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ifippolpte Bbolpfje ^aine

Photogravure / '^graving

THIS eminent French critic was born at Vouzrers in 1828, and
died in Paris March 4, 1893. This picture shows him as he
appeared forty years ago (1864), when he had finished his
masterpiece, the "History of English Literature." At that period
his fame as a literary savant was spreading to the four quarters
of the world, and he was lecturing daily to the crowds of students
who had flocked to Paris to study literature under his guidance.
In personal appearance he was unlike the traditional scholar, but
resembled, in his quick, nervous energy and plain businesslike ways,
a keen-witted man of affairs. He was simple in dress, as the
picture shows, and it is a noteworthy fact that the honors he re-
ceived never caused him to lose his self-poise, or to cease his
severe studies, which he carried on with diligence to the very day
of his death. His face denotes the cool, critical, and well-balanced
scholar, with the initiative to enter new fields of thought, and the
will power to impress his opinions upon others.

HISTORY OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY

HENRY VAN LAUN

WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY

J. SCOTT CLARK, A.M.

I'ROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

REVISED EDITION

FOLUME I

NEW YORK
P. F. COLLIER ^ SON

DEDICATION

Even at the present day, the historian of Civiliza-
tion in Europe and in France is amongst us, at the
head of those historical studies which he formerly
encouraged so much. I myself have experienced
his kindness, learned by his conversation, consulted
his books, and profited by that intellectual and im-
partial breadth, that active and liberal sympathy,
with which he receives the labors and thoughts of
others, even when these ideas are not like his own.
I consider it a duty and an honor to inscribe this
work to M. Guizot.

H. A. Taine.

1— Classics. Vol. 38

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

THE publication of M. Taine's " History of English Lit-
erature," in 1864, and its translation into English, in
1872, mark an epoch in educational history, especially
in that of America. Prior to the appearance of this work, the
total knowledge of British writers gained in the school and
college life of the ordinary American youth was generally de-
rived in the form of blind memorization from one text-book.
This book was a combination of minute biographical detail with
the generalities and abstractions of criticism. The student, and
the general reader as well, did not really study the great writers
at all; he simply memorized what someone had written about
them; and he tried, generally in vain, to comprehend the real
concrete significance of such critical terms as " bald," " ner-
vous," " sonorous," etc. But with the distribution of M. Taine's
great work came the beginning of better things. It was the
first step in an evolution by no means yet completed — a move-
ment paralleled in the development of methods of scientific
study during the last four decades. Forty years ago the pupil
did not study oxygen, electricity, or cellulose; he simply mem-
orized what someone had written about these elements. He
never touched and rarely saw the things themselves, and he
counted himself fortunate if his instructor had the energy and
the facilities to perform before the wondering class a few stock
experiments. But all this has been changed. It is now uni-
versally recognized that the only sound method of studying
any science is the laboratory method; that is, the study of the
thing itself in all its manifestations. In methods of studying
literature the progress towards a true scientific, that is, a labora-
tory, method has been much slower, but it seems almost equally
sure. We are just now in the intermediate stage, where we
study " editions with notes." Our educators, as a rule, have
yet to learn that to memorize biographical data and the mere
generalities and negations of criticism, or to trace out obscure

iv HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

allusions and doubtful meanings, is not to study a writer in any
broad or fruitful sense. But the movement towards a true sci-
entific method is already well begun ; and, as we have said, to
M. Taine belongs tl^e honor of taking the initial step.

With Taine's work in hand the thoughtful reader may realize
to a large extent the significance of Leslie Stephen's memorable
dictum : " The whole art of criticism consists in learning to
know the human being who is partially revealed to us in his
written and spoken words." M. Taine's pages continually at-
test his deep conviction that " the style is the man " in a very
comprehensive sense. In his Introduction to his " History of
English Literature," we find such statements as these : — " You
study the document only to know the man, just as you study
the fossil shell only to know the animal behind it " ; " Genuine
history is brought into existence only when the historian begins
to unravel . . . the living man, toiling, impassioned, en-
trenched in his customs, with his voice and features, his ges-
tures and dress, distinct and complete as he from whom we have
just parted in the street " ; " Twenty select phrases from Plato
and Aristophanes will teach you much more than a multitude
of dissertations and commentaries " ; " The true critic is present
at the drama which was enacted in the soul of the artist or the
writer ; the choice of a word, the brevity or length of a sentence,
the nature of a metaphor, the accent of a verse, the development
of an argument — everything is a symbol to him ; ... in
short he works out its [the text's] psychology; there is a
cause for ambition, for courage, for truth, as there is for mus-
cular movement or animal heat." To put M. Taine's great
and characteristic merit into a sentence, we may say that he
was the first writer on English literature to apply to it the
fundamental principle, patent to every person of reflection,
that we necessarily think in concrete terms, and that, there-
fore, a treatise must be valuable just in proportion to the
concreteness of its presentation.

In order to show how great was the advance made by M.
Taine's work over its predecessors, let us take a classic English
writer at random and compare the treatment given him by M.
Taine with that given in the text-book already mentioned.
Suppose we open with the discussion of Addison. In the latter
work we are told that he was born in 1672 and died in 1719;
that he was a son of Lancelot Addison, a clergyman of some
reputation for learning ; that Addison studied at Charterhouse,

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION v

where he formed a friendship with Richard Steele; that he
afterwards entered Oxford ; that he wrote various short poems
and one long one, of which six whole lines are given as a
specimen. We are told, also, that Addison held, in succession,
certain political offices ; that he contributed one-sixth of the
papers found in Steele's " Tatler," more than one-half of those
in the " Spectator," and one-third of those in the " Guardian " ;
that he published a drama called " Cato," which, the book in-
forms us, is " cold, solemn, and pompous, written with scrupu-
lous regard for the classical unities." We learn, further, that
Addison married a countess, and died at the early age of forty-
seven ; that he had a quarrel with Pope ; that his papers pub-
lished in the " Tatler," the " Spectator," and the " Guardian "
are marked by " fertility of invention and singular felicity of
treatment " ; that their variety is wonderful, and that every-
thing is treated " with singular appropriateness and unforced
energ}^ " ; that " there is a singular harmony between the lan-
guage and the thought " (whatever that may mean) ; that Ad-
dison's delineations of the characters of men are wonderfully
delicate ; that he possessed humor in its highest and most deli-
cate perfection; that his hymns breathe a fervent and tender
spirit of piety. Contrary to the usage of its author, the text-
book gives the whole sixteen lines of Addison's most famous
hymn — the longest illustrative quotatipn in the whole four hun-
dred pages — one blessed little oasis in a vast desert of dry
biographical minutiae and the abstract generalities of criticism.
In the eight pages devoted to Addison there are not more than
ten lines of real criticism ; and these consist, for the most part,
of what, to the ordinary reader, are meaningless adjectives or
high-sounding epithets. Yet this is one of the very best chap-
ters in the book. It is certainly a fair specimen of the barren
method generally prevalent before the appearance of M. Taine's
work.

Now let us compare his treatment of Addison. In the first
place, scattered through the eighteen pages devoted to that
writer (single- volume edition) we find no less than twenty-two
illustrative passages, varying in length from 6 to 176 lines of very
fine print. In his general treatment M. Taine begins by tracing
the physical, social, and moral environment of Addison, thus
leading us up to the consideration of the man and the writer by
a natural process of evolution. We are first shown what kind
of a man to expect, and then we are made acquainted with him.

vi HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

And all this is done with the most vivid and brilliant touches.
Mere biographical details are either ignored or given incidental
mention. The opening paragraph is a tableau vivant, in which we
see Addison at Oxford, "studious, peaceful, loving solitary walks
under the elm avenues." We are told how, from boyhood, " his
memory is stuffed with Latin verses"; how "this limited c'ulture,
leaving him weaker, made him more refined " ; how " he acquired
a taste for the elegance and refinement, the triumphs and the
artifices, of style "; how he became " an epicure in literature ";
how " he naturally loved beautiful things "; how " Addison, good
and just himself, trusted in God, also a being good and just";
how he writes his lay sermons; how " he cannot suffer languish-
ing or lazy habits "; how " he is full of epigrams against flirta-
tions, extravagant toilets, useless visits"; how "he explains
God, reducing him to a mere magnified man " ; with what literal
precision he describes Heaven; how he "inserts prayers in his
papers and forbids oaths "; how he made morality fashionable.

These illustrations of M. Taine's method might be multiplied
indefinitely, but enough have surely been quoted to demon-
strate how vastly more vivid and concrete is the idea of Addi-
son, the man and the writer, gained by this method in compari-
son with that which was in general vogue before the publica-
tion of M. Taine's book. In the one case the reader has come
into contact with a mere abstraction — a man of straw, with not
a single feature that impresses itself on the imagination or the
memory. In the other, he has come into communion with a
real living soul — a man " of like passions with ourselves."

But the very quaUties of the great French critic which make
his book so helpful are the source of his defects as a writer.
These qualities are national quite as much as individual. It is a
truism that the French people lead the world in the field of criti-
cism as applied to both literature and art. This superiority is
strikingly illustrated also in St. Beuve, and is due to a certain
quickness of perception, a certain power of concrete illustration,
that seems inherent in the race of cultivated Frenchmen. M.
Taine himself well defines this ethnic trait when he speaks of
"France, with her Parisian culture, with her drawing-room man-
ners, with her untiring analysis of characters and actions, her
irony so ready to hit upon a weakness, her finesse so practised in
the discrimination of modes of thought." This national talent is
almost invariably associated with a nervous, sanguine tempera-

SPECIAL INTRODUCTIOxN vii

ment, which easily tends to extremes of expression. We are
thereiore compelled to read M. Taine with some degree of cau-
tion when we are seekmg exact statement and strict limitation.

Again, M. Taine is sometimes inaccurate or unjust from a
lack of sympathy. He sometimes finds it impossible to rid him-
self of his Gallic predilections and aversions, especially when
treating of the furitan character or the stolid English morality.
He cannot appreciate the religious conditions that surround his
subject. He is always the Frenchman discussing the English
writer. He cannot forbear to contrast the effect or the reception
accorded to an author's work in England with that which it
would have received in France; as when he says, concerning Ad-
dison's lay sermons in the "Spectator": "I know very well what
success a newspaper full of sermons would have in France " ; and
again: " If a Frenchman was forbidden to swear, he would proba-
bly laugh at the first word of the admonition." A little farther
on he objects to what he calls, with certainly picturesque con-
creteness, " the sticky plaster of his (Addison's) morality " — an
expression that has led to Minto's sharp retort that Addison's
morality was something which it is quite impossible for the Gal-
lic conscience to conceive. Another illustration of that bias
which compels us to be somewhat on our guard in reading Taine
is found in his treatment of Milton. Although we may admit
that the great Puritan poet peopled his paradise with characters
having altogether too strong a British tinge, we are almost
shocked to hear Taine and his disciple, Edmond Scherer, dilate
upon Milton's Adam as " your true paterfamilias, with a vote;
an M. P., an old Oxford man," etc., etc., or to hear them ex-
claim, " What a great many votesshe [Eve] will gain among the
country squires v^hen Adam stands for Parliament! " Quite as
striking is M. Tuine's inability to understand Wordsworth.

But, after making these and all other due admissions concern-
ing Tame's work, the fact stands that his " History of English
Literature " meets fully Lowell's quaint definition of a classic,
when he says, " After all, to be delightful is a classic." In read-
ing this work we never feel that we have in our hands a text-
book or even a history. It is rather a living, moving panorama.
We see again the old miracles and moralities, with their queer
shifts and their stark incongruities; we see the drawing-rooms
and hear the conversation of the reign of Queen Anne, and walk
through Fleet Street with Johnson. In a word, we realize in no

viii HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

small degree the full meaning of Leslie Stephen's dictum, in
that we really feel that we know, in some degree at least, " the
human being who is partially revealed to us in his written and
spoken words."

Of course, no introduction to this work would be complete
without some reference to the psychological theory on which it is
based. We have reserved this point to the last because, for the
general reader, what Taine says and how he says it, are far more
interesting considerations than any theories on which the book
may be based. In a word, the author held that both the char-
acter and the style of a writer are the outgrowth of his social and
natural environment. And this environment, in Taine's opinion,
affects not only the individual but the national character as man-
ifested in the national literature. In discussing any literary pro-
duction he would first ask: To what race and nation does the
author belong ? What is the influence of his geographical posi-
tion and of his nation's advance in civilization ? What about the
duration of the literary phase represented by the writer in ques-
tion ? In developing this theory of the influence of environment
M. Taine doubtless sometimes treats as permanent scientific fac-
tors influences and circumstances that are in their very nature
variable. Yet this application of the theory is as consistent and
plausible as it is everywhere apparent. A few illustrations of his
psychological theory will make more plain than much abstract
discussion the almost fatalistic nature of his method. For ex-
ample, after vividly portraying the political and social conditions
that had surrounded Milton from his birth, the French critic
asks : " Can we expect urbanity here ? " Again, in tracing Dry-
den's beginnings, he says : " Such circumstances announce and
prepare, not an artist, but a man of letters." Much might be
written of the detailed application of M. Taine's psychological
theory. But the reader has already been too long detained from
a perusal of the riches that fill the following pages. Charles
Lamb once wrote : " I prefer the affections to the sciences."
The majority of the readers of M. Taine will doubtless find so
much to enjoy in his brilliant pages that they will care little
for his theories, and will not allow certain defects in his sym-
pathies to mar their enjoyment of this monumental work.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

Historical documents serve only as a clue to reconstruct the visible

individual • i

The outer man is only a clue to study the inner, invisible man 5

The state and the actions of the inner and invisible man have their

causes in certain general ways of thought and feeling 8

Chief causes of thought and feeling. Their historical effects 9

The three primordial forces —

I. Race 13

II. Surroundings 14

III. Epoch 16

History is a mechanical and psychological problem. Within certain

limits man can foretell 19

Production of the results of a primordial cause. Common elements.

Composition of groups. Law of mutual dependence. Law of

proportional influences 20

Law of formation of a group. Examples and indications 23

General problem and future of history. Psychological method.

Value of literature. Purpose in writing this book 24

BOOK I.— THE SOURCE

CHAPTER FIRST
The Saxons

SECTION

L — The Coast of the North Sea 31

IL — The Northern Barbarians 34

IIL — Saxon Ideas 40

IV. — Saxon Heroes 46

V. — Pagan Poems 53

VI. — Christian Poems 56

VII. — Primitive Saxon Authors 63

VIII. — Virility of the Saxon Race 71

X HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

CHAPTER SECOND
The Normans

SECTION PAGE

I. — The Feudal Man t^

II. — Normans and Saxons Contrasted 73

III. — French Forms of Thought 80

IV. — The Normans in England 87

V. — The English Tongue. — Early English Literary Impulses... 91

VI. — Feudal Civilization 103

VII. — Persistence of Saxon Ideas 108

VIII. — The English Constitution 113

IX. — Piers Plowman and Wyclif 119

CHAPTER THIRD
The New Tongue

I. — The First Great Poet 126

II. — The Decline of the Middle Ages 127

III. — The Poetry of Chaucer 128

IV. — Characteristics of the Canterbury Tales 143

V. — The Art of Chaucer 150

VI. — Scholastic Philosophy 158

BOOK II.— THE RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER FIRST

The Pagan Renaissance

Part I. — Manners of the Time

L — Ideas of the Middle Ages , 169

II. — Growth of New Ideas 171

III. — Popular Festivals 178

IV. — Influence of Classic Literature 180

Part II. — Poetry

I. — Renaissance of Saxon Genius 185

II. — The Earl of Surrey 185

III. — Surrey's Style 190

IV. — Development of Artistic Ideas 192

V. — Wherein Lies the Strength of the Poetry of this Period. .. . 204

VI. — Edmund Spenser , 214

VII. — Spenser in his Relation to the Renaissance 221

CONTENTS xi

Part III. — Prose.

SECTION PAGE

I.— The Decay of Poetry = . . . , , 237

II. — The Intellectual Level of the Renaissance » 243

III.— Robert Burton 248

IV. — Sir Thomas Browne 252

V. — Francis Bacon » ....... . 255

CHAPTER SECOND
The Theatre

I. — The Public and the Stage , 264

II. — Manners of the Sixteenth Century „ 267

III. — Some Aspects of the English Alind 274

IV.— The Poets of the Period 279

V. — Formation of the Drama 291

VI. — Furious Passions. — Exaggerated Characters 296

VII. — Female Characters 305

CHAPTER THIRD
Ben Jonson

I.— The Man.— His Life 318

II. — His Freedom and Precision of Style 321

III. — The Dramas Catiline and Sejanus 327

IV. — Comedies 333

V. — Limits of Jonson's Talent. — His Smaller Poems. — His

Masques 345

VI. — General Idea of Shakespeare 35°

CHAPTER FOURTH
Shakespeare

I. — Life and Character of Shakespeare 354

II. — Shakespeare's Style. — Copiousness. — Excesses 366

III. — Shakespeare's Language and Manners 371

IV. — Dramatis Personse 377

v.— Men of Wit 382

VI. — Shakespeare's Women 386

VII.— Types of Villains 39i

VIII. — Principal Characters 393

IX. — Characteristics of Shakespeare's Genius 407

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY, within a hundred years in Germany, and within
sixty years in France, has undergone a transformation,
owing to a study of literatures.

The discovery has been made that a Hterary work is not a
mere play of the imagination, the isolated caprice of an excited
brain, but a transcript of contemporary manners and customs
and the sign of a particular state of intellect. The conclusion
derived from this is that, through literary monuments, we can
retrace the way in which men felt and thought many centuries
ago. This method has been tried and found successful.

We have meditated over these ways of feeling and thinking
and have accepted them as facts of prime significance. We have
found that they were dependent on most important events, that
they explain these, and that these explain them, and that hence-
forth it was necessary to give them their place in history, and
one of the highest. This place has been assigned to them, and
hence all is changed in history — the aim, the method, the instru-
mentalities, and the conceptions of laws and of causes. It is this
change as now going on, and which must continue to go on,
that is here attempted to be set forth.

On turning over the large stiff pages of a folio volume, or the
yellow leaves of a manuscript, in short, a poem, a code of laws,
a confession of faith, what is your first comment? You say to
yourself that the work before you is not of its own creation. It
is simply a mold like a fossil shell, an imprint similar to one of

2 TAINE

those forms embedded in a stone by an animal which once lived
and perished. Beneath the shell was an animal and behind the
document there was a man. "W hy do you study the shell unless
to form some idea of the animal? In the same way do you
study the document in order to comprehend the man; both shell
and document are dead fragments and of value only as indica-
tions of the complete living being. The aim is to reach this
being; this is what you strive to reconstruct. It is a mistake to
study the document as if it existed alone by itself. That is treat-
ing things merely as a pedant, and you subject yourself to the
illusions of a book-worm. At bottom mythologies and lan-
guages are not existences; the only realities are human beings
who have employed words and imagery adapted to their organs
and to suit the original cast of their intellects. A creed is noth-
ing in itself. Who made it? Look at this or that portrait of
the sixteenth century, the stern, energetic features of an arch-
bishop or of an English martyr. Nothing exists except through
the individual; it is necessary to know the individual himself.
Let the parentage of creeds be established, or the classification
of poems, or the growth of constitutions, or the transformations
of idioms, and we have only cleared the ground. True history
begins when the historian has discerned beyond the mists of
ages the living, active man, endowed with passions, furnished
with habits, special in voice, feature, gesture, and costume, dis-
tinctive and complete, like anybody that you have just encoun-
tered in the street. Let us strive then, as far as possible, to get
rid of this great interval of time which prevents us from observ-
ing the man with our eyes, the eyes of our own head. What
revelations do we find in the calendered leaves of a modern
poem? A modern poet, a man like De Musset, Victor Hugo,
Lamartine, or Heine, graduated from a college and travelled,
wearing a dress-coat and gloves, favored by ladies, bowing fifty
times and uttering a dozen witticisms in an evening, reading
daily newspapers, generally occupying an apartment on the sec-
ond story, not over-cheerful on account of his nerves, and espe-
cially because, in this dense democracy in which we stifle each
other, the discredit of ofificial rank exaggerates his pretensions
by raising his importance, and, owing to the delicacy of his
personal sensations, leading him to regard himself as a Deity.
Such is what we detect behind modern meditations and sonnets.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 3

Again, behind a tragedy of the seventeenth century there is a
poet, one, for example, hke Racine, refined, discreet, a courtier,
a fine talker, with majestic perruque and ribboned shoes, a mon-
archist and zealous Christian, " God having given him the grace
not to blush in any society on account of zeal for his king or for
the Gospel," clever in interesting the monarch, translating into
proper French " the ganlois of Amyot," deferential to the great,
always knowing how to keep his place in their company, as-
siduous and respectful at Marly as at Versailles, amid the formal
creations of a decorative landscape and the reverential bows,
graces, intrigues, and finesses of the braided seigniors who get
up early every morning to obtain the reversion of an office, to-
gether with the charming ladies who count on their fingers the
pedigrees which entitle them to a seat on a footstool. On this
point consult Saint-Simon and the engravings of Perelle, the
same as you have just consulted Balzac and the water-color
drawings of Eugene Lami.

In like manner, on reading a Greek tragedy, our first care is
to figure to ourselves the Greeks, that is to say, men who lived
half-naked in the gymnasiums or on a public square under a
brilliant sky, in full view of the noblest and most delicate land-
scape, busy in rendering their bodies strong and agile, in con-
versing together, in arguing, in voting, in carrying out patriotic
piracies, and yet idle and temperate, the furniture of their houses
consisting of three earthen jars and their food of two pots of
anchovies preserved in oil, served by slaves who afford them the
time to cultivate their minds and to exercise their limbs, with no
other concern than that of having the most beautiful city, the
most beautiful processions, the most beautiful ideas, and the
most beautiful men. In this respect, a statue like the " Me-
leager " or the " Theseus " of the Parthenon, or again a sight
of the blue and lustrous Mediterranean, resembling a silken
tunic out of which islands arise like marble bodies, together with
a dozen choice phrases selected from the works of Plato and
Aristophanes, teach us more than any number of dissertations
and commentaries.

And so again, in order to understand an Indian Purana, one
must begin by imagining the father of a family who, " having
seen a son on his son's knees," follows the law and, with axe and
pitcher, seeks solitude under a banyan trees, talks no more,

4 TAINE

multiplies his fastings, lives naked with four fires around him
under the fifth fire, that terrible sun which endlessly devours
and resuscitates all hving things; who fixes his imagination in
turn for weeks at a time on the foot of Brahma, then on his
knee, on his thigh, on his navel, and so on, until, beneath the
strain of this intense meditation, hallucinations appear, when air
the forms of being, mingling together and transformed into each
other, oscillate to and fro in this vertiginous brain until the mo-
tionless man, with suspended breath and fixed eyeballs, beholds
the universe melting away like vapor over the vacant immensity
of the Being in which he hopes for absorption. In this case the
best of teachings would be a journey in India; but, for lack of
a better one, take the narratives of travellers along with works
in geography, botany, and ethnology. In any event, there must
be the same research. A language, a law, a creed, is never other
than an abstraction ; the perfect thing is found in the active man,
the visible corporeal figure which eats, walks, fights, and labors.
Set aside the theories of constitutions and their results, of re-
ligions and their systems, and try to observe men in their work-
shops or offices, in their fields along with their own sky and soil,
with their own homes, clothes, occupations and repasts, just as
you see them when, on landing in England or in Italy, you re-
mark their features and gestures, their roads and their inns, the
citizen on his promenades and the workman taking a drink.
Let us strive as much as possible to supply the place of the
actual, personal, sensible observation that is no longer practi-
cable, this being the only way in which we can really know the
man; let us make the past present; to judge of an object it
must be present; no experience can be had of what is absent.
Undoubtedly, this sort of reconstruction is always imperfect;
only an imperfect judgment can be based on it; but let us do
the best we can; incomplete knowledge is better than none at
all, or than knowledge which is erroneous, and there is no other
way of obtaining knowledge approximatively of bygone times
than by seeing approximatively the men of former times.

Such is the first step in history. This step was taken in Europe
at the end of the last century when the imagination took fresh
flight under the auspices of Lessing and Walter Scott, and a
little later in France under Chateaubriand, Augustin Thierry,
Michelet, and others. We now come to the second step.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

On observing the visible man with your own eyes what do you
try to find in him? The invisible man. These words which
your ears catch, those gestures, those airs of the head, his attire
and sensible operations of all kinds, are, for you, merely so many
expressions; these express something, a soul. An inward man
is hidden beneath the outward man, and the latter simply mani-
fests the former. You have observed the house in which he lives,
his furniture, his costume, in order to discover his habits and
tastes, the degree of his refinement or rusticity, his extravagance
or economy, his follies or his cleverness. You have listened to
his conversation and noted the inflections of his voice, the atti-
tudes he has assumed, so as to judge of his spirit, self-abandon-
ment or gayety, his energy or his rigidity. You consider his
writings, works of art, financial and political schemes, with a
view to measure the reach and limits of his intelligence, his
creative power and self-command, to ascertain the usual order,
kind, and force of his conceptions, in what way he thinks and
how he resolves. All these externals are so many avenues con-
verging to one centre, and you follow these only to reach that
centre; here is the real man, namely, that group of faculties and
of sentiments which produces the rest. Behold a new world, an
infinite world; for each visible action involves an infinite train
of reasonings and emotions, new or old sensations which have
combined to bring this into light and which, like long ledges of
rock sunk deep in the earth, have cropped out above the surface
and attained their level. It is this subterranean world which
forms the second aim, the special object of the historian. If
his critical education suffices, he is able to discriminate under
every ornament in architecture, under every stroke of the brush
in a picture, under each phrase of literary composition, the par-
ticular sentiment out of which the ornament, the stroke, and the
phrase have sprung; he is a spectator of the inward drama which
has developed itself in the breast of the artist or writer; the
choice of words, the length or shortness of the period, the spe-
cies of metaphor, the accent of a verse, the chain of reasoning —
all are to him an indication; while his eyes are reading the text
his mind and soul are following the steady flow and ever-chang-

6 TAINE

ing series of emotions and conceptions from which this text has
issued; he is working out its psychology. Should you desire to
study this operation, regard the promoter and model of all the
high culture of the epoch, Goethe, who, before composing his
" Iphigenia," spent days in making drawings of the most perfect
statues and who, at lastT his eyes filled with the noble forms of
antique scenery and his mind penetrated by the harmonious
beauty of antique life, succeeded in reproducing internally, with
such exactness, the habits and yearnings of Greek imagination
as to provide us with an almost twin sister of the " Antigone "
of Sophocles and of the goddesses of Phidias. This exact and
demonstrated divination of bygone sentiments has, in our days,
given a new life to history. There was almost complete ignor-
ance of this in the last century ; men of every race and of every
epoch were represented as about alike, the Greek, the barbarian,
the Hindoo, the man of the Renaissance and the man of the
eighteenth century, cast in the same mold and after the same
pattern, and after a certain abstract conception which served for
the whole human species. There was a knowledge of man but
not of men. There was no penetration into the soul itself;
nothing of the infinite diversity and wonderful complexity of
souls had been detected; it was not known that the moral or-
ganization of a people or of an age is as special and distinct as
the physical structure of a familv of plants or of an order of ani-
mals. History to-day, like zoology, has found its anatomy, and
whatever branch of it is studied, whether philology, languages
or mythologies, it is in this way that labor must be given to
make it produce new fruit. Among so many writers who, since
Herder, Ottfried Miiller, and Goethe have steadily followed and
rectified this great effort, let the reader take two historians and
two works, one " The Life and Letters of Cromwell " by Carlyle,
and the other the " Port Royal " of Sainte-Beuve. He will see
how precisely, how clearly, and how profoundly we detect the
soul of a man beneath his actions and works; how, under an old
general and in place of an ambitious man vulgarly hypocritical,
we find one tormented by the disordered reveries of a gloomy
imagination, but practical in instinct and faculties, thoroughly
English and strange and incomprehensible to whoever has not
studied the climate and the race; how, with about a hundred
scattered letters and a dozen or more mutilated speeches, we fol-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 7

low him from his farm and his team to his general's tent and to
his Protector's throne, in his transformation and in his develop-
ment, in his struggles of conscience and in his statesman's reso-
lutions, in such a way that the mechanism of his thought and
action becomes visible and the ever renewed and fitful tragedy,
within which racked this great gloomy soul, passes like the
tragedies of Shakespeare into the souls of those who behold
them. We see how, behind convent disputes and the obstinacy
of nuns, we recover one of the great provinces of human psy-
chology; how fifty or more characters, rendered invisible through
the uniformity of a narration careful of the properties, come
forth in full daylight, each standing out clear in its countless
diversites; how, underneath theological dissertations and mo-
notonous sermons, we discern the throbbings of ever-breathing
hearts, the excitements and depressions of the religious life, the
unforeseen reaction and pell-mell stir of natural feeling, the in-
filtrations of surrounding society, the intermittent triumphs of
grace, presenting so many shades of difference that the fullest
description and most flexible style can scarcely garner in the
vast harvest which the critic has caused to germinate in this
abandoned field. And the same elsewhere, Germany, with its
genius, so pliant, so broad, so prompt in transformations, so
fitted for the reproduction of the remotest and strangest states
of human thought; England, with its matter-of-fact mind, so
suited to the grappling with moral problems, to making them
clear by figures, weights, and measures, by geography and sta-
tistics, by texts and common sense; France, at length, with its
Parisian culture and drawing-room habits, with its unceasing
analysis of characters and of works, with its ever ready irony at
detecting weaknesses, with its skilled finesse in discriminating
shades of thought — all have ploughed over the same ground, and
we now begin to comprehend that no region of history exists in
which this deep sub-soil should not be reached if we would
secure adequate crops between the furrows.

Such is the second step, and we are now in train to follow it
out. Such is the proper aim of contemporary "criticism. No
one has done this work so judiciously and on so grand a scale
as Sainte-Beuve; in this respect, we are all his pupils; literary,
philosophic, and religious criticism in books, and even in the
newspapers, is to-day entirely changed by his method. Ulterior

8 TAINE

evolution must start from this point. I have often attempted to
expose what this evokition is; in my opinion, it is a new road
open to history and which I shall strive to describe more in
detail.

Ill

After having observed in a man and noted down one, two,
three and then a multitude of sentiments, do these suffice and
does your knowledge of him seem complete? Does a memo-
randum book constitute a psychology? It is not a psychology,
and here, as elsewhere, the search for causes must follow the
collection of facts. It matters not what the facts may be,
whether physical or moral, they always spring from causes;
there are causes for ambition, for courage, for veracity, as well
as for digestion, for muscular action, and for animal heat. Vice
and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar; every complex
fact grows out of the simple facts with which it is affiliated and
on which it depends. We must therefore try to ascertain what
simple facts underlie moral qualities the same as we ascertain
those that underlie physical qualities, and, for example, let us
take the first fact that comes to hand, a religious system of
music, that of a Protestant church. A certain inward cause has
inclined the minds of worshippers towards these grave, monoto-
nous melodies, a cause much greater than its effect; that is to
say, a general conception of the veritable outward forms of wor-
ship which man owes to God ; it is this general conception which
has shaped the architecture of the temple, cast out statues, dis-
pensed with paintings, effaced ornaments, shortened ceremonies,
confined the members of a congregation to high pews which cut
off the view, and governed the thousand details of decoration,
posture, and all other externals. This conception itself again
proceeds from a more general cause, an idea of human conduct
in general, inward and outward, prayers, actions, dispositions of
every sort that man is bound to maintain toward the Deity; it
is this which has enthroned the doctrine of grace, lessened the
importance of the clergy, transformed the sacraments, sup-
pressed observances, and changed the religion of discipline into
one of morality. This conception, in its turn, depends on a
third one, still more general, that of moral perfection as this is

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 9

found in a perfect God, the impeccable judge, the stern overseer,
who regards every soul as sinful, meriting punishment, incapable
of virtue or of salvation, except through a stricken conscience
which He provokes and the renewal of the heart which He
brings about. Here is the master conception, consisting of duty
erected into the absolute sovereign of human life, and which
prostrates all other ideals at the feet of the moral ideal. Here
we reach what is deepest in man; for, to explain this conception,
we must consider the race he belongs to, say the German, the
Northman, the formation and character of his intellect, his ways
in general of thinking and feelmg, that tardiness and frigidity
of sensation which keeps him from rashly and easily falling under
the empire of sensual enjoyments, that bluntness of taste, that
irregularity and those outbursts of conception which arrest in
him the birth of refined and harmonious forms and methods;
that disdain of appearances, that yearning for truth, that attach-
ment to abstract, bare ideas which develop conscience in him at
the expense of everything else. Here the search comes to an
end. We have reached a certain primitive disposition, a par-
ticular trait belonging to sensations of all kinds, to every con-
ception peculiar to an age or to a race, to characteristics insepar-
able from every idea and feeling that stir in the human breast.
Such are the grand causes, for these are universal and permanent
causes, present in every case and at every moment, everywhere
and always active, indestructible, and inevitably dominant in the
end, since, whatever accidents cross their path, being limited and
partial, end in yielding to the obscure and incessant repetition
of their energ\^; so that the general structure of things and all
the main features of events are their work, all religions and phil-
osophies, all poetic and industrial systems, all forms of society
and of the family, all, in fine, being imprints bearing the stamp
of their seal.

There is, then, a system in human ideas and sentiments, the
prime motor of which consists in general traits, certain charac-
teristics of thought and feeling common to men belonging to a
particular race, epoch, or country. Just as crystals in miner-
alogy, whatever their diversity, proceed from a few simple

lo TAINE

physical forms, so do civilizations in history, however these may
differ, proceed from a few spiritual forms. One is explained by
a primitive geometrical element as the other is explained by a
primitive psychological element. In order to comprehend the
entire group of mineralogical species we must first study a regu-
lar solid in the general, its facets and angles, and observe in this
abridged form the innumerable transformations of which it is
susceptible. In like manner, if we would comprehend the entire
group of historic varieties we must consider beforehand a human
soul in the general, with its two or three fundamental faculties,
and, in this abridgment, observe the principal forms it may pre-
sent. This sort of ideal tableau, the geometrical as well as psy-
chological, is not very complex, and we soon detect the limita-
tions of organic conditions to which civilizations, the same as
crystals, are forcibly confined. What do we find in man at the
point of departure? Images or representations of objects,
namely, that which floats before him internally, lasts a certain
time, is effaced, and then returns after contemplating this or
that tree or animal, in short, some sensible object. This forms
the material basis of the rest and the development of this material
basis is twofold, speculative or positive, just as these representa-
tions end in a general conception or in an active resolution.
Such is man, summarily abridged. It is here, within these nar-
row confines, that human diversities are encountered, now in the
matter itself and again in the primordial twofold development.
However insignificant in the elements they are of vast signifi-
cance in the mass, while the slightest change in the factors leads
to gigantic changes in the results. According as the representa-
tion is distinct, as if stamped by a coining-press, or confused and
blurred ; according as it concentrates in itself a larger or smaller
number of the characters of an object; according as it is violent
and accompanied with impulsions or tranquil and surrounded
with calmness, so are all the operations and the whole running-
gear of the human machine entirely transformed. In like man-
ner again, according as the ulterior development of the represen-
tation varies, so does the whole development of the man vary. If
the general conception in which this ends is merely a dry nota-
tion in Chinese fashion, language becomes a kind of algebra,
religion and poetry are reduced to a minimum, philosophy is
brought down to a sort of moral and practical common sense,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE . n

science to a collection of recipes, classifications, and utilitarian
mnemonics, the mind itself taking a wholly positive turn. If,
on the contrary, the general conception in which the representa-
tion culminates is a poetic and figurative creation, a living sym-
bol, as with the Aryan races, language becomes a sort of shaded
and tinted epic in which each word stands as a personage, poesy
and religion assume magnificent and inexhaustible richness, and
metaphysics develops with breadth and subtlety without any
consideration of positive bearings ; the whole intellect, notwith-
standing the deviation and inevitable weaknesses of the effort, is
captivated by the beautiful and sublime, thus conceiving an ideal
type which, through its nobleness and harmony, gathers to itself
all the affections and enthusiasms of humanity. If, on the other
hand, the general conception in which the representation culmi-
nates is poetic but abrupt, is reached not gradually but by
sudden intuition, if the original operation is not a regular de-
velopment but a violent explosion — then, as with the Semitic
races, metaphysical power is wanting ; the religious conception
becomes that of a royal God, consuming and solitary ; science
cannot take shape, the intellect grows rigid and too headstrong
to reproduce the delicate ordering of nature ; poetry cannot give
birth to aught but a series of vehement, grandiose exclamations,
while language no longer renders the concatenation of reasoning
and eloquence, man being reduced to lyric enthusiasm, to un-
governable passion, and to narrow and fanatical action. It is in
this interval between the particular representation and the uni-
versal conception that the germs of the greatest human differ-
ences are found. Some races, like the classic, for example, pass
from the former to the latter by a graduated scale of ideas regu-
larly classified and more and more general ; others, like the Ger-
manic, traverse the interval in leaps, with uniformity and after
prolonged and uncertain groping. Others, like the Romans
and the English, stop at the lowest stages; others, like the
Hindoos and Germans, mount to the uppermost. If, now, after
considering the passage from the representation to the idea,
we regard the passage from the representation to the resolution,
wjc find here elementary differences of like importance and of
the same order, according as the impression is vivid, as in South-
ern climes, or faint, as in Northern climes, as it ends in instan-
taneous action as with barbarians, or tardily as with civilized

12 TAINE

nations, as it is capable or not of growth, of inequality, of persist-
ence and of association. The entire system of human passion,
all the risks of public peace and security, all labor and action,
spring from these sources. It is the same with the other pri-
mordial differences; their effects embrace an entire civilization,
and may be likened to those algebraic formulae which, within
narrow bounds, describe beforehand the curve of which these
form the law. Not that this law always prevails to the end;
sometimes, perturbations arise, but, even when this happens,
it is not because the law is defective, but because it has not
operated alone. New elements have entered into combination
with old ones ; powerful foreign forces have interfered to oppose
primitive forces. The race has emigrated, as with the ancient
Aryans, and the change of climate has led to a change in the
whole intellectual economy and structure of society. A people
has been conquered like the Saxon nation, and the new political
structure has imposed on it customs, capacities, and desires
which it did not possess. The nation has established itself per-
manently in the midst of downtrodden and threatening subjects,
as with the ancient Spartans, while the necessity of living, as in
an armed encampment, has violently turned the whole moral
and social organization in one unique direction. At all events,
the mechanism of human history is like this. We always find
the primitive mainspring consisting of some widespread ten-
dency of soul and intellect, either innate and natural to the race or
acquired by it and due to some circumstance forced upon it.
These great given mainsprings gradually produce their effects,
that is to say, at the end of a few centuries they place the nation
in a new religious, literary, social, and economic state; a new
condition which, combined with their renewed effort, produces
another condition, sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one,
now slowly, now rapidly, and so on ; so that the entire develop-
ment of each distinct civilization may be considered as the effect
of one permanent force which, at every moment, varies its work
by modifying the circumstances where it acts.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 13

Three different sources contribute to the production of this
elementary moral state, race, environment, and epoch. What
we call race consists of those innate and hereditary dispositions
which man brings with him into the world and which are gen-
erally accompanied with marked differences of temperament and
of bodily structure. They vary in different nations. Naturally,
there are varieties of men as there are varieties of cattle and
horses, some brave and intelligent, and others timid and of limit-
ed capacity; some capable of superior conceptions and crea-
tions, and others reduced to rudimentary ideas and contrivances;
some specially fitted for certain works, and more richly furnished
with certain instincts, as we see in the better endowed species of
dogs, some for running and others for fighting, some for hunt-
ing and others for guarding houses and flocks. We have here a
distinct force; so distinct that, in spite of the enormous devia-
tions which both the other motors impress upon it, we still rec-
ognize, and which a race like the Aryan people, scattered from
the Ganges to the Hebrides, established under all climates,
ranged along every degree of civilization, transformed by thirty
centuries of revolutions, shows nevertheless in its languages, in
its religions, in its literatures, and in its philosophies, the com-
munity of blood and of intellect v/hich still to-day binds together
all its offshoots. However they may differ, their parentage is
not lost; barbarism, culture and grafting, differences of atmos-
phere and of soil, fortunate or unfortunate occurrences, have
operated in vain; the grand characteristics of the original form
have lasted, and we find that the two or three leading features of
the primitive imprint are again apparent under the subsequent
imprints with which time has overlaid them. There is nothing
surprising in this extraordinary tenacity. Although the im-
mensity of the distance allows us to catch only a glimpse in a
dubious light of the origin of species,^ the events of history
throw sufficient light on events anterior to history to explain the
almost unshaken solidity of primordial traits. At the moment
of encountering them, fifteen, twenty, and thirty centuries before
our era, in an Aryan, Egyptian, or Chinese, they represent the

* Darwin, " The Origin of Species." Prosper Lucas, " De I'Heredite."
2 — Classics. Vol. 38

TAINE

work of a much greater number of centuries, perhaps the work
of many myriads of centuries. For, as soon as an animal is born
it must adapt itself to its surroundings; it breathes in another
way, it renews itself differently, it is otherwise stimulated accord-
ing as the atmosphere, the food, and the temperature are differ-
ent. A different climate and situation create different neces-
sities and hence activities of a different kind; and hence, again,
a system of different habits, and, finally a system of different
aptitudes and instincts. Man, thus compelled to put himself in
equilibrium with circumstances, contracts a corresponding tem-
perament and character, and his character, like his temperament,
are acquisitions all the more stable because of the outward im-
pression being more deeply imprinted in him by more frequent
repetitions and transmitted to his offspring by more ancient
heredity. So that at each moment of time, the character of a
people may be considered as a summary of all antecedent actions
and sensations; that is to say, as a quantity and as a weighty
mass, not infinite,^ since all things in nature are limited, but dis-
proportionate to the rest and almost impossible to raise, since
each minute of an almost infinite past has contributed to render
it heavier, and, in order to turn the scale, it would require, on the
other side, a still greater accumulation of actions and sensations.
Such is the first and most abundant source of these master facul-
ties from which historic events are derived ; and we see at once
that if it is powerful it is owing to its not being a mere source,
but a sort of lake, and like a deep reservoir wherein other sources
have poured their waters for a multitude of centuries.

When we have thus verified the internal structure of a race we
must consider the environment in which it lives. For man is
not alone in the world; nature envelops him and other men sur-
round him ; accidental and secondary folds come and overspread
the primitive and permanent fold, while physical or social cir-
cumstances derange or complete the natural groundwork sur-
rendered to them. At one time climate has had its effect. Al-
though the history of Aryan nations can be only obscurely traced
from their common country to their final abodes, we can never-
theless affirm that the profound difference which is apparent be-
tween the Germanic races on the one hand, and the Hellenic and
Latin races on the other, proceeds in great part from the dififer-

• Spinosa, " Ethics," part iv., axiom.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 15

ences between the countries in which they have established them-
selves— the former in cold and moist countries, in the depths of
gloomy forests and swamps, or on the borders of a wild ocean,
confined to melancholic or rude sensations, inclined to drunken-
ness and gross feeding, leading a militant and carnivorous life;
the latter, on the contrary, living amidst the finest scenery, along-
side of a brilliant, sparkling sea inviting navigation and com-
merce, exempt from the grosser cravings of the stomach,
disposed at the start to social habits and customs, to political
organization, to the sentiments and faculties which develop the
art of speaking, the capacity for enjoyment and invention in the
sciences, in art, and in literature. At another time, political
events have operated, as in the two Italian civilizations: the first
one tending wholly to action, to conquest, to government, and to
legislation, through the primitive situation of a city of refuge, a
frontier emporium, and of an armed aristocracy which, import-
ing and enrolling foreigners and the vanquished under it, sets
two hostile bodies facing each other, with no outlet for its inter-
nal troubles and rapacious instincts but systematic warfare ; the
second one, excluded from unity and political ambition on a
grand scale by the permanency of its municipal system, by the
cosmopolite situation of its pope and by the military intervention
of neighboring states, and follow^ing the bent of its magnificent
and harmonious genius, is wholly carried over to the worship of
voluptuousness and beauty. Finally, at another time, social con-
ditions have imposed their stamp as, eighteen centuries ago, by
Christianity, and twenty-five centuries ago by Buddhism, when,
around the Mediterranean as in Hindostan, the extreme effects
of Aryan conquest and organization led to intolerable oppres-
sion, the crushing of the individual, utter despair, the whole
world under the ban of a curse, with the development of meta-
physics and visions, until man, in this dungeon of despondency,
feeling his heart melt, conceived of abnegation, charity, tender
love, gentleness, humility, human brotherhood, here in the idea
of universal nothingness, and there under that of the fatherhood
of God. Look around at the regulative instincts and faculties im-
planted in a race; in brief, the turn of mind according to which it
thinks and acts at the present day; w^e shall find most frequent-
ly that its work is due to one of these prolonged situations, to
these enveloping circumstances, to these persistent gigantic

i6 TAINE

pressures brought to bear on a mass of men who, one by one,
and all collectively, from one generation to another, have been
unceasingly bent and fashioned by them, in Spain a crusade of
eight centuries against the Mohammedans, prolonged yet longer
even to the exhaustion of the nation through the expulsion of
the Moors, through the spoliation of the Jews, through the es-
tablishment of the Inquisition, through the Catholic wars; in
England, a political establishment of eight centuries which
maintains man erect and respectful, independent and obedient,
all accustomed to struggling together in a body under the sanc-
tion of law; in France, a Latin organization which, at first im-
posed on docile barbarians, then levelled to the ground under the
universal demolition, forms itself anew under the latent workings
of national instinct, developing under hereditary monarchs and
ending in a sort of equalized, centralized, administrative repub-
lic under dynasties exposed to revolutions. Such are the most
efficacious among the observable causes which mold the primi-
tive man ; they are to nations what education, pursuit, condition,
and abode are to individuals, and seem to comprise all, since the
external forces which fashion human matter, and by which the
outward acts on the inward, are comprehended in them.

There is, nevertheless, a third order of causes, for, with the
forces within and without, there is the work these have already
produced together, which work itself contributes towards pro-
ducing the ensuing work; beside the permanent impulsion and
the given environment there is the acquired momentum. When
national character and surrounding circumstances operate it is
not on a tabula rasa, but on one already bearing imprints. Ac-
cording as this tabula is taken at one or at another moment so is
the imprint different, and this suffices to render the total efifect
diflferent. Consider, for example, two moments of a literature
or of an art, French tragedy under Corneille and under Voltaire,
and Greek drama under ^schylus and under Euripides, Latin
poetry under Lucretius and under Claudian, and Italian paint-
ing under Da Vinci and under Guido. Assuredly, there is no
change of general conception at either of these two extreme
points ; ever the same human type must be portrayed or repre-
sented in action ; the cast of the verse, the dramatic structure,
the physical form have all persisted. But there is this among
these differences, that one of the artists is a precursor and the

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 17

Other a successor, that the first one has no model and the second
one has a model; that the former sees things face to face, and
that the latter sees them through the intermediation of the
former, that many departments of art have become more perfect,
that the simplicity and grandeur of the impression have dimin-
ished, that what is pleasing and refined in form has augmented —
in short, that the first work has determined the second. In this
respect, it is with a people as with a plant; the same sap at the
same temperature and in the same soil produces, at different
stages of Its successive elaborations, different developments,
buds, flowers, fruits, and seeds, in such a way that the condition
of the following is always that of the preceding and is born of
its death. Now, if you no longer regard a brief moment, as
above, but one of those grand periods of development which
embraces one or many centuries like the Middle Ages, or our
last classic period, the conclusion is the same. A certain dominat-
ing conception has prevailed throughout; mankind, during two
hundred years, during five hundred years, have represented to
themselves a certain ideal figure of man, in mediaeval times the
knight and the monk, in our classic period the courtier and re-
fined talker; this creative and universal conception has monopo-
lized the entire field of action and thought, and, after spreading
its involuntarily systematic works over the world, it languished
and then died out, and now a new idea has arisen, destined to a
like domination and to equally multiplied creations. Note here
that the latter depends in part on the former, and that it is the
former, w-hich, combining its effect with those of national genius
and surrounding circumstances, will impose their bent and their
direction on new-born things. It is according to this law that
great historic currents are formed, meaning by this, the long rule
of a form of intellect or of a master idea, like that period of
spontaneous creations called the Renaissance, or that period of
oratorical classifications called the Classic Age, or that series
of mystic systems called the Alexandrine and Christian epoch, or
that series of mythological efflorescences found at the origins of
Germany, Inclia, and Greece. Here as elsewhere, we are deal-
ing merely with a mechanical problem : the total effect is a com-
pound wholly determined by the grandeur and direction of the
forces which produce it. The sole difference which separates
these moral problems from physical problems lies in this, that

1 8 TAINE

in the former the directions and grandeur cannot be estimated
by or stated in figures with the same precision as in the latter.
If a want, a faculty, is a quantity capable of degrees, the same as
pressure or weight, this quantity is not measurable like that of
the pressure or weight. We cannot fix it in an exact or ap-
proximative formula ; we can obtain or give of it only a literary
impression; we are reduced to noting and citing the prominent
facts which make it manifest and which nearly, or roughly, indi-
cate about what grade on the scale it must be ranged at. And
yet, notwithstanding the methods of notation are not the same in
the moral sciences as in the physical sciences, nevertheless, as
matter is the same in both, and is equally composed of forces,
directions and magnitudes, we can still show that in one as in
the other, the final effect takes place according to the same law.
This is great or small, according as the fundamental forces
are great or small and act more or less precisely in the same
sense, according as the distinct effects of race, environment and
epoch combine to enforce each other or combine to neutral-
ize each other. Thus are explained the long impotences and the
brilliant successes which appear irregularly and with no apparent
reason in the life of a people; the causes of these consist in in-
ternal concordances and contrarieties. There was one of these
concordances when, in the seventeenth century, the social dispo-
sition and conversational spirit innate in France encountered
drawing-room formalities and the moment of oratorical analysis;
when, in the nineteenth century, the flexible, profound genius of
Germany encountered the age of philosophic synthesis and of
cosmopolite criticism. One of these contrarieties happened
when, in the seventeenth century, the blunt, isolated genius of
England awkwardly tried to don the new polish of urbanity, and
when, in the sixteenth century, the lucid, prosaic French intellect
tried to gestate a living poesy. It is this secret concordance of
creative forces which produced the exquisite courtesy and noble
cast of literature under Louis XIV and Bossuet, and the grandi-
ose metaphysics and broad critical sympathy under Hegel and
Goethe. It is this secret contrariety of creative forces which
produced the literary incompleteness, the licentious plays, the
abortive drama of Dryden and Wycherly, the poor Greek impor-
tations, the gropings, the minute beauties and fragments of
Ronsard and the Pleiad. We may confidently affirm that the

msTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 19

unknown creations toward which the current of coming ages
is bearing us will spring from and be governed by these primor-
dial forces; that, if these forces could be measured and com-
puted we might deduce from them, as from a formula, the char-
acters of future civilization; and that if, notwithstanding the
evident rudeness of our notations, and the fundamental inexacti-
tude of our measures, we would nowadays form some idea of our
general destinies, we must base our conjectures on an examina-
tion of these forces. For, in enumerating them, we run through
the full circle of active forces; and when the race, the environ-
ment, and the moment have been considered — that is to say the
inner mainspring, the pressure from without, and the impulsion
already acquired — we have exhausted not only all real causes
but again all possible causes of movement.

There remains to be ascertained in what way these causes, ap-
plied to a nation or to a century, distribute their effects. Like a
spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, ac-
cording to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches
the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a
people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in dif-
ferent proportions, and by regular descent, over the different
series of facts which compose its civilization.^ In preparing the
geographical map of a country, starting at its watershed, we see
the slopes, just below this common point, dividing themselves
into five or six principal basins, and then each of the latter into
several others, and so on until the whole country, with its thou-
sands of inequalities of surface, is included in the ramifications
of this network. In like manner, in preparing the psychological
map of the events and sentiments belonging to a certain human
civilization, we find at the start five or six well determined prov-
inces— religion, art, philosophy, the state, the family, and indus-
tries; next, in each of these provinces, natural departments, and
then finally, in each of these departments, still smaller territories

'For this scale of coordinate effects i., 3d ed., by Mommsen; " Conse-

consult, " Langues Semitiques," by quences de la democratie," vol. iii., by

Renan, ch. i ; " Comparison des civilisa- De Tocqucville.
tions Grecque et Romaine," vol. i., ch.

20 TAINE

until we arrive at those countless details of life which we observe
daily in ourselves and around us. If, again, we examine and
compare together these various groups of facts we at once find
that they are composed of parts and that all have parts in com-
mon. Let us take first the three principal products of human
intelligence — religion, art, and philosophy. What is a philos-
ophy but a conception of nature and of its primordial causes
under the form of abstractions and formulas? What underlies
a religion and an art if not a conception of this same nature, and
of these same primordial causes, under the form of more or less
determinate symbols, and of more or less distinct personages,
with this difference, that in the first case we believe that they ex-
ist, and in the second case that they do not exist. Let the reader
consider some of the great creations of the intellect in India, in
Scandinavia, in Persia, in Rome, in Greece, and he will find that
art everywhere is a sort of philosophy become sensible, religion
a sort of poem regarded as true, and philosophy a sort of art and
religion, dessicated and reduced to pure abstractions. There is,
then, in the centre of each of the'fee groups a common element,
the conception of the world and its origin, and if they dififer
amongst each other it is because each combines with the com-
mon element a distinct element; here the power of abstraction,
there the faculty of personifying with belief, and, finally, the
talent for personifying without belief. Let us now take the two
leading products of human association, the Family and the State.
What constitutes the State other than the sentiment of obedience
by which a multitude of men collect together under the authority
of a chief? And what constitutes the Family other than the
sentiment of obedience by which a wife and children act together
under the direction of a father and husband? The Family is a
natural, primitive, limited state, as the State is an artificial,
ulterior, and expanded Family, while beneath the differences
which arise from the number, origin, and condition of its mem-
bers, we distinguish, in the small as in the large community, a
like fundamental disposition of mind which brings them together
and unites them. Suppose, now, that this common element re-
ceives from the environment, the epoch, and the race peculiar
characteristics, and it is clear that all the groups into which it
enters will be proportionately modified. If the sentiment of

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 21

obedience is merely one of fear,* you encounter, as in most of the
Oriental states, the brutality of despotism, a prodigality of vigor-
ous punishments, the exploitation of the subject, servile habits,
insecurity of property, impoverished production, female slavery,
and the customs of the harem. If the sentiment of obedience is
rooted in the instinct of discipline, sociability, and honor, you
find, as in France, a complete military organization, a superb ad-
ministrative hierarchy, a weak public spirit with outbursts of
patriotism, the unhesitating docility of the subject along with the
hotheadedness of the revolutionist, the obsequiousness of the
courtier along with the reverse of the gentleman, the charm of re-
fined conversation along with home and family bickerings, con-
jugal equality together with matrimonial incompatibilities under
the necessary constraints of the law. If, finally, the sentiment of
obedience is rooted in the instinct of subordination and in the
idea of duty, you perceive, as in Germanic nations, the security
and contentment of the household, the firm foundations of do-
mestic life, the slow and imperfect development of worldly mat-
ters, innate respect for established rank, superstitious reverence
for the past, maintenance of social inequalities, natural and habit-
ual deference to the law. Similarly in a race, just as there is a
difference of aptitude for general ideas, so will its religion, art,
and philosophy be different. If man is naturally fitted for
broader universal conceptions and inclined at the same time to
their derangement, through the nervous irritability of an over-
excited organization, we find, as in India, a surprising richness
of gigantic religious creations, a splendid bloom of extravagant
transparent epics, a strange concatenation of subtle, imaginative
philosophic systems, all so intimately associated and so inter-
penetrated with a common sap, that we at once recognize them,
by their amplitude, by their color, and by their disorder, as pro-
ductions of the same climate and of the same spirit. If, on the
contrary, the naturally sound and well-balanced man is content
to restrict his conceptions to narrow bounds in order to cast
them in more precise forms, we see, as in Greece, a theology of
artists and narrators, special gods that are soon separated from
objects and almost transformed at once into substantial per-
sonages, the sentiment of universal unity nearly effaced and

* " L'Esprit des Lois," by Montesquieu; the essential principles of the
three governments.

22 TAINE

scarcely maintained in the vague notion of destiny, a philosophy,
rather than subtle and compact, grandiose and systematic, nar-
row metaphysically ^ but incomparable in its logic, sophistry,
and morality, a poesy and arts superior to anything we have seen
in lucidity, naturalness, proportion, truth, and beauty. If, finally,
man is reduced to narrow conceptions deprived of any specu-
lative subtlety, and at the same time finds that he is absorbed and
completely hardened by practical interests, we see, as in Rome,
rudimentary deities, mere empty names, good for denoting the
petty details of agriculture, generation, and the household, verit-
able marriage and farming labels, and, therefore, a null or bor-
rowed mythology, philosophy, and poesy. Here, as elsewhere,
comes in the law of mutual dependencies.^ A civilization is a
living unit, the parts of which hold together the same as the parts
of an organic body. Just as in an animal, the instincts, teeth,
limbs, bones, and muscular apparatus are bound together in
such a way that a variation of one determines a corresponding
variation in the others, and out of which a skilful naturalist, with
a few bits, imagines and reconstructs an almost complete body,
so, in a civilization, do religion, philosophy, the family scheme,
literature and the arts form a system in which each local change
involves a general change, so that an experienced historian, who
studies one portion apart from the others, sees beforehand and
partially predicts the characteristics of the rest. There is noth-
ing vague in this dependence. The regulation of all this in the
living body consists, first, of the tendency to manifest a certain
primordial type, and, next, the necessity of its possessing organs
which can supply its wants and put itself in harmony with itself
in order to live. The regulation in a civilization consists in the
presence in each great human creation of an elementary pro-
ductor equally present in other surrounding creations, that i«,
some faculty and aptitude, some efficient and marked disposi-
tion, which, with its own peculiar character, introduces this with
that into all operations in which it takes part, and which, accord-
ing to its variations, causes variation in all the works in which it
cooperates.

* The birth of the Alexandrine phi- Hegel, or again in the admirable bold«

losophy is due to contact with the Or- ness of Brahmanic and Buddhist spec-

ient. Aristotle's metaphysical views ulation.

stand alone. Moreover, with him as * I have very often made attempts to

with Plato, they afford merely a glimpse. state this law, especially in the pref.TCO

By way of contrast see systematic power to " Essais de Critique et d'Histoire."
in riotinus, Proclus, Schellins, and

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 23

VII

Having reached this point, we can obtain a glimpse of the
principal features of human transformation, and can now search
for the general laws which regulate not only events, but classes
of events ; not only this religion or that literature, but the whole
group of religions or of literatuses. If, for example, it is ad-
mitted that a religion is a metaphysical poem associated with be-
lief; if it is recognized, besides, that there are certain races and
certain environments in which belief, poetic faculty, and meta-
physical faculty display themselves in common with unwonted
vigor; if we consider that Christianity and Buddhism were de-
veloped at periods of grand systematizations and in the midst of
sufferings like the oppression which stirred up the fanatics of
Cevennes; if, on the other hand, it is recognized that primitive
religions are born at the dawn of human reason, during the
richest expansion of human imagination, at times of the greatest
naivete and of the greatest credulity ; if we consider, again, that
Mohammedanism appeared along with the advent of poetic
prose and of the conception of material unity, amongst a people
destitute of science and at the moment of a sudden development
of the intellect — we might conclude that religion is born and de-
clines, is reformed and transformed, according as circumstances
fortify and bring together, with more or less precision and en-
ergy, its three generative instincts; and we would then compre-
hend why religion is endemic in India among specially exalted
imaginative and philosophic intellects; why it blooms out so
wonderfully and so grandly in the Middle Ages, in an oppressive
society, amongst new languages and literatures; why it de-
velops again in the sixteenth century with a new character and
an heroic enthusiasm, at the time of an universal renaissance and
at the awakening of the Germanic races; why it swarms out in
so many bizarre sects in the rude democracy of America and
under the bureaucratic despotism of Russia; why, in fine, it is
seen spreading out in the Europe of to-day in such different pro-
portions and with such special traits, according to such differ-
ences of race and of civilizations. And so for every kind of
human production, for letters, music, the arts of design, philos-
ophy, the sciences, state industries, and the rest. Each has

»4

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some moral tendency for its direct cause, or a concurrence of
moral tendencies; given the cause, it appears; the cause with-
drawn, it disappears; the weakness or intensity of the cause is
the measure of its own weakness or intensity. It is bound to
that like any physical phenomenon to its condition, like dew to
the chilliness of a surrounding atmosphere, like dilatation to
heat. Couples exist in the moral world as they exist in the
physical world, as rigorously linked together and as universally
diffused. Whatever in one case produces, alters, or suppresses
the first term, produces, alters, and suppresses the second term
as a necessary consequence. Whatever cools the surrounding
atmosphere causes the fall of dew. Whatever develops cre-
dulity, along with poetic conceptions of the universe, engenders
religion. Thus have things come about, and thus will they
continue to come about. As soon as the adequate and necessary
condition of one of these vast apparitions becomes known to us
our mind has a hold on the future as well as on the past. We
can confidently state under what circumstances it will reappear,
foretell without rashness many portions of its future history,
and sketch with precaution some of the traits of its ulterior de-
velopment.

VIII

History has reached this point at the present day, or rather it
is nearly there, on the threshold of this inquest. The question
as now stated is this: Given a literature, a philosophy, a society,
an art, a certain group of arts, what is the moral state of things
which produces it? And what are the conditions of race, epoch,
and environment the best adapted to produce this moral state?
There is a distinct moral state for each of these formations and
for each of their branches; there is one for art in general as well
as for each particular art; for architecture, painting, sculpture,
music, and poetry, each with a germ of its own in the large field
of human psychology; each has its own law, and it is by virtue
of this law that we see each shoot up, apparently haphazard,
singly and alone, amidst the miscarriages of their neighbors, like
painting in Flanders and Holland in the seventeenth century,
like poetry in England in the sixteenth century, like music in
Germany in the eighteenth century. At this moment, and in

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

»s

these countries, the conditions for one art and not for the others
are fulfilled, and one branch only has bloomed out amidst the
general sterility. It is these laws of human vegetation which
history must now search for; it is this special psychology of each
special formation which must be got at; it is the composition of
a complete table of these peculiar conditions that must now be
worked out. There is nothing more delicate and nothing more
difficult. Montesquieu undertook it, but in his day the interest
in history was too recent for him to be successful; nobody, in-
deed, had any idea of the road that was to be followed, and even
at the present day we scarcely begin to obtain a glimpse of it.
Just as astronomy, at bottom, is a mechanical problem, and
physiology, likewise, a chemical problem, so is history, at bot-
tom, a problem of psychology. There is a particular system of
inner impressions and operations which fashions the artist, the
believer, the musician, the painter, the nomad, the social man;
for each of these, the filiation, intensity, and interdependence of
ideas and of emotions are different; each has his own moral
history, and his own special organization, along with some
master tendency and with some dominant trait. To explain
each of these would require a chapter devoted to a profound in-
ternal analysis, and that is a work that can scarcely be called
sketched out at the present day. But one man, Stendhal,
through a certain turn of mind and a peculiar education, has at-
tempted it, and even yet most of his readers find his works para-
doxical and obscure. His talent and ideas were too premature.
His admirable insight, his profound sayings carelessly thrown
out, the astonishing precision of his notes and logic, were not
understood ; people were not aware that, under the appearances
and talk of a man of the world, he explained the most complex
of internal mechanisms; that his finger touched the great main-
spring, that he brought scientific processes to bear in the history
of the heart, the art of employing figures, of decomposing, of
deducing; that he w^as the first to point out fundamental causes
such as nationalities, climates, and temperaments; in short, that
he treated :entiments as they should be treated, that is to say, as a
naturalist and physicist, by making classifications and estimating
forces. On account of all this he was pronounced dry and ec-
centric and allowed to live in isolation, composing novels, books
of travel and taking notes, for which he counted upon, and has

26 TAINE

obtained, about a dozen or so of readers. And yet his works are
those in which we of the present day may find the most satis-
factory efforts that have been made to clear the road I have just
striven to describe. Nobody has taught one better how to ob-
serve with one's own eyes, first, to regard humanity around us
and Ufe as it is, and next, old and authentic documents; how to
read more than merely the black and white of the page; how to
detect under old print and the scrawl of the text the veritable
sentiment and the train of thought, the mental state in which
the words were penned. In his writings, as in those of Sainte-
Beuve and in those of the German critics, the reader will find
how much is to be derived from a literary document; if this
document is rich and we know how to interpret it, we will find in
it the psychology of a particular soul, often that of an age, and
sometimes that of a race. In this respect, a great poem, a good
novel, the confessions of a superior man, are more instructive
than a mass of historians and histories; I would give fifty vol-
umes of charters and a hundred diplomatic files for the memoirs
of Cellini, the epistles of Saint Paul, the table-talk of Luther, or
the comedies of Aristophanes. Herein lies the value of literary
productions. They are instructive because they are beautiful;
their usefulness increases with their perfection; and if they pro-
vide us with documents, it is because they are monuments. The
more visible a book renders sentiments the more literary it is,
for it is the special office of literature to take note of sentiments.
The more important the sentiments noted in a book the higher
its rank in literature, for it is by representing what sort of a life
a nation or an epoch leads, that a writer rallies to himself the
sympathies of a nation or of an epoch. Hence, among the docu-
ments which bring before our eyes the sentiments of preceding
generations, a literature, and especially a great literature, is in-
comparably the best. It resembles those admirable instruments
of remarkable sensitiveness which physicists make use of to de-
tect and measure the most profound and delicate changes that
occur in a human body. There is nothing approaching this in
constitutions or religions; the articles of a code or of a catechism
do no more than depict mind in gross and without finesse; if
there are documents which show life and spirit in politics and
in creeds, they are the eloquent discourses of the pulpit and the
tribune, memoirs and personal confessions, all belonging to liter-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 27

ature, so that, outside of itself, literature embodies whatever is
good elsewhere. It is mainly in studying literatures that we are
able to produce moral history, and arrive at some knowledge of
the psychological laws on which events depend.

I have undertaken to write a history of a literature and to
ascertain the psychology of a people; in selecting this one, it is
not without a motive. A people had to be taken possessing a
vast and complete literature, which is rarely found. There are
few nations which, throughout their existence, have thought and
written well in the full sense of the word. Among the ancients,
Latin literature is null at the beginning, and afterward borrowed
and an imitation. Among the moderns, German literature is
nearly a blank for two centuries.'' Italian and Spanish litera-
tures come to an end in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Ancient Greece, and modern France and England, alone offer a
complete series of great and expressive monuments. I have
chosen the English because, as this still exists and is open to
direct observation, it can be better studied than that of an ex-
tinct civilization of which fragments only remain ; and because,
being dififerent, it offers better than that of France very marked
characteristics in the eyes of a Frenchman. Moreover, outside
of what is peculiar to English civilization, apart from a spontane-
ous development, it presents a forced deviation due to the latest
and most effective conquest to which the country was subject;
the three given conditions out of which it issues — race, climate,
and the Norman conquest — are clearly and distinctly visible in
its literary monuments ; so that we study in this history the two
most potent motors of human transformation, namely, nature
and constraint, and we study them, without any break or uncer-
tainty, in a series of authentic and complete monuments. I have
tried to define these primitive motors, to show their gradual
effects, and explain how their insensible operation has brought
religions and literary productions into full light, and how the
inward mechanism is developed by which the barbarous Saxon
became the Englishman of the present day.
^ From 1550 to 1750.

BOOK I— THE SOURCE

BOOK I.— THE SOURCE

CHAPTER FIRST

THE SAXONS

Section I. — The Coast of the North Sea

AS you coast the North Sea from the Scheldt to Jutland,
you will mark in the first place that the characteristic
feature is the want of slope; marsh, waste, shoal; the
rivers hardly drag themselves along, swollen and sluggish, with
long, black-looking waves ; the flooding stream oozes over
the banks, and appears further on in stagnant pools. In Hol-
land the soil is but a sediment of mud ; here and there only
does the earth cover it with a crust, shallow and brittle, the
mere alluvium of the river, which the river seems ever about
to destroy. Thick clouds hover above, being fed by ceaseless
exhalations. They lazily turn their violet flanks, grow black,
suddenly descend in heavy showers ; the vapor, like a furnace-
smoke, crawls forever on the horizon. Thus watered, plants
multiply; in the angle between Jutland and the continent, in
a fat muddy soil, " the verdure is as fresh as that of England." *
Immense forests covered the land even after the eleventh cen-
tury. The sap of this humid country, thick and potent, circu-
lates in man as in the plants ; man's respiration, nutrition, sen-
sations and habits afifect also his faculties and his frame.

The land produced after this fashion has one enemy, to wit,
the sea. Holland maintains its existence only by virtue of its
dykes. In 1654 those in Jutland burst, and fifteen thousand of

' Maltc-Brun, iv. 398. Not counting The dialect of Jutland bears still a great
bays, gulfs, and canals, the sixteenth resemblance to English,
part of the country is covered by water.

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the inhabitants were swallowed up. One need only see the
blast of the North swirl down upon the low level of the soil,
wan and ominous:^ the vast yellow sea dashes against the
narrow belt of flat coast which seems incapable of a moment's
resistance ; the wind howls and bellows ; the sea-mews cry ;
the poor little ships flee as fast as they can, bending almost to
the gunwale, and endeavor to find a refuge in the mouth of the
river, which seems as hostile as the sea. A sad and precarious
existence, as it were face to face with a beast of prey. The
Frisians, in their ancient laws, speak already of the league
they have made against " the ferocious ocean." Even in a
calm this sea is unsafe. " Before me rolleth a waste of water
. . . and above me go rolling the storm-clouds, the form-
less dark gray daughters of air, which from the sea, in cloudy
buckets scoop up the water, ever wearied lifting and lifting,
and then pour it again in the sea, a mournful, wearisome busi-
ness. Over the sea, flat on his face, lies the monstrous terrible
North wind, sighing and sinking his voice as in secret, like an
old grumbler, for once in good humor, unto the ocean he talks,
and he tells her wonderful stories." ^ Rain, wind, and surge
leave room for naught but gloomy and melancholy thoughts.
The very joy of the billows has in it an inexplicable restlessness
and harshness. From Holland to Jutland, a string of small
deluged islands * bears witness to their ravages ; the shifting
sands which the tide drifts up obstruct and impede the banks
and entrance of the rivers.^ The first Roman fleet, a thousand
sail, perished there ; to this day ships wait a month or more
in sight of port, tossed upon the great white waves, not daring
to risk themselves in the shifting winding channel, notorious
for its wrecks. In winter a breast-plate of ice covers the two
streams ; the sea drives back the frozen masses as they descend ;
they pile themselves with a crash upon the sandbanks, and
sway to and fro ; now and then you may see a vessel, seized as

2 See Ruysdaal's painting in Mr. Bar- tion of it remained.— Turner, " History

ing's collection. Of the three Saxon of Anglo-Saxons," 1852, i. 97.

islands. North Strandt, Busen, and " Heine, " The North Sea," translated

Heligoland, North Strandt was inun- by Charles G. Leland. See Tacitus,

dated by the sea in 1300, 1483, 1532, 1615, " Annals," book 2, for the impressions

and almost destroyed in 1634. Busen is of the Romans, " truculentia cceli."

a level plain, beaten by storms, which it * Watten, Platen, Sande, Diineninseln.

has been found necessary to surround * Nine or ten miles out, near Heligo-

by a dyke. Heligoland was laid waste land, are the nearest soundings of about

by the sea in 800, 1300, 1500, 1649, the fifty fathoms.
last time so violently that only a por-

HISTORY <^F ENGLISH LITERATURE

in a vice, split in two beneath their violence. Picture, in this
foggy clime, amid hoar-frost and storm, in these marshes and
forests, half-naked savages, a kind of wild beasts, fishers and
hunters, but especially hunters of men; these are they, Saxons,
Angles, Jutes, Frisians ; ^ later on, Danes, who during the fifth
and the ninth centuries, with their swords and battle-axes, took
and kept the island of Britain.

A rude and foggy land, like their own, except in the depth
of its sea and the safety of its coasts, which one day will call up
real fleets and mighty vessels ; green England — the word rises
to the lips and expresses all. Here also moisture pervades
everything ; even in summer the mist rises ; even on clear
days you perceive it fresh from the great sea-girdle, or rising
from vast but ever slushy meadows, undulating with hill and
dale, intersected with hedges to the limit of the horizon. Here
and there a sunbeam strikes on the higher grasses with burn-
ing fiash, and the splendor of the verdure dazzles and almost
blinds you. The overflowing water straightens the flabby
stems ; they grow up, rank, weak, and filled with sap ; a sap
ever renewed, for the gray mists creep under a stratum of
motionless vapor, and at distant intervals the rim of heaven is
drenched by heavy showers. " There are yet commons as at
the time of the Conquest, deserted, abandoned,^ wild, covered
with furze and thorny plants, with here and there a horse graz-
ing in solitude. Joyless scene, unproductive soil 1 ® What a
labor it has been to humanize it! What impression it must
have made on the men of the South, the Romans of Caesar!
I thought, when I saw it, of the ancient Saxons, wanderers from
West and North, who came to settle in this land of marsh and
fogs, on the border of primeval forests, on the banks of these
great muddy streams, which roll down their slime to meet the
waves.^ They must have lived as hunters and swineherds;
growing, as before, brawny, fierce, gloomy. Take civilization
from this soil, and there will remain to the inhabitants only war,
the chase, gluttony, drunkenness. Smiling love, sweet poetic
dreams, art, refined and nimble thought, are for the happy

• Palgrave, " Saxon Commonwealth," • There are at least four rivers in Eng-
vol. i. land passing by the name of " Ouse,"

' " Notes of a Tourney in England." which is only another form of " ooze."

