sing  in  the  morning." 
She  shut  herseif  up  with  him  in  the  daytime,  while  the  Venetian 
and  French  ambassadors,  who  had  already  learnt  to  wait  at  locked 
doors  in  the  time  of  his  step-father,  Leicester,  jested  with  each 
other  in  the  anteroom  as  to  whether  mounting  guard  in  this 
fashion  ought  to  be  called  iener  la  mula  or  tenir  la  chandelle. 
And  Essex  demanded  that  Raleigh  should  be  sacrificed  to  his 
youthful  devotion.  As  captain  of  the  guard,  Raleigh  had  to 
stand  at  the  door  with  a  drawn  sword,  in  his  brown  and  orange 
uniform,  while  the  handsome  youth  whispered  to  the  spinster 
Queen  of  fifty-four  things  which  set  her  heart  beating.  He 
made  all  the  mischief  he  could  between  her  and  Raleigh.  She 
assured  him  that  he  had  no  reason  to  ''  disdain ''  a  man  like  that. 
But  Essex  asked  her — so  he  himself  \yrites — "  Whether  he  could 
have  comfort  to  give  himself  over  to  the  Service  of  a  mistress  that 
was  in  awe  of  such  a  man ; "  **  and,"  he  conjinues,  "  I  think  he, 
Standing  at  the  door,  might  very  well  hear  the  worst  I  spoke  of 
him.'' 


^  VLsicaxÜMY,  JSsuifts—**  Burldgh  and  hii  Tii&e& 


»1 


244  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

This  impetuosity  characterised  Essex  throughout  bis  Carter; 
but  he  soon  developed  great  qualities,  of  which  his  first  appear- 
ances  gave  no  promise ;  and  when  Shakespeare  made  his  acquaint- 
ance,  probably  in  the  year  1 590,  his  personality  must  have  been 
extremely  winning.  Himself  a  poet,  he  no  doubt  knew  how 
to  value  A  Midsummer  Night s  Dream^  and  its  author.  In  all 
probability,  Shakespeare  even  at  this  time  found  a  protector  in 
the  young  nobleman,  and  afterwards  made  acquaintance  through 
him  with  his  kinsman  Southarapton,  six  years  younger  than 
himself.  Essex  had  already  distinguished  himself  as  a  scddier. 
In  May  1589  he  had  been  the  first  Englishman  to  wade  ashore 
upon  the  coast  of  Portugal,  and  in  the  lines  before  Lisbon  he 
had  challenged  any  of  the  Spanish  garrison  to  Single  combat 
in  honour  of  his  queen  and  mistress.  In  July  1591  he  joined 
the  Standard  of  Henry  of  Navarre  with  an  auxiliary  force  of 
4000  men;  he  shared  all  the  hardships  of  the  common  soldiers; 
during  the  siege  of  Ronen  he  challenged  the  leader  of  the  enerny^s 
forces  to  single  combat ;  and  then  by  his  incapacity  he  dissipated 
all  the  results  of  the  campaign.  His  army  melted  away  to 
almost  nothing. 

He  was  at  home  during  the  following  years,  when  Shake* 
speare  probably  came  to  know  him  well,  and  to  appredate 
his  chivalrous  nature,  his  courage  and  talent,  his  love  of  poeCry 
and  science,  and  his  helpfulness  towards  men  of  ability,  such 
as  Francis  Bacon  and  others.  He  therefore,  no  doubt,  followed 
with  more  than  the  ordinary  patriotic  interest  the  expedition 
of  the  English  fleet  to  Cadiz  in  1596,  in  which  the  two  old 
antagonists,  Raleigh  and  Essex,  were  to  fight  side  by.  sidc. 
Raleigh  here  won  a  brilliant  victory  over  the  great  galleons  of 
the  Spanish  fleet,  burning  them  all  except  two,  which  he  captured ; 
while  on  the  following  day,  when  a  severe  wound  in  the  leg 
prevented  Raleigh  from  taking  part  in  the  action,  Essex,  at  the 
head  of  his  troops,  stormed  and  sacked  the  town  of  Cadiz.  In 
his  despatches  to  Elizabeth,  Raleigh  praised  Essex  for  this 
exploit.  He  became  the  hero  of  the  day;  his  name  was  in 
every  mouth,  and  he  was  even  eulogised  from  the  pulpit  of 
St.  Paul's. 

It  was  indeed  a  great  age.  England's  world-wide  power 
was  founded  at  the  expense  of  defeated  and  humiliated  Spain; 
England's  world-wide  commerce  and  industry  came  into  exist- 
ence.  Before  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne,  Antwerp  had  been 
the  metropolis  of  commerce;  during  her  reign,  London  took 
that  Position.  The  London  Exchange  was  opened  in  1571 ;  and 
twenty  years  later,  English  merchants  all  the  world  over  had  appro- 
priated  to  themselves  the  commerce  which  had  formerly  been 
almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Hanseatic  Towns.  London 
urchins  hung  about  the  wharves  of  the  Thames,  listening  to 
Ihe  marvds  related  by  seamen  who  had  made  the  voyage  round 


ENGLAND  IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  YOUTH        245 

the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Hindostan.  Sunbumt,  scarred,  and 
bearded  men  haunted  the  taverns ;  they  had  crossed  the  oceani 
lived  in  the  Bermuda  Islands,  and  brought  negroes  and  Red 
Indiana  and  great  monkeys  home  with  them.  They  told  tales 
of  the  golden  Eldorado,  and  of  real  and  imaginary  perils  in 
distant  quarters  of  the  globe. 

This  peaceful  development  of  commerce  and  industry  had 
taken  place  simultaneously  with  the  development  of  naval  and 
military  power.  And  the  scientific  and  poetical  culture  of  England 
advanced  with  equal  strides.  While  mariners  had  brought  home 
tidings  of  many  an  unknown  shore,  scholars  also  had  made 
voyages  of  discovery  in  Greek  and  Roman  letters;  and  while 
they  praised  and  translated  authors  unheard  of  before,  dilettanti 
brought  forward  and  interpreted  Italian  and  Spanish  poets  who 
served  as  modeis  of  invention  and  delicacy.  The  world,  which 
had  hitherto  been  a  little  place,  had  suddenly  grown  vast;  the 
horizon,  which  had  been  narrow,  widened  out  all  of  a  sudden, 
and  every  mind  was  filled  with  hopes  for  the  days  to  come. 

It  had  been  a  vemal  season,  and  it  was  a  vemal  mood  tliat 
had  uttered  itself  in  the  songs  of  the  many  poets.  In  our  days, 
when  the  English  language  is  read  by  hundreds  of  millions,  the 
poets  of  England  may  be  quickly  counted.  In  those  days  the 
country  possessed  something  like  three  hundred  lyric  and  dramatic 
poets,  who,  with  potent  productivity,  wrote  for  a  reading  public 
no  larger  than  that  of  Denmark  to-day ;  for  of  the  six  millions 
of  the  Population,  four  millions  could  not  read.  But  the  talent 
for  writing  verses  was  as  widespread  among  the  Englishmen  of 
that  time  as  the  talent  for  playing  the  piano  among  German  ladies 
of  to-day.  The  power  of  action  and  the  gift  of  song  did  not 
ezdude  each  other. 

But  the  blossoming  springtide  had  been  short,  as  springtide 
alwajrsis. 


II 


ELIZABETH'S  OLD  AGB 

AT  the  dawQ  of  the  new  Century  the  national  mood  Jiad  already 
altered. 

Elizabeth  herseif  was  no  longer  frhp  c;aTn#>. — Therfi  had  always 
been  a  dark  side  to  her  naturej_^iJ.^  passed  almost  unnoticed 
i^J^he^splenctour  which  national  prosperity^  distinguished  men, 
great  achievements  and  fortunate  events  had  shed  around  her_ 

She  had  always  been  excessively  vain ;  but  her  coquettish 
pretences  to  youth  and  beauty  reached  their  height  after  her 
sixtieth  year.  We  have  seen  how,  when  she  was  sixty,  Raleigh, 
from  bis  prison,  addressed  a  letter  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  intended 
for  her  eyes,  in  which  he  sought  to  regain  her  favour  by  com- 
paring  her  to  Venus  and  Diana.  When  she  was  sixty-seven, 
Essex's  sister,  in  a  supplication  for  her  brother's  life,  wrote  of 
that  brother's  devotion  to  "  her  beauties,"  which  did  not  merit  so 
hard  a  punishment,  and  of  her  ''  excellent  beauties  and  perfectious," 
which  "ought  to  feel  more  compassion."  In  the  same  year  the 
Queen  took  part,  masked,  in  a  dance  at  Lord  Herbert's  marriage; 
and  she  always  looked  for  expressions  of  flattering  astonishment 
at  the  youthfulness  of  her  appearance. 

When  she  was  sixty-eight,  Lord  Mountjoy  wrote  to  her  of 
her  "  faire  eyes,"  and  begged  permission  to  "  fill  his  eyes  with 
their  onely  deere  and  desired  object."  This  was  the  style  which 
every  one  had  to  adopt  who  should  have  the  least  prospect  of 
gaining,  preserving,  or  regaining  her  favour. 

In  1601  Lord  Pembroke,  then  twentv-one  years  old,  writes 
to  Cecil  (or,  in  other  words,  to  Elizabeth,  in  her  sixty-eighth  . 
year)  imploring  permission  once  more  to  approach  the  Queen, 
"whose  incomparable  beauty  was  the  onely  sonne  of  my  little 
World." 

When  Sir  Roger  Aston,  about  this  time,  was  despatched  with 
letters  from  James  of  Scotland  to  the  Queen,  he  was  not  allowed 
to  deliver  them  in  person,  but  was  introduced  into  an  ante-chamber 
from  which,  through  open  door-curtains,  he  could  see  Elizabeth 
dancing  alone  to  the  music  of  a  little  violin, — the  object  being 
that  he  should  teil  his  master  how  youthful  she  still  was,  and 

how  small  the  likelihood  of  his  succeeding  to  her  crown  for  many 

n6 


ATTITÜDE  OF  ELIZABETH  TO  RELIGION      247 

a  long  day.^  One  can  readily  understand,  then,  how  she  stormed 
with  wrath  when  Bishop  Rudd,  so  early  as  1596,  quoted  in  a 
sermon  Koh^let's  verses  as  to  the  pains  of  age,  with  unmistak- 
able  reference  to  her. 

She  was  bent  on  being  flattered  without  ceasing  and  obeyed 
without  demur.  In  her  lust  of  rule,  she  knew  no  greater  pleasure 
than  when  one  of  her  favourites  made  a  Suggestion  opposed  to 
one  of  hers,  and  then  abandoned  it.  Leicester  had  employed 
this  means  of  confirming  himself  in  her  favour,  and  had  bequeathed 
it  to  his  successors.  So  strong  was  her  craving  to  enjoy  inces- 
santly  the  Sensation  of  her  autocracy,  that  she  would  intrigue  to 
set  her  courtiers  up  in  arms  against  each  other,  and  would  favour 
first  one  group  and  then  the  other,  taking  pleasure  in  their  feuds 
and  cabals.  In  her  later  years  her  court  was  one  of  the  most 
corrupt  in  the  world.  The  only  means  of  prospering  in  it  were 
those  set  forth  in  Roger  Ascham's  distich : 

"  Cog,  lie,  flatter  and  face 
Four  ways  in  court,  to  win  men  grace." 

The  two  main  parties  were  those  of  Cecil  and  Essex.  Who- 
cver  gained  the  favour  of  one  of  these  great  lords,  be  his  merits 
what  they  might,  was  opposed  by  the  other  party  with  every 
weapon  in  their  power. 

In  some  respects,  however,  Elizabeth  in  her  later  years  had 
made  progress  in  the  art  of  govemment.  So  weak  had  been  her 
faith  in  the  warlike  capabilities  of  her  country,  and  so  potent, 
on  the  other  band,  her  avarice,  that  she  had  neglected  to  make 
preparation  for  the  war  with  Spain,  and  had  left  her  gallant 
scramen  inadequately  equipped;  but  after  the  victory  over  the 
Spanish  Armada  she  ungrudgingly  devoted  all  the  resources  of 
her  treasury  to  the  war,  which  survived  her  and  extended  well 
into  the  following  Century.  This  war  had  forced  Elizabeth  to 
take  a  side  in  the  internal  religious  dissensions  of  the  country. 
She  was  the  head  of  the  Church,  regarded  ecclesiasdcal  afiairs 
as  subject  to  her  personal  control,  and,  so  far  as  she  was  able, 
would  suffer  no  discussion  of  religious  questions  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Like  her  contemporary  Henri  Quatre  of  France,  she 
was  in  her  heart  entirely  indifferent  to  religion,  had  a  certain 
general  belief  in  God,  but  thought  all  dogmas  mere  cobwebs 
of  the  brain,  and  held  one  rite  neither  better  nor  worse  than 
another.  They  both  regarded  religious  differences  exclusively 
from  the  political  point  of  view.  Henry  ended  by  becoming  a 
Catholic  and  assuring  his  former  co-religionists  freedom  of  con- 
science.  Elizabeth  was  of  necessity  a  Protestant,  but  tolerance 
was  an  unknown  doctrine  in  England.     It  was  an  established 

^  Arthur  Weldon :  Tiü  Cmrt  and  CharaeUr  cf  King  Jamss,  1650 ;  quoted  t^ 
Dnke^  ii  149. 


24«  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

principle  that  every  subject  must  accept  the  religion  of  the 
State. 

Authoritarian  to  her  inmost  fibre,  Elizabeth  had  a  strong  bent 
towards  Catholicism.  The  circumstances  of  her  life  had  placed 
her  in  Opposition  to  the  Papal  power,  but  she  was  fond  of 
describing  herseif  to  foreign  ambassadors  as  a  Catholic  in  all 
points  except  subjection  to  the  Pope.  She  did  not  even  make 
any  secret  of  her  contempt  for  Protestantism,  whose  head  she 
was,  and  whose  support  she  could  not  for  a  moment  dispense 
with.  She  feit  it  a  humiliation  to  be  regarded  as  a  co-religionist 
of  the  French,  Scotch,  or  Dutch  heretics.  She  looked  down  upon 
the  Anglican  Bishops  whom  she  had  herseif  appointed,  and  they, 
in  their  worldliness,  deserved  her  scorn.  But  still  deeper  was 
her  detestation  of  all  sectarianism  within  the  limits  of  her  Church, 
and  especially  of  Puritanism  in  all  its  forms.  If  she  did  not  in 
the  first  years  of  her  reign  indulge  in  open  persecution  of  the 
Puritans,  it  was  only  because  she  was  as  yet  dependent  on  their 
Support;  but  as  soon  as  she  feit  herseif  firmly  seated  on  her 
throne,  she  established,  in  spite  of  the  stifT-necked  Opposition 
of  Parliament,  the  Jurisdiction  of  the  Bishops  on  all  matters  of 
ecclesiastical  politics,  and  suffered  Puritan  writers  to  be  con- 
demned  to  death  or  life-long  imprisonment  for  free  but  quite 
innocent  expressions  of  opinion  regarding  the  relation  of  the 
State  to  religion. 

Her  greatness  had  mainly  reposed  upon  the  insight  she  had 
shown  in  the  choice  of  her  counsellors  and  Commanders.  But 
the  most  distinguished  of  those  who  had  shed  glory  on  her 
throne  died  one  after  the  other  in  the  last  decade  of  the  Century. 
The  first  to  die  was  Walsingham,  one  of  her  most  disinterested 
servants,  whom  she  had  repaid  with  black  ingratitude.  He  had 
done  her  great  and  loyal  servuces,  and  had  saved  her  life  at  the 
time  of  the  last  conspiracy,  which  led  to  the  execution  of  Mary 
Stuart.  Then  she  lost  such  notable  members  of  her  Council  as 
Lord  Hunsdon  and  Sir  Francis  Knowles;  then  Lord  Bui-ghley 
himself,  the  true  ruler  of  England  during  her  reign ;  and  finally, 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  the  great  naval  hero  of  the  war  with  Spain. 
She  feit  herseif  lonely  and  deserted.  She  no  longer  took  any 
pleasure  in  the  position  of  power  to  which  England  had  attained 
under  her  rule.  In  spite  of  all  she  could  do  to  conceal  it,  she 
began  to  feel  the  oppression  of  age,  and  to  se€  how  little  real 
affection  those  men  feit  for  her  who  were  always  posing  in  tbe 
light  of  adorers.  She  was  the  last  of  her  line,  and  the  thought 
of  her  successor  was  so  intolerable  to  her,  that  she  deferred  bis 
final  nomination  until  she  lay  on  her  death-bed.  But  it  avaikd 
her  nothing;  she  knew  very  well  that  her  ministers  and  courtiers, 
during  the  last  years  of  her  life,  were  in  constant  and  secret  oom- 
munication  with  James  of  Scotland.  They  would  kneel  in  tbe 
du8t  as  she  passed  with  exclamations  of  enchantment  at  her 


ELIZABETH  AND  SOUTHAMPTON  249 

youthful  appearance,  and  then  rise,  brush  the  dust  frotn  their 
knees,  and  write  to  James  that  the  Queen  looked  ghastly  and 
could  not  possibly  last  long.  They  did  all  they  possibly  could 
to  conceal  from  her  their  Scotch  intrigues ;  but  she  divined  what 
went  on  behind  her  back,  even  if  she  did  not  realise  the  extent 
to  which  it  was  carried,  or  know  definitely  which  of  her  most 
trusted  servants  were  shrinking  from  nothing  that  could  assure 
them  the  favour  of  James.  For  example,  she  did  not  suspect 
Robert  Cecil  of  the  double  game  he  was  canying  on,  at  the  very 
time  when  he  was  doing  his  best  to  drive  Essex  to  desperation 
and  secure  his  punishment  for  an  act  of  disobedience  scarcely 
more  heinous  in  the  Queen's  eyes  than  his  own  underhand 
dealings.  But  she  feit  herseif  isolated  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd 
of  courtiers  impatiently  awaiting  the  new  era  that  was  to  dawn 
after  her  death.  She  realised  that  the  men  who  still  flattered 
her  had  never  been  attached  to  her  for  her  own  sake,  and  she 
specially  resented  the  fact  that  they  no  longer  seemed  even  to 
fear  her. 

One  result  of  this  deep  dejection  was  that  she  gave  her 
tyrannical  tendencies  a  freer  course  than  before,  and  became 
less  and  less  inclined  to  forbearance  or  mercy  towards  those 
who  had  once  been  dear  to  her  but  had  fallen  into  disgrace. 

She  had  always  taken  it  very  ill  when  one  of  her  favourites 
showed  any  inclination  towards  matrimony,  and  they  had 
therefore  always  been  forced  to  marry  secretly,  though  that 
did  not  in  the  end  save  them  from  her  displeasure.  Now  her 
despotism  rose  to  such  a  pitch  that  she  wanted  to  control  the 
marriages  even  of  those  courtiers  who  had  never  enjoyed  her 
favour. 

One  of  the  things  which  Shakespeare  doubtless  took  most 
to  heart  at  the  end  of  the  old  Century  and  beginning  of  the  new 
was  the  hard  fate  which  overtook  his  distinguished  and  highly 
valued  patron  Southampton.  This  nobleman  had  fallen  in  love 
with  Essex's  cousin,  the  Lady  Elizabeth  Vernon.  The  Queen 
forbade  him  to  marry  her,  but  he  would  not  relinquish  his  bride. 
He  was  hot-headed  and  high-spirited.  Young  as  he  was,  he  had 
boarded  and  taken  a  Spanish  ship  of  war  in  the  course  of  the 
expedition  commanded  by  his  friend  Essex.  Once,  in  the  palace 
itself,  when  Southampton,  Raleigh,  and  another  courtier  had 
been  laughing  and  making  a  noise  over  a  game  of  primero,  the 
paptain  of  the  guard,  Ambrose  WiUoughby,  called  them  to  ordcr 
because  the  Queen  had  gone  early  to  bed ;  whereupon  Southampton 
Struck  this  high  offidal  in  the  face  and  actually  had  a  bout  of 
fisticuffs  with  bim.  Such  being  his  character,  we  cannot  wonder 
that  he  contracted  a  private  marriage  in  spite  of  the  prohibition 
(August  1598).  Elizabeth  sent  him  to  pass  his  honeymoon  in 
the  Tower,  and  thenceforth  viewed  him  with  high  disfavoun 

His  dose  relationship  to  Essex  led  to  a  ntiv«  ootiooxiX  o^  ^^ 


250  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Queen's  displeasure.  When  Essex  took  command  of  the  anny 
in  Ireland  in  1599,  he  appointed  Southampton  his  General  of 
Horse;  but  simply  out  of  resentment  for  Southampton 's  dis- 
obedience  in  the  matter  of  his  marriage,  the  Queen  forced  Essex 
to  rescind  the  appointment. 

One  must  bear  in  mind,  among  other  things,  this  attitude 
of  the  Queen  towards  Shakespeare's  first  patron  in  order  to 
understand  the  evident  coolness  of  his  feeling  towards  Eliza- 
beth. He  did  not,  for  example,  join  in  the  threnodies  of  the 
other  English  poets  on  her  death,  and  even  after  Chettle  had 
expressly  urged  him/  refrained  from  writing  a  single  linc  in 
her  praise.  He  probably  read  her  character  much  as  Froude 
did  in  our  own  day. 

Froude  admits  that  she  was  "supremely  brave,"  and  was 
turned  aside  from  her  purposes  by  no  care  for  her  own  life,  though 
she  was  '*  perpetually  a  mark  for  assassination."  He  admits,  too, 
that  she  lived  simply,  worked  hard,  and  mied  her  household  with 
economy.  "  But  her  vanity  was  as  insatiable  as  it  was  common- 
place.  .  .  .  Her  entire  nature  was  saturated  with  artifice.  Except 
when  speaking  some  round  untruths,  Elizabeth  never  could  be 
simple.  Her  letters  and  her  speeches  were  as  fantastic  as  her 
dress,  and  her  meaning  as  involved  as  her  policy.  She  was  un- 
natural even  in  her  prayers,  and  she  carried  her  aflfectations  into 
the  presence  of  the  Almighty.  .  .  .  Obligations  of  honour  were 
not  only  occasionally  forgotten  by  her,  but  she  did  not  seem  to 
understand  what  honour  meant."  * 

At  the  point  we  have  now  reached  in  Shakespeare's  life,  the 
event  occurred  which,  of  all  external  circumstances  of  his  time, 
seems  to  have  made  the  deepest  Impression  upon  his  mind :  the 
ill-starred  rebellion  of  Essex  and  Southampton,  the  execution  of 
the  former,  and  the  latter's  condemnation  to  imprisonment  for 
Hfe. 

*  "  Nor  doth  the  silver-tongued  Melicert 

Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  teaie 
To  moume  her  death  that  graced  his  desert, 
And  to  his  laies  opend  her  Royall  eare. 
Shepheard,  remember  our  Elizabeth^ 
And  sing  her  Rape,  done  by  that  Tarquin,  Death.** 

*  Fioude :  Hitt^ry  of  England^  vol  xii.  ConclusioD. 


III 


ELIZABETH,  ESSEX,  AND  BACON 

In  Order  rightly  to  understand  these  events  a  short  retrospect  is 
nccessary. 

We  have  seen  how  Essex  in  1587  ousted  Raleigh  from  the 
Queen's  favour.  From  the  very  first  he  united  with  the  in- 
sinuating  tone  of  the  adorer  the  domineering  attitude  of  the 
established  favourite.  This  was  new  to  her,  and  for  a  consider- 
able  time  obviously  impressed  more  than  it  irritated  her. 

Here  is  an  instance,  from  the  early  days  of  their  relationship. 
Essex's  sister,  Penelope,  had,  against  her  will,  been  married  to 
Lord  Rieh.  She  was  adored  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who  sang  of 
her  as  his  Stella,  and  their  mutual  passion  was  an  open  secret. 
The  Maiden  Queen,  who  was  always  very  strict  as  to  the  moral 
purity  of  those  around  her,  during  a  visit  which  she  paid  with 
Essex  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick  at  North  Hall  in  1587,  took 
offence  at  the  presence  of  Lady  Rieh,  and  insisted  that  she 
should  leave  the  house.  Essex  declared  that  the  Queen  sub- 
jected  him  and  his  sister  to  this  insult  "only  to  please  that 
knave  Raleigh,"  and  left  the  house  at  midnight  along  with  Lady 
Rieh.  He  wanted  to  join  the  army  in  the  Netherlands,  but  the 
Queen,  finding  that  she  could  not  do  without  him,  had  him 
brought  back  again. 

At  the  time  of  the  Armada,  therefore,  the  Queen  kept  him 
at  court,  much  against  his  own  will.  Nor  would  he  have  been 
allowed  to  take  part  in  the  war  of  1589  if  he  had  not  secretly 
made  his  escape  from  England,  leaving  behind  him  a  letter  to  the 
Queen  and  Council  to  the  effect  that  "  he  would  retum  alive  at  no 
one's  bidding."  An  angry  letter  from  Elizabeth  forced  him,  how- 
ever,  to  come  back  after  he  had  distinguished  himself  before 
Lisbon.  They  were  then  reconciled,  but  the  practical-minded 
Queen  immediately  demanded  of  him  the  repayment  of  a  sum 
of  ;^3000  which  she  had  lent  him,  so  that  he  was  forced  to 
seil  his  mansion  of  Keyston.  He  received  in  retum  "  the  farm 
of  sweet  wincs,"  a  very  lucrative  monopoly,  the  withdrawal 
of  which  miany  years  afterwards  led  to  the  boiling  over  of  his 
discontent. 

We  have  seen  how  his  secret  marriage  in  1590  enraged  the 
Queen,  who  at  once  vented  her  wrath  upon  his  bnde.    '^^»^tl^^^ 

•5X 


252  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

however,  he  was  once  more  in  favour,  and  in  the  middle  of  thc 
French  campaign  of  1591,  Elizabeth  recalled  him  to  England  for 
a  week,  which  was  passed  in  all  sorts  of  festivities.  She  wept 
when  he  retumed  to  the  army,  and  laid  upon  him  an  injunction, 
to  which  he  paid  very  little  heed,  that  he  must  on  no  account 
incur  any  personal  danger. 

During  the  subsequent  four  years  which  Essez  passed  in 
England,  occupied  with  his  plans  of  ambition,  it  became  clear 
to  him  that  Burghley's  son,  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  was  the  chief 
obstacle  to  his  advancement.  All  of  those,  therefore,  who  for 
one  reason  or  another  hated  the  house  of  Cecil,  cast  in  their 
lot  with  Essex.  Thus  it  happened  that  CeciFs  cousin,  Francis 
Bacon,  who  had  in  vain  besought  first  the  father  and  then  the  . 
son  for  some  profitable  office,  became  a  close  personal  adherent 
of  Essex.  It  was  necessary  to  make  choice  of  one  party  or  thc 
other  if  you  were  to  hope  for  any  preferment.  In  the  years 
1593  and  1594,  accordingly,  we  find  Essex  again  and  again 
importuning  Elizabeth  for  offices  for  Bacon.  She  had  no  very 
great  confidence  in  Bacon,  and  bore  him  a  grudge,  moreover, 
because  he  had  incautiously  spoken  in  Parliament  against  a 
Government  measure;  so  that  Essex,  to  his  great  annoyance 
and  disgiist,  met  with  a  refusal  to  all  his  applications.  As  a 
consolation  to  his  dient,  he  made  him  a  present  of  land  to  the 
value  of  not  less  than  £iSoo.  That  was  the  price  for  which 
Bacon  sold  the  property;  Essex  had  believed  it  to  be  worth 
more.*  This  gift,  we  see,  was  nearly  twice  as  large  as  that 
which  Southampton  is  reported  to  have  made  to  Shakespeare  . 
(see  above,  p.  152). 

Henceforward  Bacon  is  to  be  regarded  as  ai\  attentive  and 
officious  adherent  of  Essex,  while  Essex  makes  it  a  point  of 
honour  to  obtain  for  him  every  recognition,  preferment,  and 
advantage.  Again  and  again  Bacon  places  his  pen  at  the  dis- 
posal  of  Essex.  There  are  extant  three  long  letters  from  Essex 
to  his  young  cousin  Lord  Rutland,  dated  1596,  giving  him 
excellent  advice  as  to  how  to  reap  most  profit  from  his  first 
Continental  tour,  on  which  he  was  then  setting  out  In  many 
passages  of  these  letters  we  recognise  Bacon's  ideas,  and  in 
some  his  style,  his  acknowledged  writings  containing  ahnest 
identical  parallels.  The  probabiUty  is  that  in  these,  as  in  many 
subsequent  instances,  Bacon  suppUed  Essex  with  the  ideas  and 
the  first  draft  of  the  letters.  Well  knowing  that  the  Queen's 
dissatisfaction  with  Essex  arose  chiefly  from  his  desire  for 
military  glory  and  the  popularity  which  follows  in  its  train — 
well  knowing,  too,  that  Essex's  enemies  at  court  were  always 
representing  Üiis  ambition  to  the  Queen  as  a  hindrance  to  d^e 
peace  with  Spain,  which  nevertheless  must  one  day  be  conduded 
«—Bacon  thought  it  a  good  move  for  his  protector  to  display  an* 

^  Jamcf  Speddiag :  LtUmrtmniUft «f Francis Bacm^ l  371. 


BACON  AND  ESSEX  253 

equivocally  his  care  for  the  occupations  of  peace,  the  acqiiisition 
of  useful  knowledge,  and  other  unmilitary  advantages,  in  letters 
which,  although  private,  were  likely  enough  to  come  into  her 
Majesty's  hands. 

Francis  Bacon's  brother,  Anthony,  about  the  same  time  attached 
himself  closely  (and  more  faithfully)  to  Essez.  Through  him  the 
Earl  established  Communications  with  all  the  foreign  courts,  so 
that  for  a  time  his  knowledge  of  European  affairs  rivalied  that 
of  the  Foreign  Ministry  itself. 

The  zeal  which  Essez  had  displayed  in  unravelling  Doctor 
Roderigo  Lopez's  suspected  plot  against  Elizabeth  (see  above, 
p.  161)  had  placed  him  very  high  in  her  renewed  favour.  His 
heroic  ezploits  at  Cadiz  ought  to  have  strengthened  his  position ; 
but  his  adversary,  Robert  Cecil,  had  during  his  absence  acquired 
new  power,  and  the  rapacious  Elizabeth  complained  of  the  small- 
ness  of  the  booty  (it  amounted  to  £13,000).  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Essez  alone  had  wanted  to  follow  up  the  advantage  gained,  and 
to  seize  the  Indian  fleet,  which  was  allowed  to  escape :  he  had 
been  out-voted  in  the  Council  of  war. 

In  Order  to  overcome  this  new  resentment  on  the  Queen's 
part,  Bacon,  who  regarded  his  fate  as  bound  up  in  that  of  the 
Earl,  wrote  a  letter  to  Essez  (dated  October  4,  1596),  füll  of 
good  advice  with  respect  to  the  attitude  he  ought  to  adopt 
towards  Elizabeth,  especially  in  order  to  disabuse  her  mind 
of  the  idea  that  his  disposition  was  ungovemable — advice  which 
Bacon  himself,  with  his  courtier  temperament,  might  easily  enough 
have  foUowed,  but  which  was  too  hard  for  the  downright  Essez, 
who  had  no  sooner  made  humble  Submission  than  his  pride  again 
brought  arrogr  it  expressions  to  his  ups. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1 596  Bacon's  protector  was  accused 
by  his  client's  mother,  Lady  Bacon,  of  misconduct  with  one  of 
the  ladies  of  the  court.  He  denied  the  Charge,  but  confessed  to 
"  similar  errors." 

In  1597  Essez,  who  had  been  longing  for  a  new  command, 
undertook  an  ezpedition  to  the  Azores  with  twenty  ships  and 
6000  men — an  enterprise  which,  largely  owing  to  his  inezperience 
and  unfortunate  leadership,  was  entirely  unsuccessful.  On  his 
retum  he  was  very  coldly  received  by  the  Queen,  especially  on 
the  ground  that  towards  the  end  of  the  ezpedition  he  had 
behaved  ill  to  Raleigh,  his  colleague  in  command.  In  order  to 
make  his  peace  with  Elizabeth,  he  sent  her  insinuating  letters; 
but  he  was  mortally  offended  when  the  eminent  Services  of  the 
old  Lord  «Howard  were  rewarded  by  the  appointment  of  Lord 
High  AdmiraL  As  the  victor  of  Cadiz,  he  regarded  himself  as 
the  one  possible  man  for  this  distinction,  which  gave  Howard 
precedence  over  him  €  He  bemoaned  his  fate,  however,  to  such 
purpose  that  he  soon  after  secured  the  ap^uvtmtxvX.  ol  TLafV 
Marshai  of  England,  wbicb  in  tum  gave  Vanx  pxtictäLCXi^ft  ^Ntx 


2  54  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARF. 

Howard.  He  received  a  very  valuable  present — worth  .1^7000— 
and  for  the  first  and  last  time  induced  the  Queen  to  grant  an 
audience  to  bis  mother,  Lady  Lettice,  whose  marriage  with 
Leicester,  twenty-three  years  before,  was  not  yet  forgivcn, 
altbougb  in  1589,  at  the  age  of  forty-nine,  she  bad  married  a 
tbird  husband,  Sir  Cbristopher  Blount. 

But  Essex  was  not  long  at  peace  with  the  Queen  and  Court 
In  1598  he  was  accused  of  illicit  relations  with  no  fewer  than 
four  ladies  of  the  court  (Elizabeth  Soutbwell,  Elizabeth  Brydges, 
Mrs.  Russell,  and  Lady  Mary  Howard),  and  the  Charge  seems  to 
have  been  well  founded.  At  the  same  time  violent  dissensions 
broke  out  as  to  whether  an  attempt  should  or  should  not  be  made 
to  bring  the  war  with  Spain  to  a  close.  Essex  carried  the  day, 
and  it  was  continued.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  wrote  a 
pamphlet  defending  himself  warmly  from  the  Charge  of  desinng 
war  at  any  pnce.  It  was  not  published  until  1602,  under  the 
title:  An  apology  of  the  Earle  of  Essex  against  those  wkidi 
jealously  and  malictously  tax  him  to  be  the  hinderer  of  the  peaa 
and  quiet  of  his  country, 

To  the  Queen's  birthday  of  this  year  (November  17,  1598) 
belongs  an  anecdote  which  shows  what  ingenuity  Essex  displayed 
in  annoying  his  rival.  As  was  the  custom  of  the  day,  the  leading 
courtiers  tilted  at  the  ring  in  honour  of  her  Majesty,  and  each 
knight  was  required  to  appear  in  some  disguise.  It  was  known, 
however,  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  would  ride  in  his  own  uniform 
of  orange-tawny  medley,  trimmed  with  black  budge  of  lamb's 
wool.  Essex,  to  vex  him,  came  to  the  lists  with  a  body-guard 
of  two  thousand  retainers  all  dressed  in  orange-tawny,  so  that 
Raleigh  and  his  men  seemed  only  an  insignificant  division  of 
Essex's  splendid  retinue.^ 

No  later  than  June  or  July  1598  there  occurred  a  new 
scene  between  Essex  and  the  Queen  in  the  Council,  the  most 
unpleasant  and  grotesque  passage  which  had  yet  taken  place 
between  them.  The  occasion  was  trifling,  being  nothing  more 
than  the  choice  of  an  official  to  be  despatched  to  Ireland.  Essex 
was  in  the  habit  of  permitting  himself  every  liberty  towards 
Elizabeth;  and  it  was  now,  or  soon  afler,  that,  as  Raleigfa 
relates,  he  told  her  "that  her  conditions  were  as  crooked  as 
her  carcase."  Certain  it  is  that,  on  this  occasion,  he  tumed 
his  back  to  her  with  an  expression  of  contempt.  She  retorted 
by  giving  him  a  box  on  the  ear  and  bidding  him  "  Go  and  bc 
hanged."  He  laid  his  band  upon  his  sword-hilt,  declared  that 
he  would  not  have  sufTered  such  an  insult  from  Henry  the  Eighth 
himself,  and  held  aloof  from  the  court  for  months. 

Not  tili  October  was  Essex  forgiven,  and  even  then  wijh  no 
hcartiness  or  sincerity.  The  Irish  rebellion,  however,  had  to  bc 
put  down,  so  a  truce  was  called  to  all  trivial  quarreis.     O'Neil, 


ESSEX  IN  IRELAND  255 

Earl  of  Tyrone,  had  got  together  an  army,  as  he  had  often  done 
before,  and  the  whole  Island  was  in  revolt.  Public  opinion, 
for  no  sufficient  reason,  pointed  to  Essex  as  the  only  man  who 
could  deal  with  the  rebels.  He,  on  bis  part,  was  by  no  means 
eager  to  accept  the  mission.  It  was  of  the  utmost  importance  for 
evcry  courtier,  and  especially  for  the  head  of  a  party,  not  to  be 
out  of  the  Queen's  sight  more  than  was  imperatively  necessary. 
There  was  every  reason  to  fear  that  bis  enemies  of  the  opposite 
party  would  avail  themselves  of  bis  absence  in  order  so  to  blacken 
him  in  the  eyes  of  bis  omnipotent  mistress  that  he  would  never 
regain  her  favour.  Elizabeth,  at  this  juncture,  like  Louis  XIV. 
in  the  following  Century,  was  monarch  and  Constitution  in  one. 
Her  displeasure  meant  ruin,  her  favour  was  the  only  source  of 
prosperity.  Therefore  Essex  did  all  he  could  to  secure  permis- 
sion  to  retum  from  the  front  whenever  he  pleased,  in  order  to 
report  personally  to  the  Queen;  and  it  was  therefore  that,  in 
the  following  year,  when  he  was  forbidden  to  leave  bis  post, 
he  threw  caution  to  the  winds,  and  defied  the  prohibition.  He 
knew  that  he  was  lost  unless  he  could  speak  to  Elizabeth  face 
to  face. 

In  March  1599  Essex  took  the  command  of  the  English 
troops ;  he  was  to  suppress  the  rebellion  and  grant  Tyrone  bis 
life  only  on  condition  of  bis  complete  surrender.  But  instead  of 
carrying  out  bis  Orders,  which  were  to  attack  the  rebels  in  their 
stronghold,  Ulster,  Essex  remained  for  long  inactive,  and  at  last 
marched  into  Munster.  One  of  bis  subordinate  officers,  Sir 
Henry  Harington,  suffered  a  disgraceful  defeat,  partly  through 
bis  own  incompetence,  partly  through  the  cowardice  of  bis 
officers  and  men.  He  was  tried  by  court-martial  in  Dublin,  and 
he  himself,  and  every  tenth  man  of  bis  command,  were  shot  The 
summer  slipped  away,  and  in  its  course  the  16,000  men  with 
whom  Essex  had  come  to  Ireland  were  reduced  by  sickness  and 
desertion  to  a  quarter  of  their  original  number.  Under  these 
drcumstances,  Essex  again  deferred  bis  march  upon  Ulster,  so 
that  the  Queen,  who  was  excessively  displeased,  expressly  forbade 
him  to  retum  from  Ireland  without  her  permission. 

When  at  last,  in  the  beginning  of  September  1599,  he  con- 
fronted  wifh  bis  shrunken  forces  Tyrone's  unbreathed  army, 
which  had  taken  up  a  strong  position  to  await  the  Coming  of 
the  English,  he  abandoned  bis  plan  of  attack,  invited  Tyrone 
to  a  parley,  had  half  an  hour's  conversadon  with  him  on  the 
6th  of  September,  and  concluded  a  fourteen  weeks'  armistice, 
to  be  renewed  every  six  weeks  until  the  ist  of  May.  According 
to  bis  own  account,  he  promised  Tyrone  that  this  treaty  should 
not  be  placed  in  writing,  lest  it  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
Spaniards  and  be  used  against  him. 

This  was  certainly  not  what  Elizabeth  had  ex^^iecXitd  cJl  ^^ 
Irish    campsdgn,   wbicb   had    opened  with  sucYi  a  ^omtvs^  cA 


256  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

trumpets,  and  we  cannot  wonder  that  her  anger  was  fieroe 
and  deepHseated.  No  sooner  had  she  received  the  intelligence^ 
than  she  forbade  the  conclusion  of  any  treaty  whatsoever. 

Convinced  that  his  enemies  now  had  the  entire  ear  of  the 
Queen,  Essex  sought  safety  in  once  more  disobeying  Elizabeth's 
express  command.  With  a  train  of  only  six  followers,  whidi 
in  the  indictment  against  him  afterwards  grew  into  a  body  of 
200  picked  men,  he  crossed  to  England  to  attempt  his  own 
justification,  rode  direct  to  Nonsuch  Palace,  where  Elizabeth 
then  was,  forced  all  the  doors,  and,  travel-stained  as  he  was, 
threw  himself  on  his  knees  before  the  Queen,  whom  he  surprised 
in  her  bed-chamber,  with  her  hair  undressed,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the 
moming  of  the  28th  of  September. 

It  is  a  streng  proof  of  the  power  which  his  personality  still 
retained  over  Elizabeth,  that  at  the  first  moment  she  feit  nothing 
but  pleasure  in  seeing  him.  As  soon  as  he  had  changed  his 
clothes,  he  was  admitted  to  an  audience,  which  lasted  an  hour 
and  a  half.  As  yet  all  seemed  well.  He  dined  at  the  Queen's 
table  and  told  her  about  Ireland  and  its  people.  But  in  the 
evening  he  was  "commanded  to  keep  his  Chamber"  until  the 
lords  of  the  Council  should  have  spoken  with  him;  and  a  few 
days  later  he  was  confined  to  York  House,  with  his  friend  the 
Lord  Keeper,  however,  for  his  gaoler. 

He  presently  feil  ill,  when  it  appeared  that  the  Queen  had 
by  no  means  forgotten  her  former  tenderness  for  him.  In  the 
middle  of  December  she  sent  eight  physicians  to  consult  as  to 
his  case.     They  despaired  of  his  Hfe,  but  he  recovered. 

While  matters  thus  looked  very  black  for  Essex,  his  nearest 
friends  also  were,  of  course,  in  disgrace.  In  a  letter  from  Rowland 
Whyte  to  Sir  Robert  Sidney  (dated  October  ii,  1599),  we  find  the 
foUowing  significant  Statement:  "My  Lord  SouthhampUm^  and 
Lord  Rutland  come  not  to  the  court;  the  one  doth  but  very 
seldome;  they  pass  away  the  Tyme  in  London  merely  in  going 
to  Plaies  euery  day.''^  Southampton  had  married  a  cousin  <^ 
Essex,  and  Rutland  a  daughter  of  Lady  Essex  by  her  first 
marriage  with  Sir  Philip  Sidney ;  so  that  both  were  in  the  same 
boat  with  their  more  distinguished  kinsman. 

On  the  5th  of  June  1600,  Essex  was  brought  to  trial — ^not 
before  the  Star  Chamber,  but,  by  particular  favour,  before  a 
special  court,  consisting  of  four  earls,  two  barons,  and  four 
judges,  which  assembled  at  the  Lord  Keeper's  residence,  Yoifc 
House,  the  general  public  being  excluded.  The  procedure  was 
mainly  dictated  by  the  Queen's  wish  to  justify  the  arrest  of  Essex 
in  the  face  of  public  opinion,  which  idolised  him  and  regarded  bim 
as  a  martyr. 

^  A.  Collins :  LetUrs  and  Memorials  of  State^  iL  133. 


IV 


THE  FAXE  OF  ESSEX  AND  SOÜTHAMPTON 

The  indictment  did  not  press  too  severely  upon  Essex,  did  not 
s  yet  seek  to  discover  treasonable  motives  for  his  inactivity  in 
rdand,  but  simply  dwelt  upon  his  disobedience  to  the  Queen's 
ommands,  and  the  dangerous  and  dishonourable  agreement  with 
Tyrone.  Francis  Bacon  had  not  been  allotted  any  part  in  the 
»roceedings ;  but  on  his  writing  to  the  Queen  and  ezpressing  his 
lesire  to  serve  her  in  this  conjuncture,  he  was  assigned  the  quite 
ubordinate  task  of  calling  Essex  to  account  for  his  indiscretion 
a  accepting  the  dedication,  in  unbefitting  terms,  of  a  political 
lamphlet  written  by  a  certain  Dr.  Hayward.  Bacon  exceeded 
tis  instructions  by  dwelling  at  length  on  certain  passionate  ex- 
iressions  in  a  letter  from  Essex  to  the  Lord  Keeper,  in  which 
le  had  spoken  of  the  hardness  of  the  Queen's  heart  and  compared 
ler  princely  wrath  to  a  tempest.  A  man  who  was  less  nervously 
nxious  to  retain  the  Queen's  favour  would  have  declined  this 
ommission  on  the  ground  of  his  close  relations  with  Essex ; 
\acon  begged  for  it,  went  farther  than  it  required  him  to  go,  and 

I  scarcely  to  be  believed  when  he  afterwards,  in  his  Apology^ 
epresents  himself  as  actuated  by  the  wish  ultimately  to  be  of 
ervice  to  Essex  with  the  Queen.  Still,  he  evidently  had  not 
eased  to  regard  a  reconciliation  between  Elizabeth  and  Eissex 
s  the  most  probable  result,  and  he  may  perhaps  have  done  his 
est  in  private  conversations  to  soften  the  Queen's  resentment. 

The  sentence  passed  by  the  Lord  Keeper  was  the  not  very 
evere  one  that  Essex  should,  in  the  meantime,  be  deprived  of 

II  his  Offices,  and  remain  a  prisoner  in  Essex  House  "tili  it 
hall  please  her  Majesty  to  release  both  this  and  all  the  rest." 

Bacon,  who  still  did  not  think  Essex  irretrievably  lost,  now 
ried,  in  a  carefully  worded  letter  to  him,  to  explain  his  attitude, 
nd  at  once  received  from  his  magnanimous  friend  a  forgiveness 
rhich  was  scarcely  deserved.  Bacon  declared  that,  next  to  the 
iterests  of  the  Queen  and  the  country,  those  of  Essex  always 
ly  nearest  his  heart ;  and  he  now  composed  two  documents : 
rst,  a  very  judicious  letter,  which  Essex  was  partly  to  re-write 
nd  then  to  send  to  the  Queen,  and  next  a  fictitious  letter,  a 
lasterpiece  of  diplomacy,  purporting  to  have  beÄU  ^x\\.\äxv  Xst^ 
b  brotber^  Anthoiiy  BsLCon^  Essex's  faithCul  adVvei^xvX.,  X.o  ^^s^ksk. 

•57  ^ 


2  58  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

himself.  This  letter,  and  Essex's  reply  to  it,  which  prove  to 
admiration  Bacon's  talent  for  reproducing  the  styles  of  two  such 
dififerent  men,  were  to  be  copied  by  them  respectively,  and  to  be 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Queen,  on  whom  they  wouU 
no  doubt  produce  the  desired  impression.  With  Machiavellian 
subtlety,  these  letters  are  carefully  framed  so  as  to  place  Francis 
Bacon  himself  in  the  light  which  should  most  appeal  to  the 
Queen :  Essez  is  represented  as  regarding  him  as  endrely  wen 
over  to  her  side,  and  Anthony  ezpresses  the  hope  that  she  wiD 
show  him  the  favour  he  has  deserved  "  for  that  he  hath  done  and 
suflFered." 

Bacon  did  not  succeed  in  inducing  Elizabeth  to  restore  Essez 
to  his  former  position  in  her  favour.  In  August,  a  coupk  of 
roonths  after  the  date  of  the  sentence,  he  was  placed  at  füll 
liberty;  but  access  to  Elizabeth's  person  was  denied  him,  and 
he  was  bidden  to  regard  himself  as  still  in  disgrace.  The  cod- 
sequence  was  that  few  now  came  about  him  ezcept  the  members 
of  his  own  family.  Add  to  this,  that  he  was  over  head  and  ears 
in  debt,  and  that  his  monopoly  of  sweet  wines,  which  had  been 
his  Chief  source  of  income,  and  on  the  renewal  of  which  bis 
financial  rescue  depended,  ran  out  in  the  foUowing  montb. 

He  wavered  between  fear  and  hope,  and  was  forever  ^*shifting 
from  sorrow  and  repentance  to  rage  and  rebellion  so  suddenlyi 
as  well  proveth  him  devoid  of  good  reason  as  of  right  mind."  At 
one  moment  he  is  appealing  to  the  Queen  with  the  deepest 
humility  in  flattering  letters,  and  at  the  nezt  he  is  speaking  of 
her — so  his  friend  Sir  John  Harington  reports— as  '^became  no 
man  who  had  mens  sana  in  corpore  sanoJ^ 

Then  came  the  catastrophe.  His  sources  of  income  were  cut 
off,  and  his  hope  of  the  Queen's  relenting  was  broken.  He  was 
convinced — ^without  reason,  as  it  appears — that  his  enemies  at 
court,  who  had  deprived  him  of  his  wealth,  had  now  laid  a  pkit 
to  deprive  him  of  his  life  as  well.  He  imagined,  too,  that  Sir 
Robert  Cecil  was  weaving  intrigues  to  bring  about  the  ncHii^ 
nation  of  the  Infanta  of  Spain  as  Elizabeth's  success<M';  and  in 
his  desperation  he  began  to  nurse  the  iliusion  that  it  was  as 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  State  as  for  his  own  that  he 
should  gain  forcible  access  to  the  Queen  and  secure  the  banish- 
ment  from  court  of  her  present  advisers.  In  his  dread  of  being 
once  more  placed  under  arrest,  and  this  time  sent  to  the  Towefi 
he  determined,  in  February  1601,  to  carry  out  a  plan  he  had 
been  hatching,  for  taking  the  court  by  storm. 

Southampton  had  at  this  time  allowed  the  malcontents  to  make 
his  residence,  Drury  House,  their  meeting-place  for  discussing  the 
Situation.  Here  the  general  plan  was  laid  that  they  should  seiae 
upon  Whitehall  and  that  Essez  should  force  his  way  into  tba 
Queen's  presence ;  the  time  was  to  depend  upon  the  arrival  6[  tba 
Scotch  envoy.    On  the  Jth  of  February,  £Qur  or  five  of  the  Earfa 


ESSEX'S  REBELLION  259 

firiends  presented  themselves  at  the  Globe  Theatre,  and  promised 
thc  Players  eleven  Shillings  more  than  they  usually  received  if, 
on  the  7th,  they  would  perform  the  play  of  the  deposition  and 
death  of  King  Richard  II.  (see  above,  p.  125).  In  the  mean- 
time,  Essez  had,  in  the  beginning  of  Febniary,  assembled  his 
adherents  in  his  own  residence,  Essex  House,  and  this  induced 
the  Government,  which  had  heard  with  uneasiness  of  so  lai^  a 
concourse  of  people,  to  summon  Essex  before  the  Council  He 
received  the  summons  on  the  7th  of  February  1601,  excused 
himself  on  the  ground  of  Indisposition,  and  at  once  called  his 
friends  together.  On  the  same  evening  three  hundred  men  were 
gathered  at  his  house,  although  no  real  plan  had  as  yet  been 
determined  upon.  He  informed  them  that  his  life  was  threatened 
by  Cobham  and  Raleigh.  On  the  moming  of  the  8th  of  Feb- 
ruary, the  Lord  Keeper  with  three  other  noblemen,  commissioned 
by  the  Queen  to  inquire  into  what  was  going  on,  appeared  at 
Essex  House,  and  demanded  to  see  the  Earl.  They  told  him 
that  any  complaints  he  might  have  to  make  to  the  Queen  should 
receive  attention,  but  that  in  the  first  place  he  must  order  his 
adherents  to  disperse. 

Essex  made  only  confused  replies :  his  life  was  threatened,  he 
was  to  be  murdered  in  his  bed,  he  had  been  treacherously  dealt 
with,  and  so  forth.  In  the  meantime  shouts  arose  from  the  crowd 
of  his  retainers,  "  Away,  my  lord ;  they  abuse  you,  they  betray 
you,  they  undo  you ;  you  lose  time  ! "  Essex  led  the  noblemen 
into  his  house  amid  cries  from  his  armed  friends  of ''  Kill  them, 
kill  them ! "  and  "  Shut  them  up !  Keep  them  as  pledges,  cast 
the  great  seal  out  at  the  window  I "  He  had  them  locked  up  in 
his  library  as  prisoners  or  hostages.  Then  he  came  out  again, 
and,  amid  cries  of  "  To  Court !  to  Court ! "  his  party  rushed  through 
the  gates.  At  the  last  moment,  Essex  learned  that  the  Court  was 
prepared,  the  watch  was  doubled,  and  every  access  to  Whitehall 
was  barred.  They  were  therefore  forced  to  attempt,  in  the  first 
place,  to  stir  up  an  insurrection  in  the  city.  But  in  order  to  pass 
through  the  streets  horses  were  needed ;  they  were  sent  for,  but 
there  was  delay  in  procuring  them.  So  impatient  was  every 
<me  by  this  time,  that  instead  of  awaiting  their  arrival,  several 
hundred  men,  headed  by  Essex,  Southampton,  Rutland,  Blount, 
and  other  gentlemen,  but  without  any  real  leader  or  effective 
plan  of  action,  set  off  for  the  city.  Essex  nowhere  made  any 
Speech  to  the  populace,  but  merely  shouted,  as  though  beside  him- 
self, that  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  murder  him.  A  good  many 
people,  indeed,  appeared  to  join  him,  but  none  of  them  were 
armed,  and  they  were  in  reality  no  more  than  onlookers.  In  the 
meantime,  the  Government  despatched  high  officials  on  horse- 
back  to  different  quarters  of  the  town  to  proclaim  Essex  a  traitor ; 
whereupon  many  of  his  following  deserted  him.  Tx^o'^'^^  \.<e^^ 
ivere  despatched  agtdBBt  him^  so  that  he»  ^tla  iVie  Ttsna^tes  ^^^ 


26o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

bis  band,  witb  difficulty  made  their  way  by  water  back  to 
House,  which  was  immediately  besieged  and  fired  upon.  In  the 
evening  Essex  and  Southampton  opened  negotiations,  and  about 
ten  o'dock  surrendered  with  their  little  force,  on  the  under- 
Standing  that  they  should  be  courteously  treated  and  accorded  an 
honourable  trial.  ^  The  prisoners  were  taken  to  the  Tower. 

Francis  Bacon  now  again  plays  a  part,  and  this  time  a  decisive 
one,  in  Essex's  history.  There  was  no  need  for  him  to  take  any 
share  in  the  trial ;  and  even  if  bis  office  had  imposed  it  upon  him, 
he  ought  in  common  decency  to  have  refrained.  He  was  neither 
Attomey-General  nor  SoHcitor,  but  only  one  of  the  "  Leamed 
Counsel."  The  very  fact  of  bis  close  friendship  with  Essez, 
however,  made  the  Government  anxious  that  he  should  appear 
in  the  case.  He  was  at  once  advocate  and  witness,  and  was  not 
summoned  as  one  of  the  leamed  counsel,  but  expressly  as  "  friend 
to  the  accused." 

On  the  ipth  February,  Essex  and  Southampton  were  brought 
before  a  court  consisting  of  twenty-five  peers  and  nine  judges. 
Already,  on  the  I7th,  Thomas  Leigh,  a  captain  in  Essex's  Irish 
army,  for  tr3ring  to  gain  access  to  the  palace  on  the  8th  February, 
had  been  beheaded  in  the  Tower.  Now  that  Essex's  cause  was 
irreparably  lost,  Bacon  had  no  other  thought  than  to  make  him- 
self  useful  to  the  party  in  power  and  prove  bis  devotion  to  the 
Queen.  The  purport  of  his  first  speech  against  Essex  was  to 
prove  that  the  plan  of  exciting  an  insurrection  in  the  city,  which 
was  in  reality  an  inspiration  of  the  moment,  had  been  the  result 
of  three  months'  deliberation.  He  represented  as  false  and  hjrpo- 
critical  Essex's  assurance  that  he  was  driven  to  action  by  dread 
of  the  machinations  of  powerful  enemies.  He  compared  Essex 
to  Cain,  the  first  murderer,  who  also  sought  excuses  for  bis  deed, 
and  to  Pisistratus,  who  wounded  himself  and  ran  through  the 
streets  of  Athens,  crying  that  an  attempt  had  been  made  upon 
his  life.     The  Karl  of  Essex,  he  said,  in  reality  had  no  enemies. 

Essex  rejoined  that  he  could  ''call  forth  Mr.  Bacon  against  Mr. 
Bacon."  Bacon,  "  being  a  daily  courtier,"  had  promised  to  plead 
his  cause  with  the  Queen.  He  had  with  great  address  composed 
a  letter  to  her,  to  be  signed  by  Essex.  He  had  also  written 
another  letter  in  his  brother  Anthony's  name,  and  an  answer  to 
it  from  Essex,  both  of  which  he  was  to  show  to  the  Queen;  and 
in  these  "  he  laid  down  the  grounds  of  my  discontent,  and  the 
reasons  I  pretend  against  mine  enemies,  pleading  as  orderly  for 
me  as  I  could  do  myself." 

This  rejoinder  told  sensibly  against  Bacon,  and  drove  him  in 
his  reply  to  launch  against  his  benefactor  a  new  and  much  more 
malignant  and  dangerous  comparison.  He  likened  him  to  a  re- 
nowned  contemporary,  also  a  nobleman  and  a  rebel,  the  Duke  of 
Guise :  "  It  was  not  the  Company  you  carried  with  you,  but  the 
Mssistaace  you  hoped  for  in  the  City  which  you  trusted  untOb 


FALL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  361 

The  Duke  of  Guise  thrust  himself  into  the  streets  of  Paris  on  the 
day  of  the  Barricados  in  his  doublet  and  hose,  attended  only 
with  eight  gentlemen,  and  found  that  help  in  the  city  which 
(thanks  be  to  God)  you  failed  of  here.  And  what  foUowed  ?  The 
King  was  forced  to  put  himself  into  a  pUgrim's  weeds,  and  in  that 
disguise  to  steal  away  to  scape  their  fury." 

In  view  of  Essex's  persistent  denisd  that  he  had  aspired  to 
the  throne  or  sought  to  do  the  Queen  any  injury,  this  parallel 
was  a  terrible  one  for  him. 

Both  he  and  Southampton  were  found  guilty  and  condemned 
to  death. 

The  tnal  of  Shakespeare's  protector,  Southampton,  and  his 
signed  confession,  have  a  special  interest  for  us.  In  a  private 
letter  from  John  Chamberlain,  dated  the  24th  February,  we  read : 
"The  Earl  of  Southampton  spake  very  well  (but  methought 
somewhat  too  much,  as  well  as  the  other),  and  as  a  man  that 
would  fain  live,  pleaded  hard  to  acquit  himself;  but  all  in  vain, 
for  it  could  not  be:  whereupon  he  descended  to  entreaty  and 
moved  great  commiseration,  and  though  he  were  generally  well 
liked,  yet  methought  he  was  somewhat  too  low  and  submiss, 
and  seemed  too  loath  to  die  before  a  proud  enemy." 

Southampton,  in  his  own  confession,  admits  that  immediately 
after  his  arriyal  in  Ireland,  he  became  aware  of  Essex's  letter 
to  King  James  of  Scotland,  urging  that,  for  his  own  sake,  he 
ought  not  to  permit  the  government  of  England  to  remain  in 
the  hands  of  his  and  Essex's  common  enemies,  proposing  that  he 
should,  at  a  fitting  opportunity,  assemble  an  army,  and  promising 
that  Essez,  in  so  far  as  his  duty  to  her  Majesty  permitted,  should 
Support  the  King  with  his  Irish  troops.  James  replied  evasively, 
and  nothing  came  of  the  plan,  in  which  Southampton  soon  re- 
gretted  that  he  had  taken  share.  After  losing  his  post  in  Ire- 
land, he  went  to  the  Netherlands,  and  had  no  other  desire  than 
to  regain  the  favour  of  the  Queen,  when  Essex,  his  kinsman  and 
friend,  summoned  him  to  London  and  requested  his  support  in 
the  plan  he  had  formed  for  seeking  access  to  her  Majesty. 
With  a  heavy  heart,  he  had  consented,  and  engaged  in  the 
enterprise,  not  from  any  treachery  or  disrespect  towards  her 
Majesty,  but  solely  on  account  of  his  affection  for  Essex.  He 
repents  and  abhors  his  action,  and  promises  on  his  knees  to 
oonsecrate  to  the  Queen's  Service  every  day  that  remains  to  him, 
if  she  will  but  spare  his  life. 

Southampton  impresses  us  as  a  man  of  fiery  but  yielding 
character,  entirely  under  the  influence  of  a  stronger  personality ; 
but  he  is  never  betrayed  into  a  Single  unworthy  word  with  respect 
to  his  kinsman  and  friend,  whose  cause  he  of  course  knew  to 
be  hopeless.  His  sentence  was  commuted  to  imprisonment  for 
life. 

Essex  himself,  at  the  end,  endured  wilh  Ats&  t«»Am^<c)^  ^Sda. 


262  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cniel  ordeal  to  which  he  was  subjected.  Finding  himself  ood- 
demned  to  death,  and  knowing  that  many  of  his  dosest  fnends 
had  confessed  to  the  Drury  House  discussions  and  designs,  he 
lost  all  balance  during  the  last  days  of  his  life,  entirely  foigot 
his  dignity,  and  overwhelmed  those  around  him,  his  sister,  his 
friends,  his  secretary,  and  himself,  with  a  torrent  of  reproaches. 

In  the  meantime  his  enemies  were  not  idle.  Even  Raleigh, 
on  whose  proud  nature  one  is  sorry  to  find  such  a  stain,  impeUed, 
of  course,  not  only  by  their  old  enmity,  but  by  Essex's  recent 
assertions  that  he  was  plotting  against  his  life,  wrote  to  Cecil, 
in  his  uneasiness  lest  Essex  should  be  pardoned,  and  urged 
him  ''not  to  relent/'  but  to  see  that  the  sentence  was  carried 
out 

Elizabeth  had  first  signed  the  death- Warrant,  and  then  recalled 
it  On  the  24th  February  she  signed  it  a  second  time,  and  on 
the  25th  February  i6oi,  Essex's  head  was  severed  by  three 
blows  of  the  axe. 

The  populace  could  not  be  persuaded  of  their  favourite's  guilt 
They  loathed  his  executioner,  and  detested  those  men  who,  like 
Bacon  and  Raleigh,  had,  by  their  malice,  contributed  to  his 
downfall. 

In  Order  to  justify  itself,  the  Government  issued  an  official 
Declaration  touching  the  Treasons  of  the  late  Earl  of  Essex  a$ul 
his  complices^  in  the  composition  of  which  Bacon  bore  a  large 
part.  It  is  very  untrustworthy.  James  Spedding,  indeed,  one 
of  Bacon's  best  biographers,  has  tried  to  reconcile  it  with  the 
facts ;  but  he  has  not  succeeded  in  explaining  away  the  damnatory 
circumstance  that  everything  is  omitted  which  tended  at  the  trial 
to  establish  Essex's  Intention  to  use  no  violence,  and  to  prove  how 
entirely  unpremeditated  was  the  attempt  to  raise  an  insurrection 
in  the  city.  Where  passages  of  this  nature  occur  in  the  records, 
all  of  which  are  preserved,  we  find  the  letters  om,  (meaning,  of 
course,  "to  be  omitted")  written  in  the  margin,  sometimes  io 
Bacon's  band,  sometimes  in  that  of  the  Attomey-General,  Cokc.^ 

Bacon,  with  his  brilliant  intellectual  equipment  and  his  con- 
sciousness  of  his  great  powers,  is  not  to  be  set  down  as  simjdy 
a  bad  man.  But  his  heart  was  cold,  and  he  had  no  greatness  of 
soul.  He  was  absorbed,  to  a  quite  unworthy  degree,  in  the  pursuit 
of  worldly  prosperity.  Always  deeply  in  debt,  he  coveted  above 
everything  fine  houses  and  gardens,  massive  plate,  great  revenueSi 
and,  as  essential  preliminaries,  high  offices  and  employments,  titlet 
and  distinctions,  which  he  might  well  have  left  to  men  of  meaner 
worth.  He  passed  half  his  life  in  the  character  of  an  oflBoe* 
seeker,  met  with  one  humiliating  refusal  after  another,  and 
retumed  humble  thanks  for  the  gracious  denial.    Once  and  enoe 

^  Compare  DüHonary  of  NaÜamä  Biography^  Robert  Dererenz;  Speddio|^ 
Litten  anui  Life  rf  Francis  Bacon,  ü.  190-374 ;  £dwin  Abbott,  Francis  Bmctm^  «i 
jttmmi ef  his  Ufi and  Works,  pp.  53-8a ;  Macanlay,  Lord  Bacon;  Gotitp  JMafci. 


I 


CHARACTER  OF  ESSEX  263 

only,  in  bis  early  days  in  Parliament,  did  he  display  some  in- 
dependence  and  rectitude ;  but  when  he  saw  that  it  gave  ofifence 
in  the  highest  places,  he  repented  as  bitterly  as  though  he  had 
been  guilty  of  a  sin  against  all  political  morality,  and  besought 
her  Majesty's  forgiveness  in  terms  that  might  have  befitted  a 
detected  thief.  With  the  likebaseness  and  pusillanimity  he  now 
tumed  against  Essex.  He  had  often  cited  the  maxim,  which  even 
Cicero  criticised  in  the  De  Amicitia  :  "  Love  as  if  you  should  here- 
after  hate,  and  hate  as  if  you  should  hereafter  love."  He  had 
never  loved  Essex  otherwise.  His  excuse,  if  there  can  be  any, 
for  seeking  advancement  at  all  costs,  must  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  he  had  the  highest  conception  of  his  own  value  to  science, 
and  thought  that  it  would  be  to  the  honour  and  advantage  of 
leaming  that  he,  its  high-priest,  should  be  highly  placed. 

If  we  examine  Essex's  portrait,  with  its  regulär  beauty,  its  air 
of  distinction  and  gentleness,  the  high  forehead,  the  curly  hair, 
and  the  carefully  combed  long  light  beard,  we  can  readily  under- 
8tand  that  such  a  man,  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  adventurous 
renown,  must  become  the  idol  of  the  populace,  and  that  the 
military  incompetence  which  he  had  twice  displayed  should  not 
greatly  affect  the  high  esteem  in  which  the  people  held  him.  He 
was  in  reality  as  little  of  a  statesman  as  of  a  general;  he  was 
simply  a  free-speaking,  passionate  man,  innocent  of  diplomacy,  a 
brave  soldier  without  an  idea  of  tactics.  He  misunderstood  his 
influence  over  Elizabeth,  and  did  not  realise  that  the  Queen, 
while  she  feit  the  charm  of  his  personality,  conteraned  his  political 
counsels.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  the  poet  in  his  composition ; 
he  wrote  pretty  sonnets,  was  a  patron  of  writers  no  less  than  of 
fighters,  showed  himself  generous  to  profusion  towards  his  friends 
and  dients,  and  found,  perhaps,  his  sincerest  and  most  convinced 
admirers  among  the  authors  and  poets  of  the  day.  Innumerable 
are  the  books  which  are  dedicated  to  him. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  after  his  melancholy  death,  a  marked 
decline  was  apparent  in  the  Queen's  courage  and  spirits.  The 
legend,  however,  that  it  was  the  fact  of  his  execution  which 
she  took  so  much  to  heart,  is  scarcely  to  be  believed,  and  the 
Story  about  E!ssex's  ring,  which  was  conveyed  to  her  too  late, 
is  unquestionably  a  fable.  It  is  certain,  on  the  other  band — 
for  the  Duc  de  Biron,  the  envoy  of  Henri  IV.,  had  no  motive 
for  telling  a  falsehood — that  on  the  I2th  September  1601,  after 
a  conversation  about  Essex  in  which  she  jested  over  her  departed 
favourite,  Elizabeth  opened  a  box  and  took  out  of  it  Essex's 
skull,  which  she  showed  to  Biron.  Ten  months  later,  this 
favourite  of  the  French  king  —  whose  name  Shakespeare  had 
borrowed  for  the  hero  of  his  first  comedy — mct  with  the  very 
fate  of  Essex,  and  for  a  similar  crime. 

Bacon,  no  doubt,  moumed  Essex's  disappearance  even  less 
than  did  the  Queen.    After  Elizabeth's  death,  hoivtNCt«  ^\v<»i>^^ 


264  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

friends  of  Essez  stood  in  the  highest  favour  with  the  new  King, 
he  was  shameless  enough  to  send  a  letter  to  Southampton  (who^ 
though  not  yet  released  from  the  Tower,  was  already  r^;arded 
as  a  power  in  the  land),  in  which,  after  having  expressed  bis 
fear  of  being  met  with  distrust,  he  concludes  thus :  ''  It  is  as 
true  as  a  thing  that  God  knoweth,  that  this  great  change  hath 
wrought  in  me  no  other  change  towards  your  Lordship  tfaan 
this,  that  I  may  safely  be  now  that  which  I  was  truly  before." 

The  circumstances  of  Essex's  condemnation  were  of  course 
not  known  in  the  London  of  those  days  so  minutely  as  we  now 
know  them.  But  we  see,  as  already  indicated,  that  public  opinion 
tumed  vehemently  against  Bacon,  regarding  and  despising  hixn 
as  the  traitor  to  his  lord  who,  more  than  any  one  eise,  had 
brought  about  his  unhappy  end.  We  see  that  Raleigh,  in  spitc 
of  his  greatness,  now  became  one  of  the  most  unpopulär  men 
in  England ;  and  we  observe  that,  notwithstanding  all  that  was 
done  to  disparagc  him  in  the  general  regard,  Essex's  memoiy 
continued  to  be  idolised  by  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 

If  we  now  inquire  in  what  relation  Shakespeare  stood  to 
these  events  which  so  absorbed  the  English  people,  it  seems 
more  than  probable  that  he,  who  had  so  recently  been  so 
intimately  associated  with  Southampton,  and  cannot  therefore 
have  been  very  far  from  Essex,  followed  the  accused  with  his 
sympathy,  feit  a  lively  resentment  towards  their  enemies,  and 
took  their  fate  much  to  heart  And  when  we  observe  that  just 
at  this  juncture  a  revolution  occurs  in  Shakespeare's  hitherto 
cheerful  habit  of  mind,  and  that  he  begins  to  take  ever  gloomier 
views  of  human  nature  and  of  life,  we  cannot  but  recognise  the 
probability  that  grief  for  the  fate  which  had  overtaken  Essez, 
Southampton,  and  their  fellows,  was  one  of  the  sources  of  bis 
growing  melancholy. 


THE  DBDICATION  OF  THE  SONNETS 

Vz  naturally  looked  for  one  source  of  Shakespeare's  henceforth 
eepening  melancholy  in  outward  events,  in  the  political  drama 
rhich  reached  its  crisis  and  catastrophe  in  i6oi ;  but  it  is  still 
lore  imperative  that  we  should  look  into  bis  private  and  personal 
Kperiences  for  tbe  ultimate  cause  of  the  revolution  in  bis  soul. 
Ve  must  inquire  what  ligbt  bis  works  tbrow  upon  bis  private 
ircumstances  and  State  of  mind  at  tbis  period. 

Now,  we  find  among  Sbakespeare's  works  one  whicb,  more 
tian  any  otber,  seems  to  enable  us  to  look  into  bis  inmost  soul — 
mean  bis  Sonnets,  It  is  to  tbese  tbat  we  must  mainly  address 
urselves  for  the  information  we  require.  Public  events  can, 
ideedy  cast  a  certain  measure  of  ligbt  or  shadow  over  a  man's 
iward  World  of  thought  and  feeling;  but  they  are  never  tbe 
ffident  factors  in  determining  tbe  bappiness  or  melancholy  of 
is  fundamental  mood.  If  be  has  personal  reasons  for  feeling 
hat  fate  is  against  bim,  utmost  serenity  in  the  political  atmos- 
»here  will  not  dissipate  bis  gloom ;  and,  conversely,  if  a  deep  joy 
bides  within  bim,  and  be  has  personal  reasons  for  feeling  bimself 
avoured  by  fortune,  tben  public  discontent  will  be  powerless  to 
listurb  tbe  harmony  of  bis  soul.  But  bis  depression  will,  of 
ourse,  be  doubly  severe  if  public  events  and  private  experiences 
ombine  to  cast  a  gloom  over  bis  mind. 

Sbakespeare's  ''sugred  Sonnets"  are  first  mentioned  in  tbe 
irell-known  passage  in  Meres's  Pcdladis  Tamia  (1598),  wbere 
bey  are  spoken  of  as  passing  from  band  to  band  ''  among  bis 
»rivate  friends."  In  the  following  year  tbe  two  important  Sonnets 
low  numbered  czxxviii.  and  cxliv.  were  printed  (witb  readings 
iubsequently  revised)  in  a  coUection  of  poems  named  The  Pas- 
ianate  Pilgrim^  disbonestly  publisbed,  and  falsely  attributed  to 
Shakespeare,  by  a  bookseller  named  Jaggard.  The  first  of  them 
»pedally  is  very  interesting  in  tbis  oldef  form.  For,  although 
echnicaUy  inferior  to  the  later  version,  the  words  here  flow  more 
laturally,  and  have  all  the  freshness  of  the  first  sketch.  For  the 
lezt  ten  years  we  find  no  mention  of  Sonnets  by  Shakespeare, 
intilf  in  1609,  a  bookseller  named  Thomas  Thorpe  issued  a  quarto 
Tkl^^CutAShakespearts  Sonnets.  Netierie/areIf9^riHUd'''VDL^i!i^css^ 
fittcb  tbe  poet  himaelf  certainly  cannotViave  TtmM.^tot  ^^v^«is^ 


266  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

but  which  may  possibly  have  been  printed  from  an  authentk 
manuscript. 

To  this  first  edition  is  prefixed  a  dedication,  written  by  tbe 
bookseller  in  the  most  contorted  style,  which  has  given  rise  to 
theories  and  conjectures  without  number.     It  runs  as  foUows: — 

TO  .  THE  .  ONLIE  .  BEGETTER  .  OF 

THESE  .  INSVING  .  SONNETS  . 

MR  .  W  .  H  .  ALL  .  HAPPINESSE  • 

AND  .  THAT  .  ETERNITIE  . 

PROMISED  . 

BY 

OVR  .  EVER-LIVING  .  POET  • 

WISHETH  . 

THE  .  WELL-WISHING  . 

ADVENTVRER  .  IN  • 

SETTING  . 

FORTH  . 

T.T. 

The  meaning  of  the  signature  is  clear  enough,  since  ''A  booke 
called  Shakespeare's  Sonnets"  was  entered  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  on  May  20,  1609,  under  the  name  of  Thomas  Thorpe. 
On  the  other  band,  in  the  eighteenth  and  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth  Century  there  has  been  no  end  to  the  discussion  as  to 
what  was  meant  by  "onlie  begetter"  (only  producer,  or  only 
procurer,  or  only  inspirer  ?) ;  and  numberless  have  been  the  at- 
tempts  to  identify  the  "  Mr.  W.  H."  who  is  so  designated.  Whilc 
the  far-fetched  expression  ''begetter"  has  been  subjected  to 
equally  far-fetched  interpretations,  the  most  impossible  guesses 
have  been  hazarded  as  to  the  initials  W.  H.»  and  the  most  in- 
credible  conjectures  put  forward  as  to  the  person  to  whom  tbe 
Sonnets  were  addressed. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  nevertheless  the  fact,  that  during 
the  first  eighty  years  of  the  eighteenth  Century  the  Sonnets  were 
taken  as  being  all  addressed  to  a  woman,  all  written  in  honour 
of  Shakespeare's  mistress.  It  was  not  tili  1780  that  Malone  and 
his  circle  pointed  out  that  more  than  one  hundred  of  the  poems 
were  addressed  to  a  man.  This  view  of  the  matter,  boweveri 
did  not  even  then  command  general  assent,  and  so  late  as  ijgj 
Chalmers  seriously  maintained  that  all  the  Sonnets  were  addresBed 
to  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  was  also,  he  believed,  the  inspirer  of 
Spenser's  famous  Afnoretti,  in  reality  addressed  to  the  lady  who 
afterwards  became  his  wife.  Not  until  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  Century  did  people  in  general  understand,  what  Shak^ 
speare's  contemporaries  can  never  have  doubted,  that  the  first 
hundred  and  twenty-six  Sonnets  were  inspired  by  a  young  man. 

It  now  foUowed  almost  of  necessity  that  this  young  man 
should  be  identified  with  the  "  Mr.  W.  H."  who  is  described  as 
the  ''  onlie  begetter "  of  the  poems.  The  second  group,  indeed, 
is  addressed  to  a  woman ;  but  the  first  group  is  much  the  laiger^ 
mad  foUowB  immediately  upon  the  dedication« 


THE  SONNETS  267 

Some  bave  taken  the  word  ''  begetter  "  to  signify  the  man  who 
procured  the  manuscript  for  the  bookseller,  and  have  conjectured 
that  the  Initials  are  those  of  William  Hathaway,  a  brother^n- 
law  of  Shakespeare's  (Neil,  Elze).  Dn  Farmer  last  Century  ad- 
vanced  the  claims  of  William  Hart,  the  poet's  nephew,  who,  as 
was  afterwards  discovered,  was  not  bom  until  1600.  The  mere 
iact  that,  by  a  whim  or  oversight  of  which  there  are  many  other 
examples  in  the  first  edition,  thb  word  ''hues,"  in  Sonnet  xx.,  is 
printed  in  italics  with  a  capital,  and  speit  Hews,  led  Tyrwhitt  to 
assume  the  existence  of  an  otherwise  unknown  Mr.  William 
Hughes,  tq  whom  he  supposed  the  Sonnets  to  have  been  ad- 
dressed.  People  have  even  been  found  to  maintain  foolishly  that 
''  Mr.  W.  H."  referred  to  Shakespeare  himself,  some  taking  the 
"  H."  to  be  a  mere  misprint  for  "  S.,"  others  holding  that  the 
Initials  meant ''  Mr.  William  Himself"  (Bamstorfif). 

Serious  and  competent  critics  for  a  long  time  inclined  to  the 
opinion  that  the  "  W.  H."  was  a  transposition  of  "  H.  W.,"  and 
represented  none  other  than  Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  South- 
ampton,  whose  close  relation  to  the  poet  had  long  been  known, 
and  to  whom  his  two  narrative  poems  had  been  dedicated.  This 
theory  was  held  by  Drake  and  Gervinus.  But  so  early  as  1832, 
Boaden  advanced  some  objections  to  this  view.  He  urged  that 
Southampton  never  possessed  the  personal  beauty  incessantly 
dwelt  upon  in  these  poems.  Finally,  the  Sonnets  fit  neither 
his  age,  nor  his  character,  nor  his  history,  füll  of  movement, 
activity,  and  adverse  fortune,  to  which  no  smallest  allusion 
appears. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  these  poems  are  addressed 
to  a  patron  of  rank ;  but  our  knowledge  of  the  history  of  Shake- 
speare is  so  inconsiderable,  that  with  regard  to  his  patrons  at 
the  court,  we  have  nothing  to  judge  from  but  the  dedications 
of  Venus  and  of  Lucreu  to  Southampton,  and  the  dedication  of 
the  First  Folio' to  Lords  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  in-  which 
reference  is  made  to  the  favour  they  had  always  shown  these 
plays  and  their  author,  while  he  was  alive.  Bright  and  Boaden 
had  already,  in  18 19  and  1832  respectively,  advanced  the  opinion 
that  Pembroke  was  the  hero  of  the  Sonnets.  This  view  was 
shared  by  almost  every  one  (Charles  Armitage,  Brown  Hallan, 
Massey,  Henry  Brown,  Minto,  W.  M.  Rossetti),  and  towards  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  Century  this  opinion  could  be  considered 
as  having  established  itself,  since  it  was  concurred  in  by  the  chief 
Shakespeare  students  (Dowden),  and  seemed  to  have  obtained  its 
final  confirmation  in  the  penetrating  criticisms  of  Thomas  Tyler 
(1890).  All  the  above-mentioned  authors  agree  about  the  fact,  that 
there  is  only  one  person  whose  age,  history,  appearance,  virtues, 
and  vices  accord  in  every  respect  with  those  of  the  young  man  to 
whom  the  Sonnets  are  addressed,  just  as  his  Initials  agree  with 
those  of  the  "  Mr.  W.  H.**  to  whom  they  are  dedkaXitdL^  ^xA  ^^cox 


a68  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

18  the  young  William  Herbert,  who  in  i6oi  became  Karl  of  Pem« 
broke.  Born  on  April  8,  1580,  he  came  to  London  in  the  autunm 
of  1597  or  spring  of  1598,  and  very  soon,  in  all  probability,  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Shakespeare,  whose  patron,  as  the  fiivt 
folio  edition  of  the  dramas  prove,  he  remained  until  the  poeC's 
death. 

The  way  by  which  we  arrive  at  William  Herbert  is  this: 
The  Sonnets  cxxxv.  and  cxxxvi.  as  well  as  cxliii.  contain  plays 
on  the  Word  will,  and  the  name  Will;  obscure  as  they  are,  they 
show  that  the  friend  whom  the  Sonnets  glorify  had  the  same 
Christian  name  as  Shakespeare.  This  was  true  of  Peipbrokei  but 
not  of  Southampton,  whose  Christian  name  was  Henry.  Shake- 
speare's  Sonnets  are  not  isolated  poems.  Though  we  are  not 
certain  whether  the  order  of  the  Sonnets  in  the  original  edition 
is  the  sequence  chosen  by  the  poet  himself,  still  it  is  evident 
that  they  stand  in  an  intimate  relation  to  each  other,  a  thought 
or  motive  suggested  in  one  being  developed  more  at  length  in 
the  next  or  one  of  the  subsequent  Sonnets.  The  grouping 
does  not  seem  to  be  arbitrary;  at  any  rate,  it  is  so  far  carefiü 
that  all  attempts  to  alter  it  have  only  rendered  the  poems  more 
obscure.  The  first  seventeen  Sonnets,  for  example,  form  a 
closely  interwoven  group ;  in  all  of  them,  the  friend  is  exhorted 
not  to  die  unmarried,  but  to  leave  the  world  an  heir  to  his 
beauty,  which  must  otherwise  fade  and  perish  with  him.  Sonnets 
c.-cxxvi.,  which  are  inseparably  connected,  tum  on  the  reunion  of 
two  friends  after  a  coldness  or  misunderstanding  has  for  a  time 
severed  them.  Finally,  Sonnets  cxxvii.-clii.  are  all  addressed, 
not  to  a  friend,  but  to  a  mistress,  the  Dark  Lady  whose  relation 
to  the  two  friends  has  already  formed  the  subject  of  earlier  Sonnets. 

Sonnet  cxliv. — one  of  the  most  interesting,  inasmuch  as  it  de- 
picts  in  straightforward  terms  the  poet's  Situation  between  friend 
and  mistress — had  already  appeared,  as  above  mentioned,  in  Tlu 
Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599).  It  characterises  the  friend  as  the 
poet's  "better  angel,"  the  mistress  as  his  "worser  spirit/'  and 
expresses  the  painful  suspicion  that  the  friend  is  entangled  in  the 
Dark  Lady's  toils — 

« I  guess  one  angel  in  another's  hell " ; 

so  that  both  at  once  are  lost  to  him,  he  through  her  and  she 
through  him. 

But  precisely  the  same  theme  is  treated  in  Sonnet  xl.»  which 
tums  on  the  fact  that  the  friend  has  robbed  Shakespeare  of  his 
"love."  These  two  Sonnets  must  thus  be  of  the  same  date;  and 
from  Sonnet  xxxiii.,  which  relates  to  the  same  circumstanceSi  we 
see  that  the  friendship  had  existed  only  a  very  short  time  when 
it  was  overshadowed  by  the  intrigue  between  the  friend  and  the 
mistress : — 

"  Bat  out,  alack  1  he  was  bot  one  hour  mine" 


THE  SONNETS  269 

At  what  time,  then,  did  the  friendship  begin  ?  The  dätt  may 
be  determined  with  some  confidence,  even  apart  from  the  ques- 
tioD  as  to  who  the  friend  was.  We  know  that  Shakespeare  must 
have  written  sonnets  before  1598,  since  Meres  published  in  that 
year  his  often-quoted  words  about  the  ''  sugred  Sonnets  " ;  but  we 
cannot  possibly  determine  which  Sonnets  these  were,  or  whether 
we  possess  them  at  all,  since  those  which  passed  from  band  to 
band  ''  among  his  private  friends  "  may  very  possibly  have  dis- 
appeared.  If  they  are  included  in  our  collection,  we  may  take 
them  to  be  those  in  which  we  find  frequent  parallels  to  lines  ia 
Venus  and  Adonis  and  the  early  plays,  though  these  coincidences 
are  by  no  means  sufficient,  as  some  of  the  German  critics  *  would 
have  US  believe,  finally  to  establish  the  date  of  the  Sonnets  in 
which  they  occur.  However,  they  vary  greatly  in  quality,  and 
may  have  been  written  at  different  periods.  The  first  group,  with 
its  reiterated  appeal  (seventeen  times  repeated)  to  the  friend,  to 
leave  the  world  a  living  copy  of  his  beauty,  is  wiquestionably  the 
least  valuable.  The  personal  feelings  of  the  poet  do  not  come 
much  into  play  here,  and  though  these  poems  may  have  been 
addressed  to  William  Herbert  in  1598,  it  is  not  impossible,  taking 
into  account  the  many  analogies  in  thought  and  mode  of  ezpression 
to  be  found  in  them  and  in  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Romeo  and 
fuliet^  that  they  were  produced  several  years  before,  and  in  this  case, 
addressed  to  Southampton.  Thomas  Tyler  believed  he  had  satis- 
factorily  established  the  date  of  one  important  group  by  showing 
that  a  passage  in  Meres's  book  had  influenced  the  conception  and 
expression  of  one  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  It  cannot  reasonably 
be  doubted  that  Shakespeare  saw  Palladis  Tamia ;  the  author 
perhaps  sent  him  a  copy ;  and  in  any  case  he  could  not  but  have 
lead  with  interest  the  warm  and  sincere  commendation  there  be- 
stowed  upon  himself.  Now  there  occurs  in  Meres's  book  a  passage 
in  which,  after  quoting  Ovid's 

"  Jamque  opus  exegi,  quod  nee  Jovis  ira,  nee  ignis. 
Nee  potent  femim,  nee  edax  abolere  vetustas," 

and  Horace's 

"  Exegi  momentum  aere  perennius," 

the  critic  goes  on  to  apply  these  words  to  his  contemporaries, 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Spenser,  Daniel,  Drayton,  Shakespeare,  and 
Warner,  and  then  winds  up  with  a  Latin  eulogy  of  the  same 
writers,  composed  by  himself,  partly  in  prose  and  partly  in  verse. 
But  on  reading  attentively  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  Iv.,  whose  rc- 
semblance  to  the  well-known  lines  of  Horace  and  Ovid  must  have 
Struck  every  reader,  we  find  several  expressions  from  this  passage 

1  Hennann  Conrad  in  PneussiuAi  JcLhrbücher^  Febniary  1895.     Hermann  Iima 
\n/ahrbuch  dir  Deutschm  Shak$ip9wr§'G§süUchaft^  ^pqI.  nqjL  p.  l*)^« 


270  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  PaUadis  Tamia^  and  even  from  thc  lines  written  by  Merci 
himself,  reappearing  in  it.  The  Sonnet  must  thus  have  been 
written  at  earliest  at  the  end  of  1598 — Meres's  book  was  entered 
in  the  Stationers'  Register  in  September — ^and  possibly  not  tili  thc 
beginning-of  1599.  Since,  then,  the  foUowing  Sonnet  (Ivi.),  which 
must  date  from  about  the  same  time,  speaks  of  the  friendsbip  as 
newly  formed — 

'*  Let  this  sad  interim  like  the  ocean  be 
Which  parts  the  shores,  where  two  coniracted  new 
Come  daily  to  the  banks  " — 

we  may  confidently  assign  to  the  year  1 598  the  first  contracC  of 
amity  between  the  poet  and  his  friend.  However,  all  this  is  by 
no  means  conclusive.  Shakespeare  may  have  known  Horaoe 
from  other  sources  than  Meres,  and  the  quotation  from  Ovid, 
together  with  the  expressions  used  by  Meres,  he  certainly  had 
encountered  in  Golding's  translation  of  the  Metamorphoses^  with 
which  he  was  familiär. 

The  historical  allusions  in  Sonnets  c-cxxvL,  which  form  a 
continuous  poem,  are  not,  indeed,  by  any  means  clear  or  easy 
to  interpret ;  but  Sonnet  civ.  dates  the  whole  group  definitely 
enough,  in  the  Statement  that  three  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
first  meeting  of  the  friends  :— 

"  Thret  winters  cold 
Have  from  the  forests  shook  three  summers'  pride ; 
Three  beauteous  Springs  to  yellow  autumn  tum'd 
In  process  of  the  seasons  have  I  seen ; 
Three  April  perfumes  in  three  bot  Junes  burn'd, 
Since  first  I  saw  you  fresh,  which  yet  are  green." 

Thus  we  must  assign  this  important  group  to  the  year  1601 ;  and 
this  being  so,  it  must  also  appear  probable  that  the  line — 

"  The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured  " — 

alludes  to  the  fact  that  Elizabeth  (for  whom,  in  the  mode  of  the 
day,  the  moon  was  the  accepted  synibol)  had  come  unharmed 
through  the  dangers  of  Essex's  rebellion — the  more  so  as  the 
beautiful  lines — 

"  Now  with  the  drops  of  this  most  balmy  time 
My  love  looks  fresh  " — 

show  that  the  poem  was  written  in  the  spring.  It  would  be 
unreasonable  to  infer  from  this  allusion  any  ill-will  on  the  poet's 
part  towards  Essex  and  his  comrades.  Still  less  can  we  foUow 
Tyler,  when,  by  the  aid  of  a  complex  scaffolding  of  hypotheses 
built  up,  in  German  rather  than  in  English  fashion,  around 
Sonnets  cxxiv.  and  cxxv.,  he  laboriously  works  up  to  the  air» 
drawn  conjecture  that  Shakespeare  is  here  expressing  himself 
offiensively  towiffds    his  former   patron    Southampton,  now  8 


I 


THE  SONNETS  271 

priaoner  in  the  Tower,  and  even  that  Southampton  is  aimed  at 
in  the  line  about  those  "who  have  lived  for  crime."  Equally 
baseless,  of  course,  is  the  coroUary  which  would  find  in  Sonnet 
cxxv.  Shakespeare's  defence  against  an  accusation  of  faithless- 
ness  towards  the  man  to  whom  he  had  written,  seven  years 
eaiüer,  in  the  dedication  of  Lucrece,  "  The  love  I  dedicate  Your 
Lordship  is  without  end."  It  is  absurd  to  construct  a  whole 
repulsive  and  fantastic  romance  on  the  basis  of  a  Single  obscure 
phrase. 

Tuming  now  from  the  poems  to  the  person  to  whom  we  believe 
them  to  have  been  addressed,  this  is  what  we  leam  of  him : — 

William  Herbert,  son  of  Henry  Herbert  and  his  third  wife, 
the  celebrated  Mary  Sidney,  had  for  his  tutor  as  a  boy  the  poet 
Samuel  Daniel;  entered  at  Oxford  in  1593,  where  he  remained 
for  two  years ;  received  permission  in  April,  1 597,  when  he  was 
seventeen  years  old,  to  live  in  London,  but,  as  we  gather  from 
letters  of  the  period,  does  not  seem  to  have  come  up  to  town 
until  the  spring  of  1598. 

In  August,  1 597,  negotiations  were  conducted  by  letter  between 
his  parents  and  Lord  Burghley,  with  a  view  to  his  marriage  with 
Burghley's  grand-daughter,  Bridget  Vere,  a  daughter  of  the  Earl 
of  Oxford.  It  is  true  that  she  was  only  thirteen,  but  William 
Herbert  was  quite  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  engagement.  He 
was  to  travel  abroad  before  the  marriage.  Although  his  mother, 
the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  perhaps  divining  her  son's  too  in- 
flammable  nature,  and  therefore  wanting  to  see  him  married 
betimes,  was  much  in  favour  of  this  project,  and  although  the 
Earl  of  Oxford  was  pleased  with  the  young  man,  and  praised  his 
**  many  good  partes,"  difficulties  arose  of  which  we  have  no  record, 
and  the  plan  came  to  nothing. 

In  London,  young  Herbert  lived  at  Baynard's  Castle,  dose 
to  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  and  may  thus  have  been  brought  in 
contact  with  the  players.  It  is  more  probable,  however,  that 
so  brilliant  a  woman  as  "Sidne/s  sister,  Pembroke's  mother," 
should  have  aroused  his  interest  in  Shakespeare ;  and  in  that 
case  the  poet,  in  all  probability,  made  the  acquaintance  of  this 
distinguished  and  disceming  patroness  of  arts  and  artists  as 
early  as  1598.  Herbert's  father,  who  died  soon  afterwards,  was 
a}ready  an  invalid. 

It  appears  that  in  August,  1599,  Herbert  "foDowed  the  camp** 
at  the  annual  musters,  attending  her  Majesty  with  two  hundred 
horse,  and  "  swaggering  it  among  the  men  of  war." 

He  is  from  the  first  described  as  a  bad  courtier.  Rowland 
Whyte  writes  of  him  at  this  time :  ''  He  was  much  blamed  for  his 
cold  and  weeke  Maner  of  pursuing  her  Majesties  favour,  having 
had  soe  good  Steps  to  lead  him  unto  it.  There  is  want  of  Spirit 
and  Courage  laid  to  his  charge,  and  that  he  is  a  melancholy  youn^ 
man."    We  may  gather  from  this  what  fiery  dtNoXxcxi  «x^rj  V^n^ 


272  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

some  and  well-bom  young  man  was  ezpected  topay  to  the  elderly 
Queen.  Soon  after,  however,  it  appears  from  a  letter  fixMn  hb 
father  to  Elizabeth,  that  she  must  have  expressed  herself  higiily 
satisfied  with  the  young  man,  and  we  also  kam  that  he  was 
''  exceedingly  beloued  at  Court  of  all  Men.''  He  appears  to  have 
been  very  handsome,  and  to  have  possessed  all  the  fasdnatk» 
which  so  often  belongs  to  an  amiable  tnauvais  sujet.  Clarendon 
says  of  him,  in  the  first  book  of  his  History  of  the  RebeUimi^ 
that  ''he  was  immoderately  given  up  to  women/'  and  that  ''he 
indulged  himself  in  pleasures  of  all  kind,  almost  in  all  excesses." 
Clarendon  remarks,  however,  what  is  of  particular  interest  for  u% 
that  the  young  Pembroke  possessed  a  good  deal  of  self-control: 
"  He  retained  such  a  power  and  Jurisdiction  over  his  very  appetite, 
that  he  was  not  so  much  transported  with  beauty  and  outward 
allurements  as  with  those  advantages  of  the  mind  as  manifested 
an  extraordinary  wit,  and  spirit,  and  knowledge,  and  administered 
great  pleasure  in  the  conversation.  To  these  he  sacrificed  him- 
self, his  precious  time,  and  much  of  his  fortune." 

In  November,  1599,  Herbert  had  an  hour's  private  audience 
with  Elizabeth.  Whyte,  who  relates  this,  remarks  that  hc  now 
Stands  high  in  the  Queen's  favour,  "  but  he  greatly  wants  advise.^' 
He  passed  the  rest  of  the  winter  in  the  country,  suffering  from  an 
illness  which  seems  to  have  taken  the  form  of  ague,  with  incessant 
headaches. 

Tyler  is  inclined,  not  without  reason,  to  assign  Sonnets  xc- 
xcvi.  to  this  period.  Shakespeare's  complaints  of  his  friend's 
"  desertion  *'  may  refer  to  his  life  at  Court ;  the  expressions  in 
Sonnet  xci.  as  to  horses,  hawks,  and  hounds,  perhaps  point  to  the 
young  man's  absorption  in  sport.  The  following  Sonnets  dwell 
unequivocally  upon  discreditable  rumours  as  to  the  friend's  life 
and  conduct     Here  appears  the  above-quoted  (p.  172)  line  : — 

"  Lilies  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than  weeds.* 

Here  occurs  the  couplet : — 

"  How  like  Eve's  apple  doth  thy  beauty  grow, 
If  thy  sweet  virtue  answer  not  thy  show ! " 

And,  in  spite  of  all  the  loving  forbearance  which  the  poet  nianifests 
towards  his  friend,  he  seems  to  imply  that  the  ugly  rumours 
not  unfounded : — 

"  How  sweet  and  lovely  dost  thou  make  the  shame, 
Which,  like  a  canker  in  the  fragrant  rose, 
Doth  spot  the  beauty  of  thy  budding  name ! 
O,  in  what  sweets  dost  thou  thy  sins  enclose ! 
That  tongue  that  teils  the  story  of  thy  days, 
(Making  lascivious  comments  on  thy  sport,) 
Cannot  dispraise  but  in  a  kind  of  piaise  * 
Naming  thy  name  blesses  an  ill  report«'' 


THE  SONNETS  273 

There  was  an  impTX>vement  id  the  health  of  Herbert'8  father 
duiing  the  year  1600,  yet  Lord  and  Lady  Pembroke  were  absent 
firom  London  all  summer,  remaining  at  their  oountry  seat,  Wilton. 
In  the  month  of  May,  Herbert,  accompanied  by  Sir  Charles 
Danvers,  went  to  Gravesend  to  pay  his  respects  to  Lady  Rieh 
and  Lady  Southampton.  This  visit  proves  clearly  that  there  was 
not,  as  Tyler's  above-mentioned  interpretation  of  certain  Sonnets 
would  lead  us  to  assume,  any  coolness  between  Herbert  and  the 
houses  of  Essex  and  Southampton.  It  is  also  worth  noting  that 
his  companion  on  this  excursion  was  so  intimately  associated  with 
the  Chiefs  of  the  malcontent  party,  that  in  the  following  year  he 
had  to  pay  with  his  life  for  his  share  in  the  rebellion. 

In  the  accounts  of  a  splendid  and  very  much  talked-of  wedding, 
between  a  Lord  Herbert  and  one  of  the  Queen's  ladies,  which 
took  place  at  Blackfriars  in  June,  1600,  we  for  the  first  time  come 
upon  William  Herbert's  name  in  Company  with  that  of  a  young 
lady  in  whose  life  he  played  a  disastrous  part,  and  whom  Tyler 
considers  to  be  the  heroine  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  The 
bride,  Mrs.  Anne  Russell,  was  conducted  to  church  by  William 
Herbert  and  Lord  Cobham.  After  supper  there  was  a  masque, 
in  which  eight  splendidly  dressed  ladies  executed  a  new  and 
unusual  dance.  Among  these  are  mentioned  Mrs.  Fitton,  and  two 
of  the  ladies-in-waiting  whose  names  had  shortly  before  been 
coupled  with  that  of  Essex  (Mrs.  Southwell  and  Mrs.  Bess 
Russell).  Each  had  ^'a  skirt  of  Cloth  of  Siluer,  a  Mantell  of 
Camacion  Taffete  cast  vnder  the  Arme,  and  their  Haire  loose 
about  their  Shoulders,  curiously  knotted  and  interlaced."  The 
leader  of  this  double  quadrille  was  Mrs.  Fitton.  She  approached 
the  Queen  and  "  woed  her  to  dawnce ;  her  Majestie  asked  what 
she  was;  ^  Affection^^  she  said.  *  Affection  f  *  ^d  the  Queen, 
'  affection  is  false.'     Yet  her  Majestie  rose  and  dawnced." 

Later  in  the  year  Whyte  remarks  in  his  letters  that  Herbert 
shows  no  "  disposition  to  marry  " ;  and  we  find  him  in  September 
and  October,  1600,  vigorously  training  at  Greenwich  for  a  Court 
tournament. 

On  January  19,  1601,  his  father's  death  made  William  Herbert 
Earl  of  Pembroke.  Very  soon  afterwards  (the  matter  is  men- 
tioned in  a  letter  from  Robert  Cecil  so  early  as  February  5)  he 
got  into  deep  disgrace  over  a  love  affair.  He  had  for  some 
tirae  carried  on  a  secret  intrigue  with  the  aforesaid  Mary  Fitton, 
a  maid-of-honour  who  stood  high  in  the  Queen's  good  graces; 
and  the  secret  now  came  to  light.  "  Mistress  Fitton,"  writes 
Cecil,  "is  proved  with  child,  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  being 
examined,  confesseth  a  fact,  but  utterly  renounceth  all  marriage. 
I  fear  they  will  both  dwell  in  the  Tower  awhile,  for  the  Queen 
hath  vowed  to  send  them  thither."  In  another  contemporary 
letter  it  is  stated  that  "in  that  tyme  when  that  M'«  F3rtton 
was  in  great  fauor  •  •  •  and  duringe  the  time  yt  \)\^  ^AxVt  ^ 


274  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Pembrooke  fauord  her,  she  would  put  off  her  head  tire  and  tucke 
vp  her  clothes  and  take  a  large  white  cloake,  and  march  as  though 
she  had  bene  a  man  to  meete  the  said  Earle  out  of  the  Courte." 

Mary  Fitton  gave  birth  to  a  still-born  son  ;  Fembroke  lay  fior 
a  month  in  the  Fleet  Prison,  and  was  banished  from  Court,  He 
shortly  afterwards  applied  through  Cecil  for  leave  to  travel  abroad 
The  Queen's  displeasure,  he  says,  is  ** a.  hell"  to  him;  he  hopes 
the  Queen  will  not  carry  her  resentment  so  far  as  to  bind  him  to 
the  country  which  has  now  become  "  hateful  to  him  of  all  others." 
The  permission  to  travel  seems  to  have  been  given  and  then 
revoked.  In  the  middle  of  June  he  writes  that  imploring  letter  to 
Cecil  in  which  the  reference  to  "  her  whose  Incomparable  beauty 
was  the  onely  sonne  of  my  little  world,"  was  designed  to  touch 
Elizabeth 's  hard  heart ;  for  Fembroke,  it  is  plain,  had  now  realised 
that  what  had  offended  her  Majesty  was  not  so  much  his  intrigue 
with  Mary  Fitton,  as  the  fact  of  his  having  overlooked  her  own 
much  higher  perfections.  But  the  compliments  came  too  late. 
Elizabeth,  as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  case  of  Eissex,  knew 
how  to  make  the  objects  of  her  resentment  suffer  in  that  most 
sensitive  point — the  pocket.  The  "  patent  of  the  Forest  of  Dean," 
which  had  been  held  by  the  late  Lord  Fembroke,  expired  with 
him,  and  the  son  expected,  according  to  use  and  wont,  to  have  it 
renewed  in  his  favour ;  but  it  was  assigned  to  Fembroke's  rival, 
Sir  Edward  Winter,  and  not  until  seven  years  later,  under  James, 
did  Fembroke  recover  it. 

Fembroke  continued  in  disgrace,  his  renewed  applications  for 
permission  to  travel  were  persistently  refused,  and  he  was  ordered 
to  regard  himself  as  banished  from  Court,  and  to  ''  keep  house 
in  the  country."  Tyler  looks  upon  this  overshadowing  of  Fem- 
broke's  fortunes  in  i6oi  as  an  explanation  of  the  temporaiy 
breaking-off  of  his  relations  with  Shakespeare  in  London,  indi- 
cated  by  the  '*  Envoi "  with  which  Sonnet  cxxvi.  ends  the  series 
addressed  to  the  Friend. 

The  close  and  affectionate  relation  between  them  was  no  doubt 
revived  under  James.  This  appears  clearly  enough  from  the 
Dedication  of  the  First  Folio.  Let  us  now  cast  a  rapid  glanoe 
over  the  remainder  of  Fembroke's  career. 

His  father's  death  placed  him  in  possession  of  a  large  fortunei 
but  the  irregularity  of  his  life  left  him  seldom  free  from  money 
embarrassments.  In  1604  he  married  Lady  Mary,  the  seventh 
daughter  of  Lord  Talbot,  and  the  marriage  was  celebrated 
a  tournament.  His  wife  brought  him  a  large  property,  but  it 
thought  at  the  time  that  he  paid  very  dearly  for  it  in  having  to 
take  her  into  the  bargain.    The  marriage  was  far  from  happy. 

Fembroke  shared  the  love  of  literature  which  had  distin- 
guished  his  mother  and  his  uncle,  Sir  Fhilip  Sidney.  According 
to  Aubrey,  he  was  ''  the  greatest  Maecenas  to  leamed  men  of  any 
peer  of  bis  time  or  since."    Among  his  ''leamed  ^  friends  were 


THE  SONNETS  275 

tbe  poets  Donne,  and  Daniel,  and  Massinger,  who  was  the  son  of 
bis  father's  Steward.  Ben  Jonson  composed  an  eulogistic  epigram 
in  bis  honour,  as  well  he  might|  for  every  New  Year  Pembroke 
sent  Ben  ;^20  to  buy  books  with.  Inigo  Jones  is  said  to  have 
visited  Italy  at  bis  expense,  and  was  frequently  employed  by 
bim.  Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody  and  numerous  other  books 
are  dedicated  to  him.  Chapman,  wbo  was  among  bis  intimates, 
inscribed  a  sonnet  to  bim  at  tbe  dose  of  bis  translation  of  tbe 
Iliad,  Tbis  fact  is  of  particular  interest  to  us,  because  Cbapman 
— probably  tbe  rival  poet  wbo  paid  court  to  Pembroke — ^won 
bis  goodwill  and  admiration,  and  tbereby  aroused  jealousy  and 
melancboly  self-criticism  in  Sbakespeare's  breast,  as  we  read  in 
Sonnets  lxxviii.-lxxxvi.^ 

It  is  especially  on  Sonnet  Ixxxvi.  tbat  Minto  bases  bis  identifi- 
cation  of  the  rival  poet  with  Cbapman.  Tbe  very  opening  line, 
referring  to  the  **  proud  füll  sail  of  bis  great  verse,"  suggests  at 
once  tbe  fourteen-syllable  measure  in  which  Cbapman  translated 
tbe  Iliad.  Cbapman  was  füll  of  a  passionate  entbusiasm  for  tbe 
art  of  poetry,  which  he  lost  no  opportunity  of  glorifying ;  and  he 
laid  Claim  to  supernatural  inspiration.  In  tbe  Dedication  to  bis 
poem  The  Shadow  of  the  Night  (1594),  he  speaks  with  severe 
contempt  of  tbe  presumption  of  those  who  ''  think  Skill  so  mightily 
pierced  with  their  loves  tbat  she  should  prostitutely  show  them 
her  secrets,  wben  she  will  scarcely  be  looked  upon  by  others  but 
with  invocation,  fasting,  watching — yea,  not  without  having  drops 
of  their  souls,  like  a  heavenly  fantiliarr  Hence  Sbakespeare's 
lincs— 

"  Was  it  bis  spirit,  by  spirits  taught  to  write 
Above  a  mortal  pitch  tbat  Struck  me  dead?' 

and  the  ezpression — 

"  He,  nor  tbat  affable  familiär  gbost 
Which  nigbtly  guUs  bim  with  intelligence." 

After  the  acccssion  of  James,  Pembroke  immediately  took  a 
high  Position  at  tbe  new  Court  Beforc  the  year  1603  was  out, 
he  was  a  Knight  of  the  Carter,  and  had  entertained  the  King  at 
WiltoD.  He  rose  from  one  high  post  to  another,  until  in  161 5  be 
became  Lord  Chamberlain;  but  he  continued  to  the  last  the 
dissipated  life  of  bis  youtb.  He  devoted  large  sums  of  money  to 
the  exploration  and  colonisation  of  America.  Places  were  named 
after  him  in  the  Bermudas  and  Virginia.  In  1614,  moreover,  be 
became  a  member  of  the  East  India  Company. 

He  opposed  the  Spanish  Alliance,  and  was  no  friend  to  the 
King's  foreign  policy.  He  is  thought  to  have  instigated  in  some 
measure  the  attack  on  the  Mexico  fleet  for  which  Raleigh  paid 

^  I  do  not  find  that  Mr.  O.  A.  Leigh  has  succeeded  in  identiffiai|^  thftixviiv^ftX 
with  Taaio  \lV$stimmt€r  Rmem,  Febiwuy  1897). 


276  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

so  dear.  He  was  an  Opponent  of  Bacon  as  Lord  ChanceUor,  and 
in  162 1  advocated  an  inquiry  into  the  charges  of  comiption  wfaich 
were  brought  against  him;  but  afterwards,  like  Southampton,  dis- 
played  great  moderation,  and  spoke  strongly  against  the  proposal 
to  deprive  Bacon  of  his  peerage* 

He  stood  by  the  King's  deathbed  in  March,  1625,  had  a  aerious 
illness  in  1626,  and  died  in  April,  1630,  '*  of  an  apoplezy  after  t 
füll  and  cheerful  supper/'  Donne  in  1660  published  aome  poems 
of  his  among  a  collection  by  several  other  handa. 


VI 


THE  ^DARK  LADY"*  OF  THE  SONNETS 

In  speaking  of  Love's  Ldbout^s  Lost,  I  remarked  that  it  was  not 
difficult  to  distinguish  the  original  text  of  the  comedy  from  the 
portions  added  and  altered  during  the  revision  of  1598;  and  I 
cited  (p.  38)  several  instances  in  which  the  distinction  was  dear. 
Especial  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  fact  that  Biron's  (or,  as  the 
context  shows,  Biron-Shakespeare's)  rapturous  panegyrics  of 
love  in  the  fourth  act  belong  to  the  later  date. 

At  another  place  (p.  83)  it  was  pointed  out  that  the  two 
Rosalines  of  Love's  Labout's  Lost  (end  of  the  third  act)  and  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet  (ii.  4)  were  in  all  probability  drawn  from  the 
same  model,  since  she  is  in  both  places  described  as  a  blonde 
with  black  eyes.  In  the  original  text  of  Love^s  Laboui^s  L^si 
(Act  iii.)  she  is  expressly  called — 

"  A  whitely  wanton  with  a  velvet  brow, 
With  two  pitch  balls  stuck  in  her  face  for  eyes.** 

All  the  more  surprising  niust  it  seem  that  during  the  revision 
the  poet  quite  obviously  had  before  his  eyes  another  model,  re- 
peatedly  described  as  '^  black,"  whose  dark  complexion  indeedi  so 
uncommon  and  un-English  that  it  was  apt  to  be  thought  ugly,  is 
insisted  upon  as  strongly  as  that  of  the  ''  Dark  Lady  ^  in  tbe 
Sonnets.  Immediately  before  Biron  bursts  forth  into  his  great 
hymn  to  Eros,  in  which  Shakespeare  so  clearly  makes  him  his 
mouthpiece,  the  King  banters  him  as  to  the  murky  hue  of  tbe 
object  of  his  adoration  : — 

"  King,    By  heaven,  thy  love  is  black  as  ebonj, 
Biron.     Is  ebony  like  her  ?    O  wood  divine  I 

O  wife  of  such  wood  were  felicity. 

O i  wbo  can  ^y^  9a;i  oath?  where  is  a  bock ? 


THE  ••  DARK  LADY  "  OF  THE  SONNETS        277 

That  I  may  swear  beauty  doth  beauty  lack, 
If  that  she  learn  not  of  her  eye  to  look : 
No  face  is  fair,  that  is  not  füll  so  bUck. 

King,     O  paradox  !    Black  is  the  badge  of  hell. 
The  hue  of  dungeons,  and  the  scowl  of  night ; 
And  beauty's  crest  becomes  the  heavens  weil" 

Biron's  answer  to  this  is  highly  remarkable ;  for  it  is  exactly 
what  Shakespeare  himself  says,  in  Sonnet  cxzvii.,  to  the  ad« 
vantage  of  his  dark  beauty  : — 

**  Biran.    Devils  soonest  tempt,  resembling  spirits  of  light 
Ol  if  in  black  my  lady's  brows  be  deck'd. 
It  mourns,  that  painting,  and  usurping  hair, 
Should  ravish  doters  with  a  false  aspect ; 
And  therefore  is  she  born  to  make  black  fair. 
Her  favour  tums  the  fashion  of  the  days ; 
For  native  blood  is  counted  painting  now. 
And  therefore  red,  that  would  avoid  dispraise^ 
Paints  itself  black,  to  imitate  her  brow." 

The  Sonnet  runs  thus  : — 

"  In  the  old  age  black  was  not  counted  fair 
Or  if  it  were,  it  bore  not  beauty's  name ; 
£ut  now  is  black  beaut/s  successive  heir, 
And  beauty  slander'd  with  a  bastard  shame; 
For  since  each  band  hath  put  on  nature's  power, 
Fairing  the  foul  with  art's  false  borrow'd  face, 
Sweet  beauty  hath  no  name,  no  holy  bower, 
But  is  profan'd,  if  not  lives  in  disgrace 
Therefore  my  mistress'  eyes  are  raven  black  ; 
Her  eyes  so  suited,  and  they  mourners  seem 
At  such,  who,  not  born  fair,  no  beauty  lack, 
Slandering  creation  with  a  false  esteem  : 
Yet  so  they  mourn,  becoming  of  their  woe, 
That  every  tongue  says,  beauty  should  look  so.** 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  dark  beauty  in  Love's  Labout^s  Last 
must  also  have  had  a  living  model ;  and  when  we  observe  that  the 
revision,  as  the  title-page  teils  us,  took  place  when  the  comedy 
was  to  be  presented  before  her  Highness  at  Christmas,  1597,  and 
further,  that  the  dark  Rosaline  in  the  play  is  maid-of-honour  to  a 
princess  who  is  called,  in  words  strongly  suggesting  a  passing 
compliment  to  the  Queen,  "  a  gracious  moon  " — ^we  can  scarcely 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  beautiful  brünette  must  have  been 
one  of  the  Queen's  ladies,  and  that  the  whole  end  of  the  fourth 
act  was  addressed  to  her  over  the  heads  of  the  uninitiated  spec- 
tators.  Who  she  was  we  know  not;  no  contemporary  has 
mentioned  her  name.  But  assuming  Pembroke  to  be  the  hero 
of  the  Sonnets,  Tyler  has  put  forward  a  plausible  hypothesis  as 
to  her  identity ;  for  it  is  known  with  tolerable  ctxXaiiitj  ^XsStfäDL  ^ 


278  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Queen's  ladies  brought  Pembroke  into  disgrace.  Was  theo 
the  lady  who  enthralled  Pembroke  the  black-eyed  brünette  whom 
Shakespeare,  in  his  own  words,  loved  to  '' distraction  **  and  to 
"  madding  fever  "  ? 

On  the  monument  of  Mary  Fitton's  mother  in  Gawswoith 
Churchy  in  Cheshire,  a  highly  coloured  bust  of  Mary  Fitton 
herseif  ^  led  Tyler  to  assert  that  she  must  have  been  a  marked 
brünette.  It  is  true  that  the  bust  cannot  give  us  a  very  accurate 
idea  of  her  appearance  in  the  year  1600,  since  it  was  executed  in 
1626,  when  she  was  forty-eight;  but  the  complexion  is  dark, 
the  high-piled  hair  and  the  large  eyes  black.  That  it  does  not 
suggest  a  beautiful  original  is  a  point  in  favour  of  its  identi^  with 
the  Dark  Lady  as  described  in  Sonnet  cxlL : — 

^  In  faith,  I  do  not  love  thee  with  mine  eyes, 

For  they  in  thee  a  thousand  errors  note ; 

But  'tis  my  heart  that  loves  what  they  despise, 

Who  in  despite  of  view  is  pleas'd  to  dote, 

Nor  are  mine  ears  with  thy  tongue's  tune  delighted; 

Nor  tender  feeling  to  base  touches  prone, 

Nor  taste,  nor  smell,  desire  to  be  invited 

To  any  sensual  feast  with  thee  alone : 

But  my  five  wits  nor  my  five  senses  can 

Dissuade  one  foolish  heart  from  serving  thee^ 

Who  leaves  unswa/d  the  likeness  of  a  man, 

Thy  proud  heart's  slave  and  vassal  wretch  to  be: 
Only  my  plague  thus  far  I  count  my  gain, 
That  she  that  makes  me  sin  awards  me  pain." 

The  Rev.  W.  A.  Harrison  discovered  a  family  tree  from  which 
it  appeared  that  Mary  Fitton,  christened  June  24,  1578,  became 
a  maid-of-honour  to  Elizabeth  in  1595,  at  the  age  of  seventeen* 
Thus  she  was  nineteen  years  old  when,  at  the  Court  festivities  of 
1597,  Shakespeare's  Company  acted  Lovis  Labouf^s  Lost^  with 
the  panegyric  of  the  dark  beauty,  Rosaline.  She  would  have 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  poet  and  player,  then  thirty-three 
years  old,  at  earlier  Court  entertainments.  It  is  probable  that  it# 
was  she,  with  her  high  position  and  daring  spirit,  who  made  the 
first  advances  ? 

That  the  Dark  Lady  did  not  live  with  Shakespeare  appears 
dearly  enough  in  the  Sonnets — for  instance,  in  Sonnet  czliv; 
("  but  being  both  from  me ").  It  may  be  gathered  from  Sonnet 
di.,  with  the  ezpressions  "triumphant  prize/'  '*  proud  of  this 
pride/'  that  she  was  greatly  his  superior  in  rank  and  Station,  so 
that  her  conquest  for  some  time  filled  him  with  a  sense  of  triumph. 
Tyler  even  believes,  that  there  is  an  actual  allusion  to  her  name 
in  Sonnet  di.,  which,  as  a  whole,  abounds  in  such  daring  equi- 
voques  as  would  be  impossible  in  modern  poetry. 

It  was  thought   surprising  that  in  Sonnet   clii.,  in  which 

'  Reproduced  in  Tyler's  Shakespeare^ s  Sonnets, 


THE  "DARK  LADY"  OF  THE  SONNETS  279 

Shakespeare  calls  himself  forswom  because  he  loves  his  lady 
although  married  to  another,  he  also  states  ezpressly  that  she  too 
18  married,  calling  her  "  twice  forswom/'  since  she  has  not  only 
broken  her  "  bed-vow/'  but  broken  her  "  new  faith  "  to  Shakespeare 
himself.  It  seemed  difiScult  to  reconcile  this  with  the  fact  that  Mrs. 
Fitton  ("  Mistress  '*  in  those  days  being  applicable  to  unmarried 
no  less  than  to  married  women)  was  always  called  by  her  father's 
name.  She  was  married  in  1607  to  a  certain  William  Polwheele, 
with  whom  she  appears  to  have  had  a  love-intrigue  before  the 
wedding.  After  the  death  of  her  husband  she  was  married  a 
second  time  to  John  Lougher. 

However,  it  must  now  be  pointed  out  that  a  work,  published  in 
1897,  which  for  the  first  time  gave  a  tnistworthy  account  of  Mary 
Fitton's  life,  has  rendered  it  excessively  improbable  that  she 
should  be  identical  with  the  Dark  Lady  of  the  Sonnets.  The  title 
of  the  work  is  :  Gossip  front  a  Muniment-Rootn^  being  Passages 
in  the  lives  of  Anne  and  Mary  Fitton,  1 574-1618 ;  it  is  pubUshed 
by  Lady  Newdigate-Newdegate,  who  is  married  to  a  descendant 
of  the  eider  sister,  Anne  Fitton,  and  it  contains  many  interesting 
letters  to  this  lady,  with  other  Communications  from  the  family- 
archives.  Here  it  is  proved — in  spite  of  Tyler's  attempted  con- 
tradiction — that  the  two  well-preserved  portraits  of  Mary  Fitton 
at  Arbury  show  her  not  dark  at  all,  but  with  a  fair  cooi- 
plexion,  brown  hair,  and  grey  eyes} 

From  Mary  Fitton  herseif  Üiere  is  only  a  brief  note  contained 
in  the  coUection,  but  her  name  is  often  mentioned  in  the  letters. 
They  prove,  that  at  the  beginning  of  her  career  as  maid-of-honour 
to  the  Queen,  she  had  an  admirer  in  the  elderly  court-functionary, 
Sir  William  Knollys,  inspector  of  the  household,  who  later,  under 
King  James,  became  a  very  potent  personality  as  Lord  Knollys ; 
and  it  was  evidently  arranged  between  them  that  they  would 
marry  as  soon  as  Sir  William  should  become  a  widower.  Their 
relations  were  not  severed  until  the  Pembroke  scandal  came  out 
Sir  William  married  another  lady  after  the  death  of  his  wife. 
This  relation  appeared  to  support  the  belief  that  Mary  Fitton  was 
Shakespeare's  lady,  as  far  as  it  gave  a  clue  to  the  expression  thy 
bed  vow  broke^  and  in  so  far  as  Knollys'  Christian  name  William 
seemed  to  explain  the  two  first  lines  in  Sonnet  czxzv. :  You  have 
your  will  (or  William)  and  William  (or  will)  a  second  time  and 
William  (or  will)  into  the  bargain.  It  had  long  been  admitted 
that  the  last  two  of  these  Wills  referred  to  Pembroke  and 
Shakespeare.  And  it  was  suggested  that  a  third  Will  was  hidden 
in  the  first.  In  188 1  Dowden  wrote :  "  As  we  know  that  the  lady 
had  a  husband,  it  may  be  possible  that  he  too  bore  the  name  of 
William."  As  against  the  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  portraits, 
however,  it  is  impossible  to  attribute  any  weight  to  this  circum- 
stance.    Moreover,  the  name  of  Shakespeare  is  never  mentioned 

*  Such  ancient  portraits  are  not  always  to  be  relied  npon,  for  of  the  two  ^tlT«k\\& 
which  the  Louvre  uallery  posscMCS  of  Madame  de  Pompadoui,  0iD!eYAa\>Va.^^V2nj&  q^^mü 
daikeyes« 


280  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  the  recently-published  papers  of  the  Fitton  family.  Of  oourae 
the  silence  in  itself  is  not  conclusive.  Mary  Fitton  may  have 
known  Shakespeare  intimately  without  her  relatives  being  aware 
of  the  fact.  Besides,  we  know,  from  the  dedication,  which  the 
clown  of  the  Shakespearian  troupe^  the  well  known  'V^^liam 
Kemp,  in  l6oo,  addressed  to  her  in  his  little  book  *'  Nine  Daies 
Wonder/'  that  she  had  certain  relations  with  the  Company.  This 
dedication  runs  as  follows :  Mistress  Anne  {supposed  to  be  Mary) 
Fitton  f  May  de  of  Honour  of  the  most  sacred  May  de  Royal  Queene 
Elisabeth.  But  I  confess,  that  Mary's  grey  eyes  decide  the 
matter  for  me. 

However,  even  if  it  be  unreasonable  to  identify  Mary  Fitton 
with  the  Dark  Lady  of  the  Sonnets,  after  the  publicatiön  of 
the  Fitton  family  papers,  this  does  not  exclude  the  possibility 
that  Pembroke  may  have  been  Shakespeare's  rival.  If  Essex, 
as  above  mentioned,  was  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  had 
intrigues  with  four  of  the  ladies  of  the  court  at  the  same  time, 
Pembroke  may  well  have  had  intimate  relations  with  two  of  them 
at  once. 

The  Dark  Lady  must  have  been  a  woman  in  the  extremest 
sense  of  the  word,  a  daughter  of  Eve,  alluring,  ensnaring,  greedy 
of  conquest,  mendacious  and  taithless,  bom  to  deal  out  rapture 
and  torment  with  both  hands,  the  very  woman  to  set  in  Vibration 
every  chord  in  a  poet's  soul. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  in  the  early  days  of 
his  relation  with  the  well-born  mistress,  Shakespeare  feit  him- 
self  a  favourite  of  fortune,  intoxicated  with  love  and  happiness, 
exalted  above  his  Station,  honoured  and  enriched.  She  must  at 
first  have  been  to  him  what  Maria  Fiammetta,  the  natural 
daughter  of  a  king,  was  to  Boccaccio.  She  must  have  brought  a 
breath  from  a  higher  world,  an  aroma  of  aristocratic  womanhood, 
into  his  life.  He  must  have  admired  her  wit,  her  presence  oif 
mind  and  her  daring,  her  capricious  fancy  and  her  quickness  of 
retort.  He  must  have  studied,  enjoyed,  and  adored  in  her — and 
that  in  the  dosest  intimacy — the  well-bred  ease,  the  sportive 
coquetry,  the  security,  elegance,  and  gaiety  of  the  emancipated 
lady.  Who  can  teil  how  much  of  her  personality  has  been  tran»- 
ferred  to  his  brilliant  young  Beatrices  and  Rosalinds  ? 

First  and  foremost  he  must  have  owed  to  her  the  rapture  of 
feeling  his  vitality  intensified — a  main  dement  in  the  happiness 
which,  in  the  first  years  of  their  communion,  finds  expression  in 
the  sparkling  love-comedies  we  have  just  reviewed.  Let  it  not  be 
objected  that  the  Sonnets  do  not  dwell  upon  this  happiness.  The 
Sonnets  date  from  the  period  of  storm  and  stress,  when  he  had 
ascertained  what  at  first,  no  doubt,  he  had  but  vaguely  suspected, 
that  his  mistress  had  ensnared  his  friend ;  and  in  composing  them 
he  no  doubt  antedated  many  of  the  passionate  and  distracted 
iBOods  which  overwhelmed  him  at  the  crisis,  when  he  not  only 


THE  "  DARK  LADY  **  OF  THE  SONNETS    a»i 

realised  the  fact  of  their  intrigue,  but  saw  it  dragged  to  the  light 
of  day.  He  then  feit  as  though,  doubly  betrayed,  he  had  irrevo- 
cably  lost  them  both.  Thus  the  picture  of  his  mistress  drawn  in 
the  Sonnets  shows  her,  not  as  she  appeared  to  him  in  earlier  years, 
but  as  he  saw  her  during  this  later  period. 

Yet  he  also  depicts  moments,  and  even  hours,  when  his  whole 
nature  must  have  been  lapped  in  tendemess  and  harmbny.  The 
scene,  tor  instance,  so  melodiously  portrayed  in  Sonnet  cxzviii. 
is  steeped  in  an  atmosphere  of  happy  love — the  scene  in  which, 
seated  at  the  virginals,  the  lady,  whom  the  poet  addresses  as ''  my 
music/'  lets  her  delicate  aristocratic  fingers  wander  over  the  keys, 
cnchanting  with  their  concord  the  listener  who  longs  to  press  her 
fingers  and  her  lips  to  his.  He  envies  the  keys  that  "  kiss  the 
tender  in  ward  of  her  band,"  and  concludes : — 

"  Since  saucy  jacks  so  happy  are  in  this, 
Give  them  thy  fingers,  me  thy  lips  to  kiss.'' 

It  is  only  natural,  however,  that  the  morbidly  passionate, 
complaining,  and  accusing  Sonnets  should  be  in  the  majority. 

Again  and  again  he  reverts  to  her  faithlessness  and  lazity  of 
conduct.  In  Sonnet  cxxxvii.  he  speaks  of  his  love  as  "  anchored 
in  the  bay  where  all  men  ride."     Sonnet  cxxxviii.  begins : — 

'  When  my  love  swears  that  she  is  made  of  tnith, 
I  do  believe  her,  though  I  know  she  lies." 

And  in  Sonnet  clii.  he  reproaches  himself  with  having  swom  a 
host  of  false  oaths  in  swearing  to  her  good  qualities : — 

•*  But  why  of  two  oaths'  breach  do  I  accuse  thee, 
When  I  break  twenty  ?     I  am  perjur'd  most ; 
For  all  my  vows  are  oaths  but  to  misuse  thee. 
And  all  my  honest  faith  in  thee  is  lost : 
For  I  have  swom  deep  oaths  of  thy  deep  kindnest, 
Oaths  of  thy  love,  thy  truth,  thy  constancy ; 
And,  to  enlighten  thee,  gave  eyes  to  blindness, 
Or  made  them  swear  against  the  thing  they  see." 

In  Sonnet  cxxxix.  he  depicts  her  as  carrying  her  thirst  for 
admiration  to  such  a  pitch  of  wantonness,  that  even  in  his  presence 
she  could  not  refrain  from  coquetting  on  every  band : — 

"  Teil  me  thou  lov'st  elsewhere ;  but  in  my  sight, 
Dear  heart,  forbear  to  glance  thine  eye  aside : 
What  need'st  thou  wound  with  cunning,  when  thy  might 
Is  more  than  my  o'erpress'd  defence  can  'bide  ?  " 

She  cruelly  abuses  her  witchery  over  him.  She  is  as  tyran- 
nical,  he  says  in  Sonnet  czxxi.,  *'  as  those  whose  beauties  proudly 
make  them  cruel/'  well  knowing  that  to  his  *'  dear-doting  heart " 
she  is  "the  finest  and  most  precious  jeweL^*    T\itx^N&  «acvoski 


282  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

magic  in  the  power  she  ezerts  over  him.  He  does  npt  understand 
it  himselfy  and  exclaims  in  Sonnet  cL : — 

**  Whence  hast  thou  this  becoming  of  things  ill, 
That  in  the  very  refuse  of  thy  deeds 
There  is  such  strength  and  warrantise  of  skill» 
That  in  my  mind  thy  wofst  all  best  exceeds?** 

No  French  poet  of  the  eighteen-thirties,  not  even  Musset  him- 
selfy  has  given  more  passionate  utterance  than  Shakespeare  to 
the  fever  and  agony  and  distraction  of  love.  See,  for  instance, 
Sonnet  cxlvii. : —  , 

*'  My  love  is  as  a  fever,  longing  still 
For  that  which  longer  nurseth  the  disease : 
Feeding  on  that  which  doth  preserve  the  111, 
The  uncertain-sickly  appetite  to  please. 
My  reason,  the  physician  to  my  love, 
Angry  that  his  prescriptions  are  not  kept, 
Hath  left  me,  and  I  desperate  now  approve 
Desire  is  death,  which  physic  did  except 
Fast  eure  I  am,  now  reason  is  past  care, 
And  frantic-mad  with  evermore  unrest : 
My  thoughts  and  my  discourse  as  madmen's  are, 
At  random  from  the  truth  vainly  expressed ; 

For  I  have  sworn  thee  fair,  and  thought  thee  bright, 
Who  art  as  black  as  hell,  as  dark  as  night." 

He  depicts  himself  as  a  lover  frenzied  with  passion.  His  eyes 
are  dimmed  with  vigils  and  with  tears.  He  no  longer  understands 
either  himself  or  the  world :  "  If  that  is  fair  whereon  his  false  eyes 
dote,  What  means  the  world  to  say  it  is  not  so  ?  "  If  it  is  not 
fair,  then  his  love  proves  that  a  lover's  eye  is  less  trustworthy 
than  that  of  the  indifferent  world  (Sonnet  cxlviii.). 

And  yet  he  well  knows  the  seat  of  the  witchery  by  which  she 
holds  him  in  thrall.  It  lies  in  the  glow  and  expression  of  her  ex- 
quisite "raven  black"  eyes  (Sonnets  cxxvii.  and  cxxxix.).  He 
loves  her  soulful  eyes,  which,  knowing  the  torments  her  disdain 
inflicts  upon  him — 

"  Have  put  on  black,  and  loving  mourners  be, 
Looking  with  pretty  ruth  upon  my  pain." 

—Sonnet  cxxxiL 

Young  as  she  is,  her  nature  is  all  compounded  of  passion  and 
will ;  she  is  ungovemable  in  her  caprices,  bom  for  conquest  and 
for  self-surrender. 

While  we  can  guess  that  towards  Shakespeare  she  made  the 
first  advances,  we  know  that  she  did  so  in  the  case  of  his  friend^ 
Jn  more  than  one  sonnet  she  is  expressly  spoken  of  as  "  wocing 


THE  "DARK  LADY"  OF  THE  SONNETS    283 

him."  ^     In  Sonnet  cxliii.  Shakespeare  uses  an  image  which,  in 
all  its  homeliness,  is  exceedingly  graphic : — 

**  Ld  t  as  a  careful  housewife  runs  to  catch 
One  of  her  feather'd  creatures  broke  away, 
Sets  down  her  habe,  and  makes  all  swift  despatcb 
In  pursuit  of  the  thing  she  would  have  stay ; 
Whilst  her  neglected  child  holds  her  in  chase, 
Cries  to  catch  her  whose  busy  care  is  bent 
To  foUow  that  which  flies  before  her  facc^ 
Not  prizing  her  poor  infant's  discontent : 
So  runn'st  thou  after  that  which  flies  from  thee^ 
Whilst  I,  thy  habe,  chase  thee  afar  behind ; 
But  if  thou  catch  thy  hope,  tum  back  to  nie. 
And  play  the  mothex's  part,  kiss  me,  be  kind : 
So  will  I  pray  that  thou  ma/st  have  thy  If^H 
If  thou  tum  back,  and  my  loud  crying  stilL" 

The  tenderness  of  feeling  here  apparent  is  characteristic  of 
the  poet's  whole  attitude  of  mind  in  this  dual  relation.  Even 
when  he  cannot  acquit  his  friend  of  all  guilt,  even  when  he  moum- 
fuUy  upbraids  him  with  having  robbed  the  poor  man  of  his  ewe 
lamb,  his  chief  concem  is  always  lest  any  estrangement  should 
arise  between  his  friend  and  himself.  See,  for  instance,  the  ex- 
quisitely  melodious  Sonnet  xl. : — 

^  Take  all  my  loves,  my  love>  yea,  take  them  all : 
What  hast  thou  then  more  than  thou  hadst  before? 
No  love,  my  love,  that  thou  mayst  true  love  call : 
All  mine  was  thine  before  thou  hadst  this  more. 
•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

I  do  forgive  thy  robbery,  gentle  thief, 
Although  thou  steal  thee  all  my  poverty." 

The  same  tone  of  sentiment  runs  through  the  moving  Sonnet 
xlii.,  which  begins: — 

''That  thou  hast  her,  it  is  not  all  my  grief, 
And  yet  it  may  be  said,  I  loved  her  dearly ; 
That  she  hath  thee,  is  of  my  wailing  chief, 
A  loss  in  love  that  touches  me  more  nearly." 

It  closes  with  this  somewhat  vapid  conceit : — 

"  But  here's  the  joy :  my  friend  and  I  are  one ; 
Sweet  flattery  1  then  she  loves  but  me  alone." 

All  these  expressions,  taken  together,  point  not  only  to  the 
enormous  value  which  Shakespeare  attached  to  his  young  pro- 
tector's  friendship,  but  also  to  the  sensual  and  spiritual  attraction 

^  "  And  when  a  woman  10001,  what  woman's  son  will  vsoxV^  \«n^  Xm»*^^  V^onsotiL 
slL  )•    <*  ffMv  ^  pority  mth  her  foul  pride  *'  (Soan«!  cxl&v.V 


a84  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which,  in  spite  of  everything,  bis  fickie  mistress  continued  to 
possess  for  him. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  a  passage  in  Ben  Jonson's  Bart/u^ 
mew  Fair  (1614)  may  contain  a  satirical  allusion  to  the  relation 
portrayed  in  the  Sonnets  (published  in  i609).*  ^^  ^'^^  v.  sc  3 
thpre  is  presented  a  puppet-show  setting  forth  "The  andent 
modern  history  of  Hero  and  Leander,  otherwise  caUed  the  Touch- 
stone  of  true  Love,  with  as  true  a  trial  of  Friendship  between 
Dämon  and  Pythias,  two  faithful  friends  o'  the  Banksidc/'  Hero 
is  "a  wench  o'  the  Bankside/'  and  Leander  swims  across  the 
Thames  to  her.  Dämon  and  Pythias  meet  at  her  lodging,  and 
abuse  each  other  most  violently  when  they  find  that  they  have 
but  one  love,  only  to  finish  up  as  the  best  friends  in  the  world.^ 

^  "  Dämon»  Whore-master  in  thy  &ce ; 
Thou  hast  lain  with  her  thyself,  IUI  prove  it  in  this  place. 

*'  Liotherkead,  They  are  whore-masters  both,  sir,  that's  a  piain  ease. 

*'  Pythias.  Thou  liest  like  a  rogue. 

"  Leaihtrhead,     Do  I  lie  like  a  rogue  ? 

"  Pythias,  A  pimp  and  a  scab. 

"  Leathsrheaä,  A  pimp  and  a  scab  1 
I  say,  between  you  you  have  hoth  but  one  drob, 

**  Pythias  and  Dämon.  Come,  now  we'll  go  together  to  break^ast  to  HoiQb 

"  Leatherhoad,  Thus,  gentles,  you  perceive  without  any  deolal 
"Twixt  Dämon  and  Pythias  here  friendsbip's  true  triaL" 


VII 

PLA  TONISM  —  SHAKESPEARB'S  AND  MICHAEL 
ANGELO'S  SONNETS—THE  TECHNIQUE  OF 
THE  SONNETS 

The  fact  that  the  person  to  whom  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  are 
dedicated  is  simply  entitled  "  Mr.  W.  H."  .long  served  to  divert 
attention  from  William  Herbert,  as  it  was  thought  that  it  would 
have  been  an  impossible  impertinence  thus  to  address  a  noble- 
man  like  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  without  his  title.  It  is  ima- 
ginable  that  this  form  of  address  was  adopted  pi]ecisely  in  order 
that  Pembroke  might  not  be  ezhibited  to  the  grest  public  as  the 
hero  of  the  conflict  darkly  adumbrated  in  th^  Sonnets.  They 
were  not,  indeed,  written  quite  without  an  eye  to  publication,  as 
is  proved  by  the  poet's  promises  that  they  are  to  immortalise  the 
meroory  of  his  friend's  beauty.  But  it  was  not  Shakespeare  him- 
seif  who  gave  them  to  the  press,  and  bookseller  Thorpe  must 
have  known  very  well  that  Lord  Pembroke  would  not  care  to  see 
himself  unequivocally  designated  as  the  lover  of  the  Dark  Lady 
and  the  poet's  favoured  rival,  especially  as  that  dramatic  episode 
of  his  youth  ended  in  a  manner  which  it  can  scarcely  have  been 
pleasant  to  recall. 

A  weighty  work,  A  Life  of  Shakespeare^  published  in  the 
year  1898,  by  Mr.  Sidney  Lee,  has,  however,  thoroughly  shaken 
the  theories  of  those  who  held  Pembroke  to  be  the  person  to  whom 
the  Sonnets  were  dedicated,  and  the  youth  who  inspired  so  many 
ofthem.  Mr.  Lee,  who — rather  arbitrarily — declines  to  attach  any 
importance  to  the  mention  of  Pembroke's  name,  and  the  appeal  to 
his  relations  with  Shakespeare  in  the  folio  edition,  takes  it  for 
^^Tänted  that  Southampton  was  the  one  literary  patron  to  whom 
Shakespeare  expressed  his  gratitude,  and  he  concludes  that  he 
alone  is  the  hero  of  the  Sonnets.  As  Mr.  Lee  supposes  that  most 
ofthem  were  written  between  the  spring  of  1593  and  the  autumn 
of  1594,  Southampton  would  have  been  young  enough  to  bc 
mentioned  as  in  the  poems.  As  to  the  dedication  of  the  Sonnets, 
Sidney  Lee  declares  that  it  would  have  been  an  impossible  breach 
of  decorum  to  designate  a  man  of  such  high  rank  and  importance 
as  Pembroke  was  in  the  year  1609  as  "Mr.  W.  H."  In  his 
youthful  days,  even  before  he  had  a  right  tp  the  title^  Kt.  ^^3^ 
always  czWtd  Lord  Herbert     In  1616  ^ot^  dedL\c»Xit2&.  1^  V^cSi. 


286  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  him  in  these  respectful,  nay  servile  terms :  To  the  rigfat  hon- 
ourable  William,  Earle  of  Pembroke,  Lord  Chamberlaine  to  bis 
Majestie,  one  of  bis  most  bonorable  Privie  Counsell,  and  Knigfat 
of  tbe  Garter,  etc. 

Sidney  Lee  interprets  the  word  begetter  as  procurer  merdyi 
and  thinks  that  Thorpe,  in  the  dedication,  simply  meant  to  express 
bis  gratitude  to  a  man  who  bad  procured  one  of  the  manuscripts 
of  the  Sonnets,  then  circulating,  and  bad  given  it  to  him.    And  as 
a  dedication  of  the  poems  of  the  Jesuit  Robert  Soutbwell  (of  1606X 
was  signed  with  the  letters  W.  H.,  indicating  another  pirate-editori 
William  Hall,  Sidney  Lee  concludes  that  it  was  the  latter,  who 
three  years  later  had  laid  hold  of  the  manuscript  of  the  Sonnets 
for  Thorpe,  and  that  Thorpe  had  accordingly  placed  bis  enterprise 
under  bis  patronage.      In  a  domain  wbere  all  is  obscure  it  is 
difScult  to  uphold  a  definite  opinion  in  tbe  face  of  an  Opponent  so 
much  more  learned  tRan  myself.     Yet  I  cannot  but  feel  that  there 
is  in  the  wording  of  the  dedication  something  quite  incompatible 
with  the  idea  that  Thorpe  addresses  himself  to  a  friend   and 
colleague,  and  Sidney  Lee  meets  this  objection  only  with  the 
remark  that  Thorpe  was  notably  careless  in  the  use  of  language* 
Besides,  it  is  suggestive,  that  in  the  three  existing  dedications  by 
Thorpe,  other  than  that  to  W.  H.,  tbe  first  is  addressed  to  Florio, 
the  two  others  to  tbe  Earl  of  Pembroke,  consequently  to  real 
protectors  of  rank,  while  the  one,  which  he  nine  years  before 
addressed  to  the  editor,  Edward  Blount,  who  publisbed  the  manu- 
script of  Marlowe's  translation  of  Lucan  for  bim,  is  drawn  up  in 
a  very  different  and  much  more  intimate  way.     It  is  addressed  to 
bis  *'  kind  and  true  friend,"  and  gives  the  friend  in  question  a  few 
bints  ''as  to  how  to  fit  himself"  for  this  unaccustomed  part  of 
patron.    The  distance  from  this  to  the  dedication  of  the  Sonnets 
is  great. 

What  Sidney  Lee  attempts  to  prove  by  bis  researches  and 
conjectures  is,  that  tbe  man,  who  figures  in  the  Sonnets  as  the 
protector  of  the  poet,  was  Southampton,  and  not  Pembroke.  The 
name  of  the  youth  is  not  of  the  first  importance,  nor  does  it  signify 
greatly  whether  the  woman  celebrated  and  attacked  in  the  Sonnets 
bore  the  name  of  Mary  Fitton  or  another.  However,  the  main 
point  is,  that  in  common  with  a  number  of  previous  autbors,  who 
have  thoroughly  studied  the  contemporaneous  literature  of  Europe^ 
and  more  especially  the  sonnet-poetry  of  Italy,  France  and  England» 
such  as  Delius  and  Elze  in  Germany,  and  Henrik  Schuck  in 
Sweden,  Lee,  relying  on  the  numerous  traits  that  these  poems 
share  with  other  sonnet-cycles  of  their  period,  stamps  the  whole 
argument  of  the  text  as  fiction,  and  denies  their  autobiographical 
character.  Scarcely  any  writer  before  him  has  so  boldly  en* 
deavoured  to  limit  Sbakespeare's  originality  in  the  domain  cf 
sonnet-poetry. 

In  üie  first  place  Lee  points  out,  that  the  idiole  body  of 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  SONNETS  287 

teenth-century  sonnets  was  so  dependent  firstly  on  Petrarch, 
then  on  such  French  writers  as  Ronsard,  du  Bellay  and  Desportes, 
that  even  the  finest  of  them,  the  sonnets  of  Spenser,  Sidney, 
Watson,  Lodge,  Drayton  and  Daniel  may  be  characterised  as  imi- 
tative studies,  if  not  simply  as  a  mosaic  of  plagiarisms.  Hereupon 
he  tries  to  show  Shakespeare's  dependence  on  his  predecessors. 
Shakespearre  picked  up,  without  scruple,  ideas  and  expressions 
from  the  sonnets  published  by  Daniel,  Drayton,  Watson,  Barnabe 
Barnes,  Constable  and  Sidney;  he  did  this  as  deliberately  and 
imperturbably  as  in  his  comedies  he  manipulated  dramas  and 
novels  by  contemporary  and  older  poets.  To  Drayton  especially 
is  Shakespeare  indebted.  As  all  the  Englishmen  imitated  the 
Frenchmen,  Shakespeare  has  a  false  air  of  having  been  directly 
influenced  by  Ronsard,  de  Baif  and  Desportes,  though  he  scarcely 
knew  these  poets  in  their  own  language. 

The  Danish  translator  of  the  Sonnets,  Adolf  Hansen,  had 
already  pointed  out  numerous  impersonal  traits.  Some  of  the 
poorer  $onnets  with  their  forced  and  complicated  metaphors  so 
obviously  bear  the  impress  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  that  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  regard  them  as  characteristic  of  Shakespeare, 
and  some  few  Sonnets  are  such  complete  imitatioqs,  that  they 
cannot  be  accepted  as  confessions.  Sonnets  zviii.  and  xix,  work 
out  the  same  idea  as  DanieFs  De/ia,  and  Sonnets  Iv.  and  Ixxxi. 
treat  the  very  same  subject  as  the  sixty-ninth  Sonnet  in  Spenser's 
Atnoretti.  Finally  the  story  of  the  friends,  one  of  whom  deprives 
the  other  of  his  mistress,  is  to  be  found  in  Lyly's  Euphues. 

Sidney  Lee  maintains  that  when  in  Sonnets  xxiv.  and  cxzii. 
Shakespeare  propounds  that  the  image  of  his  friend  is  engraved 
in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  or  that  his  brain  is  a  better  memo- 
randum-book,  as  to  the  friend,  than  the  book  with  which  the  latter 
has  presented  him,  he  is  merely  struggling  with  conceits  of 
Ronsard's.  When  in  Sonnets  xliv.  and  xlv.  he  speaks  about  man 
as  compounded  of  the  elements,  earth,  air,  fire  and  water,  he 
appropriates  motives  from  Spenser  and  Barnes.  Sonnets  xlvi. 
and  xlvii.,  on  the  debate  of  the  eye  and  the  heart,  are  written  in 
terms  borrowed  from  the  twentieth  Sonnet  in  Watson's  Tears  of 
Fancy.  Where  he  proclaims  his  assurance  of  the  immortality  of 
his  verse,  and  the  consequent  etemity  of  his  friend's  fame,  he  does 
not  speak  from  conviction,  he  only  treats  a  motive,  which, 
following  the  example  of  Pindar,  Horace  and  Ovid,  the  French- 
men Desportes  and  Ronsard,  and  after  them  such  English 
sonneteers  as  Spenser,  Drayton  and  Daniel  had  played  upon. 
Not  even  when  he  writes  that  his  lady  is  beautiful,  though  dark, 
and  consequently  unlovely,  is  he  original ;  for  Sidney  had  already 
used  a  similar  phrase.  And  when  he  changes  his  mind,  and  in  the 
dark  eyes  and  dark  complexion  of  his  lady  professes  to  read  the 
blackness  of  her  soul,  he  is  even  less  original,  for  at  that  period 
the  sonnet  of  invective  was  the  Standard  vailanl  ol  ^^  ^»osktx  ^ 


288  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

amorous  eulogy.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  find  the 
sonneteer  grossly  abusing  his  mistress.  Ronsard  called  his  a 
tigressy  a  murderess,  a  Medusa;  Bamabe  Barnes  describes  his 
as  a  tyranty  a  Gorgon,  a  rock ;  the  transition  from  tendemess  to 
reproach  was  so  frequent,  that  it  was  even  parodied  by  Gabrid 
Harvey.  Following  mauy  other  critics  Sidney  Lee  finally  points 
out  that  no  weight  can  be  attached  to  the  fact,  that  in  Sonnets 
xzii.,  Ixii.,  Ixxiii.,  and  cxxxviii.,  Shakespeare  speaks  of  himself  as 
old,  for  thisy  too,  was  a  standing  conceit  of  the  sonnet-poets  of 
that  time.  Daniel  in  Delia  (23)  when  he  was  only  twenty- 
nine  speaks  as  if  his  life  were  finished.  Richard  Bamfield,  only 
twenty  years  old,  invites  the  boy  Ganymedes  to  contemplate  his 
silver  hair,  his  wrinkled  skin,  the  deep  furrows  of  his  face,  all  this 
in  Imitation  of  Petrarch. 

Lee  admits,  however,  that  the  group  of  Sonnets,  most  interest* 
ing  to  the  reader,  the  most  mature  as  to  ideas  and  style,  cannot 
be  considered  to  date  from  the  poet's  thirtieth  year;  he  even 
thinks  that  Shakespeare  continued  to  write  Sonnets  until  1603, 
and  propounds — regardless  of  the  wording  of  the  poem — that 
Sonnet  cvii.  was  written  in  that  year,  on  the  occasion  of  the  death 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  That  the  word  ''  moon  "  here  means  Elizabeth 
is  obvious.     But  that  the  expression 

"  The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured  " 

can  mean  the  final  eclipse  of  the  moon  is  incredible.  That  the 
moon  has  passed  through  her  eclipse,  means,  I  take  it,  that  she 
is  shining  brightly  again,  and  thus  the  Interpretation  put  forth 
above,  of  a  hint  at  the  frustrated  conspiracy  of  Essex,  is  far  more 
reasonable.  But  then  this  Sonnet,  as  well  as  those  kindred  to  it 
in  spirit  and  tone,  point,  not  to  the  year  1603,  but  to  1601. 

Yet  here  details  are  of  minor  importance.  We  take  cur  stand 
on  a  fundamental  conception  of  poetic  production.  All  art,  even 
that  of  the  greater  artists,  begins  with  imitation  ;  no  poct  avoids 
influences,  and  up  to  the  present  time  no  poet  has  hesitated  to 
appropriate  from  predecessors  all  that  might  be  of  use  to  him. 
Even  nowadays,  when  the  appreciation  of  the  duty  of  originaUty 
is  so  infinitely  stronger  than  in  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth, 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  it  is  easy  to  point  out  appropriations  di 
foreign  thoughts  and  turns  of  phrase  among  excellent  poets,  and 
it  would  be  possible  to  enumerate  a  great  variety  of  common 
traits  among  the  lyrical  poets  of  Europe.  The  ränge  of  subjects 
fit  for  lyrical  poetry  is  not  so  very  great,  to  be  sure.  As  men, 
lyrists  have  after  all  many  emotions  and  conditions  in  common. 
In  the  mode  of  expression  alone — especially  when  ideas  have  to  be 
expressed  in  an  identical  form  of  fourteen  lines — ^is  it  possible  for 
the  poet  to  manifest  his  true  originality. 

No  intelligent  critic  would  think  of  looking  to  Ijrrical 
as  to  biographical  sources,  in  the  rough  meaning  of  the 
Tbe  poetical  ia  rarely  identical  ^lli  tiie  ^»«oiaL  cgo«    Bul  Ott 


CRITICISM  OF  THE  SONNETS  289 

the  other  band  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  upon  tbat  books 
(I  mean  great,  inspired  books,  such  as  are  read  for  hundreds  of 
years)  are  never  engendered  by  other  books,  but  by  life.  Nobody, 
who  has  a  drop  of  artist's  blood  in  bis  veins,  can  imagine  that  a 
poet  of  the  rank  of  Shakespeare  can  have  written  sonnets  by  the 
score  only  as  exercises  or  metrical  experiments,  without  any 
bearing  on  bis  life,  its  passions  and  its  crises.  The  formula  for 
good  epic  poetry  is  surely  this :  that  it  must  always  be  founded 
on  real  life,  even  if  rarely  or  never  an  exact  copy  of  it.  Lyrical 
poetry,  in  which  the  poet  speaks  in  bis  own  name,  and  especially 
of  himself,  must  necessarily,  if  first-rate,  be  rooted  in  what  the 
poet  has  feit  so  strongly  that  it  has  made  bim  break  into  song. 

The  learned  critics  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  regard  them 
merely  as  metrical  taurs  de  farce^  penned  in  cold  blood  on  subjects 
prescribed  by  fashion  and  Convention.  They  look  upon  fancy  as 
upon  a  spider,  which  spins  chimera  in  all  sorts  of  typical  and 
artificial  figures  out  of  itself.  It  seems  more  natural  to  look  upon 
it  as  a  plant,  extracting  nourishment  from  the  only  soil  in  which  it 
could  thrive,  namely,  the  observations  and  experiences  of  the  poet. 

The  great  modern  poets,  whose  lives  lie  open  before  us,  have 
betrayed  to  us  how  fancy  Springs  out  of  impressions  of  real  life, 
transforming  them  and  making  them  unrecognisable  by  its  mys- 
terious  workings.  In  several  cases  we  are  able  to  discem  the 
dispersed  Clements,  which  in  due  time  crystallise  in  the  poem. 
Disceming  criticism  has  opened  our  eyes  to  the  intermixture  of 
these  Clements  in  the  magic  caldron  of  fancy,  while  inferior 
criticism  goes  astray  in  a  trivial  search  after  possible  modeis.  In 
spite  of  German  scholars  and  their  exertions,  we  know  nothing 
about  whom  Goethe  had  in  bis  mind  when  he  painted  Clärchen, 
nor  is  this  fact  of  any  importance;  but  this  is  certain,  that  the 
whole  poetical  life-work  of  Goethe  is  founded  upon  experience. 
When  Max  Klinger  one  evening  retumed  home  from  having  seen 
a  Performance  of  Goethe's  Fausty  he  said :  What  most  impressed 
me  was  that  it  was  the  life  of  Goethe. 

As,  knowing  the  life  and  experiences  of  the  great  modern  poet, 
we  are  now  generally  able  to  trace  how  these  are  worked  upon 
and  transformed  in  bis  works,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  in 
olden  times  poets  were  moved  by  the  same  causes,  and  acted  in  the 
same  way,  at  least  those  of  them  who  have  been  efBcient.  When 
we  know  of  the  adventures  and  emotions  of  the  modern  poet,  and 
are  able  to  trace  them  in  the  production  of  bis  free  fancy ;  when  it 
is  possible,  where  they  are  unknown  to  us,  to  evolve  the  hidden 
Personality  of  the  poet,  and — as  every  capable  critic  has  experi- 
enced — to  have  our  conjectures  finally  bome  out  by  facts  revealed 
by  the  contemporary  author,  then  we  cannot  feel  it  to  be  im- 
possible,  that  in  the  case  of  an  older  poet,  we  might  also  be 
successful  in  determining  when  he  speaks  earnestly  Cro\SL  VvSs^ 
heart,  and  in  tracing  his  feelings  and  ex^xVexveeä  ^tom^  \vv& 

t 


390  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Works,  espedally  when  these  are  lyricali  and  their  mode  of  es« 
pression  passionate  and  emotional. 

Any  one  who  holds  fast  to  the  by  no  means  fantastic  theoiyi 
that  there  is  a  certain  connection  between  the  life  and  the  wofks 
of  Shakespeare,  will  be  but  little  moved  by  successive  attempts 
to  deny  the  Sonnets  any  autobiographical  value,  because  of  the  con- 
ventional  traits  and  frequent  imitations  to  be  pointed  out  in  them. 

The  modern  reader  who  takes  up  the  Sonnets  with  no  spedsl 
knowledge  of  the  Renaissance,  its  tone  of  feeling,  its  relation  to 
Greek  antiquity,  its  Conventions  and  its  poetic  style,  finds  nothing 
in  them  more  surprising  than  the  language  of  love  in  which  the 
poet  addresses  his  young  friend,  the  positively  erotic  passion  for 
a  masculine  personality  which  here  finds  utterance.  The  friend 
is  currently  addressed  as  *'  my  love."  Sometimes  it  is  stated  in 
so  many  words  that  in  the  eyes  of  his  admirer  the  friend  oombines 
the  charms  of  man  and  woman ;  for  instanoe,  in  Sonnet  xz.  :^- 

• 

**  A  woman's  face,  with  Nature's  own  band  paintec^ 
Hast  thouy  the  master-mistress  of  my  passion." 

This  Sonnet  ends  with  a  playful  lament  that  the  friend  had  not 
been  born  of  the  opposite  sex ;  yet  such  is  the  warmth  of  ex- 
pression  in  other  Sonnets  that  one  very  well  understands  how  the 
critics  of  last  Century  supposed  them  to  be  addressed  to  a  woman.^ 

This  tone»  however,  is  a  characteristic  fashion  of  the  age. 
And  here,  again,  it  has  been  insisted  that  love  for  a  beautiful  youth, 
which  the  study  of  Plato  had  presented  to  the  men  of  the  Renais- 
sance in  its  most  attractive  light,  was  a  Standing  theme  among 
English  poets  of  that  age,  who,  moreover,  as  in  Shakespeare's 
case,  were  wont  to  praise  the  beauty  of  their  friend  above  that  of 
their  mistress.  The  woman,  as  in  this  case,  often  enters  as  a 
disturbing  dement  into  the  relation.  It  was  an  accepted  pait 
of  the  Convention  that  the  poet  as  above  noted  shoidd  repre- 
aent  himself  as  withered  and  wrinkled,  whatever  his  real  age 
might  be ;  Shakespeare  does  so  again  and  again,  though  he  was 
ßt  most  thirty-seven.  Finally,  it  was  quite  in  accordance  with 
use  and  wont  that  the  fair  youth  should  be  exhorted  to  marry, 
so  that  his  beauty  might  not  die  with  him.  Shakespeare  had 
already  placed  such  exhortations  in  the  mouth  of  the  Goddess  of 
Love  in  Venus  and  Adanis. 

All  this  is  true,  and  yet  there  is  no  reasonable  ground  for 
doubting  that  the  Sonnets  stand  in  pretty  dose  relation  to  ictual 
facts. 

^  For  iBflaiiee,  in  Sonnet  nffi. :» 

^'O  let  my  books  be  tben  the  doanenoe 
And  dnmb  presagen  of  my  speatdng  bretit» 
Who  plead  for  love,  and  Iook  for  recompeuMi'* 

And  in  Sonnet  zztL  :— 

"  Lord  of  my  lore»  to  whom  in  yassalage 
Tby  Bwrit  hath  «f  dofcf  titioD^y  kni^* 


MICHAEL  ANGELO  AND  SHAKESPEARE        291 

The  age,  indeed,  determines  the  tone,  the  colouringi  of  the 
expressions  in  which  friendship  clothes  itself.  In  Grermany  and 
Denmark,  at  the  ehd  of  the  eighteenth  Century,  friendship  was  a 
sentimental  enthusiasm,  just  as  in  England  and  Italy  dunng  the 
sixteenth  Century  it  took  the  form  of  platonic  love.  We  can 
dearly  discem,  however,  that  the  different  methods  of  expression 
answered  to  corresponding  shades  of  difference  in  the  emotion 
itself.  The  men  of  the  Renaissance  gave  themselves  up  to  an 
aäoration  of  friendship  and  of  their  friend  which  is  now  unknown, 
except  in  circles  where  a  perverted  sexuality  prevails.  Mon- 
taigne's  friendship  for  Estienne  de  la  Boetie,  and  Languet's 
passionate  tendemess  for  the  youthful  Philip  Sidney,  are  cases 
in  point.  The  observations  conceming  friendship  in  Sir  Thomas 
Browne's  Religio  Medici,  1642  (pp.  98,  99),  accord  entirely  with 
that  of  Shakespeare :  "  I  love  my  friend  more  than  myself,  and  yet 
I  think  that  I  do  not  love  him  enough.  In  a  few  months  my 
manifold  doubled  passion  will  make  me  believe  that  I  have  not 
at  all  loved  him  before.  When  I  am  away  from  him,  I  am  dead, 
until  I  meet  him  again.  When  I  am  together  with  him,  I  am  not 
content,  but  alwayslong  for  a  closer  connection  with  him.  United 
souls  are  not  contented,  but  wish  for  being  tnily  identical  with  each 
other ;  and  this  being  impossible,  their  yearnings  are  endless  and 
must  increase  without  any  possibility  of  being  gratified."  But  the 
most  remarkable  example  of  a  frenzied  friendship  in  Renaissance 
culture  and  poetry  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found  in  Michael  Angelo's 
letters  and  sonnets. 

Michael  Angelo's  relation  to  Messer  Tommaso  de'  Cavalieri 
presents  the  most  interesting  parallel  to  the  attitude  which 
Shakespeare  adopted  towards  Wüliam  Herbert  (?).  We  find  the 
same  expressions  of  passionate  love  from  the  older  to  the  younger 
man;  but  here  it  is  still  more  unquestionably  certain  that  we 
have  not  to  do  with  mere  poetical  figures  of  speech,  since  the 
letters  are  not  a  whit  less  ardent  and  enthusiastic  than  the 
sonnets.  The  expressions  in  the  sonnets  are  sometimes  so  warm 
that  Michael  Angelo's  nephew,  in  his  edition  of  them,  altered  the 
Word  Signiere  into  Signora,  and  these  poems,  like  Shakespeare's, 
were  for  some  time  supposed  to  have  been  addressed  to  a  woman.^ 

On  January  i,  1533,  Michael  Angelo,  then  fifty-seven  years 
old,  writes  from  Florence  to  Tommaso  de'  Cavalieri,  a  youth  of 
noble  Roman  family,  who  afterwards  became  his  fevourite  pupil : 
"  If  I  do  not  possess  the  art  of  navigating  the  sea  of  your  potent 
genius,  that  genius  will  nevertheless  excuse  me,  and  neither  de- 
spise  my  inequality,  nor  demand  of  me  that  which  I  have  it  not  in 
me  to  give ;  since  that  which  Stands  alone  in  everything  can  in 
nothing  find  its  counterpart.  Wherefore  your  lordship,  ^  onfy 
light  in  our  age  vouchsafed  to  this  world^  having  no  equal  or  peer, 
cannot  find  satisfaction  in  the  work  of  any  other  band.    If ,  tbfix^ 

^  \jtAmg  waa  Schema :  Michel  AMgd§.    Eim  RßMmnamiahtiiU^  \Vyiu 


292  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

forCy  this  or  that  in  the  works  which  I  hope  and  promise  to  execute 
should  happen  to  please  you,  I  should  call  that  work,  not  good, 
but  fortunate.  And  if  I  should  ever  feel  assured  that — as  has 
been  reported  to  me — I  have  given  your  lordship  satisfaction  in 
one  thing  or  another,  I  will  make  a  gift  to  you  of  my  present  and 
of  all  that  the  future  may  bring  me ;  and  it  will  be  a  great  pain  to 
me  to  be  unable  to  recall  the  past,  in  order  to  serve  you  so  mudi 
the  longer,  instead  of  having  only  the  future,  which  cannot  be 
long,  since  I  am  all  too  old.  There  is  nothing  more  left  for'liie 
to  say.  Read  my  heart  and  not  my  letter,  for  my  pen  cannot 
approach  the  expression  of  my  good  will."  ^ 

Cavalieri  writes  to  Michael  Angelo  that  he  regards  himself  as 
born  anew  since  he  has  come  to  know  the  Master;  who  replies, 
"  I  for  my  part  should  regard  myself  as  not  born,  born  dead|  or, 
deserted  by  heaven  and  earth,  if  your  letters  had  not  brougfat  me 
the  persuasion  that  your  lordship  accepts  with  favour  certain  of 
my  works."  And  in  a  letter  of  the  foUowing  summer  to  Sebastian 
del  Piombo,  he  sends  a  greeting  to  Messer  Tommaso,  with  the 
words:  "  I  believe  /  should  instantly  fall  down  dead  if  he  were 
no  longer  in  my  thoughts."  * 

Michael  Angelo  plays  upon  his  friend's  sumame  as  Shake- 
speare  plays  upon  his  friend's  Christian  name.  These  are  the 
last  lines  of  the  thirty-first  sonnet : — 

"  Se  vint*  e  pres'  i*  debb'  esser  beato^ 
Meraviglia  non  h,  se,  nud'  e  solo, 
Resto  prigion  d'un  Cavalier  armato.** 

^  If  only  chains  and  bands  can  make  me  blest, 
No  marvel  if  alone  and  bare  I  go 
An  armed  knight's  captive  and  slave  confessed."* 

{J,  A,  Symonds.) 

In  other  sonnets  the  tone  is  no  less  passionate  than  Shake- 
speare's — take,  for  example,  the  twenty-second : — 

"  More  tenderly  perchance  than  is  my  due, 
Your  spirit  sees  into  my  heart,  where  rise 
The  flames  of  holy  worship,  nor  denies 
The  grace  reserved  for  those  who  humbly  sue. 
Oh  blessM  day  when  you  at  last  are  mine ! 
Let  time  stand  still,  and  let  noon*s  chariot  stay ; 
Fixed  be  that  moment  on  the  dial  of  heaven ! 
That  I  may  clasp  and  keep,  by  grace  divine — 

1  "  E  se  io  non  iurö  l'arte  del  navicare  per  l'onde  del  mare  dd  vottio  ▼alofOio 
ingegno,  quello  mi  scuseri,  n^  si  sdegnieri  del  mio  disaguagliarsigli,  n^  desidenA  da 
me  quello  che  in  me  non  h :  perchi  dii  h  solo  in  ogni  cosa,  in  cosa  alcnna  non  pa6 
aver  compagni.  Perö  la  vostra  Signoria,  luce  del  secol  nostro  unica  al  mondo^  hob 
puo  sodiiifarsi  di  opera  d*alcuno  altro,  non  avendo  pari  n^  simile  k  s^"  ftc 

*  "  E  io  non  nalo,  o  vero  nato  morto  mi  repnterei,  e  direi  in  disgrazia,  dd  ddo 


MICHAEL  ANGELD  AND  SHAKESPEARE        293 

Clasp  in  these  yeaming  arms  and  keep  for  aye 
My  heart's  loved  lord  to  me  desertless  given."  ^ 

(y!  A,  Symands.) 

In  comparison  with  Cavalieri,  Michael  Angelo  could  with 
justice  call  himself  old.  Some  critics,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
Seen  in  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  was  not  really  old  at  the  time 
when  the  Sonnets  were  written,  a  proof  of  their  conventional  and 
unreal  character.  But  this  is  to  overlook  the  relativity  of  the 
term.  As  compared  with  a  youth  of  eighteen,  Shakespeare  was 
in  efiect  old,  with  his  sixteen  additionaJ  years  and  all  his  ex- 
perience  of  life.  And  if  we  are  right  in  assigning  Sonnets  Ixiii. 
and  Ixxiii.  to  the  year  1600  or  1601,  Shakespeare  had  then  reached 
the  age  of  thirty-seven,  an  age  at  which,  as  Tyler  has  very  aptly 
pointed  out,  Byron  in  his  swan-song  uses  expressions  about  him- 
self which  might  have  been  copied  from  Shakespeare's  seventy- 
third  Sonnet.     Shakespeare  says : — 

''  That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold 
When  yeliaw  leaves^  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold 
Bare  ruin'd  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang." 

Byron  thus  expresses  himself: — 


« 


My  days  are  in  the  yeliaw  leaf^ 
The  flowers  and  fniits  of  love  are  gone, 

The  worm,  the  canker  and  the  grief 
Are  mine  alone." 

In  Shakespeare  we  read  : — 

"  In  me  thou  seest  the  glowing  ofsuchfirt 
That  on  the  ashes  of  his  youth  doth  lie 
As  the  death-bed  whereon  it  must  expire, 
Consum'd  with  that  which  it  was  nourished  by.* 

Byron's  words  are : — 

"  Thefire  that  on  my  äosom  preys 
Is  lone  as  some  volcanic  isle ; 
No  torch  is  kindled  at  its  blaze — 
A  funeral  pile. " 

Thus  both  poets  liken  themselves,  at  this  comparatively  early 
age,  to  the  wintry  woods  with  their  yellowing  leaves,  and  without 
blossom,  fruit,  or  the  song  of  birds ;  and  both  compare  the  fire 

^  "  Acdo  ch'  i'  abbi,  e  non  giii  per  mie  merto, 
II  desiftto  mio  dolce  signiere 
Per  sempre  nell'  indegnie  e  pronte  braoda." 

*  This  line,  howeTer,  is  obviously  tuggested  hy  the  fiunouf  pasnge  in  Msukik 
(ActT.)— 

'*  My  way  of  life 
Ift  &U'n  tnto  the  sere,  the  yellow  Iml'' 


294  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which  sdll  glows  in  their  soul  to  a  solitary  flame  which  finds 
no  nourishment  from  without.  The  ashes  of  my  youth  become 
its  death-bedy  says  Shakespeare.  They  are  a  funerai  pile,  says 
Byron. 

Nor  is  it  possible  to  conclude,  as  Schuck  does,  from  the  cod- 
ventional  style  of  the  first  seventeen  Sonnets — ^for  instance,  from 
their  aimost  verbal  identity  with  a  passage  in  Sidney^s  Arcadia  ■ 
that  they  are  quite  devoid  of  relation  to  the  poet's  own  life. 

In  shorty  the  elements  of  temporary  fashion  and  Convention 
which  appear  in  the  Sonnets  in  no  way  prove  that  they  were  not 
genuine  expressions  of  the  poet's  actual  feelings. 

They  lay  bare  to  us  a  side  of  his  character  which  does  not 
appear  in  the  plays.  We  see  in  him  an  emotional  nature  with  a 
passionate  bent  towards  self-surrender  in  love  and  idolatry,  and 
with  a  corresponding,  though  less  excessive,  yeaming  to  be  loved. 

We  leam  from  the  Sonnets  to  what  a  degree  Shakespeare  was 
oppressed  and  tormented  by  his  sense  of  the  contempt  in  which 
the  actor's  calling  was  held.  The  scom  of  ancient  Rome  for  the 
mountebanky  the  horror  of  ancient  Judea  for  one  who  disguised 
himself  in  the  garments  of  the  other  sex,  and  finally  the  age-old 
hatred  of  Christianity  for  theatres  and  all  the  temptations  that 
foUow  in  their  train — all  these  habits  of  thought  had  been  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation,  and,  as  Puritanism  grew  in 
strength  and  gained  the  upper  band,  had  begotten  a  contemptuous 
tone  of  public  opinion  under  which  so  sensitive  a  nature  as 
Shakespeare's  could  not  but  suffer  keenly.  He  was  not  regarded 
as  a  poet  who  now  and  then  acted,  but  as  an  actor  who  now  and 
then  wrote  plays.  It  was  a  pain  to  him  to  feel  that  he  belonged 
to  a  caste  which  had  no  civic  Status.  Hence  his  complaint,  in 
Sonnet  zzix.,  of  being ''  in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eye&* 
Hence,  in  Sonnet  xxxvi.,  his  assurance  to  his  friend  that  he  will 
not  obtrude  on  others  the  fact  of  their  friendship  :— 

'^  I  may  not  evermore  acknowledge  thee, 
Lest  my  bewail^d  guilt  should  do  thee  shame: 
Nor  thou  with  public  kindness  honour  me, 
Unless  thou  take  that  honour  from  thy  name : 
But  do  not  so ;  I  love  thee  in  such  sort, 
As,  thou  being  mine,  mine  is  thy  good  report** 

The  bitter  complaint  in  Sonnet  Izxii.  seems  rather  to  refer  to  tbe 
writer's  Situation  as  a  dramatist : — 

"  For  I  am  shamed  by  that  which  I  bring  forth, 
And  so  should  you,  to  love  things  nothing  worth.'' 

The  melancholy  which   fills  Sonnet  ex.   is  occasioned  by  the 
writer's  profession  and  his  nature  as  a  poet  and  artist : — 

'*  Alas  1  'tis  true,  I  have  gone  here  and  there» 
And  made  myself  a  motley  to  the  view ; 


IDOLATRY  IN  FRIENDSHIP  29$ 

Gor'd  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is  most  dear, 

Made  old  offences  of  äffections  new : 

Most  tnie  it  is,  that  I  have  look'd  on  tnith 

Askance  and  strangely ;  but,  by  all  above, 

These  blenches  gave  my  heart  another  youth, 

And  worse  essays  prov'd  thee  my  best  of  love«* 

ice,  finally,  his  reproach  to  Fortunci  in  Sonnet  czi,  that  sbe 
not  "better  for  his  life  provide  Than  public  mcans  wbicb 
lic  manners  breeds":— - 

"  Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand ; 
And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdu'd 
To  what  it  works  in,  Uke  the  dyer's  band* 

We  must  bear  in  mind  this  continual  writhing  under  the 
judice  against  his  calling  and  his  art,  and  this  indignation  at 

injustice  of  the  attitude  adopted  towards  them  by  a  great 
t  of  the  middle  dasses,  if  we  would  understand  the  high 
Bsure  of  Shakespeare's  feelings  towards  the  noble  youth  who 
1  approached  him  füll  of  the  art-loving  traditions  of  the  aris- 
racy,  and  the  buming  enthusiasm  of  the  young  for  intellectual 
eriority.  This  young  Lord,  with  his  beauty  and  his  personal 
rm,  must  have  come  to  him  like  a  very  angel  of  light,  a 
»senger  from  a  higher  world  than  that  in  which  his  lot  was 
t    He  was  a  living  witness  to  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  was 

condemned  to  seek  the  applause  of  the  multitude  alone,  but 
Id  win  the  favour  of  the  noblest  in  the  land,  and  was  not 
luded  from  a  deep  and  almost  passionate  friendship  which 
::ed  him  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  bearer  of  an  ancient 
oe.  The  young  nobleman's  great  beauty  no  doubt  made  a  deep 
>ression  upon  the  beauty-lover  in  Shakespeare's  soul.  It  is 
y  probable,  too,  that  the  young  aristocrat,  according  to  the 
liion  of  the  times,  made  the  poet  his  debtor  for  more  solid  bene- 
tions  than  mere  friendship ;  and  Shakespeare  must  thus  have 
nd  doubly  painful  the  Situation  in  which  he  was  placed  by  the 
rigue  between  his  mistress  and  his  friend.^ 
In  any  case,  th^  afiection  with  which  the  young  Lord.inspired 
ikespeare — the  passionate  attachment,  leading  even  to  jealousy 
other  poets  admired  by  the  young  nobleman — had  not  only  a 
idness,  but  an  erotic  fervour  such  as  we  never  find  in  our  own 
I  manifested  between  man  and  man.  Note  such  an  expression 
this  in  Sonnet  cz. : — 

"Then  give  me  welcome,  next  my  hetiirhn  tiie  bes^ 
Even  to  thy  pure  and  most  most  loving  breast."  fr 

Sereral  passages  in  the  Sonnets  snggest  that  Pembroke  must  have  conferred 
tanüal  ^Its  npon  Shakespeare — for  example,  that  ei^pression  "wealth**  in 
Det  zzznL,  "your  bounty  "  in  Sonnet  lÜL,  and  " yoiur  own  dear-pnidiased  ri^hi'* 
oonet  czTÜ. 


296  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

This  exactly  corresponds  to  Michael  Angelo's  recently-quoted 
desire  to  *'  clasp  in  bis  yearning  arms  bis  beart's  loved  lord«^  Or 
observe  such  a  line  as  tbis  in  Sonnet  Ixxv. : — 

"  So  are  you  to  my  tbougbts  as  food  to  life." 

We  bave  here  an  exact  counterpart  to  the  following  expressions 
in  a  letter  from  Micbael  Angelo  to  Cavalieri,  dated  July,  1533 :  "  I 
would  far  ratber  forget  tbe  food  on  wbicb  I  live,  wbich  wretchedly 
sustains  the  body  alone,  than  your  name,  which  sustains  both 
body  and  soul,  filling  both  with  such  happiness  that  I  can  fed 
neither  care  nor  fear  of  death  while  I  bave  it  in  my  memory.''* 

The  passionate  fervour  of  this  friendship  on  the  Platonic  modd 
is  accompanied  in  Shakespeare,  as  in  Michael  Angelo,  by  a  sub- 
missiveness  on  the  part  of  the  eider  friend  towards  the  younger, 
which,  in  these  two  supreme  geniuses,  affects  the  modern  reader 
painfnlly.  Each  had  put  off  every  shred  of  pride  in  relation  to  bis 
idolised  young  friend.  How  stränge  it  seems  to  find  Shakespeare 
calling  himself  bis  young  protector's  **  slave/'  and  assuring  bim 
that  bis  time,  more  precious  than  that  of  any  otber  man  tben 
living,  is  of  no  value,  so  that  bis  friend  may  let  bim  wait  or 
summon  bim  to  bis  side  as  bis  caprice  and  fancy  dictate.  In 
Sonnet  Iviii.  he  speaks  of  "  that  God  who  made  me  first  your 
slave."     Sonnet  Ivii.  runs  thus : — 

"  Being^'^wr  s/av€^  wbat  should  I  do  but  tend 
Upon  the  bours  and  times  of  your  desire  ? 
I  have  no  precious  time  at  all  to  spend, 
Nor  Services  to  do,  tili  you  require. 
Nor  dare  I  chide  the  world-without-end  bour, 
Whilst  I,  my  sovereign,  watch  the  clock  for  you, 
Nor  think  the  bittemess  of  absence  sour, 
When  you  have  bid  your  servant  once  adieu ; 
Nor  dare  I  question  with  my  jealous  thought» 
Where  you  may  be,  or  your  afifairs  suppose ; 
But,  like  a  sad  slave,  stay  and  think  of  nought, 
Save,  where  you  are  how  happy  you  make  tbose.** 

Just  as  Michael  Angelo  spoke  to  Cavalieri  of  bis  works  as 
tbough  they  were  scarcely  worth  bis  friend's  notice,  so  does 
Shakespeare  sometimes  speak  of  bis  verses.  In  Sonnet  xzzii.  he 
begs  bis  friends  to  "  re-survey  "  them  when  he  is  dead : — 

"  And  tbough  they  be  outstripp'd  by  every  pen, 
Reserve  them  for  my  love,  not  for  their  rhyme, 
Exceeded  by  the  height  of  happier  men." 

This  humility  becomes  quite  despicable  when  a  breacfa  is 
threatened   between   the  friends.     Shakespeare  tben  repeatedly 

^  "  Anzi  posso  prima  dimenticare  il  dbo  di  ch'io  vivo,  che  nutrisce  solo  11  ooipo 
infelicemente,  che  il  nome  vostro,  che  nutrisce  il  corpo  e  l*aniina,  riempicndo  T 


e  Taltro  di  tanta  dolcezsa,  che  n^  noia  ni  timor  di  morte,  mentre  la  memoik  ni  fi 
terb«,  posso  sentire." 


IDOLATRY  IN  FRIENDSHIP  297 

promises  so  to  blacken  himself  that  bis  friend  shall  reap,  not 
ahame,  but  bonour,  from  bis  faitblessness.    In  Sonnet  Izzxviii.  :— 

"  Witb  mine  own  weakness  being  best  acquainted, 
UpK)n  thy  part  I  can  set  down  a  story 
Of  faults  concealed  wherein  I  am  attainted, 
Tbat  thou,  in  losing  me,  shalt  win  much  glory.* 


Sonnet  Izxxix.  is  still  more  3trongly  worded :— - 

"  Thou  canst  not^  love,  disgrace  me  half  so  111, 
To  set  a  form  upon  desir^d  change, 
As  I'U  myself  disgrace :  knowing  thy  will, 
I  will  acquaintance  strangle,  and  look  stränge ; 
Be  absent  from  thy  walks  ;  and  in  my  tongue 
Thy  sweet-belov^d  name  no  more  shall  dwell, 
Lest  I  (too  much  profane)  should  do  it  wrong, 
And  haply  of  our  old  acquaintance  teil 
For  thee,  against  myself  I'U  vow  debate, 
For  I  must  ne'er  love  him  whoo:^  thou  dost  hate.* 

We  are  positively  surprised  when,  in  a  Single  passage,  in 
Sonnet  Ixii,  we  come  upon  a  forcible  ezpression  of  self-love ;  but  it 
does  not  extend  beyond  the  first  half  of  the  Sonnet;  in  the  second 
half  this  self-love  is  already  regarded  as  a  sin,  and  Shakespeare 
humbly  efiaces  himself  before  bis  friend.  All  the  more  gladly 
does  the  reader  welcome  the  few  Sonnets  (Iv.  and  Ixzzi.)  in  which 
the  poet  confidently  predicts  the  immortality  of  these  bis  utter- 
ances.  It  is  true  that  Shakespeare  is  bere  greatly  influenced  by 
antiquity  and  by  the  fashion  of  bis  age ;  and  it  is  simply  as  records 
of  bis  friend's  beauty  and  amiability  that  bis  verses  are  to  be  pre- 
served  througb  all  ages  to  come.  But  no  poet  without  a  sound 
and  vigorous  self-confidence  could  have  written  eitber  these  lines 
in  Sonnet  Iv. : — 

"  Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of  princes  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme"— 

or  these  others  in  Sonnet  Ixxxi. : — 

**  Your  monument  shall  be  my  gentle  verse, 
Which  eyes  not  yet  created  shall  o'erread ; 
And  tongues  to  be  your  being  shall  rehearse, 
When  all  the  breathers  of  this  world  are  dead."* 

Yet,  as  we  see,  the  first  and  last  thought  is  always  that  of  the 
fnend,  bis  beauty,  worth,  and  fame.  And  as  he  will  live  in  the 
future,  so  he  has  lived  in  the  past.  Shakespeare  cannot  conceive 
existence  without  him.  In  Sonnets  which  have  no  direct  con- 
nection  with  each  other  (lix.,  cvi.,  czxiü)  he  retums  again  and 
mgain  to  that  stränge  thought  of  a  perpetual  cyde  or  recurrenoe 
of  events,  which  runs  througb  the  whole  of  the  world's  history, 
from  the  Py thagoreans  and  Kohdlet  to  FritdncVi  '^VtXxaiäut«  Vok 


298  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

View  of  such  high-pitched  idolatry,  we  can  well  underetand  tliat 
the  friend's  faithlessness,  or,  if  you  will,  the  mistress's  conquest 
of  the  friend,  must  have  made  a  deep  Impression  upon  Shake- 
speare's  sensitive  soul.  The  crisis  left  its  mark  upon  him  for 
many  a  long  day. 

And  at  üie  same  time  another  and  purdy  personal  mortificatlon 
was  added  to  his  troubles.  It  appears  that  Shakespeare's  name 
was  just  then  involved  in  a  degrading  scandal  of  one  aort  or 
another.     He  says  so  expressly  in  Sonnet  cxii. : — 

''  Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill 
Which  vulgär  scandal  stamped  upon  my  brow.* 

He  here  avers  that  he  cares  very  little  ''  to  know  his  shames  or 
praises  "  from  the  tongues  of  others,  and  that  his  fnend's  judg^ 
ment  is  all  in  all  to  him ;  but  in  Sonnet  cxxi.,  where  he  goes  more 
closely  into  the  matter,  he  confesses  that  some  '*  frailty  *'  in  him 
has  given  rise  to  these  malignant  rumours,  and  we  see  that  for 
this  frailty  his  ''  sportive  blood  "  was  to  blame.  He  does  not  deny 
the  accusation,  but 


'*  Why  should  others'  false  adulterate  eyes 
Give  salutation  to  my  sportive  blood? 
Or  on  my  frailties  why  are  frailer  spies, 
Which  in  their  wiUs  count  bad  what  I  think  good  ?* 

The  details  of  this  scandal  are  unknown  to  us.  We  can  only 
condude  that  it  referred  to  Shakespeare's  alleged  relation  to  some 
woman,  or  implication  in  some  amorous  adventure.  In  discussing 
this  point,  Tyler  has  aptly  cited  two  passages  in  contemporary 
writings,  though  of  course  without  absolutely  proving  that  they 
have  any  bearing  on  the  matter.  The  first  is  the  above-quoted 
anecdote  in  John  Manningham's  Diary  for  March  13,  1601  (New 
Style,  1602),  as  to  Shakespeare's  forestalling  Burbage  in  the 
graces  of  a  citizen's  wife,  and  announdng  himself  as  **  William 
the  Conqueror" — ^an  anecdote  which  seems  to  have  been  widely 
current  at  the  time,  and  no  doubt  arose  from  more  or  less  recent 
events.  The  second  passage  occurs  in  TAe  Retume  from  Per- 
nassus,  dating  from  December  1601,  in  which  (iv.  3)  Burbage 
and  Kemp  are  introduced,  and  these  words  are  placed  in  the 
mouth  of  Kemp:  ''O  that  Ben  lonson  is  a  pestilent  fellow,  be 
brought  vp  Horau  giuing  the  Poets  a  pill,  but  our  fellow  Skake* 
speare  hath  giuen  him  a  purge  that  made  him  beray  his  credit"^ 
The  allusion  is  evidently  to  the  feud  between  Ben  Jonson  on  the 
one  band  and  Marston  and  Dekker  on  the  other,  which  culminated 
in  160 1  with  the  appearance  of  Ben  Jonson's  Poetaster ^  in  whidi 
Horace  serves  as  the  Poet's  mouthpiece.  Dekker  and  Mantort 
retorted  in  the  same  year  with  Saiiromastix  or  the  Untrusenig 
of  the  Huf9umms  Poet,  As  Shakespeare  took  no  direct  paft  HU 
this  quarrel,  we  can  only  conjccture  ^rtiat  is  meant  by  the  Ab6fi^ 


FORM  GF  THE  SONNETS  299 

allusiön.  Mr.  Richard  Simpson  has  suggested  that  King  William 
Rufiis,  in  whose  reign  the  action  of  Satiratnastix  takes  place,  and 
who  ''  presides  over  the  untrussing  of  the  humorous  poet,"  may 
be  intended  for  William  Shakespeare.  Rufus,  in  the  play,  is  by 
no  means  a  model  of  chastity,  and  carries  off  Walter  Terrill's 
bride  veiy  much  as  "  William  the  Conqueror  ^  in  Manningham's 
anecdote  carries  off  ''Richard  the  Third's^'  mistress.  Simpson 
thinks  it  probable  that  the  spectators  would  have  little  difficulty 
in  recognising  the  William  the  Conqueror  of  the  anecdote  in 
the  William  Rufus  of  the  play,  whose  nickname,  indeed,  might  be 
taken  as  referring  to  Shakespeare's  complezion.  If  we  accept 
this  Interpretation,  we  find  in  SatiramasHx  a  further  proof  of  the 
notoriety  of  the  anecdote.  Whether  it  be  this  scandal  or  another 
of  the  same  kind  to  which  the  Sonnets  refer,  Shakespeare  seems 
to  have  taken  greatly  to  heart  the  besmirching  of  his  name. 

It  remains  that  we  should  glance  at  the  form  of  the  Sonnets 
and  say  a  word  as  to  their  poetic  value. 

As  regards  the  form,  the  first  and  most  obvious  remark  is 
that,  in  spite  of  their  name,  these  poems  are  not  in  reality  sonnets 
at  all,  and  have,  indeed,  nothing  in  common  with  the  sonnet  ezcept 
their  fourteen  lines.  In  the  structure  of  his  so-called  Sonnets 
Shakespeare  simply  foUowed  the  tradition  and  Convention  of  his 
country. 

Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  the  leading  figure  in  the  earlier  English 
school  of  lyrists,  travelled  in  Italy  in  the  year  1527,  familiarised 
himself  with  the  forms  and  style  of  Italian  poetry,  and  introduced 
the  sonnet  into  English  literature.     A  somewhat  younger  poet» 
Henry,  Earl  of  Surrey,  soon  foUowed  in  his  footsteps ;  he,  too, 
traveUed  in  Italy,  and  cultivated  the  same  poetic  modeis.    Not 
until  after  the  death  of  both  poets  were  their  sonnets  published 
in  the  collection  known  as  Tottets  Miscellany  {i^^j).    Neither 
of  the  poets  succeeded  in  keeping  to  the  Petrarchan  model — an 
octave  and  a  sestett.    Wyatt,  it  is  tnie,  usually  preserves  the 
octave,  but  breaks  up  the  sestett  and  finishes  with  a  couplet 
Surrey  departs  still  more  widely  from  his  model's  strict  and 
difficult  form:  his  ''Sonnet"  consists,  like  Shakespeare's  after 
him,  of  three  quatrains  and  a  couplet,  the  rhymes  of  which  are 
in  nowise  interwoven.     Sidney,  again,  preserved  the  octave,  but 
broke  up  the  sestett     Spenser  attempted  a  new  rhyme-scheme, 
interweaving  the  second  and  third  quatrain,  but  keeping  to  the 
final  couplet    Daniel,  who  is  Shakespeare's  immediate  predecessor 
and  master,  returns  to  Surre^s  really  formless  form.     The  chief 
defect  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  as  a  metrical  whole  consists  in 
the  appended  couplet,  which  hardly  ever  keeps  up  to  the  level  of 
the  bqg^inning,  hardly  ever  presents  any  picture  to  the  eye,  but 
is,  as  a  rule^  merely  reflective,  and  often  brings  the  burst  of 
feeling  which  animates  the  poem  to  a  feeble,  or  at  any  rate  more 
rhetorical  than  poeticj  issue» 


30O  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  actual  poetic  value  the  Sonnets  are  extremdy  unequaL  The 
first  group  as  we  have  already  pointed  out  (p.  270)  Stands  lowest 
in  the  scale,  necessarily  ezpressing  but  little  of  the  poet's  personal 
feeling. 

The  last  two  Sonnets  m  the  collection  (cliiL  and  oliv.),  deaUng  ^ 
with  a  conventional  theme  borrowed  from  the  antique,  are  like- ' 
wise  entirely  impersonal.  W.  Hertzberg,  having  be^  put  on  the 
track  by  Herr  von  Friesen,  in  1878  discovered  the  Greek  original 
of  these  two  Sonnets  in  the  ninth  book  of  the  Palatine  Anthology.^ 
The  poem  which  Shakespeare  has  adapted,  and  in  Sonnet  oliv, 
almost  translated,  was  written  by  the  Byzantine  scholar  Marianus, 
probably  in  the  fifth  Century  after  Christ;  it  was  published  in 
Latin,  among  other  epigrams,  at  Basle  in  1529,  was  retranslated 
several  times  before  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  Century,  and  must 
have  become  known  to  Shakespeare  in  one  or  other  of  these 
different  forms. 

Nezt  in  order  stand  the  Sonnets  of  merely  conventional  In- 
spiration, those  in  which  the  eye  and  heart  go  to  law  with  each 
other,  or  in  which  the  poet  plays  upon  his  own  name  and  his 
friend'4k     These  cannot  possibly  claim  any  high  poetic  value. 

But  the  poems  thus  set  apart  form  but  a  small  minority  of  the 
collection.  In  all  the  others  the  waves  of  feeling  run  high,  and 
it  may  be  said  in  general  that  the  deeper  the  sentiment  and  the 
stronger  the  emotion  they  express,  the  more  admirable  is  their 
force  of  diction  and  their  marvellous  melody.  There  are  Sonnets 
whose  musical  quality  is  unsurpassed  by  any  of  the  songs 
introduced  into  the  plays,  or  even  by  the  most  famous  and 
beautiful  speeches  in  the  plays  themselves.  The  free  and  lax 
form  he  had  adopted  was  of  evident  advantage  to  Shakespeare. 
The  triple  and  quadruple  rhymes,  which  in  Italian  involve 
scarcely  any  difficulty  or  constraint,  would  have  proved  very 
hampering  in  English.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Shakespeare  has 
been  able  to  follow  out  every  Inspiration  unimpeded  by  the 
shackles  of  an  elaborate  rhyme-scheme,  and  has  achieved  a  rare 
combination  of  terseness  and  harmony  in  the  expression  of 
sorrow,  melancholy,  anguish,  and  resignation.  Nothing  could  be 
more  melodious  than  the  opening  of  Sonnet  xl.,  quoted  above,  or 
these  lines  from  Sonnet  Ixxxvi. : — 

'*  Was  it  the  proud  füll  sail  of  his  great  verse, 
Bound  for  the  prize  of  all-too-precious  you, 
That  did  my  ripe  thoughts  in  my  brain  inhearse, 
Making  their  tomb  the  womb  wherein  they  grew?"* 

And  how  moving  is  the  eamestness  of  Sonnet  cxvi.,  on  faith  in 
love : — 

"  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments.    Love  is  not  love 

^  /mkrhuh  tUr  dtutukm  Skakespmn-Gmiltekafl^  Band  xUL  S.  15& 


POETICAL  VALUE  OF  THE  SONNETS  joi 

Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds, 

Or  bends  with  the  remover  to  remove : 

O^  no  1  it  is  an  ever-fixM  mark, 

That  looks  on  tempests,  and  is  never  shaken ; 

It  is  the  Star  to  every  wandering  bark, 

Whose  worth's  unknown,  although  bis  height  be  taken." 

Shakespeare's  Sonnets  are  for  the  general  reader  the  mos! 
inaccessible  of  his  works,  but  they  are  also  the  most  difficult  to 
tear  oneself  away  from.  "  With  this  key  Shakespeare  unlocked 
his  heart,"  says  Wordsworth ;  and  some  people  are  repelied  from 
them  by  the  Menschliches^  or,  as  they  think,  AUsumenschlidus^ 
which  is  there  revealed.  In  any  case  they  think  Shakespeare 
belittled  by  his  candour.  Browning,  for  ezample,  thus  retorts 
upon  Wordsworth  :— 

"  *  With  this  same  key 
Shakespeare  unlocked  his  heart.'    Once  more 
Did  Shakespeare  ?    If  so,  the  less  Shakespeare  be." 

The  reader  who  can  reconcile  himself  to  the  fact  that  great 
geniuses  are  not  necessarily  modeis  of  correctness  will  pass  a 
very  difTerent  judgment  He  will  follow  with  eager  interest  the 
experiences  which  rent  and  harrowed  Shakespeare's  souL  He 
will  rejoice  in  the  insight  afibrded  by  these  poems,  which  the 
crowd  ignores,  into  the  tempestuous  emotional  life  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  men.  Here,  and  here  alone,  we  see  Shakespeare 
himself,  as  distinct  from  his  poetical  creations,  loving,  admtring, 
longing,  yeaming,  adoring,  disappointed,  humiliated,  tortured. 
Here  alone  does  he  enter  the  confessional.  Here  more  than 
anywhere  eise  can  we,  who  at  a  distance  of  three  centuries  de 
homage  to  the  poet's  art,  feel  ourselves  in  intimate  communioOi 
not  only  with  the  poet,  but  with  the  man. 


VIII 

yULIüS  CMSÄR—ITS  FUNDAMENTAL  DBFBCT 

It  is  aftemoon,  a  little  before  three  o'dock.  Whole  fleets  o( 
wherries  are  crossing  the  Thames,  picking  their  way  among  the 
swans  and  the  other  boats,  to  land  their  passengers  on  the  south 
bank  of  the  river.  Skiff  after  skiff  puts  forth  from  the  BladL- 
friars  stair,  füll  of  theatre-goers  who  have  delayed  a  little  too  long 
over  their  dinner  and  are  afraid  of  being  too  late ;  for  the  flag 
waving  over  the  Globe  Theatre  announces  that  there  is  a  play 
to-day.  The  bills  upon  the  street-posts  have  informed  the  public 
that  Shakespeare's/i^/fW  Cäsar  is  to  be  presented,  and  the  play 
draws  a  füll  house.  People  pay  their  sizpences  and  enter;  the 
balconies  and  the  pit  are  filled.  Distinguished  and  spedally 
favoured  spectators  take  their  seats  on  the  stage  behind  the 
curtain.  Then  sound  the  first,  the  second,  and  the  third  trum- 
pet-blasts,  the  curtain  parts  in  the  middle,  and  reveals  a  stage 
entirely  hung  with  black. 

Enter  the  tribunes  Flavius  and  MaruUus;  they  scold  the 
rabble  and  drive  them  home  because  they  are  loafing  about  on 
a  week-day  without  their  working-clothes  and  tools— in  contra- 
vention  of  a  London  poIice  regulation  which  the  public  finds  so 
natural  that  they  (and  the  poet)  can  conceive  it  as  in  fbroe  in 
ancient  Rome.  At  first  the  audience  is  somewhat  restless.  Tbe 
groundlings  talk  in  undertones  as  they  light  their  pipes.  But 
the  Second  Citizen  speaks  the  name  of  Caesar.  There  are  cries 
of  '*  Hush  I  hush  ! "  and  the  progress  of  the  play  is  foUowed  with 
eager  attention. 

It  was  received  with  applause,  and  soon  became  very  populär. 
Of  this  we  have  contemporary  evidence.  Leonard  Digges,  in  the 
poem  quoted  above  (p.  233),  vaunts  its  scenic  attractiveness  at  the 
ezpense  of  Ben  Jonson's  Roman  plays : — 

**  So  have  I  seene,  when  Cesar  would  appeare, 
And  on  the  Stage  at  halfe-sword  parley  were 
Brutus  ^d  Cassius :  oh  how  the  Audience 
Were  ravish'd,  with  what  new  wonder  they  went  thenoe^ 
When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brooke  a  line 
Of  tedious  (though  well  laboured)  Catiäne/^ 

The  leamed  rejoiced  in  the  breath  of  air  from  ancient  Rome 
which  met  them  in  these  scenes,  and  tbe  populace  was  entertained 


"JULIUS  CiESAR"  303 

nd  fasdnated  by  the  striking  events  and  heroic  characters  of  the 
rama.  A  quatrain  in  John  Wecver's  Mirror  of  Martyrs^  or  The 
dfe  €md  De€Uh  of  Sir  lohn  OldcastU  Knight^  Lord  Cobham, 
dls  how 

''  The  many-headed  multitude  were  drawne 
By  Brutus  speech,  that  Cäsar  was  ambitious, 
When  eloquent  Mark  Antonie  had  showne 
His  vertues,  who  but  Brutus  then  was  vidous  ?  " 

There  were,  indeed,  numerous  plays  on  the  subject  of  Julius 
Caesar — they  are  mentioned  in  Gosson's  Schoole  of  Abuse^  I579f 
1  The  Third  Blast  of  Retraite  front  Plaies,  1580,  in  Henslow's 
)iary,  1594  and  1602,  in  The  Mirrour  of  Policie^  IS98,  &c. — 
lUt  Weever's  words  do  not  apply  to  any  of  those  which  have 
ome  down  to  us.  It  can  therefore  scarcely  be  doubted  that 
hey  refer  to  Shakespeare's  drama;  and  as  the  poem  appeared 
a  1601,  it  a£fords  us  almost  dedsive  evidence  as  to  the  date 
\i  Julius  Cäsar.  In  all  probability,  it  was  in  the  same  year 
hat  the  play  was  written  and  produced  Weever,  indeed,  says 
Q  his  dedication  that  his  poem  was  ''  some  two  yeares  agoe  made 
it  for  print ; '  but  even  if  this  be  true,  the  lines  above  quoted 
oay  quite  well  have  been  inserted  later.  There  are  several 
easons  for  believing  that  Julius  Cäsar  can  scarcely  have  been 
>roduced  earlier  than  1601.  The  years  1599  and  1600  are 
iready  so  füll  of  work  that  we  can  scarcely  assign  to  them  this 
^at  tragedy  as  well;  and  internal  evidence  indicates  that  the 
>lay  must  have  been  written  about  the  same  time  as  Hamlet^ 
o  which  its  style  offers  so  many  striking  resemblances. 

The  immediate  success  of  the  play  is  proved  by  this  fact, 
imong  others,  that  it  at  once  called  forth  a  rival  production 
^n  the  same  theme.  Henslow  notes  in  his  diary  that  in  May 
:602,  on  behalf  of  Lord  Nottingham's  Company,  he  paid  five 
K>unds  for  a  drama  called  Cttsa^s  Fall  to  the  poets  Munday, 
)rayton,  Webster,  Middleton,  and  another.  It  was  evidently 
vritten  to  order.  And  as  Julius  Ccesar^  in  its  novelty,  was 
inusually  successfid,  so,  too,  we  find  it  still  reckoned  one  of 
Shakespeare's  greatest  and  profoundest  plays,  unlike  the  English 
'  Histories  "  in  Standing  alone  and  sdf-suffident,  characteristically 
x>mposed,  forming  a  rounded  whole  in  spite  of  its  apparent 
icission  at  the  death  of  Caesar,  and  exhibiting  a  remarkable 
nsight  into  Roman  character  and  the  life  of  antiquity. 

What  attracted  Shakespeare  to  this  theme  ?  And,  first  and 
bremost,  what  is  the  theme  ?  The  play  is  called  Julius  Cuesar^ 
>ut  it  was  obviously  not  Caesar  himself  that  attracted  Shakespeare, 
fhe  true  hero  of  the  piece  is  Brutus ;  he  it  is  who  has  aroused 
he  poet's  füllest  interest  We  must  explain  to  ourselves  the 
irhy  and  wherefore. 

