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ESSAYS    AND    STUDIES 


ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 


BY 


JOHN    CHURTON    COLLINS 


••  Mehr  unordentliche  CoUectanea  zu  einem  Buche,  als  ein  Buck." 

LSSSING. 


?Lontion 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND    NEW    YORK 
1896 


C6^ 


TO   MY  WIFE 


PREFACE 

Of  the  Essays  collected  in  the  present  volume  four 
originally  appeared  in  the  Quarterly  Review  between 
October  1878  and  July  1892,  and  one,  the  Essay  on 
Menander,  in  the  Comhill  Magazine  for  May  1879. 
It  has  not  been  thought  necessary  to  recast  their 
form,  but  they  are  not  mere  reproductions.  They 
have  all  of  them  been  revised  and  enlarged,  two  of 
them  80  extensively  that  they  may  be  said  to  have 
been  almost  rewritten. 

Whether  I  am  justified  in  claiming  for  these 
Essays  an  exemption  from  the  ordinary  fate  of  con- 
tributions to  periodical  literature,  by  collecting  them 
into  a  volume,  I  must  leave  it  to  others  to  decide. 
I  can  only  say,  for  my  own  part,  that  I  should 
never  have  ventured  to  submit  them  a  second  time 
to  public  notice,  even  in  their  present  carefully 
re\a8ed  and  greatly  enlarged  form,  had  I  relied  only 
on  any  supposed  intrinsic  literary  merit  in  them. 


viii  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

They  have  reappeared  here  because,  without  any 
pretension  to  being  authoritative,  they  at  least  show 
reason  why  certain  conventional  literary  verdicts,  in 
some  cases  of  important  concern,  should  be  recon- 
sidered ;  because  they  endeavour  to  contribute  some- 
thing to  a  more  judicial  critical  estimate  and  a  fuller 
historical  study  of  writings  which  are  of  permanent 
interest ;  and  because  both  occasionally  and  compre- 
hensively they  enter  a  protest  against  the  mischievous 
tendencies  of  the  New  School  of  Criticism,  a  school 
as  inimical  to  good  taste  and  good  sense  as  it  is  to 
morals  and  decency. 

Exception  may  perhaps  be  taken  to  the  strictures 
on  Mr.  Addington  Symonds'  book,  and  I  should  like 
to  add  that  when  I  heard  of  his  lamented  death  I 
determined,  should  the  article  ever  be  reprinted,  to 
suppress  them.  But  on  reconsideration  I  found  I 
had  no  choice.  Nothing  could  have  justified  the 
appearance  of  those  strictures  during  Mr.  Symonds' 
lifetime  if  they  are  not  equally  justified  when  he 
lives  only  in  the  power  and  influence  of  his  writings. 
There  is  no  need  for  me  to  say  with  Bentley  Non 
nostrum  est  Keifievoi^  iTre/jL^alvecv,  for  it  was  in  no  spirit 
of  personal  hostility  that  I  wrote  what  I  thought  it  a 
duty  to  write  nearly  ten  years  ago  ;  and  it  is  with  the 
liveliest  sense  of  the  great  loss  which  English  Litera- 


PREFACE  ix 

ture  has  sustained  by  his  death  that  I  again  perform 
what  I  conceive  to  be  a  duty  in  reprinting  what  I 
then  wrote. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  John  Murray  and  to 
Messrs.  Smith  and  Elder  for  allowing  me  to  reprint 
these  Essays,  and  to  Mr.  Percy  Wallace  for  his  great 
kindness  in  assisting  me  to  see  them  through  the 
press.  J.  C.  C. 


CONTENTS 


PAOB 


1.  John  Drtden 1 

2.  The  Predecessors  of  Shakspeare        .  91 

3.  Lord  Chesterfield's  Letters 193 

4.  The  Porson  of  Shakspearian  Criticism  263 
6.  Menander  31g 


JOHN   DRYDEN^ 

Nearly  two  centuries  have  passed  since  the  cofl&n 
of  Dryden  was  reverently  laid  by  those  who  loved 
and  honoured  him  in  the  grave  of  the  Father  of  our 
Poetry ;  and  in  spite  of  all  the  caprices  in  taste,  in 
opinion,  in  fashion,  to  which  the  popular  judgment  in 
every  age  is  liable,  in  spite  of  revolutions  in  criticism 
which  have  scarcely  left  a  verdict  of  our  forefathers 
unchallenged,  and  revolutions  in  poetry  which  have 
dethroned  the  dynasties  of  the  last  century,  no  one 
has  ever  yet  grudged  his  ashes  the  proud  distinction 
thus  claimed  for  them.  His  services  had  indeed 
been  manifold  and  splendid.  He  had  determined  the 
bent  of.^A-.gi'eftt'  litcniture  fit  ft  great  crisis.  He 
had  banished  for  ever  the_  unpruned  luxuriance,  the 
licence,  the  essentially  uncriti<  il  -['irii,  which  had 
marked  expression  in  the  literature  ol  Illi/ilM  tli  nnd 
James,  and  he   had   vindicated   tlio   -ub^liLuLion   of 

*     m  tt^f 

a  style  which  should  proceed  on  crn      1   iTinriples, 

*  Lift  and  Works  of  John  Dryden.      By  Sir  Walter  Dcoit,  i  o. 

18  vols.     1821. 

The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Dryden.  Edited,  with  a  Menicu,  i 
Text,  and  Notes,  by  W.  D.  Christie,  M.A.,  of  Trinity  College,  Caui 
London,  1870. 

B 


2  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

J'  which  should  aim  at  terseness,  precision,  and  point, 
'")  should  learn  to  restrain  itself,  should  master  the  mys- 
teries of  selection  and  suppression.  lie  had  rescued 
'5uf  poetry  from  the  thraldom  of  a  school  which  was 
labouring,  with  all  the  resources  of  immense  learning, 
consummate  skill,  and  abundant  genius,  to  corrupt 
taste  and  pollute  style  with  the  vices  of  Marini  and 
Gongora.  He  had  brought_home_ta.jis  the  master- 
pieces  ofthg^Boman-  -Glassies^  and  he  had  taught  us 
how  to  understand  and  interpret  them.  He  had 
given  us  the  true  canons  of  classical  translation.  He 
haa  shown  us  how  our  language  could  adapt  itself 
with  precision  to  the  various  needs  of  didactic  prose,  of 
lyric  poetry,  of  argumentative  exposition,  of  satirical 
/  invective,  of  i^asy  narrative,  of  sonorous  declamation. 
HeTiaff  exTiiBiteS  for  the  first  time  in  all  their  ful- 
ness  the  power,  ductility,  and  compass  of  the  heroic 
couplet;  and  he  had  demonstrated  the  possibility  ot 
reasoning  closely  and  vigorously  in  verse,  without 
the  elliptical  obscurity  of  Fulke  Greville  on  the  one 
hand  or  the  painful  condensation  of  Davies  on  the 
C  other.  Of  English  classical  satire  he  had  practically 
been  the  creator.  For  Wyatt  had  taken  Alamanni 
and  Ariosto  for  his  models,  Skelton  and  Eoy  had 
seldom  risen  above  doggerel;  Spenser  had  indeed 
aflfected  the  heroic  style,  but,  cumbersome,  prolix,  and 
uncouth,  he  had  no  pretension  to  classicism.  And 
what  was  true  of  Spenser  had  been  equally  true  of 
Gascoigne.  The  Koman  satirists  had  certainly  found 
disciples  and  imitators  in  Donne,  Hall,  Marston,  and 
Lodge,  but  if  we  except  Hall,  who  is,  in  point  of 


JOHN  DRYDEN  3 

style,  incomparably  superior  to  his  brethren,  the  dis- 
ciples bear  little  resemblance  to  their  masters.  If 
they  succeed  in  reflecting  anything  in  their  originals, 
it  is  in  reflecting  only  too  faithfully  what  is  most 
insufierable  in  the  style  of  Persius.  Their  diction  is 
cramped,  jejune,  affected,  and  obscure,  their  tone  and 
colour  dull  and  coarse.  Nor  had  satire  made  any 
advance  in  passing  successively  through  the  hands  of 
Wither,  Cleveland,  Marvell,  Butler,  and  Oldham.  It 
was  reserved  for  Dryden  to  raise  it  to  the  level  of 
that  superb  satirical  literature  which  Quintilian 
claimed  as  the  peculiar  and  exclusive  product  of 
Roman  genius.  And  these  had  not  been  his  only 
services.  He  had  reconstructed  and  popularised  the 
goetry  of  romance.  He  had  inaugurated  ,.a  new  era 
in  English  prose,  and  a  ^^ew^ftra.  \i^  JRnglisli  criticidm. 
The  revolution  which  transformed  the  style  most 
characteristic  of  the  classics  of  the  sixteenth  and  early 
seventeenth  centuries  into  that  most  characteristic  of 
the  classics  of  the  eighteenth  century  may,  it  is  true, 
be  traced  historically  to  Hobbes,  Cowley,  Denham,^ 
and  Sprat.  But  this  in  no  way  detracts  from  the 
honour  due  to  Dryden.  In  his  writings  the  new 
style  not  only  found  its  most  perfect  expression,  but 
became  influential  in  literature.  From  the  appear- 
ance of  his  dissertations,  prefaces,  and  dedications 
dates  a  time  when  a  return  to  the  older  models  was 
impossible. 

His  influence_Qtu^"^^  ^^fipr^t"^^  ^'^  almost  all   its 

*  See   particularly  his  admirable   Preface   to   liis   verHion  of  the  second 


4  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

branches  has  indeed  been  prodigious.  "Perhaps," 
observes  Johnson,  "  no  nation  ever  produced  a  writer 
that  enriched  his  language  with  such  a  variety  of 
models."  He  is  one  of  those  figures  which  are  con- 
stantly before  us,  and  if  his  writings  in  their  entirety 
are  not  as  familiar  to  us  as  they  were  to  our  fore- 
fathers, their  influence  is  to  be  traced  in  ever-recur- 
ring allusion  and  quotation;  they  have  moulded  or 
leavened  much  of  our  prose,  more  of  our  verse,  and 
almost  all  our  earlier  criticism.  His  genius  has, 
moreover,  been  consecrated  by  the  praises  of  men  who 
now  share  his  own  literary  immortality.  It  would  in 
truth  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  writer  of  distinc- 
tion between  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  commencement  of  the  present  who 
has  not  in  some  form  recorded  his  obligations  to  him. 
Wycherley  addressed  him  in  a  copy  of  verses  which 
embody  probably  the  only  sincere  compliment  he 
ever  paid  to  a  fellow-creature,  and  what  Wycherley 
has  recorded  in  verse  Congreve  has  recorded  in  prose. 
Garth,  in  his  admirable  preface  to  Ovid's  Meta- 
morphoses, speaks  of  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  poets 
who  ever  trod  on  earth,  and  has  defined  with  a  happy 
precision  his  various  and  versatile  powers.  Addison 
and  Pope  forgot  their  mutual  jealousies  to  unite  in 
loyal  homage  to  the  genius  of  their  common  master  ^ ; 
and  Gray,  in  those  noble  verses  in  which  he  ranks 

him  second  only  to  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  was  true 

\ 

^  There  is  no  good  authority  for  the  story  circulated  by  Tonson  about 
Addison  and  Steele  joining  in  a  conspiracy  to  detract  from  Dryden's  reputa- 
tion. Wherever  Addison  refers  to  Dryden  it  is  always  in  the  highest 
terras. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  5 

to  the  traditions  of  a  long  line  of  illustrious  disciples. 
Churchill,  who  might  with  care  perhaps  have  rivalled 
him  as  a  satirist,  dedicates  to  his  memory  a  fine 
apostrophe,  which  seems  to  kindle  with  the  genius  it 
celebrates.  Johnson  has  discussed  his  merits  in  a 
masterpiece  of  criticism,  and  Goldsmith  has  laid  a 
graceful  tribute  at  his  shrine.  Nor  were  Burke  and 
Gibbon  silent.  Charles  Fox  not  only  pronounced 
him  to  be  the  greatest  name  in  our  literature,  but 
has  lavished  praises  almost  grotesque  in  their  excess 
of  idolatrous  enthusiasm.  If  Wordsworth  with  his 
habitual  bigotry,  and  Landor  with  his  habitual  in- 
temperance, attempted  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  five 
generations,  Byron  and  Scott,  accepting  the  legacy 
which  the  dying  poet  had  more  than  a  hundred  years 
before  bequeathed  to  Congreve,  "shaded  the  laurels 
which  had  descended  to  them,"  and  vindicated  with 
jealous  fondness  the  fame  of  their  great  predecessor. 

John  Dryden,  the  eldest  son  of  Erasmus  Driden 
and  Mary,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Pickering, 
was  bom  at  Aldwinckle,  a  village  near  Oundle  in 
Northamptonshire,  on  the  9th  of  August  1631. 
There  is  a  local  tradition  that  he  first  saw  the  light 
in  the  parsonage  house  of  Aldwinckle  All  Saints, 
then  the  residence  of  his  maternal  grandfather.  The 
truth  of  this  tradition  has  been  questioned  by  the 
biographers,  who,  on  the  authority  of  Malone,  have 
asserted  that  Mr.  Pickering  did  not  become  rector  till 
1647,  and  that  consequently  there  are  no  reasonable 
grounds  for  supposing  that  Dryden  was  born  there 


6  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

in  1631.  But  ]\Ir.  Christie,  ascertaining  that  Picker- 
ing became  rector  in  1597,  not  in  1647,  has  cor- 
roborated the  truth  of  the  old  tradition,  and  justified 
the  claims  of  the  little  room,  which  is  still  shown,  to 
the  reverence  of  visitors.  His  family  was  gentle  and 
eminently  respectable  ;  and,  though  two  of  his  sisters 
married  small  tradesmen,  and  one  of  his  brothers 
became  a  tobacconist  in  London,  he  could  still  remind 
the  Lady  Elizabeth  Howard  that  on  his  mother's  side 
he  could  number  titled  relatives  who  had  enjoyed  the 
friendship  of  James  L,  and  sat  in  judgment  on  his 
successor.  Poets  have  seldom  been  distinguished  for 
adhering  to  the  political  and  religious  traditions 
which  they  have  inherited,  and  Dryden  is  no  excep- 
tion to  the  rule.  His  father  and  his  mother  were  not 
only  Puritans  themselves,  but  belonged  to  families 
which  had  made  themselves  conspicuous  by  their 
opposition  to  the  Crown,  and  by  the  consistency  and 
zeal  with  which  they  had  upheld  the  principles  of  their 
sect.  His  grandfather  had  been  imprisoned  for  re- 
fusing loan-money  to  Charles  L  His  uncle.  Sir  John 
Driden,  was  accused  of  having  turned  the  chancel  of 
his  church  at  Canons-Ashby  into  a  barn,  and  Mr. 
Christie  thinks  it  not  improbable  that  his  father  was 
a  Committee-man  of  the  Commonwealth  times.  Of 
his  early  youth  little  is  known.  He  had,  he  tells 
us,  read  Polybius  in  English  when  he  was  ten  years 
old,  "  and  even  then  had  some  dark  notions  of  the 
prudence  with  which  he  conducted  his  design" — an 
early  instance  of  his  characteristic  preference  for 
solid  and  philosophic  literature  as  distinguished  from 


JOHN  DRYDEN  7 

romantic  and  imaginative.  If  the  inscription  on  the 
monument  erected  by  his  cousin,  Mrs.  Creed,  in  Tich- 
marsh  Church  be  trustworthy,  he  received  the  rudi- 
ments of  his  education  somewhere  in  that  village. 
From  Tichmarsh  he  passed  to  Westminster  School, 
probably  about  1642.  We  have  now  no  means  of 
knowing  why  this  school  was  selected ;  but  the  choice 
was  a  wise  one,  and  young  Dryden  arrived  at  a 
fortunate  time.  Three  years  before,  the  languid  and 
inefficient  Osbolston  had  been  ejected  by  Laud  from 
the  headmastership  ;  and  the  school,  now  in  the  vigor- 
ous hands  of  Richard  Busby,  was  about  to  enter  on  a 
career  of  unparalleled  distinction.  During  his  tenure 
of  office — to  employ  the  phraseology  which  he  loved 
to  afiect — Westminster  sent  up  to  the  Universities 
more  lads  destined  afterwards  to  become  famous  in 
theology,  in  scholarship,  in  literature,  and  in  public  life, 
than  any  other  English  school  could  boast  of  doing 
in  two  centuries.  In  Busby  Mulcaster  lived  again. 
Like  Mulcaster  he  was  a  man  whom  nature  had  en- 
dowed with  versatile  powers  which  circumstances  had 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  display  actively,  but 
which  expressed  themselves  in  ready  and  delighted 
sympathy  whenever  he  recognised  their  presence  in 
others.  At  Oxford  he  had  been  distinguished,  not 
only  by  his  classical  and  theological  attainments,  but 
by  his  abilities  as  an  orator,  as  a  talker,  and  as  an 
amateur  actor.  The  skill  with  which  he  had  sus- 
tained a  leading  character  in  Cartwright's  comedy, 
The  Royal  Slave,  on  the  occasion  of  Charles  I/s 
visit  to  Oxford,  was  long  remembered  in  the  Uni- 


8  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

versity.  For  upwards  of  half  a  century  he  ruled 
Westminster  with  a  severity  which  has  been  plea- 
santly ridiculed  by  Pope,  and  feelingly  described  by 
more  than  one  of  his  illustrious  pupils.  But  he 
could  reflect  with  pride,  at  the  end  of  his  long  and 
laborious  life,  that  he  had  nursed  the  young  genius 
of  Dryden,  Lee,  Prior,  Saunders,  Rowe,  King,  and 
Duke;  that  he  had  moulded  the  youth  of  Locke 
and  South ;  had  imbued  with  literary  tastes  which 
never  left  them  the  practical  abilities  of  Charles 
Montagu  and  Stepney;  had  laid  the  foundations  of 
Atterbury's  elegant  scholarship,  of  Michael  Mait- 
taire's  wide  and  varied  erudition,  and  of  that  learning 
which  made  Edmund  Smith  the  marvel  of  his  con- 
temporaries ;  had  taught  Freind  "  to  speak  as 
Terence  spoke,"  and  Alsop  to  recall  the  refined  wit 
of  Horace  ^ ;  that  eight  of  his  pupils  had  been  raised 
to  the  Bench,  that  no  less  than  sixteen  had  become 
Bishops.^ 

His  influence  on  Dryden  was  undoubtedly  con- 
siderable. He  saw  and  encouraged  in  every  way  his 
peculiar  bent.  Despairing,  probably,  of  ever  making 
him  an  exact  scholar,  he  taught  him  to  approach 
Virgil  and  Horace,  not  so  much  from  the  philological 

^  Let  Freind  affect  to  speak  as  Terence  spoke, 
And  Alsop  never  but  like  Horace  joke. — Pope. 
2  Steele  gives  a  remarkable  testimony  to  Busby's  genius  as  a  teacher.  ' '  I 
must  confess,  and  have  often  reflected  upon  it,  that  I  am  of  opinion  Busby's 
genius  for  education  had  as  great  an  effect  upon  the  age  he  lived  in  as  that  of 
any  ancient  philosopher,  without  excepting  one,  had  upon  his  contemporaries. 
I  have  known  a  great  number  of  his  scholars,  and  am  confident  I  could 
discover  a  stranger  who  had  been  such  with  a  very  little  conversation.  Those 
of  good  parts  who  have  passed  through  his  instruction  have  such  a  peculiar 
readiness  of  fancy  and  delicacy  of  taste  as  is  seldom  found  in  men  educated 
elsewhere,  though  of  equal  talents." 


JOHN  DRYDEN  9 

as  from  the  literary  side.  He  taught  him  to  relish 
the  austere  beauties  of  the  Roman  satirists,  and  with 
admirable  tact  set  him  to  turn  Persius  and  others 
into  English  verse,  instead  of  submitting  him  to  the 
usual  drudgery  of  Latin  composition.  Dryden  never 
forgot  his  obligations  to  Busby.  Thirty  years  after- 
wards, when  the  young  Westminster  boy  had  become 
the  first  poet  and  the  first  critic  of  his  age,  he 
addressed  his  master,  then  a  very  old  man,  in  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  verses  he  ever  wrote.  With 
exquisite  propriety  he  dedicated  to  him  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Satire  in  which  Persius  records  his  rever 
ence  and  gratitude  to  Cornutus  : — 

Yet  never  could  be  worthily  expressed 

How  deeply  tliou  art  seated  in  my  breast. 

When  first  my  childish  robe  resign'd  the  charge, 

And  left  me  unconfin'd  to  live  at  large. 

Just  at  that  age  when  manhood  set  me  free, 

I  then  deposed  myself  and  left  the  reins  to  thee. 

On  thy  wise  bosom  I  repos'd  my  head, 

And  by  my  better  Socrates  was  bred. 

My  reason  took  the  bent  of  thy  command, 

Was  form'd  and  polish'd  by  thy  skilful  hand. 

From  Westminster  young  Dryden  proceeded  to 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  He  was  entered  on  the 
18th  of  May  1650  ;  he  matriculated  in  the  following 
July,  and  on  the  2nd  of  October,  the  same  year,  he 
was  elected  a  scholar  on  the  Westminster  Foundation. 
He  probably  carried  up  to  Trinity  enough  Latin  to 
enable  him  to  read  with  facility  the  Roman  classics, 
and  enough  Greek  to  enable  him  to  follow  a  Greek 
text  in  a  Latin  version.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  his  attainments  in  Greek  ever  went  beyond 
this,  and  he  has  given  us  ample  opportunities  of 


10  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

judging.  In  his  renderings  from  Homer  and  Theo- 
critus he  always  follows  the  Latin  translation.  What 
he  knows  of  Aristophanes  and  the  Tragedians  he 
appears  to  have  derived  chiefly  from  the  French. 
He  had  plainly  not  read  Poly  bins  and  Plutarch  in  the 
original ;  Longinus,  to  whom  in  his  later  writings  he 
frequently  refers,  he  approached  through  Boileau. 
With  Plato,  with  the  orators,  and  with  the  less 
known  poets,  his  acquaintance  is  very  scanty. 

Of  his  life  at  Cambridge  very  little  is  known.  Like 
Milton  before  him,  and  like  Gray,  Wordsworth,  and 
Coleridge  after  him,  he  appears  to  have  had  no  respect 
for  his  teachers,  and  to  have  taken  his  education  into 
his  own  hands.  From  independence  to  rebellion  is 
an  easy  step,  and  an  entry  may  still  be  read  in  the 
Conclusion-book  at  Trinity,  which  charges  him  with 
disobedience  to  the  Vice-Master  and  with  contumacy 
in  taking  the  punishment  inflicted  on  him.  It  would 
seem  also  from  an  aUusion  in  a  satire  of  Shadwell's 
that  he  got  into  some  scrape  for  insulting  a  young 
nobleman,  which  nearly  ended  in  expulsion ;  but  the 
details  are  too  obscure  to  warrant  any  definite  con- 
clusion. That  he  studied  hard,  however,  in  his  own 
way  is  likely  enough.  He  had,  at  all  events,  the 
credit  of  having  read  over  and  very  well  understood 
all  the  Greek  and  Koman  poets.  He  taught  himself 
Italian,  French,  and  perhaps  Spanish,  and  impressed 
his  contemporaries  as  being  "  a  man  of  good  parts  and 
learning."^     To  Trinity  he  gratefully  acknowledged 

^  See  an  interesting  letter  lately  discovered  by  Mr.  Aldis  Wright  in  the 
Library  of  Trinity  College. 


JOHN  DRYDEX  11 

the  chief  part  of  his  education,  though,  like  his  pre- 
decessors Alarvell  and  Cowley,  he  probably  owed 
little  or  nothing  to  anybody  but  himself. 

The  University,  still  agitated  by  the  civil  com- 
motions which  had  shaken  England  to  its  centre,  was 
not  at  that  time  distinguished  either  by  scholarship 
or  by  sympathy  with  polite  literature.  The  age  of 
Milton,  Marvell,  Cowley,  and  May  had  just  passed ; 
the  age  of  Bentley,  Barnes,  and  Middleton  had  not 
arrived.  What  activity  there  was,  was  principally  in 
a  philosophical  and  scientific  direction.  Dryden's 
tutor,  Templer,  had  engaged  himself  in  a  controversy 
with  Hobbes.  Cudworth  was  collecting  materials  for 
his  confutation  of  Atheism.  Whichcote  and  Smith 
were  rationalising  theology.  Henry  More  was  un- 
ravelling the  mysteries  of  Plotinus  and  the  Cabbala. 
John  Nichols  of  Jesus  was  giving  us  our  first  history 
of  precious  stones.  Ray  was  laying  the  foundations 
of  English  natural  history.  Isaac  Barrow  was  deep  in 
chemistry  and  anatomy.  Hill,  the  Master  of  Trinity, 
was  indiff'erent  to  everything  but  politics.  Among 
the  few  men  who  had  any  pretension  to  elegant 
scholarship  was  Duport,  then  Margaret  Professor  of 
Divinity,  and  shortly  afterwards  Professor  of  Greek. 
He  was  an  excellent  Latinist,  as  his  epigrams  still 
testify,  and  he  was  one  of  the  few  English  scholars 
who  had  acquired  fluency  and  even  some  skill  in 
Greek  verse  composition.  His  versions  of  the  Book 
of  Proverbs,  of  Ecclesiastes,  of  the  Song  of  Solomon, 
and  of  the  Psalms,  are  unquestionably  the  best 
Greek  verses  which  had  as  yet  appeared  in  England. 


12  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

To  find  anything  as  good,  we  must  go  forward  nearly 
a  century  and  a  half  to  Dr.  Cooke's  version  of  Gray's 
Elegy,  It  does  not  seem  that  Dryden  had  any 
acquaintance  with  him,  though  he  was  very  likely  in 
residence  when  Duport  was  made  Vice-Master  of 
Trinity  in  1655.  Dryden  had,  however,  taken  his 
degree  in  the  preceding  year,  and  probably  preferred 
rambling  at  will  through  the  well-stocked  shelves  of 
the  College  library  to  attending  Duport's  lectures  on 
Theophrastus. 

His  studies  were  interrupted  by  the  death  of  his 
father,  and  by  an  attachment  he  had  formed  to  his 
cousin  Honor  Driden,  a  young  lady  of  great  personal 
attractions  and  a  fair  fortune.  She  turned,  it  seems, 
a  deaf  ear  to  the  flowing  periods  of  her  passionate 
lover,  and  left  him  *'  to  bee  burnt  and  martyred  in 
those  flames  of  adoration  "  which  a  letter  she  addressed 
to  him  had,  he  assures  her,  kindled  in  him.  Whether 
he  returned  again  to  Cambridge,  after  burying  his 
father,  is  doubtful.  From  1655  to  1657  nothing  is 
known  of  his  movements  except  what  mere  con- 
jecture has  suggested.  In  spite  of  the  assertions  of 
Mr.  Christie  and  the  old  gentleman  who  assures  us 
that  the  head  of  the  young  poet  was  too  roving  to 
stay  there,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  with  Malone 
that,  for  some  time,  at  least,  subsequent  to  his  father's 
death,  he  renewed  his  residence  at  Trinity.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  he  had 
settled  in  London  about  the  middle  of  1657. 

Cromwell  was  then,  though  harassed  with  accumu- 
lating difiiculties,  in  the  zenith  of  his  power,  and 


JOHN  DRYDEN  13 

Dryden's  cousin  Sir  Gilbert  Pickering  stood  high  in 
the  Protectors  favour.  He  sought  at  once  his 
cousin's  patronage,  and  appears  to  have  been  for 
some  time  his  private  secretary ;  but  his  bent  was 
towards  literature.  His  prospects  were  certainly 
not  encouraging,  and  it  would  indeed  have  required 
more  penetration  than  falls  to  the  lot  even  of  far- 
sighted  judges  to  discern  the  future  author  of 
Absalom  and  Achitophel  and  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther  in  the  stout,  florid  youth,  clad  in  gray 
Norwich  drugget,  who  now  offered  himself  as  a 
candidate  for  poetic  fame.  He  was  in  his  twenty- 
seventh  year.  At  an  age  when  Aristophanes,  Catul- 
lus, Lucan,  Persius,  Milton,  Tasso,  Shelley,  and  Keats 
had  achieved  immortality,  he  had  given  no  signs  of 
poetic  ability ;  he  had  proved,  on  the  contrary,  that 
he  was  ignorant  of  the  very  rudiments  of  his  art ; 
that  he  had  still  to  acquire  what  all  other  poets 
instinctively  possess.  A  few  lines  to  his  cousin 
Honor,  which  in  our  day  would  have  scarcely  found 
a  place  in  the  columns  of  a  provincial  newspaper,  an 
execrable  elegy  on  Lord  Hastings'  death,  and  a  com- 
mendatory poem  on  his  friend  Hoddesdon's  Epigrams, 
immeasurably  inferior  to  what  Pope  and  Kirke  White 
produced  at  twelve,  conclusively  showed  that  he  had 
no  ear  for  verse,  no  command  of  poetic  diction,  no 
taste,  no  tact.  We  have  now  to  watch  the  process 
by  which  these  crude  and  meagre  powers  gradually 
assumed,  by  dint  of  study  and  practice,  a  maturity,  a 
richness,  and  a  ductility  which  are  the  pride  and 
wonder  of  our  literature.     We  are  fortunately  enabled 


7 


14  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  trace  with  accuracy  not  only  the  successive  stages 
but  the  successive  steps  by  which  the  work  of  Dryden 
underwent  this  wondrous  transformation — and  the 
history  of  letters  presents  few  more  interesting  and 
instructive  studies. 

""  "When  he  entered  London  he  must  have  found  the 
character  of  our  prose  and  of  our  poetry  singularly^ 
undefineg|j_^  Both  were  in  a  state  of  transition,  and 
passing  rapidly  into  n„§.w.fQTins ;  but  as  ^et  the  najjire 
of  the  transi tiofl,.^^^  ^h.^^^  ,  the  forms  undetermined. 
There  were,  in  fact,  four^jcentres  bf  activity.  In 
Herrick  and  in  the  Cavalier  ScEooTTrbmrfced  still  the 
lyric  note  of  Ben  JonsbrTanS'T'letcher,  and  in  the 
tragedies  of  Shirley  the  large  utterance  of  the  old 
drama  was  faltering  out  its  last  unheeded  accents. 
Cowley  and  his  disciples  were  upholding  the  principles 
of  the  "  metaphysical "  school,  and  their  influence  was, 
on  the  whole,  predominant  in  most  of  the  narrative, 
religious,  and  lyrical  poetry  of  the  time.  In  Milton, 
Wither,  and  Marvell,  in  Owen,  Baxter,  and  Howe,  it 
seemed  for  a  moment  not  unlikely  that  Puritanism 
would  subdue  poetry  and  prose  alike  to  its  own  austere 
genius.  But  the  course  of  intellectual  activity  is 
determined  by  causes  which  lie  outside  itself.  Partly 
in  obedience  to  a  great  European  movement  in  a 
scientific  direction,  and  to  an  anti-Puritah  reaction 
already  beginning  to  display  itself,  partly  owing  to 
the  critical  and  reflective  spirit  which  never  fails  to 
follow  an  age  of  intense  creative  energy,  and  partly 
no  doubt  owing  to  our  increasing  familiarity  with  the 
literature  of  France,  an  adherence  to  the  ideals  of 


JOHN  DRYDEN  15 

Puritanism  became  impossible,  to  Elizabethan  models 
intolerable,  to  metaphysical  subtleties  repulsive. 
Paradise  Lost  hiaid' stnTto  be  written,  But  it  was 
entirely  out  of  tune  with  the  age,  as  contemporary 
testimonies  grotesquely  illustrate.  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress  was  yet  to  come  forth  for  the  delight  of 
millions,  but  it  was  not  till  the  present  century  that 
it  was  considered  anything  but  a  vulgar  romance, 
appealing  only  to  vulgar  readers.  In  the  fourth 
influence  was  the  principle  of  life,  for  it  was  m 
fiarmony  with  the  genius  of  the  age,  and  it  was  the 
influence  exercised  by  Waller,  Denham,  and  Davenant. 
The  terseness,  finish,  and  dainty  grace  of  the  first 
banished  for  ever  the  "  wood-notes  wild  "  of  the  early 
singers,  and  did  much  to  purify  language  and  thought 
from  the  extravagance  of  the  "  metaphysical "  school, 
though  that  school  was  still  popular.  The  mechanical 
music,  moreover,  of  \Valler[s  heroics,  and  the  equable 
but  pleasing  commonplace  of  his  sentiments,  were 
contributing  greatly  to  bring  the  tenets  of  the 
"  correct"  school  into  fashion.  Denham  laboured  also 
to  substitute  reflection  for  imagination,  criticism  for 
passion,  and  fitted  the  heroic  couplet  for  its  new 
duties.  Davenant  followed  in  his  footsteps,  added 
])ody  and  solidity  to  the  limper  harmony  of  Waller, 
aimed  at  brevity  and  point,  wrote  confessedly  on 
critical  principles,  recast  the  drama,  and  encouraged 
his  coadjutors  to  recast  it.  Cowley,  at  that  time  the 
most  eminent  poet  in  England,  clung  with  inexplic- 
able pertinacity  to  the  vagaries  of  the  school  of 
Donne,  except  in  his  better  moments.      But  these 


16  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

better  moments  sufficed  to  give  him  a  foremost  place 
among  the  fathers  of  the  critical  school.  A  rhetorician 
rather  than  a  poet,  without  passion,  without  imagina- 
tion, but  rich  in  fancy  and  rich  in  thought,  his  style 
insensibly  took  its  colour  from  the  temper  of  his 
genius.  Such  were  the  men  who  initiated  the  litera- 
ture which  it  was  the  task  of  the  youth  now  entering 
on  his  career  to  define  and  establish,  of  Pope  to  carry 
to  ultimate  perfection,  and  of  Darwin  and  Hayley  to 
reduce  to  an  absurdity. 

In  September  1658  Cromwell _  died,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  the  following  year  Dryden  published  a 
copy  of  verses  to  deplore  the  event.  The  Heroic 
Stanzas  on  the  D^^ath  of  the^Lprd^wti^tor  initiate 
his  poetical  career.  They  are  not  only  greatly 
superior  in  point  of  style  to  his  former  productions, 
but  they  exhibit  a  native  vigour,  an  alert  and  active 
fancy,  and  a  degree  of  imitative  skill  which  j)romised 
well  with  time  and  practice.  They  showed  also  that 
he  had  attached  himself  to  the  new  school ;  and  are 
modelled  closely  on  the  style  of  Gondihert,  repeating 
Davenant's  peculiarities  of  turn  and  cadence  with 
careful  fidelity.  The  death  of  Cromwell  changed  the 
face  of  afi'airs,  and  after  nearly  eighteen  months  of 
anarchy  Charles  II.  was  on  the  throne  of  his  ancestors. 
Dryden Jogt^no  time  in  attempting  to  ingratiate  him- 
self  with  the  Royalists,  and  the  three  poems  succeeding 
the  Heroic  Stanzas,  namely,  Asircea  RecJCUx,  the  Pane- 
gyric on  the  Coronation,  and  the  Epistle  To  Mj  Lord 
Chancellor,  were  written  to  welcome  Charles  il.  and 
to  flatter  Clarendon.     These  wearisome  productions, 


/ 


JOHN  DRYDEN  17 


to  consider  them  for  a  moment  apart  from  their 
interest  as  illustrating  the  development  of  Dryden's 
powers,  are  in  one  continued  strain  of  stilted  falsetto. 
They  have  neitherJruiiLJiQr_^fljbure.  Affecting  to  be 
the  expression  of  patriotism  and  loyalty,  they  are 
mere  exerd^es_Jn_mgenious   r^  Not  a  note, 

not  a  touch  indicates  that  they  had  any  other  inspira- 
tion than  a  desire  to  display  eloquence.  But  they 
prove  how  assiduously  Dryden  had  been  labouring  to 
make  himself  what  Nature  had  to  all  appearance  not 
made  him — a  poet.  They  are  modelled  atudJQUslv  on 
the  poetry  then  most  in  vogue.  Their  versification, 
tone,  and  colour  are  those  of  Cowley,  Davenant, 
Waller,  and  Denham  happily  blended.  From  the 
first  he  has  caught  a  certain  solidity  of  rhythm,  and 
a  happy  trick  of  epigrammatic  expression ;  from  the 
s^c^^ffjKne^oT^equable  smoothness,  and  the^art  of 
perverting  imagery  into  compliment ;  from  the  third, 
a  habit  of  commentative  reflection  and  scientific 
allusion.  Though  he  had  avoided  the  grotesque 
extravagance  of  the  Metaphysical  Poets,  he  was  not 
entirely  free  from  their  influence,  and  was  careful 
to  enrich  and  enliven  his  diction  with  their  varied  and 
ivide-ranging  imagery.  Hence  the  restless  straining 
after  illustration,  selected  indiscriminately  from  natural 
science,  from  astronomy,  from  mathematics,  from 
mythology,  from  history,  which  is  so  marked  a  feature 
in  these  and  in  all  his  early  works. 

About  this  time  he  had  formed  the  aquaintance  of 
Sir^Robert  Howard,  a  fashionable^playright  of  some 
distinction ;   and  he  honoured  his  friend  with  some 
-  c 


18  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

complimentary  verses,  which  probably  form  the  link 
between  the  Heroic  Stanzas  on  Cromwell  and  the 
three  poems  of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  Early  in 
1663  appeared  the  Epistle  to  Dr.  Charlton,  the  first 
of  his  works  which,  according  to  Hallam,  possesses 
any  considerable  merit.  Considerable  merit  it  un- 
doubtedly does  not  possess,  but  in  harmony  of 
versification  and  in  ease  and  vigour  of  style  it  is 
superior  to  its  predecessors. 

Dryden  had  now^^eryedJiia-J^rmticesiii^ 
become  a  writer  by  profession.  He  had  quitted  his 
cousin,  quarrelled  with  This  Puritan  relations,  who 
were  probably  not  pleased  with  his  apostasy  to  the 
Eoyalists,  and  attached  himself  to  Herringman,  a 
bookseller  in  j|||,fi,^^)y  Exc^|,fige,  and  at  that  time 
the  chief  publisher  of  poems  and  plays.  Though 
the  property  he  had  inherited  from  his  father  must 
have  preserved  him  from  actual  want,  it  was  not 
sufficient  to  support  him  in  independence,  and  he  was 
afterwards  taunted  with  being  Herringman's Jour^y- 
man.  However  this  may  be,  Eisadmission  at  this 
time  into  the  Royal  Society — which  numbered  among 
its  members  Boyle,  Wallis,  Wilkins,  Barrow,  Wren, 
Waller,  Denham,  Cowley,  and  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham— and  his  intimacy  with  Sir  Robert  Howard, 
place  it  beyond  all  doubt  that  his  position  was  not 
that  which  this  taunt  would  imply.  He  was,  perhaps, 
indebted  to  Howard  for  some  useful  introductions, 
and,  if  his  enemies  are  to  be  believed,  for  more 
substantial  assistance  also.  A  correspondent  in  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  for  February  1745  gives  us  a 


JOHN  DRYDEN  19 

glimpse  of  the  young  poet  in  his  lighter  hours :  *'  I 
remember  plain  John  Dryden  before  he  paid  his  court 
with  success  to  the  great,  in  one  uniform  clothing  of 
Norwich  drugget.  I  have  ate  tarts  with  him  and 
Madame  Reeve  at  the  Mulberry  Gardens,  where  our 
author  advanced  to  a  sword  and  a  Chadreux  wig." 
Mr.  Christie  is  very  severe  with  this  tart-eating  and 
Madame  Reeve,  but  there  is  surely  no  reason  for  con- 
cluding either  that  Dryden  was  a  libertine  or  that 
the  lady  was  notoriously  for  many  years  his  mistress. 
The  only  definite  authority  for  such  a  statement  is  a 
passage  in  the  Rehearsal,  and  to  cite  the  Reliearsal 
as  testimony  against  Dryden  would  be  as  absurd  as 
to  appeal  to  the  Thesmojjhoriazusw  and  the  Frogs  in 
support  of  scandals  against  Euripides,  ^^^ateve^ 
may  have  been  the  nature  of  his  connection  with  her, 
it  was  probably  discontinued  on  his  marriage  with 
the  Lady  Elizabeth  HojiSCilJldJ,  This  lady,  the  sister 
of  his  friend  Sir  Robert  Howard,  was  the  youngest 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Berkshire,  and  the  marriage, 
as  the  register  still  testifies,  took  place  at  St.  Swithin's 
Church,  London,  on  the  1st  of  December  1663.  It  has 
been  confidently  asserted  that  Dryden  married  her 
under  derogatory  circumstances,  and  that  previous  to 
her  marriao^e  with  him  she  had  been  the  mistress  of  the 
Earl  of  Chesterfield.  But  of  this  there  is  no  proof. 
The  two  brutal  libels  in  which  charges  are  brought 
against  her  good  name  accuse  her  husband  of  being 

^  Mr.  Christie  dates  this  tart-eating  with  Madumc  Rccvo  after  Dryden's 
marriage  ;  hinc  ilia:  lacrymcc.  Sir  Walter  Scott  more  liberally  dates  it  before. 
In  either  case  the  witness  must  have  been  a  child. 


20  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

a  drunken  profligate,  and  are  full  of  that  reckless 
malignity  which  carries  with  it  its  own  refutation. 
Scott  long  ago  pointed  out  the  utter  worthlessness  of 
their  testimony.  Since  Scott  wrote,  a  letter  addressed 
by  her  to  Chesterfield  has,  it  is  true,  been  brought 
to  light,  and  this  letter,  according  to  Mitford 
and  Mr.  Christie,  strongly  corroborates  the  former 
evidence.  We  cannot  see  it.  She  was  the  social 
equal  of  the  Earl,  who  was  acquainted  both  with  her 
father  and  with  her  brothers.  She  promises  to  meet 
him  at  a  place  of  public  resort.  She  asks  him  indeed 
not  to  believe  what  the  world  says  of  her ;  but  it  is 
surely  hard  to  wrest  these  words  into  criminal  signifi- 
cance. There  is  nothing  in  the  letter  incompatible 
either  with  an  innocent  flirtation  or  with  a  legitimate 
and  honourable  attachment.  That  Chesterfield  was  a 
libertine  scarcely  affects  the  question.  To  suppose 
that  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  first  noblemen  in 
England  should,  while  still  living  under  her  father's 
roof,  submit  to  be  the  mistress  of  a  young  rake,  is 
preposterous.  Mr.  Christie  supports  his  authorities 
with  an  a  'priori  argument  that  if  her  character  had 
been  unsullied  she  would  never  have  married  Dryden. 
He  forgets  that  Dryden  was  himself  of  good  family, 
that  he  had  her  brother  to  plead  for  him,  that  he  had 
all  the  facilities  afforded  by  a  long  visit  at  her  father's 
country  house,  that  he  was  not  in  those  days  the 
''poet-squab,"  but  that  he  was  "distinguished  by  the 
emulous  favour  of  the  fair  sex."  One  of  his  libellers 
has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  blushing  virgins 
had  died  for  him."     That   the  marriage  was  not  a 


JOHN  DRYDEN  21 

happy  one  is  only  too  probable,  though  the  unhappi- 
ness  arose,  it  is  clear,  from  causes  quite  unconnected 
with  infidelity,  on  the  part  either  of  the  husband  or 
of  the  wife.  The  truth  is  that  the  Lady  Elizabeth 
was,  like  many  of  the  fashionable  ladies  of  that  time, 
almost  wholly  illiterate,  and  had  no  sympathy  with 
her  husband's  pursuits.  She  appears  also  to  have 
been  a  woman  of  a  morose  and  irritable  temper.  She 
subsequently  became  insane.  It  is,  however,  due  to 
her  to  say  that  she  was  a  tender  and  affectionate 
mother,  as  one  of  her  letters,  preserved  in  Dryden's 
correspondence,  very  touchingly  shows. 

AboutJhi3.,tii»e.X)rydW-began^Ms^cp^ 
the  stage,  and  this  connection  was,  with  some  inter- 

-      I  iM  Ml  JIM  liJBI  • 

ruptions,  continuedtill  witliin  a  Ilw  yccii\->  oi  iiio  ^Icatji, 
hJR  firfl^;  plAv — The  Wild  Gallant — being  acted  in 
1663,  his  last — Love  Triumphant — in  1694.  Since 
jtbe  closing  of  the  theatres  by  the  Puritans  in  1642, 
the  drama,  which  had  been  for  upwards  of  a  century  the 
glory  and  the  pride  of  the  English  people,  supported 
by  the  throne,  the  aristocracy,  and  the  great  City 
Guilds,  had  maintained  a  precarious  and  fugitive 
existencCj^  The  successors  of  the  Burbages  and 
Condells,  who  had  once  shaken  the  Globe  and  the 
Black  friars  with  the  plaudits  of  ecstatic  crowds,  had 
been  constrained  to  act  for  the  amusement  of  a  few 
desperate  enthusiasts  in  a  private  room  at  Holland 
House,  or  in  miserable  barns  in  the  suburbs  and  back 
streets,  dreading  the  penance  of  imprisonment  and 
the  imposition  of  enormous  fines.  Davenant  had 
indeed,  by  an  ingenious  compromise,   succeeded  in 


22  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

evading  the  prohibition  of  the  Government.  He  had 
in  1656  obtained  leave  to  present  at  the  back  part  of 
Rutland  House  an  entertainment — so  he  called  it — 
of  declamation  and  music,  after  the  manner  of  the 
ancients ;  and  Tlie  Siege  of  Rhodes  and  The  History 
of  Sir  Francis  Drake  still  testify  the  existence  of 
this  bastard  drama.  Four  years  afterwards  the  acces- 
If)  t  sion  of  Charles  11.  rescinded  the  Ordinance  of  1642, 
and,  though  the  cautious  policy  of  .Clarehdon^nly 
suflfered  two  theatres  to  be  licensed,  both  managers 
and  playwrights  lost  no  time  in  indemnifying  them- 
selves for  their  long  privations.  The  King's  Theatre 
was  under  the  direction  of  Thomas  Killigfew,  aH 
accomplished  and  licentious  wit,  whose  sallies  were 
long  remembered  at  Whitehall.  The  Duke's  Theatre 
was  under  the  direction  of  Davenant,  who,  in  1660, 
had  been  raised  to  the  Laureateship.  The  position  of 
a  professional  writer  who  had  to  live  by  his  pen  was 
once  more  pretty  much  what  it  had  been  when  poor 
Greene  jeered  at  Shakspeare  for  tagging  his  verses ; 
and  when  Shakspeare  himself  made  his  fortune  out  of 
the  Blackfriars  Theatre.  Dryden  must  have  felt  that 
he  had  little  to  fear  from  tteAQmp^^^  of  his  imme- 
diate predecessors.  Of  the  giant  race  who,  to  borrow 
a  sentence  from  Lamb,  spoke  nearly  the  same  lan- 
guage, and  had  a  set  of  moral  feelings  and  notions  in 
common,  Shirley  only  remained.  But  Shirley  had 
collapsed,  worn  out  and  penniless,  into  a  suburban 
pedagogue;  Ford  had  died  in  1639;  Massinger  in 
1640;  and  in  such  plays  as  Cokayne's  Obstinate 
Lady,    Chamberlayne's    Loves    Victory,    Killigrew's 


JOHN  DRYDEN  23 

ClaHcilla,  and  Davenant's  tragedies  and  tragi- 
comedies— which  may  be  cited  as  typical  of  the 
period  immediately--  prnnnf^iTip  iho  T^^afn^-^ij^iji — the 
drama  had  degenerated  into  mere  fluciit^ltatoHC.  i^ 
'^''"^to  a  minute  account  of  Dryden's  labours  for  the 
stage  it  is  neither  profitable  nor  requisite  to  enter. 
Johnson  has  lamented  the  necessity  of  following  the 
progress  of  his  theatrical  fame,  but  sensibly  remarks 
at  the  same  time  that  the  composition  and  fate  of 
eight  -  and  -  twenty  dramas  include  too  much  of  a 
poetical  life  to  be  omitted.  They  include  unhappily 
the  best  years  of  that  life ;  they  prevented,  as  their 
author  pathetically  complains,  the  composition  of 
works  better  suited  to  his  genius.  Had  Fortune 
allowed  him  to  indulge  that  genius,  Lucretius  might 
have  found  his  equal  and  Juvenal  and  Lucan  their 
superiors.  He  had  bound  himself,  however,  to  the 
profession  of  a  man  of  letters;  he  had  taken  to 
literature  as  a  trade,  and  it  was  therefore  necessary 
for  him  to  supply,  not  the  commodities  of  which  he 
happened  to  have  a  monopoly,  but  the  commodities 
of  which  his  customers  had  need.  He  followed  models 
for  which  he  has  been  at  n^  jgains  to  conceal  his 
contempt,  and  he  gratified  as  a  playwright  the 
vitiafed  taste  which  as  a  critic  he  did  his  best  to 
correct  and  purify.  Those  who  live  to  please  must, 
as  he  well  knew,  please  to  live.  The  subtlety  and 
refinement  of  Shakspearean  comedy,  the  conscientious, 
elaborate,  and  lofty  art  of  Jonson,  were  beyond  his 
reach  and  beyond  the  taste  of  his  patrons ;  but  the 
bustle,  the  machinery,  the  surprises,  the  complicated 


S4  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

intrigue  of  the  Spanish  stage,  spiced  with  piquant  wit, 
with  obscenity  alternately  latent  and  rampant,  were 
irresistibly  attractive  to  a  profligate  Court  and  to  a 
debased  and  licentious  mob.  With  all  this  Dryden 
hastened  to  provide  them.^  His  first  play,  The  Wild 
Gallant,  was  a  failure — "  as  poor  a  thing,"  writes 
honest  Pepys,  "  as  ever  I  saw  in  my  life."  Comedy, 
as  he  soon  found,  was  not  his  forte,  and,  though  he 
lived  to  produce  five  others  by  dint  of  wholesale 
plagiarism  from  Moli^re,  Quinault,  Corneille,  and 
Plautus,  and  by  laboriously  interpolating  filth  which 
may  challenge  comparison  with  Philotus  or  Fletcher's 
Custom  of  the  Country,  two  of  them  were  hissed  off 
the  stage,  one  was  indifferently  received,  and  the 
other  two  are  inferior  in  comic  effect,  we  do  not  say 
to  the  worst  of  Congreve's  but  to  the  worst  of 
Wycherley's.  He  had,  in  truth,  few  of  the  qualities 
essential  to  a  comic  dramatist.  "  I  know,"  he  says 
himself  in  the  Defence  of  the  Essay  of  Dramatic 

^  Poesy,  "  I  am  not  so  fitted  by  nature  to  write  comedy. 

\    I  want  that  gaiety  of  humour  which  is  required  to  it. 

-^j  My  conversation  is  slow  and  dull,  my  humour  saturnine 

/  and  reserved.  So  that  those  who  decry  my  comedies 
do  me  no  injury  except  it  be  in  point  of  profit ;  re- 
putation in  them  is  the  last  thing  to  which  I  shall 

►      pretend."     He  had  'indeed  little  humour  ;  he  had  no 

I     ,grace;  he  had  no^  eye  for  these  subtler  improprieties 

of  character  and  conduct  which"  are  the"  soul  of  comedy ; 

^  "  I  confess,"  he  says  in  the  Defence  oftlie  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  "  my 
chief  endeavours  are  to  delight  the  age  in  which  I  live.  If  the  humour  of  this 
be  for  low  comedy,  small  accidents,  and  raillery,  I  will  force  my  genius  to  obey 
it" 


JOHN  DRYDEN  86 

what  wit ^e  had  was  coarse  and  boisterous^  he  had 
no  power  of  inventiiig  J^?croT»-4acixients,  he  could 
n^lTmanage  the  light  artillery  of  collo(]u.ijd_?^ill^' 
The  WilcT  Gallant  was '"  sncceeded^by  The  Rival 
Ladies,  and  it  is  a  relief  to  return  to  his  efforts  in 
serious  drama.  This  play  was  written  about  the 
end  of  1663,  but,  warned  by  his  former  failure,  he 
exchanged  in  the  lighter  parts  plain  prose  for  blank 
verse,  and  he  wrote  the  tragic  portions  in  highly 
elaborated  rhyming  couplets.  In  the  Dedication  to 
the  Earl  ofOri^ery,  he  defended  with  arguments,  which 
he  afterwards  expanded  in  his  Essay  of  Dramatic 
Poesy,  the  practice  of  composing  tragedies  in  rhyme. 
Tlie  Rival  Ladies  was  well  received,  and  he  hastened 
to  assist  his  friend,  Sir  Kobert  Howard,  in  The  Indian 
Queen,  which  was  produced  the  following  year  at  the 
King's  Theatre  with  all  that  splendour  of  costume 
and  scenery  common  to  the  theatre  of  the  Restora- 
tion. His  powers  were  now  rapidly  maturing,  and 
Hie  Indian  Empei^or,  his  next  production,  is  a 
masterpiece  in  ornate  and  musical  rhetoric. 

These  plays  were  a  great  success ;  and  they  were 
something  more.  They  revealed  to  Dryden  where 
his  real  strength  lay.  They  furnished  him  witn  tng 
means  i)^  <11sguising  his  deficiencies  as  a  dramatist, 
and  ol  di-j. laying  thSSC[  ]EpXvers  in  which  lie  had  no 
rival  among  liis  contemporaries,  and  in  which  lir  lias 
had  no  equal  since.  English  ili\nud  iiuiuic  i 
^urf  practically]  )r\(l<n's  creation.  Of  their  origin  Ij 
and  character  he  has  himseirgTven  us  an  interesting 
account  in  the  essay  prefixed  to   The  Conquest  of 


S6  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Granada,  He  there  tells  us  that  the  germ  of  them 
was  to  be  found  in  Davenant's  recast  of  TJie  Siege  of 
Rhodes,  and  he  continues  : — 

Having  done  him  this  justice  as  ray  guide,  I  will  do  myself 
so  much  as  to  give  an  account  of  what  I  have  performed  after 
him.  I  observed  that  what  was  wanting  to  the  perfection  of  his 
Siege  of  JRhodes  was  design  and  variety  of  characters.  And  in 
the  midst  of  this  consideration  by  mere  accident  I  opened  the 
next  book  that  lay  by  me,  which  was  an  Ariosto  in  Italian,  and 
the  very  first  two  lines  of  that  poem  gave  me  light  to  all  I  could 
desire — 

Le  domie,  i  cavalier,  I'arme,  gli  amori, 

Le  cortesie,  I'audaci  imprese  io  canto. 

For  the  very  next  reflection  that  I  made  was  this :  that  an  heroic 
play  ought  to  be  an  imitation  in  little  of  an  heroic  poem,  and 
consequently  that  love  and  valour  ought  to  be  subject  of  it. 

Dryden  has  omitted  to  notice,  perhaps  because  he 
thought  it  sufficiently  obvious,  that  these  plays  also 
owed  much  both  to  the  French  dramatists,  particularly 
to  Corneille,  and  to  the  French  heroic  romances  of 
D'Urfe,  Gomberville,  Calprenede,  and  Madame  de 
Scuderi ;  borrowing  from  the  first,  not  indeed  the 
style  and  colour,  but  the  pitch  and  tone  of  the  rhymed 
dialogue,  and  from  the  second  the  stilted,  precious, 
and  bombastic  sentiment,  as  well  as  innumerable 
hints  in  matters  of  detail.  On  these  foundations 
Dryden  proceeded  to  raise  his  fantastic  structure. 
Carefully  selecting  such  material  as  would  be  most 
appropriate  for  rhetorical  treatment,  and  most  remote 
from  truth  and  life,  he  drew  sometimes  on  the  Heroic 
Romances,  as  in  Tlie  Maiden  Queen,  which  is  derived 
from  The  Grand  Cyrus,  and  in  The  Conquest  of 
Granada,  which  is  mainly  based  on  the  Almahide 


JOHN  DRYDEN  27 

of  Madame  cle  Scuderi ;  sometimes  on  the  exotic 
fictions  of  Spanish,  Portuguese,  or  Eastern  legends, 
as  in  The  Indian  Emperor  and  Aurengzebe;  or  on 
the  misty  annals  of  early  Christian  martyrology,  as 
in  Tyrannic  Love ;  or  on  the  dreamland  of  poets,  as 
in  The  State  of  Innocence.  All  is  false  and  unreal. 
The  world  in  which  his  characters  move  is  a  world  of 
which  there  is  no  counterpart  in  human  experience,  but 
which  is  so  incongruous  and  chaotic  that  it  is  simply 
unintelligible  and  unimaginable  even  as  fiction.  His 
men  and  women  are  men  and  women  only  by  courtesy. 
It  would  be  more  correct  to  speak  of  them  as  puppets 
tricked  out  in  fantastic  tinsel,  the  showman,  as  he 
jerks  them,  not  taking  the  trouble  to  speak  through 
them  in  falsetto,  but  merely  talking  in  his  natural 
voice.  And  in  nearly  every  drama  we  have  the  same 
leading  puppets,  the  one  in  a  male,  the  other  in  a 
female  form.  The  male  impersonates  either  a  rant- 
ing, blustering  tyrant,  all  fanfarado  and  bombast,  like 
Almanza  and  Boabdelin,  Maximin  and  Montezuma, 
or  some  sorely-tried  and  pseudo-chivalrous  hero,  like 
Cortez  and  Aurengzebe  ;  the  female  some  meretricious 
Dulcinea,  who  is  the  object  of  the  male  hero's  honour- 
able or  dishonourable  desires.  This  Dulcinea  has 
usually  some  rival  Dulcinea  to  vex  and  bring  her 
out,  and  the  tyrant  or  preux  chevalier  some  rival 
opponent  who  serves  the  same  purpose.  This  enables 
the  poet  to  pit  these  characters  against  each  other  in 
declamation  and  dialogue,  and  it  is  these  interbandied 
declamations  and  dialogues  which  make  up  the  greater 
part,  or    at   least  the   most   effective  part,   of  the 


28  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

dramas.  Not  that  scenic  effect  is  ignored,  for  battles, 
processions,  feasts,  sensational  arrests,  harryings, 
murders  and  attempted  murders,  invocations  of  the 
dead,  apparitions,  and  every  variety  of  agitating 
surprise,  break  up  and  diversify  these  dialogues  and 
declarations  with  most  admired  disorder.  But,  worth- 
less and  absurd  as  these  plays  are  from  a  dramatic 
point  of  view,  as  compositions  they  have  often  dis- 
tinguished merit.  The  charm  of  their  versification, 
which  is  seen  in  its  highest  perfection  in  The  Con- 
quest of  Granada,  The  Indian  Emperor,  Aurengzehe, 
and  The  State  of  Innocence^  is  irresistible,  being  a 
singular  and  exquisite  combination  of  dignity  and 
grace,  of  vigour  and  sweetness.  Dry  den  is  always 
impressive  when  he  clothes  moral  reflection  in  verse, 
and  always  brilliant  when  he  presents  commonplaces 
in  epigram ;  and  he  was  careful  to  enrich  these  plays 
with  both.  Some  of  the  best  examples  of  his  ethical 
eloquence,  and  many  of  his  best  aphorisms,  are  to  be 
found  in  them.  But  perhaps  their  most  remarkable 
feature  is  the  rhymed  ar^mentative  jdialpgue. 
Dryden's  power  of  maintaining  an  argument  in  verse, 
of  putting,  with  epigrammatic  terseness  in  sonorous 
anJ  musical  rhythm,  £Ke  case  for  and  against^in  the 
t^eiffe^pro£o|g37w*'is  imnvall'edT'ahd  he  revelledjin 
its  exercise.  We  may  select  for  illustration  the 
dialogue  between  Almanzor  and  Almahide  in  the 
third  act  of  the  first  part  of  The  Conquest  of 
Granada,  that  between  Cydaria  and  Cortez  in  the 
second  act  of  The  Conquest  of  Mexico,  that  between 
Indamora  and  Arimant  in  the  second  act  of  Aureng- 


JOHN  DRYDEN  29 

zehe,  and  that  in  which  St.  Catharine  converts  Apol- 
lonius  from  Paganism  to  Christianity  in  the  second 
act  of  Tyrannic  Love.  But  if  the§£4ila^[a-add.  iiothing 
tr> JHry fl ptj *g  jgipi? t^ti nn  ^  it  was  in  their  coinposition 
that  he  trained,  developed,  and  matured  the  powers 
which  enabled  iijQX  to  produce,  with  a  rapidity  so 
wonderful,  the  masterpieces  on  which  ,lus  fame  rests. 

But  to  return.  The  year  of  the  plague  closed  the 
theatres,  and  the  following  year,  not  less  calamitous 
to  the  Londoner,  scarcely  made  the  metropolis  a 
desirable  abode.  Dryden  spent  the  greater  part 
of  this  long  period  at  Charlton  in  Wiltshire,  the  seat 
of  his  father-in-law.  He  employed  his^  retirement  in 
producing  two  of  the  longest  and  perhaps  the  most 
carefully  finished  of  all  his  writings,  the  Annus 
MirahiliSy  and  the  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy.  In 
the  Annus  Mirahilis  he  returned  to  the  heroic 
quatrains  of  Davenant,  because  he  had,  he  tells  us  in 
the  preface,  **ever  judged  them  more  noble  and  of 
greater  dignity,  both  for  the  sound  and  number,  than 
any  other  verse  in  use  amongst  us."  A  minute  and 
somewhat  tedious  account  of  the  four  days'  battle 
with  the  Dutch  fleet,  an  apostrophe  to  the  Royal 
Society,  a  description  of  the  fire  of  London,  written 
with  great  animation  and  vigour,  the  King's  services 
at  that  crisis,  and  a  prophecy  of  what  the  future  city 
would  be — form  the  material  of  the  poem.  Both  in 
its  merits  and  in  its  defects  it  bears  a  close  re- 
semblance to  the  Pharsalia  of  Lucan.  It  is  enriched 
with  some  fine  touches  of  natural  description,  and,  if 
the  moonlight  night  at  sea  and  the  simile  of  the  bees 


30  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

were  borrowed  from  Virgil,  the  pictures  of  the  dying 
hare,  of  the  baffled  falcon,  of  the  herded  beasts  lying 
on  the  dewy  grass,  and  of  the  moon  "blunting  its 
crescent  on  the  edge  of  day,"  show  that  Dry  den  had 
the  eye  of  an  artist  as  he  wandered  about  the  park  at 
Charlton.  The  work  is  disfigured  with  many  "  meta- 
physical" extravagances,  but  the  King's  prayer,  as 
well  as  the  concluding  stanzas,  must  rank  among  the 
most  majestic  passages  in  English  rhetorical  poetry. 
Preceded  by  a  Dedication  to  the  Metropolis^  executed 
with  a  laboured  dignity  of  diction  and  sentiment  in 
which  he  seldom  afterwards  indulged,  it  appeared  in 
1667.  If  the  poem  commemorated  the  events  of  a 
year  memorable  in  history,  the  year  in  which  it  saw 
the  light  was  not  less  memorable  in  literature,  for 
it  witnessed  the  publication  of  Paradise  Lost  in 
England  and  of  Tartuffe  and  Andromaque  in  France  ; 
and,  while  it  mourned  the  death  of  Wither,  of  Cowley, 
and  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  it  welcomed  into  the  world 
Jonathan  Swift  and  John  Arbuthnot. 

The  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  which  is  cast  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue  under  names  representing 
respectively  Lord  Buckhurst,  Sir  Charles  Sedley,  Sir 
Kobert  Howard,  and  the  author  himself,  is  not  only 
an  admirable  discourse,  but  it  forms  an  era  in  the 
history  of  literary  criticism.  The  treatises  of  Wilson, 
Gascoigne,  Sidney,  Webbe,  Puttenham,  Campion,  and 
Daniel ;  the  occasional  excursions  of  Ascham  in  his 
Schoolmaster y  and  of  Ben  Jonson  in  his  Discovemes ; 
the  dissertation  of  Hobbes  and  the  incidental  remarks 
of  Cowley,  Denham,  and  Davenant,  may  be  said  to 


j 


JOHN  DRYDEN  31 

represent  what  had  hitherto  appeared  in  England  on 
this  important  province  of  literature.  But  none  of 
these  works  will  bear  any  comparison  with  Dryden's. 
From  many  of  the  conclusions,  indeed,  at  which  the 
critics  in  Dryden's  dialogue  arrive,  modern  criticism 
would  undoubtedly  dissent,  and  it  may  freely  be  con- 
ceded that  there  is  much  in  it  which  is  superficial  and 
even  erroneous.  Such  would  be  the  remarks  on  the 
relative  merits  of  ancient  and  modern  poets,  and  on 
the  superiority  of  the  later  drama  to  the  Elizabethan. 
But  the  remarks  on  the  defects  and  limitations  of 
ancient  tragedy,  on  the  necessity  for  extending  the 
sphere  of  the  drama,  and  of  paying  more  attention  to 
precision,  correctness,  and  measure  than  the  poets  of 
the  preceding  age  had  done,  are  admirable;  the 
Examen  of  Tlie  Silent  Woman  is  an  excellent  piece 
of  analytical  criticism,  so  also  are  the  portraits  of 
Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jonson.  But  the  best  thing 
in  the  essay  is  the  defence  of  rhyme  in  tragedy,  which 
is  a  masterpiece  of  ingenious  reasoning. 

At  what  time  he  left  the  country  is  not  knowTi, 
but  in  1668  Dry  den  was  again  busy  with  his  literary 
engagements  in  London.  The  Annus  Mirabilis  had 
placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  poets  of  the  new 
school ;  the  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy  had  placed 
him  at  the  head  of  contemporary  critics.  But,  as 
he  was  not  in  a  position  to  prefer  fame  to  independ- 
ence, he  at  once  betook  himself  to  the  drama,  and 
such  was  his  industry  that  within  the  year  he  pro- 
duced three  plays,  in  one  of  which,  a  wretched 
recast  of  Shakspeare's  Tempest,  he  had  the  assist- 


32  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

ance  of  Davenant.  About  this  time  lie  contracted 
with  the  King's  Theatre  to  supply  them,  in  con- 
sideration of  an  annual  salary,  with  three  plays  a 
year,  and,  though  he  failed  to  satisfy  the  terms  of 
the  agreement,  the  company,  with  a  liberality  not 
very  common  with  people  of  their  profession,  allowed 
him  his  stipulated  share  of  the  profits.  In  1666  the 
office  of  Historiographer-Royal  had  been  vacated  by 
the  death  of  James  Howell,  who  is  still  remembered 
as  the  pleasing  author  of  the  Familiar  Letters,  and 
in  1668  the  death  of  Davenant  threw  the  Laureateship 
open.  To  both  these  offices  Dryden  succeeded.  He 
was  now  in  comfortable  circumstances,  but  he  was 
soon  brought  into  collision  with  opponents  who 
embittered  his  life,  and  on  whom  he  was  destined  to 
confer  an  unenviable  immortality. 

Among  the  young  noblemen  who  varied  the  amuse- 
ments of  prosecuting  vagrant  amours,  in  the  guise  of 
quacks,  on  Tower  Hill,  and  of  haranguing  mobs  naked 
from  the  balcony  of  public-houses  in  Bow  Street,  with 
scribbling  libels  and  hanging  about  the  greenrooms, 
were  George  Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  and 
Thomas  Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester.  The  Duke  either 
had,  or  pretended  to  have,  a  contempt  for  the  rhymed 
heroic  tragedies  which  were  now  in  almost  exclusive 
possession  of  the  stage.  These  heroic  plays  Bucking- 
ham had  already  resolved  to  ridicule  in  a  farce  in 
which  Davenant  was  to  be  the  principal  character. 
As  Davenant  had  died,  he  resolved  to  substitute 
Dryden.  His  Grace's  literary  abilities  were,  however, 
scarcely  equal  to  the  task,  as  the  specimens  which  he 


JOHN  DRYDEN  33 

afterwards  gave  of  them  in  his  Reflections  on  Absalom 
and  Achitophel  abundantly  testify.  He  therefore 
sought  the  assistance  of  Samuel  Butler,  Thomas  Sprat, 
and  Martin  Clifford.  Butler,  a  consummate  master 
of  caustic  humour,  had  recently  parodied  the  heroic 
plays  in  a  dialogue  between  two  cats,  and  was 
smarting  under  the  double  sting  of  neglect  and  envy. 
Sprat,  though  a  prebendary  of  Westminster,  was  a 
man  whose  convivial  wit  was  equal  to  his  convivial 
excesses,  and  these  excesses  were  proverbial  among 
his  friends,  and  long  remembered  by  the  good  people 
about  Chertsey.  Clifford,  a  clever  man  and  a 
respectable  scholar,  found  the  Mastership  of  the 
Charterhouse  not  incompatible  with  habits  which 
he  had  probably  contracted  during  his  lieutenancy 
in  the  Earl  of  Orrery's  regiment,  and  was  notorious 
for  his  licentious  tastes  and  his  powers  of  scurrilous 
buffoonery.  Betw^een  them  they  produced  TJie 
Rehearsal,  In  this  amusing  farce — which  furnished 
Sheridan  with  the  idea  and  with  many  of  the  points 
of  his  Critic — the  central  figure  is  Bayes,  a  vain  and 
silly  playwright;  and  Bayes  is  Dryden.  With  all 
the  licence  of  the  Athenian  stage,  Dryden's  personal 
peculiarities,  his  florid  complexion,  his  dress,  his 
snuff-taking,  the  tone  of  his  voice,  his  gestures,  his 
"  down  look,"  his  favourite  oaths — "  Gad's  my  Life," 
"  I'fackins,"  "  Gudsooks," — were  faithfully  caught  and 
copied.  Buckingham,  who  was  unrivalled  as  a 
mimic,  undertook  to  train  Lacy  for  the  part  of 
Bayes.  The  mischievous  joke  succeeded.  In  a  few 
weeks   Bayes,   indistinguishable   from   Dryden,   was 


34  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

making  all  London  merry.  Dryden's  plots  were 
pulled  to  pieces,  the  scenes  on  which  he  had  prided 
himself  were  mercilessly  mangled,  and  he  had  the 
mortification  of  hearing  that  the  very  theatre  which 
a  few  nights  before  had  been  ringing  with  the  sonorous 
couplets  of  his  Siege  of  Gh^anada,  was  now  ringing 
with  laughter  at  parodies  of  his  favourite  passages,  as 
happy  as  those  with  which  Aristophanes  maddened 
Agathon  and  Euripides.  Dryden  made  no  immediate 
reply.  He  calmly  admitted  that  the  satire  had  a 
great  many  good  strokes,  and  has  more  than  once 
alluded  to  the  character  of  Bayes  with  easy  in- 
difierence. 

His  equanimity,  however,  seems  to  have  been 
really  disturbed  by  the  success  of  Elkanah  Settle's 
Empress  of  Morocco,  about  a  year  and  a  half  after- 
wards. This  miserable  man,  who  is  now  known  only 
by  the  stinging  lines  in  the  second  part  of  Absalom 
and  Achitophel,  had  found  a  patron  in  the  Earl  of 
Rochester.  The  Earl  had  possibly  been  annoyed  at 
Dryden's  intimacy  with  Sheffield ;  he  may  have  been 
impelled  merely  by  whim.  But,  whatever  were  his 
motives,  he  resolved  to  do  his  utmost  to  oppose  the 
Laureate,  with  whom  he  had  up  to  this  moment  been 
on  good  terms.  By  his  efforts  The  Empress  of 
Morocco  was  acted  at  Whitehall,  the  lords  at  Court 
and  the  maids -of- honour  supporting  the  principal 
characters.  It  was  splendidly  printed,  adorned  with 
cuts,  and  inscribed  to  the  Earl  of  Norwich  in  a 
dedication  in  which  Dryden  was  studiously  insulted. 
London,  following  fashion,  was  loud  in  its  praises,  and 


JOHN  DRYDEN  36 

Dryddn,  knowing  the  nature  of  theatrical  fame,  was 
seriously  alarmed.  Crowne  and  Shad  well,  both 
leading  playwrights,  and  both  at  that  time  his  friends, 
lent  him  their  assistance  in  a  pamphlet  which  exposed 
Settle's  pretensions  in  a  strain  of  coarse  and  brutal 
abuse.  Dryden  now  felt  that  he  was  on  his  mettle, 
and  applied  himself  with  more  scrupulousness  to  his 
dramatic  productions.  In  Tlie  State  of  Innocence, 
which  has  been  justly  censured  as  a  travesty  of 
Paradise  Lost,  and  in  Aurengzebe,  his  splendid 
powers  of  versification  and  rhetoric  are  seen  in  per- 
fection. In  truth,  these  two  plays,  amid  much 
bombast,  contain  some  of  his  finest  writing,  and 
possess  throughout  an  ease,  a  copiousness  and  uniform 
magnificence  of  diction,  only  occasionally  reached 
before — the  result  perhaps  of  a  careful  study  of  the 
principal  English  poets,  to  which  he  had,  as  he  in- 
formed Sir  George  Mackenzie,  about  this  time  applied 
himself.  With  Aurengzehe  died  the  rhymed  heroic 
plays.  For  Dryden  was  now  weary  of  his  own 
creation,  and  in  the  prologue  to  this  play  he  announced 
that  he  **had  another  taste  of  wit,"  that  he  had 
determined  to  discard  "  his  long  -  loved  mistress, 
Rhyme,"  and  that  he  should  henceforth  follow  nature 
and  Shakspeare.  The  reasons  for  this  sudden  con- 
version may,  perhaps,  be  assigned  partly  to  his 
disgust  at  the  success  of  Settle's  Empress  of  Morocco 
and  of  other  inferior  imitations  of  his  own  work,  and 
partly  to  a  sincere  conviction  of  the  truth  of  what  he 
had  said  about  the  restrictions  placed  on  a  tragic  poet 
who  employs  rhyme  : — 


36  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Passion's  too  fierce  to  be  in  fetters  bound,  *• 

And  Nature  flies  him  like  enchanted  ground. ^ 

In  any  case,  his  conversion  was  sincere,  and  again 
tragedy  and  tragi-comedy  took  the  ply  from  his 
example.  As  between  1664  and  1677  he  had  brought 
the  rhymed  heroic  plays  into  fashion,  so  from  1678 
he  brought,  and  brought  permanently,  blank  verse 
into  fashion. 

In  his  next  play.  All  for  Love,  he  kept  his  promise, 
and  enrolled  himself  among  the  disciples  of  Shak- 
speare.     But  he  was  careful  to  show  that  it  was  as 
no  servile  imitator.     Indeed,  his  design  was  to  improve 
on  his  model,  and  to  show  how  a  drama  might  be 
constructed  which  should  reflect  nature  as  faithfully 
as  the  Shakspearean  drama  had  done  without  violat- 
ing the  canons  of  Aristotle.     It  was  an  interesting 
experiment,  and  he  certainly  gave  it  a  fair  trial.     To 
challenge  comparison  with  Shakspeare  he  chose  as 
his  subject  the  story  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra.     And 
we  may  fairly  concede  to  him  what  he  claims — that 
he  has  made  the  moral  of  his  play  clear;  that  the 
fabric  of  the  plot  is  regular ;  that  the  action  is  "so 
much  one  that  it  is  without  underplot  or  episode"; 
that  **  every  scene  conduces  to  the  main  design  and 
every  act  concludes  with  a  turn  of  it "  ;  that  in  the 
matter  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place  it  is  irreproach- 
able, and  that  the  style  is  evidently  modelled,  and 
sometimes  successfully,  on  the  style  of  "  the  divine 
Shakspeare."      But   to   compare  All  for  Love  with 
Antony  and  Cleopatra  would  be  to  compare  works 

^  Prologue  to  Aurengzche. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  37 

which,  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  essence  of  poetry 
and  tragedy,  differ  not  in  degree  merely  but  in  kind. 
And  yet  Dry  den's  tragedy,  even  from  a  dramatic 
point  of  view,  is,  with  three  or  four  exceptions, 
superior  to  anything  produced  by  his  contemporaries. 
If  his  Cleopatra  is  wretched,  his  Antony  is  powerfully 
sketched.  The  altercation  between  Antony  and 
Ventidius,  though  modelled  too  closely  on  that 
between  Brutus  and  Cassius  in  Julius  Ccesar,  is  a 
noble  piece  of  dialectical  rhetoric,  while  the  scene 
between  Cleopatra  and  Octavia  is  perhaps  finer  than 
anything  which  the  stage  had  seen  since  Massinger.^ 
Dryden  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  theatrical 
fame.  His  last  three  plays  had  been  deservedly 
popular,  and,  satisfied  with  their  success,  he  began 
with  his  habitual  carelessness  to  relax  in  his  efforts, 
as  Limberham  and  Troilus  and  Cressida  sufiiciently 
testify.  Settle  was  crushed,  but  Rochester  was  busy. 
About  this  time  appeared,  circulated  in  manuscript,  the 
Essay  on  Satire.  The  nominal  author  was  the  Earl 
of  Mulgrave,  Dry  den's  friend  and  patron.  The  poem 
contained  some  coarse  and  bitter  attacks  on  Sir  Car 
Scrope,  on  Rochester,  on  Sedley,  and  on  the  two 
favourite  mistresses  of  the  King.  It  was  believed  at 
the  time  that  the  real  author  was  Dryden ;  it  was 
supposed  afterwards  that  the  real  author  was  Mul- 
grave, but  that  the  work  had  been  revised  by  Dryden. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Mr.  Christie  can  see  no  trace  of 
Dry  den's  hand,  and  arc  anxious  to  save  him  from  the 
discredit  of  being  convicted  of  playing  a  double  part. 
We  wish  we  could  agree  with  them.     It  seems  to 


38  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

US  that  Dryden's  touch  is  as  unmistakably  apparent 
in  this  essay  as  the  hand  of  Shakspeare  is  apparent 
amid  the  interpolated  rubbish  of  Pericles.  Dryden's 
mannerisms  of  expression,  cadence,  rhythm,  are  so 
marked  that  it  is  never  possible  for  a  critical  ear 
to  mistake  them.  They  have  often  been  cleverly 
imitated ;  they  have  never  been  exactly  reproduced. 
It  has  been  alleged  that  Pope  revised  the  text  as 
it  now  stands;  but  Pope,  according  to  the  same 
authority,  revised  the  text  of  Mulgrave's  Essay  on 
Poetry,  and  the  hand  is  not  the  hand  of  Pope. 
It  is  not  perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  Pope,  with 
his  style  formed  and  his  principles  of  versification 
fixed,  would  have  been  as  incompetent  as  Mulgrave 
to  catch  with  such  subtle  fidelity  the  characteristics 
of  the  elder  poet.  We  very  much  fear,  therefore, 
that  the  drubbing  which  Dryden  got  in  Eose  Alley, 
on  the  night  of  the  18th  of  November  1679,  was  not 
undeserved ;  and,  if  Kochester  took  up  the  quarrel 
in  behalf  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  we  can 
only  regret  that  he  had  not  the  courage  to  administer 
the  cudgelling  himself  One  of  his  letters,  however, 
makes  it  probable  that  he  was  influenced  by  the  less 
generous  motive  of  revenging  the  libel  on  himself. 
The  Kose  Alley  ambuscade,  which  might  have  cost 
the  victim  his  life,  and  was  certainly  a  disgrace  to 
all  who  were  concerned  in  it,  appears  to  have  been 
generally  regarded  as  derogatory  only  to  Dryden, 
and  long  continued  to  furnish  matter  for  facetious 
ribaldry  to  party  scribblers  and  coffee-house  wits. 
Dryden  had  now  arrived  at  that  period  in  his 


JOHN  DRYDEN  39 

career  when  he  was  to  produce  the  works  which  have 
made  his  name  immortal.  From  the  fall  of  Claren- 
don in  August  1667  to  the  death  of  Shaftesbury  in 
January  1683,  England  was  in  a  high  state  of  ferment 
and  agitation.  The  mad  joy  of  1660  had  undergone 
its  natural  reaction,  and  that  reaction  was  intensified 
by  a  long  series  of  national  calamities  and  political 
blunders.  There  were  feuds  in  the  Cabinet  and 
among  the  people ;  the  established  religion  was  in 
imminent  peril;  the  Koyal  House  had  become  a 
centre  of  perfidy  and  disafiection.  Clarendon  had 
been  made  the  scapegoat  of  the  disasters  which  had 
marked  the  commencement  of  the  reign  —  of  the 
miserable  squabbles  attendant  on  the  Act  of  Indem- 
nity, of  the  first  Dutch  War,  of  the  sale  of  Dunkirk. 
But  Clarendon  was  now  in  exile,  and  with  him  was 
removed  one  of  the  very  few  honourable  ministers  in 
the  service  of  the  Stuarts.  The  Triple  Alliance  was 
defeated  by  the  scandalous  Treaty  of  Dover,  by  which 
an  English  King  bound  himself  to  re-establish  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  in  England,  and  to  join  his 
arms  with  those  of  France  in  support  of  the  house  of 
Bourbon,  that  he  might  turn  the  arms  of  the  foreigner 
against  his  own  subjects  should  they  attempt  to 
oppose  his  designs.  Between  the  end  of  1667  and  the 
beginning  of  1674  the  direction  of  affjtiirs  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  Cabal,  the  most  unprincipled  and 
profligate  Ministry  in  the  annals  of  English  politics. 
Then  followed  the  administration  of  Danby.  Danby 
fell  partly  because  no  Minister  at  such  a  time  could 
hold  his  own  for  long,  mainly  owing  to  the  machina- 


40  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

tions  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  was  to  the  England  of 
Charles  II.  what  his  predecessor  Louis  XL  had  been 
to  the  England  of  Edward  IV.  From  a  jarring  and 
turbulent  chaos  of  Cavaliers,  Koman  Catholics,  Presby- 
terians, Independents,  Country  Parties,  of  colliding 
interests,  of  maddened  Commons,  of  a  corrupted  and 
corrupting  Ministry,  of  a  disaffected  Church,  of  plots 
and  counterplots  of  a  Royal  House  ostensibly  in  opposi- 
tion but  secretly  in  union,  two  great  parties  had  been 
gradually  defining  themselves.  In  May  1662  the 
King  had  married  Catharine  of  Braganza,  but  he  had 
no  issue  by  her,  and  as  she  had  now  been  his  wife 
for  seventeen  years  they  were  not  likely  to  have  issue, 
and  the  question  of  the  succession  became  urgent. 
In  the  event  of  the  King  having  no  legitimate 
children  the  crown  would  revert  to  the  Duke  of  York. 
But  the  Duke  of  York  was  a  Papist,  and  of  all  the 
many  prejudices  of  the  English  people  generally,  the 
prejudice  against  Papacy  was  strongest.  All  now 
began  to  centre  on  this  question,  and  two  great 
factions  were  formed.  The  one  insisted  on  the 
exclusion  of  the  Duke  of  York  from  the  right  of 
succession  on  the  ground  of  his  religion.  These  were 
the  Petitioners  and  Exclusionists,  afterwards  nick- 
named Whigs,  and  their  leader  was  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury.  The  other  party,  strongest  among 
Churchmen  and  the  aristocracy,  were  anxious,  partly 
in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  and  the  duty  of  passive  obedience,  and  partly 
with  an  eye  to  their  own  interests,  to  please  the  King 
by  supporting  the  claim  of  his  brother.     These  were 


JOHN  DRYDEN  41 

the  Abhorrers,  afterwards  nicknamed  Tories.  The 
object  of  the  Exclusionists  was  to  inflame  the  populace 
against  the  Papists.  For  this  purpose  the  infamous 
fictions  of  Gates  and  his  accomplices  were  accepted 
and  promulgated,  and  the  complications  which 
succeeded  the  fall  of  Danby  took  their  rise.  These 
were  succeeded  by  a  second  attempt  to  exasperate  the 
public  mind  against  the  anti  -  Exclusionists,  which 
found  expression  in  the  Meal-tub  Plot.  Meanwhile 
Shaftesbury  had  conceived  the  idea  of  securing  the 
succession  for  Monmouth,  the  King's  son  by  Lucy 
Walters.  Monmouth  was  a  popular  favourite,  and 
was  early  induced  by  Shaftesbury  to  pose  as  the 
representative  of  Protestantism.  A  wild  story  was 
circulated  that  Charles  had  made  Lucy  Walters  his 
wife.  Every  month  added  to  the  popular  excitement, 
and  Shaftesbury,  at  the  head  of  the  stormy  democracy 
of  the  city,  was  now  sanguine  of  success.  All  centred 
on  the  Exclusion  Bill,  which  on  the  1 1th  of  Novem- 
ber 1680  triumphantly  passed  the  Commons,  but  was 
thrown  out  by  the  Lords.  The  country  was  now  on 
the  verge  of  civil  war.  Parliament  was  dissolved  in 
January  1681,  and  such  was  the  frenzy  in  London 
that  the  next  Parliament  was  summoned  to  meet  at 
Oxford.  It  met  amid  storm  and  tumult  in  the 
following  March,  but  was  suddenly  dissolved  without 
transacting  business.  . 

All  this  time  a  savage  literary  warfare  was  raging, 
in  which  the  Whigs  had  been  most  conspicuous. 
The  King,  the  Duke  of  York,  and  the  Ministry  were 
assailed  with  a  rancour  and   ferocity  never  before 


42  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

displayed  by  the  popular  press  of  this  country.  The 
prose  libels  of  Hunt  and  Ferguson  vied  with  the 
sermons  of  Hickeringhill  and  the  rhymes  of  Settle  and 
Shad  well  in  damning  the  Duke  and  his  cause,  and  in 
upholding  Shaftesbury  and  Protestantism.  The  stage, 
patronised  by  the  King,  had  ever  since  the  Kestora- 
tion  been  true  to  him.  It  had  upheld  monarchy :  it 
had  insisted  on  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  had 
zealously  set  itself  to  abolish  all  traces  of  republican- 
ism. It  refused,  however,  to  support  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  in  The  Spanish  Friar  Dryden  employed 
his  dramatic  ability  to  cover  the  Papists  with  ridicule 
and  odium.  In  the  person  of  the  protagonist 
Dominic  were  represented  all  those  characteristics 
which  a  year  before  young  Oldham  had  satirised  as 
typical  of  the  Popish  priest ;  meanness,  gluttony,  and 
avarice,  set  off  and  darkened  by  vices  still  more 
criminal  and  loathsome,  are  careful  concessions  to 
popular  sentiment,  though,  as  Scott  well  observes,  a 
sense  of  artistic  propriety  led  the  satirist  to  endow 
his  hero  with  the  wit  and  talents  necessary  to  save 
him  from  being  utterly  contemptible.  TJie  Spanish 
Friar  is  beyond  question  the  most  skilfully  constructed 
of  all  Dry  den's  plays.  ^ 

Dryden's  support  of  the  Protestant  cause  by  no 
means  implied  apostasy  from  the  Court  and  the  Tories, 
or  any  sympathy  with  the  faction  of  Shaftesbury  and 
Monmouth.  He  was  soon  indeed  to  give  abundant 
proof  of  this.     The   fear   of  civil   war,  now  to  all 

*  He  was  not,  however,  satisfied  with  it  himself.     See  his  remarks  in  the 
Parallel  between  Poetry  and  Painting. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  43 

appearance  imminent,  brought  on  a  Tory  reaction, 
and  the  King  soon  found  himself  strong  enough  to 
strike  a  decisive  blow  against  the  arch  enemy  of  the 
public  peace.  In  July  Shaftesbury  was  arrested  on  a 
charge  of  "  subornation  of  high  treason  for  conspiring 
for  the  death  of  the  King,  and  the  subversion  of  the 
Government,"  and  thrown  into  the  Tower  to  await 
his  trial  at  the  Old  Bailey  in  the  following  November. 
At  this  momentous  crisis,  just  a  week  before  the  trial 
on  which  so  much  depended,  appeared  Absalom  and 
Achitophel.  Well  might  Scott  observe  that  *'  the 
time  of  its  appearance  was  chosen  with  as  much  art 
as  the  poem  displays  genius."  Its  popularity  was 
instantaneous  and  enormous.  There  were  two  edi- 
tions within  two  months,  and  seven  others  followed 
at  no  long  interval.  Nothing  approaching  to  such  a 
hit  had  been  made  since  the  appearance  of  the  first 
part  of  Hudihras.  In  one  respect  this  poem  stands 
alone  in  literature.  A  party  pamphlet  dedicated  to 
the  hour,  it  is  yet  immortal.  No  poem  in  our  lan- 
guage is  80  interpenetrated  with  contemporary  allu- 
sion, with  contemporary  portraiture,  with  contem- 
porary point,  yet  no  poem  in  our  language  has  been 
more  enjoyed  by  succeeding  generations  of  readers. 
Scores  of  intelligent  men  who  know  by  heart  the 
characters  of^imrT  and!^  Achitophel  are  content  to 
remain  in  ignorance  of  the  political  careers  of  ftlicking- 
ham  and  Shaftesbury.  The  speech  in  which  Acliitophel 
incites  his  faltering  disciple  has  been  admired  and  re- 
cited by  hundreds  who  have  been  blind  to  its  historical 
fidelity  and  to  its  subtle  personalities.     The  plan  of 


44  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

the  poem  is  not  perhaps  original.  The  idea  of  casting 
a  satire  in  the  epic  mould  was  derived  perhaps  from 
the  fourth  Satire  of  Juvenal — though  Dry  den  is 
serious  where  Juvenal  is  mock-heroic.  Horace  and 
Lucan  undoubtedly  supplied  him  with  models  for  the 
elaborate  portraits,  and  Lucan's  description  of  the 
social  and  political  condition  of  Kome  at  the  time  of 
the  great  civic  conflict  is  unmistakably  Dryden's 
archetype  for  his  picture  of  the  state  of  parties  in 
London.  Nor  was  the  ingenious  device  of  disguising 
living  persons  and  current  incidents  and  analogies 
new  to  his  readers.  A  Koman  Catholic  poet,  for 
example,  had  in  1679  paraphrased  the  scriptural  story 
of  Naboth's  vineyard,  applying  it  to  the  condemna- 
tion of  Lord  Stafibrd  for  his  supposed  complicity  in 
the  Popish  Plot,  while  a  small  prose  tract  published  at 
Dublin  in  1680,  entitled  Absalom/ s  Conspiracy;  or 
The  Tragedy  of  Treason,  anticipates  in  adumbration 
the  very  scheme  of  his  work. 

Absalom  and  Achitophel  produced,  naturally 
enough,  innumerable  replies  from  the  Whig  party,  all 
of  which  have  deservedly  sunk  into  oblivioD.  We 
are  certainly  not  inclined  to  enter  into  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  Towser  the  Second ,  Azaria  and 
Hushai,  and  Absalom  Senior,  or  to  determine  the 
relative  proportion  of  dulness  between  Henry  Care, 
Samuel  Pordage,  and  Elkanah  Settle. 