* Leonce de Lavergne, " De I'Agri- — Tr.
culture anglaise." " The soil is much

worse than that of France."

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shores of the Mediterranean. Here the barbarian, ill housed in
his mud-hovel, who hears the rain pattering whole days among
the oak leaves — what dreams can he have, gazing upon his
mud-pools and his sombre sky? "

Section II. — The Northern Barbarians

Huge white bodies, cool-blooded, with fierce blue eyes, red-
dish flaxen hair; ravenous stomachs, filled with meat and
cheese, heated by strong drinks ; of a cold temperament, slow
to love,^ home-stayers, prone to brutal drunkenness : these are
to this day the features which descent and climate preserve in
the race, and these are what the Roman historians discovered in
their former country. There is no living, in these lands, with-
out abundance of solid food ; bad weather keeps people at
home ; strong drinks are necessary to cheer them ; the senses
become blunted, the muscles are braced, the will vigorous. In
every country the body of man is rooted deep into the soil of
nature; and in this instance still deeper, because, being un^
cultivated, he is less removed from nature. In Germany
storm-beaten, in wretched boats of hide, amid the hardships and
dangers of seafaring life, they were pre-eminently adapted for en-
durance and enterprise, inured to misfortune, scorners of dan-
ger. Pirates at first : of all kinds of hunting the man-hunt is
most profitable and most noble ; they left the care of the land
and flocks to the women and slaves ; seafaring, war, and pil-
lage - was their whole idea of a freeman's work. They dashed
to sea in their two-sailed barks, landed anywhere, killed every-
thing ; and having sacrificed in honor of their gods the tithe of
their priooners, and leaving behind them the red light of their
burnings, went farther on to begin again. " Lord," says a
certain litany, " deliver us from the fury of the Jutes." " Of
all barbarians ^ these are strongest of body and heart, the most
formidable," — we may add, the most cruelly ferocious. When
murder becomes a trade, it becomes a pleasure. About the

1 Tacitus, " De moribus Germane- the faces and meals at Hamburg and at

rum," passim: Diem noctemque con- Amsterdam."

tinuare potando, nulli proborum.— Sera * Rede, v. lo. Sidonius, viii. 6. Lin-

jitvenum Venus.— Totos dies juxta fo- gard, " History of England," 1854, i.

cum atque ignem agunt. Dargaud, chap. 2.

" Vovage en Danemark." " They take ' Zozimos, iii. 147. Amm. Marcellinus,

six meals per day, the first at five xxviii. 526.
o'clock in the morning. One should see

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 35

eighth century, the final decay of the great Roman corpse which
Charlemagne had tried to revive, and which was settling down
into corruption, called them like vultures to the prey. Those
who had remained in Denmark, with their brothers of Norway,
fanatical pagans, incensed against the Christians, made a de-
scent on all the surrounding coasts. Their sea-kings,* " who
had never slept under the smoky rafters of a roof, who had
never drained the ale-horn by an inhabited hearth," laughed
at wind and storms, and sang: " The blast of the tempest aids
our oars ; the bellowing of heaven, the howling of the thunder,
hurt us not ; the hurricane is our servant, and drives us whither
we wish to go." " We hewed with our swords," says a song
attributed to Ragnar Lodbrog ; " was it not like that hour
when my bright bride I seated by me on the couch ? " One
of them, at the monastery of Peterborough, kills with his own
hand all the monks, to the number of eighty-four ; others, hav-
ing taken King ^lla, divided his ribs from the spine, drew his
lungs out, threw salt into his wounds. Harold Harefoot, hav-
ing seized his rival Alfred, with six hundred men, had them
maimed, blinded, hamstrung, scalped, or embowelled.'' Tor-
ture and carnage, greed of danger, fury of destruction, obsti-
nate and frenzied bravery of an over-strong temperament, the
unchaining of the butcherly instincts — such traits meet us at
every step in the old Sagas. The daughter of the Danish Jarl,
seeing Egil taking his seat near her, repels him with scorn,
reproaching him with " seldom having provided the wolves
with hot meat, with never having seen for the whole autumn
a raven croakmg over the carnage." But Egil seized her and
pacified her by singing: "I have marched with my bloody
sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought,
the fire passed over the dwellings of men ; we have sent to
sleep in blood those who kept the gates." From such table-
talk, and such maidenly tastes, we may judge of the rest.*
Behold them now in England, more settled and wealthier:

*Aug. Thierry, "Hist. S. Edmundi," Ijgion, poetry, differ but little. The

vi. 441. See Ynglingasaga, and es- more northern continue longest in their

pecialiy Egil's Saga. primitive manners. Germany in the

^ Lingard, " Historv of England," i. fourth and fifth centuries, Denmark and
164, says, however. Every tenth man Norway in the seventh and eightli, Ice-
out of the six hundred received his lib- land in the tenth and eleventh cen-
erty. and of the rest a few were selected turies, present the same condition, and
for slavery." — Tr. the muniments of each country will fill

« Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Danes, up the gaps that exist in the history of

Norwegians, Icelanders are one and the the others.
j>ame people. Their language, laws, re-

TAINE

do you expect to find them much changed? Changed it may
be, but for the worse, like the Franks, like all barbarians who
pass from action to enjoyment. They are more gluttonous,
carving their hogs, filling themselves with flesh, swallowing
down deep draughts of mead, ale, spiced wines, all the strong,
coarse drinks which they can procure, and so they are cheered
and stimulated. Add to this the pleasure of the fight. Not easily
with such instincts can they attain to cuhure ; to find a natural
and ready cuhure, we must look amongst the sober and spright-
ly populations of the south. Here the sluggish and heavy ^
temperament remains long buried in a brutal life ; people of the
Latin race never at a first glance see in them aught but large
gross beasts, clumsy and ridiculous when not dangerous and
enraged. Up to the sixteenth century, says an old historian,
the great body of the nation were httle else than herdsmen,
keepers of cattle and sheep; up to the end of the eighteenth
drunkenness was the recreation of the higher ranks; it is still
that of the lower ; and all the refinement and softening influence
of civilization have not abolished amongst them the use of the
rod and the fist. If the carnivorous, warlike, drinking savage,
proof against the climate, still shows beneath the conventions
of our modern society and the softness of our rnodern polish,
imagine what he must have been when, landing with his band
upon a wasted or desert country, and becoming for the first
time a settler, he saw extending to the horizon the cofnmon
pastures of the border country, and the great primitive forests
which furnished stags for the chase and acorns for his pigs.
The ancient histories tell us that they had a great and a coarse
appetite.* Even at the time of the Conquest the custom of
drinking to excess was a common vice with men of the highest
rank, and they passed in this way whole days and nights with-
out intermission. Henry of Huntingdon, in the twelfth cen-
tury, lamenting the ancient hospitality, says that the Norman
kings provided their courtiers with only one meal a day, while
the Saxon kings used to provide four. One day, when Athel-
stan went with his nobles to visit his relative Ethelfleda, the
provision of mead was exhausted at the first salutation, owing
to the copiousness of the draughts ; but Dunstan, forecasting

' Tacitus, " De moribus Germano- ^ William of Malmesbury. Henry of

turn," xxii.: Gens nee astuta nee callida. Huntingdon, vi. 365.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

the extent o the royal appetite, had furnish the house so that
the cup-beartrs, as is the custom at royal feasts, were able the
whole day to serve it out in horns and other vessels, and the
liquor was not found to be deficient. When the guests were
satisfied, the harp passed from hand to hand, and the rude har-
mony of their deep voices swelled under the vaulted roof. The
monasteries themselves in Edgard's time kept up games, songs,
and dances till midnight. To shout, to drink, to gesticulate, to
feel their veins heated and swollen with wine, to hear and see
around them the riotous orgies, this was the first need of the
barbarians.® The heavy human brute gluts himself with sensa-
tions and with noise.

For such appetites there was a stronger food — I mean blows
and battle. In vain they attached themselves to the soil, be-
came tillers of the ground, in distinct communities and dis-
tinct regions, shut up " in their march with their kindred and
comrades, bound together, separated from the mass, enclosed
by sacred landmarks, by primeval oaks on which they cut the
figures of birds and beasts, by poles set up in the midst of the
marsh, which whosoever removed was punished with cruel tor-
tures. In vain these Marches and Ga's ^^ were grouped into
states, and finally formed a half-regulated society, with assem-
blies and laws, under the lead of a single king; its very struct-
ure indicates the necessities to supply w^hich it was created.
They united in order to maintain peace ; treaties of peace oc-
cupy their Parliaments ; provisions for peace are the matter of
their laws. War was waged daily and everywhere ; the aim of
Hfe was, not to be slain, ransomed, mutilated, pillaged, hanged,
and of course, if it was a woman, violated. ^^ Every man was
obliged to appear armed, and to be ready, with his burgh or his
township, to repel marauders, who went about in bands. ^^ The
animal was yet too powerful, too impetuous, too untamed.
Anger and covetousness in the first place brought him upon
his prey. Their history, I mean that of the Heptarchy, is like

» Tacitus, " De moribus Germano- for the maintenance of the frid or

rum," xxii., xxiii. peace."

1" Kemble, " Saxons in England," 1849, *' A large district; the word is still

i. 70, ii. 184. " The Acts of an Anglo- existing in German, as Rheingau,

Saxon parliament are a series of treaties Breiasgau. — Tr.

of peace between all the associations ^ Turner, " History of the Anglo-

which make up the State; a continual Saxons," ii. 440, Laws of Ina.

revision and renewal of the alliances of- " Such a band consisted of thirty-five

fensive and defensive of all the free men. men or more.
They are universally mutual contracts

3— Classics. Vol. 38

38 TAINE

a history of " kites and crows." " They slew the Britons or
reduced them to slavery, fought the remnant of the Welsh,
Irish, and Picts, massacred one another, were hewn down and
cut to pieces by the Danes. In a hundred years, out of fourteen
kings of Northumbria, seven were slain and six deposed.
Penda of Mercia killed five kings, and in order to take the town
of Bamborough, demolished all the neighboring villages, heaped
their ruins into an immense pile, sufficient to burn all the in-
habitants, undertook to exterminate the Northumbrians, and
perished himself by the sword at the age of eighty. Many
amongst them were put to death by the thanes ; one thane was
burned alive ; brothers slew one another treacherously. With
us civilization has interposed, between the desire and its ful-
filment, the counteracting and softening preventive of reflection
and calculation; here, the impulse is sudden, and murder and
every kind of excess spring from it instantaneously. King
Edwy ^^ having married Elgiva, his relation within the pro-
hibited degrees, quitted the hall where he was drinking on
the very day of his coronation, to be with her. The nobles
thought themselves insulted, and immediately Abbot Dunstan
went himself to seek the young man. " He found the adulter-
ess," says the monk Osbern, " her mother, and the king to-
gether on the bed of debauch. He dragged the king thence
violently, and setting the crown upon his head, brought him
back to the nobles." Afterwards Elgiva sent men to put out
Dunstan's eyes, and then, in a revolt, saved herself and the king
by hiding in the country ; but the men of the North having
seized her, " hamstrung her, and then subjected her to the death
which she deserved." ^"* Barbarity follows barbarity. At Bris-
tol, at the time of the Conquest, as we are told by a historian
of the time,*' it was the custom to buy men and women in all
parts of England, and to carry them to Ireland for sale in
order to make money. The buyers usually made the, young
women pregnant, and took them to market in that condition, in
order to insure a better price. " You might have seen with

" Milton's expression. Lingard's " Vita S. Dunstani, *' Anglia Sacra,"

History, i. chap. 3. This history bears ii.

much resemblance to that of the " It is amiising to conipare the story
Franks in Gaul. See Gregory of Tours. of Edwy and Elgiva in Turner, ii. 216,
The Saxons, like the Franks, somewhat etc., and then Lingard, i. 132, etc. The
softened, but rather degenerated, were first accuses Dunstan, the other de-
pillaged and massacred by those of their fends him.— Tr.
Northern brothers who Still remained in " " Life of Bishop Wolstao."
I a savage state.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

sorrow long files of young people of both sexes and of the
greatest beauty, bound with ropes, and daily exposed for sale.
. . . They sold in this manner as slaves their nearest relatives,
and even their own children." And the chronicler adds that,
having abandoned this practice, they " thus set an example to
all the rest of England." Would you know the manners of the
highest ranks, in the family of the last king? ^^ At a feast in
the king's hall, Harold was serving Edward the Confessor with
wine, when Tostig, his brother, moved by envy, seized him by
the hair. They were separated. Tostig went to Hereford,
where Harold had ordered a royal banquet to be prepared.
There he seized his brother's attendants, and cutting off their
heads and limbs, he placed them in the vessels of wine, ale,
mead, and cider, and sent a message to the king: " If you go
to your farm, you will find there plenty of salt meat, but you
will do well to carry some more with you." Harold's other
brother, Sweyn, had violated the abbess Elgiva, assassinated
Beorn the thane, and being banished from the country had
turned pirate. When we regard their deeds of violence, their
ferocity, their cannibal jests, we see that they were not far re-
moved from the sea-kings, or from the followers of Odin, who
ate raw flesh, hung men as victims on the sacred trees of Up-
sala, and killed themselves to make sure of dying as they had
lived, in blood. A score of times the old ferocious instinct re-
appears beneath the thin crust of Christianity. In the eleventh
century, Siward," the great Earl of Northumberland, was af-
flicted with a dysentery ; and feeling his death near, exclaimed,
*' What a shame for me not to have been permitted to die in so
many battles, and to end thus by a cow's death ! At least put
on my breastplate, gird on my sword, set my helmet on my
head, my shield in my left hand, my battle-axe in my right, so
that a stout warrior, like myself, may die as a warrior." They
did as he bade, and thus died he honorably in his armor. They
had made one step, and only one, from barbarism.

»* Tantae saevitiae erant fratres ilH tinerent. Turner, iii. 27. Henry of

quod, cum alicujus nitidam villain Huntingdon, vi. 367.

conspicerem, dominatorem •'° nocte " " Pene gigas statura," says the

interifici uberent, totamque progeniem chronicler. Henry of Huntingdon, vi.

sillius possessioneroque defunct ob- 367. Kemble, i. 393. Turner, ii. 318.

40 TAINE

Section III. — Saxon Ideas

Under this native barbarism there were noble dispositions,
unknown to the Roman world, which were destined to produce
a better people out of its ruins. In the first place, " a certain
earnestness, which leads them out of frivolous sentiments to
noble ones." ^ From their origin in Germany this is what we
find them, severe in manners, with grave inchnations and a
manly dignity. They live solitary, each one near the spring
or the wood which has taken his fancy.^ Even in villages the
cottages were detached ; they must have independence and
free air. They had no taste for voluptuousness ; love was tardy,
education severe, their food simple ; all the recreation they in-
dulged in was the hunting of the aurochs, and a dance amongst
naked swords. Violent intoxication and perilous wagers were
their weakest points ; they sought in preference not mild pleas-
ures, but strong excitement. In everything, even in their rude
and masculine instincts, they were men. Each in his own
home, on his land and in his hut, was his own master, upright
and free, in no wise restrained or shackled. If the common-
weal received anything from him, it was because he gave it.
He gave his vote in arms in all great conferences, passed judg-
ment in the assembly, made alliances and wars on his own ac-
count, moved from place to place, showed activity and daring.'
The modern Englishman existed entire in this Saxon. If he
bends, it is because he is quite willing to bend ; he is no less
capable of self-denial than of independence; self-sacrifice is
not uncommon, a man cares not for his blood or his Hfe. In
Homer the warrior often gives way, and is not blamed if he
flees. In the Sagas, in the Edda, he must be over-brave; in
Germany the coward is drowned in the mud, under a hurdle.
Through all outbreaks of primitive brutality gleams obscurely
the grand idea of duty, which is, the self-constraint exercised
in view of some noble end. Marriage was pure amongst them,
chastity instinctive. Amongst the Saxons the adulterer was
punished by death ; the adulteress was obliged to hang herself,
or was stabbed by the knives of her companions. The wives of

1 Grimm, " Mythology," 53; Preface. passim. We may still see the traces of

* Tacitus, XX., xxiii., xi., xii.. xiii., et this taste in English dwellings.

* Ibid. xiii.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 41

the Cimbrians, when they could not obtain from Marius assur-
ance of their chastity, slew themselves with their own hands.
They thought there was something sacred in a woman; they
married but one, and kept faith with her. In fifteen centuries
the idea of marriage is unchanged amongst them. The wife,
on entering her husband's home, is aware that she gives her-
self altogether,* " that she will have but one body, one life with
him ; that she will have no thought, no desire beyond ; that
she will be the companion of his perils and labors ; that she
will suffer and dare as much as he, both in peace and war."
And he, like her, knows that he gives himself. Having chosen
his chief, he forgets himself in him, assigns to him his own
glory, serves him to the death. " He is infamous as long as
he lives, who returns from the field of battle without his chief." *
It was on this voluntary subordination that feudal society was
based. Man in this race can accept a superior, can be capable
of devotion and respect. Thrown back upon himself by the
gloom and severity of his climate, he has discovered moral
beauty while others discover sensuous beauty. This kind of
naked brute, who lies all day by his fireside, sluggish and dirty,
always eating and drinking,*^ whose rusty faculties cannot follow
the clear and fine outlines of happily created poetic forms,
catches a glimpse of the sublime in his troubled dreams. He
does not see it, but simply feels it ; his religion is already within,
as it will be in the sixteenth century, when he will cast ofi the
sensuous worship imported from Rome, and hallow the faith
of the heart. '^ His gods are not enclosed in walls ; he has no
idols. What he designates by divine names is something in-
visible and grand, which floats through nature, and is conceived
beyond nature,^ a mysterious infinity which the sense cannot
touch, but which " reverence alone can feel "; and when, later
on, the legends define and alter this vague divination of natural
powers, one idea remains at the bottom of this chaos of giant-
dreams, namely, that the world is a warfare, and heroism the
highest good.

* Tscitus, xix., viii., xvi. Kemble, i. turn illud, quod sola reverentia vident.'
232. Later on, at Upsala for instance, tJiey

* Tacitus, xiv. had images (Adam of Bremen, " His-

* " In omni dome, nudi et sordidi. . . . toria Ecclesiastica "). Wuotan (Odin)
Plus per otium transiguiit, dediti somno, signifies etymologically the All-Power-
ciboque, otos dies juxta focum atque ignem fuT, him who penetrates and circulates
agunt." through everything (Grimm, " Mythol-

' Grimm, 53, Preface. Tacitus, x. ogy ").

® " Deorum nominibus appellant secre-

42 TAINE

In the beginning, say the old Icelandic legends,^ there were
two worlds, Niflheim the frozen, and Muspell the burning.
From the falling snow-flakes was born the giant Ymir. " There
was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor
gelid waves; earth existed not, nor heaven above; 'twas a
chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere." There was but Ymir, the
horrible frozen Ocean, with his children, sprung from his feet
and his armpits ; then their shapeless progeny. Terrors of the
abyss, barren Mountains, Whirlwinds of the North, and other
malevolent beings, enemies of the sun and of hfe ; then the cow
Andhumbla, born also of melting snow, brings to light, whilst
licking the hoar-frost from the rocks, a man Bur, whose grand-
sons kill the giant Ymir. " From his flesh the earth was formed,
and from his bones the hills, the heaven from the skull of that
ice-cold giant, and from his blood the sea; but of his brains
the heavy clouds are all created." Then arose war between
the monsters of winter and the luminous fertile gods, Odin
the founder, Baldur the mild and benevolent, Thor the summer-
thunder, who purifies the air, and nourishes the earth with
showers. Long fought the gods against the frozen Jotuns,
against the dark bestial powers, the Wolf Fenrir, the great Ser-
pent, whom they drown in the sea, the treacherous Loki, whom
they bind to the rocks, beneath a viper whose venom drops con-
tinually on his face. Long will the heroes who by a bloody
death deserve to be placed " in the halls of Odin, and there wage
a combat every day," assist the gods in their mighty war. A
day will, however, arrive when gods and men will be conquered.
Then

" trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing ; groans that ancient tree, and
the Jotun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of He!,!" until
the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, the
waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jotun-rage. The worm beats
the water, and the eagle screams ; the pale of beak tears carcasses ; (the
ship) Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the South comes with flickering
flame; shines from his sword the Val-god's sun. The stony hills are
dashed together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of Hel, and
heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks, fall from

* " Saemundar Edda, Snorra Edda," erally made use of the edition of Mr.

ed. Copenhagen, three vols., passim. Thorpe, London, 1866.

Mr. Bergmann has translated several of i" Hel, the goddess of death, born of

these poems into French, which Mr. Loki and Angrboda. — Tr.
Taine quotes. The translator has gen-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing tree, tow-
ering fire plays against heaven itself." ^^

The gods perish, devoured one by one by the monsters ; and
the celestial legend, sad and grand now like the life of man,
bears witness to the hearts of warriors and heroes.

There is no fear of pain, no care for life ; they count it as
dross when the idea has seized upon them. The trembling of
the nerves, the repugnance of animal instinct which starts back
before wounds and death, are all lost in an irresistible deter-
mination. See how in their epic ^" the sublime springs up amid
the horrible, like a bright purple flower amid a pool of blood.
Sigurd has plunged his sword into the dragon Fafnir, and at
that very moment they looked on one another; and Fafnir asks,
as he dies, " Who art thou ? and who is thy father ? and what
thy kin, that thou wert so hardy as to bear weapons against
me ? " "A hardy heart urged me on thereto, and a strong hand
and this sharp sword. . . . Seldom hath hardy eld a faint-
heart youth." After this triumphant eagle's cry Sigurd cuts
out the worm's heart; but Regin, brother of Fafnir, drinks
blood from the wound, and falls asleep. Sigurd, who was roast-
ing the heart, raises his finger thoughtlessly to his lips. Forth-
with he understands the language of the birds. The eagles
scream above him in the branches. They warn him. to mis-
trust Regin. Sigurd cuts off the latter's head, eats of Fafnir's
heart, drinks his blood and his brother's. Amongst all these
murders their courage and poetry grow. Sigurd has sub-
dued Brynhild, the untamed maiden, by passing through the
flaming fire ; they share one couch for three nights, his naked
sword betwixt them. " Nor the damsel did he kiss, nor did the
Hunnish king to his arm lift her. He the blooming maid to
Giuki's son delivered," because, according to his oath, he must
send her to her betrothed Gunnar. She, setting her love upon
him, " Alone she sat without, at eve of day, began aloud with
herself to speak: 'Sigurd must be mine; I must die, or that
blooming youth clasp in my arms.' " But seeing him mar-
ried, she brings about his death. " Laughed then Brynhild,

" Thorpe, " The Edda of Samund, is found almost entire in Germany in

the Vala's Prophecy," str. 48-56, p. 0 the Nibelungen Lied. The translator

et passim. _ has also used Magnusson and Mor-

" " Fafnismal Edda." This epic is ris's poetical version of the " V61-

common to the Northern races, as is sunga Saga," and certain songs of the

the Iliad to the Greek populations, and " Elder Edda," London, 1870.

TAINE

Budli's daughter, once only, from her whole soul, when m her
bed she listened to the loud lament of Giuki's daughter." She
put on her golden corslet, pierced herself with the sword's
point, and as a last request said :

" Let in the plain be raised a pile so spacious, that for us all like room
may be; let them burn the Hun (Sigurd) on the one side of me, on
the other side my household slaves, with collars splendid, two at our
heads, and two hawks; let also lie between us both the keen-edged
sword, as when we both one couch ascended ; also five female thralls,
eight male slaves of gentle birth fostered with me." ^^

All were burnt together ; yet Gudrun the widow continued mo-
tionless by the corpse, and could not weep. The wives of the
jarls came to console her, and each of them told her own sor-
rows, all the calamities of great devastations and the old life of
barbarism.

"Then spoke Giaflang, Giuki's sister: ' Lo, up on earth I live most
loveless, who of five mates must see the ending, of daughters twain and
three sisters, of brethren eight, and abide behind lonely.' Then spake
Herborg, Queen of Hunland : ' Crueller tale have I to tell of my seven
sons, down in the Southlands, and the eight man, my mate, felled in the
death-mead. Father and mother, and four brothers on the wide sea the
winds and death played with ; the billows beat on the bulwark boards.
Alone must I sing o'er them, alone must I array them, alone must my
hands deal with their departing; and all this was in one season's wear-
ing, and none was left for love or solace. Then was I bound a prey of
the battle when that same season wore to its ending; as a tiring may
must I bind the shoon of the duke's high dame, every day at dawning.
From her jealous hate gat I heavy mocking, cruel lashes she laid
upon me." ^*

All was in vain ; no word could draw tears from those dry eyes.
They were obliged to lay the bloody corpse before her, ere her
tears would come. Then tears flowed through the pillow ; as
" the geese withal that were in the home-field, the fair fowls the
may owned, fell a-screaming." She would have died, like Sig-
run, on the corpse of him whom alone she had loved, if they had
not deprived her of memory by a magic potion. Thus affected,
she departs in order to marry Atli, king of the Huns ; and yet
she goes against her will, with gloomy forebodings : for mur-
der begets murder ; and her brothers, the murderers of Sigurd,

" Thorpe, *' The Edda of Saemund, '* Magnusson and Morris, " Story of

Third Lay of Sigurd Fafnicide," str. the Volsungs and Nibelungs, Lamenta-
62-64, P- 83. tion of Guaran," p. 118 et passim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

having been drawn to Atli's court, fall in their turn into a
snare like that which they had themselves laid. Then Gunnar
was bound, and they tried to make him deliver up the treasure.
He answers with a barbarian's laugh :

" ' Hogni's heart in my hand shall lie, cut bloody from the breast of
the valiant chief, the king's son, with a dull-edged knife.' They the
heart cut out from Hialli's breast; on a dish, bleeding, laid it, and it to
Gunnar bare. Then said Gunnar, lord of men : ' Here have I the heart
of the timid Hialli, unlike the heart of the bold Hogni ; for much it
trembles as in the dish it lies; it trembled more by half while in his
breast it lay.' Hogni laughed when to his heart they cut the living
crest-crasher; no lament uttered he. All bleeding on a dish they laid it,
and it to Gunnar bare. Calmly said Gunnar, the warrior Niflung:
' Here have I the heart of the bold Hogni, unlike the heart of the timid
Hialli ; for it little trembles as in the dish it lies: it trembled less while in
his breast it lay. So far shalt thou, Atli ! be from the eyes of men as
thou wilt from the treasures be. In my power alone is all the hidden
Niflung' s gold, now that Hogni lives not. Ever was I wavering while
we both lived : now am I so no longer, as I alone survive.' " ^^

It was the last insult of the self-confident man, who values
neither his own life nor that of another, so that he can satiate
his vengeance. They cast him into the serpent's den, and
there he died, striking his harp with his foot. But the inex-
tinguishable flame of vengeance passed from his heart to that
of his sister. Corpse after corpse fall on each other ; a mighty
fury hurls them open-eyed to death. She killed the children
she had by Atli, and one day on his return from the carnage,
gave him their hearts, to eat, served in honey, and laughed
coldly as she told him on what he had fed. " Uproar was on
the benches, portentous the cry of men, noise beneath the costly
hangings. The children of the Huns wept; all wept save
Gudrun, who never wept or for her bear-fierce brothers, or
for her dear sons, young, simple." ^^ Judge from this heap
of ruin and carnage to what excess the will is strung. There
were men amongst them, Berserkirs,^^ who in battle seized
with a sort of madness, showed a sudden and superhuman
strength, and ceased to feel their wounds. This is the con-
ception of a hero as engendered by this race in its infancy.
Is it not strange to see them place their happiness in battle,

" Thorpe, '* The Edda of Saemund, " This word signifies men who fought

Lav of Atli," str. 21-27, p. 117. without a breastplate, perhaps in shirts

"Ibid., str. 38, p. 119. only; Scottice, '' Baresarks. —Tk.

46 TAINE

their beauty in death ? Is there any people, Hindoo, Persian,
Greek, or Gallic, which has formed so tragic a conception of
life? Is there any which has peopled its infantine mind with
such gloomy dreams? Is there any which has so entirely
banished from its dreams the sweetness of enjoyment, and the
softness of pleasure ? Endeavors, tenacious and mournful en-
deavors, an ecstasy of endeavors — such was their chosen condi-
tion. Carlyle said well that in the sombre obstinacy of an
English laborer still survives the tacit rage of the Scandinavian
warrior. Strife for strife's sake — such is their pleasure. With
what sadness, madness, destruction, such a disposition breaks
its bonds, we shall see in Shakespeare and Byron ; with what
vigor and purpose it can limit and employ itself when pos-
sessed by moral ideas, we shall see in the case of the Puritans.

Section IV. — Saxon Heroes

They have established themselves in England ; and however
disordered the society which binds them together, it is founded,
as in Germany, on generous sentiment. War is at every door,
I am aware, but warlike virtues are within every house ; cour-
age chiefly, then fidelity. Under the brute there is a free man,
and a man of spirit. There is no man amongst them who, at
his own risk,^ will not make alliance, go forth to fight, under-
take adventures. There is no group of free men amongst them,
who, in their Witenagemote, is not forever concluding alliances
one with another. Every clan, in its own district, forms a
league of which all the members, " brothers of the sword," de-
fend each other, and demand revenge for the spilling of blood,
at the price of their own. Every chief in his hall reckons that
he has friends, not mercenaries, in the faithful ones who drink
his beer, and who, having received as marks of his esteem and
confidence, bracelets, swords, and suits of armor, will cast
themselves between him and danger on the day of battle.^ In-
dependence and boldness rage amongst this young nation with
violence and excess ; but these are of themselves noble things ;
and no less noble are the sentiments which serve them for dis-

1 See the " Life of Sweyn," of Here- " Beowulf, passim, Death of Byrht'

ward, etc., even up to the time of the noth.
Conquest.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 47

cipHne — to wit, an aflfectionate devotion, and respect for plight-
ed faith. These appear in their laws, and break forth in their
poetry. Amongst them greatness of heart gives matter for
imagination. Their characters are not selfish and shifty, like
those of Homer. They are brave hearts, simple and strong,
faithful to their relatives, to their master in arms, firm and
steadfast to enemies and friends, abounding in courage, and
ready for sacrifice. " Old as I am," says one, " I will not budge
hence. I mean to die by my lord's side, near this man I have
loved so much. He kept his word, the word he had given to
his chief, to the distributor of gifts, promising him that they
should return to the town, safe and sound to their homes, or
that they would fall both together, in the thick of the carnage,
covered with wounds. He Hes by his master's side, like a faith-
ful servant." Though awkward in speech, their old poets find
touching words when they have to paint these manly friend-
ships. We cannot without emotion hear them relate how the
old " king embraced the best of his thanes, and put his arms
about his neck, how the tears flowed down the cheeks of the
gray-haired chief. . . . The valiant man was so dear to him.
He could not stop the flood which mounted from his breast.
In his heart, deep in the chords of his soul, he sighed in secret
after the beloved man." Few as are the songs which remain
to us, they return to this subject again and again. The wan-
derer in a reverie dreams about his lord : ^ It seems to him
in his spirit as if he kisses and embraces him, and lays head
and hands upon his knees, as oft before in the olden time,
when he rejoiced in his gifts. Then he wakes — a man without
friends. He sees before him the desert tracks, the seabirds
dipping in the waves, stretching wide their wings, the frost
and the snow, mingled with falling hail. Then his heart's
wounds press more heavily. The exile says :

" In blithe habits full oft we, too, agreed that nought else should divide
us except death alone ; at length this is changed, and as if it had never
been is now our friendship. To endure enmities man orders me to dwell
in the bowers of the forest, under the oak-tree in this earthy cave. Cold
is this earth-dwelling : I am quite wearied out. Dim are the dells, high
up are the mountains, a bitter city of twigs, with briars overgrown, a
joyless abode. . . . My friends are in the earth ; those loved in life,

» " The Wanderer, the Exile's Song, Codex Exoniensis," published by Thorpe.

48 TAINE

the tomb holds them. The grave is guarding, while I above alone am
going. Under the oak-tree, beyond this earth-cave, there I must sit the
long summer-day."

Amid their perilous mode of life, and the perpetual appeal to
arms, there exists no sentiment more warm than friendship,
nor any virtue stronger than loyalty.

Thus supported by powerful affection and trysted word, so-
ciety is kept wholesome. Marriage is like the state. We find
women associating with the men, at their feasts, sober and re-
spected.* She speaks, and they listen to her ; no need for con-
cealing or enslaving her, in order to restrain or retain her.
She is a person and not a thing. The law demands her consent
to marriage, surrounds her with guarantees, accords her protec-
tion. She can inherit, possess, bequeath, appear in courts of
justice, in county assemblies, in the great congress of the elders.
Frequently the name of the queen and of several other ladies
is inscribed in the proceedings of the Witenagemote. Law
and tradition maintain her integrity, as if she were a man, and
side by side with men. Her affections captivate her, as if she
were a man, and side by side with men. In Alfred ° there is a
portrait of the wife, which for purity and elevation equals all
that we can devise with our modern refinements. " Thy wife
now lives for thee — for thee alone. She has enough of all kind
of wealth for this present life, but she scorns them all for thy
sake alone. She has forsaken them all, because she had not
thee with them. Thy absence makes her think that all she pos-
sesses is nought. Thus, for love of thee, she is wasted away,
and lies near death for tears and grief." Already, in the le-
gends of the Edda, we have seen the maiden Sigrun at the tomb
of Helgi, " as glad as the voracious hawks of Odin, when they
of slaughter know, of warm prey," desiring to sleep still in the
arms of death, and die at last on his grave. Nothing here
like the love we find in the primitive poetry of France, Pro-
vence, Spain, and Greece. There is an absence of gayety, of de-
light ; outside of marriage it is only a ferocious appetite, an
outbreak of the instinct of the beast. It appears nowhere with
its charm and its smile; there is no love-song in this ancient
poetry. The reason is, that with them love is not an amuse-

* Turner, " History of the Anglo- ^ Alfred borrows his portrait from

Saxons," iii. 63. Boethius, but almost entirely rewrites

it.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 49

merit and a pleasure, but a promise and a devotion. All is
grave, even sombre, in civil relations as well as in conjugal
society. As in Germany, amid the sadness of a melancholic
temperament and the savagery of a barbarous life, the most
tragic human faculties, the deep power of love and the grand
power of will, are the only ones that sway and act.

This is why the hero, as in Germany, is truly heroic. Let us
speak of him at length ; we possess one of their poems, that of
Beowulf, almost entire. Here are the stories, which the thanes,
seated on their stools, by the light of their torches, listened to as
they drank the ale of their king: we can glean thence their
manners and sentiments, as in the Iliad and the Odyssey those
of the Greeks. Beowulf is a hero, a knight-errant before the
days of chivalry, as the leaders of the German bands were
feudal chiefs before the institution of feudalism.^ He has
" rowed upon the sea, his naked sword hard in his hand,
amidst the fierce waves and coldest of storms, and the rage of
winter hurtled over the waves of the deep." The sea-monsters,
" the many-colored foes, drew him to the bottom of the sea,
and held him fast in their gripe." But he reached " the wretches
with his point and with his war-bill." " The mighty sea-beast
received the war-rush through his hands," and he slew nine
Nicors (sea-monsters). And now behold him, as he comes
across the waves to succor the old King Hrothgar, who with
his vassals sits afflicted in his great mead-hall, high and curved
with pinnacles. For " a grim stranger, Grendel, a mighty
haunter of the marshes," had entered his hall during the night,
seized thirty of the thanes who were asleep, and returned in his
war-craft with their carcasses ; for twelve years the dreadful
ogre, the beastly and greedy creature, father of Orks and
Jotuns, devoured men and emptied the best of houses. Beo-
wulf, the great warrior, offers to grapple with the fiend, and foe
to foe contend for life, without the bearing of either sword or
ample shield, for he has " learned also that the wretch for his
cursed hide recketh not of weapons," asking only that if death
takes him, they will bear forth his bloody corpse and bury it;

• Kemble thinks that the origin of this possess is later than the seventh cen-

poem is very ancient, perhaps contem- tury. — Kemble's " Beowulf," text and

porary with the invasion of the Angles translation, 1833. The characters are

and Saxons, but that the version we Danish.

5© TAINE

mark his fen-dwelling, and send to Hygelac, his chief, the best
of war-shrouds that guards his breast.

He is lying in the hall, " trusting in his proud strength ; and
when the mists of night arose, lo, Grendel comes, tears open
the door," seized a sleeping warrior : " he tore him unawares, he
bit his body, he drank the blood from the veins, he swallowed
him with continual tearings." But Beowulf seized him in turn,
and " raised himself upon his elbow."

" The lordly hall thundered, the ale was spilled, . . . both were
enraged; savage and strong warders; the house resounded; then was
it a great wonder that the wine-hall withstood the beasts of war, that it
fell not upon the earth, the fair palace; but it was thus fast. . . .
The noise arose, new enough ; a fearful terror fell on the North Danes,
on each of those who from the wall heard the outcry, God's denier sing
his dreadful lay, his song of defeat, lament his wound.'' . . . The
foul wretch awaited the mortal wound ; a mighty gash was evident upon
his shoulder; the sinews sprung asunder, the junctures of the bones
burst ; success in war was given to Beowulf. Thence must Grendel fly
sick unto death, among the refuges of the fens, to seek his joyless dwell-
ing. He all the better knew that the end of his life, the number of his
days was gone by." ^

For he had left on the ground, " hand, arm, and shoulder " ;
and " in the lake of Nicors, where he was driven, the rough
wave was boiling with blood, the foul spring of waves all min-
gled, hot with poison ; the dye, discolored with death, bubbled
with warlike gore." There remained a female monster, his
mother, who, like him, " was doomed to inhabit the terror of
waters, the cold streams," who came by night, and amidst
drawn swords tore and devoured another man, ^schere, the
king's best friend. A lamentation arose in the palace, and Beo-
wulf offered himself again. They went to the den, a hidden
land, the refuge of the wolf, near the windy promontories,
where a mountain stream rusheth downwards under the dark-
ness of the hills, a flood beneath the earth ; the wood fast by its
roots overshadoweth the water ; there may one by night behold
a marvel, fire upon the flood ; the stepper over the heath, when
wearied out by the hounds, sooner will give up his soul, his life
upon the brink, than plunge therein to hide his head. Strange
dragons and serpents swam there ; " from time to time the horn
sang a dirge, a terrible song." Beowulf plunged into the wave,

' Kemble's " Beowulf," xi. p. 32. * Ibid. xii. p. 34,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 51

descended, passed monsters who tore his coat of mail, to the
ogress, the hateful manslayer, who, seizing him in her grasp,
bore him off to her dwelling. A pale gleam shone brightly,
and there, face to face, the good champion perceived.

" the she-wolf of the abyss, the mighty sea-woman ; "he gave the war-
onset with his battle-bill ; he held not back the swing of the- sword, so
that on her head the ring-mail sang aloud a greedy war-song. . . .
The beam of war would not bite. Then caught the prince of the War-
Geats Grendel's mother by the shoulders . . . twisted the homicide,
so that she bent upon the floor. . . She drew her knife broad, brown-
edged (and tried to pierce), the twisted breast-net which protected his
life. . . . Then saw he among the weapons a bill fortunate in vic-
tory, an old gigantic sword, doughty of edge, ready for use, the work
of giants. He seized the belted hilt ; the warrior of the Scyldings, fierce
and savage whirled the ring-mail ; despairing of life, he struck furiously,
so that it grappled hard with her about the neck ; it broke the bone-rings,
the bill passed through all the doomed body ; she sank upon the floor ;
the sword was bloody, the man rejoiced in his deed ; the beam shone,
light stood within, even as from heaven mildly shines the lamp of the
firmament." ^

Then he saw Grendel dead in a corner of the hall ; and four of
his companions, having with difficulty raised the monstrous
head, bore it by the hair to the palace of the king.

That was his first labor ; and the rest of his life was similar.
When he had reigned fifty years on earth, a dragon, who had
been robbed of his treasure, came from the hill and burned men
and houses " with waves of fire." " Then did the refuge of
earls command to make for him a variegated shield, all of iron ;
he knew well enough that a shield of wood could not help him,
lindenwood opposed to fire. . . . The prince of rings was
then too proud to seek the wide flier with a troop, with a large
company ; he feared not for himself that battle, nor did he make
any account of the dragon's war, his laboriousness and valor."
And yet he was sad, and went unwillingly, for he was " fated
to abide the end." Then " he was ware of a cavern, a mound
under the earth, nigh to the sea wave, the clashing of waters,
which cave was full within of embossed ornaments and wires.
. . . Then the king, hard in war, sat upon the promontory,
whilst he, the prince of the Geats, bade farewell to his house-
hold comrades. ... I, the old guardian of my people, seek

• " Beowulf," xxij., xxiii. p. 62 et passim.

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a feud." He " let words proceed from his breast," the dragon
came, vomiting fire; the blade bit not his body, and the king
" suffered painfully, involved in fire." His comrades had
" turned to the wood, to save their lives," all save Wiglaf , who
" went through the fatal smoke," knowing well " that it was not
the old custom " to abandon relation and prince, " that he alone
. . . shall suffer distress, shall sink in battle." " The worm
came furious, the foul insidious stranger, variegated with waves
of fire, . . . hot and warlike fierce, he clutched the whole
neck with bitter banes; he was bloodied with life-gore, the
blood boiled in waves." ^** They, with their swords, carved the
worm in the midst. Yet the wound of the king became burning
and swelled ; " he soon discovered that poison boiled in his breast
within, and sat by the wall upon a stone "; " he looked upon the
work of giants, how the eternal cavern held within stone arches
fast upon pillars." Then he said —

" I have held this people fifty years ; there was not any king of my
neighbors, who dared to greet me with warriors, to oppress me with
terror. ... I held mine own well, I sought not treacherous malice, nor
swore unjustly many oaths; on account of all this, I, sick with mortal
wounds, may have joy. . . . Now do thou go immediately to behold
the hoard under the hoary stone, my dear Wiglaf. . . . Now, I have
purchased with my death a hoard of treasures ; it will be yet of advan-
tage at the need of the people. ... I give thanks . . . that I
might before my dying day obtain such for my peoples . . . longer
may I not here be." ^^

This is thorough and real generosity, not exaggerated and
pretended, as it will be later on in the romantic imaginations
of babbling clerics, mere composers of adventure. Fiction as yet
is not far removed from fact; the man breathes manifest be-
neath the hero. Rude as the poetry is, its hero is grand ; he is
so, simply by his deeds. Faithful, first to his prince, then to
his people, he went alone, in a strange land, to venture himself
for the delivery of his fellow-men ; he forgets himself in death,
while thinking only that it profits others. " Each one of us,"
he says in one place, " must abide the end of his present life.'*
Let, therefore, each do justice, if he can, before his death. Com-
pare with him the monsters whom he destroys, the last tradi-

w> " Beowulf." xxxiii., xxxvi. p. 94 passim. I have throughout always used
et passim. the very words of Kemble's transla*

iWbid. xxxvii., xxxviii. p. no et tion. — ^Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 53

tions of the ancient wars against inferior races, and of the prim-
itive religion ; think of his life of danger, nights upon the waves,
man grappling with the brute creation ; man's indomitable will
crushing the breasts of beasts ; man's powerful muscles which,
when exerted, tear the flesh of the monsters ; you will see re-
appear through the mist of legends, and under the light 'of
poetry, the valiant men who, amid the madness of war and the
raging of their own mood, began to settle a people and to found
a state.

Section V. — Pagan Poems

One poem nearly whole and two or three fragments are all
that remain of this lay-poetry of England. The rest of the
pagan current, German and barbarian, was arrested or over-
whelmed, first by the influx of the Christian religion, then by
the conquest of the Norman-French. But what remains more
than suffices to show the strange and powerful poetic genius of
the race, and to exhibit beforehand the flower in the bud.

If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic
sentiment, it is here. They do not speak, they sing, or rather
they shout. Each little verse is an acclamation, which breaks
forth like a growl ; their strong breasts heave with a groan of
anger or enthusiasm, and a vehement or indistinct phrase or ex-
pression rises suddenly, almost in spite of them, to their lips.
There is no art, no natural talent, for describing singly and in
order the different parts of an object or an event. The fifty
rays of light which every phenomenon emits in succession to a
regular and well-directed intellect come to them at once in a
glowing and confused mass, disabling them by their force and
convergence. Listen to their genuine war-chants, unchecked
and violent, as became their terrible voices. To this day, at this
distance of time, separated as they are by manners, speech, ten
centuries, we seem to hear them still :

" The army goes forth : the birds sing, the cricket chirps, the war-
weapons sound, the lance clangs against the shield. Now shineth the
moon, wandering under the sky. Now arise deeds of woe, which the
enmity of this people prepares to do. . . . Then in the court came
the tumult of war-carnage. They seized with their hands the hollow
wood of the shield. They smote through the bones of the head. The
roofs of the castle resounded, until Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-

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dwelling men, son of Guthlaf. Around him lay many brave men dying.
The raven whirled about, dark and sombre, like a willow leaf. There
was a sparkling of blades, as if all Finsburg were on fire. Never have
I heard of a more worthy battle in war." ^

This is the song on Athelstan's victory at Brunanburh :

" Here Athelstan king, of earls the lord, the giver of the bracelets of
the nobles, and his brother also, Edmund the aetheling, the Elder a
lasting glory won by slaughter in battle, with the edges of swords, at
Brunanburh. The wall of shields they cleaved, they hewed the noble
banners: with the rest of the family, the children of Edward. . . .
Pursuing, they destroyed the Scottish people and the ship-fleet. . . .
The field was colored with the warriors' blood ! After that the sun on
high, . . . the greatest star ! glided over the earth, God's candle
bright! till the noble creature hastened to her setting. There lay sol-
diers many with darts struck down. Northern men over their shields
shot. So were the Scots; weary of ruddy battle. . . . The scream-
ers of war they left behind ; the raven to enjoy, the dismal kite, and the
black raven with horned beak, and the hoarse toad ; the eagle, after-
wards to feast on the white flesh ; the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey
beast, the wolf in the wood." ^

Here all is imagery. In their impassioned minds events are
not bald, with the dry propriety of an exact description ; each
fits in with its pomp of sound, shape, coloring; it is almost a
vision which is raised, complete, with its accompanying emo-
tions, joy, fury, excitement. In their speech, arrows are " the
serpents of Hel, shot from bows of horn " ; ships are " great
sea-steeds," the sea is " a chalice of waves," the helmet is " the
castle of the head " ; they need an extraordinary speech to ex-
press their vehement sensations, so that after a time, in Iceland,
where this kind of poetry was carried on to excess, the earlier
inspiration failed, art replaced nature, the Skalds were reduced
to a distorted and obscure jargon. But whatever be the im-
agery, here, as in Iceland, though unique, it is too feeble. The
poets have not satisfied their inner emotion, if it is only ex-
pressed by a single word. Time after time they return to and
repeat their idea. " The sun on high, the great star, God's bril-
liant candle, the noble creature ! " Four times successively
they employ the same thought, and each time under a new as-
pect. All its different aspects rise simultaneously before the

* Conybeare's " Illustrations of An- collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry has

flo-Saxon Poetry," 1826, " Battle of been published by M. Grain,
'insborough," p. 175. The complete * Turner, " History of Anglo-Saxons,"

iii. book 9, ch. i. p. 245.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

barbarian's eyes, and each word was like a fit of the semi-hallu-
cination which possessed him. Verily, in such a condition, the
regularity of speech and of ideas is disturbed at every turn.
The succession of thought in the visionary is not the same as in
a reasoning mind. One color induces another ; from sound he
passes to sound; his imagination is like a diorama of unex-
plained pictures. His phrases recur and change ; he emits the
word that comes to his lips without hesitation ; he leaps over
wide intervals from idea to idea. The more his mind is trans-
ported, the quicker and wider the intervals traversed. With
one spring he visits the poles of his horizon, and touches in one
moment objects which seemed to have the world between them.
His ideas are entangled without order ; without notice, abrupt-
ly, the poet will return to the idea he has quitted, and insert it
in the thought to which he is giving expression. It is impos-
sible to translate these incongruous ideas, which quite discon-
cert our modern style. At times they are unintelligible.' Ar-
ticles, particles, everything capable of illuminating thought, of
marking the connection of terms, of producing regularity of
ideas, all rational and logical artifices, are neglected.* Passion
bellows forth like a great shapeless beast; and that is all. It
rises and starts in little abrupt lines ; it is the acme of barbarism.
Homer's happy poetry is copiously developed, in full narrative,
with rich and extended imagery. All the details of a complete
picture are not too much for him ; he loves to look at things,
he lingers over them, rejoices in their beauty, dresses them in
splendid words ; he is like the Greek girls, who thought them-
selves ugly if they did not bedeck arms and shoulders with all
the gold coins from their purse, and all the treasures from their
caskets ; his long verses flow by with their cadences, and
spread out like a purple robe under an Ionian sun. Here the
clumsy-fingered poet crowds and clashes his ideas in a narrow
measure ; if measure there be, he barely observes it ; all his or-
nament is three words beginning with the same letter. His
chief care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a kind of muti-
lated cry.° The force of the internal impression, which, not

• The cleverest Anglo-Saxon scholars, is too clear, too logical. No French-
Turner, Conybeare, Thorpe, recognize man can understand this extraordinary
this difficulty.^ phase of intellect, except by taking a

* Turner, iii. 231 et passim. The dictionary, and deciphermg some pages
translations in French, however literal, of Anglo-Saxon for a fortnight.

do injustice to the text; that language •Turner remarks that the same idea

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knowing how to unfold itself, becomes condensed and doubled
by accumulation ; the harshness of the outward expression,
which, subservient to the energy and shocks of the inner senti-
ment, seek only to exhibit it intact and original, in spite of and
at the expense of all order and beauty — such are the character-
istics of their poetry, and these also will be the characteristics
of the poetry which is to follow.

Section VI. — Christian Poems

A race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity, by its
gloom, its aversion to sensual and reckless living, its inclination
for the serious and sublime. When their sedentary habits had
reconciled their souls to a long period of ease, and weakened
the fury which fed their sanguinary religion, they readily in-
clined to a new faith. The vague adoration of the great powers
of nature, which eternally fight for mutual destruction, and,
when destroyed, rise up again to the combat, had long since dis-
appeared in the dim distance. Society, on its formation, intro-
duced the idea of peace and the need for justice, and the war-
gods faded from the minds of men, with the passions which had
created them. A century and a half after the invasion by the
Saxons,^ Roman missionaries, bearing a silver cross with a pict-
ure of Christ, came in procession chanting a litany. Presently
the high priest of the Northumbrians declared in presence of
the nobles that the old gods w^ere powerless^ and confessed that
formerly " he knew nothing of that which he adored " ; and he
among the first, lance in hand, assisted to demolish their temple.
Then a chief rose in the assembly, and said :

" You remember, it may be, O king, that which sometimes happens in
winter when you are seated at table with your earls and thanes. Your
fire is lighted, and your hall warmed, and without is rain and snow
and storm. Then comes a swallow flying across the hall ; he enters by
one door, and leaves by another. The brief moment while he is within
is pleasant to him; he feels not rain nor cheerless winter weather; but
the moment is brief — the bird flies away in the twinkling of an eye, and
he passes from winter to winter. Such, methinks, is the life of man on
earth, compared with the uncertain time beyond. It appears for a while ;

expressed by King Alfred, in prose and ] 596-625. Aug. Thierry, i. 81 ; Bede,

then in verse takes in the first case xii. 2.
seven words, in the second five. — " His-
tory of the Anglo-Saxons," iii. 235.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 57

but what is the time which comes after — the time which was before?
We know not. If, then, this new doctrine may teach us somewhat of
greater certainty, it were well that we should regard it."

This restlessness, this feehng of the infinite and dark beyond,
this sober, melancholy eloquence, were the harbingers of spir-
itual life.^ We find nothing like it amongst the nations of the
south, naturally pagan, and preoccupied with the present life.
These utter barbarians embrace Christianity straightway,
through sheer force of mood and clime. To no purpose are
they brutal, heavy, shackled by infantine superstitions, capable,
like King Canute, of buying for a hundred golden talents the
arm of Augustine. They possess the idea of God. This grand
God of the Bible, omnipotent and unique, who disappears al-
most entirely in the Middle Ages,^ obscured by His court and
His family, endures amongst them in spite of absurd or gro-
tesque legends. They do not blot Him out under pious ro-
mances, by the elevation of the saints, or under feminine caresses,
to benefit the infant Jesus and the Virgin. Their grandeur
and their severity raise them to His high level ; they are
not tempted, like artistic and talkative nations, to replace reli-
gion by a fair and agreeable narrative. More than any race in
Europe, they approach, by the simplicity and energy of their
conceptions, the old Hebraic spirit. Enthusiasm is their nat-
ural condition ; and their new Deity fills them with admiration,
as their ancient deities inspired them with fury. They have
hymns, genuine odes, which are but a concrete of exclamations.
They have no development ; they are incapable of restraining
or explaining their passion ; it bursts forth, in raptures, at the
vision of the Almighty. The heart alone speaks here — a strong,
barbarous heart. Caedmon, their old poet,* says Bede, was a
more ignorant man than the others, who knew no poetry; so
that in the hall, when they handed him the harp, he was obliged
to withdraw, being, unable to sing like his companions. Once,
keeping night-watch over the stable, he fell asleep. A stranger
appeared to him, and asked him to sing something, and these
words came into his head : " Now we ought to praise the Lord
of heaven, the power of the Creator, and His skill, the deeds

• Jouffroy, " Problem of Human Des- * About 630. See " Codex Exonien-
tiny." sis," Thorpe.

• Michelet, preface to " La Renais-
sance "; Didron, " Histoire de Dieu."

58 TAINE

of the Father of glory ; how he, being eternal God, is the author
of all marvels ; who, almighty guardian of the human race,
created first for the sons of men the heavens as the roof of their
dwelling, and then the earth." Remembering this when he
woke,^ he came to the town, and they brought him before the
learned men, before the abbess Hilda, who, when they had
heard him, thought that he had received a gift from heaven,
and made him a monk in the abbey. There he spent his life lis-
tening to portions of Holy Writ, which were explained to him
in Saxon, " ruminating over them like a pure animal, turned
them into most sweet verse." Thus is true poetry born. These
men pray wuth all the emotion of a new soul ; they kneel ; they
adore ; the less they know the more they think. Someone has
said that the first and most sincere hymn is this one word O !
Theirs were hardly longer ; they only repeated time after time
some deep passionate word, with monotonous vehemence. " In
heaven art Thou, our aid and succor^ resplendent with happi-
ness! All things bow before Thee, before the glory of Thy
Spirit. With one voice they call upon Christ; they all cry:
Holy, holy art Thou, King of the angels of heaven, our Lord !
and Thy judgments are just and great; they reign forever and
in all places, in the multitude of Thy works." We are remind-
ed of the songs of the servants of Odin, tonsured now, and
clad in the garments of monks. Their poetry is the same ; they
think of God, as of Odin, in a string of short, accumulated, pas-
sionate images, like a succession of lightning-flashes ; the Chris-
tian hymns are a sequel to the pagan. One of them, Adhelm,
stood on a bridge leading to the town where he lived, and re-
peated warlike and profane odes as well as religious poetry, in
order to attract and instruct the men of his time. He could do
it without changing his key. In one of them, a funeral song.
Death speaks. It was one of the last Saxon compositions, con-
taining a terrible Christianity, which seems at the same time
to have sprung from the blackest depths of the Edda. The
brief metre sounds abruptly, with measured stroke, like the
passing bell. It is as if we hear the dull resounding responses
which roll through the church, while the rain beats on the dim
glass, and the broken clouds sail mournfully in the sky ; and our
eyes, glued to the pale face of a dead man feel beforehand

» Bedc, iv. 24.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

the horror of the damp grave into which the hving are about to
cast him.

" For thee was a house built ere thou wert born ; for thee was a
mould shapen ere thou of thy mother camest. Its height is not deter-
mined, nor its depth measured; nor is it closed up (however long it
may be) until I thee bring where thou shalt remain; until I shall meas-
ure thee and the sod of the earth. Thy house is not highly built; it is
unhigh and low. When thou art in it, khe heel-ways are low, the side-
ways unhigh. The roof is built thy breast full high ; so thou shalt in
earth dwell full cold, dim, and dark. Doorless is that house, and dark
it is within. There thou art fast detained, and Death holds the key.
Loathly is that earth-house, and grim to dwell in. There thou shalt
dwell, and worms shall share thee. Thus thou art laid, and leavest thy
friends. Thou hast no friend that will come to thee, who will ever in-
quire how that house liketh thee, who shall ever open for thee the door,
and seek thee, for soon thou becomest loathly and hateful to look
upon." ^

Has Jeremy Taylor a more gloomy picture ? The two religious
poetries, Christian and pagan, are so like, that one might mingle
their incongruities, images, and legends. In Beowulf, alto-
gether pagan, the Deity appears as Odin, more mighty and se-
rene, and differs from the other only as a peaceful Bretwalda ^
differs from an adventurous and heroic bandit-chief. The
Scandinavian monsters, Jotuns, enemies of the ^sir,^ have not
vanished ; but they descend from Cain, and the giants drowned
by the flood.® Their new hell is nearly the ancient Nastrand,^**
"a. dwelling deadly cold, full of bloody eagles and pale adders " ;
and the dreadful last day of judgment, when all will crumble
into dust, and make way for a purer world, resembles the final
destruction of Edda, that " twilight of the gods," which will end
in a victorious regeneration, an everlasting joy " under a fairer
sun."

By this natural conformity they were able to make their re-
ligious poems indeed poems. Power in spiritual productions
arises only from the sincerity of personal and original senti-
ment. If they can relate religious tragedies, it is because their
soul was tragic, and in a degree biblical. They introduce into

^ Conybeare's " Illustrations," p. 271. * Kemble, i. i. xii. In this chapter

' Bretwalda was a species of war-king, he has collected many features which

or temporary and elective chief of all show the endurance of the ancient

the Saxons. — Tr. mythology.

* The ^sir (sing. As) are the gods of '" Nastrand is the strand or shore of

the Scandinavian nations, of whom the dead. — Tr.

Odin was the chief. — Tr.

6o TAINE

their verses, like the old prophets of Israel, their fierce vehe-
mence, their murderous hatreds, their fanaticism, all the shud-
derings of their flesh and blood. One of them, whose poem is
mutilated, has related the history of Judith — with what inspira-
tion we shall see. It needed a barbarian to display in such
strong light excesses, tumult, murder, vengeance, and combat.

" Then was Holofernes exhilarated with v/ine ; in the halls of his
guests he laughed and shouted, he roared and dinned. Then might the
children of men afar off hear how the stern one stormed and clamored,
animated and elated with wine. He admonished amply that they should
bear it well to those sitting on the bench. So was the wicked one over
all the day, the lord and his men, drunk with wine, the stern dispenser
of wealth; till that they swimming lay over drunk, all his nobility, as
they were death-slain." ^^

The night having arrived, he commands them to bring into
his tent " the illustrious virgin " ; then, going to visit her, he
falls drunk on his bed. The moment was come for " the maid
of the Creator, the holy woman."

" She took the heathen man fast by his hair ; she drew him by his
limbs towards her disgracefully; and the mischief-ful odious man at her
pleasure laid; so as the wretch she might the easiest well command.
She with the twisted locks struck the hateful enemy, meditating hate,
with the red sword, till she had half cut off his neck; so that he lay in
a swoon, drunk and mortally wounded. He was not then dead, not en-
tirely lifeless. She struck then earnest, the woman illustrious in strength,
another time the heathen hound, till that his head rolled forth upon the
floor. The foul one lay without a coffer; backward his spirit turned
under the abyss, and there was plunged below, with sulphur fastened;
forever afterward wounded by worms. Bound in torments, hard im-
prisoned, in hell he burns. After his course he need not hope, with
darkness overwhelmed, that he may escape from that mansion of worms ;
but there he shall remain; ever and ever, without end, henceforth in
that cavern-house, void of the joys of hope." ^^

Had anyone ever heard a sterner accent of satisfied hate?
When Clovis listened to the Passion play, he cried, " Why was
I not there with my Franks ! " So here the old warrior instinct
swelled into flame over the Hebrew wars. As soon as Judith
returned,

" Men under helms (went out) from the holy city at the dawn itself.
They dinned shields; men roared loudly. At this rejoiced the lank

" Turner, " History of Anglo-Sax- " Ibid. iii. book 9, ch. 3, p. 272.

ons," iii. book 9, ch. 3, p. 271.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 6i

wolf in the wood, and the wan raven, the fowl greedy of slaughter, both
from the west, that the sons of men for them should have thought to
prepare their fill on corpses. And to them flew in their paths the active
devourer, the eagle, hoary in his feathers. The willowed kite, with his
horned beak, sang the song of Hilda. The noble warriors proceeded,
they in mail, to the battle, furnished with shields, with swelling banners.
. . . They then speedily let fly forth showers of arrows, the serpents
of Hilda, from their horn bows ; the spears on the ground hard stormed.
Loud raged the plunderers of battle ; they sent their darts into the
throng of the chiefs. . . . They that awhile before the reproach of
the foreigners, the taunts of the heathen endured." ^^

Amongst all these unknown poets " there is one whose name
we know, Caedmon, perhaps the old Csedmon who wrote the
first hymn ; like him, at all events, who, paraphrasing the Bible
with a barbarian's vigor and sublimity, has shown the grandeur
and fury of the sentiment with which the men of these times
entered into their new religion. He also sings when he speaks ;
when he mentions the ark, it is with a profusion of poetic
names, " the floating house, the greatest of floating chambers,
the wooden fortress, the moving roof, the cavern, the great sea-
chest," and many more. Every time he thinks of it, he sees it
with his mind, like a quick luminous vision, and each time under
a new aspect, now undulating on the muddy waves, between
two ridges of foam, now casting over the water its enormous
shadow, black and high like a castle, " now enclosing in its
cavernous sides " the endless swarm of caged beasts. Like the
others, he wrestles with God in his heart ; triumphs like a war-
rior over destruction and victory ; and in relating the death
of Pharaoh, can hardly speak from anger, or see, because the
blood mounts to his eyes.

" The folk was affrighted, the flood-dread seized on their sad souls ;
ocean wailed with death, the mountain heights were with blood be-
steamed, the sea foamed gore, crying was in the waves, the water full
of weapons, a death-mist rose ; the Egyptians were turned back ; trem-
bling they fled, they felt fear : would that host gladly find their homes ;
their vaunt grew sadder: against them, as a cloud, rose the fell rolling
of the waves ; there came not any of that host to home, but from be-
hind enclosed them fate with the wave. Where ways ere lay sea raged.
Their might was merged, the streams stood, the storm rose high to
heaven ; the loudest army-cry the hostile uttered ; the air above was

»» Turner, " History of Anglo-Saxons," >* Grein, " Bibliothek der Angelsaechs*

iii. book g, ch. 3, p. 274. ischen Poesie."

4 — Classics. Vol. 38

62 TAINE

thickened with dying voices. . . . Ocean raged, drew itself up on
high, the storms rose, the corpses rolled." ^^

Is the song of the Exodus more abrupt, more vehement, or
more savage? These men can speak of the creation like the
Bible, because they speak of destruction like the Bible. They
have only to look into their own hearts in order to discover an
emotion sufficiently strong to raise their souls to the height of
their Creator. This emotion existecj already in their pagan le-
gends ; and Csedmon, in order to recount the origin of things,
has only to turn to the ancient dreams, such as have been pre-
served in the prophecies of the Edda.

" There had not here as yet, save cavern-shade, aught been ; but this
wide abyss stood deep and dim, strange to its Lord, idle and useless;
on which looked with his eyes the King firm of mind, and beheld these
places void of joys; saw the dark cloud lower in eternal night, swart
under heaven, dark and waste, until this worldly creation through the
word existed of the Glory-King. . . . The earth as yet was not
green with grass; ocean cover'd, swart in eternal night, far and wide
the dusky ways." ''■^

In this manner will Milton hereafter speak, the descendant
of the Hebrew seers, last of the Scandinavian seers, but assisted
in the development of his thought by all the resources of Latin
culture and civilization. And yet he will add nothing to the
primitive sentiment. Religious instinct is not acquired ; it be-
longs to the blood, and is inherited with it. So it is with other
instincts; pride in the first place, indomitable self-conscious
energy, which sets man in opposition to all domination, and in-
ures him against all pain. Milton's Satan exists already in
Csedmon's, as the picture exists in the sketch ; because both have
their model in the race ; and Caedmon found his originals in the
northern warriors, as Milton did in the Puritans :

" Why shall I for his favor serve, bend to him in such vassalage? I
may be a god as he. Stand by me, strong associates, who will not fail
me in the strife. Heroes stern of mood, they have chosen me for chief,
renowned warriors ! with such .may one devise counsel, with such
capture his adherents ; they are my zealous friends, faithful in their
thoughts ; I may be their chieftain, sway in this realm ; thus to me it
seemeth not right that I in aught need cringe to God for any good; I
will no longer be his vassal." '^''

'5 Thorpe, " Caedmon," 1832, xlvii. p. tween this song and corresponding por-
206. tions of the Edda.

1" Ibid. ii. p. 7. A likeness exists be- " Ibid. iv. p. 18.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 63

He is overcome: shall he be subdued? He is cast into the
place " where torment they suffer, burning heat intense, in
midst of hell, fire, and broad flames ; so also the bitter seeks
smoke and darkness"; will he repent? At first he is aston-
ished, he despairs ; but it is a hero's despair.

" This narrow place is most unlike that other that we ere knew.^^
high in heaven's kingdom, which my master bestow'd on me. . . .
Oh, had I power of my hands, and might one season be without, be one
winter's space, then with this host I — But around me lie iron bonds,
presseth this cord of chain : I am powerless ! me have so hard the clasps
of hell, so firmly grasped ! Here is a vast fire above and underneath,
never did I see a loathlier landskip ; the flame abateth not, hot over hell.
Me hath the clasping of these rings, this hard-polish'd band, impeded
in my course, debarr'd me from my way ; my feet are bound, my hands
manacled, ... so that with aught I cannot from these limb-bonds
escape." ^^

As there is nothing to be done against God, it is His new
creature, man, whom he must attack. To him who has lost
everything, vengeance is left ; and if the conquered can enjoy
this, he will find himself happy ; " he will sleep softly, even
under his chains."

Section VII. — Primitive Saxon Authors

Here the foreign culture ceased. Beyond Christianity it
could not graft upon this barbarous stock any fruitful or living
branch. All the circumstances which elsewhere mellowed the
wild sap, failed here. The Saxons found Britain abandoned
by the Romans ; they had not yielded, like their brothers on the
Continent, to the ascendancy of a superior civilization ; they
had not become mingled with the inhabitants of the land ; they
had always treated them like enemies or slaves, pursuing like
wolves those who escaped to the mountains of the west, treating
like beasts of burden those whom they had conquered with the
land. While the Germans of Gaul, Italy, and Spain became
Romans, the Saxons retained their language, their genius and
manners, and created in Britain a Germany outside of Germany.
A hundred and fifty years after the Saxon invasion, the intro-
duction of Christianity and the dawn of security attained by a

1* This is Milton's opening also. (See have had some knowledge of Caedmoa
" Paradise Lost," book i. verse 242, from the translation of Junius,
etc.) One would think that he must " Thorpe, " Caedmon," iv. p. 23.

64 TAINE

society inclining to peace, gave birth to a kind of literature ; and
we meet with the venerable Bede, and later on, Alcuin, John
Scotus Erigena, and some others, commentators, translators,
teachers of barbarians, who tried not to originate but to com-
pile, to pick out and explain from the great Greek and Latin en-
cyclopaedia something which might suit the men of their time.
But the wars with the Danes came and crushed this humble
plant, which, if left to itself, would have come to nothing.^
When Alfred ^ the Deliverer became king, " there were very
few ecclesiastics," he says, " on this side of the Humber, who
could understand in English their own Latin prayers, or trans-
late any Latin writing into English. On the other side of the
Humber I think there were scarce any ; there were so few that,
in truth, I cannot remember a single man south of the Thames,
when I took the kingdom, who was capable of it." He tried, like
Charlemagne, to instruct his people, and turned into Saxon for
their use several works, above all some moral books, as the " de
Consolatione " of Boethius ; but this very translation bears wit-
ness to the barbarism of his audience. He adapts the text in
order to bring it down to their intelligence ; the pretty verses
of Boethius, somewhat pretentious, labored, elegant, crowded
with classical allusions of a refined and compact style worthy
of Seneca, become an artless, long-drawn-out and yet desultory
prose, like a nurse's fairy tale, explaining everything, recom-
mencing and breaking off its phrases, making ten turns about a
single detail ; so low was it necessary to stoop to the level of this
new intelligence, which had never thought or known anything.
Here follows the Latin of Boethius, so affected, so pretty, with
the English translation affixed :

" Quondam funera conjugis
Vates Threicius gemens,
Postquam flebilibus modis
Silvas currere, mobiles
Amnes stare coegerat,
Junxitque intrepidum latus
Saevis cerva leonibus,
Nic visum timuit lepus

* They themselves feel their impo- sixth is the present, " aetas decrepita,

tence and decrepitude. Bede, dividing totius morte sajculi consummanda."

the history of the world into six pe- ^ Djed in 901 ; Adhelm died 709, Bede

riods, says that the fifth, which stretches died 735, Alcuin lived under Charle-

from the return out of Babylon to the magne. Erigena under Charles the

birth of Christ, is the senile period; the Bald (843-877).

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 65

Jam cantu placidum canem ;
Cum flagrantior intima
Fervor pectoris ureret,
Nee qui cuncta subegerant
Mulcerent dominum modi;
Immites superos querens,
Infernas adiit domos.
Illic blanda sonantibus
Chordis carmina temperans,
Quidquid praecipuis De?^
Matris fontibus hauserat,
Quod luctus dabat impotens,
Quod luctum geminans amor,
Deflet Tartara commovens,
Et dulci veniam prece
Umbrarum dominos rogat.
Stupet tergeminus novo
Captus carmine janitor;
Quae sontes agitant metu
Ultrices scelerum Deae
Jam moestae lacrymis madent.
Non Ixionium caput
Velox praecipitat rota,
Et longa site perditus
Spernit flumina Tantalus.
Vultur dum satur est modis
Non traxit Tityi jecur.
Tandem, vincimur, arbiter
Umbrarum miserans ait.
Donemus comitem viro,
Emptam carmine conjugem.
Sed lex dona coerceat,
Nee, dum Tartara liquerit,
Fas sit lumina flectere.
Quis legem det amantibus!
Major lex fit amor sibi.
Heu ! noctis prope terminos
Orpheus Eurydicem suam
Vidit, perdidit, occidit.
Vos haec fabula respicit,
Quicunque in superum diem
Mentem ducere quaeritis.
Nam qui tartareum in specus
Victus lumina flexerit,
Quidquid praecipuum trahit
Perdit, dum videt inferos."

— Book Hi. Metre 12.