The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  poinXoC  \m^%X^#Kk^^^ 


304  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

play  was  written.  It  was  that  eventful  year  when  Shakespeare's 
earliest  friends  among  the  great,  Essex  and  Southamptoiii  had 
set  on  foot  their  foolhardy  conspiracy  against  Elizabeth,  and 
when  their  attempted  insurrection  had  ended  in  the  death  of  the 
one,  the  imprisonment  of  the  other.  He  had  seen  how  proud  and 
nobly-disposed  characters  might  easily  be  seduced  into  political 
error,  and  tempted  to  rebelhon,  on  the  plea  of  independence.  It 
is  true  that  there  was  little  enough  resemblance  of  detail  between 
the  mere  palace-revolution  designed  by  Essex,  which  should  free 
him  from  bis  subjection  to  the  Queen's  incalculable  caprices, 
and  the  attempt  of  the  Roman  patricians  to  liberate  an  aristo- 
cratic  republic,  by  assassination,  from  the  yoke  of  a  ncwly- 
founded  despotism.  The  point  of  resemblance  lay  in  the  mere 
fact  of  the  imprudent  and  ill-starred  attempt  to  effeet  a  Subversion 
of  public  Order. 

Add  to  this  the  fact  that  Shakespeare,  in  the  present  stage 
of  his  career,  displays  a  certain  preference  for  characters  who, 
in  spite  of  noble  qualities,  have  fortune  against  them  and  are 
unable  to  bring  their  projects  to  a  successful  issue.  While  be 
himself  was  still  fighting  for  his  position,  Henry  V.,  the  man  of 
practical  genius,  the  born  victor  and  conqueror,  had  been  his 
ideal ;  now  that  he  stood  on  firm  ground,  and  was  soon  to  reach 
the  height  of  his  reputation,  he  seems  to  have  tumed  with  a  sort 
of  melancholy  predilection  to  characters  like  Brutus  and  Hamlet, 
who,  in  spite  of  the  highest  endowments,  proved  unequal  to  the 
tasks  proposed  to  them.^  They  appealed  to  him  as  profound 
dreamers  and  high-minded  idealists.  He  found  something  ci 
their  nature,  too,  in  his  own. 

A  good  score  of  years  earlier,  in  1579,  North's  version  of 
Plutarch's  parallel  biographies  had  been  published,  not  translated 
from  the  original,  but  from  the  French  translation  of  Amyot  In 
this  book  Shakespeare  found  bis  material. 

His  method  of  using  this  material  differs  considerably  from 
his  treatment  of  his  other  authoriti^s.  From  a  chronicler  like 
Holinshed  he,  as  a  rule,  takes  nothing  but  the  course  of  eventa, 
the  outline  of  the  leading  personages  and  such  anecdotes  as  suit 
his  purpose.  From  novelists  like  Bandello  or  Cinthio  he  takes 
the  main  lines  of  the  action,  but  relies  almost  entirely  on  his  own 
invention  for  the  characters  and  the  dialogue.  From  the  earlier 
plays,  which  he  adapts  or  re*casts,  such  as  TAe  Taming^  of  a 
Shrew^  King  John^  The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  V.,  and  King 
Leir  (the  original  Hamlet  is  unfortunately  not  preserved),  he 
transfers  ihto  his  own  work  every  scene  and  speech  that  is  worth 
anything ;  but  in  the  cases  in  which  we  can  make  the  coraparisoD, 
there  is  little  enough  that  he  finds  available.  Here,  on  the  other 
band,  we  find  a  curious  and  instructive  example  of  his  method  oi 

^  Gwipare  Dowden,  Sikaksp^rty  p.  2Sa 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  PLUTARCH  305 

rork  when  he  most  faithfuUy  followed  his  original.  We  realise 
lat  the  more  developed  the  art  and  the  more  competent  the 
sychology  of  the  writer  before  him,  the  more  closely  did  Shake- 
peare  tread  in  his  footsteps. 

Here  for  the  first  time  he  found  himself  in  touch  with  a  wholly 
ivilised  spirit — not  seldom  childlike  in  his  antique  simplicity,  but 
tili  no  mean  artist  Jean  Paul,  with  some  exaggeration,  yet  not 
uite  eztravagantly,  has  called  Plutarch  the  biographical  Shake- 
peare  of  world-history. 

The  whole  drama  of  Julius  Cäsar  may  be  read  in  Plutarch. 
Ihakespeare  had  before  him  three  Lives — those  of  Caesar,  Brutus, 
nd  Mark  Antony.  Read  thein  consecutively,  and  you  find  in 
lem  every  detail  oi  Julius  Cossar. 

Let  US  take  some  examples  from  the  first  act  of  the  play.  It 
egins  with  the  tnbunes'  jealousy  of  the  favour  in  which  Caesar 
tands  with  the  common  people;  and  everything  down  to  the 
linutest  trait  is  taken  from  Plutarch.  The  same  with  what  fol- 
>ws :  Mark  Anton^s  repeated  oifer  of  the  crown  to  Caesar  at  the 
^st  of  the  Lupercal,  and  his  unwilling  refusal  of  it.  So  too  with 
laesar's  suspicions  of  Cassius;  Caesar's  speech  on  his  second 
ntrance — 

''  Let  me  have  men  about  me  that  are  fat, 
Sleek-headed  men^  and  such  as  sleep  o'  nights : 
Yond  Cassius  has  a  lean  and  hungry  look ; 
He  thinks  too  much  ;  such  men  are  dangerous,"— 

ccurs  Word  for  word  in  Plutarch;  the  anecdote,  indeed,  made 
uch  an  impression  on  him  that  he  has  repeated  it  three  times  in 
ifferent  Lives.  We  find,  furthermore,  in  the  Greek  historian, 
ow  Cassius  gradually  invoives  Brutus  in  the  conspiracy;  how 
apers  exhorting  Brutus  to  action  are  thrown  into  his  house ;  the 
eliberations  as  to  whether  Antony  is  to  die  along  with  Caesar, 
nd  Brutus's  mistakeivjudgment  of  Antony's  character ;  Portia's 
omplaint  at  being  excludecr  from  her  husband's  confidence ;  the 
roof  of  courage  which  she  gives  by  plunging  a,  kqife  into  her 
tiigh  ;  all  the  omens  and  prodigies  that  precede  the  murder ;  the 
acrificial  ox  without  a  heart ;  the  fiery  warriors  fighting  in  the 
louds  ;  Calphurnia's  warning  dream ;  Caesar's  determination  not 
3  go  to  the  Senate  on  the  Ides  of  March;  Decius  [Decimus] 
(rutus's  endeavour  to  change  his  purpose ;  the  fruitless  efibrts  of 
Lrtemidorus  to  restrain  him  from  facing  the  danger,  &c.,  &c.  It 
i  all  in  Plutarch,  point  for  point 

Here  and  there  we  find  small  and  subtle  divergences  from  the 
riginal,  which  may  be  traced  now  to  Shakespeare's  temperament, 
ow  to  his  view  of  life,  and  again  to  his  design  in  the  play. 
lutarch,  for  example,  has  not  Shakespeare's  contempt  for  the 
opulace,  and  does  not  make  them  so  senselessly  fickle.  Then, 
gain,  he  gives  no  hint  for  Brutus's  aoliloc^^  \ydot^  \s2uixx%  ^^ 


3o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

final  resolutioh  (IL  i).  For  the  rest,  wherever  it  is  possibk, 
Shakespeare  employs  the  very  words  of  North's  translation.  Nay, 
more,  he  accepts  the  characters,  such  as  Brutus,  Portia,  CassiuSi 
just  as  they  stand  in  Plutarch.  His  Brutus  is  absolutely  the  same 
as  Plutarch's ;  his  Cassius  is  a  man  of  somewhat  deeper  character. 

In  dealing  with  the  great  figure  of  Caesar,  which  gives  the 
play  its  name,  Shakespeare  follows  faithfully  the  detached,  aneo» 
dotic  indications  of  Plutarch;  but  he,  strangely  enough,  seema 
altogether  to  miss  the  remarkable  Impression  we  receive  from 
Plutarch  of  Caesar's  character,  which,  for  the  rest,  the  Greek  his- 
torian  himself  was  not  in  a  position  fully  to  understand.  We 
must  not  forget  the  fact,  of  which  Shakespeare  of  course  knew 
nothing,  that  Plutarch,  who  was  bom  a  Century  after  Caesarea 
death,  at  a  time  when  the  independence  of  Greece  was  only  a 
memory,  and  the  once  glorious  Hellas  was  part  of  a  Roman 
province,  wrote  his  comparative  biographies  to  remind  haughty 
Rome  that  Greece  had  a  great  man  to  oppose  to  each  of  her 
greatest  sons.  Plutarch  was  saturated  with  the  thought  that 
conquered  Greece  was  Rome's  lord  and  master  in  eveiy  depart- 
ment  of  the  intellectual  life.  He  delivered  Greek  lectures  in  Rome 
and  could  not  speak  Latin,  while  every  Roman  spoke  Greek  to 
him  and  understood  it  as  well  as  his  native  tongue.  Significantly 
enough,  Roman  literature  and  poetry  do  not  ezist  for  Plutarch, 
though  he  incessantly  cites  Greek  authors  and  poets.  He  neva* 
mentions  Virgil  or  Ovid.  He  wrote  about  his  great  Romans  as 
an  enlightened  and  unprejudiced  Pole  might  in  our  days  write 
about  great  Russians.  He,  in  whose  eyes  the  old  republics 
shone  transfigured,  was  not  specially  fitted  to  appreciate  Caesar's 
greatness. 

Shakespeare,  having  so  arranged  his  drama  that  Brutus  shoiikl 
be  its  tragic  hero,  had  to  concentrate  his  art  on  placing  him  in  the 
foreground,  and  making  him  fill  the  scene.  The  difficulty  was 
not  to  let  his  lack  of  political  insight  (in  the  case  of  Antony),  or 
of  practical  sense  (in  his  quarrel  with  Cassius),  detract  from  the 
Impression  of  his  superiority.  He  had  to  be  the  centre  and  pivoC 
of  everything,  and  therefore  Caesar  was  diminished  and  belittled 
to  such  a  degree,  unfortunately,  that  this  matchless  genius  in  war 
and  statesmanship  has  become  a  miserable  caricature. 

We  find  in  other  places  clear  indications  that  Shakespeare 
knew  very  well  what  this  man  was  and  was  worth.  Edward's 
young  son,  in  Richard  IIL^  speaks  with  enthusiasm  of  Caesar  as 
that  conqueror  whom  death  has  not  conquered ;  Horatio,  in  the 
almost  contemporary  Hamlet^  speaks  of  "mightiest  Julius**  and 
his  death;  and  Cleopatra,  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra^  is  proud  of 
having  been  the  mistress  of  Caesar.  It  is  true  that  in  As  You 
Like  It  the  pla3rful  Rosalind  uses  the  expression,  ''Caesar'ft 
thrasonical  brag,"  with  reference  to  the  famous  Veni^  tndij 
hui  in  an  entirely  jooose  context  and  acceptation. 


CHARACTER  OF  CiESAR  307 

But  herel  here  Caesar  has  become  in  effect  no  little  of  a 
>raggart,  and  is  compounded,  on  the  whole,  of  anything  but 
ittractive  characteristics.  He  produces  the  impression  of  an 
nvalid.  His  liability  to  the  ''falling  sickness"  is  emphasised. 
[ie  is  deaf  of  one  ear.  He  has  no  longer  his  old  strength.  He 
aints  when  the  crown  is  offered  to  him.  He  envies  Cassius 
)ecause  he  is  a  stronger  swimmer.  He  is  as  superstitious  as 
in  old  woman.  He  rejoices  in  flattery,  talks  ponipously  and 
irrogantly,  boasts  of  his  firmness  and  is  for  ever  wavering.  He 
icts«  incautiously  and  unintelligently,  and  does  not  realise  what 
lireatens  him,  while  every  one  eise  sees  it  dearly. 

Shakespeare  dared  not,  says  Gervinus,  arouse  too  great  interest 
n  Caesar ;  he  had  to  throw  into  relief  everything  about  him  that 
x>uld  account  for  the  conspiracy ;  and,  moreover,  he  had  Plutarch's 
listinet  Statement  that  Caesar's  character  had  greatly  deteriorated 
diortly  before  his  death«  Hudson  practically  agrees  with  this, 
lolding  that  Shakespeare  wished  to  present  Qesar  as  he  appeared 
n  the  eyes  of  the  conspirators,  so  that  "  they  too  might  have  £ur 
md  equal  judgment  at  our  hands;"  admitting,  for  the  rest,  that 
'Caesar  was  literally  too  great  to  be  seen  by  them/'  and  that 
'  Caesar  is  far  from  being  himself  in  these  scenes ;  hardly  one  of 
he  Speeches  put  in  his  mouth  can  be  regarded  as  historically 
:haracteristic."  Thus  Hudson  arrives  at  the  astonishing  result 
hat  "  there  is  an  undertone  of  irony  at  work  in  the  ordering  and 
empering  of  this  composition/'  explaining  that,  ''when  such  a 
ihallow  idealist  as  Brutus  is  made  to  overtop  and  outshine  the 
pi^atest  practical  genius  the  world  ever  saw,"  we  are  bound  to 
issume  that  the  intention  is  ironical. 

This  is  the  emptiest  cobweb-spinning.  There  is  no  traoe  of 
rony  in  the  representation  of  Brutus.  Nor  can  we  fall  back  upon 
he  argument  that  Caesar,  after  his  death,  becomes  the  chief 
lersonage  of  the  drama,  and  as  a  corpse,  as  a  memory,  as  a 
(pirit,  strikes  down  his  murderers.  How  can  so  small  a  man  cast 
IC  great  a  shadow !  Shakespeare,  of  course,  intended  to  sliow 
Zstsar  as  triumphing  after  his  death.  He  has  changed  Brutus's 
!vil  genius,  which  appears  to  him  in  the  camp  and  at  Philippi,  into 
ZsesBx's  ghost ;  but  this  ghost  is  not  sufficient  to  rehabilitate  Caesar 
n  our  estimation. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  Caesar's  greatness  would  have  impaired  the 
inity  of  the  piece.  Its  poetic  value,  on  the  contrary,  suiffers  from 
lia  pettiness.  The  play  might  have  been  immeasurably  ridier 
ind  deeper  than  it  is,  had  Shakespeare  been  inspired  by  a  feeling 
»f  Caesar's  greatness. 

Elsewhere  in  Shakespeare  one  marvels  at  what  he  has  made 
•ut  of  poor  and  meagre  materiaL  Here,  history  was  so  enor- 
lously  rieh,  that  his  poetxy  has  become  poor  and  meagre  in 
omparison  with  it 

Just  as  Shakespeare  (if  the  portioiii  o(  th^  %s%\.  ^Qiu\  ^ 


3o8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Henry  VI.  which  deal  with  La  Pucelle  are  by  him)  represented 
Jeanne  d'Arc  with  no  sense  for  the  lofty  and  simple  poetry  that 
breathed  around  her  figure — national  prejudice  and  old  supersti- 
tion  blinding  him — so  he  approached  the  characterisation  of  Caesar 
with  far  too  light  a  heart,  and  with  imperfect  knowledge  and  carc: 
As  he  had  made  Jeanne  d'Arc  a  witch,  so  he  makes  Caesar  a 
braggart.     Caesar ! 

Ify  like  the  schoolboys  of  later  generations,  he  had  been  given 
Caesar's  GaUic  War  to  read  in  bis  childhood,  this  would  not 
have  been  possible  to  him.  Is  it  conceivable  that,  in  what  ht  had 
heard  about  the  Commentaries,  he  had  naively  seized  upon  and 
misinterpreted  the  fact  that  Caesar  always  speaks  of  himself  in  the 
third  person,  and  calls  himself  by  bis  name  ? 

Let  US  compare  for  a  moment  this  posing  self-worshipper  of 
Shakespeare's  with  the  picture  of  Caesar  which  the  poet  might 
easily  have  formed  from  bis  Plutarch  alone,  thus  explaining 
Caesar's  rise  to  the  height  of  autocracy  on  which  he  Stands  at  the 
beginning  of  the  play,  and  at  the  same  time  the  gradual  piling  up 
of  the  hatred  to  which  he  succumbed.  On  the  very  second  page 
of  the  life  of  Caesar  he  must  have  read  the  anecdote  of  how  CÜar, 
when  quite  a  young  man,  on  bis  way  back  from  Bithynia,  was 
taken  prisoner  by  Cilician  pirates.  They  demanded  a  ransom  of 
twenty  talents  (about  ;^400o).  He  answered  that  they  dearly  did 
not  know  who  their  prisoner  was,  promised  them  fifty  talents,  sent 
bis  attendants  to  different  towns  to  raise  this  sum,  and  remained 
with  only  a  friend  and  two  servants  among  these  notoriously 
bloodthirsty  bandits.  He  displayed  the  greatest  contempt  for 
them,  and  freely  ordered  them  about;  he  made  them  keep  pe^ 
fectly  quiet  when  he  wanted  to  sleep ;  for  the  thirty-eight  days 
he  remained  among  them  he  treated  them  as  a  prince  might  bis 
bodyguard.  He  went  through  bis  gymnastic  exercises,  and  wrote 
poems  and  orations  in  the  füllest  security.  He  often  assured  them 
that  he  would  certainly  have  them  hanged,  or  rather  crudfied. 
When  the  ransom  arrived  from  Miletus,  the  first  use  he  made  of 
bis  liberty  was  to  fit  out  some  ships,  attack  the  pirates,  take  them 
all  prisoners,  and  seize  upon  their  booty.  Then  he  carried  them 
before  the  Praetor  of  Asia,  Junius,  whose  business  it  was  to 
punish  them.  Junius,  out  of  avarice,  replied  that  he  would  take 
time  to  reflect  what  should  be  done  with  the  prisoners ;  whereupon 
Caesar  returned  to  Pergamos,  where  he  had  left  them  in  priaon, 
and  kept  bis  word  by  having  them  all  crucified. 

What  has  become  of  this  masterfulness,  this  grace^  and  this 
iron  will,  in  Shakespeare's  Caesar  ? 

"  I  fear  him  not : 
Yet  if  my  name  were  liable  to  fear, 
I  do  not  know  the  man  I  should  avoid 
So  soon  as  that  spare  Cassius.  /< 


CHARACTER  OF  CiESAR  309 

I  rather  teil  thee  what  is  to  be  fear'd 
Than  what  I  fear,  for  always  I  am  Csesar." 

It  is  well  that  he  himself  makes  haste  to  say  so,  otherwise  one 
would  scarcely  believe  it.     And  does  one  believe  it,  after  all  ? 

As  Shakespeare  conceives  the  Situation,  the  Republic  which 
Caesar  overthrew  might  have  continued  to  exist  but  for  him,  and 
it  was  a  criminal  act  on  his  part  to  destroy  it. 

But  the  old  aristocfatic  Republic  had  already  fallen  to  pieces 
when  Caesar  welded  its  fragments  into  a  new  monarchy.  Sheer 
lawlessness  reigned  in  Rome.  The  populace  was  such  as  even 
the  rabble  of  our  own  great  cities  can  give  no  conception  of :  not 
the  brainless  mob,  for  the  most  part  tarne,  only  now  and  then 
going  wild  through  mere  stupidity,  which  in  Shakespeare  listens  to 
the  orations  over  Caesar's  body  and  tears  Cinna  to  pieces ;  but  a 
populace  whose  innumerable  hordes  consisted  mainly  of  slaves, 
together  with  the  thousands  of  foreigners  from  all  the  three  conti- 
nentS|  Phrygians  from  Asia,  Negroes  from  Africa,  Iberians  and 
Celts  from  Spain  and  France,  who  flocked  together  in  the  capital 
of  the  World.  To  the  immense  bands  of  house-slaves  and  field- 
slaves,  there  were  added  thousands  of  runaway  slaves  who  had 
committed  theft  or  murder  at  home,  lived  by  robbery  on  the  way, 
and  now  lay  hid  in  the  purlieus  of  the  city.  But  besides  foreigners 
with  no  means  of  support  and  slaves  without  bread,  there  were 
swarms  of  freedmen,  entirely  corrupted  by  their  servile  condition, 
for  whom  freedom,  whether  combined  with  helpless  poverty  01 
with  new-made  riches,  meant  only  the  freedom  to  do  härm.  Then 
there  were  troops  of  gladiators,  as  indifferent  to  the  livesofothers 
as  to  their  own,  and  entirely  at  the  beck  and  call  of  whoever 
would  pay  them.  It  was  from  ruffians  of  this  class  that  a  man 
like  Clodius  had  recruited  the  armed  gangs  who  surrounded  him, 
divided  like  regulär  soldiers  into  decuries  and  centuries  under 
duly  appointed  Commanders.  These  bands  fought  battles  in  the 
Forum  with  other  bands  of  gladiators  or  of  herdsmen  from  the 
wild  regions  of  Picenum  or  Lombardy,  whom  the  Senate  im- 
ported  for  its  own  protection.  There  was  practically  no  street 
police  or  fire-brigade.  When  public  disasters  happened,  such 
as  floods  or  conflagrations,  people  regarded  them  as  portents 
and  consulted  the  augurs.  The  magistrates  were  no  longer 
obeyed ;  consuls  and  tribunes  were  attacked,  and  sometimes  even 
killed.  In  the  Senate  the  orators  covered  each  other  with  abuse, 
in  the  Forum  they  spat  in  each  other's  faces.  Regulär  battles 
took  place  on  the  Campus  Martins  at  every  election,  and  no  man 
of  Position  ever  appeared  in  the  streets  without  a  bodyguard  of 
gladiators  and  slaves.  "If  we  try  to  conceive  to  ourselves," 
wrote  Mommsen  in  1857,  ''a  London  with  the  slave  population 
of  New  Orleans,  with  the  police  of  Constantinople,  with  the 
noMndustrial  cfaaracter  of  the  modern  Rome^  «xi<dL  «seXaXft.^  V) 


3IO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

politics  after  the  fashion  of  the  Paris  of  1848,  we  shall  acquire 
an  approximate  idea  of  the  repubiican  glory,  the  departure  of 
wbich  Cicero  and  his  associates  in  their  sulky  letters  deplore."  ^ 

Compare  with  this  picture  Shakespeare's  conception  of  an 
ambitious  Caesar  striving  to  introduce  monarchy  into  a  well- 
ordered  repubiican  State  I 

What  enchanted  every  one,  even  bis  enemieSi  who  came  in 
contact  with  Caesar,  was  his  good-breeding,  his  politeness,  the 
charm  of  his  personality.  These  characteristics  made  a  douUy 
strong  impression  upon  those  who,  like  Cicero,  were  accustomed 
to  the  arrogance  and  coarseness  of  Pompey,  the  so-called  Great 
However  busy  he  might  be,  Caesar  had  always  time  to  think  of  bis 
friends  and  to  jest  with  them.  His  letters  are  gay  and  amiable. 
In  Shakespeare,  when  he  is  not  familiär,  he  is  pompous. 

For  the  space  of  twenty-five  years,  Caesar,  as  a  politician, 
had  by  every  means  in  his  power  opposed  the  aristocratic  party 
in  Rome.  He  had  early  resolved  to  make  himself,  without  the 
cmployment  of  force,  the  master  of  the  then  known  world, 
assured  as  he  was  that  the  Republic  would  fall  to  pieces  of  its 
own  accord.  Not  until  bis  praetorship  in  Spain  had  be  dispiayed 
ability  as  a  soldier  and  administrator  outside  the  every-day  round 
of  political  life.  Then  suddenly,  when  everything  aeems  to  be 
prospering  with  him,  he  breaks  away  from  it  all,  leaves  Rome, 
and  passes  into  Gaul.  At  the  age  of  forty-four,  he  enters  upon 
his  military  career,  and  becomes  perhaps  the  greatest  Commander 
known  to  history,  an  unrivalled  conqueror  and  organiser,  re- 
vealing,  in  middle  life,  a  whole  host  of  unsuspected  and  admirable 
qualities.  Shakespeare  conveys  no  idea  of  the  wealth  and  many- 
aidedneas  of  his  gifts.  He  makes  him  belaud  himself  with  un- 
ceasing  solemnity  (II.  2) : — 

"  Caesar  shall  forth  :  the  things  that  threaten'd  me 
Ne'er  look'd  but  on  my  back ;  when  they  shall  see 
The  face  of  Caesar,  they  are  yanishbd." 

Caesar  had  nothing  of  the  stolid  pomposity  and  severity  whidi 
Shakespeare  attributes  to  him.  He  united  the  rapid  dedsion  of 
the  general  with  the  man  of  the  world's  elegance  and  lofty  in- 
difference  to  trifles.  He  liked  his  soldiers  to  wear  glittering 
weapons  and  to  adom  themselves.  ''What  does  it  matter,^  he 
Said,  ''though  they  use  perfumes?  They  fight  none  the  worse 
for  that"  And  soldiers  who  under  other  leaders  did  not  surpass 
the  average  became  invincible  under  him. 

He,  who  in  Rome  had  been  the  glass  of  fashion,  was  so 
careless  of  his  comfort  in  the  Seid  that  he  often  slq>t  under  die 
open  sky,  and  ate  randd  oil  without  so  much  as  a  grimace;  bot 
ricbly-decked  tables  always  stood  in  his  tents,  and  idl  the  golden 

*  Mommsen,  ffisUry  tf  Ronu^  tnntlated  by  W.  P.  DickaoD,  ed.  1894»  voL  T. 
/t  J7i.    Gflston  fiointerf  CiUrom  H  stt  Amit^  ^  924, 


CHARACTER  OF  CiESAR  311 

youth,  for  whom  Gaul  was  at  that  time  what  America  became  in 
the  days  of  the  first  discoverers,  made  their  way  from  Rome  to 
bis  camp.  It  was  the  most  wonderful  camp  ever  seen,  crowded 
with  men  of  elegance  and  leaming,  young  writers  and  poets,  wits 
and  thinkers,  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  and  most  imminent 
dangers,  busied  themselves  with  literature,  and  sent  regulär  re- 
ports  of  their  meetings  and  conversations  to  Cicero,  the  acknow- 
ledged  arbiter  of  the  literary  world  of  Rome.  During  the  brief 
Space  of  Csesar's  expedition  into  Britain,  he  writes  two  ietters 
to  Cicero.  Their  relation,  in  its  different  phases,  in  some  ways 
reminds  us  of  the  relation  between  Frederick  the  Great  and 
Voltaire.  What  a  paltry  picture  does  Shakespeare  draw  of 
Cicero  as  a  mere  pedant ! — 

"  Cassius.  Did  Cicero  say  anything  ? 

"  Casca.  Ay,  he  spoke  Greek. 

"  Cassius,  To  what  effect  ? 

"  Casca,  Nay,  an  I  teil  you  that,  1*11  ne'er  look  you  in  the  face  again  : 
but  those  that  understood  him  smiled  at  one  another,  and  shook  their 
heads ;  but,  for  mine  own  part,  it  was  Greek  to  me" 

Amid  labours  of  every  sort, '  bis  life  always  in  (Junger,  in- 
cessantly  fighting  with  warlike  enemies,  whom  he  beats  in  battle 
after  battle,  Caesar  writes  bis  grammatical  works  and  bis  Com- 
mentaries.  His  dedication  to  Cicero  of  bis  work  De  Analogia 
is  a  homage  to  literature  no  less  than  to  him :  "  You  have  dis- 
covered  all  the  treasures  of  eloquence  and  been  the  first  to  employ 
them.  .  .  .  You  have  achieved  the  crown  of  all  honours,  a  triumph 
the  greatest  generals  may  envy ;  for  it  is  a  nobler  tbing  to  remove 
the  barriers  of  the  intellectual  lifq  than  to  extend  the  boundaries 
of  the  Empire."  These  are  the  words  of  the  man  wbo  bas  just 
beaten  the  Helvetii,  conquered  France  and  Belgium,  made  the 
first  expedition  into  Britain,  and  so  effectually  repelled  the  German 
bordes  that  they  were  for  long  innocuous  to  the  Rome  wbich  they 
had  threatened  with  destruction. 

How  little  does  this  Caesar  resemble  the  pompous  and  bigh- 
fiown  puppet  of  Shakespeare : — 

'*  Danger  knows  füll  well 
That  Caesar  is  more  dangerous  than  he. 
We  are  two  lions  litter'd  in  one  day, 
And  I  the  eider  and  more  terrible." 

Caesar  could  be  cruel  at  times.  In  his  wars,  he  never  shrank 
from  taking  such  revenges  as  should  strike  terror  into  his  enemies. 
He  had  the  whole  senate  of  the  Veneti  bebeaded.  He  cut  the 
right  band  ofi*  every  one  wbo  had  bome  arms  against  bim  at 
Uxellodunum.  He  kept  the  gallant  Vercingetorix  five  yeani  in 
prison,  only  to  exhibit  him  in  chains  at  his  triumph  and  theo 
to  have  him  ezecuted. 


312  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Yet,  where  severity  was  unnecessary,  he  was  tolerance  and 
mildness  itself.  Cicero,  during  the  civil  war,  went  over  to  the 
camp  of  Pompey,  and  after  the  defeat  of  tliat  party  sought  and 
received  forgiveness.  When  he  afterwards  wrote  a  book  in 
honour  of  Caesar's  mortal  enemy  Cato,  who  killed  himself  so  as 
not  to  have  to  obey  the  dictator,  and  thereby  becaroe  the  hero 
of  all  the  republicans,  Caesar  wrote  to  Cicero :  "  In  reading  your 
book,  I  feel  as  though  I  myself  had  become  more  eloquent." 
And  yet  in  bis  eyes  Cato  was  only  an  uncultured  personage 
and  a  fanatic  for  an  obsolete  order  of  things.  When  a  slave, 
out  of  tendemess  for  his  master,  refused  to  band  Cato  his 
sword  wherewith  to  kill  himself,  Cato  gave  bim  such  a  furious 
blow  in  the  face  that  his  band  was  dyed  with  blood.  Such 
a  trait  must  have  spoiled  for  Caesar  the  impressiveness  of  this 
suicide. 

Caesar  was  not  content  with  forgiving  almost  all  who  had 
bome  arms  against  bim  at  Pharsalia ;  he  gave  many  of  them, 
and  among  the  rest  Brutus  and  Cassius,  an  ample  share  of 
his  power.  He  tried  to  protect  Brutus  before  the  battle  and 
heaped  honours  upon  him  after  it.  Again  and  again  Brutus 
came  forward  in  Opposition  to  Caesar,  and  even,  in  his  con- 
scientious  quixotism,  took  part  against  him  with  Pompey,  although 
Pompey  had  had  his  father  assassinated.  Caesar  forgave  him 
this  and  everything  eise;  he  was  never  tired  of  forgiving  him. 
He  had,  it  appears,  transferred  to  Brutus  the  love  of  his  youth 
for  Brutus's  mother  Servilia,  Cato's  sister,  who  had  been  passlon- 
ately  and  faithfully  devoted  to  Caesar.  Voltaire,  in  his  Mart  de 
C^sar,  makes  Caesar  band  to  Brutus  a  letter  just  received  from 
the  dying  Servilia,  in  which  she  begs  Caesar  to  watch  well  over 
their  son.  Plutarch  relates  that  on  one  occasion,  at  the  time 
of  Catiline's  conspiracy,  a  letter  was  brought  to  Caesar  in  the 
Senate.  Cato,  seeing  him  rise  and  go  apart  to  read  it,  gave 
open  utterance  to  the  suspicion  that  it  was  a  missive  from  the 
conspirators.  Caesar  laughingly  handed  him  the  letter,  which 
contained  declarations  of  love  from  his  sister;  whereupon  Cato, 
enraged,  burst  out  with  the  epithet  "  Drunkard  ! " — the  direst  term 
of  abuse  a  Roman  could  employ.  (Ben  Jonson  has  introduced 
this  anecdote  in  his  Catiline^  v.  6.) 

Brutus  inherited  his  uncle  Cato's  hatred  for  Caesar.  A  certain 
brutality  was  united  with  a  noble  stoicism  in  these  two  last 
Roman  republicans  of  the  time  of  the  Repubh'c's  downfall.  The 
rawness  of  antique  Rome  survived  in  Cato's  nature,  and  Brutus« 
in  his  conduct  towards  the  towns  of  the  Asiatic  provinces,  was 
nothing  but  a  bloodthirsty  usurer,  who,  in  the  name  of  a  man 
of  straw  (Scaptius)  extorted  from  them  his  exorbitant  interests 
with  threats  of  fire  and  sword  He  had  lent  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  town  of  Salamis  a  sum  of  money  at  48  per  cent  On 
their  failure  to  pay,  he  kept  their  Senate  so  closely  besieged  bj 


CHARACTER  OF  CiESAR  313 

a  squadron  of  cavalry  that  five  Senators  died  of  starvatioiL 
Shakespeare,  in  his  ignorance,  attributes  no  such  vices  to  BrutuSi 
but  makes  him  simple  and  great,  at  Caesar's  expense. 

Caesar  as  opposed  to  Cato — and  afterwards  as  opposed  to 
Brutus — is  the  many-sided  genius  who  loves  life  and  action  and 
power,  in  contradistinction  to  the  narrow  Puritan  who  hates  such 
emancipated  spirits,  partly  on  principle,  partly  from  instinct 

What  a  Strange  misunderstanding  that  Shakespeare — ^himself 
a  lover  of  beauty,  intent.on  a  life  of  activity,  enjoyment,  and 
satisfied  ambition,  who  always  stood  to  Puritanism  in  the  same 
hostile  relation  in  which  Caesar  stood — should  out  of  ignorance 
take  the  side  of  Puritanism  in  this  case,  and  so  disqualify  him- 
seif  from  extracting  from  the  rieh  mine  of  Caesar's  character 
all  the  gold  contained  in  it.  In  Shakespeare's  Caesar  we  find 
nothing  of  the  magnanimity  and  sincerity  of  the  real  man.  He 
never  assumed  a  hypocritical  reverence  towards  the  past,  not 
even  on  questions  of  grammar.  He  grasped  at  power  and 
seized  it,  but  did  not,  as  in  Shakespeare,  pretend  to  reject  it. 
Shakespeare  has  let  him  keep  the  pride  which  he  in  fact  displayed, 
but  has  made  it  unbeautiful,  and  eked  it  out  with  hypocrisy. 

This  further  trait,  too,  in  Caesar's  character  Shakespeare  has 
failed  to  understand.  When  at  last,  after  having  conquered  on 
every  side,  in  Africa  as  in  Asia,  in  Spain  as  in  Egypt,  he  held 
in  his  hands  the  sovereign  power  which  had  been  the  object  of 
his  twenty  years'  struggle,  it  had  lost  its  attraction  for  him. 
Knowing  that  he  was  misunderstood  and  hated  by  those  whose 
respect  he  prized  the  most,  he  found  himself  compelled  to  make 
use  of  men  whom  he  despised,  and  contempt  for  humanity  took 
possession  of  his  mind.  He  saw  nothing  around  him  but  greed 
and  treachery.  Power  had  lost  all  its  sweetness  for  him,  life 
itself  was  no  longer  worth  living,  worth  preserving.  Hence  his 
answer  when  he  was  besought  to  take  measures  against  his 
would-be  assassins:  ''Rather  die  once  than  tremble  always I" 
and  he  went  to  the  Senate  on  the  I5th  of  March  without  arms 
and  without  a  guard.  In  the  tragedy,  the  motives  which  ulti- 
mately  Iure  him  thither  are  the  hope  of  a  title  and  a  crown, 
and  the  fear  of  being  esteemed  a  coward. 

Those  foolish  persons  who  attribute  Shakespeare's  works  to 
Francis  Bacon  argue,  amongst  other  things,  that  such  an  insight 
into  Roman  antiquity  as  is  manifested  in  Julius  Ccesar  could  bc 
attained  by  no  one  who  did  not  possess  Bacon's  learning.  On 
the  contrary,  this  play  is  obviously  written  by  a  man  whose 
learning  was  in  no  sense  on  a  level  with  his  genius,  so  that  its 
faults,  no  less  than  its  merits,  afford  a  proof,  however  superfluous, 
that  Shakespeare  himself  was  the  author  of  Shakespeare's  works. 
Bunglers  in  criticism  never  realise  to  what  an  extent  genius  can 
supply  the  place  of  book-learning,  and  how  vastly  peaXtt  \^  \\.% 
importance.     Bu^  on  ih^  other  hand,  one  \&  YK>Mtid  lo  öascSox^ 


314  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

unequivocaliy  that  there  are  certain  domains  in  which  no  amount 
of  genius  can  compensate  for  reconstructive  insight  and  study 
of  recorded  fact,  and  where  even  the  greatest  genius  falls  short 
when  it  tries  to  create  out  of  its  own  head,  or  upon  a  scanty  basis 
of  knowledge. 

Such  a  domain  is  that  of  historical  drama,  when  it  deals  with 
periods  and  personalities  in  regard  to  which  recorded  fact  sur- 
passes all  possible  imagination.  Where  history  is  stranger  and 
more  poetic  than  any  poetry,  more  tragic  than  any  antique  tragedy, 
there  the  poet  requires  many-sided  insight  in  order  to  rise  to  the 
occasion,  It  was  because  of  Shakespeare's  lack  of  historical  and 
classical  culture  that  the  incomparable  grandeur  of  the  iigure  of 
Caesar  left  him  unmoved.  He  depressed  and  debased  that  figure 
to  make  room  for  the  development  of  the  central  character  in  bis 
drama — to  wit,  Marcus  Brutus,  whom,  foUowing  Plutarch's  ideal- 
ising  example,  he  depicted  as  a  stoic  of  almost  flawless  nobili^. 


IX 

yULIUS   CMSAR—THE    MERITS    OF    THE   DRAMA-- 

BRUTUS 

NONE  but  a  naive  republican  like  Swinbume  can  believe  that  it 
was  by  reason  of  any  republican  enthusiasm  in  Shakespeare's 
soul  that  Brutus  became  the  leading  character.  He  had  assuredly 
no  systematic  political  conviction,  and  manifests  at  other  times  the 
most  loyal  and  monarchical  habit  of  mind. 

Brutus  was  already  in  Plutarch  the  protagonist  of  the  Caesar  | 
tragedy,  and  Shakespeare  foUowed  the  course  of  history  as  repre-  l 
sented  by  Plutarch,  under  the  deep  impression  that  an  impolitic 
revolt,  like  that  of  Essex  and  his  companions,  can  by  no  means 
Stern  the  current  of  the  time,  and  that  practical  errors  revenge 
themselves  quite  as  severely  as  moral  sins — ^nay,  much  more 
sa  The  psychologist  was  now  awakened  in  him,  and  he  found 
it  a  fascinating  task  to  analyse  and  present  a  man  who  finds  a 
mission  imposed  upon  him  for  which  he  is  by  nature  unfitted. 
It  is  no  longer  outward  conflicts  like  that  in  Romeo  and  Jtdiet 
between  the  lovers  and  their  surroundings,  or  in  Richard  IIL^ 
between  Richard  and  the  world  at  large,  that  fascinate  him  in  this 
new  stage  of  his  development,  but  the  inner  processes  and  crises 
of  the  Spiritual  life. 

Brutus  has  lived  among  his  books  and  fed  his  mind  upon 
Plaionic  philosophy;   therefore  he  is  more  occupied  with  the 
abstract  political  idea  of  republican  freedom,  and  the  abstract 
moral  conception  of  the  shame  of  enduring  a  despotism,  than  with 
the  actual  political  facts  before  his  eyes,  or  the  meaning  of  the 
changes  which  are  going  on  around  him.    This  man  is  vehemently 
urged  bY,  Cassins  To  place  himselfat  thfc  head^f  a  conapira^y  1  /.^ 
^^gamst  his  fatherly  benefactor  and  friend.    The  demand  throws  P^ 
US  whole  naturS'nnto'a'fermenti  disturbslts  harmony,  and  brings  ' 
it  for  ever  out  of  equilibrium« 

On  Hamlet  also,  who  is  at  the  same  time  springing  to  life  in 
Shakespeare's  mind,  the  spirit  of  his  murdered  father  imposes  the 
duty  of  becoming  an  assassin,  and  the  claim  acts  as  a  Stimulus,  a 
spur  to  his  intellectual  faculties,  but  as  a  solvent  to  his  character ; 
so  close  is  the  resemblance  between  the  Situation  of  Brutus,  with 
his  conflicting  duties,  and  the  inward  strife  which  we  are  soon  to 
find  in  Hamlet. 

Brutus  is  at  war  with  himself,  and  therefore  foT%;(\&  Vo  ^o^ 


3i6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

others  attention  and  the  outward  signs  of  friendship.  His  com- 
rades  summon  him  to  action,  but  he  hears  no  answering  summons 
from  within.    As  Hamlet  breaks  out  into  the  well  known  words : — 

"  The  time  is  out  of  Joint : — O,  cursed  spite 
That  ever  I  was  bom  to  set  it  right  1  *' 

so  also  Brutus  shrinks  with  horror  from  his  task.    He  says  (I.  2) : — 

*'  Brutus  had  rather  be  a  viUager 

Than  to  repute  himself  a  son  of  Rome 

Under  these  hard  conditions  as  this  time 

Is  like  to  lay  upon  us." 
• 

His  noble  nature  is  racked  by  these  doubts  and  uncertainties. 

From  the  moment  Cassius  has  spoken  to  him,  he  is  sleepless. 
The  rugged  Macbeth  becomes  sleepless  after  he  has  killed  the 
^  King — "Macbeth  has  murdered  sleep."  Brutus,  with  his  delicate, 
ireflective  nature,  bent  on  obeving  onlv  the  jirtafps  yf  Hntyr  is 
calm  after  the  murdeT^  bUL  sleepleSS  betöre  it  His  preoccupation 
with  the  idea  has  altered  his  whole  manner  of  being;  his  wife 
does  not  know  him  again.  She  teils  how  he  can  neither  converse 
nor  sleep,  but  strides  up  and  down  with  his  arms  folded,  sighing 
and  lost  in  thought,  does  not  answer  her  questions,  and,  when  she 
repeats  them,  waves  her  ofF  with  rough  impatience. 

It  is  not  only  his  gratitude  to  Csesar  that  keeps  Brutus  in 
torment;  it  is  especially  his  uncertainty  as  to  what  Caesar's 
intentions  really  are.  Brutus  sees  him,  indeed,  idolised  by  the 
people  and  endowed  with  supreme  power ;  but  as  yet  Caesar  has 
never  abused  it.  He  concurs  with  Cassius's  view  that  when 
Caesar  declined  the  crown  he  in  reality  hankered  after  it;  but, 
after  all,  they  have  nothing  to  go  upon  but  his  supposed  desire : — 

"  To  speak  truth  of  Caesar, 
I  have  not  known  when  his  affections  swa/d 
More  than  his  reason.     But  'tis  a  common  proof 
That  lowliness  is  young  ambition's  ladder." 

If  Caesar  is  to  be  slain,  then,  it  is  not  for  what  he  has  done, 
but  for  what  he  may  do  in  the  future.  Is  it  permissible  to  commit 
a  murder  upon  such  grounds  ? 

In  Hamlet  we  find  this  variant  of  the  difficulty :  Is  it  certain 
that  the  king  murdered  Hamlet's  father  ?  May  not  the  ghost  have 
been  a  hallucination,  or  the  devil  himself? 

Brutus  feels  the  weakness  of  his  basis  of  action  the  more 

clearly  the  more  he  leans  towards  the  murder  as  a  political  du^. 

And  Shakespeare  has  not  hesitated  to  attribute  to  him,  bigfa- 

\  minded  as  he  is,  that  doctrine  of  ezpediency,  so  questionable  in^ 

\  the  eyes  of  many,  which  declares  that  a  necessary  end  saincti^ 

limpurc  means.    Two  separate  times,  once  when  he  is  by  himad^ 


\ 


CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS  317 

and  once  in  addressing  the  conspirators,  he  recommenda  political 
hypocrisy  as  judicious  and  serviceable.  In  the  soliloquy  he  aays 
(II.  I):- 

'*  And,  singe  the  quarrel 
Will  bear  no  colour  for  the  thing  he  is, 
Fashion  it  tbus :  that  what  he  is,  augmented» 
Would  run  to  these  and  these  extremities." 

To  the  eonspirators  his  words  are :—  ,-^    a' 

**  And  let  our  hearts,  as  subtle  masters  do,       ^ 
Stir  up  their  servants  to  an  act  of  rage,      \/  . 

And  after  seem  to  chide  'em."  | 

That  is  to  say,  the  murder  is  to  be  carried  out  with  as  much  "t, 
decency  as  possible,  and  the  murderers  are  afterwards  to  pretend    t 
that  they  deplore  it 

As  soon  as  the  murder  is  resolved  upon,  however,  Brutus,    • 
assured  of  the  purity  of  his  motives,  Stands  proud  and  almost    \ 
unconcemed  in  the  midst  of  the  eonspirators.     Far  too  uncon- 
cemed,  indeed ;  for  though  he  has  not  shrunk  in  principle  from      ' 
the  doctrine  that  one  cannot  will  the  end  witbout  wiUing  the 
means,  he  yet  shrinks,  upright  and  unpractical  as  he  is,  from     \ 
employing  means  which  seem  to   him   either  too   base  or  too      ^ 
unscrupulous.     He  will  not  even  sufTer  the  eonspirators  to  be 
bound  by  oath :  "  Swear  priests  and  cowards  and  men  cautelous." 
They  are  to  trust  each  other  without  the  assurance  of  an  oath, 
and  to  keep  their  secret  unswom.     And  when  it  is  proposed  that, 
Antony  shall  be  killed  along  with  Caesar,  a  necessary  Step,  tä] 
which,  as  a  politician,  he  was  bound  to  consent,  he  rejects  it,  im 
Shakespeare  as  in  Plutarch,  out  of  humanity  :  '*  Our  course  willl 
seem  too  bloody,  Caius  Cassius."    He  feels  that  his  will  is  as  clear 
as  day,  and  sufiers  at  the  thought  of  employing  the  methods  of 
night  and  darkness : 

"  O  Conspiracy ! 

Sham'st  thou  to  show  thy  dangerous  brow  by  night, 

When  evils  are  most  free  ?    O,  then,  by  day 

Where  wilt  thou  find  a  cavem  dark  enough 

To  mask  thy  monstrous  visage  ?  " 

Brutus  is  anxious  that  a  cause  which  is  to  be  furthered  by 
assassination  should  achieve  success  without  secrecy  and  without 
violence.  Goethe  has  said :  **  Only  the  man  of  reflection  has  a 
consdence."  The  man  of  action  cannot  have  one  while  he  is 
acting.  To  plunge  into  action  is  to  place  oneself  at  the  mercy  of 
one's  nature  and  of  external  powers.  One  acts  rightly  or  wrongly, 
but  always  upon  instinct— -often  stupidly,  sometimes,  it  may  be, 
brilliantly,  never  with  füll  consciousness.  Action  implies  the  in- 
considerateness  of  instinct,  or  egoism,  or  genius;  Brutvr&^^XL^^ 
other  band,  is  bent  on  acting  with  every  consädcc^Jäocu 


3i8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Kreyssigi  and  after  him  Dowden,  have  calied  Brutus  a 
Girondin,  in  Opposition  to  his  brother-in-law,  Cassius,  a  sort  of 
Jacobin  in  antique  dress.  The  comparison  is  just  only  in  regard 
to  the  lesser  or  greater  inclination  to  the  employment  of  violent 
means ;  it  halts  when  we  reflect  that  Brutus  lives  in  the  rareiied 
air  of  abstractions,  face  to  face  with  ideas  and  principles,  while 
Cassius  lives  in  the  world  of  facts;  for  the  Jacobins  were  quite 
\  as  stiff-necked  theorists  as  any  Girondin.  Brutus,  in  Shakespeare, 
)  is  a  strict  moralist,  excessiveiy  cautious  lest  any  stain  should  mar 
the  purity  of  his  character,  while  Qsasius  does  not  in  the  least 
aspire  to  moral  flawlessness.  He  ia_fcankly  envious  of  Caesar. 
and  openly  avows  that  he  hates  him ;  yet  he  is  not  bas^ ;  lut' 
envy  and  hatred  are  in  his  case  swallowed  up  by  political  pas- 
sion,  strenuous  and  consistent.  And,  unlike  Brutus,  he  is  a  good 
observer,  looking  right  through  men's  words  and  actions  into 
their  souls.  But  as  Brutus  is  the  man  whose  name,  birth,  and 
Position  as  Caesar's  intimate  friend,  point  him  out  to  be  the 
head  of  the  conspiracy,  he  is  always  able  to  enforce  bis  impolitic 
and  short-sighted  will 

When  we  find  that  Hamlet,  who  is  so  füll  of  doubts,  never 
for  a  moment  doubts  his  right  to  kill  the  king,  we  must  remember 
that  Shakespeare  had  just  exhausted  this  theme  in  his  characterisa- 
tion  of  Brutus. 

Brutus  is  the  ideal  whom  Shakespeare,  like  all  men  of  the 
better  sort,  cherished  in  his  soul — the  man  whose  pride  it  is 
before  everything  to  keep  his  hands  clean  and  his  mind  high  and 
free,  even  at  the  cost  of  failure  in  his  undertakings  and  the  wreck 
of  his  tranquillity  and  of  his  fortunes. 

He  does  not  care  to  impose  an  oath  upon  the  others;  he 
is  too  proud.  If  they  want  to  betray  him,  let  them! 
others,  it  is  true,  may  be  moved  by  their  hatred  of  the  greal 
.  man,  and  eager  to  quench  their  malice  m  Tiis"blood;  ne;  for 
;  fiis~part,  admires  him,  and  will  sacrifice,  not  butcher  him.  The 
1  others  fear  the  consequences  of  suffering  Antony  to  address  the 
^  people;  but  Brutus  has  explained  to  the  people  his  reasons  for 
the  murder,  so  Antony  may  now  eulogise  Caesar  as  much  as  he 
pleases.  Did  not  Caesar  deserve  eulogy  ?  Does  not  he  himself 
desire  that  Caesar  shall  lie  honoured,  though  punished,  in  his 
grave?  He  is  too  proud  to  keep  a  watch  upon  Antony,  who 
has  approached  him  in  friendly  fashion,  though  at  the  same  time 
in  the  character  of  Caesar's  friend ;  therefore  he  leaves  the  Forum 
before  Antony  begins  his  speech.  Such  moods  are  familiär  to 
many.  Many  another  has  acted  in  this  apparently  unwise  way, 
proudly  reckless  of  consequences,  moved  by  the  dislike  of  the 
magnanimous  man  for  all  that  savours  of  base  cautiousness. 
Many  a  one,  for  example,  has  told  the  truth  where  it  was  stupid 
to  do  so,  or  has  let  slip  an  opportunity  of  revenge  because  he 
despised  his  enemy  too  mi^ch  to  seek  compcnsation  for  his  im^ 


CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS  3^9 

juries,  though  he  thereby  neglected  to  render  him  innocuous  for 
the  future.  An  intense  realisation  of  the  necessity  for  confidence, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  untrustworthiness  of  friends  and 
the  contemptibleness  of  enemies,  may  easily  lead  one  to  despise 
every  measure  of  prudence. 

It  was  upon  the  basis  of  an  intense  feeling  of  this  nature 
that  Shakespeare  created  Brutus.  With  the  addition  of  humour 
and  a  touch  of  genius  he  would  be  Hamlet,  and  he  becomes 
Hamlet.  With  the  addition  of  despairing  bittemess  and  misan- 
thropy  he  would  be  Timon,  and  he  becomes  Timon.  Here  he 
is  the  man  of  uncompromising  character  and  principle,  who  is 
too  proud  to  be  prudent  and  too  bad  an  observer  to  be  practical ; 
and  this  man  is  so  situated  that  not  only  the  life  and  death  of 
another  and  of  himself,  but  the  welfare  of  the  State,  and  even, 
as  it  appears,  that  of  the  whole  civüised  world,  depend  upon 
the  resolution  at  which  he  arrives. 

At  Brutus's  side  Shakespeare  places  the  figure  which  forms 
bis  female  counterpart,  the  kindred  spirit  who  has  become  one 
with  him,  bis  cousin  and  wife,  Cato's  daughter  married  to  Cato's 
disciple.  He  has  here,  and  here  alone,  given  us  a  picture  of 
the  ideal  marriage  as  he  conceived  it. 

In  the  scene  between  Brutus  and  Portia  the  poet  takes  up 
afresh  a  motive  which  he  has  handled  once  before — the  anzious 
wife  beseeching  her  husband  to  initiate  her  into  bis  great  designs. 
It  first  appears  in  Henry  IV.,  Part  I.,  where  Lady  Percy  implores 
her  Harry  to  let  her  share  bis  counsels.  (See  above,  p.  189.) 
The  description  which  she  gives  of  Hotspur^s  manner  and  con- 
duct  exactly  corresponds  to  Portia's  description  of  the  trans- 
formation  which  has  taken  place  in  Brutus.  Both  husbands, 
indeed,  are  nursing  a  similar  project.  But  Lady  Percy  leams 
nothing.  Her  Harry  no  doubt  loves  her,  loves  her  now  and 
then,  between  two  skirmishes,  briskly  and  gaily;  but  there  is 
no  sentiment  in  his  love  for  her,  and  he  never  dreams  of  any 
Spiritual  communion  between  them. 

When  Portia,  in  this  case,  begs  her  husband  to  teil  her  what 
is  weighing  on  his  mind,  he  at  first,  indeed,  replies  with  evasions 
about  his  health ;  but  on  her  vehemently  declaring  that  she  feels 
herseif  degraded  by  this  lack  of  confidence  (Shakespeare  has 
but  slightly  softened  the  antique  frankness  of  the  words  which 
Plutarch  places  in  her  mouth),  Brutus  answers  her  with  warmth 
and  beauty.  And  when  (again  as  in  Plutarch)  she  teils  of  the 
proof  she  has  given  of  her  ^teadfastness  by  thrusting  a  knife  into 
her  thigh  and  never  complaining  of  the  "voluntary  wound,"  he 
bursts  forth  with  the  words  which  Plutarch  places  in  his  mouth  :^ 

"  O  ye  gods, 
Render  me  worthy  of  this  noble  wife^'' 

and  promises  to  teil  her  eveiything. 


\ 


/ 


320  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Neither  Shakespeare  nor  Plutarch,  however,  regards  bis  facile 
communicativeness  as  a  mark  of  prudence.  For  it  is  not  Portia's 
fault  that  it  does  not  betray  everything.  When  it  comes  to  the 
pointy  she  can  neither  hold  her  tongue  nor  control  herseif.  She 
betrays  her  anxiety  and  uneasiness  to  the  boy  Lucius,  and 
herseif  exclaims : — 

**  I  have  a  man's  mind,  but  a  woman's  might 
How  hard  it  is  for  women  to  keep  counsel ! " 

This  reflection  is  obviously  not  Portia's,  but  an  utterance  of 
Shakespeare's  own  philosophy  of  life,  which  he  has  not  cared  to 
keep  to  himself.  In  Plutarch  she  even  falls  down  as  thougb  dead, 
and  the  news  of  her  death  surprises  Brutus  just  before  the  time 
appointed  for  the  murder  of  Caesar,  so  that  he  needs  all  bis  self- 
control  to  save  himself  from  breaking  down. 

From  the  character  with  which  Shakespeare  has  thus  endowed 
Brutus  spring  the  two  great  scenes  which  carry  the  play. 

The  first  is  the  marvellously-constructed  scene,  the  tuming- 
point  of  the  tragedy,  in  which  Antony,  speaking  with  Brutus's 
consent  over  the  body  of  Caesar,  stirs  up  the  Romans  against  the 
murderers  of  the  great  Imperator. 

Even  Brutus's  own  speech  Shakespeare  has  moulded  with  the 
rarest  art.  Plutarch  relates  that  when  Brutus  wrote  Greek  he 
cultivated  a  **  compendious  "  and  laconic  style,  of  which  the  his- 
torian  adduces  a  string  of  examples.  He  wrote  to  the  Samians : 
"  Your  councels  be  long,  your  doings  be  slow ;  consider  the  end." 
And  in  another  epistle :  '*  The  Xanthians,  despising  my  good 
wil,  haue  made  a  graue  of  dispaire ;  and  the  Patareians,  that  put 
themselves  into  my  protection,  have  lost  no  iot  of  their  liberty : 
and  therefore  whilst  you  haue  libertie,  either  chuse  the  iudgement 
of  the  Patareians  or  the  fortune  of  the  Xanthians."  See  now. 
what  Shakespeare  has  made  out  of  these  indications  : — 

'*  Romans,  countrymen,  and  lovers !  hear  me  for  my  cause,  and  be 
silent,  that  you  may  hear :  believe  me  for  mine  honour,  and  have 
respect  to  mine  honour,  that  you  may  believe.  .  .  .  If  there  be  any 
in  this  assembly,  any  dear  friend  of  Oesar's,  to  him  I  say,  that  Brutus' 
love  to  Caesar  was  no  less  than  bis.  If,  then,  that  friend  demand,  why 
Brutus  rose  against  Caesar,  this  is  my  answer : — Not  that  I  loved  Caesar 
less,  but  that  I  loved  Rome  more." 

And  so  on,  in  this  style  of  laconic  antithesis.  Shakespeare  has 
made  a  deliberate  effort  to  assign  to  Brutus  the  diction  he  had 
cultivated,  and,  with  bis  inspired  faculty  of  divination,  has,  as  it 
were,  reanimated  it : — 


**  As  Caesar  loved  me,  I  weep  for  him ;  as  he  was  fortunate,  I 
l  rejoice  at  it ;  as  he  was  valiant,  I  honour  him :  but,  as  he  was  ambitiou8| 
)  J  slew  him,'* 


ANTONVS  ORATION  321 

With  ingenious  and  yet  noble  art  the  speech  culminates  in 
the  question,  "  Who  is  here  so  vile  that  will  not  love  bis  country ! 
If  any,  speak;  for  him  have  I  offended."  And  when  the  crowd 
answerSy  "None,  Brutus,  none,"  he  chimes  in  with  the  serene 
assurance,  "Then  none  have  I  offended." 

The  still  more  admirable  oration  of  Antony  is  in  the  first 
place  remarkable  for  the  calculated  difference  of  style  which  it 
displays.  Here  we  have  no  antitheses,  no  literary  eloquence; 
but  a  vemacular  eloquence  of  the  most  powerful  demagogic  t3rpe. 
Antony  takes  up  the  thread  just  where  Brutus  has  dropped  it, 
expressly  assures  bis  hearers  at  the  outset  that  this  is  to  be  a 
speech  over  Caesar's  hier,  but  not  to  bis  glory,  and  emphasises 
to  the  point  of  monotony  the  fact  that  Brutus  and  the  other 
conspirators  are  all,  all  honourable  men.  Then  the  eloquence 
gradually  works  up,  subtle  and  potent  in  its  adroit  crescendo, 
and  yet  in  truth  exalted  by  something  which  is  not  subtlety: 
glowing  enthusiasm  for  Caesar,  scathing  Indignation  against  bis 
assassins.  The  contempt  and  anger  are  at  first  masked,  out  of 
consideration  for  the  mood  of  the  populace,  which  has  for  the 
moment  been  won  over  by  Brutus;  then  the  mask  is  raised  a 
little,  then  a  little  more  and  a  little  more,  until,  with  a  wild 
gesture,  it  is  tom  off  and  thrown  aside. 

Here  again  Shakespeare  has  utilised  in  a  masterly  fashion 
the  hints  he  found  in  Plutarch,  scanty  as  they  were : — 

"  Afterwards,  when  Caesar's  body  was  brought  into  the  market-place, 
Antonius,  making  bis  funeral  oration  in  praise  of  the  dead,  according 
to  the  auncient  custome  of  Rome,  and  perceiuing  that  his  words  moued 
the  common  people  to  compassion :  he  framed  bis  eloquence  to  make 
Iheir  harts  yeme  the  more." 

Mark  what  Shakespeare  has  made  of  this : — 

**  Friends,  Romans,  countr3rmen,  lend  me  your  ears : 
I  come  to  bury  Caesar,  not  to  praise  him. 
The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them, 
Tbc  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones  ; 
So  let  it  be  with  Caesar.    The  noble  Brutus 
Hath  told  you,  Caesar  was  ambitious  : 
If  it  were  so,  it  was  a  grievous  fault, 
And  grievously  hath  Caesar  answered  it. 
Here,  under  leave  of  Brutus  and  the  rest, 
(For  Brutus  is  an  honourable  man, 
So  are  they  all,  all  honourable  men), 
Come  I  to  speak  in  Caesar's  funeral. 
He  was  my  friend,  faithful  and  just  to  me : 
But  Brutus  says  he  was  ambitious ; 
And  Brutus  is  an  honourable  man." 

Then  Antony  goes  on  to  insinuate  doubts  as  to  C'^^'^'d^x^'^ 
ambition,  and  teils  how  he  rejected  the  k\t\g\y  dvaiA^m^  \«*^^c\fc^ 


322  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

it  three  times.  Was  this  ambition  7  Thereupon  he  suggests 
that  Caesar,  after  all,  was  once  beloved,  and  that  there  is  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  be  moumed.  Then  with  a  sudden 
outburst: — 

**  O  judgment !  thou  art  fled  to  brutish  beasts, 
And  man  have  lost  their  reason  ! — Bear  with  me ; 
My  heart  is  in  the  coffin  there  with  Caesar, 
And  I  must  pause  tili  it  come  back  to  me." 

Nezt  comes  an  appeal  to  their  pity  for  this  greatest  of  men, 
whose  Word  but  yesterday  might  have  stood  against  the  world, 
and  who  now  lies  so  low  that  the  poorest  will  not  do  him  reve- 
rence.  It  would  be  wrong  to  make  his  speech  inflammatoiy, 
a  wrong  towards  Brutus  and  Cassius  "  who — as  you  know— arc 
honourable  men"  (mark  the  jibe  in  the  parenthetic  phrase);  no, 
he  will  rather  do  wrong  to  the  dead  and  to  himself.  But  here  he 
holds  a  parchment — ^he  assuredly  will  not  read  it — ^but  if  the 
people  came  to  know  its  contents  they  would  kiss  dead  Caesar's 
woimds,  and  dip  their  handkerchiefs  in  his  sacred  blood.  And 
then,  when  cries  for  tbe  reading  of  the  will  mingle  with  curses 
upon  the  murderers,  he  stubbomly  refuses  to  read  it  Insteäd 
of  doing  so,  he  displays  to  them  Caesar's  cloak  with  all  the  rents 
m  it 

What  Plutarch  says  here  is : — 


it 


To  condude  his  Oration,  he  unfolded  before  the  whole  assemblj 
the  bloudy  garments  of  the  dead,  thrust  through  in  many  places  with 
their  swonis,  and  called  the  malefactors  cruell  and  cursed  murtherers." 

Out  of  these  few  words  Shakespeare  has  made  this  mirade 
of  invective : — 

"  You  all  do  know  this  mantle !    I  remember 
The  first  time  ever  Caesar  put  it  on : 
'Twas  on  a  summer's  evening,  in  his  tent, 
That  day  he  overcame  the  Nervii. 
Look !  in  this  place  ran  Cassius'  dagger  through : 
See,  what  a  rent  the  envious  Casca  made : 
Through  this,  the  well-beloved  Brutus  stabb'd; 
And,  as  he  pluck'd  his  cursed  steel  away, 
Mark  how  the  blood  of  Caesar  followed  it, 
As  rushing  out  of  doors,  to  be  resolv'd 
If  Brutus  so  unkindly  knock'd,  or  no ; 
For  Brutus,  as  you  know,  was  Caesar's  angel. 
Judge,  O  you  gods,  how  dearly  Caesar  lov'd  him  t 
This  was  the  most  unkindest  cut  of  all ; 
For  when  the  noble  Caesar  saw  him  stab, 
Ingratitude,  more  strong  than  traitors'  arms, 
Quite  vanquish'd  him :  then  burst  his  mighty  heart; 
Andy  in  hb  mantle  muffling  up  his  face,  in 


ANTONY'S  ORATION  323 

Even  at  the  base  of  Pompe/s  statua, 

Which  all  the  while  ran  blood,  great  Caesar  felL 

O,  what  a  fall  was  there,  my  countryraen  1 

Then  I,  and  you,  and  all  of  us  feil  down, 

Whilst  Woody  treason  flourish'd  over  us. 

O  !  now  you  weep ;  and,  I  perceive,  you  feel 

The  dint  of  pity :  these  are  gracious  drops. 

Elind  souls !  what,  weep  you,  when  you  but  behold 

Our  Caesar's  vesture  wounded  ?     Look  you  here, 

Here  is  himself,  marr'd,  as  you  see^  with  craitors." 

He  uncovers  Caesar's  body;  and  not  tili  then  does  he  read 
the  will,  overwhelming  the  populace  with  gifts  and  benefactions. 
This  climaz  is  of  Shakespeare's  own  invention. 

No  wonder  that  even  Voltaire  was  so  Struck  with  the  beauty 
of  this  scene,  that  for  its  sake  he  translated  the  first  three  acts 
of  the  play.  At  the  end  of  his  own  Mort  de  C^sar,  too,  he 
introduced  a  feeble  imitation  of  the  scene ;  and  he  had  it  in  his 
mind  when,  in  his  Discours  sur  la  Trag/dü^  dedicated  to  Boling- 
broke,  he  expressed  so  much  enthusiasm  and  envy  for  the  freedom 
of  the  English  stage. 

In  the  last  two  acts,  Brutus  is  overtaken  by  the  recoil  of  his 
deed.  He  consented  to  the  murder  out  of  noble,  disinterested 
and  patriotic  motives ;  nevertheless  he  is  Struck  down  by  its 
consequences,  and  pays  for  it  with  his  happiness  and  his  life. 
The  declining  action  of  the  last  two  acts  is — as  is  usual  with 
Shakespeare — less  eifective  and  fascinating  than  the  rising  action 
which  fills  the  first  three;  but  it  has  one  significant,  profound, 
and  brilliantly  constructed  and  executed  scene — the  quarrel  and 
reconciliation  between  Brutus  and  Cassius  in  the  fourth  act, 
which  leads  up  to  the  appearance  of  Cxsar's  ghost. 

This  scene  is  significant  because  it  gives  a  many-sided  picture 
of  the  two  leading  characters — ^the  stemly  upright  Brutus,  who 
is  shocked  at  the  means  employed  by  Cassius  to  raise  the  money 
without  which  their  campaign  cannot  be  carried  on,  and  Cassius, 
a  politician  entirely  indifferent  to  moral  scruples,  but  equally 
unconcemed  as  to  his  own  personal  advantage.  The  scene  is 
profound  because  it  presents  to  us  the  necessary  consequences 
of  the  law-defying,  rebellious  act:  cruelty,  unscrupulous  policy, 
and  lax  tolerance  of  dishonourable  conduct  in  subordinates,  when 
the  bonds  of  authority  and  discipline  have  once  been  burst 
The  scene  is  brilliantly  constructed  because,  with  its  quick  play 
of  passion  and  its  rising  discord,  which  at  last  passes  over  into 
a  cordial  and  even  tender  reconciliation,  it  is  dramatic  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word. 

The  fact  that  Brutus  was  in  Shakespeare's  own  mind  the 
true  hero  of  the  tragedy  appears  in  the  clearest  light  wVvwv^^ 
find  him  ending  the  play  with  the  euiogj  NvYivtiCi  YVM\AxOck^  vok 


324  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

bis  iife  of  Brutus,  places  in  the  mouth  of  Antony;  I  mean  the 
famous  words : — 

"  This  was  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all : 
All  the  conspirators,  save  only  he, 
Did  that  they  did  in  envy  of  great  Caesar; 
He  only,  in  a  general  honest  thought 
And  common  good  to  all,  made  one  of  them. 
His  Iife  was  gentle ;  and  the  elements 
So  mixed  in  him  that  Nature  might  stand  up, 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  '  This  was  a  man  1  "* 

The  resemblance  between  these  words  and  a  celebrated  spoech 
of  Hamlet's  is  unmistakable.  Everywhere  in  Julius  Cäsar  we 
feel  the  proximity  of  HamleL  The  fact  that  Hamlet  hesitates 
so  long  before  attacking  the  King,  finds  so  many  reasons  to  hold 
his  hand|  is  torn  with  doubts  as  to  the  act  and  its  consequences, 
and  insists  on  considering  everything  even  while  he  upbraids 
himself  for  considering  so  long — all  this  is  partly  due,  no  doubt, 
to  the  circumstance  that  Shakespeare  comes  to  him  directly  from 
Brutus.  His  Hamlet  has,  so  to  speak,  just  seen  what  happened 
to  Brutus,  and  the  ezample  is  not  encouraging,  either  with  respect 
to  action  in  general,  or  with  respect  to  the  mui*der  of  a  step- 
father  in  particular. 

It  is  not  difBcult  to  conceive  that  Shakespeare  may  at  this 
period  have  been  subject  to  moments  of  scepticism,  in  which 
he  could  scarcely  understand  how  any  one  could  make  up  his 
mind  to  act,  to  assume  responsibility,  to  set  in  motion  the  roll- 
ing  stone  which  is  the  type  of  every  action.  If  we  once  begin 
to  brood  over  the  incalculable  consequences  of  an  action  and 
all  that  circumstance  may  make  of  it,  all  action  on  a  great  Scale 
becomes  impossible.  Therefore  it  is  that  very  few  old  men  under- 
stand their  youth ;  they  dare  not  and  could  not  act  again  as,  in 
their  recklessness  of  consequences,  they  acted  then.  Brutus 
forms  the  transition  to  Hamlet,  and  Hamlet  no  doubt  grew  up 
in  Shakespeare's  mind  during  the  working  out  oi  Julius  Ofsar. 

The  stages  of  transition  are  perhaps  these :  the  conspirators, 

in  egging  Brutus  on  to  the  murder,  are  always  reminding  him 

of  the  eider  Brutus,  who  pretended  madness  and  drove  out  the 

Tarquins.     This  may  have  led  Shakespeare  to  dwell  upcm  his 

character  as  drawn  by  Livy,  which  had  always  been  ezceedingly 

populär.     But  Brutus  the  eider  is  an  antique  Hamlet;  and  tfaie 

rvery  name  of  Hamlet,  as  he  found  it  in  the  older  {day -«id-iB^ 

\  Saxo,  seems  always  to  have  haunted  Shakespeare.     It  was  the* 

\  name  he  had  given  to  the  little  boy  wbom  he  lost  so  early, '" 


.\^> 


-r' 


X 

BEN  JONSON  AND  HIS  ROMAN  PLAYS 

In  precisely  the  same  year  as  Shakespeare,  bis  famous  brother- 
poet,  Ben  Jonson,  made  bis  first  attempt  at  a  dramatic  presenta- 
tion  of  Roman  antiquity.  His  play,  TAe  Poetaster^  was  written 
and  acted  in  1601.  Its  purpose  is  the  literary  annibilation  of 
two  playwrigbts,  Marston  and  Dekker,  witb  whom  tbe  autbor 
was  at  feud ;  but  its  action  takes  place  in  tbe  time  of  Augustus; 
and  Jonson,  in  spite  of  bis  satire  on  contemporaries,  no  doubt 
wanted  to  utilise  bis  tborougb  knowledge  of  ancient  literature 
in  giving  a  true  picture  of  Roman  manners.  As  Sbakespeare's 
Julius  Cäsar  was  followed  by  two  otber  tragedies  of  antique 
Rome,  Antony  and  Cleopatra  and  CoriolanuSf  so  Ben  Jonson 
also  wrote  two  otber  plays  on  Roman  tbemes,  tbe  tragedies  of 
Sejanus  and  Catiline.  It  is  instructive  to  compare  bis  metbod 
of  treatment  witb  Sbakespeare's ;  but  a  general  comparison  of  tbe 
two  creative  spirits  must  precede  tbis  comparison  of  artistic  pro- 
cesses  in  a  single  limited  field. 

Ben  Jonson  was  nine  years  younger  tban  Sbakespeare,  bom 
in  1573,  a  montb  after  tbe  deatb  of  bis  fatber,  tbe  son  of  a  clergy- 
man  wbose  forefatbers  bad  belonged  to  "  tbe  gentry."  He  was  a 
cbild  of  tbe  town,  wbile  Shakespeare  was  a  cbild  of  tbe  country ; 
and  tbe  fact  is  not  witbout  significance,  tbougb  town  and  country 
were  not  tben  so  clearly  opposed  to  eacb  otber  as  tbey  are  now« 
Wben  Ben  was  two  years  old,  bis  motber  married  a  wordiy  master- 
bricklayer,  wbo  did  wbat  be  could  to  procure  bis  stepson  a  good 
education,  so  tbat,  afler  passing  some  years  at  a  small  private 
school,  be  was  sent  to  Westminster.  Here  tbe  leamed  William 
Camden,  bis  teacher,  introduced  bim  to  tbe  two  dassical  literatureSi 
and  seemSy  moreover,  to  bave  ezercised  a  tiot  altogetber  fortunate 
influence  upon  bis  subsequent  literary  babits ;  for  it  was  Camden 
wbo  taugbt  bim  first  to  write  out  in  prose  wbatever  be  wanted  to 
express  in  verse.  Tbus  tbe  foundation  was  laid  at  scbool,  not 
only  of  bis  double  ambition  to  sbine  as  a  scbolar  and  a  poet,  or 
rather  as  a  scbolar-poet,  but  also  of  bis  beavy  and  rbetorically 
empbatic  verse. 

In  spite  of  bis  worsbip  of  leaming,  bis  diftUkft  \j(^  ^  \axl^« 
crafty  and  bis  iinftness  for  practical  wotVl,  Vie  N9«&  fntc»^  V| 


326  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

poverty  to  break  off  his  studies  in  order  to  enter  the  employment 
of  his  bricklayer  stepfather — a  fact  which,  in  his  subsequent 
literary  feuds,  always  procured  him  the  nickname  of  "  the  brick- 
layer." He  could  not  long  endure  this  occupation,  went  as  a 
soldier  to  the  Netherlands,  killed  one  of  the  enemy  in  single 
combat,  under  the  eyes  of  both  camps,  retumed  to  London  and 
married — ^almost  as  early  as  Shakespeare — at  the  age  of  only 
nineteen.  Twenty-six  years  later,  in  his  conversations  with 
Drummond,  he  called  his  wife  "a  shrew,  yet  honest."  He 
seems  to  have  been  an  affectionate  father,  but  had  the  misfortune 
to  survive  his  children. 

He  was  strong  and  massive  in  body,  racy  and  coarse,  füll  of 
self-esteem  and  combative  instincts,  saturated  with  the  conviction 
of  the  scholar's  high  rank  and  the  poet's  exalted  vocation,  füll  of 
contempt  for  ignorance,  frivolity,  and  lowness,  classic  in  his  tastes, 
with  a  bent  towards  careful  structure  and  leisurely  development 
of  thought  in  all  that  he  wrote,  and  yet  a  tnie  poet  in  so  fax  as 
he  was  not  only  irregulär  in  his  life  and  quite  incapable  of  saving 
any  of  the  money  he  now  and  then  eamed,  but  was,  moreover, 
subject  to  hallucinations :  once  saw  Carthaginians  and  Romans 
fighting  on  his  great  toe,  and,  on  another  occasion,  had  a  vision 
of  his  son  with  a  bloody  cross  on  his  brow,  which  was  supposed  to 
forbode  his  death. 

Like  Shakespeare,  he  sought  to  make  his  bread  by  entering 
the  theatre  and  appearing  as  an  actor.  To  him,  as  to  Shake- 
speare, old  pieces  of  the  repertory  were  entrusted  to  be  rewritten, 
expanded,  and  furbished  up.  Thus  as  late  as  1601-2  he  made  a 
number  of  very  able  additions,  in  the  style  of  the  old  play,  to  that 
Spanish  Tragedy  of  Kyd's,  which  must  in  many  ways  have  been 
in  Shakespeare's  mind  during  the  composition  of  Hamkt. 

He  did  this  work  on  the  commission  of  Henslow,  for  whose 
Company,  which  competed  with  Shakespeare's,  he  worked  regularly 
from  1597  onwards.  He  collaborated  with  Dekker  in  a  tragedy, 
and  had  a  band  in  other  plays ;  in  short,  he  made  himself  useful 
to  the  theatre  as  best  he  could,  but  did  not,  like  Shakespeare, 
acquire  a  share  in  the  enterprise,  and  thus  never  became  a  man  of 
substance.  He  was  to  the  end  of  his  life  forced  to  rely  for  bis 
income  upon  the  liberality  of  royal  and  noble  patrons. 

The  end  of  1598  is  doubly  significant  in  Ben  Jonson's  life. 
In  September  he  killed  in  a  duel  another  of  Henslow's  actorSi  a 
certain  Gabriel  Spencer  (who  seems  to  have  challenged  him)^  and 
was  therefore  branded  on  the  thumb  with  the  letter  T  (Tybum). 
A  couple  of  months  later,  this  occurrence  having  evidently  led 
to  a  break  in  his  connection  with  HensloVs  Company,  his  firsi 
original  play,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour^  was  acted  by  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  men.  According  to  a  tradition  preserved  by  Rowe, 
and  apparently  trustworthy,  the  play  had  already  been  refused, 
when  Shakespeare  happened  to  see  it  and  procured  its  acceptance. 


JONSON'S  EARLY  DAYS  327 

It  met  with  the  success  it  deserved,  and  henceforward  the  author's 
name  was  famous. 

Even  in  the  first  edition  of  this  play  he  makes  Young 
Knowell  speak  with  warm  enthusiasm  of  poetry,  of  the  dignity 
of  the  sacred  art  of  invention,  and  express  that  hatred  for 
every  profanation  of  the  Muses  which  appears  so  frequently 
in  later  works,  finding,  perhaps,  its  most  vehement  utterance 
in  Tke  Paetaster^  where  the  young  Ovid  eulogises  his  art  in 
Opposition  to  the  scom  of  his  father  and  others.  From  the 
first  too,  he  made  ho  concealment  of  his  strong  sense  of  being 
at  once  a  high-priest  of  art,  and,  in  virtue  of  his  learning,  an 
Aristarchus  of  taste.  He  not  only  scorned  all  attempts  to  tickle 
the  public  ear,  but,  with  the  firm  and  superior  attitude  of  a 
teacheTi  he  again  and  again  imprinted  on  spectators  and  readers 
what  Goethe  has  expressed  in  the  weU-known  words :  "  Ich 
schreibe  nicht,  Euch  zu  gefallen ;  Ihr  sollt  was  lernen/'  Again 
and  again  he  claimed  for  his  own  person  the  sanctity  and  in- 
violability  of  art,  and  attacked  his  inferior  rivals  unsparingly, 
with  ferocious  rather  than  witty  satire.  His  prolpgues  and 
epilogues  are  devoted  to  a  self-acdamation  which  was  entirely 
foreign  to  Shakespeare's  nature.  Asper  in  Every  Man  out  of 
his  Humour  (1599),  Cntes  in  Cynthicis  Revels  (1600),  and 
Horace  in  The  Poetaster  (1601),  are  so  many  pieoes  of  self- 
idolising  self-portraiture. 

All  who,  in  his  judgment,  degrade  art  are  made  to  pay  the 
penalty  in  scathing  caricatures.  In  The  Poetaster^  for  example, 
his  taskmaster,  Henslow,  is  presented  under  the  name  of  Histrio 
as  a  depraved  slave-dealer,  and  his  coUeagues  Marston  and 
Dekker  are  held  up  to  ridicule  under  Roman  names,  as  in- 
tnisive  and  despicable  scribblers.  Their  attacks  upon  the 
admirable  poet  Horace,  whose  name  and  personality  the  ez- 
tremdy  dissimilar  Ben  Jonson  has  arrogated  to  himself,  spring 
from  contemptible  motives,  and  receive  a  disgraceful  ptmishment 

This  whole  warfare  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously.  The 
worthy  Ben  could  be  at  the  same  time  an  indignant  moralist 
and  a  genial  boon-companion.  We  presently  find  him  taking 
Service  afresh  with  the  very  Henslow  whom  be  has  just  treated 
with  sudi  withering  contempt;  and  though  bis  attack  of  1601 
had  been  met  by  a  most  malicious  retort  in  Marston  and 
Dekker's  Satiromastix^  he,  three  years  afterwards,  accepts  the 
dedication  of  Marston's  Malcontent,  and  in  1605  collaborates  with 
this  lately-lampooned  cölleague  and  with  Chapman  in  the  comedy 
of  Eastward  Hol  One  could  not  but  think  of  the  German 
proverb,  "  Pack  schlägt  sich.  Pack  verträgt  sich,"  were  it  not  that 
Jonson's  action  at  this  juncture  reveals  him  in  anything  but 
a  vulgär  lig^t  Marston  and  Chapman  having  been  thrown  into 
prison  for  certain  gibes  at  the  Scotch  in  this  play,  which  had 
come  to  the  notice  of  the  Kingi  and  being  tevcmc^  \&  \ii^  vbl 


328  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

danger  of  having  their  noses  and  ears  cut  off,  Ben  Jonson,  of 
his  own  free  will,  claimed  his  share  in  the  responsibility  and 
joined  them  in  prison.  At  a  supper  which,  after  their  Ubera- 
tion,  he  gave  to  all  his  friends,  his  mother  clinked  glasses  with 
him,  and  at  the  same  time  showed  him  a  paper,  the  contents 
of  which  she  had  intended  to  mix  with  his  drink  in  prison  if 
he  had  been  sentenced  to  mutilation.  She  added  that  she  her- 
seif would  not  have  survived  him,  but  would  have  taken  her 
share  of  the  poison.  She  must  have  been  a  mother  worthy  of 
such  a  son. 

While  Ben  lay  in  durance  on  account  of  his  duel,  he  had 
been  converted  to  Catholicism  by  a  priest  who  attended  him— 
a  conversion  at  which  his  adversanes  did  not  fail  to  jeer.  He 
does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  embraced  the  CathoUc  dogma 
with  any  great  fervour,  for  twelve  years  later  he  once  more 
changes  his  religion  and  returns  to  the  Protestant  Church. 
Equally  characteristic  of  Ben  and  of  the  Renaissance  is  his  own 
Statement,  preserved  for  us  by  Drummond,  that  at  his  first  com- 
munion  after  his  reconciliation  with  Protestantism,  in  token  of 
his  sincere  retum  to  the  doctrine  which  gave  laymen  as  well 
as  priests  access  to  the  chalice,  he  drained  at  one  draught  the 
whole  of  the  consecrated  wine. 

Not  without  humour,  moreover — to  use  Jonson's  own  favourite 
Word — is  his  story  of  the  way  in  which  Raleigh's  son,  to  whom 
he  acted  as  govemor  during  a  tour  in  France  (while  Raleigh 
himself  was  in  the  Tower),  took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  making 
his  mentor  dead  drunk,  having  him  wheeled  in  a  wheelbarrow 
through  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  showing  him  off  to  the  mob 
at  every  street  comer.  Ben's  strong  insistence  on  his  spiritual 
dignity  was  not  infrequently  counterbalanced  by  an  extreme  care- 
lessness  of  his  personal  dignity. 

With  all  his  weaknesses,  however,  he  was  a  sturdy,  energetici 
and  high-roinded  man,  a  commanding,  independent,  and  very 
comprehensive  intelligence ;  and  from  1598,  when  he  makes  his 
first  appearance  on  Shakespeare's  horizon,  throughout  the  rest 
of  his  life,  he  was,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  man  of  all  his 
contemporaries  whose  name  was  oftenest  mentioned  along  with 
Shakespeare's.  In  after  days,  especially  outside  England,  the 
name  of  Ben  Jonson  has  come  to  sound  small  enough  in  com- 
parison  with  the  name  of  solitary  greatness  with  which  it  was 
once  bracketed ;  but  at  that  time,  although  Jonson  was  never  so 
populär  as  Shakespeare,  they  were  commonly  regarded  in  litenuy 
circles  as  the  dramatic  twin-brethren  of  the  age.  For  us  it  to 
still  more  interesting  to  remember  that  Ben  Jonson  was  one  of 
the  few  with  whom  we  know  that  Shakespeare  was  on  terms  of 
constant  familiarity,  and,  moreover,  that  he  brought  to  this  inter-» 
course  a  set  of  definite  artistic  principles,  widely  different  from 
Sbakespeare's  own.    Thougb  his  sodety  may  have  been  8oaie<* 


CHARACTER  OF  JONSON  329 

what  fatiguingy  it  must  nevertheless  have  been  both  instructive 
and  stimulating  to  Shakespeare,  since  Ben  was  greatly  hia 
superior  in  historical  and  linguistic  knowledge,  while  as  a  poet 
he  pursued  a  totally  different  ideal. 

Ben  Jonson  was  a  great  dramatic  intelligence.  He  never, 
like  the  other  poets  of  his  time,  took  this  or  that  novel  and 
dramatised  it  as  it  stood,  regardless  of  its  more  or  less  in- 
coherent  structure,  its  more  or  less  flagrant  defiance  of  topo- 
graphical,  geographical,  or  historical  reality.  With  architectural 
solidity^was  he  not  the  step-son  of  a  master-builder  ? — he 
built  up  his  dramatic  plan  out  of  his  own  head,  and,  being  a  man 
of  great  leaming,  he  did  his  best  to  avoid  all  incongruities  of 
local  colour.  If  he  is  now  and  then  negligent  in  this  respect 
— if  the  characters  in  Volpone  now  and  then  talk  as  if  they  were 
in  London,  not  in  Venice,  and  those  in  The  l^oetaster  as  if  they 
were  in  England,  not  in  Rome — ^it  is  because  of  his  satiric  pur- 
pose,  and  not  at  all  by  reason  of  thd  indifference  to  such  con- 
siderations  which  characterises  all  other  dramatists  of  the  time, 
Shakespeare  not  the  least. 

The  fundamental  contrast  between  them  can  be  most  shortly 
expressed  in  the  Statement  that  Ben  Jonson  accepted  the  view 
of  human  nature  set  forth  in  the  classic  comedies  and  the  Latin 
tragedies.  He  does  not  represent  it  as  many-sided,  with  inward 
devdopments  and  inconsistencies,  but  fixes  character  in  typical 
forma,  with  one  dominant  trait  thrown  into  high  relief.  He 
portrays,  for  example,  tlie  crafty  parasite,  or  the  eccentnc  who 
cannot  endure  noise,  or  the  braggart  captain,  or  the  depraved 
anarchist  (Catiline),  or  the  stem  man  of  honour  (Cato) — ^and  all 
these  Personalities  are  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  labeis  imply, 
and  act  up  to  their  description  always  and  in  all  circumstances. 
The  pencil  with  which  he  draws  is  hard,  but  he  wields  it  witli 
such  power  that  his  best  outlines  subsist  through  the  centuries, 
unforgettable,  despite  their  occasional  oddity  of  design,  in  virtue 
of  the  indignation  with  which  wickedness  and  meanness  are 
branded,  and  the  racy  merriment  with  which  the  caricatures  are 
sketched,  the  farces  worked  out 

Some  of  Moliire's  farces  may  now  and  then  remind  us  of 
Jonson's,  but,  as  regards  the  pitiless  intensity  of  the  satire,  we 
shall  find  no  counterpart  to  his  Volpone  until  we  come  in  our  own 
times  to  GogoFs  Revisor. 

The  Graces  stood  by  Shakespeare's  cradle,  not  by  Jonson's ; 
and  yet  this  heavy-armed  warrior  has  now  and  then  attained  to 
graoe  as  weU — has  now  and  then  given  a  holiday  to  his  sound 
systematic  intelligence  and  his  solidly-constructed  logic,  and,  like 
a  true  poet  of  the  Renaissance,  soared  into  the  rarer  atmosphere 
of  pure  fantasy. 

He  shows  himself  very  much  at  home  in  the  alle^TxcAi 
masques  which  were  performed  at  court  (ea&va\ft\  BxwdL  >xi  >^% 


330  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

pastoral  play  The  Sad  Shepherd^  which  seems  to  have  been 
writtcn  upon  his  death-bed,  he  proved  that  even  in  the  purely 
romantic  style  he  could  challenge  comparison  with  the  best 
writers  of  his  day.  Yet  it  is  not  in  this  sphere  that  he  disr 
plays  his  tnie  originality.  It  is  in  his  keen  and  faithful  Observa- 
tion of  the  conditions  and  manners  of  his  time,  which  Shake- 
speare left  on  one  side,  or  depicted  only  incidentally  and  indirectly. 
The  London  of  Elizabeth  lives  again  in  Jonson's  plays ;  both  the 
lower  and  higher  circles,  but  especially  the  lower :  the  haimters 
of  tavems  and  theatres,  the  men  of  the  riverside  and  the  markets, 
rogues  and  vagabonds,  poets  and  players,  watermen  and  jugglers, 
bear-leaders  and  hucksters,  rieh  city  dames,  Puritan  fanatics  and 
country  squires,  English  oddities  of  every  class  and  kind,  each 
speaking  his  own  language,  dialect,  or  jargon.  Shakespeare 
never  kept  so  close  to  the  life  of  the  day. 

It  is  especially  Jonson's  scholarship  that  must  have  made 
his  Society  füll  of  instruction  for  Shakespeare.  Ben's  acquire- 
ments  were  encyclopsedic,  and  his  acquaintance  with  the  authors 
of  antiquity  was  singularly  complete  and  accurate.  It  has  often 
been  remarked  that  he  was  not  content  with  an  ezhaustive  know- 
ledge  of  the  leading  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome.  He  knows  not 
only  the  great  historians,  poets,  and  orators,  such  as  Tacitus  and 
Sallust,  Horace,  Virgil,  Ovid,  and  Cicero,  but  sophists,  gram- 
marians,  and  scholiasts,  men  like  Athenseus,  Libanius,  Philo- 
stratus,  Strabo,  Photius.  He  is  familiär  with  fragments  of  iEolic 
lyrists  and  Roman  epic  poets,  of  Greek  tragedies  and  Roman 
inscriptions ;  and,  what  is  still  more  remarkable,  he  manages  to 
make  use  of  all  his  knowledge.  Whatever  in  the  andents  he 
found  beautiful  or  profound  or  stimulating,  that  he  wöve  into 
his  work.  Dryden  says  of  him  in  his  ''  Essay  of  Dramadc 
Poesy  "  :— 

"  The  greatest  man  of  the  last  age  (Ben  Jonson)  was  wUling  to  give 
place  to  the  abcients  in  all  things :  he  was  not  only  a  profess^  imita- 
tor  of  Horace,  but  a  learned  plagiary  of  all  the  others;  you  tnuJ^ 
him  everywhere  in  their  snow.  If  Horace,  Lucan,  Petronius  Arbiter, 
Seneca,  and  Juvenal  had  their  own  from  him,  there  are  few  serious 
thoughts  which  are  new  in  him.  .  .  .  But  he  has  done  his  robberies  so 
openly,  that  one  may  see  he  fears  not  to  be  taxed  by  any  law.  He 
invades  authors  like  a  monarch;  and  what  would  be  theft  in  other 
poets  is  only  victory  in  him." 


Certain  it  is  that  an  uncommon  leaming  and  an 
memory  supplied  him  with  an  immense  störe  of  small  toucheSi 
poetical  and  rhetorical  details,  which  he  could  not  refrain  fixNO 
incorporating  in  his  plays. 

Yet  his  mass  of  learning  was  not  of  a  merely  verbal  or  rtie» 
torical  nature;  he  knew  things  as  well  as  words.  Whatiever 
•ubject  he  treats  of,  be  it  alchemy,  or  witchcraft,  or  coemelici  io 


LEARNING  OF  JONSON  33T 

the  time  of  Tiberius,  he  handles  it  with  competence  and  has  its 
whole  literature  at  his  fingers'  ends.  He  thus  becomes  universal 
like  Shakespeare,  but  in  a  difierent  way.  Shakespeare  knows, 
firstly,  all  that  cannot  be  learnt  from  books,  and  in  the  second 
place,  whatever  can  be  gleaned  by  genius  from  a  casual  utterance, 
an  intelligent  hint,  a  conversation  with  a  man  of  high  acquire- 
ments.  Besides  this,  he  knows  the  literature  which  was  at  that 
time  within  the  reach  of  a  quick-witted  and  studious  man  without 
special  scholarship.  Ben  Jonson,  on  the  other  band,  is  a  scholar 
by  profession.  He  has  learnt  from  books  all  that  the  books  of 
his  day — for  the  most  part,  of  course,  the  not  too  numerous  sur- 
vivals  of  the  classic  literatures— could  teach  a  man  who  made 
scholarship  his  glory.  He  not  only  possesses  knowledge,  but  he 
knows  whence  he  has  acquired  it ;  he  can  cite  his  authorities  by 
chapter  and  paragraph,  and  he  sometimes  garnishes  his  plays 
with  so  many  learned  references  that  they  bristle  ▼;ith  notes  like 
an  academic  thesis. 

Colossal,  coarse-grained,  vigorous,  and  always  ready  for  the 
fray,  with  his  gigantic  bürden  of  learning,  he  has  been  compared 
by  Taine  to  one  of  those  war-elephants  of  antiquity  which  bore 
on  their  backs  a  whole  fortress,  with  garrison,  armoury,  and 
munitions,  and  under  the  Veight  of  this  panoply  could  yet  move 
as  quickly  as  a  fleet-footed  horse. 

It  must  have  been  intensely  interesting  for  their  comrades 
at  the  Mermaid  to  listen  to  the  discussions  between  Jonson  and 
Shakespeare,  to  follow  two  such  remarkable  minds,  so  differently 
organised  and  equipped,  when  they  debated,  in  jest  or  eamest, 
this  or  that  historic  problem,  this  or  that  moot  point  in  sesthetics ; 
and  no  less  interesting  is  it  for  us,  in  our  days,  to  compare  their 
almost  contemporaneous  dramatic  treatment  of  Roman  antiquity. 
We  might  here  expect  Shakespeare  to  have  the  worst  of  it,  since 
he,  according  to  Jonson's  well-known  phrase,  had  *'  small  Latine 
and  less  Greek;"  while  Ben  was  as  much  at  home  in  ancient 
Rome  as  in  the  London  of  his  day,  and,  with  his  altogether  mascu- 
line  talent,  could  claim  a  certain  kinship  with  the  Roman  spirit. 

And  yet  even  here  Shakespeare  Stands  high  above  Jonson, 
who,  with  all  his  leaming  and  industry,  lacks  his  great  contem- 
porarys  sense  for  the  fundamental  dement  in  human  nature,  to 
which  the  terms  good  and  bad  do  not  apply,  and  has,  besides, 
very  few  of  those  unforeseen  inspirations  of  genius  which  con- 
stitute  Shakespeare's  strength,  and  make  up  for  all  the  gaps  in 
his  knowledge.  Jonson,  moreover,  could  not  modulate  into  the 
minor  key,  and  is  thus  unable  to  depict  the  inmost  subtleties  of 
feminine  character. 

None  the  less  would  it  be  unjust  to  make  Jonson,  as  the 
Germans  are  apt  to  do,  nothing  but  a  foil  to  Shakespeare.  We 
must,  in  mere  equity,  bring  out  the  points  at  which  he  «jtträ&^i^ 
real  greatnesa. 


332  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Although  the  scene  of  The  Poetaster  is  laid  in  Rome  in  thc 
days  of  Augustus,  the  play  eludes  comparison  with  Shakespeare's 
Roman  dramas  in  so  far  as  its  costume  is  partly  a  mere  travesty 
under  which  Ben  Jonson  defends  himself  against  his  contem- 
poraries  Marston  and  Dekker,  who  also  figure,  of  course,  in  a 
Roman  disguise.  Even  here,  however,  he  has  done  his  best  to 
give  an  accurate  picture  of  antique  Roman  manners,  and  has 
applied  to  the  task  all  his  leaming,  with  rather  too  little  aid, 
perhaps,  from  his  fancy.  His  comic  figures,  for  instance,  the 
intrusive  Crispinus  and  the  foolish  singer  Hermogenes,  are  taken 
bodily  from  Horace's  Satires  (Book  i.  Satires  3  and  9) ;  but  both 
these  pleasant  caricatures  are  ezecuted  with  vigour  and  life. 

Ben  Jonson  has  in  this  play  woven  together  three  different 
actions,  one  only  of  which  has  a  symbolic  meaning  outside  the 
frame  of  the  picture.  In  the  first  place,  he  presents  Ovid's 
struggle  for  leave  to  follow  his  poetic  vocation,  his  suspected 
love-affair  with  Augustus's  daughter,  Julia,  and  his  banishment 
from  the  court  when  Augustus  discovers  the  intrigue  between 
the  young  poet  and  his  child.  In  the  second  place,  he  introduces 
US  into  the  house  of  the  rieh  bourgeois  Albius,  who  has  been  ill- 
advised  enough  to  marry  one  of  the  emancipated  great  ladies  of 
the  period,  Chloe  by  name,  and  who,  by  her  help,  obtains  admis- 
sion  to  court  society.  Chloe's  house  is  a  meeting-place  for  all 
the  love-poets  of  the  period,  Tibullus,  Propertius,  Ovid,  Cornelius 
Gallus,  and  the  ladies  who  favour  them ;  and  Jonson  has  succeeded 
very  fairly  in  suggesting  the  free  tone  of  conversation  prevalent 
in  those  circles,  which  was  doubtless  reproduced  in  many  circles 
of  London  life  during  the  Renaissance.  Finally,  we  have  a  repre- 
sentation  —  Jonson's  chief  object  in  writing  the  play  —  of  the 
conspiracy  of  the  bad  and  envious  poets  against  Horace,  which 
culminates  in  a  formal  impeachment.  The  Emperor  himself,  and 
the  famous  poets  of  his  court,  form  a  sort  of  tribunal  before 
which  the  case  is  tried.  Horace  is  acquitted  on  every  count, 
and  the  accusers  are  sentenced  to  a  punishment  entirely  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Aristophanic  comedy — so  foreign  to  Shakespeare — 
Crispinus  being  forced  to  take  a  pill  of  hellebore,  which  makes 
him  vomit  up  all  the  afiected  or  merely  novel  words  he  has  used, 
which  appear  to  Ben  Jonson  ridiculous.  Some  of  them — for 
example  the  first  two,  "  retrograde  "  and  "  reciprocal " — have 
nevertheless  survived  in  modern  English.  In  spite  of  its  allego- 
rical  character,  the  episode  is  not  deficient  in  an  almost  too  pungent 
realism. 

The  most  Roman  of  all  these  scenes  are  doubtless  those  in 
which  the  gallantry  between  the  young  men  and  the  ladies,  and 
the  snobbery  which  forces  its  way  into  Augustus's  court,  are 
freely  represented.  Less  Roman,  by  reason  of  their  too  palpable 
tendencyi  are  the  scenes  in  which  Augustus  appears  in  the  cirde 
of  bis  court  poets.     No  serious  attempt  is  made  to  portray  the 


JONSON'S  "POETASTER"  333 

Emperor's  character,  and  the  Speeches  placed  in  the  mouths  of 
the  poets  are  very  clearly  designed  simply  for  the  glorification 
of  poetry  in  general,  and  Ben  Jonson  in  particular. 

The  sins  of  which  his  enemies  were  always  accusing  him  were 
''self-love,  arrogancy,  impudence,  and  railing/'  together  with 
''  filching  by  translation."  As  he  explains  in  the  defensive  di»- 
logue  which  he  appended  to  his  play,  it  was  his  purpose-— 

"  To  show  that  Virgil,  Horace,  and  the  rest 
Of  those  great  master-spirits,  did  not  want 
Detractors  then,  or  practisers  against  them." 

He  makes  fooiish  persons  find  injurious  allusions  to  themselveSi 
and  even  insults  to  the  Emperor,  in  entirely  innocent  poems  of 
Horace's,  and  shows  how  the  Emperor  Orders  them  to  be  whipped 
'as  backbiters.  Horace's  literary  relation  to  the  Greeks,  be  it 
noted,  was  not  unlike  that  of  Ben  Jonson  himself  to  the  Latin 
writers. 

A  special  interest  attaches  for  us  to  the  passage  in  the  fiilh 
act,  where,  immediately  before  VirgiFs  entrance,  the  different 
poets,  at  the  Suggestion  of  the  Emperor,  ezpress  their  judgment 
of  his  genius,  and  where  Horace,  after  warmly  protesting  against 
the  common  belief  that  one  poet  is  necessarily  envious  of  another, 
joins  in  the  general  eulogy  of  his  great  rival.  There  is  this  re- 
markable  circumstance  about  the  encomiums  on  Virgil,  here 
placed  in  the  mouths  of  Gallus,  TibuUus,  and  Horace,  that  while 
some  of  them  are  appropriate  enough  to  the  real  Virgil  (eise  all 
verisimilitude  would  have  been  sacrificed),  others  seem  unmis- 
takably  to  point  away  from  Virgil  towards  one  or  other  famous 
contemporary  of  Jonson's  own.  Look  for  a  moment  at  these 
Speeches  (v.  i): — 

"  TibuUus,  That  which  he  hath  writ 

Is  with  such  judgment  labour'd,  and  distill'd 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  lives, 
That  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines, 
He  should  not  touch  at  any  serious  point, 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him. 

Augustus,  You  mean,  he  might  repeat  part  of  his  works 
As  fit  for  any  Conference  he  can  use  ? 

TibuUus,  True,  royal  Caesar. 

Horace.   His  leaming  savours  not  the  school-like  gloss 
That  most  consists  in  echoing  words  and  terms, 
And  soonest  wins  a  man  an  empty  name ; 
Nor  any  long  or  far-fetch'd  circumstance 
Wrapp'd  in  the  curious  generaldes  of  arts 
But  a  du'ect  and  analytic  sum 
Of  all  the  worth  and  first  efifects  of  arts. 
And  for  his  poesy,  'tis  so  ramm'd  with  life, 
That  it  shall  gather  strength  of  life,  with  beinii^ 
And  live  her^ter  more  adimxed  than  noii*^ 


334  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Can  we  conceive  that  Ben  Jonson  had  not  Shakespeare  in  his 
eye  as  he  wrote  these  speeches,  which  apply  better  to  him  than 
to  any  one  eise  ?  It  is  true  that  a  Shakespeare  scholar  of  such 
authority  as  the  late  C.  M.  Ingleby,  the  Compiler  of  Shakespeares 
Centurie  of  Prayse^  has  declared  against  this  theory,  together  with 
Nicholson  and  Furnivall  But  none  of  them  has  brought  forward 
any  conclusive  argument  to  prevent  us  from  following  Ben  Jon- 
son's  admirer,  Giiford^  and  his  impartial  critici  John  Addington 
Symonds,  in  accepting  these  speeches  as  allusions  to  Shakespeare. 
It  is  useless  to  be  for  ever  citing  the  passage  in  The  Retumfrom 
Pamassus,  as  to  the  "  purge  "  Shakespeare  has  given  Ben  Jonson, 
in  proof  that  there  was  an  open  feud  between  them,  when,  in  fact, 
there  is  no  evidence  whatever  of  any  hostility  on  Shakespeare's 
part;  and  the  very  stress  laid  on  the  assertion  that  Horace,  as  a 
poet,  is  innocent  of  envy  towards  a  famous  and  populär  colleague,' 
makes  it  unreasonable  to  take  the  eulogies  as  applying  solely  to 
the  real  Virgil,  whom  they  fit  so  imperfectly.  Of  course  it  by  no 
means  foUows  that  we  are  to  conceive  every  word  of  these  eulogies 
as  unreservedly  applied  to  Shakespeare ;  the  speeches  seem  to 
have  been  purposely  left  somewhat  vague,  so  that  they  might  at 
once  point  to  the  ancient  poet  and  suggest  the  modern.  But  out 
of  the  mists  of  the  characterisation  certain  definite  contours  stand 
forth ;  and  the  physiognomy  which  they  form,  the  picture  of  the 
great  teacher  in  all  earthly  affairs,  rieh,  not  in  book-leaming,  but 
in  the  wisdom  of  life,  whose  poetry  is  so  vital  that  it  will  live 
through  the  ages  with  an  ever-intenser  life — this  portrait  we 
know  and  recognise  as  that  of  the  genius  with  the  great|  calm 
cyes  under  the  lofty  brow. 

Ben  Jonson's  Sejanus^  which  dates  from  1603,  only  two  years 
after  The  Poetaster^  is  a  historical  tragedy  of  the  time  of  Tiberius, 
in  which  the  poet,  without  any  reference  to  contemporary  Per- 
sonalities, sets  forüi  to  depict  the  life  and  customs  of  the  imperial 
court.  It  is  as  an  archaeologist  and  moralist,  however,  that  he 
depicts  them,  and  his  method  is  thus  very  difierent  from  Shake- 
speare's.  He  not  only  displays  a  close  acquaintance  with  the  life 
of  the  period,  but  penetrates  through  the  outward  forms  to  its 
spirit.  He  is  animated,  indeed,  by  a  purely  moral  indignation 
against  the  turbulent  and  corrupt  protagonist  of  his  tragedy,  but 
his  wrath  does  not  prevent  him  from  giving  a  careful  delinea- 
tion  of  the  figure  of  Sejanus  in  relation  to  its  surroundingSi  by 
means  of  thoughtfully-designed  and  even  imaginative  individual 
scenes.  Jonson  does  not,  like  Shakespeare,  display  from  within 
the  character  of  this  unscrupulous  and  audacious  man,  but  he 
shows  the  circumstances  which  have  produced  it,  and  its  modes 
of  action. 

The  diiference  between  Jonson's  and  Shakespeare's  method  is 
not  that  Jonson  pedantically  avoids  the  anachronisms  which  swann 
in  Julius  Cäsar.    In  both  plays,  for  instance,  watdies  are  spokea 


JONSON'S  "SEJANUS'*  335 

of.^  But  Ben,  on  occasion,  can  paint  a  scene  of  Roman  life  with  as 
much  accuracy  as  we  find  in  a  picture  by  Alma  Tadema  or  a  novel 
by  Flaubert  For  example,  when  he  depicts  an  act  of  worship 
and  sacrifice  in  the  Sacellum  or  private  chapel  of  Sejanus's  house 
(v.  4),  every  detail  of  the  ceremonial  is  correct  After  the  Herald 
(Prseco)  has  uttered  the  formulai  "  Be  all  profane  far  hence/'  and 
hom  and  flute  players  have  performed  their  liturgical  music,  the 
priest  (Flamen)  ezhorts  all  to  appear  with  "  pure  hands,  pure 
vestmentSy  and  pure  minds ; "  his  acolytes  intone  the  complemen- 
tary  responses;  and  while  the  trumpets  are  again  sounded,  he 
takes  honey  from  the  altar  with  his  finger,  tastes  it,  and  gives  it 
to  the  others  to  taste;  goes  through  the  same  process  with  the 
milk  in  an  earthen  vessel ;  and  then  sprinkles  milk  over  the  altar, 
**  kindleth  his  gums/'  and  goes  with  the  censer  round  the  altar, 
upon  which  he  ultimately  places  it,  dropping  "  branches  of  poppy'' 
upon  the  smouldering  incense.  In  justification  of  these  traits, 
Jonson  gives  no  fewer  than  thirteen  footnotes,  in  which  passages 
are  cited  from  a  very  wide  ränge  of  Latin  authors.  Kaiisch  has 
counted  the  notes  appended  to  this  play,  and  finds  291  in  all. 
The  ceremonial  is  here  employed  to  introduce  a  scene  in  which 
'^great  Mother  Fortune/'  to  whom  thelibation  is  made,  avertshef 
face  from  Sejanus,  and  thereby  portends  his  fall ;  whereupon,  in 
an  access  of  fury,  he  overtums  her  statue  and  altar. 

Another  scene,  constructed  with  quite  as  much  leaming,  and 
far  more  able  and  remarkable,  is  that  which  opens  the  second  Act 
Livia's  physidan,  Eudemus,  has  been  subomed  by  Sejanus  to 
procure  him  a  meeting  with  the  princess,  and,  moreover,  to  con- 
coct  a  potent  poison  for  her  husband.  In  the  act  of  assisting  his 
mistress  to  rouge  her  cheek,  and  recommending  her  an  effective 
''dentrifice"  and  a  ''prepared  pomatum  to  stnooth  the  skin,"  he 
answers  her  casual  questions  as  to  who  is  to  present  the  poisoned 
cup  to  Drusus  and  induce  him  to  drink  it  Here,  again,  Ben 
Jonson's  mastery  of  detail  displays  itself.  Eudemus's  remark,  for 
example,  that  the  "ceruse"  on  Livia's  cheeks  has  faded  in  thesun, 
is  supported  by  a  reference  to  an  epigram  cf  Martial,  from  which 
it  appears  that  this  cosmetic  was  injured  by  heat  But  here  all 
these  details  are  merged  in  the  potent  general  Impression  pro- 
duced  by  the  dispassionate  and  business-like  calmness  with  which 
the  impending  rourderis  arranged  in  the  intervals  of  a  disquisi- 
tion  upon  those  devices  of  the  toilet  which  are  to  enchain  the  con« 
triver  of  the  crime. 

Ben  Jonson  possesses  the  undaunted  insight  and  the  vigorous 
pessimism  which  render  it  possible  to  represent  Roman  depravity 
and  wild-beast-like  ferodty  under  the  first  Emperors  without  ez- 
tenuation  and  without  declamation.  He  cannot,  indeed,  dispense 
with  a  sort  of  chonis  of  honourable  Romans,  but  they  ezpress 
themselves,  as  a  rule,  pithily  and  without  prolixitj  \  bsä 

^  «« Ohterve  bim  u  his  watcfa  obierfes  ^  cV>du**— St^ttmis^V  v 


336  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

enough  sense  of  art  and  of  history  never  to  let  his  ruflBans  and 
courtesans  repent. 

Now  and  then  he  even  attains  to  a  Shakespearian  kvd.  The 
scene  in  which  Sejanus  approaches  Eudemus  first  with  jesting 
talk,  and  then,  with  wily  insinuations,  worms  himself  into  his 
acquaintance  and  makes  him  his  creature,  while  Eudemus,  with 
crs^ty  servility,  shows  that  he  can  take  a  half-spoken  hin^  and, 
without  for  a  moment  committing  himself,  offers  his  Services  as 
pander  and  assassin — this  passage.  is  in  no  way  inferior  to  tbe 
scene  in  Shakespeare's  King  John  in  which  the  King  suggests 
to  Hubert  the  murder  of  Arthur. 

The  most  remarkable  scene,  however,  is  that  (v.  lo)  in  which 
the  Senate  is  assembled  in  the  Temple  of  Apollo  to  hear  messsges 
from  Tiberius  in  his  retreat  at  Capn.  The  first  letter  oonfers 
upon  Sejanus  "  the  tnbunitial  dignity  and  power,"  with  expres« 
sions  of  esteem,  and  the  Senate  loudly  acclaims  the  favourite. 
Then  the  second  letter  is  read«  It  is  expressed  in  a  strangely 
contorted  style,  begins  with  some  general  remarks  on  public 
policy,  hypocritical  in  tone,  then  tums,  like  the  first,  to  Sqanus,  . 
and,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  dwells  with  emphasis  upon  his 
low  origin  and  the  rare  honours  to  which  he  has  been  preferred. 
Already  the  hearers  are  alarmed ;  but  the  impression  is  obliterated 
by  new  sentences  of  flattery.  Then  unfavourable  opinions  and 
judgments  regarding  the  favourite  are  cited  and  dwelt  upon  with 
a  certain  complacency;  then  they  are  refuted  with  some  vehe- 
mence;  finally,  they  are  brought  forward  again,  and  this  time  in  a 
manner  unmistakably  hostile  to  Sejanus.  Immediately  the  Sena- 
tors who  have  swarmed  around  him  withdraw  from  his  neighbour- 
hood,  leaving  him  in  the  centre  of  an  empty  space ;  and  the  reading 
continues  until  Laco  enters  with  the  guards  who  are  to  arrest  the 
hitherto  all-powerful  favourite  and  lead  him  away.  We  can  find 
no  parallel  to  this  reading  of  the  letter  and  the  vadlladons  it  pro- 
duces  among  the  cringing  Senators,  save  in  Antonyms  speech  over 
the  body  of  Caesar  and  the  consequent  revulsion  in  the  attitude 
and  temper  of  the  Roman  mob.  Shakespeare's  scene  is  more 
vividly  projected,  and  shines  with  the  poet's  humour;  Jonson's 
scene  is  elaborated  with  grim  energy,  and  worked  out  with  the 
moralist's  bitteraess.  But  in  the  dramatic  movement  of  the 
moralist's  scene,  no  less  than  of  the  poet's,  antique  Rome  lives 
again. 

Jonson's  Catiline^  written  some  time  later,  appeared  in  löll, 
and  was  dedicated  to  Pembroke.  Although  executed  on  the 
same  prindples,  it  is  on  the  whole  inferior  to  Sejanus ;  but  it 
is  better  fitted  for  comparison  with  Julius  Cäsar  in  so  far  as  its 
action  belongs  to  the  same  period,  and  Caesar  himself  appears  in 
it.  The  second  act  of  the  tragedy  is  in  its  way  a  masterpieoei 
As  soon  as  Jonson  enters  upon  the  political  action  properi  he 
truQBcnheB  endless  speeches  from  CiceiOi  and  beoomes  intoleraUy 


JONSON'S  "CATILINE"  337 

tedious ;  but  so  long  as  he  keeps  to  the  representation  of  manners, 
and  seeks,  as  in  his  comedies,  to  paint  a  quite  unemotional  picture 
of  the  period,  he  shows  himself  at  his  best. 

This  second  act  takes  place  at  the  house  of  Fulvia,  the  lady 
who,  according  to  Sallust^  betrayed  to  Cicero  the  conspirators' 
secret.  The  whole  picture  produces  an  entirely  convincing  e£fect. 
She  first  repels  with  unfeeling  coldness  an  intrusive  friend  and 
protector,  Catiline's  fellow-conspirator,  Curius;  but  when  he  at 
last  turns  away  in  anger,  telling  her  that  she  will  repent  her 
conduct  when  she  finds  herseif  excluded  from  participation  in 
an  immense  boot/  which  will  fall  to  the  share  of  others,  she 
calls  him  back,  füll  of  curiosity  and  interest,  becomes  suddenly 
friendly,  and  even  caressing,  and  wrings  from  him  his  secret, 
instantly  recognising,  however,  that  Cicero  will  pay  for  it  without 
Stint,  and  that  this  money  is  considerably  safer  than  the  sum 
which  might  fall  to  her  share  in  a  general  revolution.  Her  visit 
to  Cicero»  with  his  craftily  friendly  interrogatory,  first  of  her,  and 
then  of  her  lover  Curius,  whom  he  summons  and  converts  into 
one  of  his  spies,  deserves  the  highest  praise.  These  scenes 
contain  the  concentrated  essence  of  SaUust's  Catiline  and  of 
Cicero's  Orations  and  Letters.  The  Cicero  of  this  play  rises 
high  above  the  Cicero  to  whom  Shakespeare  has  assigned  a 
few  Speeches.  Caesar,  on  the  other  band,  comes  off  no  better 
at  Ben  Jonson's  hands  than  at  Shakespeare's.  The  poet  was 
obviously  determined  to  show  a  certain  independence  of  judgment 
in  the  way  in  which  he  has  treated  Sallust's  representation  both 
of  Caesar  and  of  Cicero.  Sallust,  whom  Jonson  nevertheless 
foUows  in  the  main,  is  hostile  to  Cicero  and  defends  Caesar. 
The  worthy  Ben,  on  the  other  band,  was,  as  a  man  of  letters, 
a  sworn  admirer  of  Cicero,  while  in  Caesar  he  sees  only  a  cold, 
crafty  personage,  who  sought  to  make  use  of  Catiline  for  his 
own  ends,  and  therefore  joined  forces  with  him,  but  repudiated 
him  when  things  went  wrong,  and  was  so  influential  that  Cicero 
dared  not  attack  him  when  he  rooted  out  the  conspiracy.  Thus 
the  great  Caius  Julius  did  not  touch  Jonson's  manly  heart  any 
more  than  Shakespeare's.  He  appears  throughout  in  an  extremely 
unsympathetic  light,  and  no  speech,  no  word  of  his,  portends  his 
Coming  greatness. 

Of  this  greatness  Jonson  had  probably  no  deep  realisation. 
It  is  surprising  enough  to  note  that  the  scholars  and  poets  of 
the  Renaissance,  in  so  far  as  they  took  sides  in  the  old  strife 
between  Caesar  and  Pompey,  were  all  on  Pompe^s  side.  Even 
in  the  seventeenth  Century,  in  France,  under  a  despotism  more 
absolute  than  Caesar's,  the  men  who  were  familiär  with  antique 
history,  and  who,  for  the  rest,  vied  with  each  other  in  loyalty 
and  king-worship,  were  unanimously  opposed  to  Caesar.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  it  is  not  until  our  Century,  with  its  ho&t\l\\.^  x.^ 
despotism  and  its  continuous  advance  in  the  dix^cxioii  ol  ^^x&s^ 


338  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cracy,  that  Caesar's  genius  has  been  fully  appreciated,  and  the 
benefits  bis  life  conferred  on  humanity  bave  been  thoroughly 
understood. 

The  personal  relation  between  Ben  Jonson  and  Shakespeare 
18  not  to  this  day  quite  clearly  ascertained.  It  was  for  long 
regarded  as  distinctly  hostile,  no  one  .doubting  that  Jonson, 
during  bis  great  rival's  lifetime,  cherished  an  obstinate  jealonsy 
towards  bim.  More  recently,  Jonson's  admirers  bave  ai^ed 
witb  warmtb  that  cruel  injustice  has  been  done  him  in  this 
respect.  So  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  it  appears  that  Jonsoä 
bonestly  recognised  and  admired  Shakespeare's  great  qualities, 
but  at  the  same  time  feit  a  displeasure  he  never  conld  quite 
conquer  at  seeing  him  so  much  more  populär  as  a  dramatist, 
and — as  was  only  natural — regarded  his  own  tendencies  in  art 
as  truer  and  better  justified. 

In  the  preface  to  Sejanus  (edition  of  1605)  Jonson  uses  an 
expression  which,  as  the  piece  was  acted  by  Shakespeare's 
Company,  and  Shakespeare  himself  appeared  in  it,  was  long 
interpreted  as  referring  to  him.     Jonson  writes: — 

"  Lastly,  I  would  inform  you  that  this  book,  in  all  numbers,  is  not 
the  same  with  that  which  was  acted  on  the  public  stage,  wherein  a 
second  pen  had  good  share ;  in  place  of  which,  I  have  rather  chosen  to 
put  weaker,  and,  no  doubt,  less  pleasing,  of  mine  own,  than  to  defiaud 
so  happy  a  genius  of  his  right  by  my  loathed  Usurpation.'' 

The  words  "  so  happy  a  genius,"  in  particular,  together  with  the 
other  circumstances,  have  directed  the  thoughts  of  commenta- 
tors  to  Shakespeare.  Mr.  Brinsley  Nicholson,  however  (in  the 
Academyy  Nov.  I4th,  1874),  has  shown  it  to  be  far  more  pro- 
bable that  the  person  alluded  to  is  not  Shakespeare,  but  a  very 
inferior  poet,  Samuel  Sheppard.  The  marked  politeness  of 
Jonson's  expressions  may  be  due  to  his  having  inflicted  on  his 
collaborator  a  considerable  disappointment,  almost  an  insult,  by 
omitting  his  portion  of  the  work,  and  at  the  same  time  excluding 
his  name  from  the  title-page.  It  seems,  at  any  rate,  that  Samuel 
Sheppard  feit  wounded  by  this  proceeding,  since,  more  than  forty 
years  later,  he  claimed  for  himself  the  honour  of  having  coUaborated 
in  Sejanus f  in  a  verse  which  is  ostensibly  a  panegyric  on  Jonson.^ 
Symonds,  so  late  as  1888,  nevertheless  maintains  in  his  Ben  Jonson 
that  the  preface  most  probably  refers  to  Shakespeare;    but  he 

^  He  says  of  Jonson  in  7^  THmes  Displayed  in  Six  Sestyads: — 

*'  So  His,  that  Divine  Plautus  eaualled, 
Wh  ose  Commick  vain  Menander  nere  could  hit« 
Whose  tragic  sceans  shal  be  with  wonder  Read 
By  after  ages,  for  unto  his  wit 
My  seife  gave  personal  ayd,  /  dictated 
To  him  when  as  Se/'anus  fall  he  writ. 
And  yet  od  earth  some  foolish  sots  there  bee 
That  due  make  Randolph  hii  Rival  in  dcgiee.* 


JONSON  AND  SHAKESPEARE  339 

does  not  refute  or  even  mention  Nicholson's  carefully-marshaned 
argument 

It  is  not,  however,  of  great  importance  to  decide  whether  a 
oompliment  in  one  of  Jonson's  prefaces  is  or  is  not  addressed 
to  Shakespeare,  since  we  have  ample  evidence  in  the  warm 
eulogy  and  mild  criticism  in  bis  DisaAerieSy  and  in  the  en- 
thusiastic  poem  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio,  that  the  crusty 
Ben  (who,  moreover,  is  said  to  have  been  Shakespeare's  boon 
companion  on  bis  last  convivial  evening)  regarded  him  with  the 
wärmest  feelings,  at  least  towards  the  dose  of  bis  life  and  after 
bis  deatb. 

This  does  not  exclude  the  probability  that  Jonson's  radically 
different  literary  Ideals  may  have  led  bim  to  make  incidental  and 
fiometimes  ratber  tart  allusions  to  wbat  appeared  to  bim  weak  or 
mistaken  in  Shakespeare's  work. 

There  is  no  foundation  for  the  theory  which  has  sometimes 
been  advanced,  that  the  passage  in  The  Poetaster  ridiculing 
Crispinus's  coat  of  arms  is  an  allusion  to  Shakespeare.  It  is 
beyond  all  doubt  that  the  figure  of  Crispinus  was  exclusively 
intended  for  Marston;  he  bimself,  at  any  rate,  did  not  for  a 
moment  doubt  it.  For  the  rest,  Jonson's  ascertained  or  con- 
jectured  side-glances  at  Shakespeare  are  these : — 

In  the  prologue  to  Every  Man  in  his  Humour^  wbicb  can 
scarcely  have  been  spoken  when  the  play  was  performed  by  the 
Lord  Cbamberlain's  Company,  not  only  is  realistic  art  proclaimed 
the  tnie  art,  in  Opposition  to  the  romanticism  which  prevailed  on 
the  Shakespearian  stage,  but  a  quite  definite  attack  is  made  on 
tbose  who 

"With  three  rusty  swords, 
And  help  of  some  few  foot  and  half-foot  words, 
Fight  over  York  and  Lancaster's  long  jars." 

And  this  is  followed  by  a  really  biting  criticism  of  the  works  of 
other  playwrigbts,  concluding — 

"  There's  hope  left  tboa, 
You,  that  have  so  graced  monsters,  may  like  mea** 

The  posmble  jibe  at  Twelfth  Night  in  Every  Man  out  of  his 
Humour  (iii.  i)  has  already  been  mentioned  {anU^  p.  233).  Tbat| 
too,  must  be  of  late  Insertion,  and  is  at  worst  extremely  innocent 
Much  has  been  made  of  the  passage  in  Volpone  (iii.  2)  wbere 
Lady  PoUtick  Would-be,  speaking  of  Guarini's  Pastor  Fido^ 
says: — 

**  All  our  Englisb  writers 
Will  deigD  to  steal  out  of  this  author,  mainly : 
Almost  as  much  as  from  Montagnid" 

This  bas  been  interpreted  as  an  accusation  of  plagiarism^  «onj^ 
pointing  it  at  tbc  well-known  passage  in  Tfce  Tem^est^^iiti^g^ 


340  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  has  annexed  some  lines  from  Montaigne's  Essays; 
others  at  Hamlet^  which  has  throughout  many  points  of  contact 
with  the  French  philosopher.  Bufe-Ki^  TempesLyts^  undoubtedly 
written  long  after  Volpone^  and  the  relation  oiHa$Hlet  to  Montaigne 
is  such  as  to  render  it  scarcely  conceivable  that  an  accusation  of 
plagiarism  could  be  founded  upon  it  Here  again  Jonson  seems 
to  have  been  groundlessly  suspected  of  malice. 

Jacob  Feis  {Shakespeare  and  Montaigne^  p.  183)  would  fain 
see  in  Nano's  song  about  the  hermaphrodite  Androgyno  a  shame- 
less  attack  upon  Shakespeare,  simply  because  the  names  Pythagoras 
and  Euphorbus  appear  in  it  (  Volpone,  L  i),  as  they  do  in  the  wdl- 
known  passage  in  Meres ;  but  this  accusation  is  entirely  fantastic. 
Equally  unreasonable  is  it  of  Feis  to  discover  an  obscene  besmirch- 
ing  of  the  figure  of  Ophelia  in  that  passage  of  Jonson,  Marston,  and 
Chapman's  Eastward  Ho  I  (iii.  2)  where  there  occur  some  passing 
allusions  to  Hamlet. 

There  remain,  then,  in  reality,  only  one  or  two  passages  in 
Bartholomew  Fair^  dating  from  16 14.  We  have  already  seen 
{ante^  p.  285)  that  there  may  possibly  be  a  satirical  allusion  to 
the  Sonnets  in  the  introduced  puppet-play,  The  T&uchstone  of 
True  Love,  The  Induction  contains  an  unquestionable  jibe, 
both  at  The  Tempest  and  The  IVinter's  Ta/e,  whose  airy  poetry 
the  downright  Ben  was  unable  to  appreciate.^  Neither  Caliban 
nor  the  Clement  of  enchantment  in  71^  J^empSt'^SßpiBle^  to' 
him,  and  in  The  Wintet's  Tale,  as  in  Perides^  it  ofiended  bis 
classic  taste  and  bis  Aristotelian  theories  that  the  action  should 
eztend  over  a  score  of  years,  so  that  we  see  infants  in  one  act 
reappear  in  the  next  as  grown-up  young  women. 

But  these  trifling  intolerances  and  impertinences  must  not 
tempt  US  to  forget  that  it  was  Ben  Jonson  who  wrote  of  Shake- 
speare those  great  and  passionate  lines  :— 

'*  Triumph,  my  Britain  !  thou  hast  one  to  show 
To  whom  all  scenes  of  EuFope  homage  owe. 
He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time ! " 


^  "  If  there  be  never  a  senrant-monster  in  the  fair,  who  can  help  it,  he  layi,  nor  a 
nest  of  antiques  ?  He  is  loth  to  make  Nature  afraid  in  hii  playi»  Uke  thote  thiU  bcfd 
tales,  tempests,  and  such-like  drolleries.* 


XI 

HAMLET:   ITS  ANTECEDENTS  IN  FICTION,  HISTORY, 

AND  DRAMA 

Many  and  various  emotions  crowded  upon  Shakespeare's  mtnd 
in  the  year  1601.  In  its  early  months  Essex  and  Southampton 
were  condemned.  Perhaps  at  the  same  time  occurred  the 
crisis  in  the  relations  of  Shakespeare  with  the  Dark  Lady« 
Finally,  in  the  early  autumn,  Shakespeare  suflered  a  loss  which 
he  must  have  feit  deeply.  The  Stratford  register  of  burials  for 
1601  contains  this  line  : 

Septemb.  8.     Mr.  Johannes  Shakespeare. 

He  lost  his  father,  his  earliest  friend  and  guardian,  whose 
honour  and  reputation  lay  so  near  to  his  heart.  The  father  pro- 
bably  lived  with  his  son's  family  in  the  handsome  New  Place, 
which  Shakespeare  had  bought  four  years  before.  He  had 
doubtless  brought  up  the  two  girls  Susannah  and  Judith ;  he  had 
doubtless  sat  by  the  death-bed  of  the  little  Hamnet  Now  he 
was  no  more.  All  the  years  of  his  youth,  spent  at  his  father's 
side,  revived  in  Shakespeare's  mind,  memories  flocked  in  upon 
him,  the  fundamental  relation  between  son  and  father  pre- 
occupied  his  thoughts,  and  he  feil  to  brooding  over  filial  love 
and  filial  reverence. 

In  the  same  year  Hamlet  hegan  to  take  shape  in  Shakespeare's 
imagination. 

Hantlet  has  given  the  name  of  Denmark  a  world-wide  renown. 
Of  all  Danish  men,  there  is  only  one  who  can  becalled  famous  on 
the  largest  scale ;  only  one  with  whom  the  thoughts  of  men  are 
for  ever  busied  in  Europe,  America,  Australia,  aye,  even  in  Asia 
and  Africa,  wherever  European  culture  has  made  its  way;  and 
this  one  never  existed,  at  any  rate  in  the  form  in  which  he  has 
become  known  to  the  world.  Denmark  has  produced  several 
men  of  note — ^Tycho  Brahe,  Thorvaldsen,  and  Hans  Christian 
Andersen — but  none  of  them  has  attained  a  hundredth  part  of 
Hamlet's  fame.  The  Hamlet  literature  is  comparable  in  extent 
to  the  literature  of  one  of  the  smaller  European  peoples — th^. 
Slovaks,  for  instance. 

As  it  18  iatercstiDg  to  follow  with  the  eye  iVie  ptocea&Xirs  ^Vcvösi 

SM 


342  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  block  of  marble  slowly  assumes  human  form,  so  it  is  interest- 
ing  to  observe  how  the  Hantlet  theme  gradually  acquires  its 
Shakespearian  character. 

The  legend  first  appears  in  Sazo  Grammaticus.  Fengo  mur- 
ders  his  brave  brother  Horvendil,  and  marries  his  widow  Genitha 
(Gertrude).  Horvendil's  son,  Amleth,  determines  to  disarm 
Fengo's  malevolence  by  feigning  madness.  In  order  to  test 
whether  he  is  really  mad,  a  beautifnl  girl  is  thrown  in  his  way, 
who  is  to  note  whether,  in  his  passion  for  her,  he  still  maintains 
the  appearance  of  madness.  But  a  foster-brother  and  firiend  of 
Amleth's  reveals  the  plot  to  him ;  the  girl,  too,  has  an  old  affec- 
tion  for  him ;  and  noüiing  is  discovered.  Here  lie  the  germs  of 
Ophelia  and  Hpratio. 

With  regard  to  Amleth's  mad  talk,  it  is  explained  that,  having 
a  conscientious  objection  to  lying,  he  so  contorted  his  sayings 
that,  though  he  always  said  what  he  meant,  people  could  not 
discover  whether  he  meant  what  he  said,  or  himself  understood 
it — an  account  of  the  matter  which  applies  quite  as  well  to  the 
dark  sayings  of  the  Shakespearian  Hamlet  as  to  the  naive  riddling 
of  the  Jutish  Amleth. 

Polonius,  too,  is  here  already  indicated-^especially  the  soene 
in  which  he  plays  eavesdrbpper  to  Hamlet's  conversation  with 
his  mother.  One  of  the  King's  friends  (j^rasumtione  quam  soUrHa 
abundantiar)  proposes  that  some  one  shall  conceal  himself  in  the 
Queen's  Chamber.  Amleth  runs  his  sword  through  him  and 
throws  the  dismembered  body  to  the  pigs,  as  Hamlet  in  the 
play  drags  the  body  out  with  him.  Then  ensues  Amleth's  speech 
of  reproach  to  his  mother,  of  which  not  a  little  is  retained  even 
in  Shakespeare : — 

"Think'st  thou,  woman,  that  these  hypocritical  tears  can  deanse 
thee  of  shame,  thee,  who  like  a  wanton  haust  cast  thyself  into  the  anns 
of  the  vilest  of  nithings,  hast  incestuously  embraced  thy  husband's 
murderer,  and  basely  flatterest  and  fawnest  upon  the  man  who  has 
made  thy  son  fatherless !  What  manner  of  creature  doest  thou  resemUe  ? 
Not  a  woman,  but  a  dumb  beast  who  couples  at  random." 

Fengo  resolves  to  send  Amleth  to  meet  his  death  in  England, 
and  despatches  him  thither  with  two  attendants,  to  whom  Shake- 
speare, as  we  know,  has  given  the  names  of  Rosencrantz  and 
Guildenstem — the  names  of  two  Danish  noblemen  whose  signa- 
tures  have  been  found  in  close  juxtaposition  (with  the  date 
1577)  in  an  album  which  probably  belonged  to  a  Duke  of  Wür- 
temberg.  They  were  coUeagues  in  the  Council  of  R^ency 
during  the  minority  of  Christian  IV.  These  attendants  (accordiog 
to  Saxo)  had  rune-staves  with  them,  on  which  Amleth  altered 
the  runes,  as  in  the  play  he  re-writes  the  letters. 

Ont  more  little  touch  is«  as  it  were»  led  u^  to  in  Sazo :  the 


THE  AMLETH  OF  SAXO  GRAMMATICUS        343 

ezchange  of  the  swords.  Amleth,  on  his  retum,  finds  the  King's 
men  assembled  at  his  own  funeral  feast.  He  goes  around  with 
a  drawn  sword,  and  on  trying  its  edge  against  his  nails  he  once 
or  twice  cuts  himself  with  it.  Therefore  they  nail  his  sword  fast 
into  its  sheath.  When  Amleth  has  set  fire  to  the  hall  and  rushes 
into  Fengo's  Chamber  to  murder  him,  he  takes  the  King's  sword 
from  its  hook  and  replaces  it  with  his  own,  which  the  King  in 
vain  attempts  to  draw  before  he  dies. 

Now  that  Hamlet,  more  than  any  other  Dane,  has  made  the 
name  of  his  fatherland  world-famous,  it  impresses  us  strangely 
to  read  this  utterance  of  Sazo's :  "  Imperishable  shall  be  the 
memory  of  the  steadfast  youth  who  armed  himself  against  false- 
hood  with  folly,  and  with  it  marvellously  cloaked  the  splendour 
of  heaven-radiant  wisdom.  .  .  .  He  left  history  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  his  heroism  or  his  wisdom  was  the  greater." 

The  Hamlet  of  the  tragedy,  with  reference  to  his  mother's  too 
hasty  marriage,  says,  "  Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman ! "  Saxo  re* 
marked  with  reference  to  Amleth's  widow,  who  was  in  too  great 
a  hurry  to  marry  again :  ''  Thus  it  is  with  all  the  promises  of 
women :  they  are  scattered  like  chaff  before  the  wind  and  pass 
away  like  waves  of  the  sea.  Who  then  will  trust  to  a  woman's 
iieart,  which  changes  as  flowers  shed  their  leaves,  as  seasons 
change,  and  as  new  events  wipe  out  the  traces  of  those  that  went 
before  ?  " 

In  Saxo's  eyes,  Amleth  represented  not  only  wisdom,  but 
bodily  strength.  While  the  Hamlet  of  Shakespeare  expressly 
emphasises  the  fact  that  he  is  anything  but  Herculean  ("My 
father's  brother,  but  no  more  like  my  father  than  I  to  Hercules  "), 
Saxo  expressly  compares  his  hero  to  the  Club-Bearer  whose 
name  is  a  synonym  for  strength :  ''  And  the  fame  of  men  shall 
teil  of  him  that,  if  it  had  been  given  him  to  live  his  life  fortunately 
to  the  end,  his  excellent  dispositions  would  have  displayed  them- 
selves  in  deeds  greater  than  those  of  Hercules,  and  would  have 
adorned  his  brows  with  the  demigod's  wreath."  It  sounds  almost 
as  though  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  entered  a  protest  against  these 
words  of  Saxo. 

In  the  year  1559  the  legend  was  reproduced  in  French  in 
Belleforest's  Histoires  Tragiques^  and  seems  in  this  form  to 
have  reached  England,  where  it  fumished  material  for  the  older 
Hamlet  drama,  now  lost,  but  to  which  we  find  frequent  allusions. 
It  cannot  be  proved  that  this  play  was  founded  upon  Pavier's 
English  translation  of  Belleforest,  or  even  that  Shakespeare  had 
Pavier  before  him ;  for  the  oldest  edition  of  the  translation  which 
has  come  down  to  us  (reprinted  in  Collier's  Shakespeanfs  Library^ 
ed.  1875,  P^  !•  ^^-  "•  P*  224)  <lätes  from  1608,  and  contains 
certain  details  (such  as  the  eavesdropper's  concealment  behind  the 
arras,  and  Hamlet's  exclamation  of  "A  rat!  aratl"  before  Vä 
kills  Polonius)  of  which  there  is  no  trace  in  Be\\e{ottfiX»«XkdL'w>KL^ 


344  WILLIAM  ^HAKESPEARE 

may  quite  as  well  have  been  taken  from  Shakespeare's  tragedyi 
as  borrowed  by  him  from  an  unknown  older  edition  of  tbe 
novel. 

The  earliest  known  allusion  to  the  old  Hafnlet  drama  is  the 
phrase  of  Thomas  Nash,  dating  from  1589,  quoted  above  (p.  91). 
In  1594  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  men  (Shakespeare's  Company), 
acting  together  with  the  Lord  Admiral's  men  at  the  New- 
ington  Butts  theatre  under  the  management  of  Henslow  and 
others,  performed  a  Hamlet  with  reference  to  which  Henalow 
notes  in  his  account-book  for  June  9th :  "  Rd.  at  hamlet  •  .  . 
viii  s/'  This  play  must  have  been  the  old  one,  for  Henslow  would 
otherwise  have  added  the  letters  ne  (new),  and  the  receipts  would 
have  been  much  greater.  His  share,  as  we  see,  was  only  etght 
Shillings,  whereas  it  was  sometimes  as  much  as  nine  pounds. 

The  Chief  interest  of  this  older  play  seems  to  have  centred  in 
a  figure  added  by  the  dramatist — the  Ghost  of  the  murdered 
King,  which  cried  "  Hamlet,  revenge ! "  This  cry  is  frequently 
quoted.  It  first  appears  in  1 596  in  Thomas  Lodge's  Wits  Miseru^ 
where  it  is  said  of  the  author  that  he  ''  looks  as  pale  as  the  visard 
of  ye  ghost,  which  cried  so  miserably  at  ye  theator  like  an  oister- 
wife,  Hamlet f  revengeJ*^  It  next  occurs  in  Dekker's  Sattro^ 
mastix^  1602,  where  Tucca  says,  "My  name's  Hamlet^  revenge  !^^ 
In  1605  we  find  it  in  Thomas  Smith's  Voiage  and  Enteriainemeni 
in  Rushia;  and  it  is  last  found  in  1620  in  Samuel  Rowland's 
Night  Raven,  where,  however,  it  seems  to  be  an  inaccurate  quota- 
tion  from  the  Hamlet  we  know. 

Shakespeare's  play  was  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register 
on  the  26th  of  July  1602,  under  the  title  "A  booke  called  *tßu 
Revenge  of  Hamlett  Prince  \pf'\  Denmarke  *  as  yt  was  latelie 
Acted  by  the  Lord  Chamberleyne  his  servantes^ 

That  it  made  an  instant  success  on  the  stage  is  almost  proved 
by  the  fact  that  so  early  as  the  7th  of  July  the  Opposition  manager 
Henslow  pays  Chettle  twenty  Shillings  for  "  The  Danish  Tragcdy," 
evidently  a  furbishing  up  of  the  old  play. 

The  publication  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet^  however,  did  not 
take  place  tili  1603.  Then  appeared  the  First  Quarto,  indubitably 
a  pirated  edition,  either  founded  entirely  on  shorthand  notes,  or 
on  shorthand  notes  eked  out  by  aid  of  the  actors'  parts,  and  com- 
pleted,  in  certain  passages,  from  memory.  Although  this  edition 
certainly  contains  a  debased  and  corrupt  text,  it  is  impossible  to 
attribute  to  the  misunderstandings  or  oversights  of  a  copyist  or 
stenographer  all  its  divergences  from  the  carefully-printed  quarto 
of  the  foUowing  year,  which  is  practically  identical  with  the  First 
Folio  text.  The  differences  are  so  great  as  to  exclude  such  a 
theory.  We  have  evidently  before  us  Shakespeare's  first  sketch 
of  the  play,  although  in  a  very  defective  form ;  and,  as  fiu*  as 
we  can  see,  this  first  sketch  keeps  considerably  closer  than  the 
definitive  tezt  to  the  old  HamUt  drama,  on  which  Shakespeare 


FIRST  APPEARANCE  OF  "HAMLET"  345 

based  bis  play.  Here  and  tbere,  though  with  considerable  tio- 
certainty,  we  can  even  trace  scenes  from  the  old  play  among 
Sbakespeare's,  and  touches  of  its  style  mingling  witb  bis.  It  is 
very  significant,  also,  tbat  there  are  more  rhymes  in  the  First  than 
in  die  Second  Quarto« 

The  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  1603  Edition  is  a  scene 
between  Jioratio  and  the  Queen  in  which  he  teils  her  of  the 
King's  frustrated  scheme  for  having  Hamlet  murdered  in  England. 
The  object  of  tbis  scene  is  to  absolve  the  Queen  from  complicity 
in  the  King's  crime ;  a  purpose  which  can  also  be  traced  in 
other  passages  of  tbis  first  edition,  and  which  seems  to  be  a 
survival  from  the  older  drama.  So  far  as  we  can  gatber,  Horatio 
appears  to  have  played  an  altogether  more  prominent  part  in  the 
old  play;  Hamlet's  madness  appears  to  have  been  wilder;  and 
Polonius  probably  bore  the  name  of  Corambis,  which  is  prefixed 
to  bis  Speeches  in  the  edition  of  1603.  Finally,  as  we  have 
seen,  Shakespeare  took  the  important  character  of  the  Ghost, 
not  indicated  in  either  the  legend  or  the  novel,  from  tbis  earlier 
Hamlet  tragedy.  The  theory  tbat  it  is  the  original  of  the  German 
tragedy,  Der  bestrafte  Bfudermord,  published  by  Cohn,  from  a 
manuscript  of  17  lO»  is  unsupported  by  evidence. 

Looking  backward  through  the  dramatic  literature  of  England, 
we  find  that  the  author  of  the  old  Hatnlet  drama  in  all  probability 
sought  inspiration  in  bis  turn  in  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedy.  It 
appears  from  allusions  in  Jonson's  Cynthicls  Revels  and  Bar- 
tholomew  Fair  that  tbis  play  must  have  been  written  about  1584. 
It  was  one  of  the  most  populär  plays  of  its  day  witb  the  theatre- 
going  public.  So  late  as  1632,  Prynne  in  bis  Histriomastix 
speaks  of  a  woman  who,  on  her  death-bed,  instead  of  seeking  the 
consolations  of  religion,  cried  out :  "  Hieronimo,  Hieronimo !  O 
let  me  see  Hieronimo  acted ! " 

The  tragedy  opens,  after  the  fashion  of  its  modeis  in  Seneca, 
witb  the  apparition  of  the  murdered  man's  ghost,  and  bis  demand 
for  vengeance.  Thus  the  Ghost  in  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  is 
lineally  descended  from  the  spirit  of  Tantalus  in  Seneca's  Thyestes^ 
and  from  the  spirit  of  Thyestes  in  Seneca's  Agamemnon.  Hiero- 
nimo, who  bas  been  driven  mad  by  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  bis  son, 
speaking  to  the  villain  of  the  piece,  gives  balf-ironical,  balf-crazy 
expression  to  the  anguish  that  is  torturing  bim  :•— 

"  Lorenzo,  Why  so,  Hieronimo  ?  use  me. 
Hieronimo.  Who  ?  you  my  lord  ? 

I  reserve  your  favour  for  a  greater  honour : 

This  is  a  very  toy,  my  lord,  a  toy. 
Lor,  Airs  one,  Hieronimo,  acquaint  me  with  it 
Hier,  V  faith,  my  lord,  'tis  an  idle  thing  .  .  . 

The  murder  of  a  son,  or  so— 

A  thii^  of  nothing,  my  lotd\'* 


346  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

These  phrases  foreshadow  Hamlet's  speeches  to  the  King. 
But  Hieronimo  is  really  mad,  although  he  speaks  of  his  madneM 
much  as  Hamlet  does,  or  rather  denies  it  point-blank— 

"Vill^,  thou  liest,  and  thou  dost  naught 
But  teil  me  I  am  mad :  thou  liest,  I  am  not  mad. 
I  know  thee  to  be  Pedro,  and  he  Jaques ; 
I'll  prove  it  to  thee ;  and  were  I  mad,  how  could  I  ?  * 

Here  and  there,  especially  in  Ben  Jonson's  additions,  we  come 
across  speeches  which  lie  very  close  to  passages  in  Hamlet  A 
painter,  who  also  has  lost  his  son,  says  to  Hieronimo :  "  Ay,  sir, 
no  man  did  hold  a  son  so  dear ; "  whereupon  he  answers— 

"  What,  not  as  thine  ?    That  is  a  lie, 
As  massy  as  the  earth  :  I  had  a  son, 
Whose  least  unvalued  hair  did  weigh 
A  thousand  of  thy  sons ;  and  he  was  murdered.'* 

Thus  Hamlet  cries  to  Laertes : — 

"  I  lov'd  Ophelia :  forty  thousand  brothers 
Could  not,  with  all  their  quantity  of  love, 
Make  up  my  sum." 

Hieronimo,  like  Hamlet,  again  and  again  postpones  his  ven- 
geance : — 

"  All  times  fit  not  for  revenge. 
Thus,  therefore,  will  I  rest  me  in  unrest, 
Dissembling  quiet  in  unquietness  : 
Not  seeming  that  I  know  their  villainies, 
That  my  simplicity  may  make  them  think 
That  ignorantly  I  will  let  all  slip." 

At  last  he  detennines  to  have  a  play  acted,  as  a  means  to  his 
revenge.  The  play  is  Kyd*s  own  Solyman  and  Perseda^  and  in 
the  course  of  it  the  guilty  personages,  who  play  the  chief  parts, 
are  slaughtered,  not  in  make-believe,  but  in  reality. 

Crude  and  naive  though  everything  still  is  in  The  Spanish 
Tragedy^  which  resembles  Titus  Andronicus  in  style  rather  than 
any  other  of  Shakespeare's  works,  it  evidently,  through  the 
medium  of  the  earlier  Hamlet  play,  contributed  a  good  deal  to  the 
foundations  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet, 

Before  going  more  deeply  into  the  Contents  of  this  great 
work,  and  especially  before  tr3ring  to  bring  it  into  relation  to 
Shakespeare's  personality,  we  have  yet  to  see  what  suggestions 
or  Impulses  the  poet  may  have  found  in  contemporary  history. 

We  have  already  remarked  upon  the  impression  which  the 
Essex  family  tragedy  must  have  made  upon  Shakespeare  in  his 
early  youth,  before  he  had  even  left  Stratford.  All  England  was 
talking  of  the  scandal:  how  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  who  was 
commonly  suspected  of  having  had  Lord  Essex  poisoned,  im« 


CONTEMPORARY  PARALLELS  347 

mediately  after  his  death  had  xnarried  his  widow,  Lady  Lettice, 
whose  lover  no  one  doubted  that  he  had  been  during  her  hus- 
band's  lifetime.  There  is  much  in  the  character  of  King 
Claudius  to  suggest  that  Shakespeare  has  here  taken  Leicester  as 
his  modeL  The  two  have  in  common  ambition,  sensuality,  an 
ingratiating  conciliatory  manner,  astute  dissimulation,  and  com- 
plete  unscrupulousness.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  unreason- 
able  to  suppose,  with  Hermann  Conrad,^  that  Shakespeare  had 
Essex  in  his  eye  in  drawing  Hamlet  himself. 

Almost  as  near  to  Shakespeare's  own  day  as  the  Essex- 
Leicester  catastrophe  had  been  the  similar  events  in  the  Royal 
Family  of  Scotland.  Mary  Stuart's  second  husband,  Lord 
Damley,  who  bore  the  title  of  King  of  Scotland,  had  been 
murdered  in  1567  by  her  lover,  the  daring  and  unscrupulous 
Bothwell,  whom  the  Queen  almost  immediately  afterwards  mar- 
ried.  Her  contemporaries  had  no  doubt  whatever  of  Mary's 
complicity  in  the  assassination,  and  her  son  James  saw  in  his 
mother  and  his  stepfather  his  father's  murderers.  The  leaders 
of  the  Scottish  rebellion  displayed  before  the  captive  Queen  a 
banner  bearing  a  representation  of  Damley's  corpse,  with  her 
son  kneeling  beside  it  and  calling  to  Heaven  for  vengeance. 
Damley,  like  the  murdered  King  in  Hamlet^  was  an  unusually 
handsome,  Bothwell  an  unusually  repulsive,  man. 

James  was  brought  up  by  his  mother's  enemies,  and  during 
her  lifetime,  and  after  her  death,  was  perpetually  wavering  be- 
tween  her  adherents,  who  had  defended  her  legal  rights,  and  her 
adversaries,  who  had  driven  her  from  the  country  and  placed 
James  himself  upon  the  throne.  He  made  one  or  two  efforts, 
indeed,  to  soften  Elizabeth's  feelings  towards  his  mother,  but 
refrained  from  all  attempt  to  avenge  her  death.  His  character 
was  irresolute.  He  was  leamed  and — what  Hamlet  is  very  far 
from  being — a  superstitious  pedant ;  but,  like  Hamlet,  he  was  a 
lover  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  was  especially  interested  in 
the  art  of  acting.  Between  1599  and  1601  he  entertained  in 
Scotland  a  portion  of  the  Company  to  which  Shakespeare  be- 
longed;  but  it  is  uncertain  whether  Shakespeare  himself  ever 
visited  Scotland.  There  is  little  doubt,  on  the  other  band,  that 
when,  after  Elizabeth's  death  in  1603,  James  made  his  entrance 
into  London,  Shakespeare,  richly  habited  in  a  uniform  of  red 
cloth.  walked  in  his  train  along  with  Burbage  and  a  few  others  of 
the  leading  players.  Their  Company  was  henceforth  known  as 
"  His  Majestys  Servants." 

Although  there  is  in  all  this  no  lack  of  parallels  to  Hamlet's 
circumstances,  it  is,  of  course,  as  ridiculous  to  take  James  as  to 
take  Essex  for  the  actual  model  of  Hamlet.  Nothing  could  at 
that  time  have  been  stupider  or  more  tactiess  than  to  remind  the 
beir-presumptive  to  the  throne,  or  the  new  King,  of  tha  dfc\\ö\^\^s^ 


348  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

drcurastancea  of  his  early  history.  This  does  not  exdude  the 
supposition,  however,  that  contemporary  history  supplied  Shake- 
speare with  certain  outward  elements,  which,  in  the  moment  of 
conception,  contributed  to  the  picture  bodied  forth  by  the  creative 
energy  of  his  genius« 

From  this  point  of  view,  too,  we  raust  regard  the  piles  of 
mateiial  which  well-meaning  students  bring  to  light,  in  the  artless 
belief  that  they  have  discovered  the  very  stones  of  which  Shake- 
speare constnicted  his  dramatic  edifice.  People  do  not  distinguish 
between  the  possibility  that  the  poet  may  have  unconsdously 
received  a  Suggestion  here  and  there  for  details  of  his  work,  and 
the  theory  that  he  deliberately  intended  an  imaginative  reproduc- 
tion  of  definite  historic  events.  No  work  of  imagination  assureäly, 
and  least  of  all  such  a  work  as  Hamlet^  comes  into  existence  in 
the  way  these  theorists  assume.  It  Springs  from  within,  has  its 
origin  in  an  overmastering  Sensation  in  the  poet's  soul,  and  then, 
in  the  process  of  growth,  assimilates  certain  impressions  bom 
without 


XII 

*" HAMLET''— MONTAIGNE  AND  GIORDANO  BRUNO-^ 
ANTECEDENTS  IN  ETHNOGRAPHY 

Along  with  motives  from  novel,  drama,  and  history,  impressions 
of  a  philosophical  and  quasi-scientific  order  went  to  the  making 
of  Hamlet,  Of  all  Shakespeare's  plays,  this  is  the  profoundest 
and  roost  contemplative;  a  philosophic  atmosphere  breathes  around 
it.  Naturally  enough,  then,  criticism  has  set  about  inquiring  to 
what  influences  we  may  ascribe  these  broodings  over  life  and 
death  and  the  mysteries  of  existence. 

Several  students,  such  as  Tschischwitz  and  König,  have  tried 
to  make  out  that  Giordano  Bruno  exercised  a  preponderating 
influence  upon  Shakespeare.^  Passages  suggesting  a  cycle  in 
nature,  such  as  Hamlet's  satirical  outburst  to  the  King  about 
the  dead  Polonius  (iv.  3),  have  directed  their  thoughts  to  the 
Italian  philosopher.  In  some  cases  they  have  found  or  imagined 
a  definite  identity'  between  sayings  of  Hamlet's  and  of  Bruno's — 
for  instance,  on  determinism.  Bruno  has  a  passage  in  which 
he  emphasises  the  necessity  by  which  everything  is  brought 
about :  "  Whatever  may  be  my  preordained  eventide,  when  the 
change  shall  take  place,  I  await  the  day,  I,  who  dwell  in  the 
night ;  but  they  await  the  night  who  dwell  in  the  daylight.  All 
that  is,  is  either  here  or  there,  near  or  far  off,  now  or  after,  soon 
or  late."  In  the  same  spirit  Hamlet  says  (v.  2):  "Therc  is 
a  special  providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow.  If  it  be  now,  'tis 
not  to  come ;  if  it  be  not  to  come,  it  will  be  now ;  if  it  be  not  now, 
yet  it  will  come:  the  readiness  is  all."  Bruno  says:  ''Nothing 
is  absolutely  imperfect  or  evil;  it  only  seems  so  in  relatipn  to 
something  eise,  and  what  is  bad  for  one  is  good  for  another."  In 
Hantlet  (ii.  2\  "  There  is  nothing  either  good  or  bad,  but  thinking 
makes  it  sa 

When  once  attention  had  been  directed  to  Giordano  Bruno, 
not  only  bis  philosophical  and  more  populär  writings,  but  even 
bis  plays  were  ransacked  in  search  of  passages  that  might  have 
influenced  Shakespeare.  Certain  parallels  and  points  of  re- 
semblance  were  indeed  discovered,  very  slight  and  -trivial  in 
themselves,  but  which  theorists  would  not  believe  to  be  for- 


350  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tuitous,  since  it  was  known  that  Giordano  Bruno  had  passed 
some  time  in  England  in  Shakespeare's  day,  and  had  frequented 
the  Society  of  the  most  distinguished  men.  As  soon  as  the  matter 
was  closely  investigated,  however,  the  probability  of  any  direct 
influence  vanished  almost  to  nothing. 

Giordano  Bruno  remained  on  English  ground  from  1 583  to  1 585. 
Coming  from  France,  where  he  had  instructed  Henri  IIL  in  the 
Lullian  art,  a  mechanica],  mnemotechnic  method  for  the  Solution 
of  all  possible  scientific  problems,  he  brought  with  him  a  letter  of 
recommendation  to  Mauvissi^re,  the  French  Ambassador,  in  whose 
house  he  was  received  as  a  friend  of  the  family  during  the  whole 
of  his  stay  in  London.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of  many  lead- 
ing  men  of  the  time,  such  as  Walsingham,  Leicester,  Bui^ghley, 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  his  literary  circle,  but  soon  went  on  to 
Oxford  in  order  to  lecture  there  and  disseminate  the  doctrines 
which  lay  nearest  his  heart.  These  were  the  Copernican  System 
in  Opposition  to  the  Ptolemaic,  which  still  held  the  field  at  Oxford, 
and  the  theory  that  the  same  principle  of  life  is  diffused  through 
ever3rthing — atoms  and  organisms,  plants,  animals,  human  beings, 
and  the  universe  at  large.  He  quarrelled  with  the  Oxford 
scholars,  and  held  them  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt  in  his  dialogue 
La  Cena  de  le  Ceneri^  published  soon  after,  in  which  he  speaks  in 
the  most  disparaging  terms  of  the  coarseness  of  English  manners. 
The  dirtiness  of  the  London  streets,  for  example,  and  the  habit  of 
letting  one  goblet  go  round  the  table,  from  which  every  one  drank, 
aroused  his  dislike  and  scom  scarcely  less  than  the  rejection  of 
Copemicus  by  the  pedants  of  the  University. 

At  the  very  earliest,  Shakespeare  cannot  have  come  to  London 
until  the  year  of  Bruno's  departure  from  England,  and  can 
therefore  scarcely  have  met  him.  The  philosopher  exercised  no 
influence  upon  the  spiritual  life  of  the  day  in  England.  Not  even 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  attracted  by  his  doctrine,  and  his  name 
does  not  once  occur  in  Greville's  Life  of  Sidney,  although  Gre- 
ville  had  seen  much  of  Bruno.  Brunnhofer,  who  has  studied 
the  question,  points  out,  as  showing  how  little  trace  Bruno  left 
behind  him  in  England,  that  there  is  not  in  the  Bodleian  a  Single 
contemporary  manuscript  or  document  of  any  kind  which  throws 
the  least  light  upon  Bruno's  stay  in  London  or  Oxford.^  It  has 
been  maintained,  nevertheless,  that  Shakespeare  must  have  read 
his  Philosophie  writings  in  Italian.  It  is,  of  course,  possible; 
but  there  is  nothing  in  Hamlet  to  prove  it — nothing  that  cannot 
be  fully  accounted  for  without  assuming  that  he  had  the  slightest 
acquaintance  with  them. 

The  only  expression  in  Shakespeare  which,  probably  by  aoci- 
dent,  has  an  entirely  pantheistic  ring  is  ''  The  prophetic  soul  of 
the  wide  world  ^  in  Sonnet  cvii. ;  the  only  passages  containing  an 
idea,  not  certainly  identical,  but  comparable  with  Bnino's  docdlne 


SHAKESPEARE,  BRUNO,  AND  MONTAIGNE   351 

of  the  metamorphosis  of  natural  forms  are  the  cyclical  Sonnets  lix., 
cvi.,  cxxiii.  If  Giordano  Bruno  really  had  anything  to  do  with 
these  passages,  it  must  be  because  Shakespeare  had  heard  some 
talk  about  the  great  Italian's  doctrine,  which  may  just  at  that  time 
have  been  recalled  to  the  recoUection  of  his  English  acquaintances 
by  his  death  at  the  stake  in  Rome,  on  February  17,  1600.  If 
Shakespeare  had  studied  his  writings,  he  would,  arnohg  other 
things,  have  obtained  some  glimmering  of  the  Copemican  System, 
of  which  he  knows  nothing.  On  the  other  band,  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  he  may  have  picked  up  in  conversation  an 
approximate  and  incomplete  conception  of  Bruno's  philosophy, 
and  that  this  conception  may  have  given  birth  to  the  above-men- 
tioned  philosophical  reveries.  All  the  passages  in  Hamlet  which 
have  been  attributed  to  the  influence  of  Bruno  really  stand  in 
much  closer  relation  to  writers  under  whose  literary  and  philo- 
sophical influence  we  know  beyond  a  doubt  that  Shakespeare  feil. 
There  is  preserved  in  the  British  Museum  a  copy  of  Florio's 
translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays,  folio,  London,  1603,  with 
Shakespeare's  name  written  on  the  fly-leaf.  The  signature  is, 
I  believe,  a  forgery ;  but  that  Shakespeare  had  read  Montaigne 
is  clear  beyond  all  doubt. 

There  are  many  evidences  of  the  influence  exerted  by  Mon- 
taigne's  Essays  on  English  readers  of  that  date.  It  was  only 
natural  that  the  book  should  vividly  impress  the  greatest  men  of 
the  age;  for  there  were  not  at  that  time  many  such  books  as 
Montaigne's — none,  perhaps,  containing  so  living  a  revelation, 
not  merely  of  an  author,  but  of  a  human  being,  natural,  many- 
sided,  füll  of  ability,  rieh  in  contradictions. 

Outside  of  HanUet^  we  trace  Montaigne  quite  clearly  in  one 
passage  in  Shakespeare,  who  must  have  had  the  Essays  l3ring 
on  his  table  while  he  was  writing  TheT^npesJ,     Gonzalo  says 
n.  I)— 

*•  I'  the  Commonwealth  I  would  by  contraries 

Execute  all  things,  for  no  kind  of  traffic 

Would  I  admit ;  no  name  of  magistrate ; 

Letters  should  not  be  known ;  riches,  poverty, 

And  use  of  Service,  none ;  contract,  successioo, 

Boum,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vineyard,  none; 

No  use  of  metal,  com,  or  wine,  or  oil : 

No  occupadon,  all  men  idle,  all ; 

And  women  too." 

We  find  this  speech  almost  word  for  word  in  Montaigne 
(Book  i.  chap.  30) :  ''  It  is  a  nation  that  hath  no  kind  of  träflSke, 
no  knowledge  of  letters,  no  intelligence  of  numbers,  no  name  oif 
magistrate,  nor  of  politike  superioritie ;  no  vsc  of  Service,  of  riches 
qr  of  povertie;  no  contracts,  no  successions,  no  partitions,  no 
occupation  but  idle  .  •  .  no  manuring  of  lands,  no  vae  of  ^tiat^ 
com  or  metal."  / 


352  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Since  it  is  thus  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  Shakespeare  was 
acquainted  with  Montaigne's  Essays,  it  is  not  improbable  that 
the  resemblance  between  passages  in  that  book  and  passages  in 
Hamlet  are  due  to  something  more  than  chance.  When  such 
passages  occur  in  the  First  Quarto  (1603),  we  must  assume  dther 
that  Shakespeare  knew  the  French  original,  or  that — as  is  likdy 
enough — he  may  have  had  an  opportunity  of  reading  Florio's 
translation  before  it  was  published.  It  happened  not  infrequently 
in  those  days  that  a  book  was  handed  round  in  manuscript  among 
the  author's  private  friends  five  or  six  years  before  it  was  given 
to  the  public.  Florio's  close  connection  with  the  household  of 
Southampton  renders  it  ahnost  certain  that  Shakespeare  must 
have  been  acquainted  with  him ;  and  his  translation  had  been 
entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register  as  ready  for  publication  ^ 
early  as  1 599. 

Florio  was  bom  in  1545,  of  Italian  parents,  who,  as  Wal- 
denses,  had  been  forced  to  leave  their  country.  He  had  become 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  an  Englishman,  had  studied  and  given 
lessons  in  Italian  at  Oxford,  had  been  some  years  in  the  Service 
of  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  was  married  to  a  sister  of  the 
poet  Samuel  Daniel.  He  dedicated  each  separate  book  of  his 
translation  of  Montaigne  to  two  noble  ladies.  Among  them  we 
find  Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Rutland,  Sidney's  daughter;  Lady 
Penelope  Rieh,  Essex's  sister;  and  Lady  Elizabeth  Grey,  re- 
nowned  for  her  beauty  and  leaming.  Each  of  these  ladies  was 
celebrated  in  a  sonnet 

Every  one  remembers  those  incomparably-worded  passages  in 
Hamlet  where  the  great  brooder  over  life  and  death  has  expressed, 
in  terms  at  once  harsh  and  moving,  his  sense  of  the  ruthlessness 
of  the  destructive  forces  of  Nature,  or  what  might  be  called  the 
cynicism  of  the  order  of  things.  Take  for  instance  the  foUowing 
(V.  I) :- 

''  Why  may  not  Imagination  trace  the  noble  dust  of  Alexander,  tili 
he  find  it  stopping  a  bung-hole  ?  ...  As  thus :  Alexander  died,  Alex- 
ander was  buried,  Alexander  retumeth  into  dust  \  the  dust  is  earth ;  of 
earth  we  make  loam ;  and  why  of  that  loam,  whereto  he  was  converted, 
might  they  not  stop  a  beer-barrel  ? 

Imperious  Caesar,  dead,  and  tum'd  to  clay, 
Mi<;ht  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away : 
O  that  that  earth  which  kept  the  world  in  awe 
Should  patch  a  wall  to  expel  the  winter's  flaw  I  * 

Hamlet's  grisly  jest  upon  the  worms  who  are  eating  Polonius 
is  a  Variation  on  the  same  theme  (iv.  3) : — 

^ Harn,  A  man  may  fish  with  the  worm  that  hath  eat  of  a  king; 
and  eat  of  the  fish  that  hath  fed  of  diat  worm. 
**X^ng,  What  dost  thou  mean  by  this? 


SHAKESPEARE,  BRUNO,  AND  MONTAIGNE   353 

''  Harn,  Nothing,  but  to  show  you  how  a  king  may  go  a  progress 
through  the  guts  of  a  beggar." 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  attribute  these  passages  to  the 
influence  of  Giordano  Bruno ;  but,  as  Robert  Beyersdorff  has 
strikingly  demonstrated,^  this  theory  assumes  that  Bruno's  doc- 
trine  was  an  atomistic  materialism,  whereas  it  was,  in  fact,  pan- 
theism,  a  perpetual  insistence  upon  the  unity  of  God  and  Nature. 
The  very  atoms,  in  Bruno,  partake  of  spirit  and  life ;  it  is  not 
their  mechanical  conjunction  that  produces  life;  no,  they  are 
monads.  While  cynicism  is  the  keynote  of  these  utterances  of 
Hamlet,  enthusiasm  is  the  keynote  of  Bruno's.  Three  passages 
from  Bruno's  writings  {De  la  Causa  and  La  Cena  de  le  Ceneri) 
have  been  cited  as  coinciding  with  Hamlet's  words  as  to  the 
transformations  of  matter.  But  in  the  first  Bruno  is  speaking  of 
the  transformation  of  natural  forms,  and  of  the  emanation  of  all 
forms  from  the  universal  soul ;  in  the  second,  he  is  insisting  that 
in  all  Compound  bodies  there  live  numerous  individuals  who 
remain  immortal  after  the  dissolution  of  the  bodies ;  in  the  third, 
he  treats  of  the  globe  as  a  vast  organism,  which,  just  like  animals 
and  men,  is  renewed  by  the  transformation  of  matter.  The  whole 
resemblance,  then,  between  these  passages  and  Hamlet's  bitter 
outburst  is  that  they  treat  of  transformations  of  form  and  matter 
in  Nature.  In  spirit  they  are  radically  different.  Bruno  main- 
tains  that  even  what  seems  to  belong  entirely  to  the  world  of 
matter  is  permeated  with  soul ;  Hamlet,  on  the  contrary,  asserts 
the  wretchedness  and  transitoriness  of  human  existence.' 

But  precisely  in  these  points  Hamlet  comes  very  near  to 
Montaigne,  who  has  many  ezpressions  like  those  above  quoted, 
and  speaks  of  Sulla  very  mudi  as  Hamlet  speaks  of  Alezander 
and  Caesar. 

On  a  close  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  ezpressions  with 
Montaigne's,  their  similarity  is  very  striking.  Hamlet,  for  ezample, 
says  that  Polonius  is  at  supper,  not  where  he  eats  but  where  he 
is  eaten.  "  A  certain  convocation  of  politic  worms  are  e'en  at  him. 
Your  worm  is  your  only  emperor  for  diet :  we  fat  all  creatures 
eise  to  fat  us,  and  we  fat  ourselves  for  maggots :  your  fat  king, 

^  Giordano  Bruno  und  Shakespeare^  Oldenburg,  1889,  p.  36. 
'  A  Comic  ansüoey  to  Bruno's  doctrin^  may  be  found  in  the  following  Unes  of  Hot- 
ipur's  {Henry  IV.,  Pt  L  iü.  i)  :— 

"Diseased  nature  oftentimes  breaks  forth 
In  Strange  eruptions  :  oft  the  teeming  earth 
Is  with  a  Idnd  of  colic  pinch'd  and  vex'd 
By  the  imprisoning  of  unruly  wind 
Within  her  womb ;  which,  for  enlargement  striTing^ 
Shakes  the  old  beldam  Earth,  and  topples  down 
Steeples  and  moss-grown  towers." 

Bot  DO  ooe  will  seriously  attribute  this  passage  to  the  pbilosophical  influence  d 
Giordano  Bruna  Hotspur  was  qnite  capable  of  hitting  upon  this  image  without  any 
toggcstioii  from  Noia  or  Naplei. 


354  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  your  lean  beggar,  is  but  variable  service ;  two  dishes,  but  to 
one  table :  that's  the  endJ* 

Compare  Montaigne,  Book  ii.  chap.  12 : — 

''  He  [man]  need  not  a  Whale,  an  Elephant,  nor  a  Crocodile,  nor 
any  such  other  wilde  beast,  of  which  one  alone  is  of  power  to  defeat 
a  great  number  of  men :  seely  lice  äre  able  to  make  SiÜa  give  over  bis 
Dictatorship :  The  heart  and  life  of  a  mighty  and  triumphant  Emperor, 
is  but  the  break-fest  of  a  seely  little  Worm." 

We  have  seen  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  trace  to 
Bruno  Hamlet's  utterance  as  to  the  relativity  of  all  concepts. 
In  reality  it  may  rather  be  traced  to  Montaigne.  Hamlet,  having 
remarked  (ii.  2)  that  "  Denmark  is  a  prison/'  Rosencrantz  replies, 
"  We  think  not  so,  my  lord ; "  whereupon  Hamlet  rejoins,  "  Why, 
then  'tis  none  to  you ;  for  there  is  nothing  either  good  or  bad, 
but  thinking  makes  it  so.''^  The  passage  in  Montaigne  is  almost 
identical  (Book  i.  chap.  40) : — 

"If  that  which  we  call  evill  and  torment,  be  neither  torment  nor 
evill,  but  that  oiu:  fancie  only  gives  it  that  qualitie,  it  is  in  us  to 
change  it" 

We  have  seen  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  trace  Hamlet's 
saying  about  death, ''  If  it  be  now,  'tis  not  to  come,''  &c.  to  Bruno's 
words  in  the  dedication  of  his  Candelajo :  **  Tutto  quel  ch'^  o  h 
qua  o  ^  lä,  o  vicino  o  lunghi,  o  adesso  o  poi,  o  presso  o  tardi." 
But  the  same  course  of  thought  which  leads  Hamlet  to  the  con- 
clusion, '' The readiness  is  all,"  isfound,  with  the  same  conclusion, 
in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  Montaigne's  first  book:  ''That  to 
Philosophie,  is  to  leame  how  to  die  " — a  chapter  which  has  inspired 
a  great  many  of  Hamlet's  graveyard  cogitations.'  Montaigne 
says  of  death : — 

"  Let  US  not  forget  how  many  waies  our  joyes  or  our  feastings  be 
subject  unto  death,  and  by  how  many  hold-fasts  shee  threatens  us  and 
them.  .  .  .  It  is  uncertaine  where  death  looks  for  us;  let  us  expect 
her  everie  where.  ...  I  am  ever  prepared  about  that  which  I  may 
be.  .  .  .  A  man  should  ever  be  ready  booted  to  take  his  joumey.  .  ,  . 
What  matter  is  it  when  it  commeth,  since  it  is  unavoidable  ?  " 

Furthermore,  we  find  striking  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  celebrated  soliloquy,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  and  the  passage 
in  Montaigne  (Book  iii.  chap.  12)  where  he  reproduces  the  sub- 
stance  of  Socrates'  Apology.  Socrates,  as  we  know,  suggests. 
several  different  possibilities :  death  is  either  an  "  amendment "  of 
our  condition  or  the  annihilation  of  our  being;  but  even  in  the 
latter  case  it  is  an  "amendment"  to  enter  upon  a  long  and  peacefiil 

^  This  speech  first  occurs  in  the  First  Folio. 

'  This  was  first  pointed  out  (about  1860)  by  Otto  Ludwig.  See  his  Shakäspearg- 
Shaiün^  p.  373.  The  relation  between  Shakespeare  and  Montaigne  is  dw^t  apoo 
10  an  ill-arranged  book  by  G.  F.  Stedefeld :  HamUt,  an  Temi^Ms-Dwuma  (1871^ 


SHAKESPEARE,  BRUNO,  AND  MONTAIGNE   355 

night;  for  there  is  nothing  better  in  life  than  a  deep,  calm, 
dreamless  sleep.  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  had  no  beliel 
in  an  actual  ameliorajtion  of  our  condition  at  death;  Hamfet 
does  not  even  mention  it  as  a  possible  contingency;  whereas 
the  poet  makes  him  dwell  upon  the  thought  of  an  endless 
sleep,  and  on  the  possibility  of  horrible  dreams.  Now  and  then 
we  seem  to  find  traces  in  Hamlet  of  Plato's  monologue,  in  the 
vesture  given  to  it  by  Montaigne.  In  the  French  text  there  is 
mention  of  the  joy  of  being  free  in  another  life  from  having  to 
do  with  unjust  and  corrupt  judges;  Hamlet  speaks  of  freeing 
himself  from  "The  oppressor*s  wrong,  the  proud  man's  con- 
tumely."  Some  lines  added  in  the  edition  of  1604  remind  us 
forcibly  of  a  passage  in  Florio's  translation.  Florio  reproduces 
Montaigne's  "  Si  c'est  un  aneantissement  de  notre  ^tre "  by  the 
phrase,  "  If  it  be  a  consummation  of  one's  being."  Hamlet,  using 
a  Word  which  occurs  in  only  two  other  places  in  Shakespeare, 
says,  **  A  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished." 

Many  other  small  coincidences  can  be  pointed  out  in  the  use 
of  names  and  tums  of  phrase,  which  do  not,  however,  actually 
prove  anything.  . Where  Montaigne  is  describing  the  anarchic  con- 
dition of  public  affairs,  his  words  are  rendered  in  Florio  by  the 
curiously  poetic  expression,  "  All  is  out  of  frame."  This  bears  a 
certain  resemblance  to  the  phrase  which  Hamlet,  already  in  the 
1603  edition,  employs  to  describe  the  disorganisation  which  has 
followed  his  father's  death,  "  The  time  is  out  of  Joint."  The  coin- 
cidence  may  be  fortuitous,  but  as  one  among  many  other  points 
of  resemblance  it  Supports  the  conjecture  that  Shakespeare  had 
read  the  translation  before  it  was  published.^ 

For  the  rest,  Rushton,  in  Shakespeares  Euphuism  (1871),  and 
after  him  Beyersdorff,  have  pointed  out  not  a  few  parallels  to 
Hantlet  in  Lyly's  EuphueSy  precisely  at  the  points  whcre  critics 
have  sought  to  trace  the  much  more  improbable  influence  of  Bruno. 
Beyersdorff  sometimes  goes  too  far  in  trying  to  find  in  Euphues 
the  origin  of  ideas  which  it  would  be  an  insult  to  suppose  that 
Shakespeare  needed  to  borrow  from  such  a  source.  But  some- 
times there  is  a  real  analogy.  It  has  been  alleged  that  the  King 
must  have  borrowed  from  Bruno's  philosophy  the  topics  of  con- 
solation  whereby  (i«  2)  he  seeks  to  convince  Hamlet  of  the 
unreasonableness  of  "obstinate  condolement "  over  his  father's 
death.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  letter  of  Euphues  to  Ferardo  on 
his  daughter's  death  contains  precisely  the  same  arguments: — 
"  Knowest  thou  not,  Ferardo,  that  lyfe  is  the  gifte  of  God,  deathe 
the  due  of  Nature,  as  we  receive  the  one  as  a  benefitte,  so  must 
we  abide  the  other  of  necessitie,"  &c. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  where  Hamlet  (ii.  2)  speaks  of  "  the 
satirical  rogue  "  who,  in  the  book  he  is  reading,  makes  merry  over 

^  Compare  Jacob  Fds,  Shaktspeart  and  Mmtm^pH^  ^^  ^%-\3^    "V^faMl^cs^ 
Gufrdatto  Brun^  uml  Shaktspear$^  p.  27  tt  seq. 


356  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  decrepitude  of  old  age,  Shakespeare  must  have  been  alluding 
to  a  passage  in  Bruno's  Spaccio,  where  old  men  are  described  as 
those  who  have  "  snow  on  their  head  and  furrows  in  their  brow." 
But  if  we  insist  on  identifying  the  ''satirical  rogue"  with  any 
actual  author  (a  quite  unreasonable  proceeding),  Lyly  at  oncc 
presents  himself  as  answering  to  the  description.  Again  and 
again  in  Euphues,  where  old  men  give  good  advice  to  the  young, 
they  appear  with  "  hoary  haire  and  watry  eyes."  And  Euphues 
repulses,  quite  in  the  manner  of  Hamlet,  an  old  gentleman  whose 
moralising  he  regards  as  nothing  more  than  the  envy  of  decrepit 
age  for  lusty  youth,  and  whose  intellect  seems  to  him  as  tottering 
as  his  legs. 

Finally,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  refer  Hamlet's  harsh 
sayings  to  Ophelia,  and  his  contemptuous  utterances  about 
women  in  general  ("Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman,"  &c.),  to  a 
dialogue  of  Bruno's  {De  la  Causa  IV.)  in  which  the  pedant 
Pollinnio  appears  as  a  woman-hater.  But  the  resemblance  seems 
trifling  enough  when  we  find  that  in  this  case  woman  is  attacked 
in  sound  theological  fashion  as  the  source  of  original  sin  and  the 
cause  of  all  our  woe.  Many  expressions  in  Euphues  lie  infinitely 
nearer  to  Hamlet's.  '*What  means  your  lordship?"  Ophelia 
asks  (iii.  i),  and  Hamlet  replies,  "That  if  you  be  honest  and 
fair,  your  honesty  should  admit  no  discourse  to  your  beauty." 
Compare  in  Euphues  Ferardo's  words  to  Lucilla:  "For  often- 
times  thy  mother  woulde  saye,  that  thou  haddest  more  beautie 
then  was  convenient  for  one  that  shoulde  bee  honeste/'  and 
his  ezclamation,  "O  Lucilla,  Lucilla,  woulde  thou  wert  lesse 
fayre ! "  Again,  Hamlet  rails  against  women's  weakness,  crying, 
"Wise  men  know  well  enough  what  monsters  you  make  of 
them;**  and  we  find  in  Euphues  exactly  similar  outbursts:  "I 
perceive  they  be  rather  woe  vnto  men,  by  their  falsehood,  gelousie, 
inconstancie.  ...  I  see  they  will  be  corasiues  (corrosivea)."* 
Beyersdorff,  moreover,  is  no  doubt  right  in  suggesting  that  the 
artificial  style  of  Euphues  is  apparent  in  such  speeches  as  this 
of  Hamlet's:  "For  the  power  of  beauty  will  sooner  transform 
honesty  from  what  it  is  to  a  bawd  than  the  force  of  honesty  can 
translate  beauty  into  his  likeness." 

In  Hamlet  and  elsewhere  in  Shakespeare  we  come  across  traces 
of  a  sort  of  atomistic-materialistic  philosophy.  In  the  last  scene 
of  Julius  CcBsar^  Antony  actually  employs  with  regard  to  Brutus 
the  expression,  "The  Clements  so  mvid  in  him."  In  Measurt 
for  Measure  (iii.  i)  the  Duke  says  to  Claudio — 

"Thou  art  not  thyself ; 
For  thou  exist'st  on  many  a  thousand  grains 
That  issue  out  of  dust'' 


^  Be3rendorff, ^ a4» p. 33.  John  Lyly»  ^'f^^icwf.*  Tlu  Anattmy tf  Wü^AImbA* 
m*nn»  PP»  7«,  75- 


LOCAL  COLOUR  IN  "HAMLET'*  35> 

Hamlet  says  (i.  2) — 

"  O  that  this  too  too  solid  flesh  would  melt, 
Thaw,  and  dissolve  itself  into  a  dew ;" 

and  to  Horatio  (iii.  2)— 

"  Bless'd  are  those 
Whose  blood  and  judgment  are  so  well  ahmingled,*' 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  how  far  thi^  atomism,  if  we 
can  so  regard  it,  difTers  from  Bruno's  idealistic  monadism.  But 
in  all  probability  we  have  here  only  the  expressions  of  the  domi- 
nant belief  of  Shakespeare's  time,  that  all  dififerences  of  tempera- 
ment  depended  upon  the  mixture  of  the  Juices  or  "humours." 
Shakespeare  is  on  this  point,  as  on  many  others,  more  populär 
and  less  book-leamed,  more  naive  and  less  metaphysical,  than 
book-leamed  commentators  are  willing  to  allow. 

Writers  like  Montaigne  and  Lyly  were  no  doubt  constantly 
in  Shakespeare's  hands  while  Hamlet  was  taking  shape  within 
him.  But  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  he  consulted  them 
especially  with  Hamlet  in  view.  He  did  consult  authorities  with 
regard  to  Hamlet,  but  they  were  men,  not  books,  and  men,  more- 
over,  with  whom  he  was  in  daily  intercourse.  Hamlet  being  a 
Dane  and  his  destiny  being  acted  out  in  distant  Denmark — a 
name  not  yet  so  familiär  in  England  as  it  was  soon  to  be,  when, 
with  the  new  King,  a  Danish  princess  came  to  the  throne — 
Shakespeare  would  naturally  seize  whatever  opportunities  lay  in 
his  way  of  gathering  intelligence  as  to  the  manners  and  customs 
of  this  Jittle-known  country. 

In  the  year  1585  a  troupe  of  English  players  had  appeared  in 
the  courtyard  of  the  Town-Hall  of  Elsinore.  If  we  are  justi- 
fied  in  assuming  this  troupe  to  have  been  the  same  which  we 
find  in  the  foUowing  year  established  at  the  Danish  Court,  it 
numbered  among  its  members  three  persons  who,  at  the  time 
when  Shakespeare  was  tuming  over  in  his  mind  the  idea  of 
Hamlety  belonged  to  his  Company  of  actors,  and  probably  to  his 
most  intimate  circle  :  namely,  William  Kemp,  George  Bryan,  and 
Thomas  Pope.  The  first  of  these,  the  celebrated  clown>  belonged 
to  Shakespeare's  Company  from  1594  tiU  March  1602,  when  he 
went  over  for  six  months  to  Henslow's  Company ;  the  other  two 
also  joined  Shakespeare's  Company  as  early  as  1594.  It  was 
evidently  from  these  comrades  of  his,  and  perhaps  also  from  other 
English  actors  who,  under  the  management  of  Thomas  Sackville, 
had  performed  at  Copenhagen  in  1596  at  the  coronation  of 
Christian  IV.,  that  Shakespeare  gathered  Information  on  several 
matters  relating  to  Denmark. 

First  and  foremost,  he  picked  up  some  Danish  names,  which 
we  find,  indeed,  mutilated  by  the  printers  in  the  different  tfisX.'^  ^^ 
Hamlet,  but  which  are  easily  recognisable.    TYve  Rossencraft  tA 


358  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  First  Quarto  has  become  Rosencraus  in  the  second,  and  Rosm* 
crane  in  the  Folio ;  it  is  clearly  enough  the  name  of  the  ancient 
Danish  family  of  Rosenkrans.  Thus,  too,  we  find  in  the  three 
editions  the  name  Gilderstone^  Guyldensteme^  and  Guildensteme^ 
in  which  we  recognise  the  Danish  GyldenstUme ;  while  the 
names  given  to  the  ambassador,  Voltemar^  Voltemand^  ValU- 
mand^  Voltutnand,  are  so  many  corruptions  of  the  Danish  Valde- 
mar,  The  name  Gertrude^  too,  Shakespeare  must  have  leamed 
from  his  comrades  as  a  Danish  name ;  he  has  substituted  it  for 
the  Geruth  of  the  novel.  In  the  Second  Quarto  it  is  misprinted 
Gertrad. 

It  is  evidently  in  consequence  of  what  he  had  leamt  from 
his  comrades  that  Shakespeare  has  transferred  the  action  of 
Hamlet  from  Jutland  to  Elsinore,  which  they  had  visited  and  no 
doubt  described  to  him.  That  is  how  he  comes  to  know  of  the 
Castle  at  Elsinore  (finished  about  a  score  of  years  earlier),  though 
he  does  not  mention  the  name  of  Kronborg. 

The  scene  in  which  Polonius  listens  behind  the  arras,  and  in 
which  Hamlet,  in  reproaching  the  Queen,  points  to  the  portraits 
of  the  late  and  of  the  present  King,  has  even  been  regarded  as 
proving  that  Shakespeare  knew  something  of  the  interior  of  the 
Castle.  On  the  stage,  Hamlet  is  often  made  to  wear  a  miniature 
Portrait  of  his  father  round  his  neck,  and  to  hold  it  up  before 
his  mother;  but  the  words  of  the  play  prove  incontestably  that 
Shakespeare  imagined  life-sized  pictures  hanging  on  the  wall. 
Now  we  find  a  contemporary  description  of  a  "great  Chamber" 
at  Kronborg,  written  by  an  English  traveller,  in  which  occurs 
this  passage:  "It  is  hanged  with  Tapistary  of  fresh  coloured 
silke  without  gold,  wherein  all  the  Danish  kings  are  exprest  in 
antique  habits,  according  to  their  severall  times,  with  their  armes 
and  inscriptions,  containing  all  their  conquests  and  victories."^ 
It  is  possible,  then,  though  not  very  probable,  that  Shakespeare 
may  have  heard  of  the  arrangement  of  this  room.  When  Polo- 
nius wanted  to  play  the  eavesdropper,  it  was  a  matter  of  course 
that  he  should  get  behind  the  arras ;  and  it  was  easy  to  imagine 
that  portraits  of  the  kings  would  hang  on  the  walls  of  a  royal 
Castle,  without  the  least  knowledge  that  this  was  actually  the  case 
at  Kronborg. 

It  is  probable,  on  the  other  band,  that  Shakespeare  made 
Hamlet  study  at  Wittenberg  because  he  knew  that  many  Danes 
went  to  this  University,  which,  being  Lutheran,  was  not  frequented 
by  Englishmen.  And  it  is  quite  certain  that  when,  in  the  first 
and  fifth  acts,  he  makes  trumpet-blasts  and  the  firing  of  cannon 
accompany  the  healths  which  are  drunk,  he  must  have  known 
that  this  was  a  specially  Danish  custom,  and  have  tried  to  give 
his  play  local  colour  by  introducing  it.     While  Hamlet  and  his 

^  Ntw  Shaksptre  Society  $  Tramaciious,  1874,  p.  513.    Compare  Schttok,  "Bi^- 
/Igetc  KoaukImnteD  in  Skandinavien,**  Skandinavtscius  Arckio. 


LOCAL  COLOUR  IN  "HAMLET"  359 

friends  (i.  4)  are  awaiting  the  appearance  of  the  Ghost,  trumpets 
and  cannon  are  heard  "within."  "What  does  this  mean,  my 
lord?"  Horatio  asks;  and  Hamlet  answers — 

*'  The  king  doth  wake  to-night,  and  takes  his  rouse, 
Keeps  wassail,  and  the  swaggering  up-spring  reels ; 
And  as  he  drains  his  draughts  of  Rhenish  down, 
The  kettle-drum  and  tnimpet  thus  bray  out 
The  triumph  of  his  pledge." 

Similarly,  in  the  last  scene  of  the  play,  the  King  says^ 

"  Give  me  the  cups ; 
And  let  the  kettle  to  the  trumpet  speak, 
The  trumpet  to  the  cannoneer  without, 
The  cannons  to  the  heavens,  the  heavens  to  earth, 
*  Now  the  king  drinks  to  Hamlet ! ' " 

Shakespeare  must  even  have  been  eager  to  display  his  know-« 
ledge  of  the  intemperate  habits  of  the  Danes,  and  the  stränge 
usages  resulting  therefrom,  for,  as  Schuck  has  ingeniously  re- 
marked,  in  order  to  bring  in  this  piece  of  information,  he  has 
made  Horatio,  himself  a  Dane,  ask  Hamlet  whether  it  is  the  cus- 
tom  of  the  country  to  celebrate  every  toast  with  this  noise  of 
trumpets  and  of  ordnance.  In  answer  to  this  question  Hamlet 
speaks  of  the  custom  as  though  he  were  addressing  a  foreigner, 
and  makes  the  profound  remark  that  a  Single  blemish  will  often 
mar  a  nation's  good  report,  no  less  than  an  individual's,  and  that 
its  character 

''  Shall  in  the  general  censure  take  comiption 
From  that  particular  fault" 

It  is  evident  that  Denmark  "  took  corruption  "  from  its  drink- 
ing  usages  in  the  "  censure "  of  the  better  sort  of  Englishmen, 
In  a  notebook  kept  by  "  Maister  William  Segar,  Garter  King  at 
Armes,"  we  read  under  the  date  July  14,  1603 — 

"  That  afternoone  the  King  [of  Denmark]  went  aboord  the  English 
ship  [which  was  lying  off  Elsinore],  and  had  a  banket  prepared  for  him 
vpon  the  vpper  decks,  which  were  hung  with  an  Awning  of  cloaths  of 
Tissue ;  every  health  reported  sixe,  eight,  or  ten  shot  of  great  Ordinance, 
so  that  during  the  king's  abode,  the  ship  discharged  160  shot" 

Of  the  same  king's  "solemne  feast  to  the  [English]  embas-* 
sadour/'  Segar  writes : — 

"  It  were  superfluous  to  teil  you  of  all  superfluities  that  were  vsed ; 
and  it  would  make  a  man  sick  to  heare  of  their  drunken  healths :  vse 
hath  brought  it  into  a  fashion,  and  fashion  made  it  a  habit,  which  iU 
beseemes  our  nation  to  imitate."  * 


36o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  King  here  spoken  of  is  Christian  IV.,  then  twenty-siz 
years  of  age.  ^  When  he,  three  years  afterwards,  visited  England, 
it  seems  as  though  the  Court,  which  had  previously  been  very 
sober,  justified  the  fears  of  the  worthy  diarist  by  catching  the 
infection  of  Danish  intemperance.  Noble  ladies  as  well  as  gentk- 
men  took  to  over-indulgence  in  wine.  The  Rev.  H.  Harington, 
in  his  Nug(B  Antiqua  (edit.  1779,  ü.  126),  prints  a  letter  from  Sir 
John  Harington  to  Mr.  Secretary  Barlow,  giving  a  very  humorous 
description  of  the  festivities  in  which  the  Danish  King  took  part 
One  day  after  dinner,  he  relates,  "  the  representation  of  Solomon 
his  temple  and  the  Coming  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  was  made." 
But  alas !  the  lady  who  played  the  Queen,  and  who  was  to  bring 
"precious  gifts  to  both  their  Majesties,  forgetting  the  steppes 
arising  to  the  canopy,  overset  her  caskets  into  his  Danish  Majesties 
lap,  and  feil  at  his  feet,  though  I  rather  think  it  was  in  his  face. 
Much  was  the  hurry  and  confusion ;  cloths  and  napkins  were  at 
band  to  make  aU  clean.  His  Majesty  then  got  up,  and  would 
dance  with  the  Queen  of  Sheba ;  but  he  feil  down  and  humbled 
himself  before  her,  and  was  carried  to  an  inner  Chamber,  and  laid 
on  a  bed  of  State ;  which  was  not  a  little  defiled  with  the  presents 
of  the  Queen  which  had  been  bestowed  upon  his  garments; 
such  as  wine,  cream,  jelly,  beverage,  cakes,  spices  and  other  good 
matters."  The  entertainment  proceeded,  but  most  of  the  "pre- 
senters  feil  down,  wine  did  so  occupy  their  upper  Chambers.'' 
Now  there  entered  in  gorgeous  array  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity. 
Hope  ''  did  assay  "  to  speak,  but  could  not  manage  it,  and  with- 
drew,  Stammering  ezcuses  to  the  King ;  Faith  staggered  after  her ; 
Charity  alone  succeeded  in  kneeling  at  the  King's  feet,  and  when 
she  retumed  to  her  sisters,  she  found  them  lying  very  sick  in  the 
lower  hall.  Then  Victory  made  her  entrance  in  bright  armour, 
but  did  not  triumph  long,  having  to  be  led  away  a  "silly  captive" 
and  left  to  sleep  upon  the  ante-chamber  stairs.  Last  of  all  came 
Peace,  who  "  much  contrary  to  her  semblance,  most  rudely  made 
war  with  her  olive  brauch  upon  "  those  who  tried,  from  motives 
of  propriety,  to  get  her  out  of  the  way. 

Shakespeare,  then,  conceived  intemperance  in  drinking,  and 
glorification  of  drunkenness  as  a  polite  and  admirable  accomplish- 
ment,  to  be  a  Danish  national  vice.  It  is  clear  enough,  however, 
that  no  more  here  than  elsewhere  was  it  his  main  purpose  to 
depict  a  foreign  people.  It  was  not  national  peculiarities  that 
interested  him,  but  the  characteristics  common  to  humanity ;  and 
he  did  not  need  to  search  outside  of  England  for  the  prototypes 
of  his  Polonius,  bis  Horatio,  his  Ophelia,  and  his  Hamlet 


XIII 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  HAMLET 


In  trying  to  bring  together,  as  we  have  done,  a  mass  of  historical, 
dramatic,  and  fictional  material,  fragments  of  philosophy,  and 
ethnographical  details,  which  Shakespeare  utilised  during  his  work 
uix)n  Hamlet^  or  which  may,  without  his  knowing  it,  have  hovered 
in  his  memory,  we  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  imply  that  the  initial 
Impulse  to  the  work  came  to  him  from  without.  The  piecing 
together  of  eztemal  impressions,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  has 
never  produced  a  work  of  immortal  poetry.  In  approaching  the 
theme,  Shakespeare  obeyed  a  fundamental  instinct  in  his  nature ; 
and  as  he  worked  it  out,  everything  that  stood  in  relation  to  it 
rushed  together  in  his  mind.  He  might  have  said  with  Goethe : 
''  After  long  labour  in  piling  up  fuel  and  straw,  I  have  often  tried 
in  vain  to  warm  myself  .  .  .  until  at  last  the  spark  catches  all 
of  a  sudden,  and  the  whole  is  wrapped  in  fiame." 

It  is  this  flame  which  shines  forth  from  Hamlet^  shooting 
up  so  high  and  glowing  so  red  that  to  this  day  it  fascinates  all 
eyes. 

the  m^i^jjiiijyiir^^Mi^fHrtBlMiiiiiit^^  ifip^  ^^^^nyfvIVv  "S"n^d 

his  th^m^^^m^  ynd(*^  tViJg  maglf   r\i  TnaHn<*RS  hp  griv^^Q  pyiH^nr^ 

of 

exalt< 


Here  lay  the  point  of  attraction  for  Shakespeare,  The  in- 
direct  form  of  expression  had  always  allured  him;  it  was  the 
favourite  method  of  his  clowns  and  humourists.  Touchstone 
employs  it,  and  it  enters  laigely  into  the  immortal  wit  of  FalstafT. 
We  have  seen  how  Jaques,  in  As  You  Like  It^  envied  those 
whose  privilege  it  was  to  speak  the  truth  under  the  disguise  of 
fgUy ;  we  remember  HIS  SlgA  öl  IM^ng  MF  "äs  large  a  charter 
as  the  wind  to  blow  on  whom  he  pleased/'  He  it  was  who 
declared  motley  the  only  wear ;  and  in  his  melancholy  and  longing 
Shakespeare  disguised  his  own,  exclaiming  through  his  mouth — 


tire, 


'*  Invest  me  in  my  motley ;  give  me  leave 
To  speak  my  mind,  and  I  will  through  and  through 
Cleanse  the  foul  body  of  th'  infected  wotVäJ* 


362  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  Hamlet  Shakespeare  put  this  motley  coat  on  his  own 
Shoulders ;  he  %€\z6^Ammßffmtmmitt^mAi^miBkfm^^^^^        in  the 

that  wQttUUwiliiAMitoterfMgMIRi.  The  task  was  a  grateful  one; 
for  eamestness  cuts  the  deeper  the  more  it  sounds  like  jest  or 
triviality ;  and  wisdom  appears  doubly  wise  when  it  is  thrown  out 
lightly  under  the  mask  oF  folly,  instead  of  pedantically  asserting  it- 
self  as  the  fruit  of  reflection  and  experience.  Difficult  for  any  one 
eise,  to  Shakespeare  the  enterprise  was  merely  alluring :  it  was, 
in  fact,  to  do  what  no  other  poet  had  as  yet  succeeded  in  doing — 
to  draw  a  genius.  Shakespeare  had  not  far  to  go  for  his  model, 
and  genius  would  seem  doubly  effective  when  it  wore  the  mask 
of  madness,  now  speaking  through  that  mouthpiece,  and  again 
unmasking  itself  in  impassioned  monologues. 

It  cost  Shakespeare  no  eflFort  to  transform  himself  into  Hamlet 
On  the  contrary,  in  giving  expression  to  Hamlet's  spiritual  life 
he  was  enabled  quite  naturally  to  pour  forth  all  that  during  the 
recent  years  had  filled  his  heart  and  seethed  in  his  brain.  He 
could  let  this  creation  drink  his  inmost  heart's  blood ;  he  could 
transfer  to  it  the  throbbing  of  his  own  pulses.  Behind  its  fore- 
head  he  could  hide  his  melancholy ;  on  its  tongue  he  could  lay 
his  wit ;  its  eyes  he  could  cause  to  glow  and  lighten  with  flashes 
of  his  own  spirit. 

It  is   true  that   Hamlet's   outward   fortunes  were    different 

enough  from  his.     He  had  not  lost  his  father  by  assassination ; 

his  mother  had  not  degraded  herseif.     But  all  these  details  were 

only  outward  signs  and  Symbols.     He  had  lived  through  all  of 

Hamlet's  experience — all.     Hamlet's  father  had  been  murdered 

j   and  his  place  usurped  by  his  brother ;  that  is  to  say,  the  being 

:    whom  he  most  reverenced  and  to  whom  he  owed  most  had  been 

I    overpowered  by  malice  and  treachery,  instantly  forgotten   and 

shamelessly  supplanted.     How  often  had  not  Shakespeare  himself 

Seen  worthlessness  strike  greatness  down  and  usurp  its  place! 

Hamlet's  mother  had  married  her  husband's  murderer;  in  other 

words,  that  which  he  had  long  honoured  and  loved  and  held 

sacred,  sacred  as  is  a  mother  to  her  son,  that  on  which  he  could 

not  endure  to  see  any  stain,  had  all  of  a  sudden  shown  itself 

impure,  besmirched,  frivolous,  perhaps  criminal.     What  a  terrible 

impression  must  it  have  made  upon  Shakespeare  himself  when 

he  first  discovered  the  unworthiness  of  tb^  which  he  had  held 

in  highest  reverence,  and  when  he  first  saw  and  realised  that 

his  ideal  had  faUen  from  its  pedestal  into  the  mire. 

^,  The  experience  which  shook  Hamlet's  nature  was  no  other 

\        than  that  which  every  nobly-disposed  youth,  on  first  seeing  the 

^      World  as  it  is,  concentrates  in  the  words :  "  ^Ufl^'^ffl'IfRBMrhat 

I  ^jS^fiijiJigg^m^^    The  father's  murder,  the  mother's  possible 

complicity,  and  her  indecent  haste  in  entering  upon  a  new  wed- 

lockf  were  only  Symptoms  in  the  young  man'^  e^es  oC  the  worth« 


PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  "HAMLET"  363 

lessness  of  human  nature  and  the  injustice  of  life — only  thc 
individual  instances  from  which,  by  instinctive  gencralisation,  he 
inferred  the  dire  disillusions  and  terrible  possibilities  of  existence 
— only  the  chance  occasion  for  the  sudden  vanishing  of  that  rosy 
light  in  which  everything  had  hitherto  been  steeped  for  him,  and 
in  the  absence  of  which  the  earth  seemed  to  him  a  sterile  promon- 
tory,  and  the  heavens  a  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours. 

Just  such  a  crisis,  bnnging  with  it  the  "  loss  of  all  his  mirth/' 
Shakespeare  himself  had  recently  undergone.  He  had  lost  in 
the  previous  year  the  protectors  of  his  youth.  The  woman  he 
loved,  and  to  whom  he  had  looked  up  as  to  a  being  of  a  rarer, 
loftier  Order,  had  all  of  a  sudden  proved  to  be  a  heartless,  faithless 
wanton.  The  friend  he  loved,  worshipped,  and  adored  had  con- 
spired  against  him  with  this  woman,  laughed  at  him  in  her  arms, 
betrayed  his  confidence,  and  treated  him  with  coldness  and  dis- 
tance.  Even  the  prospect  of  winning  the  poet's  wreath  had  been 
overcast  for  him.  Truly  he  too  had  seen  his  illusions  vanish 
and  his  vision  of  the  world  fall  to  niins. 