Meanwhile  the  Bill  against  Shaftesbury  had  been 
presented  to  the  Grand  Jury.  It  was  ignored,  and 
Shaftesbury  was  immediately  liberated  from  the 
Tower.      The  joy  of  the  Whigs  knew  no   bounds. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  46 

Bonfires  blazed  from  one  end  of  London  to  the  other ; 
the  city  rang  with  boisterous  jubilee ;  a  medal  was 
struck   to   commemorate    the   event.      The    Tories, 
baffled  and  mortified,  were  at  their  wit's  end  to  know 
what  to  do.     At  this  moment  the  King  happening  to 
meet  Dryden  is  said  to  have  suggested   to  him  a 
satire  on  the  Whig  triumph,  and  to  have  urged  him 
to  direct  once  more  against  Shaftesbury  those  weapons 
of  invective  and  ridicule  which  he  had  already  wielded 
with  such  signal  success.     A  less  fertile  genius  would 
have  found  it  difficult  to  repeat  himself  in  another 
form,  or  to  add  any  particulars  to  a  portrait  which 
he   had  just   delineated  so   carefully  ;    but   Dryden 
was  equal  to  the  task.      In   TJie  Medal  he  hurled       ) 
at  Shaftesbury  and  his  party  a  ^hiH^ipicjwhich,  for   / 
rancorous  abuse,  for  lofty  and  uncQmpromising  scorn,   J^ 
for  coarse,  scathing,  ruthless  denunciation,  couched  in  ' 
diction  which  now  swells  to  the  declamatory  grandeur 
of  Juvenal  and  now  sinks  to  the  sordid  vulgarity  of       ' 
Swift,  has  no  parallel  in  our  literature.     The  former 
attack,   indeed,   was   mercy   to    this   new   outburst. 
To  find  anything  approaching  to  it  in  severity  and 
skill  we  must  go  back  to  Claudian's  savage  onslaught 
on   the   Achitophel   of  the  fourth   century,   or   for- 
ward  to  Akenside's  diatribe  against  Pulteney.     No 
sooner   had    The   Medal   appeared    than   the   poets 
of  the   Whig    party   set    themselves   with    reckless 
temerity   to   answer   it.      Shadwell   and   Settle   led 
the  van.     ShadweU,  who  shortly  before  had  been  on 
friendly  terms  with  Dryden,  and  was  now  about  to 
make  himself  a  laughing-stock  for  ever,  was  a  man  of 


46  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

some  distinction.  He  belonged  to  a  good  family 
in  Norfolk,  had  been  educated  at  Cambridge,  and 
after  studying  at  the  Middle  Temple  had  given  up 
law  and  commenced  wit  and  playwright.  His  con- 
versation, though  noted  even  in  those  days  for  its 
coarseness,  was  so  brilliant  that  Kochester,  no  mean 
judge  of  such  an  accomplishment,  used  to  say  that,  if 
he  had  burnt  all  he  wrote,  and  printed  all  he  spoke, 
he  would  have  had  more  wit  and  humour  than  any 
other  poet.  His  habits  were  dissolute  and  sensual, 
and  the  time  he  could  spare  from  entertaining 
tavern  companions  he  divided  between  muddling 
himself  with  opium  and  writing  for  the  stage.  He  is 
known  to  us  chiefly  from  Dryden's  ludicrous  carica- 
ture, but  under  that  burly  and  unwieldy  exterior 
— that  "  tun  of  man " — there  lurked  a  rich  vein  of 
comic  humour,  keen  power  of  observation,  and  much 
real  dramatic  power  both  in  vivid  portraiture  and  in 
the  presentation  of  incident.  His  Virtuoso  is  truly 
amusing,  and  his  Epsom  Wells  and  Squire  of  Alsatia 
give  us  very  graphic  pictures  of  the  social  life  of 
those  times.  Settle's  character  was  beneath  contempt, 
and  his  works  are  of  a  piece  with  his  character ;  the 
first  was  a  compound  of  flighty  imbecility  and  gro- 
tesque presumption,  the  second  are  a  compound  of 
sordid  scurrility  and  soaring  nonsense.  Of  the  rest 
of  the  replies  to  The  Medal,  and  they  were  innumer- 
able, Dryden  took  no  notice ;  but  in  a  piece  called  TTie 
Medal  of  John  Bayes  Shadwell  had  exceeded  the 
limits  of  literary  and  political  controversy,  and  had 
descended  to  some  gross  libels  on  Dryden's  private 


JOHN  DRYDEN  47 

character.  This  it  could  scarcely  be  expected  he 
would  forgive,  and  he  proceeded  to  revenge  himself. 
About  1678  there  died  one  Richard  Flecknoe,  an 
industrious  scribbler  and  poetaster,  who  had  been  the 
butt  of  Marvell's  satire,  and  who,  though  he  had 
written  one  exquisite  copy  of  verses  and  a  clever 
volume  of  prose  sketches,  seems  to  have  been  regarded 
as  a  typical  dullard.^  His  character  was  estimated, 
perhaps,  from  his  failures  as  a  dramatist,  for  of  the 
five  plays  which  he  had  written  he  could  only  get 
one  to  be  acted,  and  that  one  was  damned.  This 
man  is  depicted  by  Dryden  as  the  King  of  the  Realms 
of  Nonsense,  conscious  of  his  approaching  demise,  and 
anxious  for  the  election  of  his  successor.  In  a  strain 
of  ludicrous  panegyric  he  discusses  the  grounds  of 
his  son  Shad  well's  right  to  the  vacant  throne.  He 
reflects  with  pride  on  the  exact  similarity,  in  genius, 
in  taste,  in  temper,  which  exists  between  himself  and 
his  hopeful  boy.  His  own  title  to  supremacy  in 
dulness  and  stupidity  had  never  been  questioned  by 
any  one,  but  he  freely  admitted  the  superior  claims  of 
the  new  monarch.  NumbscuU  and  blockhead  from 
his  birth,  no  gleam  of  wit,  no  ray  of  intelligence  had 
ever,  as  was  sometimes  the  case  with  his  brethren, 
been  discernible  in  the  dunce  of  dunces.  His  life, 
moreover,  had  been  one  long  war  with  sense,  and 
what  his  life  had  been  in  the  past  it  would  con- 
tinue to  be  in  the  future.     Shadwell's  coronation  is 


*  What  can  b«  said  for  Flecknoe  has  been  said  by  Southey  {Omnianaf 
vol.  i.  p.  105)  and  by  the  aathor  of  an  article  in  the  JUtrospeetive  BevUw, 
vol.  V.  p.  266. 


48  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

then  described  with  more  humour  than  is  common 
with  Dryden  —  a  humour  which,  broadening  and 
deepening  through  old  Flecknoe's  inimitably  ludi- 
crous peroration,  attains  in  the  concluding  scene 
a  climax  which  Swift  himself  might  have  envied. 
This  admirable  satire — to  which  Pope  was  indebted 
for  the  plot  of  the  Dunciad — is  certainly  to  be 
numbered  among  Dryden's  masterpieces.  The 
raillery,  though  neither  nice  nor  graceful,  is  light, 
and  with  one  or  two  exceptions  free  from  that 
oflfensive  coarseness  which  mars  so  many  of  his 
satirical  compositions.  Though  he  lived  to  learn 
from  young  Lockier  that  it  was  not  the  first  mock- 
heroic  poem  written  in  heroics,  he  could  assert,  with- 
out fear  of  contradiction,  that  the  plot  of  it  was 
original,  and  a  happier  plot  never  suggested  itself 
to  a  satirist. 

The  first  part  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel  had  been 
so  popular  that  the  publisher  was  anxious  to  add  a 
second.  Dryden  was,  however,  weary  or  indifierent, 
and  the  work  was  entrusted  to  Nahum  Tate.  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  has  remarked  that  Thersites  will  live 
as  long  as  Agamemnon,  and  Bentley  observed  of  him- 
self that,  as  he  despaired  of  achieving  immortality  by 
dint  of  original  effort,  he  thought  his  best  course 
would  be  to  climb  on  the  shoulders  of  his  betters. 
Tate  illustrates  in  a  very  lively  manner  the  cynical 
truism  of  the  one  and  the  happy  expedient  of  the 
other.  Nature  had  endowed  that  respectable  and 
gentlemanly  man  with  powers  scarcely  equal  to  Pom- 
fret's    and    immeasurably   inferior    to    Blackmore's. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  49 

Accident  introduced  him  to  Dryden,  party -spirit 
finally  conducted  him  to  the  Laureateship,  and  the 
Laureateship  enabled  him  to  inflict  on  successive 
generations  of  his  countrymen  that  detestable  version 
of  the  Psalms  which  was  so  long  appended  to  our 
Book  of  Common  Prayer.  His  other  writings  are 
buried  in  the  limbo  which  contains  those  of  his 
friends  Brady  and  Duke,  and  those  of  his  successor 
Eusden.  The  second  part  of  A  bsalom  and  A  chitophel 
was  carefully  revised  and  corrected  by  Dryden.  Indeed 
his  hand  is  everywhere  traceable,  and  his  additions, 
we  suspect,  amounted  to  more  than  the  memorable 
two  hundred  and  two  lines  which  were  confessedly 
inserted  by  him.  In  these  lines  he  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  revenging  himself  on  the  meaner  actors 
in  the  great  drama  of  1682.  After  disposing  of 
Ferguson,  Forbes,  Johnson,  Pordage,  and  others, 
with  that  cursory  indiiSerence  so  stinging  in  its 
contemptuous  brevity — of  which  Juvenal  and  Dante 
were  such  consummate  masters  —  he  proceeds  to 
engage  once  more  with  Settle  and  Shadwell.  The 
verses  on  the  former  unite  in  an  equal  degree 
poignant  wit  with  boisterous  humour,  and  are 
in  every  way  worthy  of  his  great  powers.  But 
in  dealing  with  Shadwell  he  descends  too  much 
to  the  level  of  Shadwell  himself.  The  portrait 
of  Og  has  been  much  admired,  but  it  is  marred, 
powerful  though  it  be,  by  its  excessive  and  loath- 
some coarseness ;  it  is  as  gross  in  the  execution 
as  it  is  in  the  design.  Bluff,  vulgar,  and  truculent, 
it  savours  too  much  of  that  kind  of  vituperation  for 

£ 


50  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

which  Virgil  rebukes  Dante  for  lending  an  attentive 

ear — 

Che  voler  ci6  udire  e  basso. 

In  the  Religio  Laid,  which  appeared  in  the  same 
year,  he  struck  a  new  chord,  and  produced  what  Scott 
justly  describes  as  one  of  the  most  admirable  poems 
in  our  language.  From  politics  to  religion  was  at 
that  time  an  easy  transition,  and  it  would  in  truth  be 
difficult  to  determine  which  raged  with  more  contro- 
versial violence.  The  Eomanists,  the  Episcopalians, 
and  the  Dissenters  were  all  powerfully  represented, 
and  were  all  powerfully  opposed.  The  Eomanists 
charged  the  Dissenters  with  bigotry  and  intolerance, 
and  the  Dissenters  retorted  by  charging  the  Romanists 
with  plotting  against  the  Government  and  with  cor- 
rupting civil  order.  Both  were,  unhappily,  right. 
The  Established  Church,  standing  between  them, 
despised  the  one  party  and  feared  the  other.  Dryden, 
anxious  doubtless  to  please  his  patrons,  was  probably 
interested  chiefly  in  the  political  bearing  of  the 
question,  and  the  Religio  Laid  was  written,  he  tells 
us,  with  a  view  of  moderating  party  zeal.  The  posi- 
tion of  Dryden  in  this  poem  is  precisely  that  of 
Chillingworth.  Both  agree  that  the  foundations  of 
faith  rest  solely  on  Scripture  and  universal  tradition, 
and,  while  both  deny  the  existence  of  an  infallible 
Church,  both  insist  that  the  Established  Protestant 
Church  is  the  best  of  guides  and  teachers.  Both 
recognise  the  right  of  individual  reason,  regret  and 
reject  the  Athanasian  Creed,  and  refuse  to  set  limits 
to  the  justice  and  mercy  of  Omnipotence.     Both  insist 


JOHN  DRYDEN  51 

on  the  distinction  between  truths  necessary  and  truths 
not  necessary  to  salvation,  contending  that  the  first 
are  to  an  open  and  candid  mind  few,  plain,  and  clear. 
In  conflicting  interpretations  of  the  second  both  dis- 
cern the  causes  of  the  feuds  and  schisms  which  have 
disturbed  the  peace  of  Protestant  Christendom,  and 
what  Dryden  sums  up  in  the  lines — 

Private  reason  'tis  more  just  to  curb 
Than  by  disputes  the  public  peace  disturb, 
For  points  obscure  are  of  small  use  to  learn, 
But  common  quiet  is  mankind's  concern — 

Chillingworth  expressed  when,  in  assigning  his  reason 
for  subscribing  to  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  he  wrote, 
"  There  is  no  error  which  may  necessitate  or  warrant 
any  man  to  disturb  the  peace  or  renounce  the  Com- 
munion of  the  Church."^  If  in  point  of  style  the 
Religio  Laici  has  none  of  that  lightness  of  touch,  and 
none  of  that  felicitous  grace,  which  throw  such  a 
charm  over  the  Epistles  of  Horace,  on  which  it  was, 
he  says,  modelled,  it  may,  short  though  it  be,  challenge 
comparison  with  any  didactic  writing  in  verse  since 
Lucretius  vindicated  the  tenets  of  Epicurus.  The 
opening  verses  of  this  poem  are  among  the  most 
majestic  passages  in  our  poetry. 

It  is  strange  and  melancholy  to  find  the  author 
of  poems  so  brilliant,  so  powerful,  and  so  popular, 
condemned  by  the  meanness  of  his  royal  and  aristo- 
cratic patrons  to  toil  like  a  hack  in  a  Grub  Street 
garret.  Yet  so  it  was.  His  salary  as  Poet  Laureate 
was  in  arrears ;    his  income  from  the  theatres  was 

^  Preface  to  the  author  of  Charily  MaifUaiiud^  Works  (folio),  p.  24. 


62  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

considerably  diminished.  The  expenses  of  a  hand- 
some house  in  Gerrard  Street,  then  one  of  the  most 
fashionable  quarters  of  London,  and  those  incident 
to  the  education  of  three  sons,  two  of  whom  were 
destined  for  the  Universities,  must  have  increased  his 
pecuniary  embarrassments.  His  health  was  impaired, 
and  a  visit  into  the  country  was,  his  physicians  in- 
formed him,  not  only  desirable  but  necessary.  His 
means,  however,  were  at  such  a  low  ebb  that  without 
relief  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  leave  London.  He 
was  even  in  danger  of  being  arrested  for  debt.  "  Be 
pleased  to  look  upon  me,"  he  wrote  about  this  time  to 
Rochester,  then  First  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury, 
"with  an  eye  of  compassion.  Some  small  employ- 
ment would  make  my  position  easy " ;  and  he  adds 
bitterly,  "  'Tis  enough  for  one  age  to  have  neglected 
Mr.  Cowley  and  starved  Mr.  Waller."  It  was  prob- 
ably as  the  result  of  this  application  that  he  was 
appointed  (17th  of  December  1683)  to  an  office  once 
held  by  Chaucer,  the  CoUectorship  of  Customs  in  the 
Port  of  London.  He  had  now  to  discover,  like  John- 
son, that  the  booksellers,  though  hard  taskmasters^ 
are  the  only  patrons  on  whom  genius  can  rely,  and  he 
submitted  to  the  drudgery  of  hack-work  with  some 
querulousness  and  much  energy.  As  early  as  1673 
he  had  entertained  the  design  of  composing  a  great 
national  epic,  with  either  King  Arthur  or  the  Black 
Prince  for  its  hero.  This  was  now  abandoned,  and  he 
betook  himself  to  the  humbler  but  more  remunerative 
occupation  of  writing  prefaces,  of  executing  miscel- 
laneous translations,  of  providing  young  dramatists 


JOHN  DRYDEN  53 

with  prologues,  and  of  co-operating  with  Lee  in 
producing  pieces  for  the  theatres.  In  1680  he  had 
taken  part  in  some  versions  from  Ovid's  Epistles, 
The  work  had  been  successful,  and  the  publisher, 
Tonson,  with  whom  he  had  allied  himself  since  1679, 
proposed  to  bring  out  a  volume  of  Miscellanies.  To 
this  Dryden  contributed  some  versions  of  parts  of 
Virgil,  Horace,  and  Theocritus,  which  the  most  in- 
dulgent critic  must  pronounce  to  be  not  only  unworthy 
of  him,  but,  to  speak  plainly,  disgraceful  to  him.  For 
the  majesty  and  elaborate  diction  of  the  first  he  has 
substituted  a  shambling  slipshod  vulgarity;  the  curious 
felicity  of  the  second  has  vanished  in  vapid,  slovenly 
diffuseness ;  and  the  pen  of  Pordage  or  Settle  could 
not  have  disguised  more  efi'ectually  the  features  of  the 
third.  The  truth  was,  he  sorely  needed  rest ;  he  was 
weary,  in  miserable  health,  and  had  saddled  himself 
with  a  translation  of  Maimbourgh's  History  of  the 
Leo/gue,  In  1685  appeared  another  volume  oi Miscel- 
lanies, which  contained,  among  other  things,  some 
versions  from  Lucretius.  Dryden  was  now  himself 
again.  He  had  been  for  a  visit  into  the  country,  and 
had  recovered  from  what  he  describes  as  a  kind  of 
hectic  fever.  He  had  been  pleased  with  the  success 
of  his  Maimbourgh,  and  a  gossiping  letter  which  he 

t wrote  about  this  time  to  Tonson,  thanking  him  for 
two  melons,  gives  us  an  interesting  glimpse  of  him  in 
domestic  life.  This  second  volume  of  Miscellanies 
was  probably  published  on  his  return  to  London. 
The  versions  from  Lucretius,  and  the  paraphrase  of 
the  twenty-ninth  Ode  of  the  third  book  of  Horace, 


64  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

are  the  gems  of  the  collection,  and  in  them  his  genius 
once  more  kindles  with  all  its  old  fire.  The  superb 
invocation  which  the  great  Eoman  poet  addresses  to 
the  tutelary  goddess  of  his  race  is  rendered  with  a 
power  and  majesty  which  need  fear  no  comparison 
with  the  imperial  splendour  of  the  original,  and  the 
version  from  the  third  book,  though  not  so  happy,  is 
vigorous  and  skilful.  He  might  have  left  the  con- 
clusion of  the  fourth  book  where  he  found  it,  for, 
though  he  humorously  assures  us  in  his  preface  that 
he  was  not  yet  so  secure  from  the  passion  of  love  as 
to  dispense  with  his  author's  antidote  against  it,  he 
knew  well  enough  that,  whatever  might  have  been  the 
intention  of  Lucretius,  his  own  was  simply  to  pander 
to  licentiousness.  The  brilliance  and  care  with  which 
these  pieces  were  executed  were  due,  no  doubt,  not 
only  to  his  real  sympathy  with  a  poet  who  in  some 
respects  resembled  himself,  but  to  the  necessity  for 
asserting  his  superiority  over  Creech,  who  had  just 
before  clothed  Lucretius  in  an  English  dress.  Fox, 
it  is  well  known,  preferred  Dryden's  rendering  of 
Horace's  Ode  to  the  original.  There  is,  in  reality, 
little  or  no  comparison  between  them.  Assuredly  no 
two  poets  could  be  less  like  each  other  than  Horace 
and  Dryden,  and  in  none  of  his  works  is  Horace  more 
Horatian,  in  none  of  his  works  is  Dryden  more 
Dryden  ian. 

In  February  1685  Charles  II.  died,  and  Dryden 
dedicated  to  the  memory  of  a  patron  who  had 
given  him  little  but  fair  words  and  a  few  broad 
pieces,  a  Pindaric  ode,  entitled  Threnodia  Augustalis. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  55 

This,  says  Johnson,  with  a  courteous  euphemism,  is 
not  amongst  his  happiest  productions.  It  is,  in  truth, 
among  his  very  worst.  Nothing  which  Dry  den  wrote 
with  deliberation  in  his  mature  years  could  be  wholly 
worthless,  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  another 
of  his  poems  which  contains  few^er  beauties,  more 
prolixity,  less  merit.  It  is  perhaps  the  best  example 
to  be  found  in  our  poetry  of  what  the  Greeks  called 
parenthyrsus.  In  celebrating  the  demise  of  one 
sovereign  he  took  care  to  commemorate  the  accession 
of  the  new.  He  did  not  forget  that  the  Hesperus  of 
the  setting  becomes  the  Lucifer  of  the  dawn ;  and  in 
regretting  a  Numa  he  dried  his  tears  in  an  anachron- 
istic vision  of  an  Ancus.  Albion  and  AlhinovanuSy 
which  had  been  written  to  celebrate  Charles's  triumph 
over  the  popular  party,  was  now  furbished  up  to 
celebrate  the  accession  of  James,  and  to  welcome  the 
advent  of  justice  and  generosity.  The  character  of 
the  new  monarch  was,  however,  a  mixture  of  mean- 
ness and  ingratitude,  and  his  treatment  of  Dryden 
was  just  what  might  have  been  expected.  He  renewed 
the  patent  of  the  offices  enjoyed  by  the  poet,  who  had 
served  him  so  well,  but  he  struck  off  a  hundred  a  year 
from  his  salary,  and  would  probably  have  reduced  it 
still  further.  This,  however,  Dryden  took  care  to 
prevent.  On  the  19th  of  January  1686  John  Evelyn 
entered  in  his  Diary:  "Dryden, the  famous  playwright, 
and  his  two  sons,  and  Mrs.  Nelly  (miss  to  the  late 
King),  are  said  to  go  to  mass.  Such  proselytes  are  no 
great  loss  to  the  Church."  With  regard  to  Mrs.  Nelly 
Evelyn  had  been  misinformed — the  Church  was  not 


66  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  lose  her  ;  she  was  to  adorn  it  till  her  death.  ;  With 
regard  to  Dry  den,  his  information  was  correct.  The 
Poet  Laureate  had  indeed  publicly  embraced  the 
religion  which  his  royal  master  was  bent  on  est&.blish- 
ing,  and  his  salary  was  at  once  raised  to  its  full 
amount. 

The  sincerity  of  his  conversion  under  these  circum- 
stances to  a  creed  which  had  hitherto  been  the  butt 
of  his  keenest  sarcasms  has  been  very  naturally  called 
into  question.  Johnson,  with  a  liberality  of  feeling 
rare  with  him  on  such  points,  and  Scott,  with 
elaborate  argumentative  skill,  have  contended  that 
it  was  sincere.  Macaulay  and  Mr.  Christie  arrive 
at  the  opposite  conclusion.  Hallam  is  of  opinion 
that  no  candid  mind  could  doubt  the  absolute 
sincerity  of  the  author  of  such  an  apology  as  The 
Hind  and  the  Panther,  It  seems  to  us  that  the 
truth  probably  lies — where  truth  usually  does  lie — 
midway  between  the  two  extremes.  Dryden  was 
in  all  probability  induced  to  take  the  step  by 
motives  of  personal  interest.  He  was  probably  able 
to  satisfy  himself  of  his  honesty  when  he  had  taken 
it.  Of  all  the  characteristics  of  his  genius  its  plasticity 
is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable ;  of  all  the  resources 
of  his  fertile  mind  none  were  more  abundant  than 
those  on  which  casuists  and  logicians  chiefly  draw  in 
convincing  themselves  and  in  convincing  others. 
What  religious  opinions  he  had,  so  far  as  we  can 
gather  from  his  writings  previous  to  the  Religio 
Laid,  probably  differed  little  from  those  of  a  busy 
man  of  letters  who  never  seriously  reflected  on  such 


JOHN  DRYDEN  57 

matters,  but  amused  himself,  as  occasion  offered, 
with  easy  acquiescence  in  conventional  dogmas,  with 
the  casual  speculations  of  languid  scepticism,  or  with 
laughing  at  both.  Most  creeds  he  had  treated  with 
contempt,  and  neither  the  Protestant  nor  the  Catholic 
Church  had  escaped  the  shafts  of  his  sarcastic  wit. 
But  he  had  now  arrived  at  that  period  in  life  when  to 
men  of  his  temper  the  blessing  of  a  fixed  belief  is 
inexpressibly  soothing.  He  was  beginning  to  experi- 
ence the  pain  and  weariness  of  a  career,  the  boundaries 
of  which  he  could  now  plainly  descry ;  he  was  getting 
old  ;  his  health  was  failing ;  his  spirits  were  depressed ; 
his  literary  ambition  was  realised ;  he  could  scarcely 
hope  to  stand  higher  than  he  was.  The  Religio 
Laid  is  the  first  indication  of  his  having  reflected 
seriously  on  religious  subjects,  and  whoever  will  con- 
sider this  poem  attentively  will  see  that  Dryden's 
conversion  to  the  faith  of  Rome  was  just  what  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  position  of  one  who 
reasoned  as  he  had  reasoned  there.  He  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  rejected  Roman  Catholicism  and  accepted 
Protestantism ;  but  while  rejecting  the  one  he  had 
acknowledged  that  it  supplied  what  every  believer  in 
Revelation  must  desiderate,  and  while  accepting  the 
other  he  had  accepted  it  at  the  sacrifice  of  all  hope 
of  a  logical  faith.  As  long  as  he  was  content  to 
acquiesce  loosely  in  the  dogmas  and  teaching  of  the 
Establishment,  and  to  be  satisfied  with  the  belief  that 

The  unletter'd  Christian  who  believes  in  gross 
Plods  on  to  heaven,  and  ne'er  is  at  a  loss, 

he  could  remain  comfortably  a  Protestant.     But  he 


68  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

ceased  to  be  comfortable  when  he  began  seriously  to 
reflect,  and  if  anything  is  clear  in  the  Religio  Laid  it 
is  that  Dryden  already  felt  that  there  was  no  middle 
course  between  Deism  and  the  creed  of  Eome,  between 
believing  nothing  and  believing  all. 

Macaulay  argues  that  if  his  conversion  had  been 
sincere  he  would  not  have  continued  to  pander  to 
the  profligacy  of  the  age,  but  would  have  regarded 
his  former  transgressions  with  horror.     Such  a  view 
appears  to  us  to  be  based  on  a  radical  misconception 
of  Dry  den's  character.     Unless  we  are  much  mistaken, 
he  was — so  far  as  the  moral  elements  of  his  character 
were  concerned — as  purely  emotional  as  Shelley  or 
Edgar   Poe;  but   the   peculiarity  is  hidden   by  the 
masculine  energy  of  his  rhetoric  and  his  robust  good 
sense.     It  is  difiicult  to  associate  the  idea  of  weakness 
of  this  kind  with  one  who  is  the  personification  in  so 
marked   a  degree  of    intellectual   vigour.     But  the 
moment  we  look  at  the  man  on  the  moral  side  we  are 
confronted   with    extraordinary    inconsistencies    and 
contradictions.     Like  his  own  Zimri,  he  had  indeed 
been   everything   by   starts  and  nothing  long.     He 
began  with  Kepublican  principles ;  he  was  soon  an 
uncompromising  Tory.     In  1658  he  was  panegyrising 
Cromwell  and  his  partisans;  in  1660  he  was  hailing 
Charles  II.  as  the  saviour  of  an  erring  nation.     In 
1673  he  was  doing  everything  in  his  power  to  inflame 
the  prosecution  of  the  Dutch  War ;  ten  years  later  he 
was   cursing   Shaftesbury   for   his   share  in  it.     He 
exhausted  compliment  in  his  allusions  to  Charles  II., 
and  was  simultaneously  assisting  Mulgrave  in  libelling 


JOHN  DRYDEN  59 

liiDi.  In  1687  he  had  attached  himself  to  James  11. ; 
in  1690  he  was  speaking  respectfully  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  1686  he  was  pathetically  lamenting  the 
profanation  of  poetry  and  its  debasement  to  obscene 
and  impious  uses  ;  in  1693  he  was  adding  to  the 
filth  and  prurience  of  Juvenal.  The  truth  is,  he  was  a 
poet,  with  all  the  sensitive  susceptibilities  of  his  race  ; 
he  was  a  man  of  letters,  whose  proper  sphere  was  the 
library;  but  with  the  temperament  of  the  one  and 
with  the  accomplishments  of  the  other  he  combined 
also  the  coarser  instincts  of  the  mere  worldling.  Not 
naturally  a  man  of  high  spirit  or  lofty  aims,  the  age 
in  which  he  lived  did  little  to  supply  them.  He 
soon  ascertained  the  marketable  value  of  his  endow- 
ments, and  he  offered  them  with  little  scruple  to  the 
highest  bidder.  Thus,  while  motives  of  self-interest 
determined  the  direction  of  his  energy,  the  native 
genius  brought  into  play  soon  created  genuine  en- 
thusiasm, and  he  at  last  became  what  he  at  first 
affected  to  be.  He  addressed  himself  to  religious 
controversy  as  he  had  addressed  himself  to  politics. 
When  he  took  the  step  which  has  laid  him  open  to  so 
much  suspicion,  he  took  it  under  that  pressure  on  the 
part  of  circumstances  which  had  never  failed  to  dic- 
tate his  actions ;  but,  having  taken  it,  he  soon  per- 
suaded himself  that  he  was  sincere.  It  is  due  also  to 
him  to  say  that  during  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  on  his 
deathbed,  where  few  men  are  hypocrites,  he  professed 
that  he  felt  a  satisfaction  such  as  he  had  never  before 
known,  that  he  converted  his  children  to  the  same 
creed,  and  that  he  never  recanted,  though  recantation 


60  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

might  have  been  to  his  advantage.  We  may  therefore 
accept  his  magnificent  apology  for  the  Church  of 
Eome  as  the  honest  expression  of  sincere  conviction, 
and  not,  as  his  enemies  would  have  us  accept  it,  as 
the  hollow  rhetoric  and  conscious  sophistry  of  an 
interested  apostate.^ 

His  pen  was  not  sufi'ered  to  remain  idle,  and  he 
was  at  once  employed  to  defend  both  in  prose  and 
verse  the  religion  which  he  had  adopted.  From  an 
entry  of  Tonson's  at  Stationers'  Hall,  Dryden  had, 
it  seems,  intended  to  translate  Varilla's  History  of 
Revolutions  in  Matters  of  Religion,  but  for  some 
reason,  which  it  is  now  useless  to  guess,  the  work  was 
abandoned,  and  he  proceeded  to  engage  in  a  con- 
troversy which  added  little  to  his  reputation.  Soon 
after  his  accession  James  ordered  some  papers  to  be 
published  which  had,  it  was  alleged,  been  discovered 
in  the  strong-box  of  Charles  II.  They  consisted  of 
two  documents  in  the  handwriting  of  the  deceased 
King,  asserting  that  the  only  true  Church  was  the 
Church  of  Eome.  To  these  James  added  the  copy  of 
a  paper  written  by  his  first  wife,  Anne  Hyde,  stating 
the  motives  which  had  induced  her  to  become  a  con- 
vert to  the  Catholic  religion.     No  sooner  had  these 

^  In  an  interesting  letter  to  Mrs.  Steward,  dated  7th  November  1699,  he 
says  or  implies  that  recantation  would  probably  restore  Court  favour,  but  he 
could  "  never  go  an  inch  beyond  my  conscience  and  my  honour.  ...  I  can 
neither  take  the  oaths  nor  forsake  my  religion,  because  I  know  not  what 
Church  to  go  to  if  I  leave  the  Catholic  ;  they  are  all  so  divided  among  them- 
selves in  matters  of  faith  necessary  to  salvation,  and  yet  all  assuming  the 
name  of  Protestant.  May  God  be  pleased  to  open  your  eyes,  as  He  has 
opened  mine  !  Truth  is  but  one  ;  and  they  who  have  once  heard  of  it  can 
plead  no  excuse  if  they  do  not  embrace  it.  But  these  are  things  too  serious 
for  a  trifling  letter." 


JOHN  DRYDEN  61 

manuscripts  appeared  than  their  authenticity  was 
called  into  question  by  the  Protestant  divines.  Still- 
ingfleet,  then  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  and  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  theologians  in  England,  produced  a 
pamphlet  in  which  he  boldly  contended  that  the 
papers  were  forgeries.  Dryden  was  selected  to  reply. 
He  was,  however,  no  match  for  an  adversary  who  at 
twenty-four  had  written  the  Irenicurriy  and  whose 
whole  life  had  been  a  long  training  in  theological 
polemics.  Dryden  confined  himself  to  the  defence  of 
the  paper  attributed  to  Anne  Hyde,  and  his  vindi- 
cation betrays  a  coarse  licence  of  vituperation,  a 
shallowness  and  ignorance,  which  Stillingfleet,  in  a 
second  pamphlet,  contented  himself  with  exposing  in 
a  few  stinging  sentences.  The  Laureate  had  the 
good  sense  to  abandon  a  contest  in  which  he  could 
scarcely  hope  to  retrieve  himself,  and  to  resort  to  a 
weapon  in  which  he  was  not  likely  to  find  his  match. 
He  went  down  into  Northamptonshire,  and  there, 
in  the  old  mansion  of  the  Treshams  at  Kushton — so 
runs  the  tradition — produced  a  poem  which,  in  point 
of  plot,  is  grotesque  in  the  extreme,  but  which,  in 
point  of  execution,  must  rank  among  the  masterpieces 
of  our  literature. 

No  act  had  more  enraged  and  perplexed  the  friends 
of  the  constitution  in  Church  and  State  than  the 
King's  recent  assumption  of  the  dispensing  power,  to 
which  he  was  now  about  to  give  practical  expression 
in  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  The  Hind  and 
the  Panther  was  written  with  the  threefold  object  of 
answering  the  objections  of  those  who  disputed  the 


62  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

King's  right  to  suspend  the  Test  Act;  of  proving 
that  the  religion  of  Christians,  if  pure  and  sound,  is 
and  can  only  be  the  religion  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ; 
and  of  denouncing  and  exposing  the  errors  of  Pro- 
testantism, and  especially  those  of  the  Sectaries.  The 
Hind  —  milk-white  and  immortal  —  represents  the 
Church  of  Rome ;  the  Panther — the  fairest  creature 
of  the  spotted  kind — represents  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Surrounded  with  Socinian  foxes,  Independent 
bears,  Anabaptist  boars,  and  other  animals  typifying 
the  innumerable  sects  into  which  the  Protestant 
community  was  subdivided,  these  fair  creatures  con- 
fer on  their  common  danger,  discuss  the  points  on 
which  they  diflfer,  comment  on  current  topics,  smile, 
wag  their  tails,  and  interchange  hospitalities.  On 
this  monstrous  groundwork  Dryden  has  raised  the 
most  splendid  superstructure  of  his  genius.  "  In 
none  of  his  works,"  says  Macaulay  with  happy  dis- 
crimination, "can  be  found  passages  more  pathetic 
and  magnificent,  greater  ductility  and  energy  of 
language,  or  a  more  pleasing  and  various  music." 
There  was  one  circumstance  connected  with  the 
composition  of  this  work  which  must  have  been 
inexpressibly  mortifying  to  the  author,  and  which 
still  deforms,  with  an  ugly  inconsistency,  the  conduct 
of  its  argument.  The  original  policy  of  James  had 
been  to  attempt  an  alliance  between  the  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant  Churches  for  the  purpose  of  uniting 
them  against  the  Dissenters.  Dryden  had  therefore, 
in  the  course  of  his  poem,  treated  the  Protestant 
Church  with  respect  and  forbearance  and  the  Dis- 


JOHN  DRYDEN  63 

senters  with  contempt.     But  the  King,  finding  that 
such   an   alliance   was    impossible,   suddenly   veered 
round  and  adopted  a  conciliatory  tone  with  the  Dis- 
senters, without  acquainting  his  apologist,  who  was 
away   from   London,    with   the  circumstance.      The 
poem  was  on  the  point  of  going  to  press,  and  Dryden 
saw  with  chagrin  the  mistake  which  he  had  made. 
He  proceeded  at  once  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  rectify 
it.     He  softened  down  his  praises  of  the  Protestant 
Church  and  his  sneers  at  the  Dissenters.     He  intro- 
duced two  episodes,  the  fable  of  the  Swallows  and 
the  fable  of  the  Doves,  in  which  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England  are  bitterly  assailed.     Both  in  the 
conclusion  of  the  poem  and  in  the  preface  he  exhorts  the 
Dissenters  to  make  common  cause  with  the  Catholics 
against  their  common  enemy  the  Established  Church. 
Thus  altered  to  meet  the  new  emergency,  Tlie  Hind 
and  the  Panther  made  its  appearance  in  April  1687. 
It  was  at  once  violently  assailed,  and  the  poet  had  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  the  odium  which  the  sullen  tyranny 
of  his   royal  master   was  now  beginning   to   excite 
on  all   sides.      Whigs  and  Tories  united  to  attack 
the  apologist  of  their  common  enemy.     The  plot,  the 
argument,  the  style  of  the  work,  were  caricatured. 
The  inconsistencies  of  its  author's  political  career  were 
scoflBngly  enumerated.     One  opponent  raked  up  the 
Elegy  on  Cromwell,  with  comments  from  the  AstrcBa 
Redux  and  the  Threnodia  Augustalis;  another  re- 
printed the  Religio  Laid.     Two  or  three  of  the  more 
unscrupulous  among  them  charged  him  with  gross 
profligacy    in    private    life,   and   descended   to   per- 


64  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

sonalities  about  his  domestic  troubles,  his  red  face, 
and  his  short  stature.  Most  of  these  productions  have 
sunk  below  the  soundings  of  antiquarianism  :  one, 
however,  may  still  be  read  with  interest,  even  by 
those  familiar  with  the  refined  parodies  of  Canning 
and  the  brothers  Smith.  This  was  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther  Transversed  to  the  Story  of  the  Country 
Mouse  and  the  City  Mouse,  written  by  two  young 
adventurers,  one  of  whom  was  destined  to  become 
the  most  distinguished  financier  in  our  history,  the 
other  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  accomplished  of 
our  minor  poets  —  Charles  Montagu  and  Matthew 
Prior.  The  old  poet  had,  it  seems,  treated  both  Prior 
and  Montagu  with  great  kindness ;  and  he  is  said  to 
have  felt  their  ingratitude  very  keenly.  He  must 
have  recognised  the  wit  of  their  exquisite  satire,  and 
was  perhaps  not  insensible  to  its  justice.  A  trans- 
lation of  the  Life  of  St.  Xavier,  and  a  poem  on  the 
birth  of  the  young  Prince,  10th  June  1688,  hurriedly 
but  vigorously  executed,  and  incomparably  the  best 
of  his  official  poems,  concluded  his  services  for  James 
11.  Six  months  afterwards  William  III.  was  on  the 
throne.  >x 

Dryden's  position  was  now  deplorable.  He  was 
not  only  in  declining  years  and  in  miserable  health, 
but  he  was  deprived  of  all  those  Government  offices 
which  he  had  laboured  so  hard  to  secure,  and  on 
which  he  relied  for  permanent  income.  He  was  de- 
prived of  the  Laureateship  and  Historiographership, 
and  he  had  the  mortification  of  seeing  them  conferred 
on  his  old  enemy  Shadwell.    His  place  in  the  Customs 


JOHN  DRYDEN  65 

was  taken  from  him.  He  had  pledged  himself  too 
deeply  to  the  religious  and  political  principles  which 
were  the  abhorrence  of  the  new  dynasty  and  its  sup- 
porters to  dream  of  preferment.  He  had  nothing  but 
his  pen  to  depend  on.  An  ordinary  man  would  have 
sunk  under  the  weight  of  such  an  accumulation  of 
misfortunes.  Dryden  grappled  with  them  with  all 
the  spirit  of  youth  renewed.  Never  was  the  divine 
energy  of  genius,  the  proud  loyalty  to  the  conscience 
of  genius,  more  jealously  preserved  in  spite  of  sordid 
temptation  to  hurried  and  slovenly  work,  or  more 
nobly  illustrated,  than  in  the  ten  years  still  allotted  to 
him.  He  might  engage  to  provide  Tonson  with  ten 
thousand  verses  for  a  wretched  pittance  of  three 
hundred  guineas;  but  he  took  care  to  make  those 
verses  worthy  of  immortality.  He  might  engage  to 
translate  the  whole  of  Virgil  for  a  sum  little  more 
than  his  friend  Southerne  cleared  by  two  plays ;  but 
he  strove  to  make  it  worthy  of  the  name  it  bore, 
**  and  refused  to  be  hurried." 

In  1689  he  betook  himself  once  more  to  the  stage, 
and  in  less  than  a  year  produced  a  tragedy,  Don 
Sebastian,  which  is  justly  regarded  as  his  masterpiece, 
and  a  comedy,  Amphitryon,  which  holds  a  respectable 
place  even  in  an  age  which  witnessed  the  comedies 
of  Wycherley  and  Congreve.  Don  Sebastian  was,  he 
tells  us,  laboured  with  great  diligence,  and  of  that 
diligence  it  bears  evident  traces.  The  subordinate 
characters  are  more  carefully  discriminated  than  was 
usual   with   him.      Dorax  and   Sebastian   are   noble 

sketches,  and  Almeyda  is  not  unworthy  of  her  lover. 

F 


66  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

In  depicting  the  hero  friendless,  desolate,  and  ruined, 
the  old  poet  was  not  improbably  thinking  of  himself, 
and  when  Sebastian  cries — 

Let  Fortune  empty  all  her  quiver  on  me, 
I  have  a  soul  that  like  an  ample  shield 
Can  take  in  all,  and  verge  enough  for  more. 
Fate  was  not  mine,  nor  am  I  Fate's — 

there  speaks  in  trumpet-tones  the  indomitable  energy 
which  made  Dryden's  last  dark  years  the  most  glorious 
epoch  in  his  artistic  life.  If  we  except  Otway's  two 
tragedies,  Don  Sebastian  is  beyond  comparison  the 
finest  tragedy  the  English  stage  had  seen  since 
Fletcher  had  passed  away.  The  celebrated  scene  in 
the  fourth  act  between  Dorax  and  Sebastian  is  one  of 
the  gems  of  the  English  drama.  "  Had  it  been  the 
only  one  Dry  den  ever  wrote,"  says  Scott,  "  it  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  insure  his  immortality." 

He  could  scarcely  expect  to  get  a  hearing  from  the 
new  monarch,  but  both  these  plays  were  anxiously 
dedicated  to  men  who  would  be  likely  to  have  weight 
with  him,  Philip,  Earl  of  Leicester,  and  Sir  William 
Leveson-Gower.  King  Arthur  and  Cleomenes  need 
not  detain  us,  and  with  Love  Triumphant  the  veteran 
dramatist  took  leave  of  the  stage  for  ever.  In  the 
conspicuous  failure  of  his  last  play  he  probably  read 
the  advent  of  a  new  age,  and,  with  that  graceful 
magnanimity  which  is  such  a  pleasing  trait  in  his 
character,  he  resigned  the  sceptre  which  he  had 
swayed  so  long  to  his  friends  Southerne  and  Congreve. 
He  was  now  busy  with  his  translations  of  Juvenal  and 
Persius.     Of  the  former  he  versified  the  first,  third, 


JOHN  DRYDEN  67 

sixth,  tenth,  and  sixteenth  Satires,  entrusting  the  rest 
to  his  sons  Charles  and  Erasmus,  to  his  former  coad- 
jutor Tate,  and  to  Creech.  The  whole  of  Persius  was 
translated  by  himself.  To  this  work,  brought  out  in 
folio  in  1693,  he  prefixed  a  Discourse  on  Satire, 
dedicated  in  an  exquisitely  courtly  strain  to  the  Earl 
of  Dorset.  It  is  somewhat  ungracefully  garnished 
with  what  Scott  calls  "  the  sort  of  learning  in  fashion 
among  the  French  " ;  but  it  is  still  valuable  for  its 
occasional  remarks  on  points  of  criticism ;  for  its 
eloquent  protest  against  the  abuse  of  satire ;  for 
its  admirable  delineation  of  the  Latin  satirists ; 
for  its  interesting  autobiographical  particulars ;  and, 
above  all,  for  the  ease,  variety,  and  vigour  of  the  style. 
The  versions  themselves  have  all  the  air  of  original 
compositions.  In  accordance  with  those  principles  of 
translation  laid  down  by  Chapman,  Cowley,  and 
Denham,  and  already  illustrated  by  himself  in  his 
versions  from  Lucretius  and  Ovid,  he  has  aimed  not 
so  much  at  reproducing  the  literal  meaning  as  at 
transfusing  the  spirit  of  his  authors.^  He  is  not  there- 
fore to  be  tried  by  any  canons  of  exact  scholarship. 
He  has  indeed  spoken  contemptuously  of  the  servile 
fidelity  of  Barton  Holiday.  He  approaches  Juvenal 
pretty  much  as  Horace  approached  Archilochus  and 
Alcseus.  He  confesses  himself  a  disciple,  but  he 
spoke  not  so  much  what  his  master  dictated  as 
what  his  master  suggested  or  inspired.  He  writes, 
he  says,  as  Juvenal  might  have  written  had  Juvenal 

*  See  his  admirable  remarks  on  poetical  translation  in  hit  Preface  to  the 
Tranalation  of  Ovid's  EpMUs^  and  in  the  Preface  to  the  Second  Mueellany, 


68  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

written  in  English ;  and  he  has  not  scrupled  to 
boast  that  he  has  taught  Persius  to  speak  with  a 
purity  and  precision  to  which  he  was  in  his  own 
language  a  stranger.  In  this  bold  experiment  he  has, 
on  the  whole,  succeeded.  He  has  produced  transla- 
tions which  may  be  read  with  delight  by  those  who 
cannot  read  the  original,  and,  if  in  the  versions  from 
Juvenal  he  who  can  read  the  original  will  miss  the 
trenchant  terseness,  the  happy  turns,  the  splendid 
elaborate  rhetoric  of  the  Roman,  he  must  impartially 
confess  that  in  the  sixth  Satire  the  Englishman  has 
almost  made  the  palm  ambiguous.  He  must  admit 
that  the  noble  verses  at  the  conclusion  of  the  tenth, 
which  are  one  of  the  proudest  gems  in  the  coronet  of 
Roman  literature,  have  by  the  genius  of  Dryden  been 
set  as  a  precious  gem  in  the  coronet  of  our  own. 
With  regard  to  his  Persius,  scholars  will,  no  doubt, 
continue  to  prefer  the  fascinating  perplexities,  the 
tortuous  euphuisms,  and  the  harsh  enigmatical  phrase 
of  Casaubon's  favourite  to  the  flowing  diction  of  his 
English  interpreter.  It  must,  however,  be  allowed 
that  if  Dryden  has  diluted  he  has  not  enervated,  and 
that  in  two  memorable  passages — the  conclusion  of 
the  second  Satire  and  the  lines  to  Cornutus  in  the  fifth 
— he  has  equalled  his  original  where  that  original 
is  at  its  best.  To  a  third  and  fourth  volume  of 
Miscellanies,  which  appeared  in  1693  and  1694,  he 
also  contributed ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  fine 
Epistle  to  Kneller,  which,  like  his  Eleonora,  written 
a  year  before,  exhibits  his  style  in  its  highest  per- 
fection, none  of  these  contributions  added  anything 


JOHN  DRYDEN  69 

to  his  reputation.  About  this  time  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Congreve,  who  had  been  introduced 
to  him  by  Sou  theme,  and  who  had  just  written  his 
first  comedy,  Hie  Old  Bachelor,  This  play,  revised 
and  adapted  by  Dryden's  experienced  hand,  had  been 
received  with  marked  approbation  ;  but  a  second  play, 
Tlie  Double  Dealer,  a  far  superior  work,  had  been  a 
comparative  failure.  Upon  this  Dryden  addressed 
to  his  young  friend  that  eloquent  epistle  in  which  he 
hails  with  rapture  a  disciple  who  had  already  out- 
stepped his  teacher,  and,  contrasting  his  own  desolate 
old  age  with  the  glorious  promise  of  his  friend's 
youth,  prophesies  that  fortune  will  be  far  more  pro- 
pitious to  the  scholar  than  she  had  ever  been  to  the 
master. 

And  oh,  defend 
Against  your  judgment  your  departed  friend  ; 
Let  not  th'  insulting  foe  my  fame  pursue, 
But  shade  those  laurels  which  descend  to  you. 

Towards  the  end  of  1693  he  commenced  his  trans- 
lation of  Virgil.  It  occupied  him  three  years,  and 
though  the  labour  was  great,  it  was  lightened  during 
its  continuance  by  the  hospitality  of  the  Earl  of 
Exeter,  Sir  William  Bowyer,  and  his  cousin  John 
Driden,  and  at  its  termination  by  the  contributions 
of  an  old  friend.  Dr.  Knightly  Chetwood,  and  of  a 
recent  acquaintance,  Addison.  Chetwood,  who  was  a 
respectable  poet  and  an  accomplished  scholar,  furnished 
him  with  the  Life  of  Virgil  and  with  the  Preface  to 
the  Pastorals;  and  Addison,  then  a  young  man  at 
Oxford,  supplied  him  with  the  arguments  of  the 
several  books  and  with  an  essay  on  the   Georgics. 


70  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

The  work,  originally  suggested,  it  is  said,  by  Motteaux, 
was  impatiently  expected  by  the  public,  who  had  from 
its  commencement  shown  a  great  interest  in  its  pro- 
gress.    It  appeared  in  July  1697,  and  from  that  day 
to  this  it  has  maintained  a  high  place  among  English 
classics.     Marred  by  coarseness,  marred  by  miserable 
inequalities,  marred  by  errors  of  ignorance  and  errors 
of  inadvertency,  it  is  still  a  noble  achievement.     It  is 
a  work  instinct  with  genius ;   but  it  is  instinct  not 
with   the   placid  and   majestic   genius  of  the  most 
patient  of  artists,  but  with  the  impetuous  energy  of 
the  prince  of  English  rhetorical  poets.      The  tender 
grace,  the  pathetic  cadences,  the  subtle  verbal  mecha- 
nism of  the  most  exquisite  poet  of  antiquity  will  be 
sought  in  vain  in  its  vehement  and  facile  diction, 
in  the  rushing  and  somewhat  turbid  torrent  of  its 
narrative.     It  is  indeed  one  of  those  works  which  will 
never  cease  to  ojBfend  the  taste   and   never  fail   to 
captivate  the  attention.     The  critic  will  continue  to 
censure,  but  the  world  will  continue  to  be  delighted ; 
and  Dryden,  probably,  cared  little  about  the  applause 
of  the  former  if  he  could  secure  popularity.      His 
really  lamentable  failures  are  in  tender  and  pathetic 
passages — in  the  episode,  for  example,  of  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice,  in  the  whole  of  the  fourth  j^neid,  in  the 
lament  of  the  mother  of  Euryalus,  in  the  reflections 
of  ^neas  on  the  death  of  Lausus — in  all  these  his 
versions  are  little  better  than  travesties  in  which  we 
have  a  deplorable  mixture  of  sounding  declamation 
and  frigid  commonplace.     Nor  is  he  more  successful 
in  his  renderings  of  Virgil's  many  pictures  of  Nature. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  71 

As  Wordsworth  has  remarked,  whenever  Virgil  can  be 
fairly  said  to  have  his  eye  upon  his  object,  Dry  den 
always  spoils  the  passage.  Where  he  succeeds,  and 
eminently  succeeds,  is  in  rhetorical  passages,  in 
passages  which  call  for  pomp,  energy,  and  rapidity. 
Thus  the  storm  in  the  first  Georgic,  in  the  first  JEneid^ 
the  whole  or  nearly  the  whole  of  the  second  ^neidy 
the  description  of  Etna,  the  beginning  of  the  sixth 
book,  the  battle-pieces  and  speeches  in  the  later  books, 
and  many  of  the  similes,  are,  on  the  whole,  admirably 
rendered.  He  was,  as  usual,  careful  to  adorn  the 
work  with  dedications.  The  Pastorals  were  inscribed 
to  Lord  Clifi'ord,  the  Georgics  to  the  Earl  of  Chester- 
field, the  jEiieid  to  the  Marquis  of  Normanby.  The 
latter  dedication  is  a  long  discourse  on  epic  poesy,  and 
is  one  of  the  most  pleasing  of  his  critical  essays.  To 
his  Virgil  he  added  a  postscript  which  it  is  impossible 
to  read  unmoved.  "  What  Virgil  wrote  in  the  vigour 
of  his  age — in  plenty  and  at  ease" — so  runs  the 
opening  paragraph — "  I  have  undertaken  to  translate 
in  my  declining  years,  struggling  with  wants,  op- 
pressed by  sickness,  curbed  in  my  genius,  liable  to  be 
misconstrued  in  all  I  write,  and  my  judges,  if  they 
are  not  very  equitable,  already  prejudiced  against  me 
by  the  lying  character  which  has  been  given  them  of 
my  morals."  We  may,  however,  temper  our  pity  with 
the  reflection  that  if  the  veteran  poet  had  so  much  to 
complain  of  he  had  much  still  left  to  soothe  and 
encourage  him.  Indeed,  we  are  by  no  means  sure 
that  the  undertone  of  discontent  and  querulousness 
which  runs  through  most  of  his  later  writings  is  not 


72  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  be  referred  rather  to  the  nervous  irritability  of  his 
temperament  than  to  any  insensibility  either  on  the 
part  of  the  public  or  on  the  part  of  his  personal 
friends.  He  complains  bitterly  of  his  poverty,  and 
poor  he  undoubtedly  was ;  yet  he  never  could  have 
wanted  the  necessaries  of  life.  He  had,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  suspect,  a  full  share  of  its  luxuries.  He  had 
constant  engagements  with  Tonson ;  and  Tonson, 
though  mean,  was  honest  and  punctual  in  his  pay- 
ments. He  had  been  paid  for  each  one  of  the 
Miscellanies ;  he  had  been  paid  for  Juvenal ;  he  had 
received  £500  for  his  Eleonora.  The  Earl  of  Dorset 
had  presented  him  with  a  large  sum,  he  had  a  small 
property  of  his  own,  and  the  Lady  Elizabeth  was  not 
dowerless.  He  had  cleared  at  least  £1300  by  his 
Virgil,  He  complains  of  ill-health,  but  what  allevia- 
tions two  of  the  most  eminent  surgeons  of  the  day 
could  afford  him  he  enjoyed  in  the  unfee'd  attention 
of  Hobbes  and  Guibbons.  He  complains  of  the  malice 
of  his  enemies,  and  yet  he  might  have  solaced  himself 
by  remembering  his  friends,  for  he  could  number 
among  them  some  of  the  most  illustrious,  the  most 
hospitable,  and  the  most  charming  of  his  contempor- 
aries. In  that  brilliant  society  which  had  sat  round 
the  Duke  of  Ormond  he  had  held  a  conspicuous  place,^ 
and  he  had  numbered  among  his  intimate  associates 
the  elegant  and  sprightly  Sedley,  the  brilliant  Dorset, 
and  the  refined  and  accomplished  Sheffield.  The 
country  seats  of  many  of  the  nobility  were  open  to 
him,  and  of  their  hospitality  he  frequently  availed 

*  See  Carte's  Life  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  vol.  ii.  p.  554. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  73 

himself.  At  the  house  of  his  cousin  John  Driden  he 
was  always  welcome ;  and  he  could  gossip  with  his 
old  love  Honor,  who,  it  is  said,  repented  of  her  early 
cruelty.  At  Cotterstock  he  could  be  happy  in  the 
society  of  his  beautiful  relative  Mrs.  Stewart,  who 
seems  to  have  taken  an  affectionate  interest  in  his 
studies,  and  to  have  consulted  with  anxious  solicitude 
his  tastes  and  his  comforts.  At  the  pleasant  farm  of 
his  friend  Jones  of  Kamsden  he  could  indulge  in  his 
favourite  amusement  of  angling ;  and,  when  the  ill- 
health  under  which  he  latterly  laboured  compelled 
him  to  abandon  the  fishing-rod,  he  could  still  com- 
placently discuss  D'Urfey's  bad  angling,  and  his  own 
superior  powers  while  the  Fates  were  kind.  His 
manners,  we  are  told,  were  not  genteel,  and  he  has 
himself  observed  that  his  conversation  was  slow  and 
dull ;  but  the  genial  kindliness  of  his  disposition  seems 
to  have  made  him  welcome  in  every  circle,  and  a  man 
more  amiable,  more  humane,  and  more  good-natured 
than  Dryden  probably  never  existed.  "  He  was,"  says 
Congreve,  "  of  very  easy,  I  may  say  of  very  pleasing 
access,"  and  we  have  many  pleasant  glimpses  of  him 
both  in  his  own  home  in  Gerrard  Street  and  in  the 
homes  of  his  friends. 

I  But  there  was  another  scene  with  which  Dryden 
will  always  be  associated,  and  where  we  love  to 
picture  him.  His  short  stout  figure,  his  florid  care- 
worn face,  his  sleepy  eyes,  his  **  down  look,"  his  snuffy 
waistcoat,  and  his  long  gray  hair,  were  for  many  years 
familiar  to  the  frequenters  of  Will's  Coffee  House,  in 
Russell  Street,  Co  vent  Garden.     There  his  supremacy 


74  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

had  never  been  shaken.  There,  whatever  had  been 
the  vicissitudes  of  his  fortune  and  whatever  may 
have  been  his  annoyances  at  home,  he  could  forget 
them  amid  loyal  and  devoted  disciples.  Eound 
his  arm-chair,  placed  near  the  fire  in  winter,  and  out 
on  the  balcony  in  summer,  hung  delighted  listeners, — 
gay  young  Templars,  eager  to  hear  the  reminiscences 
of  one  who  could  recall  roistering  suppers  with 
Etherege  and  Sedley,  and  Attic  evenings  with  Waller 
and  Cowley  and  Davenant ;  who  could  remember 
the  wit -combats  between  Charles  and  Killigrew, 
and  the  sallies  of  Nell  Gwynn  when  she  was  still 
mixing  strong  waters  for  the  gentlemen; — students 
from  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  who  had  quitted  their 
books  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  rival  of  Juvenal ; — 
clever  lads  about  town,  ambitious  for  a  pinch  from  his 
snuff-box,  which  was,  we  are  told,  equal  to  a  degree  in 
the  Academy  of  Wit ; — pleasant  humorists,  "  honest 
Mr.  Swan"  the  punster,  Tom  d'Urfey,  Browne,  and  old 
Sir  Koger  TEstrange  ;  young  Moyle,  "  with  the  learn- 
ing and  judgment  above  his  age,"  whose  splendid  pro- 
mise was  never  fulfilled  ;  men  distinguished  for  their 
skill  in  art  and  science,  whom  his  fame  had  attracted 
thither,  Eatcliffe,  Kneller,  and  poor  Closterman. 
There  were  those  who  had  like  himself  achieved 
high  literary  distinction,  but  who  were,  nevertheless, 
proud  to  acknowledge  him  their  teacher,  Wycherley, 
Southerne,  Congreve,  and  Vanbrugh ;  Thomas  Creech, 
whose  edition  of  Lucretius  had  placed  him  in  the 
front  rank  of  English  scholars ;  William  Walsh,  "  the 
best  critic  in  the  nation  " ;  George  Stepney,  "  whose 


JOHN  DRYDEN  75 

juvenile  poems  had  made  gray  authors  blush  "  ;  young 
Colley  Gibber,  flushed  with  the  success  of  his  first 
comedy ;  and  Samuel  Garth,  whose  admirable  mock- 
heroic  poem  is  even  now  not  forgotten.  There,  too, 
were  occasionally  to  be  seen  those  younger  men  who 
were  to  carry  on  the  work  he  was  so  soon  to  lay  down, 
and  who  were  to  connect  two  great  ages  of  English 
literature.  Pope,  indeed,  was  a  child  of  twelve  when 
his  young  eyes  rested  for  the  first  and  last  time  on  his 
master ;  but  Prior,  now  turned  of  thirty,  was  already 
a  distinguished  wit ;  Addison,  though  he  had  not  yet 
given  evidence  of  the  powers  which  were  to  place  him 
in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  classics  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  laid  the  foundation  of  future  renown ; 
and  Swift,  though  still  aspiring  to  fame  as  a  poet,  was 
about  to  discover  where  his  real  strength  lay.  The 
Battle  of  the  Books  and  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  were  com- 
pleted in  manuscript  while  Dryden  still  presided  at 
Wiirs. 

Dryden's  labours  were  not  to  end  with  the  trans- 
lation of  Virgil.  He  had  still  nearly  three  years  of 
toil  before  him.  They  were  years  harassed  by  a 
painful  disease,  by  malevolent  opponents,  and  by 
pecuniary  difficulties,  but  they  were  years  rich  in  the 
production  of  the  mellowest  and  most  pleasing  of  his 
writings.  Neither  age  nor  sickness  could  damp  his 
spirits  or  dim  his  genius.  His  energy  seemed  the 
energy  of  youth  renewed.  In  the  autumn  of  1697 
appeared  that  immortal  ode  which  Scott,  Byron,  and 
Macaulay  have  pronounced  to  be  the  noblest  in  our 
language,  which  Voltaire  preferred  to  the  whole  of 


76  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Pindar,  and  which  even  the  least  indulgent   critic 
must  admit  to  be  an  un  approached  masterpiece  in 
lyrical  rhetoric.     Then  he  meditated  a  translation  of 
the  Iliad,     He  wrote  a  life  of  Lucian.     He  revised 
his    Virgil,  and  he  was  engaged  on  less  important 
works  beside.     He  contracted  with  Tonson  to  supply 
him  with  ten  thousand  verses,  and  he  added  upwards 
of  two  thousand  more.     These  verses  form  a  volume 
which   has,  till  within    comparatively  recent  times, 
been  the  delight  of  all  classes  of  readers,  and  which 
cast  the  same  spell  on  our  ancestors  ninety  years  ago 
as  the  poetic  narratives  of  Scott,  Byron,  and  Moore 
cast  on  a  later  generation.     It  was  published  under 
the  title  of  Fables,  Ancient  and  Modern,  Translated 
into     Verse  from    Homer,    Ovid,    Boccaccio,    and 
Chaucer,  ivith   Original  Poems,  and  it  appeared  in 
March    1700,  a   few  weeks  before  Dryden's   death. 
There  is  much  in  this  volume  which  can  never  lose 
its   charm,   but   modern   criticism  will  discriminate. 
The    versions    from    Chaucer,    consisting    of    Tlie 
Knight's  Tale,  The  Nun's  Priest's  Tale,  The   Wife 
of  Bath's    Tale,  the  character  of  the  good  parson, 
and    The   Flower  and   the   Leaf,  which  were  once 
held  to  constitute  the  most  attractive  portion  of  the 
work,  will  probably  find  least  favour  with  readers 
in  our  day.     Dryden  deals  with  Chaucer  precisely  as 
he  had  dealt  with  Virgil.    But,  if  his  genius  had  little 
affinity  with  the  genius  of  the  poet  of  the  Georgics 
and  the  JEneid,  it  had  unfortunately  still  less  affinity 
with  that  of  the  poet  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.     In 
translating,  or  rather  in  re-writing,  a  work  like  the 


JOHN  DRYDEN  77 

j^rieid,  he  had  many  opportunities  for  the  display  of 
his  own  peculiar  talents,  and  he  had  been  able  with 
some  propriety  to  substitute  a  masterpiece  of  rhetoric 
for  a  masterpiece  of  poetry.  But  this  was  impossible 
in  the  case  of  Chaucer,  and  Dryden's  failure  is 
deplorable.  He  preserves  literally  nothing  of  what 
constitutes  the  charm  and  power  of  his  original.  All 
Chaucer's  naivete,  simplicity,  freshness,  grace,  pathos, 
humour,  truth  to  nature  and  truth  to  life,  all  that 
attracts  us  in  his  temper,  tone,  and  style,  have  not 
merely  disappeared,  but,  what  is  much  worse,  have 
been  represented  by  Drydenian  equivalents.  Where 
Chaucer  is  easy  and  natural  with  the  easiness  and 
naturalness  of  good  breeding,  Dryden  is  coarsely 
colloquial.  Where  Chaucer  is  humorous,  Dryden  is 
simply  vulgar.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  is 
a  single  touch  of  nature  which  Dryden  has  not  missed 
or  spoilt,  or  a  single  pathetic  passage  which  he 
has  not  made  ridiculous.  To  take  two  illustrations. 
Chaucer's  magical  description  of  the  early  morning  in 
May  is  well  known  : — 

The  busy  larke,  messager  of  daye, 
Saluteth  in  her  song  the  mom(i  graye, 
And  fiery  Phebus  riseth  up  so  bright 
That  all  the  orient  laugheth  of  the  light, 
-  And  with  his  streames  drycth  in  the  grevea 
Tlie  silver  droppes  hanging  on  the  leaves. 

This  becomes  in  Dryden's  hands — 

The  morning  lark,  the  messenger  of  day, 

Saluteth  in  her  song  the  morning  gray, 

And  soon  the  sun  arose  with  beams  so  bright 

That  all  the  horizon  laughed  to  see  the  joyous  sight ; 

He  with  his  tepid  rays  the  rose  renews 

And  licks  the  dropping  leaves  and  dries  the  dews. 


78  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Nor  do  Chaucer  s  pathos  and  charm  of  style  fare 
better.  Take  the  touching  and  exquisite  passage  in 
which  the  dying  Arcite  takes  leave  of  Emily : — 

Alas  the  woe,  alas  the  peynes  strong 

That  I  for  you  have  suffered  and  so  long ! 

Alas  the  death  !  alas  mine  Emeleye  ! 

Alas  departing  of  our  companeye  ! 

Alas  mine  hertes  queen  !     Alas  my  wyfe  ! 

Mine  hertes  lady,  ender  of  my  life  ! 

What  is  this  world  ?     What  asken  men  to  have 

Now  with  his  love,  now  in  his  colde  grave 

Alone  withouten  any  companeye  ? 

This,  when  translated  into  Drydenese,  becomes — 

This  I  may  say,  I  only  grieve  to  die 

Because  I  lose  my  charming  Emily  ; 

To  die  when  Heaven  had  put  you  in  my  power ! 

Fate  could  not  choose  a  more  malicious  hour. 

What  greater  curse  could  envious  fortune  give, 

Than  just  to  die  when  I  began  to  live  ! 

Vain  men  !  how  vanishing  a  bliss  we  crave. 

Now  warm  in  love,  now  withering  in  the  grave  ! 

Never,  O  never  more  to  see  the  sun  ! 

Still  dark,  in  a  damp  vault,  and  still  alone  ! 

But  the  moment  we  turn  to  passages  which  admit  of 
rhetorical  treatment,  and  which  enable  Dryden  to 
follow,  and  to  follow  with  propriety,  the  bent  of  his 
own  genius,  there  he  is  pre-eminently  successful. 
Such  would  be  the  description  of  the  quarrel  between 
Arcite  and  Palamon,  the  portraits  of  Lycurgus 
and  Demetrius,  Arcite's  prayer,  the  tournament,  and 
the  last  speech  of  Theseus  in  Tlie  KnigMs  Tale, 
the  procession  of  the  fairy  chivalry  and  the  dialogue 
between  the  heroine  and  the  fairy  in  The  Flower 
and  the  Leaf,  the  witch-bride's  speech  in  The  Wife 
of  Bath's  Tale. 

Of  the  versions   from   Boccaccio — and  Boccaccio 


( 


JOHN  DRYDEN  79 

supplied  him  with  little  more  than  the  framework  of 
the  stories — Wordsworth  has  observed  that  they  are 
the  best,  or  at  least  the  most  poetical,  of  Dryden's 
poems. ^  This  is  unquestionably  true.  Though  they 
continually  strike  false  notes  and  shock  and  jar  on 
us,  sometimes  by  their  coarseness,  sometimes  by  their 
diffuse  and  too  declamatory  eloquence,  sometimes  by 
their  palpable  untruthfulness  to  nature,  their  total  im- 
pression is  undoubtedly  that  of  powerful  poetry.  They 
appeal  more  directly  and  effectively  to  the  passions 
and  the  imagination  than  anything  else  which 
Dryden  has  left  us,  not  excepting  the  best  of  his 
lyrics.  There  are  indeed  passages  in  these  versions 
which  approach  poetry  of  a  high  order.  The  noble 
lines  in  Theodore  and  Honoria  are  well  known  : — 

While  listening  to  the  murmuring  leaves  he  stood, 
More  than  a  mile  immers'd  within  the  wood, 
At  once  the  wind  was  laid  ;  the  whispering  sound 
Was  dumb ;  a  rising  earthquake  rock'd  the  ground. 
With  deeper  brown  the  grove  was  overspread, 
A  sudden  horror  seiz'd  his  giddy  head, 
And  his  ears  tinkled  and  his  colour  lied. 
Nature  was  in  alarm  ;  some  danger  nigh 
Seem'd  threatened  though  unseen  to  mortal  eye. 
Unus'd  to  fear  he  summon'd  all  his  soul 
And  stood  collected  in  himself — and  whole. 

And  in  another  vein  how  exquisite  is  the  passage 
describing  the  sleeping  Iphigenia,  concluding  with  the 
triplet — 

The  fanning  wind  upon  her  bosom  blows, 

To  meet  the  fanning  wind  the  bosom  rose, 

The  fanning  wind  and  purling  streams  continue  her  repoee. 

Among  the  pieces  comprised  in  the  Fables  is  a  singularly 

>  Letter  to  Sir  Walter  Scott— Lockhart'e  Lifeo/ScoU,  chap.  xiv. 


80  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

graceful  epistle  to  the  Countess  of  Ormond,  exhorting 
her  to  see  her  own  reflection  in  Chaucer's  Emily,  and 
her  husband's  in  the  chivalrous  and  fortunate  Palamon. 
Dryden  prefixed  to  the  work,  which  is  dedicated  to 
the  Duke  of  Ormond,  one  of  the  most  delightful  of 
his  critical  prefaces,  full  of  pleasant  and  instructive 
gossip  about  Ovid,  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Chaucer,  about 
style  and  language,  about  the  principles  of  translation, 
about  himself  and  his  opponents,  Blackmore,  Mil- 
bourne,  and  Collier.  On  these  prefaces  he  greatly 
prided  himself.  They  were  a  form  of  composition 
not  then  familiar  in  England,  and  among  Dryden's 
many  services  to  our  literature  must  certainly  be 
added  the  invention  of  this  most  delightful  variety  of 
the  essay.  It  had  no  doubt  been  originally  suggested 
to  him  by  the  French  critics  and  poets,  but  it  had 
gradually  assumed  in  his  hands  quite  a  new  character. 
It  had  entirely  lost  the  tone  and  colour  of  the  treatise 
and  disquisition,  and  had  become  pure  causerie.  He 
tells  us  himself  that  he  had  taken  Montaigne  for  his 
model,  that  he  had  learned  from  him  to  "ramble,"  and 
so  to  treat  his  theme  as  to  be  never  wholly  out  of  it 
nor  in  it,  and  these  prefaces  certainly  bear  a  very  close 
resemblance  in  their  style  and  method  to  the  writings 
of  that  most  fascinating  of  philosophical  gossips. 
The  most  charming  and  valuable  of  these  prefaces  are 
perhaps  those  prefixed  to  the  Fables  and  to  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  and  those  which  introduce  the  second 
and  third  Miscellany^  the  translation  of  the  jEneid, 
and  the  translation  of  Du  Fresnoy's  De  Arte 
Graphica. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  81 

There  is  one  passage  in  the  preface  to  the  Fables 
that  illustrates  very  touchingly  the  eflfect  which 
years  and  perhaps  sorrows  had  had  in  mellowing  and 
purifying  the  character  of  the  old  poet.  In  1698 
appeared  Jeremy  Collier's  Short  View  of  the  Profane- 
ness  and  Immorality  of  the  English  Stage,  The 
severest  portion  of  this  invective  had  been  directed 
against  Dry  den,  whose  plays  had  been  ransacked  to 
furnish  illustrations  of  what  Collier  designed  to  hold 
up  to  the  execration  of  his  countrymen.  To  a  man 
in  Dryden's  position  and  of  Dryden's  resources 
Collier  was  not  a  formidable  adversary ;  for  he  stood 
alone,  he  had  greatly  overstated  his  case,  he  had 
not  always  been  honest  in  his  citations ;  having  little 
judgment  and  no  humour,  he  had  been  guilty  of 
many  absurdities  which  a  much  less  accomplished 
controversialist  than  the  controversialist  whom  he 
had  provoked  could  have  turned  to  excellent  account 
both  in  defence  and  attack.  Nor  was  this  all.  Con- 
temptuous and  truculent  in  his  tone  —  often  out- 
rageously so — he  had  descended  to  gross  personal 
abuse.  It  was  naturally  expected  that  the  great 
man  would  reply,  and  that  Collier  would  fare  as 
Milboume  and  Blackmore  had  recently  fared  at  his 
hands.  Nothing  that  we  know  of  Dryden  is  so 
honourable  to  him  as  his  conduct  on  this  occasion. 
He  replied,  but  his  reply  was  not  what  the  world 
expected,  and,  considering  the  provocation  received, 
what  meekness  itself  might  have  expected. 

I  shall  say  the  less  of  Mr.  Collier,  because  in  many  things 
ho  has   taxed   me  justly;   and  I  have  pleaded   guilty  to  all 

O 


82  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

thoughts  and  expressions  of  mine  which  can  he  truly  argued  of 
obscenity,  profaneness,  or  immorality,  and  retract  them.  If  he 
be  my  enemy,  let  him  triumph ;  if  he  be  my  friend,  as  I  have 
given  liim  no  personal  occasion  to  be  otherwise,  he  will  be  glad 
of  my  repentance. 

With  these  words,  a  fitting  prelude  to  the  solemn 
scene  which  was  now  close  at  hand,  the  old  man  took 
his  leave  of  controversy  for  ever. 

"By  the  mercy  of  God,"  he  wrote  in  this  same 
preface — it  is  dated  February  1700 — "I  am  come 
within  twenty  years  of  fourscore  and  eight,  a  cripple 
in  my  limbs,  but  I  think  myself  as  vigorous  as  ever 
in  the  faculties  of  my  soul."  On  the  13th  of  the 
following  May  he  was  lying  in  the  Abbey  among  his 
illustrious  predecessors,  of  whom  he  had  never  during 
the  course  of  his  long  life  written  or  perhaps  spoken 
one  disloyal  word.  He  died,  it  appears,  somewhat 
suddenly.  Enfeebled  by  a  complication  of  diseases, 
he  was  attacked  by  erysipelas  and  gangrene,  to  which, 
at  three  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  1st  of  May 
1700,  he  succumbed,  in  spite  of  the  anxious  care  of 
one  of  the  most  eminent  surgeons  of  that  day,  his 
old  friend  Dr.  Hobbes.  A  not  very  painful  operation 
might  have  saved  his  life ;  he  chose  rather  to  resign 
it.  "  He  received  the  notice  of  his  approaching 
dissolution,"  writes  one  of  those  who  stood  round 
his  deathbed,  *'  with  sweet  submission  and  entire 
resignation  to  the  Divine  will,  and  he  took  so  tender 
and  obliging  a  farewell  of  his  friends  as  none  but 
himself  could  have  expressed."  His  body  was  em- 
balmed and  lay  in  state  for  several,  days  in  the 
College  of  Physicians,  and  on  the  13th  of  May  was 


JOHN  DRYDEN  83 

honoured  with  a  public  funeral  more  imposing  and 
magnificent  than  any  which  had  been  conceded  to  an 
English  poet  before.  He  was  laid  in  the  grave  of 
Chaucer,  near  the  bones  of  Spenser  and  Jonson  and 
Cowley,  not  far  from  his  old  friend  Davenant,  and 
his  old  schoolmaster  Busby,  in 

the  temple  where  the  dead 
Are  honoured  by  the  nations. 

Nothing  seems  to  have  distressed  Dryden  more 
than  the  persistency  with  which  his  enemies  maligned 
and  misrepresented  his  private  character,  and  it  is 
certainly  due  to  his  memory  to  protest  against  the 
injustice  of  much  which  has  been  circulated  to  his 
discredit.  He  has  been  described  in  terms  which 
would  require  some  qualification  if  applied  to  Gates 
or  Chifl&nch.  Burnet,  smarting  from  the  severe  casti- 
gation  which  he  had  received  in  Tlie  Hind  and  the 
Panther,  represents  him  as  a  monster  of  immodesty 
and  impurity.  Macaulay  paints  him  in  the  blackest 
colours;  an  abject  spirit,  a  depraved  and  polluted 
imagination,  shamelessness,  and  turpitude  of  all  kinds 
are  imputed  to  him,  not  as  a  writer  merely,  but  as  a 
man.  He  has  been  accused  of  backbiting,  of  double 
dealing,  and  of  practising  all  those  mean  arts  by 
which  the  vanity  and  envy  of  little  men  seek  to 
obtain  their  ends.  Nay,  charges  of  a  still  more 
odious  kind  have  been  advanced  and  repeated  against 
him.  Most  of  these  charges  have  been  grossly 
exaggerated  ;  for  some  of  them  there  is  absolutely 
no  foundation  at  all.  Those  who  knew  him  well,  for 
instance,   have   distinctly  asserted   that  his  private 


84  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES    ^ 

life  was  perfectly  pure,  and  yet  Mr.  Christie  con- 
tinues to  accuse  him,  on  the  paltry  evidence  of  an 
obscure  libeller,  of  the  grossest  libertinism.  The 
simple  truth  is  that  Dryden  was  in  private  life  a  very 
respectable,  a  very  amiable,  and  a  very  generous  man. 
'^  Posterity,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Gentleman's  Maga- 
zine for  February  1745,  who  was  acquainted  with 
Dryden,  *'is  absolutely  mistaken  as  to  that  great 
man;  though  forced  to  be  a  satirist,  he  was  the 
mildest  creature  breathing,  and  the  readiest  to  help 
the  young  and  deserving."  He  was,  indeed,  always 
going  out  of  his  way  to  do  a  kindness  to  his  fellow- 
labourers  in  literature.  He  welcomed  Wycherley  with 
open  arms,  though  he  knew  that  Wycherley's  success 
must  be,  to  some  extent,  based  on  his  own  depression. 
Dennis,  Shere,  Moyle,  Motteaux,  and  Walsh  were 
constantly  assisted  by  him.  By  his  patronage  Addi- 
son, then  a  difl&dent  lad  at  Oxford,  and  Congreve,  a 
timid  aspirant  for  popular  favour,  came  into  pro- 
minence. When  Southerne  was  smarting  under  the 
failure  of  his  comedy,  Dryden  was  near  to  cheer  and 
condole  with  him.  He  helped  Prior,  and  he  was  but 
ill  rewarded.  He  did  what  he  could  for  young 
Oldham;  and  when  the  poor  fellow  buried  in  his 
premature  grave  abilities  which  might  have  added  to 
the  riches  of  our  literature,  he  dedicated  a  touching 
elegy  to  his  memory.  Lee  and  Garth  were  among 
his  disciples ;  and,  if  he  was  at  first  blind  or  unjust 
to  Otway's  fine  genius,  he  afterwards  made  ample 
amends.  He  gave  Nell  Gwynn  a  helping  hand  at 
the  time  when  she  sorely  needed  it.     His  letters  to 


JOHN  DRYDEN  86 

Mrs.  Thomas  still  testify  not  only  his  willingness  to 
oblige,  but  the  courtesy  and  kindliness  with  which 
he  proffered  his  services.  He  was,  we  are  told, 
beloved  by  his  tenants  in  Northamptonshire  for  his 
liberality  as  a  landlord.  The  few  private  letters 
which  have  been  preserved  to  us  clearly  indicate  that, 
if  he  was  not  happy  with  his  wife,  he  was  a  forbearing 
and  kindly  husband,  and  his  devotion  to  his  children 
is  touching  in  the  extreme.  He  was  always  thinking 
of  them ;  he  is  always  alluding  to  them.  He  sent 
two  of  them  to  the  Universities  when  he  could  but 
ill  afford  it;  and  he  seems  to  have  helped  them  in 
their  studies.  "  If,"  he  writes,  referring  to  his  son 
Charles,  who  had  been  ill,  "  it  please  God  that  I  must 
die  of  over-study,  I  cannot  spend  my  life  better  than 
in  preserving  his."  From  those  base  passions,  which 
are  so  often  the  curse  of  men  of  letters — envy  and 
jealousy — he  was  absolutely  free.  We  may  not  be 
prepared  either  to  defend  or  to  extenuate  the  grave 
offences  against  morality  and  decency  which  sully  his 
writings ;  we  may  not  be  prepared  to  defend  the 
wild  inconsistency  of  his  conduct  and  his  opinions ; 

id  yet  it  is  but  just  to  try  a  poet  by  the  standard 
the  age  which  nurtured  him.     Dryden  has  been 

}ie   noble    scapegoat   of   an   ignoble    and    dissolute 
I  meration.      He  fell   on   evil   days   and    profligate 

itrons,  with  the  hard  alternative  of  popularity  or 

arvation. 
The  importance  of  Dryden  from  a  historical  point 

*  view  can  scarcely  be  overestimated.     Probably  no 

riter  ever  left  so  deep  an  impression  on  the  litera- 


86  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

ture  of  his  country.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  the 
greater  part  both  of  our  poetry  and  of  our  criticism 
was  profoundly  aflfected  by  his  influence.  He  stood 
indeed  in  pretty  much  the  same  relation  to  belles 
lettres  as  Bacon  had  stood  to  philosophy.  He  was 
the  exponent,  if  not  the  initiator,  of  new  ideas,  the 
prophet  of  a  new  dispensation.  At  once  summing 
up  and  concentrating  what  had  found  scattered  and 
somewhat  uncertain  expression  in  the  earlier  repre- 
sentatives of  the  critical  school,  he  gave  it  precision, 
power,  vogue,  and  authority*  Neither  Waller  nor 
Denham,  neither  Davenant  nor  Cowley,  singly  or 
collectively,  would  have  been  able  permanently  to 
affect  the  course  and  character  of  our  literature.  But 
Dryden  appeared,  and  an  epoch  was  made.  Temper, 
tone,  colour,  style — all  became  changed.  A  trans- 
formed society  had  found  its  literary  interpreter  and 
teacher — an  age  not  merely  unpropitious  but  inimical 
to  poetry  had  found  its  poet.  Dryden  taught  our 
literature  to  adapt  itself  to  an  altered  world.  He 
struck  the  keynote  of  the  new  strains ;  he  marshalled 
the  order  of  the  new  procession.  Of  the  poets  and 
men  of  letters  most  characteristic  of  the  eighteenth 
century  he  was  the  acknowledged  master.  He 
directed  them  to  the  classics  of  ancient  Kome  and 
modern  France  for  their  models  in  composition  and 
for  their  canons  of  criticism,  and  both  by  example 
and  by  precept  he  made  those  models  and  canons  pre- 
dominantly influential.  It  would  be  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  if  w^e  except  The  Rape  of  the  Lock  and 
Windsor  Forest,  Pope  not  only  followed  implicitly 


JOHN  DRYDEN  87 

in  the  footsteps  of  Dryden,  but  was  indebted  to  him 
for  the  archetypes,  or  at  least  the  suggestions,  of 
every  kind  of  poetry  attempted  by  him.  He  once 
observed  that  he  could  select  from  Dryden's  works 
better  specimens  of  every  mode  of  poetry  than  any 
other  English  writer  could  supply ;  and  the  remark  is 
significant.  Indeed,  Dryden  was  to  Pope  what  Homer 
and  Apollonius,  Theocritus  and  Nicander,  were  to 
Virgil.  On  criticism  his  influence  was  almost  equally 
extensive.  Till  the  appearance  of  the  subtler  and 
more  philosophical  disquisitions  of  Hurd,  Kames,  and 
Harris,  he  contributed  more  than  any  single  writer 
to  give  the  ply  and  the  tone  to  the  criticism  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  to  prescribe  its  limits,  to  deter- 
mine its  scope,  not  so  much  directly  by  virtue  of  his 
own  authority  as  a  legislator,  as  indirectly  by  intro- 
ducing, interpreting,  and  popularising  the  critics  of 
antiquity  and  of  modern  France.  Johnson  has  observed, 
and  observed  with  reference  to  Dryden,  that  a  writer 
who  obtains  his  full  purpose  loses  himself  in  his  own 
lustre.  It  is  certainly  doing  Dryden  no  more  than 
justice  to  say  that  Addison  and  the  periodical  writers  in 
their  capacity  as  critics,  that  Pope  in  his  prefaces  and 
dissertations,  that  Goldsmith  in  his  critical  papers, 
and  that  Johnson  himself  in  his  great  work  are 
satellites  in  the  system  of  which  he  was  the  original 
and  central  luminary.  Of  modern  English  prose,  of 
the  prose,  that  is  to  say,  which  exchanged  the  old 
synthetic  and  rhetorical  scheme  of  structure  and 
colour  for  that  happier  temper  of  ease  and  dignity,  of 
grace  and  variety,  familiar  to  us  in  the  style  of  such 


88  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

writers  as  Addison,  Bolingbroke,  and  Chesterfield,  lie 
was  the  first  to  furnish  a  perfect  model. 

The  judgment  of  our  forefathers  which  assigned  to 

Dryden  the  third  or  fourth  place  among  English  poets 

will  not   be  corroborated  by  modern  criticism.      It 

would,  indeed,  be  easy  to  frame,  and  to  frame  with 

unexceptionable   correctness,  a   definition  of  poetry 

which  should  exclude,  or  nearly  exclude,  him  from 

y^  the  right  to  be  numbered  among  poets  at  all.     Of 

■        imagination  in  the  sensuous  acceptation  of  the  term 

\    he  had  little,  in  the  higher  acceptation  of  the  term 

^J    nothing.    And-  if  his  genius  is,  to  borrow  an  expression 

from  Plato,  without  the  power  of  the  wing,  it  is  almost 

equally  deficient  in  most  of  those  other  qualities  which 

constitute  the  essential   distinction   between  poetry 

and  rhetoric.     It  was  neither  finely  touched  nor  finely 

tempered.     It  had  little  sense  of  the  beautiful,  of  the 

pathetic,  of  the  sublime,  though  it  could  juggle  with 

v^  their  counterfeits.      To   say  with  Wordsworth  that 

there  is  not  a  single  image  from  Nature  to  be  found 

in  the  whole  body  of  his  poetry  would  be  to  say  what 

is  not  true ;  but  it  is  true  that  such  images  are  rare. 

The  predominating  power  in  Dryden  was  a  robust, 

"^^vigorous,  and  logical   intellect,  intensely  active  and 

extraordinarily    versatile.      In   addition    to   this    he 

possessed,  or,   to   speak  more  properly,   acquired,  a 

singularly  fine  ear  for  the  rhythm  of  verse,  and  a 

plastic  mastery  over  our  language,  such  as  few  even 

\^   of  the  Classics  of  our  poetry  have  attained.      What 

these  powers  could  efi'ect   they  efi'ected  to  the  full. 

They  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  rhetorical  poets. 


JOHN  DRYDEN  89 

They  enabled  him  to  rival  Lucretius  in  didactic  poetry, 
Lucan  in  epic,  and  Juvenal  in  satire.  If  they  could 
not  supply  what  Nature  had  denied  him,  they  supplied 
its  semblance.  There  is  in  Dryden's  poetry,  and 
especially  in  his  lyrical  poetry,  a  vehemence  and 
energy,  a  rapidity  of  movement  and  a  fertility  and 
vividness  of  imagery,  which  it  is  sometimes  difficult 
to  distinguish  from  the  expression  of  that  emotional 
and  spiritual  exaltation  which  constitutes  genuine 
enthusiasm.  But  genuine  enthusiasm  is  not  there. 
Alexander's  Feast  is  a  consummate  example  both  of 
metrical  skill  and  of  what  a  combination  of  all  the 
qualities  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  rhetori- 
cal masterpieces  can  effect.  But  it  is  nothing  more. 
The  moment  we  compare  it,  say,  with  Pindar's  first 
Pythian  Ode,  its  relation  to  true  poetry  becomes  at 
once  apparent.  It  is  the  same  when  he  attempts  the 
pathetic  and  when  he  attempts  the  sublime.  For 
the  first  he  substitutes — as  in  the  Elegy  on  Oldham, 
the  Ode  on  Mrs.  Anne  Killigrew,  Eleonora,  and  the 
lines  on  Ossory  in  Absalom  and  AchitopJiel — elaborate 
eloquence ;  for  the  second,  if  he  does  not  collapse  in 
bombast,  magnificence  and  pomp. 

But  when  all  deductions  are  made,  how  much 
must  the  most  scrupulous  criticism  still  leave  to 
Dryden.  As  long  as  our  literature  endures,  his 
genial  energy,  his  happy  unstinted  talent,  his  incom- 
parable power  of  style,  can  never  fail  to  fascinate. 
It  may  be  said  with  simple  truth  that  what  is  best 
in  his  work  is  in  our  language  the  best  of  its  kind. 
His  only  rival  in  satire  is  Pope;  but  the  satires  of 


90  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Pope  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  Absalom  and 
Achitophel,  Hie  Medal,  and  MacFlechnoe,  as  the 
AEneid  stands  to  the  Iliad.  Some  of  the  most 
eminent  of  our  poets  have  essayed  to  make  rhymed 
verse  the  vehicle  for  argumentative  discussion ;  but 
what  have  we  which  can  for  a  moment  be  placed 
beside  the  Religio  Laid  and  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther?  His  Epistles  again,  the  Epistles,  for 
example,  to  Roscommon,  to  Congreve,  to  his  cousin, 
to  Kneller,  to  the  Duchess  of  Ormond,  are  the  per- 
fection of  this  species  of  composition.  His  Prologues 
and  Epilogues  are  models  of  what  such  pieces  should 
C  be.  If  his  lyrics  have  not  the  finer  qualities  of  poetry, 
-)  and  jar  on  us  now  with  the  note  of  falsetto  and  now 
with  the  note  of  vulgarity,  the  first  Ode  on  Saint 
Cecilia's  Day,  Alexander's  Feast,  the  Ode  on  Mrs. 
Anne  Killigrew,  and  the  Horatian  Paraphrase  are 
superb  achievements.  No  one,  indeed,  can  con- 
template without  wonder  the  manifold  energy  of  that 
vigorous  and  plastic  genius,  which  added  to  our 
literature  so  much  which  is  excellent  and  so  much 
which  is  admirable,  and  which  elicited  from  one  of 
the  most  fastidious  of  poets  and  critics  the  rapturous 
exhortation — to  read  Dry  den — "  and  be  blind  to  all 
his  faults ! " 


THE  PREDECESSOKS  OF  SHAKSPEARE^ 

This  volume  has  more  than  one  important  claim  to 
serious  consideration.  It  is  the  first  instalment  of 
what  promises  to  be  the  most  voluminous  history  of 
our  national  drama  which  has  yet  been  attempted. 
As  a  composition  and  as  a  contribution  to  literary 
criticism  it  appears  to  us,  and  we  have  little  doubt 
that  it  will  appear  to  posterity,  to  illustrate — and  to 
illustrate  comprehensively — a  most  curious  phase  in 
the  development  of  modern  prose  literature.  Its 
author  has  been  long  known  to  the  world  as  an 
accomplished  and  industrious  man  of  letters,  and  in 
undertaking  the  present  work  he  would  seem  to  have 
undertaken  a  work  for  which  he  was  peculiarly  well 
qualified.  It  has  been,  he  tells  us,  for  many  years  in 
his  thoughts.  It  was  commenced  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  ago  ;  and  though  its  composition  has  been 
suspended,  it  has,  if  we  may  judge  from  Mr.  Symonds' 
principal  publications,  been  suspended  for  studies 
which  must  assuredly  have  formed  an  excellent  train- 
ing for  the  task  which  he  now  resumes.     Nor  is  this 

*  Shakaperes  Prtdece$9on  in  the  English  Drama.     By  John  Addington 
Symonds.    London,  1884. 


92  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

all.  We  have  no  wish  to  speak  disparagingly  of  the 
historians  of  English  literature,  but  it  must,  we  fear, 
be  admitted  that  they  have  as  a  class  been  deficient 
in  that  wide  and  liberal  culture  —  that  scholarly 
familiarity  with  the  classics  of  other  ages  and  of  other 
tongues — which  constitutes  the  chief  difierence  be- 
tween literary  historians  of  the  first  and  literary 
historians  of  the  second  order.  It  is  this  which  has 
given  us  many  Shaws  but  few  Hallams — much  that 
will  satisfy  those  who  seek  to  be  informed,  little  that 
will  satisfy  those  who  seek  to  be  enlightened ;  and  it 
is  this  which  places  the  histories  of  English  literature 
now  current  among  us  so  immeasurably  below  the 
work  of  M.  Taine.  But  assuredly  no  deficiency  on 
the  score  of  literary  attainments  and  literary  culture 
can  be  imputed  to  Mr.  Symonds.  His  essays  on  the 
Greek  poets  are  a  sufficient  proof  of  his  acquirements 
as  a  scholar.  His  Study  of  Dante  is  a  historical 
and  critical  disquisition  of  great  merit,  and  his  five 
stout  volumes  on  the  Eenaissance  in  Italy  display 
an  acquaintance  with  the  literature  and  history  of 
that  period  such  as  probably  no  other  Englishman 
since  Roscoe  has  possessed.  With  the  poetry  and 
criticism  of  Germany  and  France  he  appears  to  be 
equally  conversant.  He  has  sought  fame  as  a  poet, 
as  a  translator,  as  a  critic  of  the  fine  arts ;  and  in  each 
of  these  characters  he  has  distinguished  himself.  The 
appearance,  therefore,  of  such  a  work  as  the  present, 
by  so  eminent  and  so  accomplished  a  writer,  cannot 
but  be  regarded  as  an  event  of  importance.  On 
writers    like   Mr.    Symonds    depends   the    ordinary 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE      93 

standard  of  literary  achievement.  What  they  do  has 
the  force  of  example ;  what  they  neglect  to  do  is  drawn 
into  precedent.  The  quality  of  the  work  produced 
by  them  determinates  the  quality  of  the  work  pro- 
duced by  many  others.  A  bad  book  is  its  own  anti- 
dote ;  a  superlatively  good  book  appeals  to  few  ;  but 
a  book  which  is  not  too  defective  to  be  called  excel- 
lent, and  not  too  excellent  to  become  popular,  exercises 
an  influence  on  literary  activity  the  importance  of 
which  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  overestimate.  And 
of  such  a  character  is  the  volume  before  us. 