66 TAINE

The English translation follows:

" It happened formerly that there was a harper in the country called
Thrace, which was in Greece. The harper was inconceivably good.
His name was Orpheus. He had a very excellent wife, called Eurydice.
Then began men to say concerning the harper, that he could harp
so that the wood moved, and the stones stirred themselves at the
sound, and wild beasts would run thereto, and stand as if they were
tame; so still, that though men or hounds pursued them, they shunned
them not. Then said they, that the harper's wife should die, and her
soul should be led to hell. Then should the harper become so sorrow-
ful that he could not remain among the men, but frequented the wood,
and sat on the mountains, both day and night, weeping and harping, so
that the woods shook, and the rivers stood still, and no hart shunned
any lion, nor hare any hound; nor did cattle know any hatred, or any
fear of others, for the pleasure of the sound. Then it seemed to the
harper that nothing in this world pleased him. Then thought he that
he would seek the gods of hell, and endeavor to allure them with his
harp, and pray that they would give him back his wife. When he came
thither, then should there come towards him the dog of hell, whose
name was Cerberus — he should have three heads — and began to wag
his tail, and play with him for his harping. Then was there also a very
horrible gatekeeper, whose name should be Charon. He had also three
heads, and he was very old. Then began the harper to beseech him
that he would protect him while he was there, and bring him thence
again safe. Then did he promise that to him, because he was desirous
of the unaccustomed sound. Then went he further until he met the
fierce goddesses, whom the common people call Parcse, of whom they
say, that they know no respect for any man, but punish every man
according to his deeds; and of whom they say, that they control every
man's fortune. Then began he to implore their mercy. Then began
they to weep with him. Then went he farther, and all the inhabitants
of hell ran towards him, and led him to their king: and all began to
speak with him, and to pray that which he prayed. And the restless
wheel which Ixion, the king of the Lapithse, was bound to for his guilt,
that stood still for his harping. And Tantalus the king, who in this
world was immoderately greedy, and whom that same vice of greedi-
ness followed there, he became quiet. And the vulture should cease,
so that he tore not the liver of Tityus the king, which before therewith
tormented him. And all the punishments of the inhabitants of hell were
suspended, whilst he harped before the king. When he long and long
had harped, then spoke the king of the inhabitants of hell, and said.
Let us give the man his wife, for he has earned her by his harping. He
then commanded him that he should well observe that he never looked
backwards after he departed hence ; and said, if he looked backwards,
that he should lose the woman. But men can with great difficulty, if
at all, restrain love ! Wellaway ! What ! Orpheus then led his wife
with him till he came to the boundary of light and darkness. Then
went his wife after him. When he came forth into the light, then looked

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 67

be behind his back towards the woman. Then was she immediately lost
to him. This fable teaches every man who desires to fly the darkness
of hell, and to come to the light of the true good, that he look not about
him to his old vices, so that he practise them again as fully as he did
before. For whosoever with full will turns his mind to the vices which
he had before forsaken, and practises them, and they then fully please
him, and he never thinks of forsaking them ; then loses he all his for-
mer good unless he again amend it." ^

A man speaks thus when he wishes to impress upon the mind
of his hearers an idea which is not clear to them. Boethius
had for his audience senators, men of culture, who understood
as well as we the slightest mythological allusion. Alfred is
obliged to take them up and develop them, like a father or a
master, who draws his little boy between his knees, and relates
to him names, qualities, crimes and their punishments, which
the Latin only hints at. But the ignorance is such that the
teacher himself needs correction. He takes the Parcae for the
Erinyes, and gives Charon three heads like Cerberus. There
is no adornment in his version ; no delicacy as in the original.
Alfred has hard work to make himself understood. What, for
instance, becomes of the noble Platonic moral, the apt interpre-
tation after the style of lamblichus and Porphyry? It is alto-
gether dulled. He has to call everything by its name, and turn
the eyes of his people to tangible and visible things. It is a
sermon suited to his audience of thanes ; the Danes whom he
had converted by the sword needed a clear moral. If he had
translated for them exactly the last w^ords of Boethius, they
would have opened wide their big stupid eyes and fallen asleep.

For the whole talent of an uncultivated mind lies in the force
and oneness of its sensations. Beyond that it is powerless.
The art of thinking and reasoning lies above it. These men
lost all genius when they lost their fever-heat. They lisped
awkwardly and heavily dry chronicles, a sort of historical al-
manacs. You might think them peasants, who, returning
from their toil, came and scribbled with chalk on a smoky table
the date of a year of scarcity, the price of corn, the changes in
the weather, a death. Even so, side by side with the meagre
Bible chronicles, which set down the successions of kings, and
of Jewish massacres, are exhibited the exaltation of the psalms
and the transports of prophecy. The same lyric poet can be

• Fox's " Alfred's Boethius," chap. 35, sec. 6, 1864.

68 TAINE

alternately a brute and a genius, because his genius comes and
goes like a disease, and instead of having it he simply is ruled
by it.

"ad. 6ii. This year Cynegils succeeded to the government in Wes-
sex, and held it one-and-thirty winters. Cynegils was the son of Ceol,
Ceol of Cutha, Cutha of Cynric.

" 614. This year Cynegils and Cnichelm fought at Bampton, and slew
two thousand and forty-six of the Welsh.

" 678. This year appeared the comet-star in August, and shone every
morning during three months like a sunbeam. Bishop Wilfrid being
driven from his bishopric by King Everth, two bishops were consecrated
in his stead.

" 901. This year died Alfred, the son of Ethelwulf, six nights before
the mass of All Saints. He was king over all the English nation, except
that part that was under the power of the Danes. He held the govern-
ment one year and a half less than thirty winters; and then Edward
his son took to the government.

" 902. This year there was the great fight at the Holme, between the
men of Kent and the Danes.

" 1077. This year were reconciled the King of the Franks, and Will-
iam, King of England. But it was continued only a little while. This
year was London burned, one night before the Assumption of St. Mary,
so terribly as it never was before since it was built." *

It is thus the poor monks speak, with monotonous dryness,
who, after Alfred's time, gather up and take note of great visi-
ble events ; sparsely scattered we find a few moral reflections, a
passionate emotion, nothing more. In the tenth century we see
King Edgar give a manor to a bishop, on condition that he will
put into Saxon the monastic regulation written in Latin by
Saint Benedict. Alfred hiinself was almost the last man of cult-
ure ; he, like Charlemagne, became so only by dint of deter-
mination and patience. In vain the great spirits of this age
endeavor to link themselves to the relics of the fine, ancient civ-
ilization, and to raise themselves above the chaotic and muddy
ignorance in which the others flounder. They rise almost
alone, and on their death the rest sink again into the mire. It
is the human beast that remains master ; the mind cannot find a
place amidst the outbursts and the desires of the flesh, gluttony
and brute force. Even in the little circle where he moves, his
labor comes to i:ought. The model which he proposed to him-
self oppresses and enchains him in a cramping imitation; he

* All these extracts are taken from Ingram's " Saxon Chronicle," 1823.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 69

aspires but to be a good copyist; he produces a gathering of
centos which he calls Latin verses; he applies himself to the
discovery of expressions, sanctioned by good models ; he suc-
ceeds only in elaborating an emphatic, spoiled Latin, bristling
with incongruities. In place of ideas, the most profound
amongst them serve up the defunct doctrines of defunct au-
thors. They compile religious manuals and philosophical man-
uals from the Fathers. Erigena, the most learned, goes to the
extent of reproducing the old complicated dreams of Alexan-
drian metaphysics. How far these speculations and remin-
iscences soar above the barbarous crowd which howls and bus-
tles in the depths below, no words can express. There was a
certain king of Kent in the seventh century who could not
write. Imagine bachelors of theology discussing before an au-
dience of wagoners, not Parisian wagoners, but such as survive
in Auvergne or in the Vosges. Among these clerks, who think
like studious scholars in accordance with their favorite authors,
and are doubly separated from the world as scholars and monks,
Alfred alone, by his position as a layman and a practical man,
descends in his Saxon translations and his Saxon verses to the
common level ; and we have seen that his effort, like that of
Charlemagne, was fruitless. There was an impassable wall
between the old learned literature and the present chaotic bar-
barism. Incapable, yet compelled, to fit into the ancient mould,
they gave it a twist. Unable to reproduce ideas, they repro-
duced a metre. They tried to eclipse their rivals in versification
by the refinement of their composition, and the prestige of a
difficulty overcome. So, in our own colleges, the good scholars
imitate the clever divisions and symmetry of Claudian rather
than the ease and variety of Vergil. They put their feet in
irons, and showed their smartness by running in shackles ; they
weighted themselves with rules of modem rhyme and rules of
ancient metre ; they added the necessity of beginning each verse
with the same letter that began the last. A few, like Adhelm,
wrote square acrostics, in which the first line, repeated at the
end, was found also to the left and right of the piece. Thus
made up of the first and last letters of each verse, it forms a
border to the whole piece, and the morsel of verse is like a piece
of tapestry. Strange literary tricks, which changed the poet
into an artisan. They bear witness to the difficulties which

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then impeded culture and nature, and spoiled at once the Latin
form and the Saxon genius.

Beyond this barrier, which drew an impassable line between
civilization and barbarism, there was another, no less impassa-
ble, between the Latin and Saxon genius. The strong German
imagination, in which glowing and obscure visions suddenly
meet and abruptly overflow, was in contrast with the reasoning
spirit, in which ideas gather and are developed only in a regular
order ; so that if the barbarian, in his classical attempts, retained
any part of his primitive instincts, he succeeded only in produc-
ing a grotesque and frightful monster. One of them, this very
Adhelm, a relative of King Ina, who sang on the town-bridge
profane and sacred hymns alternately, too much imbued with
Saxon poesy, simply to imitate the antique models, adorned his
Latin prose and verse with all the " English magnificence." °
You might compare him to a barbarian who seizes a flute from
the skilled hands of a player of Augustus's court, in order to
blow on it with inflated lungs, as if it were the bellowing horn of
an aurochs. The sober speech of the Roman orators and sena-
tors becomes in his hands full of exaggerated and incoherent
images ; he violently connects words, uniting them in a sudden
and extravagant manner ; he heaps up his colors, and utters ex-
traordinary and unintelligible nonsense, like that of the later
Skalds ; in short, he is a latinized Skald, dragging into his new
tongue the ornaments of Scandinavian poetry, such as allitera-
tion, by dint of which he congregates in one of his epistles fif-
teen consecutive words, all beginning with the same letter ; and
in order to make up his fifteen, he introduces a barbarous Gr^e-
cism amongst the Latin words.® Amongst the others, the
writers of legends, you will meet many times with deformation
of Latin, distorted by the outburst of a too vivid imagination;
it breaks out even in their scholastic and scientific writing. Here
is part of a dialogue between Alcuin and prince Pepin, a son
of Charlemagne, and he uses like formulas the little poetic and
bold phrases which abound in the national poetry. " What is
winter? the banishment of summer. What is spring? the

8 William of Malmesbury's expres- emataque passim prosatori sub polo

sion. promulgantes, stridula vocum sympho-

• Primitus (pantorum procerum prse- nia ac melodise cantile, nseque carmine

torumque pio potissimum paternoque modulaturi hymnizemus.
prsesertim privilegio) panegyricum po-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 71

painter of the earth. What is the year? the world's chariot.
What is the sun? the splendor of the world, the beauty of
heaven, the grace of nature, the honor of day, the distributor
of the hours. What is the sea ? the path of audacity, the bound-
ar}- of the earth, the receptacle of the rivers, the fountain of
showers." More, he ends his instructions with enigmas, in the
spirit of the Skalds, such as we still find in the old manuscripts
with the barbarian songs. It was the last feature of the na-
tional genius, which, when it labors to understand a matter,
neglects dry, clear, consecutive deduction, to employ grotesque,
remote, oft-repeated imagery, and replaces analysis by intui-
tion.

Section VIII. — Virility of the Saxon Race

Such was this race, the last born of the sister races, which,
in the decay of the other two, the Latin and the Greek, brings
to the world a new civilization, with a new character and genius.
Inferior to these in many respects, it surpasses them in not a
few. Amidst the woods and mire and snows, under a sad, in-
clement sky, gross instincts have gained the day during this
long barbarism. The German has not acquired gay humor,
unreserved facility, the feeling for harmonious beauty; his
great phlegmatic body continues savage and stiff, greedy and
brutal ; his rude and unpliable mind is still inclined to savagery,
and restive under culture. Dull and congealed, his ideas can-
not expand with facility and freedom, with a natural sequence
and an instinctive regularity. But this spirit, void of the senti-
ment of the beautiful, is all the more apt for the sentiment of the
true. The deep and incisive impression which he receives from
contact with objects, and which as yet he can only express by
a cry, will afterwards liberate him from the Latin rhetoric, and
will vent itself on things rather than on words. Moreover,
under the constraint of climate and solitude, by the habit of
resistance and eflfort, his ideal is changed. Manly and moral
instincts have gained the empire over him ; and amongst them
the need of independence, the disposition for serious and strict
manners, the inclination for devotion and veneration, the wor-
ship of heroism. Here are the foundations and the elements
of a civilization, slower but sounder, less careful of what is

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agreeable and elegant, more based on justice and truthJ Hith-
erto at least the race is intact, intact in its primitive coarseness ;
the Roman cultivation could neither develop nor deform it. If
Christianity took root, it was owing to natural affinities, but it
produced no change in the native genius. Now approaches a
new conquest, which is to bring this time men, as well as ideas.
The Saxons, meanwhile, after the wont of German races, vig-
orous and fertile, have within the past six centuries multiplied
enormously. They were now about two millions, and the Nor-
man army numbered sixty thousand.* In vain these Normans
become transformed, gallicized ; by their origin, and substan-
tially in themselves they are still the relatives of those whom
they conquered. In vain they imported their manners and their
poesy, and introduced into the language a third part of its
words ; this language continues altogether German in element
and in substance.® Though the grammar changed, it changed
integrally, by an internal action, in the same sense as its conti-
nental cognates. At the end of three hundred years the con-
querors themselves were conquered ; their speech became Eng-
lish ; and owing to frequent intermarriage, the English blood
ended by gaining the predominance over the Norman blood in
their veins. The race finally remains Saxon. If the old poetic
genius disappears after the Conquest, it is as a river disappears,
and flows for a while underground. In five centuries it will
emerge once more.

''In Iceland, the country of the eral large towns, for the monks and

fiercest sea-kings, crimes are unknown; provincial clergy not enumerated. . . .

prisons have been turned to other uses; We must accept these figures with cau-

fines are the only punishment. tion. Still they agree with those of

8 Following Doomsday Book, Mr. Mackintosh, George Chalmers, and sev-

Turner reckons at three hundred thou- eral others. Many facts show that the

sand the heads of families mentioned. Saxon population was very numerous,

If each family consisted of five per- and quite out of proportion to the Nor-

sons, that would make one million five man population.

hundred thousand people. He adds " W.arton, " History of English Po»

five hundred thousand for the four stry," 1840, 3 vols., Preface,
northern counties, for London and sev-

CHAPTER SECOND

THE NORMANS

Section I. — The Feudal Man

A CENTURY and a half had passed on the Continent
since, amid the universal decay and dissolution, a new
society had been formed, and new men had risen up.
Brave men had at length made a stand against the Norsemen
and the robbers. They had planted their feet in the soil, and
the moving chaos of the general subsidence had become fixed
by the effort of their great hearts and of their arms. At the
mouths of the rivers, in the defiles of the mountains, on the mar-
gin of the waste borders, at all perilous passes, they had built
their forts, each for himself, each on his own land, each with
his faithful band ; and they had lived like a scattered but watch-
ful army, encamped and confederate in their castles, sword in
hand in front of the enemy. Beneath this discipline a formi-
dable people had been formed, fierce hearts in strong bodies,^
intolerant of restraint, longing for violent deeds, born for con-
stant warfare because steeped in permanent warfare, heroes
and robbers, who, as an escape from their solitude, plunged
into adventures, and went, that they might conquer a country or
win Paradise, to Sicily, to Portugal, to Spain, to Palestine, to
England.

Section II. — Normans and Saxons Contrasted

On September 27, 1066, at the mouth of the Somme, there
was a great sight to be seen ; four hundred large sailing vessels,
more than a thousand transports, and sixty thousand men, were

^ See, amidst other delineations of could remain without a defender. A

their manners, the first accounts of the Spanish leader said to his exhausted

first Crusade. Godfrey clove a Sara- soldiers after a battle, " You are too

cen down to his waist. In Palestine, a weary and too much wounded, but

widow was compelled, up to the age of come and fieht with me against this

sixty, to marry again, because no fief other band; tne fresh wounds which we

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on the point of embarking.^ The sun shone splendidlj' after
long rain ; trumpets sounded, the cries of this armed multitude
rose to heaven ; as far as the eye could see, on the shore, in the
wide-spreading river, on the sea which opens out thence broad
and shining, masts and sails extended like a forest ; the enor-
mous fleet set out wafted by the south wind.^ The people
which it carried were said to have come from Norway, and they
might have been taken for kinsmen of the Saxons, with whom
they were to fight ; but there were with them a multitude of ad-
venturers, crowding from all quarters, far and near, from north
and south, from Maine and Anjou, from Poitou and Brittany,
from Ile-de-France and Flanders, from Aquitaine and Bur-
gundy ; ^ and, in short, the expedition itself was French.

How comes it that, having kept its name, it had changed its
nature? and what series of renovations had made a Latin out
of a German people? The reason is, that this people, when
they came to Neustria, were neither a national body, nor a pure
race. They were but a band ; and as such, marrying the women
of the country, they introduced foreign blood into their chil-
dren. They were a Scandinavian band, but swelled by all the
bold knaves and all the wretched desperadoes who wandered
about the conquered country ; * and as such they received for-
eign blood into their veins. Moreover, if the nomadic band
was mixed, the settled band was much more so ; and peace by its
transfusions, like war by its recruits, had changed the character
of the primitive blood. When Rollo, having divided the land
amongst his followers, hung the thieves and their abettors, peo-
ple from every country gathered to him. Security, good stern
justice, were so rare, that they were enough to repeople a land.°
He invited strangers, say the old writers, " and made one people
out of so many folk of different natures." This assemblage of

shall receive will make us forget those ings, two were composed of auxiliaries,

which we have." At this time, says Moreover, the chroniclers are not at

the General Chronicle of Spain, kings, fault upon this critical point; they agree

counts, and nobles, and all the knights, in stating that England was conquered

that they might be ever ready, kept by Frenchmen.

their horses in the chamber where they * It was a Rouen fisherman, a soldier

slept with their wives. of Rollo, who killed the Duke of France

' For difference in numbers of the at the mouth of the Eure. Hastings,

fleet and men see Freeman, " History the famous" sea-king, was a laborer's

of the Norman Conquest," 3 vols., 1867, son from the neighborhood of Troyes.

iii. 381, 387. — Tr. * " In the tenth century," says Stend-

2 For all the details see " Anglo-Nor- hal, "a man wished for two things:
man Chronicles," iii. 4, as quoted by First, not to be slain; second, to have
Aug. Thierry. I have myself seen the a good leather coat" See Fontenelle's
locality and the country. " Chronicle."

3 Of three columns of attack at Hast-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE - 75

barbarians, refugees, robbers, immigrants, spoke Romance or
French so quickly, that the second Duke, wishing to have his
son taught Danish, had to send him to Bayeux, where it was
still spoken. The great masses always form the race in the
end, and generally the genius and language. Thus this peo-
ple, so transformed, quickly became polished ; the composite
race showed itself of a ready genius, far more wary than the
Saxons across the Channel, closely resembling their neighbors
of Picardy, Champagne, and Ile-de-France. " The Saxons,"
says an old writer,^ " vied with each other in their drinking
feats, and wasted their income by day and night in feasting,
whilst they lived in wretched hovels ; the French and Normans,
on the other hand, living inexpensively in their fine, large
houses, were besides refined in their food and studiously careful
in their dress." The former, still weighted by the German
phlegm, were gluttons and drunkards, now and then aroused
by poetical enthusiasm ; the latter, made sprightlier by their
transplantation and their alloy, felt the cravings of the mind
already making themselves manifest. " You might see amongst
them churches in every village, and monasteries in the cities,
towering on high, and built in a style unknown before," first
in Normandy, and later in England.'^ Taste had come to them
at once — that is, the desire to please the eye, and to express a
thought by outward representation, which was quite a new
idea : the circular arch was raised on one or on a cluster of col-
umns ; elegant mouldings were placed about the windows ; the
rose window made its appearance, simple, yet, like the flower
which gives it its name " rose dcs buissans "; and the Norman
style unfolded itself, original yet proportioned between the
Gothic, whose richness it foreshadowed, and the Romance,
whose solidity it recalled.

With taste, just as natural and just as quickly, was developed
the spirit of inquiry. Nations are like children ; with some the
tongue is readily loosened, and they comprehend at once ; with
others it is loosened with difficulty, and they are slow of com-
prehension. The men we are here speaking of had educated
themselves nimbly, as Frenchmen do. They were the first in
France who unravelled the language, regulating it and writing

• William of Malmesbury. ough, Rochester, Hereford, Gloucester,

■f Churches in London, Sarum, Nor- Oxford» etc. — William of Malmesbury.
wich, Durham, Chichester, Peterboi-

76 TAINE

it so well, that to this day we understand their codes and their
poems. In a century and a half they were so far cultivated as .
to find the Saxons "unlettered and rude." * That was the ex-
cuse they made for banishing them from the abbeys and all val-
uable ecclesiastical offices. And, in fact, this excuse was ra-
tional, for they instinctively hated gross stupidity. Between
the Conquest and the death of King John, they established five
hundred and fifty-seven schools in England. Henry Beau-
clerk, son of the Conqueror, was trained in the sciences ; so were
Henry H and his three sons ; Richard, the eldest of these, was a
poet. Lanfranc, first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, a
subtle logician, ably argued the Real Presence ; Anselm, his suc-
cessor, the first thinker of the age, thought he had discovered
a new proof of the existence of God, and tried to make religion
philosophical by adopting as his maxim, " Crede ut intelligas."
The notion was doubtless grand, especially in the eleventh cen-
tury; and they could not have gone more promptly to work.
Of course the science I speak of was but scholastic, and these
terrible folios slay more understandings than they confirm.
But people must begin as they can; and syllogism, even in
Latin, even in theology, is yet an exercise of the mind and a
proof of the understanding. Among the continental priests
who settled in England, one established a library ; another,
founder of a school, made the scholars perform the play of Saint
Catherine; a third wrote, in polished Latin, "epigrams as point-
ed as those of Martial." Such were the recreations of an in-
telligent race, eager for ideas, of ready and flexible genius,
whose clear thought was not clouded, like that of the Saxon
brain, by drunken hallucinations and the vapors of a greedy
and well-filled stomach. They loved conversations, tales of
adventure. Side by side with their Latin chroniclers, Henry of
Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, thoughtful men already,
who could not only relate, but criticise here and there, there
were rhyming chronicles in the vulgar tongue, as those of
Geoffroy Gaimar, Benoit de Sainte-Maure, Robert Wace. Do
not imagine that their verse-writers were sterile of words or
lacking in details. They were talkers, tale-tellers, speakers
above all, ready of tongue, and never stinted in speech. Not

f Ordericus Vitaiis.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 77

singers by any means; they speak — this is their strong point,
in their poems as in their chronicles. They were the earhest
who wrote the " Song of Roland " ; upon this they accumulated
a multitude of songs concerning Charlemagne and his peers,
concerning Arthur and Merlin, the Greeks and Romans, King
Horn, Guy of Warwick, every prince and every people. Their
minstrels (trouveres) , like their knights, draw in abundance
from Welsh, Franks, and Latins, and descend upon East and
West in the wide field of adventure. They address themselves
to a spirit of inquiry, as the Saxons to enthusiasm, and dilute
in their long, clear, and flowing narratives the lively colors of
German and Breton traditions ; battles, surprises, single com-
bats, embassies, speeches, processions, ceremonies, huntings, a
variety of amusing events, employ their ready and wandering
imaginations. At first, in the " Song of Roland," it is still kept
in check ; it walks with long strides, but only walks. Presently
its wings have grown ; incidents are multiplied ; giants and
monsters abound, the natural disappears, the song of the
jongleur grows a poem under the hands of the troiivere ; he
would speak, like Nestor of old, five, even six years running,
and not grow tired or stop. Forty thousand verses are not too
much to satisfy their gabble ; a facile mind, copious, inquisitive,
descriptive, such is the genius of the race. The Gauls, their
fathers, used to delay travellers on the road to make them tell
their stories, and boasted, like these, " of fighting well and talk-
ing with ease."

With chivalric poetry, they are not wanting in chivalry ;
principally, it may be, because they are strong, and a strong
man loves to prove his strength by knocking down his neigh-
bors ; but also from a desiri of fame, and as a point of honor.
By this one word honor the whole spirit of warfare is changed.
Saxon poets painted war as a murderous fury, as a blind mad-
ness which shook flesh and blood, and awakened the instincts
of the beast of prey ; Norman poets describe it as a tourney.
The new passion which they introduce is that of vanity and
gallantry ; Guy of Warwick dismounts all the knights in Eu-
rope, in order to deserve the hand of the prude and scornful
Felice. The tourney itself is but a ceremony, somewhat brutal
I admit, since it turns upon the breaking of arms and limbs,

78 TAINE

but yet brilliant and French. To show skill and courage, dis-
play the magnificence of dress and armor, be applauded by and
please the ladies — such feelings indicate men of greater so-
ciality, more under the influence of public opinion, less the
slaves of their own passions, void both of lyric inspiration and
savage enthusiasm, gifted by a different genius, because in-
clined to other pleasures.

Such were the men who at this moment were disembarking
in England to introduce their new manners and a new spirit,
French at bottom, in mind and speech, though with special and
provincial features ; of all the most matter-of-fact, with an eye
to the main chance, calculating, having the nerve and the dash
of our own soldiers, but with the tricks and precautions of
lawyers ; heroic undertakers of profitable enterprises ; having
gone to Sicily and Naples, and ready to travel to Constanti-
nople or Antioch, so it be to take a country or bring back
money ; subtle politicians, accustomed in Sicily to hire them-
selves to the highest bidder, and capable of doing a stroke of
business in the heat of the Crusade, like Bohemond, who, be-
fore Antioch, speculated on the dearth of his Christian allies,
and would only open the town to them under condition of their
keeping it for himself ; methodical and persevering conquerors,
expert in administration, and fond of scribbling on paper, like
this very William, who was able to organize such an expedi-
tion, and such an army, and kept a written roll of the same, and
who proceeded to register the whole of England in his Domes-
day Book. Sixteen days after the disembarkation, the con-
trast between the two nations was manifested at Hastings by
its visible eflfects.

The Saxons " ate and drank the whole night. You might
have seen them struggling much, and leaping and singing,"
with shouts of laughter and noisy joy.® In the morning they
packed behind their palisades the dense masses of their heavy
infantry, and with battle-axe hung round their neck awaited the
attack. The wary Normans weighed the chances of heaven
and hell, and tried to enlist God upon their side. Robert Wace,
their historian and compatriot, is no more troubled by poetical
imagination than they were by warlike inspiration ; and on the

• Robert Wace, " Roman du Rou."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

eve of the battle his mind is as prosaic and clear as theirs.^" The
same spirit showed itself in the battle. They were for the most
part bowmen and horsemen, well skilled, nimble, and clever.
Taillefer, the jongleur, who asked for the honor of striking the
first blow, went singing, like a true French volunteer, perform-
ing tricks all the while." Having arrived before the English,
he cast his lance three times in the air, then his sword, and
caught them again by the handle ; and Harold's clumsy foot-
soldiers, who only knew how to cleave coats of mail by blows
from their battle-axes, " were astonished, saying to one another
that it was magic." As for William, amongst a score of pru-
dent and cunning actions, he performed two well-calculated
ones, which, in this sore embarrassment, brought him safe out
of his difficulties. He ordered his archers to shoot into the air;
the arrows wounded many of the Saxons in the face and one
of them pierced Harold in the eye. After this he simulated
flight; the Saxons, intoxicated with joy and wrath, quitted
their entrenchments, and exposed themselves to the lances of
his horsemen. During the remainder of the contest they only
make a stand by small companies, fight with fury, and end by
being slaughtered. The strong, mettlesome, brutal race threw
themselves on the enemy like a savage bull ; the dexterous
Norman hunters wounded them adroitly, knocked them down,
and placed them under the yoke.

10 Ibid.

Et li Normanz et li Franceiz
Tote nuit firent oreisons,
Et furent en aflicions.
De lor pechies confez se firent
As proveires les regehirent,
Et qui n'en out proveires prez,
A son veizin se nst confez,
Pour go ke samedi esteit
Ke la bataille estre debveit.
Unt Normanz a pramis e voe.
Si com li cler I'orent loe,
Ke a ce jor mez s'il veskeient.
Char ni saunc ne mangereient
Giffrei, eveske de Coustances.
A plusors joint lor penitances.
Cli regut li confessions
Et dona 1' beneigons.

11 Robert Wace, " Roman du Rou ":
Taillefer ki moult bien cantout

Sur un roussin qui tot alout
Devant li dus alout cantant
De Kalermaine e de Rolant,
£ d'Oliver et des vassals

Ki moururent a Roncevals.

Quant ils orent chevalchie tant
K'as Engleis vindrent aprismant:
"Sires: dist Taillefer, merci!
Je vos ai languement servi.
Tut mon servise me debvez,
Hui, si vos plaist, me le rendez
Por tout guerredun vos requier,
Et si vos voil forment preier,
Otreiez-mei, ke jo n'i faille,
Li primier colp de la bataille."
Et li dus repont: " Je I'otrei."
Et Taillefer point a desrei ;
Devant toz li altres se mist,
Un Englez feri, si I'ocist.
De SOS le pis, parmie la pance,
Li fist passer ultre la lance,
A terre estendu I'abati.
Poiz trait j'espee, altre feri.
Poiz a crie: " Venez, venez!
Ke fetes- vos? Ferez, ferez!"
Done I'unt Englez avirone,
Al secund colp k'il ou don&

8o TAINE

Section III. — French Forms of Thought

What then is this French race, which by arms and letters
make such a splendid entrance upon the world, and is so mani-
festly destined to rule, that in the East, for example, their name
of Franks will be given to all the nations of the West ? Where-
in consists this new spirit, this precocious pioneer, this key of all
Middle- Age civilization? There is in every mind of the kind a
fundamental activity which, when incessantly repeated, moulds
its plan, and gives it its direction ; in town or country, cultivated
or not, in its infancy and its age, it spends its existence and em-
ploys its energy in conceiving an event or an object. This is its
original and perpetual process ; and whether it change its re-
gion, return, advance, prolong, or alter its course, its whole
motion is but a series of consecutive steps; so that the least
alteration in the size, quickness, or precision of its primitive
stride transforms and regulates the whole course, as in a tree
the structure of the first shoot determines the whole foliage,
and governs the whole growth.^ When the Frenchman con-
ceives an event or an object, he conceives quickly and distinct-
ly; there is no internal disturbance, no previous fermentation
of confused and violent ideas, which, becoming concentrated
and elaborated, end in a noisy outbreak. The movement of his
intelligence is nimble and prompt, like that of his limbs; at
once and without efifort he seizes upon his idea. But he seizes
that alone ; he leaves on one side all the long entangling off-
shoots whereby it is entwined and twisted amongst its neigh-
boring ideas; he does not embarrass himself with nor think
of them ; he detaches, plucks, touches but slightly, and that is
all. He is deprived, or if you prefer it, he is exempt from those
sudden half-visions which disturb a man, and open up to him
instantaneously vast deeps and far perspectives. Images are
excited by internal commotion; he, not being so moved, im-
agines not. He is only moved superficially; he is without
large sympathy ; he does not perceive an object as it is, com-
plex and combined, but in parts, with a discursive and super-
ficial knowledge. That is why no race in Europe is less poeti-
cal. Let us look at their epics ; none are more prosaic. They

^ The idea of types is applicable throughout all physical and moral nature.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 8i

are not wanting in number : " The Song of Roland," " Garin
le Loherain," " Ogier le Danois," ^ " Berthe aux grands
Pieds." There is a library of them. Though their manners
are heroic and their spirit fresh, though they have originality,
and deal with grand events, yet, spite of this, the narrative is as
dull as that of the babbling Norman chroniclers. Doubtless
when Homer relates he is as clear as they are, and he develops
as they do : but his magnificent titles of rosy-fingered Morn,
the wide-bosomed Air, the divine and nourishing Earth, the
earth-shaking Ocean, come in every instant and expand their
purple bloom over the speeches and battles, and the grand
abounding similes which interrupt the narrative tell of a people
more inclined to enjoy beauty than to proceed straight to fact.
But here we have facts, always facts, nothing but facts; the
Frenchman wants to know if the hero will kill the traitor, the
lover wed the maiden; he must not be delayed by poetry or
painting. He advances nimbly to the end of the story, not
lingering for dreams of the heart or wealth of landscape. There
is no splendor, no color, in his narrative ; his style is quite bare,
and without figures ; you may read ten thousand verses in these
old poems without meeting one. Shall we open the most an-
cient, the most original, the most eloquent, at the most moving
point, the "Song of Roland," when Roland is dying? The
narrator is moved, and yet his language remains the same,
smooth, accentless, so penetrated by the prosaic spirit, and so
void of the poetic ! He gives an abstract of motives, a summary
of events, a series of causes for grief, a series of causes for
consolation.^ Nothing more. These men regard the circum-
stance or the action by itself, and adhere to this view. Their

• Danois is a contraction of le d'Ar- De duke France des humes de sun lign,
dennois, from the Ardennes. — Tr. De Carlemagne sun seignor ki I'nurrit.

* Genin, "Chanson de Roland": Ne poet muer n'en plurt et ne susprit.
Co sent Rollans que la mort le trespent, Mais lui meisme ne volt mettre en ubli.
Devers la teste sur le quer li descent; Cleimet sa culpe, si priet Dieu mercit:
Desuz un pin i est alet curant, " Veire paterne, ki unques ne mentis,
Sur I'herbe verte si est culchet adenz; Saint Lazaron de mort resurrexis,
Desuz lui met I'espee et I'olifan; Et Daniel des lions guaresis,
Turnat sa teste vers la paiene gent, Guaris de mei I'arome de tuz perilz.
Pour CO I'at fait que il voelt veirement Pur les pecchez que en ma vie fis.
Que Carles diet e trestute sa gent; Sun destre guant a Deu en puroflfrit.
Li gentilz quens, qu'il fut mort cunque- Seint Gabriel de sa main I'aa pris. _

rant. Desur sun bras teneit le chef encliflj

Cleimet sa culpe, e menut e suvent, Tuntes ses mains est alet a sa fin.

Pur ses pecchez en puroffrid lo guant. Deus i tramist sun angle cherubin,

Li quens Rollans se jut desuz un pin, Et seint Michel qu'on cleimet del peru

Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis, Ensemble ad els seint Gabriel i vint,

De plusurs choses a remembrer le prist. L'anme del cunte portent en pareis.
De tantes terres cume li bets cunquist,

82 TAINE

idea remains exact, clear, and simple, and does not raise up a
similar image to be confused with the first, to color or transform
itself. It remains dry; they conceive the divisions of the ob-
ject one by one, without ever collecting them, as the Saxons
would, in an abrupt, impassioned, glowing semi-vision. Noth-
ing is more opposed to their genius than the germine songs
and profound hymns, such as the English monks were singing
beneath the low vaults of their churches. They would be dis-
concerted by the unevenness and obscurity of such language.
They are not capable of such an access of enthusiasm and such
excess of emotion. They never cry out, they speak, or rather
they converse, and that at moments when the soul, over-
whelmed by its trouble, might be expected to cease thinking
and feeling. Thus Amis, in a mystery-play, being leprous,
calmly requires his friend Amille to slay his two sons, in order
that their blood may heal him of his leprosy ; and Amille re-
plies still more calmly.* If ever they try to sing, even in
heaven, " a roundelay high and clear," they will produce lit-
tle rhymed arguments, as dull as the dullest talk.^ Pursue
this literature to its conclusion; regard it, like that of the
Skalds, at the time of its decadence, when its vices, being ex-
aggerated, display, like those of the Skalds, only still more
strongly the kind of mind which produced it. The Skalds fall
off into nonsense; it loses itself into babble and platitude. The
Saxon could not master his craving for exaltation ; the French-
man could not restrain the volubility of his tongue. He is too
dififuse and too clear ; the Saxon is too obscure and brief. The
one was excessively agitated and carried away ; the other ex-
plains and develops without measure. From the twelfth cen-
tury the Gestes spun out degenerate into rhapsodies and psalm-
odies of thirty or forty thousand verses. Theology enters into
them ; poetry becomes an interminable, intolerable litany,
where the ideas, expounded, developed, and repeated ad infini-
tum, without one outburst of emotion or one touch of original-
ity, flow like a clear and insipid stream, and send off their reader,

* Mon tr^s-chier ami debonnaire, * Vraiz Diex, moult est excellente,

Vous m'avez une chose ditte Et de grant_ charite plaine,

Qui n'est pas a faire petite Vostre bonte souveraine.

Mais que 1 on doit moult resongnicr. Car vostre grace pr6sente,

Et nonpourquant, sanz eslongnier, A toute personne humaine,

Puisque garison autrement Vraix Diex, moult est excellente,

Ne povez avoir vraiement, Puisqu'elle a cuer et entente,

Pour vostre amour les occiray, Et que a ce desir I'amaine

Et le sang vous apporteray. Que de vous servir se paine.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 83

by dint of their monotonous rhymes, into a comfortable slum-
ber. What a deplorable abundance of distinct and facile ideas !
We meet with it again in the seventeenth century, in the literary
gossip which took place at the feet of men of distinction; it
is the fault and the talent of the race. With this involuntary
art of perceiving, and isolating instantaneously and clearly each
part of every object, people can speak, even for speaking's sake,
and forever.

Such is the primitive process; how will it be continued?
Here appears a new trait in the French genius, the most valu-
able of all. It is necessary to comprehension that the second
idea shall be contiguous to the first ; otherwise that genius is
thrown out of its course and arrested ; it cannot proceed by
irregular bounds ; it must walk step by step, on a straight
road; order is innate in it; without study, and in the first
place, it disjoints and decomposes the object or event, how-
ever complicated and entangled it may be, and sets the parts
one by one in succession to each other, according to their nat-
ural connection. True, it is still in a state of barbarism ; yet
its intelHgence is a reasoning faculty, which spreads, though
unwittingly. Nothing is more clear than the style of the old
French narratives and of the earliest poems : we do not per-
ceive that we are following a narrator, so easy is the gait, so
even the road he opens to us, so smoothly and gradually every
idea glides into the next; and this is why he narrates so well.
The chroniclers Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, the fathers
of prose, have an ease and clearness approached by none, and
beyond all, a charm, a grace, which they had not to go out
of their way to find. Grace is a national possession in France,
and springs from the native delicacy which has a horror of
incongruities ; the instinct of Frenchmen avoids violent shocks
in works of taste as well as in works of argument ; they desire
that their sentiments and ideas shall harmonize, and not clash.
Throughout they have this measured spirit, exquisitely re-
fined.® They take care, on a sad subject, not to push emotion
to its limits ; they avoid big words. Think how Joinville re-
lates in six lines the death of the poor sick priest who wished to
finish celebrating the mass, and " nevermore did sing, and
died." Open a mystery-play, " Theophilus," or that of the

• See H. Taine, " La Fontaine and His Fables," p. 15.

84 TAINE

" Queen of Hungary," for instance : when they are going to
burn her and her child, she says two short Hnes about " this
gentle dew which is so pure an innocent," nothing more. Take
a fabliau, even a dramatic one : when the penitent knight, who
has undertaken to fill a barrel with his tears, dies in the hermit's
company, he asks from him only one last gift : " Do but em-
brace me, and then I'll die in the arms of my friend." Could a
more touching sentiment be expressed in more sober language ?
We must say of their poetry what is said of certain pictures :
This is made out of nothing. Is there in the world anything
more delicately graceful than the verses of Guillaume de
Lorris ? Allegory clothes his ideas so as to dim their too great
brightness; ideal, figures, half transparent, float about the lover,
luminous, yet in a cloud, and lead him amidst all the delicate
and gentle-hued ideas to the rose, whose " sweet odor embalms
all the plain." This refinement goes so far, that in Thibaut
of Champagne and in Charles of Orleans it turns to affectation
and insipidity. In them all impressions grow more slender;
the perfume is so weak that one often fails to catch it ; on their
knees before their lady they whisper their waggeries and con-
ceits; they love politely and wittily, they arrange ingeniously
in a bouquet their " painted words," all the flowers of " fresh
and beautiful language"; they know how to mark fleeting
ideas in their flight, soft melancholy, vague reverie ; they are
as elegant as talkative, and as charming as the most amiable
abbes of the eighteenth century. This lightness of touch is
proper to the race, and appears as plainly under the armor and
amid the massacres of the Middle Ages as mid the courtesies
and the musk-scented, wadded coats of the last court. You
will find it in their coloring as in their sentiments. They are
not struck by the magnificence of nature, they see only her
pretty side ; they paint the beauty of a woman by a single feat-
ure, which is only polite, saying, " She is more gracious than
the rose in May." They do not experience the terrible emotion,
ecstasy, sudden oppression of heart which is displayed in the
poetry of neighboring nations ; they say discreetly, " She be-
gan to smile, which vastly became her." They add, when they
are in a descriptive humor, " that she had a sweet and perfumed
breath," and a body " white as new-fallen snow on a branch."
They do not aspire higher ; beauty pleases, but does not trans-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 85

port them. They enjoy agreeable emotions, but are not fitted
for deep sensations. The full rejuvenescence of being, the
warm air of spring which renews and penetrates all existence,
suggests but a pleasing couplet ; they remark in passing,
" Now is winter gone, the hawthorn blossoms, the rose ex-
pands," and so pass on about their business. It is a light
gladsomeness, soon gone, like that which an April landscape
affords. For an instant the author glances at the mist of the
streams rising about the willow trees, that pleasant vapor
which imprisons the brightness of the morning; then, hum-
ming a burden of a song, he returns to his narrative. He
seeks amusement, and herein lies his power.

In life, as in literature, it is pleasure he aims at, not sensual
pleasure or emotion. He is lively, not voluptuous ; dainty,
not a glutton. He takes love for a pastime, not for an intoxica-
tion. It is a pretty fruit which he plucks, tastes, and leaves.
And we must remark yet further, that the best of the fruit in
his eyes is the fact of its being forbidden. He says to himself
that he is duping a husband, that " he deceives a cruel woman,
and thinks he ought to obtain a pope's indulgence for the
deed." ^ He wishes to be merry — it is the state he prefers,
the end and aim of his life ; and especially to laugh at other
people. The short verse of his fabliaux gambols and leaps like
a schoolboy released from school, over all things respected
or respectable; criticising the Church, women, the great, the
monks. Scoffers, banterers, our fathers have abundance both
of expression and matter ; and the matter comes to them so
naturally, that without culture, and surrounded by coarseness,
they are as delicate in their raillery as the most refined. They
touch upon ridicule lightly, they mock without emphasis, as it
were innocently; their style is so harmonious, that at first
sight we make a mistake, and do not see any harm in it. They
seem artless; they look so very demure; only a word shows
the imperceptible smile : it is the ass, for example, which they
call the high priest, by reason of his padded cassock and his
serious air, and who gravely begins " to play the organ." At
the close of the history, the delicate sense of comicality has
touched you, though you cannot say how. They do not call
things by their names, especially in love matters ; they let you

ilf- * La Fontaine, " Contes, Richard Minutolo."

5— Classics. Vol. 38

86 TAINE

guess it ; they assume that you are as sharp and knowing as
themselves.* A man might discriminate, embeUish at times,
perhaps refine upon them, but their first traits are incompar-
able. When the fox approaches the raven to steal the cheese,
he begins as a hypocrite, piously and cautiously, and as one of
the family. He calls the raven his " good father Don Rohart,
who sings so well "; he praises his voice, " so sweet and fine."
" You would be the best singer in the world if you kept clear
of nuts." Reynard is a rogue, an artist in the way of invention,
not a mere glutton ; he loves roguery for its own sake ; he re-
joices in his superiority, and draws out his mockery. When
Tibert, the cat, by his counsel hung himself at the bell-rope,
wishing to ring it, he uses irony, enjoys and relishes it, pre-
tends to wax impatient with the poor fool whom he has caught,
calls him proud, complains because the other does not answer,
and because he wishes to rise to the clouds and visit the saints.
And from beginning to end this long epic of Reynard the Fox
is the same; the raillery never ceases, and never fails to be
agreeable. Reynard has so much wit that he is pardoned for
everything. The necessity for laughter is national — so indig-
enous to the French, that a stranger cannot understand, and
is shocked by it. This pleasure does not resemble physical joy
in any respect, which is to be despised for its grossness ; on the
contrary, it sharpens the intelligence, and brings to light many
a delicate or ticklish idea. The fabliaux are full of truths about
men, and still more about women, about people of low rank,
and still more about those of high rank ; it is a method of
philosophizing by stealth and boldly, in spite of conventional-
ism, and in opposition to the powers that be. This taste has
nothing in common either with open satire, which is offensive
because it is cruel ; on the contrary, it provokes good humor.
We soon see that the jester is not ill-disposed, that he does not
wish to wound : if he stings, it is as a bee, without venom ; an
instant later he is not thinking of it ; if need be, he will take
himself as an object of his pleasantry; all he wishes is to keep
up in himself and in us sparkling and pleasing ideas. Do we not
see here in advance an abstract of the whole French literature,
the incapacity for great poetry, the sudden and durable per-

8 Parler lui veut d'une besogne
Ou crois que peu conquerrerois
Si la besogne vous nommois.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 87

fection of prose, the excellence of all the moods of conversation
and eloquence, the reign and tyranny of taste and method, the
art and theory of development and arrangement, the gift of
being measured, clear, amusing, and piquant ? We have taught
Europe how ideas fall into order, and which ideas are agree-
able ; and this is what our Frenchmen of the eleventh century
are about to teach their Saxons during five or six centuries,
first with the lance, next with the stick, next with the birch.

Section IV. — The Normans in England

Consider, then, this Frenchman or Norman, this man from
Anjou or Maine, who in his well-knit coat of mail, with sword
and lance, came to seek his fortune in England. He took the
manor of some slain Saxon, and settled himself in it with his
soldiers and comrades, gave them land, houses, the right of
levying taxes, on condition of their fighting under him and for
him, as men-at-arms, marshals, standard-bearers; it was a
league in case of danger. In fact, they were in a hostile and
conquered country, and they have to maintain themselves.
Each one hastened to build for himself a place of refuge, castle
or fortress,^ well fortified, of solid stone, with narrow windows,
strengthened with battlements, garrisoned by soldiers, pierced
with loopholes. Then these men went to Salisbury, to the
number of sixty thousand, all holders of land, having at least
enough to maintain a man with horse or arms. There, plac-
ing their hands in William's they promised him fealty and as-
sistance ; and the king's edict declared that they must be all
united and bound together like brothers in arms, to defend
and succor each other. They are an armed colony, stationary,
like the Spartans amongst the Helots ; and they make laws
accordingly. When a Frenchman is found dead in any dis-
trict, the inhabitants are to give up the murderer, or failing to
do so, they must pay forty-seven marks as a fine ; if the dead
man is English, it rests with the people of the place to prove
it by the oath of four near relatives of the deceased. They are
to beware of killing a stag, boar, or fawn ; for an offence against
the forest-laws they will lose their eyes. They have nothing of

* At King Stephen's death there were 1,115 castles.

88 TAINE

all their property assured to them except as alms, or on con-
dition of paying tribute, or by taking the oath of allegiance.
Here a free Saxon proprietor is made a body-slave on his own
estate.^ Here a noble and rich Saxon lady feels on her shoulder
the weight of the hand of a Norman valet, who is become by
force her husband or her lover. There were Saxons of one sol,
or of two sols, according to the sum which they gained for
their masters; they sold them, hired them, worked them on
joint account, like an ox or an ass. One Norman abbot has
his Saxon predecessors dug up, their bones thrown without
the gates. Another keeps men-at-arms, who bring his recal-
citrant monks to reason by blows of their swords. Imagine, if
you can, the pride of these new lords, conquerors, strangers,
masters, nourished by habits of violent activity, and by the
savagery, ignorance, and passions of feudal life. " They
thought they might do whatsoever they pleased," say the old
chroniclers. " They shed blood indiscriminately, snatched the
morsel of bread from the mouth of the wretched, and seized
upon all the money, the goods, the land." ^ Thus " all the folk
in the low country were at great pains to seem humble before
Ivo Taillebois, and only to address him with one knee on the
ground ; but although they made a point of paying him every
honor, and giving him all and more than all which they owed
him in the way of rent and service, he harassed, tormented,
tortured, imprisoned them, set his dogs upon their cattle,
. . . broke the legs and backbones of their beasts of burden,
. . . and sent men to attack their servants on the road with
sticks and swords." * The Normans would not and could not
borrow any idea or custom from such boors ;^ they despised
them as coarse and stupid. They stood amongst them, as the
Spaniards amongst the Americans in the sixteenth century, su-
perior in force and culture, more versed in letters, more expert
in the arts of luxury. They preserved their manners and their
speech. England, to all outward appearance — the court of the
king, the castles of the nobles, the palaces of the bishops, the
houses of the wealthy — was French ; and the Scandinavian

■ A. Thierry, " Histoire de la Con- Anglo-Saxons to send their youth to

quete de I'Angleterre," ii. the monasteries of France for educa-

* William of Malmesbury. A. Thierry, tion; and not only the language but
ii. 20, 122-203. the manners of the French were es-

* A.' Thierry. teemed the most polite accomplish-
« " In the year 652," says Warton, i. ments."

3, " it was the common practice of the

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 89

people, of whom sixty years ago the Saxon kings used to have
poems sung to them, thought that the nation had forgotten
its language, and treated it in their laws as though it were
no longer their sister.

It was a French literature, then, which was at this time dom-
iciled across the channel,^ and the conquerors tried to make it
purely French, purged from all Saxon alloy. They made such
a point of this that the nobles in the reign of Henry II sent
their sons to France, to preserve them from barbarisms. " For
two hundred years," says Higden,^ " children in scole, agenst
the usage and manir of all other nations beeth compelled for
to leve hire own langage, and for to construe hir lessons and
hire thynges in Frensche." The statutes of the universities
obliged the students to converse either in French or Latin.
" Gentilmen children beeth taught to speke Frensche from the
tyme that they bith rokked in hire cradell ; and uplondissche
men will likne himself to gentylmen, and fondeth with greet
besynesse for to speke Frensche." Of course the poetry is
French. The Norman brought his minstrel with him ; there
was Taillefer, the jongleur, who sang the " Song of Roland "
at the battle of Hastings; there was Adeline, the jongkiise,
received an estate in the partition which followed the Con-
quest. The Norman who ridicules the Saxon kings, who dug
up the Saxon saints and cast them without the walls of the
church, loved none but French ideas and verses. It was into
French verse that Robert Wace rendered the legendary history
of the England which was conquered, and the actual history of
the Normandy in which he continued to live. Enter one of the
abbeys where the minstrels come to sing, " where the clerks after
dinner and supper read poems, the chronicles of kingdoms, the
wonders of the world," ^ you will only find Latin or French
verses, Latin or French prose. What becomes of English?
Obscure, despised, we hear it no more, except in the mouths of
degraded franklins, outlaws of the forest, swineherds, peasants,
the lowest orders. It is no longer, or scarcely written ; gradu-
ally we find in the Saxon Chronicle that the idiom alters, is

' Warton, i. 5. Magni, etc. In the abbey of Peterbor-

' Trevisa's translation of the Polycro- ough: Amys et Amelion, Sir Tristam,

nycon. , Guy de Bourgogne, gesta Otuclis les

8 Statutes of foundation of New Col- propheties de Merlin, le Charlemagne

lege, Oxford. In the abbey of Glaston- de Turpin, la destruction de Troie, etc.

bury, in 1247: Liber de excidio Trojae, Warton, ibid.

gesta Ricardi regis, gesta Alexandri

9©

TAINE

extinguished; the Chronicle itself ceases within a century after
the Conquest.'' The people who have leisure or security enough
to read or write are French; for them authors devise and com-
pose; literature always adapts itself to the taste of those who can
appreciate and pay for it. Even the English " endeavor to write
in French: thus Robert Grostete, in his allegorical poem on
Christ; Peter Langtoft, in his " Chronicle of England," and in
his " Life of Thomas a Becket " ; Hugh de Rotheland, in his
poem of " Hippomedon "; John Hoveden, and many others.
Several write the first half of the verse in English, and the second
in French; a strange sign of the ascendancy which is moulding
and oppressing them. Even in the fifteenth century " many
of these poor folk are employed in this task; French is the lan-
guage of the court, from it arose all poetry and elegance; he is
but a clodhopper who is inapt at that style. They apply them-
selves to it as our old scholars did to Latin verses ; they are galli-
cized as those were latinized, by constraint, with a sort of fear,
knowing well that they are but schoolboys and provincials.
Gower, one of their best poets, at the end of his French works,
excuses himself humbly for not having " de Frangais la faconde.
Pardonnez moi," he says, " que de ce je forsvoie; je siiis An-
glais."

And yet, after all, neither the race nor the tongue has perished.
It is necessary that the Norman should learn English, in order
to command his tenants; his Saxon wife speaks it to him, and
his sons receive it from the lips of their nurse; the contagion is
strong, for he is obliged to send them to France, to preserve
them from the jargon which on his domain threatens to over-
whelm and spoil them. From generation to generation the con-
tagion spreads; they breathe it in the air, with the foresters in
the chase, the farmers in the field, the sailors on the ships: for
these coarse people, shut in by their animal existence, are not
the kind to learn a foreign language; by the simple weight of
their dullness they impose their idiom on their conquerors, at all
events such words as pertain to living things. Scholarly speech,
the language of law, abstract and philosophical expressions — in
short, all words depending on reflection and culture may be
French, since there is nothing to prevent it. This is just what

•In 1154. died in 1408; his French ballads belong

w Warton, i. 72-78. _ to the end of the fourteenth century.

" In 1400. Warton, ii. 248. Gower

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

happens; these kind of ideas and this kind of speech are not
understood by the commonalty, who, not being able to touch
them, cannot change them. This produces a French, a colonial
French, doubtless perverted, pronounced with closed mouth,
with a contortion of the organs of speech, " after the school of
Slratford-atte-Bow " ; yet it is still French. On the other hand,
as regards the speech employed about common actions and visi-
ble objects, it is the people, the Saxons, who fix it; these living
words are too firmly rooted in his experience to allow of being
parted with, and thus the whole substance of the language comes
from him. Here, then, we have the Norman who, slowly and
constrainedly, speaks and understands English, a deformed, gal-
licized English, yet English, in sap and root; but he has taken
his time about it, for it has required two centuries. It was only
under Henry HI that the new tongue is complete, with the new
constitution ; and that, after the like fashion, by alliance and in-
termixture; the burgesses come to take their seats in Parliament
with the nobles, at the same time that Saxon words settle down
in the language side by side with French words.

Section V — The English Tongue — Early English Literary

Impulses

So was modern English formed, by compromise, and the
necessity of being understood. But we can well imagine that
these nobles, even while speaking the rising dialect, have their
hearts full of French tastes and ideas; France remains the home
of their mind, and the literature which now begins, is but trans-
lation. Translators, copyists, imitators — there is nothing else.
England is a distant province, which is to France what the
United States were, thirty years ago, to Europe: she exports her
wool, and imports her ideas. Open the " Voyage and Travaile
of Sir John Maundeville," ^ the oldest prose-writer, the Villehar-
douin of the country: his book is but the translation of a transla-
tion,^ He writes first in Latin, the language of scholars; then

^ He wrote in 1356, and died in 1372. of Seynt-Albones, passed the See in the
* " And for als moche as it is longe Zeer of our Lord Jesu-Crist 1322, in the
time passed that ther was no generalle Day of Seynt Michelle, and hidreto have
Passage ne Vyage over the See, and been longe tyme over the See, and have
many Men desiren for to here speke of seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse
the holy Lond, and han thereof gret londes, and many Provynces, and King-
Solace and Comfort, I, John Maunde- domes, and lies.

vylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not worthi, " And zee shulle undirstonde that I

that was born in Englond, in the town have put this Boke out of Latyn into

TAINE

in French, the language of society; finally he reflects, and dis-
covers that the barons, his compatriots, by governing the Saxon
churls, have ceased to speak their own Norman, and that the rest
of the nation never knew it; he translates his manuscript into
English, and, in addition, takes care to make it plain, feeling that
he speaks to less expanded understandings. He says in French :
" // advint une fois que Mahomet allait dans une chapelle oil il
y avait un saint ermite. II entra en la chapelle ou il y avait une
petite huisserie et basse, et etait bien petite la chapelle; et alors
devint la porte si grande qu'il semblait que ce fut la porte d'un
palais."

He stops, corrects himself, wishes to explain himself better for
his readers across the Channel, and says in English: " And at
the Desertes of Arabye, he wente into a Chapelle where a
Eremyte duelte. And whan he entred in to the Chapelle that
was but a lytille and a low thing, and had but a lytill Dore and
a low, than the Entree began to wexe so gret and so large, and
so highe, as though it had ben of a gret Mynstre, or the Zate of
a Paleys." ^ You perceive that he amplifies, and thinks himself
bound to clinch and drive in three or four times in succession the
same idea, in order to get it into an English brain; his thought
is drawn out, dulled, spoiled in the process. Like every copy,
the new literature is mediocre, and repeats what it imitates, with
fewer merits and greater faults.

Let us see, then, what our Norman baron gets translated for
him; first, the chronicles of Geofifroy Gaimar and Robert Wace,
which consist of the fabulous history of England continued up to
their day, a dull-rhymed rhapsody, turned into English in a
rhapsody no less dull. The first Englishman who attempts it is
Layamon,"* a monk of Ernely, still fettered in the old idiom,
who sometimes happens to rhyme, sometimes fails; altogether

Frensche, and translated it azen out of given by Layamon, in his translation of

Frensche, into Englyssche, that every Wace, executed about 1180. Madden's

Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde " Layamon," 1847, ii. p. 625 et passim:

it."— Sir John Maundeville's " Voyage Tha the king igeten hafde

and Travaile," ed. Halliwell, 1866, pro- And al his mon-weorede,

logue, p. 4. Tha bugen ut of burhge

3 Sir John Maundeville's " Voyage Theines swithe balde.

and Tt^vaile," ed. Halliwell, 1866, xii., Alle tha kinges,

p. 139. It is confessed that the original And heore here-thringes.

on which Wace depended for his an- Alle tha biscopes,

cient " History of England " is the And alle tha clserckes,

Latin compilation of GeoflFrey of Mon- All the eorles,

inoutla. And alle tha beornes.

* Extract from the account of the Alle the theines,

proceedings at Arthur's coronation AUc the sweines.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

barbarous and childish, unable to develop a continuous 'idea,
babbling in little confused and incomplete phrases, after the
fashion of the ancient Saxons; after him a monk, Robert of
Gloucester,^ and a canon, Robert of Brunne, both as insipid and
clear as their French models, having become gallicized, .and
adopted the significant characteristics of the race, namely, the
faculty and habit of easy narration, of seeing moving spectacles
without deep emotion, of writing prosaic poetry, of discoursing
and developing, of believing that phrases ending in the same
sounds form real poetry. Our honest English versifiers, "like
their preceptors in Normandy and Ile-de-France, garnished
with rhymes their dissertations and histories, and called them
poems. At this epoch, in fact, on the Continent, the whole learn-
ing of the schools descends into the street ; and Jean de Meung,
in his poem of " La Rose," is the most tedious of doctors.
So in England, Robert of Brunne transposes into verse the
" Manuel des peches " of Bishop Grostete ; Adam Davie,* cer-
tain Scripture histories ; Hampole '' composes the " Pricke of
Conscience." The titles alone make one yawn : what of the text?

" Mankynde mad ys do Goddus wylle.
And alle Hys byddyngus to fulfille;
For of al Hys makyng more and les,
Man most principal creature es.
Al that He made for man hit was done.
As ye schal here after sone." ^

There is a poem ! You did not think so ; call it a sermon, if
you will give it its proper name. It goes on, well divided, well
prolonged, flowing, but void of meaning; the literature which

Feire iscrudde,
Helde geond felde.
Summe heo guiinen seruen,
Summe heo gunnen urnen,
Summe heo gunnen lepen,
Summe heo giitiiieii sreoten,
Summe heo wrasstleHeii
And wither-gome makeden,
Summe heo on uelde
Pleouweden under scelde,
Summe heo driven balles
Wide geond tha feldes.
Monianes kunnes gomen
Ther heo gunnen driuen.
And vvha swa mihte iwinne
Wurthscipe of his gomene,
Hine me ladde mid songe
At foren than leod kinge;
And the king, for his gomene,
Gaf him geven gode.

Alle tha quene
The icumen weoren there.
And alle tha lafdies,
Leoneden geond waltes,
To bihalden the dugethen,
'And that folc plaeie.
This ilaeste threo daeges,
Swulc gomes and swulc plaeges,
Tha, .t than veorthe daeie
The king gon to spekene
And agaef nis goden cnihteld
All heore rihten ;
He gef seolver, he gaef gold,
He gef hors, he gef lond.
Castles, and cloethes eke;
His monnen he iquende.

• After 1297.

• About 1312.
' About T349.

B Wartou, ii. 3&

94 TAINE

surrounds and resembles it bears witness of its origin by its lo-
quacity and its clearness.

It bears witness to it by other and more agreeable features.
Here and there we find divergences more or less awkward into
the domain of genius; for instance, a ballad full of quips against
Richard, King of the Romans, who was taken at the battle of
Lewes. Sometimes, charm is not lacking, nor sweetness either.
No one has ever spoken so bright and so well to the ladies as the
French of the Continent, and they have not quite forgotten this
talent while settling in England. You perceive it readily in the
manner in which they celebrate the Virgin. Nothing could be
more different from the Saxon sentiment, which is altogther
biblical, than the chivalric adoration of the sovereign Lady, the
fascinating Virgin and Saint, who was the real deity of the Mid-
dle Ages. It breathes in this pleasing hymn:

" Blessed beo thu, lavedi,
Ful of hovene blisse ;
Swete flur of parais,
Moder of milternisse. . . ,
I-blessed beo thu, Lavedi,
So fair and so briht ;
Al min hope is uppon the,
Bi day and bi nicht. . . .
Bricht and scene quen of storre.
So me liht and lere.
In this false fikele world,
So me led and steore." ^

There is but a short and easy step between this tender worship of
the Virgin and the sentiments of the court of love. The English
rhymesters take it; and when they wish to praise their earthly
mistresses, they borrow, here as elsewhere, the ideas and the very
form of French verse. One compares his lady to all kinds of
precious stones and flowers; others sing truly amorous songs, at
times sensual.

" Bytuene Mershe and Aueril,
When spray biginneth to springe,
The Intel foul hath hire wyl
On hyre lud to synge,
Ich libbe in loue longinge
For semlokest of alle thynge.

• Time of Henry III., " Reliquiae Antiquae," edited by Messrs. Wright
and Halliwell, i. loa.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 95

He may me blysse bringe,
Icham in hire baundoun.
An bendy hap ich abbe yhent,
Ichot from heuene it is me sent.
From alle wymmen my love is lent,
And lyht on Alisoun." ^o

Another sings :

" Suete lemmon, y preye the, of loue one speche,
Whil y lyue in world so wyde other nulle y seche.
With thy loue, my suete leof, mi bliss thou mihtes eche
A suete cos of thy mouth mihte be my leche." ^^

Is not this the lively and warm imagination of the south? they
speak of springtime and of love, " the fine and lovely weather,"
like troiiveres, even like troubadours. The dirty, smoke-grimed
cottage, the black feudal castle, where all but the master lie hig-
gledy-piggledy on the straw in the great stone hall, the cold rain,
the muddy earth, make the return of the sun and the warm air

delicious.

" Sumer is i-cumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu :
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springeth the wde nu.

Sing cuccu, cuccu.
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Llouth after calue cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth:

Murie sing cuccu,

Cuccu, cuccu.
Wei singes thu cuccu ;
Ne swik thu nauer nu.

Sing, cuccu nu.

Sing, cuccu." 12

Here are glowing pictures, such as Guillaume de Lorris was
writing at the same time, even richer and more lifelike, perhaps
because the poet found here for inspiration that love of country
life which in England is deep and national. Others, more imi-
tative, attempt pleasantries like those of Rutebeuf and the
fabliaux, frank quips,^^ and even satirical, loose waggeries.
Their true aim and end is to hit out at the monks. In every
French country or country which imitates France, the most

»* About 1278. Warton, i. 28. " << Poe^, of the Owl and Nightin-

" Ibid., _i. 31. gale," who dispute as to which has the

^ Ibid. i. 30. finest voice.

96 TAINE

manifest use of convents is to furnish material for sprightly and
scandalous stories. One writes, for instance, of the kind of life
the monks lead at the abbey of Cocagne:

" There is a wel fair abbei,
Of white monkes and of grei.
Ther beth bowris and halles :
Al of pasteiis beth the wallis,
Of fleis, of fisse, and rich met,
The likfullist that man may et.
Fluren cakes beth the schingles alle.
Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.
The pinnes beth fat podinges
Rich met to princes and kinges. . . .
Though paradis be miri and bright
Cokaign is of fairir sight, . . .
Another abbei is ther bi,
Forsoth a gret fair nunnerie. . . .
When the someris dai is bote
The young nunnes takith a bote . . ,
And doth ham forth in that river
Both with ores and with stere. . . .
And each monk him takith on,
And snellich berrith forth har prei
To the mochil grei abbei,
And techith the nunnes an oreisun,
With iamblene up and down."

This is the triumph of gluttony and feeding. Moreover many
things could be mentioned in the Middle Ages which are now
unmentionable. But it was the poems of chivalry, which repre-
sented to him the bright side of his own mode of life, that the
baron preferred to have translated. He desired that his trouvere
should set before his eyes the magnificence which he displayed,
and the luxury and enjoyments which he has introduced from
France. Life at that time, without and even during war, was a
great pageant, a brilliant and tumultuous kind of fete. When
Henry H travelled, he took with him a great number of horse-
men, foot-soldiers, baggage-wagons, tents, pack-horses, come-
dians, courtesans and their overseers, cooks, confectioners, pos-
ture-makers, dancers, barbers, go-betweens, hangers-on." In
the morning when they start, the assemblage begins to shout,
sing, hustle each other, make racket and rout, " as if hell were let

" Letter of Peter of Blois.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

loose." William Longchamps, even in time of peace, would not
travel without a thousand horses by way of escort. When
Archbishop a Becket came to France, he entered the town with
two hundred knights, a number of barons and nobles, and an
army of servants, all richly armed and equipped,'he himself being
provided wuth four-and-twenty suits; two hundred and fifty
children walked in front, singing national songs; then dogs, then
carriages, then a dozen pack-horses, each ridden by an ape and a
man; then equerries with shields and war-horses; then more
equerries, falconers, a suit of domestics, knights, priests; lastly,
the archbishop himself, with his private friends. Imagine these
processions, and also these entertainments; for the Normans,
after the Conquest, " borrowed from the Saxons the habit of ex-
cess in eating and drinking." ^^ At the marriage of Richard
Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, they provided thirty thousand
dishes.^® They also continued to be gallant, and punctiliously
performed the great precept of the love courts ; for in the Mid-
dle Ages the sense of love was no more idle than the others.
Moreover, tournaments were plentiful ; a sort of opera prepared
for their own entertainment. So ran their life, full of adventure
and adornment, in the open air and in the sunlight, with show of
cavalcades and arms ; they act a pageant, and act it with enjoy-
ment. Thus the King of Scots, having come to London with a
hundred knights, at the coronation of Edward I, they all dis-
mounted, and made over their horses and superb caparisons to
the people; as did also five English lords, imitating their ex-
ample. In the midst of war they took their pleasure. Edward
III, in one of his expeditions against the King of France, took
with him thirty falconers, and made his campaign alternately
hunting and fighting.^^ Another time, says Froissart, the
knights who joined the army carried a plaster over one eye, hav-
ing vowed not to remove it until they had performed an exploit
worthy of their mistresses. Out of the very exuberancy of spirit
they practised the art of poetry; out of the buoyancy of their
imagination they made a sport of life. Edward III built at
Windsor a hall and a round table ; and at one of his tourneys in

" William of Malmesbury. kids, 22,802 wild or tame fowl, 300 quar-

" At the installation feast of George ters of corn, 300 tuns of ale, 100 of wine,

Nevill, Archbishop of York, the brother a pipe of hypocras, 12 porpoises and

of Guy of Warwick, there were con- seals.

sumed 104 oxen and 6 wild bulls, 1000 " These prodigalities and refinements

sheep, 304 calves, as many hogs, 2000 grew to excess under his grandson

swine, 500 stags, bucks, and does, 204 Richard II.

98 TAINE

London, sixty ladies, seated on palfreys, led, as in a fairy tale,
each her knight by a golden chain. Was not this the triumph
of the gallant and frivolous French fashions? Edward's wife
Philippa sat as a model to the artists for their Madonnas. She
appeared on thfe field of battle; listened to Froissart, who pro-
vided her with moral-plays, love-stories, and " things fair to
listen to." At once goddess, heroine, and scholar, and all this so
agreeably, was she not a true queen of refined chivalry? Now,
as also in France under Louis of Orleans and the Dukes of Bur-
gundy, this most elegant and romanesque civilization came into
full bloom, void of common sense, given up to passion, bent on
pleasure, immoral and brilliant, but, like its neighbors of Italy
and Provence, for lack of serious intention, it could not last.

Of all these marvels the narrators make display in their stories.
Here is a picture of the vessel which took the mother of King
Richard into England :

" Swlk on ne seygh they never non ;
All it was whyt of huel-bon,
And every nayl with gold begrave:
Off pure gold was the stave.
Her mast was of jrvory ;
Off samyte the sayl wytterly.
Her ropes wer off tuely sylk,
Al so whyt as ony mylk.
That noble schyp was al withoute,
With clothys of golde sprede aboute;
And her loof and her wyndas,
Off asure forsothe it was." ^*

On such subjects they never run dry. When the King of
Hungary wishes to console his afflicted daughter, he proposes to
take her to the chase in the following style :

" To-morrow ye shall in hunting fare :
And ride, my daughter, in a chair;
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And cloths of fine gold all about your head,
With damask white and azure blue,
Well diapered with lilies new.
Your pommels shall be ended with gold,
Your chains enamelled many a fold,
Your mantle of rich degree,
Purple pall and ermine free.

18 W'arton, i. 156.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 90

Jennets of Spain that ben so light,

Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.

Ye shall have harp, sautry, and song.

And other mirths you among.

Ye shall have Rumney and jShiiespine,

Both hippocras and Vernage wine;

Montrese and wine of Greek,

Both Algrade and despice eke,

Antioch and Bastarde,

Pyment also and garnarde;

Wine of Greek and Muscadel,

Both clare, pyment, and Rochelle,

The reed your stomach to defy,

And pots of osey set you by.

You shall have venison ybake.

The best wild fowl that may be take ;

A leish of harehound with you to streek.

And hart, and hind, and other like.

Ye shall be set at such a tryst,

That hart and hynd shall come to you fist,

Your disease to drive you fro,

To hear the bugles there yblow.

Homeward thus shall ye ride,

On hawking by the river's side,

With gosshawk and with gentle falcon.

With bugle-horn and merlion.

When you come home your menie among,

Ye shall have revel, dance, and song ;

Little children, great and small.

Shall sing as does the nightingale.

Then shall ye go to your evensong.

With tenors and trebles among.

Threescore of copes of damask bright,

Full of pearls they shall be pight.

Your censors shall be of gold.

Indent with azure many a fold;

Your quire nor organ song shall want.

With contre-note and descant.

The other half on organs playing.

With young children full fain singing.

Then shall ye go to your supper.

And sit in tents in green arber.

With cloth of arras pight to the ground,

With sapphires set of diamond.

A hundred knights, truly told.

Shall play with bowls in alleys cold.

Your disease to drive away ;

To see the fishes in pools play,

loo TAINE

To a drawbridge then shall ye,

Th' one half of stone, th' other of tree;

A barge shall meet you full right,

With twenty-four oars full bright,

With trumpets and with clarion.

The fresh water to row up and down. . . ,

Forty torches burning bright

At your bridge to bring you light.

Into your chamber they shall you bring.

With much mirth and more liking.

Your blankets shall be of fustian,

Your sheets shall be of cloth of Rennes.

Your head sheet shall be of pery pight.

With diamonds set and rubies bright.

When you are laid in bed so soft,

A cage of gold shall hang aloft,

With long paper fair burning,

And cloves that be sweet smelling.

Frankincense and olibanum.

That when ye sleep the taste may come;

And if ye no rest can take.

All night minstrels for you shall wake." i*

Amid such fancies and splendors the poets delight and lose
themselves, and the woof, like the embroideries of their canvas,
bears the mark of this love of decoration. They weave it out of
adventures, of extraordinary and surprising events. Now it is
the life of King Horn, who, thrown into a boat when a lad, is
wrecked upon the coast of England, and, becoming a knight,
reconquers the kingdom of his father. Now it is the history of
Sir Guy, who rescues enchanted knights, cuts down the giant
Colbrand, challenges and kills the Sultan in his tent. It is not
for me to recount these poems, which are not English, but only
translations; still, here as in France, there are many of them;
they fill the imagination of the young society, and they grow in
exaggeration, until, falling to the lowest depth of insipidity and
improbability, they are buried forever by Cervantes. What
would people say of a society which had no literature but the
opera with its unrealities? Yet it was a literature of this kind
which formed the intellectual food of the Middle Ages. People
then did not ask for truth, but entertainment, and that vehement
and hollow, full of glare and startling events. They asked for
impossible voyages, extravagant challenges, a racket of contests,

** Warton, i. 176, spelling modernized.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE loi

a confusion of magnificence and entanglement of chances. For
introspective history they had no Hking, cared nothing for the
adventures of the heart, devoted their attention to the outside.
They remained children to the last, with eyes glued to a series of
exaggerated and colored images, and, for lack of thinking, did
not perceive that they had learnt nothing.