In  his  first  consternation  he  had  been  submissive,  had  stood 
defenceless,  had  spoken  words  without  a  sting,  had  been  all  mild- 
ness  and  melancholy.  But  this  was  not  his  whole,  nor  his  inmost, 
nature.  In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  knew  himself  a  power — a 
power  I  He  was  incomparably  armed,  ^uick  and  keen  of  fence, 
füll  of  wit  and  indignation,  the  master  of  thcm  all,  and  infinitely 
greater  than  his  fate.  Burrow  as  they  night,  "  it  should  go  hard 
but  he  would  delve  one  yard  below  their  mines.''  He  had  suffered 
many  a  humiliation;  but  the  reveüge  which  was  denied  him  in 
real  life  he  could  now  take  incognito  through  Hamlet's  bitter  and 
scathing  invectives. 

He  had  seen  high-bom  gentleinen  play  a  princely  part  in  the 
Society  of  artists,  players,  men  whom  public  opinion  undervalued 
and  contemned.  Now  he  himself  would  be  the  high-born  gentle- 
man,  would  show  how  thc  truly  princely  spirit  bore  itself  towards 
the  poor  artists,  and  give  utterance  to  his  own  thoughts  about 
art,  and  his  conception  <tf  its  value  and  significance. 

He  merged  himself  in  Hamlet ;  he  feit  as  Hamlet  did ;  he 
now  and  then  so  mingled  their  identities  that,  in  placing  his  own 
weightiest  thoughts  in  Hamlet's  mouth,  as  in  the  famous  ''  To  be 
or  not  to  be "  soliloqny,  he  made  him  think,  not  as  a  prince,  but 
as  a  subject,  with  «11  the  passionate  bitterness  of  one  who  sees 
brutality  and  stupidity  lording  it  in  high  places.  Thus  it  was 
that  he  made  Hamlet  say-— 

"  For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scoms  of  time^ 
7^  oppnssof^s  wron^^  the  proud  marCs  contumely^ 
The  pangs  of  despis'd  love,  the  lavfs  delay, 
The  insöienei  efoffice,  and  the  spums 
ThatpäÜini  merit  oftkt  unworthy  takts^ 


A 
i 


364  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin  ?  " 

Every  one  can  see  that  this  is  feit  and  thought  from  below 
upwardsy  not  from  above  downwards,  and  that  the  words  are 
improbable,  aimost  impossible,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Prince.  But 
they  embody  feelings  and  thoughts  to  which  Shakespeare  had 
recently  given  ezpression  in  his  own  name  in  Sonnet  Ixvi.  :— 

"Tii'd  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry; — 
As,  to  behold  desert  a  beggar  bom, 
And  needy  nothing  trimm'd  in  jollity, 
And  purest  faith  unhappily  forsworn, 
And  gilded  honour  shamefully  misplac'd, 
And  maiden  virtue  rudely  stnimpeted, 
And  right  perfection  wrongfuUy  disgrac'd» 
And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled. 
And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority, 
/        And  folly  (doctor-like)  Controlling  skiU, 
And  simple  truth  miscalFd  simplicity, 
.  |3  And  captive  good  attending  captain  ill : 

y  Tir*d  with  all  these,  from  these  would  I  be  gone, 

.\i^  Save  that,  to  die,  I  leave  my  love  alone." 

^  ^Thc  bright  view  of  life  which  had  prevailed  in  his  youth 
ras  overclouded;  he  saw  the  strength  of  malignity,  the  power 
of  stupidity,  unworthiness  exalted,  true  desert  elbowed  aside. 
Existence  tumed  its  seamy  side  towards  him.  Through  what 
■jcnces  had  he  not  come !  How  often,  in  the  year  that  had 
just  passed,  must  he  have  exclaimed,  like  Hamlet  in  his  iirst 
soliloquy,  **  Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman ! "  and  how  much  cause 
had  he  had  to  say,  "  Let  her  not  walk  i'  the  sun :  conception  is 
a  blessing;  but  not  as  your  daughter  may  conceive."  So  far  had 
it  gone  with  him  that,  finding  every thing  "  weary,  stale,  flat,  and 
unprofitable/'  he  thought  it  monstrous  that  such  an  existence 
should  be  handed  on  from  generation  to  generation,  and  that  ever 
new  hordes  of  miserable  creatures  should  come  into  existence : 
"Get  thee  to  a  nunneryl  Why  wouldst  thou  be  a  breeder  of 
sinners  ?  " 

The  glimpse  of  high  life  which  he  had  seen,  his  relations  with 
the  Court,  and  the  gossip  from  Whitehall  and  Greenwich  which 
circulated  through  the  town,  had  proved  to  him  the  truth  of  the 
Couplet — 

"Cog,  lie,  flatter,  and  face 
Four  ways  in  Court  to  win  men  grace." 

Sheer  criminals  such  as  Leicester  and  Claudius  flourished  and 
waxed  fat  at  Court. 

What  414  men, do  at  Court  but  truckle  to  the  great  ?    WhaL>> 
throve  except  wordy  morality,  mutual  espionage,  artificiaLgitp 


PERSONAl.  ELEMENT  IN  "HAMLET"  365 

doubl^iongued  falsity,  invetcrate -^lack. -.of  -pripripl^^  perpetual 
bypocrisy  ?  ^Vhat  were  these  grcat  ones_bul;ilattßrfira.aad-Jip- 
seryerSj,^[3SU^6-c^dy,lQ  tum  their  coats  according  to  Jhejwind? 
And  so^^^iDüU&^d  Osrick,  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  took 
shape  inHIs  Imagination.  They  knew  how  to  bow  and  cringe ; 
^ey  were  masters  of  elegant  phrases ;  they  were  members  of  thc 
great  gujld  of  tiTnf>-Qf>rvfrg^  "To  be  honest  as  tHs  woHä"  goes, 
is  to  be  one  man  picked  out  of  ten  thousand/' 

And  the  Danish  Court  was  only  a  picture  in  little  of  all  Den- 
mark — that  Denmark  in  whose  State  there  was  something  rotten, 
and  which  was  to  Hamlet  a  prison.  "  Then  is  the  world  one  ?  " 
says  Rosencrantz ;  and  Hamlet  does  not  recoil  from  the  conclu- 
sion :  "  A  goodly  one,"  he  replies,  "  in  which  there  are  many  con- 
fines,  wardsy  and  dungeons."  The  Court-world  of  Hamlet  was 
but  an  image  of  the  world  at  large. 

But  if  this  is  how  matters  stand,  if  a  pure  and  princely  nature 
is  thus  placed  in  the  world  and  thus  surrounded,  we  are  neces- 
sarily  confh>nted  with  the  great  and  unanswerable  questions: 
**How  comes  it?"  and  "Why  is  it?"  The  problem  of  thc 
relation  of  good  and  evil  in  this  world,  an  unsolved  riddle,  in- 
volves  further  problems  as  to  the  govemment  of  the  world,  as  to 
a  righteous  Providence,  as  to  the  relation  between  the  world  and  a 
God.  And  thought — Shakespeare's  no  less  than  Hamlet's — beats 
at  the  locked  door  of  the  mystery. 


XIV 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  HAMLET 

ThouGH  there  are  in  Hamlet  more  direct  utterances  of  the 
poet's  inmost  spiritual  life  than  in  any  of  his  earlier  works,  he 
has  none  the  less  succeeded  in  thoroughly  disengaging  his  hero's 
figure,  and  making  it  an  independent  entity.  What  he  gave  him 
of  his  own  nature  was  its  unfathomable  depth ;  for  the  rest,  he 
retained  the  Situation  and  the  circumstances  much  as  he  found 
them  in  his  authorities.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  thus  in- 
volved  himself  in  difiiculties  which  he  by  no  means  entirely  over- 
came.  The  old  legend,  with  its  harsh  outlines,  its  mediseval  order 
of  ideas,  its  heathen  groundwork  under  a  vamish  of  dogmatic 
Catholicism,  its  assumption  of  vengeance  as  the  unquestionable 
right,  or  rather  duty,  of  the  individual,  did  not  very  readily  har- 
monise  with  the  rieh  life  of  thoughts,  dreams,  and  feelings  which 
Shakespeare  imparted  to  his  hero.  There  arose  a  certain  dis- 
crepancy  between  the  central  figure  and  his  surroundings.  A 
Prince  who  is  the  intellectual  peer  of  Shakespeare  himself,  who 
knows  and  declares  that  "  no  traveller  retums  "  from  beyond  the 
grave,  yet  sees  and  holds  converse  with  a  ghost.  A  royal  youth 
of  the  Renaissance,  who  has  gone  through  a  foreign  university, 
whose  Chief  bent  is  towards  philosophic  brooding,  who  writes 
verses,  who  cultivates  music,  elocution,  and  rapier-fencing,  and 
proves  himself  an  expert  in  dramatic  criticism,  is  at  the  same 
time  pre-occupied  with  thoughts  of  personal  and  bloody  ven- 
geance. Now  and  then,  in  the  course  of  the  drama,  a  rift  seems 
to  open  between  the  shell  of  the  action  and  its  kernel. 

C^^TSut  Shakespeare,  with  his  consummate  instinct,  managed  to 
mnd  an  advantage  precisely  in  this  discrepancy,  and  to  tum  it  to 
üount.  His  Hamlet  believes  in  the  ghost  and — doubts.  He 
accepts  the  summons  to  the  deed  of  vengeance  and — delays. 
Much  of  the  originality  of  the  figure,  and  of  the  drama  as  a  whole, 
Springs   alraost  inevitably   from   this   discrepancy   between    the 

Cmediaeval  character  of  the  fable  and  its  Renaissance  hero,  who  is 
so  deep  and  many-sided  that  he  has  almost  a  modern  air. 

The  figure  of  Hamlet,  as  it  at  last  shaped  itself  in  Shake- 
speare's  Imagination  and  came  to  life  in  his  drama,  i$  one  of  the 
very  few  immortal  figures  of  art  and  poetry,  which,  like  Cervantes' 
Don  Quixote,  exactly  its  contemporary,  and  Goethe's  Faust  of  two 

KM 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  HAMLET  367 

centuries  later,  present  to  generation  after  generation  problems 
to  ..^vvadiiriHiftABMli^yUU^^  If  we  compare  the  two 

grcat  figures  of  Hamlet  Ifi 604)  and  Don  Quixote  (1605),  we  find 
Hamlet  undoubtedly  the  more  enigmatic  and  absorbing  of  the 
two.  Don  Quixote  belongs  to  the  past.  He  cmbodies  the  naYve 
spirit  of  chivalry  which,  having  outlived  its  age,  gives  offence 
on  all  hands  in  a  time  of  prosaic  rationalism,  and  makes  itself  a 
laughing-stock  through  its  importunate  enthusiasms.  He  has 
the  firm,  easily-comprehensible  contours  of  a  caricature.  Hamlet 
belongs  to  the  future,  to  the  modern  age.  He  embodies  the 
lofty  and  reflective  spirit,  Standing  isolated,  with  its  severely 
exalted  ideals,  in  corrupt  or  worthless  surroimdings,  forced  to 
conceal  its  inmost  nature,  yet  everywhere  arousing  hostility. 
He  has  the  unfathomable  spirit  and  evef-changing  physiognomy 
of  genius.  Goethe,  in  his  celebrated  exposition  of  Hamlet 
{Wilhelm  Meister^  Book  iv.  chap.  13),  maintains  that  in  this 
case  a  great  deed  is  imposed  upon  a  soul  which  is  not  strong 
enough  for  it : — 

"  There  is  an  oak-tree  planted  in  a  costly  jar,  which  should  have 
bome  only  pleasant  flowers  in  its  bosom ;  the  roots  expand,  the  jar  is 
shivered.  A  lovely,  pure,  noble,  and  most  moral  nature,  without  the 
strength  of  nerve  which  forms  a  hero,  sinks  beneath  a  bürden  which  it 
cannot  bear  and  must  not  cast  away." 

This  interpretation  is  brilliant  and  thoughtfui,  but  not  entirely 
just.  One  can  trace  in  it  the  spirit  of  the  period  of  humanity, 
transforming  in  its  own  image  a  figure  belonging  to  the  Renais- 
sance. Hamlet  cannot  really  be  called,  without  qualification, 
*'  lovely,  pure,  noble  and  most  moral " — he  who  says  to  Ophelia 
the  penetratingly  tnie,  unforgettable  words,  "  I  am  myself  indif- 
ferent honest ;  but  yet  I  could  accuse  me  of  such  things,  that  it 
were  better  my  mother  had  not  bome  me."  The  light  of  such 
a  saying  as  this  takes  the  colour  out  of  Goethe's  adjectives.  It 
is  true  that  Hamlet  goes  on  to  ascribe  to  himself  evil  qualities  of 
which  he  is  quite  innocent ;  but  he  was  doubtless  sincere  in  the 
general  tenor  of  his  speech,  to  which  all  men  of  the  better  sort 
will  subscribe.  Hamlet  is  no  model  of  virtue.  He  is  not  simply 
pure,  noble,  moral,  &c.,  but  is,  or  becomes,  other  things  as  well — 
wild,  bitter,  harsh,  now  tender,  now  coarse,  wrought  up  to  the 
verge  of  madness,  callous,  cruel.  No  doubt  he  is  too  weak  for 
his  task,  or  rather  whoUy  unsuited  to  it ;  but  he  is  by  no  means 
devoid  of  physical  strength  or  power  of  action.  He  is  no  child 
of  the  period  of  humanity,  moral  and  pure,  but  a  child  of  the  % 
Renaissance,  with  its  impulsive  energy,  its  irrepressiblc  fulness  1 
of  life  and  its  undaunted  habit  of  looking  death  in  the  eyes.  * 

Shake  eare  at  first  conceived  Hamlet  as  a  youth.  In  the 
First  Quarto  he  is  quite  young,  probably  nineteen.  It  accords 
with  this  age  that  he  should  be  a  Student  at  W\lteTLb^%\  >S^>asQi% 


368  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

men  at  that  time  began  and  ended  their  university  course  miich 
earlier  than  in  our  days.  It  accords  with  this  age  that  his  mother 
should  address  him  as  "  boy  "  ("  How  now,  boy  I "  iü  4 — a  phrase 
which  is  deleted  in  the  next  edition),  and  that  the  word  ''young" 
should  be  continually  prefixöd  to  his  name,  not  merely  to  dÜs- 
tinguish  him  from  his  father.  The  King,  too,  in  the  early  edidon 
(not  in  that  of  1604)  currently  addresses  him  as  "son  Hamlet;" 
and  finally  his  mother  is  still  young  enough  to  arouse— -er  at 
least  to  enable  Claudius  plausibly  to  pretend — the  passion  which 
has  such  terrible  results.     Hamlet's  speech  to  his  mother — 

"  At  your  age 
The  hey-day  of  the  blood  is  tarne,  if  s  humble, 
And  waits  upon  the  judgment," 

does  not  occur  in  the  1603  edition.  The  decisive  proof,  however, 
of  the  fact  that  Hamlet  at  first  appeared  in  Shakespeare's  eyes 
much  younger  (eleven  years,  to  be  precise)  than  he  afterwards 
made  him,  is  to  be  found  in  the  graveyard  scene  (v.  i).  In 
the  older  edition,  the  First  Gravedigger  says  that  the  skull  of 
the  jester  Yorick  has  lain  a  dozen  years  in  the  earth ;  in  the 
edition  of  1604  this  is  changed  to  twenty-three  years.  Here,  too, 
it  is  explicitly  indicated  that  Hamlet,  who  as  a  child  knew  Yorick, 
is  now  thirty  years  old ;  for  the  Gravedigger  first  states  that  he 
took  to  his  trade  on  the  very  day  on  which  Prince  Hamlet  was 
bom,  and  a  little  later  adds :  **  I  have  been  sexton  here,  man  and 
boy,  thirty  years!"  It  accords  with  this  that  the  Player-King 
now  mentions  thirty  years  as  the  time  that  has  elapsed  sinoe 
his  marriage  with  the  Queen,  and  that  Ophelia  (iii.  i)  speaks  of 
Hamlet  as  the  '*  unmatch'd  form  of  blown  [z>.  mature]  youth.'* 

The  process  of  thought  in  Shakespeare's  mind  is  evident  At 
first  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  circumstances  of  the  case  de- 
roanded  that  Hamlet  should  be  a  youth;  for  thus  the  over- 
whelming  eifect  produced  upon  him  by  his  mother's  prompt 
forgetfulness  of  his  father  and  hasty  marriage  seemed  most 
intelligible.  He  had  been  living  far  from  the  great  world,  in 
quiet  Wittenberg,  never  doubting  that  life  was  in  fact  as  bar- 
monious  as  it  is  apt  to  appear  in  the  eyes  of  a  young  prince.  He 
believed  in  the  realisation  of  Ideals  here  on  earth,  imagined  that 
intellectual  nobility  and  fine  feelings*  ruled  the  world,  that  justice 
reigned  in  public,  faith  and  honour  in  private,  life.  He  admired 
his  great  father,  honoured  his  beautiful  mother,  passionately  loved 
the  charming  Ophelia,  thought  nobly  of  humankind,  and  espedally 
of  women.  From  the  moment  he  loses  his  father,  and  is  forced 
to  change  his  opinion  of  his  mother,  this  serene  view  of  life  is 
darkened.  If  his  mother  has  been  able  to  forget  his  father  and 
marry  this  man,  what  is  woman  worth  ?  and  what  is  life  worth  7 
At  the  very  outset,  then,  when  he  has  not  even  heard  of  his 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  HAMLET  369 

father's  ghost,  much  less  secn  or  held  converse  with  it,  sheer 
despair  speaks  in  his  monologue : 

**  O  that  this  too  too  solid  flesh  would  melt, 
Thaw,  and  resolve  itself  into  a  dew : 
Or  that  the  Everlasting  had  not  fix'd 
His  canon  'gainst  self-slaughter  ! " 

Hence,  also,  his  naYve  surprise  that  one  may  smile  and  smile 

occurrenc^^^pecinilliiMgLjd^  his 

words  to  Rosencfäntz  and  TjuudensternT^^Tiave  of  late — but 
wherefore  I  know  not — ^lost  all  my  mirth."  And  those  others: 
''What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man!  how  noble  in  reasoni  how 
infinite  in  faculty  I  ...  in  action,  how  like  an  angel  I  in  appre- 
hension,  how  like  a  god !  the  beauty  of  the  world ! "  These 
words  express  his  first  bright  view  of  life.  But  that  has  van- 
ished,  and  the  world  is  no  longer  anything  to  him  but  a  "foul  and 
pestilent  congregation  of  vapours."  And  mani  What  is  this 
"  quintessence  of  dust ''  to  him  ?  He  has  no  pleasure  in  man  or 
woman. 

Hence  arise  his  thoughts  of  suicide.  The  finer  a  young  man's 
character,  the  stronger  is  his  desire,  on  entering  life,  to  see  his 
ideals  consummated  in  persons  and  circumstances.  Hamlet 
suddenly  realises  that  everything  is  entirely  difierent  from  what 
he  had  imagined,  and  feels  as  if  he  must  die  because  he  cannot 
set  it  right. 

He  finds  it  very  difficult  to  believe  that  the  world  is  so  bad ; 
therefore  he  is  always  seeking  for  new  proofs  of  it;  therefore, 
for  instante,  he  plans  the  Performance  of  the  play.  His  joy 
whenever  he  tears  the  mask  from  baseness  is  simply  the  joy  of 
realisation,  with  deep  sorrow  in  the  background — abstract  satis- 
faction  produced  by  the  feeling  that  at  last  he  understands  the 
worthlcssness  of  the  world.  His  divination  was  just— events 
confirm  it.  There  is  no  cold-hearted  pessimism  here.  Hamlet's 
fire  is  never  quenched ;  his  wound  never  heals.  Laertes'  poisoned 
blade  gives  the  quietus  to  a  still  tortured  soul.^ 

All  this,  though  we  can  quite  well  imagine  it  of  a  man  of 
thirty,  is  more  natural,  more  what  we  should  expect,  in  one  of 
nineteen.  But  as  Shakespeare  worked  on  at  his  drama,  and  came 
to  deposit  in  Hamlet's  mind,  as  in  a  treasury,  more  and  more  of 
his  own  life-wisdom,  of  his  own  experience,  and  of  his  own  keen 
and  virile  wit,  he  saw  that  early  youth  was  too  slight  a  frame- 
-work  to  Support  this  intellectual  weight,  and  gave  Hamlet  the  age 
of  ripening  manhood.* 

^  See  Hennann  TUrck  :   Das  psychohgUchi  ProbUm  in  dir  Hamlet-Tt^^i&dU, 
189a 

s  See  E.SulUvmii:  *'On  Hamlet's  Affe."    Ahv  SiUiJUim  Society  s  TnnucKaMa. 
l88o-8d 


370  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hamlet's  faith  and  trust  in  humankind  are  shattered  before 
the  Ghost  appears  to  him.  From  the  moment  when  his  father's 
spirit  communicates  to  him  a  far  more  appalling  insight  into  the 
facts  of  the  Situation,  his  whole  inner  man  is  in  wild  revolt. 

This  is  the  cause  of  the  leave-taking,  the  silent  leave-taking, 
from  Ophelia,  whom  in  letters  he  had  called  his  soul's  idoL  His 
ideal  of  womanhood  no  longer  exists.  Ophelia  now  belongs  to 
those  "  trivial  fond  records  "  which  the  sense  of  his  great  missioD 
impels  him  to  efface  from  the  tablets  of  his  memory.  There  is 
no  room  in  his  soul  for  his  task  and  for  her,  passive  and  obedieot 
to  her  father  as  she  is.  Confide  ita  her  he  cannot;  she  has 
shown  how  unequal  she  is  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Situation  by 
refusing  to  receive  his  letters  and  Visits.  She  actually  hands 
over  his  last  letter  to  her  father,  which  means  that  it  will  be 
shown  and  read  at  court.  At  last,  she  even  consents  to  play 
the  spy  upon  him.  He  no  longer  believes  or  can  believe  in  any 
woman. 

He  intends  to  proceed  at  once  to  action,  but  too  many  thoughts 

rowd  in  upon  him.     He  broods  over  that  horror  which  the  Ghost 

as  revealed  to  him,  and  over  the  world  in  which  such  a  thing 

ould  happen;  he  doubts  whether  the  apparition  was  really  his 

father,  or  perhaps  a  deceptive,  malignant  spirit;  and,  lastly,  he 

i|has  doubts  of  himself,  of  his  ability  to  upraise  and  restore  what 

has  been  overthrown,  of  his  fitness  for  the  vocation  of  avenger 

and  judge.     His  doubt  as  to  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Ghost 

eads  to  the  Performance  of  the  play  within  the  play,  which  proves 

he  King's  g^ilt.     His  feeling  of  his  own  unfitness  for  his  task 

ds  to  continued  procrastination. 

During  the  course  of  the  play  it  is  sufficiently  proved  that  he 
is  not,  in  the  main,  incapable  of  action.  He  does  not  hesitate  to 
Stab  the  eavesdropper  behind  the  arras;  without  wavering  and 
without  pity  he  sends  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstem  to  certain 
death ;  he  boards  a  hostile  ship ;  and,  never  having  lost  sight  of 
his  purpose,  he  takes  vengeance  before  he  dies.  But  it  is  clear, 
none  the  less,  that  he  has  a  great  inward  obstacle  to  overcome 
before  he  proceeds  to  the  decisive  act  ReÜSmPMMMHHriMt; 
Solution  is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought,"  as 
in  his  soliloquy. 

He  has  become  to  the  populär  mind  the  great  type  of  the 
procrastinator  and  dreamer;  and  far  on  into  this  Century,  hun- 
dreds  of  individuals,  and  even  whole  races,  have  seen  themselves 
reflected  in  him  as  in  a  mirror. 

We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  this  dramatic  curiosity — 
a  hero  who  does  not  act — was,  to  a  certain  eztent,  demanded  by 
the  technique  of  this  particular  drama.  If  Hamlet  had  killed  the 
King  directly  after  receiving  the  Ghost's  revelation,  the  play 
would  have  come  to  an  end  with  the  first  act.  It  was,  therefore^ 
absolutely  necessary  that  de\a:vs  sVio\Ad  ax\«it. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  HAMLET  371 

Shakespeare  is  misunderstood  when  Hamlet  is  taken  for  that 
tntirely  modern  product — a  mind  diseased  by  morbid  reflection, 
rithout  capaciiy  for  action.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  freak  ojf 
ronic  fate  that  ke  should  have  become  a  sort  of  symbol  of  re- 
lective  sloth,  this  man  who  has  gunpowder  in  eva*y  nerve,  and 
ill  the  dynamite  of  genius  in  his  nature. 

It  was  undeniably  and  indubitably  Shakespeare^s  Intention  to 
^ve  distinctness  to  Hamiet's  character  by  contrasting  it  with 
routhful  energy  of  action,  unhesitatingly  pursuing  its  aim. 

While  Hamlet  is  letting  himself  be  shipped  off  to  England, 
he  young  Norwegian  prince,  Fortinbras,  arrives  with  his  soldiers, 
eady  to  risk  his  life  for  a  patch  of  ground  that ''  hath  in  it  no 
irofit  but  the  name.  To  pay  five  ducats,  five,  I  would  not  farm 
L''     Hamlet  says  to  himself  (iv.  4) : 

'*  How  all  occasions  do  inform  against  me, 
And  spur  my  dull  revenge  1  .  .  . 
.  .  .  I  do  not  know 
Why  yet  I  live  to  say,  ' This  thing's  to  do.*" 

Sjid  he  despairs  when  he  contrasts  himself  with  Fortinbras,  the 
lelicate  and  tender  prince,  who,  at  the  head  of  his  brave  troops, 
lares  death  and  danger  "  even  for  an  egg-shell  ^ : 

"  Rightly  to  be  great 
Is  not  to  stir  without  great  argument, 
But  greatly  to  find  quarrel  in  a  straw 
When  honour's  at  the  stake.** 

}ut  with  Hamlet  it  is  a  question  of  more  than  "  honour,''  a  con* 
eption  belonging  to  a  sphere  far  below  his.  It  is  natural  that  he 
ihould  feel  ashamed  at  the  sight  of  Fortinbras  marching  off  to  the 
iound  of  drum  and  trumpet  at  the  head  of  his  forces — he,  who 
las  not  carried  out,  or  even  laid,  any  plan ;  who,  after  having  by 
neans  of  the  play  satisfied  himself  of  the  King's  guUt,  and  at  the 
ame  time  betrayed  his  own  State  of  mind,  is  now  writhing  under 
he  conscMfRTRS^«^"MpOtnte.  BuTtlRr^ioi^^aui^^C^is  im- 
»tence  is  the  paralysing  grasp  laid^j^n-aU-his-JSuHikiiAirby  his 
lew  realisation  of  what  lifms^nS^tlKahBndMIiidkfili  of  this 
elMülHR.  Even  his  mission  of  vengeance  sinks  into  the  back- 
^ound  of  his  mind.  Everything  is  at  strife  within  him — his  duty 
o  his  father,  his  duty  to  his  mother,  revercnce,  horror  of  crime, 
latred,  pity,  fear  of  action,  and  fear  of  inaction.  He  feels,  even  if 
le  does  not  expressly  say  so,  how  little  is  gained  by  getting  rid  of 
i  Single  noxious  animal.  He  himself  is  already  so  much  more 
han  what  he  was  at  first — the  youth  chosen  to  execute  a  Vendetta, 
je  has  become  the  great  sidferer,  who  jeers  and  mocks,  and  v 
ebukes  the  world  that  racks  him.  He  is  th^  ctn  ol  \i>xcaaaax?i  y 
lorror-stmci 


^ 


» 


372  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

There  is  no  '*general  meaning"  on  the  surface  of  Hamlit 
Lucidity  was  not  the  ideal  Shakespeare  had  before  him  while  he 
was  producing  this  tragedy,  as  it  had  been  when  he  was  composing 
Richard  II L  Here  there  are  plenty  of  riddles  and  self-contradic- 
tions ;  but  not  a  little  of  the  attraction  of  the  play  depends  on  this 
very  obscurity. 

We  all  know  that  kind  of  well-written  book  which  is  blameless 
in  form,  obvious  in  intention,  and  in  which  the  characters  stand 
out  sharply  defined.  We  read  it  with  pleasure;  but  when  we 
have  read  it,  we  are  done  with  it  There  is  nothing  to  be 
read  between  the  lines,  no  gulf  between  this  passage  and  that, 
no  mystic  twilight  anywhere  in  it,  no  shadows  in  which  we  can 
dream.  And,  again,  there  are  other  books  whose  fundamental 
idea  is  capable  of  roany  interpretations,  and  afTords  matter  for 
much  dispute,  but  whose  significance  lies  less  in  what  they  say  to 
US  than  in  what  they  lead  us  to  imagine,  to  divine.  They  have 
the  peculiar  faculty  of  setting  thoughts  and  feelings  in  motion; 
more  thoughts  than  they  themselves  contain,  and  perhaps  of  a 
quite  different  character.  Hamlet  is  such  a  book.  As  a  piece  of 
psychological  development,  it  lacks  the  lucidity  of  classical  art; 
the  hero's  soul  has  all  the  untranspicuousness  and  complexity 
of  a  real  soul ;  but  one  generation  ajfter  another  has  thrown  its 
imagination  into  the  problem,  and  has  deposited  in  Hamlet's  soul 
the  sum  of  its  experience. 

To  Hamlet  life  is  half  reality,  half  a  dream.  He  sometimes 
resembles  a  somnambulist,  though  he  is  often  as  wakeful  as  a 
spy.  He  has  so  much  presence  of  mind  that  he  is  never  at  a  loss 
for  the  aptest  retort,  and,  along  with  it,  such  absence  of  mind 
that  he  lets  go  his  fixed  determination  in  order  to  follow  up  some 
train  of  thought  or  thread  some  dream-labyrinth.  He  appals, 
amuses,  captivates,  perplexes,  disquiets  us.  Few  characters  in 
fiction  have  so  disquieted  the  world.  Although  he  is  incessantly 
talking,  he  is  solitary  by  nature.  He  typifies,  indeed,  that  soli- 
tude  of  soul  which  cannot  impart  itself. 

"  His  name,"  says  Victor  Hugo,  "  is  as  the  name  on  a  wood- 
cut  of  Albert  Dürer's :  Melanclwlia.  The  bat  flits  over  Hamlet's 
head;  at  his  feet  sit  Knowledge,  with  globe  and  compass,  and 
Love,  with  an  hour-glass;  while  behind  him,  on  the  horizon, 
rests  a  giant  sun,  which  only  serves  to  make  the  sky  above  him 
darker.''  But  from  another  point  of  view  Hamlet's  nature  is  that 
of  the  hurricane — a  thing  of  wrath  and  fury,  and  tempestuous 
scorn,  strong  enough  to  sweep  the  whole  world  clean. 

There  is  in  him  no  less  indignation  than  melancholy ;  in  fact^ 
his  melancholy  is  a  result  of  his  indignation.  SufTerers  and 
thinkers  have  found  in  him  a  brother.  Hence  the  extraordinaiy 
popularity  of  the  character,  in  spite  of  its  being  the  reverse  of 
obvious. 

Audiences  and  readers  fee\  w\lVv  Ham\eX.  dxvd>ixkdei«tand  him; 


PSVCHOLOGY  OF  HAMLET  373 

for  all  the  better-disposed  among  us  make  the  discovery,  when  we 
go  forth  into  life  as  grown-up  men  and  women,  that  it  is  not  what 
we  had  imagined  it  to  be,  but  a  thousandfold  more  terrible. 
Something  is  rotten  in  the  State  of  Denmark.  Denmark  is  a 
prison,  and  the  world  is  füll  of  such  dungeons.  A  spectral  voice 
says  to  us:  ''Horrible  things  have  happened;  horrible  things 
are  happening  every  day.  Be  it  your  task  to  fepair  the  evil,  to 
rearrange  the  course  of  things.  The  world  is  out  of  Joint ;  it  is 
for  you  to  set  it  right/'  But  our  arms  fall  powerless  by  our  sides. 
Evil  is  too  strong,  too  cunning  for  us. 

In  HamUt,  the  first  philosophical  drama  of  the  modern  era, 
we  meet  for  the  first  time  the  typical  modern  character,  with  its 
intense  feeling  of  the  strife  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual 
world,  with  its  keen  sense  of  the  chasm  between  power  and 
aspiration,  and  with  that  complexity  of  nature  which  shows  itself 
in  wit  without  mirth,  cruelty  combined  with  sensitiveness,  frenzied 
impatience  at  war  with  inveterate  procrastination. 


XV 


HAMLET  AS  A  DRAMA 

• 

Let  u8  now  lock  at  HantUt  as  a  drama;  and,  to  get  the  fuU 
impression  of  Shakespeare's  greatness,  let  us  first  recall  its  purely 
theatrical,  materially  visible  side,  that  which  dwells  in  the  memory 
simply  as  pantomime.^ 

The  night-watch  on  the  platform  before  the  Castle  of  ElsinorCi 
and  the  appearance  of  the  Ghost  to  the  soldiers  and  officers  there. 
Then,  in  contrast  to  the  splendidly-attired  courtiers,  the  black- 
robed  figure  of  the  Prince,  standing  apart,  a  living  image  of  grie( 
his  countenance  bespeaking  both  soul  and  intellect,  but  with 
an  expression  which  seems  to  say  that  henceforth  joy  and  he 
are  strangers.  Next,  his  meeting  with  his  father's  spirit;  the 
oath  upon  the  sword,  with  the  constant  change  of  place.  Then 
his  wild  behaviour  when,  to  hide  his  excitement,  he  feigns  mad- 
nes8.  Then  the  play  within  the  play ;  the  sword-thrust  through 
the  arras;  the  beautiful  Ophelia  with  flowers  and  straw  in  her 
hair;  Hamlet  with  Yorick's  skull  in  his  band;  the  struggle 
with  Laertes  in  Ophelia's  grave,  that  grotesque  but  most  signifi- 
cant  episode.  Accprding  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  a  dumb  show 
foretold  the  poisoning  in  the  play,  and  this  fight  in  the  grave  is 
the  dumb  show  which  foretells  the  mortal  combat  that  is  soon 
to  take  place:  both  are  presently  to  be  swallowed  up  by  the 
grave  in  which  they  stand.  Then  follows  the  fencing-scene, 
during  the  course  of  which  the  Queen  dies  by  the  poison  which 
the  King  destined  for  Hamlet,  and  Laertes  by  the  stroke  of  the 
poisoned  sword  also  prepared  for  the  Prince,  who,  with  a  last 
great  efibrt,  kills  the  King,  and  then  sinks  down  poisoned.  This  ' 
Wholesale  ''havock"  arranged  by  the  poet,  a  fourfold  lying-in- 
state,  has  its  gloom  broken  by  the  triumphal  march  of  young 
Fortinbras,  which,  in  its  tum,  soon  changes  to  a  funeral  measure. 
The  whole  is  as  effective  to  the  eye  as  it  is  great  and  beautifuL 

And  now  add  to  this  ocular  picturesqueness  of  the  play  the 
fascination  which  it  owes  to  the  sympathy  Shakespeare  has  made 
US  feel  for  its  prindpal  character,  the  impression  he  has  given  us 
of  the  agonies  of  a  strong  and  sensitive  spirit  surrounded  by 
oomiption  and  depravity.     Hamlet  was  by  nature  candid,  en« 

*  K.  Werder:  V^Haungm  über  Hamide  p.  3  «TMf. 


"  HAMLET  "  AS  A  DRAMA  375 

thusiastic,  tnistful,  loving ;  the  guile  of  others  Forces  him  to  take 
refuge  in  guile ;  the  wickedness  of  others  drives  him  to  distrust 
and  hate ;  and  the  crime  committed  against  his  murdered  father 
calls  upon  him  from  the  underworld  for  vengeance. 

His  indignation  at  the  infamy  around  him  is  heartrending, 
his  contempt  for  it  is  stimulating. 

By  nature  he  is  a  thinker.  He  thinks  not  only  when  he  is 
contemplating  and  planning  a  course  of  action,  but  also  from  a 
passionate  longing  for  comprehension  in  the  abstract.  Though  he 
is  merely  making  use  of  the  players  to  unmask  the  murderer,  he 
gives  them  apt  and  profound  advice  with  regard  to  the  practice  of 
their  art.  When  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstem  question  him  as^ 
to  the  reason  of  his  melancholy,  he  ezpounds  to  them  in  wordft| 
of  deep  significance  his  rooted  distaste  for  life. 

The  feeling  produced  in  him  by  any  streng  impression  never 
finds  vent  in  straightforward,  laconic  wt>rds.  His  Speeches  never 
take  the  direct,  the  shortest  way  to  express  his  thoughts.  They 
consist  of  ingeniouSy  far-fetched  similes  and  witty  conceits,  appa- 
rently  remote  from  the  matter  in  band.  Sarcastic  and  enigma- 
tical  phrases  conceal  his  emotiona  This  dissimulation  is  force 
upon  bim  by  the  very  strength  of  his  feelings:  in  order  not  to 
betray  himself,  not  to  give  way  to  the  pain  he  is  suffering,  ho 
must  smother  it  in  fantastic  and  boisterous  ejaculations.  Tbus 
he  shouts  after  having  seen  the  apparition :  **  Hillo,  ho,  ho,  boy  I 
come,  bird,  come!"  Thus  he  apostrophises  the  Ghost:  "We 
Said,  old  mole!  canst  work  i'  the  earth  so  fast?"  And  there- 
fore,  after  the  play  has  made  the  King  betray  himself,  he  cries 
''Ah,  hal  Come,  some  musicl  come,  the  recordersi"  His 
feigned  madness  is  only  an  intentional  ezaggeration  of  this 
tendency. 

The  horrible  secret  that  has  been  discovered  to  him  has  upset 
his  equilibrium.  The  show  of  madness  enables  him  to  find  sola 
in  expressing  indirectly  what  it  tortures  him  to  talk  of  directl 
and  at  the  same  time  his  seeming  lunacy  diverts  attention  froi 
the  real  reason  of  his  deep  melancholy.  He  does  not  altogethe 
dissemble  when  he  talks  so  wildly ;  given  his  surroundings,  the 
fantastic  and  daring  sarcasms  are  a  natural  enough  mode  of  utter- 
ance  for  the  wild  agitation  produced  by  the  horror  that  has 
entered  into  his  life;  "though  this  be  madness,  yet  there  is 
method  in  't''  But  the  almost  frenzied  excitement  into  which  he 
is  so  often  thrown  by  the  action  of  others  subsides  at  intervals» 
when  he  feels  the  need  for  mental  concentration — a  craving  which 
he  satisfies  in  the  solitary  reflections  forming  his  monologues. 

When  his  passions  are  roused,  he  has  diiBculty  in  Controlling 
them.  It  is  nervous  over-exdtement  that  finds  vent  when  he  bids 
Ophelia  get  her  to  a  nunnery,  and  it  is  in  a  fit  of  nervous  frenzy 
that  he  Stabs  Polonius.  But  his  passion  generally  strikes  inwards. 
CoDstrained  as  he  is,  er  thinks  him&elf,  to  tmi^o^  ^wisDLxiSsi&fii^ 


376  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  cunning,  he  is  in  a  fever  of  impatience,  and  is  for  ever 
reviling  and  scoffing  at  himself  for  his  inaction,  as  though  it  were 
due  to  indifference  or  cowardice. 

Distrust,  that  new  element  in  his  character,  makes  him 
cautious;  he  cannot  act  on  impulse,  nor  even  speak.  ''There's 
ne'er  a  villain  dwelling  in  all  Denmark/'  he  begins ;  ''so  g^reat  as 
the  King"  ahoulcl  be  the  continuation ;  but  fear  of  being  betrayed 
by  his  comrades  takes  possession  of  hinii  and  he  ends  with,  **  but 
he  's  an  arrant  knave." 

He  is  by  nature  open-hearted  and  warm,  as  we  see  him  with 

{ratio ;  he  speaks  to  the  sentinel  on  the  platform  as  to  a  com- 
rade;  he  is  cordial,  at  first,  to  old  acquaintances  like  Rosencrantz 
and  Guildenstem;  and  he  is  frank,  amiable,  kind  without  con- 
descension,  to  the  troupe  of  travelling  players.  But  reticence  has 
been  suddenly  forced  upon  him  by  the  Gitterest,  most  agonising 
experiences ;  no  sooner  has  he  put  on  a  mask,  so  as  not  to  be 
instantly  found  out,  than  he  feels  that  he  is  being  spied  upon; 
even  his  friends  and  the  woman  he  loves  are  on  the  side  of  his 
opponents;  and  though  he  believes  his  life  to  be  threatened,  he 
feels  that  he  must  keep  silent  and  wait. 

His  mask  is  often  enough  only  of  ganze ;  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  spectatorsy  Shakespeare  had  to  make  the  madness  trans- 
parenty  that  it  might  not  pall. 

Read  the  witty  repartees  of  Hamlet  to  Polonius  (ii.  2),  begin- 
ning  with,  "What  do  you  read,  my  lord?"  "Words,  words, 
words/'  In  reality  there  is  no  trace  of  madness  in  all  these  keen- 
edged  sayings,  tili  Hamlet  at  last,  in  order  to  annul  their  effect, 
concludes  with  the  words,  '*  For  yourself,  sir,  should  be  old  as  I 
am,  if,  like  a  crab,  you  could  go  backward." 

Or  take  the  long  conversation  (iii.  2)  between  Hamlet  and 
Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstem  about  the  pipe  he  has  sent  for, 
and  asks  them  to  play  on.  The  whole  is  a  parable  as  simple 
and  direct  as  any  in  the  New  Testament.  And  he  points  the 
moral  with  triumphant  logic  in  poetic  form — 

"Why,  look  you  now,  how  unworthy  a  thing  you  would  make  of 
me !  You  would  play  upon  me ;  you  would  seem  to  know  my  stops ; 
you  would  pluck  out  the  heart  of  my  mystery ;  you  would  sound  me 
from  my  lowest  notes  to  the  top  of  my  compass :  and  there  is  much 
music,  excellent  music  in  this  little  organ;  yet  cannot  you  make  it 
speak.  'Sblood,  do  you  think  I  am  easier  to  be  played  on  than  a  pipe? 
Call  me  what  Instrument  you  will,  though  you  can  fret  me,  yet  you 
cannot  play  upon  me." 

It  is  in  order  to  account  for  such  contemptuous  and  witty  out- 
bursts  that  Hamlet  says :  **  I  am  but  mad  north-north-west : 
when  the  wind  is  southerly  I  know  a  hawk  from  a  handsaw." 

To  outward  difficulties  are  added  inward  hindrances,  which  he 
cannot  overcome.    He  reproaches  himself  passionately  for  thi% 


"HAMLET"  AS  A  DRAMA  377 

as  we  have  seen.  But  these  self-reproaches  of  Hamlet's  do  not 
represent  Shakespeare's  view  of  his  character  or  judgment  of  his 
action.  They  ezpress  the  impatience  of  his  nature,  his  longing 
for  reparation,  his  eagerness  for  the  triumph  of  the  right ;  they  do 
not  imply  his  guilt 

The  old  doctrine  of  tragic  guilt  and  punishment,  which 
assumes  that  the  death  at  the  end  of  a  tragedy  must  always  be 
in  some  way  deserved,  is  nothing  but  antiquated  scholasticism, 
theology  masking  as  aesthetics;  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  an 
instance  of  scientific  progress  that  this  view  of  the  matter,  which 
was  heretical  only  a  generation  since,  is  now  very  generally 
accepted.  Very  different  was  the  case  when  the  author  of  these 
lines,  in  his  earliest  published  work,  entered  a  protest  against 
such  an  intrusion  of  traditional  morality  into  a  sphere  from  which 
it  ought  simply  to  be  banished.^ 

Some   critics  have  summarily  disposed   of  the  question  of 

not  only  ^>oell*«^/^  hnt^  [-g^l^  Rring1<»v  Nicholson,  for  instance, 
in  his  essay  '*  Was  Hamlet  Mad  ? "  {New  Shakspere  Society s 
TransactionSf  18S0-86),  insists  on  his  morbid  melancholy;  his 
Strange  and  incoherent  talk  after  the  apparition  of  the  Ghost; 
his  lack  of  any  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  deaths  of  Polonius, 
Rosencrantz,  and  Guildenstern,  of  which  he  was  either  the  direct 
or  indirect  cause ;  his  fear  of  sending  King  Claudius  to  heaven 
by  killing  him  while  he  is  praying ;  his  brutality  towards  Ophelia ; 
his  constant  suspiciousness,  &c.|  &c  But  to  see  Symptoms  oi 
real  insanity  in  all  this  is  not  only  a  crudity  of  Interpretation, 
but  a  misconception  of  Shakespeare's  evident  meaning.  It  is 
true  that  Hamlet  does  not  dissemble  as  systematically  and  coldly 
as  Edgar  in  the  subsequent  King  Lear ;  but  that  is  no  reason 
why  his  State  of  mental  exaltation  should  be  mistaken  for  de- 
rangement     li^kMBiiSSiMSBt^^iMmm^/fTtmmtMa&f^SI^^^ 

Not  that  it  proves  really  serviceable  to  him  or  facilitates  h 
task  of  vengeance;  on  the  contrary,  it  impedes  his  action  b 
tempting  him  from  the  straight  path  into  witty  digressions  and^ 
deviations.  It  is  meant  to  hide  his  secret;  but  aifter  the  pe 
formance  of  the  play  the  King  knows  it,  and,  though  he  keeps 
it  up,  the  ftifiRMl  muducss  is  useless.  It  is  because  his  secret 
is  betrayed  that  Hamlet  now,  in  obedience  to  the  Ghost's  com- 
mand,  endeavours  to  awaken  his  mother's  sense  of  shame  and 
to  detach  her  from  the  King.  But  having  nin  Polonius  through 
the  body,  in  the  belief  that  he  is  killing  his  stepfather,  he  is  put 
under  guards  and  sent  away,  and  has  still  farther  to  postpone 
his  revenge. 

While  many  critics  of  this  Century,  especially  Germans,  such 
as  Kreyssig,  have  contemned  Hamlet  as  a  *'  witty  weakling,''  one 
German  writer  has  passionately  denied  that  Shakespeare  intended 

*  Georg  Brandes:  jEaksiük$  StuäUr.    Enttf  <*OiiCDAO»otVi\'tiM^l^^a«r 


378  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  represent  him  as  morbidly  reflective.  This  critic,  with  much 
enthusiasm,  with  fierce  onslaughts  upon  many  of  his  countrymeo, 
but  with  a  conception  of  the  play  which  debases  its  whole  idea 
and  belittles  its  significance,  has  tried  to  prove  that  the  hindrances 
Hamlet  had  to  contend  with  were  purely  extemal.  I  refer  to  the 
lectures  on  Hamlet  delivered  by  the  old  Hegelian,  Karl  Werder, 
in  the  University  of  Berlin  between  1859  ^^^  1872.^  Their  train 
of  thought,  in  itself  not  unreasonable,  may  be  rendered  thus : — 

What  is  demanded  of  Hamlet  ?  That  he  should  kill  the  King 
iramediately  after  the  Ghost  has  revealed  his  father's  fate  ?  Good 
But  how,  after  this  assassination,  is  he  to  justify  his  deed  to  the 
court  and  the  people,  and  ascend  the  throne  ?  He  can  produce 
no  proof  whatever  of  the  truth  of  his  accusation.  A  ghost  has 
told  him ;  that  is  all  his  evidence.  He  himself  is  not  the  here- 
ditary  supreme  judge  of  the  land,  deprived  of  his  throne  by  a 
usurper.  The  Queen  is  "jointress  to  this  warlike  State."  Den- 
mark  is  an  elective  monarchy — and  it  is  not  tili  the  very  end  of 
the  play  that  Hamlet  speaks  of  the  King  as  having  "  popp'd  in 
between  the  election  and  my  hopes."  In  the  eyes  of  all  the 
characters  in  the  play,  the  existing  State  of  the  government  is 
quite  normal.  And  is  he  to  overturn  it  with  a  dagger-thrust  ? 
Will  the  Danish  people  believe  his  tale  of  the  apparition  and  the 
murder?  And  suppose  that,  instead  of  having  recourse  to  the 
dagger,  he  comes  forward  with  a  public  accusation,  can  there  be 
any  doubt  that  such  a  king  and  such  a  court  will  speedily  make 
away  with  him  ?  For  where  in  this  court  are  the  eider  Hamlet's 
adherents  ?  We  see  none  of  them.  It  seems  as  though  the  old 
hero-king  had  taken  them  all  with  him  to  the  grave.  What  has 
become  of  his  generals  and  of  his  Council  ?  Did  they  die  before 
him?  Or  was  he  solitary  in  his  greatness?  Certain  it  is  that 
Hamlet  has  no  friend  but  Horatio,  and  finds  no  supporters  at 
the  court. 

As  matters  stand,  the  truth  can  be  brought  to  light  only  by 
the  royal  criminal's  betraying  himself.  Hence  Hamlet's  perfectly 
logical,  most  ingenious  device  for  forcing  him  to  do  so.  Hamlet's 
object  is  not  to  take  a  purely  material  revenge  for  the  crime,  but 
to  reinstate  right  and  justice  in  Denmark,  to  be  judge  and  avenger 
in  one.  And  this  he  cannot  be  if  he  simply  kills  the  king  off- 
hand. 

All  this  is  acute,  and  in  part  correct;  only  it  misstates  the 
theme  of  the  play.  Had  Shakespeare  had  this  outward  difficulty 
in  mind,  he  would  have  made  Hamlet  expound,  or  at  least  alludle 
to  it  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Hamlet  does  nothing  of  the  sort 
On  the  contrary,  he  upbraids  himself  for  his  inaction  and  sloth, 
thereby  indicating  clearly  enough  that  the  great  fundamental 
I  diiBculty  is  an  inward  one,  and  that  the  real  scene  of  the  tragedy 
y  lies  in  the  hero's  souL 

^  Karl  Werder:  Vürbiungm  üUr  Shakespeares BatmUt,  19^^ 


"  HAMLET  "  AS  A  DRAMA  379 

Hamlet  himself  is  comparatively  planless,  but,  as  Goethe  has 
profoundly  remarked,  the  play  is  not  therefore  without  a  plan. 
And  where  Hamlet  is  most  hesitating,  where  he  tries  to  palliate 
his  planlessness,  there  the  plan  speaks  loudest  and  clearest. 
Where,  for  example,  Hamlet  comes  upon  the  King  at  his  prayers, 
and  will  not  kill  him,  because  he  is  not  to  die  **  in  the  purging  of 
his  soul "  but  revelling  in  sinful  debauch,  we  hear  Shakespeare's 
general  idea  in  the  words  which,  in  the  mouth  of  the  hero,  sound 
like  an  evasion.  Shakespeare,  not  Hamlet,  reserves  the  King  for 
the  death  which  in  fact  ov6rtak(;s  him  just  as  he  has  poisoned 
Laertes's  blade,  seasoned  "  a  chalice  "  for  Hamlet,  out  of  cowardice 
allowed  the  Queen  to  drain  it,  and  been  the  efficient  cause  of  both 
Laertes's  and  Hamlet's  fatal  wounds.  Hamlet  thus  actually 
attains  his  dedared  object  in  allowing  the  King  to  live. 


XVI 

HAMLET  AND  OPHELIA 

There  is  nothing  more  profoundly  conceived  in  this  play  than 
the  Prince's  relation  to  Ophelia.  Hamlet  is  genius  in  lovc — 
genius  with  its  great  deroands  and  its  highly  unconventional 
conduct  He  does  not  love  like  Romeo,  with  a  love  that  takes 
entire  possession  of  his  mind.  He  has  feit  himself  drawn  to 
Ophelia  while  his  father  was  still  in  life,  has  sent  her  letters 
and  gifts,  and  thinks  of  her  with  an  infinite  tendemess ;  but 
she  has  not  it  in  her  to  be  his  friend  and  confidant.  ''Her 
whole  essence,"  we  read  in  Goethe,  "is  ripe,  sweet  sensuous- 
ness."  This  is  saying  too  much ;  it  is  only  the  songs  she  sings 
in  her  madness,  "  in  the  innocence  of  madness/'  as  Groethe  him- 
self strikingly  says,  that  indicate  an  undercurrent  of  sensual 
desire  or  sensual  reminiscence ;  her  attitude  towards  the  Prince 
is  decorous,  almost  to  severity.  Their  relations  to  each  other 
have  been  close — how  close  the  play  does  not  teil. 

There  is  nothing  at  all  conclusive  in  the  fact  that  Hamlet's 
manner  to  Ophelia  is  extremely  free,  not  only  in  the  affecting 
scene  in  which  he  Orders  her  to  a  nunnery,  but  still  more  in 
their  conversation  during  the  play,  when  his  jesting  Speeches, 
as  he  asks  to  be  allowed  to  lay  his  head  in  her  lap,  are  more 
than  equivocal,  and  in  one  case  unequivocally  loose.  We  have 
already  seen  (p.  48)  that  this  is  no  evidence  against  Ophelia's 
inexperience.  Helena  in  AU*s  Well  that  Ends  Well  is  chastity 
itself,  yet  Parolles's  conversation  with  her  is  extremely — to  our 
way  of  thinking  impossibly— coarse.  In  the  year  1602,  speeches 
like  Hamlet's  could  be  made  without  offence  by  a  young  prince 
to  a  virtuous  maid  of  honour. 

Whilst  English  Shakespearians  have  come  forward  as  Ophelia's 
Champions,  several  German  critics  (among  others  Tieck,  Von 
Friesen,  and  Flathe)  have  had  no  doubt  that  her  relations  with 
Hamlet  were  of  the  most  intimate.  Shakespeare  has  intentionally 
left  this  undecided,  and  it  is  difiScult  to  see  why  his  readers 
should  not  do  the  same. 

Hamlet  draws  away  from  Ophelia  from  the  moment  when 

ttie  feels  himseh"  the  appointed  minister  of  a  sacred  revenge. 

In  deep  grief  he  bids  her  farewell  without  a  word,  grasps  her 

Fwristy  holds  it  at  arm's  length  from  him,   "peruses''  her  face 


HAMLET  AND  OPHELIA  381 

as  if  he  would  draw  it — then  shakes  her  arm  gendy,  nods  his 
head  thrice,  and  departs  with  a  *'  piteous  "  sigh. 

If  after  this  he  shows  himself  hard,  almost  cruel,  to  her,  it 
is  because  she  was  weak  and  tried  to  deceive  him.  She  is  a 
soft,  yielding  creature,  with  no  power  of  resistance ;  a  loving  soul, 
but  without  the  passion  which  gives  strength.  She  resembles  \ 
Desdemona  in  the  unwisdom  with  which  she  acts  towards  her) 
lover,  but  falls  far  short  of  her  in  warmth  and  resoluteness  of 
affection.  She  does  not  in  the  least  understand  Hamlet's  grief 
over  his  mother's  conduct.  She  observes  his  depression  without 
divining  its  cause.  When,  after  seeing  the  Ghost,  he  approaches 
her  in  speechless  agitation,  she  never  guesses  that  anything 
terrible  has  happened  to  him;  and,  in  spite  of  her  compassion 
for  his  morbid  State,  she  consents  without  demur  to  decoy  him 
into  talking  to  her,  while  her  father  and  the  King  spy  upon 
their  meeting.  It  is  then  that  he  breaks  out  into  all  those  famous 
Speeches :  **  Are  you  honest  ?  Are  you  fair  ?  "  &c. ;  the  secret 
meaning  of  them  being:  You  are  Uke  my  mother!  You  too 
could  have  acted  as  she  did ! 

Hamlet  has  not  a  thought  for  Ophelia  in  his  excitement  after 
the  killing  of  Polonius;  but  Shakespeare  gives  us  indirectly  to 
anderstand  that  grief  on  her  account  overtook  him  afterwards— 
"he  weeps  for  what  is  done."  Later  he  seems  to  forget  her, 
and  therefore  his  anger  at  her  brother's  lamentations  as  she  is 
placed  in  her  grave,  and  his  own  frenzied  attempt  to  outdo  the 
"emphasis"  of  Laertes's  grief,  seem  stränge  to  us.  But  from 
his  words  we  understand  that  she  has  been  the  solace  of  his 
life,  though  she  could  not  be  its  stay.  She  on  her  side  has 
been  very  fond  of  him,  has  loved  him  with  unobtrusive  tender- 
ness.  It  is  with  pain  she  has  heard  him  speak  of  his  love  for 
her  as  a  thing  of  the  past  ("I  did  love  you  once");  with  deep 
grief  she  has  seen  what  she  takes  to  be  the  eclipse  of  his  bright 
spirit  in  madness  ("Oh,  what  a  noble  mind  is  here  o'er- 
thrown!");  and  at  last  the  death  of  her  father  by  Hamlet's 
band  deprives  her  of  her  own  reason.  At  one  blow  she  has 
lost  both  father  and  lover.  In  her  madness  she  does  not  speak 
Hamlet's  name,  nor  show  any  trace  of  sorrow  that  it  is  he  w^^^ 
has  murdered  her  father.  Forgetfulness  of  this  cruellest  l^'and 
miti?ates  her  calamity;  her  hard  fate  condemns  her  to  soli^ 
and  this  solitude  is  peopled  and  alleviated  by  madness. 

In  depicting  the  relation  between  Faust  and  Gretch.r'  p^^*",.*^ 
appropriated  and  reproduced  many  features  of  the  relativ  ^^  ^nglisn 
Hamlet  and  Ophelia.  In  both  cases  we  have  the  t}^?^^^\  *^  ^ 
between  genius  and  tender  girihood.  Faust  kT*  ^  "?^^®^^^ 
mother  as  Hamlet  kills  Ophelia's  father.  In  /^^  Kena^sance, 
is  a  duel  between  the  hero  and  his  mistress's-^,^/^"^™^"  "«"^^ 
the  brother  is  kiUed.  And  in  both  cases  th;^\-?^^  bhakes^eace 
Diisery  goes  mad.    It  is  dear  that  Goetkv«^ 


382  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  his  thoughts,  for  he  makes  his  Mephistopheles  sing  a  soog 
to  Gretchen  which  is  a  direct  Imitation,  almost  a  translation,  d 
Ophelia's  song  about  Saint  Valentine's  Day.^  Therc  is,  however, 
a  more  delicate  poetry  in  Ophelia's  madness  than  in  Gretchen's. 
Gretchen's  intensifies  the  tragic  impression  of  the  young  giri's 
ruin ;  Opheiia's  alleviates  both  her  own  and  the  spectator's 
suffering. 

Hamlet  and  Faust  represent  the  genius  of  the  Renaissance 
and  the  genius  of  modern  times ;  though  Hamlet,  in  virtue  of  his 
creator's  marvellous  power  of  rising  above  his  time,  Covers  the 
whole  period  between  him  and  us,  and  has  a  ränge  of  significanoe 
to  which  we,  on  the  threshold  of  the  twentieth  Century,  can  fore- 
see  no  limit. 

Faust  is  probably  the  highest  poetic  ezpression  of  modern 
humanity — striving,  investigating,  enjoying,  and  mastering  at  last 
both  itself  and  the  world.  He  changes  gradually  under  his 
creator's  hands  into  a  great  s3rmbol ;  but  in  the  second  half  of 
his  life  a  superabundance  of  allegoric  traits  veils  his  individual 
humanity.  It  did  not  lie  in  Shakespeare's  way  to  embody 
a  being  whose  efforts,  like  Faust's,  were  directed  towards  ex- 
perience,  knowledge,  perception  cf  truth  in  general.  Even  when 
Shakespeare  rises  highest,  he  keeps  nearer  the  earth. 

But  none  the  less  dear  to  us  art  thou,  O  Hamlet !  and  none 
the  less  valued  and  understood  by  the  men  of  to-day.  We  love 
thee  like  a  brother.  Thy  melancholy  is  ours,  thy  wrath  is  ours, 
thy  contemptuous  wit  avenges  us  on  those  who  fiU  the  earth  with 
their  empty  noise  and  are  its  masters.  We  know  the  depth  of 
thy  suffering  when  wrong  and  hypocrisy  triumph,  and  oh!  thy 
still  deeper  suffering  on  feeling  that  that  nerve  in  thee  is  severed 
which  should  lead  from  thought  to  victorious  action.  To  us,  too, 
the  voices  of  the  mighty  dead  have  spoken  from  the  under-world. 

^  Ophblia. 

•*  To-morrow  is  Saint  Valentine's  day. 

All  in  the  morning  betime, 
And  I  a  maid  at  your  window, 

To  be  your  Valentine. 
Then  up  he  rose,  and  donn*d  his  dothei 

And  dupp'd  the  chamber-door ; 
Let  in  the  maid,  that  ont  a  maid 

Never  departed  more." 

Mbphistofblu. 

'Was  machst  Da  mir 
Vor  Liebchens  Thttr 
Kathrinchen,  hier 
Bei  frühem  Ta^esblicke? 
Lass,  lass  es  sem  t 
Er  lässt  dich  ein 
Als  Mäddien  ein 
AU  Mäddxta  i^t  ncdSdtibt.'* 


HAMLETS  INFLUENCE  ON  LATER  TIMES       383 

Wc,  too,  have  scen  our  mother  wrap  the  purplc  robe  of  power 
round  the  murderer  of  **  the  majesty  of  buried  Denmark."  We, 
too,  have  been  betrayed  by  the  friends  of  our  youth ;  for  us,  too, 
have  swords  been  dipped  in  poison.  How  well  do  we  know  that 
graveyard  mood  in  which  disgust  and  sorrow  for  all  earthly  things 
seize  upon  the  soul.  The  breath  from  open  graves  has  set  us, 
tooy  dreaming  with  a  skull  in  our  hands  I 


XVII 

HAMLETS  INFLUENCE  ON  LATER  TIMES 

IF  we  to-day  can  feel  with  Hamlet,  it  is  certainly  no  wonder  that 
the  play  was  immensely  populär  in  its  own  day.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  its  charm  for  the  cultivated  youth  of  the  period; 
but  it  would  be  surprising,  if  we  did  not  realise  the  alertness  of 
the  Renaissance  and  its  wonderful  receptivity  for  the  highest  cul- 
ture,  to  find  that  Hamlet  was  in  as  great  favour  with  the  lower 
ranks  of  society  as  with  the  higher.  A  remarkable  proof  of  this 
tragedy's  and  of  Shakespeare's  popularity  in  the  years  immedi- 
ately  foUowing  its  appearance,  is  afforded  by  some  memoranda  in 
a  log-book  kept  by  a  certain  Captain  Keeling,  of  the  ship  Dragan^ 
which,  in  September  1607,  lay  off  Sierra  Leone  in  Company  with 
another  English  vessel,  the  Hector  (Csiptsin  Hawkins),  both  bound 
for  India.     They  run  as  follows : — 

"  September  5  [At  "  Serra  Leona  "].  I  scnt  the  Interpreter,  accord- 
ing  to  his  desier,  abord  the  Hector,  whear  he  brooke  fast,  and  after 
came  abord  mee,  wher  we  gave  the  tragedie  of  Harolett. 

"  [Sept]  30.  Captain  Hawkins  dined  with  me,  wher  roy  companions 
acted  Kinge  Richard  the  Second. 

'*  31.  I  invited  Captain  Hawkins  to  a  ffishe  dinner,  and  had  Hamlet 
acted  abord  me :  w^  I  permitt  to  keepe  my  people  from  idlenes  and 
unlawfuU  games,  or  sleepe." 

Who  could  have  imagined  that  Hamlet,  three  years  after  its 
publication,  would  be  so  well)  known  and  so  dear  to  English 
sailors  that  they  could  act  it  for  their  own  amusement  at  a 
moment's  notice !  Could  there  be  a  stronger  proof  of  its  universal 
popularity  ?  It  is  a  true  picture  of  the  culture  of  the  Renaissance, 
this  tragedy  of  the  prince  of  Denmark  acted  by  common  English 
sailors  off  the  west  coast  of  Africa.  It  is  a  pity  that  Shakespeare 
himself,  in  all  human  probabüity,  never  knei«  oi  \V. 


384  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hamlet's  ever-increasing  significance  as  time  rolls  on  is  pro« 

portionate  to  his  significance  in  his  own  day.     A  great  deal  in 

the   poetry   of  the  nineteenth  Century   owes  its  origin  to   him. 

Goethe  inteqjreted  and  remodelled  him  in  Willulm  Meister^  and 

this  remodelled  Hamlet  resembles  Faust.    The  trio,  Faust,  Grct- 

chen,  Valentin,  in  Goethe's  drama  answers  to  the  trio,  Hamlet, 

Ophelia,  Laertes.     Faust  transplanted  into  English  soil  produced 

Byron's  Manfred,  a  true  though  far-off  descendant  of  the  Danish 

Prince.     In  Germany,  again,  the  B3rronic  development  assumed 

a  new  and  Hamlet-like  (or  rather  Yorick-like)  form  in   Heine's 

bitter  and  fantastic  wit,  in  his  hatreds  and  caprices  and  intellectual 

superiority.     Börne  is  the  first  to  interpret  Hamlet  as  the  German 

of  his  day,  always  moving  in  a  circle  and  never  able  to  act.    But  he 

feels  the  mystery  of  the  play,  and  says  aptly  and  beautifully,  "  Over 

the  picture  hangs  a  veil  of  gauze    We  want  to  lift  it  to  examine 

the  painting  more  closely,  but  find  that  the  veil  itself  is  painted." 

In  France,  the  men  of  Alfred  de  Musset's  generation,  whom  he 
has  portrayed  in  his  Confessions  dun  Enfant  du  Siicle,  remind  us 
in  many  ways  of  Hamlet — nervous,  inflammable  as  gunpowder, 
broken-winged,  with  no  sphere  of  action  commensurate  with  their 
desires,  and  with  no  power  of  action  in  the  sphere  which  lay 
open  to  them.  And  Lorenzaccio,  perhaps  Musset's  finest  male 
character,  is  the  French  Hamlet — practised  in  dissimulation,  pro- 
crastinating,  witty,  gentle  to  women  yet  wounding  them  with  cniel 
words,  morbidly  desirous  to  atone  for  the  emptiness  of  his  evil 
life  by  one  great  deed,  and  acting  too  late,  uselessly,  desperately. 

Hamlet,  who  centuries  before  had  been  young  England,  and 
was  to  Musset,  for  a  time,  young  France,  became  in  the  'forties, 
as  Börne  had  foretold,  the  accepted  type  of  Germany.  "  Hamlet 
is  Germany,"  sang  Freiligrath.* 

Kindred  political  conditions  determined  that  the  figure  of 
Hamlet  should  at  the  same  period,  and  twenty  years  later  to  a 
still  greater  eztent,  dominate  Russian  literature.  Its  influence 
can  be  traced  from  Pushkin  and  Gogol  to  GontscharofT  and 
Tolstoi,  and  it  actually  pervades  the  whole  life-work  of  Turguenefil 
But  in  this  case  Hamlet's  vocation  of  vengeance  is  overlooked; 
the  whole  stress  is  laid  on  the  general  discrepancy  between  reflec- 
tion  and  power  of  action. 

In  the  development  of  Polish  literature,  too,  during  this 
Century,  there  came  a  time  when  the  poets  were  inclined  to  say: 
•*  We  are  Hamlet ;  Hamlet  is  Poland."    We  find  marked  traits  of 

'  "Deutschland  ist  Hamlet  I  Ernst  und  stumm 
In  seinen  Thoren  jede  Nacht 
Geht  die  begrabne  Freiheit  um. 
Und  winkt  den  Männern  auf  der  Wacht 
Da  steht  die  Hohe,  blank  bewehrt, 
Und  sagt  dem  Zaudrer,  der  noch  zweifelt: 
'  Sei  mir  ein  Rächer,  deh  dein  Schwert  I 
lian  hat  mir  Gift  ki*i  0\ix  ^\xi>ait\C'* 


INFLUENCE  OF  "  HAMLET  "  ABROAD  385 

his  character  towards  the  middle  of  the  Century  in  all  the  imagina- 
tive spirits  of  Poland :  in  Mickiewicz,  in  Slowacki,  in  KrasinskL 
From  their  youth  they  had  stood  in  his  position.  Their  World 
was  out  of  Joint,  and  was  to  be  set  right  by  their  weak  arms. 
High-born  and  noble-minded.  chey  feel,  like  Hamlet,  all  the 
inward  fire  and  outward  impotence  of  their  youth;  the  condir 
tions  that  Surround  them  are  to  them  one  ^[reat  horror;  they  are 
disposed  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  dreaming  and  to  action,  to 
over-much  reflection  and  to  recklessness. 

Like  Hamlet,  they  have  seen  their  mother,  the  land  that  gave 
them  birth,  profaned  by  passing  under  the  power  of  a  royal 
robber  and  murderer.  The  court  to  which  at  times  they  are 
oiTered  access  strikes  them  with  terror,  as  the  court  of  Claudius 
Struck  terror  to  the  Danish  Prince,  as  the  court  in  Krasinski's 
Temptation  (a  symbolic  representation  of  the  court  of  St.  Peters- 
burg) strikes  terror  to  the  young  hero  of  the  poem.  These 
kinsmen  of  Hamlet  are,  like  him,  cruel  to  their  Ophelia,  and 
forsake  her  when  she  loves  them  best;  like  him,  they  allow 
themselves  to  be  sent  far  away  to  foreign  lands ;  and  when  they 
speak  they  dissemble  like  him-— clothe  their  meaning  in  similes 
and  allegories.  What  Hamlet  says  of  himself  applies  to  them : 
*'Yet  have  I  something  in  me  dangerous."  Their  peculiarly 
Polish  characteristic  is  that  what  enervates  and  impedes  them 
is  not  their  reflective  but  their  poetle  blas.  Reflection  is  what 
ruins  the  German  of  this  type ;  wild  dissipation  the  Frenchman ; 
indolence,  self-mockery,  and  self-despair  the  Russian;  but  it  is 
Imagination  that  leads  the  Pole  astray  and  tempts  him  to  live 
apart  from  real  life. 

The  Hamlet  character  presents  a  multitude  of  different  aspects. 
Hamlet  is  the  doubter ;  he  is  the  man  whom  over-scrupulousness 
or  over-deliberation  condemns  to  inactivity ;  he  is  the  creature  of 
pure  intelligence,  who  sometimes  acts  nervously,  and  is  sometimes 
too  nervous  to  act  at  all ;  and,  lastly,  he  is  the  avenger,  the  man 
who  dissembles  that  his  revenge  may  be  the  more  effectual.  Elach 
of  these  aspects  is  developed  by  the  poets  of  Poland.  There  is  a 
touch  of  Hamlet  in  several  of  Mickiewicz's  creations — in  Wallen- 
rod,  in  Gustave,  in  Conrad,  in  Robak.  Gustave  speaks  the 
language  of  philosophic  aberration ;  Conrad  is  possessed  by  the 
spirit  of  philosophic  brooding;  Wallenrod  and  Robak  dissemble 
or  disguise  themselves  for  the  sake  of  revenge,  and  the  latter,  like 
Hamlet,  kills  the  father  of  the  woman  he  loves.  In  Slowacki's 
work  the  Hamlet-type  takes  a  much  more  prominent  place.  His 
Kordjan  is  a  Hamlet  who  foUows  his  vocation  of  avenger,*  but 
has  not  the  strength  for  it  The  Polish  tendency  to  fantas- 
ticating  interposes  between  him  and  his  projected  tyrannicide. 
And  while  Slowacki  gives  us  the  radical  Hamlet  type,  so  we  find 
the  corresponding  conservative  Hamlet  in  Krasinski.  TheKeto 
of  Kiasinski's  Undivine  Camedy  has  more  xViaxi  ota  XxviX  vcw 


386  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

common  with  the  Prince  of  Denmark.  He  has  Hamlet's  senai«» 
tiveness  and  power  of  Imagination.  He  is  addicted  to  monologuet 
and  cultivates  the  drama.  He  has  an  eztremely  tender  con- 
science,  but  can  commit  most  cruel  actions.  He  is  punished  for 
the  excessive  irritability  of  his  character  by  the  insanity  of  his 
wife,  very  much  as  Hamlet,  by  his  feigned  madness,  leads  to  the 
real  madness  of  Ophelia.  But  this  Hamlet  is  consumed  by  a 
more  modern  doubt  than  that  which  besets  his  Renaissance  proto- 
type.  Hamlet  doubts  whether  the  spirit  on  whose  bebest  he  is 
acting  is  more  than  an  empty  phantasm.  When  Count  Henry 
shuts  himself  up  in  **  the  Castle  of  the  Holy  Trinity/'  he  is  not 
sure  that  the  Holy  Trinity  itself  is  more  than  a  figment  of  the  brain* 
In  other  words:  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half  after  the 
figure  of  Hamlet  was  conceived  in  Shakespeare's  imagination,  we 
find  it  living  in  English  and  French  literature,  and  reappearing 
as  a  dominant  type  in  German  and  two  Slavonic  languages. 
And  now,  three  hundred  years  after  his  creation,  Hamlet  is  still 
the  confidant  and  friend  of  sad  and  thoughtful  souls  in  every 
land.  There  is  something  unique  in  this.  With  such  pierang 
Vision  has  Shakespeare  seärched  out  the  depths  of  his  own,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  all  human,  nature,  and  so  boldly  and  stirdy 
has  he  depicted  the  outward  semblance  of  what  he  saw,  that, 
centuries  later,  men  of  every  country  and  of  every  race  have  fdt 
their  own  being  moulded  like  wax  in  his  hand,  and  have 
themselves  in  his  poetry  as  in  a  mirror. 


XVIII 

HAMLET  AS  A  CRITIC 

AloNG  with  so  much  eise,  HamUt  gives  us  what  we  should 
scaroely  have  expected — an  insight  into  Shakespeare's  own  ideas 
oi  his  art  as  poet  and  actor,  and  into  the  condition  and  relations 
of  his  theatre  in  the  years  1602-3. 

If  we  read  attentively  the  Prince's  words  to  the  players,  we 
see  clearly  why  it  is  always  the  sweetness,  the  mellifluousness 
of  Shakespeare's  art  that  his  contemporaries  emphasise.  To  us 
he  may  seem  audacious,  harrowingly  pathetic,  a  transgressor  of 
all  bounds;  in  comparison  with  contemporary  artists — not  only 
with  the  specially  violent  and  bombastic  writers,  like  the  youthful 
Marlowe,  but  with  all  of  them — he  is  self-controUed,  temperatei 
delicate,  beauty-loving  as  Raphael  himself.  Hamlet  says  to  the 
player» — 

"  Speak  the  speech,  I  pray  you,  as  I  pronounced  it  to  you,  trip- 
pingly  on  the  tongue ;  but  if  you  mouth  it,  as  many  of  your  players  do, 
I  had  as  lief  the  town-crier  spoke  my  lines.  Nor  do  not  saw  the  air 
too  much  with  your  band,  thus;  but  use  all  gently:  for  in  the  very 
torrent,  tempest,  and  (as  I  may  say)  the  whirlwind  of  passion,  you 
must  acquire  and  heget  a  temperance  that  may  give  it  smoothness. 
O !  it  ofTends  me  to  the  soul  to  hear  a  robustious  periwig-pated  feliow 
tear  a  passion  to  tatters,  to  very  rags,  to  split  the  ears  of  the  ground- 
lings,  who,  for  the  most  part,  are  capabie  of  nothing  but  inexplicable 
dumb-shows,  and  noise :  I  would  have  such  a  feliow  whipped  for  o'er« 
doing  Termagant ;  it  out-herods  Herod :  pray  you,  avoid  it 

"  I  Flay.  I  Warrant  your  honoiu:. 

'*  Harn.  Be  not  too  tarne  neither,  but  let  your  own  discretion  be 
yom:  tutor." 

Here  ought  iogically  to  follow  a  waming  against  the  dangers  of 
excessive  softness  and  sweetness.  But  it  does  not  come.  He 
continues — 

^  Suit  the  action  to  the  word,  the  word  to  the  aodon,  widi  äiis  special 
observance,  that  you  o'erstep  not  the  modesty  of  nature ;  for  anything 
so  overdofu  is  front  the  purpose  of  playing^  whose  end^  both  ai  the  first 
and  noWt  was,  and  is,  to  kold^  as^t  werty  the  nürror  up  to  nature;  to 
shßw  virtue  her  own  feature^  scorn  her  own  image^  cmd  the  very  o^t 
oftd  body  of  the  timcy  his  form  and  pressure*    'Ko'«,  >itää  ^siitx^s;^^  ^R> 

sSr 


388  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

come  tardy  off,  though  it  make  the  unskilful  laugh,  cannot  but  make  tbt 
judicious  grieve ;  the  censure  of  the  which  one  must,  in  your  allowanoe^ 
o'erweigh  a  whole  theatre  of  others.  O !  there  be  players,  that  I  have 
Seen  play, — and  heard  others  praise,  and  that  highly, — not  to  speak  it 
profanely,  that,  neither  having  the  accent  of  Christians,  nor  the  gait  of 
Christian,  pagan,  nor  man,  have  so  strutted  and  bellowed,  that  I  have 
thought  that  some  of  natnre's  joumeymen  had  made  men,  and  not 
made  them  well,  they  imitated  humanity  so  abominably. 

"  I  P/ay.  I  hope  we  have  reformed  that  indifferently  with  us. 

**  Ifam.  O I  leform  it  altogether." 

Thus,  although  it  appears  to  be  Hamlet's  wish  to  caution 
equally  against  too  much  wildness  and  too  much  tamenesSi  bis 
waming  against  tameness  is  of  the  briefest,  and  he  almost 
immediately  resumes  bis  homily  against  exaggeration,  bellowing, 
what  we  should  now  call  ranting  declamation.  It  is  not  the  danger 
of  tameness,  but  of  violence,  that  is  uppermost  in  Shakespeare's 
mind. 

As  akeady  pointed  out,  it  is  not  merely  bis  own  general  effort 
as  a  dramatist  which  Shakespeare  here  formulates ;  he  lays  down 
a  regulär  definition  of  dramatic  art  and  its  aim.  It  is  notewortby 
that  this  definition  is  identical  with  that  which  Cervantes,  almost 
at  the  same  time,  places  into  the  mouth  of  the  priest  in  Don 
Quixote.  "  Comedy/'  he  says,  "  should  be  as  Tullius  enjoins,  a 
mirror  of  human  life,  a  pattem  of  manners,  a  presentation  of  die 
truth." 

Shakespeare  and  Cervantes,  who  shed  lustre  on  the  same  age 
and  died  within  a  few  days  of  each  other,  never  heard  of  each 
other's  existence;  but,  led  by  the  spirit  of  their  time,  both 
borrowed  from  Cicero  their  fundamental  conception  of  dnunatic 
art.  Cervantes  says  so  openly ;  Shakespeare,  who  did  not  wish 
bis  Hamlet  to  pose  as  ascholar,  indicates  it  in  the  words,  ''Whose 
end,  both  at  thefirst  and  now,  was^  and  is." 

And  as  Shakespeare  here,  by  the  mouth  of  Hamlet,  has  ex- 
pressed bis  own  idea  of  his  art's  unalterable  nature  and  aim,  he 
has  also  for  once  given  vent  to  his  passing  artistic  anxieties,  his 
dissatisfaction  with  the  position  of  his  theatre  at  the  moment 
We  have  already  (p.  io6)  noticed  the  poet's  complaint  of  the  barm 
done  to  his  Company  at  this  time  by  the  rivzJry  of  the  troupe 
of  choir-boys  from  St.  PauFs  Cathedral  playing  at  the  Black- 
friars  Theatre.  It  is  in  Hamlet's  dialogue  with  Rosencrantz  that 
this  complaint  occurs.  There  is  a  bittemess  about  the  wordiDg 
of  it,  as  though  the  Company  had  for  the  time  been  totally  worsted. 
This  was  no  doubt  largely  due  to  the  circumstance  that  its  most 
populär  member,  its  clown,  the  famous  Kemp,  had  just  left  it  ^ 
1602),  and  gone  over  to  Henslow's  troupe.  Kemp  had  from  the 
beginning  played  all  the  chief  low-comedy  parts  in  Shakespeare's 
dramas — Peter  and  Balthasar  in  Romeo  and  Juliet^  ShaUow  in 
/T^enry  /V.,  Lancelot  in  The  Merchant  of  Venüe^  Dogbenry  in 


WILLIAM  KEMP  389 

Muck  Ada  About  Nothing^  Touchstone  in  As  Vau  Like  It     Now 
that  he  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  his  loss  was  deeply  feit. 

The  above-mentioned  little  book,  dedicated  to  Mary  Fitton, 
gives  US  a  most  interesting  glimpse  into  the  English  life  of  that  age. 

The  most  important  duty  of  the  clown  was  not  to  appear  in 
the  play  itself,  but  to  sing  and  dance  his  jig  at  the  end  of  it,  even 
after  a  tragedy,  in  order  to  soften  the  painfui  Impression.  The 
common  spectator  never  went  home  without  havtng  seen  this 
afterpiece,  which  must  have  resembled  the  comic  ''  tums  "  of  our 
variety-shows.  Kemp's  jig  of  The  Kitchen-Stuff  Woman^  for 
instante,  was  a  screaming  farrago  of  rüde  verses,  some  spoken, 
others  sung,  of  good  and  bad  witticisms,  of  extravagant  acting 
and  dancing.  It  is  of  such  a  Performance  that  Hamlet  is  thinking 
when  he  says  of  Polonius :  "  He's  for  a  jig,  or  a  tale  of  bawdry, 
or  he  sleeps." 

Äs  the  acknowledged  master  of  his  time  in  the  art  of  comic 
dancing,  Kemp  was  immoderately  loved  and  admired.  He  paid 
professional  3^sits  to  all  the  German  and  Italian  courts,  and  was 
even  summoned  to  dance  his  Morrice  Dance  before  the  Emperor 
Rudolf  himself  at  Augsburg.  It  was  in  his  youth  that  he  under- 
took  the  nine  days'  dance  from  London  to  Norwich  which  he 
describes  in  his  book. 

He  Started  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  moming  from  in  front  of  the 
Lord  Mayor's  house,  and  half  London  was  astir  to  see  the  begin- 
ning  of  the  great  exploit  His  suite  consisted  of  his  "  taberer," 
his  servant,  and  an  '*  overseer "  or  umpire  to  see  that  everything 
was  performed  according  to  promise.  The  joumey  was  almost  as 
trying  to  the  "  taberer  "  as  to  Kemp,  for  he  had  his  drum  hanging 
over  his  left  arm  and  held  his  flageolet  in  his  left  band  while  he 
beat  the  drum  with  his  right.  Kemp  himself,  on  this  occasion, 
contributed  nothing  to  the  music  ezcept  the  sound  of  the  bells 
which  were  attached  to  his  gaiters. 

He  reached  Romford  on  the  first  day,  but  was  so  exhausted 
that  he  had  to  rest  for  two  days.  The  people  of  Stratford- 
Langton,  between  London  and  Romford,  had  got  up  a  bear- 
baiting  show  in  his  honour,  knowing  "how  well  he  loved  the 
sport";  but  the  crowd  which  had  gathered  to  see  him  was  so 
great  that  he  himself  only  succeeded  in  hearing  the  bear  roar  and 
the  dogs  howl.  On  the  second  day  he  strained  his  hip,  but  cured 
the  strain  by  dancing.  At  Bumtwood  such  a  crowd  had  gathered 
to  see  him  that  he  could  scarcely  make  his  way  to  the  tavem. 
There,  as  he  relates,  two  cut-purses  were  caught  in  the  act,  who 
bad  followed  with  the  crowd  from  London.  They  declared  that 
they  had  laid  a  wager  upon  the  dance,  but  Kemp  recognised  one 
of  them  as  a  noted  thief  whom  he  had  seen  tied  to  a  post  in  the 
theatre.  Next  day  he  reached  Chelmsford,  but  bere  the  crowd 
which  had  accompanied  him  from  London  had  dwiadltd  vnv^  Xs^ 
a  couple  of  hundred  people. 


390  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  Norwich  thc  city  waits  received  him  in  the  open  market- 
place  with  an  official  concert  in  the  presence  of  thousands.  Hc 
was  the  guest  of  the  town  and  entertained  at  its  expense,  re- 
ceived handsome  presents  from  the  mayor,  and  was  admitted  to 
the  Guild  of  Merchant  Venturers,  being  thereby  assured  a  share 
in  their  yearly  income,  to  the  amount  of  forty  Shillings.  The  very 
buskins  in  which  he  had  performed  his  dance  were  nailed  to 
the  wall  in  the  Norwich  Guild  Hall  and  preserved  in  perpetual 
memory  of  the  exploit. 

So  populär  an  artist  as  this  must  of  course  havc  feit  himself 
at  least  Shakespeare's  equal.  He  certainly  assumed  the  right 
to  address  one  of  her  Majesty's  Maids-of-Honour  with  no  slight 
familiarity.  The  tone  in  which  he  dedicates  this  catchpenny 
Performance  to  Mrs.  Fitton  offers  a  reraarkable  contrast  to  the 
profoiindly  respectful  tone  in  which  professional  authors  couch 
their  dedications  to  their  noble  patrons  or  patronesses : — 

"  In  the  waine  of  my  little  wit  I  am  forst  to  desire  your  protectioi^ 
eise  every  Ballad-singer  will  proclaime  me  banknipt  of  honesty.  .  •  . 
To  shew  my  duety  to  your  honourable  seife,  whose  favours  (among 
other  bountifull  friends)  make  me  (dispight  this  sad  world)  iudge  my 
hert  Corke  and  my  heeles  feathers,  so  that  me  thinkes  I  could  fly  to 
Rome  (at  least  hop  to  Rome,  as  the  old  Prouerb  is)  with  a  Morter  on 
my  head." 

His  description  of  the  Nim  Daies  WoncUr^  with  its  arrogant 
dedication,  has  shown  us  how  conceited  he  must  have  beeo. 
Hamlet  leta  us  see  that  he  had  frequently  annoyed  Shakespeare 
by  the  irrepressible  freedom  of  his  ''  gags ''  and  interpolations. 
From  the  tezt  of  the  plays  of  an  earlier  period  which  have  come 
down  to  uSy  we  can  understand  that  the  clowns  were  in  those 
days  as  free  to  do  what  they  pleased  with  their  parts  as  the 
Italian  actors  in  the  Commedia  delV  Arte,  Shakespeare's  rieh 
und  perfect  art  left  no  room  for  such  improvisations.  Now  that 
Kemp  was  gone,  the  poet  sent  the  foUowing  shaft  afler  him  from 
the  Ups  of  Hamlet : — 

"  And  let  those  that  play  vour  clowns  speak  no  more  than  is  set 
down  for  them :  for  there  be  of  them  that  will  themselves  laugh,  to  set 
on  some  quantity  of  harren  spectators  to  laugh  too:  though,  in  the 
meantime,  some  necessary  question  of  the  play  be  then  to  be  oon- 
sidered :  that's  villainous,  and  shows  a  most  pitiful  ambition  in  the  fool 
that  Utes  it" 

This  reproof  is,  however,  as  the  reader  sees,  couched  in  quittt 
general  terms;  wherefore  it  was  allowed  to  stand  when  Kemp 
returned  to  the  Company.  But  a  far  sharper  and  much  more 
personal  attack,  which  appears  in  the  edition  of  1603,  ^^  ^x** 
punged  in  the  foUowing  editions  (and  consequently  from  our  text 
of  the  play)^  as  being  no  longer  in  place  after  the  rctum  of  tbi| 
Wanderer,     It  speaks  of  a  dovm  viViose  mXXVrksxcLs  ^x^  %ic^  \)KS^>alax 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  KEMP  391 

that  they  arc  noted  down  by  thc  gentlemen  who  frequent  the 
theatre.  A  whole  series  of  extremely  poor  specimens  of  his 
burlesque  sallies  is  given — mere  circus-clown  droUeries — and 
then  Hamlet  disposes  of  the  wretched  bu0bon  by  remarking  that 
he  ''cannot  make  a  jest  unless  by  chance,  as  a  blind  man  catcheth 
a  hare." 

It  is  notorious  that  an  artist  will  more  easily  forgive  an  attack 
on  himself  than  warm  praise  of  a  rival  in  the  same  line.  There 
can  be  very  little  doubt  that  Shakespeare,  in  making  Hamlet 
praise  the  dead  Yorick,  had  in  view  the  lamented  Tarlton, 
Kemp's  amiable  and  famous  predecessor.  If  there  had  been  no 
purpose  to  serve  by  making  the  skull  that  of  a  jester,  it  might 
quite  as  well  have  belonged  to  some  old  seryant  of  Hamlet's.  But 
if  Shakespeare,  in  his  first  years  of  theatrical  life,  had  known 
Tarlton  personally,  and  Kemp's  objectionable  behaviour  vividly 
recalled  by  contrast  his  predecessor's  charming  whimsicality,  it 
was  natural  enough  that  he  should  combine  witb  the  attack  on 
Kemp  a  warm  eulogy  of  the  great  jester.* 

Tarlton  was  buried  on  the  3rd  of  September  1588.  This  date 
accords  with  the  Statement  in  the  first  quarto  that  Yorick  has  lain 
in  the  earth  for  a  dozen  years.  Not  tili  we  have  these  facta 
before  us  can  we  fuUy  understand  the  following  strong  outburst 
of  feeling : — 

"Alas,  poor  Yorick! — I  knew  hilft,  Horatio:  a  fellow  of  infinite 
jest,  of  most  excellent  fancy :  he  hath  borne  me  on  his  back  a  thousand 
times ;  and  now,  how  abhorred  in  my  Imagination  it  is !  my  gorge  rises 
at  it.  Here  hung  those  Ups  that  I  have  kissed  I  know  not  how  oft 
Where  be  your  gibes  now  ?  your  gambols  ?  your  songs  ?  your  flashes  of 
merriment  that  were  wont  to  set  the  table  on  a  roar?" 

Alas,  poor  Yorick !  '  Hamlet's  heartfelt  lament  will  keep  his 
memory  alive  when  his  Owlglass  jests  recorded  in  print  are 
utterly  forgotten.*  His  fooling  was  equally  admired  by  the  popu- 
lace,  the  court,  and  the  theatrical  public  He  is  said  to  have 
told  Elizabeth  more  truths  than  all  her  chaplains,  and  cured  her 
melancholy  better  than  all  her  physicians. 

Shakespeare,  in  Hamlet^  has  not  only  spoken  his  mind  freely 
on  theatrical  matters;  he  has  also  eulogised  the  distinguished 
actor  after  his  death,  and  given  a  great  example  of  the  courteous 
and  becoming  treatment  of  able  actors  during  their  lives.  His 
Prince  of  Denmark  Stands  far,  kbove  the  vulgär  prejudice  against 
them.  And,  lastly,  Shakespeare  has  glonfied  that  dramatic  art 
which  was  the  business  and  pleasure  of  his  life,  by  making  the 
piay  the  efTective  means  of  bnnging  the  truth  to  light  and 
fiirthering  the  ends  of  justice.     The   acting  of  the  drama  of 

^  Compare  New  Shakspere  Socutys  Transactums^  1880-^,  p.  60. 
*  TarlUm's  Jesu  and  N§ws  out  rfPurgatory,   Edited  by  J.  O.  HaUln^UL  \jc9iuki^ 
X844. 


392  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Gonzago's  death  is  the  hinge  on  which  the  tragedy  tums.  From 
the  moment  when  the  King  betrays  himself  by  stopping  the 
Performance,  Hamlet  knows  all  that  he  wants  to  know. 

When  James  ascended  the  throne,  Hamlet  received,  as  it 
were,  a  new  actuality,  from  the  fact  that  his  queen,  Anne,  was  a 
Danish  princess.  At  the  splendid  festival  held  on  the  occasion  of 
the  triumphal  procession  of  King  James,  Queen  Anne,  and  Prince 
Henry  Frederick,  from  the  Tower  through  the  city, ''  the  Danish 
March"  was  brilliantly  performed,  out  of  compliment  to  the 
Queen,  by  a  band  consisting  of  nine  trumpeters  and  a  kettledrum, 
stationed  on  a  scafTolding  at  the  side  of  St  Mildred's  Church« 
How  this  march  went  we  do  not  know ;  but  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  from  that  time  it  was  played  in  the  second  scene  of 
the  fiflh  act  of  Hamlet^  where  music  of  trumpets  and  drums  is 
prescribed,  and  where,  in  our  days,  at  the  Th^itre-FrauQais,  they 
naively  play,  ''  Kong  Christian  stod  ved  höjen  Mast."  ^ 

^  The  Daniih  national  song  of  to-day,  written  by  Ewald,  and  the  mnac  compotcd 
by  Hartmann,  1778. 


XIX 

ALL*S  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL—ATTACKS  ON 

PURITANISM 

The  fortunes  of  the  Company  having  declined  by  reason  of  the 
competition  complained  of  in  Hamlet^  it  became  necessary  to 
intersperse  a  few  comedies  among  the  sombre  tragedies  on  which 
alone  Shakespeare's  mind  was  now  bent. 

Comedies,  therefore,  had  to  be  produced.  But  the  disposition 
of  mind  in  which  Shakespeare  had  created  A  Midsummer  Night s 
Dream  had  long  deserted  him ;  and  infinitely  remote,  though  so 
near  in  point  of  time,  was  the  mood  in  which  he  had  produced 
As  You  Like  It 

Still  the  thing  had  to  be  done.  He  took  one  of  his  old  Sketches 
in  band  again,  the  play  called  Love^s  Labaut^s  Won,  which  has 
already  been  noticed  (p.  47).  Its  original  form  we  do  not  exactly 
know;  all  we  can  do  is  to  pick  out  the  rhymed  and  youthfully 
frivolous  passages  as  having  doubtless  belonged  to  the  earlier  play, 
to  whose  title  there  is  probably  a  reference  in  Helena's  words 
in  the  concluding  scene : — 

* 

"This  is  done. 

Will  you  be  mine,  now  you  are  doubly  won  ? " 

It  is  clear  that  Shakespeare  in  his  young  days  took  hold  of 
the  subject  with  the  purpose  of  making  a  comedy  out  of  it.  But 
now  it  did  not  turn  out  a  comedy;  the  time  was  past  when 
Shakespeare's  chief  strength  lay  in  his  humour.  We  could  quite 
well  imagine  his  subsequent  tragedies  to  have  been  written  by 
his  Hamlet,  if  Hamlet  had  had  life  before  him ;  and  in  the  same 
way  we  could  imagine  this  and  the  following  play,  Measure  for 
Measure,  to  have  been  written  by  his  Jaques. 

We  find  many  indications  in  AlCs  Well  that  Ends  Well — 
most,  as  was  natural,  in  the  first  two  acts — of  ßhakespeare's 
having  come  straight  from  Hamlet,  In  the  very  first  scene,  the 
Countess  chides  Helena  for  the  immoderate  grief  with  which  she 
moums  her  father :  it  is  wrong  to  let  oneself  be  so  overwhelmed. 
Just  so  the  King  speaks  to  Hamlet  of  the  "  obstinate  condolement " 
to  which  he  gives  himself  up.  The  Countess's  advice  to  Ket  ^aw^ 
when  he  is  setting  off  for  France,  remlnds  u&  ^ttoxk^^  oV  >i>Ev^  ^^ 


394  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

vice  Polonius  gives  to  Laertes  in  exactly  the  same  Situation.    Sht 
saySy  for  instance : — 

"  Thy  blood  and  virtue 
Contend  for  empire  in  thee ;  and  thy  goodness 
Share  with  thy  birthright !     Love  all,  tnist  a  few, 
Do  wrong  to  none :  be  able  for  thine  enemy 
Rather  in  power  than  use,  and  keep  thy  friend 
Under  thy  own  life's  key :  be  check'd  for  silence, 
But  never  tax'd  for  speech." 

Compare  with  these  injunctions  those  of  Polonius  :— 


<« 


Give  thy  thoughts  no  tongue, 
Nor  any  unproportion'd  thought  his  act. 
Be  thou  familiär,  but  by  no  means  vulgär. 
The  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel ; 
But  do  not  duU  thy  palm  with  entertainment 
Of  each  new-hatch'd,  unfledg'd  comrade.     Bewaxe 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel ;  but,  being  in, 
Bear't  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 
Give  every  man  thine  ear,  but  few  thy  voice.** 

Notice  also  in  this  comedy  the  numerous  sallies  against  court 
life  and  courtiers,  which  are  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Hatnlet  The 
scene  in  which  Polonius  changes  his  opinion  according  as  Hamlet 
thinks  the  cloud  like  a  camel,  a  weasel,  or  a  whale,  and  that  in 
which  Osric,  who  "did  comply  with  his  dug  before  he  sucked  it/' 
reels  ofT  his  elegant  speeches,  seem  actually  to  be  commented  on 
in  general  terms  when  the  Clown  (ii.  2)  thus  discourses  about  the 
court : — 

''Truly,  madam,  if  God  have  lent  a  man  any  manners,  he  may 
easily  put  it  off  at  court :  he  that  cannot  make  a  leg,  put  off 's  cap,  kiss 
his  band,  and  say  nothing,  has  neither  leg,  hands,  Up,  nor  cap ;  and» 

indeed,  such  a  feUow,  to  say  precisely,  were  not  for  the  court" 

* 

Now  and  again,  too,  we  come  upon  expressions  which  recall 
well-known  Speeches  of  Hamlet's.  For  instance,  when  Helena 
(ii.  3)  says  to  the  First  Lord : 

"Thanks,  sir;  all  the  rest  is  mute," 

we  are  reminded  of  Hamlet's  ever-memorable  last  words ; 

"  The  rest  is  silence." 

Among  other  more  extemal  touches,  which  likewiae  pennt 

clearly  to  the  period  1602-16031  may  be  mentioned  the  many 

subtle,  cautious  sallies  against  Purit^nism  which  are  interwoven 

in  the  play.    They  ezpress  the  bitter  contempt  for  demoMtnitiw 

l^ety  which  fiUed  Shakespeare'«  mind  just  at  that  tinw. 


•'ALUS  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL"  395 

Hantlet  itself  had  treated  of  a  hypocrite  on  the  largest  scale. 
fotice,  too,  the  stinging  reference  to  existing  conditions  in  Act 
i.  Scene  2  : — 

^^  Hamlet  Look  you,  how  cheerfully  my  mother  looks,  and  my 
ither  died  within's  two  hours. 

"  Ophelia,  Nay,  'tis  twice  two  months,  my  lord. 

"  Ham,  So  long  ?  Nay,  then,  let  the  devil  wear  black,  for  111  have 
suit  of  sables.  O  heavens !  die  two  months  ago,  and  not  forgotten 
et?  Then  there's  hope  a  great  man's  memory  may  outlive  his  üfe 
alf  a  year ;  but  b^r  lady^  he  tnust  build  churches  then^  or  eise  shall  he 
tiffer  not  thinking  on,  with  the  hobby-horse ;  whose  epitaph  is,  •  For, 
) !  for,  O  1  the  hobby-horse  is  forgot' " 

In  AWs  Well  that  Ends  Well  Shakespeare  has  his  sancti- 
lonious  enemies  constantly  in  mind.  He  makes  the  Clown  jeer 
t  the  fanatics  in  both  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic  camp, 
"hey  may  be  of  difFerent  faiths,  but  they  are  alike  in  being  un- 
jcky  husbands.     The  Clown  says  (i.  3)  : — 

"Young  Charbon  the  Puritan,  and  old  Poysam  the  Papist,  how 
oe'er  their  hearts  are  severed  in  religion,  their  heads  are  both  one; 
tiey  may  joU  homs  together,  like  any  deer  i'  the  herd." 

A  little  farther  on  he  continues : — 

"Though  honesty  be  no  Puritan,  yet  it  will  do  no  hurt;  It  will 
^ear  the  surpHce  of  humility  over  the  black  gown  of  a  big  heart" 

When  Lafeu  (ii.  3)  is  talking  to  Parolles  of  the  marvellous 
ure  of  the  King  of  France  which  Helena  has  undertaken,  he  has 
hit  at  those  who  will  find  matter  in  it  for  a  pious  treatise :— - 

"  Lafeu,  I  may  truly  say,  it  is  a  novelty  to  the  world. 
"  Parolles,  It  is,  indeed :  if  you  will  have  it  in  showing,  you  shall 
»ad  it  in — what  do  you  call  there  ? — 

"  Laf,  A  showing  of  a  heavenly  effect  in  an  earthly  actor." 

Shakespeare  clearly  took  a  mischievous  pleasure  in  imitating 
he  title  of  a  Puritanic  work  of  edification. 

This  polemical  tendency,  which  extends  from  HamUt  through 
llts  Well  that  Ends  Well  to  Measure  for  Measure,  in  the  form 
•f  an  increasingly  marked  Opposition  to  the  growing  religious 
trictness  and  sectarianism  of  the  day,  with  its  accompaniment  of 
lypocrisy,  proves  plainly  that  Shakespeare  at  this  time  shared 
he  animosity  of  the  Government  towards  both  Puritanism  and 
latholicism. 

Though  there  is  little  true  mirth  to  be  found  in  AlTs  Well 
hat  Ends  Well^  the  piece  reminds  us  in  various  ways  of  some 
f  Shakespeare's  real  comedies.  The  story  resembles  in  sevenü 
letalis  that  of  The  Merchant  of  Venüe.  Portia  in  disguiie  par*^ 
uades  the  unwilling  Bassanio  to  give  up  VAs  t\Tk%  V^  \tfDS  \  %sd^ 


396  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hdena,  in  the  darkness  of  night  mistaken  for  another,  coaxes 
Bertram  out  of  the  ring  which  he  had  made  up  his  mind  she 
should  never  obtain  from  him.  In  the  closing  scenes,  both 
Bertram  and  Bassanio  are  minus  their  rings ;  both  are  wretched 
because  they  have  not  got  them ;  and  in  both  cases  the  knot  is 
unravelled  by  their  wives  being  found  in  possession  of  them. 
There  is  a  more  essential  relation — that  of  direct  contrast— 
between  the  story  of  AWs  Well  that  Ends  Well  and  that  of 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  The  earlier  comedy  sets  forth  in 
playful  fashion  how  a  man  by  means  of  the  attributes  of  his  sex 
— ^physical  superiority,  boldness,  and  coolness — helped  out  by 
imperiousness,  bluster,  noise,  and  violence,  wins  the  devotion  of 
a  passionately  recalcitrant  young  woman.  AlTs  Well  that  Ends 
Well  shows  US  how  a  woman,  by  means  of  the  attributes  of  her 
sex — ^gentleness,  goodness  of  heart,cunning,  and  finesse — conquers 
a  vehemently  recalcitrant  man.  And  in  both  cases  the  pair  are 
married  before  the  action  proper  of  the  play  begins. 

Seeing  that  Shakespeare  in  The  Taming  ofthe  Shrew  followed 
the  older  play  on  the  same  subject,  and  that  he  took  the  story 
of  Alts  Well  that  Ends  Well  from  Boccaccio's  Gilette  of  Nar- 
bonne,  a  translation  of  which  appeared  as  early  as  1566  in 
Paynter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,  this  contrast  cannot  be  said  to  have 
been  devised  by  the  poet  But  it  is  evident  that  one  of  the  chief 
attractions  of  the  latter  subject  for  Shakespeare  was  the  opportunity 
it  offered  him  of  delineating  that  rare  phenomenon:  a  woman 
wooing  a  man  and  yet  possessing  and  retaining  all  the  charm 
of  her  sex.  Shakespeare  has  worked  out  the  figure  of  Helena 
with  the  tenderest  partiality.  Pity  and  admiration  in  conoert 
seem  to  have  guided  his  pen.  We  feel  in  his  portraiture  a  deep 
compassion  for  the  pangs  of  despised  love — the  compassion  of 
one  who  himself  has  suflFered — and  over  the  whole  figure  of 
Helena  he  has  shed  a  Raphael-like  beauty.  She  wins  all,  charms 
all,  wherever  she  goes — old  and  young,  women  and  men — all 
except  Bertram,  the  one  in  whom  her  life  is  bound  up.  Tlie 
King  and  the  old  Lafeu  are  equally  captivated  by  her,  equally 
irapressed  by  her  excellences.  Bertram's  mother  prizes  her  as 
if  she  were  her  daughter;  more  highly,  indeed,  than  she  prizes 
her  own  obstinate  son.  The  Italian  widow  becomes  so  devoted 
to  her  that  she  foUows  her  to  a  foreign  country  in  order  to  vouch 
for  her  Statement  and  win  her  back  her  husband. 

She  ventures'  all  that  she  may  gain  her  well-beloved,  and  in 
the  pursuit  of  her  aim  shows  an  inventive  capacity  not  common 
among  women.  For  the  real  object  of  her  journey  to  eure  the 
King  is,  as  she  frankly  confesses,  to  be  near  Bertram.  As  in 
the  tale,  she  obtains  the  King's  promise  that  she  may,  if  she  it 
successful  in  curing  him,  choose  herseif  a  husband  among  the 
lords  of  his  court ;  but  in  Boccaccio  it  is  the  King  who,  in  answef 
to  her  question  as  to  the  reward,  gives  her  this  promise  of  hii 


CHARACTER  OF  HELENA  397 

iccord ;  in  the  play  it  is  shc  who  first  states  her  wish.  So 
ssed  is  she  by  her  passion  for  one  who  does  not  give  her  a 
ht  or  a  look.  But  when  he  rejects  her  (unlike  Gilette  in  the 
she  has  no  desire  to  attain  her  object  by  compulsion ;  she 
Y  says  to  the  King  with  noble  resignation — 

"  That  you  are  well  restored,  my  lord, 
I'm  glad ;  let  the  rest  go." 

le  offers  no  objection  when  Bertram,  immediately  after  the 
ing,  announces  his  departure,  alleging  pretexts  which  she 
not  choose  to  see  through ;  she  suffers  without  a  murmur 
^  at  the  moment  of  parting,  he  refuses  her  a  kiss.  When 
las  learnt  the  whole  truth,  she  can  at  first  utter  nothing 
hört  ejaculations  (iii.  2):  "My  lord  is  gone,  for  ever  gone.*' 
s  is  a  dreadful  sentencel"  *'Tis  bitter!" — and  presently 
aves  her  home,  that  she  may  be  no  hindrance  to  his  retuming 
Predisposed  though  she  is  to  self-confidence  and  pride,  no 
ould  possibly  love  more  tenderly  and  humbly. 
11  the  most  beautiful  passages  of  her  part  shpw  by  the 
:ure  of  the  verse  and  the  absence  of  rhyme  that  they  belong 
j  poet's  riper  period.  Note,  for  example,  the  lines  (i.  i)  in 
i  Helena  teils  how  the  remembrance  of  her  dead  father  has 
effaced  in  her  mind  by  the  picture  of  Bertram : — 

"  My  Imagination 
Carries  no  favour  in  't  but  Bertram's. 
I  am  undone :  there  is  no  living,  none, 
If  Bertram  be  away.     It  were  all  one 
That  I  should  love  a  bright  particular  star. 
And  think  to  wed  it ;  he  is  so  above  me : 
In  his  bright  radiance  and  collateral  light 
Must  I  be  comforted,  not  in  his  sphere. 
The  ambition  in  my  love  thus  plagues  itself : 
The  bind  that  would  be  mated  by  the  Hon 
Must  die  for  love.     Twas  pretty,  though  a  plague, 
To  See  him  every  hour :  to  sit  and  draw 
His  arched  brows,  his  hawking  eye,  his  curls, 
In  our  heart's  table ;  heart  too  capable 
Of  every  line  and  trick  of  his  sweet  favour : 
But  how  he's  gone,  and  my  idolatrous  fancy 
Must  sanctify  his  relics." 

we  compare  the  style  of  this  passage  with  that  which  pre- 
in  Helena*s  rhymed  Speeches,  with  their  euphuistic  word- 
and  antitheses,  the  difference  is  very  striking,  and  we  feel 
a  distance  Shakespeare  has  traversed  since  the  days  of  his 
nticeship.  Here  we  find  no  glitter  of  wit,  but  the  utterance 
leart  that  loves  simply  and  deeply. 

hough  the  play  as  a  whole  was  evidently  not  one  of  those 
1  Shakespeare  cared  most  about«  and  though  he  has  allowed 


398  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

• 

things  to  stand  in  it  which  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  satit- 
factory  and  harmonious  end,  yet  he  has  evidenUy  concentrated 
his  whole  poetic  strength  on  the  development  and  perfection  of 
Helena's  most  winning  character.  These  are  the  terms  (L  3)  in 
which,  speaking  to  Bertram's  mother,  she  makes  confessioa  of 
her  lovc : — 

"  Be  not  offended,  for  it  hurts  not  him, 
That  he  is  lov'd  of  me.     I  follow  him  not 
By  any  token  of  presumptuous  suit ; 
Nor  would  I  have  him  tili  I  do  deserve  him, 
Yet  never  know  how  that  desert  should  be. 
I  know  I  love  in  vain,  strive  against  hope ; 
Yet,  in  this  captious  and  intenible  sieve 
I  still  pour  in  the  waters  of  my  love, 
And  lack  not  to  lose  still.     Thus,  Indian-liker 
Religious  in  mine  error,  I  adore 
The  sun,  that  looks  upon  his  worshipper, 
But  knows  of  him  no  more." 

There  is  something  in  her  nature  which  anticipates  the  chamii 
earnestnesSi  and  boundless  devotion  with  which  Shakespeare 
afterwards  endows  Imogen.  When  Bertram  goes  off  to  the  war, 
simply  to  escape  acknowledging  her  and  living  with  her  as  his 
wife,  she  exclaims  (üL  2) — 

**Poorlord!  is't  I 

That  chase  thee  from  thy  country,  and  expose 

Those  tender  limbs  of  thine  to  the  event 

Of  the  none-sparing  war?  .  .  . 

O  you  leaden  messengen, 

That  ride  upon  the  violent  speed  of  fire, 

Fly  with  false  aim  ;  move  the  still-'pearing  air, 

That  sings  with  piercing,  do  not  touch  my  lord  1 

Whoever  shoots  at  him,  I  set  him  there; 

Whoever  charges  on  his  forward  breast, 

I  am  the  caitiff  that  do  hold  him  to  it." 

In  this  there  is  a  fervour  and  a  glow  that  we  do  not  find  in  the 
earlier  comedies.  When  one  reads  these  verses,  one  understands 
how  it  is  that  Coleridge  calls  Helena,  '' Shak^speare's  loveliest 
character." 

Pity  that  this  deep  passion  should  have  been  inspired  by  so 
unworthy  an  object.  It  undoubtedly  lessens  the  interest  of  the 
play  that  Shakespeare  should  not  have  given  Bertram  some  more 
estimable  qualities  along  with  the  all  too  youthful  and  unchival- 
rous  ones  which  he  p>ossesses.  The  poet  has  here  been  guilty  of 
a  certain  negligence,  which  shows  that  it  was  only  to  parts  of  the 
play  that  he  gave  his  whole  mind.  Bertram  is  right  enough  io 
refusing  to  have  a  wife  thrust  upon  him  against  his  will,  simply 
becauee  the  King  has  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  pay.    But  tfu's  fiint 


BERTRAM  AND  HELENA  399 

motive  for  refusing  gives  place  to  one  with  which  we  have  less 
sympathy :  to  wit,  pride  of  rank,  which  makes  him  look  down  on 
Helena  as  being  of  inferior  birth,  though  king,  courtiers,  and  his 
own  mother  consider  her  fit  to  rank  with  the  best.  Even  this, 
however,  need  not  lower  Bertram  irretrievaWy  in  our  esteem; 
but  he  adds  to  it  traits  of  unmanliness,  even  of  baseness.  For 
instance,  he  enjoins  Helena,  through  Parolles,  to  invent  some 
explanation  of  his  sudden  departure  which  will  make  the  King 
believe  it  to  have  been  a  necessity;  and  then  he  leaves  her,  not, 
as  he  falsely  declares,  for  two  days,  but  for  ever.  His  readiness 
to  marry  a  daughter  of  Lafeu  the  moment  the  report  of  Hdena's 
death  has  reached  him  is  a  very  extraordinary  preparation  for 
the  reunion  of  the  couple  at  the  end  of  the  play,  and  reminds 
US  unpleasantly  of  the  exactly  similar  incident  in  Much  Adö 
About  Nothing  (p.  217).  But,  worst  of  all,  and  an  indisputable 
dramatic  mistake,  is  his  entangling  himself,  just  before  the  final 
reconciliation,  in  a  web  of  mean  lies  with  reference  to  the  Italian 
girl  to  whom  he  had  laid  siege  in  Tuscany. 

It  was  to  make  Helena's  position  more  secure,  and  to  avoid 
any  suspicion  of  the  adventuress  about  her,  that  Shakespeare 
invented  the  character  of  the  Countess,  that  motherly  friend 
whose  afiection  sets  a  seal  on  all  her  merits.  In  the  same  way 
ParoUes  was  invented  with  the  purpose  of  making  Bertram  less 
guilty.  Bertram  is  to  be  considered  as  ensnared  by  this  old 
"  fool,  notorious  liar,  and  coward  "  (as  Helena  at  once  calls  him), 
who  figures  in  the  play  as  his  evil  genius. 

ParoUes  in  Love^s  Labout^s  Won  was  doubtless  a  gay  and 
purely  farcical  figure — the  first  slight  sketch  for  Falstaff.  Coming 
after  Falstaff,  he  necessarily  seems  a  weak  repetition ;  but  this  is 
no  fault  of  the  poet's.  StiU,  it  is  very  piain  that  in  the  re-writing 
Shakespeare's  attempt  at  gaiety  missed  fire.  His  frame  of  mind 
was  too  serious ;  the  view  of  the  subject  from  the  moral  stand- 
point  displaces  and  excludes  pure  pleasure  in  its  comicaUty. 
ParoUes,  who  has  Falstaff's  vices  without  a  gleam  of  his  genius, 
brings  anything  but  unmixed  merriment  in  his  train.  The  poet 
is  at  pains  to  impress  on  us  the  lesson  we  ought  to  learn  from 
Parolles's  self-stultification,  and  the  shame  that  attends  on  his 
misdeeds.  Thus  the  Second  Lord  (iv.  3),  speaking  of  the  rasca- 
lity  he  displays  in  his  outpourings  when  he  is  blindfolded,  says — 

'^  I  will  never  trust  d  man  again  for  keeping  his  sword  clean,  nor 
believe  he  can  have  everything  in  him  by  wearing  his  apparel  neatly/' 

And  ParoUes  himself  says  when  his  effrontery  is  crushed  (iv.  3)— 

"  If  my  heart  were  great, 
Twould  burst  at  this.     Captain  I'U  be  no  more ; 
But  I  will  eat  and  drink,  and  sleep  as  soft 
As  captain  shaU :  simply  the  thin^  1  «m 


400  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shall  make  me  live,      WAo  knaws  himself  a  braggart^ 
Lei  htm  fear  this  ;  for  it  will  come  to  pass 
That  eoay  braggart  shall  befound  an  ass.*' 

The  other  comic  figure,  the  Clown,  witty  as  he  is,  has  not 
the  serene  gaiety  of  the  earlier  comedies.  He  speaks  here  and 
there,  as  already  noted  (p.  49),  in  the  youthfuUy  whimsical  style 
of  the  earliest  comedies ;  but  as  a  humoristic  house-fool  he  does 
not  rank  with  such  a  sylvan  fool  as  Touchstone,  a  creation  of  a 
few  years  earlier,  nor  with  the  musical  court-fool  in  Twdftk 
Night. 

A  Single  passage  in  AlVs  Well  that  Ends  Well  has  always 
Struck  me  as  having  a  certain  personal  note.  It  is  one  of  those 
which  were  qaite  evidently  added  at  the  time  of  the  re-writing. 
The  King  is  speaking  of  Bertrames  deceased  father,  and  quotes 
his  words  (i.  2) — 

"  *  Let  me  not  live,' — 

Thus  his  good  melancholy  oft  began, 

On  the  catastrophe  and  heel  of  pastime, 

When  it  was  out, — *  Let  me  not  live,*  quoth  hc^ 

'  After  my  flame  lacks  oil,  to  be  the  snufif 

Of  younget  spirits,  whose  apprehensive  senses 

All  but  new  things  disdain.'  .  .  . 

This  he  wish'd : 

I,  after  him,  do  after  him  wish  too." 

A  courtier  objects  to  this  despondent  utterance — 

"  You  are  lov'd,  sir ; 
They  that  least  lend  it  you  shall  lack  you  firsf 

Whereupon  the  King  replies  with  proud  humility — 

"Ifilla  place,  I  know't" 

These  words  could  not  have  been  written  save  by  a  mature 
man,  who  has  seen  impatient  youth  pressing  forward  to  take  his 
place,  and  who  has  feit  the  sting  of  its  criticism.  The  disposition 
of  mind  which  here  betrays  itself  foretells  that  overpowering 
sense  of  the  injustice  of  men  and  of  things  which  is  soon  to  take 
possession  of  Shakespeare's  soul. 


XX 


MEASURE  FOR  MEASÜRE—ANGELO  AND  TARTUFFE 

A  COVERT  polemical  intention  could  be  vaguely  divined  here 
and  there  in  A/fs  Well  that  Ends  Well.  It  contained,  as  wc 
have  Seen,  some  incidental  mockery  of  the  increasing  Puritanism 
of  the  time,  with  its  accompaniment  of  self-righteousness,  moral 
intolerance,  and  unctuous  hypocrisy.  The  bent  of  thought  which 
gave  birth  to  these  sallies  reappears  still  more  clearly  in  the 
choice  of  the  theme  treated  in  Measure  for  Measure, 

The  plot  of  Alfs  Well  that  Ends  Well  turns  on  the  incident, 
familiär  in  every  literature,  of  one  woman  passing  herseif  off  for 
another  at  a  nocturnal  rendezvous,  without  the  Substitution  being 
detected  by  the  man — an  incident  so  fruitful  in  dramatic  situations, 
that  even  its  gross  improbability  has  never  deterred  poets  from 
making  use  of  it 

A  Standing  Variation  of  this  theme,  also  to  be  found  in  the 
most  diverse  literatures,  is  as  foUows : — A  man  is  condemned  to 
death.  His  mistress,  his  wife,  or  his  sister  implores  the  judge  to 
pardon  him.  The  judge  promises,  on  condition  that  she  shall 
pass  a  night  with  him,  to  let  the  prisoner  go  free,  but  afterwards 
has  him  executed  all  the  same. 

This  subject  has  been  treated  over  and  over  again  from  mediae- 
val  times  down  to  our  own  days,  its  latest  appearances,  probably, 
being  in  Paul  Heyse's  novel,  Der  Kinder  Sünde  der  Väter  Fluch^ 
and  in  Victorien  Sardou's  play  La  Tosca,  In  Shakespeare's  time 
it  appeared  in  the  form  of  an  Italian  novella  in  Giraldi  Cinthio's 
Hecatommitht  (1565),  on  which  an  English  dramatist,  George 
Whetstone,  founded  his  play,  The  Right  Excellent  and  Famous 
History  of  Promos  and  Cassandra  (1578),  and  also  a  prose  story 
in  his  Heptameron  of  Civil  Discourses^  published  in  1 582.  Whet- 
stone's  utterly  lifeless  and  characterless  comedy  is  the  immediate 
source  from  which  Shakespeare  derived  the  outlines  of  the  story. 
He  is  indebted  to  Whetstone  for  nothing  eise. 

What  attracted  Shakespeare  to  this  unpleasant  subject  was 
clearly  his  indignation  at  the  growing  Pharisaism  in  matters  of 
sexual  morality  which  was  one  outcome  of  the  steady  growtb  of 
Puritanism  among  the  middle  classes.  It  was  a  consequence  of 
his  Position  as  an  actor  and  theatrical  manager  that  he  saw  only 
the  ugliest  side  of  Puritanism — the  one  it  lumtd  \.o^S9^x^%\vvqdl« 

4«  %K^ 


402  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Its  estimable  sides  well  deserved  a  poet's  S3rmpathy.  Small 
wonder,  indeed,  that  independent  and  pious  men  should  seek  the 
salvation  of  their  souls  without  the  bounds  of  the  Anglican  State 
Church,  with  its  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  to  which  all  clergymen  and 
State  officials  were  bound  to  swear,  and  to  which  all  Citizens  must 
make  Submission.  It  was  a  punishable  offence  to  use  any  other 
ritual  than  the  official  one,  or  even  to  refuse  to  go  to  church. 
The  Puritans,  who  dreamed  of  leading  the  Christian  Church  back 
to  its  original  purity,  and  who  had  retumed  home  after  their 
banishment  during  the  reign  of  Mary  with  the  ideal  of  a  demo- 
cratic  Church  before  their  eyes,  could  not  possibly  approve  of  a 
State  Church  subject  to  the  crown,  or  of  such  an  institution  as 
Episcopacy.  Some  of  them  looked  to  Scottish  Presbyterianism 
as  a  worthy  model,  and  desired  to  see  Church  govemment  by 
laymen,  the  eiders  of  the  congregation,  introduced  into  England, 
in  place  of  the  spiritual  aristocracy  of  the  bishops.  Others  went 
still  farther,  denied  the  necessity  of  one  common  form  of  worship 
for  all,  and  desired  to  have  the  Church  broken  up  into  independent 
congregations,  in  which  any  believer  might  ofBciate  as  priest 
We  have  here  the  germs  of  the  great  party  division  in  Cromwell's 
time  into  Presbyterians  and  Independents. 

So  far  as  we  can  see,  Shakespeare  took  no  interest  whatevor 
m  any  of  these  ecclesiastical  or  religious  movements.  He  came 
into  contact  with  Puritanism  only  in  its  narrow  and  fanatical 
hatred  of  his  art,  and  in  its  severely  intolerant  condemnation  and 
punishment  of  moral,  and  especially  of  sexual,  frailties.  All  he 
saw  was  its  Pharisaic  aspect,  and  its  often  enough  only  simulated 
virtue. 

It  was  his  Indignation  at  this  hypocritical  virtue  that  led  him 
to  write  Measure  for  Measure,  He  treated  the  subject  as  he  did, 
because  the  interests  of  the  theatre  demanded  that  the  woof  of 
comedy  should  be  interwoven  with  the  severe  and  sombre  warp 
of  tragedy.  But  what  a  comedy  I  Dark,  tragic,  heavy  as  the 
poet's  mood — a  tragi-comedy,  in  which  the  unusually  broad  and 
realistic  comic  scenes,  with  their  pictures  of  the  dregs  of  sodety, 
cannot  relieve  the  painfulness  of  the  theme,  or  disguise  the 
positively  criminal  nature  of  the  action.  One  feels  throughout, 
even  in  the  comic  episodes,  that  Shakespeare's  buming  wrath 
at  the  moral  hypocrisy  of  self-righteousness  underlies  the  whole 
structure  like  a  volcano,  which  every  moment  shoots  up  its  flames 
through  the  superficial  form  of  comedy  and  the  interludes  of 
obligatory  merriment. 

And  yet  it  is  not  really  against  hypocrisy  that  his  attack  is 
aimed.  At  this  stage  of  his  development  he  is  far  too  great  a 
psychologist  to  depict  a  ready-made,  finished  hypocrite.  No,  he 
shows  US  how  weak  even  the  strictest  Pharisee  will  prove,  if  only 
he  happens  to  come  across  the  temptation  which  really  tempta 
him;  and  how  Such  a  tnan's  desire,  if  it  meets  with  Opposition^ 


"MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE"  403 

reveals  in  him  quite  another  being — a  villain,  a  brüte  beast — who 
allows  hittiself  actions  worse  a  hundredfold  than  those  which,  in 
die  calm  superiority  of  a  spotless  conscience)  he  has  hitherto 
punished  in  others  with  the  utmost  severity. 

It  is  not  a  type  of  Shakespeare's  opponents  that  he  here  un- 
masks  and  brands — ^it  is  a  man  in  many  ways  above  the  average 
type,  as  he  öäw  it  The  chief  character  in  Measure  for  Measutt 
is  the  judge  of  public  morality,  the  hard  and  stem  Censor  morum, 
who  in  his  moral  fanaticism  believes  that  he  can  root  out  vice  by 
persecuting  its  tools,  and  imagines  that  he  can  purify  and  reform 
Society  by  punishing  every  transgression,  however  natural  and 
comparatively  harmless,  as  a  capital  crime.  The  play  shows  us 
how  this  man,  as  soon  as  a  purely  sensual  passion  takes  pos- 
session  of  him,  does  not  hesitate  to  commit,  under  the  mask  of 
piety,  a  crime  against  real  morality  so  revolting  and  so  mostrous 
that  no  expression  of  loathing  and  contempt  would  be  ♦    .  •* 

for  it,  and  scarcely  any  punishment  too  rigorous.        -  ^*  ^^  ^^  ** 

From  its  nature  such  a  drama  ought  to  end  ] 
some  satisfactory  manner  the  craving  for  jus«^^^  ^^  ^  mind 
the  spectator.     But  comedy  was  what  Shp^^«^  ^^  1^^  perhaps, 
wanted ;  and  besides,  it  would  have  been  ur  «>  temptations,  it  might 
dangerous,  to  carry  to  extremities  th'*«  others.    Angelo  answers 
ment  of  moral  hypocrisy.    So  the  k^  thing,  to  fall  another.     But 
loosed,  without  any  great  expendi^Ua,  young,  charming,  and  intel- 
care  and  timely  intervention  of*'«re  her  brother's  life  (iL  2)  :— 
prince,  an  occidental  Haroy^  good  my  lord,  bethink  you : 
of  means  this  prince  was^it  hath  died  for  this  offence  ? 
foundly  unsatisfactory  tony  have  committed  it" 
he  Substitutes  a  lovabl;,        .  ,  /.         .  .. 

one  time  promised  to  ^^^  «^^^^^  the  unreason  of  punishmg  so 

is  the  object  of  his  br^  ^^  l^^« ' 

The  Duke,  wishild  great  men  thunder 
leaving  Vienna  onself  does,  Jove  would  ne'er  be  quiet, 
during  his  abserpelting,  petty  officer 
reputation.  e  his  heaven  for  thunder;  nothing  but  thunder.-* 

No  sooner   heaven! 
regulär  crusadi-^^^'"  ^^^^  ^^7  «^^^^  and  sulphurous  holt 
of  morals.     Ir^  ^^^  unwedgeable  and  gnarled  oak, 
in  the  City  of  ^^«  soft  myrtle." 

by  Whetstoihtinues  in  such  a  strain,  that  we  cannot  but  hear  the 

play,  there  •  through  hers  :— 

curesses,  prc  ,,  _  ,  , 

tion      Shak  msLU,  proud  man  i 

Drocuress    1^''^^^  ^°  *  ^^®  ^"^^  authority, 

E,        ,      '  cMost  ignorant  of  what  he  's  most  assur'd, 

^AhAp^^  2^*sy  essence,— like  an  angry  ape, 
^       {^^  ,.  ^Vlays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
utterly  disso^  make  the  angels  weep ;  who,  with  our  spleei^ 
But  the  vould  all  themsdves  laugh  moitaiL** 


404  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  play  is  that  the  Duke,  disguised  as  a  friar,  is  witness  from 
the  beginning  of  Angelo's  abuse  of  bis  power  as  ruler  and  judge. 
Among  otber  advantages  resulting  from  tbis  modification,  we  must 
reckon  tbe  fact  tbat  tbe  spectators  are  tbus  reassured  in  advanoe 
as  to  tbe  final  issue.  On  the  Duke's  disguise,  moreover,  depends 
most  of  tbe  comic  effect  arising  out  of  tbe  cbaracter  of  Lucio,  who 
is  constantly  repeating  to  bim  tbe  most  absurd  slanders  about 
bimself,  as  if  be  bad  tbem  from  tbe  best  autbority.  Further,  the 
Duke's  concealed  presence  is  essential  to  the  otber  great  change 
made  in  the  story,  namely,  that  Isabella  is  not  really  required  to 
sacrifice  berself  for  her  brotber,  her  place  being  filled,  as  in  Alts 
Well  that  Ends  Well,  by  a  woman  who  has  old  Claims  on  tbe 
man  concerned.  In  tbis  manner  tbe  too  revoltingly  painful  part 
of  tbe  subject  is  avoided. 

SJ}fkespeare  has  imagined  one  of  tbe  men  who  werc  the 
1^'  place  dfiiemies  of  bis  art  and  bis  calling  invested  with  absolute 
still  fartber  d^sing  it  to  proceed  against  immorality  with  cruel 
for  all,  and  desirf  ^^  ^^^P  ^^  ^^^  attack  on  common  Prostitution, 
congregations,  iri^des  himself  be  can  exterminate.  Tbis  vain 
We  have  here  the  g^^ly  ridiculed.  "  What  shall  become  of  me  ?  " 
time  into  Presbyterians\    "  Come ;  fear  not  you :  good  counsellors 

So  far  as  we  can  see,  iü^  i^-  sc  i  we  read  :— 
Int^Ln^ti^'r^  ecclesiastical  o..  p^^       p  ^   ^^     ^  ^^  p    ^ 
mto  contact   with    Puritanism  i- ;s  italawftil  trade ? 
natred  of  bis  art,  and  in  its  severely  gj^ 

punishment  of  moral,  and  especially^^onpcy;  nor  it  shaU  not  bc 
saw  was  its  Pharisaic  aspect,  and  its  oftt 

^^rt^®-  and  splay  all  tbe  youtb  of 

It  was  bis  indignation  at  tbis  bypocriticc 
to  write  Measure  for  Measure.     He  treated  i 
because  tbe  interests  of  tbe  theatre  demandt^M  to't  then.** 
comedy  sbould  be  interwoven  with  tbe  severe  .  -    . 

of  tragedy.     But  what  a  comedy  I     Dark,  trai^^^^"^^  ^  '""^' 
poet's  mood — a  tragi-comedy,  in  which  the  unus 
realistic  comic  scenes,  with  their  pictures  of  the  dho  barm  in  bim  ; 
cannot  relieve  tbe  painfulness  of   tbe  theme,  oi 
positively  criminal  nature  of  tbe  action.     One  feehire  it 
cven  in  tbe  comic  episodes,  that  Sbakespeare's  biJred :  it  is  well 
at  tbe  moral  hypocrisy  of  self-righteousness  underli^  and  drinking 
structure  like  a  volcano,  which  every  moment  shoots  i?  a'^d  woman, 
througb  tbe  superficial  form  of  comedy  and  the  in*" 
obligatory  merriment. 

And  yet  it  is  not  really  against  hypocrisy  that  hi-  ^^"^^'J' 
almed.  At  tbis  stage  of  bis  development  he  is  far  t?f^^^"*" 
psycbologist  to  depict  a  ready-made,  finished  bypocri,  ^^^^^^^^ 
Shows  US  how  weak  even  the  strictest  Pharisce  will  pr  ^^^"^^^ 
he  happens  to  come  across  the  temptation  which  rc  ^'^demncd 
him;  and  how  such  a  inan's  dcsirc,  if  it  meets  with 


«'MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE'^  405 

It  was  an  innocent  relation.     He  says  (i.  3)  :^ 

"  She  is  fast  my  wife 
Save  that  we  do  the  denunciation  lack 
Of  outward  order :  this  we  came  not  to, 
Only  for  propagation  of  a  dower 
Remaining  in  the  coffer  of  her  friends." 

But  this  avail3  nothing.  An  cxample  is  to  be  made.  It  is  in 
vain  that  even  the  highly  respectable  Provost  feels  compassion 
for  him,  and  says  (ii.  2) : — 

**  All  sects,  all  ages  smack  of  this  vice,  and  he 
To  die  for  it ! " 

The  young  men  of  the  town  cannot  explain  this  insane  severity 
in  any  other  way  than  by  the  supposition  that  Lord  Angele  is  a 
man  with  '*  snow-broth ''  in  his  veins  in  place  of  blood. 

It  soon  appears,  however,  that  he  is  not  the  man  of  ice  he  is 
taken  to  be. 

Escalus,  an  old,  honourable  nobleman,  bids  him  bear  in  mind 
that  though  his  own  virtue  be  of  the  straitest,  it  has,  perhaps, 
never  been  tempted ;  had  it  been  exposed  to  temptations,  it  might 
not  have  stood  the  test  better  than  that  of  others.  Angelo  answers 
haughtily  that  to  be  tempted  is  one  thing,  to  fall  another.  But 
now  comes  Claudio's  sister,  Isabella,  young,  charming,  and  intel- 
ligent, and  beseeches  him  to  spare  her  brother's  life  (ii.  2) : — 

**  Goody  good  my  lord,  bethink  you : 
Who  is  it  that  hath  died  for  this  offence  ? 
There's  many  have  committed  it" 

He  is  inexorable.  She  shows  the  unreason  of  punishing  so 
stringently  the  errors  of  love : 

"  Isad.  Could  great  men  thunder 
As  Jove  himself  does,  Jove  would  ne'er  be  quiet, 
For  every  pelting,  petty  officer 

Would  use  his  heaven  for  thunder ;  nothing  but  thunder.-* 
Merciful  heaven ! 

Thou  rather  with  thy  sharp  and  sulphurous  holt 
Splitt'st  the  unwedgeable  and  gnarled  oak, 
Than  the  soft  myrtle." 

And  she  continues  in  such  a  strain,  that  we  cannot  but  hear  the 
poet's  voice  through  hers : — 

'*  But  man,  proud  man ! 
Drest  in  a  little  brief  authority, 
Most  ignorant  of  what  he  's  most  assur'd, 
His  glassy  essence, — ^like  an  angry  ape, 
Plays  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels  weep ;  who,  with  o>xl  ^tföciv 
Would  all  themsdves  laugh  mottaX/* 


4o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

And  she  appeals  to  his  own  self-knowledge : — 

"  Go  to  your  bosom ; 
Knock  there,  and  ask  your  heart  what  it  doth  know 
That's  like  my  brother's  fault" 

He  invites  her  to  come  again  the  next  day;  and  hardly  is  she 
gone  when,  in  a  monologue,  he  reveals  his  hateful  passion,  and 
even  hints  at  his  still  more  hateful  purpose  of  .forcing  her  to 
gratify  it  in  payment  for  her  brother's  release. 

He  makes  her  his  proposal.  She  is  appalled ;  she  now  sees, 
like  Hamlet,  what  life  can  be,  what  undreamt-of  horrors  can 
happen,  to  what  a  pitch  villainy  can  be  carried,  even  on  the 
judgment-seat : — 

"  O,  'tis  the  cunning  livery  of  hell, 

The  damned'st  body  to  invest  and  cover 

In  princely  guards !     Dost  thou  think,  Claudio  ?-»• 

If  I  would  yield  him  my  virginity, 

Thou  mightst  be  freed." 

She  cannot  even  denounce  him,  for,  as  he  himself  points  out  to 
her,  no  one  will  believe  her;  his  stainless  name,  his  strict  life 
and  high  rank,  will  stifle  the  accusation  if  she  dares  to  make  iL 
Feeling  himself  safe,  he  is  doubly  audacious.  Thus,  when,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  play  (v.  3),  she  lays  her  indictment  before 
the  reinstated  Duke,  Angelo  says  brazenly,  "  My  lord,  her  wits, 
I  fear  me,  are  not  firm."  Then  foUows,  as  if  in  continuation  of 
Isabella's  just-quoted  speech,  the  fiery  protest  springing  from  the 
poet's  intensest  conviction : — 

**  Make  not  impossible 

That  which  but  seems  unlike.     'Tis  not  impossible^ 

But  one,  the  wicked'st  caitiff  on  the  ground, 

May  seem  as  shy,  as  grave,  as  just,  as  absolute, 

As  Angelo." 

(See  p.  241.) 

But  the  protest  has  no  immediate  result.  IsabeUa  is,  for  the 
time  being,  sent  to  prison  for  slandering  a  man  of  unblemished 
honour.  And  the  irony  is  kept  up  to  the  last  The  Duke,  in  his 
character  as  a  fnar,  has  learnt  bitter  lessons;  amongst  others, 
that  there  is  hardly  enough  honesty  in  the  world  to  hold  socicty 
together.  But  when  he  himself,  in  his  disguise,  relates  what  he 
has  witnessed,  his  own  faithful  servants  are  on  the  point  of 
sending  him  also  to  prison.  In  his  role  of  Haroun-al-Raschid, 
he  has  seen  and  realised  that  law  is  made  to  serve  as  a  screen  for 
might.     Thus  he  says — 

"  My  business  in  this  State 
Made  me  a  looker-on  here  in  Vienna, 
Where  I  have  seen  comiption  boil  and  bubble 
Till  it  o'er-run  the  stew :  laws  for  all  faults, 
But  faults  so  countenanc'd,  thaX  thi^  sttoxk%^ta.biteA 


"MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE''  407 

Stand  Uke  the  forfeits  in  n  barber's  shop, 
As  much  in  mock  as  miurk. 
EscaL  Slander  to  the  State  \    Away  with  him  to  prison.'' 

As  a  play,  Measurefor  Miosurc  rests  entirely  on  threc  scenes : 
the  one  in  which  Angelo  is  tempted  by  IsabeUa'a  beauty;  that 
in  which  he  makes  the  shameless  proposal  that  she  shall  give 
her  honour  in  exchange  for  her  brother's  life;  and,  thirdly,  that 
most  dramatic  one  in  which  CIaudiO|  after  first  heariog  with 
fortitude  and  indignation  what  his  sister  has  to  teil  him  of 
Angelo's  baseness,  breaks  down,  and,  like  Kleis^'s  Prince  of 
Homburg  two  centuries  later,  begins  meanly  to  beg  for  his  life. 
Round  these  principal  scenes  are  grouped  the  many  excellent  and 
vigorously  realistic  comic  passages,  treated  in  a  spirit  which 
afterwards  revived  in  Hogarth  and  Thackeray ;  and  other  scenes 
designed  solely  to  retard  the  dramatic  wheel  a  little,  which, 
therefore,  jar  upon  us  as  conventional.  It  is,  for  example, 
an  entirely  unjustifiable  experiment  which  the  Duke  tries  on 
Isabella  in  the  fourth  act,  when  he  falsely  assures  her  that  her 
brother's  head  has  already  been  cut  off  and  sent  to  Angelo.  This 
is  introduced  solely  for  the  sake  of  an  eflfect  at  the  end. 

In  this  very  unequally  elaborated  play,  it  is  evident  that 
Shakespeare  cared  only  for  the  main  point — the  blow  he  was 
striking  at  hypocrisy.  And  it  is  probable  that  he  here  ventured 
as  far  as  he  by  any  means  dared.  It  is  a  giant  stride  from  the 
stingless  satire  on  Puritanism  in  the  character  of  Malvolio  to  this 
representation  of  a  Puritan  like  Angelo.  Probably  for  this  very 
reason,  Shakespeare  has  tried  in  every  way  to  shield  himself. 
The  subject  is  treated  entirely  aa  a  comedy.  There  is  a  threat  of 
executing  first  Claudio,  then  the  humorous  acoundrel  Bamardine, 
whose  head  is  to  be  delivered  instead  of  Claudio's ;  Bamardine  is 
actually  brought  on  the  scene  directly  before  execution,  and  the 
spectators  sit  in  suspense ;  but  all  ends  well  at  last,  and  the  head 
of  a  man  already  dead  is  sent  to  Angelo.  A  noble  maiden  is 
threatened  with  dishonour ;  but  another  woman,  Mariana,  who 
was  worthy  of  a  better  fate,  keeps  tryst  with  Angelo  in  her  stead, 
and  this  danger  is  over.  Finally,  threata  of  retribution  close 
round  Angelo,  the  villain,  himself;  but  after  all  he  escapes 
unpunished,  being  merely  obliged  to  marry  the  ainiable  girl  whom 
he  had  at  an  earlier  period  deserted.  In  this  way  the  plays 
terrible  impeachment  of  hypocrisy  is  most  carcfully  glozed  over, 
and  along  with  it  the  pessimism  which  animates  the  whole. 

For  it  is  remarkable  how  deeply  pessimistic  is  the  spirit  of 
this  play.  When  the  Duke  is  exhorting  Claudio  (iii.  i)  not  to  fear 
his  inevitable  fate,  he  goes  farther  in  his  depreciation  of  human 
life  than  Hamlet  himself  when  his  mood  is  blackest ;— > 

"  Reason  thus  with  life : — 
If  I  do  lose  tbee,  I  do  lose  a  Üäl^t 


4o8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

That  none  but  fools  would  keep ;  a  breath  thou  art. 
Servile  to  all  the  skyey  influences, 
That  do  this  habitation,  where  thou  keep'st, 
Hourly  afflict.     Merely,  thou  art  death's  fool ; 
For  him  thou  labour'st  by  thy  flight  to  shun, 
And  yet  runn'st  toward  him  stilL 

•  •••••• 

Happy  thou  art  not ; 
For  what  thou  hast  not,  still  thou  striv'st  to  get, 
And  what  thou  hast,  forgett'st    Thou  art  not  certain ; 
For  thy  complexion  shifts  to  stränge  effects, 
After  the  moon.     If  thou  art  rieh,  thou'rt  poor ; 
For,  like  an  ass,  whose  back  with  ingots  bows, 
Thou  bear'st  thy  heavy  riches  but  a  joumey, 
And  death  unloads  thee.     Friends  hast  thou  none ; 
For  thine  own  bowels,  which  do  call  thee  sire, 
The  mere  efFusion  of  thy  proper  loins, 
Do  curse  the  gout,  serpigo,  and  the  rheum, 
For  ending  thee  no  sooner.     Thou  hast  nor  youth,  nor  age» 
But,  as  it  were,  an  after-dinner's  sleep, 
Dreaming  on  both ;  for  all  thy  blessed  youth 
Becomes  as  aged,  and  doth  beg  the  alms 
Of  palsied  eld :  and  when  thou  art  old  and  rieh, 
Thou  hast  neither  heat,  affection,  limb,  nor  beauty 
To  make  thy  riches  pleasant.    What's  yet  in  this, 
That  bears  the  name  of  life  ?    Yet  in  this  life 
Lie  hid  more  thousand  deaths ;  yet  death  we  fear, 
That  makes  these  odds  all  even." 

• 

Note  with  what  art  and  care  everything  is  here  assembled 
that  can  confound  and  abash  the  normal  instinct  that  makes  for 
life.  Here  for  the  first  time  Shakespeare  anticipates  Schopen- 
hauer. 

It  is  clear  that  in  this  play  the  poet  was  eamestly  bent  on 
proving  his  own  Standpoint  to  be  the  moral  one.  In  hardly  any 
other  play  do  we  find  such  persistent  emphasis  laid,  with  small 
regard  for  consistency  of  character,  upon  the  general  moraL 

For  example,  could  there  be  a  more  direct  utterance  than  the 
Duke's  monologue  at  the  end  of  Act  iii. : — 

"  He  who  the  sword  of  heaven  will  bear 
Should  be  as  holy  as  severe ; 
Pattem  in  himself  to  know, 
Grace  to  stand,  and  virtue  go ; 
More  nor  less  to  others  paying, 
Than  by  self-offences  weighing. 
Shame  to  him  whose  cruel  striking 
Kills  for  faults  of  his  own  liking ! 
Twice  treble  shame  on  Angelo, 
To  weed  my  vice,  and  let  his  g^w  f  * 


-•MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE"  409 

Similarly,  and  in  a  like  spirit,  the  moral  pointer  comes  into 
play  wherever  there  is  an  opportunity  of  showing  how  apt  princes 
and  rulers  are  to  be  misjudged,  and  how  recklessly  they  are  dis- 
paraged  and  slandered. 

Thus  the  Duke  says  towards  the  close  of  Act  iii. : — 

**  No  might  nor  greatness  in  mortality 
Can  censure  scape :  black-wounding  calumny 
The  whitest  virtue  strikes.     What  fing  so  strong 
Can  tie  the  gall  up  in  the  slanderous  tongue  ? '' 

And  later  (iv.  i),  again : — 

"  O  place  and  greatness  !  millions  of  &lse  eyes 
Are  stuck  up)on  thee.     Volumes  of  report 
Run  with  these  false  and  most  contrarious  quests 
Upon  thy  doings." 

It  is  quite  remarkable  how  this  dwelling  on  baseless  criticism 
by  subjects  is  accompanied  by  a  constant  tendency  to  invoke  the 
protection  of  the  sovereign,  or,  in  other  words,  of  James  L,  who 
had  just  ascended  the  throne,  and  who,  with  his  long-accumulated 
bittemess  against  Scottish  Presbyterianism,  was  already  showing 
himself  hostile  to  English  Puritanism.  Hence  the  politic  insist- 
ence,  at  the  close,  upon  a  point  quite  irrelevant  to  the  matter  of 
the  play:  all  other  sins  being  declared  pardonable,  save  only 
slander  or  criticism  of  the  sovereign.  Lucio  alone,  who,  to  the 
great  entertainment  of  the  spectators,  has  told  lies  about  the 
Duke,  and,  though  only  in  jest,  has  spoken  ill  of  him,  is  to  be 
mercilessly  punished.  To  the  last  moment  it  seems  as  if  he  were 
to  be  first  whipped,  then  hanged.  And  even  after  this  sentence 
is  commuted  in  order  that  the  tone  of  comedy  may  be  preserved, 
and  he  is  commanded  instead  to  marry  a  prostitute,  it  is  expressly 
insisted  that  whipping  and  hanging  ought  by  rights  to  have  been 
his  punishment.  "Slandering  a  prince  deserves  it/'  says  the 
Duke,  at  the  beginning  of  the  final  speech. 

This  attitude  of  Shakespeare's  presents  an  exact  parallel  to 
that  of  Moli^re  in  the  concluding  scene  of  Tartuffe^  sixty  years 
later.  The  prince,  in  accordance  with  James  of  Scotland's 
theories  of  princely  duty,  appears  as  the  universally  vigilant 
guardian  of  his  people ;  he  alone  chastises  the  hypocrite,  whose 
lust  of  power  and  audacity  distinguish  him  from  the  resL  The 
appeal  to  the  prince  in  Measure  for  Measure  answers  exactly  to 
the  great  Deus-ex-machinä  speech  in  Tartuffe^  which  relieves  the 
leading  characters  from  the  nightmare  that  has  oppressed  them : — 

'*  Nous  vivons  sous  un  prince,  ennemi  de  la  &aude, 
Un  prince  dont  les  yeux  se  fönt  jour  dans  les  coeurs 
Et  que  ne  peut  tromper  tout  Tart  des  imposteurs.'' 

In  the  seventeenth  Century  kings  were  still  the  protectors  of  art 
and  artists  against  mond  and  religioua  bnaüöscEu 


XXI 

ACCESSION  OP  JAMES  AND  ANNB  —  RALEIGIPS  FATB^ 
SHAKBSPBARWS  COMPANY  BBCOMB  HIS  MÄJBSTTS 
SERVANTSSCOTCH  INPLÜBNCB. 

In  Measure  for  Measure  it  is  not  only  the  monarchical  tone  of 
the  play,  but  some  quite  definite  points,  that  mark  it  out  as  hav^ 
ing  been  produced  at  the  time  of  James's  accession  to  thi)  throne 
in  1603.  In  the  very  first  scene  there  is  an  allusion  to  the  new 
kingfs  nervous  dislike  of  crowds.  This  peculiarity,  which  caused 
much  surprise  on  the  occasion  of  his  entrance  into  EngUndj  is 
herc  placed  in  a  flattering  light.    The  Duke  says : — 

"  111  privily  away :  I  love  the  people, 
But  do  not  Hke  to  stage  me  to  their  eves. 
Though  it  do  well,  I  do  not  relish  well 
Their  loud  applause  and  Aves  vehement, 
Nor  do  I  think  the  man  of  safe  discretion 
That  does  affect  it" 

It  is  also  with  unmistakable  reference  to  James's  antipathy 
for  a  throng  that  Angelo,  in  Act  iL  sc.  4,  describes  the  crowd- 
ing  of  the  people  round  a  beloved  sovereign  as  an  inadmissibk 
mtrusion : — 

'*  So  play  the  foolish  throngs  with  one  that  swoons, 
Come  all  to  help  him,  and  so  stop  the  air 
By  which  he  should  revive :  and  even  so 
The  general,  subject  to  a  well-wish'd  king, 
Quit  their  own  j^ut,  and  in  obsequious  fondness 
Crowd  to  his  presence,  where  their  untaught  love 
Must  needs  appear  offence." 

Elizabeth  had  breathed  her  last  on  the  24th  of  March  1603. 
On  her  deathbed,  when  she  could  nb  longer  speak,  she  had  made 
the  shape  of  a  crown  above  her  head  with  her  hands,  to  signify 
that  she  chose  as  her  successor  one  who  was  already  a  Ung. 
Her  ministers  had  long  been  in  secret  negotiation  with  James  VL 
of  Scotlandy  and  had  promised  him  the  succession,  in  spite  of  a 
Provision  in  Henry  VIII/s  will  which  excluded  his  eider  sistei^s 
Scottish  descendants  from  the  throne.  This  had  to  be  aet  aaide; 
for  there  was  not  in  the  younger  line  any  personage  of  aufficimi 


JAMES  I.  411 

diBtinction  to  he  at  all  eligible.  There  was  obvious  advantagei 
too,  in  uniting  the  crowns  of  England  and  Scotland  on  one  head ; 
too  long  had  the  neighbour  kingdoma  wasted  each  other's  ener** 
gies  in  mutual  feuds.  All  parties  in  the  nation  agreed  with  the 
ministers  in  looking  to  James  as  Elizabeth's  natural  successon 
The  Protestants  feit  confidence  in  him  as  a  Protestant;  the 
Catholics  looked  for  better  treatment  from  the  son  of  the  Catholic' 
martyr-queen ;  the  Puritans  hoped  that  he,  as  a  new  and  peace- 
loving  kingy  would  sanction  such  alterations  in  the  statutory  form 
of  worship  as  should  enable  them  to  take  part  in  it  without 
injury  to  their  souls.     Great  expectations  greeted  him. 

Hardly  was  the  breath  out  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  body  when 
Sir  Robert  Carey,  a  gentleman  on  whom  she  had  conferred  many 
benefits,  but  who,  in  his  anxiety  to  ensure  the  new  King's  favour, 
had  post-horses  Standing  ready  at  every  Station,  galloped  off  to 
be  the  first  to  bring  the  news  to  James  in  Edinburgh.  On  the 
way  he  was  thrown  from  his  horse,  which  kicked  him  on  the 
head;  but  in  spite  of  this  he  reached  Holyrood  on  the  evening 
of  the  26th  of  March,  just  after  the  King  had  gone  to  bed.  He 
was  hurriedly  conducted  into  the  bed-chamber,  where  he  knelt 
and  greeted  James  by  the  title  of  King  of  England,  Scotland, 
France,  and  Ireland.  "  Hee  gave  mee  his  band  to  kisse,"  writes 
Carey,  "  and  bade  me  welcome."  He  also  promised  Carey  a  place 
as  Gentleman  of  the  Bed-Chamber,  and  various  other  things,  in 
'reward  for  his  zeal;  but  forgot  all  these  promises  as  soon  as  he 
stood  on  English  ground. 

In  London  all  preparations  had  been  carefully  made.  A  pro« 
damation  of  James  as  King  had  been  drawn  up  by  Cecil  during 
Elizabeth's  lifetime,  and  sent  to  Scotland  for  James's  sanction. 
This  the  Prime  Minister  read,  a  few  hours  after  the  Queen's 
death,  to  an  assembly  of  the  Privy  Council  and  chief  nobility, 
and  a  great  crowd  of  the  people,  amidst  universal  approbation. 
Three  heralds  with  a  trumpeter  repeated  the  proclamation  in  the 
Tower,  "whereof  as  well  prysoners  as  others  rejoyced,  namely, 
the  Earle  of  Southampton,  in  whom  all  signes  of  great  gladnesse 
appeared."  Not  without  reason ;  for  almost  the  first  order  James 
gave  was  that  a  Courier  should  convey  to  Southampton  the  King's 
desire  that  he  should  at  once  join  him  and  accompany  him  on  his 
progress  through  England  to  London,  where  he  was  to  receive 
the  oath  of  allegiance  and  to  be  crowned. 

On  the  5th  of  April  1603,  James  L  of  Great  Britain  left 
Edinburgh  to  take  possession  of  his  new  kingdom.  His  royal 
progress  was  a  very  slow  one,  for  every  nobleman  and  gentleman 
whose  house  he  passed  invited  him  tö  enter;  he  accepted  all 
invitations,  spent  day  after  day  in  festivities,  and  rewarded  hos- 
pitality  by  distributing  knighthoods  in  unheard-of  and  excessive 
numbers.  One  of  his  actions  was  unequivocally  censured.  A^ 
Newark  *'  was  taken  a  cutpurse  doing  the  deed,^^  ^xid  '^^xoL^ak  V^ 


412  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

him  hanged  without  trial  or  judgment.  The  displeasure  ahown 
made  it  piain  to  him  that  he  could  not  thus  assume  superiority 
to  the  laws  of  England.  In  Scotland  there  had  been  a  general 
demand  for  a  streng  monarchy,  which  could  hold  the  nobles  and 
the  clergy  in  check ;  in  England  the  day  for  this  was  over,  and 
^the  new  King's  successors  learned  to  their  cost  the  futility  of 
trying  to  carry  on  the  traditions  of  despotism  on  English  soiL 

James  himself  was  received  with  the  naive,  disinterested  joy 
with  which  the  mass  of  the  people  are  apt  to  greet  a  new  monarch, 
of  whose  real  qualities  nothing  is  yet  known,  and  with  the  less 
disinterested  flatteries  by  which  every  one  who  came  into  oontact 
with  the  King  sought  personal  favour  in  his  eyes. 

There  was  nothing  kingly  or  even  winning  in  King  James's 
exterior.  Strange  that  the  handsome  Henry  Darnley  and  the 
beautiful  Mary  Stuart  should  have  had  such  an  insignificant  and 
ungainly  son!  He  was  something  over  middle  height,  indeed, 
but  his  figure  was  awkward,  his  head  lumpish,  and  his  eyes 
projecting.  His  language  was  the  broadest  Scotch,  and  when  he 
opened  his  mouth  it  was  rather  to  spit  out  the  words  than  to 
speak ;  he  hustled  them  out  so  that  they  stumbled  over  each  other. 
He  talked,  ate,  and  dressed  like  a  peasant,  and,  in  spite  of  his  ap- 
parently  decorous  life,  was  addicted  to  the  broadest  improprieties 
of  talk,  even  in  the  presence  of  ladies.  He  walked  like  one  who 
has  no  command  over  his  limbs,  and  he  could  never  keep  still, 
even  in  a  room,  but  was  always  pacing  up  and  down  with  clumsy, 
sprawling  movements.  His  muscles  were  developed  by  riding 
and  hunting,  but  his  whole  appearance  was  wanting  in  dignity. 

The  shock  inflicted  on  his  mother  during  her  pregnancy,  by 
Rizzio's  assassination,  probably  accounts  for  his  dread  of  the 
sight  of  drawn  steel.  The  terrorism  in  which  he  was  brought 
up  had  increased  his  natural  timidity.  While  he  was  yet  but 
a  youth,  the  French  ambassador,  Fontenay,  suromed  up  his  de- 
scription  of  him  thus:  ''In  one  word,  he  is  an  cid  young 
man." 

Now,  in  the  thirty-sixth  year  of  his  age,  he  was  a  learned 
personage,  füll  of  prejudices,  wanting  neither  in  shrewdness  nor 
in  wit,  but  with  two  absorbing  passions — the  one  for  conversation 
on  theological  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  and  the  other  for  hunting 
expeditions,  to  whicl^  he  sometimes  gave  up  so  much  as  six 
consecutive  days.  He  had  not  Elizabeth's  political  instinct ;  she 
had  chosen  her  councillors  among  men  of  the  most  difFermt 
parties ;  he  admitted  to  his  Council  none  but  those  whose  opinions 
agreed  with  his  own.  But  his  vanity  was  quite  equal  to  hers. 
He  had  the  pedant's  boastfulness ;  he  was  fond  of  bragging,  for 
instance,  that  he  could  do  more  work  in  one  hour  than  others 
in  a  day;  and  he  was  especially  proud  of  his  leaming.  Some 
Shakespeare  students  have,  as  already  observed,  seen  in  him  the 
prototypc  of  Hamlet.     He  was  cer\2itA^  ixo  Hamlet^  but  rather 


CHARACTER  OF  JAMES  I.  413 

what  Alfred  Stern  somewhere  calls  him — a  Polonius  on  the 
throne.  We  have  a  description  by  Sir  John  Harington  of  an 
audience  James  gave  him  in  1604.  The  King  **  enquyrede  muche 
of  lemynge  "  in  such  a  way  as  to  remind  him  of  "  his  examiner  at 
Cambridge  aforetyrae,"  quoted  scraps  of  Aristotle  which  he  hardly 
understood  himself,  and  made  Harington  read  aloud  part  of  a 
canto  of  Ariosto.  Then  he  asked  him  what  he  ''thoughte  pure 
witte  was  made  of,"  and  whom  it  best  became,  and  thereupon 
inquired  whether  he  did  not  think  a  king  oiight  to  be  ^*the 
beste  clerke"  in  his  country.  Farther,  "His  Majestie  did  much 
presse  for  my  opinion  touchinge  the  power  of  Satane  in  matter 
of  witchcraft,  and  .  .  .  why  the  Devil  did  worke  more  with 
anciente  women  than  others."  This  question  Sir  John  boldly 
and  wittily  answered  by  reminding  him  of  the  preference  for 
"Walking  in  dry  places"  ascribed  in  Scripture  to  the  Devil. 
James  then  told  of  the  apparition  of  "a  bloodie  heade  dancinge 
in  the  aire,"  which  had  been  seen  in  Scotland  before  his  mothe?s 
death,  and  concluded :  '*  Now,  sir,  you  have  seen  my  wisdome  in 
some  Sorte,  and  I  have  pried  into  yours.  I  praye  you,  do  me 
justice  in  your  reporte,  and,  in  good  season,  I  will  not  fail  to  add 
to  your  understandinge,  in  suche  pointes  as  I  may  find  you  lacke 
amendmente."  Perhaps  onlyone  European  sovereign  since  James 
has  so  plumed  himself  on  his  own  omniscience. 

James's  relations  with  England  during  Elizabeth's  reign  had 
not  been  invariably  friendly.  Nourishing  a  lively  ill-will  to  the 
Presbyterian  clergy,  who  were  always  trying  to  interfere  in 
matters  of  State,  he  had  in  1584,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  appealed 
to  the  Pope  for  assistance  for  himself  and  his  imprisoned  mother. 
But  the  very  next  year,  in  consideration  of  the  payment  of  a 
pension  of  ;f40CX)  a  year,  he  concluded  a  treaty  with  Elizabeth. 
When  this  was  ratified  in  1586,  his  mother  disinherited  him  and 
nominated  Philip  IL  her  successor.  At  the  very  time  when  the 
trial  of  Mary  Stuart  was  going  on,  James  made  application  to 
have  his  title  as  heir  to  the  throne  of  England  acknowledged. 
This  unworthy,  unchivalrous  proceeding  made  it  impossible  for 
him  in  any  way  to  interfere  with  the  carrying  out  of  whatever 
sentence  the  English  Government  chose  to  pronounce  in  his 
mother's  case.  Nevertheless  her  execution  naturally  aifected 
him  painfully,  and  it  was  his  resentment  that  made  him  hasten 
on  his  long-planned  marriage  with  the  Danish  princess  Anne, 
daughter  of  Frederick  IL — an  alliance  which  hc  knew  to  be 
disagreeable  to  Elizabeth.  He  gained  a  political  advantage  by 
it,  Denmark  waiving  her  claim  to  the  Orkney  Islands. 

His  bride,  bom  at  Skanderborg  towards  the  close  of  1574, 
was  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  not  fifteen  years  old — a  pretty, 
fair-skinned,  golden-haired  girl.  Daughter  of  a  Lutheran  father 
and  the  Lutheran  Sophia  of  Mecklenburg,  she  had  been  brought 
up  in  Lutheran  orthodozy.    She  had  received  som<&\xv&\x>ic^Lvc3icivck 


414  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

chemistry  from  Tycho  Brahe;  but  her  education,  on  the  whole, 
had  been  rather  that  of  a  spoilt  child.  Great  ideas  had  been  in- 
stilled  into  her  of  what  it  meant  to  belong  to  the  royal  house  of 
Denmark,  so  that  she  agreed  with  her  future  husband  in  a  con- 
viction  of  the  importance  of  kingly  State.  Other  features  of  her 
character  were  good-humour,  inborn  wit,  and  a  superficial  gaiety 
which  sometimes  went  to  unguarded  lengths.  Her  behaviour, 
only  three  years  after  her  marriage,  gave  rise  to  a  scandal — 
public  opinion  (doubtless  unjustly)  making  James  accessory  to 
the  assassination  of  the  Earl  of  Murray,  whom  it  was  supposed 
that  he  had  good  reasons  for  wishing  out  of  the  way. 

The  difficulties  which  beset  Anne's  voyage  from  Denmark  to 
Scotland  in  1589  are  well  known.  A  storm,  for  raising  which 
many  Danish  "  witches  "  and  no  fewer  than  two  hundred  luckless 
Scottish  crones  had  to  suffer  at  the  stake,  drove  the  bride  to  Oslo 
in  Norway.  The  impatient  bridegroom  then  undertook  the  one 
romantic  adventure  of  bis  life  and  set  off  in  search  of  her.  He 
found  her  at  Oslo,  was  married  there,  and  spent  the  winter  in 
Denmark. 

As  Queen  of  Scotland,  Anne  already  showed  herseif  possessed 
by  the  same  mania  for  building  which  characterised  her  brother, 
Christian  IV.  As  Queen  of  England  she  aroused  dissatisfaction 
by  her  constant  coquetting  with  Roman  Catholicism.  By  her 
own  wish,  the  Pope  sent  her  gifts  of  all  sorts  of  Catholic  gim- 
cracks ;  they  were  taken  from  her,  and  the  bearer  was  consigned 
to  the  Tower.  She  showed  a  certain  amiable  independence  in 
the  syropathy  and  good-will  which  she  displa3red  towards  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  whom  her  husband  imprisoned  in  the  Tower; 
but  on  the  whole  she  was  an  insignificant  woman,  pleasure- 
loving  and  pomp-loving  (consequently  a  patroness  of  those  poets 
who,  like  Ben  Jonson,  wrote  masques  for  court  festivals),  and,  in 
contrast  to  the  economical  Elizabeth,  so  extravagant  that  she  was 
always  in  debt.  Very  soon  after  her  arrival  in  England,  she 
owed  enormous  sums  to  jewellers  and  other  merchants. 

The  new  King  soon  disappointed  the  hopes  which  Puritans 
and  Catholics  had  cherished  as  to  bis  tolerance.  Even  during 
the  course  of  bis  joumey  from  Edinburgh  to  London  numerous 
petitions  for  the  better  treatment  of  Dissenters  had  been  handed 
to  him,  and  he  seemed  to  give  good  promises  to  both  parties. 
But  as  early  as  January  1604,  on  the  occasion  of  a  Conference  he 
summoned  at  Hampton  Court,  there  was  a  nipture  »between  him 
and  the  Puritans — the  very  mention  of  the  word  "  Presbjrter  ** 
making  him  furious.  The  formula,  "  No  bishop,  no  king,"  though 
not  invented  by  him,  expressed  his  principles.  And  when  the 
House  of  Commons  favoured  measures  of  a  Puritan  tendency,  he 
retaliated  by  proroguing  Parliament,  afler  rebuking  the  Hottse 
in  undignified  and  boastful  terms.  He  complained  in  thi& 
ipeedi  that  whereas  in  Scotland  he  had  been  regarded  '^not 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  415 

<MiIy  as  a  king  but  as  a  counsellor/'  in  England,  on  the  contrary, 
there  was  "  nothing  but  curiosity  from  moming  to  evening  to  find 
fault  with  bis  propositions."  "There  all  things  warranted  that 
came  from  me.  Here  all  things  suspected,"  &c  &c.  The  Puritan 
clergy,  who  refused  to  accept  the  Anglican  ritual,  were  driven 
from  their  livings. 

The  Catholics  fared  still  worse.  James  had  at  first  intended 
to  lighten  the  heavy  penalties  to  which  they  were  subject,  but  the 
discovery  of  Catholic  conspiracies  led  him  to  change  bis  mind. 
The  Catholic  priests  and  the  pupils  of  the  Jesuit  schools  were 
banished.  After  the  discovery  of  Guy  Fawkes's  great  Gunpowder 
Plot  in  1605,  the  position  of  the  Catholics  naturally  became  as 
bad  as  possible. 

One  of  the  most  marked  traits  in  James's  political  character 
was  bis  eagemess  to  bring  about  and  preserve  peace  with  Spain. 
While  yet  on  the  way  to  London,  he  ordered  a  cessation  of  all 
hostilities,  and  by  1604  he  had  concluded  peace.  One  of  the 
reasons  for  bis  at  once  assuming  a  hostile  attitude  towards 
Raleigh  was  that  he  was  well  acquainted  with  Raleigh's  hatred 
of  Spain  and  disinclination  to  peace  with  that  country;  and 
Raleigh  increased  the  King's  displeasure  during  the  following 
months  by  constantly  urging  upon  him  a  war  policy.  But  there 
were  other  and  less  impersonal  reasons  for  the  King's  hostility. 
Raleigh  had  been  Elizabeth's  favourite,  and  had  in  i6ot  presented 
to  her  a  state-paper  drawn  up  by  himself  on  "  The  Dangers  of  a 
Spanish  Faction  in  Scotland/'  the  jrumotired  contents  of  which 
had  so  alarmed  James  that  he  ofiered  Elizabeth  the  assistance  of 
three  thousand  Scottish  troops  against  Spain.  Raleigh  had  been 
an  Opponent  of  Essex,  who  had  sought  support  from  James  and 
attached  himself  to  bis  fortunes.  And  what  was  worse,  he  had 
an  enemy,  though  he  scarcely  knew  it,  in  the  person  of  a  man 
who  had  opposed  Essex  much  more  strongly  than  he,  but  who 
had,  even  before  the  Queen's  death,  assured  James  of  bis  absolute 
devotion.  This  was  Robert  Cecil,  who  feared  Raleigh's  ambitioti 
and  ability. 

Raleigh  was  in  the  West  of  England  when  the  Queen  died, 
atid  could  not  at  once  join  in  the  great  rush  northwards  to  meet 
King  James,  which  emptied  London  of  all  its  nobility.  By  the 
time  he  started,  with  a  large  retinue,  to  wait  on  the  King,  he  had 
already  received  a  kind  of  command  not  to  do  so,  in  the  shape 
of  one  of  the  orders  dispensing  the  recipient  from  attendance  ön 
the  King,  which  James  had  sent  in  blank  to  Cecil,  to  be  filled 
in  with  the  names  of  those  whom  Cecil  thought  he  should  keep 
at  a  distance  James  received  Raleigh  ungraciously,  and  at  once 
told  him,  with  a  bad  pun  on  bis  name,  that  he  had  been  prejudiced 
against  him :  "  On  my  soul,  man,  I  have  heard  but  rawfy  of  thee." 
A  few  weeks  later  he  was  deprived  (though  not  without  compensa- 
Hon)  of  tbt  Office  of  Captain  of  the  Guard,  ^vVi\6\it^'^'')<»i>2^^ 


4i6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Scotchman,  Sir  Thomas  Erskine ;  and  within  the  same  month  he 
was  ordered  immediately  to  give  up  to  the  Bishop  of  Durham  the 
town  palace  of  that  See,  which  he  had  occupied,  and  on  which  he 
had  spent  great  sums  of  money. 

At  last,  one  day  in  July  1603,  as  he  was  standing  ready  to 
ride  out  with  the  King,  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned  on  a 
Charge  of  high  treason.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  series 
of  base  proceedings  against  this  eminent  man,  who  had  deserved 
so  well  of  his  country.  He  was  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  for 
thirteen  years,  and  the  persecution  ended  only  with  the  judicial 
murder  which  was  committed  when,  in  161 8,  after  making  the 
most  beautiful  speech  ever  heard  from  the  scafibld,  he  laid  his 
head  on  the  block  with  incomparable  courage  and  calm  dignity. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to-day  to  understand  how  a  man  of 
Raleigh's  worth  could  at  that  time  be  the  best-hated  man  in 
England.  For  us  he  is  simply,  as  Gardiner  has  expressed  it, 
"the  man  who  had  more  genius  than  all  the  Privy  Council  put 
together ; "  or,  as  Gosse  has  called  him,  "  the  figure  which  takes 
the  same  place  in  the  field  of  action  which  Shakespeare  takes  in 
that  of  Imagination  and  Bacon  in  that  of  thought."  But  that  he 
was  generally  hated  at  the  time  of  his  imprisonment  is  certain. 

Many  disliked  him  as  the  enemy  of  Essex.  It  was  said  that 
in  Essex's  last  hours  Raleigh  had  jeered  at  him.  Raleigh  him- 
self  wrote  in  161 8: — 

"  It  is  said  I  was  a  persecutor  of  my  Lord  of  Essex ;  that  I  puffed 
out  tobacco  in  disdain  when  he  was  on  the  scaffold.  But  I  take  God 
to  witness  I  shed  tears  for  him  when  he  died.  I  confess  I  was  of  a 
contrary  faction,  but  I  knew  he  was  a  noble  gentleman.  Those  that 
set  me  up  against  him  [evidently  Cecil]  did  afterwards  set  themselyes 
against  me." 

But  what  mattered  the  falseness  of  the  accusation  if  it  was 
believed  ?  And  there  were  other,  much  less  reasonable,  grounds 
of  hatred.  From  one  of  Raleigh's  letters,  written  in  the  last  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  we  learn  that  the  tavem-keepers  throughout 
the  country  held  him  responsible  for  a  tax  imposed  on  them, 
which  was  in  fact  due  solely  to  the  Queen's  rapacity.  In  this 
letter  he  prays  Cecil  to  prevail  on  Elizabeth  to  remit  the  tax,  for, 
says  he :  "I  cannot  live,  nor  show  my  face  out  of  my  doors, 
without  it,  nor  dare  ride  through  the  towns  where  these  taverners 
dwell."  It  seems  as  if  his  very  greatness  had  marked  him  out 
for  universal  hatred ;  and,  being  conscious  of  his  worth,  he  would 
not  stoop  to  a  truckling  policy. 

There  was  much  that  was  popularly  winning  about  the  tall^ 
vigorous,  rather  large-boned  Raleigh,  with  his  bright  complexion 
and  his  open  expression ;  but,  like  a  true  son  of  the  Renaissance^ 
he  challenged  dislike  by  his  pride  and  magnificence.  His  dress 
was  always  splendid,  and  he  ioved,  like  a  Persian  Shah  or  Indian 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  417 

Rajah  of  our  day,  to  cover  himself,  down  to  bis  shoes,  with  the 
most  precious  jewels.  When  he  was  arrested  in  1603,  he  had 
gems  to  the  value  of  £4000  (about  i^20,ocx)  in  modern  money)  on 
bis  breast,  and  wben  be  was  thrown  into  prison  for  the  last  time 
in  16 18,  bis  pockets  were  found  füll  of  jewels  and  golden  Orna- 
ments wbicb  be  had  bastily  stripped  off  bis  dress. 

He  was  worsbipped  by  those  who  had  served  under  bim; 
tbey  valued  bis  qualities  of  beart  as  well  as  bis  energy  and 
intellect  But  the  crowd,  wbom  he  treated  with  disdain,  and  the 
courtiers  and  statesmen  with  wbom  be  bad  competed  for  Elizabetb's 
favour,  saw  notbing  in  bim  but  matcbless  effrontery  and  unscnipu- 
lousness.  In  spite  of  the  favour  he  enjoyed,  bis  rivals  prevented 
bis  ever  attaining  any  of  the  higbest  posts.  On  those  naval 
expeditions  in  wbich  he  most  distinguisbed  bimself,  bis  place  was 
always  second  in  command.  He  was  baulked  even  in  the  desire 
wbicb  be  cherished  during  Elizabetb's  later  years  for  a  place  in 
the  Priyy  Council. 

He  was  now  over  fifty,  and  aged  before  bis  time.  His  untrust- 
worthy  fhend,  Lord  Cobham^  was  suspected  of  complicity  in 
Watson's  Catholic  plot;  and  this  suspicion  extended  to  Raleigb, 
who  was  thought  to  have  been  a  party  to  intrigues  for  the 
detbronement  of  James  in  favour  of  his  kinswoman,  Arabella 
Stuart  He  was  tried  for  high  treason;  and  as  the  law  then 
stood  in  England,  any  man  accused  of  such  a  crime  was  as  good 
as  lost,  bowever  innocent  be  might  be.  ''A  Century  later/' 
says  Mr.  Gardiner,  ''Raleigb  might  well  bave  smiled  at  the 
evidence  wbicb  was  brought  against  bim."  Then  tbe  law  was 
as  cruel  as  it  was  unjust.  Tbe  accused  was  considered  guilty 
until  be  proved  bis  innocence ;  no  advocate  was  allowed  to  plead 
bis  cause;  unprepared,  at  a  moment's  notice,  be  had  to  refute 
cbarges  wbicb  bad  been  carefuUy  accumulated  and  marshalled 
against  bim  during  a  long  period.  Tbat  a  man  sbould  be  sus- 
pected of  such  an  enormity  as  desiring  to  bring  Spanisb  armies 
on  to  tbe  free  soil  of  England  was  enougb  to  deprive  bim  at  once 
of  aU  sympathy.  Little  wonder  tbat  Raleigb,  a  few  days  aller 
bis  indictment,  tried  to  commit  suicide.  His  famous  letter  to  bis 
wife,  written  before  the  attempt,  gives  consummate  expression  to 
a  great  man's  despair  in  face  of  a  destiny  wbicb  be  does  not  fear, 
yet  cannot  master. 

Wbile  this  tragedy  was  being  enacted  in  tbe  Tower,  Londoa 
was  making  magnificent  preparations  for  tbe  State  entrance  of 
King  James  and  Queen  Anne  into  their  new  capital.  Seven 
beautifui  triumphal  arches  were  erected ;  ''  England's  Caesar,"  as 
Henry  Petowe  in  bis  coronation  ode  with  some  little  exaggeration 
entitled  James,  was  exalted  and  glorified  by  tbe  poets  of  the  day 
with  as  great  entbusiasm  as  thougb  bis  exploits  had  already  . 
rivalled  those  of  "mightiest  Julius." 

Henry  Cbettlc  wrote  TA^  Shepheatis  Spring  Song  for  iK% 


41 8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Entertainment  of  King  James ^  cur  most  potent  Sovereign; 
Samuel  Daniel,  A  Panegyrike  Congratulatorie  to  the  Kin^s 
Majestie ;  Michael  Drayton,  To  the  Majestie  of  King  James ^  a 
Gratulatorie  Poem,  The  actor  Thomas  Greene  composed  A 
Poefs  Vision  and  a  Prince's  Glorie.  Dedicated  to  the  high  and 
mightie  Prince  James^  King  of  England^  Scotland,  France  and 
Ireland;  and  scores  of  other  poets  lifted  up  their  voices  in  song. 
Daniel  wrote  a  masque  which  was  acted  at  Hampton  Court; 
Dekker,  a  description  of  the  King*s  "  Triumphant  Passage,"  with 
poetic  dialogues ;  Ben  Jonson,  a  similar  description ;  and  Drayton, 
a  Pcean  TriumphalL  Ben  Jonson  also  produced  a  masque  called 
PenateSf  and  another  entitled  The  Masque  of  Blackness ;  while 
a  host  of  lesser  lights  wrote  poems  in  the  same  style.  The 
unohtrusivCi  mildly  flattering  allusions  to  James,  which  we  have 
found  and  shall  presently  find  in  Shakespeare's  plays  of  this 
period,  produce  an  exceedingly  feeble,  almost  imperceptible  cflFect 
amid  this  storm  of  adulation.  To  have  omitted  them  altogether, 
or  to  have  made  them  in  the  slightest  degree  less  deferential, 
would  have  been  gratuitously  and  indefensibly  churlish,  in  view 
of  the  favour  which  James  had  made  haste  to  extend  to  Shake- 
speare's  Company. 

It  is  most  interesting  to-day  to  read  the  programme  of  the 
royal  procession  from  the  Tower  to  Whitehall  in  1604,  in  which 
all  the  dignitaries  of  the  realm  took  part,  and  all  the  privileged 
dasses,  court,  nobility,  clergy,  royal  guard,  were  fuUy  represented 

In  the  middle  of  the  enormous  procession  rides  the  King 
under  a  canopy.  Immediately  before  him,  the  dukes,  marquises, 
eldest  sons  of  dukes,  earls,  &c.  &c.  Immediately  behind  him 
eomes  the  Queen,  and  after  her  all  the  first  ladies  of  the  king- 
dom — duchesses,  marchionesses,  countesses,  viscountesses,  &c. 
Among  the  ladies  mentioned  by  name  is  Lady  Rieh,  with  the 
note,  "by  especiall  comandement."  At  the  foot  of  the  page, 
another  note  runs  thus :  "  To  go  as  a  daughter  to  Henry  Bourchier, 
Earl  of  Essez."  James  desired  to  honour  in  her  the  memory 
of  her  ill-fated  brother.  Among  the  lawyers  in  the  procession 
Sir  Francis  Bacon  has  a  place  of  honour;  he  is  described  as 
''  the  King's  Counsell  at  Lawe."  Bacon's  leaming  and  obsequious 
pliancy,  James's  pedantry  and  monarchical  arrogance,  quickly 
brought  these  two  together.  But  among  "His  Majest^s  Scr- 
vants,"  at  the  very  head  of  the  procession,  immediately  after  the 
heralds  and  the  Prince's  and  Queen's  men-in-waitingy  William 
Shakespeare  was  no  doubt  to  be  seen,  dressed  in  a  suit  of  red 
cloth,  which  the  court  accounts  show  to  have  been  provided  for 
him. 

James  was  a  great  lover  of  the  play,  but  Scotland  had  neidiei 
drama  nor  actors  of  her  own.  Not  long  before  this,  in  1 599,  he 
had  vigorously  opposed  the  resolution  of  his  Presbyterian  Coundl 
to  forbid  Performances  by  EngUsh  actors. 


JAMES  I.'S  ENTRY  INTO  LONDON  419 

As  early  as  May  17,  1603,  he  had  granted  the  patent  Pro 
Laurentio  Fletcher  et  Willielmo  Shakespeare  et  aliis^  which  pro- 
moted  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Company  to  be  the  King's  own 
actors. 

The  fact  that  Lawrence  Fletcher  is  named  first  gives  us  a  clue 
to  the  reasons  for  this  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the  King.  In 
the  records  of  the  Town  Council  of  Aberdeen  for  October  1601, 
there  is  an  entry  to  the  eflfect  that,  by  special  recommendation  of 
the  King,  a  gratuity  was  paid  to  a  Company  of  players  for  their 
Performances  in  the  town,  and  that  the  freedom  of  the  city  was 
conferred  on  one  of  these  actors,  Lawrence  Fletcher.  There 
can  be  hardly  any  doubt  that  Charles  Knight,  in  spite  of  Elze's 
objections  in  his  Essays  on  Shakespeare^  is  correct  in  his  opinion 
that  this  Fletcher  was  an  Englishman,  and  that  he  was  closely 
connected  with  Shakespeare;  for  the  actor  Augustine  Philipps, 
who,  in  1605,  bequeaths  thirty  Shillings  in  gold  to  his  ''fellowe" 
William  Shakespeare,  likewise  bequetths  twenty  Shillings  to  his 
"  fellowe  "  Lawrence  Fletcher. 

James  arrived  in  London  on  the  7th  of  May  1603,  removed 
to  Greenwich  on  account  of  the  plague  on  the  I3th,  and,  as 
already  mentioned,  dated  the  patent  from  there  on  the  i/th.  It 
can  scarcely  be  süpposed  that,  in  so  short  a  space  of  time,  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  men  should  not  only  have  played  before 
James,  but  so  powerfully  impressed  him  that  he  at  once  advanced 
them  to  be  his  own  Company.  He  must  evidently  have  known 
them  before ;  perhaps  he  already,  as  King  of  Scotland,  had  some 
of  them  in  his  Service.  This  supposition  is  supported  by  the  fact 
that,  as  we  have  seen,  some  members  of  Shakespeare's  Company 
were  in  Aberdeen  in  the  autiman  of  1601.  It  is  even  probable 
that  Shakespeare  himself  was  in  Scotland  with  his  comrades. 
In  Madeth,  he  has  altered  the  meadow-land,  which  Holinshed 
represents  as  lying  around  Invemess,  into  the  heath  which  is 
really  characteristic  of  the  district ;  and  the  whole  play,  with  its 
numerous  allusions  to  Scottish  affairs,  bears  the  impress  of 
having  been  conceived  on  Scottish  soil.  Possibly  Shakespeare's 
thoughts  were  hovering  round  the  Scottish  tragedy  while  he 
passed  along  in  the  procession  with  the  royal  arms  on  his  red 
drcss.* 

^  S.  R.  Gardiner :  History  of  England^  toL  i.  Thomas  Milner :  Tkt  History  of 
England,  Alfred  Stern :  Geschichte  der  Devolution  in  England,  Gosse :  RalHgh, 
J.  Nicols :  The  Prozesses ^  Processions^  and  Magnificent  Festimties  of  King  James 
the  First^  voL  i.  Disraeli :  An  Jnquiry  into  the  IMerary  and  Political  Chc^acter  of 
James  the  First,  Dictionary  of  NaHanal  Biography :  James^  Anne,  Nathan  Diake : 
Shakespeare  and  his  lümes. 


XXII 

MACBETH— MACBETH  AND  HAMLET— DIFFICULTIBS 
ARISING  FROM  THE  STATE  OF  THE  TEXT 

DOWDEN  somewhere  remarks  that  if  Shakespeare  had  died  at 
the  age  of  forty,  posterity  would  have  said  that  this  was  certainly 
a  great  loss,  but  would  have  found  comfort  in  the  thought  that 
Hamlet  marked  the  zenith  of  his  productive  power — he  could 
hardly  have  written  another  such  masterpiece. 

And  now  foUow  in  rapid  succession  Macbeth^  Othello^  King 
Lear^  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  the  rest.  Hamlet  was  not  the 
conclusion  of  a  career ;  Hamlet  was  the  spring-board  from  which 
Shakespeare  leaped  forth  into  a  whole  new  world  of  mystery  and 
awe.  Dowden  has  happily  compared  the  tragic  figures  that  glide 
one  after  the  other  across  his  field  of  vision  between  1604  and 
1610  with  the  bloody  and  threatening  apparitions  that  pass  before 
Macbeth  in  the  witches'  cavem. 

The  natural  tendency  of  his  youth  had  been  to  see  good 
everywhere.  He  had  even  feit,  with  his  King  Henry,  that  "therc 
is  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil."  Now,  when  the  miseiy 
of  life,  the  problem  of  evil,  presented  itself  to  his  inward  eye,  it 
was  especially  the  potency  of  wickedness  that  impressed  him  as 
Strange  and  terrible.  We  have  seen  him  brooding  over  it  in 
Hamlet  and  Measure  for  Measure.  He  had  of  course  recog- 
nised  it  before,  and  represented  it  on  the  grandest  scale ;  but  in 
Richard  HL  the  main  emphasis  is  still  laid  on  outward  histoiy; 
Richard  is  the  same  man  from  his  first  appearance  to  his  last 
What  now  fascinates  Shakespeare  is  to  show  how  the  man  into 
whose  veins  evil  has  injected  some  drops  of  its  poison,  becomes 
bloated,  gangrened,  foredoomed  to  self-destruction  or  annihila- 
tion,  like  Macbeth,  Othello,  Lear.  Lady  Macbeth's  ambition^ 
lago's  malice,  the  daughters'  ingratitude,  lead,  step  by  step^  to 
irresistible,  ever-increasing  calamity. 

It  is  my  conviction  that  Macbeth  was  the  first  of  these  subjects 
which  Shakespeare  took  in  band.  All  we  know  with  certainty, 
mdeed,  is  that  the  play  was  acted.  at  the  Globe  Theatre  in  i6ia 
Dr.  Simon  Forman,  in  his  Bocke  of  Plaies  and  Notes  therean^ 
gave  a  detailed  account  of  a  Performance  of  it  at  which  he  was 
prescDt  on  the  20th  of  April  of  this  year.    But  in  the  comedy  of 


MACBETH  AND  HAMLET  421 

The  Purüan^  dating  from  1607,  we  find  an  unmistakable  allusion   • 
to  Banquo's  ghost;  and  the  lines  in  the  play  itself  (iv.  i)— 

"And  some  I  see 
That  twofold  balls  and  treble  sceptres  carry,'* 

— a  reference  to  the  union  of  England  and  Scotland,  and  thdr 
conjunction  with  Ireland  under  James — would  have  had  little 
effect  unless  spoken  from  the  stage  shortly  after  the  event  As 
James  was  proclaimed  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  on  the 
20th  of  October  1604,1  we  may  conclude  that  Macbeth  was  not 
produced  later  than  1604-1605. 

At  James's  accession  a  breath  of  Scottish  air  blew  over 
England ;  we  feel  it  in  Macbeth.  The  scene  of  the  tragedy  is 
laid  in' the  country  from  which  the  new  king  came,  and  most 
true  to  nature  is  the  reproduction  in  this  dark  drama  of  Soot- 
land's  forests  and  heaths  and  Castles,  her  passions  and  her  poetry. 

There  is  much  to  indicate  that  an  unbroken  train  of  thought 
led  Shakespeare  from  Hamlet  to  Macbeth.  The  personality  of 
Macbeth  is  a  sort  of  counterpart  to  that  of  Hamlet.  The 
Danish  prince's  nature  is  passionate,  but  refined  and  thoughtful. 
Before  the  deed  of  vengeance  which  is  imposed  upon  him  he 
is  restless,  self-reproachful,  and  self-tormenting ;  but  he  never 
betrays  the  slightest  remorse  for  a  murder  once  committed, 
though  he  kills  four  persons  before  he  Stabs  the  King.  The 
Scottish  thane  is  the  rough,  blunt  soldier,  the  man  of  action. 
He  takes  little  time  for  deliberation  before  he  strikes;  but  im- 
mediately  after  the  murder  he  is  attacked  by  hallucinations  both 
of  sight  and  hearing,  and  is  hounded  on,  wild  and  vacillating  and 
frenzied,  from  crime  to  crime.  He  stifles  bis  self-reproaches  and 
falls  at  last,  after  defending  himself  with  the  hopeless  fury  of  the 
"  bear  tied  to  the  stake." 

Hamlet  says : — 

'*  And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought* 

Macbeth,  on  the  contrary,  declares  (iv.  i) — 

"  From  this  moment 
The  very  firstlings  of  my  heart  shall  be 
The  firstlings  of  my  band." 

They  stand  at  opposite  poles — Hamlet,  the  dreamer ;  Macbeth, 
the  captain,  ''  Bellona's  bridegroom."  Hamlet  has  a  super- 
abundance  of  culture  and  of  intellectual  power.  His  strength 
is  of  the  kind  that  wears  a  mask ;  he  is  ä  master  in  the  art  of 
dissimulation.  Macbeth  is  unsophisticated  to  the  point  of  clumsi- 
ness,  betraying  himself  when  he  tries  to  deceive.  His  wife  has 
to  heg  him  not  to  show  a  troubkd  countftxiaxiC!^  \s(\aX  \a  ^^  ^i»^ 
o'er  his  rugged  looks.^ 

*  See  Appendix  II.  p.  6^. 


422  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hamlet  is  the  bom  aristocrat :  very  proud,  keenly  alive  to  bis 
wortb,  very  self-critical — too  self-critical  to  be  ambitious  in  the 
common  acceptation  of  the  word.  To  Macbeth,  on  the  contrary, 
a  sounding  title  is  honour,  and  a  wreath  on  the  head,  a  crown 
on  the  brow,  greatness,  When  the  Witches  on  the  heath,  and 
another  witch,  bis  wife  in  the  Castle,  have  held  up  before  bis 
cycs  the  glory  of  the  crown  and  the  power  of  the  sceptre,  hc 
has  found  his  great  goal — a  tangible  prize  in  this  life,  for  which 
he  is  willing  to  risk  his  welfare  in  "  the  life  to  come."  Whilst 
Hamlet,  with  his  hereditary  right,  hardly  gives  a  thought  to  the 
throne  of  which  he  has  been  robbed,  Macbeth  murders  his  king, 
his  benefactor,  his  guest,  that  he  may  plunder  him  and  his  sons 
of  a  chair  with  a  purple  canopy. 

And  yet  there  is  a  certain  resemblance  between  Macbeth 
and  Hamlet.  One  feels  that  the  two  tragedies  must  have  been 
written  dose  upon  each  other.  In  his  first  monologue  (L  7) 
Macbeth  Stands  hesitating  with  Hamlet-like  misgivings :— -> 

"  If  it  were  done,  when  't  is  done,  then  't  wäre  well 
It  were  done  quickly :  if  the  assassination 
Could  trammel  up  the  consequence,  and  catch 
With  his  surcease  success ;  that  but  this  blow 
Might  be  the  be-all  and  the  end  all  here, 
But  here,  upon  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time, — 
We'd  jump  the  life  to  come. — But  in  these  cases 
We  still  have  judgment  here." 

Hamlet  says:  Were  we  sure  that  there  is  no  future  life, 
we  should  seek  death.  Macbeth  thinks :  Did  we  not  know  that 
judgment  would  come  upon  us  here,  we  should  care  little  about 
the  life  to  come.  There  is  a  kinship  in  these  contradictory  re- 
flections.  But  Macbeth  is  not  hindered  by  his  cogitations.  He 
pricks  the  sides  of  his  intent,  as  he  says,  with  the  spur  of  ambi- 
tion,  well  knowing  that  it  will  o'erleap  itself  and  fall  He  cannot 
resist  when  he  is  goaded  onward  by  a  being  superior  to  himself, 
a  woman. 

Like  Hamlet,  he  has  imagination,  but  of  a  more  timorous  and 
visionary  cast.  It  is  through  no  peculiar  faculty  in  Hamlet  that 
he  sees  his  father's  ghost ;  others  had  seen  it  before  him  and  see 
it  with  him.  Macbeth  constantly  sees  apparitions  that  no  one 
eise  sees,  and  hears  voices  that  are  inaudible  to  others. 

When  he  has  resolved  on  the  king's  death  he  sees  a  dagger 
in  the  air:— - 

"  Is  this  a  dagger  which  I  see  before  me, 
The  handle  toward  my  band  ?    Come,  let  me  clutch  thee  :-— 
I  have  thee  not,  and  yet  I  see  thee  stiU. 
Art  thou  noty  fatal  vision,  sensible 
To  feeling,  as  to  sight?  ot  axl  thouVsoX 


THE  BELIEF  IN  WITCHES  423 

A  dagger  of  the  mind,  a  false  creation, 
Proceeding  from  the  heat-oppressed  brain  ?  " 

Directly  after  the  murder  he  has  an  Illusion  of  hearing : — 

**  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry,  *  Sleep  no  more ! 
Macbeth  does  murder  sleep.' " 

And,  very  significantly,  Macbeth  hears  this  same  voice  give 
him  the  different  titles  which  are  his  pride  : — 

"Still  it  cried,  'Sleep  no  more ! '  tö  all  the  housc : 
*  Glamis  hath  murder'd  sleep,  and  therefore  Cawdor 
Shall  sleep  no  more,  Macbeth  shall  sleep  no  more  1 ' '' 

Yet  another  parallel  shows  the  kinship  between  the  Danish 
and  the  Scottish  tragedy.  It  is  in  these  dramas  alone  that  the 
dead  leave  their  graves  and  reappear  on  the  scene  of  life ;  in  them 
alone  a  breath  from  the  spirit-world  reaches  the  atmosphere  of  the 
living.  There  is  no  trace  of  Ihe  supematural  eiil^^jcmjOJieäo  or 
in  King  Lear. 

No  more  here  than  in  Hamlet  are  we  to  understand  by  the 
introduction  of  supematural  elements  that  an  independently- 
working  superhuman  power  actively  interferes  in  human  life; 
these  elements  are  transparent  symbols.  Nevertheless  the  super« 
natural  beings  that  make  their  appearance  are  not  to  be  taken  as 
mere  illusions;  they  are  distinctly  conceived  as  having  a  real 
existence  outside  the  sphere  of  hallucination.  As  in  Hamlet^  the  ^ 
Ghost  is  not  seen  by  the  prince  alone,  so  in  Macbeth  it  is  not 
only  Macbeth  himself  who  sees  the  Witches ;  they  even  appear 
with  their  queen,  Hecate,  when  there  is  no  one  to  see  them 
ezcept  the  spectators  of  the  play. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  whole  spirit-  and  witch- 
world  meant  something  quite  different  to  Shakespeare's  con- 
temporaries  from  what  it  means  to  us.  We  cannot  even  be 
absolutely  certain  that  Shakespeare  himself  did  not  believe  \n 
the  possible  existence  of  such  beings.  Great  poets  have  seldom 
been  consistent  in  their  incredulity — even  Holberg  believed  that 
he  had  seen  a  ghost.  But  Shakespeare's  own  attitude  of  mind 
matters  less  than  that  of  the  public  for  whom  he  wrote. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  Century  the  English  people 
still  believed  in  a  great  variety  of  evil  spirits,  who  disturbed  the 
Order  of  nature,  produced  storms  by  land  and  sea,  foreboded 
calamities  and  death,  disseminated  plague  and  famine.  They  were 
for  the  most  part  pictured  as  old,  wrinkled  women,  who  brewed 
all  kinds  of  frightful  enormities  in  hellish  cauldrons ;  and  when 
such  beldams  were  thought  to  have  been  detected,  the  law  u>ok 
vengeance  on  them  with  fire  and  sword.  In  a  sermon  preacK^d 
in  1588,  Bishop  Jewel  appealed  to  Eiizibeih  Xx>  \ak&  %\.t^^% 


424  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

measures  against  wizards  and  witches.  Some  years  later,  one 
Mrs.  Dyer  was  accused  of  witchcraft  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  toothache  had  for  some  nights  prevented  the  Queen  from 
sleeping.  In  the  small  town  of  St  Osees  in  Essex  alone,  seventy 
or  eighty  witches  were  bumt.  In  a  book  called  "The  Discoveric 
of  Witchcraft/'  published  in  1584,  Reginald  Scott  refuted  the 
doctrine  of  sorcery  and  magic  with  wonderful  cleamess  and 
liberal-mindedness ;  but  his  voice  was  lost  in  the  chorus  of  the 
superstitious.  King  James  himself  was  one  of  the  most  prominent 
Champions  of  superstition.  He  was  present  in  person  at  the  trial 
by  torture  of  two  bmidred  witches  who  were  bumt  for  occasioning 
the  storm  which  prevented  his  bride's  crossing  to  Scotland.  Many 
of  them  confessed  to  having  ridden  through  the  air  on  broomsticks 
or  invisible  chariots  drawn  by  snails,  and  admitted  that  they  were 
able  to  make  themselves  invisible — an  art  of  which  they,  strangely 
enough,  did  not  avail  themselves  to  escape  the  law.  In  1 597  James 
himself  produced  in  his  Dcsmonologie  a  kind  of  handbook  or  text- 
book  of  witchcraft  in  all  its  developments,  and  in  1598  he  caused 
no  fewer  than  600  old  women  to  be  burnt.  In  the  Parliament  of 
1604  a  bill  against  sorcery  was  brought  in  by  the  Government  and 
passed. 

Shakespeare  produced  wonderful  effects  in  Hamlet  by  drawing 
on  this  faith  in  spirits ;  the  apparition  on  the  castle  platform  is 
sublime  in  its  way,  though  the  speech  of  the  Ghost  is  far  too 
long.  Now,  in  Macbeth^  with  the  Witches'  meeting,  he  strikes  the 
keynote  of  the  drama  at  the  very  outset,  as  surely  as  with  a 
tuning-fork ;  and  wherever  the  Witches  reappear  the  same  note 
recurs.  But  still  more  admirable,  both  psychologically  and  sceni- 
cally,  is  the  scene  in  which  Macbeth  sees  Banquo's  ghost  sitting 
in  his  own  seat  at  the  banquet-table.     The  wonis  run  thus : — 

"  Rosse,  Please  it  your  highness 

To  grace  us  with  your  royal  Company  ? 

Macbeth.  The  table's  fulL 

Lennox,  Here  is  a  place  reserv'd,  sir. 

M(ub,  Where? 

Len,  Here,  my  good  lord.     What  is't  that  moves  your  highness? 

M(ub,  Which  of  you  have  done  this? 

Lords.  What,  my  good  lord? 

Mad>,  Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it :  never  shaJce 
Thy  gory  locks  at  me." 

The  grandeur,  depth,  and  extraordinary  dramatic  and  theatrical 
efiect  of  this  passage  are  almost  unequalled  in  the  history  of  the 
drama. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  well-nigh  the  whole  outline  of  this 
tragedy — from  a  dramatic  and  theatrical  point  of  view  it  is 
beyond  all  praise.  The  Witches  on  the  heath,  the  scene  before 
the  murder  of  Duncan»  the  sleep-walking  of  Lady  Macbeth ao 


DEFECTIVE  TEXT  425 

potent  is  the  effect  of  these  and  other  episodes  that  they  are  bumt 
for  ever  on  the  spectator's  memory. 

No  wonder  that  Macbeth  has  become  in  later  times  Shake- 
speare's  most  populär  tragedy — his  typical  oQe,  appreciated  even 
by  those  who,  except  in  this  instance,  have  not  been  able  to  value 
him  as  he  deserves.  Not  one  of  his  other  dramas  is  so  simple  in 
coraposition  as  this,  no  other  keeps  like  this  to  a  Single  plane. 
There  is  no  desultoriness  or  halting  in  the  action  as  in  Hamlet^ 
no  double  action  as  in  King  Lear.  All  is  quite  simple  and  ac- 
cording  to  rule:  the  snowball  is  set  rolling  and  becomes  the 
avalanche.  And  although  there  are  gaps  in  it  on  account  of 
the  defective  text,  and  although  there  may  here  and  there  be 
ambiguities — in  the  character  of  Lady  Macbeth,  for  instance — 
yet  there  is  nothing  enigmatic,  there  are  no  riddles  to  perplex 
US.  Nothing  lies  concealed  between  the  lines ;  all  is  grand  and 
dear — ^grandeur  and  cleamess  itself. 

And  yet  I  confess  that  this  play  seems  to  me  one  of  Shake- 
speare's  less  interesting  efforts;  not  from  the  artistic,  but  from  the 
purely  human  point  of  view.  It  is  a  rieh,  highly  moral  melo- 
drama ;  but  only  at  occasional  points  in  it  do  I  feel  the  beating 
of  Shakespeare's  heart 

My  comparative  coolness  of  feeling  towards  Macbeth  may 
possibly  be  due  in  a  considerable  degree  to  the  shamefully  muti- 
lated  form  in  which  this  tragedy  has  been  handed  down  to  us. 
Who  knows  what  it  may  have  been  when  it  came  from  Shake- 
speare's  own  band !  The  text  we  possess,  which  was  not  printed 
tili  long  after  the  poet's  death,  is  clipped,  pruned,  and  compressed 
for  acting  purposes.  We  can  feel  distinctly  where  the  gaps  occur, 
but  that  is  of  no  avail. 

The  abnormal  shortness  of  the  play  is  in  itself  an  indication 
of  what  has  happened.  In  spite  of  its  wealth  of  incident,  it  is 
distinctly  Shakespeare's  shortest  work.  There  are  3924  lines  in 
Hamlet^  3599  in  Richard  III. ,  &c.,  &c.,  while  in  Macbeth  there 
are  only  1993. 

It  is  plain,  moreover,  that  the  structure  of  the  piece  has  been 
tiampered  with.  The  dialogue  between  Malcolm  and  Macduff 
(iv.  3),  which,  strictly  speaking,  must  be  called  superfluous  from 
the  dramatic  point  of  view,  is  so  long  as  to  form  about  an  eighth 
part  of  the  whole  tragedy.  It  may  be  presumed  that  the  other 
scenes  originally  stood  in  some  sort  of  proportion  to  this;  for 
there  is  no  other  instance  in  Shakespeare's  work  of  a  similar 
dispropordon. 