We  have  explained  our  reasons  for  attaching  par- 
ticular importance  to  it,  and  we  shall  we  hope  be  for- 
given for  commenting  freely  on  what  appear  to  us  to 
be  its  chief  blemishes.  It  is  our  duty  to  say,  then,  that 
there  is  much  in  this  volume  which  will,  we  fear,  be 
of  ill  precedent  in  the  future.  What  we  expected, 
and  what  we  felt  we  had  a  right  to  expect,  in  so  am- 
bitious a  work,  were  some  indications  of  the  meditatio 
et  labor  in  posterum  valescentes,  something  that 
smacked,  as  the  ancient  critics  would  put  it,  of  the 
file  and  the  lamp.  What  we  found  was,  we  regret  to 
say,  every  indication  of  precipitous  haste,  a  style 
which  where  it  differs  from  the  style  of  extemporary 
journalism  differs  for  the  worse — florid,  yet  common- 
place ;  full  of  impurities  ;  inordinately,  nay,  incredibly 
difiuse  and  pleonastic ;  a  narrative  clogged  with  end- 
less repetitions,  without  symmetry,  without  proportion. 
To  go  no  further  than  the  opening  chapter,  Mr. 
Symonds  there  observes  that  Elizabethan  art  cul- 
minated in  Shakspeare.    Such  a  remark  was  assuredly 


94  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

neither  very  new  nor  very  profound,  but  it  is  repeated 
no  less  than  eight  times  in  almost  as  many  pages. 
First  it  appears  simply  as,  "  In  Shakspeare  the  art  of 
sixteenth-century  England  was  completed  and  accom- 
plished." Then  it  reappears  as,  "  In  Shakspeare  we 
have  the  culmination  of  dramatic  art  in  England." 
Next  it  assumes  the  form  of,  "  Shakspeare  represents 
the  dramatic  art  in  its  fulness."  Again  it  presents 
itself  as,  "  Shakspeare  forms  a  focus  for  all  the  rays 
of  dramatic  light  which  had  emerged  before  his 
time."  On  the  next  page,  "  Shakspeare  is  the  key- 
stone of  the  arch."  A  few  lines  afterwards,  '*  Shak- 
speare's  greatness  consists  in  bringing  the  type 
established  by  his  predecessors  to  artistic  fulness." 
A  few  lines  before,  "  It  (the  drama)  reaches  that 
accomplishment  in  Shakspeare's  art  which  enthrals 
attention."  Then  again  it  starts  up  as,  "  Shakspeare 
realised  the  previous  efforts  of  the  English  genius 
to  form  a  drama,  and  perfected  the  type."  A  not 
less  glaring  illustration  of  the  same  defect  will 
be  found  in  the  chapter  on  Marlowe  :  "  The  leading 
motive  which  pervades  Marlowe's  poetry  may  be 
defined  as  V amour  de  V impossible.''  This  is  the 
text,  and  through  twenty-three  octavo  pages  is  the 
remark  repeated  and  illustrated,  illustrated  and  re- 
peated, till  the  iteration  becomes  almost  maddening. 
Some  portions  of  the  work  bear  the  appearance  of 
having  been  contributions  to  periodical  literature, 
which  Mr.  Symonds  has,  without  revising,  and  with- 
out adapting  to  the  purposes  of  his  history,  forced  to 
do  service  as  sections  of  a  continuous  narrative.    This 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE      95 

is  always  a  dangerous  experiment,  and  it  has  certainly 
not  succeeded  in  Mr.  Symonds*  case.  A  moment's 
reflection  would,  for  example,  have  shown  him  the 
impropriety  of  prefacing  his  account  of  Marlowe  with 
a  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  drama,  when  a  history 
of  the  drama  had  been  the  subject  of  the  preceding 
^ve  hundred  and  eighty-four  pages. 

To  the  same  inconsiderate  haste  are  no  doubt  to  be 
attributed  the  many  inaccuracies  of  statement  which 
deform  the  work.  It  would  be  impossible  to  conceive 
a  description  more  erroneous  and  distorted  than  the 
description  which  Mr.  Symonds  gives,  in  the  second 
chapter,  of  the  world  of  Elizabeth.  What  he  says  of 
its  intellectual  characteristics  will  apply  only  to  the 
dramatists,  and  will  even  then  require  to  be  greatly 
modified.  What  he  says  of  its  social  characteristics 
is  true  only  of  one  or  two  phases  of  its  many-sided 
life.  We  can  hardly  suppose  that  Mr.  Symonds  is 
imperfectly  versed  either  in  the  dramas  of  -^chylus 
or  in  the  dramas  of  Greene.  Yet  when  he  tells  us  that 
iEschylus  has  scarcely  any  moral  precepts  capable  of 
isolation  from  the  dramatic  context,  and  that  Greene's 
blank  verse  betrays  the  manner  of  the  couplet,  he 
certainly  surprises  us.  What  is  of  course  true  is  that 
yvojfmi  are  far  less  frequent  in  iEschylus  than  in 
Euripides,  and  that  in  Greene's  earlier  style  the  blank 
verse  is,  as  Mr.  Symonds  describes,  constructed  on  the 
model  of  the  couplet ;  but,  for  all  that,  the  plays  of 
/Eschylus  abound  in  yvcofuu,  and  Greene's  earlier  blank 
verse  is  not  his  later  and  characteristic  blank  verse, 
which  is  by  no  means  constructed  on  the  model  of  the 


96  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

couplet.  Equally  loose  and  equally  untrue  is  the 
assertion  that  Lyly  discovered  euphuism.  We  are 
surprised  that  a  scholar  like  Mr.  Symonds  shauld  not 
have  known  that  it  would  be  as  erroneous  to  ascribe 
to  the  author  of  Euphues  the  discovery  of  euphuism 
as  it  would  be  to  ascribe  to  the  author  of  Samson 
Agonistes  the  discovery  of  the  machinery  of  the 
classical  drama,  or  to  the  author  of  the  second 
book  of  the  Novum  Organum  the  discovery  of  wit. 
Euphuism  is  in  many  of  its  characteristic  features 
as  old  as  Seneca  and  Plutarch.  Even  when  fully 
developed — that  is  to  say,  in  the  form  which  it 
assumed  in  Lyly's  romance — it  had  been  long  before 
the  world,  and  had  Mr.  Symonds  taken  the  trouble  to 
glance  at  the  books  most  in  vogue  when  Eujphues  was 
in  course  of  composition,  he  would  have  seen  that 
Lyly,  so  far  from  setting,  was  simply  following  a 
fashion.  Has  Mr.  Symonds  never  inspected  North's 
version  of  Guevara's  Relox  de  Principes,  George 
Pettie's  Petite  Palace  of  Pettie,  and  Castiglione's 
II  Cortegianof 

Nor  is  Mr.  Symonds  always  sound  in  his  generalisa- 
tions on  the  spirit  of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  Nothing 
can  be  less  felicitous  than  his  remark  that  that  drama 
is  draped  with  "  a  tragic  pall  of  deep  Teutonic  medi- 
tative melancholy,"  and  nothing  can  be  more  unsatis- 
factory than  the  evidence  adduced  by  him  in  support 
of  the  remark.  It  consists  of  some  thirty  quotations 
selected  from  the  speeches  of  characters  who,  figuring 
in  tragic  scenes,  are  simply,  in  obedience  to  dramatic 
propriety,  expressing  themselves  in  dramatic  language. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  97 

On  Mr.  Symonds'  principle  it  would  be  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  to  prove  that  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  the  Homeric  poems  is  their  cynical  pes- 
simism, that  the  distinguishing  feature  of  Chaucer's 
poetry  is  its  pensive  sentimentalism,  and  that  what 
chiefly  characterises  the  poetry  of  Sophocles  and 
Milton  is  its  audacious  impiety.  What  it  was  incum- 
bent on  Mr.  Symonds  to  show  was,  not  that  such 
passages  as  he  refers  to  occur,  but  that  they  occur 
with  obtrusive  frequency.  True  it  is  that  there  is  an 
undue  preponderance  of  meditative  melancholy  in  the 
dramas  of  Webster,  Marston,  Tourneur,  and  Ford,  but 
this  school  was  only  one  out  of  many,  it  is  confessedly 
not  a  representative  school,  and  its  productions  form 
but  a  small  portion  of  the  literature  on  which  Mr. 
Symonds  is  generalising.  For  every  play  which  would 
give  some  colour  to  his  remark,  there  are  fifty  to 
which  it  would  not  be  applicable.  The  truth  is  that 
there  is  no  drama  in  the  world  in  which  the  mixture 
of  the  serious  and  humorous  is  so  happily  tempered, 
and  which  reflects  so  faithfully  the  normal  conditions 
of  normal  humanity. 

But  these  are  trifles.  We  have  now  to  animadvert 
on  blemishes  in  Mr.  Symonds'  work  of  a  much  more 
serious  character.  Within  the  last  few  years  there  has 
sprung  up  a  school  of  writers,  the  appearance  of  which 
at  a  certain  period  in  the  history  of  every  literature 
seems  to  be  inevitable.  The  characteristics  of  this 
school  have  been  the  same  in  all  ages.  They  have 
indeed  been  delineated  and  ridiculed  by  successive 

generations  of  critics,  by  Quintiliau  and  Petronius 

u 


98  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

among  the  Komans,  by  Aristotle  and  Longinus  among 
the  Greeks ;  Boileau  and  Voltaire  covered  them  with 
contempt  in  France,  Cascales  and  Ignacio  de  Luzan 
held  them  up  to  the  scorn  of  Spain,  and  they  were  the 
detestation  of  Alfieri  in  Italy.  These  characteristics 
resolve  themselves  into  morbid  peculiarities  of  style, 
and  into  morbid  peculiarities  of  opinion  and  senti- 
ment. In  the  writings  of  purer  schools  style  may  be 
compared  to  a  mirror.  In  the  writings  of  this  school 
it  resembles  a  kaleidoscope.  Its  property  is  not  to 
reflect,  but  to  refract  and  distort;  not  to  convey 
thought  in  the  simplicity  of  its  original  conception, 
but  to  decompose  it  into  fantastic  shapes.  With  them 
the  art  of  expression  is  simply  the  art  of  making 
common  ideas  assume  uncommon  forms,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  art  of  simulating  originality  and  eloquence. 
No  senses  lend  themselves  so  readily  to  deception  as 
hearing  and  sight.  The  strongest  eye,  if  dazzled, 
cannot  discern  ;  the  nicest  ear,  if  stunned,  cannot 
distinguish.  And  what  glare  and  tumult  are  to  the 
eye  and  ear,  that  in  the  hands  of  these  writers  is 
language  to  the  mind.  Their  diction  is  all  blaze  and 
glitter.  It  has  sometimes  the  effect  of  spangles 
dangled  in  the  sun,  and  sometimes  the  effect  of  flame 
radiating  from  burnished  metal.  Its  glancing  flash 
baffles  ;  its  unrelieved  glare  blinds. 

The  process  by  which  these  effects  are  produced  is 
easily  analysed.  In  the  first  place,  the  phraseology  of 
these  writers  is  selected  almost  exclusively  from  the 
phraseology  of  poetry.  It  consists  mainly  of  meta- 
phors.     They  reason  in  metaphors,  they  define  in 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE      99 

metaphors,  they  reflect  in  metaphors ;  and  the  meta- 
phors in  which  they  most  delight  are  such  as  would, 
even  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  dithyramb,  be  used 
sparingly.  Not  less  characteristic  is  their  habitual 
employment  of  hyperbole.  Whatever  is  said  is  con- 
veyed in  language  which  reaches  the  extreme  limits  of 
expression.  Whatever  is  described  is  described  in 
terms  which  exhaust  the  resources  of  rhetoric.  Thus 
they  have  no  energy  in  reserve ;  when  eloquence  is 
appropriate,  it  has  already  palled ;  when  it  is  necessary 
to  be  impressive,  the  force  of  impressiveness  is  spent. 
They  have  emphasised  till  emphasis  has  ceased  to 
appeal.  They  have  stimulated  till  stimulants  have 
lost  their  efficacy.  Closely  allied  with  this  peculiarity, 
or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  one  of  the  many  phases 
assumed  by  it,  is  the  affectation  of  novel  and  striking 
expressions.  It  was  said  of  Augustus  that  he  avoided 
as  a  rock  a  word  not  sanctioned  by  popular  usage. 
It  may  be  said  of  these  writers  that  what  popular 
usage  sanctions  it  is  their  chief  aim  to  shun.  Thus 
their  diction  teems  with  outlandish  words  which  are 
sometimes  coined  and  sometimes  revived.  Thus  every 
eccentricity  of  collocation  and  combination  in  the 
repertory  of  vicious  rhetoric  is  assiduously  cultivated 
by  them.  They  out-Ossian  Ossian  in  the  tumid 
extravagance  of  their  epithets  and  turns.  They  out- 
Pindar  Pindar  in  the  vehement  audacity  of  their 
figures.  Now  we  are  glutted  with  what  Petronius 
calls  melliti  verborum  globuli — honied  turns,  and  now 
we  are  dazzled  with  expressions  which,  to  adopt 
Smith's    ingenious    mistranslation    of    a    phrase    in 


100  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Longinus,  do  not  shine  like  stars,  but  glare  like 
meteors.  Everywhere  it  is  the  same — an  attempt  to 
produce  finer  bread  than  is  made  of  wheat,  till,  like 
the  slave  in  Horace,  nauseated  with  sweetmeats  we 
long  for  loaves. 

In  former  times  this  style — we  are  speaking  of 
course  of  prose — was  as  a  rule  confined  to  oratory  and 
history,  where,  though  ridiculous  and  absurd,  it  was 
not  without  a  certain  propriety.  In  our  time  it  has 
invaded  criticism,  where  it  is  simply  intolerable.  The 
founder  and  leader  of  the  school  of  criticism  which  has 
adopted  it  is  Mr.  Swinburne.  Of  Mr.  Swinburne's 
work  as  a  poet  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak.  We 
will  only  say  that  his  superb  powers  as  a  lyrist  have 
no  more  appreciative,  no  more  hearty  admirers  than 
ourselves.  But,  unhappily,  Mr.  Swinburne  is.  not 
content  to  confine  himself  to  the  art  in  which  he 
excels.  His  critical  writings  are  now  almost  as 
voluminous  as  his  poetry ;  and  as  a  prose-writer  and 
critic  we  believe  him  to  have  been  guilty  of  greater 
absurdities  and  to  have  done  more  mischief  than  any 
writer  of  equal  eminence  who  has  ever  lived.  With 
the  examples  of  Goethe  and  Coleridge  before  us,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  accept  without  reservation  the 
remark  of  Plato  that  those  who  are  most  success- 
ful in  exhibiting  the  principles  of  poetry  in  practice 
are  the  least  competent  to  interpret  and  discuss  them 
— in  other  words,  that  the  best  poets  are  the  worst 
critics.  But  assuredly  no  such  reservation  is  possible 
in  the  case  of  Mr.  Swinburne.  Of  the  intellectual 
qualifications  indispensable  to  a  critic  he  has,  with  the 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  101 

exception  of  a  powerful  and  accurate  memory,  literally 
none.  His  judgment  is  the  sport  sometimes  of  his 
emotions  and  sometimes  of  his  imagination  ;  and  what 
is  in  men  of  normal  temper  the  process  of  reflection, 
is  in  him  the  process  of  imagination  operating  on 
emotion,  and  of  emotion  reacting  on  imagination.  A 
work  of  art  has  the  same  effect  on  Mr.  Swinburne  as 
objects  fraught  with  hateful  or  delightful  associations 
have  on  persons  of  sensitive  memories.  The  mind 
dwells  not  on  the  objects  themselves,  but  on  what 
is  accidentally  recalled  or  accidentally  suggested  by 
them,  and  nothing  is  but  what  is  not.  Criticism 
is  with  him  neither  a  process  of  analysis  nor  a  pro- 
cess of  interpretation,  but  a  "  lyrical  cry."  Canons 
and  principles,  criteria  and  standards,  he  has  none. 
His  genius  and  temper  as  a  critic  are  precisely  those 
of  Aristotle's  Young  Man.  What  seem  to  be  Mr. 
Swinburne's  convictions  are  merely  his  temporary 
impressions.  What  he  sees  in  one  light  in  one  mood, 
he  sees  in  another  light  in  another  mood.  He  is,  in 
truth,  as  inconsistent  as  he  is  intemperate,  as  dog- 
matic as  he  is  whimsical — the  very  Zimri  of  criticism. 
Indeed,  the  words  in  which  Dryden  paints  Bucking- 
ham admirably  describe  him  : — 

Praising  and  railing  are  his  usual  themes, 
And  both,  to  show  his  judgment,  in  extremes  ; 
So  over-violent  or  over-civil, 
That  every  man  with  him  is  God  or  Devil. 

He  ia  at  once  the  most  ferocious  of  iconoclasts  and 
the  most  abject  of  idolaters.  In  a  writer  who  has 
been   so   fortunate   as  to  become  the  object  of  his 


102  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

capricious  homage,  he  can  find  nothing  to  censure ; 
in  a  writer  who  has  had  the  misfortune  to  become 
the  object  of  his  equally  capricious  hostility,  he  can 
find  nothing  to  praise.  The  very  qualities,  for 
example,  which  attract  him  in  Fletcher,  repel  him 
in  Euripides.  He  overwhelms  Byron  with  ribald 
abuse  for  precisely  the  same  qualities  which  in  Victor 
Hugo  elicit  from  him  fulsome  eulogy.  To  exalt 
Collins,  he  absurdly  depreciates  Gray.  To  degrade 
Wordsworth,  he  ridiculously  overrates  Keats.  But 
it  is  when  dealing  with  the  poets  who  are  the  subjects 
of  Mr.  Symonds'  volume  that  his  opinions  become 
most  preposterous.  The  very  name  of  Marlowe 
appears  to  have  the  power  of  completely  subjugating 
his  reason.  He  speaks  of  him  in  terms  which  a 
writer  who  weighed  words  would  scarcely  employ, 
without  qualification,  when  speaking  of  the  greatest 
names  in  all  poetry.  Indeed,  he  boldly  says  that,  in 
his  opinion,  there  are  not  above  two  or  three  poets  in 
the  whole  compass  of  literature  who  can  be  set  above 
Marlowe  ;  "  and  if,"  he  adds,  ''  Marlowe's  country 
should  ever  bear  men  worthy  to  raise  a  statue  or 
a  monument  to  his  memory,  he  should  stand  before 
them  with  the  head  and  eyes  of  an  Apollo."  But 
what  follows  is  too  absurd  to  transcribe. 

But  Mr.  Swinburne's  extravagance  is  not  difiicult 
to  account  for.  Few  men  who  have  ever  lived  have 
been  so  prodigally  endowed  with  the  gifts  which 
ensure  pre-eminence  in  lyrical  poetry.  With  the 
most  exquisite  sensibility  to  emotional  impression, 
with  vehement  enthusiasm,  with  the  finest  aesthetic 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  103 

perception  of  the  charm  and  power  of  the  noble  and 
the  beautiful  wherever  they  find  expression  in  art  and 
life,  in  absolute  spontaneity  of  rapt  musical  utterance, 
he  has  no  rival  among  poets  since  Shelley  ;  in  mere 
command  over  words,  over  all  the  resources  of 
rhymed  and  rhythmic  expression,  no  superior,  perhaps 
no  equal,  in  modern  literature.  But  these  are  not  the 
gifts,  this  is  not  the  genius  and  temper,  which  qualify 
men  to  become  critics.  When,  for  example,  Mr. 
Swinburne  pronounces  Marlowe  to  be  "  a  poet  of  the 
first  order,"  and  places  Wordsworth  below  Keats,  we 
perceive  at  once  that  his  critical  lens  is  hopelessly 
out  of  focus,  that,  judging  of  poetry  purely  from  the 
aesthetic  point  of  view,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  lyrical  poet,  he  does 
not  understand  that  what  separates  poetry  of  the 
secondary  order  from  poetry  of  the  highest  order 
is  a  difference  not  merely  in  degree  but  in  kind, 
that  what  constitutes  the  superiority  of  Sophocles 
and  Shakspeare  to  Hugo  and  Webster  is  not  simply 
what  comes  under  the  cognisance  of  the  criticism 
of  emotion.  To  the  soundness  or  unsoundness  of 
the  metaphysic  and  ethic  of  poetry  Mr.  Swinburne, 
to  judge  from  his  estimates  and  precepts,  appears  to 
be  quite  indifferent.  '*  It  does  not,"  he  naively 
observes,  "  detract  from  the  poetic  supremacy  of 
-Sschylus  and  of  Dante,  of  Milton  and  of  Shelley, 
that  they  should  have  been  pleased  to  put  their  art 
to  such  use,"  that  is,  allied  it  **  with  moral  or  religious 
passion,  with  the  ethics  or  the  politics  of  an  age  "  I  ^ 

'  Essay  on  Victor  Hugo's  L'AntUs  TerribU, 


104  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

As  Mr.  William  Eossetti  long  ago  admirably  ob- 
served, "  Mr.  Swinburne's  mind  appears  to  be  very- 
like  a  tabula  rasa  on  moral  and  religious  subjects, 
so  occupied  is  it  with  instincts,  feelings,  perceptions, 
and  a  sense  of  natural  or  artistic  fitness  and  harmony."^ 
He  is  thus  largely  responsible  for  the  predominance 
of  the  wretched  cant  now  so  much  in  vogue  about 
*'art  for  art's  sake,"  which  would  have  us  "under- 
stand by  poetry  " — we  quote  Mr.  Pater's  words — "  all 
literary  production  which  attains  the  power  of  giving 
pleasure  by  its  form  as  distinct  from  its  matter,"  in 
other  words,  for  the  prostitution  on  principle  of  the 
noblest  and  divinest  of  the  arts  into  a  mere  siren  of 
the  senses.  The  brilliance  of  his  own  work  as  a 
poet  has  naturally  enabled  him  to  exercise  enormous 
influence  on  contemporary  literature.  Even  in  the 
judgment  of  those  who  can  discern  he  is  allowed 
to  stand  high  among  English  lyrists.  But  with 
the  many  he  is,  like  Spenser's  Una,  the  object  of 
indiscriminating  idolatry.  The  imitators  of  what 
least  deserves  imitation  in  his  poetry  are  to  be 
numbered  by  hundreds,  his  disciples  in  criticism  are 
to  be  numbered  by  myriads.  Turn  where  we  will, 
to  reviews,  to  critical  prefaces,  to  critical  disquisitions 
and  monographs,  there,  too  often,  is  his  note — his 
turbid  intemperance  of  judgment,  his  purely  sensuous 
conception  of  the  nature  and  scope  of  art ;  there,  too 
often,  his  characteristic  modes  of  expression,  his  hyper- 
bole, his  wild  and  whirling  verbiage,  his  plethora  of 
extravagant  and  frequently  nauseous  metaphor. 

^  Swinhunie' s  Poems  and  Ballads :  A  Criticism^  p.  17. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  105 

In  his  critical  estimates  we  are  glad  to  see  that 
Mr.  Symonds  has  not  followed  his  master  ;  but  of 
many  of  the  most  oflfensive  characteristics  of  Mr. 
Swinburne's  style  he  is,  we  regret  to  say,  only  too 
faithful  an  imitator.  In  some  cases  he  has  even 
gone  beyond  him.  We  doubt  whether  even  Mr. 
Swinburne  would  have  spoken  of  crudities  of  com- 
position as  "  the  very  parbreak  of  a  youthful  poet's 
indigestion  " ;  or  would  so  far  have  lost  himself  in 
figurative  imagery  as  to  describe  a  drama  as  "an  asp, 
short,  ash  -  coloured,  poison  -  fanged,  blunt  -  headed, 
abrupt  in  movement,  hissing  and  wriggling  through 
the  sands  of  human  misery  " ;  or  would  have  repre- 
sented a  dramatist  "  stabbing  the  metal  plate  on 
which  he  works,  drowning  it  in  aqua  fortis  till  it 
froths " ;  or  would  have  spoken  of  "  the  lust  for  the 
impossible  being  injected  like  a  molten  fluid  into  all 
Marlowe's  eminent  dramatic  personalities." 

There  is  scarcely  a  page  in  Mr.  Symonds'  work 
which  is  not  deformed  with  vices  of  this  kind.  The 
*'  carnal "  element  in  Marlowe's  genius  is  "  a  sensuality 
which  lends  a  grip  to  Belial  on  the  heartstrings  of  the 
lust."  Helen's  kisses  are  "  kisses  hot  as  '  sops  of  flaming 
fire.' "  Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander  is  "  that  divinest 
dithyramb  in  praise  of  sensual  beauty  in  which  the 
poet  moves  in  a  hyperuranian  region,  from  which  he 
contemplates  with  eyes  of  equal  admiration  the  species 
of  terrestrial  loveliness."  Occasionally  we  have  such 
unmeaning  expressions  as  "  the  adamantine  declama- 
tion of  Ford,"  and  the  "  torrid  splendour  of  De 
Quincey's   rhetoric."     It  may   be  doubted  whether 


106  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

metaphorical  extravagance  ever  went  further  than  in 
the  following  sentence  :  "  When  he  sees  her  corpse  " 
— Mr.  Symonds  is  describing  the  famous  scene  where, 
in  Webster's  Duchess  of  Malfi,  Ferdinand  is  standing 
over  the  body  of  his  murdered  sister — "his  fancy, 
set  on  flame  already  by  the  fury  of  his  hatred, 
becomes  a  hell,  which  burns  the  image  of  her  calm 
pale  forehead  on  his  reeling  brain." 

And  now  our  ungrateful  task  is  concluded.  We 
have  so  much  sympathy  with  Mr.  Symonds'  studies, 
we  are  so  sensible  of  his  distinguished  services  to 
history  and  literature,  and  we  have  found  so  much 
that  is  excellent  in  the  present  volume,  that,  had  we 
consulted  inclination  only,  we  should  have  refrained 
from  everything  bearing  the  appearance  of  adverse 
criticism.  But  the  duty  imposed  on  us  as  critics 
is,  we  feel,  imperative,  and  that  duty  would  be  ill 
performed  if  we  did  not  raise  our  voice  against 
innovations  which  we  believe  to  be  vicious  and 
mischievous.  That  the  style  which  we  have  been 
discussing  is  a  fashion,  and  will,  like  other  fashions, 
pass  away,  we  have  no  doubt.  What  is  to  be  deeply 
regretted  is  that  it  should  have  found  expression 
in  a  work  which  may  possibly  outlive  many  such 
fashions. 

Vitium  tanto  conspectius  in  se 
Crimen  habet  quanto  major  qui  peccat  habetur. 

We  have  often  thought  that  a  curiously  interesting 
book  might  be  written  on  the  posthumous  fortune  of 
poets.  In  the  case  of  prose  writers,  the  verdict  of  the 
age  which  immediately  succeeds  them  is,  as  a  rule, 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  107 

final.  Their  reputation  is  subject  to  few  fluctuations. 
Once  crowned,  they  are  seldom  deposed ;  once  deposed, 
they  are  never  reinstated.  Time  and  accident  may 
ajGfect  their  popularity,  but  the  estimate  which  has 
been  formed  by  competent  critics  of  their  intrinsic 
worth  remains  unmodified.  How  different  has  been 
the  fate  of  poets!  Take  Chaucer.  In  1500  his 
popularity  was  at  its  height.  During  the  latter  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century  it  began  to  decline.  From 
that  date  till  the  end  of  William  III.'s  reign — in  spite 
of  the  influence  which  he  undoubtedly  exercised  over 
Spenser,  and  in  spite  of  the  respectful  allusions  to  him 
in  Sidney,  Puttenham,  Drayton,  and  Milton — his 
fame  had  become  rather  a  tradition  than  a  reality. 
In  the  following  age  the  good-natured  tolerance  of 
Dryden  was  succeeded  by  the  contempt  of  Addison 
and  the  supercilious  patronage  of  Pope.  Between 
1700  and  1782  nothing  seemed  more  probable  than 
that  the  writings  of  the  first  of  England's  narrative 
poets  would  live  chiefly  in  the  memory  of  antiquarians. 
In  little  more  than  half  a  century  afterwards  we  find 
him  placed,  with  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  on  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  poetic  renown.  Not  less  remark- 
able have  been  the  vicissitudes  through  which  the 
fame  of  Dante  has  passed.  During  the  fourteenth 
century  he  was  regarded  with  superstitious  reverence. 
Indeed,  his  reputation  was  so  jealously  guarded  that 
a  pretext  was  found  to  bring  a  contemporary,  who  had 
presumed  to  parody  his  verses,  to  the  stake.  In  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  his  fame  greatly 
declined,  and  he  sank  to  a  position  similar  to  that 


108  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

assigned  to  Ennius  by  the  Augustan  critics.  During 
the  seventeenth  century  there  were  distinguished 
critics,  even  among  his  own  countrymen,  who  not  only 
placed  him  below  Petrarch  and  Ariosto,  but  even  dis- 
puted his  title  to  be  called  a  classic.  The  sentence 
passed  on  him  by  Voltaire  and  Bettinelli  is  well 
known ;  and,  though  he  never,  it  is  true,  wanted 
apologists,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Voltaire  and 
Bettinelli  represented  the  general  opinion  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Then  came  the  reaction.  From 
the  time  of  Monti  his  influence  on  the  literatures  of 
Italy  and  England  has  been  prodigious.  Every  decade 
has  added  to  his  fame,  and  that  fame,  gigantic  though 
it  is,  is  even  now  increasing.  Take  again  Konsard. 
Between  1580  and  1609  he  was  esteemed  by  many 
the  first  poet  in  France.  Between  1609  and  1630  his 
fame  rapidly  declined,  and  between  1630  and  1858  he 
was  so  completely  ignored  that,  if  we  are  not  mistaken, 
during  the  whole  of  this  period  no  edition  of  his 
poems  was  called  for.  Suddenly  he  regained  his  old 
glory,  and  in  1872  a  statue  was  erected  to  him  as 
"  Le  Premier  Lyrique  Fran9ais." 

Still  more  singular  has*  been  the  fortune  of  the 
fathers  of  our  drama.  It  was  their  lot  to  obtain  from 
contemporaries  what  most  poets  obtain  only  from  a 
later  age — their  just  deserts.  They  were,  as  a  rule, 
neither  over-praised  nor  under- valued.  Nothing  can 
be  more  discriminating  than  the  judgment  passed  on 
the  dramas  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Lyly  by  the 
generation  which  witnessed  their  appearance.  But, 
strange  to  say,  the  justice  which  was  so  readily  done 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  109 

them  by  contemporaries  was  destined  to  be  persistently 
withheld  from  them  by  after  ages.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  their  fame  should  have  been  eclipsed  by  the 
fame  of  their  successors  ;  it  is  still  less  surprising  that 
the  revolution  which  dethroned  their  successors  should 
have  buried  them  in  oblivion.  But  that  their  merits 
should  have  been  so  tardily  recognised  when,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century,  the  tide  turned  in 
favour  of  our  earlier  dramatists,  is  inexplicable.  Yet 
so  it  was.  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Ford,  Mass- 
inger,  Shirley, \  had  found  enthusiastic  editors  when 
the  dramas  of  the  masters  of  Shakspeare  were  still 
uncollected.  It  was  not  till  1826  that  Marlowe 
received  the  honour  of  being  edited.  Greene  and 
Peele  had  to  wait  still  longer.  Six  of  Lyly's  plays 
had,  it  is  true,  been  reprinted  in  1632,  but  half  the 
present  century  had  passed  before  a  full  and  adequate 
edition  of  his  dramas  appeared.  It  was  natural  that, 
when  the  reaction  came,  it  should  come  with  a  force 
proportioned  to  the  persistency  with  which  it  had  been 
delayed.  It  has  come  with  a  force  which  may  well 
astound  all  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the  charac- 
teristics of  reactions  in  criticism.  The  number  of 
essays  and  monographs,  the  object  of  which  is  to  heap 
indiscriminate  eulogy  on  these  poets,  passes  calculation. 
One  writer  gravely  compares  Marlowe  with  iEschylus. 
Another  writer,  and  we  regret  to  say  that  that  writer 
is  Mr.  Symonds,  speaks  of  Greene  as  a  "  Titan."  We 
have  seen  Lyly  placed  on  a  level  with  Moli^re,  and 

*  Though  GifTord's  edition  of  Shirley  was  not  published  before  1833,  it  had 
been  prepared  before,  for  Qiflbrd  died  in  1826. 


no  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

the  author  of  The  Arraignment  of  Paris  exalted 
above  the  author  of  the  Aminta.  Indeed,  the  length 
to  which  this  fulsome  and  ridiculous  rhodomontade 
is  now  being  carried  is  simply  sickening.  We  are 
not,  as  we  hope  to  show,  in  any  way  insensible  to  the 
merits  of  these  poets.  We  are  quite  willing  to  go  as 
far  as  Lamb  and  Hazlitt  in  eulogistic  criticism,  and  in 
our  opinion  Lamb  and  Hazlitt  went  quite  far  enough. 
Every  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  world  knows 
that  the  most  mischievous  form  which  detraction 
can  assume  is  exaggerated  praise.  Calumny  may  be 
repelled  or  lived  down,  but  the  man  who  is  over- 
praised is  continually  forced  to  give  the  lie  to  his  own 
reputation.  And  what  is  true  of  men  who  live  in  the 
world  is  true  also  of  men  who  live  only  in  the 
memory  of  the  world.  The  reputation  of  Eichardson 
has  suffered  more  from  the  extravagant  panegyrics  of 
Rousseau  and  Diderot  than  from  the  ridicule  of  Field- 
ing and  the  sneers  of  Sterne.  One  of  the  noblest 
passages  in  the  drama  of  the  Restoration  is,  in  con- 
sequence of  Johnson's  absurd  encomium,  now  rarely 
quoted  except  to  be  laughed  at ;  and  we  quite  agree 
with  Blair  that  Parnell  would  stand  much  higher  in 
popular  estimation  had  his  merits  not  been  so  pre- 
posterously overrated  by  Hume.  In  the  interests, 
therefore,  of  these  poets  themselves,  as  well  as  in  the 
interests  of  criticism,  we  protest  against  this  fashion 
of  exaggerated  panegyric.  It  cannot  fail  to  operate 
most  perniciously  on  public  taste,  and  it  cannot  fail 
in  the  end  to  defeat  its  own  object. 

The  history  of  the  Early  English  Drama  may  be 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  111 

divided  with  some  precision  into  three  epochs.  The 
first  extends  from  about  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century  to  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth.  This  is 
the  period  of  the  Mysteries  and  Miracles,  and  its  dis- 
tinctive feature  is  the  predominance  of  the  sacred  over 
the  secular  element ;  in  other  words,  the  absorption 
of  the  Miracle,  which  was  of  literary  origin,  in  the 
Mystery,  which  was  of  liturgical  origin.  Between 
the  middle  of  Henry  VI.'s  reign  and  the  beginning  of 
Elizabeth's,  this  rude  drama  assumed  other  forms. 
In  the  Moralities,  which  now  superseded  the  earlier 
plays,  it  approached  more  nearly  to  the  character  of  a 
work  of  art.  It  became  less  simple  and  less  uncouth. 
Under  the  disguise  of  allegory  it  began  to  exhibit 
increasing  ingenuity  in  the  structure  of  the  fable. 
Under  the  disguise  of  abstractions  its  dramatis 
personce  grew  more  and  more  true  to  nature  and  life. 
Nor  was  this  aU.  It  brought  itself  into  more  immediate 
contact  with  contemporary  society  and  with  contem- 
porary history.  If  its  spirit  was  didactic,  it  was  not 
didactic  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Mysteries  and 
Miracles  were  didactic.  It  was  no  longer  subservient 
to  settled  dogma.  It  emancipated  itself  from  Medi- 
sevalism,  it  allied  itself  with  an  awakening  world. 
Nowhere,  indeed,  is  the  history  of  the  revolution 
which  transformed  the  England  of  Medisevalism 
into  the  England  of  the  Eenaissance  written  more 
legibly  than  in  these  plays.  In  such  Moralities,  for 
example,  as  The  Castle  of  Perseverance  and  The 
Interlude  of  Youth,  the  old  faith  still  reigns  domi- 
nant and  unimpaired.     In   Lustij  Juventus  and  in 


112  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

New  Custom  tte  doctrines  6f  the  Keformation  have 
triumphed  over  the  doctrines  of  Catholicism ;  and  in 
The  Conflict  of  Conscience  the  struggle  between  the 
old  faith  and  the  new  is  depicted  with  an  energy  which 
is  almost  tragic  in  its  intensity.  In  The  Nature  of 
the  Four  Elements  and  in  Wit  and  Science  we  have, 
on  the  other  hand,  remarkable  illustrations  of  the 
emancipation  of  the  Morality  from  religion.  In  these 
pieces  the  theological  element  entirely  disappears. 
Their  object,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  didactic,  is  simply 
to  awaken  a  love  of  science.  They  reflect  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Kenaissance  on  that  side  on  which  the 
Kenaissance  was  most  hostile  to  the  society  from  which 
in  the  first  instance  the  drama  had  emanated,  and  to 
whom  for  so  many  generations  the  drama  had  been 
loyal.  But  if  the  influence  of  the  new  science  is 
perceptible  in  these  plays,  the  influence  of  the  new 
learning  is  not  less  perceptible  in  such  a  Morality  as 
The  Triall  of  Pleasure.  Here  we  find  that  indis- 
criminate use  of  materials  derived  from  the  classics 
and  material  derived  from  the  Bible,  that  intermixture 
of  paganism  and  Christianity,  which  was  one  of  the 
essential  characteristics  of  the  literature  of  the  Renais- 
sance. 

The  next  step  in  the  history  of  the  Morality  is 
the  substitution  of  fictitious  or  historical  personages 
for  abstract  figures,  and  the  subordination  of  the 
allegorical  to  the  dramatic  element — an  innovation 
so  simple  and  so  obvious  that  it  is  not  a  little 
surprising  that  it  should  have  been  accomplished 
so  gradually  and  delayed  so  long.     It  was  efiected 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  113 

at  last  by  the  Interludes  of  Heywood,  and  by  the 
Kyng  John  of  Bale.  Of  these  Interludes  the 
three  written  between  1520  and  1540  by  John  Hey- 
wood,  the  Mery  Play  between  Johan  Johan  the 
Hicsbondey  Tyh  his  Wyfe,  and  Syr  Jhon  the  Freest, 
the  Meiy  Flay  between  the  Fardoner  and  the  Frere, 
the  Curate  and  Neybour  Fratte,  and  The  Four  Fs, 
are  incomparably  the  best.  Of  the  last  indeed  it 
would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  is  a  master- 
piece of  farcical  humour.  Among  the  Interludes  is 
to  be  found  a  piece  which  affords  perhaps  the  earliest 
illustration  of  the  influence  of  classical  comedy  on 
our  popular  drama.  The  influence  is  slight,  but 
it  is  plain  that  the  Interlude  of  Jack  Jugler  was 
rudely  modelled  on  the  Amphitryon  of  Plautus. 
These  Interludes  became  in  their  turn  the  model 
on  which  Still,  some  years  later,  framed  his  Gammer 
Gurton's  Needle,  and  thus  the  transition  to  regular 
comedy  was  complete.  Not  less  clearly  is  the  transi- 
tion from  the  Morality  to  the  History  marked  by 
Bale's  Kyng  John.  In  this  play  we  find  the 
abstractions  of  the  Morality  resolving  themselves 
into  historical  characters.  Thus  Sedition  becomes 
Stephen  Langton ;  Private  Wealth,  Cardinal  Pan- 
dulph ;  Usurped  Power,  Innocent  III.  It  is  only 
a  step  from  Kyng  John  to  The  Famous  Victories 
of  Henry  V.  and  Tlie  Troublesome  Raigne  of  King 
John,  in  which  abstract  characters  and  didactic 
allegory  entirely  disappear,  and  a  historical  play,  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  presents  itself. 

So  closes  what  may  be  called  the  second  period  in 

I 


114  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

the  history  of  our  national  drama.  And  it  is  perhaps 
worth  pausing  to  notice  how  curiously  that  history 
repeated  itself,  not  indeed  chronologically,  but  in  all 
its  essential  features,  in  almost  every  country  in 
Europe.  In  Italy  we  have  the  Misterio  and  the 
Miracolo,  the  Favola  Morale  and  the  Farsa,  a 
species  of  drama  which  answers  in  one  of  the  forms 
it  assumed  to  our  Interludes ;  and  side  by  side  with 
these  we  find  the  History  Play.  In  France  we 
have  the  Mystere  and  the  Miracle,  and  then  we 
have  the  Moralite,  and  we  see  the  Morality  and 
the  Mystery  passing  on  the  one  hand  into  the  Farce 
and  the  Sotie,  and  on  the  other  hand  into  the 
History.  In  Germany  the  process  is  precisely  the 
same — Mysterien,  Moralitdten,  Farcen,  Sottien ;  with 
this  difference  only,  that  the  four  classes  are  not  so 
strictly  distinguished  as  they  are  in  France,  but 
continue  till  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury to  overlie  and  blend  with  each  other.  That 
Mysteries  and  Miracles  were  among  the  earliest  forms 
which  the  drama  assumed  in  Spain,  and  that  these 
were  succeeded  by  Moralities,  cannot  reasonably  be 
doubted,  though  no  specimens  have,  we  believe,  sur- 
vived. Certainly  the  Entremises  correspond  exactly 
to  the  Interludes. 

But,  though  during  this  second  period  the  transi- 
tion from  the  Mystery  to  the  Morality,  from  comedy 
to  history,  was  technically  effected,  the  circumstance 
is  less  important  than  it  would  at  first  sight  appear 
to  be.  It  is  indeed  natural  to  suppose,  as  it  commonly 
is   supposed,  that  the  drama  of  Marlowe  and  Shak- 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  115 

speare  was  but  a  further  development  of  the  drama 
represented  by  the  Mysteries,  Miracles,  Moralities, 
and  Interludes.  Such,  however,  was  not  the  case. 
We  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  are  no 
traces  in  the  Komantic  drama  of  the  influence  of 
these  earlier  and  ruder  plays,  for  there  are  many, 
particularly  in  Comedy,  occasionally  even  in  Tragedy.^ 
But  this  we  will  venture  to  afl&rm,  that  had  these 
early  plays  never  existed  the  Komantic  drama  would 
have  sprung  up  independently,  would  have  presented 
the  same  features,  would  have  run  the  same  course. 
In  other  words,  we  believe  that  the  Moralities  and 
Interludes  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  Komantic 
drama  as  the  Fabulce  Atellance  and  the  Etruscan 
Mimes  stood  to  the  drama  of  ancient  Kome.  Koman 
Tragedy  owed  nothing  to  the  Atellan  Fables.  Koman 
Comedy  owed  nothing  to  the  Etruscan  Mimes.  Both 
were  exotics.  The  one  sprang  immediately  from 
Greek  Tragedy,  the  other  sprang  immediately  from 
Greek  Comedy.  By  no  process  of  evolution  could 
the  drama  as  it  existed  in  Kome  between  B.C.  363 
and  B.C.  240  have  developed  into  the  drama  which 
was  in  vogue  in  Kome  between  B.C.  240  and  B.C.  50. 
By  no  process  of  evolution  could  the  drama  of  Bale 
and   Heywood   have   developed   into   the   drama   of 

*  The  Grood  Angel  and  the  Eril  Angel  in  Marlowe's  Fauaitu,  and  the  part 
played  by  the  Devil  in  Greene's  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay^  the  abstrac- 
tions of  the  Dumb  Show  in  The  Warning  for  Fair  Woinen^  in  Miicedorua,  in 
Soliman  and  Perseda,  and  in  Yarrington's  Tico  Lamcnlable  Tragedies  in  One^  are 
cases  in  point  The  Shakspearean  Clown,  undoubtedly  a  lineal  descendant  of 
the  Satan  of  the  Mysteries  and  of  the  Vice  of  the  Moralities,  the  employment 
of  the  dumb  show,  the  interpolation  of  strictly  realistic  transcripts  from 
commonplace  life,  are  more  important  illustrations. 


116  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Marlowe  and  Peele.  To  what  source,  then,  is  the 
Eomantic  drama  to  be  traced  ?  We  answer  unhesi- 
tatingly, to  the  Italian  drama  of  the  Kenaissance. 

The  popularly-accepted  theory  that  Elizabethan 
Tragedy  and  Comedy  flowed  directly  from  the  older 
plays,  that  Tragedy  is  simply  the  Miracle  and  Morality 
modified  by  the  study  of  Seneca  and  the  Italian 
tragedians,  and  that  Comedy  is  simply  the  Interlude 
modified  by  the  Comedy  of  ancient  Eome  and 
Kenaissant  Italy,  is  in  our  opinion  a  theory  which 
could  be  held  by  no  one  who  had  studied  with 
attention  the  drama  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  As 
this  is  a  question  of  some  importance,  and  as  our 
opinion  may  perhaps  appear  somewhat  paradoxical, 
we  will  state  our  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the 
popular  theory. 

If  what  is  technically  known  as  the  Romantic 
drama  be  compared  with  the  older  plays,  we  shall 
find  that  it  is  distinguished  from  them  by  three 
striking  peculiarities.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  divided 
into  five  acts,  or,  if  not  so  divided,  is  so  constructed 
as  to  admit  of  such  a  division — in  other  words,  it 
possesses  a  regular  plot  regularly  unravelling  itself 
on  definite  principles.  In  the  second  place,  imagina- 
tion and  fancy  enter  largely  into  its  composition ; 
and,  in  the  third  place,  it  is,  in  its  diction,  studious 
of  the  beauties  of  poetry  and  rhetoric.  Now  these 
characteristics  are,  as  we  need  scarcely  say,  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  classical  drama.  And  yet  if  we 
compare  a  page  or  two  of  any  of  our  Romantic 
dramatists  with  a  page  or  two  of  a  Roman  dramatist. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  117 

we  shall  at  once  feel  that  the  older  poet  could 
have  had  no  direct  influence  on  the  later.  If,  for 
example,  we  place  Gorhoduc,  a  play  closely  modelled 
on  Seneca,  side  by  side  with  Tamhurlaine  or 
Edward  II.,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  under- 
standing how  wide  is  the  interval  which  separated 
Koman  Tragedy  from  ours.  Again,  take  Comedy  as 
formulated  by  Lyly  and  Greene  and  perfected  by 
Shakspeare.  It  is  clearly  no  mere  development  of 
the  Interlude.  It  as  clearly  owes  little  or  nothing 
to  Plautus  and  Terence. 

We  turn  to  Italy,  and  aU  is  explained.  We 
there  find  a  drama  presenting  all  the  chief  features 
of  our  Romantic  drama — that  classicism  which  is 
not  the  classicism  of  antiquity,  that  realism  which 
is  not  the  realism  of  ordinary  life.  There,  we  con- 
tend, are  to  be  found  the  models  on  which  Marlowe 
and  his  contemporaries  consciously  or  unconsciously 
worked.  It  was  there  that  the  Romantic  drama 
was  virtually  promulgated.  There,  not  in  England, 
was  accomplished  the  revolution  which  transformed 
the  tragedy  of  Seneca  into  the  tragedy  of  Marlowe, 
and  the  comedy  of  Plautus  and  Terence  into  the 
comedy  of  Lyly  and  Greene. 

It  is  remarkable  that  from  the  very  first  there  was 
a  marked  tendency  on  the  part  of  Italian  playwrights 
to  romantic  innovation.  This  is  seen  even  in  the 
Latin  plays.  Among  the  earliest  of  them  we  find 
comedy  blended  with  tragedy,  a  constant  attempt  to 
escape  from  the  thraldom  of  the  unities,  and  an 
ostentatious  realism  substituted  for  the  ideality  of  the 


118  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

classical  stage.  Their  plots,  moreover,  are  frequently 
drawn  from  contemporary  history,  though  in  this,  as 
we  need  scarcely  say,  they  found  precedents  in  the 
tragedy  of  the  ancients.  Thus  Verardo's  Historia 
Bcetica,  written  about  1491,^  is  founded  on  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Moors  from  Granada,  and  is  in  every- 
thing but  in  diction  and  structure — for  it  is  written 
in  prose — our  Chronicle  Play.  The  words  of  the 
Prologue  are  so  remarkable  that  we  will  quote  them  : — 

Requirat  autem  nullus  hie  Comediae 
Leges  ut  observentur  aut  Tragoediae, 
Agenda  nempe  est  Historia,  non  fabula. 

In  Albertino  Mussato's  Eccerinis  and  in  Laudivio's 
De  Captivitate  Duds  Jacohi,  we  have  striking  illus- 
trations of  this  romanticising  tendency.  The  first 
dramatises  the  career  of  Eccelino  de  Komano,  and  the 
second  dramatises  the  fall  of  the  famous  condottiere 
Jacopo  Piccinino.  Both,  therefore,  are  studies  from 
real  life,  both  embody  in  artistic  form  familiar 
incidents.  In  both  the  language  is  the  language  of 
Seneca,  but  the  spirit  and  feeling  are  the  spirit  and 
feeling  of  contemporaries.  And  what  is  apparent  in 
the  Latin  plays  becomes,  as  we  might  naturally  ex- 
pect, far  more  apparent  in  the  vernacular.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  by  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  vernacular  classical  drama  had  undergone 
so  many  modifications  that  it  presents  almost  all  the 
characteristics  of  the  Romance.  To  deal  first  with 
style.  We  find  plays  written  in  tercets,  in  the  ottava 
rimay  and  in  versi  sdruccioli;  we  find  rhyme  and 

^  It  was  acted  in  1492. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  IID 

blank  verse  mingled;  we  find  prose  and  verse  mingled; 
we  find  blank  verse  variously  modified,  monotonously- 
stately,  loosely  colloquial,  broken  and  spasmodic, 
fluent  and  difi*use;  we  find  prose  substituted  for 
verse.  In  the  comedies  of  Angelo  Beolco  and  Andrea 
Calmo  we  even  find  the  dramatis  personce  speaking 
in  the  dialects  of  the  cities  to  which  they  belong. 
We  see,  in  fine,  a  constant  attempt  to  cast  ofi"  the 
shackles  of  rigid  classicism. 

Another  important  link  between  the  Italian  drama 
and  the  Romantic  is  the  fact  that  it  rejected  rhyme 
in  favour  of  blank  verse  on  precisely  the  same  ground. 
It  was  employed  for  the  first  time  in  tragedy  by 
Trissino  in  his  Sofonisba,  represented  in  1515  ;  in  the 
following  year  Rucellai  followed  Trissino's  example 
in  his  Rosmunda,  and  after  that  time  it  was  habitually 
used.  Blank  verse,  it  was  said,  being  less  artificial 
than  rhyme,  is  better  adapted  to  express  the  passions 
and  to  appeal  to  the  passions.  "  Rima  denota,"  says 
Antonio  Cavallerino,  in  the  Discourse  prefixed  to  his 
Rosamunda,  which  was  published  at  Modena  in  1582, 
**  pensamento,  e  premeditatione,  e  che  le  cose,  ch'  ap- 
paiono  pensate,  e  premeditate,  estinto  il  verisimile, 
estinguono  insieme  la  compassione,  e  lo  spavento,  che 
nascono  ne  gli  spettatori  da  quella  credenza  c'  hanno, 
che  le  cose  accaschino  allora  in  scena."  In  tone  and 
structure  these  dramas  adhere,  it  must  be  admitted, 
much  more  closely  to  Roman  models.  And  yet  even 
in  these  respects  important  difi'erences  are  discernible. 
As  tragedies  they  have  more  colour,  they  have  more 
warmth,  they  have  more  life  than  their  prototypes. 


120  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

If  their  plots  are  similar  in  their  evolutions,  they  are  as 
a  rule  richer  in  incident.  If,  in  imitation  of  a  vicious 
original,  the  action  too  often  stagnates  in  arid  dia- 
lectics, it  is  as  often  animated  by  nature  and  passion. 
Of  the  obligations  of  the  Komantic  stage  to  the 
Italian  with  regard  to  machinery  there  can  be  no 
question.  Every  one  knows  with  what  effect  the 
Elizabethan  playwrights  employed  the  echo ;  how 
they  delighted  in  the  play  within  the  play ;  how 
common  it  was  for  a  Chorus  to  explain  the  action ; 
how  frequently  the  ghosts  of  great  men  appeared  in 
the  capacity  of  Prologue  ;  how  elaborate  the  character 
and  how  imposing  the  use  made  of  the  dumb  show  ; 
how  important  the  part  played  by  apparitions,  how 
wide  the  space  filled  with  physical  horrors.  All  this 
was  undoubtedly  learned  from  Italy.  The  dumb 
show  had,  it  is  true,  been  popular  in  England  long 
before  any  influence  from  Italy  can  be  traced  on  our 
drama,  and  the  shades  of  the  dead  had  figured,  as 
we  need  scarcely  say,  among  the  dramatis  personoe  of 
the  ancient  stage.  But  it  was  reserved  for  the  Italians 
to  discover  their  full  effect  as  dramatic  auxiliaries, 
and  it  was  as  elaborated  by  Italian  ingenuity  that 
they  make  their  appearance  in  our  Romantic  drama.  ^ 

^  See  particularly  the  Discorso  della  Poesia  Rappresentativa,  by  Angelo 
Ingegneri,  printed  at  Ferrara  in  1598.  As  Ingegneri's  remarks  about  the 
proper  way  of  representing  ghosts  are  well  worth  attention,  and  as  the  work 
is  not  very  accessible,  we  will  quote  a  short  passage:  "  L'ombra  doverebbe 
esser  tutta  coperta,  piu  che  vestita,  di  zendale  over  altra  cosa  simile,  pur  di 
color  nero,  e  non  mostrar  n^  volto,  n^  mani,  nh  piedi  e  sembrare  in  sommo 
una  cosa  in  forme.  .  .  .  E  quanto  al  parlare,  aver  una  voce  alta  e  rimbom- 
bante,  ma  ruvida  ed  aspra  e  in  conchiusione  orribile  e  non  naturale,  servando 
quasi  sempre  un  istesso  tuono. "  For  the  ghost  in  action  see  Speroni's  Canace, 
Decio's  Acripanda,  Corraro's  Progne,  and  Manfredi's  Semiramide. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  121 

But  the  influence  of  the  Italian  drama  on  ours  is 
seen  most  conspicuously  in  the  fact  that  it  furnished 
examples  of  almost  every  species  of  dramatic  composi- 
tion which  obtained  among  us  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  From  the  Latin  plays  of 
Mussato  and  Laudivio  sprang  the  Latin  plays  of 
Legge,  Gager,  Alabaster,  and  others.  From  the  Italian 
imitators  of  Seneca  sprang  Sackville  and  Norton's 
Gorboduc,  Gascoignes  Jocasta,  and  Hughes'  Mis- 
fortunes of  Arthur.  Indeed  Gascoigne's  Jocasta  is, 
as  Mr.  Symonds  has  for  the  first  time  pointed  out,  a 
free  version  of  Dolce's  Giocasta.  From  such  plays 
as  Cammelli's  Pamphila,  Rucellai's  Rosmunda,  and 
Groto's  Hadriana,  sprang  Tancred  and  Gismunda 
and  the  numerous  plays  of  which  Tancred  and  Gis- 
munda  is  the  type.  From  the  tragedies  of  Cinthio 
and  Mondella  sprang  the  two  famous  tragedies 
of  Kyd  and  the  tragedy  of  Soliman  and  Perseda. 
From  the  Calandra  of  Bernardo  Divizio,  from 
Machiavelli,  from  Angelo  Beolco,  and  from  the 
Cassama  and  the  Suppositi  of  Ariosto,  Lyly  learned 
to  clothe  comedy  in  prose.  On  the  Boscareccie 
Favole  was  modelled  Peele's  Arraignment  of  Paris, 
and  on  the  Parse  Greene's  Orlando  Fumoso  and 
Peele's  Old  Wives'  Tale,  Luca  Contile  and  the 
author  of  Cecaria  had  invented,  or  rather  revived, 
tragi-comedy.  Luca  Contile  also  vindicated  it ;  "  la 
tragicomedia,"  he  says  in  the  Prologue  to  his  Pescara 
(Milan,  1550),  **voi  sapete,  come  nel  priucipio 
ha  gli  atti  suoi  tranquilli,  nel  mezo  contiene  varie 
passioni,   e  diversi   accidenti,   nel  ,fin    bisogna  che 


122  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

si  riduca  a  una  comune  e  salda  quiete."  Domestic 
tragedy  dates  from  the  Soldato  of  Angelo  Leonico 
(1550),  and  what  are  known  in  our  drama  as  Histories 
— plays,  that  is  to  say,  founded  on  recent  historical 
incidents — had  precedents  in  Mondella's  Isifile  and 
in  Fuligni's  Bragadino,  the  first  of  which  appeared 
in  1582,  and  the  second  in  1589. 

Nor  are  these  resemblances  between  the  Italian 
and  the  English  drama  likely  to  have  been  mere 
coincidences.  Of  the  intimate  connection  between 
England  and  Italy  during  the  early  and  latter  parts 
of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  of  the  popularity  of  Italian 
literature  in  England  during  these  years,  there  can 
be  no  question.  Its  study  had  been  facilitated  by 
grammars  and  dictionaries,  by  guides  to  its  beauties, 
and  by  guides  to  its  pronunciation.^  As  early  as 
1578  an  Italian  Company  was  acting  in  London.^ 
No  man's  education  was  held  to  be  complete  till  he 
had  visited  the  cities  which  were  to  an  Englishman 
of  that  age  what  Athens  and  Corinth  were  to  the 
contemporaries  of  Horace,  and  till  he  had,  in  the 
phrase  of  the  time,  returned  home  '*  Italianated." 
That  Gascoigne,  Greene,  Munday,  Lodge,  and  Nash 
travelled  in  Italy  is  certain,  and  it  is  very  likely  that, 
if  more  was  known  of  the  lives  of  Peele  and  Marlowe, 
we  should  find  that  they  too  had  performed  the 
customary  pilgrimage.     However  that  may  be,  they 

1  See,  for  example,  Principal  Rules  of  the  Italian  Gh-ammar,  by  Wykes, 
printed  in  1560  and  reprinted  in  1567  ;  The  Italian  Orammar  and  Dictionary, 
by  W.  Thomas,  1560  ;  Lenbulo's  Italian  Grammar,  put  into  English  by 
Henry  Grantham,  1578. 

2  Collier's  History  of  English  Dramatic  Poetry,  vol.  iii.  p.  201. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  123 

were  undoubtedly  well  read  in  the  literature  of  Italy. 
It  could  hardly,  indeed,  have  been  otherwise.  The 
taste  was  universal.  At  the  Universities  and  in  London 
an  Italian  quotation  was  the  symbol  of  the  cultured. 
Not  only  do  Italian  proverbs  and  distichs  abound 
in  the  popular  drama,  but  occasionally  we  find  cita- 
tions of  several  lines,  as  in  Greeners  Orlando  Furioso 
and  Peele's  Ai^aignment  of  Paris.  The  classics  of 
modern  Italy  were  indeed  as  reverently  studied  as 
the  classics  of  antiquity.  We  learn,  for  example,  from 
Gabriel  Harvey's  letters  that  at  Cambridge  Italian 
was  more  in  fashion  than  even  Greek  and  Latin. 
Those  who  could  not  read  the  originals  contented 
themselves  with  translations,  and  the  number  of 
translations  which  appeared  between  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  accession  of  James  I.  was  immense. 
Ascham  tells  us  that  these  Italian  translations  were 
sold  in  every  shop  in  London,  complaining  that 
Petrarch  was  preferred  to  Moses,  and  that  the 
Decameron  was  more  highly  estimated  than  the 
Bible.  That  the  English  playwrights  were  in  the 
habit  of  indulging  in  wholesale  plagiarism  from  their 
brethren  in  Italy  is  proved  by  Gosson,  who  tells  us 
that  the  Italian  comedies  "  were  ransacked  to  furnish 
matter  for  the  London  theatres."  It  would  not 
perhaps  be  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  case  of  nearly 
two-thirds  of  the  Elizabethan  dramas,  where  they  are 
not  Comedies  or  Histories,  the  plots  may  be  traced  to 
Italian  sources.  But  it  was  only  natural  that  the 
power  which  had  revolutionised  our  literature  should 
revolutionise   our  drama.     Since   the   publication  of 


124  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Tottel's  Miscellany  in  1557,  English  genius  had  been 
as  completely  under  the  spell  of  Italy  as  seventeen 
centuries  before  Koman  genius  had  been  under  the 
spell  of  Greece,  and  as  a  century  afterwards  French 
genius  was  under  the  spell  of  Eome.  We  have  not 
the  smallest  doubt  that  Marlowe  and  Greene  regarded 
Bale  and  Heywood  as  Actius  and  Terence  regarded 
the  authors  of  the  Atellan  Farces,  and  as  Racine  and 
Moliere  regarded  Eutebeuf  and  Bodel. 

We  must,  however,  guard  carefully  against  attach- 
ing undue  importance  to  the  influence  of  Italy.  It 
was  an  influence  the  significance  of  which  is  purely 
historical.  All  it  efi'ected  was  to  furnish  the  artists 
of  our  stage  with  models,  it  operated  on  form,  and  it 
operated  on  composition,  but  it  extended  no  further. 
Once  formulated,  our  drama  pursued  an  independent 
course.  It  became,  in  the  phrase  of  its  greatest  re- 
presentative, "  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time, 
his  form  and  pressure" — in  style  and  diction  of 
unparalleled  richness  and  variety,  in  matter  co- ex- 
tensive with  human  experience  and  human  imagina- 
tion. To  no  eye  indeed  but  to  the  eye  of  the  critical 
historian  would  there  seem  to  be  anything  in  common 
between  those  living  panoramas  of  nature  and 
manners,  the  romances  of  Elizabethan  England,  and 
the  stately  declamations  which  won  the  plaudits  of  the 
Academia  de'  Rozzi  and  the  Academia  degl'  Intronati. 

With  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  commences  what 
may  be  called  the  third  period  in  the  history  of  our 
stage.  More  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  still  to 
elapse  before  Marlowe  and  his  coadjutors  revolutionised 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  125 

dramatic  art.  Of  the  plays  produced  between  1558 
and  1586  probably  not  more  than  one-third  have 
escaped  the  ravages  of  time.  But  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  those  which  are  lost  differed  in  any 
important  respect  from  those  that  remain,  and  enough 
remain  to  enable  us  to  form  a  clear  conception  of  the 
state  of  dramatic  literature  during  these  years.  Re- 
garded comprehensively,  that  literature  is  represented 
by  three  distinct  schools.  On  the  one  side  stand  a 
body  of  playwrights  who  adhered  to  the  traditions  of 
the  vernacular  drama,  and  who  reproduced  in  forms 
more  or  less  modified  the  Moralities  and  Interludes.  On 
the  other  side  stand  a  large  and  influential  body  who 
treated  these  rude  medleys  with  disdain,  and  owned 
allegiance  only  to  classical  masters.  Between  these 
two  schools  stands  a  third,  which  united  the  character- 
istics— or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  many  of  the 
characteristics — of  both.  And  from  the  appearance 
of  Gorhoduc  to  the  appearance  of  Tamhurlaine  these 
three  schools  co-existed,  each  pursuing  an  independent 
course.  We  have  thus  the  extraordinary  anomaly  of 
a  drama,  crude,  rudimentary,  semi-barbarous,  flourish- 
ing contemporaneously  with  a  drama  as  perfect  in 
form  as  the  most  finished  pieces  of  the  Roman  and 
Italian  stage.  It  would  at  first  sight  appear  almost 
incredible  that  such  plays  as  Horestes,  Tom  Tiler  and 
his  Wife,  and  Like  to  Like  should  have  succeeded 
such  plays  as  Ralph  Roister  Doister  and  Gorhoduc, 
and  that  an  age  which  had  witnessed  Tancred  and 
Gismunda  could  tolerate  sixteen  years  afterwards  the 
History  of  Sir  Clyomon  and  Sir  Clamydes,     But 


126  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

this  anomaly  is  easily  explained.  The  diflference 
between  these  plays  corresponds  with  the  difference 
between  the  audiences  to  which  they  were  addressed. 
Till  the  last  decade  of  Elizabeth's  reign  there  were  two 
distinct  spheres  of  dramatic  activity.  At  the  Inns  of 
Court,  at  the  Court  itself,  at  the  Universities,  at  the 
public  schools,  nothing  was  tolerated  which  did  not 
bear  the  stamp  of  classicism.  It  was  for  such 
audiences  that  Kightwise  produced  in  Latin  his 
Dido,  Alabaster  his  Roxana,  and  Legge  his  Richardus 
Tertius ;  that  Sackville  and  Norton  parodied  Seneca, 
Udall  Plautus,  and  Spenser  Ariosto  and  Machiavelli  ^ ; 
that  Gascoigne  adapted  Dolce's  Giocasta  and  Ariosto's 
Gli  Suppositi ;  that  Hatton  and  his  coadjutors  wrote 
Tancred  and  Gismunda,  Thomas '  Hughes  The  Mis- 
fortunes of  Arthur,  and  Lyly  Alexander  and  Cam- 
paspe  and  Endymion.  Of  a  very  different  order 
were  the  spectators  who  gathered  in  the  inn-yards  of 
the  Belle  Savage  and  the  Ked  Bull  and  in  the  play- 
houses on  the  Bankside  and  in  Shoreditch,  and  of  a 
very  different  order  were  the  performances  in  which 
they  delighted.  No  class  is  so  conservative  as  the 
vulgar.  The  spell  of  tradition  is  potent  with  them 
long  after  it  has  lost  its  efficacy  with  others.  What 
found  most  favour  in  their  eyes  was  what  had  found 
favour  in  the  eyes  of  their  forefathers.     They  clung 

^  These  comedies  of  Spenser's  have  unfortunately  perished,  but  their 
character  and  our  loss  are  sufficiently  indicated  in  one  of  Gabriel  Harvey's 
letters  to  him  :  "  I  am  voyd  of  all  judgement  if  your  nine  Comedies  where- 
unto,  in  imitation  of  Herodotus,  you  give  the  names  of  the  Nine  Muses, 
come  not  nearer  Ariosto's  Comedies,  eyther  for  the  fineness  of  plausible  elo- 
qution  or  the  rareness  of  poetical  invention,  than  that  Elvish  Queene  doth  to 
his  Orlando  Furioso." 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  127 

fondly  to  all  that  was  peculiar  to  the  old  stage,  to  the 
old  buffoonery,  to  the  old  didacticism,  to  the  old  half- 
farcical,  half-serious  allegorising,  to  the  old  realism, 
to  the  Vice,  to  the  abstractions,  to  the  gingling  dog- 
gerel, to  the  cumbersome  quatrains.  In  one  respect, 
indeed,  these  plays  differed  from  those  of  the  former 
generation.  The  material  out  of  which  preceding 
playwrights  constructed  their  plots  lay  within  a  com- 
paratively narrow  compass.  The  cry  now  was  for 
novelty.  The  history  and  fiction  of  all  ages  and 
all  countries  were  ransacked  for  matter  to  weave  into 
dramas.  "  I  may  boldly  say  it,  because  I  have  seen 
it,"  says  Gosson,  "  that  TJie  Palace  of  Pleasure,  The 
Golden  Ass,  The  ^Ethiopian  History,  Amadis  of 
France,  and  The  Round  Table,  comedies  in  Latin, 
French,  Italian,  and  Spanish,  have  been  thoroughly 
raked  to  furnish  the  playhouses  in  London."  ^  Nothing 
came  amiss  to  these  indefatigable  caterers  for  popular 
amusement.  They  drew  indiscriminately  on  pagan 
mythology  and  on  mediaeval  legend,  on  incidents  in 
history  and  on  incidents  in  private  life.  Of  these 
dramas  probably  few  found  their  way  into  print,  and 
scarcely  any  have  survived.^  But  the  loss,  if  we  may 
trust  the  opinion  of  competent  judges,  and  if  those 
which  remain  are  samples  of  those  which  have  dis- 
appeared, is  assuredly  no  matter  for  regret.  The 
contempt  with  which  they  were  regarded  by  polite 
critics  is  shown  and  justified  by  what  Whetstone, 
Gosson,  and  Sidney  have  written  concerning  them. 

*  Plays  Confuted  in  Five  Aciioru. 

*  See,  for  a  list  of  fifty-two  of  these,  Collier's  HiUory  of  Englid^  Dramatic 
Poetry,  vol.  ii.  pp.  410,  411. 


128  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

They  appear,  indeed,  to  have  been  little  better  than 
wild  and  improbable  medleys,  as  coarse  and  bungling 
in  construction  as  they  were  vulgar  and  cumbersome 
in  style. 

But  of  these  early  schools  the  most  interesting 
from  a  historical  point  of  view  is  the  third.  It  was 
the  aim  of  the  representatives  of  this  school  to  create 
a  drama  out  of  elements  furnished  by  each  of  the 
other  schools.  They  followed  popular  models  in 
blending  tragedy  with  comedy,  in  cultivating  a  spirit 
of  homely  fidelity  to  nature  and  life,  and  in  em- 
bodying dramatic  dialogue  in  rhymed  verse.  But 
classical  models  guided  them  in  the  evolution  of  their 
plots,  in  their  anxiety  to  avoid  gross  violation  of  the 
unities,  and  in  their  attempt  at  dignity  and  propriety 
of  diction.  As  samples  of  the  plays  of  this  school  we 
have  Richard  Edwards'  Damon  and  Pythias,  and 
George  Whetstone's  Promos  and  Cassandra,  The 
latter,  which  is  preceded  by  a  singularly  interesting 
preface,  explaining  the  principle  on  which  it  was 
written,  has  more  than  one  title  to  attention.  It 
was  the  work  on  which  the  greatest  of  poets  founded 
his  Measure  for  Measure,  and  it  was  the  first  formal 
vindication  of  some  of  the  leading  principles  of 
Romanticism.  Whetstone  regarded  with  just  dis- 
dain the  rude  plays  in  vogue  with  the  vulgar,  but  he 
saw  clearly  that  too  strict  an  adherence  to  the  canons 
of  Classicism  was  in  every  way  undesirable.  He 
chose,  therefore,  a  middle  course.  He  avoided  the 
extremes  of  both,  but  he  adopted  something  from  each. 
His  play  is  written  in  a  medley  of  styles,  he  employs 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  129 

rhyming  lines  of  twelve  or  fourteen  syllables  indis- 
criminately mixed,  quatrains,  short  ballad  lines,  the 
heroic  couplet,  and  in  two  cases  stately  blank  verse ; 
and  thus  his  play  marks  with  preciseness  the  transi- 
tion from  the  old  drama  to  the  new.  But  the  preface 
is  of  more  importance  than  the  play,  for  he  there 
practically  lays  down  some  of  the  chief  canons  of  the 
romantic  as  distinguished  from  the  popular  and  the 
classical  drama.  Speaking  of  comedy,  and  presumably 
of  tragi-comedy,  he  claims  that  it  should  be  a  faithful 
reflection  of  nature  and  life,  that  it  should  not,  as 
was  the  case  with  the  popular  drama,  violate  truth 
and  probability  ^ ;  that  without  turning  the  stage 
into  a  pulpit  it  should  yet  have  a  moral  purpose. 
Nor  again  should  all  the  characters  be  cast  in  the 
same  mould  and  be  made  to  express  themselves  in 
the  same  style ;  "  grave  old  men  should  instruct 
young  men,  strumpets  should  be  lascivious,  clowns 
disorderly,  intermingling  all  these  actions  in  such 
sort  as  the  grave  may  instruct  and  the  pleasant 
delight."  And  it  was  with  the  intention  of  adapting 
the  language  to  the  character  that  he  employed  the 
medley  of  styles  in  which  his  play  is  written. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  English  drama 
when  that  illustrious  company  of  playwrights  who 
immediately  preceded  Shakspeare  entered  on  their 
career. 

We  remember   to  have  read   in   some  mediseval 

'  He  thna  ridicules  these  violations  in  the  popular  plays.     "lu  throe 
hours  he  runs  round  the  world,  marries,  gets  children,  niaki's  cliiUlrcn  men, 
men  to  conquer  kingdoms,  murdur  monsters,  and  bring  gods  from  heaven  and 
'  tch  devils  from  helL" 

K 


130  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

writer  a  story  to  this  effect.  A  traveller  on  enchanted 
ground  found  himself  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings 
in  a  wild  and  spacious  valley.  Around  him  were  all 
the  indications  of  fertility,  rich  even  to  rankness. 
The  trees  rose  dense  and  high ;  heavy  parasites  hung 
in  festoons  from  their  trunks  and  branches;  thick 
mantling  shrubs  matted  the  glades  at  their  feet. 
Wherever  his  eye  rested,  it  rested  on  what  appeared 
to  be  exuberant  vegetation.  But  the  spectacle  proved 
on  a  nearer  view  to  be  delusive.  He  soon  perceived 
that  what  he  beheld  was  the  semblance  of  fecundity, 
not  the  reality.  The  trees  and  the  parasites  which 
clung  to  them  were  without  bloom  and  without 
vitality ;  the  underwood  which  appeared  to  be 
flourishing  so  vigorously  beneath  was  arid  and 
dwarfed.  Scarcely  a  flower  he  saw  was  worth  the 
culling.  Scarcely  any  of  the  fruits  that  had  ripened 
were  worth  the  gathering.  Suddenly,  as  by  magic, 
the  scene  changed.  Every  tree,  every  shrub,  burst 
into  luxuriant  life.  The  leaves  and  the  grass  were  of 
the  hue  of  emeralds ;  the  ground  was  ablaze  with 
flowers.  All  was  perfume,  all  was  colour.  He  stood 
dazzled  and  intoxicated  amid  a  wilderness  of  sweets 
— a  teeming  paradise  of  tropical  splendour.  Very 
similar  to  the  phenomenon  witnessed  by  the  traveller 
of  the  fable  is  the  phenomenon  presented  to  the 
student  of  English  poetry  at  the  period  on  which 
we  are  now  entering.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century  there  had  been  no  lack  of  literary 
activity.  With  what  assiduity  the  drama  had  been 
cultivated  we  have  already  seen ;  with  what  assiduity 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  131 

other  branches  of  poetry  had  been  cultivated  will  be 
apparent  to  any  one  who  will  glance  at  a  catalogue  of 
the  writers  who  flourished  during  these  years.  And 
yet,  voluminous  as  this  literature  is,  how  little  has 
it  contributed  to  the  sum  of  our  intellectual  wealth ! 
how  frigid,  how  lifeless  does  it  appear  when  placed 
in  contrast  with  the  literature  which  immediately 
succeeded  it !  The  revolution  which  gave  us  The 
Faery  Queen  for  The  Min^or  for  Magistrates,  the 
lyrics  of  Greene  and  Lodge  for  the  lyrics  of  Gascoigne 
and  Turberville,  the  sonnets  of  Daniel  for  the  sonnets 
of  Watson,  the  eclogues  of  Spenser  for  the  eclogues 
of  Googe,  Tamhurlaine  for  Gorboduc,  and  Friar 
Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay  for  Ralph  Roister 
Doister  and  Misogonus,  seems  like  the  work  of 
enchantment.  It  was  in  truth  the  work  of  an  age 
rich  beyond  precedent  in  all  that  appeals  to  the 
•  motions  and  to  the  imagination,  acting  on  men 
peculiarly  susceptible  of  such  influences  and  possessed 
of  rare  powers  of  original  genius. 

The  golden  era  of  Elizabethan  literature  may  be 
said  to  date  its  commencement  from  the  seven  years 
which  lie  between  1579  and  1587 — in  other  words, 
with  the  first  characteristic  poems  of  Spenser  and  the 
first  characteristic  plays  of  Marlowe,  with  the  publica- 
tion of  Euphues  and  with  the  composition  of  the 
Arcadia,  Never,  perhaps,  has  there  existed  an  age 
80  fertile  in  all  that  inspires  and  in  all  that  nourishes 
poetic  energy  as  that  which  opens  the  third  decade  of 
Elizabeth's  reign.  It  was  contemporary  with  a  great 
crisis  in  European  history,  and  with  a  great  crisis  in 


k 


132  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

European  thought.  The  discomfiture  of  the  partisans 
of  Mary  of  Scotland,  the  execution  of  Mary  herself, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  Armada  in  the  following 
year,  had  paralysed  that  mighty  coalition  which  had 
long  been  the  terror  of  Protestant  Europe.  The  effect 
of  the  events  of  1588  on  the  world  of  Marlowe  and 
his  contemporaries  was  indeed  similar  to  the  effects 
of  the  Persian  victories  on  the  world  of  iEschylus  and 
Sophocles.  In  both  cases  what  was  at  stake  was  the 
very  existence  of  national  life.  In  both  cases  were 
arrayed  in  mortal  oppugnancy  the  Oromasdes  and  the 
Arimenes  of  social  and  intellectual  progress.  In  both 
cases  the  moral  effects  of  the  triumph  achieved  were 
in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the  issues  involved. 
Joy,  pride,  and  hope  possessed  all  hearts.  Patriotism 
burned  like  a  passion  in  the  breasts  of  all  men,  and, 
like  a  passion,  chivalrous  loyalty  to  the  lion-hearted 
Queen.  The  pulse  of  the  whole  nation  was  quickened. 
The  minds  of  men  became  under  this  fierce  stimulus 
preternaturally  active,  and  every  faculty  of  the  mind 
preternaturally  alert.  And  this  was  not  all.  The  forces 
at  work  in  that  mighty  revolution  which  transformed 
the  Europe  of  Mediae valism  into  the  Europe  of  the 
Renaissance  were  everywhere  fermenting.  It  was  the 
fortune  of  England  to  pass  simultaneously  through 
two  of  the  greatest  crises  in  the  life  of  states,  and  the 
excitement  of  the  most  momentous  of  epochs  in  her 
spiritual  history  was  coincident  with  the  excite- 
ment of  the  most  momentous  of  epochs  in  her 
political  history.  The  energy  thus  stimulated  oper- 
ated  on   materials   richer   and    more   various    than 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  133 

perhaps  any  other  age  could  have  afforded.  Philo- 
sophy, having  cast  off  the  shackles  of  scholasticism, 
had  entered  on  the  splendid  inheritance  which  had 
descended  to  it  from  antiquity.  Astronomy  was 
unravelling  the  secrets  of  the  skies,  and  natural 
science  the  secrets  of  the  land  and  sea.  The  discovery 
of  America  and  the  North-West  Passage  had  unveiled 
another  world  to  the  wonder  of  Europe,  and  in  widen- 
ing the  horizon  of  experience  had  widened  also  the 
horizon  of  imagination.^  Heroes,  second  to  none  in 
the  annals  of  endurance  and  adventure,  were  exploring 
every  corner  of  the  habitable  globe,  and  coming  home 
to  record  experiences  as  marvellous  as  those  which 
Ulysses  poured  into  the  ears  of  Alcinous  and  Arete. 
The  discovery  of  movable  types  had  given  wings  to 
knowledge.  The  Muse  of  History  had  awakened  with 
Grafton  and  Stow,  and  Hall  and  Holinshed ;  and  the 
Muse  of  Romantic  Fiction  long  before  with  Malory, 
and  now  with  his  successors.  The  translators  of 
the  Bible  had  unlocked  the  lore  of  the  East.     Scholars 

'  This  is  illustrated  very  strikingly  by  Spenser- 
Many  great  regions  are  discovered, 
Which  to  late  age  were  never  mentioned  ; 
Who  ever  heard  of  the  Indian  Peru  ? 
Or  who  in  venturous  vessel  measured 
The  Amazon,  huge  river,  now  found  true  ? 
Or  fruitfullest  Virginia  who  did  ever  view  T 

Yet  all  these  were  when  no  man  did  them  know, 

Yet  have  from  wisest  ages  hidden  been, 

And  later  times  things  more  unknown  shall  show. 

Why  then  should  witless  man  so  much  misween, 

Tliat  nothing  is  but  that  which  he  hath  seen  ? 

Whit  if  within  the  moon's  fair  shining  sphere, 

What  if  in  every  other  star  unseen, 

Of  other  worlds  ho  hap]>ily  should  hear  T 

Fairy  Queen,  Bk.  II.  ProIogiM. 


134  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

were  revelling  among  the  treasures  of  that  noble 
language  which,  in  the  fine  expression  of  Gibbon, 
"gives  a  soul  to  the  objects  of  sense  and  a  body  to 
the  abstractions  of  philosophy,"  and  which  has  during 
more  than  twenty  centuries  been  to  the  world  of  mind 
what  the  sun  is  to  the  physical  world.  The  study  of 
Koman  literature  had  been  rendered  more  fruitful  by 
the  precedence  now  given  to  the  classics  of  the 
Republic  and  Early  Empire  over  the  writers  of  the 
later  ages.  "  The  youth  everywhere,"  says  Strype, 
"addicted  themselves  to  the  reading  of  the  best 
authors  for  pure  Roman  style,  laying  aside  their  old 
barbarous  writers  and  schoolmen."  All  that  had  been 
contributed  to  the  general  stock  of  intellectual  wealth 
by  modern  Italy  was  becoming  more  and  more  familiar 
to  Englishmen,  and  scarcely  anything  of  note  appeared 
either  in  France  or  Spain  which  was  not  sooner  or 
later  pressed  into  the  service  of  English  genius. 

But  there  were  other  sources  of  inspiration,  other 
stores  on  which  the  writers  of  that  age  could  draw. 
The  world  in  which  they  moved  was  in  itself  rich  in 
all  the  materials  which  poetry  most  cherishes.  In 
the  first  place  there  had,  for  many  centuries,  been 
gradually  accumulating  an  immense  mass  of  local 
traditions.  Every  county,  nay,  every  hundred  and 
every  city  in  England,  had  its  heroes  and  its  annals. 
We  have  only  to  open  works  like  Warner's  Albion's 
England,  and  Drayton's  Polyolhion,  to  see  that  there 
was  scarcely  a  mountain,  a  river,  a  forest,  which  did 
not  teem  with  the  mingled  traditions  of  history  and 
fable.     The  mythology  out  of  which  Livy  constructed 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  135 

the  early  chronicles  of  Latium  was  in  truth  not  more 
dramatic  and  picturesque  than  that  which  lived  on 
the  lips  of  Elizabethan  England.  Much  of  this  lore 
had  been  embodied  in  rude  ballads — some  of  it  had 
found  its  way  into  the  metrical  romances,  and  more 
recently  into  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates;  but  it 
owed  its  popularity  to  oral  transmission.  With  this 
heroic  mythology  was  blended  a  mythology  which  had 
its  origin  in  superstition.  To  the  England  of  the 
sixteenth  century  the  unseen  world  was  as  real  as  the 
world  of  the  senses.  Its  voice  was  everywhere  audible, 
its  ministers  were  everywhere  present.  What  reason 
has  with  us  coldly  resolved  into  symbolism  was  with 
them  simple  fact.  The  substantial  existence  of  the 
Prince  of  Darkness  and  the  Powers  of  Hell,  of  the 
Bad  Angel  who  is  man^s  enemy,  and  of  the  Good 
Angel  who  is  his  friend,  was  no  more  questioned  by 
an  ordinary  Englishman  of  that  day  than  the  exist- 
ence of  the  human  beings  around  him.  In  his  belief 
the  communion  between  the  world  of  the  living  and 
the  world  beyond  the  tomb  had  never  been  inter- 
rupted. What  Endor  witnessed  was,  in  his  opinion, 
what  half  the  churchyards  in  England  had  witnessed. 
"  If  any  person  shall  practise  or  exercise  any  invoca- 
tion of  any  evil  or  wicked  spirit " — these  are  the  words 
of  a  grave  Act  of  Parliament  passed  as  late  as  the  9th 
of  June  1604 — *'  or  shall  consult  with,  entertain,  feed, 
or  take  up  any  dead  man,  woman,  or  child  out  of  his, 
her,  or  their  grave  .  .  .  such  oflfender  shall  suflfer  the 
pains  of  death  as  felons."  The  angels,  which  were  of 
old  beheld  passing  and  repassing  between  earth  and 


136  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

heaven,  passed,  it  was  believed,  and  repassed  still  on 
their  gracious  errands. 

How  oft  do  they  their  silver  bowers  leave, 

To  come  to  succour  us  that  succour  want ! 

How  oft  do  they  with  golden  pinions  cleave 

The  flitting  skies,  like  flying  pursuivant, 

Against  foul  fiends  to  aid  us  militant ! 

They  for  us  fight,  they  watch  and  duly  guard, 

And  their  bright  squadrons  round  about  us  plant. 

So  sang  Spenser,  and  what  he.  sang  he  believed.  "  It 
may,"  says  one  of  the  most  popular  writers  of  those 
times,  "  be  proved  from  many  places  of  the  Scripture 
that  all  Christian  men  have  not  only  one  angell,  but 
manie  whom  God  employe th  to  their  service."  Nor 
was  it  from  the  Bible  only  that  the  supernatural  creed 
of  that  age  was  derived.  The  awful  forms  with  which 
the  sublime  and  gloomy  imagination  of  the  Goths  had 
peopled  the  tempest  and  the  mist ;  the  elves,  fays, 
and  fairies,  and  all  that  "bright  infantry"  who,  in 
the  graceful  mythology  of  the  Celts,  hold  high  revel 

on  hill,  in  dale,  forest  or  mead, 
By  paved  fountain  or  by  rushy  brook, 
Or  in  the  beached  margent  of  the  sea  ; 

the  Demons  of  the  fire,  "  who  wander  in  the  region 
near  the  moon  ";  the  Demons  of  the  air,  "  who  hover 
round  the  earth  "  ;  Mandrakes  and  Incubi,  Hellwaines 
and  Firedrakes — these  were  to  the  people  of  that  age 
as  real  as  the  objects  which  met  their  view  in  daily 
life,  and  to  doubt  their  existence  was,  says  Grose, 
held  to  be  little  less  than  Atheism.^ 

^  Whoever  would  understand  how  completely  even  the  most  enlightened 
minds  were  under  the  dominion  of  these  superstitions  would  do  well  to  turn 
to  Henry  Mora's  Antidote  against  Atheism;  see  too  Nash's  Pierce  Penilesse, 


i 

I 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  137 

If  again  we  turn  to  the  social  life  of  those  times, 
we  find  ourselves  in  a  world  equally  picturesque  and 
equally  romantic.  In  the  country  dwelt  a  race  as 
blithe  and  simple  as  that  which  peopled  the  Sicily  of 
Theocritus  or  the  Delos  of  the  Homeric  Hymn.  The 
English  peasantry  had,  even  when  groaning  under 
the  yoke  of  a  martial  and  despotic  aristocracy,  been 
distinguished  by  their  light-heartedness  and  love  of 
social  merriment.  They  were  now  in  the  first  intoxi- 
cation of  newly-found  freedom.  They  were  now,  for 
the  first  time  in  their  history,  settled  and  prosperous. 
If  the  happiness  of  a  class  is  to  be  estimated  by  its 
wealth  and  political  importance,  it  would  be  absurd 
to  point  to  the  sixteenth  century  as  the  golden  age 
of  rural  England.  But  those  whose  criterion  is  not 
that  of  the  political  economist  will,  we  think,  agree 
with  Goldsmith  that  this  was  in  truth  the  Saturnian 
era  of  English  country  life.  No  fictitious  Arcadia 
has  half  the  charm  of  the  world  described  to  us  by 
Stubbes  and  Stow,  by  Tusser  and  Burton.  It  was 
a  world  in  which  existence  appears  to  have  been  a 
perpetual  feast.  Every  house  had  its  virginal,  its 
spinnet,  and  its  lute.  Each  season  of  the  year  had 
its  festivals.  At  Christmas  every  farmstead  and 
country  mansion,  garnished  with  holly  and  evergreens, 
and  bright  with  the  blazing  yule,  rang  with  tumultu- 
ous merriment.  Songs  and  dances,  possets  and 
loving-cups,  ushered  in,  amid  pealing  bells,  the  New 
Year ;  and  the  New  Year's  revels  were  often  pro- 
edit  Payne  Collier,  p.  74  seqq.  For  other  illustrations  see  Mr.  T.  A.  SiMilding*! 
interesting  little  book,  EliaabetKan  Demonology,  and  Drake's  Shakspeare  and 
hit  Times,  toL  i.  chap.  ix. 


138  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

tracted  till  it  was  time  to  wreathe  the  wassail-bowls 
and  marshal  the  pageants  of  Twelfth  Night.  Then 
came  the  feasts  of  Candlemas  and  Easter,  which 
terminated  the  festivities  of  Easter  and  opened  the 
festivities  of  Spring.  On  May-day  all  England  held 
carnival.  Long  before  it  was  light  the  youth  of 
both  sexes  were  in  the  woods  gathering  flowers  and 
weaving  nosegays.  By  sunrise  there  was  not  a  porch 
or  door  without  its  chaplet,  and  while  the  dew  was 
still  sparkling  on  the  grass  the  May-pole  had  been 
dressed,  "  twentie  or  fortie  yoke  of  oxen,  everie  oxe 
having  a  sweet  posie  of  flowers  tied  to  the  tip  of  his 
horns,  drawing  it  solemnly  home."  On  its  arrival  at 
the  appointed  place  it  was  set  up.  The  ground 
round  it  was  strewn  with  hawthorn  sprays  and  green 
boughs.  Summer -hall  booths  and  arbours  were 
erected  on  each  side  of  it.  Processions  from  the 
neighbouring  hamlets,  headed  by  milkmaids  leading 
a  cow  festooned  with  flowers  and  with  its  horns  gilt, 
were  a  common  feature  in  these  picturesque  festivities. 
At  harvest  time  the  last  load,  as  it  was  carried  to  the 
barn,  was  crowned  with  flowers,  while  round  a  figure 
made  of  corn  young  men  and  women,  with  a  piper 
and  a  drum  preceding  them,  shouted  joyously  or 
sang  songs.  ^  Nor  was  it  the  younger  people  only 
who  kept  festival.  "  In  the  month  of  May,"  says 
Stow  —  we  cannot  resist  quoting  this  exquisitely 
beautiful  passage — **  namely  on  May  Day  in  the 
morning,  every  man,  except  impediment,  would  walk 

^  See  the  passages  from  Hentzner  and  Dr.  Moresin  cited  by  Drake,  vol.  i. 
p.  187. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  139 

into  the  sweet  meddowes  and  green  woods,  there  to 
rejoice  their  spirits  with  the  beauty  and  savour  of 
sweet  flowers,  and  with  the  harmonie  of  birdes 
pray  sing  God  in  their  kinde."  It  would  have 
required  very  little  sagacity  to  foretell  that  a  world 
such  as  this  was  destined  to  bear  rich  fruit  in  poetry. 
And  yet  at  no  period  in  its  history  did  our  poetry 
pass  through  so  perilous  a  crisis.  For  some  time  it 
seemed  not  unlikely  that  the  Renaissance  would  cast 
the  same  spell  on  English  genius  as  it  had  cast  on  the 
genius  of  Italy  and  France.  Its  effect  there  had  been 
to  kindle  an  enthusiasm  for  the  works  of  the  ancients 
so  intense  and  absorbing  that  it  amounted  to  fanati- 
cism, a  fanaticism  against  which  all  the  forces  which 
commonly  direct,  and  all  the  causes  which  commonly 
inspire,  intellectual  and  artistic  activity  were  power- 
less to  contend.  No  art  escaped  the  infection,  but 
poetry  suff*ered  most.  A  wretched  aff'ectation  of 
classical  sentiment,  of  classical  imagery,  of  classical 
diction,  pervaded  it.  To  write  tragedies  in  the  style 
of  Seneca,  and  comedies  in  the  style  of  Plautus  and 
Terence ;  to  construct,  out  of  materials  furnished  by 
Theocritus  and  Virgil,  rococo  Arcadias ;  to  parody 
Pindar,  Anacreon,  and  Horace  in  odes  and  dithyrambs, 
Ovid  and  Tibullus  in  elegies,  and  the  ancient  idylls 
in  tinsel  imitations;  to  torture  Italian  and  French  into 
Greek  and  Latin  phrases  and  idioms  ;  and  to  substitute 
the  metres  of  ancient  classical  poetry  for  the  metres 
proper  to  the  poetry  of  Romance — became  the  employ- 
ment of  men  who,  had  they  succeeded  in  casting  off 
the  fetters  of  this  degrading  servitude,  might  have 


140  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

attained  no  mean  rank  among  poets.  In  Italy  this 
taste  was  aU  but  universal.  In  France  it  found  ex- 
pression, to  take  a  few  typical  illustrations,  in  the 
tragedies  of  Jodelle  and  Garnier ;  in  the  detestable 
Pindariques  and  equally  detestable  epic  of  Eonsard ; 
in  his  wretched  metrical  experiments,  and  in  those  of 
Jan  Antoine  de  Baif,  Passerat,  Pasquier,  and  Nicholas 
Eapin ;  in  the  Foresteries  and  Pastorale  of  Jean 
Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaie  ^ ;  in  Kemy  Belleau's  in- 
genious adaptation  of  the  Metamorphoses  and  of  the 
Orphic  Lithica,  Thus  poetry  became  more  and  more 
divorced  from  nature  and  life,  losing  all  sincerity, 
losing  all  originality.  An  exception  indeed  must  be 
made  in  favour  of  the  Romantic  school,  but  even  the 
Romantic  school  passed  under  the  yoke.  That  our 
poetry  narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate  cannot,  we 
think,  be  doubted.  When  we  remember  the  super- 
stitious reverence  with  which  the  writings  of  antiquity 
were  regarded,  the  ardour  with  which  the  study  of 
those  writings  was  pursued,  the  ridiculous  extent  to 
which  the  affectation  of  learning  was  carried  in  the 
pulpit,  in  Parliament,  and  even  in  the  taverns  and 
playhouses,  the  classicism  and  pseudo-classicism  pre- 
dominant everywhere  in  academic  and  aristocratic 
circles,^  the  enormous  popularity  of  the  literature  of 

^  The  motto  of  this  school  may  be  expressed  in  the  words  of  Ronsard  : — 

Les  Fran9oi8  qui  mes  vers  liront, 
S'ils  ne  sent  et  Grecs  et  Romains, 
En  lieu  de  ce  livre  ils  n'auront 
Qu'un  pesant  faix  entre  les  mains. 