What was there beneath this fanciful dream? Brutal and evil
human passions, unchained at first by religious fury, then de-
livered up to their own devices, and, beneath a show of external
courtesy, as vile as ever. Look at the popular king, Richard
Coeur de Lion, and reckon up his butcheries and murders:
" King Richard," says a poem, " is the best king ever mentioned
in song." -° I have no objection ; but if he has the heart of a
lion, he has also that brute's appetite. One day, under the walls
of Acre, being convalescent, he had a great desire for some pork.
There was no pork. They killed a young Saracen, fresh and
tender, cooked and salted him, and the king ate him and found
him very good; whereupon he desired to see the head of the pig.
The cook brought it in trembling. The king falls a-laughing,
and says the army has nothing to fear from famine, having pro-
visions ready at hand. He takes the town, and presently Sala-
din's ambassadors come to sue for pardon for the prisoners.
Richard has thirty of the most noble beheaded, and bids his
cook boil the heads, and serve one to each ambassador, with a
ticket bearing the name and family of the dead man. Mean-
while, in their presence, he eats his own with a relish, bids them
tell Saladin how the Christians make war, and ask him if it is true
that they fear him. Then he orders the sixty thousand prisoners
to be led into the plain:

" They were led into the place full even.
There they heard angels of heaven ;
They said : ' Seigneures, tuez, tuez !
Spares hem nought, and beheadeth these ! *
King Richard heard the angels' voice,
And thanked God and the holy cross."

Thereupon they behead them all. When he took a town, it
was his wont to murder everyone, even children and women.
Such was the devotion of the Middle Ages, not only in romances,

2" VVarton, i. 123 :

" In Fraunce these rhj'mes were wroht,
Every Englyshe ne knew it not."

,oa TAINE

as here, but in history. At the taking of Jerusalem the whole
population, seventy thousand persons, were massacred.

Thus even in chivalrous stories the fierce and unbridled in-
stincts of the bloodthirsty brute break out. The authentic nar-
ratives show it. Henry II, irritated at a page, attempted to tear
out his eyes.^^ John Lackland let twenty-three hostages die in
prison of hunger. Edward II caused at one time twenty-eight
nobles to be hanged and disemboweled, and was himself put to
death by the insertion of a red-hot iron into his bowels. Look
in Froissart for the debaucheries and murders in France as well
as in England, of the Hundred Years' War, and then for the
slaughters of the Wars of the Roses. In both countries feudal
independence ended in civil war, and the Middle Age founders
under its vices. Chivalrous courtesy, which cloaked the native
ferocity, disappears like some hangings suddenly consumed by
the breaking out of a fire; at that time in England they killed
nobles in preference, and prisoners, too, even children, with in-
sults, in cold blood. What, then, did man learn in this civiliza-
tion and by this literature? How was he humanized? What
precepts of justice, habits of reflection, store of true judgments,
did this culture mterpose between his desires and his actions, in
order to moderate his passion? He dreamed, he imagined a sort
of elegant ceremonial in order the better to address lords and
ladies ; he discovered the gallant code of little Jehan de Saintre.
But where is the true education? Wherein has Froissart profit-
ed by all his vast experience? He was a fine specimen of a bab-
bling child; what they called his poesy, the poesie neuve, is only
a refined gabble, a senile puerility. Some rhetoricians, like
Christine de Pisan, try to round their periods after an ancient
model ; but all their literature amounts to nothing. No one can
think. Sir John Maundeville, who travelled all over the world
a hundred and fifty years after Villehardouin, is as contracted in
his ideas as Villehardouin himself. Extraordinary legends and
fables, every sort of credulity and ignorance, abound in his book.
When he wishes to explain why Palestine has passed into the
hands of various possessors instead of continuing under one
government, he says that it is because God would not that it
should continue longer in the hands of traitors and sinners,
whether Christians or others. He has seen at Jerusalem, on the

" See Lingard's " History," ii. 55, note 4.— Th.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 103

steps of the temple, the footmarks of the ass which our Lord
rode on Palm Sunday. He describes the Ethiopians as a people
who have only one foot, but so large that they can make use of it
as a parasol. He instances one island " where be people as big as
gyants, of 28 feet long, and have no clothing but beasts' skins ";
then another island " where there are many evil and foul women,
but have precious stones in their eyes, and have such force that
if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him with beholding,
as the basilisk doth." The good man relates; that is all: doubt
and common-sense scarcely exist in the world he lives in. He
has neither judgment nor reflection; he piles facts one on top of
another, with no further connection; his book is simply a mirror
which reproduces recollections of his eyes and ears. " And all
those who will say a Pater and an Ave Maria in my behalf, I
give them an interest and a share in all the holy pilgrimages I
ever made in my life." That is his farewell, and accords with all
the rest. Neither public morality nor public knowledge has
gained anything from these three centuries of culture. This
French culture, copied in vain throughout Europe, has but su-
perficially adorned mankind, and the varnish with which it
decked them is already tarnished everywhere or scales off. It
was worse in England, where the thing was more superficial and
the application worse than in France, where foreign hands laid it
on, and where it could only half cover the Saxon crust, where
that crust was worn away and rough. That is the reason why,
during three centuries, throughout the whole first feudal age,
the literature of the Normans in England, made up of imitations,
translations, and clumsy copies, ends in nothing.

Section VI.— Feudal Civilization

Meantime, what has become of the conquered people? Has
the old stock, on which the brilliant Continental flowers were
grafted, engendered no literary shoot of its own? Did it con-
tinue barren during all this time under the Norman axe, which
stripped it of all its buds? It grew very feebly, but it grew nev-
ertheless. The subjugated race is not a dismembered nation,
dislocated, uprooted, sluggish, like the populations of the Conti-
nent, which, after the long Roman oppression, were given up to
the unrestrained invasion of barbarians; it increased, remained

104 TAINE

fixed in its own soil, full of sap: its members were not displaced;
it was simply lopped in order to receive on its crown a cluster of
foreign branches. True, it had suffered, but at last the wound
closed, the saps mingled. Even the hard, stiff ligatures with
which the Conqueror bound it, henceforth contributed to its fix-
ity and vigor. The land was mapped out; every title verified,
defined in writing;^ every right or tenure valued; every man
registered as to his locality, and also his condition, duties, de-
scent, and resources, so that the whole nation was enveloped in
a network of which not a mesh would break. Its future develop-
ment had to be within these limits. Its constitution was settled,
and in this positive and stringent enclosure men were compelled
to unfold themselves and to act. Solidarity and strife; these
were the two effects of the great and orderly establishment which
shaped and held together, on one side the aristocracy of the con-
querors, on the other the conquered people; even as in Rome
the systematic fusing of conquered peoples into the plebs, and
the constrained organization of the patricians in contrast with
the plebs, enrolled the private individuals in two orders, whose
opposition and union formed the state. Thus, here as in Rome,
the national character was moulded and completed by the habit
of corporate action, the respect for written law, political and
practical aptitude, the development of combative and patient
energy. It was the Domesday Book which, binding this young
society in a rigid discipline, made of the Saxon the Englishman
of our own day.

Gradually and slowly, amidst the gloomy complainings of the
chroniclefs, we find the new man fashioned by action, like a child
who cries because steel stays, though they improve his figure,
give him pain. However reduced and downtrodden the Saxons
were, they did not all sink into the populace. Some,- almost in
every county, remained lords of their estates, on the condition of
doing homage for them to the king. Many became vassals of
Norman barons, and remained proprietors on this condition. A
greater number became socagers, that is, free proprietors, bur-
dened with a tax, but possessed of the right of alienating their

^ Domesday Book. Froude's " His- human being should be at liberty to

tory of England," 1858, i. 13: " Through lead at his own pleasure an unaccount-

all these arrangements a single aim is able existence. The discipline of an

visible, that every man in England army was transferred to the details of

should have his definite place and defi- social life."

nite duty assigned to him, and that no * Domesday Book, " tenants-in-chief."-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 105

property; and the Saxon villeins found patrons in these, as the
plebs formerly did in the Italian nobles who were transplanted
to Rome. The patronage of the Saxons who preserved their
integral position was effective, for they were not isolated: mar-
riages from the first united the two races, as it had the patricians
and plebeians of Rome; ^ a Norman brother-in-law to a Saxon,
defended himself in defending him. In those turbulent times,
and in an armed community, relatives and allies were obliged to
stand shoulder to shoulder in order to keep their ground. After
all, it was necessary for the new-comers to consider their sub-
jects, for these subjects had the heart and courage of men: the
Saxons, like the plebeians at Rome, remembered their native
rank and their original independence. We can recognize it in
the complaints and indignation of the chroniclers, in the growl-
ing and menaces of popular revolt, in the long bitterness with
which they continually recalled their ancient liberty, in the favor
with which they cherished the daring and rebellion of outlaws.
There were Saxon families at the end of the twelfth century who
had bound themselves by a perpetual vow to wear long beards
from father to son in memory of the national custom and of the
old country. Such men, even though fallen to the condition of
socagers, even sunk into villeins, had a stifTer neck than the
wretched colonists of the Continent, trodden down and moulded
by four centuries of Roman taxation. By their feelings as well
as by their condition, they were the broken remains, but also the
living elements, of a free people. They did not suffer the ex-
tremities of oppression. They constituted the body of the na-
tion, the laborious, courageous body which supplied its energy.
The great barons felt that they must rely upon them in their re-
sistance to the king. Very soon, in stipulating for themselves,
they stipulated for all freemen,* even for merchants and villeins.
Thereafter " No merchant shall be dispossessed of his merchan-
dise, no villein of the instruments of his labor; no freeman, mer-
chant, or villein shall be taxed unreasonably for a small crime;
no freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseized of his

* According to Ailred (temp. Hen. and have constantly intermarried, the
II ), " a king, many bishops and ab- two nations are so completely mingled
bots, many great earls and noble together, that at least as regards free-
knights descended both from English men, one can scarcely distinguish who
and Norman blood, constituted a sup- is Norman and who English. . . . The
port to the one and an honor to the villeins attached to the soil," he says
other." " At present," says another again, " are alone of pure Saxon blood."
author of the same period, " as the * Magna Charta, 1215.
English and Normans dwell together,

io6 TAINE

land, or outlawed, or destroyed in any manner, but by the lawful
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." Thus pro-
tected they raise themselves and act. In each county there was
a court, where all freeholders, small or great, came to deliberate
about the municipal affairs, administer justice, and appoint tax-
assessors. The red-bearded Saxon, with his clear complexion
and great white teeth, came and sat by the Norman's side; these
were franklins like the one whom Chaucer describes:

" A Frankelein was in this compagnie ;
White was his herd, as is the dayesie.
Of his complexion he was sanguin,
Wei loved he by the morwe a sop in win.
To liven in delit was ever his wone,
For he was Epicures owen sone,
That held opinion that plein delit
Was veraily felicite parfite.
An housholder, and that a grete was he,
Seint Julian he was in his contree.
His brede, his ale, was alway after on;
A better envyned man was no wher non.
Withouten bake mete never his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke.
Of all deintees that men coud of thinke;
After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete and his soupere.
Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe,
And many a breme, and many a luce in stewe.
Wo was his coke but if his sauce were
Poinant and sharpe, and redy all his gere.
His table, dormant in his halle alway
Stode redy covered alle the longe day.
At sessions ther was he lord and sire.
Ful often time he was knight of the shire.
An anelace and a gipciere all of silk,
Heng at his girdle, white as morwe milk.
A shereve hadde he ben, and a contour.
Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour." '

With him occasionally in the assembly, oftenest among the
audience, were the yeomen, farmers, foresters, tradesmen, his
fellow-countrymen, muscular and resolute men, not slow in the
defence of their property, and in supporting him who would take

s " Chaucer's Works," ed. Sir H. Nicholas, 6 vols., 1845, " Prologue to
the Canterbury Tales," ii. p. 11, line 333.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 107

their cause in hand, with voice, fist and weapons. Is it likely
that the discontent of such men to whom the following descrip-
tion applies could be overlooked?

" The Miller was a stout carl for the nones,
Ful bigge he was of braun and eke of bones;
That proved wel, for over all ther he came,
At wrastling he wold here away the ram.
He was short shuldered brode, a thikke gnarre,
Ther n'as no dore, that he n'olde heve of barre,
Or breke it at a renning with his hede.
His herd as any sowe or fox was rede,
And therto brode, as though it were a spade.
Upon the cop right of his nose he hade
A wert, and thereon stode a tufte of heres,
Rede as the bristles of a sowes eres :
His nose-thirles blacke were and wide.
A swerd and bokeler bare he by his side.
His mouth as wide was as a forneis,
He was a jangler and a goliardeis,
And that was most of sinne, and harlotries.
Wel coude he stelen corne and toUen thries.
And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.
A white cote and a blew hode wered he.
A baggepipe wel coude he blowe and soune,
And therwithall he brought us out of toune." •

Those are the athletic forms, the square build, the jolly John
Bulls of the period, such as we yet find them, nourished by meat
and porter, sustained by bodily exercise and boxing. These
are the men we must keep before us, if we will understand how
political liberty has been established in this country. Gradually
they find the simple knights, their colleagues in the county
court, too poor to be present with the great barons at the royal
assemblies, coalescing with them. They become united by com-
munity of interests, by similarity of manners, by nearness of
condition ; they take them for their representatives, they elect
them.'' They have now entered upon public life, and the ad-
vent of a new reinforcement gives them a perpetual standing
in their changed condition. The towns laid waste by the Con-
quest are gradually repeopled. They obtain or exact charters ;
the townsmen buy themselves out of the arbitrary taxes that

• Prologue to " The Canterbury '' From 1214, and also in 1225 and 1254.

Tales," ii. p. 17, line 547, Guizot, " Origin of the Representative

System in England," pp. 297-299.

io8 TAINE

were imposed on them; they get possession of the land on which
their houses are built ; they unite themselves under mayors and
aldermen. Each town now, within the meshes of the great
feudal net, is a power. The Earl of Leicester, rebelling against
the king, summons two burgesses from each town to Parlia-
ment,® to authorize and support him. From that time the con-
quered race, both in country and town, rose to political life.
If they were taxed, it was with their consent ; they paid nothing
which they did not agree to. Early in the fourteenth century
their united deputies composed the House of Commons; and
already, at the close of the preceding century, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, speaking in the name of the king, said to the
pope, " It is the custom of the kingdom of England, that in all
affairs relating to the state of this kingdom, the advice of all
who are interested in them should be taken."

Section VII. — Persistence of Saxon Ideas

If they have acquired liberties, it is because they have ob-
tained them by force ; circumstances have assisted, but charac-
ter has done more. The protection of the great barons and the
alliance of the plain knights have strengthened them ; but it was
by their native roughness and energy that they maintained their
independence. Look at the contrast they offer at this moment
to their neighbors. What occupies the mind of the French
people? The fabliaux, the naughty tricks of Reynard, the art
of deceiving Master Isengrin, of steali4ig his wife, of cheating
him out of his dinner, of getting him beaten by a third party
without danger to one's self; in short, the triumph of poverty
and cleverness over power united to folly. The popular hero is
already the artful plebeian, chafifing, light-hearted, who, later on,
will ripen into Panurge and Figaro, not apt to withstand you to
your face, too sharp to care for great victories and habits of
strife, inclined by the nimbleness of his wit to dodge round an
obstacle ; if he but touch a man with the tip of his finger, that
man tumbles into the trap. But here we have other cMstoms :
it is Robin Hood, a valiant outlaw, living free and bold in the
green forest, waging frank and open war against sheriff and
law.^ If ever a man was popular in his country, it was he.

* In 1264. '■ Aug. J hierry, iv. 56. Ritson's '* Robin Hood," 1832.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 109

" It is he," says an old historian, " whom the common people
love so dearly to celebrate in games and comedies, and whose
history, sung by fiddlers, interests them more than any other."
In the sixteenth century he still had his commemoration day,
observed by all the people in the small towns and in the country.
Bishop Latimer, making his pastoral tour, announced one day
' that he would preach in a certain place. On the morrow, pro-
" ceeding to the church, he found the doors closed, and waited
more than an hour before they brought him the key. At last
a man came and said to him, " Syr, thys ys a busye day with us;
we cannot heare you : it is Robyn Hoodes Daye. The parishe
are gone abrode to gather for Robyn Hoode. ... I was
fayne there to geve place to Robyn Hoode." ^ The bishop was
obliged to divest himself of his ecclesiastical garments and
proceed on his journey, leaving his place to archers dressed in
green, who played on a rustic stage the parts of Robin Hood,
Little John, and their band. In fact, he was the national hero.
Saxon in the first place and waging war against the men of
law, against bishops and archbishops, whose sway was so
heavy; generous, moreover, giving to a poor ruined knight
clothes, horse, and money to buy back the land he had pledged
to a rapacious abbot ; compassionate too, and kind to the poor,
enjoining his men not to injure yeomen and laborers ; but above
all, rash, bold, proud, who would go and draw his bow before
the sheriff's eyes and to his face ; ready with blows, whether to
give or take. He slew fourteen out of fifteen foresters who
came to arrest him ; he slays the sheriff, the judge, the town
gatekeeper ; he is ready to slay as many more as like to come ;
and all this joyously, jovially, like an honest fellow who eats
well, has a hard skin, lives in the open air, and revels in animal
life.

" In somer when the shawes be sheyne.
And leves be large and long,
Hit is fulle mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song."

That is how many ballads begin ; and the fine weather, which
makes the stags and oxen butt with their horns, inspires them
with the thought of exchanging blows with sword or stick.
Robin dreamed that two yeomen were thrashing him, and he

2 Latimer's " Sermons," ed. Arber, 6th Sermon, 1869, p. 173,
6— ChissicR. Vol. 38

no TAINE

wants to go and find them, angrily repelling Little John, who
offers to go first :

" Ah John, by me thou settest noe store,
And that I farley finde :
How offt send I my men before,
And tarry myselfe behinde?

" It is no cunnin a knave to ken,
An a man but heare him speake ;
An it were not for bursting of my bowe,
John, I thy head wold breake." ^ . . .

He goes alone, and meets the robust yeoman, Guy of Gisborne,

" He that had neyther beene kythe nor kin,
Might have seen a full fayre fight.
To see how together these yeomen went
With blades both browne and bright,

" To see how these yeomen together they fought
Two howres of a summer's day;
Yett neither Robin Hood nor sir Guy
Them fettled to flye away." *

You see Guy the yeoman is as brave as Robin Hood ; he came
to seek him in the wood, and drew the bow almost as well as he.
This old popular poetry is not the praise of a single bandit, but
of an entire class, the yeomanry. " God hafife mersy on Robin
Hodys solle, and safife all god yemanry." That is how many
ballads end. The brave yeoman, inured to blows, a good archer,
clever at sword and stick, is the favorite. There were also,
redoubtable, armed townsfolk, accustomed to make use of their
arms. Here they are at work:

" * O that were a shame,' said jolly Robin,
' We being three, and thou but one,'
' The pinder ^ leapt back then thirty good foot,

'Twas thirty good foot and one.

" He leaned his back fast unto a thorn,
And his foot against a stone,
And there he fought a long summer's day,
A summer's day so long.

» Ritson, " Robin Hood Ballads," i. 'A pinder's task was to pin the sheep

iv. verses 41-48. in the fold, cattle in the penfold or

* Ibid, verses 14S-152. pound (Richardson).— Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE m

" Till that their swords on their broad bucklers
Were broke fast into their hands." ^

Often even Robin does not get the advantage:

" ' I pass not for length,' bold Arthur reply'd,
' My staff is of oke so free ;
Eight foot and a half, it will knock down a calf,
And I hope it will knock down thee.'

" Then Robin could no longer forbear,
He gave him such a knock,
Quickly and soon the blood came down
Before it was ten a clock.

" Then Arthur he soon recovered himself,
And gave him such a knock on the crown.
That from every side of bold Robin Hood's head
The blood came trickling down.

" Then Robin raged like a wild boar,
As soon as he saw his own blood :
Then Bland was in hast, he laid on so fast,
As though he had been cleaving of wood.

" And about and about and about they went,
Like two wild bores in a chase,
Striving to aim each other to maim.
Leg, arm, or any other place.

** And knock for knock they lustily dealt.
Which held for two hours and more.
Till all the wood rang at every bang.
They ply'd their work so sore.

" ' Hold thy hand, hold thy hand,' said Robin Hood,
' And let thy quarrel fall ;
For here we may thrash our bones all to mesh,
And get no coyn at all.

" ' And in the forrest of merry Sherwood,
Hereafter thou shalt be free.'
' God a mercy for nought, my freedom I bought,
I may thank my staff, and not thee.' " '^ . . „

** Who are you, then? " says Robin:

" ' I am a tanner,' bold Arthur reply'd,
' In Nottingham long I have wrought ;
And if thou'It come there, I vow and swear,
I will tan thy hide for nought.'
« Ritson, ii. 3, verses 17-26. '' Ibid. ii. 6, verses 58-89.

112 TAINE

" ' God a mercy, good fellow,' said jolly Robin,
' Since thou art so kind and free ;
And if thou wilt tan ray hide for nought,
I will do as much for thee.' " ^

With these generous offers, they embrace; a free exchange of
honest blows always prepares the way for friendship. It was
so Robin Hood tried Little John, whom he loved all his life
after. Little John was seven feet high, and being on a bridge,
would not give way. Honest Robin would not use his bow
against him, but went and cut a stick seven feet long ; and they
agreed amicably to fight on the bridge until one should fall into
the water. They fall to so merrily that " their bones ring."
In the end Robin falls, and he feels only the more respect for
Little John. Another time, having a sword with him, he was
thrashed by a tinker who had only a stick. Full of admiration,
he gives him a hundred pounds. Again he was thrashed by a
potter, who refused him toll ; then by a shepherd. They fight
to amuse themselves. Even nowadays boxers give each other a
friendly grip before setting to ; they knock one another about
in this country honorably, without malice, fury, or shame.
Broken teeth, black eyes, smashed ribs, do not call for murder-
ous vengeance : it would seem that the bones are more solid and
the nerves less sensitive in England than elsewhere. Blows
once exchanged, they take each other by the hand, and dance
together on the green grass:

" Then Robin took them both by the hands,
And danc'd round about the oke tree.
' For three merry men, and three merry men.
And three merry men we be.* "

Moreover, these people, in each parish, practised the bow every
Sunday, and were the best archers in the world ; from the close
of the fourteenth century the general emancipation of the vil-
leins multiplied their number greatly, and you can now under-
stand how, amidst all the operations and changes of the great
central powers, the liberty of the subject survived. After all,
the only permanent and unalterable guarantee, in every country
and under every constitution, is this unspoken declaration in the
heart of the mass of the people, which is well understood on all
sides : " If any man touches my property, enters my house,

* Ritson, verses 94-101.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 113

obstructs or molests me, let him beware. I have patience, but
I have also strong arms, g-ood comrades, a good blade, and, on
occasion, a firm resolve, happen what may, to plunge my blade
up to its hilt in his throat."

Section VIII. — The English Constitution

Thus thought Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of England
under Henry VI, exiled in France during the Wars of the
Roses, one of the oldest prose-writers, and the first who
weighed and explained the constitution of his country.* He
says:

" It is cowardise and lack of hartes and corage that kepeth the French-
men from rysyng, and not povertye ;2 which corage no Frenche man
hath like to the English man. It hath ben often seen in Englond that
iij or iv thefes, for povertie, hath sett upon vij or viij true men, and
robbyd them al. But it hath not ben seen in Fraunce, that vij or viij
thefes have ben hardy to robbe iij or iv true men. Wherfor it is right
seld that Frenchmen be hangyd for robberye, for that they have no
hertys to do so terryble an acte. There be therfor mo men hangyd in
Englond, in a yere, for robberye and manslaughter, than ther be hangid
in Fraunce for such cause of crime in vij yers." ^

This throws a startling and terrible light on the violent condi-
tion of this armed community, where sudden attacks are an
every-day matter, and everyone, rich and poor, lives with his
hand on his sword. There were great bands of malefactors
under Edward I, who infested the country, and fought with
those who came to seize them. The inhabitants of the towns
were obliged to gather together with those of the neighboring
towns, with hue and cry, to pursue and capture them. Under
Edward IH there were barons who rode about with armed es-
corts and archers, seizing the manors, carrying off ladies and
girls of high degree, mutilating, killing, extorting ransoms from
people in their own houses, as if they were in an enemy's land,

^ " The Difference between an Abso- are perhaps the most reckless of life

lute and Limited Monarchy— A learned of any.

Commendation of the Politic Laws of ^ " The Difference," etc., 3d ed. 1724,

England " (Latin). I frequently quote ch. xiii. p. 98. There are nowadays

from the second work, which is more in France 42 highway robberies as

full and complete. against 738 in England. In 1843, there

* The courage which finds utterance were in England four times as many

here is coarse; the English instincts are accusations of crimes and offences as

combative and independent. The in France, having regard 'to the num-

French race, and the Gauls generally, ber of inhabitants (Moreau de

Jonnes).

114 TAINE

and sometimes coming before the judges at the sessions in such
guise and in so great force that the judges were afraid and
dared not administer justice.* Read the letters of the Paston
family, under Henry VI and Edward IV, and you will see how
private war was at every door, how it was necessary for a man
to provide himself with men and arms, to be on the alert for de-
fence of his property, to be self-reliant, to depend on his own
strength and courage. It is this excess of vigor and readiness
to fight which, after their victories in France, set them against
one another in England, in the butcheries of the Wars of the
Roses. The strangers who saw them were astonished at their
bodily strength and courage, at the great pieces of beef " which
feed their muscles, at their military habits, their fierce obstinacy,
,as of savage beasts." ® They are Hke their bulldogs, an untama-
ble race, who in their mad courage " cast themselves with shut
eyes into the den of a Russian bear, and get their head broken
like a rotten apple." This strange condition of a militant com-
munity, so full of danger, and requiring so much effort, does not
make them afraid. King Edward having given orders to send
disturbers of the peace to prison without legal proceedings, and
not to liberate them, on bail or otherwise, the Commons declared
the order " horribly vexatious " ; resist it, refuse to be too much
protected. Less peace, but more independence. They main-
tain the guarantees of the subject at the expense of public se-
curity, and prefer turbulent liberty to arbitrary order. Better
sufifer marauders whom they could fight, than magistrates
under whom they would have to bend.

This proud and persistent notion gives rise to, and fashions
Fortescue's whole work:

" Ther be two kynds of kyngdomys, of the which that one ys a lord-
ship callid in Latyne Dominium regale, and that other is callid Do-
minium politicum et regale."

The first is established in France, and the second in England.

" And they dyversen in that the first may rule his people by such
lawys as he makyth hymself, and therefor, he may set upon them talys,
and other impositions, such as he wyl hymself, without their assent.
The secund may not rule hys people by other laws than such as they

* Statute of Winchester, 1285; Ordi- Shakespeare, "Henry V,'' conversation

nance of 1378. of French lords beiore the battle oi ,

s Benvenuto Cellini, quoted by Agincourt.
Froude, i. 20, " History of England.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 115

assenten unto; and therfor he may set upon them non impositions
without their own assent." ^

In a state like this, the will of the people is the prime element
of life. Sir John Fortescue says further :

" A king of England cannot at his pleasure make any alterations in
the laws of the land, for the nature of his government is not only regal,
but political."

" In the body politic, the first thing which lives and moves is the in-
tention of the people, having in it the blood, that is, the prudential care
and provision for the public good, which it transmits and communicates
to the head, as to the principal part, and to all the rest of the members
of the said body politic, whereby it subsists and is invigorated. The
law under which the people is incorporated may be compared to the
nerves or sinews of the body natural. . . . And as the bones and
all the other members of the body preserve their functions and discharge
their several offices by the nerves, so do the members of the community
by the law. And as the head of the body natural cannot change its
nerves or sinews, cannot deny to the several parts their proper energy,
their due proportion and aliment of blood, neither can a king who is
the head of the body politic change the laws thereof, nor take from the
people what is theirs by right, against their consents. . . . For he
is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws,
for this very end and purpose he has the delegation of power from the
people."

Here we have all the ideas of Locke in the fifteenth century,
so powerful is practice to suggest theory ! so quickly does man
discover, in the enjoyment of liberty, the nature of liberty!
Fortescue goes further ; he contrasts, step by step, the Roman
law, that inheritance of all Latin peoples, with the English law,
that heritage of all Teutonic peoples : one the work of absolute
princes, and tending altogether to the sacrifice of the individual ;
the other the work of the common will, tending altogether to
protect the person. He contrasts the maxims of the imperial
jurisconsults, who accord " force of law to all which is deter-
mined by the prince," with the statutes of England, which " are
not enacted by the sole will of the prince, . . . but with the
concurrent consent of the whole kingdom, by their representa-
tives in Parliament, « . , more than three hundred select
persons." He contrasts the arbitrary nomination of imperial
officers with the election of the sheriff, and says :

" There is in every county a certain officer, called the king's sheriff,
who. amongst other duties of his office, executes within his county all

•"The Difference." etc

ii6 TAINE

mandates and judgments of the king's courts of justice : he is an annual
officer; and it is not lawful for him, after the expiration of his year,
to continue to act in his said office, neither shall he be taken in again to
execute the said office within two years thence next ensuing. The man-
ner of his election is thus : Every year, on the morrow of All-Souls,
there meet in the King's Court of Exchequer all the king's counsellors,
as well lords spiritual and temporal, as all other the king's justices, all
the barons of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, and certain other
officers, when all of them, by common consent, nominate three of every
county knights or esquires, persons of distinction, and such as they
esteem fittest qualified to bear the office of sheriff of that county for
the year ensuing. The king only makes choice of one out of the three
so nominated and returned, who, in virtue of the king's letters patent,
is constituted High Sheriff of that county."

He contrasts the Roman procedure, which is satisfied with
two witnesses to condemn a man, with the jury, the three per-
mitted challenges, the admirable guarantees of justice with
which the uprightness, number, repute, and condition of the
juries surround the sentence. About the juries he says:

" Twelve good and true men being sworn, as in the manner above
related, legally qualified, that is, having, over and besides their mov-
ables, possessions in land sufficient, as was said, wherewith to maintain
their rank and station ; neither inspected by, nor at variance with either
of the parties ; all of the neighborhood ; there shall be read to them,
in English, by the Court, the record and nature of the plea." '

Thus protected, the English commons cannot be other than
flourishing. Consider, on the other hand, he says to the young
prince whom he is instructing, the condition of the commons
in France. By their taxes, tax on salt, on wine, billeting of sol-
diers, they are reduced to great misery. You have seen them
on your travels. ...

" The same Commons be so impoverishid and distroyyd, that they
may unneth lyve. Thay drink water, thay eate apples, with bred right
brown made of rye. They eate no fleshe, but if it be selden, a litill larde,
or of the entrails or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and merchants
of the land. They weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their
uttermost garment, made of grete convass, and cal it a frok. Their
hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee, wherfor they be

* The original of this very famous Fortescue's works published in 1869 for

treatise, " de Laudibus Legum Anglise," private distribution, and edited by

was written in Latin between 1464 and Thomas Fortescue, Lord Clermont.

1470, first published in 1537, and trans- Some of the pieces quoted, left in the

lated into English in 1775 by Francis old spelling, are taken from an older

Gregor. I have taken these extracts edition, translated by Robert Mulca^

from the magnificent edition of Sir Joh"h ter in 1567. — Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 117

gartrid and their thyghs bare. Their wifs and children gone bare fote.
. . . For sum of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his
tenement which he hyrith by the year a scute payth now to the kyng,
over that scute, fyve skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd by necessite so
to watch, labour and grub in the ground for their sustenance, that their
nature is much wasted, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay
gone crokyd and ar feeble, not able to fight nor to defend the realm;
nor they have wepon, nor monye to buy them wepon withal. . . .
This is the frute first of hyre Jus regale. . . . But blessed be God,
this land ys rulid under a better lawe, and therfor the people thereof
be not in such penurye, nor therby hurt in their persons, but they be
wealthie and have all things necessarie to the sustenance of nature.
Wherefore they be myghty and able to resyste the adversaries of the
realms that do or will do them "Tong. Loo, this is the fruit of Jus poli-
ticum et regale, under which we lyve." * " Everye inhabiter of the
realme of England useth and enjoyeth at his pleasure all the fruites that
his land or cattel beareth, with al the profits and commodities which
by his owne travayle, or by the labour of others, hae gaineth ; not hin-
dered by the iniurie or wrong deteinement of anye man, but that hee
shall bee allowed a reasonable recompence.^ . . . Hereby it com-
meth to passe that the men of that lande are riche, havying aboundaunce
of golde and silver, and other thinges necessarie for the maintenaunce
of man's life. They drinke no water, unless it be so, that some for
devotion, and uppon a zeale of penaunce, doe abstaine from other drinks.
They eate plentifully of all kindes of fleshe and fishe. They weare fine
woolen cloth in all their apparel ; they have also aboundaunce of bed-
coveringes in their houses, and of all other woolen stuffe. They have
greate store of all hustlementes and implementes of householde, they
are plentifully furnished with al instruments of husbandry, and all
Other things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a quiet and
wealthy lyfe, according to their estates and degrees. Neither are they
sued in the lawe, but onely before ordinary iudges, where by the lawes
of the lande they are iustly intreated. Neither are they arrested or
impleaded for their moveables or possessions, or arraigned of any of-
fence, bee it never so great and outragious, but after the lawes of the
land, and before the iudges aforesaid." ^^

All this arises from the constitution of the country and the
distribution of the land. Whilst in other countries we find only
a population of paupers, with here and there a few lords, Eng-
land is covered and filled with owners of lands and fields ; so
that " therein so small a thorpe cannot bee founde, wherein
dwelleth not a knight, an esquire, or suche a housholder as is
there commonly called a franklayne, enryched with greate pos-
sessions. And also other freeholders, and many yeomen able

• " Of an Absolute and Limited Mon- • Commines bears the same testimony,

archy," 3d ed. 1724, ch. iii. p. i w " De Laudibus," etc., ch. xxxvi.

ii8

TAINE

for their livelodes to make a jurye in fourme afore-mentioned.
For there bee in that lande divers yeomen, which are able to
dispend by the yeare above a hundred poundes." " Harrison
says : ^^

" This sort of people, have more estimation than labourers and the
common sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, keepe
good houses, and travell to get riches. They are for the most part farm-
ers to gentlemen," and keep servants of their own. " These were they
that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called
master, as gentlemen are, or sir, as to knights apperteineth, but onelie
John and Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have done verie
good service; and the kings of England, in foughten battels, were wont
to remaine among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings
did among their horssemen : the prince thereby showing where his
chiefe strength did consist."

Such men, says Fortescue, might form a legal jury, and vote,
resist, be associated, do everything v^herein a free government
consists ; for they were numerous in every district ; they were
not down-trodden like the timid peasants of France ; they had
their honor and that of their family to maintain ; " they be well
provided with arms ; they remember that they have won battles
in France." " Such is the class, still obscure, but more rich and

" " The might of the realme most
stondyth upon archers which be not
rich men." Compare Hallam, ii. 4^2-
All this takes us back as far as the Con-
quest, and farther. " It is reasonable
to suppose that the greater part of those
who appear to have possessed small
freeholds or parcels of manors were no
other than the original nation. . . .
A respectable class of free socagers,
having in general full right of alien-
ating their lands, and holding them
probably at a small certain rent from
the lord of the manor, frequently oc-
curs in the Domesday Book." At all
events, there were in Domesday Book
Saxons " perfectly exempt from vil-
lenage." This class is mentioned with
respect in the treatises of Glanvil and
Bracton. As for the villeins, they were
quickly liberated in the thirteenth or
fourteenth century, either by their own
energies or by becoming copyholders.
The Wars of the Roses still further
raised the commons; orders were fre-
quently issued, previous to a battle, to
slay the nobles and spare the com-
moners."

" " Description of England," 275.

" The following is a portrait of a yeo-
man, by Latimer, in the first sermon
preached before Edward VI, March 8,
1549: " My father was a yeoman, and
had no lands of his own; only he had
a farm of £3 or £4 by year at the ut-

termost, and hereupon he tilled so much
as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk
for a hundred sheep, and my mother
milked thirty kine. He was able, and
did find the king a harness, with him-
self and his horse; while he came to
the place that he should receive the
king s wages. I can remember that I
buckled his harness when he went unto
Blackheath field. He kept me to
school, or else I had not been able
to have preached before the King's
Majesty now. He married my sisters
with £5 or 20 nobles a-piece, so that
he brought them up in godliness and
fear of God; he kept hospitality for his
poor neighbours, and some alms he
gave to the poor; and all this did he
of the said farm. Where he that now
hath it payeth £16 by the year, or more,
and is not able to do anything for his
prince, for himself, nor for his chil-
dren, or give a cup of drink to the
poor."

This is from the sixth sermon,
preached before the young king, April
12, 1549: " In my time my poor father
was as diligent to teach me to shoot
as to learn (me) any other thing; and
so, I think, other men did their chil-
dren. He taught me how to draw, how
to lay my body in my bow, and not to
draw with strength of arms, as other
nations do, but with strength of the
liody. I had my bows bought me ac-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

119

powerful every century, which, founded by the down-trodden
Saxon aristocracy, and sustained by the surviving Saxon char-
acter, ended, under the lead of the inferior Norman nobihty and
under the patronage of the superior Norman nobihty, in estab-
lishing and settling a free constitution, and a nation worthy of
liberty.

Section IX. — Piers Plowman and Wyclif

When, as here, men are endowed with a serious character,
have a resolute spirit, and possess independent habits, they deal
with their conscience as with their daily business, and end by
laying hands on church as well as state. Already for a long
time the exactions of the Roman See had provoked the resist-
ance of the people,^ and the higher clergy became unpopular.
Men complained that the best livings were given by the pope
to non-resident strangers ; that some Italian, unknown in Eng-
land, possessed fifty or sixty benefices in England ; that Eng-
lish money poured into Rome ; and that the clergy, being judged
only by clergy, gave themselves up to their vices, and abused
their state of immunity. In the first years of Henry Ill's reign
there were nearly a hundred murders committed by priests then
alive. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the ecclesi-
astical revenue was twelve times greater than the civil ; about
half the soil was in the hands of the clergy. At the end of the
century the commons declared that the taxes paid to the church
were five times greater than the taxes paid to the crown ; and
some years afterwards,'* considering that the wealth of the
clergy only served to keep them in idleness and luxury, they
proposed to confiscate it for the public benefit. Already the
idea of the Reformation had forced itself upon them. They
remembered how in the ballads Robin Hood ordered his folk to
spare the yeomen, laborers, even knights, if they are good fel-
lows, but never to let abbots or bishops escape. The prelates
were grievously oppressing the people by means of their privi-

cording to my age and strength; as T that with these revenues the king would

increased in them, so my bows were be able to maintain 15 earls, 1500

made bigger and bigger; for men shall knights, 6,200 squires, and 100 hospitals;

never shoot well except they be brought each earl receiving annually 300 marks;

up in it. It is a goodly art, a whole- each knight 100 marks, and the produce

some kind of exercise, and much com- of four ploughed lands; each squire 40

mended in physic." _ marks, and _ the produce of two

1 In 1246, 1376. Thierry, iii. 79.
' 1404-1409. The commons declared

I20 TAINE

leges, ecclesiastical courts, and tithes ; when suddenly, amid the
pleasant banter or the monotonous babble of the Norman versi-
fiers, we hear the indignant voice of a Saxon, a man of the peo-
ple and a victim of oppression, thundering against them.

It is the vision of Piers Plowman, written, it is supposed,
by a secular priest of Oxford.^ Doubtless the traces of French
taste are perceptible. It could not be otherwise; the people
from below can never quite prevent themselves from imitating
the people above, and the most unshackled popular poets, Bums
and Beranger, too often preserve an academic style. So here
a fashionable machinery, the allegory of the Roman de la Rose,
is pressed into service. We have Do-well, Covetousness, Ava-
rice, Simony, Conscience, and a whole world of talking abstrac-
tions. But, in spite of these vain foreign phantoms, the body of
the poem is national, and true to life. The old language reap-
pears in part ; the old metre altogether ; no morer rhymes, but
barbarous alliterations ; no more jesting, but a harsh gravity, a
sustained invective, a grand and sombre imagination, heavy
Latin texts, hammered down as by a Protestant hand. Piers
Plowman went to sleep on the Malvern hills, and there had a
wonderful dream:

" Thanne gan I meten — a merveillous swevene.
That I was in a wildernesse — wiste I nevere where ;
And as I biheeld into the eest, — an heigh to the sonne,
I seigh a tour on a toft, — trieliche y-maked,
A deep dale bynethe — a dongeon thereinne
With depe diches and derke — and dredfulle of sighte.
A fair feeld ful of folk — fond 1 ther bitwene,
Of alle manere of men, — the meene and the riche,
Werchynge and wandrynge — as the world asketh.
Some putten hem to the plough, — pleiden ful selde,
In settynge and sowynge — swonken ful harde.
And wonnen that wastours — with glotonye dystruyeth." *

A gloomy picture of the world, like the frightful dreams which
occur so often in Albert Diirer and Luther. The first reform-
ers were persuaded that the earth was given over to evil ; that
the devil had on it his empire and his officers ; that Antichrist,
seated on the throne of Rome, displayed ecclesiastical pomps
to seduce souls and cast them into the fire of hell. So here Anti-

» About 1362. Creed," ed. T. Wright, 1856, i. p. a,

* " Piers Ploughman's Vision and lines 21-44-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 121

Christ, with raised banner, enters a convent; bells are rung;
monks in solemn procession go to meet him, and receive with
congratulations their lord and father.^ With seven great
giants, the seven deadly sins, he besieges Conscience ; and the
assault is led by Idleness, who brings with her an army of more
than a thousand prelates: for vices reign, more hateful from
being in holy places, and employed in the church of God in the
devil's service.

" Ac now is Religion a rydere — a romere aboute,
A ledere of love-dayes — and a lond-buggere,
A prikere on a palfrey — fro manere to manere. . . .
And but if his knave knele — that shal his coppe brynge,
He loureth on hym, and asketh hym — who taughte hym curteisie." ^

But this sacrilegious show has its day, and God puts His hand
on men in order to warn them. By order of Conscience, Nature
sends forth a host of plagues and diseases from the planets :

" Kynde Conscience tho herde, — and cam out of the planetes.
And sente forth his forreyours — feveres and fluxes,
Coughes and cardiacles, — crampes and tooth-aches,
Reumes and radegundes, — and roynous scabbes,
Biles and bocches, — and brennynge agues,
Frenesies and foule yveles, — forageres of kynde. . . .
There was ' Harrow ! and Help ! — Here cometh Kynde !
With Deeth that is dredful — to undo us alle ! '
The lord that lyved after lust — tho aloud cryde. . . .
Deeth cam dryvynge after, — and al to duste passhed
Kynges and knj'ghtes, — kaysers and popes, . . .
Manye a lovely lady — and lemmans of knyghtes,
Swowned and swelted for sorwe of hise dyntes." ^

Here is a crowd of miseries, like those which Milton has de-
scribed in his vision of human life; tragic pictures and emo-
tions, such as the reformers delight to dwell upon. There is a
like speech delivered by John Knox, before the fair ladies of
Mary Stuart, which tears the veil from the human corpse just
as coarsely, in order to exhibit its shame. The conception of
the world, proper to the people of the north, all sad and moral,
shows itself already. They are never comfortable in their
country; they have to strive continually against cold or rain.

^ The Archdeacon of Richmond, on ' " Piers Ploughman's Vision," i. p.

his tour in 1216, came to the priory of 191, lines 6,217-6,228.

Bridlington with ninety-seven horses, '' Ibid. ii. Last book, p. 430, lines

twenty-one dogs, and three falcons. 14,084-14,135.

122 TAINE

They cannot live there carelessly, lying under a lovely sky, in a
sultry and clear atmosphere, their eyes filled with the noble
beauty and happy serenity of the land. They must work to
live ; be attentive, exact, keep their houses wind and water tight,
trudge doggedly through the mud behind their plough, light
their lamps in their shops during the day. Their climate im-
poses endless inconvenience, and exacts endless endurance.
Hence arise melancholy and the idea of duty. Man naturally
thinks of life as of a battle, oftener of black death which closes
this deadly show, and leads so many plumed and disorderly
processions to the silence and the eternity of the grave. All
this visible world is vain ; there is nothing true but human virtue
— the courageous energy with which man attains to self-com-
mand, the generous energy with which he employs himself in
the service of others. On this view, then, his eyes are fixed ;
they pierce through worldly gauds, neglect sensual joys, to at-
tain this. By such inner thoughts and feelings the ideal model
is displaced; a new source of action springs up — the idea of
righteousness. What sets them against ecclesiastical pomp
and insolence is neither the envy of the poor and low, nor the
anger of the oppressed, nor a revolutionary desire to experi-
mentalize abstract truth, but conscience. They tremble lest
they should not work out their salvation if they continue in a
corrupt church ; they fear the menaces of God, and dare not em-
bark on the great journey with unsafe guides. " What is right-
eousness ? " asked Luther, anxiously, " and how shall I obtain
it?" With like anxiety Piers Plowman goes to seek Do-
well, and asks each one to show him where he shall find him.
" With us," say the friars. " Contra quath ich, Septies in die
cadit Justus, and ho so syngeth certys doth nat wel ; " so he be-
takes himself to " study and writing," like Luther ; the clerks
at table speak much of God and of the Trinity, " and taken
Bernarde to witnesse, and putteth forth presompcions . . .
ac the earful mai crie and quaken atte gate, bothe a fyngred and
a furst, and for defaute spille ys non so hende to have hym yn.
Clerkus and knyghtes carpen of God ofte, and haveth hym
muche in hure mouthe, ac mene men in herte ; " and heart, inner
faith, living virtue, are what constitute true religion. This is
what these dull Saxons had begun to discover. The Teutonic
conscience, and English good-sense, too, had been aroused, as

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 123

well as individual energy, the resolution to judge and decide
alone, by and for one's self. " Christ is our hede that sitteth on
hie, Heddis ne ought we have no mo," says a poem, attributed
to Chaucer, and which, with others, claims independence for
Christian consciences.®

" We ben his membres bothe also,
Father he taught us call him all,
Maisters to call forbad he tho;
Al maisters ben wickid and fals."

No other mediator between man and God. In vain the doc-
tors state that they have authority for their words ; there is a
word of greater authority, to wit, God's. We hear it in the
fourteenth century, this grand " word of God." It quitted the
learned schools, the dead languages, the dusty shelves on which
the clergy suffered it to sleep, covered with a confusion of com-
mentators and Fathers.^ Wycliff appeared and translated it like
Luther, and in a spirit similar to Luther's. " Cristen men and
wymmen, olde and yonge, shulden studie fast in the Newe
Testament, for it is of ful autorite, and opyn to undirstonding
of simple men, as to the poyntis that be moost nedeful to salva-
cioun." " Religion must be secular, in order to escape from the
hands of the clerg}^ who monopolize it ; each must hear and
read for himself the word of God ; he will then be sure that it
has not been corrupted ; he will feel it better, and, more, he will
understand it better, for

" ech place of holy writ, both opyn and derk, techit mekenes and charite ;
and therfore he that kepith mekenes and charite hath the trewe undir-
stondyng and perfectioun of al holi writ. . . . Therfore no simple
man of wit be aferd unmesurabli to studie in the text of holy writ . . .
and no clerk be proude of the verrey undirstondyng of holy writ, for
whi undirstonding of hooly writ with outen charite that kepith Goddis
heestis, makith a man depper dampned . . . and pride and covetise
of clerkis is cause of her blindees and eresie, and priveth them fro verrey
undirstondyng of holy writ." ^^

*" Piers Plowman's Crede; the teratis, et bene intelligentibus. Et sic

Plowman's Tale," first printed in 1550. evangelica margerita spargitur et_ a

There were three editions in one year, porcis conculcatur . . . (ita) ut laicis

it was so manifestly Protestant. commune aeternum quod ante fuerat

* Knighton, about 1400, wrote thus of clericis et ecclesiae doctoribus talentum

Wyclif : " Transtulit de Latino in angli- supernum."

cam linguam, non angelicam. Unde '"* Wyclif's Bible, ed. Forshall and

per ipsum fit vulgare, et magis apertum Madden, 1850, preface to Oxford edi-

laicis et mulieribus legere scientibus tion, p. 2.

quam solet esse clericis admodum lit- " Ibid.

124

TAINE

These are the memorable words that began to circulate in the
markets and in the schools. They read the translated Bible,
and commented on it ; they judged the existing Church after it.
What judgments these serious and untainted minds passed upon
it, with what readiness they pushed on to the true religion of
their race, we may see from their petition to Parliament.^^ One
hundred and thirty years before Luther, they said that the pope
was not established by Christ, that pilgrimages and image-wor-
ship were akin to idolatry, that external rites are of no impor-
tance, that priests ought not to possess temporal wealth, that the
docrine of transubstantiation made a people idolatrous, that
priests have not the power of absolving from sin. In proof of all
this they brought forward texts of Scripture. Fancy these brave
spirits, simple and strong souls, who began to read at night in
their shops, by candle-light; for they were shopkeepers — tailors,
skinners, and bakers — who, with some men of letters, began to
read, and then to believe, and finally got themselves burned.^'
What a sight for the fifteenth century, and what a promise! It
seems as though, with liberty of action, liberty of mind begins
to appear; that these common folk will think and speak; that
under the conventional literature, imitated from France, a new
literature is dawning; and that England, genuine England, half-
mute since the Conquest, will at last find a voice.

She had not yet found it. King and peers ally themselves to
the Church, pass terrible statutes, destroy books, burn heretics
alive, often with refinement of torture — one in a barrel, another
hung by an iron chain around his waist. The temporal wealth
of the clergy had been attacked, and therewith the whole Eng-
lish constitution; and the great establishment above crushed out
with its whole weight the revolutionists from below. Darkly, in
silence, while the nobles were destroying each other in the Wars
of the Roses, the commons went on working and living, sepa-
rating themselves from the established Church, maintaining their
liberties, amassing wealth, but not going further.^* Like a vast
rock which underlies the soil, yet crops up here and there at dis-

" In 1395. thrown or demolished in war, England
" 1401, William Sawtre, the first Lol- is the best ; and the ruin and misfortune
lard burned alive. falls on them who wage the war. . . .
** Commines, v. ch. 19 and 20: "In my The kingdom of England has this ad-
opinion, of all kingdoms of the world vantage beyond other nations, that the
of which I have any knowledge, where people and the country are not de-
the public weal is best observed, and stroyed or burnt, nor the buildings de-
least violence is exercised on the peo- molished; and ill-fortune falls on men
pie, and "here no buildings are over- of war, and especially on the nobles."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 125

tant intervals, they barely show themselves. No great poetical
or religious work displays them to the light. They sang; but
their ballads, first ignored, then transformed, reach us only in a
late edition. They prayed; but beyond one or two indifferent
poems, their incomplete and repressed doctrine bore no fruit.
We may well see from the verse, tone, and drift of their ballads
that they are capable of the finest poetic originality,^^ but their
poetry is in the hands of yeomen and harpers. We perceive,
by the precocity and energy of their religious protests, that they
are capable of the most severe and impassioned creeds; but
their faith remains hidden in the shop-parlors of a few obscure
sectaries. Neither their faith nor their poetry has been able to
attain its end or issue. The Renaissance and the Reforma-
tion, those two national outbreaks, are still far off; and the liter-
ature of the period retains to the end, like the highest ranks of
English society, almost the perfect stamp of its French origin
and its foreign models.

15 See the ballads of " Chevy Chase," " The Nut-Brown Maid," etc. Many of
them are admirable little dramas.

CHAPTER THIRD

THE NEW TONGUE

Section I.— The First Great Poet

AMID so many barren endeavors, throughout the long im-
potence of Norman Hterature, which was content to
copy, and of Saxon Hterature, which bore no fruit, a
definite language was nevertheless formed, and there was room
for a great writer. Geoffrey Chaucer appeared, a man of mark,
inventive though a disciple, original though a translator, who
by his genius, education, and life, was enabled to know and to
depict a whole world, but above all to satisfy the chivalric world
and the splendid courts which shone upon the heights.^ He
belonged to it, though learned and versed in all branches of
scholastic knowledge; and he took such a share in it that his
life from beginning to end was that of a man of the world, and a
man of action. We find him by turns in King Edward's army,
in the king's train, husband of a maid of honor to the queen, a
pensioner, a placeholder, a member of Parliament, a knight,
founder of a family which was hereafter to become allied to roy-
alty. Moreover, he was in the king's council, brother-in-law of
John of Gaunt, employed more than once in open embassies or
secret missions at Florence, Genoa, Milan, Flanders, commis-
sioner in France for the marriage of the Prince of Wales, high
up and low down on the political ladder, disgraced, restored to
place. This experience of business, travel, war, and the court,
was not like a book-education. He was at the Court of Edward
HI, the most splendid in Europe, amidst tourneys, grand re-
ceptions, magnificent displays; he took part in the pomps of
France and Milan; conversed with Petrarch, perhaps with Boc-
caccio and Froissart; was actor in, and spectator of, the finest
and most tragical of dramas. In these few words, what cere-

^ Born between 1328 and 1345, died in 1400.
126

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE ij;

monies and cavalcades are implied! what processions in armor,
what caparisoned horses, bedizened ladies! what display of gal-
lant and lordly manners! what a varied and brilliant world, well
suited to occupy the mind and eyes of a poet ! Like Froissart,
and better than he, Chaucer could depict the castles of the nobles,
their conversations, their talk of love, and anything else that con-
cerned them, and please them by his portraiture.

Section II. — The Decline of the Middle Ages

Two notions raised the Middle Ages above the chaos of bar-
barism: one religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathe-
drals, and swept the masses from their native soil to hurl them
upon the Holy Land; the other secular, which had built feudal
fortresses, and set the man of courage erect and armed, within
his own domain: the one had produced the adventurous hero, the
other the mystical monk; the one, to wit, the belief in God, the
other the belief in self. Both, running to excess, had degener-
ated by the violence of their own strength : the one had exalted
independence into rebellion, the other had turned piety into en-
thusiasm: the first made man unfit for civil life, the second drew
him back from natural life: the one, sanctioning disorder, dis-
solved society; the other, enthroning infatuation, perverted in-
telligence. Chivalry had need to be repressed because it issued
in brigandage; devotion restrained because it induced slavery.
Turbulent feudalism grew feeble, like oppressive theocracy ; and
the two great master passions, deprived of their sap and lopped
of their stem, gave place by their weakness to the monotony of
habit and the taste for worldliness, which shot forth in their stead
and flourished under their name.

Gradually, the serious element declined, in books as in man-
ners, in works of art as in books. Architecture, instead of being
the handmaid of faith, became the slave of fantasy. It was
exaggerated, became too ornamental, sacrificing general effect
to detail, shot up its steeples to unreasonable heights, decorated
its churches with canopies, pinnacles, trefoiled gables, open-work
galleries. " Its whole aim was continually to climb higher, to
clothe the sacred edifice with a gaudy bedizenment, as if it were
a bride on her wedding morning." ^ Before this marvellous

* Renan. " De I'Art au Moyen Age."

128 TAINE

lacework, what emotion could one feel but a pleased astonish-
ment? What becomes of Christian sentiment before such
scenic ornamentations? In like manner literature sets itself to
play. In the eighteenth century, the second age of absolute
monarchy, we saw on one side finials and floriated cupolas, on
the other pretty vers de societe, courtly and sprightly tales, tak-
ing the place of severe beauty-lines and noble writings. Even
so in the fourteenth century, the second age of feudalism, they
had on one side the stone fretwork and slender efflorescence of
aerial forms, and on the other finical verses and diverting stories,
taking the place of the old grand architecture and the old simple
literature. It is no longer the overflowing of a true sentiment
which produces them, but the craving for excitement. Con-
sider Chaucer, his subjects, and how he selects them. He goes
far and wide to dfscover them, to Italy, France, to the popular
legends, the ancient classics. His readers need diversity, and
his business is to " provide fine tales " : it was in those days the
poet's business.^ The lords at table have finished dinner, the
minstrels come and sing, the brightness of the torches falls on
the velvet and ermine, on the fantastic figures, the motley, the
elaborate embroidery of their long garments ; then the poet ar-
rives, presents his manuscript, " richly illuminated, bound in
crimson velvet, embellished with silver clasps and bosses, roses
of gold": they ask him what his subject is, and he answers
" Love. "

Section III. — The Poetry of Chaucer

In fact, it is the most agreeable subject, fittest to make the
evening hours pass sweetly, amid the goblets filled with spiced
wine and the burning perfumes. Chaucer translated first that
great storehouse of gallantry, the " Roman de la Rose." There
is no pleasanter entertainment. It is about a rose which the
lover wished to pluck: the pictures of the May months, the
groves, the flowery earth, the green hedgerows, abound and dis-
play their bloom. Then come portraits of the smiling ladies,
Richesse, Fraunchise, Gaiety, and by way of contrast, the sad
characters, Daunger and Travail, all fully and minutely de-
scribed, with detail of features, clothing, attitude; they walk

* See Froissart, his life with the Count of Foix and with King Richard II.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 129

about, as on a piece of tapestry, amid landscapes, dances, castles,
among allegorical groups, in lively sparkling colors, dis-
played, contrasted, ever renewed and varied so as to entertain
the sight. For an evil has arisen, unknown to serious ages —
ennui; novelty and brilliancy followed by novelty and brilliancy
are necessary to withstand it; and Chaucer, like Boccaccio and
Froissart, enters into the struggle with all his heart. He bor-
rows from Boccaccio his history of Palamon and Arcite, from
Lollius his history of Troilus and Cressida, and rearranges them.
How the two young Theban knights, Arcite and Palamon, both
fall in love with the beautiful Emily, and how Arcite, victorious
in tourney, falls and dies, bequeathing Emily to his rival; how
the fine Trojan knight Troilus wins the favor of Cressida, and
how Cressida abandons him for Diomedes — these are still tales
in verse, tales of love. A little tedious they may be; all the
writings of this age, French, or imitated from French, are bom
of too prodigal minds; but how they glide along! A winding
stream, which flows smoothly on level sand, and sparkles now
and again in the sun, is the only image we can compare it to.
The characters speak too much, but then they speak so well!
Even w'hen they dispute we like to listen, their anger and of-
fences are so wholly based on a happy overflow of unbroken
converse. Remember Froissart, how slaughters, assassinations,
plagues, the butcheries of the Jacquerie, the whole chaos of
human misery, disappears in his fine ceaseless humor, so that
the furious and grinning figures seem but ornaments and choice
embroideries to relieve the skein of shaded and colored silk
w^hich forms the groundwork of his narrative! but, in particular,
a multitude of descriptions spread their gilding over all. Chau-
cer leads you among arms, palaces, temples, and halts before
each beautiful thing. Here:

" The statue of Venus glorious for to see
Was naked fleting in the large see,
And fro the navel doun all covered was
With wawes grene, and bright as any glas.
A citole in hire right hand hadde she,
And on hire hed, ful semely for to see,
A rose gerlond fr©«sh, and wel smelling,
Above hire hed hire doves fleckering." 1

^ " Knight's Tale," ii. p. 59, lines 1957-1964.

i3b TAINE

Further on, the temple of Mars :

" First on the wall was peinted a forest,
• In which ther wonneth neyther man ne best,
With knotty knarry barrein trees old
Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to behold ;
In which ther ran a romble and a swough
As though a storme shuld bresten every bough:
And dounward from an hill under a bent.
Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotent,
Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree
Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see.
Aud therout came a rage and swiche a vise,
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone.
For window on the wall ne was ther none,
Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.
The dore was all of athamant eterne,
Yclenched overthwart and endelong
With yren tough, and' for to make it strong.
Every piler the temple to sustene
Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene." ^

Everywhere on the wall were representations of slaughter; and
in the sanctuary

" The statue of Mars upon a carte stood
Armed, and loked grim as he were wood, . . .
A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete
With eyen red, and of a man he ete." ^

Are not these contrasts well designed to rouse the imagination?
You will meet in Chaucer a succession of similar pictures. Ob-
serve the train of combatants who come to joust in the tilting
field for Arcite and Palamon :

" With him ther wenten knightes many on.
Som wol ben armed in an habergeon
And in a brestplate, and in a gipon ;
And som wol have a pair of plates large ;
And som wol have a Pruce sheld, or a targe,
Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,
And have an axe, and som a mace of stele. . . .
Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon
Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace :
Blake was his berd, and manly was his face.
The cercles of his eyen in his bed

^"Knight's Tale," ii. p. 59, lines 1977-1996. * Ibid., p. 61, lines 2043-2050.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 131

They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red,

And like a griffon loked he about,

With kemped heres on his browes stout;

His linimes gret, his braunes hard and stronge,

His shouldres brode, his armes round and longc

And as the guise was in his contree,

Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he,

With foure white holies in the trais.

Instede of cote-armure on his harnais.

With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold,

He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old.

His longe here was kempt behind his bak,

As any ravenes fether it shone for blake.

A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight,

Upon his hed sate ful of stones bright,

Of fine rubins and of diamants.

About his char ther wenten white alauns.

Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere,

To hunten at the leon or the dere.

And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound,

Colered with gold, and torettes filed round.

An hundred lordes had he in his route,

Armed ful wel, with hertes sterne and stoute.

With Arcita, in stories as men find,

The gret Emetrius the king of Inde,

Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,

Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele.

Came riding like the god of armes Mars.

His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars,

Couched with perles, white, and round and grete.

His sadel was of brent gold new ybete ;

A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging

Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling.

His crispe here like ringes was yronne.

And that was yelwe, and glitered as the sonne.

His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin,

His lippes round, his color was sanguin. . . 4

And as a leon he his loking caste.

Of five and twenty yere his age I caste.

His berd was well begonnen for to spring;

His vois was a trompe thondering.

Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene

A gerlond fresshe and lusty for to sene.

Upon his bond he bare for his deduit

An egle tame, as any lily whit.

An hundred lordes had he with him there,

All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere,

Ful richely in alle manere things. . . «

132

TAINE

About this king ther ran on every part
Ful many a tame leon and leopart." *

A heraid would not describe them better nor more fully. The
lords afld ladies of the time would recognize here their tourneys
and masquerades.

There is something more pleasant than a fine narrative, and
that is a collection of fine narratives, especially when the narra-
tives are all of different colorings. Froissart gives us such
under the name of Chronicles; Boccaccio still better; after him
the lords of the Cent Nouvelles Noiwelles; and, later still, Mar-
guerite of Navarre. What more natural among people who
meet, talk and wish to amuse themselves ? The manners of the
time suggest them ; for the habits and tastes of society had be-
gun, and fiction thus conceived only brings into books the con-
versations which are heard in the hall and by the wayside.
Chaucer describes a troop of pilgrims, people of every rank, who
are going to Canterbury; a knight, a sergeant of law, an Oxford
clerk, a doctor, a miller, a prioress, a monk, who agree to tell a
story all round :

" For trewely comfort ne mirthe is non.
To riden by the way domb as the ston."

They tell their stories accordingly ; and on this slender and flex-
ible thread all the jewels of feudal imagination, real or false, con-
tribute one after another their motley shapes to form a necklace,
side by side with noble and chivalrous stories : we have the mira-
cle of an infant whose throat was cut by Jews, the trials of patient
Griselda, Canace and marvellous fictions of Oriental fancy, ob-
scene stories of marriage and monks, allegorical or moral tales,
the fable of the cock and hen, a list of great unfortunate persons:
Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar, Zenobia, Croesus,
Ugolino, Peter of Spain. I leave out some, for I must be brief.
Chaucer is like a jeweller with his hands full: pearls and glass
beads, sparkling diamonds and common agates, black jet and
ruby roses, all that history and imagination had been able to
gather and fashion during three centuries in the East, in France,
in Wales, in Provence, in Italy, all that had rolled his way,
clashed together, broken or polished by the stream of centuries,
and by the great jumble of human memory, he holds in his hand,

* " Knight's Tale," ii. p. 63, lines 2120-2188.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 133

arranges it, composes therefrom a long sparkling ornament,
with twenty pendants, a thousand facets, which by its splendor,
variety, contrasts, may attract and satisfy the eyes of those most
greedy for amusement and novelty.

He does more. The universal outburst of unchecked curi-
osity demands a more refined enjoyment: reverie and fantasy
alone can satisfy it; not profound and thoughtful fantasy as we
find it in Shakespeare, nor impassioned and meditative reverie
as we find it in Dante, but the reverie and fantasy of the eyes,
ears, external senses, which in poetry as in architecture call for
singularity, wonders, accepted challenges, victories gained over
the rational and probable, and which are satisfied only by what is
crowded and dazzling. When we look at a cathedral of that
time, we feel a sort of fear. Substance is wanting; the walls are
hollowed out to make room for windows, the elaborate work of
the porches, the wonderful growth of the slender columns, the
thin curvature of arches — everything seems to menace us; sup-
port has been withdrawn to give way to ornament. Without
external prop or buttress, and artificial aid of iron clamp-work,
the building would have crumbled to pieces on the first day; as
it is, it undoes itself; we have to maintain on the spot a colony of
masons continually to ward off the continual decay. But our
sight grows dim in following the wavings and twistings of the
endless fretwork; the dazzling rose-window of the portal and
the painted glass throw a checkered light on the carved stalls of
the choir, the gold-work of the altar, the long array of damas-
cened and glittering copes, the crowd of statues, tier above tier;
and amid this violet light, this quivering purple, amid these ar-
rows of gold which pierce the gloom, the entire building is like
the tail of a mystical peacock. So most of the poems of the time
are barren of foundation; at most a trite morality serves them
for mainstay: in short, the poet thought of nothing else than
displaying before us a glow of colors and a jumble of forms.
They are dreams or visions; there are five or six in Chaucer, and
you will meet more on your advance to the Renaissance. But
the show is splendid. Chaucer is transported in a dream to a
temple of glass, '^ on the walls of which are figured in gold all the
legends of Ovid and Vergil, an infinite train of characters and
dresses, like that which, on the painted glass in the churches, oc-

• The House of Fame.
7— Classics. Vol. 38

134 TAINE

cupied then the gaze of the faithful. Suddenly a golden eagle,
which soars near the sun, and glitters like a carbuncle, descends
with the swiftness of lightning, and carries him off in his talons
above the stars, dropping him at last before the House of Fame,
splendidly built of beryl, with shining windows and lofty turrets,
and situated on a high rock of almost inaccessible ice. All the
southern side was graven with the names of famous men, but the
sun was continuously melting them. On the northern side, the
names, better protected, still remained. On the turrets appeared
the minstrels and " gestiours," with Orpheus, Arion, and the
great harpers, and behind them myriads of musicians, with horns,
flutes, bagpipes, and reeds, on which they played, and which
filled the air; then all the charmers, magicians, and prophets.
He enters, and in a high hall, plated with gold, embossed with
pearls, on a throne of carbuncle, he sees a woman seated, a
" noble quene," amidst an infinite number of heralds, whose em-
broidered cloaks bore the arms of the most famous knights in the
world, and heard the sounds of instruments, and the celestial
melody of Calliope and her sisters. From her throne to the gate
was a row of pillars, on which stood the great historians and
poets; Josephus on a pillar of lead and iron; Statins on a pillar
of iron stained with tiger's blood ; Ovid, " Venus's clerk," on a
pillar of copper; then, on one higher than the rest. Homer and
Livy, Dares the Phrygian, Guido Colonna, Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth, and the other historians of the war of Troy. Must I go
on copying this phantasmagoria, in which confused erudition
mars picturesque invention, and frequent banter shows signs
that the vision is only a planned amusement? The poet and his
reader have imagined for half-an-hour decorated halls and bus-
tling crowds ; a slender thread of common-sense has ingeniously
crept along the transparent golden mist which they amuse them-
selves with following. That suffices ; they are pleased with their
fleeting fancies, and ask no more.

Amid this exuberancy of mind, amid these refined cravings,
and this insatiate exaltation of imagination and the senses, there
was one passion, that of love, which, combining all, was devel-
oped in excess, and displayed in miniature the sickly charm, the
fundamental and fatal exaggeration, which are the character-
istics of the age, and which, later, the Spanish civilization exhib-
its both in its flower and its decay. Long ago, the courts of love

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 135

in Provence had established the theory. " Each one who loves,"
they said, " grows pale at the sight of her whom he loves; each
action of the lover ends in the thought of her whom he loves.
Love can refuse nothing to love." "^ This search after excessive
sensation had ended in the ecstasies and transports of Guido
Cavalcanti, and of Dante; and in Languedoc a company of en-
thusiasts had established themselves, love-penitents, who, in or-
der to prove the violence of their passion, dressed in summer in
furs and heavy garments, and in winter in light gauze, and
walked thus about the country, so that several of them fell ill and
died. Chaucer, in their wake, explained in his verses the craft of
love,^ the Ten Commandments, the twenty statutes of love; and
praised his lady, his *' daieseye," his " Margarite," his " vermeil
rose"; depicted love in ballads, visions, allegories, didactic
poems, in a hundred guises. This is chivalrous, lofty love, as it
was conceived in the Middle Ages ; above all, tender love. Troi-
lus loves Cressida like a troubadour; without Pandarus, her
uncle, he would have languished, and ended by dying in silence.
He will not reveal the name of her he loves. Pandarus has to
tear it from him, perform all the bold actions himself, plan every
kind of stratagem. Troilus, however, brave and strong in bat-
tle, can but weep before Cressida, ask her pardon, and faint.
Cressida, on her side, has every delicate feeling. When Pan-
darus brings her Troilus's first letter, she begins by refusing it,
and is ashamed to open it: she opens it only because she is told
the poor knight is about to die. At the first words " all rosy
hewed tho woxe she '"; and though the letter is respectful, she
will not answer it. She yields at last to the importunites of her
uncle, and answers Troilus that she will feel for him the affection
of a sister. As to Troilus, he trembles all over, grows pale when
he sees the messenger return, doubts his happiness, and will not
believe the assurance which is given him :

" But right so as these holtes and these hayis
That han in winter dead ben and dry,
Revesten hem in grene, whan that May is. . . .
Right in that selfe wise, sooth for to sey.
Woxe suddainly his herte full of joy." ^

•Andr6 leChapelain, 1170. *" Troilus and Cressida," vol. v. bk.

' Also the " Court of Love," and per- 3, p. 12.
haps " The Assemble of Ladies " and
" La Belle Dame sans Merci."

136 TAINE

Slowly, after many troubles, and thanks to the efforts of Pan-
darus, he obtains her confession; and in this confession what a
delightful charm !

" And as the newe abashed nightingale,
That stinteth first, whan she beginneth sing.
Whan that she heareth any heerdes tale.
Or in the hedges any wight stearing,
And after siker doeth her voice outring:
Right so Creseide, whan that her drede stent,
Opened her herte and told him her entent." *

He, as soon as he perceived a hope from afar,

" In chaunged voice, right for his very drede.
Which voice eke quoke, and thereto his manere.
Goodly abasht, and now his hewes rede.
Now pale, unto Cresseide his ladie dere.
With looke doun cast, and humble iyolden chere,
Lo, the alderfirst word that him astart
Was twice : ' Mercy, mercy, O my sweet herte ! ' " 1*

This ardent love breaks out in impassioned accents, in bursts of i'

happiness. Far from being regarded as a fault, it is the source ;l

of all virtue. Troilus becomes braver, more generous, more up- |

right, through it ; his speech runs now on love and virtue ; he |

scorns all villainy ; he honors those who possess merit, succors f

those who are in distress; and Cressida, delighted, repeats all |

day, with exceeding liveliness, this song, which is like the war- I

bling of a nightingale : «

" Whom should I thanken but you, god of love, jr

Of all this blisse, in which to bathe I ginne? f

And thanked be ye, lorde for that I love,
This is the right life that I am inne,
To flemen all maner vice and sinne :
This doeth me so to vertue for to entende
* That daie by daie I in my will amende.

And who that saieth that for to love is vice, . i e

He either is envious, or right nice,

Or is unmightie for his shreudnesse

To loven. . . .

But I with all mine herte and all my might,

As I have saied, woll love unto my last.

My owne dere herte, and all mine owne knight,

* " Troilus and Cressida," vol. v. bk. 3, p. 40. » Ibid, f . 4.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 137

In whiche mine herte growen is so fast,
And his in me, that it shall ever last." ^^

But misfortune comes. Her father Calchas demands her back,
and the Trojans decide that they will give her up in exchange
for prisoners. At this news she swoons, and Troilus is about to
slay himself. Their love at this time seems imperishable; it
sports with death, because it constitutes the whole of life. Be-
yond that better and delicious life which it created, it seems there
can be no other:

" But as God would, of swough she abraide,
And gan to sighe, and Troilus she cride,
And he answerde : ' Lady mine, Creseide,
Live ye yet? ' and let his swerde doun glide:
' Ye herte mine, that thanked be Cupide,'
(Quod she), and thervvithal she sore sight,
And he began to glade her as he might.

** Took her in armes two and kist her oft,
And her to glad, he did al his entent.
For which her gost, that flikered aie a loft,
Into her wofull herte a3'en it went :
But at the last, as that her eye glent
Aside, anon she gan his sworde aspie.
As it lay bare, and gan for feare crie.

** And asked him why had he it out draw,
And Troilus anon the cause her told.
And how himself therwith he wold have slain,
For which Creseide upon him gan behold,
And gan him in her armes faste fold.
And said : ' O mercy God, lo which a dede !
Alas, how nigh we weren bothe dede ! ' " 12

At last they are separated, with what vows and what tears! and
Troilus, alone in his chamber, murmurs:

" ' Where is mine owne lady lefe and dere?
Where is her white brest, where is it, where?
Where been her armes, and her eyen clere
That yesterday this time with me were?' . . *
Nor there nas houre in al the day or night.
Whan he was ther as no man might him here,
That he ne sayd : * O lovesome lady bright.
How have ye faren sins that ye were there?
Welcome ywis mine owne lady dere ! ' . . .

^ "Troilus and Cressida," vol. iv. bk. " Ibid. vol. v. bk. 4, p. 9-7.