In  certain  places  omissions  are  distinctly  feit  Lady  Macbeth 
(i.  5)  proposes  to  her  hüsband  that  he  shall  murder  Duncan.  He 
gives  no  answer  to  this.  In  the  next  scene  the  King  arrives.  In 
the  next  again,  Macbeth's  deliberations  as  to  whether  or  not  he 
is  to  commit  the  murder  are  all  over,  and  he  is  only  thinkui^Vv^Hi 
it  can  be  done  witfa  impunity.    When  he  Yivfcx^)  «xA  «&?]%  \s^\fis.^ 


426  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

wife,  '*  I  dare  do  all  that  may  become  a  man ;  who  dares  do  more 
is  none,"  her  ans  wer  shows  how  much  is  wanting  herc : — 

"  When  you  durst  do  it,  then  you  were  a  man ; 
And,  to  be  more  than  what  you  were,  you  would 
Be  so  much  more  the  man.     Nor  time  nor  place 
Did  then  adhere,  and  yet  you  would  make  both." 

We  spectators  or  readers  know  nothing  of  all  this.  There  has 
not  even  been  time  for  the  shortest  conversation  between  husband 
and  wife. 

Shakespeare  took  the  material  for  his  tragedy  from  the 
same  source  on  which  he  drew  for  all  his  English  histories — 
Holinshed's  Chronicle  to  wit.  In  this  case  Holinshed,  at  no 
time  a  trustworthy  historian,  simply  reproduced  a  passage  of 
Hector  Boece's  Scotorutn  Historie,  Macdonwald's  rebellion  and 
Sweno's  Viking  invasion  are  fahles;  Banquo  and  Fleance,  as 
founders  of  the  racc  of  Stuart,  are  inventions  of  the  chroniclers. 
There  was  a  blood-feud  between  the  house  of  Duncan  and  the 
house  of  Macbeth.  Lady  Macbeth,  whose  real  name  was  Gruoch, 
was  the  granddaughter  of  a  king  who  had  been  killed  by  Malcolm 
IL,  Duncan's  grandfather.  Her  first  husband  had  been  bumt 
in  his  Castle  with  fifty  friends.  Her  only  brother  was  killed  by 
Malcolm's  order.  Macbeth's  father  also,  Finlegh  or  Finley,  had 
been  killed  in  a  contest  with  Malcolm.  Therefore  they  both  had 
the  right  to  a  blood-revenge  on  Duncan.  Nor  did  Macbeth  sin 
against  the  laws  of  hospitality  in  taking  Duncan's  life.  He 
attacked  and  killed  him  in  the  open  field.  It  is  further  to  be 
observed  that  by  the  Scottish  laws  of  succession  he  had  a  better 
right  to  the  throne  than  Duncan.  After  having  seized  the  throne 
he  ruled  firmly  and  justly.  There  is  a  quite  adequate  paycho- 
logical  basis  for  the  real  facts  of  the  year  1040,  though  it  is  much 
simpler  than  that  underlying  the  imaginary  events  of  Holinshed's 
Chronicle,  which  form  the  subject  of  the  tragedy. 

Shakespeare  on  the  whole  follows  Holinshed  with  great 
exactitude,  but  diverges  from  him  in  one  or  two  particulars. 
According  to  the  Chronicle,  Banquo  was  accessory  to  the  murder 
of  Duncan ;  Shakespeare  alters  this  in  order  to  give  King  James 
a  progenitor  of  unblemished  reputation.  Instead  of  using  the 
account  of  the  murder  which  is  given  in  the  Chronicle,  Shake- 
speare takes  and  applies  to  Duncan's  case  all  the  particulars 
of  the  murder  of  King  Duffe,  Lady  Macbeth's  grandfather,  as 
committed  by  the  captain  of  the  castle  of  Forres,  who  **bcing 
the  more  kindled  in  wrath  by  the  words  of  his  wife,  determined 
to  follow  her  advice  in  the  execution  of  so  heinous  an  act"  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  the  finest  parts  of  the  drama, 
such  as  the  appearance  of  Banquo's  ghost  and  Lady  Macbeth's 
sleep-walking  scene,  are  due  to  Shakespeare  alone. 

Somc  Sensation  was  made  in  the  '^eix  177E  b^  the  disccnperjF 


"  MACBETH  **  437 

d  the  manuscript  of  TAe  WtUA,  a  play  by  Shakespeare's  contem- 
»rary  Middleton,  containing  in  their  entirety  two  songs  which 
ire  only  indicated  in  Macbeth  by  the  quotation  of  their  first  lines. 
rhese  are  "Come  away,  come  away  "  (iii.  S),  and  "Black  spirits, 
fec.*'  (iv.  i).  A  very  idle  dispute  arose  as  to  whether  Shakespeare 
lad  here  made  use  of  Middleton  or  Middleton  of  Shakespeare. 
The  latter  is  certainly  the  more  probable  assumption,  if  we  must 
Lssume  either  to  have  borrowed  from  the  other.  It  is  likely 
»oughy  however,  that  Single  lines  of  the  lesser  poet  have  here 
ind  there  been  interpolated  in  the  witch  scenes  of  Shakespeare's 
ext  as  contained  in  the  Folio  edition. 

Shakespeare  has  employed  in  the  treatment  of  this  subject  a 
ttyle  that  suits  it — ^vehement  to  violence,  compressed  to  conges- 
ion — figures  treading  upon  each  other's  heels,  while  general 
>hilosophic  reflections  occur  but  rarely.  It  is  a  style  eminently 
itted  to  express  and  to  awaken  terror;  its  tone  is  not  altered, 
)ut  only  softened,  even  in  the  painfuUy  touching  conversation  be- 
ween  Lady  Macduff  and  her  little  son.  It  is  sustained  through- 
>ut  with  only  one  break — the  excellent  burlesque  monologue  of 
he  Porter. 

The  play  centres  entirely  round  the  two  chief  characters, 
tfacbeth  and  Lady  Macbeth ;  in  their  minds  the  essential  action 
akes  place.     The  other  personages  are  only  outlined. 

The  Witches'  song,  with  which  the  tragedy  opens,  ends  with 
hat  admirable  line,  in  which  ugliness  and  beauty  are  confounded : — 

"  Fair  is  foul,  and  foul  is  fair." 

\nd  it  is  significant  that  Macbeth,  who  has  not  heard  this  refrain, 
ecalls  it  in  his  very  first  speech : — 

*'  So  foul  and  fair  a  day  I  have  not  seen.** 

!t  seems  as  if  these  words  were  ringing  in  his  ears ;  and  this 
breshadows  the  mysterious  bond  between  him  and  the  Witches. 
tf any  of  these  delicate  consonances  and  contrasts  may  be  noted 
n  the  Speeches  of  this  tragedy. 

After  Lady  Macbeth,  who  is  introduced  to  the  spectator 
dready  perfected  in  wickedness,  has  said  to  herseif  (i.  5)— 

"  The  raven  himself  is  hoarse, 
That  croaks  the  fatal  entrance  of  Duncan 
Under  my  battlements," 

he  next  scene  opens  serenely  with  the  charming  pictures  of  the 
bllowing  dialogue : — 

"  Duncan.  This  Castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat ;  the  air 
Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 


428  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Bahquo.  This  guest  of  summer, 

The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve, 
By  his  lov'd  mansionry,  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here :  no  jutty,  frieze, 
Buttress,  nor  coign  of  vantage,  but  this  bird 
Hath  made  his  pendent  bed  and  procreant  cradle : 
Where  they  most  breed  and  haunt,  I  have  observ*d 
The  air  is  delicate." 

Then  the  poet  immediately  plunges  anew  into  the  study  of  this 
lean,  slight,  hard  woman,  consumed  by  lust  of  power  and  spien- 
dour.  Though  by  no  means  the  impassive  murderess  she  fain 
would  be,  she  yet  goads  her  husband,  by  the  force  of  her  far 
stronger  will,  to  commit  the  crime  which  she  declares  he  has 
promised  her : — 

"  I  have  given  suck,  and  know 
How  tender  'tis  to  love  the  habe  that  milks  me : 
I  would,  while  it  was  smiling  in  my  face, 
Have  pluck'd  my  nipple  from  its  boneless  gums, 
And  dash'd  the  brains  out,  had  I  so  sworn  as  you 
Have  done  to  this." 

So  coarsely  callous  is  she !  And  yet  she  is  less  hardened  than 
she  would  make  herseif  out  to  be ;  for  when,  just  after  this,  she  has 
laid  the  daggers  ready  for  her  husband,  she  says : — 

"  Had  he  not  resembled 
My  father  as  he  slept,  I  had  done  't." 

The  absolutely  masterly,  thrilling  scene  between  husband  and 
wife  after  the  murder,  is  foliowed,  in  horrible,  humoristic  contrast, 
by  the  fantastic  interlude  of  the  Porter.  He  conceives  himself  to 
be  keeping  watch  at  hell-gate,  and  admitting,  amongst  others,  an 
equivocating  Jesuit,  with  his  casuistry  and  reservatio  mentalis  : 
and  his  soliloquy  is  foliowed  by  a  dialogue  with  Macduff  on  the 
influence  of  drink  upon  erotic  inclination  and  capacity.  It  is 
well  known  that  Schiller,  in  accordance  with  classical  prejudices, 
omitted  the  monologue  in  his  translation,  and  replaced  it  by  a 
pious  moming-song.  What  seems  more  remarkable  is  that  an 
English  poet  like  Coleridge  should  have  föund  its  effect  disturb- 
ing  and  considered  it  spurious.  Without  exactly  ranking  with 
Shakespeare's  best  low-comedy  interludes,  it  aäbrds  a  highly 
effective  contrast  to  what  goes  before  and  what  follows,  and  is 
really  an  invaluable  and  indispensable  ingredient  in  the  tragedy. 
A  Short  break  in  the  action  was  required  at  this  point,  to  give 
Macbeth  and  his  wife  time  to  dress  themselves  in  their  night- 
clothes ;  and  what  interruption  could  be  more  effective  than  the 
knocking  at  the  Castle  gate,  which  makes  them  both  thrill  with 
terror,  and  gives  occasion  to  the  Porter  episode  ? 

Another  of  the  gems  of  lYie  p\a^  i&  tbi^  scjene  Ctv.  J)  between 


"  MACBETH  "  429 

Lady  Macduff  and  her  wise  little  son,  before  the  murderers  come 
and  kill  them  both.  All  the  witty  child's  sayings  are  interest- 
ing,  and  the  mother's  bitterly  pessimistic  Speeches  are  not  only 
wonderfully  characteristic  of  her,  but  also  of  the  poet's  own  pre- 
sent  frame  of  mind : — 

"Whithershouldifly? 
I  have  done  no  härm.     But  I  remember  now 
I  am  in  this  earthly  world,  where,  to  do  härm, 
Is  often  laudable ;  to  do  good,  sometime, 
Accounted  dangerous  folly :  why  then,  alas  1 
Do  I  put  up  that  womanly  defence, 
To  say  I  have  done  no  harm?*^ 

Equally  despairing  is  Macduff  s  ejaculation  when  he  leams  of 
the  slaughter  in  his  home :  ''  Did  heaven  look  on,  and  would  not 
take  their  part  ?  "  The  beginning  of  this  lengthy  scene  (iv.  3),  with 
its  endless  dialogue  between  Malcolm  and  Macduff,  which  Shake- 
speare has  transcribed  literally  from  his  Holinshed,  is  weak  and 
flagging.  It  presents  hardly  any  point  of  interest  except  the  far- 
fetched  account  of  King  Edward  the  Confessor's  power  of  curing 
the  king's  evil,  evidently  dragged  in  for  the  sake  of  paying  King 
James  a  compliment  which  the  poet  knew  he  would  value,  in  the 
linea«- 

"'Tis  spoken, 

To  the  succeeding  royalty  he  leaves 

The  healing  benediction." 

But  the  close  of  the  scene  is  admirable,  when  Rosse  breaks  the 
news  to  Macduff  of  the  attack  on  his  Castle  and  the  massacre 
of  his  family : — 

*'  Macd.  My  children  too  ? 

Rosse,  T^e,  children,  servants,  all 

That  could  be  found. 

McutL  And  I  must  be  from  thence ! 

Mywifekill'dtoo? 

Rosse.  I  have  said. 

Mal,  Be  comforted : 

Let*s  make  us  medicines  of  our  great  revenge, 
To  eure  this  deadly  grief. 

Macd.  He  has  no  children. — All  my  pretty  ones? 
Did  you  say,  aU?— O  hell-kite !— All? 
What,  all  my  pretty  chickens,  and  their  dam,       *> 
At  one  feil  swoop  ? 

MaL  Dispute  it  like  a  man. 

Macd.  I  shall  do  80 ; 

But  I  must  also  feel  it  as  a  man : 
I  cannot  but  remember  such  things  were, 
That  were  most  predous  to  me. — Did  Heaven  lo^k  «ik 
And  waM  t¥fi  taJU  thär  pari  V 


430  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  voice  of  revolt  makes  itself  heard  in  these  words,  tbt 
same  voice  that  sounds  later  through  the  despairing  philosopfay 
of  Ktng^  Lear :  "As  flies  to  wanton  boys,  are  we  to  the  gods: 
They  kill  us  for  their  sport."  But  immediately  afterwards  Macduff 
falls  back  on  the  traditional  sentiment : — 

*•  Sinful  Macduff! 
They  are  all  Struck  for  thee.     Naught  that  I  am, 
Not  for  their  own  demerits,  but  for  miney 
Fell  slaughter  on  their  souls." 

Among  these  horror-stricken  Speeches  there  is  one  in  parti- 
cular  that  gives  matter  for  reflection — Macduff 's  cry,  "  He  has  no 
children."  At  the  close  of  the  third  part  of  Henry  VI.  there  is  a 
similar  exclamation  of  quite  different  Import.  There,  when  King 
Edward,  Gloucester,  and  Clarence  have  stabbed  Margaret  of 
Anjou's  son  before  her  eyes,  she  says : — 

**  You  have  no  children,  butchers !  if  you  had, 
The  thought  of  them  would  have  stirr*d  up  remorse." 

Many  Interpreters  have  attributed  the  same  sense  to  Mac- 
duff's  cry  of  agony;  but  their  mistake  is  piain;  for  the  context 
undeniably  shows  that  the  one  thought  of  the  now  childless  father 
is  the  impossibility  of  an  adequate  revenge. 

But  there  is  another  noticeable  point  about  this  speech,  "  He 
has  no  children,"  which  is,  that  elsewhere  we  are  led  to  believe 
that  he  has  children.  Lady  Macbeth  says,  ''  I  have  given  suck, 
and  know  how  tender  'tis  to  love  the  habe  that  milks  me ; ''  and 
we  have  neither  leamed  that  these  children  are  dead  nor  that 
they  were  born  of  an  earlier  marriage.  Shakespeare  nevcr 
mentions  the  former  marriage  of  the  historical  Lady  Macbeth. 
Furthermore,  not  only  does  she  talk  of  children,  but  Macbeth 
himself  seems  to  allude  to  sons.     He  says  (ÜL  i) : — 

*'  Upon  my  head  they  plac'd  a  fruitless  crowDi 
And  put  a  harren  sceptre  in  my  gripe, 
Thence  to  be  wrench'd  with  an  unhneal  band» 
No  son  of  mine  succeeding.     If 't  be  so, 
For  Banquo's  issue  have  I  filed  my  mind.* 


If  he  had  no  children  of  bis  own,  the  last  line  is  meaning^< 
Had  Shakespeare  forgotten  these  earlier  Speeches  when  he  wrote 
that  ejaculation  of  Macduff's?  It  is  improbable;  and,  in  any 
case,  they  must  have  been  constantly  brought  to  his  mind  again  at 
rehearsals  and  Performances  of  the  play.  We  have  here  one  of 
the  difficulties  which  would  be  solved  if  we  were  in  possession  of 
a  complete  and  authentic  text. 

The  crown  which  the  Witches  promised  to  Macbeth  aooa 

becomes  his  fixed  idea.     He  murders  his  kin9*-«nd  aleepw    He 

alays.  and  sees  the  sladu  for  evtr  Yktfoc^  Um»    All  that  aUiid 


THE  MORAL  LESSON  431 

between  him  and  his  ambition  are  cut  down,  and  afterwards  raise 
their  bloody  heads  as  bodeful  visions  on  his  path.  He  tums 
Scotland  into  one  great  charnel-house.  His  mind  is  ''füll  of 
scorpions ; "  he  is  sick  with  the  smell  of  all  the  blood  he  has 
shed.  At  last  life  and  death  become  indififerent  to  him.  When, 
on  the  day  of  battle,  the  tidings  of  his  wife's  death  are  brought  to 
him,  he  speaks  those  profound  words  in  which  Shakespeare  has 
embodied  a  whole  melancholy  life-philosophy : — 

"  She  should  have  died  hereafter : 
There  would  have  been  a  time  for  such  a  word.— 
To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow, 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day, 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time ; 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.     Out,  out,  brief  candle  I 
Life's  but  a  Walking  shadow ;  a  poor  player, 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage. 
And  then  is  heard  no  more :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  füll  of  sound  and  fury» 
Signifying  nothing." 

This  is  the  final  result  arrived  at  by  Macbeth,  the  man  who 
staked  all  to  win  power  and  glory.  Without  any  underlining  on 
the  part  of  the  poet,  a  speech  like  this  embodies  an  absolute 
moral  lesson.  We  feel  its  value  all  the  more  strongly,  as  Shake- 
speare's  study  of  humanity  in  other  parts  of  this  play  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  totally  unbiassed,  but  rather  influenced  by  the 
moral  impression  which  he  desired  to  produce  on  the  audience. 
The  drama  is  even  a  little  marred  by  the  constant  insistence  on 
the  fabula  docet^  the  recurrent  insinuation  that  "  such  is  the 
consequence  of  grasping  at  power  by  the  aid  of  crime."  Macbeth, 
not  by  nature  a  bad  man,  might  in  the  drama,  as  in  real  life,  have 
tried  to  reconcile  the  people  to  that  crime,  which,  after  all,  he  had 
reluctantly  committed,  by  making  use  of  his  power  to  rule  well. 
The  moral  purport  of  the  play  ezcludes  this  possibility.  The 
ice-cold,  stony  Lady  Macbeth  might  be  conceived  as  taking  the 
consequences  of  her  counsel  and  action  as  calmly  as  the  high- 
bom  Locustas  of  the  Renaissance,  Catherine  de'  Medici,  or  the 
Countess  of  Somerset.  ^  But  in  this  case  we  should  have  missed 
the  moral  lesson  conveyed  by  her  ruin,  and,  what  would  have 

been   worse,   the    incomparable    sleep- Walking    scene,    which . 

whether  it  be  perfectly  motived  or  not — shows  us  in  the  most  A 
admirable  manner  how  the  sting  of  an  evil  conscience,  even  | 
though  it  may  be  blunted  by  day,  is  sharpened  again  at  night,  / 
and  robs  the  guilty  one  of  sleep  and  health.  / 

In  dealing  with  the  plays  immediatdy  preceding  Macbeth^  we  ' 
observed  that   Shakespeare   at   this  period   frequently  ^ve&  a. 
formal  exposition  of  tbe  moral  to  be  dncwn  ixom.  Viv^  ^c^da^ 


432  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Possibly  there  is  some  connection  between  this  tendency  of  his 
and  the  steadily-growing  animosity  of  public  opinion  to  the  stage. 
In  the  year  1606,  an  edict  was  issued  absolutely  prohibiting  the 
utterance  of  the  name  of  God  on  the  profane  boards  of  the  theatre. 
Not  even  a  harmless  oath  was  to  be  permitted.  In  view  of  the 
State  of  feeling  which  produced  such  an  Act  of  Parliament,  it 
must  have  been  of  vital  importance  to  the  tragic  poet  to  prove 
as  clearly  as  possible  the  strictiy  moral  character  of  his  wcM'ks. 


XXIII 

OTHELLO— THE  CHARACTER  AND  SIGNIFICANCE 

OF  lAGO 

When  we  consider  how  Macbeth  explains  life's  tragedy  as  thc 
result  of  a  union  of  brutality  and  malignity,  or  rather  of  brutality 
envenomed  by  malignity,  we  feel  that  the  Step  from  this  to  Othello 
is  not  a  long  one.  But  in  Macbeth  tlie  treatment  of  life's  tragedy 
as  a  whole,  of  wickedness  as  a  factor  in  human  afTairs,  lacks 
firmness,  and  is  not  in  the  great  style. 

In  a  very  much  grander  and  firmer  style  do  we  find  the  same 
subject  treated  in  Othello. 

Othello  is,  in  the  populär  rnncppHon^  simply  the  tragedy  of 
jealousy,  as  Macbeth  is  simply  the  tragedy  of  ambitjon.  Nalfve 
readers  and  critics  fancy  in  their  innocence  that  Shakespeare,  at 
a  certain  period  of  his  life,  determined  to  study  one  or  two 
interesting  and  dangerous  passions,  and  to  put  us  on  our  guard 
against  them.  Following  out  this  intention,  he  wrote  a  play  on 
ambition  and  its  dangers,  and  another  of  the  same  kind  on 
jealousy  and  all  the  evils  that  attend  it.  But  that  is  not  how 
things  happen  in  the  inner  life  of  a  creative  spirit.  A  poet  does 
not  write  exercises  on  a  given  subject.  His  activity  is  not  thc 
result  of  determination  or  choice.  A  nerve  in  him  is  touched, 
vibrates,  and  reacts. 

What  Shakespeare  here  attempts  to  realise  is  neither  jealousy 
nor  credulity,  but  simply  and  solely  thc  tragedy  of  life ;  whencc 
does  it  arise  ?  what  are  its  causes  ?  what  its  laws  ? 

He  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  power  and  significancc  of 
evil.  Othello  is  much  less  a  study  of  jealousy  than  a  riew  and 
more  powerful  study  of  wickedness  in  its  might  The  umbilical 
cord  that  connects  the  master  with  his  work  leads,  not  to  thc 
character  of  Othello,  but  to  that  of  lago. 

Simple-minded  critics  have  been  of  opinion  that  Shakespeare 
constructed  lago  on  the  lines  of  the  historic  Richard  III. — that  is 
to  say,  found  him  in  literature,  in  the  pages  of  a  chronicler. 

Believe  me,  Shakespeare  met  lago  in  his  own  life,  saw  portions 
and  aspects  of  him  on  every  band  throughout  his  manhood,  en- 
countered  him  piecemeal,  as  it  were,  on  his  daily  path^  tili  oxxa. 
fine  day,  when  he  tboroughly  feit  and  undcx^XocA  ^V»X  xcA&^^xiX 

4»  a*«. 


434         '  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

clevemess  and  baseness  can  effect,  he  melted  down  all  these 
fragments,  and  out  of  them  cast  this  figure. 

lago— there  is  more  of  the  grand  manner  in  this  figure  than 

^     in   the  whole  of  Macbeth,      lago — there   is   more  depth,  more 

penetrating  knowledge  of  human  nature  in  this  one  character 

jj^'  than  in  the  whole  of  Macbeth,     lago  is  the  very  embodiment  of 

the  grand  manner. 

He  is  not  the  principle  of  evil,  not  an  old-fashioned,  stupid 
devil;  nor  a  Miltonic  devil,  who  loves  independence  and  has 
invented  firearms ;  nor  a  Goethe's  Mephistopheles,  who  talks 
cynicism,  makes  himself  indispensable,  and  is  generally  in  tfae 
right.  Neither  has  he  the  magnificently  foolhardy  wickedness 
of  a  Caesar  Borgia,  who  lives  his  life  in  open  defiance  and  reck- 
less  atrocity. 

lago  has   nnnthfr  aim    thffin    hia    nwn    aHvanfngp        It   is   thc 

circumstance  thac  not  he,  but  Cassio,  has  been  appointed  second 
in  command  to  Othello,  which  first  sets  his  craft  to  work  on 
subtle  combinations.  He  coveted  this  post,  and  he  will  stick  at 
nothing  in  order  to  win  it.  In  the  meantime,  he  takes  advan- 
tage  of  every  opportunity  of  profit  that  offers  itself ;  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  fool  Roderigo  out  of  his  money  and  his  jewels.  Hc  is 
always  masked  in  falsehood  and  hypocrisy;  and  the  mask  he  has 
chosen  is  the  most  impenetrable  one,  that  of  rough  outspokenness, 
the  straightforward,  honest  bluntness  of  the  soldier  who  do»B  not 
carejrhaLiithfirslhÜLk_or.§a^  of  Mm*.  He  never  flatters  Othello 
or  Desdemona,  or  even  Roderigo.     H,e  is  the  free-spoken,  honest 

V  friend. 

He  does  not  seek  his  own  advantage  without  side-glances  at 

j  others.  He  is  mischievousness  personified.  He  does  evil  for 
the  pleasure  of  hurting,  and  takes  active  delight  in  .the  adversity 
and  an^isii  of  ^thers.  He  is  that  eteraal  enyy^  which  merit  or 
success  in  others  never  fails  to  irritate^^^nbt  Ihe  petty  envy  which 
is  content  with  coveting  another's  honours  or  possessions, 
or  with  holding  itself  more  deserving  of  another's  good  fortune. 
No;  he  is  an  ideal  personification.  He  is  blear-eyed  rancour 
itself,  figuring  as  a  great  power — nay,  as  /^^.motjyeJorce — in 
human  life.  He  erabodies  the  detestation  for  others'  excellences 
whTch  shows  itself  in  obstinate  disbelief,  suspicion,  or  contempt; 
the  instinct  of  hatred  for  all  that  is  open,  beautifuli  bright,  good, 
and  great. 

Shakespeare  not  only  knew  that  such  wickedness  exists ;  hc 
seized  it  and  set  his  stamp  on  it,  to  his  eternal  honour  as  a 
psychologist. 

Every  one  has  heard  it  said  that  this  tragedy  is  roagnificcnt 
in  so  far  as  the  true  and  beautiful  characters  of  Othello  and 
Desdemona  are  concerned;  but  lago — who  knows  him? — ^what 
motive  underlies  his  conduct? — what  can  explain  such  wicked- 
ness ?    If  only  he  had  even  been  frankly  in  love  with  Desdemooa 


CHARACTER  OF  lAGO  435 

and  therefon;  hated  Othello,  or  had  had  some  other  tncentive  of  a 
like  naturel 

Yes,  if  he  had  been  the  ordioary  amorous  villain  and  slanderer, 
ever^thing  would  undoubtedly  have  been  much  simpler;  but,  at 
the  sane  time,  everything  would  have  sunk  into  banality,  and 
Shakespeare  would  here  have  been  unequal  to  himself. 

No,  no!   precisely  in  this  lack  of  apparent  motive  lies  the 
profundity  and  greatncas  of  tlie  thing.      Shakespeare  understood 
this.       lago    in    his    monologues    is    incessantly    giviii^  f  himself  I 
rensons   fqr    his    hatrcd.      Elsewhere,    in    reading  Shakespeare's        ^,j 
jnonologueSj  we  learn  what  the  person  really  is;  he  reveafs  him-        ^ 
^ell"  directly  to  ys;  even  a  vülain  like  Richard  HJ.  is  quite  honest        t\ 
jfi  his  inonplßgues.  .Not  so  lago,-   Thi&  derai-devil  is.  always  tiy- ^"^  , 
in£  to  give  hiniself  reason  for  hjs  malignity.  is  always  half  foolin)(yT  .i 
himseliHy  dweÜing  on  half  motivcs,  in_JVbich_he  partiy  believes,f     Y 
byt  dlshdicves..  in.  the_inaio.     -Coleridge  has.aptly   designate.d 
thjs  actioQ  pf  bis  mind:  "The  motive-iiuating  of  a  ipotivelesg 
malignity,"     Again  and   again   he  expounds  to  himself  that  he 
believcB  Othello  has  been  too  familiär  with  his  wife,  aiid  that  he 
■^ill  avenge  the  dishpnour.      Hc  now  and  then  addsj  to  accgynt 
for  his  hatred  of  Cassio,  that  he  suspects  him  too  of  tampering 
wiih  Emilia.^     He   even   thinks  it   worth   whüe  to  allcge,  ^'^ 
secondary  motive,  that  he  himself  ie  enamoured  gf  npsdcnißnf^. 
Hia  wQiäsJXa  (ü-  i) : — ' 

"  Now,  I  do  !ove  her  too ; 

Not  out  of  absolute  lust,  (though,  peradTentare, 

I  stand  accountant  for  as  great  a  sm,) 

But  partiy  led  to  diet  my  revenge, 

For  that  I  do  suspect  the  lusty  Moor 

Hath  leap'd  into  my  seat." 

Theae  are  half-ainpere  attempta  at  self-understanding,  sophi»- 
tiial  s^ffjustificationa.  Yellow-greei^venonious  envy  hasälwaya  \ 
a  rootive  in  its  own  eyes,  and  trics  to  make^itsmalignity  towards  ( 
t6e~5etter  pian  pasa  mustpr  as  a~3e3ire  Tor  righteous  vengeaLnce. 
Biit  laipi,  who.  a  few  lin^  ^^i"5j  ^^  himselT  saij^of  Othello 
that  he  is  "of  a  constant,  loving,  noSIe  ijaturc,"  is  a  thouaand 
tiinea  tpo'clever  to  believe  thatHne  haS  been  wronged.-by-h5L 

Thp  Moor  i^  to  big  fyt^  tmnHpnrpnf  a«  piflft«. 

"  I  hatc  the  Hon, 

i*  thougfat  abroad,  th>t  'twirt  mr  tbeets 
"        "  ■  if  't  De  tne  t 


'Hu  done  mj  office,     I  Imow 

Bot  I  for  mere  nupicioa  in  th«!  kind 

Will  do  u  if  biT  niety.'' 


HeRdd*(a7):- 


"  I'U  have  oui  Hichkel  Catsio  oa  the  bip, 
AboM  him  to  the  Moor  in  the  rank  gacb, 
For  I  fear  Ca«Io  wlth  my  lügU^ca^  too." 


436  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


&  ^}[\.  ^^ J^^  ®^4r^*^  1®-  sentenced  to  torture,  because"Iij5"^ritt' 
not  vouchsafe  a  word  ofexplanation  or  enlightenment  Härd  and, 
m"Trs"way,~pröüff  äsTie  js,  he  will  certainlyjkeep.  his_ Jips  JÖghÖy 
clösed  linder  tlie  torture ;  but  eyen  if  he  wanted  to  speak,  it  wonld 

riÖl1)e  in  Tggjnw^r^tnjgny^  any  ^<^^1  pyplänatjny>,      He  has  slo^ly^ 

stc^üy  poispned.  Qthello's  nature.  We  watch  the-  working  of 
the  venöm  on  the  simplerbearted  man,  and  we  see  how  the  very 
suocess_of  the  joisoning^ocess  bnitalises  and  intoxicates  Tage 
^ore  and  more.  But  to  ask  whence  the  poison  came  into  lago's 
soul  would  be  a  fbolish  question^  and  one  to  wElch  he  iiimsetf 
coiild"  give  no  answer.  The  serpent  is  poisonous  by  nature ;  it 
gives  foiffi' poTsön'läJThe^snkwonn'dö  thread  and  theviofet 

itsTn^fance." 

Towards  the  close  of  the  tragedy  (iv.  2)  there  occurs  one 
Qjfjts^  profoundest  passages.  which  shows  us  how  Shakespeare 
mugt  have  dwelt  upon  and  studied  the  potency  of  evil  during 
these  years,     After  Emilia  has  T^itgfissfri  «-Vi**  Kr»>aiHng  n^\\  nt 

Othello's.mad  ragfi  agalnst  DpsHemnnay  she  says—- 

O         "  £mt7.  I  will  be  hang'd,  if  some  eteraal  villain, 

Some  busy  and"1nsinuating  rogne,    

Some  cöggfng,  cözening' slave,  to  get  some  qffice, 
v  Have  not  devis^  tliis  slander^^  I'u  be  hang'd  eise. 
A    /ago. '  Fie !  tHere'is  no  siich  man :  it  is  rmpdssiBle. 
I^es.  If  any  such  there  be,  Heaven  pardon  him! 
£mil.  A  halter  pardon  himy  and  helt  gnawTiis  bones  I  *_ 

All  three  characters  stand  out  in  clear  relief  in  these  short 

I  Speeches.    But  lago^s  is  tlie  möst  signifiegnt.     Hls  **Fle!  "there 

3t is  no  such  man;  it  is  impossible/^expresses  thg  thought  ander 

JsherteFoT  wHlcH  he  has  lived  and  is  Üving:  other  people  do  not 

1  believe  thajt  s.uch.a  being..eiüsts. 

Here.Wfijmeet.once  möce  in  Shakespeare  the  astonishment  of 
Hamlet  at  the  paradox  ofevil^  and  once  more,  too/tTie*indirect 
a^ppeal  to  the  readq:  which  ,fp  l)ürden/as"lt"  were.  or 

Hofnlet  2LiidMeasure  far  MfOS^re^  the  now  thnce-repeated,  "  S^ 
n9t^  tTiink  npi.thät  this  is.  impossibleJ  "  Tifi^jfeliefjn  the  im- 
pÖ.ssibility  pf  utter  turpitudq.b  tbf.Yery  condition  of  eSslmR 

of  SUCh_a  jdjlg.jas  naiidiiiRySiigh^  magistrate  as  AngtÄn^  guch 

an.,  iofficer .  aaJLago.  Hence  Shak«5peare's_J'  Vfn'ly  T  «ay  ypt^ 
youj  this  highest  degree  of  wickedness  is  possible  in  the  world.'' 

O  Itis  one  Öf  the  tmicL  fartnr<s  in  lifJp^AJragiipHy,     Stupir^iily  igjhe^ 

Other.      On  thpRff  tvi^n  f^^^^Hafrinna  r#>ftfft  tht^  gri>nt  mag«  nf  a|lJ^1hlg 

world's  misecy. 


XXIV 

OTHELLO— THE  THEME  AND  ITS  TRE ATMEN T— 
A  MONOGRAPH  IN  THE  GREAT  STYLE 

A  MANUSCRIPT  preserved  in  the  Record  Office,  contains  the 
following  entiy: 


The  plaiers  .  i^oJa  The  Poets  weh 

£7  the  Kings        Hallamas  Day  being  the       mayd  the  plaies 
Ma^  plaiers         first  of  November  A  play 

in    the    Banketing   house  Shaxberd. 

att     withaU     called     the 
Moore  of  Venis. 

Thus  Othello  was  probably  produced  in  the  autumn  of  1605. 
After  this  we  have  no  proof  of  its  Performance  tili  four  and  a  half 
years  later,  when  we  hear  of  it  again  in  the  Journal  of  Prince 
Ludwig  Friedrich  of  Würtemberg,  written  by  his  secretary,  Hans 
Wurmsser.     The  entry  for  the  30th  of  April  1610  runs  thus : — 

^  Landi,  30.  S.  £[minence]  alla  au  Globe,  lieu  ordinaire  ou  Ton 
Jone  les  Ccnnmedies,  y  fat  represent^  l'histoire  du  More  de  Venise." 

In  face  of  these  data  it  matters  nothing  that  there  should 
appear  in  Othello^  as  we  have  it,  a  line  that  must  have  been 
written  in  or  after  161 1.  The  tragedy  was  printed  for  the  first 
time  in  a  quarto  edition  in  1622,  for  the  second  time  in  the 
Folio  of  1623.  The  Folio  tezt  contains  an  additional  160  lines 
(proving  that  another  manuscript  has  been  made  use  of),  and 
all  oaths  and  mentions  of  the  name  of  God  are  omitted.  Ii,  is 
not  only  possible,  but  certain,  that  this  line  must  have  been  a 
late  interpolation.  Its  entire  discordance  with  its  position  in 
the  play  shows  this  dearly  enough,  and  seems  to  me  to  render 
it  doubtful  whether  it  is  by  Shakespeare  at  all. 

In  the  scene  where  Othello  bids  Desdemona  give  him  her 
band,  and  loses  himself  in  reflections  upon  it  (üL  4),  he  makes 
this  speech : — 

^  A  liberal  band :  the  hearts  of  old  gftve  handa^ 
But  our  new  henddry  is  hands,  noX\itai!tk^ 

4» 


/     1  -'" 


438  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Hcre  there  is  an  allusion,  which  could  only  be  understood 
by  contemporaries,  to  the  title  of  Baronet,  created  and  sold  by 
James,  which  gave  its  possessors  the  right  of  bearing  in  their 
coat-of-arms  a  Woody  hand  on  a  field  argent  Most  naturally 
Desdemona  replies  to  this  irrelevant  remark:  "I  cannot  speak 
of  this." 

In  Cinthio's  Italian  coUection  of  tales,  where  he  had  found 
the  plot  of  Measure  for  Measure^  Shakespeare  at  the  same  time 
(in  Decade  3,  Novella  7)  came  upon  the  material  for  Othello. 
The  Story  in  the  Hecatommitti  runs  as  follows :  A  young 
Venetian  lady  tiamed  Disdemonä  falls  in  love  with  ä  Moor,  a 
military  commandef — "  not  from  feminitie  desire/'  but  because 
of  his  great  qualities — and  marries  him  in  spite  of  the  Opposition 
of  her  relativem  They  live  in  Venice  in  complete  happiness ; 
"no  Word  ever  passed  between  them  that  was  not  loving." 
When  the  Moor  is  ordered  to  Cyprus  to  take  command  there, 
his  one  an±iety  is  about  his  Wife;  he  is  equally  üilWilling  to 
expose  her  to  the  datlgers  of  the  sea  Voyage  aiid  tö  teäve  her 
alone.  She  settles  the  question  by  decilaring  that  jshe  will  rather 
foUow  hittl  änywhere,  intö  any  danger,  than  live  in  safety  apart 
from  him ;  whereupon  he  raptiirously  kisses  her,  with  the  ejacula- 
tion :  "  May  God  long  preserve  you  so  loving,  my  dearest  wife ! " 
Thus  the  perfect  initial  harmony  between  the  pair  which  Shake- 
speare depicts  is  suggested  bv  his  original. 

The  Ensign  undermines  their  happiness.  He  is  described  as 
remarkably  handsome,  but  "as  wicked  by  nature  as  any  maii 
that  ever  lived  in  the  world.'*  He  was  dear  to  the  Moor,  "  wbo 
had  no  idea  of  his  baseness.''  For  althoügh  he  was  an  arrant 
coward,  he  managed  by  means  of  proud  and  blusterous  talk, 
aided  by  his  finfe  appearance,  so  to  conc^al  hid  oowafdice  that 
he  passed  for  a  Hector  or  Achilles.  His  wife,  whom  he  had 
taken  with  him  to  Cyprus,  was  a  fair  and  VirtuoUs  jroung  woman, 
inuch  beloved  by  Disdemonä,  who  st>etit  the  greAt^r  part  df  the 
day  in  her  comfiäny.  The  Lieutenant  [ü  capo  di  squadrci)  Cäme 
tnuch  to  the  Moor's  hotifte,  and  often  SUpped  with  him  and  his  wife. 

The  wieked  Ensigti  is  passionately  iti  Idtte  with  Disdemonä, 
but  all  his  ättempts  td  tirin  her  löve  are  entindy  Unduccessfuli  as 
she  has  not  a  thought  fof  any  one  büt  the  Moor.  The  Ensigh^ 
however,  imagiues  that  the  reason  fot  her  rejection  of  him  must 
be  that  she  is  in  love  with  the  Lieutenant^  and  therefore  deter- 
inines  to  rid  himself  of  this  rival,  while  his  love  for  Disdemonä 
is  changed  into  the  bltterest  hatred.  From  thlA  timt  fbfword, 
his  object  is  not  only  to  bring  about  the  death  of  the  Lieutenant, 
but  to  prevent  the  Moor  from  flnding  the  pleasute  In  DiMümona's 
love  which  is  denied  to  himself.  He  goes  to  work  HA  in  the 
drama,  though  of  course  with  some  differences  of  detail.  In  the 
noy€i,  for  eitdmple,  the  Ensign  Steals  Disdemonä'^  handkerchief 
whilst  she  is  vi^ititlg;  his  WÜt^,  Ahd  v'^'jVti^  ^VÜi  xSM&t  Viltfe  ^L 


ORIGIN  OF  ''OTHELLO"  439 

Disdemona's  death-scene  is  more  horrible  in  the  tale  than  in  thc 
tragedy.  By  command  of  the  Moor,  the  Ensign  hides  himself  in 
a  room  adjoining  Othello's  and  Disdemona's  bedchamber.  He 
makes  a  noise,  and  Disdemona  rises  to  see  what  it  is ;  whereupon 
the  Ensign  gives  her  a  violent  blow  on  the  head  with  a  stocking 
filled  with  sand.  She  calls  to  her  husband  for  help,  but  he 
answers  by  accusing  her  of  infidelity;  she  in  vain  protests  her 
innocence,  and  dies  at  the  third  blow  of  the  stocking.  The 
murder  is  concealed,  but  the  Moor  now  begins  to  hate  his  Ensign, 
and  dismisses  him.  The  Ensign  is  so  exasperated  by  this,  that 
he  lets  the  Lieutenant  know  who  is  responsible  for  thc  night 
assault  that  has  just  been  made  upon  him.  The  Lieutenant 
accuses  the  Moor  before  the  Council,  and  Othello  is  put  to  torture. 
He  refuses  to  confess,  and  is  sent  into  banishment.  The  wicked 
Ensign,  who  has  brought  a  false  accusation  of  murder  against 
one  of  his  comrades,  is  himself  in  turn  accused  by  the  innocent 
man,  and  subjected  to  torture  until  he  dies. 

To  the  characters  in  the  novel,  Shakespeare  has  added  two, 
Brabantio  and  Roderigo.  Only  one  of  the  names  he  uses  is 
found  in  the  original.  Disdemona,  which  seems  made  to  designate 
the  victim  of  an  evil  destiny,  Shakespeare  has  changed  into  the 
sweeter-sounding  Desdemona.  The  other  names  are  of  Shake- 
speare's  own  choosing.  Most  of  them  are  Italian  (Othello  itself 
is  a  Venetian  noble  name  of  the  sixteenth  Century) ;  others,  such 
as  lago  and  Rodengo,  are  Spanish. 

With  his  customary  adherence  to  his  original,  Shakespeat^, 
like  Cinthio,  calls  his  protagonist  a  Moor ;  but  it  is  quite  unrea- 
sonable  to  suppose  from  this  that  he  thought  of  him  as  a  negro. 
It  was,  of  course,  inconceivable  that  a  negro  should  attain  the 
rank  of  general  and  admiral  in  the  Service  of  the  Venetian  Repub- 
lic ;  and  lagp's  mention  of  Mauritania  as  the  country  to  which 
Othello  intends  to  retire,  shpws  plainly  enough  that  the  VMoor" 
ought  to  be  represented  as  an  Arab.  It  is  no  argument  against 
this  that  men  who  hate  and  envy  him  apply  to  him  epithets  that 
would  befit  a  negro.  Thus  Roderigo  in  the  first  scene  of  the  play 
calls  hitti ''  thick-lips,"  and  lago,  speaking  to  Brabantio,  calls  him 
"an  old  black  ram."  But  a  little  latcr  lago  compares  hiiti  with 
"  a  Barbäry  horse  " — that  is  to  say,  an  Aräb  from  North  Africa. 
It  is  älways  animosity  and  hate  that  exaggerate  the  darkness  of 
his  hue,  as  when  Brabantio  talks  of  his  "sooty  bosom."  That 
Othello  calls  himself  black  only  means  that  he  is  dark.  In  this 
very  play  lago  says  of  dark  women : 

•*  If  she  be  black^  and  thereto  have  a  wit, 
Shell  find  a  white  that  shall  her  biackness  fit" 

And  we  have  seen  how,  in  the  Sonnets  and  in  Lov^s  Labouf^s 
Lost,  "  black  "  is  constantly  employed  in  iVve  ^^ü^ä.  c&  ^«jcV-^^tjcl- 
plexioned.      As  a  Mööt,  Othellb  Vlte  4  tO\fiiV\ex\OTi  %>a&oKo^ 


440  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

swarthy  to  forni  a  striking  contrast  to  tlie  white  and  even  blonde 
Desdemona,  and  there  is  also  a  sufficiently  marked  race-contrast 
between  him,  as  a  Semite,  and  the  Aryan  girl.  It  is  quite  conceiv- 
able,  too,  that  a  Christianised  Moor  should  reach  a  high  position 
in  the  army  and  fleet  of  the  Republic. 

It  ought  further  to  be  noted  that  the  whole  tradition  of  the 
Venetian  "  Moor  "  has  possibly  arisen  from  a  confusion  of  words. 
Rawdon  Browne,  in  1875,  suggested  the  theory  that  Giraldi  had 
founded  his  tale  on  the  simple  misunderstanding  of  a  name.  In 
the  history  of  Venice  we  read  of  an  eminent  patrician,  Christoforo 
Moro  by  name,  who  in  1498  was  Podesti  of  Ravenna,  and  after- 
wards  held  similar  office  in  Faenza,  Ferrara,  and  the  Romagna; 
then  became  Governor  of  Cyprus;  in  1508  commanded  fourteen 
ships ;  and  later  still  was  Proveditore  of  the  army.  Whea_ihis 
man  was  retuming  from  Cyprus  to  Venice  in  1508,  his  wife  (the 
third),  who  is  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  family  of  Barbarigo 
(note  the  resemblance  to  Brabantio),  died  on  the  voyage,  and 
there  seems  to  have  been  some  mystery  connected  with  her  death. 
In  15 15  he  took  as  his  fourth  wife  a  young  girl,  who  is  said  to 
have  been  nicknamed  Demanio  bianco — the  white  demon.  From 
this  the  name  Desdemona  may  have  been  derived,  in  the  same 
way  as  Moor  from  Moro. 

The  additions  which  Shakespeare  made  to  the  story  as  he 
found  it  in  Cinthio — Desdemona*s  abduction,  the  hurried  and 
secret  marriage,  the  accusation,  to  us  so  stränge,  but  in  those 
days  so  natural  and  common,  of  the  girl's  heart  having  been  won 
by  witchcraft — these  all  occur  in  the  history  of  Venetian  famih'es 
of  the  period. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  when  Shakespeare  proceeds  to  the  treat- 
ment  of  the  subject,  he  arranges  all  the  conditions  and  circum- 
stances,  so  that  they  present  the  most  favourable  field  for  lago's 
Operations,  and  he  so  fashions  Othello  as  to  render  him  more 
susceptible  than  any  other  man  would  be  to  the  poison  which  lago 
(like  Lucianus  m  the  play-scene  in  Hamlet)  drops  into  his  ear. 
^  Then  he  lets  us  trac^  the  growth  of  the  passion  from  its  first 
germ,  througK~e^iy  stage  of  its  development.  until  it  blasts  and 

ahattefs  the  VlCtim'jTW^^^^  rharart^r 

O  Othello's  is  an  inartificial  soul,  a  simple,  straightforward,  sol- 
dicr  nature.  Hg^has^no  worldly  wisdom,  for  he  has  lived  his 
whole  life  in  camps: 

"And  little  of  this  great  world  can  I  speak, 
More  than  pertains  to  feats  of  broil  and  battle* 

/  A  good  and  true  man  himself,  he  believes  in  jgoodness  in  others, 
Lespecially  in,  those  whajaiakeai3liawi3f.outspQbe^^ 
^undaunted.  determinatinn  to  blame  whftm  blamr  ig  diir     likr  Tag>j, 
Who  characteristically  says  of  himself  ta  Desdemona : 

"  For  I  am  nottun^  Vi  no> 


CHARACTER  OF  OTHELLO  441 

And  Othello  not  only  believes  in  lago's  honesty,  bat  is  inclined 
to  takejiim  for  bis  f^ide,  as  beinfa^  far  superior  to  himself  in 
knowledge  of  men  and  of  the  wöfid. 

Again,  Othello  belongs  to  the  noble  natures  that  are  never 
preoccupied  with  ^he  tbought  of  their  own  worth.  t\e  is  (IrvoTd 
^Tvaniü^:,  He  has  never  said  to  himself  that  such  exploits,  such 
tieroic  deeds,  as^have  won  him  bis  renown,  must  make  a  far 

Disposition  than  the  smooth  face  and  pleasant  manners  of  a 
Zassio.    _He  is  so  li t tle  im pressed  with  the  idea  of  bis  greatness 

iiat  Jt  .dmpsLaX  pnc^^^ 
>e„scorned. 

Othello  is  the  man  of  despised  race,  with  the  fiery  African 
emperament.     In  comparison  with  besdemona  he  is  "ötd^^^^more  h 
)f  an  age  with  her  father  than  with  herseif.     He  teils  himself  that  I 
ie  has  neither  youth  nor  good  looks~to  KeepTier  lnvp~witVi^  not  T 
ivtn  affim^j^Li?^^^  build  upon,     lago  exasperates  Brabantio' 
)y  cryingT 

"  Even  now,  now,  very  now,  an  old  black  ram 
Is  tupping  your  white  ewe," 

Jthello's  race  has  a  reputation  for  low  sensuality,  therefore 
^^erigo  can  inilame  the  rage  ol  Desdemona's  father  by  such 
i^ressions  as**  gross  clasps  of  a  lasciviousT^Ioor." 

That  she  should  feel  attracted  by  him  must  have  seemed  to 
►utsiders  like  madness  or  the  effect  of  sorcery.  For,  far  from 
>eing  of  an  inviting,  forward,  or  coquettish  nature,  Desdemona  ja 

leprPRpntpH   a«s  mnrp^  tVian  nrHinarily  wc^rv^H   anH   mn^fifif        Her 

ather  ralls  her  (i.  3) : 

"  A  maiden  never  bold ; 
Of  spirit  so  still  and  quiet,  that  her  motion 
Blush'd  at  herseif." 

>hc  has  been  brought  up  as  a  tenderly-nurtured  patrician  child 
a  rieh,  happy  Venice.  The  gilded  youth  of  the  city  have  fluttercd 
round  her  daily^3üf ^e  has  shown_jayQUi:jto  none  of  them. 
rherefore,  herlathef  says  (i.  2) : 

•*  For  I'll  refer  me  to  all  things  of  sense, 
If  she  in  chains  of  magic  were  not  bound, 
Whether  a  maid  so  tender,  fair,  and  happy, 
So  opposite  to  marriage,  that  she  shunn'd 
The  wealthy  curled  darlings  of  our  nation, 
Would  ever  have,  to  incur  a  general  mock, 
Run  from  her  guardage  to  the  sooty  bosom 
Of  such  a  thing  as  thou." 

Shakespeare,  who  knew  evervthing  about  Italy,  knew  that  the 
^enetian  youth  of  that  period  jnad  their  hair  curled,  and  wore  a 
Kk  down  on  the  forehead. 

Othellov  on  bis  part,  at  atuck  feels  bims^  &\xoiv|^^  ^tvwdlM^ 


442  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE     , 

Desdemona.  And  it  is  not  merely  the  fair,  delicate  girl  ili  her 
that  allures  him.  Had  he  not  loved  her,  her  only,  with  buming 
passion,  he  would  never  have  married  her ;  for  he  has  the  fear 
of  marriage  that  belbngs  to  his  wilcf,  freedöm^oving  nätüre,  and 
h^m  ho  wise  considers  him  seif  hönpilred_and  exaRed  by'UiisJ 
cormectiöh  with  a  patrician  family^  He  is  descended  from  the 
pnrices  öf  Bis  coüntry  "(i.  2) : 

"  I  fetch  my  life  and  being 
From  men  of  royal  siege ; " 

.And  he  has  shrunk  from  binding  himself: 

•*  But  that  I  love  the  gentle  Desdemona, 
I  would  not  my  unhouscd  free  condition 
Put  into  circumscription  and  confine 
For  the  sea's  worth." 

Truly  there  is  magic  in  it^— not  the  gross  and  common  sorcery 
which  the  others  beheve  in  and  süpppse  to  bäVe  be^n  enipluyjair^ 
not  the  "foul   charms"  and  '*drug;s   or  .minerals   that  weaken_ 
f  motion,"  to*  wliich   her  father  alludes — but   the  ..sweet^ .  ailuring 
magic  by  wETrF  Pi  manand  a  "wnman  are  mysieriously- ^nt^^^mrrf. 
Othello's  Speech  of  self-yindication_in   the   councü  chamberi 
^  in  which  he  explains  to  the  Duke  how  he  came  to  wuäTDesde- 

"^  mona's  sympathy  and  tenderness,  ha&  been  unlversally  ä^EiiFed.^ 

"Häving  gained  her  father's  favour,  he  was  oHen  asled'By  him 
to  teil  the  stpry  of  his_life,  of  its  dangers  and  adventures.     He 
told  of  sufferings    and    hardships^   of  hairbreadth"^scape^    frnn\ 
I  death,    of  impr|sonment   by   cruel   enemies^    of   far-off   stränge 
\  counlnes  .he_Md  jfiumfiyed .  throu^h,.  _{The  fantastic  catalogue, 
it  may  be  noted,  ista^en  from  the  fabulous  books  of  travel  of  tue 
day.y   Des3emona  loyeJ^ U)  listen,  but  was  often  calied  awayljy 
hQUsehol37cares^  älwaysTÄturiung  wlierf  these  were  Jc^patßhfid 
to^JoUoÄ  Ms.  Story  with..  a.  gpreedy .  ear.     He  "foünd  means"  to 
draw  from  her  a  regnest  fo  feil  hpr  his  histnry^ot  in  fragments^ 
but  entire.     He_consented,  and  often  her  eyes  were  flÜed  with 
tcars'^when  she  heard  of  the  distresses   of  his   youth.      With 
innöceht  candouf.  §he  tade  him.  at  last,  if  ever  he  hada  Ineiid^ 
tEaOpyed  her^-to  teach  liim  how  to  teil  her  ÖtheÜq's  stpry-— 
^"and  that  would  jy^o  her." 

/        Tn  other  words^  she  is  not  won  through  the  eye,  though  wc 
^  ^  must  take  OthelBniQlEaye  been  a  stately  figure*  £ut  .ttröiiöi^ffi^ 
*■   \ear— "I  saw  Qthello!s  visage  in  his  mind.".    Sh&.Jbecoroes  TS" 
u^rPl^Kh   her  sympathy  .  with  bim  in  all  he  Jbas .  sÜflEer^^  ani 
achieyed.'rr- 

"  She  lov'd  tne  for  the  dangt'ts  I  had  pass*d, 
And  I  lov'd  her  that  she  did  pity  theta. 
This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I  have  us*d. 

\ 


CHARACTER  OF  OTHELLO 


443 


Such,  then,  is  the  relation  in  which  the  poet  has  decrced  that 
these  two  shall  stand  to  each  other.     This  is  no  love  betweenj 
two  qf  thg  sains..age  .and  the  «ame-raee,  whöm  oiily  family  emnityl 
keeps  apart,  as  in  Romiü-and^JidieU    Stjl^l  less  is  it  a  iinion_of|        / 
heirrtS"IiEc  tfiät  of  Brutus  and  Portia,  whprp  ftip  pprfis<;t  }"■  >-"'"" yri  # ' 
ig  the'fpFiiilr  nf  tenderest  friendship  in  combination  with  rlnset^^ 


VJn=hip"  ^AAfA  tn  thp  fart  that  thft  wiTp'?^  fathpr  is  her  hiishand'sN  ('f  ( 
bero  and  ideal.     Np,  in  direct  contrast  to  this  last,  ij_is,a  union    /*■ 

which  rests  01>   the  bf^p'"'^'""   "^  ftPtW"'^''^  anH  w|iif^i   hV^  f^very-  1  ^  1 

thing   against   it — HifTf-rpfifi«   nf  rafv^   diffprenr.t;   nf  ayp. 

strarurp.  exotir  aspprt  of  thfe  man,  with  the  lack  of"  self-copfid^nce  J 

»hkh  it  awaWnc  in  him 

lago  expounds  to  Roderigo  bow  impoBRihla  it  is  that  thisl 

alliaPCe    S'H"1,|1H     Iw»*^  n^cHpmnna     frll      In     Invp    trith      th^  .MODr^ 

hecaUSe    tu    hrajrfw'H    tft    \\fr   and    t,f)lH    hi-r    fantactjrjit    lieS ;    doCS / 
any   one   believe   that    lov^   ran    hf    kppt   aliVp  hy  prating?  ~'*txi 
mflame   the   blood   anpw,   "  sympat^y  in   years,   manners,  jad ^ 
beautics"  is  required,  "all  which  the  Moor  is  defective  ifi" 

The  Moor  himself  is  at  first  troubled  by  none  of  diese  rcflec 
tions.     And  why  not?_  Because  Othello  is  not  jealous. 

This  Sounds  paradosical, _yet  it  Is  the  piain  truth,     Othella 
not  jeäTouBl     It  is  as  thougli.  oncwere  to  say  Water  is  not  wct 
or  fire  does  not  buni.    But  Othello's  is.  no  jcalous  nature  ijealous   . 
meri  and  women  think  very  differcntiy  and  act  vcry_  differently.A 
He  is  unsuspicjous.  cpnfiding,  and  in  so  far  stupid— there  lies  thel 
nijsfprtime.;  but  jealous,  in  llie  proper  sense  of  ihc  word,  he  is  not.  ( 
When  lago  is  preparing  to  insinuate  his  cklumoies  of  Dcsdemoaa, 
he  begiDS  hypöcritrcally  (lii.  3) : 

"  O  beware,  my  lord,  of  jealousy; 
It  is  the  green-eyed  monster.  ..." 

Othello  answers :  1 

"  Tis  not  to  make  me  jealoiu^l 
To  say — my  wife  is  fair,  feeds  well,  loves  Company, 
Is  free  of  speech,  sings,  plays,  and  dances  well ; 
Where  virtue  is,  these  are  more  virtuous  : 
Nor  from  mine  own  weak  merits  will  I  draw 
The  smallest  fear,  or  doubt  of  her  revolt;  / 

For  she  had  eyes,  and  chose  me."  ,-'^ 

Thus  not  even  his  exceptional.  pqsjtjon  cau§es,lüin_aöy-_uiieasts  J, 

nesa,  so  long  as  things  take  their  natural  conrse.  But  there.JsA  .J'^ 
no  escaping  ihe  steady  pursuit  of  which  he,  äirunwltting,  is  the  Wj-  J: 
obj'ecl.  He  becomes  as  suspjciaus  tüivarda  Deadcmona. -a3-£e  ^  / ''f 
IS  credulous  towards  .lagce^^'^Jrave.  laiya  !  "  "  Honest  lago  1 "  J\  Av'  J 
Hrabantio's  tnalison  recurs  to  his  ralnd — "Shejias  deceived  \\gi^J  n/^ 
fsther,  ADä  m&jr  thee;"  aad  ciose  on  it  crowd  lago's  reasoos:  .] 

"  Haplj,  foT  I  am  black,  'i'V' 

And  luvt  not  tbtme  aoft  paits  o(  oonvomänn  ''^ 


444  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

That  chamberers  have ;  or,  for  I  am  declin'd 
Into  the  vale  of  years ; — yet  that's  not  much,'* 

And  the  torment  seizes  him  of  feeling  that  one  human  being  is  a 
sealed  book  to  the  other — that  it  is  impossible  to  control  passjon 
and  appetite  in  ä  woman,  thöugh  the  law  may  have  given  her  into 
jne^slTarid-^^iintir  at  läsl'Tienfeps'äsTir  h^r.w^ 
Vack,~äncnagö"  cän  exult  in  the  thought  that  not  all  the  drowsy 
syriips  öf  Che  World  cän  pi:<^iü:e  ^^  t^^^intrnnHrl  ?^^^p  ^'^^ 

WSterdayJ  Tf^gn  fnllnwa  thp  Tpf^^]pifnl  färAw#>ll  ffy  ^11  h\^  p|-f>yinnQ  \^ 
l^fe,  and  O"  t^^**^  saHnf^cc  nnr^   mnr^  fnllnnrc   HntiKtj  nnA   H^pitir  nt 


\fj/^-  ^"  I  think  my  wife  be  honest  and  think  she  is  not ; 
I  think  that  thou  art  just  and  think  thou  art  no^** 

tnd  blood. 

Not  naturally  jealouSj^hjg  jias  become  so  through  the  working 
q£  die  base"tiit  devilishly  subtt£_slandejMvhich  J^^  is  too  simple 
tqj)enetrate  and  spura^ 

Tn  Ihese  mästerly  scenes  (the  tl^ird  and  £qu|[j^  of  the  third 
act)  there  are  more  reminiscences  of  other  poets  than  we  find 
elsewhere  in  Shakespeare  within  such  näfröw  compäss;  and  they 
are  of  mterest  äs  showing  us  lyh^t  he^  knew,  and  what  hjg  mitiH 

yMT^weffingjipoa  Jii_thQSfi.  days«. 

In  Bemi's  Orlando  Innamorato  (Canto  51,  Stanza  i),  we 
come  upon  lago's  declaration : — 

'*  Who  steals  my  purse,  steals  trash ;  'tis  something,  nothing; 
Twas  mine,  'tis  his,  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands ; 
But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  good  name, 
Robs  me  of  that  which  not  enriches  him, 
And  makes  me  poor  indeed." 

The  pa^sage  in  Bemi  runs  thus  t — 

''Chi  niba  un  como,  un  cavallo,  un  anello^ 
E  simil  cose,  ha  qualche  discrezione, 
E  potrebbe  clpamarsi  ladroncello ; 
Ma  quel  che  ruba  la  riputazione 
£  de  Taltrui  fatiche  si  fa  hello 
Si  puö  chiamare  assassino  e  ladrone." 

A  reminiscence  also  lies  hidden  in  Othellq's  exquisite  farewdl 

a^soldier's  Jife; — 

*•  O  now  for  ever 
Farewell  the  tranquil  mind  1  farewell  content  I 
Farewell  the  plumed  troops,  and  the  big  wars, 
That  make  ambition  virtue  1    O,  farewdl ! 
Farewell  the  neighing  steed,  and  the  shrill  tnimp^ 
The  spirit-stirring  dnm^  tihi^  «tt-\fvacm%^£^ 


/ 


CHARACTER  OF  OTHELLO  445 

The  royal  banner,  and  all  quality, 

Pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war !  • 

It  is  dear  that  there  must  Have  lurked  in  Shakespeare's  mind 
a  reminiscence  of  an  apostrophe  contained  in  the  old  play, 
A  PUasant  Comedie  calUd  Common  ConditionSy  which  he  must, 
doubtless,  have  seen  as  a  youth  in  Stratford.  In  it  the  hero 
says : — 

"  But  farewell  now,  my  coursers  brave,  attrapped  to  the  ground. 
Farewell,  adieu,  all  pleasures  eke,  with  comely  hawk  and  hound ! 
Farewell,  ye  nobles  all !     Farewell,  each  martial  knight ! 
Farewell,  ye  famous  ladies  all,  in  whom  I  did  delight ! " 

Th^^tudy  of  Ariosto  in  Italian  has  also  left  its  trace.  It  is 
where  Othelfof  talking  of  the  handkerchief.  savs : — 

"  A  sibyl,  that  had  number'd  in  the  world 
The  sun  to  course  two  hundred  compasses, 
In  her prophctic  fury  sew'd  the  work." 

In  Orlando  Furioso  (Canto  46,  Stanza  80)  we  read  :-* 

^  Una  donzella  della  terra  d'Ilia, 
Ch'avea  il furor  profetico  congiunto 
Con  studio  di  gran  tempo,  e  con  vigilia 
Lo  fece  di  sua  man  di  tutto  punto." 

The  agreement  here  cannot  possibly  be  accidental.  And  what 
makes  it  still  more  certain  that  Shakespeare  had  the  Italian  text 
bcfore  him  is  that  the  words  prophetic  fury^  which  arc  thft  ^ame 
irL^QtkeUo  as  in  the  Italianj  are  not  to  be  found  in  Harington's 
I^igliSi  translatioDy  the  only  one  then  in  existence.  He  must 
thuSf  whilst  writing  Othello^  have  beeii  igterested  m  Orlando,  and 
had  Bemi's  and  Ariosto's  poems  lying  ca  bis  table. 

DesdemoJiala.  innocenL  J5implicity.in..  th^ 
boundless  and  gctually-tragic  -Simplicity  of  Othello.    In  the  fi^st 
pl^ce,  she  is  convinced  that  the  Moor,  whom  she  sees  wrought 
up  to  the  verge  of  madness,  cannot  possibly  suspect  h^x%  ^"^  J^ 
ungssailableb?jeiI55iyr - 

''  EmilicL  Is  he  not  jealous  ? 

Desdemona,  Who  ?  he !  I  think  the  sun  where  he  was  bom 
Drew  all  such  humours  from  him." 

So  she  acts  with  foolish  indiscretion,  continuing  to  tease  Othello  l 

labout  Cassio's  reinstatei^ntj  dthoügR.^^  nught  tQ  fi^~tlTijtjtj^g| 

?her  harping  on  this  topic  that  cnrages-him.  T 

J       Then  follow  lago's  still  more  monstrous  lies :  the  confessio: 

i  he  pretends  to  have  heard  Cassio  make  in  bis  sleep ;  the  story 

j  that  she  has  presented  the  predous  handkerchief  to  Cassio ;  and 

fl  the  pretence  that  Desdemona  is  the  subject  of  the  worda  ^\x\cSdl 

I  Othello,  from  his  hiding-place,  hears  Caasio  \tl  l^  9&  \a  ^^ 


/ 


446 


WILI.IAM  SHAKESPEARE 


( 


relations  with  the  courtesan,  Bianca.  To  hear  his  wife,  his 
beloved,  thus  derided,  stings  the  Moor  to  frenzy. 

It  is  such  a  consistently  sustained  imposture  that  there  is, 
perhaps,  only  one  at  all  comparable  to  it  in  histoFy — the  intrigue 
of  the  diamond  necklace,  in  wbich  Cardinal  de  Rohan  was  as 
utterly  duped  and  ruined  as  Othello  is  here. 

And  now  Othello  has  reached  the  stage  at  which  he  can  no 
longer  think  coherently,  or  speak  except  in  ejaculations  (iv.  i) : — 

*•  lago,  Lie  with  her. 
"  Othello,  With  her  ? 
"  lago,  With  her,  on  her,  what  you  will 

"  Othello,  Lie  with  her !  lie  on  her ! — We  say,  lie  on  her  when  they 
lie  her.  Lie  with  her !  that's  fulsome. — Handkerchief, — confessions, 
■handkerchief. — To  confess,  ^nd  be  hanged  for  his  labour. — First,  to 
be  hanged,  and  then  to  confess.  .  .  .  It  is  not  words,  that  shakes  me 
thus. — Pish  ! — Noses,  ears,  and  Ups. — Is  tt  possible  ? — Confess  I— 
Tandkerchief  l — O  devil  1  ^ 

With  the^ind'seye  he  seesthem  iu-each -otber's  arms.-^ — Hc 
is^geized  witlTan  epileptic  fit  and  falls. 
/  1  his  JsliöräL  repreiebt^-tiiaD  oT spontageQua-biit  of  artifirially 
Induced  jealousy ;  in  other  words,  of  CTj^uUty.poisoned  by  jnalig- 
^45i--tJ.g-0Pg- ifie ' JSQ^cgl  whlcii-Shakespear^i  f hrough  the  mouth 
oTlago,  bids  the  audience  take  home  with  them ; 


fK 


"Thus  credulous  fools  are  caught; 
And  many  worthy  and  chaste  dames  even  thm^ 


All  guiltless,  meet  reproach." 

is  not  Othello's  jealousy,  but  his  creduüty  that  js, the  Y^m^ 
cause  Ol  the  disasLM' i  aüU  eveu  bülttlist  JUesdcmo^H^s 
»licityT)ear  its  share  in  tne  biame,     Pefwcco.  them  tb€;yJC£nde]: 
posisible  the.cpjpplele  success.of  a  man  like  lagp» 

When  Othello  bursts  into  tearg  before  Pfil^CTno"^V  ^^^ 
withourher  suspecting  the  reason  (iv^  2),  hajaays  Jnost  louchingly 
tlrar"he^couid.Jiay!e  borne  affliction  and  sh^me,  poverty  and  cai^*- 
jtivity^^^could  even  have  endured  to  be  made  tl^^  butt  of  mort^ery 
and  scorn^:::7b,ut  jhat  he„ßamiQt^hfiar.  lQ_SfiC.  Jier.  .whoni-J]|pjSQr- 
shipped  the  object  of  his  own  contiempt.__Jie.jdoeft  not  snfTer  most 
fföm  jealq^sy^  .^LUL JirilP.-  JCrToi;  **  thr  fnimUin  fimm  thr  whirh  bii 

'  The  development  of  this  possage  exactly  corresponds  to  Smnoai*s  classic  defi- 
nition  of  jealoosy,  written  seventy  years  late^.     See  EtkieeSf  Pßrt  III,^  Prüpoaii$ 
XXX  V,^  Scholium:  "Pneterea  hoc  odium  erga  rem  amatam  msjus  erit  pro  imtioDe 
Lsetitiae,  qua  Zelotypos  ex  reciproco  rei  amatse  Amore  solebat  affid,  et  etiam  prq[ 
ratione  afiectas,  quo  erga  illum,  quem  sibi  rem  amatam  juneere  imaginatur,  affectus. 
erat.    Nam  si  eum  oderat,  eo  ipso  rem  amatam  odio  habebit,  quia  ipsam  id»  qood^ 
ipse  odio  habet,  Laetitia  afficere  imaginatur ;  et  etlam  ex  eo,  quod  rei  amatip  i«pwfifm  , 
imagini  ejus,  quem  odit,  jüngere  cogitur,  auae  ratio  plemmque  locnm  habet  ipAnooce 
erga  foeminam ;  qui  enim  imaginatur  mulierem,  quam  amat,  alteri  sese  pioftitaere,  • 
non  solum  ex  eo,  quod  ipsius  appetitus  coercetur,  contristabitur,  sed  etiaqn  qoia  rd 
«matae  maginem  pudendis  et  ezcrementis  alterius  jüngere  oogitw»  eandem  vnoßSaUm* 


447 


CHARACTER  OF  DESDEMONA 

cuyisnt -XiinaJ^  a  dried-up  <twi^^p^  nr  '<a  rJRtpm  fof  fmil  toads  to 
knof  aniä  gender  ioT'  This  is  pure^  deep  sorrow  at  seeing  his 

And  with  that  grace  which  is  to  attribute  of  perfcct  strengthtN 
Shakespeare  h^s  introduced  as  a  c^ntrast^  directly..  bi£f9rfi--.the  j 
temble  catastrophey  Desdemona^s deirc^eliffle  ditty  of  the  willow-  / 
tree — ofjhe  Saiden  who  "weepsHSecause  her  lover  is  untrue  to  f 
her,  büt""who  loves  hijn  none_the_jess.  Desdemona  is  deeply 
tou5h'!ng'"wBen  she  pleads  with  her  cruel  lord  for  but  .a.  Üew 
moments'  respite^^ut  she  is  ffl'eat  in  the  instant  of  death,  when 
she  explres  with  the  sublime  lie,  the  one  lie  oFTier  life,  upon  he 
liBs.  designed  to  shieTa"  her  murderer  trom  his  punlshment 

Ophelia,  Desdemona,  Cordelia — what  a  trefoil !  Each  has  her 
characteristic  featiixes^-Oiit-ihey  jp..se.mhle  xfnOnöÜTer  like'^istcrs ; 
they  all  present  the  type  .whicbJShakespfiare  äL  tbi§.  pomi  Tovcs 
and  most  affects.  Had  they  a  mode.l_?  Hadthey  perhaps  one^ 
ajagngesäme  mod[el?  Had  he  about  this  time.encountered  jT 
young  and.charming  womari^ jiying^  as  it  were,  under  a  cloud  of 
sprrow,  injustice^  misunder§teRdiPg»"wliaJwa.s  alLiieart.and  ttu- 
Hpi4i>RRy 'gflhf^^^^  to  in<^f*11p^<^  nr  wit  ?    We  may  suspect 

tbis^  hilf  wp  If  nnw  nnthing  nf  j^ 

Thgjigure  of  Desdeniona  is  one  of  the  most  charming  Shake» 

iq>cai::£jmg^.diawii.^...Shkis.jiioi^^  Pffier^worojaljas 

the  noble  Othello  is  roore  manly  than  qthermen.     So  that  after 

,  all  liiere  is  a  very  good  reasoiLjGMiJthe  atfra(£t^nnKtween  thenT; 

the  moBt  womaniy  nf  wnmpn  feels  herseif  drftwn  tO  15ie  manliest 

of^men 

The  subordinate  fipiires  arg  worked  out  with  hardly  less  skill 

thanthpj-^qnnp^^  rharart#>rQ  nf  »he  f  ragf>Hy Kmiha  f^gperiallyjig 

inmnfahle--^  hnnest^    anH    nnt  e^arfly  Ijghtj    but  Still 

suflicientiv  the  daughter  nf  Eve  to  he  unable  tp  underfitan4j^sde- 

At  the  end  of  Act  .iv..  (in  the  bedroom  scene)  Desdemona 
aglfg_gnii1ia  if  ahi^-b^M>vfM»-»4i»<»^  ^h^r^  xeally..ace_Äomen  whojäp 
what^Qthello  accuses  her  oL  Jlmilia  änsw^rs.m.  the  affirmjatiye. 
Then  her  mistress  asks  agaiq ;  ^ Woujd*st  thou  do  such  a  deed 
for  all  the  world  ?  "  and  receives  the  jesting" änswerZ  "  Jli&,»firld 
is  a  huge.tbiug;  Jiis.agreatj?dce.fo^^^  vice: 

**  Marry,  I  would  not  do  such  a  thing  for  a  joint-ring,  nor  for  measures 
of  lawn,  nor  for  gowns,  petticoats,  nor  caps,  nor  any  petty  exhibition ; 
but,  for  the  whole  world !  .  .  .  Why,  the  wrong  is  but  a  wrong  i*  the 
World;  and,  having  the  world  for  your  labour,  'tis  a  wrong  in  your 
own  world,  and  you  might  quickly  make  it  right." 

In  passages  like  this  a  mildly  playfiil  note  is  Struck,  iouthe 
v^ry  midst  of.the  horror.  And  according  to  his  habit  and  the 
custom  of  the  times,  Shakespeare  also  introduces^b^  y^;^^^.^ 


1 


44»  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

thc  Clown,  one  or  two  deliberately  comic  passages;  but  the 
CLown's  mcrriment  is  subduedf  as  Shakespeare's  merriment  at 
ihis  period  always  is. 

TTic^  cömpösm^  .of-  Maduth 

In  thcse  two  tragediea  alonp^  there  arp  n<>  f  piandp«; ;  fh^  arfinn 

m^es^onwärd^u  undissipatedi  ~B<rt  the  beautiful 

Proportion  ofjall  its  _parts_Äiid  articulations  gives  Qttullo  ^e 
advanjagCLQver  ihe-mutilated  Marheth  which  wc  possess.  Hiye 
tl^e  crescendo  of  the  tra^^edy  is  executed  with  absolute  maestria^ 
!the  passion  rises  with  a  positively  musical  effect ;  Ing<;>*s  H<>vi1iQh 

plan_lS_realised    Step    by    step   with    CQn5;ummate    rertainty;    sl\\ 

dfi^ajlfi  arp  knit  tngpther  into  onc  .firm,  and  weH-nJgh  inextricablc 
knnt ;  and  thp  rarpIpssripRs  with  which  Shakespeare  has  treated_ 
the  necessary^agse  of  time  between  the  different  stages  of  the 

-action,  has,  by  COmpVesSing  the  evCOT,^  "^  mrtnrhct  anH  y^^ns^lE^h 
VaTew^Bays,  height^ned  ^h^  effK't  of  Rtrirt  anH  firm  rohp^inn  whirh  . . 

the  play  produces. 

There^  are  sqme  maccuracies  in  Jthe  text  as  we  havejt.  At 
the_close  öftbeLplay  there  is  a,j)Ss^sage^  to  _accou_nt  for  which  we 
must  almost  assume  thatpart  of  a  vitiated  text,  adapted  to  some 
special  Performance^  has  been  interpolateA-  In  the  füll  rush  of 
the  "cäfästrophe,  when  only  Othello's  last  Speeches  are  wanting, 
Lodovicü  Tölmrrteef s  söme  ihTormatlori  as  jto  wHäfTiis"Tiäppen^ 
wWch'iSTTiötrijfllyTuperffirqiis  fpr  tb(g.  spectatory-büt  quite  out  of 
the"generäT  s]EyK  äöd  tone  of  the.  play : 

*'  Lodovico,  Sir,  you  shall  understand  what  hath  befall'&y 
Which,  as  I  think,  you  know  not.     Here  is  a  letter, 
Found  in  the  pocket  of  the  slain  Roderigo ; 
And  here  another :  the  one  of  them  imports 
The  death  of  Cassio  to  be  undertook 
By  Roderigo. 

Othello,  Ovillam! 

Cassio.  Most  heathenish  and  most  gross ! 

Lod.  Now,  here's  another  discontented  paper, 
Found  in  his  pocket  too,"  &c.,  &c. 

These  speeches,  and  yet  a  third,  are  all  aimed  at  making  Othello 
understand  how  shamefully  hg^has  been  deceived ;  but  they  are 
nerveless  and  feeble  and  detract  from  the  cITeCt^of  the  scene. 
This  passage  ought  to  be  expunged;  it  is  not  Shakespeare's, 
and  it  forms  a  little  ^ain  on  his  flawless  work  ofart. 

ForJ[awless_it_Ls*.   1  not--onIy  lind  5lySlM".ä!iBhakespe^ 
greatest  qnalitips  united  in  this  work^_ J}ut.  I  .aefi  hardly  tL^fi]ujr 

it  is  the  only  one  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies  wJhidudoes  apt 
tre^t  .öfTisÜöMt^\mnts;Jtffil^^     läÄÜjücagfidy, — wl>at^as  later 


"OTHELLO"  A  MONOGRAPH 


449 


gets  the  best  idea  of  the  distance  betwcen  it  and  the  trag/die 
bottrgeoise  of  later  titnes  on  comparing  with  it  Schiller's  Kabale^ 
und  Liehe,  which  is  in  many  VAys  an  imitatton  of  Othello. 

^e  see  here  a  preat  man  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  greatN. 
child _i_a_n.oi»l5  ihuilgh  impetuous  nature,  as  unsuspicious  as  it  is  \  / 


UDWoridly.     We  see  a  young  woman^all  gentleness  and  nobüity  \l 
•^I^^äCti.  whQ  Jives  pri iy_fQ.r_h i  in_  sh e_  has  cHösen,  and  'who  dies    jf  'J 

Wil^^DÜcitude   fiir  hpr   niiirHprpr  nn   hprlip^        And  WC  See  tllCSC    [\ 

tiyo_cIe£t_  natures  ruined  by  the  s 

egay.prcy  lo  wiciccdoess. 

A  great  work  Othello  undoubiedly  Js,  but  it  is  a  monograph. 
It  lacks  the  breatfth  which  Shakespeare's  piaya  as~ä~rTitS"^KiS- 
sess.  It  is  a  sharply  limited  study  of  a  Single  and  vcry  special 
form  of  passion,  the  growtli  of  suapicion  in  the  mind  of  a  lover 
with  Affican  blood  aod  tcmpeiament — a  great  example  of  the 
power  of  ^tfitjrpHnpgg^fivgr  unftimpwiing  nfihilify  Takcn  alLin  ^ 
all,  thia  is  a  rpstrirlpd  siihjprt,  which  becomes  monumental  only_ 
by.  the  grandeur  of  jtp  cr^ atm^nr 

^fo  oiher  drama  of  Shakespeare's  had   been  so  mucb  of  a 
moDog^ph-,     He  agfn?"^'y  *^^"^  ^^"«1  "T"^  "^'t"  trietBtpulse  of  the    ' 
great  aitist  to  make  fais  new  work  a  complemeat  and  contraat  to 
the  immediateiy,  preceding  one.  he  now  sought  and  foim j_  the 

SUbjeCt  for  that  OI^^  fff  l?i«  tTflg^Hii-B  whii-Vi   i^  üapf  jJ-afl  »"mnnfv- 

graph.  which^grew  Jnto  oothjng  less  than  the  universal  tragedy — 
all  the  great  woes  of  l^mqffp  life  coac«itrateJ"iti  ong-ffiG^tT 


XXV 

KING  LEAR— THE  FEELING  UNDERLYING  IT— THE 
CHRONICLE  —  SIDNEY'S  ARCADIA  AND  THE 
OLD  PLAY 

In  King-  Lear,  Shake^>eare's  vision  soimded  tbie.  abyss.0£^iiorror 
to  its  very  depths,  and  his  spirit  showed  neither  fear,  nor  giddi- 
ness,  nor  faintness  at  the  sight. 

On  the  threshold  of  this  work,  a  feeling  of  awe  comes  over 
one,  as  on  the  tUfCAhold  of  the  Sistine  Ch^pel,  lyitl^  fts  ceiling- 
frescoes  by  Michael  Aogdp— only  that  the  suffering  here  is  far 
more  intense^, thp  wail  wilder,  the  'harmonics  of  beauty  more 
dj^nL^ely ..^battercd  Jbty-the.Hi.srnrds  of  drspair. 

Ofhello  was  a  noble  piece  of  chamber-music— pimple  and  easily 
apprehendedi  pöwerfully  affecting  thpugh  it  be,  ..Thi&jcock^  jon 
the  other  band»  is  the  $ymphony  of  an.enormous  orcheatra-Trall 
earth's  instrumepts  sound  in.it»  and  every  Instrument  ha-g  ipany 

King  Lear  is  the  greatest  task  Shakespeare  ever  set  hiroself, 
the  most  extensive  and  the  most  iroposing — all  the  suffering  and 
horror  that  can  arise  from  the  relatipn  bfytween  a  father  anH  \\\% 
chUdren,  expressed  in  five  acts  of  moderate  length. 

No  modern  mind  has  dared  to  face  such  a  subject ;  nor  could 
any  one  have  grappled  with  it  Shakespeare  did  so  without  even 
a  trace  of  effort,  by  virtue  of  the  overpowering  mastery  which  he 
now,  in  the  meridian  of  his  genius,  had  attained  over  the  whole 
of  human  life.  He  handles  his  theme  with  the  easy  vigour  that 
belongs  to  spiritual  health,  though  we  have  here  scene  upon 
scene  j)X^SUch  intense  pathos  that  we  seem  to  hear  the  sobs  of 
suffering  humanity  accompanying  the  action^  much  as  one  hears 
by  the  sea-shore  the  steady  plash  and  sob  of  the  waves» 

Under  what  conditions  did  Shakespeare   take   hold  of  this 

subject?     The  drama  teils  plainly  enough.      He  stood  at  the 

turaing-goint_of  Jiuman  lifej  he  had  lived  about  forty-two  veara : 

teh  years  of  life"  stin"'Iay  before  him,  but  of  these  certainly  not 

more  than  seven  were  intellectually  productive.    He  now  brought 

that  which  makes  life  worse  than  death  face  to  face  with  that  which 

xnakes  life  worth  living — ^the  ver^  bteatli  oC  our  lungs  and 

^1» 


ORIGIN  OF  "KING  LEAR"  45 j 

like  solace  of  our  suffering — ^ao^J^ jKßpLJttüSaa  .both  foro  § 

catastrophe  that  appals  us  like  the  min  of  a  world. 

In  what  frame  of  mjnd  did  Shakespeare  set  himself  to  this 
work  ?  What  was  seething  in  his  brain,  what  was  moaning  in 
bis  breast,  at  the  time  he  chanced  upon  this  subject  ?  The  drama 
teils  plainly  enough.  Of  all  the  different  forms  of  cruelty,  coarse* 
ness,  and  baseness  with  which  life  bad  brought  him  into  contact, 
of  all  the  vicci^  aod.Jnfaniie.s  that  r mhitter^  the  existcnce -of -the 
nobler  sort.ofmen,  on^  Yice.now  seemed  lQ.hini  th^  worst-rrrstood 
out  before  him  as  the  most  abominable  and  revoltin^  of  all — one 
of  «rv^ivv.  ^^  l^liirKi  "^  (jwtu,  haid  again  .and .  dgalii  beea  tbe 
yictim — to  wi^m^aÜluOT^  He  saw  no  baseness  more  wide- 
spread  or  more^nSSlSESZ^^garded. 

Who  can  doubt  that  he,  immoderately  enriched  by  nature, 
he  whose  very  existence  was,  like  that  of  Shelley's  doudi  a 
constant  giving,  an  et^rnal  bene6cence|  a  perpetual  bringing  of 
"fresh  showers  to  the  thirsting  flowers" — ^who  can  doubt  that 
such  a  giver  on  the  grandest  scale  must  again  aqd  «igain  have 
been  rewarded  with  the  bl^ckiest  ingratitude.?  We  see,  for 
instance,  how  Hofnl^t^  so  far  his  greatest  work,  was  received 
with  instant  attack^  with  what  Swinbume  has  aptly  called  "  the 
jeers,  howls,  lioots  aiid  hisses  of  which  a  careful  ear  inay  catch 
some  far,  faint  echo  even  yet — the  fearful  and  furtive  yelp  from 
beneath  of  the  masked  and  writhing  poeticuleJ!*  ^  H}s  life  passed 
in  the  theatre.  We  can  very  well  guess,  where  we  do  not  know, 
how  comrades  to  whom  he  gave  exainple  and  assistance ;  stage 
poetSi  who  envied  while  they  adroired  him;  actors  whom  he 
trained  and  who  found  in  him  a  spiritual  father ;  the  older  men 
whom  he  aided,  the  young  men  whom  he  befriended — how  all 
these  would  now  fall  away  from  him,  now  fall  upon  him;  and 
each  new  instance  of  ingratitude  was  a  shock  to  his  spiritusd  life. 
For  years  he  kept  silence,  suppressed  his  Indignation,  locked  it 
up  in  his  own  breast.  But  JiQjidt£d..and  despised.ingrati^ 
^t>oye  j|ll  j^ce§i..because  Jt  at  imce  impoverished  aiul-belittitd 
hissoul. 

His  was  certainly  not  one  of  those  artist  natures  that  are 
free-handed  with  money  when  they  have  it,  and  confer  benefits 
with  good-natured  carelessness.  He  was  a  competent,  energetic 
business  man,  who  spared  and  saved  in  order  to  gain  an  in- 
dependence  and  restore  the  fallen  fortunes  of  his  family. 
But  none  tlie  less  he  was  evidently  a  good  comrade  in  practical, 
a  benefactor  in  intellectual,  life.  And  he  feit  that  ingratitude 
impoverished  and  degraded  him,  by  making  it  hard  for  him  to 
be  helpful  again,  and  to  give  forth  with  both  hands  out  of  the 
royal  treasure  of  his  nature,  when  he  had  been  disappointed 
and  deceived  so  often,  even  by  those  for  whom  he  bad  done 
most  and  in  whom  he  believed  most.     He  feit  that  if  thete  vesc. 

*  SwJDbanie:  A  Study  tf  Shmkitpmn^  p.  i^ 


452  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

any  baseness  which  could  drive  its  victim  to  despair,  to  madness, 
it  was  the  vice  of  black  ingratitude. 

In  such  a  frame  of  mind  he  finds,  one  day,  when  he  is 
as  usual  tuming  over  the  leaves  of  his  Holinshed,  the  story 
of  King  Lear,  the  great  giver.  In  the  same  temper  he  reads 
the  old  play  on  the  subject,  dating  from  I593'4f  and  entitled 
Chronide  History  o/King  Leir,  Here  he  foiind  what  he  needed, 
the  half-worked  clay  out  of  which  he  could  model  figures  and 
groups.  Here,  in  this  superficially  dramatised  chronide  of 
appalling  ingratitude,  was  the  very  theme  for  him  to  develop. 
So  he  took  it  to  his  heart  and  brooded  over  it  tili  it  quickened 
and  came  to  life. 

We  can  determine  without  difficulty  the  period  during  which 
Shakespeare  was  working  at  King  Lear,  Were  it  not  clear  from 
other  reasons  that  the  play  cannot  have  been  written  before  1603, 
we  should  know  it  from  the  fact  that  in  this  year  was  published 
Harsnet's  Declaration  of  Popish  Impostures^  from  which  he  took 
the  names  of  some  of  the  fiends  mentiohed  by  Edgar  (üi.  4). 
And  it  cannot  have  been  produced  later  than  1606,  for  on  the 
26th  December  of  that  year  it  was  acted  before  King  James. 
This  we  know  from  its  being  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register 
on  the  26th  of  November  1607,  with  the  addition  "as  yt  was 
played  before  the  kinges  maiestie  at  Whitehall  vppon  Sainct 
Stephens  night  at  Christmas  last"  But  we  can  get  still  nearer 
than  this  to  the  time  of  its  composition.  When  Gloucester  (i.  2) 
speaks  of  ''these  late  eclipses/'  he  is  doubtless  alluding  to  the 
eclipse  of  the  sun  in  October  1605.  And  the  immediately 
following  remarks  about  "  machinations,  hoUowness,  treachery, 
and  all  ruinous  disorders"  prevailing  at  the  time,  refer  in  all 
probability  to  the  great  Gunpowder  Plot  of  November  1605. 

Thus  it  was  towards  the  end  of  1605  ^^^  Shakespeare  began 
to  work  at  King  Lear. 

The  story  was  old  and  well  known.  It  was  told  for  the  first 
time  in  Latin  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  in  his  Historia  Britanum^ 
for  the  iirst  time  in  English  by  Layamon  in  his  Brut  about  I20<;. 
It  came  originally  from  Wdes  and  bears  a  distinctly  Celtic 
impress,  which  Shakespeare,  with  his  fine  feeling  for  all  national 
peculiarities,  has  succeeded  in  retaining  and  intensifying. 

He  found  all  the  main  features  of  the  story  in  Holinshed 
According  to  this  authority,  Leir,  son  of  Baldud,  rules  in  Britain 
"  at  what  time  Joash  reigned  as  yet  in  Juda."  His  three  daughters 
are  named  Gonorilla,  Regan,  and  Cordeilla.  He  asks  them  how 
great  is  their  love  for  him,  and  they  answer  as  in  the  tragedy. 
Cordeilla,  repudiated  and  disinherited,  marries  one  of  the  princes 
of  Gaul.  When  the  two  eider  daughters  have  shamefully  ill- 
treated  Leir,  he  flees  to  Cordeilla.  She  and  her  husband  raise 
an  army,  saU  to  England,  defeat  the  armies  of  the  two  sisterSp 
and  rtmsXzXt  Leir  on  his  thTone.    H^  ra:^%  Cor  two  xnxxt,  years; 


SOURCES  OF  "KING  LEAR»*  453 

theo  CordeiUa  succeeds  to  the  throne — ^and  this  happens  "  in  the 
yeere  of  the  world  3155,  before  the  bylding  of  Rome  54,  Uzia 
then  reigning  in  Juda  and  Jeroboam  over  Israeli."  She  rules 
the  kingdom  for  five  years.  Then  her  husband  dies,  and  her 
sisters'  sons  rise  in  rebellion  against  her,  lay  waste  a  great 
part  of  the  country,  take  her  prisoner,  and  keep  her  strictly 
guarded.  This  so  enrages  Cordeilla,  who  is  of  a  masculine 
spirit,  that  she  takes  her  own  life. 

The  roaterial  Shakespeare  found  in   this   tradition  did  not 
suffice  him.    The  thoughts  and  imaginings  which  the  story  set 
astir  within  him  led  him  to  seek  for  a  Supplement  to  the  action 
in  the  tale  of  Gloucester  and  his  sons,  which  he  took  from  Sir 
Philip  Sidney's  Arcadia^  a  book  not  yet  twenty  years  old.     Witlk 
the  story  of  the  great  giver,  who  is  recompensed  with  ingratitudeA 
by  his  wicked  daughters  after  he  has  banished  his  good  daughter,  | 
he  entwined  the  story  of  the  righteous  duke,  who,  deceived  by  1 
slander,  repudiates  his  good  son,  and  is  hurled  by  the  bad  one/ 
into  the  depths  of  misery,  until  at  last  his  eyes  are  tom  out  ot 
his  head.    . 

According  to  Sidney,  some  princes  are  overtaken  by  a  storm 
in  the  kingdom  of  Galacia.  They  take  refuge  in  a  cave,  where 
they  find  an  old  blind  man  and  a  youth,  whom  the  old  man  in 
vain  entreats  to  lead  him  to  the  top  of  a  rock,  from  which  he  may 
throw  himself  down,  and  thus  put  an  end  to  his  life.  The  old 
man  had  formerly  been  Prince  of  Paphlagonia,  but  the  "hard- 
hearted  ungratefulness  "  of  his  illegitimate  son  had  deprived  him 
not  only  of  his  kingdom  but  of  his  eyesight.  This  bastard  had 
previously  had  a  fatal  influence  over  his  father.  By  his  permission 
the  Prince  had  given  Orders  to  his  servants  to  take  his  legitimate 
son  out  into  a  wood  and  there  kill  hipL  The  young  man,  however, 
escaped,  went  into  foreign  military  service,  and  distinguished  him- 
self; but  when  he  heard  of  the  evils  that  had  befallen  his  father, 
he  hastened  back  to  be  a  support  to  his  hapless  age,  and  is  now 
heaping  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head.  The  old  man  begs  the 
foreign  princes  to  make  his  story  known,  that  it  may  bring 
honour  to  the  pious  son, — the  only  reward  he  can  expect 

The  old  drama  of  King  Leir  had  kept  strictly  to  Holinshed's 
chronicle.  It  is  instructive  reading  for  any  one  who  is  tiying  to 
mete  out  the  compass  of  Shakespeare's  genius.  A  childish  work, 
in  which  the  rough  outlines  of  the  principal  action,  as  we  know 
them  from  Shakespeare,  are  superficially  reproduced,  it  compares 
with  Shakespeare's  tragedy  as  the  melody  of  Schiller's  ''An  die 
Freude,''  played  with  one  finger,  compares  with  Beethoven's 
Ninth  Symphony.  And  even  this  comparison  does  rather  too 
much  honour  to  the  old  drama,  in  which  the  melody  is  barely 
suggested. 


XXVI 

KING  LEAR— THE   TRAG  ED  Y  DP  A    WORLD- 

CATASTROPHE 

I  IMAGINE  that  Shakespeare  must,  as  a  rule,  have  worked  early 
in  the  moming.  The  division  of  the  day  at  that  time  would 
necessitate  this.  But  it  can  scarcely  have  been  in  bright  moming 
hours,  scarcely  in  the  daytime,  that  he  conceived  King^  Lear, 
Noj  it  must  have  been  on  a  night  of  storm  and  terrori  one  of 
those  nights  when  a  man,  sitting  at  his  desk  at  home,  thinks  oi 
the  wretches  who  are  wandering  in  houseless  poverty  thrpugh 
the  darknesSi  the  blustering  wind^  and  the  soaking  rain — when 
the  rushing  of  the  storm  over  the  house-tops  and  its  hpwling  in 
the  chimneys  sound  in  his  ears  like  shrieks  of  agony,  the.wail 
oCall  the  misery  of  earth.. 

For  in  Ki^ff  L^ar^  and  King  Lear  alone,  we  feel  that  what  we 
in  our  day  know  by  the  awkward  name  of  the  social  problemi  in 
other  words;  the  problem  of  extreme  wretchedness  and  want, 
existed  already  for  Shakespeare.  On  such  a  night  he  says  with 
Lear  (iii.  4) : — 

"  Poor  naked  wretches,  wheresoe'er  you  are, 
That  bide  the  pelting  of  this  pitiless  storm, 
How  shall  your  houseless  heads  and  unfed  sides, 
Your  loop'd  and  windoVd  raggedness,  defend  yoil 
From  seasons  such  as  these  ?  " 

And  he  makes  the  King  add : — 

"O!  Ihaveta'en 
Too  little  care  of  this.    Take  physic>  pomp ; 
Expose  thyself  to  feel  what  wretches  feel, 
That  thou  may'st  shake  the  .superflux  to  them^ 
And  show  the  heavens  more  just'' 

On  such  a  night  was  Lear  conceived.  Shak^pe^re/^  at  bis 
writirig-fableTliraritthe  vöices  öriBe  King,  the  Pool,  Edgar,  smd 
Kent  on  the  heath,  interwoven  with  each  other,  conträpuiitälly 
änsweritig  eäch  to  each,  as  in  ä  fugu^^;  ähd  it  was  fbr  the  säke 
of  the  general  effect,  in  all  its  subliiälty^hat  he  wrote  \ü^  fior- 
tions  <^  the  tragedy  which,  in  themselves,  cannot  have  interested 
bim.    The  whole  introducüoii,  foi  msXaxiQt^  ^t&ö»ix  ^d^  Vl  vi  in  any 

4M 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  "KING  LEAR'*  455 

reasonable  motive  for  the  King's  behaviour,  he  took,  with  his  usual 
sovereign  indifiference  in  imessential  matters,  froro  the  old  play. 

With  Shakespeare  we  always  find  that  each  work  is  connected  ^ 

with  the  preceding  one,  as  ring  is  linked  with  ring  in  a  chain.  . 

In  the  Story  of  Gloucester  the  theme  of  Othello  is  taken  up  again  y 

and  varied.  The  trusting  Gloucester  is  spiritually  poisoned  by  ^ 
Edmund,  exactly  as  Othello's  mind  is  poisoned  h^  lago's  lies.  ^  ^ 
Edmund  calumniates  his  brother  Edgar,  shows  forged  letters  from< 
him,  wounds  himself  in  a  make-believe  defence  of  his  father's  life 
against  him — ^in  short,  upsets  Gloucester's  balance  just  as  lago  did  '  \ 
Othello's.  And  he  employs  the  very  same  means  as  Schiller's 
Franz  Moor  employs,  two  centuries  later,  to  blacken  his  brother 
Karl  in  their  old  father's  estimation.  Die  Rätiber  is  a  sort  of 
Imitation  of  this  part  of  King  Lear ;  even  the  father's  final  blind- 
ness  is  copied. 

Shakespeare  moves  all  this  away  back  into  primeval  times, 
into  the  grey  days  of  heathendom ;  and  he  welds  the  two  origin- 
ally  independent  stories  together  with  such  incomparable  artistic 
dexterity  that  their  interaction  serves  to  bring  out  more  forcibly 
the  fundamental  idea  and  feeling  of  the  play.  He  skilfully  con- 
trives  that  Gloucester's  compassion  for  Lear  shall  provide  Edmund 
with  means  to  bring  about  his  father's  utter  min,  and  he  ingeni- 
ously  invents  the  double  passion  of  Regan  and  Goneril  for  Edmund, ) 
whidi  leads  the  two  sisters  to  destroy  each  other.  He  fills  the 
tame  little  play  of  the  earlier  writer  with  horrors  such  as  he  had 
not  presented  since  his  youthful  days  in  Titus  Andronicus,  not 
Jpvea  shrinking  from  the  tearing  out  of  Gloster's  eyes  on  the 
.3tage. .  He  means  to  show  pitilessly  what  life  is.  "  Vou  see  bow 
this  World  goes/'  says  Lear  in  the  play. 

Shakespeare  has  nowhere  eise  shown  evil  and  goodiasuch 
immedTate^^pposTtion  -^T>ad  liiüf .  gbod  hiimMi  beings  in  such 
direct  conflict  with  each  other;  and  nowhere  eise  has  he.  so 
deiiberately  shühned  the  cüslomary  and  conyentional  iBSue  of 
the  struggle — the  triümpb  of  the  good.  In  the  catastrophe,  blii 
andrattoltö  Fäte  blots  oui  the  good  and  the  bad  together. 

Everything  centres  in  the  protagonist,  poor,  cid,  stupid,  great 
Lear,  king  every  inch  of  him,  and  every  inch  human.  Lear's  is  a 
pas^ioii^tejiatur^  irritably  nervpus,  all  too  ready  to  S3[  on  the 
i^Bt4mpuIsSI  ]f![t'heart  he  is  so  lovable  that  he  arouses  the 
unalterable  devotion  of  the  best  among  those  who  suiFound  him  ; 
and  he  is  so  framed  to  command  and  so  accustomed  to  rule,  that 
he  misses  every  moment  tj^at  power  whichj  man  access  of 
caprice,  he  has.  renpunced.  [^gr^ a^trie^-spoce^Jtbe-  beginning 
of  the  plav  the  old  man  Stands  erect :  theri  iie"begins  to  bend. 
Anj^the  wejikejc.  b"e  gröWS  the  heavier  load  is  lifim^Caupon  him, 
tin^atTlIBt,  overburdenedi  he  sinks.  He  wanders  off,  gropihg  his 
Way,  wtth  his  tifushiing  fate  upon  his  back.  Then  the  U|;J\V.  ^  Vk^ 
mindisextinguisbed;  nadness.  seises  hVmTl 


456  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

And.  Shakespeare  takes  this  theme^^  niari"^**°  and  sets  it  for 
tree  voices— divides  it  between  ^dgar,  who  is  mad  to_sc?rvc_a 
purpose,  but  sp)eaks  the  language  of  real  insanity ;  the.£QQlt  who 
is  mad  by  profession,  and  masks  the  soundest  practica!  wisdom 
under  the  appearance  of  insanity;  and  the  King,  who  is  bewildered 
and  infected  by  Edgar's  insane  talk — the  King,  who  is  mad  with 
misery  and  sufferiixg. 

As  already  remarked,  it  is  evident  from  the  indifference  with 
which  Shakespeare  takes  up  the  old  material  to  make  a  beginning 
and  set  the  play  going,  that  all  he  really  cared  about  was  the 
essential  pathos  of  the  theme,  the  deep  seriousness  of  the  funda^ 
mental  emotion..  The  opening  Scenes  are  of  course  \ncredjbk. 
It  is  only  in  fairy-tales  that  a  king  divides  the  provinces  of  bis 
kingdom  among  his  daughters,  on  the  prindple  that  -she  gets 
the  largest  share  who  can  assure  him  that  she  loves  him  most; 
and  only  a  childish  audience  could  find  it  conceivable  that  cid 
Gloucester  should  instantly  believe  the  most  improbable  calumnies 
against  a  son  whose  fine  character  he  knew.  Shakespeare's  io- 
dividuality  does  not  make  itself  feit  in  such  parts  as  these;  but 
it  certainly  does  in  the  view  of  life,  its  course  and  charactei^jBUch 
bursts  upon  Lear  when  he  goes  mad,  and  which  manifests  itself 
here  and  there  all  through  the  play.  .  AndShakespeaine^s  intdlect 
has  liow  attained  such  mastery,  eveiy  passion.  i&  readered  wih 
^uch  irresistible  power,  that  the  play,  in  spite  ..of  its  fantastic, 
uiu:?.^  bAsis,.  produces  an.effect.ofabsolnte  trufi. 

"  Lear,  A  man  may  see  how  this  world  goes  with  no  eyes.  Look 
whh  thine  ears:  see  how  yond  justice  rails  upon  yond  simple  diiel 
Hark,  in  thine  ear :  change  places ;  and,  handy-dsmdy,  which  is  die 
justice,  which  is  the  thief  ? — Thou  hast  seen  a  'farmer's  dog  bark  at  a 
b^gar? 

"  Gloster.  Ay,  sir. 

^^ Lear.  And  the  creature  nm  from  the  cur?  Theie  thou  might'st 
behold  the  great  image  of  authority :  a  dog's  obey'd  in  office." 

And  then  follow-  outburstfr  to  the  effect  that  tb« -pimisher  is 
generally  worse  than  the  punished;  the  beadle  fIog8...the  loose 
woman,  but  the  rascally  beadle  is  as  lustful  as  she. .  The  idea 
here  answers  to  that  in  Measure  for  Measure  :  the  beadle  should 
flog  himself,  not  the  woman.  And  then  come  complaints  that  the 
rieh  are  exempt  fix>m  punishment :  dress  Sin  in  armour  of  gold- 
plate,  and  the  lance  of  Justice  will  shiver  against  it.  Flnally,  he 
concentrates  his  indictment  of  life  in  the  words: — 

**  When  we  are  bom,  we  cry  that  we  axe  come 
To  this  great  stage  of  fools." 

We  hear  a  refirain  from  Hamlet  running  through  all  this.  But 
Hamlet's  criticism  of  life  is  here  taken  up  by  iqmj  voioes;  it 
Sounds  louder,  and  awakens  echo  upon  echa 


CHARACTER  OF  CORDELIA 

The  Fpol,  the  best  of  Shakespeare'»  Foc4s,  made 
spicuous  by  Coming  after  the  insignificant  Clowa  ia  Othello^  is 
such  an  echo — mordantly  witty,  marvellou^ly  ingenious.  .He  isl 
the  protest  of  sound  common-sense  against  the  foolishness  of J 
.which  Lear  has  been  guilty,  but  a  protest  that  is  pure  huxnour ; 
Jie  never  complains,  least  of  all  on  his  own  account.  Yet  all  his 
foolery  produces  a  tragic  effect.  And  the  words  spoken  by  one 
of  the  knights,  "  Since  my  young  lady's  going  intp  France,  sir, 
the  fool  hath  much  pined  away,"  atone  for  all  his  sharp  spee.cbe$  . 
to  Lear.  Amongst  Shakespeare's  pther  master-strpkes  in  this 
play  must  be  reckoned  that  of  exalting  the  traditional  down, 
the  buffoon,  into  so  high  a  sphere  that  he  becomes  a  tragic 
element  of  the  first  order. 

Ia  no  other  play  of  Shakespcare's  has  the  Fool  so  manv 
proyerbial  words  of  wisdom.  Indeed,  the  whole  piece  teems  with 
such  words :  Lear's  "  '  Ay '  and  'no,'  too,  was  no  good  divinity ; " 
E^gar^J' Ripeness  is  all;''  Kent's  "To  be  acknowledged,  madaiHi 

is  p'CF*'*''^ '^ 


rhilstlheelder  daughters  haye  inherited  and  over-developed 
I«4^r[s  bad  qualities,  Cordelia  lias  fallen  heir  to  his  goodness  of ' 
hea^ ;  but  he  has  also  transmitted  to  her  a  certain  obstinacy 
andpride,  but  for  which  the  conflict  would  not  have  arisen.  His 
first  questipn  to  her/and  her  answer  to  it,  are  equally  wanting  in 
tact.  But  as  the>4ction  proceeds,  we  find  that  her  obstinacy  his^ 
melted  aw^ ;  l^r  whole  being  is  goodness  and  charm. 

How  touchihg  is  the  passage  where  Cordelia  finds  her  brain-  t 
feck  sire,  and  tends  him  until,  by  aid  of  the  healing  art,  and  sleejJ  1 
(and  music,  heislowly  regains  his  health.     Everything  is  beautiful   * 
nere,  from  thi  first  kiss  to4he  last  word.     Lear  iß.  bprne  sleeß- 
^8.  ^P,AP.jSli'.,Stage^  The  doctor  Orders  music  to  sound,  and 
C!brdelia  sayskiv.  7) : — 

"  Cor\  O  my  dear  father !    Restoration  hang 
Thy  medi^ine  on  my  lips,  and  let  this  kiss 
Repair  thc^  violent  harms,  that  my  two  sister^ 
Have  in  thj|y  reverence  made ! 

KentJ  Kind  and  dear  princess ! 

Cor*  fead  you  not  been  their  father,  these  white  flaket 
Had  cha|lleng'd  pity  of  them.     Was  this  a  face 
To  be  o|ppos'd  against  the  warring  winds  ? 

Mine  enem/t  dog, 
Thoogh  lie  had  bit  me,  should  have  stood:tiiat  nig^, 
Against  i^ay  fire." 

He  awakes,  and^  Cordelia  says  to  him : — 

ow  does  my  royal  lord  ?    How  inpet  your  majesty  ? 
u  do  me  wrong  to  take  me  out  o'  the  ^»Tce« 
ul  in  bliss ;  but  I  am  V>ouxid 


458  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Upon  a  wheel  of  fire,  that  mine  own  teare 
Do  scald  like  molten  lead." 

Then  he  comes  to  himself,  asks  where  he  has  been,  and  where 
he  is;  is  surprised  that  it  is  ''fair  daylight ; "  rememberB  wbat 
he  has  suffered : — 

"  Cor.  O  look  upon  me,  sir, 

And  hold  your  hands  in  benediction  o*er  me. — 
No,  sir,  you  must  not  kneel^'  • 

Notice  this  last  line.  It  has  its  histoiy.  In  the  old  drama  of 
King  Leir  .this  kneeling  was  made  a  more ,  prominent  feature. 
There  the  King  and  his  faithfui  Perillus  (30  Kent  was  called  in 
the  old  play)  are  wandering  about,  perishing  with  hunger  and 
thirst,  when  they  fall  in  with  the  King  of  Gaul  and  Cordelia,  who 
are  spying  out  the  land  disguised  as  peasants.  The  däughter 
recognises  her  father,  and  gives  the  starving  man  fopd  and 
drink;  then,  when  he  is  satisfied,  he  teils  her  his  story  in  deep 
anguish  of  spintT^^         ""      ^ 

"2>/>.  O  no  men's  children  are  vnkind  but  mine. 

Cordella,  Condemne  not  all,  becau^e  of  others  crimen 
But  looke,  deare  father,  looke,  behold  ^d  see 
Thy  louing  däughter  speaketh  vnto  thee.  \ 

{She  kHfi^y 

Leir,  O,  stand  thou  vp,  it  is  my  part  to  kn^ple. 


And  aske  forgiueness  for  my  former  faults. 


rVr 


(He  knee, 

Vht.  sceae  is  beautiful,  and  there  is  true  filial  feeli^  in  it»  but  it 
would  be  impossible  on  thestage^  where  two  pessons  kneeling 
to  each  other  cannot  but  produce  a  comic  effect.  iThc  incident, 
indeed,  actually  occurs  in  some  of  Moli^re's  and  Holkierg's  comedies. 
Shakespie'are  understood  how  to  preserve  and  util^  this  (with  all 
other  traits  of  any  value  in  his  predecessor's  y/ork)  in  such  a 
manner  that  oftly  its  delicacy  remains,  while  w  extemal  awk- 
wardness  disappears.  Lear  says  to  Cordelia,\when  they  have 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies : — 

"  Come,  let*s  away  to 
We  two  alone  will  sing  hke  birds  i'  the  cage  : 
JVken  thou  dost  ask  me  Messinge  Fll  kneel  dawy 
And  ask  of  thee  forgiveness.     So  we'll  live. 
And  pray,  and  sing,  and  teil  old  tales,  and  laj 
At  gilded  butterflies,  and  hear  poor  rogues 
TzSl  ci  court  news." 

The  old  play  cnds  naively  and  innocently  wit^the  triumph  of 
the  good.  The  King  of  Gaul  and  Cordelia  coKOct  Leir  home 
again,  teil  the  Wicked  daughters  sharp  truths  tMmbr  fieices,  and 
tfaereupon  totally  rout  their  armiea.     Leit  thäß"  «Id  Ivwards 


A  TITANIC  TRAGEDY  459 

all  who  have  been  faithful  to  him,  and  passes  the  remainder  of 
his  days  in  agreeable  leisure  under  the  care  of  his  daughter  and 
son-in-law. 

Shakespeare  does  not  take  such  a  bright  view  of  life.  Accord- 
ing  to  him,  Cordelia's  armyjs  defeated^  and  the  old  King  and.  his 
daughter  are'thrown  into  prison,  But  no  past  and  np  present 
adversity  can  crush  Lear's  spirit  now.  In  st)ite  of  everythitig, 
in  spite  of  the  loss  of  power,  of  self-reliance,  imd  for  a  time  of 
ixason,  in  spite  of  defeat  in  the  decisive  battle,  he  is  as  happy  as 
aa.old  man  can  be.  He  has  his  lost  daughter  again.  Age  had 
already  isolated  him.  In  the  peace  that  a  prison  aifords  he  will 
live  not  much  more  lonely  than  great  age  is  of  necessity,  shut  in 
with  the  objecto  now  the  sole  object,  of  his  love^  It  seems  for 
a  moment  as  though  Shakespeare  would  say:  "Happy  is  that 
man,  even  though  he  may  be  in  prison,  who  in  the  last  years  of 
his  life  has  the  darling  of  his  heart  beside  him/' 

But  this  is  not  the  conclusion  to  which  Shakespeare  Itads 
US.  Edmund  commands  that  Cordelia  shall  be  hanged  in  prison, 
and  the  murderer  executes  his  order. 

The  tragedy  does  not  culminate  tili  Lear  enters  with  Cordelia 
dead  in  his  arms.  After  a  wild  outburst  of  grief,  he  asks  for 
a  looking-glass  to  see  if  she  still  breathes,  and  in  the  pausö  that 
ensues  Kent  says : — 

"  Is  this  the  promised  end  ?  " 
And  Edgar : — 

"  Or  image  of  that  horror?* 

Lear  is  given  a  feather.  He  utters  a  cry  of  joy — ^it  moyes-— she 
is  alive !  Then  he  sees  that  he  has  been  mistaken.  Curses. 
folloWf  and  after  them  this  exquisite  touch  of  characterisation :— - 

"  Her  voice  was  ever  soft, 
Gentle,  and  low,  an  excellent  thing  in  woman." 

Then  the  disguised  Kent  make3  himself  known,  and  Lear  !eam9 
that  the  two  criminal  daughters  are  dead.  But  his  capacity  for 
receiving  new  pmpressions  is  almost  gone.  He  can  fed  nothing 
but  Cordelia's  death  :  "  And  my  poor  fool  is  hang*d  I  No,  no,  no 
M^''    He  faints  and  dies. 

"  JTent.  I  Vex  not  his  ghost :  O  let  him  pass  I    He  hates  him    / 
That  wou|d  upon  the  rack  of  this  tough  world  \ 

Stretch  him  out  longer." 

That  this  \old  man  should  lose  his  youngeat  daughter — this  is 
the  catastropt^  which  Shakespeare  has  made  so  great  that  it 
is4Kith  reason\Kent  asks:  "Is  this  the  promis.ed  eud?     \!&  ^^^ 
tb«>end  of  the^world  ? '*    In  dieldss  of  iVm  ^v^üTXtfLV^iiiKSk 


( 


46o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

all;   and  the  abyss  that  opens  seems  wide  enough  and  deep 
enough  to  engulph  a  world. 

The  loss  of  a  Cordelia — that  is  the  great  cataströphe.  ^We 
all  lose,  or  live  imder  the  dread  of  losing»  our  Cordelia,.  The 
loss  of  the  dearest  and  the  best,  of  that  whick^alone  makes 
life  worth  living^<-.-4hat  is  the  tragedy  of  life.  Hence.  the-quesdoiu. 
Is  this  the  end  of  the  world?  Yes,  it  is.  Each.of.us  has  only. 
his  world»  and  lives  with  the  threat  of  its  destruction  hanging 
over  him.  Andin.the  year  l6o6  Shakespeare  was  in  no  mood 
write  x>theF  than  dramas  on  the  doom  of  worlds. 

For  Jthfi  end  of  all  things  seems  to  have  come  when  we  see 
the  min  of  the  moral  world — when  he  who  is  noble  and  tnistful 
like  Lear.is^rewarded  with  ingratitude  and  hate;  when  he  whö 
is  honfistand  brave  like  Kent  is  punished  with  dishonour^  when 
he  '^o.  is  äercifui  Kke  Gloucester»  taking  the  süffenng  and 
injured  under  his  roof,  has  the  loss  of  his  eyes  for  his  reward; 
when  he  who  is  noble  and  faithful  like  Edgar  must  wanden  ahout 
in  the  semblance  of  a  maniac,  with  a  rag  round  his  loins;  when, 
finallyi  she  who  is  the  living.  emhlem  of  womanly  dignüy  and.  oif 
filial  tenderness  towards  an  old  father  who  basbecome. aalt jcere 
her  cbild-TTwhen  she  meets  her  dcath  before  his  eyeaijLtJthe  hajods 
ofassassins!  What  avails  it  that  the  guüty  slaughter  and  poison 
cach  other  afterwards  ?  JNone  the  less  is  this  the.titanic. tragedy. 
of  human  life;  there  rings ibrth.fromita.ch0rusof.passionate, 
jcering,  wHdly  yeaming;  and  desperately  wailing  vmces^ 

Sitting  by  his  fire  at  night,  Shakespeare  heard  them  in  the 
roar  of  the  storm^  against  the  window-pane,  in  the  howling  of 
the  wind  in  the  chimneys— heard  all  these  teEriblcvoices  CQUtca^ 
puntally  inwoyen  one  with  another  as  in  a  fugue,  and  heard  iol 
i them.  the  torture^shriek  of  sufiering  humaoity. 


\ 


1 


1 


XXVII 

ANTONY   AND    CLEOPATRA— WH  AT    ATTRACTED 
SHAKESPEARE   TO   THE  SUBJECT 

IF  it  is  the  last  titanic  tragedy  of  human  life  that  has  now  been 
writteDy  what  is  there  more  to  add?  There  is  nothing  left  to 
write.     Shakespeare  may  lay  down  his  pen. 

So  it  would  seem  to  us.  But  what  is  the  actual  course  of 
events  ?  what  do  we  see  ?  That  for  years  to  come,  work  follows 
work  in  uninterrupted  succession.  It  is  with  Shakespeare  as 
with  all  other  great,  prolific  geniuses ;  time  and  again  we  think^ 
"  Now  he  has  done  his  best,  now  he  has  reached  his  zenith,  now 
he  has  touched  the  limit  of  his  power,  exhausted  his  treasury, 
made  his  crowning  eifort,  his  highest  bid," — when  behold!  he 
takes  up  a  new  work  the  day  after  he  has  let  go  the  old ;  takes  it 
up  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  unexhausted,  unwearied  by  the 
treniendous  task  he  has  accomplished,  fresh  as  if  he  had  just 
arisen  from  repose,  indefatigable  as  though  he  were  only  now 
setting  forth  with  his  name  and  fame  yet  to  be  won. 

King  Lear  makes  a  Sensation  among  Shakespeare's  impres- 
sionable  audience ;  crowds  flock  to  the  theatre  to  see  it ;  the  book 
is  quickly  sold  out — two  quarto  editions  in  1608;  all  minds  are 
occupied  with  it;  they  have  not  nearly  exhausted  its  treasures 
of  profundity,  of  wit,  of  practical  wisdom,  of  poetry — Shakespeare 
alone  no  longer  gives  a  moment's  thought  to  it ;  he  has  left  it  be- 
hind  and  is  deep  in  his  next  work. 

A  world-catastrophe !  He  has  no  mind  now  to  write  of 
anything  eise.  What  is  sounding  in  his  ears,  what  is  Alling  his 
thoughts,  is  the  crash  of  a  world  falling  to  ruin. 

For  this  music  he  seeks  out  a  new  text.  He  has  not  far  to 
seek;  he  has  found  it  already.  Since  the  time  when  he  wrote 
Julius  Ccesar^  Plutarch  has  never  been  out  of  his  hands.  In  his 
first  Roman  drama  he  depicted  the  fall  of  the  world-republic ;  but 
in  that  world,  as  a  whole,  fresh,  strong  forces  were  still  at  work. 
Caesar's  spirit  dominated  it.  We  heard  more  of  his  greatness 
than  we  saw  of  it ;  but  we  could  infer  his  tnie  significance  from 
the  effects  of  his  disappearance  from  the  scene.  And  the  republic 
still  lived  in  spirits  proud  like  Brutus,  or  strong  like  C^s&>>^'Ss 
and  did  not  ezpire  with  them.    By  Brulu^^^  Hvd^  ^X-c^cA  Ca^sS% 

4fti 


462  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

daughter,  delicate  but  steadfast,  the  tenderest  and  bravest  of 
wives.  In  short,  there  were  still  many  sound  Clements  in  thc 
body  politic.  The  republic  feil  by  historical  necessity,  but  there 
was  no  decadence  of  mind,  no  degeneracy,  no  ruin. 

But  Shakespeare  read  on  in  his  Plutarch  and  came  to  the 
life  of  Marcus  Antonius.  This  he  read  first  out  of  curiosity,  then 
with  attention,  then  with  eager  emotion.  For  here,  here  was  the 
real  downfall  of  the  Roman  world.  Not  tili  now  did  he  hear  the 
final,  fatal  crash  of  the  old  world-republic.  The  might  of  Rome, 
Stern  and  austere,  sbivered  at  the  touch  of  Eastern  voluptuous- 
ness.  Everything  sank,  everything  feil — character  and  will, 
dominions  and  principalities,  men  and  women.  Everything  was 
worm-eaten,  serpent-bitten,  poisoned  by  sensuality — everything 
tottered  and  coUapsed.  Defeat  in  Asia,  defeat  in  Europe,  defeat 
in  Africa,  on  the  Egyptian  coast;  then  self-abandonment  and 
suicide. 

Again  a  poisoning-story  like  that  of  Macbeth.  In  Macbeth's 
Gase  the  virus  was  ambition,  in  Antonyms  it  was  sensuality.  But 
the  Story  of  Antony,  with  its  far-reaching  efiects,  was  a  very 
much  weightier  and  more  interesting  subject  than  the  story 
of  the  little  barbarian  Scottish  king.  Macbeth  was  spiritually 
poisoned  by  his  wife,  a  woman  ambitious  to  bloodthirstiness,  an 
abnormal  woman,  more  masculine  than  her  husband,  almost  a 
virago.  She  speaks  of  dashing  out  the  brains  of  babes  as  of  one 
of  those  venial  offences  which  one  may  commit  on  an  emergency 
rather  than  break  one's  word,  and  she  undertakes  without  a 
tremor  to  smear  the  faces  of  the  murdered  King's  servants  with 
his  blood.  What  is  Lady  Macbeth  to  us  ?  What's  Hecuba  to 
US  ?    And  what  was  this  Hecuba  now  to  Shakespeare ! 

In  a  very  different  and  more  personal  way  did  he  feel  himself 
attracted  by  Cleopatra.  She  poisons  slowly,  half-involuntarily, 
and  in  whoUy  feminine  fashion,  the  faculty  of  rule,  the  general- 
f  ship,  the  courage,  the  greatness  of  Antony,  ruler  of  half  the 
\vorld — and  her,  Cleopatra,  he,  Shakespeare,  knew.  He  knew 
her  as  we  all  know  her,  the  woman  of  women,  quintessentiated 
Eve,  or  rather  Eve  and  the  serpent  in  one — "  h^y_serpent  of  old 
Nile,"  as  Antony  calls  her.  Cleopatra — ^the  name  meant  beätity 
and   fascination — it    meant    alluring   sensuality  combined  with 

Ifinished  culture — it  meant  ruthless  squandering  of  human  life 
_  and  happiness  and  the  noblest  powers.  Here,  indeed,  was  the 
woman  who  could  intoxicate  and  undo  a  man,  even  the  greatest; 
uplift  him  to  such  happiness  as  he  had  never  known  before,  and 
then  plunge  him  into  perdition,  and  along  with  him  that  half  of 
the  World  which  it  was  his  to  rule. 

Who  knows  I  If  he  himself,  William  Shakespeare,  had  met 
her,  who  knows  if  he  would  have  escaped  with  his  life  ?  And 
had  he  not  met  her  ?  Was  it  not  she  whom  in  bygone  days  he 
h&ä  met  and  loved,  and  by  whom  he  had  been  beloved  and  bt* 


CORDELIA  AND  CLEOPATRA  463 

trayed  ?  It  moved  him  strongly  to  find  Cleopatra  described  as 
so  dark,  so  tawny.  His  thoughts  dwelt  upon  this.  He  too  had 
stood  in  close  relation  to  a  dark,  ensnaring  woman^-one  whom  in 
bitter  moments  he  had  been  tempted  to  call  a  gipsy;  "a  right 
gipsy,"-as  Cleopatra  is  called  in  this  play,  by  those  who  arc 
afraid  of  her  or  angry  with  her.  She  of  whom*  he  never  thought 
without  emotion,  his  black  enchantress,  his  life's  angel  and  fiend, 
whom  he  had  hated  and  adored  at  the  same  time,  whom  he  had 
despised  even  while  he  sued  for  her  favour — what  was  she  but 
a  new  incarnation  of  that  dangerous,  gQfiaadfig..serpent  of  the 
Nile  I  And  how  nearly  had  his  whole  inner  world  collapsed  like 
a  soap-bubble  in  his  association  with,  and  Separation  from,  her  1 
That  would  indeed  have  been  the  ruin  of  a  world  I  How  he  had 
revelled  and  writhed,  exulted  and  complained  in  those  days! 
played  ducks  and  drakes  with  his  life,  squandered  his  days  and 
nightsi  Now  he  was  a  maturer  man,  a  gentleman,  a  landed 
proprietor  and  tithe-farmer ;  but  in  him  still  lived  the  artist- 
Bohemian,  fitted  to  mate  with  the  gipsy  queen. 

Three  times  in  Shakespeare  {Romeo  and  Juliet^  ii.  4,  and 
Antony  and  Cleopatra^  i.  i,  and  iv.  12)  Cleopatra  is  slightingly 
called  gipsy ^  probably  from  the  word's  resemblance  in  sound  to 
Egyptian,  But  there  was  a  certain  significance  in  this  word-play ; 
for  the  high-mindedness  of  the  princess  and  the  fickleness  of  the 
gipsy  were  mysteriously  combined  in  her  nature.  And  how  well 
he  knew  this  combination !  The  model  for  the  great  Egyptian 
queen  stood  living  before  his  eyes.  With  the  same  palette  which 
he  had  used  not  many  years  before  to  sketch  the  ''  dark  lady " 
of  the  Sonnets  he  could  now  paint  this  monumental  historical 
Portrait 

This  figure  charmed  him,  attracted  him  strongly.  He  came 
fresh  from  Cordelia.  He  had  built  up  that  whole  titanic  tragedy 
of  King  Lear  as  a  ^deslal  loi  ^ler.  And-  what  iä'  Cordetla  ? 
The  ideal  which  one's  Imagination  reads  on  a  young  girl's  white 
brow,  and  which  the  young  girl  herseif  hardly  understands,  much 
less  realises.  She  was  the  ray  of  white  light — the  great,  clear 
Symbol  of  the  purity  and  nobility  of  heart  which  were  expressed 
in  her  very  name.  He  believed  in  her ;  he  had  looked  into  her 
innocent  eyes,  whose  expression  inspired  him  with  the  idea  of  her 
character ;  he  had  chanced  upon  that  obstinate,  almost  ungracious 
truthfulness  in  young  women,  which  seems  to  augur  a  treasure  of 
real  feeling  behind  it ;  but  he  had  not  known  or  associated  with 
Cordelia  in  daily  life. 

Cleopatra,  on  the  contrary,  O  Cleopatra  I  He  passed  in  suc- 
cession  before  his  eyes  the  most  feminine,  and  therefore  the  most 
dangerous,  women  he  had  known  since  he  gained  a  footing  in 
London,  and  he  gave  her  the  grace  of  the  one,  the  caprices  of 
the  other,  the  teasing  humour  of  a  third,  a  fourth's  instability ; 
but  deep  in  his  heart  he  was  thinking  of  oue  oD\^,^>[\o\\a^\)K^ 


464  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  him  all  women  in  one,  a  mistress  in  the  art  of  love  and  oi 
awakening  love,  inciting  to  it  as  no  other  incited,  and  faithlessly 
betraying  as  no  other  betrayed^— tnie  and  false,  daring  and  frail, 
actress  and  lover  without  peer ! 

There  were  several  earlier  English  dramas  on  the  subject  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  but  only  one  or  two  of  them  are  worth 
mentioning.  There  was  Daniers  Cleopatra  of  1594,  founded 
partly  on  Plutarch's  Lives  of  Antonius  and  Pompcius,  partly  on 
a  Frcnch  book  called  the  "  History  of  the  Three  Triumvirates," 
Then  there  was  a  play  cntitled  The  Tragedie  of  Antonie^  trans- 
lated  from  the  French  by  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  the  mother 
of  Shakespeare's  friend,  in  the  year  1595.  Shakespeare  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  indebted  to  either  of  these  works,  nor 
to  any  of  the  numerous  Italian  plays  on  the  subject  He  had 
none  of  them  before  him  when  he  sat  down  to  write  his  drama, 
which  appears  to  have  been  acted  for  the  first  time  shortly  before 
the  20th  of  May  1608,  on  which  day  it  is  entered  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  as  "a  booke  called  Anthony  and  Cleopatra^^  by  Edward 
Blount,  one  of  the  publishers  who  afterwards  brought  out  the 
First  Folio.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  play  was  written 
during  the  course  of  the  year  1607. 

The  only  source,  probably,  from  which  Shakespeare  drew,  and 
from  which  he  drew  largely,  was  the  Life  cf  Marcus  Antonius, 
in  North's  translation  of  Plutarch.  It  was  on  the  basis  of  what 
he  read  there  that  he  planned  and  executed  his  work,  even  where, 
as  in  the  first  act,  he  writes  without  in  every  point  adhering  to 
Plutarch.  The  farther  the  drama  progresses  the  more  dosely 
does  he  keep  to  Plutarch's  narrative,  ingeniously  and  carefully 
making  use  of  every  touch,  great  or  small,  that  appears  to  him 
characteristic.  It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  several  traits  are 
included  merely  because  they  are  true,  or  rather  because 
Shakespeare  thinks  they  are  true.  At  times  he  introduces  quite 
unnecessary  personages,  like  Dolabella,  simply  because  he  will 
not  put  into  the  mouth  of  another  the  message  which  Plutarch 
assigns  to  him ;  and  it  is  very  seldom  that  he  permits  himself  even 
the  most  trifling  alteration. 

Shakespeare  ennobled  the  character  of  Antony  to  a  oertain 
extent  Plutarch  depicts  him  as  a  Hercules  in  stature,  and 
inclined  to  ape  the  demigod  by  certain  affectations  of  dress;  a 
hearty,  rough  soldier,  given  to  praising  himself  and  making  game 
of  others,  but  capable,  too,  of  enduring  banter  as  well  as  praise. 
His  inclination  to  prodigality  and  luxurious  living  made  him 
rapacious,  but  he  was  ignorant  of  most  of  the  infamies  that  were 
committed  in  his  name.  There  was  no  craft  in  his  nature,  but  he 
was  brutal,  recklessly  profligate,  and  devoid  of  all  sense  of  decency. 
A  populär,  light-hearted,  free-handed  general,  who  sat  far  too 
many  hours  at  table — indifferent  whether  it  were  with  his  own 
salinen  or  with  pnnces — who  showed  himself  drunken  on  the 


PLUTARCH'S  ANTONY  465 

public  Street,  and  would  "sleepe  out  bis  drunkennesse "  in  the 
light  of  day,  degraded  himself  by  the  lowest  debauchery,  ex- 
hausted  whole  treasuries  on  bis  joumeys,  travelled  with  priceless 
gold  and  silver  plate  for  bis  table,  had  chariots  drawn  by  lions, 
gave  away  tens  of  tbousands  of  pounds  in  a  Single  gift ;  but  in 
defeat  and  misfortune  rose  to  bis  füll  height  as  the  inspiriting 
leader  who  uncomplainingly  renounced  all  bis  own  comforts  and 
kept  up  the  courage  of  bis  men.  Calamity  always  raised  bim  above 
himself — a  sufHcient  proof  that,  in  spite  of  every tbing,  he  was  not 
without  a  strain  of  greatness.  There  was  something  of  the  stage- 
king  in  bim,  something  of  the  Murat,  a  touch  of  Skobeloff,  and  a 
Suggestion  of  the  mediseval  knight.  What  could  be  less  antique 
than  bis  twice  challenging  Octavius  to  single  combat?  And  in 
the  end,  when  misfortune  overwbelmed  him,  and  those  on  wbom 
he  had  showered  benefits  ungratefuUy  forsook  bim,  there  was 
something  in  bim  that  recalled  Timon  of  Athens  nursing  bis 
melancholy  and  bis  bittemess.  He  himself  recognised  the 
afSnity. 

Women,  according  to  Plutarch,  were  Antony's  bane.  After  a 
youth  in  which  many  women  had  had  a  share,  he  married  Fulvia, 
the  widow  of  the  notorious  tribune,  Clodius.  She  acquired  the 
mastery  over  biin,  and  bent  bim  to  all  her  wishes,  so  that  from 
her  band  he  passed  into  Cleopatra's,  ready  broken-in  to  feminine 
dominion. 

According  to  Plutarch,  moreover,  Antony  was  endowed  with  a 
considerable  flexibility  of  character.  He  was  fond  of  disguising 
himself,  of  playing  practical  jokes.  Once,  for  instance,  on  returning 
from  a  campaign,  he,  dressed  as  a  slave,  delivered  to  bis  wife, 
Fulvia,  a  letter  telling  of  bis  own  death,  and  then  suddenly  em- 
braced  her  as  she  stood  terror-struck.  This  was  only  one  of 
many  manifestations  of  his  power  of  self-metamorphosis.  Some« 
times  he  would  seem  nerveless,  sometimes  iron-nerved ;  sometimes 
effeminate,  sometimes  brave  to  foolhardiness ;  now  avid  of  bonouTi 
now  devoid  of  honour;  now  revengeful,  now  magnanimous. 
This  undulant  diversity  and  changeableness  in  Antony  fascinated 
Shakespeare.  Yet  he  did  not  accept  the  character  exactly  as  he 
found  it  in  Plutarch.  He  tbrew  into  relief  the  brighter  sides  of 
it,  building  upon  the  foundation  of  Antony's  inborn  magnificence, 
the  süperb  prodigality  of  his  nature,  his  kingly  generosity, 
and  that  reckless  determination  to  enjoy  the  passing  moment, 
which  is  a  not  uncommon  attribute  both  of  great  rulers  and 
great  artists. 

There  was  a  crevice  in  this  antique  figure  througb  which 
Sbakespeare's  soul  could  creep  in.  He  had  no  difficulty  in 
imagining  himself  into  Antony's  moods;  he  was  able  to  playjhim 
just  as,  in  his  capacity  of  actor,  he  could  play  a  part  that  was 
quite  in  bis  line.  Antony  possessed  that  power  of  metamorphosis 
wbicb  is  the  essence  of  tbe  artist  nature.    H.e  ^^9^&  ^\.  0x1^  ^\A  "^^ 


466  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Same  time  a  master  in  the  art  of  dissimulation — see  his  funeitd 
oratioh  in  Julius  CtBsar^  and  in  this  play  the  manner  in  which  he 
takeä  Octavia  to  wife — and  an  opeti^  honest  character;  hife  was 
in  a  way  faithful»  feit  closely  bound  to  his  mistress  and  tö  his 
comrädea-in-arms,  and  was  yet  alarmingly  unstable.  In  other 
Wordd)  his  was  an  artist-nature. 

Among  his  many  contradictory  qtialities  two  stood  öUt  pre- 
eminent :  the  bent  towards  action  and  the  bent  towards  enjoyment 
Octavius  says  in  the  play  that  these  two  propensities  are  equally 
strong  in  him,  and  this  is  perhaps  just  about  the  truth.  If,  with 
his  immense  bodily  strength,  he  had  bi^en  still  more  voluptuously 
inclined,  he  would  have  become  what  in  later  history  AugustUs  the 
Strong  became,  and  Cleopatra  would  have  been  his  Aurora  von 
Königsmarck.  If  energy  had  been  more  strongly  developcd  in 
him,  then  generalship  and  love  of  drink  and  dissipation  Would 
have  combined  in  him  much  as  they  did  in  Alexander  the  Great, 
and  Antony  in  Alexandria  would  have  presented  a  parallel  to 
Alexander  in  Babylon.  The  scales  hung  evenly  balanced  for  a 
long  time,  until  Antony  met  his  fate  in  Cleopatra. 

Shakespeare  has  endowed  them  both  with  extreme  personal 
beauty,  though  neither  of  them  is  young.  Antony's  followers  see 
In  him  a  Mars,  in  her  a  Venus.  Even  the  gruif  Enobarbud  (ii.  2) 
declares  that  when  he  saw  her  for  the  first  time,  she  "o'crpictured 
that  Venus  where  we  see  the  fancy  outwork  nature.''  She  is  the 
enchantress  whom,  according  to  Antony,  "everything  bect)mes'' 
— ehiding,  laughing,  weeping,  as  well  as  repose.  She  is  "a 
Wonderful  piece  of  work."  Antony  can  never  leave  her,  fofi  as 
Enobarbus  says  (ii.  2 ;  compare  Sonnet  Ivi.) : — 

"  Age xannnt .  wither^her,  nor  custom  stale 
Her  infinite  vanety.     Other  women  cloy 
The  appetites  they  feed,  but  she  makes  hungiy 
Where  most  she  satisfies ;  for  vilest  things 
Become  themselves  in  her." 

What  matters  it  that  Shakespeare  pictures  her  to  himself  dark  as 
an  African  (she  was  in  reality  of  the  purest  Greek  blood),  or  that 
she,  with  some  exaggeration,  calls  herseif  old  ?  She  can  aflford  to 
jest  on  the  subject  of  her  complexion  as  on  that  of  her  age :-» 

<<Thinkonme 
That  am  with  Phoebus  amorous  pitiches  black. 
And  wrinkled  deep  in  time." 

She  is  what  Antony  calls  her  when  he  (viii.  2)  exclaims  in  ecstasy, 
"  O  thou  day  o'  the  world ! " 

In  person  and  carriage  Antony  is  as  if  created  for  her.  It  is 
not  only  Cleopatra's  passion  that  speaks  when  she  says  of  Antooy 
(▼•2):— 

''  I  dream'd  there  was  an  Emperor  Antony  .  .  • 
His  face  was  as  äie  heavent  .  .  ." 


CHARACTER  OF  ANTONY  467 

And  to  the  beauty  of  bis  face  answers  that  of  bis  voice  :— 

"  Propertied 
As  all  the  tun^d  spheres,  and  that  to  friends ; 
But  when  he  meant  to  quail  and  shake  the  orb. 
He  was  as  rattling  thunder.'' 

She  prizes  hiö  rieh,  geii^f ous  naturt  t — 

"  For  bis  bountyi 
There  was  no  winter  in't ;  and  autumn  'twas, 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping : 

•  ••••• 

In  bis  livery 
Walk'd  crowns  and  crownets ;  realms  and  Islands  were 
As  plates  dropped  firom  his  pocket" 

And  just  as  Enobarbus  maintained  that  Cleopatra  was  more 
beautiful  than  that  pictured  Venus  in  which  Imagination  had 
•urpassed  nature,  Cleopatra,  in  her  exaltation  after  Anton^s 
death,  maintains  that  his  glorious  humanity  surpassed  what  fancy 
can  invent : — 

"  Cleopatra.  Think  you  there  was  or  might  be  such  a  man 
As  this  I  dreamt  of  ? 

Dolabella,  Gentle  madam,  no. 

Cleopatra.  You  lie,  up  to  the  hearifig  of  the  gods. 
But,  if  there  be,  or  ever  were,  one  such, 
It's  past  the  size  of  dreaming :  nature  watits  stuff 
To  vie  Strange  forms  with  fancy ;  yet,  to  imagine 
An  Antony,  were  nature*s  piece  'gainst  ^cy, 
Condemning  shadows  quite." 

Not  of  an  Antony  should  we  speak  thus  now-a-days,  but  of  a 
Napoleon  in  the  world  of  action,  of  a  Michael  Angelo,  a  Beethoven, 
or  a  Shakespeare  in  the  world  of  art. 

But  the  figure  of  Antony  had  to  be  one  which  made  such  a 
transfiguration  possible  in  order  that  it  mig^t  be  worthy  to  stand 
by  the  side  of  hers  who  is  the  queen  of  beauty,  the  very  genius 
of  love. 

Pascal  says  in  his  Pensies :  ''  S!  le  nez  de  Cl^op&tre  eüt  ixk 
plus  court,  toute  la  face  de  la  terre  aurait  chang6/^  But  her  nose 
was,  as  the  old  coins  show  us,  exactly  what  it  ought  to  have 
been;  and  in  Shakespeare  we  feel  that  she  is  not  only  beauty 
itself,  but  charm,  except  in  one  single  scene,  where  the  news  of 
Antony's  marriage  throws  her  into  a  parozysm  of  unbeautiful 
rage.  Her  charm  is  of  the  sense-intoxicating  kind,  and  she  has, 
by  study  and  art,  developed  those  powers  of  attraction  which  she 
possessed  from  the  outset,  tili  3he  has  beccone  inexhaustible  in 
inventivefiess  and  variety.  She  is  the  woman  who  haä  ^^^s^äftA. 
from  band  to  band,  from  bei^  husband  mnd  bxQ(0[iCt  V>  ^otcc^^> 


468  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

from  Pompey  to  the  great  Caesar,  from  Caesar  to  countless  others. 
She  is  the  courtesan  by  temperament,  but  none  the  less  does  she 
possess  the  genius  for  a  single,  undivided  love.  She,  like  Antony, 
is  complex,  and  being  a  woman,  she  is  more  so  than  he.  Vir 
duplex^  femina  tripUx, 

From  the  beginning  and  ahnost  to  the  end  of  the  tragedy  she 

(plays  the  part  of  the  great  coquette.  What  she  says  and  does 
is  for  long  only  the  outcome  of  the  coquette's  desire  and  power  to 
captiv^te  hy  j|ff;fl|piiiaK^p  p«^prip<>e     She  asks  where  Antony  is,  and 

sends  for  him  (L  2).  He  comes.  She  exclaims :  ''  We  will  not 
look  upon  him/'  and  goes.  Presently  his  absence  irks  her,  and 
again  she  sends  a  messenger  to  remind  him  of  her  and  keep  him 
in  play  (i.  3)  :— 

"  If  you  find  him  sad, 

Say  I  am  dancing ;  if  in  mirth,  report 

That  I  am  sudden  sick  ..." 

He  learns  of  his  wife's  death.  She  would  have  been  beside 
herseif  if  he  had  shown  grief,  but  he  speaks  with  coldness  of  the 
loss,  and  she  attacks  him  because  of  tliis : — 

"  Where  be  the  sacred  vials  thou  shonldst  fill 
With  sorrowful  water  ?    Now  I  see,  I  see 
In  Fulvia's  death  how  mine  received  shall  be."* 

This  incalculability,  this  capriciousness  of  hers  extends  to  the 
smallest  matters.  She  invites  Mardian  to  play  a  game  of  billiards 
with  her  (an  amusing  anachronism),  and,  finding  him  ready,  she 
tums  him  off  with :  "  TU  none  now." 

But  all  this  mutability  does  not  exclude  in  her  the  most  real, 
most  passionate  love  for  Antony.  The  best  proof  of  its  strength 
is  the  way  in  which  she  speaks  of  him  when  he  is  absent  (i.  5):— • 

'«OCharmianI 
Where  think'st  thou  he  is  now?    Stands  he,  or  sits  he? 
Or  does  he  walk  ?  or  is  he  on  his  horse  ? 
O  happy  horse,  to  bear  the  weight  of  Antony ! 
Do  bravely,  horse,  for  wotfst  thou  whom  thou  mov'st? 
The  demi- Atlas  of  this  earth,  the  arm 
And  burgonet  of  men." 

So  it  is  but  the  truth  she  is  speaking  when  she  teils  with  what 
immovable  certainty  and  trust,  with  what  absolute  assurance  for 
the  future,  love  filled  both  her  and  Antony  when  they  saw  eacb 
other  for  the  first  time  (i.  3) : — 

"  No  going  then ; 
Eternity  was  in  our  Ups  and  eyes, 
Bliss  in  our  brows'  bent ;  none  our  parts  so  pooi^ 
But  was  a  raoe  of  heavtn.'' 


CHARACTER  OF  CLEOPATRA       469 

Nor  is  it  irony  when  Enobarbus,  in  reply  to  Antonys  com- 
plaint  (i  2)»  "She  is  cunning  past  man's  thought,"  makes 
answer,  ''Alack,  sir,  no;  her  passions  are  made  of  nothing  but 
thc  finest  part  of  pure  love."  This  is  literally  tnie — only  that  the 
love  is  not  pure  in  the  sense  of  being  sublimated  or  unegoistic, 
but  in  the  sense  of  being  quintessential  erotic  emotion,  chemically 
free  from  all  the  other  elements  usually  combined  with  it. 

And  outward  circumstances  harmonise  with  the  character  and 
vehemence  of  this  passion.  He  lays  the  kingdoms  of  the  East  at 
her  feet;  with  reckless  prodigality,  she  lavishes  the  wealth  of 
Africa  on  the  festivals  she  holds  in  his  honour. 


XXVIII 

THB  DARK  LADY  ÄS  Ä  MODEL— THB  FALL  OF  THE 
REPUBLIC  A   WORLD'CATASTROPHE 

ASSUMING  that  it  was  Shakespeare's  design  in  Antony  anä 
Cleopatra,  as  in  King  Lear,  to  evoke  the  conception  of  a  world- 
catastrophe,  we  see  that  he  could  not  in  this  play,  as  in  Macbeth 
Cr  Othello,  focus  the  entire  action  around  the  leading  characters 
alone.  He  could  not  even  make  the  other  characters  completely 
subordinate  to  them ;  that  would  have  rendered  it  impossible  for 
him  to  give  the  impression  of  majestic  breadth,  of  an  action  cm- 
bracing  half  of  the  then  known  world,  which  he  wanted  for  the 
sake  of  the  concluding  effect. 

He  required  in  the  group  of  figures  surrounding  Octavius 
Caesar,  and  in  the  groups  round  Lepidus,  Ventidius,  and  Sextus 
Pompeius,  a  counterpoise  to  Antony's  group.  He  required  the  placid 
beauty  and  Roman  rectitude  of  Octavia  as  a  contrast  to  the  volatile, 
intoxicating  Egyptian.  He  required  Enobarbus  to  serve  as  a  sort 
of  chorus  and  introduce  an  occasional  touch  of  irony  amid  the  high- 
flown  passion  of  the  play.  In  short,  he  required  a  throng  of  per- 
sonages,  and  (in  order  to  make  us  feel  that  the  action  was  not 
taking  place  in  some  narrow  precinct  in  a  comer  of  Europe,  but 
upon  the  stage  of  the  world)  he  required  a  constant  coming  and 
going,  sending  and  receiving  of  messengers,  whose  Communications 
are  awaited  with  anxiety,  heard  with  bated  breath,  and  not  in- 
frequently  alter  at  one  blow  the  Situation  of  the  chief  characters. 

The  ambition  which  characterised  Antony's  j>ast  is  what  de- 
termines  his  relation  to  this  great  world ;  the  love  which  has  now 
taken  such  entire  possession  of  him  determines  his  relation  to  the 
Egyptian  qüeen,  and  the  consequent  loss  of  all  that  his  ambition 
had  won  for  him.  Whilst  in  a  tragedy  like  Goethe's  Clavigo^ 
ambition  plays  the  part  of  the  tempter,  and  love  is  conceived  as 
the  good,  the  legitimate  power,  here  it  is  love  that  is  reprehensible, 
ambition  that  is  proclaimed  to  be  the  great  man's  vocation  and 
duty. 

Thus  Antony  says  (i.  2) : 

**  These  strong  Egyptian  fetten  I  must  break» 
Qr  lose  myself  in  dotag|&." 


MODEL  OF  CLEOPATRA  4^1 

t  saw  that  one  dement  of  Shakespeare's  artist-nature  was  of 
'.  to  him  in  his  modelling  of  the  figure  of  Antony.  He  himself 
1  ultimately  broken  his  fetters,  or  rather  life  had  broken  them 
him ;  but  as  he  wrote  this  great  dramai  he  lived  through  again 
se  years  in  which  he  himself  had  feit  and  spoken  as  he  now 
de  Antony  feel  and  speak  : 

"  A  thousand  groans,  but  thinking  on  thy  facCi 
One  on  another's  neck,  do  witness  bear, 
Thy  black  is  fairest  in  my  judgment's  place." 

— {Sonnet  oqpq*) 

y  after  day  that  woman  now  stood  before  him  as  bis  model 

0  had  been  his  life's  Cleopatra — she  to  whom  he  had  written 
'  lust  in  action  " : 

"  Mad  in  pm^uit,  and  in  possesslon  $o  i 
Had,  having,  and  in  quest  to  have,  extremp ; 
A  bliss  in  proof, — ^and  prov'd,  a  very  woe." 

—(Sonnet  Cfqdx,) 

had  Seen  in  her  an  irresistible  and  degrading  Delilah,  the 
iilah  whom  De  Vigny  centuries  later  anathematised  in  a  famous 
plet.^    He  had  bewailed,  as  Antony  does  now,  that  his  beloved 

1  belonged  to  many : 

"  If  eyes,  comipt  by  over-paxtial  looks, 
Be  anchor'd  in  the  bay  where  all  men  ride^ 

•  •  •  ■  •  • 

Why  fihould  my  heart  tbink  that  a  several  plot 
Which  my  heart  knows  the  wide  world's  common  place  ?  " 

— {Sonnet  cxxxviL) 

had,  like  Antony,  suffered  agonies  from  the  coquetry  she 
ild  lavish  on  any  one  she  wanted  to  win.  He  had  then  burst 
h  in  complaint,  as  Antony  in  the  drama  breaks  out  into 
izy : 

''  Teil  me  thou  lov'st  elsewhere ;  but  in  my  sight, 
Dear  heart,  forbear  to  glance  thine  eye  aside  2 
What  need'^t  thou  wound  with  cunning,  when  thy  might 
Is  more  than  my  o'er-pressed  defenpe  pan  'bide?" 

-^Sonnet  cxxxix.) 

w  he  no  longer  upbraided  her;  now  be  prowned  her  with  a 
«niy  diadem,  and  placed  her,  living,  bregtt^iiigi  ?md  in  the  largest 
se  true  to  nature,  on  that  stage  which  waa  bis  world. 
As  in  Othello  he  had  made  the  lover-hero  about  as  old  as  he 
\  bimself  at  the  time  he  wrote  the  play,  so  now  it  interested 
1  to  reprcsent  this  atately  and  splendid  lover  who  was  bo 

1  «•  Toujoois  ce  compagnon  dont  le  corax  ii*cait  ^^  1^« 
La  Femmf    cnAnt  malade  et  dooie  foVi  iiik?gni.^ 


472  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

longer  young.  In  the  Sonnets  he  had  already  dwelt  upou  his 
age.     He  says,  for  instance,  in  Sonnet  czxzviii. : 

"  When  my  love  swears  that  she  is  made  of  truth, 
I  do  believe  her,  though  I  know  she  lies, 
That  she  might  think  me  some  untutor'd  youth, 
Unlearned  in  the  world's  false  subtleties. 
Thus  vainly  thinking  that  she  thinks  me  young, 
Although  she  knows  my  days  are  past  the  best, 
Simply  I  credit  her  false-speaking  tongue." 

When  Antony  and  Cleopatra  perished  with  each  other,  she  was  in 
her  thirty-ninth,  he  in  his  fifty-fourth  year.  She  was  thus  almost 
three  times  as  old  as  Juliet,  he  more  than  double  the  age  of  Romeo. 
This  correspondence  with  his  own  age  pleases  Shakespeare's 
fancy,  and  the  fact  that  time  has  had  no  power  to  sear  or  wither 
this  pair  seems  to  hold  them  still  farther  aloof  from  the  ordinary 
lot  of  humanity.  The  traces  years  have  left  upon  the  two  have 
only  given  them  a  deeper  beauty.  All  that  they  themselves  in 
sadness,  or  others  in  spite,  say  to  the  contrary,  signifies  nothing. 
The  contrast  between  their  age  in  years  and  that  which  their 
beauty  and  passion  make  for  them  merely  enhances  and  adds 
piquancy  to  the  Situation.  It  is  in  sheer  malice  that  Pompey 
ezclaims  (ii.  i) : 

"  But  all  the  charms  of  love, 
Salt  Cleopatra,  soften  thy  waned  lip  I " 

This  means  no  more  than  her  own  description  of  herseif  as 
"wrinkled."  And  it  is  on  purpose  to  give  the  idea  of  Antony's 
age,  of  which  in  Plutarch  there  is  no  indication,  that  Shakespeare 
makes  him  dwell  on  the  mixed  colour  of  his  own  hair.  He  says 
(iii.  9) : 

"  My  very  hairs  do  mutiny;  for  the  white 

Reprove  the  brown  for  rashness,  and  they  them 

For  fear  and  doting." 

In  the  moment  of  despair  he  uses  the  ezpression  (iii.  ii):  "To 
the  boy  Caesar  send  this  grizzied  head."  And  again,  after  the  last 
victory,  he  recurs  to  the  idea  in  a  tone  of  triumph.  Exultingly  he 
addresses  Cleopatra  (iv.  8) : 

"  What,  girl !  though  grey 
Do  something  mingle  with  our  younger  brown,  yet  ha'  we 
A  brain  that  nourishes  our  nerves,  and  can 
Get  goal  for  goal  of  youth." 

With  a  sure  band  Shakespeare  has  depicted  in  Antony  the  mature 
man's  fear  of  letting  a  moment  pass  unutilised:  the  vehement 
desire  to  enjoy  before  the  hour  strikes  when  all  enjoyment  must 
cease^    Thus  Antony  says  in  on^  of  bis  {Ltsi  s^^oeches  (u  i) : 


CHARACTER  OF  ANTONY  ^73 

**  Now,  for  the  loye  of  Love  and  her  soft  hours.  .  ,  • 
There's  not  a  minute  of  our  lives  should  Stretch 
Without  some  pleasure  now." 

Theo  he  feels  the  necessity  of  breaking  his  bonds.  He  makes 
Fulvia's  death  serve  his  purpose  of  gaining  Cleopatra's  consent 
to  his  departure ;  but  even  then  he  is  not  free.  In  order  to  bring 
out  the  contrast  between  Octavius  the  statesman  and  Antony  the 
lover,  Shakespeare  emphasises  the  fact  that  Octavius  has  reports 
of  the  political  Situation  brought  to  him  every  hour,  whilst  Antony 
receives  no  other  daily  communication  than  the  regularly  arriving 
letters  from  Cleopatra  which  foment  the  longing  that  draws  him 
back  to  Eg3rpt. 

As  a  means  of  allaying  the  storm  and  gaining  peace  to  love 
his  queen  at  leisure,  he  agrees  to  marry  his  opponent's  sister, 
knowing  that,  when  it  suits  him,  he  will  neglect  and  repudiate  her. 
Then  vengeance  overtakes  him  for  having  so  contemptuously 
thrown  away  the  empire  over  more  than  a  third  of  the  civilised 
World — ^vengeance  for  having  said  as  he  embraced  Cleopatra 

"  Let  Rome  in  Tiber  melt,  and  the  wide  arch 
Of  the  rangßd  empire  fall !    Here  is  my  space.** 

Rome  melts  through  his  fingers.  Rome  proclaims  him  a  foe  to 
her  empire,  and  declares  war  against  him.  And  he  loses  his 
power,  his  renown,  his  whole  position,  in  the  defeat  which  he  so 
contemptibly  brings  upon  himself  at  Actium.  In  Cleopatra  flight 
was  excusable.  Her  flight  in  the  drama  (which  foUows  Plutarch 
and  tradition)  is  due  to  cowardice;  in  reality  it  was  prompted 
by  tactical,  judicious  motives.  B^t  ^ptnny  was  in  honour  bound 
to  stay.  He  follows  her  in  the  tragedy  (as  in  reality)  from  brain- 
less,  contemptible  incapacity  to  remain  when  she  has  gone ;  leaving 
an  army  of  112,000  men  and  a  fleet  of  450  ships  in  the  lurch, 
without  leader  or  Commander.  Nine  days  did  his  troops  await 
his  retum,  rejecting  every  proposal  of  the  enemy,  ipcapable  of 

and  trusted.  When  at  last  they  could  no  longer  resist  the  con- 
vTcfiöflTIHlfiie  had  sunk  hjs  soldier^s  honour  in  shame;  they  went 
over  to  Octavius. 

After  this  everything  turns  on  the  mutual  relation  of  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  and  Shakespeare  has  admirably  depicted  its 
ecstasies  and  its  revulsions.  Never  before  had  they  loved  each 
other  so  wildly  and  so  rapturously.  Now  it  is  not  only  he  who 
openly  calls  her  "  Thou  day  o'  the  world ! "  She  answers  him 
with  the  cry,  "  Lord  of  lords !   O  infinite  virtue !  "  (iv.  8). 

Yet  never  before  has  their  mutual  distrust  been  so  deep. 
She,  who  was  at  no  time  really  great  ezcept  in  the  arts  of  love 
and  coquetry,  has  always  feit  distrustful  of  him^  ^xÄ  ^^x.  x^^^^^x 
distrust/fii  eüougb;  for  though  she  was  ptq^ax^dL  lox  ^  ^g^^  ^^^> 


474  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

his  marriage  with  Octavia  overwhelmed  her.  He,  knowing  her 
past,  knowing  how  often  she  has  thrown  herseif  away,  and  under- 
standing  her  temperament,  believes  her  false  to  bim  even  when 
she  is  innocent,  even  when,  as  with  Desdemona,  only  the  vaguest 
of  appearances  are  against  her.  In  the  end  we  see  Antony 
develop  into  an  Othello. 

Here  and  there  we  come  upon  something  in  his  character  which 
seems  to  indicate  that  Shakespeare  had  been  lately  occupied  with 
Macbeth.  Cleopatra  stimulates  Antony's  voluptuousness,  his  sen- 
suality,  as  Lady  Macbeth  spurred  on  her  husband's  ambition ;  and 
Antony  fights  his  last  battle  with  Macbeth's  Berserk  fury,  facing 
with  savage  bravery  what  he  knows  to  be  invincibly  superior 
force.  But  in  his  emotional  life  after  the  disaster  of  Actium  it  is 
Othello  whom  he  more  nearly  resembles.  He  causes  Octavius's 
messenger,  Thjrreus,  to  be  whipped,  simply  because  Cleopatra  at 
parting  has  allowed  him  to  kiss  her  band.  When  some  of  her 
ships  take  to  flight,  he  immediately  believes  in  an  alliance  between 
her  and  ^he  enemy,  and  heaps  the  coarsest  invectives  upon  her, 
almost  worse  than  those  with  which  Othello  overwhelms  Desde- 
mona.    And  in  his  moi^ologue  (iv.    lo)  he  raves  groundlessly 

like  Othello : 

"  Betray'd  I  am. 
0  this  false  spul  of  Egypt !  this  grave  charrn, — 
Whose  eye  beck'd  forth  my  wars,  and  caird  them  home, 
.    y     Whose  bosom  was  my  crownet,  my  chief  end, — 
U'         Like  a  right  gipsy,  hath,  at  fast  and  loose, 
Beguil'd  me  to  the  very  heart  of  loss.*' 

^They  both,  though  faithless  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  meant  to 
be  true  to  each  other,  but  in  the  hour  of  trial  they  place  no  tnist 
in  each  other's  faithfulness.  And  all  these  strong  emotions  have 
shaken  Antony's  judgment.  The  braver  he  becomes  in  his  mis- 
fortune,  the  more  incapable  is  he  of  seeing  things  as  they  really 
are.  Enobarbus  closes  the  third  act  most  felicitously  with  the 
words : 

"  I  see  still 
A  diminution  in  our  captain's  brain 
Restores  bis  heart :  when  valour  preys  on  reasofi 
It  eats  the  sword  it  fights  with." 

To  tranquillise  Antony's  jealous  frenzy,  Cleopatra,  who  fd\vays 
^nds  readiest  aid  in  a  Ue,  sends  him  the  false  tidings  of  her  death. 
In  grief  oyer  her  loss,  he  falls  on  his  sword  and  mortally  wounds 
bimself.     He  is  carried  to  her,  and  dies.     She  bursts  forth : 

"  Noblest  of  men,  woo't  die  ? 
Hast  tbou  no  care  of  me  ?  sball  I  abide 
In  this  duU  world,  which  in  thy  absence  is 
No  better  fhan  a  «ty? — O  i  see^  my  wQineHi 
The  crowa  o'  the  dücti\  O^ol^  \atiix.'' 


DECEITFULNESS  OF  CLEOPATRA  475 


Iq  Sha^fHipeaire,  however,  her  first  thought  is  not  of  dying  her- 
«el£  She  ead^vours  to  come  to  a  compromise  with  Octavius, 
hands  qver  to  bim  an  inventory  of  her  treasures,  and  tries  to  trick 
him  out  of  the  larger  half.  It  is  only  when  she  has  ascertained 
Chat  nothing,  neither  admiration  for  her  beauty  nor  pity  for  her 
misfortiinesy  moves  his  cold  sagacity,  and  that  he  is  determined 
to  exhibit  her  humih'ation  to  the  populace  of  Rome  as  one  of  the 
spectacles  of  hi^  triumph,  that  she  lets  **  the  worm  of  Nilus  "  give 
her  her  death. 

In  these  passages  the  poet  has  placed  Cleopatra's  behaviour 
in  a  much  more  unfavourable  light  than  the  Greek  historian, 
whom  he  follows  as  far  as  details  are  concemed;  and  he  has 
evidently  done  so  wittingly  and  purposely,  in  order  to  complete 
his  home-thrust  at  the  type  of  woman  whose  dangerousness  he 
has  embodied  in  her.  In  Plutarch  all  these  negotiations  with 
Octavius  were  a  feint  to  deceive  the  vigilance  with  which  he 
thought  to  prevent  her  from  kilHng  herself  Suicide  is  her  one 
thought,  and  he  has  baulked  her  in  her  first  attempt  She  pre- 
tends  to  cling  to  her  treasures  only  to  delude  him  into  the  belief 
that  she  still  clings  to  life,  and  her  heroic  imposture  is  successful. 
Shakespeare,  for  whom  she  is  ever  the  quintessence  of  the  she- 
animal  in  woman,  disparages  her  intentionally  by  suppressing  the 
historical  explanation  of  her  behaviour.* 

The  English  critic,  Arthur  Symons,  writes:  **  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  is  the  most  wonderful,  I  think,  of  all  Shäkespeare's 
plays,  and  it  is  so  mainly  because  the  figure  of  Cleopatra  is 
the  most  wonderful  of  Shakespeare's  women.  And  not  of 
Shakespeare's  women  only,  but  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  of 
women." 

This  is  carrying  enthusiasm  almost  too  far.  But  thus  much 
is  true :  the  great  attraction  of  this  masterpiece  lies  in  the  unique 
figure  of  Cleopatra,  elaborated  as  it  is  with  all  Shakespeare's 
human  ezperience  and  artistic  enthusiasm.  But  the  greatness 
of  the  world-historic  drama  proceeds  from  the  genius  with  which 
he  has  entwined  the  private  relations  of  the  two  lovers  with  the 
course  of  history  and  the  fate  of  empires.  Just  as  Antony's  min 
results  from  his  connection  with  Cleopatra,  so  does.the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Republic  result  from  the  contact  of  the  simple  hardihood 
of  the  West  with  the  luxury  of  the  East.  Antony  is  Rome, 
Cleopatra  is  the  Orient.  When  he  perishes,  a  prey  to  the  volup- 
tuousness  of  the  East,  it  seems  as  though  Roman  greatness  and 
the  Roman  Republic  expired  with  him. 

Not  Caesar's  ambition,  not  Caesar's  assassination,  but  this 
crumbling  to  pieces  of  Roman  greatness  fourteen  years  later 

*  Goethe  has  a  marked  imitation  of  Shakespeare's  Cleopatra  in  the  Adelheid 
of  GStg  von  BerliekifigeM,    And  he  has  placed  Weisungen  between  Adelheid  and 
BiCaria  as  Antony  Stands  between  Cleopatra  and  Octa^— >\x»md  Vo  ^«^Vorm»  «oi^ 
XDMnying  the  latter. 


476  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

brings  home  to  us  the  ultimate  fall  of  the  old  world-republic,  and 
impresses  us  with  that  sense  of  universal  annihüation  which  in 
this  play,  as  in  King  Lear,  Shakespeare  aims  at  begetting. 

This  is  no  tragedy  of  a  domestic,  limited  nature  like  the  con- 
clusion  of  Othello;  there  is  no  young  Fortinbras  here,  as  in 
Hamletf  giving  the  promise  of  brighter  and  better  times  to  oome ; 
the  victory  of  Octavius  brings  glory  to  no  one  and  promises 
nothing.  No ;  the  final  picture  is  that  which  Shakespeare  was 
bent  on  painting  from  the  moment  he  feit  himself  attracted  by  this 
great  theme — the  picture  of  a  world-catastrophe. 


BOOK   THIRD 


I 


DISCORD  AND  SCORN 

Out  of  tune— out  of  tune ! 

Out  of  tune  the  Instrument  whereon  so  many  enthralling 
melodies  had  been  played — glad  and  gay,  plaintive  or  resentful, 
füll  of  love  and  füll  of  sorrow.  Out  of  tune  the  mind  which  had 
feit  so  keenly,  thought  so  deeply,  spoken  so  temperately,  and 
stood  so  firmly  "midst  passion's  whirlpool,  storm,  and  whirl- 
wind."  His  life's  philosophy  has  become  a  disgust  of  life,  his 
roelancholy  seeks  the  darkest  side  of  all  things,  his  mirth  is 
grown  to  bitter  scorn,  and  his  wit  is  without  shame. 

There  was  a  time  when  all  before  his  eyes  was  green — ^vernally 
green,  life*s  own  lush,  unfaded  colour.  This  was  followed  by  a 
period  of  gloom,  during  which  he  watched  the  shadows  of  life 
spread  over  the  bright  and  beautiful,  blotting  out  their  colours. 
Now  it  is  blacky  and  worse  than  black ;  he  sees  the  base  mire 
Cover  the  earth  with  its  filth,  and  heeds  how  it  fiUs  the  air  with 
its  stench. 

Shakespeare  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  first  great  circum- 
navigation  of  life  and  human  nature:  an  immense  disillusion- 
ment  was  the  result  Expectation  and  disappointment,  yearning 
and  ccmtenty  life's  gladness  and  holiday-making,  battle  mood  and 
triumph,  inspired  wrath  and  desperate  vehemence — all  that  once 
had  thrilled  him  is  now  fused  and  lost  in  contempt. 

Disdain  has  become  a  persistent  mood,  and  scom  of  mankind 
flows  with  the  blood  in  his  veins.  Scom  for  princes  and  people ; 
for  heroes,  who  are  but  fellow-brawlers  and  braggarts  after  all ; 
and  for  artists,  who  are  but  flatterers  and  parasites  seeking 
possible  patrons.  Scom  for  old  age,  in  whose  venerableness  he 
sees  only  the  unct?on  or  hypocrisy  of  an  old  twaddler.  Scom  for 
youth,  wherein  he  sees  but  profligacy,  slackness,  and  guUibilityi 
while  all  enthusiasts  are  impostors,  and  all  idealists  fools.  Men 
are  either  coarse  and  unprincipled,  or  so  weakly  sentimental 
as  to  be  under  a  woman's  thumb;  and  woman's  distinguishin^ 
qualities  are  feebleness,  voluptuousness,  &c]tdeiiti&&)«xA^^(i^ai^^3K^\ 

♦TT 


478  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  fool  he  who  trusts  himself  to  them  or  lets  his  actions  depend 
upon  them. 

This  mood  has  been  growing  on  Shakespeare  for  some  time. 
We  have  feit  it  grow.  It  shows  first  in  Hamlet^  but  is  harmless 
as  yet  in  comparison  with  the  scathing  bittemess  of  later  times. 
There  is  a  breath,  a  whisper,  in  the  "Frailty,  thy  name  is 
Woman ! "  addressed  to  Hamlet's  mother.  Ophelia  is  rather  futile 
than  specially  weak ;  she  is  never  false,  still  less  faithless.  Even 
the  inconstant  Queen  Gertrude  can  scarcely  be  called  false. 

There  was  malignity  and  temper  in  that  challenge  of  moral 
hypocrisy,  Measure  for  MeasurCy  and  enough  eamestness  to 
overpower  the  comic,  although  not  sufficient  bitterness  to  make 
the  peaceful  conclusion  impossible.  The  tragedy  of  Macbeth  was 
brought  to  a  consoling  end ;  the  powers  of  good  triumphed  at  the 
last.  There  was  only  one  malign  character  in  Othello^  evil  indeed, 
but  solitary.  Othello,  Desdemona,  Emilia,  &c.,  are  all  good  at 
heart.  There  is  no  bittemess  in  Lear^  no  scorn  of  mankind,  but 
sympathy  and  a  wonderful  compassion  pervading  and  dominating 
all.  Shakespeare  has  divided  his  own  Ego  among  the  characters 
of  this  play,  in  order  to  share  with  them  the  miseries  and  suffer- 
ing  of  life  on  this  earth ;  he  has  not  gathered  himself  up  to  judge 
and  despise. 

It  is  from  thenceforward  that  the  undertone  of  contempt  first 
begins  to  be  feit  A  period  of  some  years  foUows,  in  which  his 
being  narrows  and  concentrates  itself  upon  an  abhorrence  of 
human  nature,  accompanied,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  by  a  cor- 
respondingly  enormous  self-esteem.  It  is  as  though  he  had  for 
a  moment  feit  such  a  scorn  for  his  surroundings  of  court  and 
people,  friends  and  rivals,  men  and  women,  as  had  nearly  driven 
him  wild. 

We  see  the  germs  of  it  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  What  a 
fool  is  this  Antony,  who  puts  his  reputation  and  a  world-wide 
dominion  in.jeopardy  in  order  to  be  near  a  cold-blooded  coquette, 
who  has  passed  from  band  to  hand,  and  whose  caprice  puts  on 
all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow.  We  find  it  in  füll  bloom  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida.  What  a  simpleton  this  Troilus,  who, 
credulous  as  a  child,  devotes  himself  body  and  soul  to  a  Cressida ; 
a  typical  classic  she,  treachery  in  woman's  form,  as  false  and 
flighty  as  foam  upon  the  waves,  whose  fickleness  has  become  a 
by-word. 

Shakespeare  has  now  reached  that  point  of  departure  where 
man  feels  the  need  of  Stripping  woman  of  the  glamour  with  which 
romantic  naYvet6  and  sensual  attraction  have  surrounded  her,  and 
finds  a  gratification  in  seeing  merely  the  sex  in  her.  Sympathy 
with  love>  and  a  conception  of  woman  as  an  object  worthy  of 
love^  goes  the  way  of  all  other  S3rmpathies  and  illusions  ät  this 
BtSLgt.  *'  All  is  vanity,"  says  Kohdet,  and  Shakespeaite  with  hittu 
As  in  üU  artist  souls,  there  nu  In  Vi\&  i^  iQ«»jdiair  Uendiiig  nt 


THE  PERIOD  OF  GLOOM  479 

enthusiast  and  cynic.  He  has  now  parted  with  enthusiasm  for  a 
timc,  and  cynicism  is  paramount. 

Such  an  all-pervading  change  in  the  disposition  and  temper  of 
a  great  personality  was  not  without  its  reasons,  possibly  its  one 
first  cause.  We  can  trace  its  workings  without  divining  its  origin, 
but  we  may  seek  to  orient  ourselves  with  regard  to  its  conditions. 
Leverier  came  to  the  conclusion  in  1846  that  the  disturbances  in 
the  path  of  Uranus  were  caused  by  something  behind  the  planet 
which  neither  he  nor  anybody  eise  had  ever  seen.  He  indicated 
its  probable  position^  and  three  weeks  afterwards  Galle  found 
Neptune  on  the  very  spot.  Unfortunately,  Shakespeare's  history 
is  so  very  obscure,  and  such  fruitless  search  in  every  direction 
has  been  made  after  fresh  documents,  that  we  have  no  great  hope 
of  finding  any  new  light. 

We  can  but  glance  around  the  horizon  of  bis  life,  and  note 
how  English  circumstances  and  conditions  grouped  themselves 
aboüt  him.  Material  for  cheering  or  depressing  reflections  can 
be  found  at  all  times,  but  the  mind  is  not  always  equally  prone 
to  assimilate  the  cheering  or  depressing.  Certain  it  is  that  Shake- 
speanc  has  now  elected  to  seek  out  and  dwell  upon  the  ugly 
and  sorrowful,  the  udclean  and  the  repulsive.  His  melancholy 
finds  its  nourishment  therein,  and  his  bitterness  has  leamed  to 
suck  poison  from  evory  noxious  plant  which  borders  his  path 
thröugh  life.  His  contempt  of  mankind  and  his  weariness  of 
existence  swell  and  grow  with  each  experience,  and  in  the  events 
and  conditions  of  those  years  there  was  surelj  matter  enough 
for  abhorrencei  rancour,  and  scom. 


II 


THE  COURT-^THB  KING*S  FAVOURITBS 

AND  RALEIGH 

Under  the  circumstances  Shakespeare  could  do  nothing  but 
keep  as  close  to  King  and  Court  aa  possible,  even  though  the 
King's  dreary,  and  the  Court's  profligate  qualities  grew  year  by 
year.  James  aspired  to  a  comparison  with  Solomon  for  wisdom; 
he  certainly  resembled  him  in  prodigality,  and  Henry  III.  of 
France  in  his  susceptibility  to  manly  beauty.  His  passion  for 
his  various  favourites  recalls  that  of  Edward  IL  for  Gaveston  in 
Marlowe's  drama.  He  was,  says  a  chronicle  of  the  time,  as 
susceptible  as  any  schoolgirl  to  handsome  features  and  well- 
formed  limbs  in  a  man.  The  parallels  his  contemporaries  drew 
between  him  and  his  predecessor  on  this  score  did  not  work  out 
to  his  advantage.  Elizabeth,  they  said,  who  was  unmarried, 
loved  only  individuals  of  the  opposite  sex,  all  eminent  men, 
whom,  even  then,  she  never  allowed  to  rule  her.  James,  on  the 
contrary,  was  married,  and  yet  entertained  a  passion  for  one 
ntignon  after  another,  giving  the  most  exalted  positions  in  the 
country  to  these  men,  who  were  worthless  and  arrogant,  and  by 
whom  he  was  entirely  led.  In  our  day  Swinbume  has  charac- 
terised  James  as  combining  with  ''northern  virulence  and  ped- 
antry  .  .  .  a  savour  of  the  worst  qualities  of  the  worst  Italians 
of  the  worst  period  of  Italian  decadence."  Was  he,  in  truth,  of 
Scotch  descent  on  both  sides  ?  His  exterior  recalled  little  of  his 
mother's  charms,  and  still  less  those  of  the  handsome  Damley. 
His  contemporaries  doubted.  They  neither  believed  that  Dam- 
ley's  jealousy  was  groundless,  nor  the  modern  embellishment  that 
the  Italian  singer  and  private  secretary's  ugly  face  made  any  tender 
feeling  on  Mary  Stuart's  side  quite  impossible.  The  Scottish 
Solomon  was  invariably  alluded  to  by  the  outspoken,  jest-loving 
Henry  IV.  of  France  as  "  Solomon,  the  son  of  David  "  (Rizzio)u 

The  general  enthusiasm  which  greeted  King  James  on  his 
accession  $peedily  gave  way  to  a  very  dedded  unpopularity. 
Again  and  again,  upon  a  score  of  different  points,  did  he  offisnd 
English  national  pride,  sense  of  justice,  and  decency. 

The  lively  Queen,  who  romped  through  the  court  festivities, 
Müd  spent  her  days  in  dressrnf^  Viet^VC  out  for  masqueradeSi  had 


FAVOURITISM  OF  THE  KING  481 

her  favourites,  much  as  the  King  had  his.  At  one  dme,  indeed, 
the  same  family  served  them  both.  The  Queen  set  her  affection 
on  the  eider  brother,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  the  King 
bestowed  his  upon  the  younger,  whom  he  made  Earl  of  Mont- 
gomery  and  Knight  of  the  Garten  Whether  he  did  not  find 
the  harmony  of  disposition  for  which  he  had  looked,  or  whether 
the  Impression  Montgomery  made  upon  him  was  displaced  by 
another  and  stronger,  certain  it  is  that  no  later  than  1603  he 
was  already  vioiently  infatuated  with  a  youth  of  twenty,  who 
afterwards  became  the  most  powerful  man  in  Great  Britain. 

This  was  a  young  Scot,  Robert  Carr,  who  first  attracted  the 
King^s  attention  by  breaking  his  leg  in  a  toumey  at  which  James 
was  present  He  had  as  a  lad  been  one  of  the  King's  pages  at 
home  in  Scotland,  had  since  pursued  his  fortunes  in  France,  and 
was  now  in  Service  with  Lord  Hay.  The  King  gave  special 
Orders  that  he  should  be  nursed  at  the  Castle,  sent  his  own  doctor 
to  him,  visited  him  frequently  during  his  illness,  and  made  him 
Knight  and  Gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber  as  soon  as  he  was 
convalescent.  He  kept  him  constantly  about  his  person,  and 
even  took  the  trouble  to  teach  him  Latin.  Step  by  step  the 
young  man  was  advanced  until  he  stood  among  the  foremost 
ranks  of  the  country. 

It  was  his  nationality  which  specially  offended  the  people,  for 
Scottish  adventurers  swarmed  about  the  King,  and  the  Scots  were 
still  regarded  as  stranger-folk  in  England.  The  new  title  of 
Great  Britain  had  also  caused  great  discontent  Was  the  glori- 
ous  name  of  England  no  longer  to  distinguish  them  ?  Scotch 
moneys  were  made  current  on  English  soil,  and  English  ships 
were  compelled  to  carry  the  cross  of  St.  Andrew,  with  that  of 
St  George  upon  their  flags.  Englishmen  found  themselves 
slighted,  and  were  fearful  that  the  Scot  would  creep  into  English 
lordships  and  English  ladies'  beds,  as  a  contemporary  writing 
expresses  it.  The  conflicts  in  Parliament  conceming  the  exten- 
sion  of  national  Privileges  to  the  Scotch  were  incessant.  Bacon 
undertook  the  King^s  cause,  and  discreet  and  biblical  objections 
were  made  that  things  would  fall  out  as  they  did  with  Lot  and 
Abraham.  Families  combined  together,  or  were  set  at  variance 
among  themselves;  and  it  grew  to  a  case  of,  ''Go  you  to  the 
right  ?     I  go  to  the  left.** 

In  1607  James  observed  that  he  intended  to  ''give  England 
the  labour  and  the  sweat,  Scotland  the  fruit  and  the  sweet ; "  and 
it  was  a  notorious  fact,  that  where  his  p>assions  were  concemed, 
the  Scotch  were  persistently  preferred  to  the  English. 

James,  having  meanwhile  found  it  necessary  to  provide  his 
favourite  with  estates,  procured  them  in  the  following  manner. 
When  Raleigh  came  to  grief,  he  had  secured  the  revenues  of  his 
estate,  Sherbome,  to  Lady  Raleigh,  and  his  son  a&  lve\\  \.^  \\. 
afker  his  death.   A  fcw  months  later  the  Kmf^  s  Xvw-j tx%  ^vs^c^n«^^ 


482  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  technical  error  in  the  deed  of  conveyance  which  rendered  it 
invalid.  Raleigh  wrote  from  bis  prison  to  Salisbury,  entreating 
the  King  not  to  deprive  bis  family  of  tbeir  subsistence  for  the 
sake  of  a  cop3dst's  blunder.  The  King  made  many  promises,  and 
assured  Raleigh  that  a  new  and  correct  deed  should  be  drawn  up. 
The  imprisoned  hero  bad  begun,  at  about  this  time,  to  entertain 
renewed  hope  of  freedom,  for  he  believed  that  Christian  IV.,  then 
on  a  visit  to  England,  1606,  would  intercede  for  him.  But  when 
Lady  Raleigh,  under  this  Impression,  threw  herseif  on  her  knees 
before  James  at  Hampton  Court,  the  King  passed  her  by  without 
a  Word.  From  the  year  1607  the  King  bad  resolved  upon  seizing 
Sherbome  for  his  favourite.  In  1608  Raleigh  was  required  to 
prove  right  and  title  thereunto,  and  he  possessed  only  the  faulty 
document.  At  Christmastide,  taking  her  two  little  sons  by  the 
band,  Lady  Raleigh  cast  herseif  a  second  time  before  James,  and 
implored  him  for  a  new  and  accurate  deed.  The  only  reply  she 
obtained  was  a  broad  Scotch,  "I  mann  hae  the  lond — I  maun 
hae  it  for  Carr."  It  is  said  that  the  high-spirited  woman  lost  all 
patience  upon  this,  and  springing  to  her  feet  called  upon  God  to 
punish  the  despoiler  of  her  property.  Raleigh,  on  the  2nd  of 
January  1609,  tried  the  more  politic  method  of  writing  to  Carr, 
entreating  him  not  to  aspire  to  the  possession  of  Sherbome.  He 
received  no  answer,  and  upon  the  lOth  of  the  same  month  the 
estate  was  handed  over  to  the  favourite  as  a  gift.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  Raleigh,  who  bad  never  concealed  his  opinion  of 
the  King's  favourites,  should  have  lowered  himself  by  writing  to 
Carr  as  "  one  whom  I  know  not,  but  by  honourable  fame." 

Lady  Raleigh  aocepted  a  sum  of  money  in  compensation, 
which  bore  no  relation  to  the  real  value  of  Sherbome,  and 
Raleigh  was  left  in  the  Tower.  It  is  a  highly  characteristic 
feature  that  he  remained  there  year  after  year  until  he  succeeded 
(in  16 16)  in  arousing  his  kingly  gaoler's  cupidity  afresh.  In  the 
hope  of  his  finding  the  anticipated  gold-mines  in  Guiana  his 
prison  doors  were  opened  for  a  while  (1616-17),  and  his  failure 
to  discover  them  was  made  a  pretezt  for  his  execution.^ 

^  ''  Sir  Walter  Raleifi:h  was  freed  out  of  the  Tower  the  last  week,  and  goes  up  and 
down»  sccing  sights  and  places  built  or  bettered  since  hb  imjprisonment." — Letter 
from  John  Chamberlain  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  27th  March  1016  ("The  Court  and 
Times  of  James  the  First"). 

Gardiner't  "  History  of  England,"  &  43 ;  Gosse,  *'  Raleigh,"  17s. 


III 


THE  KIN&S  THEOLOGY  AND  IMPECÜNIOSITY—HIS 
DISPUTES  WITH  THE  HOÜSE  OF  COMMONS 

The  King's  interest  in  parsons  and  theological  discussions  was 
not  a  whit  inferior  to  his  passion  for  his  favourites.  He  con- 
stantly  gave  public  expression  to  a  superstition  which  diverted 
even  contemporary  culture.  It  is  jestingly  alluded  to  in  a  letter 
from  Sir  Edward  Hoby  to  Sir  Thomas  Edmondes,  dated  Nov. 
19,  1605.  "His  Majesty  in  his  speech  observed  one  principal 
pointy  that  most  of  all  his  best  fortunes  had  happened  unto  him 
upon  the  Tuesday ;  and  particularly  he  repeated  his  deliverance 
from  Gowry  [the  brothers  Ruthven]  and  this  [Gunpowder  Plot], 
in  which  he  noted  precisely  that  both  feil  upon  the  fifth  day  of 
the  month:  and  therefore  concluded  that  he  made  choice  that 
the  next  sitting  of  Parliament  might  begin  upon  a  Tuesday."  If 
James  supported  the  claims  of  the  clergy,  it  was  less  on  religi- 
ous  grounds  than  because  his  own  kingly  power  was  thereby 
itrengthened,  and  he  disseminated,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  the 
doctrine  that  all  questions  must  finally  be  referred  to  his  personal 
wisdom  and  insight.  Relations  between  the  temporal  and  the 
Spiritual  jurisdictions  were  already  strained.  The  secular  judges 
frcquently  objected  that  the  Spiritual  Court  entered  into  certain 
lawsuits  before  making  sure  that  the  case  appertained  to  them. 
The  clergy  resisted,  asserting  that  the  two  courts  were  indepen- 
dent  of  one  another,  and  that  their  Spiritual  prerogatives  emanated 
direct  from  the  Crown.  In  1605  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
complained  of  the  secular  judges  to  the  King,  and  they,  in  their 
tiini,  appealed  to  Parliament.  Füller,  a  member  of  Parliament, 
and  one  of  the  principal  advocates  of  the  Puritan  party,  defended 
two  of  the  accused  who  had  been  shamefully  mishandled  by  the 
Spiritual  Court  (the  High  Commission),  and  he  denied  this 
'*  Popish  authority/'  as  he  called  it,  any  right  to  impose  fines  or 
inflict  imprisonment.  For  these  reckless  utterances  he  was  sent 
to  gaol,  and  kept  there  until  he  retracted.  •  The  question  of  the 
Bupremacy  of  temporal  Jurisdiction  over  the  spiritual  began  to 
ferment  in  the  public  mind.  The  King  held  by  the  latter,  because 
it  exercised  an  authority  which  Parliament  ^as  '^'^^xVt&^  v^ 
control^  wbiJc  Lord  Chief  Justice  Coke  stood  \>^  >Xä  Iotcsäx.    ^^ 

4SS 


484  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  latter  giving  vent,  however,  to  the  opinion,  in  the  King's 
presence,  that  the  sovereign  was  bound  to  respect  the  law  o£  the 
land,  and  to  remember  that  spiritual  Jurisdiction  was  extraneous, 
James  clenched  angry  fists  in  his  face,  and  would  have  Struck 
him,  had  not  Coke,  alarmed,  fallen  on  his  knees  and  entreated 
pardon. 

The  King's  ardent  orthodoxy  prompted  him  next  to  appear  as 
a  theological  polemist.  A  certain  professor  of  theology  at  Ley- 
den,  Conrad  Vorstius  by  name,  had,  according  to  James's  ideas, 
been  guilty  of  heresy.  It  was  of  so  slight  a  nature  that,  in  spite 
of  the  rigid  orthodoxy  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Dutch  theologians, 
it  had  raised  no  protest  in  Holland,  since  statesmen,  nobles,  and 
merchants  were  all  agreed  upon  tolerance  in  matters  of  religion. 
James,  however,  made  such  a  vindictive  assault  upon  them,  that, 
for  fear  of  forfeiting  their  English  alliance,  they  were  compelled 
to  give  Vorstius  his  dismissal. 

At  the  precise  moment  of  James's  füll  polemical  heat  against 
Vorstius,  two  unlucky  Englishmen,  Edward  Wrightman  and 
Bartholomew  Legate,  were  convicted  of  holding  heretical  opinions. 
The  latter  admitted  that  he  was  an  Aryan,  and  had  not  prayed 
to  Jesus  for  many  years.  James  was  fire  and  flame.  Elizabeth 
had  bumt  two  heretics.  Why  shouldn't  he?  Public  opinion 
saw  no  cruelty,  but  merely  righteousness  in  such  a  proceÄding, 
and  they  were  both  accordingly  bumed  alive  in  March  1612. 

It  was  one  of  the  derkly  James's  customs  to  issue  proclamations. 
Among  the  first  of  these  was  a  warning  issued  against  the  en- 
croachments  of  the  Jesuits,  advising  them  of  a  date  by  which 
they  must  have  decamped  from  his  kingdom  and  country. 
Another  very  forcibly  recommended  unanimity  of  religion — that 
is  to  say,  complete  uniformity  of  ceremony.  A  bold  priest, 
Burgess  by  name,  preached  a  sermon  in  the  King^s  presence, 
soon  after  this,  on  the  insignificance  of  ceremonies.  They  re- 
sembled,  he  said,  the  glass  of  the  Roman  Senator,  which  was  not 
worth  a  man's  life  or  subsistence.  Augustus,  having  been  invited 
to  a  feast  by  this  Senator,  was  greeted  on  his  arrival  by  terrible 
cries.  A  slave,  who  had  broken  some  costly  glass,  was  about  to 
be  thrown  into  the  fishpond.  The  Emperor  bade  them  defer  the 
punishment  until  he  had  inquired  of  his  host  whether  he  had 
glass  worth  a  man's  life.  Upon  the  Senator  answering  that  he 
possessed  glass  worth  a  province,  Augustus  asked  to  see  it,  and 
smashing  it  into  fragments,  remarked,  **  Better  that  it  should  all 
perish  than  that  one  man  should  die."  *'  I  leave  the  application 
to  your  Majesty." 

The  proclamations  continued  undiminished,  howeveTi  and  it 

became  a  favourite  amusement  of  James  to  issue  edicts  forbiddiog 

lawful  trades.      This  was   the  cause  of  much  discontent,  and 

appeal  was  made  to  the  Lord  Chief  Justice.     In  j6io  two  quea* 

tions  were  laid  before  Coke :  YiYve\]dtx  iVv^  Ki\i^  couId:prohtbit  th^ 


DISSENSIONS  BETWEEN  KING  AND  PEOPLE     485 

erection  of  new  houses  in  London  by  prodamation  (a  naive  noti- 
fication  had  been  issued  with  a  view  to  preventing  the  "over- 
development "  of  the  capital),  or  forbid  the  manufacture  of  starch 
(in  allusion  to  a  manifesto  limiting  the  uses  of  wheat  to  purposes 
of  food).  The  answer  was  retumed  that  the  King  had  neither 
power  to  create  offences  by  proclamation,  nor  make  trades,  which 
did  not  legally  subject  themselves  to  judicial  control,  liable  to 
punishment  by  the  Star  Chamber.  After  this  ensued  a  temporary 
respite  from  edicts.  levying  fines  or  threatening  imprisonment. 

The  dissensions  between  King  and  People  became  so  violent 
that  they  soon  led  to  a  complete  rupture  between  James  and 
the  House  of  Commons,  which  would  not  submit  to  bis  high- 
handed  levying  and  coUecting  of  taxes  in  order  to  squander  the 
money  on  bis  own  pleasures  and  caprices.  James,  who  required 
;^500,CXX)  to  pay  his  debts,  was  made  to  endure  a  speech  in 
Parliament  concerning  the  prodigality  of  himself  and  favourites. 
An  insulting  rumour  added  that  it  had  been  said  in  the  House 
that  the  King  must  pack  all  the  Scots  in  his  household  back  to 
the  country  whence  they  came.  James,  losing  all  patience,  pro- 
rogued  Parliament,  and  finally  dissolved  it  in  February  161 1. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  a  conilict  between  the  Crown  and 
the  People  which  lasted  throughout  James's  lifetime,  causing  the 
Great  Revolution  under  his  son,  and  being  only  finally  eztinguished 
seventy-eight  years  afterwards  by  the  offer  from  both  Houses  of 
the  Crown  to  William  of  Orange. 

It  was  to  no  purpose  that  the  King's  revenues  were  in- 
creased  year  by  year,  by  illegal  taxation  too:  nothing  sufficed. 
In  February  161 1  he  divided  ;f  34,000  among  six  favourites,  five 
of  whom  were  Scotch.  In  the  March  of  the  same  year  he  made 
Carr  Viscount  Rochester  and  a  peer  of  England.  For  the  first 
time  in  English  history  a  Scot  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  a  Scot,  moreover,  who  had  done  his  best  to  inflame 
the  King  against  the  Commons. 

To  relieve  its  pecuniary  distress  the  Court  hit  upon  the  ex- 
pedient  of  selling  baronetcies.  Every  knight  or  squire  possessed 
of  money  or  estates  to  the  value  of  a  hundred  a  year  could  become 
a  baronet,  provided  he  were  willing  to  disburse  ;f  1080  (a  sum 
sufScient  to  support  thirty  infantry-men  in  Ireland  for  three 
years)  in  three  yearly  payments  to  the  State  coffers.  This 
contrivance  brought  no  very  great  relief,  however.  Either  the 
extravagance  was  too  reckless,  or  the  seekers  after  titles  were  not 
sufficiently  numerous. 

Things  had  gone  so  far  in  1614,  that,  in  spite  of  the  hitherto 
unheard-of  sale  of  Crown  property,  James  was  at  his  wits'  end  for 
want  of  money.  He  owed  ;f68o,ooo,  not  to  mention  a  yearly 
deficit  of  j^200,ooo.  The  garrisons  in  Holland  were  on  the 
point  of  mutinying  for  their  pay,  and  the  fleet  was  in  tslmcSx  ^!cft. 
same  cooditioii.    Fortresses  were  faUing  mto  tuyca  Ic^  ^«&x  ^ 


486  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

repair,  and  English  Ambassadors  abroad  were  fruitlessly  writing 
hotne  for  money.  It  was  once  more  decided  to  summon  Parlia- 
ment.  In  spite  of  the  most  shameless  packing^  however,  the 
Commons  came  in  with  a  strong  Opposition ;  and  they  had  much 
to  complain  of.  The  King,  among  other  things^  had  given  Lord 
Hanington  the  exclusive  right  of  coining  copper  money,  in  return 
for  his  having  lent  him  ;^300,000  at  his  daughter's  wedding.  He 
had  also  granted  a  monopoly  of  the  manufacture  of  glass,  and  had 
given  the  sole  right  of  trade  with  France  to  a  single  Company. 

The  Upper  House  declined  to  meet  the  Lower  on  a  common 
ground  of  procedure,  and  when  Bishop  Neile,  one  of  the  greatest 
sycophants  the  royal  influence  possessed  in  the  Lords,  permitted 
himself  dorne  offensive  strictures  on  the  Commons,  such  a  storm 
broke  loose  among  the  latter  that  one  member  (an  aristocrat^ 
abused  the  courtiers  as  '' Spaniels"  towards  the  King  and  ''wolves" 
towards  the  people,  and  another  went  so  far  as  to  warn  the  Scotch 
favourites  that  the  Sicilian  Vespers  might  find  a  parallel  in 
England. 

James,  who,  in  a  lengthy  peroration,  had  attempted  to 
influence  the  Commons  in  his  favour,  saw  that  he  had  nothing 
to  hope  from  them  and  dissolved  Parliament  in  the  following 
year. 

In  Order  to  fuee  him  from  debt,  and  to  contrive,  if  possible^ 
some  means  of  supplying  the  sums  swallowed  up  by  the  Govem« 
ment  and  Court,  a  scheme  was  devised  ofinducing  private  Citizens 
to  send  money  to  the  King,  apparently  of  their  own  free  wilL 
The  bishops  inaugurated  it  by  offering  James  their  Church  plate 
and  other  valuables.  This  example  was  foUowed  by  all  who 
hoped  or  expected  favours  from  the  court;  and  a  great  number 
of  people  sent  money  to  the  Treasury  at  Whitehall.  Thus 
the  idea  obtained  that  James  should  issue  a  summons  for  all 
England  to  follow  this  example.  It  seemed,  at  first,  as  if  this 
self-taxation  would  bring  in  a  good  round  sum.  The  King  asked 
the  city  for  a  loan  of  ;^  100,000,  and  it  replied  (very  differently  to 
the  response  it  had  made  to  Elizabeth)  that  they  would  rather 
give  ;^io,ooo  than  lend  jf  100,000.  In  the  course  of  little  over  a 
month  ;^34,ooo  came  in,  but  with  that  the  stream  ceased.  Gov- 
ernment wrote  fruitlessly  to  all  the  counties  and  their  ofiScials, 
&c,  to  renew  the  summons.  The  sheriffs  unanimously  replied 
that  if  the  King  were  to  summon  Parliament  he  would  experience 
no  difficulty  in  getting  money.  During  two  whole  months  only 
;^500  came  in.  Fresh  appeals  were  made  and  renewed  pressure 
attempted  without  obtaining  the  desired  results. 

The  luckless  Raleigh,  who  had  heard  of  these  things  in  his 

prison,  but  was  without  adequate  information  fi-om  the  outside 

World,  wrote  a  pamphlet  on  the  prerogatives  of  Parliament,  füll 

of  good  advice  to  the  King,  whom  he  assumed  to  be  persooally 

gtditleaa  of  the  abuaes  biB  mimBiteT^  v^raje^aa«^  m  V&^iuyBDft.    He 


CRUELTY  OF  THE  KING  487 

naively  looked  for  his  freedom  in  return  for  the  tract,  which 
naturally  was  suppressed. 

The  notorious  Peckham  case  was  another  cause  of  populär 
ill-humour.  In  the  course  of  this  trial,  a  man  who  had  been 
greatly  exasperated  by  clerical  and  official  deraeanour,  and  had 
expressed  himself  indiscreetly  thereon,  was  subjected  to  repeated 
torture  on  the  pretezt  of  a  sermon  which  had  never  been 
preached  or  printed,  but  which  an  examination  of  his  house  had 
brought  to  light.  Bacon  degraded  himself  by  urging  on  the 
executioners  at  the  rack — a  form  of  torture  which  had  been 
abolished  in  common  law,  but  was  still  considered  legitimately 
applicable  in  political  cases. 

That  James  was  personally  cniel  is  shown,  amongst  other 
things,  by  his  frequent  pardons  on  the  scaffbld.  He  kept  such 
men  as  Cobham,  Grey,  and  Markham  waiting  two  hours  with  the 
axe  hanging  over  their  heads,  undergoing  all  the  tortures  of  death, 
before  they  were  informed  that  their  execution  had  been  deferred. 
The  timeSy  however,  were  as  cniel  as  he.  Through  all  the  pub- 
lished  letters  of  that  period  nins  incessant  mention  of  hanging, 
räcking,  breaking  on  the  wheel,  half  hanging,  and  executions, 
without  the  least  emotion  being  expressed.  Any  death  gave 
invariable  rise  to  suspicions  of  poison.  Even  when  the  King 
lost  his  eldest  son,  it  was  stubbomly  believed  that  he  had  rid 
himself  of  him  from  jealousy  of  his  popularity.  As  every  death 
was  attributed  to  foul  play,  so  every  disease  or  sickness  was 
assigned  to  witchcraft.  Sorcerers  and  witches  were  condemned 
and  despised,  but  believed  in,  nevertheless,  even  by  such  men  as 
Philip  Sidne/s  friend,  Fulk  Greville,  Lord  Brook  and  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  under  James.  He  obviously  fully  credits  the 
witchcraft  of  which  he  speaks  so  disdainfully  in  his  work,  "  Five 
Years  of  King  James's  Government*' 


IV 


THE  CUSTOMS  OF  THE  COURT 

The  tone  of  the  Court  was  vicious  throughout.  Relations 
between  the  sexes  were  much  looser  than  would  have  been  ez- 
pected  under  a  king  who,  in  general,  troubled  himself  little  about 
women.  We  find  a  description  in  Sir  Dudley  Carleton's  letters 
of  a  bridal  adventure,  which  ended  in  the  King  going  in  night- 
gear  to  awaken  the  bride  next  moming  and  remaining  with  her 
soroe  time,  ''  in  or  upon  the  bed,  chuse  which  you  will  believe." 
James  spoke  of  the  Queen  in  public  nodces  as  "Our  dearest 
bedfellow."  In  the  half-imbecile,  half-obscene  correspondence 
between  James  and  Carr's  successor,  Buckingham,  the  latter 
signs  himself,  "Your  dog/'  while  James  addresses  him  as  "Dog 
Steenie."  The  King  even  calls  the  solemn  Cecil,  "  little  beagle ; " 
and  the  Queen,  writing  to  Buckingham  to  beg  him  intercede  with 
the  King  for  Raleigh's  life,  addresses  him  as  "  my  kind  dog/' 

With  personal  dignity,  all  decency  also  was  set  aside.  Even 
the  eider  Disraeli,  James's  principal  admirer  and  apologist, 
acknowledges  that  the  morals  of  the  Court  were  appalling,  and 
that  these  courtiers,  who  passed  their  days  in  absolute  idleness 
and  preposterous  luxury,  were  stained  by  infamous  vices.  He 
quotes  Drayton's  lines  from  the  *'  Mooncalf/'  descriptive  of  a  lady 
and  gentleman  of  this  circle— 

'*  He's  too  much  woman,  and  she's  too  much  man/' 

Neither  does  he  deny  the  contemporary  Arthur  Wilson's  account 
of  many  young  girls  of  good  family,  who,  reduced  to  poverty  by 
their  parents'  luxurious  lives,  looked  upon  their  beauty  as  so 
much  capital.  They  came  up  to  London  in  order  to  put  them- 
selves  up  for  sale,  obtained  large  pensions  for  life,  and  ultimately 
married  prominent  and  wealthy  men.  They  were  considered 
sensible,  well-bred  women,  and  were  even  looked  upon  as  esfirits 
forts,  The  conversation  of  the  men  was  so  profligate,  that  the 
following  sentiment,  less  decently  expressed,  must  have  been 
frequently  heard:  ''I  would  rather  that  one  should  believe  I 
possessed  a  ladys  favours,  though  I  did  not,  than  really  possess 
them  when  none  knew  thereof 

Gondomar,  the  Spanish  envoy,  played  an  important  pari  at 
the  Court  of  King  James.  Don  Diego  Sarmiento  de  Acufta, 
Count  of  Gondomar,  was  one  of  the  first  diplomatists  of  Spain« 
He  must  have  lacked  the  intuitions  of  a  statesman,  in  ao  far  as  he 


ENGLISHMEN  IN  SPANISH  PAY  489 

flattered  himself  that  England  could  be  brought  back  to  Roman 
Catholicism,  but  he  was  a  past-master  in  the  art  of  managing 
men.  He  knew  how  to  awe  by  rare  firmness  of  decision  and  how 
to  win  by  exemplary  suppleness ;  he  knew  when  to  speak  and 
when  to  be  silent ;  and,  finally,  he  understood  how  to  further  his 
master's  aims  by  the  most  intelligent  means.  He  had  as  free 
access  to  James  as  any  English  courtier,  having  acquired  it  by 
lively  sallies  and  by  talking  bad  Latin,  in  order  to  give  the  King 
an  opportunity  of  correcting  him. 