La  Fraticiade — Epilogue  {De  Luy-Mesme). 
*  '*  When  the  queen  paraded  through  a  county  town  almost  every  pageant 
was  a  Pantheon.     When  she  paid  a  visit  at  the  house  of  any  of  her  nobility, 


{ 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  141 

Italy,  the  influence  exercised  by  that  literature,  the 
contempt  for  Romanticism  at  the  Court  and  at  the 
Universities,  the  constant  endeavours  on  the  part  of 
both  to  dethrone  it,  and,  above  all,  the  culture  and 
learning  which  distinguished  the  Romancists  them- 
selves, we  cannot  but  feel  how  imminent  was  the 
danger.  About  1579  a  desperate  attempt  was  made 
by  Gabriel  Harvey  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney  to  revolu- 
tionise English  poetry  on  strictly  classical  principles ; 
and  for  this  purpose  a  club  was  formed,  a  prominent 
member  of  which  was  Spenser.  Rhyme  and  our 
ordinary  metres  were  to  be  superseded  by  iambic 
trimeters,  hexameters,  elegiacs,  sapphics,  asclepiads, 
and  the  like,  detestable  specimens  of  which  may  be 
found  in  Spenser's  collected  poems  and  in  Sidney's 
Arcadia.  Though  Spenser  had  the  good  sense  to 
abandon  this  particular  form  of  pedantic  classicism, 
he  was  in  his  Shepherd's  Calendar  only  too  faithful 
to  other  forms  of  it.  And  what  is  true  of  the  Shep- 
herd's Calendar  is  true  of  much  of  his  other  work, 
and  of  much  of  the  work  of  his  brother  poets.  A 
large  portion,  indeed,  of  the  lyric  and  miscellaneous 
poetry  of  the  time  is  as  deeply  tainted  with  this 
affectation  as  the  poetry  of  Italy  and  France.  In  the 
drama  classicism  made  a  long  and  obstinate  stand 

she  waa  saluted  by  the  Penates  and  conducted  to  her  privy  chamber  by 
Mercury.  Even  the  pastrycooks  were  expert  mythologists.  At  dinner  select 
transformations  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  were  exhibited  in  confectionery,  and 
the  splendid  iceing  of  an  immense  historic  plum-cake  was  eml)0S8ud  with  a 
delicious  basso-relievo  of  the  destruction  of  Troy.  In  the  afternoon,  when 
she  condescended  to  walk  in  the  garden,  the  lake  was  covered  with  Tritons 
and  Nereids  ;  the  pages  of  the  family  were  converted  into  wood  nymphs,  who 
peeped  from  every  bower,  and  the  footmen  gambolled  over  the  lawns  in  the 
figure  of  Satyrs."— Warton's  History  qf  English  Poetry,  voL  ir.  p.  328. 


142  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

against  the  Eomancists,  as  the  comedies  of  Lyly  and 
the  tragedies  of  Lady  Pembroke,  Brandon,  Samuel 
Daniel,  and  Ben  Jonson  show.  *'  My  verse,"  says 
Daniel,  in  words  which  exactly  express  the  attitude 
of  himself  and  his  school  to  the  popular  schools — 
"  my  verse  respects  nor  Thames  nor  Theatres."  The 
most  authoritative  critics  were,  moreover,  almost 
universally  on  the  side  of  classicism.  Sidney  and 
Webbe,  for  example,  defended  it  in  its  most  extra- 
vagant forms,  and  Ben  Jonson  was  its  apostle  and 
apologist  to  the  last.  Fortunately,  however,  the 
instinctive  energy  of  genius  prevailed ;  fortunately 
the  England  of  Elizabeth  was  not  the  Italy  of  Leo  ; 
fortunately  our  poetry  had  its  roots  in  a  soil  so  rich 
that  the  parasites  which  might,  under  less  propitious 
conditions,  have  choked  its  growth  and  exhausted  its 
vitality,  served  only 

to  become 
Contingencies  of  pomp. 

And  that  the  poetry  of  those  times  should  have 
found  its  chief  embodiment  in  the  drama  is  not  sur- 
prising. The  age  was,  in  itself,  pre-eminently  an  age 
of  activity.  It  had  no  tendency  to  introspective 
brooding ;  it  troubled  itself,  as  a  rule,  very  little  about 
the  ideal  and  the  infinite;  it  was  no  worshipper  of 
Nature.  It  was  indeed  the  expression  in  acme  of 
reaction  against  all  that  had  been  characteristic  of 
medisevalism.  Its  central  figure  was  man  in  action  ; 
its  distinguishing  feature  was  its  sympathy  with 
humanity.  Thus  human  life,  its  failures,  and  its 
triumphs,  thus  human  kind,  their  passions  and  pecu- 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  143 

liarities,  became  objects  of  paramount  interest.  Nor 
was  this  all.  London  was  already  the  centre  of  the 
social  and  intellectual  life  of  the  kingdom,  and  was 
attracting  each  year  from  the  provinces  and  the 
Universities  all  who  hoped  to  turn  wit  and  genius  to 
account.  The  refuge  of  literary  adventurers  in  our 
day  is  the  periodical  and  daily  press.  In  those  days 
there  were  no  journals  and  no  periodicals,  for  there 
was  no  reading  public.  But  among  the  changes 
introduced  by  the  dissolution  of  the  old  system  was 
the  appearance  and  rapidly-increasing  importance  of  a 
class  which  corresponded  to  that  on  which  our  popular 
press  relies  for  support.  Since  the  accession  of  the 
Tudors  a  great  change  had  passed  over  London. 
Peace  and  a  settled  government  had  transformed  the 
rude  and  martial  nobility  of  the  Plantagenets  into 
courtiers  and  men  of  mode.  Their  hotels  swarmed 
with  dependants  who  would,  a  generation  back,  have 
found  occupation  in  the  camp ;  but  who  were  now, 
like  their  masters,  devoted  to  gaiety  and  pleasure. 
Contemporary  with  this  revolution  in  the  upper 
sections  of  society  was  the  rise  of  a  great  commercial 
aristocracy.  Each  decade  found  London  more  pros- 
perous, more  luxurious,  more  thickly  peopled.  By 
the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  reign  it  presented  all  the 
features  peculiar  to  great  capitals  and  great  seaports. 
A  large  industrial  population,  branching  out  into 
all  the  infinite  ramifications  of  mercantile  communi- 
ties, mingled  its  multitudes  with  the  crowd  of  men 
of  rank  and  fashion  who  afiected  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  Court,  and  with  the  swarms  of  adventurers  and 


144  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

sycophants  who  hung  loose  on  the  town  or  subsisted 
on  the  charity  of  noble  houses.  The  Inns  of  Court, 
thronged  with  students  often  as  accomplished  as  they 
were  idle  and  dissolute,  had  already  assumed  that 
half- fashionable,  half- literary  character,  which  for 
upwards  of  two  centuries  continued  to  distinguish 
them.  But  no  quarter  of  London  stirred  with  fuller 
life  than  that  which  was  then  known  as  the  Bankside. 
It  was  here  that  the  lawless  and  shifting  population, 
which  came  in  and  passed  out  by  the  river,  found  its 
temporary  home.  In  the  taverns  and  lodging-houses 
which  crowded  those  teeming  alleys  were  huddled 
together  men  of  all  nations,  of  all  grades,  of  all  call- 
ings; Huguenot  refugees,  awaiting  the  turn  which 
would  restore  them  to  their  country ;  Switzers  and 
Germans  who,  induced  partly  by  curiosity  and  partly 
by  the  restlessness  which  a  life  of  adventure  engenders, 
flocked  over  every  year  from  the  Low  Countries ;  half- 
Anglicised  Italians  and  half-Italianated  Englishmen ; 
filibusters  from  the  Spanish  Main  and  broken 
squatters  from  the  Portuguese  settlements;  soldiers 
of  fortune  who  had  fought  and  plundered  under  half 
the  leaders  in  Europe ;  desperadoes  who  had  survived 
the  perils  of  unknown  oceans  and  lands  where  no 
white  man  had  ever  before  penetrated ;  seamen  from 
the  crews  of  Hawkins  and  Drake  and  Cavendish  and 
Frobisher.  And  among  this  motley  rabble  were  to  be 
found  men  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  the  noblest 
families  in  England — Strangwayses  and  Carews,  Tre- 
maynes  and  Throgmortons,  Cobhams  and  Killigrews. 
Such  was  the  London  of  Elizabeth.     It  was  natural 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  145 

that  the  cry  of  these  people  should  be  for  amusement. 
Too  intelligent  to  be  satisfied  with  the  stupid  and 
brutal  pastimes  then  in  vogue  with  the  vulgar,  and 
too  restless  and  illiterate  to  find  pleasure  in  books,  it 
was  equally  natural  that  they  should  look  to  the 
stage  to  supply  their  want.  And  the  stage  responded 
to  the  call. 

In  1574  Elizabeth  granted  to  James  Burbage  and 
four  other  players  the  right  of  exhibiting  dramatic 
performances  within  the  precincts  of  the  City.  This 
was  strongly  opposed  both  by  the  Puritans  and  by 
the  Common  Council.  A  memorial  was  addressed  to 
the  Queen.  A  counter-memorial  on  the  part  of  the 
players  followed.  At  last  a  compromise  was  efi'ected. 
Burbage  and  his  company,  quitting  the  strict  limits 
of  the  City,  established  themselves  in  Blackfriars. 
The  construction  of  a  regular  theatre  was  begun.  The 
Puritans  were  furious,  the  burgesses  of  Blackfriars 
petitioned ;  but  Burbage  triumphed,  and  London  had 
its  first  playhouse.  From  this  moment  dates  the 
commencement  of  the  modern  stage.  The  temporary 
platforms  which  had  been  erected,  as  occasion  required, 
in  inn-yards — in  the  yard,  for  example,  of  the  Bull  in 
Bishopsgate  Street,  and  the  Belle  Savage  on  Ludgate 
Hill' — now  gave  place  to  permanent  theatres.  The 
erection  of  Burbage's  Blackfriars  theatre  in  1576 
was  followed  in  the  same  year  by  the  erection  of  the 
"  Theatre  "  and  the  "  Curtain  "  in  Shoreditch.  Each 
decade  added  to  the  number,  and  in  the  latter  years 
of  Elizabeth's  reign  London  could  boast  of  at  least 
eleven  of  these  edifices.     What  had  before  scarcely 


146  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  distinct  vocation  now  became 
a  thriving  and  lucrative  profession.  The  strolling 
companies  who,  under  the  real  or  pretended  protec- 
tion of  noble  houses,  roamed  the  country,  now  flocked, 
certain  of  employment,  to  the  metropolis.  Indeed, 
the  demand  for  those  who  could  produce,  and  for 
those  who  could  act,  plays  was  such  that  the  supply, 
though  abundant,  almost  to  miraculousness,  could 
scarcely  keep  pace  with  it. 

In  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  the  semi- 
scholastic,  semi-barbarous  drama  of  preceding  play- 
wrights was  transformed  into  that  wonderful  drama  in 
which,  as  in  a  mirror,  the  world  of  those  times  saw 
itself  reflected ;  which,  in  its  infinite  flexibility,  adapted 
itself  to  every  taste,  to  every  understanding ;  which, 
in  its  all-absorbing,  all-assimilating  activity,  disdained 
nothing  as  too  mean,  excluded  nothing  as  too  exalted ; 
and  which,  in  its  maturest  manifestations,  is  among 
the  marvels  of  human  skill  and  human  genius.  In 
little  more  than  twelve  years  from  its  first  appearance 
that  drama  had  not  only  superseded  every  other  form 
of  popular  entertainment,  but  had  cast  into  the  shade 
every  other  school  of  contemporary  poetry.  It  had 
disputed  the  pre-eminence  of  the  classical  playwrights 
by  turning  against  them  their  own  weapons.  Decla- 
mation as  ornate  and  stately,  dialogue  as  brilliant 
with  antithesis  and  as  rich  with  the  embellishments 
of  scholarship  and  culture,  as  had  ever  won  the  ap- 
plause of  Elizabeth  and  Leicester,  were  now  heard  in 
every  playhouse  from  Shoreditch  to  Southwark.  It 
had  rivalled  the  poetry  of  Spenser  in  gorgeousness  of 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  147 

diction  and  in  teeming  fertility  of  imagination  and 
fancy.  No  narrative  poetry  since  Chaucer's  could 
compare  with  it  in  vividness  of  description  and  por- 
traiture. In  pastoral  poetry  nothing  equal  to  its 
pictures  of  country  life  and  country  scenery  had 
appeared  since  the  Sicilian  Idylls.  It  had  pressed 
into  its  service  the  graces  of  the  lyric  and  the  sonnet. 
It  had  enriched  itself  with  all  that  Sidney  and  his 
circle  had  borrowed  from  Petrarch  and  Sanazzaro, 
and  with  all  that  Lyly  and  his  disciples  had  derived 
from  Spain.  And  it  had  transformed  what  it  had 
borrowed.  It  had  extended  the  dominion  of  art.  It 
had  revealed  new  capacities  in  our  language  and  new 
music  in  our  verse.  To  the  fathers  of  this  drama 
belongs  the  glory  of  having  moulded  that  noble  metre 
which,  even  in  their  hands,  rivalled  the  iambic  tri- 
meter of  Greece,  but  which  was  in  the  hands  of  its 
next  inheritor  to  become  the  most  omnipotent  instru- 
ment of  expression  known  to  art. 

We  will  now,  as  far  as  our  space  will  permit,  pass 
in  review  the  chief  of  those  remarkable  men  who  were 
the  fathers  of  our  Romantic  drama,  and  who,  what- 
ever may  be  their  inferiority  in  point  of  genius,  are 
certainly  entitled  to  the  honour  of  having  been  the 
masters  of  Shakspeare — Thomas  Kyd,  Robert  Greene, 
George  Peele,  Christopher  Marlowe,  John  Lyly,  and 
the  unknown  author  of  Arden  of  Faversham,  In  the 
lives  and  characters  of  these  men,  where  particulars 
have  survived,  there  is  so  much  in  common  that  it  is 
as  easy  to  describe  them  collectively  as  separately. 
They  were  all  men  peculiarly  typical  of  the  New  Age. 


148  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

They  were  all  sprung  from  the  lower  and  middle 
classes ;  they  were  all  born  in  the  provinces ;  they 
had  all  gone  up  from  the  provinces  to  the  Univer- 
sities, and  from  the  Universities,  with  the  object  of 
seeking  a  livelihood  as  authors  by  profession,  to 
London.  They  were  all  thorough  men  of  the  world. 
They  had  all  had  ample  experience  of  either  fortune. 
They  all  hung  loose  on  the  town,  three  of  them 
being  distinguished,  even  in  those  wild  times,  by  the 
ostentatious  dissoluteness  of  their  lives,  and  coming 
prematurely  to  mournful  and  shameful  ends.  Not 
less  striking  was  the  similarity  between  them  in  point 
of  genius  and  culture.  They  were  all  scholars.  Peele 
translated  one  of  the  Iphigenias ;  Marlowe  paraphrased 
the  poem  of  the  pseudo-Musseus,  and  has  left  versions 
of  Ovid's  Amoves  and  the  first  book  of  the  Pharsalia, 
The  Sapphics  and  elegiacs  of  Greene  cannot  indeed 
be  commended  for  their  purity  or  elegance,  but  they 
are  a  sufficient  indication  of  his  mastery  over  the 
Latin  language ;  and  what  is  true  of  the  sapphics  and 
elegiacs  of  Greene  is  true  also  of  the  hexameters  of 
Kyd  and  Marlowe.  Lyly's  classical  attainments  are 
sufficiently  attested,  not  only  by  his  respectable  Latin 
prose,  but  by  his  novel  and  by  his  comedies.  Of 
their  familiarity  with  the  literatures  of  modern  Europe 
there  is  scarcely  a  page  in  their  writings  which  does 
not  afford  abundant  proofs.  In  mere  learning,  indeed, 
and  in  their  fondness  for  displaying  that  learning, 
they  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  poets  of  Alexandria 
and  Augustan  Eome  ;  but,  though  they  owed  much  to 
culture,  they  owed  more  to  nature.     They  were  all  of 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  149 

them  pre-eminently  poets.  They  had  all,  in  the 
phrase  of  Juvenal,  bitten  the  laurel.  In  all  of  them — 
Kyd  and  the  author  ofArden  of  Faversham  excepted 
— the  faculties  which  enable  men  to  excel  as  painters  of 
life  and  manners  and  character  were  less  conspicuous 
than  the  faculties  which  impress  lyric  poetry  with 
grace  and  fancy,  and  narrative  poetry  with  pictur- 
esqueness  and  dignity.  If  again  we  except  Kyd  and 
the  author  of  Arden  of  Faversham,  they  have  all  left 
plays  which  stand  higher  as  poems  and  idylls  than  as 
dramas. 

Of  these  poets  the  youngest  in  years  but  the  first 
in  importance  was  Christopher  Marlowe.  Born  in 
February  1563-64,  the  son  of  a  shoemaker  at  Canter- 
bury, he  received  the  rudiments  of  his  education  at 
the  King's  School  in  that  city.  He  subsequently 
matriculated  at  Benet  College,  Cambridge,  taking  his 
degree  as  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1583,  and  his  degree  as 
Master  of  Arts  four  years  later.  Of  his  career  at 
Cambridge,  and  of  his  movements  between  1583  and 
1587,  nothing  is  known.  It  is  probable  that  by  the 
end  of  1587  he  had  settled  in  London,  having  already 
distinguished  himself  by  the  production  of  Tambur- 
laine.  The  rest  of  his  life  is  a  deplorable  record  of 
misfortune,  debauchery,  and  folly,  suddenly  and  fright- 
fully terminated,  before  he  had  completed  his  thirtieth 
year,  by  a  violent  death  in  a  tavern-brawl  at  Deptford. 

When  Dryden  observed  of  Shakspeare  that  he 
**  found  not,  but  created  first  the  stage,"  he  said  what 
was  certainly  not  true  of  Shakspeare,  but  what  would, 
with  some  modification,  be  true  of  Marlowe.     To  no 


150  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

single  man  does  our  drama  owe  more  than  to  this  ill- 
starred  genius.  It  was  he  who  determined  the  form 
which  tragedy  and  history  were  permanently  to 
assume.  It  was  he  who  first  clothed  both  in  that 
noble  and  splendid  garb  which  was  ever  afterwards  to 
distinguish  them.  It  was  he  who  gave  the  death-blow 
to  the  old  rhymed  plays  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the 
frigid  and  cumbersome  unrhymed  classical  plays  on 
the  other.  In  his  Doctor  Faustus  and  in  his  Jew 
of  Malta  it  would  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  he 
formulated  English  romantic  tragedy.  He  cast  in 
clay  what  Shakspeare  recast  in  marble.  Indeed, 
Marlowe  was  to  Shakspeare  in  tragedy  precisely  what 
Boiardo  and  Berni  were  to  Ariosto  in  narrative.  It 
is  certain  that  without  the  Orlando  Innamorato  we 
should  never  have  had  the  Orlando  Furioso.  It  is 
more  than  probable  that  without  the  tragedies  of 
Marlowe  we  should  never  have  had,  in  the  form  at 
least  in  which  they  now  stand,  the  tragedies  of  Shak- 
speare. Of  the  History  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  title, 
Marlowe  was  the  creator.  In  his  Edward  I.  Peele 
had,  it  is  true,  made  some  advance  on  the  old 
Chronicles.^  But  the  difference  between  Peele's 
Edward  I.  and  Marlowe's  Edward  II,  is  the 
difference  between  a  work  of  art  and  mere  botch- 
work.  Peele's  play  is  little  better  than  a  series  of 
disconnected  scenes  loosely  tagged  together ;  superior 
indeed  in  style,  but  in  no  way  superior  in  structure 

^  Though  the  date  of  the  publication  of  Peele's  Edward  I.  is  subsequent  to 
that  of  Marlowe's  Edward  II. ,  we  have  little  doubt  that  in  point  of  composi- 
tion it  preceded  Marlowe's  play. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  151 

to  T}\e  Famous  Victomes  of  Heninj  V,  and  to  The 
Troiihleso7ne  Raigne  of  King  John.  In  Edivard  IL 
Marlowe  laid  down,  and  laid  down  for  all  time,  the 
true  principles  of  dramatic  composition  as  applied  to 
history.  He  showed  how,  by  a  judicious  process  of 
selection  and  condensation,  of  modification  and  sup- 
pression, the  crowded  annals  of  many  years  could  in 
efiect  be  presented  within  the  compass  of  a  single 
play.  He  studied  perspective  and  symmetry.  He 
brought  out  in  clear  relief  the  central  figure  and  the 
central  action,  grouping  round  each  in  carefully- 
graduated  subordination  the  accessory  characters  and 
the  accessory  incidents.  Chronology  and  tradition, 
when  they  interfered  either  with  the  harmony  of  his 
work  or  with  dramatic  efi*ect,  he  never  scrupled  to 
ignore  or  alter,  rightly  discriminating  between  the  laws 
imposed  on  the  historian  and  the  laws  imposed  on  the 
dramatist.  He  was  the  first  of  English  playwrights 
to  discern  that  in  dramatic  composition  the  relative 
importance  of  events  is  determined,  not  by  the  space 
which  they  fill  in  history,  but  by  the  manner  in  which 
they  impress  the  imagination  and  bear  on  the  cata- 
strophe. Nor  are  these  Marlowe's  only  titles  to  the 
most  distinguished  place  among  the  fathers  of  English 
tragedy.  He  was  not  only  the  first  of  our  dramatists 
who,  possessing  a  bold  and  vivid  imagination,  pos- 
sessed also  the  faculty  of  adequately  embodying  its 
conceptions,  but  the  first  who,  powerfully  moved  by 
strong  emotion,  succeeding  in  awakening  strong 
emotion  in  others.  In  the  hands  of  his  predecessors 
tragedy  had  been  powerless  to  touch  the  heart.     As 


158  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

a  rule,  it  had  maintained  the  same  dead-level  of  frigid 
and  nerveless  declamation.  In  his  hands  it  resumed 
its  ancient  sway  over  the  passions ;  it  unlocked  the 
sources  of  terror  and  pity.  To  compare  Marlowe  with 
the  Attic  dramatists  would  be  in  the  highest  degree 
absurd,  and  yet  we  must  go  back  to  the  Attic 
dramatists  to  find  anything  equal  to  the  concluding 
scenes  of  Dr,  Faustus  and  Edward  II. 

The  appearance  of  Tamhurlaine  has  been  compared 
to  the  appearance  of  Hernani.  Its  professed  object 
was  to  revolutionise  the  drama.  The  war  which  Victor 
Hugo  declared  against  classicism  Marlowe  declared 
against  the 

jigging  veins  of  rhyming  mother  wits, 
And  such  conceits  as  clownage  keeps  in  pay. 

The  most  remarkable  of  his  innovations  was  the 
substitution  of  blank  verse  for  rhyme  and  prose.  It 
would  not,  of  course,  be  true  to  say  that  Marlowe 
was  the  first  of  our  poets  to  employ  blank  verse  in 
dramatic  composition.  It  had  been  employed  by 
Sackville  and  Norton  in  Go7'boduc ;  by  Gascoigne  in 
Jocasta;  by  Lyly  in  his  Woman  in  the  Moon;  by 
Hughes  in  his  Misfortunes  of  Arthur ;  and  by  the 
authors  of  other  plays  which  in  all  probability  pre- 
ceded Tamhurlaine.  But  these  plays  had  been  con- 
fined exclusively  to  private  audiences,  and  had  not 
been  designed  for  the  popular  stage.  Nor  must  we 
confound  the  blank  verse  of  Marlowe  with  the  blank 
verse  of  these  dramas.  In  them  it  differed  only  from 
the  heroic  couplet  in  wanting  rhyme.  It  had  made 
no   advance  on  Grimoald's   experiments   more  than 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  153 

thirty  years  before.  It  had  no  variety,  no  incatena- 
tion,  no  hannony ;  in  the  contemptuous  phrase  of 
Nash,  it  was  a  drumming  decasyllabon,  and  a  drum- 
ming decasyllabon  there  seemed  every  probability  of 
it  continuing  to  remain.  It  is  remarkable  that,  since 
its  first  introduction  into  our  language  by  Surrey, 
though  it  had  passed  through  the  hands  of  poets 
whose  other  compositions  show  that  they  pos- 
sessed no  common  mastery  over  metrical  expres- 
sion, its  structure  had  never  altered.  The  genius  of 
Marlowe  transformed  it  into  the  noblest  and  most 
flexible  of  English  metres.  If  we  examine  the 
mechanism  of  his  verse,  we  shall  see  that  it  differed 
from  that  of  his  predecessors  in  the  resolution  of  the 
iambic  into  tribrachs  and  dactyls,  in  the  frequent 
substitution  of  trochees  and  pyrrhics  for  monosyllables, 
in  the  large  admixture  of  anapests,  in  the  inter- 
spersion  of  Alexandrines,  in  the  shifting  of  the  pauses, 
in  the  use  of  hemistichs,  in  the  interlinking  of  verse 
with  verse.  It  was  therefore  no  mere  modification, 
no  mere  improvement  on  the  earlier  forms  of  blank 
verse  ;  it  was  a  new  creation. 

The  effect  of  Marlowe's  innovation  was  at  once 
apparent.  First  went  the  old  rhymed  stanzas.  We 
doubt  whether  it  would  be  possible  to  find  a  single 
play  written  in  stanzas  subsequent  to  1587.  Next 
went  the  prose  Histories.  Then  commenced  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  rhymed  couplets.  Thus 
plays  which  previous  to  1587  were  written  in  rhyme, 
we  find  after  1587  interpolated  with  blank  verse. 
Such  is  the  case  with  Tlie  Tfiree  Ladies  of  London; 


164  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

such  is  the  case  with  Selimus ;  such  is  the  case  with 
the  recast  of  Tancred  and  Gismunda.  Before  1587 
Peele  habitually  employed  rhyme;  after  1587  he 
discarded  it  entirely.  Greene,  who,  if  we  interpret 
rightly  an  ambiguous  passage  in  the  Epistle  prefixed 
to  his  PerimedeSj  regarded  Marlowe's  innovation  with 
strong  disfavour,  almost  immediately  adopted  it.  In 
all  his  extant  dramas  blank  verse  is  employed.  By 
1593  it  was  firmly  established. 

How  profoundly  the  genius  of  Marlowe  impressed 
his  contemporaries  is  evident  not  only  from  the 
frequent  allusions  to  his  writings,  but  from  the 
imitations,  close  even  to  servility,  of  his  characters 
and  his  style,  which  abound  in  our  dramatic  literature 
between  1587  and  1600.  Sometimes  we  have  whole 
plays  which  are  mere  parodies  of  his ;  such  would  be 
Gieene' 8  Alphonsus  and  Peele's  Battle  of  Alcazar; 
such  also  would  be  the  anonymous  play.  Lust's 
Dominion.  His  Barabas  and  Tamburlaine  took  the 
same  hold  on  the  popular  imagination  as  the  Conrads 
and  Laras  and  Harolds  and  Manfreds  of  a  later  age, 
appearing  and  reappearing,  variously  modified  in 
numerous  forms.  Tamburlaine  became  the  prototype  of 
the  stage  hero.  Barabas  became  the  prototype  of  the 
stage  villain.  To  enumerate  the  characters  modelled 
on  these  creations  of  Marlowe  would  be  to  transcribe 
the  leading  dramatis  personce  of  at  least  two-thirds 
of  the  heroic  dramas  in  vogue  during  the  latter  years 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Indeed,  the  influence — and 
we  are  speaking  now  not  of  the  general,  but  of  the 
particular  influence — exercised  by  Marlowe  over  the 


1 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  155 

works  of  his  brother  poets  would,  if  traced  in  detail, 
be  found  to  be  far  more  extensive  than  is  generally- 
supposed.  To  go  no  further  than  Shakspeare, 
Richard  II.  is  undoubtedly  modelled  on  Edward 
II. ;  the  character  of  Richard  is  the  character 
of  Edward  slightly  modified.  In  the  second  and 
third  parts  of  Henry  VI.,  if  Shakspeare  did  not 
actually  work  in  co-operation  with  Marlowe,  he  set 
himself  to  imitate  with  servile  fidelity  Marlowe's 
method  and  Marlowe's  style.  Aaron  in  Titus 
Andronicus  is  Barabas  in  Tlie  Jew  of  Malta;  so  in 
some  degree  is  Shylock ;  so  in  a  considerable  degree 
is  Richard  III.  In  the  nurse  who  attends  on  Dido 
we  have  a  sort  of  first  sketch  of  the  nurse  in  Romeo 
and  Jidiet.  From  TJie  Jew  of  Malta  Shakspeare 
derived  many  hints  for  The  Merchant  of  Venice. 
From  the  concluding  scene  of  Dr.  Faustus  he 
borrowed,  or  appears  to  have  borrowed,  one  of  the 
finest  touches  in  Macbeth.^ 

From  a  historical  point  of  view  it  would, 
therefore,  be  scarcely  possible  to  over-estimate  the 
importance  of  Marlowe's  services.  Regarded  as 
an  initiator,  he  ranks  with  iEschylus.  But  criticism 
must  distinguish  between  merit  which  is  relative 
and  merit  which  is  intrinsic.  It  may  sound  para- 
doxical to  say  of  the  father  of  our  Romantic  drama, 
of  the  master  of  Shakspeare,  that  his  genius  was 
in  .essence  the  very  reverse  of  dramatic,  nay,  that 

^  In  both  tragedies  a  storm  is  raging  without,  while  the  deeds  of  horror  are 
proceeding  in  ghastly  silence  within.  Cf.  the  last  scene  of  Dr.  Fausltts^  edit. 
1616,  and  M<u^>€thy  Act  II.  Sc  3.  It  is  of  course  possible  that  the  scene  may 
have  been  interpolated  by  another  and  later  hand,  and  borrowed  from  Mcuibdk. 


166  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

the  temper  of  his  genius  was  such  as  absolutely  to 
disqualify  him  from  excelling  as  a  dramatist.  And  yet 
such  is  the  case.  In  Marlowe  we  have  the  extra- 
ordinary anomaly  of  a  man  in  whom  the  instincts  of 
the  artist  and  the  temper  of  the  poet  met  in  oppug- 
nancy.  Induced  partly  perhaps  by  the  exigencies  of 
his  position,  partly  no  doubt  influenced  by  the  age  in 
which  it  was  his  chance  to  live,  the  materials  on 
which  he  worked  he  elected  to  cast  in  a  dramatic 
mould.  Nature  had  endowed  him  with  a  singular 
sense  of  fitness  and  harmony,  with  an  appreciation 
of  form  Greek -like  in  its  delicacy  and  subtlety. 
This  is  conspicuous  in  all  he  has  left  us,  in  his 
too  scanty  lyric  poetry,  in  his  too  scanty  narrative 
poetry.  When,  therefore,  he  applied  himself  to 
dramatic  composition,  the  same  instinct  directed  him 
unerringly  to  the  true  principles  on  which  a  drama 
should  be  constructed.  It  caused  him  to  turn  with 
disgust  from  the  rude  and  chaotic  style  of  the  popular 
stage  ;  it  preserved  him,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the 
pedantry  and  affectation  of  the  classical  school.  In 
a  word,  what  propriety  of  expression,  what  nice  skill 
in  the  technique  of  his  art,  could  accomplish,  that 
Marlowe  achieved,  and  the  achievement  has  made  his 
name  memorable  for  ever  in  the  history  of  the  English 
drama. 

But  the  moment  we  turn  from  Marlowe  as  an 
artist  to  Marlowe  as  a  critic  and  painter  of  life,  we 
feel  how  immeasurable  is  the  distance  which  separates 
him,  we  do  not  say  from  Shakspeare,  but  from  many 
of  the  least  distinguished  of  his  brother  playwrights. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  167 

His  genius  and  temper  have  been  admirably  described 
by  Drayton  : — 

Next  Marlowe,  bathed  in  the  Thespian  springs, 
Had  in  him  those  brave  translunary  things 
That  the  first  poets  had  ;  his  raptures  were 
All  ayre  and  fire,  which  made  his  verses  clear, 
For  that  fine  madness  still  he  did  retain, 
Which  rightly  should  possess  a  poet's  brain. 

It  was  in  this  translunary  sphere  that  he  found 
his  characters ;  it  was  under  the  inspiration  of  this 
fine  madness  that  he  delineated  them.  Of  air  and 
fire,  not  of  flesh  and  blood,  are  the  beings  who  people 
his  world  composed.  Regarded  as  counterparts  of 
mankind,  as  studies  of  humanity,  they  are  mere 
absurdities.  They  are  neither  true  to  life  nor  con- 
sistent with  themselves.  Where  they  live  they  live 
by  virtue  of  the  intensity  with  which  they  embody 
abstract  conceptions.  They  are  delineations,  not  of 
human  beings,  but  of  superhuman  passions. 

The  truth  is  that  in  the  constitution  of  Marlowe's 
genius — and  we  are  using  the  word  in  its  widest 
sense — there  were  serious  deficiencies.  In  the  first 
place,  he  had  no  humour ;  in  the  second  place,  he  had 
little  sympathy  with  humanity,  and  with  men  of 
the  common  type,  none — a  defect  which  seems  to 
us  as  detrimental  to  a  dramatist  as  colour-blindness 
would  be  to  a  painter.  In  the  faculty,  again,  of 
minute  and  accurate  observation — a  faculty  which  is 
with  most  dramatists  an  instinct — he  aj^pears  to  have 
been  almost  wholly  lacking.  Nothing  is  so  rare  in 
Marlowe  as  one  of  those  touches  which  show  that  the 
poet  had,  as  Wordsworth  expresses  it,  "  his  eye  on  his 


158  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

object."  His  dramas  teem  with  blunders  and  im- 
proprieties such  as  no  writer  who  had  observed  man- 
kind even  with  common  attention  could  possibly 
have  committed,  and  in  the  vagueness  and  con- 
ventionality of  the  epithets  which  are  in  almost  all 
cases  applied  by  him  to  natural  objects  we  have 
conclusive  evidence  of  the  same  defective  vision. 

The  words  in  which  Sallust  describes  Catiline  will 
apply  with  singular  propriety  to  Marlowe  :  "  Vastus 
animus  semper  incredibilia,  semper  immoderata, 
nimis  alta  cupiebat."  This  is  in  truth  Marlowe's 
distinguishing  characteristic.  It  is  one  of  the  sources 
of  his  greatness  as  a  poet ;  it  is  the  main  source  of 
his  weakness  as  a  dramatist.  It  was  to  him  what 
the  less  exalted  egotism  of  a  less  exalted  nature  was 
to  Byron.  If  we  except  Edward  11. ,  all  his  leading 
characters  resolve  themselves  into  mere  incarnations 
of  this  passion.  In  Tamburlaine  and  Guise  it  is  the 
illimitable  lust  for  dominion.  In  Barabas  it  is  the 
illimitable  lust  for  wealth.  In  Faustus  it  is  the 
insanity  of  sensual  and  intellectual  aspiration.  As 
impersonations  of  mankind  neither  Tamburlaine  nor 
Guise,  neither  Barabas  nor  Faustus,  will  bear  examin- 
ation for  a  moment.  Of  Marlowe's  minor  characters 
there  is  not  one  which  impresses  itself  with  any  dis- 
tinctness on  the  memory.  Indeed,  they  have  scarcely 
more  individuality  than  the  "  fortisque  Gyas,  fortisque 
Cloanthus"  of  the  JSneid,  or  those  heroes  in  the 
Iliad  who  are  mentioned  only  to  swell  the  number 
of  the  slain.  Who  ever  realised  Mycetas  or  Techelles, 
or  Usumcasane  or  Mathias,  or  Ferneze  or  Ithamore 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  169 

or  Lodowick  ?  What  distinguishes  Amyras  from  Cele- 
binus  ?  Or  Jacomo  from  Barnardine  ?  Or  Valdes 
from  Cornelius  1  Or  Calymath  from  Martin  del 
Bosco  ?  Take  again  his  women.  Where  they  are 
not  mere  puppets,  as  is  the  case  with  Zenocrate, 
Abigail,  Bellamira,  and  Catharine,  they  are  pre- 
posterously untrue  to  nature,  as  is  the  case  with 
Olympia,  Isabella,  and  Dido.  In  one  play,  and  in 
one  play  only,  has  Marlowe  displayed  a  power  of 
characterisation  eminently  dramatic.  In  Edivard  II. 
Gaveston,  Mortimer,  and  the  King  himself  are  as 
admirably  drawn  as  they  are  admirably  contrasted. 
The  sculptural  clearness  with  which  the  figure  of 
Mortimer,  cold,  stern,  remorseless,  stands  out  from 
the  crowded  canvas  ;  the  light  but  firm  touches  which 
place  the  King's  young  favourite,  the  joyous,  reckless, 
pleasure  -  loving  Gaveston,  vividly  before  us;  the 
power  and  subtlety  with  which  the  quickly  alternat- 
ing emotions  in  the  breast  of  Edward,  from  his  first 
conflict  with  opposition  to  his  last  appalling  agony, 
are  depicted — all  these  combine  to  place  this  drama 
on  a  far  higher  level  than  any  of  Marlowe's  other 
plays.  Edward  II.  is  said  to  have  been  the  poet's 
last  work.  If  it  was  so,  it  shows  that,  as  his  life 
advanced,  his  genius  was  widening  and  mellowing, 
and  it  increases  our  regret  for  the  accident  which  cut 
short  his  career.  But  that  we  lost  in  Marlowe  a 
possible  rival  of  Shakspeare  is  an  opinion  in  which 
we  by  no  means  concur.  It  is  true  that,  though  the 
two  poets  were  bom  within  a  few  weeks  of  each 
other,  Marlowe  was  the  master  and  Shakspeare  the 


160  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

disciple.  It  is  true  also  that  the  best  work  produced 
by  Shakspeare  at  twenty -nine — to  judge  at  least 
from  what  he  gave  to  the  world — was  greatly  inferior 
to  the  best  work  of  Marlowe.  But  this  proves  little 
more  than  that  the  powers  of  Shakspeare  were,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  slow  in  developing,  and  that  is 
almost  always  the  case  with  men  whose  genius  is  of 
an  objective  cast.  What  we  fail  to  see  in  Marlowe 
is  any  indication  of  power  in  reserve.  Comparatively 
scanty  as  his  work  is,  he  is  constantly  repeating  him- 
self, and  in  the  few  noble  and  impressive  scenes  on 
which  his  fame  as  a  dramatist  mainly  rests,  we  discern 
what  is  perhaps  the  most  unpromising  of  all  symptoms 
in  the  work  of  a  young  writer,  excessive  elaboration. 
That  Edward  11.  is  a  considerable  advance  on  his 
former  plays,  that  it  is  marked  throughout  by  greater 
sobriety,  and  that  it  exhibits  a  wider  range  of  sym- 
pathy and  insight  than  he  has  elsewhere  displayed,  is 
indisputable.  But  this  is  all,  and  this  is  not  much. 
In  a  dramatic  poet  of  the  first  order  we  look  for 
qualities  which  are  as  conspicuously  absent  in  Mar- 
lowe's last  and  maturest  play  as  they  are  in  the  plays 
which  preceded  it. 

We  are  not,  then,  inclined  to  assign  to  Marlowe 
that  high  position  among  dramatists  which  it  has  of 
late  years  been  the  fashion,  and  in  our  opinion  the 
absurd  fashion,  to  claim  for  him.  But  as  a  poet  he 
seems  to  us  to  deserve  all  the  praise  which  his  ad- 
mirers give  him.  The  words  "  rapture  "  and  "  inspira- 
tion," which  are,  when  applied  to  most  poetry,  little 
more  than  figurative  expressions,  have,  when  applied 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  161 

to  his  poetry,  a  strict  propriety.  Never  before  had 
passion  so  intense,  had  imagination  so  vivid  and 
aspiring,  had  fancy  so  rich  and  graceful,  co-existed  in 
equal  measure  and  in  equal  harmony. 

The  energy  of  Marlowe's  genius  was  twofold.  On 
the  one  side  he  is  a  transcendental  enthusiast ;  on  the 
other  side  he  is  a  pagan  hedonist.  On  the  one  side  he 
reflects  the  intense  spiritual  activity,  the  preternatural 
exaltation,  not  merely  of  the  emotions,  but  of  the 
imagination  and  the  intellect,  which  were  among  the 
most  striking  efiects  of  the  Kenaissance  in  England. 
On  the  other  side  he  reflects  not  less  faithfully  the 
peculiarities  of  that  great  movement  as  it  affected 
academic  Italy.  The  ardour  of  his  passion  for  the 
ideal,  and  the  intensity  with  which  he  has  expressed 
that  passion,  are  what  impress  us  most  in  his  dramas. 
In  his  poems,  on  the  other  hand,  the  predominating 
element  is  pure  sensuousness.  It  is  the  poetry  not 
of  desire,  but  of  fruition.  No  poem  in  our  language 
is  more  classical,  in  the  sense  at  least  in  which 
Politian  and  Sanazzaro  would  have  understood  the 
term,  and  assuredly  no  poem  in  our  language  is  more 
sensuously  lovely,  than  Hero  and  Leander.  It  re- 
minds us  in  some  respects  of  the  best  episodes  in  the 
Metamorphoses,  and  it  reminds  us  still  more  fre- 
quently of  Keats's  narratives,  not,  indeed,  of  Isabella 
or  of  The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,  but  indirectly  of 
Endymion,  and  directly  of  Lamia. 

But  of  all  Marlowe's  gifts  the  most  remarkable, 

perhaps,  was  his  gift  of  expression.     It  may  be  said 

of  him,  with  literal  truth,  that  he  "  voluntary  moved 

M 


162  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

harmonious  numbers."  Of  the  music  of  his  verse 
it  is  superfluous  to  speak.  On  this  point  we  are 
inclined  to  go  almost  as  far  as  Mr.  Swinburne.  If 
the  melodies  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  are  fuller 
and  more  complex,  if  the  music  of  the  poets  who 
have  during  the  present  century  revealed  new 
capacities  in  our  language  has  a  subtler  fascination, 
no  clearer,  no  nobler,  no  more  melodious  note  than 
the  note  of  Marlowe  vibrates  in  our  poetry.  His 
diction,  too,  when  at  its  best  —  as  we  see  it,  for 
example,  in  Hero  and  Leander,  in  the  lyric  Come 
Live  with  Me,  and  in  such  passages  in  his  plays 
as  Tamburlaine's  speech  to  Zenocrate,  as  Faust's 
apostrophe  to  the  shade  of  Helen,  as  Edward's  last 
speeches  to  Leicester,  as  Guise's  soliloquy,  as  Bald- 
win's speech  to  Spenser — seems  to  us  to  approach  as 
nearly  to  the  style  of  the  Greek  masterpieces  as 
anything  to  be  found  in  English.  It  is  the  per- 
fection of  that  diction  which  is  at  once  natural  and 
poetical,  at  once  simple  and  dignified. 

Next  in  importance  to  Marlowe  comes  Kobert 
Greene.  Of  all  the  writers  who  between  1584  and 
1592  followed  literature  as  a  profession,  Greene  was 
the  most  fertile  and  the  most  popular.  *'  In  a  day 
and  a  night,"  says  his  friend  Nash,  "  would  he  have 
yarked  up  a  pamphlet  as  well  as  in  seven  years,  and 
glad  was  that  printer  that  might  be  so  blest  as  to 
pay  him  dear  for  the  very  dregs  of  his  wit."  He 
distinguished  himself  as  a  poet,  as  a  novelist,  as  a 
social  satirist,  and  as  a  playwright.  And  to  Greene, 
both  as  an  individual  and  as  an  author,  a  peculiar 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  163 

interest  attaches  itself.     In  the  first  place,  no  man  of 
that  age  is  so  well  known  to  us,  for  he  has  himself,  in 
some  of  the  most  remarkable  confessions  which  have 
ever  been  given  to  the  world,  laid  bare  the  innermost 
secrets  of  his  life.     In  the  second  place,  he  is,  of  aU 
our  writers,  the  writer  who  illustrates  most  clearly 
the  exact  nature  of  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
Renaissance   on   English  genius;    and   in   the  third 
place,  there  is  about  many  of  his  writings  a  singular 
charm  and  grace.     He  was  born  at  Norwich,  probably 
about  1560.     In  due  time  he  proceeded  to  Cambridge, 
taking  his  Bachelor's  degree  as  a  member  of  St.  John's 
College  in  1578,  and  his  Master's  five  years  later  as  a 
member  of  Clare  Hall.     At  Cambridge  he  appears  to 
have  been  equally  distinguished  by  his  profligacy  and 
his  abilities.     Between  1578  and   1583  he  travelled 
on    the    Continent,    visiting    Italy,    France,    Spain, 
Germany,  Poland,  and  Denmark.     He  returned,  he 
tells   us,  an   adept  in   all   the   villainies  under   the 
heavens,  a  glutton,  a  libertine,  and  a  drunkard.     But 
he  returned,  it  is  certain,  with  other  and  more  honour- 
able attainments — with  rich  stores  of  observation  and 
experience,  with  a  genius  polished  and  enlarged  by 
communion  with  the  Classics  of  Rome  and  Florence, 
and  with  a  mind  profoundly  impressed  by  the  loveli- 
ness and  splendour  of  the  lands  which  Nature  loves. 
He  commenced  his  literary  career  about  1583,  with  a 
prose  novel,  Mamillia,  which  was  three  years  after- 
wards succeeded  by  a  second  part ;   and,  as  this  is 
dated  from  his  study  in  Clare  Hall,  it  is  probable  that 
he  resided  at  Cambridge  between  the  period  of  his 


164  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 


return  from  the  Continent  and  his  taking  his  Master's 
degree.      By    1586    he   had    apparently   settled    in 
London.     The  story  of  Greene's  life,  from  this  period 
to  his  death,  has  been  so  often  told  that  it  is  quite 
unnecessary  to  tell  it  again  here.     We  will  only  say 
that  for  our  own  part  we  are  strongly  inclined  to 
suspect  that  his  debaucheries  have  been  very  much 
exaggerated.     That  he  was  a  man  of  loose  principles 
and  loose  morals,  and  that  he  was  reckless  and  im- 
provident, is  evidently  no  more  than  truth  ;  but  that 
he  was  what  his  enemies  have  asserted,  and  what  he 
himself,    under   the   influence   of   religious   reaction, 
morbidly  aggravated  by  remorse,  represented  himself 
to  have  been — a  prodigy  of  turpitude — seems  to  us 
utterly  incompatible  with  facts.      Greene's  life  was 
and  must  have  been  a  life  of  incessant  literary  activity. 
It  is  almost  certain  that  many  of  his  writings  have 
perished,  and  yet  enough  remains  of  his  poetry  and 
prose   to   fill   eleven   goodly   volumes,    and    enough 
survives   of   his   dramatic   composition   to    fill    two 
volumes  more.     And  all  this  was  the  work  of  about 
eleven  years.    Now,  making  every  allowance  for  rapid 
and  facile  workmanship,  is  it  within  the  bounds  of 
possibility  that  a  man  sunk  so  low  in  sensuality  and 
dissoluteness  as  Greene  is  said  to  have  been  could  in 
that  time  have  produced  so  much,  and  so  much,  we 
may  add,  that  was  good  ?     Again,  four  years  before 
his  death  he  was  incorporated  at  Oxford,  a  certain 
proof  that,  well  known  as  his  name  must  have  been — 
for  he  was  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame — scandal 
had  not  been  busy  with  it  there.     His  patrons  and 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  165 

patronesses,  moreover,  were  to  be  found  among  the 
most  virtuous  and  honourable  persons  then  living. 
It  is  not,  indeed,  likely  that  the  Riches  and  Arundels, 
the  Talbots  and  Stanleys,  troubled  themselves  very 
much  about  the  private  life  of  a  needy  man  of  letters ; 
but  it  is  very  certain  that,  had  Greene's  excesses  been 
as  notorious  as  we  are  told  they  were,  he  would  never 
have  dared  to  address  the  Lady  Fitzwaters  or  the 
Lady  jVIary  Talbot  as  he  addresses  them  in  the  Dedi- 
cations of  Arhasto  and  Philomela,  and  he  would 
scarcely  have  ventured  to  subscribe  himself  in  a 
Dedication  to  a  man  in  the  position  of  Thomas 
Barnaby,  "your  dutiful  and  adopted  son."  If 
other  testimony  were  needed  it  would  be  afforded 
by  his  writings.  Not  only  are  they  absolutely  free 
from  any  taint  of  impiety  or  impurity,  but  they 
were  in  almost  all  cases  produced  with  the  express 
object  of  making  vice  odious  and  virtue  attractive, 
and  in  this  laudable  endeavour  he  was  prompted  by 
the  noblest  of  motives.  He  was  certainly  no  hypo- 
crite, for  the  most  malignant  of  his  enemies  could 
not  have  borne  more  hardly  on  his  weaknesses  than 
he  has  himself  done.  He  was  not  impelled  by  the 
love  of  gain,  for,  though  morality  was  popular  in  the 
fiction  of  that  day,  there  is  abundant  evidence  to 
show  that  immorality  was  much  more  popular.  It  is, 
moreover,  due  to  Greene  to  say  that  the  chief  testi- 
mony against  him  is  derived  from  his  own  confessions, 
and  that,  if  these  confessions  afford  evidence  of  his 
delinquencies,  they  afford  not  less  certain  evidence  of 
the  presence  of  a  disease  which  caused  him  to  magnify 


166  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

those  delinquencies  tenfold.  Nothing  can,  we  think, 
be  clearer  than  that  the  mind  of  this  unhappy  man 
was,  like  that  of  Bunyan,  distempered  by  religious 
hypochondria.  In  every  page  of  his  autobiographical 
pamphlets  we  are  reminded  of  Grace  Abounding. 
He  tells  us,  for  example,  how  on  one  occasion  he  had 
an  inward  motion  in  Saint  Andrew's  Church  at 
Norwich ;  how  he  was  satisfied  that  he  deserved  no 
redemption  ;  how  a  voice  within  him  told  him  that  he 
would,  unless  he  speedily  repented,  be  wiped  out  of 
the  Book  of  Life  ;  how  he  cried  out  in  the  anguish  of 
his  soul,  "Lord  have  mercy  upon  me,  and  give  me 
grace " ;  but  how  he  "  fell  again,  like  a  dog,  to  his 
vomit,"  and  became  in  the  judgment  of  the  godly  the 
child  of  perdition.  The  world  has  long  done  Bunyan 
the  justice  which  he  did  not  do  himself,  and  has  rightly 
discriminated  between  facts  as  they  were  and  facts  as 
his  morbid  fancy  painted  them.  How  necessary  it  is 
to  make  allowance  for  sensibilities  similarly  diseased 
in  the  case  of  Greene  will  be  evident  from  this.  He 
has  over  and  over  again  reproached  himself,  and  re- 
proached himself  most  bitterly,  with  prostituting  his 
genius  to  unworthy  purposes.  He  speaks  almost  with 
agony  of  his  amorous  and  wanton  pamphlets.  He 
calls  himself  a  second  Ovid.  "  But,  as  I  have,"  he 
says  in  the  preface  to  his  Mourning  Garment,  "  heard 
with  the  ears  of  my  heart  Jonas  crying.  Except  thou 
repent — I  have  resolved  to  turn  my  wanton  works  to 
effectual  labours."  The  natural  inference  from  this  is 
that  he  had  published  works  of  a  grossly  immoral 
character.     But  what  is  the  truth  ?     There  is  not,  as 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  167 

we  have  already  observed,  a  single  line  in  Greene's 
writings  which  has  the  least  tincture  of  licentious- 
ness. On  the  contrary,  scrupulous  purity  distinguishes 
everything  which  has  come  from  his  pen.  And  that 
what  he  said  had  no  reference  to  works  which  are 
lost  is  absolutely  certain.  All  he  meant  was  that  the 
composition  of  love-stories  was  an  idle  and  frivolous 
employment,  unworthy  of  a  man  who  aspired  to 
teach ;  but  this  became,  when  translated  into  the 
jargon  of  The  Mourning  Garment  and  The  Repentance, 
precisely  what  tipcat  and  bell-ringing  became  when 
translated  into  the  jargon  of  Grace  Abounding. 
Now,  if  Greene  could,  under  the  influence  of  religious 
hallucination,  so  totally  and  so  absurdly  misrepresent 
himself  as  a  wTiter,  nothing  can  be  more  likely  than 
that  in  his  confessions  his  character  as  a  man  has 
been  equally  distorted.  The  truth  is  that  his  proper 
place  is  not,  as  his  biographers  would  have  us  believe, 
beside  Boyse  and  Savage,  Cuthbert  Shaw  and  Dermody, 
but  beside  Steele  and  Fielding,  beside  Goldsmith  and 
Burns — in  other  words,  beside  men  who  were  rather 
morally  weak  than  morally  depraved,  whom  we 
censure  reluctantly  and  sincerely  love,  and  who, 
whatever  may  have  been  their  infirmities,  were  sound 
in  the  noble  parts. 

We  have  indulged  ourselves  in  these  remarks 
because  we  freely  own  that  Greene  is  a  great 
favourite  with  us.  We  have  read  and  re -read  his 
poems,  his  novels,  and  his  plays,  and  at  each  perusal 
their  pure  and  wholesome  spirit,  their  liveliness, 
their  freshness,  their  wealth  of  fancy  and  imagination, 


168  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

their  humour,  their  tenderness,  their  many  graces  of 
style,  have  gained  on  us  more  and  more.  The  best 
of  his  novels — and  the  best  are  undoubtedly  Pan- 
dosto,  Philomela,  Never  too  Late,  and  A  Groats- 
worth  of  Wit,  though  in  some  instances  tainted 
with  the  vices  of  euphuism — are  in  their  way  admir- 
able. They  strike,  it  is  true,  no  deep  chords,  nor 
are  they  in  reflection  and  analysis  either  subtle  or 
profound ;  but  they  are  transcripts  from  life,  and  they 
are  full  of  beauty  and  pathos.  Greene's  favourite 
theme  is  the  contrast  between  the  purity  and  long- 
suffering  of  woman,  and  the  follies  and  selfishness  of 
man.  In  all  the  novels  to  which  we  have  referred 
appears  the  same  angelic  figure  ;  in  all  of  them  the 
same  meek,  patient,  blameless  sufferer  passes  through 
the  same  cruel  ordeal,  and  her  tormentor  is  her 
husband.  He  is  either  insanely  jealous,  as  is  the 
case  with  Pandosto  and  Philippo  in  the  first  two 
novels,  or  unfaithful  and  dissolute,  as  is  the  case 
with  Francesco  and  Eoberto  in  the  last  two.  In 
either  case  the  life  of  the  unhappy  wife  is  one 
long  martyrdom,  and  in  depicting  that  martyrdom 
Greene  shows  a  power  and  pathos  not  unworthy  of 
him  who  painted  the  wrongs  and  virtues  of  Constance 
and  Griselda.  It  is  said  that  Greene  drew,  like 
Fielding,  on  his  own  experience,  that  he  found  his 
Bellarias,  his  Philomelas,  his  Isabellas,  where  Fielding 
found  Amelia,  in  his  own  wife  ;  and  that  he  found 
his  Francescos,  his  Kobertos,  and  his  Philippos,  where 
Fielding  found  Booth,  in  himself.  Of  the  auto- 
biographical character  of  two  at  least  of  his  novels. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  169 

Never  too  Late  and  A  Groatsworth  of  Wit,  there 
can  be  no  question. 

Greene  followed  Sanazzaro  in  interspersing 
prose  with  poetry,  and  it  is  in  his  prose  writings 
that  all  his  non- dramatic  poetry  is,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  to  be  found.  Mr.  Symonds  remarks  that 
the  lyrics  of  Grcone  have  been  under -rated.  We 
quite  agree  with  him.  Greene's  best  lyrics  are  not 
indeed  equal  to  the  best  lyrics  of  Lodge  and  Barn- 
field.  In  spontaneity  and  grace  Kosalynde's  madrigal 
is  incomparably  superior  to  Menaphon's  song.  In  finish 
and  felicity  of  expression  Menaphon's  picture  of  the 
maid  with  the  "  dallying  locks "  must  yield  to 
Rosader's  picture  of  Rosalynde,  and,  charming  as 
Greene's  octosyllabics  always  are,  they  have  not  the 
charm  of  Barnfield's  Nightingale's  Lament.  But 
Greene's  ordinary  level  is  far  above  the  ordinary 
level  of  both  these  poets.  For  one  poem  which  we 
pause  over  in  theirs,  there  are  five  which  we  pause 
over  in  his.  He  has,  moreover,  much  more  variety. 
What,  for  example,  could  be  more  exquisite,  simple 
though  it  is  even  to  homeliness,  than  Sephestia's 
song  in  Menaphonf  The  tranquil  beauty  of  the 
song  beginning  "  Sweet  are  the  thoughts  that  savour 
of  content,"  in  the  Farewell  to  Folly,  and  of  Barme- 
nissa's  song  in  Penelope's  Web,  fascinates  at  once 
and  for  ever.  His  fancy  sketches  are  delicious.  The 
picture  of  Diana  and  her  bathing  nymphs  invaded  by 
Cupid  in  the  little  poem  entitled  Radagon  in  Dianam, 
the  picture  of  the  journeying  Palmer  in  Never  too 
Late,  of  Phillis  in  the  valley  in  Ciceronis  Amor,  of — 


170  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

The  God  that  hateth  sleep, 

Clad  in  armour  all  of  fire, 

Hand  in  hand  with  Queen  Desire, 

in  the  Palmer's  Ode,  are  finished  cameos  of  rare 
beauty.  Not  less  charming  are  the  love  poems,  and 
among  them  is  one  real  gem,  the  song  in  Pandosto, 
"  Ah,  were  she  pitiful  as  she  is  fair."  Like  all  the 
erotic  poetry  of  the  Kenaissance,  they  owe,  it  is  true, 
more  to  art  than  to  nature.  Some  of  them  are 
studies  from  the  Italian,  others  from  the  French. 
Occasionally  they  appear  to  have  derived  their 
colouring  from  the  Apocryphal  books  of  the  Bible. 
In  Menaphon's  song,  beginning  "  Too  weak  the  wit," 
there  is  an  oriental  gorgeousness.  But  the  element 
predominating  in  them  is  classicism,  and  classicism 
of  the  Italian  type,  the  classicism  of  Bembo,  of 
Sanazzaro.  Thus  they  appeal  rather  to  the  fancy 
than  to  the  heart,  rather  to  the  senses  than  to  the 
passions.  And  so  graceful  is  their  imagery,  so  rich 
is  their  colouring,  so  pure  and  musical  is  their  diction, 
that  they  are  never  likely  to  appeal  in  vain. 

To  the  composition  of  his  plays  Greene  brought 
the  same  qualities  which  are  conspicuous  in  his 
novels  and  his  poems,  the  same  sympathetic  insight 
into  certain  types  of  character  and  certain  phases 
of  life,  the  same  fertility  in  inventing  incident  and 
detail,  the  same  faculty  of  pictorial  as  distinguished 
from  dramatic  representation,  the  same  refined  pathos, 
the  same  mingled  artificiality  and  simplicity,  the  same 
exuberant  fancy,  the  same  ornate  and  fluent  elo- 
quence of  style.     But  he  brought  little  else.     Such 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  171 

qualities  never  have  sufficed,  and  never  could  suffice, 
to  produce  dramas  of  the  first  order.  In  Greene's 
hands  they  have  sufficed  to  produce  dramas  which, 
though  not  of  the  first  order,  are  among  the  most 
delightful  and  fascinating  productions  of  Elizabethan 
genius.  But  this  praise  applies,  it  must  be  admitted, 
only  to  three  out  of  the  six  plays  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  and  it  would  have  been  well  for  Greene's 
fame  if  the  other  three  had  perished.  In  that  case 
his  best  work  would  not  have  been  confounded,  as 
it  almost  always  is  confounded,  with  his  worst.  In 
that  case  his  critics  would  not,  like  Mr.  Symonds, 
have  observed  generally  of  his  blank  verse  that  it 
"  betrays  the  manner  of  the  couplet,"  or  generally  of 
his  style  that  it  is  cumbersome  and  pedantic.  Indeed, 
the  contrast  between  the  plays  of  the  first  group — 
The  History  of  Orlando  Fiirioso,  Alphonsus  King  of 
Aragony  and  The  Looking -Glass  for  London  and 
England,  which  was  written  in  conjunction  with 
Lodge — and  the  plays  of  the  second  group — Friar 
Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  James  IV.  of  Scot- 
land, and  The  Pinner  of  Wakefield — is  in  point 
of  style  so  great  that,  if  we  had  only  internal 
evidence  to  guide  us,  we  should  be  inclined  to 
assign  them  to  different  writers.  The  first  two  were, 
in  all  probability,  Greene's  earliest  attempts  at 
dramatic  composition  in  blank  verse.  They  are  in 
the  style  of  Tamburlaine,  and  they  reflect  too 
faithfully  the  worst  features  of  that  work.  For 
with  all  its  fustian  they  have  none  of  its  music, 
with  all  its  absurdities  as  a  drama  they  have  none 


172  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  its  beauties  as  a  poem.  TJie  Looking  -  Glass  is 
a  wild  and  silly  medley,  for  which  we  suspect 
Lodge  was  mainly  responsible.  It  is,  therefore,  as 
the  author  of  the  plays  of  the  second  group,  and 
as  the  author  of  those  plays  only,  that  Greene 
deserves  attention. 

Of  the  importance  of  these  plays  in  the  history 
of  our  drama  there  can  be  no  question.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  author  of  Friar  Bacon 
and  Friar  Bungay  and  of  James  IV.  of  Scotland 
stands  in  the  same  relation  to  Komantic  Comedy 
as  the  author  of  Tamhurlaine  and  Edward  II. 
stands  to  Eomantic  Tragedy.  If,  historically  speak- 
ing, it  is  only  a  step  from  Edward  II.  to  Henry  F., 
it  is,  historically  speaking,  only  a  step  from  Friar 
Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay  and  James  IV.  to  the 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  to  ^5  You  Like  It. 
We  have  only  to  glance  at  the  condition  of  Comedy 
before  it  came  into  Greene's  hands  to  see  how 
great  was  the  revolution  effected  by  him.  On  the 
popular  stage  it  had  scarcely  cast  off  the  shackles 
of  the  old  barbarism.  It  still  clung  to  the  old 
stanzas ;  or  if,  as  in  the  Knack  to  Know  a  Knave 
and  in  the  Taming  of  a  Shrew,  it  employed  blank 
verse,  the  blank  verse  was  blank  verse  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  prose.  It  still  clung  to  the  old 
buffoonery.  It  still  remained  unilluminated  by 
romance  or  poetry.  In  the  theatre  of  the  classical 
school,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  a  mere  academic 
exercise,  as  it  was  with  Lyly,  or  a  mere  copy  from 
the   Italian,  as  it  had  been  with  Gascoigne.      We 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  173 

open  Greene's  comedies,  and  we  are  in  the  world 
of  Shakspeare,  we  are  with  the  sisters  of  Olivia 
and  Imogen,  with  the  brethren  of  Touchstone  and 
Florizel,  in  the  homes  of  Phebe  and  Perdita.  We 
breathe  the  same  atmosphere,  we  listen  to  the  same 
language. 

It  w^as  Greene  who  first  brought  Comedy  into  con- 
tact with  the  blithe  bright  life  of  Elizabethan  England, 
into  contact  with  poetry,  into  contact  with  romance. 
He  took  it  out  into  the  woods  and  the  fields,  and  gave 
it  all  the  charm  of  the  idyll ;  he  filled  it  with  incident 
and  adventure,  and  gave  it  all  the  interest  of  the 
novel.  A  freshness  as  of  the  morning  pervades  these 
delightful  medleys.  Turn  where  we  will — to  the  loves 
of  Lacy  and  Margaret  at  merry  Fressingfield,  to  the 
wizard  friar  and  the  marvels  of  his  magic  cell  at 
Oxford,  to  the  patriot  Pinner  and  his  boisterous 
triumphs,  to  Oberon  with  his  fairies  and  antics 
revelling  round  him,  to  the  waggeries  of  Slipper  and 
Miles — everywhere  we  find  the  same  light  and  happy 
touch,  the  same  free  joyous  spontaneity.  His  serious 
scenes  are  often  admirable.  We  really  know  nothing 
more  touching  than  the  reconciliation  of  James  and 
Dorothea  at  the  conclusion  of  James  IV.,  and  nothing 
more  eloquent  with  the  simple  eloquence  of  the  heart 
than  Margaret's  vindication  of  Lacy  in  Friar  Bacon. 
The  scene  again  in  the  second  act  of  James  /F"., 
where  Eustace  first  meets  Ida,  would  in  our  opinion 
alone  suffice  to  place  Greene  in  the  front  rank  of 
idyllic  poets.  Greene's  plots  are  too  loosely  con- 
structed, his  characters  too  sketchy,  his  grasp  and 


174  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

range  too  limited,  to  entitle  him  to  a  liigh  place 
among  dramatists,  and  yet  as  we  read  these  medleys 
we  cannot  but  feel  how  closely  we  are  standing  to 
the  Komantic  Comedies  of  Shakspeare.  And  the  re- 
semblance lies  not  merely  generally  in  the  fact  that 
the  same  unforced  and  genial  energy  is  at  work  in 
both,  and  in  the  fact  that  both  have,  as  it  were,  their 
roots  in  the  same  rich  soil,  but  in  particular  re- 
semblances. In  Greene's  women,  in  Margaret,  for 
example,  in  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  and  in 
Ida  and  Dorothea  in  James  IV.,  we  see  in  outline  the 
women  most  characteristic  of  Shakspearean  Romantic 
Comedy,  while  Slipper,  Nano,  and  Miles  are  un- 
doubtedly the  prototypes  of  the  Shakspearean  clown. 
Nor  could  any  one  who  compares  the  versification 
and  diction  of  Shakspeare's  early  romances  with  the 
versification  and  diction  of  Greene's  medleys  fail  to 
be  struck  with  the  remarkable  similarity  between 
them.  It  seems  to  us  that  Shakspeare  owed  at  least 
as  much  to  Greene  as  he  owed  to  Marlowe.  In  the 
rhymed  couplets  and  in  the  blank  verse  of  his  earlier 
comedies  the  influence  of  Greene  is  unmistakable, 
and  we  wiU  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  prose 
dialogue  of  Shakspeare — we  are  not  of  course  speak- 
ing of  his  maturer  plays — was  modelled  on  the  prose 
dialogue  of  Greene.  Again,  in  The  Pinner  of  Wake- 
jield  we  have  an  example  of  that  pure  homely  realism, 
admirable  alike  in  tone,  touch,  and  style,  of  those 
simple  faithful  transcripts  of  ordinary  commonplace 
life,  which  were  to  form  so  important  a  feature  in 
Shakspearean  Comedy  and  History. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  175 

Third  in  the  triumvirate  with  Marlowe  and  Greene 
stands  George  Peele.  The  merits  of  Peele  have 
been  greatly  over-rated.  They  were  ridiculously 
over-rated  by  his  contemporaries.  They  have  been 
inexplicably  over-rated  by  modern  critics.  Gifford 
classes  him  with  Marlowe.  Dyce  ranks  him  above 
Greene.  Campbell,  in  an  often-quoted  passage,  pro- 
nounces his  David  and  Bethsabe  to  be  the  "  earliest 
fountain  of  pathos  and  harmony  that  can  be  traced  in 
our  dramatic  literature,"  and  goes  on  to  speak  of  the 
"  solid  veracity  "  and  "  ideal  beauty  "  of  his  characters. 
The  tradition,  originating  from  Isaac  Reed,  that  Milton 
borrowed  the  plot  of  Comus  from  The  Old  Wives' 
Tale,  has,  we  suspect,  greatly  contributed  to  this 
factitious  reputation.  The  truth  is  that  of  Peelers 
six  plays  there  is  not  one  which  can  be  said  to  be 
meritorious  as  a  drama,  or  to  have  contributed  any 
new  elements  to  dramatic  composition.  Sir  Clyomon 
and  Sir  Clamydes  is  in  the  style  of  Damon  and 
Pythias,  and  is,  if  possible,  more  insufferably  dull. 
The  Arraignment  of  Paris  is  a  mere  pageant. 
Neither  Edward  I.  nor  The  Battle  of  Alcazar  con- 
tains a  single  effective  scene,  or  a  single  well-drawn 
character,  a  single  touch  of  genuine  pathos,  a  single 
stroke  of  genuine  humour.  In  Tlie  Old  Wives'  Tale 
we  have  an  attempt  in  the  manner  of  Greene,  but  the 
difference  between  the  medleys  of  Greene  and  the 
medley  of  Peele  is  the  difference  between  an  artfully- 
varied  panorama  and  the  anarchy  of  distempered 
dreams.  From  beginning  to  end  it  is  a  tissue  of 
absurdities.      Ulrici,  indeed,  discerns,  or  affects  to 


176  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

discern,  a  profound  allegory  underlying  these  absurdi- 
ties. We  can  only  say  that  even  with  the  clue  which 
he  has  furnished  we  fail  to  see  the  allegory.  Peek's 
best  play  is  undoubtedly  David  and  Bethsabe,  but  it 
is  best  only  in  the  sense  of  containing  his  finest  writing. 
As  a  drama  it  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the 
others — that  is  to  say,  it  is  perfectly  worthless. 

Peele's  sole  merit  lies  in  his  style  and  in  a  certain 
fertility  of  fancy.  His  style  cannot  indeed  be  praised 
without  reservation.  It  is  too  ornate ;  it  is  too 
diffuse ;  it  is  wholly  lacking  in  nerve  and  energy ;  but 
it  is  flowing  and  harmonious.  The  heroic  couplets  in 
his  Arraignment  of  Paris  have  a  sweetness  and 
fluency  such  as  English  versification  had  only  occa- 
sionally attained  before,  and,  though  his  blank  verse 
has  the  monotony  necessarily  characteristic  of  blank 
verse  constructed  on  the  model  of  the  couplet,  it  is  at 
times  exquisitely  musical.  If  that  noble  measure, 
which  is  to  poetry  what  the  organ  is  to  music,  owed 
its  trumpet-stop  to  Marlowe,  it  may,  we  think,  with 
equal  truth  be  said  to  owe  its  flute-stop  to  Peele. 
The  opening  scene  of  David  and  Bethsdbe  is  in  mere 
mellifluousness  equal  to  anything  which  has  been 
produced  in  blank  verse  since. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Peele  did  not  follow  the 
example  of  Guarini  and  Tasso.  Had  he  applied  him- 
self to  the  composition  of  such  works  as  the  Aminta 
and  the  Pastor  Fido,  he  would  have  excelled.  In  his 
drama  may  be  discerned  all  the  characteristics  of 
those  most  pleasing  idylls,  the  same  delight  in 
dallying  with  tender  and  graceful  images,  the  same 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  177 

splendour  of  colouring,  the  same  curious  mixture  of 
paganism  and  sentiment,  the  same  instinctive  selec- 
tion of  such  scenes  and  objects  in  Nature  as  charm 
rather  than  impose,  the  same  felicity  in  rhetorically 
portraying  them,  the  same  liquid  harmony  of  verse, 
the  same  ornate  elaboration  of  diction.  Nor,  on  the 
negative  side,  is  the  resemblance  less  striking.  Like 
them,  Peele  has  no  power  over  the  passions,  no 
rapidity  of  movement,  nothing  that  stirs,  nothing 
that  elevates. 

With  the  names  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele 
are  usually  associated  the  names  of  Thomas  Nash 
and  Thomas  Lodge.  Of  Nash's  dramas  one  only  has 
survived,  an  absurd  and  tedious  medley  entitled 
Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament,  He  is  stated 
also  to  have  been  Marlowe's  coadjutor  in  that  wretched 
travesty  of  the  fourth  jEneid — Dido,  Queen  of  Car- 
thage— the  most  worthless  portions  of  which  may  on 
internal  evidence  be  with  some  confidence  assigned 
to  him.  Nash's  laurels  were,  it  should  be  added,  won 
on  other  fields.  As  a  prose  satirist  he  had  neither 
equal  nor  second  among  his  contemporaries.  And 
what  is  true  of  Nash  as  a  dramatist  is  true  also  of 
Lodge.  Of  all  Lodge's  multifarious  writings,  his 
contributions  to  the  drama  form  the  least  valuable 
portion.  He  has  written  excellent  prose  pamphlets. 
His  versions  of  Seneca  and  Joseph  us  have  placed 
him  beside  North  and  Holland  in  the  front  rank  of 
Elizabethan  translators.  His  Fig  for  Momus  gives 
him  a  prominent  place  among  the  fathers  of  English 

classical  satire.     He  is  the  author  of  some  of  the  most 

N 


178  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

exquisitely  graceful  and  musical  lyrics  to  be  found  in 
our  early  poetry.  His  pastoral  poems,  and  above  all 
his  Scilla's  Metamorphosis,  though  of  a  beauty  too 
luscious  and  florid  to  please  a  severe  taste,  are  among 
the  good  things  of  their  kind.  On  his  delightful  prose 
romance,  Eosalynde,  or  JEuphues'  Golden  Legacy, 
Shakspeare  founded  As  You  Like  It,  and  it  is  doing 
Lodge  no  more  than  justice  to  say  that  we  still  turn 
with  pleasure  from  the  drama  to  the  novel.  But  his 
powers,  versatile  though  they  were,  were  not  such  as 
qualified  him  to  excel  as  a  dramatist.  His  only 
extant  play — of  his  share  in  The  Looking- Glass  for 
London  and  England  we  have  already  spoken — is 
The  Wounds  of  Civil  War.  It  treats  of  the  struggle 
between  Marius  and  Sulla,  and  is  based  partly  on 
Plutarch  and  partly  on  apocryphal  matter,  which  is, 
for  aught  we  know,  Lodge's  own  invention.  The  plot 
is  ill  constructed,  the  characters,  though  by  no  means 
without  individuality,  are  without  interest,  and  the 
action,  in  spite  of  its  studied  variety,  has  all  the 
effect  of  the  most  tiresome  monotony.  Historically, 
the  work  is  interesting  as  a  step  towards  Shakspeare's 
Eoman  plays.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  first  English  drama 
inspired  by  Plutarch,  and  the  first  attempt  to 
romanticise,  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  term, 
Eoman  history.  Thus  the  introduction  of  a  clown, 
two  comic  scenes,  in  one  of  which  a  Gaul  talks  in  a 
jargon  of  French  and  broken  English,  and  a  scene 
in  which  Marius  makes  a  complaint  to  respondent 
Echo,  link  it  with  the  Komance.  The  blank 
verse    is   easy   and    fluent,    but    very    monotonous, 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  179 

and  is  studiously  constructed  on  the  model  of  the 
couplet. 

In  passing  from  this  school  of  playwrights  to  Kyd, 
we  pass  to  a  dramatist  whose  proper  place  in  the 
history  of  the  Elizabethan  stage  it  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult to  determine.  Almost  everything  relating  to 
Kyd  rests  on  mere  conjecture.  His  biography  is  a 
blank.  We  know  neither  the  date  of  the  composition 
of  his  plays  nor  the  date  of  their  first  appearance. 
Of  the  three  extant  dramas  attributed  to  him,  the 
authenticity  of  two  is  more  than  doubtful,  and,  to 
complete  our  perplexity,  the  text  of  the  only  drama 
which  is  indisputably  his  has  been  largely  interpolated 
by  other  hands.  Indeed,  all  that  is  certainly  known 
about  him  is  that  he  was  the  author  of  a  piece  called 
The  Spanish  Tragedy,  that  he  translated,  or,  to 
speak  more  accurately,  paraphrased,  Kobert  Gamier's 
Cornelia,  and  that  by  the  year  1594  he  stood  high 
among  the  tragic  poets  of  his  day.  The  two  other 
plays,  which  have  with  more  or  less  probability  been 
ascribed  to  him,  are  Jeronimo,  which  forms  the  first 
part  of  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  and  a  tragedy  called 
Soliman  and  Perseda,  That  Jeronimo  is  rightly 
attributed  to  him  cannot,  we  think,  be  doubted  by 
any  one  who  has  compared  it  carefully  with  The 
Spanish  Tragedy  and  Cornelia.  Ulrici's  objections 
seem  to  us  frivolous  in  the  extreme.  With  regard  to 
Soliman  and  Perseda  we  cannot  speak  with  equal 
confidence.  If  it  was  written  by  Kyd  it  was  probably 
his  earliest  work. 

The  popular  notion  about  Kyd  is  that  he  was  a 


180  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

sensational  dramatist  of  the  worst  type  ;  that  he  was 
the  first  to  employ  on  our  stage  the  ghastly  and  re- 
pulsive machinery  of  classical  Italian  melodrama ;  and 
that  he  expressed  himself  in  a  style  which  was  worthy 
of  Pistol.  And  this  is  true  ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole 
truth.  Even  admitting  that  the  passages  which 
Lamb  calls  the  salt  of  The  Spanish  Tragedy  are  not 
from  Kyd's  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  question  the 
genius  of  the  man  who  sketched  in  this  and  in  the 
sister  play  the  characters  of  Andrea,  of  Horatio,  of 
Balthezar,  of  Lorenzo,  of  Jeronimo  ;  who  painted  the 
parting  scene  between  Andrea  and  Belimperia,  and 
the  scene  in  which  Jeronimo  and  Isabella  lament  their 
murdered  son.  That  his  style  is  often  absurdly  stilted 
no  one  would  deny,  but  this  peculiarity  is  rather  its 
besetting  fault  than  its  distinguishing  characteristic. 

Kyd's  services  to  English  tragedy  were,  we  think, 
more  important  than  is  commonly  supposed.  He 
stands  midway  between  two  great  schools ;  between 
the  literary  and  academic  school  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  domestic  and  realistic  school  on  the  other. 
Eegarded  superficially,  he  might  perhaps  be  con- 
founded with  a  mere  copyist  of  Italian  models.  His 
diction  is  not  unfrequently  classical  even  to  pedantry. 
The  first  two  acts  of  The  Spanish  Tragedy  might 
have  been  written  by  the  author  of  The  Misfortunes 
of  Arthur.  He  indulges  largely  in  the  arid  and 
monotonous  declamation  peculiar  to  Italian  tragedy ; 
he  delights  in  the  exhibition  of  **  carnal,  bloody,  and 
unnatural  acts."  And  yet,  with  all  this,  the  impression 
which  his  plays  make  on  us  is  very  difi'erent  from  the 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  181 

impression  made  on  us  by  the  Italian  tragedies.  Nor 
is  it  difficult  to  explain  the  reason.  The  canvas  of 
Kyd  is  more  crowded ;  his  touch  is  broader  and 
bolder,  his  colour  fuller  and  deeper;  his  action  is 
infinitely  more  diversified,  animated,  and  rapid ;  his 
characters  are  more  human ;  he  has  more  passion,  he 
has  more  pathos.  If  he  aims  too  much  at  sensational 
effects,  he  is  sometimes  simple  and  natural.  Again, 
his  style — we  are  speaking  more  particularly  of  the 
style  of  the  first  part  of  Jeronimo — when  compared 
with  that  of  the  Italian  school,  presents  almost  as 
many  points  of  dissimilarity  as  it  presents  points  of 
resemblance.  It  is,  as  a  rule,  freer  and  looser,  of  a 
coarser  texture,  of  a  more  colloquial  cast.  We  trace 
in  it  for  the  first  time  that  curious  mixture  of  homeli- 
ness and  pomp,  that  rugged  vigour,  that  sparseness  of 
poetic  ornament,  that  indifference  to  verbal  harmony, 
which  distinguish  the  style  of  the  domestic  plays.  In 
a  word,  Kyd  so  modified  Classical  Tragedy  that  he 
educed  out  of  it  a  species  of  drama  as  distinct  from 
that  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele  on  the  one  hand, 
as  it  was  distinct  from  that  of  Sackville,  Gascoigne, 
and  Hughes  on  the  other.  It  is  this  which  constitutes 
liis  historical  importance.  It  is  this  which  connects 
him  with  that  remarkable  school  of  which  we  are 
about  to  speak,  a  school  of  which  it  would  not 
indeed  be  true  to  say  that  he  was  the  founder,  but  of 
which  he  was  in  many  important  respects  the  forerun- 
ner.^   We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  domestic  dramatists. 

'  It  U  of  courBe  quite  possible  that  we  are  attributing  to  Kyd  what  belongs 
to  the  interpolators  of  his  text  in  the  case  of  The  Spanish  ^Tragedy,  and  that 


188  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

In  the  tragic  theatre  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  and 
Peele  the  realistic  element  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been 
subordinate  to  the  poetic.  It  was  as  poets  and 
scholars  that  they  had  approached  Tragedy ;  it  was  as 
poets  and  scholars  that  they  constructed  it.  Hence  it 
was  that,  if  they  indulged,  they  indulged  but  rarely 
in  vulgar  comedy.  Hence,  in  selecting  their  plots, 
they  were  careful  to  choose  such  subjects  as  recom- 
mended themselves  by  their  dignity  or  impressiveness. 
With  equal  solicitude  had  they  employed  all  the 
resources  of  learning  and  rhetoric  to  elevate  and  em- 
bellish their  style,  and  all  the  resources  of  imagination 
and  fancy  to  cast  the  halo  of  poetry  over  life.  The 
result  was,  that  they  had  produced  works  which  stand 
much  higher  as  poems  than  as  dramas — works  which 
are  not  indeed  without  dramatic  merit,  and  dramatic 
merit  of  a  high  order,  but  which,  where  they  reflect 
humanity,  reflect  it  principally  in  its  heroic  or  poetic 
aspects.  Wherever  they  had  attempted,  as  they  had 
sometimes  done  in  Comedy,  to  be  strictly  realistic, 
they  had  as  a  rule  signally  failed. 

With  the  writers  of  domestic  Tragedy  it  was  exactly 
the  reverse.  With  them  the  poetic  element  was  not 
simply  subordinate  to  the  realistic,  but  almost  entirely 
disappeared.  Kejecting  fiction,  they  took  their  stand 
on  naked  fact.      Rejecting  transcendentalism,  they 

in  the  case  of  the  first  part  of  Jeronimo  Ave  are  attributing  to  him  a  play 
which  he  never  wrote.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  was  himself  a  purely 
"classical"  dramatist,  and  that  his  characteristic  work  is  to  be  found  in 
Cornelia  and  in  the  first  two  acts  of  Tlie  Spanish  Tragedy,  but  the  balance  of 
probability  inclines  towards  the  view  which  we  have  taken.  In  either  case 
the  point  of  interest  lies  in  the  evolution  of  the  realistic  drama  out  of  the 
classical. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  183 

prided  themselves  on  their  prosaic  fidelity  to  prosaic 
truth.  For  the  graces  of  expression  they  cared 
nothing. 

Naked  tragedy, 
Wherein  no  filed  points  are  foisted  in, 
To  make  it  pleasing  to  the  ear  or  eye, 
For  simple  truth  is  gracious  enough 
And  needs  no  other  points  of  glozing  stuff. 

This,  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  them,  was 
their  aim.  If  they  exercised  imagination,  they  exer- 
cised it  only  in  filling  up  interstices  in  tradition,  in 
vivifying  incident,  in  animating  character,  in  analysing 
emotion  and  passion.  The  materials  on  which  they 
worked  were  of  the  coarsest  kind.  Some  wretched 
story  of  calamity  and  crime,  such  as  was  then  and  is 
now  constantly  repeating  itself  in  the  lower  and 
middle  walks  of  life,  furnished  them  with  their  plots. 
Thus,  on  the  murder  of  a  London  merchant  near 
Shooter's  Hill,  in  1573,  was  founded  the  anonymous 
tragedy  of  A  Warning  for  Fair  Women.  Thus,  on 
the  murder  of  a  country  gentleman  in  Kent,  about 
1551,  was  founded  Arden  of  Faversham,  On  a 
murder  of  peculiar  atrocity,  which  occurred  in  Thames 
Street,  Robert  Yarington  partially  founded  his  Two 
Tragedies  in  One;  while  on  the  murder  of  two 
children  by  their  father  at  Calverley,  in  Yorkshire, 
was  founded  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy. 

Of  these  plays,  the  earliest  in  point  of  publication, 
and  presumably  therefore  the  earliest  in  point  of  com- 
position, was  Arden  of  Favershamiy  which  was  printed 
in  1592.  The  author  of  this  most  powerful  play  is  not 
known.     Whoever  he  was,  he  not  only  possessed  in- 


184  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

comparably  the  greatest  purely  dramatic  genius  which 
had  revealed  itself  in  tragedy  anterior  to  the  period  of 
Shakspeare's  mature  activity,  but  he  exercised,  in 
conjunction  with  the  writers  of  the  school  of  which  he 
was  the  representative,  a  very  marked  influence  on  the 
development  of  popular  Tragedy.  Of  so  high  an  order 
of  excellence  is  this  drama,  that  many  eminent  critics 
have  not  hesitated  to  attribute  it  to  Shakspeare. 
From  that  opinion  we  altogether  dissent.  It  has  no 
external  evidence  in  its  favour,  and  the  internal 
evidence  appears  to  us  conclusive  against  it.  Nothing 
can  be  more  marked  than  the  style  of  this  play. 
Nothing  can  be  more  marked  than  the  style  of  Shak- 
speare. So  marked  indeed  is  his  style — his  early  style 
— his  middle  style — his  later  style — that  the  merest 
tyro  in  literary  criticism  could  never  confound  them 
wdth  the  style  of  any  other  poet.  Now  between  the 
style  of  Arden  and  the  style  of  the  plays  w^hich 
Shakspeare  was  writing  in  and  before  1592  there  is 
absolutely  no  resemblance  at  all.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  radically  and  essentially  dissimilar.  If,  again, 
we  turn  to  the  characters,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel 
how  wide  is  the  interval  which  separates  the  author  of 
this  drama  from  the  youthful  Shakspeare.  Of  all 
Shakspeare's  powers  the  power  of  characterisation  was 
the  slowest  in  developing  itself ;  indeed,  it  developed 
itself  so  gradually  that  the  successive  stages  in  its 
progress  may  be  distinctly  traced  in  the  plays  which 
lie  between  what  Gervinus  calls  the  Period  of 
Apprenticeship  and  about  the  end  of  1598.  Nothing, 
therefore,  can  be  more  unlikely  than  that  in  1592  he 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  185 

should  have  suddenly  exhibited  a  grasp  and  power  in 
the  delineation  of  character  not  unworthy  of  the 
maturity  of  his  genius,  and  then  as  suddenly  have 
relapsed  into  the  immaturity  and  sketchiness  of  his 
early  manner.  To  suppose  that  the  firm  strong  hand 
which  drew  Alice  Arden,  Michael,  and  Mosbie  was 
the  same  hand  which  must  at  the  same  time,  or  about 
the  same  time,  have  been  faltering  on  the  canvas  of 
Titus  Andronicus,  the  Comedy  of  Errors,  and  the 
three  parts  of  Henry  VL,  is  to  suppose  what  is  not 
merely  contrary  to  all  analogy,  but  simply  incredible. 
Could  the  composition  of  Arden  be  assigned  to  a 
period  subsequent  to  1592  or  1593,  the  difficulty 
would  not  be  so  great.  But  to  date  it  later  is  im- 
possible. It  appeared  exactly  as  we  have  it  now  in 
that  year.  And  whether  it  be,  as  Payne  Collier  and 
Mr.  Symonds  surmise,  the  recast  of  an  older  play  or 
an  original  production,  one  thing  is  clear — the  hand 
which  recast  it  is  not  the  hand  which  recast  The  First 
Part  of  the  Contention  and  The  True  Tragedy  of 
Richard  Duke  of  York ;  while  if  on  the  other  hand 
it  be,  what  we  have  no  doubt  it  is,  an  original  work, 
it  is  equally  clear  that  it  could  have  emanated  only 
from  a  master  in  the  art  of  dramatic  composition  and 
realistic  effect.  And  that  in  1592  Shakspeare  most 
assuredly  was  not. 

We  are  convinced  then  that,  in  spite  of  the  con- 
tention of  Tieck,  Ulrici,  and  Charles  Knight,  Shak- 
speare was  not  the  author  of  Arden  of  Faversham, 
but  that  it  was  the  production  of  a  powerful  and 
original   genius,   the   possessor  of  which  it  is  now 


186  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

impossible  to  identify.  Whoever  he  was,  he  occupies 
a  foremost  place  in  the  history  of  pre-Shakspearean 
drama,  not  only  as  being  the  typical  representative, 
and  in  all  probability  the  inaugurator,  of  a  new  and 
important  school  of  Tragedy,  but  on  account  of  the 
intrinsic  excellence  of  his  work,  and  on  account  of 
the  influence  which  he  and  his  school  undoubtedly 
exercised  on  the  dramatic  activity  of  Shakspeare. 

In  turning  to  Lyly  we  are  turning  to  a  playwright 
who  occupies  a  very  singular  and,  from  a  historical 
point  of  view,  an  important  position.  With  the 
dramatists  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking  he  had 
little  or  no  connection.  He  had  early  found  a  patron 
in  the  Lord  Treasurer  Burleigh,  in  whose  household 
he  appears  for  some  time  to  have  resided,  though  it 
is  uncertain  in  what  capacity.  He  thus  became 
attached  to  the  aristocracy  and  the  Court,  and  for 
their  amusement  during  many  years  he  was  chief 
caterer,  first  as  a  novelist  and  then  as  a  dramatic 
poet.  The  publication  of  the  first  part  of  Eujphues 
in  1579,  which  was  followed  by  the  second  part  in  the 
following  year,  not  only  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
fashionable  authors  of  his  time,  but  enabled  him  to 
exercise  an  influence  over  contemporary  literature 
generally  such  as  perhaps  no  other  writer  has  ever 
done.  In  six  years  both  parts  of  the  work  appear  to 
have  gone  through  five  editions.^  A  stout  octavo 
volume   would    scarcely   suffice   to   deal   adequately 

1  Arber's  edition  oi  Euphues,  Introduction,  p.  13.  No  student  of  English 
literature  can  mention  Professor  Arber's  name  without  gratitude,  so  great 
is  the  boon  which  his  reprints,  with  their  admirable  bibliographical  introduc- 
tions, have  conferred  on  all  who  are  interested  in  our  old  authors. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  187 

with  the  influence  of  Lyly's  romance  on  the  poetry 
and  prose  of  the  last  two  decades  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 
Nay,  if  its  effect  on  Shakspeare  alone  were  exhaust- 
ively treated,  such  illustration  would  probably  swell  to 
a  bulky  treatise. 

Lyly  brought  to  the  composition  of  his  plays  the 
same  qualities  which  he  had  displayed  in  his  romance 
— learning,  fancy,  and  wit.  All  that  characterises  the 
style  and  diction  of  Euphices  characterises  the  style 
and  diction  of  these  dramas ;  the  same  excess  of 
smoothness,  sententiousness,  and  epigram,  of  allitera- 
tion and  assonance,  the  same  studied  antithesis,  not 
merely  in  the  arrangement  of  the  words  and  clauses, 
but  in  the  ideas  and  sentiments,  the  same  accumula- 
tion of  superfluous  similes  and  illustrations,  drawn 
sometimes  from  the  facts  but  more  frequently  from 
the  fictions  of  natural  history,  the  same  affectation 
of  continuous  references  to  ancient  mythology  and 
history  pedantically  piled  up  for  the  sake  of  learned 
display,  the  same  plethora  of  wit  as  distinguished  from 
humour,  and  of  fancy  as  distinguished  from  imagina- 
tion. Like  JEuphues,  they  are,  and  are  designed  to 
be,  caviare  to  the  general.  With  one  exception  they 
are  all  founded  on  classical  subjects,  and  with  one 
exception  they  are  all  in  prose.  Lyly's  method  is  to 
select  some  fable  in  classical  fiction,  not  for  the 
purpose  of  developing  it  dramatically,  but  that  it  may 
form  the  centre  of  a  fantastic  medley  of  his  own 
invention.  To  flatter  Elizabeth,  her  ladies,  and  her 
nobles,  to  hold  up  Philip  and  Spain  to  the  contempt 
of  good  patriots,  to  present  under  the  guise  of  allegory 


188  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

sucli  iDcidents  in  public  and  private  life  as  were  then 
of  interest  to  the  Court  circle,  and  to  read  wholesome 
lectures  on  morals  and  politics — these  were  his  aims 
when  his  aims  were  serious.  It  was  thus  that  he 
dealt  with  the  legend  of  Endyraion  and  Midas,  the 
first  being  the  story  of  Leicester  and  the  Countess  of 
Sheffield,  and  the  second  the  perversion  of  the  fable 
in  Apuleius  into  an  allegory  of  the  relations  between 
England  and  Spain.  In  Sappho  and  Phaon  he 
drew  on  a  legend  which  had  formed  the  subject 
of  a  play  by  Menander  and  a  play  by  Antiphanes, 
and  which  furnished  Ovid  with  one  of  the  most 
eloquent  of  his  Heroides;  but  he  omits  the  cata- 
strophe. For  the  leap  from  the  Leucadian  rock 
are  substituted  the  disenchantment  of  Sappho  and 
her  dominion  over  Cupid  and  his  arrows.  Thus 
the  allegory  stands  confessed,  and  what  Shakspeare 
afterwards  condensed  in  ten  immortal  lines,^  Lyly  had 
spun  out  through  five  weary  acts.  In  Alexander  and 
Campaspe,  a  story  told  by  Pliny  is  the  centre  of 
an  extraordinary  farrago  in  which  philosophers  and 
harlots,  serving-men  and  courtiers  with  Greek  names 
and  English  manners,  lecture,  wrangle,  jest,  and  jostle 
each  other  in  most  bewildering  confusion.  But 
perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  these  medleys  is 
Galathea.  Here  ancient  legend  is  scarcely  dis- 
cernible, and  appears  to  have  suggested  nothing  more 
than  the  sacrifice  due  to  Neptune,  which  was  of  course 
borrowed  from  the  story  of  Andromeda,  and  Galathea's 

^  The  passage  referring  to  Elizabeth  and  Leicester,  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  Art  II.  Se.  1,  155-164. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  189 

change  of  sex,  a  curious  adaptation  of  the  meta- 
morphosis of  the  classical  Galatea^s  daughter.  Of 
this  strange  variety  of  drama  Lyly  was  the  inventor, 
and  it  died  with  him.  It  had,  indeed,  no  principle 
of  life,  it  was  a  mere  lusus  artis,  the  abortive 
product  of  perverted  ingenuity.  To  one  of  his  plays 
a  peculiar  interest  belongs.  In  Mother  Bomhie  we 
have  an  example  of  pure  Italian  Comedy  in  an 
English  dress,  and  whoever  will  compare  it  with 
its  prototypes  and  models  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
understanding  the  evolution,  formally  at  least,  of 
English  prose  Eomantic  Comedy  from  the  Classical 
Comedy  of  Italy.  Superficially  regarded,  it  might 
seem  to  be  modelled  on  the  Latin  comedies,  but  it 
differs  importantly  from  them,  and  this  difference  lies 
in  its  resemblance  to  the  Italian  modifications  of 
Plautus  and  Terence.  The  Suppositi  of  Ariosto  had 
already  been  introduced  into  English  by  Gascoigne, 
and  this  had  been  the  first  step  in  the  naturalisation 
of  Italian  Comedy.  Lyly,  by  placing  the  scene  in 
England,  by  introducing  English  characters  and 
English  manners,  and,  in  a  word,  by  anglicising  all 
but  the  framework  and  architecture,  completed  its 
naturalisation  in  our  literature.  Mother  Bomhie  is 
incomparably  his  best  drama  —  is  indeed  his  only 
drama  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term.  The  plot  is 
constructed  with  great  skill,  the  characters  are 
by  no  means  lay  figures,  and  the  monotonous 
wit  which  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
his  dramas  is  here  relieved  by  touches  of  genuine 
humour. 