138 TAINE

Fro thence-forth he rideth up and doune,
And every thing came him to remembraunce,
As he rode forth by the places of the toune,
In which he whilom had all his pleasaunce :
' Lo, yonder saw I mine owne lady daunce,
And in that temple with her eien clere,
Me caught first my right lady dere.
And yonder have I herde full lustely
My dere herte laugh, and yonder play
Saw her ones eke ful blisfully,
And yonder ones to me gan she say,
" Now, good sweete, love me well I pray."
And yonde so goodly gan she me behold.
That to the death mine herte is to her hold,
And at the corner in the yonder house
Herde I mine alderlevest lady dere,
So womanly, with voice melodiouse,
Singen so wel, so goodly, and so clere,
That in my soule yet me thinketh I here
The blissful sowne, and in that yonder place,
My lady first me toke unto her grace.' " ^^

None has since found more true and tender words. These are
the charming " poetic branches " which flourished amid gross
ignorance and pompous parades. Human intelligence in the
Middle Age had blossomed on that side where it perceived the
Hght.

But mere narrative does not suffice to express his felicity and
fancy ; the poet must go where " shoures sweet of rain descended
soft."

" And every plaine was clothed faire
With new greene, and maketh small floures
To springen here and there in field and in mede,
So very good and wholsome be the shoures,
That it renueth that was old and dede,
In winter time ; and out of every sede
^ Springeth the hearbe, so that every wight

Of this season wexeth glad and light. . . .
In which (grove) were okes great, streight as a line,
Under the which the grasse so fresh of hew
Was newly sprong, and an eight foot or nine
Every tree well fro his fellow grew."

He must forget himself in the vague felicity of the country, and,
like Dante, lose himself in ideal light and allegory. The dreams

13 " Troiltts and Cressida," vol. v. bk. s, p. 119 et passim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 139

of love, to continue true, must not take too visible a form, nor
enter into a too consecutive history; they must float in a misty
distance; the soul in which they hover can no longer think of
the laws of existence ; it inhabits another world; it forgets itself
in the ravishing emotion which troubles it, and sees its well-
loved visions rise, mingle, come and go, as in summer we see
the bees on a hill-slope flutter in a haze of light, and circle round
and round the flowers.

" One morning," ^* a lady sings, " at the dawn of day, 1 en-
tered an oak-grove

" With branches brode, laden with leves new,
That sprongen out ayen the sunne-shene,
Some very red, and some a glad light grene. . . . i*

*' And I, that all this pleasaunt sight sie.
Thought sodainly I felt so sweet and aire
Of the eglentere, that certainely
There is no hert, I deme, in such dispaire,
Ne with thoughts froward and contraire,
So overlaid, but it should soone have bote.
If it had ones felt this savour sote.

** And as I stood, and cast aside mine eie,
I was ware of the fairest medler tree
That ever yet in all my life I sie,
As full of blossomes as it might be;
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile
Fro bough to bough; and, as him list, he eet
Here and there of buds and floures sweet. . . «

" And as I sat, the birds barkening thus,
Methought that I heard voices sodainly.
The most sweetest and most delicious
That ever any wight, I trow truly.
Heard in their life, for the armony
And sweet accord was in so good musike,
That the voice to angels most was like." i^

Tben she sees arrive " a world of ladies ... in surcotes white
of velvet ... set with emeraulds ... as of great
pearles round and orient, and diamonds fine and rubies red."
And all had on their head " a rich fret of gold . . . full of
stately riche stones set," with " a chapelet of branches fresh and

^* " The Flower and the Leaf," vi. p. '^ Ibid. p. 245, line 33.

244, lines 6-32. "Ibid. vi. p. 246, lines 78-133.

X40

TAINE

grene . . . some of laurer, some of woodbind, some of
agnus castus "; and at the same time came a train of valiant
knights in splendid array, with harness of red gold, shining in
the sun, and noble steeds, with trappings " of cloth of gold, and
furred with ermine." These knights and ladies were the ser-
vants of the Leaf, and they sate under a great oak, at the feet of
their queen.

From the other side came a bevy of ladies as resplendent as
the first, but crowned with fresh flowers. These were the ser-
vants of the Flower. They alighted, and began to dance in the
meadow. But heavy clouds appeared in the sky, and a storm
broke out. They wished to shelter themselves under the oak,
but there was no more room; they ensconced themselves as they
could in the hedges and among the brushwood; the rain came
down and spoiled their garlands, stained their robes, and washed
away their ornaments; when the sun returned, they went to ask
succor from the queen of the Leaf; she, being merciful, con-
soled them, repaired the injury of the rain, and restored their
original beauty. Then all disappears as in a dream.

The lady was astonished, when suddenly a fair dame appeared
and instructed her. She learned that the servants of the Leaf
had lived like brave knights, and those of the Flower had loved
idleness and pleasure. She promises to serve the Leaf, and
came away.

Is this an allegory? There is at least a lack of wit. There is
no ingenious enigma; it is dominated by fancy, and the poet
thinks only of displaying in quiet verse the fleeting and brilliant
train which had amused his mind, and charmed his eyes.

Chaucer himself, on the first of May, rises and goes out into
the meadows. Love enters his heart with the balmy air; the
landscape is transfigured, and the birds begin to speak:

" There sate I downe among the faire flours,
And saw the birds trip out of hir hours,
There as they rested them all the night,
They were so joyful! of the dayes light,
They began of May for to done honours.

" They coud that service all by rote,
There was many a lovely note,
Some song loud as they had plained,
And some in other manner voice yfained
And some all out with the ful throte.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 141

" The proyned hem and made hem right gay,
And daunceden, and lepten on her spray,
And evermore two and two in fere,
Right so as they had chosen hem to yere.
In Feverere upon saint Valentines day.

" And the river that I sate upon,
It made such a noise as it ron,
Accordaunt with the birdes armony,
Methought it was the best melody
That might ben yheard of any mon." ^'

This confused harmony of vague noises troubles the sense; a se-
cret languor enters the soul. The cuckoo throws his monoto-
nous voice like a mournful and tender sigh between the white
ash-tree boles; the nightingale makes his triumphant notes roll
and ring above the leafy canopy; fancy breaks in unsought, and
Chaucer hears them dispute of Love. They sing alternately an
antistrophic song, and the nightingale weeps for vexation to
hear the cuckoo speak in depreciation of Love. He is consoled,
however, by the poet's voice, seeing that he also suffers with him :

" ' For love and it hath doe me much wo.'
'Ye use' (quod she) 'this medicine
Every day this May or thou dine
Go looke upon the fresh daisie,
And though thou be for wo in point to die,
That shall full greatly lessen thee of thj- pine.

" * And looke alway that thou be good and trew,
And I wol sing one of the songes new.
For love of thee, as loud as I may crie : '
And than she began this song full hie,
' I shrewe all hem that been of love untrue.' " *8

To such exquisite delicacies love, as with Petrarch, had carried
poetry; by refinement even, as with Petrarch, it is lost now and
then in its wit, conceits, clinches. But a marked characteristic
at once separates it from Petrarch. If over-excited, it is also
graceful, polished, full of archness, banter, fine sensual gayety,
somewhat gossipy, as the French always paint love. Chaucer
follows his true masters, and is himself an elegant speaker, facile,
ever ready to smile, loving choice pleasures, a disciple of the

" " The Cuckow and Nightingale," ** Ibid. p. 126, lines 230-241.

vi. p. 121, lines 67-85.

142 TAINE

" Roman de la Rose," and much less Italian than French.^*.
The bent of French character makes of love not a passion, but a
gay banquet, tastefully arranged, in which the service is elegant,
the food exquisite, the silver brilliant, the two guests in full
dress, in good humor, quick to anticipate and please each other,
knowing how to keep up the gayety, and when to part. In
Chaucer, without doubt, this other altogether worldly vein runs
side by side with the sentimental element. If Troilus is a weep-
ing lover, Pandarus is a lively rascal, who volunteers for a singu-
lar service with amusing urgency, frank immorality, and carries
it out carefully, gratuitously, thoroughly. In these pretty at-
tempts Chaucer accompanies him as far as possible, and is not
shocked. On the contrary, he makes fun out of it. At the
critical moment, with transparent hypocrisy, he shelters himself
behind his " author." If you find the particulars free, he says,
it is not my fault; " so writen clerks in hir bokes old," and " I
mote, aftir min auctour, telle. . . ." Not only is he gay,
but he jests throughout the whole tale. He sees clearly through
the tricks of feminine modesty; he laughs at it archly, knowing
full well what is behind; he seems to be saying, finger on lip:
" Hush ! let the grand words roll on, you will be edified pres-
ently." We are, in fact, edified ; so is he, and in the nick of time
he goes away, carrying the light: " For ought I can aspies, this
light nor I ne serven here of nought." " Troilus," says uncle
Pandarus, " if ye be wise, sweveneth not now, lest more folke
arise." Troilus takes care not to swoon; and Cressida at last,
being alone with him, speaks wittily and with prudent delicacy;
there is here an exceeding charm, no coarseness. Their happi-
ness covers all, even voluptuousness, with a profusion and per-
fume of its heavenly roses. At most a slight spice of archness
flavors it: " and gode thrift he had full oft." Troilus holds his
mistress in his arms: " with worse hap God let us never mete."
The poet is almost as well pleased as they: for him, as for the
men of his time, the sovereign good is love, not damped, but
satisfied; they ended even by thinking such love a merit. The
ladies declared in their judgments, that when people love, they
can refuse nothing to the beloved. Love has become law; it is
inscribed in a code; they combine it with religion; and there is
a sacrament of love, in which the birds in their anthems sing

"Stendhal, "On Love: the difference of Love-taste and Love-passion."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 143

matins.^" Chaucer curses with all his heart the covetous
wretches, the business men, who treat is as a madness:

" As would God, tho wretches that despise
Service of love had eares al so long
As had Mida, ful of covetise, . . .
To teachen hem, that they been in the vice
And lovers not, although they hold hem nice, ^
. . . God yeve hem mischaunce,
And every lover in his trouth avaunce." 21

He clearly lacks severity, so rare in southern literature. The
Italians in the Middle Ages made a virtue of joy; and you per-
ceive that the world of chivalry, as conceived by the French, ex-
panded morality so as to confound it with pleasure.

Section IV. — Characteristics of the Canterbury Tales

There are other characteristics still more gay. The true Gallic
literature crops up; obscene tales, practical jokes on one's
neighbor, not shrouded in the Ciceronian style of Boccaccio, but
related lightly by a man in good humor; ^ above all, active rog-
uery, the trick of laughing at your neighbor's expense. Chaucer
displays it better than Rutebeuf, and sometimes better than La
Fontaine. He does not knock his men down ; he pricks them
as he passes, not from deep hatred or indignation, but through
sheer nimbleness of disposition, and quick sense of the ridicu-
lous; he throws his gibes at them by handfuls. His man of law
is more a man of business than of the world :

" No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as,
And yet he semed besier than he was." *

His three burgesses :

" Everich, for the wisdom that he can
Was shapelich for to ben an alderman.
For catel hadden they ynough and rent,
And eke hir wives wolde it wel assent." *

** " The Court of Love," about 1353, chant's Tale), and of the cradle

et seq. See also the " Testament of (Reeve's Tale), for instance, in the

Love." " Canterbury Tales."

*> " Troilus and Cressida," vol. v. iii. ' " Canterbury Tales," prologue, p.

pp. 44, 45. 10, line 323.

^ The story of the pear-tree (Mer- » Ibid. p. 12, line 373.

144

TAINE

Of the mendicant Friar he says:

" His wallet lay beforne him in his lappe,
Bret-ful of pardon come from Rome al hote." *

The mockery here comes from the heart, in the French manner,
without effort, calculation, or vehemence. It is so pleasant and
so natural to banter one's neighbor! Sorrietimes the lively vein
becomes so copious that it furnishes an entire comedy, indelicate
certainly, but so free and life-like! Here is the portrait of the
Wife of Bath, who has buried five husbands :

" Bold was hire face, and fayre and rede of hew,
She was a worthy woman all hire live ;
Housbondes at the chirche dore had she had five,
Withouten other compagnie in youthe. . . .
In all the parish wif ne was ther non,
That to the ofifring before hire shulde gon,
And if ther did, certain so wroth was she,
That she was out of alle charitee." ^

What a tongue she has ! Impertinent, full of vanity, bold, chat-
tering, unbridled, she silences everybody, and holds forth for an
hour before coming to her tale. We hear her grating, high-
pitched, loud, clear voice, wherewith she deafened her husbands.
She continually harps upon the same ideas, repeats her reasons,
piles them up and confounds them, like a stubborn mule who
runs along shaking and ringing his bells, so that the stunned
listeners remain open-mouthed, wondering that a single tongue
can spin out so many words. The subject was worth the trou-
ble. She proves that she did well to marry five husbands, and
she proves it clearly, like a woman who knew it, because she had
tried it:

" God bad us for to wex and multiplie ;

That gentil text can I wel understond ;

Eke wel I wot, he sayd, that min husbond

Shuld leve fader and moder, and take to me;

But of no noumbre mention made he,

Of bigamie or of octogamie ;

Why shuld men than speke of it vilanie?

Lo here the wise king dan Solomon,

I trow he hadde wives mo than on,

(As wolde God it leful were to me

To be refreshed half so oft as he,)

* " Canterbury Tales," prologue, p. 21, * Ibid. ii. prologue, p. 14, line 460,

line 688.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 145

Which a gift of God had he for alle his wives? . . ,

Blessed be God that I have wedded five.

Welcome the sixthe whan that ever he shall. . . .

He (Christ) spake to hem that wold live parfitly,

And lordings (by your leve), that am nat I;

I wol bestow the flour of all myn age

In th' actes and the fruit of mariage. . . .

An husbond wol I have, I wol not lette,

Which shal be both my dettour and my thrall,

And have his tribulation withall

Upon his flesh, while that I am his wif." ^

Here Chaucer has the freedom of Moliere, and we possess it no
longer. His good wife justifies marriage in terms just as tech-
nical as Sganarelle. It behooves us to turn the pages quickfy,
and follow in the lump only this Odyssey of marriages. The
experienced wife, who has journeyed through life with five hus-
bands, knows the art of taming them, and relates how she perse-
cuted them with jealousy, suspicion, grumbling, quarrels, blows
given and received ; how the husband, checkmated by the con-
tinuity of the tempest, stooped at last, accepted the halter, and
turned the domestic mill like a conjugal and resigned ass:

" For as an hors, I coude bite and whine;
I coude plain, and I was in the gilt. . . .
I plained first, so was our werre ystint.
They were ful glad to excusen hem ful blive
Of thing, the which they never agilt hir live. . «• ^
I swore that all my walking out by night
Was for to espien wenches that he dight. . . .
For though the pope had sitten hem beside,
I wold not spare hem at hir owen bord. . . .
But certainly I made folk swiche chere.
That in his owen grese I made him frie
For anger, and for veray jalousie.
By God, in erth I was his purgatorie.
For which I hope his soule be in glorie." '

She saw the fifth first at the burial of the fourth :

" And Jankin oure clerk was on of tho :
As helpe me God, whan that I saw him go
Aftir the here, me thought he had a paire
Of legges and of feet, so clene and faire.
That all my herte I yave unto his hold.

■ " Canterbury Tales," ii., Wife of ^ Ibid. p. 179, lines 5968^73.

Bath's Prologue, p. 168, lines 5610-5739.

I4tf TAINE

He was, I trow, a twenty winter old.

And I was fourty, if I shal say soth. . . ,

As helpe me God, I was a lusty on,

And faire, and riche, and yonge, and well begon." '

*' Yonge," what a word! Was human delusion ever more hap-
pily painted? How life-like is all, and how easy the tone. It is
the satire of marriage. You will find it twenty times in Chaucer.
Nothing more is wanted to exhaust the two subjects of French
mockery than to unite with the satire of marriage the satire of
religion.

We find it here ; and Rabelais is not more bitter. The monk
whom Chaucer paints is a hypocrite, a jolly fellow, who knows
good inns and jovial hosts better than the poor and the hospi-
tals:

" A Frere there was, a wanton and a mery . . .

Ful wel beloved, and familier was he

With frankeleins over all in his contree,

And eke with worthy wimmen of the toun. . . •

Full swetely herde he confession,

And pleasant was his absolution.

He was an esy man to give penance,

Ther as he wiste to han a good pitance:

For unto a poure ordre for to give

Is signe that a man is wel yshrive. . . .

And knew wel the tavernes in every toun.

And every hosteler and gay tapstere,

Better than a lazar and a beggere. . . .

It is not honest, it may not avance.

As for to delen with no swich pouraille,

But all with riche and sellers of vitaille. . . «

For many a man so hard is of his herte.

He may not wepe, although him sore smerte.

Therfore in stede of weping and praieres.

Men mote give silver to the poure freres." *

This lively irony had an exponent before in Jean de Meung.
But Chaucer pushes it further, and gives it life and motion. His
monk begs from house to house, holding out his wallet :

" In every hous he gan to pore and prie.
And begged mele and chese, or elles corn. . . .
* Yeve us a bushel whete, or malt, or reye,
A Goddes kichel, or a trippe of chese,
Or elles what you list, we may not chese;

8 "Canterbury Tales," ii., Wife of »Ibid. prologue, ii. p. 7, line 208 et

Bath's Prologue, p. 185, lines 6177-6188. passim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 147

A Goddes halfpeny, or a masse peny ;

Or yeve us of your braun, if ye have any,

A dagon of your blanket, leve dame,

Our suster dere (lo here I write your name).' . . .

And whan that he was out at dore, anon,

He planed away the names everich on." ^^

He has kept for the end of his circuit, Thomas, one of his most
liberal clients. He finds him in bed, and ill; here is excellent
fruit to suck and squeeze:

" ' God wot,' quod he, ' laboured have I ful sore,
And specially for thy salvation,
Have I sayd many a precious orison. . . .
I have this day ben at your chirche at messe . . .
And ther I saw our dame, a, wher is she? ' " 1*

The dame enters :

" This frere ariseth up ful curtisly,
And hire embraceth in his armes narwe,
And kisseth hire swete and chirketh as a sparwe." ^^ . . .

Then, in his sweetest and most caressing voice, he compliments
her, and says:

" ' Thanked be God that you yaf soule and lif,
Yet saw I not this day so faire a wif
In all the chirche, God so save me.' " ^^

Have we not here already Tartuflfe and Elmire? But the monk
is with a farmer, and can go to w^ork more quickly and directly.
When the compliments ended, he thinks of the substance, and
asks the lady to let him talk alone with Thomas. He must in-
quire after the state of his soul :

" ' I wol with Thomas speke a litel throw :
Thise curates ben so negligent and slow
To gropen tendrely a conscience. . . .
Now, dame,' quod he, ' jeo vous die sanz doute.
Have I nat of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bred nat but a shiver.
And after that a rested pigges bed

w " Canterbury Tales," The Somp- " Ibid. p. 221, line 7384.

aoures Tale, ii. p. 220, lines 7319-7340. " Ibid. p. 222, line 7389.

" Ibid. p. 221, line 7366.

148 TAINE

(But 1 ne wolde for me no beest were ded),

Than had I with you homly suffisance.

I am a man of litel sustenance,

My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible.

My body is ay so redy and penible

To waken, that my stomak is destroied.' " **

Poor man, he raises his hands to heaven, and ends with a sigh.

The wife tells him her child died a fortnight before. Straight-
way he manufactures a miracle; how could he earn his money
in any better way? He had a revelation of this death in the
" dortour " of the convent; he saw the child carried to paradise;
he rose with his brothers, " with many a tere trilling on our
cheke," and they sang a Te Deum:

" ' For, sire and dame, trusteth me right wel,
Our orisons ben more effectuel.
And more we seen of Cristes secree thinges
Than borel folk, although that they be kinges.
We live in poverte, and in abstinence,
And borel folk in richesse and dispence. . , .
Lazer and Dives liveden diversely.
And divers guerdon hadden they therby.' " ^^

Presently he spurts out a whole sermon, in a loathsome style,
and with an interest which is plain enough. The sick man,
^vearied, replies that he has already given half his fortune to all
kinds of monks, and yet he continually suffers. Listen to the
grieved exclamation, the true indignation of the mendicant
monk, who sees himself threatened by the competition of a
brother of the cloth to share his client, his revenue, his booty, his
food-supplies :

" The frere answered: ' O Thomas, dost thou so?
What nedeth you diverse freres to seche?
What nedeth him that hath a parfit leche.
To sechen other leches in the toun?
Your inconstance is your confusion.
Hold ye than me, or elles our covent.
To pray for you ben insufficient?
Thomas, that jape n' is not worth a mite,
Your maladie is for we ban to lite.' " ^«

1* " Canterbury Tales," ii., The Somp- ** Ibid. p. 236, lines 7536-7544.

noures Tale, p. 222, lines 7397-7429.
"" Ibid. p. 223, lines 7450-7460.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 149

Recognize the great orator; he employs even the grand style to
keep the supphes from being cut off:

" ' A, yeve that covent half a quarter otes ;
And yeve that covent four and twenty grotes ;
And yeve that f rere a peny, and let him go :
Nay, nay, Thomas, it may no thing be so.
What is a ferthing worth parted on twelve?
Lo, eche thing that is oned in himself
Is more strong, than whan it is yscatered . . .
Thou woldest han our labour al for nought.' " ^"^

Then he begins again his sermon in a louder tone, shouting at
each word, quoting examples from Seneca and the classics, a ter-
rible fluency, a trick of his trade, which, diligently applied, must
draw money from the patient. He asks for gold, " to make our
cloistre,"

" . . . ' And yet, God wot, uneth the fundament
Parfourmed is, ne of our pavement
N' is not a tile yet within our wones;
By God, we owen fourty pound for stones.
Now help Thomas, for him that harwed helle,
For elles mote we oure bokes selle,
And if ye lacke oure predication.
Than goth this world all to destruction.
For who so fro this world wold us bereve,
So God me save, Thomas, by your leve,
He wold bereve out of this world the sonne.' " *^

In the end, Thomas in a rage promises him a gift, tells him to
put his hand in the bed and take it, and sends him away duped,
mocked, and covered with filth.

We have descended now to popular farce; when amusement
must be had at any price, it is sought, as here, in broad jokes,
even in filthiness. We can see how these two coarse and vig-
orous plants have blossomed in the dung of the Middle Ages.
Planted by the sly fellows of Champagne and Ile-de-France, wa-
tered by the trouveres, they were destined fully to expand, speck-
led and ruddy, in the large hands of Rabelais. Meanwhile
Chaucer plucks his nosegay from it. Deceived husbands, mis-
haps in inns, accidents in bed, cuffs, kicks, and robberies, these
suffice to raise a loud laugh. Side by side with noble pictures

" " Canterbury Tales," ii.. The Somp- ** Ibid. p. 230, lines 7685-7695.

noures Tale, p. 226, lines 7545-7553.

ISO

TAINE

of chivalry, he gives us a train of Flemish grotesque figures, car-
penters, joiners, friars, summoners; blows abound, fists de-
scend on fleshy backs; many nudities are shown; they swindle
one another out of their corn, their wives; they pitch one an-
other out of a window; they brawl and quarrel. A bruise, a
piece of open filthiness, passes in such society for a sign of wit.
The summoner, being rallied by the friar, gives him tit for tat:

" ' This Frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,
And, God it wot, that is but litel wonder,
Freres and fendes ben but litel asonder.
For parde, ye han often time herd telle
How that a Frere ravished was to helle
In spirit ones by a visoun.
And as an angel lad him up and doun.
To shewen him the peines that ther were, . . •
And unto Sathanas he lad him doun.
(And now hath Sathanas,' saith he, ' a tayl
Broder than of a Carrike is the sayl.)
Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas, quod he,

and let the Frere see

Wher is the nest of Freres in this place.
And er than half a furlong way of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen of an hive.
Out of the devils . . . ther gonnen to drive.
A twenty thousand Freres on a route,
And thurghout hell they swarmed all aboute.
And com agen, as fast as they may gon.' " i*

Such were the coarse bufTooneries of the popular imagination.

Section V. — The Art of Chaucer

It is high time to return to Chaucer himself. Beyond the two
notable characteristics which settle his place in his age and
school of poetry, there are others which take him out of his age
and school. If he was romantic and gay like the rest, it was after
a fashion of his own. He observes characters, notes their differ-
ences, studies the coherence of their parts, endeavors to describe
living individualities — a thing unheard of in his time, but which
the renovators in the sixteenth century, and first among them
Shakespeare, will do afterwards. Is it already the English pos-
itive common-sense and aptitude for seeing the inside of things

" " Canterbury Tales," ii., The Sompnoures Prologue, p. 217, lines 7254-7279.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 151

which begins to appear? A new spirit, almost manly, pierces
through, in Hterature as in painting, with Chaucer as with Van
Eyck, with both at the same time; no longer the childish imita-
tion of chivalrous life ^ or monastic devotion, but the grave spirit
of inquiry and craving for deep truths, whereby art becomes
complete. For the first time, in Chaucer as in Van Eyck, the
character described stands out in relief; its parts are connected;
it is no longer an unsubstantial phantom. You may guess its
past and foretell its future action. Its externals manifest the
personal and incommunicable details of its inner nature, and the
infinite complexity of its economy and motion. To this day,
after four centuries, that character is individualized and typical ;
it remains distinct in our memory, like the creations of Shake-
speare and Rubens. We observe this growth in the very act.
Not only does Chaucer, like Boccaccio, bind his tales into a
single history; but in addition — and this is wanting in Boc-
caccio— he begins with the portrait of all his narrators, knight,
summoner, man of law, monk, bailiff or reeve, host, about thirty
distinct figures, of every sex, condition, age, each painted with
his disposition, face, costume, turns of speech, little significant
actions, habits, antecedents, each maintained in his character by
his talk and subsequent actions, so that we can discern here,
sooner than in any other nation, the germ of the domestic novel
as we write it to-day. Think of the portraits of the franklin, the
miller, the mendicant friar, and wife of Bath. There are plenty
of others which show the broad brutalities, the coarse tricks, and
the pleasantries of vulgar life, as well as the gross and plentiful
feastings of sensual life. Here and there honest old swashbuck-
lers, who double their fists, and tuck up their sleeves; or con-
tented beadles, who, when they have drunk, will speak nothing
but Latin. But by the side of these there are some choice char-
acters; the knight, who went on a crusade to Granada and
Prussia, brave and courteous:

" And though that he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.
He never yet no vilanie ne sayde
In alle his lif, unto no manere wight.
He was a veray parfit gentil knight." ^

' See in " The Canterbury Tales " the * Prologue to " Canterbury Tales," ii.

Rhyme of Sir Topas, a parody on the p. 3, lines 68-72.
chivalric histories. Each chnracter
there seems a precursor of Cervantes.

152 TAINE |:

" With him, ther was his sone, a yonge Squier,
A lover, and a lusty bacheler,
With lockes crull as they were laide in presse.
Of twenty yere of age he was I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe.
And hehadde be somtime in chevachie,
In Flaundres, in Artois, and in Picardie,
And borne him wel, as of so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his ladies grace.

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede
A.lle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede.
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as fresshe, as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sieves long and wide.
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride.
He coude songes make, and wel endite.
Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.
So hote he loved, that by nightertale
He slep no more than doth the nightingale.
Curteis he was, lowly and servisable.
And carf befor his fader at the table." ^

There is also a poor and learned clerk of Oxford; and finer
still, and more worthy of a modern hand, the Prioress, " Madame
Eglantine," who as a nun, a maiden, a great lady, is ceremoni-
ous, and shows signs of exquisite taste. Would a better be found
nowadays in a German chapter, amid the most modest and
lively bevy of sentimental and literary canonesses?

" Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,

That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy

Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy;

And she was cleped Madame Eglentine.

Ful wel she sange the service devine,

Entuned in hire nose ful swetely ;

And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly

After the scole of Stratford-atte-bowe,

For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.

At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle ;

So lette no morsel from hire lippes falle.

No wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.

Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,

Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.

In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.

Hire over Hppe wiped she so clene.

That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene
• Prologue to " Canterbury Tales," ii. p. 3, lines 79-100.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 153

Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught,

Ful semely after hire mete she raught.

And sikerly she was of grete disport

And ful plesant, and amiable of port,

And peined hire to contrefeten chere

Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,

And to ben holden digne of reverence." *

Are you offended by these provincial affectations? Not at all;
it is delightful to behold these nice and pretty ways, these little
affectations, the waggery and prudery, the half-worldly, half-
monastic smile. We inhale a delicate feminine perfume, pre-
served and grown old under the stomacher :

" But for to speken of hire conscience.
She was so charitable and so pitous.
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rested flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede.
Or if men smote it with a yerde smert :
And all was conscience and tendre herte." ^

Many elderly ladies throw themselves into such affections as
these for lack of others. Elderly! what an objectionable word
have I employed ! She was not elderly:

" Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was,
Hire nose tretis; hire eyen grey as glas;
Hire mouth ful smale, and therto soft and red •
But sikerly she hadde a fayre forehed.
It was almost a spanne brode I trowe;
For hardily she was not undergrowe.

Ful fetise was hire cloke, as I was ware.
Of small corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded al with grene ;
And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A,
And after. Amor vincit omnia." ^

A pretty ambiguous device, suitable either for gallantry or de-
votion; the lady was both of the world and the cloister: of the
world, you may see it in her dress; of the cloister, you gather
it from " another Nonne also with hire hadde she, that was hire

* Prologue to " Canterbury Tales," "> Ibid. p. s, lines 142-150.

. p. 4, lines 118-141. « Ibid. p. 5, lines 151-162.

154 TAINE

chapelleine, and Preestes thre "; from the Ave Maria which she
sings, the long edifying stories which she relates. She is like a
fresh, sweet, and ruddy cherry, made to ripen in the sun, but
which, preserved in an ecclesiastical jar, has become candied and
insipid in the syrup.

Such is the power of reflection which begins to dawn, such
the high art. Chaucer studies here, rather than aims at amuse-
ment; he ceases to gossip, and thinks; instead of surrendering
himself to the facility of flowing improvisation, he plans. Each
tale is suited to the teller: the young squire relates a fantastic
and Oriental history; the tipsy miller a loose and comical story;
the honest clerk the touching legend of Griselda. All these tales
are bound together, and that much better than by Boccaccio, by
little veritable incidents, which spring from the characters of the
personages, and such as we light upon in our travels. The
horsemen ride on in good humor in the sunshine, in the open
country; they converse. The miller has drunk too much ale,
and will speak, " and for no man forbere." The cook goes to
sleep on his beast, and they play practical jokes on him. The
monk and the summoner get up a dispute about their respective
lines of business. The host restores peace, makes them speak or
be silent, like a man who has long presided in the inn parlor, and
who has often had to check brawlers. They pass judgment on
the stories they listen to : declaring that there are few Griseldas
in the world ; laughing at the misadventures of the tricked car-
penter ; drawing a lesson from the moral tale. The poem is no
longer, as in the contemporary literature, a mere procession, but
a painting in which the contrasts are arranged, the attitudes
chosen, the general effect calculated, so that it becomes life and
motion; we forget ourselves at the sight, as in the case of every
lifelike work ; and we long to get on horseback on a line sunny
morning, and canter along green meadows with the pilgrims to
the shrine of the good saint of Canterbury.

Weigh the value of the words " general effect." According
as we plan it or not, we enter on our maturity or infancy! The
whole future lies in these two words. Savages or half savages,
warriors of the Heptarchy or knights of the Middle Ages; up to
this period, no one had reached to this point. They had strong
emotions, tender at times, and each expressed them according to
the original gift of his race, some by short cries, others by contin-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 155

uous babble. But they did not command or guide their impres-
sions; they sang or conversed by impulse, at random, according
to the bent of their disposition, leaving their ideas to present
themselves as they might, and when they hit upon order, it was
ignorantly and involuntarily. Here for the first time appears a
superiority of intellect, which at the instant of conception sud-
denly halts, rises above itself, passes judgment, and says to itself,
" This phrase tells the same thing as the last — remove it; these
two ideas are disjointed — connect them; this description is
feeble — reconsider it." When a man can speak thus he has an
idea, not learned in the schools, but personal and practical, of
the human mind, its process and needs, and of things also, their
composition and combinations; he has a style, that is, he is
capable of making everything understood and seen by the
human mind. He can extract from every object, landscape,
situation, character, the special and significant marks, so as to
group and arrange them, in order to compose an artificial work
which surpasses the natural work in its purity and completeness.
He is capable, as Chaucer was, of seeking out in the old common
forest of the Middle Ages, stories and legends, to replant them in
his own soil, and make them send out new shoots. He has the
right and the power, as Chaucer had, of copying and translating,
because by dint of retouching he impresses on his translations
and copies his original mark; he re-creates what he imitates,
because through or by the side of worn-out fancies and monoto-
nous stories, he can display, as Chaucer did, the charming ideas
of an amiable and elastic mind, the thirty master-forms of the
fourteenth century, the splendid freshness of the verdurous land-
scape and spring-time of England. He is not far from conceiv-
ing an idea of truth and life. He is on the brink of independent
thought and fertile discovery. This was Chaucer's position.
At the distance of a century and a half, he has affinity with the
poets of Elizabeth ^ by his gallery of pictures, and with the re-
formers of the sixteenth century by his portrait of the good
parson.

Affinity merely. He advanced a few steps beyond the thresh-
old of his art, but he paused at the end of the vestibule. He half

'Tennyson, in his "Dream of Fair Women," sings:

*' Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still." — Th.

156 TAINE

opens the great door of the temple, but does not take his seat
there; at most, he sat down in it only at intervals. In " Arcite
and Palamon," in " Troilus and Cressida," he sketches senti-
ments, but does not create characters; he easily and naturally
traces the winding course of events and conversations, but does
not mark the precise outhne of a striking figure. If occasion-
ally, as in the description of the temple of Mars, after the " The-
baid " of Statius, feeling at his back the glowing breeze of
poetry, he draws out his feet, clogged with the mud of the Middle
Ages, and at a bound stands upon the poetic plain on which Sta-
tius imitated Vergil and equalled Lucan, he, at other times, again
falls back into the childish gossip of the trouveres, or the dull
gabble of learned clerks — to " Dan Phebus or Apollo-Delphi-
cus." Elsewhere, a commonplace remark on art intrudes in the
midst of an impassioned description. He uses three thousand
verses to conduct Troilus to his first interview. He is like a
precocious and poetical child, who mingles in his love-dreams
quotations from his grammar and recollections of his alphabet.^
Even in the " Canterbury Tales " he repeats himself, unfolds
artless developments, forgets to concentrate his passion or his
idea. He begins a jest, and scarcely ends it. He dilutes a
bright coloring in a monotonous stanza. His voice is like that
of a boy breaking into manhood. At first a manly and firm
accent is maintained, then a shrill sweet sound shows that his
growth is not finished, and that his strength is subject to weak-
ness. Chaucer sets out as if to quit the Middle Ages; but in the
end he is there still. To-day he composes the " Canterbury
Tales "; yesterday he was translating the " Roman de la Rose."
To-day he is studying the complicated machinery of the heart,
discovering the issues of primitive education or of the ruling dis-
position, and creating the comedy of manners; to-morrow he
will have no pleasure but in curious events, smooth allegories,
amorous discussions, imitated from the French, or learned mor-
alities from the ancients. Alternately he is an observer and a
trouvere; instead of the step he ought to have advanced, he has
but made a half-step.

•Speaking of Cressida, iv. book i. p. 236, he says:
" Right as our first letter is now an a,
In beautie first so stood she makeles,
Her goodly looking gladed all the prees,
Nas never seenc thing to be praised so derre.
Nor under cloude blacke so bright a sterre."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

157

Who has prevented him, and the others who surround him?
We meet with the obstacle in the tales he has translated of Mel-
ibeus, of the Parson, in his " Testament of Love "; in short, so
long as he writes verse, he is at his ease; as soon as he takes to
prose, a sort of chain winds around his feet and stops him. His
imagination is free, and his reasoning a slave. The rigid scho-
lastic divisions, the mechanical manner of arguing and replying,
the ergo, the Latin quotations, the authority of Aristotle and the
Fathers, come and weigh down his budding thought. His
native invention disappears under the discipline imposed. The
servitude is so heavy that even in the work of one of his con-
temporaries, the " Testament oi Love," which, for a long time,
was believed to be written by Chaucer, amid the most touching
plaints and the most smarting pains, the beautiful ideal lady, the
heavenly mediator who appears in a vision. Love, sets her theses,
establishes that the cause of a cause is the cause of the thing
caused, and reasons as pedantically as they would at Oxford.
In what can talent, even feeling, end, when it is kept down by
such shackles? What succession of original truths and new
doctrines could be found and proved, when in a moral tale, like
that of Melibeus and his wife Prudence, it was thought necessary
to establish a formal controversy, to quote Seneca and Job, to
forbid tears, to bring forward the weeping Christ to authorize
tears, to enumerate every proof, to call in Solomon, Cassiodorus,
and Cato; in short, to write a book for schools? The public
cares only for pleasant and lively thoughts; not serious and gen-
eral ideas; these latter are for a special class only. As soon as
Chaucer gets into a reflective mood, straightway Saint Thomas,
Peter Lombard, the manual of sins, the treatise on definition and
syllogism, the army of the ancients and of the Fathers, descend
from their glory, enter his brain, speak in his stead; and the
trotivere's pleasant voice becomes the dogmatic and sleep-inspir-
ing voice of a doctor. In love and satire he has experience, and
he invents; in what regards morality and philosophy he has
learning, and copies. For an instant, by a solitary leap, he en-
tered upon the close observation, and the genuine study of man;
he could not keep his ground, he did not take his seat, he took
a poetic excursion ; and no one followed him. The level of the
century is lower; he is on it himself for the most part. He is in

the company of narrators like Froissart, of elegant speakers like
8— Classics. Vol. 38

1S8 TAINE

Charles of Orleans, of gossipy and barren verse-writers like
Gower, Lydgate, and Occleve. There is no fruit, but frail and
fleeting blossoms, many useless branches, still more dying or
dead branches; such is this literature. And why? Because it
had no longer a root ; after three centuries of efifort, a heavy in-
strument cut it underground. This instrument was the Scholas-
tic Philosophy.

Section VI. — Scholastic Philosophy

Beneath every literature there is a philosophy. Beneath every
work of art is an idea of nature and of life; this idea leads the
poet. Whether the author knows it or not, he writes in order to
exhibit it ; and the characters which he fashions, like the events
which he arranges, only serve to bring to light the dim creative
conception which raises and combines them. Underlying Ho-
mer appears the noble life of heroic paganism and of happy
Greece. Underlying Dante, the sad and violent life of fanatical
Catholicism and of the much-hating Italians. From either we
might draw a theory of man and of the beautiful. It is so with
others; and this is how, according to the variations, the birth,
blossoms, decline, or sluggishness of the master-idea, literature
varies, is born, flourishes, degenerates, comes to an end. Who-
ever plants the one, plants the other: whoever undermines the
one, undermines the other. Place in all the minds of any age a
new grand idea of nature and life, so that they feel and produce
it with their whole heart and strength, and you will see them,
seized with the craving to express it, invent forms of art and
groups of figures. Take away from these minds every grand
new idea of nature and life, and you will see them, deprived of
the craving to express all-important thoughts, copy, sink into si-
lence, or rave.

What has become of all these all-important thoughts? What
labor worked them out? What studies nourished them? The
laborers did not lack zeal. In the twelfth century the energy of
their minds was admirable. At Oxford there were thirty thou-
sand scholars. No building in Paris could contain the crowd of
Abelard's disciples; when he retired to solitude, they accompa-
nied him in such a multitude that the desert became a town. No
difficulty repulsed them. There is a story of a young boy, who,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 159

though beaten by his master, was wholly bent on remaining with
him, that he might still learn. When the terrible encyclopaedia
of Aristotle was introduced, though disfigured and unintelligible
it was devoured. The only question presented to them, that of
universals, so abstract and dry, so embarrassed by Arabic obscu-
rities and Greek subtilties, during centuries, was seized upon
eagerly. Heavy and awkward as was the instrument supplied
to them, I mean syllogism, they made themselves masters of it,
rendered it still more heavy, plunged it into every object and in
every direction. They constructed monstrous books, in great
numbers, cathedrals of syllogism, of unheard-of architecture, of
prodigious finish, heightened in effect by intensity of intellectual
power, which the whole sum of human labor has only twice been
able to match.^ These young and valiant minds thought they
had found the temple of truth; they rushed at it headlong, in
legions, breaking in the doors, clambering over the walls, leap-
ing into the interior, and so found themselves at the bottom of a
moat. Three centuries of labor at the bottom of this black moat
added not one idea to the human mind.

For consider the questions which they treat of. They seem to
be marching, but are merely marking time. People would say,
to see them moil and toil, that they will educe from heart and
brain some great original creed, and yet all belief was imposed
upon them from the outset. The system was made; they could
only arrange and comment upon it. The conception comes not
from them, but from Constantinople. Infinitely complicated
and subtle as it is, the supreme work of Oriental mysticism and
Greek metaphysics, so disproportioned to their young under-
standing, they exhaust themselves to reproduce it, and moreover
burden their unpractised hands with the weight of a logical in-
strument which Aristotle created for theory and not for practice,
and which ought to have remained in a cabinet of philosophical
curiosities, without being ever carried into the field of action.
" Whether the divine essence engendered the Son, or was en-
gendered by the Father; why the three persons together are not
greater than one alone; attributes determine persons, not sub-

* Under Proclus and under Hegel. Proclus treats of. Similarly with Saint
Duns Scotus, at the a^e of thirty-one, Thomas and the whole train of school-
died, leaving beside his sermons and men. No idea can be formed of such
commentaries, twelve folio volumes, in a labor before handling the books them-
a small close handwriting, in a style selves,
like Hegel's, on the same subject as

l6o TAINE

stance, that is, nature ; how properties can exist in the nature of
God, and not determine it; if created spirits are local and can be
circumscribed; if God can know more things than He is aware
of " ; ^ — these are the ideas which they moot : what truth could
issue thence? From hand to hand the chimera grows, and
spreads wider its gloomy wings. " Can God cause that, the
place and body being retained, the body shall have no position,
that is, existence in place? — Whether the impossibility of being
engendered is a constituent property of the First Person of the
Trinity — Whether identity, similitude, and equality are real rela-
tions in God." ^ Duns Scotus distinguishes three kinds of mat-
ter: matter which is firstly first, secondly first, thirdly first. Ac-
cording to him, we must clear this triple hedge of thorny ab-
stractions in order to understand the production of a sphere of
brass. Under such a regimen, imbecility soon makes its appear-
ance. Saint Thomas himself considers, " whether the body of
Christ arose with its wounds — whether this body moves with the
motion of the host and the chalice in consecration — whether at
the first instant of conception Christ had the use of free judg-
ment— whether Christ was slain by himself or by another?"
Do you think you are at the limits of human folly ? Listen. He
considers " whether the dove in which the Holy Spirit appeared
was a real animal — whether a glorified body can occupy one and
the same place at the same time as another glorified body —
whether in the state of innocence all children were masculine ? "
I pass over others as to the digestion of Christ, and some still
more untranslatable.* This is the point reached by the most
esteemed doctor, the most judicious mind, the Bossuet of the
Middle Ages. Even in this ring of inanities the answers are laid
down, Roscellinus and Abelard were excommunicated, exiled,
imprisoned, because they swerved from it. There is a complete
minute dogma which closes all issues ; there is no means of es-
caping; after a hundred wriggles and a hundred efforts you
must come and tumble into a formula. If by mysticism you try
to fly over their heads, if by experience you endeavor to creep

• Peter Lombard, " Book of Sen- geli posset dici matutina et vespcrtina?
tences." It was the classic of the Utrum martyribus aureola debeatur?
Middle Ages. Utrum virgo Maria fuerit virgo in con-

•Duns Scotus, ed. 1639. cipiendo? Utrum remanserit virgo post

* Utrum angelus diligat se ipsum di- partum? The reader may look out in
Icctione natural! vel electivai^ Utrum the text the reply to these last two
in statu innocentijE fuerit generatio per questions. (S. Thomas, " Summa The-
coitum? IJtrum omnes fuissent nati in ologica," ed. 1677.)

sexu masculino? Utrum cognitio an-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE i6i

beneath, powerful talons await you at your exit. The wise man
passes for a magician, the enlightened man for a heretic. The
Waldenses, the Catharists, the disciples of John of Parma, were
burned ; Roger Bacon died only just in time, otherwise he might
have been burned. Under this constraint men ceased to think ;
for he who speaks of thought, speaks of an effort at invention,
an individual creation, an energetic action. They recite a les-
son, or sing a catechism ; even in paradise, even in ecstasy
and the divinest raptures of love, Dante thinks himself bound
to show an exact memory and a scholastic orthodoxy. How
then with the rest? Some, Uke Raymond Lully, set about in-
venting an instrument of reasoning to serve in place of the
understanding. About the fourteenth century, under the blows
of Occam, this verbal science began to totter ; they saw that its
entities were only words; it was discredited. In 1367, at Ox-
ford, of thirty thousand students, there remained six thou-
sand ; ^ they still set their " Barbara and Felapton," but only in
the way of routine. Each one in turn mechanically traversed
the petty region of threadbare cavils, scratched himself in the
briers of quibbles, and burdened himself with his bundle of
texts; nothing more. The vast body of science which was to
have formed and vivified the whole thought of man, was re-
duced to a text-book.

So, little by little, the conception which fertilized and ruled
all others, dried up ; the deep spring, whence flowed all poetic
streams, was found empty ; science furnished nothing more to
the world. What further works could the world produce? As
Spain, later on, renewing the Middle Ages, after having shone
splendidly and foolishly by her chivalry and devotion, by Lope
de Vega and Calderon, Loyola and St. Theresa, became ener-
vated through the Inquisition and through casuistry, and ended
by sinking into a brutish silence; so the Middle Ages, outstrip-
ping Spain, after displaying the senseless heroism of the Cru-
sades, and the poetical ecstasy of the cloister, after producing
chivalry and saintship, Francis of Assisi, St. Louis, and Dante,
languished under the Inquisition and the scholastic learning,
and became extinguished in idle raving and inanity.

• The Rev. Henry Anstey, in his In- in the thirteenth century 30,000 scholars

troduction to "Munimenta Academica," at Oxford is almost incredible." P.

Lond. 1868, says that " the statement xlviii.— Tr.
of Richard of Armagh that there were

162 TAINE

Must we quote all these good people who speak without hav-
ing anything to say ? You may find them in Warton ; ^ dozens
of translators, importing the poverties of French literature, and
imitating imitations ; rJiyming chroniclers, most commonplace
of men, whom we only read because we must accept history
from every quarter, even from imbeciles ; spinners and spinsters
of didactic poems, who pile up verses on the training of falcons,
on heraldry, on chemistry ; editors of moralities, who invent the
same dream over again for the hundredth time, and get them-
selves taught universal history by the goddess Sapience. Like
the writers of the Latin decadence, these folk only think of copy-
ing, compiling, abridging, constructing in text-books, in rhymed
memoranda, the encyclopaedia of their times.

Listen to the most illustrious, the grave Gower — " morall
Gower," as he was called ! ^ Doubtless here and there he con-
tains a remnant of brilliancy and grace. He is like an old sec-
retary of a Court of Love, Andre le Chapelain or any other, who
would pass the day in solemnly registering the sentences of
ladies, and in the evening, partly asleep on his desk, would see
in a half-dream their sweet smile and their beautiful eyes.^ The
ingenious but exhausted vein of Charles of Orleans still flows
in his French ballads. He has the same fondling delicacy, al-
most a little affected. The poor little poetic spring flows yet in
thin, transparent streamlets over the smooth pebbles, and mur-
murs with a babble, pretty, but so low that at times you cannot
hear it. But dull is the rest ! His great poem, " Confessio
Amantis," is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor, imi-
tated chiefly from Jean de Meung, having for object, like the
" Roman de la Rose," to explain and classify the impediments
of love. The superannuated theme is always reappearing, cov-
ered by a crude erudition. You will find here an exposition of
hermetic science, lectures on the philosophy of Aristotle, a
treatise on politics, a litany of ancient and modern legends
gleaned from the compilers, marred in the passage by the pedan-
try of the schools and the ignorance of the age. It is a cartload
of scholastic rubbish ; the sewer tumbles upon this feeble spirit,
which of itself was flowing clearly, but now, obstructed by tiles,
bricks, plaster, ruins from all quarters of the globe, drags on

»" History of English Poetry," vol. ii. • " History of Rosiphele." " Ballads."

» Contemporary with Chaucer. The
♦• Confessio Amantis " dates from 1393.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 163

darkened and sluggish. Gower, one of the most learned of his
time,'' supposed that Latin was invented by the oid prophetess
Carmentis; that the grammarians, Aristarchus, Donatus, and
Didymus, regulated its syntax, pronunciation, and prosody ; that
it was adorned by Cicero with the flowers of eloquence and
rhetoric; then enriched by translations from the Arabic, Chal-
dsean, and Greek ; and that at last, after much labor of celebrated
writers, it attained its final perfection in Ovid, the poet of love.
Elsewhere he discovered that Ulysses learned rhetoric from
Cicero, magic from Zoroaster, astronomy from Ptolemy, and
philosophy from Plato. And what a style ! so long, so dull,^° so
drawn out by repetitions, the most minute details, garnished
with references to his text, like a man who, with his eyes glued
to his Aristotle and his Ovid, a slave of his musty parchments,
can do nothing but copy and string his rhymes together.
Schoolboys even in old age, they seem to believe that every truth,
all wit, is their great wood-bound books ; that they have no need
to find out and invent for themselves ; that their whole business
is to repeat ; that this is, in fact, man's business. The scholastic
system had enthroned the dead letter, and peopled the world
with dead understandings.

After Gower come Occleve and Lydgate.^* " My father
Chaucer would willingly have taught me," says Occleve, " but
I was dull, and learned little or nothing." He paraphrased in
verse a treatise of Egidius, on government ; these are moralities.
There are others, on compassion, after Augustine, and on the
art of dying ; then love-tales ; a letter from Cupid, dated from his
court in the month of May. Love and morahties,^^ that is, ab-
stractions and affectation, were the taste of the time ; and so,
in the time of Lebrun, of Esmenard, at the close of contempora-
neous French literature,^^ they produced collections of didactic
poems, and odes to Chloris. As for the monk Lydgate, he had
some talent, some imagination, especially in high-toned descrip-
tions : it was the last flicker of a dying literature ; gold received
a golden coating^ precious stones were placed upon diamonds,
ornaments multiplied and made fantastic ; as in their dress and

" Warton, ii. 240. " This is the title Froissart dsp?)

** See, for instance his description of gave to his collection when presenting

the sun's crown, the most poetical it to Richard II.

passage in book vii. " Lebrun, 1729-1807; Esmenard, 177*

" 1420, 1430. i8j2.

i64 TAINE

buildings, so in their style.^* Look at the costumes of Henry
IV and Henry V, monstrous heart-shaped or horn-shaped head-
dresses, long sleeves covered with ridiculous designs, the
plumes, and again the oratories, armorial tombs, little gaudy
chapels, like conspicuous flowers under the naves of the Gothic
perpendicular. When we can no n ^ .k to the soul, we try

to speak to the eyes. This is what Lydgate does, nothing more.
Pageants or shows are required of him, " disguisings " for the
company of goldsmiths ; a mask before the king, a May enter-
tainment for the sheriffs of London, a drama of the creation for
the festival of Corpus Christi, a masquerade, a Christmas show ;
he gives the plan and furnishes the verses. In this matter he
never runs dry ; two hundred and fifty-one poems are attributed
to him. Poetry thus conceived becomes a manufacture ; it is
composed by the yard. Such was the judgment of the Abbot of
St. Albans, who, having got him to translate a legend in verse,
pays a hundred shillings for the whole, verse, writing, and illu-
minations, placing the three works on a level. In fact, no more
thought was required for the one than for the others. His three
great works, " The Fall of Princes," " The Destruction of
Troy," and " The Siege of Thebes," are only translations or
paraphrases, verbose, erudite, descriptive, a kind of chivalrous
processions, colored for the twentieth time, in the same manner,
on the same vellum. The only point which rises above the aver-
age, at least in the first poem, is the idea of Fortune,^"^ and the
violent vicissitudes of human life. If there was a philosophy at
this time, this was it. They willingly narrated horrible and
tragic histories ; gather them from antiquity down to their own
day ; they were far from the trusting and passionate piety which
felt the hand of God in the government of the world ; they saw
that the world went blundering here and there like a drunken
man. A sad and gloomy world, amused by eternal pleasures,
oppressed with a dull misery, which suffered and feared without
consolation or hope, isolated between the ancient spirit in which
it had no living hope, and the modern spirit whose active science
it ignored. Fortune, like a black smoke, hovers over all, and
shuts out the sight of heaven. They picture it as follows :

** Lydgate, " The Destruction of " See the Vision of Fortune, a gigan-

Troy "—description of Hector's chapel. tic figure. In this painting he shows

Especially read the Pageants or Solemn both feeling and talent.
Entries.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 165

" Her face semyng cruel and terrible
And by disdayne menacing of loke, . . .
An hundred handes she had, of eche part . . ,
Some of her handes lyft up men alofte,
To hye estate of worldlye dignite;
Another hande griped ful unsofte,
Which cast another in grete adversite." ^^

They look upon the great unhappy ones, a captive king, a de-
throned queen, assassinated princes, noble cities destroyed,^'^
lamentable spectacles as exhibited in Germany and France, and
of which there will be plenty in England ; and they can only
regard them with a harsh resignation. Lydgate ends by recit-
ing a commonplace of mechanical piety, by way of consolation.
The reader makes the sign of the cross, yawns, and goes away.
In fact, poetry and religion are no longer capable of suggesting
a genuine sentiment. Authors copy, and copy again. Hawes ^^
copies the " House of Fame " of Chaucer, and a sort of allego-
rical amorous poem, after the " Roman de la Rose." Barclay ^®
translates the " ]\Iirror of Good Manners " and the " Ship of
Fools." Continually we meet with dull abstractions, used up
and barren ; it is the scholastic phase of poetry. If anywhere
there is an accent of greater originality, it is in this " Ship of
Fools," and in Lydgate's " Dance of Death," bitter buffooneries,
sad gayeties, which, in the hands of artists and poets, were hav-
ing their run throughout Europe. They mock at each other,
grotesquely and gloomily; poor, dull, and vulgar figures, shut
up in a ship, or made to dance on their tomb to the sound of a
fiddle, played by a grinning skeleton. At the end of all this
mouldy talk, and amid the disgust which they have conceived
for each other, a clown, a tavern Triboulet,-" composer of little
jeering and macaronic verses, Skelton ^^ makes his appearance,
a virulent pamphleteer, who, jumbling together French, Eng-
lish, Latin phrases, with slang, and fashionable words, invented
words, intermingled with short rhymes, fabricates a sort of lit-
erary mud, with which he bespatters Wolsey and the bishops.
Style, metre, rhyme, language, art of every kind, is at an end ;

" Lydgate, " Fall of Princes." War- *« The court fool in Victor Hugo's

ton, ii. 280. drama of " Le Roi s'amuse." — Tr.

" The War of the Hussites, The Hun- « Died 1529; Poet-Laureate 1489. His

dred Years' War, and The War of the " Bouge of Court," his " Crown of

Roses. Laurel," his " Elegy on the Death of

18 About 1506. " The Temple of the Earl of Northumberland," are well

Glass." " Passetyme of Pleasure." written, and belong to official poetry.

"About 1500.

1 66 TAINE

beneath the vain parade of official style there is only a heap of
rubbish. Yet, as he says,

" Though my rhyme be ragged,
Tattered and gagged,
Rudely rain-beaten,
Rusty, moth-eaten,
Yf ye take welle therewithe.
It hath in it some pithe."

It is full of political animus, sensual liveliness, English and
popular instincts ; it lives. It is a coarse life, still elementary,
swarming with ignoble vermin, like that which appears in a
great decomposing body. It is life, nevertheless, with its two
great features which it is destined to display : the hatred of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is the Reformation ; the return
to the senses and to natural life, which is the Renaissance.

BOOK ll.-THE RENAISSANCE

BOOK II.— THE RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER FIRST

THE PAGAN RENAISSANCE

Part I. — Manners of the Time

Section I. — Ideas of the Middle Ages

FOR seventeen centuries a deep and sad thought had
weighed upon the spirit of man, first to overwhelm it,
then to exalt and to weaken it, never losing its hold
throughout this long space of time. It was the idea of the
weakness and decay of the human race. Greek corruption,
Roman oppression, and the dissolution of the ancient world, had
given rise to it ; it, in its turn, had produced a stoical resignation,
an epicurean indifference, Alexandrian mysticism, and the
Christian hope in the kingdom of God. " The world is evil and
lost, let us escape by insensibility, amazement, ecstasy." Thus
spoke the philosophers ; and religion, coming after, announced
that the end was near ; " Prepare, for the kingdom of God is
at hand." For a thousand years universal ruin incessantly
drove still deeper into their hearts this gloomy thought ; and
when man in the feudal state raised himself, by sheer force of
courage and muscles, from the depths of final imbecility and
general misery, he discovered his thought and his work fettered
by the crushing idea, which, forbidding a life of nature and
worldly hopes, erected into ideals the obedience of the monk
and the dreams of fanatics.

It grew ever worse and worse. For the natural result of
such a conception, as of the miseries which engender it, and
the discouragement which it gives rise to, is to do away

169

I70

TAINE

with personal action, and to replace originality by submis-
sion. From the fourth century, gradually the dead letter was
substituted for the living faith. Christians resigned themselves
into the hands of the clergy, they into the hands of the pope.
Christian opinions were subordinated to theologians, and the-
ologians to the Fathers. Christian faith was reduced to the
accomplishment of works, and works to the accomplishment of
ceremonies. Religion, fluid during the first centuries, was now
congealed into a hard crystal, and the coarse contact of the bar-
barians had deposited upon its surface a layer of idolatry ; the-
ocracy and the Inquisition, the monopoly of the clergy and the
prohibition of the Scriptures, the worship of relics and the sale
of indulgences began to appear. In place of Christianity, the
church ; in place of a free creed, enforced orthodoxy ; in place
of moral fervor, fixed religious practices ; in place of the heart
and stirring thought, outward and mechanical discipline : such
are the characteristics of the Middle Ages. Under this con-
straint thinking society had ceased to think; philosophy was
turned into a text-book, and poetry into dotage ; and mankind,
slothful and crouching, delivering up their conscience and their
conduct into the hands of their priests, seemed but as puppets,
fit only for reciting a catechism and mumbling over beads.^

At last invention makes another start ; and it makes it by the
efforts of the lay society, which rejected theocracy, kept the
State free, and which presently discovered, or rediscovered, one
after another, the industries, sciences, and arts. All was re-
newed ; America and the Indies were added to the map of the
world ; the shape of the earth was ascertained, the system of the
universe propounded, modern philology was inaugurated, the
experimental sciences set on foot, art and literature shot forth
like a harvest, religion was transformed ; there was no province
of human intelligence and action which was not refreshed and
fertilized by this universal effort. It was so great that it passed
from the innovators to the laggards, and reformed Catholicism
in the face of Protestantism which it formed. It seems as
though men had suddenly opened their eyes and seen. In fact,
they attain a new and superior kind of intelligence. It is the
proper feature of this age that men no longer make themselves

* See, at Bruges, the pictures of Hem- ecclesiastical piety of the Middle Ages,
ling (fifteenth century). No paintings which was altogether like that of the
enable us to understand so well the Buddhists.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 171

masters of objects by bits, or isolated, or through scholastic or
mechanical classifications, but as a whole, in general and com-
plete views, with the eager grasp of a sympathetic spirit, which
being placed before a vast object, penetrates it in all its parts,
tries it in all its relations, appropriates and assimilates it, im-
presses upon itself its living and potent image, so life-like and
so powerful, that it is fain to translate it into externals through
a work of art or an action. An extraordinary warmth of soul,
a superabundant and splendid imagination, reveries, visions,
artists, believers, founders, creators — that is what such a form
of intellect, produces ; for to create we must have, as had Luther
and Loyola, Michel Angelo and Shakespeare, an idea, not ab-
stract, partial, and dry, but well defined, finished, sensible — a
true creation, which acts inwardly, and struggles to appear to
the light. This was Europe's grand age, and the most notable
epoch of human growth. To this day we live from its sap ; we
only carry on its pressure and efforts.

Section II. — Growth of New Ideas

When human power is manifested so clearly and in such great
works, it is no wonder if the ideal changes, and the old pagan
idea reappears. It recurs, bringing with it the worship of
beauty and vigor, first in Italy; for this, of all countries in
Europe, is the most pagan, and the nearest to the ancient civili-
zation ; thence in France and Spain, and Flanders, and even in
Germany; and finally in England. How is it propagated?
What revolution of manners reunited mankind at this time,
everywhere, under a sentiment which they had forgotten for fif-
teen hundred years? Merely that their condition had improved,
and they felt it. The idea ever expresses the actual situation, and
the creatures of the imagination, like the conceptions of the
mind, only manifest the state of society and the degree of its
welfare ; there is a fixed connection between what man admires
and what he is. While misery overwhelms him, while the de-
cadence is visible, and hope shut out, he is inclined to curse his
life on earth, and seek consolation in another sphere. As soon
as his sufferings are alleviated, his power made manifest, his
prospects brightened, he begins once more to love the present

172 TAINE

life, to be self-confident, to love and praise energy, genius, all
the effective faculties which labor to procure him happiness.
About the twentieth year of Elizabeth's reign, the nobles gave
up shield and two-handed sword for the rapier ; ^ a little, almost
imperceptible fact, yet vast, for it is like the change which sixty
years ago made us give up the sword at court, to leave us with
our arms swinging about in our black coats. In fact, it was the
close of feudal life, and the beginning of court life, just as to-
day court life is at an end, and the democratic reign has begun.
With the two-handed swords, heavy coats of mail, feudal keeps,
private warfare, permanent disorder, all the scourges of the
Middle Ages retired, and faded into the past. The English had
done with the Wars of the Roses. They no longer ran the risk
of being pillaged to-morrow for being rich, and hanged the next
day for being traitors ; they have no further need to furbish up
their armor, make alliances with powerful nations, lay in stores
for the winter, gather together men-at-arms, scour the country
to plunder and hang others.^ The monarchy, in England, as
throughout Europe, establishes peace in the community,^ and
with peace appear the useful arts. Domestic comfort follows
civil security ; and man, better furnished in his home, better
protected in his hamlet, takes pleasure in his life on earth, which
he has changed, and means to change.

Toward the close of the fifteenth century * the impetus was
given ; commerce and the woolen trade made a sudden advance,
and such an enormous one that corn-fields were changed into
pasture-lands, " whereby the inhabitants of the said town
(Manchester) have gotten and come into riches and wealthy
livings," ^ so that in 1553, 40,000 pieces of cloth were exported
in English ships. It was already the England which we see
to-day, a land of green meadows, intersected by hedgerows,
crowded with cattle, and abounding in ships — a manufacturing
opulent land, with a people of beef-eating toilers, who enrich
it while they enrich themselves. They improved agriculture to
such an extent that in half a century the produce of an acre was

• The first carriage was in 1564. It Isabella in Spain, Henry VII in Eng-
caused much astonishment. Some said land. In Italy the feudal regime ended
that it was " a great sea-shell brought earlier, by the establishment of repub*
from China"; others, "that it was a lies and principalities.

temple in which cannibals worshipped * 1488, Act of Parliament on Enclos-

the devil." ures.

* For a picture of this state of things, * A " Compendious Examination,"
see Fenn's " Paston Letters." 1581, by William StraSord. Act of

» Louis XI in France, Ferdinand and Parliament, 1541.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 173

doubled.® They grew so rich that at the beginning of the reign
of Charles I the Commons represented three times the wealth of
the Upper House. The ruin of Antwerp by the Duke of
Parma ^ sent to England " the third part of the merchants and
manufacturers, who made silk, damask, stockings, taffetas, and
serges." The defeat of the Armada and the decadence of Spain
opened the seas to English merchants.^ The toiling hive, who
would dare, attempt, explore, act in unison, and always with
profit, was about to reap its advantages and set out on its voy-
ages, buzzing over the universe.

At the base and on the summit of society, in all ranks of life,
in all grades of human condition, this new welfare became visi-
ble. In 1534, considering that the streets of London were
" very noyous and foul, and in many places thereof very jeop-
ardous to all people passing and repassing, as well on horseback
as on foot," Henry VHI began the paving of the city. New
streets covered the open spaces where the young men used to
run races and to wrestle. Every year the number of taverns,
theatres, gambling-rooms, bear-gardens, increased. Before the
time of Elizabeth the country-houses of gentlemen were little
more than straw-thatched cottages, plastered with the coarsest
clay, lighted only by trellises. " Howbeit," says Harrison
(1580), "such as be latelie builded are commonlie either of
bricke or hard stone, or both ; their roomes large and comelie,
and houses of office further distant from their lodgings." The
old wooden houses were covered with plaster, " which, beside
the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so even
and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with
more exactnesse." ® This open admiration shows from what
hovels they had escaped. Glass was at last employed for win-
dows, and the bare walls were covered with hangings, on which
visitors might see, with delight and astonishment, plants, ani-
mals, figures. They began to use stoves, and experienced the
unwonted pleasure of being warm. Harrison notes three im-
portant changes which had taken place in the farm-houses of his
time:

• Between 1377 and 1588 the increase founded a company to trade with Rus-
was from two and a half to five millions. sia. In 1578 Drake circumnavigated the

'In 1585; Ludovic Guicciardini. globe. In 1600 the East India Company

* Henry VIII at the beginning of his was founded.

reign had but one ship of war. Eliza- * Nathan Drake, "Shakespeare and

beth sent out one hundred and fifty his Times," 1817, i. v. 72 et passim,
against the Armada. In 1533 was

174 TAINE

" One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas in their
yoong daies there were not above two or three, if so manie, in most
uplandishe townes of the realme. « . . The second is the great (al-
though not generall), amendment of lodging, for our fathers (yea and
we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats
covered onelie with a sheet, under coverlets made'of dagswain, or hop-
harlots, and a good round log under their heads, insteed of a bolster
or pillow. If it were so that the good man of the house, had within
seven yeares after his marriage purchased a matteres or flockebed, and
thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himselfe to be
as well lodged as the lord of the towne. . . . Pillowes (said they)
were thought meet onelie for women in childbed. . . . The third
thing is the exchange of vessell, as ot treene platters into pewter, and
wodden spoones into silver or tin; for so common was all sorts of
treene stuff in old time, that a man should hardlie find four peeces of
pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmers
house." '^^

It is not possession, but acquisition, which gives men pleasure
and sense of power ; they observe sooner a small happiness, new
to them, than a great happiness which is old. It is not when all
is good, but when all is better, that they see the bright side of
life, and are tempted to make a holiday of it. This is why at
this period they did make a holiday of it, a splendid show, so like
a picture that it fostered painting in Italy, so like a piece of act-
ing that it produced the drama in England. Now that the axe
and sword of the civil wars had beaten down the independent
nobility, and the abolition of the law of maintenance had de-
stroyed the petty royalty of each great feudal baron, the lords
quitted their sombre castles, battlemented fortresses, surround-
ed by stagnant water, pierced with narrow windows, a sort of
stone breastplates of no use but to preserve the life of their mas-
ter. They flock into new palaces with vaulted roofs and turrets,
covered with fantastic and manifold ornaments, adorned with
terraces and vast staircases, with gardens, fountains, statues,
such as were the palaces of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, half
Gothic and half Italian,^^ whose convenience, splendor, and
symmetry announced already habits of society, and the taste for
pleasure. They came to court and abandoned their old man-
ners ; the four meals which scarcely sufficed their former vorac-
ity were reduced to two ; gentlemen soon became refined, placing

10 Nathan Drake, " Shakespeare and Under James I, in the hands of Inigo
his Times," i. v. 102. Jones, it became entirely Italian, ap-

" This was called the Tudor style. preaching the antique.

■ HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 175

their glory in the elegance and singularity of their amusements
and cneir clothes. They dressed magnificently in splendid ma- •
terials, with the luxury of men who rustle silk and make gold
sparkle for the first time: doublets of scarlet satin; cloaks of
sable, costing a thousand ducats ; velvet shoes, embroidered with
gold and silver, covered with rosettes and ribbons; boots with
falling tops, from whence hung a cloud of lace, embroidered
with figures of birds, animals, constellations, flowers in silver,
gold, or precious stones ; ornamented shirts costing ten pounds a
piece. " It is a common thing to put a thousand goats and a
hundred oxen on a coat, and to carry a whole manor on one's
back." ^2 The costumes of the time were shrines. When Eliz-
abeth died, they found three thousand dresses in her wardrobe.
Need we speak of the monstrous rufTs of the ladies, their puffed-
out dresses, their stomachers stiff with diamonds ? As a singu-
lar sign of the times, the men were more changeable and more
bedecked than they. Harrison says :

" Such is our mutabilitie, that to daie there is none to the Spanish
guise, to morrow the French toies are most fine and delectable, yer long
no such apparell as that which is after the high Alman fashion, by and
by the Turkish maner is generallie best liked of, otherwise the Morisco
gowns, the Barbarian sleeves . . . and the short French breeches.
. . . And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to
see the costlinesse and the curiositie ; the excesse and the vanitie ; the
pompe and the braverie ; the change and the varietie; and finallie, the
ficklencsse and the follie that is in all degrees." ^^

Folly, it may have been, but poetry likewise. There was some-
thing more than puppyism in this masquerade of splendid cos-
tume. The overflow of inner sentiment found this issue, as also
in drama and poetry. It was an artistic spirit which induced it.
There was an incredible outgrowth of living forms from their
brains. They acted like their engravers, who give us in their
frontispieces a prodigality of fruits, flowers, active figures, ani-
mals, gods, and pour out and confuse the whole treasure of
nature in every comer of their paper. They must enjoy the
beautiful; they would be happy through their eyes; they per-
ceive in consequence naturally the relief and energy of forms.
From the accession of Henry VIII to the death of James I we

12 Burton, " Anatomy of Melancholy," " Nathan Drake, " Shakespeare and

i2th ed. 1821. Stubbes, " Anatomic of his Times," ii. 6, 87.
Abuses," ed. Turnbull, 1836.

176 TAINE

find nothing but tournaments, processions, public entries, mas-
querades. First come the royal banquets, coronation displays,
large and noisy pleasures of Henry VIII. Wolsey entertains
him

" In so gorgeous a sort and costlie maner, that it was an heaven to
behold. There wanted no dames or damosels meet or apt to danse with
the maskers, or to garnish the place for the time : then was there all
kind of musike and harmonie, with fine voices both of men and children.
On a time the king came suddenlie thither in a maske with a dozen
maskers all in garments like sheepheards, made of fine cloth of gold,
and crimosin sattin paned, . . . having sixteene torch-bearers. . . .
In came a new banket before the king wherein were served two hundred
diverse dishes, of costlie devises and subtilities. Thus passed they
foorth the night with banketting, dansing, and other triumphs, to the
great comfort of the king, and pleasant regard of the nobilitie there
assembled." ^*

Count, if you can, the mythological entertainments, the theatri-
cal receptions, the open-air operas played before Elizabeth,
James, and their great lords." At Kenilworth the pageants
lasted ten days. There was everything; learned recreations,
novelties, popular plays, sanguinary spectacles, coarse farces,
juggling and feats of skill, allegories, mythologies, chivalric ex-
hibitions, rustic and national commemorations. At the same
time, in this universal outburst and sudden expanse, men be-
come interested in themselves, find their life desirable, worthy
of being represented and put on the stage complete ; they play
with it, delight in looking upon it, love its ups and downs, and
make of it a work of art. The queen is received by a sibyl, then
by giants of the time of Arthur, then by the Lady of the Lake,
Sylvanus, Pomona, Ceres, and Bacchus, every divinity in turn
presents her with the first-fruits of his empire. Next day, a sav-
age, dressed in moss and ivy, discourses before her with Echo
in her praise. Thirteen bears are set fighting against dogs.
An Italian acrobat performs wonderful feats before the whole
assembly. A rustic marriage takes place before the queen, then
a sort of comic fight amongst the peasants of Coventry, who
represent the defeat of the Danes. As she is returning from the
chase, Triton, rising from the lake, prays her, in the namie of

" Holinshed (1586), 1808, 6 vols. iii. " Elizabeth and James Progresses," by
763 et passim. Nichols.