Ladies  of  rank  crowded  on  to  their  balconies  to  attract 
this  man's  attention  as  he  rode  or  drove  to  his  house;  and  it 
appears,  says  Disraeli,  that  any  one  of  them  would  have  sold 
her  favours  for  a  good  round  sum.  Noticeable  among  these 
ladies  of  title,  says  Wilson,  were  many  who  owned  some  pre- 
tensions  to  wit,  or  had  charming  daughters  or  pretty  nieces, 
whose  presence  attracted  many  men  to  their  houses.  The  foUow- 
ing  anecdote  made  considerable  noise  at  the  time,  and  has  been 
variously  repeated.  In  Drury  Lane,  Gondomar,  one  day,  passed 
the  house  of  a  charming  widow,  a  certain  Lady  Jacob.  He 
saluted  her,  and  was  amazed  to  find  that  in  retum  to  his  greeting 
she  merely  moved  her  mouth,  which  she  opened,  indeed,  to  a 
very  great  eztent.  He  was  profoundly  astonished  by  this  lack  of 
courtesy,  but  reflected  that  she  had  probably  been  overtaken  by 
a  fit  of  the  gapes.  The  same  thing  occurring,  however,  on  the 
following  day,  he  sent  one  of  his  retinue  to  inform  her  that 
English  ladies  were  usually  more  gracious  than  to  retum  his 
greeting  in  such  an  outrageous  manner.  She  replied,  that  being 
aware  that  he  had  acquired  several  good  graces  for  a  handsome 
sum,  she  had  wished  to  prove  to  him  that  she  also  had  a  mouth 
which  could  be  stopped  in  the  same  fashion.  Whereupon  he  took 
the  hint,  and  immediately  despatched  her  a  present. 

In  all  this,  however,  the  women  merely  foUowed  the  example 
of  the  men.  The  English  Ambassador  at  Madrid  had  long  been 
aware  of,  and  profited  by,  the  possibility  of  buying  the  secrets  of 
the  Spanish  Government  at  comparatively  reasonable  prices.  In 
May  161 3,  however,  he  discovered  that  Spain,  in  the  same  manner, 
annually  paid  large  sums  to  a  whole  series  of  eminent  persons 
in  England.  He  saw,  to  his  disgust,  the  name  of  the  English 
Admiral,  Sir  William  Monson,  among  the  pensioners  of  Spain, 
and  leamed,  to  his  constemation,  that  the  late  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  Lord  Salisbury,  had  been  in  her  pay  up  to  the 
moment  of  his  death.  In  the  following  December  he  obtained 
a  complete  list  of  men  enjoying  Spanish  pay,  and  was  thunder- 
struck  on  reading  the  names  of  men  whose  integrity  he  had  never 
doubted,  and  who  were  filling  the  highest  Offices  of  State.  Not 
daring  to  trust  the  secret  to  paper,  correspondence  by  no  meana 
being  considered  inviolable  in  those  days,  he  applied  for  per* 
misaion  to  bring  the  disgraceful  infoTma^on  \o  ^^xatss  vcl^^kx^ksgu 


V 


ARABELLA  STUART  AND  WILLIAM  SEYMOUR 

An  event  occurring  in  the  royal  family  (conceming  which  Gardi- 
ner observes  that,  in  our  day,  such  a  thing  would  roiise  the  wrath 
of  the  British  people  from  one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other) 
serves  to  illustrate  both  the  heartlessness  of  the  King  and  the 
lawless  condition  of  the  people. 

Arabella  Stuart,  who  was  King  James's  cousin,  had  pos- 
sessed  her  own  appanage  from  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
She  had  her  apartments  in  the  Palace,  and  associated  with  the 
Queen's  ladies.  Her  letters  show  a  refined  and  lovable  woman's 
soul,  absolutely  untroubled  by  any  political  ambition.  She  says 
in  a  letter  to  her  uncle  Shrewsbury  that  she  wishes  to  refute  the 
apparent  impossibility  of  a  young  woraan's  being  abie  to  preser\'e 
her  purity  and  innocence  among  the  follies  with  which  a  court 
surrounds  her.  She  is  alluding,  amongst  other  things,  to  one  of 
the  etemal  masquerades  through  which  the  Queen  and  her  ladies 
racketed,  attired,  upon  this  occasion,  "as  sea  nymphs  or  ftereids, 
to  the  great  delight  of  all  beholders  "  (Arthur  Wilson's  "  History 
of  Great  Britain/'  1633).  ^^^  ^^P^  apart  as  much  as  possible 
from  this  whirl  of  gaiety,  and  the  various  foreign  potentates  who 
applied  for  her  hand  were  all  dismissed.  She  would  not,  she 
said,  wed  a  man  whom  she  did  not  know.  Nevertheless  it  was 
rumoured  that  she  intended  to  marry  some  foreign  prince  who 
would  enforce  her  rights  to  the  English  throne.  James  sent  her 
to  the  Tower  at  Christmas  1609  on  account  of  this  report,  and 
summoned  the  Council.  The  misunderstanding  was  cleared  up, 
and  she  was  hastily  sct  at  liberty,  James  expressly  assuring  her 
that  he  would  have  no  objection  to  her  marrying  a  subject. 

A  few  weeks  after  she  leamed  to  know  and  love  the  man  to 
whom  she  devoted  herseif  with  a  passion  and  fidelity  which  re- 
calls  that  of  Imogen  for  Posthumus  in  Shakespeare's  Cymbeltne. 
This  was  young  William  Seymour,  a  son  of  Lord  Beauchamp, 
one  of  the  first  noblemen  in  England.  He  was  received  in  her 
apartments,  and  obtained  her  promise  in  Febniary,  the  King's 
assurance  to  Arabella  giving  them  every  securlty  for  the  future. 
Nevertheless,  the  young  Princess's  choice  could  not  have  fallen 
more  unfortunalely.  Lord  Beauchamp  was  the  sott  of  the  Eari 
of  Hertford  and  Catherine  Gre^,  lYi^  Vc^^t\vrei&%  <sf  the  Suffolk 


ARABELLA  STUART  AND  WILLIAM  SEYMOUR    491 

rights  to  the  throne.  The  EarFs  eldest  son  was  still  alive,  and 
William  Seymour  had  no  claim  to  the  crown  at  the  moment ;  but 
the  fact  that  his  brother  might  die  childless  made  him  an  always 
possible  pretender.  The  Suflfolk  claims  had  been  recognised  by 
Act  of  Parliament,  and  the  Parliament  which  had  acknowledged 
James  was  powerless  to  change  the  succession.  In  the  face  of 
this  notorious  fact^  James  ignored  the  consideration  that  neither 
Seymour  and  Arabella,  nor  any  one  eise,  wanted  to  deprive  him 
of  the  throne  in  favour  of  the  young  pair.  Both  were  summoned 
before  the  Council  and  examined. 

Seymour  was  made  to  renounce  all  thought  of  marriage  with 
ArabeUa,  and  the  young  couple  did  not  see  each  other  for  three 
months.     In  May  1610,  however,  they  were  secretly  married. 

When  the  news  reached  James's  ears  in  July,  he  was  furious. 
Arabella  was  detained  in  custody  at  Lambeth,  and  Seymour  was 
sent  to  the  Tower. 

Arabella  strove  in  vain  to  touch  the  King's  heart.  Great 
sympathy  was  feit  in  London,  however,  for  the  young  couple, 
and  secret  meetings  were  permitted  them  by  their  gaolers.  When 
the  correspondence  between  them  was  discovered,  Arabella  was 
commanded  to  travel  to  Durham  and  put  herseif  under  the  care 
of  its  Bishop.  On  her  refusal  to  quit  her  apartments,  she  was 
carried  away  by  force.  Falling  ill  on  the  journey,  she  was  given 
permission  to  pause  by  the  way,  and,  attiring  herseif  like  one 
of  Shakespeare's  heroines,  she  seized  the  opportunity  to  escape. 
She  drew  on  a  pair  of  French  trousers  over  her  skirt,  put  on  a 
man's  coat  and  high  boots,  wore  a  manly  wig  with  long  curls 
over  her  hair,  set  a  low-flapped  black  hat  upon  her  head,  threw  a 
Short  cloak  around  her,  and  fastened  a  small  sword  at  her  side« 
Thus  disguised,  she  fled  by  horse  to  Blackwall,  where  a  French 
ship  awaited  her  and  Lord  Seymour,  the  latter  having  arranged 
his  escape  for  the  same  time.  An  accident  prevented  their  meet- 
ing,  and  Arabella's  friends,  growing  impatient,  insisted,  in  spite 
of  her  protests,  on  setting  out  at  once.  When  Seymour  arrived 
nezt  day,  he  leamed  to  his  disappointment,  that  the  ship  had  set 
safl.  He  succeeded,  however,  in  getting  put  over  to  Ostend. 
Meanwhile,  Arabella,  a  few  miles  from  Calais,  induced  the  cap- 
tain  to  lay-to  for  an  hour  or  so  to  give  Seymour  an  opportunity 
of  overtaking  them.  They  were  here  surprised  by  an  English 
cruiser,  which  had  been  sent  from  Dover  to  capture  the  fugitives, 
and  Arabella  was  brought  back  to  the  Tower.  When  she  im- 
plored  pardon,  James  brutally  replied  that  she  had  eaten  forbidden 
fruit,  and  must  pay  the  price  of  her  disobedience.  Despair 
deprived  her  of  her  reason,  and  she  died  miserably,  after  five 
years  of  impnsonment.  Not  until  after  her  death  was  her 
husband  permitted  to  retum  to  England. 


VI 


ROCHBSTER  AND  LADY  ESSEX 

IT  was  Rochester  who  was  the  real  ruler  of  England  all  this  time. 
He  was  the  acknowledged  favourite;  to  him  every  suitor  applied 
and  from  him  came  every  reward.  He  was  made  head  of  the 
Privy  Council  after  the  death  of  Lord  Dunbar,  and  was  nominated 
Lord  High  Treasurer  of  Scotland,  a  title  which  gave  him  great 
prestige  in  his  native  country.  He  was  also  made  Baron  Brand- 
spechy  and,  in  accordance  with  the  general  expectation,  Viscount 
Rochester  and  Knight  of  the  Carter.  The  only  decided  Opposition 
he  had  to  encounter  was  that  of  young  Prince  Henry,  the  nation's 
darling,  who  could  not  endure  his  arrogant  way,  and  was,  more- 
over,  his  rival  in  fair  ladies'  favours.  After  the  death  of  the 
Prince,  Rochester  was  more  powerful  than  ever.  As  pnncipa) 
Secretary,  Carr  managed  all  the  King's  correspondence,  and  on 
more  than  one  occasion  he  answered  letters  without  Consulting 
either  King  or  Council  The  King,  if  he  was  aware  of  this,  had 
reached  such  a  pitch  of  infatuation  that  he  submitted  to  every- 
thing.  Carr  was  given  a  new  title  in  1613  and  the  "Viscount 
Rochester  was  made  Earl  of  Somerset.  In  161 4  the  King  made 
him  Lord  Chamberlain  **  because  he  loved  him  better  than  all  men 
living."  In  the  interim  he  had  been  appointed  Keeper  of  the 
Seals  and  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports. 

It  was  from  such  a  height  as  this  that  he  feil,  and  the  circum- 
stances  of  his  overthrow  form  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
events,  from  a  psychological  point  of  view,  of  James'  reign.  They 
made  a  great  impression  on  contemporary  minds,  and  occupy  a 
large  space  in  the  letters  of  the  period — letters  in  which  Shake- 
speare's  name  is  never  mentioned  and  of  whose  very  existence 
their  historico-polemical  writers  do  not  seem  to  have  been  aware. 

It  was  one  of  James's  ambitions  on  his  Coming  to  England  to 
put  an  end  to  the  feuds  and  dissensions  which  were  rife  among 
the  great  families.  To  this  end  he  arranged  a  match  between 
Essex's  son,  and  a  daughter  of  the  house  which  had  niined  his 
father  and  driven  him  to  death.  In  January  1608,  accordingly, 
the  fourteen-year-old  Earl  was  married  to  the  Lady  Frances 
Howard,  just  thirteen  years  of  age,  and  he  thus  became  allied 
with  the  powerful  houses  of  Howard  and  Cecil.  Mr.  Pory  wrote 
to  Sir  Robert  Cotton  on  the  occasion  o^xh^Tnamaie^  ''The  bride* 


LADY  ESSEX  493 

groom  carried  himself  as  gravely  and  as  gracefully  as  if  he  were 
of  his  father's  age." 

The  Church  in  those  times  sancüoned  these  marriages  hetween 
children,  but  every  sense  of  fitness  demanded  that  they  should  be 
immediately  parted.  Young  Essex  was  sent  on  foreign  travel, 
and  did  not  return  to  claim  his  bride  until  he  was  eighteen.  He 
was  a  solidly  built  youth,  possessed  of  a  heavy  and  imperturbably 
calm  disposition.  Frances,  on  the  other  band,  was  obstinately 
and  stormily  passionate  in  both  her  likes  and  dislikes.  She  had 
been  brought  up  by  a  coarse  and  covetous  mother,  and  early  cor- 
rupted  by  contact  with  the  vices  of  the  Court.  She  took  a  deep 
dishke  to  her  youthful  bridegroom  from  the  first  and  refused  to  live 
with  him.  Her  relations,  however,  compelled  her  to  accompany 
him  to  his  estate,  Chartley. 

She  had  previously  attracted  the  attention  of  both  Prince  Heniy 
and  the  favourite  Rochester.  Expecting  more  from  Rochester, 
as  a  contemporary  document  explains,  than  from  the  unprofitable 
attentions  of  the  Prince,  she  chose  the  former,  a  fact  which  can 
hardly  have  failed  to  augment  the  ill-will  already  existing  between 
the  King's  son  and  the  King's  friend.  From  the  moment  of  her 
choice  all  the  passionate  intensity  of  her  nature  was  concentrated 
upon  avoiding  any  intercourse  with  her  husband  and  in  assuring 
Rochester  that  his  jealousy  on  that  score  was  groundless. 

She  chose  for  her  confidante  a  certain  Mrs.  Turner,  a  doctor's 
widow,  who,  after  leading  a  dissipated  life,  was  settling  down  to  a 
reputation  for  witchcraft  Lady  Essex  begged  some  potion  of  her 
which  should  chill  the  Earl's  ardour,  and  this  not  working  to  her 
satisfaction,  she  wrote  the  foUowing  letter  to  her  priestess,  which 
was  later  produced  at  the  trial  and  made  public  by  Fulk  GreviUe : — 

"  Sweet  Turner,  as  thou  hast  been  hitherto,  so  art  thou  all  my 
hopes  of  good  in  this  world.  My  Lord  is  lusty  as  ever  he  was, 
and  hath  complained  to  my  brother  Howard,  that  hee  hath  not 
layne  with  mee,  nor  used  mee  as  his  wife.  This  makes  me  mad, 
since  of  all  men  I  loath  him,  because  he  is  the  only  obstacle  and 
hindrance,  that  I  shall  never  enjoy  him  whom  I  love." 

Upon  the  Earl's  complaining  a  second  time,  the  two  applied 
to  a  Dr.  Forman,  quack  and  reputed  sorcerer,  for  some  means  of 
causing  an  aversion  (frigidity  quocul  hanc)  in  the  Earl.  The 
mountebank  obligingly  performed  all  manner  of  hocus-pocus  with 
wax  dolls,  &c.,  and  these  in  their  tum  failing,  Lady  Essex  wrote 
to  him : — 

"  Sweet  Father,  although  I  have  found  you  ready  at  all  times 
to  further  mee,  yet  must  I  still  crave  your  helpe;  whereforc  I 
beseech  you  to  remember  that  you  keepe  the  doores  close,  and 
that  you  still  retaine  the  Lord  with  mee  and  his  aifection  towards 
mee.  I  have  no  cause  but  to  be  confident  in  you,  though  the 
World  be  against  mee ;  yet  heaven  failes  mee  not ;  many  axe  thfi. 
troubles  I  sustaine,  the  doggednesse  of  my  l/^td,  i!cub  cx^^a»»!«!»^. 


494  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  my  enemies,  and  the  Subversion  of  my  fortunes,  unlesse  you 
by  your  wisdome  doe  deliver  mee  out  of  the  midst  of  this  wilder- 
nesse, which  I  entrcat  for  God's  sake.  From  Chartley. — Your 
aflfectionate  loving  daughter,  Frances  Essex." 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1613,  a  woman  named  Mary 
Woods  accused  Lady  Essex  of  attempting  to  bribe  her  to  poison 
the  Earl.  The  accusation  came  to  nothing,  however,  and  the 
Countess  soon  afterwards  tried  a  new  tack.  It  was  now  three 
years  since  her  husband's  return  from  abroad,  and  if  she  could 
succeed  in  convincing  the  Court  that  the  marriage  had  never  been 
consummated  there  was  some  chance  of  its  being  declared  void. 
Having  won  her  father  and  her  utterly  unscrupulous  uncle,  the 
powerful  Lord  Northampton,  to  her  side,  she  induced  the  latter, 
who  played  Pandarus  to  this  Cressida,  to  represent  the  Situation 
to  the  King.  James,  loving  Rochester  as  much  as  ever,  and  taking 
a  pleasure  in  completing  the  happiness  of  those  he  loved,  lent  a 
willing  ear.  Northampton  and  Suffolk  both  took  the  matter  up 
warmly,  clearly  seeing  how  advantageous  an  alliance  with  Carr, 
whom  they  had  hitherto  regarded  as  an  enemy,  would  be  to  their 
plans.  A  meeting  between  the  relatives  of  both  parties  was 
arranged.  It  consisted  of  the  Earls  of  Northampton  and  Suffolk 
on  Lady  Essex's  side,  and  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  Lord 
KnoUys  on  her  husband's.  Essex,  while  resolved  not  to  make  any 
declaration  which  might  prove  an  obstacle  to  his  marrying  again, 
fully  conceded  that  he  was  not  qualified  to  be  this  particular 
lady's  husband.  A  commission  of  clergy  and  lawyers  was 
therefore  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  matter. 

A  committee  was  nominated  of  six  midwives  and  ten  God- 
fearing  matrons  of  rank,  who  had  all  bome  children,  to  ascertain 
if  Lady  Essex  was,  as  she  asserted,  a  virgin.  The  lady's  modesty 
insisted  upon  being  closely  veiled  during  the  examination,  which 
naturally  gave  rise  to  a  rumour  that  another  woman  had  been 
substituted. 

The  examination,  which  terminated  in  favour  of  the  plaintiff, 
convinced  none  but  those  who  had  undertaken  it,  and  was  the 
occasion  of  much  coarse-grained  jesting. 

With  considerable  impudence,  Lady  Essex  maintained  that  her 
husband  had  been  deprived  of  his  manhood  by  witchcraft ;  but 
she  was  careful  not  to  mention  either  Dr.  Forman  or  herseif  as 
the  instigators  of  this  sorcery.  Several  members  of  the  com- 
mission were  prepared  beforehand  to  declare  the  marriage  void, 
it  having  been  made  worth  their  while  to  fall  in  with  the  wishes 
of  the  King  and  his  favourite.  Archbishop  Abbot,  however,  an 
independent  spirit,  insisted  from  the  first  that  it  was  utterly  im- 
probable that  witchcraft  could  produce  the  assigned  result,  and 
urged  that  in  accommodating  the  Countess  they  were  establishing 
a  precedent  of  wfaich  any  childless  wife  could  take  advantage. 
The  votes  being  cqual,  Abbot  ip^^^ontÄ  ^«t  ISSaeui^  to  allow  his 


SIR  THOMAS  OVERBURY  495 

withdrawal.  James,  however,  appointed  two  new  members,  both^ 
bishops,  insteady  and  thus  made  the  votes  7  to  5  in  favour  of 
"  nullity."  Abbot,  as  the  result  of  his  protest,  became  for  a  while 
the  most  populär  man  in  England.  Bishop  Neile,  who  had  always 
been  despised,  sank  still  lower  in  the  public  esteem,  and  Bishop 
Bilson  of  Winchester,  of  whom  better  things  had  been  expected, 
was  overwhelmed  with  ridicule.  His  son,  whom  the  King  knightcd 
in  order  to  reward  his  father,  was  acclaimed  by  general  consent, 
Sir  Nullity  Bilson. 

Throughout  his  whole  career,  and  in  his  late  relations  with 
Lady  Elssez,  Rochester  had  been  guided  by  an  intimate  and  cap- 
able  adviser,  Sir  Thomas  Overbury.  He  had  assisted  Rochester 
in  the  composition  of  his  love-letters  to  the  Countess,  and  he 
knew  a  great  deal  too  much  about  the  secret  meetings,  which  he 
had  himself  arranged,  between  the  lovers  at  Paternoster  Row, 
Hammersmith,  &c.  When  he  leamed  that  Rochester  intended 
to  Supplement  the  connection  by  marriage,  he  strove  by  every 
means  in  his  power  to  prevent  it.  He  had  been  accustomed 
to  dictate  to  his  master  in  every thing,  but  Rochester  had  now 
grown  restive,  and  was  resolved,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  on  freeing 
himself  from  this  control.  To  this  end  the  King  was  given  to 
understand  that  it  was  a  common  jest  that  Rochester  managed 
the  King,  but  Overbury  mied  Rochester.  In  order  to  get  rid  of 
him  in  an  honourable  manner,  he  was  appointed  to  some  official 
post  abroad.  Overbury,  however,  whose  ambition  bound  him  to 
England,  detected  that  this  was  but  a  mild  form  of  banishment, 
and  strove  to  excuse  himself,  finally  declining  outright.  This 
was  considered  a  breach  of  a  subject's  duty  by  James,  and,  upon 
the  advice  of  the  favourite,  Overbury  was  scnt  to  the  Tower. 
Rochester  now  began  to  play  a  double  game,  and  while  assuring 
the  prisoner  that  he  was  doing  his  utmost  to  obtain  his  release, 
he  was,  in  reality,  concentrating  all  his  influence  upon  keeping 
him  where  he  was.  It  was  necessary  to  befool  Overbury  into 
thinking  he  had  reason  to  be  grateful  to  him,  in  case  the  prisoner 
should  one  day  be  released,  and  should  wish  to  reveal  all  that 
Rochester  was  most  anxious  to  keep  concealed. 

It  was  commanded  from  the  first  that  Overbury  should  have 
no  contact  whatever  with  the  outside  world,  an  order  which  speaks 
for  itself.  When,  however,  the  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  Sir 
William  Wood,  interpreted  these  directions  so  literally  that  he 
refused  Rochester's  own  messengers  access,  it  became  necessary 
to  replace  him  by  the  more  amenable  Sir  Gervase  Helwys, 

Lady  Essex,  who  was  not  the  woman  for  half  measures,  pre- 
ferred  to  make  certain  of  Overbury  once  for  all,  and  was  deter- 
mined  that  he  should  never  leave  the  Tower  alive.  For  this 
purpose  she  again  applied  to  Mrs.  Turner,  who  was  well  supplied 
witb  means  serviceable  to  the  occasion.  The  first  tbing  necessary 
wa»  to  assure  themselves  of  the  man  to  'NVvo:if&  \Tttmft.^^Xft^  ^^as^ 


496  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  prisoner  was  intrusted.  Lady  Essex  applied  to  Sir  Thomas 
Monson,  Master  of  the  Tower  Armoury,  and  through  his  influence 
Helwys  was  induced  to  dismiss  Overburys  attendant  and  sup- 
ply  his  place  with  Richard  Weston,  a  former  servant  of  Anne 
Turner. 

This  man  was  instructed  by  Mrs.  Turner  to  meet  Lady  Essez 
at  Whitehall,  and  to  receive  from  her  a  little  phial  whose  contents 
were  to  be  mixed  with  the  prisoner's  food.  Meeting  Helwys  on 
his  way  to  Overbury's  cell,  and  supposing  him  to  be  initiated  into 
the  secret,  Weston  consulted  him  as  to  the  best  way  of  adminis- 
tering  the  poison.  Helwys,  horror-stricken,  prevailed  upon  him 
to  throw  away  the  contents  of  the  phiaL  He  was  in  too  much 
awe  of  the  Howard  family  to  venture  an  accusation,  and  Weston 
at  his  instigation  told  Lady  Essex  that  the  poison  had  been  duly 
administered,  and  that  the  prisoner's  health  was  failing  in  con- 
sequence.  Overbury  was,  in  truth,  suffering  greatly  from  the 
frustration  of  his  hopes  of  release,  and  he  naTvely  requested 
Rochester  to  send  him  an  emetic  in  order  that  the  King,  hearing 
of  his  sickness,  might  be  moved  to  compassion.  It  is  not  known 
what  kmd  of  medicament  Rochester  sent,  nor  whether  he  was 
aware  of  Lady  Essex's  attempt,  but  he  seems  to  have  played  his 
own  band  on  this  occasion. 

On  finding  that  Overbury,  in  spite  of  his  steadily  failing^ 
health,  still  continued  to  live,  Lady  Frances  renewed  her  activity. 
Rochester  was  sending  sweetmeats,  jeilies,  and  wines  to  the 
prisoner,  and  Lady  Essex  mixed  poison  with  all  these  condiments, 
quite  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  Helwys,  now  upon  the  alert, 
took  care  that  none  of  them  should  reach  the  prisoner.  Losing 
all  patience,  she  looked  round  for  some  more  certain  means  than 
this  poison,  which  worked  with  such  astonishing  and  irntating 
deliberation.  Learning  that  the  apothecary  Franklin  was  atteod- 
ing  Overbury,  she  bribed  his  boy  to  give  the  sick  man  a  poisoned 
injection.  This  was  done,  and  the  prisoner  died  in  the  Tower  on 
the  following  day.  Northampton  immediately  spread  about  a 
report  that  Sir  Thomas  Overbury  had  by  no  means  led  such  a 
secluded  life  in  the  Tower  as  was  generally  supposed,  but  had  by 
his  dissolute  life  there  contracted  a  disease  of  which  he  died.  The 
rumour  was  generally  believed,  but  that  some  suspicions  were 
entertained  can  be  seen  in  the  letters  of  the  times.  John  Cham- 
berlain,  writing  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton  on  the  I4th  October  1613, 
speaks  of  Overbury's  death  as  being  caused  by  this  disease,  '■  or 
something  worse." 

Thus  the  last  obstacle  was  cleared  from  the  path  which  led 
this  brilliant  pair  to  the  altar.  Lady  Frances  was  happy,  and  much 
farther  removed  from  any  feeling  of  remorse  than  Lady  Macbeth. 
The  King  was  füll  of  affection  for  her,  and,  in  order  that  she  might 
not  be  wanting  her  title  of  Countess,  Rochester  was  made  Earl  of 
Somerset    The  wedding  was  ceVebtaX«^  >iaxXi\nkS(>Td\tkiLtie  pomp  ob 


ROCHESTER'S  WEDDING  497 

the  26th  December  1613.  The  bride  had  the  assuranceto  appear 
with  maidenly  hair  unbound  upon  her  Shoulders.  John  Chamber- 
lain,  writing  to  Mrs.  Alice  Carleton,  December  30th,  says,  "  Shc 
was  married  in  her  hair,  and  led  to  the  chapel  by  her  bridemen, 
a  Duke  of  Saxony  that  is  here,  and  the  Earl  of  Northampton,  her 
great-uncle."  The  wedding  was  celebrated  in  the  Chapel  Royal, 
in  the  same  place  and  by  the  same  bishop  who  had  solemnised 
the  previous  marriage.  King,  Queen,  and  Archbishop  were  all 
present,  not  to  mention  those  of  the  nobility  who  wished  to 
stand  well  with  the  King  and  his  favourite,  and  rieh  gifts  were 
brought  by  all.  Gondomar,  wishing  to  show  himself  attentive  to 
so  highly  favoured  a  pair,  sent  them  some  magnificent  jewels. 
The  City  of  London,  the  Merchant  Adventurers,  the  East  India 
Company,  and  the  Customs  sent  each  their  present  of  precious 
metals  of  great  value.  Gold,  silver,  and  jewels  were  showered  upon 
them  throughout  the  first  half  of  January  161 4.  Bacon,  though 
personally  no  admirer  of  Somerset,  naturally  did  not  hold  back. 
It  is  very  significantly  remarked  in  a  letter  from  John  Chamber- 
lain  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  December  23,  1613,  "Sir  Francis 
Bacon  prepares  a  masque  to  honour  the  marriage,  which  will 
stand  him  in  about  £2000^  and  though  he  have  been  offered  some 
help  by  the  House,  and  especially  by  Mr.  Solicitor,  Sir  Henry 
Yelverton,  who  would  have  sent  him  ;;f  SC»,  yet  he  would  not 
accept  it,  but  offers  them  the  whole  charge  with  the  honour."  A 
few  years  later  it  is  Bacon  who  conducts  the  poisoning  case 
against  Rochester. 

The  day  foUowing  the  wedding  the  King  sent  a  message  to 
the  Lord  Mayor,  inviting  him  to  arrange  a  f^te  for  Lord  and  Lady 
Somerset.  The  City  vainly  endeavoured  to  ezcuse  itself  on  the 
ground  of  insufficient  space,  but  the  King  himself  suggested  a 
remedy,  and  it  was  arranged  that  the  guests  should  go  in  pro- 
cession  from  Westminster  to  the  City,  the  gentlemen  on  horse- 
back  and  the  ladies  in  carriages.  The  bride  was  pleased  to 
consider  her  carriage  suitable  to  the  occasion,  but  not  being  satis- 
fied  with  her  horses,  she  sent  to  borrow  Lord  Winwood's.  He, 
replying  that  it  did  not  beseem  so  great  a  lady  tc  borrow,  gallantly 
begged  her  acceptance  of  the  horses  as  a  gift. 

Macaulay  has  likened  this  Court  to  that  of  Nero,  and  Swin- 
bume  has  added  that  these  celebrations  recall  the  bridals  of 
Sporns  and  Locusta.  Chapman  had  already  inscribed  to 
Rochester  two  of  the  dedicatory  sonnets  which  accompanied 
the  last  books  of  his*  trän slation  of  the  Iliad,  and  fiiled  them  with 
absurdly  exaggerated  praise  of  the  Viscount's  "  heroic  virtues." 
He  now  wrote  his  "  Andromeda  Liberata "  in  glorification  of  the 
nuptials,  and  on  his  being  attacked  on  that  score,  he  retorted 
with  his  exceedingly  naTve  **  Defence  of  Perseus  and  Andromeda." 

Life  with  Lady  Frances  could  have  no  beneficial  effect  upon 
jSomerset's  cbaracter.     Nothing  was  magmfic^rL\.tsiQ>\^^^\.\si3^ 


498  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  he  was  constantly  importing  new  fashions  in  order  to  please 
his  master  and  his  wife.  That  ingenuously  moralising  historian, 
Arthur  Wilson,  complains  bitterly  of  his  appearance,  his  curled 
and  perfumed  locks,  smooth  shäven  face  and  bare  neck,  and  the 
golden  embroideries  lavished  upon  his  attire.  His  only  occupation 
was  to  solicit  estates  and  money  of  the  King.  The  subjects 
supplied  him  handsomely,  for  every  petitioner  paid  tribute  to 
Somerset.  How  much  he  received  in  this  manner  is  uncertain, 
but  he  spent  not  less  than  £90y000  a  year.  It  may  be  said  to  his 
credit,  that  he  ncver,  as  did  the  later  favourites,  sought  to  tamper 
with  the  law,  and  he  now  and  then  displayed  some  generosity, 
but*it  was  the  exactions  of  his  Howard  connections  which  ruined 
him.  The  Council's  most  honourable  members,  amongst  whoin 
was  Shakespeare's  patron,  Pembroke,  saw  with  Indignation  that 
he  predisposed  the  King  in  favour  of  their  rivals. 

His  successor  appeared  in  1614.  George  Villiers,  a  young, 
handsome  man  of  lively  disposition,  was  promoted  step  by  step, 
yet  not  too  hastily,  for  fear  of  wounding  Somerset's  feelings. 
His  presence  at  Court,  however,  was  exceedingly  disagreeable  to 
the  latter,  who  treated  his  rival  with  cold  insolence,  and  seized 
every  opportunity  of  humbling  him.  Somerset's  passionate  tem- 
per and  arrogant  disposition  soon  betrayed  him  into  treating  the 
King  with  similar  superciliousness.  He  was  rebuked  by  James, 
and  a  temporary  reconciliation  was  efFected;  but  how  far  Carr 
was  from  the  enjoyment  of  a  clear  conscience  is  shown  by  his 
soliciting  a  general  pardon,  such  as  Wolsey  had  received  from 
Henry  VIII.,  from  the  King  at  this  time,  which  was  to  include 
every  possible  oflFence,  not  forgetting  murder.  This,  he  pointed 
out  to  James,  was  in  case  his  enemies  should  attempt  to  destroy 
him  by  false  accusations  after  the  King's  death.  James  was 
willing,  but  Lord  EUesmere  refused  to  apply  the  great  seal  to  the 
document  in  question.  The  King's  wrath  was  great  but  unavail- 
ing.    EUesmere  feil  upon  his  knees,  but  refused  to  affix  the  seaL 

Soon  after  this  Somerset  experienced  the  need  of  this  compre- 
hensive  absolution  which  he  had  failed  to  secure.  The  apothe- 
cary's  boy,  who  had  administered  the  injection  to  Overbury,  feil 
dangerously  ill  at  Flushing,  and,  wishing  to  ease  his  burdened 
soul,  confessed  the  murder  to  Lord  Winwood.  Helwys  was  exa- 
mined,  Weston  was  examined,  and  Lord  and  Lady  Somerset 
were  soon  implicated  in  the  case.  As  soon  as  Somerset  heard 
that  he  was  accused,  he  quitted  the  King,  with  whom  he  was 
staying  at  Royston,  and  started  for  London  in  order  to  clear 
himself.  The  King,  by  this  time,  was  profoundly  weary  of  his 
old  favourite,  and  entirely  taken  up  by  his  new.  To  give  sotne 
idea  of  James's  dissimulation,  we  will  quote  Sir  Anthony  WeldoD's 
account,  as  an  eye-witness,  of  the  parting  between  the  King  and 
Somerset.  "  The  Earle  when  he  kissed  his  band,  the  King  hung 
about  bis  neck,  slabbering  Yi\a  cVi^^Vi^^  ^^^Ig^  *  For  God's  sake^ 


TRIAL  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOMERSET  499 

when  shall  I  sce  thee  again  ?  On  my  soul,  I  shall  neither  eat 
nor  sleep  until  you  coine  again.'  The  Earle  told  him,  on  Monday 
(this  being  on  the  Friday).  '  For  God's  sake,  let  me/  said  the 
King.  '  Shall  I,  shall  I ; '  then  loUed  about  his  neck.  *  Then,  for 
God's  sake,  givc  thy  lady  this  kiss  for  me.'  In  the  same  manner 
at  the  stayres'  head,  at  the  middlc  of  the  stayres,  and  at  the 
stayres'  foot.  The  Earl  was  not  in  his  coach  when  the  King 
used  these  very  words,  '  I  shall  never  see  his  face  more.* " 

Short  work  was  made  of  the  subordinate  culprits.  Mrs. 
Turner,  Wcston,  Helwys,  and  the  apothecary  Franklin,  were 
all  declared  guilty  and  hanged.  The  Couptess  bore  testimony 
to  her  husband's  innocence,  and  he  went  to  the  Tower  with 
the  collar  of  the  Carter  and  the  George  about  his  neck.  He 
threatened  that  if  he  were  brought  to  trial  he  would  betray 
secrets  which  contained  an  accusation  again  st  the  King — con- 
temporary  letters  show  that  this  was  understood  to  mean  that 
he  would  confess  to  having  poisoned  Prince  Henry  at  the  King's 
instigation;  but  he  abandoned  this  accusation  later,  and  con- 
ducted  his  defence  with  dignity,  denying  all  complicity  in  the 
murder.  The  Countess  was  less  ^self-possessed.  The  judgment 
hall  was  fiUed  with  spectators,  and  the  Earl  of  Essex  amongst 
them  was  seated  ezactly  opposite  her.  As  the  accusation  was 
read,  she  trembled  and  tumed  pale,  and  when  Weston's  name 
was  reached,  she  covered  her  face  with  her  fan.  When,  accord- 
ing  to  custom,  she  was  asked  if  she  acknowledged  herseif  guilty, 
she  could  but  answer,  Yes.  She  was  condemned  to  death,  and 
to  the  question  whether  she  had  anything  further  to  add,  replied 
that  she  would  say  nothing  to  palliate  her  guilt,  but  prayed  the 
King's  mercy.     Somerset  was  also  unanimously  declared  guilty. 

The  King  pardoned  them  both.  He  could  hardly  send  to  the 
scaffold  the  man  who  had  so  long  been  his  most  intimate  friend, 
neither  could  he  well  despatch  thither  the  daughter  of  his  Chan- 
cellor  of  the  Exchequer.  But  although  Somerset  steadily  main- 
tained  his  innocence,  both  he  and  his  wife  were  sent  to  the  Tower. 

In  the  letters  written  at  the  time  of  the  trial,  as  much  mention 
is  made  of  Sir  George  Villiers  as  of  Somerset.  The  new  favourite 
has  been  ill  for  some  time,  *'  not  without  suspicion  of  smallpox, 
which  if  it  had  fallen  out  actum  erat  de  amidtia.  But  it  proves 
otherwise,  and  we  say  there  is  much  casting  about  how  to  make  him 
^.  great  man,  and  that  he  shall  now  be  made  of  the  Carter,"  &c. 

He  was  soon  made  Cupbearer,  Chamberlain,  Master  of  the 
Horse,  Marquis  of  Buckingham,  and  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal, 
and  he  retained  his  pemicious  influenae  well  into  the  reign  oi 
Charles  the  First.  It  is  highly  characteristic  of  James  that  he 
was  now  as  anxious  to  procure  Villiers  Raleigh's  old  estate, 
Sherbome,  from  the  imprisoned  Somerset  as  he  had  been  to 
wrest  it  from  the  imprisoned  Raleigh  for  SoxoRt^eX,  'ää.  xdnäX 
have  re^arded  it  as  a  Jawful  "  morrovnng  ©Jx^^'  «^  voKxXxvca&Je^ 


500  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

had  it  become  associated  with  a  rising  favourite  in  bis  mind 
Somerset  was  given  to  understand  tbat  be  would  obtain  a  free 
pardon,  togetber  witb  tbe  restitution  of  tbe  rest  of  bis  properties, 
if  be  would  secure  tbe  now  all-powerful  Villiers'  protection  by  re- 
linquisbing  Sberbome  in  bis  favour.  On  bis  obstinately  refusing» 
he  and  Lady  Somerset  were  left  to  languisb  for  six  long  years  io 
tbe  Tower.* 

^  Arthur  Wilson:  **The  History  of  Great  Britain,  being  the  Life  and  Rdgn  of 
James  the  First,"  1653.  Sir  A.  Weldon :  **  A  Cat  may  look  upon  a  King,"  London, 
1652.  The  author  of  "  Memoirs  of  Sophia  Dorothea"  :  *<  The  Coort  and  Times  of 
James  the  First,  iUustrated  by  Authentic  Letters,"  2  vols.,  London,  1S4S.  Fulk 
Grerille  :  "  The  Five  Years  of  King  James."  **  Secret  History  of  the  Coart  of  James 
the  First,"  edited  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  2  vols.,  Edinburgh,  181 1.  *'  An  Inqrnnr  into 
the  Literary  and  Political  Chazacter  of  James  the  First,"  by  the  author  of  "  Cnrio- 
sities  of  Literature,"  London,  1816.  Samuel  R.  Gardiner:  "History  of  England 
from  the  Accession  of  James  I.  to  the  Outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,"  voL  ii.,  London, 
1883.  Edmond  Gosse:  "Raleigh,"  London,  1886.  *<The  Court  and  Character  of 
King  James,  Written  and  taken  by  Sir  A.  W(eldon),  bein^  an  Eye  and  Ear  Witness," 
London,  165a  Aulicus  Coquinarise:  "A  Vindication  m  Answer  to  a  Pamphirt 
entitled  '  The  Court  and  Character  of  King  James/  *'  London,  z65a 


VII 


CONTEMPT  OF  WOMEN—TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA 

In  Order  to  give  a  complete  picture,  it  was  necessary  to  tracc 
events  down  to  the  years  in  which  external  Happenings  ceased  to 
work  upon  Shakespeare's  mind.  He  died  in  the  same  year  that 
the  Lady  Arabella  penshed  in  the  Tower,  and  when  the  scandal 
of  the  Somerset  trial  was  beginning  to  fade  from  the  public  mind. 
It  is  obviously  impossible  to  point  to  any  one  cause  which  could 
have  made  an  especially  deep  impression  on  his  inner  life.  All 
we  can  say  with  certainty  is,  that  the  general  atmosphere  of  the 
times,  of  the  corrupt  condition  of  morals  here  described,  could 
hardly  fail  to  leave  some  mark  on  a  disposition  which,  just  at 
this  time,  was  susceptible  and  irritable  to  the  highest  degree. 
If,  as  we  maintain,  there  now  ensued  a  period  during  which  his 
melancholy  was  prone  to  dwell  upon  the  darkest  side  of  life ;  if  he 
shows,  in  these  years,  a  sickly  tendency  to  imbibe  poison  from 
everything ;  and  if  all  his  Observation  and  experience  seem  to  result 
in  a  contempt  of  mankind,  so  did  the  general  condition  of  society 
affbrd  ample  nourishment  for  the  mood  of  scorn  for  human  nature. 

In  the  merely  external,  Shakespeare's  life  cannot  at  this  time 
have  undergone  any  great  catastrophe.  He  was  now  (1607)  forty- 
three  years  of  age.  As  soon  as  the  play  was  over,  between  five 
and  six  of  an  aftemoon,  he  stepped  into  one  of  the  Thames  boats 
and  was  set  across  the  river  to  his  house,  where  his  books  and 
work  awaited  him.  He  studied  much,  making  himself  familiär 
with  the  works  of  his  cotemporaries,  plunging  anew  into  Plutarch, 
reading  Chaucer  and  Gower,  and  pondering  over  More's  Utopia. 
He  worked  as  hard  as  ever.  Neither  the  rehearsal  in  the  mom- 
ing  nor  the  play  at  mid-day  had  power  to  weary  him.  He  read 
through  old  dramatic  manuscripts  to  see  if  new  treatment  could 
revive  them  into  use,  and  retumed  to  long-laid-by  manuscripts  of 
his  own  to  work  upon  them  afresh. 

He  attended  to  business  at  the  same  time,  received  the  rents 
of  his  houses  at  Stratford,  collected  his  tithes  from  the  same  place, 
and  watched  the  lawsuits  in  which  the  purchase  of  these  tithes 
had  involved  him.  He  had  obtained  the  object  of  his  existence, 
so  far  as  the  possession  of  property  was  concemed ;  but  never  had 
he  been  so  downcast  and  dispirited,  never  h%d  Vv^  i<Ä\.  ^k^  >u(sai^c| 
tbe  emptiaess  ofUfc 

SOI 


502  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

So  long  as  Shakespeare  was  young,  the  general  condition  of 
Society  and  the  ways  and  worth  of  men  had  troubled  him  less. 
Then,  except  for  the  feeling  of  belonging  to  a  despised  caste  and 
the  increasing  spread  of  Puritanism,  he  was  at  peace  with  bis 
surroundings.  Now  he  saw  more  sharply  the  true  outlines  of 
his  times  and  his  world,  and  perceived  more  clearly  that  etemal 
infirmity  of  human  nature,  which  at  all  times  only  waits  for  a 
propitious  climate  in  order  to  develop  itself. 

The  last  work  which  had  lain  ready  on  his  table  was  AnUmy 
and  Cleopatra,  He  had  there,  for  the  second  time,  given  bis  Im- 
pression of  the  Subversion  of  a  world. 

There  was  a  pendant  to  this  war  of  the  East  (which  was  in 
reality  waged  for  Cleopatra's  sake),  a  war  fought  by  all  the 
countries  of  the  Mediterranean  for  the  possession  of  a  loose 
woman;  the  most  famous  of  all  wars,  the  old  Trojan  war,  set 
going  by  a  **cuckold  and  carried  on  for  a  whore,"  so  it  will 
shortly  be  described  by  a  scandalous  buffoon,  whom  Shakespeare 
uses,  so  to  speak,  in  his  own  name.  Here  was  stuff  for  a  tragi- 
comedy  of  right  bitter  sort. 

From  childhood  he,  and  every  one  eise,  had  been  filled  with 
the  fame  and  glory  of  this  war.  All  its  heroes  were  modeis  of 
bravery,  magnanimity,  wisdom,  friendship,  and  fidelity,  as  if  such 
things  existed !  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  feels  a  desire 
to  mock — to  shout  "  Bah  ! "  straight  out  of  his  heart — to  tum  the 
wrong  side  out,  the  true  side. 

Menelaus  and  Helen — what  a  ridiculous  couple !  The  wretched 
head  of  homed  cattle  moves  heaven  and  earth,  causes  thousands 
of  men  to  be  slain,  and  all  that  he  may  have  his  damaged  beauty 
back  again.^  Menelaus  stood  too  low  for  his  satire,  however. 
Shakespeare  himself  had  never  feit  thus.  Neither  was  it  in  his 
humour  to  portray  a  woman  who,  like  Helen,  had  openly  left 
one  man  for  another,  a  husband  for  a  lover — there  was  none  of 
woman 's  special  duplicity  in  that.  The  transfer  from  one  to  another, 
which  alone  was  of  interest  to  him,  in  her  case  was  already  past 
and  gone.  Helen's  destiny  is  settled  before  the  drama  begins. 
There  is  no  play,  no  inner  variety  in  her  character,  no  dramatic 
Situation  between  her  in  Troy  and  Menelaus  without. 

But  in  the  old  legends  of  Troy  which  sagas  and  folk-tales  had 
handed  down  to  him,  he  found,  in  miniature,  the  plot  whereon 
the  whole  war  tumed.  Cressida,  a  rejuvenated  Helen ;  Troilus, 
the  simpleton  who  loved  her,  and  whom  she  betrayed ;  and  round 
about  them  grouped  all  those  archetypes  of  subtlety,  wisdom,  and 
strength — that  venerable  old  twaddler  Nestor,  and  that  sly  fox 

'  Heine,  some  btmdreds  of  years  later,  expresses  the  same  feeling  in  tut 

"  O  König  Wiswamatra, 
O  welch  ein  Ochs  bist  da, 
Dassdu  so  viel  kämpfest  und  brüssest 
Und  Alles  f^  cme  t\i!ki  V* 


CRESSIDA  503 

Ulysses,  &c.     Here  was  something  which  urged  him  on  to  repre- 
sentation.     Here  was  a  plot  which  chimed  in  with  his  mood. 

Shakespeare  had  no  interest  in  delineating  that  bellätre^ 
Prince  Paris;  he  had  feit  him  as  little  as  he  had  Menelaus.  But«--^ 
he  had  many  a  time  feit  as  Troilus  did — the  honest  soul,  the 
honourable  fool,  who  was  simple  enough  to  believe  in  a  woman's 
constancy.  And  he  knew  well,  too  well,  that  Lady  Cressida,  with 
the  alluring  ways,  the  nimble  wit,  the  warm  blood,  speaking 
lawful  passion  with  (to  not  too  true  an  ear)  the  lawful  modesty 
of  speech.  She  would  rather  be  desired  than  confer,  would  I 
rather  be  loved  than  love,  says  "yes  "  with  a  **no"  yet  upon  her  \ 
lips,  and  flames  up  at  the  least  suspicion  of  her  truth.  Not  that  1 
she  is  false.     Oh,  no!   why  false?     We  believe  in  her  as  her       l 

lover  believes  in  her,  and  as  she  believes  in  herseif — until  she I 

leaves  him  for  the  Greek  camp.     Then  she  has  scarcely  tumed^ 
her  back  upon  him  than  she  loses  her  heart  to  the  first  she  meets, 
and  her  constancy  fails  at  the  first  proof  to  which  it  is  put 

All  his  life  through   these  two  forms   had   preoccupied   his 

imagination.     In  Lucretia^  he  coupled  Troilus  with  Hector  among 

Trojan  heroes.     In  the  fourth  act  of  the  Merchant  of  Veniu^  hc 

made  Lorenzo  say :  „  ^         ,        .  , 

"  In  such  a  night 

Troilus,  methinks,  mounted  the  Trojan  walls, 

And  sighed  his  soul  towards  the  Grecian  tents 

Where  Cressid  lay." 

In  Henry  F".,  Pistol  included  Doli  Tearshect  among  "Cressid's 
kind,"  making  Doli  doubly  ridiculous  by  classing  her  with  the 
Trojan  maid  of  far-famed  charm.  In  Much  Ada  Abaut  Nothing, 
(Act  V.),  Benedict  called  Troilus  "  the  first  employer  of  P^ndars." 
In  As  You  Like  It  (Act  iv.),  Rosalind  jested  about  him,  and  yct 
yielded  him  a  certain  recognition.  Protesting  that  no  man  cvcr 
yet  died  for  love,  she  said,  "Troilus  had  his  brains  dasbed  out 
with  a  Grecian  club,  yet  did  what  he  could  to  die  before,  and  he  is 
one  of  the  J>attems  oflove'^  In  Twelfth  Night  and  in  AlTs  Well 
that  Ends  Well,  the  Pool  and  Lafeu  both  jested  about  Pandarus 
and  his  ill-famed  zeal  in  bringing  Troilus  and  Cressida  togethen 

Slowly,  like  the  Hamlet  tradition,  this  subject  had  been  grow- 
ing  ripe  in  Shakespeare's  mind.  It  had  hitherto  lived  in  his 
imagination  in  much  the  same  form  in  which  it  had  been  handled 
by  his  compatriots.  By  Chaucer,  first  and  foremost,  who  in  his 
Troilus  and  Cressida  Tabout  1360)  had  translated,  elaborated, 
and  enlarged  Boccaccio  s  beautiful  poem,  Füostrato,  But  neither 
Chaucer  nor  any  other  Englishman  who  had  translated  or  repro- 
duced  the  subject  (such  as  Lydgate,  1460,  who  restored  Guido 
delle  Columne's  Historia  Trojana,  or  Cazton,  who  in  147 1  pub- 
lished  a  translation  of  Raoul  le  Fevre's  Recueil  des  Histoires  de 
Trcyes)  had  found  in  it  any  material  for  satire.  Es).^^(^id3&^  Va!^ 
none  of  its  earjier  eiaborators  found  au^  i^v\X.  ^^  ^t:  0^as^^^x=^ 


504  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Cressida.  Not  the  poets  once.  Chaucer  founded  his  heroinc 
in  all  essentials  upon  Boccaccio's.  He,  who  was  the  first  to 
gather  the  material  into  a  poetic  whole,  had  no  intention  of  pre- 
senting  his  heroine  in  an  unfavourable  light.  He  wished  to  give 
expression,  as  he  openly  dedares,  to  his  own  devotion  to  his  lady- 
love  in  his  description  of  Troilus's  passion  for  Cressida.  The  old 
Trouvire,  Benoit  de  St.  Maure,  and  his  Histoire  de  la  Guerre  de 
Troie  (about  i  l6o),  was  undoubtedly  his  model.  It  is  from  him 
he  received  the  impression  that  Griseida  (into  whom  he  trans- 
forms  Benoit's  Briseida)  gradually  falls  a  victim  to  the  seductions 
of  Diomedes,  in  whose  Company  she  leaves  Troy,  and  little  by 
little  grows  untrue  to  Troilus.  He  adds  a  stanza  to  this  effect, 
on  the  inconstancy  of  women.^  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
Boccaccio  should  kneel  before  women  with  the  platonic  love  and 
devout  worship  of  Dante  and  Petrarch.  Beatrice  is  a  mystical, 
Laura  an  earthly  ideal.  Griseida  is  a  young  lady  from  the  Court 
of  Naples,  such  as  it  was  then.  A  young,  lovable,  and  frail 
woman  of  flesh  and  blood.  But  only  frail,  never  base,  and  very 
far  from  being  a  coquette.  Boccaccio  never  forgets  that  he  has 
dedicated  the  poem  to  his  love  and  that  she  also  left  the  place 
where  they  had  dwelt  together,  for  one  where  he  durst  not  foUow 
her.  He  says  clearly  that  in  the  portrayal  of  Griseida's  charms 
he  has  drawn  a  picture  of  his  love,  but  he  refrains  with  consum- 
mate  tact  from  driving  the  comparison  further. 

Chaucer,  as  little  as  Boccaccio,  found  anything  in  the  relations 
of  the  lovers  to  satirise.  He  intends,  to  the  best  of  hi^  abilities, 
to  prove  their  love  as  innocent  and  lawful  as  possible.  He  paints 
it  with  a  naive  and  enraptured  simplicity,  which  proves  how  far 
he  is  from  mockery.*  He  does  not  even  rave  over  Cressida's 
faithlessness  to  Troilus ;  she  is  excused,  she  trembles  and  hesi- 
eates  before  she  falls.  Inconstancy  is  forced  upon  her  by  the 
overwhelming  might  of  hard  circumstance. 

There  is  nothing  in  these  two  poets  that  can  compare  with  the 
passionate  heat  and  hatred,  the  boundless  bittemess  with  which 
Shakespeare  delineates  and  pursues  his  Cressida.  His  mood  is 
the  more  remarkable  that  he  in  no  wise  paints  her  as  unlovable 

*  **  Giovine  donna  h  mobile,  e  vogliosa 

£  negli  amanti  moltx,  e  siui  bellezza 
Estinui  pib  che  allo  specchio,  e  pomposa 
Ha  vanagloria  di  sua  giovineiza ; 
La  quäl  quanto  piacevole  e  veizosa 
E  piu,  cotanto  piü  seco  Tapprezza 
yvti\ii  non  sente,  nk  conosdmento, 
Volabil  sempre  come  foglia  al  venta" 

*  **  Her  annes  smale,  her  streghte  bak  and  softem 

Her  sides  long,  fleshly,  smothe,  and  white. 
He  gan  to  stroke ;  and  good  thrift  bad  fiil  oft. 
Her  tnowish  throte,  her  brestes  round  and  Ute : 
That  in  this  hevene  he  gan  him  to  delite, 
And  then  withal  il  Üicraiaad  \amc&  \i«t  Vi&te 
That  whal  to  daa  Im  yAt  ^osmeüb^^rit  "«rate^ 


CRESSIDA  SOS 

or  comipt ;  she  is  merely  a  shallow,  frivolous,  sensual,  pleasur^ 
loving  coquette. 

She  does  little,  on  the  whole,  to  call  for  such  severity  of 
judgment.  She  is  a  mere  child  and  beginner  in  comparison  with 
Qeopatra,  for  instance,  who,  for  all  that,  is  not  so  unmercifully 
condemned.  But  Shakespeare  has  aggravated  and  pointed  every 
circumstance  until  Cressida  becomes  odious,  and  rpuses  only^ 
aversion.  The  change  from  love  to  treachery,  from  Troilus  to  ' 
Diomedes,  is  in  no  earlier  poet  effected  with  such  rapidity. 
Whenever  Shakespeare  expresses  by  the  mouth  of  one  or  another 
of  his  characters  the  estimate  in  which  he  intends  his  audience 
to  hold  her,  one  is  astounded  by  the  bittemess  of  the  hatred  he 
discioses.  It  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  scene  (Act  iv.)  in 
which  Cressida  comes  to  the  Greek  camp  and  is  greeted  by  the 
kings  with  a  kiss. 

At  this  point  Cressida  has  as  yet  ofTended  in  nothing.  She 
has,  out  of  pure,  vehement  love  for  him,  passed  such  a  night  with 
Troilus  as  Juliet  did  with  Romeo,  persuaded  to  it  by  Pandarus,  as 
Juliet  was  by  her  nurse.  Now  she  accepts  and  returns  the  kiss 
wherewith  the  Greek  chieftains  bid  her  welcome.  We  may  re- 
mark,  in  parenthesis,  that  at  that  time  there  was  no  impropriety 
in  such  a  greeting.  In  William  Brenchley  Rye's  "  England  as 
Seen  by  Forcigners  in  the  Days  of  Elizabeth  and  James  the 
First,"  are  found,  under  the  heading  "  England  and  Englishmen/' 
the  foUowing  notes  by  Samuel  Riechel,  a  merchant  from  Ulm : — 
'*  Item,  when  a  foreigner  or  an  inhabitant  goes  to  a  citizen's  house 
on  business,  or  is  invited  as  a  guest,  and  having  entered  therein, 
he  is  received  by  the  master  of  the  house,  the  lady,  or  the 
daughter,  and  by  them  welcomed ;  he  has  even  the  right  to  take 
them  by  the  arm  and  kiss  them,  which  is  the  custom  of  the 
country;  and  if  any  one  does  not  do  so,  it  is  regarded  and 
imputed  as  ignorance  and  ill-breeding  on  his  part'' 

For  all  that,  Ulysses,  who  sees  through  her  at  the  first  glance» 
breaks  out  on  occasion  of  this  kiss  which  Cressida  returns : 

"  Fie,  fie  upon  her, 
There's  language  in  her  eye,  her  cheek,  her  Ups, 
Nay,  her  foot  speaks,  her  wanton  spirit  looks  out 
At  every  Joint  and  motive  of  her  body. 
Oh,  these  encounterers,  so  gilb  of  tongue,- 
That  give  occasion  welcome  ere  it  comes, 
And  wide  unclasp  the  tables  of  their  thoughts 
To  every  ticklish  reader !    Set  them  down 
For  sluttish  spoils  of  opportunity, 
And  daughters  of  the  game." 

So  Shakespeare  causes  his  heroine  to  be  described,  and  doubt- 
less  it  18  his  own  last  word  about  her.     Immediately  before  her 
he  had  portrayed  Cleopatra.    When  we  remember  tb^^^  \^*s^<csQk 
occupied  in  his  dnuna  by  the  Egyptian  qM«^tk>^\i<(SVEL\k!b^\cR  ^^ 


5o6  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

thaty  has  stamped  as  the  niost  dangerous  of  all  dangerous  co- 
quettes,  we  can  only  marvel  at  the  distance  his  spiritual  nature 
has  traversed  since  then. 

There  was  in  Shakespeare's  disposition,  as  we  have  already 
remarked,  a  deep  and  extraordinary  tendency  to  submissive  ad- 
miration  and  worship.  Many  of  his  flowing  lyrics  spring  from 
tj;iis  source.  Recall  his  humility  of  attitude  before  the  objects  of 
lis  admiration,  before  Henry  V.,  for  example,  and  his  adora- 
<iion  for  the  friend  in  the  Sonnets.  We  still  find  this  need  of 
giving  lyrical  and  ecstatic  expression  to  bis  hero-worship  in 
Antony  and  Cleopatra.  He  by  no  means  undertakes  a  defence 
of  the  desolating  temptress,  but  with  what  glamour  he  surrounds 
her !  What  eulogies  he  lavishes  upon  her !  She  Stands  in  an 
aureole  of  the  adulation  of  all  the  other  characters  in  the  drama, 
At  the  time  Shakespeare  wrote  this  great  tragedy,  he  had  still 
so  much  of  romantic  enthusiasm  remaining  to  him  that  he  found 
it  natural  to  let  her  live  and  die  gloriously,  Let  be  that  she  was 
a  sorceress,  still  she  fascinates. 

What  a  change !  Shakespeare,  who  had  hitherto  worshipped 
women,  has  become  a  misogamist.  This  mood,  forgotten  since 
his  early  youth,  rises  up  again  in  hundredfold  strength,  and  his 
very  soul  overflows  in  scorn  for  the  sex. 

What  is  the  cause  ?  Has  anything  befallen  him — ^anything 
new?  Upon  what  and  whom  does  be  think?  Does  he  speak 
out'of  new  and  recent  experience,  or  is  it  the  old  sorrow  from  the 
time  of  the  Sonnets,  of  which  he  made  use  in  the  construction 
of  Cleopatra's  character,  and  is  this  the  same  grief  which  has 
taken  new  shape  in  his  mind  and  is  turning  sour?  is  it  this 
which  has  grown  increasingly  bitter  until  it  corrodes  ? 

There  are  two  types  of  artist  soul.  There  is  the  one  which 
needs  many  varying  experiences  and  constantly  changing  models, 
and  which  instantly  gives  a  poetic  form  to  every  fresh  incident 
There  is  the  other  which  requires  amazingly  few  outside  elements 
to  fertilise  it,  and  for  which  a  single  life  circumstance,  inscribed 
with  sufficient  force,  can  furnish  a  whole  wealth  of  ever-changing 
thought  and  modes  of  expression.  Sören  Kierkegaard  among 
writers,  and  Max  Klinger  among  painters,  are  both  great  examples 
of  the  latter  type. 

To  which  did  Shakespeare  belong  ?    His  many-sidedness  and 

fertility  is  incontrovcrtible,  and  every  particular  points  to  the  use 

of  a  multiplicity  of  modeis.     But  for  all  that,  his  gtoups  of  feminine 

characters  can  frequently  be  traced  back  to  an  original  type,  and 

therefore,  most  likely,  to  a  Single  model.     When  one  momentous 

incident  of  a  poet's  life  is  known,  we  are  very  apt  to  relate  to  it 

everything  in  his  works  which  could  possibly  have  any  connection 

\    with  it     In  this  manner  the  French  literaiy  and  critical  world 

-     moit  obstinately  found  traces  of  Alfred  de  Musset's  life  witb 

George  Sand  in  every  exprea^on  ot  xaÄ^xv^oV^  ot  cc»iv^laiat  of 

dcsolation  in  his  poems.    In  Vi\^  b\of[;cap\i^  ol  Ya&  \>\f]{^^^\tfs«* 


SHAKESPEARFS  MISOGYNY  507 

ever,  Paul  de  Musset  has  revealed  the  fact  that  the  "  December 
Night,"  which  seems  so  obvious  a  Supplement  to  the  "May 
Night "  that  turns  upon  George  Sand,  was  really  written  in  quite 
another  spirit,  to  a  totally  different  woman.  Also,  the  character 
delineated  in  the  "Letter  to  Lamartine,"  which  was  generally 
believed  to  be  that  of  the  famous  poetess,  had  in  reality  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  her. 

It  is  quite  possible,  therefore,  that  this  last  woman's  character, 
instead  of  being  only  a  variant  of  the  Cleopatra  type,  was  a 
product  of  a  new,  fiery,  and  scorching  impression  of  feminine 
inconstancy  and  worthlessness.  We  are  too  entirely  ignorant 
of  the  circumstanccs  of  the  poet's  life  to  venture  any  decided 
opinion,  all  we  can  say  is,  that  incidents  and  novel  experiences 
are  not  absolutely  necessary  as  an  explanation.  There  is  a 
remote  possibility  that  the  first  sketch  of  the  play  was  already 
written  in  1603,  ^^  which  case  it  would  be  more  than  likely  that 
the  dark  lady  was  once  more  bis  prototype.  On  the  other  band, 
it  may  be,  as  already  suggested,  that  in  a  productive  soul  one 
circumstance  will  take  the  place  of  many,  and  an  experience 
which  at  first  seemed  wholly  tragic  may,  in  the  rapid  inner 
development  of  genius,  come  to  wholly  change  its  character. 
He  has  suffered  under  it;  it  has  sucked  bis  heart's  blood  and 
left  him  a  beaten  man  on  his  path  through  life.  He  has  sought 
to  embody  it  in  serious  and  worthy  forms,  until  suddenly  it  Stands 
before  him  as  a  burlesque.  His  misery  no  longer  seems  a  cruel 
destiny,  but  a  well-merited  punishment  for  immoderate  stupidity, 
and  this  bitter  mood  has  sought  relief  in  such  scomful  laughter 
as  that  whose  discord  strikes  so  harshly  in  Troilus  and  Cressida, 

We  can  imagine  that  Shakespeare  began  by  worshipping  his 
lady-love,  complaining  of  her  coldness  and  hardness,  celebrating 
her  fingers  in  song,  cursing  her  faithlessness,  and  feeling  him- 
self  driven  nearly  wild  with  grief  at  the  false  position  in  which 
she  had  placed  him ;  this  is  the  Standpoint  of  the  Sonnets.  In 
the  course  of  years  the  fever  had  stormed  itself  out,  but  the 
memory  of  the  enchantment  was  still  visibly  fresh,  and  his  mind 
pictured  the  loved  one  as  a  marvellous  phenomenon,  half  queen, 
half  gipsy,  alluring  and  repellant,  true  and  false,  strong  and  weak, 
a  siren  and  a  mystery;  this  is  the  Standpoint  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.  Then,  possibly,  when  life  had  sobered  him  down, 
when  he  had  cooled,  as  we  all  do  cool  in  the  hardening  ice  of 
experience,  he  suddenly  and  sharply  realised  the  insanity  of  an 
exotic  enthusiasm  for  so  worthless  an  object.  He  looks  upon  this 
condition,  which  invariably  begins  with  self-deception  and  must  of 
necessity  end  in  disillusionment,  as  a  disgraceful  and  tremendous 
absurdity;  and  his  wrath  over  wasted  feelings  and  wasted  time 
and  suffering,  over  the  degradation  and  humiliation  of  its  self- 
deception,  and  ultimately  the  treason  itself,  seeks  final  and^M^t^xsNft. 
relief  in  the  outburst,  "What  a  farceT  7iVv\eYi\Ä\u\\.'s«\l^^^l^^«w 
of  TrMus  and  Cresstda. 


VIII 

TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA—THE  HISTORICAL 

MATERIAL. 

In  the  twenty-fourth  book  of  the  Iliad  Homer  makes  his  solitary 
mention  of  Troilus  as  a  son  whom  Priam  had  lost  before  the 
opening  of  the  poem.      The  old  King  says : 

"  O  me,  accursed  man, 
All  my  good  sons  are  gone,  my  light  the  shades  Cimmerian 
Have  swallowed  froin  me.     I  have  lost  Mestor,  sumamed  the  Fair, 
Troilus,  that  ready  knight  at  arms,  that  made  his  field  repair 
Ever  so  prompt  and  joyfuUy." 

This  is  all  the  great  old  world  poet  says  of  the  king's  son, 
whose  fame  in  the  Middle  Ages  outshone  Hector's  own.  This  brieif 
mention  of  an  early  death  stirred  the  imagination  and  set  fancy  at 
work.  The  cyclic  poets  expanded  the  hint  and  developed  Troilus 
into  a  handsome  youth  who  feil  by  Achilles'  lance.  It  had  become 
the  custom  under  Imperial  Rome  to  derive  the  empire  from  the 
Trojans,  and  the  theoty  gave  birth  to  many  fabrications,  professing 
to  emanate  from  eye-witnesses  of  the  war. 

Yet  it  was  not  before  the  time  of  Constantine  the  Great,  that 
a  description  was  given  which  quite  displaced  Homer  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  This  was  Dictys  Cretensis'  book,  De  Bello 
TrojanOy  translated  from  the  original  Greek  into  Latin.  The 
translator,  a  certain  Quintus  Septimius,  informs  us  that  Dictys 
was  a  brother  in  arms  of  Idomeneus,  and  at  his  prince's  Sug- 
gestion wrote  this  book  in  Phoenician  characters,  and  after- 
wards  caused  it  to  be  buried  with  him.  An  earthquake  in  the 
time  of  Nero  brought  it  to  light  The  translator  is  evidently 
simple  enough  to  believe  in  the  truth  of  this  account  A  more 
daring  forgery  was  issued  about  635,  after  the  fall  of  the  Western 
Empire  of  Rome.  The  author  is  supposed  to  be  a  certain  Dares 
Phrygius,  who  was  one  of  Hector's  counsellors,  and  who  wrote 
the  Iliad  before  Homer.  The  title  of  this  book  also  is  De  Beth 
TrofanOf  and  it  professes  to  have  been  translated  into  Latin  by 
Cornelius  Nepos,  who  is  said  to  have  found  the  manuscript  mt 
Athens  ''where,  in  his  day,  Homer  was  considered  half  mad** 
bccause  he  had  depicted  gods  ^ücid  mfin  «a  caLtrfo^^sci  %.  ^irer  vitfi 


BENOIT  DE  ST.  MAURE  509 

one  another.     Troilus  is  the  most  prominent  hero  oi  the  book, 
which  is  a  wrctched  compilation  of  far-fetched  reminiscences. 

DareSy  however,  became  the  fountain-head  for  all  mediaeval 
Storytellers,  first  and  foremost  among  them  being  Benoit  de  St. 
Maure,  troubadour  to  Henry  II.  of  England.  Of  bis  poem,  con- 
taining  30,000  verses,  only  fragments  have  ever  been  printed. 
As  a  genuine  Trouvire  of  the  early  half  of  the  twelfth  Century, 
he  has  adorned  bis  ancient  materisd  with  sumptuous  descriptions 
of  towns,  palaces,  and  accoutrements.  He  enters,  so  far  as  he 
is  able,  into  the  spiritual  life  of  bis  hero,  and  supplies  bim  with 
what,  according  to  the  notions  of  bis  times,  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly  lack — a.  love  motive.  He  represents  Briseis,  Achilles*  vaunted 
love,  as  the  daughter  of  Kalchas,  whom,  following  the  example  of 
Dares,  he  makes  a  Trojan.  Briseida,  wbo  is  beloved  by  Troilus, 
retums  to  Troy  after  her  father  goes  over  to  the  Greeks.  Wlien 
Kalchas  wisbes  to  regain  bis  daughter,  she  is  exchanged,  as  in 
Sbakespeare's  drama,  for  the  prisoner  Antenor.  Diomedes  is  sent 
by  the  Greeks  to  escort  her,  and  Briseida  falls  a  victim  to  bis 
seductive  arts.  Many  of  the  incidents  in  Sbakespeare's  play  are 
to  be  found  in  Benoit — that  Diomedes  is  experienced  in  women, 
for  example ;  that  Briseis  gives  bim  a  favour  wherewith  to  adorn 
bis  lance ;  that  he  dismounts  Troilus  and  sends  bis  horse  to  bis 
lady-love,  and  that  Troilus  inveighs  against  her  broken  faith,  &c. 

Now  it  can  be  traced  bow,  in  the  further  development  of  the 
theme,  one  writer  after  another  adds  some  feature  which  Shake- 
speare in  bis  tum  still  further  elaborates.  Guido  de  Colonna  (or 
delle  Columne),  a  judge  at  Messina  in  1287,  retranslates  Benoit 
de  St.  Maure  into  barbarous  Latin,  making  no  acknowledgment 
of  bis  source,  and  transforming  Achilles  into  a  raw,  bloodtbirsty 
barbarian. 

Boccaccio,  wbo  prefers  significant  names,  and  the  title  of 
whose  poem,  Filostrato^  signifies  "  one  Struck  to  earth  by  love," 
changes  Briseida  into  Cryseida  (thus  in  old  editions),  in  order 
that  her  name  may  mean  "the  golden/'  and  he  it  is  wbo  adds 
Pandarus,  the  "  all-giver,"  wbo  aids  Troilus  in  bis  love  affairs.  He 
is  Cryseida's  kinsman  and  is  evidently  sympatbetic  all  through.* 

It  is  Chaucer  wbo  first  submits  the  character  of  Pandarus  to  an 
important  change,  and  makes  it  the  transition  point  of  the  Pandarus 
we  find  in  Shakespeare.  In  bis  poem  Troilus's  young  friend  has 
become  the  elderly  kinsman  of  Creseyde,  and  he  brings  the  young 
pair  together,  mostly  out  of  looseness.  It  is  he  wbo  persuades  the 
young  maiden  and  leads  her  astray  by  means  of  lying  impostures. 
It  was  not  Chaucer's  intention,  as  it  was  Sbakespeare's,  to  make 


^  TVoÜiis  ta]rs  to  him  : 


•« 


Non  mHiai  piccola  cosa  tu  donata 
Ne  me  a  piocola  cosa  donato  hat 
La  Tita  mia  ti  fia  sempre  obligata 
In  V\ax  da  moite  m  via  vi^c\\^\iu^ 


5IO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  old  fellow  odious.  His  role  is  not  carried  out  with  the  cynical 
and  repulsive  lowness  of  Shakespeare's  character.  Chaucer  en- 
deavours  to  ward  off  any  painfui  Impression  by  making  the  shame- 
less  old  rascal  the  wit  of  his  poem.  He  did  not  achieve  his 
object;  his  readers  saw  only  the  procurer  in  Pandarus,  whose  name 
became  thenceforward  a  by-word  in  the  English  language,  and  it 
was  as  such  that  Shakespeare  drew  the  character  in  downright, 
unmistakable  disgust.^ 

We  have  yet  other  sources,  Latin,  French,  and  English,  for  the 
details  of  the  drama.  From  Ovid's  Metamorphoses^  for  example 
(which  Shakespeare  must  have  known  from  childhood),  he  took 
the  idea  of  making  Ajax  almost  an  idiot  in  his  conceited  stupidity. 
It  is  in  the  third  book  of  the  Metamorphoses  that  Ulysses,  fighting 
with  Ajax  for  Achilles'  weapon,  overwhelms  his  Opponent  with 
biting  sarcasms.*  Shakespeare  found  the  name  of  Thersites  in  the 
same  book,  with  a  word  concerning  his  rdle  as  lampoonerof  princes. 

We  may  doubt  whether  Shakespeare  knew  Lydgate's  Book  of 
Troy,  Most  of  his  details  with  regard  to  the  siege  are  taken 
from  an  old  writing  translated  from  the  French  and  published  by 
Wynkyn  de  Worde  in  1503.  Here,  for  example,  is  the  parade  of 
heroes,  the  talk  of  King  Neoptolemus  being  no  son  of  Achilles, 
and  the  corrupted  names  of  the  six  gates  of  Troy — Dardane, 
Timbria,  Hellas,  Chetas,  Troyen,  and  Antenorides.  Here  also 
he  would  find  the  name  of  Hector's  horse,  Galathea,  the  archer 
who  calls  upon  the  Greeks,  the  bastard  Margarelon,  Cassandra's 
waming  to  Hector,  the  glove  Cressida  gives  away,  and  Troilus's 
idea  that  a  man  is  not  called  upon  to  be  merciful  in  war,  but 
should  take  a  victory  as  he  may.* 

We  cannot  teil  if  Shakespeare  was  further  indebted  to  some 
old  dramatic  writings,  whereof  only  the  names  have  survived  to 
US.  In  1515,  a  "  Komedy '*  called  the  Story  of  Trqylus  and 
Pandor  was  played  before  Henry  VIII.  On  New  Year's 
I^^y»  1572»  ^  P^^y  about  Ajax  and  Ulisses  was  performed  at 
Windsor  Castle,  and  another  in  1584  concerning  Agamemnon 
and  Ulisses.*     In  Henslowe's  Daybook  for  April  and  May  1599 

^Jahrbuch  dir  Deutschen  Shakespearegesellschaft ^  iii.  252,  and  vi.  169.  Francesco 
de  Sanctis :  Historia  ddla  letttrtUure  italiana,  L  308. 

'  "  Huic  modo  ne  prosit,  quod,  uti  est,  hebes  esse,  Tidetur. 
Artis  opus  tantae  rudis  et  sine  pectore  miles 
Indueret  ? 

Ajacis  stolidi  Danais  Sollertia  posit 
Tu  vires  sine  mente  geris,  mihi  cura  futuri 
Tu  pngnare  potes,  pugnandi  tempora  mecum 
Eligit  Atrides.    In  tantum  corpore  prodes." 

Met.  adii.  13$.  290,  327,  3ÄX 

'  Halliwell- Phillips :  Memoranda  0m  Troilus  and  Cressida,  i88a  (Only  twenty 
copies.) 

*  '*  Ajax  and  Ulisses  shoven  on  New  Yeares  day  at  nighte  by  the  children  of 
Wynsor. — The  history  of  Agamemnon  and  Ulisses  presented  and  enacted  before  her 
Majestie  hy  the  £arle  of  Ozenford  his  boyes  on  St  Johns  daie  at  night  at  Grenewichet 
ISS4." 


OLD  DRAMAS  511 

we  See  that  the  poets  Dekker  and  Henry  Chettie  (Dickers  and 
Harey  Cheattel,  in  his  amusingortho^aphy)  wrote  a  piece,  at  his 
invitation,  for  the  Lord  AdmiraFs  troupe,  Troeyles  and  creasse- 
day.  In  May  he  lends  them  a  sum  of  money  on  it,  changing  its 
title  to  A  tragedy  about  Agamemnon,  It  is  finally  entered  at 
the  Stationers'  Hall  in  February  1603  as  a  piece  entitled  Troilus 
and  Cresseda^  "  as  it  was  played  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  men  "  ^ 
(Shakespeare's  Company).  The  fact  that  in  Shakespeare's  drama, 
as  we  have  it,  rhyme  is  introduced  in  various  parts  of  the  dialogue, 
and  several  other  details  of  versification,  seems  to  point  to  the 
possibility  that  the  so-called  piece  was  in  reality  Shakespeare's 
first  sketch  of  the  play.  It  is  one  of  Fleays  tediously  worked  out 
theories  that  the  drama  was  produced  in  three  different  parts, 
with  an  interval  of  from  twelve  to  thirteen  years  between  each. 
He  is  quite  regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  parts  are  absolutely 
inseparable,  and  is  evidently  entirely  innocent  of  the  manner  of 
growth  of  poems.  He  also  totally  ignores  such  important  evi- 
dence  as  that  of  the  preface  to  the  oldest  edition,  1609,  which 
positively  asserts  that  the  piece  has  never  hitherto  been  played. 
It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  this  edition,  like  most  of  its  kind, 
was  unauthorisedy  but  even  then  the  writer  of  the  preface  would 
scarcely  lie  about  a  fact  which  could  be  so  easily  verified,  and 
which,  moreover,  he  was  not  in  the  least  interested  in  falsifying. 

*  "  Entred  for  his  (Master  Robertes')  copie  In  fall  court  holden  this  day  to  print 
when  he  hath  gotten  suffident  aucthority  for  yt  the  Booke  of  TroUns  and  Cresseda,  as 
it  is  acted  by  my  Lord  Chamberlen*s  men." 


I 


IX 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  CHAPMAN— SHAKESPEARE 

AND  HOMER 

We  have  now  apparently  ezhausted  the  literary  sources  of  this 
mysterious  and  so  little  understood  work.  But  we  have  not,  for 
all  that,  solved  the  fundamental  question  which  bas  occupied  so 
many  brains  and  pens.  Was  it  Shakespeare's  Intention  to  ridicule 
Homer  ?     Did  he  know  Homer  ? 

To  a  Dane,  Troilus  and  Cressida  recalls  the  mockery  Holberg's 
Ulysses  von  Ithacia  makes  of  the  Homeric  material,  just  as  the 
Ulysses  reminds  us  of  Shakespeare's  play.  Troilus  and  Cressida 
seems  to  have  represented  to  the  English  poet  much  what  Hol- 
bergfs  play  did  to  him,  a  satire,  namely,  on  the  absurdities  the 
Gothic  and  Anglo-Saxon  understanding  (i.e.  narrow-mindedness) 
found  in  Homer.  It  is  sufficiently  remarkable  that  Shakespeare 
should  have  written  a  travesty  which  could,  in  spite  of  many 
reservationSy  be  classed  with  Ulysses  von  Ithacia.  As  far  as 
Holberg  is  concerned,  the  explanation  is  simple  enough.  His  is 
the  taste  of  the  enlightened  age,  and  the  ancient  civilisation's 
noble  nalvet^  viewed  in  the  light  of  dty  rationalism,  filled  him 
with  amazement  and  laughter.  But  what  has  Shakespeare  to  do 
with  rationalism  ?  His  was  the  very  time  of  the  renaissance  of 
that  old  World  civilisation,  the  moment  of  its  resurrection.  How 
came  he  to  scom  it  ? 

The  general  working  of  the  public  mind  towards  the  ancient 
Greeks  had  prompted  Elizabeth  to  write  a  commentary  on  Plato 
and  to  translate  the  Dialogues  of  Socrates;  but  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  of  Greek  was  defective,  and  thus  it  was  that  he,  as  play- 
wright,  represented  the  populär  trend,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
numerous  other  poets,  who,  like  Ben  Jonson,  prided  themselves 
on  their  erudition. 

Moreover,  like  the  Romans,  and  subsequently  the  Italians  and 
French,  the  Englishmen  of  his  day  believed  themselves  to  be 
descended  from  those  ancient  Trojans,  whom  Virgil,  as  true 
Roman,  had  glorified  at  the  ezpense  of  the  Greeks.  The  England 
of  Shakespeare's  time  took  a  pride  in  her  Trojan  forefathers,  and 
Tre  £nd  evidence  in  other  of  his  works  that  he,  as  English  patriot, 
Mided  ynt\k  the  Trojans  in  the  old  W\.\i^%  oi  I^iotl^  aad  was, 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  CHAPMAN  513 

sequently,  prejudiced  against  the  Greek  heroes.  In  my  opinion, 
however,  all  this  has  little  to  do  with  the  point  at  issue.  We 
have  already  found  it  probable  that  Chaproan  was  the  poet  whose 
intimacy  with  Perobroke  roused  Shakespeare's  jealousy,  making 
him  feel  slighted  and  neglected,  and  causing  him  so  much  melan- 
choly  suffering.  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  arguments  which  have 
been  brought  forward  in  support  of  the  theoty  that  the  rival  poet 
was  not  Chapman  but  Daniel,  nor  of  what  Miss  Charlotte  Stopes 
and  G.  A.  Leigh  have  to  say  on  the  subject  of  Minto  and  Tyler.^ 
I  do  not,  however,  consider  that  they  have  been  able  to  refute 
the  strong  evidence  in  favour  of  its  being  no  other  than  Chapman 
who  was  the  poet  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  78-86. 

In  the  year  1598  Chapman  had  just  published  the  first  seven 
books  of  his  Iliad^  namely,  the  first,  second,  seventh,  eighth,  ninth, 
tenth,  and  eleventh  of  Homer.  The  remaining  books,  followed 
by  a  complete  Odyssey y  were  not  published  until  161 1,  two  years 
after  the  first  appearance  of  Troilus  and  Cresstda.  To  render  the 
comparatively  unknown  Homer  into  good  English  verse  was  an 
achievement  worthy  of  the  acknowledgments  Chapman  received. 
His  translation  is  to  this  day,  in  spite  of  its  faults,  the  best  that 
England  possesses.  Keats  himself  has  written  a  sonnet  in  praise 
ofit 

How  great  a  reputation  Chapman  enjoyed  as  a  dramatist  may 
be  Seen  in  the  dedication  of  John  Webster's  tragedy  The  White 
Divel {i6i2\  at  the  close  of  which  he  says:  "Detraction  is  the 
swom  friend  to  ignorance.  For  mine  owne  part,  I  have  ever  truly 
cherisht  my  good  opicion  of  other  men's  worthy  labours,  especially 
of  that  füll  and  haightened  stile  of  Maister  Chapman.  The 
labour'd  and  understanding  workes  of  Maister  Johnson :  The  no 
less  worthy  composures  of  the  both  worthy  and  excellent  Maister 
Beamont  and  Maister  Fletcher:  and  lastly  (without  wrong  last 
to  be  named),  the  right  happy  and  copious  industry-  of  Mr.  Shake- 
speare, Mr.  Decker  and  Mr.  Heywood."  As  will  have  been 
noticed,  Chapman's  name  heads  the  list,  while  Shakespeare's  comes 
at  the  bottom  in  conjunction  with  such  insignificant  men  as  Decker 
and  Heywood  I 

Nevertheless  (or  possibly  on  that  account)  there  is  little  doubt 
that  Shakespeare  found  Chapman  personally  antipathetic.  His 
style  was  unequalled  for  arrogance  and  pedantry;  he  was  in- 
sufTerably  vain  of  his  learning,  and  not  a  whit  less  conceited  of 
the  divine  Inspiration  he,  as  poet,  must  necessarily  possess. 
Even  the  most  ardent  of  his  modern  admirers  admits  that  his 
own  poems  are  both  grotesque  and  wearisome,  and  Shakespeare 
must  certainly  have  suffered  under  the  miserable  conclusion  Chap- 
man added  to  Marlowe's  beautiful  Hera  and  Leander^  a  poem 
that  Shakespeare  himself  so  greatly  admired.      Take  only  the. 

^  Jahrhuck  der  Dntiukin  ShakaptaregtidUchaft^  xxf .  p»  1^  \  Westmifisicr  Rcmcwx 


514  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

fragment  of  introductory  prose  which  prefaces  bis  translatkm  of 
Homer,  and  try  to  wade  through  it  Short  as  it  is,  it  is  impo9- 
sible.  Read  but  the  confused  garrulity  and  impossible  imageiy 
of  the  dedication  in  1598,  and  could  a  more  shocking  coUectioa 
of  mediseval  philology  be  found  outside  the  two  pages  he  writes 
about  Homer  ? 

Swinbume,  who  loves  him,  says  of  bis  style :  ''  DemostheneSy 
according  to  report,  taught  himself  to  speak  with  pebbles  in  bis 
mouth ;  but  it  is  presumable  that  he  also  leamt  to  dispense  with 
their  aid  before  he  stood  up  against  .£schines  or  Hyperidcs  on 
any  great  occasion  of  public  oratory.  Our  philosophic  poet,  od 
the  other  band,  before  addressing  such  audience  as  he  may  find, 
is  careful  always  to  fill  bis  mouth  tili  the  jaws  are  stretched  well- 
nigh  to  bursting  with  the  largest,  roughest,  and  most  angular  of 
polygonal  flintstones  that  can  be  hewn  or  dug  out  of  the  mine  of 
language ;  and  as  fast  as  one  voluminous  sentence  or  unwieldy 
Paragraph  has  emptied  bis  mouth  of  the  first  batch  of  barbarisms, 
he  is  no  less  careful  to  refill  it  before  proceeding  to  a  fresh  de- 
livery."  ^     The  comparison  is  strikingly  exact. 

It  is  this  incompreheosible  style  which  made  Chapman's 
readers  so  few  in  number,  and  caused  his  frequent  complaints  of 
being  slighted  and  neglected.   As  Swinbume  jestingly  says  of  him : 

**  We  understand  a  fiiry  in  his  words, 
But  not  his  words." 

Even  in  his  fine  translation  of  Homer,  he  is  unable  to  for^fo  his 
tendency  to  obscurity,  and  constrained  and  inflated  ezpression. 
It  is  universally  admitted  that  even  a  translation  must  take  some 
colouring  from  its  translator,  and  no  man  in  England  was  less 
Hellenic  than  Chapman.  Swinbume  has  rightly  observed  that 
his  temperament  was  more  Icelandic  than  Greek,  that  he  handled 
the  sacred  vessels  of  Greek  art  with  the  substantial  grasp  of  tbe 
barbarian,  and  when  he  would  reproduce  Homer  he  gave  rather 
the  stride  of  a  giant  than  the  Step  of  a  god. 

In  all  probability  it  was  the  grief  Shakespeare  feit  at  seeing 
Chapman  selected  by  Pembroke,  added  to  the  ill-humour  caused 
by  the  eider  poet's  arrc^;ance  and  clumsy  pedantry,  which  goaded 
him  into  wanton  Opposition  to  the  inevitable  enthusiasm  for  the 
Homeric  world  and  its  heroes. 

And  so  he  gave  his  bitter  mood  füll  play. 

He  touches  upon  the  I/üufs  most  beautiful  and  most  powerful 
elements,  Achilles'  wrath,  the  friendship  between  Achilles  and 
Patroclus,  the  question  of  Helen  being  delivered  to  the  Greeks, 
the  attempt  to  goad  Achilles  into  renewing  the  conflict,  Hector 
and  Andromache's  farewell,  and  Hector's  death,  but  only  to  pro-  1 
fanc  and  ridicule  alL  ^ 

It  was  a  curious  comevd^TXC!^  that  Shakespeare  should 

^  A.  C«  Sumbam**.  £ssay  «n  CKafmcnu 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOMER  5 1 5 

hands  on  this  material  just  at  the  most  despondent  period  of  his 
life;  for  nowhere  coiüd  we  well  receive  a  deeper  Impression 
of  modern  crudeness  and  decadence,  and  never  could  we  meet 
with  a  fuUer  ezpression  of  German-Gothic  innate  barbarism  in 
relation  to  Hellenism  than  when  we  see  this  great  poet  of  the 
Northern  Renaissance  make  free  with  the  poetry  of  the  old  world 

Let  US  recall,  for  instance,  the  friendship,  the  brotherhood, 
existing  between  Achilles  and  Patrodus  as  it  is  drawn  by  Homer, 
and  then  see  what  an  abomination  Shakespeare,  under  the  in-> 
fluence  of  his  own  times,  makes  of  it  ^  He  causes  Thersites  to 
spit  upon  the  connection,  and  by  not  allowing  any  one  to  protest, 
so  füll  of  loathing  for  humanity  has  he  become,  leaves  us  to 
suppose  his  version  to  be  correct. 

How  refined  and  Greek  is  Homer's  treatment  of  Helen*s 
Position.  There  is  no  hint  there  of  the  modern  ridicule  of 
Menelaus;  he  is  equally  worthy,  equally  "beloved  by  the  gods/' 
and  still  the  same  mighty  hero,  if  his  wife  has  been  abducted. 
Nor  is  there  any  scom  for  Helen,  only  worship  for  her  marvellous 
beauty,  which  even  the  old  men  upon  the  walls  tum  their  heads 
to  watch,  only  compassion  for  her  fate  and  sympathy  with  hei 
sufferings.  And  now,  here,  this  etemal  mockery  of  Afenelaus  as 
a  deserted  husband,  these  endless  good  and  bad  jests  on  his  lot, 
tbis  barbaric  laughter  over  Helen  as  unchaste ! 

Thersites  is  made  the  mouthpiece  of  most  of  it.  Shakespeare 
found  his  name  in  Ovid,  and  a  description  of  his  person  in  Homer, 
in  one  of  the  books  first  translated  by  Chapman : — 

"—All  säte,  and  audience  gave, 
Thersites  only  would  speak  all    A  most  disordered  störe 
Of  words  he  foolishly  poured  out,  of  which  his  mind  held  more 
Than.it  could  manage;  anything  with  which  he  could  procure 
Laughter,  he  never  could  contain.     He  should  have  yet  been  sure 
To  touch  no  kings ;  t'  oppose  their  states  becomes  not  jesters'  parts, 
But  he  the  filthiest  fellow  was  of  all  that  had  deserts 
In  Tro/s  brave  siege.     He  was  squint-eyed,  and  lame  of  either  foot ; 
So  crook-backed  that  he  had  no  breast;   sharp-headed  where  did 

shoot 
(Here  and  there  spersed)  thin  mossy  hair.     He  most  of  all  envied 
Ulysses  and  iEaddes,  whom  yet  his  spieen  would  chide." 

^  **  Patroclus,  No  more  words,  Thersites ;  peace  I 

"  T%ersii$s,  I  will  hold  my  peace  when  Achilles'  brach  bids  me,  sball  I?" 
(Act  ii  ac  i.) 

"  Tksrsites,  Prithee,  be  süent,  boy  ;  I  profit  not  by  thy  talk  :  thoa  art  thought  to 
be  Achilles'  male  varlet 

**P(Uroelus,  Male  varlet,  you  rogae  I    What's  that? 

"  Thersites,  Why,  his  mascaltne  whore.    Now  the  rotten  diseases  of  the  Sooth, 
the  g;uts-griping,  ruptures,  catarrhs,  loads  o'  gravel  i'  the  back,  lethargies,  oold 
palsies»  raw  eves,  dirt  rotten  livers,  wheezing  lungs,  bladdei^  taW.  ^i  SxK^RMdsoKfiA^ 
sdaticas,  Hme-kilns  i'  the  palm,  incnrable  bone-ac^e,  and  \>i:y&  fkNvSX«^  V^ft-voBi:^^  ^ 
tbe twMer,  taJke utd  Uice  a^^  all  toch  ptepoiUsooi  ^iiDiyvtxMfa.**     V^^*^^« ^^^ 


5l6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  argument  which  has  been  brought  forward  to  prove  that 
Shakespeare  could  not  have  known  this  description  creating 
the  character  of  Thersites  is  worthless.  It  has  been  considered 
impossible  that  he,  who  knew  so  well  how  to  tum  all  material 
to  account,  should  not  have  profited,  in  that  case,  by  the  famous 
scene  where  Odysseus  beats  Thersites.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Shakespeare  did  so,  and  with  much  humour,  only  it  is  Ajax  who 
is  the  chastiser,  while  Thersites  exclaims  (Act  ii.  sc.  3):  ''He 
beats  me,  and  I  rail  at  him.  O  worthy  satisfaction !  would  it 
were  otherwise ;  that  I  could  beat  him,  while  he  railed  at  me." 

Clearly  enough,  the  character  of  the  witty,  malicious  lam- 
pooner  made  an  impression  upon  Shakespeare,  and  he,  probably 
foUowing  the  example  of  earlier  plays,  transformed  him  into  a 
clown,  and  made  him  act  as  chorus  accompanying  the  action  of 
the  play.  Such,  obviously,  was  the  Fool  in  Lear ;  but  how 
different  is  the  melancholy,  emotional  satire  to  which  King  Lear's 
faithful  companion  in  distress  gives  vent  from  the  flaying,  scorch- 
ing  scom,  the  stream  of  fierce  invective  wherewith  Thersites 
overwhelms  every  one  and  everything. 

One  cannot  but  see  that  these  lampoons  of  Menelaus  and 
Helen  represent  Shakespeare*s  own  feeling,  partly  because 
Thersites  is  undoubtedly  used  as  a  kind  of  Sat3rr-choruSy  and 
partly  because  the  dispassionate  and  unprejudiced  characters  of 
the  drama  express  themselves  in  harmony  with  him. 

Notice,  for  instance,  this  reply  of  Thersites  (Act  ii.  sc  3) : 

"  After  this,  the  vengeance  upon  the  whole  camp !  or,  rather,  the 
bone-ache !  for  that,  methinks,  is  the  curse  upon  those  that  war  for 
a  placket  .  .  .  ." 

"  Here  is  such  patchery,  such  juggling,  and  such  knavery !  all  the 
argument  is  a  cuckold  and  a  whore ;  a  good  quarrel  to  draw  emulous 
factions  and  bleed  to  death  upon.     Now  the  dry  serpigo  on  the  subject 
and  war  and  lechery  confound  all ! " 

Or  read  this  description  of  Menelaus  (Act  v.  sc.  i): 

''And  the  goodly  transformation  of  Jupiter  there,  bis  brother  the 
bull,  the  primitive  statue  and  oblique  memorial  of  cuckolds ;  a  thrifty 
shoeing-hom  in  a  chain,  hanging  at  his  brother's  leg — to  what  form  but 
that  he  is,  should  wit  larded  with  malice,  and  malice  forced  with  wit, 
tum  him  to  ?  To  an  ass,  were  nothing ;  he  is  both  ass  and  ox ;  to  an  ox, 
were  nothing ;  he  is  both  ox  and  ass.  To  be  a  dog,  a  mule,  a  cat,  a 
fitchew,  a  toad,  a  liaard,  an  owl,  a  puttock,  or  a  herring  without  a  roe,  I 
would  not  care ;  but  to  be  Menelaus  I  I  would  conspire  against  destiny. 
Ask  me  not  what  I  would  be  if  I  were  not  Thersites ;  for  I  care  not  to 
be  the  louse  of  a  lazar,  so  I  were  not  Menelaus." 

One  can  by  no  means  accept  this  as  merely  the  outburst  of  a 
bnwUng  slave's  hatred  o{  Vn&  EWV^rvQt%,  loi  >i!(v<t  tx^x^^  unpiev 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOMER  517 

judiced  Diomedes  expresses  himself  in  the  same  spirit  to  Paris 
(Act  iv.  sc.  i): 

"  Paris,  And  teil  me,  noble  Diomede,  faith,  teil  me  truc, 
Even  in  the  soul  of  sound  good  fellowship, 
Who,  in  your  thoughts,  merits  fair  Helen  best, 
Myself  or  Menelaus. 

Diomedes.  Both  alike : 
He  merits  well  to  have  her  that  doth  seek  her, 
Not  making  any  scruple  of  her  soilure, 
VVith  such  a  hell  of  pain  and  world  of  Charge ; 
And  you  as  well  to  keep  her,  that  defend  her, 
Not  palating  her  dishonour, 
VVith  such  a  costly  load  of  wealth  and  (riends : 
He,  like  a  puling  cuckold,  would  drink  up 
The  lees  and  dregs  of  a  flat  tamed  piece ; 
You,  like  a  lecher,  out  of  whorish  loins 
Are  pleased  to  breed  out  your  inheritors : 
Both  merits  poised,  each  weighs  nor  less  nor  more ; 
But  he  as  he,  the  heavier  for  a  whore. 

Paris.  You  are  too  bitter  to  your  countrywoman. 

Diomedes.  She's  bitter  to  her  country  :  hear  me,  Paris : 
For  every  false  drop  in  her  bawdy  veins 
A  Grecian's  life  haüi  sunk ;  for  every  scruple 
Of  her  contaminated  Carrion  weight 
A  Trojan  hath  been  slain  :  since  she  could  speak 
She  hath  not  given  so  many  good  words  breath 
As  for  her  Greeks  and  Trojans  have  sufifered  death."* 

In  the  Iliad  thcsc  forms  represent  the  outcome  of  the  Imagina- 
tion of  thö  noblest  people  of  the  Mediterranean  shores,  unaffected 
by  religious  terrors  and  alcohol ;  they  are  bright,  glad,  reverential 
fantasies,  bom  in  a  warm  sun  under  a  deep  blue  sky.  From 
Shakespeare  they  step  forth  travestied  by  the  gloom  and  bitter- 
ness  of  a  great  poet  of  a  Northern  race,  of  a  stock  civilised  by 
Christianity,  not  by  culture ;  a  stock  which,  despite  all  the  efforts 
of  the  Renaissance  to  give  new  birth  to  heathendom,  has  become, 
once  for  all,  disciplined  and  habituated  to  look  upon  the  senses 
as  tempters  which  lead  down  into  the  mire ;  to  which  the  pleasur- 
able  is  the  forbidden  and  sexual  attraction  a  disgrace. 

How  significant  it  is  that  Shakespeare  only  sees  Greek  love 
as  scourged  by  the  lash  of  venereal  diseases.  Throughout  the 
entire  play  a  pestilential  breath  of  innuendo  is  blown  with  out- 
bursts  of  cursing,  all  centering  on  a  contagion  which  first  showed 
itself  some  thousand  years  after  the  Homeric  times."  As  Homeric 
friendships  are  bestialised,  so  is  Greek  love  profaned  to  suit 
modern  circumstances.  To  Thersites,  the  Greek  princes  are, 
every  one  of  thero,  scandalous  rakes.  "  Here's  Agamemnon,  an 
honest  fellow  enough,  and  one  that  loves  quails,  but  he  has  not  aa 
much  brain  as  earwax  "  (Act  v.  sc.  i).     *^  TVi^X  «as&st 


5i8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

false-hearted  rogue,  a  most  unjust  knave.  .  .  .  They  say  he  keeps 
a  Trojan  drab  and  uses  the  traitor  Calchas'  tent. — Nothing  but 
lechery ;  all  incontinent  varlets  "  (Act  v.  sc.  i).  Achilles,  that  "  idol 
of  idiot  worshippers,"  that  "  füll  dish  of  fool,"  has  Queen  Hecuba's 
daughter  as  a  concubine,  and  has  treacherously  promised  her  to 
leave  his  fellow-countrymen  in  the  lurch.  "  Patroclus  will  give 
me  anything  for  the  intelligence  of  this  whore :  the  parrot  will  not 
do  more  for  an  almond  than  he  for  a  commodious  drab.  Lechery, 
lechery  still,  nothing  eise  holds  fashion."  Of  Menelaus  and  Paris, 
"cuckold  and  cuckold-maker,"  enough  has  already  been  said. 
Helen  has  been  sternly  condemned,  and  of  Cressida  with  her  two 
adorers,  Troilus  and  Diomedes,  "  How  the  devil  luxury,  with  his 
fat  nimp  and  potato-fingers,  tickles  these  two  together!  Fry 
lechery,  fry  "  (Act  v.  sc.  2). 

It  is  clear  that  the  Christian  conception  of  faithlessness  in  love 
has  displaced  the  old  Hellenic  innocence  and  nalvet^.  How  fcr- 
vent  is  Achilles'  love  for  Briseis  in  Homer;  how  honest,  warm,  and 
indignant  he  is  when  he  asks  Agamemnon 's  messengers  if  among 
the  children  of  men  only  the  Atrides  love  their  wives,  and  he 
himself  answers  that  every  man  who  is  brave  and  of  good  under- 
standing  loves  and  shelters  his  wife,  as  he  of  his  inmost  heart 
loved  and  would  shelter  Briseis,  prisoner  of  war  though  she  was. 
None  the  less  does  Homer  teil  us  how  immediately  after  Achilles 
has  ended  his  speech  and  dismissed  his  guests,  he  Stretches  him- 
self upon  his  couch,  "  in  the  inner  room  of  his  tent,  richly  wrought, 
and  that  fair  lady  by  his  side  that  he  from  Lesbos  brought,  bright 
Diomeda."  It  never  occurs  to  the  Greek  poet  that  this  implies 
any  faithlessness  to  the  absent  Briseis,  but  Shakespeare's  Standard 
is  thoroughly  and  mediaevally  rigorous. 

On  two  points  the  comparison  between  Homer  and  Shake- 
speare is  inevitable.  The  first  is  the  farewell  between  Hector 
and  Andromache.  There  is  nothing  finer  in  Greek  poetry  (which 
is  to  say,  any  poetry)  than  this  tragic  idyl,  so  profoundly  human 
and  movingly  beautiful  as  it  is.  The  pure  womanliness  which 
out  of  deep  grief  and  pain  utters  a  complaint  without  weakness, 
and  expresses  without  sentimentality  a  boundless  love  poured  out 
upon  this  one  object:  "Thy  life  makes  still  my  father  be,  my 
mother,  brother,  and  besides  thou  art  my  husband  too,  Most 
loved,  most  worthy." 

In  contrast  to  this  womanliness  Stands  the  man's  strength, 
untouched  by  harshness,  stirred  by  the  deepest  tendemess,  but 
fixed  in  immovable  determination.  The  picture  of  the  child,  too, 
frightened  by  the  nodding  plumes  upon  his  father's  heim,  until 
Hector  sets  the  casque  upon  the  ground  and  kisses  the  tears  frotn 
the  eyes  of  his  boy.  The  scene  takes  place  in  the  sixth  book  of 
the  Iliadt  and  could  not  have  been  known  to  Shakespeare,  inas» 
mxxch  as  it  was  as  yet  untranslated  by  Cbapman.  Sc^  what  he 
sets  in  its  place : 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOMER  519 

**  Andromache.  Unarm,  unarm,  and  do  not  fight  to-day. 
Hector,  You  train  me  to  offend  you :  get  you  in : 
By  all  the  everlasting  gods  I'll  go  I 

Andromache.  My  dreams  will,  sure,  prove  ominous  to  the  day. 
Ifector,  No  more,  I  say." 

This  is  the  harshness  of  a  mediseval  duke;  the  golden  dust 
is  bnished  from  the  wings  of  the  Greek  ^Psyche.  If  Harald 
Hardrada,  as  chieftain  of  the  Varangians,  ever  gave  a  thought 
to  the  spirit  of  Greek  art,  as  he  passed  with  his  troops  through 
the  streets  of  Constantinople,  he  must  have  looked  upon  it  thus, 
despising  the  ancient  Hellenes  because  he  found  the  modern 
cowardly  and  effeminate. 

Shakespeare  had  no  particular  place  and  no  particular  people 
in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  this  play ;  he  simply  robbed'the  finest 
scenes  of  their  beauty,  because  his  mind,  at  that  time,  had  elected 
to  dwell  upon  the  lowest  and  basest  side  of  human  nature. 

The  second  point  is  the  mission  to  Achilles,  told  in  the  ninth 
book  of  the  Iliad.  It  was  translated  and  published  by  Chapman 
in  1 598,  and  must  certainly  have  been  known  to  Shakespeare.^ 
This  book  is  one  of  the  few  finished  works  of  art  which  have 
been  produced  upon  this  earth.  The  Greek  Epos  itself  contains 
nothing  more  consummate  than  its  delineation  of  character,  the 
contrast  between  the  arrogant  and  the  intellectual,  the  polished 
and  the  huroorous,  the  interplay  of  personality  from  the  highest 
pathos  to  the  reiterated  twaddle  of  the  old  man.  Achilles'  wrath, 
Nestor's  experience,  Odysseus'  subtle  tact,  Phoenix's  good-natured 
rambling,  the  wounded  pride  of  the  Hellenic  emissaries,  are  all 
gathered  together  in  the  endeavour  to  induce  Achilles  to  quit 
his  tent. 

Contrast  this  with  the  burlesque  attempt  to  provoke  that 
cowardly  snob  and  raw  dunce  of  an  Achilles  out  of  his  exclusive- 
nessi  by  passing  him  by  without  retuming  his  greeting  or 
seeming  conscious  of  his  existence ;  this  same  Achilles,  who  falls 
upon  Hector  with  his  myrmidons  and  scoundrelly  murders  him, 
just  as  the  hero,  wearied  by  battle,  has  taken  off  his  helmet  and 
laid  aside  his  sword.  It  reads  like  the  invention  of  a  mediaeval 
barbarian.  But  Shakespeare  is  neither  mediaeval  nor  a  barbarian. 
No,  he  has  written  it  down  out  of  a  bittemess  so  deep  that  he 
has  feit  hero-worship,  like  love,  to  be  an  Illusion  of  the  senses. 
As  the  phantasy  of  first  love  is  absurd,  and  Troilus's  loyalty 
towards  its  object  ridiculous,  so  is  the  honour  of  our  forefathers 
and  of  war  in  general  a  delusion.  Shakespeare  now  suspects  the 
most  assured  reputations ;  he  believes  that  if  Achilles  really  lived 
at  all,  he  was  most  probably  a  stupid  and  vainglorious  boaster, 

^  The  ezpression  "b^  Jore  mnlti  potent,"  Act  hr.,  ic.  5,  is  taken  from  GhapouB. 
This  b  the  only  time  it  u  used  hf  Shakespeare. 


520  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

just  as  Helen  must  have  been  a  hussy  by  no  means  worthy  of 
the  turmoil  which  was  made  about  her. 

As  he  distorted  Achilles  into  an  absurdity,  so  he  wrenched  all 
other  Personalities  into  caricatures.  Gervinus  has  justly  re- 
marked  that  Shakespeare  here  acts  very  much  as  bis  Patroclus 
does  when  he  mimics  Agamemnon's  loftiness  and  Nestor's  weak- 
ness,  for  Achilles'  delectation  (Act  i.  sc.  3).  We  feel  in  the 
delineation  of  Nestor  that  Anglo-Saxon  master-hand  which  seizes 
upon  the  unsightly  details  which  the  Greek  ignores : 

*'  He  coughs  and  spits, 
And  with  a  palsy  fiimbling  on  bis  gorget, 
Shakes  in  and  out  the  rivet." 

And  we  recognise  in  the  allusion  to  the  mimicry  of  Agamem- 
non that  cheap  estimate  of  an  actor's  profession,  which,  with  a 
contempt  for  the  whole  guild  of  poets,  is  discemible  throughout 
Shakespeare's  works,  in  spite  of  bis  efiforts  to  raise  both  caUings 
in  the  eyes  of  the  public.^ 

Nestor  is  overwhelmed  with  ridicule,  and  is  made  to  declare, 
at  the  close  of  the  first  act,  that  he  will  hide  bis  silver  beard  in 
a  golden  beaver,  and  will  maintain  in  duel  with  Hector  that  bis 
own  long-dead  wife  was  as  great  a  beauty  and  as  chaste  a  wife 
as  Hector*s — ^grandmother. 

Ulysses,  who  is^  intended  to  represent  the  wise  man  of  the 
play,  is  as  trivial  of  mind  as  the  rest.  There  was  a  certain 
amount  of  grandeur  in  the  way  lago  handled  Othello,  Rodrigo, 
and  Cassio,  as  though  they  were  mere  puppcts  in  bis  hands ;  but 
there  is  none  in  the  sport  Ulysses  makes  of  those  swaggering 
numskulls,  Achilles  and  Ajax.  The  bittemess  which  breathes 
out  of  all  that  Shakespeare  writes  at  this  period  has  found  grati- 
fication  in  making  Ulysses  not  one  whit  more  sublime  than  the 
fools  with  whom  he  plays. 

Amongst  German  critics,  Gervinus  has  characterised  Trotlus 
and  Cressida  as  a  good-naturedly  humorous  play.  No  descrip- 
tion  could  be  more  unlikely.  Seidom  has  a  poet  been  less  good- 
natured  than  Shakespeare  here.  No  less  impossible  is  the  theory 
(also  nourished  in  Gervinus'  imagination)  that  the  poet  of  the 
English  Renaissance  was  offended  by  the  loose  ethics  of  Homeric 

*  "  And,  like  a  strutting  player,  whose  conceit 
Lies  in  his  hamstring,  and  doth  think  it  rieh 
To  hear  the  wooden  dialogae  and  sound 
Twixt  his  stretched  footing  and  the  scafibldage» 
Such  to  be  pitied  and  o'er-wrested  seeming 
He  acts  thy  greatness  in." 

And  the  passage  previously  quoted  £rom  MacUtk : 

**  Iife*s  bot a  poor  plaw, 

That  struts  and  frets  his  honr  «poo  the  stagi^ 
And  then  is  heaid  no  more." 

iUfo  ehe  noch  Sonnet 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOMER  521 

poetry.  Shakespeare  most  certainly  was  never  so  moral  as  this 
moralising  German  critic  (and  what  German  critic  is  not  moralis- 
ing)  would  have  him  to  be.  It  is  not  a  sense  of  the  ethics  of 
Homer,  but  a  feeling  for  bis  poetry  that  is  lacking.  In  Shake- 
speare's  time  men  took  too  much  pleasure  in  classical  culture  to 
appredate  the  antique  naTvet6.  It  was  not  until  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  Century,  when  populär  poetry  once  more  began  to  be 
universally  honoured,  that  Homer  displaced  Virgil  in  the  populär 
estimation.  Even  Goethe  preferred  Virgil  to  Homer.  Gervinus 
is  equally  wide  of  the  mark  when,  in  bis  anxiety  to  prove  Troilus 
and  Cressida  a  purely  literary  satire,  he  hazards  the  assertion 
that  Shakespeare  never  intended  here  to  "  hold  up  a  mirror  to  bis 
times ; "  ^  for  it  is  precisely  bis  own  times,  and  no  other,  that  were 
in  bis  mind  when  he  wrote  this  play. 

^  "  Sein  gutmUthiges  humoristisches  Spiel." — "  So  kann  allerdings  aus  der  ganzen 
Darstellung  die  naheliegende  Wahrzeit  gezogen  werden  :  dass  die  erhabenste  Dich- 
tung ohne  streng  sittlichen  Grundlagen  nicht  das  sei,  wozu  sie  beßlhigt  und  berufen 
ist.  — *'  Gewiss  würde  er  dies  Stück  nicht  unter  die  rechnen  wollen,  die  der  Zeit 
einen  Spiegel  yorbalten." — Gervinus  *  Shakespeare^  \v.  23,  31,  32. 


SCORN  OF   WOMAN'S  GUILB  AND  PUBLIC 

STUPIDITY 

TroILüS  and  Cressida  first  appeared  in  1609  in  two  editions, 
one  of  which  is  introduced  b^  a  remarkable  and  diverting  preface, 
entitled  "A  never  writer  to  an  ever  reader,  News."     It  says: — 

"  Eternall  reader,  you  have  beere  a  new  play,  never  stal'd  witb  the 
stage,  never  clapper-clawd  witb  tbe  palmes  of  tbe  Vulgär,  and  yet 
passing  füll  of  tbe  palme  comicall ;  for  it  is  a  birtb  of  your  brain,  tbat 
never  undertooke  anytbing  comicall,  vainely :  And  were  but  the  vaine 
names  of  commedies  changde  for  the  titles  of  Commodities,  or  of 
Playes  for  Pleas ;  yjou  should  see  all  those  grand  censors,  tbat  now  stile 
them  such  vanities,,  flocke  to  them  for  tbe  maine  grace  of  tbeir  gravities : 
especially  tbis  author's  Commedies,  tbat  are  so  framed  to  tbe  life,  tbat 
they  serve  for  tbe  most  common  Commentaries,  of  all  tbe  actions  of 
oiu*  lives,  shewing  such  a  dexteritie,  and  power  of  witte,  tbat  tbe  most 
displeased  witb  playes  are  pleased  witb  bis  comedies.  And  all  such 
dull  and  heavy-witted  worldlings,  as  were  never  capable  of  tbe  witte  of 
a  commedie,  Coming  by  report  of  them  to  bis  representations,  have 
found  tbat  witte  tbere,  tbat  they  never  found  in  themselves,  and  have 
parted  better  witted  than  they  came :  feeling  an  edge  of  witte  set  upon 
them,  more  than  ever  they  dreamed  they  had  brain  to  grind  it  on.  So 
much  and  such  sauvred  salt  of  witte  is  in  bis  Commedies,  tbat  they 
seem  (for  tbeir  beight  of  pleasure)  to  be  bome  in  tbat  sea  tbat  brought 
fortb  Venus.  Amongst  all  tbere  is  none  more  witty  than  tbis.  And 
had  I  time  I  would  comment  upon  it,  thougb  I  know  it  needs  it  not 
(for  so  much  as  will  make  you  think  your  testeme  well  bestowed),  but 
for  so  much  wortb,  as  ever  poore  I  know  to  be  stuft  in  it  It  deserves 
such  a  labour,  as  well  as  the  best  Commedy  in  Terence  or  Plautus. 
And  believe  tbis,  tbat  when  he  is  gone,  and  bis  Commedies  out  of  sale, 
you  will  scramble  for  them  and  set  up  a  new  Englisb  inquisition. 
Take  tbis  for  a  waming,  and  at  tbe  perrill  of  your  pleasures  losse,  and 
judgements,  refuse  not  nor  like  tbis  the  less  for  not  being  suUied  witb 
tbe  smoaky  breath  of  the  multitude ;  but  thanke  fortune  for  tbe  scape 
it  bath  made  amongst  you.  Since  by  tbe  grand  possessors  wills  I 
believe  you  should  have  prayed  for  them  ratber  than  been  prayed. 
And  so  I  leave  all  such  to  be  prayed  for  (for  the  State  of  their  witte's 
healtb)  tbat  will  not  praise  it.     Vale." 

How  remarkable  a  comprebension  of  Sbakespeare's  werk  this 
old-time  preface  shows,  how  clear-sigbted  an  enthusiasm,  and  how 
Just  a  perception  of  his  positloü  m  the  future. 


"TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA"  523 

The  play  was  again  published  in  1623  in  folio,  and  under 
conditions  which  betray  the  publisher's  perplexity  as  to  its  Classi- 
fication. It  is  altogether  missing  from  the  list  of  Contents,  in 
which  the  plays  are  arranged  under  three  headings,  comedies, 
historieSy  and  tragedies.  It  is  thrust,  unpaged,  into  the  middle 
of  the  book,  between  the  histories  and  the  tragedies,  between 
Henry  VIIL  and  Coriolanus^  probably  because  the  editor  mis- 
takenly  deemed  it  to  contain  more  of  history  and  of  tragedy  than 
of  coraedy.  Of  all  Shakespeare's  works,  it  is  Troilus  and  Cressida 
which  most  nearly  approaches  the  Don  Quixote  of  Cervantes. 

It  is  a  proof  of  the  stultifying  effect  of  the  too  close  attention 
of  philological  critics  to  metrical  peculiarities  (peculiarities  which 
a  poet  can  always  accommodate  as  he  thinks  proper)  upon  the 
finer  psychological  sense,  that  either  the  whole  or  a  greatcr  part 
of  Troilus  and  Cressida  has  been  taken  for  the  work  of  Shakes- 
peare's  youth,  and  has  been  attributed  to  the  Romeo  and  Juliet 
period.  This  view  has  been  taken  by  L.  Moland  and  C.  d'Hericault 
in  thcir  Nouvelles  Franqaises  du  14'*'  Siede ^  and  not  a  few  undis- 
ceming  biographers  of  Shakespeare. 

The  contrast  between  the  two  plays  is  remarkable  and  in- 
structive.  Roineo  and  Juliet  is  a  genuine  work  of  youth,  a  pro- 
duct  of  truth  and  faith.  Troilus  and  Cressida  is  the  outcome  of 
the  disillusionment,  suspicion,  and  bittemess  of  ripe  manhood. 
The  critics  have  been  deceived  by  the  apparently  astonishing 
youthfulness  of  parts  of  Troilus  and  Cressida^  sonie  upon  the 
ground  of  its  occasional  euphuisms  and  bombast  (evidently  sati« 
rical),  others  by  the  enthusiasm  of  youth  and  absorption  in  love 
which  some  of  Troilus's  replies  express ;  for  instance : 

"  I  teil  thee  I  am  mad 
In  Cressid's  love :  thou  answer'st  *  She  is  fair,* 
Pour*st  in  the  open  ulcer  of  my  heart 
Her  eyes,  her  hair,  her  cheek,  her  galt,  her  voice,"  &c. 

In  his  most  ardent  raptures  there  sounds  a  note  of  ridicule.^ 
All  this  is  a  complete  Inversion  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  His 
youthful  tragedy  portrayed  a  woman  so  staunchly  true  in  love 
that  she  is  driven  thereby  to  a  bitter  death.  Troilus  and  Cressida 
deals  with  a  woman  whose  constancy  fails  at  the  first  proof. 
There  is  no  abyss  between  the  soul  and  the  senses  in  Romeo 
and  Jtdiet;  the  two  melt  into  one'in  füllest  harmony.  But  it  is 
the  lower  side  of  love's  ideal  nature  which  is  parodied  in  Troilut 

*  Troilus's  enphuisms : — 

"  I  was  about  to  teil  thee :  when  my  heart 
As  wedgM  with  a  sigh,  would  rive  in  twain, 
Lest  llector  or  my  rather  should  perceire  me, 
I  have,  as  when  the  .sun  doth  light  a  storm, 
Baried  thit  tigh  in  wrinkle  of  a  smile  "  (Act  i«  sc  l)^ 

«...^O  eentle  Pandaius, 
From  Ccipid*s  Shoulder  plack  his  painted  wingSi 
And  fly  with  me  to  Oresiid"  ^A.tt\üL«^  «V 


524  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  Cressida^  and  causes  it  to  resemble  the  flippant  accompani- 
ment  to  the  serenade  in  Mozart's  Dan  Juan^  which  caricatures  the 
»entimentality  of  the  text. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  a  chivalrous  fine  feeling  and  sensuai 
tendemess  in  Troilus's  love,  which  seems  to  foreshadow,  as  it  were, 
that  which  some  centuries  later  found  such  füll  expressioD  in 
Keats.  But  the  melancholy  of  Shakespeare's  matured  perception 
sets  its  iron  tooth  in  everything  at  this  period  of  his  life,  and  he 
looks  upon  absorption  in  love  as  senseless  and  laughable.  He 
shows  US  how  blindly  Troilus  runs  into  the  snare,  giddy  with 
happiness  and  uphfted  to  the  heavens,  and  how  the  next  moment 
he  awakes  from  his  intoxication,  betrayed ;  but  he  shows  it  without 
sympathy,  coldly.  Therefore,  the  play  never  once  arouses  any 
true  emotion,  since  Troilus  himself  never  really  interests.  The 
piece  blazes  out,  but  imparts  no  warmth.  Shakespeare  wrote  it 
thus,  and  therefore,  while  Troilus  and  Cressida  will  find  many 
readers  who  will  admire  it,  few  will  love  it. 

Shakespeare  deliberately  made  Cressida  sensually  attractive, 
but  spiritually  repulsive  and  unclean.  She  has  desire  for  Troilus, 
but  no  love.  She  is  among  those  who  are  born  experienced ;  she 
knows  how  to  inflame,  win,  and  keep  men  enchained,  but  the 
honourable  love  of  a  man  is  useless  to  her.  At  the  same  time 
she  is  one  of  those  who  easily  find  their  master.  Any  man 
who  is  not  imposed  upon  by  her  airs,  who  sees  through  her 
mock-prudish  rebufiis,  subdues  her  without  difficulty.  All  her 
sagacity  amounted  to,  after  all,  was  that  Troilus  would  continue 
ardent  so  long  as  she  said  "No;*'  that  men,  in  short,  value 
the  unattainable  and  what  is  won  with  difficulty, — the  wisdom  of 
any  commonplace  coquette.  Never  has  Shakespeare  represented 
coquetry  as  so  void  of  charming  qualities. 

Cressida  is  never  modest  even  when  she  is  most  prudish ;  she 
understands  a  jest,  even  bold  and  libertine  ones,  and  she  will 
bandy  them  with  enjoyment.  With  all  her  kittenish  charm  she 
is  uninteresting,  and,  in  spite  of  her  hot  blood,  she  betrays  the 
coldest  selfishness.  She  is  neither  ridiculous  nor  unlovely,  but 
as  little  is  she  beautiful ;  in  no  other  of  Shakespeare's  characters 
is  the  sensuai  attraction  exercised  by  a  woman  so  completely  shom 
of  its  poetry. 

Her  uncle  Pandarus  is  as  experienced  as  she  is  in  the  art  of 
exciting  by  altemately  thrusting  forward  and  holding  back.  He 
has  been  named  a  demoralised  Polonius,  and  the  epithet  is  good. 
He  is  an  old  voluptuary,  who  finds  his  amusement  in  playing  the 
spy  and  go-between,  now  that  more  active  pleasures  are  denied  to 
him.  The  cynical  enjoyment  with  which  Shakespeare  (in  spite  of 
his  contempt  for  him)  has  drawn  him  is  very  diaracteristic  of  this 
period  of  his  life.  Pandarus  is  clever  enough,  and  often  witty,  but 
there  is  no  enjoyment  of  his  wit;  he  is  as  comical,  base,  and  shame« 
kss  as  Falstaff  himself,  but  he  never  calls  forth  the  abstract 


"TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA"  525 

sympathy  we  feel  for  the  latter.  Nothing  makes  aniends  for  his 
vilenesSy  nor  for  that  of  Thersites,  nor  for  that  of  any  other  charac- 
ter  in  the  whole  play.  Here,  as  in  other  plays,  Timon  of  Athens 
in  particular,  is  shown  that  deep-seated  Anglo-Saxon  vein  which, 
according  to  the  populär  estimate,  Shakespeare  entirely  lacked, — 
that  vein  in  which  flows  the  life-blood  of  Swift's,  Hogarth's,  and 
even  some  of  Byron's  principal  works,  and  it  shows  how,  after 
all,  there  was  some  sympathy  between  the  Merrie  England  of 
those  days  and  the  later  Land  of  Spleen. 

We  have  noticed  the  harsh  strength  of  Ulysses'  judgment  of 
Cressida,  and  in  the  decisive  scene,  in  which  Troilus  is  the  unseen 
witness  of  Cressida's  perfidy,  are  written  words  so  weighty  and 
so  füll  of  emotion  that  we  feel  Shakespeare's  very  soul  speaks 
in  them. 

Diomedes  begs  Cressida  for  the  scarf  which  Troilus  has  given 
her. 

"  Diomedes.  I  had  your  heart  before,  this  foUows  it. 

Troilus  (asiäe).  I  did  swear  patience. 

Cressida.  You  shall  not  have  it,  Diomed,  faith  you  shall  not : 
111  give  you  something  eise. 

Diomedes,  I  will  have  this :  whose  was  it  ? 

Cressida,  It  is  no  matter. 

Diomedes,  Come,  teil  me  whose  it  was  ? 

Cressida,  *Twas  one  that  loved  me  better  than  you  wiU^ 
Butj  now you  have  it^  take  it,** 

And  the  bit  of  feminine  psychology  which  Shakespeare  has 
given  in  Cressida's  farewell  to  Diomedes : 

"  Good-night :  I  prithee,  come. 
Troilus,  farewell !  one  eye  yet  looks  on  thee, 
But  with  my  heart  the  other  eye  doth  see. 
Ah,  poor  our  sex !     This  fault  in  us  I  find,  • 

The  error  of  our  eye  directs  our  mind." 

And  the  terrible  words  Shakespeare  puts  into  Troilus's  mouth 
when  he  tries  so  desperately  to  shake  off  the  Impression,  and 
deny  the  possibility  of  what  he  has  seen : 

"  Ulysses,  Why  stay  we,  then  ? 

Troilus,  To  make  a  recordation  to  my  soul 
Of  every  syllable  that  here  was  spoken. 
But  if  I  teil  how  these  two  did  co-act, 
Shall  I  not  lie  in  Publishing  this  truth  ? 
Sith  yet  there -is  a  credence  in  my  heart, 
An  esperance  So  obstinately  strong, 
That  doth  invert  the  attest  of  eyes  and  ears, 
As  if  those  Organs  had  deceptious  functions 
Created  only  to  calumniate. 
Was  Cressid  here  7 


S26  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Ulysses.  I  cannot  conjure,  Trojan. 

Troilus.  She  was  not,  sure. 

Ulysses,  Most  sure  she  was. 

Troilus,  Why,  my  negation  hath  no  taste  of  madness. 

Ulysses,  Nor  mine,  my  lord.     Cressid  was  here  but  now 

Troilus,  Let  it  not  be  believed  for  womanhood ! 
Think,  we  had  mothers :  do  not  give  advantage 
To  stubbom  critics,  apt,  without  a  theme, 
For  depravation,  to  Square  this  general  sex 
By  Cressid's  rule ;  rather  think  this  not  Cressid. 

Ulysses.  What  hath  she  done,  prince,  that  can  soil  our 
mothers  ? 

Troilus.  Nothing  at  all,  unless  that  that  were  she." 

Not  only  Troilus,  but  the  whole  play  has  here  become  per- 
meated  by  Ulysses'  conception  of  Cressida,  and  in  this  despairing 
outburst,  "Think,  we  had  mothers,"  is  the  pith  of  the  piece 
uttered  forth  with  terrible  cleamess. 

Yet  Troilus  and  Cressida  by  no  means  represent  the  whole  of 
the  play.  In  order  to  counterbalance  the  slightness  of  the  action, 
the  bombastic  speech,  the  railing  abuse,  and  the  heavy  bitter 
Juvenal-like  satire  of  his  drama,  Shakespeare  has  interpolated 
some  serious  and  thoughtful  utterances  in  which  some  of  the 
fruits  of  his  abundant  experience  are  expressed  in  weighty  and 
concise  form. 

Achilles,  and  more  especially  Ulysses,  give  vent  to  profound 
political  and  psychological  reflections,  entirely  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  the  one  is  a  thoughtless  blockhead,  and  the  other  is  a 
crafty  and  unsympathetic  nature,  the  mere  negative  pole  of 
Troilus,  cold  as  he  is  warm,  cunning  as  he  is  naive.  These 
remarkable  and  thoughtful  utterances,  not  in  the  least  in  harmony 
with  their  characters,  stand  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  whole 
play  and  its  farcical  treatment,  but  they  are  none  the  less  notable 
for  that.  This  singular  inconsistency  is  one  of  the  many  in  which 
this  incongruous  play  is  so  rieh,  and  it  is  these  very  contradictions 
which  make  it  attractive,  insomuch  as  they  reveal  the  conflicting 
moods  from  which  it  sprang.  They  arrest  the  attention  like  the 
irregulär  features  of  a  face  whose  expression  varies  between  irony, 
satire,  melancholy,  and  profundity. 

Ulysses,  who  is  represented  as  the  sole  statesman  among  the 
Greeks,  degrades  himself  by  low  flattery  of  the  idiotic  Ajax, 
servilely  referring  to  him  as  "  this  thrice  worthy  and  right  valiant 
lord,"  who  should  not  soil  the  victory  he  has  won  by  going  as 
messenger  to  Achilles'  tent,  and  he  persuades  the  princes  to  pass 
Achilles  by  without  greeting  him.  On  this  occasion  Achilles, 
who  is  otherwise  but  a  braggart,  dolt,  coward,  and  scoundrel, 
surprises  us  by  a  succession  of  outbursts,  in  each  of  which  he 
gives  voice  to  as  deep  and  bitter  knowledge  of  human  nature  as 
does  Timoü  of  Atheas  himaeUL 


ULYSSES  527 


Cl 


What,  am  I  poor  of  late? 
Tis  certain  greatness  once  fall'n  out  with  Fortune 
Must  fall  out  with  men  too  :   what  the  declined  is 
He  shall  as  soon  read  in  the  eyes  of  others, 
As  feel  in  his  own  fall. 
•  •••••• 

And  not  a  man,  for  being  simply  man, 

Hath  any  honour,  but  honour  for  those  honours 

That  are  without  him,  as  place,  riches,  favour, 

Prizes  of  accident  as  oft  as  merit  : 

Which  when  they  fall,  as  being  slippery  Standers, 

The  love  that  leaned  on  them  is  slippery  too^ 

Do  one  pluck  down  another,  and  together 

Die  in  the  fall" 

Ulysses  now  enters  upon  a  thoughtful  conversadon  with 
Achilles,  calling  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  no  man,  however 
highly  advanced  he  may  be,  has  any  real  knowledge  of  his  worth 
until  he  has  received  the  judgment  of  others  and  observed  their 
attitude  towards  him.  Achilles  answers  him  a  happy  and  per- 
intent  analogy  on  principles  of  pure  philosophical  reasonings,  and 
Ulysses  continues : 

'^That  no  man  is  the  lord  of  anything 
Till  he  communicate  his  parts  to  others ; 
Nor  doth  he  of  himself  know  them  for  aught 
Till  he  behold  them  formed  in  the  applause 
Where  the/re  extended :  who  like  an  arch  reverberates 
The  voice  again,  or,  like  a  gate  of  steel 
Fronting  the  sun,  receives  and  renders  back 
His  figure  and  his  heart.'' 

Achilles  Interrupts  a  long  discourse,  ending  with  a  thmst  at 
Ajax,  with  the  question  "  What,  are  my  deeds  forgot  ?  "  and  the 
remarkable  answer  he  receives  reveals,  to  an  observant  reader,  one 
of  the  sources  of  the  bittemess  and  pessimism  of  the  play.  It 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  Shakespeare  at  this  time  feit  himself 
ousted  from  the  populär  favour  by  younger  and  less  worthy  men : 
we  know  that  immediately  after  his  death  he  was  eclipsed  by 
Fletcher.  He  is  absorbed  by  a  feeling  of  the  ingratitude  of  man 
and  the  injustice  of  what  is  called  the  way  of  the  world.  We 
found  the  first  traces  of  this  feeling  in  the  words  of  Bertrames 
dead  father,  quoted  by  the  King  in  AlTs  Well  that  Ends  Well, 
and  here  it  breaks  out  in  füll  force  in  a  reply  whose  very  weak 
pretezt  is  that  of  showing  Achilles  how  ill  advised  he  is  to  rest 
upon  his  laureis : 

''Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  on  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion, 
A  great-sized  monster  of  ingratitudes  *. 
Those  scraps  are  good  deeds  pasXt^Yi\c3DL^^te*«tsva^ 


( 


528  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

As  fast  as  they  are  made,  forgot  as  soon 

As  done :  pcrseverance  dear,  my  lord, 

Keeps  honour  bright :  to  have  dbne  is  to  hang 

Quite  out  of  fashion,  like  a  nisty  mail 

In  monumental  mockery.     Take  the  instant  way; 

For  honour  travels  in  a  strait  so  narrow, 

Where  but  one  goes  abreast :  keep  then  the  path ; 

For  emulation  hath  a  thousand  sons 

That  one  by  one  pursue :  if  you  give  way, 

Or  hedge  aside  from  the  direct  forthright, 

Like  to  an  entered  tide,  they  all  rush  by 

And  leave  you  hindmost ; 

Or  like  a  gallant  horse  fall'n  in  first  rank, 

Lie  there  for  pavement  to  the  abject  rear, 

O'emin  and  trampled  on :  then  what  they  do  in  present, 

Though  less  than  yours  in  past,  must  o'ertop  yours ; 

For  time  is  like  a  fashionable  host, 

That  slightly  shakes  his  parting  guest  by  the  band. 

And  with  his  arms  outstretched,  as  he  would  fly, 

Grasps  in  the  comer ;  welcome  ever  smiles. 

And  farewell  goes  out  sighing.     Oh,  let  not  virtue  seek 

Remuneration  for  the  thing  it  was ; 

For  beauty,  wit, 

High  birth,  vigour  of  bone,  desert  in  Service, 

Love,  friendship,  charity  are  subjects  all 

To  envious  and  calumniating  time. 

One  touch  of  nature  makes  Üie  whole  world  kin, 

That  all  with  one  consent  praise  new-born  gauds, 

Though  they  are  made  and  moulded  of  things  past; 

And  give  to  dust  that  is  a  little  gilt 

More  land  than  gilt  o'erdusted." 

How  plainly  is  one  of  the  sources  betrayed  here  of  the  black 
waters  of  bittemess  which  bubble  up  in  Troilus  and  Cressida;  a 
bitterness  which  spares  neither  man  nor  woman,  war  nor  love,  hero 
nor  lover,  and  which  Springs  in  part  from  woman's  guile,  in  part 
from  the  undoubted  stupidity  of  the  English  public.  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  conversation  between  Ulysses  and  Achilles  the  former 
has  some  renowned  words  on  the  direction  of  the  State — its  ideal 
government,  that  is  to  say.  The  incongruity  between  the  circtmu- 
stance  of  utterance  and  the  utterance  itself  is  nowhere  more 
striking  in  tbis  play  than  here.  Ulysses  teils  Achilles  that  they 
all  know  why  he  refuses  to  take  part  in  the  battle ;  every  one  is 
well  aware  that  he  is  in  love  with  Priam's  daughter ;  and  when 
Achilles  exclaims  in  amazement  at  finding  the  secrets  of  his 
private  life  disclosed,  Ulysses,  with  a  solemnity  inconsistent  with 
the  triviality  of  the  subject  and  the  grim  ways  of  espionage,  gives 
the  almost  mystical  and  too  profound  answer : 

**  Is  that  a  wonder? 
The  providence  tha^«  m  a  'nu.vM>A  ^xaxi^ 


ULYSSES  529 

Knows  almost  every  grain  of  Pluto's  gold, 
Finds  bottom  in  the  uncomprehensive  deeps, 
Keeps  place  with  thought,  and  almost,  like  the  gods, 
Does  thoughts  unveil  in  their  dumb  cradles. 
There  is  a  mystery — with  whom  relation 
Durst  never  meddle — in  the  soul  of  State ; 
Which  hath  an  Operation  more  divine 
Than  breath  or  pen  can  give  expression  ta" 

He  then  turns  abruptly  to  the  subject  of  Achilles's  amours 
with  Polyxena  being  common  talk,  and  seeks  to  provoke  the 
lover  into  joining  the  combat  by  telling  him  that  it  has  become 
a  common  jest  that  Achilles  has  conquered  Hector's  sister,  but 
that  Ajax  has  subdued  Hector  himself,  and  then  ends  his  speech 
with  the  following  obscure  allusion  to  the  relation  between  Achilles 
and  Ajax : — 

'*  Farewell,  my  lord.     I  as  your  lover  speak : 
The  fool  slides  o'er  the  ice  that  you  should  break.''  ^ 

In  spite  of  the  stränge  inconsistency  of  all  these  political 
allusionsy  they  are  of  the  greatest  interest  to  us,  inasmuch  as 
they  so  clearly  indicate  Shakespeare's  next  great  work,  the 
Roman  tragedy  of  Coriolanus  (1608). 

Ulysses  makes  steady  protest  against  the  vulgär  error  that 
it  is  the  gross  work,  and  not  the  guiding  spirit,  which  is  decisive 
in  war  and  politics.  He  complains  of  the  abuse  Achilles  and 
Thersites  heap  upon  the  leaders  of  the  campaign  (Act  i.  sc.  3) : 

**  They  tax  our  policy  and  call  it  cowardice, 
Count  wisdom  as  no  member  of  the  war, 
Forestall  prescience,  and  esteem  no  act 
But  that  of  band :  the  still  and  mental  parts 
That  do  contrive  how  many  hands  shall  strike 
When  fitness  calls  them  on,  and  know  by  measure 
Of  their  observant  toil  the  enemies'  weight — 
Why,  this  hath  not  a  finger's  dignity,"  &:c. 

It  is,  of  course,  Thersites  who  has  taken  the  lead ;  the  light  wit 
and  deep  humour  of  the  earlier  clowns  is  displaced  in  him  by  the 
frantic  outbursts  of  a  contemptible  scamp.    Throughout,  Thersites 

^  F.  Halli well- Phillips  has  published,  concerning  these  last  two  lines,  a  minia- 
ture  book,  TTu  Fool  and  the  Ice,  London,  1883.  He  explains  that  a  whole  little 
history  lies  behind  this  curious  simile.  When  Lord  Chandos's  Company  played  at 
Evesham,  near  Stratford  (before  1600),  a  country  foöl  there,  Jack  Miller  by  name, 
became  so  infatuated  with  their  clown  that  he  wanted  to  ran  away  with  them,  and 
had,  consequently,  to  be  locked  up.  He  saw  firom  the  window,  however,  that  the 
Company  was  preparing  to  depart,  and  springing  out,  sped,  in  spite  of  the  danger, 
over  forty  yards  of  ice  so  thin  that  it  would  not  bear  a  piece  of  blick  which  was 
laid  upon  it.  (First  told  in  a  little  book  by  the  player  Robert  Arnim,  afterwards  oiie 
of  Shakespeare's  colleagues.  It  was  published  m  1603  under  the  title  **  Foole  upoo 
Foole,  or  Sixe  Sortet  of  Sottet,  by  Colonnico  del  Mondlo  Snufle,**  down  at  the  Globc 
Thcatre.) 


530  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

is  intended  as  a  caricature  of  the  envious  and  worthless  (if  sharp- 
sighted)  plebeian,  of  whose  wit  Shakespeare  has  need  for  the 
complete  scourging  of  an  arrogant  and  corrupt  aristocracy,  but 
whose  politics  are  the  subject  of  his  utter  disgust  and  scom. 
As  the  haughty  intelligence  of  Ulysses  seems  to  foreshadow 
Prospero,  but  without  his  bright  supematural  cleamess,  so  does 
Thersites  seem  to  be  a  preliminary  sketch  for  Caliban,  barring 
his  \  eavy,  earthy,  grotesque  climisiness.  The  character  more 
immediately  allied  to  that  of  Thersites,  however,  is  not  Caliban, 
but  tl  at  grim  cynic  Apemantus  in  Titnon  of  Athens. 

Still  more  significant  than  the  previously  quoted  lines  is  the 
Speech  in  which  Ulysses  (Act  i.  sc.  3)  develops  a  political  view 
which  was  obviously  Shakespeare's  own,  and  which  is  soon  to  be 
proclaimed  in  Coriolanus.  Its  point  pf  view  proceeds  from  the 
conviction,  expressed  in  our  day  by  Nietzsche,  that  the  distance 
betwe  n  man  and  man  must  on  no  account  be  bridged  ovei*,  and 
is  introduced  by  a  half-astronomical,  half-astrological  explanation 
of  the  Ptolemaic  System  : 

"  The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order ; 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet  Sol 
In  noble  eminence  enthroned  and  sphered 
Amidst  the  others ;  whose  med'cinable  eye 
Corrects  the  ill  aspects  of  planets  evil. 
And  posts,  like  the  commandment  of  a  king, 
Sans  check  to  good  and  bad :  but  when  the  planets 
In  evil  mixture  to  disorder  wander, 
What  plagues  and  what  portents !  what  mutiny  1 
What  raging  of  the  sea !  frights,  changes,  horrors, 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 
The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 
Quite  from  their  fixture  " 

The  remainder  of  the  passage  has  become  a  fixed  ingredient 
of  English  Shakespearian  anthologies,  and  carries  us  on  directly 
into  Coriolanus: 

*'  Oh,  when  degree  is  shaked, 
Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick.  •  .  . 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 
And  hark,  what  discord  foUows !  each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugnancy :  the  bounded  waters 
Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores, 
And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe : 
Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbec^ty, 
And  die  rüde  son  shoiüd  stiike  the  father  dead 
Force  should  be  right ;  or  rather  right  and  wrong, 


SHAKESPEARE'S  SOCIAL  VIEWS  531 

Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides, 

Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 

•  •••••• 

This  chaos,  when  degree  is  sufifocate, 

Follows  the  choking. 

And  this  neglection  of  degree  it  is 

That  by  a  pace  goes  backward,  with  a  purpose 

It  hath  to  climb.     The  generalis  disdained 

£y  him  one  step  below,  he  by  the  next, 

That  next  by  him  beneath.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  It  grows  to  an  envious  fever 

Of  pale  and  bloodless  emulation." 

Shakespeare  has  so  often  emphasised  the  superiority  of  real 
tnerit  to  outside  show,  that  he  needs  no  vindication  from  a  charge 
of  worship  of  mere  rank  and  Station.  What  he  here  expresses  is 
merely  that  inherently  aristocratic  point  of  view  which  we  recog- 
nised  in  his  early  works,  and  which  has  intensified  with  increas- 
ing  years.  It  was  from  the  first  founded  upon  a  conviction  that 
only  among  an  hereditary  aristocracy,  under  a  well-established 
monarchyi  was  any  patronage  of  his  art  and  profession  possible, 
and  the  opinion,  steadily  nourished  by  the  enmity  of  the  middle 
classes,  will  soon  be  expressed  with  extraordinary  vehemence  in 
Coriolanus, 

Trailus  and  Cressida^  then,  which  seems  at  first  sight  to  be 
a  romantic  play  founded  on  an  old  world  subject,  is  in  reality, 
despite  its  embellishments,  a  satire  on  the  ancient  material,  and 
a  parody  of  romanticism  itself.  It  cannot  therefore  be  classed 
with  the  attempts  made  by  other  great  poets  to  resuscitate 
the  old  Greek  personahties.  Racine's  Iphigenia  in  Aulis  and 
Goethe's  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  were  written  in  serious  eamestness, 
although  neither  of  them  approximated  closely  to  the  old  world 
of  tradition.  Racine's  Greeks  are  courtly  Frenchmen  from  the 
Salons,  and  Goethe's  are  German  princes  and  princesses,  of 
humane  and  classic  culture,  who  attitudinise  like  the  figures  in 
a  painting  by  Raphael  Mengs.  It  may  be  said  that  Shakespeare's 
Hector,  who  quotes  Aristotle,  and  his  Lord  Achilles^  with  his 
spurs  and  long  sword,  are  as  much  noblemen  of  the  Renaissance 
as  Racine's  Seigneur  Achilles  is  a  courtier  in  periwig  and  red- 
heeled  shoes.  But  Racine  meant  no  satire,  while  Shakespeare 
most  deliberately  caricatured.  All  tums  to  discord  under  his 
touch;  love  is  betrayed,  heroes  are  murdered,  constancy  ridi- 
culed,  levity  and  coarseness  triumph,  and  no  gleam  of  better 
things  shines  out  at  the  end.  The  play  closes  with  an  indecent 
jest  of  the  loathsome  Pandar^a» 


XI 


DEATH  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  MOTHER^CORIOLANUS 

—HATRED  OF  THE  MASSES 

Siiakespeare's  mother  was  buried  on  the  9th  of  September 
1608.  He  had  travelled  about  the  country  of  late,  playing  with 
his  Company,  from  the  middle  of  May  until  far  into  the  autumn, 
during  which  period  court  and  aristocracy  were  absent  from  the 
capital.  It  is  not  certain  whether  he  had  retumed  to  London  at 
this  time  or  not,  but  he  hastened  to  Stratford  on  hearing  of  his 
mother's  death,  and  must  have  stayed  some  time  on  his  property, 
"  New  Place,"  after  attending  her  funeral ;  for  we  find  him  still 
at  Stratford  on  the  i6th  of  October.  On  that  day  he  Stands 
godfather  to  the  son  of  a  friend  of  his  youth,  Henry  Walker,  an 
alderman  of  the  borough,  who  is  mentioned  in  Shakespeare's  will. 

The  death  of  a  mother  is  always  a  mournfully  irreparable  loss^ 
often  the  saddest  a  man  can  sustain.  We  can  realise  how  deeply 
it  would  go  to  Shakespeare's  heart  when  we  remember  the  capacity 
for  profound  and  passionate  feeling  with  which  nature  had  blessed 
and  cursed  him.  We  know  little  of  his  mother ;  but  judging 
from  that  affinity  which  generally  exists  between  famous  sons 
and  their  mothers,  we  may  suppose  that  she  was  no  ordinary 
woman.  Mary  Arden,  who  belonged  to  an  old  and  honourable 
family,  which  traced  its  descent  (perhaps  justly)  back  to  the  days 
of  Edward  the  Confessor,  represented  the  haughty  patrician  ele« 
ment  of  the  Shakespeare  family.  Her  ancestors  had  borne  their 
coat  of  arms  for  centuries,  and  the  son  would  be  proud  of  his 
mother  for  this  among  other  reasons,  just  as  the  mother  would  be 
proud  of  her  son. 

In  the  midst  of  the  prevailing  gloom  and  bittemess  of  his 
spirit,  this  fresh  blow  feil  upon  him,  and,  out  of  his  weariness  of 
life  as  his  surroundings  and  experiences  showed  it  to  him,  re- 
called  this  one  mainstay  to  him — his  mother.  He  remembered 
all  she  had  been  to  him  for  forty-four  years,  and  the  thoughts  of 
the  man  and  the  dreams  of  the  poet  were  thus  led  to  dweU  üpon 
the  significance  in  a  man's  life  of  this  unique  form,  comparable  to 
no  other — ^his  mother. 

Thus  it  was  that,  although  his  genius  must  foUow  the  path  it 
hMd  entercd  upon  and  pursue  \l  lo  tVv^  tüd^  ^«  fiadv  in  the  midst 


CORIOLANUS  533 

of  all  that  was  low  and  base  in  bis  nezt  work;  this  one  sublime 
mother-fonn,  tbe  proudest  and  most  bigbly-wrought  tbat  he  has 
drawn,  Volumnia. 

Tbe  Tragedy  of  Coriolanus  was  first  published  in  1623,  in 
folio  edition,  but  1608  is  tbe  generally  accepted  date  of  its  pro- 
duction,  paitly  because  a  speecb  in  Ben  Jonson's  Tfu  Silent 
Woman  (1609)  seems  to  indicate  a  reminiscence  ol  Coriolanus^ 
and  partly  because  many  different  critics  concur  in  tbe  opinion 
that  its  style  and  versification  point  to  that  year. 

How  came  this  work  to  emerge  from  tbe  depths  of  all  thef 
discontent,  despondency,  hatred  of  life,  and  contempt  for  humanity  1 
which  went  at  this  time  to  make  up  Shakespeare's  soul?     He' 
was  angry  and  soured,  and  tbe  sources  of  bis  embittered  feelings 
are  embodied  in  bis  piays,  seeking  outlet,  now  under  one,  now 
under  another  form.     In  Troüus  and  Cressida  it  was  tbe  relation 
of  tbe  sexes ;  bere  it  is  social  condi^jona  and  pplitics. 

His  point  of  view  is  as  personal  as  it  well  could  be.  Shaki- 
speare's  aversion  to  tbe  mob  was  based  upon  bis  contempt  foi 
their  discrimination,  but  it  bad  its  deepest  roots  in  tbe  pureh 
physical  repugnance  of  bis  artist  nerves  to  their  plebeian 
mosphere.  It  was  obvious  in  Troüus  and  Cresstda  that  tbe 
irritation  with  public  stupidity  was  at  its  height.  He  now,  for 
tbe  third  time,  finds  in  bis  Plutarch  a  subject  which  not  only 
responds  to  tbe  mood  of  the  moment,  but  also  gives  bim  an 
opportunity  for  portraying  a  notable  mother ;  and  be  is  irresistibly 
drawn  to  give  bis  material  dramatic  style. 

It  is  the  old  traditional  story  of  Coriolanus,  great  man  an< 
great  general,  who,  in  the  remote  days  of  Roman  antiquity,  be- 
came  involved  in  such  bopeless  conflict  with  the  populace  of  bis 
native  city,  and  was  so  rougbly  dealt  with  by  them  in  retum, 
that  be  was  driven,  in  bis  bitterness,  to  reckless  deeds. 

Plutarch,  hoWever,  was  by  no  means  prejudiced  against  tbe 
people,  and  tbe  subject  had  to  be  entirely  re-fashioned  by  Shake- 
speare before  it  would  harmonise  with  bis  mood.     The  bistorian 
may  be  guilty  of  serious  contradictions  in  matters  of  detail,  but 
he  endeavours,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  to  enter  into  tbe  circum- 
stances  of  times  which  were  of  boary  antiquity,  even  to  bim. 
The  main  drift  of  his  narrative  is  to  the  effect  tbat  Coriolanui 
had  already  attained  to  great  authority  and  influence  in  the  cityj 
when  tbe  Senate,  which  represented  the  wealth  of  the  communis 
came  into  collision  with  tbe  masses.    The  people  were  overridde] 
by  usurers,  tbe  law  was  terribly  severe  upon  debtors,  and  thi 
poor  were  subjected  to  incessant  distraint ;  their  few  possession) 
were  sold,  and  men  who  had  fought  bravely  for  their  country 
and  were  covered  with   bonourable   scars  were  frequently  im- 
prisoned.     In  tbe  recent  war  with  tbe  Sabines  tbe  patricians  had 
been  forced  to  promise  tbe  people  better  lTe^Xm«.tL^.\TL^^^>a^^^^ 
hut  the  momcDt  tbe  war  was  over  Xlicy  \Äo\fc  \5afcvt  ^ot^^  ^sA 


534  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

distraint  and  imprisonment  went  on  as  before.     After  this  tbe  . 
plebeians  refused  to  come  forward  at  the  conscription,  and  tbe 
patricians,  in  spite  of  the  Opposition  of  Coriolanus,  were  compelled 
to  3rield. 

Shakespeare  was  evidently  incapable  of  forming  any  idea  of 
the  free  citizenship  of  olden  days,  still  less  of  that  period  of  fer- 
ment  during  which  the  Roman  people  united  to  form  a  vigorous 
political  party,  a  civic  and  military  power  combined,  which  proved 
the  nucleus  round  which  the  great  Roman  Empire  eventually 
shaped  itself — a  power  of  which  J.  L.  Heiberg's  words  on 
thought  might  have  been  predicted :  "  It  will  conquer  the  World, 
nothing  less/' 

^.   Much  the  same  thing  was  occurring  in  Shakespeare's  own 

f  time,  andy  under  his  very  eyes,  as  it  were,  the  English  people 

I  were  initiating  their  struggle  for  self*govemment.     But  they  who 

Vponstituted  the  Opposition  were  antagonistic  to  him  and  his  art, 

and  he  looked  without  sympathy  upon  their  confiict.     Thus  it 

was  that  those  proud  and  self-reliant  plebeians,  who  eziled  them- 

selves  to  Mons  Sacer  sooner  than  submit  to  the  yoke  of  the 

patricians,  represented  no  more  to  him  than  did  that  London  mob 

jwhich  was  daily  before  his  eyes.     To  him  the  Tribunes  of  the 

/People  were  but  political  agitators  of  the  Iowest  type,  mere  per- 

r  sonifications  of  the  envy  of  the  masses,  and  representatives  of 

V4tieir  stupidity  and  their  brüte  force  of  numbers.     Ignoring  every 

incident  which  shed  a  favourable  light  upon  the  plebeians,  he 

seized  upon  evety  instance  of  populär  foUy  which  could  be  found 

in  Plutarch's  account  of  a  later  revolt,  in  order  to  incorporate  it 

in  his  scomful  delineation.    Again  and  again  he  insists,  by  means 

of  his  hero's  passionate  invective,  on  the  cowardice  of  the  people, 

and  that  in  the  face  of  Plutarch's  explicit  testimony  to  their 

bravery.    His  detestation  of  the  mass  thrived  upon  this  reiterated 

accentuation  of   the  wretched  pusillanimity  of   the   plebeians, 

which  went  band -in -band  with  a  rebellious  hatred  for  their 

benefactors. 

Was  it  Shakespeare's  Intention  to  allude  to  the  strained 
relations  existing  b^tween  James  and  his  Parliament?  Does 
Coriolanus  represent  an  aristocratically-minded  poet's  side-glance 
at  the  political  Situation  in  England  ?  I  fancy  it  does.  Heaven 
knows  there  was  little  resemblance  between  the  amazingly  craven 
and  vadllating  James  and  the  haughty,  resolute  hero  of  Roman 
tradition,  who  fought  a  whole  garrison  single-handed.  Nor  was 
it  personal  resemblance  which  suggested  the  comparison,  but  a 
general  conception  of  the  Situation  as  between  a  beneficent  power 

Cön  the  one  band  and  the  people  on  the  other.  He  regarded  the 
latter  whoUy  as  mob,  and  looked  upon  their  struggle  for  freedom 
QS  mutiny,  pure  and  simple. 

It  18  hsard  to  have  to  say  it,  but  the  more  one  studies  Shake- 
^peare  with  reference  to  coutempotary  YäiXfisrf  ^  ^(^  \boc^  5flk  cne 


DATE  OF  PRODUCTION  535 

Struck  by  the  evident  necessity  he  feit,  in  spite  of  the  undoubted 
disgust  with  which  King  and  Court  inspired  him,  for  seeking  the 
Support  of  the  kingly  power  against  his  adversaries.  Many  are 
the  unmistakable,  though  discreet  and  delicate,  compliments  he 
addresses  to  the  monarch. 

It  was  even  before  his  accession  that  we  detected,  in  Hamlet^ 
the  first  glance  in  the  direction  of  James.  The  accentuation  of 
Hamlet's  relations  with  the  players  is  not  without  its  acknow- 
ledgments  and  appeal  to  the  Scottish  monarch.  In  Measure  for 
Measure  the  stress  laid  upon  the  Duke's  doubly  careful  watch 
over  all  that  transpires  in  Vienna  during  the  apparent  neglect  of 
his  absence  was  undoubtedly  intended  to  excuse  James's  some- 
what  cowardly  desertion  of  London,  immediately  after  his  coro- 
nation,  for.  the  whole  time  the  plague  raged  there.  We  find  this 
feeling  again  in  CoriolanuSy  and  again  in  The  Temfest  which 
was  written  for  the  wedding  festivities  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth 
and  the  Elector  Palatine,  and  which  contains,  mxder  cover  of  the 
^a£rarjrmc^^PrnQjw'(7^  ™any  subtle^^HLddainty^  but^utterlj^^^ndej' 
j^TveA^  compliments  to  the  wise  and  learnedKing  James.  There 
is  a  striking  analogy  between  the  relations^f  Moliöre  to  Louis 
XIV.  and  those  of  Shakespeare  to  his  king.  Both  great  men  had 
the  religious  prejudices  of  the  people  against  them ;  both,  as  poets 
of  the  royal  theatre,  had  to  make  some  show  of  subservience,  but 
Moli^re  could  feel  a  more  sincere  admiration  for  his  Louis  than 
could  Shakespeare  for  his  James. 

In  an  otherwise  masterly  review  of  Th^^jMttfiest  in  the  Uni- 
Versal  Review  for  1889,  Richard  Garnett  has  called  Coriolanus 
a  reflection  of  a  Conservative's  view  of  James's  struggle  with  the 
Parliament.  This  is  an  exaggeration,  which  leads  htm  to  raise 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  play  owed  its  origin  to  the  first 
confiict  with  the  House,  or  the  second  in  16 14.  He  pronounces 
for  the  latter,  and  thus  arrives  at  an  opinion,  held  by  himself 
alone,  that  Coriolanus  was  Shakespeare's  last  work. 

The  argument  on  which  he  bases  this  view  proves,  on  closer 
inspection,  to  be  entirely  worthless.  Some  lines  in  the  fifth  Act 
(sc.  5)  run  as  follows: 

"  Think  with  thyself 
How  much  more  unfortunate  than  all  living  womeo 
Are  we  come  thither." 

In  the  older  editions  of  North's  translations  of  Plutarch  (1595 
and  1603)  it  Stands  thus :  *'  How  much  more  unfortunately  than 
all  the  women  living,''  the  form  unfortunate  of  the  tragedy  not 
appearing  until  the  edition  of  161 2.  This  circumstance  was 
detected  by  Halliwell-Phillips,  and  led  him  and  Gamett  to  the 
conclusion  that  Shakespeare  used  the  edition  of  161 2,  and  cannot  ^ 
therefore  have  written  his  drama  before  that  year.  "Wwec^^^ 
consider  how  y^ry  slight  the  deviatiou  la,  «cadY^sTw  \\.^%a  -^t^räj- 


536  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cally  necessitated  by  the  metre,  we  see  what  a  poor  criterion  it 
is  of  the  date  of  production.  Moreover,  precisely  the  opposite 
conclusion  might  be  drawn  from  a  comparison  of  North's  trans- 
lation  with  other  details  of  the  play.  In  the  fourth  Act  (sc  5) 
we  find,  for  example :  ^, .^ 

I  had  feared  death,  of  all  men  i'  the  world 
I  would  have  'voided  thee ;  but  in  mere  spite 
To  be  quit  of  those  my  banishers 
Stand  I  before  thee  here." 

In  the  1579  and  1595  editions  of  North  it  Stands  thus:  'Tor 
if  I  had  feared  death,  I  would  not  have  come  thither  to  have  put 
myself  in  hazard,  but  prickt  forward  with  spiteJ^ 

In  all  later  editions  the  italicised  words  are  omitted,  ^*  with 
desire  to  be  revenged ''  being  substituted  in  their  stead.  According 
to  this  method,  a  very  much  earlier  date  might  be  assumed  for 
CoriolanuSf  but  both  arguments  are  equally  worthless. 

We  have,  therefore,  no  occasion  to  abandon  1608  on  that 
ground,  and  we  have  certainly  no  need  to  do  so  for  the  sake  of 
a  fanciful  approximation  of  the  position  of  Coriolanus  to  that  of 
James  at  the  dissolution  of  Parliament  in  1614. 

Thus  much,  at  any  rate,  can  be  declared  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty,  that  the  anti-democratic  spirit  and  passion  of  the  play 
sprang  from  no  momentary  political  Situation,  but  from  Shake- 
speare's  heart  of  hearts.  We  have  watched  its  growth  with  the 
passing  of  years.  A  detestation  of  the  mob,  a  positive  hatred  of 
the  mass  as  mass,  can  be  traced  in  the  faltering  efforts  of  his 
early  youth.  We  may  see  its  workings  in  what  is  undoubtedly 
Shakespeare's  own  description  of  Jack  Cade's  rebellion  in  the 
Secand  Part  of  Henry  F/.,  and  we  divine  it  again  in  the  con- 
spicuous  absence  of  all  allusion  to  Magna  Charta  displayed  in 
^iagjohn. 

^e  have  already  stated  that  Shakespeare's  aristocratic  con- 

tempt  for  the  mob  had  its  root  in  a  purely  physical  aversion  for 

atmosphere  of  the  ''  people."    We  need  but  to  glance  throug^ 

his   works   to   find   the  proof  of  it.      In    the   Secand  Part  of 

Henry  VL  (Act  iv.  sc  7)  Dick  entreats  Cade  "  that  the  laws  of 

England  may  come  out  of  his  mouth ; "  whereupon  Smith  remarks 

aside :  "  It  will  be  stinking  law ;  for  his  breath  stinks  with  eating 

toasted  cheese."    And  again  in  Casca's  description  of  Caesar's 

demeanour  when  he  refuses  the  crown  at  the  Lupercalian  festival: 

^''  He  put  it  the  third  time  by,  and  still  he  refused  it;  the  rabble- 

r   ment  hooted  and  dapped  their  chapped  hands,  and  threw  up  their 

)    sweaty  nightcaps,  and  uttered  such  a  deal  of  stinking  breatk 

\  because  Caesar  refused  the  crown,  that  it  had  almost  choked 

\  Caesar ;  for  he  swooned  and  feil  down  at  it :  and  for  mine  own 

\part,  I  durst  not  laugh  for  fear  of  opening  my  Ups  and  receiving 

\fhe  bad  air  "  {Julius  Cäsar ^  Act  \.  ^.  iiV 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MASSES  537 

Also  the  words  in  which  Cleopatra  (in  the  last  scenc  of  the 
play)  expresses  her  horror  of  being  taken  in  Octavius  Caesarea 
triumph  to  Rome : 

**  Now,  Ins,  what  thinkest  thou? 
Thou,  an  Egyptian  puppet,  shalt  be  shown 
In  Rome  as  well  as  I :  mechanic  slaves, 
With  greasy  aprons,  rules,  and  hammers,  shall 
•      Uplift  US  to  the  view ;  in  their  thick  breaths^ 
Rank  of  gross  diet^  shall  we  be  enäosed 
Andforced  to  drink  their  vapour^ 

AU  Shakespeare's  principal  characters  display  this  shrinking 
from  the  mob,  although  motives  of  interest  may  induce  them  to 
keep  it  concealed.  When  Richard  IL,  having  banished  Boling- 
broke,  describes  the  latter's  farewell  to  the  people,  he  says 
(Richard  II,,  Act  i.  sc  4) : 

'*  Ourself  and  Bushy,  Bagot  here  and  Green, 
Observed  his  courtship  to  the  common  people ; 
How  did  he  seem  to  dive  into  their  hearts 
With  humble  and  familiär  courtesy, 
Wooing  poor  craftsmen  with  the  craft  of  smiles 
And  patient  underbearing  of  his  fortune, 
As  'twere  to  banish  their  efiects  with  him. 
Off  goes  his  bonnet  to  an  oyster-wench, 
A  brace  of  draymen  bid  (jod-speed  him  well. 
And  had  the  tribute  of  his  supple  knee, 
With  *  Thanks,  my  countrymen,  my  loving  friends.' " 

The  number  of  these  passages  proves  that  it  was,  in  plain^ 
words,  their  evil  smell  which  repelled  Shakespeare.  He  was  OiMr 
tnie  artist  in  this  respect  too,  and  more  sensitive  to  noxious  fumes 
than  any  woman.  At  the  present  period  of  his  life  this  particular 
distaste  has  grown  to  a  violent  aversion.  The  good  qualities  and 
virtues  of  the  people  do  not  exist  for  him;  he  believes  their 
sufferings  to  be  either  imaginary  or  induced  by  their  own  faults. 
Their  struggles  are  ridiculous  to  him,  and  their  rights  a  fiction ; 
their  true  characteristics  are  accessibility  to  flattery  and  ingrati- 
tude  towards  their  benefactors ;  and  their  only  real  passion  is  an 
innate,  deep,  and  concentrated  hatred  of  their  superiors ;  but  all 
these  qualities  are  merged  in  this  chief  crime :  they  stink. 

"  Cor,  For  the  mutable  rank-scented  many,  let  them 
Regard  me  as  I  do  not  flatter,  and 
Therein  behold  themselves"  (Act  iii.  sc  i). 

*^  Brutus,  I  heard  him  swear, 
Were  he  to  stand  for  consul,  never  would  he 
Appear  i'  the  market-place,  nor  on  him  put 
The  napless  vesture  of  humility ; 
Nor,  showing  as  the  manner  is,  his  wounds 
To  the  peoplt,  beg  their  stinkmg  hrtathi"'  i^KcX  \u  ^1^  ^ 


53«  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


c 


When  Coriolänus  is  banished  by  the  people,  he  tums  upon 
them  with  the  outburst : 

**  You  common  cry  of  curs  !  whose  breath  T  hate 
As  reek  o*  the  rotten  fens,  whose  loves  I  prize 
As  the  dead  carcases  of  unburied  men 
That  do  comipt  my  air  "  (Act  ÜL  sc.  3). 

When  old  Menenius,  Coriolanus's  enthusiastic  admir^r,  hears 
hat  the  banished  man  has  gone  over  to  the  Volscians,  1^  says  to 
he  People's  Tribunes : 

"  You  have  made  good  work, 
You  and  your  apron-men :  you  that  stood  so  much 
Upon  the  voice  of  occupation  and 
The  breath  oi  garlic-eaters  T*  (Act  iv.  sc.  6). 

And  a  little  farther  on : 

"  Here  come  the  Clusters. 
And  is  Aufidius  with  him  ?    You  are  they 
That  made  the  air  unwholesome  when  you  cast 
Your  stinking  greasy  caps  up,  hooting  at 
Coriolänus'  exile." 

If  we  seek  to  know  how  Shakespeare  came  by  this  non-political 
but  purely  sensuous  contempt  for  the  people,  we  must  search  for 
the  reason  among  the  experiences  of  his  own  daily  life.  Whcre 
but  in  the  course  of  his  connection  with  the  theatre  would  he 
come  into  contact  with  those  whom  he  looked  upon  as  human 
vermin  ?  He  suffered  under  the  perpetual  Obligation  of  writing, 
Staging,  and  acting  his  dramas  with  a  view  to  pleasing  the  Great 
Public.  His  finest  and  best  had  always  most  difficulty  in  making 
its  way,  and  hence  the  bitter  words  in  Hamlet  about  the  '^  ex- 
cellent  play"  which  '*  was  never  acted,  or,  if  it  was,  not  above 
once ;  for  the  play,  I  remember,  pleased  not  the  miUionJ* 

Into  this  epithet,  "the  million,"  Shakespeare  has  Condensed 
his  contempt  for  the  masses  as  art  critics.  Even  the  poets,  and 
they  are  many,  who  have  been  honest  and  ardent  politicardemo- 
crats,  have  seldom  extended  their  belief  in  the  majority  to  a  faith 
in  its  capacity  for  appraising  their  art.  The  most  liberal-minded 
of  them  all  well  know  that  the  opinion  of  a  connoisseur  is  worth 
more  than  the  judgment  of  a  hundred  thousand  ignoramuses. 
With  Shakespeare,  however,  his  artist's  scom  for  the  capacity 
of  the  many  did  not  confine  itself  to  the  sphere  of  Art,  but 
included  the  world  beyond.  As,  year  after  year,  his  glance  feil 
from  the  stage  upon  the  flat  caps  covering  the  unkempt  hair 
of  the  crowding  heads  down  there  in  the  open  yard  which 
constituted  the  pit,  his  sentiments  grew  increasingly  contemp- 
tuous  towards  "  the  groundlings,"  These  unwashed  Citizens, 
"rhe  uiiderstanding  gentlemen  of  the  ground,"  as  Ben  Jonson 
nicknamcd  thtm,  were  atüred  m  udXon^^  \^as^  ^ss^K)Kk&  %xLd 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MASSES  539 

goatskin  jerkins,  which  had  none  too  pleasant  an  odour.  They 
were  called  '*  nutcrackers "  from  their  babit  of  everlastingly 
Cracking  nuts  and  throwing  the  sbells  upon  tbe  stage.  Tossing 
about  apple-peel,  corks,  sausage  ends,  and  small  pebbles  was 
another  of  their  amusements.  Tobacco,  ale,  and  apple  vendors 
forccd  thtir  way  among  them,  and  even  befqre  the  curtain  was  / 
lifted  a  reek  of  tobacco-smoke  and  beer  rose  from  the  crowd  ' 
iBapdtieBtly  waiting  for  the  prima  donna  to  be  shaved.  The 
fashionable  folk  of  the  stage  and  boxes,  whom  they  hated,  and 
with  whom  they  were  ever  seeking  occasion  to  brawl,  called 
them  stinkards.  Abuse  was  flung  backwards  and  forwards 
between  them,  and  the  pit  threw  apples  and  dirt,  and  even  went 
so  far  as  to  spit  on  to  the  stage.  In  the  Gults  Hornebooke  (1609) 
Dekker  says:  "The  stage,  like  time,  will  bring  you  to  most 
perfect  light  and  lay  you  open:  neither  are  you  to  be  hunted 
from  thence,  though  the  scarecraws  in  the  yard  hoot  at  you,  hiss 
at  you,  spit  on  you."  As  late  as  1614  the  prologue  to  an  old 
comedy,  Tfu  Hog  hos  lost  his  Pearls  says : 

"  We  may  be  pelted  off  for  what  we  know, 
With  apples,  eggs,  or  stones,  from  those  beiaw/* 

Who  knows  if  Shakespeare  was  better  satisfied  with  the  less 
rowdy  portion  of  his  audience  ?  Art  was  not  the  sole  attraction 
of  the  theatre.  We  read  in  an  old  book  on  English  plays: — 
''  In  the  play-houses  at  London  it  is  the  fashion  of  youthes  to 
go  first  into  the  yarde  and  carry  their  eye  through  cvery  gallery ; 
then,  Kke  unto  ravens,  when  they  spy  the  Carrion,  Ihither  they  ^ 
fly  and  press  as  near  to  the  fairest  as  theycan."^  These  fine 
gentlemen,  who  sat  or  reclined  at  füll  length  on  the  stage,  were 
probably  as  much  occupied  with  their  ladies  as  the  less  weil- 
to-do  theatre-goers.  We  know  that  they  occasionally  watched 
the  play  as  Hamlet  did,  with  their  heads  in  their  mistresses' 
laps,  for  the  position  is  described  in  Fletcher's  Queen  of  Corinth 
(Act  i.  sc.  2) : 

••  For  the  fair  courtier,  the  woman's  man, 
That  teils  my  lady  stories,  dissolves  riddles, 
Ushers  her  to  her  coach,  lies  at  herfeet 
At  solemn  masques^  applauding  what  she  laughs  at!* 

Dekker  {Gulls  Hornebooke)  informs  us  that  keen  card-playing 
went  on  amongst  some  of  the  spectators,  while  others  read, 
drank,  or  smoked  tobacco.  Christopher  Marlowe  has  an  epigram 
on  this  last  practice,  and  Ben  Jonson  complains  in  his  Bartho' 
hmew  Fair  of  "  those  who  accommodate  gentlemen  with  tobacco 
at  cur  theatres."    He  gives  an  elaborate  description  in  his  play, 


S40  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  Case  is  AlUred^  of  the  manner  in  which  capridous  lordliogs 
conducted  themselves.at  the  Performance  of  a  new  piece: — 

''  And  they  have  such  a  habit  of  dislike  in  all  things,  that  they 
will  ap|NX>ve  nothing,  be  it  never  so  conceited  or  elaborate ;  bot 
Sit  dispersed,  making  faces  and  spitting,  wagging  their  upright 
ears,  and  cry,  filthy,  filthy ;  simply  uttering  their  own  tcondition, 
and  using  their  wryed  countenances  instead  of  a  vice,  to  tum 
the  good  aspects  of  all  that  shall  sit  near  them,  from  what  they 
behold  "  (Act  ii.  sc.  6). 

The  fact  that  women's  parts  were  invariably  played  by  young 
men  may  have  contributed  to  the  general  rowdyism  of  the  play- 
going  public,  although,  on  the  other  band,  it  must  have  been 
conducive  to  greater  morality  on  the  part  of  those  directly  con- 
nected with  the  theatre.  It  was  surely  a  real  amelioration  of 
Shakespeare's  fate  that  the  difficulties  with  which  he  had  to 
struggle  were  not  increased  by  that  enthralling  and  ravishing 
evil  which  bears  the  name  of  actress.^ 

The  notion  of  feminine  characters  being  taken  by  a  woman 
was  so  foreign  to  England  that  the  individual  who  ascertained 
the  use  of  forks  in  Italy,  discovered  the  ezistence  of  actresses  at 
the  same  time  and  in  the  same  place.  Coryate  writes  from 
Venice  in  July  i6o8: — "Here  I  observed  certaine  things  that  I 
never  saw  before;  for  I  saw  women  act,  a  thing  I  never  saw 
before,  though  I  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  sometimes  used  in 
London;  and  they  performed  it  with  as  good  a  grace,  action, 
gestures,  and  whatsoever  convenient  for  a  player,  as  I  ever  saw 
any  masculine  actor.''  It  was  not  until  forty-four  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death  that  a  woman  stepped  on  to  the  English 
stage.  We  know  precisely  when  and  in  what  play  she  appeared. 
On  the  8th  of  December  1660  the  part  of  Desdemona  was  taken 
by  an  Englishwoman.  The  prologue  read  upon  this  occasion  is 
still  in  existence.' 

A  theatrical  audience  of  those  days  was,  to  Shakespeare's 
eyes  at  any  rate,  an  uncultivated  horde,  and  it  was  this  crowd 

^  It  is  therefore  a  droll  error  into  which  the  otherwise  admirable  writer,  Profeaior 
Fr.  Paalson,  falls  in  his  essay,  Hamlet  die  Tragedie  des  Pessimismus  (Deutuhe 
Rundschau  t  vol.  lix.  p.  243),  when  he  remarks  as  a  proof  of  the  sensualtty  6t 
Hamlet's  nature  :  "  Man  erinnere  sich  nur  seiner  Intimität  mit  den  Schauspielern ; 
als  sie  ankommen,  fällt  sein  Blick  sogleich  auf  die  FUsse  der  SchauspuleritL}^ 

*  "  A  Prologue  to  introduce  the  first  woman  that  came  to  act  00  this  itafe,  ii 
the  tragedy  called  The  Moor  of  Venice :  "— 

"  I  come  unknown  to  any  of  the  rest 
To  teil  you  news ;  I  saw  the  lady  drest 
The  woman  plays  to  day ;  mistake  me  not, 
No  man  in  gown  or  page  in  petticoat : 
A  woman  to  my  knowledge,  yet  I  can't 
If  I  should  die,  make  affidayit  on't.  •  •  • 
'Tis  possible  a  virtuotts  woman  may 
Abhor  all  sorts  of  looseness  and  yet  play, 
FUy  OQ  the  stage  wYicxi  lU  eyes  ace  upon  her. 
Shall  we  ooont  tbaX  n  cnmit.  ¥itAot  coosiva  iai\MMOQa>** 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MASSES  541 

rhich  reprcsented  to  him  "thc  peoplc."  He  may  havc  looked 
ipon  them  in  his  youth  with  a  certain  amount  of  goodwill  and 
orbearance,  but  they  had  become  entirely  odious  to  him  now. 
t  was  undoubtedly  the  constant  spectacle  of  the  "  understanders" 
ind  the  atmosphere  of  their  exhalations,  which  caused  his  scom 
o  flame  so  fiercely  over  democratic  movements  and  their  leaders, 
md  all  that  ingratitude  and  lack  of  perception  which,  to  him, 
-epresented  "  the  people." 

With  his  necessarily  slight  historical  knowledge  and  insight, 
Shakespeare  would  look  upon  the  old  days  of  both  Rome  and 
England  in  precisely  the  same  light  in  which  he  saw  his  own 
imes.  His  first  Roman  drama  testifies  to  his  innately  anti- 
iemocratic  tendencies.  He  seized  with  avidity  upon  every  in-  %y^ 
itance  in  Plutarch  of  the  stupidity  and  brutality  of  the  masses. 
ilecall,  for  example,  the  scene  in  which  the  mob  murders  Cinna, 
he  poet,  for  no  better  reason  than  its  fury  against  Cinna,  the^ 
:onspirator  (Julius  Cißsar,  Act  iii.  sc.  3) :  ^^ 

"  Hkirä  Citizen.  Your  name,  sir,  truly. 

"  Cinna,  Truly  my  name  is  Cinna. 

"  First  Citizen.  Tear  him  to  pieces ;  he's  a  conspirator. 

'*  Cinna,  I  am  Cinna  the  poet     I  am  Cinna  the  poet 

*'^  Fourth  Citizen.  Tear  him  for  his  bad  verses.  Tear  him  for  his 
^ad  verses. 

*'  Cinna,  I  am  not  Cinna  the  conspirator. 

"  Faurth  Citizen,  It  is  no  matter,  his  name  's  Cinna ;  pluck  but  his 
lame  out  of  his  heart,  and  tum  him  going. 

«« IlUrd  Citizen,  Tear  him,  tear  him  ! " 

All  four  Citizens  are  alike  in  their  bloodthirsty  fury.  Shake- 
speare displays  the  same  aristocratic  contempt  for  the  fickle 
3-owd,  whose  opinion  wavers  with  every  Speaker;  witness  its 
zomplete  change  of  front  immediately  after  Antony's  oration.  It 
Mras  this  feeling,  possibly,  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  his  want 
of  success  in  dealing  with  Caesar.  He  probably  found  Caesar 
antipathetic,  not  on  the  ground  of  his  Subversion  of  a  republican 
Form  of  govemment,  but  as  leader  of  the  Roman  democracy* 
Shakespeare  sympathised  with  the  conspiracy  of  the  nobles 
against  him  because  all  populär  rule — even  that  which  w 
guided  by  genius — was  repugnant  to  him,  inasmuch  as  it  w 
power  ezercised,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  an  ignorant  herd. 

This  point  of  view  meets  us  again  and  again  in  Cariolanus ; 
and  whereas,  in  his  earlier  plays,  it  was  only  occasionally  and, 
it  were,  accidentally  expressed,  it  has  now  grown  and  strengthened 
into  deliberate  utterance. 

I  am  aware  that,  generally  speaking,  neither  English  nor 
German  critics  will  agree  with  me  in  this.  Englishmen,  to  whom 
Shakespeare  is  not  only  their  national  po^l,  buX.  VVi<^  novo^  ^ 


542  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

wisdom  itself,  will,  as  a  rule,  see  nothing  in  his  poetry  but  a  love 
of  all  that  is  simple,  just,  and  tnie.  They  consider  that  due 
attention,  on  the  whole,  has  been  paid  to  the  rights  of  the  people 
in  this  play ;  that  it  contains  the  essence,  as  it  were,  of  all  that 
can  be  urged  in  favour  of  either  democracy  or  aristocracy,  and 
that  Shakespeare  himself  was  impartial.  His  hero  is  by  no 
means,  they  say,  represented  in  a  favourable  light ;  he  is  ruined 
by  his  pride,  which,  degenerating  into  unbearable  arrogance, 
causes  him  to  commit  the  crime  of  turning  his  arms  against  his 
country,  and  brings  him  to  a  miserable  end.  His  relations  with 
his  mother  represent  the  sole  instance  in  which  the  inhuman^ 
anti-social  intractability  of  Coriolanus'  character  relaxes  and 
softens;  otherwise  he  is  hard  and  unlovable  throughout.  The 
Roman  people,  on  the  other  band,  are  represented  as  good  and 
amiable  in  the  main ;  they  are  certainly  somewhat  inconstant,  but 
Coriolanus  is  no  less  fickle  than  they,  and  certainly  less  excusable. 
That  plebeian  greed  of  plunder  which  so  exasperated  Marcius  at 
Corioli  is  common  to  the  private  soldier  of  all  times.  No,  they 
say,  Shakespeare  was  totally  unprejudiced,  or,  if  he  had  a  prefer- 
ence,  it  was  for  old  Menenius,  the  free-spoken,  patriotic  soul  who 
always  tums  a  cheerfuUy  humorous  side  to  the  people,  even  when 
he  sees  their  faults  most  plainly. 

I  am  simply  repeating  here  a  view  of  the  matter  actually 
expressed  by  eminent  English  and  American  critics — a  view 
which,  presumably  therefore,  represents  that  of  the  English- 
speaking  public  in  general.^ 

In  Germany  also — ^more  particularly  at  the  time  when  Shake« 
speare's  dramas  were  interpreted  by  liberal  professors,  who  in- 
voluntarily  brought  them  into  harmony  with  their  own  ideas  and 
those  of  the  period — many  attempts  were  made  to  prove  that 
Shakespeare  was  absolutely  impartial  in  political  matters.  Some 
even  sought  to  make  him  a  Liberal  after  the  fashion  of  those  who, 
early  in  this  Century,  went  by  that  name  in  Central  Europe. 

We  have  no  interest,  however,  in  re-fashioning  Shakespeare. 

It  is  enough  for  us  if  our  perception  is  fine  and  keen  enough  to 

recognise  him  in  his  works,  and  we  must  actually  put  on  blinders 

not  to  see  on  which  side  Shakespeare's  sympathies  lie  here.     He 

is  only  too  much  of  one  mind  with  the  Senators  who  say  that 

/^^poor  suitors  have  strong  breaths,^  and  Coriolanus,  who  is  nev«- 

I  refuted  or  contradicted,  says  no  more  than  what  the  poet  in  his 

v«wn  person  would  endorse. 

In  the  first  scene  of  the  play,  immediately  foUowing  Menenius' 
well-known  parable  of  the  beUy  and  the  other  members  of  the 
body,  Marcius  appears  and  fierody  advocates  the  view  Menenius 
has  humorously  expressed : 

'  See  Shäki^mtrii  lyaptfy  ^  CarMmmt^  hj  the  Rev.  Hcniy  N.  Hvdeois 
MMoBOi  of  Shm&peut  et  Bortoa  UBJwwkf >    Bciitoii«  i88i« 


CORIOLANUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  543 

"  He  that  will  give  good  words  to  thee  will  flatter 
fieneath  abhorring.    What  would  you  have,  you  curs, 
That  like  not  peace  nor  war  ?    He  that  trusts  to  you, 
Where  he  should  find  you  lions,  finds  you  hares ; 
Where  foxes,  geese ;  you  are  no  surer,  no, 
Than  is  the  coal  of  fire  upon  the  ice, 
Or  hailstone  in  the  sun.     Your  virtue  is 
To  make  him  worthy  whose  offence  subdues  him. 
And  curse  that  justice  did  it.     Who  deserves  greatness, 
Deserves  your  hate ;  and  your  afTections  are 
A  sick  man's  appetite,  who  desires  most  that 
Which  would  increase  his  coil  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Hang  ye  !    Trust  ye ! 
^th  every  minute  you  do  change  a  mfnd ; 
And  call  him  noble  that  was  now  your  hate, 
Him  vUe  that  was  your  garland." 

The  facts  of  the  play  bear  out  every  Statement  hcre  made  by  "\ 
Coriolanus,  including  the  one  that  the  plebeians  are  only  bravey 
with  their  tongues,  and  run  as  soon  as  it  comes  to  blows.     They^ 
tum  tail  on  the  first  encounter  with  the  Volscians. 

"  Marcius,  All  the  contagion  of  the  south  light  on  you^ 
You  shames  of  Rome  i    You  herd  of — Boils  and  plagues 
Plaster  you  o'er  1  that  you  may  be  abhorred 
Farther  than  seen,  and  one  infest  another 
Against  the  wind  a  mile !     You  souls  of  geese, 
That  bear  the  shapes  of  men,  how  have  you  run 
From  slaves  that  apes  would  beat !    Pluto  and  hell  I 
All  hurt  behind ;  backs  red  and  faces  pale 
With  flight  and  agu'd  fear ! "  (Act  i  sc.  4). 

By  dint  of  threatening  to  draw  his  sword  upon  the  runaways, 
be  succeeds  in  driving  them  back  to  the  attack,  compels  theP 
cnemy  to  retreat,  and  forces  himself  single-handed,  like  a  demi-j 
god  or  very  god  of  war,  through  the  gates  of  the  town,  which 
dose  upon  him  before  his  comrades  can  follow.  When  he  comes 
forth  again,  bleeding,  and  the  town  is  taken,  his  wrath  thunders 
afresh  on  finding  that  the  only  idea  of  the  soldiery  is  to  secure 
as  mach  booty  as  possible : 

''See  here  these  movers,  that  do  prize  their  hours 
At  a  crack'd  drachm  1    Cushions,  leaden  spoons, 
Irons  of  a  doit,  doublets  that  hangmen  would 
Bury  with  those  that  wore  them,  Uiese  base  slaves, 
Ere  yet  the  fight  be  done,  pack  up : — Down  with  them !  ^ 

As  far  as  Coriolanus  is  concerned  the  populär  party  is  simply 
the  body  of  those  who  "  cannot  rulc  nor  ever  will  be  ruled  "  (Act 
ÜL  sc.  i).  The  majoritj  of  nobles  are  too  weak  to  venture  to 
q[)pose  the  people's  tribunes  as  they  should,  but  Coriolanus, 
peroeiving  the  danger  of  allowing  these  men  to  gräi  \Q&>ictLCit.  \\i 


V 


544  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  government  of  the  city,  courageously,  if  imprudently,  braves 
their  hatred  in  order  to  thwart  and  repress  them  (Act  iii.  sc.  l). 

"  J^irst  Senator,  No  more  words,  we  beseech  you. 
Cariolanus,  How !  no  more  ? 
As  for  my  country  I  have  shed  my  blood, 
Not  fearing  outward  Force,  so  shall  my  lungs 
Coin  words  tili  their  decay,  against  those  measels, 
Which  we  disdain  should  tetter  us,  yet  sought 
The  very  way  to  catch  theoL" 

He  further  asserts  that  the  peopie  had  not  deserved  the 
recent  distribution  of  com,  for  they  had  attempted  to  evade  the 
summons  to  arms,  and  during  the  war  they  chiefly  displayed 
their  courage  in  mutinying.  They  had  brought  groundless 
accusations  against  the  Senate,  and  it  was  contemptible  to  allow 
them,  out  of  fear  of  their  numbers,  any  share  in  the  government. 
His  last  words  upon  the  subject  are : 

"...  This  double  worship, 
Where  one  part  does  disdain  with  cause,  the  other 
Insult  without  all  reason ;  where  gentry,  title,  wisdom, 
Cannot  conclude  but  by  the  yea  and  no 
Of  general  ignorance, — it  must  omit 
Real  necessities,  and  give  way  the  while 
To  unstable  slightness :  purpose  so  barPd  it  follows, 
Nothing  is  done  to  purpose.  .  .  .  " 

So,  in  Troilus  and  Cressida^  would  Ulysses,  who  rcpresents 
all  that  is  truly  wise  in  statesmanship,  have  spoken.  There  is  no 
humane  consideration  for  the  oppressed  condition  of  the  poor,  no 
just  recognition  of  the  right  of  those  who  bear  the  bürden  to 
have  a  voice  in  its  distribution.  That  Shakespeare  held  the  same 
political  views  a6  Coriolanus  is  amply  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  most  dissimilar  characters  approve  of  them  in  every  par- 
ticular,  excepting  only  the  violent  and  defiant  manner  in  which 
they  are  expressed.  Menenius'  description  of  the  tribunes  of  the 
peopie  is  not  a  whit  less  scathing  than  that  of  Marcius. 

"Our  very  priests  must  become  mockers,  if  they  shall  encounter 
such  ridiculous  subjects  as  you  are.  When  you  speak  best  unto 
the  purpose,  it  is  not  worth  the  wagging  of  your  beards ;  and 
your  beards  deserve  not  so  honourable  a  grave  as  to  stufT  a 
butcher's  cushion,  or  to  be  entombed  in  an  ass's  pack-saddle. 
Yet  you  must  be  saying,  Marcius  is  proud,  who,  in  a  cheap  esti- 
mation,  is  worth  all  your  predecessors  since  Deucalion  "  (Act  ii. 
sc.  i). 

When  Coriolanus's  freedom  of  speech  has  procured  his  banish- 
ment,  Menenius  exdaims  in  admiration  (Act  iii.  sc.  i): 

••  Hü  nature  is  too  noble  for  this  worU: 
He  would  not  flatter  Neptune  for  his  trident, 
Qr  Jove  for  's  power  to  thunder.    His  faearf  s  his  mooth." 


CORIOLANUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  '545 

Thus  he  is  exiled  for  his  virtues,  not  for  his  failings,  and  at  heart 
thcy  all  agree  with  Menenius.  When  Coriolanus  has  gone  over| 
to  the  cnemy,  and  their  one  anxiety  is  to  appease  his  wrath,i 
Cominius  expresses  the  same  view  of  the  culpability  of  people| 
and  tribunes  towards  him  (Act  iv.  sc.  4)  : 

"  Who  shall  ask  it  ? 
The  tribunes  cannot  do  *t  for  shame ;  the  people 
Deserve  such  pity  of  him  as  the  wolf 
Does  of  the  shepherd." 

Even  the  voice  of  one  of  the  two  serving-mcn  of  the  Capitol  ezalts 
Coriolanus  and  justifies  his  scorn  for  the  love  or  hatred  of  the 
people,  the  ignorant,  bewildered  masses — 

"...  So  that,  if  they  love,  they  know  not  why,  they  hate  upon  no 
better  a  ground :  therefore  for  Coriolanus  neither  to  care  whether  they 
love  or  hate  him  manifests  the  true  knowledge  he  has  of  their  dis- 
positions ;  anci^  out  of  his  noble  carelessness  lets  them  plainly  see  't " 
(Act  iL  sc  2). 

This  is  almost  too  well  expressed  for  a  servant ;  we  perceive  that* 
the  poet  has  taken  no  particular  pains  to  disguise  his  own  voice.i 
The  same  man  teils  how  well  Coriolanus  has  deserved  of  hisl 
country ;  he  did  not  rise,  as  some  do,  by  Standing  hat  in  band  1 
and  bowing  himself  into  favour  with  the  people :  ^ 

"...  But  he  hath  so  planted  his  honours  in  their  eyes  and  hi« 
actions  in  their  hearts,  that  for  their  tongues  to  be  silent  and  not  conA 
fess  so  much  were  a  kind  of  ungrateful  injury;   to  report  otherwise\ 
were  a  malice,  that  giving  itself  to  He,  would  pluck  reproof  and  rebukej 
from  every  ear  that  heard  it." 

This  uncultured  mind  bears  the  same  testimony  as  that  of  the 
most  refined  and  intelligent  patricians  to  the  greatness  of  the  hero. 
It  is  not  difficult,  I  think,  to  foUow  the  mental  processes  from 
which  this  work  evolved.  When  Shakespeare  came  to  reflect  on 
what  had  constituted  his  chief  gladness  here  on  earth  and  made 
his  melancholy  life  endurable  to  him,  he  found  that  his  one  lasting, 
if  not  too  freely  flowing,  source  of  pleasure  had  been  the  friend- 
ship  and  appreciation  of  one  or  two  noble  and  nobly-minded 
eentlemen.  

For  the  people  he  feit  nothing  but  scorn,  and  he  was  now,  ^ 
more  than  ever,  incapable  of  seeing  them  as  an  aggregation  of   ) 
separate  individualities,  they  were  merged  in  the  brutality  which/ 
distinguished  them  in  the  mass.     Humanityin  generalwas  to  hifn 
not  millions  of  individuals,  but  a  few  great  entities  amidst  millions 
of  non-entities.     He  saw  more  and  more  clearly  that  the  existence 
of  these  few  illustrious  men  was  all  that  made  life  worth  living, 
and  the  belief  gave  impetus  to  that  hero-worship  which  had  been 
characteristic  of  his  early  youth.     Formerly,  ho¥(e.v^t^  iVvvs»  h*<«- 


546  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

ship  had  lacked  its  present  polemical  quality.  The  fact  that 
Coriolanus  was  a  great  warrior  made  no  particular  impression  on 
Shakespeare  at  this  period;  it  was  quite  incidentaly  and  he  in- 
cluded  it  simply  because  he  must.  It  was  not  the  soldier  that  he 
wished  to  glorify  but  the  demigod.  His  present  impression  of 
the  circumstances  and  conditions  of  life  is  this :  there  must  of 
necessity  be  formed  around  the  solitary  great  ones  of  this  earth  a 
conspiracy  of  envy  and  hatred  raised  by  the  small  and  mean.  As 
Coriolanus  says,  "  Who  deserves  greatness,  deserves  your  hate." 
Owing  to  this  tum  of  thought,  Shakespeare  found  fewer 
heroes  to  worship;  but  his  worship  became  the  more  intense, 
and  appears  in  this  play  in  greater  force  than  ever  before.  The 
patricianSy  who  have  a  proper  understanding  of  his  merit,  regard 
Coriolanus  with  a  species  of  lover-like  enthusiasm,  a  sort  of 
adoration.  When  Marcius's  mother  teils  Menenius  that  she  has 
had  a  letter  from  her  son,  and  adds,  '' And  I  think  there's  one  at 
home  for  you,"  Menenius  cries : 

"  I  will  make  my  very  house  reel  to-night :  a  letter  for  me  1 
^^VirgiUa,  Yes,  certain,  there's  a  letter  for  you;  I  saw't 
"Afenenius.  A  letter  for  me  1    It  gives  me  an  estate  of  seven  years' 
health;  in  which  time  I  will  make  a  lip  at  the  physician:  the  most 
sovereign  prescription  in  Galen  is  but  empiricutiCy  and,  to  this  preserva- 
tive,  of  no  better  report  than  a  horse-drench  "  (Act  ii.  sc  i). 

So  speaks  his  friend ;  we  will  now  listen  to  his  bitterest  enemy, 
AufidiuSy  the  man  whom  he  has  defeated  and  humiliated  in  battle 
after  battle,  who  hates  him,  and  vows  that  neither  temple  nor  prayer 
of  priest,  nor  any  of  those  things  which  usually  restrain  a  roah's 
wrath,  shall  prevail  to  soften  him.  He  has  swom  that  wherever 
he  may  find  his  enemy,  be  it  even  on  his  own  hearth,  he  will 
wash  his  hands  in  his  heart's  blood.  But  when  Marcius  forsakes 
Rome,  and  repairing  to  the  Volscians,  actually  seeks  Aufidius  in 
his  own  home,  upon  his  own  hearth,  we  hear  only  the  admiration 
and  genuine  enUiusiasm  which  the  sound  of  his  voice  and  the 
mere  majesty  of  his  presence  calls  forth  in  the  adversary  who 
would  gladly  hate  him,  and  still  more  gladly  despise  him  if  he 
coidd. 

''O  Marcius,  Marcius  I 
Each  word  thou  hast  spoke  hath  weeded  from  my  heart 
A  root  of  andent  envy.    If  Jupiter 
Should  from  yond  doud  speak  divine  things, 
And  say  '  Tis  true,'  I'd  not  believe  them  more 
Than  thee,  all  noble  Marcius.    Let  me  twine 
Mine  arms  about  that  body,  where  against 
My  grained  ash  an  hundred  times  hath  broke, 
And  scarred  the  moon  with  splinters :  here  I  cli|:^ 
The  anvil  of  my  sword,  and  do  contest 
As  hotly  and  as  nobly  with  thy  love, 
Ab  erer  in  ambiüoos  i^ieagiäil  ^A 


SHAKESPEARE'S  POSITION  547 

Contend  against  thy  valour.     Know  thou  first, 
I  loved  the  maid  I  married ;  never  man 
Sighed  truer  breath ;  but  that  I  see  thee  here, 
Thou  noble  thing !  more  dances  my  rapt  heart 
Than  when  I  first  my  wedded  mistress  saw 
Bestride  my  threshold  "  (Act  iv.  sc.  5). 

We  have,  then,  in  this  play  an  almost  wildly  enthusiastic 
hero-worship  upon  a  background  of  equally  unqualified  contempt 
for  the  populace.  It  is  something  diÄferent,  however,  from  the 
humble  devotion  of  his  younger  days  to  alien  greatness  (as  in 
Henry  V.),  and  is  founded  rather  on  an  overpowering  and  defiant 
oonsciousness  of  his  own  worth  and  superiority. 

The  reader  must  recall  the  fact  that  his  contemporaiies  looked 
upon  Shakespeare  not  so  much  as  a  poet  who  eamed  his  living 
as  an  actor,  but  as  an  actor  who  occasionally  wrote  plays.  We 
must  also  remember  that  the  profession  of  an  actor  was  but 
lightly  esteemed  in  those  days,  and  the  work  of  a  dramatist  was 
considered  as  a  kind  of  inferior  poetry,  which  scarcely  ranked  as 
literature.  Probably  most  of  Shakespeare's  intimates  considered 
his  small  narrative  poems — his  Venus  and  Adonis^  his  Lucretia^ 
&c. — his  real  claim  to  notoriety,  and  they  would  regret  that  for 
the  sake  of  money  he  had  joined  the  ranks  of  the  thousand  and 
one  dramatic  writers.  We  are  told  in  the  dedication  of  Histrio 
Mastix  {1634),  that  the  playwrights  of  the  day  took  no  trouble 
with  what  they  wrote,  but  covetously  pillaged  from  old  and  new 
sources,  "chronicies,  legends,  and  romances." 

Shakespeare  did  not  even  publish  his  own  plays,  but  submitted 
to  their  appropriation  by  grasping  booksellers,  who  published  them 
with  such  a  mutilation  of  the  text,  that  it  must  have  been  a  perfect 
terror  to  him  to  look  at  them.  This  mishandling  of  his  plays  would 
be  so  obnoxious  to  him,  that  it  was  not  likely  he  would  care  to 
possess  any  copies.  He  was  in  much  the  same  position  in  this 
respect  as  the  modern  author,  who,  unprotected  by  any  law  of 
international  Copyright,  sees  his  works  mangled  and  mutilated  in 
foreign  languages. 

He  would  doubtless  enjoy  a  certain  amount  of  popularity,  but 
he  remained  to  the  last  an  actor  among  actors  (not  even  then  in 
the  first  rank  with  Burbage)  and  a  poet  among  poets.  Never 
once  did  it  occur  to  any  of  his  contemporaries  that  he  stood 
alone,  and  that  all  the  others  taken  together  were  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  him. 

He  lived  and  died  one  of  the  many. 

That  his  spirit  rose  in  silent  but  passionate  rebellion  against 
this  judgment  is  obvious.  Were  there  moments  in  which  he 
clearly  feit  and  keenly  recognised  his  greatness  ?  It  must  have 
been  so,  and  these  moments  had  grown  more  frequent  of  late. 
Were  there  also  times  when  he  said  to  himself,  '^  Five  hundred>  a 
thousand  ^ears  hence,  my  name  wiU  stsill  bt  VxkO^vnx  V^  xsAxi^ixcv^ 


548  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  my  plays  read  "?  We  cannot  say ;  it  hardly  seems  probable, 
or  he  would  surely  have  contended  for  the  right  to  publish  bis 
own  works.  We  cannot  doubt  that  he  believed  himself  worthy 
at  this  time  of  such  lasting  fame,  but  he  had,  as  we  can  well 
understand,  no  faith  at  all  that  future  generations  would  see 
more  clearly,  judge  more  truly,  and  appraise  more  justly  than 
bis  contemporaries.  He  had  no  idea  of  historical  evolution, 
bis  belief  was  rather  that  the  culture  of  bis  native  country 
was  rapidly  declining.  He  had  watched  the  growth  of  narrow- 
minded  prejudice,  had  seen  the  triumpbant  progress  of  that 
pious  stupidity  which  condemned  bis  art  as  a  wile  of  the  devil ; 
and  bis  detestation  of  the  mass  of  men,  past,  present,  and  to 
come,  made  hihi  equally  indifferent  to  their  praise  or  blame. 
Therefore  it  pleased  bim  to  express  this  indifference  through  the 
medium  of  Coriolanus,  the  man  who  turns  his  back  upon  the 
Senate  when  it  eulogises  bim,  and  of  whom  Plutarch  teils  us  that 
the  one  thing  for  which  he  valued  bis  fame  was  the  pleasure  it 
gave  his  mother.     Yet  Shakespeare  makes  him  say  (Act  i.  sc  9): 

"  My  mother, 
Who  has  a  charter  to  extol  her  blood, 
When  she  does  praise  me  grieves  me." 

Shakespeare  has  now  broken  with  the  judgments  of  mankind. 
He  dwells  on  the  cold  beights  above  the  snow-line,  beyond  human 
praise  or  blame,  beyond  the  joys  of  fame  and  the  perils  of 
celebrity,  breathing  that  keen  atmosphere  of  indifference  in  which 
the  soul  hovers,  upheld  by  scorn. 

Some  few  on  this  earth  are  men,  the  rest  are  spawn,  as  Mene- 
nius  calls  them ;  and  so  Shakespeare  sympathises  with  Coriolanus 
and  honours  him,  endowing  him  with  Cordelia's  batred  ofun worthy 
flattery,  even  placing  her  very  words  in  his  mouth  (Act  ii.  sc  2) : 

"  But  your  people 
I  love  them  as  they  weigh." 