190  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

The  influence  of  Lyly  on  the  development  of  the 
drama  was  undoubtedly  considerable.  He  set  the 
fashion  of  clothing  Comedy  in  prose,  and  he  formu- 
lated genteel  and  artificial  as  distinguished  from 
,  familiar  and  realistic  dialogue.  To  his  example  are 
no  doubt  to  be  traced  the  point,  vivacity,  wit,  and 
grace  which  begin  to  be  conspicuously  afi'ected  in  the 
style  of  Comedy  towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  He  gave  the  first  models  for  that  elaborate 
word-play,  for  that  keen  terse  interchange  of  witty 
badinage,  in  which  Shakspeare  so  much  delights  to 
enojaoje  his  Benedicts  and  his  Beatrices,  his  Touch- 
stones  and  his  Launcelots.-^  And  if  he  refined  and 
subtilised  dialogue  he  refined  and  subtilised  fable,  as 
is  illustrated  both  by  Mother  Bombie  and  by  Galathea. 
He  extended  the  domain  of  Comedy  into  the  realm 
of  pure  fancy,  and  as  the  author  of  the  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  Shakspeare  was  undoubtedly  his 
disciple.  But  this  was  not  all.  As  his  plays,  though 
written  in  the  first  instance  for  representation  before 
the  Court,  were  in  some  cases  at  least  repeated  before 
the  audience  at  Blackfriars,  they  form  an  important 
link  between  the  classical  and  the  popular  drama. 
The  multitude  were  proud  to  be  presented  with  what 
had  found  favour  with  the  world  of  culture  and 
fashion.  The  taste  for  classicism,  and  with  all  that 
is  implied  by  classicism,  was  affected  by  every  one 
who  aspired  to  be  a  connoisseur.     Thus  the  Comedy 

^  See  particularly  the  dialogue  between  Manes,  Granicus,  and  Psyllus, 
Alex,  and  Camp.y  Act  I.  Sc.  2  ;  between  Diogenes  and  Sylvius,  Id., 
Act.  V.  Sc.  2 ;  between  Memphio  and  Dromio,  Mother  Bombie,  Act.  I. 
Sc.  2. 


THE  PREDECESSORS  OF  SHAKSPEARE  191 

of  the  Court,  reacting  on  the  Comedy  of  the  public 
theatres,  aided  the  evolution  of  those  masterpieces 
which  were  marked  by  the  characteristics  of  both — 
the  Romantic  Comedies  of  Shakspeare.  That  Shak- 
speare  was  familiar  with  Lyly's  dramas  is  proved 
conclusively  not  only  by  unmistakable  echoes  and 
repetitions  of  particular  passages  in  them,^  but  by 
his  many  obvious  imitations  of  Lyly's  dialectic  and 
turns  of  expression,  and  by  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream, 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  English  drama  when 
Shakspeare  entered  on  his  career.  It  had  attained, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  high  point  of  poetical  and 
rhetorical  excellence  in  the  hands  of  Marlowe  and 
Peele.  By  Greene  it  had  been  brought  into  contact 
with  ordinary  life,  but  with  ordinary  life  in  its 
romantic  aspects.  Lyly  had  enriched  it  with  wit  and 
fancy.  The  author  of  Arden  of  Faversham  had 
divorced  it  from  poetry  and  romance,  and  taught  it 
to  become  simply  realistic.  It  remained  for  Shak- 
peare  to  combine,  and  in  combining  to  perfect,  all 
these  elements.  Nothing  can  shake  the  supremacy 
of  that  mighty  genius.  Nothing  can  diminish  the 
immense  interval  which  separated  him  in  the  maturity 
of  his  powers  from  the  most  gifted  of  his  predecessors 
and  contemporaries.  And  yet,  when  we  reflect  on 
what  had  been  accomplished  during  the  period  which 
we  have  been  passing  under  review,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  be  struck  with  the  extent  of  his  indebtedness 

1  Some  of  these  have  been  collected  by  Mr.  Fairhold.     Soe  hU  edition  of 
Lyly'e  Pkys— Notes, 


192  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  those  who  preceded  him.  Everything  had,  as  it 
were,  been  made  ready  for  his  advent.  The  tools 
with  which  he  was  to  work  had  been  forged  ;  the 
patterns  on  which  he  was  to  work  had  been  designed ; 
the  material  on  which  he  was  to  work  had  been 
prepared. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS^ 

To  this  volume  now  belongs  a  mournful  and  pathetic 
interest.  The  editing  of  these  Letters  was  the  last 
service  which  one  of  the  most  accomplished  and 
scholarly  of  English  noblemen  was  to  render  to 
literature.  It  was  undertaken,  not  as  a  labour  of 
love  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term — for  Lord 
Carnarvon  has  himself  admitted  that  he  had  at  first 
little  pleasure  in  his  task — but  as  a  labour  of  love  in 
another  and  a  higher  sense.  It  was  undertaken  with 
the  pious  intention  of  fulfilling  the  wishes  of  the  dead, 
and  of  contributing  to  lighten  the  obloquy  which 
had  long  rested  on  the  memory  of  the  dead.  With 
characteristic  unobtrusiveness,  Lord  Carnarvon  has 
made  no  reference  to  the  circumstances  which  must 
have  rendered  his  self-imposed  task  doubly  irksome. 
Our  respect  for  the  motives  which  prompted  him  to 
devote  his  leisure  to  the  least  attractive  of  literary 
employments  passes  into  admiration  when  we  know, 
as  we  now  know,  that  it  was  not  only  under  the  pressure 

*  LeUera  of  Philip  Dormer^  Fourth  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  to  his  Oodson  and 
Successor.  Edited  from  the  originals,  with  a  Memoir  of  Lord  Chesterfield,  by 
the  Earl  of  Carnarvon.  Second  edition.  Oxford.  At  the  Clarendon  Press. 
1890. 

O 


194  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  habitual  ill-health,  but  often  in  the  midst  of  severe 
distress  and  pain,  that  this  work  was  carried  on.  It 
is  gratifying  to  think  that  he  lived  to  receive  his 
reward.  The  high  opinion  which  he  had  himself 
formed  of  the  Letters  was  amply  corroborated  by  the 
popular  judgment.  Very  shortly  after  the  appearance 
of  the  first  edition  of  his  work  a  second  and  cheaper 
edition  was  called  for,  and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of 
feeling  that,  if  his  labours  had  not  exactly  added  to 
the  fame  of  Chesterfield,  they  had  at  least  revived  it. 
They  had  done  more.  They  had  furnished,  as  all 
allowed,  conclusive  testimony  that  the  severe  sentence 
so  long  popularly  passed  on  the  author  of  these  Letters, 
as  a  man,  needs  considerable  modification.  They  had 
placed  his  character  in  a  light  far  more  favourable 
than  it  had  ever  been  placed  in  before.  They  had 
shown  that,  if  in  the  traditionary  estimate  of  him 
more  than  justice  had  been  meted  out  to  his  defects 
and  errors,  less  and  much  less  than  justice  had  been 
done  to  his  shining  qualities.  No  one*  who  is 
acquainted  with  Chesterfield's  later  correspondence, 
his  correspondence,  for  example,  with  Dayrolles  and 
with  the  Bishop  of  Waterford,  and  who  possesses  any 
competent  knowledge  of  his  public  and  private  life, 
could  fail  to  see  how  erroneous,  how  ridiculously 
erroneous,  would  be  any  conception  of  his  character 
formed  merely  from  the  impression  made  by  certain 
portions  of  the  correspondence  with  his  son. 

But  the  world  has  little  leisure,  and  still  less  inclina- 
tion, to  concern  itself  about  writings  which  are  of 
interest  only  for  the  light  which  they  throw  on  the 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  195 

character  of  the  writer,  or  to  explore  the  by-paths  of 
history  and  biography.  To  ninety -nine  in  every 
hundred  of  his  countrymen  Chesterfield  is  known 
only  in  association  with  the  Letters  to  his  son  Philip. 
On  the  evidence  of  these  Letters,  or  to  speak  more 
correctly,  on  evidence  derived  from  portions  of  these 
Letters,  confirmed  and  supplemented  by  current 
traditions,  the  popular  conception  of  him  has  been 
formed.  We  have  little  doubt  that  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  thousands  he  is  still  pictured  as  the  epigram 
of  Johnson  pictured  him  more  than  a  century  ago. 
We  have  Jitde  doubt  that  to  many,  and  to  very  many, 
his  name  is  little  more  than  a  synonym  for  a  profligate  / 
fribble,  shallow,  flippant,  heartless,  without  morality,; 
without  seriousness,  a  scofi'er  at  religion,  an  enemyj 
to  truth  and  virtue,  passing  half  his  life  in  practising^ 
and  the  other  half  in  teaching^  a  son  to  practise,  alf; 
that  moves  loathing  and  contempt  in  honest  men.^ 
Even  among  those  who  do  not  judge  as  the  crowd 
judges  there  exists  a  stronger  prejudice  against 
Chesterfield  than  exists  with  equal  reason  against  any 
other  Englishman.  He  has  himself  remarked  that  there 
is  no  appeal  against  character.  His  own  character  has 
been  established  through  the  impression  made  by  the 
testimony  of  hostile  contemporaries,  and  through  the 
impression  made  by  such  portions  of  the  only  writings 
by  which  he  is  now  remembered  as  unhappily  reflect 
it  on  its  worst  side,  and  appear  therefore  to  corro- 
borate that  testimony.  And  his  character,  or  what 
has  for  a  century  and  a  quarter  been  assumed  to  be 
his  character,  has  been  fatal  to  his  fame.     He  will 


196  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

now  be  judged  more  fairly.  We  do  not  think  that 
the  present  Letters  throw  any  really  new  light  on  the 
man  himself,  but,  unlike  the  more  famous  Letters, 
they  reflect  only,  and  very  charmingly,  what  was 
best  and  most  attractive  in  him.  They  show  how 
much  amiability,  kindliness,  humanity,  seriousness, 
existed  in  one  whose  name  has  become  a  proverb  for 
the  very  opposite  qualities.  They  exhibit,  simply 
and  without  alloy,  what  he  took  a  cynical  pleasure  in 
concealing  from  the  world  in  general,  and  what  is  in 
his  other  writings  obscured  and  vitiated  by  baser 
matter.  That  their  publication  will  have  the  effect 
of  creating  a  reaction  in  his  favour,  a  reaction  the 
result  of  which  will  be  a  juster  estimate  of  the  value 
of  his  writings,  is  highly  probable.  And  we  heartily 
hope  that  this  will  be  the  case.  We  have  long  re- 
garded it  as  a  great  misfortune  that  what  was  repre- 
hensible in  Chesterfield's  conduct  and  teaching  should 
so  completely  have  obscured  what  was  excellent  and 
admirable  in  both,  as  practically  to  deprive  his  name 
and  works  of  all  popular  credit  and  authority. 

With  the  exception  of  Machiavelli,  we  know  of 
no  other  writer  whose  opinions  and  precepts  have 
been  so  ridiculously  misrepresented,  and  that,  unfor- 
tunately for  Chesterfield's  fame,  not  merely  by  the 
multitude,,  but  by  men  who  are  among  the  classics 
of  our  literature. 

It  is  curious  to  follow  the  fortune  of  the  volumes 
which  have  brought  so  much  discredit  on  his  name. 
From  the  moment  of  their  appearance  the  outcry 
began.     The  sensation  occasioned  twenty  years  before 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        197 

by  the  publication  of  Bolingbroke's  philosophical 
works  by  Mallet  was  not  greater  than  that  occasioned 
when  Eugenia  Stanhope  gave  this  famous  Correspond- 
ence to  the  world.  In  the  Annual  Register ,  indeed, 
a  notice,  which  from  internal  evidence  we  have  little 
hesitation  in  ascribing  to  Burke,  did  full  justice 
both  to  the  merits  of  the  Letters  themselves  and 
to  the  virtues  of  their  distinguished  author.  But 
the  storm  burst  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine.  An 
ominous  allusion  to  "  the  lurking  poison  of  an  artful 
and  profligate  father"  heralded  what  was  coming. 
In  a  few  months  the  Letters  were  the  general  theme. 
The  invective  and  ridicule  which  had  been  directed 
against  Bolingbroke  as  the  enemy  of  religion  were 
now  directed  against  Chesterfield  as  the  enemy  of 
morality.  One  writer  in  a  parody  of  the  Catechism, 
and  another  in  a  parody  of  the  Creed,  neither  of 
them,  in  point  of  decency  at  least,  very  creditable 
to  the  cause  in  which  they  were  presumably  written, 
drew  up  a  form  of  initiation  for  Chesterfieldian 
neophytes.  But  serious  refutations  "  of  this  most 
pestilential  work  "  soon  made  their  appearance.  And 
serious  refutation  on  an  elaborate  plan  began  in 
1776  with  a  Mr.  William  Crawford's  Remarks.  Much 
as  we  respect  Mr.  Crawford's  intention,  which  was 
to  protect  religion  and  morality  by  putting  the  youth 
of  England  on  their  guard  against  the  seductions  of 
"  the  fascinating  Earl,"  we  are  sorry  to  be  obliged  to 
say  that  Mr.  Crawford  is,  in  spite  of  all  his  eflForts 
)  the  contrary,  one  of  the  most  amusing  writers  we 
iiave  ever  met  with.     His  remarks  assume  the  form 


198  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  dialogue.  Eugenius,  an  innocent  youth,  on  being 
asked  by  his  tutor  Constantius  about  the  books  he 
has  been  reading  in  his  holidays,  replies  that  "  one 
has  fallen  into  his  hand  which  has  afforded  him 
not  a  little  entertainment  and  instruction."  To  the 
horror  and  distress  of  Constantius  it  turns  out  that 
the  book  in  question  was  Chesterfield's  Letters. 
There  is  now  nothing  for  it  but  to  administer  the 
antidote  to  all  this  poison,  and  in  eight  dialogues 
it  is  done.  While  Mr.  Crawford  was  opening  the 
eyes  of  the  younger  generation,  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Hunter,  in  a  substantial  octavo  volume,  was  appealing 
to  maturer  judgments.  "  Britons,  who  are  parents," 
writes  this  perfervid  moralist,  ''ask  your  own  hearts 
whether  you  would  wish  your  children  to  be  educated 
on  this  plan  ?  Would  it  please  you  to  exchange 
the  virtues  for  the  graces,  English  honesty  for  French 
grimace  ? " — with  much  more  of  the  same  kind.  But 
Hunter,  who  was  by  the  way  the  author  of  a  curious 
and  singularly  interesting  treatise  on  Tacitus,  is  on 
the  whole  sensible  and  temperate,  and  does  full 
justice  to  the  literary  merits  of  the  Letters,  as  well 
as  to  such  portions  of  their  ethical  teaching  as  do 
not  offend  his  prejudices  as  a  clergyman.  But  the 
most  extraordinary  production  inspired  by  the  Cor- 
respondence was  Jackson  Pratt's  sensational  novel, 
The  Pupil  of  PleasurCy  which  appeared  seven  years 
I  after  the  books  of  which  we  have  been  speaking. 
The  object  of  this  work  was  to  depict  a  character 
I,  modelled  on  what  Pratt  conceived,  or  pretended  to 
I  conceive,  Chesterfield's  ideal  gentleman  to  be,  and  to 


LORD  CHESTE  i  99 

describe  his  career.  When  we  say  that  Pratt  has 
summed  up  Chesterfield's  teachings  as  comprised 
mainly  in  these  maxims,  "Do  whatever  you  think 
proper — whatever  fancy,  passion,  whim,  or  wicked- 
ness suggest — only  command  your  countenance  and 
check  your  temper,"  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to 
observe  that  a  more  accurate  summary  of  all  that 
constitutes  the  exact  reverse  of  what  those  teachings 
inculcate  could  hardly  be  drawn  up  in  fewer  words ; 
as  it  is  equally  unnecessary  to  add  that  poor  Pratt's 
"  celebrated,  dazzling,  and  diabolical  hero,"  who,  after 
ruining  almost  every  woman  he  meets,  and  running 
into  the  extremes  of  vice  and  profligacy,  is  at  last  found 
dead  with  the  precepts  of  his  supposed  Mentor  in  his 
pocket,  bears  about  the  same  resemblance  to  Chester- 
field's ideal  gentleman  as  he  bears  to  Zeno's  Wise  Man 
or  Aristotle's  Magnanimous  Man.  But  these  monstrous 
perversions  of  Chesterfield's  teaching  were  not  confined 
to  ephemeral  writings.  In  some  of  the  most  powerful 
lines  which  he  ever  composed,  Cowper  gave  immortal 
expression  to  the  popular  estimate  of  the  Letters  : — 

/    Petronius  !  all  the  Muses  weep  for  thee  ; 

\    But  every  tear  shall  scald  thy  memory ; 
J   The  Graces,  too,  while  Virtue  at  their  shrine 
/    Lay  bleeding  under  that  soft  hand  of  thine, 

V  Felt  each  a  mortal  stab  in  her  own  breast, 
jAbhorr'd  the  sacrifice,  and  cursed  the  priest 
/Thou  polish'd  and  liigh-finish'd  foe  to  truth, 

/  Grey-beard  corrupter  of  our  list'ning  youth, 
/    To  purge  and  skim  away  the  filth  of  vice 
I    That  so  refin'd,  it  might  the  more  entice, 
I    Then  pour  it  on  the  morals  of  thy  son, 

V  To  taint  his  heart,  was  worthy  of  thine  own  ; 
tIow,  while  the  poison  all  high  life  invades, 
Write,  if  thou  canst,  one  letter  from  the  Shadea. 


200  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

The  publication  of  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  in 
1791  confirmed  and  extended  the  impression  made 
by  preceding  writers.  And  for  this  reason.  For 
every  person  who  remembers  the  one  just  thing 
which  Johnson  said  of  the  Letters  and  the  one  just 
remark  which  he  made  about  their  author,  there 
are  a  hundred  who  remember  his  terse  and  pointed, 
but  gross  and  libellous,  epigrams  on  both.  The 
appearance  of  the  Posthumous  Letters  and  Memoirs 
of  Horace  Walpole,  between  1818  and  1847,  and 
the  Memoirs  of  Lord  Hervey,  in  both  of  which 
Chesterfield  himself  is  depicted  as  personal  enemies 
of  such  resources  would  be  likely  to  paint  him, 
contributed  still  further  to  bias  the  popular  judgment. 
But  the  measure  of  Chesterfield's  posthumous  mis- 
fortunes was  not  yet  full.  What  the  author  of  The 
Pupil  of  Pleasure  assayed  to  do  in  the  last  century, 
the  author  of  Barnahy  Pudge  has  assayed  to  do  in 
our  own  time.  On  the  unspeakable  vulgarity  and 
absurdity  of  Dickens's  caricature  and  travesty — with 
pain  do  we  say  a  disrespectful  word  of  one  to  whom  we 
in  common  with  half  the  world  are  so  much  indebted 
— it  would  be  superfluous  to  comment.  But  what  is 
certain  is  that  in  the  imagination  of  millions  Chester- 
field will  exist,  and  exist  only,  in  association  with 
a  character  combining  all  that  is  worst,  all  that  is 
most  vile,  most  contemptible,  most  repulsive,  in  the 
traditionary  portrait  of  him. 

Of  the  recklessness  with  which  charges  have  been 
brought  against  Chesterfield  and  his  writings  we 
will  give  one  instance.     He  has  been  accused  over 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        201 

and  over  again  of  defending  and  encouraging  the 
practice  of  falsehood.  What  is  the  fact?  There  is 
no  vice  which  he  represents  as  more  odious  or  more 
unbecoming  the  character  of  a  gentleman.  "  I  really 
know  nothing  more  criminal," — so  he  writes  in  one 
letter  to  his  son — "more  mean  and  more  ridiculous, 
than  lying."  Again :  "  It  is  not  possible  for  a  man 
to  be  virtuous  without  strict  veracity  ;  a  lie  in  a  man 
is  a  vice  of  the  mind,  and  a  vice  of  the  heart."  In 
another  letter :  "  Lies  and  perfidy  are  the  refuge 
of  fools  and  cowards."  Again :  "  Whoever  has  not 
truth  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  any  one  good 
quality,  and  must  become  the  detestation  of  God 
and  man."  ''  Mendacem  si  dixeris,"  he  writes  in 
another  place,  adapting  the  well-known  proverb 
about  ingratitude,  "  omnia  dixeris."  But  it  is  useless 
to  multiply  quotations  in  support  of  a  cardinal 
principle  in  his  teaching.  The  handle  which  he 
has  aflforded  for  this  accusation  is  simply  the  fact 
that  he  has  distinguished  between  the  truths  which 
should  be  told  and  the  truths  which  ought  not  to 
be  told ;  between  dissimulation,  which  he  defends,  and 
simulation,  which  he  brands  as  infamous.  He  goes 
no  further  than  the  saying  attributed  to  Voltaire, 
"  Woe  is  he  who  says  all  he  can  about  anything " — 
a  platitude  in  practice  with  all  but  fools — justly 
denouncing  as  immoral  the  theory  defended  by 
Bacon,  and  defended  even  by  so  virtuous  a  man  as 
Sir  Walter  Scott 

The  history  of  the  Correspondence,  now  for  the  first 
time  published,  is  soon  told.     In  1755  Chesterfield, 


202  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

then  far  in  the  decline  of  life,  stood  godfather  to  a  son 
born  to  a  distant  kinsman,  Mr.  Arthur  Charles  Stan- 
hope, of  Mansfield.  He  was  naturally  interested  in  the 
child,  for  in  the  event  of  his  brother  Sir  William 
dying  without  issue,  his  godson,  as  heir  to  Mr.  A.  C. 
Stanhope,  to  whom  on  his  own  decease  the  title  passed, 
would  become  his  successor  in  the  earldom.  As  the 
boy  grew  up,  his  education  became  the  chief  object  of 
his  godfather's  life.  The  place  that  his  son  Philip 
had  for  so  many  years  occupied  in  his  thoughts  and 
in  his  afiections  was  now  filled  by  this  child.  He 
watched  over  him  with  more  than  a  mother's  care. 
Every  indication  of  character  was  anxiously  observed. 
If  any  defect,  however  slight,  in  temper,  in  habits  of 
mind,  in  gesture,  in  accent,  was  detected,  neither 
master  nor  pupil  knew  peace  till  it  was  rectified.  He 
submitted  patiently  to  all  the  drudgery  of  correcting 
composition,  of  drawing  up  lists  of  words  and  idioms 
to  be  learnt  by  heart,  of  writing  elementary  sketches 
of  ancient  and  modern  history,  of  explaining  mytho- 
logy, of  copying  out  elegant  extracts  in  prose  and 
poetry.  As  the  lad's  mind  developed,  and  he  became 
capable  of  receiving  more  serious  instruction,  the  old 
statesman,  in  a  series  of  Letters  well  worthy  of  a  place 
beside  the  best  of  those  by  which  he  is  now  chiefly  re- 
membered, laboured  to  prepare  him  for  the  prominent 
part  he  would  in  all  probability  be  called  upon  to  play 
both  in  public  and  private  life.  These  Letters  were 
carefully  preserved,  and  had  been  perused  by  Dr. 
Maty,  who  refers  to  them  in  his  Memoirs  of  Chester- 
field,      "They   have   not   yet   appeared,"   says    the 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  203 

Doctor,  "  under  any  sanction  of  authority,  but  the 
principle  of  them  is  so  noble,  and  the  end  proposed  so 
becoming  the  dignity  of  a  great  name,  that  it  is  hoped 
they  will  not  always  be  withheld  from  the  public." 
It  is  curious  that  Maty  should  have  made  no  reference 
to  the  fact  that  fourteen  of  these  Letters — the  Letters 
namely  on  the  "  Art  of  Pleasing  " — numbers  cxxix.  to 
CXLII.  in  Lord  Carnarvon's  edition — had  already  been 
printed,  in  a  very  incorrect  and  garbled  form,  and  no 
doubt  surreptitiously,  in  the  Edinburgh  Magazine 
and  Review  for  February,  March,  April,  and  May 
1774.  Their  appearance  in  this  magazine  accounts 
for  their  subsequent  appearance  in  a  Dublin  reprint 
of  the  Earl's  Letters  to  his  son,  among  which  they  are 
erroneously  classed,  and  for  their  reproduction  in  the 
supplementary  volume  to  Maty's  Memoirs  of  Chester- 
field,  published  in  1778.  How  the  Letters  got  into 
print  it  would  be  interesting  to  know :  that  they 
were  pirated  is  certain,  and  we  are  very  much  inclined 
to  agree  with  the  writer  of  a  preface  to  a  subsequent 
edition  of  them,  that  the  pirate  was  Dr.  Dodd.  With 
the  exception  of  these  fourteen  Letters,  the  rest  of  the 
Correspondence  remained  in  manuscript  till  Lord 
Carnarvon,  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  late 
Earl  of  Chesterfield,  gave  it  to  the  world  in  the 
present  volume. 

With  the  Letters  now  for  the  first  time  published 
Lord  Carnarvon  has  not  only  incorporated  the  Letters 
to  which  we  have  referred,  but  he  has,  in  this  second 
edition,   very  judiciously  added   Chesterfield's   Cor- 

!  mdence  with  Mr.  Arthur  Charles  Stanhope,  his 


204  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

godson's  father,  originally  printed  in  18X7,  as  well  as 
the  admirable  testamentary  letter  which  was  to  be 
delivered  to  Philip  Stanhope  after  the  EarFs  death, 
first  printed  by  Lord  Stanhope.  To  these  Letters  he 
has  prefixed  a  scholarly  and  gracefully-written  intro- 
duction, partly  historical  and  partly  biographical, 
sketching  rapidly  the  course  of  political  events  during 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  recapitu- 
lating the  chief  incidents  of  Chesterfield's  public 
career  and  private  life.  He  has  also  added  notes  to  the 
Letters  themselves.  An  excellent  Index,  the  work  of 
Mr.  Doble  of  the  Clarendon  Press,  concludes  the  book. 
In  all  that  concerns  adornment,  the  volume  before 
us  certainly  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  On  the 
distinguished  Press  from  which  it  has  issued  it 
reflects,  indeed,  the  highest  credit.  The  collotypes, 
particularly  the  portrait  of  Chesterfield  fronting  the 
title-page,  the  paper,  and  the  type,  are  excellent ;  the 
facsimile  letter  is  perfect.  The  binder  might  perhaps 
have  been  a  little  less  profuse  in  heraldic  insignia. 
It  was  no  doubt  quite  in  accordance  with  the  becom- 
ing that  the  most  aristocratic  and  fastidious  of  English 
writers  should  make  his  reappearance  amongst  us  in 
an  edition  de  luxe,  but  we  all  know  how  strongly 
Chesterfield  objected  to  emphasis  being  laid  on  dis- 
tinctions of  the  kind  to  which  we  refer.  "  Wear  your 
title  as  if  you  had  it  not,"  he  writes  to  Philip  Stan- 
hope, and  no  sentiment  is  more  frequently  repeated 
by  him.  As  it  is  possible  that  this  work  may  pass 
into  another  edition,  and  as  it  is  certain  that  it  will 
take  its  place  among  the  works  which  every  student 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  205 

of  English  eighteenth-century  literature  will  consider 
it  his  duty  to  read,  we  are  sure  we  are  doing  nothing 
more  than  would  have  met  with  the  approval — the 
cordial  approval — of  Lord  Carnarvon  himself,  if  we 
venture  to  point  out  what  seem  to  us  blemishes  in  his 
editorial  work — the  few  errors  which  we  should  like 
to  see  corrected,  the  deficiencies — there  are  more  of 
these — which  we  should  like  to  see  supplied. 

The  most  unsatisfactory  part  of  Lord  Carnarvon's 
work  is  the  commentary.  He  appears  to  have  thought 
at  first — and  assuredly  to  have  thought  quite  rightly 
— that  it  was  his  duty  as  an  editor  to  explain  Chester- 
field's allusions,  to  trace  his  quotations,  and  to  correct 
his  errors.  And  this  up  to  a  certain  point  he  has  done. 
He  then  appears  to  have  changed  his  mind.  It  is 
possible  that  he  thought  the  insertion  of  notes  at  the 
bottom  of  the  page  had  an  unpleasantly  pedantic 
appearance ;  and  this  seems  probable  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  quotations  are  left  untraced  at  the 
foot  of  the  text  in  which  they  occur,  the  reference, 
however,  being  tacitly  given  in  the  Index.  This  we 
discovered  quite  accidentally,  and  if  it  is  discovered  at 
all,  every  other  reader  must  discover  it  in  the  same 
way,  for  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  it.  Thus,  on 
page  198,  the  reference  for  a  quotation  from  Ovid's 
Fasti  is  duly  given  at  the  foot  of  the  page  ;  but  there 
is  nothing  to  indicate  the  source  of  a  quotation  from  the 
Metamorphoses  on  the  same  page.  On  turning,  how- 
ever, to  the  heading  "  Ovid  "  in  the  Index,  we  noticed 
that  the  reference  is  duly  given.  It  is  not  very  easy 
to  see  what  possible  end  can  be  served  by  such  capri- 


206  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

cious  inconsistencies  as  these,  unless  it  be  a  device  for 
disguising  the  fact  that  many  of  the  quotations  have 
not  been  traced  at  all,  either  at  the  foot  of  the  page 
or  in  the  Index — a  subterfuge  of  which  we  are  very- 
sure  Lord  Carnarvon  was  quite  incapable.  In  any 
case,  this  is  a  defect  which  needs  remedy.  If  an 
editor  undertakes  to  trace  quotations,  he  ought  of 
course  to  spare  no  pains  to  trace  all,  though  he  cannot 
be  blamed  if  he  is  unsuccessful.  But  there  is  surely 
no  reason  why  he  should  give  the  references  to  some 
at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  and  relegate  the  references 
to  others  to  the  Index.  The  explanatory  notes  have 
the  same  peculiarity.  Allusions  for  an  explanation  of 
which  we  should  have  been  grateful  are  passed  silently 
over;  allusions  so  obvious  that  we  should  scarcely 
think  it  necessary  to  explain  them  to  a  fourth -form 
schoolboy,  are  explained  at  length.  Thus,  in  com- 
menting on  a  proverb  so  common  as  Post  est 
Occasio  calva,  we  are  amazed  to  find  the  editor  stop- 
ping to  notice  that  Defoe  has  quoted  it  in  one  of  his 
pamphlets,  and  that  Chesterfield  must  have  had  in 
his  mind  five  lines  of  Phsedrus,  which  are  transcribed 
at  length.  Two  or  three  of  Chesterfield's  slips,  at 
which  we  should  have  expected  so  accomplished  a 
scholar  as  Lord  Carnarvon  to  have  winced,  are  passed 
unnoticed.  Thus,  on  page  275,  Chesterfield  observes 
that  "  Cicero  reproaches  Clodia  with  dancing  better 
than  a  modest  woman  should."  He  was  of  course 
thinking  of  what  Sallust,  not  Cicero,  said  of  Sempronia, 
not  of  Clodia. 

The  well-known  saying.  Nemo  fere  saltat  sohrius, 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        207 

twice  misquoted  by  Chesterfield,  occurs  not,  as  is 
asserted  (page  292),  in  the  Offices,  but  in  the  Pro 
Murcma,  cap.  vi.  On  page  208  we  have  no  doubt 
that  in  the  famous  couplet  of  Martial  on  Mutius 
Scsevola  {Epig.  I.  21  (22))— 

Major  deceptae  fama  est  et  gloria  dextrse : 
Si  non  errasset,  fecerat  ilia  minus — 

ilia  is  the  right  reading,  but  it  is  quite  clear  from 
Chesterfield's  version  that  he  read  ille.  We  are 
surprised,  too,  that  so  accurate  a  scholar  as  Lord 
Carnarvon  should  have  allowed  another  error  to  pass 
unnoticed,  more  especially  as  it  has,  in  consequence 
of  Chesterfield's  authority,  become  so  generally 
current  that  it  may  now  be  said  to  hold  a  conspicu- 
ous place  among  pseudodoxia  epidemica.  It  is 
repeatedly  asserted,  both  in  these  Letters  and  in 
the  former  series,  that  Socrates  exhorted  his 
disciples  to  sacrifice  to  the  Graces.  The  saying  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Socrates.  It  was  the 
advice  given  by  Plato  to  Xenocrates  simply  on 
account  of  his  pompous  demeanour  and  sullen  aspect ; 
and  the  anecdote  is  related  by  Plutarch  in  his  Life  of 
MariuSy  and  by  Diogenes  Laertius  in  his  notice  of 
Xenocrates.  The  phrase  appears  afterwards  to  have 
become  proverbial.^  But  nothing  has  surprised  us 
so  much  as  that  Lord  Carnarvon  should  have  allowed 
the  following  passage  to  stand  without  a  note  : — 

Voicy  une  jolie  epigramme  faitte  par  le  c^l^bre  Cardinal  du 
Perron,  sur  une  belle  dame  qui  avoit  un  enfant  d'une  beautd 
^gale  k  la  sienne,  mais  lis  etoient  tous  deux  borgnes — 

'  See  the  notes  of  Casaubon  and  Manage  on  Diogenes  Laertios,  iv.  11. 


208  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

;   Parve  puer,  quod  habes  lumen  concede  parent! ; 
Sic  tu  caecus  Amor,  sic  erit  ilia  Venus. 

We  need  scarcely  say  that  the  original  runs  thus  : — 

Lumine  Aeon  dextro,  capta  est  Leonilla  sinistro, 

Et  potis  est  forma  vincere  uterque  Deos. 
Blande  puer,  lumen  quod  habes  concede  sorori : 

Sic  tu  caecus  Amor,  sic  erit  ilia  Venus. ' 

Whether  there  is  any  authority  for  saying  that  it 
refers  to  the  Princess  Eboli,  the  mistress  of  Philip  II. 
of  Spain,  or  to  Maugiron,  the  favourite  of  Henry 
III.  of  France,  each  of  whom  is  said  to  have  lost  an 
eye,  we  do  not  know.  But  it  was  certainly  not 
written  by  the  Cardinal  du  Perron,  for  it  was  pub- 
lished thirty  years  before  the  Cardinal  was  born, 
though  it  has  often  been  attributed  to  him,  as  it  has 
been  attributed  also  to  Menage.  It  was  written  by 
Girolamo  Amalteo,  and  will  be  found  in  any  of  the 
editions  of  the  Trium  Fratrum  Amaltheorum  Car- 
mina,  under  the  title  of  "  De  gemellis,  fratre  et  sorore, 
luscis."  We  are  surprised  that  neither  Chesterfield 
nor  Lord  Carnarvon  appears  to  have  known  the  origin 
of  the  Italian  phrase  so  often  quoted,  not  only  in  these 
Letters  but  generally — volto  sciolto,  pensieri  stretti, 
though  it  is  to  be  found  in  Wotton's  letter  to  Milton 
prefixed  to  some  of  the  editions  of  Comus,  where  it 
is  attributed  to  one  Alberto  Scipione. 

The  passage  in  Boileau  referred  to  on  page  158  will 
be  found  in  the  eighth  Satire,  line  99.  On  page  197 
there  is  evidently  a  reference  to  Longinus  (De  Suhl. 
c.  ix.).  The  words  "Facere  digna  scribi  vel  scribere 
digna  legi,"  quoted  on  page  164  and  again  on  page 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  209 

217,  are  obviously  a  reminiscence  of  a  passage  in  the 
Letters  of  the  younger  Pliny.    "  Equidem  beatos  puto, 
quibus  Deorum  munere  datum  est  aut  facere  scribenda, 
aut  scribere  legenda  "  {Epist.  lib.  vi.  ep.  xvi.). 
The  fine  lines  quoted  from  Voltaire — 

R(5pandez  vos  bienfaits,  avec  magnificence. 
Meme  aux  moins  vertueux,  ne  les  refusez  pas. 
Ne  vous  informez  pas  de  leur  reconnoissance  ; 
II  est  grand,  il  est  beau,  de  faire  des  ingrats — 

are  from  the  Precis  de  L EccUsiaste,  and  from  the 
same  poem  are  the  lines  quoted  on  page  11.  The 
words  in  the  last  letter,  "  You  would  fall  like  setting 
stars  to  rise  no  more,"  are  the  adaptation  of  a  line  in 
Rowe's  Jane  Shore  (Act  i.  Sc.  2) — 

She  sets  like  stars  that  fall  to  rise  no  more. 

"We  hope  that,  if  these  Letters  are  republished,  the 
references  made  to  contemporary  plays  will  be  traced. 
In  what  play,  for  example,  does  the  character  of  John 
Trott,  known  to  us  from  Goldsmith's  epigram,  and 
alluded  to  over  and  over  again  by  Chesterfield, 
appear?  Who  was  "Nell  Jobson  the  Cobler's  wife 
in  the  comical  transformation "  (page  244)  ?  To 
most  readers  of  the  present  day  it  would  certainly 
not  have  been  superfluous  to  explain  that  the  author 
of  Tamerlane,  of  which  an  account  is  given  in  Letter 
cxxiv.,  was  Nicholas  Rowe. 

For  the  Introduction  we  have  little  but   praise. 

On  three  points,  and  on  three  points  only,  are  we 

inclined  to  dissent  from  Lord  Carnarvon's  conclusions. 

We  cannot  at  all  agree  with  him  that  Chesterfield's 

"respectable  Hottentot"  was  intended  for  Johnson. 

p 


210  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

We  think  that  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill  has  conclusively 
shown  that  such  was  not  the  case.  To  say  nothing 
of  Johnson's  assertion  that  Chesterfield  had  never  seen 
him  eat  in  his  life,  there  seems  little  doubt  that  the 
person  who  sat  for  that  picture  was  the  person  who  is 
described  in  the  122nd  and  170th  of  the  earlier  Letters, 
and  who  may  possibly  be  alluded  to  in  the  30th  Letter 
of  volume  i.,  all  of  which  prove  that  he  must  have 
been  some  one  moving  in  Chesterfield's  circle,  one  of 
which  proves  that  the  initial  letter  of  his  name  was  L. 
It  is  of  course  possible  that  the  four  passages  may 
not  refer  to  the  same  person ;  if  they  do,  there  can  be 
no  reasonable  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  Dr.  Hill's 
conjecture  that  the  Hottentot  was  Lyttelton,  a  man 
whose  slovenliness,  awkwardness,  and  absence  of  mind 
were  proverbial  among  his  contemporaries.  On  page 
xxxviii.  there  is  the  following  note :  "  Lord  Chester- 
field also  ofiended  Smollett ;  but  Smollett's  day  and 
literary  influence  are  of  the  past,  and  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while,  except  as  an  historical  fact,  to  mention 
the  circumstance."  In  this  extraordinary  estimate  of 
Smollett's  work  and  fame  Lord  Carnarvon  will  prob- 
ably stand  as  much  alone  at  the  end  of  the  thirtieth 
century  as  he  stands  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth. 
It  is  surprising  that  he  did  not  remember  the  very 
different  opinion  formed  of  Smollett's  merits  by  judges 
so  competent  as  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Thackeray,  and 
Dickens,  or,  remembering,  should  have  thought  him- 
self justified  in  setting  it  so  unceremoniously  aside. 
But  on  matters  of  this  kind  dispute  is  useless,  and 
it   is   not  with  the  object  of  discussing  Lord   Car- 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  211 

narvon's  paradoxical  verdict  that  we  have  drawn 
attention  to  the  passage.  What  perplexes  us  is  the 
allusion  to  a  fact  which  is  altogether  new  to  us. 
When  did  Lord  Chesterfield  ofi'end  Smollett?  and 
what  authority  is  there  for  ranking  Smollett  with 
Horace  Walpole,  Lord  Hervey,  and  Dr.  Johnson 
among  Chesterfield's  enemies  ?  They  were  certainly 
on  good  terms  in  1747,  for  in  Reproof  Smollett 
addresses  Chesterfield  in  terms  of  exaggerated 
flattery : — 

Nor  would  th'  enamour'd  Muse  neglect  to  pay 

To  Stanhope's  worth  the  tributary  lay, 

The  soul  unstain'd,  the  sense  sublime,  to  paint 

A  people's  patron,  pride,  and  ornament. 

Did  not  his  virtues  etemiz'd  remain 

The  boasted  theme  of  Pope's  immortal  strain. 

Again,  later,  in  1757,  Smollett  in  his  Histoiy  of 
England  twice  takes  occasion  to  pay  Chesterfield  the 
highest  compliments,  once  in  allusion  to  his  ambassa- 
dorship at  the  Hague  (vol.  x.  p.  336),  and  once  (voh 
xi.  p.  9)  in  allusion  to  his  speech  on  the  Play  House 
Bill.  But  what  seems  to  make  the  correctness  of 
Lord  Carnarvon's  statement  the  more  improbable  is 
the  absence  of  any  satirical  portrait  of  the  Earl  among 
the  portraits  sketched  in  The  Adventures  of  an  Atom, 
Many  of  Chesterfield's  friends  and  former  colleagues 
are  there,  but  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
fashionable  life  of  those  days  is  correspondingly  con- 
spicuous by  his  absence  in  Smollett's  malicious  pano- 
rama. Had  Smollett  borne  Chesterfield  the  smallest 
ill-will,  he  would^-of  that  we  may  be  sure — have 
availed  himself  of  this  opportunity  of  indulging  his 


212  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

spleen.  It  is  possible  that  Lord  Carnarvon  may 
have  had  authority  for  his  statement ;  we  wish  he  had 
adduced  it.  We  are  half  inclined  to  think  that  he  had 
for  the  moment  confounded  Chesterfield  with  New- 
castle or  Lyttelton. 

But  these  things  are  trifles.  We  concur  with  Lord 
Carnarvon  in  thinking  that  these  Letters  give  us  on 
the  whole  a  more  favourable  impression  of  Chester- 
field as  a  man  than  the  Letters  addressed  to  his  son. 
Of  the  world,  worldly,  as  all  he  writes  is,  a  higher 
note  is  occasionally  struck.  The  standard  of  aim  and 
action  is  not,  as  in  the  former  Correspondence,  fixed 
immovably  on  the  dead-level  of  purely  mundane 
utility.  The  old  cynicism  and  the  old  misogyny  are 
still  apparent ;  but  they  are  tempered  with  a  gentle  and 
kindly  humour,  which  deprives  them  of  all  harshness, 
and  even  invests  them  with  charm.  There  is  the 
same  solicitude  about  what  a  more  exalted  philosophy 
than  he  professed  would  regard  with  indiff'erence,  but 
there  is  not  the  same  solicitude  about  what  such  a 
philosophy  would  directly  condemn.  Of  the  levity 
of  tone  and  profligacy  of  sentiment  in  relation  to 
certain  subjects,  which  jar  on  us  so  much  in  the 
former  Correspondence,  there  are  few  or  no  traces. 
He  so  abhorred  everything  which  savours  of  cant, 
and  especially  of  theological  cant,  that  he  seldom 
touches  on  religious  subjects.  But  he  does  so  some- 
times, and  that  with  an  earnestness  which  will  sur- 
prise every  one  who  knows  him  only  as  people  in 
general  know  him.  There  are  two  passages  in  his 
Letters  to  the  Bishop  of  Waterford — one  dated  about 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  213 

a  year  and  a  half  before  the  date  of  the  first  Letter  in 
this  series,  the  other  dated  a  month  later — which  give 
us,  as  it  were,  the  key  to  all  that  distinguishes  the 
Chesterfield  of  the  earlier  Correspondence  from  the 
Chesterfield  of  the  later. 

I  consider  life  as  one  who  is  wholly  unconcerned  in  it,  and 
even  when  I  reflect  back  upon  what  I  have  seen,  what  I  have 
heard,  and  what  I  have  done  myself,  I  can  hardly  persuade 
myself  that  all  that  frivolous  hurry  and  bustle,  and  pleasures  of 
the  world,  had  any  reality,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  the  dreams 
of  restless  nights.  This  philosophy,  however,  I  thank  God, 
neither  makes  me  sour  nor  melancholic ;  I  see  the  folly  and  ab- 
surdity of  mankind  without  indignation  or  peevishness ;  I  pity 
the  weak  and  the  wicked  without  envying  the  wise  and  the 
good,  but  endeavouring  to  the  utmost  of  my  ability  to  be  of 
that  minority. 

I  know  I  am  tottering  upon  the  brink  of  this  world,  and 
my  thoughts  are  employed  about  the  other.  However,  while  I 
crawl  upon  this  planet  I  think  myself  obliged  to  do  what  good  I 
can  in  my  narrow  domestic  sphere  to  my  fellow-creatures,  and  to 
wish  them  all  the  good  I  cannot  do  (Stanhope,  Warks^  voL  iv. 
pp.  329,  330). 

It  is  the  reflection  of  all  this,  of  this  mingled  sad- 
ness and  cheerfulness,  good  sense  and  good  temper, 
mild  wisdom  and  wise  mildness,  which  is  perhaps  the 
chief  attraction  of  these  Letters.  The  voice  which  is 
speaking  is,  we  feel,  the  voice  of  one  without  faith 
and  with  little  hope,  but  at  peace  with  himself  and  at 
peace  with  the  world,  grateful  to  Nature  for  having 
called  him  into  life,  and  to  Philosophy  for  having 
taught  him  how  to  live.  Much  experience  and  reflec- 
tion had  enabled  him  to  estimate  at  its  true  value  "what 
it  is  in  the  power  of  man  to  attain  and  enjoy.  He  had 
reckoned  with  existence  and  struck  the  balance.     The 


214  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

delusions  of  the  brute  and  the  fool  had  never  misguided 
or  perplexed  him :  to  the  visions  of  the  transcen- 
dentalist  he  was  constitutionally  blind,  but  he  had 
I  found  the  secret  which  had  escaped  equally  the 
\  ascetic  and  the  sensualist — the  art  of  living,  the  true 
use  of  fortune.  He  knew  how  little  of  what  con- 
stitutes human  happiness  and  contentment  depends 
on  man's  mere  capacities  and  externals ;  he  knew  of 
how  much  which  constitutes  both  they  may  be  made 
the  means.  To  his  refined  good  sense  the  extinction 
/  of  existence  was  preferable  to  its  abuse,  was  preferable 
''^  even  to  its  misuse.  Like  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu, 
to  whom  in  constitution  and  temper  he  bore  in  some 
respects  a  singular  resemblance,  he  was  a  philosopher 
even  in  his  affections.^  "  My  only  wish  is,"  he  wrote 
to  his  son,  **  to  have  you  fit  to  live,  which  if  you  are 
not,  I  do  not  desire  that  you  should  live  at  all." 
"  May  you  live,"  he  writes  in  another  letter  full  of 
fatherly  tenderness,  "  as  long  as  you  are  fit  to  live, 
but  no  longer,  or,  may  you  rather  die  before  you  cease 
to  be  fit  to  live,  than  after." 

To  this  object  he  had  directed  the  Correspondence 
with  his  son,  to  this  object- he  directed  the  Corre- 

^  It  is  remarkable  that  they  both  speak  in  precisely  the  same  way  about 
natural  afifection.  "My  anxiety  and  care  can  only  be  the  effects  of  that 
tender  affection  which  I  have  for  you,  and  which  you  cannot  represent  to 
yourself  greater  than  it  really  is.  But  do  not  mistake  the  nature  of  that 
affection.  It  is  not  natural  affection,  there  being  in  reality  no  such  thing  " 
{Letters  to  Son,  cii.  vol.  i.).  "You  are  no  more  obliged  to  me  for  bringing 
you  into  the  world,"  writes  Lady  Mary  to  her  daughter,  "than  I  am  to  you 
for  coming  into  it,  and  I  never  made  use  of  that  commonplace  (and  like  most 
commonplace,  false)  argument,  as  exacting  any  return  of  affection  "  ;  and  then 
she  goes  on  to  say  that  what  has  formed  the  close  bond  of  love  between  them 
has  been  the  mutual  interchange  of  what  should  unite  reasonable  beings 
{To  the  Countess  of  Bute:  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  61). 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        216 

spondence  with  his  godson, — "  to  fit  them  to  live." 
That  many  of  his  particular  precepts  and  particular 
aims  would  have  found  more  favour  with  Atticus  and 
Horace  than  with  St.  Paul  and  Christian  moralists, 
may  be  fully  conceded.  We  cannot  see,  as  Lord 
Carnarvon  appears  to  do,  any  indication  in  this  later 
Correspondence,  that  Chesterfield's  religious  opLifiipns. 
had  in  the  smallest  respect  changed,  still  less  that  old 
age  and  its  afflictions  had  "  led  him  to  a  somewhat 
diflferent  estimate  of  riofht  and  wronoj  from  that  which 
he  once  professed."  There  is  nothing  in  the  essential 
teaching  of  these  Letters  which  will  not  be  found  in 
the  Letters  to  his  son.  On  the  subject  of  religion 
his  language  and  sentiments  are  always  the  same.  It 
is  the  basis  on  which  life  rests.  Serious  regard  for  it 
is  the  hypothesis  on  which  moral  instruction  proceeds, 
Indifierence  to  it,  or  the  expression  of  indifierence  to 
it,  is  the  certain  mark  of  a  fool.  In  whatever  form  it 
finds  embodiment  it  is  to  be  respected.  Without 
religion  virtue  is  without  its  strongest  collateral 
security.^  To  the  esprits  forts,  Freethinkers  and  Moral 
Philosophers,  as  they  called  themselves.  Bishop  Butler 
himself  was  not  more  sensitively  hostile.  That 
Chesterfield  did  not  accept  Revelation  seems  certain. 
His  religion  probably  diff'ered  in  no  essential  respects 
from   the  religion   of  Cicero    and    Bolingbroke,   of 

^  Seo  Letters  to  his  Son,  passim.  In  Letter  clxxx.  he  explains  hia  reason 
for  not  writing  at  length  on  the  subject  of  religion.  "  I  have  seldom  written 
to  you  upon  the  subject  of  religion  and  morality ;  your  own  reason,  I  am 
persuaded,  has  given  you  true  notions  of  both  ;  they  speak  best  for  them- 
•elves,  but  if  they  wanted  assistance  you  have  Mr.  Harto  at  hand  "  (yoong 
Stanhope's  tutor  and  a  clergyman),  "both  for  precept  and  example."  See, 
too,  Letter  clxviii. 


216  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Socrates  and  Voltaire.  Of  the  moral  government  of 
the  universe ;  of  the  wisdom,  justice,  and  benevolence 
of  the  Deity ;  of  the  fact  that  in  reason,  or,  as  it  is 
sometimes  expressed,  in  conscience,  God  has  furnished 
man  with  an  unerring  guide ;  of  the  essential  con- 
nection of  religion  with  morality — he  has  no  doubt. 
To  the  belief  in  a  future  state  he  leaned  so  strongly 
that  he  has  not  scrupled  to  assume  it  as  truth.  His 
attitude  towards  the  popular  creed  was  precisely  that 
generally  assumed  by  the  wise  and  serious  men  of  the 
last  century.  His  heterodoxy,  which  we  know  was 
shared  by  almost  every  member  of  Pope's  circle,  and 
by  many  members  of  Johnson's  circle,  was,  like  theirs, 
purely  esoteric.  Pope's  distress  at  the  imputation  of 
unorthodoxy  is  notorious.  Swift  was  pained  beyond 
expression  by  the  construction  placed  on  The  Tale  of 
a  Tub,  The  publication  of  Bolingbroke's  philosophical 
works  was  an  act  of  gross  treachery.  When  it  was 
objected  to  Middleton  that  his  writings  would  have 
the  effect  of  disseminating  scepticism,  he  replied  that 
he  would  recant  everything  in  them  which  could  be 
construed  in  a  sense  hostile  to  Christianity.  Gibbon 
thought  his  indiscretion  in  giving  his  two  famous 
chapters  to  the  world  sufficiently  expiated  by  the 
advances  made  to  him  by  the  author  of  The 
Corruptions  of  Christianity.  "  I  have  sometimes 
thought,"  he  says  in  his  Autobiography,  "of  writ- 
ing a  Dialogue  of  the  Dead,  in  which  Lucian, 
Erasmus,  and  Voltaire  should  mutually  acknowledge 
the  danger  of  exposing  a  popular  creed  to  the  con- 
tempt of  the   blind  and  fanatic  multitude."     Like 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  217 

Cotta  in  Cicero's  Dialogue,  they  respected  a  religion 
which  was  the  religion  of  the  State.  Like  Aristotle's 
Man  of  Polite  Wit,  they  shrank  from  wounding  un- 
necessarily the  feelings  of  others.  On  higher  grounds 
they  revered  it  as  the  purest  and  most  perfect 
of  moral  codes,  and  as  the  expression  of  essential 
truths  appealing  equally  to  the  philosopher  and  to 
the  multitude,  but  appealing  to  the  philosopher 
through  what  was  mystery  to  the  multitude,  and 
appealing  to  the  multitude  through  what  was  fable 
to  the  philosopher.  Wherever  Chesterfield  refers  tq 
Christianity  it  is  with  the  greatest  reveren.ce.  The! 
educationboth  of  his  son  and  of  his  godson  was  con-l 
ducted  on  principles  strictly  orthodox.  Their  tutors; 
were  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church.  One, 
recommended  by  Lyttelton,  was  a  man  of  distinguished 
piety ;  the  other,  recommended  by  the  Bishop  of  St. 
David's,  was  the  most  eloquent  preacher  in  England. 
In  the  earlier  and  later  Correspondence  all  Chester- 
field's instruction  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that 
these  gentlemen  "  are  doing  their  duty."  So  anxious 
was  he  that  the  impressions  his  son  received  from 
their  teaching  should  not  be  weakened,  that  when 
Bolingbroke's  philosophical  works  came  out  he  ex- 
pressed a  wish  that  he  would  not  read  them.  Of 
Voltaire's  profanity  he  speaks  with  the  strongest 
disapprobation.  So  conservative  was  he  that  we 
find  him  thus  writing  to  Crebillon :  "  Jc  doute 
fort  s'il  est  permis  k  un  homme  d'ecrire  contre 
le  culte  et  la  croyance  de  son  pays,  quand  m^me 
il    seroit  de   bonne    foi    persuade   qu'il   y    cut  des 


v/ 


218  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

erreurs."  ^  In  writing  to  his  godson  he  says,  referring 
to  the  Bible,  "  You  will  and  ought  to  believe  every 
word  of  it,  as  it  was  dictated  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth," 
a  statement  defining  with  singular  precision  Chester- 
field's real  position  in  relation  to  these  questions. 
As  a  man  and  as  a  writer  he  was  the  reversed 
counterpart  of  Montaigne  and  Shaftesbury.  Mon- 
taigne thought  the  composition  of  the  Apologie  de 
Raimond  Sebond,  and  Shaftesbury  the  composition 
of  the  Characteristics  J  perfectly  compatible  with  the 
profession  of  orthodoxy.  Chesterfield  thought  the 
inculcation  of  orthodoxy  perfectly  compatible  with 
a  belief  in  a  philosophy  not  very  diff'erent  from  the 
philosophy  of  the  Apologie  and  the  Characteristics. 

Lord  Carnarvon's  remark  that  Chesterfield's  "  esti- 
mate of  right  and  wrong  "  difi'ered,  and  differed  for  the 
better,  from  the  estimate  which  he  had  formed  before 
he  grew  old,  is,  we  venture  to  think,  not  quite  just  to 
him.  For  what  the  remark  obviously  implies  is  that 
the  morality  in  the  earlier  Correspondence  is  either 
less  sound  or  less  elevated  than  that  in  the  later. 
But  this  is  surely  not  the  case,  and  for  the  best  of 
reasons.  If  we  except  the  one  great  blot,  of  which 
we  propose  to  speak  at  length  presently,  no  moral 
teaching  could  be  sounder  or  more  excellent  than  we 
find  in  his  Letters  to  his  son.  Eeligious  obligations 
are  perhaps  a  little  more  emphasised,  but  nothing  is 
said  but  what  had  been  said  before.  Whether  Chester- 
field's opinion  changed  on  the  subject  to  which  we 
have  referred  we  do  not  know.     We   should   infer 

^  Maty,  Correspondence,  vol.  ii.  p.  327. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        21 » 

from  Letters  ccxviii.,  ccxxxvi.,  and  from  the  letter 
to  be  delivered  after  his  death,  that  it  had  not.^  In 
any  case  he  would  not  have  been  likely  to  touch  on 
such  things  in  writing  to  a  child. 

We  have  dwelt  on  these  points  for  two  reasons. 
In  the  first  place,  we  do  not  think  that  the  dis- 
tinction which  Lord  Carnarvon  attempts  to  make 
between  Chesterfield's  sentiments  and  precepts  in  the 
earlier  and  later  Letters  is  warranted  by  facts.  In  the 
second  place,  the  suggestion  of  such  a  distinction 
involves  an  admission,  in  our  opinion,  equally  un- 
warrantable and  equally  misleading.  It  is  plain  that 
Lord  Carnarvon  wishes  to  say  all  that  can  in  fairness 
be  said  in  defence  of  his  author.  But  he  defends  him 
by  a  compromise.  Assuming  the  justice  of  the 
popular  verdict  on  the  earlier  Letters,  he  represents, 
or  seems  to  represent,  the  later  as  a  kind  of  palinode. 
He  points  to  passages,  in  many  cases  simple  repeti- 
tions of  passages  in  the  former  series,  as  proofs  of 
an  awakened  moral  sense.  He  quotes,  with  just 
admiration,  sentiments  and  precepts,  which  are 
commonplaces  in  the  earlier  Letters,  as  indications 
of  the  salutary  efi'ects  of  age  and  sorrow.  But 
Chesterfield  was  not,  we  submit,  a  reformed  rake, 
except  in  the  sense  in  which  Aristippus  and  Horace 


*  Lord  Carnarvon  i>oints  with  great  satisfaction  to  a  passage  in  Letter  XLIY., 
where  Chesterfield  speaks  of  natural  children  as  Ic  fruit  cTunpicM,  as  a  proof 
of  reformation  on  this  point.  But  Chesterfield's  repetition  of  the  story  of  the 
Ephesian  matron,  and  his  remarks  in  Letter  cxxxiv.,  are  ominous  indications. 
We  very  much  fear  that  if  Philip  Stanhope  had  been  a  few  years  older  he 
would  have  received  the  same  edifying  guidance  in  "  the  pleasures  and  diati- 
pations,  both  of  which  I  shall  allow  you  when  you  are  seventeen  or  eighteen," 
as  the  former  Philip  had  been  favoured  with. 


220  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

were  reformed  rakes.  He  was  a  man  of  the  world 
and  a  philosopher,  consistent  alike  in  his  precepts 
and  in  his  principles.  What  he  preached  at  seventy 
was  what  he  preached  at  fifty-seven,  and  what  he 
preached  at  fifty -seven  is  what  he  would  have 
preached  at  five  -  and  -  thirty.  Of  the  follies  and 
errors  of  his  youth,  of  wasted  opportunities,  and  of 
wasted  time,  he  speaks  with  a  regret  common  with 
men  in  all  ages  of  the  world.  But  the  lusus  ac 
ludicra,  the  inculcation  of  which  has  been  so  fatal 
to  his  reputation  among  his  countrymen,  were  no 
more  included  in  his  remorse  than  they  were  included 
in  the  remorse  of  Horace.  "I  do  not  regret,"  he 
wrote  to  his  son,  "  the  time  that  I  passed  in  pleasures  ; 
they  were  seasonable,  they  were  the  pleasures  of 
youth,  and  I  enjoyed  them  while  young."  On  this 
point  his  sentiments  were  precisely  those  of  the 
ancient  moralists.^  The  licence  which  was  allowed 
to  youth,  a  proper  sense  of  the  becoming  forbade 
to  mature  years.  Non  lusisse  pudet  sed  non  in- 
cidere  ludum.  The  danger,  as  he  well  knew  and 
has  frequently  remarked,  lay  in  the  possibility  of 
the  permanent  corruption  of  character;  of  the  con- 
tamination, the  essential  contamination,  of  moral  and 
intellectual  energy ;  of  mischief  alike  to  body  and 
mind.  As  he  did  not,  in  accordance  with  those  who 
thought  with  the  ancients  rather  than  with  those 
who  think  with  Christian  teachers,  press  an  austere 
morality  on  the  young,  so  he  saw  no  impropriety 

1  See  particularly  Cicero,  Pro  Ccelio,  passim,  and  especially  chap,  xii.,  if 
sentiments,  which  are  commonplaces  with  the  ancients,  need  illustration. 


i 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        221 

in  endeavouring  to  render  such  indulgences  as  little 
harmful  as  possible.^  It  is  untrue,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  it  is  misleading,  to  say  that  he  inculcates 
vice.  The  odiousness,  the  contemptibleness,  the  mis- 
chievousness  of  vice,  is  indeed  his  constant  theme. 
"  A  commerce  galant  insensibly  formed  with  a  woman 
of  fashion,  a  glass  of  wine  or  two  too  much,  unwarily 
taken  in  the  warmth  and  joy  of  good  company,  or 
some  innocent  frolic  by  which  nobody  is  injured,  are,'' 
he  says,  "  the  utmost  bounds  which  a  man  of  sense 
and  decency  will  allow  himself;  those  who  transgress 
them  become  infamous,  or  at  least  contemptible." 
It  must  be  remembered  that  when  he  speaks  of 
gallantry,  he  is  speaking  not  of  that  crime  which 
ruins  the  peace  of  families,  and  is  fraught  with 
misery  and  mischief  to  society,  but  of  a  relation 
which,  in  the  aristocratic  circles  of  Italy  and  France, 
where  his  son,  for  whose  guidance  while  moving  in 
these  circles  the  Letters  were  written,  was  then  re- 
siding, no  one  held  to  be  reprehensible.  It  was  vice 
so  sanctioned  by  custom  that  it  had  ceaSed  to  be 
regarded  as  vice.  "II  permet  la  galanterie,"  says 
Montesquieu,  speaking  of  the  differences  between 
Monarchy  and  Republicanism — "lorsqu'elle  est  unie 
il  I'idde  du  sentiment  du  coeur,  ou  ^  I'id^e  de  con- 

^  His  position  and  motives  are  exactly  explained  in  the  Testamentary 
Letter  to  his  godaon.  Speaking  of  youth,  he  says,  "  It  is  a  state  of  continual 
inebriety  for  six  or  sercn  years  at  least,  and  frequently  attended  by  fatal  and 
permanent  conseqaences  both  to  body  and  mind.  Believe  yourself,  then,  to 
be  drunk,  and  as  drunken  men  when  reeling  catch  hold  of  the  next  thing 
in  their  way  to  sup)K)rt  them,  do  you,  my  dear  boy,  hold  by  the  rails  of  my 
experience.  I  hope  they  will  hinder  you  from  falling,  though  perhaps  not 
from  staggering  a  little  sometimes."  He  says  exactly  the  same  in  Letter 
cxxxv.  (vol.  i.)  to  his  son. 


222  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

quete"  ;  or,  as  Chesterfield  himself  puts  it,  '*  gallantry 
is  at  Paris  as  necessary  a  part  of  a  woman  of  fashion's 
establishment  as  her  house,  table,  and  coach."  "VVe 
very  much  doubt,  corrupt  as  the  court  of  George  II. 
was,  whether  he  would  have  proffered  any  such  advice, 
seriously  at  least,  had  his  son  been  in  England.  Of 
one  thing  we  are  very  sure,  that  crimes  such  as  those 
of  Wendoll  and  Lovelace  would  have  been  discounte- 
nanced and  denounced  by  him  as  uncompromisingly 
and  sternly  as  by  the  most  austere  of  moralists. 

We  are  holding  no  brief  for  Chesterfield.  We 
think  that  any  attempt  to  confuse  the  distinction 
between  morality  and  immorality  is  in  the  highest 
degree  reprehensible,  and  that,  in  theory  at  least,  our 
standard  of  morals  is,  and  must  be,  the  standard  of 
Christianity.  That  vice  loses  half  its  evil  by  losing 
all  its  grossness  is  in  point  of  fact  undoubtedly  true, 
but  it  is  true  on  a  principle  which  we  have  no  right 
to  concede.  Here,  then,  we  believe  Chesterfield  to 
be  entirely  in  the  wrong.  Nor  have  we  anything  to 
say  in  defence  of  the  flippancy  and  levity  with  which 
he  commonly  speaks  of  women,  and  of  men's  relation 
to  women,  still  less  of  the  impropriety  of  a  father 
addressing  a  son  on  such  topics  as  those  to  which  we 
have  alluded.  AU  this  we  fully  grant  and  greatly 
regret.  But  it  is  surely  high  time  that  the  nonsense 
which  has  so  long  been  current,  and  is  still  so  in- 
dustriously circulated  about  these  Letters  and  their 
author,  should  cease.  We  saw  quite  recently  a  work 
in  which  all  the  old  calumnies,  Johnson's  epigram 
and  Cowper's  invective  duly  emphasised,  were  faith- 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  223 

fully  retailed.  Chesterfield  himself  was  described 
exactly  as  he  is  represented  in  his  supposed  counter- 
part in  Dickens's  novel,  the  Letters  as  a  sort  of 
text-book  of  the  ethics  of  immorality,  advocating 
seduction,  adultery,  hypocrisy,  untruth,  contempt  for^ 
religion.  Lord  Carnarvon  has  done  a  great  service 
in  printing  these  new  Letters.  But  he  would  have 
done  a  still  greater  service  had  he  taken  this  oppor- 
tunity of  directing  attention  to  the  injustice  of  the 
sentence  passed  on  the  old.  As  it  is,  what  he  has 
said,  or  at  least  implied,  will,  we  fear,  tend  only  to 
confirm  it.  Chesterfield's  character  and  writings  are 
best  vindicated  by  the  statement  of  simple  truth. 
On  certain  subjects  he  did  not  think  as  most  men 
now  think ;  there  are  certain  passages  in  his  works 
to  which  just  exception  may  be  taken.  But  to 
represent  him,  as  Lord  Carnarvon  has  done,  in  the 
light  of  a  repentant  sinner  involves  two  wholly 
unwarranted  petitiones  principii,  the  one  conceding 
far  too  much,  the  other  assuming  much  too  little.  If 
he  was  a  sinner,  he  was  a  sinner  in  a  sense  in  which 
he  did  not  repent ;  and  if  he  repented,  he  repented  in 
a  sense  in  which  he  did  not  sin. 

But  to  turn  to  the  new  Letters.     They  have  much     ] 
merit.     They  are  full  of  good  things,  of  observations     / 
on   men  and  life  marked   by  all    the   old  delicate    v^ 
discrimination  and  refined  good  sense,  of  excellent        ^ 
precepts,  of  counsel  and  suggestions,  admirable  alike 
for  the   shrewd,   keen,   sober  sagacity  and   wisdom 

displayed   in   them,  and  for  the  tact  and  urbanity y 

with  which  they  are  tendered.     There  are  passages  in 


224  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

them  as  good  as  the  best  which  could  be  found  in 
the  earlier  Correspondence.  The  style  is  the  same — 
unaffected,  fluent,  pure,  graceful,  finished,  the  style 
in  fact  in  which  Chesterfield  always  wrote.  But  they 
have  more  humour,.,  and  the  humour  is  less  cynical 
and  more  playful.  This,  and  that  in  which  this  is 
an  element,  the  general  tone,  the  reflection  of  the 
mitis  senectutis  sapientia,  give  them  a  charm,  a 
peculiar  charm,  which  the  others  do  not  possess. 
Horace,  when  he  composed  the  Epistles,  was,  it  is 
true,  younger  than  Chesterfield  when  the  Letters  to 
the  elder  Stanhope  were  written,  yet  when  we  com- 
pare the  tone  of  the  earlier  Letters  with  that  of  the 
Letters  before  us,  we  are  insensibly  reminded  of  the 
difference  between  the  harsher  philosopher  of  the 
Satires  and  .the  mellower  philosopher  of  the  Ep>istles, 
But  they  will  not,  as  a  whole,  bear  comparison  with 
the  earlier  Correspondence.  We  doubt  even  whether 
they  will  add  much  to  Chesterfield's  literary  fame. 
For,  as  they  were  designed  with  the  same  object 
as  their  predecessors,  to  form  a  system  of  education 
proceeding  on  the  same  method  and  having  in  view 
the  same  ends,  they  necessarily  repeat  much  of  what 
had  been  said  before.  Indeed,  in  substance  they 
contain  little  which  is  essentially  new.  But  what 
is  repeated  is  repeated  in  another  way,  with  many 
new  touches,  with  many  additional  illustrations  and 
reflections — with  all  those  improvements,  in  short, 
which  we  should  expect  from  a  man  of  a  richly-stored 
mind  rediscussing  in  old  age  the  subjects  he  had  dis- 
cussed years  before. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  225 

The  parallel  between  the  two  series  is  very  close. 
The  common  aim  of  both  was,  like  that  of  Elyot's  > 
Governour,  with  which  they  may  be  compared,  the  / 
education  of  a  (finished  gentleman,  destined  to  serve 
his   country    in    public   life,    commencing   from    the 
time  when  he  leaves  the  nursery  to  the  time  when, 
epopt  and  perfect,  he  emerges  from  tutelage.    "  Lhad». 
he  writes  to  his  son,  "  two  views  in  your  education^ 


Parliament  and  Foreign_Af!airaJ!     In  his  godson  he 
was   interested   as   in   his   qwn   heir  and   successor. 
Both  series  are  exactly  on  the  same  plan,  but   the 
one  is  completed,  the  other  is  not.    The  earlier  Letters, 
till   they  cease   to   be  didactic,  form  three  distinct 
groups.     The  iSrst^ay  be  said  to  terminate  with  the    \ 
78th  Letter,  when  Philip  was  in  his  fifteenth  year,  i   \ 
and  the  instruction  here  is  confined  almost  entirely 
to  elementary  lessons  in  my thologyj  history,  historical 
geography,    and   literature,    and    to   the   conduct   of 
habits  and  manners  proper  in  a  boy.     The  second 
terminates  at  or  about  the  second  Letter  of  volume 
ii.,  that   dated   26th  April   1750^,  when   the  youth, 
now  in  his  nineteenth  year,  was  about  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  his  tutor.     Their  theme  is  the  true  use  of  / 
the  world,  and  of  books  as  instruments  of  culture ; 
the  becoming  in  morals  and  manners,  and  the  art  o£ 
acquiring  it ;  duties,  theirjoature  and  their  obligations  1 
ambition  and  its  legitimate  objects ;  the  relation  of 
theory  to  experience,  of  experience  to  theory,  and  of 
both  to  success  in  life.     The  third  group,  addressed 
to  a  youth  who  was  now  his  own  master  and  in  the 
midst  of  uU  the  temptations  of  the  idlest  and  most 

Q 


\ 


22e  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

dissolute  capital  in  Europe,  completes  tlie  course. 
The  instruction  here  is  how  the  pleasures  of  a  man  of 
the  world  may  be  made  subservient  to  his  interests 
and  his  duties  ;  how  credit,  how  influence,  how 
authority  are  to  be  acquired ;  how  on  the  skill  with 
which  the  game  of  life  is  played  in  trifles  depends  the 
success  with  which  the  game  will  be  won  in  earnest. 
In  the  Letters  to  the  godson,  two  only  of  these  groups 
have  their  counterpart,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
Correspondence  breaks  off  before  young  Stanhope  had 
ceased  to  be  a  boy.  The  first,  extending  to  the  128th 
Letter,  answers  exactly  to  the  first  group  in  the  former. 
The  series  go  over  precisely  the  same  ground,  not 
indeed  so  deliberately  and  in  a  much  lighter  and 
more  playful  style,  interspersing,  more  frequently 
than  the  others  do,  the  sort  of  moral  and  religious 
instruction  proper  for  a  child.  Indeed,  there  is  much 
in  this  group  which  in  the  former  series  finds  its 
place  in  the  second.  But  it  is  expressed  in  simpler 
language,  and  generally  in  French.  As  these  Letters 
will  probably  be  new  to  most  of  our  readers,  we  will 
give  a  few  extracts.  One  of  the  most  pleasing  is  the 
ninth,  on  duty  to  God  and  duty  to  man. 

God  has  been  so  good  as  to  write  in  all  our  hearts  the  duty 
that  He  expects  from  us,  which  is  adoration  and  thanksgiving, 
and  doing  all  the  good  we  can  to  our  fellow-creatures.  Our 
conscience,  if  we  will  but  consult  and  attend  to  it,  never  fails  to 
remind  us  of  those  duties.  .  .  .  You  owe  all  the  advantages  you 
enjoy  to  God,  who  can  and  who  will  probably  take  them  away, 
whenever  you  are  ungrateful  to  Him,  for  He  has  justice  as  well 
as  mercy.  Your  duty  to  man  is  very  short  and  clear ;  it  is  only 
to  do  to  him  whatever  you  would  be  willing  that  he  should  do 
to  you.  And  remember  in  all  the  business  of  life  to  ask  your 
conscience  this  question :  Should  I  he  willing  that  this  should  he 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  227 

done  to  me?  If  your  conscience,  which  will  always  tell  you 
tmth,  answers  No,  do  not  do  that  thing.  Observe  these  rules, 
and  you  will  be  happy  in  this  world  and  still  happier  in  the 
next. 

We  notice  in  the  next  Letter  the  repetition  of  what 
he  had  said  so  felicitously  before  of  the  art  of  pleasing  : 
*'  Observe  attentively  what  pleases  you  in  others  and 
do  the  same,  and  you  will  be  sure  to  please  them." 
There  is  a  beautiful  passage  in  the  108th  Letter : — 

God  has  created  us  such  helpless  creatures  that  we  all  want 
one  another's  assistance.  ...  It  was  for  this  reason  that  our 
Almighty  Creator  made  us  with  so  many  wants  and  infirmities 
that  mutual  help  and  assistance  are  absolutely  necessary,  not 
only  lor  our  well-being,  but  for  our  being  at  all.  The  Christian 
Religion  carries  our  moral  duties  to  greater  perfection,  and  orders 
us  to  love  our  enemies,  and  to  do  good  to  those  who  use  us  ill. 
Now  as  love  or  hate  is  not  in  our  power,  though  our  actions  are, 
this  commandment  means  no  more  than  that  we  should  forgive 
those  who  use  us  ill,  and  that  instead  of  resenting  or  revenging 
injuries,  we  should  return  good  for  evil. 

How  admirable  too  are  his  remarks  in  the  125th 
Letter,  in  which  he  comments  on  the  folly  of  glorying 
in  distinctions  originating  only  from  the  accidents  of 
fortune : — 

S^avez-voua  qui  sont  vos  sup^rieurs,  vos  6gaux,  et  vos 
infc^rieurs  1  Expliquons  un  peu  cela.  Vos  sup^rieurs  sont  ceux 
a  qui  la  fortune  a  donn6  beaucoup  plus  de  rang  et  de  richesses 
qu'a  V0U8.  Vos  ^gaux  sont  ce  qui  s'appelle  Gentilhommes,  ou 
honnfites  gens.  Et  vos  inf6rieurs  sont  ceux  li  qui  la  fortune  a 
!"fiis('  tout  rang  et  tout  bien,  sans  souvent  qu'il  y  ait  de  leur 
ttule,  et  qui  sont  obliges  de  travailler  pour  gagner  leur  vie. 
Scion  la  nature  la  servante  de  Monsieur  Robert  est  aussi  bien 
n^  que  vous,  elle  a  eu  un  P6re  et  uno  M6re,  un  Grnndp6ro  et 
nne  Grandm^re  et  des  ancdtres  juscju'Adam :  mais  malheurouse- 
ir  elle,  ils  n'ont  pas  ^t^  si  riches  que  les  v6tres  et  par 
,  .  at  n'ont  pu  lui  donner  uno  education  commo  la  vdtre. 


228  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Et  voil4  toute  la  difference  entre  elle  et  vous,  elle  vous  donne 
son  travail,  et  vous  lui  donnez  de  Targent.^ 

The  Letters  comprised  in  the  second  group  are 
represented  by  the  fourteen  (129-142)  on  the  Duty, 
Utility,  and  Means  of  Pleasing ;  by  thirteen  designed 
**  to  cram  you  full  of  the  most  shining  thoughts  of 
the  Ancients  and  Moderns."  After  this  the  Letters,  as 
a  series,  go  to  pieces,  and  are  in  the  main  repetitions 
of  what  had  been  said  in  Letters  129-140,  or  merely 
gossiping  trifles.  The  Letters  on  the  Art  of  Pleasing 
are  the  only  ones  in  this  group  which  stand  on  the 
same  level  as  the  earlier  Correspondence.  Some  of  the 
others  appear  to  us  to  show  evident  traces  of  senility. 
The  same  remarks  are  repeated  over  and  over  again. 
The  story  of  Dido,  with  the  wretched  epigrams  on 
her  death,  is  twice  narrated,  so  also  is  the  trash  of 
Atterbury  about  Flavia's  fan.  The  selection  of  "  the 
most  shining  thoughts  of  the  Ancients  and  Moderns  " 
is  worthy  of  Ned  Softly  himself,  and  in  some  cases 
the  comments  too.  We  think  Lord  Carnarvon  would, 
here  at  least,  have  done  well  had  he  exercised  a  little 
less  indulgently  his  discretion  as  an  editor. 

But  to  turn  to  Chesterfield's  own  "shining  pass- 
ages." The  shrewd  good  sense  of  such  remarks  as 
these  will  be  at  once  apparent : — 

Vanity  is  a  great  inducement  to  keep  low  company,  for 
a  man  of  quality  is  sure  to  be  the  first  man  in  it,  and  to  be 


^  These  sentiments  find  an  interesting  illustration  in  his  Will:  "I  give 
to  all  my  menial  or  household  servants  that  shall  have  lived  with  me  five 
years  or  upwards,  whom  I  consider  as  unfortunate  friends,  my  equals  by 
nature  and  my  inferiors  only  by  tlie  difference  of  our  fortune,  two  years* 
wages,"  etc.    See  his  Will,  printed  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  July  1773. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  229 

admired  and  flattered,  though  perhaps  the  greatest  fool  in  it. — 
Letter  cxxxiv. 

Again,  on  the  same  subject : — 

I  know  of  nothing  more  difficult  in  common  behaviour 
than  to  fix  due  bounds  to  familiarity ;  too  little  implies  an 
unsociable  formality,  too  much  destroys  all  friendly  and 
social  intercourse.  The  best  rule  I  can  give  you  to  manage 
familiarity  is  never  to  be  more  familiar  with  anybody  than 
you  would  be  willing  and  even  glad  that  he  should  be  with 
you. — CXI  II. 

The  remarks  about  wit  are  excellent : — 

If  you  have  real  wit  it  will  flow  spontaneously,  and  you 
need  not  aim  at  it,  for  in  that  case  the  rule  of  the  gospel  is 
reversed,  and  it  will  prove,  seek  and  you  shall  not  find.  Wit  is 
so  shining  a  quality  that  everybody  admires  it,  most  people  aim 
at  it,  all  people  fear  it,  and  few  love  it  except  in  themselves.  .  .  . 
A  wise  man  will  live  as  much  within  his  wit  as  within  his 
income. — cxxxvi. 

La  Rochefoucauld  himself  has  nothing  better  than 
this  remark  on  vanity  : — 

Vanity  is  the  more  odious  and  shocking  to  everybody, 
because  everybody  without  exception  has  vanity ;  and  two 
vanities  can  never  love  one  another,  any  more  than,  according  to 
the  vulgar  saying,  two  of  a  trade  can.  If  you  desire  to  please 
universally  men  and  women,  address  yourself  to  their  passions 
and  weaknesses,  gain  their  hearts,  and  then  let  their  reason  do 
their  worst  against  you. — CXLL 

How  fine  and  exquisite,  with  the  precision  and 
subtilty  of  La  Bruyere  at  his  best,  is  this  : — 

Judgment  is  not  upon  all  occasions  required,  but  discretion 
always  is.  Never  afi'ect  or  assume  a  particular  character,  for  it 
will  never  fit  you,  but  will  probably  give  you  a  ridicule,  but 
I'Hvo  it  to  your  conduct,  your  virtues,  your  morals,  and  your 
manners  to  give  you  one.  Discretion  will  teach  you  to  have 
particular  attention  to  your  moeurs^  which  we  have  no  one  word 
in  our  language  to  express  exactly.  Morals  are  too  much, 
manners  too  little,  decency  comes  the  nearest  to  it,  though  rather 
short  of  it — CXLII. 


230  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Well  worth  pausing  over  are  remarks  like  these  : — 

There  is  as  much  difiference  between  Pride  and  Dignity  as 
there  is  between  Power  and  Authority. — cxcvi. 

A  vicious  character  may  and  will  alter  if  there  is  good 
sense  at  bottom,  but  a  frivolous  one  is  condemned  to  eternal 
ridicule  and  contempt. — ccxxxv. 

A  certain  degree  of  ceremony  is  a  necessary  outwork  of 
manners  as  well  as  of  religion. — cxxxi. 

II  faut  I'avouer  il  y  a  des  coutumes  bien  ridicules  qui  ont 
6t6  invent^es  par  des  sots,  mais  auxquelles  les  sages  sont  obliges 
de  se  conformer. — ccvi. 

The  literary  fame  of  Chesterfield  must  rest  on 
the  Letters  to  liis  son ;  but  to  these  Letters  about 
a  third  of  what  is  comprised  in  the  present  volume 
is  well  worthy  of  being  added,  and  is  indeed  a  sub- 
stantial contribution  to  the  work  by  which  he  will  be 
remembered. 

Nothing  is  so  natural,  but  assuredly  nothing  is 
so  delusive,  as  the  desire  to  make  others  wise — wise 
vicariously,  with  the  wisdom  of  experience.  It  is 
perhaps  the  last  illusion  of  old  age.  But  it  is  an 
illusion  for  which  the  world  has  reason  to  be  thank- 
ful. Generation  after  generation  have  men,  whose 
profound  acquaintance  with  human  nature  and  human 
affairs  would  make  even  their  slightest  reflections 
precious,  devoted  their  leisure  or  their  decline  to 
summing  up,  for  the  benefit  of  those  dear  to  them, 
the  lessons  which  life  had  taught  them.  Such  was 
the  occupation  of  the  leisure  of  Cato  the  Censor,  and 
of  our  own  Alfred.  The  letters  of  the  elder  Wyatt  to 
the  younger  are  in  our  opinion  of  more  interest  than 
the  poems  to  which  he  owes  his  fame.  Thus  too  we 
have  the  instructions  drawn  up  by  Lord  Burleigh  for 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  231 

the  guidance  of  his  son  Robert,  and  excellent  they  are 
— so  excellent  and  so  characteristic  of  their  eminent 
author,  that  we  wonder  they  have  not  been  reprinted 
in  our  own  time.  Of  Raleigh's  voluminous  writings 
the  advice  to  his  son,  or,  as  he  entitles  it,  Instruc- 
tions to  his  Son  and  to  Posterity,  is  one  of  the  few 
which  still  maintains  its  interest.  The  only  work  of 
James  I.  which  deserves  to  be  remembered  is  the 
Basilicon  Doron.  Cardinal  Sermonettas  Instruc- 
tions to  his  Cousin,  and  the  manual  attributed  to 
Walsingham — not  the  minister  of  Elizabeth,  but  the 
secretary  to  Lord  Digby — are  perhaps  more  curious 
than  important ;  but  Francis  Osborn's  Advice  to  a  Son 
is  a  work  which  deserves  a  better  fate  than  oblivion. 
Nothing  that  Chesterfield's  own  ancestor,  George 
Savile,  Marquis  of  Halifax,  has  left  us — and  he  has 
left  us  two  essays  which  are  masterpieces — is  com- 
parable to  his  Advice  to  a  Daughter y  a  little  manual 
which  ought  not  only  to  be  reprinted,  but  to  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  every  young  lady  in  England.  Coming 
down  more  nearly  to  Chesterfield's  time,  we  have  the 
letters  written  by  Lord  Chatham  to  his  nephew  at 
Cambridge,  and  it  is  curious  to  note  how  close  a 
resemblance,  so  far  as  direct  instruction  is  concerned, 
they  bear  to  Chesterfield's  letters.  There  is  the  same 
insistence  throughout  on  religion  and  morality  being 
the  pillars  on  which  life  rests ;  on  the  necessity  of  a 
sound,  as  distinguished  from  a  pedantic,  classical 
training  forming  the  basis  of  literary  culture ;  on  the 
fact  that  the  use  of  learning  "is  to  render  a  man 
more  wise  and  virtuous,  not  merely  more  learned " ; 


232  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

on  the  importance  of  the  study  of  modern  history 
and  modern  languages  in  conjunction  with  ancient. 
Among  the  many  minor  coincidences  two  are  well  worth 
noticing.  Perhaps  nothing  has  been  more  ridiculed 
in  Chesterfield  than  his  remarks  about  the  ungrace- 
fulness  of  laughter.  But  Chatham  has  made  exactly 
the  same  remarks  :  "  Avoid  contracting  any  peculiar 
gesticulations  of  the  body,  or  movements  of  the 
muscles  of  the  face.  It  is  rare  to  see  in  any  one 
a  graceful  laughter  ;  it  is  generally  better  to  smile 
than  to  laugh  out."  ^  Both  indeed  were  but  repeating 
what  had  been  said  before  by  Plato,  Isocrates,  Cicero, 
and  Epictetus.^  No  one  will  accuse  Lord  Chatham 
of  any  sympathy  with  lax  morality ;  but,  unless  we 
misunderstand  a  passage  in  one  of  his  Letters,  he 
thought  there  was  nothing  indecorous  in  banter 
quite  indistinguishable  from  Chesterfield's.^ 

But  no  serious  comparison  can  be  drawn  between 
these  Letters  and  the  Letters  of  which  we  are  speak- 
ing. Interesting  and  valuable  as  the  greater  portion  of 
them  are,  the  best  of  them  have  no  pretensions  to  be 
classical.  In  their  matter  there  is  an  immense  pre- 
ponderance of  w^hat  is  only  not  platitude  because  of 
the  authority  that  enforces  it.  In  none  of  them  is 
there  any  attempt  at  a  regular  system  of  instruction. 
They  are  simply  didactic,  and  didactic  in  the  sense  of 
being,  as  a  rule,   simply  admonitory.     In   point  of 

^  Letters  written  by  the  late  Earl  of  CJuUham  to  his  nephew  Thomas  Pitt, 
Letter  v.  p.  34. 

'^  Republic,  vol.  iii.  p.  338  ;  Ad  Demanicum,  15  ;  De  Officiis,  lib.  i.  29  ; 
Enchiridion,  cap.  xxx.  4. 

3  Chatham's  Letters,  xix.  p.  92. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  233 

style,  the  great  criterion,  they  are  all  essentially 
deficient,  and  that  for  various  reasons  and  in  various 
degrees. 

The  unpopularity  of  Chesterfield  among  his 
countrymen  is  not  difficult  to  understand.  In  the 
first  place,  he  is  the  most  aristocratic  of  writers.  He 
wrote,  to  employ  his  own  words,  not  for  "  the  herd 
of  mankind,  who,  though  useful  in  their  way,  are 
but  the  candle -snuffers  and  scene -shifters  of  the 
universal  theatre,"  but  for  "  those  whom  Nature,  J 
education,  and  industry  have  qualified  to  act  the 
great  parts."  It  ought  always  to  be  remembered, 
and  is  almost  always  forgotten,  that  these  Letters 
were  not  intended  for  publication.  They  were  neither 
addressed  to  the  multitude  nor  have  any  application 
to  the  multitude.  They  were  designed  for  the  guid- 
ance of  a  young  English  aristocrat.  They  have 
therefore  to  ordinary  men,  who  regard  them  as 
addressed  to  the  world  in  general,  all  the  irritating 
effect  of  a  continued  strain  of  irony.  Neither  writer 
nor  reader,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  neither  teacher 
nor  pupil,  understands  the  other.  The  teacher  is 
assuming  that  the  pupil  is  moving  in  a  sphere  in 
which  fortune  has  not  placed  him,  and  the  pupil 
insensibly  takes  the  assumption  for  a  satire  on  the 
sphere  in  which  fortune  has  placed  him.  He  is 
perpetually  being  admonished  to  become  something 
which  he  can  never  be,  and  warned  against  becoming 
what  in  truth  he  cannot  help  being.  In  the  amuse- 
ments, in  the  serious  occupations,  in  the  aims  for  the 
guidance  of  which  instruction  is  being  given,  his  own 


284  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

appear  to  be  superciliously  ignored,  or  made  to  seem 
contemptible  by  contrast.  Few  men  care  to  be 
reminded,  honourable  as  such  occupations  may  be, 
that  they  belong  to  "  the  candle -snufiers  and  scene- 
shifters  of  the  universal  theatre." 
I  In  the  second  place,  Chesterfield  is,  of  all 
/'  English  writers,  if  we  except  Horace  Walpole,  the 
most  essentially  un-English.  Nothing  pleased  him 
so  much  as  a  compliment  paid  to  him  when  a  very 
young  man  by  a  French  gentleman  at  Paris : 
"  Monsieur,  vous  etes  tout  comme  nous,"  and  it  was 
simple  truth.  In  genius,  in  sympathy,  in  culture,  he 
was  far  more  French  than  English.  In  the  French 
character  and  temper  he  saw  the  foundation  of 
human  perfection.  "  I  have  often,"  he  writes,  "  said 
and  do  think  that  a  Frenchman,  who,  with  a  fund 
of  virtue,  learning,  and  good  sense,  has  the  manners 
and  good  breeding  of  his  country,  is  the  perfection 
of  human  nature."  His  manners  were  French.  He 
gave  his  house  at  Blackheath  a  French  name.  His 
favourite  authors  were  French.  He  delighted  to 
converse  and  write  in  French,  and  he  both  wrote  and 
spoke  it  with  the  same  facility  and  purity  as  Eng- 
lish. On  French  canons  his  own  critical  canons  were 
formed,  on  French  models  his  taste.  He  thought 
the  Henriade  a  finer  poem  than  the  Iliad  and 
the  ^neid.  He  preferred  Kacine  and  Corneille 
to  Shakspeare.  It  is  always  in  accordance  with 
characteristic  French  taste,  and  with  reference  to 
characteristic  French  models,  that  his  judgments 
are  formed.     Good  sense  combined  with  grace  and 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  235 

lucidity  of  expression  are,  as  he  has  insisted  re- 
peatedly, the  first  requisites  of  poets.  The  passion 
and  intensity  of  Dante  were  unintelligible  to  him.  He 
could  not  read  him,  he  said.  Milton  he  found  tedious. 
The  transcendentalism  of  Petrarch  disgusted  him 
— he  is  "a  sing-song  love  poet  who  deserved  his 
Laura  better  than  his  Lauro"  He  places,  justly 
indeed,  Ariosto  above  Tasso,  but  Voltaire  above  both. 
He  applies  the  same  canons  to  conduct.  No  generous 
traits,  no  noble  or  elevated  instincts,  can  compensate 
deficiency  in  grace  and  in  a  sense  of  the  becoming. 
Thus  he  condemns  Homer  for  making  such  a  char- 
acter as  Achilles,  whom  he  strangely  denounces  as  a 
brute  and  a  scoundrel,  the  hero  of  an  Epic  Poem ; 
and  in  another  Letter  he  speaks  contemptuously  of 
**  the  porter-like  language  of  Homer's  heroes."  It  is 
not  surprising  that  his  own  countrymen  should  have 
found  little  favour  in  his  eyes.  And  in  truth  he 
seldom  speaks  of  them  except  in  terms  expressive 
of  dislike  and  even  abhorrence.  Their  uncouth 
vices,  their  equally  uncouth  virtues,  their  manners, 
their  dress,  their  speech,  form  topics  for  endless 
ridicule.  Throughout  his  Letters  he  uses  them  as 
Horace  tells  us  his  father  when  educating  him 
used  his  vicious  neighbours, — as  examples  of  all  that 
youth  should  avoid.  "  I  am  informed,"  he  writes  to 
his  son,  "  that  there  are  now  many  English  at  Turin, 
and  I  fear  there  are  just  so  many  dangers  for  you 
to  encounter."  No  expression  in  his  Letters  is  more 
frequent  than  "  Would  you  wish  to  be  a  John  Trot  ? " 
or  "  I  would  not  have  you  be  a  John  Trot,"  and  John 


236  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Trot  is  with  him  little  more  than  a  synonym  for  an 
ordinary  Englishman.  If  we  remember  rightly,  the 
only  countrymen  of  his  whom  he  has  heartily  praised 
are  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  and  Lord  Bolingbroke, 
both  men  whose  manners  had  been  formed  in  the 
school  of  Versailles.  With  the  good  sense,  however, 
which  always  distinguished  him,  he  recognised  that 
if  there  are  French  virtues  there  are  English  too. 
Thus  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Madame  Monconseil  he 
says  in  reference  to  his  son,  "  My  idea  is  to  unite  in 
him  what  has  never  been  found  in  one  person  before, 
I  mean  what  is  best  in  the  two  nations."  And  in 
an  admirable  paper  in  Common  Sense  (No.  93)  he 
ridicules  the  indiscriminate  aping  of  French  manners. 
He  anticipated  Matthew  Arnold  in  almost  all  those 
points  in  which  Matthew  Arnold's  anti- Anglicism 
made  itself  most  aggressive.  He  defined,  he  analysed, 
he  delineated,  he  held  up  the  mirror  to  Philistinism ; 
he  showed  its  coarseness  and  ugliness,  the  vulgarity 
of  its  splendour,  the  meanness  of  its  ideals.  Its  vanity 
he  insulted  by  proposing,  as  a  pattern  for  its  imita- 
tion, a  people  whose  name  was  seldom  mentioned 
without  some  epithet  indicative  of  contempt.  And 
the  Philistines  have  had  their  revenge.  The  injustice 
of  which  he  was  undoubtedly  guilty  in  not  sufficiently 
recognising  their  robust  virtues  as  well  as  their 
deficiencies,  they  have  repaid  by  magnifying  his 
foibles  into  vices  and  his  vices  into  crimes. 