"IbiU, Reign of Henry VIII.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

177

Neptune, to deliver the enchanted lady, pursued by a cruel
knight, Syr Bruse sauns Pitee. Presently the lady appears, sur-
rounded by nymphs, followed close by Proteus, who is borne by
an enormous dolphin. Concealed in the dolphin, a band of mu-
sicians with a chorus of ocean-deities, sing the praise of the
powerful, beautiful, chaste queen of England.^^ You perceive
that comedy is not confined to the theatre; the great of the
realm and the queen herself become actors. The cravings of
the imagination are so keen that the court becomes a stage.
Under James I, every year, on Twelfth-day, the queen, the chief
ladies and nobles, played a piece called a Masque, a sort of alle-
gory combined with dances, heightened in effect by decorations
and costumes of great splendor, of which the mythological
paintings of Rubens can alone give an idea :

" The attire of the lords was from the antique Greek statues. On
their heads they wore Persic crowns, that were with scrolls of gold
plate turned outward, and wreathed about with a carnation and silver
net-lawn. Their bodies were of carnation cloth of silver; to express
the naked, in manner of the Greek thorax, girt under the breasts with a
broad belt of cloth of gold, fastened with jewels; the mantlps were of
coloured silke ; the first, sky-colour ; the second, pearl-colour ; the
third, flame colour ; the fourth, tawny. The ladies attire was of white
cloth of silver, wrought with Juno's birds and fruits ; a loose under
garment, full gathered, of carnation, striped with silver, and parted
with a golden zone ; beneath that, another flowing garment, of watcket
cloth of silver, laced with gold; their hair carelessly bound under the
circle of a rare and rich coronet, adorned with all variety, and choice of
jewels; from the top of which flowed a transparent veil, down to the
ground. Their shoes were azure and gold, set with rubies and dia-
monds." "

I abridge the description, which is like a fairy tale. Fancy that
all these costumes, this glitter of materials, this sparkling of dia-
monds, this : plendor of nudities, was displayed daily at the mar-
riage of the great, to the bold sounds of a pagan epithalamium.
Think of the feasts which the Earl of Carlisle introduced, where
was served first of all a table loaded with sumptuous viands, as
high as a man could reach, in order to remove it presently, and
replace it by another similar table. This prodigality of magnifi-
cence, these costly follies, this unbridling of the imagination,

"Laaeham's Entertainment at Kill- "Ben Jonson's- works, ed. Gifford,

ingworth Castle, iS7S- Nichols's " Prog- 1816, 9 vols. " Masque of Hymen," vol.
resses," vol. i. London, 1788. vii. 76.

178 TAINE

this intoxication of eye and ear, this comedy played by the lords
of the realm, like the pictures of Rubens, Jordaens, and their
Flemish contemporaries, so open an appeal to the senses, so
complete a return to nature, that our chilled and gloomy age is
scarcely able to imagine it.^®

Section III. — Popular Festivals

To vent the feelings, to satisfy the heart and eyes, to set free
boldly on all the roads of existence the pack of appetites and
instincts, this was the craving which the manners of the time be-
trayed. It was " merry England," as they called it then. It
was not yet stern and constrained. It expanded widely, freely,
and rejoiced to find itself so expanded. No longer at court only
was the drama found, but in the village. Strolling companies
betook themselves thither, and the country folk supplied any de-
ficiencies, when necessary. Shakespeare saw, before he depict-
ed them, stupid fellows, carpenters, joiners, bellows-menders,
play Pyramus and Thisbe, represent the lion roaring as gently as
any sucking dove, and the wall, by stretching out their hands.
Every holiday was a pageant, in which townspeople, workmen,
and children bore their parts. They were actors by nature.
When the soul is full and fresh, it does not express its ideas by
reasonings ; it plays and figures them ; it mimics them ; that is
the true and original language, the children's tongue, the speech
of artists, of invention, and of joy. It is in this manner they
please themselves with songs and feasting, on all the symbolic
holidays with which tradition has filled the year.^ On the Sun-
day after Twelfth-night the laborers parade the streets, with
their shirts over their coats, decked with ribbons, dragging a
plough to the sound of music, and dancing a sword-dance ; on
another day they draw in a cart a figure made of ears of corn,
with songs, flutes, and drums ; on another. Father Christmas
and his company ; or else they enact the history of Robin Hood,
the bold archer, around the May-pole, or the legend of Saint
George and the Dragon. We might occupy half a volume in
describing all these holidays, such as Harvest Home, All Saints,

" Certain private letters also describe ligion, and where all enormities reigned
the court of Elizabeth as a place where in the highest degree,
there was little piety or practice of re- ' Nathan Drake, " Shakespeare and

his Times," chap. v. and vi.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 179

Martinmas, Sheepshearing, above all Christmas, which lasted
twelve days, and sometimes six weeks. They eat and drink,
junket, tumble about, kiss the girls^ ring the bells, satiate them-
selves with noise : coarse drunken revels, in wdiich man is an
unbridled animal, and which are the incarnation of natural life.
The Puritans made no mistake about that. Stubbes says :

" First, all the wilde heades of the parishe, conventying together,
chuse them a ground capitaine of mischeef, whan they innoble with the
title of my Lorde of Misserule, and hym they crown with great solem-
nitie, and adopt for their kyng. This kyng anoynted, chuseth for the
twentie, fourtie, three score, or a hundred lustie guttes like to hymself
to waite uppon his lordely maiestie. . . . Then have they their hob-
bie horses, dragons, and other antiques, together with their baudie pipers
and thunderyng drommers, to strike up the devilles daunce withall :
then marche these heathen companie towardes the churche and churche-
yarde, their pipers pipyng, their drommers thonderyng, their stumppes
dauncyng, their belles rynglyng, their handkerchefes swyngyng about
their heads like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters skir-
mishyng amongest the throng ; and in this sorte they goe to the churche
(though the minister be at praier or preachyng), dauncyng, and swing-
yng their handkercheefes over their heades, in the churche, like devilles
incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man can heare his owne
voice. Then the foolishe people they looke, they stare, they laugh, they
fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these goodly pag-
eauntes, solemnized in this sort. Then after this, aboute the churche
they goe againe and againe, and so forthe into the churche-yarde, where
they have commonly their sommer haules, their bowers, arbours, and
banquettyng houses set up, wherein they feaste, banquet, and daunce
all that daie, and peradventure all that night too. And thus these ter-
restriall furies spend the Sabbaoth daie! . ... An other sorte of
fantasticall fooles bringe to these helhoundes (the Lorde of Misrule and
his complices) some bread, some good ale, some newe cheese, some olde
cheese, some custardes, some cakes, some flaunes, some tartes, some
creame, some meate, some one thing, some an other."

He continues thus :

" Against Maie, every parishe, towne and village essemble themselves
together, bothe men, women, and children, olde and yong, even all in-
differently; they goe to the woodes where they spende all the night in
pleasant pastymes, and in the mornyng the}' returne, bringing with
them birch, bowes, and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies with-
all. But their cheefest iewell they bringe from thence is their Maie
poole, whiche they bring home with great veneration, as thus : They
have twenty or fourtie yoke of oxen, every ox havyng a sweete nosegaie
of flowers tyed on the tippe of his homes, and these oxen, drawe home
this Maie poole (this stinckyng idoll rather) . . . and thus beyng

i8o TAINE

reared up, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about
it, sett up sommer haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it ; and then
fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the
heathen people did at the dedication of their idoUes. ... Of a
hundred maides goyng to the woode over night, there have scarcely the
third parte returned home againe undefiled." ^

" On Shrove Tuesday," says another,^ " at the sound of a bell,
the folk become insane, thousands at a time, and forget all de-
cency and common-sense. . . . It is to Satan and the devil
that they pay homage and do sacrifice to in these abominable
pleasures." It is in fact to nature, to the ancient Pan, to Freya,
to Hertha, her sisters, to the old Teutonic deities who survived
the Middle Ages. At this period, in the temporary decay of
Christianity, and the sudden advance of corporal v^^ell-being,
man adored himself, and there endured no life within him but
that of paganism.

Section IV. — Influence of Classic Literature

To sum up, observe the process of ideas at this time. A few
sectarians, chiefly in the towns and of the people, clung gloom-
ily to the Bible. But the court and the men of the world sought
their teachers and their heroes from pagan Greece and Rome.
About 1490^ they began to read the classics; one after the other
they translated them ; it was soon the fashion to read them in
the original. Queen Elizabeth, Jane Grey, the Duchess of Nor-
folk, the Countess of Arundel, and many other ladies, were con-
versant with Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero in the original, and
appreciated them. Gradually, by an insensible change, men
were raised to the level of the great and healthy minds who had
freely handled ideas of all kinds fifteen centuries before. They
comprehended not only their language, but their thought ; they
did not repeat lessons from, but held conversations with them ;
they were their equals, and found in them intellects as manly as
their own. For they were not scholastic cavillers, miserable
compilers, repulsive pedants, like the professors of jargon whom
the Middle Ages had set over them, like gloomy Duns Scotus,

• Stubbes, " Anatomic of Abuses," p. • Warton, vol. it. sec. 35. Before i6oo
168 et passim. all the great poets were translated into

• Hentzner's " Travels in England " English, and between 1550 and 1616 all
(Bentley's translation). He thought the great historians of Greece and
that the figure carried about in the Har- Rome. Lyly in 1500 first taught Greek
▼est Home represented Ceres. in public.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE i8i

whose leaves Henry VIII's visitors scattered to the winds.
They were gentlemen, statesmen, the most polished and best
educated men in the world, who knew how to speak, and draw
their ideas, not from books, but from things, living ideas, and
which entered of themselves into living souls. Across the train
of hooded schoolmen and sordid cavillers the two adult and
thinking ages were united, and the moderns, silencing the infan-
tine or snuffling voices of the Middle Ages, condescended only
to converse with the noble ancients. They accepted their gods,
at least they understand them, and keep them by their side. In
poems, festivals, on hangings, almost in all ceremonies, they ap-
pear, not restored by pedantry merely, but kept alive by sympa-
thy, and endowed by the arts with a life as flourishing and
almost as profound as that of their earliest birth. After the terri-
ble night of the Middle Ages, and the dolorous legends of spirits
and the damned, it was a delight to see again Olympus shining
upon us from Greece ; its heroic and beautiful deities once more
ravishing the heart of men ; they raised and instructed this
young world by speaking to it the language of passion and gen-
ius ; and this age of strong deeds, free sensuality, bold invention,
had only to follow its own bent, in order to discover in them its
masters and the eternal promoters of liberty and beauty.

Nearer still was another paganism, that of Italy; the more
seductive because more modern, and because it circulated
fresh sap in an ancient stock ; the more attractive, because
more sensuous and present, with its worship of force and
genius, of pleasure and voluptuousness. The rigorists knew
this well, and were shocked at it. Ascham writes:

" These bee the inchantementes of Circes, brought out of Italie to
marre mens maners in England ; much, by example of ill life, but more
by preceptes of fonde bookes, of lata translated out of Italian into Eng-
lish, sold in every shop in London. . . . There bee moe of these
ungratious bookes set out in Printe wythin these fewe monethes, than
have bene sene in England many score yeares before. . . . Than
they have in more reverence the triumphes of Petrarche : than the
Genesis of Moses : They make more account of Tallies offices, than S.
Paules epistles : of a tale in Bocace than a storie of the Bible." 2

In fact, at that time Italy clearly led in everything, and civiliza-
tion was to be drawn thence, as from its spring. What is this

• Ascham, " The Scholemaster " (1570), ed. Arber, 1870, first book, 78 et passim.
9 — Classics. Vol. 38

i82 TAINE

civilization which is thus imposed on the whole of Europe,
whence every science and every elegance comes, whose laws are
obeyed in every court, in which Surrey, Sidney, Spenser,
Shakespeare sought their models and their materials? It was
pagan in its elements and its birth ; in its language, which is but
Latin, hardly changed ; in its Latin traditions and recollections,
which no gap has interrupted ; in its constitution, whose old
municipal life first led and absorbed the feudal life ; in the genius
of its race, in which energy and joy always abounded. More
than a century before other nations — from the time of Petrarch,
Rienzi, Boccaccio — the Italians began to recover the lost antiq-
uity, to set free the manuscripts buried in the dungeons of
France and Germany, to restore, interpret, comment upon, study
the ancients, to make themselves Latin in heart and mind, to
compose in prose and verse with the polish of Cicero and Vergil,
to hold sprightly converse and intellectual pleasures as the orna-
ment and the fairest flower of life.^ They adopt not merely the
externals of the life of the ancients, but its very essence; that
is, preoccupation with the present life, forgetfulness of the fu-
ture, the appeal to the senses, the renunciation of Christianity.
" We must enjoy," sang their first poet, Lorenzo de Medici, in
his pastorals and triumphal songs : " there is no certainty of to-
morrow." In Pulci the mocking incredulity breaks out, the
bold and sensual gayety, all the audacity of the free-thinkers,
who kicked aside in disgust the worn-out monkish frock of the
Middle Ages. It was he who, in a jesting poem, puts at the be-
ginning of each canto a Hosanna, an In principio, or a sacred
text from the mass-book.* When he had been inquiring what
the soul was, and how it entered the body, he compared it to
jam covered up in white bread quite hot. What would become
of it in the other world ? " Some people think they will
there discover becaficos, plucked ortolans, excellent wine, good
beds, and therefore they follow the monks, walking behind
them. As for us, dear friend, we shall go into the black valley,
where we shall hear no more Alleluias." If you wish for a
more serious thinker, listen to the great patriot, the Thucydides

» Ma il v«ro e principal ornemento vilissimi huomini. Castiglione , " II
deir animo in ciascuno penso io che si- Cortegiano," ed. 1585, p. 112.
ano le lettere, benche i Franchesi sola- * See Burchard (the Pope's Steward),

mente conoscano la nobilita deH'arme account of the festival at which Lucre-
. . . et tutti i litteratt tengon per tia Borgia was present. Letters of

Aretinus, " Life of Cellini," etc.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 183

of the age, Machiavelli, who, contrasting Christianity and pa-
ganism, says that the first places " supreme happiness in humil-
ity, abjection, contempt for human things, while the other
makes the sovereign good consist in greatness of soul, force of
body, and all the qualities which make men to be feared."
Whereon he boldly concludes that Christianity teaches man " to
support evils, and not to do great deeds " ; he discovers in that
inner weakness the cause of all oppressions ; declares that " the
wicked saw that they could tyrannize without fear over men,
who, in order to get to paradise, were more disposed to suffer
than to avenge injuries." Through such sayings, in spite of his
constrained genuflexions, we can see which religion he prefers.
The ideal to which all efforts were turning, on which all
thoughts depended, and which completely raised this civiliza-
tion, was the strong and happy man, possessing all the powers
to accomplish his wishes, and disposed to use them in pursuit of
his happiness.

If you would see this idea in its grandest operation, you must
seek it in the arts, such as Italy made them and carried through-
out Europe, raising or transforming the national schools with
such originality and vigor that all art likely to survive is de-
rived from hence, and the population of living figures with
which they have covered our walls denotes, like Gothic archi-
tecture of French tragedy, a unique epoch of human intelligence.
The attenuated mediaeval Christ — a miserable, distorted, and
bleeding earth-worm; the pale and ugly Virgin — a poor old
peasant woman, fainting beside the cross of her Son ; ghastly
martyrs, dried up with fasts, with entranced eyes; knotty-fin-
gered saints with sunken chests — all the touching or lamentable
visions of the Middle Ages have vanished : the train of godheads
which are now developed show nothing but flourishing frames,
noble, regular features, and fine, easy gestures ; the names, the
names only, are Christian. The new Jesus is a " crucified Jupi-
ter," as Pulci called him ; the Virgins which Raphael sketched
naked, before covering them with garments,^ are beautiful girls,
quite earthly, related to the Fornarina. The saints which
Michelangelo arranges and contorts in heaven in his picture
of the Last Judgment are an assembly of athletes, capable of

' See his sketches at Oxford, and See also the Martyrdom of St. Laurence,
those of Fra Bartolommeo at Florence. by Baccio Bandinelli.

1 84 TAINE

fighting well and daring much. A martyrdom, like that of
Saint Laurence, is a fine ceremony in which a beautiful young
man, without clothing, Hes amidst fifty men dressed and grouped
as in an ancient gymnasium. Is there one of them who had
macerated himself? Is there one who had thought with an-
guish and tears of the judgment of God, who had worn down
and subdued his flesh, who had filled his heart with the sadness
and sweetness of the gospel ? They are too vigorous for that ;
they are in too robust health; their clothes fit them too well;
they are too ready for prompt and energetic action. We might
make of them strong soldiers or superb courtesans, admirable in
a pageant or at a ball. So, all that the spectator accords to their
halo of glory is a bow or a sign of the cross ; after which his
eyes find pleasure in them ; they are there simply for the enjoy-
ment of the eyes. What the spectator feels at the sight of a
Florentine Madonna is the splendid creature, whose powerful
body and fine growth bespeak her race and her vigor ; the artist
did not paint moral expression as nowadays, the depth of a soul
tortured and refined by three centuries of culture. They con-
fine themselves to the body, to the extent even of speaking en-
thusiastically of the spinal column itself, " which is magnifi-
cent " ; of the shoulder-blades, which in the movements of the
arm " produce an admirable effect." " You will next draw the
bone which it situated between the hips. It is very fine, and is
called the sacrum." * The important point with them is to rep-
resent the nude well. Beauty with them is that of the complete
skeleton, sinews which are linked together and tightened, the
thighs which support the trunk, the strong chest breathing free-
ly, the pliant neck. What a pleasure to be naked ! How good
it is in the full light to rejoice in a strong body, well-formed
muscles, a spirited and bold soul ! The splendid goddesses re-
appear in their primitive nudity, not dreaming that they are
nude ; you see from the tranquillity of their look, the simplicity
of their expression, that they have always been thus, and that
shame has not yet reached them. The soul's life is not here
contrasted, as amongst us, with the body's life ; the one is not so
lowered and degraded that we dare not show its actions and
functions ; they do not hide them ; man does not dream of being
all spirit. They rise, as of old, from the luminous sea, with

• Benvenuto Cellini, " Principles of the Art of Design."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 185

their rearing steeds tossing up their manes, champing the bit,
inhaling the briny savor, whilst their companions wind the
sounding-shell; and the spectators/ accustomed to handle the
sword, to combat naked with the dagger or double-handled
blade, to ride on perilous roads, sympathize with the proud
shape of the bended back, the effort of the arm about to strike,
the long quiver of the muscles which, from neck to heel, swell
out, to brace a man, or to throw him.

Part II. — Poetry
Section I. — Renaissance of Saxon Genius

Transplanted into different races and climates, this paganism
receives from each, distinct features and a distinct character.
In England it becomes English ; the English Renaissance is the
Renaissance of the Saxon genius. Invention recommences;
and to invent is to express one's genius. A Latin race can only
invent by expressing Latin ideas ; a Saxon race by expressing
Saxon ideas ; and we shall find in the new civilization and po-
etry, descendants of Casdmon and Adhelm, of Piers Plowman,
and Robin Hood.

Section II. — The Earl of Surrey

Old Puttenham says :

" In the latter end of the same king (Henry the eighth) reigne, sprong
up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyat th'
elder and Henry Earle of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who having
travailed into Italic, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures
and stile of the Italian Poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schooles
of Dante, Arioste, and Petrarch, they greatly pollished our rude and
homely maner of vulgar Poesie, from that it had bene before, and for
that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English meetre
and stile." ^

'"Life of Cellini." Compare also una sbarra, sia buono tra il miglior

these exercises which Castiglione pre- francesi. . . . Nel giocare a canne,

scribes for a well-educated man, in his correr torri, lanciar haste e dardi, sia

" Cortegiano," ed. 1585, p. 55: " Pero tra Spagnuoli eccelente. . . . Conveni-

voglio che il nostro cortegiano sia ente e ancor sapere saltare, e correrej

perfetto cavaliere d'ogni sella. . . . Et ... ancor nobile exercitio il gioco dt

perche degli Italiani e peculiar laude palla. . . . Non di minor laude estimo

il_ cavalcare bene alia brida, il maneg- il voltegiar a cavallo."
giar con raggione massimamente cavalli ^Puttenham, "The Arte of English

sspri, il corre lance, il giostare, sia in Poesie," ed. Arber, 1869, book i. ch. 31,

questo de meglior Italiani. . . . Nel p. 74.
tomeare, tener un passo, combattere

i86 TAINE

Not that their style was very original, or openly exhibits the new
spirit: the Middle Ages is nearly ended, but not quite. By their
side Andrew Borde, John Bale, John Heywood, Skelton him-
self, repeat the platitudes of the old poetry and the coarseness
of the old style. Their manners, hardly refined, were still half
feudal ; on the field, before Landrecies, the English commander
wrote a friendly letter to the French governor of Terouanne,
to ask him " if he had not some gentlemen disposed to break a
lance in honor of the ladies," and promised to send six champi-
ons to meet them. Parades, combats, wounds, challenges, love,
ap_peals to the judgment of God, penances — all these are found
in the life of Surrey as in a chivalric romance. A great lord,
an earl, a relative of the king, who had figured in processions
and ceremonies, had made war, commanded fortresses, ravaged
countries, mounted to the assault, fallen in the breach, had been
saved by his servant, magnificent, sumptuous, irritable, ambi-
tious, four times imprisoned, finally beheaded. At the corona-
tion of Anne Boleyn he wore the fourth sword ; at the marriage
of Anne of Cleves he was one of the challengers at the jousts.
Denounced and placed in durance, he offered to fight in his shirt
against an armed adversary. Another time he was put in prison
for having eaten flesh in Lent. No wonder if this prolongation
of chivalric manners brought with it a prolongation of chivalric
poetry ; if in an age which had known Petrarch, poets displayed
the sentiments of Petrarch. Lord Berners, Sackville, Sir
Thomas Wyatt, and Surrey in the first rank, were like Petrarch,
plaintive and platonic lovers. It was pure love to which Surrey
gave expression ; for his lady, the beautiful Geraldine, like Be-
atrice and Laura, was an ideal personage, and a child of thirteen
years.

And yet, amid this languor of mystical tradition, a personal
feeling had sway. In this spirit which imitated, and that badly
at times, which still groped for an outlet and now and then ad-
mitted into its polished stanzas the old, simple expressions and
stale metaphors of heralds of arms and trouveres, there was
already visible the Northern melancholy, the inner and gloomy
emotion. This feature, which presently, at the finest moment
of its richest blossom, in the splendid expansiveness of natural
life, spreads a sombre tint over the poetry of Sidney, Spenser,
Shakespeare, already in the first poet separates this pagan yet

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 187

Teutonic world from the other, wholly voluptuous, which in
Italy, with lively and refined irony, had no taste, except for art
and pleasure. Surrey translated the Ecclesiastes into verse.
Is it not singular, at this early hour, in this rising dawn, to find
such a book in his hand? A disenchantment, a sad or bitter
dreaminess, an innate consciousness of the vanity of human
things, are never lacking in this country and in this race ; the
inhabitants support life with difficulty, and know how to speak
of death. Surrey's finest verses bear witness thus soon to his
serious bent, this instinctive and grave philosophy. He records
his griefs, regretting his beloved Wyatt, his friend Clere, his
companion the young Duke of Richmond, all dead in their
prime. Alone, a prisoner at Windsor, he recalls the happy days
they have passed together :

" So cruel prison how could betide, alas,

As proud Windsor, where I in lust and joy,

With a Kinges son, my childish years did pass,

In greater feast than Priam's son of Troy.

*' Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour,

The large green courts, where we were wont to hove,
With eyes cast up into the Maiden's tower,
And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love.

" The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue.

The dances short, long tales of great delight.

With words and looks, that tigers could but rue;

Where each of us did plead the other's right.

" The palme-play, where, despoiled for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have miss'd the ball, and got sight of our dame.
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above. . , «

"The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust;
The wanton talk, the divers change of play;
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
Wherewith we past the winter night away.

" And with his thought the blood forsakes the face ;
The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue:
The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas !
Up-supped have, thus I my plaint renew:

" O place of bliss! renewer of my woes!

Give me account, where is my noble fere?

i88 TAINE

Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose ;
To other lief; but unto me most dear.

" Echo, alas ! that doth my sorrow rue,

Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint." 2

So in love, it is the sinking of a weary soul, to which he gives
vent:

" For all things having life, sometime hath quiet rest;
The bearing ass, the drawing ox, and every other beast;
The peasant, and the post, that serves at all assays ;
The ship-boy, and the galley-slave, have time to take their ease;
Save I, alas ! whom care of force doth so constrain.
To wail the day, and wake the night, continually in pain,
From pensiveness to plaint, from plaint to bitter tears,
From tears to painful plaint again ; and thus my life it wears." *

That which brings joy to others brings him grief :

" The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs ;
The hart has hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale ;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
The busy bee her honey .low she mings ;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs ! " *

For all that, he will love on to his last sigh :

" Yea, rather die a thousand times, than once to false my faith;
And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart
Do fail, or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart.
And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar'd,
I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward." ^

An infinite love, and pure as Petrarch's ; and she is worthy of
it. In the midst of all these studied or imitated verses, an ad-

» Surrey's " Poems," Pickering, 1831, * Ibid. " Description of Spring,

p. 17. wherein everything renews, save only

* Ibid. " The faithful lover declareth the lover," p. 2.

his pains and his uncertain joys, and 'Ibid. p. 50,
with only hope recomforteth his woful
heart," p. 53.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 189

mirable portrait stands out, the simplest and truest we can im-
agine, a work of the heart now, and not of the memory, which
behind the Madonna of chivalry shows the English wife, and
beyond feudal gallantry domestic bliss. Surrey alone, restless,
hears within him the firm tones of a good friend, a sincere coun-
sellor, Hope, who speaks to him thus :

" For I assure thee, even by oath,
And thereon take my hand and troth,
That she is one of the worthiest,
The truest, and the faithfuUest;
The gentlest and the meekest of mind
That here on earth a man may find :
And if that love and truth were gone,
In her it might be found alone.
For in her mind no thought there is,
But how she may be true, I wis ;
And tenders thee and all thy heale,
And wishes both thy health and weal;
And loves thee even as far forth than
As any woman may a man;
And is thine own, and so she says;
And cares for thee ten thousand ways.
Of thee she speaks, on thee she thinks ;
With thee she eats, with thee she drinks;
With thee she talks, with thee she moans;
With thee she sighs, with thee she groans;
With thee she says ' Farewell mine own ! '
When thou, God knows, full far art gone.
And even, to tell thee all aright.
To thee she says full oft ' Good night ! *
And names thee oft her own most dear.
Her comfort, weal, and all her cheer;
And tells her pillow all the tale
How thou hast done her woe and bale;
And how she longs, an'd plains for thee,
And says, * Why art thou so from me?*
Am I not she that loves thee best!
Do I not wish thine ease and rest?
Seek I not how I may thee please?
Why art thou then so from thine ease?
If I be she for whom thou carest,
For whom in torments so thou farest,
Alas ! thou knowest to find me here.
Where I remain thine own most dear.
Thine own most true, thine own most just,
Thine own that loves thee still, and must;

I90 TAINE

Thine own that cares alone for thee,
As thou, I think, dost care for me;
And even the woman, she alone.
That is full bent to be thine own." ^

Certainly it is of his wife "^ that he is thinking here, not of an
imaginary Laura. The poetic dream of Petrarch has become
the exact picture of deep and perfect conjugal affection, such as
yet survives in England ; such as all the poets, from the author-
ess of the '* Nutbrown Maid " to Dickens,* have never failed to
represent.

Section III Surrey's Style

An English Petrarch : no juster title could be given to Surrey,
for it expresses his talent as well as his disposition. In fact, like
Petrarch, the oldest of the humanists, and the earliest exact
writer of the modern tongue, Surrey introduces a new style, the
manly style, which marks a great change of the mind; for this
new form of writing is the result of superior reflection, which,
governing the primitive impulse, calculates and selects with an
end in view. At last the intellect has grown capable of self-
criticism, and actually criticises itself. It corrects its unconsid-
ered works, infantine and incoherent, at once incomplete and
superabundant; it strengthens and binds them together; it
prunes and perfects them; it takes from them the master idea, to
set it free and to show it clearly. This is what Surrey does, and
his education had prepared him for it; for he had studied Vergil
as well as Petrarch, and translated two books of the ^neid,
almost verse for verse. In such company a man cannot but
select his ideas and connect his phrases. After their example,
Surrey gauges the means of striking the attention, assisting the
intelligence, avoiding fatigue and weariness. He looks forward
to the last line whilst writing the first. He keeps the strongest
word for the last, and shows the symmetry of ideas by the sym-
metry of phrases. Sometimes he guides the intelligence by a
continuous series of contrasts to the final image; a kind of
sparkling casket, in which he means to deposit the idea which

• Surrey's " Poems." " A description the Sea," he speaks in direct terms of

of the restless state of the lover when his wife, almost as affectionateiy.

absent from the mistress of his heart," * Greene, Beaumont and Fletcher,

p. 78. Webster, Shakespeare, Ford, Otway,

' In another piece, " Complaint on Richardson, De ¥ot. Fielding, Dickens,

the Absence of her Lover being upon Thackeray, etc.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

191

he carries, and to which he directs our attention from the first.^
Sometimes he leads his reader to the close of a long flowery de-
scription, and then suddenly checks him with a sorrowful
phrase.^ He arranges his process, and knows how to produce
effects; he uses even classical expressions, in which two sub-
stantives, each supported by its adjective, are balanced on either
side of the verb.' He collects his phrases in harmonious periods,
and does not neglect the delight of the ears any more than of the
mind. By his inversions he adds force to his ideas, and weight
to his argument. He selects elegant or noble terms, rejects idle
words and redundant phrases. Every epithet contains an idea,
every metaphor a sentiment. There is eloquence in the regular
development of his thought; music in the sustained accent of his
verse.

Such is the new-born art. Those who have ideas, now pos-
sess an instrument capable of expressing them. Like the Ital-
ian painters, who in fifty years had introduced or discovered all
the technical tricks of the brueh, English writers, in half a cen-
tury, introduce or discover all the artifices of language, period,
elevated style, heroic verse, soon the grand stanza, so effectually,
that a little later the most perfect versifiers, Dryden, and Pope
himself, says Dr. Nott, will add scarce anything to the rules, in-
vented or applied, which were employed in the earliest efforts.*
Even Surrey is too near to these authors, too constrained in his
models, not sufificiently free; he has not yet felt the fiery blast of
the age; we do not find in him a bold genius, an impassioned
writer capable of wide expansion, but a courtier, a lover of ele-
gance, who, penetrated by the beauties of two finished litera-
tures, imitates Horace and the chosen masters of Italy, corrects
and polishes little morsels, aims at speaking perfectly fine lan-
guage. Amongst semi-barbarians he wears a full dress becom-
ingly. Yet he does not wear it completely at his ease: he keeps
his eyes too exclusively on his models, and does not venture on
frank and free gestures. He is sometimes as a school-boy,
makes too great use of " hot " and " cold," wounds and martyr-
dom. Although a lover, and a genuine one, he thinks too much
that he must be so in Petrarch's manner, that his phrase must

1 " The Frailty and Hurtfulness of ' " Complaint of the Lover Dis»

Beauty." dained."

• " Description of Spring." " A Vow * Surrey, ed. Nott.
to Love Faithfully."

192 TAINE

be balanced and his image kept up. I had almost said that, in his
sonnets of disappointed love, he thinks less often of the strength
of love than of the beauty of his writing. He has conceits, ill-
chosen words; he uses trite expressions; he relates how Nature,
having formed his lady, broke the mould, he assigns parts to
Cupid and Venus ; he employs the old machinery of the trouba-
dours and the ancients, like a clever man who wishes to pass for
a gallant. At first scarce any mind dares be quite itself: when
a new art arises, the first artist listens not to his heart, but to his
masters, and asks himself at every step whether he be setting foot
on solid ground, or whether he is not stumbling.

Section IV. — Development of Artistic Ideas

Insensibly the growth became complete, and at the end of the
century all was changed. A new, strange, overloaded style had
been formed, destined to remain in force until the Restoration,
not only in poetry, but also in prose, even in ceremonial speech
and theological discourse,^ so suitable to the spirit of the age
that we meet with it at the same time throughout the world of
Europe, in Ronsard and d'Aubigne, in Calderon, Gongora, and
Marini. In 1580 appeared " Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit," by
Lyly, which was its text-book, its masterpiece, its caricature,
and was received with universal admiration.^ " Our nation,"
says Edward Blount, " are in his debt for a new English which
hee taught them. All our ladies were then his scollers; and that
beautie in court who could not parley Euphuesme was as little
regarded as shee which now there speakes not French." The
ladies knew the phrases of Euphues by heart: strange, studied,
and refined phrases, enigmatical; whose author seems of set
purpose to seek the least natural expressions and the most far-
fetched, full of exaggeration and antithesis, in which mythologi-
cal allusions, reminiscences from alchemy, botanical and astro-
nomical metaphors, all the rubbish and medley of learning,
travels, mannerism, roll in a flood of conceits and comparisons.
Do not judge it by the grotesque picture that Walter Scott drew

* The Speaker's address to Charles II tion the speech before the University

on his restoration. Compare it with the of Oxford, " Athenae Oxonienses," i.

Eeech of M. de Fontanes under the 193.

npire. In each case it was the close *His second work, "Euphues aad

of a literary epoch. Read for illustra- his England," appeared in 1581.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 193

of it. Sir Piercie Shafton is but a pedant, a cold and dull copyist ;
it is its warmth and originality which give this style a true force
and an accent of its own. You must conceive it, not as dead and
inert, such as we have it to-day in old books, but springing from
the lips of ladies and young lords in pearl-bedecked doublet,
quickened by their vibrating voices, their laughter, the flash of
their eyes, the motion of their hands as they played with the hilt
of their swords or with their satin cloaks. They were full of
life, their heads filled to overflowing; and they amused them-
selves, as our sensitive and eager artists do, at their ease in the
studio. They did not speak to convince or be understood, but
to satisfy their excited imagination, to expend their overflowing
wit.^ They played with words, twisted, put them out of shape,
enjoyed sudden views, strong contrasts, which they produced
one after another, ever and anon, and in great quantities. They
cast flower on flower, tinsel on tinsel : everything sparkling de-
lighted them ; they gilded and embroidered and plumed their
language like their garments. They cared nothing for clearness,
order, common-sense; it was a festival of madness; absurdity
pleased them. They knew nothing more tempting than a car-
nival of splendors and oddities; all was huddled together: a
coarse gayety, a tender and sad word, a pastoral, a sounding
flourish of unmeasured boasting, a gambol of a Jack-pudding,
Eyes, ears, all the senses, eager and excited, are satisfied by this
jingle of syllables, the display of fine high-colored words, the
unexpected clash of droll or familiar images, the majestic roll of
well-poised periods. Every one had his own oaths, his ele-
gances, his style. " One would say," remarks Heylyn, " that
they are ashamed of their mother-tongue, and do not find it suffi-
ciently varied to express the whims of their mind." We no
longer imagine this inventiveness, this boldness of fancy, this
ceaseless fertility of nervous sensibility: there was no genuine
prose at that time; the poetic flood swallowed it up. A word
was not an exact symbol, as with us; a document which from
cabinet to cabinet carried a precise thought. It was part of a
complete action, a little drama; when they read it they did not
take it by itself, but imagined it with the intonation of a hissing
and shrill voice, with the puckering of the lips, the knitting of
the brows, and the succession of pictures which crowd behind it,

* See Shakespeare's young men, Mercutio especially.

194

TAINE

and which it calls forth in a flash of lightning. Each one mim-
ics and pronounces it in his own style, and impresses his own
soul upon it. It was a song, which like the poet's verse, contains
a thousand things besides the literal sense, and manifests the
depth, warmth, and sparkling of the source whence it flowed.
For in that time, even when the man was feeble, his work lived;
there is some pulse in the least productions of this age; force
and creative fire signalize it; they penetrate through bombast
and affectation. Lyly himself, so fantastic that he seems to write
purposely in defiance of common-sense, is at times a genuine
poet; a singer, a man capable of rapture, akin to Spenser and
Shakespeare; one of those introspective dreamers who see danc-
ing fairies, the purpled cheeks of goddesses, drunken, amorous
woods, as he says

" Adorned with the presence of my love,
The woods I fear such secret power shall prove,
As they'll shut up each path, hide every way,
Because they still would have her go astray." *

The reader must assist me, and assist himself. I cannot other-
wise give him to understand what the men of this age had the
felicity to experience.

Luxuriance and irregularity were the two features of this
spirit and this literature — features common to all the literatures
of the Renaissance, but more marked here than elsewhere, be-
cause the German race is not confined, like the Latin, by the
taste for harmonious forms, and prefers strong impression to
fine expression. We must select amidst this crowd of poets;
and here is one amongst the first, who exhibits, by his writings
as well as by his life, the greatness and the folly of the prevailing
manners and the public taste: Sir Philip Sidney, nephew of the
Earl of Leicester, a great lord and a man of action, accomplished
in every kind of culture ; who, after a good training in classical
literature, travelled in France, Germany, and Italy; read Plato
and Aristotle, studied astronomy and geometry at Venice; pon-
dered over the Greek tragedies, the Italian sonnets, the pastorals
of Montemayor, the poems of Ronsard ; displaying an interest in
science, keeping up an exchange of letters with the learned Hu-
bert Languet; and withal a man of the world, a favorite of

* " The Maid her Metamorphosis."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 195

Elizabeth, having had enacted in her honor a flattering and
comic pastoral; a genuine " jewel of the court "; a judge, like
d'Urfe, of lofty gallantry and fine language; above all, chival-
rous in heart and deed, who wished to follow maritime adventure
with Drake, and, to crown all, fated to die an early and heroic
death. He was a cavalry ofificer, and had saved the English
army at Gravelines. Shortly after, mortally wounded, and
dying of thirst, as some water was brought to him, he saw by his
side a soldier still more desperately hurt, who was looking at the
water with anguish in his face: " Give it to this man," said he;
" his necessity is still greater than mine." Do not forget the ve-
hemence and impetuosity of the Middle Ages; one hand ready
for action, and kept incessantly on the hilt of the sword or pon-
iard. " Mr. Molineux," wrote he to his father's secretary, " if
ever I know you to do so much as read any letter I write to my
father, without his commandment or my consent, I will thrust
my dagger into you. And trust to it, for I speak it in earnest."
It was the same man who said to his uncle's adversaries that they
" lied in their throat "; and to support his words, promised them
a meeting in three months in any place in Europe. The savage
energy of the preceding age remains intact, and it is for this
reason that poetry took so firm a hold on these virgin souls. The
human harvest is never so fine as when cultivation opens up a
new soil. Impassioned, moreover, melancholy and solitary, he
naturally turned to noble and ardent fantasy; and he was so
much the poet that he had no need of verse.

Shall I describe his pastoral epic, the " Arcadia "? It is but a
recreation, a sort of poetical romance, written in the country for
the amusement of his sister; a work of fashion, which, like " Cy-
rus " and "Clelie," ^ is not a monument, but a document. This
kind of books shows only the externals, the current elegance and
politeness, the jargon of the fashionable world — in short, that
which should be spoken before ladies; and yet we perceive from
it the bent of the public opinion. In " Clelie," oratorical de-
velopment, delicate and collected analysis, the flowing converse
of men seated quietly in elegant arm-chairs; in the " Arcadia,"
fantastic imagination, excessive sentiment, a medley of events
which suited men scarcely recovered from barbarism. Indeed,

^ Two French novels of the age of written by Mademoiselle de Scudery.—
Louis XIV, each in ten volumes, and Tr.

196 TAINE

in London they still used to fire pistols at each other in the
streets ; and under Henry VIII and his children, Queens, a Pro-
tector, the highest nobles, knelt under the axe of the execu-
tioner. Armed and perilous existence long resisted in Europe
the establishment of peaceful and quiet life. It was necessary
to change society and the soil, in order to transform men of the
sword into citizens. The high roads of Louis XIV and his
regular administration, and more recently the railroads and the
ser gents de ville, freed the French from habits of violence and a
taste for dangerous adventure. Remember that at this period
men's heads were full of tragical images. Sidney's " Arcadia "
contains enough of them to supply half a dozen epics. " It is a
trifle," says the author; " my young head must be delivered."
In the first twenty-five pages you meet with a shipwreck, an ac-
count of pirates, a half-drowned prince rescued by shepherds, a
journey in Arcadia, various disguises, the retreat of a king with-
drawn into solitude with his wife and children, the deliverance of
a young imprisoned lord, a war against the Helots, the conclusion
of peace, and many other things. Read on, and you will find
princesses shut up by a wicked fairy, who beats them, and threat-
ens them with death if they refuse to marry her son; a beautiful
queen condemned to perish by fire if certain knights do not come
to her succor; a treacherous prince tortured for his wicked
deeds, then cast from the top of a pyramid; fights, surprises,
abductions, travels: in short, the whole programme of the most
romantic tales. That is the serious element: the agreeable is of
a like nature; the fantastic predominates. Improbable pastoral
serves, as in Shakespeare or Lope de Vega, for an intermezzo to
improbable tragedy. You are always coming upon dancing
shepherds. They are very courteous, good poets, and subtle
metaphysicians. Several of them are disguised princes who pay
their court to the princesses. They sing continually, and get
up allegorical dances; two bands approach, servants of Reason
and Passion; their hats, ribbons, and dress are described in full.
They quarrel in verse, and their retorts, which follow close on
one another, over-refined, keep up a tournament of wit. Who
cared for what was natural or possible in this age? There were
such festivals at Elizabeth's " progresses "; and you have only to
look at the engravings of Sadeler, Martin de Vos, and Goltzius,
to find this mixture of sensitive beauties and philosophical enig-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 197

mas. The Countess of Pembroke and her ladies were deHghted
to picture this profusion of costumes and verses, this play be-
neath the trees. They had eyes in the sixteenth century, senses
which sought satisfaction in poetry — the same satisfaction as in
masquerading and painting. Man was not yet a pure reasoner;
abstract truth was not enough for him. Rich stuffs, twisted
about and folded; the sun to shine upon them, a large meadow
studded with white daisies; ladies in brocaded dresses, with bare
arms, crowns on their heads, instruments of music behind the
trees — this is what the reader expects; he cares nothing for con-
trasts; he will readily accept a drawing-room in the midst of the
fields.

What are they going to say there? Here comes out that nerv-
ous exaltation, in all its folly, which is characteristic of the spirit
of the age; love rises to the thirty-sixth heaven. Musidorus is
the brother of Celadon; Pamela is closely related to the severe
heroines of " Astree "; ® all the Spanish exaggerations abound
and all the Spanish falsehoods. For in these works of fashion or
of the Court, primitive sentiment never retains its sincerity: wit,
the necessity to please, the desire for effect, of speaking better
than others, alter it, influence it, heap up embellishments and
refinements, so that nothing is left but twaddle, Musidorus
wished to give Pamela a kiss. She repels him. He would have
died on the spot; but luckily remembers that his mistress com-
manded him to leave her, and finds himself still able to obey her
command. He complains to the trees, weeps in verse: there are
dialogues where Echo, repeating the last word, replies; duets in
rhyme, balanced stanzas, in which the theory of love is minutely
detailed; in short, all the grand airs of ornamental poetry. If
they send a letter to their mistress, they speak to it, tell the ink:
" Therfore mourne boldly, my inke; for while shee lookes upon
you, your blacknesse will shine: cry out boldly my lamentation;
for while shee reades you, your cries will be musicke." "^

Again, two young princesses are going to bed: "They im-
poverished their clothes to enrich their bed, which for that night
might well scorne the shrine of Venus; and there cherishing one
another with deare, though chaste embracements; with sweete,

• Celadon, a rustic lover in " Astree," after the heroine, and written by
a French novel in five volumes, named d'Urfe (d. 1625).— Tr.

' " Arcadia," ed. fol. 1629, p. 117.

198 TAINE

though cold kisses; it might seeme that love was come to play
him there without dart, or that wearie of his owne fires, he was
there to refresh himselfe betwen their sweete breathing lippes." ^

In excuse of these folHes, remember that they have their par-
allels in Shakespeare. Try rather to comprehend them, to im-
agine them in their place, with their surroundings, such as they
are; that is, as the excess of singularity and inventive fire. Even
though they mar now and then the finest ideas, yet a natural
freshness pierces through the disguise. Take another example:
" In the time that the morning did strew roses and violets in the
heavenly floore against the coming of the sun, the nightingales
(striving one with the other which could in most dainty varietie
recount their wronge-caused sorrow) made them put off their
sleep."

In Sidney's second work, " The Defence of Poesie," we meet
with genuine imagination, a sincere and serious tone, a grand,
commanding style, all the passion and elevation which he carries
in his heart and puts into his verse. He is a muser, a Platonist,
who is penetrated by the doctrines of the ancients, who takes
things from a lofty point of view, who places the excellence of
poetry not in pleasing effect, imitation, or rhyme, but in that
creative and superior conception by which the artist creates
anew and embellishes nature. At the same time, he is an ardent
man, trusting in the nobleness of his aspirations and in the width
of his ideas, who puts down the brawling of the shoppy, narrow,
vulgar Puritanism, and glows with the lofty irony, the proud
freedom, of a poet and a lord.

In his eyes, if there is any art or science capable of augmenting
and cultivating our generosity, it is poetry. He draws compari-
son after comparison between it and philosophy or history,
whose pretensions he laughs at and dismisses.^ He fights for
poetry as a knight for his lady, and in what heroic and splendid
style! He says: " I never heard the old Song of Percie and
Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a
trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blinde Crowder, with
no rougher voyce, than rude stile ; which beeing so evill appar-

• " Arcadia," ed. fol. 1629, p. 114. teria, will hardly agree with a Corse-

• " The Defence of Poesie," ea. fol. let." See also, in the same book, the

1620, p. 558: " I dare undertake, that very lively and spirited personification

Orlando Furioso, or honest King Ar- of History and Philosophy, full of gen»

thur, will never displease a soldier: but uine talent.

the Quidditie of Ens and prima ma-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 199

elled in the dust and Cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it
work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindare? " ^°

The philosopher repels, the poet attracts: " Nay hee doth as if
your journey should lye through a faire vineyard, at the very
first, give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste, you
may long to passe further." ^^

What description of poetry can displease you? Not pastoral
so easy and genial? " Is it the bitter but wholesome lambicke,
who rubbes the galled minde, making shame the Trumpet of vil-
lanie, with bold and open crying out against naughtinesse?" ^^

At the close he reviews his arguments, and the vibrating mar-
tial accent of his political period is like a trump of victory: " So
that since the excellencies of it (poetry) may bee so easily and
so justly confirmed, and the low-creeping objections so soone
trodden downe, it not being an Art of lyes, but of true doctrine:
not of effeminatenesse, but of notable stirring of courage; not
of abusing man's wit, but of strengthening man's wit; not ban-
ished, but honoured by Plato; let us rather plant more Laurels
for to ingarland the Poets heads than suffer the ill-savoured
breath of such wrong speakers, once to blow upon the cleare
springs of Poesie." ^^

From such vehemence and gravity you may anticipate what
his verses will be.

Often, after reading the poets of this age, I have looked for
some time at the contemporary prints, telling myself that man,
in mind and body, was not then such as we see him to-day. We
also have our passions, but we are no longer strong enough to
bear them. They unsettle us; we are no longer poets without
suffering for it. Alfred de Musset, Heine, Edgar Poe, Burns,
Byron, Shelley, Cowper, how many shall I instance? Disgust,
mental and bodily degradation, disease, impotence, madness,
suicide, at best a permanent hallucination or feverish raving —
these are nowadays the ordinary issues of the poetic tempera-
ment. The passion of the brain gnaws our vitals, dries up the
blood, eats into the marrow, shakes us like a tempest, and the
human frame, such as civilization has made us, is not substantial

1° " The Defence of Poesie," ed. fol. ^^ Ibid. p. 560. Here and there we

1629, p. 553. find also verse as spirited as this:

" Ibid. p. 550. " Or Pindar's Apes, flaunt they in

" Ibid. p. 55a. phrases fine,

Enam'ling with pied flowers their
thoughts of gold."— P. 568.

200 TAINE

enough long to resist it. They, who have been more roughly
trained, who are more inured to the inclemencies of climate, more
hardened by bodily exercise, more firm against danger, endure
and live. Is there a man living who could withstand the storm
of passions and visions which swept over Shakespeare, and end,
like him, as a sensible citizen and landed proprietor in his small
county? The muscles were firmer, despair less prompt. The
rage of concentrated attention, the half hallucinations, the an-
guish and heaving of the breast, the quivering of the limbs brac-
ing themselves involuntarily and blindly for action, all the pain-
ful yearnings which accompany grand desires, exhausted them
less; this is why they desired longer, and dared more.
D'Aubigne, wounded with many sword-thrusts, conceiving
death at hand, had himself bound on his horse that he might see
his mistress once more, and rode thus several leagues, losing
blood all the way, and arriving in a swoon. Such feelings we
glean still from their portraits, in the straight looks which pierce
like a sword ; in that strength of back, bent or twisted ; in the
sensuality, energy, entluisiasm, which breathe from their attitude
or look. Such feelings we still discover in their poetry, in
Greene, Lodge, Jonson, Spenser, Shakespeare, in Sidney, as in
all the rest. We quickly forget the faults of taste which accom-
pany them, the affectation, the uncouth jargon. Is it really so
uncouth? Imagine a man who with closed eyes distinctly sees
the adored countenance of his mistress, who keeps it before him
all the day; who is troubled and shaken as he imagines ever and
anon her brow, her lips, her eyes; who cannot and will not be
separated from his vision ; who sinks daily deeper in this passion-
ate contemplation; who is every instant crushed by mortal anxie-
ties, or transported by the raptures of bliss : he will lose the exact
conception of objects. A fixed idea becomes a false idea. By
dint of regarding an object under all its forms, turning it over,
piercing through it, we at last deform it. When we cannot think
of a thing without being dazed and without tears, we magnify it,
and give it a character which it has not. Hence strange com-
parisons, over-refined ideas, excessive images, become natural.
However far Sidney goes, whatever object he touches, he sees
throughout the universe only the name and features of Stella.
All ideas bring him back to her. He is drawn ever and invinci-
bly by the same thought: and comparisons which seem far-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 20 r

fetched, only express the unfailing presence and sovereign power
of the besetting image. Stella is ill; it seems to Sidney that
" Joy, which is inseparate from those eyes, Stella, now learnes
(strange case) to weepe in thee." ^* To us, the expression is
absurd. Is it so for Sidney, who for hours together had dwelt on
the expression of those eyes, seeing in them at last all the beau-
ties of heaven and earth, who, compared to them, finds all light
dull and all happiness stale? Consider that in every extreme
passion ordinary laws are reversed, that our logic cannot pass
judgment on it, that w^e find in it affectation, childishness, witti-
cisms, crudity, folly, and that to us violent conditions of the nerv-
ous machine are like an unknown and marvellous land, where
common-sense and good language cannot penetrate. On the re-
turn of spring, when May spreads over the fields her dappled
dress of new flowers, Astrophel and Stella sit in the shade of a
retired grove, in the warm air, full of birds' voices and pleasant
exhalations. Heaven smiles, the wind kisses the trembling
leaves, the inclining trees interlace their sappy branches, amor-
ous earth swallows greedily the rippling water:

" In a grove most rich of shade,
Where birds wanton musike made,
May, then yong, his py'd weeds showing,
New perfum'd with flowers fresh growing,

*' Astrophel with Stella sweet,
Did for mutuall comfort meet.
Both within themselves oppressed,
But each in the other blessed. . . .

" Their eares hungry of each word.
Which the deere tongue would aflford,
But their tongues restrain'd from walking,
Till their hearts had ended talking.

** But when their tongues could not speake,
Love it selfe did silence breake ;
Love did set his lips asunder.
Thus to speake in love and wonder. . . »

** This small winde which so sweet is,
See how it the leaves doth kisse,
Each tree in his best attyring,
Sense of love to love inspiring." i**

" " Astrophel and Stella," ed. fol. " Ibid. 8th song, p. 603.

1629, loist sonnet, p. 613.

202 TAINE

On his knees, with beating heart, oppressed, it seems to him that
his mistress becomes transformed :

" Stella, soveraigne of my joy, . . .
Stella, starre of heavenly fire,
Stella, load-starre of desire,
Stella, in whose shining eyes
Are the lights of Cupid's skies. . . .
Stella, whose voice when it speakes
Senses all asunder breakes;
Stella, whose voice when it singeth.
Angels to acquaintance bringeth." i'

These cries of adoration are like a hymn. Every day he writes
thoughts of love which agitate him, and in this long journal of
a hundred pages we feel the heated breath swell each moment.
A smile from his mistress, a curl lifted by the wind, a gesture —
all are events. He paints her in every attitude; he cannot see
her too constantly. He talks to the birds, plants, winds, all nat-
ure. He brings the whole world to Stella's feet. At the notion
of a kiss he swoons :

" Thinke of that most gratefull time,
When thy leaping heart will climbe,
In my lips to have his biding.
There those roses for to kisse.
Which doe breath a sugred blisse,
Opening rubies, pearles dividing." i'

** O joy, too high for my low stile to show :

O blisse, fit for a nobler state than me :

Envie, put out thine eyes, lest thou do see
What Oceans of delight in me do flow.
My friend, that oft saw through all maskes my wO,

Come, come, and let me powre my selfe on thee;

Gone is the winter of my miserie,
My spring appeares, O see what here doth grow,
For Stella hath with words where faith doth shine,

Of her high heart giv'n me the monarchic :
I, I, O I may say that she is mine." ^^

There are Oriental splendors in the dazzling sonnet in which he
asks why Stella's cheeks have grown pale :

" Where be those Roses gone, which sweetned so our eyes?
Where those red cheekes, with oft with faire encrease doth frame

" " Astrophel and Stella " (1629), 8th " Ibid. loth song, p. 610.

•ong, 604. "Ibid, sonnet 69, p. 555.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame ?

Who hath the crimson weeds stolne from my morning skies?

8O3

As he says, his " Hfe melts with too much thinking." Exhaust-
ed by ecstasy, he pauses; then he flies from thought to thought,
seeking reUef for his wound, Hke the Satyr whom he describes:

" Prometheus, when first from heaven hie
He brought downe fire, ere then on earth not seene,
Fond of delight, a Satyr standing by,
Gave it a kisse, as it like sweet had beene.

" Feeling forthwith the other burning power.
Wood with the smart with showts and shryking shrill,
He sought his ease in river, field, and bower,
But for the time his griefe went with him still." 20

At last calm returned; and whilst this calm lasts, the lively, glow-
ing spirit plays like a flickering flame on the surface of the deep
brooding fire. His love-songs and word-portraits, delightful
pagan and chivalric fancies, seem to be inspired by Petrarch or
Plato. We feel the charm and sportiveness under the seeming
affectation :

" Faire eyes, sweete lips, deare heart, that foolish I
Could hope by Cupids helpe on you to pray ;
Since to himselfe he doth your gifts apply,
As his maine force, choise sport, and easefull stray.

" For when he will see who dare him gainsay,
Then with those eyes he lookes, lo by and by
Each soule doth at Loves feet his weapons lay,
Glad if for her he give them leave to die.

" When he will play, then in her lips he is.
Where blushing red, that Loves selfe them doth love,
With either lip he doth the other kisse :
But when he will for quiets sake remove
From all the world, her heart is then his rome,
Where well he knowes, no man to him can come." 21

Both heart* and sense are captive here. If he finds the eyes of
Stella more beautiful than anything in the world, he finds her
soul more lovely than her body. He is a Platonist when he
recounts how Virtue, wishing to be loved of men, took Stella's

" " Astrophel and Stella" (1629), i., says it was written by Sir Edward

sonnet 102, p. 614. Dyer, Chancellor of the Most Qoblc

^ Ibid. p. 525: this sonnet is headed Order of the Garter. — Tr.

E. D. Wood, in his " Athen. Oxon." "^ Ibid, sonnet 43, p. 545.

204

TAINE

form to enchant their eyes, and make them see the heaven which
the inner sense reveals to heroic souls. We recognize in him
that entire submission of heart, love turned into a religion, per-
fect passion which asks only to grow, and which, like the piety
of the mystics, finds itself always too insignificant when it com-
pares itself with the object loved:

" My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toyet,
My wit doth strive those passions to defend,
Which for reward spoyle it with vaine annoyes,
I see my course to lose my selfe doth bend:
I see and yet no greater sorrow take,
Than that I lose no more for Stella's sake." 22

At last, like Socrates in the banquet, he turns his eyes to death-
less beauty, heavenly brightness:

" Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou my minde aspire to higher things:
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. . . .
O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide,
In this small course which birth drawes out to death." '"

Divine love continues the earthly love; he was imprisoned in
this, and frees himself. By this nobility, these lofty aspirations,
recognize one of those serious souls of which there are so many
in the same climate and race. Spiritual instincts pierce through
the dominant paganism, and ere they make Christians, make
Platonists.

Section V Wherein Lies the Strength of the Poetry of this

Period

Sidney was only a soldier in an army; there is a multitude
about him, a multitude of poets. In fifty-two years, without
counting the drama, two hundred and thirty-three are enume-
rated,^ of whom forty have genius or talent: Breton, Donne,
Drayton, Lodge, Greene, the two Fletchers, Beaumont, Spenser,
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Wither, Warner, Davison,
Carew, Suckling, Herrick; we should grow tired in counting
them. There is a crop of them, and so there is at the same

23" Astrophel and Stella" (1629), son- Among these 233 poets the authors of

net 18, p. 573. isolated pieces are not reckoned, but

2» Ibid, last sonnet, p. 539. only those who published or collected

» Nathan Drake, ''^Shakspeare and their works.
kis Times," i. Part 2, ch. 2, 3. 4-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 205

time in Catholic and heroic Spain; and as in Spain it was a sign
of the times, the mark of a public want, the index to an extra-
ordinary and transient condition of the mind. What is this con-
dition which gives rise to so universal a taste for poetry? What
is it breathes life into their books? How happens it that
amongst the least, in spite of pedantries, awkwardnesses, in the
rhyming chronicles or descriptive cyclopaedias, we meet with
brilliant pictures and genuine love-cries? How happens it that
when this generation was exhausted, true poetry ended in Eng-
land, as true painting in Italy and Flanders? It was because
an epoch of the mind came and passed away — that, namely, of
instinctive and creative conception. These men had new senses,
and no theories in their heads. Thus, when they took a walk,
their emotions were not the same as ours. What is sunrise to an
ordinary man? A white smudge on the edge of the sky, be-
tween bosses of clouds, amid pieces of land, and bits of road,
which he does not see because he has seen them a hundred times.
But for them, all things have a soul ; I mean that they feel within
themselves, indirectly, the uprising and severance of the out-
lines, the power and contrast of tints, the sad or delicious senti-
ment, which breathes from this combination and union like a
harmony or a cry. How sorrowful is the sun, as he rises in a
mist above the sad sea-furrows; what an air of resignation in
the old trees rustling in the night rain ; what a feverish tumult
in the mass of waves, whose dishevelled locks are twisted for-
ever on the surface of the abyss! But the great torch of heaven,
the luminous god, emerges and shines; the tall, soft, pliant
herbs, the evergreen meadows, the expanding roof of lofty oaks
— the whole English landscape, continually renewed and illum-
ined by the flooding moisture, diffuses an inexhaustible fresh-
ness. These meadows, red and white with flowers, ever moist
and ever young, slip off their veil of golden mist, and appear
suddenly, timidly, like beautiful virgins. Here is the cuckoo-
flower, which springs up before the coming of the swallow;
there the hare-bell, blue as the veins of a woman ; the marigold,
which sets with the sun, and, weeping, rises with him. Dray-
ton, in his " Polyolbion," sings

" Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glittring East
Guilds every lofty top, which late the humorous Night
Bespangled had with pearle, to please the Mornings sight:-
10— Classica. Vol. 38

2o6 TAINE

On which the mirthfull Quires, with their cleere open throats,
Unto the joyfull Morne so straine their warbling notes,
That Hills and Valleys ring, and even the ecchoing Ayre
Seemes all compos'd of sounds, about them everywhere. . . .
Thus sing away the Morne, untill the mounting Sunne,
Through thick exhaled fogs, his golden head hath runne,
And through the twisted tops of our close Covert creeps.
To kiss the gentle Shade, this while that sweetly sleeps." 2

A step further, and you will find the old gods reappear. They
reappear, these living gods — these living gods mingled with
things which you cannot help meeting as soon as you meet nat-
ure again. Shakespeare, in the " Tempest," sings:

" Ceres, most bounteous lady thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
Thy banks with peoned and lilied brims.
Which spongy April at thy best betrims,
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns . . .
Hail, many-colour'd messenger (Iris ) . . .
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers.
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down." ^

In " Cymbeline " he says :

" They are as gentle as zephyrs, blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head." *

Greene writes :

" When Flora, proud in pomp of all her flowers,
Sat bright and gay,
And gloried in the dew of Iris' showers.

And did display
Her mantle chequered all with gaudy green." *»

The same author also says :

" How oft have I descending Titan seen,
His burning locks couch in the sea-queen's lap;
And beauteous Thetis his red body wrap
In watery robes, as he her lord had been ! " «

■ Drayton's " Polyolbion," ed. 1622, * Greene's Poems, ed. Bell, " Eurym-

13th song, p. 214. achus in Laudem Mirimidae," p. 73.

• Shakespeare's " Tempest," act iv. i. • Ibid. Melicertus's description of his

* Ibid, act iv. 2. Mistress, p. 38.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 207

So Spenser, in his " Faerie Queene," sings:

" The joyous day gan early to appeare ;
And fayre Aurora from the deawy bed
Of aged Tithone gan herselfe to reare
With rosy cheekes, for shame as blushing red:
Her golden locks, for hast, were loosely shed
About her eares, when Una her did marke
Clymbe to her charet, all with flowers spred,
From heven high to chace the chearelesse darke;
With mery note her lowd salutes the mounting larke." ^

All the splendor and sweetness of this moist and well-watered
land; all the specialties, the opulence of its dissolving tints, of
its variable sky, its luxuriant vegetation, assemble thus about
the gods, who gave them their beautiful form.

In the life of every man there are moments when, in presence
of objects, he experiences a shock. This mass of ideas, of man-
gled recollections, of mutilated images, which lie hidden in all
corners of his mind, are set in motion, organized, suddenly de-
veloped like a fiower. He is enraptured; he cannot help look-
ing at and admiring the charming creature which has just ap-
peared; he wishes to see it again, and others like it, and dreams
of nothing else. There are such moments in the life of nations,
and this is one of them. They are happy in contemplating beau-
tiful things, and wish only that they should be the most beauti-
ful possible. They are not preoccupied, as we are, with theories.
They do not excite themselves to express moral or philosophical
ideas. They wish to enjoy through the imagination, through
the eyes, like those Italian nobles, who, at the same time, were
so captivated by fine colors and forms that they covered with
paintings not only their rooms and their churches, but the lids
of their chests and the saddles of their horses. The rich and
green sunny country; young, gayly attired ladies, blooming
with health and love; half-draped gods and goddesses, master-
pieces and models of strength and grace — these are the most
lovely objects which man can contemplate, the most capable of
satisfying his senses and his heart — of giving rise to smiles and
joy; and these are the objects which occur in all the poets in a
most wonderful abundance of songs, pastorals, sonnets, little
fugitive pieces, so lively, delicate, easily unfolded, that we have

^ Spenser's Works, ed. Todd, 1863, " The Faerie Queene," i. c. 11, st. 51.

2o8 TAINE

never since had their equals. What though Venus and Cupid
have lost their altars? Like the contemporary painters of Italy,
they willingly imagine a beautiful naked child, drawn on a
chariot of gold through the limpid air; or a woman, redolent
with youth, standing on the waves, which kiss her snowy feet.
Harsh Ben Jonson is ravished with the scene. The disciplined
battalion of his sturdy verses changes into a band of little grace-
ful strophes, which trip as lightly as Raphael's children. He
sees his lady approach, sitting on the chariot of Love, drawn by
swans and doves. Love leads the car; she passes calm and
smiling, and all hearts, charmed by her divine looks, wish no
other joy than to see and serve her forever.

" See the chariot at hand here of Love,

Wherein my lady rideth !
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And, enamoured, do wish, so they might

But enjoy such a sight.
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.
Do but look on her eyes, they do light

All that Love's world compriseth !
Do but look on her hair, it is bright

As Love's star when it riseth ! . . .
Have you seen but a bright lily grow.

Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall o' the snow.

Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver?

Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?

Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee ?
O so white ! O so soft ! O so sweet is she ! " ^

What can be more lively, more unlike measured and artificial
mythology? Like Theocritus and Moschus, they play with
their smiling gods, and their belief becomes a festival. One day,
in an alcove of a wood, Cupid meets a nymph asleep:

" Her golden hair o'erspread her face,
Her careless arms abroad were cast,

•Ben Jonson's Poems, ed. R. Bell. Celebration of Charis; her Triumph, p. mj.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 209

Her quiver had her pillow's place,
Her breast lay bare to every bias

every blast." ^

He approaches softly, steals her arrows, and puts his own in their
place. She hears a noise at last, raises her reclining head, and
sees a shepherd approaching. She flees; he pursues. She
bends her bow, and shoots her arrows at him. He only becomes
more ardent, and is on the point of seizing her. In despair, she
takes an arrow, and buries it in her lovely body. Lo! she is
changed, she stops, smiles, loves, draws near him.

" Though mountains meet not, lovers may.
What other lovers do, did they.
The god of Love sat on a tree,
And laught that pleasant sight to see." 1*

A drop of archness falls into the medley of artlessness and volup-
tuous charm ; it was so in Longus, and in all that delicious nose-
gay called the Anthology. Not the dry mocking of Voltaire, of
folks who possessed only wit, and always lived in a drawing-
room; but the raillery of artists, lovers whose brain is full of
color and form, who, when they recount a bit of roguishness,
imagine a stooping neck, low^ered eyes, the blushing of vermilion
cheeks. One of these fair ones says the following verses, sim-
pering, and we can even see now the pouting of her lips :

" Love in my bosom like a bee

Doth suck his sweet.
Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feet.
Within my eyes he makes his rest,
His bed amid my tender breast,
My kisses are his daily feast.
And yet he robs me of my rest.
Ah ! wanton, will ye ! " ^^

What relieves these sportive pieces is their splendor of imagina-
tion. There are effects and flashes which we hardly dare quote,
dazzUng and maddening, as in the Song of Songs:

" Her eyes, fair eyes, like to the purest lights
That animate the sun, or cheer the day ;
In whom the shining sunbeams brightly play,
Whiles fancy doth on them divine delights.

• " Cupid's Pastime," unknown au- " Ibid,

thor, ab. 1621. u " Rosalind's Madrigal."

210 TAINE

" Her cheeks like ripened lilies steeped in wine,
Or fair pomegranate kernels washed in milk,
Or snow-white threads in nets of crimson silk,
Or gorgeous clouds upon the sun's decline.

" Her lips are roses over-washed with dew,
Or like the purple of Narcissus' flower . . ,

*' Her crystal chin like to the purest mould,
Enchased with dainty daisies soft and white.
Where fancy's fair pavilion once is pight,
Whereas embraced his beauties he doth hold.

*' Her neck like to an ivory shining tower,
Where through with azure veins sweet nectar runs.
Or like the down of swans where Senesse woons.
Or like delight that doth itself devour.

*' Her paps are like fair apples in the prime.
As round as orient pearls, as soft as down;
They never vail their fair through winter's frown,
But from their sweets love sucked his summer time." i* •

"What need compare, where sweet exceeds compare?
Who draws his thoughts of love from senseless things,
Their pomp and greatest glories doth impair.
And mounts love's heaven with overladen wings." ^^

I can well believe that things had no more beauty then than
now; but I am sure that men found them more beautiful.

When the power of embellishment is so great, it is natural that
they should paint the sentiment which unites all joys, whither all
dreams converge — ideal love, and in particular, artless and
happy love. Of all sentiments, there is none for which we have
more sympathy. It is of all the most simple and sweet. It is
the first motion of the heart, and the first word of nature. It is
made up of innocence and self-abandonment. It is clear of re-
flection and effort. It extricates us from complicated passion,
contempt, regret, hate, violent desires. It penetrates us, and we
breathe it as the fresh breath of the morning wind, which has
swept over flowery meads. The knights of this perilous court
inhaled it, and were enraptured, and so rested in the contrast
from their actions and their dangers. The most severe and
tragic of their poets turned aside to meet it, Shakespeare among

'2 Greene's Poems, ed. R. Bell, ^ Ibid., Melicertus's Eclogue, p. 43.

Menaphon's Eclogue, p. 41.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 211

the evergreen oaks of the forest of Arden,^* Ben Jonson in the
woods of Sherwood,^^ amid the wide shady glades, the shining
leaves and moist flowers, trembling on the margin of lonely
springs. Marlowe himself, the terrible painter of the agony of
Edward II, the impressive and powerful poet, who wrote
" Faustus," " Tamerlane " and the " Jew of Malta," leaves his
sanguinary dramas, his high-sounding verse, his images of fury,
and nothing can be more musical and sweet than his song. A
shepherd, to gain his lady-love, says to her:

" Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There we will sit upon the rocks.
And see the shepherds feed their flocks.
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds.
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move.
Come live with me and be my Love. . , .
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning :
If these delights thy mind may move.
Then live with me and be my Love." ^^

The unpolished gentlemen of the period, returning from
hawking, were more than once arrested by such rustic pictures;
such as they were, that is to say, imaginative and not very
citizen-like, they had dreamed of figuring in them on their own
account. But while entering into, they reconstructed them;

" " As you Like It." Marlowe's death, attributes it to him.

*6 " The Sad Shepherd." See also In Palgrave's " Golden Treasury," it is

Beaumont and Fletcher, " The Faith- also ascribed to the same author. As

ful Shepherdess." a confirmation, let us state that Itha-

1* This poem was, and still is, fre- more, in Marlowe's " Jew of Malta,"

quently attributed to Shakespeare. It says to the courtesan (Act iv. Sc. 4):

appears as his in Knight's edition, pub- " Thou in those groves, by Dis above,

lished a few years ago. Izaak Walton, Shalt live with me, and be my love."

however, writing about fifty years after — X£.

212 TAINE

they reconstructed them in their parks, prepared for Queen
Elizabeth's entrance, with a profusion of costumes and devices,
not troubling themselves to copy rough nature exactly. Im-
probability did not disturb them; they were not minute imi-
tators, students of manners: they created; the country for them
was but a setting, and the complete picture came from their
fancies and their hearts. Romantic it may have been, even im-
possible, but it was on this account the more charming. Is there
a greater charm than putting on one side this actual world which
fetters or oppresses us, to float vaguely and easily in the azure
and the light, on the summit of the cloud-capped land of fairies,
to arrange things according to the pleasure of the moment, no
longer feeling the oppressive laws, the harsh and resisting frame-
work of life, adorning and varying everything after the caprice
and the refinements of fancy? That is what is done in these
little poems. Usually the events are such as happen nowhere,
or happen in the land where kings turn shepherds and marry
shepherdesses. The beautiful Argentile ^"^ is detained at the
court of her uncle, who wishes to deprive her of her kingdom,
and commands her to marry Curan, a boor in his service ; she
flees, and Curan in despair goes and lives two years among the
shepherds. One day he meets a beautiful country-woman, and
loves her; gradually, while speaking to her, he thinks of Argen-
tile, and weeps; he describes her sweet face, her lithe figure, her
blue-veined delicate wrists, and suddenly sees that the peasant
girl is weeping. She falls into his arms, and says, " I am Ar-
gentile." Now Curan was a king's son, who had disguised him-
self thus for love of Argentile. He resumes his armor, and de-
feats the wicked king. There never was a braver knight; and
they both reigned long in Northumberland. From a hundred
such tales, tales of the spring-time, the reader will perhaps bear
with me while I pick out one more, gay and simple as a May
morning. The Princess Dowsabel came down one morning
into her father's garden: she gathers honeysuckles, primroses,
violets, and daisies; then, behind a hedge, she heard a shepherd
singing, and that so finely that she loved him at once. He prom-
ises to be faithful, and asks for a kiss. Her cheeks became as
crimson as a rose:

"Chalmers's "English Poets"; William Warner, "Fourth Book of Albion's
England," cb. xx. p. 551.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 813

" With that she bent her snow white knee,
Down by the shepherd kneeled she,

And him she sweetly kiss'd.
With that the shepherd whoop'd for joy;
Quoth he: ' There's never shepherd's boy

That ever was so blest.' " ^*

Nothing more; is it not enough? It is but a moment's fancy;
but they had such fancies every moment. Think what poetry
was hkely to spring from them, how superior to common events,
how free from Hteral imitation, how smitten with ideal beauty,
how capable of creating a world beyond our sad world. In fact,
among all these poems there is one truly divine, so divine that
the reasoners of succeeding ages have found it wearisome, that
even now but few understand it — Spenser's "Faerie Queene."

One day M. Jourdain, having turned Mamamouchi ^^ and
learned orthography, sent for the most illustrious writers of
the age. He settled himself in his arm-chair, pointed with his
finger at several folding-stools for them to sit down, and said :

" I have read your little productions, gentlemen. They have afforded
me much pleasure. I wish to give you some work to do. I have given
some lately to little Lulli,^^ your fellow-laborer. It was at my command
that he introduced the sea-shell at his concerts — a melodious instru-
ment, which no one thought of before, and which has such a pleasing
effect. I insist that you will work out my ideas as he has worked them
out, and I give you an order for a poem in prose. What is not prose,
you know, is verse; and what is not verse is prose. When I say,
' Nicolle, bring me my slippers and give me my nightcap,' I speak prose.
Take this sentence as your model. This style is much more pleasing
than the jargon of unfinished lines which you call verse. As for the
subject, let it be myself. You will describe my flowered dressing-gown
which I have put on to receive you in, and this little green velvet un-
dress which I wear underneath, to do my morning exercise in. You
will set down that this chintz costs a louis an ell. The description, if
well worked put, will furnish some very pretty paragraphs, and will
enlighten the public as to the cost of things. I desire also that you
should speak of my mirrors, my carpets, my hangings. My tradesmen
will let you have their bills ; don't fail to put them in. I shall be glad to
read in your works, all fully and naturally set forth, about my father's
shop, who, like a real gentleman, sold cloth to oblige his friends; my
maid Nicolle's kitchen, the genteel behavior of Brusquet, the little dog

^* Chalmers's " English Poets," M. homme," the type of a vulgar and

Drayton's " Fourth Eclogue," iv. p. successful upstart; Mamamouchi is a

436. _ mock title. — Tr. «

1* M. Jourdain is the hero of Mo- ^ Lulli, a celebrated Italian composer

Here's comedy, " Le Bourgeois Gentil- of the time of Moliere.— Tk.