Therefore  it  is  he  equips  his  hero  with  the  same  stern  devotion 
to  truth  with  which,  later  in  the  Century,  Moli^re  endows  bis 
Alceste,  but,  instead  of  in  the  semi-farcical,  it  is  in  the  wholly 
heroic  manner  (Act  iii.  sc  3) : 

"  Let  them  pronounce  the  steep  Tarpeian  deatb, 
Vagabond  exile,  flajdng,  pent  to  linger 
But  with  a  grain  a  day.     I  would  not  buy 
Their  mercy  at  the  price  of  one  fair  wori" 

We  see  Sbakespeare's  whole  soul  with  Coriolanus  when  bc  can- 
not bring  himself  to  ^'ask  the  Consulate  of  the  people  in  requital 
of  bis  Services.  Let  them  freely  give  him  his  reward,  but  that  he 
shoüld  have  to  ask  for  it — torturel 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  CORIOLANUS  549 

Wben  bis  friends  insist  upon  bis  conforming  to  custom  and 
appearing  in  person  as  applicant,  Shakespeare,  who  has  hitherto 
foÜowed  Plutarch  step  by  Step,  here  diverges,  in  order  to  repre- 
sent  this  step  as  being  excessively  disagreeable  to  Marcius. 
According  to  tbe  Greek  historian,  Coriolanus  at  once  proceeds 
witb  a  splendid  retinue  to  the  Forum,  and  there  displays  tbe 
wounds  he  has  received  in  the  recent  wars;  but  Shakespeare's 
hero  cannot  bring  himself  to  boast  of  bis  ezploits  to  the  people, 
nor  to  appeal  to  their  admiration  and  compassion  by  making  an 
exhibition  of  bis  wounds : 

'*  I  cannot 
Put  on  the  gown,  stand  naked,  and  entreat  them, 
For  my  wounds'  sake,  to  give  their  suffrage  :  please  you 
That  I  may  pass  this  doing  "  (Act  ii.  sc.  2). 

He  finally  yields,  but  has  hardly  set  foot  in  the  Forum  before 
he  begins  to  curse  at  the  position  in  which  he  has  placed  him- 
self: 

"  What  must  I  say  ? 
*I  pray,  sir' — Plague  upon't!     I  cannot  bring 
My  tongue  to  such  a  pace : — *  Look,  sir,  my  wounds ! 
I  got  them  in  my  country's  Service  when 
Some  certain  of  your  brethren  roared  and  ran 
From  the  noise  of  our  own  dnims  * "  (Act  ii.  sc  3). 

He  makes  an  efifort  to  control  himself,  and,  tuming  brusquely 
to  the  nearest  bystanders,  he  addresses  them  with  ill-concealed 
irony.  On  being  asked  what  has  induced  him  to  stand  for  the 
Consulate,  he  hastily  and  rashly  replies : 

"  Mine  own  desert 
"  Second  Citizen,  Your  own  desert ! 
"  Coriolanus.  Ay,  but  not  mine  own  desire. 
"  Third  Citizen,  How  not  your  own  desire  ? 

"  Coriolanus.  No,  sir,  *twas  never  my  desire  to  trouble  the  poor  with 
begging." 

Having  secured  a  few  votes  in  this  remarkably  tactless 
manner,  he  exclaims: 

"  Most  sweet  voices ! 
Better  to  die,  better  to  starve, 
Than  crave  the  hire  which  first  we  do  deserve." 

When  the  intrigues  of  the  tribunes  succeed  in  inducing  the 
people  to  revoke  bis  election,  he  so  far  forgets  himself  in  bis  fury 
at  the  insult  that  they  are  enabled  to  pronounce  sentence  of 
banishment  against  him.  He  then  bursts  into  an  outbreak  of 
taunts  and  threats:  "You  common  cry  of  cursl  I  banish  yaul^^ 
— which  recalls  how  some  thousand  years  later  another  choae^x 
of  the  peopJe  and  subsequent  object  of  democxsiXic  \tsüo>\v]  ^^owao^- 


SSO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

betta,  thundered  at  the  noisy  assembly  at  Belleville :  **  Cowardly 
brood  I  I  will  foUow  you  up  into  your  very  dens." 

The  nature  of  the  material  and  the  whole  conception  of  the 
play  required  that  the  pride  of  Coriolanus  should  occasionally  be 
expressed  with  repellant  arrogance.  But  we  feel,  through  aU  the 
intentional  artistic  exaggeration  of  the  hero's  self-esteem,  how 
there  arose  in  Shakespeare's  own  souI,  from  the  depth  of  his 
stormy  contempt  for  humanity,  a  pride  immeasurably  pure  and 
steadfast. 


XII 


CORIOLANÜS  AS  A  DRAMA 

The  tragedy  of  Coriolanus  is  constructed  strictly  according 
to  rule ;  the  plot  is  simple  and  powerfnl,  and  is  developed,  with 
steadily  increasing  interest,  to  a  logical  climax.  With  the  excep- 
tion  of  OtkellOf  Shakespeare  has  never  treated  his  material  in  a 
more  simply  intelligible  fashion.  It  is  the  tragedy  of  an  inviol- 
ably  tnithful  personality  in  a  world  of  small-minded  folk;  the 
tragedy  of  the  punishment  a  reckless  egoism  incurs  when  it  is 
betrayed  into  setting  its  own  pride  above  duty  to  State  and 
fatherland. 

Shakespeare's  aristocratic  sympathies  did  not  blind  him  to 
Coriolanus'  unjustifiable  crime  and  its  inevitable  consequences. 
Infuriated  by  his  banishment,  the  great  soldier  goes  over  to  the 
enemies  of  Rome  and  leads  the  Volscian  army  against  his  native 
city,  plundering  and  terrifying  as  he  goes.  He  spums  the 
humble  entreaties  of  his  friends,  and  only  yields  to  the  women 
of  the  city  when,  led  by  his  mother  and  his  wife,  they  come  to 
implore  mercy  and  peace. 

Coriolanus'  fierce  outburst  when  the  name  of  traitor  is  flung 
at  him  proves  that  Shakespeare  did  not  look  upon  treason  as  a 
pardonable  crime : 

"  The  fires  of  the  lowest  hell  fold  in  your  people ! 
Call  me  their  traitor  I — ^Thou  injurious  tribune  ! 
Within  thine  eyes  sat  twenty  thousand  deatha» 
In  thy  hands  clutched  as  many  millions,  in 
Thy  lying  tongue  both  numbers,  I  would  say 
'  Thou  liest,'  unto  thee,  with  a  voice  as  free 
As  I  do  pray  the  gods  "  (Act  iii.  sc  3). 

'  Immediately  after  this  his  outraged  pride  leads  him  to  commit 
the  very  crime  he  has  so  wrathfully  disclaimed.  No  considera- 
tion  for  his  country  or  fellow-citizens  can  restrain  him.  The 
forces  which  arrest  his  vengeance  are  the  mother  he  has  wor- 
shipped  all  his  life  and  the  wife  he  tenderly  loves.  He  knows 
that  it  is  himself  he  is  offering  up  when  he  sacrifices  his  rancour 
on  the  altar  of  his  family.  The  Volscians  will  never  forgive  him 
for  delivering  up  their  triumph  to  Rome  after  he  had  practicall^ 
delivered  up  Rome  to  them.    And  so  Yi^  pcra^üc^^  feöaÄ::3  tw^x- 

SSX 


552  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

taken  by  Aufidius'  long-accumulated  jealousy  acting  through  the 
disappointed  rage  of  the  Volsdans.  In  Plutarch  Shakespeare 
fountl  his  plot  and  the  chief  characters  of  his  play  ready  to  hand. 
He  added  the  individuality  of  the  tribunes  and  of  Menenius  (with 
the  exception  of  the  parable  of  the  belly).  Virgilia,  who  is  little 
more  than  a  name  in  the  original,  Shakespeare  has  transformed 
by  one  of  his  own  wonderful  touches  into  a  woman  whose  chief 
charm  lies  in  the  quiet  gentleness  of  her  nature.  **  My  gracious 
silence,  hail!''  thus  Marcius  greets  her  (Act  ii.  sc.  i),  and  she 
is  exhaustively  defined  in  the  exclamation.  Her  principal  utter- 
ances,  as  well  as  Volumnia's  most  important  speeches,  are  mere 
versifications  of  Plutarch's  prose,  and  this  is  why  these  women 
have  so  much  genuinely  Roman  blood  in  their  veins.  Volumnia 
is  the  true  Roman  matron  of  the  days  of  the  Republic.  Shake- 
speare has  wrought  her  character  with  special  care,  and  her  rieh 
and  powerful  personality  is  not  without  its  darker  side.  Her 
kinship  with  her  son  is  perceptible  in  all  her  ways  and  words. 
She  is  more  prone,  as  a  woman,  to  employ,  or  at  least  approve 
of,  dissimulation,  büt  her  nature  is  not  a  whit  less  defiantly 
haughty.  Her  first  thought  may  be  jesuitical;  her  second  is 
always  violent : 

"  Vbl,  Oh,  sir,  sir,  sir, 
I  would  have  had  you  put  your  power  well  on, 
Before  you  had  worn  it  out 

Cor,  Let  go. 

Fol,  You  might  have  been  enough  the  man  you  are, 
With  striving  less  to  be  so :  lesser  had  been 
The  thwartings  of  your  dispositions,  tf 
You  ?iadnot  showed  them  how  ye  wert  disposed 
Ere  they  lacked  poiver  to  cross  you. 

Cor.  Let  them  hang. 

Vol,  Ay^  and  burn  too  "  (Act  üi.  sc.  2). 

When  matters  come  to  a  cUmax,  she  shows  no  more  discretion 
in  her  treatment  of  the  tribunes  than  did  her  son,  but  displays 
precisely  the  same  power  of  vituperation.  On  reading  her 
Speeches  we  realise  the  satisfaction  and  relief  it  was  to  Shake- 
speare to  vent  himself  in  furious  invectives  through  the  mediam 
of  his  dramatic  creations : 

''  VoL  .  .  .  Hadst  thou  foxship 
To  banish  him  that  Struck  more  blows  for  Rome 
Than  thou  hast  spoken  words  ? 

Sic,  O  blessid  heavens ! 

VoL  More  noble  blows,  than  ever  thou  wise  words  ; 
And  for  Rome's  good.     I'll  teil  thee  what ;  yet  go : 
Nay,  but  thou  shalt  stay  too :  I  would  my  son 
Were  in  Arabia,  and  thy  tribe  before  him, 
His  good  sword  in  his  hand"  (Act  iv.  ic  ^ 


"CORIOLANUS"  553 

A  comparison  between  Volumnia's  final  appeal  to  her  son 
in  the  last  act  and  the  speech  as  it  is  given  in  Plutarch  is  of 
the  greatest  interest.  Shakespeare  has  followed  his  author  step 
by  Step,  but  has  enriched  him  by  the  addition  of  the  most 
artlessly  human  touches : 

*'  There's  no  man  in  the  world 
More  bound  to's  mother ;  yet  here  he  lets  me  prate 
Like  one  i'  the  Stocks.     Thou  hast  never  in  thy  life 
Showed  thy  dear  mother  any  comtesy ; 
When  she,  (poor  hen !)  fond  of  no  second  brood, 
Has  clucked  thee  to  the  wars  and  safely  home, 
Loaden  with  honour  **  (Act  v.  sc  3). 

How  the  Stern,  soldierly  bearing  of  the  woraan  is  softened 
by  these  touches  with  which  Shakespeare  has  embellished  her 
Portrait  I 

The  diction  both  here  and  throughout  the  play  is  that  of 
Shakespeare's  most  matured  period;  but  never  before  had  he 
used  bolder  similes,  shown  more  independence  in  his  method  of 
expression,  nor  Condensed  so  much  thought  and  feeling  into  so 
few  lines.  We  have  already  drawn  attention  to  the  masterly 
handling  of  his  material — a  handling,  however,  which  by  no 
means  precludes  the  intnision  of  several  extravagances,  some 
heroic,  some  simply  childish. 

The  hero's  bodily  strength  and  courage,  for  example,  are 
strained  to  the  mythicaL  He  forces  his  way  single-handed  into 
a  hostile  town,  holds  his  own  there  against  a  whole  army,  and 
finally  makes  good  his  retreat,  wounded  but  not  subdued.  Even 
Bible  tradition,  in  which  divine  aid  comes  to  the  rescue,  cannot 
fumish  forth  such  deeds.  Neither  Samson's  escape  from  Gaza 
(Judges  xvi.)  nor  David's  from  Keilah  (i  Sam.  xxiii.)  can  compare 
with  this  amazing  exploit. 

Equally  unlikely  is  the  foolishly  defiant  and  arrogant  attitude 
assumed  by  the  senate,  and  more  especially  by  Coriolanus, 
towards  the  plebeian  party.  Upon  what  do  the  nobles  rely  to 
Support  them  in  such  an  attitude  ?  They  have  already  been  com- 
pelled  to  jdeid  the  political  power  of  tribuneship,  and  it  never 
even  occurred  to  them  to  defy  the  sentence  of  banishment  pro- 
nounced  by  these  same  tribunes.  How  comes  it  then  that  they 
seize  every  opportunity  to  taunt  and  scom?  How  is  it  that 
these  patricians,  who  have  spoken  so  many  brave  words,  make 
so  poor  1  show  of  resistance  when  the  Volscians  are  at  their 
gates?  -^They  are  so  steeped  in  party  spirit  that  their  first 
thought,  when  defeat  comes  upon  them,  is  to  rejoice  in  the  con- 
fusion  and  discomfiture  the  plebeians  have  brought  upon  them- 
selves,  and  finally,  abandoning  all  self-respect,  they  crawl  to  the 
feet  of  their  exasperated  conquerbr. 

Tbe  confusion  of  Shakespeare*8  authoiitj  \ti  >ücv\^  '^^d.TX.  ^\  ^^ca. 


5  54  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Story  would  account  for  much.^  According  to  Plutarchf  Corio- 
laniis,  in  the  course  of  his  victorious  march  from  one  Latin  towh 
to  another,  plunders  the  plebeians,  but  spares  the  patricians. 
A  sudden  change  of  public  opinion  occurs  in  Rome  during  his 
siege  of  Lavinium,  and  the  populär  party  desires  to  recall  Corio- 
lanuSy  but  the  Senate  refuses — ^why,  we  are  not  told.  The  enemy 
is  close  upon  them  before  a  parley  is  agreed  upon.  Coriolanus 
offers  easy  terms,  the  admission  of  the  Volscians  to  the  Latin 
Federation  being  the  chief  stipulation.  Despite  the  general  feeling 
of  discouragement  in  Rome,  the  Senate  answers  haughtily  that 
Romans  will  never  yield  to  fear,  and  the  Volscians  must  first  lay 
down  their  arms  if  they  desire  to  obtain  a  ^'  favour.**  Directly 
after  this  defiance  they  make  the  most  abject  Submission,  and 
send  their  women  as  suppliants  to  the  hostile  camp. 

While  Shakespeare's  Coriolanus  has  none  of  this  consideration 
for  his  former  friends,  his  patricians  are  as  cowardly  and  incap- 
able  as  the  historian's.  Cominius,  Titus  Lartius,  and  the  others, 
who  are  originally  represented  as  vaBant  men,  make  a  very  poor 
show  at  the  end.  Several,  in  short,  of  Plutarch's  abundant  con- 
tradictions  have  found  their  way  into  Shakespeare's  play ;  they 
mark  the  beginning  of  a  certain  inconsequence  which  hencefor- 
ward  betrays  itself  In  his  work.  From  this  point  onwards  his 
plays  are  no  longer  as  highly  finished  as  formerly. 

I  am  not  alluding  here  to  the  inconsistendes  of  his  hero,  for 
they  only  serve  to  give  life  and  tnith  to  his  character,  and  the 
poet  either  represented  them  unconsciously,  or  was  too  ingenuous 
to  avoid  them ;  witness  the  reflection  made  by  Coriolanus  at  the 
very  moment  of  his  rebellious  disinclination  to  ask  the  suffrages 
of  the  people : 

**  Custom  calls  me  to't ; 
What  custom  wills,  in  all  things  should  we  do't, 
The  dust  on  antique  time  would  lie  unswept, 
And  mountainous  error  be  too  highly  heapt 
For  tnith  to  o'er-peer"  (Act  iL  sc.  3). 

Coriolanus  is  utteriy  unconscious  that  this  speech  of  his 
strikes  at  the  veiy  root  of  that  ultra-conservatism  which  he 
affects.  The  very  thing  he  has  refused  to  understand  is,  that 
if  we  invariably  foUowed  custom,  the  follies  of  the  past  would 
never  be  swept  away,  nor  the  rocks  which  hinder  our  progress 
burst  asunder.  To  Coriolanus,  what  is  customary  is  right,  and 
he  never  realises  the  fact  that  his  disdain  for  the  tribunes  and 
people  has  led  him  into  a  politically  untenable  position.  We  are 
by  no  means  sure  that  Shakespeare's  perceptions  in  this  casewere 
any  keener  tban  his  hero's ;  but,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  it 
is  this  vexy  inconsistency  in  Coriolanus'  character  which  makes 
it  so  vividly  lifelike. 

^  The  matter  is  liitereitiii|dy  cHmc— fd  in  Krmiig^s  Imtiiicüfe  and  lympaüietie 


SCORN  FOR  THE  MASSES  555 

Troüus  and  Cressida  overflowed  with  contempt  for  the  femi- 
nine sex  as  such,  for  love  as  a  comical  or  pitiable  sensuality, 
for  mock  heroics  and  sham  military  glory.  Coriolanus  is  brim- 
fiü  of  scom  for  the  masses;  for  the  stupidity,  fickleness,  and 
cowardice  of  the  ignorant,  slavish  souls,  and  for  the  baseness  of 
their  leaders. 

But  the  passionate  disdain  possessing  Shakespeare's  soul  is 
destined  to  a  stronger  and  wilder  outburst  in  the  work  he  next 
takes  in  band.  The  outbreak  in  Timan  is  against  no  one  sex,  no 
one  caste,  no  one  nation  or  fraction  of  humanity ;  it  is  the  result 
of  an  overwhelming  contempt,  which  excepts  nothing  and  no  one, 
but  embraces  the  whole  human  race. 


XIII 

TIMON  OF  ATHENS— HATRED  OF  M ANKIND 

TiMON  OF  Athens  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  pitiable  condition. 
The  text  is  in  a  terrible  State,  and  there  are,  not  only  between 
one  scene  and  another,  but  between  one  page  and  another,  such 
radical  dififerences  in  the  style  and  general  spirit  of  the  play  as  to 
preclude  the  possibility  of  its  having  been  the  work  of  one  man. 
The  threads  of  the  story  are  often  entirely  disconnected,  and 
circumstances  occur  (or  are  referred  to)  for  which  we  were  in  no 
way  prepared.  The  best  part  of  the  versification  is  distinctly 
Shakespearian,  and  contains  all  that  wealth  of  thought  which 
was  characteristic  of  this  period  of  his  life ;  but  the  other  parts 
are  careless,  discordant,  and  desperately  monotonous.  The  prose 
dialogue  especially  jars,  thrust  as  it  is,  with  its  long-winded 
straining  after  efiect,  into  scenes  which  are  otherwise  compact 
and  vigorous. 

All  Shakespeare  students  of  the  present  day  concur  in  the 
opinion  that  Titnon  of  Athens ^  like  Pericles^  is  but  a  great  frag- 
ment  from  the  master-hand. 

The  Lyfe  of  Titnon  of  Athens  was  printed  for  the  first  time 
in  the  old  folio  edition  of  1623.  Careful  examination  shows  us 
that  the  first  pages  of  the  play  of  Tinum  (which  is  inserted 
between  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Julius  Ccesar)  are  numbered  80, 
81,  82,  81,  instead  of  78,  79,  80,  81,  and  end  at  page  98.  The 
names  of  the  actors,  for  which  in  no  other  case  is  more  than  the 
necessary  space  allowed,  here  occupy  the  whole  of  page  99,  and 
page  100  is  left  blank,  fulius  Ccesar  begins  upon  the  next  page, 
which  is  numbered  109.  Fleay  noticed  that  Troilus  and  Cressida^ 
which,  as  we  remarked,  is  unnumbered,  would  exactly  fiU  the 
pages  78  to  108.  By  some  error,  which  fumishes  us  with  an- 
other  hint,  the  second  and  third  pages  of  this  play  are  numbered 
79  and  80.  Obviously  it  was  the  publisher's  original  intention  to 
include  Troilus  and  Cressida  among  the  tragedies.  On  its  being 
subsequently  observed  that  there  was  nothing  really  tragic  about 
the  play,  they  cast  about,  since  Julius  Ccesar  was  already  printed, 
for  another  tragedy  which  would  as  nearly  as  possible  fill  the 
vacant  space. 

Shakespeare  found  the  material  for  Timon  of  Athens  in  the 
courae  of  big  reading  for  Antany  and  Cleopatra.    There  is,  in 


SOURCES  OF  "TIMON  OF  ATHENS"  557 

Plutarch's  "  Life  of  Antony/'  a  brief  sketch  of  Timon  and  his  mis- 
anthropy,  his  relations  with  Alcibiades  aiid  the  Cynic  Apemantus, 
the  anecdote  of  the  fig-tree,  and  the  two  epitaphs.  The  subject 
evidently  attracted  Shakespeare  by  its  harmony  with  his  own 
distraught  and  excited  frame  of  mind  at  the  time.  He  was 
soon  absorbed  in  it,  and  in  some  form  or  another  he  made 
acquaintance  with  Lucian's  hicherto  untranslated  dialogue 
Timon,  which  contained  many  incidents  giving  fulness  to  the 
Story,  and  from  which  he  appropriated  the  discovery  of  the 
treasure,  the  consequent  return  of  the  parasitic  friends,  and 
Timon's  scornful  treatment  of  them. 

Shakespeare  probably  found  these  details  in  some  old  play 
on  the  same  subject.  Dyce  published,  in  1 842,  an  old  drama  on 
Timon  which  had  been  found  in  manuscript,  and  was  judged  by 
Steevens  to  date  from  1600,  or  thereabouts.  It  seems  to  have 
been  written  for  some  academic  circle,  and  in  it  we  find  the 
faithfui  Steward  and  the  farewell  banquet  with  which  the  third 
act  closes.  In  the  older  drama,  instead  of  warm  water,  Timon 
throws  stones,  painted  to  resemble  artichokes,  at  his  guests. 
Some  trace  of  these  stones  may  be  found  in  these  lines  in 
Shakespeare's  play : 

"  Second  Lord,  Lord  Timon's  mad. 
Third  Lord,  I  feert  upon  my  bones. 
Fourth  Lord,  One  day  he  gives  us  diamonds,  next  day  stones." 

In  the  old  play,  when  Timon  finds  the  gold,  and  his  faithless 
mistress  and  friends  flock  around  him  once  more,  he  repulses 
them,  crying : 

"  Why  vexe  yee  me,  yee  Furies  ?     I  protest, 
and  all  the  Gods  to  witnesse  invocate, 
I  doe  abhorre  the  titles  of  a  friende, 
of  father,  or  companion.     I  curse 
the  aire  yee  breathe,  I  lothe  to  breathe  that  air." 

He  narvely  intimates  a  change  of  mind  in  the  epilogue : 

• 

"  I  now  am  left  alone :  this  rascall  route 
hath  left  my  side.     What's  this  ?    I  feele  through  out 
a  sodeine  change :  my  fury  doth  abate, 
my  hearte  grows  milde  and  lays  aside  its  hate ;  " 

and  concludes  with  a  still  more  ingenuous  appeal  for  applause : 

"  Let  loving  hands,  loude  sounding  in  the  ayre, 
cause  Timon  to  the  citty  to  repaire.** 

We  have  no  proof  that  Shakespeare  was  acquaintcd  with  this 
particular  work.  He  probably  used  some  other  contemporary 
play,  belonging  to  the  theatre,  which  had  pro^ed  9l  IdScox^  Sxk  ^^ck 


558  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

original  form,  and  which  both  bis  Company  and  bis  own  inclina- 
tions  urged  bim  to  tborougbly  recast.  It  was  not  so  entirely 
rewritten,  bowever,  that  we  can  look  upon  tbe  play  as  actually 
tbe  work  of  Sbakespeare — tbere  are  too  many  traces  of  anotber 
and  a  feebler  band ;  but  tbe  vital,  lyrical,  powerful  patbos  is  bis, 
and  bis  alone. 

Tbere  are  two  tbeories  on  tbis  subject  Fleay,  in  bis  well- 
known  and  tborougb  investigation  of  tbe  matter,  endeavours  to 
prove  tbat  tbe  original  scbeme  was  Sbakespeare's,  but  tbat  some 
inferior  band  amplified  it  for  acting  purposes.  Fleay  selected  all 
tbe  indubitably  Sbakespearian  portions,  and  bad  tbem  printed  as 
a  separate  play,  contending  tbat  it  not  only  included  all  tbat  was 
of  any  value  (wbicb  will  scarcely  be  disputed),  but  tbat,  on  tbe 
score  of  intelligibility,  none  of  tbe  rejected  speecbes  were  needed.^ 
Swinbume,  wbo  scarcely  ever  agrees  witb  Fleay,  also  sbares  the 
belief  tbat  Sbakespeare  used  no  ready-made  groundwork  for  bis 
play.  His  first  opinion  was  tbat  Timon  of  Athens  was  inter- 
rupted  by  Sbakespeare's  premature  deatb,  but  later  be  inclined 
to  tbe  tbeory  tbat,  after  working  upon  it  for  some  time,  tbe  poet 
laid  it  aside  as  being  little  suited  to  dramatic  treatment.  Swin- 
bume does  not  undervalue  tbe  work  done  by  Shakespeare  on  tbat 
account,  but  remarks,  on  tbe  contrary,  tbat,  bad  Juvenal  been 
gifted  witb  tbe  inspiration  of  ^scbylus,  be  might  bave  written 
just  sucb  anotber  tragedy  as  tbe  fourtb  act  of  tbe  drama.' 

Tbe  tbeory  tbat  Sbakespeare  made  use  of  a  finisbed  play 
wbicb  be  only  partially  rewrote,  leaving  tbe  rest  in  its  clumsy 
imperfection,  was  originally  propounded  by  tbe  Englisb  critics 
Sympson  and  Knigbt.  It  was  first  attacked  and  afterwards 
eagerly  supported  by  Delius,  wbo  gives  tbe  reasons  for  bis 
cbange  of  opinion  at  great  lengtb.'  H.  A.  Evans,  tbe  commen- 
tator  of  tbe  Irving  edition,  also  sbares  tbis  latter  view.  Tbere 
is  no  dispute  between  tbe  two  parties  conceming  tbe  portions 
written  by  Sbakespeare;  tbe  contention  is  simply  tbis:  Did 
Shakespeare  remodel  anotber  man's  play,  or  did  anotber  man 
complete  bis  ? 

As  Fleay's  attempt  to  constnict  a  connected  and  intelligible 
play  from  tbe  Sbakespearian  Fragments  failed,  because  a  great 
part  of  tbe  weak  and  spurious  matter  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
tbe  coberence  of  the  wbole,  it  certainly  seems  more  reasonable 
to  accept  Shakespeare  as  tbe  reviser.  Some  of  the  Englisb  critics 
incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  inferior  scenes  were  tbe  work  of 
tbe  contemporary  poets  George  Wilkins  and  John  Day. 

After  a  lapse  of  nearly  300  years  it  is  impossible  to  give  any 
decided  opinion  on  tbe  matter,  more  especially  for  a  critic  wbose 
mother  tongue  is  not  Englisb.     In  these  days  of  occultism  and 

^  N§w  Shakesptan  Soeut/s  Tramactiam^  1874,  pp.  130-194. 
*  Swinbume :  A  Stmdy  ef  Skakesptare^  pp.  212-215. 
^Jmrbmck  dir  dmUiken  ShäknptmrtgiuäHkß^^  UL  ^^  %^lfit. 


SHAKESPEARES  PART  IN  "TIMON  OF  ATHENS"     559 

spiritualism  the  simplest  way  out  of  the  difficulty  would  be  for 
some  of  those  favoured  individuals,  who  hold  communion  with 
the  other  world  by  means  of  small  tables  and  pencils,  to  induce 
Shakespeare  himself  to  settle  the  matter  once  for  all.  Meanwhile 
we  must  be  content  with  probabilities.  To  those  who  only  know 
the  work  through  translations,  or  to  those  who,  like  Gervinus  and 
Kreyssig,  the  German  critics,  have  not  devoted  sufficient  atten- 
tion to  the  language,  the  necessity  of  assuming  a  second  writer 
may  not  be  so  obvious.  It  is  not  impossible,  of  course,  that  the 
feeble,  prosy,  and  longwinded  parts  were  written  by  Shakespeare, 
roughly  sketched  in  such  a  fit  of  despondency  and  utter  indiffer-* 
cnce  to  detail  that  he  could  not  force  himself  to  revise,  re-write, 
and  condense ;  but  the  possibility  is  an  exceedingly  remote  one. 
We  know  how  finely  Shakespeare  generally  constnicted  his  plays, 
even  in  the  first  rough  draft. 

The  drama,  as  it  Stands,  presents  the  picture  of  a  thought« 
lessly  and  extravagantly  open-handed  nature,  whose  one  unfailing 
pleasure  is  to  give.  King  Lear  only  gave  away  his  possessions 
once,  and  then  in  his  old  age  and  to  his  daughters ;  but  Timon 
daily  bestows  money  and  jewels  upon  all  and  sundry.  At  the 
opening  of  the  play  he  is,  without  appearing  to  be  personally 
luxurious,  living  in  the  midst  of  all  the  voluptuousness  with 
which  a  Maecenas,  in  the  gayest  of  all  the  world's  gay  capitals, 
could  Surround  himself.  Artists  and  merchants  flock  round  the 
generous  patron  who  pays  them  more  than  they  ask.  A  chorus 
of  sycophants  sing  his  praises  day  and  night.  It  is  but  natural 
that,  under  those  circumstances,  a  carelessly  good-natured  tempera- 
ment  should  look  upon  society  as  a  circle  for  the  exchange  of 
friendly  Services,  which  it  is  equally  honourable  to  render  or 
receive. 

He  pays  no  heed  to  the  faithful  Steward  who  wams  him  that 
this  life  cannot  last.  He  no  more  disturbs  himself  about  the 
melting  of  his  money  from  his  coffers  than  if  he  were  living  in 
a  communistic  society  with  the  general  wealth  at  his  disposaL 

At  last  the  tide  of  fortune  tums.  His  cofiers  are  empty ;  the 
Steward  is  no  longer  able  to  find  him  money  to  fling  away,  and 
Timon  must  go  a  borrowing  in  his  tum.  Almost  before  the 
report  of  his  ruin  has  had  time  to  spread,  bills  come  pouring  in, 
and  his  impatient  creditors,  yesterday  his  comrades,  send  mes- 
sengers  for  their  money.  All  his  requests  for  a  loan  are  refused 
by  bis  former  friends — one  on  the  ground  of  his  own  poverty, 
while  another  professes  to  be  ofTended  because  he  was  not  applied 
to  in  the  first  instance,  and  a  third  will  not  even  lend  a  portion  of 
the  large  sums  Timon  has  but  lately  lavished  upon  him. 

Timon  has  hitherto  been  one  of  fortune's  favourites,  but  now 
the  tnie  nature  of  the  world  is  suddenly  revealed  to  him,  as  it 
was  to  Hamlet  and  King  Lear.  Like  theirs,  but  far  more  harsKV^ 
and  bitterly,  his  former  confiding  timplkiVj  \ä  t^\^3Bfit!^  Vi  ^x%aQS6^ 


S6o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

pessimism.  Wishing  to  show  his  false  friends  all  the  contempt 
he  feels  for  them,  Timon  invites  them  to  a  final  banquet,  and  they, 
supposing  that  he  has  recovered  his  wealth,  attend  with  excuses 
on  their  lips  for  their  recent  behaviour.  The  table  is  sumptuously 
spready  but  the  covered  dishes  contain  only  warm  water,  which 
Timon  disdainfully  flings  in  the  faces  of  his  guests. 

He  cuts  himself  adrift  from  all  intercourse  with  mankind,  and 
retreats  to  tlie  woods  to  lead  the  solitary  life  of  a  Stoic.  The 
half-jesting  retirement  of  Jaques  in  As  You  Like  It^  and  his 
dismissal  of  al)  who  trouble  his  solitude,  are  here  carried  out  in 
grim  earaest. 

It  is  not  for  long  that  he  remains  poor,  for  he  has  hardly 
begun  to  dig  for  the  roots  on  which  he  lives  than  he  finds 
treasure  buried  in  the  earth.  IJnlike  Lucian's  misanthrope, 
who  ^ejoices  in  the  possession  of  gold  as  a  means  of  securing 
a  life  free  from  care,  Shakespeare's  Timon  sickens  at  the  sight 
of  his  wealth.  Neither  does  he  care  for  the  honourable  amends 
made  by  his  countrymen.  We  leam  it  so  late  in  the  day  that 
we  can  scarcely  believe  that  Timon  was  formerly  a  skilful  general, 
who  had  done  good  service  to  his  country.  This  feature  is  taken 
from  Lucian,  and  the  character  of  the  luxurious  Msecenas  would 
have  gained  in  interest  aiid  nobility  if  this  trait  had  been  im- 
pressed  upon  us  earlier  in  the  play.  The  Senate,  meanwhile, 
being  threatened  with  war,  offers  Timon  the  sole  command. 
He  proudly  rejects  the  overtures  made  by  these  misers  and 
usurers  in  purple,  and  even  remains  unsoftened  by  the  faithful 
devotion  of  his  Steward.  He  anathematises  every  one  and  all 
things,  and  returns  to  his  cave  to  die  by  his  own  hand. 

The  non-Shakespearian  elements  of  the  play  do  not  prevent  his 
genius  and  master-hand  from  pervading  the  whole,  and  it  is  easy 
to  see  how  this  work  grew  out  of  the  one  immediately  preceding 
it,  to  trace  the  connecting  links  between  the  two  plays. 

When  Coriolanus  is  exasperated  by  the  ingratitude  of  the 
plebeians,  he  joins  the  enemies  of  his  country  and  people,  and 
becomes  the  assailant  of  his  native  city.  When  Timon  falls  a 
victim  to  the  thanklessness  of  those  he  has  loaded  with  benefits, 
his  hatred  embraces  the  whole  human  race.  The  contrast  is 
very  suggestive.  The  despair  of  Coriolanus  is  of  an  active  kind, 
driving  him  to  deeds  and  placing  him  at  the  head  of  an  army. 
Timon's  is  of  the  passive  sort:  he  merely  curses  and  shuns 
mankind.  It  is  not  until  the  discovery  of  the  treasure  determines 
him  to  use  his  wealth  in  spreading  corruption  and  misery  that 
his  hatred  takes  a  semi-practical  form.  This  contrast  was  not  an 
element  of  the  drama  until  Shakespeare  made  it  so. 

The  whole  conduct  of  his  Alcibiades  forms  a  complete  parallel 
to  that  of  Coriolanus,  and  here  again  the  connection  between  the 
two  plays  is  obvious.  Shakespeare  found  a  brief  account  of  the 
mutual  relatioQS  of  Timon  and  Alcibiades  in  North's  tnmslation 


TIMON  AND  CORIOLANUS  561 

of  Plutareh's  "Life  of  Antony,"  together  with  a  description  of 
Timon's  good-will  towards  the  general  on  account  of  the  cala- 
mities  that  he  foresaw  he  would  bring  upon  the  Athenians.  The 
name  of  Alcibiades  would  not  recall  to  Shakespeare,  as  it  does  to 
US,  the  most  glorious  period  of  Greek  culture,  and  such  names 
as  Pericles,  Aristophanes,  and  Plato — he  generally  gives  Latin 
names  to  his  Greeks,  such  as  Lucius,  Flavius,  Servilius,  &c. ; 
nor  did  it  represent  to  him  the  unrivalled  subtlety,  charm,  insta- 
bility,  and  reckless  extravagance  of  the  man.  He  would  read 
Plutarch's  comparison  of  Alcibiades  and  Coriolanus,  in  which  the 
Greek  and  Roman  generals  are  considered  homogeneous,  and  for 
Shakespeare  Alcibiades  was  merely  the  soldier  and  Commander; 
on  that  account  he  let  him  occupy  much  the  same  relation  to 
Timon  that  Fortinbras  did  to  Hamlet. 

Where  Timon  merely  hates,  Alcibiades  seizes  his  weapons; 
and  when  Timon  curses  indiscriminately,  Alcibiades  punishes 
severely  but  deliberately.  He  does  not  tear  down  the  city  walls 
and  put  every  tenth  Citizen  to  the  sword,  as  he  is  invited  to  do ; 
he  only  seeks  vengeance  on  his  personal  enemies  and  those  whom 
he  considers  guilty.  But  Timon,  like  Hamlet,  generalises  his 
bitter  experiences,  and  loathes  everything  that  bears  the  form  or 
name  of  man.  When  Athens  sends  to  entreat  him  to  take  the 
command  and  save  the  dty  from  the  violence  of  Alcibiades,  he  is 
harder  and  colder,  and  ä  hundred  tlmes  more  bitterly  relentless, 
than  Coriolanus,  who,  after  all,  could  bow  to  entreaty,  or  than 
Alcibiades,  who  is  satisfied  with  a  strictly  limited  vengeance. 
Timon's  loathing  of  life  and  hatred  of  humanity  is  consistent 
throughout. 

Like  Coriolanus^  this  play  was  undoubtedly  written  in  a  frame 
of  mind  which  prompted  Shakespeare  less  to  abandon  himself  to 
the  waves  of  imagination  than  to  dwell  upon  the  worthlessness 
of  mankind,  and  the  scornful  branding  of  the  contemptible. 
There  is  even  less  inventiveness  here  than  in  Coriolanus:  the 
plot  is  not  only  simple,  it  is  scanty — more  appropriate  to  a 
parable  or  didactic  poem  than  a  drama.  Most  of  the  charac- 
ters  are  merely  abstractly  representative  of  their  class  or  pro- 
fession,  e.g.  the  Poet,  the  Painter,  the  servants,  the  false  friends, 
the  flatterers,  the  creditors  and  mistresses.  They  are  simply 
cmployed  to  give  prominence  to  the  principal  figure,  or  rather,  to 
a  great  lyrical  outburst  of  bittemess,  scom,  and  execration. 

In  the  poet's  description  of  his  work  in  the  first  scene  of  the 
play,  Shakespeare  has  indicated  his  point  of  view  with  unusual 
precision : 

"  I  have,  in  this  rough  work,  sbaped  out  a  man 
WTiom  this  beneath  world  doth  embrace  and  hug 
With  amplest  entertainment.     .     .     . 
.     .     .     His  large  fortune, 
Upon  his  good  and  gracious  natvite\vax^gLT\%t 


S62  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Subdues  and  properties  to  bis  love  and  tendanoe 
All  sorts  of  hi^irts/' 

He  unfolds  an  allegory  in  which  Fortune  is  represented  as 
enthroned  upon  a  high  and  pleasant  hill,  from  whose  base  all 
kinds  of  people  are  struggling  upwards  to  better  their  condition : 

''  Amongst  them  all 
Whose  eyes  are  on  this  sovereign  lady  fixed, 
One  do  I  personate  of  lord  Timon's  fame, 
Whom  Fortune  with  her  ivory  band  wafts  to  her ; 
Whose  present  graoe  to  present  slaves  and  servants 
Translates  bis  rivals." 

The  Painter  justly  observes  that  the  allegory  of  the  hill  and 
the  enthroned  Fortune  could  be  equaUy  well  expressed  in  a 
picture  as  a  i)oem,  but  the  Poet  continues : 

**  When  Fortune,  in  her  shift  and  change  of  mood, 
Spums  down  her  late  beloved,  all  bis  dependante, 
Which  laboured  afler  hiin  to  the  mountain's  top, 
Bven  on  their  knees  and  hands,  let  him  slip  down, 
Not  one  accompanying  bis  decHning  foot" 

Shakespeare  has  defined  bis  purpose  here  as  clearly  as  did 
Daudet,  some  hundreds  of  years  later,  in  the  first  chapter  of  bis 
Sappho^  in  which  the  whole  course  of  the  story  is  symbolised  in 
the  ever-increasing  di£Sculty  with  which  the  hero  mounts  the 
stairs,  carrying  the  heroine  to  the  bighest  story  of  the  house  in 
which  he  lives.  The  bittemess  of  Shakespeare's  mood  is  shown 
in  the  distinct  indication  that  the  Poet  and  the  Painter,  rogues 
and  toadies  as  they  are,  stand  in  the  first  ranks  of  their  profes- 
sions,  and  cannot,  therefore,  daim  the  ezcuse  of  poverty.  It  is 
significant  of  the  dramatist's  low  opinion  of  bis  fellow-Graftsmen 
— not  one  of  them  is  mentioned  in  bis  will— that  be  should  make 
bis  Poet  most  eloquent  in  oondenmation  of  bis  own  peculiar 
fauks.    Hence  Timon's  ejaculation  in  the  last  act : 

''  Must  thou  needs  stand  for  a  villain  in  thine  own  work 
Wilt  thou  whip  thine  own  fiuilts  in  otfaer  men?" 


In  Tinum^  as  in  CoriokmuSf  Shakespeare  put  bis  own  tbougfats 
and  feelings  into  the  mouths  of  the  various  characters  of  the 
play.  Fabeness  and  ingratitude  are  the  subjects  of  the  most 
frequent  allusion.  They  were  uppermost  in  the  i)oet'8  mind  at 
the  time,  and  the  changes  are  rung  upon  tbese  vices  by  the 
Epicurean  and  the  Cynic,  by  sorvants  and  strangers,  before  and 
after  the  dimax.  Even  tbe  fickle  Poet  serves,  as  we  have  seen, 
as  spokesman  for  the  all-prevailing  idea;  and  the  Painter,  who 
ia  eyery  wfait  as  worthlesa,  aqr*  wiüi  droU  irony  (Act  v.  sc  x): 


SHAKESPEARES  PURPOSE  563 

"  Promising  is  the  very  air  o'  the  time :  it  opens  the  eyes  of  txpec- 
tation:  Performance  is  ever  the  duller  for  his  act;  and,  but  in  the 
plainer  and  simpler  kind  of  people,  the  deed  of  saying  is  quite  out  of 
use.  To  promise  is  most  courüy  and  fashionable :  Performance  is  a 
kind  of  will  or  testament,  which  argues  a  great  sickness  in  his  judg- 
ment  that  makes  it" 

If  there  was  one  thing  Shakespeare  loathed  above  another,  it 
was  the  lifeless  ceremony  which  disguises  hoUowness  and  fraud. 
Early  in  the  play  (Act  L  sc.  2)  Timon  says  to  his  guests : 

"  Nay,  my  lords, 
Ceremony  was  but  devised  at  first 
To  set  a  gloss  on  faint  deeds,  hollow  welcomes, 
Recanting  goodness,  sorry  ere  'tis  shown ; 
But  where  there  is  true  fnendship,  there  needs  none.'' 

Abhough  Apemantus  is  the  converse  ofTimon  at  every  point — 
coarse  where  he  is  refined,  mean  where  he  is  generous,  and  base 
where  he  is  noble — ^yet  in  his  first  monologue  the  Cynic  also 
strikes  the  keynote  of  the  piece  (Act  i.  sc.  2) : 

**  We  make  ourselves  fools,  to  disport  ourselves; 
And  spend  our  flatteries,  to  drink  those  men 
Upon  whose  age  we  void  it  up  again, 
With  poisonous  spite  and  envy. 
Who  lives,  that's  not  depravbd  or  depraves? 
Who  dies,  that  bears  not  one  spum  to  their  graves 
Oftheirfriend'sgift?" 

The  first  stranger  says  in  a  speech,  whose  monotony  betrays 
the  fact  that  it  was  not  entirely  Shakespeare's  although  he  has 
retouched  it  in  several  places  (notably  the  italicised  lines) : 

"  Who  can  call  him 
His  fiiend  that  dips  in  the  same  dish  ?  for,  in 
My  knowing;,  Timon  hath  been  this  lord's  father. 
And  kept  bis  credit  with  his  purse ; 
Supported  his  estate ;  nay,  Timon's  money 
Has  paid  his  men  their  wages :  Äe  n^er  drinks^ 
But  Timon^s  silver  treads  upon  his  Up  ; 
And  yet,  (oh,  see  the  monstrousness  of  man 
When  he  looks  out  in  an  ungrateful  shape !) 
He  does  deny  him  in  respect  of  bis, 
What  charitable  men  afford  to  beggars  "  (Act  iü.  sc.  a). 

Finally,  like  the  serving-man  in  the  Capitol,  who  ezpresses 
his  approval  of  G)riolanus'  self-conceit,  Timon's  servant,  when 
his  application  for  a  loan  is  refused,  says : 

"  The  deyil  knew  not  what  he  did  when  he  made  man  politio ;  he 
cfotsedhimself  bj't:  and  I  caimotthiDkb\il^m^^«iMi«^^'«^^aib3^i» 


564  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  men  will  set  him  clear.  How  fairly  this  lord  strives  to  appear  foult 
takes  virtuous  copies  to  be  wicked ;  like  those  that^  under  hot^  ardaä 
ual^  would  set  whoie  realms  onfireJ* 

This  Sirect,  unmistakable  attack  upon  Puritanism  has  a  re- 
markable  effect  Coming  from  the  lips  of  a  Grecian  servant,  and 
we  may  gather  from  it  some  idea  of  the  general  aim  of  all  these 
outbursts  against  hypocrisy. 

We  must  now,  with  a  view  to  defining  the  non-Shakespearian 
elements  of  the  play,  devote  some  attention  to  its  dual  authorship. 
In  the  first  act  it  is  particularly  the  prose  dialogues  between 
Apemantus  and  others  which  seem  unworthy  of  Shakespeare. 
The  repartee  is  laconic  but  laboured — ^not  always  witty,  though 
invariably  bitter  and  disdainful.  The  style  somewhat  resembles 
that  of  the  coUoquies  between  Diogenes  and  Alexander  in  Lyly's 
Alexander  and  Campaspe,  The  first  of  Apemantus'  conversa- 
tions  might  have  been  written  by  Shakespeare — it  seems  to 
have  some  sort  of  continuity  with  the  utterances  of  Thersites  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida — but  the  second  has  every  appearance  of 
being  either  an  interpolation  by  a  stränge  band,  or  a  scene  which 
Shakespeare  had  forgotten  to  score  out  Flavius's  monologue 
(Act  i.  sc.  2)  never  came  from  Shakespeare's  pen  in  this  form. 
Its  marked  contrast  to  the  rest  shows  that  it  might  be  the 
outcome  of  notes  taken  by  some  blundering  shorthand  writer 
among  the  audience. 

The  long  conversation,  in  the  second  act,  between  Apemantus, 
the  Fool,  Caphis,  and  various  servants,  was,  in  all  probability, 
written  by  an  alien  band.  It  contains  nothing  but  idle  chatter 
devised  to  amuse  the  gallery,  and  it  introduces  characters  who 
seem  about  to  take  some  Standing  in  the  play,  but  who  vanish 
iramediately,  leaving  no  trace.  A  Page  comes  with  messages  and 
letters  from  the  mistress  of  a  brothel,  to  which  the  Fool  appears 
to  belong,  but  we  are  told  nothing  of  the  contents  of  these  letters, 
whose  addresses  the  bearer  is  unable  to  read. 

In  the  third  act  there  is  much  that  is  feeble  and  irrelevant, 
together  with  an  aimless  unrest  which  incessantly  pervades  the 
stage.  It  is  not  until  the  banqueting  scene  tow^xis  the  end  of 
the  act  that  Shakespeare  makes  bis  presence  feit  in  the  storm 
which  bursts  from  Timon's  lips.  The  powerful  fourth  act  dis- 
plays  Shakespeare  at  his  best  and  strongest ;  there  is  very  little 
here  which  could  be  attributed  to  alien  sources.  I  cannot  under- 
stand  the  decision  with  which  English  critics  (including  a  poet 
like  Tennyson)  have  condemned  as  spurious  Flavius's  monologue 
at  the  dose  of  the  second  scene.  Its  drift  is  that  of  the  speech 
in  the  following  scene,  in  which  he  expresses  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  play  in  one  line:  "What  viler  things  upon  the  earth  than 
friends!"  Although  there  is  evidently  some  confusion  in  the 
tbiTd  scene  (for  example,  the  intimation  of  the.  Poet's  and  Painter's 


THE  NON-SHAKESPEARIAN  ELEMENTS  565 

appearance  long  before  they  reaUy  arrive),  I  cannot  agree  with 
Fleay  that  Shakespeare  had  no  share  in  the  passage  contained 
between  the  lines, "  Where  liest  o'  nights,  Timon  ?  "  and  "  Thou 
art  the  cap  of  all  the  fools  alive." 

One  Speech  in  particular  betrays  the  master-hand.  It  is  that 
in  which  Timon  ezpresses  the  wish  that  Apemantus's  desire  to 
become  a  beast  among  beasts  may  be  fulfilled : 

"  If  thou  wert  the  Hon,  the  fox  would  beguile  thee :  if  thou  wert 
the  lamb,  the  fox  would  eat  thee :  if  thou  wert  the  fox,  the  lion  would 
suspect  thee  when,  peradventure,  thou  wert  accused  by  the  ass :  if  thou 
wert  the  ass,  thy  dulness  would  torment  thee :  and  still  thou  livedst 
but  as  a  breakfast  to  the  wolf :  if  thou  wert  the  wolf,  thy  greediness 
would  afflict  thee,  and  oft  thou  shouldst  hazard  thy  life  for  thy  dinner." 

There  is  as  much  knowledge  of  life  here  as  in  a  concentrated 
essence  of  all  Lafontaine's  fahles. 

The  last  scenes  of  the  fifth  act  were  evidently  never  revised 
by  Shakespeare.  It  is  a  comical  incongruity  that  makes  the 
soldier  who,  we  are  ezpressly  told,  is  unable  to  read,  capable  of 
distinguishing  Timon's  tomb,  and  even  of  having  the  forethought 
to  take  a  wax  impression  of  the  words.  There  is  also  an  amal- 
gamation  of  the  two  contradictory  inscriptions;  of  which  the  first 
teils  US  that  the  dead  man  wishes  to  remain  nameless  and  un- 
known,  while  the  last  two  lines  begin  with  the  declaration,  "  Here 
lie  I,  Timon."  Notwithstanding  the  shocking  condidon  of  the 
text,  the  repeatedly  occurring  confusion  of  the  action,  and  the 
evident  marks  of  an  allen  band,  Shakespeare's  leading^dea  and 
dominant  purpose  is  never  for  a  moment  obscured.  j  Much  in 
Timon  reminds  us  of  King  Lear^  the  injudiciously  flistributed 
benefits  and  the  ingratitude  of  their  recipients  are  the  same,  but 
in  the  former  the  bitterness  and  virulence  are  tenfold  greater, 
and  the  genius  incontestably  less.  Lear  is  supported  in  his 
misfortunes  by  the  brave  and  manly  Kent,  the  faithful  Fool,  that 
truest  of  all  true  hearts,  Cordelia,  her  husband,  the  valiant  King 
of  France.  There  is  but  one  who  remains  faithful  to  Timon, 
a  servant,  which  in  those  days  meant  a  slave,  whose  self-sacri- 
ficing  devotion  forces  his  master,  sorely  against  his  will,  to  except 
one  man  from  his  universal  vituperation.  In  his  own  class  he 
does  not  meet  with  a  Single  honestly  devoted  heart,  either  man's 
er  woman's;  he  has  no  daughter,  as  Lear;  no  mother,  as  Corio- 
lanus ;  no  friend,  not  one. 

How  far  more  fortunate  was  Antony !  It  is  a  comipt  world 
in  the  process  of  dissolution  that  we  find  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
Most  of  it  is  rotten  or  false,  but  the  passion  binding  the  two 
principal  characters  together  by  its  magic  is  entirely  genuine. 
Perdican's  profound  speech  in  De  Musset's  **  On  ne  badine  pas 
avec  Famour  "  applies  both  to  them  and  the  whole  play :  ''  Toua 
ks  hommes  sont  menteurs^  inoonstanXs,  fasn^  \»N%x^\i^f^»(x^M^ 


S66  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

orgueilleux;  toutes  les  femmes  soqt  artificieuses,  perfides,  vani- 
teuses ;  le  monde  n'est  qu'un  6gout  sans  fond ;  mais  il  y  au  monde 
une  chose  sainte  et  sublime,  c'est  Tunion  de  deux  de  ces  ttrts 
imparfaits."  This  simple  fact,  that  Antony  and  Cleopatra  love 
one  another,  ennobles  and  purifies  them  both,  and  consoles  us, 
the  spectators,  for  the  disaster  their  passion  brings  upon  them. 
Timon  has  no  mistress,  no  relation  with  the  other  sex,  only  con- 
tempt  for  it. 

There  is  a  significant  revelation  of  the  crudity  and  stupidity 
with  which,  even  before  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  centiuy, 
Shakespeare's  admirers  made  free  with  him,  in  an  adaptation 
which  Shadwell  published  in  1678  under  the  title  ''  The  History 
of  Timon  the  Man  Hater  into  a  Play."  In.  this  Timon  is  repre- 
sented  as  deserting  his  mistress  Evandra,  by  whom  he  is 
passionately  loved  to  the  last.  This  introduction  of  a  sym- 
pathetic  woman's  character  naturally  secured  the  play  a  success 
which  was.  never  attained  by  Shakespeare's  hero,  a  solitary 
misanthrope  alone  with  his  bitterness.  Shakespeare  has  inten- 
tionally  veiled  the  defects  of  nature  and  judgment  which  deprive 
Timon  to  some  extent  of  our  sympathy,  both  in  his  prosperity 
and  his  misfortunes.  He  had  never  in  his  bright  dajrs  attached 
himself  so  warmly  to  any  heart  that  he  feit  it  beat  in  unison  with 
his  own.  Had  he  ever  been  powerfuUy  drawn  to  a  Single  friend, 
he  would  not  have  squandered  his  possessions  so  lightly  on  all 
the  World.  Because  he  only  loved  mankind  in  the  mass,  he  now 
hates  them  in  the  mass.  He  never,  now  as  then,  shows  any 
powers  of  discrimination. 

Shakespeare  merely  used  him  as  a  well-known  example  of  the 
punishment  simple-minded  tnistfulness  brings  upon  itself ;  his 
indiscretion  is  the  outcome  of  native  nobility,  and  his  wrath  is 
perfectly  justifiable.  We  feel  that  Timon  possesses  the  poet's 
sympathy  and  compassion,  even  when  his  abhorrence  of  humanity 
passes  the  bounds  of  hatred,  and  becomes  a  passion  for  its 
annihüation.  Timon  tums  hermit  in  order  to  escape  from  the 
sight  of  human  beings,  and  this  misanthropy  is  no  mere  mask 
wom  to  conceal  his  despair  at  the  loss  of  this  world's  goods, 
since  it  Stands  the  test  of  the  finding  of  the  treasure.  He  no 
longer  looks  upon  wealth  as  the  means  of  procuring  pleasure,  but 
only  as  an  Instrument  of  vengeance.  It  is  for  that,  and  that  alone, 
that  he  rejoices  when  the  '^yellow  glittering,  predous  gold^  fiills 
into  his  hands : 

"  Why,  this 
WUl  log  your  i»riests  and  servant»  ftom  your  sides, 
.  .  •  Make  the  hoar  leprosy  adored,  place  thieves 
And  give  them  title,  knee,  and  approbation 
Wüh  Senators  on  the  bencfa;  this  is  it 
That  makes  the  wapoened  fridow  wed  agaia; 
8be  whom  ihe  spitu^xraie  tuA  ^aikxMraa  mms 


TIMON  AND  ALCIBIADES  5^7 

Would  cast  the  gorge  at^  this  embalms  and  spiees 
To  the  April  day  again  "  (Act  iv.  sc.  3). 

Whcn  Alcibiades,  who  was  formerly  on  friendly  terms  with 
him  and  has  retained  some  kindly  feeling  towards  him,  disturbs 
his  solitude  by  a  visit,  Timon  receives  him  with  the  ezclamation : 

"  The  canker  gnaw  thy  heart 
For  showing  me  again  the  eyes  of  man ! 

Aldbiades,  What  is  thy  name?    Is  man  so  hateful  to  thee 
That  art  thyself  a  man  ? 

Timon,  I  am  Misanthropos,  and  hate  mankind. 
For  thy  part,  I  do  wish  thou  wert  a  dog 
That  I  might  love  thee  something  "  (Act  iv.  sc.  3). 

So  might  old  Schopenhauer,  with  his  loathing  for  men  and 
his  love  for  dogs,  have  expressed  himself.  Timon  explains  this 
hatred  as  the  result  of  a  dispassionate  insight  into  the  worthless- 
ness  of  human  nature : 

"  For  every  guise  of  fortune 
Is  smoothed  by  that  below :  the  leamed  pate 
Ducks  to  the  golden  fool :  all  is  oblique ; 
There's  nothing  level  in  our  cursM  natures 
But  direct  villaAy.'* 

When  Alcibiades,  who  appears  in  Company  with  two  hetaerae, 
addresses  Timon  in  friendly  fashion,  the  latter  turns  to  abuse  one 
of  the*  women,  declaring  that  she  carries  more  destruction  with 
her  than  the  soldier  does  in  his  sword.  She  retorts,  and  he  rails 
at  her  in  the  fashion  of  Troilus  and  Cressida.  In  his  eyes  the 
wanton  woman  is  merely  the  disseminator  of  disease,  and  he 
ezpresses  the  hope  that  she  may  bring  many  a  young  man  to 
sickness  and  misery.    Alcibiades  offers  to  serve  him : 

"  Noble  Timon, 
What  friendship  may  I  do  thee  ? 

Timon.  None,  but  to  maintain  my  opinion« 

Alcibiades.  What  is  it,  Timon? 

Timon.  Promise  me  friendship»  but  perform  none.* 

When  Alcibiades  informs  him  that  he  is  leading  his  army 
against  Athens,  Timon  prays  that  the  gods  will  give  him  the 
victory,  in  order  that  he  may  exterminate  the  people  root  and 
brauch,  and  himself  afterwards.  He  gives  him  gold  for  his  war, 
and  conjures  him  to  rage  like  a  pestilence : 

"  Let  not  thy  sword  skip  one : 
Pity  not  honoured  age  for  his  white  beard ; 
He  is  an  usurer :  sttute  me  the  count^eit  matroa, 
It  is  her  habit  only  that  is  honest, 
Herself  s  a  bawd :  let  not  the  ^nx^*«  diMk 


568  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Make  soft  thy  trenchant  sword ;  for  those  milk  paps 

That  through  the  window  bars  bore  at  men's  eyes 

Are  not  wiihin  the  leaf  of  pity  writ, 

But  set  them  down  horrible  traitors :  spare  not  the  babe^ 

Whose  dimpled  smile  from  fools  exhaust  their  mercy ; 

Think  it  a  bastard,  whom  the  oracle 

Hath  doubtfuUy  pronounced  thy  throat  shall  cut, 

And  mince  it  sans  remorse :  swear  against  objects ; 

Put  armour  on  thine  ears  and  on  thine  eyes ; 

Whose  proofs,  nor  yells  of  mothers,  maids,  nor  babes, 

Nor  sight  of  priests  in  holy  vestments  bleeding, 

Shall  pierce  a  jot.     There's  gold  to  pay  thy  soldiers : 

Make  large  confusion :  and,  thy  fury  spent, 

Confoimded  be  thyself "  (Act  iv.  sc.  3). 

The  women,  seeing  his  wealth,  immediately  beg  him  for  gold, 
and  he  answers,  "Hold  up,  you  sluts,  your  aprons  mountant." 
They  are  not  to  swear,  for  their  oaths  are  worthless,  but  they  are 
to  go  on  deceiving,  and  being  "  whores  still,"  they  are  to  seduce 
him  to  attempts  to  convert  them^  and  to  deck  their  own  thin  hair 
with  the  hair  of  corpses,  that  of  hanged  women  preferably ;  they 
are  to  paint  and  rouge  until  they  themselves  lie  dead:  "Paint 
tili  a  horse  may  mire  upon  your  face/' 

They  shout  to  him  for  more  gold ;  they  will  "  do  anything  for 
gold."  Timon  answers  them  in  words  which  Shakespeare,  for  all 
the  pathos  of  his  youth,  has  never  surpassed,  words  whose  frenzied 
scathing  has  never  been  equalled : 

"  Consumptions  sow 
In  hoUow  bones  of  men :  strike  their  sharp  shins, 
And  mar  men's  spurring ;  crack  the  lawyer's  voice, 
That  he  may  never  more  false  title  plead, 
Nor  sound  his  quillets  shrilly :  hoar  the  flamen, 
That  scolds  against  the  quality  of  flesh, 
And  not  believes  himself :  down  with  the  nose, 
Down  with  it  flat :  take  the  bridge  quite  away 
Of  him  that,  his  particular  to  foresee, 

Smells  from  the  general  weal :  make  curled-pate  ruffians  bald. 
And  let  the  unscarred  rufSans  of  the  war 
Derive  some  pain  from  you :  plague  all : 
That  your  activity  may  defeat  and  quell 
The  source  of  all  erection.     There's  more  gold : 
Do  you  damn  others»  and  let  this  damn  you. 
And  ditches  grave  you  all. 
Phrynia  and  Timandra.   More  counsel  with  more  gold, 
bounteous  Timon." 

The  passion  in  this  is  overpowering.  One  need  only  compare 
it  with  Lucian  to  realise  the  fire  that  Shakespeare  has  put  into 
the  old  Greek,  whose  refIection9  a^re  only  savage  in  substance, 
being   absoJutely  tarne  in  ezpression — ''The  name  of  misan« 


SHAKESPEARE'S  BITTERNESS  569 


thrope  shall  sound  sweetest  in  my  ears,  and  my  characteristics 
shall  be  peevishness,  harshness,  rudeness,  hostility  towards 
men,"  &c.  Compare  this  scene  with  the  latter  part  of  Plutarch's 
AlctbiadeSy  to  which  we  know  Shakespeare  had  referred,  and 
see  what  the  poet's  acrimony  has  made  of  Timandra,  the  faithful 
mistress  who  foUows  Alcibiades  to  Phrygia.  They  are  together 
when  his  murderess  sets  fire  to  the  house,  and  it  is  Timandra 
who  enshrouds  his  body  in  the  most  costly  material  she  possesses, 
and  gives  him  as  splendid  a  funeral  as  her  isolated  position  can 
secure. 

i  Apemantus  follows  close   upon  Alcibiades,  and  after  he  is 

^  driven  away,  two  bandits  appear,  attracted  by  the  report  of  the 
treasure.  Timon  welqomes  them,  crying,  "  Rascal  thieves,  here's 
gold.'*  He  adds  good  advice  to  the  money.  They  are  to  drink 
wine  until  it  drive^them  mad,  so  they  may,  perchance,  escape  hang- 
ing; they  are  to  put  no  trust  in  physicians,  whose  antidotes  are 
poisons ;  when  they  can,  they  are  to  kill  as  well  as  steal.  Theft 
is  universal,  the  law  itself  being  only  made  to  conceal  robbery : 

"  Rob  one  another.     There's  more  gold.     Cut  throats. 
i  All  that  you  meet  are  thieves :  to  Athens  go ; 

Break  open  shops ;  nothing  can  you  steal 
But  thieves  do  lose  it,** 

The  worthy  Proudhon  himself  has  not  set  forth  more  plainly 
his  axiom,  "  Property  is  theft." 

When  the  Senate  appeals  to  Timon  for  his  assistance  as 
general  and  statesman,  he  first  professes  sympathy,  then  cries : 

"  If  Alcibiades  kill  my  countrymen, 
Let  Alcibiades  know  this  of  Timon, 
That  Timon  cares  not." 


He  may  sack  Athens,  pull  old  men  by  the  beard,  and  give  the 
sacred  virgins  over  to  the  mercies  of  the  soldiery.  Timon  cares 
as  little  as  the  soldier's  knife  recks  of  the  throats  it  cuts.  The 
most  worthless  blade  in  Alcibiades'  camp  is  more  valued  by  him 
than  any  life  in  Athens.  All  feeling  for  country,  home,  even  for 
the  helpless,  has  utterly  perished. 

Shakespeare  borrows  a  final  touch  from  Plutarch,  which,  in 
his  band,  becomes  a  masterpiece  of  bloodthirsty  irony.  He 
declares  he  does  not,  as  they  suppose,  rejoice  in  the  general 
desolation ;  his  countrymen  shall  once  more  enjoy  his  hospitality. 
A  fig-tree  grows  by  his  cave,  which  it  is  his  Intention  to  cut 
down ;  but  before  it  is  felled,  any  friend  of  his,  high  or  low,  who 
»  wishes  to  escape  the  horrors  of  a  siege,  is  welcome  to  come  and 
hang  himself.  He  next  announces  that  his  grave  is  prepared,  and 
they  that  seek  him  may  come  thither  and  find  an  oracle  in  his 
tombstone,  then : 


570  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

"  Lips,  let  sour  words  go  by  and  language  end : 
M^t  is  amiss,  plague  and  infection  mend ! 
Graves  only  be  man's  works  and  death  their  gain  1 
Sun,  hide  thy  beams  !  Timon  hath  done  bis  reign." 

These  are  bis  last  words.  May  pestilence  rage  amongst  men : 
May  it  infect  and  destroy  so  long  as  tbere  is  a  man  left  to  dig  a 
grave !  May  the  world  be  annihilated  as  Timon  is  about  to  anni- 
hilate  himself.  The  light  of  the  sun  will  presently  be  extin- 
guished  for  him ;  let  it  be  extinguished  for  all ! 

This  is  not  Othello's  sorrow  over  the  power  of  evil  to  wreck 
the  hapinness  of  noble  hearts,  nor  King  Lear's  wail  over  the 
ever-threatening  possibilities  and  the  heaped-up  miseries  of  life : 
it  is  an  angry  bittemess,  caused  by  ingratitude,  which  has 
grown  so  great  that  it  darkens  the  sky  of  life  and  causes  the 
thunder  to  roll  with  such  threatening  peals  H^  we  have  never 
heard  even  in  Shakespeare.  All  that  he  has  lived  through  in 
these  last  years,  and  all  that  he  has  suffered  from  the  baseness  of 
other  men,  is  concentrated  in  this  colossal  figure  of  the  desperate 
man-hater,  whose  wild  rhetoric  is  like  a  dark  essence  of  blood 
and  gall  drawn  off  to  relieve  suffering. 


XIV 

CON  VA  LESCENCE—TRA  NSFORMA  TION— 

THE  NEW  TYPE 

The  last,  wildest  words  of  this  bitter  outbreak  had  been  spoken. 
The  dark  cloud  had  burst  and  the  skies  were  slowly  Clearing. 

It  seems  as  though  the  blackest  of  his  griefs  had  been  lightened 
in  the  utterance,  and  now  that  the  steady  crescendo  had  burst  into 
its  most  furious  forte^  he  breathed  more  freely  again.  He  had 
Said  his  say ;  Timon  had  called  for  the  extinction  of  humanity  by 
plague,  sexual  disease,  slaughter,  and  suicide.  The  powers  of 
cursing  could  go  no  farther. 

Shakespeare  has  shouted  himself  hoarse  and  his  fury  is  spent. 
The  fever  is  over  and  convalescence  has  set  in.  The  darkened 
sun  shines  out  once  more,  and  the  gloomy  sky  shines  blue  again. 

How  and  why !     Who  shall  say  ? 

In  all  the  obscurity  of  Shakespeare's  life-history,  nowhere  do 
we  feel  our  ignorance  of  his  personal  experiences  more  acutely 
than  here.  Some  have  sought  an  explanation  in  the  resignation 
which  comes  with  advancing  years,  and  of  which  we  certainly 
catch  glimpses  in  his  latest  works.  But  Shakespeare  neither  was, 
nor  feit  himself,  old  at  forty-five;  and  the  word  resignation  is 
meaningless  in  connection  with  this  marvellous  softening  of  his 
long  exasperated  mood.  It  is  more  than  a  mere  reconciliation ;  it 
is  a  revival  of  that  free  and  lambent  Imagination  which  has  lain 
so  long  in  what  seemed  to  be  its  death-swoon.  There  is  no  play 
of  fancy  in  resignation. 

Once  more  he  finds  life  worth  living,  the  earth  beautiful,  en- 
chantingly,  fantasticaUy  attractive,  and  those  who  dwell  upon  it 
worthy  of  his  love. 

In  the  purely  extemal  circumstances  no  change  has  occurred. 
The  political  outlook  in  England  is  the  same,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  he  would  be  greatly  stirred  by  events  such  as  the  assassina- 
tion  of  Henry  IV.  of  France  in  1610  and  the  consequent  expulsion 
of  the  Jesuits  from  Great  Britain.  Details — like  the  decree  for- 
bidding  English  Catholics  (Recusants)  from  Coming  within  ten 
miles  of  the  Court,  and  James's  removal  of  his  mother's  bones  and 
their  pompous  re-interment  in  Westminster  Abbey— could  have 
little  eflfect  upon  Shakespeare. 

Vniat  bBs  pcrsonally  befollen  him  that  Yva:^  YiaA  «a^dci  v^*<^"^^  >>^ 


572 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


re-attune  his  spirit  and  lead  it  back  from  discord  to  the  old  melody 
and  harmony  ?  Surely  we  are  now  brought  face  to  face  with  one 
of  the  decisive  crises  of  his  life. 

Let  US  anticipate  the  works  yet  to  be  written — Pericles,  Cym- 
beline^  Wintet's  Tale,  and  Tb^  Temfiut, 

In  this  last  splendid  period  of  his  life's  glowing  September, 
his  dramatic  activity,  bearing  about  it  the  clear  transparent  atmos- 
phere  of  early  autumn,  is  more  richly  varied  now  than  it  has  evcr 
been. 

What  figures  occupy  the  most  prominent  place  in  the  poet*s 
sumptuous  harvest-home  but  the  young,  womanly  forms  of  Marina, 
Imogen,  Perdita,  and  Mirandq.  Th<>g^  gjrjish  and  fnrgakencrea- 
tures  are  lost  and  found  again,  suner  grievous  wrongs,  and  are  in 
noxase  chenshed  as  they  deserygj  but  their  charm.  purity.  and 
nobihtyoTnature  triumph  over  eveiyttiingi 
•     Theymüst  haveHad  their  prototjrpes  or  type. 

A  new  World  has  opened  out  to  Shakespeare,  but  it  would  be 
profitless  to  spend  much  time  on  more  or  less  probable  conjectures 
conceming  how  and  by  whom  it  was  revealed.  We  wil^  there- 
fore,  only  lightly  touch  upon  the  possibility  that  Shakespeare, 
after  and  during  the  violent  crisis  of  his  loathing  for  humanity, 
was  gradually  reconciled  to  life  by  some  young  and  womanly 
nobility  of  soul,  and  by  all  the  poetry  which  surrounds  it  and 
foUows  in  its  train. 

All  these  youthful  women  are  akin,  and  are  sharply  separated 
from  the  heroines  of  his  former  plays.  They  are  half-real,  half- 
imaginary.  T)^  ch^""  0^  yguth  and  fantastic  romancejshines 
XQ\\r\d  thpm  like  a  h^o^the  foulness  of  life  has  no  power  to^efiJe 
thein^  Thgy  arft....seIf^j::^ajgyLJSgUh^LJadi^^  ihe 

feioyant  spirit  of  his  earIier_adventurous  malHeHi^^andL  tB^  i^rc 
gentle  withou]Jbeiiig^overshadoweri5y^  pathetic  moumjulness 
ofTiis  sacrifidal  victims]     Not  on^  comes  to'aTfagic  end,  and  not 


one  ever  utters  a  jest,  5ut  all  are  holy  in  the  poet's  eyes. 

The  situations  of  Manna  and  Perdita  are  very  similar;  both 
are  castaways,  apparently  fatherless  and  motherless,  left  solitary 
amidst  dangerous  or  pitiable  circumstances.  Imogen  is  suspected 
and  her  life  threatened,  like  Marina's,  and  although  she  is  sus- 
pected and  sentenced  to  death  by  her  nearest  and  dearest,  her 
strength  never  falters,  and  even  her  love  for  her  unworthy  husband 
is  unimpaired. 

Mi.^)adais-4epnved  of  her  rank  andxQpdemnedto  the  solitude 
of  a^esertisland,  but  ijjhelteredlgviM^^  a  fäthegsj^t^SL 

fiil  cäre.    Tl\erete1nd6ea^a  |iaIMatherl3t..tendimess  in  tKe^delinea^ 
^|on  of  MiraMa,,  an^  iHe^oncepBonof  the  native  charm  o£  a^ 
^oung  girl  asj^wondeiful  mystery  of  nature.   -J^itherMolifere^s 
Agnes  ngf'SSa&espeare's  Miranda  haveeyer  loofeed  u^on^e  face 
of  a  young  map  before  thfcy  meel  tEe^one"  they  iove,  bursigfies' 

i^giotaxice  and  imiooence 


^  \  \\k  lAM 


SHAKESPEARE'S  WOMEN  573 

sappear  like  dew  before  the  sun  of  love,  X9,Sb3J"^s£5BEfii 
•^EPSE^^-li^.**  beingjmmanotherworid^^njdeal^fpure 
dl  womanhood  anHJmaideniy  p^5l5n,  betore^which  he  almost^ 

„a-mTwörsbJpr 

_et  US  glance  back  at  Shakespeare'«  gallery  of  women. 

^here  are  the  viragoes  of  bis  youth,  bloodthirsty  women  like 
va,  guilty  and  powerful  ones  iike  Margaret  of  Anjou,  and 

,  ^^dy  Macbeth,  Goneril,  and  Regan ;  there  are  feeble  women 
^ne  in  Richard  III.,  and  shrews  hke  Katharine  and  Adriana, 
n  we  seem  lo  detect  a  reminiscence  of  the  wife  at  Stratford. 
*  ..-.'n  we  have  the  passionately  loving,  ]ike  Julia  in  Two 
Genflemen  of  Verona,  Venus,  Titania,  Helena  in  AiFs  Well  tkat 
Ends  Well,  and,  above  all,  JuUet.  There  are  the  charmingly 
witty  and  oflcn  frolicsome  young  girls,  like  Rosaline  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  Portia  in  the  Merckant  of  Venice,  Beatrice,  Viola, 
and  Rosalind. 

Then  the  simply-minded,  deeply-feeling,  silent  natures,  with 
an  element  of  tragedy  about  them,  pre-ordained  to  destruction — 
Ophelia,  Desdemona,  Cordelia.  Aller  these  come  the  merely 
sensual  types  of  bis  bitter  mood — Cleopatra  and  Cressida. 

And  now,  lastly,  the  young  girl,  drawn  with  the  ripened  man's 
rapture  over  her  youth,  and  a  certain  passion  of  admiration.' 
She  had  been  lost  to  him,  as  Marina  to  her  father  Pericles,  and 
Perdita  to  her  father  Leoutes.  He  feels  for  her  the  same  fatherlv 
tendemess  which  his  last  incarnation.  jthe  magician  Prospcro,  feels 
for  bis  daughter  Miranda.  ' 

He  had  taken  a  greater  bürden  of  life  upon  himself  in  the  past 
than  he  well  could  bear,  and  he  now  lays  its  heaviest  portion 
aside.  No  more  tragedies !  No  more  historical  dramas !  No 
more  of  the  horrors  of  realism !  In  their  stead  a  fantastic  reflec- 
tion  of  life,  with  all  the  changes  and  chances  of  fairy-tale  and 
legend !  A  framework  of  fanciful  poetry  woven  around  the 
charming  seriousness  of  the  youthfui  womaa  and  the  serious 
charm  of  the  young  girl. 

It  works  like  a  vision  from  another  world,  an  enchantment  set 
in  surroundings  as  dream-like  as  itself.  A  ship  in  the  open  sea 
oflf  Mitylene ;  a  stränge,  deüghtful,  ocean-encircled  Bohemia  ;  a 
lonely,  magically-protected  Island ;  a  Britain,  where  kings  of  the 
Roman  period  and  Italians  of  the  sixteenth  Century  meet  young 
princes  who  dwell  in  woodland  caves  and  have  never  seen  the  face 
of  woman. 

'  In  Mrs.  Janieson's  channing  old  book,  ShoMisfuar^s  Fimalt  Charaettrt,  ihe 
has  giouped  his  vomen  in  an  arbitnuy  mann«.  Disrcgarcling  all  chronological 
leqacTice,  she  divides  twenly-three  charicten  into  foui  groups : — t.  Chmcler«  of 
Inlellecl.  2.  Chatacten  of  Passion  and  Imaginalion.  3.  Charactcis  of  the  Affec- 
tioni.  4.  Hislorical  characters.  Heine  characlenses  forty-five  feminine  figures  in 
his   Skairipear^i  MÖdthtn  und  Frauen,  bnt  tbe  last   twenty-one  are   onljr  diitin- 

Sished  by  a  few  qualations,  and  he  maka  no  attcmpt  at  any  dee^  mtec^nMaKtb, 
toricaj  Ol  paytHmopetL 


574  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Thusiie  gradually  retums  to  those  brighter  moods  of  bis  youth 
from  wbicb  the  fairy  dances  of  tbe  Midsumtner  Night s  Dream 
bad  evolved,  or  that  unknown  Forest  of  Arden  in  which  cypresses 
grew  and  lions  prowled,  and  happy  youth  and  mirthful  maiden« 
hood  carelessly  roamH.  Only  the  spirit  of  frolic  has  departed, 
while  free  play  is  given  to  a  fancy  unbampered  by  the  laws  oif 
reality,  and  much  eamest  discemment  lies  behind  tbe  untram- 
melled  sport  of  imagination.  He  waves  the  magician's  wand  and 
reality  vanishes,  now,  as  formerly.  But  the  light  heart  has  grown 
sorrowful,  and  its  mirth  is  no  more  than  a  faint  smile.'  He  offers 
the  daydreams  of  a  lonely  spirit  now,  rieh  but  evanescent  visions, 
occupying  in  all  a  period  of  from  four  to  five  years. 

Then  Prospero  buries  bis  magic  wand  a  fathom  deep  in  the 
earth  for  ever. 


XV 

PERICLES—COLLABORATION  WITH  WILKINS  AND 
ROWLEY— SHAKESPEARE  AND  CORNEILLE 

Sevenfold  darkness  surrounds  Shakespeare's  productions  in 
that  transition  period  during  which  morbid  distnist  was  giving 
way  to  thc  brighter  vicw  of  life  we  find  in  bis  later  plays.  We 
possess  a  brief  series  of  plays:  Titnan  of  Athens  and  PericUs^ 
which  are  plainly  only  partially  bis  work,  and  Hmty  VIIL  and 
The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen^  of  which  we  may  confidently  assert 
that  Shakespeare  had  nothing  to  do  with  them  beyond  the  inser- 
tion  of  Single  important  speeches  and  the  addition  of  a  few  valu- 
able  touches. 

He  had  not  adapted  other  men's  work  since  bis  novitiate, 
neither  had  he  blended  bis  own  intellectual  produce  with  alien 
and  inferior  efforts.  What  is  the  reason  of  such  an  association 
suddenly  and  repeatedly  occurring  now  ?  I  will  State  my  view  of 
the  matter  without  any  circumlocution  or  criticism  of  the  opinion 
of  others.  We  noticed  in  Coriolanus  that  Sbakespeare's  changed 
attitude  towards  humanity  had  also  affected  bis  attitude  towards 
bis  art.  A  certain  carelessness  of  ezecution  had  made  itself  feit. 
His  steadily  increasing  despair  of  finding  any  virtue  or  worth  in 
the  World,  and  the  ever-growing  resentment  against  the  coarse- 
ness  and  thanklessness  of  men,  were  accompanied  by  his  come- 
sponding  indiflerence  and  negligence  as  a  dramatist. 

We  have  followed  Shakespeare  through  his  early  struggles  and 
youthful  bappiness  to  the  great  and  serious  epoch  of  bis  life,  and 
through  the  any thing  but  brief  period  of  gloom  to  its  crisis  in  the 
wild  outburst  of  Tinum  of  Athens;  after  which  we  recognised  the 
first  Symptoms  of  convalescence.  A  perspective  of  not  too  pro- 
foundly  serious  nor  realistic  dramas  bas  opened  out  before  u% 
wbose  freely  playing  fantasy  proves  that  Shakespeare  is  onoe 
more  reconciled  to  Ufe. 

It  Stands  to  reason  that  this  reoondliation  was  not  effected 
by  any  sudden  change,  and  Shakespeare  would  not  immediately 
retum  to  the  old  striving  after  perfection  in  his  profession— <lid 
not  do  so,  in  fact,  until  that  very  last  work  in  which  he  laid  aside 
hia  art  for  ever.    We  saw  that  he  had  %txakAd  Xoci  toai;^  ^\)Sa^ 


576  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  he  now  realises  that  he  has  done  the  same  with  art.  Either 
he  no  longer  taxes  his  strength  to  the  uttermost  when  he  writes, 
or  he  has  lost  that  power  for  which  no  task  was  too  heavy,  no 
horror  too  terrible  to  depict.  From  this  moment  we  feel  a  fore- 
boding  that  this  mighty  genius  will  lay  down  his  pen  some  years 
before  his  life  is  to  end,  and  we  realise  that  his  mind  is  being 
gradually  withdrawn  from  the  theatre.  He  has  already  ceased  to 
act ;  soon  he  will  have  ceased  to  write  for  the  stage.  He  longs 
for  rest,  for  solitude,  away  from  the  town,  far  into  the  country, 
away  from  his  life's  battlefield  to  the  quietude  of  his  birthplace, 
there  to  pass  his  remaining  years  and  die. 

He  may  have  reasoned  thus:.For  whom  should  he  write? 
Where  were  they  for  whom  he  had  written  the  plays  of  his 
youth  ?  They  were  dead  or  far  away ;  he  had  lost  sight  of  them 
and  they  of  him — how  long  does  any  warm  sympathy  with  a 
productive  intellect  usually  last  ?  With  his  ever-increasing  indif- 
ference  to  fame,  he  shrank  more  and  more  from  the  exertion 
entaiied  by  laborious  planning  and  careful  execution,  and  as  little 
did  he  care  whether  the  work  he  did  was  known  by  his  or  another 
man's  name.  In  his  utter  contempt  for  what  the  crowd  did  or 
did  not  believe  about  him,  he  allowed  piratical  booksellers  to 
publish  one  worthless  play  after  another  with  his  immortal  name 
upon  the  title-page — Sir  John  Oldcastle  in  i6cx),  The  London 
Prodigal  in  1605,  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy  in  1608,  Lord  Cromwelt 
in  161 3 — and  he  either  obscured  or  permitted  others  to  obscure  his 
work  by  associating  it  with  the  feeble  or  affected  productions  of 
younger  and  inferior  men.  We  saw  in  Timon^  as  we  shall  pre- 
sently  see  in  Pericles  and  other  plays,  how  the  lines  drawn  by  his 
master-hand  have  been  blurred  by  others,  traced  by  clumsy  and 
unsteady  fingers.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  whether 
it  was  Shakespeare  who  began  the  play  and  wearied  of  his  work 
half-way  through,  as  Michael  Angelo  so  frequently  did,  carelessly 
looking  on  at  its  completion  by  another  band,  or  whether  he  had 
the  attempts  of  others  lying  before  him  and  hid  his  own  poetical 
strength  and  greatness  in  these  fungus  growths  of  childish  versi- 
fication  and  unhealthy  prose,  leaving  it  to  chance  whether  the 
future  generations,  to  whom  he  never  gave  much  thought,  would 
be  able  to  distinguish  his  part  in  them.  It  may  be  that  he  treated 
his  work  for  the  theatre  much  as  a  modern  author  does  when  he 
makes  over  his  ideas  to  a  coUaborator,  or  writes  anonymously  in 
a  newspaper  or  periodical.  He  believes  that  among  his  fnends 
are  three  or  four  who  will  recognise  his  style,  and  if  they  do  not 
(as  frequently  happens)  it  is  no  great  matter. 

On  the  title-page  of  the  first  quarto  edition  of  Pericles,  in  1609, 
are  these  words  :  ''The  late,  and  much  admired  play  called  Peri- 
cles, Prince  of  Tyre.  .  .  .  By  William  Shakespeare."  "The  late" 
— ^the  play  cannot  have  been  acted  before  1608,  for  there  is 
DO  cotttemponry  mention  of  \t  btfore  that  date,  whereas  from 


"PERICLES"  577 

1609  onwards  it  is  frequently  noticed.      ''The  much  admired 
play  " — cvery thing  witnesses  to  the  truth  of  these  worda* 

Many  contemporary  references  testify  to  the  favour  the  play 
CDJoyed.  In  an  anonymous  poem,  PimlycOy  or  Runne  Redcap 
(1609),  Pericles  is  mentioned  as  the  new  play  which  gentle  and 
simple  crowd  to  see : 

'*  Amazde  I  stood,  to  see  a  Crowd 
Of  civill  Throats  stretched  out  so  lowd 
(As  at  a  New  Play).     All  the  Roomes 
Did  swarm  with  Gentiles  mix'd  with  Groomes, 
So  that  I  tnily  thought  all  These 
Game  to  see  Short  or  Pericles*^ 

The  previously  mentioned  prologue  (p.  539)  to  Robert  Tailor's 
The  Hog  hos  Lost  his  Pearl  (16 14)  cannot  wish  the  play  any- 
thing  better  than  that  it  may  succeed  as  weD  as  Perides  : 

"  And  if  it  prove  so  happy  as  to  please, 
Weele  say  'tis  fortunate  like  Pericles^ 

In  1629,  Ben  Jonson,  exasperated  by  the  utter  failure  of  his 
play  The  New  Inn^  affords  evidence,  in  the  ode  addressed  to  him- 
seif  which  accompanies  the  drama,  of  the  persistent  popularity  of 
Pericles  : 

"  No  doubt  some  mouldy  tale 

Like  Pericles,  and  stale 

As  the  shrieves  crusts  and  nasty  as  his  fish — 

Scraps  out  of  every  dish 

Thrown  forth  and  raked  into  the  common  tub, 

May  keep  up  the  Play-club." 

In  Sheppard's  poem,  The  Times  displayed  in  Six  Sestyads, 
Shakespeare  is  said  to  equal  Sophocles  and  surpass  Aristophanes, 
and  all  for  Pericles*  sake : 

"  With  Sophocles  we  may 
Compare  great  Shakespeare :  Aristophanes 
Never  like  him  his  Fancy  could  display, 
Witness  the  Prtnce  of  Tyre^  his  Pericles/* 

This  play  was  not  included  in  the  First  Folio  edition»  probably 
because  the  editors  could  not  come  to  an  agreement  with  the 
original  publisher;  for  these  pirates  were  protected  by  law  as 
soon  as  the  book  was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall.  During  Shake- 
speare's  lifetime  and  after  his  death  it  was  one  of  the  most 
populär  of  English  dramas. 

^  The  complete  title  nins  thus: — *'The  Ute,  and  much  admired  Play,  called 
Pericles,  Prince  of  T^re,  with  the  true  Relation  of  the  whole  History,  adventures, 
and  fortunes  of  the  said  Prince :  As  also,  The  no  lesse  stran£[e  and  worthy  acddents, 
in  the  Birth  and  Life  of  his  Daughter  if  ARIAN  A.  As  it  hath  been  diuers  and  sundry 
times  acted  by  his  Maiesties  Seniants,  at  the  Globe  on  the  Bancside.  By  William 
Shakespeare.  Imprinted  at  London  for  Henry  Gosson,  and  axe  t.o  b^  ^sj^^K^  "«x^^qa. 
ca  the  SoDDe  in  Pbtemoster  Row.    1609.** 


578  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Pericles  was  formerly  considered  one  of  Shakespeare's  earliest 
works,  an  opinion  held  strangely  enough  by  Karl  Elze  in  our  own 
day.  But  all  English  critics  now  believe,  what  Hallam  was  the 
first  to  discover,  that  the  language  of  such  parts  of  it  as  were 
written  by  Shakespeare  belongs  in  style  to  his  tatest  period,  and 
it  is  unanimously  declared  to  have  been  written  somewhere  about 
the  year  1608,  after  Antony  and  Cleopatra  and  before  Cymbeline 
and  The  TempesL  (See,  for  example,  P.  Z.  Round's  introduction 
to  the  Irving  edition,  or  Fumivars  Triar  Table  of  the  order  of 
Shakespeare's  Plays^  reprinted  in  Dowden  and  elsewhere.)  My 
own  opinion  of  course  is,  that  Pericles  follows  naturally  upon  Coruh- 
lanus  and  Tinion  of  Athens ^  and  forms  an  appropriate  overture 
to  the  succeeding  fantastically  idyllic  plays.  The  reader  will  have 
noticed  that,  unlike  Dowden  and  Fumivall,  I  have  not  been  able 
to  assign  so  early  a  date  for  the  whole  series  of  pessimistic  dramas 
as  1608  would  imply.^  I  assume  that  certain  portions  oi  Pericles 
were  forming  in  Shakespeare's  mind  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
venom  to  which  he  was  giving  vent  for  the  last  time  in  Timon  of 
Athens,  In  such  periods  of  violent  upheaval  there  may  be  an 
undercurrent  to  the  surface-current  in  the  mind  of  a  poet  as  well 
as  in  another  man's,  and  it  is  this  undercurrent  which  will  pre- 
sently  gain  strength  and  become  the  prevalent  mood. 

The  intelligent  reader  will  have  realised  that  all  this  dating 
of  Shakespeare's  pessimistic  works  can  only  be  approximate.  I 
am  inclined  to  advance  them  a  year,  because  I  fancy  I  can  trace  a 
connection  between  Coriolanus  and  Shakespeare's  own  thoughts 
of  his  mother,  who  died  in  1608.  But  a  son  does  not  only  think 
of  his  mother  at  the  moment  she  is  taken  from  him,  and  the  fear 
of  losing  her  in  the  illness  which  probably  preceded  her  death 
may  have  recalled  his  mother's  image  to  Shakespeare's  mind  with 
special  force  long  before  he  actually  lost  her.  Here,  is  in  all 
cases  where  it  is  not  expressly  mentioned,  the  reader  is  requested 
to  see  an  underlying  Perhaps  or  Possibly,  and  to  add  one  where  he 
feels  the  need  of  it.  Only  the  main  lines  of  the  sequence  are  at 
all  certain.  Where  external  criterions  are  missing,  the  internal 
alone  cannot  determine  the  question  of  a  year  or  a  month.  As  far 
as  Pericles  is  concerned,  we  do  possess  some  guide,  for  it  is  most 
unlikely  that  Shakespeare's  share  in  the  play  would  be  added 
after  it  was  performed  in  1608,  especially  in  the  face  of  the  assu- 
rance  on  the  title-page. 

The  work  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  is  not  in  reality  a  drama 
at  all,  but  an  incompletely  dramatised  epic  poem.  We  are  taken 
back  to  the  childhood  of  dramatic  art.     The  prologue  to  each  act 

^  The  Triar  Table  determines  their  order  thus : — 

Troilus  and  Cressda 1606-7 

Antony  and  Cleopatra 1606-7 

Coriolantis •        <       •  1607-8 

TSmoDof  Athens      •••>••»  tter-t 


GOWER'S  PERICLES  579 

and  the  various  explanatory  passages  interpolated  throughout  the 
play  are  supposed  to  be  spoken  by  the  old  English  poet  John 
Gower,  who  had  treated  the  subject  in  narrative  verse  about  the 
year  1390.  He  introduces  the  play  to  the  audience  and  explains 
it,  as  it  were,  with  his  pointer.  Anything  that  cannot  well  bc 
acted  he  narrates,  or  has  represented  in  durab-show.  He  speaks 
in  the  old  octosyllabic  rhymed  iambics,  which,  as  a  rule,  however, 
de  not  rhyme : 

"  To  sing  a  song  that  old  was  sung 
From  ashes  ancient  Gower  has  come^ 
Assuming  man's  infirmities^ 
To  glad  your  ears  and  please  your  eyes,^ 

And  in  the  last  lines  of  the  prologue  to  the  fourth  act : 

"  Dionyza  doth  appear^ 
With  Leonine  a  murderer,^^ 

He  jestingly  alludes  to  the  fact  that  the  play  includes  nearly 
the  whole  of  Pericles'  life,  from  youth  to  old  age.  Marina  is  born 
at  the  beginning  of  the  third  act,  and  is  about  to  be  married  at 
the  close  of  the  fifth.  Not  hing  could  well  bc  farther  from  that 
unity  of  time  and  place  which  was  attempted  in  France  at  a  later 
period.  The  first  act  is  laid  at  Antioch,  Tyre,  and  Tarsus ;  the 
second  in  Pentapolis,  on  the  sea-shore,  in  a  corridor  of  Simonides' 
palace,  and  lastly  in  a  hall  of  State.  The  third  act  opens  on  board 
ship  and  continues  in  the  house  of  Cerimon  at  Ephesus.  The 
fourth  act  begins  with  an  open  place  near  the  sea-shore  and  ends 
in  a  brothel  at  Mitylene ;  the  fifth,  on  Pericles'  ship  off  Mitylene, 
ending  in  the  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus.  There  is  as  little 
unity  of  action  as  of  time  and  place  about  the  play ;  its  discon- 
nected  details  are  merely  held  together  by  the  individuality  of  the 
principal  characters,  and  there  is  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  in  its 
various  incidents ;  pure  Chance  seems  to  rule  alL  The  reader  will 
seek  in  vain  for  any  intention — I  do  not  mean  moral,  but  any 
fundamental  idea  in  the  play.  Gower  certainly  Institutes  a  con 
trast  between  an  immoral  princess  at  the  beginning  of  the  play 
and  a  virtuous  one  at  the  close,  but  this  moral  con  trast  has  no 
connection  with  the  mtermediate  acts. 

Pericles  was  an  old  and  very  populär  subject  Its  earliest 
form  was  probably  that  of  a  Greek  romance  of  the  fifth  Century, 
of  which  a  Latin  translation  is  still  extant.  It  was  translated  into 
various  languages  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  one  version  has 
found  its  way  into  the  Gesta  RotPtanorum.  In  the  twelfth  Century 
it  was  incorporated  by  Godfrey  of  Viterbo  in  his  great  ChronicU. 
John  Gower,  who  adapts  it  in  the  eighth  book  of  his  Confessio 
Amantis^  gives  Godfrey  as  his  authority.  The  Latin  taie  was 
translated  into  English  by  Lawrence  Twine  in  \^i6^\»Akc  '^^ 
title  of  TAe  PatUme  ofPi^nfuU  Adimm^rtt^  m  «««»&& 


58o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which  was  published  in  1607.  In  all  but  the  English  adaptations 
the  hero*s  name  is  given  as  ApoUonius  of  Tyre.  There  can  bc 
no  doubt  that  Shakespeare's  play  was  based  upon  the  1607  edi- 
tion,  and  this  in  itself  is  sufficient  to  refute  the  antiquated  notion 
that  his  part  in  it  belonged  to  his  youthful  period.  It  was  on  the 
substance  of  this  play,  and  doubtless  also  upon  Shakespeare's 
share  in  it,  that  George  Wilkins  founded  the  romance  he  pub- 
lished in  1608  under  the  title  of  The  Painfull  Aduentures  of 
Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre,  Being  the  true  history  of  the  Play  of 
Pericles  as  it  was  lately  presented  by  the  worthy  and  ancient  John 
Gower,  The  fact  that  Wilkins,  in  the  dedication  of  his  book, 
which  is  a  mere  abstract  of  Twine  and  the  play,  calls  it  "  a  poor 
infant  of  my  braine,''  and  the  still  more  remarkable  similarity  of 
the  style  and  metrical  stnicture  of  the  first  act  of  Pericles  with 
Wilkins*  own  play,  The  Miseries  of  enforced  Marriage,  would 
seem  to  point  to  him  as  the  author  of  the  extraneous  portions  of 
Pericles.  In  both  dramas  a  quantity  of  disconnected  material 
has  been  brought  together  in  a  long-drawn-out  play,  destitute  of 
dramatic  situations  or  interest,  and  in  both  we  find  the  same 
jarring  and  awkward  inversions  of  words.  The  incidents  of 
the  Enforced  Marriage  recall  some  of  the  non-Shakespearian 
elements  of  Titnon ;  here,  also,  we  are  shown  a  spendthrift, 
evidently  in  possession  of  the  sympathies  of  his  author,  by  whom 
he  is  considered  a  victim.  The  mingling  of  prose,  blank 
verse,  and  clumsily-introduced  couplets  with  the  same  rhymes 
constantly  recurring,  reminds  us  of  those  acts  and  scenes  in 
which  Shakespeare  had  no  part.  Fleay  observes  that  195 
rhymed  lines  occur  in  the  two  first  acts  of  Pericles,  and  only 
fourteen  in  the  last  three,  so  marked  is  the  contrast  of  style 
between  the  two  parts,  and  he  notices  that  this  frequency  of 
rhyme  corresponds  closely  to  the  method  of  George  Wilkins' 
own  work.  Both  he  and  Boyle  agree  with  Delius,  who  was  the 
first  to  express  the  opinion,  that  Wilkins  is  the  author  of  the 
first  two  acts.  By  dint  of  comparisons  of  style,  Fleay  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  Gower's  two  spceches  in  five-footed  iambics, 
before  and  after  Scenes  5  and  6  (which  differ  so  markedly  in 
form  and  language  from  his  other  monologues),  were  written  by 
William  Rowley,  who  had  been  associated  in  the  previous  year 
with  Wilkins  and  Day  in  the  production  of  a  wretched  melo- 
drama,  The  Travels  of  Three  English  Brothers,  His  attempt, 
however,  to  ascribe  to  Rowley  the  two  prose  scenes  which  take 
place  in  the  brothel  is  made  more  on  moral  than  sesthetic  grounds, 
and  can  have  very  little  weight.  My  own  opinion  is  that  they 
were  entirely  written  by  Shakespeare.  They  are  plainly  pre- 
supposed  in  certain  passages  which  are  unmistakably  Shake- 
spearian ;  they  accord  with  that  general  view  of  life  from  which 
he  13  but  now  beginning  to  escape,  and  they  markedly  recall  the 
conresponding  soenea  in  Measurt  fw  Mcosure« 


GEORGE  WILKINS  581 

It  15  impossible  to  ascertain  the  precise  circumstances  under 
which  the  piay  was  produced.  Some  critics  have  maintained  that 
it  originally  began  with  what  is  now  the  third  act,  and  that 
Shakespeare,  having  lain  it  aside,  gave  WiUdns  and  Rowley  per- 
mission  to  complete  it  for  the  stage.  But  in  reality  the  two  men 
wrote  the  play  in  collaboration  and  disposed  of  it  to  Shake- 
speare's  Company,  which  in  tum  submitted  it  to  the  poet,  who 
worked  upon  such  parts  as  appealed  to  his  imagination.  As  the 
play  now  belonged  to  the  theatre,  and  Wilkins  was  not  at  liberty 
to  publish  it,  he  forestalled  the  booksellers  by  bringing  it  out  as 
a  Story,  taking  all  the  credit  of  invention  and  ezecution  upon 
himself. 

Never  was  a  drama  contrived  out  of  more  unlikely  material. 
The  name  of  the  knightly  Prince  of  Tyre  is  changed,  probably 
because  it  did  not  suit  the  metre,  from  Apollonius  to  Pericles, 
which  was  corrupted  from  the  P3rrocles  of  Sidneys  Arcadia.  He 
comes  to  Antioch  to  risk  his  life  on  the  Solution  of  a  riddle. 
According  to  his  success  or  failure  he  is  to  be  rewarded  by  the 
Princess's  band  or  death.  The  riddle  betrays  to  him  the  abomin- 
able  fact  that  the  Princess  is  living  in  incest  with  her  own  father. 
He  withdraws  from  the  contest,  and  flies  from  the  country  to 
escape  the  wrath  of  the  wicked  prince,  who  is  even  more  certain 
to  slay  him  for  success  than  for  failure.  He  returns  to  Tyre,  but 
feeling  insecure  even  there,  he  falls  into  a  State  of  melancholy, 
and  quits  his  kingdom  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  Antiochus. 

Arriving  at  Tarsus  at  a  time  when  its  inhabitants  are  suffering 
from  famine,  he  succours  them  with  corn  from  his  ships.  Soon 
afterwards  he  is  wrecked  off  Pentapolis  and  cast  ashore.  His 
armour  is  dragged  out  of  the  sea  in  fishermen's  nets,  and 
Pericles  takes  part  in  a  knightly  toumament.  The  king's 
daughter,  Thaisa,  falls  in  love  with  him  at  first  sight,  as  did 
Nausicaa  with  Odysseus.  She  ignores  all  the  young  knights 
around  her  for  the  sake  of  this  noble  stranger,  who  has  suffered 
shipwreck  and  so  many  other  misfortunes.  She  will  marry 
him  or  none;  he  shines  in  comparison  with  the  others  as  a 
precious  stone  beside  glass.  Pericles  weds  Thaisa,  and  bears  her 
away  with  him  on  his  ship.  They  are  overtaken  by  a  storm, 
during  which  Thaisa  dies  in  giving  birth  to  a  daughter.  The 
superstition  of  the  sailors  requires  that  her  corpse  shall  be  im- 
mediately  thrown  into  the  sea.  The  coffin  drifts  ashore  at 
Ephesus,  where  Thaisa  reawakes  to  life  unharmed.  The  new- 
bom  child  is  left  by  Pericles  to  be  nürsed  at  Tarsus.  As  Marina 
grows  up,  her  foster-mother  determines  to  kill  her  because  she 
outshines  her  daughter.  Pirates  land  and  prevent  the  murder; 
carrying  off  Marina,  they  seD  her  to  the  mistress  of  a  brothel 
in  Mitylene.  She  preserves  her  purity  amidst  these  horrible 
surroundings,  and,  finding  a  protector,  gains  her  release.  Sb«. 
is  taken  on  board  Pericles'  ship  that  sYve  mac^  ^^dxtCL  vüv)  \^ 


582  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

melandioly.  A  recognition  ensues,  and,  in  obedience  to  a  sign 
from  Diana,  they  sali  to  Ephesus;  the  husband  is  reunited  to  his 
wife  and  the  newly-found  daughter  to  her  mother. 

This  is  the  dramatically  impossible  canvas  which  Shakespeare 
undertook  to  retouch  and  finish.  That  he  should  have  made  the 
first  Sketch  of  the  play,  as  Fleay  so  warmly  maintains,  seems  veiy 
improbable  upon  a  careful  study  of  the  plot  To  write  such  a 
beginning  to  an  already  finished  end  would  have  been  an  almost  im- 
possible task  for  Willdns  and  his  collaborator,  involving  a  terribly 
active  vigilance ;  for  the  setting  of  the  Shakespearian  scenes, 
Gower's  prologues,  interludes,  and  epilogues,  &c.,  is  a  frame  of 
their  own  making.  Everything  favours  the  theory  that.  it  was 
Shakespeare  who  undertook  to  shape  a  half-  or  whoUy-finished 
piece  of  patchwork. 

He  hardly  touched  the  first  two  acts,  but  they  contain  some 
traces  of  his  pen— the  delicacy  with  which  the  incest  of  the 
Princess  is  treated,  for  example,  and  Thaisa's  timid,  almost  mute, 
though  suddenly-aroused  love  for  him  who  at  first  glance  seems 
to  her  the  chief  of  men.  The  scene  between  the  three  fishermen, 
with  which  the  second  act  opens,  owns  some  tums  which  speak 
of  Shakespeare,  especially  where  a  fisherman  says  that  the  avari- 
cious  rieh  are  the  whales  **  o'  the  land,  who  never  leave  gaping 
tili  they've  swallowed  the  whole  parish,  church,  steeple,  beDs,  and 
all,"  and  another  replies,  "But,  master,  if  I  had  been  the  sexton, 
I  would  have  been  that  day  in  the  belfry/' 

"  Second  Fisherman,  Why,  man  ? 

"  Third  Fisherman,  Because  he  should  have  swallowed  me  too :  and 
when  I  had  been  in  his  belly,  I  would  have  kept  such  a  jangling  of  the 
bells,  that  he  should  never  have  left  tili  he  cast  bells,  steeple,  church, 
and  parish  up  again." 

It  is  not  impossible,  however,  that  these  gleams  of  Shake- 
spearian wit  are  mere  imitations  of  his  manner.  But,  on  the 
other  band,  the  obvious  mimicry  of  the  Midsummer  Night^s 
Drtam  in  Gower's  prologue  to  the  third  act  is  commonplace 
and  dumsy  enough : 

*'  Now  sleep  jrslaked  hath  the  rout ; 
No  din  but  snores  the  house  about. 
•  •  •  •  • 

The  cat,  with  eyne  of  buming  coal, 
Now  couches  fore  the  mouse's  hole; 
And  crickets  sing  at  the  oven's  moutl^ 
B'er  the  blither  for  their  diouth.'' 

Gompare  this  with  Puck's : 

'*  Now  the  wi^ted  bcinds  do  glow, 
Wbibt  the  acreech^owl,  tcreediing  lood,"  te 


"PERICLES"  583 

An  awkwardly  introduced  pantomime  Interrupts  the  prologue, 
which  is  tediously  renewed;  then  suddenly,  like  a  voice  from 
another  world,  a  rieh,  füll  tone  breaks  in  upon  the  feeble  drivel, 
and  we  hear  Shakespeare's  own  voice  in  unmistakable  and  royal 
power : 

"Thou  God  of  this  great  vast,  rebuke  these  surges, 
Which  wash  both  heaven  and  hell ;  and  thou,  that  hast 
Upon  the  winds  command,  bind  them  in  brass, 
Having  called  them  from  the  deep !     Oh,  still 
Thy  deafening,  dreadful  thunders  :  gently  quench 
Thy  nirable,  sulphurous  flashes  ! — Oh,  how,  Lychorida, 
How  does  my  queen  ? — ^Thou  stürmest  venomously : 
Wilt  thou  spit  all  thyself  ?    The  seaman's  whistle 
Is  as  a  whisper  in  the  ears  of  death, 
Unheard."  .  .  . 

The  nurse  brings  the  tiny  new-born  habe,  saying : 

"  Here  is  a  thing  too  young  for  such  a  place, 
Who,  if  it  had  conceit,  would  die,  as  I 
Am  like  to  do  :  take  in  your  arms  this  piece 
Of  your  dead  queen. 

Pericies,  How,  how  Lychorida  ! 

Lychorida,  Patience,  good  sir ;  do  not  assist  the  storm 
Here's  all  that  is  left  hving  of  your  queen, 
A  little  daughter :  for  the  sake  of  it, 
Be  manly  and  take  comfort." 

The  sailors  enter,  and,  after  a  brief,  masterly  conversation, 
füll  of  the  raging  storm  and  the  struggle  to  save  the  ship,  they 
superstitiously  demand  that  the  queen,  who  has  but  this  instant 
drawn  her  last  breath,  should  be  thrown  overboard.  The  king 
is  compelled  to  3rield,  and  tuming  a  last  look  upon  her,  says : 

"  A  terrible  childbed  hast  thou  had,  my  dear ; 
No  light,  no  fire  :  the  unfriendly  Clements 
Forgot  thee  utterly ;  nor  have  I  time 
To  give  thee  hallowed  to  thy  grave,  but  straight 
Must  cast  thee,  scarcely  coffined,  in  the  ooze; 
Where,  for  a  moniinicnt  upon  thy  bones, 
And  e*er-remainint^  lamps,  the  belching  whale 
And  humming  water  must  o'erwhelm  thy  corse, 
Lying  with  simple  shells." 

He  gives  orders  to  change  the  course  of  the  ship  and  make 
for  Tarsus,  because  "  the  habe  cannot  hold  out  to  T3rrus."  There 
is  so  mighty  a  breath  of  storm  and  raging  seas,  such  roUing  of 
thunder  and  flashing  of  hghtning  in  these  scenes,  that  nothing  * 
in  English  poetry,  not  ezcepting  Shakespeare's  Tempest  itselC, 
nor  Byron's  and  Shelleys  descripüons  ot  'I^äXmt^^  caxi  ^^ar^'Ä2Ä^^-* 


5  84  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  storm  blows  and  howls,  hisses  and  screams,  tili  the  sound 
of  the  boatswain's  whistle  is  lost  in  the  raging  of  the  elements. 
These  scenes  are  famous  and  beloved  among  that  seafaring  folk 
for  whom  they  were  written,  and  who  know  the  subject-matter 
so  well. 

The  effect  is  tremendously  heightened  by  the  struggles  of 
human  passion  amidst  the  fury  of  the  elements.  The  tender  and 
strong  grief  expressed  in  Pericles'  subdued  lament  for  Thaisa  is 
not  drowned  by  the  storm ;  it  sounds  a  clear,  spiritual  note  of 
contrast  with  the  raging  of  the  sea.  And  how  touching  is 
Pericles'  greeting  to  his  new-born  child : 

**  Now,  mild  may  be  thy  life  I 
For  a  more  blustrous  birth  had  never  habe : 
Quiet  and  gentle  thy  conditions,  for 
Thou  art  the  rudeliest  welcomed  to  this  world 
That  ever  was  prince's  child.     Happy  what  follows  1 
Thou  hast  as  chiding  a  nativity 
As  fire,  air,  water,  earth,  and  heaven  can  make, 
To  herald  thee  from  the  womb."  .  .  . 

AJthough  Wilkins'  tale  follows  the  course  of  the  play  very 
faithfuUy,  there  are  but  two  points  in  which  the  resemblance 
between  them  extends  to  a  similarity  of  wording.  The  first  of 
these  occurs  in  the  second  act,  which  was  Wilkins'  own  work, 
and  the  second  here.     In  his  tale  Wilkins  says : 

*'  Poor  inch  of  nature  1  Thou  art  as  rudely  welcome  to  the  world 
as  ever  princess'  habe  was,  and  hast  as  chiding  a  nativity  as  fire,  air, 
earth,  and  water  can  afford  thee.'' 

Even  more  striking  than  the  identity  of  words  is  the  exda- 
mation  "  Poor  inch  of  nature ! "  It  is  so  entirely  Shakespearian 
that  we  are  tempted  to  believe  it  must  have  been  accidentally 
omitted  in  the  manuscripts  from  which  the  first  edition  was 
printed. 

It  is  not  until  the  birth  of  Marina  in  the  third  act  that 
Shakespeare  really  takes  the  play  in  band.  Why  ?  Because  it 
18  only  now  that  it  begins  to  have  any  interest  for  him.  It  is 
the  development  of  this  character,  this  tender  image  of  youthful 
charm  and  noble  purity,  which  attracts  him  to  the  task. 

How  Shakespearian  is  the  scene  in  which  Marina  is  found 
strewing  flowers  on  the  grave  of  her  dead  nurse  just  before 
Dionyza  sends  her  away  to  be  murdered;  it  foreshadows  two 
scenes  in  plays  which  are  shortly  to  foUow — the  two  brothers 
.  laying  flowers  on  the  supposed  corpse  of  Fidelio  in  Cymbeline, 
and  Perdita,  disguised  as  a  shepherdess,  distributing  all  kinds  of 
blossoms  to  the  two  strangers  and  her  guests  in  The  WinUr's 
TaU. 


PERICLES  AND  ULYSSES  585 

Marina  says  (Act  iv.  sc.  i): 

'*  No,  I  will  rob  Tellus  of  her  weed 
To  strew  thy  green  with  flowers :  the  jellows»  blues, 
The  purple  violets,  and  marigolds, 
Shall  as  a  carpet  hang  upon  Üiy  grave 
While  summer-days  do  last — ^Ay  me  1  poor  maid, 
Born  in  a  tempest,  when  my  mother  died, 
This  World  to  me  is  like  a  lasting  storm, 
Whirring  me  from  my  friends." 

The  words  are  simple,  and  not  especially  remarkable  in  them- 
selves,  but  they  are  of  the  greatest  importance  as  Symptoms. 
They  are  the  first  mild  tones  escaping  from  an  Instrument  which 
has  long  yielded  only  harsh  and  jarring  sounds.  There  is  nothing 
like  them  in  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare's  despairing  mood. 

When,  weary  and  sad,  he  consented  to  re-write  parts  of  this 
PerideSy  it  was  that  he  might  embody  the  feeling  by  which  he  is 
now  possessed.  Pericles  is  a  romantic  Ulysses,  a  far-travelled, 
sorely  tried,  much-enduring  man,  who  has,  little  by  little,  lost  all 
that  was  dear  to  him.  When  first  we  meet  him,  he  is  threatened 
with  death  because  he  has  correctly  solved  a  horrible  riddle  of 
life.  How  symbolic  this !  and  he  -is  thus  made  cautious  and  in- 
trospective,  restless  and  depressed.  There  is  a  touch  of  melan- 
choly  about  him  from  the  first,  accompanied  by  an  indifTerence 
to  danger ;  later,  when  his  distrust  of  men  has  been  aroused,  this 
characteristic  despondency  becomes  intensified,  and  gives  an 
appearance  of  depth  of  thought  and  feeling.  His  sensitive  nature, 
brave  enough  in  the  midst  of  storm  and  shipwreck,  sinks  deeper 
and  deeper  into  a  depression  which  becomes  almost  melancholia. 
Feeling  solitary  and  forsaken,  he  allows  no  one  to  approach  him, 
pays  no  heed  when  he  is  spoken  to,  but  sits,  silent  and  stem, 
brooding  over  his  griefs  (Act  iv.  sc  i).  Then  Marina  comes  into 
his  life.  When  she  is  first  brought  on  board,  she  tries  to  attract 
his  attention  by  her  sweet,  modest  play  and  song;  then  she 
speaks  to  him,  but  is  rebufied,  even  angrily  repulsed,  until  the 
gentle  narrative  of  the  circumstances  of  «her  birth  and  the  mis- 
fortunes  which  have  pursued  her  arrests  the  king's  attention. 
The  restoration  of  his  daughter  produces  a  sudden  change  from 
ang^ished  melancholy  to  subdued  happiness. 

So,  as  a  poet,  had  Shakespeare  of  late  withdrawn  from  the 
World,  and  in  just  such  a  manner  he  looked  upon  men  and  their 
sympathy  until  the  appearance  of  Marina  and  her  sisters  in  his 
poetry. 

It  is  probable  that  Shakespeare  wrote  the  part  of  Perides 
for  Burbage,  but  there  is  much  of  himself  in  it  The  two  men 
had  more  in  common  than  one  would  be  apt  to  suppose  from 
the  only  too  well-known  story  of  thevr  mairj  on  ^  cjmXäö. Voöcsasi^Ä 


586  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

occasion.  It  is  just  such  trivial  anecdotes  as  this  that  make  their 
way  and  are  remembered. 

Shakespeare  has  spiritualised  Pericles ;  Marina,  in  his  hands, 
is  a  glorified  being,  who  is  scarcely  grown  up  before  her  charm 
and  rare  qualities  rouse  envy  and  hatred.  We  first  see  her 
strewing  flowers  on  a  grave,  and  immediately  after  this  we  listen 
to  her  attempt  to  disarm  the  man  who  has  undertaken  to  murder 
her.  She  proves  herseif  as  innocent  as  the  Queen  Dagmar  of 
the  ancient  bailad.  She  ''  never  spake  bad  word  nor  did  ill  tum 
to  any  living  creature."  She  never  killed  a  mouse  or  hurt  a 
fly ;  once  she  trod  upon  a  worm  against  her  will  and  wept  for  it. 
No  human  creature  could  be  cast  in  gentler  mould,  and  truth 
and  nobility  unite  with  this  mildness  to  shed,  as  it  were,  a  halo 
round  her. 

When,  after  rebuffing  and  rejecting  her,  Pericles  has  gradually 
softened  towards  Marina,  he  asks  her  where  she  was  bom  and 
who  provided  the  rieh  raiment  she  is  wearing.  She  replies  that 
if  she  were  to  teil  the  story  of  her  life  none  would  believe  her, 
and  she  prefers  to  remain  silent.     Pericles  urges  her : 

"  Prithee,  speak : 
Falseness  cannot  come  from  thee ;  for  thou  look'st 
Modest  as  Justice,  and  tbou  seem'st  a  palace 
For  the  crowned  Truth  to  dwell  in ;  I  will  believe  thee. 
«  •  •  •  •  .  • 

Teil  thy  story ; 
If  thine  considered  prove  the  thousandth  part 
Of  my  endurance,  thou  art  a  man,  and  I 
Have  sufiered  like  a  girl :  yet  thou  dost  look 
Like  Patience  gazing  on  kings'  graves,  and  smiling 
Extremity  out  of  act." 

All  this  rieh  imagery  brings  Marina  before  us  with  the 
nobility  of  character  which  is  so  fitly  expressed  in  her  outward 
seeming.  It  is  Pericles  himself  who  feds  like  a  buried  prince, 
and  it  is  he  who  has  need  of  her  patient  S3rmpathy,  that  the  vio- 
lence  of  his  grief  may  be  softened  by  her  smile.  It  is  all  very 
dramatically  äfective.  The  old  Greek  tragedies  frequently  relied 
on  these  scenes  of  recovery  and  recognition,  and  they  never  failed 
to  produce  their  effect.  The  dialogue  here  is  sofUy  subdued,  it 
is  no  painting  in  strong  buming  colours  that  we  are  shown,  but 
a  delicately  blended  pastel.  In  order  to  gain  an  insight  into 
Shakespeare's  humour  at  the  time  As  You  Like  It  and  Twelfth 
Night  were  written,  the  reader  was  asked  to  think  of  a  day  on 
which  he  feit  especially  well  and  strong  and  sensible  that  all  his 
bodily  Organs  were  in  a  healthy  condition, — one  of  those  days  in 
which  there  is  a  festive  feeling  in  the  sunshine,  a  gentle  caress  in 
the  air. 

To  eoter  into  bis  mood  in  a  wiäkKc  muatktx  tuom  ^ou  would 


SHAKESPEARE'S  CONVALESCENCE  587 

need  to  recall  some  day  of  convalescence,  when  health  is  just 
retuming  after  a  long  and  severe  illness.  You  are  still  so  weak 
that  you  shrink  from  any  exertion,  and,  though  no  longer  ill,  you 
are  as  yet  far  from  being  well ;  your  walk  is  unsteady,  and  the 
grasp  of  your  band  is  weak.  But  the  senses  are  keener  than 
usual,  and  in  little  much  is  seen ;  one  gleam  of  sunshine  in  the 
room  has  more  power  to  cheer  and  enliven  than  a  whole  land- 
scape  bathed  in  sunshine  at  another  time.  The  twitter  of  a  bird 
in  the  garden,  just  a  few  chirps,  has  more  meaning  than  a  whole 
chörus  of  nightingales  by  moonlight  at  other  moments.  A  Single 
pink  in  a  glass  gives  as  much  pleasure  as  a  whole  conservatory 
of  exotic  plants.  You  are  grateful  for  a  trifle,  touched  by  friend- 
liness,  and  easily  moved  to  admiration.  He  who  has  but  just 
retumed  to  life  has  an  appreciative  spirit. 

As  Shakespeare,  with  the  greater  susceptibility  of  genius,  was 
more  keenly  alive  to  the  joyousness  of  youth,  so  more  intensely 
than  others  he  feit  the  quiet,  haif-sad  pleasures  of  convalescence. 

Wishing  to  accentuate  the  sublime  innocence  of  Marina's 
nature,  he  submits  it  to  the  grimmest  test,  and  gives  it  the 
blackest  foil  one  could  well  imagine.  The  gently  nurtured  girl 
is  sold  by  pirates  to  a  brothel,  and  the  delineation  of  the  inmates 
of  the  house,  and  Marina's  bearing  towards  them  and  their  cus- 
tomers,  occupies  the  greater  part  of  the  fourth  act. 

As  we  have  already  said,  we  can  see  no  reason  why  Fleay 
should  reject  these  scenes  as  non-Shakespearian.  When  this 
critic  (whose  reputation  has  suffered  by  bis  arbitrariness  and  in- 
consistency)  does  not  venture  to  ascribe  them  to  Wilkins,  and  yet 
will  not  admit  them  to  be  Shakespeare's,  he  is  in  reality  pandering 
to  the  narrow-mindedness  of  the  clergyman,  who  insists  that  any 
art  which  is  to  be  recognised  shall  only  be  allowed  to  overstep 
the  bounds  of  propriety  in  a  humorously  jocose  manner.  These 
scenes,  so  bluntly  true  to  nature  in  the  vile  picture  they  set  before 
US,  are  limned  in  just  that  Caravaggio  colouring  which  distin- 
guished  Shakespeare's  work  during  the  period  which  is  now  about 
to  close.  Marina's  utterances,  the  best  he  has  put  into  her  mouth, 
are  animated  by  a  sublimity  which  recalls  Jesus'  answers  to  his 
persecutors.  Finally,  the  whole  personnel  is  exactly  that  of  Mea-- 
surefor  Measure^  whose  genuineness  no  one  has  ever  disputed. 
There  is  also  an  occasional  resemblance  of  Situation.  ^  Isabella,  in 
her  robes  of  spotless  purity,  offers  precisely  the  same  contrast  to 
the  World  of  pimps  and  panders  who  riot  through  the  play  that 
Marina  does  here  to  the  woman  of  the  brothel  and  her  servants. 

After  all  that  he  had  suffered,  it  was  hardly  possible  Shake- 
speare would  relapse  into  the  romantic,  mediaeval  worship  of 
woman  as  woman.  But  his  natural  rectitude  of  spirit  soon  led 
him  to  make  ezceptions  from  the  general  condemnation  which  he 
was  inclined  for  a  time  to  pass  upon  the  sex ;  and  now  that  K\& 
soul's  health  was  retuming  to  h\m|  he  {c\\.  dia^n^  ^\kx  \cv^>xl% 


«;88  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

dwelt  solely  upon  women  of  the  merely  sensual  type,  to  place  a 
halo  round  the  head  of  the  young  girl,  and  so  he  brings  her 
with  unspotted  innocence  out  of  the  most  terrible  situations. 
When  she  sees  that  she  is  locked  into  the  house,  she  sajrs : 

"  Alack,  that  Leonine  was  so  slack,  so  slow  1 
He  should  have  strack,  not  spoke ;  or  that  these  pirates, 
Not  enough  barbarous,  had  but  o'erboard  thrown  me 
For  to  seek  my  mother ! 

Bawd.  Why  lament  you,  pretty  one? 

Marina.  That  T  am  pretty. 

Bawd,  Come,  the  gods  have  done  their  part  in  you. 

Marina.  I  accuse  them  not 

Bawd.  You  are  light  into  my  hands,  where  you  are  like  to 
live, 

Marina.  The  more  my  fault  . 
To  'scape  his  hands  where  I  was  like  to  die. 
.  .  .  Are  you  a  woman  ? 
Bawd.  What  wou)d  you  have  me  be,  an  I  be  not  a  woman  ? 
Marina.  An  honest  woman,  or  not  a  woman." 

The  govemor  Lysimachus  seeks  the  house,  and  is  left  alone 
with  Marina.     He  begins : 

"  Now,  pretty  one,  how  long  have  you  been  at  this  trade? 

Marina.  What  trade,  sir? 

Lysimachus.  Why,  I  cannot  name't  but  I  shall  offend. 

Marina.  I  cannot  be  offended  with  my  trade.  Please  you  to 
name  it. 

Lysimachus.  How  long  have  you  been  of  this  profession  ? 

Marina.  E'er  since  I  can  remember. 

Lysimachus.  Did  you  go  to't  so  young  ?  Were  you  a  gamester  at 
five  or  at  seven  ? 

Marina.  Earlier  too,  sir,  if  now  I  be  one. 

Lysimachus,  Why,  the  house  you  dwell  in  prodaims  you  to  be  a 
creature  of  sale. 

Marina.  Do  you  know  this  house  to  be  a  place  of  such  resort,  and 
will  come  into't  ?  I  hear  say  you  are  of  honourable  parts,  and  are  the 
govemor  of  this  place. 

Lysimachus.  Why,  hath  your  prindpal  made  known  unto  you  who 
I  am? 

Marina.  Who  is  my  principal  ? 

Lysimachus.  Why,  your  herb-woman ;  she  that  sets  seeds  and  roots 
of  shame  and  iniquity.  Ob,  you  have  heard  something  of  my  power, 
and  so  stand  aloof  for  more  serious  wooing.  .  .  •  Come,  bring  me  to 
some  private  place :  come,  come. 

Marina.  If  you  were  bora  to  honour,  show  it  now; 
If  put  upon  you,  make  the  judgment  good 
That  thought  you  worthy  of  iL" 

Lysimachus  is  arrested  by  her  words  and  his  purpose  changed. 
He  givcs  her  gold^  bids  her  persievev^  ia  the  waya  of  purity»  and 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  CORNEILLE  589 

prays  the  gods  will  strengthen  her.  She  succeeds  in  obtaining 
her  freedom  and  in  supporting  herseif  by  her  talents.  The  lasting 
Impression  she  had  made  on  the  governor  in  her  degradation  is 
proved  by  bis  sending  for  her  to  charm  King  Pericles'  melancholy, 
and  later  he  aspires  to  her  band. 

The  scenes  quoted  do  not  give  an  intellectual  equivalent  for 
all  that  has  been  dared  in  order  to  produce  them,  but  they 
bear  witness  to  the  desire  Shakespeare  feit  of  painting  youthful 
womanly  purity  shining  whitely  in  a  very  snake-pit  of  vice,  and 
the  spirit  in  which  it  is  accomplished  is  that  of  both  Shakespeare 
and  the  Renaissance. 

At  a  somewhat  earlier  period  such  a  subject  would  have 
assumed,  in  England,  the  form  of  a  Morality^  an  allegorical  reli* 
gious  play,  in  which  the  steadfastness  of  the  virtuous  woman 
would  have  triumphed  over  Vice.  At  a  somewhat  later  period, 
in  France,  it  would  have  been  a  Christian  drama,  in  which 
heathen  wickedness  and  incredulity  were  put  to  confusion  by 
the  youthful  believer.  Shakespeare  carries  it  back  to  the  days 
of  Diana;  bis  virtue  and  vice  are  alike  heathen,  owning  no 
connection  with  church  or  creed. 

Thirty-seven  years  later,  during  the  minority  of  Louis  XIV., 
Pierre  Corneille  made  use  of  a  very  similar  subject  in  bis  but 
little-known  tragedy,  Thiodore^  Vierge  et  Martyre,  The  scene 
is  laid  in  the  same  place  in  which  Pericles  begins,  in  Antioch 
during  the  reign  of  Diocletian. 

.  Marcella,  the  wicked  wife  of  the  governor  of  the  province, 
determines  that  her  daughter  Flavia  shall  marry  the  object  of 
her  passion,  Placidus.  He,  however,  has  no  thought  but  for 
the  Princess  Theodora,  a  descendant  of  the  old  Syrian  kings. 
Theodora  is  a  Christian,  and  these  are  the  times  of  Christian 
persecution.  In  order  to  revenge  herseif  upon  the  young  girl 
and  estrange  Placidus  from  her,  Marcella  causes  her  to  be 
confined  in  just  such  another  house  as  that  into  which  Marina 
was  sold. 

The  dramatic  interest  would  naturally  lie  in  the  development 
of  Theodora's  feelings  when  she  finds  herseif  abandoned  to  her 
fate.  But  the  chaste  young  girl  will  not,  and  cannot,  express  in 
words  the  horror  she  must  feel;  and  in  any  case  the  laws  of 
propriety  would  not  allow  her  to  do  so  on  the  French  stage. 
Corneille  avoided  the  difficulty  by  exchanging  action  for  narrative. 
Various  false  or  incomplete  accounts  of  what  has  taken  place  keep 
the  audience  in  anxious  expectation. 

Placidus  is  told  that  Theodora's  sentence  has  been  commuted 
to  one  of  simple  banishment.  He  breathes  again.  Then  he 
hears  that  Theodora  has  actually  been  taken  to  the  house ; 
that  Did3rmus,  her  Christian  admirer,  bribed  the  soldiers  to 
allow  him  to  enter  first,  and  that  shortly  afterwards  he  rer^ 
tumed,  covtnng  his  face  with  lüs  doik.  «a  ^o^^igcw  'd^vs&ft^ 


590  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

He  is  furious.  The  third  announcement  informs  him  that  it 
was  Theodora  who  came  out  disguised  in  Didymus's  clothe& 
Placidus'  rage  now  gives  way  to  agonising  jealousy.  He  believes 
that  Theodora  has  yielded  willingly  to  DidymuS|  and  he  suffers 
tortures.  Finally  we  learn  the  truth.  Didymus  himself  teils  how 
he  rescued  Theodora  unharmed ;  he  is  a  Christian,  and  expects  to 
die.  "Live  thou  without  jealousy,"  he  says  to  Placidus;  *'  I  can 
endure  the  death  penalty."  "Alas!"  answers  Placidus,  "how  can 
I  be  other  than  jealous,  knowing  that  this  glorious  creature  owes 
more  than  life  to  thee.  Thou  hast  given  thy  life  to  save  her 
honour ;  how  can  I  but  envy  thy  happiness ! "  Both  Theodora 
and  Didymus  are  martyred,  and  the  pagan  lover,  who  did  nothing 
to  help  his  love,  is  left  alone  with  his  sbame« 

The  sole  contrast  intended  here  is  between  the  noble  qualities 
developed  by  the  Christian  faith  and  that  baseness  which  was 
considered  inseparable  from  heathendom. 

Two  things  arrest  our  attention  in  this  comparison:  firstly, 
the  superiority  of  the  English  drama,  which  openly  represents 
all  things  on  the  stage,  even  such  subjects  as  are  only  passingly 
alluded  to  by  society;  and,  secondly,  the  marked  difference  in 
the  spirit  of  that  Old  England  of  the  Renaissance  from  the  all- 
pervading  Christianism  of  the  early  classic  period  in  "most 
Christian  "  France. 

The  calm  dignity  of  Marina's  innocence  has  none  of  that  taint 
of  the  confessional  which  was  plainly  obnozious  to  Shakespeare, 
and  which  neither  the  mediaeval  plays  before  him,  nor  Corneille 
and  Calderon  after,  could  escape.  Comeille's  Theodora  is  a  saint 
by  profession  and  a  martyr  from  choice.  She  gives  herseif  up  to 
her  enemies  at  the  end  of  the  play,  because  she  has  been  assured 
by  supematural  revelation  that  she  will  not  again  be  imprisoned 
in  the  house  from  which  she  has  just  escaped.  Shakespeare's 
Marina,  the  tenderly  and  carefully  outlined  sketch  of  the  type 
which  is  presently  to  whoUy  possess  his  imagination,  is  purely 
human  in  her  innate  nobility  of  nature. 

It  is  deeply  interesting  to  trace  in  this  sombre  yet  fantasti- 
cally  romantic  play  of  Pericles  the  germs  of  all  his  succeeding 
works. 

Marina  and  her  mother,  long  lost  and  late  recovered  by  a 
sorrowing  king,  are  the  preliminary  studies  for  Perdita  and 
Hermione  in  A  Wintet^s  Tale.  Perdita,  as  her  name  teDs  us, 
is  lost  and  is  living,  ignorant  of  her  parentage,  in  a  stränge 
country.  Marina's  flower-strewing  suggests  Perdita's  distribu- 
tion  of  blossoms,  accompanied  by  words  which  reveal  a  profound 
understanding  of  flower-nature,  and  Hermione  is  recovered  by 
Leontes  as  is  Thaisa  by  Pericles. 

The  wicked  stepmother  in  Cymbeline  corresponds  to  the  wicked 
foster-mother  in  Pericles.  She  hates  Imogen  as  Dionyza  hates 
MärttUL    Plsanlo  is  suppooed  to  buve  mut^tered  hier  ta  Leonine  it 


•'PERICLES"  AND  "THE  TEMPEST"  591 

believed  to  have  slain  Marina,  and  Cymbeline  recovers  both  sons 
and  daughter  as  Pericles  bis  wife  and  child. 

Tbe  tendency  to  Substitute  some  easy  process  of  ezplanation, 
such  as  melodramatic  music  or  supernatural  revelation,  in  the 
place  of  severe  dramatic  technique,  which  appears  at  this  time, 
betrays  a  certain  weariness  of  the  demands  of  the  art.  Diana 
appears  to  the  slumbering  Pericles  as  Jupiter  does  to  Posthumus 
in  Cymbeline, 

But  it  is  for  The  Tempest  that  Pericles  more  especially  pre* 
pares  us.  The  attitude  of  the  melancholy  prince  towards  bis 
daughter  seems  to  foreshadow  that  of  the  noble  Prospero  towards 
his  child  Miranda.  Prospero  is  also  living  in  exile  from  bis  home. 
But  it  is  Cerimon  who  approaches  more  nearly  in  character  to 
Prospero.     Note  his  great  speech : 

"  I  held  it  ever, 
Virtue  and  cunning  were  endowments  greater 
Than  nobleness  and  riches :  careless  heirs 
May  the  two  latter  darken  and  expend ; 
But  imraortality  attends  the  former, 
Making  a  man  a  god.     'Tis  known  I  ever 
Have  studied  physic,  through  which  secret  art, 
By  turning  o'er  authorities,  I  have, 
Together  with  my  practice,  made  familiär 
To  me  and  to  my  aid  the  blest  infusions 
^        That  dwell  in  vegetives,  in  metals,  stones ; 
/         And  I  can  speak  of  the  disturbances 

That  Nature  works,  and  of  her  eures ;  which  doth  give  me 

A  more  content  in  course  of  true  delight 

Than  to  be  thirsty  after  tottering  honour 

Or  tie  my  treasure  up  in  silken  bags, 

To  please  the  fool  and  death  "  (Act  iii.  sc.  2). 

The  Position  in  which  Thaisa  and  Pericles  stand  in  the  second 
act  towards  the  angry  father,  who  has  in  reality  no  serious 
objection  to  their  Union,  cjosely  resembles  tba^  f>f  Fprr^jnanH  anH 

JltJT^nHn    Kr>f«ifn  frhn  fpi'grnpH  ^rrafVTnf  Pmcp^^j-jT       MoSt   UOtablc   of 

all  is  the  preliminary  sketch  we  find  in  Pericles  of  the  tempest 
which  ushers  in  the  play  of  that  name.  Over  and  above  the 
resemblance  between  the  storm  scenes,  we  have  Marina's  descrip- 
tion  of  the  hurricane  during  which  she  was  born  {Pericles ^  Act  iv. 
sc.  i),  and  Ariel's  description  of  the  shipwreck  {Tempest^  Act  i. 
sc.  2). 

Many  other  slight  touches  prove  a  relationship  between  the 
two  plays.  In  The  Tempest  (Act  ii.  sc.  l),  as  in  Pericles  (Act  v. 
sc.  l),  we  have  soothing  slumbrous  music  and  mention  of  harpies 
(^Tempest,  Act  iii.  sc.  3,  and  Pericles^  Act  iv.  sc.  3).  The  words 
"virgin  knot,"  so  charmingly  used  by  Marina: 

"  If  fires  be  bot,  knives  sharp,  or  waters  deep, 
Untied  I  still  my  virgin  knot  mVL  V^\>'^  ^^^wcX\M•  ^äi.  ^ 


59^  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

are  also  employed  by  Prospero  in  reference  to  Miranda  in  The 
Tempest  (Act  iv.  sc.  i);  and  it  will  be  observed  that  these  are  thc 
only  two  instances  in  which  they  occur  in  Shakespeare. 

Thus  the  germs  of  all  bis  latest  works  lie  in  this  unjustly 
neglected  and  despised  play,  which  has  suffered  under  a  double 
disadvantage :  it  is  not  entirely  Shakespeare's  work,  and  in  such 
portions  of  it  as  are  bis  own  there  exist,  in  the  dark  shadow  cast 
by  her  hideous  surroundings  about  Marina,  traces  of  that  gloomy 
mood  from  which  he  was  but  just  emerging.  But  for  all  that, 
whether  we  look  upon  it  as  a  contribution  to  Shakespeare's 
biography  or  as  a  poem,  this  beautiful  and  remarkable  fragment, 
PericUs^  is  a  work  of  the  greatest  interest.^ 

1  Delius  :  Uiber  Shakespeares  PerieUs^  Prince  of  Tyre,  Jahrbuch  dt»  deutschem 
Shakespeare- Gesellschaft^  iii.  175-205;  F.  G.  Fleay:  On  the  Play  of  Pericles,  The 
New  Shakspere  Society s  Transactions^  1S74,  195-254 ;  Swinburne :  A  Study  of 
Shakespeare^  p.  206 ;  Gervinus :  Shakespeare^  vol.  L  187,  and  Elze :  Shakespeeu^ 
p.  409,  still  believe  Perüles  to  be  a  work  of  Shakespeare's  jrcMith. 


XVI 

FRANCIS  BBAUMONT  AND   yOHN  FLBTCHER 

It  was  a  comparatively  easy  task  to  distinguish  Shakespeare's 
part  in  Timon  of  Athens  and  PericUs^  for  it  consisted  of  all  that 
was  important  in  either  play.  The  identity  of  the  men  who  col- 
laborated  with  him  seems  to  have  been  decided  by  pure  chance, 
and  is  of  little  interest  to  us  now-a-days.  It  is  a  different  matter, 
however,  in  the  case  of  two  other  dramas  of  this  period  which  have 
been  associated  with  Shakespeare's  name — The  Two  Noble  Ktns^ 
men  and  Henry  VIII, — for  his  part  in  them  is  unimportant,  in 
one  almost  imperceptible,  in  fact.  Their  real  author  was  a  young 
man  just  Coming  into  notice,  who  afterwards  became  one  of  the 
most  famous  dramatists  of  the  day,  and  can  hardly  have  been  in- 
different to  Shakespeare.  The  question,  therefore,  of  their  mutual 
relations  and  the  origin  of  their  collaboration  is  one  of  the  greatest 
interest 

A  drama  entitled  Philaster  had  been  played  at  the  Globe 
Theatre  in  1608  with  extraordinary  success.  It  was  the  Joint 
work  of  two  young  men,  Francis  Beaumont,  aged  22,  and  John 
Fletcher,  aged  28.  The  play  made  their  reputation,  and  they 
found  themselves  famous  from  the  moment  of  its  representation. 
A  would-be  amusing,  but  in  reality  rather  duU  play  of  Fletcher's, 
The  Wotnan-Hater,  had  been  put  on  the  stage  in  1606-7.  It 
contained  some  good  comic  parts,  but  nothing  that  gave  promise 
of  the  poet's  later  works. 

After  this  triumph  with  Philaster,  the  two  friends  produced  in 
1610  or  161 1  their  masterpiece,  The  Maid^s  Tragedy,  and  their 
scarcely  less  admired  A  King  and  no  King,  This  Joint  activity 
continued  until  the  death  of  Beaumont  in  161 5.  During  the  re- 
maining  ten  years  of  his  life  Fletcher  wrote  alone,  with  the  single 
exception  of  a  play  produced  in  collaboration  with  Rowley,  and 
attained  to  a  fame  which  probably  eclipsed  Shakespeare's  in  these 
last  years  of  his  life,  as  it  certainly  did  immediately  after  his  death. 
Dryden  remarks,  in  his  well-known  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poetry 
(1668),  ''Their  plays  are  now  the  most  pleasant  and  frequent 
entertainments  of  the  stage,  two  of  them  being  acted  through  the 
year  for  one  of  Shakespeare's  or  Jonson's."  This  Statement  seems 
somewhat  exaggerated  if  we  compare  it  with  the  entries  in  Pepva' 
Diary;   still,  we  know  that  Shakespeare's  taxofc  'w^'s»  oOT\T;J«x^"i 

593  1^ 


594  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

eclipsed  towards  the  end  of  the  Century  by  that  of  Ben  Jonson. 
Samuel  Butler  not  only  prefers  the  latter,  but  speaks  as  though 
his  superiority  was  universally  admitted.  ^ 

The  two  new  poets  were  neither  learned  proletaires,  like  Pcclc, 
Greene,  and  Marlowe,  nor  of  the  middle  classes,  like  Shakespeare 
and  Ben  Jonson,  but  were  both  of  good  family.  Fletcher's  father 
was  a  high-placed  ecclesiastic,  much  experienced  in  the  courts  of 
Elizabeth  and  James,  and  Beaumont  was  the  son  of  a  Justice  of 
Common  Pleas,  and  related  to  families  of  some  Standing.  One 
great  soürte  of  their  popularity  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  wer6  thus 
enabled  to  reproduce  to  perfection  the  manners  of  the  fine  gentle- 
man,  his  general  dissipation,  and  his  quick  repartee. 

Francis  Beaumont  was  born  somewhere  about  the  year  1586^ 
at  Gräce  Dieu  in  Leicestershire.  His  family  numbered  among 
those  of  the  legal  aristocracy,  and  many  of  its  member^  were  noted 
for  poetical  propensities  and  abilities ;  there  were  no  fewer  than 
three  poets  by  name  of  Beaumont  living  at  the  time  of  Francis' 
death.  The  future  dramatist  was  entered  at  ten  years  of  age  as  a 
gentleman-commoner  at  Broadgate  Hall,  Oxford.  He  early  left 
the  university  for  London,  where  he  was  made  a  member  of  the 
Inner  Temple.  His  legal  studies  appear  to  have  sat  lightly  upon 
him,  and  he  seems  to  have  devoted  himself  principally  to  the  com- 
position  of  those  plays  and  masques  which  were  so  frequently  per- 
formed  by  the  various  legal  Colleges  of  those  days.  In  161 3  he 
wrote  the  masque  which  was  performed  by  the  legal  institutions 
of  the  Inner  Temple  and  Gray*s  Inn  in  honour  of  the  Princess 
Elizabeth's  marriage  with  the  Elector-Palatine. 

It  seems  to  have  been  a  mutual  enthusiasm  for  Jonson's  Volpone 
(1605)  which  brought  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  together,  and  united 
them  in  a  brotherly  friendship  and  fellowship  in  work  of  which 
history  affords  few  parallels.  Aubrey,  to  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  a  number  of  anecdotes  about  Shakespeare,  gives  the  following 
vivid  picture  of  their  life :  "  They  lived  together  on  the  Bankside, 
not  far  from  the  playhouse ;  both  batchelors  lay  together,  had  onc 
wench  in  the  house  between  them,  which  they  did  so  admire ;  the 
same  cloathes  and  cloake,  etc.,  between  them." 

The  two  friends  soon  set  to  work,  and  appear  to  have  planned 
out  the  dramas  together,  each  finally  working  out  the  scenes  most 
suited  to  his  talents.  An  anecdote  related  by  Winstanley  seems 
to  indicate  such  a  method.  One  day  while  they  were  thus  appor- 
tioning  their  parts  in  a  tavern  they  frequented,  a  man  Standing 
at  the  door  overheard  the  exclamation,  "  I  will  undertake  to  kill 
the  king ; "  suspecting  some  treasonable  conspiracy»  he  gave  In- 
formation^ with  the  result  that  both  poets  were  arrested.  In 
Support  of  the  vcradly  of  this  anecdote,  George  Darlcy  observes 
that  a  similar  incident  occurs  in  Fletcher's  Woman-Hater  (Act  v. 
sc.  2).     Great  bittemess  is  certainly  expressed  in  this  play  od  the 

^  See  Kichaid  Gtmat :  71U  ü^pi  «f  Dn^ia^  ^  ^4,9. 


BEAUMONT  AND   FLETCHER  595 

ubject  of  informers  ;  witness  the  very  unflattering  sketch  of  their 
^ays  and  manners  in  the  third  scene  of  the  second  act. 

In  whatsoever  fashion  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  may  have 
riginally  becn  written,  the  joint-authors  roust  have  finally  re- 
ised  it  in  Company  and  obliterated  to  the  best  of  their  ability  the 
istinguishing  marks  of  their  very  different  styles.  Otherwiöe  it 
rould  not  öfter,  now  that  we  are  in  possession  of  works  executed 
y  cach  separately,  the  prescnt  difficulty  of  apportioning  to  each 
le  honour  due  to  him. 

There  was  no  lack  of  difference,  especially  of  a  metrical  nature, 
beut  their  styles.  As  far  as  we  can  judge,  Beaumont's  was  the 
ift  for  tragedy ;  he  had  less  wit  and  less  skill  than  Fletcher,  but 
e  was  more  genuinely  inspired,  richer  in  feeling,  and  more  daring 
a  invention  than  his  brother  poet.  His  noble  head  is  encirclcd 
y  a  halo  of  sadness,  for,  like  Marlowe  and  Shelley,  twÖ  of 
üngland's  greatest  poets,  he  died  before  he  had  completed  his 
hirtieth  year. 

Beaumont  was  a  devoted  admirer  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  a 
onstant  frequenter  of  that  "Mermaid  Tavern"  whose  literary 
nd  social  gatherings  have  been  celebrated  in  his  poetical  epistle 
o  the  object  of  his  admiration.  His  passionate  regard  for  the 
lUthor  of  Volpone  is  shown  in  a  poem  addressed  to  him  upon  the 
iubject,  in  which  he  exalts  Jonson's  art  and  the  charm  of  his 
x>medy  above  all  that  any  other  poet  (thereby  including  Shake- 
;peare)  had  ever  produced  for  the  English  stage.  Jonson  replies 
■nth  his  ode  "To  Mr.  Francis  Beaumont,"  in  which  he  recipro- 
attes  the  admiring  attention  by  a  declaration  of  the  wärmest 
iffection,  and  expresses  himself  "not  worth  the  least  indulgent 
hought  thy  pen  drops  forth,"  assuring  his  friend  that  he  envies 
lim  his  greater  talent.  According  to  Dryden,  Jonson  submitted 
sverything  he  wrote  to  Beaumont's  criticism  as  long  as  the  young 
nan  was  alive,  and  even  gave  him  his  manuscripts  to  correct. 

While  Beaumont's  nanie  is  thus  associated  with  Jonson, 
Fletcher's  forms  a  constellation  in  conjunction  with  that  of 
Shakespeare. 

John  Fletcher  was  born  in  December  1579,  at  Rye  in  Sussex, 
ind  was  therefore  fifteen  years  younger  than  the  great  poet  with 
v\iom  he  is  said  to  have  coUaborated  more  than  once.  His 
father,  the  Dean  of  Peterborough,  was  successively  promoted 
iirough  the  bishoprics  of  Bristol  and  Worcester  to  that  of 
London.  He  was  a  handsome,  eloquent  man,  with  a  luxurious 
:emperament,  inclined  to  display  and  pleasure  of  all  kinds. 
Evcry  inch  a  courtier,  all  his  thoughts  were  concentrated  upon 
jaining,  retaining,  or  recovering  the  royal  favour. 

One  episode  of  his  life  of  an  impressively  dramatic  and  his- 
toric  interest,  calculated  to  make  the  strongest  impression  on  the 
Imagination  of  an  embryo  tragic   poet,  must   have  Värxi  «^J^'ccl 
related  by  him  to  his  young  son.     Dr.  BAcYisccd  ¥\t\.OcÄX  n^^s.  ^^ 


596  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

divine  appointed  by  Government  to  attend  on  Mary  Stuart  at 
the  time  of  her  execution,  and  was  therefore  both  spectator  and 
participator  in  the  closing  scene  of  the  Scottish  Cleopatra's  life. 

When  he  approached  the  Queen  in  the  great  hall  hung  with 
blacky  and  invited  her,  as  he  was  in  duty  bound  to  do,  to  unite 
with  him  in  prayer,  she  tumed  her  back  upon  him. 

"  Madam/'  he  began  with  a  low  obeisance,  "  the  Quecn's 
most  excellent  majesty.  Madam,  the  Queen's  most  exceUent 
majesty."  Thricc  he  commenced  his  sentence,  wanting  words  to 
pursue  it.  When  he  repeated  the  words  a  fourth  time  she  cut 
him  Short. 

"Mr.  Dean/'  she  said,  "I  am  a  Catholic,  and  must  die  a 
Catholic.  It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  move  me,  and  your  prayers 
will  avail  me  little." 

"Change  your  opinion,  madam/'  he  cried,  his  tongue  being 
loosed  at  last.  **  Repent  of  your  sins,  settle  your  faith  in  Christ, 
by  Him  to  be  saved." 

"Trouble  not  yoursclf  further,  Mr.  Dean/*  she  answered. 
"I  am  settled  in  my  own  faith,  for  which  I  mean  to  shed  my 
Wood." 

'*  I  am  sorry,  madam/'  said  Shrewsbury,  "  to  see  you  so 
addicted  to  Popery  ! "  ^ 

Slowly  and  carefuUy  her  ladies  removed  her  veil  so  as  not  to 
disturb  the  arrangement  of  her  hair.  They  took  off  her  long 
black  robe,  and  she  stood  then  in  a  skirt  of  scarlet  velvet ;  they 
removed  the  black  bodice,  and  revealed  one  of  scarlet  silk. 
Sobbing,  they  drew  on  her  scaflet  sleeves  and  placed  scarlet 
Slippers  upon  her  feet.  It  was  like  a  transformation  scene  in  a 
theatre  when  the  proud  woman  stood  suddenly  dressed  in  scarlet 
in  the  black  funeral  hall.  When  her  women  wept  and  wailed 
she  Said  to  them,  "  Ne  criez  pas  vous,  fai  promis  pour  vous, 
AdieUf  au  revoir^  and  praying  in  a  loud  voice,  In  te  Domine 
canfidOf  she  laid  her  head  upon  the  block.  It  was  impossible 
that  Richard  Fletcher  should  ever  forget  the  inflexible  resolution 
and  indomitable  courage  displayed  by  the  great  actress,  nor  was 
he  likely  to  forget  the  terrible  mingling  of  horror  with  pure 
burlesque  in  the  final  scene.  In  his  agitation,  the  executioner 
missed  his  aim,  and  a  weak  blow  feil  upon  the  handkerchief  with 
which  the  Queen's  eyes  were  bound,  inflicting  a  slight  wound 
upon  her  cheek.  The  second  blow  left  the  severed  head  hanging 
by  a  piece  of  skin,  which  the  executioner  cut  as  he  drew  back 
the  axe.  Then  Dr.  Fletcher  witnessed  a  second  transformation, 
as  marvellous  as  any  ever  produced  by  a  magician's  wand:  the 
great  mass  of  thick  false  hair  feil  from  the  head.  The  Queen 
who  had  knelt  before  the  block  possessed  aU  the  ripened  charm 
and  dignified  beauty  of  maturity;  the  head  held  up  by  the 
executioner  to  the  gaze  of  the  little  Company  was  that  of  a  grey, 


FLETCHER'S  "PHILASTER"  597 

nkled,  old  woman.^  Could  anything  in  the  World  have  given 
mg  Fletcher  a  keener  insight  into  the  Horrors  of  tragic  catas- 
3he,  the  solemnity  of  death,  and  the  blending  of  the  terrible 
h  the  utterly  grotesque  which  life's  most  supreme  moments 
asionally  produce  ?  It  must  have  acted  like  a  call  and  incite- 
Qt  to  the  creation  of  tragic  and  burlesque  theatrical  effect. 
John  Fletcher  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  probably  came 
London  shortly  before  Beaumont,  to  try  his  fortune  as  a  dra- 
dc  writer.  His  first  success  was  with  Philaster^  or  Love  lies 
edingf  in  1608.  Shakespeare  must  have  witnessed  its  trium- 
mt  Performance  with  strangely  mingled  feelings,  for  it  could 
strike  him  as  being  in  many  ways  an  echo  of  his  own  work. 
so  far  as  he  is  wrongfully  deprived  of  his  throne,  Prince  Philas- 
occupies  much  the  same  position  as  Hamlet,  and  several  of  his 
eches  to  the  king  are  markedly  in  the  style  of  the  Danish 
nee  of  Shakespeare's  play.  Thus,  in  the  opening  scene  of  the 
t  act: 

"  King,  Sure  he's  possess'd. 

Philaster.  Yes,  with  my  father's  spirit :  It^s  tnie,  O  king 

A  dangerous  spirit.     Now  he  teils  me,  king, 

I  was  a  king's  heir,  bids  me  be  a  king ; 

And  whispers  to  me,  these  are  all  my  subjects. 

'Tis  Strange  he  will  not  let  me  sleep,  but  dives 

Into  my  fancy,  and  there  gives  me  shapes  that  kneel 

And  do  me  Service,  cry  me  *  King.' 

But  I'll  oppose  him,  he's  a  factious  spirit. 

And  will  undo  me.     Noble  sir,  your  band, 

I  am  your  servant 
King,  Away,  I  do  not  like  this,"  &c. 

The  king,  however,  has  nothing  to  fear  from  Philaster,  for  the 
ice  loves  and  is  beloved  by  the  monarch's  daughter,  Arethusa, 
[>m  her  father  intends  to  wed  to  that  arrogant  braggart,  Prince 
iramond  of  Spain.  Philaster,  all  unknown  to  himself,  is  beloved 
Euphrasia,  the  daughter  of  the  courtier  Cleon.  Disguised  as 
age  she  enters  the  prince's  Service  under  the  name  of  Bellario, 
1  displays  a  devotion  which  no  trial  can  shake,  not  even  that 
carrying  love-letters  between  Philaster  and  Arethusa,  nor  of 
[lg  transferred  to  the  service  of  the  latter  that  she  may  b^  at 
id  in  case  of  need.  Euphrasia's  Situation  and  feelings  resemble 
se  of  Viola  in  Twelfth  Night^  but  the  comedy  of  Shakespeare's 
y  here  becomes  serious  and  romantic  tragedy.  Philaster  must 
e  reminded  Shakespeare  yet  more  forcibly  of  another  of  his 
/is,  and  one  to  which  the  second  half  of  the  title,  i>.,  Lave  lies 
eding,  would  have  been  applicable,  for  in  the  course  of  the 
:e  Philaster  and  Arethusa  are  brought  into  a  Situation  which  is 
>unterpart  of  that  of  Othello  and  Desdemona. 

^  J.  St.  Loe  Stpuhtf :  Bmmm&mi  md  FlücMcr,  ic^  v  v«  lei« 


5oS  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

It  happens  in  the  following  manner.  The  princess  treats 
Pharamond  with  as  much  coldness  as  she  dares,  allowing  her 
betrothed  none  of  the  Privileges  which  he  may  claim  after  mar- 
riage.  Pharamond,  who  naYvely  confides  to  the  audience  that  his 
temperament  will  not  stand  such  treatment,  is  sympathised  with 
by  an  exceedingly  accommodating  court  lady.  Her  name  is  Megra ; 
she  is  one  of  those  wanton  fair  ones  whom  Fletcher  excelled  in 
portraying,  and  is  closely  akin  to  the  Chloe  of  his  charming  play 
The  FaithfuL  Shepherd.  The  time  and  place  of  this  assignation 
being  betrayed,  the  king,  enraged  at  the  insult  offered  to  his 
daughter,  breaks  in  upon  them  and  overwhelms  Megra  with  cruel 
and  coarse  abuse.  She,  on  her  part,  threatens  that  if  her  name  is 
publicly  disgraced,  she  will  reveal  all  she  knows  of  a  much  too 
tender  friendship  between  the  princess  and  a  handsome  page  lately 
taken  into  her  service.     ' 

The  king,  finding  that  Bellario  is  actually  attendant  upon 
Arethusa,  believes  the  slander  and  insists  upon  his  instant  dis- 
missal.  The  courtiers,  who,  in  common  with  the  people,  love 
Philaster  and  look  to  him  to  dethrone  the  king  and  rule  in  his 
stead,  have  watched  this  obstacle  of  his  passion  for  the  princess 
with  no  great  favour.  They  hasten  to  report  the  rumour  to  him. 
Dion,  Euphrasia-Bellario*s  own  father,  mendaciously  asserts  that 
he  has  surprised  the  lovers  together.  No  use  is  made  of  this 
incident,  nor  of  any  of  the  opf)ortunities  offered  by  Euphrasia's 
disguise,  which  remains  a  secret  even  from  the  audience  until  the 
last  scene  of  the  play.  Philaster  in  a  jealous  frenzy  draws  his 
sword  upon  Bellario  and  drives  him  away.  The  page  instinctively 
guesses  that  Philaster  is  caught  in  the  meshes  of  some  intrigue, 
but  does  not  divine  its  nature.  Her  parting  words  might  have 
been  addresaed  by  Desdemona  to  Othello  : 

"  But  through  these  tears, 
Shed  at  my  hopeless  parting,  I  can  see 
A  World  of  treason  practised  upon  you. 
And  her,  and  me." 

Just  as  Desdemona,  suspecting  nothing,  warmly  pleads 
Cassio 's  cause  with  Othello,  so  Arethusa  lameqts  to  Philaster 
that  she  has  been  forced  Xo  dismiss  his  cbefished  inessenger 
of  love : 

"  O  cruel  J 
Are  you  hard-hearted  too?    Who  shall  now  teil  you 
How  much  I  loved  you  ?    Who  shall  swear  it  to  you, 
And  weep  the  tears  I  send  ?    Who  shaU  now  bring  you 
Letters,  rings,  bracelets?  lose  his  health  in  service? 
Wake  tedious  nigbts  in  stories  of  your  praise  ?  "  (Act  iiL  ic.  a). 

Pbilaster  aufifers  the  same  agpme^  as  the  Moor  of  Venice,  but 
being  of  a  naturally  tfisoAm  d^piräXÄosv^  \x<a  wiii^  vEksra«r&  V^  voi 


PHILASTER  599 

terms  hardly  to  be  surpassed  for  mournful  and  pathetic  beauty. 
Later,  Coming  upon  the  princess  and  her  page,  whe  have  ipet  by 
Chance  in  a  wood,  he  is  so  carried  away  by  jealousy  that  he  draws 
his  sword  iBrst  upon  Aretbusa  and  then  upon  Bellario.  The  page 
takes  the  blow  without  a  murmur,  and  goes  willingly  to  prison 
in  place  of  Philaster  for  the  attempt  upon  the  princess's  life. 
The  devotion  of  Desdemona  is  thus  reproduced  in  both  these 
maidens,  ^nö  ünds  in  both  a  striking  expression.  AU  comes 
right  eventually.  A  revolution  places  Philaster  upoq  the  throne, 
tbe  women  who  love  him  recover  from  their  wounds,  and  the 
«Sscovery  of  Bellario's  sez  puts  an  end  to  all  scandal.  Philaster 
marries  his  belovedi  and  she,  even  niore  magnanimous  than  the 
queen  in  De  Musset's  Cannosine,  closes  the  play  witb  an  invitatioi) 
to  Bellario-Euphrasia  to  share  their  life : 

"  Come,  live  with  me ; 
Live  free  as  I  do.     She  that  loves  my  lord, 
Cursed  be  the  wife  that  hates  her." 

In  spite  of  its  many  echoes  from  his  own  plays,  Shakespeare 
canoot  have  failed  to  appreciate  the  talent  displayed  in  this 
drama.  The  gentleness  and  charm  of  the  women  in  the  works  of 
both  youpg  poets  must  have  appealed  to  him,  offering  as  they 
did  so  marked  a  contrast  to  those  of  Chapman  and  Marlowe, 
neither  of  whora  had  any  appreciation  of  womanliness  or  power 
to  depict  it.  The  best  of  Chapman's  tragedies  can  have  con- 
tained  little  that  would  attract  Shakespeare.  The  Conspiracy  and 
Tragedy  of  Charles  Duke  of  Byron^  Marshall  of  France^  was 
rather  a  ten-act  epic  than  a  drama.  His  comedies,  too,  even 
Eastward  Hoe,  with  its  wonderful  picture  of  the  London  of  the 
day  to  which  Ben  Jonson  and  Marston  contributed  their  share, 
must  have  repelled  him  by  a  realism  which  he  always  avoided  in 
his  own  work.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  laid  their  scenes  in  Sicily 
or  rather  in  some  imaginary  country,  whose  abstract  poetry,  more 
in  accordance  with  the  Romance  nation's  manner  of  representing 
men  and  their  passions,  cannot  have  been  unsympathetic  to 
Shakespeare,  especially  at  this  period  of  his  life. 

A  King  and  no  Kingy  the  play  which  in  all  probability  im- 
mediately  succeeded  Philaster^  contains  the  same  merits  and 
defects  as  the  latter,  and  here  also  Shakespeare  might  find  re- 
miniscences  of  his  own  work.  When  the  king's  mother  kneels 
before  her  son,  and  is  raised  by  him  (Act  iii.  9c.  i),  we  are 
reminded  of  Volumnia  kneeling  to  Coriolanus,  and  we  feel  that 
the  same  scene  was  in  the  mind  of  the  two  young  poets.  The 
Comic  character  of  the  play  is  one  Bessus,  a  soldier  by  profession, 
and  an  arrant  coward  in  spite  of  his  captaincy.  He  is  a  braggart, 
liar,  and,  if  occasion  offers,  a  pander,  beiqg  equally  diverting  in 
au  tbese  capadtics,    Cppsiderable  hw,mp>¥C  \%  ^^^^  vcl  ^^da. 


6oo  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

elaboration  of  his  character,  but  the  mighty  figure  of  Falstaff*  is 
plainly  discemible  in  the  background.  The  authors  even  go  to 
the  length  of  appropriating  some  distinctly  Falstaflian  expressions. 
A  fendng-master  says  of  Bessus  (Act  iv.  sc.  3) : 

"  It  showed  discretion,  the  better  part  of  valour/'  ^ 

In  PhüasUr  we  were  shown  a  strong  passion  consumed  by 
groundless  jealousy.  In  A  King  and  no  King  we  have  a  stll 
stronger  passion,  that  of  the  young  Arbaces  for  Princess  Panthea, 
leading  to  confusion  and  disaster.  /Throughout  the  whole  play 
Arbaces  never  doubts  for  a  moment  that  they  are  brother  and 
sister.  The  secret  of  his  birth  is  not  discovered  until  the  last 
scene,  just  as  Bellario's  sex  is  not  made  known  until  the  end  of 
Philaster.  Spaconia  discovers  that  King  Tigranes,  who  is  as  her 
very  life  to  her,  is  in  love  with  Panthea ;  whereupon  she  assumes 
much  the  same  position  towards  him  that  Euphrasia  did  towards 
her  love.  But  there  is  profounder  study  of  character  in  the 
new  play.  Arbaces,  a  mixture  of  vanity  and  boastfulness  with 
really  excellent  qualities,  makes  an  extremely  complex  personality, 
though  not  an  unnatural  or  unsympathetic  one,  and  we  are  given 
a  study  of  complicated  passion  in  no  way  inferior  to  that 
in  Racine's  PhidrCy  the  instinct  of  love  violently  and  irresistibly 
aroused,  but  constantly  met  by  the  fear  and  horror  of  incest. 
The  subject  is  treated  with  great  pathos  and  power  of  lan- 
guage.* 

1  It  is  Falstaflf  who  wn  in  the  First  Part  of  ffewy  IV.  (Act  ▼.  sc  4),  **  The 
better  part  of  valour  b  aiscretion."  This  parallel  has  been  overlooked  both  in 
Ingleby's  Shakespeares  Century  of  Fraise  and  in  Fumivairt  Fresh  Allusions  ta 
Shakespeare. 

•  **  Know  I  have  lost 

The  only  difierence  betwixt  man  and  bettt, 
My  reason. 

PANTHKA. 

Heaven  forbid  ! 

akba(;bs. 
Nay,  it  is  gone, 

And  I  am  left  as  fax  without  a  bound 
As  the  Wide  ocean  that  obeys  the  winds ; 
Each  sudden  passion  throws  me  where  it  liiti. 
And  overwhelms  all  that  oppose  my  wUL 
I  have  beheld  thee  with  a  lustfol  eye  ; 
My  heart  is  set  on  wickedness,  to  act 
Snch  sins  with  thee  ai  I  have  been  afiraid 
Tothink  of.    .... 
I  have  lived 

To  conqaer  men,  and  now  am  overthiown 
Only  bjr  wordt,  brother  and  lister.    V^Theie 
Have  those  words  dwellinff  ?    I  will  find  'em  ovt 
And  Qtterly  dettroy  *eoi ;  bat  they  aie 
Not  to  be  gnsped.    •    •    •    • 
Aocuned  man  1 
Thoii  bonijiit'ii  Üiy  tomml  ifcU»  dwat  %nto\ 


"THE  FAITHFUL  SHEPHERDESS  "  6oi 

In  1609-10  Fletcher  reached  the  zenith  of  bis  fame  as  sole 
author  and  as  coUaborator  with  Beaumont.  That  sweet  and  fresh 
pastoral  play  The  Faithful  Shepherdess^  Fletcher's  unassisted  work, 
must  have  been  written  before  the  spring  of  1610,  for  Sir  William 
Skipworth,  to  whom,  amongst  others,  it  is  dedicated,  died  in'  the 
May  of  that  year.  The  theme  was  peculiarly  suited  to  the  fresh 
and  delicate  grace  of  Fletcher's  lyrical  gift,  and  here  again  Shake- 
speare may  have  perceived  a  distinct  imitation  of  his  Midsummer 
Night s  Dream,  Here  also  the  lovers  are  metamorphosed,  and 
Perigot  embraces  Amaryllis  in  the  form  of  Amoret,  believing  her 
to  be  his  love;  he  also  wounds  Amoret  as  Philaster  wounds 
Arethusa.  A  still  earlier  version  of  the  play  may  be  found  in 
Spenser's  ShephercTs  Calendar,  Darley  has  observed  that  Fletcher 
imitated  several  lines  from  the  same  source,  and  among  them, 
oddly  enough,  some  which  had  been  appropriated  by  Spenser 
from  Chaucer,  whose  verses  greatly  surpass  either  of  the  later 
poets  in  charm.  In  The  Faithful  Shepherdess^  for  example,  we 
have  (v.  5) : 

"  Sort  all  your  shepherds  from  the  lazy  clowns 
That  feed  their  heifers  in  the  budded  brooma.* 

In  Spenser's  Shepherds  Calendar  it  Stands : 

"  So  loytering  live  you,  little  herd  grooms, 
Keeping  your  beasts  in  the  budded  brooms." 

But  in  Chaucer's  House  of  Fame  we  find  the  following  versc 

(iii-  133): 

'^  And  many  a  floite  and  litlyng  home 

And  pipis  made  of  gren^  corne 

As  have  these  litel  herd^-groomes 

That  kepen  bestis  in  the  bromes.'' 

Fletcher's  principal  source,  however,  was,  as  the  title  teils  us, 
Guarini's  Pastor  Fido. 

The  Faithful  Shepherdess  is  a  charming  idyl,  too  airy  and 
delicate  to  have  an  immediate  success  with  his  own  generation, 
but  it  may  be  read  with  pleasure  to  this  day,  and  has  secured 
lasting  fame  to  its  author.  Ben  Jonson's  later  but  also  admirable 
pastoral  play,  The  Sad  Shepherd^  is  the  English  poem  of  that 
period  which  most  resembles  it. 

Immediately  after  the  production  of  this  little  tragi-comedy 
Fletcher  ofFered  to  the  Globe  Theatre  the  most  remarkable  work 

For  thou  hast  all  thy  acüons  bounded  in 
With  curioos  rales,  where  every  beast  is  free  ; 
What  is  there  that  acknowledges  a  kindred 
Bat  wretched  man  ?    ViTho  erer  saw  the  boU 
Fearfolly  leave  the  heifer  that  he  Uked 
Becsnse  tii€j  bad  ooe  dua?" 


6o2  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

which  had  resulted  from  the  combined  labours  of  himself  and 
Francis  Beaumoqt — The  Maids  Tragedy, 

The  first  act  opens  with  the  preparations  for  a  wedding  festi- 
vity.  The  king  has  commanded  the  worthy  and  distinguished 
Lord  Amintor  to  bre^k  off  his  engagement  to  the  gentle  and  de- 
voted  Aspasia  and  to  marry  Evadqe,  the  beautiful  sister  of  his 
dearest  friend  and  comrade,  the  great  general  Melantius.  Amintor, 
to  whom  the  king's  command  is  aacred,  and  who  is,  moreover, 
strongly  attracted  by  Evadne,  breaks  with  Aspasia,  dear  as  she 
is  to  him.  We  witncss  Aspasia*«  deep  grief,  the  outburst  of  rage 
on  the  part  of  her  father  (the  cowardly  Calianax),  ajid  the  Per- 
formance of  the  masque  on  the  eve  of  the  wedding,  in  which  3ome 
of  the  poets'  sweetest  lyrics  are  to  be  found. 

The  second  act  represents  the  wedding-night.  The  disrobing 
of  the  bride  by  her  friends,  and  all  the  fun  and  banter  attendant 
on  the  occasion,  form  the  introduction.  Then  follows,  between 
bridegroom  and  bride,  the  first  great  scene  of  the  play,  as  boldly 
dramatic  as  any  written  by  Shakespeare  before  or  Webster  after 
this  date.  Amintor  approaches  Evadne  with  tender  words,  she 
gently  repulses  him.  He  strives  to  disarm  what  he  supposes  to 
be  her  bashfulness,  but  she  teils  him  calmly  and  coldly  that  she 
will  never  be  his.  Still  he  does  not  understand,  and  now  urges 
her  with  impatient  desire.  Then  she  rises,  like  a  serpent  about 
to  sting,  and  coldly  hisses  that  she  is,  and  will  continue  to  be,  the 
king's  mistress,  that  the  marriage  has  merely  been  arranged  by 
him  as  a  screen  for  his  relations  with  her.  The  fury  and  thirst 
for  revenge  which  seizes  Amintor  when  he  realises  this  outrage 
gives  way  to  a  desperate  comprehension  that  it  is  the  king  who 
has  dishonoured  him;  to  a  subject  the  persoq  of  the  king  is 
inviolable. 

The  third  act  opens  with  an  audacious  visit  from  the  king  on 
the  following  moming.  With  cool  patronage  he  asks  Amintor  if 
the  night  has  given  him  satisfaction.  Amintor  replies  composedly, 
and  answers  the  king's  more  particular  inquiries  quite  in  the 
style  of  the  happy  husband.  It  is  now  the  king's  turn  to  be  dis- 
concerted.  He  sends  for  Evadne  and  violently  accuses  her  of 
treachery,  against  which  she,  of  course,  passionately  protests. 
The  king,  beside  himself  with  rage,  sends  for  Amintor;  he  is 
furiously  attacked  by  Evadne  for  his  falsehoods,  and  the  king 
bnitally  explains  the  Situation  and  the  part  the  husband  is  ezpected 
to  play.  This  double  scene  is  written  in  a  masterly  fashion,  with 
a  strong  scnse  of  dramatic  efiect,  but  the  rest  of  the  act  is  worth- 
less,  being  chiefly  composed  of  dialogues  between  Amintor  and 
Melantius,  who  leams  the  truth  about  his  sister  from  his  friend. 
The  two  are  perpetuajly  drawipg  lipon  eacb  otber  and  sheathing 
their  swords  again ;  firstly,  biBcauM  Melantius  will  not  believe  in 
his  sistcz^s  shame;  secondl^ii  bccause  Aipiqtor  will  not  allow 
Melantius  to  seek  any  revenge  ^Vjii^  H^  ^RC?i^  Vrä  diahonour. 


'^THE  MAID'S  TRAGEDY"  603 

It  all  re^ds  li)ce  a  weak  imitatioq  of  the  Spanish  dramatists  before 
Calderon. 

The  fourth  act  presents  another  series  of  effective  scenes. 
The  brother  accuses  the  sister  of  her  infamy,  and  when  she  coldly 
denies  everything  he  threatens  her  with  his  sword,  until  she  vows 
that  she  will  take  Woody  vengeance  on  the  cruel  and  vicious 
kiog  who  has  brought  about  her  degradation.  Theq  the  suddenly 
converted  Evadne  falls  upon  her  knees  and  implores  her  husband's 
forgiveness,  which  he,  seeing  how  bitterly  she  repents  the  life  she 
has  been  living,  accords.  This  is  followed  by  a  particularly  well- 
imagined  scene,  in  which  the  ridiculous  old  Calianax,  who  hates 
Melantius,  denounces  him  to  the  king  for  his  attempt  to  persuade 
him,  Calianax,  to  give  up  the  city  he  held  for  the  monarch.  In 
spite  of  its  truth,  Melantius  listens  to  the  accusation  quite  imper- 
turbably,  and  succeeds  in  giving  it  the  appearance  of  being  merely 
the  ramblings  of  an  old  dotard. 

In  the  fifth  act  is  a  skilfully  prepared  Judith  scene — the  second 
great  scene  of  the  play.  Evadne  goes  to  the  king's  Chamber, 
passing  through  the  anteroom,  which  resounds  with  the  profligate 
jests  of  the  courtiers.  The  authors  linger  with  a  certain  volup- 
tuous  cruelty  over  the  scene  between  the  king,  who  does  not 
awake  from  his  sleep  until  his  hands  have  been  tied  to  the  bed, 
and  the  woman  who  has  been  his  mistress,  and  who  now  tortures 
him  with  scathing  words  before  she  murders  him.  The  remaining 
scenes  are  marred  by  their  excessive  sensationalism.  Aspasia, 
disguised  as  her  brother,  seeks  Amintor,  from  whom  she  can  no 
longer  be  separated.  He  receives  her  with  warm  cordiality,  but 
she  taunts,  strikes,  and  even  kicks  him,  wishing  to  attain,  if 
possible,  the  happiness  of  dying  by  his  hand.  He  finally  loses 
patience  and  draws  his  sword  upon  her,  seeing  too  late  that  it  is 
his  beloved  whom  he  has  slain.  Evadne  now  appears,  red-handed 
and  glowing  with  love,  but  Amintor  repulses  her  with  horror,  she 
is  stained  with  that  greatest  of  all  crimes,  regicide.  She  kills 
herseif  in  despair,  and  Amintor  also  dies  by  his  own  hand. 

Aspasia  is  the  perpetually  slighted  young  woman  who  appears 
always  resigned  and  gentle,  in  all  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  plays. 
The  old  coward  Calianax  is  another  of  their  standing  characters. 
The  brotherhood  between  Melantius  and  Amintor  possesses,  in 
spite  of  its  occasional  artificiality,  some  interest  for  us,  as  does 
the  corresponding  friendship  in  the  Two  Noble  Kinsmen^  from 
the  fact  that  the  mutual  relations  between  the  authors  evidently 
served  as  the  prototype  in  both  cases.  Evadne's  character,  if  not 
completely  intelligible,  is  entirely  hors  ligne,  and  most  admirably 
suited  to  dramatic  treatment.  The  play  indeed  is  a  model  of 
everything  which  dramatic  and  theatrical  treatment  requires,  and 
was  well  calculated  to  impress  an  audience  for  whom  'Shake- 
speare's  art  was  too  refined. 

We  cannot^  thcrcforef  be  surprised  that  \)\e  IntxA  vcA  V^^ssa* 


6o4  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

craftsman  of  the  two  poets,  who  was  the  first  to  publish  a  coUected 
edition  of  their  works  after  their  death,  should  write  the  following 
words  without  fear  of  contradiction :  **  But  to  mention  them  is  to 
throw  a  cloud  upon  all  former  names  and  benight  posterity;  this 
book  beingy  without  flattery,  the  greatest  monument  of  the  scene 
that  time  and  humanity  have  produced,  and  must;  live,  not  only 
the  crown  and  sole  reputation  of  our  own,  but  the  stain  of  all 
other  nations  and  languages  **  (Shirley's  address  to  the  reader). 


XVII 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  FLETCHER—THE  TWO  NOBLE 

KINSMEN  AND  HENRY  VHL 

In  the  year  1684  a  drama  was  published  tor  the  first  dme  under 
the  foUowing  title : 

'*  Tke  Two  Noble  Kinsmen;  presented  at  the  Blackfriars,  by  the 
Kingfs  Maiesties  Servants,  with  great  applause.     Written  by  the  me- 

morable  Worthies  of  their  time  |  gj;  -fe^^i^a«  }  *^*  = 

Printed  at  London  by  77io.  Cotes  ioi  John   Waterson^  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  the  signe  of  the  Crown  m  PauPs  Churchyard." 

This  play  was  not  included  in  the  First  Folio  edition  of  Beau- 
mont  and  Fletcher  (1647),  but  it  appeared  in  the  second  (1679). 
Even  supposing  the  editors  of  the  First  Folio  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's  works  to  have  entertained  no  doubt  of  his  share  in  it, 
it  would  probably  remain  in  Fletcher's  possession  until  his  death 
in  1625,  and  would  therefore  be  inaccessible  to  them. 

The  play  is  of  no  particular  value;  it  is  far  inferior  to 
Fletcher's  best  work,  and  not  to  be  compared  with  any  of 
Shakespeare's  completed  dramas.  Nevertheless,  many  eminent 
critics  of  this  Century  have  found  distinct  traces  in  this  play 
of  the  styles  of  both  greater  and  lesser  poet. 

Like  that  of  Troilus  and  Cresstda,  the  theme  found  its  way 
from  the  pages  of  an  old-world  poet,  Statins'  Thebaide  in  this 
case,  into  those  of  Boccaccio,  and  through  him  it  came  to  Chaucer. 
Under  the  form  given  it  by  the  latter  it  proved  the  foundation 
of  several  dramas  of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James.^  Most  of 
the  essential  details  of  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  may  be  found  in 
Boccaccio's  La  Teseide. 

It  is  a  tale  of  two  devoted  friends,  both  suddenly  seized  by  a 
romantic  passion  for  a  woman  whom  they  have  watched  Walking 
in  a  garden  from  the  window  of  the  tower  in  which  they  are  held 
prisoners  of  war.  Their  friendship  is  shattered,  each  claiming 
the  exclusive  right  to  the  affections  of  this  lady,  who  is  the 
Duke's  sister  Emilia.     One  of  the  friends  is  set  at  liberty  upon 

^  A  carefnl  study  of  the  plot  may  be  found  io  Theodoc  Ei«Ktt^x&ä!^  \a«K^\ 
Pakamn  og  ArciU,  l^^l. 


6o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  express  condition  of  his  quitting  the  country  for  ever.  His 
irresistible  longing  for  the  fair  one,  however,  draws  him  back  to 
live  disguised  in  her  neighbourhood.  The  second  friend  escapes 
from  prison,  and  meeting  the  first,  engages  him  in  a  duel,  which 
is  interrupted  by  Duke  Theseus.  They  explain  their  position  to 
him,  and  their  passion  for  his  sister.  The  Duke  arranges  a 
formal  toumament  between  the  suitors;  Emilia's  hand  is  to 
reward  the  victor,  and  the  vanquished  is  to  suffer  death.  The 
conqueror,  however,  is  fatally  injured  by  a  fall  from  his  horse, 
and  it  is  the  defeated  man  who  marries  the  princess. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  question  of  the  traces  of  Fletcher's 
hand  in  this  play,  for  in  it  we  find  not  only  his  easily  recognised 
metrical  style,  but  many  features  peculiar  to  his  poorer  work — 
the  lax  composition  which  permits  of  two  plots  running  side  by 
side  with  no  connection  between  them,  a  tendency  to  mcrely 
theatrical  effect  and  entirely  motiveless  action,  contrived  to  sur- 
prise  the  audience  at  the  cost  of  psychology,  and  finally  his  con- 
ception  of  virtue  and  vice  in  the  relations  between  man  and 
woman.  To  Fletcher,  chastity  meant  entire  abstinence,  and  side 
by  side  with  this  **  chastity  "  he  places,  and  delineates  with  relish, 
an  immodest  and  purely  sensuai  passion.  Thus  Emilia  talks  of 
her  "  chastity,"  and  the  jailer's  daughter  alludes  to  her  passion 
for  Palamon  in  terms  which  are  repulsively  shameless.  When 
Shakespeare's  women  love,  they  are  neither  chaste  in  this  fashion 
nor  passionate  In  this  fashion.  *  They  are  sympathetically  and 
reverentially  drawn  as  loving  only  one  man  and  loving  him  faith- 
fuUy,  whereas  the  affections  of  Fletcher's  heroines  veer  round 
as  suddenly  as  we  saw  Evadne's  veer  in  The  MaicCs  Tragedy. 
Therefore  it  is  possible  for  him  to  portray  such  women  as 
Emilia,  who  during  the  tournament  loves  first  one  and  then 
the  other  of  her  suitors  as  his  chances  of  victory  are  in  the 
ascendant.  That  it  contains  many  reminiscences  of  Shakespeare 
is  no  argument  against  Fletcher's  responsibility  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  play,  but  quite  the  contrary;  we  have  already  scen 
how  many  of  these  traces  are  to  be  found  even  among  his  best 
works.  In  the  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  we  find  echoes  from  The 
Midsummer  NigMs  Dream^  from  Julius  Caesar  (the  quarrel 
between  Brutus  and  Cassio),  and,  above  all,  a  tasteless  and 
offensive  imitation  of  Ophelia*s  madness,  when  the  jailer's 
daughter  goes  crazy  for  fear  while  seeking  Palamon  in  the 
wood  at  night,  and  in  her  raving  and  singing  later  in  the  play. 
Shakespeare  never  repeated  without  excelling,  and  certainly 
never  parodied  himself  in  this  fashion.* 

Shakespeare  evidently  had  no  part  in  the  planning  of  the 
play.  There  is  no  originality  in  it,  and  if  we  do  obtain  a 
glimpse  of  some  sort  of  life's  pbilosophy,  it  is  certainly  not  his. 

'  A  timilBT  opinion  is  skilfuUy  maintained  by  Bierfretind»  bat  I  cumot  «gree  with 


IMITATIONS  OF  SHAKESPEARES  STYLE      607 

Swinbume's  surmise  that  the  play  was  sketched  by  Shakespeare 
and  completed  by  Fletcher,  can  therefore  hardly  be  correct. 
Among  other  arguments,  we  tnäy  mention  that  the  pärt  in 
which^  according  to  Swinbume's  own  opinion,  Shakespeare's  hand 
ift  most  traceable^  is  the  conclusioni  which  is  hardly  likely  to  have 
been  written  first. 

Can  any  part  of  the  play  be  ascribed  to  Shakespeare?  Gar- 
diner and  Delius  believe  not,  and  the  Danish  critics  a  fbw  years 
ago  shared  the  same  searcely  justifiable  opinion.  Bierfreund  is 
ühinfluenced  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  most  eminent  English 
critics  hold  a  contrary  view,  but  such  a  circumstance  should  im- 
pose  the  very  dosest  study  of  the  play  on  the  part  of  foreign 
critics.  In  my  case  this  has  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  although 
'the  drama  was  planned  and  the  greater  part  executed  by  Fletcher, 
he  had  Shakespeare's  assistance  in  finishing  the  work.  We  can 
hardly  imagine  that  Shakespeare  vouchsafed  his  help  from  any 
motive  but  that  of  interest  in,  and  a  friendly  feeling  for,  the  younger 
poet,  who  had  submitted  his  work  to  him  and  appealed  for  his 
assistance. 

It  would  but  weary  the  reader  to  go  through  the  work  from 
beginning  to  end  to  show  how  the  seal  of  Shakespeare's  style  is 
stamped  upon  it.  The  traces  of  his  pen  are  most  frequent  in  the 
opening  act ;  the  appeal  of  the  first  queen  to  Theseus  ("  We  are 
three  queens,"  &c.),  in  the  introductory  scene,  for  example.  These 
lines  possess  all  the  rhythm  peculiar  to  the  productions  of  the  last 
years  of  the  poet's  life ;  and  how  boldly  figurative  and  genuinely 
Shakespearian  in  expression  is  the  same  queen's  fanciful  ex- 
pression : 

"  Dowagers,  take  hands ; 
Let  US  be  widows  to  our  woes ;  delay 
Commends  us  to  a  famishing  hope.'' 

Theseus'  last  speech  in  this  act  (the  summing  up  of  the  Situa- 
tion and  circumstances)  reminds  us  of  Hamlet's  monologue,  **  The 
whips  and  scorns  of  life,  the  oppressors'  wrongs/'&c,  and  Ulysses' 
beauty,  wit,  high  birth,"  &c. 

"  Since  I  have  known  frights,  fury,  friends'  behests, 
Love's  provocations,  zeal,  a  mistress'  täsk, 
Desire  of  liberty,  a  fever,  madness."  .  .  . 

Mere  imitations  must  not  be  confounded  with  Shakespeare's 
own  style,  however.  The  passage  in  which  Emilia  speaks  of  the 
ardent  and  tender  friendship  that  united  her  to  her  dead  friend 
Flavina,  which  in  England  has  been  mistakenly  admired  as  Shake- 
speare's work,  is  in  reality  a  poor  copy  of  the  passage  in  the  Miä- 
Summer  Nighis  Dream  (Act  iii.  sc.  2)  where  Helena  describes 
the  love  between  herseif  and  Hermia.  The  unhealthy  afiection 
here  set  forth  bears  Fletcher's  stamp  upotv  \V,  ^xvAl  y&  xioäär.  ^^wjvjkt 


6o8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cularly  unpleasant  by  the  use  Emilia  makes  of  the  word  "in- 
nocent." 

We  are  again  sensible  of  Shakespeare's  touch  in  the  monologue 
spoken  by  the  jailer's  daughter,  which  constitutes  the  second  scene 
of  the  third  act  Note  the  picturesque  expression,  **  In  me  has 
grief  slain  fear/'  and  many  others.  From  the  moment  she  goes 
out  of  her  mind  down  to  the  last  word  she  utters,  Shakespeare 
has  neither  part  nor  lot  in  those  speeches  whose  uncouth  imitation 
of  his  style  must  have  been  singularly  offensive  to  him. 

The  greater  part  of  the  first  scene  of  the  fifth  act  is  undoubtedly 
Shakespeare's.  Theseus'  first  Speech  is  süperb,  and  Arcite's  address 
to  the  knights  and  invocation  of  Mars  is  delightful.  The  lines  at 
the  close  of  the  play  have  also  a  Shakespearian  ring  about  them, 
especially  the  words  so  much  admired  by  Swinburne : 

"  That  nought  could  buy 
Dear  love  but  loss  of  dear  love." 

But  there  is  no  deeper,  no  intellectual  interest  for  us  in  all  this. 
Shakespeare  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  psychology,  or  rather 
want  of  it,  in  this  play.^ 

Had  he  any  greater  share  in  Henry  VIIL  ?  The  play  was 
first  published  in  the  Folio  edition  of  1623,  where  it  closes  the 
series  of  Historical  Plays.  The  first  four  acts  are  founded  on 
Holinshed's  Chronicle,  and  the  last  upon  Fox's  Acts  and  Monu- 
ments of  the  Church^  commonly  known  as  the  Book  of  Martyrs, 
The  authors  were  also  directly  or  indirectly  indebted  to  a  book 
which  at  that  date  only  existed  in  manuscript,  George  Cavendish's 
Relics  of  Cardinal  Wo/sey,  which  had  been  largely  drawn  upon 
by  Holinshed  and  Hall.  The  earliest  reference  to  a  play  of  Henry 
VIIL  may  be  found  in  the  Stationers'  Hall  Registry  for  the  I2th 
of  February  1604-5,  where  the  "Enterlude  for  K.  Henry  VIIL" 
is  entered ;  but  this  refers  to  Rowley's  worthless  and  fanatically 
Protestant  play  "  Whenyou  see  inee  you  know  mee.*^  The  next 
mention  of  such  a  drama  occurs  in  the  well-known  oft-quoted 
letters  concerning  the  burning  of  the  Globe  Theatre  on  the  29th 
of  June  161 3.  In  an  epistle  from  Thomas  Larkin  to  Sir  Thomas 
Pickering,  dated  "This  last  of  June  1613,"  we  read:  "No  longer 
since  than  yesterday,  while  Burbege's  Company  were  acting  at  the 
Globe  the  play  of  Henry  VIIL,  and  there  shooting  off  certain 
Chambers  in  way  of  triumph,  the  fire  catched  and  there  bumt  so 
furiously,  as  it  consumed  the  whole  house,  all  in  less  than  two 
hours,  the  people  having  enough  to  do  to  save  themselves."  Also 
Sir  Henry  Wotton  in  a  letter  to  his  nephews,  dated  the  6th  of  July* 
161 3,  writes :  "  Now  let  matters  of  State  sleep,  I  will  entertain  you 

^  Compare  Hickson,  Fleay,  and  Furnivall  upon  the  subject  of  7^  7\oo  Nobtt 
JCinsnun,    Nerv  Shakspere  Society* s  Transactüms^  1874.    R.  Boyle  mainUins  that 
be  OLD  tnce  Masdngers  hand  in  Ükt  plKy. 


"HENRY  VIIL"  609 

at  tbe  present  with  what  happened  at  the  Bankside.  The  king's 
Players  had  a  new  play,  called  All  is  True,  representing  some  prin- 
dpal  pieces  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIIL,  which  was  set  forth  with 
many  extraordinary  drcumstances  of  pomp  and  majesty,  even  to  tbe 
matting  of  the  stage ;  the  knights  of  the  Order,  with  Üieir  Geoif;es 
and  Garter,  the  guards  with  üieir  embroidered  coats  and  the  like ; 
sufficient,  in  Truth,  within  a  while  to  make  greatness  v»-y  familiär 
if  not  ridiculous«  Now  King  Henry  making  a  masque  at  the  Car- 
dinal Wolsey's  House,  and  certain  canons  being  ^ot  off  at  his 
entrance,  some  of  the  paper,  or  other  stuff  wherewith  one  of  them 
was  stopped,  did  light  on  the  thatch,  where  being  thought  at  first 
but  an  idle  smoak,  and  their  eyes  more  attentive  to  the  show,  it 
kindled  inwardly  and  ran  round  like  a  train,  consuming  within 
less  than  an  hour  the  whole  House  to  the  very  grounds." 

The  emphatic  and  thrice  repeated  assertion  of  the  prologue 
tbat  all  that  is  about  to  be  represented  is  the  truth^  taken  in  con- 
junction  with  other  details,  proves  that  the  play  described  is  our 
Henry  VIIL<,  and  at  that  date,  therefore,  a  new  work. 

Although  never  very  highly  esteemed,  it  was  not  until  some- 
where  about  the  year  1850  that  it  was  ever  doubted  that  Henry 
VHL  was  entirely  written  by  Shakespeare.  It  would  now  be 
impossible  to  find  any  one  holding  such  an  opinion ;  some  of  the 
most  competent  critics,  indeed,  maintain  that  Shakespeare  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.^ 

That  keen  observer,  Emerson,  alluding  to  Henry  VHL  in 
his  book  Representative  Men  draws  attention  to  the  two  entirely 
different  rhythms  of  its  verse — one  that  is  Shakespearian,  and 
another  much  inferior.  Almost  simultaneously,  Spedding  pub- 
lished  an  article  in  the  GentlematCs  Mag^ajsine  for  Augvist  1856 
(afterwards  reprinted  under  the  title  "  Who  Wrote  Shakespeare's 
Henry  VIII?"),  in  which  he  points  out  these  differing  rhythms, 
affirming  one  of  them  to  be  Fletcher's.  Furnivall  and  Fleay  de- 
clared  themselves  of  the  same  opinion  in  1874.  To  understand  this 
criticism,  the  reader  must  bear  in  mind  the  following  simple  evolu- 
tion  of  English  five-footed  iambics.  The  language  does  not  possess 
what  Scandinavians  call  feminine  rhymes,  alternating  and  contrast- 
ing  with  the  masculine.  The  first  attempt  to  break  the  monotony 
of  the  blank  verse  simply  consisted  in  the  addition  of  an  extra 
syllable  to  the  original  ten — double  ending,  The  proportion 
of  these  lengthened  lines  in  Shakespeare's  Henry   F.  is  18  in 

^  In  his  prefatory  treatise  to  the  Leopold  Shakspert  (136  quarto  pages), 
F.  J.  Furnivall  has  dealt  with  this  play  as  being  in  part  Shakespeare's.  Now  ne  is 
of  a  different  opinion,  and  in  a  copy  of  the  book  presented  by  him  to  me,  he  has 
written  on  the  margin  against  Henry  VI  IL  *'Not  Shakspere's."  Arthur  Symons, 
who  edits  and  prefaces  the  play  in  the  Irving  edition,  told  me  that  he  now  indines, 
cm  account  of  its  metrical  structure,  to  the  befief  that  Shakespeare  had  no  share  in  it. 
P.  A.  Daniels,  the  erudite  editor  of  so  many  Shakespearian  quartos,  said  that  he  had 
arrived  at  no  dedsion  respecting  its  author^ip,  and  characteristically  added  that  the 
identity  was  a  matter  of  mdifference  to  him  so  long  as  the  pla.7  wi&  ^jxA»  TVo^kNak 
not  the  psychological  standpoiDt 


6io  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

lOO.  Ben  Jonson  long  adhered  to  the  old  regulär  construction, 
but  finally  yielded  to  the  newer  fashion.  Fletcher  constantly 
used  the  eleven-syllabled  lines,  employing  them  indeed  so  regu- 
larly  and  consciously  that  he  is  betrayed  into  a  certain  mono- 
tonous  mannerism.  Instante  the  following  from  The  Wild  Gcase 
Ckmsß: 

•*  I  would  I  were  a  woman,  sir,  to  fit  you, 
As  there  be  such,  no  doubt,  may  engine  you  too, 
May  with  a  countermine  blow  up  your  Talour. 
But  in  good  faith,  sir,  we  are  both  too  honest ; 
And  the  plague  is,  we  cannot  be  persuaded ; 
For  look  you,  if  we  thought  it  were  a  glory 
To  be  the  last  of  all  your  lovely  ladies."  .  .  . 

This  will  also  show  that  Fletcher  did  not,  as  a  rule,  aliow  the  idea 
to  overlap  from  one  line  to  the  next. 

In  Shakespeare's  later  works  the  proportion  of  eleven-syllabled 
lines  is  33  in  100;  in  Massinger  it  is  40,  and  in  Fletcher  50  to 
80,  or  even  more.  Again,  Shakespeare  made  use,  with  ever- 
increasing  frequency,  of  enjanibenunt  or  "  run  on "  lines.  This 
style  is  particuJarly  noticcable  in  the  passionate  dramas  of  his 
bitter  period,  and  the  growing  habit  of  employing  them  led  to  the 
more  and  more  frequent  appearance  of  lines  ending  with  an  ad- 
verb,  article,  or  preposition  (light  and  weaking  endings).  There 
may  be  a  hundred  such  in  his  later  plays ;  there  are,  for  in- 
stance,  130  in  Cytnbeline.  This  feature  became  an  extravagance 
with  his  successors.  Massinger,  whose  dramas  are  considerably 
shorter  than  Shakespeare's,  has  from  150  to  170  of  these  weak 
endings  in  each  play. 

In  comparison  with  Shakespeare's  work  there  is  an  effemi- 
nate  ring  about  Fletcher's  verse,  and  his  was  the  Corinthian, 
if  Shakespeare's  was  the  lonic  style.  Separate  and  unalloyed,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  mistake  them,  but  it  is  a  very  difTerent 
matter  when  they  are  blended  together  in  one  and  the  same 
work  as  in  Henry  VIIL  And  here  again  the  problem  ofiered 
by  the  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  presents  itself.  Did  Shakespeare 
leave  the  play  unfinished,  and  was  it  completed  by  Fletcher  after 
his  death  ?  or  did  he  help  Fletcher  by  writing  or  re-writing 
certain  scenes  of  his  play?  The  first  supposition  is  an  utter 
impossibility,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  The  planning  of  the 
drama  was  not  Shakespeare's ;  never  in  his  life  did  anything  so 
shapeless  come  from  his  pen.  Is  any  part  of  the  play  due  to 
him  ?  In  spite  of  the  verdicts  of  Furnivall  and  Symons,  I  think 
so.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  not  justified  in  ignoring  the  testi- 
mony  borne  by  Heminge  and  Condell  in  the  First  Folio  editioo. 
We  have  always  hitherto  taken  for  granted  that  they  were  better 
qualified  to  judge  of  the  authenticity  of  a  play  than  we  of  the 
prescnt  iay ;  not  one  of  the  plays  accepted  by  them  has  aince 
been  rejtct^d  by  posterity,  and  ^^  i\^d  %  ^^ry  ficmd  reaaoa  for 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  "HENRY  VIII."  6il 

mking  an  exception  of  Henry  VIIL  The  sole  pretext  we  can 
ITer  is  the  weakness  of  the  whole  play,  including  those  portions 
f  which  we  are  in  doubt  But  this  weakness  eannot  in  any 
iray  be  considered  as  dedsive.  Here,  working  with  another 
aan,  Shakespeare  did  not  put  forth  his  füll  strength,  exercise 
U  his  powers,  nor  give  free  play  to  his  imagination.  Of  this, 
linry  VIIL  is  not  the  only  example.  Moreover,  there  are 
trong  points  of  resemblance  between  those  parts  of  the  play 
rhich  the  majority  of  English  critics  ascribe  to  him  and  worka 
f  the  same  period  which  were  unmistakably  his  and  his  alone. 

So  far  back  as  1765,  Samuel  Johnson,  who  never  doubted 
hat  the  whole  play  was  due  to  Shakespeare,  remarked  that  the 
K>et's  genius  seemed  to  rise  and  set  with  Queen  Katharine,  and 
hat  any  one  might  have  invented  and  written  the  rest.  In  1850 
ames  Spedding,  moved  thereto  by  some  suggestive  criticism  by 
fennyson,  came  to  the  condusion  already  mentioned,  that  only 
ertain  parts  were  written  by  Shakespeare,  and  that  the  re* 
aainder  was  due  to  Fletcher.  This  opinion  was  confirmed  by 
>amuel  Hickson,  who  remarked  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  same 
lecision  three  or  four  years  previously,  and  even  with  the  same 
esults  as  far  as  the  separate  scenes  were  concemed.  This 
heory  was,  after  a  careful  examination  of  the  metrical  structure, 
;till  further  corroborated  by  Fleay. 

That  the  general  scheme  of  the  drama  was  not  due  to 
>hakespeare  is  self-evident.  Spedding  observed  how  utterly 
neffective  the  play  is  as  a  whole,  how  the  interest  coUapses 
nstead  of  increasing,  and  how  the  sympathy  aroused  in  the 
Ludience  is  in  steady  Opposition  to  the  actual  development  of 
•vents.  The  centre  of  interest  in  the  first  act  is  undeniably 
^ueen  Katharine,  and,  although  the  deference  due  to  so  recent 
L  king  as  Elizabeth's  father  forbade  too  piain  speaking,  the 
Ludience  is  clearly  given  to  understand  that  the  monarch's  pas- 
lion  for  Anne  Boleyn  was  really  at  the  bottom  of  his  consdentious 
icruples  concerning  the  wediock  in  which  he  had  lived  for  twenty 
rears.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  spectators  are  expected  to  feel 
oy  and  satisfaction  when  Anne  is  solemnly  crowned  queen,  and 
Lctual  triumph  when  she  gives  birth  to  a  daughter.  In  the  last 
ict  we  have  the  impeachment  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  his  ac- 
(uittal  by  the  king,  and  his  appointment  to  the  godfathership  of 
illizabeth,  all  of  which  has  no  connection  whatever  with  the  real 
Lction  of  the  pla>.  Wolsey,  one  of  the  two  chief  characters,  the 
rvil  principle  in  Opposition  to  the  good  Queen  Katharine,  dis- 
ippears  before  her,  not  even  surviving  the  close  of  the  third 
ict.  The  whole  play,  in  fact,  resolves  itself  into  a  succession  of 
(pectacular  effects,  processions,  songs,  dances,  and  music  We 
ire  shown  a  great  assembly  of  the  State  Council  in  connection 
rith  Buckingham's  trial;  a  great  festival  in  Wolsey's  palafift^ 
vith  masguerade  and  dance ;  the  great  tnai  scenes ^\^^X!iSigA2CL<^^ 


6i2  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

queen  at  the  bar ;  a  great  coronation  scene,  with  canopy,  crown 
jewels,  and  flourish  of  trumpets;  the  d3ring  Katharine's  vision  of 
dancing  angels,  with  golden  vizards  and  palm  branches  in  their 
hands ;  and  lastly,  the  great  christening  scene  in  the  palace,  with 
another  procession  of  canopy,  trumpets,  and  heralds. 

An  invisible  writing  inscribes  on  every  page  the  words 
Written  to  order.  In  all  probability  it  was  a  hurriedly  written 
piece,  hastily  put  together  for  Performance  at  the  court  gaieties 
in  honour  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth's  marriage.  It  was  for  those 
festivities  that  Beaumont's  little  play,  The  Masque  of  the  Inner 
Temple  and  Gra^s  Inn^  and  Shakespeare's  own  masterpiece^^J^ 
Temptst.  were  written.  Shakespeare's  part  in  Henry  VIIL  is 
limited  to  Act  i.  sc.  i  and  2,  Act  ii.  sc.  3  and  sc.  4,  Act  iii.  sc  2 
as  far  as  Wolsey's  first  monologue,  "What  should  this  mean/' 
and  Act  v.  sc.  i  and  4. 