But  nothing  has  weighed  so  heavily  against  him  as 
the  charges  to  which  we  have  already  referred.  And 
on  one  point  we  can  oflfer  no  defence.     The  contempt 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        237 

with  which  he  speaks  of  women,  and  of  the  relation 

of  women  to  life,  has  always  appeared  to  us  not  merely 

the  one  great  flaw  in  his  writings,  but  indicative  of 

the  one  unsound  place  in  his  judgment  and  temper. 

His  misogyny  goes  far  beyond  that  of  Milton,  it  goes 

even   beyond   that   of  the   Kestoration    Dramatists. 

The   misogyny  of  Milton   is   that  of  a  philosopher 

angry   with   Nature,    and    smarting    from   wounded 

pride.     The  misogyny  of  the  Eestoration  Dramatists 

is  that  of  mere  libertines  and  wits.    But  the  misogyny 

of  Chesterfield  resembles  that  of  lago  or  Frederick  the 

Great.     He  appears  to  regard  women  as  occupying  a 

sort  of  intermediate  place,  isolated  between  rational 

humanity  and   the  animals.      They  are   not   bound 

by   the   laws   which   bind   men,  nor  are  such  laws 

binding  in  relation  to  them.     They  have  their  own 

morality — that  is  to  say,  no  morality  at  all ;   and  a 

similar  immunity  is  presumed  in  all  who  have  dealings 

with  them.     As  they  tell  no  truth,  so  they  exact  no 

truth.     "  A  man  of  sense  therefore  only  trifles  with 

them,  plays  with  them,  humours  them,  and  flatters 

them,  as  he  does  with  a  spritely  and  forward  child." 

As  they  are  incapable  of  sincerity  and  seriousness, 

sincerity  and  seriousness  are  quite  out  of  place  in 

transactions   with   them.      And   yet,  "as   they   are 

necessary  ingredients  in  all  good  company,"  and  as 

"their  suffrages  go   a  great  way  in  establishing  a 

man's  character  in  society,"  it  is  necessary  to  please 

and  court  them.     This  is  easily  done  by  remembering 

that  they  have  only  two  passions,  love  and  vanity. 

As  "  no  flattery  is  either  too  high  or  low  for  them," 


238  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

for   "they   will   greedily   swallow   the   highest   and 
gratefully  accept  of  the   lowest,"  their  capture   in- 
volves  little   trouble   and   no   art.     But  it   is   well 
to   bear   in   mind   that    "those   who   are  either  in- 
disputably beautiful   or   indisputably  ugly  are  best 
flattered   upon   the   score   of   their   understandings; 
but  those  who  are  in  a  state   of  mediocrity,  upon 
their  beauty,  or  at  least  their  graces."     In  flattering 
them,  however,  on  the  score  of  their   understand- 
ing,  care  must   be   taken   "not  to   drop   one   word 
about  their  experience,  for  experience  implies  age, 
and  the  suspicion  of  age  no  woman,  let  her  be  ever 
so  old,  ever  forgives."     Their  chief  use,  apart  from 
the  pleasure  of  intriguing  or  philandering  with  them, 
lies  in  their  being  a  means  of  culture.     And  for  this 
reason.     "The   attentions  which  they  require,    and 
which  are  always  paid  them  by  well-bred  men,  keep 
up   politeness,   and  give  a  habit  of  good  breeding ; 
whereas  men,  when  they  live  together,  and  without 
the  lenitive  of  women  in  company,  are  apt  to  grow 
careless,  negligent,  and  rough  among  one  another." 
For  the  rest  they  are  naught.     Their  virtue  is  mere 
coquetry ;    their   constancy   and    afiections,    fiction. 
And  it  was  the  same  to  the  last.     In  a  letter,  for 
example,  written  not  many  years  before  his  death, 
after  making  a  remark  so  grossly  indelicate  as  to  be 
quite  unquotable,  he  says,  "  to  take  a  wife  merely  as 
an  agreeable  and  rational  companion  will  commonly 
be  found  a  great  mistake.      Shakspeare"  (it  would 
have  been  more  correct  to  say  lago)  "  seems  to  be  of  my 
opinion  when  he  allows  them  only  this  department — 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  239 

"  To  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer." 

Much  of  this  is  of  course  to  be  attributed  to  the  age  |  \ 
in  which  he  lived  and  to  the  society  in  which  he 
moved,  and  is  to  be  regarded  as  simple  deduction 
from  his  own  experience.  We  have  only  to  turn  to 
such  records  as  the  Suffolk  Papers  and  Lord  Hervey's 
Memoirs,  to  Walpole's  Correspondence,  to  Hogarth's 
Cartoons,  or  to  any  of  the  Memoirs  merely  descriptive 
of  the  fashionable  life  in  Paris  between  the  Kegency 
and  the  Revolution,  to  such  books  as  the  Memoirs  of 
the  Due  de  Richelieu,  the  Memoirs  of  Madame  du 
Hausset,  the  Collections  of  Bachaumont,  the  novelettes 
of  Crebillon  the  younger,  or  the  correspondence  of 
that  lady  who,  in  Villemain's  phrase,  blended  "la 
prostitution  au  Cardinal  Dubois  et  I'amitie  de  Montes- 
quieu,'* and  it  becomes  perfectly  intelligible.  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  his  own  marriage  was 
a  very  unhappy  one,  and  in  his  wife,  the  illegitimate 
daughter  of  the  coarse  mistress  of  the  coarsest  of 
English  kings,  he  certainly  saw  nothing  calculated  to 
give  him  a  higher  opinion  of  women,  but  much,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  confirm  him  in  his  low  one.  But 
whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  of  Chesterfield's 
misogyny,  it  is  undoubtedly  a  great  blemish  on  his 
writings.  It  must  not,  however,  mislead  us.  We 
are  so  much  in  the  habit  of  reading  other  ages  in  the 
light  of  our  own,  and  of  assuming  that  what  would 
apply  to  a  man  who  acted  and  thought  in  a  particular 
way  among  ourselves,  would  apply  to  a  man  who 
acted  and  thought  in  the  same  way  a  century  ago, 
that  we  very  often  arrive  at  most  erroneous  con- 


ir 


240  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

elusions.  A  man  who  in  our  day  spoke  and  wrote 
of  women  as  Chesterfield  has  done,  would  justly  be 
set  down  as  a  scoundrel  and  a  fool.  But  Chesterfield, 
so  far  from  being  a  fool,  was  in  some  respects  one  of 
the  wisest  men  who  have  ever  lived  ;  and,  so  far  from 
being  a  scoundrel,  practised  as  well  as  preached  a 
morality  which  every  gentleman  in  the  world  would 
aspire  to  emulate.  The  truth  is,  as  it  is  only  just  to 
him  to  say,  that  he  was  generalising  from  his  ex- 
perience of  women  of  fashion.  In  one  of  his  papers 
in  Common  Sense  (No.  33)  he  has  drawn  a  beautiful 
picture  of  what  woman  might  be  if  she  would  only  be 
true  to  nature. 

There  are  certain  writings  in  the  literature  of  every 
country  which  may  have  a  message  for  the  world,  and 
may  have  value  universally,  but  which  to  the  country 
of  their  production  have  a  particular  message  and  a 
peculiar  value.  They  are  generally  the  work  of  men 
out  of  touch  and  out  of  sympathy  with  their  sur- 
roundings, separated  by  dififerences  of  character, 
temper,  intellect  from  their  fellows,  viewing  things 
with  other  eyes,  having  other  thoughts,  other  feel- 
ings— aliens  without  being  strangers.  As  ridicule  is 
said  to  be  the  test  of  truth,  so  the  judgments  of  these 
men  are  the  tests  of  national  life.  They  put  to  the 
proof  its  intellectual  and  moral  currency.  They  call 
to  account  its  creeds,  its  opinions,  its  sentiments, 
its  manners,  its  fashions.  For  conventional  touch- 
stones and  conventional  standards  they  apply  touch- 
stones and  standards  of  their  own,  derived,  it  may 
be,  ideally  from  speculation,  or  derived,  as  is  much 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  241 

more  commonly  the  case,  from  those  of  other  nations. 
They  are  not  only  the  exorcists  of  the  Idols  of  the 
Den  which  are  as  rife  with  communities  as  with 
individuals,  but  they  are  more.  They  are  the  up- 
holders of  the  Ideal  and  of  the  Best.  As  the  pro- 
phets of  the  first,  the  good  they  have  done  has  been 
mingled  with  much  mischief ;  in  the  inculcation  of 
the  second  consists  their  greatest  service.  We  mean 
of  course  by  the  Best  whatever  has  been  carried  by 
the  human  race  to  the  highest  conceivable  point  of 
perfection,  and  by  one  who  inculcates  the  Best,  one  who 
knows  where  to  go  to  find  it,  how  to  understand  and 
relish  it,  and  how  as  a  criterion  to  apply  it.  Such  a 
man,  for  instance,  would  not  go  to  Germany  or  Hol- 
land for  his  canons  of  the  becoming  in  relation  to 
manners,  or  for  his  canons  of  the  beautiful  in  relation 
to  art,  or  of  both  in  relation  to  the  conduct  of  life. 
He  would  go  to  ancient  Greece  and  to  modern 
France.  Now  so  solid  and  vigorous  are  our  virtues 
as  a  nation,  and  so  substantial  and  imposing  are  the 
results  of  them,  that  we  are  apt  to  ignore  or  perhaps 
not  even  to  be  conscious  of  the  deficiencies  compatible 
with  them.  But  they  exist  for  all  that,  and  they  are 
really  serious  :  "  On  the  side  of  beauty  and  taste,  vul- 
garity ;  on  the  side  of  morals  and  feeling,  coarseness ; 
on  the  side  of  mind  and  spirit,  unintelligence," — such 
is  Matthew  Arnold's  indictment.  And,  modify  it  as 
we  may,  much  must  remain  which  cannot  in  justice 
be  deducted.  To  say  that  we  have  no  due  regard  for 
the  becoming  and  the  beautiful,  and  as  a  rule  no  very 
clear  perception  of  either,  that  "to  sacrifice  to  the 

R 


^l 


242  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Graces"  is  to  most  of  us  little  more  than  meaningless 
cant,  that  what  may  be  called  the  minor  morals  have 
anything  but  definite  significance,  and  that  the 
practice  of  them,  whenever  they  are  practised,  con- 
sists of  a  sort  of  haphazard  application  of  principles 
derived  casually  from  vague  social  traditions,  is  to 
say  nothing  more  than  every  one  will  acknowledge. 
And  yet  to  admit  this  is  to  admit  the  existence  of 
grievous  defects,  both  in  our  temper  and  character,  as 
well  as  in  our  systems  of  education.  To  no  other 
teachers  then  ought  we  to  pay  more  respectful  atten- 
tion than  to  those  who  would  have  us  understand 
how  much  mischief  and  loss  results  from  these  defects, 
who  would  keep  the  proper  standards  steadily  before 
us,  and  who  would  insist  on  our  trying  ourselves  by 
them.  Two  such  teachers  we  have  had.  One  has 
been  described  as  "a  graceful  sentimentalist,  whom 
.no  one  took  seriously'';  the  other  as  "a  complete 
master  of  the  whole  science  of  immorality." 

Chesterfield's  Letters  have  a  threefold  interest. 
They  may  be  regarded  as  Sainte-Beuve  has  regarded 
them,  as  a  repertory  of  observations  on  life  and 
manners,  as  "  a  rich  book,  not  a  page  of  which  can 
be  read  without  our  having  to  remember  some  happy 
remark,"  full  of  fine  discrimination  and  delicate  ana- 
lytical power,  not  indeed  equal  to  such  finished  studies 
as  La  Bruy^re  and  La  Eochefoucauld  have  left  us,  but 
holding  a  kind  of  middle  place  between  the  Memoirs 
of  the  Chevalier  de  Grammont  and  Telemachus. 
Or  they  may  be  regarded  in  relation  merely  to  the 
immediate  purpose  for  which  they  were  designed,  as 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  243 

a  manual  of  practical  advice,  as  a  treatise  on  the  art 
of  living  becomingly  under  conventional  conditions. 
From  which  point  of  view  they  may  be  compared  to 
such  works  as  Castiglione's  Courtier,  Guevara's  Dial 
of  Princes,  Peacham's  Complete  English  Gentleman, 
the  Abb^  de  Bellegarde's  LArt  de  Plaire  dans  la 
Conversation — to  such  works,  in  fine,  as  the  litera- 
ture of  every  civilised  country  in  Europe  abounds  in. 
But  it  is  not  here  that  their  true  interest  lies.  It  is 
in  their  philosophy  of  life,  in  their  attempt  to  revive 
under  modern  conditions  ancient  ethical  ideas.  Not 
only  do  they  bear  a  close  resemblance  to  Cicero's  De 
Offidis  in  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were 
written  and  in  the  tone  and  style  of  their  composi- 
tion, but  their  philosophy  on  its  ethical  side  is  in  the 
main  little  more  than  a  reproduction  of  the  philo- 
sophy of  Cicero's  treatise.  It  is  with  constant  refer- 
ence to  the  first  book  of  the  De  Offidis,  and  more 
particularly  to  the  chapters  dealing  with  the  fourth 
division  of  the  honestum,  that  these  Letters  should  be 
read.  The  correspondence,  the  identity  indeed,  of 
much  of  Chesterfield's  ethical  teachinor  with  that  of  \ 
Cicero  ^  wiU  be  at  once  apparent  if  we  examine  it  for 
a  moment  in  detail.  The  perfection  of  character 
consists  in  the  maintenance  of  an  exquisite  and 
absolute  equilibrium  of  all  the  faculties  and  emotions 
of  man,  brought  by  culture  to  their  utmost  points 
of  development  and  refinement  in  the  case  of  the 


*  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  Cioero  was  himself  only  popularising, 
with  certain  modifications  of  his  own,  the  teachings  of  the  Greek  schools,  and 
jiarticolarly  of  Pantetius. 


244  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

former,  of  refinement  and  temper  in  the  case  of  the 
latter.  It  is  not  merely  completed  self-mastery,  but 
the  harmony  of  the  ordered  whole,  and  a  whole  in 
which  each  part  has  been  perfected.  This  is  not  all. 
As  man  lives  not  for  himself  alone,  but  is  a  unit  in 
society,  the  full  and  efficient  discharge  of  his  obliga- 
tions to  society,  in  the  various  relations  in  which  he 
stands  to  it,  is  of  equal  importance.  These,  then, 
are  the  two  great  ends  of  education,  the  perfection 
of  the  individual  character  and  the  discipline 
of  the  individual  with  respect  to  social  duties. 
And  these  are  the  ends  at  which  Chesterfield  aims. 
"  From  the  time  that  you  have  had  life,  it  has  been 
the  principal  object  of  mine  to  make  you  as  per- 
fect as  the  imperfections  of  human  nature  will 
allow." 

All  the  teaching  proceeds  on  strictly  systematic 
principles.  It  begins  with  laying  the  foundations  of 
knowledge,  with  awakening  interest  in  ancient  myth- 
ology and  ancient  and  modern  history,  suggesting 
at  the  same  time  such  moral  and  religious  instruction 
as  would  be  intelligible  to  a  child.  Next  come 
rhetoric  and  criticism.  The  pupil  is  made  to  feel 
how  and  why  beautiful  composition  and  beautiful 
poetry  are  beautiful ;  he  is  initiated  in  the  principles 
of  good  taste.  Two  exhortations  are  constantly 
repeated,  the  necessity  of  though tfulness  and  the 
necessity  of  attention.  "  There  is  no  surer  sign  in 
the  world  of  a  little  weak  mind  than  inattention. 
Whatever  is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing  well, 
and  nothing  can  be  done  well  without  attention." 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  245 

Step  by  step,  with  exquisite  tact  and  skill  and  with 
unwearied  patience,  does  the  teacher  proceed  through 
these  rudimentary  stages,  never  above  the  capacity  of 
his  pupil,  never  losing  sight  of  the  final  object.  If 
we  look  closely,  we  shall  see  that  the  instruction 
which  he  will  afterwards  enforce  with  so  much 
emphasis  has  been  insinuated,  that  the  very  legends 
and  fables  narrated  by  him  have  had  their  object. 
The  ground  having  been  prepared,  the  foundations 
laid,  the  superstructure  is  commenced.  And  now 
Cicero  is  followed  closely.  What  in  the  conception 
of  both  constitutes  perfection  of  character  we  have 
seen — it  is  the  decorum  and  the  honestum,  qualities 
intellectually  distinguishable,  but  essentially  iden- 
tical. And  the  decorum  in  its  relation  to  the 
honestum  in  the  abstract  -may  be  defined  as  "  what- 
ever is  consonant  to  that  supremacy  of  man  wherein 
his  nature  differs  from  other  animals,"  and  in  relation 
to  the  several  divisions  of  the  honestum  as  **that 
quality  which  is  so  consonant  to  nature  that  it  in- 
volves the  manifestation  of  moderation  and  temper- 
ance with  a  certain  air  such  as  becomes  a  gentleman."^ 
There  is  scarcely  a  letter  of  Chesterfield's  which  is  not 
a  commentary  on  some  portion  of  this.  It  was  his  aim 
and  criterion  in  the  lesser  as  in  the  greater  morals. 

*  •*  Est  ejus  descriptio  duplex.  Nam  et  generale  quoddam  decorum  intel- 
ligimos,  quod  in  omni  honestate  versatur  ;  et  aliud  huic  subjectum  quod 
pertinet  ad  singolaa  partes  honestatis.  Atc^uo  illud  superius  sic  fere  definiri 
solet :  Decorum  id  ease,  quod  consentanoum  sit  hominis  excellentin  in  eo,  iu 
quo  natura  ejus  a  reliquis  animantibus  diirerat.  Qute  autero  pars  subjecta 
generi  est,  earn  sio  deQniunt,  ut  id  decorum  velint  esse,  quod  ita  nature  con- 
sentanoum sit,  ut  in  eo  moderatio  et  temperantiaappareatcum  specie  qaldam 
liberali  "  {De  Offidis,  lib.  i.  c.  27). 


246  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

The  sure  characteristic  of  a  sound  and  strong  mind  is  to 
find  in  everything  those  certain  bounds,  "  quos  ultra  citrave 
nequit  consistere  rectum."  These  boundaries  are  marked  out  by 
a  very  fine  line,  which  only  good  sense  and  attention  can  discover  ; 
it  is  much  too  fine  for  vulgar  eyes.  In  Manners  this  line  is  good 
breeding;  beyond  it  is  troublesome  ceremony,  short  of  it  is 
unbecoming  negligence  and  inattention.  In  Morals  it  divides 
ostentatious  Puritanism  from  Criminal  Relaxation.  In  Religion, 
Superstition  from  Impiety,  and,  in  short,  every  virtue  from  its 
kindred  vice  or  weakness. — Letter  CXLii.  (vol.  i.). 

In  Letter  ex.  he  goes  so  far  as  to  say  "  that  there 
is  more  judgment  required  for  the  proper  conduct  of  >/ 
our  virtues  than  for  avoiding  their  opposite  vices. '* 
Hence  his  constant  warnings  against  excesses  of 
all  kinds — sensual  excesses,  gluttony^  drunkenness, 
and  profligacy ;  against  intellectual  excesses,  too  great 
addiction  to  study  and  books  ;  against  violent  passions, 
such  as  anger,  or  joy  and  grief  in  excess,  or  excess  in 
admiration.  "  I  would  teach  him  early  the  nil 
admirari"  he  says  with  reference  to  his  godson,  as 
he  had  before  said  to  his  son;  "I  think  it  a  very 
necessary  lesson."  And  hence  on  the  other  hand  his 
warnings — and  in  this,  as  he  has  said  more  than  once, 
he  was  no  Stoic — that  the  natural  instincts  and 
passions  should  not  be  suppressed,  that  pleasures 
should  be  freely  indulged  in  provided  they  be  within 
measure,  and  without  grossness.^  "  Vive  la  joye,"  he 
writes  to  his  grandson,  "  mais  que  ce  soit  la  joye  d'un 
homme  d'esprit  et  pas  d'un  sot."     Anger  is  not  to  be 

^  See  Letters  passim,  but  particularly  Letters  clxxxvii.  and  clviii.,  vol. 
i.,  and  Letters  iv.  and  xxviii.,  vol.  ii.  In  this  point  Cicero  is  opposed 
to  Chesterfield,  but  see  De  Officiis,  lib.  i.  c.  30:  "Sin  sit  quispiam,  qui 
aliquid  tribuat  voluptati,  diligenter  ei  tenendum  esse  ejus  fruendae 
modum." 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        247 

checked  so  entirely  as  to  render  a  man  liable  to  the 
charge  of  pusillanimous  patience  under  insult,  or 
grief  to  the  point  of  improper  insensibility.  To  the 
minutest  details  of  life  is  the  same  principle  extended, 
for,  in  the  phrase  of  his  master,  "  omnino  si  quidquam 
est  decorum,  nihil  est  profecto  magis,  quam  sequabilitas 
universse  vitae,  turn  singularum  actionum,"  ^ — all  are 
notes  in  the  harmony,  which  is  character.  "  I  think," 
he  says  (Letter  cxxxii.),  "  nothing  above  or  below 
my  pointing  out  to  you  or  your  excelling  in."  The 
most  interesting  part  of  his  teaching  is  where  he 
dwells  on  the  becoming  in  relation  to  what  may  be 
called  its  minor  manifestations,  in  its  relation  to 
manners  and  externals.  Here,  too,  Cicero  is  his 
guide,^  but  he  goes  much  more  into  details  than  his 
master  does.  Indeed,  he  attaches  so  much  import- 
ance to  this  subject,  and  has  allowed  it  to  fill  a  space 
so  strangely  disproportionate  to  the  space  filled  by 
instruction  on  the  higher  morals,  that  with  most 
people  his  name  has  come  to  be  associated  with  this 
portion  of  his  teaching  alone.  The  reason  is  given  in 
the  Letters  themselves.  He  found  his  pupil  docile 
and  plastic  in  all  respects  but  one.  He  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  making  him  a  scholar,  or  in  imprinting 
on  him  all  that  constitutes  the  "  respectable " ;  but 
in  what  constitutes  the  "  amiable  "  he  was  not  only 
instinctively  deficient,  but  to  all  appearance  ob- 
stinately impervious  to  impression.  As  the  Letters 
proceed,  the  anxiety  of  the  teacher  on  this  point 
increases,   till   at  last   "  the    graces,"   their  nature, 

»  De  OfficiU,  Hb.  i.  c.  81.  »  Id.  oc.  86-88. 


248  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

their  importance,  and  how  they  are  to  be  acquired, 
come  to  predominate  over  all  other  subjects.  We 
have  reason  to  be  thankful  for  the  accident.  It  has 
enriched  us  where  we  were  poor ;  it  has  instructed 
us  in  matters  in  which  of  all  nations  in  the  world  we 
most  need  instruction.  To  say  that  the  central  idea 
of  Chesterfield's  teaching  is  the  essential  connection  of 
the  good  with  the  beautiful,  would  be  to  credit  him 
with  a  far  loftier  philosophy  than  he  had  any  con- 
ception of;  but  to  say  that,  in  discerning  and  in 
insisting  on  the  alliance  between  the  virtues  and  the 
graces,  he  inculcated  a  kindred  truth,  or  to  speak 
more  correctly,  a  phase  of  the  same  great  truth,  is 
no  more  than  the  fact.  It  is  in  his  inculcation  of  this, 
in  his  never  losing  sight  of  it  as  a  principle,  and  in 
his  fine  and  subtle  perception  of  what  constitutes  "  the 
graces,"  that  he  fills  a  place  such  as  no  other  teacher 
in  our  literature  holds.  We  must  go  to  ancient 
Greece,  we  must  go  to  modern  France,  for  writers 
occupying  an  analogous  position. 
\l  His  definition  of  the  graces  proceeds  on  the  same 

principle  as  his  definition  of  morals.  They  are  the 
result  of  the  application  of  the  same  rules,  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  same  culture,  the  fruits  of  the  same  soil. 
Judging  as  the  world  judges,  a  man  may  be  perfect 
in  the  graces  while  altogether  deficient  in  morals. 
Judging  as  Chesterfield  judges,  a  man  may  indeed  be 
deficient  in  the  graces  who  is  sound  in  morals ;  but 
no  man  can  be  perfect  in  the  graces  who  is  deficient 
in  morals.  So  closely,  however,  in  his  conceptions 
are  manners  linked  with  morals,  the  graces  with  the 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  249 

virtues,  that  he  often  regards  them  in  the  light  of 
causes  and  effects,  and  even  represents  them  as 
reciprocally  productive.  **They  are  not,"  he  says, 
"  the  showish  trifles  only  which  some  people  call  or 
think  them ;  they  are  a  solid  good ;  they  prevent  a 
great  deal  of  real  mischief;  they  create,  adorn,  and 
strengthen  friendships ;  they  keep  hatred  within 
bounds ;  they  promote  good-humour  and  good-will  in 
families  where  the  want  of  them  is  commonly  the 
original  cause  of  discord  "  (Letter  xxxvii.).  "  Good 
manners  are  to  particular  societies  what  good  morals 
are  to  society  in  general,  their  cement  and  their 
security  "  ;  "  and,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  I  really  think 
that  next  to  the  consciousness  of  doing  a  good  action, 
that  of  doing  a  civil  one  is  the  most  pleasing,  and  the 
epithet  which  I  should  covet  most  next  to  that  of 
Aristides,  would  be  that  of  well-bred"  (Letter 
CLXViii.).  They  are  as  necessary,  he  says  in  another 
place,  to  adorn  iand  introduce  intrinsic  merit  and 
knowledge  as  the  polish  is  to  the  diamond,  for  with-  , 
out  that  polish  it  would  never  be  worn,  whatever  it  1 
Height  weigh ;  and  weight  without  lustre  is  lead. 
But  the  graces  will  not  come  to  the  call :  they 
must  be  wooed  to  be*  won.  Good  breeding  is  the 
result  of  great  experience,  much  observation,  and 
great  diligence,  in  a  man  of  sound  character.  "It  is 
a  combination  of  much  good  sense,  some  good  nature, 
and  a  little  self-denial  for  the  sake  of  others,  with  a 
view  to  obtain  the  same  indulgence  from  them."  It 
is  the  perception  of  the  fine  line  which  separates 
dignity  from   ceremoniousness,  gentility  from   affec- 


t/ 


250  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

tation,  refinement  from  efieminacy.  It  is  the  art 
of  being  familiar  without  being  vulgar,  of  being  frank 
without  being  indiscreet,  of  being  reserved  without 
being  mysterious.  It  is  the  tact  which  knows  the 
proper  time  and  the  proper  place  for  all  that  is  to  be 
done,  and  all  that  is  to  be  said,  and  the  faculty  of 
doing  both  with  an  air  of  distinction.  A  compound 
of  all  the  agreeable  qualities  of  body  and  mind,  it  is 
a  compound  in  which  none  of  them  predominates  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  rest.  Thus  far  it  is  susceptible 
of  analysis ;  but  no  analysis  can  resolve  the  secret  of 
its  charm.  For  it  is  the  quintessence  of  the  graces, 
and  "  would  you  ask  me  to  define  the  graces,  I  can 
only  do  so  by  the  *  Je  ne  S9ay  quoy ' ;  would  you  ask 
me  to  define  the  '  Je  ne  sgay  quoy,'  I  can  only  do  so 
by  the  graces."-^  Essentially  connected  with  the 
higher  morals,  it  includes  truth,  justice,  humanity. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  nothing  is  insisted  on  more 
emphatically  in  Chesterfield's  teaching  than  strict 
veracity,  and  not  less  emphatically  is  the  practice  of 
justice  inculcated.  Thus,  in  commenting  on  a  remark 
which  his  son  had  made  in  a  Latin  exercise,  he  writes : 

Let  no  quibbles  of  lawyers,  no  refinements  of  casuists  break 
into  the  plain  notions  of  right  and  wrong.  To  do  as  you  would 
be  done  by  is  the  plain,  sure,  and  undisputed  rule  of  morality 
and  justice.  Stick  to  that,  and  be  assured  that  whatever  breaks 
into  it  in  any  degree,  however  speciously  it  may  be  turned,  and 
however  puzzling  it  may  be  to  answer  it,  is,  notwithstanding, 
false  in  itself,  unjust  and  criminal. — Letter  cxxxii. 

*  The  loci  classici  in  Chesterfield  on  the  definition  of  good  breeding  are  : 
Letters  to  Son,  vol.  i.  cxii.  clxviii.  clxix.  ;  vol.  ii.  xxxvii.  xxxix ;  to  God- 
son, cxxxv.  cxcix. ;  and  the  excellent  paper  on  "  Civility  and  Good  Breeding," 
contributed  to  the  World — Miscellaneous  Works  (Stanhope),  vol.  v.  p.  346. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  251 

But  if  in  his  conception  of  the  ideal  character  any 
virtue  may  be  said  to  predominate,  it  is  humanity. 
To  remember  that  the  distinctions  made  between 
man  and  man,  except  the  distinctions  made  by  virtue 
and  culture,  are  artificial,  and  to  deal  with  them 
therefore  as  with  natural  equals,  is  a  precept  formally 
expressed  indeed  only  in  the  later  Letters,  but  it  is 
practically  included  in  the  teaching  of  the  former. 
Few  writers  are,  it  is  true,  more  essentially  aristo- 
cratic, but  he  was  aristocratic  not  in  the  narrow  but 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  term.  "I  used  to  think 
myself,"  he  says,  "in  company  as  much  above  me 
when  I  was  with  Mr.  Addison  and  Mr.  Pope,  as  if  I 
had  been  with  all  the  princes  of  Europe. '*  On  his  son 
and  on  his  godson  alike  he  is  continually  insisting  on 
the  duties  of  philanthropy : — 

Humanity  inclines,  religion  requires,  and  our  moral  duty 
obliges  us  to  relieve,  as  far  as  we  are  able,  the  distresses  and 
miseries  of  our  fellow-creatures ;  but  this  is  not  all,  for  a  true 
heartfelt  benevolence  and  tenderness  will  prompt  us  to  con- 
tribute what  we  can  to  their  ease,  their  amusement,  and  their 
pleasure,  as  far  as  we  innocently  may.  Let  us  then  not  only 
scatter  benefits,  but  even  strew  flowers  for  our  fellow-travellers, 
in  the  rugged  ways  of  this  wretched  world. — Letters  to  Godson, 
cxxx. 

Such  is  the  ideal  at  which,  in  Chesterfield's  con- 
ception, education  should  aim.  It  is  the  attainment 
and  maintenance  of  perfect  harmony  among  all  the 
elements  which  make  complete  man  ;  it  is  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  whole  nature  in  all  its  parts,  in  perfect 
symmetry;  an  endeavour  to  prevent,  what  Plato 
would    prevent,   a    life  moving    without    grace    or 


262  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

rhythm.^  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  near  this 
rhythmic  notion  of  culture  and  character  sometimes 
brings  him  to  the  Re/public.  He  does  not  indeed 
attach  the  same  importance  or  see  so  clearly  the  same 
significance  in  gymnastics,  dancing,  and  music  as 
Plato ;  and  yet,  when  giving  his  godson  a  receipt 
for  checking  excessive  emotion,  he  says,  "  Do  every- 
thing in  minuet  time ;  speak,  think,  and  move 
always  in  that  measure,  equally  free  from  the  dulness 
of  slow  or  the  hurry  and  huddle  of  quick  time : "  ^ 
we  see  how  much  in  this  point,  at  least,  his  ideas 
were  those  of  the  Greeks.^ 

^  On  an  impartial  review,  then,  of  Chesterfield's 
theory  of  education,  how  little  fault  is  to  be  found 
with  it !  Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  see  in  what 
respect  a  character  formed  on  such  an  ideal  could  be 
regarded  as  deficient.  In  what  virtue,  in  what  accom- 
plishment, would  he  be  lacking,  either  in  his  relation 
to  public  or  in  his  relation  to  private  life  ?  Where 
would  he  be  weak,  in  what  point  unsound  ?  And 
yet  we  cannot  lay  down  these  Letters  without  a  sense 
of  their  utter  unsatisfactoriness  as  teachings.  The 
impression  they  leave  on  us  is  very  like  that  left  on 
us  by  Seneca's  Epistles  to  Lucilius — the  impression  of 
unreality;  though  for  a  very  difierent  reason.  The 
impression  of  unreality  in  the  case  of  Seneca  is  caused, 
not  so  much  by  what  he  preaches,  as  from  the  un- 
conscious   reflection    in    what    he   preaches   of    the 

^  Herbi  d^pvdfxias  re  /cai  dxo.pi-(TTLa$  {Hep.  iii.  411). 
2  Letter  cxxxv. 

^  See,  too,  the  remarkable  chapters  on  this  subject  in  Elyot's  Govemour, 
Book  I.  cap.  xxii.  seqq. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS  253 

insincerity  of  the  preacher.  We  feel  that  his  precepts 
and  lectures  are  no  more  in  keeping  with  the  truth 
of  his  own  life  than  his  eulogy  on  Poverty  was 
in  keeping  with  the  priceless  table  on  which  it  was 
written.  But  the  impress  of  sincerity  is  on  every 
page  of  Chesterfield.  The  ideal  he  drew  he  had  in 
himself  realised.  The  unreality  and  unsatisfactoriness 
of  his  system  lay  in  its  attempt  to  revive  an  ideal, 
which  it  is  now  impossible  to  revive,  at  all  events 
popularly.  It  lay,  to  employ  a  word  which  has  little 
to  recommend  it,  but  for  which  our  language  has  no 
equivalent,  in  its  pure  paganism.  His  whole  philo- 
sophy is  of  the  world,  worldly.  Of  the  spiritual,  oT 
the  transcendental,  of  the  enthusiastic,  it  has  nothing. 
He  attaches,  it  is  true,  the  very  greatest  importance 
to  conventional  religion,  but  he  does  so,  it  is  evident, 
for  the  same  reasons  that  the  ancient  legislators  and 
moralists  did  so.  The  deference  which  he  pays  to 
Christianity  is,  we  feel,  no  more  than  the  deference 
which  would  have  been  paid  to  it  by  any  wise  and 
well-natured  man  of  the  old  world,  who  knew  the 
needs  it  was  meeting  and  was  aware  of  its  virtues. 
Of  its  essence  there  is  as  little  or  as  much  as  there 
is  in  the  Aristotelian  Ethics  or  in  the  Enchiridion, 
In  one  important  point,  indeed,  its  teachings  are  set 
aside  altogether,  and  that  point  a  point  on  which  the 
ancient  standard  of  morals  cannot  be  substituted  for 
the  standards  now  immutably  fixed  by  Christian 
ethics.  Again,  no  considerations  either  of  a  future 
state  or  of  a  divine  guidance  affect  in  any  way  what 
is  prescribed  or  suggested.      On   the  contrary,  the 


254  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

sentiment  of  Juvenal,  "nullum  numen  abest  si  sit 
prudentia  " — we  have  every  deity  we  need  if  we  have 
prudence — is  constantly  quoted  with  the  strongest  ex- 
pressions of  approval.  The  end  and  aim  of  his  teach- 
ing throughout  is  success  in  life,  not  as  the  vulgar 
estimate  it,  nor  as  transcendentalists  like  Plato  and 
Emerson  would  estimate  it,  but  as  Aristippus  and 
Horace  would  estimate  it. 

A  philosophy  of  this  kind  is  now  an  anachronism. 
The  Keligion  which  has  revolutionised  the  world  has 
made  havoc  of  such  ideals.  It  has  turned  much 
which  once  passed  for  wisdom  into  foolishness. 
Much  that  in  ancient  days  constituted  the  moral 
sublime  is  now  impiety,  and  the  sentiments  in  which 
it  found  expression,  profanity.  What  in  the  eyes 
of  Pericles  and  Cato  were  venial  follies,  have  become 
deadly  sins.  Success  in  life,  as  success  in  life  is 
defined  even  in  the  scriptures  of  the  Lyceum  and  the 
Porch,  is  such  as  would  ill  satisfy  the  modern  con- 
science. The  very  name  of  the  quality  on  which 
ancient  sages  most  prided  themselves  has  been  trans- 
formed into  a  term  of  opprobrium,  i  The  world 
'cannot  go  back.l  And  the  fate  of  Chesterfield's 
teachings  is  indeed  typical  of  what  is  likely  to  be 
the  fate,  and  particularly  in  England,  of  all  such 
teachings  when  they  aspire  to  provide  a  complete 
rule  of  life.  But  no  possible  good  can  be  done  by 
misrepresentation  and  falsehood,  and,  much  as  wise 
men  must  respect  the  prejudice  which  exists  against 
these  writings,  the  form  in  which  that  prejudice  has 
found  expression  cannot  be  too  strongly  condemned. 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        255 

It  is  not  to  be  condemned  only,  it  is  to  be  deplored. 
It  is  in  the  judgments  of  men  like  Chesterfield  that 
conventional  religious  truths  find  their  strongest 
collateral  security.  Absolutely  unprejudiced  and 
absolutely  independent,  he  brings  to  bear  on  the 
facts  of  life,  of  which  he  had  had  a  much  wider 
and  more  varied  experience  than  falls  to  the  lot 
of  many  men,  an  intellect  of  extraordinary  acuteness 
and  sagacity,  a  judgment  eminently  discriminating 
and  sober,  and  a  temper  strictly  under  the  dominion 
of  reason.  He  had  studied,  with  minute  and  patient 
attention,  the  questions  which  are  of  the  most  vital 
interest  to  man  and  society,  and  the  conclusions  at 
which  he  arrived  he  has,  regardless  of  anything  but 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth,  and  with  no  object 
but  the  purest  and  most  unselfish  of  all  objects, 
both  set  forth  and  explained.  That  these  conclusions 
should  in  so  many  important  respects  be  identical 
with  those  of  Christian  moralists,  that  they  should 
have  convinced  him  of  the  wisdom  of  the  strongest 
conservatism  in  what  pertains  to  our  religious  system, 
and  of  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  attempting  to 
undermine  it,  is  surely  testimony  not  interesting 
merely,  but  of  much  value.  Truth  has  many  sides, 
and  has  need  of  many  supports.  What  Locke 
observed  of  Revelation,  that  it  was  a  republication 
of  Natural  Religion,  is  in  a  measure,  if  we  may  say 
so  without  irreverence,  applicable  to  such  works  as 
these ;  they  are  a  republication,  fragmentary  indeed, 
and  not  without  alloy,  but  in  an  independent  form, 
of  conventional  truths. 


266  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Matthew  Arnold  has  said  of  Butler's  Analogy  that 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  philosophy,  its  perusal 
is  a  valuable  exercise  for  the  mind.  We  are  tempted 
to  make  a  similar  remark  about  Chesterfield's  writings. 
They  are  not,  indeed,  likely  to  be  of  benefit  in  the 
sense  intended  by  Matthew  Arnold.  They  will  not, 
that  is  to  say,  discipline  our  reasoning  faculties,  or 
tend  to  form  habits  of  close  concentration ;  but  they 
will  be  of  benefit  to  us  as  communion  with  men  of 
superior  intellect  and  temper  is  of  benefit.  The 
charm  of  Chesterfield  lies  in  his  sincerity  and  truth- 
fulness, in  his  refined  good  sense,  in  his  exquisite 
perception  of  the  becoming,  finding  expression  in 
seriousness  most  happily  tempered  by  gaiety.  Of 
no  man  could  it  be  more  truly  said  that  he  had 
cleared  his  mind  of  cant.  A  writer  more  absolutely 
devoid  of  pretentiousness  or  affectation  cannot  be 
found.  Of  moral  and  intellectual  frippery  he  has 
nothing.  Sophistry  and  paradox  are  his  abhorrence. 
All  he  has  written  bears,  indeed,  the  reflection  of  a 
character  which  is  of  all  characters  perhaps  the  rarest 
— "  the  character  of  one  " — it  was  what  Voltaire  said 
of  him — "  who  had  never  been  in  any  way  either  a 
charlatan  or  a  dupe  of  charlatans."  He  is  one  of  the 
\  very  few  writers  who  never  wears  a  mask,  and  in 
whose  accent  no  falsetto  note  can  ever  be  detected. 
In  his  fearless  intellectual  honesty  he  reminds  us  of 
Swift,  in  his  pellucid  moral  candour  he  reminds  us 
of  Montaigne.  To  contemplate  life,  not  as  it  presents 
itself  under  the  glamour  or  the  gloom  of  illusion  and 
prejudice,  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  enthusiast  or  the 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        257 

cynic,  but  as  it  really  is ;  to  regard  ignorance  as  mis- 
fortune and  vice  as  evil,  but  the  false  assumption  of 
wisdom  and  virtue  as  something  far  worse ;  to  be  or 
to  strive  to  be  what  pride  would  have  us  seem,  and 
to  live  worthily  within  the  limits  severally  prescribed 
by  nature  and  fortune — all  this  will  the  study  of 
Chesterfield's  philosophy  tend  to  impress  on  us.  Nor 
is  it  in  his  judgments  only  on  life  and  on  life's 
important  concerns  that  this  sincerity,  this  pure 
sincerity,  is  conspicuous.  It  is  equally  apparent  in 
all  that  concerns  himself,  in  the  frank  admissions 
which  he  makes  to  his  son  of  his  own  follies  and  short- 
comings, in  the  unaffected  modesty  with  which  he 
has  spoken  of  his  writings,  and  in  the  remarkable 
illustration  aff'orded  by  those  writings  themselves 
of  the  conscientiousness  with  which  he  carried  out 
his  own  precept,  that  "  whatever  is  worth  doing  at  all 
is  worth  doing  well."  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
these  compositions,  finished  as  they  almost  all  of 
them  are  to  the  finger-nail,  were  intended  for  no 
eyes  but  those  of  his  son  and  his  son's  tutor.  And 
yet  such,  as  we  learn  from  the  Letters  themselves, 
was  the  case. 

In  Chesterfield  is  united  as  in  no  other  English 
writer  is  united,  in  equal  measure  at  least,  so  much 
of  what  is  best  in  the  intellectual  temper  of  the 
French  and  in  the  intellectual  temper  of  the  English. 
He  has  much  of  the  sterling  good  sense  of  Johnson, 
and,  if  we  penetrate  below  the  surface,  much  also  of 
Johnson's  seriousness  and  solidity.  He  resembles 
Swift,  not  merely  in  his  intolerance  of  sophistry  and 


258  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

dishonesty  in  all  that  pertains  to  sentiment  and 
principle,  but  in  his  shrewd  and  homely  mother-wit, 
and  in  his  keen,  clear  insight  into  positive  as 
distinguished  from  transcendental  truth.  Franklin 
himself  is  not  more  purely  practical,  or  Paley  more 
purely  utilitarian.  But  it  was  not  these  qualities  which 
led  Sainte-Beuve  to  speak  of  him  as  the  La  Eoche- 
foucauld  of  England,  nor  is  it  these  qualities  which 
give  him  his  peculiar  place  among  English  authors. 
It  still  remains  that,  in  spite  of  so  much  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  English  genius  and  the  English 
temper,  the  impression  he  makes  on  us  is  that  he  is 
one  of  the  most  un-English  of  English  authors.  And 
this  is  easily  explained.  What  strikes  us  in  a  building 
is  not  the  foundation  but  the  superstructure.  In 
Chesterfield  it  is  the  foundation,  and  the  foundation 
only,  which  is  English ;  the  superstructure  is  French. 
Or,  to  employ  his  own  happy  illustration,  what  is 
English  in  him  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  what  is 
French  as  the  Tuscan  order  in  Architecture  stands  to 
the  Doric,  Ionian,  and  Corinthian  orders ;  as  un- 
adorned solidity  stands  to  the  charm  in  contrast  of 
attractive  ornament.  We  admire  in  him  what  we 
admire  in  La  Bruy^re  and  La  Rochefoucauld,  what 
we  admire  in  Voltaire,  what  we  admire,  in  short,  in  the 
literature  most  characteristic  of  the  Grand  Siecle. 
But  if  we  look  a  little  more  closely  we  cannot  fail 
to  be  struck  with  the  manner  in  which  English 
characteristics  in  Chesterfield  tempered  the  French. 
His  solid  good  sense  never  deserts  him  :  he  is  at 
bottom  serious,  at  bottom  earnest.     Thus,  nice  and 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        259 

delicate  as  his  faculty  of  discrimination  is,  it  never, 
as  is  so  often  the  case  with  La  Bruji^re,  refines  itself 
into  over-niceness  and  over-subtlety,  and  never,  as  is 
habitually  the  case  with  La  Rochefoucauld,  fritters 
itself  away  in  brilliant  falsehoods  or  in  specious  half- 
truths.  If  he  has  much  in  common  with  Voltaire, 
he  has  nothing  of  Voltaire's  recklessness,  nothing  of 
his  shallow  drollery,  nothing  of  his  mere  frivolity. 

The  style  of  Chesterfield  is  the  exact  reflection 
of  himself  It  is  the  finished  expression,  not  of 
rhetorical  culture,  but  of  the  culture  by  which  all 
that  constitutes  character  is  moulded.  It  is  the 
unlaboured  result  of  labour ;  the  spontaneous  product 
of  a  peculiar  soil  which  had  been  assiduously  culti- 
vated during  half  a  lifetime.  Absolutely  unafi*ected, 
simply  original,  and  without  mannerisms  of  any 
kind,  it  is  a  style  which  no  mechanical  skill  could 
have  attained,  and  which  no  mechanical  skill  can 
copy.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  is  distinguished  by 
"  those  careless  inimitable  graces "  which  Gibbon  in 
describing  Hume's  style  speaks  of  himself  as  **  con- 
templating with  admiring  despair,"  but  that  it  has 
the  indefinable  charm,  the  incommunicable  timbre 
of  the  perfect,  of  the  essential  aristocratic — of  the 
aristocrat,  it  must  now  be  added,  of  a  school  which 
is  no  more.  Its  secret  was  no  doubt  partly  learned 
in  the  salons  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germains,  and 
from  intimate  sympathetic  communion  with  men 
and  writers  who,  whether  living  or  dead,  whether 
in  ancient  Italy  or  modem  England  and  France, 
belonged  like  himself  either  by  birth  or  association 


260  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  the  Optimates.  We  know  no  writings  from  the 
pen  of  mere  men  of  letters  in  which  the  note  of 
Chesterfield  is  for  a  moment  discernible.  But  as 
soon  as  we  turn  to  the  Letters  of  Cicero  and  the 
younger  Pliny,  to  the  Letters  and  Essays  of  Temple 
and  Bolingbroke,  to  the  writings  of  La  Bruy^re  and 
La  Kochefoucauld,  we  recognise  at  once  the  same 
tone  and  accent.  We  appear  indeed  to  discern  his 
models,  but  the  resemblance,  as  we  soon  perceive, 
is  not  the  resemblance  of  imitation,  it  is  the  re- 
semblance of  kinship.  In  two  respects  the  diction 
of  Chesterfield  is  especially  noticeable,  —  in  its 
exquisite  finish,  and  in  its  scrupulous  purity.  It 
is  the  perfection  of  the  epistolary  style,  flexibly 
adapting  itself  with  the  utmost  ease  and  propriety 
to  what,  in  varying  tones,  is  expressed  or  suggested, 
— now  neat,  pointed,  epigrammatic,  now  gracefully 
difi'use,  now  rising  to  dignity ;  but  always  natural 
and  always  easy.  Though  he  abhorred  pedantry, 
Cicero  and  Pollio  themselves  were  not  more  scrupulous 
purists  in  Latinity  than  Chesterfield  in  the  use  of 
English.  He  had  all  that  punctilious  regard  for  the 
nicest  accuracy  of  expression,  which  made  Cicero 
at  the  most  critical  moment  of  his  life  almost  as 
anxious  about  the  correct  employment  of  a  preposi- 
tion and  a  verb  as  about  the  movements  of  Pompey. 
An  ungrammatical  sentence,  a  loose  or  ambiguous 
expression,  a  word  unauthorised  by  polite  usage, 
or,  if  coined,  coined  improperly — a  vulgarism  or 
solecism  indeed  in  any  form,  he  regarded  as  little 
less  than  a  crime  in  a  writer.     If  it  should  be  pro- 


L 


LORD  CHESTERFIELD'S  LETTERS        261 

posed  to  select  the  two  authors  who  in  point  of 
mere  purity  of  diction  stand  out  most  conspicuous 
in  our  prose  literature,  it  would,  we  think,  be  pretty- 
safe  to  name  Macaulay  for  the  one  and  Chesterfield 
for  the  other.  We  do  not  say  that  he  is  entirely 
free  from  blemishes — 

quas  aut  incuria  fudit, 
Aut  humana  panim  cavit  natura — 

but  we  do  say  that  he  has  fewer  of  them,  with  the 
exception  of  Macaulay,  than  perhaps  any  other 
English  classic. 

That  of  a  man  so  truly  remarkable — for  if  as  a 
statesman  Chesterfield  played  a  subordinate  he  played 
a  singularly  interesting  part  —  there  should  be  no 
standard  biography,  that  of  writings  which  have  so 
just  a  claim  to  be  considered  classical  there  should 
be  no  standard  edition  accessible,  is  not  creditable 
to  his  countrymen.  It  is  surely  high  time  for  both 
these  defects  to  be  supplied.  The  dull  compilation 
of  Maty,  which  is  the  only  biography  in  existence 
worth  mentioning,  ought  long  ago  to  have  been 
superseded.  Lord  Stanhope's  edition  of  the  Works 
is  now  so  costly  that  it  is  beyond  the  reach,  not 
merely  of  most  private  individuals,  but  of  most  public 
libraries.  No  more  interestiug  contribution  to  the 
social  and  political  history  of  the  last  century,  no  more 
valuable  addition  to  the  literature  which  deserves 
to  become  influential  and  popular,  could  be  made 
than  a  really  good  biography  of  Chesterfield  and  a 
judiciously  expurgated  and  well-edited  reprint  of  his 
Letters. 


262  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Johnson  has  said  that  all  writers  who  wish  to 
acquire  the  art  of  being  familiar  without  beings 
coarse,  and  elegant  without  being  ostentatious  in 
style^  should  give  their  days  and  nights  to  the 
volumes  of  Addison.  We  are  none  of  us  likely  to 
give  our  days  and  nights  either  to  the  volumes  of 
Addison  or  to  the  volumes  of  Chesterfield.  And  yet 
in  times  like  the  present  we  shall  do  well  to  turn 
occasionally  to  the  writings  of  Chesterfield,  and  for 
other  purposes  than  the  acquisition  of  style.  In 
an  age  distinguished  beyond  all  precedent  by  reck- 
lessness, charlatanry,  and  vulgarity,  nothing  can  be 
more  salutary  than  communion  with  a  mind  and 
genius  of  the  temper  of  his.  We  need  the  corrective 
— the  educational  corrective — of  his  refined  good 
sense,  his  measure,  his  sobriety,  his  sincerity,  his 
truthfulness,  his  instinctive  application  of  aristocratic 
standards  in  attainment,  of  aristocratic  touchstones 
in  criticism.  We  need  more,  and  he  has  more  to 
teach  us.  We  need  reminding  that  life  is  success 
or  failure,  not  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  what 
it  achieves  in  part,  and  in  accidents,  but  in  propor- 
tion to  what  it  becomes  in  essence,  and  in  proportion 
to  its  symmetry. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN 
CRITICISM^ 

The  fate  of  Lewis  Theobald  is  without  parallel  in 
literary  history.  It  may  be  said  with  simple  truth 
that  no  poet  in  our  own  or  in  any  language  has  ever 
owed  so  great  a  debt  to  an  editor  as  Shakspeare  owes 
to  this  man.  He  found  the  text  of  the  tragedies  and 
comedies,  which  is  now  so  intelligible  and  lucid,  in  a 
condition  scarcely  less  deplorable  than  that  in  which 
Aldus  found  the  choruses  of  iEschylus,  and  Musurus  the 
parabases  of  Aristophanes,  and  he  contributed  more 
to  its  certain  and  permanent  settlement  than  all  the 
other  editors  from  Rowe  to  Alexander  Dyce.  And  yet 
there  are  probably  not  half-a-dozen  men  in  England 
who  would  not  be  surprised  to  hear  this.  To  most 
people  indeed  he  is  known  only  as  he  was  known  to 
Joseph  Warton,  as  the  hero  of  the  first  editions  of  the 
Dicnciady  as  "a  cold,  plodding,  and  tasteless  writer 
and  critic,  who  with  great  propriety  was  chosen  on 
the  death  of  Settle  by  the  Goddess  of  Dulness  to  be 
the  chief  instrument  of  that  great  work  which  was 
the  subject  of  the  poem."    Gibbeted  in  couplets  which 

*  The  IVorks  of  Shakspeare.    Collated  with  the  oldest  copies,  and  ooneoted 
by  Mr.  Theobald.     London,  1733. 


264  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

have  passed  into  proverbs  wherever  the  English 
language  is  read,  and  which  every  man  with  any 
tincture  of  letters  has  by  heart,  his  very  name  has 
become  a  synonym  for  creeping  pedantry.  No  satirist 
excels,  or  it  would  perhaps  be  more  correct  to  say 
equals.  Pope  in  the  art  of  employing  falsehood  in  the 
service  of  truth.  What  is  untrue  of  a  particular  indi- 
vidual -nay  be  true  of  a  class,  but  while  what  is  true 
or  untrue  of  a  particular  individual  is  of  comparatively 
little  moment  to  the  world,  what  is  true  of  a  class  is 
true  typically,  and  is  therefore  of  interest  to  all  man- 
kind. Of  the  correctness,  for  example,  of  Pope's 
portrait  of  the  mere  verbal  scholar,  of  the  justice  of 
the  ridicule  and  contempt  with  which  he  has  treated 
philologists  as  a  class,  there  can  be  no  question.  We 
know  how  important  it  is  that  such  men  should 
understand  their  proper  place,  and  the  mischief  which 
has  resulted  from  their  not  understanding  it,  and  we 
read  with  approval,  admiration,  gratitude.  But  who 
stops  to  consider  whether  the  particular  individual 
who  has  been  selected  for  ridicule,  and  whose  name 
has  been  written  under  the  portrait,  is  or  is  not 
entitled  to  the  ignoble  distinction?  He  is  of  no 
interest  as  a  mere  individual ;  he  has  become  a  type. 
He  has  been  made  the  scapegoat  of  a  class  whose 
worst  errors  and  whose  worst  vices  will  for  ever  be 
associated  with  him. 

This  it  is  which  makes  the  satire  of  Pope  so  truly 
terrible.  It  has  in  some  cases  literally  blasted  the 
characters  which  it  has  touched.  One  of  the  most 
delightful  autobiographies  ever  written,  and  a  comedy 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       265 

which  is  in  its  way  a  masterpiece,  have  been  power- 
less to  counteract,  nay  even  to  modify,  the  impression 
left  on  the  world  by  the  portrait  for  which  Pope  made 
CoUey  Gibber  sit.  As  long  as  the  loathsome  traits 
w^hich  are  delineated  in  the  character  of"  Sporus"  repel 
and  sicken  mankind,  so  long  will  the  name  of  John 
Lord  Hervey  be  infamous.  Of  the  impotence  of 
truth  to  contend  with  the  fiction  of  so  great  Sn  artist 
as  Pope,  the  result  of  Mr.  Croker's  attempt  to  vindicate 
Hervey's  fame  is  a  striking  illustration.  In  1848  Mr. 
Croker  published  that  nobleman's  Memoirs,  prefixing 
an  Introduction,  in  which  he  proved,  as  indeed  the 
Memoirs  themselves  proved,  that  the  original  of 
Pope's  picture  was  a  man  whose  genius  and  temper 
had  been  cast  rather  in  the  mould  of  St.  Simon  and 
Tacitus  than  in  that  of  the  foppish  and  loathsome 
hermaphrodite  with  whom  he  had  been  associated. 
But  the  popular  estimate  of  Hervey  remains  un- 
changed. He  was  "  Sporus  "  to  our  ancestors,  who  had 
neither  his  Memoirs  nor  Mr.  Croker's  Introduction 
before  them,  and  he  is  "  Sporus  "  to  us  who  have  both, 
but  who,  unfortunately  for  Hervey,  care  for  neither, 
and  know  Pope's  verses  by  heart. 

But  pre-eminent  among  the  victims  of  his  satire 
stands  Theobald,  and  Theobald's  fate  has  assuredly 
been  harder  than  that  of  any  other  of  his  fellow- 
suflferers.  For  in  his  case  injustice  has  been  cumula- 
tive, and  it  has  been  his  lot  to  be  conspicuous.  From 
the  publication  of  the  Dunciad  to  the  present  day  he 
has  been  the  butt  of  almost  every  critic  and  biographer 
of  Shakspeare  and  Pope.     Indeed,  the  shamelessness 


266  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  the  injustice  with  which  he  has  been  treated  by  his 
brother  commentators  on  Shakspeare  exceeds  belief. 
Generation  after  generation  it  has  been  the  same 
story.  After  plundering  his  notes  and  appropriating 
his  emendations,  sometimes  with,  but  more  generally 
without,  acknowledgment,  they  all  contrive,  each  in 
his  own  fashion,  to  reproduce  Pope's  portrait  of  him. 
Whenever  they  mention  him,  if  they  do  not  couple 
with  their  remarks  some  abusive  or  contemptuous 
expression,  it  is  with  a  sort  of  half-apology  for  intro- 
ducing his  name.  They  refer  to  him,  in  fact,  as  a 
gentleman  might  refer  among  his  friends  to  a  shoe- 
black who  had  just  amused  him  with  some  witticism 
while  polishing  his  boots.  Perhaps  impudence  never 
went  further  than  in  Pope's  own  appropriation  of 
Theobald's  labours.  Pope's  first  edition  of  Shakspeare 
came  out  in  1725,  and  in  1726  Theobald  published 
his  Shakspeare  Restored,  in  which  he  exposed  the 
blunders  and  defects  with  which  Pope's  volumes 
swarmed,  and  in  which  he  first  gave  to  the  world 
the  greater  part  of  his  own  admirable  emendations. 
Pope's  publishers,  probably  seeing  that  an  edition 
containing  such  a  text  as  he  had  given  would  come  to 
be  regarded  as  little  better  than  an  imposition  on  the 
public,  and  that  no  text  could  be  regarded  as  satisfac- 
tory without  Theobald's  corrections  and  emendations, 
persuaded  the  angry  poet  to  bring  out  a  second 
edition.  Accordingly  in  1728  appeared  Pope's  second 
edition.  Coolly  incorporating,  without  a  word  to  in- 
dicate them,  almost  all  Theobald's  best  conjectures  and 
regulations  of  the  text,  he  inserts  in  his  last  volume, 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM      267 

with  an  assurance  which  would  have  done  honour  to 
Voltaire  or  Junius,  the  following  amusing  note  : — 

Since  the  publication  of  our  first  edition,  there  having  been 
some  attempts  upon  Shakspeare,  published  by  Lewis  Theobald, 
which  he  would  not  communicate  during  the  time  wherein  that 
edition  was  preparing  for  the  press,  when  we  by  public  advertise- 
ment did  request  the  assistance  of  all  lovers  of  this  author,  we 
have  inserted  in  this  impression  as  many  of  'em  as  are  judged  of 
any  the  least  importance  to  the  Poet — the  whole  amounting  to 
about  twenty-five  words  [a  gross  misrepresentation  of  his  debt  to 
Tlieobald].  But  to  the  end  that  every  reader  may  judge  for 
himself,  we  have  annexed  a  complete  list  of  the  rest,  which  if  he 
shall  think  trivial  or  erroneous,  either  in  part  or  the  whole,  at 
worst  it  can  but  spoil  but  half  a  sheet  of  paper  that  chances  to 
be  left  vacant  here. 

"From  this  time,"  says  Johnson,  "Pope  became 
an  enemy  to  editors,  collators,  commentators,  and 
verbal  critics,  and  hoped  to  persuade  the  world  that 
he  miscarried  in  this  undertaking  only  by  having  a 
mind  too  great  for  such  minute  employment."  Irri- 
tated by  Theobald's  Shakspeare  Restored,  in  which 
personally  he  had  been  treated  respectfully,  but 
irritated  still  more  by  certain  critical  remarks  which 
Theobald  was  in  the  habit  of  inserting  in  a  current 
publication  called  Mist's  Journal,^  and  in  which  he 
had  not  been  treated  with  respect,  he  had  already 
made  the  unfortunate  critic  the  hero  of  the  Dundad, 
He  returned  again  to  the  attack,  and  with  much  more 
acrimony,  in  the  Ejnstle  to  Dr.  ArbuthnoL  Pope 
found  an  ally  in  Mallet ;  and  in  Verbal  Criticism,  a 

*  This  is  the  point  of  the  reference  in  the  couplet — 

Old  pans  restore,  lost  blunders  nicely  seek, 
And  eruei/y  poor  S?uJc$peare  once  a  toeek. 

Dundad  (1st  edit),  L  153,  164. 


268  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

satire  now  deservedly  forgotten,  but  then  widely  read, 
poor  Theobald  took  for  the  third  time  his  place  in  the 
pillory. 

His  next  detractor  was  Warburton,  and  of  War- 
burton's  conduct  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  patience. 
The  two  men  had  for  some  years  been  on  intimate 
terms,  and,  in  a  lengthy  correspondence,  which  has 
been  preserved  and  may  be  found  in  Nichols'  Illustra- 
tions of  Literature^  Theobald  had  communicated  to 
Warburton,  for  whom  he  appears  to  have  had  un- 
bounded admiration,  the  notes  which  he  was  then 
engaged  in  drawing  up  for  an  intended  edition  of 
Shakspeare.  Warburton,  then  an  obscure  country 
clergyman,  amused  himself  in  leisure  moments  with 
scribbling  notes  and  emendations  of  his  own,  and 
these  he  presented  very  good-naturedly  to  Theobald. 
Of  his  notes  there  are  not  twenty  of  the  smallest 
value,  of  his  emendations  there  are  not  half-a-dozen 
which  are  not  either  superfluous  or  execrable.  Who- 
ever will  compare  Theobald's  own  notes  and  emenda- 
tions with  those  contributed  by  Warburton  will  not 
only  see  how  little  he  owed  to  his  pompous  ally,  but 
how  much  his  work  has  suffered  by  being  encumbered 
with  Warburton's  impertinences.  But  the  spell  which 
Warburton  afterwards  threw  over  Pope  and  Hurd 
he  had  succeeded  apparently  in  throwing  over  poor 
Theobald.  Warburton's  contributions  he  received 
with  abject  gratitude,  and  with  abject  gratitude  he 
acknowledges  them  in  his  Preface  and  throughout  his 
notes.     Indeed,  he  seems  to  delight  in  parading  his 

1  Vol.  ii.  pp.  204-654. 


i 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       269 

obligations  to  his  "  most  ingenious  and  ever-respected 
friend."  After  the  publication  of  the  Shakspeare  their 
friendship  cooled.  Warburton  was  now  rising  to 
eminence,  and  becoming,  no  doubt,  ashamed  of  his 
association  with  the  hero  of  the  Dunciad.  An  adroit 
piece  of  flattery  which  he  had  introduced  into  an 
article  contributed  by  him  to  a  current  periodical  had 
prepared  the  way  for  an  acquaintance  with  Pope. 
His  Keply  to  Crousaz's  Examen  had  greatly  pleased 
Pope ;  an  introduction  to  the  poet  followed,  and  at 
the  end  of  1740  he  had  become  Pope's  staunchest  ally 
and  most  intimate  friend.  In  1744  Theobald  died, 
and  three  years  afterwards  appeared  Warburton's 
edition  of  Shakspeare.  It  is  to  be  hoped  for  the 
honour  of  human  nature  that  there  are  few  parallels 
to  the  meanness  and  baseness  of  which  Warburton 
stands  convicted  in  this  work.  His  object  was 
two-fold.  The  first  and  most  important  was  to 
build  the  reputation  of  his  own  edition  on  the  ruin 
of  his  predecessor's,  and  the  next  to  insinuate  that 
any  merit  which  is  to  be  found  in  Theobald's 
edition  is  to  be  attributed  not  to  Theobald  but 
to  himself.  After  observing  in  the  Preface  that 
Theobald  "succeeded  so  ill  that  he  left  his  author 
in  ten  times  a  worse  condition  than  he  found  him," 
he  goes  on  to  say  that  "  it  was  my  ill-fortune  to  have 
some  accidental  connection  with  him  "  ;  that  "  I  con- 
tributed a  great  number  of  observations  to  him,"  and 
these,  "  as  he  wanted  money,  I  allowed  him  to  print."  * 

^  Capell  had  in  his  poMetsion,  so  the  Cambridge  editors  tell  us,  a  copy  of 
Theobald's  Shakspeare  which  had  belonged  to  Warburton.     In  this  copy 


270  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

He  then  proceeds  to  draw  Theobald's  character  as  an 
editor  and  critic  : — 

Mr.  Theobald  was  naturally  turned  to  industry  and  labour. 
What  he  read  he  could  transcribe ;  but  as  what  he  thought,  if 
ever  he  did  think,  he  could  but  ill  express,  so  he  read  on ;  and 
by  that  means  got  a  character  of  learning  without  risking  to 
every  observer  the  imputation  of  wanting  a  better  talent.  By 
a  punctilious  collation  of  the  old  books,  he  corrected  what  was 
manifestly  wrong  in  the  later  editions  by  what  was  manifestly 
right  in  the  earlier.  And  this  is  his  real  merit,  and  the  whole 
of  it.  .  .  .  Nor  had  he  either  common  judgment  to  see,  or 
critical  sagacity  to  amend,  what  was  manifestly  faulty.  Hence 
he  generally  exerts  his  conjectural  talent  in  the  wrong  place. 
He  tampers  with  what  is  sound  in  the  common  books,  and  in  the 
old  ones  omits  all  notice  of  variations  the  sense  of  which  he  did 
not  understand. 

HsiYing  thus  disposed  of  his  dead  friend  in  the 
Preface,  he  proceeds  to  appropriate  his  labours.  He 
adopts  Theobald's  text  as  the  basis  of  his  own  ;  he 
steals  his  illustrations;  he  incorporates,  generally  with- 
out a  word  of  acknowledgment,  most  of  Theobald's 
best  emendations,  carefully  assigning  to  him  such  as 
are  of  little  importance,  while  in  his  notes  he  keeps  up 
a  running  fire  of  sneers  and  sarcasms.  Of  many  of 
his  most  felicitous  emendations  he  robs  him  by  a 
device  so  despicable  that  it  deserves  notice.  Incor- 
porating the  emendation,  he  adds  in  a  note,  "  Spelt 

Warburton  liad,  we  are  told,  claimed  the  notes  which  he  gave  to  Theobald, 
and  "which  Theobald  deprived  him  of  and  made  his  own."  If  in  this  copy, 
which  we  have  not  had  the  opportunity  of  inspecting,  Warburton  has  laid 
claim  to  more  than  Theobald  has  assigned  to  him,  we  believe  him  to  be  guilty 
of  dishonesty  even  more  detestable  than  that  of  which  the  proofs  are,  as  we 
have  shown,  indisputable.  No  one  who  reads  Theobald's  notes  can  for  one 
moment  doubt  his  honesty.  So  far  from  concealing  obligations,  he  seems  to 
delight  in  acknowledging  them.  If  a  friend  or  anonymous  correspondent 
supplied  him  with  any  information,  or  even  with  a  suggestion  or  hint  of 
which  he  has  availed  himself,  it  is  always  scrupulously  noted. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       271 

right  by  Mr.  Theobald."  It  is  thus  that  he  treats  the 
exquisite  correction  of  "  hisson  conspicuities "  for 
besom  {CoHolanus,  Act  ii.  Sc.  1) ;  of  shows  for 
shoes  in  the  line  "As  great  Alcides  shoes  upon  an 
ass  "  {King  John,  Act  ii.  Sc.  2) ;  of  eisel  (i.e.  vinegar) 
for  Esile  in  "  Woo't  drink  up  JEsile,  eat  a  crocodile  " 
(Hamlet,  Act  v.  Sc.  1),  though  he  knew  perfectly  well 
that  the  word,  being  printed  in  italics  in  the  old 
copies,  had  always  been  supposed  to  mean  the  name 
of  some  river,  till  Theobald  restored  not  only  the 
spelling  but  the  sense.  Nor  is  this  all;  he  has,  in 
more  than  one  case,  attributed  to  others  notes  and 
corrections  which  Theobald  had,  as  he  well  knew, 
communicated  to  him  in  the  long  correspondence  which 
had  passed  between  them  some  years  before. 

But  Theobald's  reputation  was  to  find  a  new 
assailant  far  more  formidable  than  Warburton,  and 
not  less  formidable  than  Pope.  It  is  difficult  to 
account  for  Dr.  Johnson's  hostility.  He  was  hardly 
the  man  to  be  guilty  of  deliberate  injustice.  He  had 
perhaps  not  troubled  himself  to  consult  Theobald's 
work  with  any  care,  but  had  been  content  to  take  his 
character  and  achievements  on  trust  from  Pope  and 
Warburton.  He  describes  him  as  "  a  man  of  narrow 
comprehension  and  small  acquisitions,  with  no  native 
and  intrinsic  splendour  of  genius,  with  little  of  the 
artificial  light  of  learning,  but  zealous  for  minute 
accuracy,  and  not  negligent  in  attaining  it."  He 
comments  also  on  the  "  inflated  emptiness "  of  some 
of  his  notes,  describes  him  as  "  weak  and  ignorant," 
and  though  he  allows  "  that  what  little  he  did  was 


272  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

commonly  right,"  reproduces,  in  effect,  the  portrait 
drawn  of  him  by  Pope  and  Warburton.  Unhappily 
too  for  Theobald's  fame,  Johnson's  detraction  is  not 
confined  to  the  Preface  to  his  Shakspeare,  which 
nobody  reads,  but  is  repeated  in  the  Lives  of  the 
Poets,  which  all  the  world  reads.  And  what  he  wrote 
he  said,  and  to  what  he  said  Boswell  has  given  wings. 
"You  think,  sir," — Dr.  Burney  was  the  speaker — 
"  that  Warburton  is  a  superior  critic  to  Theobald." — 
"  Oh,  sir,"  replied  the  sage,  "  he'd  make  two-and-fifty 
Theobalds  cut  into  slices."  Johnson's  treatment  of 
Theobald  is,  it  may  be  added,  the  more  remarkable, 
because  some  twenty  years  before,  in  his  Miscellaneous 
Ohservations  on  Macbeth,  he  had  spoken  of  Theobald 
with  great  respect,  observing  of  his  emendations  that 
"some  of  them  are  so  excellent,  that  even  when  he 
has  failed  he  ought  to  be  treated  with  indulgence  and 
respect." 

But  the  public  had  been  wiser  than  the  critics. 
Between  1733  and  1757  Theobald's  work  had  passed 
through  three  editions,  the  first  two  of  which  had 
alone  circulated  no  less  than  12,860  copies^;  while 
between  1757  and  1773  it  had  been  reprinted  four 
times.  This  accounts,  no  doubt,  for  the  persistency, 
if  not  for  the  rancour,  of  the  attacks  which  were  made 
on  him  and  his  labours  by  rival  editors.  As  we  come 
to  the  later  editors,  to  Capell  and  Malone,  for  instance 
— Steevens,  by  the  way,  had  the  honesty  to  do  him 
some  justice — we  find  no  indications  of  hostility. 
They  simply  assume  him  to  be  all  that  Pope,  War- 

^  Nichols,  Illustrations  of  Literature,  vol.  ii.  p.  714. 


THE  PORSOX  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       273 

burton,  and  Johnson  had  represented,  a  dull  and 
plodding  drudge — 

a  wight  that  scans  and  spells  ; 
A  word-catcher  that  lives  on  syllables — 

and  content  themselves  with  appropriating  his  labours. 
"That  his  (Theobald's)  work  should  at  this  day  be 
considered  of  any  value,"  coolly  observes  Malone, 
whose  own  edition  of  Shakspeare  is,  in  almost  every 
page,  indebted  to  the  man  of  whom  he  thus  speaks, 
"only  shows  how  long  impressions  will  remain  when 
they  are  once  made." 

Coleridge,  who  appears  to  have  known  nothing 
about  Theobald,  except  what  he  had  learned  from 
"Warburton,  next  took  up  the  cry,  and,  in  his  Notes 
and  Lectures  on  Shakspeare,  never  mentions  him 
without  coupling  his  name  with  some  contemptuous 
expression.  With  assailants  so  formidable,  and  with 
those  whose  studies  particularly  qualified  them  for 
appreciating  his  services  to  criticism  resorting  on 
principle  to  such  devices  for  concealing  and  misrepre- 
senting them,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  worlds 
estimate  of  Theobald  should  be  what  it  is.  The 
many  have  neither  leisure  nor  ability  to  form  con- 
clusions for  themselves.  The  crowd  moves  with  the 
crowd,  and  the  mass  follows  the  bell-wethers.  In 
this  particular  case  the  bell-wethers  have,  unfortu- 
nately for  Theobald,  been  Pope  and  Johnson  ;  and 
whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  turn  to  the  opinions 
which  have  recently  been  expressed  about  our  critic, 
will  see  a  most  amusing  illustration  of  the  ways  of  the 
flock.    Mr.  Courthope  follows,  meekly  and  obediently, 


274  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

the  guiding  tinkle,  and  in  his  pages  the  only  virtue 
possessed  by  Theobald  is  that  he  was  not  '*so  malig- 
nant as  many  of  the  other  dunces."  **  He  was,  in 
fact,  utterly  insignificant :  and  if  he  had  not  been 
unlucky  enough  to  venture  on  a  criticism  of  Pope's 
edition  of  Shakspeare,  he  might  have  remained  in 
peaceful  obscurity."  ^  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  though  he 
shows  no  disposition  to  rebel,  follows  without  any 
consonant  bleat  and  is  plainly  uneasy ;  in  fact,  he 
compromises  the  matter  by  remaining  silent  about 
Theobald's  merits  or  demerits,  merely  remarking  that 
he  was  an  "unlucky  writer,  to  whom  the  merit  is 
attributed  of  having  first  illustrated  Shakspeare  by 
a  study  of  the  contemporary  literature."  ^  But  the 
Cambridge  editors  are  courageously  recalcitrant,  and 
break  away  altogether  with  "  Theobald,  as  an  editor,  is 
incomparably  superior  to  his  predecessor,  and  to  his 
immediate  successor  Warburton,  although  the  latter 
had  the  advantage  of  working  on  his  materials.  .  .  . 
Many  most  brilliant  emendations,  such  as  could  not 
have  suggested  themselves  to  a  mere  *  cold,  plodding, 
and  tasteless  critic,'  are  due  to  him."  ^  This  is  some- 
thing, but  it  is  not  much.  To  be  superior,  and  even 
incomparably  superior,  to  such  editors  as  Pope  and 
Warburton,  would  be  no  great  honour  to  any  one. 
However,  it  was  a  bleat  of  dissent ;  and  feeble  though 
it  was,  it  was  loud  enough  to  reach  the  ears  of  Dr. 
Birkbeck  Hill,  whom  it  suddenly  arrested.  H  any- 
thing which  is  not  exactly  stated  can  be  plain,  it  is 

^  Life  of  Pope,  p.  218.  ^  Monograph  on  Pope,  p.  121. 

*  Cambridge  Shakspeare,  p.  xxxi. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       275 

plain  from  Dr.  Hill's  note  ^  on  Theobald  that  he  had 
no  suspicion  that  Johnson's  estimate  of  him  was  a 
-svrong  one ;  nay,  that  he  is  by  no  means  clear  even 
now  that  Johnson  was  not  in  the  right.  But  the 
Cambridge  editors  have  made  him  very  uncomfortable, 
and  he  stands  at  gaze  in  a  note  in  which  he  expresses 
no  opinion  of  his  own,  but  transcribes  the  remarks  of 
the  Cambridge  editors,  adding  silently  two  specimens 
of  Theobald's  emendations.  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill  may, 
if  he  ever  meets  them,  feel  quite  at  ease  both  with 
the  shade  of  Johnson  and  with  the  shade  of  Theobald. 
How  poor  Theobald's  reputation  is  likely  to  stand 
with  those  who  go  to  Biographical  Dictionaries  and 
Encyclopaedias  for  their  knowledge  may  be  judged 
from  the  account  given  of  him  in  the  last  edition  of 
the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica : — 

Theobald  (Lewis)  will  survive  as  the  prime  butt  of  the 
original  Dunciad,  when  as  a  play^vright,  a  littdrateur^  a  trans- 
lator, and  even  as  a  Shakspearian  commentator  he  will  be 
entirely  forgotten.  He  was  a  man  with  literary  impulses,  but 
without  genius,  even  of  a  superficial  kind.  As  a  student,  as  a 
commentator,  he  might  have  led  a  happy  and  enviable  life,  had 
not  the  vanity  of  the  literary  idea  led  him  into  a  false  position — 

a  model,  it  may  be  added,  both  in  style  and  matter, 
of  what  an  article  in  an  Encyclopaedia  should  be. 

But  it  is  time  to  turn  to  Theobald  himself,  and  we 
trust  our  readers  will  not  think  us  tedious  if  we  state 
at  length  his  claims  to  be  regarded  not  only  as  the 
father  of  Shakspearian  criticism,  but  as  the  editor  to 
whom  our  great  poet  is  most  deeply  indebted.  To 
speak  of  any  of  the  eighteenth-century  editors  in  the 

^  Edition  of  Boswell's  Johnson^  vol.  i.  p.  329. 


276  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

same  breath  with  him  is  absurd.  In  the  first  place 
he  had  what  none  of  them  possessed — a  fine  ear  for 
the  rhythm  of  blank  verse,  and  the  nicest  sense  of  the 
nuances  of  language  as  well  in  relation  to  single  words 
as  to  words  in  combination — faculties  which,  as  it  is 
needless  to  say,  are  indispensable  to  an  emendator  of 
Shakspeare,  or,  indeed,  of  any  other  poet.  In  every 
department  of  textual  criticism  he  excelled.  In 
its  humbler  offices,  in  collation,  in  transcription,  in 
the  correction  of  clerical  errors,  he  was,  as  even  his 
enemies  have  frankly  admitted,  the  most  patient 
and  conscientious  of  drudges.  To  the  elucidation  of 
obscurities  in  expression  or  allusion,  and  for  the  pur- 
poses of  illustrative  commentary  generally,  he  brought 
a  stock  of  learning  such  as  has  never  perhaps  been 
found  united  in  any  other  commentator  on  Shak- 
speare.   An  accomplished  Greek  scholar,^  as  his  trans- 

1  He  translated,  and  very  meritorious  translations  they  are,  the  Electra, 
the  Ajax,  and  the  (Edipus  Rex  of  Sophocles  ;  the  Niibes  and  Plutus  of  Aristo- 
phanes ;  the  Hero  and  Leander  of  the  Pseudo-Mus?eus  ;  and  the  Phccdo  of 
Plato.  His  corrections  and  emendations  of  the  authors  referred  to  will  be 
found  in  Jortin's  Misc-ellancous  Observations,  vol.  ii.  ;  in  Nichols'  Illustrations 
of  Literature,  vol.  ii. ;  in  the  Preface  and  Notes  to  his  Shakspeare  passim. 
He  left  also  some  notes  on  ^schylus,  with  emendations,  which  Blomfield  used 
when  preparing  his  edition.  See  Blomfield's  Prometheus  (edit.  1810),  note 
following  the  Preface. 

Scholars  may  perhaps  be  interested  to  see  two  or  three  specimens  of  Theo- 
bald's emendations  of  Greek  texts.  In  an  ancient  epitaph  printed  in  Wheeler's 
Greek  Antiquities  and  Inscriptions  appeared  this  couplet — 

nopfleVov  ^s  an-e'Avo-e  /otiTpTji/  H2API0N  a.v6o<i 
"EaKev  kv  rifjii.Te\ei  iravadfievov  6a\dfji(o. 

For  the  unintelligible  rjadpcov  he  proposes  most  felicitously  •^s  rjptvbv.  Bent- 
ley  might  have  envied  the  following  emendation  of  a  passage  in  Eustathius, 
who  is  speaking  of  the  Thersites  episode  :  dXXot  x<^/'*''  y^^(^oi  evreXelas  rj 
K(j}/J.(p5ia  (TTOxdi^^Tai,  ravra  d^  Trdvra  Tap6.  ry  toltittj  €i)pT]TaL'  Ku/mcfduif  fih  yap 
KATAPPIIITEI  rbv  Qepair-qv.  This  of  course  makes  no  sense,  as  Homer  says 
nothing  about  Thersites  being  thrown  down.  By  the  alteration  of  one  letter 
Theobald  restores  the  passage — reading  KarappaTTTH  he  interprets  "comoedum 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       277 

lations  from  Sophocles,  Aristophanes,  and  Plato,  as 
well  as  his  emendations  of  ^schylus,  Suidas,  Athen- 
aeus,  Hesychius,  and  others  abundantly  prove,  his 
acquaintance  with  Greek  literature  was  intimate  and 
extensive.  His  notes  teem  with  most  apposite  illus- 
trations drawn  not  merely  from  the  writings  with 
which  all  scholars  are  more  or  less  familiar,  but  from 
the  fragments  of  Menander  and  Philemon,  from  the 
Anthology,  and  from  the  miscellaneous  literature  of 
Alexandria  and  Byzantium.  His  illustrations  from 
the  Roman  classics — and  they  range  from  Ennius  to 
Boethius — are  still  more  numerous.  He  appears  to 
have  been  well  versed  also  in  Italian,  French,  and 
Spanish,  an  accomplishment  which  assisted  him 
greatly  in  his  work  as  an  editor  and  commentator. 
It  not  only  supplied  him  with  many  happy  parallels 
and  illustrations,  but  it  enabled  him  to  trace  many 
legends  and  traditions  to  their  source,  and,  what  was 
more  important,  it  enabled  him  to  correct  the  gibberish 
into  which  words  in  these  languages,  or  unnaturalised 
words  derived  from  these  languages,  were  almost  in- 
variably transformed  in  the  text  of  the  quartos  and 
folios.  To  our  own  language  and  literature  he  had 
evidently  paid  much  attention.  He  was  one  of  the 
very  few  men  of  his  time  who  possessed  some  know- 
ledge of  Anglo-Saxon  and  early  Middle  English.  The 
frequency  and  aptness  of  his  quotations   from   the 

autem  agena  (Poeta)  Theraitom  operi  suo  asscrit  (vcl  inserit)."  So  again  the 
Scholiast  on  Aristophanes,  Aehaniians  738,  commenting  on  the  words  of  the 
poor  Megarean,  who  in  his  hunger  is  coming  to  sell  his  two  daughters,  Axodrrov 
W),  Tcrrixrr  iftXv  rkv  yturripOj  closes  his  note  by  observing  /Lu«rpd  W  ^  fppouL  ry 
voip^,  which  of  course  has  no  i)oint,  but  Theobald,  substituting  a  for  k^  read- 
ing fuapd  for  fuKpd,  undoubtedly  restores  the  proper  word. 


278  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Canterbury  Tales  proved  his  familiarity  with  Chaucer. 
Thus,  in  correcting  the  absurd  expression  in  the  Ttvo 
Gentlemen  of  Verona  (Act  iv.  Sc.  4),  "  Her  eyes  are 
grey  as  grass,'*  he  recalled  Chaucer's  Prioress,  **  Her 
eyen  grey  as  glass,"  and  detected  the  true  reading  in 
a  moment.  Though  he  seems,  like  all  his  contem- 
poraries, to  have  known  comparatively  little  of  the 
minor  poets  and  prose  writers  of  the  Elizabethan  age, 
he  had  carefully  studied  Spenser,  and  his  knowledge 
of  the  dramatists  who  immediately  preceded  and  who 
surrounded  and  followed  Shakspeare  was  probably 
greater  than  that  possessed  by  any  scholar  in  England 
till  the  appearance  of  Malone.^  To  these  stores  of 
general  erudition  he  added  a  minute  and  particular 
acquaintance  with  all  those  books  which  are  known  to 
have  furnished  Shakspeare  with  materials  for  his  plots, 
or  which  he  would  have  been  likely  to  consult.  He 
was  the  first  to  collate  the  English  Historical  Plays 
with  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  and  the  Koman  Plays  with 
North's  Plutarch ;  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to  detect 
and  rectify  many  errors  in  the  text,  as  well  as  to  throw 
light  on  much  that  was  obscure  both  in  allusions 
and  in  incidents.  He  was  the  first  also  to  collate  the 
romantic  comedies  and  tragi-comedies  with  the  Italian 

^  He  says  himself,  Preface  to  his  Shakspeare  (first  edit.),  p.  Ixviii.,  that 
he  had  read  "above  800  old  English  plays"  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
Shakspeare.  If  Malone's  assertion  that  there  were  only  about  550  plays 
printed  before  the  Restoration,  exclusive  of  those  written  by  Shakspeare, 
Jonson,  and  Fletcher,  be  correct,  this  must  be  an  exaggeration.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  his  acquaintance  with  this  branch  of  literature 
was  unusually  extensive.  His  library  certainly  contained,  as  the  advertise- 
ment of  the  sale  testifies,  "295  old  English  Plays  in  Quarto,  some  of  them  so 
scarce  as  not  to  be  had  at  any  price  " ;  many  of  them,  it  adds,  full  of  Theobald's 
manuscript  notes  (see  Reed's  note  in  Variorum  Shak^eare,  vol.  i.  p.  404). 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       279 

novels,  and  with  the  happiest  results,  both  particularly 
with  reference  to  the  correction  of  the  text,  and  gener- 
ally with  reference  to  illustrative  commentary. 

Nor  are  the  obligations  under  which  he  has  laid 
succeeding  commentators  less  when  we  take  into 
account  the  light  which  he  has  thrown  on  Shak- 
speare's  more  recondite  allusions.  His  notes  are  indeed 
a  mine  of  miscellaneous  learning,  clearing  up  fully 
and  once  for  all  what  might  have  remained  undetected 
for  generations.  Thus  in  Tivelfth  Night  (Act  v.  Sc.  1) 
occurs  the  line — 

Had  I  the  heart  to  do  it, 
Like  to  the  Egyptian  thief  at  point  of  death. 
Kill  what  I  love  ? — 

an  allusion,  as  Theobald  points  out,  to  a  passage  in 
the  ^thiopica  of  Heliodorus  (book  vii.).  So  again 
in  the  same  play,  Act  iii.  Sc.  2,  in  the  words,  "  Taunt 
him  with  the  licence  of  ink ;  if  thou  thoust  him  some 
thrice  it  shall  not  be  amiss,"  his  knowledge  of  the 
State  Trials  enabled  him  to  detect  an  allusion  to  Coke's 
brutal  taunt  to  Raleigh  :  "All  that  he  did  was  by 
thy  instigation,  thou  Viper,  for  I  thou  thee,  thou 
Traitor."  ^  Thus  his  curious  reading  in  old  and  for- 
gotten Elizabethan  plays  enabled  him  to  explain  the 
allusions  in  "Basilisco-like"  {King  John,  Act  i.  ad 
Jin.);  "Clapt  on  the  shoulder  and  call'd  Adam" 
(Much  Ado,  Act  i.  Sc.  1);  "John  Drum's  entertain- 
ment" (AWs  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Act  ill  Sc.  6), 

*  We  now  know  from  Manningham's  Diary  that  Twelfth  Night  mnat  have 
been  composed  two-and-a-half  years  before  Raleigh's  trial ;  but  as  it  did  not 
appear  in  print  till  1623,  there  is  no  reason  why  this  passage  may  not  have 
been  added  after  the  trial ;  indeed,  nothing  is  more  likely. 


280  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

and  many  others  of  a  similar  kind.  So,  too,  his 
curious  reading  in  such  writers  as  Dares  Phrygius, 
Tiraquellus,  and  Alexander  ab  Alexandro  enabled  him 
to  correct  the  passage,  much  of  it  mere  jargon,  in  the 
prologue  to  Troilus  and  Cressida  enumerating  the 
Trojan  gates,  while  his  aquaintance  with  Caxton's 
Trojan  Clironicles  led  him  to  the  true  explanation 
of  the  "  dreadful  Sagittary  "  in  the  same  play.  His 
knowledge  of  the  controversial  religious  literature  of 
the  Elizabethan  age,  and  of  pamphlets  illustrating  the 
social  life  of  that  time,  enabled  him  to  clear  up  many 
minor  obscurities,  and  to  show  the  point  of  allusions 
which,  being  purely  local,  had  long  ceased  to  be 
significant.  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  is  his  note 
on  Edgar's  mad  speeches  in  King  Lear,  in  which  he 
comments  on  the  art  with  which  Shakspeare  has,  with 
the  object  of  pleasing  James  I.,  so  worded  Edgar's 
gibberish  as  to  make  it  a  medium  for  conveying 
covert  satire  on  an  affair  then  greatly  annoying  the 
King.  It  is,  by  the  way,  due  also  to  Theobald  to 
point  out  that  he  has  in  this  same  note  anticipated 
Coleridge  in  distinguishing  between  the  jargon  of 
Edgar  as  indicating  assumed  madness  and  that  of 
Lear  as  indicating  real  madness.  "  What  Lear  says," 
remarks  Theobald,  **  for  the  most  part  springs  either 
from  the  source  and  fountain  of  his  disorder,  the 
injuries  done  him  by  his  daughters,  or  his  desire  of 
being  revenged  on  them.  What  Edgar  says  seems  a 
fantastic  wildness  only  extorted  to  disguise  sense  and 
to  blunt  the  suspicion  of  his  concealment."  ^ 

^  Shakspeare  (1st  edit.),  vol.  v.  p.  165. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       281 

Nor  axe  the  sound  judgment  and  good  sense  of 
Theobald  less  conspicuous  than  his  learning.  To 
taunt  him  with  pedantry,  the  ordinary  charge  against 
him,  is  ridiculous.  If  his  notes  are  often  too  verbose 
and  polemical,  his  sentences  loose  and  perplexed, 
and  his  diction  too  vulgarly  colloquial,  his  matter  is 
generally  pertinent  and  almost  always  instructive. 
He  never  peddles  over  mere  trifles,  and  "monsters 
nothings."  In  explaining  obscure  or  ambiguous 
passages,  one  of  the  most  important  duties  of  a  com- 
mentator on  Shakspeare,  he  is  as  a  rule  singularly 
lucid  and  intelligent.  His  note,  for  example,  on  the 
difficult  line  in  Cymbelinej — "And  make  them 
dreaded,  to  the  doer's  thrift," — is  a  model  of  what 
such  notes  should  be.  His  punctuation  of  Shak- 
speare's  text,  to  which  we  shall  have  presently  to  recur, 
would  in  itself  refute  the  sarcasm  of  Pope,  who  classes 
him  with  those  of  whom  it  may  be  said — 

Pains,  reading,  study  are  their  just  pretence, 
And  all  they  want  is  spirit,  taste,  and  sense. 