814 TAINE

of my neighbor M. Dimanche. You might also explain my domestic
affairs : there is nothing more interesting to the public than to hear
how a million may be scraped together. Tell them also that my daugh-
ter Lucile has not married that little rascal Cleonte, but M. Samuel
Bernard, who made his fortune as a fermier- general, keeps his carriage
and is going to be a minister of state. For this I will pay you liberally,
half a louis for a yard of writing. Come back in a month, and let me
see what my ideas have suggested to you."

We are the descendants of M. Jourdain, and this is how we
have been talking to the men of genius from the beginning of
the century, and the men of genius have listened to us. Hence
arise our shoppy and realistic novels. I pray the reader to
forget them, to forget himself, to become for a while a poet, a
gentleman, a man of the sixteenth century. Unless we bury the
M. Jourdain who survives in us, we shall never understand
Spenser.

Section VI. — Edmund Spenser

Spenser belonged to an ancient family, allied to great houses;
was a friend to Sidney and Raleigh, the two most accomplished
knights of the age — a knight himself, at least in heart; who had
found in his connections, his friendships, his studies, his life,
everything calculated to lead him to ideal poetry. We find him
at Cambridge, where he imbues himself with the noblest ancient
philosophies; in a northern country, where he passes through a
deep and unfortunate passion; at Penshurst, in the castle and in
the society where the " Arcadia " was produced ; with Sidney, in
whom survived entire the romantic poetry and heroic generosity
of the feudal spirit; at court, where all the splendors of a disci-
plined and gorgeous chivalry were gathered about the throne;
finally, at Kilcolman, on the borders of a lake, in a lonely castle,
from which the view embraced an amphitheatre of mountains,
and the half of Ireland. Poor on the other hand,^ not fit for
court, and though favored by the queen, unable to obtain from
his patrons anything but inferior employment; in the end,
wearied of solicitations, and banished to his dangerous property
in Ireland, whence a rebellion expelled him, after his house and
child had been burned; he died three months later, of misery

1 It is very doubtful whether Spenser was so poor as he is generally believed
to have been.— Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 215

and a broken heart.^ Expectations and rebuffs, many sorrows
and many dreams, some few joys, and a sudden and frightful
calamity, a small fortune and a premature end; this indeed was a
poet's life. But the heart within was the true poet — from it all
proceeded; circumstances furnished the subject only; he trans-
formed them more than they him ; he received less than he gave.
Philosophy and landscapes, ceremonies and ornaments, splen-
dors of the country and the court, on all which he painted or
thought, he impressed his inward nobleness. Above all, his was
a soul captivated by sublime and chaste beauty, eminently pla-
tonic; one of these lofty and refined souls most charming of all,
who, born in the lap of nature, draw thence their sustenance, but
soar higher, enter the regions of mysticism, and mount instinct-
ively in order to expand on the confines of a loftier world.
Spenser leads us to Milton, and thence to Puritanism, as Plato to
Vergil, and thence to Christianity. Sensuous beauty is perfect
in both, but their main worship is for moral beauty. He ap-
peals to the Muses :

" Revele to me the sacred noursery
Of vertue, which with you doth there remaine,
Where it in silver bowre does hidden ly
From view of men and wicked worlds disdaine ! "

He encourages his knight when he sees him droop. He is wroth
when he sees him attacked. He rejoices in his justice, temper-
ance, courtesy. He introduces, in the beginning of a song, long
stanzas in honor of friendship and justice. He pauses, after re-
lating a lovely instance of chastity, to exhort women to modesty.
He pours out the wealth of his respect and tenderness at the feet
of his heroines. If any coarse man insults them, he calls to their
aid nature and the gods. Never does he bring them on his stage
without adorning their name with splendid eulogy. He has an
adoration for beauty worthy of Dante and Plotinus. And this,
because he never considers it a mere harmony of color and form,
but an emanation of unique, heavenly, imperishable beauty,
which no mortal eye can see, and which is the masterpiece of
the great Author of the worlds.^ Bodies only render it visible;

* " He died for want of bread, in King ' " Hymns of Love and Beauty "; 01

Street." Ben JonsoB, quoted by Drum- Heavenly Love and Beauty,
mond.

2i6 TAINE

it does not live in them ; charm and attraction are not in things,
but in the immortal idea which shines through them :

" For that same goodly hew of white and red,
With which the cheekes are sprinckled, shall decay,
And those sweete rosy leaves, so fairly spred
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted day :
That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright,
Shall turne to dust, and lose their goodly light.
But that faire lampe, from whose celestiall ray
That light proceedes, which kindleth lovers fire,
Shall never be extinguisht nor decay ;
But, when the vitall spirits doe expyre.
Upon her native planet shall retyre ;
For it is heavenly borne, and cannot die,
Being a parcell of the purest skie." *

In presence of this ideal of beauty, love is transformed:

" For Love is lord of Truth and Loialtie,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust.
On golden plumes up to the purest skie,
Above the reach of loathly sinfull lust,
Whose base affect through cowardly distrust
Of his weake wings dare not to heaven fly,
But like a moldwarpe in the earth doth ly." '

Love such as this contains all that is good, and fine, and noble.
It is the prime source of life, and the eternal soul of things. It
is this love which, pacifying the primitive discord, has created
the harmony of the spheres, and maintains this glorious universe.
It dwells in God, and is God himself, come down in bodily form
to regenerate the tottering world and save the human race;
around and within animated beings, when our eyes can pierce
outward appearances, we behold it as a living light, penetrating
and embracing every creature. We touch here the sublime sharp
summit where the world of mind and the world of sense unite;
where man, gathering with both hands the loveliest flowers of
either, feels himself at the same time a pagan and a Christian.

So much, as a testimony to his heart. But he was also a poet,
that is, pre-eminently a creator and a dreamer, and that most
naturally, instinctively, unceasingly. We might go on forever
describing this inward condition of all great artists; there would

* " A Hymne in Honour of Beautie," * " A Hymne in Honour of Love,"

lines 92-105. lines 176-182.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 217

still remain much to be described. It is a sort of mental growth
with them; at every instant a bud shoots forth, and on this
another and still another; each producing, increasing, blooming
of itself, so that after a few moments we find first a green plant
crop up, then a thicket, then a forest. A character appears to
them, then an action, then a landscape, then a succession of ac-
tions, characters, landscapes, producing, completing, arranging
themselves by instinctive development, as when in a dream we
behold a train of figures which, without any outward compul-
sion, display and group themselves before our eyes. This fount
of living and changing forms is inexhaustible in Spenser; he is
always imaging; it is his specialty. He has but to close his eyes,
and apparitions arise; they abound in him, crowd, overflow; in
vain he pours them forth; they continually float up, more copi-
ous and more dense. Many times, following the inexhaustible
stream, I have thought of the vapors which rise incessantly from
the sea, ascend, sparkle, commingle their golden and snowy
scrolls, while underneath them new mists arise, and others again
beneath, and the splendid procession never grows dim or ceases.
But what distinguishes him from all others is the mode of his
imagination. Generally with a poet his mind ferments vehe-
mently and by fits and starts; his ideas gather, jostle each other,
suddenly appear in masses and heaps, and burst forth in sharp,
piercing, concentrative words; it seems that they need these sud-
den accumulations to imitate the unity and life-like energy of
the objects which they reproduce; at least almost all the poets
of that time, Shakespeare at their head, act thus. Spenser re-
mains calm in the fervor of invention. The visions which would
be fever to another, leave him at peace. They come and unfold
themselves before him, easily, entire, uninterrupted, without
starts. He is epic, that is, a narrator, not a singer like an ode-
writer, nor a mimic like a play-writer. No modern is more like
Homer. Like Homer and the great epic-writers, he only pre-
sents consecutive and noble, almost classical images, so nearly
ideas, that the mind seizes them unaided and unawares. Like
Homer, he is always simple and clear: he makes no leaps, he
omits no argument, he robs no word of its primitive and ordinary
meaning, he preserves the natural sequence of ideas. Like
Homer, again, he is redundant, ingenuous, even childish. He
says everything, he puts down reflections which we have maHe

2i8 ^ TAINE

beforehand ; he repeats without limit his grand ornamental epi-
thets. We can see that he beholds objects in a beautiful uniform
light, with infinite detail ; that he wishes to show all this detail,
never fearing to see his happy dream change or disappear; that
he traces its outline with a regular movement, never hurrying or
slackening. He is even a little prolix, too unmindful of the pub-
lic, too ready to lose himself and dream about the things he be-
holds. His thought expands in vast repeated comparisons, like
those of the old Ionic poet. If a wounded giant falls, he finds
him

" As an aged tree,
High growing on the top of rocky clift,
Whose hart-strings with keene Steele nigh hewen be,
The mightie trunck halfe rent with ragged rift,
Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift

" Or as a castle, reared high and round,
By subtile engins and malitious slight
Is undermined from the lowest ground,
And her foundation forst, and feebled quight,
At last downe falles; and with her heaped hight
Her hastie ruine does more heavie make,
And yields it selfe unto the victours might:
Such was this Gyaunt's fall, that seemd to shake
The stedfast globe of earth, as it for feare did quake." *

He develops all the ideas which he handles. All his phrases
become periods. Instead of compressing, he expands. To
bear this ample thought and its accompanying train, he requires
a long stanza, ever renewed, long alternate verses, reiterated
rhymes, whose uniformity and fullness recall the majestic sounds
which undulate eternally through the woods and the fields. To
unfold these epic faculties, and to display them in the sublime
region where his soul is naturally borne, he requires an ideal
stage, situated beyond the bounds of reality, with personages
who could hardly exist, and in a world which could never be.

He made many miscellaneous attempts in sonnets, elegies,
pastorals, hymns of love, little sparkling word-pictures;'^ they
were but essays, incapable for the most part of supporting his
genius. Yet already his magnificent imagination appeared in
them; gods, men, landscapes, the world which he sets in motion

•"The Faerie Queene," i. c. 8, stan- "Epithalamion," " Muiopotmos," " Ver-
itas 22, 23. mi's Gnat," " The Ruines of Time,"

' " The Shepherd's Calendar," " Amo- " The Teares of the Muses," etc.
retti," " Sonnets," " Prothalamion,"

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 219

is a thousand miles from that in which we Hve. His " Shep-
herd's Calendar "^ is a tliought-inspiring and tender pastoral, full
of delicate loves, noble sorrows, lofty ideas, where no voice is
heard but of thinkers and poets. His " Visions of Petrarch and
Du Bellay " are admirable dreams, in which palaces, temples of
gold, splendid landscapes, sparkling rivers, marvellous birds,
appear in close succession as in an Oriental fairy-tale. If he
sings a " Prothalamion," he sees two beautiful swans, white as
snow, who come softly swimming down amidst the songs of
nymphs and vermeil roses, while the transparent water kisses
their silken feathers, and murmurs with joy :

" There, in a meadow, by the river's side,
A flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the Flood thereby.
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,
As each had bene a bryde ;
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrayled curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full feateously
The tender stalkes on hye.
Of every sort, which in that meadow grew.
They gathered some ; the violet, pallid blew, -
The little dazie, that at evening closes,
The virgin lillie, and the primrose trew,
With store of vermeil roses.
To deck their bridegroomes posies
Against the brydale-day, which was not long :
Sweet Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song,

" With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe

Come softly swimming downe along the lee;

Two fairer birds I yet did never see ;

The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,

Did never whiter shew . . .

So purely white they were,

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,

Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare

To wet their silken feathers, least they might

Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre.

And marre their beauties bright,

That shone as heavens light.

Against their brydale day, which was not long:

Sweet Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song ! " •

•Published in 1589; dedicated to •"Prothalamion," lines 19-54.

Sir Philip Sidney.

220 TAINE

If he bewails the death of Sidney, Sidney becomes a shepherd,
he is slain like Adonis ; around him gather weeping nymphs :

" The gods, which all things see, this same beheld,
And, pittying this paire of lovers trew,
Transformed them there lying on the field.
Into one flowre that is both red and blew :
It first growes red, and then to blew doth fade,
Like Astrophel, which thereinto was made.

" And in the midst thereof a star appeares,
As fairly formd as any star in skyes:
Resembling Stella in her freshest yeares,
Forth darting beames of beautie from her eyes;
And all the day it standeth full of deow,
Which is the teares, that from her eyes did flow." ^^

His most genuine sentiments become thus fairy-like. Magic is
the mould of his mind, and impresses its shape on all that he
imagines or thinks. Involuntarily he robs objects of their ordi-
nary form. If he looks at a landscape, after an instant he sees
it quite differently. He carries it, unconsciously, into an en-
chanted land; the azure heaven sparkles like a canopy of dia-
monds, meadows are clothed with flowers, a biped population
flutters in the balmy air, palaces of jasper shine among the trees,
radiant ladies appear on carved balconies above galleries of em-
erald. This unconscious toil of mind is like the slow crystalli-
zations of nature. A moist twig is cast into the bottom of a
mine, and is brought out again a hoop of diamonds.

At last he finds a subject which suits him, the greatest joy
permitted to an artist. He removes his epic from the common
ground which, in the hands of Homer and Dante, gave expres-
sion to a living creed, and depicted national heroes. He leads
us to the summit of fairy-land, soaring above history, on that
extreme verge where objects vanish and pure idealism begins:
" I have undertaken a work," he says, " to represent all the moral
virtues, assigning to every virtue a knight to be the patron and
defender of the same; in whose actions and feats of armes and
■ chivalry the operations of that vertue, whereof he is the pro-
tector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites
that oppose themselves agamst the same, to be beaten downe
and overcome." " In fact he gives us an allegory as the founda-

'"' " Astrophel and Stella," lines i8i- wick Bryskett, " Discourse of Civil
192. Life," ed. i6o6, p. 26.

" Words attributed to him by Lodo-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 221

tion of his poem, not that he dreams of becoming a wit, a
preacher of moraHties, a propounder of riddles. He does not
subordinate image to idea ; he is a seer, not a philosopher. They
are living men and actions which he sets in motion; only from
time to time,' in his poem, enchanted palaces, a whole train of
splendid visions trembles and divides like a mist, enabling us to
catch a glimpse of the thought which raised and arranged it.
When in his Garden of Adonis we see the countless forms of all
living things arranged in due order, in close compass, awaiting
life, we conceive with him the birth of universal love, the cease-
less fertility of the great mother, the mysterious swarm of crea-
tures which rise in succession from her " wide wombe of the
world." When we see his Knight of the Cross combating with
a horrible woman-serpent in defence of his beloved lady Una, we
dimly remember that, if we search beyond these two figures, we
shall find behind one, Truth, behind the other, Falsehood. We
perceive that his characters are not fiesh and blood, and that all
these brilliant phantoms are phantoms, and nothing more. We
take pleasure in their brilliancy, without believing in their sub-
stantiality ; we are interested in their doings, without troubling
ourselves about their misfortunes. We know that their tears
and cries are not real. Our emotion is purified and raised. We
do not fall into gross illusion; we have that gentle feeling of
knowing ourselves to be dreaming. We, like him, are a thou-
sand leagues from actual life, beyond the pangs of painful pity,
unmixed terror, violent and bitter hatred. We entertain only
refined sentiments, partly formed, arrested at the very moment
they were about to afifect us with too sharp a stroke. They
slightly touch us, and we find ourselves happy in being extricated
from a belief which was beginning to be oppressive.

Section VII. — Spenser in His Relation to the Renaissance

What world could furnish materials to so elevated a fancy?
One only, that of chivalry ; for none is so far from the actual.
Alone and independent in his castle, freed from all the ties which
society, family, toil, usually impose on the actions of men, the
feudal hero had attempted every kind of adventure, but yet he
had done less than he imagined ; the boldness of his deeds had

222 " TAINE

been exceeded by the madness of his dreams. For want of use-
ful employment and an accepted rule, his brain had labored on
an unreasoning and impossible track, and the urgency of his
wearisomeness had increased beyond measure his craving for ex-
citement. Under this stimulus his poetry had become a world
of imagery. Insensibly strange conceptions had grown and
multiplied in his brains, one over the other, like ivy woven round
a tree, and the original trunk had disappeared beneath their
rank growth and their obstruction. The delicate fancies of the
old Welsh poetry, the grand ruins of the German epics, the
marvellous splendors of the conquered East, all the recollections
which four centuries of adventure had scattered among the
minds of men, had become gathered into one great dream ; and
giants, dwarfs, monsters, the whole medley of imaginary crea-
tures, of superhuman exploits and splendid follies, were
grouped around a unique conception, exalted and sublime love,
like courtiers prostrated at the feet of their king. It was an
ample and buoyant subject-matter, from which the great artists
of the age, Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes, Rabelais, had hewn their
poems. But they belonged too completely to their own time,
to admit of their belonging to one which had passed.^ They
created a chivalry afresh, but it was not genuine. The ingen-
ious Ariosto, an ironical epicurean, delights his gaze with it,
and grows merry over it, like a man of pleasure, a sceptic who
rejoices doubly in his pleasure because it is sweet, and because
it is forbidden. By his side poor Tasso, inspired by a fanatical,
revived, factitious Catholicism, amid the tinsel of an old school
of poetry, works on the same subject, in sickly fashion, with
great effort and scant success. Cervantes, himself a knight,
albeit he loves chivalry for its nobleness, perceives its folly, and
crushes it to the ground, with heavy blows, in the mishaps of the
wayside inns. More coarsely, more openly, Rabelais, a rude
commoner, drowns it with a burst of laughter, in his merriment
and nastiness. Spenser alone takes it seriously and naturally.
He is on the level of so much nobleness, dignity, reverie. He is
not yet settled and shut in by that species of exact common-
sense which was to found and cramp the whole modem civiliza-
tion. In his heart he inhabits the poetic and shadowy land from

* Ariosto, I474-IS33- Ta so, I544-I595> Cervantes, 1547-1616. Rabelais, 1483-
IS53.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 223

which men were daily drawing farther and farther away. He
is enamored of it, even to its very language ; he revives the old
words, the expressions of the Middle Ages, the style of Chaucer,
especially in the " Shepherd's Calendar." He enters straight-
way upon the strangest dreams of the old story-tellers, without
astonishment, like a man who has still stranger dreams of his
own. Enchanted castles, monsters and giants, duels in the
woods, wandering ladies, all spring up under his hands, the
mediaeval fancy with the mediaeval generosity; and it is just
because this world is unreal that it so suits his humor.

Is there in chivalry sufficient to furnish him with matter?
That is but one world, and he has another. Beyond the A^aliant
men, the glorified images of moral virtues, he has the gods, fin-
ished models of sensible beauty ; beyond Christian chivalry he
has the pagan Olympus ; beyond the idea of heroic will w^iich
can only be satisfied by adventures and danger, there exists calm
energy, which, by its own impulse, is in harmony with actual
existence. For such a poet one ideal is not enough ; beside the
beauty of effort he places the beauty of happiness ; he couples
them, not deliberately as a philosopher, nor with the design of
a scholar like Goethe, but because they are both lovely ; and here
and there, amid armor and passages of arms, he distributes
satyrs, nymphs, Diana, Venus, like Greek statues amid the tur-
rets and lofty trees of an English park. There is nothing forced
in the union ; the ideal epic, like a superior heaven, receives and
harmonizes the two worlds ; a beautiful pagan dream carries on
a beautiful dream of chivalry ; the link consists in the fact that
they are both beautiful. At this, elevation the poet has ceased
to observe the differences of races and civilizations. He can
introduce into his picture whatever he will ; his only reason is,
" That suited "; and there could be no better. Under the glossy-
leaved oaks, by the old trunk so deeply rooted in the ground,
he can see two knights cleaving each other, and the next instant
a company of Fauns w'ho came there to dance. The beams of
light which have poured down upon the velvet moss, the green
turf of an English forest, can reveal the dishevelled locks and
white shoulders of nymphs. Do we not see it in Rubens ? And
what signify discrepancies in the happy and sublime illusion of
fancy? Are there more discrepancies? Who perceives them,
who feels them? Who does not feel, on the contrary, that

224

TAINE

to speak the truth, there is but one world, that of Plato and the
poets ; that actual phenomena are but outlines — mutilated, in-
complete and blurred outlines — wretched abortions scattered
here and there on Time's track, like fragments of clay, half
moulded, then cast aside, lying in an artist's studio ; that, after
all, invisible forces and ideas, which forever renew the actual
existences, attain their fulfilment onl^ in imaginary existences ;
and that the poet, in order to express nature in its entirety, is
obliged to embrace in his sympathy all the ideal forms by which
nature reveals itself? This is the greatness of his work ; he has
succeeded in seizing beauty in its fulness, because he cared for
nothing but beauty.

The reader will feel that it is impossible to give in full the plot
of such a poem. In fact, there are six poems, each of a dozen
cantos, in which the action is ever diverging and converging
again, becoming confused and starting again ; and all the imag-
inings of antiquity and of the Middle Ages are, I believe, com-
bined in it. The knight " pricks along the plaine," among the
trees, and at a crossing of the paths meets other knights with
whom he engages in combat ; suddenly from within a cave ap-
pears a monster, half woman and half serpent, surrounded by a
hideous offspring ; further on a giant, with three bodies ; then
a dragon, great as a hill, with sharp talons and vast wings. For
three days he fights them, and twice overthrown, he comes to
himself only by aid of " a gracious ointment." After that there
are savage tribes to be conquered, castles surrounded by flames
to be taken. Meanwhile ladies are wandering in the midst of
forests, on white palfreys, exposed to the assaults of miscreants,
now guarded by a lion which follows them, now delivered by a
band of satyrs who adore them. Magicians work manifold
charms ; palaces display their festivities ; tilt-yards provide
endless tournaments ; sea-gods, nymphs, fairies, kings, inter-
mingle in these feasts, surprises, dangers.

You will say it is a phantasmagoria. What matter, if we see
it? And we do see it, for Spenser does. His sincerity com-
municates itself to us. He is so much at home in this world
that we end by finding ourselves at home in it too. He shows
no appearance of astonishment at astonishing events; he comes
upon them so naturally that he makes them natural ; he defeats
the miscreants, as if he had done nothing else all his life.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

225

Venus, Diana, and the old deities, dwell at his gate and enter
his threshold without his taking- any heed of them. His seren-
ity becomes ours. We grow credulous and happy by contagion,
and to the same extent as he. How could it be otherwise? Is
it possible to refuse credence to a man who paints things for us
with such accurate details and in such lively colors ? Here with
a dash of his pen he describes a forest for you ; and are you not
instantly in it with him ? Beech trees with their silvery stems,
" loftie trees iclad with sommers pride, did spred so broad, that
heavens light did hide " ; rays of light tremble on the bark and
shine on the ground, on the reddening ferns and low bushes,
.which, suddenly smitten with the luminous track, glisten and
glimmer. Footsteps are scarcely heard on the thick beds of
heaped leaves ; and at distant intervals, on the tall herbage, drops
of dew are sparkling. Yet the sound of a horn reaches us
through the foliage; how sweetly yet cheerfully it falls on the
ear, amidst this vast silence! It resounds more loudly; the
clatter of a hunt draws near; " eft through the thicke they heard
one rudely rush;" a nymph approaches, the most chaste and
beautiful in the world. Spenser sees her; nay more, he kneels
before her:

" Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not.
But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew,
Cleare as the skye, withouten blame or blot,
Through goodly mixture of complexions dew;
And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew
Like roses in a bed of lillies shed,
The which ambrosiall odours from them threw.
And gazers sence with double pleasure fed,
Hable to heale the sicke and to revive the ded.

** In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame,
Kindled above at th' Hevenly Makers light,
And darted fyrie beames out of the same ;
So passing persant, and so v/ondrous bright,
That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight:
In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre
To kindle oft assayd, but had no might ;
For, with dredd maiestie and awfull yre.
She broke his wanton darts, and quenched bace des)Teo

** Her yvorie forhead, full of bountie brave,
Like a broad table did itselfe dispred.

S26 TAINE

For Love his loftie triumphes to engrave,

And write the battailes of his great godhed:

All good and honour might therein be red;

For there their dwelling was. And, when she spake

Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed ;

And 'twixt the perles and rubins softly brake

A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to make.

" Upon her eyelids many Graces sate.
Under the shadow of her even browes,
Working belgardes and amorous retrate ;
And everie one her with a grace endowes.
And everie one with meekenesse to her bowes:
So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace.
And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes,
How shall frayle pen descrive her heavenly face.
For feare, through want of skill, her beauty to disgrace.

" So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire,
She seemd, when she presented was to sight;
And was yclad, for heat of scorching aire,
All in a silken Camus lilly whight,
Purfled upon with many a folded plight.
Which all above besprinckled was throughout
With golden aygulets, that glistred bright.
Like twinckling starres ; and all the skirt about
Was hemd with golden fringe.

*' Below her ham her weed did somewhat trayne.
And her streight legs most bravely were embayld
In gilden buskins of costly cordwayne,
All bard with golden bendes, which were entayld
With curious antickes, and full fayre aumayld.
Before, they fastned were under her knee
In a rich iewell, and therein entrayld
The ends of all the knots, that none might see
How they within their fouldings close enwrapped bee.

" Like two faire marble pillours they were scene.
Which doe the temple of the gods support,
Whom all the people decke with girlands greene,
And honour in their festivall resort ;
Those same with stately grace and princely port
She taught to tread, when she herselfe would grace;
But with the woody nymphes when she did play,
Or when the flying libbard she did chace,
She could them nimbly move, and after fly apace.

" And in her hand a sharpe bore-speare she held,
And at her backe a bow and quiver gay.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 227

Stuft with steel-headed dartes wherewith she queld

The salvage beastes in her victorious play,

Knit with a golden bauldricke which forelay

Athwart her snowy brest, and did divide

Her daintie paps ; which, like young fruit in IMay,

Now little gan to swell, and being tide

Through her thin weed their places only signifide.

" Her yellow lockes, crisped like golden wyre,
About her shoulders weren loosely shed,
And, when the winde emongst them did inspyre.
They waved like a penon wyde dispred
And low behinde her backe were scattered :
And, whether art it were or heedlesse hap.
As through the flouring forrest rash she fled,
In her rude heares sweet flowres themselves did lap,
And flourishing fresh leaves and blossomes did enwrap." *

" The daintie rose, the daughter of her morne,
More deare than life she tendered, whose flowre
The girlond of her honour did adorne ;
Ne suffered she the middayes scorching powre.
Ne the sharp northerne wind thereon to showre;
But lapped up her silken leaves most chayre,
Whenso the froward skye began to lowre ;
But, soone as calmed was the cristall ayre.
She did it fayre dispred, and let to flourish fayre." '

He is on his knees before her, I repeat, as a child on Corpus
Christi day, among flowers and perfumes, transported with
admiration, so that he sees a heavenly light in her eyes, and
angel's tints on her cheeks, even impressing into her service
Christian angels and pagan graces to adorn and await upon her;
it is love which brings such visions before him :

" Sweet love, that doth his golden wings embay
In blessed nectar and pure pleasures well."

Whence this perfect beauty, this modest and charming dawn,
in which he assembles all the brightness, all the sweetness, all
the virgin graces of the full morning? What mother begat her,
what marvellous birth brought to light such a wonder of grace
and purity? One day, in a sparkling, solitary fountain, where
the sunbeams shone, Chrysogone was bathing with roses and
violets.

* " The Faerie Queene," H. c. 3, stanzas 22-30. • Ibid. iii. c. s, stanza 51.

228 TAINE

" It was upon a sommers shinie day,
When Titan faire his beames did display,
In a fresh fountaine, far from all mens vew,
She bath'd her brest the boyling heat t' allay;
She bath'd with roses red and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowers that in the forrest grew.
Till faint through yrkesome wearines adowne
Upon the grassy ground herselfe she layd
To sleepe, the whiles a gentle slombring swowne
Upon her fell all naked bare displayd." *

The beams played upon her body, and " fructified " her. The
months rolled on. Troubled and ashamed, she went into the
" wildernesse," and sat down, " every sence with sorrow sore
opprest." Meanwhile Venus, searching for her boy Cupid,
who had mutinied and fled from her, " wandered in the world!"
She had sought him in courts, cities, cottages, promising
" kisses sweet, and sweeter things, unto the man that of him
tydings to her brings,"

" Shortly unto the wastefull woods she came,
Whereas she found the goddesse (Diana) with her crew,
After late chace of their embrewed game.
Sitting beside a fountaine in a rew ;
Some of them washing with the liquid dew
From ofif their dainty limbs the dusty sweat
And soyle, which did deforme their lively hew;
Others lay shaded from the scorching heat,
The rest upon her person gave attendance great.
She, having hong upon a bough on high
Her bow and painted quiver, had unlaste
Her silver buskins from her nimble thigh.
And her lanck loynes ungirt, and brests unbraste,
After her heat the breathing cold to taste ;
Her golden lockes, that late in tresses bright
Embreaded were for hindring of her haste.
Now loose about her shoulders hong undight.
And were with sweet Ambrosia all besprinckled light." ^

Diana, surprised thus, repulses Venus, " and gcin to smile, in
scorne of her vaine playnt," swearing that if she should catch
Cupid, she would clip his wanton wings. Then she took pity on
the afflicted goddess, and set herself with her to look for the
fugitive. They came to the " shady covert " where Chrysog^

* " The Faerie Queene," iii. c. 6, stan- • Ibid, stanzas 17 *nd 18.

xas 6 and 7.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

229

one, in her sleep, had given birth " unawares " to two lovely-
girls, " as faire as springing day." Diana took one, and made
her the purest of all virgins. Venus carried off the other to the
Garden of Adonis, " the first seminary of all things, that are
borne to live and dye " ; where Psyche, the bride of Love, dis-
ports herself ; where Pleasure, their daughter, wantons with the
Graces ; where Adonis, " lapped in flowres and pretious spy-
eery," " liveth in eternal bliss," and came back to life through
the breath of immortal Love. She brought her up as her
daughter, selected her to be the most faithful of loves, and after
long trials, gave her hand to the good knight Sir Scudamore.

That is the kind of thing we meet with in the wondrous forest.
Are you ill at ease there, and do you wish to leave it because it is
wondrous ? At every bend in the alley, at every change of the
light, a stanza, a word, reveals a landscape or an apparition. It
is morning, the white dawn gleams faintly through the trees ;
bluish vapors veil the horizon, and vanish in the smiling air;
the springs tremble and murmur faintly amongst the mosses,
and on high the poplar leaves begin to stir and flutter like the
wings of butterflies. A knight alights from his horse, a valiant
knight, who has unhorsed many a Saracen, and experienced
many an adventure. He unlaces his helmet, and on a sudden
you perceive the cheeks of a young girl :

" Which doft, her golden lockes, that were upbound
Still in a knot, unto her heeles downe traced.
And like a silken veile in compasse round
About her backe and all her bodie wound;
Like as the shining skie in summers night,
What time the dayes with scorching heat abound,
Is creasted all with lines of firie light,
That it prodigious seemes in common peoples sight." *

It is Britomart, a virgin and a heroine, like Clorinda or Mar-
fisa,^ but how much more ideal ! The deep sentiment of nature,
the sincerity of reverie, the ever-flowing fertility of inspiration,
the German seriousness, reanimate in this poem classical or chiv-
alrous conceptions, even when they are the oldest or the most
trite. The train of splendors and of scenery never ends. Des-

«" The Faerie Queene," iv. c. I, Stan- lem Delivered"; Marfisa, an Indian
za 13. Oueen, who figures in Ariosto's " Or-

' Clorinda, the heroine of the infidel lando Furioso," and also, in Boyardo's
army in Tasso's epic poem, " Jerusa- " Orlando Innamorato." — Th.
11— Classics. Vol. 38

230 TAINE

olate promontories, cleft with gaping chasms ; thunder-stricken
and blackened masses of rocks, against which the hoarse break-
ers dash ; palaces sparkling with gold, wherein ladies, beauteous
as angels, reclining carelessly on purple cushions, listen with
sweet smiles to the harmony of music played by unseen hands ;
lofty silent walks, where avenues of oaks spread their motion-
less shadows over clusters of virgin violets, and turf which
never mortal foot has trod ; to all these beauties of art and nature
he adds the marvels of mythology, and describes them with as
much of love and sincerity as a painter of the Renaissance or an
ancient poet. Here approach on chariots of shell, Cymoent and
her nymphs :

" A teme of dolphins raunged in aray
Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent;
They were all taught by Triton to obay
To the long raynes at her commaundement :
As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went,
That their brode flaggy finnes no fome did reare,
Ne bubling rowndell they behinde them sent;
The rest, of other fishes drawen weare;
Which with their finny oars the swelling sea did sheare." ^

Nothing, again, can be sweeter or calmer than the description
of the palace of Morpheus :

" He, making speedy way through spersed ayre,
And through the world of waters wide and deepe,
To Morpheus house doth hastily repaire.
Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe,
And low, where dawning day doth never peepe
His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed
Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed,
» Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred.

And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe
And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring wfnde, much like the sowne
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne.
Might there be heard : but careless Quiet lyes,
Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes."

a " The Faerie Queene," iii. c. 4, stanza 33.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 231

Observe also in a corner of this forest, a band of satyrs dancing
under the green leaves. They come leaping like wanton kids,
as gay as birds of joyous spring. The fair Hellenore, whom
they have chosen for " May-lady," " daunst lively " also, laugh-
ing, and " with girlonds all bespredd." The wood re-echoes the
sound of their " merry pypes." " Their horned feet the greene
gras wore." " All day they daunced with great lustyhedd,"
with sudden motions and alluring looks, while about them their
flock feed on " the brouzes " at their pleasure. In every book
we see strange processions pass by, allegorical and picturesque
shows, like those which were then displayed at the courts of
princes ; now a masquerade of Cupid, now of the Rivers, now of
the Months, now of the Vices. Imagination was never more
prodigal or inventive. Proud Lucifera advances in a chariot
" adorned all with gold and girlonds gay," beaming like the
dawn, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers whom she dazzles
with her glory and splendor : " six unequall beasts " draw her
along, and each of these is ridden by a Vice. Idleness " upon
a slouthfull asse ... in habit blacke . . . like to an
holy monck," sick for very laziness, lets his heavy head droop,
and holds in his hand a breviary which he does not read ; Glut-
tony, on " a filthie swyne," crawls by in his deformity, " his
belly . . . upblowne with luxury, and eke with fatnesse
swollen were his eyne ; and like a crane his necke was long and
fyne," dressed in vine-leaves, through which one cai\ see his body
eaten by ulcers, and vomiting along the road the wine and flesh
with which he is glutted. Avatice seated between " two iron
coffers," "upon a camell loaden all with gold," is handling a heap
of coin, with threadbare coat, hollow cheeks, and feet stiff with
gout. Envy " upon a ravenous wolfe still did chaw between
his cankred teeth a venemous tode, that all the poison ran about
his chaw," and his discolored garment " ypainted full of eies,"
conceals a snake wound about his body. Wrath, covered with
a torn and bloody robe, comes riding on a lion, brandishing
about his head " a burning brond," his eyes sparkling, his face
pale as ashes, grasping in his feverish hand the haft of his dag-
ger. The strange and terrible procession passes on, led by the
solemn harmony of the stanzas; and the grand music of oft-re-
peated rhymes sustains the imagination in this fantastic world,
which, with its mingled horrors and splendors, has just been
opened to its flight.

»Z2

TAINE

Yet all this is little. However much mythology and chivalry
can supply, they do not suffice for the needs of this poetical
fancy. Spenser's characteristic is the vastness and overflow of
his picturesque invention. Like Rubens, whatever he creates
is beyond the region of all traditions, but complete in all parts,
and expresses distinct ideas. As with Rubens, his allegory
swells its proportions beyond all rule, and withdraws fancy from
all law, except in so far as it is necessary to harmonize forms
and colors. For, if ordinary minds receive from allegory a
certain weight which oppresses them, lofty imaginations re-
ceive from it wings which carry them aloft. Freed by it from
the common conditions of life, they can dare all things, beyond
imitation, apart from probability, with no other guides but their
inborn energy and their shadowy instincts. For three days Sir
Guyon is led by the cursed spirit, the tempter Mammon, in the
subterranean realm, across wonderful gardens, trees laden with
golden fruits, glittering palaces, and a confusion of all worldly
treasures. They have descended into the bowels of the earth,
and pass through caverns, unknown abysses, silent depths.
" An ugly Feend . . . with monstrous stalke behind him
stept," without Guyon's knowledge, ready to devour him on the
least show of covetousness. The brilliancy of the gold lights
up hideous figures, and the beaming metal shines with a beauty
more seductive in the gloom of the infernal prison.

" That Houses forme within was rude and strong,
Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte,
From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong
Embost with massy gold of glorious guifte,
And with rich metall loaded every rifte,
That heavy ruine they did seeme to threatt ;
And over them Arachne high did lifte
Her cunning web, and spred her subtile nett,
Enwrapped in fowle smoke and clouds more black than iett

" Both roofe, and floore, and walls, were all of gold,
But overgrowne with dust and old decay,
And hid in darknes, that none could behold
The hew thereof; for vew of cheerfull day
Did never in that House itselfe display,
But a faint shadow of uncertein light;
Such as a lamp, whose life does fade away ;
Or as the moone, cloathed with clowdy night.
Does show to him that walkes in feare and sad affright

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 233

** In all that rowme was nothing to be seene
But huge great yron chests and coffers strong,
All bard with double bends, that none could weene
Them to enforce by violence or wrong;
On every side they placed were along.
But all the grownd with sculs was scattered
And dead mens bones, which round about were flong;
Whose lives, it seemed, whilome there were shed,
And their vile carcases now left unburied. . . .

" Thence, forward he him ledd and shortly brought
Unto another rowme, whose dore forthright
To him did open as it had beene taught :
Therein an hundred raunges weren pight,
And hundred fournaces all burning bright;
By every fournace many Feends did byde,
Deformed creatures, horrible in sight;
And every Feend his busie paines applyde
To melt the golden metall, ready to be tryde.

" One with great bellowes gathered filling ayre,
And with forst wind the fewell did inflame;
Another did the dying bronds repayre
With yron tongs, and sprinckled ofte the same
With liquid waves, fiers Vulcans rage to tame,
Who, maystring them, renewd his former heat:
Some scumd the drosse that from the metall came ;
Some stird the molten owre with ladles great:
And every one did swincke, and every one did sweat. . • »

*' He brought him, through a darksom narrow strayt,
To a broad gate all built of beaten gold :
The gate was open ; but therein did wayt
A sturdie Villein, stryding stiflfe and bold,
As if the Highest God defy he would:
In his right hand an yron club he held,
But he himselfe was all of golden mould.
Yet had both life and sence, and well could weld
That cursed weapon, when his cruell foes he queld. . , .

" He brought him in. The rowme was large and wyde,
As it some gyeld or solemne temple weare;
Many great golden pillours did upbeare
The massy roofe, and riches huge sustayne;
And every pillour decked was full deare
With crownes, and diademes, and titles vaine,
Which mortall princes wore whiles they on earth did rayne.

" A route of people there assembled were,
Of every sort and nation under skye,

234 TAINE

Which with great uprore preaced to draw nere

To th' upper part, where was advaunced hye

A stately siege of soveraine maiestye;

And thereon satt a Woman gorgeous gay,

And richly cladd in robes of royaltye,

That never earthly prince in such aray

His glory did enhaunce, and pompous pryde display. . '. «

" There, as in glistring glory she did sitt,
She held a great gold chaine ylincked well,
Whose upper end to highest heven was knitt,
And lower part did reach to lowest hell." ^

No artist's dream matches these visions : the glow of the fur-
naces beneath the vaults of the cavern, the lights flickering over
the crowded figures, the throne, and the strange glitter of the
gold shining in every direction through the darkness. The alle-
gory assumes gigantic proportions. When the object is to
show temperance struggling with temptations, Spenser deems
it necessary to mass all the temptations together. He is treat-
ing of a general virtue ; and as such a virtue is capable of every
sort of resistance, he requires from it every sort of resistance
alike ; after the test of gold, that of pleasure. Thus the grand-
est and the most exquisite spectacles follow and are contrasted
with each other, and all are supernatural ; the graceful and the
terrible are side by side — the happy gardens close by with the
cursed subterranean cavern.

" No gate, but like one, being goodly dight
With bowes and braunches, which did broad dilate
Their clasping armes in wanton wreathings intricate:

" So fashioned a porch with rare device,
Archt over head with an embracing vine,
Whose bounches hanging downe seemed to entice
All passers-by to taste their lushious wine.
And did themselves into their hands incline,
As freely offering to be gathered;
Some deepe empurpled as the hyacine,
Some as the rubine laughing sweetely red,
Some like faire emeraudes, not yet well ripened. » • •

*' And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,
Of richest substance that on earth might bee.
So pure and shiny that the silver flood
Through every channell running one might see;
• " The Faerie Queene," ii. c. 7. stanzas 28-46.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 235

Most goodly it with curious ymageree
Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,
Of which some seemed with lively iollitee
To fly about, playing their wanton toyes,
Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid loyes.

" And over all of purest gold was spred
A trayle of yvie in his native hew ;
For the rich metall was so coloured.
That wight, who did not well avis'd it vew,
Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew;
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,
That themselves dipping in the silver dew
Their fleecy flowres they fearfully did steepe,
Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to weep.

" Infinit streames continually did well
Out of this fountaine, sweet and faire to see,
The which into an ample laver fell.
And shortly grew to such great quantitie,
That like a little lake it seemd to bee ;
Whose depth exceeded not three cubits hight,
That through the waves one might the bottom see,
All pav'd beneath with jaspar shining bright,
That seemd the fountaine in that sea did sayle upright. < • «

" The ioyes birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmur of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all. . « «

" Upon a bed of roses she was layd.
As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin;
And was arayd, or rather disarayd.
All in a vele of silke and silver thin,
That hid no whit her alabaster skin,
But rather shewd more white, if more might bee:
More subtile web Arachne cannot spin;
Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see
Of scorched deaw, do not in th' ayre more lightly fie*

" Her snowy brest was bare to ready spoyle
Of hungry eies, which n' ote therewith be fild ;
And yet, through languour of her late sweet toyle,
Few drops, more clcare then nectar, forth distild,

236 TAINE

That like pure orient perles adowne it trild ;

And her faire eyes, sweet smyling in delight,

Moystened their fierie beames, with which she thrild

Fraile harts, yet quenched not, like starry lights

Which sparckling on the silent waves, does seeme more bright." ^<*

Do we find here nothing but fairy land ? Yes ; here are fin-
ished pictures true and complete, composed with a painteris
feeling, with choice of tints and outlines ; our eyes are delighted
by them. This reclining Acrasia has the pose of a goddess, or
of one of Titian's courtesans. An Italian artist might copy these
gardens, these flowing waters, these sculptured loves, those
wreaths of creeping ivy thick with glossy leaves and fleecy
flowers. Just before, in the infernal depths, the lights, with
their long streaming rays, were fine, half smothered by the
darkness ; the lofty throne in the vast hall, between the pillars,
in the midst of a swarming multitude, connected all the forms
around it by drawing all looks towards one centre. The poet,
here and throughout, is a colorist and an architect. However,
fantastic his world may be, it is not factitious ; if it does not ex-
ist, it might have been; indeed, it should have been; it is the
fault of circumstances if they do not so group themselves as to
bring it to pass ; taken by itself, it possesses that internal har-
mony by which a real thing, even a still higher harmony, exists,
inasmuch as, without any regard to real things, it is altogether,
and in its least detail, constructed with a view to beauty. Art
has made its appearance ; this is the great characteristic of the
age, which distinguishes the " Faerie Queene " from all similar
tales heaped up by the Middle Ages. Incoherent, mutilated,
they lie like rubbish, or rough-hewn stones, which the weak
hands of the trouveres could not build into a monument. At
last the poets and artists appear, and with them the conception of
beauty, to wit, the idea of general effect. They understand
proportions, relations, contrasts ; they compose. In their hands
the blurred vague sketch becomes defined, complete, separate;
it assumes color — is made a picture. Every object thus con-
ceived and imaged acquires a definite existence as soon as it
assumes a true form ; centuries after, it will be acknowledged
and admired, and men will be touched by it ; and more, they will
be touched by its author ; for, besides the object which he paints,

" " The Faerie Queene," ii. c. 12, stanzas 53-78.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 237

the poet paints himself. His ruhng idea is stamped upon the
work which it produces and controls. Spenser is superior to his
subject, comprehends it fully, frames it with a view to its end,
in order to impress upon it the proper mark of his soul and his
genius. Each story is modulated with respect to another, and
all with respect to a certain effect which is being worked out.
Thus a beauty issues from this harmony — the beauty in the
poet's heart — which his whole work strives to express ; a noble
and yet a cheerful beauty, made up of moral elevation and sen-
suous seductions, English in sentiment, Italian in externals,
chivalric in subject, modern in its perfection, representing a
unique and wonderful epoch, the appearance of paganism in a
Christian race, and the worship of form by an imagination of
the North.

Part III. — Prose
Section I. — The Decay of Poetry-
Such an epoch can scarcely last, and the poetic vitality wears
itself out by its very efflorescence, so that its expansion leads to
its decline. From the beginning of the seventeenth century
the subsidence of manners and genius grows apparent. En-
thusiasm and respect decline. The minions and court-fops in-
trigue and pilfer, amid pedantry, puerility, and show. The
court plunders, and the nation murmurs. The Commons begin
to show a stern front, and the king, scolding them like a school-
master, gives way before them like a little boy. This sorry
monarch (James I) suffers himself to be bullied by his favor-
ites, writes to them like a gossip, calls himself a Solomon, airs
his literary vanity, and in granting an audience to a courtier,
recommends him to become a scholar, and expects to be compli-
mented on his own scholarly attainments. The dignity of the
government is weakened, and the people's loyalty is cooled.
Royalty declines, and revolution is fostered. At the same time,
the noble chivalric paganism degenerates into a base and coarse
sensuality. The king, we are told, on one occasion, had got
so drunk with his royal brother Christian of Denmark, that they
both had to be carried to bed. Sir John Harrington says :

" The ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in in-
toxication. . . . The Lady who did play the Queen's part (in the

838 TAINE

Masque of the Queen of Sheba) did carry most precious gifts to both
their Majesties; but, forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, over-
set her caskets into his Danish Majesties lap, and fell at his feet, the
I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion;
cloths and napkins were at hand, to make all clean. His Majestic then
got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down
and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber
and laid on a bed of state; which was not a little defiled with the
presents of the Queen which had been bestowed on his garments; such
as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters.
The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters
went backward, or fell down ; wine did so occupy their upper cham-
bers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and Charity : Hope
did assay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble that
she withdrew, and hoped the king would excuse her brevity: Faith
. . . left the court in a staggering condition. . . . They were
both sick and spewing in the lower hall. Next came Victory, who
. . . by a strange medley of versification . . . and after much
lamentable utterance was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep
in the outer steps of the anti-chamber. As for Peace, she most rudely
made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates of those who did
oppose her coming. I ne'er did see such lack of good order, discretion,
and sobriety in our Queen's days." ^

Observe that these tipsy women were great ladies. The rea-
son is, that the grand ideas which introduce an epoch, end, in
their exhaustion, by preserving nothing but their vices; the
proud sentiment of natural life becomes a vulgar appeal to the
senses. An entrance, an arch of triumph under James I, often
represented obscenities; and later, when the sensual instincts,
exasperated by Puritan tyranny, begin to raise their heads once
more, we shall find under the Restoration excess revelling in its
low vices, and triumphing in its shamelessness.

Meanwhile literature undergoes a change; the powerful
breeze which had wafted it on, and which, amidst singularity,
refinement, exaggerations, had made it great, slackened and di-
minished. With Carew, Suckling, and Herrick, prettiness
takes the place of the beautiful. That which strikes them is no
longer the general features of things ; and they no longer try
to express the inner character of what they describe. They no
longer possess that liberal conception, that instinctive penetra-
tion, by which we sympathize with objects, and grow capable of
creating them anew. They no longer boast of that overflow of

» " Nugae Antiquae," i. 349 et passim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 239

emotions, that excess of ideas and images, which compelled a
man to relieve himself by words, to act externally, to represent
freely and boldly the interior drama which made his whole
body and heart tremble. They are rather wits of the court,
cavaliers of fashion, who wish to show off their imagination and
style. In their hands love becomes gallantry ; they write songs,
fugitive pieces, compliments to the ladies. There are no more
upwellings from the heart. They write eloquent phrases in
order to be applauded, and flattering exaggerations in order to
please. The divine faces, the serious or profound looks, the
virgin or impassioned expressions which burst forth at every
step in the early poets, have disappeared ; here we see nothing
but agreeable countenances, painted in agreeable verses. Black-
guardism is not far off ; we meet with it already in Suckling,
and crudity to boot, and prosaic epicurism ; their sentiment is
expressed before long, in such a phrase as : " Let us amuse our-
selves, and a fig for the rest." The only objects they can still
paint are little graceful things, a kiss, a May-day festivity, a
dewy primrose, a daffodil, a marriage morning, a bee.^ Her-
rick and Suckling especially produce little exquisite poems, del-

* " Some asked me where the Rubies grew.

And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to

The lips of Julia.
Some ask'd how Pearls did grow, and where;

Then spake I to my girle,
To part her lips, and shew me there

The quarelets of Pearl.
One ask'd me where the roses grew;

I bade him not go seek;
But forthwith bade my Julia show

A bud in either cheek."
— Herrick's " Hesperides," ed. Walford, 1859; The Rock of Rubies, p. 32.

" About the sweet bag of a bee,

Two Cupids fell at odds;
And whose the pretty prize shu'd be,

They vow'd to ask the Gods.
Which Venus hearing, thither came.

And for their boldness stript them;
And taking thence from each his flame.

With rods of mirtle whipt them.
Which done, to still their wanton cries,

When quiet grown sh'ad seen them,
She kist and wip'd their dove-like eyes.

And gave the bag between them."

— Herrick, Ibid. The Bag of the Bee, p. 42.

"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

Pr'ythee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Pr'ythee, why so pale?
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Pr'ythee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her.

34°

TAINE

icate, ever pleasant or agreeable, like those attributed to An-
acreon, or those which abound in the Anthology. In fact, here,
as at the Grecian period alluded to, we are in the decline of pa-
ganism ; energy departs, the reign of the agreeable begins. Peo-
ple do not relinquish the worship of beauty and pleasure, but
dally with them. They deck and fit them to their taste; they
cease to subdue and bend men, who enjoy them whilst they
amuse them. It is the last beam of a setting sun ; the genuine
poetic sentiment dies out with Sedley, Waller, and the rhyme-
sters of the Restoration ; they write prose in verse ; their heart
is on a level with their style, and with an exact language we find
the commencement of a new age and a new art.

Side by side with prettiness comes affectation ; it is the second
mark of their decadence. Instead of writing to express things,
they write to say them well ; they outbid their neighbors, and
strain every mode of speech ; they push art over on the one side
to which it had a leaning; and as in this age it had a leaning
towards vehemence and imagination, they pile up their emphasis
and coloring. A jargon always springs out of a style. In all
arts, the first masters, the inventors, discover the idea, steep
themselves in it, and leave it to effect its outward form. Then
come the second class, the imitators, who sedulously repeat this
form, and alter it by exaggeration. Some nevertheless have
talent, as Quarles, Herbert, Habington, Donne in particular, a
pungent satirist, of terrible crudeness,^ a powerful poet, of a

Saying nothing do't?

Pr ythee, why so mute?
Quit, quit for shame; this will not move,

This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love.

Nothing can make her.

The devil take her! "

—Sir John Suckling's Works, ed. A. Suckling, 1836, p. 70.

*• As when a lady, walking Flora's bower,
Picks here a pink, and there a gilly-flower.
Now plucks a violet from her purple bed.
And then a primrose, the year's maidenhead,
There nips the brier, here the lover's pansy,
Sliifting her dainty pleasures with her fancy,
This on her arms, and that she lists to wear
Upon the borders of her curious hair;
At length a rose-bud (passing all the rest)
She plucks, and bosoms in her lily breast."— Quarles, Stanzas.

• See, ia particular, his satire against courtiers. The following is against
imitators:

" But he is worst, who (beggarly) doth chaw
Others wit's fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spew,
As his owne things; and they 're his owne, 't is true,
For if one eate my meate, though it be knowne
The meat was mine, th' excrement is his owne."

—Donne's " Satires," 1639. Satire ii. p. 128.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 241

precise and intense imagination, who still preserves something
of the energy and thrill of the original inspiration.* But he
deliberately spoils all these gifts, and succeeds with great diffi-
culty in concocting a piece of nonsense. For instance, the im-
passioned poets had said to their mistress that if they lost her,
they should hate all other women. Donne, in order to eclipse
them, says :

" O do not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone.
That thee I shall not celebrate
When I remember thou wast one." ^

Twenty times while reading him we rub our brow, and ask with
astonishment, how a man could have so tormented and contort-
ed himself, strained his style, refined on his refinement, hit upon
such absurd comparisons ? But this was the spirit of the age ;
they made an effort to be ingeniously absurd. A flea had bitten
Donne and his mistress, and he says :

" This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed and mariage temple is.
Though Parents grudge, and you, w' are met,
And cloyster'd in these living walls of Jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that selfe-murder added be.
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three." '

The Marquis de Mascarille^ never found anything to equal
this. Would you have believed a writer could invent such ab-
surdities ? She and he made but one, for both are but one with
the flea, and so one could not be killed without the other. Ob-
serve that the wise Malherbe wrote very similar enormities, in

* " When I behold a stream, which from the spring
Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring,
Or in a speechless slumber calmly ride
Her wedded channel's bosom, and there chide
And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough
Does but stoop down to kiss her utmost brow;
Yet if her often gnawing kisses win
The traiteroue banks to gape and let her in,
She rusheth violently and doth divorce
Her from her native and her long-kept course.
And roares, and braves it, and in gallant scorn
In flatt'ring eddies promising return.
She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry.
Then say I: That is she, and this am I."— Donne, Elegy vi.

•Donne's Poems, 1639, " A Feaver," gerates his master's manners and style,

p. IS- and pretends to be a marquess. He also

• Ibid. " The Flea," p. i. appears in " L'Etourdi " and " Le depit

Z' \ valet in Moliere's " Les Pre- Amoureux," by the same author.— Tr.
cieuses Ridicules," who apes and exag-

242 TAINE

the " Tears of St. Peter," and that the sonneteers of Italy and
Spain reach simultaneously the same height of folly, and you
will agree that throughout Europe at that time they were at the
close of a poetical epoch.

On this boundary line of a closing and a dawning literature
a poet appeared, one of the most approved and illustrious of his
time, Abraham Cowley,^ a precocious child, a reader and a vers-
ifier like Pope, and who, like Pope, having known passions less
than books, busied himself less about things than about words.
Literary exhaustion has seldom been more manifest. He pos-
sesses all the capacity to say what pleases him, but he has pre- ,
cisely nothing to say. The substance has vanished, leaving in
its place an empty form. In vain he tries the epic, the Pindaric
strophe, all kinds of stanzas, odes, short lines, long lines ; in vain
he calls to his assistance botanical and philosophical similes, all
the erudition of the university, all the recollections of antiquity,
all the ideas of new science : we yawn as we read him. Except
in a few descriptive verses, two or three graceful tendernesses,*
he feels nothing, he speaks only ; he is a poet of the brain. His
collection of amorous pieces is but a vehicle for a scientific test,
and serves to show that he has read the authors, that he knows
geography, that he is well versed in anatomy, that he has a smat-
tering of medicine and astronomy, that he has at his service
comparisons and allusions enough to rack the brains of his
readers. He will speak in this wise:

" Beauty, thou active — passive 111 !
Which dy'st thyself as fast as thou dost kill!"

Or will remark that his mistress is to blame for spending three
hours every morning at her toilet, because

" They make that Beauty Tyranny,
That's else a Civil-government."

After reading two hundred pages, you feel disposed to box his
ears. You have to think, by way of consolation, that every
grand age must draw to a close, that this one could not do so
otherwise, that the old glow of enthusiasm, the sudden flood of
rapture, images, whimsical and audacious fancies, which once
rolled through the minds of men, arrested now and cooled down,

• 1608-1667. 1 refer to the eleventh edi- • " The Spring " (" The Miitres*," L
tion, of I7I0. 7a).

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 243

could only exhibit dross, a curdling scum, a multitude of bril-
liant and offensive points. You say to yourself that, after all,
Cowley had perhaps talent ; you find that he had in fact one, a
new talent, unknown to the old masters, the sign of a new cult-
ure, which needs other manners, and announces a new society.
Cowley had these manners, and belongs to this society. He
was a well-governed, reasonable, well-informed, polished, well-
educated man, who, after twelve years of service and writing
in France, under Queen Henrietta, retires at last wisely into the
country, where he studies natural history, and prepares a trea-
tise on religion, philosophizing on men and life, fertile in general
reflections and ideas, a moralist, bidding his executor " to let
nothing stand in his writings which might seem the least in the
world to be an offence against religion or good manners." Such
intentions and such a life produce and indicate less a poet, that
is, a seer, a creator, than a literary man ; I mean a man who can
think and speak^ and who therefore ought to have read much,
learned much, written much, ought to possess a calm and clear
mind, to be accustomed to polite society, sustained conversa-
tion, pleasantry. In fact, Cowley is an author by profession,
the oldest of those who in England deserve the name. His
prose is as easy and sensible as his poetry is contorted and un-
reasonable. A polished man, writing for polished men, pretty
much as he would speak to them in a drawing-room — this I
take to be the idea which they had of a good author in the seven-
teenth century. It is the idea which Cowley's essays leave of
his character; it is the kind of talent which the writers of the
coming age take for their model, and he is the first of that grave
and amiable group which, continued in Temple, reaches so far
as to include Addison.

Section II. — The Intellectual Level of the Renaissance

Having reached this point, the Renaissance seemed to have
attained its Hmit_, and, like a drooping and faded flower, to be
ready to leave its place for a new bud which began to spring up
amongst its withered leaves. At all events, a living and unex-
pected shoot sprang from the old declining stock. At the mo-
ment when art languished, science shot forth ; the whole labor
of the age ended in this. The fruits are not unlike ; on the con-

244 TAINE

trary, they come from the same sap, and by the diversity of the
shape only manifest two distinct periods of the inner growth
which has produced them. Every art ends in a science, and all
poetry in a philosophy. For science and philosophy do but
translate into precise formulas the original conceptions which
art and poetry render sensible by imaginary figures : when once
the idea of an epoch is manifested in verse by ideal creations,
it naturally comes to be expressed in prose by positive argu-
ments. That which had struck men on escaping from ecclesi-
astical oppression and monkish asceticism was the pagan idea of
a life true to nature, and freely developed. They had found
nature buried behind scholasticism, and they had expressed it
in poems and paintings ; in Italy by superb healthy corporeality,
in England by vehement and unconventional spirituality, with
such divination of its laws, instincts, and forms, that we might
extract from their theatre and their pictures a complete theory
of soul and body. When enthusiasm is past, curiosity begins.
The sentiment of beauty gives way to the need of truth. The
theory contained in works of imagination frees itself. The
gaze continues fixed on nature, not to admire now, but to under-
stand. From painting we pass to anatomy, from the drama to
moral philosophy, from grand poetical divinations to great sci-
entific views ; the second continue the first, and the same mind
displays itself in both ; for what art had represented, and science
proceeds to observe, are living things, with their complex and
complete structure, set in motion by their internal forces, with
no supernatural intervention. Artists and savants all set out,
without knowing it themselves, from the same master concep-
tion, to wit, that nature subsists of herself, that every existence
has in its own womb the source of its action, that the causes of
events are the innate laws of things ; an all-powerful idea, from
which was to issue the modern civilization, and which, at the
time I write of, produced in England and Italy, as before in
Greece, genuine sciences, side by side with a complete art:
after da Vinci and Michelangelo, the school of anatomists,
mathematicians, naturalists, ending with Galileo; after Spen-
ser, Ben Jonson, and Shakespeare, the school of thinkers who
surround Bacon and lead up to Harvey.

We have not far to look for this school. In the interregnum
of Christianity the dominating bent of mind belongs to it. It

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 245

was paganism which reigned in Elizabeth's court, not only in
letters, but in doctrine — a paganism of the North, always seri-
ous, generally sombre, but which was based, like that of the
South, on natural forces. In some men all Christianity had
passed away ; many proceeded to atheism through excess of re-
beUion and debauchery, like Marlowe and Greene. With
others, like Shakespeare, the idea of God scarcely makes its
appearance ; they see in our poor short human life only a dream,
and beyond it the long sad sleep : for them, death is the goal of
life ; at most, a dark gulf, into which man plunges, uncertain
of the issue. If they carry their gaze beyond, they perceive,^
not the spiritual soul welcomed into a purer world, but the
corpse abandoned to the damp earth, or the ghost hovering
about the churchyard. They speak like sceptics or supersti-
tious men, never as true believers. Their heroes have human,
not religious, virtues ; against crime they rely on honor and the
love of the beautiful, not on piety and the fear of God. If
others, at intervals, like Sidney and Spenser, catch a glimpse
of the Divine, it is as a vague ideal light, a sublime Platonic
phantom, which has no resemblance to a personal God, a strict
inquisitor of the slightest motions of the heart. He appears at
the summit of things, like the splendid crown of the world, but
he does not weigh upon human life; he leaves it intact and
free, only turning it towards the beautiful. Man does not know
as yet the sort of narrow prison in which official cant and re-
spectable creeds were, later on, to confine activity and intelli-
gence. Even the believers, sincere Christians like Bacon and
Sir Thomas Browne, discard all oppressive sternness, reduce
Christianity to a sort of moral poetry, and allow naturalism to
subsist beneath religion. In such a broad and open channel,
speculation could spread its wings. With Lord Herbert ap-
peared a systematic deism ; with Milton and Algernon Sidney,
a philosophical religion ; Clarendon went so far as to compare
Lord Falkland's gardens to the groves of Academe. Against
the rigorism of the Puritans, Chillingworth, Hales, Hooker, the
grc test doctors of the English Church, give a large place to
natural reason — so large, that never, even to this day, has it
made such an advance.

1 See in Shakespeare, "The Tempest," and Theodoret," Act iv. ; Webster,
"Measure for Measure," "Hamlet"; oassim.
in Beaumont and Fletcher, " Thierry

846 TAINE

An astonishing irruption of facts — ^the discovery of America,
the revival of antiquity, the restoration of philology, the inven-
tion of the arts, the development of industries, the march of
human curiosity over the whole of the past and the whole of the
globe — came to furnish subject-matter, and prose began its
reign. Sidney, Wilson, Ascham, and Puttenham explored the
rules of style ; Hakluyt and Purchas compiled the cyclopaedia
of travel and the description of every land ; Holinshed, Speed,
Raleigh, Stowe, KnoUes, Daniel, Thomas May, Lord Herbert,
founded history ; Camden, Spelman, Cotton, Usher, and Selden
inaugurate scholarship ; a legion of patient workers, of obscure
collectors, of literary pioneers, amassed, arranged, and sifted
the documents which Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Bodley
stored up in their libraries ; whilst Utopians, moralists, painters
of manners — Thomas More, Joseph Hall, John Earle, Owen
Feltham, Burton — described and passed judgment on the modes
of life, continued with Fuller, Sir Thomas Browne, and Izaak
Walton up to the middle of the next century, and add to the
number of controversialists and politicians who, with Hooker,
Taylor, Chillingworth, Algernon Sidney, Harrington, study
religion, society, church, and state. A copious and confused
fermentation, from which abundance of thoughts rose, but few
notable books. Noble prose, such as was heard at the court of
Louis XIV, in the house of Pollio, in the schools at Athens,
such as rhetorical and sociable nations know how to produce,
was altogether lacking. These men had not the spirit of anal-
ysis, the art of following step by step the natural order of ideas,
nor the spirit of conversation, the talent never to weary or shock
others. Their imagination is too little regulated, and their man-
ners too little polished. They who had mixed most in the
world, even Sidney, speak roughly what they think, and as they
think it. Instead of glossing they exaggerate. They blurt
out all, and withhold nothing. When they do not employ ex-
cessive compliments, they take to coarse jokes. They are ignor-
ant of measured liveliness, refined raillery, delicate flattery.
They rejoice in gross puns, dirty allusions. They mistake in-
volved charades and grotesque images for wit. Though they
are great lords and ladies, they talk like ill-bred persons, lovers
of buffoonery, of shows, and bear-fights. With some, as Over-
bury or Sir Thomas Browne, prose is so much run over by po-

HISTORY OF. ENGLISH LITERATURE 247

etry, that it covers its narrative with images, and hides ideas
under its pictures. They load their style with flowery compari-
sons, which produce one another, and mount one above another,
so that sense disappears, and ornament only is visible. In short,
they are generally pedants, still stiff with the rust of the school ;
they divide and subdivide, propound theses, definitions; they
argue solidly and heavily, and quote their authors in Latin, and
even in Greek ; they square their massive periods, and learnedly
knock their adversaries down, and their readers too, as a natural
consequence. They are never on the prose-level, but always
above or below — above by their poetic genius, below by the
weight of their education and the barbarism of their manners.
But they think seriously and for themselves ; they are deliberate ;
they are convinced and touched by what they say. Even in the
compiler we find a force and loyalty of spirit, which give confi-
dence and cause pleasure. Their writings are like the powerful
and heavy engravings of their contemporaries, the maps of Hof-
nagel for instance, so harsh and so instructive ; their conception
is sharp and clear ; they have the gift of perceiving every object,
not under a general aspect, like the classical writers, but spe-
cially and individually. It is not man in the abstract, the citizen
as he is everywhere, the countryman as such, that they repre-
sent, but James or Thomas, Smith or Brown, of such a parish,
from such an office, with such and such attitude or dress, distinct
from all others ; in short, they see, not the idea, but the individ-
ual. Imagine the disturbance that such a disposition produces
in a man's head, how the regular order of ideas becomes de-
ranged by it ; how every object, with the infinite medley of its
forms, properties, appendages, will thenceforth fasten itself by a
hundred points of contact unforeseen to other objects, and bring
before the mind a series and a family ; what boldness language
will derive from it; what familiar, picturesque, absurd words,
will break forth in succession; how the dash, the unforeseen,
the originality and inequality of invention, will stand out. Im-
agine, at the same time, what a hold this form of mind has on
objects, how many facts it condenses in each conception ; what
a mass of personal judgments, foreign authorities, suppositions,
guesses, imaginations, it spreads over every subject ; with what
venturesome and creative fecundity it engenders both truth and
conjecture. It is an extraordinary chaos of thoughts and forms.

248 TAINE

often abortive, still more often barbarous, sometimes grand.
But from this superfluity something lasting and great is pro-
duced; namely, science, and we have only to examine more
closely into one or two of these works to see the new creation
emerge from the blocks and the debris.

Section III. — Robert Burton

Two writers especially display this state of mind. The first,
Robert Burton, a clergyman and university recluse, who passed
his life in libraries, and dabbled in all the sciences, as learned as
Rabelais, having an inexhaustible and overflowing memory ; un-
equal, moreover, gifted with enthusiasm, and spasmodically gay,
but as a rule sad and morose, to the extent of confessing in his
epitaph that melancholy made up his life and his death ; in the
first place original, liking his own common-sense, and one of the
earliest models of that singular English mood which, withdraw-
ing man within himself, develops in him, at one time imagina-
tion, at another scrupulosity, at another oddity, and makes of
him, according to circumstances, a poet, an eccentric, a humor-
ist, a madman, or a puritan. He read on for thirty years, put
an encyclopaedia into his head, and now, to amuse and relieve
himself, takes a folio of blank paper. Twenty lines of a poet, a
dozen lines of a treatise on agriculture, a folio page of heraldry,
a description of rare fishes, a paragraph of a sermon on patience,
the record of the fever fits of hypochondria, the history of the
particle that, a scrap of metaphysics — that is what passes
through his brain in a quarter of an hour ; it is a carnival of ideas
and phrases, Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, philosoph-
ical, geometrical, medical, poetical, astrological, musical, peda-
gogic, heaped one on the other ; an enormous medley, a prodi-
gious mass of jumbled quotations, jostling thoughts, with the
vivacity and the transport of a feast of unreason.

" This roving humour (though not with like success) I have ever had,
and, like a ranging spaniel that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his
game, I have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly
complain, and truly, qui ubique est, nusquam est, which Gesner did in
modesty, that I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want
of good method, I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our
libraries with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgment.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 349

I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts
have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with
the study of cosmography. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminat-
ing, etc., and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile con-
junction with mine ascendent; both fortunate in their houses, etc. I
am not poor, I am not rich ; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little ; I want
nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment
as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency
{laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still
a collegiat student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastique
life, Ipse mihi theatrum, sequestred from those tumults and troubles of
the world, et tanquam in specula positus (as he said), in some high place
above you all, like Sto'icus sapiens, omnia scBciila prceterita prcesentiaque
videns, una velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how
others run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and countrey.
Far from these wrangling lawsuits, aulce vanitatem, fori ambitionem,
ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, only secure, lest my suit go amiss,
my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay; I have no wife
nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other
men's fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which
methinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre
or scene. I hear new news every day : and those ordinary rumours of
war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors,
comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions; of towns taken, cities be-
sieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters
and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times aflFord,
battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwracks, piracies,
and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms — a vast con-
fusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws,
proclamations, complaints, grievances — are daily brought to our ears:
new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues
of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, con-
troversies in philosophy, religion, etc. Now come tidings of weddings,
maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilies, embassies, tilts and
tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, playes: then again, as
in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous
villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries,
expeditions ; now comical, then tragical matters. To-day we hear of
new lords and oflRcers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed,
anH then again of fresh honours conferred : one is let loose, another
imprisoned : one purchaseth, another breaketh : he thrives, his neigh-
bour turns bankrupt ; now plenty, then again dearth and famine ; one
mn':. another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, etc. Thus I daily hear,
and such like, both private and publick news." *

" For what a world of books oflFers itself, in all subjects, arts, and
sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithme-

^ " Anatomy of Melancholy," lath td. 1821, 2 vols. ; Democritus to the
Reader, i. 4.

2SO

TAINE

tick, geometry, perspective, optick, astronomy, architecture, sculptura,
pictura, of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late writ-
ten : in mechanicks and their mysteries, military matters, navigation,
riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes
of husbandry, cookery, faulconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, etc., with
exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not. In musick, meta-
physicks, natural and moral philosophy, philologie, in policy, heraldry,
genealogy, chronology, etc., they afford great tomes, or those studies of
antiquity, etc., et quid subtilius arithmeticis inventionibusf quia jucun-
dius musicis rationibus? quid divinius astronomicis? quid rectius geonie-
tricis demons trationibusf What so sure, what so pleasant? He that shall
but see the geometrical tower of Garezenda at Bologne in Italy, the
steeple and clock at Strasborough, will admire the effects of art, or that
engine of Archimedes to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place
to fasten his instrument. Archimedis cochlea, and rare devises to cor-
rivate waters, musick instruments, and trisyllable echoes again, again,
and again repeated, with miriades of such. What vast tomes are extant
in law, physick, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation,
in verse or prose, etc. ! Their names alone are the subject of whole
volumes ; we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libra-
ries, full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for
several palates, and he is a very block that is affected with none of them.
Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these
books are written — Hebrew, Greek, Syriack, Chalde, Arabick, etc. Me-
thinks it would well please any man to look upon a geographical map
(suavi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibileni rerum varietatem
et jucunditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare), chorograph-
ical, topographical delineations; to behold, as it were, all the remote
provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits
of his study ; to measure, by the scale and compasse, their extent, dis-
tance, examine their site. Charles the Great (as Platina writes) had
three faire silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of
Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an
exquisite description of the whole world ; and much delight he took in
them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those
elaborate maps of Ortelius, Mercator, Hondius, etc. ? to peruse those
books of cities put out by Braunus and Hogenbergius ? to read those
exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula,
Boterus, Leander Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Ger-
belius, etc. ? those famous expeditions of Christopher Columbus, Ameri-
cus Vespucius, Marcus Polus the Venetian, Lod. Vertomannus, Aloysius
Cadamustus, etc.? those accurate diaries of Portugals, Hollanders, of
Bartison, Oliver a Nort, etc., Hacluit's Voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades,
Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's relations, those Hodseporicons of Jod. a
Meggen, Brocarde the Monke, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sands,
etc., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those
pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Po-
lonus, etc.? to read Bellonius observations, P. Gillius his survayes;

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

251

those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres
a Bry? To see a well cut herbal, hearbs, trees, flowers, plants, all
vegetals, expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Mat-
thiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last
voluminous and mighty herbal of Besler of Noremberge ; wherein al-
most every plant is to his own bignesse. To see birds, beasts, and fishes
of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, etc., all creatures set out by
the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact de-
scription of their natures, vertues, qualities, etc., as hath been accurately
performed by .^Elian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonius, Rondo-
letius, Hippolytus Salvianus, etc." ^

He is never-ending; words, phrases, overflow, are heaped up,
overlap each other, and flow on, carrying the reader along, deaf-
ened, stunned, half drowned, unable to touch ground in the
deluge. Burton is inexhaustible. There are no ideas which he
does not iterate under fifty forms : when he has exhausted his
own, he pours out upon us other men's — the classics, the rarest
authors, known only by savants — authors rarer still, known only
to the learned ; he borrows from all. Underneath these deep
caverns of erudition and science, there is one blacker and more
unknown than all the others, filled with forgotten authors, with
crackjaw names, Besler of Nuremberg, Adricomius, Linscho-
ten, Brocarde, Bredenbachius. Amidst all these antediluvian
monsters, bristling with Latin terminations, he is at his ease;
he sports with them, laughs, skips from one to the other, drives
them all abreast. He is like old Proteus, the sturdy rover, who
in one hour, with his team of hippopotami, makes the circuit of
the ocean.