This  play  cannot  be  classed  with  Shakespeare's  other  histori- 
cal  dramas,  for,  as  we  have  already  observed,  its  events  were  of 
too  recent  occurrence  to  allow  of  a  strictly  veracious  treatment. 
How  was  it  possible  to  teil  the  truth  about  Henry  VIIL,  that 
coarse  and  cruel  Bluebeard,  with  his  six  wives?  Did  he  not 
inaugurate  the  Reformation,  and  was  he  not  the  father  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  ?  As  little  could  the  material  interests  which  furthered 
the  Reformation  be  represented  on  the  stage,  or  the  various  reli- 
gious  and  political  aspects  of  the  Reformation  itself.  Fettered 
and  bound  as  he  was  by  a  hundred  different  considerations, 
Shakespeare  acquitted  himself  of  his  difficult  task  with  tact  and 
skill.  When  Henry,  immediately  after  his  encounter  with  the 
beauteous  court  lady,  began,  after  all  those  years,  to  feel  scruples 
on  the  score  of  his  marriage  with  his  brother's  wife,  Shakespeare, 
without  making  him  a  hypocrite,  allows  us  to  perceive  how  the 
new  passion  acted  as  a  spur  to  his  conscience.  The  character  of 
Wolsey  is  founded  upon  the  Chronicle,  and  the  clever  parvenu's 
bold,  unscnipulous,  yet  withal  self-controlled  nature,  is  indicated 
by  a  few  light  touches.  Fletcher  has  spoiled  the  character  by  the 
introduction  of  the  badly-written  monologues  uttered  by  Wolsey 
after  his  fall.  We  recognise  the  voice  of  the  clergyman's  son  in 
their  feeble,  pastoral  strain.  The  picture  of  Anne  Boleyn,  deli- 
cately  outlined  by  Shakespeare,  was  also  put  out  of  drawing  later 
in  the  play  by  Fletcher.  All  the  light  of  the  piece,  however,  is 
concentrated  around  the  figure  of  the  repudiated  Catholic  queen, 
Katharine  of  Arragon,  for  in  her  (as  he  found  her  character  in  the 
Chronicle)  Shakespeare  recognised  a  variant  of  his  present  all- 
absorbing  type — the  noble  and  neglected  woman.  She  closely 
resembles  the  misjudged  Queen  Hermione,  so  unjustly  separated 
from  her  husband  and  thrown  into  prison  in  the  Winiet^s  Tale. 
As  in  Cymbeline  Imogen  still  loves  Posthumus  although  he  has 
cast  her  off,  so  Katharine  continues  to  love  the  man  who  has 
wronged  her* 


KATHARINE  OF  ARRAGON  613 

Shakespeare  has  hardly  put  a  word  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Queen  which  may  not  be  found  in  the  Chronicle,  but  he  has 
created  a  character  of  zningled  charm  and  distinction,  a  union  of 
Castilian  pride  with  extreme  simplicity,  of  inflexible  resolution 
with  gentlest  resignation,  and  of  a  quick  temper  with  a  sincere 
piety,  through  which  the  temper  sometimes  shows.  He  has 
drawn  with  a  caressing  touch  the  figure  of  a  queen  neither  beau- 
tiful  nor  brilliant,  but  true — true  to  the  core,  proud  of  her  birth 
and  queenly  rank,  but  softer  than  wax  in  the  hands  of  her  royal 
lord,  whom  she  loves  after  twenty-four  years  of  married  life  as 
dearly  as  on  her  wedding-day.  Her  letters  show  how  devoted 
and  lovable  she  was,  and  in  them  she  addresses  Henry  as  **  Your 
Grace,  my  husband,  my  Henry,"  and  signs  herseif, "  Your  humble 
wife  and  true  servant/'  In  those  scenes  in  which  it  has  fallen  to 
Fletcher's  lot  to  represent  the  Queen,  he  has  adhered  faithfuUy  to 
Shakespeare's  conception  of  her,  which  was  virtually  that  of  the 
Chronicle.  Even  in  the  hour  of  her  death,  Katharine  does  not 
forget  to  rebuke  and  punish  the  messenger  who  has  failed  in  due 
respect  by  omitting  to  kneel;  but  she  forgives  her  enemy  the 
Cardinal  and  sends  the  King  this  last  greeting : 

"  Remember  me 
In  all  humility  unto  his  highness  : 
*  Say  his  long  trouble  now  is  passing 

Out  of  the  World :  teil  him  in  death  I  bless'd  him, 
For  so  I  will. — Mine  eyes  grow  dim." 

Her  stately  dignity  resembles  that  of  Hermione,  but  she  difTers 
from  the  latter  in  her  pride  of  race  and  piety.  Hermione  is 
neither  pious  nor  proud ;  neither  was  Shakespeare.  We  find  a 
Uttle  proof  of  his  detestation  of  sectarianism  even  in  the  pompous 
play  of  Henry  VIII.  In  the  third  scene  of  the  fifth  act  the  porter 
exdaims  of  the  inquisitive  multitude  crowding  to  watch  the  chris- 
tening  procession : 

''There  are  the  youths  that  thunder  at  the  playhouse  and  fight  for 
bitten  apples ;  that  no  audience  but  the  Tribulation  of  Tower  Hill  or 
the  limbs  of  Limehouse,  their  dear  brothers,  are  able  to  endure." 

Limehouse  was  an  artisan  house  in  London;  there  also  the 
foreigners  settled,  and  it  resounded  with  the  strife  of  religious 
sects.  It  is  amusing  to  note  how  Shakespeare  contrived  to  have 
a  fling  at  his  detested  groundlings  and  his  Puritan  enemies  at 
one  and  the  same  time. 

As  we  all  know,  the  drama  closes  with  Cranmer's  lengthy  and 
flattering  prediction  of  the  greatness  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  which 
is  marred  by  the  monotony  of  Fletcher's  worst  mannerisms.  Shake- 
speare clearly  had  no  share  in  this  tirade,  which  maJL«&  ^  xSoft. 
more  Btnuige  the  pari  it  has  played  in  the  d\BoaASAOXi%^\&^>^^^ 


6 14  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

been  carried  on  with  so  little  psychology  relative  to  Shakespeare's 
religious  and  denominational  Standpoint.  How  many  times  has 
the  prophecy  that  under  Elizabeth  "  God  shall  be  truly  known  ** 
been  quoted  in  support  of  the  great  poet's  firmly  Protestant  con- 
victions  ?  Yet  the  line  was  evidently  never  written  by  him,  and 
not  a  Single  tum  of  thought  in  the  whole  of  this  lengthy  speech 
owns  any  Suggestion  of  his  pathos  and  style.  It  is  only  here  and 
there  in  the  play  that  we  obtain  a  glimpse  of  Shakespeare,  and 
then  he  is  fettered  and  hampered  by  coUaboration  with  another 
man  and  by  an  uncongenial  task,  to  which  only  a  great  exertion 
of  his  genius  could  here  and  there  impart  any  dramatic  interest 


XVIII 


CYMBBLINB^THB  THEMB-^-THE  POINT  OP  DEPARTÜRB-^ 
THB  MORAL-^THE  IDYLL  — IMOGEN  — SHAKESPEARE 
AND  GOETHE'-SHAKESPEARE  AND  CALDERON 

In  Cymbeline  Shakespeare  is  once  more  sole  master  of  his 
materiali  and  he  works  it  up  into  such  a  many-coloured  web  as  no 
loom  but  his  can  produce.  Here,  too,  we  find  a  certain  offhand 
carelessness  of  technique.  The  exposition  is  perfunctory;  the 
preliaitTiartes^TJfTEeaction  are  conveyed  to  us  in  a  scene  of  pure 
narrative.  The  comic  passages  are,  as  a  nile,  weak,  the  jnuth:^ 
movini^^deyice  being  for  one  of  the  other  characters  to  ridicule  or 
färody  in  asWes  the  utterances  of  the  coarse  and  vain  Princc 
Cloten.  In  the  middle  of  the  play  (üL  3),  a  poorly-written  mono- 
logue  gives  us  a  sort  of  supplementary  exposition,  necessary  to 
the  understanding  of  the  plot.  Finally,  the  dramatic  knot  is  loosed 
by  means  of  a  deus  ex  machinä^  Jupiter,  "upon  his  eagle  back'd," 
appearing  to  the  sleeping  Posthumus,  and  leaving  with  him  an 
oracular  "label,"  in  which,  as  though  to  bearwitness  to  the  poet's 
''small  Latin,"  the  deity  childishly  derives  mulier  {vorsi  mollis  aer^ 
or  "tender  air."  But,  in  spite  of  all  this,  Shakespeare  is  here 
once  more  at  the  height  of  his  poetic-g^eatflessj  the  convalescent 
has  recovered  all  his  strengtTiTHe  has  thrown  his  whole  souI 
into  the  creation  of  his  heroine,  and  has  so  enchased  this  Iroogen, 
this  pearl  among  women,  that  all  her  excellences  show  to  the  best 
advantage,  and  the  setting  is  not  unworthy  of  the  jewel. 

As  in  Cleopatra  and  Cressida  we  had  woman  determined  solely 
by  her  sex,  so  in  Imogen  we  have  an  embodimentJ>£4be-jHghj 
possible  characteristics  of  womanho^^ — Untainted  healtirpf  soul, 
un^IRücen  iortitude,  codSiancy  thaT'withstands'^all  tnäls,  löex- 
haustible  forbearance,  unclouded  intelligence,  love  that  never 
wavers,  and  unquenchable  radiance  of  spirit.  She,  like  Marina, 
is  cast  into  the  snake-pit  of  the  world.  She  is  slandered,  and  not, 
like  Desdemona,  at  second  or  third  band,  but  by  the  vcry  man 
who  boasts  of  her  favours  and  supports  his  boast  with  seemiogly 
incontrovertible  proofs.  Like  Cordelia,  she  is  misjudged;  but 
whereas  Cordelia  is  merely  driven  from  her  flSLDier's "  presence 
älong  with  the  man  of  her  choice,  Imogen  is  doomed  to  deaüv 
by  her  cnieUy-deceived  husbandi  wViom  a\oti^  ^\v^  %i^^TCA\  ^s^ 

6u 


6i6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

througb  it  all  she  preserves  her  love  for  him  unweakened  and 
unchanged. 

Strange — ^very stränge I  In Imogen we find  thefuUest, deepest 
love  that  Shakespeare  has  ever  placed  in  a  woman's  breast,  aod 
tbat  alttibugh  Cymbeline  foUows  dose  upon  plays  which  were  fiUed 
to  the  brim  with  contempt  for  womankind.  He  believed,  then,  in 
such  love,  so  impassioned,  so  immovable,  so  humble — believed  in 
it  now  ?  He  had,  then,  observed  or  encountered  such  a  love — 
encountered  it  at  this  point  of  bis  life  ? 

Even  a  poet  has  scant  enough  opportunities  of  observing  love. 
Love  is  a  rare  thing,  much  rarer  than  the  world  pretends,  and 
when  it  exists,  it  is  apt  to  be  sparing  of  worda  Did  he  simply 
fall  back  on  bis  own  experiences,  bis  own  inward  sensations,  bis 
knowledge  of  bis  own  beart,  and,  transposing  bis  feelings  from  the 
major  to  the  minor  key,  place  them  on  a  woman's  Ups  ?  Or  did 
he  love  at  this  moment,  and  was  be  bimself  thus  beloved  at  the 
end  of  the  fifth  decade  of  bis  life  ?  The  probability  is,  doubtless, 
that  be  wrote  from  sbme  qufte  fresh  experience,  thougb  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  experience  was  actually  bis  own.  It  is  not 
often  tbat  women  love  men  of  bis  mental  habit  and  stature  with 
such  intensity  of  passion.  The  rule  will  always  be  that  a  Moli^re 
sball  find  bimself  cast  aside  for  some  Comte  de  Guiche,  a  Shake- 
speare for  some  Earl  of  Pembroke.  Thus  we  cannot  with  any 
certainty  condude  that  be  bimself  was  the  object  of  the  passion 
which  had  revived  bis  faith  in  a  woman's  power  ofcomplete..^d  un- 
conditioniil  absorption  in  love  für  one  maflTand  for  him  alone.  In 
ie'lrst  place,  had  the  experience  been  hi5T)tnirhe  woüId'Scarcdy 
bave  left  London  so  soon.  Yet  the  probability  is  tbat  be  must 
just  about  this  time  have  gained  some  clear  and  personal  insight 
into  an  ideal  love.  In  the  public  sphere,  too,  it  is  not  unlikdy  tbat 
Arabella  Stuart's  undaunted  passion  for  Lord  William  Seymour, 
so  cruelly  punished  by  King  James,  may  bave  afTorded  the  modd 
for  Imogen's  devotion  to  Leonatus  Posthumus  in  defiance  of  the 
will  of  King  Cymbeline. 

Cymbeline  was  first  printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623.  The  earliest 
mention  of  it  occurs  in  the  Booke  ofPlaies  etnd  Notes  thereof  kept 
by  the  above-mentioned  astrok)ger  and  magidan,  Dr.  Simon  Forman. 
He  was  present,  be  says,  at  a  Performance  of  A  Wmter's  Tale 
on  May  15,  161 1,  and  at  the  same  time  he  sketches  the  plot  of 
Cymbeline^  but  unfortunately  does  not  give  the  date  of  the  Per- 
formance. In  all  probability  it  was  quite  recent ;  the  play  was 
no  doubt  written  in  the  course  of  16  lO,  while  the  fate  of  Arabella 
Stuart  was  still  fresh  in  the  poet^s  mind.  Forman  died  in 
September  161 1. 

/  In  depth  and^wjrty  rf.^£dourigg,  in  richness  of  matter,  pro- 
nindity  of  ÜkoXSg^^nd  h^^Iessness  of  oonventional  canons, 
\Cymbeli91e has  few rivals am<xig Shakespnre^s plays.  Faadnating 
as  it  is,  however,  this  tragi-oranedv  Viim  T«mx  btraoL  vecy  \Ki^^Qlar 


I 


\ 


"CYMBELINE"  617 

OD  the  stage.    The  great  publicp  indeedi  has  neither  studied  nor 
understood  it. 

In  none  of  his  works  has  Shakespeare  played  ffreaur  |iavgp  ^ 
with  chjynology.  He  jumbles  up  the  ages  with  süperb  indiffer- 
f  ence.  The  penod  purports  to  be  that  of  Augustus,  yet  we  are 
introduced  to  English,  French,  and  Italian  cavaHers,  and  hear  them 
talk  of  pistol-shooting  and  playing  bowls  and  cards.  The  list  of 
characters  ends  thus — "  Lords,  ladies,  Roman  Senators,  tribiines, 
apparitions,  a  soothsayer,  a  Dutch  gentleman,  a  Spanish  gentle- 
man,  musicians,  officers,  captains,  soldiers,  messengers,  and  other 
attendants."    Was  there  ever  such  a  farrago  ? 

What  did  Shakespeare  mean  by  this  play?  is  the  question 
that  now  confronts  us.     My  readers  are  aware  that  I  never,  in  the 
f  first  instance,  try  to  answer  this  question  directly.    The  funda- 

I  mental  point  is,  What  impelled  him  to  write  ?  how  did  he  arrive 

j  at  the  theme  ?    When  that  is  answered,  the  rest  follows  almost 

as  a  matter  of  course. 

Where,  then,  is  the  starting-point  of  this  seeming  tangle  ?  We 
find  it  on  resolving  the  material  of  the  play  into  its  component 
paits. 

There  are  three  easily  jistinguiBhahlr  .elements  in  the  actign. 

In  his  {;i£at«toieh6üseof  English  iüst^^  Höllnshed,  SEake- 
speare  found  some  account  of  a  King  Kymbeline  or  Cimbeline, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  educated  at  Rome,  and  there  knighted 
by  the  Emperor  Augustus,  under  whom  he  served  in  several 
campaigns.  He  is  stated  to  have  stood  so  high  in  the  Emperor's 
favour  that  "he  was  at  liberty  to  pay  his  tribute  or  not"  as  he 
chose.  He  reigned  thiity-five  years,  was  buried  in  London,  and  left 
two  sons,  Guiderius  and  Arviragus.  The  name  Imogen  occurs  in 
Holinshed's  story  of  Brutus  and  Locrine.  In  the  tragedy  of 
Lacrine,  dating  from  1595,  Imogen  is  mentioned  as  the  wife  of 
Brutus. 

Although  Cymbeline,  says  Holinshed,  is  declared  by  most 
authorities  to  have  lived  at  unbroken  peace  with  Rome,  yet  some 
Roman  writers  afiirm  that  the  Britons  having  refused  to  pay 
tribute  when  Augustus  came  to  the  throne,  that  Emperor,  in  the 
tentb  year  after  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar,  ''  roade  prouision  to 
paase  with  an  armie  ouer  into  Britaine.''  He  is  said,  however, 
to  have  altered  his  mind ;  so  that  the  Roman  descent  upon 
Britain  under  Caius  Lucius  is  an  invention  of  the  poet's. 

}n  Boccaccio's  Decafneron,  again  (Book  IL  Novel  9),  Shake- 
speare foimd  the  story  of  the  faithful  Ginev^a,  of  which  this  is  the 
substance : — ^At  a  tavem  in  Paris,  a  Company  of  Italian  merchants, 
after  supper  one  evening,  fall  to  discussing  their  wives.  Three 
ef  them  have  but  a  poor  opinion  of  their  ladies'  virtue,  but  one, 
Bemabo  LomeUini  of  Genoa,  maintains  that  his  wife  would  resist 
any  possible  temptation,  however  long  he  had  beexv  «bsKXiX.  ^x^sc^ 
her.    A  certaia  Ambrogiuolo  lays  a  Yieavj  ^wa.*Bi»  ^^Ykox  ^^^  "^o» 


6i8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

point,  and  betakes  himself  to  Genoa,  but  finds  Bernabo's  con- 
fidence  fully  justified.  He  hits  upon  the  scheine  of  concealing 
himself  in  a  ehest  which  is  conveyed  into  the  lady's  bedroom.  In 
the  middle  of  the  night  he  raises  the  lid.  **  He  crept  quietly  forth, 
and  stood  in  the  room,  where  a  candle  was  buming.  By  its  light, 
he  carefully  examined  the  furnishing  of  the  apartment,  the  pictures, 
and  other  objects  of  note,  and  fixed  them  in  bis  memory.  Then 
he  approached  the  bed,  and  when  he  saw  that  both  she  and  a 
little  child  who  lay  beside  her  were  sleeping  soundly,  he  uncovered 
her  and  beheld  that  her  beauty  in  nowise  consisted  in  her  ättire. 
But  he  could  not  discover  any  mark  whereby  to  convince  her 
husband,  save  one  which  she  had  under  the  left  breast ;  it  was  a 
birth-mark  around  which  there  grew  certain  yellow  hairs."  Then 
he  takes  from  one  of  her  chests  a  purse  and  a  night-gown,  together 
with  certain  rings  and  belts,  and  conceals  them  in  bis  own  hiding- 
place.  He  hastens  back  to  Paris,  summons  the  merchants  together, 
and  boasts  of  having  won  the  wager.  The  description  of  the  room 
makes  little  impression  on  Bemabo,  who  remarks  that  all  this  he 
may  have  learnt  by  bribing  a  chambermaid ;  but  when  the  birth- 
mark  is  describedy  he  feels  as  though  a  dagger  had  been  plunged 
into  bis  heart.  He  despatches  a  servant  with  a  letter  to  his  wife, 
requesting  her  to  meet  him  at  a  country-house  some  twenty  miles 
from  Genoa,  and  at  the  saroe  time  Orders  the  servant  to  murder 
her  on  the  way.  The  lady  receives  the  letter  with  great  joy,  and 
next  morning  takes  horse  to  ride  with  the  servant  to  the  country- 
house.  Loathing  his  task,  the  man  consents  to  spare  her,  gives 
her  a  suit  of  male  attire,  and  suffers  her  to  escape,  bringing  his 
master  false  tidings  of  her  death,  and  producing  her  clothes  in 
witness  of  it.  Ginevra,  dressed  as  a  man,  enters  the  service  of  a 
Spanish  nobleman,  and  accompanies  him  to  Alexandria,  whither 
he  goes  to  convey  to  the  Sultan  a  present  of  certain  rare  falcons. 
The  Sultan  notices  the  pretty  youth  in  his  train,  and  makes  him 
(or  rather  her)  his  favourite.  In  the  market-place  of  Acre  she 
chances  upon  a  booth  in  the  Venetian  bazaar  where  Ambrogiuolo 
has  displayed  for  sale,  among  other  wares,  the  purse  and  belt  he 
stole  from  her.  On  her  inquiring  where  he  got  them,  he  replies 
that  they  were  given  him  by  his  mistress,  the  Lady  Ginevra.  She 
persuades  him  to  come  to  Alexandria,  manages  to  bring  her  hus* 
band  thither  also,  and  makes  them  both  appear  before  the  Sultan. 
The  truth  is  brought  to  light  and  the  liar  shamed ;  but  he  does 
not  escape  so  easily  as  lachimo  in  the  play.  He  who  had  falsely 
boasted  of  a  lady^s  favour,  and  thereby  brought  her  to  min,  is,  with 
true  mediaeval  consistency,  allotted  the  punishment  he  detervet : 
'^  Wherefore  the  Sultan  commanded  that  Ambrogiuolo  should  be 
led  forth  to  a  high  place  in  the  city,  and  should  there  be  bound  to  a 
stake  in  the  fuU  glare  of  the  sunshine,  and  smeared  all  over  with 
honey,  and  should  not  be  set  free  tiU  his  body  feil  to  {rfeces  by 
Hb  own  dtcäj.    So  that  he  was  not  iXotMt  «i>»i% \o  4mliK iaitn« 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  COUNTRY     619 

speakable  torments  by  flies,  wasps,  and  hornets,  which  greatly 
abound  in  that  country,  but  also  devoured  to  the  last  particle  of 
bis  flesh.  His  white  bones,  held  together  by  the  sinews  alone, 
stood  therc  unremoved  for  a  long  time,  a  terror  and  a  waming 
to  all." 

These  two  tales — of  the  wars  between  Rome  and  heathen 
Britain,  and  of  the  slander,  peril,  and  rescue  of  Ginevra^ — were 
in  themselves  totally  unconnected.  Shakespeare  welded  them 
by  making  Ginevra,  whom  he  calls  Imogen,  a  daughter  of  King 
Cymbeline  by  his  first  marriage,  and  therefore  nezt  in  succession 
to  the  crown  of  Britain.  \ 

There  remains  a  thirdelegeatiirtlie  pläy-^^^^the  story  of  Belarius, 
his  banishment,  his  flight  with  the  king's  sons,  h{s\61lLai^  lile  in" 
the  forest  with  the  two  youths,  the  coroing  of  Imogen,  and  so 
forth.  All  this  is  the  fruit  of""Shakesgeare's_fffj^Jnyejition^ 
slightly  stiraulated,  perhaps,  by  a  story  in  the  Decameran  (Book 
n.  Novel  8).  It  is  in  this  invented  portion,  studied  in  its  relation 
of  complement  and  contrast  to  the  rest,  that  we  shall  find  an  un- 
mistakable  index  to  the  moods,  sentiments,  and  ideas  under  the 
influence  of  which  he  chose  this  subject  and  shaped  it  to  his  ends. 

I  conceive  the  Situation  in  this  wise :  the  mood  he  has  been 
living  through,  the  mood  which  has  left  its  freshest  impress  on 
his  mind,  is  one  in  which  Kfe  inJiuman  society  seems  unendurable,  \ 
and  especially  life  in  a  large  towir-^fid  at  a  coürt.  Never  before 
had  he  feit  so  keenly  and  indignantly  what  a  court  really  is. 
Stupidity^  coarseness.  weakness^nd  falnfhnnd  flniirifih  in  rmirtij 
and  cafi^  all  before  thenT  Cyinbelineis  stupid  and  weak,  Cloten 
is  stupid  and  coarse,  the  queen  is  false. 

Here  the  best  men  are  banished,  like  Belarius  and  Posthumus; 
here  the  best  woman  is  fouUy  wronged,  like  Imogen.  Here  the 
high-bom  murderess  sits  in  the  seat  of  the  mighty — the  queen 
herseif  deals  in  poisons,  and  demands  deadly  "  Compounds  "  of 
her  physicians.  Corruption  reaches  its  height  at  courts ;  but  in 
great  towns  as  a  whole,  wherever  multitudes  of  men  are  gathered 
together,  it  is  impossible  even  for  the  best  to  keep  himself  above 
reproach.  The  weapons  used  against  him — lies,  slanders,  and 
perfidy — force  him  to  employ  whatever  means  he  can  in  self- 
defence.  Let  us  then  turn  our  backs  on  the  town,  and  seek  an 
idyllic  ezistence  in  the  country,  in  the  lonely  woodland  places. 

This  note  recurs  persistently  in  all  the  works  of  Shakespeare's 
latest  period.  Timon  longed  to  escape  from  Athens  and  make 
the  solitudes  echo  with  his  invectives.  Here  Belarius  and  the 
king's  two  sons  live  secluded  in  a  rpmantic  wildemess ;  and  we 
shall  presently  find  Florizel  and  Perdita  surrounded  by  the  autumnal 
beauty  of  a  rustic  festival,  and  Prospero  dwelliny  with  Mirand^ 
on  a  lovely  uninhabited  Island. 

When  Shakespeare,  in  eärly  years^  had  coxq\xc^  M\>  nvsvsscä  ^V 
a  ßmtastic  life  in  sylvan  solitudes,  it  was  a\mp\j\)^ca>i^i^\X%sc^aBK^ 


\. 


620  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

him  to  place  his  Rosalinds  and  Celias  in  surroundings  worthy  of 
their  exquisiteness,  ideal  Ardennes,  or  perhaps  we  should  say 
ideal  Forests  of  Arden  iike  that  in  which,  as  a  boy,  he  had  leamt 
to  read  the  secrets  of  Nature.  In  these  regions,  exempt  from  the 
cares  of  the  working-day  world,  young  men  and  maidens  passed 
their  days  together  in  happy  idleness,  pensive  or  blithesome, 
laughing  or  loving.  The  forest  was  siraply  a  republic  created  by 
Nature  herseif  for  a  witty  and  amorous  ilite  of  the  most  brilliant 
cavaliers  and  ladies  he  had  known,  or  rather  had  bodied  forth  in 
his  own  image  that  he  might  live  in  the  Company  of  his  peers. 
The  air  resounded  with  songs  and  sighs  and  kisses,  with  word- 
plays  and  laughter.  It  was  a  dreamland,  a  paradise  of  dainty 
lovers. 

How  differently  does  he  now  conceive  of  the  solitude  of  the 
country !  It  has  become  to  him  the  one  thing  in  life,  the  refuge, 
the  sanctuary.  It  means  for  him  an  atmosphere  of  puntyp^e 
home  of  spiritiial  health,  the  stronghold  of  innocence,  the  one  safe 
retreat  for  whoso  would  flee  from  the  pestilence  of  falsehood 
and  perfidy  that  rages  in  courts  and  cities. 

There  no  one  can  escape  it.  But  now,  we  must  observe, 
Shakespeare  no  longer  regards  this  contagion  of  untruth  and 
unfaith  with  the  eyes  of  a  Timon.  He  now  looks  down  from 
higher  and  clearer  altitudes. 

It  is  true  that  no  one  can  keep  his  life  wholly  free  from  false- 
hood, deceit,  and  violence  towards  others.  But  neither  falsehood 
nor  deceit,  nor  even  violence  is  always  and  inevitably  a  crime ;  it 
is  often  a  necessity,  a  legitimate  weapon,  a  right  At  bottom, 
Shakespeare  had  always  held  that  there  were  no  such  things  as 
unconditional  duties  and  absolute  prohibitions.  He  had  never, 
for  example,  questioned  Hamlet's  right  to  kill  the  king,  scarcely 
even  his  right  to  run  his  sword  through  Polonius.  Nevertheless 
he  had  hitherto  been  unable  to  conquer  a  feeling  of  Indignation 
and  disgust  when  he  saw  around  him  nothing  but  breaches  of  the 
simplest  moral  laws.  Now,  on  the  other  band,  the  dim  divina- 
tions  of  his  (carOer  years  crystallised  in  his  mind  into  a  coherent 
body  of  thought  to  this  effect :  no  commandment  isuncgiuiitio»al ; 
it  is  not  in  the  observance  or  Tton  obati  vantt  uf  'SrTextemal  fiat 
that  the  merit  of  an  action,  to  say  nothing  of  a  diaracter,  consists ; 
leverything  depends  upon  the  volitional  substance  into  which  the 
\individual,  as  a  responsible  agenti  transmutes  the  formal  impera- 
Äve  at  the  moment  of  decision. 

In  other  words,  Shakespeare  now  sees  clearly  that  the  ethu 
of  intentira  are  the  only  true,  the  only  possible  ethics. 
m  says  (iv.  2) : 

«'IfldoUe^anddo 
No  barm  by  it,  though  the  gods  bear,  I  hope 
Thejrll  pardon  it" 


^ 


THE  ETHICS  OF  INTENTION  621 

Pisanio  says  in  his  soliloquy  (iii.  5) : 

"  Thou  bidd'st  me  to  my  loss :  for,  true  to  thee, 
Were  to  prove  fiedse,  which  I  will  never  be 
To  him  that  is  most  true." 

And  he  hits  tbe  nail  on  tbe  head  when  he  characterises  him- 
self  in  these  words  (iv.  3) : 

"  Wherein  I  am  false,  I  am  honest ;  not  true,  to  be  true." 

That  is  to  say,  he  lies  and  deceives  because  he  cannot  help 
it ;  but  his  character  is  none  the  worse,  nay,  all  the  better  on 
that  account.  He  disobeys  his  master,  and  thereby  merits  his 
gratitude ;  he  hoodwinks  Cloten,  and  therein  he  does  well. 

In  the  same  way,  all  the  nobler  characters  fly  in  the  face  of 
accepted  moral  laws.      Imogen  disobeys  her  father  and  braves 
his  wrath',*'an^^en  his  curse,  because  she  will  not  renounce  the 
husband  of  her  choice.     So,  too,  she  afterwards  deceives  the 
young  men  in  the  forest  by  appearing  in  male  attire  and  under 
an  assumed  name — untruth/ully,  and  yet  with  a  higher  truth,   j 
calling  herseif  Fidele,  the   faithful  one.      So,  too,  the  upright  j 
Belarius   robs   the   king   of  both   his   sons,   but   thereby  saves  i 
them  for  him  and  for  the  country ;  and  during  their  whole  boy-  •■ 
hood  he  puts  them  off,  for  their  own  good,  with  false  accounts 
of  things.     So,  too,  the  honest  physician  deceives  the  queen, 
whose  wickedness  he  has  divined,  by  giving  her  an  opiate  in 
place  of  a  poison,  and  thereby  baffling  her  attempt  at  murder. 
So,  too,  Guiderius  acts  rightly  in  taking  the  law  into  his  own 
hands,  and  answering  Cloten's  insults  by  killing  him  at  sight 
and  cutting  off  his  head.     He  thus,  without  knowing  it,  prevents 
the  brutish  idiot's  intended  violence  to  Imogen. 

Thus   all   the   good    characters   commit   acts   of   deceptionJN 
violence,  and  falsehood,  or  even  live  their  whole  life  under  false  \ 
colours,  without  in  the  least  derogating  from  their  moral  worth.  l 
They  touch  evil  without  defilement,  even  if  they  suffer  and  now  J 
and  then  feel  themselves  insecure  in  their  strained  relations  Or 
truth  and  right. 

Beyond  all  doubt,  it  must  have  been  actual  and  intimate 
experience  that  first  darkened  Shakespeare's  view  of  life,  and 
then  opened  his  eyes  again  to  its  brighter  aspects.  But  it  is 
the  idea  which  he  here  indirectly  expresses  that  seems  to  have 
played  the  essential  and  decisive  part  in  uplifting  his  spirit  above 
the  mood  of  mere  hatred  and  contempt  for  humanity :  the  realisa- 
tion  that  the  qualitjynof  a^giyciLjart  depends  a:ather  on Jhe  agent 
than  on  tRe^acF  itself  Although  it  be  true,  for  example,  that 
falBehuud  aud  dcceit  eficounter  us  on  every  band,  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  human  nature  \a  mIXäiV^  coroaL^x.,   '^^jäök^ 


622  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

deceit  nor  any  other  course  of  acdon  in  conflict  with  moral  law 
is  absolutely  and  unconditionally  wrong.  The  majority,  indeed,  of 
those  who  speak  falsely  and  act  unlawfully  are  an  ignoble  crew ; 
but  even  the  best,  the  noblest,  may  systematically  transgress  the 
moral  law  and  be  good  and  noble  still.  This  is  the  meaning 
of  moral  self-govemment ;  the  only  true  morality  consists  in 
following  out  our  own  ends,  by  our  own  means,  and  on  our  own 
responsibility.  The  only  real  and  binding  laws  are  those  which 
we  lay  down  for  ourselves,  and  it  is  the  breach  of  these  laws 
alone  that  degrades  us. 

Seen  from  this  point  of  view,  the  world  puts  on  a  less  gloomy 
aspect.  The  poet  is  no  longer  impelled  by  a  spiritual  necessity 
to  bring  down  his  curtain  to  the  notes  of  the  trump  of  doom, 
to  roake  all  voyages  end  in  shipwreck,  all  dramas  issue  in  annihila- 
tion,  or  even  to  leaven  the  tragedy  of  life  with  consistent  scom 
and  execration  for  humanity  at  lat^e. 

In  his  present  frame  of  mind  there  is  a  touch  pf  -ar^^xy  t'^^^V* 
mce.  He  no  longer  cares  to  dwell  upon  the  harsh  realities  öf 
iSephe  seeks  distraction  in  dreaming.  And  he  dreams of  retribu- 
tion,  of  the  suppression  of  the  uttqdyyjle  (the  queen  dies,  Cloten 
is  killed),  of  IWtftifir^jnercv  season  justicy.  in  the  treatment  of 
certain  human  beasts  of  prey  (lachimo),  and  of  preserving  a  little 
circle,  a  chosen  few,  whom  neither  the  errors  into  which  passion 
has  led  them,  nor  the  acts  of  deceit  and  violence  they  have 
ommitted  in  self-defence,  render  unworthy  of  our  sympathies. 
ife  on  earth  is  still  worth  living  so  long  as  there  are  women 
ike  Imogen  and  men  like  her  brothers.  She,  indeed,  is  an  ideal, 
and  they  creatures  of  romance ;  but  their  existence  is  a  condition- 
recedent  of  poetry. 

It  is  to  this  fertilising  mist  of  feeling,  this  productive  trend 
of  thought,  that  the  play  owes  its  origin. 

Shakespeare  has  so  far  taken  heart  again  that  he  can  give  us 
something  more  and  something  better  than  poetical  fragments  or 
plays  which,  like  his  recent  ones,  produce  a  powerful  but  harsh 
eflFect  He  will  once  more  unroU  a  large,  various,  and  many- 
coloured  panorama. 

The  act^i^of  Cymbeline,  like  that  of  Lear,  is  only  nominally 
located  ifjt^Christian  England.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
attempt  at  representation  of  the"  period,  and  the  barbarism 
depicted  is  mediseval  rather  than  antique.  For  the  rest,  the 
starting^point  of  Cymbeline  vaguely  resembles  that  of  Lear, 
Cymbeline  is  causelessly  estranged  from  Imogen,  as  Lear  is 
from  Cordelia;  there  is  something  in  Cymbeline's  weakness 
and  foUy  that  recalls  the  unreason  of  Lear.  But  in  the  older 
play  everything  is  tragically  designed  and  in  the  great  manner, 
whereas  here  the  whole  action  is  devised  with  a  happy  end  in 
view. 

The  consort  of  this  pitiful  Vdng  {&  a  cs«ibf  «nd  ambitious 


) 


THE  DUAL  CONTRAST  62 j 

woman,  who,  by  alternately  flattering  and  defying  him,  has  got 
hlm  entircly  undcr  her  thumb.    Shc  says  herseif  (i.  2) : — 

"  I  never  do  him  wrong 
But  he  does  buy  my  injuriesto  be  friends, 
Pays  dear  for  my  offences." 

In  other  words,  she  knows  that  she  can  always  find  her  profit  in 
a  scene  of  reconcijiatjcui.  Her  object  is  to  make  Iniogen  the  wife 
of  Cloten,  her  Ton  by  a  former  marriage,  and  thus  to  secure  for 
him  the  succession  to  the  throne.  This  scheme  of  hers  is  the 
original  source  of  all  the  misfortunes  which  overwhelm  the 
heroine.  For  Imogen  loves  Posthumus,  in  spite  of  his  poverty 
a  paragon  among  men,  and  cannot  be  induced  to  renounce  the 
husband  she  has  chosen.  Therefore  the  play  opens  with  the 
banishment  of  Posthumus. 

The  characters  and  incidents  of  Shakespeare's  own  invention 
give  perspective  to  the  play,  the  underplot  forming  a  parallel  to 
the  main  action,  as  the  story  of  Gloucester  and  his  cruel  son  forms 
a  parallel  to  that  of  Lear  and  his  heartless  daughters.  Belarius, 
a  soldier  and  statesman,  has  twenty  years  ago  fallen  into  unmerited 
disgrace  with  Cymbeline,  who,  listening  to  the  voice  of  calumny, 
has  outlawed  him  with  the  same  unreasoning  passion  with  which 
he  now  sends  Posthumus  into  exile.  In  revenge  for  this  wrong, 
Belarius  has  carried  off  Cymbeline's  two  sons,  who  have  ever 
since  lived  with  him  in  a  lonely  place  among  the  mountains, 
believing  him  to  be  their  father.  To  them  comes  Imogen  in 
her  hour  of  need,  disguised  as  a  boy,  and  is  received  with  the 
utmost  warmth  and  tendemess  by  the  brothers,  who  do  not  know 
her,  and  whom  she  does  not  know.  One  of  them,  Guiderius, 
kills  Cloten,  who  insulted  and  challenged  him.  Both  the  young 
roen  take  up  arms  to  meet  the  Roman  invaders,  and,  together 
with  Belarius  and  Posthumus,  they  save  their  father's  kingdom. 

Gervinus  has  acutely  and  justly  remarked  that  the  fundamental 
contrast  expressed  in  their  story,  as  in  Cymbeline's  political  Situa- 
tion, in  Imogen's  relation  to  Posthumus  and  Pisanio's  relation  to 
them  both,  is  precisely  the^luaLfontra&t^xpressed  in  the  English 
words  true  and  false — true  meaning  at  once  "veracious"  and 
"  faithful "  (ideas  which,  in  the  play,  shade  off  into  each  other), 
while  false^  in  like  manner,  means  both  ''  mendacious "  and 
"  faithless." 

Life  at  court  is  beset  with  treacherous  quicksands.  The  king 
is  stupid,  passionate,  perpetually  misguided ;  the  queen  is  a  wily 
mürderess ;  and  between  them  stände  her  son,  Cloten,  one  of 
Shakespeare's  most  original  figures,  a  true  creation  of  genius, 
without  a  rival  in  all  the  poet's  long  gallery  of  fools  and  duUards. 
His  stupid  inefficiency  and  undisguised  malignity  have  nothing  in 
common  with  his  mother's  h3rpocritical  and  supple  craft;  he  takea 
after  her  in  worthlessness  alone« 


'  -%. 


624  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

For  the  sake  of  an  inartistic  stage  effect,  Shakespeare  has  en« 
dowed  him  with  a  bodily  frame  indistinguishable  from  that  of  the 
handsome  Posthumas,  leaving  it  to  his  head  alone  to  express  the 
world-wide  difference  betytreen  them.  But  how  admirably  has  the 
poet  characterised  the  dolt  and  boor  by  making  him  shoot  forth 
his  words  with  an  explosive  stammer !  With  profound  humour 
and  delicate  Observation,  he  has  endowed  him  with  the  loftiest 
notions  of  his  own  dignity,  and  given  him  no  shadow  of  doubt  as 
to  his  rights.  There  are  no  bounds  to  his  vanity,  his  coarseness, 
his  bestiality.  If  words  could  do  it,  not  a  word  of  his  but  would 
wound  others  to  the  quick.  And  not  only  his  words,  but  his 
intents  are  of  the  most  malignant ;  he  would  outrage  Imogen  at 
Milford  Haven  and  ''  spum  her  home  **  to  her  father.  His  stupi- 
dity,  fortunately,  renders  him  less  dangerous,  and  with  delicate 
art  Shakespeare  has  managed  to  make  him  from  first  to  last  pro» 
'duce  a  romig  effect  thereby  softening  the  painful  Impression  of 
the  portraiture.  We  take  pleasure  in  him  as  in^£aliban,  whom 
he  foreshadows,  and  who  had  the  same  designs  upon  Miranda  as 
li.he  upon  Imogen.  We  might  even  describe^Caliban'^  Clöten 
developed  into  a  type,  a  symbol  *** 

It  is  such  personages  as  these  that  compose  the  world  wbich 
Belarius  depicts  to  Guiderius  and  Arviragus  (iii.  3),  when  the  two 
youths  repine  against  the  inactivity  of  their  lonely  forest  life,  and 
yearn  to  plunge  into  the  social  turmoil  and  "  drink  delight  of 
battle  with  their  peers : " 

"  How  you  speak  I 
Did  you  but  know  the  dty's  usuries, 
And  feit  them  knowingly :  the  art  o'  the  court, 
As  hard  to  leave  as  keep ;  whose  top  to  climb 
Is  certain  falling,  or  so  slippery,  that 
The  fear's  as  bad  as  falling :  the  toil  o'  the  war, 
A  pain  that  only  seems  to  seek  out  danger 
I'  the  name  of  fame  and  honour ;  which  dies  i'  the  search, 
And  hath  as  oft  a  slanderous  epitaph 
As  record  of  fair  act ;  nay,  many  times 
Doth  ill  deserve  by  doing  well ;  what's  worse, 
Must  court'sy  at  the  censure.— -O  boys !  this  story 
The  World  may  read  in  me." 

Amid  these  surroundings  two  personages  have  grown  up 
whom  Shakespeare  would  have  us  regard  as  beings  of  a  loftier 
Order. 

He  has  taken  all  possible  pains,  from  the  very  first  scene  of 
the  play,  to  inspire  the  spectator  with  thahighest  conception  of 
P§3tbumus.r  One  nobleman  speaks  of  him  to  an5Hier  in  terms  such 
as,  in  bygone  days,  the  poet  had  applied  to  Henry  Percy : 

"  He  liv'd  in  court 
(Which  rare  it  is  to  do)  most  prais'd,  most  lov'd ; 
A  sample  to  the  youngest,  to  the  more  mature 


POSTHUMUS  625 

A  glass  that  feated  them ;  and  to  the  graver 
A  child  that  guided  dotards." 

A  little  farther  on,  lachimo  says  of  him  to  Imogen  (i.  6) : 

**  He  sits  'mongst  men  like  a  descended  god ;  — 

He  hath  a  kind  of  honour  sets  him  ofif  ^ 

More  than  ajDOQd;^  seeming , "  ^ 

and  finally,  at  the  close  of  the  pläy  (v.  5),  "  He  was  the  best  of  all,  1 

amongst  the  rar'st  of  good  ones " — an  appreciation  which  it  is  a 
pity  lachimo  did  not  arrive  at  a  little  sooner,  as  it  might  have  pre- 
vented  him  from  committing  his  villainies.  Shakespeare  throws  ^=> 
into  relief  the  dignity  and  repose  of  Posthumus,  and  his  self- 
possession  when  the  king  denounces  and  banishes  him.  We  see 
that  he  obeys  because  he  regards  it  as  unavoidable,  though  he  has 
set  at  naught  the  king's  will  in  relation  to  Imogen.  In  the  com- 
pulsory  haste  of  his  leave-taklng,  he  shows  himself  penetrated 
^with  a  sense  of  his  inferiority  to  her,  and  appeals  to  us  by  the 
way  in  which  he  tempers  the  loftiness  of  his  bearing  towards  the 
outer  World  with  a  graceful  humility  towards  his  wife.  It  is  rather 
surprising  that  he  never  for  a  moment  seems  to  think  of  carrying 
Imogen  with  him  into  exile.  This  passivity  is  probably  ezplained 
by  her  reluctance  to  take  any  step  not  absolutely  forced  upon  her, 
that  should  render  more  difficult  an  eventual  reconciliation.  He 
will  wait  for  better  times,  and  long  and  hope  for  them. 

As  he  is  on  the  point  of  departure,  Cloten  forces  himself  upon  j  ^ 
him,  insults  and  challenges  him.  He  remains  unrufifled,  ignores 
the  challenge,  contemptuously  turns  his  back  upon  the  p^,  and 
calmly  leaves  him  to  entertain  the  courtiers  with  boasts  of  his 
own  valour  and  the  cowardice  of  Posthumus,  well  knowing  that 
no  one  will  believe  him. 

The  character,  then,  is  well  sketched  out.  But  his  mediseval 
fable  compelled  Shakespeare  to  introduce  traits  which,  in  the  light 
of  our  humaner  age,  yrm  ^r'^^nffifitf^nt  and-hrartmi^ible.  No  man 
with  any  decency  of  feeling  would  in  our  days  make  such  a  wager 
as  his ;  no  man  would  give  a  stranger,  and  one,  moreover,  who  is 
to  all  appearance  a  vain  and  quite  unscrupulous  woman-hunter, 
the  wärmest  and  most  insistent  letter  of  recommendation  to  his 
wife ;  and  still  less  would  any  one  give  the  same  man  an  unwritten 
license  to  employ  every  means  in  his  power  to  shake  her  virtue, 
sitnply  in  order  to  enjoy  his  discomiiture  when  all  his  arts  shall 
have  failed.  And  even  if  we  could  forgive  or  excuse  such  con- 
duct  in  Posthumus,  we  cannot  possibly  extend  our  tolerance  to  h 
easy  credulity  when  lachimo  boasts  of  his  conquest,  his  ins 
fury  against  Imogen,  and  the  base/alsehood  of  the  letter  he  sen 
h^in  Order  to  facilitate  Pisanio's  Imurgerous^Tasfc:'  Even  Jn  th 
worst  oT  casgy^e  do  not  admit  a  roan's  rigHt  tol^B^r^  i'^OT^a 

U9Ba88jnatcdbecauae  she  has  forgoitexTfiäfVoNC'^^vccL.   "^^sssf 

--'    --  ^^ 


626  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

thought  otherwise  in  the  days  of  the  Renaissance ;  they  did  not 
look  so  closely  into  the  plots  of  the  old  navelle^  and  were  content, 
in  the  domäin  of  romance,  with  traditional  views  of  right  and 
duty. 

NeverthelesSi  Shakespeare  has  done  what  he  could  to  miti- 
gate  the  painful  impression  produced  by  Posthumus's  conduct 
Long  before  he  knows  that  lachimo  has  deceived  him,  he  re- 
pents  of  his  cruel  deed,  bitteriy  deplores  that  Pisanio  has  (as 
he  thinks)  obeyed  him,  and  speaks  in  the  wärmest  terms  of 
Imogen's  worth.     He  says,  for  instance  (v.  4) : 

''  For  Imogen's  dear  life  take  mine;  and  though 
'Tis  not  so  dear,  yet  'tis  a  life.** 

He  iinposes  upon  himself  the  stemest  penance.  He  comes  to 
England  with  the  Roman  army,  and  then,  nameless  and  dis- 
guised  as  a  peasant,  fights  against  the  invaders.  Together 
With  Belarius  and  the  king's  sons,  he  is  instrumental  in  staying 
the  flight  of  the  Britons,  freeing  Cymbeline,  who  has  already 
been  taken  prisoner,  winning  the  battle,  and  saving  the  king^ 
dorn.  This  done,  he  once  more  assumes  his  Roman  garb,  and 
seeks  death  at  the  hands  of  his  countrymen,  whose  saviour  he 
has  been.  He  is  taken  prisoner  and  brought  before  the  king, 
when  all  is  clearcd  up. 

From  the  nioment  he  sets  foot  on  English  ground,  there  is  in 
his  course  of  action  a  more  high-pitched  and  overstrainedideaUi^ 
than  we  are  apt  to  find  in  Shakespeare's  heroes — a.xi^Suig[1pr 
self-imposed  expiation._  Still  the  character  falls  to  strike  us  as 
the  perfect  whole  the  poet  would  fain  make  of  it  Posthumus 
impresses  us,  not  as  a  favourite  of  the  gods,  but  as  a  man  whose 
penitence  is  as  unbridled  and  excessive  as  his  blind  passion. 

Far  other  is  the  case  of  Iinggcn.  In  her  perfection  is  indeed 
attained.  She  is  the  noblest  and  most  adorable  litföffiflnly  figure 
Shakespeare  has  ever  drawn,  and  at  the  same  tiroe  the  most 
various.  He  has  drawn  spiritual  women  before  her — Desdemona, 
Cordelia — but  the  secret  of  their  being  could  be  expressed  in  two 
words.  He  has  also  drawn  briUiant  women — Beatrice,  Rosalind 
— v/hereas  Imogen  is  not  brilliant  at  alL  Nevertheless  she  is 
designed  and  depicted  as  incomparable  among  her  sex — ''  she  is 
alone  the  Arabian  bird."  We  see  her  in  the  most  various  situa- 
tions,  and  she  is  equal  to  them  alL  We  see  her  exposed  to  trial 
after  trial,  each  harder  than  the  last,  and  she  emerges  from  them 
all,  not  only  scatheless,  but  with  her  rare  and  enchandng  qualities 
thrown  ihto  ever  stronger  relief. 

At  the  very  outset  she  gives  proof  of  perfect  self-command  in 

hui*  tdätion  to  her  weak  and  pasatcmate  fother,  her  false  and 

vcfidttious  iite|>niother.    The  treasure  of  tendemess  that  filb  her 

MMl  betrayi  tmdfih  her  pttHnt  (^^<M  VqiiaMKnm«^  tor  ^«nton« 


CHARACTER  OF  IMOGEN  «27 

Ate  regret  that  she  could  not  give  him  one  kiss  more,  and  in  the 
fervour  with  which  she  reproaches  Pisanio  for  häving  Icft  the 
shore  before  his  master's  ship  had  quite  sunk  below  the  horizon. 
During  his  absence  her  thoughts  are  unceasingly  fixed  on  him. 
She  repels  with  firmness  the  advances  of  her  clownish  wooer, 
Qoten.  Brought  face  to  face  with  lachimo,  she  first  receives 
him  graciously,  then  sees  through  him  at  once  when  he  begins 
to  speak  ill  of  Posthumus,  and  finally  treats  him  with  princely 
dignity  when  he  has  ezcused  his  offensive  speeches  as  nothing 
bat  an  ill-timed  jest. 

Nezt  comes  the  bedroom  scene,  in  which  she  falls  asleep^  and 
lachimOy  as  she  slumbers,  paints  for  us  her  exquisite  purity. 
Then  we  have  her  disdainful  dismissal  of  Cloten ;  her  reception 
of  the  letter  from  Posthumus ;  her  calm  confronting  (as  it  seems) 
of  certain  death ;  her  exquisite  communion  with  her  brothers ; 
her  death-like  sleep  and  horrorstruck  awakening  beside  the  body 
which  she  takes  to  be  her  husband's ;  her  denunciations  of  Pisanio 
as  the  supposed  murderer;  and,  finally,  the  moment  of  reunion — 
all  scenes  which  are  pearls  of  Shakespeare's  art,  the  rarest  jewels 
in  his  diadem,  never  outshone  in  the  poetry  of  any  nation. 

He  depicts  her  as  born  for  happiness,  but  early  inured  to 
suffering,  and  therefore  calm  and  collected.  When  Posthumus 
js  banished,  she  acquiesces  in  the  Separation ;  she  will  live  in  the 
memory  of  her  love.  Every  one  commiserates  her;  hferself,  she 
scarcely  complains.  She  wishes  no  evil  to  her  enemies;  at  the 
«nd,  when  the  detestable  queen  is  dead,  she  laments  her  father's 
bereavement,  little  dreaming  that  nothing  but  the  death  of  the 
murderess  could  have  saved  her  father's  life. 

Only  one  relation  in  life  can  stir  her  to  passionate  utterance — 
her  relation  to  Posthumus.     When  she  takes  leave  of  him  she 

y    ^'     ''  «< You  must  be  gone ; 

And  I  shall  here  abide  the  hourly  shot 
Of  angry  eyes  ;  not  comforted  to  live, 
But  that  there  is  this  jewel  in  the  world, 
That  I  may  see  again.'' 

And  to  his  farewell  she  replies : 

"  Nay,  stay  a  little. 
Ware  you  but  riding  forth  to  air  yourseU^ 
Stich  parting  were  too  petty." 

When  he  is  gone  she  cries : 

'^  There  cannot  be  a  pinch  in  death 
More  Sharp  than  this  is." 

Her  father's  upbraidings  leave  her  cold : 

'^  I  am  senseless  of  your  wrath  *,  a  toud^i  x&ot^  tua 
Subdues  aii  pangs,  ill  feats,^ 


628  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

To  his  continued  reproaches  she  only  replies  with  a  rapturous 
eulogy  of  Posthumus : 

"  He  is 

A  man  worth  äny  woman ;  overbuys  me 

Almost  the  sum  he  pays." 

And  her  passion  deepens  after  her  husband's  departure.  She 
envies  the  handkerchief  he  has  kissed ;  she  laments  that  she 
could  not  watch  his  receding  ship ;  she  would  have  '*  broke  her 
eye-strings  "  to  see  the  last  of  it.  He  has  been  tom  away  from 
her  while  she  had  yet  "most  pretty  things  to  say;"  how  she 
would  think  of  him  and  heg  him  to  think  of  her  at  three  fixed 
hours  of  every  day ;  and  she  would  have  made  him  swear  not  to 
forget  her  for  any  "  she  of  Italy."  He  was  gone  before  she  could 
give  him  the  parting  kiss  which  she  had  set  *'  betwixt  two  charm- 
ing  words." 

Shr  ifi  dflvfiid  ?f  nrnhitifin     She  would  willingly  exchange  her 

royal  Station  for  idyllic  happinessjn  a  country  retreat  such  as  that 
for  which  ShakespeaEe-ia^flowTonging.  When  Posthumus  has 
left  her  she  exclaims  (i.  2)  : 

"  Would  I  were 

A  neatherd's  daughter,  and  my  Leonatus 

Our  neighbour  shepherd's  son !  *' 

In  other  words,  she  sighs  for  the  lot  in  life  which  we  shall  find 
in  TAe  Wintet^s  Tak  apportioned  to  Prince  Florizel  and  Princess 
Perdita.     In  the  same  spirit  she  reflects  before  the  Coming  of 

lachimo  (i.  7) : 

"  Blessed  be  those, 
How  mean  soe'er,  that  have  their  honest  wills, 
Which  seasons  comfort" 

And  then  when  lachimo  ("little  lago")  slanders  Posthumus  to 
her,  as  he  will  presently  slander  her  to  Posthumus,  how  düferent 
is  her  conduct  from  her  husband's !  She  has  tumed  pale  at  his 
entrance,  at  Pisanio's  mere  announcement  of  a  nobleman  from 
Rome  with  letters  from  her  lord.  To  lachimo's  first  whispers  of 
Posthumus's  infidelity^she  merely  answers: 

"  My  lord,  I  fear, 
Has  foigot  Britain." 

But  when  lachimo  proceeds  to  draw  a  gloating  picture  of  her 
husband's  debaucheries,  and  offers  himself  as  an  instrument  for 
her  revenge  upon  the  faithless  one,  she  replies  with  the  ex- 
damation : 

"What,  ho,Pisanio!" 

She  summons  her  servant;  she  has  seen  all  she  wants  of  this 

lUdiBB. 

Even  when  she  saya  notkang  EVvt  &W^  xXcw^  M»>ft^  ^  ^lien^ 


CHARACTER  OF  IMOGEN  629 

having  gone  to  rest,  she  lies  in  bed  reading,  dismisses  her 
attendant,  closes  the  book  and  faUs  asleep.  How  wonderfully 
has  Shakespeare  brought  home  to  us  the  atmosphere  of  purity 
in  this  sleeping-chamber  by  means  of  the  passionate  words  he 
places  in  the  mouth  of  lachimo  (ü  2) : 

"  Cytherea, 
How  bravely  thou  becom'st  thy  bed !  fresh  lily, 
And  whiter  than  the  sheets  1    That  I  might  touch ! 
But  kiss ;  one  kiss ! — Rubies  unparagon'd, 
How  dearly  they  do't ! — Tis  her  breathing  that 
Perfumes  the  Chamber  thus." 

The  influence  of  this  scene  —  interpreting  as  it  does  the 
overpowering  impression  that  emanates  even  from  the  material 
surroundings  of  exquisite  womanhood,  the  almost  magical  glamour 
of  purity  and  loveliness  combined  —  may  in  all  probability  be 
traced  in  the  rapture  expressed  by  Goethe's  Faust  when  he  and 
Mephistopheles  enter  Gretchen's  Chamber.  lachimo  is  here  the 
love-sick  Faust  and  the  malign  Mephistopheles  in  one.  Re- 
member  Faust's  outburst : 

"  Willkommen,  süsser  Dämmerschein, 
Der  Du  dies  Heiligthum  durchwebst 
Ergreif  mein  Herz,  du  süsse  Liebespein, 
Die  Du  vom  Thau  der  Hoffnung  schmachtend  lebst ! 
Wie  athmet  hier  Gefühl  der  Stille." 

Despite  the  difference  between  the  two  situations,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  one  has  influenced  the  other.^ 

As  though  in  ecstasy  over  this  incomparable  creation,  Shake- 
speare once  more  bursts  forth  into  song.  Once  and  again  he 
pays  her  lyric  homage ;  here  in  Cloten's  morning^song^^ "  Hark, 
hark,  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings/'^lffiS^afterwards  in  the 
dirge  Jher  brother's  chant  over  what  they  believe  to  be  her  dead 
body.'^ 

Shakespeare  makes  her  lose  her  self-control  for  the  first  time 
when  Cloten  ventures  to  speak  disparagingly  of  her  husband, 
calling  him  a  "  base  wretch/'  a  beggar  "  foster'd  with  cold  dishes, 
with  scraps  o'  the  court,"  "a  hilding.for  a  livery,"  and  so  on. 

^  Scarcely  any  poet  has  been  more  followed  in  modern  times  than  Shakespeare. 
We  haye  already  drawn  attention  to  the  by  no  means  acddental  resemblances  in 
Voltaire,  Goethe,  and  Schiller,  and  we  have  fiirther  instances.  Sd^ller's  Du  Jung- 
firau  von  Orleans  is  markedly  indebted  to  the  first  part  of  Htnry  VI,  The  scene 
between  the  maid  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  (ii.  10)  is  fashioned  after  the  corre- 
sponding  scene  in  Shakespeare  (üi.  3),  and  that  between  the  maid  and  her  father  in 
Schiller  (iv.  11)  answers  to  Shakespeare's  (y.  4).  The  apothecary  in  OehlensdiUtger's 
Aladäin  is  borrowed  from  the  apothecary  in  Romeo  andJuiUi.  In  Bjömstjeme's 
Bjömson's  Maria  Stuart  (iL  a)  Ruthven  rises  from  a  sick  bed  to  totter  into  the 
oonspirators  with  Knox,  and  take  the  more  eager  share  in  the  plot  to  murder  Rizdo, 
as  the  sick  Ligarius  makes  hb  way  to  Brutus  {Julius  Guar«  iL  i\\o  yAsk  ^^^:K3i«&^^^«vt::\ 
to  murder  Ctaur. 


630  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Then    she   bursts   forth    into  words  of  more   than    maseuliae 
trioknce,  ai  d  almost  as  opprobrious  as  Cloten's  own  (ü.  3) : 

<  "  Profane  fellow ! 

Wert  thou  the  son  of  Jupiter,  and  no  more 
But  what  thou  art  besides,  thou  wert  too  base 
To  be  his  groom :  thou  wert  dignified  enough, 
Even  to  the  point  of  envy,  if  't  were  made 
Comparative  for  your  virtues,  to  be  sty)'d 
The  under-hangman  of  his  lungdom,  and  hated 
For  being  preferr'd  so  well." 

It  is  in  the  same  flush  of  anger  that  she  speaks  the  words 
which  first  sting  Cloten  to  comic  fury,  and  then  inspire  him  with 
his  hideous  design.  Leonatus'  meanest  garment,  she  says,  iß 
"  dearer  in  her  respect "  than  Cloten's  whole  person — an  expres- 
sion  which  rankles  in  the  mind  of  the  noxious  dullard,  until  at 
last  it  drives  him  out  of  his  senses. 

New  charm  and  new  nobility  breathe  around  her  in  the  scene 
in  which  she  receives  the  letter  from  her  husband,  designed  to  Iure 
her  to  her  death.  First  all  her  enthusiasm,  and  then  all  her 
passion,  blaz^  forth  and  burn  with  the  clearest  flame.  Hear  this 
(iii.  2): 

**Pisamo,  Madam,  here  is  a  letter  from  my  lord. 
Imogen.  Who  ?  thy  lord  ?  that  is  my  lord :  Leonatus. 
O  leam'd  indeed  were  that  astronomer 
That  knew  the  stars  as  I  his  characters ; 
He*d  lay  the  future  open. — You  good  gods, 
Let  what  is  here  contain'd  relish  of  love, 
Of  my  lord's  health,  of  his  content, — yet  not, 
That  we  two  are  asunder, — let  that  grieve  him : 
Some  griefs  are  medicinable ;  that  is  one  of  them, 
For  it  doth  physic  love : — of  his  content, 
All  but  in  that  1 — Good  wax,  thy  leave. — Bless'd  be 

Vou  bees,  that  make  these  locks  of  counsel ! " 

• 

She  reads  that  her  lord  appoints  a  meeting-place  at  Milford 
Haven,  little  dreaming  that  she  is  summoned  there  only  to  be 
murdered : 

^  O  for  a  horse  with  wings ! — Hear'st  thou,  Pisanio  ? 
He  is  at  Milford  Haven :  read,  and  teil  me 
How  far  'tis  thither.    If  one  of  mean  afiairs 
May  plod  it  in  a  week,  why  may  not  I 
Glide  thither  in  a  day  ? — Then,  true  Pisanio, 
(Who  long'st,  like  me,  to  see  thy  lord ;  who  long'st, — 
O  let  me  *bate ! — ^but  not  like  me ; — ^yet  long^t, — 
Bvrt  in  a  fointer  kind :— O  not  like  me, 
For  mine's  beyond  beyond)  $ay,  and  speak  thick, 
(Love's  counsdlor  should  fill  the  bores  of  hearing, 
To  the  smothmng  of  the  senae),  how  ftu:  it  is 
To  this  same  ble^ed  Mitfocdi  and,\>i  ^^e^^nvi^ 


CHARACTER  OF  IMOGEN  631 

Teil  me  how  Wales  was  made  so  happy  as 
*( o  inherit  such  a  haven  :  but,  first  of  all, 
How  we  may  steal  from  hence ;  and,  for  the  gap 
That  we  shall  make  in  time,  from  our  hencegoing 
And  our  retum,  to  excuse :  but  first,  how  get  hence : 
Why  should  excuse  be  bom  or  e'er  b^ot  ? 
Well  talk  of  that  hereafter.  .  .  .  Prithee,  speak, 
How  many  score  of  miles  may  we  well  ride 
*Twixt  hour  and  hour  ? 

Fis,  One  score,  'twixt  sun  and  sun, 
Madam's,  enough  for  you :  [Aside]  and  too  much  too. 

Imo.  Why,  one  that  rode  to  's  execution,  man, 
Could  never  go  so  slow ;  I  have  heard  of  riding  wagers» 
Where  horses  have  been  nimbler  than  the  sands 
That  run  i*  the  clock's  behalf.     But  this  is  foolery : 
Go  bid  my  woman  feign  a  sickness.'' 

These  outbursts  are  beyond  all  praise ;  but  quite  on  a  level 
with  them  Stands  her  answer  when  Pisanio  shows  her  Posthu- 
miis's  letter  to  him,  denouncing  her  with  the  foulest  epithets,  and 
the  whole  extent  of  her  misfortune  becomes  clear  to  her.  It  is 
then  she  utters  the  words  (iii.  4)  which  Sören  Kierkegaard  ad- 
mired  so  deeply : 

"  False  to  his  bed !  what  is  it  to  be  false  ? 
To  lie  in  watch  there  and  to  think  on  him  ? 
To  weep  'twixt  clock  and  clock  ?  if  sleep  Charge  natui 
To  break  it  with  a  fearful  dream  of  him 
And  cry  myself  awake  ?  that's  false  to's  bed,  is 

It  is  very  characteristic  that  she  never  for  a  moment  believes 
that  Posthumus  can  really  think  it  possible  she  should  have  given 
herseif  to  another.  She  seeks  another  ezplanation  for  his  inex- 
plicable  conduct : 

"  Some  jay  of  Italy, 
Whose  mother  was  her  painting,  hath  betray'd  him." 

This  is  scant  comfort  to  her,  however,  and  she  implores 
Pisanio,  who  would  spare  her,  to  strike,  for  life  has  now  lost  all 
value  for  her.  As  she  is  baring  her  breast  to  the  b^ow,  she  speaks 
these  admirable  words : 

"  Come,  here's  my  heart : 
Something's  afore  't : — soft,  soft !  we'U  no  defence ; 
Obedient  as  the  scabbard. — What  is  here? 
The  scriptures  of  the  loyal  Leonatus, 
All  tum'd  to  heresy  ?    Away,  away, 
Comipters  of  my  faith  !  you  shall  no  more 
Be  stomachers  to  my  heart" 

With  the  same  intentness,  or  rather  with  the  same  tendemesSi 
has  Shakespeare,  all  through  the  play,  imbued  himself  with  her 
spirit^  nevtr  losing  touch  of  her  for  a  moment,  buX.  Vmxi^^  ^i2i^i^% 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  trait  upon  trait,  until  at  last  he  represents  her,  half  in  jest,  as 
the  sun  of  the  play.     The  king  says  in  the  concluding  scene : 

"See, 
Posthumus  anchors  upon  Imogen ; 
And  she,  like  harmless  lightning,  throws  her  eye 
On  him,  her  brothers,  me,  her  master,  hitting 
Each  object  with  ayoy :  the  counterchange 
Ts  severally  in  all/ 

Early  in  the  play  Imogen  expressed  the  wish  that  she  were  a 
neatherd's  daughter,  and  Leonatus  a  shepherd's  son.  Later,  when, 
clad  in  manly  attire,  she  chances  upon  the  lonely  forest  cave  in 
which  her  brothers  dwell,  she  feels  completely  at  ease  in  their 
neighbourhood,  and  in  the  primitive  life  for  which  she  has  always 
longed — as  Shakespeare  longs  for  it  now.  The  brothers  are 
happy  with  her,  and  she  with  them.     She  says  (Act  iii.  sc.  6) . 

**  Pardon  me,  gods  ! 
I'd  change  my  sex  to  be  companions  with  them, 
Since  Leonatus's  false." 

And  later  (Act  iv.  sc.  2) : 

"These  are  kind  creatures.    Gods  !  what  lies  I  have  heard  I 
Our  courtiers  say  alFs  savage  but  at  court." 

Belarius  exclaims  in  the  same  spirit  (Act  iii.  sc  3) : 


\ 


r^  "  Oh,  this  life 

^    '      \      Is  nobler  than  attending  for  a  check, 
^      'S      Richer  than  doing  nothing  for  a  bauble, 
"^^;v(^    Prouder  than  rustling  in  unpaid  for  silk." 

The  princes,  in  whom  the  royal  soldierly  blood  asserts  itself  in  a 
thirst  for  adventure,  reply  in  a  contrary  strain : 

"  Guiderius,        Haply  this  life  is  best 
If  quiet  life  be  best ;  sweeter  to  you 
That  have  a  sharper  known ;  well  corresponding 
With  your  stiff  age ;  but  unto  us  it  is 
A  call  of  ignorance,  travelling  a-bed ; 
A  prison  for  a  debtor,  that  not  dares 
To  stride  a  limiL" 

And  his  brother  adds : 

"What  should  we  speak  of 
When  we  are  as  old  as  you  ?    When  we  shall  hear 
The  rain  and  wind  beat  dark  December. 

We  have  seen  nothing; 

We  are  beastly." 

Shakespeare  has  diffused  a  marvellous  poetry  throughout  this 
forest  idyl ;  a  matchless  freshness  and  tgscYmitive  charm  pervade 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  SPANISH  DRAMA     63$ 

the  whole.  In  this  period  of  detestation  for  the^bortiona  of  cul- 
ture^  tbe  poet  has  b^;uiled  tpüaidf  b^  piUmlfig^  life  far 
(ivffidätion,  an  innately  noble  youth  in  a  natural  State,  and  he 
depicts  two  young  men  who  have  seen  nothing  of  life  and  never 
looked  upon  the  face  of  woman ;  whose  days  have  been  passed  in 
the  pursuit  of  game,  and  who,  like  the  Homeric  waniors,  pre- 
pared  and  cooked  with  their  own  hands  the  spoil  procured  by 
their  bows  and  arrows.  But  their  race  shines  through,  and  they 
prove  of  better  stock  than  we  should  have  looked  for  in  the  sons 
of  the  contemptible  Cymbeline.  Their  instincts  all  tend  towards 
the  noble  and  princely  ideal. 

In  the  Spanish  drama,  which  twenty-five  years  later  received 
such  an  impetus  under  Calderon,  it  became  a  leading  motive  to 
portray  young  men  and  women  brought  up  in  solitude  without 
having  seen  a  Single  being  of  the  other  sex,  and  without  know- 
ledge  of  their  rank  and  parentage.  Thus  in  Calderon's  Life 
is  a  Dream  (La  vida  es  sueüo)  of  1635,  we  are  shown  a  king's 
son  leading  a  solitary  life  in  utter  ignorance  of  his  royal  descent. 
He  is  seized  by  a  passionate  love  on  his  first  meeting  with  man- 
kind,  and  is  crudely  violent  in  the  face  of  any  Opposition,  but, 
like  the  princes  in  Cymbeline^  the  seeds  of  majesty  are  lying 
dormant  and  the  princely  instincts  spring  readily  into  life.  In 
the  play  En  esta  vida  todo  as  verdady  todo  es  mentira  of  1647,  a 
faithful  scrvant  carries  off  the  emperor's  son  from  the  pursuit  of  a 
t3rrant,  and  seeks  refuge  in  a  mountain  cave  of  Sicily.  He  also 
takes  Charge  of  a  base-born  son  of  the  tyrant,  and  the  two  lads 
are  brought  up  together.  They  see  no  one  but  their  foster-father, 
are  clad  in  the  skins  of  animals  and  live  upon  game  and  fruit. 
When  the  tyrant  appears  to  claim  his  child  and  slay  the  emperor's 
son,  none  can  teil  him  which  is  which,  and  neither  threats  nor 
entreaties  can  prevail  upon  the  servant  to  yield  the  secrct.  Herc, 
as  in  Life  is  a  Dream,  the  first  glimpse  of  a  woman  rouses 
instant  love  in  both  young  men.  In  A  Daughter  of  the  Air 
{La  hija  del  ayre)  of  1664,  Semiramis  is  brought  up  by  an  old 
priest,  as  Miranda  is  by  Prospero  in  TA£  Temfifsf^  Like  all 
these  beings  reared  in  solitude  remote  from  th^  tun^oil  of  Hfe^ 
Semiramis  nourishes  an  impatient  longing  to  be  out  in  the  world. 
In  the  two  plays  of  1672,  Eco  y  Narciso  and  El  monstrua  de 
los  jardines,  Calderon  employs  a  Variation  of  the  same  idea. 
Narcissus  in  the  one  and  Achilles  in  the  other  are  brought  up 
in  solitude  in  order  that  we  may  see  all  the  emotions  aroused, 
especially  those  of  love  and  jealousy,  in  a  being  so  primitive  that 
it  cannot  even  name  its  own  sensations. 

In  this  episode,  and  throughout  this  last  period  of  his  poetry, 
Shakespeare  entered  a  realm  which  the  imagination  of  the  Latin 
races  immediately  seized  upon  and  made  their  own.     But  in  all 
their  dramatic  poetry  of  this  nature  they  never  sur^ssed  iVoX 
of  the  Englisb  poet 


634  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

He  refrained  entirely  from  the  erotic  in  this  idyl,  and  instead 
of  the  demands  of  a  lover's  passion,  he  portrayed  unconscious 
brotherly  love  offered  to  a  sister  disguised  as  a  boy.  Imogen 
and  the  two  strong-natured,  high-minded  youths  dwell  charmingly 
together,  but  their  companionship  is  destroyed  in  the  bud  when 
Imogen,  after  having  drunk  the  narcotic  supplied  by  the  physician 
to  the  queen  instead  of  poison,  lies  as  one  dead.  A  gently 
touching  element  is  introduced  into  this  moving  play  when 
the  two  brothers  bear  her  forth  and  sing  over  her  hier.  We 
witness  a  burial  without  rites  or  ceremonies,  requiems  or  church 
formalities,  an  attempt  being  made  to  fill  their  place  with  spon- 
taneous  natural  symbola  A  similar  attempt  was  made  by  Goethe 
in  the  double  chorus  sung  over  Mignon's  body  in  Wilheltn 
Meister  (Book  VIII.  chap.  viii.).  Imogen's  head  is  laid  towards 
the  east,  and  the  brothers  sing  over  her  the  beautiful  duet  which 
their  father  had  taught  them  at  the  burial  of  their  mother.  Its 
rhythm  contains  the  germ  of  all  that  later  became  Shelley's  poetry. 

The  first  verse  runs : 

I    **  Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  sun, 
j       Nor  the  furious  winter's  rages ; 
^       Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 
j        Home  art  gone  and  ta'en  thy  wages : 
I        Golden  lads  and  girls  all  must 
^      As  chimney-sweeper,  come  to  dust"  * 

The  concluding  verses,  in  which  the  voices  are  heard  first  in  solo 
and  then  in  duets,  form  a  wonderful  harmony  of  metric  and 
poetic  art. 

This  idyl,  in  which  he  found  and  expressed  bis  reawakened 

.ofNature,  has  been  worked  out  by  Shakespeare 
with  especial  tenderaessT'^^e  by  no  means  intended  to  represent 
a  flight  from  scorn  of  mankind  as  a  thing  desirable  in  itself,  but 
merely  to  depict  solitude  as  a  refuge  for  the  weary,  and  existence 
in  the  country  as  a  happiness  for  those  who  have  done  with  life. 

As  a  drama,  Cymbeline  contains  more  of  thejaajiure  of  intcigue 
than  any  earlier  play.  There  is  no  little  skill  displayed  in  the" 
way  Pisanio  misleads  Cloten  by  showing  him  Posthumus's  letter, 
and  where  Imogen  takes  the  headless  Cloten,  attired  in  Posthumus's 
clothes,  for  her  murdered  husband.  Thg^^ÄytnologiCai-dream 
Vision  seems  to  have  been  interpolated  for  use  at  court  festivities. 
The  ^zplanat^y  tablet  left  by  Jupitgr,  and  the  king's  joyful  out- 
burst  in  theTaSrscChe,  •' Ant'TTmother  to  the  birth  of  three  ?  " 
prove  that  even  at  his  füllest  and  ripest  Shakespeare  was  never 
securely  possessed  of  an  unfailing  good  taste,  but  such  trifling 
errors  of  judgment  are  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  over- 
flowing  richness  of  the  fairylike  poetry  of  this  drama. 

^  Itk  tomtmlaX  remarkaKTe  that  Qi^bkn^  and  Arvira|[as  shoald  know  anytblnf 
mbout  cbimneyt^eepen. 


XIX 

WINTBR'S  TALE  — AN  BPIC  TÜRN^CHILDUKB  PORMS^ 
THB  PLAY  AS  A  MUSICAL  STUDY -^ SHAKESPEARES 
MSTHBTIC  CONFESSION  OF  PAITH 

We  are  now  about  to  sce  Shakespeare  enthralled  and  rcinspired 
by  the  glamour  of  fairy  tale  and  romance. 

The  Winter' s  Tale  was  first  printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623,  but, 
as  we  have  already  mentioned,  an  entry  in  Dr.  Simon  Forman's 
diary  informs  us  that  he  saw  it  played  at  the  Globe  Theatre  on 
the  isth  of  May  161 1,  A  notice  in  the  official  diary  ofSir  Henry 
Herbert,  Master  of  the  Revels,  goes  to  prove  that  at  that  date  the 
play  was  quite  new.  "For  the  king's  players.  An  olde  playe 
called  Winter's  Tale,  formerly  allowed  of  by  Sir  George  Bücke, 
and  likewyse  by  mee  on  Mr.  Heromings  his  word  that  nothing 
profane  was  added  or  reformed,  though  the  allowed  book  was 
missinge;  and  therefore  I  returned  itt  without  fee  this  ipth  of 
August  1623."  The  Sir  George  Bücke  mentioned  here  did  not 
receive  his  official  appointment  as  censor  until  August  i6io. 
Therefore  it  was  probably  one  of  the  first  Performances  of  the 
Winter's  Tale  at  which  Forman  was  present  in  the  spring 
of  161 1. 

We  have  already  drawn  attention  to  Ben  Jonson's  little  fling 
at  the  play  in  the  introduction  to  his  Bartholomew* s  Fair  in  1614. 

The  play  was  founded  on  a  romance  of  Robert  Greene's, 
published  in  1588  under  the  title  of  ''Pandoslo,  the  Triumph 
of  Time,"  and  was  re-named  half-a-century  later  **  The  Historie 
of  Dorastus  and  Fawnia."  So  populär  was  it,  that  it  was  printed 
again  and  again.  We  know  of  at  least  seventeen  editions,  and  in 
aU  likelihood  there  were  more. 

Shakespeare  had  adapted  Lodge's  Rosalynde  in  his  earlier 
pastoral  play,  As  Yau  Like  Ity  very  soon  after  its  publication 
in  1590.  It  is  significant  that  this  other  tale,  with  its  peculiar 
blending  of  the  pathetic  and  idyllic,  should  only  now,  though  it 
must  have  long  been  familiär  to  him,  strike  him  as  suitable  for 
dramatic  treatment.  Karl  Elze's  theory  that  Shakespeare  had 
adapted  the  story  in  some  earlier  work,  which  Greene  had  in 
his  mlnd  when  he  wrote  his  famous  and  viokivt  ^.cox^^^^'Ok.  ^^ 
pJagiarism,  cannot  be  considered  as  more  \!tvaxi  ^  x'^xAssa^  ^^s^*^ 

615 


636  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

jecture.  Greene's  attack  was  su£Sciently  acoounted  for  by  that 
remodelling  and  adaptation  of  older  works  whicb  was  practised 
by  the  young  poet  from  the  very  first,  and  it  dearly  aimed  at 
Henry  VI. 

Shakespeare,  who  could  not,  of  course,  use  Greene^s  titlet 
called  bis  play  A  Winter' s  Tale;  a  title  whicb  would  convey 
an  Impression,  at  that  time,  of  a  serious  and  touching  or  exdt- 
ing  Story,  and  he  plainly  strove  for  a  dream-like  and  fantastic 
effect  in  bis  work.  Mamillius  says,  wben  he  begins  bis  little 
Story  (Act  ii.  sc  i),  "  A  sad  tale's  best  for  winter/'  and  in  three 
different  places  the  romantic  impossibility  of  the  plot  is  impressed 
upon  the  audience.  In  the  description  of  the  discovery  of  Perdita 
we  are  wamed  that  "  this  news,  whicb  is  called  true,  is  so  like 
an  old  tale,  that  the  verity  of  it  is  in  strong  suspicion  "  (Act  v. 
sc.  2). 

The  geographical  extravagances  are  those  of  the  romance ;  it 
was  Greene  who  surrounded  Bohemia  with  the  sea  and  trans- 
ferred the  Oracle  of  Delphi  to  the  Island  of  Delphos.  But  Shake- 
speare contributed  the  anachronisms ;  it  was  be  wbo  made  the 
orade  exist  contemporaneously  with  Russia  as  an  empire,  wbo 
made  Hermione  a  daughter  of  a  Russian  Emperor  and  caused 
her  Statue  to  be  executed  by  Giulio  Romano.  The  religion  of 
the  play  is  decidedly  vague,  Uie  very  characters  themselves  seem 
to  forget  at  times  what  they  are,  one  moment  figuring  as  Chris- 
tians, and  the  next  worsbipping  Jupiter  and  Proserpina.  In  the 
same  play  in  whicb  a  pilgrimage  is  made  to  Ddphi  to  obtain  an 
orade,  a  shepherd  lad  says  there  is  "but  one  puritan  amongst 
them,  and  be  sings  songs  to  hompipes  "  (Act  iv.  sc  2).  All  this 
is  imintentional,  no  doubt,  but  it  greatly  adds  to  the  general 
fairy  tale  effect 

We  do  not  know  wby  Shakespeare  transposed  the  localities. 
In  Greene's  book  the  tragedy  of  the  play  occurs  in  Bohemia,  and 
the  idyllic  part  in  Sidly ;  in  the  drama  the  situations  are  reversed. 
It  might  be  that  Bohemia  seemed  to  bim  a  more  suitable  country 
for  the  exposure  of  an  infant  than  the  better  known  and  more 
thickly  populated  Island  of  the  Mediterranean. 

All  the  main  features  of  the  play  are  drawn  from  Greene,  first 
and  foremost  the  king's  unreasonable  jealousy  because  bis  wife, 
at  bis  own  urgent  request,  invites  Polixenes  to  prolong  bis  stay 
and  speaks  to  bim  in  friendly  fasbion.  Among  the  grounds  of 
jealousy  enumerated  by  Greene  was  the  nai've  and  dramatically 
unsuitable  one  that  Bellaria,  in  her  desire  to  please  and  obey  her 
busband  by  showing  eveiy  attention  to  bis  guest,  frequently 
entered  bis  bed-chamber  to  ascertain  if  anytbing  was  needed 
there.^  Greene's  queen  really  dies  wben'  she  is  cast  off  by  the 
king  in  bis  jealous  madness,  but    this  tragic  epiaode,  which 

^  TJte  Msterü  ef  Dermim  md  FmmiU.   Sbak«E(«tte'«  tibctiy.    T«  P.  Golliiiii 
VoLLp.r. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  GREENE  637 

would  have  deprived  him  of  his  reconcUiation  scene,  was  not 
adopted  by  Shakespeare.  He  did,  however,  include  and  amplify 
the  death  of  Mamillius,  their  little  son,  who  pines  away  from 
sorrow  for  the  king's  harsh  treatment  of  his  mothör.  Mamillius 
is  one  of  the  gems  of  the  play ;  a  finer  sketch  of  a  gifted,  large- 
hearted  child  could  not  be.  We  can  but  feel  that  Shakespeare, 
in  drawing  this  picture  of  the  young  boy  and  his  early  death, 
must  once  again  have  had  his  own  little  son  in  his  mind,  and 
that  it  was  of  him  he  was  thinking  when  he  makes  Polixenes 
say  of  his  young  prince  (Act  i.  sc.  2) : 

"  If  at  home,  sir, 
He's  all  my  exercise,  my  mirth,  my  matter ; 
Now  my  swom  friend,  and  then  mine  enemy  ; 
My  parasite,  my  soldier,  statesman,  all : 
He  makes  a  July's  day  short  as  December ; 
And  with  his  varying  childness,  eures  in  me 
Thoughts  that  would  thick  my  blood" 

Leontes,  So  Stands  this  squire 
Offic'd  with  me." 

The  father's  tone  towards  little  Mamillius  is  at  first  a  Jesting 
one. 

'*  Mamillius,  art  thou  my  boy  ? '' 
MamiUius,  Ay,  my  good  lord. 

Leontes,  Why,  that's  my  bawcock.     What,  hast  smutch'd 
thy  nose  ? 
They  say  it  is  a  copy  put  of  mine." 

Later,  when  jealousy  grows  upon  him,  he  cries : 

"  Come,  sir  page, 
Look  on  me  with  your  welkin  eye :  sweet  villain ! 
Most  dear'st !  my  coUop ! — Can  thy  dam  ? — may'st  be  ?  " 

The  children  of  the  French  poets  of  the  middle  and  end  of 
that  Century  were  never  childlike.  They  would  have  made  a  little 
prince  destined  to  a  sad  and  early  death  talk  solemnly  and  ma- 
turely,  like  little  Joas  in  Racine's  Atlulie;  but  Shakespeare  had 
no  hesitation  in  letting  his  princeling  talk  like  a  real  child.  He 
says  to  the  lady-in-waiting  who  offers  to  play  with  him : 

**  No,  ril  none  of  you. 

ist  Lady,  Why,  my  sweet  lord? 
Mamillius.  You'll  kiss  me  hard,  and  speak  to  me  as  if 
I  were  a  baby  still.** 

He  announces  that  he  likes  another  lady  better  because  her  eye- 
brows  areJ)lack  and  fine ;  and  he  knows  that  eyebrows  are  most 
becoming  when  they  are  shaped  like  a  h^Af-ioBncn^  «xA  Vy^  ^^sb 
though  drawn  with  a  pen. 


638  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

•*  tnä  Zaäy.  Who  taught  you  this? 

Mamiläus.  I  leam'd  it  out  of  women's  &oes.     Pray,  now 
What  colour  are  your  eyebrows  ? 

ist  Lady,  Blue,  my  lord 

Mam,  Nay,  that's  a  mock ;  I  have  seen  a  lady's  nose 
That  has  been  blue,  but  not  her  eyebrows/' 

The  tale  he  is  about  to  teil  is  cut  short  by  the  entrance  of  the 
furious  king. 

During  the  trial  scene,  which  fornis  a  parallel  to  that  in  Henry 
VIIL^  tidings  are  brought  of  the  prince's  death  (Act  iii.  sc.  i) : 

"  — — whose  honourable  thoughts 
(Thoughts  too  high  for  one  so  tender)  cleft  the  heart 
That  could  conceive  a  gross  and  foolish  fire 
Blemished  his  gracious  dam." 

In  Greene's  tale  the  death  of  the  child  causes  that  of  his  mother, 
but  in  the  play,  where  it  foUows  immediately  upon  the  kingfs 
defiant  rejection  of  the  oracle,  it  effects  a  sudden  revulsion  of 
feeling  in  him  as  a  punishment  direct  from  Heaven.  Shakespeare 
allowed  Hermione  to  be  merely  reported  dead  because  his  mood  at 
this  time  required  that  the  play  should  end  happily.  That  Mami- 
lius  seems  to  pass  enlirely  out  of  every  one's  memory  is  only 
another  proof  of  a  fact  we  have  already  touched  upon,  namely, 
Shakespeare's  negligent  style  of  work  in  these  last  years  of  his 
working  life.  The  poet,  however,  is  careful  to  keep  Hermione 
well  in  mind;  she  is  brought  before  us  in  the  vision  Antigonus 
sees  shortly  before  his  death,  and  she  is  preserved  during  sixteen 
years  of  solitude  that  she  may  be  restored  to  us  at  the  last.  It  is, 
indeed,  chiefly  by  her  personality  that  the  two  markedly  distinct 
parts  of  this  wasp-waisted  play  are  held  together. 

Although,  as  in  Pericles,  there  is  more  of  an  epic  than  a  drama- 

tic  character  about  the  work,  it  possesses  a  certain  unity  of  toue 

and  feeling.     As  a  painting  may  contain  two  comparatively  un- 

connected  groups  which  are  yet  united  by  a  general  harmony  of 

line  and  colouring,  so,  in  this  apparently  disconnected  plot,  ^ere 

is  an  all-pervading  poetic  harmony  which  we  may  call  the  tone  or 

^pirit  of  the  play.      Shakespeare  was  careful  from  the  first  that 

its  melancholy  should  not  grow  to  such  an  incurable  gloom  as  to 

prevent  our  enjoyment  of  the  charming  scenes  between  Florizel  and 

^  Perdita  at  the  sheep-shearing  festival,  or  the  thievish  tricks  of  the 

Urascal  Autolycus.    The  poet  sougfat  to  make  each  chord  of  feeling 

A  Struck  during  the  play  melt  away  in  the  gentle  strain  of  reconcilia- 

vtion  at  the  close.     If  Hermione  had  retumed  to  the  king  at  once, 

which  would  have  been  the  most  natural  course  of  events,  the  play 

would  have  eaded  witb  the  third  act    She  therefore  disappear&i 

ßaaUy  reeuming  to  lifie  and  Üie  cmbctce  of  the  weeping  Leoaieft 

in  tAe  sembJanoe  of  a  Statue. 


/     p» 


PAULINA  639 

Looked  upon  from  a  purely  abstract  point  of  view,  as  though 
it  were  a  musical  composition,  the  play  might  be  considered  in  the 
light  of  a  soul's  history.     Beginning  with  powerful  emotions,  sus^ 
pense  and  dread ;  with  terrible  mistakes  entailing  deserved  and  / 
undeserved  suffering,  it  leads  to  a  despair  which  in  turn  gradually  ( 
yields  to  forgetfulness  and  levity  ;  but  not  lastingly.     Once  alone  / 
with  its  helpless  gricf  and  hopcless  repentance,  the  heart  still  finds  j 
in  its  innermost  sanctuary  the  memory  which,  death-doomed  and  / 
petrified,  has  yet  been  faithfully  guarded  and  cherished  unscathed  j 
until,  ransomed  by  tears,  it  consents  to  live  once  more.     The  play^ 
has  its  meaning  and  moral  just  as  a  symphony  may  have^  neither 
more  nor  less.     It  would  be  absurd  to  seek  for  a  psychological 
reason  for  Hermione's  prolonged  concealment.     She  reappears 
at  the  end  because  her  presence  is  required,  as  the  final  chord 
is  needed  in  music  or  the  completing  arabesque  in  a  drawing. 

Among  Shakespeare's  additions  in  the  first  part  of  the  play  we 
find  the  characters  of  the  noble  and  resolute  Paulina  and  her 
Weakly  good-natured  husband.  Paulina,  who  has  been  over- 
looked  by  both  Mrs.  Jameson  and  Heine  in  their  descriptions  of 
Shakespeare's  feminine  characters,  is  one  of  the  most  admirable 
and  original  figures  he  has  put  upon  the  stage.  She  has  more. 
courage  than  ten  men,  and  possesses  that  natural  eloquence  and 
power  ^fj)athos  which  determined  honesty  and  sonnd  common 
sense^a-bcatQW  upon  a  woman^  She  would  go  through  fire and 
water  for  the  queen  whom  shefoves  and  trusts.  She  is  untouched 
by  sentimentality ;  there  is  as  little  of  the  erotic  as  there  is  ofj 
repugnance  in  her  attitude  towards  her  husband.'  Her  treatment^ 
of  the  king's  jealous  frenzy  reminds  us  of  Emilia  in  Othello^  but 
the  resemblance  ends  there.  In  Paulina  there  is  a  vein  of  that 
rare  metal  which  we  only  find  in  excellent  women  of  this  not 
essentially  feminine  type.  We  meet  it  again  in  the  nineteenth 
Century  in  the  character  of  Christiana  Oehlenschläger  as  we  see 
it  in  Hauch 's  beautiful  commemorative  poem. 

The  rustic  f(§te  in  the  second  part  of  the  play,  with  the  conver- 
sations  between  Florizel  and  Perdita,  is  entirely  Shakespeare's 
work;  above  all  is  the  diverting  figure  of  Autolycus  his  own 
peculiar  property. 

In  Greene's  tale  the  king  falls  violently  in  love  with  his  daughter 
when  she  is  restored  to  him  a  grown  woman,  and  he  kills  himself 
in  despair  when  she  is  wedded  to  her  lover.  Shakespeare  rejected 
this  stupid  and  ugly  feature ;  his  ending  is  all  pure  harmony. 

Here,  as  in  Cymbeline^  we  see  the  poet  compelled  by  the 
nature  of  his  theme  to  dwell  upon  the  disastrous  effects  of  jealousy. 
This  is  the  third  time  he  treats  of  such  suspicions  driving  to 
maijness.  Othello  was  the  first  great  example,  theo  PosthumuS| 
and  now  Leontes. 

The  case  of  Leontes  is  so  far  unique  that  no  oxi<^Va!^  ^>\^;sSb!sX9d^ 
iMUßeB  of  jealousy,  nor  slandered  Hennioo!^  Xo  Vivm«    ^N^%  "^tvcol 


640  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

coarse  and  foolish  imaginings  alone  are  to  blame.  This  Variation 
of  the  vice  was  evidently  intended  to  darken  the  backgxx)und 
against  which  womanly  high-mindedness  f^nd  >^lam^l^ggnqs.s  w**^=^ 
toshineforth. 

yf   Mrs.  Jameson  has  channingly  said  that  Hermione  combines 

/such  rare  virtues  as  ''dignity  without  pride,  love  without  pas- 

[  sion,  and  tenderness  without  weakness."     As  queen,  wife,  and 

\  mother,  there  is  a  majestic  lovableness  about  her,  a  grand  and 

( gracious  simplicity,   a   natural   self-control,   the   proverb,  "  Still 

(Jäters    run   deep,"   being    eminently   applicable    to    her.      Her 

gentle  dignity  contrasts  well  with  Paulina's  enthusiastic  intre- 

pidity,  and  her  noble  reticence  with  Paulina's  free  outspoken- 

ness.      Her  attitude  and   language   during  the  trial  scene  are 

süperb,  far  outshining  Queen  Katherine's  on  a  similar  occasion. 

Her  nature,  the  ideal  Englishwoman's  nature,  all  meekness  and 

submissiveness,  rises  in  dignified  protest.     She  is  brief  in  her 

self-defence ;  life  has  no  value  for  her  since  she  has  lost  her 

husband's  love,  since  her  little  son  has  been  removed  from  her 

as  though  she  were  plague- stricken,  and  her  new-bom  daughter 

"from  her  breast,  the  innocent  milk  in  its  most  innocent  mouth, 

haled  out  to  murder."    Her  only  desire  is  to  vindicate  her  honour, 

yet  the  first  words  of  this  cruelly  accused  and  shamefully  treated 

woman  are  füll  of  pity  for  the  remorse  which  Leontes  will  some 

day  suffer.     Her  language  is  that  of  innocent  fortitude.    When 

about  to  be  taken  to  prison  she  says : 

**  There's  some  ill  planet  reigns : 
I  must  be  patient  tili  the  heavens  look 
With  an  aspect  more  favourable.     Good  my  lords, 
I  am  not  prone  to  weeping,  as  our  sex 
Commonly  are ;  the  want  of  which  vain  dew 
Perchance  shall  dry  your  pities  :  but  I  have 
That  honourable  grief  lodged  here  which  bums 
Worse  than  tears  drown." 

She  bids  her  women  not  weep  until  she  has  deserved  imprison- 
ment ;  then  indeed  their  tears  will  have  cause  to  flow. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  Winter^ s  Tale  we  are  surrounded  by 

a  fresh   and   charming  country,  and  shown  a  picture  of  rustic 

happiness  and  well-being.      No  one  was  less  influenced  by  the 

sentimental  vagaries  of  the  fantastic  pastorals  of  the  day  than 

/^   Shakespeare.     He  had  drawn  in  Corin  and  Phebe,  in  As  Vau 

Y    Like  Itf  an  eztremely  natural,  and  therefore  not  particularly 

l    poetical,  shepherd  and  shepherdess ;  and  the  herdsmen  in  the 

V   Wintet^s  Tale  are  no  beautiful  languishing  souls.     They  do  not 

I  write  sonnets  and  madrigals,  but  drink  ale  and  eat  pies  and 

vdance.     The  hostess  serves  her  guests  with  a  face  that  is  **  o* 

ßre  with  iabour  and  the  thing  she  took  to  quench  it."    The 

clowna'beads  are  fiül  of  the  pnces  of  nvoo\\  >3^t.>)  V^n^  t^^  xkvnvigjbit 


AUTüLYCUS  641 

for  roses  and  nightingales,  and  their  simplicity  is  rather  comical 
than  touching.  They  are  more  than  overraatched  by  the  light- 
fingered  Autolycus,  who  educates  them  by  means  of  ballads,  and 
eases  them  of  their  purses  at  the  same  time.  He  is  a  Jack-of-all- 
trades,  has  travelled  the  country  with  a  monkey,  been  a  process- 
server,  bailiff,  and  servant  to  Prince  Florizel ;  he  has  gone  about 
with  a  puppet-show  playing  the  Prodigal  Son ;  finally,  he  marries 
a  tinker's  wil'e  and  scttles  down  as  a  confirmed  rogue.  He  is  the 
clown  of  the  piece — roguish,  genial,  witty,  and  always  master  of 
the  Situation.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  seized  every 
opportunity  to  tlout  the  Iower  classes,  that  he  always  gave  a 
satirical  and  repellent  picture  of  them  as  a  mass,  yet  their  natural 
wit,  good  sense,  and  kind-heartedness  are  always  portrayed  in  his 
clowns  with  a  symp.ithetic  touch.  Before  his  time,  the  buffoon 
was  never  an  inhcrent  part  of  the  play ;  he  came  on  and  danced 
his  jig  without  any  conncction  with  the  plot,  and  was,  in  fact, 
merely  intended  to  amuse  the  uneducated  portion  of  the  audience 
and  make  them  laugh.  Shakespeare  was  the  first  to  incorporate 
him  into  the  plot,  and  to  endow  hini.  not  merely  with  the  jester's 
wit,  but  with  the  higher  facultics  and  feelings  of  the  Fool  in  Lear^ 
or  the  gay  luiniour  of  the  vagabond  pedlar,  Autolycus. 

The  clown  in  the  Wi?iters  Tale  is  the  drollest  and  sharpest 
of  knaves,  and  is  employed  to  unravel  the  knot  in  the  story.  He 
it  is  who  transports  the  old  shepherd  and  his  son  from  Bohemia 
to  the  court  of  King  Leonlcs  in  Sicily. 

The  ludicrous  features  uf  rustic  socicty,  howcver,  are  quite 
overpowered  by  the  kind-heartedness  which  stamps  every  word 
Coming  from  the  lips  of  these  worthy  country  folk,  and  prepares 
US  for  tlie  appearance  of  Perdita  in  their  midst. 

She  has  bcen  adopted  out  of  conipassion,  and,  with  her  gold,^\ 
proves  a  source  of  prosp)erity  to  her  adoptive  parents.     Thus  she      ) 
grows  up  without  feeling  the  pressure  of  poverty  or  servitude.     / 
She  wins   the  prince's  hcart  by  the  beauty  of  her  youth,  and     (    .  a 
when  wj   rirst  sec  her  she  is  attired   in  all   her  splendour  as     y 
queen  of  a  rural  festival.     Modest  and  charming  as  she  is,  she 
shows  tlie  courage  of  a  true  princess  in  face  of  the  difficulties 
and  hardships  slie  niust  encounter  for  the  sake  of  her  lovc.  ^^ 

She  is  onc  of  Shakespeare's  cherished  children,  and  he  has 
cndowed  her  with  his  favourite  trait — a  distaste  for  anything 
artificial  or  unnatural.  Not  even  to  improve  the  flowers  in  her 
garden  will  she  employ  the  art  of  special  means  of  cultivation. 
STie"will  not  have  the  riA  blooms  of  **  carnations  and  streaked 
gillyflowers "  there ;  theyrao  not  thrive  and  she  will  not  plant 
them.  When  Polixenes  Äsks  why  she  disdains  them,  she  replies 
(Act  iv.  sc.  3) : 

*•  For  I  have  heard  it  said 
There  is  an  art  which  in  their  piedness  sYiacces  gm 

With  great  creating  natiire."  " 


642  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

To  whicb  Polixenes  makes  the  profound  response : 

"  Say  there  be ; 
Yet  nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  nature  makes  that  mean  :  so  over  that  art 
Which  you  say  adds  to  nature  is  an  art 
v?  That  nature  makes.     You  see,  sweet  maid,  we  marry 

^.^A\  A  gentler  scion  to  the  wildest  stock, 

^  i  And  make  conceive  a  bark  of  baser  kind 

By  bud  of  nobler  race ;  this  is  an  art 
Which  does  mend  nature, — change  it  rather ;  but 
The  art  itself  is  nature." 

These  are  the  niost  profound  and  subtle  words  that  could  well  bc 
spyoken  on  the  subject  of  the  relations  betwcen  nature  and  culture  ; 
the  clearest  repudiation  of  that  gospel  of  naturalism  against  which 
the  figure  of  Caliban  and  the  ridicule  cast  upon  Gonzalo's  Utopia 
in  T/ie  Tempest  are  protests.  Perdita  herseif  is  one  of  those 
chosenjQQwej;s  which^are  the  product  of^that.true  culture  which 
i^rgserves  and  ennobles  nature. 

They  are  also  words  of  genuine  wisdora  on  the  relative  posi- 
tions  of  nature  and  art.  Shakespeare's  art  was  that  of  nature 
itself,  and  in  this  short  speech  we  possess  his  aesthetic  confession 
of  faith. 

His  ideal  was  a  poctry  which  strayed  neither  in  matter  oor 
manner  from  what  Hamlet  calls  '^the  modesty  of  nature."  Al- 
though  he  did  not  wholly  Ri:ccced  in  cscaping  its  infection,  Shake- 
speare invariably  pursued  the  ortificial  taste  of  the  times  w^ith 
gl  bes.  From  the  days  when  he  made  mcny  at  the  expense  of 
Euphuisms  in  Love's  Labont^s  Lost  and  Falstaff,  until  now,  when 
he  puts  such  afrectedly  poetical  languagc  in  the  mouths  of  his 
courtiers  in  the  IVinte/s  Tale^  he  has  always  ridiculed  it  vigorousl^'. 

In  the  first  scene  of  the  play  Camillo  says  in  praise  of  Mamil- 
lius : 

**They  that  went  on  crutches  before  he  was  bom  desire  still  their 
life  to  see  him  a  man. 

Whereupon  Archidamus  sarcastically  inquires : 

"  Would  they  eise  be  content  to  die?" 

and  Camillo  is  forced  to  laughingly  confess  : 

"  Yes,  if  there  were  no  other  excuse  why  they  should  desire  to  liye." 

Still  more  absurd  is  the  style  in  which  the  Third  Gentleman 
describes,  in  the  last  scene  of  the  play,  the  meeting  between  the 
king  and  his  long-Iost  daughter  and  \\ij^  as^cx  ol  \h)^  ^^^tators« 
He  says  of  Paulina ; 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  EUPHUISMS  643 

*'She  had  one  eye  declined  for  the  loss  of  her  husband,  another 
elevated  that  the  oraicle  was  fulfilled.^ 

This  comical  diction  reaches  a  climax  in  the  following  ex- 
pressions : 

"  One  of  the  prettiest  touches  of  all,  and  that  which  angledfor  mine 
eyeSj  caught  water  though  not  the  fishy  was  when  at  the  relation  of  the 
queen's  death,  with  the  manner  how  she  came  to't,  b^avely  confessed 
and  lamented  by  the  king,  how  attentiveness  wounded  his  daughter ; 
tili,  from  one  sign  of  dolour  to  another,  she  did,  with  an  "  Alas,'  I  would 
fain  say,  bked  iears^  for  1  am  sure  my  heart  wept  blcod.  Who  was 
most  marble  there  changed  colour  ;  some  swooned,  all  sorrowed :  if  all 
the  World  could  have  seen  't  tlu  woe  had  heen  tmiversal" 

That  Shakespearc*s  scsthetic  sense  did  not  sanction  such  ex- 
pressions  as  these  of  the  Third  Gentleman  scarcely  needs  stating. 
Pcrdita's  language  is  that  of  nature  itself.  So  great  is  her  dislike  of 
artificiality,  that  she  will  not  even  plant  gardener's  flowers  in  her 
garden,  saying : 

"  No  morc  than  were  I  painted  I  would  wish 
This  youth  shouki  say  'twere  well,  and  only  therefore 
Desire  to  breed  by  mc." 

Nowhere  is  Shakespeare's  knowledgc  of  nature  more  charm- 
ingly  displayed  than  in  her  ppecches.  It  is  not  only  the  poetic 
ezpression  that  is  so  wondcrfiil  in  Perdita's  distribution  of  flowers; 
it  is  the  intimacy  shown  with  their  habits.    She  says  (Act  iv.  sc.  3) : 

"  Hot  lavender,  mints,  savory,marjoram  ; 
The  marigold.  that  coes  to  bed  wi*  the  sun 
And  with  him  rises  weeping.'* 

How  well  she  knows  tliat  in  England  the  dafifodils  bloom  as  early 
as  February  and  March,  whilc  the  swallow  does  not  come  tili 
April: 

*• O  Proserpina, 

For  the  flowers  now  that.  f rightcd,  thou  lett'st  fall 
From  Dis's  wat:.;on  !  dafifodils, 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ;  violets  dixn, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes 
Or  Cytherea\s  breath  ;  pale  primroses, 
That  die  unmarried,  ere  thcy  can  behold 
Bright  Phcebus  in  his  strength — a  malady 
Most  incident  to  maids  :  bold  oxlips  and 


*  Julius  Lange  po^iitivcly  a<;serts  that  ihese  expressions  are  not  to  he  taken  as  an 
intentional  jest  on  the  part  of  Shakesf)eare,  hut  are  to  he  regarded  as  part  of  his  style 
("said  in  sober  earncst,    to  quote  his  own  wonis),  and  he  makes  ihem  the  preiext  of  an 
ftttack  upon  the  **then,  as  now,  idolised  Shakespeare — in  Nvhcy?^^  miotV^^ ^S\!^\  ^i^s-^^ 
find  more  hi^h-sovniVmf^  and  highly-coloured  woida  t^han  «a^  xEk^vs^CQ^OT  \c»^.  >«di.^^x.' 
atMTKling of iih."    (Tilskueren,  1895,  p.  699.) 


644  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Tbe  crown  imperial ;  lilies  of  kU  kiods, 
The'flower-de-luce  büng  ooe!  Oh,  these  I  lack 
To  make  you  garknds  of,  and  my  sveet  feiend, 
To  strew  him  o'er  and  o'er ! 
J!hri*el.  What,  like  a  corse  ? 

Ferdita.  No,  like  a  bänk  for  love  to  lie  and  play  on  : 
Not  like  a  corse ;  or  if,  not  to  be  buried, 
But  quick  and  in  minearms."  .  .  . 

Florizei's  answer  describes  her  witb  a  lovcr's  eloquence: 
"  What  you  do 
Still  betters  what  is  done.     When  you  speak,  aweet, 
I'd  have  you  do  it  ever :  when  you  sing, 
I'd  have  you  buy  and  seil  so,  so  give  alms, 
Pray  so,  and,  for  the  ordering  your  affairs, 
To  sing  them  too."  .  .  . 

Her  chann  is  equalled  by  her  pride  and  resolution.  When 
the  king  threatens  to  have  her  "  beauty  scratched  with  briars"  if 
she  dares  retain  her  hold  upon  his  son,  although  she  believes  all 
is  lost,  she  says : 

I  was  not  much  afraid  ;  for  once  or  twice 
I  was  about  to  speak  and  teil  htm  plainly, 
The  self-same  sun  that  shines  upon  his  court 
Hidcs  not  his  visage  from  out  cottagc,  but 
Looks  o 


^lE_d 


■  Hrlinfatinn  nf  the  Iqye  betwecn  Florjzel  and  Perdtta  is 

marked  by  certain  features  not  to  be  found  in  Shakespearc'syouth- 
fuJ  works,  but  which  reappear  with  f  erdinand  and  Miranda  in  Tlu 

.^JOpeiL     Therc  is  a  certain  remotencss  from  the  world  about  it, 

.' ^'*"'^-r"*°°  f"'",;'^'"'  'vhr'  '■"'  *■'■"  y*»"''"^  fipd  hoping  for  hap-  - 

piness  and  a  renunciation  of  any  expectation  as  far  as  himsclf  is 

"cOTJccmed.  He  Stands  outside  and  beyond  it  all  now.  In  the  cid 
days  the  poet  stood  on  a  level,  as  it  were,  with  the  love  he  was 
portraying;  now  he  looks  upon  it  from  above  with  a  fatherly  eye. 
As  in  Cymbeline,  the  court  is  here  placed  in  contrast  with 
idyllic  life,  and  shown  as  the  abodc  of  ciiiejtj,  stupidity,  and  vice. 
Even  the  better  of  the  two  kings,  Polixenes,  is  röiigh  and  harsh, 
and  Leontes,  whom  we  are  not  to  look  upon  as  criminal,  but 
only  as  misied  by  his  miserable  suspicions,  offers  a  true  picture 
ofthe  princely  attitude  and  princely  behaviour  of  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  during  the  sixteenth  Century  in  Italy  and  about  a 
Century  later  in  England.  It  was  with  good  reason  that  Belarius 
said  in  Cymbeliiu  (Act  iii,  sc  3): 

"  And  WC  will  fear  no  poison,  which  attenda 
In  place  f£  greater  State." 

IVe  see  that  the  thoughts  of  the  king  immediatdy  tum  to 
Doaon  «rhM  he  Selievts  that  his  ■»öfc\\3»ÄtTO."«ÄV\m,Mv4'iitilsio 


PERDITA  64  s 

see  that  the  courtier  in  whom  he  confides  has  all  the  means  ready 
to  hand  (Act  i.  sc.  2) : 

"  And  thou  .  .  . 

.  .  .  might'st  bespice  a  cup, 

To  give  mine  enemy  a  lasting  wink ; 

Which  draught  to  me  were  cordial. 
Camillo.  Sir,  my  lord, 

I  could  do  this,  and  that  with  no  rash  potion, 

But  with  a  lingering  dram  that  should  not  work 

Maliciously  like  poison." 

When,  to  escape  committing  this  crime,  Camillo  takes  flight  with 
Polixenes,  and  the  king  has  to  be  content  with  wreaking  his 
vengeance  on  the  hapless  Hermione  and  her  Infant,  he  returns 
again  and  again  to  the  thought  of  having  them  burned : 

**  Say  that  she  were  gone, 
Given  to  the  fire,  a  moiety  of  my  rest 
Might  come  to  me  again." 

Then  the  command  with  regard  to  the  child  : 

"  Hence  with  it,  and,  together  with  the  dam, 
Commit  them  to  the  fire !  '*  (Act  ii.  sc.  3). 

Paulina  shall  share  their  fate  for  daring  to  oppose  him : 

"  ni  ha'  thee  bumt ! " 

When  she  is  gone,  he  repeats  his  order  for  the  buming  of  the 
infant* 

"  Take  it  hence 

And  see  it  instantly  consumed  with  fire.  .  •  • 

.  .  .  If  thou  refuse, 

And  wilt  encounter  with  my  wrath,  say  so ; 

The  bastard  brains  with  these  my  proper  hands 

Shall  I  dash  out.    Go,  take  it  to  the  fire ! " 

We  can  see  that  Shakespeare  had  no  Intention  of  allowing  the 
drama  to  become  mawkish  by  giving  too  free  scope  to  the 
humours  of  a  pastorai  play. 

The  resemblance  between  the  sufferings  of  the  infant  Perdita/^ 
put  ashore  on  the  coast  of  Bohemia  during  a  tempest,  and  those  / 
of  the  infant  Marina,  born  during  a  storm  at  sea,  is  accentuated  \ 
by  lines  which  markedly  recall  a  well-known  passage  in  PertcUs,  ( 
In  the  Winter' s  Tale  we  have  (Act  iii.  sc.  3) :  \ 

"  Thou'rt  like  to  have 
A  lullaby  too  rough  :  I  never  saw 
The  heavens  so  dim  by  day.     A  savage  clamour  I "  * 

*  In  Ptriclts: 

'*For  tiiüu'rt  the  nidliest  welcome  \o  >\)i&  niol\4 
That  c'cr  was  princc'»  child." 


646  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  impression  designedly  produced  upon  the  audience»  that  all 
this  is  not  serious  eamest,  enables  Shakespeare  to  approach  more 
nearly  to  tragic  dissonance  than  would  otherwise  be  permissible 
in  a  work  of  this  kind.  The  atmosphere  of  fairy  tale,  so  skilfully 
breathed  here  and  there  throughout  the  play,  carries  with  it  a 
certain  playfulness  of  expression  which  gives  a  touch  of  raillery 
to  incidents  which  would  otherwise  be  horrible.  Playfulness  it  is, 
and  we  once  more  obtain  a  glimpse  of  this  quality  which  has  so 
long  deserted  Shakespeare.  It  would  be  difiicult  to  find  a  more 
roguish  bit  of  drollci  y  than  the  old  shepherd*s  monologue  on 
finding  the  child  (Act  iii.  sc.  3): 

"  A  pretty  one  ;  a  very  pr  tty  one  :  sure,  ^ome  'scape  :  though  I  am 
not  bock.  !i.  yet  I  can  r«.  ?.d  waiting-gentlcwoman  in  ihe  'scape.  This 
has  been  some  stair-work,  some  trunk-work,  s.'^me  behind-door-work : 
they  were  warmer  that  g(;t  this  than  the  poor  ihing  is  here." 

The  same  tone  is  preserved  in  the  young  shepherd's  account 
of  how  he  saw  Antigonus  torn  to  pieces  by  a  bear.  Impossible  to 
feel  horror-stricken  or  solcmn  over  this: 

*^And  then  for  the  land-service,  tu  see  how  the  bear  tore  out  his 
shoulder-bone ;  how  he  cried  to  me  for  help,  and  said  his  name  was 
Antigonus,  a  noblcman,  But  to  makc  an  cnd  or'  the  ship,  to  see  how 
the  sea  flap-dragoned  it^  V>ut  firs:  how  the  poor  souls  roared,  and  the 
sea  mocked  them  :  and  how  the  poor  genilcman  roared,  and  the  bear 
mocked  him,  both  roaring  louder  tlian  sea  or  weather.'* 

• 

It  does  not  seem  vcry  likely  that  the  unlbrtunate  man's  chief 
anxiety  while  the  bear  was  tearing  him  to  pieces  would  be  to 
inform  the  shcpherd  of  his  name  and  rank.  He  forgot  to  add 
his  age,  although,  through  a  slip  on  Shakcspeare\s  part,  the  old 
shepherd  knows  without  being  told  that  Antigonus  was  aged. 

Shakespeare  did  not  concentrate  his  wholc  strength  on  this 
play  ei  t  her.  He  took  no  great  p:ii:Ts  to  red  nee  his  scattered 
materials  to  order,  and,  as  if  in  defiance  of  those  classically 
cultivated  p>eople  who  demandcd  unity  of  time  and  place,  he 
allowed  sixteen  years  to  clapsc  between  two  acts,  leaving  us 
on  the  voyage  between  Sicily  and  Bohcmia,  between  reality  and 
wonderland.  In  other  words,  he  has  freelv  imorovised  on  his 
instrument  upon  a  given  poetic  tlieme ;  he  lias  painied  purely 
dccoratively,  content  with  a  general  harmony  of  colour  and  unity 
of  tone,  without  giving  much  thought  to  any  ultimate  meaning. 


XX 


THE  TEMPEST—WRITTEN  FOR  THE  PRINCESS 

ELIZABETH'S  WEDDING 

It  is  a  difFerent  matter  with  that  rieh,  fantastic  wondcr-poem,  The 
Tewpest^  on  which  Shakespeare  concentratcd  for  the  last  time  all 
the  powers  of  his  mind.  Everything  here  is  ordered  and  concise, 
and  so  inspired  with  thought  that  we  sccm  to  bc  standing  lace  to 
face  with  the  poet's  idca.  In  spitc  of  all  its  boldncss  of  Imagina- 
tion, the  dramatic  order  and  condensation  arc  such  that  the  whole 
complies  with  the  sevcrcst  rulci>  of  Aristotlc,  tlie  action  of  the 
cntire  play  occup^'ing  in  reality  only  thrcc  hours. 

.  Owing  to  a  notice  by  the  Marter  of  the  Rcvds  conccrning  a 
Performance  of  the  play  at  Whitehall  in  i6ri,  the  datc  löio-ii 
was  long  accepted  as  the  yt^ar  of  its  production.  Sincc  1843 
this  memorandum  has  bcen  suspectcd  to  be  a  for^ery.  The 
errors  in  words  and  namcs — cspccially  in  spelling  the  poet's 
name  Shaxberd — have  becn  takcn  as  a  proof  01*  the  cxaj^gcrated 
zeal  of  the  falsifier  to  ^ive  his  prodiict  an  aiicient  hue.  On 
closer  examination  it  was,  howcvcr,  statcd  that  thcse  errors 
were  quite  common  in  thdse  days.  And  whcn,  two  years  a£i;o, 
the  young  Student,  Mr.  Kniest  Law,  further  cxamincd  the  hand- 
writing  thoroughly  and  systc:rnatically  it  was  made  evident  that 
the  scientific  world  for  morc  than  half  a  Century  had  been 
mystified,  and  led  astray  by  a  stupid  hy')Othesis,  never  confirmed, 
in  supposing  that  the  mcntion  ot  the  name  of  Collier  in  a  poor 
drunkard's  letter  bctrayed  the  falsification  of  documents  which 
had  come  into  his  hands  through  the  abuse  of  things  in  his 
Charge. 

As  a  result  we  see  that  the  two  lists  of  Performances  of  the 
dramas  at  the  court  doubtless  are  genuine,  and  consequently 
we  have  in  them  documents  which  cnahle  us  to  fix  the  xjenesis  of 
the  plays  mentioned  in  thcm.  Esj)eciaily  significant  is  it  that 
The  Tcmpcst  docs  not  date  from  161 3  as  supposed  by  Tieck, 
Garnett,  and  mvself,  but  was  performed  for  the  first  time  in  the 
Summer  of  161 1  at  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  to  a  hieh-class 
audience ;  next  on  the  ist  of  November  to  the  King  at  Whitehall. 
Certainly  it  was  re-acted  in  161 3  at  the  wedding  of  Princess 
Elizabeth,  but  it  was  not  written  for  this  occasion.  The  idea 
of  princely  marriaj:jes  was  in  the  air.     There  were  numerous 

suitors  for  the  hand  oi  the  little  priuccss,  aud  ovawv  ^^xc^^'saSs» 

647 


648  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  marriag^e  were  made  to  the  Prince  of  Wales.  There  is  further 
a  probabiiity  that  the  interpolated  masque-play — which  so  un- 
mistakably  hints  at  a  marriage — was  first  added  fifteen  months 
later. 

The  Princess  Elizabeth  had  bcen  educated  at  Combe  Abbey, 
far  from  the  impure  atmosphere  of  the  court,  under  the  care  of 
Lord  and  Lady  Harrington,  an  honourable  and  right-minded 
couple.  When  retumed  to  her  parents  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
she  was  distinguished  b}'  a  charm  and  dignity  beyond  her  years, 
and  soon  became  the  special  favourite  of  her  brother  Henry, 
then  seventeen  years  of  age.  Claimants  for  her  hand  were  not 
long  in  appearing.  The  Prince  of  Piedmont  was  among  the  first, 
but  the  Pope  would  not  consent  to  a  marriage  between  a  Catholic 
potentate  and  a  Protestant  princess.  The  next  wooer  was  no 
less  a  person  than  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  his  suit  was  rejected 
because  James  refused  to  bestow  his  daughter  upon  the  enemy 
of  his  friend  and  brother-in-Iaw,  Christian  IV.  of  Denmark.  As 
earlyas  Deceniber  161  t  negotiations  were  entered  up)on  on  behalf 
of  Prince  Frederick  V.,  who  had  just  succecded  his  father  as 
Elector  of  the  Palatinatc.  There  was  much  to  be  said  in  favour 
of  an  alliance  with  a  son  of  the  man  who  had  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  Protestant  League  in  Germany,  and  in  May  161 2 
a  preliminary  contract  of  betrothal  was  signed.  in  the  August 
of  tfc^e  same  3-ear  an  ambassador  from  the  young  Elector  came 
to  England.  Meanwhile  the  first  suitor,  strongly  supported  by 
the  Queen's  Catholic  synipathies,  had  rcappcared.  The  King 
of  Spain  had  also  made  some  overturcs,  but  they  had  fallen 
through  on  account  of  their  implying  the  conversion  of  the 
Princess  to  the  Catholic  faith.  It  was  the  Elector  Frederick, 
thcrefore,  who  was  finally  victorious  in  the  contest,  and  matters 
were  soon  so  far  settled  that  he  coiild  set  out  on  his  journey 
to  England.  He  was  v(!ry  populär  tlierc  b}^  leason  of  his  Pro- 
testantism,  and  he  arrived  at  ( jravesend  amid  general  rejoicing. 
He  sailed  up  to  Whitehall  on  the  22nd  of  (3ctober,  and  was 
cnthusiastically  greeted  by  the  crowd.  King  James  rcceived  him 
warmly,  and  presented  hini  with  a  riiiR  wortli  eighteen  hundred 
pounds.  He  was  ardenily  supported  by  the  3'oung  Prince  of 
Wales,  wliö  announced  his  inten tioii  of  foHowing  his  sister  on 
her  weddiiig-tour  to  Germany,  whcre  it  was  his  secret  purpose 
to  look  for  a  bride  for  himself,  regardless  of  political  intrigue. 

The  Elector  Palatine  was  a  remarkahly  haiidsome  and  pre- 
possessing  young  man.  Born  on  the  lötli  of  August,  1596,  he 
was  at  this  time  just  sixteen  years  oi  age,  and  nothing  in 
his  conduct  suggestcd  the  unmanly  and  contemptible  character 
he  displayed  eight  years  later,  wlien  he,  as  King  of  Bohemia, 
lost  the  battle  of  Prague  through  a  drunken  revel.  The  con- 
temporary  English  accounts  of  V\\m  ^.bowwd  wllh  his  praise.  He 
made  an  exceJlent  impressiou  eveT^vjYvete^  ^xv^  >n^  xt-aA  <A  \cä 


PRINCE    HENRY  649 

dignifiecl  and  princely  behaviour  in  a  letter  fromJohnChamberlain 
to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  dated  22nd  October  161 2:  "He  hath 
a  trafn  of  very  sober  and  well-fashioned  gentlemen,  bis  whole 
nurober  is  not  above  170,  servants  and  all,  beinj^  limited  by  thc 
King  not  to  exceed."  The  condition  of  the  exchequer  would 
not  permit  of  any  unnecessary  extravagance,  and  in  less  than  a 
month  after  the  wedding  the  whole  retin ue  appointed  to  attend 
on  the  Prince  during  liis  stay  in  England  was  dismissed — a  slight 
which  the  young  Princess  took  very  much  to  heart. 

The  much  belovcd  Prince  Henry  was  far  from  well  at  the 
time  of  bis  future  bmther-in-law's  arrival  in  London.  He  had 
injured  himself  by  violent  bodily  excrcise  during  the  unusually 
bot  Summer,  and  had  ruined  lii^  digestion  b}'  eating  great 
quantities  of  fruit.  We  now  know  that  the  illness  by  which  he 
was  attacked  was  typhus  fever,  and  it  appears  that  not  many  days 
after  he  was  convalescent  he  incurred  a  severe  relapse  by  playing 
tennis  in  the  cold  open  air  with  no  more  rlothing  on  the  Upper 
part  of  bis  body  than  a  shirt. 

High-minded,  cnlightened,  and  honourable  as  he  was,  Prince 
Henry  was  the  idol  and  hope  of  the  Knglish  nation.  Queen 
Anne  had  taken  the  Prince,  while  he  was  yet  a  boy,  to  visit 
Raleigh  at  the  Tower,  soon  after  the  illustrious  prisoner  had 
been  forced  to  abandon  those  hopes  of  thc  Admiralship  of  the 
Danish  fleet  which  hc  had  based  on  thc  visit  of  Cliristian  the 
Fourth  to  England.  Prince  Henry  had  been  intimate  with 
Raleigh  since  1610,  and  is  reportcd  to  have  said,  **No  man  but 
my  father  would  have  kept  such  a  bird  in  a  cage  I "  He  had, 
with  great  difficulty,  obtained  from  the  King  a  promise  that 
Raleigh  should  be  released  ai  Christmas,  1612 — a  promise  which 
was  never  kept. 

On  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  November  the  Prince's  condition 
was  declared  hopeless.  The  Queen  sent  to  the  Tower  for  a  bottle 
of  Raleigh\s  famous  cordial.  which  she  believed  to  have  once 
saved  her  own  life,  and  in  which  Raleigli  himself  placed  the 
greatest  faith.  He  dcspatched  it  with  a  mcssage  that  it  would 
save  the  Prince's  life,  unlcss  hc  werc  dying  of  poison.  It  only 
availed  to  ease  bis  death  stru^^gles,  howcver.  and,  barely  nineteen 
years  of  age,  he  died  before  the  day  was  out. 

Never  before  in  thc  histury  of  England  had  such  hopes  been 
fixed  and  such  affection  lavished  on  an  heir-apparent,  and  we  can 
realise  how  great  would  bc  the  gricf  of  the  entire  nation  for  his 
loss.  According  to  the  manner  of  the  times,  it  was  generally 
supposed  that  he  had  been  poisoned.  John  Chamberlain,  writing 
to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  says  that  grave  doubts  were  entertained, 
but  adds  that  no  traces  of  poison  were  found  when  the  body  was 
opened  on  the  second  da}'.  The  editor  of  these  letters,  however 
(author  of  the  Memoirs  of  Sophia  Dorothea\  \^Tc\^\\iÄ\  "'X.Väx^ 
is  nothing  conclusive  in  this ;  for,  \u  X\\e  fo?X  v^?icfc,  >^«x^  >^^\^ 


650  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

poisons  which  left  no  trace  of  their  presence  ;  and,  in  the  next, 
if  the  effects  of  poisoning  had  been  visible,  the  physicians  would 
have  been  afraid  to  say  so.  More  than  one  writer  has  veatured 
to  assert  that  the  atrocious  crime  was  perpetrated  with  the  con- 
nivance  of  the  king,  whose-  notorious  jealousy  of  the  populär 
young  prince  at  this  period,  and  foolish  fondness  for  his  brother 
Charles,  induced  a  wretch  well  known  to  have  been  guilty  of 
similar  practices — the  King*s  favourite,  Viscount  Rochester — to 
cause  the  prince  to  be  secretly  put  out  of  the  way."  It  was 
hoped  by  all  who  objected  to  the  marriage  of  the  Princess  to  the 
German  Elector  that  Prince  Henrv's  death  would  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  wedding,  for  it  could  hardly  be  celebrated  at  a  tinie 
of  such  deep  mourning.  The  Elector,  however,  had  come  over 
to  England  on  purpose  to  be  married,  and  it  was  not  possiblc 
to  delay  the  ceremony  long.  The  final  marriage  contract  was 
signed  by  the  King  on  the  I7th  of  November,  and  the  formal 
betrothal  took  place  on  the  27th  of  the  same  month.  The 
wedding  was  postponed,  but  only  until  Febniary.  Sir  Thomas 
Lake  writes  on  the  6th  of  January  that  mourning  is  given  up, 
and  the  wedding  festivities  are  arranged. 

The  bride  of  sevenleen  was  solemnly  united  to  the  bridegrooin 
of  sixteen  lo  the  general  gratification  of  the  court,  on  the  rath  of 
February,  in  the  presence  of  many  speciatorü.  On  the  i8th  of  the 
sajne  month  John  Chamberlain  writes  to  Mrs.  Carleton:  '*The 
bridegroom  and  bridc  were  both  in  a  suit  of  cloth  of  silver,  richly 
embroidered  with  silver,  her  train  carried  up  by  thirteen  young 
ladies,  or  lord's  daughters  at  least,  bcsides  five  or  six  more  that  could 
not  come  near  it.  These  were  all  in  tiie  same  livcry  with  the  bride, 
though  not  so  rieh.  The  bride  was  married  in  herhair,  thathung 
down  long,  with  an  exceeding  rieh  Coronet  on  her  head,  which  the 
King  valued  at  a  million  of  cn>\vns." 

The  bridegroom,  with  the  King  and  Prince  Charles,  took  part 
in  a  tournament  of  the  wedding.  and  earned  grcat  applause  in  the 
evening  by  a  display  ot'  his  splendid  horscmansliip  {Court  and 
Times  of  James  Üu  First).  In  Wilson*b  CüNtefuporafy  His- 
tory  (p.  64)  we  read  of  the  bride :  **  Her  vestments  were  white, 
the  embleni  of  Innocency,  her  Iiair  disheverd,  hanging  down  her 
back  at  length,  an  ornament  of  Virc:inity ;  a  crown  of  pure  gold 
upon  her  head,  the  cognizance  of  Alajesty.  being  all  beset  with 
precious  gems,  shining  likin:^^  a  constcüation,  her  train  supported 
by  twelve  yonng  ladies  in  whi'c  i^arnienii:-.,  t^o  acomed  with  jewels 
that  her  passagc  iooked  like  .1  niiiky  way.'* 

Amoni:^  the  various  plays  chosen  for  Performance  at  court 
during  these  weddinj;  festivities  was  The  Tcmpest, 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  confute  Hunter's  theory,  argued  at 

great  length,  that  the  play  datcs  from  1596.     One  fact  alone  will 

su/ficiently  prove  its  absurdity,  namely,  that  use  is  made  in  the 

j?/h\'  of  a  pa.ssage  from  Florio*s  Uaus\BX\ov\  o^  ^\oYvVaA^Tv^,\NV\c\v 


*^THE   TEMPEST"  651 

was  not  published  until  1603.  Nor  is  there  any  foundation  for 
Karl  Elze's  opinion  (also  lengthily  set  forth)  that  Tlu  Tempest  was 
written  by  1604.  The  metre  shows  that  it  belongs  to  Shake- 
speare's  latest  period.  It  has  a  proportion  of  33  in  the  100  of 
clcvcn-syllabled  lines,  whereas  Antony  and  Cleopatra^  written 
long  after  1604,  has  but  25,  and  As  You  Like  It,  of  the  year 
l6cx),  only  12  in  the  100. 

We  havc  another  fragnicnt  of  internal  evidence  against  the 
play  having  been  written  before  1610.  In  May  1609  Sir  George 
Somer's  fleet  was  scattered  by  a  storm  in  mid-ocean  while  on  its 
way  to  Virginia.  1  he  admirars  ship,  driven  out  of  its  course, 
was  blown  by  the  gale  unto  the  Bermudas.  After  all  hope  had 
been  abandoned,  the  vessel  was  saved  by  being  stranded  between 
two  rocks  in  just  such  a  bay  as  that  to  which  Ariel  guides  the 
king's  ship  in  The  Tempest.  A  little  book  was  written  on  the 
subject  of  this  shipwreck,  and  the  adventures  connected  with  it, 
by  Sylvester  Jourdan,  and  was  published  in  16 10  under  the  title, 
"  Discovery  of  the  Bermudas,  otherwise  called,  The  Isle  of  Devils." 
The  storm  and  the  peril  of  the  admiral's  ship  are  described ;  the 
vessel  had  sprung  a  leak,  and  the  sailors  were  falling  asleep  at  the 
pumps  out  of  shcer  exhaustion  when  she  grounded.  They  found 
the  island  (hitherto  regarded  as  enchantcdj  uninhabited,  the  air 
mild,  and  the  soil  reinarkably  fertile. 

Shakespeare  borrowed  several  dctails  from  this  book,  the  name 
of  Bermoothes,  mentioned  by  Ariel  in  the  first  act,  for  instance  ; 
and  bis  only  reason  for  not  following  the  narrativc  in  detail  was 
bis  desire  to  lay  the  scenc  in  an  ishmd  of  the  Mediterranean. 

The  play  is  niuch  shorter  than  the  i^'cnerality  of  Shakespeare's 
dramas,  there  bcin^  only  2000  lines  in  The  Tempest  ajjainst  the 
average  3CXX). 

After  the  opcniiij:^  sccnc  on  the  deck  of  the  ship,  no  change 
of  scenery  whatevcr  is  ncccssary,  althoiic^fh  the  action  takes  place 
on  dift'erent  parts  of  the  isliKul.  \\'<j  havc  already  referred  to 
the  comprcssion  of  the  play,  which,  instead  of  extending,  as  is 
usual  wilh  Shakespeare,  over  a  long  period,  or  even  (as  in 
P^riclcs  and  The  Ü'/utrrs  Tale)  over  a  whole  lifetime,  inerely 
occupies  thrce  huurs,  nc>t  iniich  longer  than  was  rc(juired  for  the 
Performance  of  the  play. 

In  spite  of  its  brcvity,  two  masques,  of  the  kind  generally 
represented  before  royalty  on  such  occasions,  are  introduced  into 
the  play. 

The  Tempest  was  for  thosc  days  a  wonder  of  scenic  effects, 
When  ihe  curtain,  at  the  courl  Performances,  was  drawn  aside 
the  sccnc  was  divided  thus  :  On  the  top  was  the  sky  with  clouds, 
on  one  side  a  rock  standin;^  in  the  sea,  on  the  other  side  a  forest» 
in  the  centre  a  sea  with  vessel s  showing  themselves  in  the  per- 
spective, some  of  them  artihcially  movin^.  TK^  \\\\\tc^\VÄ^I\vs^ 
was  produced   by  candelabra    and  nn^s,  suxeV   v^vOcv  cdxv^^%^ 


652  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  hung  from  one  balk  to  another.     Sometimes  the  hall  was 
darkened  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  tragical  eflTect. 

The  pantomime  and  ballet,  with  its  transformations,  are  much 
more  elaborate  than  would  have  been  necessary  if  the  scene  had 
been  there  only  for  its  own  sake.  "Enter  several  stränge  Shapes, 
bringing  in  a  banquet ;  they  dance  about  it  with  gentle  actions 
of  salutation ;  and  inviting  the  king,  &c.,  to  eat,  they  depart. 
Thunder  and  lightning.  Enter  Ariel,  like  a  harpy ;  claps  his 
wings  upon  the  table,  and  with  a  quaint  de  vice  the  banquet 
vanishes."  King  James 'had,  as  we  know,  a  fancy  for  all  manner 
of  stage  machinery,  and  Inigo  Jones  contrived  quantities  of  it 
for  use  at  court  festivities. 

Still  more  suggestive  is  the  great  wedding  masque,  which, 
with  its  mythological  figures,  Jüno,  Ceres,  and  Iris,  occupies 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  fourth  act.  If  it  were  not  that  The 
Tetfipest  was  written  for  a  bridal  Performance,  this  masque 
would  be  condemned,  so  extraneous  is  it  to  the  plot,  as  a  later 
interpolation,  and  as  such,  indeed,  it  was  considered  by  Karl 
Elze.  Without  it,  however,  the  fourth  act  dwindles  to  nothing, 
and  the  ballet  is  obviously  required  to  give  it  its  proper  length. 
Moreover,  masque  and  play  are  inseparably  connected  by  the 
famous  lines,  "and  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision,"  &c. 
It  has  been  attributed,  without  sufficient  reason,  to  Beaumont; 
but  even  supposing  him  to  have  composed  it,  it  must  have  been 
planned  by  the  author  of  the  play  and  written  to  his  order.  The 
audience  must  have  been  in  possession  of  circumstances  justify- 
ing  the  introduction  of  the  masque,  and  those  circumstances 
could  not  be  anything  but  a  wedding. 

We  find  many  flattering  allusions  in  this  play  to  King  James, 
who  could  not  possibly  be  neglected  on  such  an  occasion  as  that 
of  his  daughter  s  bridal.  When  Prospero,  explaining  Ms  position 
to  his  daughter  (Act  i.  sc.  2),  teils  how  he  was  foremost  among  all 
the  dukes  for  dignity  and  knowledge  of  the  liberal  arts,  his  special 
study,  and  how,  absorbed  in  secret  studies,he  grew  a  stranger  to  his 
State,  his  speech  conveys  that  interpretation  of  James's  position 
and  character  which  he  himself  favoured,  and  implies,  at  the 
same  time,  that  the  possession  of  these  qualities  was  the  cause  of 
his  unpopularity.  Possibly  there  was  a  touch  of  well-concealed 
irony  in  all  this.  Garnett,  indeed,  finds  an  intentional  dramatic 
Satire  in  the  crustiness  and  self-sufficiencyof  the  character,  proving 
that  even  the  development  of  the  highest  human  qualities  is 
attended  by  drawbacks.  But  this  is  carrying  the  parallel  between 
the  characteristics  of  Prospero  and  James  too  far.  Garnett  very 
truly  says,  however,  that  just  such  a  prince  as  Prospero,  wise, 
humane,  peace-loving,  pursuing  distant  aims  which  none  but  he 
could  realise  or  fathom  ;  independent  of  counsellors  and  more 
than  a  match  for  his  enemies  \t\  sa^SLcKvv.  VvoVdvcv^  Vv\mself  in 
reserve  until  the  decisive  monv«tt\t  ^itvd  xVv^tv  x^VSxv^  ^^^^xxn^ 


COLOMSATION   OF  VIRGINIA  653 

action,  a  devoted  student  of  every  lawful  science  but  a  sworn 
foe  to  the  black  art,  did  James  imagine  himself  to  be,  and  as 
such  did  he  love  to  be  represented. 

The  entire  drama  is  permeated  by  the  atmosphere  of  that  age 
of  discovery  and  struggling  colonists.  It  has  been  admirably 
shown  by  Watkins  Lloyd  that  all  the  topics  and  problems  it 
deals  with  correspond  to  th'^  colonisation  of  Virginia — the  marvels 
brought  to  light  by  the  discovery  of  new  countries  and  new  races  ; 
by  the  wonderful  falsehoods,  and  still  more  wonderful  truths,  of 
travellers  concerning  natural  phenomena  and  the  superstitions 
arising  from  them.  Sea  perils  and  shipwreck,  the  power  that  lies 
in  such  calamities  to  provoke  remorse  for  crimes  committed  ;  the 
quarreis  and  mutinies  of  colonists,  the  struggles  of  their  leaders 
to  preserve  their authority ;  theories  on  the  civilisation  and  govern- 
ment  of  new  countries,  the  reappearance  of  old  world  vices  on  a 
new  soil,  the  contrast  between  the  reasonirig  powers  of  man  and 
those  of  the  savage  ;  and  lastly,  all  the  demands  made  upon  the 
activity,  promptitude,  and  energy  of  the  conquerors. 

The  date  of  the  first  Virginian  settlement  was  May  1607,  and 
it  then  consisted  of  107  colonists.  The  Virginia  Company  was 
not  founded  until  1609  and  very  little  was  known  about  it  before 
]6io. 


XXI 

SOÜRCES  ÜF  THE  TEMPEST 

We  pos<5CRS  no  knowlcdge  of  aiiy  one  paiticular  source  from 
wliich  T/tc  Tevipest  niigiit  iiave  bceri  Jrawii,  but  it  seems  probable 
that  Shakespeari:  coiistructed  his  drama  upon  soiue  alrcady  exist- 
ing  foundation.  A  cljilriisiily  o;d-l'iishioncd  play  by  Jacob  Ayrer, 
Comeiiia  von  <icr  stiic-ni:n  i"/,V(7,  setnis  to  li.ive  been  founded 
upon  a  variaiit  ol  the  siory  u.^eU  by  Shakt.-.pcare.^  AjTcr  died 
in  1605,  and  liis  woik,  ;iicrclore,  caiino:  iiave  owcd  anything 
to  that  o!  tlie  grcat  dranialist.  Tiie  siiiiiianty  between  thc  tvvo 
plays  is  coi:fircd  :u  thc  rehtions  bcivvcL-n  Fror; pero  and  Alonso, 
and  Ferdinand  üiid  lliraiida.  In  thc  Gcrman  play  we  have  a 
br.nishcd  sovercigiij  ,his_dau^hter_,,  and  a  ca[5tjve_2'*i'ice,  who  is 
conipelled  to  atonolorhis  audacity  in  niä'KTiig;  love  toTTie daugHtgf' 
by  carr>;irig^  anJ  c»tti:ig  fifcwöod.  ^e"pT'ö"»iTRes  his  beloveJ  sTie 
iJiall  be  quccn,  and  atieniptin^'  to_draw^s"swor3'  upoiTtTTS  latner^ 
ia-l_aw,  is  icndorcd  g^owerlcss  by  niagic.  I^ eiy~is«p  r^al^xeseni- 
"blance  between  '  tlie  ai^änias;  Ir  Ts;-Ti^ejÄWSie;  -piJ&sWtf  "that 
DowJand,  or  sovik;  olhcr  Engiish  actor,  might  have  introduced 
thei"/V/r«  from  Gcrin;.ny,  but  Shakespeare  did  not  know  German, 
and  in  anj  case  the  play  was  too  poor  a  one  to  interest  him. 
Moreover,  sincc  we  know  that  Ayier  did  occasionally  eopy 
Engiish  works,  we  raay  safely  concludc  that  both  dramatists 
were  indchlcd  to  some  earlier  Engiish  souree.  There  is  nothing 
specially  original  about  the  above  incidents.  In  Greene's  Friar 
Bacon,  four  rnen  make  fruitlcss  eüTorts  lo  draw  swords  held  in 
their  scabbards  by  magic,  and  The  Tempest  wuuld  naturally 
possess  traitH  in  common  with  other  plays  rtprc.'^enung_sorcery 
upon  the  stajje.  In  Mariowe's  drama,  Dr.  fiaiisii'is~Töv  instance, 
the  hero  piinishes  his  would-be  murderers  by  making  them 
wallow  in  filth  {Fauslus,  Act  iv.  sc.  2),  just  an  Prospero  dri\-es 
Caliban,  Trincul'-i,  and  Stephane  into  tl;c  marsh  and  leaves  them 
there  up  to  their  chins  in  min;  (  Tetiiprsl.  Act  iv.). 

It   is    a   mtiM    arbitrary    and    uii:ea=onab'u:    supposidon    of 

Meissner's    that    Shakespeare    borrowed    his   wcdding    masque 

from  the  one  perfornied  at  Prince  Henry's  christening,  in  which 

also  Juno,   Ceres,   and   Iris   appear.      Shakespeare   was   never 

'Jacob  Ayieit    Opera    TheatrUum.    ■SmitvWve,  \6\%.    \*  Twöt-,   Dcuivha 


MATERIALS  FOR  ''THE  TEMPEST  655 

so  lacking  in  inventive  power  that  he  needed  to  unearth  a 
description  of  an  old  play  which  had  been  acted  before  King 
James  at  Stirling  Castle  some  nineteen  years  previously.  We 
know  that  the  masque  itself  was  not  yet  in  print. 

It  was  an  earlv  and  correct  Observation  that  various  minor 
details  of  The  Teinpest  were  taken  from  different  books  of  travel. 
Shakespeare  found  the  name  of  Setebos,  and.  possibly,  the  first 
idea  of  Caliban  himself,  in  an  account  of  Magellan's  voyage  to  the 
south  pole  in  Eden's  Historye  of  Travaile  in  Hast  and  West 
Indies  (1577).  From  Raleigh's  Discovery  of  the  largey  rieh,  and 
beiütiful  Empire  of  Guiana  •\^<)Ci)  he  took  the  fable  of  the  men 
whose  heads  stood  upon  their  brcasts.  Raleigh  writes  that,  though 
this  may  be  an  invention,  hc  is  inclined  to  belle ve  it  true,  because 
ever}'  child  in  the  provinccs  of  Arromai  and  Canuri  maintains 
that  their  mouths  wcre  in  the  middle  of  thcir  breasts.^  (See 
Gonzalo's  speech  in  The  'frmpest,  Act  iii.  sc.  2.) 

It  was  Hunter  who  fir>t  suggested  that  Shakespeare  might 
liave  taken  some  hints  from  Ariosto.  It  is  possible  that  he  had 
in  mind  some  stanz:is  from  the  43rd  canto  of  Orlando  Furioso, 
The  I5th  and  I4th  contain  a  faint  forc^hadowing,  as  it  were,  of 
Prospero  and  Miranda,  and  the  iS/th  star.za  alludcs  to  the  p>ower 
of  witchcraft  to  raise  storms  and  caim  seas  again.  The  Orlando 
had  been  translated  into  Eri;lisn  hy  Harrington,  but,  as  we  have 
already  obscrv^cd,  Shakcspcrirc  was  fully  qualified  to  read  it  in 
the  original.  Too  miich,  howrver,  has  already  been  made  of 
these  trivial,  nay,  utterly  insignificnnt  coincidcnccs.* 

It  is  far  more  rcmarkable  that  the  famous  and  bcautifiil 
passage  (Act  iv.)  proclaiming  the  transitoriness  of  all  earthly 
things — a  passage  which  sccms  to  be  a  moumful  epitome  of  the 
philosophy  of  Shakespcare's  last  years  of  productiveness — may 
be  an  easy  adaptation  of  an   inferior  and  quite  unknown  poet 

^  "Or  that  therc  were  such  men 
^Vhose  heads  stood  in  their  breasts?  which  now  we  find, 
Each  putter-out  of  five  for  one  will  bring  ns 
Good  Warrant  of." 

'  We  read  of  the  old  man  : 

"  Nella  noslra  cittade  era  un  uom  !«ag^o 
Di  tutle  r  arti  oltre  ogni  creder  dotto.'* 

Of  his  arrangements  for  his  dauqhter,  due  to  the  bad  character  of  his  wife, 
are  told  : 

**  Fuor  del  commcrcio  jwnolo  la  invola, 
Ed  ove  piu  solingo  il  luoj;o  vede. 
Questo  amplo  e  bei  palaj^io  ^  ricco  tanto 
Fcce  farc  a  demonj  per  incanto." 

Of  the  storm,  which,  by  the  way,  Is  not  raised  by  the  said  old  man,  but  by 
hermit,  we  are  merely  told : 

"  £  facea  alcuno  effetto  soprumano 


Fennare  il  vento  ad  un  segne  d\  cioot 

£  far  tranquillo  il  mar  qxiando  ^  pVai  ^XrootT 


6s6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  his  day.     When  the  spirit  play  conjured  up  by  Prospero  has 

vanished  he  says : 

"  These  our  actors, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air. 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  tciiiplcs,  the  great  glohe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolvo. 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  jxigeant  faded, 
I^ave  not  a  rack  behind.     We  arc  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  wiih  a  sleep." 

In  Count  Stirling's  tragedy  of  DariuSy  published  in  London, 
1604,  the  following  verses  occur : 

"  Let  Greatness  of  her  glassy  scepters  vaunt 
Not  scepters,  no.  but  reeds,  soon  bruis'd,  soon  broken ; 
And  let  this  worldly  pomp  our  wits  enchant. 
All  fades,  and  scarcely  leaves  behind  a  token. 
Those  golden  palaces,  those  gorgeous  halls, 
With  furniture  superfluously  fair, 
Those  stately  courts,  those  sky-encount'ring  walls, 
Evanish  all  like  vapours'in  the  air." 

History  could  scarcely  afford  a  more  striking  proof  that  in 
art  the  style  is  all,  subject  and  meaning  being  of  comparatively 
small  imix)rtance.  Stirling's  verses  are  by  no  means  bad,  nor 
even  poor,  and  their  decidcdly  pleasing  rhymes  express,  in  very 
siniilar  words,  exactly  the  same  idea  we  find  in  Shakespeare*s 
lines,  and  were,  nioreover,  their  precursors.  Nevertheless,  both 
they  and  the  name  of  their  auliior  would  be  utterly  forgotten  long 
since  if  Shakespeare  had  not,  by  a  inarvcllous  touch  or  two, 
transformed  them  into  a  few  lincs  of  blank  verse  which  will  hold 
their  own  in  the  meniory  of  man  as  long  as  the  English  languagc 
lasts. 

As  Meissner^  pointed  out,  Shakespeare  was  indebted  to 
Frampton's  translation  of  Marco  Polo  (1579)  for  one  or  two 
suggestive  hints.  For  cxample,  we  read  in  Frampton  of  the 
desert  of  Lob  in  Asia :  *'  You  shall  heare  in  the  ayre,  the 
sound  of  Tabers  and  othcr  insirumentSy  to  putte  the  travellers  in 
feare,  and  to  make  them  lose  their  way,  and  to  depart  their  Com- 
pany and  loose  themselves :  and  by  that  meanes  many  doe  die, 
being  deceived  so,  by  evill  spirits,  that  make  thesc  soundes,  and 
also  doe  call  diverse  of  the  travellers  by  their  natnes"  Compare 
this  with  Caliban's  words  in  TAe  Tempest  (Act  iii.  sc.  2) : 


'  Johan  Meistnet :  CTn/crsMcHiMifm  über  SHakcs^tnrtfs  Sturm« 


MATERIALS  FOR  "THE  TEMPEST"  ,>- 

"  The  isle  is  füll  of  noises, 
Sounds,  and  sweet  airs,  that  give  delight  and  hurt  not 
Sometimes  a  thousand  twangling  Instruments 
Will  hum  about  mine  ears,  and  sometimes  voices." 

And  Trinculo's  subsequent  jesting  remark,  which  evidently  refers 
to  the  accompaniment  of  a  clown's  morris  dance:  "I  would  I 
could  see  this  tabourer ;  he  lays  it  on."  Compare  also  Alonso's 
lament  (Act  iii.  sc.  3) : 

''  Oh,  it  is  monstrous,  monstrous ! 
Methought  the  billows  spoke  and  told  me  of  it ; 
The  winds  did  sing  it  to  me,  and  the  thunder^ 
That  deep  and  dreadful  organ-pipe,  pronounced 
The  name  oj  Prospero :  it  did  bass  my  trespass/' 

Shakespeare  niay  have  found  the  first  suggestions  of  Caliban 
and  Ariel  in  Greene's  Friar  Bacon.  In  the  ninth  scene  of  this 
pla}',  two  necromancers,  Bungay  and  Vandermast,  dispute  as  to 
which  possess  the  greaier  power,  the  pyroniantic  (fire)  spirits  or 
the  geomantic  (eaith)  spirits."  The  fire  spirits,  says  Bungay,  are 
mere  transparent  shadows  that  float  past  us  like  heralds,  while 
the  spirits  of  cartli  are  streng  enough  to  burst  rocks  asunder. 
Vandermast  miiintains  that  earth  spirits  «re  duJl,  as  befits  their 
place  of  abodf .  Thc\  are  coarse  and  earthly,  less  intelligent 
than  other  spirits,  and  thus  it  is  they  are  at  the  Service  of 
jugglers,  witchcs.  and  common  sorcercrs.  But  the  fine  spirits 
are  mighty  and  bwift,  their  power  is  far-reaching. 

A  more  direct  Suggestion  of  Ariel's  charming  ways  was 
probabh'  foiinr!  by  Shakespeare  at  the  close  of  the  already 
menticncd  Fuithful  Shephcriüss,  written  b}'  his  young  friend 
Flercher  In  it  the  satyr  otTers  his  Services  to  the  beautifui 
Corin  in  terms  which  recall  Ariel's  speech  to  Prospero  (Act  i. 
sc.  2): 

"All  hall,  great  master  !  grave  sir,  hail !     1  come 

To  answcr  thy  best  pleasure  ;  be't  to  fly, 

To  swim,  to  dive  into  the  fire,  to  ride 

On  the  curled  clouds.  to  thy  strong  bidding  task 

Ariel  and  all  his  quality." 

Fletchcr's  satyr  makes  the  same  offer : 

"Teil  me,  sweetest, 
What  new  service  now  is  meetest 
For  a  satvr  ?     Shall  1  strav 
In  th<»  middle  air,  and  stay 
The  sailm'j^  rack,  or  nimbly  take 
Hold  by  the  moon,  and  gently  make 
Suit  to  the  pale  queen  of  night 
For  a  beani  to  give  ihett  \\j[)aX"^ 


6$i  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shall  I  dive  into  tbe  sea. 
And  bring  thee  conl,  making  my 
Through  tbe  rising  waves  that  fill 
In  BQowy  fleeces?"  Si.c 

Bat  a  much  more  striking  cxamplc  of  Shakcspeare'a  taste  and 
talent  for  adaptation  is  presented  by  Prospero's  farewell  specch 
to  the  elves  (Act  v.  st  l),  "Ye  elves  of  hüls,  brooks,"  &c. 
WarburtOD  was  the  first  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that  this 
Speech,  in  which  Shakespeare  bids  farewell  to  bis  art,  and  teils, 
through  the  medium  of  Prospero's  marvellous  cloquence,  of  all 
that  he  has  accomplished,  was  founded  upon  the  great  incanta- 
tion  in  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  (vii.  197-219),  where,  after  the 
conquest  of  the  golden  fleece,  Mcdea,  at  Jason's  request,  invokes 
the  spirits  of  night  to  obtain  the  Prolongation  of  his  old  father*! 
life.  A  comparison  of  the  text  plainiy  proves  Shakespcare's  in- 
debtedness  to  Golding's  translation  of  the  Latin  work : 

"Ye  Ayres  and  Windes:  ye  Elues  of  Hilles,  of  Brooks,  of   fVoods 

aloiie, 
Of  Standing  Lakes,  and  of  the  Night  approche  ye  everyone 
Through  htlpe  of  whom  (the  crooked  bankes  much  wondring  at  the 

thing) 
/  hau(  compelled  sireames  to  run  eleant  backward  to  tkrir  spring. 
By  Charmes  I  make  the  calme  seas  rough,  and  m.ike  the  rough  seas 

playne, 
And  Cover  all  the  Skie  with  clouds  and  chase  tkem  theme  agatne. 
By  Charmes  iraise  and  lay  the  windes  and  burst  the  Viper's  iaw, 
Andfrom  the  boivels  of  the  enrih  both  stones  and  trees  do  draw. 
Whole  woods  and  /"'orreits  I  remoottve :  I  make  the  Mountains  shakt. 
And  euen  che  earth  it  seife  to  grone  and  fearefully  to  quake. 
I  call  up  dead  men  from  thtir  grauts,  and  thee,  O  lightsome  Moone, 
I  darken  oft,  though  beaten  brass  abate  thy  perill  soone. 
Our  Sorctrie  dimtnes   the  Mortiini;  faire,  and  darkes  the  Sun  d/ 

Noane. 

Among  the  eaith-bred  brothers  you  a.  mortall  waire  did  set 

And  brought  asieepe  the  Dragon  feil  whose  eyes  were  neuer  shet." 

The  corresponding  lines  in  The  Tempest  run: 

"  Ye  elves  of  hüls,  brooks,  siandiiig  iaiis,  aiid  grovet ; 
And  ye  that  on  the  sands  with  printless  foot 
Do  chase  the  fbhing  Aeptune,  and  do  fly  him 

When  he  comes  back ;  you 

Aji  whose  aid — 

Weak  masters  though  ye  he — /  have  Ixdintm'd 
The  noontide  suti,  caildfortk  the  mutineus  winds. 
And  twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azur'd  vault 
Set  roaring  vfar  ;  to  the  dread-raltling  thunder 
Have  I  given  fiie,  and  rifted  Jove'a  «Xicmx  c*]t 


MATERIALS  FOR  "THE  TEMPEST"  659 

Wilh  his  own  holt :  the  strong-das'd pramantary 
Haue  i  made  shake  ;  and  by  the  spurs  plucKd  up 
Thepine  and  cedar  :  graves  at  my  wmmand 
Have  wnKd  their  sUepers^  ofd  and  lei  'emfarih 
By  my  so  potent  art." 

The  words  employed  in  addressving  the  elves  are  actually  the 
same.  Medea's  power  to  raise  and  calm  the  waves  becomes  the 
elfin  chase  of  and  flight  from  the  advancing  and  retreating 
billows.  Both  Medea  and  Prospero  proclaim  their  power  to 
overdoud  the  sky  and  darken  the  sun,  to  raise  winds  and  shatter 
trees,  tearing  them  up  by  the  roots.  They  can  make  the  very 
mountains  tremble,  and  can  compel  the  grave  to  give  up  its 
dead. 

The  names  Prospero  and  Stephano  may  be  found  in  Ben 
Jdnson's  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  (1595).  Prospero  was  also 
the  name  of  a  riding-master  well  known  in  the  London  of  Shake- 
peare's  day. 

Malone  has  suggested  that  the  name  "  Caliban  "  was  derived 
from  "cannibal."  Although  the  creature  displays  no  tendency 
towards  cannibalism,  it  is  possible  that  Shakespeare  had  this 
term  for  a  man-eater  in  his  niind  when  he  invented  the  name ; 
it  is  even  probable»  sceing  that  the  passage  in  Montaigne  from 
which  he  drew  Gonzalo's  Utopia  is  contained  in  a  chapter  headed 
"  Les  Cannibales."  Furness,  who  has  inaugurated  such  an  admir- 
able  edition  of  Shakespeare,  considers  this  surmise  an  improbable 
one.  He  and  Th.  Elze  incline  to  the  belief  that  the  name  was 
derived  from  Calibia,  a  town  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tunis,  but 
the  connection  is  scarcely  more  obvious.  Shakespeare  found  the 
name  Ariel  in  Isaiah  xxix.  i,  the  name  of  a  city  in  which  David 
dwelt,  and  he  doubtlcss  appropriated  it  on  account  of  its  similarity 
in  sound  to  both  English  and  Latin  words  for  air. 

We  now  seem  to  have  exhausted  all  the  available  literary 
sourccs  of  The  Tempesty  and  we  need  only  add  that  Dryden  and 
Davenant,  in  their  abominable  adaptation  of  the  play  (published 
in  London  1670),  made  free  use  of  Calderon's  already  mentioned 
^'  En  esta  vida  todo  es  vcrtad  y  todo  es  mentira,"  and  thus  pro- 
vided  the  Miranda,  who  has  never  scen  a  young  man,  with  a 
counterpart  in  Hippolyto,  who  has  never  seen  the  face  of  woman. 


XXII 

THE  TEMPEST  AS  A  PLAYSHAKESPEARE  AND 
PROSPERO—FAREIVELL  TO  ART  * 


AlTHOt^GH,  taken  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  play,  T/ie  Tempest 
is  lacking  in  draniatic  interest,  thc  entire  work  is  so  marvellously 

poetry  and  so  inspired  I^haHMI^^'^")  ^^^^^  i^  forms  a 
little  World  in  itseil.  and  holds  the  reader  captive  b}'  that 
power  wbich  sheer  perfection  possesses  to  entlirall. 

If  the  ordinär}'  being  desires  to  obtain  a  sahuary  impression 
of  his  own  insignificance  and  an  ennobling  one  ot  tht*  subhniity 
of  true  genius,  he  need  only  study  this  'avt  of  .Shakesp>eare*s 
masternieces.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the  rcsiilt  will  be  pros- 
trate adniiration. 

^^Utekespearo  gave  freer  rein  to  his  imaginarion  in  this  play 

1  he  \vt.<\  allowed  liim>elf  sip.ce  the  days  of  the  Midsunupier 
"^elifsDyaiVL  ana  \\w.  First  Piirt  ot  Iloay  IV*  He  felr  able, 
inrerd  conincllc^d  to  do  this;  aii»i,Mi  >\<*w.  ol  ilie  j^estraint  inipofred 
unon  him  bv  thr-  occasjou  :or  wl::t'h  ii  was  wriucii.  iie  nevoted  his 
whole  indiviciualitv  to  th»"  ta<k  v;it]'  orrear.er  t"t.»n:e  r!«an  he  had 
done  for  years.  Th*-'  r!.'<v  «'ont:iins  f^r  inore  oi'  ih'":r  natme  of  a 
confession  rhan  wa-  i^n.il  .1!  thi-;  \)rriod.  X'*ver,  wirb  ihe  excep- 
tion  oi  Hannet  wniS    'ituoh,  b.TrI  Shakespeare  bee»i  s«^  »m: -.»»nah 

]A,  mov  W  i^aiil  tha\  in  a  niaiuH*r.  The  Tev'^f'pst  was  a  con- 
tjiMiation  of  nis  ji'ooTny  pe^ion  :  once  again  hc  tt^att-d  of  bLick 
^■■•atitrde    and    cunninii    and   violenc^^    Draotised   lipon    a   ffood 


_  ipon    a   good 

>  Jros:^^ rOr , IlukC-I^L. J\1  i  1  a n..  .ah^nrh^'H    m    Rriprirjfir    vtnHy^^nH 

'X  hnding  his  real  dukeyijiiü^iaJiis^  iiSn^'-y,  imniudenily  intnislrd 
t h e  d i re c tiöll j5r"TTis_^jij.tJg  State  to_i2i s  hrotlter  Antonio^  Tl i rt 
latter,  betraying  his  trust,  won  r.vor  to  hi>  sido  all  :ho  otficers 
of  State  appOMited  by  Prospen >,  t^ntereci  ir.io  an  alliance  with  the 
Duke's  eneniy,  .Mnnso.  King  of  Ni^pIj-s,  and  rcdiiced  tlir  hithcrto 
trce  State  of  Milan  to  a  C'.V'::'T''"'n  of  vas'^:.ii!gt\     Then.  with  the 

^assistance  of  Alon^rO  and  ^i!^  hi  .rJ^   •■  *^ebi>ii.»'..  Anvoivo  nttacked 
and  dethroned  Pro.>Dero.     'l'he  JHikc.  \k\\\\  his  hrtle  tliree-vear- 
V      old  daijghter.  wn^_rnrr:rd  aux_son^f*  Irfigiies  to  sea,  placcd  irL>A 
^     ifotten  ^dTiüTI,  and^abandoned.     A  Nt:apolitan  noble,  (jonzalo, 
J     compnssjonately   supplied  them  wxxVv   \iYovU\ons,   clothes,   and, 
X   /JlbUilUif'  the  £reciQUS^baQka_\ipo^  vAYidL£to^\fe\c»^  ^\yyi\t^\,>ax'^ 


PROSPERO 


66 1 


dcd.     Tbc  boat  was   driven  ashore  upon  an  Island 
o:,r  inhnT^:ar:-.   tlic  riboriirinal   Caliban,   \vn 
SU.,  jociif'.i  i*y  nciii.-^  oftl.c  control  ^y^T/^'t^^^gm^^j^  rn«»  jj 
bv   tiic   b"-::isijcci    i;ian.    J^lco:^   then,    Prospero    dwcTt  .in_p<;a£fi. 

votinjr  iiimsclf  to  thccüTliire  of  bis  mind.  the 


.lici^^fMliim^»  üevoti 


f  /  icj;v.ii.uj.i-ca-fkauirc»liijic[  tTfcr^äf^üPediicätibn  oif  bis  daugbter 
A  i  iVjjj\i\k,  wfiQ  __  rece  i  ved  s  ii  cFT  aTTriuiving'as  seldonftalls  to  t^AJo^^^ 
of  il 


Twelvc  \ears  b.iivc  passe:],  and  Minuida  is  just  fifteen  when 
the  plrtv  b(-c:.'is.     U^myiy^MiMliid^^^^^'''  bis  Star  bas  rcacbed  its  Cc>  U 
zcnitii  ;Ui(i  tb:.t  bis  old  onenucs  arc  in  b^'^  power,      TEe^King  oT   ^ff^t 
NapTes  bi:.-»  nr.ivlrd  bis' däTTgTilcrrClanbt'l,  to  tlie  King  of  Tunis,     c;^^ 
anil  tbe  wcuding  Iias  bt;en  celebratcd.  «xldiy  enougb,  at  the  home 
of  tbe  bride.<;r''OU) :  but  tnen  it  wa.s  probabh'  tbe  first  time  in  his- 
torv  tbat  a  Cbri-siian  Kin^r  of  Napics  bad  bestowed  bjs  daugbter 
upon  a  Mobamiijcdan.     Alonso,  witb  all  bis  traiif,  includinfijiis 
brotber  anci  the  U'=<urpcT  of  Milan,  is  on  bis  homeward  voyage 
wlien  ProsL  »ro  i\ii;ses  tbe  storm  vvbicb  drives  tbt  :n  on  bis  ^^^Igjm 
Alier  being  ."-.;ti:<:iently  bewildercd  and  bumiiiated,  tbe3'are  finally 
torgiYti:,  rill'/;  ti'.c  Kiri^'s  .son.  purified  by  tbe  trials  tbrougb  which 
he  has  rr  —fv-,  i--.  :is  Prospero  bas  all  along  intended  that  be  shoufd 


bejjLiM.oc  Uj 


^ir:.iMrlr: 


i 


It  was  eviucMtix  Shaki  speare's  intentiun  in  7/)e  7Vw/^j/ to  giv< 
a  dIclusc  rf  n^ai.kii.u  as  bc  iiuw  saw  it,  a:id  we  are  showri  sonn 
l'r.lwq:  quitc  Uv.w  i  :  hini,  a  typical  repre-icniation  of  tbe  differei 
phases  of  ..-.  rnaiiicV. 

In   C*::'  '  iiü    \w   J^'iVt'.  t!:o  piiniitive  luan,   tbe  aboriginal, 
a-imai  whii  ii  l-as  j-.is:  t^voivod  into  tbe  b^-.st  rougb  stages  of  th« 
h >.  1  n : a 1 1  be i r  l:" .    Jntäk^ummmtssLSy ^^-  are  giveu  t b^^LLl^ij est  de\elo| 

of  Nntnrp,  tbij^iwBw-iit-i^rtgrrrffirr   \]u     w  i   Iimumi  »)»«■  o^ -^ 

Wcbave  seen  tbat  Shiikc^pearc  rougbiy  planned  such  a  charac- 
ter  .soni("  years  back,  in  tbe  faintly  outlined  sketcb  of  Cerimon  in 
]-ericIes  {ante.  p.  59^^-     Pro-pero  is  tbe  fulfilment  of  tbe  promise 
containec  in  Ccrin^or/s  prii-icipal  speecb,  a  man,  namely,  who  c: 
eonipcl  to  hi^  uses  all  tbe  beneficent  powers  dwelling  in  meta] 
st'"T;cs,  and  plants.      He  is  a  creature  of  princely  mould,  who  hi$         J 
subdued  outward  Nature.  bas  brougbt  bis  own  turbulent  inner  sJlt->^V^ 
under  perfer.t  C(Mnrr.],  and  bas  overpowered  tbe  bitterness  caused  V* 


by  tbe  wrong:s  5^e  b.:-^  suüered  in  tbe  barmony  emanating  from 
his  :>wn  ricbiv  sni!'i*i!al  1  ir. 

prospero,  likc  all  Sliakespea;  e's  bcrf>es  and  beroines  of  this  last 
deca?te" "'Pericles,  l mögen,  and  Hf^rmione  no  less  than  Lear  and 
TimoW**SfHfers  grievous  wrong.  f  le  is  even  more  sinned  against 
than  Timon,  has  suffered  more  and  lost  more  through  ingratitudc. 
He  has  not  squandered  bis  substance  like  the  misanthrope,  but, 
.absorbed  in  occupations  of  a  higher  nature,  he  has  neglected  his 
worldly  interests  and  fallen  a  victim  to  his  o^tv  caxt^Ks&  xxv^^- 
fvüiDess 


1 


662 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


^^  f> 


i 


^ 


The  injustice  offered  to  Imogen  and  Hermione  was  not  'so 
detestable  in  its  origin  as  that  suffered  by  Prospero;  the  wrong 
done  tliem  sprang  frora  misguided  love,  and  was  therefore  easier 
to  condone.  The  crime  against  tlie  Duke  was  actuated  by  such 
low  motives  as  envy  and  covctousness. 

Tried  by  suffering,  Prospero  proves  its  strengthening  qualities. 

Far  from  surcumbing  to  the  blow,  it  is  not  until  it  has  fallen  tliat 

he  displays  his  true,  far-reaching,  and  terrible  power,  and  becomes 

eat^irresistible  inagician  which  Shakespeare  himself  had  so 

a,childy-btrt-k-4s'44plr  hy  his  pnemies.  He  plays  with  theni  as 
he  pleaseSi  compels  them  to  repent  their  past  treatment  of  hini, 
and  then  pardons  them  with  a  calmness  of  superiority  to  which 
Imon  could  never  have  attained,  but  which  is  far  from  being  that 
all-obliterating  tenderness  with  which  Imogen  and  Hermione  for- 
give  remorseful  sinners. 

There  is  less  of  charity  towards  the  offenders  in  Prospero's 

bsolution  than  that  elemcnt  of  contempt  which  has  so  long  and 

exclusively  filled  S'.iakespeare's  soul.      His  forgiveness,  the 

livion  of  a  scornful  indiffcrence,  is  not  so  miich  that  of  the 

rong  man  who  knows  his  power  to  crush  if  need  be,  as  that  of 

e  wisdom  which  is  no  longer  aft'ected  by  outward  circumstance. 

Richard  Garnett  aptly  observes,  in  his  critical  introduction  to 

the  play  in  the  "  Irving  Edition,"  that  Prospero  finds  it  easy  to 

forgive  because,  in  his  secret  soul,  he  sets  vcry  little  value  on  the 

dukedom  he  has  lost,  and  is,  therefore,  rouscd  to  very  little  indig- 

nation  by  the  treachery  which  deprived  hiin  of  it.  Jrlis-daughteclg 

t^appiness.ia lh§.  sole Jhing_ whi£;h^gTIll!yjI?^p^'^i^!^j2''"''  P^^i  ^d 

hf  rarripc;  big  ixirüffpr/^ri^fn  WOrldbLJIiatters   SO   far  that,  WJthoUt 

iUjy  outward_CQjnpulsion,  he  breaks,his  ma^ic  wand  and  casts  his 
books  into.  th.e-S£a-.>..  i^esuming  his  place  among  the  ranks  of 
ordinary  men,  he  retains  nothing  but  his  inalienable  treasure  of 
experience  and  reflection.  I  quote  the  following  passage  from 
Garnett  on  account  of  its  remarkable  correspondence  with  the 
general  conception  of  Shakespeare's  development  set  forth  in  this 
book. 

**That  this  Quixotic  height  of  magnanimity  should  not  sur- 
prise,  that  it  should  seem  quite  in  keeping  with  the  character, 
proves  how  deeply  this  character  has  been  drawn  from  Shake- 
peare's  own  nature.  Prospero  is  not  Shakespeare,  but  the  play 
is  in  a  certain  measure  autobiographical.  .  .  .  It  shows  us  more 
than  anything  eise  what  the  discipline  of  life  had  made  of  Shake- 
sj)eare  at  fifty — a  fruit  too  fully  matured  to  be  suffered  to  hang 
much  longer  on  the  tree.  Conscious  superiority  untinged  by 
arrogance,  genial  scorn  for  the  mean  and  base,  raercifulness  into 
which  contempt  entered  very  largely,  serenity  ^xcluding  pas- 
,>  sionate  affection  while  admitüng  tÄudenv^^s,  itvtellect  overtopping 
morality  but  in  no  way  bUghüng  ot  p^tvccXätv^Kx. — «osä^  ^s^  ^öcä 


^ 

< 


ARIEL  663 

mental  features  of  him  in  whose  development  the  man  of  the  world 
kept  pace  with  the  poet/  and  who  now  shone  as  the  consummate 
perfection  of  both." 

In  other  words,*  it  is  Sliakespeare's  own  nature  which  ovcr- 
flows  into  Prospero,  and  thus  the  magician  represents  not  merely 
the  noble-mindcd  great  man,  but  the  g^nius,  imaginatively  de- 
lineatedy  not,  as  in  Hamlet,  ps^xbologically  analysed.  Audibly 
and  visibly  does  Prospcro\s  genius  manifest  itself,  visible  and 
audible  also  the  inward  and  outward  Opposition  he  combats. 

The  two  figures  in  which  this  spiritual  power  and  this  resii 
ance  are  embodied  arc  the  most  admirable  productions  of 
artist's  powers  in  this  or  any  other  age.. 
CalihiP^^Hwftüaüji  nnturnl  hning,  and  both  have  been  endowed 
with  a  hMMiiMiMtK  They  were  not  seen,  hii&.4Cggitj6^ 

FroSpStTfSNriie  master-mind,  the  man  of  the  future,  as  shown 
by  bis  coTjusjummm  the  forces  of  Nature.  He  passes  as  a  magician, 
and  ShakespaMlft^ound  bis  prototype,  as  far  as  externa!  acces- 
sories  were  concerned,  in  a  scholar  of  mark  and  man  of  high  prin- 
ciples,  Dr.  Dee,  who  died  in  1607.  This  Dr.  Dee  believed  himself 
possessed  of  powers  to  conjure  up  spirits,  good  and  bad,  and  on 
this  account  enjoyed  a  great  reputation  in  his  day.  A  man  owning 
but  a  small  share  of  the  scientific  knowledge  of  our  times  would 
inevitably  have  been  regarded  as  a  powerful  magician  at  that  date. 
In  the  creation  of  Prospero,  thereforc,  Shakespeare  unconsciously 
anticipated  the  results  of  time.  He  not  merel}'  gave  him  a  magic 
wand,  but  created  a  poetical  embodiment  of  the  forces  of  Nature  as 
his  attendant  spirit.  In  accordance  with  the  method  described  in 
the  Midsummer  Nii^kfs  Dream  he  gave  life  to  Ariel : 

[The  poet's  eye,  in  fine  fren/.y  roUing, 
iDoth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth,  frora  earth  to  heaven: 
^  And  as  Imagination  bodies  forth 
iThe  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
5  Turns  them  to  shapes  and  gives  to  airy  nothings 
j'  A  local  habitation  and  a  name. 
i  Such  tricks  hath  strong  imagination, 
J  That  if  it  would  but  apprehend  some  joy, 
l  It  comprehends  the  bringer  of  that  joy." 


1 


oears 


^jkI  isiiigt  such  a  h^hiüECTülJQY:  firCJH  the  raoment  he  ap^        yK 
^,^^rs  \yift«««L.<»nlfn|^9L5ä^^  {^ 

the  whole  reccjfdftf  poetrv  be  is  tne  pne  ^ood  spirit  wno  arrcsjp  and/  ^ 
affects  US  as  a  li'vipjg' Jb|ffc;^^:j§  a  nM-jSM^ 

issaagtr.  oü  l^x^i^att^^  M<ii(gbfc Jfe.3iJB4let  rirf  his 


an  elf,  the  mesi 

will  through  the  eIem^iUM9i<«pirits  subject  to  the  great  magician's 
power.  He  is  the  ^MsJbJem  of  Shakesj)eare's  own  genius,  that 
''affable,  fnmijllaj  fjlCptrjffilSM  expresses  it  in  his  86th 

sonnet)  whi^biiääggjan  boastcd  of  posscssing.    H\^  VoTt^xi^sg^SÄSt 
freedom  after  proioiiÄW- «ervitude  Vias  a_^tc\i\\«t  «cA  V»as3BKo% 


,Ä#*  "-»■.•*? 


364 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


V 


^^^,>i^nificance  as  a  symbol  of  the  yearning  of  the  poet's  own  genius 

for  rest 
.^i^^Ariel  possesses  that  power  of  omnipresence  and  all  those  con- 
stantly  vaiying  forms  which  are  the  special  «gift  of  imagination. 
He  skims  along  the  foam,  flies  on  the  kecn  north  wind,  and 
burrows  in  the  frozen  earth.  Now  he  is  a  fire  spirit  spreading 
terrör  as  he  flashes  in  cloven  flame,  encirciing  the  mast  and 
playing  about  the  rigging  of  the  vessel,  er  as  one  great  bolt  hurls 
himself  to  strike  with  all  the  power  and  speed  of  hghtning.  Now 
again,  he  is  a  mermaid,  seen  in  fitful  glimpses,  and  chanting 
alluring  songs.  He  sounds  the  magic  music  of  the  air,  he  mimics 
the  monotonous  splashi^g  of  the  waves,  or  barks  like  a  dog  and 
crows  like  a  cock.  In  every  essence  of  bis  nature.  as  well  as 
naroe  he  is  a  spirit  of  the  air,  a  mirage,  a  hallucination  of  light 
and  sound.  He  is  a  bird,  a  harpy,  and  finds  his  way  through  the 
darkness  of  night  to  fetch  dew  from  the  enchanted  Bermudas. 
Faithful  and  zealous  servant  of  the  good,  he  terrifies,  bewilders, 
fand  befools  the  wicked.  He  is  compounded  of  charm  and  delicacy, 
Caiad  is  as  swift  and  bright  as  lightning. 

He  was  formerly  in  the  service  of  the  witch  Sycorax,  but,  in- 
curring  her  displeasure,  was  imprisoned  by  her  in  the  rift  of  a 
cloven  pine.  There  he  w^as  heid  in  suft'ering  many  years,  until 
delivered  at  last  by  Prospero's  supernatural  powers.  ^^^y^erves 
the  magician  in  return  for  his  release,  but  never  ceases  to  long 
for  his  promisecMWilRJÜr*  Although  a  creature  of  the  air,  he  is 
apable  of  compassion,  and  caii  understand  a  seritiment  of  devotion 
hich  he  does  not  actually  feel.  His  s?ubject  condition  is  painful 
o  him,  and  he  looks  forward  with  joy  to  the  hour  of  libert}'. 
pirit  of  fire  and  air  as  he  is,  his  essence  exhales  itself  in  music 
nd  mischievous  pranks. 

on  the  other  hgnH    Ic,  Qf  lJ3t„,gaith  carthv-    a  kind  of 

^      was 
ditipn  of  an  animal  to  thäPof  a 

human   ht^incr    without.  however.  nping  reTiüv  Ciy3iSS35^ PrOSDCrO 

made  much  of  the  creature  at  first,  caressed  him  and  gave  him  to 
drink  of  water  mixed  with  the  juice  of  berries  ;  taught  him  the  art 
of  speech  and  how  to  name  the  greater  and  the  lesser  light,  and 
lodged  him  in  his  cell.  But  Xcqt"  «•>^**4nomenx^^^'^fln'*=^ 
üistift^t^upn^ed^him^^Jtempi^^ 

|maled>hiixi.  asja  slave  and  madeTii  mserve  as_such.  Strangely 
eRough,  however,^"STräkespeare  Ra^S"TSrä3crTiini  no  prosaically  raw 
being,  untouched  by  the  poetry  of  the  enchanted  island.  The 
vulgär  new-comers,  Trinculo  and  Stephano,  speak  in  prose,  but 
Caliban's  utterances  are  always  rhythmic ;  indeed,  many  of  the 
ost  exquisitely  melodious  lines  in  the  play  fall  from  the  ups  of 
his  poor  animal.  They  sound  like  an  echo  from  the  time  he  lived 
thin  the  magic  circle  and  was  the  constant  companion  of 
^rospero  and  M iranda. 


CALIBAN  665 

But  since.  from  being  their  fei  low,  he  has  been  degraded  to 
their  slave,  all  gratitude  for  former  benefits  has  disappeared  from 
liis  raind  ;  and  he  now  employs  the  language  they  have  taught 
hini  in  cursing  thc  niaster  who  has  robbed  him,  the  original  in- 
habitant.  of  his  birthright.  His  is  the  hatred  of  the  savage  for 
his  civilised  conquerors. 

We  have  seen  that  the  abhorrence  Shakespeare  feit  for  thc 
vices  of  the  court  and  fashionable  life  inclined  him  during  these 
later  years  to  dream  of  some  natural  life  far  from  all  civilisation 
{Cymbdine).  But  his  instinct  was  too  sure  and  his  judgment  too 
sound  to  allow  of  his  evcr  believing,  with  the  Utopists  of  his  day, 
that  the  natural  primitive  State  of  man  was  one  of  innocence  ancT^ 
nobility  of  soul  in  the  golden  age  of  prehistoric  times.  Caliban 
is  a  protest  against  this  very  theory,  and  Shakespeare  distinctiy 
ridicules  all  such  fanaticism  in  the  lines  copied  from  Montaigne, 
and  placed  in  Gonzalo's  mouth,  concerning  the  Organisation  ot"  an 
ideal  Commonwealth  :  without  ronimerce.  law,  or  letters.  witho..t 
riches  or  poverty,  without  corr:,  ojl,  ur  wine,  and  without  work  of 
any  kind.  but  a  happy  idlene?;-  ".:■  all.  ^^     ^y 

Caliban  represents  thc  prini;tive,  the  prehistoric  man;  y^tM  a  ^ 
such  as  he  is,  a  poetica'Iy  :fic";inf-(!  -»hilosopher  ot' oiir  day  hadl  ^ 
discovered  in  him  tlie  feai  irrs  ..f  the  eternal  pico»"-  w..  It  is 
instructive  to  witness  \y\v\  nuw  \v\v  r^servati*ins  F<f  ü.-v  was 
enabled  to  modcrni«e-  the  ^yper,  :ind  ?:hown  hriw.  tiu.r-^d  11  r  .JiKi 
washed  and  intrrpi.-  •  d  :i<  rhe  «lull  flrkle  drniocrncy.  ( 'ilibaii 
was  as  capablo  üs  th«:^  o^d  ;M'<t.-^rr^tit'-relig:r.iis  despoiisni  of 
sounding  a  conservative  wn".'-  .\  :'iotrctir]g  the  arts  and  i^rnciously 
patronising  tht-  -«i^-na  -.  &- 

Shakespeare's  Cj/uiiai;  \v..s  tiitn  •iri"->prin^^  of  Sycorrx  aiid  he- 
gotten   by  the   Devil   himsrlf.     \Vi*r;    sucli   a  penigree   he  could 
hardly  be  expected  ti»  ris*--  to  :iny  hri.irht  rif  .angelic  goodness  and 
purity.     He  is,  in  re^iity,   niore  of  an   elemental   power  than 
human  being;  and  therclore  rouses  neitlier  indi^^nation  nor  con- 
terapt  in  the  mind  of  the  audience.  !)i^t  genuine  amusement.     In 
vented,   and    drawn    with    masterly   hiiinour,   he    represents-tV 
savage  natives  found  by  the  English  in  America,  upon  whom  they 
bcstowed  the  blessings  of  civilisation  in  the  form  of  strong  drink. 
There    is    not  onl}'  wit   but   profound  significance  in  the  scene 
(Act  ii.  sc.  2)  in  which  Caliban,  who  at  first  takes  Trinculo  and 
Stephano  for  two  spirits  sent  by  Prosperu  to  torment  him,  allows 
himself  to  be  persuadcd  that  Trinculo  is  the  Man  in  the  Mooni 
shown  to  him   by   Miranda  on   beautiful   moonlight   ni^ht<,   an<p 
forthwith  worships  him  as  his  god,  because  he  alone  possesses     . 
the  bottle  with  the  heavenly  liquor  which  has  been  put  to  thc 
creature's  lips,  and  given  him  his  first  taste  of  the  wonderfui 
intoxication  produced  by  fire-watcr.  -m 

Midway  between  these  symboh  of  the  highest  cultvire  acvd  c\l 
Nature  in  its  crudest  form  Shakespeare  has  pVac^  a  ^o>axv^  ^'^^ 


666  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


V 


as  noble  in  body  and  soul  as  her  father,  and  yet  so  purely  and 
simply  a  child  of  Nature  that  she  unhesitatingly  follows  her  in- 
f'Stincts,  including  that  of  love.     She  is  the  counterpart  of  the 
Vmasculine  ideal  in  Prospero,  being  all  that  is  admirable  in  woman ; 
"^     mence  her  name,  Miranda.     To  preserve  her  absolutely  unspotted 
/and  fresh,  Shakespeare  has  made  her  alniost  as  young  as  his 
Juliet;  and  to  still  further  accentuate  the  impression  of  maidenly 
immaculatenessy  she  has  grown  up  without  seeing  a  Single  youth 
of  the  other  sex,  a  trait  which  was  used  and  abused  by  the 
Spaniards  later  in  the  same  Century.     Hence  the  wondering  ad- 
miration  of  the  first  meeting  betwcen  Ferdinand  and  Miranda : 

"What!  is't  a  spirit? 
Lord,  how  it  looks  about !     Believe  me,  sir, 
It  carries  a  brave  form.     But  'tis  a  spirit." 

When  her  father  denies  this  she  says : 

"  I  might  call  him 
A  thing  divine,  for  nothing  natural 
I  ever  saw  so  noble." 

And  Ferdinand : 

"  My  prime  request, 
Which  I  do  last  pronounce,  is,  O  you  wonder ! 
If  you  be  maid  or  no  ?  " 

It  is  Prospero,  whose  greatness  shows  no  less  in  his  power 
over  human  beings  than  over  the  forces  of  Nature,  who  has 
brought  these  two  together,  and  who,  although  assuming  dis- 
pleasure  at  their  mutual  attraction,  causes  all  which  concerns 
them  to  follow  the  exact  course  his  will  has  inarked  out. 

Hc  sees  into  the  soul  of  mankind  with  as  sure  an  eye  as 
Shakespeare  himself,  and  pla3^s  the  part'of  Providence  to  his 
surroundings  as  incontestably  as  did  the  poet  to  the  beings  of 
his  own  creation. 

When  Prospcro  shows  the  young  people  to  his  guests,  they 
are  playing  chess,  and  there  would  seem  to  be  a  touch  of  symbol 
in  the  fact  that  they  are  playing,  not  only  because  they  wish  to 
do  so,  but  because  they  must  There  is,  moreover,  something 
almost  personal  in  the  way  Prospero  trains  and  admonishes  the 
loving  couple.  Garnett  is  inclined  to  infer  from  the  repeated 
exhortations  to  Ferdinand  to  restrain  the  impulse  of  his  blood 
until  the  wedding-hour  has  Struck,  that  the  play  was  acted  some 
days  before  the  royal  wedding  ceremony,  But  if  these  wamings 
were  intended  for  the  Elector  in  his  capacity  of  bridegroom,  they 
were  a  piece  of  tasteless  impertinence.  No,  it  is  far  more  likely 
that,  as  before  suggested,  they  contain  a  melancholy  confession, 
a  purely  personal  reminiscencc.  S\\aVLes^ar^  cannot  be  accused 
ofany  excesaive  severity  in  such  q\iesl\otÄ  o^  rnox^'^.   '^^^^^ 


FERDINAND  AND  MIRANDA  667 

in  Measure  for  Measure  that  he  considered  the  connection  be- 
tween  the  two  lovers,  for  which  they  are  to  be  so  severely  punished, 
was  to  the  füll  as  good  as  marriage,  although  entered  upon  with- 
out  ceremonies.  It  was  no  mere  formalism  which  spoke  here, 
biit  bitter  experience.  Now  that  he  was  already,  in  thought,  on 
bis  way  back  to  Stratford,  and  was  living  in  anticipation  of  what 
awaited  him  there,  Shakespeare  was  reminded  of  how  he  and  ' 
Anne  Hathaway  forestalied  their  ceremonial  union,  and  he  spoke 
of  the  punishment  following  on  such  actions  as  a  curse,  which 
he  knew : 

*'  Barren  hate, 

Sour-eyed  disdain  and  discord  shall  bestrew 

The  Union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 

That.you  shall  hate  it  both"  (Act  iv.  sc  i). 

As  already  observed,  Shakespeare  appropriated  from  some 
source  or  another  the  incident  of  the  youthful  suitor  being  ob- 
liged  to  submit  to  the  trial  of  carry ing  and  piling  wood.  It 
almost  seems  that  hi&  niotive  in  incluoing  sucli  an  incident  was 
to  show  that  it  is  man's  great  and  noble  privilege  to  serve  out 
of  love.  To  Caliban  all  service  is  slavery;  throughout  the  whole,  /^ 
play  he  roars  for  freedom,  and  never  so  loudly  as  when  he  is  j  ^  (T 
drunk.  For  Ariel,  too,  all  bondage,  even  that  of  a  higher  being,  \  ' 
is  mere  torment.  Man  alone  finds  plea 
tove.  Thus  Ferdinand  bears  uncompl 
for  Miranda's  sake,  the  bürden  laid  upon 


vcii  iiiai  ui  ä  nigucr  ocing,  \ 

leasure  in  llie  servitude  of  ( 
lainingly,  and  even  gladly,  ) 
3n  him  (Act  iii.  sc.  l)  :  • 


"  I  am  in  my  condition 
A  prince,  Miranda,  I  do  think,  a  king. 

•  •  •  •  •  ■ 

The  very  instant  that  I  saw  you,  did 

My  heart  fly  to  your  service ;  there  resides 

To  make  me  slave  to  it.'* 

She  shares  this  feeling  : 

**  I  am  your  wife  if  you  will  marry  me ! 
If  not,  ni  die  your  maid  ;  to  be  your  fellow 
You  may  deny  me  ;  but  TU  be  your  servant 
Whether  you  will  or  no." 

It  is  a  feeling  of  the  same  nature  which  impels  Prospero  to  retum 
to  Milan  to  fulfil  bis  duty  towards  the  State  whose  government  he 
has  SO  long  neglected. 

There  are  certain  analogies  between    Thi   Tttupat  iDjd.Jttlc 

World  ija<..wiMftft.;>.aig.^)^^sJj^  irmaht.^fi|i>ftrti..i0t  wtMy  %mim^ 

Caliban  discoveri^4»igQ»^ii>'^lh#  Aimlw  rTriaiiiiiilrt  r.Qnwi'*>^Wfr^gf 
Titania'ft  jWfMflOTUi.  ,Wf>r>hipN#f  *»afctott.    Bol\\  ^i^  ^^^^m%-^:^>x 


fifiS  WirXlAM  SHAKESPEARE 

wa^da^of  Siiakf.-spcarf''.--  caniea-  iiiiif)vn(lpnf  pyqtiral  wnrks. 
writiei;  at  l;:t:  ab,e  of  f.vccuy-six.  nnci  iiis  first  great  success. 
Tlu  Tempest  was  ivriticii  as  a  larcv.  U  i-.-  art  nrid  tiie  artist'ü 
lile,  just  bc'ürc  the  crFmplc;ion  of  bis  jjj^^^y^j'Cür,  j;id  every- 
tiiing  Ui  the  play  bospeaks  tlie  tottrli  of  aii!\irp)n. 

The  scenerv  is  autumnal  ilirouL-;:'-;.  piid  the  tiitie  !>-  that  of 
the  autumn  cqiiinox  with  its  stoniis  aiid  =:;;;n-.  rc-cks.  Witli  uoticc- 
able  care  all  tlie  plants  iianieii,  even  tiiose  üo "Lirring-  mcrt-lv  in 
similes,  are  such  flo'.vcis  itui  lniit.  &c..  ;tK  :ippcar  in  tne  f;iii  nl' 
tlie  year  in  a  iiorthcrn  lat^lf-cnpe.  Tik.  rj.;  ia!o  is  ii..'.-sh  and 
northerly  in  spite  of  the  sou-.heri!  sitiidtJoü  oi  the  islatid  and  t^e 
iouthem  names.  Even  tlie  iitterance^j  'Ä  tiie  goddcsses,  the 
biessing  of  Ceres,  J'or  tx-impic,  sliovv  thal  the  season  is  late 
September  —  thus  answeriiig  lo  Shakespeares  time  of  life  and 
;raine  of  nund, 

No  ureans  uf  ;nreni=ii;'v::i-  this  itnfire^sioii  are  lu-glected.  The 
ulter  Badness  of  Prosnei  ■">  iniunus  words  d(-«cribiiig  the  trackle*s 
disappearance  of  i:li  t.'ith'y  ilii^i;'^  iiarni'.iiii'^i-E  with  thv  titne  ot 
yeär  ana  with  iii.«  iindeii' iri;^''  li'.oii.a'.t — "We  are  surh  stuft"  as 
dreams  are  niaeie  oit :  "  ;i  (.(t'i  Sricf.'p,  (Vuni  which  we  awaken  lo 
life.  aiic  Kgaii:.  (.[-'-p  s'efii  iv-vt-ir-'-r  Wiiat  a  personal  riote  it  is 
in  the  last  scene  .:if  X.\\:-  piay  whv-;e  I'm-^'v-rc.  says  : 


How  we  feei  tha;  SliVitiord  wa-  ihr  :. h-t'-.-  "',;iL-.ii;.  !ti5t  as  Ariel's 
longing  for  freeflMa;  wa'-  the  >;■■;.  ii.j;  c"  ;iie  poet's  senilis  for 
rest.  He  has  i:nd  e;.'-.an  i  '.i.'-  :)^:cii-[i  ot  work.  enough  of 
the  toil-nnii-  ni-tn-tii.tiicy  m  ..n.  ^.;i.-:  .iTi,  i^iiough  of  ai  t,  er.ough 
of  the  "life  oi  :iif  ;iv.vn.  A  co-ii  .-c::?.^  of  the  vanity  of  all  things 
has  laid  its  hold  iipoii  iTini,  he  bt^ieves  in  iio  futitre  and  expects 
no  rcsults  from  the  work  oi  a  lifetinic. 

"Oiir  reve'.s  iow  are  t-iided.     Thes-i  -jur  actors 

wfp  al' =p::i!s  and 

are  mdted  irlo  air,  l.ito  tliiii  air." 

Like  Prospero,  he  had  saciiiicf d  his  pof.ition  to  his  art,  and,  likc 
I  hini.  he  had  dwoü  liwuri  an  om-;.  ivrid  !sl;Mid  in  tlie  occan  of  life. 
T-Ie  iiad  lieen  ii=  i-in.  ai...  ;:  ■■'-'■.'.■•:.  witl.  flninir.i'in  ■-.■vor  spirits,  with 
Ihi'  Miirit  of  !tir  a  r  ..-^  -  'n  .-iTvar.r.  aii'.l  tiic  s[tirit  <jf  the  earth  ns 
his  slave.  At  td«  wi.j  :;ravi--  l-:i<.  ■■.r'iiit'd.  and  by  iiis  niagic  an 
the  hcroca  uf  th*  pas:  i.a.;  ',i.-<:.  aL;ain.  The  words  with  whicli 
Prospero  opens  the  fifth  act  conie,  vk.spite  all  f^liMtiiy  thoughts  of 
death  and  wearic-a  nopcs  of  rest.  stiaijjl.t  from  Shakespeare's  owd 
Ups : 

"  Now  uo's  iin'  orojeci  gather  to  ^  h-rad  : 
jVfy  charms  crack  not :  my  spirits  obey :  and  time 
Goes  upright  with  his  catna^f ."' 


LEAVING  LONDON  ^    669 

All  will  soon  be  accomplished  and  Ariers  hour  of  dc^liverance  is 
nigh.  The  parting  of  the  roaster  from  his  genius  is  not  without 
a  touch  of  melancholy : 

"  My  dainty  Ariel  i  /  shall  miss  thee, 
But  yet  thou  shalt  have  freedom." 

Prospeio  has  detennined  in  his  heart  to  renounce  all  his  magical 
powers : 

"  To  the  elements 
Be  free,  and  fare  thee  well ! " 

He  has  taken  leavc  of  all  his  elves  bv  name,  and  now  utters  words 
whose  personal  application  has  ncver  been  approached  by  any 
character  hitherto  set  lipon  the  stage  by  Shakespeare: 

**  But  ihis  rough  service 
1  here  ab  jure,  and,  w!v.rn  1  i^ave  required 
Some  heavenly  niusir,  whit*!)  cven  now  I  do, 

V\\  hreak  niy  staft', 

Bury  it  ceitain  f.iihoms  in  üvt  carlh, 
And  deepcr  ttiäP  dic;  ovcr  j>:j:iimet  sound 
I'll  drown  niy  bonk.  ' 

Solemn  music  is  heard,  and  Sl»akt.^peare  has  bidden  farewell  to 
his  art. 

Collaboration  in  Hmrv  V! IL  Lii.d  tiie  produrtion  and  Staging" 
of  Thf.  renirr.st  wri«-  rhr:  l.'ist  m.if  .'■'-?* rir:or-s  o:"  his  dramatic  ac- 
tivitv.  ;r.  aü  ;»'-.»r)3  0':rv  !'^. 'i'^.lv  "»,  ..;:,-i-.  i.,r-  -i-  rlo.se  of  the  court 
f*>tiv::i..>  ijr'.-c  ■  ni\;:.t:  -  i':  i^i>  \>\w.\  oi  Jt.i\'iit^r  London  anri 
rtturninii'  t<>  .^*-:r •'■]■:  .  .r  «i  l'«  ::  !  -on's  1'»k  >h  tlirust  at  thos*- 
wha  bcgci  A?  "••.■■,  tz^}rr''y/'\  ii  r.-  xu-  •.  .  ■.■  ^'>^'".V'^A'J^,  woukl  not  und 
i'.im  in  unvit.  VVi'<  ü  \vr  (■.«  w  .-  ■  .•;;:■  •:!  1  ;  :i..s  (::ffoi't>»  to  increaäc 
bis  canica!,  and  iiis  Durciin-':"  u!  jjc.i.se'^  ^:^d  iand  at  Strutford. 
we  showcd  ihat,  owi  ;^t  :ii:r-«-.r  ^-  p'.Ti'.v-;.  j.c  noped  evcniiiallv 
to  quir  the  inc^iv-p.  r^.  to  ^v.  w>  »'v.  •.■■■■••:' t;r.  aiid  literatarr 
and  to  spcnd  tlv;  ^.i^t  y:;::s  •■  •  i-  :.-.■  w  :".:e  country.  Even 
supposing  liim  tn  I.a\r  iVr«\.  1  i\.>  'i -iniiirc  unMl  after  thr 
Performance.  ..;  7'ylv  y\;;/r,\^/^  ;...  ev«  t  ■  \r  :!rii  hanpened  only  four 
nionths  latc  wouid  iiave  s;.r,pi.f.-(j  lüe  ihiai  iuducement  to  leave. 
In  the  monili  «»f  juru-  i'.r-;  a  •:.-  ^^i^.kv;  oir.  as  we  kr»ow,  at  th<; 
Globe  Tlieatre  during  a  periorniance  ni  Henrv  ]'ilL^  and  thcr 
wholc  biiildinft-  was  biinu-d  to  the  gruimo.  Thus  rhe  scene  of 
his  activit}'  t«'.r  i^i»  -iiaiiy  1  'ne:  y.-'>  ^i'-^appeaivd,  a^  ■'  were,  in 
smokt:,  if^lvi:,'^^  Mi»  i  ■;''■■  ''rii!'«:.  1.1»  u  a.-%  r^roi ';-•■»  iy  oarr  owner 
of  the  stajrc  pron.'i't-s  '5=  ■  <:■-..-■  :;i.-.^-.  v.-}ycii  we- .-  all  consunied. 
In  any  case.  the  flc>rncs  oi  voii-i-d  all  ihe  Tnanusrripts  of  his  plays 
then  in  the  possession  of  'hf:  theriTc,  .1  priceless  trea&ur«: — ^^>^\ 
bim  sureiy  a  painfulf  and  for  us  an  irrepara\A^^  \o^s. 


XXIII 

THE  RIDB  TO  STRATFORD 

That  must  have  been  a  momentous  day  in  Shakespeare's  life  on 
which,  after  giving  up  bis  house  in  London,  he  mounted  bis  horse 
and  rode  back  to  Stratford-on-Avon  to  take  up  bis  abode  there 
for  good. 

He  would  recall  tbat  day  in  1585  wlien,  twenty-eight  years 
youngcr,  with  bis  life  lying  before  bim  veiled  in  the  mists  of  expec- 
tation  and  uncertainty,  be  set  out  from  Stratford  to  London  to  try  bis 
fortunes  in  the  great  city.  Tbcn  bis  beart  beat  high,  and  he  roust 
have  feit  towards  bis  borse  much  as  the  Dauphin  did  in  Henry  V, 
(Act  iii.  sc.  7)  wben  be  said,  ''Wben  I  bestride  bim  I  soar,  1  am 
a  hawk :  be  trots  the  air ;  the  earth  sings  wben  he  touches  it,  the 
basest  born  of  bis  boof  is  niore  musical  than  the  pipe  of  Hermes." 

Life  lay  behind  bim  now.  His  bopes  had  been  fulfilled  in 
many  ways ;  he  was  famous,  be  had  raised  himself  a  degree  in 
the  social  scale,  above  all  he  was  rieh,  but  for  all  tbat  be  was 
not  happy. 

The  great  town,  in  which  he  had  spent  the  better  part  of  a 
lifetime,  had  not  so  succeeded  in  attaching  hini  to  it  that  he  would 
feel  any  pain  in  leaving  it.  There  was  ncither  man  nor  woman 
there  so  dcar  to  bim  as  to  make  society  preferable  to  solitude, 
and  the  crowded  life  of  London  to  the  seclusion  of  the  country 
and  an  existcnce  passed  in  the  niidst  of  family  and  Nature. 