Had  Theobald's  services  extended  no  further  than 
we  have  described,  he  would  have  been  entitled  to 
great  respect.  But  it  was  not  what  industry,  acquired 
learning,  good  taste,  and  sound  judgment  enabled 
him  to  do  that  gives  him  his  peculiar  place  among 
critics.  It  was  the  possession  in  the  highest  degree 
of  that  fine  and  rare  faculty,  if  it  be  not  rather  an 
exquisite  temper  and  harmony  of  various  faculties, 
which  seems  to  admit  a  critic  for  a  moment  into  the 
very  sanctuary  of  genius.    In  less  figurative  language, 


282  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

it  is  the  faculty  of  divining  and  recov,ering,  as  by  the 
power  of  some  subtle  sympathy,  the  lost  touch, — the 
touch  of  magic,  often  in  the  expression  of  poetry  so 
precarious  and  delicate  that,  dependent  on  a  single 
word,  a  stroke  of  the  pen  may  efface,  just  as  a  stroke 
of  the  pen  may  restore  it. 

We  have  compared  Theobald  with  Porson.  He 
seems  to  us  to  stand  in  precisely  the  same  relation  to 
Shakspeare  as  Porson  stands  to  Greek  poetry,  and 
more  particularly  to  the  Attic  dramatists.  And  they 
both  stand — par  nohile  fratrum — at  the  head  of 
emendatory  criticism  in  England,  not  in  its  applica- 
tion to  prose  or  to  any  form  of  expression  which  is 
simply  prosaic,  for  in  these  walks  Porson  had  some- 
times a  rival  in  Bentley,  and  Theobald  in  Warburton, 
but  in  its  application  to  the  secrets  of  poetry.  And 
this  of  course  is  the  sphere  in  which  emendatory 
criticism  finds  its  highest  exercise.  What  dis- 
tinguishes men  like  Bentley  and  Warburton  from 
men  like  Porson  and  Theobald,  in  other  words  what 
distinguishes  mere  acuteness  and  ingenuity  in  emenda- 
tory criticism  from  genius,  is  a  faculty  which  has  no 
necessary  connection  with  taste,  with  poetic  sensibility, 
with  imagination,  but  which  depends  mainly  upon 
the  eye  and  the  memory.  The  difference  in  truth 
between  this  faculty  in  its  highest  and  in  its  lower 
manifestations  is  not  a  difference  of  degree  but  a 
difference  of  kind.  It  measures  the  whole  distance 
between  genius  and  mere  cleverness.  Let  us  illus- 
trate. One  of  the  Epigrams  of  Callimachus  {Epig.  50) 
begins  thus : — 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       283 

T^v  aXitjv  ^vSrjfioSj  <</>'  ^S  aAa  \ltov  cttcA^wv 

\€ifJitova^  fi€yd\ovs  i^€(f>x'y€V  8av€(iiv 
OrjK€  diois  ^a/x6dpa^i — 

which  had  always  been  interpreted  in  this  way, 
"  Eudemus  dedicated  to  the  gods  of  Samothrace  the 
ship  on  which  he  went  over  a  smooth  sea  and  escaped 
mighty  storms  of  the  Danai "  (i.e.  such  storms  as  the 
Greek  chiefs  encountered  on  their  return  from  Troy, 
for  the  perplexed  editors  had  substituted  Aavawv  for 
Bavecov).  Bentley,  by  the  change  of  one  letter,  o-  for 
X,  i.e.  iiriadcov  for  eTreXOoov,  transformed  the  passage 
into  meaning  this,  **  Eudemus  dedicated  to  the  gods 
of  Samothrace  the  salt-cellar  from  which  he  ate  fruo^al 
salt,  and  so  escaped  from  the  mighty  storms  of  usury," 
in  this  case,  no  doubt — for  aXa  \itov  could  not  possibly 
mean  a  smooth  sea — restoring  the  true  reading.  Take 
another.  In  the  Lexicon  of  Hesychius  {sub  l^vaarpo^:) 
appeared  this  gibberish :  "Ei/ao-rpo?  cooTe/xiz/a?,  d^aiof; 

aX^eaiPoLav    ami    tov    va(TTa<;   yctp   ^aK'^a^i   vdBa<;  eXeyov, 

Bentley,  by  simply  changing  e  into  at,  restores 
"Ei/acT/jo?  &(TT€  Maivd<;'  'A^ato?  A\<f>€a-L/3ota'  dvrl  tov 
'Ta9*   rd<;  yap  ^aK^a'^i  'TdBa<;  eXeyoVy  and  thus  transforms 

unintelligible  nonsense  into  a  source  of  valuable  infor- 
mation, giving  us  the  title  of  a  drama,  the  name  of 
its  author,  and  new  light  on  a  point  of  mythology. 
So  again  in  the  Scholia  on  Odyssey,  xi.  546,  we 
have  this  passage — it  is  referring  to  Agamemnon's 
decision  as  to  the  relative  claims  of  Ulysses  and  Ajax 
to  the  arms  of  Achilles  :  ^Ayafiifivoyv.  .  .  .  alxM^^Tov<; 
rS)v  TpQxop   dyar/cop    €p(t)TTj(T€v    viro    oTroripov   tcjv    TpaxDV 

oi  Tpwe?  fiaXXov  i\v7nj6rjaav,  **  Agamemnon   brought 


284  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

forward  the  Trojan  captives  and  asked  them  from 
which  of  the  two  Trojans  they  had  suffered  most 
injury."  This  nonsense  Barnes  had  corrected  by 
reading  avTcav  ol  Tp(0€<;,  but  Bentley  by  the  simple 
substitution  of  H  for  T — "from  which  of  the  two 
heroes" — struck  out  the  true  reading.  And  these 
emendations  are  typical  samples  of  the  quality  of  his 
emendations  generally.  They  are  the  result  of  mere 
acuteness.  Assuming,  as  of  course  we  have  to  do,  a 
knowledge  of  the  classical  languages  at  once  exact  and 
immense,  w^e  need  assume  no  more  than  may  be  found 
in  any  conveyancer's  office,  or  in  any  drudge  at  Mr. 
Chabot's  or  at  Mr.  Netherclift's.  Of  inspiration,  of 
refined  intelligence,  of  delicacy  of  taste,  of  any  trace 
of  sympathy  with  the  essentials  of  poetry,  his  emenda- 
tions are  totally  devoid.  If,  as  is  sometimes  the  case, 
they  are  felicitous — ingenious,  that  is  to  say,  without 
violating  poetic  propriety — it  is  by  pure  accident. 
In  many  instances  they  literally  beggar  burlesque. 
The  sides  of  his  countrymen  have  long  ached  with 
laughter  at  his  transformation  of  Milton's 

Not  liglit  but  rather  darkness  visible, 

into 

Not  light  but  rather  a  transpicuous  gloom  ; 

of 

Hell  heard  the  insufferable  noise,  Hell  saw 
Heav'n  ruining  from  Heaven, 

into 

Hell  heard  the  hideous  cries  and  yells.      Hell  saw 
Heav'n  tumbling  down  from  Heav'n  ; 

and  his  alteration  of  the  concluding  lines  of  Paradise 

Lost — 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       285 

They  hand  in  hand,  with  wand'ring  steps  and  slow, 
Through  Eden  took  their  solitary  way, 


into 


Then  hand  in  hand  with  social  steps  their  way 
Through  Eden  took,  with  heavenly  comfort  cheer'd.i 

^  The  stupidity  of  Bentley's  notes  is,  if  possible,  jnore  portentous  than  his 
emendations.  Take  his  note  in  defence  of  his  alteration  of  this  very  passage : 
"Why  wandering?  Erratic  steps  ?  Very  improper  ;  when,  in  the  line  before, 
they  were  guided  by  Providence.  And  why  slow,  when  Eve  professed  her 
readiness  and  alacrity  for  the  journey  ?  (614).  And  why  their  solitary  toay, 
when  even  their  former  walks  in  Paradise  were  as  solitary  as  their  way  now, 
there  being  nobody  besides  them  two,  both  here  and  there  1 "  Or  take  again 
the  note  in  which  he  justified  his  emendation  of 

Thus  with  the  year 
Seasons  return,  but  not  to  me  returns 
Day  or  the  sweet  approach  of  ev'n  or  mom. 

III.  39-41. 

**  There  must  have  been  a  mistake  here,  27iiis  seasons  return  ?  Not  a  word  has 
been  said  of  it  before  to  give  countenance  to  'Thus.'  From  the  mention  of 
the  nightingale,  it  seems  requisite  to  alter  it  thus  : — 

Tunes  her  noctomal  note,  when  with  the  year 
Mild  Spring  returns. 

*  Day  or  the  sweet  approach  of  ev'n  or  morn '  can  hardly  be  right :  the  poor 
man  in  so  many  years'  blindness  had  too  much  of  evening." 

But  he  reaches  his  climax  perhaps  in  his  commentary  on  the  noble  lines — 

Nor  sometimes  forget 
Those  other  two  equal'd  with  me  in  fate, 
So  were  I  eqnal'd  with  them  in  renown, 
Blind  Thamyris  and  blind  Mseonides, 
And  Tlresias  and  Phineus,  prophets  old. 

Id.  82-86. 

*'  Here  we  have  got  the  Editor's  fist  again,  for  the  mark  of  it  is  easily  dis- 
covered. What  more  ridiculous  than  to  say  those  other  two,  and  afterwards 
to  name  four.  .  .  .  And  what  occasion  to  think  at  times  of  Tiresias  and 
Phineus,  old  prophets.  Did  our  poet  pretend  to  prophesy  ?  He  might  equally 
think  of  any  other  blind  men,  such  as  the  Romans  Appius  or  Metellus,  of 
true  and  higher  characters  than  the  three  he  induces  here.  Add  the  bad 
accent,  'And  Tiresias,'  the  tone  in  the  fourth  syllable  unused  and  unnatural. 
To  retrieve  this  passage  from  the  Editor's  polluting  hand,  it  may  be  thus 
changed,  throwing  two  verses  cat — 

Nor  at  times  forget 

The  Grecian  bard  eqoal'd  with  me  in  fkt«, 

O  were  witlt  him  I  equal'd  in  renown." 

How  poor  Homer  would  have  fared  at  Bentley's  hands  may  bo  judged  by  his 
precious  emendation  of  Iliad  iii.  196,  where  ho  proposed  to  change  ai>r6t  8i 
tcrCXof  C)s  iriToiXeirai  <rr/xa»  iySpwv  into  airrdp  \f/i\bs  iutv,  becauae  the  poet 
had  said  in  the  preceding  line  that  the  arms  of  Ulysses  were  lying  on  the 
ground. 


286  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Some  of  his  emendations  of  the  Greek  poets  would 
have  made,  we  may  be  sure,  a  simikr  impression  and 
have  had  a  similar  eflfect  on  Pericles  and  his  friends. 
The  greater  part  of  his  emendations  of  Horace  would 
have  been  received  with  roars  of  laughter,  not  merely 
in  the  saloons  of  the  Esquiline,  but  in  the  cabin  of 
honest  Davus.  Take  a  very  few  out  of  very  many. 
In  Ode  I.  xxiii.  5,  6  : — 

Nam  seu  mobilibus  veris  inliorruit 
Adveiitus  foliis. 

Here  a  touch  of  magically  poetic  beauty  is  trans- 
formed into  flat  bald  prose  by  the  alteration  of 
veris  into  vepris,  and  adventus  into  ad  ventum, 
an  emendation  as  ludicrous  as  any  he  has  made  in 
Milton.     In  Ode  I.  iii.  22— 

Nequidquam  Deus  abscidit 
Prudens  Oceano  dissociabili 
Terras — 

by  altering  dissociabili  into  dissociabilis  {es),  thus 
separating  it  from  Oceano  and  associating  it  with 
terras,  he  deprives  an  exquisitely  felicitous  epithet  of 
its  propriety.     Take,  again.  Ode  III.  x.  : — 

Positas  ut  glaciet  nives 
Puro  numine  Jupiter. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  the  densest  critical 
perception  would  have  appreciated  the  singularly 
vivid  power  of  the  epithet  ]puro,  but,  alas  ! — 

Turn  what  they  will  to  verse,  their  care  is  vain  : 
Critics  like  these  will  make  it  prose  again ; 

and  puro  becomes  in  Bentley's  text  duro  !  So  again 
in  Ode  I.  iv.,  by  substituting  the  variant  of  the  Paris 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       287 

MS.  Visit  for  the  authentic  reading  urity  a  splendidly 
graphic  picture  is  obliterated  and  mere  inanity  takes 
its  place.     Thus,  too,  in  Ode  III.  xxv.  8,  9, 

In  jugis 
Exsomuis  stupet  Euias, 

the  magnificently  graphic  epithet  exsomnis  is  altered 
into  Edonis,  for,  as  Bentley  sagely  observes,  *'  Tan  turn 
abest  ut  exsomnes  manserint  Bacchge  ut  prae  nimia 
lassitudine  frequenter  somnus  iis  obrepserit."  And 
this  statement  he  gravely  proceeds  to  prove  by 
references  to  Propertius,  Statins,  Sidonius,  and  to  the 
fact  that  Euripides  {Bacchce,  682)  distinctly  describes 
them  as  taking  a  nap.^ 

Warburton's  emendations  of  Shakspeare  are  of 
precisely  the  same  kind.  The  skill  with  which  he 
has  occasionally  corrected  passages,  where  nothing 
more  than  mere  acuteness  was  required,  was  quite 
compatible  with  the  immense  stupidity  which  has 
loaded  the  text  of  his  Shakspeare  with  emendations 
of  which  the  following  are  samples  : — 

I'll  speak  a  prophecy  or  ere  I  go, 

{King  Lear^  Act  iii.  Sc.  2) 

altered  into 

rU  speak  a  prophecy  or  t\Do  afore  I  go  ; 

and 

.  .  .  Cuckoo-buds  of  yellow  hue 
Do  paint  the  meadows  loith  delight^ 

{Lovers  Labour's  Lost^  Act  v.  Sc  2) 

altered  into 

Do  paint  the  nuadows  all  bedight. 

>  His  emendations  of  Terence  are  often  equally  impertinent  and  tasteless. 
For  their  general  character  see  Hermann's  Dissertation  Dt  BerUUio  ^'tuqu$ 
edUione  Terentii, 


288  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

So,  again,  in  the  beautiful  lines  in  Coriolanus — 

Our  veiled  dames 
Commit  the  war  of  white  and  damask  in 
Their  nicely  gauded  cheeks  to  the  wanton  spoil 
Of  Phoebus'  bui-ning  kisses — 

he  alters  war  into  ware,  the  commodity,  the  merchan- 
dise, sapiently  observing  that  "the  commixture  of 
white  and  red  could  not  by  any  figure  of  speech  be 
called  a  war,  because  it  is  the  agreement  and  union  of 
the  colours  that  make  the  beauty."  His  comments 
are  on  a  par  with  his  emendations  :  one  sample  must 
suffice.  Every  one  remembers  the  glorious  lines 
which  Antony  addresses  to  Cleopatra — 

0  thou  day  o'  the  world, 
Chain  mine  arm'd  neck  :  leap  thou,  attire  and  all, 
Through  proof  of  harness  to  my  heart,  and  there 
Eide  on  the  pants  triumphing. 

"  Chain  mine  arm'd  neck"  is  "an  allusion,"  observes 
Warburton,  "  to  the  Gothic  custom  of  men  of  worship 
wearing  gold  chains  about  the  neck."  To  "  ride  on 
the  pants  triumphing"  he  appends  the  following 
note :  "  alluding  to  an  Admiral  ship  on  the  billows 
after  a  storm.     The  metaphor  is  extremely  fine." 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Porson  and  Theobald.  In  the 
Agamemnon  occur  these  lines.  Clytemnestra  is  de- 
scribing how  she  stabbed  her  husband,  and  how  in  his 
death-throes  he  spirted  over  her  a  gout  of  dark 
blood — 

/SdXXet  fi  (pefxvy  xJ/aKaSL  <f>oivias  8/oocrov, 

)(aLpovcrav  ovSev  ^(Tcrov,  iq  Sibs  vot^ 

yav,  €t  (TTroprjToSj  KaXvKos,  Iv  X.ox^vp'O.a-LV — 

a  passage  plainly  corrupt,  in  rhythm  horrible,  but  out 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       289 

of  which  the  following  meaning  may  be  extracted: 
**  He  smites  me  with  a  dark-red  shower  (or  gout)  of 
murder-dew  (me)  greeting  it  (or  perhaps  joying  in  it), 
not  less  than  the  earth  in  the  south  wind  (or  rain)  of 
heaven,  when  the  corn-field  (is)  in  the  burstings  of 
the  sheath,"  i.e.  when  the  sheaths  in  which  the  green 
ear  is  enclosed  are  bursting.  By  two  touches,  by  sub- 
stituting through  the  change  of  a  single  letter  Bio<tB6t(p 
for  Sio9  voTO),  and  ydvei  for  yav  el,  the  magic  of  Porson 
restores  sense,  grammar,  rhythm,  poetry,  glory ;  and 
either  gives  again  to  the  world  what  .^chylus  ori- 
ginally wrote,  or  gives  to  iEschylus  himself  what  he 
would  have  been  proud  to  accept.  And  this  noble 
emendation  is  typical  of  his  emendations  generally. 
Johnson  has  observed  very  rightly  that  "  the  justness 
of  a  happy  restoration  strikes  at  once,  and  the  moral 
precept  may  be  well  applied  to  criticism,  *quod 
dubitas  ne  feceris.*  "  Of  no  emendations  is  this  more 
true  than  of  Porson's.  Unlike  those  of  such  critics 
as  Bentley  and  Wakefield — for,  immeasurable  as  was 
Bentley's  superiority  to  Wakefield  in  point  of  ability 
and  attainments,  in  temper  and  taste  he  was  as  rash 
and  coarse — they  are  seldom  or  never  superfluous. 
If  they  do  not  succeed  in  satisfying  us  that  the  word 
restored  is  the  exact  word  lost,  they  afibrd  us  the 
still  higher  satisfaction  of  feeling  that  nothing  which 
could  be  recovered  could  be  an  improvement  on 
what  has  been  supplied.  It  is,  we  think,  highly 
probable  that  in  the  Helena,  760,  Euripides  wrote, 
if  not  ovBep  ye,  at  least  something  like  it,  but  we  have 

not  the  smallest  doubt  that  he  would  have  thanked 

u 


290  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Person,  as  all  his  editors  have  done,  for  ouS' "EXei/09. 
Just  as  in  the  Medea,  293,  we  feel  certain  that  in  sub- 
stituting areveiv  for  adeveiv  he  divined  the  word  which 
had  been  lost ;  as  he  did  also  in  his  substitution  of 
Xp€(^v  for  the  comparatively  pointless  Oeo^v  in  the 
line — 

o  "xjyq  yap  ov8els  jJ-rj  Bidv  OrjcrcL  ttotc 

{Hercules  Fur  ens,  311). 

Whether  his  exquisite  emendation,  one  of  his  most 
felicitous,  in  the  Medea,  1015,  restored  to  Euripides 
what  Euripides  originally  wrote,  may  perhaps  be 
questioned,  but  what  no  one  would  question  is  that  it 
is  an  immense  improvement  on  what  the  poet  did 
write  if  the  reading  of  the  MSS.  be  correct.  The  old 
text  stood,— the  Psedagogus  is  addressing  Medea — 

6dp<T€L '  KpareLS  to 6  kol  (tv  Trpos  tckvwv  eVt 

"  Courage ;  thou  too  art  certain  still  to  gain  the  victory  at 
thy  children's  hands." 

Medea  replies — 

aXXovs  Kard^ia  irpoa-dcv  rf  rdXaiv  eyw 
"Before  that,  I,  wretched  that  I  am,  shall  bring  others  home." 

Porson,  by  substituting  Kdrei,  i.e.  *'  shalt  be  brought 
back  by  thy  sons,"  improved  the  sense,  and,  asso- 
ciating Karei  with  Kard^co,  brought  out  the  tragic  play 
on  the  word.  Take  another  illustration.  Hermesi- 
anax  {Fragmentum,  89-91),  commenting  on  the  power 
of  love,  is  giving  instances  of  the  great  men  who  had 
been  under  its  spell,  but  when  he  comes  to  Socrates 
the  text  collapses  into  corruption  as  follows  : — 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       291 

ot<i>  S'  ixX.€Lrjfji€vov  €^o;(ov  ^XP^v  •   •   •   cfvac 
TToAAwv  8'  dvdpioTroiV  ^WKpaTT]  €V  (ro<f)iy 
Kvirpis  firjviovo'a  Trvplbs  fuv€u 

When  this  came  into  Person's  hands  conjecture  had 

got    as   far   as   oiay   8*    i'^XCrfvev,  ov,  and  elvac  ^AttoWcov. 

"E^Tja  dvOpcoTToyv.  Two  touches  of  the  magic  pen 
and  all  is  clear — 

oit^  8*  e;(Xi7;i/€V,  ov  €^o)(ov  e^p^]  *A7rdAAa>v, 
dv6pio7r(ov  €ivai  'EtoKparrj  ev  (ro^iy, 
KvTrpis  prjviovcra  Trvpos  ftevei. 

"  With  what  furious  fire  did  Cypris  in  her  wrath  inflame  the 
man  whom  Apollo  pronounced  from  his  shrine  to  excel  all  men 
in  wisdom." 

Porson's  perception,  indeed,  of  what  stupidity,  care- 
lessness, or  ignorance  had  disguised  or  obscured  in 
the  text  of  an  ancient  poet,  resembled  clairvoyance. 
And  even  when  he  failed,  his  fine  and  delicate  sense 
of  the  niceties  of  rhythm,  his  exquisite  taste,  his 
refined  good  sense,  his  sobriety,  his  tact,  kept  him  at 
least  from  going  far  astray,  and  from  making  himself 
and  his  author  ridiculous,  as  Bentley  habitually  did. 

We  have  cited  some  of  the  best  of  Porson's 
emendations  as  typical  of  the  quality  of  his  work 
generally  as  a  textual  critic.  We  will  at  once  and 
for  the  same  purpose  cite,  placing  side  by  side 
with  Porson's,  one  of  the  palmares  emendationes  of 
Theobald. 

In  Henry  V.  the  passage  which  all  the  world 
knows  originally  ran  thus  : — 

For  after  I  saw  him  fumble  with  the  Sheets,  and  play  with 
Flowers,  and  smile  upon  his  fingers'  end,  I  knew  there  was  but 
one  way :  for  his  Nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  Pen,  and  a  Table  of 
greene  fields. 


292  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Pope's  explanation  of  this  gibberish  was  that  some 
stage  direction  had  been  foisted  into  the  text,  as  has 
been  the  case  elsewhere/  and  omitted  it.  But  Theo- 
bald, by  the  alteration  of  one  letter  and  the  addition 
of  another,  flashed  out  the  immortal — 

'a  babied  of  green  fields, 

thus  restoring  or  presenting  to  dramatic  poetry  one 
of  its  most  precious  jewels.  To  critics  of  the  order  of 
Bentley  and  Warburton  an  emendation  of  this  kind 
could  by  no  possibility  have  suggested  itself.  Nor 
was  it  a  brilliant  accident,  a  diamond  in  a  desert.  It 
was,  as  we  have  said,  and  as  we  hope  to  show,  signifi- 
cant of  the  critical  genius  of  Theobald,  differing  in 
degree  indeed  but  not  in  kind  from  his  other  char- 
acteristic contributions  to  the  recension  of  Shakspeare's 
text. 

Few  people,  whose  eyes  now  glide  as  smoothly  and 
comfortably  along  the  text  of  Shakspeare  as  along  the 
text  of  the  Waverley  Novels,  are  aware  of  the  amount 
of  labour  which  the  luxury  they  are  enjoying  has 
involved.  Immense  as  is  our  debt  to  those  who 
gave  our  great  poet's  works  to  the  world,  gratitude 
for  the  care  with  which  those  works  were  prepared 

1  Notably  in  As  You  Like  It  (Act  iv.  Sc.  2)  :— 

What  shall  he  have  that  killed  that  deer  ? 

His  leather  skin  and  horns  to  wear. 

Then  sing  him  home,  the  rest  shall  bear  this  burden, 

Take  thou  no  scorn  to  wear  the  horn. 

So  the  text  ran  till  Theobald  pointed  out  that  the  words  "  the  rest  shall  bear 
this  burden  "  were  a  stage  direction  stupidly  incorporated  in  the  text.  He 
contends  also,  and  we  believe  rightly,  that  the  words  "Ring  the  bell,"  in 
Macduffs  speech  just  before  the  re-entry  of  Lady  Macbeth  {Macbeth,  ii.  3),  are 
similarly  to  be  accounted  for. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       293 

for  the  press,  and  seen  through  the  press,  forms 
no  part  of  it.  It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  the  text  of  Shakspeare  has  come  down  to  us 
in  a  worse  state  than  that  of  any  other  great  author 
in  existence,  either  in  our  own  or  in  any  other  lan- 
guage. That  he  himself  prepared  none  of  his  plays 
for  publication  is  certain ;  that  any  of  them  were 
printed  from  his  autograph,  or  even  from  copies 
corrected  by  him,  is,  in  spite  of  what  Heminge  and 
Condell  have  asserted,  open  to  grave  doubt.  Of  the 
thirty-seven  plays  usually  assigned  to  him,  seventeen 
had  at  various  times  appeared  in  quarto,  those  quartos 
consisting  of  transcripts  of  stage  copies  surreptitiously 
obtained  without  the  consent  either  of  the  author  or 
of  the  manager.  They  have  therefore  no  authority, 
but  are  depraved  in  different  degrees  by  "  the  altera- 
tions and  botchery  of  the  players,"  by  interpolations 
of  all  kinds  and  from  all  sources,  and  by  printers* 
blunders  in  every  form  they  can  assume,  from  the 
corruption  or  omission  of  single  words  to  simple 
revelries  of  nonsense.  About  seven  years  after  the 
poet's  death  appeared,  edited  by  two  of  his  friends, 
the  authentic  edition  of  his  dramas.  It  contained, 
with  the  exception  of  Pericles,  all  the  plays  which 
had  been  publi^Jjed  in  quarto,  and  twenty  others  then 
printed,  so  far  as  we  know,  for  the  first  time.  Of  the 
manner  in  which  Heminge  and  Condell  discharged 
their  duties  as  editors,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
a  work  which  might  have  won  for  them  the  unalloyed 
gratitude  of  the  human  race  can  never  be  mentioned 
without  indignation.     **  Perhaps  in  the  whole  annals 


294  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  English  typography,"  says  Hunter,  "there  is  no 
record  of  any  book  of  any  extent  and  reputation 
having  been  dismissed  from  the  press  with  less  care 
and  attention  than  the  first  folio."  ^  Bad  as  most  of 
the  quartos  are,  the  first  folio  is  often  worse.  In 
some  places  its  text  is  simply  the  text  of  the  quartos, 
retaining  faithfully  the  old  blunders  and  corruptions, 
with  additional  blunders  and  corruptions  peculiar  to 
itself.  Words,  the  restoration  of  which  is  obvious, 
left  unsupplied ;  unfamiliar  words  transliterated  into 
gibberish ;  punctuation  as  it  pleases  chance  ;  sentences 
with  the  subordinate  clauses  higgledy-piggledy  or 
upside  down;  lines  transposed;  verse  printed  as 
prose,  and  prose  as  verse ;  speeches  belonging  to  one 
character  given  to  another ;  stage  directions  incor- 
porated in  the  text;  actors'  names  suddenly  substituted 
for  those  of  the  dramatis  personcB ;  scenes  and  acts 
left  unindicated  or  indicated  wrongly — all  this  and 
more  make  the  text  of  the  first  folio  one  of  the  most 
portentous  specimens  of  typography  and  editing  in 
existence.  In  the  second  folio,  which  is  little  more 
than  a  reprint,  page  for  page,  of  the  first,  the 
attempts  of  the  editor  at  amendment  served  only  to 
make  confusion,  if  possible,  worse  confounded,  and  to 
pollute  the  text  with  further  corruptions.  Of  the 
editors  of  the  third  and  fourth  folios,  which  are  re- 
prints respectively  of  the  second  and  third,  it  may  be 
said  generally  that  they  contributed  little  or  nothing 
to  the  purification  of  the  text,  but  contented  them- 
selves for  the  most  part  with  modernising  the  spelling. 

^  Preface  to  New  Illustrations  of  Shakspeare,  p.  iv. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       295 

Then  came  Kowe,  the  first  editor  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  term.  His  edition  is  a  revised  reprint  of 
the  fourth  folio.  He  did  something,  but  he  did  very 
little.  He  was  the  first  to  prefix  a  list  of  dramatis 
personce  to  many  of  the  plays,  and  to  supply  the 
defects  of  the  folios  in  dividing  and  numbering  the 
Acts  and  Scenes.  But  as  a  textual  critic  he  efiected 
nothing  which  entitles  him  to  particular  notice.  He 
corrected  here  and  there  a  palpable  blunder ;  he  made 
a  few  conjectures. 

Kowe  was  succeeded  by  Pope.  With  a  few  happy 
emendations,  and  with  a  singularly  interesting  and 
well-written  Preface,  begins  and  ends  all  that  is  of 
any  value  in  Pope's  work  as  an  editor  of  Shakspeare. 
For  the  correction  of  the  text  he  did  as  little  as  Rowe. 
To  its  corruption  he  contributed  more  than  any  other 
eighteenth-century  editor,  with  the  exception,  per- 
haps, of  Warburton.  He  professed  to  have  based  his 
text  on  a  careful  collation  of  the  quartos  and  folios. 
Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  his  text  is 
based  simply  on  Rowe's,  and  that  he  seldom  troubled 
himself  to  consult  either  the  quartos  or  the  folios. 
In  "  correction"  his  process  is  simple.  If  he  cannot 
understand  a  word,  he  substitutes  a  word  which  he 
can :  if  a  phrase  is  obscure  to  him,  he  rewrites  it. 
He  finds,  for  instance,  in  Timon  of  Alliens  (Act  ii. 
Sc.  2)— 

I  have  retir'd  me  to  a  vxuUful  cock, 
and  he  turns  it  into 

I  have  retir'd  me  to  a  lonely  roam. 


296  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

So  in  Richard  III.  (Act  iv.  Sc.  1) — 

And  each  day's  hour  wreak'd  with  a  week  of  tem^ 

he  turns  teen  into  anguish,  though  the  word  rhymes 
with  "seen"  in  the  preceding  line.  Often,  however, 
he  does  not  give  himself  this  trouble.  What 
he  finds  unintelligible  he  leaves  unintelligible ; 
what  he  finds  gibberish  he  leaves  gibberish.  He 
excises  at  discretion,  sometimes  because  a  passage 
appears  to  be  desperately  corrupt,  sometimes  because 
a  passage  is  not,  in  his  judgment,  worthy  of  the 
poet.  It  is  never  pleasant  to  expose  the  defects  of  a 
great  man,  and  we  shall  not,  therefore,  give  further 
specimens  of  the  kind  of  corrections  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  making,  or  any  examples  at  all  of  the  ignor- 
ance displayed  in  his  explanatory  notes. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Theobald.  Before  proceeding 
to  his  particular  emendations,  we  will  give  one  com- 
prehensive example  of  his  skill  in  textual  recension, 
of  the  state  in  which  he  found  the  text  of  long 
passages,  of  the  skill  with  which  he  restored  them. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  first  Act  of  Hamlet,  the  text 
of  the  following  passage  runs  thus  in  the  first  folio  : — 

But  come, 
Here  as  before,  neuer  so  helpe  you  mercy, 
How  strange  or  odde  so  ere  I  beare  myself ; 
(As  I  perchance  heerafter  shall  thinke  meet 
To  put  an  Anticke  disposition  on  :) 
That  you  at  such  time  seeing  me,  neuer  shall 
With  Armes  encombred  thus,  or  thus,  head  shake  ; 
Or  by  pronouncing  of  some  doubtfull  Phrase  ; 
As  well,  we  know,  or  we  could  and  if  we  would, 
Or  if  we  list  to  speake  ;  or  there  be  and  if  there  might. 
Or  such  ambiguous  giuing  out  to  note, 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       297 

That  you  know  ought  of  me  ;  this  not  to  doe  : 

So  grace  and  mercy  at  your  moste  neede  helpe  you  : 

Sweare. 

Now  see  how,  with  a  very  little  assistance  from  the 
quartos,  this  nonsense  left  his  hands  : — 

But  come. 
Here,  as  before,  never,  (so  help  you  mercy !) 
How  strange  or  odd  soe'er  I  bear  myself, 
(As  I,  perchance,  hereafter  shall  think  meet 
To  put  an  antic  disposition  on ;) 
That  you,  at  such  time  seeing  me,  never  shall 
With  arms  encumbred  thus,  or  this  head-shake. 
Or  by  pronouncing  of  some  doubtful  phrase, 
As,  well — we  know — or,  we  could,  and  if  we  would — 
Or,  if  we  list  to  speak — or,  there  be,  and  if  there  might — 
(Or  such  ambiguous  giving  out)  denote 
That  you  know  aught  of  me  ;  This  do  ye  swear, 
So  grace  and  mercy  at  your  most  need  help  you  ! 
Swear. 

All  that  Pope  had  professed  to  do  Theobald  faith- 
fully did.  A  careful  collation  of  the  folios  and 
quartos  enabled  him  in  innumerable  cases  to  restore 
the  right  reading  without  resorting  to  conjectural 
emendation.  A  list  of  the  passages  which  he  has 
thus  certainly  and  finally  corrected  would  in  itself  be 
a  monument  of  his  critical  tact  and  conscientious 
industry.  No  critic,  indeed,  is  more  conservative, 
and  has  so  seldom  sought  to  obtain  credit  for  his  own 
skill  when  that  skill  was  unnecessary.  In  one  of  his 
letters  to  Warburton  he  says,  in  words  which  all  who 
may  be  engaged  in  textual  recension  would  do  well 
to  remember,  "  I  ever  labour  to  make  the  smallest 
deviations  that  I  possibly  can  from  the  text :  never 
to  alter  at  all  where  I  can  by  any  means  explain  a 
passage  into  sense ;  nor  ever  by  any  emendations  to 


298  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

make  the  author  better  when  it  is  probable  the  text 
came  from  his  own  hands."  ^  What  Cicero  observed 
of  Aristarchus,  "  Homeri  versus  negasse  quos  ipse 
non  probaverit,"  may  unhappily  be  said  with  equal 
justice,  not  only  of  Pope,  but  of  more  than  one  recent 
editor  of  Shakspeare. 

The  truth,  of  course,  is  that  Pope  had  mistaken 
his  vocation.  He  was  as  ill  qualified  to  compete  with 
Theobald  in  the  particular  walk  in  which  Theobald 
excelled,  as  Theobald  would  have  been  to  compete 
with  him  in  poetry.  He  could  produce  masterpieces, 
ten  couplets  from  any  of  which  would,  as  contribu- 
tions to  the  intellectual  wealth  of  mankind,  far  out- 
weigh all  the  achievements  of  verbal  criticism  from 
Aristarchus  downwards.  The  subject  for  regret  is 
that  he  should  not  only  have  wasted  his  time  in  doing 
badly  what  smaller  men  could  do  well,  but  that,  a 
very  Croesus  himself,  he  should  have  stooped  to  the 
meanness  of  attempting  to  rob  a  poor  neighbour  of 
his  treasure. 

But  to  turn  to  Theobald's  emendations.  Nothing 
could  be  more  exquisite  than  this.  In  a  line  in  Timon 
of  Athens  (Act  iv.  Sc.  3)  there  is  this  nonsense  : — 

Those  milk-paps, 
That  through  the  window  Bame  bore  at  men's  eyes. 

Theobald,  quoting  from  Ben  Jonson  and  others, 
shows  that  it  was  customary  for  women  to  wear  lawn 
coverings  over  their  necks  and  bosoms  (Agrippina,  in 
Ben  Jonson,  indeed  saying,  "  Transparent  as  this 
lawn  I  wear"),  and  emends  window-lawn,  i.e.  lawn 

^  Nichols'  Illustrations  of  Literature,  vol.  ii.  p.  210. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       299 

transparent  as  a  window.  Place  this  beside  the  other 
emendation,  tuindow-hars,  adopted  by  Dr.  Johnson 
and  others,  and  compare  Johnson's  explanatory  note, 
"  The  virgin  that  shows  her  bosom  through  the 
lattice  of  her  chamber."  Could  anything  equal  the 
prosaic  and  grotesque  grossness  of  this  image,  or  the 
voluptuous  beauty  of  the  picture  restored  by  Theo- 
bald ?  Theobald's  exquisite  emendation  finds,  it  may 
be  added,  both  support  and  illustration  in  Phineas 
Fletcher  s  Purple  Island,  canto  ii.  stanza  8  : — 

As  when  a  vii^n  her  snow-circl'd  breast 

Displaying  hides,  and  hiding  sweet  displays  ; 

The  greater  segments  cover'd,  and  the  rest 

The  veil  transparent  willingly  displays  : 

Thus  takes  and  gives,  thus  lends  and  borrows  light 

Lest  eyes  should  surfeit  with  too  greedy  sight 

Traiisparent  lawns  with-hold,  more  to  increase  delight. 

In  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Act  i.  Sc.  4)  occur  the 
lines — 

Like  to  a  Vagabond  Flagge  upon  the  Streame, 
Goes  too,  and  backe,  lacking  the  varrying  tyde 
To  rot  itselfe  with  motion. 

This  Rowe  or  Pope  altered  to  lashing.  Theobald 
altering  this  into  lacquying,  gave  us  back  one  of 
the  finest  onomatopoeic  lines  in  Shakspeare — 


Goes  to  and  back  lacquying  the  varying  tide. 

In  Coriolanus  (Act  ii.  Sc.  1)  was  this  nonsense : 
*'  What  harm  can  your  hesom  conspicuities  glean  out 
of  this  character?"  Theobald  emended  bisson,  i.e. 
purblind,  quoting  in  support  of  it  Hamlet,  Act  ii. 
Sc.  2  :— 

Threatening  the  flames 
With  bissou  rheum. 


300  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Id  Romeo  and  Juliet  (Act  i.  Sc.  2),  in  the  lines — 

Ere  he  can  spread  his  sweet  leaves  to  the  air 
Or  dedicate  his  beauty  to  the  same — 

by  a  beautiful  touch  he  restored  sun. 

The  passage  in  Twelfth  Night  (Act  i.  Sc.  3) — 

Sir  And.  Would  that  have  mended  thy  hair  ? 

Sir  Toby.  Past  question,  for  thou  seest  it  will  not  cool  my  nature — 

Theobald  corrected  curl  by  nature,  supporting  the 
certain  emendation  by  a  reference  to  Sir  Toby's  next 
speech,  "  it  hangs  like  flax  on  a  distaff." 

In  Macbeth  (Act  i.  Sc.  7)  he  transformed  "The 
bank  and  school  of  time"  into  the  magnificent  "  bank 
and  shoal  of  time" ;  and  again,  in  the  same  play 
(Act  iii.  Sc.  2),  "  We  have  scorch' d  the  snake,  not 
killed  it/'  into  scotched,  i.e.  hacked,  showing,  by  a 
reference  to  Coriolanus  (Act  iv.  Sc.  5),  that  Shak- 
speare  had  used  the  word  elsewhere.  Again,  too,  in 
the  same  play  (Act  i.  Sc.  1),  "The  weyward  sisters 
hand  in  hand,"  into  weird.  "  Kebellious  Head  rise 
never"  (Act  iv.  Sc.  1),  for  Dead,  was  also  a  happy 
restoration.  "  He  shent  our  messengers,"  for  sent, 
restores  sense  to  a  passage  in  Troilus  and  Cressida 
(Act  ii.  Sc.  3) ;  as  also  does  "  give  to  dust"  for  ''go  to 
dust"  in  a  fine  passage  (Act  iii.  Sc.  3)  so  desperate 
that  Pope  threw  it  out : — 

And  go  to  dust,  that  is  a  little  gilt. 
More  laud  than  gilt  o'er-dusted. 

In  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Act  v.  Sc.  3)  the  lines — 

A  sun  and  moon  which  kept  their  course  and  lighted 
The  little  o'  the  earth— 


THE  PORSOX  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       301 

he  restored  to  sense  and  metre  by  substituting  for  a 
small  a  capital  0,  and  showing  by  quotation  from 
He7iry  V,  and  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  that 
the  capital  0  was  used  to  signify  a  circle.  In  the 
same  passage  he  restored  autumn  for  Antonie — 

An  Antonie  'twas 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping. 

Some  singularly  felicitous  corrections  are  made 
simply  by  separating  letters,  as  in  Richard  III, 
(Act  iv.  Sc.  4)— 

Advantaging  their  loan  with  interest, 
Oftentimes  double  gain  of  happiness — 

where  he  improves  both  sense  and  metre  by  reading 
Of  ten  times ;  so,  too,  a  difficult  passage  in  Henry  V. 
(Act  iv.  Sc.  3),  "  mark  then  abounding  valour  in  these 
English  "  is  made  perfectly  clear,  as  the  context  shows, 
by  his  reading  of  a  hounding.  And  in  A  Midsummer 
Night* s  Dream  (Act  iv.  Sc.  1 ) — 

Fairies  be  gone  and  be  all  icays  away, 

for  the  nonsensical  always.  In  the  lines  in  the 
same  play — 

Then  my  queen  in  silence  sad, 
Trip  we  after  the  night's  shade — 

by  substituting  a  semicolon  for  a  comma,  and  fade 
(which  he  supports  by  a  happy  quotation  from  Ham- 
let, "  it  faded  at  the  crowing  of  the  cock")  for  sad, 
he  restores  the  rhyme,  and  turns  nonsense  into  sense. 
A  few  lines  above,  in  the  same  play,  "  all  these  fine 
the  sense"  he  alters  into  five,  and  darkness  becomes 
light. 


302  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

In  Measure  for  Measure  (Act  iv.  Sc.  2),  Eowe  and 
Pope,  finding  in  the  old  copies,  "  you  shall  find  me 
y'are"  could  make  nothing  of  it,  and  read  yours; 
but  Theobald,  by  striking  out  the  apostrophe  and 
making  it  one  word,  restored  the  true  reading  yare, 
i.e.  ready.  In  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  (Act  v. 
Sc.  1)  was  this  nonsense — 

If  such  an  one  will  smile  and  stroke  his  beard, 
And  sorrow,  wagge,  cry  hem  when  he  should  groan, 

which  Theobald  transforms  into  sense  by  reading, 
"  And  sorrow  wage,  cry  hem,"  etc.,  i.e.  strive  against 
sorrow,  illustrating  Shakspeare's  use  of  the  word 
wage  in  this  sense  by  references  to  Lear,  Othello, 
the  first  part  of  Henry  IV.  thus  conclusively  settling 
the  text.  So  in  the  preceding  Act,  in  "  Yea,  marry, 
that's  the  eftest  way,"  which  Eowe  and  Pope  had 
altered  into  easiest,  he  at  once  restores  the  true 
reading  by  suggesting  deftest.  So  again  in  Love's 
Labours  Lost  (Act.  iv.  Sc.  3) — 

A  lover's  ear  will  hear  the  lowest  sound 
When  the  suspicious  head  of  theft  is  stopp'd  : 

he  turns  nonsense  into  sense  by  reading  thrift,  rightly 
contending  that  the  typical  thief  is  as  likely  to  sleep 
as  soundly  as  an  honest  man,  but  that  the  sleep 
of  a  miser  is  likely  to  be  broken  and  disturbed 
through  fear  of  being  robbed.  In  two  passages, 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  (Act  ii.  Sc.  2),  he  has 
restored  the  right  word  wood,  i.e.  mad,  where  no 
one  had  detected  it :  '*  Oh  that  she  could  speak  like 
a  would' woman, ^'  as  the  folios   had  it, — *^like  an 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       303 

omZcZ -woman,"  as  Pope  ridiculously  altered  it;  as 
also  in  The  Meny  Wives  of  Winds(yi*  (Act  iv.  Se.  4), 
"  the  action  of  a  would  woman."  Nothing  could  be 
happier  than  his  emendation  of  harts  for  hearts  in 
Cymheline,  "  Our  Britain's  J^ear^s  die  flying,"  not  our 
men  (Act  iv.  Sc.  3);  "drink  up  eiseV  {i.e,  vinegar), 
for  the  unintelligible  Esile  of  the  folio,  "  Drink  up 
Esile,  eat  a  crocodile  "  (Hamlet,  Act  v.  Sc.  1) ;  "  sound 
one  into  the  drowsy  race  of  night "  for  "  sound  on  " 
{King  John,  Act  iii.  Sc.  3) ;  "  again  to  inflame  it," 
for  the  ridiculous  a  game,  "  When  the  blood  is  made 
dull  there  should  be  again  to  inflame  it  .  .  .  loveli- 
ness in  favour,"  etc.  {Othello,  Act  ii.  Sc.  1) ;  *'  a 
Cain- coloured  beard,"  for  cane -coloured  {Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,  Act  i.  Sc.  3) ;  "in  that  tire,"  for 
time  {Id,  Act  iv.  Sc.  3) ;  "  so  is  Alcides  beaten  by 
his  page''  for  "so  is  Alcides  beaten  by  his  rage'' 
{Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  ii.  Sc.  1) ;  "  you  Gods,  I 
prate,"  for  "  you  Gods,  I  pray "  ( Coriolanus,  Act  v. 
Sc.  3) ;  "  haillez  me,  some  paper  "  (spoken  by  Caius), 
for  the  gibberish  "  halloiv  me,  some  paper  "  ;  "  within 
the  house  is  Jove,"  for  the  pointless  Love  {Much  Ado 
about  Nothing,  Act  v.  Sc.  2) :  "  some  Dick  that  smiles 
his  cheek  m  jeers,"  for  the  senseless  "  smiles  his  cheek 
in  years"  {Love's  Labour's  Lost,  Act  v.  Sc.  2);  "1 
see  the  mystery  of  your  loneliness"  for  loveliness 
{All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Act  i.  Sc.  3) ;  ''mount- 
ing sire,"  for  mountain,  "  Whiles  that  his  mountain 
sire  on  mountain  standing  "  {Henry  V.,  Act  ii.  Sc.  4)  ; 
"  their  bon's,  their  bon's,"  for  the  absurd  tlieir  bones, 
"these  fashion-mongers,  these  perdona  mi's  .  .  .  0 


304  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

their  bones,  their  bones  ! "  {Romeo  and  Juliet j  Act  ii. 
Sc.  4) ;  '*  was,  beastly,  dumVd"  for  dumb — 

Who  neigh'd  so  high  that  what  I  would  have  spoke 
Was  beastly  dumb  by  him. 

{Antony  and  Cleopatra,  Act  i.  Sc.  5). 

^^  Ne'er  lust-wearied  Antony,"  for  near  (Id.  Act  ii. 
Sc.  1).  An  admirable  emendation  restores  sense  and 
improves  metre  in  Othello,  Act  iv.  Sc.  1 — 

as  names  be  such  abroad, 
Who  having,  by  their  own  importunate  suit. 
Or  voluntary  dotage  of  some  mistress. 
Convinced  or  supplied  them,  they  cannot  choose 
But  they  must  blab. 

Theobald  corrects  "  convinced  or  suppled  them." 

Again,  in  Titus  Andronicus  (Act  iii.  Sc.  2),  the 
insertion  of  a  single  letter  converts  nonsense  into 
sense ;  for  doings  in  the  line — 

And  buzz  lamenting  doings  in  the  air, 

he  reads  dolings.  So  in  King  John  (Act  v.  Sc.  2), 
"  This  unhaired  sauciness  and  boyish  troops "  was 
a  certain  correction  for  unheard.  Nothing  could  be 
more  exquisitely  felicitous  than  one  of  his  emenda- 
tions in  Henry  VI.  (Part  II.  Act  iii.  Sc.  2) : — 

To  sit  and  watch  me  as  Ascanius  did. 
When  he  to  madding  Dido,  etc. 

This  he  corrects — and  vide  quidfaciat  unius  litterulw 
mutatio,  he  might  have  said  with  Porson — "  To  sit 
and  witch  me." 

Nor  are  his  emendations  of  the  Poems  of  Shak- 
speare  less  happy.  They  may  be  found  in  Jortin's 
Miscellaneous    Observations,   to    which    they    were 


THE  PORSOX  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       305 

contributed,  vol.  ii.  p.  242  seq.  In  Lucrece,  1062, 
lie  found — 

This  bastard  grass  shall  never  come  to  growth, 
He  shall  not  boast  who  did  thy  stock  pollute. 

The  change  of  two  letters  restored  the  right  reading, 
"this  bastard  graft"  In  Sonnet  LXVIL  was  this 
unintelligible  passage — 

Look,  what  thy  memory  cannot  contain, 
Commit  to  these  waste  blacks. 

Quoting  a  preceding  line  in  the  same  Sonnet, 

The  vacant  leaves  thy  mind's  imprint  will  bear, 

and  the  lines  in  Tivelfth  Night, 

What's  her  history  ? 
A  hlarik,  my  lord, 

he  corrected — 

Commit  to  these  waste  blanks. 

In  Sonnet  LXV.  he  finds — 

Shall  Time's  best  jewel  from  Time's  chest  be  hid  ? 

and,  observing  that  "a  jewel  hid  from  a  chest"  is 
something  new,  corrects — 

From  Time's  quest  be  hid. 

A  passage  in  Venus  and  Adonis,  1013-14 — 

Tell  him  of  trophies,  statues,  tombs,  and  stories, 
His  victories,  his  triumphs,  and  hia  glories, — 

he  restores  to  sense  by  placing  a  semicolon  after 
tombs,  for  which  he  would  read  domes,  and  making 
stones  a  verb  governing  the  substantives  in  the  next 
line,  quoting  in  support  of  his  correction  the  line — 

He  Btoriet  to  her  ears  her  husband's  fame. 

X 


306  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

So  conservative  was  Theobald,  and  so  conscientiously 
did  he  abstain  from  what  he  thought  were  unneces- 
sary or  uncertain  corrections,  that  he  refrained  from 
introducing  into  the  text  some  emendations  so  admir- 
able that  other  editors  have  not  scrupled  to  adopt 
them.  Thus,  in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
(Act  ii.  Sc.  1),  for  the  unintelligible  word  An-heires, 
"Will  you  go,  An-heiresf"  he  conjectured,  and  no 
doubt  rightly,  Mynheers,  i.e.  "  Sirs,"  a  conjecture 
supported  by  a  passage,  as  Dyce  points  out,  in 
Fletcher's  Beggar's  Bush:  "Nay,  Sir,  mineheire 
Van  Dunck  is  a  true  statesman."  So,  too,  in  AlVs 
Well  that  Ends  Well  (Act  v.  Sc.  3),  for  blade,  in 
the  line  "  Natural  rebellion  done  i'  the  hlade  of  youth," 
he  conjectured  hlaze,  but  left  the  original  reading. 
So  again  in  Loves  Labours  Lost  (Act  iii.  Sc.  1),  he 
suggested  that  the  line  referring  to  Cupid, 

This  signior  Junio's  giant-dwarf,  Dan  Cupid, 

might  be  emended,  "  This  senior-junior,  giant-divarfl' 
but  would  not  disturb  the  text.  So  again  in  Othello 
(Act  iii.  Sc.  3),  in  the  lines — 

Beware,  my  lord,  of  jealousy, 
It  is  tlie  green-eyed  monster  which  doth  mock 
The  meat  it  feeds  on, — 

for  mocl^  he  proposed  make ;  an  admirable  emenda- 
tion, which  he  did  not  introduce  into  his  text, 
and  for  which  every  editor — and  the  majority  of 
the  editors  have  adopted  it — has  given  Hanmer  the 
credit.  Thus,  too,  in  Troilus  and  Cressida  (Act  iv. 
Sc.  5),  for  the  unintelligible 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       307 

0  these  encounters  .... 
That  give  a  coasting  welcome  ere  it  comes, 

he  proposed  accosting ^  i.e.  "  give  welcome  to  a  salute 
ere  it  comes " ;  an  excellent  correction,  supported, 
though  he  does  not  notice  it,  by  Twelfth  Night  (Act  i. 
Sc.  3),  "  Accost,  Sir  Andrew,  accost."  Of  the  many 
certain  corrections  which  his  knowledge  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatist  enabled  him  to  make,  we  have 
an  example  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  (Act  iii. 
Sc.  2),  where  he  shows  conclusively,  by  pertinent  refer- 
ences to  passages  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  that 
the  word  "  she  shall  be  buried  with  her^ace  upward," 
must  be  altered  into  heels.  The  consummate  skill 
with  which  he  has,  in  innumerable  passages,  by 
transpositions,  by  changed  punctuation,  and  by 
supplying  what  had  dropped  out,  restored  the  right 
reading,  and  turned  nonsense  into  sense,  we  have 
only  space  to  illustrate  by  one  specimen.  In  AlVs 
Well  that  Ends  Well  (Act  i.  Sc.  3),  he  found  this 
gibberish  : — 

Fortune,  she  said,  was  no  goddess  .  .  .  Love,  no  god,  that 
would  not  extend  his  might  where  qualities  were  level  .  .  . 
Queen  of  Virgins  that  would  suffer  her  poor  knight,  etc. 

This  he  transforms'  by  proper  punctuation  and  the 
restoration  of  the  missing  words,  into  perfect  sense : 
"  Love  no  god,  that  would  not  extend  his  might, 
only  where  qualities  were  level.  Diana,  no  queen 
of  virgins  that  would  sniffer,"  etc.  But  his  most 
brilliant  achievement  is  the  restoration  of  the  passage 
in  Handet  (Act  i.  Sc.  4),  beginning,  "  Ay,  marry  is't," 
and  ending  **  to  his  own  scandal,"  a  mass,  for  the 


308  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

most  part,  of  unintelligible  jargon  in  the  quartos. 
What,  for  example,  could  be  more  desperate  than  the 
last  three  lines  of  this  passage  as  they  came  into 
Theobald's  hands  ? — 

The  dram  of  eale 
Doth  all  the  noble  substancie  of  a  doubt 
To  his  o\\Ti  scandle. 

For  this  he  proposed  to  read — 

The  dram  of  base 
Doth  all  the  noble  substance  of  worth  out 

{i.e.  extinguishes) ;  supporting  his  emendation  by 
Cymbeline  (Act  iii.  Sc.  5) — 

From  whose  so  many  weights  of  baseness  cannot 
A  dram  of  worth  be  drawn. 

And  scarcely  less  admirable  is  his  restoration  of  the 
passage  in  Coriolanus  (Act  i.  Sc.  9),  beginning,  "May 
these  same  instruments."  An  excellent  instance  of 
his  sagacity — we  are  by  no  means  sure  that  he  is 
right — will  be  found  in  his  note  on  the  passage  at  the 
end  of  Timon,  contending  that  the  punctuation  of 
the  lines — 

Kich  conceit 
Taught  thee  to  make  vast  Neptune  weep  for  aye 
On  thy  low  grave,  on  faults  forgiven, — 

should  be  altered  into 

On  thy  low  grave. — On  :  faults  forgiven, 

supposing  that  Alcibiades  is  suddenly  addressing  the 
senators.     And  this  he  supports  by  Antony's — 

On  ; — things  that  are  past  are  done  with  me 

{Antony  and  Cleopatra^  Act  i.  Sc.  2), 

and  by  observing  that  Alcibiades'  speech  is  in  breaks 


THE  PORSOX  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       309 

between  his  reflections  on  Timon's  death  and  his 
addresses  to  the  Athenian  senators. 

But  no  portion  of  Theobald's  work  is  more  inter- 
esting than  his  illustrations,  which  are  always 
singularly  pertinent  and  happy.  If  mere  accumula- 
tions of  parallel  passages,  where  the  parallels  resemble 
that  which  Fluellen  drew  between  Macedon  and 
Monmouth,  are  as  worthless  as  they  are  irritating, 
in  parallel  illustration  judiciously  employed  critical 
commentary  finds  its  most  useful  instrument.  And 
not  this  alone.  The  revelation  of  identity  of  senti- 
ments, of  common  deductions  from  observation  or 
experience,  of  the  notification  of  the  same  traits  and 
peculiarities  in  nature,  in  life,  in  manners,  among 
writers  of  difierent  ages  and  of  difi'erent  tempers,  is  a 
source,  not  merely  of  curious,  but  assuredly  of  in- 
telligent pleasure.  Of  Theobald's  felicitous  illustra- 
tions a  few  specimens  must  suflfice.  With  the  line 
in  King  Lear  (Act  iv.  Sc.  6) — 

0  undistinguish'd  space  of  woman's  will 

— a  line  admirably  explained  by  him — he  compares 
Sancho*s  remark  in  Don  Quixote  (Part  II.,  bk.  i., 
chap,  ii.),  "  Entre  el  Si  y  el  No  de  la  muger,  no  me 
atreveria  yo  d  poner  una  punta  d'alfiler"  ('*  Between 
a  woman's  Yea  and  No  I  would  not  undertake  to 
thrust  a  pin's  point  ").     And  to  Imogen's  remark — 

Tou  put  me  to  forget  a  lady's  manners 

By  being  so  verbal  (Cymbelinef  Act  IL  Sc  3) — 

he  at  once  supplies  the  best  commentary, 

yvvuL,  yuvai^i  KosTfiov  ■>)  criy^  <f>€p€i 

(Sophocles,  Ajax,  206)  ; 


310  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

as  lie  does  also  to  Boyet's  remark  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  (Act  ii.  Sc.  1) — 

Be  now  as  prodigal  of  all  dear  grace 
As  Nature  was  in  making  graces  dear, 
"When  she  did  starve  the  general  world  beside, 
And  prodigally  gave  them  all  to  you, — 

by  comparing  Catullus  {Epigrams,  87) — 

Quae  cum  pulcherrima  tota  est, 
Turn  omnibus  una  omnes  surripuit  veneres. 

So,  again,  for  tlie  lines  in  Henry  V,  (Act  i.  Sc.  2) — 

For  government,  though  high  and  low  and  lower, 
Put  into  parts,  doth  keep  in  one  consent, 
Congreeing  in  a  full  and  natural  close 
Like  music, — 

he  gives  us  the  proper  commentary  by  quoting  Cicero 
{De  Republica,  ii.  42)  : — 

Sic  ex  summis  et  infimis  et  raediis  et  interjectis  ordinibus, 
ut  sonis,  moderata  ratione  civitas  consensu  dissimillimorum  con- 
cinit;  et  quse  harmonia  a  musicis  dicitur  in  cantu,  ea  est  in 
civitate  concordia. 

The  words  of  Ventidius  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra 
(Act  iii.  Sc.  1)— 

0  Silius,  Silius, 
I've  done  enough.     A  lower  place,  note  well, 
May  make  too  great  an  act ;  for  learn  this,  Silius, 
Better  to  leave  undone,  than  by  our  deed 
Acquire  too  high  a  fame,  when  he  we  serve  's  away — 

he  most  happily  furnishes  with  the  best  of  illustrations 
by  quoting  Antipater's  behaviour  with  regard  to 
Alexander  the  Great : — 

Et  quanquam  fortuna  rerum  placebat,  invidiam  tamen,  quia 
majores  res  erant  quam  quas  Praefecti  modus  caperet,  metuebat. 
Quippe  Alexander  hostes  vinci  voluerat :  Antipatrum  vicisse  ne 
tacitus  quidem  dignabatur:    suae  demptum   glorise   existimans 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       311 

quicquid  cessisset  alienae.  Itaque  Antipater,  qui  probe  nosset 
spiritum  ejus,  non  est  ausus  ipse  agere  arbitria  victoriae 
(Quintus  Curtius,  lib.  vi.  c.  1). 

So  again,  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  (Act  i.  Sc.  1), 
he  cites  Plautus  (Mostellaria,  L  111)  to  interpret  the 
point  of  Beatrice's  remark,  "  It  is  so,  indeed :  he  is  no 
less  than  a  stuft  man,  but  for  the  stuffing, — well,  we 
are  all  mortal" — "Non  vestem  amatores  mulieris 
amant,  sed  vestis  fartum."  His  notes  are,  indeed,  a 
storehouse  of  the  most  felicitous  illustrations  of 
Shakspeare's  images,  sentiments,  and  thoughts,  drawn 
from  the  whole  range  of  the  Greek  and  Koman 
classics,  illustrations  which  have  been  appropriated 
without  a  word  of  acknowledgment  by  succeeding 
generations  of  commentators. 

What  the  text  of  Shakspeare,  as  it  is  now  generally 
accepted,  owes  to  Theobald,  may  be  judged  from  this. 
The  most  popular,  but  at  the  same  time  the  most 
conservative  of  the  texts,  so  conservative  indeed  that 
it  often  retains  the  unintelligible  readings  of  the 
quartos  and  folios  in  preference  to  the  most  plausible 
of  Theobald's  conjectures,  is  the  "  Globe  "  Shakspeare. 
Now  we  find  on  collating  this  text  with  Theobald's 
that,  without  taking  into  account  the  innumerable 
instances  in  which  it  adopts  from  the  quartos  and 
folios  the  readings  selected  by  Theobald,  it  follows 
Theobald's  own  conjectures,  corrections,  and  regula- 
tions in  no  less  than  three  hundred  and  nine 
passages.^ 

»  Tabulated,  the  account  thus  stands  :—7<^«  Tempest,  8;  3fuhummn- 
Night's  Dream,  12  ;  Tvoo  OenUemen  of  Verona,  14  ;  Merry  Wiva  of  Windsor, 
11 ;  Measure  for  Measure,^',  dmedyqf  Errors,  9  \  Much  ^do  about  Nothing,  9-, 


312  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Of  Theobald  himself  very  little  is  certainly  known. 
What  little  we  do  know  of  him  is  derived  from 
Nichols'  Illustrations  of  Literature}  He  was  born 
at  Sittingbourne  in  Kent  in  March  1688,^  the  son  of 
a  solicitor  of  that  town.  He  was  placed  under  the 
tuition  of  a  Rev.  Mr.  Ellis  at  Isleworth,  who,  to 
judge  from  the  accomplishments  of  his  pupil,  must 
have  been  a  very  efficient  teacher,  for  it  does  not 
appear  that  Theobald  received  any  further  instruction. 
Removing  subsequently  to  London,  he  was  apprenticed 
to  the  law,  but  soon  abandoned  the  law  for  literature. 
His  first  work  was  a  translation  of  the  Phcedo  of  Plato, 
which  appeared  in  May  1713.  In  the  April  of  the 
following  year  he  entered  into  a  contract  with  Lintot 
to  translate  the  Odyssey,  four  of  the  tragedies  of 
Sophocles,  and  the  Satires  and  Epistles  of  Horace. 
For  some  reason  this  contract  was  not  fulfilled,  but 
between  1714  and  the  end  of  1715  he  published  trans- 
lations of  the  Electra,  Ajax,  and  CEdipus  Rex  in  verse, 
and  of  the  Plutus  and  the  Clouds  in  prose.  In  addition 
to  these  works  he  produced  between  1715  and  1726 
several  plays,  operas,  pantomimes,  and  miscellaneous 
poems,  which  are  of  no  value  or  interest.     We  have 

Love's  Labour's  Lost,  24  ;  Merchant  of  Venice,  6  ;  As  You  Like  It,  6  ; 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  10  ;  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  13  ;  Twelfth  Night,  4  ; 
A  Winter's  Tale,  5  ;  King  John,  7  ;  Richard  IL,  1  ;  two  parts  oi  Henry  the 
Fourth,  9  ;  three  parts  of  Henry  the  Sixthy  11  ;  Richard  IIL,  3  ;  Henry  VIIL, 
9  ;  Troilus  and  Gressida,  13  ;  Coriolanus,  22  ;  Titus  Androniaus,  6  ;  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  10  ;  Timjon  of  Athens,  10  ;  Julius  Caesar,  6  ;  Macbeth,  14  ;  Hamlet, 
8  ;  King  Lear,  2  ;  Othello,  7  ;  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  21  ;  Cymbeline,  13.  In 
the  less  conservative  texts  the  number  would,  no  doubt,  be  considerably  higher. 

1  Vol.  ii.  pp.  707-748. 

2  "About  1692,"  say  Nichols  and  the  biographers.  But  he  was  baptized 
on  the  2nd  of  April  1688,  as  the  parish  register  testifies.  I  owe  this  informa- 
tion to  the  courtesy  of  the  Vicar  of  Sittingbourne. 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       313 

already  given  an  account  of  what  brought  him  into 
collision  with  Pope,  and  of  his  relations  with 
Warburton.  The  wrath  of  the  sensitive  poet  had 
found  expression  before  the  publication  of  the 
Dunciad,  and  he  had  attacked  his  critic  where,  it 
must  be  owned,  his  critic  was  sufficiently  vulnerable. 
In  the  Treatise  on  the  Bathos  poor  Theobald  had 
been  pilloried  with  other  unfortunate  poetasters,  and 
though  he  was  not  perhaps  responsible  for  the  famous 
"none  but  himself  can  be  his  parallel,"  it  raised  the 
laugh  against  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Bentley 
has  justly  observed  that  no  man  was  ever  written 
down  except  by  himself,  but  poverty  and  ridicule  are 
formidable  adversaries.  It  was  Theobald's  lot  to 
have  to  subordinate  the  work  in  which  nature  had 
qualified  him  to  excel  to  the  work  for  which  nature 
had  never  intended  him,  and  to  lose  more  in  reputa- 
tion by  his  scribblings  for  Grub  Street  than  he  could 
recover  by  his  contributions  to  scholarship  and 
criticism.  What  hef  could  do  well  appealed  during 
his  lifetime  to  a  very  small  minority ;  what  he  could 
only  do  badly  appealed  to  the  generality.  He  was 
thus  in  the  cruel  position  of  a  man  compelled  to 
illustrate  the  truth  of  Bentley's  remark,  not  indeed 
in  the  sense  of  doing  inefficiently  what  it  was  in  his 
power  to  do  well,  but  in  producing  under  compulsion 
what  he  ought  never  to  have  attempted  at  all.  He 
belonged  to  a  class  of  men  who  are  or  who  ought  to  be 
the  peculiar  care  of  the  friends  of  learning.  Men  of 
letters  who  have  sufficient  abilities  to  justify  them 
in  pursuing  their  calling  can  make  their  own  way 


314  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

without  patronage,  but  it  is  not  so  with  the  pure 
scholar  and  the  philological  critic.  Their  sphere  is 
as  confined  as  it  is  important.  Their  labour  is  labour 
which  must  inevitably  keep  them  poor.  But  no 
friend  of  learning  held  out  a  helping  hand  to  poor 
Theobald.  He  qualified  himself  for  the  production 
of  his  monumental  work,  he  collected  the  materials 
for  it,  he  completed  it,  while  preserving  himself  and  his 
family  from  starvation  by  scribbling  those  bad  plays 
and  worse  poems  which  enabled  his  enemies  to  make 
havoc  of  his  reputation. 

In  1730,  on  the  death  of  Eusden,  he  became  a 
candidate  for  the  Laureateship,  but,  though  he  was 
supported  in  his  application  by  Sir  Kobert  Walpole 
and  Frederick  Prince  of  Wales,  he  was  not  success- 
ful. In  the  following  year  he  had  an  opportunity 
for  displaying  his  abilities  as  a  Grecian.  Jortin, 
with  the  assistance  of  two  of  the  most  eminent 
scholars  of  that  time,  Joseph  Wasse  and  Zachary 
Pearce,  published  the  first  number  of  a  periodical 
entitled  Miscellaneous  Observations  on  Authors, 
Ancient  and  Modern.  To  this  Theobald  communi- 
cated some  emendations  of  Eustathius,  Suidas,  and 
Athenseus,  with  critical  remarks,  and  Jortin  was  so 
pleased  with  them  that  he  not  only  inserted  them 
but  added  in  an  editorial  note,  "  I  hope  the  gentle- 
man to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  these  will  give  me 
opportunities  of  obliging  the  public  with  more  of  his 
observations."  But  poor  Theobald  had  other  work 
to  do. 

He  survived  the  publication  of  his  Shakspeare  a 


THE  PORSON  OF  SHAKSPEARIAN  CRITICISM       315 

little  more  than  ten  years,  during  which  his  life 
appears  to  have  been  a  dreary  struggle  with  mis- 
fortune and  poverty,  and  at  last  with  severe  disease. 
Of  his  death  and  burial  a  touching  account  has 
been  preserved  by  Nichols,  and  from  this  it  would 
seem  that  in  his  latter  days  he  was  solitary  and 
almost  friendless.  "  He  was  of  a  generous  spirit," — 
so  writes  the  only  person  who  followed  him  to  his 
grave  in  St.  Pancras  Churchyard, — "too  generous 
for  his  circumstances,  and  none  knew  how  to  do  a 
handsome  thing,  or  confer  a  benefit,  when  in  his 
power,  with  a  better  grace  than  himself.  He  was  my 
ancient  friend  of  near  thirty  years'  acquaintance. 
Interred  at  Pancras,  the  20th,  6  o'clock  p.m.  I  only 
attended  him."  The  date  indicated  was  the  20th  of 
September  1744.  But,  as  "nullum  tempus  regi 
occurrit"  is  a  maxim  of  our  law,  so,  surely,  ought 
"nullum  tempus  justitiae  occurrit"  to  be  a  maxim  of 
duty,  and  especially  of  the  duty  which  the  living  owe 
to  the  dead.  The  proper  monument  of  Theobald  is 
not  that  cairn  of  dishonour  which  the  sensitive  vanity 
of  Pope,  the  ignoble  and  impudent  devices  of  War- 
burton  to  build  his  own  reputation  on  the  ruin  of 
another,  the  careless  injustice  of  Johnson,  the  mean 
stratagems  of  Malone,  and  the  obsequious  parrotry  of 
tradition  on  the  part  of  subsequent  writers,  have 
succeeded  in  accumulating.  It  is  the  settled  text 
of  Shakspeare.  It  should  be  the  gratitude  of  all 
to  whom  that  text  is  precious,  the  gratitude  of 
civilised  mankind. 


MENANDEJR 

'*  I  LOVE  Menander  next  to  Sophocles.  He  is  every- 
where genuine,  noble,  sublime,  and  cheerful;  his 
grace  and  sweetness  are  unequalled.  It  is  greatly  to 
be  lamented  that  we  have  so  little  of  his,  but  that 
little  is  invaluable,  men  of  genius  may  learn  so  much 
from  it."  The  speaker  was  Goethe.^  The  loss  indeed 
which  the  world  has  sustained  in  the  destruction  of 
the  comedies  of  Menander  is  little  less  than  the  loss 
it  would  have  sustained  had  Koman  literature  been 
robbed  of  Horace,  had  French  literature  been  deprived 
of  Moliere,  had  the  Germans  lost  their  Schiller,  had 
a  few  fragments  represented  all  that  remained  to 
Englishmen  of  ^5  You  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  and 
Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  It  is  a  loss  to  which 
there  is  nothing  comparable  in  the  history  of  letters. 
His  comedies  were  the  masterpieces  of  a  literature 
which  has  for  more  than  two  thousand  years  main- 
tained a  proud  pre-eminence  among  the  literatures  of 
the  world,  and  they  were  placed  by  general  consent  at 
the  head  of  a  department  of  art  in  which  that  litera- 
ture particularly  excelled.     His  merit  is  so  great,  says 

^  Ges^dche  mit  Ooethe,  von  Johann  Peter  Eckermann,  vol.  i.  pp.  217,  218. 


MENANDER  317 

Quintilian,  that  his  fame  has  swallowed  up  that  of 
all  other  authors  in  the  same  walk,  and  they  are 
obscured  with  the  effulgence  of  his  lustre.^  His 
invention,  we  are  told,  was  boundless  ;  his  wit  and 
humour  inexhaustible.  His  acquaintance  with  life 
in  all  its  manifold  phases  was  the  wonder  of  the 
ancient  world.  "  0  Menander  and  Life!"  rapturously 
exclaims  Aristophanes  the  grammarian,  "  which  of 
you  copied  the  other  ?  "  ^  So  rich,  moreover,  were 
his  writings  in  that  practical  wisdom  which  is  the 
fruit  of  experience  and  reflection,  that  upwards  of  a 
thousand  aphorisms  have  been  collected  from  them. 
Many  of  these  are  no  doubt  spurious,  and  many 
belong  to  other  poets,  but,  after  making  ample 
deductions,  enough  remain  to  prove  how  greatly 
literature  is  indebted  to  his  wit  and  his  wisdom.  It 
would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  say  that  he  has  con- 
tributed more  than  any  single  writer  of  antiquity,  not 
even  excepting  Euripides,  to  that  stock  of  proverbs 
and  pithy  truths  which  have  long  since  lost  their 
identity,  and  become  the  common  property  of  man- 
kind. 

His  style  and  diction  were,  we  are  told,  almost 
faultless.  They  illustrated  in  its  perfection  that 
wonderful  language  which  still  remains  the  noblest 
and  most  perfect  expression  of  human  speech ;  they 
developed  even  further  the  resources  of  that  dialect 
which  had  already  been  sufficient  for  the  purposes 


»  InsL  Oral.  x.  1. 
wirtpot  dp   vfujy  xlntpop  ^fufi-^aro ; 


318  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

of  the  tragic  dramatists,  of  Aristophanic  comedy,  of 
Platonic  dialectic.  "  His  phrase,"  says  Plutarch,  "  is 
so  well  turned  and  contempered  with  itself  that,  while 
it  traverses  many  passions  and  humours,  and  is 
adapted  to  all  sorts  of  persons,  it  still  appears  the 
same,  and  even  maintains  its  semblance  in  trite, 
familiar,  and  everyday  expressions."  In  subtlety  of 
style  Pliny  pronounces  him  to  be  without  a  rival. ^ 
After  Homer,  he  appears  to  have  been  the  most 
universally  read  and  appreciated  of  all  the  writers  of 
antiquity.  An  inscription  on  one  of  his  statues  calls 
him  the  Siren  of  the  Stage.  The  Greek  and  Koman 
critics  vie  with  one  another  in  extolling  him.  Aristo- 
phanes the  grammarian  ranked  him  as  second  only  to 
Homer.  Plutarch  has  informed  us  that  at  banquets 
his  comedies  were  as  indispensable  as  the  wine,^  and 
that  to  announce  one  of  his  plays  for  exhibition  was 
to  fill  the  theatre  with  a  crowded  audience  of  educated 
men.^  Lynceus,  Aristophanes  the  grammarian,  Latinus, 
Plutarch,  and  Sillius  Homerus  wrote  essays  and  com- 
mentaries on  his  works.  Athenseus  is  never  weary  of 
quoting  him.  Dion  Chrysostom  preferred  him  to  all 
the  old  masters  of  the  stage — "  and  let  none  of  our 
wise  men,"  he  adds,  "  reprehend  my  choice,  as  Men- 
ander's  art  in  delineating  the  various  manners  and 
graces  is  more  to  be  esteemed  than  all  the  force  and 
vehemence  of  the  ancient  drama."  *  Not  only  were 
Csecilius,  Afranius,  Plautus,  and  Terence  his  disciples 

^  "Menander  litteranim  subtilitate  sine  semulo  genitus"  {Nat.  Hist.  xxx. 
c.  1  ;  Plutarch,  Aristophanis  et  Menandri  Comp.  ii. ) 

*  Symposium^  vii.  3.  ^  Aristophanis  et  Menandri  Comp.  iii. 

■*  Orat.  xviii. 


MENANDER  319 

and  translators,  but  the  allusions  made  to  him  by 
Horace  (whose  Epistles  are  the  nearest  approach  which 
have  ever  been  made  to  the  peculiar  excellences  of 
his  style)  and  the  elegiac  poets  prove  that  his 
comedies  must  have  been  as  familiar  to  the  Romans 
as  the  plays  of  Shakspeare  are  to  a  well-educated 
Englishman  of  the  present  day.  Quintilian  has 
exhausted  the  language  of  panegyric  in  discussing 
his  merits.  A  modern  reader  would  find  it  difficult 
to  imagine  a  style  more  copious,  ductile,  and  per- 
spicuous than  that  of  Aristophanes,  and  yet  Plutarch 
iufonns  us  that  even  in  these  points  the  Lord  of  the 
Old  Comedy  must  yield  to  Menander.  The  grace  and 
felicity  which  characterise  the  diction  of  Terence  have 
time  out  of  mind  been  proverbial  among  scholars; 
his  pathos  has  drawn  tears  from  the  eyes  of  less 
sensitive  readers  than  Erasmus  and  Addison  ;  his 
refined  and  delicate  humour  was  the  delight  of  the 
ancient  as  it  has  been  the  delight  of  the  modern 
world.  Yet,  out  of  his  six  comedies,  the  four  best 
are  mere  adaptations,  perhaps  simply  translations, 
from  Menander.  And  a  Roman  has  recorded  the 
opinion  of  his  countrymen  when  they  compared 
their  comedies  with  the  divine  originals.  The  work 
of  their  own  poets  was  felt  to  be  cold  and  inanimate ; 
its  wit  paled,  its  brilliance  lost  its  glamour ;  it 
looked  mean  and  poor ;  it  bore  the  same  relation  to 
its  Greek  prototype  as  a  plaster  cast  bears  to  the 
mobile  features  of  life.  The  lines  ascribed  to  Julius 
Caesar  are  well  known,  and  merely  express  in  other 
words  what  is  expressed  in  the  criticism  of  Aulus 


320  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Gellius.^  The  judgment  of  Quintilian  was  similar — 
"  we  have  not  even  the  shadow  of  the  Greek  excellence 
in  comedy,"  vix  levem  consequimur  umhram} 

The  high  estimate  formed  of  Menander  by  the 
ancients  is  in  truth  amply  borne  out  by  the  fragments 
which  have  been  spared  to  us,  and  these  fragments, 
thanks  to  the  industry  of  Hertelius,  Henry  Stephens, 
Gyraldus,  Grotius,  and  pre-eminently  of  Augustus 
Meineke,  are  by  no  means  inconsiderable.  Meineke 
has  succeeded  in  collecting  upwards  of  two  thousand 
verses — the  disjecta  membra  of  more  than  a  hundred 
comedies.  With  that  scrupulous  accuracy  and  patient 
devotion  which  seem  to  be  the  almost  exclusive 
prerogative  of  German  editors,  that  eminent  scholar 
has  scrutinised  every  corner  of  Greek  and  Latin 
literature  for  traces  and  relics  of  his  favourite. 
No  source  has  been  left  unexplored,  no  promising 
manuscript  unransacked.  Through  the  wide  domain 
of  the  classics  proper,  through  the  dreary  subtleties 
of  Alexandrian  metaphysics,  through  the  wastes  of 
patristic  theology  and  the  vast  saharas  of  Byzantine 
literature — wherever  it  was  possible  that  a  paragraph, 
a  line,  nay,  even  a  word  of  Menander  could  lurk, 
has  that  indefatigable  commentator  travelled. 

With  the  aid  of  Meineke,  it  is  still  possible  to 
form  some  conception  of  the  character  and  work  of 

^  Aulus  Gellius,  ii.  23.  The  particular  comparison  instituted  is  between 
Csecilius  and  Menander,  but  the  beginning  of  the  chapter  shows  that  his 
criticism  applied  generally  to  all  the  Roman  comic  poets  whose  work  was 
based  on  Greek  originals.  Some  of  the  Romans,  it  should  be  remembered, 
placed  Csecilius  above  Terence,  as  Cicero  was  inclined  to  do. — Cf.  De  Optimo 
Genere  Oratorum,  i.  1. 

2  Instit.  Oral.  x.  1. 


MENAjn)ER  321 

this  great  master,  with  whom  Time  has  dealt  so 
hardly.  We  can  catch  glimpses  of  the  matchless 
beauty  of  his  style;  we  can  discern  that  worldly 
wisdom  and  practical  sagacity  for  which  he  was 
proverbial ;  we  can  determine  with  some  certainty 
his  estimate  of  our  common  humanity,  his  views  of 
men,  of  the  conduct  of  life,  of  the  divine  government 
of  the  world.  For  not  only  are  the  fragments  them- 
selves— amounting  in  many  cases  to  complete  para- 
graphs, stamped  as  well  with  unique  and  peculiar 
features  as  with  a  singular  consistency  of  tone  and 
sentiment,  but  they  illustrate  with  exactness  the 
truth  of  the  criticism  passed  on  Menander  by  those 
who  had  his  works  in  their  entirety  before  them.  We 
have,  moreover,  the  titles  of  ninety  of  his  plays,  and, 
as  many  of  these  titles  are  undoubtedly  descriptive, 
they  testify  to  the  wonderful  versatility  and  compre- 
hensiveness of  his  genius.  One  or  two  of  his  plots 
have  been  preserved,  one  or  two  others  can  be  plausibly 
conjectured,  and  we  are  therefore  enabled  to  under- 
stand something  of  the  conduct  of  his  fable,  and  of 
his  constructive  method.  A  short  notice  of  him 
by  Suidas,  a  few  personal  anecdotes  collected  from 
Alciphron  and  others,  with  the  criticisms  of  Quintilian 
and  Plutarch,  furnish  us  with  some  interesting  par- 
ticulars. But  there  is  another  source  of  information 
which  critic  and  biographer  alike  must  consult  with 
far  more  unalloyed  satisfaction — where  the  critic 
will  recognise  the  best  of  commentaries,  where  the 
biographer  will  recognise  the  true  key  to  character. 

Among  the  statues  in  the  Vatican  there  is  one  which 

Y 


322  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

cannot  fail  to  rivet  the  attention  of  the  most  listless 
visitor.  It  is  the  figure  of  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life, 
sitting  on  an  arm-chair  with  a  roll  in  his  hand.  Clad 
in  simple  drapery,  the  firm,  hale,  well-knit  limbs 
reveal  themselves  in  all  the  perfection  of  symmetry 
and  contour.  He  is  iti  the  glory  of  mature  and 
majestic  manhood — health  and  vigour  glow  in  every 
line.  Careless  ease,  grace,  self-possession — an  air  of 
superiority,  conscious  but  not  insolent — characterise 
his  attitude.  The  face  is  the  face  of  one  on  whom 
life  had  sate  lightly,  not  because  its  depths  had  been 
unfathomed  or  its  solemn  mystery  unrealised,  but 
because  the  necessary  compromises  had  been  made,  and 
humour  had  brought  insight,  and  insight  tolerance 
and  enjoyment.  There  is  no  passion,  no  enthusiasm, 
on  that  tranquil  face.  The  head  is  bowed,  not  by 
time  or  sickness,  but  by  the  habit  of  reflection 
which  has  lined  with  wrinkles  the  broad  and  ample 
brow,  and  touched  with  earnestness,  and  perhaps  with 
something  of  melancholy,  the  placid,  meditative 
features.  The  eyes,  in  a  half  reverie,  seem  keen  and 
searching,  but  their  depth  and  fixedness  suggest  not 
so  much  the  amused  spectator  as  the  philosophic 
observer.  On  the  sensual  lips,  half  curling  into  a 
smile,  flickers  a  light,  playful  irony  ;  on  the  delicately 
curved  nostrils  are  stamped  unmistakably  pride,  re- 
finement, sensibility.  Such  was  Menander  as  he 
appeared  among  men. 

He  was  born  in  B.C.  341,  a  year  memorable  also 
for  the  birth  of  the  philosopher  Epicurus.  His  father, 
Diopeithes,  was  a  distinguished  general,  and  young 


MENANDER  323 

Menander  first  saw  the  light  at  a  time  which  must 
have  caused  much  anxiety  to  his  parents.  His 
father,  who  was  in  command  of  the  Athenian  forces 
in  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  had  ravaged  a  district 
which  was  under  Macedonian  rule,  and  Philip  had 
sent  a  letter  of  remonstrance  to  Athens.  The  matter 
was  taken  up  by  Philip's  partisans,  and  Diopeithes 
was  arraigned,  not  only  for  his  aggression  on  the 
king's  territory,  but  for  the  means  to  which  he  had 
resorted  for  supporting  his  troops.  He  was  defended 
by  Demosthenes  in  a  speech  which  is  still  extant, 
and  absolved  from  blame.  Of  Menander's  mother, 
Hegesistrate,  we  know  nothing  but  her  musical  name. 
About  his  early  years  antiquity  is  silent.  Making 
all  allowances,  however,  even  for  preternatural  pre- 
cocity, we  may  safely  refuse  credence  to  Ulpian's  state- 
ment about  his  being  one  of  the  dicasts  on  the  trial 
of  Ctesiphon  in  B.C.  330  :  a  dicast  of  the  age  of 
twelve  would  have  been  a  prodigy  which  would,  we 
suspect,  have  required  and  found  very  speedy  ex- 
piation in  an  Athenian  law-court.  The  young  poet 
had  everything  in  his  favour.  His  uncle  Alexis, 
the  author — so  says  Suidas — of  no  less  than  two 
hundred  and  forty -five  comedies,  was  one  of  the 
most  popular  dramatists  of  the  time,  and  he  appears 
to  have  assisted  his  nephew  in  his  studies,  to  have 
encouraged  him  in  dramatic  composition,  and  to 
have  taught  him  to  afiect  that  purity  and  ele- 
gance of  style  which  characterised  in  so  marked  a 
degree  his  own  dramas.  Nor  was  Alexis  his  only 
instructor.      It  is  possible  that  he  was  one  of  the 


324  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

many  youths  who  hung  round  Aristotle  in  the  shady 
walks  of  the  Lyceum ;  it  is  certain  that  he  was  the 
friend  and  disciple  of  Aristotle's  favourite  pupil,  the 
illustrious  Theophrastus.  In  Theophrastus  he  must 
have  found  a  congenial  companion,  a  minute  and 
close  observer  of  life,  who  possessed  like  himself 
an  exquisite  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  a  fine  vein  of 
humour,  admirable  powers  of  observation,  equally 
admirable  powers  of  description.  His  Characters 
have  been  the  delight  of  all  ages.  They  have  been 
translated  into  every  language  in  Europe,  imitations 
of  them  are  innumerable,  and  they  have  been  so 
popular  in  England  and  France  that  we  are  indebted 
to  them  for  a  distinct  branch  of  literature.  Even  in 
an  age  like  the  present,  when  the  social  sketch  has 
been  carried  to  so  nice  a  degree  of  subtlety  and 
finish,  they  have  lost  nothing  of  their  old  charm. 
The  advantages  of  such  a  friendship  to  one  who  was 
to  make  human  nature  the  principal  object  of  his 
study  must  have  been  incalculable,  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  admiration  on  the  one  side  and 
generous  affection  on  the  other  drew  master  and  pupil 
very  closely  together.  Indeed,  the  ancients  have 
accused  the  youth  of  copying  with  servile  fidelity  the 
personal  peculiarities  of  the  philosopher.  That  effemin- 
ate foppishness  and  regard  for  dress,  that  close  attention 
to  exterior  adornment  and  elegance,  perhaps  also  the 
languid  and  mincing  gait  which  Menander  affected,^ 

^  Unguento  delibutus,  vestitu  adfluens 
Veniebat  gressu  delicate  et  languido. 

Phsedrus,  lib.  vi.  1. 


MENANDER  325 

were  reminiscences  of  his  master,  who  had  learned 
them  from  Aristotle  in  the  days  when  Aristotle 
was  not  superior  to  such  follies.  It  is  not  at 
all  unlikely  that  he  first  made,  while  pursuing 
his  studies  under  Theophrastus,  the  acquaintance  of 
the  most  brilliant  of  his  contemporaries,  the  states- 
man, the  voluptuary,  the  orator,  the  philosopher,  the 
poet — the  all -accomplished  Demetrius  Phalereus,  in 
whose  ruin  fourteen  years  later  he  was  so  nearly 
involved.  As  Epicurus  passed  the  first  eighteen 
years  of  his  life  at  Samos,  his  intimacy  with  Menander 
in  all  probability  did  not  commence  before  B.C.  323, 
when  they  may  have  met  in  the  lecture -rooms  of 
Xenocrates.  It  must  have  been  interrupted  again 
during  the  Lamian  War,  and  when  the  two  youths 
met  afterwards  at  Athens  in  306,  they  had  both 
of  them  laid  the  foundations  of  immortal  renown, 
^lenander  brought  out  his  first  successful  play, 
'Op7?7,  The  Angry  Man  (as  we  may  perhaps  translate 
it),  in  321,  before  he  had  completed  his  twenty- 
second  year.  It  was  apparently  one  of  those  ethical 
studies  in  which  we  may  suspect  the  influence 
of  Theophrastus.  We  have  now  no  more  dates  to 
guide  us  in  tracing  his  biography.  We  know  that 
between  321  and  291,  the  year  of  his  death,  he 
produced  upwards  of  a  hundred  comedies. 

During  that  period  the  Athenians  had  passed 
through  almost  every  phase  of  political  vicissitude. 
They  had  seen  an  obscure  and  barbarous  state  assert- 
ing by  rapid  steps  the  supremacy  over  Hellas ;  they 
had  seen  the  descendants  of  Miltiades  and  Themis- 


326  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

tocles  grovelling  at  the  feet  of  a  Macedonian  despot ; 
they  had  seen  a  youth  at  the  head  of  12,000  trained 
soldiers  and  a  mob  of  mercenaries  achieve  the  con- 
quest of  the  world ;  they  had  seen  a  mighty  empire 
founded  in  a  few  months,  in  a  few  months  shivered 
into  fragments,  in  a  few  months  an  ordered  realm — 
anarchy  and  ruin.  They  had  been  the  sport  of  a 
cruel  and  capricious  destiny.  Over  the  darkened 
stage  of  Athenian  politics  tyrant  after  tyrant  had 
chased  each  other  in  swift  and  disastrous  succes- 
sion— the  ruthless  Antipater,  the  milder  but  un- 
scrupulous Cassander,  the  all  -  accomplished  but 
debauched  and  effeminate  Demetrius  Phalereus,  the 
bloody  and  ferocious  Lachares,  the  warrior  voluptuary 
Demetrius  Poliorcetes.  The  last  accents  of  liberty 
had  died  on  the  lips  of  Demosthenes ;  her  sun  had 
set  in  storm  at  Chaeronea.  It  never  shone  again. 
The  noble  but  ill -guided  efforts  of  Hyperides  and 
Leosthenes  had  ended  in  ignominy  and  defeat.  Wise 
men  like  Phocion  folded  their  arms  and  scoffed.  The 
prey  alternately  of  desperate  enthusiasts  and  equally 
desperate  impostors,  bandied  about  from  one  traitor 
to  another,  the  Athenians  had  come  to  regard  political 
freedom  as  a  blessing  too  precarious  to  be  worth  the 
sacrifices  it  involved,  as  a  prize  too  costly  to  be  the 
object  of  a  prudent  ambition.  With  the  heel  of  a 
despot  on  their  necks,  they  had  learned  to  become 
infamous  and  contented.  The  past  was  forgotten — 
it  scarcely  fired  a  poet;  the  future  was  ignored. 
Apathy,  dignified  under  specious  titles,  became  a 
cult.     The  polytheism  which  the  great  poets  of  the 


MENANDER  327 

two  preceding  centuries  had  sublimed  into  one  of 
the  noblest  religious  creeds  which  has  ever  taken 
form  among  men,  lost  all  its  vitality,  and  mere 
atheism  reigned  in  its  stead.  Everything  seemed 
unreal  but  the  incidents  of  the  passing  hour; 
nothing  was  certain  but  change ;  the  old  patriotism 
had  dissolved  in  a  sort  of  sickly  cosmopolitanism, 
the  old  virtues  and  aspirations  in  hedonism  and 
pessimism. 

In  striking  contrast,  however,  to  her  moral  and 
political  degradation  was  the  social  and  intellectual 
splendour  of  Athens.  Never  was  her  population  more 
numerous  and  thriving.  The  barriers  which  had  in 
the  days  of  her  pride  separated  her  from  the  rest  of 
the  world  were  gradually  crumbling  away.  Caste  was 
being  abolished.  The  merchant  prince  had  supplanted 
the  aristocrat,  though  in  succeeding  to  his  place  he  had 
succeeded  also  to  his  liberality,  his  refinement,  and  his 
judicious  patronage  of  art.  The  streets  of  Athens 
resembled  the  streets  of  imperial  Rome.  During  the 
presidency  of  Demetrius  Phalereus  there  were  in 
Attica  no  less  than  21,000  free  men,  10,000  resident 
aliens,  and  400,000  slaves ;  and  this  estimate  neither 
includes  their  families  nor  takes  account  of  the 
mjrriads  who  must  have  been  incessantly  streaming 
in  and  out  of  the  city.  While  the  blasts  of  war  were 
raging  over  Asia,  and  thundering  at  her  very  gates, 
Athens  seems  to  have  resembled  the  Elysium  of 
Epicurus.  Commerce  flourished,  material  prosperity 
was  in  its  zenith — everywhere  wealth,  pomp,  and 
luxur}^    Women,  the  fame  of  whose  beauty  had  pene- 


328  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

trated  to  the  remotest  palaces  of  Ecbatana  and  the 
Oxus,  thronged  the  studios,  the  porches,  and  the 
halls,  refusing  the  splendid  offers  of  oriental  poten- 
tates, to  lavish  their  love  on  the  poets  and  philosophers 
who  have  made  them  immortal — Glycera,  the  muse 
of  Menander ;  Gnathsena,  the  muse  of  Diphilus ; 
Leontium,  the  disciple  and  mistress  of  Epicurus, 
whose  learned  treatise  against  Theophrastus  was  the 
delight  of  Cicero ;  Marmorium  with  her  beautiful 
hair  and  rosy  lips ;  Lesena,  with  her  soft  eyes  and 
her  stinging  tongue ;  Lamia,  Nannium,  and  a  hundred 
others.  Philosophy  was  cultivated  with  assiduity 
and  success.  The  schools  were  crowded  with  eager 
students — Theophrastus  alone  could  boast  of  2000 
pupils — and  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  the  world  met  in 
a  city  which  Liberty  had  deserted.  In  the  beautiful 
groves  which  adjoined  the  Temple  of  Apollo  Lyceus 
Aristotle  discussed  almost  every  branch  of  human 
learning,  and  when  in  B.C.  322  he  passed  away,  it 
was  only  to  make  room  for  Theophrastus  and  Mene- 
demus.  There  too  were  gathered  together  Zeno, 
Epicurus,  and  those  other  illustrious  sages  whose 
names  have  been  preserved  by  Diogenes  Laertius, 
and  whose  wisdom,  filtered  through  sect  and  system, 
has  leavened  the  philosophies  of  the  world.  The 
abstract  sciences  may  flourish  in  any  soil,  but  never 
yet  has  the  character  of  art  remained  unmodified 
by  the  moral  and  political  condition  of  the  epoch 
contemporary  with  its  appearance ;  and  the  poetical 
literature  of  this  period  exactly  reflects  it.  The 
rapture  and  enthusiasm  of  the  epos  and  the  lyre  were 


MENANDER  329 

no  more.  Oratory  had  degenerated  into  ambitious 
declamation.  The  solemn  majesty  of  the  tragic  drama 
had  long  died  in  the  bombast  of  Theodectes,  and  the 
Old  Comedy,  with  its  hatred  of  tyranny,  its  republican 
spirit,  its  personalities,  its  extravagance,  its  broad 
fun,  and  its  lyric  ecstasy,  was  suppressed  and  for- 
gotten. iEschylus  and  Sophocles  would  indeed  have 
been  hissed  off  the  stage,  Aristophanes  would  have 
starved.  Poets  of  a  different  type  were  required 
and  found — those  poets  were  Alexis,  Philemon,  and 
Menander ; ,  a  drama  of  another  kind  was  demanded 
and  created — it  was  the  New  Comedy. 

It  has  been  sometimes  asserted  that  the  New 
Comedy  was  simply  the  Old  Comedy  in  another  form, 
— stripped,  that  is  to  say,  of  its  personalities  and  its 
lyric  element,  and  that  it  arose  mediately  through 
the  Middle  Comedy  from  the  measure  passed  in  B.C. 
404,  prohibiting  the  introduction  of  living  persons 
on  the  stage  by  name.  Such  a  definition,  though  it 
appears  to  have  satisfied  Schlegel,  is  far  too  narrow, 
and  is,  moreover,  misleading.  The  truth  is  that  the 
New  Comedy  had  little  or  nothing  in  common  with 
the  Old  Comedy  of  the  Athenian  stage.  It  sprang, 
indeed,  historically  speaking,  from  the  Middle  Comedy, 
but  the  characteristics  of  the  Middle  Comedy  are  to  be 
traced  for  the  most  part  not  to  Attic  but  to  Sicilian 
sources,  not  to  the  Comedy  of  Eupolis  and  Cratinus, 
but  to  the  Comedy  of  Epicharmus.  To  say,  as  it 
generally  is  said,  that  the  transition  from  the  Old  to 
the  Middle  Comedy  is  marked  by  the  Plutus  is  to  say 
what  is  no  doubt  true,  but  what  is  only  true  with 


330  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

important  reservation.  In  the  Middle  Comedy  was 
plainly  comprised  a  drama  which  had  two  distinct 
species — dramas,  that  is  to  say,  adhering  generally  to 
the  characteristics,  more  or  less  modified,  of  the  Old 
Comedy,  and  dramas  in  which  the  characteristics 
peculiar  to  the  New  largely  preponderated.  And 
this  accounts  for  Aristotle  recognising  only  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  Old  and  the  New  Comedy,  and 
making  no  mention  of  the  Middle.  The  Plutus 
illustrates  the  first  species  of  drama ;  it  bears  no  re- 
semblance to  the  second.  But  the  moment  we  turn 
to  the  accounts  which  have  come  down  to  us  of  the 
drama  of  Epicharmus  and  his  school,  we  feel  that  we 
can  at  once  trace  the  New  Comedy,  as  a  branch  of 
Comedy,  to  its  true  source.  Here  was  a  drama  which 
aimed,  not  at  political  satire,  not  at  caricature,  not  at 
fantastic  illusion,  but  at  a  faithful  presentation  of  real 
life,  at  portraying  manners,  at  delineating  character, 
and  such  characters  as  became  stock  dramatis  personcB 
in  the  New  Comedy,  at  philosophic  reflections  on  life, 
at  coining  proverbs  and  gnomes.  But  the  New 
Comedy  had  other  peculiarities ;  it  was  an  expres- 
sion of  life  on  other  sides  than  appertains  to  mere 
Comedy.  If  it  moved  to  smiles  it  moved  to  tears ; 
if  it  abounded  in  humour  it  abounded  in  pathos. 
Its  tone  in  reflection  and  sentiment  was  often  serious 
and  even  melancholy,  and  occasionally  it  depicted 
incidents  and  situations  which  bordered  closely  on 
tragedy.  A  remarkable  passage  in  the  anonymous 
Life  of  Aristophanes  attributes  to  him  the  honour  of 
having  formulated  this  species  of  drama.      He  was 


MENANDER  331 

the  first,  says  the  biographer,  to  exhibit  a  play,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  New  Comedy,  in  his  Cocalus,  and 
it  was  on  the  model  of  the  Cocalus  that  Menander 
and  Philemon  wrote  their  plays.  It  introduced,  he 
goes  on  to  say,  "  a  seduction,  a  recognition,  and  all 
such  other  incidents  as  Menander  affected."  ^  As 
the  Cocahis  is  not  extant  it  is  impossible  to  know 
how  far  this  description  is  true.  It  is  probably 
exaggerated.  In  all  likelihood  its  resemblance  to 
the  Comedies  of  Crates^  was  much  nearer  than  its 
resemblance  to  those  of  Menander;  in  other  words, 
the  similarity  lay,  not  in  style,  tone,  and  colour,  but 
simply  in  the  nature  of  the  plot. 

It  is  not  to  the  Comic  but  to  the  Tragic  stage  that 
we  are  to  trace  the  influence  most  potent  with  the 
masters  of  the  New  Comedy.  Its  true  forerunner 
and  initiator  was  Euripides.  The  style  and  versifica- 
tion of  Menander  are  unmistakably  modelled  on  those 
of  Euripides.  His  most  characteristic  reflections  and 
sentiments  are  also  Euripidean.  He  owned,  indeed, 
as  Quintilian  tells  us,  that  he  both  admired  and 
imitated  Euripides.^  So  close,  indeed,  is  the  general 
resemblance  between  the  comic  and  the  tragic  poet 
that  in  the  old  anthologies  nothing  is  more  common 
than  to  find  passages  belonging  to  the  one  attributed 

*  Tlpurrot  Si  xal  rijt  via.i  KU)yu^Uai  rbv  rphxw  ^HSei^tv  h  ry  KwxdXv,  i^  od 
T^  &PX^¥  "Ka^ifitPOi  JAivavipot  re  kcU  ^i\-^fjLwv  iipafuiTovpyricaM  .  .  .  iypa\l/€ 
KutKoKov,  iy  ^  (^<r(i7e(  ^opiuf  kcU  divayvupifftibv  koI  rdWa  Tdrra  A  ii^Xwrt 
M^yoySpof.  —  Fita  Aristophanis,  Scholia  OroBoa  in  Arutophanem  (edit 
Didot,  p.  xxvii.). 

*  See  Aristotle,  Poetics^  cap.  v. 

*  Iiistit.  Oral,  See  too  Meineke's  Epimetrum  to  his  Trag.  Com.  Ormc, 
vol.  iv.  p.  706. 


332  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

to  the  other.  And  what  is  true  of  Menander  is  true 
of  Philemon.  *^  If,"  he  says,  or  represents  one  of  his 
characters  as  saying,  "  if  the  dead  be  really  sentient, 
as  some  assert,  I  would  hang  myself  to  see  Euri- 
pides " — 

Et  Tttis  dXr)0€Lat(Tiv  ol  TeOvrjKores 
aca-drjcTLV  clxov,  avSpes  ws  <f>a<TLV  tiv€?, 
aTrrjy^dfxrjv  dv  uxrr'  ISciv  ^vplttlStjv.^ 

Traced  historically,  then,  the  New  Comedy  may  be 
regarded  in  some  of  its  aspects  as  a  development  of 
the  Comedy  of  Epicharmus,  in  others  as  a  modification 
and  development  of  Euripidean  Tragedy. 

The  New  Comedy,  speaking  generally,  bears  the 
same  relation  to  the  other  productions  of  the  Greek 
stage  as  the  romantic  drama  of  modern  Europe  bears 
to  the  classical  drama.  It  was  a  natural  step  in  the 
development  of  art.  It  arose  from  no  curtailment  of 
the  old  licence,  though  that  curtailment  may  have 
done  something  to  prepare  the  way  for  it.  There  is, 
and  always  will  be,  a  tendency  in  art  to  become 
realistic.  There  is  a  point  in  its  career  when  it  travels 
far  away  from  simple  nature,  creating  a  world  and  an 
atmosphere  of  its  own  ;  but  there  is  also  a  point  when 
it  never  fails  to  return,  when  it  throws  off  artificial 
trammels,  and  betakes  itself  once  more  to  reality. 
This  is  precisely  what  the  New  Comedy  did.  It 
returned  to  nature  and  life.  Carrying  still  further 
the  innovation  of  Euripides,  it  abolished  the  hard  and 
fast  lines  which  had  separated  comedy  from  tragedy ; 
and,  while  it  brought  down  tragedy  from  an  austere 

^  Frag.  xl.  a. 


MENANDER  333 

and  lofty  elevation,  it  purified  comedy  from  the  ex- 
travagance which  had  transformed  it  into  caricature 
and  fantastic  illusion.  By  uniting  both,  as  actual  life 
unites  them,  it  was  enabled  to  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature.  Its  object  was  to  represent  the  world  as  it  is 
— its  joys,  its  sorrows,  its  smiles,  its  tears ;  to  idealise 
nothing,  to  exaggerate  nothing,  to  depict  no  demi- 
gods, to  make  the  ordinary  incidents  of  everyday  life 
its  staple  material,  to  trust  for  its  plots  and  surprises 
to  the  extraordinary  incidents  which  vary  in  the 
actual  course  of  things  the  common  tenor  of  events. 
We  very  much  question  whether  Philemon  and 
Menander  ever  put  a  character  on  the  stage  of  which 
they  could  not  point  to  the  original,  or  ever  wove 
a  plot  the  incidents  of  which  may  not  have  been 
within  the  experience  of  some  among  their  audience. 
They  drew  indiscriminately  from  all  classes — from 
the  motley  groups  which  swarmed  round  the  philo- 
sophers, idled  in  the  Agora,  or  pigged  together  in  the 
Piraeus,  from  the  wild  pirates  of  the  ^gean  and  the 
freebooters  of  Acarnania,  from  the  brilliant  society 
which  thronged  the  porticoes  of  Demetrius,  or  hung 
about  Lesena  and  Glycera.  Merchants,  sailors,  soldiers, 
serving-men,  farmers,  philosophers,  quacks,  fortune- 
tellers, artists,  poets,  courtesans,  panders,  parasites, 
and  all  the  anomalous  offspring  of  a  rich  and  highly 
civilised  society,  figure  among  their  dramatis  per sonoe. 
Every  class  seems  to  have  been  represented.  Some- 
times incidents  in  domestic  life  furnished  them  with 
a  plot — the  complications  arising  from  the  frailties 
of  husbands  or  wives  before  marriage,  the  troubles 


334  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

connected  with  supposititious  children.  Sometimes 
those  social  romances  common  enough  among  a 
people  where  the  relations  between  the  sexes  were 
so  peculiar,  and  the  population  for  the  most  part 
vagrant  and  migratory,  were  their  theme ;  at  other 
times  they  would  draw  on  the  revelations  which 
came  out  in  the  law-courts,  or  on  the  strange  ex- 
periences of  shipwrecked  sailors;  occasionally  their 
play  would  be  the  study  of  some  vice  or  humour. 
But,  with  all  this  variety  of  character  and  incident, 
the  pivot  on  which  the  plot  turned  was  almost  invari- 
ably a  love-story.  Ovid  tells  us  that  there  was  no 
play  of  Menander's  in  which  love  was  not  an  element.^ 
As  their  primary  object  was  to  amuse,  they  were 
probably  careful  to  select  such  incidents  as  savoured 
more  of  comedy  than  of  tragedy,  though  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  tone  of  the  New  Comedy,  in  Menander's 
hands  at  least,  was  essentially  serious,  bordering  very 
closely,  and  sometimes  trespassing,  on  the  domain  of 
tragedy.  Of  the  broad  fun,  of  the  caricature  and 
extravagance  of  the  Old  Comedy,  there  is  not,  so  far 
as  we  know,  a  single  trace.  The  nearest  approach 
we  have  in  modern  times  to  the  breadth  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  New  Comedy  are  the  tragi- 
comedies of  the  Elizabethan  age ;  to  its  wit  and 
humour,  the  masterpieces  of  Molifere  and  Congreve  ; 
to  its  inimitable  finish  and  grace  of  style,  the  verse 
of  Pope  and  the  prose  of  Addison ;  to  its  tone  and 
spirit,  the  novels  of  Thackeray. 

The  honour  of  founding  the  New  Comedy  belongs 

^  Fabula  jucundi  nulla  est  sine  amore  Menandri. — Trist.  ii.  369. 


MENANDER  835 

to  Philemon,  who  was  bom  at  Soli  about  b.c.  360, 
and  was  therefore  some  twenty  years  older  than 
Menander.  When  Menander  exhibited  his  first  play 
in  B.C.  320,  Philemon  was  the  most  popular  dramatist 
in  Athens,  and  from  that  moment  a  rivalry,  which 
only  ended  when  the  waves  of  the  Piraeus  closed 
over  the  head  of  the  younger  poet,  began  between 
them.  Philemon,  though  far  inferior — so  say  the 
ancient  critics — to  his  rival,  managed,  partly  by 
bribery,  partly  by  pandering  to  party  spirit,  and  by 
currying  favour  with  the  judges,  to  maintain  the 
supremacy.^  "Do  you  not  blush,  Philemon,  when 
you  gain  a  victory  over  me  ? "  was  the  only  remark 
which  Menander  condescended  to  make  on  one  of  the 
many  occasions  on  which  Philemon  had  beaten  him.^ 
He  was  not  a  man  who  appears  to  have  been  much 
respected,  even  by  his  patrons.  Plutarch  tells  an 
amusing  story  about  him.  In  one  of  his  comedies 
he  had  taken  occasion  to  libel  Magas,  the  tyrant  of 
Gyrene,  on  account  of  his  want  of  learning.  Some 
time  afterwards,  on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  to  Alex- 
andria, he  was  driven  by  contrary  winds  into  the 
harbour  of  Gyrene,  and  thus  came  into  his  enemy's 
hands.  Magas,  however,  disdaining  to  revenge  himself, 
merely  directed  a  soldier  to  touch  the  poet's  throat 
with  a  naked  sword,  to  retire  without  hurting 
him,  and  to  present  him  with  a  set  of  child's  play- 
things.' Philemon  was,  however,  apart  from  corrupt 
intrigues,  a  formidable  rival,  and  Quintilian,  a  very 

>  Aulas  0«mu»,  xvii.  4.  »  M  xvil.  4. 

*  De  Cohibenda  Ira,  ix. 


336  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

competent  judge,  though  he  condemns  the  bad  taste  of 
those  who  prefer  Philemon  to  Menander,  admits  that 
Philemon  is  universally  and  justly  admitted  to  rank 
next  to  him.^  Indeed,  to  a  modern  apprehension, 
there  is  no  very  strongly  marked  distinction  between 
the  style  of  the  two  poets,  though  we  think  we  can 
discern  a  somewhat  coarser  fibre  in  the  work  of 
Philemon ;  and  it  is  certainly  possible  to  understand 
what  Demetrius  meant  when  he  described  the  style 
of  the  one  as  easy  and  conversational,  XeKv^hrj  teal 
wroKpLTLKT],  and  that  of  the  other  as  incatenated  and 

close  -  clamped,  o-vvrjpTrjfjbivTj  koX  olov  r)0-(j>a\LcrfjLev7j  rol^ 
<TvvBe<T/jbOL<;. 

Menander,  who  learned  his  philosophy  partly  from 
Epicurus  and  partly  from  Zeno,  was  in  every  respect 
a  true  child  of  the  time,  and  appears  to  have  re- 
garded with  easy  indifi'erence  not  only  the  political 
troubles  which  had  befallen  his  country,  but  the 
reverses  which  occasionally  befell  himself.  T^z^  t(ov 
TTpcoTovvTcov  fidOc  (j)ep6Lv  e^ovaiav — "  Learn  to  submit 
thee  to  the  powers  that  be" — is  a  maxim  he  has 
repeated  more  than  once.  Too  wise  to  embarrass 
himself  with  deceptive  friendships,  he  probably  knew 
men  too  well  to  respect  them,  and,  expecting  nothing, 
he  was  not  likely  to  be  embittered  by  disappoint- 
ment. Not  beginning  as  an  optimist,  and  being 
naturally  amiable,  he  was  in  no  danger  of  ending  as 
a  cynic.  Like  Horace,  whom  he  closely  resembles, 
as  well  in  genius  as  in  temperament  and  tastes,  he 
took  care  to  enjoy  the  society  of  those  who  could 

1  Instit.  Oral.  x.  1.  ^  De  Elocut.  197. 


MENANDER  337 

amuse  or  instruct  him,  and  to  secure  the  favour  of 
those  who  could  contribute  to  his  interests.  With 
Demetrius  Phalereus  he  was  on  terms  of  the  closest 
intimacy.  A  ruler  who  combined  the  character  of  a 
statesman,  an  orator,  a  philosopher,  a  voluptuary, 
and  a  poet,  was  scarcely  likely  to  have  been  in- 
different to  the  charms  of  a  man  like  Menander, 
and  while  Demetrius  was  in  power  Menander  held 
a  distinguished  place  at  his  court.  When,  however, 
in  B.C.  307,  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  invaded  Athens 
and  expelled  his  namesake  from  the  city,  the  poet 
narrowly  escaped  being  put  to  death.  The  Syco- 
phants had  lodged  their  accusations  against  him, 
but  Telesphorus,  the  son-in-law  of  the  conqueror, 
interceded  in  Menander's  favour,  and  his  life  was 
spared. 

It  was  about  this  time,  probably,  that  he  received 
an  invitation  from  Ptolemy  Lagus,  the  king  of 
Egypt,  an  ardent  admirer  of  his  writings,  to  emi- 
grate to  Alexandria.  This,  however,  he  declined. 
The  beautiful  Glycera  had  become  his  mistress,  and 
with  her  name  his  own  will  be  as  indissolubly 
associated  as  that  of  Alfieri  with  the  Countess  of 
Albany,  or  that  of  our  own  Byron  with  La  Guiccioli. 
No  poet  is  so  full  of  sarcasms  against  women  as 
.Menander,  and  yet  assuredly  no  poet  had  less  reason 
to  complain.  If  Alciphron  can  be  trusted — and  it 
is  highly  probable  that  he  drew  largely  on  actual 
tradition — Glycera  was  in  every  way  worthy  of  her 
illustrious  lover.     To  fidelity  and  affection,  to  every 

female  charm  and   accomplishment,  she   added   the 

z 


338  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

more  substantial  attraction  of  intellectual  sympathy. 
She  assisted  him,  it  seems,  in  the  composition  of  his 
comedies,  she  soothed  and  encouraged  him  when  the 
partial  judges  gave  the  prize  to  his  rival,  and  in  the 
domestic  virtues  a  courtesan  rivalled  Arete  herself. 
Alciphron's  Letters  are,  of  course,  purely  imaginary, 
but  the  letter  of  Glycera  to  Bacchis  is  so  charmingly 
natural  that  it  almost  cheats  us  into  a  belief  in  its 
authenticity.^  "My  Menander,"  she  writes,  "has 
determined  to  go  to  Corinth  to  see  the  Isthmian 
games.  It  was  much  against  my  wish,  for  you  know 
what  a  trial  it  is  to  be  deprived  of  such  a  lover 
even  for  a  short  time."  Still,  as  he  did  not  often 
leave  her,  she  had  to  let  him  go ;  but  she  is  fuU  of 
apprehension;  she  is  afraid  he  will  be  intriguing 
with  her  friend,  for  she  knows  that  he  has  already 
been  attracted  by  her.  "It  is  not  you,  my  dear,  I 
fear,  for  I  know  your  honourable  feelings,  so  much  as 
Menander  himself — he  is  such  a  terrible  flirt.  I  am 
as  certain  as  I  can  be  of  anything  that  it  was  quite 
as  much  because  he  thought  that  he  should  meet 
you  as  on  account  of  the  Isthmian  games  that  he 
undertook  this  journey,  and  the  austerest  of  men 
could  not  resist  you.  Perhaps  you  will  blame  me  for 
my  suspicions.  Pardon  the  jealous  fondness  of  love. 
If  he  returns  as  much  in  love  with  me  as  when  he 
set  out,  I  shall  be  very  grateful  to  you."  She  adds 
also  another  curious  reason  for  wishing  to  retain  his 
aj0fections — if  they  quarrel  she  will  be  exposed  to 
ribaldry  on  the  stage  (an  ambiguous  text  makes  it 

1  Alciphron,  Epistolce,  i.  29. 


MENANDER  839 

doubtful  whether  she  means  by  the  pen  of  Menander 
or  by  some  other  poet ;  let  us  give  him  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt).  The  play  (the  Glycera)  in  which  he 
sketched  her  character  and  commemorated  their  loves 
was  certainly  complimentary :  three  lines  only  have 
been  preserved.     They  are  significant : — 

Why  weep'st  thou  ?     By  Olympian  Zeus  I  swear 
And  by  Athene,  though  I  know,  dear  girl. 
That  I  full  oft  have  sworn  by  them  before. 

The  letter  which  Alciphron  represents  him  as  send- 
ing to  Glycera  on  the  occasion  of  Ptolemy's  oflfer  is  a 
very  pleasing  testimony  of  his  affection  and  gratitude 
to  his  beautiful  mistress,  as  well  as  of  that  strong 
patriotic  feeling  which  still  —  a  reminiscence  of 
brighter  days — bound  the  Athenians  to  the  city  of 
the  violet  crown.  It  may  be  read  in  the  second 
book  of  Alciphron's  Letters,  where  it  forms  the 
third. 

We  learn  from  Alciphron  that  Menander  had  an 
estate  at  Piraeus;  from  an  old  commentator  on 
Ovid  that  he  was  drowned  while  bathing  in  the 
harbour;  and  from  Pausanias  that  he  was  buried 
by  the  road  leading  out  of  Piraeus  towards  Athens. 
He  passed  away,  like  our  own  Shakspeare,  in  the 
meridian  glory  of  his  genius.  He  had  not  completed 
his  fifty-second  year.  Old  age,  from  which  he  recoiled 
in  horror ;  physical  pain,  from  which,  like  most  of  his 
countrymen,  he  shrank  in  pusillanimous  timidity — 
were  spared  him.  His  life  had  glided  away  in  almost 
unbroken  tranquillity,  and  when  the  end  came,  it 
came — ag^  the   greatest  and  wisest  of  the  ancienta 


340  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

wished  it  to  come — suddenly.  From  his  cradle  he 
had  been  Fortune's  darling,  and  it  would  indeed  seem 
that,  remembering  his  own  lines,  she  had  added  to 
her  other  boons  the  last  it  was  in  her  power  to  give, 
the  last  it  was  in  his  power  to  crave.  In  his  comedy 
of  The  Cliangeling  he  had  written  : — 

TovTov  €vrv^€(naTov  Aeyw 
"OcTTts  Onapria-as  aXviroiSj  Ila/o/xevo)!, 
To.  crefxva  ravT  OLTrrjXOev,  odev  ^jXOev,  ^^X^i 
T6v  riXiov  Tov  KOiVov,  dcrT€p\^  vSoyp^  V€(f>i]^ 
TLvp'  ravra  err]  kolv  CKarhv  fSaocreTaL 
"O^et  TrapovTa. 

Of  all  men,  Parmeno,  happiest  is  he 

Who,  having  stayed  just  long  enough  on  earth 

To  gaze  in  peace  upon  its  majesty — 

The  common  sun,  star,  water,  cloud,  and  fire — 

Betakes  him  to  the  nothing  whence  he  came 

As  soon  as  may  be.     Live  a  century —  . 

'Tis  the  same  scene  before  thee. 

It  is  not  possible  to  ascertain  with  certainty  the 
plots,  or  the  nature  of  the  plots,  of  more  than  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  Menander's  plays. 
Some  have  been  preserved  or  indicated  by  the  Latin 
adaptations.  Thus,  The  Andrian  Woman  and  Tlie 
Perinthian  Woman  are  in  their  general  features 
known  to  us  by  the  Andria;  those  of  Tlie 
Eunuch  and  The  Flatterer  by  the  Eunuchus; 
those  of  The  Brothers  by  the  Adelphi;  those  of  Tlie 
Self-tormentor  by  the  Heauton-timorumenos.  The 
plots  of  The  Apparition  and  of  The  Treasure  have 
been  described  to  us  by  Donatus,  and  that  of  The 
Leucadian  Bock  by  Servius  in  his  commentary  on 

1  ald^p^  might  be  plausibly  conjectured  here  for  the  common  reading,  rbf 
Koivbp  going  with  it.     Cf.  rbv  dipa  rbv  KOiPov,  Incert.  Fab.  ii. 


MEXANDER  341 

Virgil's  jEneid  (iii.  279).  A  few  hints  from  various 
ancient  authors  throw  some  little  light  on  four  or 
five  others ;  in  the  case  of  the  rest  all  is  conjecture, 
aided  only  by  titles  and  scanty  fragments.  But  one 
thing  is  quite  clear,  that  Menander's  versatile  and 
many-sided  genius  is  very  imperfectly  represented 
by  Terence,  who  in  all  probability  confined  himself 
to  a  particular  department  of  Menandrian  drama. 
Menander's  comedies  probably  fell  into  four  classes. 
First  would  come  those  which  may  be  described  as 
comedies  of  romantic  incident.  Such  would  be  The 
Apparition,  The  Treasure,  TJie  Andrian  Woman, 
The  Perinthian  Woman,  The  Leucadian  Rock,  and 
The  Suitors.  Next  would  come  studies  from  domestic 
life,  illustrated  by  TJie  Woman-hater,  in  which  a 
man  having  repented  of  his  marriage  is  so  provoked 
by  everything  his  wife  does  or  says  that  all  the 
exhortations  of  his  friends  cannot  recall  his  maddened 
mind  to  reason,  and  by  27ie  Necklace,  which  must 
have  been  a  very  amusing  play.  An  old  man, 
whose  comforts  are  studied  quite  innocently  by  a 
female  servant,  who  happens,  however,  to  be  well 
educated  and  handsome,  is  compelled  to  turn  her  out 
of  his  house  because  she  has  attracted  the  jealousy  of 
his  old  and  ugly  wife,  who  insists  that  the  poor  woman 
is  his  concubine.  To  this  class  probably  also  belonged 
The  W(yman  Clipped,  Tlie  Womxin  Cuffed,  and  The 
Changeling,  To  the  third  class  may  be  assigned 
those  which  depicted  the  social  and  fashionable  life 
of  Athens,  and  they  seem  in  truth  to  ^have  depicted 
every  phase  of  it,  suggesting  the  comprehensive  ful- 


342  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

ness  with  which  Balzac  treated  of  modern  Paris.  In 
The  Feasts  and  The  Festival  of  Aphrodite  we  had 
probably  pictures  of  those  sides  of  Athenian  life  with 
which  Menander's  comedies  were  by  the  ancients 
especially  associated.  "  You  don't  seem  to  me  to  be  an 
Attic  woman,"  says  a  lover  in  Philostratus,  "  for  you 
would  not  be  ignorant  of  night  festivals  and  feasts 
and  of  Menander's  plays."  ^  The  Phanion,  the  Tliais, 
and  the  Glycera  were  studies  of  the  courtesans,  and 
the  last  play  was,  as  we  learn  from  Alciphron,  a 
picture  of  his  own  mistress  and  her  ways.  In  the 
Sham  Hercules,  the  Tlirasuleon,  The  Hated  Man, 
and  probably  in  The  Shield,  we  had  studies  of 
soldiers  and  military  braggarts.  In  Tlie  Thessalian 
Woman  we  learn  from  Pliny  ^  that  we  were  among 
witches  and  their  incantations  ;  so  also  (our  informant 
is  Alciphron^)  in  The  Fanatic,  The  Priestess  was 
a  study  of  religious  hysterics,  and  described  how 
an  educated  and  accomplished  woman,  losing  her 
head,  enrolled  herself  among  the  priestesses  of 
Cybele,  and  went  about  the  streets  drumming  on 
a  brazen  cymbal,  and  boasting  that  she  could  obtain 
from  the  goddess  whatever  she  prayed  for.  The 
Fishermen  seems  to  have  been  a  study  in  marine 
life ;  perhaps  also  The  Steersmen ;  The  Shipmaster 
was  most  likely  a  domestic  comedy. 

But  it  is  to  the  plays  which  are  comprised  in 
the  fourth  class  that  a  modern  reader  would  have 
turned,  had  they  been  extant,  with  most  interest. 
They  appear  to  have  been  pure  studies  in  character, 

t.  42.  2  Nat.  Hist.  xxx.  2.  ^  j^^^^^  jj,  4  ad  Jin. 


MENANDER  343 

or  rather  of  particular  phases  of  character ;  to  have 
been  elaborate  delineations  of  what  Ben  Jonson  calls 
"  humours."  ^  To  this  class  belonged,  or  appear  to 
have  belonged,  for  it  is  impossible  to  speak  with 
certainty,  Anger,  TJie  Ill-tempered  Man,  The  Super- 
stitious Man,  Hie  Flatterer,  The  Woman-hater,  and 
The  Timid  Man.  These  plays,  which  may  be  pro- 
nounced to  be  the  lineal  ancestors  of  Tartuffe  and 
VAvare,  as  well  as  of  the  classical  comedies  of 
Jonson,  may  in  germ  be  traced  no  doubt  originally 
to  Aristotle,  and  immediately  to  Theophrastus. 

The  plots  of  Menander  were,  we  are  told,  distin- 
guished by  their  extreme  simplicity.  Of  three  of 
them  descriptions  have  come  down  to  us.  That  of 
The  Apparition  is  of  singular  interest  and  beauty. 
The  stepmother  of  a  young  son  had  had,  previous 
to  her  marriage,  an  intrigue  with  a  neighbour,  the 
issue  of  which  was  a  daughter.  To  this  daughter,  a 
girl  of  surpassing  loveliness,  the  mother  was  devotedly 
attached;  and,  though  happiness  with  her  husband 
would  have  been  no  longer  possible  had  he  discovered 
her  secret,  she  could  not  bear  to  be  separated  from  her 
child.  She  had  recourse,  therefore,  to  an  ingenious 
device.  She  lodged  the  child  with  her  next-door 
neighbour,  removed  the  wall  which  separated  her  own 
apartment  from  that  of  her  daughter,  and  was  thus 

>  And  which  he  thus  Admirably  describes : — 

When  lome  one  pecnllar  quality 
Doth  so  poueM  a  man  that  it  doth  dimw 
All  hia  aflteta,  hla  spirit*,  and  hiM  powers 
From  their  oonflnctions  all  to  run  one  way, 
This  may  be  truly  said  to  be  a  humour. 

Introduction  to  Evtry  Man  out  of  his  Humour. 


344  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

enabled  to  enjoy  her  society  for  some  hours  every  day. 
To  obviate  all  suspicion  and  all  possibility  of  intrusion, 
she  pretended  that  the  aperture  made  in  the  wall  was 
a  shrine ;  she  called  it  sacred,  she  covered  it  with 
leaves  and  chaplets,  and  she  said  that  she  went  there 
to  sacrifice,  and  commune  with  her  Genius.  One  day, 
however,  she  was  absent,  and  her  stepson,  curious  to 
see  whether  he  could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  divinity 
so  piously  worshipped  by  his  stepmother,  entered  the 
aperture.  The  girl,  hearing  some  one  and  thinking  it 
was  her  mother,  came  forward,  and  the  awe-struck 
youth  was  in  the  presence  of  the  divinity  he  sought. 
He  soon  found  that  the  goddess  was  but  mortal,  that 
the  apparition  thrilled  with  passion  responsive  to  his 
own.  For  some  time  his  stolen  visits  alternated  with 
those  of  his  stepmother,  but  at  last  the  secret  was 
divulged.  The  mother  confessed  her  story  to  her 
husband,  he  forgave  her  everything,  and  the  young 
pair  sealed  by  a  happy  marriage  their  own  love 
and  their  parents'  reconciliation.  Part  of  the  plot 
of  The  Leucadian  Rock  is  preserved  by  Servius ; 
it  is  a  curious  romance,  though  at  what  point 
Menander  took  it  up  is  doubtful.  A  youth  named 
Phaon  used  to  ply  a  ferry-boat  between  Lesbos  and 
the  continent.  One  day  a  poor  infirm  old  woman  re- 
quested to  be  carried  across,  and  the  good-natured 
youth,  pitying  her  forlorn  condition,  conveyed  her 
over  for  nothing.  The  old  woman  was  Aphrodite  in 
disguise.  Pleased  with  his  kindness,  she  gave  him  an 
alabaster  box  of  ointment,  telling  him  that  whenever 
he  anointed  himself  with  it  a  woman  could  not  fail 


MEXANDER  345 

to  become  passionately  in  love  with  him.  Phaon  had 
a  happy  time.  For  one  of  his  victims,  however — 
according  to  some  authorities  this  victim  was  no 
other  than  the  poetess  Sappho — he  did  not  care,  and 
she  in  consequence  flung  herself  from  the  Leucadian 
promontory  into  the  sea.^ 

But  to  turn  to  the  Fragments.  As  it  is  now  im- 
possible to  judge  at  first  hand  of  Menander's  skill  and 
power  as  a  dramatic  artist,  not  a  single  complete  scene 
from  his  plays  having  been  preserved,  the  interest  of  his 
extant  remains  lies  chiefly  in  the  light  they  throw,  or 
seem  to  throw,  on  his  sentiments  and  opinions,  on  his 
ethics  and  religious  views.  Here,  however,  we  must 
proceed  with  caution.  The  individuality  of  a  drama- 
tist is  not  always  to  be  deduced  from  his  characters ; 
still  less  must  we  assume  that  what  he  places  in  the 
mouths  of  his  characters  is  the  record  of  his  own 
impressions  and  convictions.  But  the  father  is 
generally  recognised  in  the  children  —  a  race  is 
individualised  by  its  idiosyncrasies.  The  tests  of  the 
personal  element  in  a  dramatic  poet  are  the  predomi- 
nance of  a  certain  tone  and  colour,  the  multiplication 
of  copies  presenting  the  same  typical  resemblance,  the 
obvious  tendency  to  observe  and  judge  from  particular 
points  of  view,  and  the  continual  recurrence  of  the 
same  or  similar  ideas,  sentiments,  opinions,  and 
generalisations.  Even  in  the  most  impersonal  of  all 
poets — our  own  Shakspeare — much  of  the  man  him- 
self is  clearly  discernible.     No  one  could  doubt  that 

1  Oar  own  Lyly  has  founded  a  play  on  the  same  story.    See  hia  Aqydb  €md 
Phaoiu 


346  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

in  politics  he  was  an  ultra  -  conservative ;  that  his 
religious  opinions  were  speculatively  tolerant  and 
liberal,  but  practically  and  professedly  conventional ; 
that,  as  a  citizen,  he  had  great  respect  for  the  world 
and  the  world's  law,  had  little  sympathy  with 
fanatics  and  enthusiasts,  and  was  no  believer  in 
Utopias.  All  this  and  more  than  this  we  deduce  with 
certainty,  not  from  particular  passages,  but  from  the 
tenor  of  what  finds  expression  repeatedly  and  em- 
phatically in  his  writings.  Applying  the  same  test  to 
Menander  we  shall,  therefore,  take  care  that  w^hat  is 
quoted  in  illustration  of  his  characteristics  shall  not  be 
selected  arbitrarily  from  mere  dramatic  utterances,  but 
shall  be  typical. 

Perhaps  the  first  thing  which  strikes  us  in  these 
fragments  is  the  sombre  and  gloomy  view  which 
their  author  appears  to  have  taken  of  life  and 
man,  partly  because  it  is  thrown  into  relief  by 
the  ordinary  associations  of  comedy,  and  partly 
because  it  stands  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
serenity  and  cheerfulness  of  his  philosophy.  The 
tragic  poets  themselves  have  not  put  the  case  more 
strongly  for  the  melancholy  paradox  of  Theognis 
and  Bacchylides.^  Our  own  Swift  has  not  exceeded 
him  in  pity  and  contempt  for  man.  Take  the 
following : — 

^  Theognis,  425  seq,     Bacchylides,  Frag,  xxxvii.  2.     But  it  has  found  its 
most  popular  expression  in  Sophocles,  (Ed.  Col.  1225  seq.  : — 

/XT}  (^wvai  TOi/  anavra  vi/co  \6yov '  to  5',  ejrei  <l>avj], 
Prjvcu  KelOev  oBev  jrep  Yjjcei  no\v  Sevrepov  oi?  Taxio"Ta. 

' '  Not  to  have  been  bom  is  best  of  all ;  but,  when  one  has  seen  the  light,  to 
go  as  soon  as  possible  to  whence  one  came  is  next  best  by  far. " 


^lENANDER  347 

Suppose  some  god  should  come  to  me  and  say : 
^V^len  you  are  dead  you  yet  shall  live  again, 
Be  what  you  will — or  dog  or  sheep  or  goat, 
Or  man  or  horse,  for  live  again  you  must ; 
It  is  your  fate,  so  choose  what  you  will  be — 
Anything  rather,  anything  but  man, 
Would  be  my  prompt  request.^ 

So  again — 

Man  is  but  pretext  for  calamity.^ 

To  some  one  who  is  in  trouble  he  represents  one  of 
his  characters  saying  that,  as  sorrow  is  man's  natural 
portion,  and  as  the  gods  make  human  existence  con- 
ditional on  suffering,  we  cannot  charge  them  either 
with  injustice  or  deception  when  they  afflict  us.^  It  is 
the  common  lot  of  all — 

I  used  to  think  the  rich,  0  Phanias, 

Who  had  no  need  to  borrow,  passed  their  nights 

Without  a  groan,  and  roam'd  not  up  and  down, 

Crying  alas  !  but  sweetly,  softly  slept ; 

But  now  I  see  that  you  the  world  calls  blessed 

Fare  just  as  we  do — grief  and  life  are  kin. 

With  luxury  grief  lives,  at  glory's  side 

It  stands,  and  is  the  poor  man's  comrade  to  the  end.* 

But  man  gets  no  more  than  he  deserves,  for  he  is 
the  most  graceless  and  ungrateful  thing  that  crawls. 
**  All  gratitude  has  long  been  dead  in  man"  (Sent  Sing. 
498) ;  "  Save  man  from  ruin,  he's  your  foe  for  ever" 
(Id.  34) ;  and  his  own  folly  and  stupidity  add  to  his 
miseries — 

No  creature  in  the  world  but  is  more  blessed, 
And  hath  not  more  intelligence  than  man. 

^  The  Changeling.  I  wish  that  here  and  elsewhere  my  translatioDs  could 
have  done  more  justice  to  the  original.  I  can  only  say  with  the  old  gram- 
marian, Feci  quod  potui,  faciant  mcliora  poUnUs. 

2  InceH.  Fab.  ccUUL  *  Id.iL  *  lU  LuU-player. 


348  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Take  the  first  object  in  our  sight — this  ass — 

A  sorry  thing  he  is,  as  all  allow  ; 

And  yet  his  evils  spring  not  from  himself, 

And  all  that  Nature  gave  him  he  endures. 

But  we  beside  our  necessary  ills 

Make  ourselves  others  of  our  own  providing. 

A  sneeze — we're  grieved ;  a  harsh  word — and  we  rage  ; 

A  dream  brings  fear,  a  clamorous  owl  alarm ; 

Anguish,  opinions,  laws,  ambitions, 

All  these  are  evils  added  by  ourselves.^ 

The  only  just  thing  is,  as  he  beautifully  remarks, 
the  earth;  sow  it  with  grain,  it  gives  you  grain 
again. ^  The  world  itself  he  describes  in  lines  which 
Thackeray  might  have  prefixed  to  Vanity  Fair,  as  a 
meeting-place  where  men  tarry  for  a  while  amid  a 
motley  throng  of  idlers,  thieves,  and  gamblers ;  happy 
is  he  who  gets  him  gone  from  it  as  soon  as  he  can. 
If  he  lingers  on  to  old  age,  his  lot  is  merely  to  be 
worn  out  with  weariness  and  disgust,  and  to  add  to 
the  enemies  who  are  always  plotting  his  ruin.^  If, 
he  says  in  another  place,  a  man  be  honest,  noble,  and 
generous,  of  what  avail  is  it  to  him  in  such  times  ? 
The  first  prize  in  life  goes  to  the  flatterer,  the  second 
to  the  backbiter,  and  mere  malice  gets  the  third — 


^  "Airavra  rh  fw*  ^(ttI  /jLaKapidyraTa 
Kal  vovv  ^x'^^'^^  ixaXKov  dvOpJiirov  ir6K6. 
Tbv  6vov  bpav  ^^eari  irpwTa  tovtovL, 
oSros  KaKo5aifi(jjv  icrrlv  ofxoXoyovfxS/us. 
ToOrcp KaKbu  8i'  avrbu  oid^v  yiyperaL, 
B,  5'  7]  (pvais  d^5u)K€u  avr^  ravr'  ^x^'- 
7]fX€is  8^  x^P^^  '^^^  dvayKaiojv  KaKuiv 
avTol  Trap'  avrQy  ^repa  irpoairopl^ofiev. 
XvTTO^fied',  B.V  Trrdprj  tis,  Slp  eiirri  /caKWJ, 
dpyi^ofied',  Siv  idyris  iv^iirviov,  <r<p65pa 
<po^oij/ji€d\  B,p  y\av^  avaKpdyri,  dedotKafiev. 
dyojviai,  dd^ai,  (piKoTifMiai,  vd/noi, 

dTravra  ravr  i-rridcra  r^  <p6<T€i  KaKo.. — Iiicert.  Fob.  v. 
^  The  Husbandman.  ^  The  Changeling. 


MENANDER  349 

avOpunros  av  y  ^(^pija^o^Sy  evycio)?  <r<fi6Spa, 
ytwatos,  ovBiV  o<^Ao«  €v  t^  vvv  y^i'ci, 
irpaTTei  8i  koAo^  apurra  TrdvTuyv,  8€VT€pa 
6  (TVKOcfiavrrjs,  6  KaKoiljOrjs  rpira  \ky€i.^ 

An  early  death  is  the  greatest  boon  that  Nature  can 
bestow,  and  euthanasia  is  not  likely  to  be  the  lot  of 

advanced     years — ovk    evOavdrayfi     airriXBev    ikdiav    eh 

Xpovov.  Chance  (Ti^j^t;),  he  repeats  over  and  over 
again,  rules  the  world,  human  foresight  is  mere  folly. 
Chance  gave  and  chance  will  take  away.  A  blind 
and  wretched  power — rv(f>\6v  ye  teal  Bvo-ttjvov  ia-rcv  T) 
Ti^X^^ — ^^^  rules  men's  thoughts  and  words  and 
deeds.  In  a  fragment  of  Tlie  Cnidian  Woman  and 
of  Hie  Head-dress  he  uses  Tavrofmrov — mere  Chance 
— as  a  synonym  for  the  same  power, ^  showing  us  how 
far  we  have  travelled  from  Pindar,  in  whose  pantheon 
Tvxrj  is  the  daughter  of  Zeus.  What  a  world  of 
pathos  is  there  in  this  couplet  from  The  Olynthian 
Woman : — 

How  hard  it  is,  when  happy  Nature  gives 
A  noble  boon,  that  fortune  should  destroy  it ! 

Prayers  and  ceremonies  are  of  no  avail,  for  if  a  man 
could  drag  a  god  to  perform  his  wishes,  he  would  be 
more  powerful  than  the  deity  himself.* 

Much  of  this  was  no  doubt  a  concession  to  the  con- 
ventional sentiments  which  a  dramatic  poet  is  bound 
more  or  less  to  reflect,  and  is  to  be  attributed  not 

*  The  Fanaiic  *  The  liridah. 

*  Philemon,  InterL  Fah.  xlviii.,  gives  the  commentary— 

OVK  •one,  aAA«k  Tairrifiaroy,  h  yiptrmi 
MC  Srvx  iitaartf  npooayofmkrm  T^fxt- 

*  ThePriesUu. 


350  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

only  to  the  peculiar  character  of  the  age  in  which 
Menander  lived,  and  the  society  in  which  he  moved, 
but  in  some  measure  perhaps  to  the  influence  of 
Euripides,  who  was  by  far  the  most  popular  poet  in 
Greece.  Since  his  death  in  B.C.  406,  his  maxims  and 
paradoxes  were  on  the  lips  of  every  man  and  every 
clever  woman  in  Athens.  On  philosophy  and  ethics, 
so  far  at  least  as  they  interested  the  multitude,  his 
influence  was  prodigious.  His  cynicism,  his  miso- 
gynism,  his  rationalism,  operated  on  the  society  which 
surrounded  Menander  pretty  much  as  the  cant  of 
Hobbism  operated  on  the  society  which  surrounded 
our  own  Drydens,  Congreves,  and  Wycherleys ;  and 
such  views  were  unhappily  too  much  in  unison  with 
the  moral  and  political  degradation  of  the  age  to  be 
otherwise  than  acceptable.  On  the  stage  he  was  the 
dominant  power.  He  had  determined  the  course  of 
the  drama,  and  not  only  did  the  Middle  and  New 
Comedy  spring  directly  from  his  theory  of  art,  but  he 
coloured  the  ethics  and  theology  of  the  drama  in 
Greece  till  its  extinction.  The  most  ofiensive  illus- 
tration of  his  influence  on  the  Middle  and  New 
Comedy  is  to  be  found  in  its  misogynism.  Since 
Euripides  this  had  become  the  fashionable  cant.  The 
fragments  of  Menander  are  a  storehouse  of  invectives 
against  that  sex  from  which  Homer  had  drawn  his 
Arete,  his  Penelope,  and  his  Nausicaa;  from  which 
Sophocles  had  drawn  his  Antigone,  his  Deianira,  and 
his  Electra ;  from  which  Euripides  had  himself  drawn 
his  Macaria  and  his  Alcestis ;  which  had  given 
Sappho  and  Corinna  to  poetry,  Diotima  and  Leontium 


MENANDER  351 

to  philosophy.  He  can  see  nothing  good  in  them, 
nothing  but  what  is  reprehensible  and  shameless. 
They  are  habitually  untruthful — "  to  tell  one  truth's 
beyond  a  woman's  power."  They  are  all  alike — 
'*this  woman  and  that  woman  are  the  same" — "live 
wdth  a  lion  rather  than  a  wife."  They  bring  a  house 
to  destruction  : — 


That  house  wherein  a  woman  holds  the  sway 
Must  go  to  certain  ruin. 


A.2:ain- 


"o 


Though  many  a  monster  roams  the  land  and  sea, 
No  monster  matches  woman. 

It  is  as  useless  to  rebuke  as  it  is  to  advise  them.^ 
Prometheus  deserved  his  crucifixion  on  Caucasus 
for  having  moulded  so  great  a  curse  for  man.  To 
transcribe  indeed  his  invectives  and  sarcasms  against 
women  and  his  dissuasions  from  marriage  would  be 
to  transcribe  a  considerable  portion  of  the  fragments. 
Next  to  the  misery  of  a  husband  is  the  misery  of  a 
father.  Nobody  can  be  more  wretched  than  a  father 
except  the  father  who  has  more  children — 

ovK  €(mv  ovSev  dOXiutrepov  Trarp^s 

Perhaps  cynical  misogynism  never  went  further 
than  in  the  passage  where  he  accounts  for  a  mother 
loving  her  children  more  than  the  father  does  because 
she  knows  that  they  are  hers,  while  he  only  surmises 
that  they  are  his.' 

'  M77  \oi86p(i  Turauro  /i»jW  vovOheu — SenL  Sing, 

'  Inoert.  Fab.  ex. 

3  Id.  cxi.    Eoripidet  made  characteristioAlly  the  eame  remtrk. 


352  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

After   all   this   the    reader   will   not   unnaturally 
wonder  where  we  are  to  find  that  "  cheerfulness  "  and 
"  nobleness  "  which  Goethe  noted  as  peculiarly  charac- 
teristic of  this  poet.     The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Menander  is  cheerful  because,  in  his  views  of  life,  he 
looks  the  facts  of  life  steadily  in  the  face.     He  is  the 
slave  of  no  delusions.     He  takes  things  exactly  as  he 
finds  them ;  he  draws  no  bills  on  hope  for  experience 
to  dishonour.     He  may  libel  women — it  was  his  only 
concession  to  the  cant  of  the  day ;  he  may  sigh  with 
a  cynicism  too  complacent,  perhaps,  over  the  vanity 
of  the  world  and  the  hollo  wness  of  men ;   but  he 
teaches    us    at    the    same    time,   like   Horace    and 
Montaigne,   to    accept    soberly   and    cheerfully   the 
relative  position  in  which  Man  and  Fortune  stand 
to  each  other ;   in  receiving  happiness,  to  remember 
that  sorrow  also  is  our  portion ;   that  good  and  evil 
are  inextricably  interwoven ;  that  nothing  is  perma- 
nent, that  all  is  relative ;    that  vice  may  pass  into 
virtue,  that  virtue,  strained  too  far,  may  revert  by 
reaction  to  vice ;  that  pain  and  calamity  and  death 
are  the  skeletons  of  life's  feast ;  but  that  for  all  that 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  garlands  should  not  be 
bright,  the  guests  merry,  and  the  cup  pass  freely 
round. 

Thou  art  a  man,  so  never  ask  from  Heaven 
Freedom  from  ills,  but  resignation  ; 
For  if  thou  wishest  to  pass  all  thy  days 
Unvex'd  by  sorrow,  then  thou  wishest,  friend, 
To  be  a  god,  or  hasten  to  thy  grave. 

Thou  wilt  find  much  to  cross  thee  everywhere  ; 
But  where  the  good  preponderates,  thither  look. 


MENANDER  363 

Fight  not  with  God  and  bring  on  other  storms, 
But  those  thou  hast  to  struggle  with  endure. 

O,  ever  chase  vexation  from  thy  life, 
For  life  is  short. 

Time  heals  the  wounds  which  Fate  inflicts,  and  Time 
Will  be  thy  healer  too. 

Things  of  themselves  do  work  their  way  to  good, 
E'en  though  thou  sleepest,  and  to  evil  too. 

Good  grows  not  like  a  tree  from  one  sole  root. 
But  evil  grows  up  side  by  side  with  good  ; 
And  out  of  evil  Nature  brings  us  good.^ 

In  religion  Menander  is  a  pure  rationalist.  The 
old  polytheism  and  the  superstitions  of  the  vulgar  he 
regarded  with  contempt  and  abhorrence,  believing 
them  to  be  opposed  not  only  to  that  serenity  and 
peace  of  mind  which  it  should  be  the  first  object  of 
every  man  to  attain,  but  to  virtuous  conduct  too. 
In  a  weU-known  epigram  he  has  coupled  his  friend 
Epicurus  with  Themistocles,  the  one  having  delivered 
his  country  from  slavery,  the  other  from  folly  : — 

Xat/x  NcoKActSa  SiSvfiov  ycvos,  f^v  6  fikv  vfxwv 
TrarpiSa  SovXoo'vvas  pvcra6\  6  S*  d<l>po(rvva<s. 

His  theology  is  sometimes  precisely  that  of  Epicurus, 
OS  where,  ridiculing  a  particular  providence,  he  repre- 
sents one  of  his  characters  as  saying,  "  Do  you  suppose 
that  the  gods  have  sufficient  leisure  to  be  distributing 
daily  to  each  individual  his  portion  of  good  and  evil? "  * 

>  Iruert  Fab.  xix.  ;  Ths  Bctotiom  Woman;  TKeBmMuh;  ThtNteklaa; 
InoerU  Fab.  cxxxL  ;  The  Nur$e, 

•  otet  ToaaCirTfi'  roifs  0€oOs  Aytiv  <^xo^'J»'» 
Cn  r  Ayadbif  rt  koX  KOKbp  Kad'  iffUpav 
WfMir  iK^Mr(f\—The  Suiton. 
2  A 


354  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

"  The  mind,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "  is  man's  god,"  ^ 
— o  Noi)9  'yap  rjfjLcov  6  deo^.  Again,  in  TJie  BrotJiers, 
"  to  good  men  the  mind  is  always,  as  it  should  be,  a 
god."  We  need  no  soothsayers,  "  as  the  noble  word 
has  its  shrine  everywhere,  for  the  god  who  shall 
speak  is  man's  mind."  ^  "  The  man  who  has  most  wit 
is  the  best  soothsayer."  His  rationalism  sometimes 
takes  a  humorous  turn,  as  in  the  following  frag- 
ment :  ^ — 

Winds,  water,  earth,  and  sun,  and  fire,  and  stars, 

These,  says  great  Epicharmus,  are  our  gods, 

But  I  conceive  the  only  useful  gods 

Are  gold  and  silver  ;  set  these  up  within 

Your  household,  and  they'll  give  you  all  you  ask — 

Fields,  houses,  lacqueys,  silver-plate,  and  friends. 

Judges  and  witnesses.     Bribe — only  bribe  ! 

The  gods  themselves  will  be  your  humble  servants. 

With  the  popular  superstitions  he  makes  short  work, 
and  on  one  occasion  in  a  very  amusing  passage.  It 
is  apparently  addressed  to  some  mendicant  who  was 
carrying  about  an  image  of  Cybele  to  beg  the 
customary  alms. 

OvSets  fx  dp&rK€L  TrcpnrarCiv  €^(u  Behs 
fi€Ta  ypa6<s,  ov8'  et?  oiKLav  TrapeLcnrea-uyv 
iirl  Tov  a-aviSiov  tov  SiKaiov  del  6ehv 
OLKOL  fiheiv  (TW^ovTa  Tovs  ISpvixhovs. 

No  god  for  me  is  he  who  strolls  the  streets 
With  beldames,  or  comes  sneaking  to  my  hearth 
On  tablets — no  !  give  me  a  deity 
Who  stays  at  home  and  minds  his  worshippers.'* 

This,  it  will  be  seen,  anticipates  the  note  of  Lucian, 

^  This  is,  of  course,  susceptible  of  two  interpretations,  but  the  one  given  is 
probably  the  correct  one.  Cf.  Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.  i.  26,  who  attributes  a 
similar  remark  to  Euripides. 

2  The  Acolyte.  *  Incert  Fab.  x.  ^  The  Charioteer. 


MENANDER  355 

just  as  in  the  other  passcages  we  have  the  note 
of  Euripides.  And  the  combination  is  significant. 
Menander  so  often  talks  the  language  of  Euripides, 
and  we  are  so  frequently  reminded  in  these  fragments 
of  the  poet  whom  he  acknowledged  to  be  his  master, 
that  we  might  suppose  the  resemblance  between  them 
to  be  closer  than  it  is.  But  they  diflfered  greatly. 
Euripides  never  entirely  cast  oj0f  the  shackles  of  the 
old  beliefs ;  he  remained  all  his  life  a  perplexed  and 
harassed  sceptic,  brooding  gloomily  over  insoluble 
metaphysical  problems,  and  at  last  returning,  as  the 
BacchcB  shows,  to  simple  acquiescence,  or  at  least  to 
acknowledging  the  wisdom  of  simple  acquiescence,  in 
established  dogma.  Of  all  this  there  is  no  trace  in 
Menander.  A  pure  rationalist,  with  observation, 
experience,  and  reason  for  his  guides,  with  humour 
and  with  life's  common  pleasures  as  his  solaces,  he 
appears  to  have  confined  himself,  and  to  have  con- 
fined himself  contentedly,  within  the  limits  of  the 
knowable.  He  has  not  left  a  line  to  indicate 
that  the  spectacle  of  a  world,  the  anomalies,  troubles, 
and  confusions  of  which  no  one  has  painted  in 
more  vivid  colours  than  himself,  at  all  disturbed  or 
perplexed  him.  The  existence  of  a  Supreme  Deity, 
in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term,  he  neither 
denies  nor  affirms.  What  is  certain  is  that  man  can 
know  nothing  about  him,  and  that  it  is  the  height  of 
folly  to  pry  into  such  questions.  "  Do  not  desire  to 
inquire  into  the  nature  of  God,  for,"  he  adds  with 
quiet  humour,  "  you  are  guilty  of  impiety  in  desiring 
to  get  knowledge  about  one  who  does  not  wish  to  be 


356  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

known  [or  who  does  not  wish  that  such  inquiries 
should  be  made]  " — 

Tts  icTTLV  6  deos  ot  O^krjs  (rv  fiavOdvetv, 
da-efSets  rhv  ov  OeXovra  fiavddveiv  dekojv.^ 

With  regard  to  the  supernatural,  he  is  satisfied  in 
discerning  that,  if  the  power  most  energetic  in  life  is 
the  incalculable  blind  agent  which  is  personified  as 
Tvxny  there  is  also  another  power  making  for  righteous- 
ness which  is  personified  sometimes  as  ©eo9,  and 
sometimes  as  Oeoi — 

He,  They,  One,  All ;  within,  without ; 
The  Power  in  darkness  whom  we  guess. 

But  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  regarded  the  latter  as 
anything  else  than  a  fiction  of  the  mind,  an  objective 
presentation  of  ethical  truths.  Man  is  practically  a 
free  agent,  made  or  marred  neither  by  gods  nor  by 
fortune,  but  by  himself.  The  man,  he  says  in  one 
place,  who  bears  not  what  he  has  to  bear  as  he  should 
and  can,  calls  his  own  character  Fortune.^  Again,  when 
man  is  prosperous  he  makes  no  appeal  to  Fortune,  but 
when  he  gets  into  grief  and  trouble  he  at  once  lays 
the  blame  at  her  door.^  He  who  works  well  need 
never  despair  of  anything,  for  everything  is  within  the 
grasp  of  perseverance  and  toil.  If  there  be  a  god,  of 
one  thing  we  may  be  sure — he  is  never  at  the  side  of 

the  idle  (^eo?  Be  tol<;  apyotaiv  ov  TrapLararai,)  or  the  sinner 

{dfiapTdvova-Lv)  {Sent,  Sing.),  but  helping  those  who  do 
what  is  right.  In  one  of  the  Fragments  this  finds 
beautiful  expression — *'  whenever  you  do  what  is  sin- 

^  Incert.  Fab.  (Clerk,  ccxlvi.).     Meineke  attributes  it  to  Philemon. 
2  Id.  xliii.  3  /^.  XX. 


MENANDER  357 

less  have  the  shield  of  good  hope  before  you,  know- 
ing this,  that  God  himself  takes  part  with  righteous 
courage."  ^  Endurance,  resignation,  and  self-command 
are  the  virtues  on  which  he  lays  most  stress  : — 

Bear  with  good  grace  ill  luck  and  iujury — 
This  is  the  wise  man's  part ;  he  is  not  wise 
Who  knits  his  brow,  and  babbles  Woe  is  me  ! 
But  he  who  is  the  master  of  his  ills.^ 

If  fortune  is  foolish  we  should  be  brave — Tret/a w  rvxn^ 
dvoLav  dvBp€i(o<;  <t>ep€Lv — try  to  bear  fortune's  folly  like 
a  man.^  If  the  gods  wiU  not  give  us  what  we  would 
accept  if  they  would,  we  have  the  satisfaction  of 
feeling  that  the  fault  is  not  in  us  but  in  them.* 
What  we  should  especially  guard  against  is  reckless 
action  and  passion  under  the  stress  of  affliction, 
remembering  that  there  is  no  surer  sign  of  a  pusil- 
lanimous spirit  than  irritability  and  spleen.^  Of  the 
social  virtues  he  dwells  most  emphatically  on  round 
dealing  and  truthfulness,  of  social  vices  on  envy  and 
slander.     Thus — 

The  gain  that  comes  from  villainy  is  but 
The  earnest-money  of  calamity,^ — 

'Tis  ever  the  best  course  to  speak  the  truth 
At  every  turn  ^ — 

Falsehood's  detested  by  the  wise  and  good  ^ — 

are  typical  of  what  he  frequently  repeats,  but  he  also 
observes,  as  Euripides  had  observed  before  him,  that, 
where  the  choice  lies  between  falsehood   and   mis- 

*  Sray  ri  xpdrrjft  6ffiot',  iyad^p  fKwUia 
wpSfiaXK  *  iavrif,  rovro  yiyvuxrKUP  iri 
rSXfiTl  ducalg,  xal  dtbt  av\\aft^P€i.—Inotri.  FaJb.  xlviL 
«  Id.  xxix.  '  Id,  cdxT. 

*  The  Woman  Ovffed.  •  IneerU  Fab,  xxv. 

*  Id,  cxlviiL  '  Tht  Changeling.  *  Stnt,  Sing, 


358  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

chievous  truth,  the  former  is  preferable,  KpelrTov   S' 

eKeaOau  yjrevBof;  rj  oXtjOc^  KaKov  (Incert.  Fob.  cclxx.). 

Among  the  fragments  from  the  unidentified  plays 
is  a  fine  passage  about  envy,  the  vice  most  character- 
istic of  his  countrymen  ^ : — 

]\Iethinks,  my  boy,  thou  dost  not  understand 
How  each  thing  by  its  proper  ill  decays, 
And  all  that  is  to  mar  it  dwells  within. 
Thus  iron  is  corroded  by  the  rust, 
Moths  fret  the  garment,  and  the  worm  the  wood. 
But  envy,  worst  of  all  the  ills  that  be. 
Hath  wasted,  wastes,  and  will  for  ever  waste. 
The  ignoble  passion  of  a  villainous  soul. 

The  envious  man,  he  says  in  another  fragment,  is 
at  war  with  himself,  for  he  is  always  afilicted  with 
pains  of  his  own  causing.  ^  He  is  full  of  wholesome 
lessons  both  for  the  prosperous  and  for  the  unfor- 
tunate. Too  much  prosperity  is,  he  remarks,  the 
chief  source  of  man's  calamities : — 

'Apxrj  fMeyicTTr]  r(ov  iv  dvOptdiroLS  Ka/ctov 
dyada  ra  Xiav  dyaOd  (Incert.  Fab.  clxxxii.). 

And  on  this  another  fragment  affords  an  excellent 
commentary :  "  When  a  man  who  is  prosperous  and 
has  kind  friends  seeks  for  something  better  than  he 
has,  he  is  seeking  for  evils."  ^ 

^  MeipdKiov,  oC  fMOL  Karavoeip  Sonets  6ti 
iirb  TTJs  Idias  ^KaffTa  KaKlas  cfiireraL 
Koi  irAvra  rot  \vfiaLv6fji,€v'  ^uecrrip  ^udodev, 
oTov  6  [xh  lbs,  &,u  aKoirys,  rb  aid'^piov, 
rb  8'  l/xdriov  ol  cr^res,  6  5^  dplxp  rb  ^{iXop. 
&  Sk  rb  kAkkttov  tCjv  KaKcov  Trdvruv,  <pd6pos 
(pdLffiKbv  TreTToiTjKe  Kal  7rof)}<rei  Kal  iroiei 
^vxn^  Trovr)pa$  dvayevrjs  irapda-Taais  {Incert.  Fab.  xii.). 

1  read  with  the  MSS.  TrapdaTaan,  and  substitute  conjecturally  dva-yevi^i, 
for  the  ordinarily  accepted  dva-a-e^eis  irapaaTaa-eis,  which  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand. 

2  Incert.  Fab.  Ixxxix.  ^  Id.  clxxi. 


MENANDER  359 

And  though  poverty  is,  as  he  constantly  repeats, 
one  of  the  worst  of  ills,  riches  are  the  "  veils  of  care," 
and  make  no  man  sleep  the  sounder.  Here  to-day 
and  perhaps  gone  to-morrow,  the  use  to  which  they 
have  been  put  when  possessed  is  everything.  What 
we  should  possess  is  "the  rich  soul" — yjrvxvv  ex^iv 
Bel  irXova-lav.  There  is  a  fine  passage  in  TJie  III- 
tempered  Man,  where  a  son  is  lecturing  a  miserly 
father : — 

Of  wealth  thou  babblest,  an  unstable  thing. 
Couldst  thou  be  sure  it  would  remain  with  thee 
While  thy  time  lasts,  then  guard  it  safe  and  share 
With  no  man  what  thou  hast,  for  it  is  thine. 
But  if  thou  hold'st  of  fortune  not  thyself. 
Why  be  so  grudging,  father,  of  thy  wealth  1 
For  she,  perhaps,  may  ravish  it  from  thee. 
And  add  it  to  some  worthless  favourite's  store. 
Therefore,  my  father,  while  it  still  is  thine. 
Put  it  to  noble  use,  aid  all,  and  let 
As  many  as  thou  canst  be  rich  through  thee  ; 
This  wealth  abides,  and  shouldst  thou  ever  fall, 
What  was  thine  own  wnll  be  thine  own  again. 

And  with  what  solemn  eloquence  is  human  pride 
humbled  in  the  following  passage  : — 

"Orav  elStvai  deXys  (reairrbv  ocms  it 
(fxfSXixl/ov  its  ra  /xvrjfMaO*,  ws  oSoiTro/xi?. 

€V^av6'*  iVeCTTLV  00"TCtt  Kttl  K0V(f>1]  KOVIS 

dvSpCjv  (iaaLXkiiiV  koX  Tvpavvinv  kol  aoffxav^ 
KOI  fiiya  <f>povovvTiov  eVl  y^fci  Kat  \prijiJxuriVf 

aiTWV  T<  So^y,    KUTtI   KttAA.€l  O'W/XCITWV. 

Kttt  ovSiv  avTiov  Toil's*  (injpK€(r€V  \p6vov. 
Koivov  rhu  ^8tjv  €<rxov  ot  TravTC?  /SpoTOi, 
irpbi  ravd*  opQtv  ylyvoxrKt  a-avrov  ocrris  €?.* 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  translation  can  pretend  to  give 
nothing  more  than  the  sense,  at  least  such  translation 
as  the  present  writer  is  competent  to  give  : — 

»  Inceri,  Fab.  ix. 


360  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

Whenever  thou  desir'st  to  know  thyself, 

Look  at  the  tombstones  on  thy  pilgrimage ; 

There  lie  the  bones,  there  the  light  dust  of  kings. 

Of  tyrant,  sage,  of  those  who  plum'd  themselves 

On  lineage  and  on  wealth,  and  on  their  fame. 

And  on  their  beauty  ;  and  yet  none  of  these 

Was  any  match  for  time.     AH  mortals  share 

The  grave  that  waits  for  all.     Then  look  toward  these, 

And  know  thou  what  thou  art. 

One  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  Men- 
ander  is  his  philanthropy,  which  sometimes  finds 
expression  in  sentiments  which  show  how  nearly  he 
approaches  the  ethics  of  Christianity  : — 

*I8tas  vofxi^e  Twv  ^lAooi/  rots  arv/x<}>opas.^ 
Think  the  misfortunes  of  your  friends  your  own. 

'Tis  not  to  live  to  live  for  self  alone. 

For  slaves  and  the  poor  he  has,  like  Euripides,  always 
a  kind  word ;  between  the  serf  and  the  freeman  he 
recognises  no  essential  distinction  : — 

The  slave  who  is  a  slave  and  nothing  more 
Will  be  a  rascal.     Let  him  share  free  speech, 
And  this  will  rank  him  with  the  best  of  men.^ 

No  man,  he  says  in  another  place,  will  be  a  slave 
who  does  a  slave's  work  in  the  spirit  of  a  freeman.* 
In  one  line  he  has  summed  up  that  grand  truth  to 
which  Burns  and  Tennyson  have  given  the  most 
eloquent  modern  expression — 

'Avrjp  apiXTTOS  OVK  av  eirj  8v(ryevrjs. 
No  noble  man  can  be  ignobly  born.^ 


^  Sent.  Sing.  ^  Incert.  Fab.  cclii. 

'  The  Boy.  *  Incert.  Fab.  cclxxix. 

'  Sent.  Sing.,  and  cf.  the  eloquent  passage  in  The  Cnidian  Woman. 


MENANDER  861 

The  following  passage  is  evidently  part  of  a  dialogue 
between  some  birth-proud  mother  and  her  son  : — 

Fine  birth  will  be  my  death.     0,  talk  no  more 

About  man's  ancestors,  for  those  who  liave 

By  nature  notliing  noble  in  themselves 

Betake  them  to  the  tombs,  and  reckon  up 

Their  lineage  and  their  gmndsires.     Every  man 

Must  have  a  grandsire,  for  how  else  could  he 

Have  seen  the  light  at  all  ?     But  if  he  cannot, 

Either  through  change  of  place  or  dearth  of  friends, 

Tell  who  his  grandsire  was,  is  he  less  noble 

Than  he  who  can  ?     No,  mother  ;  he's  the  nobleman — 

Were  he  some  common  ^Ethiopian — 

Who  is  by  nature  noble. 

If  his  writings  abound  in  dissuasives  from  marriage, 
no  poet  has  insisted  more  emphatically  on  the  rever- 
ence due  from  children  to  parents.  The  young  are 
to  regard  them  as  their  gods — vofit^e  aavro)  tou?  yov€i<: 
ehac  Oeov^ — and  throughout  life  a  father  and  a  mother 
are  to  rank  next  in  honour  to  the  deity.  A  man  who 
reverences  his  parents  may  hope  to  thrive,  but  dis- 
obedience and  disloyalty  to  them  are  certain  to  bring 
misfortune  in  their  train. 

Menander,  like  Shakspeare,  no  doubt  drew  largely 
on  that  common  stock  of  proverbs  which  are  the 
inheritance  of  every  people,  and  it  is  now  impossible 
to  distinguish  in  every  case  between  what  he  coined 
himself  and  what  he  appropriated.  Many  have  been 
attributed  to  him  which  belonged  to  Euripides  and 
to  his  own  predecessors  and  contemporaries  of  the 
Middle  and  New  Comedy,  and  some  are  undoubtedly 
forgeries  of  much  later  times.  But  it  is  certain  that 
his  original  contributions  were  more  considerable 
than  those  of  any  single  man,  and  a  selection  from 


362  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

those  which  are  undoubtedly  authentic,  and  from 
those  which  have  reasonable  claims  to  be  regarded  as 
authentic,  will  fitly  conclude  this  sketch. 

NiK^  TTttAaias  xapiTas  t)  vka  xdpL<i. 
Old  favours  to  the  latest  favour  yield. 

Tlad'qrb'S  &ttl  iras  Tts  evirpocr-qyopos. 
AflBiction  teaches  affability. 

*0  fiTjSev  ctSws  ovSev  i^afiaprdvei. 
He  sins  in  naught  who  sins  in  ignorance. 

Zo}fM€v  yap  ovx  ws  OcXofiev  aAA,'  ws  Svvdfieda. 
We  live  not  as  we  will,  but  as  we  can. 

MryScTTorc  Tretpw  a-Tpe/SXov  opdCkrai  kAciSov, 
ovScis  dvdyKTjv  ovSe  <^v(tlv  j3Ld^€Tai. 

Never  attempt  to  straighten  a  crookt  branch ; 
No  man  constrains  necessity  or  nature. 

K/3(V€6  (jiiXovs  6  Kaipos,  (OS  xpva-QV  rb  Trvp. 
As  fire  proves  gold,  the  pinch  will  prove  the  friend. 

Apvhs  '7r€cro'V(Tr]s  ttols  dvrjp  ^vXeverai. 
All  gather  faggots  from  the  fallen  oak. 

"Udovs  Se  ySacravos  icrriv  dvdpiOTrots  X/oovos. 
Man's  touchstone  for  man's  character  is  time. 

"Oftota  iropvT)  SdKpva  kol  pyjrtap  €)(€t. 
The  tears  of  orators  are  like  the  harlot's. 

OvScts  o  vocts  filv  ovSiv,  o  61  TTOtcis  pX.€rr€L. 
None  know  thy  thoughts,  but  all  can  see  thy  deeds. 

TvvYj  yap  ovSev  otSe  7rXr)v  o  ftovkerai. 
Women  know  naught  but  what  they  choose  to  know. 

**H  Aeyc  Ti  criyrjs  KpilrroVy  rf  (riyrjv  ex^. 
Say  what  will  better  silence,  or  be  dumb. 


MENANDER  863 

*12s  rjSvs  6  /Bios,  av  ti?  avrhv  fitj  fxaOy. 
How  sweet  is  life — to  one  who  knows  it  not ! 

He  only  lives  who  living  joys  in  life. 
In  the  line 

*Avr)p  6  <f>€vyii}V  Kttt  irdXiv  ixa\rj<rcrai 

we  have  the  original  of  the  famous  couplet — 

He  that  fights  and  runs  away 
Will  live  to  fight  another  day, 

while  in 

*0  arvvuTTopoiv  ovr^  Ti,  kolv  y  dpatrvraros, 
•^  (rvv€(ris  avrhv  SeikoraTov  ttoic^ 

we  have  exactly  Shakspeare's 

Conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all ; 

and  in 

^cvos  u)v  aKoXovOei  rots  iTrix<^p^oi<i  vofwis 

we  have  what  finds  embodiment  in  the  proverb  "  Do 
at  Rome  as  the  Romans  do." 

Some  are  interesting  from  their  association.    Goethe 
prefixed — 

*0  firf  Sa/5€is  avOpw/TTos  ov  TraiScvcrat — 
No  discipline  for  man  without  the  knout — 

as  the  motto  for  his  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  and 
the  melancholy  line — 

"Av^/xiMTos,  iKavYj  irpoifyuri^  €is  to  Sixm;x«tv — 

was  Gray's  text  for  an  ode  which  Menander  himself 
might  have  inspired — the  Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect 
of  Eton  College.     The  line  in  the  Tliais — 

^Oiipova-iv  -qOrf  XprffrB*  oynXiak  KaKaC 
Evil  communications  corrupt  good  manners — 


364  ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 

is  not  only  consecrated  by  St.  Paul's  quotation  of  it, 
but,  as  we  all  know,  by  associations  still  more  hal- 
lowed and  solemn.  Strange  chance,  that  the  words 
of  this  poet  should  mingle  with  those  of  that  pathetic 
liturgy  which  awakens  the  saddest  memories  of  the 
Christian !  Again,  too,  he  comes  home  to  us,  and 
not  through  accident.  How  many  a  mother  bending 
in  agony  over  the  young  life  laid  low  has  found  con- 
solation, little  knowing  its  source,  in  his  beautiful 
sentiment,  so  human  in  its  ineffable  tenderness,  so 
divine  in  its  triumphant  consecration  of  calamity — 

Whom  the  gods  love  dies  young — 

OV  Ot  deol  (pLkoVCTLV  dTrodvqCTKCL  V60S. 

Let  us  still  nurse  the  hope — it  has  been  for  more 
than  four  centuries  a  hope  constantly  disappointed 
but  as  constantly  renewed — that  some  happy  chance 
may  yet  put  us  in  possession  of  the  prize  for  which 
Goethe  and  Schlegel  sighed,  which  many  illustrious 
scholars  have  wasted  precious  time  in  seeking,  for 
which  Hertelius  would  have  "given  a  year  of  his 
life" — a  comedy  of  Menander  in  perfect  preservation. 
Meanwhile  we  can  only  console  ourselves  with  what 
we  have,  and  say  with  the  old  woman  in  Phsedrus — 

0  suavis  anima  !  qualem  te  dicarn  bonum 
Antehac  fuisse,  tales  cum  sint  reliquiae. 


INDEX 


Alexis,  uncle  and  teacher  of  Men- 
ander,  323 

Arden  of  Faversharru,  the  earliest 
English  domestic  drama,  183  ;  not 
by  Shakspeare,  184-5 

Athens,  its  condition  from  B.C.  321 
to  B.C.  291 — political,  social,  in- 
tellectual  artistic,  325-9 

Bale,  Bishop  John,  his  Kyng  John 
— the  advance  from  the  Morality 
to  the  History,  113 

Bentley,  Richard,  contrasted  as  an 
emendatory  critic  \Wth  Theobald, 
282-92  ;  his  acuteness  and  ingenu- 
ity in  emendation  illustrated,  282- 
4  ;  his  lack  of  taste  and  poetic  in- 
sight illustrated,  284-7  ;  his  emen- 
dations of  Milton,  284-5;  of  Horace, 
286-7 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  his  Hehmrsal, 
32-4 

Burbage,  James,  his  playhouse  in 
London,  145 

Burleigh,  Lord,  his  instructions  to 
his  son  Robert,  230-1 

Burnet,  Bishop  Gilbert,  his  oi^ust 
view  of  Dryden's  character,  83 

Busby,  Richard,  his  character,  7-9 

Carnarvon,  Earl  of,  his  edition  of 
Chesterfield's  Letters  to  his  godson, 
193-4  ;  ito  contents,  etc.,  203- 
6  ;  the  Notes  often  inconsistent 
and  inadequate,  205-9 ;  the  In- 
troduction praiseworthy,  209-12  ; 
his  estimate  of  Chesterfield's  char- 


acter and  opinions,  212,  215,  219- 
23 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  his  Letters  to 
his  nephew  at  Cambridge  com- 
pared with  Chesterfield's  to  his 
son  and  godson,  231-2 

Chaucer,  Geofirey,  Dryden's  versions 
from  him,  76-8  ;  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  fame,  107 

Chesterfield,  Earl  of,  his  Letters  to 
his  godson,  edited  by  Lord  Car- 
narvon, 193-4  ;  his  character  long 
grievously  misunderstood,  194-6  ; 
history  of  the  Letters,  196-203  ; 
their  indications  of  his  character 
and  opinions,  212-23  ;  their  good 
sense  and  wisdom — compared  with 
the  earlier  Letters  to  his  son,  224-6 ; 
extracts  illustrative  of  his  philo- 
sophy of  life,  226-30 ;  compared 
with  other  series  of  Letters,  230- 
83 ;  Chesterfield  not  a  popular 
writer  —  aristocratic,  233-4  ;  un- 
English,  234-6  ;  contemptuous  in 
his  tone  about  women,  236  -  40  ; 
special  value  of  his  writings  to 
English  readers,  240-42  ;  their 
threefold  interest,  242-3  ;  Chester- 
field's views  in  regard  to  morals — 
comparison  with  Cicero,  243-8  ;  to 
behaviour,  248-50  ;  his  humanity, 
251  ;  his  theory  of  education,  251- 
4  ;  its  i>ermanent  value,  though 
now  out  of  date,  254-5  ;  his  temper, 
256-9  ;  his  style,  259-61  ;  a  long- 
neglected  writer,  261 ;  his  value  to 
our  age,  262 


366 


ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 


Cicero,  his  philosophy  of  life  com- 
pared with  Chesterfield's,  243-8 

Collier,  Jeremy,  his  attack  on  Dry- 
den,  81-2 

Comedy,  the  "New,"  vide  Drama, 
Greek 

Contile,  Luca,  his  vindication  of 
tragi-comedy,  121-2 

Cowper,  William,  his  perverted  ac- 
count of  Chesterfield's  teaching, 
199 

Crawford,  William,  his  attack  on 
Chesterfield's  Letters  as  pernicious, 
197-8 

Criticism,  extravagance  of  the  new 
school  of  English,  97-100 

Dante,  the  vicissitudes  of  his  fame, 
107-8 

Demetrius  Phalereus,  his  friendship 
with  Menander,  325,  337 

Drama,  English,  not  essentially 
melancholy,  96-7  ;  its  early  history, 
110-14 ;  its  debt  to  the  Italian 
drama  of  the  Renaissance,  114-24  ; 
traces  to  be  found  of  the  Mysteries 
and  Moralities,  115  ;  its  mixed 
character  during  the  first  twenty- 
eight  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign, 
124-9  ;  its  vigorous  revival  in  1587, 
144-7 ;  the  new  playwrights,  147- 
9 ;  the  domestic  drama,  182-3  ; 
condition  of  the  English  drama 
when  Shakspeare  entered  on  his 
career,  191-2 

,  Greek;   the  "New  Comedy," 

329-31 ;  modelled  on  the  Sicilian 
Comedy  and  Euripides,  331-2  ;  its 
character  and  aim,  332-4  ;  founded 
by  Philemon,  334-6 

,   Italian,  its  influence   on   the 

English  drama,  114-24 

Dryden,  John,  his  position  in  English 
literature,  1-5  ;  his  birth  and 
family,  5-6  ;  his  education,  7-12  ; 
his  settlement  in  London,  12  ;  his 
early  writings,  13  ;  state  of  English 
literature  at  this  time,  14-16  ;  his 
Stanzas     on     Cromwell,     Astroia 


Hedtix,  etc.,  16-17;  his  life  in 
London,  18  ;  his  marriage,  19-21  ; 
his  plays  —  their  characteristics, 
21-9  ;  his  Anmts  Mirabilis,  29-30  ; 
his  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  30- 
31  ;  Buckingham's  attack  on  him 
in  The  Rehearsal,  32-4  ;  his  deser- 
tion of  rhyme  for  blank  verse  in 
drama  after  Settle's  Empress  of 
Morocco,  35-7  ;  MsEssa^yion  Satire, 
37  ;  state  of  politics  at  this  time — 
the  question  of  the  succession,  38- 
42  ;  his  Absalom  ami  Achitophel, 
^"42- 4";  his  Medal,  45  ;  his  Mac- 
FlecJcnoe,  47-8  ;  his  share  in  second 
part  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel, 
49-50;  his  Rcligio  Laid,  50- 
51 ;  his  straitened  circumstances, 
51-2  ;  his  Miscellanies,  53-4 ;  his 
Threnodia  AiLgustalis,  54-5  ;  his 
conversion  to  Roman  Catholicism, 
its  sincerity,  55-60  ;  his  defence  of 
the  genuineness  of  a  paper  at- 
tributed to  Anne  Hyde,  60-61  ; 
his  Hind  and  Panther — its  char- 
acteristics, 61-4  ;  his  degradation 
on  the  accession  of  William  III., 
64-5  ;  his  latest  plays,  65-6  ;  his 
translations  of  Juvenal  and  Persius, 
66-8  ;  his  Discourse  oil  Satire,  67  ; 
his  translation  of  Virgil,  69-72  ; 
his  position  at  Will's,  73-5  ;  his 
Fables — his  versions  from  Chaucer, 
76-8  ;  from  Boccaccio,  78-9  ;  his 
Prefaces,  80 ;  Jeremy  Collier's 
attack  on  him,  81-2;  his  death, 
82 ;  his  private  character,  83-5 ; 
his  historical  importance — his'Tii- 
fluence  on  English  literature,  85-8  ; 
his  genius— its  defects  and  merits, 
88-90. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  life  and  temper 
of  English  people  in  reign  of,  131- 
44  ;  her  licence  to  Burbage  and 
others  to  perform  plays  in  London, 
145 

England,  condition  of  the  country  in 
time  of  Elizabeth,  131-44 


INDEX 


367 


Epicurus,  his  intimacy  with  Men- 
ander,  325 

Euripides,  the  "New  Comedy"  to  a 
great  extent  derived  from  and 
modelled  on  his  plays,  331-2 

Gellius,  Aulus,  on  Greek  and  Roman 
Comedy,  319-20 

Glycera,  mistress  of  Menander,  837-9 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  his 
estimate  of  Menander,  316 

Greene,  Robert,  the  vicissitudes  of 
his  fame,  108-9 ;  his  life,  162-4  ;  his 
character,  163-7  ;  his  novels  and 
poems,  their  characteristics,  167- 
70  ;  his  plays — their  merits  and 
defects,  170-72  ;  importance  of  his 
services  to  English  drama,  172-4 

Hermann,  Johann  Gottfried  akob, 
his  Dissertation  on  Bentley   287 

Hervey,  Lord,  Pope's  satire  on,  265 

Hill,  Dr.  Birkbeck,  on  Chesterfield's 
"Hottentot,"  209-10 

Horace,  Bentley's  emendations  of, 
286-7 

Howard,  Lady  Elizabeth,  her  mar- 
riage with  Dryden,  19-21 

Hunter,  Thomas,  his  attack  on 
Chesterfield's  Letters  as  pernicious, 
198 

Ingeoxeri,  Angelo,  on  the  represent- 
ations of  ghosts  on  the  stage,  120 

Interludes,  their  place  in  English 
drama,  112-14 

Johnson,  Samnel,  his  anjust  treat- 
ment of  Theobald,  271-2 
Juvenal,  Dryden's  translation  of,  66-8 

Ktd,  Thomas,  little  known  of  him, 
1 79  ;  his  services  to  English  drama, 
180-81 

LoDOK,  Thomas,  his  work,  177-9; 
Tfu  Wounds  of  Civil  War^  the 
first  romantic  English  play  on  a 
subject  ixam  Boman  history,  178 


London,  its  condition  in  Elizabeth's 
time,  143-4  ;  establishment  of  play- 
houses in,  145-6 

Lyly,  John,  not  the  discoverer  of 
euphuism,  96  ;  the  vicissitudes  of 
his  fame,  108-9  ;  his  Euphues— 
its  wide  influence,  186-7  ;  his  plays 
— their  characteristics,  187  -  9  ; 
Mother  Bo7nbi€,  incomparably  his 
best  drama,  189  ;  his  influence  on 
English  drama,  190-91 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  probably  Cheater- 
field's  "Hottentot,"  209-10 

Macaxtlay,  Lord,  his  unjust  view  of 
Dryden's  character,  68,  83  ;  purity 
of  his  prose  style,  261 

Malone,  Edmund,  his  unjust  treat- 
ment of  Theobald,  272-3 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  fame,  108-9  ;  his  life,  149  ; 
his  services  to  English  drama,  149- 
52 ;  his  introduction  of  blank  verse, 
152-4  ;  his  influence  on  his  con- 
temporaries, 154-5  ;  his  art  and 
genius  —  their  excellences  and 
defects,  155-62;  Edicard  II.  his 
last  and  most  dramatic  plav, 
159-60 

Meineke,  Augustus,  his  collection  of 
the  Fragments  of  Menander,  820 

Menander,  his  place  in  Greek  litera- 
ture, 316-17  ;  estimate  of  his  style 
and  diction  by  Greek  and  Roman 
critics,  317-20 ;  collection  of  his 
Fragments  by  Meineke,  320 ;  sources 
of  our  knowledge  of  him  —  Frag- 
ments, anecdotes,  statue  in  the 
Vatican,  320-22 ;  his  birth  and 
family,  322-3  ;  his  eariy  life  and 
circumstances  —  friendship  with 
Theophrastus,  323-5  ;  with  Deme- 
trius Phalereus,  825»  887 ;  with 
Epicurus,  825 ;  state  of  Athens  in 
his  day,  825-9;  the  "New  Comedy" 
—its  characteristics,  829-86  ;  Men- 
ander's  tastes  and  position,  889-7 ; 
his  connection  with  Glycera,  886-9; 
his  death,  839-40 ;  classification  of 


368 


ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 


his  plays,  340-43 ;  simplicity  of 
his  plots — The  Apparition  and  The 
Leucadian  Rock,  343-5 ;  how  far 
his  Fragments  afford  an  index  to 
his  own  opinions,  345-6 ;  his 
sombre  and  cynical  view  of  life, 
346-50  ;  his  misogynism,  350-51  ; 
and  yet  his  cheerfulness,  352-3  ; 
his  rationalism,  353-8  ;  his  philo- 
sophy  of  life,  356-61 ;  his  proverbs, 
361-4  ;  the  loss  of  his  works  a  great 
calamity,  364 

Milton,  John,  Bentley's  emendations 
of,  284-5 

Miracles,  their  place  in  English 
drama,  111 

Montagu,  Charles,  joint-author  with 
Prior  of  The  Hind  and  the  Panther 
Transversed,  etc.,  64 

Moralities,  their  place  in  English 
drama,  111-15 

Mysteries,  their  place  in  English 
drama,  111-15 

Nash,  Thomas,  his  work,  177 
"New  Comedy,"  vide  Drama,  Greek 

Peele,  George,  his  merits  greatly 
over -rated,  174-6  ;  his  literary 
style — beauty  of  his  blank  verse, 
176-7 

Persius,  Dryden's  translation  of,  66-8 

Philemon,  founder  of  the  "New 
Comedy,"  334-6 

Pope,  Alexander,  his  shameful  treat- 
ment of  Theobald,  263-8  ;  his 
blasting  satire  —  cases  of  Gibber 
and  Hervey,  264-5  ;  his  work 
as  editor  of  Shakspeare's  text, 
295-8 

Porson,  Richard,  compared  as  an 
emendatory  critic  with  Theobald, 
282-92 ;  his  genius  in  the  highest 
department  of  criticism,  282  ;  his 
insight  and  taste  illustrated,  288- 
91 

Pratt,  Jackson,  his  Pupil  of  Pleasure, 
a  grotesque  perversion  of  Chester- 
field's teaching,  198-9 


Prior,  Matthew,  joint -author  with 
Montagu  of  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther  Transversed,  etc.,  64 

QuiNTiLiAN,  on  Greek  and  Roman 
Comedy,  320 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  his  Instructions 
to  his  So7i  and  to  Posterity,  231 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  fame,  108 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  his  work  as  editor 
of  Shakspeare's  text,  294-5 

Settle,  Elkanah,  his  Empress  of 
Morocco,  34-5 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  his  character, 
45-6  ;  his  attack  on  Dryden  in  TJic 
Medal  of  John  Bayes,  46  ;  ridiculed 
by  Dryden  in  MacFlecknoe,  47-8  ; 
and  in  second  part  of  Absalorii 
and  Achitophel,  49-50 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  leader  of  the 
Whigs,  40-43  ;  the  original  of 
Achitophel,  43  ;  attacked  in  The 
Medal,  45 

Shakspeare,  William,  condition 
of  the  English  drama  when  he 
entered  on  his  career,  191-2 ;  his 
indebtedness  to  Theobald,  263  ; 
the  mutilated  state  in  which  his 
plays  were  published  in  quartos 
and  folios,  especially  the  First 
Folio,  292-4  ;  his  early  editors — 
Rowe,  295 ;  Pope,  295-8  ;  Theobald, 
296-309,  andjaosstm 

Sicily,  Comedy  of,  a  model  for  the 
"New  Comedy  "  of  Athens,  331-2 

Smollett,  Tobias,  his  relations  with 
Chesterfield,  210-12 

Spenser,  Edmund,  on  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  in  his  day,  133; 
on  the  ministration  of  angels,  136 

Stanhope,  Philip,  godson  of  Chester- 
field, his  youth  and  education, 
202  ;  the  Letters  addressed  to  him, 
id.  a.nd  passim 

Swinburne,  Mr.  Algernon  Charles,  his 
defects  as  a  critic,  100-104 


INDEX 


369 


Symonds,  John  Addington,  his 
literary  cultnre,  91-3 ;  his  work 
on  the  predecessors  of  Shakspeare 
— its  blemishes  of  style,  93-5  ;  its 
inaccuracies,  95  -  6  ;  its  unsound 
generalisation  on  the  spirit  of  the 
Elizabethan  drama,  96-7  ;  its  ex- 
travagant diction,  105-6 

Tate,  Nahum,  entrusted  with  second 
part  of  Absalom  aiid  Achitophel,  48 

Theobald,  Lewis,  his  work  on  the 
text  of  Shakspeare,  263  and  passim 
{see  below) ;  his  shameful  treatment 
by  Pope,  263-8 ;  by  Warburton, 
268-71  ;  by  Johnson,  271-2  ;  by 
ifalone,  272-3  ;  by  Coleridge  and 
subsequent  writers,  273-5  ;  first 
and  greatest  of  Shakspearian 
textual  critics,  275 ;  his  wide 
learning,  276  -  80  ;  his  sound 
judgment,  281  ;  his  genius  for 
textual  restoration,  281-2 ;  com- 
pared as  an  emendatory  critic 
with     Porson,     contrasted     with 


Bentley  and  Warburton,  282-92; 
mutilated  state  in  which  Shak- 
speare's  plays  were  published  in 
quartos  and  folios,  especially  the 
First  Folio,  292-4  ;  Theobald's 
restoration  of  the  text,  296*309; 
his  illustrations,  309-11  ;  extent 
and  permanence  of  his  work,  311  ; 
his  personal  life — misfortune  and 
poverty,  312-15  ;  his  great  legacy 
to  posterity,  315 
Theophrastus,  his  friendship  with 
Menander,  323-5 

Virgil,  Dryden's  translation  of,  69- 
72 

Warburton,  Bishop  William,  his 
shameful  treatment  of  Theobald, 
268-71  ;  contrasted  as  an  emeuda> 
tory  critic  with  Theobald,  282-92  ; 
his  lack  of  poetic  feeling  illustrated, 
287-8 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  his  Letters  to  his 
son,  230 


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