He  had  toiled  enough,  bis  working  days  were  over,  and  now, 
at  last,  the  cloud  should  bc  hTted  from  his  name  which  had  so 
long  been  cast  upon  it  by  his  profession.  It  was  nine  years 
since  he  had  actually  appcared  upon  the  stage,  since  he  had 
made  over  bis  parts  to  others,  and  now  he  had  ceased  to  take 
any  pleasure  in  bis  pcn.  None  of  those  were  left  for  whom  he 
had  cared  to  write  plays  and  put  them  upon  the  stage ;  the  new 
generation  and  present  frequenters  of  the  theatre  were  strangers 
to  bim.  There  was  no  one  in  London  wbo  would  heed  bis  leaving 
it,  no  friends  to  induce  bim  to  stay,  no  farewell  banquet  to  be 
given  in  his  honour. 

He  would  remember  bis  first  arrival  in  London,  and  how,  ac- 

cording  to  the  custom  of  all  poor  travellers,  be  sold  his  borse  at 

Smithfield.     He  could,  if  he  wished,  keep  many  horses  now,  but 

no  power  coiild  renew  the  joyous  mood  oi  Xw«vx.^-oxä.    TV«cl  tbe 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  PURITANS  671 

wind  had  played  with  the  long  curls  hanging  below  his  hat,  now 
he  was  elderly  and  bald. 

The  journey  from  London  to  Stratford  took  three  days.  He 
would  put  up  at  the  inns  at  which  he  was  accustomed  to  stay  on 
his  yearly  journey  to  and  fro,  and  where  he  was  always  greeted 
as  a  welcome  guest,  and  givcn  a  bed  with  snow-white  sheets,  for 
which  travellcrs  on  foot  were  charged  an  extra  penny,  but  which  he, 
as  rider,  enjoyed  gratis.  The  hostess  at  Oxford,  pretty  Mistress 
Davenanty  would  give  him  a  specially  cordial  greeting.  The  two 
were  old  and  good  friends.  Little  William,  born  in  1606,  and 
now  seven  years  old,  possessed  a  certain,  perhaps  accidental,  re- 
semblance  of  feature  to  the  guest. 

As  Shakespeare  rode  on,  Stratford,  so  well  known  and  yet,  as 
settled  home,  so  new,  would  (as  Hamlet  says)  rise  ''before  his 
mind's  eye.'*  A  life  of  daily  companionship  with  his  wife  was  to 
begin  afresh  after  a  break  of  twenty-eight  years.  She  was  now 
iifty-seven,  and  consequcntlymuch  older,  in  proportion,  than  her 
husband  of  forty-nine  tlian  when  they  were  lovcrs  and  newly 
niarried,  the  one  uuder  and  the  other  somewhat  over  twenty. 
There  could  be  no  intellectual  bond  bctween  them  after  so  long 
a  Separation,  and  their  married  life  was  but  an  empty  form. 

Of  their  two  daughters,  Susanna,  the  eider,  was  now  thirty, 
and  had  been  married  for  six  years  to  Dr.  John  Hall,  a  respected 
physician  at  Stratford.  Judith,  the  younger  daughter,  was  twenty- 
eight  and  unmarried. 

The  Halls,  with  their  little  five-year-old  daughter,  lived  in  a 
picturesque  house  in  Old  Stratford,  at  that  time  surrounded  by 
woods.  Mrs.  Shakespeare  and  Judith  lived  at  New  Place,  and 
the  spirit  prevailing  in  both  cstablishments  was  not  the  spirit  of 
Shakespeare. 

Not  only  the  town  of  Stratford,  but  his  own  home  and  family 
were  desperately  pious  and  puritanical.  That  power  which  had 
been  most  inimical  to  him  in  London,  which  had  dishonoured  his 
profession,  and  with  which  he  had  been  at  war  during  all  the 
years  of  his  dramatic  activity ;  lliat  vcry  power  agair.st  which  he 
had  strivcn,  sonietimcs  by  open  altack,  more  often  by  cautious 
insinuation,  had  triumphcd  in  his  native  town  behind  his  back 
and  taken  completc  possession  of  his  only  home. 

The  closing  of  the  theatrc,  which  did  not  occur  in  London 
until  the  Puritans  had  complctcly  gaincd  the  upper  band  many 
years  later,  had  already  been  anticipatcd  in  Stratford.  The  Per- 
formance of  those  plays  at  which  Sliakespe.ire  in  his  youth  had 
made  acquaintance  with  the  men,  his  future  brother  professionals, 
with  whom  he  sought  refuge  in  London,  was  strictly  forbidden. 
So  long  ago  as  1602  the  town  Council  had  carricd  a  resolution 
that  no  Performance  of  play  or  interlude  should  be  permitted  in 
the  Guildhall,  that  long,  low  building  with  its  eight  srcv^W'^Ti'^^ 
Windows.     It  was  the  only  place  in  SlratfotA  sM\X.3XAfc  ^ox  %>\Ocv 


672  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  purpose,  and  was  connected  with  many  of  Shakespeare's 
memories.  Directly  above  the  long  narrow  hall,  on  the  first 
floor,  was  the  school  which  he  had  attended  daily  as  a  child. 
Into  the  hall  itself  he  had  sutvesomely  penetrated  the  day  the 
glories  of  a  theatre  were  first  displayed  before  his  childish  eyes. 
And  now  eleven  years  had  passed  since  that  wise  Council  had 
decreed  that  any  alderman  or  Citizen  giving  his  consent  to  the 
representation  of  plays  in  this  building  should  be  fined  ten 
Shillings  for  every  infringement  of  the  prohibition.  This  not 
proving  a  sufficient  deterrent,  the  fine  was  raised  in  i6l2  from 
ten  Shillings  to  the  extravagant  sum  of  ;^io,  equivalent  to  about 
^,50  in  our  day.  Fifty  pounds  for  allowing  a  play  to  be  performed 
in  the  only  hall  in  the  town  suitable  for  the  purpose !  This  was 
rank  fanaticism  ! 

Moreover,  it  was  a  fanaticism  which  had  found  its  way  into 
his  own  home.  That  strong  tendency  to  Puritanism  which  was 
so  marked  among  his  descendants  until  the  race  died  out,  had 
already  developen  in  his  family.  His  wife  was  extremely  reli- 
gious.  as  is  «^tten  the  rase  with  womeii  whose  youthful  conduct 
has  not  hre-n  loo  circninspect.  When  she  captured  Jier  boy  hus- 
band  of  ei^hieen,  hei-  biood  was  as  warm  as  his,  but  now  she  was 
vasth  his  su]X'rjor  in  niatrers  of  religion.  Neither  could  he  look  for 
any  reai  )nt^-.iecLual  comp:ini<»nship  nom  his  daughters.  Susanna 
was  pious.  her  hiishand  still  more  so.  Judith  was  as  ignorant 
as  a  ch^lii.  T^iis  litt  niust  pav  ilic  penalty  of  his  long  absence 
from  honifi  and  liis  uTtfr  nrji^lef  r  of  the  education  uf  his  girls. 

It  was  to  uit  hnppv  hnvnjonv  of  tliougiit  and  feeling.  therefore, 
that  the  poet  onila  iook  ■orward  as  he  rode  away  from  his  drania- 
ric  fairvlin:«!  t«»  th<:  sininlicitics  of  domf^^tic  life.  The  only  ai- 
rractions  exsrinp  lor  him  ihere  were  his  position  as  a  gentlcman, 
the  satistaction  of  no  ionj^er  being  obliged  to  act  and  write  for 
money,  and  the  nleasure  ot  living  on  and  roaming  about  his  own 
properry.  'Thr  ve'*v  fact  that  he  did  go  back  to  Stratford  with 
the  litt'e  tiie'»'  wa^  to  atrtart  him  there  proves  how  slight  a  hold 
London  had  triken  unon  him.  and  with  what  a  feeling  of  loneliness, 
and  (now  that  tbe  birtcmcss  was  past)  with  what  indifference,  he 
bade  fareweJl  to  the  menopolis,  its  inhabitants  and  its  pleasures. 

It  was  the  (^iiietiide  of  Stratford  which  nttracted  him,  its 
leisure,  the  emptiness  of  its  dirty  streets,  its  remoteness  from  the 
busY  World.  What  Jie  really  longed  for  was  N.nture,  the  Nature 
with  wliich  he  had  iived  in  such  intimate  companionship  in  his 
earlv  youth.  n'hich  he  had  ^i^ssed  so  terribly  while  writing  As 
Vou  Like  ff  ?nr|  n?  fellow-plays,  and  from  which  he  had  so  long 
becn  separat  ed. 

Far  more  than  human  beings  was  it  the  gardens  which  he  had   . 

bought  and   planted   there  which  drew  him   back  to  his  native  I 

town — ihe  gardens  and  trees  on  which  he  looked  from  his  Windows  | 

at  New  Place.  1 


XXIV 

STRA  TFORD'UPON-A  VON 

He  was  home  again.  Home  oncc  more,  where  he  knew  every 
road  and  path,  every  liouse  and  field,  every  trec  and  bush.  The 
silencc  of  the  empty  streets  Struck  him  afresh  as  his  footsteps 
echoed  down  them,  and  the  river  Avon  shone  bright  and  still 
between  the  willows  bending  down  to  the  water's  edge.  He  had 
shot  many  a  deer  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  streani,  and  it 
was  by  its  banks  that  Jaques,  in  As  You  Like  It^  had  sat  as 
he  watchcd  the  wounded  stag  tliat  sighed  as  though  its  Icathern 
coat  wouJd  burst,  while  the  big  round  tears  coursed  down  its 
innoccnt  nose.  The  fine  arched  bridge  was  erected  in  the  time 
of  Henry  VIII.  by  the  same  Sir  Hugh  Clopton  who  had  built 
New  Place,  the  house  which  Shakespeare  had  bought,  and  been 
obliged  to  restore  before  his  family  could  live  in  it. 

Close  by  the  river  stood  the  avenue  Icading  to  the  beautiful 
Gothic  church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  with  its  slender  spire  and 
handsome  Windows.  Within  were  the  graves  and  monuments 
of  the  neighbouring  gentry,  and  there,  so  much  sooner  than  he 
could  possibly  havc  dreamed,  was  Shakespeare  himself  to  He. 

Passing  through  Church  Street,  he  would  come  upon  the 
Guild  Chapel,  a  fine  Square  building,  from  whose  tower  rang 
the  weekly  bells  calling  to  Sunday-morning  Service.  He  re- 
membered  those  bells  from  of  old,  and  now  they  would  bc  con- 
stantly  sounding  in  his  ears,  for  New  Place  lay  just  across 
the  road.  Soon  they  would  be  tolling  his  own  funeral  knell. 
Directly  adjoining  the  chaj>el  stood  the  timbered  building  which 
represented  both  Guildhall  and  school.  Oncc  it  had  scemed 
large  and  spacious ;  how  small  and  mean  it  looked  now !  It 
was  more  satisfactory  to  glance  on  to*  the  corner  where  his 
large  garden  and  green  lawns  stood,  and  his  eye  would  rest 
affectionately  upon  the  niulberry-trec  his  own  hands  had  plantcd. 
Ten  Steps  from  his  door  lay  the  tavern,  quaint  and  low,  and  how 
familiär !  Not  the  first  time  would  it  be  that  he  had  sat  at  that 
table,  the  largest,  it  was  said,  that  had  ever  been  cut  in  England 
from  a  single  piece  of  wood.  He  would  at  least  find  something 
to  drink  there,  and  a  game  of  draughts  or  dice.  With  a  sigh  he 
realised  that  this  tavem  was  likely  to  prove  YAs  civv^l  Te.lv\%^\x<sift. 
his  loneliness. 


674  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Evcry  spot  was  rieh  in  memories.  Five  minutes'  walk  would 
bring  him  to  Henley  Street,  where  he  had  played  as  a  child,  and 
where  stood  the  old  house  in  which  he  was  bom.  He  would 
enter ;  there  was  the  kitchen,  which  had  been  the  living  room  as 
well  in  his  parents'  time ;  near  the  entry  was  the  woman's  store- 
room,  and  above,  the  sleepiiig-rooni  in  which  he  was  born.  How 
little  he  dreamed  that  this  spot  was  to  become  a  place  of  pil- 
grimage  for  the  whole  Anglo-Saxon  race — nay,  for  the  whole 
civilised  world. 

He  would  take  the  road  to  Shottery,  along  which  he  had 
walked  times  out  of  number  in  his  youth — for  had  not  he  and 
Anne  Hathaway  kept  their  trysts  there?  Right  and  left  rose 
the  high  hedges  separating  the  fields.  Trees,  standing  singly  or 
in  groups,  were  scattered  about  the  country,  and  the  road,  lined 
with  elms,  beeches,  and  willows,  wound  its  way  through  the 
undulating  country  lying  between  Stratford  and  Shottery.  Half- 
an-hour's  walk  would  bring  him  to  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage, 
with  the  moss-grown  roof.  He  would  enter,  and  look  once  xnore 
upon  the  wooden  bench  in  the  chimney-corner  on  which  he  and 
she  had  sat  in  their  ardent  youth.  How  long  ago  it  all  seemed ! 
There  was  the  old  fifteenth-century  bed  in  which  Anne's  parents 
had  slept,  with  her,  as  a  child,  at  their  feet.  The  mattress  was 
nothing  but  a  straw  palliasse,  but  the  bedstead  was  beautifully 
carved  with  figures  in  the  old  style.  When,  a  year  or  two  later, 
he  bequeathed  to  his  wife  "  the  second  best  bed,"  did  he  remem- 
ber  that  this  bed  was  already  hers,  I  wonder  ? 

Another  day  he  would  make  his  way  as  far  as  Warwick  and 
its  Castle.  The  town  was  not  unlike  that  of  Stratford ;  it  had 
the  same  tinibered  houses,  but  here  the  two  great  towers  of  the 
Castle  rose  and  predominated  over  the  beautiful  scenery.  How 
vividly  the  past  would  rise  up  before  him  as  he  stood  on  the 
bridge  and  gazed  up  at  the  castle.  He  would  remember  his  own 
youth ful  dreams  concerning  it,  and  the  forms  he  had  conjured  up 
from  their  graves  to  people  it  afresh.  There  was  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  who  enumerated  all  the  proofs  of  Gloucester's  violent 
death  in  Henr)'  V/.,  and  that  other  Earl  in  the  Second  Pari  qf 
Henry  IV.  (Act  iii.  sc.  i)  into  whose  mouth  he  had  put  words 
whose  truth  he  was  now  proving : 

"There  is  a  history  in  all  men's  lives 
Figuring  the  nature  of  the  times  deceased." 

Charlcote  House  hc  would  see  too.  He  had  stood  as  a  culprit 
before  its  master  once,  and  had  suDered  the  bitterest  humiliatioQ 
of  his  life,  one  so  deep  that  it  had  driven  him  away  from  home^ 
and  had  thus  been  the  means  of  leading  him  to  success  Aod 
prosperity  in  London. 

How  Strange  it  was  to  be  here  again  where  every  one  knew 
and  grected   him.     In   London  V\e  \\^d  \Ätii  ^^^or«^  >a3^  in 


^Sitfa 


EARLY  MEMORIES  675 

the  crowd.  How  familiär,  too,  the  homely  provincial  version 
of  his  name,  with  the  abbreviated  first  syllable.  In  town  that 
first  syllable  was  always  long,  a  pronunciation  which  left  no 
doubt  as  to  the  etymology  of  the  name.^  It  was  on  account  of 
these  differing  pronunciations  that  he  had,  while  in  London, 
changed  the  spelling  of  his  name.  He  had  always  written  it 
ShaksperCf  but  in  town  it  had  from  the  first  (the  dedication  of 
Venus  and  Adonis  and  The  Rape  ofLucrece)  been  printed  Shake-- 
speare:  a  spelling  always  foUowed  by  the  various  publishers  of 
the  quarto  cditions  of  his  dramas,  only  one  adopting  the  ortho- 
grapliy  Shakspeare^ 

Every  one  knew  him,  and  he  must  exchange  a  word  with  all — 
with  the  ploughman  in  the  field,  the  farmer's  wife  in  her  poultry- 
yard,  the  mason  on  the  scafiblding,  the  iish-dealer  at  his  stall,  the 
cobbler  in  his  Workshop,  and  the  butcher  in  the  slaughter-house. 
How  well  he  could  talk  to  each,  for  no  human  occupation,  how- 
cver  humble,  was  unfamiliar  to  him.  He  had  a  thorough  acquaint- 
ance  from  of  old  with  the  butcher's  trade.  It  had  formed  a  part 
of  his  father's  business,  and  his  early  tragedies  contain  many  a 
proof  Ol  his  familiarity  with  it.  The  Second  and  Third  Parts 
o{  Henry  VI,  are  füll  of  similes  drawn  from  it.* 

There  was  hardly  any  trade,  calling,  or  position  in  life  which  he 
did  not  understand  as  if  he  had  been  born  to  it.     Doubtless  the 

^  In  1875  Charles  Mackay  made  an  attempt,  in  the  Aihenctumy  to  prove  a  Celtic 
origin  for  the  name,  deriving  it  from  seac  —  dry,  and  speir  =5hanks,  thus  dry  or  long 
shanks.  If  we  takc  into  consideration  the  numerous  other  names  and  nicknames 
of  the  day  which  began  with  Shnke — Shake-buckler,  Shake-launce,  Shake-shaft,  &c, 
this  explanation  does  not  secm  very  probable.  Another  argument  in  favour  of  its 
Anglo-Saxon  origin  and  simple  meaning,  Spearshakerj  is  the  contemporaneous  existence 
of  the  Italian  surname  CroUalanza. 

'  It  may  be  mentioned  that  there  were  no  less  than  fifty-five  different  wajrs  of 
writing  the  name  at  that  time.  It  is  well  known  that  such  spellings  were  quite 
arbitrary.  In  Shakespeare's  wedding  contract,  for  example,  we  have  the  version 
Shagspere. 

•  **  And  as  the  butcher  takes  away  the  calf. 

And  binds  the  wretch  and  beats  it  when  it  strays, 
Bearing  it  to  the  bloody  slaughter-house"  (II.  ÜL  i). 

•*  Who  finds  the  heifer  dead  and  bleeding  fresh. 
And  sees  fast  by  a  butcher  with  an  axe, 
But  vrill  suspect  'twas  he  that  made  the  slaughter"  (II.  ÜL  2). 

**  Holland.  And  Dick  the  butcher. 

'*  Berns,  Then  is  sin  Struck  down  like  an  ox  and  iniquity's  throat  cut  like  a  calf  ** 
(IL  iv.  2). 

"  Code.  They  feil  before  thee  like  sheep  and  oxcn,  and  thou  behavedst  thyielf  as 
if  thou  hadst  been  in  thine  own  slaughter-house  "  (II.  iv.  3). 

"  So  first  the  harmless  sheep  doth  yield  his  fleece, 
And  next  his  throat  unto  the  butcher's  knife  "  (III.  ▼.  6). 

In  As  You  Like  It  (ii.  2)  Rosalind  says,  using  a  simile  drawn  hom  the  same 
trade :  "  This  way  will  I  take  upon  me  to  wash  your  livcr  dean  as  a  soond  sheep*s 
heaul,  that  there  shall  be  not  one  spot  of  love  in  it" 

See  Alfred  C  Calmon,  who  in  Fact  and  FicHon  a6<mt  Shak€Sp€art\iac^  \we&.  ^«r^ 
foccessfb]  io  polnting  ont  the  numerous  rcminiscenoes  oi  Sltaxiorc^  Xa  '^  Snran^  v& 
SbMketpemre'B  pUyt. 


676 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


simple  folk  of  his  native  town  respected  him  as  much  for  his 
sound  judgment  and  universal  knowledge  as  for  his  wealth  and 
property.  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  that  they  should  recQg- 
nise  anything  more  and  greater  in  him. 

Many  years  ago,  at  the  outset  of  his  career  as  a  dramatistp  he 
had  made  a  defeated  king  praise  a  country  life  for  its  simplicity 
and  freedom  from  care  {Third  Part  of  Hc7iry  VL^  ii.  5)  : 

"  O  God  I  methinks  it  were  a  happy  life 
To  be  no  better  than  a  homely  swain ; 
To  sit  upon  a  Hill,  as  I  do  now, 
To  carve  out  dials  quaintly,  point  by  point, 
Thereby  to  see  the  minutes  how  they  run, 
How  many  make  the  hour  füll  complete ; 
How  many  hours  bring  about  the  day ; 
How  many  days  will  fmish  up  the  year ; 
How  many  ycars  a  mortal  man  may  live. 
When  this  is  known,  then  to  divido  the  times : 
So  many  hours  must  1  tend  my  flock ; 
So  many  hours  must  I  take  my  rest ; 
So  many  hours  must  I  contemplate ; 
So  many  hours  must  I  sport  myself ; 
So  many  days  my  ewes  have  been  with  young; 
So  many  weeks  ere  the  poor  fools  will  yean ; 
So  many  years  ere  I  shall  shear  the  fleece : 
So  minutes,  hours,  days,  months  and  years, 
Passed  over  to  the  end  they  were  created, 
Would  bring  white  hairs  and  a  quiet  grave. ' 

In  just  such  a  regulär  monotony  were  Shakespeare's  own 
days  now  to  pass. 


XXV 

THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  SHAKESPEARE*S  LIFE 

DiD  Shakespeare  find  that  peace  and  contentment  at  Stratford 
which  he  sought?  From  one  thing  and  another  we  are  almost 
forced  to  conclude  he  did  not.  His  own  family  seem  to  have 
looked  upon  liiin  in  the  light  of  a  returned  artist-bohemian,  of 
a  man  whose  past  career  and  present  religious  principles  were 
anything  but  a  credit  to  theni.  Elze  and  others  believe,  indeed, 
that,  like  Byron's  descendants  at  a  later  date,  Shakespeare's 
family  considered  him  a  stain  upon  their  reputation.  This  sur- 
misc  may  be  correct,  but  there  is  no  very  great  foundation  for  it. 

It  has  long  been  inferrcd,  from  the  fact  that  he  made  her 
his  heiress,  that  Susanna  was  Shakespeare's  favourite  daughter. 
She  was  probably  the  individual  to  whom  he  feit  most  drawn 
in  Stratford ;  but  we  must  not  conclude  too  much  from  a  testa- 
mentary  disposition.  It  was  plainly  the  poet's  inten tion  to  entail 
his  property,  and  his  original  desire  was  that  his  little  son 
Hamnet,  as  bearer  and  continuer  of  the  name,  should  succeed 
to  everything.  Upon  the  death  of  the  son,  the  eider  daughter 
would  naturally  takc  his  place. 

It  is  not  conceivable  that  Susanna  could  have  any  real  under- 
standing  of,  or  sympathy  with,  her  father.  Her  very  epitaph 
places  her  in  direct  contrast  with  him  in  matters  of  religion, 
distinctly  maintaining  that  though  she  was  gifted  above  her  sex, 
which  she  owed  partly  to  her  father,  she  was  also  wise  with 
regard  to  her  soul's  salvation,  and  that  was  entirely  duc  to  Him 
whose  happiness  she  was  now  sharing.  Shakesjieare  had  none 
of  the  credit  for  that.^  Her  natural  inclination  to  bigoted  piety 
was  confirmed  and  augmcntcd  by  the  influcnce  of  her  husband, 
whose  sectarian  zcal  and  narrow-minded  hatred  of  Catholicism 
are  plainly  shown  in  such  of  his  Journals  and  books  as  have 
been  preserved.  We  can  fancy  how  Shakesf)eare's  depth  and 
delicacy  of  fecling  must  have  suffered  under  all  this.  It  is  even 
possible  that  Susanna  and  her  husband  may  have  burned,  on 
the  score  of  what  thcy  considered  his  irreligious  principles,  any 

*  "  Witty  above  her  sexe,  but  that's  not  all, 
Wise  to  salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall, 
Somethin^  of  Shakespcaie  \va&  in  xVaX,  W.^Yk 
Wbolly  of  bim  with  whom  she;  i  hon«  \Xk\A!vs»^ 

6?7 


678  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

papers  that  Shakespeare  left  bebind,  as  ßyroa's  family  destroyed 
his  memoirs.  This  would  explain  their  total  disappearance, 
which,  after  all,  is  no  more  straoge  than  the  utter  abscnce  of 
any  manuscripts  bdonging  tb  Beaumont  or  Fletcher,  or  any 
other  dramatic  writer  of  the  period, 

The  younger  daughter,  Judith,  could  not  even  write  her  own 
name,  and  signed  her  mark  with  a  quaint  little  flourish  when  she 
was  married.  It.  is  clearly  impossible,  therefore,  that  she  could 
have  taken  any  intcrest  in  her  father's  raanuscripts.  In  the 
seventeenth  Century  it  was  no  very  liberal  education  that  a  poet's 
daughter  received ;  even  Milcon's  eldest  daughter,  at  a  mucb 
later  period,  was  unable  to  write.  Susanna  could  just  inscribe 
her  own  name,  but  that  seems  to  have  been  the  ümlt  of  her 
litcrary  accomplishments.  Her  utter  indifference  to  all  such 
matters  would  sufüciently  account  for  the  destniction  of  Her 
father's  papers,  and  this  surniise  is  confirmed  by  a  remarkable 
Statement  made  in  his  preface  by  Dr.  John  Cooke,  the  editor  of 
her  husband's  papers.  Whilst  serving  as  army  surgcon  during 
the  Civil  War,  he  was  stationed  at  Stratford  to  defend  the  bridge 
over  the  Avon.  One  of  his  men,  lately  an  assistant  of  Dr.  Hall's, 
told  him  that  the  books  and  manuscripts  left  by  the  doctor  were 
Still  in  ezistence,  and  offered  to  accompany  him  to  the  widow's 
house  in  search  of  them.  Cooke  examined  the  books,  and  Mra. 
Hall  informed  him  that  she  had  others  which  had  belonged  to 
her  husband's  partner,  and  had  cost  a  considerablc  sum.  He 
replied  that  if  the  books  pleased  him  he  would  be  willing  to  pay 
the  original  price.  She  then  produeed  them,  and  they  proved  to 
be  the  very  book  from  which  we  are  quoting,  and  some  others' 
all  ready  for  printing.  Cooke,  who  knew  Dr.  Hall's  handwriting, 
told  her  that  at  least  one  of  these  books  was  her  husband's,  and 
showed  her  the  writing.  She  denied  it,  and  Unding  that  his  per- 
sistence  was  giving  offence,  he  paid  the  sum  she  named  and 
carried  off  the  books. 

This  extract  proves  that  Susanna  neither  knew  her  husband's 
handwriting  nor  recognised  his  own  books.  So  entirely  lacking 
was  she  in  any  ititerest  in  intellectual  matters,  that  she,  a  rieh 
woman,  set  no  greater  value  on  her  husband's  works  than  to  seil 
them  for  a  trifie  on  the  first  opportunity  that  offercd. 

We  can  draw  a  tolerably  reliable  inference  Crom  this  anecdote 
of  the  intcrest  she  was  likely  to  take  in  any  written  or  pnnted 
papers  left  by  her  father.  In  all  probability  she  did  not  even 
take  the  trouble  to  bum  them,  but  either  threw  them  away  or  sold 
them  as  wastc  paper. 

If  WC  rcflect  that  Susanna,  born  in  better  circumstanccs  and 
bettcr  educated  than  her  mother,  must  have  been  decidedly  her 
supcrior,  we  can  see  how  little  Shakcspeare's  wife,  now  weU 
stricken   ia   years,   could  ha.'ve  \mdeTÄt,«>d  or   appreciated  her 


ANNE  HATHAWAYS  COTTAGK  679 

her   heart  and   house   were   always  open   to   itinerant   Puritan 
preachers.     Of  this  we  possess  reliable  Information. 

Shakespeare  retumed  to  London  during  the  winter  of  16 14. 
Letters  have  been  preserved  from  his  cousin  Thomas  Greene,  the 
town-clerky  proving  that  he  was  in  the  capital  on  the  i6th  of 
November  and  the  23rd  of  December.  This  visit  of  his  is  inte- 
resting  in  two  ways,  for  we  know  that  Shakespeare,  capable  man 
of  business  as  he  was,  was  defending  the  rights  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  against  the  country  gentry;  and  we  also  know  the  use 
his  family  made  of  his  absence. 

The  town  records  of  Stratford  show  that  Shakespeare's  family 
was  entertaining  a  travelling  Puritan  preacher  just  at  this  time, 
for,  according  to  custom,  the  to^yn  presented  this  man  with  a 
quart  of  sack  and  a  quart  of  claret,  and  we  read  in  the  municipal 
accounts :  "  Item,  for  one  quart  of  sack  andone  quart  ofclarett  witu 
geven  to  a  preacher  at  the  New  PUue^  xxd'^ 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  his  family  should  be  entertaining  a 
member  of  the  sect  Shakespeare  held  to  be  peculiarly  inimical 
to  himself  whilst  he,  the  master  of  the  house,  was  absent  on 
business. 

Probably  his  family  never  saw  one  of  his  plays  performed,  nor 
even  read  such  of  tliem  as  were  printed  in  the  pirated  editions. 

Anne  Hathaway's  cottage,  which  star.ds  uiicljangcd,though  the 
roof  is  gradually  failing  in,  was  visited  by  the  prcsent  writer  in 
1895.  An  old  woman  lived  in  it,  the  Inst  of  tlic  Hnlhaways.  She 
was  sitting  on  a  chair  opposite  the  couriship  bench^  on  which, 
according  to  tradition,  the  lovers  used  to  sit.  In  the  family  Bibie, 
lying  open  before  her,  she  pointed  with  pride  to  a  long  list  ol 
names  inscribed  by  the  Hathaways  during  hundreds  of  years,  and 
forming  a  kind  of  genealogical  tree.  The  room  was  filled  with  all 
manner  of  pictures  of  William  Shakespeare  and  Anne  Hathaway, 
with  relics  of  the  poet,  and  of  famous  actors  and  critics  of  his 
plays.  The  old  woman,  who  lived  among  and  by  these  com- 
paratively  valueless  treasures,  explained  the  meaning  and  story 
of  each  thing,  but  to  the  cautiously  ventured  inquiry  whether 
she  had  ever  read  anytliing  by  tliis-  same  Shakespeare  who 
surrounded  her  on  every  side,  and  on  whose  memot/  she  was 
actually  living,  she  returned  the  somewhat  astonished  reply, 
"  Read  anything  of  him !  No,  I  read  my  Bible."  If  this 
female  Hathaway  has  never  read  anything  of  Shakespeare,  was 
Anne,  who  must  have  been  far  behind  this  last  scion  oif  her 
race  in  general  and  certainly  Shakespearian  culture,  likely  ever 
to  have  done  so  ? 

Seeing  that  his  own  family  had  no  great  upinion  of  him,  we 
can  hardly  be  surprised  that,  in  spite  of  his  wealth  and  his  oft- 
mentioned  kindliness  of  dis]X)sition,  he  was  hardly  appreciated  by 
the  Upper  ten  of  Stratford 's  1500  Citizens.     AA\.Vvow^\«.^^&  ^tä. 
o£  itB  riebest  inhabitants,  he  was  never  appoVuXfcA  \.o  otä  c\  ^^fc 


S8o  WILLIAH  SHAKESPEARE 

public  ofßces  of  the  town  durin^'  tlie  years  of  bis  rcsidence 
theie. 

There  were  few  with  wliom  he  could  associate  in  the  little 
town.  The  most  frcquently  alludcd  to  of  his  Stratford  acquaiat- 
ances  was  a  certain  John  Conibe  (stcward  of  Ambrose,  Earl  of 
Warwick),  a  man  of  low  repnte  as  lax-collector  and  worse  as 
moDey-iender  and  usurer.  That  he  tigured  as  a  philanthropist  ia 
his  will  does  not  prove  very  much,  but  he  niust  liavc  been  better 
than  his  reputation,  or  he  would  surely  never  have  been  oneof 
Shakespeare's  companions.  Tradition  teils  that  the  poet  and 
Combe  not  only  spent  much  tinie  togetlier  in  their  own  houses, 
but  were  also  in  the  habit  of  passing  their  evenings  in  the  tavern 
(now  called  the  Falcon)  which  lay  just  across  the  road.  Ilere, 
then,  the  mighty  genius,  strandcd  in  n  little  country  town,  sat  at 
the  same  great  table  which  stiuids  there  to-day,  tossing  dice  and 
emptying  his  glass  in  Company  with  a  country  bnmpkin  of  dotibt- 
ful  reputation. 

Tradition  further  adds  that  it  was  one  of  Shakespeare's  few 
amusements  to  compose  ironical  cpitaphs  for  his  acquaintances, 
and  he  issaid  to  liave  written  an  exceedingly  conteinptuous  one 
upon  John  Combe  in  his  character  of  usurer  and  extortioner, 
This  epitaph,  however,  which  has  survived  to  us  in  various  forms, 
is  proved  to  have  been  printed,  with  its  many  variations,  as  early 
as  1608.  It  was  prohably  only  assigned  to  Shakespeare  in  tlie 
same  manner  that  all  the  Danish  witticisms  of  the  foUowing 
Century  were  attributcd  to  Wessel.  Juhn  Combe  dicd  in  1614, 
leaving  Shakespeare  a  legacy  of  five  pounds.  If  he  was  the  best 
of  Shakespeare's  Stratford  associates,  wc  can  figure  to  ourselves 
the  rest. 

His  Chief  companionship  niust  have  been  that  of  Nature. 

Wiser  and  more  profound  tlian  any  other  in  Voltaire's  CandiiU 
is  its  closing  utterance,  "  II  faul  cultiver  notre  Jardin."  Candide 
and  his  friends,  at  the  end  of  the  story,  come  across  a  Turk  who, 
absolutely  indilTerent  to  all  that  is  occurring  in  Constantinoplc,  i^. 
entirely  ahsorhed  in  the  ctiltivation  of  his  garden.  The  only 
communication  he  holds  with  the  capital  is  to  send  thither  for  sale 
the  fruit  that  he  grows.  This  Turk's  philosophy  of  Hfe  makes  a 
great  impression  upon  Voltaire's  hero,  who  has  known  and 
experienced  the  dangers  aiid  difficiihies  of  nearly  every  human 
lot,  and  his  constant  refrain  throughout  the  last  pagcs  of  the  book 
is,  "/e  sais  qu'il  faul  cultiver  nolre  j'ai  äin."  "You  are  right," 
answers  another  character ;  "Jet  us  work  and  give  up  brooding; 
only  work  makes  life  bearabic."  When  Pangloss  undertakes,  for 
the  last  time,  to  prove  how  wonderfuily  everything  is  linked 
together  in  this  best  of  all  pxissibie  worlds,  Candide  adds  the  final 
apostrophe,  "  Well  said  !  but  we  must  cultivate  our  gardens." 

This  was  the  thought  which  was  now  singing  its  meagre,  sad 
iittle  mdody  in  Shakespeare's  sou\. 


THE  MULBERRY  TREE  68 1 

His  two  gardens  stretched  from  New  Place  down  to  the  Avon; 
the  larger  had  one  fault — ^it  only  communicated  by  a  narrow 
lane  with  the  bit  of  ground  that  lay  directly  round  the  house,  two 
small  properties  on  the  Chapel  Lane  side  intervening  between 
house  and  garden.  The  smsdler  garden  was  probably  given  up 
to  flowers,  the  larger  to  the  cultivation  of  fruit.  Warwickshire  is 
cspecially  noted  for  its  apples. 

Thus  Shakespeare  could  now  improve  the  quality  of  his  own 
fruit  by  that  process  of  grafting  which  Polixenes  had  so  lately 
taught  Perdita  in  the  Winters  Tale,  He  could  now,  as  did  thü 
gardener  long  ago  in  Rickard  11.^  bid  his  assistants  bind  up  the 
dangling  apricots  and  prop  the  bending  branches. 

He  had  planted  the  famous  mulberry-tree  with  his  own  hand, 
and  it  stood  until  the  Rev.  Francis  Gastrell,  who  owned  New 
Place  in  1756,  cut  it  down  in  a  fit  of  exasperation  with  the  crowds 
who  requested  admission  to  see  it.  Any  one  who  has  visited 
Stratford  know$  of  the  endless  pieces  of  fumiture  and  little  boxes 
which  were  made  from  its  wood.  Garrick,  who  revived  Shake- 
speare upon  the  stagc,  sat  undcr  it  in  1744;  and  when,  in  1769, 
he  was  presented  with  the  freedom  of  the  city.  the  casket  in 
which  the  charter  was  enclosed  was  made  from  a  portion  of  the 
tree.  In  the  same  ycar,  when,  on  the  occasion  of  Shakespeare's 
Jubilee,  he  sang  his  song,  Shakespeares  Mulberry^Tree^  he  held 
in  his  hand  a  goblet  made  from  its  wood. 

A  serious  attempt  was  made  in  Shakespeare's  time  to  intro- 
duce  the  breeding  of  silkworms  at  Stratford,  and  the  planting 
of  the  mulberry-tree  may  have  had  some  connection  with  this 
experiment. 

Not  even  the  ruins  of  New  Place  are  in  existence  to-day,  but 
only  the  site  where  the  house  once  stood,  and  the  old  well  in  the 
yard,  which  is  so  overgrown  with  ivy  that  the  windlass  looks  like 
a  handle  of  greenery.  The  foundation-stones  of  the  boundary 
wall  are  covered  with  earth  and  grass,  and  form  a  sort  of  embank- 
ment  towards  the  road.  The  gardens,  however,  are  much  as  they 
were  in  Shakespeare's  day ;  the  larger  is  spacious  and  beautiful. 
Wandering  there  of  an  autumn  afternoon,  when  the  leaves  are 
beginning  to  turn  faintly  golden,  a  stränge  feeling  comes  over  one 
— a  feeling  belonging  to  the  place,  from  which  it  is  very  difficult 
to  tear  oneself  away. 

One  seems  to  see  him  Walking  with  grave  stateliness  there, 
clad  in  scarlct,  witli  the  broad  white  collar  falling  over  the  sleeve- 
less  black  tunic.  We  see  the  hand  which  has  written  so  many 
ill-understood  and  insuflficiently  appreciated  masterpieces  binding 
up  branches  or  lopping  off  stray  tendrils,  while  the  sunlight 
sparkies  on  the  piain  gold  signet  ring  with  its  initials,  W.S., 
which  is  still  in  our  possession. 

,     The  numerous  portraits  and  the  famous  de2L\.Vv-Tcv^sK^<&  ^v^ 
covered  in  Gcrmany  are  all  forgerics.    TV\e  oivV^  gjewvaATv^  \J*fc- 


682 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


nesaes  are  the  bad  engraving  by  Droeshout  prefixed  to  the  first 
Folio  and  the  poorly  ezecuted  coloured  bust  by  the  Dutchman 
Gerhard  Johnson  on  the  monument  in  the  Church  of  the  Hcdy 
Trinity,  which  was  pröbably  done  from  a  death-masque.  It  may 
be  added  that  a  painting  was  discovered  at  Stratford  eight  years 
agO|  which  purports  to  be  the  original  of  Droeshout's  engravingi 
and  the  genuineness  of  which  is  still  a  matter  of  dispute.^ 

It  holds  US  captive,  this  head  with  the  healthy,  füll,  red  Ups, 
the  slight  brownish  moustache,  the  fine,  high,  poet's  brow,  with 
the  reddish  hair  growing  naturally  and  becomingly  at  the  sides. 
The  expression  is  speaking ;  Shakespeare  must  surely  have  looked 
like  this.  Even  if  the  painting  should  prove  a  forgery,  an  imita- 
tion  of  Droeshout's  work  instead  of  its  original,  it  will  still  retain 
an  artistic  and  psychological  value  possessed  by  none  of  the  other 
portraits.  As  he  looks  out  at  us  from  the  canvas,  we  secro  to  see 
him  as  he  was  in  those  last  years  at  Stratford,  chatting  with  the 
townsfolk  and  "  cultivating  his  garden."  *  * 

'  In  the  Halliwell-Phillips  coUeciion  of  Shakespearian  rarities,  stored  ot  the 
Safe  Deposit,  Chancery  Lane,  there  was  a  copy  of  che  print  which,  according  to  the 
catalogue  of  the  coUection,  is  in  its  original  proof  condition,  hefore  it  was  altered  by 
"an  inferior  hand."  As  traces  of  what  is  called  the  *Mnferior  hand"are  lo  be 
found  in  the  painting,  it  would  seem  that  the  latter  was  copied  from  the  print.  (See 
John  Cor  bin :  7\uo  Undescribed  Portraits  of  Shakespeare.  Harper^s  Nr*v  Monthly 
MtmaineJ) 

*  R.  £.  Hunter:  Shakespeare  and  Stratford.  1864.  Halliwell  -  Phillips :  Briet 
Guide  to  the  Cardens.  1863.  G.  L.  Lee :  Shakespeares  Honte  and  Rural  Life. 
1874.  W.  H.  H. :  Stratford-Hpon-AxHm,  Hiitoric  Stratford,  1893.  ^^  Home 
mnd  Haunts  ef  Shakespeare^  with  an  Introduction  by  H.  H.  Fumess.  1892.  Karl 
Elie :  Shetkespemrit  chmp.  vüL 


XXVI 

SHAKESPEARE'S  DEATH 

ON  the  9th  oi  July  1614  a  terrible  calamity  feil  upon  the  little 
town  in  which  Shakespeare  dwelt,  and  a  great  fire  destroyed  no 
Icss  than  fifty-four  houses,  besides  various  bams  and  stables.  In 
spite  of  a  prohibitive  law,  the  houses  of  most  of  the  poorer  Citizens 
were  thatched  with  straw,  which  proved,  of  course,  highly  in- 
flamroable.  Doubtless  Shakespeare^  whose  house  was  spared, 
contributed  generously  towards  the  alleviation  of  the  gencral 
distress. 

InMarch  1612,  Shakespeare,  jointly  with  Will  Johnson,  a  wine 
merchant,  John  Jackson,  and  his  friend  and  editor  John  Heminge, 
bought  a  house  at  Blackfriars  in  London.  The  deed  of  purchase 
which  is  still  in  existence  in  the  British  Museum,  bears  Shake- 
speare's  authentic  signature  written  above  the  first  of  the  appended 
seals.  His  name  above  and  in  the  body  of  the  document  has  a 
different  spelling.  This  property  must  have  necessitated  a  certain 
amount  of  attention,  and  probably  occasioned  more  than  one 
joumey  up  to  town.  The  already  mentioncd  sojoum  there  at  the 
close  of  the  year  16 14  was  not  one  of  these,  however.  Shake- 
speare's  object  then  was  the  fulfilment  of  a  commission  intrusted 
to  him  by  his  fellow-townsfolk. 

For  more  than  a  Century  past,  the  great  families  had  been 
enclosing  all  the  land  they  could  seize,  and  their  parks  and  pre- 
serves  began  to  usurp  the  old  common  lands  and  hunting-grounds, 
their  object  being  to  crush  the  medieval  custom  of  the  whole  com- 
munity's  Joint  interest  in  agriculture  and  cattle-rearing.  A  steady 
withdrawal  of  land  from  agncultural  purposes  went  on,  and  the 
peasant  classes  were  growing  gradually  poorer  as  the  large  land- 
owners  arbitrarily  raised  the  prices  of  meat  and  wool.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  country  people  naturally  did  their  best  to 
prevent  the  enclosure  of  land. 

In  1614  Shakespeare's  native  town  was  agitated  by  a  proposal 
to  enclose  and  parcel  out  the  common  land  of  Old  Stratford  and 
Welcombe.  That  Shakespeare  was  averse  to  this  plan  and  deter- 
mined  to  oppose  it  we  leam  from  an  utterance  of  his  preserved  in 
the  memoranda  of  his  cousin,  Thomas  Greene,  which  have  been 
published  by  Halliwell-Phillips.  According  to  iVvt^e,  ^äyöNää^'«^ 
sald  to  his  cousin  that  he  was  not  able  to  htar   the  enclosing  o) 

«3 


684  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Welcombe.  We  also  learn  that  he  concluded  an  agreement  on  the 
28th  of  October,  on  behalf  of  his  cousin  and  himself,  with  a 
certain  William  Replingham  of  Great  Harborough,  an  ardent 
supporter  of  the  enclosure  project.  Replingham  thereby  pledged 
himself  to  indemnifj'  the  persons  concerned  for  any  loss  or  injury 
entailed  lipon  them  by  the  enclosure.  Shakespeare  was  also 
induced  to  plead  the  cause  of  his  fellow-townsraen  in  London, 
the  Stratford  town  Council  sending  Thomas  Greene  thither  to 
beg  him  to  use  all  his  influence  for  the  benefit  of  the  town, 
which  had  already  suffered  grievous  loss  through  the  fire. 
That  Greene  fulfilled  his  commission  is  proved  by  his  letter  to 
the  Council  of  the  I7th  of  November  1614,  in  which  he  says  he 
received  reassuring  intelligence  from  Shakespeare,  and  that  botli 
the  poet  and  his  son-in-law,  Dr.  Hall,  believe  that  the  dreaded 
plan  will  never  be  carried  into  execution.^ 

They  were  right.  In  161 8,  in  answer  to  a  petition  from  the 
Corporation,  Government  decrced  that  no  enclosure  was  to  be 
made,  and  gave  ordcrs  that  any  fences  already  erected  for  that 
purpose  were  to  be  pulled  down. 

The  year  161 5  secms  to  have  passed  quietly  enough  in  that 
country  solitude  and  peace  which  Shakespeare  had  so  long 
desired. 

He  must  have  been  taken  seriously  ill  in  Januar}^  16 16,  for 
above  the  actual  date  of  his  will,  March  2^th^  Stands  that  of 
January,  as  though  he  had  begun  to  draw  it  up,  and  then,  feeling 
better,  had  postponed  his  intention  of  making  a  will. 

The  last  event  of  any  imf)ortance  in  Shakespeare's  life  took 
place  on  the  loth  of  February  1616;  on  that  day  his  daughter 
Judith  was  married.  She  was  no  longer  quite  young,  being  thirty- 
one,  and  it  was  no  very  brilliant  match  she  made.  The  bride- 
groom,  Thomas  Quincy,  was  a  tavern-keeper  and  vintner  in 
Stratford,  and  a  son  of  the  Richard  Quiney  who  applied  eighteen 
years  before  to  his  "  loving  countryman,"  William  Shakespeare, 
for  a  loan  of  ;f  30.  Thomas  Quincy  was  foiir  ycars  younger  than 
his  bride,  thcrcfore  the  maxim  of  Twclfth  ^ight^  **  Let  still  the 
woman  take  an  eider  than  herseif,"  was  as  little  heeded  in  his 
daughter's  case  as  it  had  been  in  Shakespeare's  own.  A  vintner 
in  a  town  the  size  of  Stratford  is  not  likcly  to  have  been  either 
a  very  wealthy  man  or  onc  of  such  education  that  Shakespeare 
would  take  any  pleasure  in  his  socicty. 

The  last  wedding  festivit}»^  in  which  Shakespeare  had  taken 
part  was  the  ideally  royal  marringe  of  Ferdinand  and  Miranda. 

*  The  passage  runs :  "  My  cosen  Shakespeare  comyiig  ycsterday  to  town,  I  went 

to  see  him,  how  he  did.     He  lold  me  that  thty  assured  him  they  ment  to  inclose  no 

further  than  to  Gospell  Bush,  and  so  upp  straight  (leavyng  out  part  of  the  dyngles  to 

the  ffield)  to  the  gate  in  Clo^lfn  hedg,  and  take  in  Salishuryes  peece ;  and  that  they 

meoD  in  Aprill  to  survey  thtnnd,  and  \\^en  \o  ^vve  saüsfaccion,  and  not  before ;  and 

te  and  Mr.  Hall  say  they  ihink  ihcr  ¥r\\\  ^>e  ikovY\^v\^  ^otvt  «x  ^W?^ 

Also  C  M.  Ingleby :  Shakespeare  and  tht  WcUomht  Enclosure*,  VÄv 


SHAKESPEARES  DEATH  685 

What  a  contrast  was  this  of  Judith  and  her  vintncr !    It  was  prosc 
after  poetry. 

Ben  Jonson  and  Michael  Drayton  are  supposed  to  havc  comc 
down  for  the  wedding,  but  of  this  we  have  no  certain  information. 
The  supposition  rests  entirely  on  the  following  brief  Statement, 
written  at  least  fifty  years  afterwards  by  the  rector  of  Stratford, 
John  Ward.  "  Shakesjjeare,  Dra^rton,  and  Ben  Jhonson  had  a 
xnerry  meeting,  and,  it  seenis,  drank  too  hard,  for  Shakespeare 
died  of  a  feavour  there  contracted."  Hc  does  not  say  that  this 
merry  meeting  was  held  at  the  time  of  the  wedding,  but  the 
probabilities  are  that  it  was.  Drayton  was  a  Warwickshire  man, 
and  possessed  intiniate  friends  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford. 
Ben  Jonson  may  have  been  invited  in  return  for  his  having 
asked  Shakespeare  to  stand  as  godfather  to  one  of  his  children. 
There  are  good  grounds  for  the  surmise  that  in  any  case  the  winc 
was  supplicd  by  the  son-in-law,  and  that  the  silver-gilt  bowl 
bequeathed  to  Judith  was  used  upon  this  occasion. 

It  was  childish  of  the  cleric  to  connect  this  little  drinking 
party  with  Shakespeare's  illness.  The  tradition  of  Shakespeare's 
liking  for  a  good  glass  was  rife  in  Stratford  as  latc  as  the 
eighteentli  centur>\  Numcrous  pictures  of  the  crab-apple  trec 
preserve  the  legend  that  Shakespeare  started  off  for  Bidford  one 
youthful  day  for  the  sake  of  the  lively  topers  he  had  heard  dwelt 
there,  and  the  tale  runs  that  he  drank  so  hard  he  had  to  lie  down 
under  the  er  ab- trec  on  his  way  home,  and  sleep  for  several  hours. 
The  Story  repeated  by  Ward  probably  originated  in  these  repor^s. 
All  we  know  for  certain  is  that  some  days  after  the  wedding 
Shakespeare  was  taken  ill. 

Several  circumstances  tend  to  provc  that  the  poet  was  attacked 
by  typhus  fever.  Stratford,  with  its  low,  damp  Situation  and  its 
filthy  roads,  was  a  regulär  typhus  trap  in  those  days.  Halliwell- 
Phillips  has  published  a  list  of  cnactments  and  penalties  promul- 
gated  by  the  magistrates  with  a  view  to  the  Clearing  of  the  streets. 
They  extend  into  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  Century,  and 
that  there  are  none  for  the  years  in  question  is  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  that  the  documents  for  1605-1646  are  missing.  Even 
so  latc  as  the  Shakespeare  Jubilee  in  1769,  Garrick,  who  was 
föted  by  the  town  on  this  occasion,  described  it  as  "  the  most 
dirty,  unseemly,  ill-pav'd,  wretched-looking  town  in  all  Britain." 
Chapcl  Lane,  towards  which  Shakespeare's  house  fronted,  was 
one  of  the  unhealthiest  streets  in  the  town.  It  hardly  possessed 
a  house,  being  but  a  medley  of  sheds  and  stables  with  an  open 
drain  running  down  the  middle  of  the  street.  It  was  small 
wonder  that  the  place  was  constantly  visited  by  peslilential 
epidemics,  and  little  was  known  in  those  days  of  any  laws  of 
Hygiene,  and  as  little  of  any  treatment  for  typhus.  Shake- 
speare's  son-in-law,  who  was  probably  his  doctor,  knew  of  clo 
jtxatAy  for  h,  as  bis  Journals  provc. 


686  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  drew  up  his  will  on  the  25th  of  March.  As  we 
have  already  said,  it  is  still  in  existence,  and  is  reproduced  in 
facsimile  in  the  twenty-fourth  volume  of  the  German  Shakespeare 
Year-book. 

The  fact  that  it  was  dictated,  and  the  extreme  shakiness  of  the 
signature  at  the  foot  of  the  three  lengthily  detailed  folio  pages, 
prove  that  Shakespeare  was  very  ill  when  his  will  was  made. 

His  daughter  Susanna  is  the  principal  heiress.  Judith  re- 
ceives  ;^I50  ready  money  and  ;f  150  more  after  the  lapse  of  three 
years,  under  certain  conditions.  These  are  the  principal  bequests. 
Joan  Hart,  his  sister,  is  remembered  in  various  wa3's.  She  is 
to  receive  five  pounds  in  ready  money  and  all  his  clothes.  Her 
three  sons  are  separately  mentioned,  although  Shakespeare  can- 
not  remember  the  baptismal  name  of  the  second,  and  are  to  have 
five  pounds  each.  To  his  granddaughter,  Elizabeth  Hall,  he 
leaves  his  silver  plate.  Ten  pounds  is  to  go  to  the  poor  of  Strat- 
ford,  and  his  sword  to  Thomas  Combe.  Various  good  burghers 
of  the  town,  including  Hamlet  Sadler,  after  whom  Shakespeare's 
son  was  named,  are  left  twenty-six  Shillings  and  eightpence  each, 
wherewith  to  buy  a  ring  in  memory  of  the  deceased.  A  line 
inserted  later  bequeaths  a  similar  sum  for  a  similar  purpose  to 
the  three  actors  with  whom  Shakespeare  was  most  intimately 
associated  in  his  late  Company,  and  whom  he  calls  '•  my  com- 
rades" — ^John  Heminge,  Richard  Burbage,  and  Henry  Condell. 
As  is  well  known,  it  is  to  the  first  and  last  of  these  three  that  we 
owe  the  first  Folio  edition,  containing  nineteen  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  which  would  otherwise  have  been  lost  to  us. 

A  peculiar  psychological  interest  attaches  to  the  following 
features  of  the  will. 

In  the  first  place,  the  much  discussed  and  remarkable  fact  that 
in  making  his  last  will  Shakespeare  apparently  entirely  forgot  his 
wife.  Not  until  it  was  completed  and  read  aloud  to  him  did 
he  remember  that  she,  who  would  receive,  of  course,  the  legal 
widow's  share,  should  at  least  be  named ;  and  then,  between  the 
last  lines,  he  has  inserted  :  **  Itenty  I gyve  unto  my  wiefmy  second 
best  bcd  with  the  furtiiturer  The  poverty  of  the  gift  is  the  more 
obvious  when  we  recall  how  Shakespeare's  father-in-law  remem- 
bered his  wife  in  his  will. 

It  is  also  significant,  more  e8p)ecially  as  it  was  contrary  to  the 
custom  of  the  times,  that  not  a  single  member  of  Mrs.  Shake- 
speare's family  was  mentioned  in  the  will.  The  name  Hathaway 
does  not  occur,  although  it  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  wills  of 
Shakespeare's  descendants ;  in  that  of  Thomas  Nash,  for  instance, 
and  of  Susanna's  daughter  Elizabeth,  who  became  Lady  Bamard 
by  her  second  marriage.  The  inference  is  piain,  that  Shakespeare 
was  on  very  unfriendly  terms  with  his  wife's  family. 

TTie  next  peculiarity  \s  that  Shakespeare  never  refers  to  bis 
Position  as  a  dramatic  whter«  noc  m^t&  w|  ^\>&v^  Xx^  V^Kte^ 


SHAKESPEARES  WILL  6S7 

manuscripts,  or  papers  of  any  kind,  as  forming  part  of  his  pro- 
perty.  This  absence  of  all  concern  for  his  poetical  reputation  is 
in  complete  accord  with  the  sovereign  contempt  for  posthumous 
fame  which  we  have  already  observed  in  him. 

Finally,  it  is  not  without  significance  that  there  was  neithcr 
poet  nor  author  mentioned  among  those  to  whom  Shakespeare 
left  money  for  the  purchase  of  that  ordinary  token  of  friendship, 
a  ring  to  be  worn  as  a  memento.  It  would  seem  as  though  he 
feit  himself  under  no  Obligation  to  any  of  his  fellow-authors,  and 
had  nothing  to  thank  them  for.  This  neglect  is  quite  in  harmony 
with  the  contempt  he  always  displayed  for  his  brother  craftsmen 
wben  he  had  occasion  to  represent  them  upon  the  stage.  He 
may  have  been  willing  enough  to  drink  in  Company  with  Ben 
Jonson,  the  honest  and  envious  friend  of  so  many  years'  Standing, 
but  he  had  no  more  depth  of  affection  for  him  than  for  any  other 
of  the  dramatists  and  lyric  poets  among  whom  his  lot  had  been 
cast  As  Byron  says  of  Childe  Harold — ^he  was  one  among 
them,  not  of  tl^em. 

He  lingered  on  for  four  weeks,  and  then  he  died. 

He  had  probably  completed  his  fifty-second  year  the  day  before, 
tfaus  dying  at  the  same  age  as  Moli^re  and  Napoleon.  He  had 
lived  long  enough  to  finish  his  work,  and  the  mighty  turbulent 
river  of  his  life  came  to  an  end  among  the  sands,  in  the  daily 
drop,  drop,  drop.* 

A  monument  was  erected  by  his  family  in  Stratford  church 
before  the  year  1623.  Below  the  bust  is  an  inscription,  probably 
of  Dr.  Halles  composition.  The  first  two  lines  liken  him,  in  badly 
constructed  Latin,  to  a  Nestor  for  judgment,  a  Socrates  for  genius, 
and  a  Virgil  for  art.* 

We  could  imagine  a  more  appropriate  epitaph. 

'  It  is  not  altogether  correct  to  say  that  Shakespeare  died  on  the  same  day  as 
Cervantes.  True,  they  both  died  on  the  23rd  of  April  1616,  but  the  Gregorian 
calendar  was  then  in  use  in  Spain,  while  England  was  still  reckoning  by  the  Julian , 
there  is  an  actual  difference  of  ten  days  therefore. 

*  *' Judido  Pylium,  genio  Socratem  arte  Marooem, 
Terra  tegit,  popiUos  moeret,  Olympus  habet** 


XXVII 

CONCLUSIQl^ 

Even  a  long  human  life  is  so  brief  and  fugitive  that  it  seems 
iittle  Short  of  a  miracle  that  it  can  leave  traces  behind  which 
endure  through  centuries.  The  millions  die  and  sink  into 
obHvion  and  their  deeds  die  with  them.  A  few  thousands  so 
far  conquer  death  as  to  leave  their  names  to  be  a  bürden  to 
the  memories  of  school-children,  but  convey  Iittle  eise  to  pos- 
terity.  But  some  few  master-minds  rcmain,  and  among  them 
Shakespeare  ranks  with  Leonardo  and  Michael  Angelp.  He  was 
hardly  laid  in  his  grave  than  he  rose  from  it  again.  Of  all  the 
great  names  of  this  earth^  none  is  more  certain  of  immortality 
than  that  of  Shakespeare. 

An  English  poet  of  this  Century  has  written  : 

"  Revolving  years  have  flitted  on, 

Corroding  Time  has  done  its  worst, 
Pilgrim  and  worshipper  have  gone 

From  Avon's  shrine  to  shrines  of  dust  j 
But  Shakespeare  lives  unrivalPd  still 

And  unapproached  by  mortal  mind, 
The  giant  of  Pamassus'  hill, 

The  pride,  the  monarch  of  mankind.* 

The  monarch  of  mankind !  they  are  proud  words  those,  but 
.  they  do  not  altogether  over-estimate  the  truth.  He  is  by  no 
means  the  only  king  in  the  intellectual  world,  but  his  power 
is  unlimited  by  time  or  space.  From  the  moment  his  life's 
hi Story  ceases  his  far  greater  history  begins.  We  find  its  first 
records  in  Great  Britain,  and  consequently  in  North  America; 
then  it  spread  among  the  German-speaking  peoples  and  the 
whole  Teutonic  race,  on  through  the  Scandinavian  countries  to 
the  Finns  and  the  Sclavonic  races.  We  find  his  influence  in 
France,  Spain,  and  Italy;  and  now,  in  the  nineteenth  Century, 
it  may  be  traced  over  the  whole  civilised  world. 

His  writings  are  translated  into  every  tongue  and  all   the 
lAnguages  of  the  earth  do  him  honour. 

Not  only  have  his  works  \i\il\iervced  the  minds  of  readers 
MD  cvery  country,  but  they  Yiave  ixioxAded  >i^afc  «^\c\\.>m\  \\n^ä  ^ 

WM 


SHAKESPEARE'S  PRESENCE  IN  HIS  WORKS     689 

thinkerSy  writers  and  poets;  110  mortal  man,  from  the  time  of 
the  Renaissance  to  our  own  day,  has  caused  such  upheavals  and 
revivals  in  the  literatures  of  different  nations.  Intellectual  revolu- 
tions  have  emanated  from  his  outspoken  boldness  and  his  etemal 
youth,  and  have  been  quelled  again  by  his  sanity,  his  moderation, 
and  his  etemal  wisdom. 

It  would  be  far  easier  to  enumerate  the  great  men  who  have 
known  him  and  owed  him  nothing  than  to  reckon  up  the  names 
of  those  who  are  far  more  indebted  to  him  than  they  can  say. 
All  the  real  intellectual  life  of  England  since  his  day  has  been 
stamped  by  his  genius,  all  her  creative  spirits  haVe  imbibed  their 
life's  nourishment  from  his  works.  Modem  German  intellectual 
life  is  based,  through  Lessing,  upon  him.  Goethe  and  Schiller 
are  unimaginable  without  him.  His  influence  is  feit  in  France 
through  Voltaire,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Alfred  de  Vigny.  Ludovic 
Vitet  and  Alfred  de  Musset  were  from  the  very  first  inspired  by 
him.  Not  only  the  drama  in  Russia  and  Poland  feit  his  influence, 
but  the  inmost  spiritual  life  of  the  Sclavonic  story-tellers  and 
brooders  is  fashioned  after  the  pattem  of  his  imperishable  crea- 
dons.  From  the  moment  of  the  regeneration  of  poetry  in  the 
North  he  was  reverenced  by  Ewald,  Oehlenschläger,  Bredahl, 
and  Hauch,  and  he  is  not  without  his  influence  upon  Bjömson 
and  Ibsen. 

This  book  was  not  written  with  the  intention  of  describing 
Shakespeare's  triumphant  progress  through  the  world,  nor  of 
telling  the  tale  of  his  world-wide  dominion.  Its  purpose  was  to 
declare  and  prove  that  Shakespeare  is  not  thirty-six  plays  and  a 
few  poems  jumbled  together  and  read  piU'^mile^  but  a  man  who 
feit  and  thought,  rejoiced  and  sufiered,  brooded,  dreamed,  and 
created. 

Far  too  long  has  it  been  the  custom  to  say,  "  We  know  nothing 
about  Shakespeare;''  or,  ''An  octavo  page  would  contain  all  our 
knowledge  of  him."  Even  Swinbume  has  written  of  the  intangi- 
bility  of  his  personality  in  his  works.  Such  assertions  have  been 
carried  so  far  that  a  wretched  group  of  dtUttanti  has  been  bold 
enough,  in  Europe  and  America,  to  deny  William  Shakespeare 
the  right  to  his  own  life-work,  to  give  to  another  the  honour  due 
to  his  genius,  and  to  bespatter  him  and  his  invulnerable  name 
with  an  insane  abuse  which  has  re-echoed  through  every  land. 

It  is  to  refute  this  idea  of  Shakespeare's  impersonality,  and  to 
indignantly  repel  an  ignorant  and  arrogant  attack  upon  one  of 
the  greatest  benefactors  of  the  human  race,  that  the  present 
attempt  has  been  made. 

It  is  the  author's  opinion  that,  given  the  possession  of  forty- 
five  important  works  by  any  man,  it  is  entirely  our  own  fault  if 
we  know  nothing  whatever  about  him.  The  poet  has  incorpo- 
rated  his  whole  individuality  in  these  writings,  and  there,  if  we 
can  read  aright,  we  shall  find  him. 


690  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  William  Shakespeare  who  was  bom  at  Stratford-on-Avon 
in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  llved  and  wrote  in  London 
in  her  reign  and  that  of  James,  who  ascended  into  heaven  in  bis 
comedies  and  descended  into  hell  in  bis  tragedies,  and  died  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two  in  bis  native  town,  rises  a  wonderflil  personality 
in  grand  and  distinct  outlines,  with  all  the  vivid  coloming  of  life 
from  the  pages  of  bis  books,  before  the  eyes  of  all  who  read  them 
with  an  open,  receptive  mind,  with  sanity  of  judgment  and  simpk 
susceptibUity  to  the  power  of  genius. 


APPENDIX   I 

At  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  Century  a  French  Huguenot 
named  Montjoy,  probably  exiled  from  France,  took  up  bis 
residence  in  London,  wbere  be  settled  as  a  hairdresser  and 
wig-maker.  A  clever  craftsman,  be  successively  became  a  man 
of  means  and  tbe  owner  of  two  houses ;  one  in  Brainford  and 
the  otber  a  large  double  house  in  London,  situated  in  an 
esteemed  quarter  at  the  corner  of  Monkwell  Street  and  Silver 
Street.  There  he  lived  and  kept  bis  shop.  He  and  bis  wife 
were  both  French.     Their  only  child  was  a  daughter,  Mary, 

In  the  year  1598  it  happened  that  an  acquaintance  of  this 
man,  named  Humpbrey  Fludd,  wbo  in  France  had  married  a 
Madame  Bellott,  induced  Montjoy  to  take  as  assistant  bis 
step-son,  Stepben  Bellott,  wbo  had  already  boarded  with 
Montjoy  for  a  year.  Tbe  young  man  was  to  be  instructed 
in  tbe  art  of  hair-dressing  and  wig-making.  According  to  the 
original  stipulation  the  parents  had  to  furnish  bim  with  clotbes, 
while  Montjoy  was  to  provide  bim  with  body-linen  and  board. 

This  condition,  bowever,  was  not  observed,  for  bis  master, 
being  content  with  bis  diligence  and  aptitude,  also  supplied 
him  with  clotbes.  In  the  shop  he  assisted  like  Montjoy's 
daughter  Mary,  wbo  was  a  pupil  in  the  art  of  her  fatber. 

Having  served  six  years'  apprenticeship,  Stephen  Bellott 
made  a  master's  test-piece  and  was  able  to  establisb  himself. 
Tbe  young  daughter  of  tbe  house  looked  kindly  on  him,  but  he 
had  the  restlessness  of  youth  in  bis  blood,  and  before  he  settled 
down  in  London  he  wanted  to  see  the  world ;  especially  he 
intended  to  travel  in  Spain. 

For  this  journey  he  needed  assistance,  and  it  looks  as  if 
Montjoy  had  advanced  him  £6  for  this  purpose — in  our 
money  about  £4^,  At  the  end  of  the  year  1604  he,  after 
a  Short  stay  in  Spain,  retumed  to  the  house  and  tbe  shop  at 
the  corner  of  Silver  Street,  and  took  up  his  former  position.  At 
this  time  Madame  Montjoy  communicated  with  a  lodger  wbo 
had  already,  for  several  years,  lived  with  the  family,  and  whom 
she  seems  to  have  regarded  as  an  especially  eloquent  man, 
and  at  the  same  time  intelligent  and  discreet.  She  ui^ed  him 
to  act  as  an  intermediary  between  the  family  and  tbe  young 
Bellott  He  was  to  point  out  to  BeWott  >äaaX  \ä  o>\^ödx  \.^ 
propose  to  tbe  daughter,  and  that  he  sYiou\d  Vän^  \yo  tCÄSotw  \ft 

691 


692  APPENDIX 

repent  it     If  the  two  young  persons  should  make  a  match, 
the  daughter  would  be  given  a  considerable  dower. 

Now  we  come  to  the  point  where  the  commonplace  tale 
begins  to  arouse  interest  As  manifested  by  some  bundles  of 
lawsuit  documents  on  parchment,  found  1909  in  the  Public 
Record  Office  by  an  American  Student,  Dr.  Charles  William 
Wcdlace^  this  lodger  was  a  certain  William  Shakespeare, 
gentleman,  from  Stratford-on-Avon,  forty  years  old. 

His  mission  succeeded,  and  on  the  I9th  of  November,  1604, 
the  wedding  took  place. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  young  couple  should  continue 
to  live  in  the  paternal  house.  But  before  a  year  had  elapsed 
Bellott  refused  to  stay  there  any  longer.  He  moved  with  his 
wife  to  another  quarter,  where  they  took  a  room  in  an  inn  kept 
by  George  Wilkins,  a  dramatist,  who  not  many  years  afterwards 
wrote  with  Shakespeare  the  dramas  Tinum  of  Athens  and 
Pericles,  but  whose  real  profession  was  that  of  an  inn-keeper. 

Eighteen  months  after,  in  October  1606,  Madame  Montjoy 
died,  and  the  young  couple  retumed  to  the  father's  house  as 
partners  in  the  wig-shop.  But  thb  kindly  relation  only  lasted 
half  a  year ;  the  father  and  his  son-in-law  did  not  get  on  together. 
The  grievances  were  mutual.  The  father  asserted  that  Bellott 
did  not  pay  his  part  of  the  expenses  of  the  day ;  thus,  when 
Montjoy  had  bought  silver-thread  to  the  amount  of  ;^io 
for  his  wigs,  the  son-in-law  made  use  of  this  thread  without 
giving  any  equivalent.  He  also  claimed  to  have  paid  the 
brewer  £i  for  Bellott,  who  had  not  made  good  this  expense. 

It  is'very  difficult  at  a  later  time  to  form  a  clear  view  of  the 
incidents  and  to  judge  rightfuUy  between  the  antagonists. 
Bellott  does  not  only  dispute  the  alleged  advance  of  the  six 
pounds  for  his  voyage  in  Spain ;  on  the  contrary  he  asserts 
that  it  was  the  father-in-law  who  had  received  from  him 
40  Shillings  and  never  repaid  them.  But  these  are  mere  triflies. 
The  fact  that  most  upset  the  son-in-law  and  was  the  main  cause 
of  his  suing  his  father-in-law,  was  that  the  stipulated  dower  never 
was  paid  to  him.  He  claims  that  Shakespeare  on  behalf  of  the 
family  had  promised  a  dower  of  not  less  than  £60,  He  asserts, 
too,  that  he  had  been  promised  a  legacy  of  £200  at  the  death 
of  Montjoy.  Just  as  he  had  been  deprived  of  the  dower,  so  the 
father-in-law  now  hinted  that  Bellott  should  never  inherit  one 
Single  penny.  All  that  the  young  man  had  got  with  his  wife 
was  some  fumiture  and  some  domestic  Utensils,  which  he 
specifies  and  describes  as  old  rubbish,  of  no  value  at  aU. 
Probably  it  had  not  been  quite  so  worthless ;  one  of  the  witnesses 
calculates  it  to  have  been  worth  about  ;^io,  another  witness, 
Bellott's  landlord,  friendly  to  him,  values  the  fumiture  at  £^. 
In  May  1612,  Bellott  summotved  his  father-in-law  at  the 
court  (TAe  Court  0/   Request^  ^\ivSDL  dtaüx  h«\>Dci  ^soaSi  4^^ 


APPENDIX  693 

()»  and  it  is  to  this  lawsuit  that  we  owe  some  new  Informa- 
tion on  the  greatest  poet  of  the  modern  world,  for  he  acted  as  a 
leading  witness  among  other  witnesses. 

Let  it  immediately  be  said  that  Bellott,  if  he  had  fixed  a 
hope  on  this  testimony,  did  not  profit  much.  Concerning  the 
principal  facts  Shakespeare  had  nothing  to  say. 

He  admitted  instantly  and  most  willingly  that  he — ^several  of 
the  witnesses  also  knew  this  fact — at  the  request  of  Madame 
Montjoy,  had  done  his  best  to  bring  about  the  engagement ;  he 
admitted  (a  fact  with  which  he  was  acquainted)  that  Bellott 
during  his  apprenticeship,  showed  himself  fair  and  worthy,  and 
tfiat  he  had  been  a  clever  and  industrious  assistant,  but  as  to 
having  heard  Montjoy  say  that  he  had  got  any  profit  01 
advantage  from  Bellott's  service — which  the  advocate  tried  to 
put  into  his  mouth — he  declared  that  he  did  not  remember 
anything  about  that.  He  stated  he  had  often  heard  Montjoy 
and  his  wife  say  that  Bellott  was  a  very  honest  fellow, 
and  Montjoy  had  always  shown  benevolence  and  affection 
towards  his  assistant,  but  concerning  the  principal  point,  he 
admitted  that  Montjoy,  with  the  witness  as  intermediary, 
had  promised  Bellott  a  certain  dower  {aporcian  of  marriadge)^ 
but  declared  that  he  no  longer  remembered  what  amount 
was  stipulated,  nor  the  date  on  which  it  was  due  to  be 
paid.  Even  scantier  is  his  knowledge  about  the  promise 
of  Montjoy  to  leave  his  daughter  ;^200.  He  only  knew  that 
the  parties  had  many  and  long  Conferences  concerning  the 
forthcoming  wedding,  which  later  on  took  place.  He  knew 
nothing  about  the  furniture  given  by  Montjoy  to  his  daughter 
to  settle  down  with.  This  testimony  (in  the  ancient  red-tape 
style)  is  set  down  by  a  court-clerk,  or  rather  by  two  clerks,  for 
the  document  is  in  two  handwritings — and  signed  Willm,  Skaks. 

The  other  witnesses  in  the  case:  the  former  housemaid 
Joan  Jonson,  now  married  to  a  basket-maker ;  the  neighbour 
Daniel  Nicholas,  son  of  the  former  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
even  the  young  William  Eaton,  now  assistant  to  Bellott, 
all  knew  Shakespeare,  and  they  were  all  acquainted  with 
the  delicate  task  undertaken  by  him.  Shakespeare  himself 
mentioned  the  affair  to  Daniel  Nicholas ;  Eaton  had  heard 
Shakespeare  and  Bellott  discussing  the  dower.  The  witnesses 
were  of  opinion  that  dower  was  promised  to  the  amount  of 
about  ;^I50,  but,  like  Shakespeare,  they  were  not  able  to  State 
precisely  the  sum,  nor  to  name  the  date  at  which  it  was  due. 
The  court  at  last  rejected  the  case,  and  referred  the  settlement 
of  the  controversy  to  the  French  Protestant  Church  in  London. 

Now  if  we  ask  what  is  the  historical  value  of  this  find  of 
some  old  pieces  of  parchment,  which  has  made  the  name 
of  Wallace  widely  known,  the  answer  must  be  that  however 
apparentiy  trivial  the  find,  its  value  is  cot\svdet^\Ae. 


694  APPENDIX 

We  learn  therefrom  definitely  what  hitherto  we  had  only 
supposed :  that  Shakespeare  had  left  his  family  in  Stratford  and 
was  living  alone  in  London.  We  learn  in  what  place  he  lodged 
from  1598,  and,  at  least,  until  1604,  and  most  probably  until  he 
returned  to  his  native  town,  nay,  probably  still  after  his  retum, 
as  he  most  likely  had  secured  himself*  a  pied-ä-terre  for  his 
sojourns  in  London.  So  we  learn  that  he — even  thirteen  years 
after  his  arrival  in  London,  in  spite  of  his  relative  wealth — had 
no  better  lodging  than  one  or  two  rooms  in  the  house  of  an 
immigrant  wig-maker,  that  he  associated  with  the  family  on 
equal  terms,  and  that  these  people,  quite  innocently,  made  use 
of  his  abilities  to  secure  a  clever  assistant  in  the  profession 
as  a  son-in-law  and  pscrtner.  Here  we  see  Shakespeare  in  simple 
and  decent  surroundings.  The  aristocratic  sympathies  for  which 
Tolstoi  so  passionately  blames  him,  had  been  no  hindrance  to 
his  showing  himself  friendly  and  helpful  in  the  house  of  a 
tradesman,  which  had  become  his  home. 

His  landlord  and  landlady  were  not  poor  ;  they  belonged  to 
the  well-to-do  middle-class.  Montjoy  had  an  income  from  rents 
of  the  houses  of  £iy-£2i  per  year,  not  including  the  rent  paid 
by  the  lodger ;  and  at  the  time  of  the  lawsuit  Montjoy  had  still 
a  lodger  {sojourner)  living  in  his  house.  Most  probably  this 
lodger  (in  161 2)  was  still  Shakespeare,  as  it  is  evident  that  the 
acquaintance  was  kept  up,  and  it  was  in  those  days  a  custom  to 
stay  a  long  time  in  the  same  place.  The  dosest  companions 
of  Shakespeare  (after  his  death  the  editors  of  his  dramas),  John 
Heminge  and  Henry  Condell  (the  first  being  his  partner  in  the 
house  in  Blackfriars)  who  lived  at  a  distance  of  only  three  or 
four  minutes  from  him,  stayed,  the  one  32,  the  other  29  years 
in  the  same  house. 

The  year  1598  must  be  accepted  as  the  correct  date  for 
Shakespeare's  taking  up  his  abode  at  Montjoy's ;  despite  his 
own  assertion  in  161 2  th^t  he  had  known  the  family  for  ten 
years  or  thereabout,  he  later  on  declares  he  had  known  them 
all  the  time  in  which  Bellott  was  in  their  Service  {all  the  tyme 
of  the  Said  complainanfs  Service)  or  for  about  thirteen  years. 
People  in  those  times  were  rather  negligent  about  dates  in 
their  evidence.  Even  when  a  witness  was  asked  about  his 
age,  he  added  to  his  answer  "or  about,"  and  we  see  that 
Bellott  Said  he  had  been  married  for  5  years,  at  a  time  when  the 
correct  figure — as  shown  by  the  parish  register — was  7J  years. 

But  if  Shakespeare,  in  1598,  went  to  live  with  the  French 
family  in  Silver  Street,  then  the  first  drama  written  by  him  in 
the  house  was  Henry  F.,  and  it  strikes  one  not  only  that  hc 
must  have  dwelt  on  the  accordance  between  the  traditional 
designation  of  the  French  herald,  Montjoy,  and  the  name  of 
his  iandlord,  but  that  he  at  the  family  table  had  had  ample 
occasion    to  study   those  dVvergexvcWs  \^VN^exv  ^tv^>sh.  and 


APPENDIX  69s 

French — English  as  spoken  by  Frenchmen,  French  as  pronounced 
by  Englishmen — which  provide  the  principal  Tun  of  the  scenes 
betwecn  Katherine  and  Alice,  Katherine  and  Henry,  Here  he 
made  use  of  bis  fresb  knowledge  as  to  the  way  of  those 
French-bom  people  of  expressing  themselves  in  Englisb,  and 
fts  to  Englifihmen's  ill-treatment  of  the  French  language.  Here 
he  leamt  the  tndecent  words  which  he  interweaves  into  the 
dialogues.  9  And  most  probably  here  he  heard  for  the  first  time 
the  Story  of  Hamlet  told  from  Belleforest's  French  translation. 

Was  it  by  mere  chance  that  Shakespeare  happened  to  lodge 
with  a  Frendi  family  ?  It  does  not  seem  so»  for  in  1 598  only  two 
foreign  householders  were  resident  in  Silver  Street»  and  already 
in  1600  Montjoy  was  the  onlv  one.  Probably  Shakespeare,  with 
his  th(rst  for  knowledge  and  education,  appreciated  the  advan- 
tage  of  living  in  a  house  where  from  every  conversation  he 
could  leam  something.  From  this  domicile  further,  there  was 
no  great  distance  to  a  quarter  where  many  foreigners — Italians, 
Frenchmen,  and  Dutchmen — ^were  lodging,  and  a  great  number 
of  skippers  and  seamen — trading  on  the  Mediterranean  shores 
— ^had  their  resorts,  and  Shakespeare  took  a  great  interest  in 
coQversing  with  these  people. 

By  the  Standard  of  those  days,  Silver  Street  was  a  quite 
respectable  street«  In  his  Sutveyi  of  London  (1603),  Jo^^ 
Stowe  says  that  probably  it  got  its  name  from  the  silver- 
smiths  living  there»  and  that  there  were  several  beautiful  houses 
in  it  At  the  same  time  Ben  Jonson,  in  Tlu  StapU  of  Niws, 
characterizes  the  street  as  ^'The  region  of  money,  a  good 
place  for  an  usurer/'  and — probably  alluding  to  Montjoy's 
shop^-says  in  his  play  Thi  Silent  Waman  (about  1609): 
**Her  hair  was  from  Silver  Street" 

For  Shakespeare  the  principal  attraction  of  the  place, 
however,  was  that  here  he  was  near  most  of  his  friends  and 
acquaintances,  near  his  theatre  and  his  favourite  inn. 

We  have  seen  that  only  some  few  jrards  separated  him  from 
Heminge  and  Condell.  Quite  near,  in  another  direction,  Ben 
Jonson,  Nathaniel  Field,  Thomas  Dekker,and  Anthony  Munday 
were  living,  all  dramatists  and  friends  of  his. 

We  also  know  now  what  way  he  daily  took  to  the  river  to 
be  ferried  to  the  Globe  Theatre.  It  was  a  walk  of  only  ten 
minutes;  sometimes  he  stopped  at  Heminge's  er  Condeirs, 
going  from  Silver  Street  down  Wood  Street,  crossing  Cheapside, 
down  Broad  Street,  passing  the  later  so  famous  Mermaid  inn, 
and  thus  down  to  the  Thames,  where  the  ferry-boat  lay  which 
carried  him  to  the  other  side.  After  the  Performance,  he  would 
meet  in  the  Mermaid  with  brother  artists  such  as  Ben  Jonson, 
Chapman,  Dekker,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

So  now  we  are  better  informed  than  befot^  9&  \ic>  >icA.  ^^sc^c^ 
YiSiblta  of  Shakespeare.    We  know  tYie  cotvd\^ocv!&  ol  \&&  >dm\s^^ 


696  APPENDIX 

lodging  and  where  it  was  situated,  this  lodging  in  which  he — 
who  if  he  now  returned  to  our  world  could  choose  among  its 
riebest  palaces — wrote  King  Henry  F.,  As  You  Like  It^  Twelfth 
Night^  or  What  You  Will,  Julius  CtEsar,  Hantlei,  Measure  far 
Measure,  Macbeth,  and  probably  King  Lear,  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Coriolanus,  Cymbeline,  The 
Wintet^s  Tale,  The  Tempest,  (This  house,  historical  indeed, 
was  burnt  down  in  the  great  fire  in  London  in  1666.) 

There  are,  however,  still  two  plays  which  were  probably  also 
written  here :  Tinton  of  Athens  and  Pericles. 

It  has  been  an  enigma  how  Shakespeare  had  come  in 
contact  with  a  dramatist  of  so  low  a  degree  as  George  Wilkins, 
and  how  he  came  to  interweave  in  Wilkins'  inferior  and  insipid 
web,  those  masterful  scenes  which  alone  give  value  to  the 
plays  sketched  by  Wilkins,  Timon  of  Athens  and  Pericles, 
Now  we  have  succeeded  in  finding  the  thread  which  originally 
bound  Shakespeare  to  Wilkins.  He  had  made  the  acquaint- 
ance  of  the  play-writer  and  inn-keeper — ^his  junior  by  fourteen 
years — at  the  time  when  the  young  Bellotts  migrated  to 
Wilkins'  inn,  situated  less  than  five  minutes*  walk  from  the 
Corner  house  on  Silver  Street  and  Mugwell  Street.  Wilkins 
had  shown.him  his  sketches,  and  Shakespeare  had  so  radically 
revised  certain  portions  that  nothing  of  the  original  of  these 
was  left 

We  know  that  Wilkins  liked  to  write  with  others ;  he  had 
been  collaborating  with  Day  and  Rowley.  We  know  that  in 
1607  he  had  a  play  performed  at  the  Globe  Theatre,  the  insipid 
Miseries  of  Inforced  Marriage,  and  this,  in  spite  of  this 
theatre's  only  performing  plays  by  dramatists  connected  with 
it,  and  only  having  made  exceptions  for  Ben  Jonson  and  Thomas 
Dekker,  who  were  personally  introduced  by  Shakespeare. 
Evidently  he  had  thrown  his  infiuence  into  the  scale  for 
Wilkins. 


APPENDIX    II 

The  warlike  attitude  of  England  towards  Spain  had  lasted  for 
füll  sixteen  years,  ever  since  the  great  Armada  was  defeated 
near  the  English  shores  in  1588.  The  State  of  war  had  for 
a  long  time  been  but  formal.  On  both  sides  weariness  reigned 
and  peace  had  been  proposed  many  times.  The  accession  of 
the  new  king  brought  the  desired  opportunity. 

Diplomatie  Communications  had  not  been  altogether  broken 
off  between  the  two  kingdoms.  The  Spanish  Ambassador, 
Juan  de  Tassis,  Countof  VUla- Mediana,  still  resided  in  London  ; 
but  to  conclude  the  final  peace  a  special  mission  was  sent 
from  Spain. 

At  the  beginning  of  August  1604,  ^he  Constable  of  Castille, 
Juan  Fernandez  de  Velasco,  Duke  of  Frias,  landed  in  Dover, 
accompanied  by  a  suite  of  a  hundred  noblemen,  officers,  and 
secretaries,  together  with  nearly  two  hundred  functionaries  and 
servants. 

As  King  James  regarded  peace  after  the  long  continued  war 
as  a  triumph  of  his  pacific  diplomatic  art  he  did  his  utmost  to 
Surround  the  Spanish  special  embassy  with  pomp  and  splendour. 
To  the  Spanish  Ambassador  in  London  it  was  likewise  important 
that  the  king  should  do  all  possible  homage  to  the  Constable  as 
the  representative  of  the  Sovereign  of  Spain,  and  therefore  he 
took  the  liberty  to  request  of  James,  Somerset  House,  to  be 
arranged  as  a  place  of  residence  for  His  Excellency  during  his 
stay  in  London.  The  mansion  was  considered  to  be  the  most 
splendid  palace  in  London  next  to  Whitehall,  and  it  had  been 
presented  as  a  gift  to  the  Queen,  Anne  of  Denmark,  hence  in 
tamiliar  parlance  the  designation  "  Denmark  House." 

The  King  did  not  refuse  the  audacious  request ;  he  answered 
smilingly :  "  The  Ambassador  must  ask  my  consort ;  she  is 
mistress  there."  He  did  so,  and  as  the  Queen  willingly  gave  her 
consent,  the  palace  was  prepared,  and  embellished  with  the  finest 
furniture  and  the  most  luxurious  tapestry.  The  King  decided, 
moreover,  that  during  the  stay  of  the  Spanish  Ambassador  he 
and  all  his  suite  were  to  be  entertained  at  the  expense  of  the 
Crown.  Finally  the  King  ordered  that  the  Spaniards  should  be 
attended  by  a  great  number  of  functionaries  belonging  to  his 
own  household. 

There  are  extant  a  number  of  Statements  as  to  what 
happened    in   those   days:    firstiy»  the  lotÄgci   ^tcfaÄssa.^^vi 

6cW 


698  APPENDIX 

despatches,  amongst  them  the  Hvely  Communications  of  the 
Venetian  Ambassador,  Nicolo  Molin  ;  then  private  letters  ex- 
changed  by  Dudley  Carleton  and  John  Chamberlain ;  Lord 
Henry  Howard*s  intimate  letters  to  the  King ;  and  lastly,  the 
detailed  notes  of  the  Constable's  daily  engagements  in  England, 
made  by  one  of  his  staff,  and  published  the  same  year  by 
Plantin  at  Antwerp  and  also  at  Valladolid. 

From  these  many  sources,  partly  still  existing  only  in  manu- 
Script,  Mr.  Ernest  Law  has  informed  us  that  the  Ambassador 
and  his  attendants  came  up  the  Thames  at  flood-tide  from 
Gravesend  in  twenty-four  covered  barges  sent  by  the  King,  and 
that  the  nobility,  as  well  as  the  commoners,  crowded  on  the 
river-banks  to  greet  the  embassy  ;  that  people  went  in  boats 
to  encounter  the  Spaniards  on  the  river,  which  above  London 
Bridge  was  quite  covered  with  galleys,  barges,  and  boats  of 
all  sorts,  surprising  the  Spaniards  by  their  number.  The 
King  was  not  in  town  that  day,  b^ing  out  shooting ;  bat  in 
one  of  the  barges  the  Queen  herseif  was  present,  disguised 
and  masked,  together  with  Cecil,  the  Prime  Minister,  the  Lord 
High-Admiral  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  When  the  Constable 
learned  that  the  masked  lady  was  the  Queen  he  feit  extremely 
flattered,  and  saluted  her  with  Spanish  courtesy. 

Landing  at  the  stairs  of  Somerset  House,  he  was  received  by 
the  King's  bodyguard  and  by  his  own  attendants,  Who,  to  the 
number  of  more  than  a  hundred,  had  arrived  on  horseback  or 
in  carriages.  Thence  he  entered  the  palace,  and  after  having 
passed  tbrough  two  ante-rooms  he  found  himself  in  the  splendid 
Presence  Chamber,  the  rieh  tapestry  of  which,  of  silk  and  gold, 
and  the  embroidered  canopy  above  the  throne  emblazoned  with 
the  Royal  Arms  roused  his  admiration.  Still  greater  was  his 
satisfaction  at  seeing  a  crowd  of  courtiers  ranged  around  the 
hall  specially  appointed  for  his  service  in  London :  ''  people 
chosen  for  their  good  disposition  and  nobility,  who  were  to 
serve  him  as  pages  or  grooms-in-waiting,  as  their  Majesties 
did  not  require  tiheir  Services  themselves." 

Among  them  was  a  group  of  twelve  gentlemen  in  red  doublets 
and  hose,  with  cloaks  of  the  same»  embroidered  in  gold  with  the 
King's  cypher  crowned — His  Majesty's  actors ;  and  an>ong  these 
was  one  who  was  certainly  pointed  out  to  the  Ambassador, 
because  he  was  an  associate  of  several  of  the  most  prominent 
of  the  younger  noblemen  of  England,  who  were  fascinated  by 
his  wits  and  good  breeding,  a  man  also  valued  as  a  lyrical  poet 
and  appreciated  as  a  populär  dramatist — William  Shakespeare. 

It  had  long  been  supposed  that  the  actors  of  the  king  were 

among  the  men  who  in  August,  1604,  served  as  royal  valets 

with  the  Spanish  envoy.     Halliwell-Phillipps  and  Sidney  Lee 

believed  it,  but  had  vainly  sought  for  the  probatory  document 

It  was  not  until  1910  that  tYie  yowLtv^  ^x^\cÄ«t  ol  \^^^do6^cea« 


APPENDIX  699 

and  talented  historian,  Ernest  Law,  found  the  decisive  document 
which  he  has  given  us  in  facsimile.  (Entry  in  the  Accounts 
of  the  "  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber  "  of  the  payment  made  to  His 
Majesty's  Players  for  Waiting  and  Attending  on  the  Constable 
of  Castile  in  August,  1604.)  ^^^  document  proves  that  the 
actors  oiliciated  for  eighteen  days  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
twenty-eighth  of  August,  and  therefore  received,  all  twelve, 
the  sum  of  ;^2i  12s.  The  document  suggests  that  the  money 
had  been  given  to  Augustine  Phillipps,  John  Hemynges  (as  is 
well  known,  two  of  Shakespeare's  nearest  friends),  and  their  ten 
comrades.  Phillipps  was  that  member  of  the  troop  who  was 
considered  responsible  for  the  Performance  of  Richard  the 
Second  (the  scene  of .  dethronement)  at  the  request  of  the 
conspirators,  during  the  insane  conspiracy  of  Essex  and 
Southampton  against  Elizabeth.  Hemynges  was  one  of  the 
two  friends  who,  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare,  published  the 
first  Folio  in  which  nineteen  of  his  dramas  were  saved  from 
oblivion.  Lord  Southampton,  Shakespeare's  most  active 
protector,  who  had  been  liberated  from  prison  immediately  after 
the  accession  of  James,  enjoyed  the  highest  favour  of  the  king, 
and  in  all  probability  it  was  on  his  recommendation  that  the 
actors  were  commissioned  to  serve  the  Spanish  Duke,  by  the 
Standards  of  that  time  a  very  honourable  task.  This  Service, 
being  purely  ceremonial,  consisted  only  in  Standing  about  at 
his  arrival  and  trying  to  look  pleasant.  While  the  King's 
special  servants  had  to  keep  up  the  fire  in  his  chimneys,  clean 
his  rooms,  fetch  and  warm  his  clothes,  dress  him  and  make  his 
bed,  Shakespeare  and  his  fellows  were  never  employed  in 
such  Services  by  the  Ambassador,  who  brought  with  him  his 
own  servants  to  the  number  of  a  hundred  or  more.  The  greatest 
Submission  shown  by  the  actors  was  the  homage  of  kissing  his 
hand.  But  this  was  done  even  by  the  Prime  Minister,  Cecil. 
It  was  a  courtesy  entailing  no  degtadation. 

The  fee  which  on  this  occasion  was  given  to  the  actors  was 
exactly  two  Shillings  a  day  (sixteen  Shillings  a  day  now),  there- 
fore in  all  thirty-six  Shillings  to  Shakespeare.  A  piece  of 
thirty  Shillings  in  gold  was  the  sum  Augustine  Phillipps  left  his 
fellow  William  Shakespeare  by  will,  consequently  almost  as 
much  as  was  disbursed  for  the  attendance  of  the  Ambassador. 
But  money  was  not  the  only  remuneration  of  the  actors.  They 
were  regaled  in  Somerset  House  all  day,  and  they  had  a  right 
to  lodge  in  the  palace  if  they  cared  to  do  so.  If  they  lived  far 
away  tiiey  preferred  probably  to  stay  the  night  in  the  palace ; 
Shakespeare,  who  certainly  lived  at  the  comer  of  Silver  Street 
and  Mugwell  Street,  most  likely  preferred  to  sleep  in  his 
own  bed,  and  so  crossed  the  quadrangular  court  of  the 
palace,  passed  thrcnigh  the  great  gateway  into  the  Stratid^  «xvl 
then  walked   or  rode    home,    e&ther    «Voofc   cic   Vcw  c^asl^^xc^ 


700  APPENDIX 

with    Hemynges   and    Burbage,   who    resided    in    his   neigh- 
bourhood. 

Strangely  enough,  this  function  as  a  Groom  of  the  Chamber 
for  eighteen  days  is  the  only  public  function  Shakespeare  is 
known  to  have  undertaken,  apart  from  the  Performances  of  his 
dramas  at  the  court  festivals. 

If  we  should  now  raise  the  question  whether  Shakespeare 
feit  himself  promoted  or  degraded  by  appearing  as  a  functionary 
of  the  King  with  a  title  that  to  our  notions  is  not  worthy  of  him, 
and  which  ill  accords  with  the  renown  he  possessed  in  after 
ages,  there  is  scarcely  any  doubt  of  his  having  looked  upon  the 
task  as  joyful  and  honourable,  purely  ceremonial  as  it  was. 

In  our  days  there  have  been  people  who  have  blamed 
Shakespeare  because  he  condescended  to  wear  a  "  livery/*  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  almost  nothing  for  which 
Sliakespeare  has  not  been  blamed.  Setting  aside  the  hundred 
thousand  who  charge  him  with  having  claimed  to  be  the 
author  of  plays  of  which  he  never  wrote  one  line,  clever 
moderns  (Tolstoi,  Bernard  Shaw,  Frank  Harris)  have  seized 
upon  any  pretext  to  run  him  down.  Shakespeare's  flattery  of 
people  of  rank,  his  so-called  snobbishness,  has  been  credited  by 
the  many  who  feel  relieved  when  the  great  prove  to  be  small 
in  some  detail;  the  same  who  resent  the  fact  that  Holberg 
became  a  Baron,  Goethe,  Geheimrat,  Ibsen,  Grand  Gross,  and 
so  on. 

In  Shakespeare's  case  these  austere  judges  transfer  the 
modern  democratic  way  of  thinking  to  an  age  when  it  was 
unknown.  Shakespeare's  day  held  the  view  that  a  man's 
dress  should  be  the  expression  of  his  employment  and  his  public 
task,  a  view  which  was  strongly  pronounced  in  many  an  Eliza- 
bethan  ordinance  against  luxury  of  dress.  Uniform,  official 
costume,  conferred  with  the  exact  Intention  to  Supplement  salary, 
was  not  only  not  disgraceful,  but  natural  and  honourable. 

Most  certainly  Shakespeare  feit  promoted  when  he  wore  the 
royal  monogram  on  his  sleeve  and  on  his  coat  This  gave 
a  social  position  more  dignified  than  (nominally)  belong^ng  to 
a  nobleman  as  a  member  of  his  Company. 

The  clergy  were  enemies  of  the  theatres.  The  middle  class 
grew  every  day  more  Puritanic,  dreamt  of  having  the  theatres 
shut  up,  looked  upon  the  dramatic  poet  with  contempt, 
and  considered  the  player  a  vulgär  juggler.  The  high 
nobility,  and  specially  the  King,  were  the  natural  and  mighty 
protectors  of  the  poet  and  the  player.  Hence  there  is  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that  the  accession  of  James  was  one  of  the 
favourable  events  in  Shakespeare's  life.  A  fine  homage  is 
recog^ized  in  the  plays,  in  Hamlet^  in  The  Tempest^  in  Measure 
/or  Measure,  The  relation  of  Shakespeare  to  James  is  parallel 
to  that  of  Moli^e  to  Louis  XW . 


APPENDIX  701 

During  the  Renaissance,  as  also  later,  the  poets  had  to 
seek  refuge  with  the  kings.  Clement  Marot  had  in  the 
period  before  Shakespeare  again  and  again  been  sent  to 
prison.  Fran^ois  I.  saved  him  by  placing  him  as  a  Groom  of 
the  Chamber  with  his  sister,  Marguerite  de  Valois.  Moli^re 
in  the  age  after  Shakespeare  had  the  clergy  and  the  middle 
class  against  him.  Louis  XIV.  fortified  his  position  by  making 
him  his  Groom  of  the  Chamber.  None  of  them  feit  in  the 
slightest  degree  degraded.  Nor  did  Shakespeare  feel  degraded 
in  officiating  as  a  Groom  of  the  Chamber  on  behalf  of  King 
James  and  Queen  Anne. 


i 


INDEX 


Aaron  the  Moor  in  '  Titui  Andromciu,' 

30.31 
Abbess  in  '  Comedy  of  Errozs,'  36 

Abbot,  Archbishop,  494 

Achilles  in  'Troilus  and  Cresrida,'  iio^ 

192,  438,  50^-510»  514.  515.  518- 

Sao,  526-529,  531 
'Ad  GuUelmum  Shakespeare/  by  John 

Weever(i595),  126 
Adam  in  '  As  You  Like  It,'  107,  226 
Adnana  in  '  Comedy  of  Errors,*  35,  36, 

132,  213,  573 
•ieneid.'28,  60 
iEschylus,  56,  204 
'  iEsth^^tiske  Studier,'  by  George  Brandes, 

377 
'  Agamemnon,'  by  Seneca,  345 

Agamemnon  in  'TroUns  and  Cressida,' 

517.  5» 
Agincourt,  Battle  ot,  in  *  Henry  V.,'  103, 

iio^  195,  205 
Ajax  in  'Troilusand  Cressida,'  510,  516, 

520,  526,  527,  529 
Albius  in  *The  Poetaster,'  332 
Alccste,  Moli^e's,  223,  548 
Aldbiades  in  'Timon  of  Athens,'  557, 

560,  561,  567,  569 
'  Alezander  and  Campaspe,'  by  Lyly,  564 

•  All's  WeU  that  Ends  WeU,'  or  *  Love's 

Labour's  Won'  (1602-1603),  chief 
characters  in — Attack  on  Puritanism 

in,  47-49. 53.  93.  i^S.  380.  393-40I. 

404.  503.  P7,  573    . . 
AloDso  in  the  *Tempest,'  653,  654,  657, 

660,  661 
'  Alphonsos,  King  of  Arragon,'  by  Robert 

Greene,  Ji 
Ambrogiuolom  Boocacdo's  'Decameron,' 

617,  618 
Amintor  in  '  Maid's  Trasedy,*  by  Bean- 

mont  and  Fletcber,  602,  603 
Amleth   in  'Saxo   Grammaticus,'  342, 

343 

•  Amores,'  by  Ovid,  56 

'  Amoretti,'  by  Spcnser,  226,  a66,  287 
'  Amphitruo,'  by  Plautus,  35 
Amyot,  Jaoqnes,  304 
Andersen,  Hans  Christian,  341 
Andromache  m  *Troiliis  and  Cressida,' 

5*4.  S18.  S19 


Angelo  in  '  Measnre  ite  Measnre,*  241» 

403-408,  410,  436 
Angiers  in  *  King  lohn,'  145,  147 
Anne  Boleyn  in  '  Henij  VIII.,'  611,  612 
Anne  in  'Richard  III.,'  131-133»  137, 

139.  573 
Anne,  James  I.'s  queen,  392,  413,  414, 

417,  418,  480,  481.  488.  490,  497. 
648,649 
Antenor  in  '  Troilns  and  Cressida,'  509 
Antigonus  in  *  Winter's  Tale,'  638,  6416 
Antiochns  in  '  Pericles,'  ^81 
Antipholus  of  Syracuse  in  'Comedy  of 

Errors,'  35,  50,  51 
Antonio  in — 
'  Merchant  of  Venice,'  154,  159, 160^ 

162-165,  167 
'Tempest,'66o 
*  Tweifth  Night,'  238 
Antony,  Mark,  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  241, 
305.  306,  317.  318,  320^  321,  322, 
323-324,  336,  356,  541 
'  Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  241,  306,  325, 
420,  478,  502,  506,  507,  556, 565, 
578,  650 
Attractions     for     Shakespeare    in — 

Sources  of,  461-469 
'  Dark  Lady,'  as  model  in — Fall  of  the 
Republic  as  a  world-catastrophe, 
470-476 
Apemantus  in  'Timon  of  Athens,'  530^ 

557.  563-565.  569 
'  Apology,  The^'  by  Socrates,  354 

Apothecary  in  '  Romeo  and  Joliet,'  72, 

79.629 
Appleton     Morgan's     '  Shakespearean 

Myth,'  92 
Arbaoes  in  'King  and  No   King,'  by 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  600 
Arbury,  Mary  Fltton's  portrait  at,  279 
'Arcadia,'  by  Philip  Sidney,  294,  453, 

581 
Archbishop  of  Canterbory  in '  Hoaiy  V.,' 

96,205 
Archidamns  in  '  Winter's  Tale,'  643 
Arden,  Edward,  8 

Mary,  mother  of  William  Shake- 
speare, 6,  8,  153.  532,  578 

Robert,  gnndiuh«r  of  Shakctpcartb 


6,14 


703 


704 


INDEX 


*  Arden  of  Ferersham,*  173,  175 
Arethusa  in   '  Philaster/   by    Beaamont 

and  Fletcher,  597,  598,  601 
Ariel  in  the  *  Tcmpest,*  69,  591,  650-652, 

657f  659,  663,  664,  667.  668 
Ariosto's  'Orlando  Furioso,'  215,   445, 

655 
Aristotle,  17,  95,  413,  647 

Annada,  Spanish,   17,   18,  44,  50,  247, 

251 

Armadoin  'Love's  Laboar's  Lost/ 42-45 

Armits^e,  Charles,  267 

Artemidorus  in  '  Julius  Caesar/  305 

Arthur  in  'King  John/  140-144,  145- 

149.  336 
Arviragus  in  '  Cymbeline,'  617, 619,  621- 
624,  626,  627,  629,  632-634 

*  As  You  Like  It'  (1600),  Shakespeare*s 

roving  spirit  and  longing  for  nature 
— ^Wit  and  chief  characters  in,  5,  29, 
92,  107,  116,  159,  170, 180,221-231, 

234.  236,  306,  361.  389.  393.  503, 
560,  586,  635,  640,  650,  672,  673, 

675 
Asbies  at  Wilmecote,  6,  8,  9,  154 

Aspasia  in  *  Maid's  Tragedy,'  by  Beaa- 
mont and  Fletcher,  602,  603 

*  Athelie/  Radne's,  637 
Aubrey,  4,  6,  196,  274,  594 
Audrey  in  '  As  You  Like  It/  222,  230 
Aufidius  in  *  Coriolanus,'  538,  546,  552 
Augustus  in  Ben  Jonson's  'Poetaster,* 

332,  333 
Aumerlein  'Richard  IL/  121 

AutoWcus  in  '  Winter's  Tale,'  638,  639, 

041 

'Axel  and  Valborg,'  by  Oehlenschläger, 

77 
Ayrer's,  Jacob,  '  Comedia  von  der  shönen 

Sidea,'  654 

Bacon,  Anthony,  patronised  by  Essex, 
253»  258,  260 

Delia,  Miss,  supporting  the  Baco- 

^         nian  Theory  (1856),  88,  89 

Fiands,  114,  152,  243,  244,  252, 

253»  257,  258,  260,  262-264,  276, 
416,  418,  481,  487 

Baconian    Theory    conceming 
Shakespeare's  plays,   88-90^ 

94-96»  313 
Baif,  De,  287 
Balthasar  in — 
'  Merchant  of  Venice,'  115 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  380 
Bandello,  72,  215,  233,  304 
Banquo's  ghost  in  '  Macbeth,'  104,  421, 

434.  426-^428,  430 
Barabas  in  C.  Marlowe's  '  Jew  of  Malta,' 

150^  151,  166 
Bardolph  in — 
•  Henry  IV.,'  7,  177 
'Merry  Wi?€s  of  Windioi:/  209,  an 


Bamabe  Rieh's  tnmslation  of  Cintluol 

'  Hecatomithi '  (1581),  233 
Barnadine  in   'Measure    for    Metsve,' 

407 
Barnes,  Bamabe,  287,  288 
Bamfield,  Richard,  288 
Bamstorff,  267 
'Bartholomew    Fair,'    by    Ben   JooMn 

(1614),  29.  284,  340.  345,  635 
Basianus  in  *  Titus  Andronicus,'  30 
Bassanio  in  '  Merchant  of  Venice^'  160^ 

161,  164,  169.211.395,396 
Bates  in  '  Henry  V.,'  207 
'  Battle  of  Alcazar,'  by  George  Peele,  31, 

203 
Baynard's  Castle,  271 
Bear  Garden,  100,  loi 
Beard's  'Theatre  of  God's  Jndgements' 

(1597).  28 
Beatrice  in  *  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

45.  93»  215,  217-219,  «27,  233,  ^ 

239.  573»  626 
Beaumont's.   Francis,  plays  and  careeCi 

178,  513.   593-595.  597-Ö05,  612, 

652,  678 
Belarius  in  '  Cymbeline,'  619,  621,  623- 

624,  626,  632,  644 
Bellay,  Joachim  du,  287 
Belleforest's  *  Histoires  Tragiqnes,*  343 
'  Ben  Jonson,'  by  Symonds,  338 
Benedick  in  '  Much  Ado  About  Nothmf^' 

45.  92,  170,  177»  217-219,  228,  233, 

503 
Benoit  de  St.   Maure's  '  Histoire  de  k 

Guerre  de  Troie '  (1160),  504,  509 
Benvolio  in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet/  80 
Bermudas,  275 
Bemabo   in   Boccaccio's    '  Decamerau' 

617, 618 
Bemi's  '  Orlando  Innamorato,'  444,  445 
Bertram  in  '  All's  Well  that  Ends  WeU,' 

47,  48»  393.  396-400,  527 
BeyersdorfTs,  Robert,  '  Giordano  BraSD 

und  Shakespeare,*  353,  355,  356 
Bianca  in  '  Othello,'  446 
Bierfreund,  Theodor,  605,  606 
Biron  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  38^  39^ 

44-46,  83,  276,  277 
Bishop  of  Ely  in  *  Henry  V.,*  ^ 
Blackfriars  Theatre,  106,  271,  388 
Blade's  'Shakespeare  and  Typognplqpb' 

92 
Blanch  in  '  King  John,'  147 
Blount,  Edward,  286 
Boaden,  267 
Boccacdo's  plays,  47,  280^  396,  5^  50^ 

509,  605.  617-619 
Boece's,   Hector,   'Scotomm  Histoim* 

426 
BoStie,    Estienne   de   la,    Moiita%De% 

friendship  for,  291 
Bolingbroke  in  'Richard  IL»'  7»  IM, 

"3-125,  537 


INDEX 


70s 


Book  of  Maityn,'  Foxe's,  608 
Book  of  Troy,'  Lydnte's,  510 
Booke  of  Ayres'  (looi)»  232 
Booke  of  Plaies,  and  Notes  thereon/ 
by  Dr.  Simon  Forman,  420,  616, 

lörnc,  384 

losworth  Fleld  in  '  Richard  IIL.'  135 

lothwell,  Earl  o^  347 

lottom  in  '  Midsummer  Night*«  Dream/ 

41,  68,  69 
toyet  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  40,  45 
Irabantio  in   'Othello/  439,  440»  441, 

442,443 
Irandes,  George,  377 

»right,  James  Heywood,  267 

Sriseida    in    Benoit's    'Histoire   de    la 

Guerre  de  Troie'  (1160),  504,  ^09 
Irown,  Henry,  267 
irowning,  Robert,  301 
•rowne's,  Sir  Thomas,  '  Religio  Medici ' 

(16421291 
!rown*s,  C  A.,    '  Shakespeare's  Auto- 

biographical  Poems,'  1 14 
»runnhofer,  350 
Eruno's,  Giordano,    supposed  influence 

ovcr  Shakespeare,  349,  357 
Brut,'  by  Layamon  (1205),  452 
irutus,  Junius,  in  'Coriolanus,'  537 

—  Marcus,  in  *  Julius  Caesar,'  94,  240^ 

302-308,   3^3-324,  356,   443»  461, 

606,  629 
ryan,  George,  357 
luckingham,  Duke  of,  in  '  Richard  HL,' 

134,  135 
tucknill,  Dr.,  on  Shakespeare's  Medical 

Knowledge,  93 

lurbnge,  James,  13,  100 

—  RicKard,  actor,  13,   106,  151,  177, 
196,  298,  347,  547,  585,  608,  686 

>urghley,  Lord,  219,  242,  248,  252,  271, 

350 
utler,  Samuel,  594 

yron,   232,    293,  294,   384,   525,    583, 

677,  678,  687 

lADB,  Jack,  in  *  Henry  VL,'  iio,   iii, 

536,  675 
Ciesar's  Fall '  (1602),  303 
aius  Lucius  in  *  Cymbeline,'  617 
alchas  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  518 
alderon,  180,  590,  603,  633,  659 
alianax  in  *  Maid's  Tragedy,*  by  Beau- 

mont  and  Fletcher,  602.  603 
aliban  in  the  *Tempest,*  170,  340,  530, 

624,  642,  654,  656,  659,  661,  663, 

664-667 
alphumia  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  305 
Cambyses,*  8,  70,  184 
amden,  William,  325 
amillo  in  '  Winter's  Tale,'  642,  645 
ampbell's,  Lord,  '  Shakespeare's  Legal 

Acquirements,'  91 


*Candelajo^'  by  Giordano  Bnmo»  354 
•  Candide,'  b^  Voltaire,  680 
Caphis  in  'Timoo  of  Athens,'  564 
Capulet  in  '  Romeo  and  Joliet/  74,  80^ 

83,  84,  86 
Carleton,  Sir  Dudley,  482,  488,  496»497f 

648,649 
'  Cannosine,'  by  De  Musset,  599 
Carr,  Robert,  Viscount  Rochester  and 

Earl  of  Somerset,  James  L's  fiivourhe 

—  I^y  Essea's  marnage    with  — 

Crime  and  fall  o(  481,  482, 485, 488, 

492-501,  649 
Casca  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  311,  322,  536 
Cassioin  'Othello,'  115,  434*435»  439» 

441,  445,  448,  520,  598 
Cassius  in  'Julius  Caesar,^  170,  240^  30t, 

305-308,  311,  312,  3x5,  316,  317, 

318,  322,323,  461,  606 
Catesby,  Sir  William,  in  '  Richaid  IIL.' 

^    '35.137 
'Catiline,'  by  Benjonson,  302,  312, 325, 

329,  336,  337 
Cato,  312,  313,  319,  329,  461 
Cavalieri,  Tommasode',  291-293,  296 
Cavendish's,  George,  '  Relics  of  Cardinal 

Wolsey,'  608 
Cedl,  Sir  Robert,  42,  246,  247, 249,  252, 

253,  258,  262,  273,  274,  4".  415. 

416,  488,  492 
Celia  in  '  As  You  Like  It,'  92,  180,  221. 

222,  226,  227,  228,  620 
Ceres  in  the  *  Tempest,'  652,  654,  668 
Cerimon  in  '  Pericles,'  579,  591,  661 
Cervantes*  '  Don  Qnixote,'  366,  367,  388, 

523 
Chalmers,  Alezander,  266 

Chamberlain,  John,  261,  482,  496,  497, 

648-650 
Chapman,  29,  177,  275,  327,  340^  497, 

513-515.  5»8,  519,  599,  663 
Charlcote,  7,  10,  ii,  222,  674 
Charmian  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,' 

468 
Chaucer,  501,  503,  504,  509,   510,  601, 

605 
Chettle,  Henry,  19, 20,  21,  179, 250,  344, 

417.5" 
Chief-justice  in  'Henry  IV.,'  176,  180, 

197,  202,  203,  205 
Christian  IV.  of  Denmark,  360 
Christopher    Sly    in    'Taming    of    the 

Shrew,*  104,  Ii6,  183 
'  Chronicle  Hisiury  of  King  Leir,'  452 
Cicero,  41,  263,  310-312,  330,  336,  337, 

388 
Cinna  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  309,  541 
Cinthio,  233,  304,  401,  438-440 
Clärchen,  Goethe's,  289 
Clarence,  George,  Duke  of,  in  '  Richard 

III.,'  132-134 
Clarendon's  estimate  of  William  Herbert, 

Earl  of  Pembiok««  a*]^ 

1H 


7o6 


INDEX 


Claudio  in — 
'  Measure  for  Measnre»'  356,  404-407 
'  Much  Ado  Abont  Nothing/  216,  217 
'CUvigo/  by  Goethe,  129,  470 
Oeopatra,  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra/ 

306,  462,  463,  465-475»  47*$.  502, 

505-507.  537.  566,  573.  615 
'Cleopatra,'  by  Daniel  (1594),  464 
Clifibrd,  Lord,  in  'Henry  VI.,'  22,  23, 

138 
'  Qoaca  Maxima,'  181 
Qoten  in  *Cymbeline/  615,  619,  621- 

625,  627,  629,  630,  634 
Clown  in — 

•  Airs  Well  that  Ends  Well.'  or  •  Love's 

Labour's  Won/  47,  49,  394,  395. 
400 

*  •  Othello,*  448.  457 

•  Twelfth  Night/  92,232-234,  236,  503 
Cobham,  Lord,  259,  273,  417,  487 
Cobweb  in  '  Midsummer  Night't  Dream,' 

64,69 
Coleridge,  398.  428,  435 
•Colin  Ciouis  come  Home  Again,*  by 

Spenser,  18 
Collier^s  •  Shakespeare's  Library/  3^3 
'Comedia  von   der  shönen    Sidea,    by 

Jacob  Ayrcr,  654 
•Comedy    of  Errore'   (i 589-1 591),   35, 

49-51.  80,  132,  234 
Cominius  in  '  Coriolanus,'  545,  554 
'  Commedia  dell'  Arte,'  390 

*  Comus,'  by  Milton,  82 
Condell,  89,  610,  686 

*Confessio   Amantis,'   by  John  Gower, 

579 
'  Confessions  d'un  Enfant  du  Si^cle/  by 

Alfred  de  Musset,  384 
Conrad,  Hermann,  269,  347 
'Conspiracy  and    Tragedy  of   Charles, 

Duke  of  Byron/,  by  Chapman,  599 
Constable,  Henry,  287 
Constance  in '  King  John,'  141, 142, 145- 

147 

*  Contemporary  History/  Wilson  s,  650 

Copernicus,  350 

Cordelia  in   *King  Lear/  33,  214,  447, 

450,  452,  457-460,  463.   548,  565, 

573»  615,  622,  626 
Corin  in  *  As  You  Like  It,*  227,  640 
•Coriolanus/  94,  241,  325,  523,  560-563, 

565.  575.  578.  599 


Cressida  in  *TroUiisand  CiCMtda,* 47i^ 
494.  502-505,  507.  5"0»  5xSi  5i«3- 

526,  573. 615 
Crispinus  in  '  Poetaster/  hf  Ben  JoniCM» 

332.339 
Curius  in  Jonson's  *  Catiline/  337 

'Cymbeline'       (1610),      Shakespeare'» 

country    Idyll    and   coDcepUoo   ef 

morality  in — Dual  contrait  and  cfaiff 

characters  in,  28,  116,  490,  573,  KjZ, 

584,*590,  591,  610,  612,  6Z5-634, 

6^644,  665 

Cynthia  in  Lyly's  '  Endymion,'  66«  67 

'  Cynthia's  Revels/  by  Jonson»  327,  345 

*  DiEMONOLOGiB/  by  James  L,  424 
Dame  Quickly  in — 

•  Henry  IV./  177 

'  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  209,  210^ 

214 
Dämon  and  Pythias  in  the  'Hero  ud 

Leander'  puppet-show  in  Jonton's 

'  Bartholomew  Fair,'  284 
Daniel,  Samuel,  114,  177,  269,  271,  275, 

287,  288,  299,  352,  418,  464,  513 
Danvers,  Sir  Charles,  273 
Dares  Phrygius, '  De  Hello  Trojano,'  508* 

509 
'  Darius,'  Count  Stirling's,  656 

*  Dark   I.ady,'  or  Mary  Fitton  (jm  that 

title) 
Darley,  George,  594,  601 
Darnley,  Lord,  347,  412,  480 
Daudet's  '  Sappho,'  562 

*  Daughter  of  the  Air '  (1664),  633 
Dauphin  in — 

•  Henry  V./  670 

•  King  John/  147 

Davcnant,  Mrs.,  courted  by  Shaketpeatc» 

196,  671 
Sir  William,  probable  son  of  W, 

Shakespeare,  3,  13,  152,  196,  659^ 

671 
Davison's  *  Poetical  Rhapsody,'  275 

*  Day  of  the  Seven  Sleepers/  by  T.  Li 

Heiberg,  6p 

*  De  Amidtia/  by  Cicero,  263 

*  De  Analogia,'  by  Julius  Caesar,  31 1 

*  De  Bello  Trojano,'  by  Dares  PhrygiiHp 

508 
'  De  Bello  Trojano,'  by  Dictys  CretcnB% 


508 
D^te  of  production — Shakespeare'..   '  De  la  Causa/  by  Giordano  Bruno,  353^ 
hatred  of  the  masses,  529-531,  533- !         356 


550 
Dramatic  power  of — Inconsistencies 

in,  551-555 
Corneille,  197,  589,  590 
Coryat,  15,  II4,  I15,  540 
Costard  in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  70 
Conntess  in  '  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well/ 

^     47.  49.  393.  396,  398r  399 
Onmoer  in  *  Henry  VtlL,'  611,  613 


% 


*  Decameron/  by  Boccaccio,  617-619 
Decius  in  'Julius  Cssar,'  305 
'Declnration  of  Popish  Impostuies,'  faj 

Harsnet.  452  9 

'  Defence  of  Poesy,'  by  Sir  Philip  Sidacf 

(1583),  102 

Dekker,  179,  298,  325,  3*^  3*7t  S|ih 

344,  418.  5".  539 
'  Delia,'  by  Daniel,  287,  att 


INDEX 


707 


Delius,  Nikolaus;  286 

DemeCrius     in     'Midsummer     Night's 

Dream,*  71 
'  Der  betkraifte  Brudermord,'  345 
'Der  junge  Tischermeister/  by  Tieck, 

104 

'  Der  Kinder  Sünde  der  Vater  Fluck,'  by 

Paul  Heyse,  401 
Desdemona  in  'Othello,'  104,  170,  SI4, 


'  Drummond,  WiUta«,  326,  33S 
'  Dryden,  330,  593,  595,  659 
Duke  in — 

'  As  You  Like  It,'  2SS-225 

'  Measure  for  Measure,'  356,  403»  404« 

40^410»  535 
'  Othello,'  442 

•Twelfth  Night.'  34,  159»    179,   171. 
234-238 


381, 434-43^1 437-444f  445-447»  449»  Dumain  in  *  Love's  Labour*«  Lort,'  38 


474»  478.  540,  573.  597-599.  615. 

626 
Desportes,  Philippe,  287 
'  Dial  of  Pripces,'  by  Guevara,  43 
*  Diana,'  by  Monteraayor  (1520-1562),  53 
Diana  in  *  Pericles,'  582,  591 
Dick  in  •  Heniy  VI.'  (2nd  Part),  536 


Dttrer*«,  Albert,  *Melaneholia,'  37a 

East  India  Company,  275 

'  Eastward  Ho  ! '  by  Chapman,  327,  340, 

599 
Eden 's  *  Historye  of  Travaile  in  East  and 

,         West  Indics '  ^1577),  655 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography,'  by ;  Edgar  in  *  King  Lear,'  377,  452,  454- 

Robert  Devereuz,  262  j         457, 459,  460 

Dictys  Cretensds' '  De  Hello  Trojano,'  50S  j  Edmund  in  *  King  Lear,'  131,  144,  216, 


*  Die  Käuber,'  by  Schiller,  455 
Digges,  Leonard,  233,  30a 
Diomedes  in — 

Benoit's  '  Histoire  de    la  Guerre  de 

Troie,'  504,  509 
'  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  505,517,  518, 

Dionyza  in  *  Pericles,'  J79,  584,  590 
'Dbcour  sur  la  Tragedie,'  by  Voltaire, 
323 

*  Discoveries,*  by  Ben  Jonson,  339 

*  Discovery    of   the    Large,    Rieh,    and 

Beautiful  Empire  of  Guiana'  (1596), 

655 
Doctor    Caius    in    *  Merry    Wives    of 

Windsor/  210 

*  Dr.  Faustus,'  by  Marlowe,  654 
Dogberry  in '  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

219,  3^^ 
Dolabella  in  *Antony   and   Cleopatra,* 

464,  467 
Doli  Tearsheet  in  *  Henry  IV.,'  177,  214, 

403,  503 
*Doirs  House,'  217 
Don  John  in  *  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

216 

*  Don  Juan,*  by  Byron,  »32 
Mozart's,  524 

Don  Pedro  in  'Much  Ado  About  No- 
thing/ 216,  218 

*  Don  Quixote,'  by  Cervantes,  366,  367, 

388,  523 
Donne,  Dr.  John,  275,  276 

Douglas  in  *  Henry  IV..'  187,  192,  197 

Dowden.  45,  80,  209,  267,  279,  304,  318, 

420,  578 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  177,  248,  267 
Drayton,  18,  90,  177,  269,  287,  303,  418, 

488,685 
Droeshout's  engraving  of  Shakespeare, 

107,  682 
Piomio    of   Syracuae   in    'Comedy    of 

Errort,'  50,  51 


455»  459 

*  Edward  II.,'  by  C  Marlowe»  25,  82, 

120-122,  125 
'  Edward  III.,'  authorship  of,  172,  173 
Edward  IV.  in — 

'Henry  VI.,'  24,  138,430 
*  Richard  III.,'  134,  137 
Edward   V.,   son    of    Edward    IV.,    in 

*  Richard  III.,*  134-137.  138 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  in  'Henry  VI.,' 

31.  131»  »33.  138,430 

*  El  Principe  Consianie,'  180 

*  M  Secreio  a  Voces,'  180 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  her  marriage  with 
the  Elector  Palatine,  *Tempcst' 
writton  for,  486,  535,  594,  612,  647- 
653.  660,  666 

Queen,  7,  14,  x6,  17,  38,  41,  42,  45 

63,  66,  67, 98,  99,  loi.  106-108,  ixoi 
113,  122,  12;,  149,  161,  168,  207- 
209,  219,  240,  242-247,  248-259, 
260-264,  266,  270,  272,  273,  274, 
277,  278,  279,  288,  304,  330,  347, 
391,  410,  412-416,  423,  424,  480, 
484,  486,  490,  512,  594,  605,  611, 
612,  613.  690 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Edward  IV.,  in 
'Richard  III.,'  134,  139 

'  Elves,'  by  J.  L.  Heiberg,  69 

Elze,  Karl,  iis;-ii7,  168,  170,  267,  286, 
419.  578.  635,  650,  652,  677.  682 

Emerson's  *  Representative  Men,'  609 

Emilia  in — 

'Othello,'  434,  43^.  445.   447.  47«. 

639 
'  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  605,  607 

'  End3rmion,'  by  John  Lyly,  45,  66 

Enobarbus  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,' 

466,  467,  469,  470,  474 

E^scalus  in  *  Measure  for  Measore,'  404, 

405,  407 
'  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy/  by  Dryden, 

350^593 


7o8 


INDEX 


Essex,  Earl  of»  63,  65-67,  loi,  109,  125, 
152,  177,  204.  »S.  207,  215,  240, 
343,  244,  246,  247.  249-264,  270, 
273,  274,  2S0,  288,  304,  341,  346, 

347.  352.  4I4,  415.  418 

—  Lady    Frances,    afterwards    Lady  | 

Somerset,  492-501  ; 

—  Lettice,  Countess  of,  63,  66,  254,  '• 

Eudemus  in  *  Sejanus,'  335'*336  *■, 

Euphrasea  or  Bellario  in  *  Philaster,'  by ) 

Beaumonl  and  Fletcher,  597-  600      ' 
*Euphues,'  by  Lyly,  40-44«    «77»  287  ' 

355.  356.  642  1 

Evadne  in  '  Maid's  Tragedy,'  by  Beau- 1 

mont  and  Fletcher,  602,  603,  606 
Evans,  Sir  Hugh,  in  *  Merry  WiTes  of 

Windsor,*  7,  ix,  210 
'  Erery  Man  in  His  Humour '  (1595),  by 

Ben  Jonson,  X07,  326.  339,  659 
'  Every  Man  out  of  Plis  Humour '  (1599)» 

by  Ben  Jonson,  178,  202,  233,  327, 

339 

'  Faithful  Shepherdess,'  by  Fletcher, 

598,  600,  657 
Falstaff  in— 

•  Henrv  IV.,'  43.49.84.  I75-I77.  179" 

«7.  197.  198,  20X-203,  206,  208, 
209,  219,  361,  399,  524,  600,  642 

*  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,*  104,  208- 

2x1 

'Famous  Victories  of  Henry  the  Fifth, 
containing  the  Honorable  Battell  of 
Agin-court,8,  176, 177,  195,219,  304 

Farmer,  Dr.,  267 

•Fasli,'byOvid,  60 

Faulconbridge  in  *  King  John,'  142, 144- 
146,  148,  190 

•Faust,'  289,  366,  381,  382,  384,  629 

Feis',  Jacob,  'Shakespeare  and  Mon- 
taigne,' 340,  355 

Fenton  in  *  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,' 
210,  211 

Ferdinand  in  *Tempest,'  35,  591,  644, 
653.  654,  661,  666,  667,  684 

Fiammctta,  Maria,  280 

*  Filostrato,'  by  Boccaccio,  503,  509 

Fiorentino's,  Sir  Giovanni,  *I1  Pecorone' 
(1558),  158.210 

Fitton's,  Mary,  relations  with  Shake- ' 
speare  and  Earl  of  Pembroke — | 
Addressed  in  the  Sonnets  as  the  j 
*  Dark  Lady,'  26S,  275,  274.  276-  • 
287,  296.  297,  341,  363.  462,  464. 
471,  472,  475,  506.  507 

Fitton,  Anne,  eider  sisler  ol  Mary  KitKin.  I 
279 

Flauben,  335 

Flavina  in  *  Two  Noble  Kinsmcn,*  607 

Klavius  in — 

'  Julius  Osar,'  302 

'TiXDon  of  Athens,'  559-561,  564 


Fleance  in  *  Macbeth,'  4J6 

Fleay,  147.  5«i.  55^.  558,  565.  5*».  i^ 

587,  592,  608,  609,  611 
Fletcher's,  John,  plays  and  career,  5131 

527.  539.  593-613,  657.  678 
Florio,  44.  177,  286,  351,  352,  355.  650 
Florizel  in  *  Winter*s  Tale,'^6i9. 628,  638, 

639.  641,  644 
Fluellen  in  *  Henry  V.,'  205,  aoy,  310 
Fool  in  *King  Lear,' 93,  454-457.  5*6, 

565.  641 

Ford,  Master  and  Mistress,  in  '  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,'  2x0,  211 

Forest  of  Arden  in  '  As  Ygu  Like  It," 
222,  223,  230,  573,  620 

Forman,  Dr.,  420,  493,  494,  616,  635 

Foriinbras,  Prince  of  Norway,  in  '  Ham- 
let.' 371,  ?74,  476,  561 

'  Fortunate  Shipwreck,'  225 

Frampton's  translation  of  Marco   Pok> 

(1579),  656 
Fredenck  in  *As  You  Like  It,'  322,  238 
Frederick  the  Great  and  Voltaire,  311 
Freiligraih,  384 

'  Friar  Bacon,'  by  Greene,  654,  657 
VVIkr  Lawrence  in  *  Romeo  and  Julxet,' 

L_72,  73.  74.  77-79,  86,  177 

Fnesen,  Herr  von,  300^  380 

Füller,  178, 483 

Fulvia,  wife  of  Mark  Antony,  465,  468« 

473 
Fulvia  in  Jonson's  '  Catiline,'  337 

Fumivall,  334,  578,  600,  608-610 

•  Gallig  War,'  Csesar's,  308 

Gallus    in    Ben    Jonson's    *  Poetaater,' 

332.  333 
'  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,'  27 
Gardiner,  416,  417,  490,  500,  607 
Gamett,   Richard,   535,.  594,  651,  653, 

662,666 
Gamier's  '  Henriade,'  226 
Gaveston  in  C  Marlowe's  *  Edward  IL,' 

120,  480 
Gawsworth  Church,  in  Cheshire,  278 
Gerutha  in  Saxo  Grammaticus,  342 
Gcrvinus,  79,   81,  267,  307,   520,  531, 

559-  592,  623 
*Gesta  Romanorum,'  159,  579 
Ghost  in  *  Hamlet,'  107,  344,  345,  -,59^ 

366.  370.  374f  375.  377.  378,  3S1, 
422-424 
'  ( jilette  of  Narbonne,*  Boccaccio*s  siory 

of,  47.  396 
Giordano  Bruno.     See  Bruno 
Glendower  in    *  Henry   IV.,'  174,    191, 

197 
Olol>e  Theaire,  100,  10 1,  106,  225,  259, 

302,  420,  593,  601,  008.  635.  669 
Gloucester,  Duke  of,  in — 
'  Henry  VL,'  25,  674 
•  Kinq;  Lear,'  104,  452,  453,  455,  456^ 
460 


INDEX 


709 


Gloucetter,  Richard,  Earl  of,  in  '  Henry 
VI./  aftcrwards  Richard   III.,  24, 

Gobbo  in  *  Merchant  of  Venice,'  115 
Goethe,  78,  95,  129,  175,  289,  317,  327, 
361,  366.  367.  379-382,  384.  434, 
470.  475.  521,  531.  629.  634,  689 
Gogol's  *  Revisor,'  329,  384 
Golding's,  Arthur,  translation  of  Ovid's 

'Metamorphoses,'  270 
Gondomar,  Count  of,  488,  489,  497 
Goneril  in  'King  Lev,'  241,  452,  455, 

457-459^  573 
Gontscharoff,  384 

Gonzago  in  '  Hamlet,'  392 

Gonzalo  in  the  'Tempest,'  351,  642, 
655,  659,  660,  665 

Gosse,  254,  262,  416,  419,  482,  5cx> 

'Gossip  firom  a  Muniment-Room,  being 
Passages  in  th6  lives  of  Anne  anu 
Mary  Fitton,'  published  by  Lady 
Newdigate-Newdegate,  279 

Gosson,  Stephen,  159,  303,  530 

Gower,  John,  501,  579,  580,  582 

'  Gracioso,'  180 

Gravedigger  in  '  Hamlet/  368 

Green,  Robert,  plays  of,  31,  32,  41,  65, 

114,  117.    184,  594,  635-639,  654, 
657  ;  Shakespeare  attacked  by,  18- 
20,  21,  179 
Thomas,  Shakespeare's  cousin,  679, 

683 
Gremio  in  *Taming  of  the  Shrew,*  114 

Gretchen  in  Goethe's  *  Faust,'  381,  382, 

384.  629 
Grevillc,  Fulk,  350,  487,  493,  500 
Griseida    or    Cryseida    in    Boccaccio's 

*  Filostrato,'  504,  509 
*Groat's  Worth  of  Wit  bought  with  a 

Million  of  Repentance,'  oy  Greene 

(1592).  18,  179 
Guarini's  *  Pastor  Fido,'  339,  601 
Guiderius  in  '  Cymbeline/  617,  619, 621- 

624,  626,  627.  629,  632-634 
Guido  delle  Columnc,  503,  509 
Guildenstern  in  *  Hamlet,'  342,  358,  365, 

369.  370,  375-377 
*  Gull's  Hornebooke '  (1609),  by  Dekker, 

539 
Gunpowder  Plot,  415,  452,  483 

Hall,  Elixabeth,  Shakespeare's  grand- 

daughter,  686 
John,    Dr.,    husband    of   Susanna 

Shakespeare,  671,  672,    677,   678, 

6«4,  685,  687 
Hall,  WUUam,  286 
Hallan,  Brown,  267 
Halliwell-Phillips,  13,  73,  172,  196,  510, 

529,  535*  6*2,  683,  68s 
•Hamlet,'^7,  61,  66,  70,  84,  89-91.  104, 

107,  109,  116,  123,  128,  155,  159, 

177,  182,  333,  225,  226,  240,  241, 


303,  304,  306,  315,  316^  319.  324, 
326,  340-395.  406,  407,  4«,  420- 
425,  436,  440,  451,  456,  476,  478, 

535.  53«,  539,  559.  561.  597.  607, 
620,  642,  660,  663 
Antecedcnts  in  fiction,  history,    and 
drama — Paralleli  to  circumstances 
in,  341,  348 
Criticism  on  dramatic  art  in — Shake- 
speare's   attack    on    Kemp    tM 
eulogy  of  Tarlton — Danish  March 
pUyed  in,  387-392 
^  Dramatic  features  of,  374,  379 
Influence  of  *  Hamlet '  on  foreign  litera- 

ture,  384,  386 
Local  colour  in,  357,  360 
Montaigne's   and   Giordano    Bnmo's 
influence     over     Shakespeare  — 
Parallels  in  Lyly's  l^uphues'  to 
•  Hamlet,'  7-15 
Ophelia's  relations  vrith  Hamlet  com- 

pared  with  *  Faust,'  380,  383 
Personal  dement  in,  361,  365 
Psychology  of,  366-373 
Hansen,  Adolf,  287 
Harington,  Sir  John,  258,  360,  413 

Lord,  445,  486,  647,  655 

Harrison,  Rev.  W.  A.,  278 

Harsnet's  *Declaration  of   Popish   Im- 

postures,'  452 
Hart,  loan,  Shakespeare's  sister,  686 

William,  Shakespeare's  nephew,  267 

Hart's  attack  on  Shakespeare  in  1848, 87 

Harvey,  94,  1 14,  288 

Hastings,  Lord,  in  'Richard  III.,'  134, 

138 
Hathaway,    Anne,   her    marriage    with 

Shakespeare — Children   of,   10,   12, 

34,  35,  38,  341,  667,  670-672,  674. 

677-079,  684-686 

William,  267 

Hecatein  '  Macbeth,' 423 

*  Hecatomithi,'  by  Giraldi  Cinthio  (1565), 

233,  401.  438 
Hector,  438,  508,  510 
Hector  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida,*  514, 

51^520,  523,  529.  531 
Heiberg,  J.  L.,  69,  127,  534 
Heine,  Heinrich,  61,  214,  224,  384,  502, 

573.  639 
Helen  in  *TroUus  and  CreiBida,'  502, 

514-518.  520 
Helena  in — 

*  All's  WeU  that  Ends  Well,'  48.  380, 

393.  396-399,  573 

*  Midsummer  Kight's  Dream,  68,  71* 

80,607 
Hel%rys,  Sir  Genrase,  495,  496,  499 
Heminge,  89,  610,  686 

*  Henriade,'  by  Garnier,  226 

'  Henry  IV.'  (1597),  chief  characters  and 
scenesin — Freshnessand  perfectioD 


7IO 


INDEX 


•  Henry  IV. ' :—  :  *  Histriomastix/  by  PryTine,  98,  345,  547 

First  Part,  43,  170,  1 74-177»  179-202,    Hogarth,  407,  525 

319,  353,  600  Holberg,  37,  44,  61,  152,  1S3,  MS,  ajai 

Second  Part,  95,  175,  182,  184,   188, 1         423,  458,  512 

198.202-205.209,388,674  j  Holinshed's  Chronicle,    iii,    121,   127, 

•Henry    V.,'   or    Princc    of    Wales    in  128,  130,  131,  133,  200,  304,  419, 

'Henry  IV.'  (i599),  as  a   national '         426.  429,  452,  433,  608,  613,  617 
drama — Patriotism  and  Chauvinism  [  Holotemes  in   '  Love's  LabonPs   Loit,' 
of — Vision  of  a  greater  England  in —  1         44,  45 

'  Flenry  V.'  as  typical  English  hero,  \  Homer's  *  Iliad '  compared  with  '  Troilnt 
7t  96,  109,  119,  175-177,  i8i-i87,j  and  Cressida/  iio,  508,  509,  51a- 
189.    191-201,   204-211,   219,    304,!  521 

5031  506,  547,  609.  670  •  I  Horace.   269,  270,  2S7,   298,  327,  330, 

•  Henry  VI.' :—  3  ^2-334 

First  Part,  32,  308,  629  •  Horatio  in  *  Hamlet,'  306,  342,  345,  357, 

Second  Part,  93,  iio,  126,  130.  536, ;  35g,  360,  376,  378,  391 

675  Hotspur  or  Henry  Pcrcy  in  *  Henry  IV.' 

Third  Part,  19,  31,  126,  130,  430,  675  i         — Mastery  of  the  character-drawing 

Trilogy — ^reene     attacking     Shake- 1         — Achilles  compared  with,  145,  170, 

speare  on — ShaUesp'^arc's  author- '  174,    185-194,  197,  198,  199,  319, 

ship  of.  2.  21-26.   103.  119.  132,  ,  353.  624 

164.  635.  6  ;6,  674  !  *  House  of  Farne,*  by  Chaucer,  601   " 

•Henry  VIII.,'  Shakespearc's  mrt  in,  2, "  Hubert  de  Burgh  in  '  King  Joho,'  140» 

"9.523,575,  593»  ^»o'^-öii.M.  669;  141,  143,  144.  148,  336 

Henry,  Princc,  son  of  Janics  I.,  493,  499,    Hudson,  H.  N.,  307 

647,  648,  649,  651,  653  Hughes.  William,  267 

Henslow,  29,  104,  303,  326,  327,  344.  !  Ilunsdon,  Lord.  73,  221,  248 

357,  388,  510  ■ '  Hystoria  novellamente  ritrovata  di  dui 

*Hepiameron   of   Civil    Discnurscs,'   by  nobili  Amanti,'  by  Luigi  da  Porta, 

George  Whetstone  (15S2),  401  72 

Herbert    William.     See    Earl  of    Pem- 

broke  !  Iachimo  in  *  Cymbcline,' 618,  622,  625- 

Hericault,  C.  d',  523  |         629 

Hermann,  Connd,  269,  347  lago   in  'Othello,'  115,  131,  216,  241, 

Hermiaiii  *  MidsuiimiL-r  Ni^hl's  Diram,  ■  420,    433-436,    438-441»   443-446^ 

68,  71,  607  44S,  455,  520 

Hermione  in  *  Winter's  Tule,'  5(10,  612,  ]  Mcn  in  *  Henry  VI.,'  23 

613,  636-640.  644,  645,  661  Ides  of  March  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  305,  313 

Hermogenesin*Poctasicr,' byJons«)n.332j  •  II  Pccorone.*  by  Scr  Giovanni  FioitB- 
•Hero   and    I^ander,'   by   C.    M.irlo\ve  tino  (1558).  15S,  159,  210 

(1598).  29,  221,  230.  513  '■  '  Iliad,'  275,  508.  513,  514,  5'7-5l9 

•  Hero  and  Leander,' or  'Touchstone  of  I mögen  in  *Cymljeline,'  228,  3^,  490^ 

Truc   Love,'  by   Ben  Jonsioii,   284,  572,  590,  612,  615,   616,  617-619^ 

J40  020-626,  661 

Hero  in  *  Much  Ado  About  Nolhing,*  93.   *  Ingaimi,'  233 

216,  217.  227  Ingleby,  334,  600,  684 

Hertzberg,  W.,  300  Inigo  Jones,  102,  114,  275,  652 

Heyse's,  Paul,  'Der  Kinder  Sünde  der'  'Iphigenia  in  Aulis,'  by  Kadne,  531 

Vater  Fluch,'  401  •  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,'  by  Goethe,  531 

Hieronimo  in  Kyd's  '  Spanish  Tragedy,'  ■  Iras  in  '  Antony  and  Cleopatra/  537 

345i  346  I  Iris  in  the  *  Tempest,'  652,  654 

Hippolyta     in     '  Midsummer      Night's  |  Isaac,  Hermann,  269 

Dream,'  64,  70,  80  [  Isabclla  in  '  Measare  for  Meainrt»'  404- 

•  Histoire  de  la  Guerre  de  Troie '  (1x60),  |         406,  587 

by  Benoit  de  St.  Maure,  504,  509      i  Italy  viiited  by  Shakespeare.  3,  I13-118 

•  Hiitoirei    Tragiques,'    by    ßelleforest,  I 

233»  343  I  Jac.gard,  bookseller,  256 

•  Historia    Trojana,'    by    Guido    delle  { James  I.  of  England  and  VI.  of  Sootland, 

Columne,  503  207,  246,  248,  249,  861,  274,  «75, 

•  History  of  the  Rebellion,' by  Clarendon,  279,  347,  392,  409-419,  411,  424» 

- «.  *^®      .^       ..    .    ^  ^'  ^29»  ^3«.  452,  480,  50D1  53#- 

•  Hutoiye  of  Travaile  m  East  and  West  536,  S94»  605,  613,  647-65S»  655, 

loditM '  (1577),  by  Eden,  65s  \        f^ 


INDEX 


711 


'Kins  John/  Shakespeare'«  aorrow  at 
death  of  Hamnet — Old  play  basb 
for — Patriotism  and  chief  characten 
^    in,  119.  140-149.  304.  336,  536 
l'King  Lear,'  33,  89,  93,  131,  144,  169, 
\       241,  377.  420,  423,  425,  430,  454- 
\      461,  463.  470,  476,  478.  5«6,  559. 
1^65,  570,  622,  64X,  661 
^ngratitude  denounced  by  Shakespeare 
in — Sources  of,  449-453 
Titanic  tragedy  of  human  life— Coo- 
stniction  of,  454-460 

*  King  Leir,'  304 
King  of  France  in — 

'All's    Well    tbat    Ends    WeU/    01 
'Love's  Labour's  Won,'  395,  396» 

397.  398,  399.  400,  527 

•  King  John,'  142,  145 

*  King  Lear,'  565 

*  Kitchen-Stuff  Woman,'  by  W.  Kemp, 

286 
Kleist,  48,  407 
Klinger,  Max,  289 
Knight,  115,  117,  419.  558 

*  Knight's  Conjuring '  (1607),  by  Dekker, 

179 
j  Knollys,  Sir  William,  admirer  of  Mary 
Fitton,  279 


Tameson,  Mrs.,  573,  639,  640 
Jamy  in  *  Henry  V.,'  206,  207 
Jaques  in  'As  You  Like  It,'  159,  170, 

222-226,  230.- 361,  393,  560,  673 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  308 
'Jeppe  paa  Bjerget,'  by  Ludwig  Holberg, 

37.  183 
Jessica  in  'Merchant  of  Venice,    157, 

163,  165,  i66,  168-170 
•  Jcw  of  Malta,'  by  C.  Marlowe,  31,  150, 

165,  166 
Joan  of  Are  or  La  Pucelle  in '  Henry  VI.,' 

164,  308 
John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  in 

'Richard  H.,'  122,  123 
Jonson,  Ben,  his  career,  plays,  and  leam- 

ing — Shakespeare    compared    with, 

15.  20.  29,  89.  90,  107,   157,  177, 

178,  202,  226,  233,  275,  284,  298, 

302,  312,  325-340.   345.  346,  414, 

418,  512.  5<3.  533..  538,  539.  577, 

593-595.  599,  001,  610,  635,  659, 

669,  685,  687 
Julia  in  *Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,*  53, 

54,  168,  573  ;  in  the  '  Poetaster,*  332 
Juliet  in — 

'  Measure  for  Measure,'  404,  405 

*  Romeo  and  Juliet,*  72-76,  78,  79,  81- 

85,  104,   161,  472,  505,  523,  573, 
666 
'Julius  Caesar'  (1601),  Plutarcli's  Lives 

forming  material  for — Defective  re- 

presentation  of  Caesar's  character — 

Characters  of  Brutus  and   Portia — 

Antony's  Oration,  32,   60,  65,   94, 

240,   302-325,   334,  336-338,  356, 

461,  466,  536,  541,  556,  606,  629 
Juno  in  the  '  Tempest,'  652,  654 
Jupiter  in  'Cymbcline,*  591,  615,  634 

'  Kabalb  und  Liebe/  by  Schiller,  449 
Kaiisch,  335 

'  Käthchen  von  Heilbronn,'  by  Kleist,  48  ' '  La  Puente  de  Mantible,'  180 
Katherine  in —  | '  La  sfortunata  morte  di  due  infelidasimi 

'  Henry  V.,'  206  '         amanti,*  by  Bandello,  72 

*  Henry  VIH.,*  61 1-6 13,  640  j '  La  Teseide,'  by  Boccaccio,  605 

'  Taming  of  the  Shrew/  37,  114,  132,  i '  La  T^sca,'  by  Victorien  Sardou,  401 
213,  217,  573  .  *  La  Vida  es  Suefio,'  180 


Koh^let,  247,  297,  478 

König,  349 

Krasinski's    '  Undivine    Comedy '    and 

*  Temptation,*  385,  386 
Kreyssig,  318,  377,  559 
Kronborg,  84,  358 
Kyd,  22,  70,  326.  345,  346 

'  La  Cbna  DB  LE  Cbneri,'  by  Giordano 

Bruno,  350,  353 
'  La  Dama  Duende,'  180 
'  La  Gran  Cenobia,'  180 
'  La  Hija  del  Ayre,*  180 
'  La  Pnncesse  d'EIde,'  by  Moli^e,  179 


Kemp,   William,  actor,    106,    151,   177, 
280,  298,  357,  388-390,  391 


'  Lady  of  the  May,'  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
42,45 


Kent,  Earl  of,  in  '  King  Lear,'  454,  457-   Laertes  in  'Hamlet,*  346» 369,  374,  379, 


460,  565 
'  Kind-hart's  Dreame,*  19 
King  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  276,  277 
*  King  and  no  King,'  by  Beaumont  and 

Fletcher,  593,  599 
King  Claudius  in   'Hamlet,'  316,  318, 

324,  342,  345-34«,  352,  355.  358. 

359,  361,  362,  363.  364.  368,  370. 

371,  374.  379.  381.  38s.  392.  393. 

421,436 
King  Duncan  in  'Macbeth,'  432,  424- 

427,  430,  463 


381.  384,  394 
Lafeu  in  <  Airs  Well  that  Enda  W«U,' 

or  'Love's  Labour's  Won,'  47,  93, 

395.  396,  399.  503 
Lambert,  Edmund,  9 

John,  9,  154 

Languet's  tendemess  Ibr  Philip  Sidney« 

291 
Launce  in  'Two  Gentlem«ii  of  Verona,' 

51»  52 
Launcelot  in  '  Merchaot  of  Vcoioe,'  165^ 

167,  388 


712 


INDEX 


LaTinU  in  'Titos  Andronic«,'  30,  31, '  Ludovico  in  *  Othello/ 44S 

33  I  Ludwig,  Otto,  354 

Layamon's  '  Brut '  (1205),  452  I  Lupercal  Feast  in  'Julius  Oesar/  joc 

Le  Beau  in  '  As  You  Like  It/  92  53^ 


Leander     in     Marlowe*s     'Hero     and 

Leander/  221,  230 
Lee,    Sidney,    '  Life    of    Shakespeare,' 

285-288 


Lychorida  in  '  Periclo,'  583,  584 

Lydgate,  503,  510 

Lyly,  John,  40-45,  51,  66-^  114,  177, 


184,  218,.  287,  355-357.  564 
Leicester,  Earl  oi,  7,  16,  18,  63,  66,  89, !  Lysanderin'MidsumraerNight'sDr 

99,   121,  243,  247,  254,  346,  347, 1         71 

350,  364  I  Lysimachus  in  '  Perides/  588,  589 

Lennox  in  '  Macbeth,'  424 


Leonato  in  '  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

216,  217 
Leonine  in  '  Pericles,'  579,  5S8,  590 
Leontes  in  •Winter's  Tale,'  573,   590, 

637-642,  644,  645 
Lepidus    in    'Antony   and   Cleopatra,' 

470 
'Life  is  a  Dream,'  by  Calderon  (1635), 

633 
Limoges  in  '  King  John/  144,  146 

Lion  in  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 

70.71 
Livia  in  *  Sejanus,'  335 

Livy,  324 

'  Locrine,'  617 

Lodge,  Thomas,  221,  222,  287,  344,  635 

'London  Prodigal*  (1605),  576 

Longaville   in    Love's    Labour's    Lost,' 

'Lord  CromweU    (1613),  576 

Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  '  Richard  IIL,' 

135 
Lorenzo  in  '  Merchant  (if  Venice,    165, 

168-171.  177,  503 
'  Los  Empefios  de  un  Acaso,'  180 
Lougher,  John,    Mary   Fitton's   second 

husband,  279 
'Love^s  Lal)our's  Lost'  (1589).  matter, 

style,  and  motives  of,  28,  38-40,  42- 

47.  49'  50»  80,  83,  215,  276,  277, 

278,  439,  573.  642 
«Love's  Labour's  Won.'  or  *AlVs  Well 

that  Ends  Well '  (ste  that  title) 
Lucan,  Marlowe's  translation  of,  286 
Lucentio  in  *Taming  of  the  Shrew,'  169 
Lucetta  in  *  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,' 

53.  168 
Luciana  in  '  Comedy  of  Errors,'  35,  36, 

51 
Lucio  in  'Measure  for  Measure,'  403, 

404.  409 
Lucius  in — 

'Julius  Caesar,'  320 

'  Timon  of  Athens,'  561 

'Titus  Andronicus,'  31 

'Lucrece,'  relation  to  painting  in,  55,  56, 

^8-63,  182,  267,  270,  271,  503.  547, 

Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  Shakespeare*»  rela- 
tions  with,  7,  9-1 1,  152,  208,  222, 
670,674 


'Macbeth  *  (1604-1605),  similarity  be- 
tween  'Hamlet'  and  'Macbeth' — 
Belief  in  Witches — Defective  teat— 
Macbeth's  children — Moral  lesson, 

24,  104,   241,   293.  316,  419-434. 
448,  462,  470,  474.  478,  $20 

Lady,  in  *  Macbeth,'  241,  420,  424- 

428,  430.  431.  462,  474,  496,  573 
Macduflf  in  '  Macbeth,'  425,  429,  430 

Lady,  in  '  Macbeth,'^427,  429 

Macmorris  in  '  Henry  V.,'  206,  207 
Magna  Charta  ignored  by  Shakespeare^ 

149 
'Maid's   Tragedy,'  by   Beaumont    and 

Fletcher,  593,  60^-604,  606 
Malcolm  in  '  Macbeth,'  425,  429 
'  Malcontent,'  by  Marston,  327 
Malone,  Edmund,  266 
Malvolio  in  'Twelfth  Night,'  92,  231- 

233,  235,  236,  407 
Mamillius  in  *  Winter's  Tale,'  636-638, 

640,  642 
'  Manfred,'  by  Byron,  384 
Manningham,  John,  196.  232,  298,  299 
Marco  Polo,  Frampton's  translation  of 

(1579).  656 
Mardian   in    'Antony  and    Qeopatra,' 

468 
Margaret  in  *  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

92 
Henry  VI.'s  widow   in   '  Richard 

in.,'  138,  139 
of  Anjou  in  *  Henry  VL,'  22,  24, 

25.  31,  120,  132.  138,  213,  430,  573 
Maria  in — 

'  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  45 

»Twelfth  Night,'  92,  232,  234,  236, 

237 
Mariana  in  '  Measure  for  Measure,'  403, 

407 

Marianus,  Byzantine  scholar,  300 

Marina  in  *  Pericles,'  572,  573,  579,  581, 
582,  583-592,  615,  645 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  English  tragedy 
created  by — Shakespeare  influenced 
by  Marlowe,  22-29,  3i.  3^,  4«»  51. 
55,  82,  85,  1 19-123,  125,  126,  150, 
164-166,  172,  202,  221,  230^  286, 
387.  480.  513,  539,  595,  599,  654 

Marston,  John,  177,  178,  298^  325,  327 
333.  339>  340.  599 


Marallus  in  'Julius  Caesar/  302 
'  Masque  of  6lackness/  by  Ben  Jonson, 
4x8 


INDEX  713 

*  Miseries    of    Enforced    Marriage/   by 


George  Wilkins,  580 
I  Mistress    Overdone    in    '  Measore    fbr 
'  Masque  of  the  Inner  Temple  and  Gray's  :         Measure,'  403,  404 

Inn,'  by  Beaumont,  612  i  *  Mitre  *  Tavem,  177,  178 

Massey,  267  |  Moliire,  64,   179,   180,  209,  223,  227, 

Massinger,  275,  608,  610  |  232,  240,  329,  409,  458,  535,  548. 

Mauvissiire,  Frencb  ambassador,  350       |         572,  616,  687 
'Maydes  Metamorphosis/  by  Lyly,  68,  |  Mommsen,  309,  310 

Montague  in  *  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  80 
Montaigne,  44,  291,  340,  351-357.*  650, 

659,  665 
Montemayor's  '  Diana/  53 
Montgomery,  Lord,  267 
Moonshine     in    '  Midsummer     Night's 

Dream,'  70 
More's  *  Utopia,'  501 
'  Mort  de  C&ar,*  by  Voltaire,  312,  323 
Mortimer  in  'Henry  IV.,'  170,  174,  199 
Moth  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  42 
'  Mucb  Ado  About  Nothing,'  45,  92,  93, 

215-221,  233,  389,  399.  503 
Muley  Hamlet  or  Muley  Mahomet  in  G. 
Peele's  *  Battle  of  Alcazar,'  31,  203 
Munday,  114,  158,  303 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  282,  384,  506,  565, 

599,689 
Mustard-seed   in    '  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,'  64,  69 


09 

'  Measure  for  Measure,'  chief  char;icters 

and  scenes  in— Pessimlsm  and  mon- 

archical  tone  of,  29,  91,  181,  240, 

241,  356,  393.  395.  401-410,  420, 

436.  438,  456,  478.  535.  5^.  587, 
667 

Meissner,  Johan,  561,  654,  656 

*  Melancholia,*  by  Albert  Dürer.  372 
Melantius  in  'Maid's  Tragcdy/  by  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher,  602,  603 

Menelaus  in  *  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  502, 

503.  515-518 
Menenius  in  *  Coriolanus,  94,  538,  542- 

546,  548,  552 

*  Mencechmi  *  of  Plautus,  35,  80,  232 
Mephistopheles  in  *  Faust,'  3S2,  629 

*  Merchant    of    Venice '    ( 1 596  -  1 598) , 

Shakespeare's  craving  for  wealth  and 
Position — Sources  of — Chief  charac- 

ters  in — Shakespeare's  love  of  music   *  Mydas,'  by  John  Lyly,  41 
shown  in,  53,   113-X16,    150,   151, 
154,  15^x71.  174.  X76,  210,   503, !  Nash,  Thomas,  91,  114,  177,  344,  435, 
573  j         686 

Mercutio  in  *  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  64,  73,    *  Natural  History,'  by  Pliny,  43 


76,  83,  85,  177,  218 


'Natural   History  of  the   Insects  men- 


Meres  (1598),  29,  47,  56,  158,  22X,  265, ,         tioned  by  Shakespeare,' by  R.  Pater- 
269,  270.  431 

*  Mermaid  •  Tavem,  177,  X78,  331,  595 

•  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor*  (X599),  pro- 


son  (r84i),  92 
Navarre,  King  of,  in  *  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,'  38.  45 
saic  and   bourgeois  tone  of—Fairy  j  Ncile,  Bishop,  4S6,  495 
scenes  in,  7,  ix,  loi,  104,  208-212,    Nerissa  in  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  53, 163 
2x4  Nestor  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  502, 

'  Metamorphoses/  Ovid's,  31,  4 x,  56,  68, !         519,  520 

270,  510,  658  I  *  New  Inn,'  by  Ben  Jonson,  577 

Michael  Angelo,  56,  96,  29X-293,  296,    '  New  Shakspcre  Society's  Transactions,' 
450.  467,  576,  6S8  22,  42,  68,  127,  358,  359,  369,  377, 

Mickiewicz,  385  39X,  558,  592,  608 

Middleton,  303,  427  Newdigate-Newdegate,  Lady,  279 

'  Midsummer  Night's  Dream/  5,  41,  53, . '  News  of  Purgatory,'  by  Tarlton,  210 
63-7X.  77.  80,  103.  209,  213,  244,   Nicholson,  334,  338.  339,  377 
393,  574,  582,  601,  606,  607,  660, '  Niels  Steno  on  Geology,  95 
663,  667  ,  Nietzsche,  297,  530 

'  Miles  Gloriosus,*  179  '  Night  Raven,'  by  Samuel  Rowland,  344 

Milton,  82,  678  '  Nine  Daies  Wonder,'  by  Kemp,  280, 

Minto,  Professor,  267,  275  390 

Miranda  in  the  'Tempest,'  572,  573,  591,   Norfolk,  Duke  of,  in — 
592,  6x9,  624,  633,  644,  652,  654,       '  Richard  IL,'  7,  121 
655,   659,  660-662,  664,  666,   667,       'Richard  in.,' X36 
,  684  North,  43»  304,  306,  464.  535»  53^.  5^0 

'Mirror  of  Martyrs,  or  The   Life  and   Northampton,  Lord,  494,  496,  497 
Death  of  Sir  lohn  Oldcastle  Knight,   Northumberland,  Earl  of,  in — 
Lord  Cobham,'  by  John  Weever,  303       *  Henry  IV./  174,  187,  192,  197 
« Uittoüx  of  Policie '  (1598),  303  <  Richard  IL/  las 


714 


INDEX 


Nottingham.  Lord,  303 

'Nouvclles  Fran^aises  du  i4"»«Si^le,*  523 

'Nugae  Antiqua^'  by  Rev.  H.  Haringlon 

(1779).  360 
Nurse  in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet/  72-75,  S4- 

86,  50s 
*  Ntttcrackers,'  by  J.  L.  Hcibcrg,  69 
Nym  in  *  Mcrry  Wives  of  Windsor,*  209 

Oberon  in  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 

63,  65-68,  80 
Octavia  in  '  Antony  and  Cleopatra,*  466, 

470,  473.  474,  475 

Octavius  Caesar  in  *  Antony  and   Cleo- 
patra,* 465,  466.  470,  473-476,  537 

•Odyssey,'  513 

Oehlenschläger,  77,  227,  639 

Oldcastle,  Sir  Tohn.     See  Falstaff 

Oldys,  II,  196,  197 

Oliver  in  *  As  You  Like  It,'  222,  228 


Pari!  in — 

'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  84 

*TroiIus  and  Cressida,'  503,  517,  518 
Parolles  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Won/  of 
<  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well/  47-49^ 

185,  380,  395.  399.  400 
Pascal,  199,  467 
'Passionate  Pilgrim '  (1599),   169,  a65, 

268 
*  Pastor  Fido,'  by  Guarini,  339 
:  Patroclus  in  <  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  515, 
I         518,  520 
! '  Patteme  of  PaynfiiU   Adventnres,'  by 

Lawrence  Twine,  579 
Patterson's,  R.,  'Natural  Historyofthe 

Insects  mentioned  by  Shakespeaxe' 

(1841),  92 
Paulina  in   'Winter*!  Tale/  639»  640^ 

642,  645 
Pavier,  343 


Olivia  in  *Twelfth  Night,'  54,  234-238      Payntcr's  '  Palace  of  Pleasure,'  396 


*  On  Poet-Ape,*  by  Ben  Jonson,  20 
Ophelia  in  'Hamlet,'  93,  156,  170,  214, 

340,  342,  346,  356,  360,  367,  368, 

370,  374,  375.   377»  380-382,  385. 

387,  395.  447,  478.  573»  606 
Orlando  in  *  As  You  Like  It,'  222,  226, 

228,  229 
'Orlando  Furioso,'  Ariosto*s,  215,  445, 

'Orlando  Innamorato,'  by  Bemi,  444 
Osrick  in  •  Hamlet,'  365,  394 
•Othello'   (1605),    113,   117,    131,    170, 
177,  241,  420,  423,  455,  457,  470, 


Pease-blossom  in  '  Midsummer  Nif^t'a 

Dream,'  64,  69 
Peele,  George,  31,  32,  «03,  594 
Pembroke,  Lady   Mary,  271,  273,  274, 

464 

William  Herbert,  Earl  of,  paasioD- 

ately  loved  by  Shakespeare — Sonnets 
addressed  to  Maiy  Fitton's  reUtions 
with — Career  of,  loi,  155,  214, 
240,  267-277,  278,  27a  280,  281, 
285,  286,  290,  293-298,  300,  336^ 
341,  464.  498,  506,  513,  J14,  616 
! '  Penates,'  by  Ben  Jonson,  418 


471,  474,  476,  478.  520,  551»  570. 1  'Penste,'  by  Pascal,  467 


597.  598,  639 
lago's  character  and  significance,  '433- 

436 
Theme  and   origin  of — Othello  as  a 
monoernph,  437-450 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  495,  496,  498 
Ovid,  31,  41.  56,  58,  60,  68,  269,  270, 
287.  306,  327,  330^  332,  510,  515, 
658 
Oxford,  350 
Oxford,  Earl  of,  271 

'  PvBAN  TRIUMPHAI.L,'  by  Drayton,  418 

Page,  Mr.,  Mrs.,  and  Anne,  in  '  Merry  I  Peter  in  *  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  109»  388 
Wives  of  Windsor,'  210,  211  |  Petrarch,  40,  81,  287,  288,  504 

*  Palace  of  Pleasure,'  by  Paynter,  396         Petruchio  in  '  Taming  of  the  Shrew/  1x4, 
Palamon  in  *Two  Noble  Kinsmen,'  605,  150,  217 

606  Phebe  in  '  As  You  Like  It,'  «34,  «35, 

Palatine  Anthology,  The,  300  I         640 

*  Palladis    Tamia,'    by    Francis    Meres  I '  Ph^dre,'  by  Racine,  600 

(1598),  47,  265,  269,  270  I '  Philaster,'  or  '  Love  Lies  Blceding/  bj 

Pandarus  in  *  'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  494,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  593,  597- 


Percy,  Henry.    See  Hotspur 

Lady,  wife  of  Hotspur,  in  '  Henrj 

IV.,'  187-189,  191,  192,  198.  3«9 

Perdita  in  'Winter's  Tale,'  57J,  573, 
584.  590,  619,  628,  636,  638-^6^ 
681 

'  Pericles,'  Shakespeare'«  coUaboratio* 
with  Wilkins  and  Rowley — Cor- 
neille compared  with  Shakeapcmre— 
Shakespeare's  restoration  to  happt- 
ness,  2, 103,  116,  340,  556.  57«»  573. 
575-593»  638,  645.  Ö51,  661 

'  Persae '  of  i^schylus,  204 


503»  505»  509»  510,  523.  524.  531 
Fuidulph  in  'King  John,'  141-143 

'  Panegyrike  Congratulatorie  to  the  King's 

Majestie,'  by  Samuel  Daniel,  418 

Fanuree  compared  with  Sir  John  Falttaff, 


600 
Philippi,  307 

Phrynia  in  *  Timon  of  AthciUy'  568 
'Pimlyco,  or  Ranne   Redo^'^  (iteyX 

577 


INDEX 


715 


Pk>mbo,  Sebastim  del,  J92 

Pisanio  in  'Cymbeline/  590^  621,  623, 

625,  626,  628,  630,  631,  634 
Pistol  in — 

•  Henry  IV.,'  ao2,  203 
'  Henry  V./  206,  503 
*Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,*  209,  211 
Plato,  17.  290,  355,  512 
Platonism  in  Shakespeare*!  Sonnets,  290, 

291,  296 
Plautus,  35.  41,  50,  80,  232 
'  Players,  I  love  yee,  and  your  Qtiaiihe,' 
by  John  Davies,  151 

*  Pleasant  Comedie  calied  Common  Con- 

ditions,'  445 
Pliny's  »Natural  History,*  43 
Plutarch,   41,  304-308,  312,   314,   315, 

3^7^  319-323»  461,  462,  464.   465, 

472.  473.  475.   501,  533,  534.  54i. 

548.  549,  552-554.  557.  561.  569 
•Poetaster/  by  Ben  Jonson  (1601),  298, 

325.  327,  329»  332-334.  339 
'  Poetical  Rhapsody,'  by  Davi^on,  275 

*  Poet's  Vision  and  a  Prince's  Glorie,*  by 

Thomas  Greene,  418 
Poins  in  *  Henry  IV.,*  211 

anes  in  '  Winter's  Tale/  636,  642, 
14.  645,  681 
US  in  '  Hamlet 
^9.  352,  353 
fSf  376,  377  _ 

eele,  William,  Mary  Fitton's  finit 
husband,  279 
Pompey  in  *  Measure  for  Measure,'  403, 

404 
Pompey  th«  Great,  310,  312,  323,  337, 

467 
Pope,  Thomas,  357 
Porter  in  '  Macbeth/  427,  428 
Portia  in — 

'Julius  Caesar,'  94,  228,  305,  316.  319, 

330.  443.  462 
'Merchant  of  Venice,'  S3,  115,  157- 
164,  x6«,  169.  215,  395.  573 
Potthumus  in  '  Cym Inline,'  490, 591, 612, 
615.  616,  619,  621,  623-631,  634, 
639 

*  Pr^cusM  Ridiculet,'  76 

Priam  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  528 
Princess  in  'Lorc's  Labonr's  Lost,'  38, 
39.70 


Piiritanism  hated  and  attacked  by  Shake- 
speare, 181,  231,  232,  240,  294,  313, 

394i  395.  401,  402,  404.  407.  409. 

564,  613,  671,  672,  679 
Pushkin,  influence  of  *  Hamlet '  on,  384 
Pyramusin  *  Midsummer  Night'i  Dream/ 

64,  69,  70,  80 
Pyrgopolinices,  45,  179 
Pythagoreans,  297 

QüBBN  in — 

'  Cymbeline/  619,  621-623,  626 

'  Hamlet,'   342,  ^45.   35ö.   3^2,  S6S, 

371.  374.  378,  379.  381.  395.  47« 
•  Queen  of  Corinth,'  by  Fletche r,  539 
Quince  in  *  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 

70 

Quiney,  Adrian,  154 

Richard,  154,  684 

Thomas,  husband  of  Jtsdith  Shake- 
speare, 154,  684 


icers  laie,    030,  042, 
ilet,*    342,   34iK345.\ 

.  358. 360,  4^  370,  \ 

.  3«i.gp}  4«3.  524.7 


Rabelais  compared  with  Shakespeare, 
x8o,  i8x 

Racine.  531.  600,  637 

'  Raigne  of  King  Edward  Third '  (1596), 
172 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  career  of— Accusa- 
tions  against — Fate  of,  41,  67,  108, 
177,  243,  244,  246,  249.  251,  253- 
254,  259,  262,  264.  275.  328,  414- 
417,  4^1,  482,  486,  488,  499.  648, 
649.  655 

'  Ralph  Roister  Doister,'  27 

Raoul  le  Fevre's  '  Recueil  des  Histolret 
de  Troyes,'  503 

'  Ratse/s  Ghost,''  151 

Regan  in  *  King  Lear,'  241,  4S«.  455. 

457-459.573      _         .^    ^ 
'  Relics  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,'  by  George 

Cayendish,  608 

'  Religio  Medici,'  by  Sir  Th.  Browne,  291 

Renaissance,  290,   291.   329,   332,  337. 

366,  367.  3^3 
'  Representative  Men,'  bv  Emerson,  609 

*  Retum  from  Pamtssus  ^  (1606),  by  Ben 

Jonson,  151,  298,  334 

*  Revisor,'  by  Gop>],  329 

Rieh,  Lady  Penelope,  273,  352,  418 

*  Richard  IL,'  C   Marlowe^s  'Edward 

IL'  uted  by  Shakespeare  as  model 
for,  7.  1 19-126.  128.  143.  189,  199, 


Propertiii^  «2^^ — 1,       204,  259.  537,  681 

Prösptro  in  the  'Tempest,'  35,  530,  535.  TT  Richard    III.,'   principal   soenes    and 
573.  591.  592.  619,  633,  651-^53.  ■ )      classic  tendency  of,  25,  32,  90,  iio, 

654-669_ j       126-139,  177.   196.  200.  219,  306, 

Proteilt iu  'TWU  GMUeinen  of  VerÖlts;;^ 

53.  54.  80 
PiroToat  In  '  Measare  for  Measare,'  405 


315,  372,  420,  425,  433.  435 .  ^. 
Richard  of  York.    Su  York  and  Gkm- 


cester 


Prynne's  '  Histriomastix,'  98,  345,  547     |  Richter^ean  Paul,  ^05 

'  F^ch^,'  by  MoUte,  64  _  ; '  Right  Esoellent  and  Famous  History  of 


Puok  in  'MidsamiDer  Night'»  Dream,' 
63.  ^.  69.  S8a 


Promos  and  CanaAdni'  (1578).  by 
George  WlkCtKflmft^  «J^v 


Jlfi 


INDEX 


RWen,  Eftrl.  in  '  Richard  III.,*  138 

Rizzio,  412,  480 

Rochester,  Viscoant.    See  Robert  Carr 

Roderigo  in  'Othello,'  434,  438,  439. 
441.  443,  448,  520 

Romano,  Giulio,  in  *Winter's  Tale,' 
117,  118 

'  Romeo  and  Juliet'  (1591),  Romanesque 
stnicture  of — Conception  ot  love  in, 
51.  57.64.  71-86, 104,  109,  113,  117, 
182,  276,  315,  380,  388,  443,  463. 

472.  505.  523»  556.  629 
Konsard,  286,  288 

Rosalind  in  'As  You  Like  It.*  92,  180, 
222,  227-230,   234,  238,  239,  280, 
30^  503.  573.  620,  626,  675 
Rosaline  in — 

«Love's  Labour's  Lost.*  45,  83,  215, 

276-278.  573 
*  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  83,  276 

*  Rosalynde,'  by  Lodge,  635 
Rosencrantz  in  'Hamlet,'  106,  loS,  342, 

354.  358.  365.  369.  370,  375-377. 

Rosse  in  '  Macbeth,'  424,  429 

Rossctti,  W.  M.,  267 

Rowe,  Shakespeare's  tirst  biographer,  3, 

10,  208,  326 
Rowland's,  Samuel,  *  Night  Raven,'  344 
Rowley,  William.  580,  581,  593,  608 
Rushton's    '  Shakespeare's    Euphuism ' 

(i87i),355 
Russell,  Mrs.  Anne,  273 

Russell,  Mrs.  Bess,  273 

Rutland,  Lord,  loi,  252,  256,  2^q 

Rutland's  death  in  •  Henry  VL,"  22,  138 

Sackville,  Thomas,  357 

*Sad   Shepherd,   The,'  by  Ben  Jonson, 

330.  woi  • 
Sadler,  Hamlet,  Shakespeare's  friend,  686 

Sallust  in  '  Catiline,'  by  Ben  Jonson,  330, 

337 

*  Sappho,*  by  Daudet,  562 

Sardou's,  Victorien,  *  La  Tosca,'  401 

*  Satiromastix,*  by  Marston  and  Dekker, 

298,  299,  327,  344 
Saturninus  in  '  Titus  Andronicus,'  30 
Saxo  Grammaticus,  324,  342,  343 
Scheffler,  Ludwig  von,  261 
Schiller,  53,  428,  449,  453,  455,  629,  689 
'School  of  Abuse,'  by  Stephen  Gosson 

(1579),  159.  303,  504 
Schopenhauer,  408,  567 

Schuck,  Henry,  286,  294,  358,  589 

'  Scotomm  Historiae,'  by  Hector  Boece, 

426 

'  Seasons  of  Shakspeare's  Plays,'  68 

Sebastian  in — 

'  Tempest,'  660 

•Twelfth  Night,'  234,  235.  238 

Segar,  Mabter  William,  Garter  King  at 

Armn^  notebook  o^  359 


'Sejanns,'  by  Ben  Jonion   (1603),  31$, 

334-3361,  338 
Seneca,  pocl,  27, 31,  138.  185,  345 
'  Sententiae  Pueriles,'  7 
Servilia,  Brutus's  mother,  313 
Servilius  in  *Timon  of  Athens,'  $61 
Seven  Agesof  Man,  Shakespeare  s  Speech 

in 'As  You  Like  It,' 22c 
Sextus  in  '  Rape  of  Lucrece,  60 
5>extus  Pompeius  in  'Antony  and  Oeo- 

patra.'  470 
Seymoors,  Lord  William,  marriage  with 

Arabella  Stuart,  490.  49z,  616 
'Shadow  of   the   Night,'   by  Chapman 

(1594),  275 
Shakespeare,   John,  father  of    William 
Shakespeare»  6,  8-10,   12,  89,   152, 

»53,  155,  341,  675 

Richard,    grand£&ther    of   William 

Shakespeare,  6 

William,  Anne  Hathaway's  marriage 

with — Shakespeare's  conception  of 
relation  of  the  sexes,  10^  12,  34.  35* 
38,  667,  671,  672,  674,  678,  679,  686 
Aristocratic      principles      of — Shake- 
speare's hatred  of  the  masses,  109- 

"2,  531,  536-545.  547-SSi.  613, 

614,  641 
Associates  of,  179 
Attacks  upon — ^The  Baconian  Tbeocy, 

87-90,  94-96.  3«3.  314 

Biographies  of,  2-4 

Bohemian  life  and  dissipation  ol^  195- 
197,  298 

Brilliant  and  happiest  period  of — Femi- 
nine types  belonging  to  it,  159, 
213-215,  221,  226,  231,  233,  238- 
240,  280,  364,  391,  420,  575 

Bruno's,  Giordano,  supposed  inflnence 
ovcr,  349,  357 

Corneille,  Pierre,  compared  with,  589, 

590 
Davenant,  Mrs.,  courted  by,  196,  671 

Death  of,  6,  558,  683-687,  690 
Diction  of,  173-175,  552.  553 
Dramatic  art,  Shakespeare  s  concepdon 

oU  387,  388.  391 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  cause  of  Shake- 
speare's coolness  towards,  350 

Elizabethan  England  in  the  youth  of, 
108,  110,  122,  242-245 

Euphuism  and  pedantry  ridiculed  by — 
Tracesof  lohn  Lyly's  'Euphues  'in 
'Hamlet,*  40-46, 355-357-642, 643 

Fitt#n,  Mary,  or  the  'Dark  Lady,'  loved 
by,  268,  273,  274,  277-287,  294. 
296,  298,  341,  363.  4631  471.  475» 
506,507 

Greene's,  Robert,  attack  od.  l8-ao^  St 

179635, 
Hamnet,  son  of,  Shakespeare's  sorrow 

at  death  of,  10,  140,  141,  147»  394» 

^^1. 6^7. 677, 686 


INDEX 


7J7 


Itmly  Tisited  by — Discimioii  on,  3,  1x3- 

118 
James  I/s  patronage  of— Relations  be- 

twecn,  417-419.  452.  534»  535.  652 

Jonson,  Ben,  compared  with — Relations 
between,  325-340 

Judith,  daughter  of,  10,  154,  342,  671, 
672,  678,  684,  686 

Kemp's,  actor,  relations^  with,  391 

Knowledge  o^  physical  and  phiiosophi- 
cal,  91-97,  314,  315,  675,  676 

London,  Shakespeare's  first  arrival  in — 
Buildings,  costumes,  manners — 
PoliticaT  and  religious  conditions 
of  the  period,  13-17,  2x4,  670 

Lucy's,  Sir  Thomas,  relations  with^- 
Shakespeare'i  consequent  depar- 
ture  from  Stratfbrd,  7,  xo-12,  34, 
152,  208,  222,  670,  674 

Marlowe's,  C,  influenae  on,  22-26,  27, 
28,  31,  32,  120-123,  125,  126,  150 

Melancholy,  pessimism,  and  misan- 
thropy  of,  causes  of— Shakespeare's  \ 
restoration  to  happiness,  151,  159, 
'76,  215,  222-226,  230,  233,  238- 
241,  250,  264,  265,  294,  295,  298, 
299,  304,  361-365.  393.  400,  407, 
420,  428,  431-479.  50'.  502,  514. , 
519,  520,  524,  527,  528.  532,  533, 1 


Retnm  of  Shakespeare  to  Stratford  — 
Surroandings  of — Vmt  of  Shake- 
speare to  £oiidon — Last  ycars  of 
.^  his  Ufe,  667,  668-676^  677,  679- 
686 

Rivalry,  Shakespeare'a  tense  of,  61,  62 

Seif  -  transfbrmation,  Shakespeare'a 
power  of,  X29,  130 

Susannah,  daughter  of,  10,  341,  671, 
672,  677.  678,  686 

Tarlton  eulogised  by,  391 

Tavern  life  at,  X77,  X78 

Theatres  in  time  of,  Situation  and  ar- 
rangementsof--Costumes,  pUyers, 
and  audienoes,  98-X09,  303,  538- 

541 
Will  of;  532,  674,  677,  684,  686,  687 
Womanhood,  Shakespeare'a  ideal  of, 

161 
Women,  Shakespeare's  contempt  for, 

132.  133.  50Ö,  616 
'  Shakespeare  and  Montaigne,'  by  Jacob 

Feis,  340,  355 
'Shakespmre     and     Typography,'     by 

Blades,  92 
'  Shakespeare'sAutobiographical  Poems,' 

by  C.  A.  Brown,  x  14 
'  Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Prayse,'  by 

Ingleby,  334,  600- 


tnie  morality,  620-623 
Music,  Shakespeare's  love  of,  169-17 1 
Nature  and  solitude,  Shakespeare's  love 


559.  571«  575.  578,  585,  587,  592, 1 '  Shakespeare's  Euphuism,'  by  Rushton 

610,615,621,622,660,672  (1870,355 

Montai^^ne's  influenae  over,  340,  35  X-  '  Shakespeare's  Knowledge  and  Use  of 

357«  650,  659,  665  the  Bible,'  by  Bishop  Charles  Words- 

Morality — Shakespeare's  conception  of  worth,  92 

'Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquirements,' by 

Lord  Campbell,  9X 
*  Shakespeare's  Library/  Collier's,  343 

and  longing  for,   222,  223,   619, ' 'Shakespeare's  Mulberry  Tree,' sung  by 

620,  628,  632,  634,  665,  672,  676, 1  Garrick,  68 1 

677,  680.  6><4  ,  *  Shakespearean    Myth,'    by    Appleton 

Painting  described  by,  59,  60  I         Morgan,  92 

Parentage  and  boyhood  of  Shakespeare  -  Shallow  in — 

at  Stratford,  5-9,  59,  89,  210,  445,  -      *  Henry  IV.,*  202,  388 

671,  674,  675  I      •  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor/  209,  ai  x 


Pembroke,  William  Herbert,  Earl  of, 
passionately  loved  by — Shake- 
speare's  Platonism  and  idolatry  in 


Sheflield,  Countess  ot,  66 

Shelley,  63.  224,  45'.  583.  595.  634 
*  Shepheard's  Spring  Song  for  the  Enter- 
friendship,  lox,  155,  214,  267-276,  |         tainment  of  King  James,'  by  Henry 
277,  278,  280,  283,  284,  289-291,  j         Chettle,  417 
293-298.  300,  336,  341,  362,  464,   «Shepherdess  Felismena,'  53 
'  498,  506,  5 '3-5 15.  616  •  Shepherd's  Calendar,*  by  Spenser.  601 

Position  of,  547.  548  \  Sheppard,  338,  577 

Prosperity     and     wealth    of — Shake- :  Sherborne,  481,  482,  499 

speare's  purchase  of  New  Place,  I  Shirley's     Eulogy    of    Beaumont    and 
housefs  and    land — Money  trans-  j  Fletcher,  604 

actions  and  lawsuits,  12,  151,  1 56,  •  Shottery,  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage  at, 
226,  326,  341,  451,  501.  532,  669-  i 


671.  672,  673,  676.  679-681,  683 
Puritanism  hated  and  attacked  by,  181, 

231,  232,  240,  314,  395,  401,  402, 
404,  407,  409.  564.  613,  614,  671, 

672,  677,  679 

Kalielais  compared  with,  180,  181 


154.  674 
Shrewsbury  battlefield  in  'Henry  IV..* 

185 
Shylock  in  *Merchant  of  Venice,'   115, 

'50.   *54«  '57.  "60,   162,   164-167, 

170 
Sicinius  in  'Coriolanus,*  5^2 


7i8 


INDEX 


Sidney,  Sir  Pbiiipp  17,  41,  4$,  63,  X02, 

314, 242,  a43>25x>256*  3^>  ^4. 

291, 294,  299. 350»  3S^  453*487 


214, 242. 243.  «51,256. 269, 274. 287. 

350. 35^,453. 487. 5»! 
Silence,  Tnstioe,  in  'Henry  IV.  /  202 


'Silent  Woman,  The/  by  Ben  Jonson 

(1609),  »3 
SUvmyn^s,  Alexander,  '  Orator,'  158 
Silvia  in  '  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona/  54 
Simonides  in  '  Pericles/  579 
Simpson,  Mr.  Richard,  117,  299 
Sir    Andrew    Aguecheek    in    'Twelfth 

Night,'  209,  232,  233,  236,  237 
Sir  John  Oldcastle  (i6co),  576 
Sir  Tobby  Beleb  in  '  Twelfth  Night,'  232, 

233.  234»  236.  237 

Slender  in  'Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
209,  210 

Slowacki,  385 

Smith  in  *  Henry  VI.,'  iii,  536 

Smith,  William,  founding  the  Uaconian 
Theory  (1856),  88 

Smith's,  Thoona,  'Voiage  and  Enter- 
tainement  in  Rushia,*  344 

Snug  in  '  Midsummer  Night  s  Dream,'  71 

Socrates'  *  Apology,'  354 

'  Solyman  anid  Perseda,'  by  Kyd,  346 

Somer,  Sir  George,  650 

Somerset,  Earl  oL    Su  Robert  Carr 

Sonnets  (1601),  melancholy  and  sadness 
"of — Date  of— Pembrokc  and  Mary 
Fitton  addressed  in — Shakespeare  s 
Platonism,  idolatry  in  friendship, 
and  inner  life  shown  in — Form  and 
poeiic  value  of,  3, 4»  32,  5*4.  9»»  '5*. 
172,  176,  195,  196,  213,  239,  265- 

301»  340,  350.  351,  364,  439.  463» 
466,  471,  472,  506,  507,  S»3»  520 

Sören  Kierkegaard,  199,  631 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  Shakcspeare's 
patron— Conspiracy  of,  44,  55,  58, 
loi,  109,  125,  152,  207,  214,  240, 
244,  249,  250,  252,  256.  258-^41. 
264,  267,  268,  269,  270,  271,  270, 
285,  286,  304,  341.  352,  411,  494 

Southampton,  Lady,  273 

Southwell,  Elizabeth,  254,  273 

Robert,  2S6 

*  Spaccio.'  by  Giordano  Bruno,  356 
Spanish  Alliance,  275 

•  Spanish  Tragedy,'  by  Kyd,  70,  326,  345, 

346 
Spedding,  James,  89,  127,  252,  262,  609, 

611 
Speed  in  '  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,' 

51,52 
Spenser,  18,  41,  55,   63,  65,  243,  266, 

269,  287,  299,  60X 
Stanley,  Lord,  in  '  Richard  III.,'  136 
Stationers'  Register,  270 
Statins'  « Thebaide,'  605 
Stedefeld,  G.  F.»  354 
Stephano  in  the   'Tempeü,'  6S4.  659, 

664,665 


Stern,  AXhtd,  413,  419 

Stirling's,  Count,  *  Daritis,'  656 

'  Story  of  Troyliis  and  Fteidor]   (iSISX 

510 
Stow's  '  Summari«  of  th«  QifoaiclM  of 

England,'  iii 
Straparola't  *  Two  Lovors  «f  Piüi»'  SM 
Stratford  on  Avon-— 
Birth  of  Shaketpeart  «U-Dicripdon 
of  town  and  Shakctpcan's  boy- 
hood  at,  c-io,  60,  89,  aio,  445, 
672,  674,  676 
Departure  of  Shakespeare  froai,  3,  10- 

12,  34.  670,  674,  675 
Property  booght  by  Shakopenreat — 
Shakespeare  restoring  positioB  and 
prosperity  of  bis  faimly  at,   12, 

152-156.  341.  501.  53«»  ^i.  ^2. 

673»  679-683 
Retum  of  Shakespeare  to — Surround- 

ings  of — Visit  of  Sbakcipeare  to 
London — Last  years  of  bis  iife  at» 
667,  66»-675.  677.  678-685 
Stuart,  Arabella,    417,  490,  491«   SOIi 
616 

Mary,  mother  of  James  I.,  16,  347, 

412.  413.  480.  571,  596 
'  Study  of  Shakespeare,    by  Swinbume» 

«73»  451.  558 
Sturley,  Abraham,  154 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  in  *  Henry  VL,'  24, 

120,  138 

Sullivan,  E.,  369 

*  Sumniarie  of  the  Chronicles  of  Eng- 

land,' by  Stow,  1 1 1 
Surrey,  Henry,  Earl  of,  28,  299 

*  Swan '  Theatre,  100,  103 
Swinburne,  23,  120,  121,  172,  173,  315, 

451.  480,  497.  515.  558,  592.  607. 

608,  689 
Sycorax  in  the  '  Tempest,'  664,  665 
Sylvia  in  *  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,' 

53.  54 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  334,  138 

Symons,  Arthur,  238,  475,  609,  oio 

Syren.   literary    club    foundoi    by    Sir 

Waller  Raieigh,  177 

Tadema,  Alma-,  335 

•Tagelied,' 81 

Tailor's,    Robert,    '  Hog   has   Lost   bii 

Pearl' (1614).  539.  577 
Taine,  77,  80,  201,  223,  331 

Talbot,  Lord,  274 

'  Tamburlaine  the  Great,'  by  C.  Ifarlowe, 

27,  28,  31,  202 

*  Taming  of  the  Shrew '  (1596),  8»  9,  36, 

104,  113-115.  "6,  132,   150,  169, 
211.304,396 
Tanoca  in  'Titus  Andronicni,*  fo^  31, 

3«»  *32.  213,  573 
'  Tancred  and  Gismnnda,'  27 
Tantalas  in  Seneca's   TbycstCip'-345 


INDEX 


Tarlton,  actor,  Shakespeare'i  eulogy  of, 

3IO,  391 
'  Tarlton's  Tests  and  News,  &c,'  391 
'  Tartuffe/ by  Moli^e,  232,  240,  409 

*  Tears  of  Fände/  by  Watson,  287 

'  Tears  of  the  Muses/  by  Spenser,  65 
'Tempest'  (1612-1613),  28,  35,  69,  116, 

169,  339»  340,  351.  535.  572.-  578» 
583»  591»  592.  612,  633,  642,  644 
Drainatic  value  of — Chief  characters  in 
-^hakespeare's  farewell  to  Art, 
660-669 
Sources  of,  654-659 
Wedding  of  Princess  Elizabeth  cele- 
brated  by,  535,   612,  647,  650- 
653.  660,  666 
'  Temptation,'  by  Krasinski,  385 
Thaisa  in  *  Pericles,'  581,  584,  585,  ^90, 

591 
'  The  Gase  is  Altered,'  by  Ben  Jonson, 

540 
«The  Heg  has  Lost  His  Pearl'  (1614), 

by  Robert  Tailor,  539,  577 
•The  Orator,*  by  Alexander  Sil  vayn,  158 
•ThePrince/  131 

*  The  Puritan '  (1607),  421 

*  The  Supposes,'  8 

*The  Theatre,*  first  play-hoose  erected 
in  London  and  owned  by  James 
Burbage,  13,  100 

•The  Witch,'  by  Middleton,  427 

*  Theatre  of  God's  Judgements*  (1597),  28 
'  Theatrum  Licentia/  in  *  Laquei  Ridicu- 

losi '  (1616),  152 
'  Thebaide,'  by  Statins,  605 

*  Theodore,  Vierge  et  Martyre,*  by  Pierre 

Corneille,  589,  590 
Thersites  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  5 10, 

515.  516,  517,  525.  529.  564 
Theseus  in — 

*  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  63-65, 

69.80 

*  Two  Noble  Kinsmen/  605-608 
'Third   Blast  of  Retraite   from   Plaies' 

.  (1580)»  303 
Tlusbe  in  *  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,* 

64.  69.  70,  80 
Thorpe,  Thomas,  265,  266.  285,  286 
Thorvaldsen,  63,  341 

*  Thyestes,*  by  Seneca,  61,  345 
Thyieus  in  *  Antony  and  Clei>patra,*  474 
Tiberius  in  *Sejanus,'   by  Ben  Jonson, 

331.  334»  336 

Ti  bull  US   in   Ben    Jonson'«    *  Poetaster,' 

332,  333 

Tieck,  69,  70.  234.  380,  651,  654 
Timandra  in  *  Timon  of  Athens,'  568, 569 
Timbreo  of  Candona,  Bandello's  story  of, 

215-217 
'Times  displayed  inSiz  Sestyads,'  by 

Sheppard,  338.  577 

*  Timon  of  Athens,'  sources  of— Shake- 

speare's  part  aad  piirpote  in— Corio- 1 


719 

lanns  oompured  with  Timon  — 
Non-Shakespearian  elements  in — 
Shakespeare  s  bittemess  and  hatred 
of  mankind,  29,  65,  223,  241,  31^ 

465»  525.   526,   5307S71;  575-S7T 
580,  593.  619,  620,  6«).  661 
Titania  in  '  Midsummer  Ni^f  s  Dream,' 

68.80.573 
« Titus  and  Vespasian '  (1593),  ao 
*Titus  Andromcus.'JShakespeare^  author» 

ship  of,  a.  29-33,  57,  85.  132,  3|i, 

455  ; 

Titns  Lartius  in  '  Coriolanus,'  554  ^ 
Tolstoi,  influence  of '  Hamlet  *  on»  3S4 
'To  the    Majestie   of  King  James,  n 

Gratulatorie    Poem.'    oy    Michael 

Drayton,  418 
Tophas,  Sir,  in  John  Lyl/s  '  Endymioa»' 

45 

*  Tottel's  Miscellany '  (1^57).  299 

'  Totus  Mnndns  Agit  Histriootm,*  «oll» 

on  sign  of  Globe  Theatre,  Shake- 

speare's  allusion  to,  225 
Touchstone  in  'As  Yoa  Like  It,*  222, 

224,  226,  227,  230,  236,  361,  389, 

400 
'  Touchstone  of  True  Lotc,'  or  '  Hero  and 

Leander,'  by  Ben  Jonson  {su  that 

title) 
'  Tragedie  of  Antonie,'  464 
'Tragicall    Historye    of    Romeos    and 

Juliet,'  &C.  &c.,  72 
'  Travels  of  Three  English  Brothers,'  580 
'  Treatise  on  Educadon,'  bj  Plutarch,  41 
'Triar  Table  of  the  Order  of  Shake- 

speare's  Plays,*  by  FumiTal,  578 
Trinculo  in   the   'Tempest,'  654,  657, 

664-666 

*  Troilus  and  Cressida'  (1609).  95.  230. 

241,   478,  502-505,  518-520,    523r- 

526.  544.  555.  556,  564,  567,  57». 

605 
Contempt    for   women    portrayed   in 
Cressida's  character,  502-507,  555 
Historical  material  for,  503,  504,  508- 

5" 
Homers  *  Iliad '  compared  with,  512- 

521 

Scorn  of  woman's  guile  and  public 

stupidity  in,  522-5JI,  533 

*  Troilus    and    Cressida,     b^    Chaucer 

(1630),  503.  504.  509,  510 

*  Troublesome  Raigne  of  John,  Kinff  of 

England,  with  the  discouerie  of  King 
Richard  Cordelions  Base  sonne 
(vulgarly  named  the  Bastard  Fav- 
conbridge) :  also  the  death  of  ICing 
John  at  Swinstead  Abbey.  8,  14s» 
145,  147-149 
Troy,  destruction  of.  59.  60,  IIO 

*  True  Tragedieof  Richard  Duke  ofYorke. 

and  the  Death  of  the  good  King 
Henrie  Ihe  Sizt,'  19»  MM 


720 


INDEX 


'Trae  Tragedy  of  Richard  III.'  (1594), 

Z26,  127 
Tflchischwitz,  349 
"Ibbal  in  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  164 
Tucca  in  Dekker's  '  Satiromastix,'  344 
Tttrck,  Hermann,  369 
Turgueneff,  influence  of  *  Hamlet'  on,  3&4 
Turkish  Mahomet  and  Hyren  the  Fair 

Greek/  by  George  Peele,  203 
Turner,  Mrs.,  493,  495,  496,  499 
•Twclfth  Night'  (1601).  gibes  at  Puri- 

tanism  and    chief   characters   in — 

Melancholy  tone  of,  29,  34,  5, 

92»  159»   171.   181.   209,<ga-2 

340.  339.  400,  503.  s86.  597; 
Twine's,  Lawrence,  *  Patteme  of  Payn- 

füll  Adventures,'  579 
•Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,*  51-54,  80, 

113,  117,  168,  573 
•  Two  Loyers  of  Pisa.'  by  Straparola,  210 
*Two^  Noble   Kinsmen/    Shakespeare's 

and  Fletcher's  parts  in,  575,   593, 

595.  603,  60S-60S,  610 
Tybalt  in  *  Romeo  and  Juliet,*  72,  75,  80 
Tycho  Brahe,  341,  414 
Tyler,  Mr.  Thomas,  267,  269,  270,  272, 

273,  274,  277,  278.  279.  293,  298 
Tyrone's,  O'Neil,  Earl  of,  rebellion  in 

Ireland,  254,  255.  257 
Tyrwhitt,  Thomas,  267 

Ulysses  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida/  503. 


Viigilia  in  '  Coriofaintts,'  546,  551,  55s 
Virginia,  275 

*  Vittoria  Corombona,'  by  Webater,  lOl 

*  Voiage  and  Entertaitiement  in  Roshia,' 

by  Th.  Smith,  344 
•Volpone,'  by  Jonson,    157,  329,   339, 

340,  594.  595 
Voltaire,  80,  147,   15a,  311,  312,  323, 

629,  680,  689 
Voltemand  in  *  Hamlet,'  358 
Volumnia  in  'Coriolanus/ 533,  542,  546, 

548.  55I-5S3.  565.  599 
Vorstius,  Conrad,  484 

Walker,  Henry,  532 

Wall  in  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 

70 
Walsmgham,  248,  350 
Ward,  John.  Vicar  of  Stratford,  3,  685 
Warner,  269 
Warwick,  Earl  of,  in — 

*  Edward  III.,'  172 

*  Henry  IV.,'  204,  674 

'  Henry  VI.,*  23,  93,  674 
Watkins.  Lloyd,  653 
Watson's  *  Tears  of  Fancie,*  sonnets,  287 
Webster,  John,  loi,  303,  513,  602 
Weever,  John,  56,  126 

*  Mirrors  of  Martyrs,  or  The  Life  and 

Death     of   Sir    John    OldcasUe 
Knight,  Lord  Cobham,'  303 
Weldon,  Sir  Anthony,  498,  500 


505.  510»  520,  525-527.  528,  529.  544   Werder,  K.,  374,  37» 


•  Ul3rsses  von  Ithacia,'  by  Holberg,  512 

•  Undivine  Comedy,'  by  Krasinski,  38$ 

•  Utopia,*  More's,  501 


Valentine    in    *  Two    Gentlemen    of 

Verona,'  54,  80,  117 
Venice,  113-116,  157-159 
Ventidius  in  '  Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  470 
'Venus  and  Adonis '   (1590-1591),  de- 

scriptions  of  nature  in,  55-58.  63, 

91,   182,   267.  269,  290,  54*7,  573, 

675 
Vere,  Bridget,  271 

Verges  in  'Mach  Ado  About  Nothing,' 

219 
Vemon,  Lady  Elizabeth,  Earl  of  South- 

ampton's  marriage  with,  249 

Sir  Richard  in  *  Henry  IV.,'  193 

Verona,  86,  113,  117 

Vespasian  in  *Titus  and  Vcspasian,'  30.    Wilson,  Arthur,  121,  488,  489,  490,  498, 

31  i  500,  650 

Victor  Hugo,  175,  372,  689  !  Wilton,  275 

Vidushakus,  179  i  Winstanley,  594 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  471,  689  I  Winter,  Sir  Edward,  274 

ViUiers.  Sir  George,  James  I.'s  favourite,    *  Winter's  Tale,'  Greene  supplying  mate 


Weston,  Richard,  496,  498 

Whctstone,  George,  401,  403 

'  White  Divel '  (1612),  by  John  Webster, 

513 
Whyte,  Rowland,  256,  271,  272 
Widow  of  Florence  in  «AlPs  Well  that 

Ends    Well,'  or   'Love's   Labour's 

Won,'  396 

•  Wild  Goose  Chase,'  by  Fletcher,  610 

•  Wilhelm  Meister,'  by  Goethe.  367,  384, 

634 
Wilkins,  George,  558,  580-582,  584,  587 

William  Rufus,  King,  299 

William  in — 

*  As  You  Like  It,'  227 

*  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  7 
Williams  in  '  Henry  V.,'  205 
Willoughhy,  Ambrose,  249 
Wilmecoie,  6 


498-500 
Viola  in  *  Twelfih   Night,'  34.  54,  92. 

170,  228.  234-238,  573,  597 
Virgil  in '  Poetaster,'  &c. ,  by  Ben  Jonson, 

J06.  330,  333*  334.  512.  S2i 


rial  for — Euphuism    ndiculed   in — 
Chief  characters  in,  5,  28,  117,^40, 
572,  584.  590,  612,  616,  6a8,  ^35^ 
646,  651,  681 
^Winwood,  Lord,  497,  498 


INDEX 


721 


Witches  in  <  Macbeth/  422^424, 427, 430 

•  Wit's  Miserie,'  by  Thomas  Lodge,  344 
Witt,  Jan  de,  103 

Wittenberg.  358.  367,  368 
Wolsey  in  *  Henry  VIII.,'  61 1,  6is 

•  Woraan-Hater,'  by  Fletcher,  593,  594 
Worcester  in  •  Henry  IV./  174,  187 
Wordsworth,  92,  Sil,  301 

•  Worthies,'  by  FuUer,  178 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  608 
Wrightman,  EMward,  484 
Wriothesley,    Henry,    Earl    of   r>ath- 

ampton,  267 
Wurmsser,  Hans,  437 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  229,  230,  999 
Wynkyn  de  Worde,  510 


YoNo's,    Bartholomew,    translaÜOD    of 

•  Diana,'  53 

Yorick    in    '  Hamlet,'    368,  374,    384, 

391 
York  in  '  Richard  II.,'  lai 

York,  Dnchess  of,  mother  of  Edward  IV.» 

in  '  Richard  III.,'  139 
Duke  of,  fiuher  of  Edward  IV.,  fo 

*  Henry  VI.,'  24,  25,  130,  It8 

Edward  of.    Sie  Edward  rv. 

Edward  of,  ton  of  Edward  IV.   St$ 

Edward  V. 
Richard    of,    afterwards    Earl    of 

Gloucester  and    Richard   HL    Sm 

Gloucester 
*  Vorkshire  Tragedy '  (1608),  576 


THE  END 


UMWIN  BROTHKRS,  LIMITKD,  THE  GRESHAM  PRBSS,  WOKINO  AND  LOHDON 

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