What subject does he take? Melancholy, his own individual
mood ; and he takes it like a schoolman. None of St. Thomas
Aquinas's treatises is more regularly constructed than his. This
torrent of erudition flows in geometrically planned channels,
turning off at right angles without deviating by a line. At the
head of every part you will find a synoptical and analytical table,
with hyphens, brackets, each division begetting its subdivisions,
each subdivision its sections, each section its subsections : of the
malady in general, of melancholy in particular, of its nature, its
seat, its varieties, causes, symptoms, prognosis ; of its cure by
permissible means, by forbidden means, by dietetic means,
by pharmaceutical means. After the scholastic process, he

* " Anatomy of Melancholy," i. part 2, sec. 2, Mem. 4, p. 420 et passim.

252 TAINE

descends from the general to the particular, and disposes
each emotion and idea in its labelled case. In this frame-
work, supplied by the Middle Ages, he heaps up the whole, like
a man of the Renaissance — the literary description of passions
and the medical description of madness, details of the hospital
with a satire on human follies, physiological treatises side by
side with personal confidences, the recipes of the apothecary
with moral counsels, remarks on love with the history of evacu-
ations. The discrimination of ideas has not yet been effected ;
doctor and poet, man of letters and savant, he is all at once ; for
want of dams, ideas pour like different liquids into the same vat,
with strange spluttering and bubbling, with an unsavory smell
and odd effect. But the vat is full, and from this admixture are
produced potent compounds which no preceding age has known.

Section IV. — Sir Thomas Browne

For in this mixture there is an effectual leaven, the poetic sen-
timent, which stirs up and animates the vast erudition, which
will not be confined to dry catalogues ; which, interpreting every
fact, every object, disentangles or divines a mysterious soul
within it, and agitates the whole mind of man, by representing
to him the restless world within and without him as a grand
enigma. Let us conceive a kindred mind to Shakespeare's,
a scholar and an observer instead of an actor and a poet, who in
place of creating is occupied in comprehending, but who, like
Shakespeare, applies himself to living things, penetrates their
internal structure, puts himself in communication with their ac-
tual laws, imprints in himself fervently and scrupulously the
smallest details of their outward appearance ; who at the same
time extends his penetrating surmises beyond the region of
observation, discerns behind visible phenomena some world
obscure yet sublime, and trembles with a kind of veneration be-
fore the vast, indistinct, but peopled darkness on whose surface
our little universe hangs quivering. Such a one is Sir Thomas
Browne, a naturaUst, a philosopher, a scholar, a physician, and a
moralist, almost the last of the generation which produced Jer-
emy Taylor and Shakespeare. No thinker bears stronger wit-
ness to the wandering and inventive curiosity of the age. No

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 253

writer has better displayed the briUiant and sombre imagina-
tion of the North. No one has spoken with a more eloquent
emotion of death, the vast night of forgetfulness, of the all-de-
vouring pit, of human vanity, which tries to create an ephemeral
immortality out of glory or sculptured stones. No one has
revealed, in more glowing and original expressions, the poetic
sap which flows through all the minds of the age.

" But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals
with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.
Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that
burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath
spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In
vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names,
since bad have equal duration ; and Thersites is like to live as long as
Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or
whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that
stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour
of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the
last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.

" Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to
be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not
in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story
before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one
living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall
live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when
was the equinox? Every hour adds unto the current arithmetick which
scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life,
and even Pagans could doubt, whether thus to live were to die; since
our longest sun sets at right declensions, and makes but winter arches,
and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and
have our light in ashes ; since the brother of death daily haunts us with
dying mementos, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us hope no
long duration ; — diuturnity is a dream, and folly of expectation.

" Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares
with memory a great part even of our living beings ; we slightly re-
member our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but
short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows de-
stroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions
induce callosities ; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us,
which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of
evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision of
nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days ; and
our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sor-
rows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions. . . . All was
vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egyptian mummies, which
Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is
12— Classics. Vol. 38

2 54 TAINE

become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams. . . . Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pom-
pous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre,
nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infancy of his nature. . . .
Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain glory,
and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity." ^

These are almost the words of a poet, and it is just this poet's
imagination which urges him onward into science.^ Face to
face with the productions of nature he abounds in conjectures,
comparisons ; he gropes about, proposing explanations, making
trials, extending his guesses like so many flexible and vibrating
feelers into the four corners of the globe, into the most distant
regions of fancy and truth. As he looks upon the tree-like and
foliaceous crusts which are formed upon the surface of freezing
liquids, he asks himself if this be not a regeneration of vegeta-
ble essences, dissolved in the liquid. At the sight of curdling
blood or milk, he inquires whether there be not something anal-
ogous to the formation of the bird in the egg, or to the coagula-
tion of chaos which gave birth to our world. In presence of
that impalpable force which makes liquids freeze, he asks if
apoplexy and cataract are not the effects of a like power, and do
not indicate also the presence of a congealing agency. He is
in presence of nature as an artist, a man of letters in presence of
a living countenance, marking every feature, every movement of
physiognomy, so as to be able to divine the passions and the
inner disposition, ceaselessly correcting and undoing his inter-
pretations, kept in agitation by thought of the invisible forces
which operate beneath the visible envelope. The whole of the
Middle Ages and of antiquity, with their theories and imagina-
tions, Platonism, Cabalism, Christian theology, Aristotle's sub-
stantial forms, the specific forms of the alchemists — all human
speculations, entangled and transformed one with the other,
meet simultaneously in his brain, so as to open up to him vistas
of this unknown world. The accumulation, the pile, the confu-
sion, the fermentation and the inner swarming, mingled with
vapors and flashes_, the tumultuous overloading of his imagina-
tion and his mind, oppress and agitate him. In this expectation
and emotion his curiosity takes hold of everything ; in reference

» " The Works of Sir Thomas " See Milsand, Etude sur Sir Thomas

Browne," ed. Wilkin, 1852, 3 vols. Browne, in the " Revue des Deux

" Hydriotaphia," iii. ch. v. 14 et pas- Mondes," 1858.
sim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 255

to the least fact, the most special, the most obsolete, the most
chimerical, he conceives a chain of complicated investigations,
calculating how the ark could contain all creatures, with their
provision of food ; how Perpenna, at a banquet, arranged the
guests so as to strike Sertorius ; what trees must have grown
on the banks of Acheron, supposing that there were any;
whether quincunx plantations had not their origin in Eden, and
whether the numbers and geometrical figures contained in the
lozenge-form are not met with in all the productions of nature
and art. You may recognize here the exuberance and the
strange caprices of an inner development too ample and too
strong. Archaeology, chemistry, history, nature, there is noth-
ing in which he is not passionately interested^ which does not
cause his memory and his inventive powers to overflow, which
does not summon up within him the idea of some force, certainly
admirable, possibly infinite. But what completes his picture,
what signalizes the advance of science, is the fact that his imag-
ination provides a counterbalance against itself. He is as fer-
tile in doubts as he is in explanations. If he sees a thousand
reasons which tend to one view, he sees also a thousand which
tend to the contrary. At the two extremities of the same fact, he
raises up to the clouds, but in equal piles, the scaffolding of con-
tradictory arguments. Having made a guess, he knows that it
is but a guess ; he pauses, ends with a perhaps, recommends veri-
fication. His writings consist only of opinions, given as such ;
even his principal work is a refutation of popular errors. In
the main, he proposes questions, suggests explanations, sus-
•pends his judgments, nothing more; but this is enough; when
the search is so eager, when the paths in which it proceeds are
so numerous, when it is so scrupulous in securing its hold, the
issue of the pursuit is sure ; we are but a few steps from the
truth.

Section V. — Francis Bacon

In this band of scholars, dreamers, and inquirers, appears the
most comprehensive, sensible, originative of the minds of the
age, Francis Bacon, a great and luminous intellect, one of the
finest of this poetic progeny, who, like his predecessors, was nat-
urally disposed to clothe his ideas in the most splendid dress : in

256 TAINE

this age, a thought did not seem complete until it had assumed
form and color. But what distinguishes him from the others is,
that with him an image only serves to concentrate meditation.
He reflected long, stamped on his mind all the parts and rela-
tions of his subject; he is master of it, and then, instead of ex-
posing this complete idea in a graduated chain of reasoning, he
embodies it in a comparison so expressive, exact, lucid, that be-
hind the figure we perceive all the details of the idea, like liquor
in a fine crystal vase. Judge of his style by a single example :

" For as water, whether it be the dew of Heaven or the springs of the
earth, easily scatters and loses itself in the ground, except it be col-
lected into some receptacle, where it may by union and consort comfort
and sustain itself (and for that cause, the industry of man hath devised
aqueducts, cisterns, and pools, and likewise beautified them with various
ornaments of magnificence and state, as well as for use and necessity) ;
so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine
inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish
into oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences,
and especially in places appointed for such matters as universities, col-
leges, and schools, where it may have both a fixed habitation, and means
and opportunity of increasing and collecting itself." ^

" The greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing of
the last or farthest end of knowledge : for men have entered into a
desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity
and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with va-
riety and delight ; sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and some-
times to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most
times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true
account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men : as if
there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching
and restless spirit; or a terrace, for a wandering and variable mind
to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a
proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for
strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich
storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate." 2

This is his mode of thought, by symbols, not by analysis ; in-
stead of explaining his idea, he transposes and translates it —
translates it entire, to the smallest details, enclosing all in the
majesty of a grand period, or in the brevity of a striking sen-
tence. Thence springs a style of admirable richness, gravity,
and vigor, now solemn and symmetrical, now concise and pierc-

* Bacon's Works. Translation of the • Ibid. Book i. The true en^ of

" De Augmentis Scientiarum," Book learning mistaken.
ii.; To the King.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 257

ing, always elaborate and full of color,^ There is nothing in
English prose superior to his diction.

Thence is derived also his manner of conceiving things. He
is not a dialectician, like Hobbes or Descartes, apt in arranging
ideas, in educing one from another, in leading his reader from
the simple to the complex by an unbroken chain. He is a pro-
ducer of conceptions and of sentences. The matter being ex-
plored, he says to us : " Such it is ; touch it not on that side ; it
must be approached from the other." Nothing more ; no proof,
no effort to convince : he affirms, and does nothing more ; he
has thought in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks
after the manner of prophets and seers. Cogitata et visa this
title of one of his books might be the title of all. The most
admirable, the " Novum Organum," is a string of aphorisms — a
collection, as it were, of scientific decrees, as of an oracle who
foresees the future and reveals the truth. And to make the re-
semblance complete, he expresses them by poetical figures, by
enigmatic abbreviations, almost in Sibylline verses : Idola
speciis, Idola trihus, Idola fori, Idola theatri, everyone will re-
call these strange names, by which he signifies the four kinds of
illusions to which man is subject.* Shakespeare and the seers
do not contain more vigorous or expressive condensations of
thought, more resembling inspiration, and in Bacon they are to
be found everywhere. On the whole, his process is that of the
creators ; it is intuition, not reasoning. When he has laid up
his store of facts, the greatest possible, on some vast subject,
on some entire province of the mind, on the whole anterior phil-
osophy, on the general condition of the sciences, on the power
and limits of human reason, he casts over all this a comprehen-
sive view, as it were a great net, brings up a universal idea, con-
denses his idea into a maxim, and hands it to us with the words,
" Verify and profit by it."

There is nothing more hazardous, more like fantasy, than this
mode of thought, when it is not checked by natural and good
strong sense. This common-sense, which is a kind of natural
divination, the stable equilibrium of an intellect always gravi-
tating to the true, like the needle to the pole, Bacon possesses in

• Especially in the Essays. Instantiae crucis, divortii januae, In-

* See also " Novum Organum," Books stantias innuentes, polychrestae, magicae,
i. and ii. ; the twenty-seven kinds of ex- etc.

amples, with their metaphorical names:

758 TAINE

the highest degree. He has a pre-eminently practical, even an
utilitarian mind, such as we meet with later in Bentham, and
such as their business habits were to impress more and more
upon the English. At the age of sixteen, while at the univer-
sity, he was dissatisfied with Aristotle's philosophy,^ not that
he thought meanly of the author, whom, on the contrary, he calls
a great genius; but because it seemed to him of no practical
utility, incapable of producing works which might promote the
well-being of men. We see that from the outset he struck upon
his dominant idea ; all else comes to him from this ; a contempt
for antecedent philosophy, the conception of a different system,
the entire reformation of the sciences by the indication of a
new goal, the definition of a distinct method, the opening up of
unsuspected anticipations.^ It is never speculation which he
relishes, but the practical application of it. His eyes are turned
not to heaven, but to earth ; not to things abstract and vain, but
to things palpable and solid; not to curious, but to profitable
truths. He seeks to better the condition of men, to labor for
the welfare of mankind, to enrich human life with new discov-
eries and new resources, to equip mankind with new powers and
new instruments of action. His philosophy itself is but an in-
strument, organum, a sort of machine or lever constructed to
enable the intellect to raise a weight, to break through obstacles,
to open up vistas, to accomplish tasks, which had hitherto sur-
passed its power. In his eyes, every special science, like science
in general, should be an implement. He invites mathematicians
to quit their pure geometry, to study numbers only with a view
to natural philosophy, to seek formulas only to calculate real
quantities and natural motions. He recommends moralists to
study the soul, the passions, habits, temptations, not merely in a
speculative way, but with a view to the cure or diminution of
vice, and assigns to the science of morals as its goal the amelio-
ration of morals. For him, the object of science is always the es-
tablishment of an art ; that is, the production of something of
practical utility; when he wished to describe the efficacious nat-
ure of his philosophy by a tale, he delineated in the " New At-
lantis," with a poet's boldness and the precision of a seer, almost
employing the very terms in use now, modern applications, and

• " The Works of Francis Bacon," • This point is brought out by the re-

London, 1824, vol. vii. p. 2. " Latm view of Lord Macaulay. " Critical and
Biography," bv Rawley. Historical Essays," vol. iii.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 259

the present organization of the sciences, academies, observator-
ies, air-balloons, submarine vessels, the improvement of land,
the transmutation of species, regenerations, the discovery of
remedies, the preservation of food. The end of our foundation,
says his principal personage, is the knowledge of causes and
secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of
human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. And this
" possible " is infinite.

How did this grand and just conception originate? Doubtless
common-sense and genius, too^ were necessary to its produc-
tion ; but neither common-sense nor genius was lacking to men :
there had been more than one who, observing, like Bacon, the
progress of particular industries, could, like him, have con-
ceived of universal industry, and from certain limited ameliora-
tions have advanced to unlimited amelioration. Here we see
the power of connection ; men think they do everything by their
individual thought, and they can do nothing without the assist-
ance of the thoughts of their neighbors ; they fancy that they
are following the small voice within them, but they only hear it
because it is swelled by the thousand buzzing and imperious
voices, which, issuing from all surrounding or distant circum-
stances, are confounded with it in an harmonious vibration.
Generally they hear it, as Bacon did, from the first moment of
reflection ; but it had become inaudible among the opposing
sounds which came from without to smother it. Could this
confidence in the infinite enlargement of human power, this
glorious idea of the universal conquest of nature, this firm hope
in the continual increase of well-being and happiness, have
germinated, grown, occupied an intelligence entirely, and thence
have struck its roots, been propagated and spread over neigh-
boring intelligences, in a time of discouragement and decay,
when men believed the end of the world at hand, when things
were falling into ruin about them, when Christian mysticism, as
in the first centuries, ecclesiastical tyranny, as in the four-
teenth century, were convincing them of their impotence,
by perverting their intellectual efforts and curtailing their
liberty. On the contrary, such hopes must then have seemed
to be outbursts of pride, or suggestions of the carnal mind.
They did seem so ; and the last representatives of ancient sci-
ence, and the first of the new, were exiled or imprisoned, assas-

26o TAINE

sinated or burned. In order to be developed an idea must be in
harmony with surrounding civiHzation ; before man can expect
to attain the dominion over nature, or attempts to improve his
condition, amelioration must have begun on all sides, in-
dustries have increased, knowledge have been accumulated, the
arts expanded, a hundred thousand irrefutable witnesses must
have come incessantly to give proof of his power and assurance
of his progress. The " masculine birth of the time " (temporis
partus masciilus) is the title which Bacon applies to his work,
and it is a true one. In fact, the whole age co-operated in it ;
by this creation it was finished. The consciousness of human
power and prosperity gave to the Renaissance its first energy,
its ideal, its poetic materials, its distinguishing features; and
now it furnishes it with its final expression, its scientific doc-
trine, and its ultimate object.

We may add also, its method. For, the end of a journey
once determined, the route is laid down, since the end always
determines the route ; when the point to be reached is changed,
the path of approach is changed, and science, varying its object,
varies also its method. So long as it limited its effort to the sat-
isfying an idle curiosity, opening out speculative vistas, estab-
lishing a sort of opera in speculative minds, it could launch out
any moment into metaphysical abstractions and distinctions:
it was enough for it to skim over experience ; it soon quitted it,
and came all at once upon great words, quiddities, the principle
of individuation, final causes. Half proofs sufficed science ; at
bottom it did not care to establish a truth, but to get an opinion ;
and its instrument, the syllogism, was serviceable only for refu-
tations, not for discoveries ; it took general laws for a starting-
point instead of a point of arrival ; instead of going to find them,
it fancied them found. The syllogism was good in the schools,
not in nature; it made disputants, not discoverers. From the
moment that science had art for an end, and men studied in
order to act, all was transformed; for we cannot act without
certain and precise knowledge. Forces, before they can be
employed, must be measured and verified ; before we can build
a house, we must know exactly the resistance of the beams, or
the house will collapse ; before we can cure a sick man, we must
know with certainty the eflFect of a remedy, or the patient will
die. Practice makes certainty and exactitude a necessity to

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 261

science, because practice is impossible when it has nothing to
lean upon but guesses and approximations. How can we elim-
inate guesses and approximations? How introduce into sci-
ence, solidity and precision? We must imitate the cases in
which science, issuing in practice, has proved to be precise and
certain, and these cases are the industries. We must, as in the
industries, observe, essay, grope about, verify, keep our mind
fixed on sensible and particular things, advance to general rules
only step by step ; not anticipate experience, but follow it ; not
imagine nature, but interpret it. For every general effect, such
as heat, whiteness, hardness, liquidity, we must seek a general
condition, so that in producing the condition we may produce
the effect. And for this it is necessary, by fit rejections and ex-
clusions, to extract the condition sought from the heap of facts
in which it lies buried, construct the table of cases from which
the effect is absent, the table where it is present, the table where
the effect is shown in various degrees, so as to isolate and bring
to light the condition which produced it.' Then we shall have,
not useless universal axioms, but efficacious mediate axioms,
true laws from which we can derive works, and which are the
sources of power in the same degree as the sources of light.^
Bacon described and predicted in this modern science and in-
dustry, their correspondence, method, resources, principle ; and
after more than two centuries it is still to him that we go even
at the present day to look for the theory of what we are attempt-
ing and doing.

Beyond this great view, he has discovered nothing. Cowley,
One of his admirers, rightly said that, like Moses on Mount Pis-
gah, he was the first to announce the promised land; but he
might have added quite as justly, that, like Moses, he did not
enter there. He pointed out the route, but did not travel it ; he
taught men how to discover natural laws, but discovered none.
His definition of heat is extremely imperfect. His " Natural
History " is full of fanciful explanations.® Like the poets, he
peoples nature with instincts and desires ; attributes to bodies an
actual voracity, to the atmosphere a thirst for light, sounds,
odors, vapors which it drinks in ; to metals a sort of haste to be
incorporated with acids. He explains the duration of the bub-

^ " Novum Organum," ii. 15 and 16. • " Natural History," 800, 24, etc

^ Ibid. i. i. 3. " De Augmentis," iii. i.

262 TAINE

bles of air which float on the surface of liquids, by supposing
that air has a very small or no appetite for height. He sees in
every quality, weight, ductility, hardness, a distinct essence
which has its special cause ; so that when a man knows the cause
of every quality of gold, he will be able to put all these causes
together, and make gold. In the main, with the alchemists,
Paracelsus and Gilbert, Kepler himself, with all the men of his
time, men of imagination, nourished on Aristotle, he represents
nature as a compound of secret and living energies, inexplicable
and primordial forces, distinct and indecomposable essences,
adapted each by the will of the Creator to produce a distinct ef-
fect. He almost saw souls endowed with latent repugnances and
occult inclinations, which aspire to or resist certain directions,
certain mixtures, and certain localities. On this account also he
confounds everything in his researches in an undistinguishable
mass, vegetative and medicinal properties, mechanical and cura-
tive, physical and moral, without considering the most complex
as depending on the simplest, but each on the contrary in itself,
and taken apart, as an irreducible and independent existence.
Obstinate in this error, the thinkers of the age mark time with-
out advancing. They see clearly with Bacon the wide field of
discovery, but they cannot enter upon it. They want an idea,
and for want of this idea they do not advance. The disposition
of mind which but now was a lever, is become an obstacle : it
must be changed, that the o^''"' le may be got rid of. For
ideas, I mean great and efficacious ones, do not come at will nor
by chance, by the effort of an individual, or by a happy accident.
Methods and philosophies, as well as literatures and religions,
arise from the spirit of the age ; and this spirit of the age makes
them potent or powerless. One state of public intelligence ex-
cludes a certain kind of literature; another, a certain scientific
conception. When it happens thus, writers and thinkers labor
in vain, the literature is abortive, the conception does not make
its appearance. In vain they turn one way and another, trying
to remove the weight which hinders them ; something stronger
than themselves paralyzes their hands and frustrates their en-
deavors. The central pivot of the vast wheel on which human
affairs move must be displaced one notch, that all may move
with its motion. At this moment the pivot was moved, and thus
a revolution of the great wheel begins, bringing round a new

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE J63

conception of nature, and in consequence that part of the method
which was lacking. To the diviners, the creators, the compre-
hensive and impassioned minds who seized objects in a lump
and in masses, succeeded the discursive thinkers, the systematic
thinkers, the graduated and clear logicians, who, disposing ideas
in continuous series, lead the hearer gradually from the simple
to the most complex by easy and unbroken paths. Descartes
superseded Bacon ; the classical age obliterated the Renaissance ;
poetry and lofty imagination gave way before rhetoric, elo-
quence, and analysis. In this transformation of mind, ideas
were transformed. Everything was drained dry and simplified.
The universe, like all else, was reduced to two or three notions ;
and the conception of nature, which was poetical, became me-
chanical. Instead of souls, living forces, repugnances, and at-
tractions, we have pulleys, levers, impelling forces. The world,
which seemed a mass of instinctive powers, is now like a mere
machinery of cog-wheels. Beneath this adventurous supposi-
tion lies a large and certain truth ; that there is, namely, a scale
of facts, some at the summit very complex, others at the base
very simple; those above having their origin in those below,
so that the lower ones explain the higher; and that we must
seek the primary laws of things in the laws of motion. The
search was made, and Galileo found them. Thenceforth the
work of the Renaissance, outstripping the extreme point to
which Bacon had pushed it, and at which he had left it, was able
to proceed onward by itself, and did so proceed, without limit.

CHAPTER SECOND

THE THEATRE

WE must look at this world more closely, and beneath the
ideas which are developed seek for the living men ; it
is the theatre especially which is the original product
of the English Renaissance, and it is the theatre especially which
will exhibit the men of the English Renaissance. Forty poets,
amongst them ten of superior rank, as well as one, the greatest of
all artists who have represented the soul in words ; many hun-
dreds of pieces, and nearly fifty masterpieces; the drama ex-
tended over all the provinces of history, imagination, and fancy
— expanded so as to embrace comedy, tragedy, pastoral and
fanciful literature — to represent all degrees of human condition,
and all the caprices of human invention — to express all the per-
ceptible details of actual truth, and all the philosophic grandeur
of general reflection ; the stage disencumbered of all precept and
freed from all imitation, given up and appropriated in the mi-
nutest particulars to the reigning taste and public intelligence;
all this was a vast and manifold work, capable by its flexibility,
its gj-eatness, and its form, of receiving and preserving the exact
imprint of the age and of the nation.^

Section I. — The Public and the Stage

Let us try, then, to set before our eyes this public, this audi-
ence, and this stage — all connected with one another, as in every
natural and living work; and if ever there was a living and
natural work, it is here. There were already seven theatres in
London, in Shakespeare's time, so brisk and universal was the
taste for dramatic representations. Great and rude contriv-
ances, awkward in their construction, barbarous in their appoint-
ments; but a fervid imagination readily supplied all that they

* " The very age and body of the time, his form and pressure."— Shakespeare.

264

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 265

lacked, and hardy bodies endured all inconveniences without
difficulty. On a dirty site, on the banks of the Thames, rose the
principal theatre, the Globe, a sort of hexagonal tower, sur-
rounded by a muddy ditch, on which was hoisted a red flag.
The common people could enter as well as the rich : there were
sixpenny, twopenny, even penny seats; but they could not see it
without money. If it rained, and it often rains in London, the
people in the pit, butchers, mercers, bakers, sailors, apprentices,
receive the streaming rain upon their heads. I suppose they did
not trouble themselves about it; it was not so long since they
began to pave the streets of London; and when men, like these,
have had experience of sewers and puddles, they are not afraid
of catching cold. While waiting for the piece, they amuse
themselves after their fashion, drink beer, crack nuts, eat fruit,
howl, and now and then resort to their fists; they have been
known to fall upon the actors, and turn the theatre upside down.
At other times they were dissatisfied and went to the tavern to
give the poet a hiding, or toss him in a blanket; they were coarse
fellows, and there was no month when the cry of " Clubs " did
not call them out of their shops to exercise their brawny arms.
When the beer took efifect, there was a great upturned barrel in
the pit, a peculiar receptacle for general use. The smell rises,
and then comes the cry, " Burn the juniper! " They burn some
in a plate on the stage, and the heavy smoke fills the air. Cer-
tainly the folk there assembled could scarcely get disgusted at
anything, and cannot have had sensitive noses. In the time of
Rabelais there was not much cleanliness to speak of. Remem-
ber that they were hardly out of the Middle Ages and that in
the Middle Ages man lived on a dunghill.

Above them, on the stage, were the spectators able to pay a
shilling, the elegant people, the gentlefolk. These were sheltered
from the rain, and if they chose to pay an extra shilling, could
have a stool. To this were reduced the prerogatives of rank
and the devices of comfort: it often happened that there were
not stools enough; then they lie down on the ground: this was
not a time to be dainty. They play cards, smoke, insult the pit,
who gave it them back without stinting, and throw apples at
them into the bargain. They also gesticulate, swear in Italian,
French, English ;* crack aloud jokes in dainty, composite, high-

1 Ben Jonson, " Every Man in his Humour" ; "Cjtithia's Revels."

266 TAINE

colored words : in short, they have the energetic, original, gay
manners of artists, the same humor, the same absence of con-
straint, and, to complete the resemblance, the same desire to
make themselves singular, the same imaginative cravings, the
same absurd and picturesque devices, beards cut to a point, into
the shape of a fan, a spade, the letter T, gaudy and expensive
dresses, copied from five or six neighboring nations, embroid-
ered, laced with gold, motley, continually heightened in effect
or changed for others : there was, as it were, a carnival in their
brains as well as on their backs.

With such spectators illusions could be produced without
much trouble: there were no preparations or perspectives; few
or no movable scenes: their imaginations took all this upon
them. A scroll in big letters announced to the public that they
were in London or Constantinople; and that was enough to
carry the public to the desired place. There was no trouble
about probability. Sir Philip Sidney writes:

" You shall have Asia of the one side, and Af ricke of the other, and
so many other under-kingdomes, that the Plaier when hee comes in,
must ever begin w^ith telling where hee is, or else the tale will not be
conceived. Now shall you have three Ladies walke to gather flowers,
and then wee must beleeve the stage to be a garden. By and by wee
heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, then wee are to blame
if we accept it not for a rocke ; . . . while in the meane time two
armies flie in, represented with foure swordes and bucklers, and then
what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now of time
they are much more liberall. For ordinary it is, that two young Princes
fall in love, after many traverses, shee is got with childe, delivered of a
faire boy, hee is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is readie to
get another childe ; and all this in two hours space." 2

Doubtless these enormities were somewhat reduced under
Shakespeare; with a few hangings, crude representations of
animals, towers, forests, they assisted somewhat the public
imagination. But after all, in Shakespeare's plays, as in all
others, the imagination from within is chiefly drawn upon for
the machinery; it must lend itself to all, substitute all, accept for
a queen a young man who has just been shaved, endure in one
act ten changes of place, leap suddenly over twenty years or five
hundred miles,^ take half a dozen supernumeraries for forty

* " The Defence of Poesie," ed. 1629, » " Winter's Tale," " Cymbeline,"

p. 562. •' Julius Caesar."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 267

thousand men, and to have represented by the rolling of the
drums all the battles of Caesar, Henry V, Coriolanus, Richard
III. And imagination, being so overflowing and so young,
accepts all this. Recall your own youth; for my part, the
deepest emotions I have ever felt at a theatre were given to me
by a strolling bevy of four young girls, playing comedy and
tragedy on a stage in a coffee-house ; true, I was eleven years old.
So in this theatre, at this moment, their souls were fresh, as
ready to feel everything as the poet was to dare everything.

Section II. — Manners of the Sixteenth Century

These are but externals; let us try to advance further, to
observe the passions, the bent of mind, the inner man: it is this
inner state which raised and modelled the drama, as everything
else; invisible inclinations are everywhere the cause of visible
works, and the interior shapes the exterior. What are these
townspeople, courtiers, this public, whose taste fashions the thea-
tre ? what is there peculiar in the structure and condition of their
minds? The condition must needs be peculiar; for the drama
flourishes all of a sudden, and for sixty years together, with mar-
vellous luxuriance, and at the end of this time is arrested so that
no effort could ever revive it. The structure must be peculiar;
for of all theatres, old and new, this is distinct in form, and dis-
plays a style, action, characters, an idea of life, which are not
found in any age or any country beside. This particular feature
is the free and complete expansion of nature.

What we call nature in men is, man such as he was before cult-
ure and civilization had deformed and reformed him. Almost
always, when a new generation arrives at manhood and con-
sciousness, it finds a code of precepts impose on it with all the
weight and authority of antiquity. A hundred kinds of chains,
a hundred thousand kinds of ties, religion, morality, good breed-
ing, every legislation which regulates sentiments, morals, man-
ners, fetter and tame the creature of impulse and passion which
breathes and frets within each of us. There is nothing like that
here. It is a regeneration, and the curb of the past is wanting to
the present. Catholicism, reduced to external ceremony and
clerical chicanery, had just ended ; Protestantism, arrested in its

268 TAINE

first gropings after truth, or straying into sects, had not yet
gained the mastery; the rehgion of discipline was grown feeble,
and the religion of morals was not yet established; men ceased
to listen to the directions of the clergy, and has not yet spelled
out the law of conscience. The church was turned into an as-
sembly-room, as in Italy; the young fellows came to St. Paul's
to walk, laugh, chatter, display their new cloaks; the thing had
even passed into a custom. They paid for the noise they made
with their spurs, and this tax was a source of income to the
canons;^ pickpockets, loose girls, came there by crowds; these
latter struck their bargains while service was going on. Imag-
ine, in short, that the scruples of conscience and the severity of
the Puritans were at that time odious and ridiculed on the stage,
and judge of the difference between this sensual, unbridled Eng-
land, and the correct, disciplined, stiff England of our own time.
Ecclesiastical or secular, we find no signs of rule. In the failure
of faith, reason had not gained sway, and opinion is as void of
authority as tradition. The imbecile age, which has just ended,
continues buried in scorn, with its ravings, its verse-makers, and
its pedantic text-books; and out of the liberal opinions derived
from antiquity, from Italy, France, and Spain, everyone could
pick and choose as it pleased him, without stooping to restraint
or acknowledging a superiority. There was no model imposed
on them, as nowadays; instead of affecting imitation, they af-
fected originality.^ Each strove to be himself, with his own
oaths, peculiar ways, costumes, his specialties of conduct and
humor, and to be unlike everyone else. They said not, " So
and so is done," but " I do so and so." Instead of restraining,
they gave free vent to themselves. There was no etiquette of so-
ciety; save for an exaggerated jargon of chivalresque courtesy,
they are masters of speech and action on the impulse of the mo-
ment. You will find them free from decorum, as of all else. In

J Strype, in his " Annals of the Refor- till dark night almost, except Eating

mation (1571), says: "Many now were time, was spent in Dancing under a

wholly departed from the communion Maypole and a great tree, not far from

of the church, and came no more to my father's door, where all the Town

hear divine service in their parish did meet together. And though one of

churches, nor received the holy sacra- my father's own Tenants was the piper,

ment, according to the laws of the he could not restrain him nor break the

realm." Richard Baxter, in his " Life," sport. So that we could not read the

published in 1696, says: " We lived in Scripture in our family without the great

a country that had but little preaching disturbance of the Taber and Pipe and

at all. ... In the village where I lived noise in the street."

the Reader read the Common Prayer " Ben Jonson, " Every Man in his

briefly; and the rest of the day, even Humour."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 269

this outbreak and absence of fetters, they resemble fine strong
horses let loose in the meadow. Their inborn instincts have not
been tamed, nor muzzled, nor diminished.

On the contrary, they have been preserved intact by bodily
and military training; and escaping as they were from barbar-
ism, not from civilization, they had not been acted upon by the
innate softening and hereditary tempering which are new trans-
mitted with the blood, and civilize a man from the moment of his
birth. This is why man, who for three centuries has been a
domestic animal, was still almost a savage beast, and the force
of his muscles and the strength of his nerves increased the bold-
ness and energy of his passions. Look at these uncultivated
men, men of the people, how suddenly the blood warms and rises
to their face; their fists double, their lips press together, and
those vigorous bodies rush at once into action. The courtiers
of that age were like our men of the people. They had the same
taste for the exercise of their limbs, the same indifference toward
the inclemencies of the weather, the same coarseness of lan-
guage, the same undisguised sensuality. They were carmen in
body and gentlemen in sentiment, with the dress of actors and
the tastes of artists. " At fourtene," says John Hardyng, " a
lordes sonnes shalle to felde hunte the dere, and catch an hardy-
nesse. For dere to hunte and slea, and see them blede, ane
hardyment g}'fifith to his courage. ... At sextene yere, to
werray and to wage, to juste and ryde, and castels to assayle
. . . and every day his armure to assay in fete of armes with
some of his meyne." ^ When ripened to manhood, he is em-
ployed with the bow, in wrestling, leaping, vaulting. Henry
VIIFs court, in its noisy merriment, was like a village fair. The
king, says Holinshed, exercised himself " dailie in shooting,
singing, dancing, wrestling, asting of the barre, plaieing at the
recorders, flute, virginals, in setting of songs, and making of
ballads." He leaps the moats with a pole, and was once within
an ace of being killed. He is so fond of wrestling, that publicly,
on the field of the Cloth of Gold, he seized Francis I in his arms
to try a throw with him. This is how a common soldier or a
bricklayer nowadays tries a new comrade. In fact, they re-
garded gross jests and brutal bufifooneries as amusements, as
soldiers and bricklayers do now. In every nobleman's house

' " The Chronicle " of John Hardyng (1436), ed. H. Ellis, 1812, Preface.

270

TAINE

there was a fool, whose business it was to utter pointed jests, to
make eccentric gestures, horrible faces, to sing licentious songs,
as we might hear now in a beer-house. They thought insults
and obscenity a joke. They were foul-mouthed, they listened
to Rabelais's words undiluted, and delighted in conversation
which would revolt us. They had no respect for humanity; the
rules of proprieties and the habits of good breeding began only
under Louis XIV, and by imitation of the French; at this time
they all blurted out the word that fitted in, and that was most
frequently a coarse word. You will see on the stage, in Shake-
speare's " Pericles," the filth of a haunt of vice.* The great lords,
the well-dressed ladies, speak billingsgate. When Henry V
pays his court to Catherine of France, it is with the coarse bear-
ing of a sailor who may have taken a fancy to a sutler; and like
the tars who tattoo a heart on their arms to prove their love for
the girls they left behind them, there were men who " devoured
sulphur and drank urine " "* to win their mistress by a proof of
affection. Humanity is as much lacking as decency.^ Blood,
suffering, does not move them. The court frequents bear and
bull baitings, where dogs are ripped up and chained beasts are
sometimes beaten to death, and it was, says an officer of the
palace, " a charming entertainment." ' No wonder they used
their arms like clodhoppers and gossips. Elizabeth used to beat
her maids of honor, " so that these beautiful girls could often be
heard crying and lamenting in a piteous manner." One day she
spat upon Sir Mathew's fringed coat; at another time, when
Essex, whom she was scolding, turned his back, she gave him a
box on the ear. It was then the practice of great ladies to beat
their children and their servants. Poor Jane Grey was some-
times so wretchedly " boxed, struck, pinched, and ill-treated in

* Act iv. sc. 2 and 4. See also the and child to fire and sword, without
character of Calypso in Massinger; exception, when any resistance shall be
Putana in Ford; Protalyce in Beau- made against you; and this done, pass
moni and Fletcher. over to the Fife land, and extend like
6 Middleton, *' Dutch Courtezan." extremities and destructions in all towns
« Commission given by Henry VIII and villages whereunto ye may reach
to the Earl of Hertford, 1544: " You are conveniently, not forgetting amongst
there to put all to fire and sword; to all the rest, so to spoil and turn upside
burn Edinburgh town, and to raze and down the cardinal's town of St. An-
deface it, when you have sacked it, and draw's, as the upper stone may be the
gotten what you can out of it. . . . Do nether, and not one stick stand by an-
what you can out of hand, and with- other, sparing no creature alive within
out long tarrying, to beat down and the same, specially such as either in
overthrow the castle, sack Holyrood- friendship or blood be allied to the car-
House, and as many towns and villages dinal. This journey skall succeed most
about Edinburgh as ye conveniently to his majesty's honour."
can; sack Leith, and burn and subvert ' Laneham, "A Goodly Relief."
it, and all the rest, putting man, woman,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 271

Other manners which she dare not relate," that she used to wish
herself dead. Their first idea is to come to words, to blows, to
have satisfaction. As in feudal times, they appeal at once to
arms, and retain the habit of taking the law in their own hands,
and without delay. " On Thursday laste," writes Gilbert Talbot
to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, " as my Lorde Rytche
was rydynge in the streates, there was one Wyndam that stode in
a dore, and shotte a dagge at him, thynkynge to have slayne him.
. . . The same daye, also, as Sr John Conway was goynge in
the streetes, M^ Lodovyke Grevell came sodenly upon him, and
stroke him on the hedd w*^ a sworde. ... I am forced to
trouble yo*" Honors w*^ thes tryflynge matters, for I know no
greater." ^ No one, not even the queen, is safe among these
violent dispositions.^ Again, when one man struck another in
the precincts of the court, his hand was cut off, and the arteries
stopped with a red-hot iron. Only such atrocious imitations of
their own crimes, and the painful image of bleeding and suffer-
ing flesh, could tame their vehemence and restrain the uprising
of their instincts. Judge now what materials they furnish to the
theatre, and what characters they look for at the theatre. To
please the public, the stage cannot deal too much in open lust
and the strongest passions; it must depict man attaining the
limit of his desires, unchecked, almost mad, now trembling and
rooted before the white palpitating flesh which his eyes devour,
now haggard and grinding his teeth before the enemy whom he
wishes to tear to pieces, now carried beyond himself and over-
whelmed at the sight of the honors and wealth which he covets,
always raging and enveloped in a tempest of eddying ideas,
sometimes shaken by impetuous joy, more often on the verge of
fury and madness, stronger, more ardent, more daringly let loose
to infringe on reason and law than ever. We hear from the stage
as from the history of the time, these fierce murmurs: the six-
teenth century is like a den of lions.

Amid passions so strong as these there is not one lacking.
Nature appears here in all its violence, but also in all its fulness.
If nothing had been weakened, nothing had been mutilated. It
is the entire man who is displayed, heart, mind, body, senses,

* February 13, 1587. Nathan Drake, * Essex, when struck by the queen,

" Shakspeare and his Times," ii. p. 165. put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
See also the same work for all these de-
tails.

272 TAINE

with his noblest and finest aspirations, as with his most bestial
and savage appetites, without the preponderance of any domi-
nant circumstance to cast him altogether in one direction, to
exalt or degrade him. He has not become rigid, as he will be
under Puritanism. He is not uncrowned as in the Restoration.
After the hollowness and weariness of the fifteenth century, he
rose up by a second birth, as before in Greece man had risen by
a first birth; and now, as then, the temptations of the outer
world came combined to raise his faculties from their sloth and
torpor. A sort of generous warmth spread over them to ripen
and make them flourish. Peace, prosperity, comfort began;
new industries and increasing activity suddenly multiplied ob-
jects of utility and luxury tenfold. America and India, by their
discovery, caused the treasures and prodigies heaped up afar
over distant seas to shine before their eyes; antiquity rediscov-
ered, sciences mapped out, the Reformation begun, books multi-
plied by printing, ideas by books, doubled the means of enjoy-
ment, imagination, and thought. People wanted to enjoy, to
imagine, and to think; for the desire grows with the attraction,
and here all attractions were combined. There were attractions
for the senses, in the chambers which they began to warm, in
the beds newly furnished with pillows, in the coaches which
they began to use for the first time. There were attractions fot
the imagination in the new palaces, arranged after the Italian
manner; in the variegated hangings from Flanders; in the rich
garments, gold-embroidered, which, being continually changed,
combined the fancies and the splendors of all Europe. There
were attractions for the mind, in the noble and beautiful writings
which, spread abroad, translated, explained, brought in philoso-
phy, eloquence, and poetry, from restored antiquity, and from
the surrounding renaissances. Under this appeal all aptitudes
and instincts at once started up; the low and the lofty, ideal and
sensual love, gross cupidity and pure generosity. Recall what
you yourself experienced, when from being a child you became
a man : what wishes for happiness, what breadth of anticipation,
what intoxication of heart wafted you towards all joys; with
what impulse your hands seized involuntarily and all at once
every branch of the tree, and would not let a single fruit escape.
At sixteen years, like Cherubin,^" we wish for a servant girl

" A page in the " Manage de Figaro," a comedy by Beaumarchais.— Th.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 273

while we adore a Madonna; we are capable of every species of
covetousness, and also of every species of self-denial; we find
virtue more lovely, our meals more enjoyable; pleasure has
more zest, heroism more worth: there is no allurement which is
not keen; the sweetness and novelty of things are too strong;
and in the hive of passions which buzzes within us, and stings us
like the sting of a bee, we can do nothing but plunge, one after
another, in all directions. Such were the men of this time,
Raleigh, Essex, Elizabeth, Henry VIII himself, excessive and
inconstant, ready for devotion and for crime, violent in good and
evil, heroic with, strange weaknesses, humble with sudden
changes of mood, never vile with premeditation like the roister-
ers of the Restoration, never rigid on principle like the Puritans
of the Revolution, capable of weeping like children,^^ and of
dying like men, often base courtiers, more than once true
knights, displaying constantly, amidst all these contradictions
of bearing, only the fulness of their characters. Thus prepared,
they could take in everything, sanguinary ferocity and refined
generosity, the brutality of shameless debauchery, and the most
divine innocence of love, accept all the characters, prostitutes
and virgins, princes and mountebanks, pass quickly from
trivial buffoonery to lyrical sublimities, listen alternately to the
quibbles of clowns and the songs of lovers. The drama even,
in order to imitate and satisfy the fertility of their nature, must
talk all tongues, pompous, inflated verse, loaded with imagery,
and side by side with this, vulgar prose : more, it must distort
its natural style and limits; put songs, poetical devices, into
the discourse of courtiers and the speeches of statesmen ; bring
on the stage the fairy world of the opera, as Middleton says,
gnomes, nymphs of the land and sea, with their groves and
their meadows; compel the gods to descend upon the stage,
and hell itself to furnish its world of marvels. No other the-
atre is so comphcated; for nowhere else do we find men so
complete.

•• The great Chancellor Burleigh often wept, so harshly was he used by Eliza-
beth.

274

TAINE

Section III. — Some Aspects of the English Mind

In this free and universal expansion, the passions had their
special bent withal, which was an English one, inasmuch as they
were English. After all, in every age, under every civilization,
a people is always itself. Whatever be ks dress, goat-skin
blouse, gold-laced doublet, black dress-coat, the five or six great
instincts which it possessed in its forests, follow it in its palaces
and offices. To this day, warlike passions, a gloomy humor,
subsist under the regularity and propriety of modern manners.^
Their native energy and harshness pierce through the perfection
of culture and the habits of comfort. Rich young men, on leav-
ing Oxford, go to hunt bears on the Rocky Mountains, the
elephant in South Africa, live under canvas, box, jump hedges
on horseback, sail their yachts on dangerous coasts, delight in
solitude and peril. The ancient Saxon, the old rover of the
Scandinavian seas, has not perished. Even at school the chil-
dren roughly treat one another, withstand one another, fight like
men; and their character is so indomitable that they need the
birch and blows to reduce them to the discipline of law. Judge
what they were in the sixteenth century; the English race passed
then for the most warlike of Europe, the most redoubtable in
battle, the most impatient of anything like slavery.^ " English
savages " is what Cellini calls them; and the " great shins of
beef " with which they fill themselves, keep up the force and
ferocity of their instincts. To harden them thoroughly, institu-
tions work in the same groove with nature. The nation is
armed, every man is brought up like a soldier, bound to have
arms according to his condition, to exercise himself on Sundays
or holidays; from the yeoman to the lord, the old military con-
stitution keeps them enrolled and ready for action.^ In a state
which resembles an army it is necessary that punishments, as in
an army, shall inspire terror; and to make them worse, the hide-
ous Wars of the Roses, which on every flaw of the succession to
the throne are ready to break out again, are ever present in their

* Compare, to understand this charac- printed in Venice and Germany: "Bel-
ter, the parts assigned to James Harlowe licosissimi." Froude, i. pp. 19, «.

by Richardson, old Osborne by Thacke- ' This is not so true of the English

ray. Sir Giles Overreach by Ma^singer, now, if it was in the sixteenth century, as

and Manly by Wycherley. it is of Continental nations. The French

* TIentzner's " Travels "; Benvenuto lycees are far more military in character
Cellini. See passim, the costumes than English schools.— Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

a75

recollection. Such instincts, such a constitution, such a history,
raise before them, with tragic severity, an idea of life : death is
at hand, as well as wounds, the block, tortures. The fine cloaks
of purple which the renaissances of the South displayed joyfully
in the sun, to wear like a holiday garment, are here stained with
blood, and edged with black. Throughout,* a stern discipline,
and the axe ready for every suspicion of treason; great men,
bishops, a chancellor, princes, the king's relatives, queens, a pro-
tector, all kneeling in the straw, sprinkled the Tower with their
blood; one after the other they marched past, stretched out their
necks; the Duke of Buckingham, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen
Catherine Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Admiral Seymour, the
Duke of Somerset, Lady Jane Grey and her husband, the Duke
of Northumberland, Mary Stuart, the Earl of Essex, all on the
throne, or on the steps of the throne, in the highest rank of
honors, beauty, youth, and genius; of the bright procession
nothing is left but senseless trunks, marred by the tender mercies
of the executioner. Shall I count the funeral pyres, the hang-
ings, living men cut down from the gibbet, disembowelled, quar-
tered,^ their limbs cast into the fire, their heads exposed on the
walls? There is a page in Holinshed which reads like a death
register:

"The five and twentith daie of Maie (1535), was in saint Paules
church at London examined nineteene men and six women born in
Holland, whose opinions were (heretical). Fourteene of them were
condemned, a man and a woman of them were burned in Smithfield,
the other twelve were sent to other townes, there to be burnt. On the
nineteenth of June were three moonkes of the Charterhouse hanged,
drawne, and quartered at Tiburne, and their heads and quarters set up
about London, for denieng the king to be supreme head of the church.
Also the one and twentith of the same moneth, and for the same cause,
doctor John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was beheaded for denieng of
the supremacie, and his head set upon London bridge, but his bodie
buried within Barking churchyard. The pope had elected him a car-
dinall, and sent his hat as far as Calais, but his head was off before his
hat was on : so that they met not. On the sixt of Julie, was Sir Thomas
Moore beheaded for the like crime, that is to wit, for denieng the king
to be supreme head." ^

* Froude's " History of England," uttered a deep groan."—" Execution of
vols. i. ii. iii. Parrv; " Strype, iii. 251.

» " When his heart was torn out he » Holinshed, " Chronicles of Eng-

land," iii. p. 793,

276 TAINE

None of these murders seem extraordinary; the chroniclers
mention them without growing indignant; the condemned go
quietly to the block, as if the thing were perfectly natural. Anne
Boleyn said seriously, before giving up her head to the execu-
tioner: " I praie God save the king, and send him long to reigne
over you, for a gentler, nor a more merciful prince was there
never." ^ Society is, as it were, in a state of siege, so incited that
beneath the idea of order everyone entertained the idea of the
scaffold. They saw it, the terrible machine, planted on all the
highways of human life; and the byways as well as the highways
led to it. A sort of martial law, introduced by conquests into
civil afTairs, entered thence into ecclesiastical matters,^ and social
economy ended by being enslaved by it. As in a camp,® expen-
diture, dress, the food of each class, are fixed and restricted; no
one might stray out of his district, be idle, live after his own
devices. Every stranger was seized, interrogated; if he could
not give a good account of himself, the parish-stocks bruised his
limbs; as in time of war he would have passed for a spy and an
enemy, if caught amidst the army. Any person, says the law,^"
found living idly or loiteringly for the space of three days, shall
be marked with a hot iron on his breast, and adjudged as a slave
to the man who shall inform against him. This one " shall take
the same slave, and give him bread, water, or small drink, and re-
fuse meat, and cause him to work, by beating, chaining, or other-
wise, in such work and labour as he shall put him to, be it never
so vile." He may sell him, bequeath him, let him out for hire,
or trade upon him " after the like sort as they may do of any
other their moveable goods or chattels," put a ring of iron about
his neck or leg; if he runs away and absents himself for fourteen
days, he is branded on the forehead with a hot iron, and remains
a slave for the whole of his life; if he runs away a second time,
he is put to death. Sometimes, says More, you might see a
score of thieves hung on the same gibbet. In one year " forty
persons were put to death in the county of Somerset alone, and
in each county there were three or four hundred vagabonds who
would sometimes gather together and rob in armed bands of
sixty at a time. Follow the whole of this history closely, the
fires of Mary, the pillories of Elizabeth, and it is plain that the

^ Holinshed, " Chronicles of Eng- » Froude, i. is.

land," iii, p. 797- '" In i547-

* Under Henry IV and Henry V. " In 1596.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 277

moral tone of the land, like its physical condition, is harsh by
comparison with other countries. They have no relish in their
enjoyments, as in Italy ; what is called Merry England is Eng-
land given up to animal spirits, a coarse animation produced
by abundant feeding, continued prosperity, courage, and self-
reliance ; voluptuousness does not exist in this climate and this
race. Mingled with the beautiful popular beliefs, the lugubri-
ous dreams and the cruel nightmare of witchcraft make their
appearance. Bishop Jewell, preaching before the queen, tells
her that witches and sorcerers within these last few years are
marvellously increased. Some ministers assert

" That they have had in their parish at one instant xvij or xviij
witches ; meaning such as could worke miracles supernaturallie ; that
they work spells by which men pine away even unto death, their colour
fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are
bereft ; that instructed by the devil, they make ointments of the bowels
and members of children, whereby they ride in the aire, and accomplish
all their desires. When a child is not baptized, or defended by the sign
of the cross, then the witches catch them from their mothers sides in
the night, . . . kill them ... or after buriall steale them out of
their graves, and seeth them in a caldron, untill their flesh be made
potable. . . . It is an infallible rule, that everie fortnight, or at the
least everie moneth, each witch must kill one child at the least for
hir part."

Here was something to make the teeth chatter with fright.
Add to this revolting and absurd descriptions, wretched tomfool-
eries, details about the infernal caldron, all the nastinesses which
could haunt the trite imagination of a hideous and drivelling old
woman, and you have the spectacles, provided by Middleton and
Shakespeare, and which suit the sentiments of the age and the
national humor. The fundamental gloom pierces through the
glow and rapture of poetry. Mournful legends have multiplied;
every churchyard has its ghost; wherever a man has been mur-
dered his spirit appears. Many people dare not leave their vil-
lage after sunset. In the evening, before bed-time, men talk of
the coach which is seen drawn by headless horses, with headless
postilions and coachmen, or of unhappy spirits who, compelled
to inhabit the plain, under the sharp northeast wind, pray for
the shelter of a hedge or a valley. They dream terribly of death :

" To die and go we know not where ;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
13— Classics. Vol. 38

278 TAINE

This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible! " ^^

The greatest speak with a sad resignation of the infinite ob-
scurity which embraces our poor, short, glimmering life, our life,
which is but a troubled dream ; ^^ the sad state of humanity,
which is but passion, madness, and sorrow; the human being
who is himself, perhaps, but a vain phantom, a grievous sick
man's dream. In their eyes we roll down a fatal slope, where
chance dashes us one against the other, and the inner destiny
which urges us onward, only shatters after it has blinded us.
And at the end of all is " the silent grave, no conversation, no
joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, no careful father's
counsel ; nothing's heard, nor nothing is, but all oblivion, dust,
,and endless darkness." ^* If yet there were nothing. " To die,
to sleep ; to sleep, perchance to dream." To dream sadly, to fall
into a nightmare like the nightmare of life, like that in which we
are struggling and crying to-day, gasping with hoarse throat! —
this is their idea of man and of existence, the national idea,
which fills the stage with calamities and despair, which makes a
display of tortures and massacres, which abounds in madness
and crime, which holds up death as the issue throughout. A
threatening and sombre fog veils their mind like their sky, and
joy, like the sun, only appears in its full force now and then.
They are different from the Latin race, and in the common
Renaissance they are regenerated otherwise than the Latin races.
The free and full development of pure nature which, in Greece
and Italy, ends in the painting of beauty and happy energy ends
here in the painting of ferocious energy, agony, and death.

" Shakespeare, " Measure for Measure," Act iii. i. See also " The Tempest,'*
" Hamlet," " Macbeth."

18 " WTg are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep." — " Tempest," iv. i.
" Beaumont and Fletcher, " Thierry and Theodoret," Act ir. t.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 279

Section IV.— The Poets of the Period

Thus was this theatre produced; a theatre unique in history,
like the admirable and fleeting epoch from which it sprang, the
work and the picture of this young world, as natural, as un-
shackled, and as tragic as itself. When an original and national
drama springs up, the poets who establish it carry in themselves
the sentiments which it represents. They display better than
other men the feelings of the public, because those feelings are
stronger in them than in other men. The passions which sur-
round them, break forth in their heart with a harsher or a juster
cry, and hence their voices become the voices of all. Chivalric
and Catholic Spain had her interpreters in her enthusiasts and
her Don Quixotes: in Calderon, first a soldier, afterwards a
priest; in Lope de Vega, a volunteer at fifteen, a passionate
lover, a wandering duelist, a soldier of the Armada, finally, a
priest and familiar of the Holy Office; so full of fervor that he
fasts till he is exhausted, faints with emotion while singing mass,
and in his flagellations stains the walls of his cell with blood.
Calm and noble Greece had in her principal tragic poet one of
the most accomplished and fortunate of her sons: ^ Sophocles,
first in song and palaestra; who at fifteen sang, unclad, the paean
before the trophy of Salamis, and who afterwards, as ambas-
sador, general, ever loving the gods and impassioned for his
state, presented, in his life as in his works, the spectacle of the
incomparable harmony which made the beauty of the ancient
world, and which the modern world will never more attain to.
Eloquent and worldly France, in the age which carried the art of
good manners and conversation to its highest pitch, finds, to
write her oratorical tragedies and to paint her drawing-room
passions, the most able craftsman of words, Racine, a courtier,
a man of the world; the most capable, by the dehcacy of his tact
and the adaptation of his style, of making men of the world and
courtiers speak. So in England the poets are in harmony with
their works. Almost all are Bohemians; they sprang from the
people,* were educated, and usually studied at Oxford or Cam-
bridge, but they were poor, so that their education contrasts with

• Aiejrov'^flTj 5* ev rratcri Koi rrepl naXai<Trpav . . $iAa9))vatdTaT0T KaX Seo^iA^s.^

KcU iJ.ov<TtK7iv, e( uv d/xi^oTepuf ioTe<t)avu}0T) Scholiast.

" Except Beaumont and Fletcher.

aSo TAINE

their condition. Ben Jonson is the step-son of a bricklayer,
and himself a bricklayer; Marlowe is the son of a shoemaker;
Shakespeare of a wool merchant; Massinger of a servant of a
noble family.^ They live as they can, get into debt, write for
their bread, go on the stage. Peele, Lodge, Marlowe, Ben
Jonson, Shakespeare, Heywood, are actors; most of the details
which we have of their lives are taken from the journal of Hen-
slowe, a retired pawnbroker, later a money-lender and manager
of a theatre, who gives them work, advances money to them,
receives their manuscripts or their wardrobes as security. For
a play he gives seven or eight pounds; after the year 1600 prices
rise, and reach as high as twenty or twenty-five pounds. It is
clear that, even after this increase, the trade of author scarcely
brings in bread. In order to earn money, it was necessary, Hke
Shakespeare, to become a manager, to try to have a share in the
property of a theatre; but such success is rare, and the life which
they lead, a life of actors and artists, improvident, full of excess,
lost amid debauchery and acts of violence, amidst women of evil
fame, in contact with young profligates, among the temptations
of misery, imagination and license, generally leads them to ex-
haustion, poverty, and death. Men received enjoyment from
them, but neglected and despised them. One actor, for a politi-
cal allusion, was sent to prison, and only just escaped losing his
ears ; great men, men in office, abused them like servants. Hey-
wood, who played almost every day, bound himself, in addition,
to write a sheet daily, for several years composes at haphazard
in taverns, labors and sweats like a true literary hack, and dies
leaving two hundred and twenty pieces, of which most are lost
Kyd, one of the earliest in date, died in misery. Shirley, one of
the last, at the end of his career, was obliged to become once
more a schoolmaster. Massinger dies unknown; and in the
parish register we find only this sad mention of him : " Philip
Massinger, a stranger." A few months after the death of Mid-
dleton, his widow was obliged to ask alms of the City, because
he had left nothing. Imagination, as Drummond said of Ben
Jonson, oppressed their reason; it is the common failing of
poets. They wish to enjoy, and give themselves wholly up to

• Hartley Coleridge, in his " Introduc- hold (Earl of Pembroke), but we may

tion to the Dramatic Works of Massin- be sure that it was neither menial nor

ger and Ford," says of Massinger's mean. Service in those days was not

father: " We are not certified of the sit- derogatory to gentle birth."— Tr.
uation wkicb he held in the noble houtc*

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 281

enjoyment; their mood, their heart governs them; in their life,
as in their works, impulses are irresistible; desire comes sud^
denly, like a wave, drowning reason, resistance — often even giv-
ing neither reason nor resistance time to show themselves.*
Many are roisterers, sad roisterers of the same sort, such as Mus-
set and Murger, who give themselves up to every passion, and
" drown their sorrows in the bowl "; capable of the purest and
most poetic dreams, of the most delicate and touching tender-
ness, and who yet can only undermine their health and mar their
fame. Such are Nash, Decker, and Greene; Nash, a fantastic
satirist, who abused his talent, and conspired like a prodigal
against good fortune; Decker, who passed three years in the
King's Bench prison; Greene, above all, a pleasing wit, copious,
graceful, who took a delight in destroying himself, publicly with
tears confessing his vices,^ and the next moment plunging into
them again. These are mere androgynes, true courtesans, in
manners, body, and heart. Quitting Cambridge, " with good
fellows as free-living as himself," Greene had travelled over
Spain, Italy, " in which places he sawe and practized such vil-
lainie as is abhominable to declare." You see the poor man is
candid, not sparing hijnself; he is natural; passionate in every-
thing, repentance or otherwise; above all of ever- varying mood;
made for self-contradiction; not self-correction. On his return
he became, in London, a supporter of taverns, a haunter of evil
places. In his " Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of
Repentance " he says:

" I was dround in pride, whoredom was my daily exercise, and glut-
tony with drunkenness was my onely delight. . . . After I had
wholly betaken me to the penning of plaies (which was my continuall
exercise) I was so far from calling upon God that I sildome thought on
God, but tooke such delight in swearing and blaspheming the name of
God that none could thinke otherwise of me than that I was the child
of perdition. These vanities and other trifling pamphlets I penned of
love and vaine fantasies was my chiefest stay of living ; and for those
my vaine discourses I was beloved of the more vainer sort of people,
who being my continuall companions, came still to my lodging, and there

* See, amongst others, " The Woman Romeo, Macbeth, Miranda, etc. ; the

Killed with Kindness," by Heywood. counsel of Prospero to Fernando, when

Mrs. Frankfort, so upright of heart, ac- he leaves him alone for a moment with

cepts WendoU at his first ofTer. Sir Miranda.

Francis Acton, at the sight of her whom ^ Compare " La Vie de Boheme " and

he wishes to dishonor, and whom he " Les Nuits d'Hiver," by Murger;

hates, falls " into an ecstasy," and " Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle, by

dreams of nothing save marriage. Com- A. de Musset.
pare the sudden transport of Juliet,

282 TAINE

would continue quaffing, carowsing, and surfeting with me all the day
long. ... If I may have my disire while I live I am satisfied; let
me shift after death as I may. . . . ' Hell ! ' quoth I ; ' what talke
you of hell to me? I know if I once come there I shall have the com-
pany of better men than myselfe; I shall also meete with some madde
knaves in that place, and so long as I shall not sit there alone, my care
is the lesse. ... If I feared the judges of the bench no more than
I dread the judgments mi God I would before I slept dive into one carles
bagges or other, and make merrie with the shelles I found in them so
long as they would last. ' "

A little later he is seized with remorse, marries, depicts in deli-
cious verse the regularity and calm of an upright life; then re-
turns to London, spends his property and his wife's fortune with
" a sorry ragged queane," in the company of rulifians, pimps,
sharpers, courtesans; drinking, blaspheming, wearing himself
out by sleepless nights and orgies; writing for bread, sometimes
amid the brawling and effluvia of his wretched lodging, lighting
upon thoughts of adoration and love, worthy of Rolla;^ very
often disgusted with himself, seized with a fit of weeping between
two merry bouts, and writing little pieces to accuse himself, to
regret his wife, to convert his comrades, or to warn young people
against the tricks of prostitutes and swindlers. He was soon
worn out by this kind of life; six years were enough to exhaust
him. An indigestion arising from Rhenish wine and pickled
herrings finished him. If it had not been for his landlady, who
succored him, he " would have perished in the streets." He
lasted a little longer, and then his light went out; now and then
he begged her " pittifully for a penny pott of malmesie "; he
was covered with lice, he had but one shirt, and when his own
was " awashing," he was obliged to borrow her husband's, " His
doublet and hose and sword were sold for three shillinges," and
the poor folks paid the cost of his burial, four shillings for the
winding sheet, and six and fourpence for the burial.

In such low places, on such dunghills, amid such excesses and
violence, dramatic genius forced its way, and amongst others,
that of the first, of the most powerful, of the true founder of the
dramatic school, Christopher Marlowe.

Marlowe was an ill-regulated, dissolute, outrageously vehe-
ment and audacious spirit, but grand and sombre, with the genu-
ine poetic frenzy; pagan moreover, and rebellious in manners

•Tbe hero of one of Alfred de Musset's poems.— T».

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 283

and creed. In this universal return to the senses, and in this
impulse of natural forces which brought on the Renaissance, the
corporeal instincts and the ideas which hallow them, break forth
impetuously. Marlowe, like Greene, like Kett,'^ is a sceptic,
denies God and Christ, blasphemes the Trinity, declares Moses
*' a juggler," Christ more worthy of death than Barabas, says
that " yf he wer to write a new religion, he wolde undertake both
a more excellent and more admirable methode," and " almost in
every company he commeth, perswadeth men to Athiesme." *
Such were the rages, the rashnesses, the excesses which liberty
of thought gave rise to in these new minds, who for the first time,
after so many centuries, dared to walk unfettered. From his
father's shop, crowded with children, from the straps and awls,
he found himself studying at Cambridge, probably through the
patronage of a great man, and on his return to London, in want,
amid the license of the green-room, the low houses and taverns,
his head was in a ferment, and his passions became excited. He
turned actor; but having broken his leg in a scene of debauch-
ery, he remained lame, and could no longer appear on the
boards. He openly avowed his infidelity, and a prosecution was
begun, which, if time had not failed, would probably have
brought him to the stake. He made love to a drab, and in trying
to stab his rival, his hand was turned, so that his own blade en-
tered his eye and his brain, and he died, cursing and blasphem-
ing. He was only thirty years old.

Think what poetry could emanate from a life so passionate,
and occupied in such a manner! First, exaggerated declama-
tion, heaps of murder, atrocities, a pompous and furious display
of tragedy bespattered with blood, and passions raised to a pitch
of madness. All the foundations of the English stage, "Ferrex
and Porrex," " Cambyses," " Hieronymo," even the " Pericles "
of Shakespeare, reach the same height of extravagance, magnilo-
quence and horror.^ It is the first outbreak of youth. Recall
Schiller's " Robbers," and how modern democracy has recog-
nized for the first time its picture in the metaphors and cries of
Charles Moor.^^ So here the characters struggle and roar,

^ Burnt in 1589. eat their children, a young girl who ap-

8 I have used Marlowe's Works, ed. pears on the stage violated, with her

Dyce, 3 vols. 1850. Append, i. vol. 3.— tongue and hands cut off.

Tr. 10 The chief character in Schiller's

* See especially " Titus Andronicus," " Robbers," a virtuous brigand and re«

attributed to Shakespeare: there are dresser of wrongs. — Tr.

parricides, mothers whom they cause to

284 TAINE

stamp on the earth, gnash their teeth, shake their fists against
heaven. The trumpets sound, the drums beat, coats of mail file
past armies clash, men stab each other, or themselves; speeches
are full of gigantic threats and lyrical figures ; " kings die, strain-
ing a bass voice; " now doth ghastly death with greedy talons
gripe my bleeding heart, and like a harpy tires on my Ufe." The
hero in " Tamburlaine the Great " ^^ is seated on a chariot drawn
by chained kings; he burns towns,*drowns women and children,
puts men to the sword, and finally, seized with an inscrutable
sickness, raves in monstrous outcries against the gods, whose
hands alfiict his soul, and whom he would fain dethrone. There
already is the picture of senseless pride, of blind and murderous
rage, which passing through many devastations, at last arms
against heaven itself. The overflowing of savage and immode-
rate instinct produces this mighty sounding verse, this prodigal-
ity of carnage, this display of splendors and exaggerated colors,
this railing of demoniacal passions, this audacity of grand im-
piety. If in the dramas which succeed it, " The Massacre at
Paris," " The Jew of Malta," the bombast decreases, the violence
remains. Barabas the Jew, maddened with hate, is henceforth
no longer human ; he has been treated by the Christians like a
beast, and he hates them like a beast. He advises his servant
Ithamore in the following words:

" Hast thou no trade ? then listen to my words.
And I will teach thee that shall stick by thee :
First, be thou void of these affections,
Compassion, love, vain hope, and heartless fear;
Be mov'd at nothing, see thou pity none,
But to thyself smile when the Christians moan.
. . . I walk abroad a-nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls;
Sometimes I go about and poison wells. . . ,

** For in a field, whose superficies
Is cover'd with a liquid purple veil,
And sprinkled with the brains of slaughter'd men,
My royal chair of state shall be advanc'd;
And he that means to place himself therein,
Must armed wade up to the chin in blood. . . .
And I would strive to swim through pools of blood,
Or make a bridge of murder'd carcasses,
Whose arches should be fram'd with bones of Turks
Ere I would lose the title of a king. — " Tamburlaine," part ii. i. 3.

19 TJie editor of Marlowe's Works, tions, and doubts have more tkan once

Pickering, 1826, says in his Introduc- been suggested as to whether the play

tion: "Both the matter and style of was properly assigned to him. We think

' Tamburlaine,' however, differ materi- that Marlowe did not write it." Dyce

alV from Marlowe's other composi- is of a contrary opinion. — Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 285

Being young, I studied physic, and began

To practice first upon the Italian ;

There I enrich'd the priests with burials,

And always kept the sexton's arms in ure

With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. . . •

I fill'd the jails with bankrouts in a year,

And with young orphans planted hospitals;

And every moon made some or other mad,

And now and then one hang himself for grief,

Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll

How I with interest tormented him." ^^

AH these cruelties he boasts of and chuckles over, like a demon
who rejoices in being a good executioner, and plunges his vic-
tims in the very extremity of anguish. His daughter has two
Christian suitors; and by forged letters he causes them to slay
each other. In despair she takes the veil, and to avenge him-
self he poisons his daughter and the whole convent. Two friars
wish to denounce him, then to convert him; he strangles the
first, and jokes with his slave Ithamore, a cut-throat by profes-
sion, who loves his trade, rubs his hands with joy, and says :

" Pull amain,

'Tis neatly done, sir; here's no print at all.

So, let him lean upon his staff; excellent! he stands as if he were beg-
ging of bacon." ^*

" O mistress, I have the bravest, gravest, secret, subtle, bottlenosed
knave to my master, that ever gentleman had." ^^

The second friar comes up, and they accuse him of the murder.

" Barabas. Heaven bless me ! what, a friar a murderer !
When shall you see a Jew commit the like?

Ithamore. Why, a Turk could ha' done no more.

Bar. To-morrow is the sessions ; you shall do it —
Come Ithamore, let's help to take him hence.

Friar. Villains, I am a sacred person ; touch me not.

Bar. The law shall touch you ; we'll but lead you, we :
'Las, I could weep at your calamity ! " ^^

We have also two other poisonings, an infernal machine to blow
up the Turkish garrison, a plot to cast the Turkish commander
into a well. Barabas falls into it himself, and dies in the hot
caldron,^' howling, hardened, remorseless, having but one

^ Marlowe's " The Jevr of Malta," iu '• Ibid. iv. p. 313.

p. 275 et passim. " Up to this time, in England, poisoo-

**Ibid. iv. p. 311. ers were cast into a boiling caldron.

*• Ibid. iii. p. 291.

286 TAINE

regret, that he had not done evil enough. These are the feroci-
ties of the Middle Ages ; we might find them to this day among
the companions of Ali Pacha, among the pirates of the Archi-
pelago ; we retain pictures of them in the paintings of the fif-
teenth century, which represent a king with his court, seated
calmly round a living man who is being flayed ; in the midst
the flayer on his knees is working conscientiously, very careful
not to spoil the skin.^^

All this is pretty strong, you will say; these people kill too
readily, and too quickly. It is on this very account that the
painting is a true one. For the specialty of the men of the time,
as of Marlowe's characters, is the abrupt commission of a deed;
they are children, robust children. As a horse kicks out instead
of speaking, so they pull out their knives instead of asking an
explanation. Nowadays we hardly know what nature is; in-
stead of observing it we still retain the benevolent prejudices of
the eighteenth century; we only see it humanized by two centu-
ries of culture, and we take its acquired calm for an innate mod-
eration. The foundations of the natural man are irresistible im-
pulses, passions, desires, greeds; all blind. He sees a woman,^^
thinks her beautiful; suddenly he rushes towards her; people
try to restrain him, he kills these people, gluts his passion, then
thinks no more of it, save when at times a vague picture of a
moving lake of blood crosses his brain and makes him gloomy.
Sudden and extreme resolves are confused in his mind with de-
sire; barely planned, the thing is done; the wide interval which
a Frenchman places between the idea of an action and the action
itself is not to be found here.^" Barabas conceived murders, and
straightway murders were accomplished; there is no delibera-
tion, no pricks of conscience; that is how he commits a score
of them; his daughter leaves him, he becomes unnatural, and
poisons her; his confidential servant betrays him, he disguises
himself, and poisons him. Rage seizes these men like a fit, and
then they are forced to kill. Benvenuto Cellini relates how, be-
ing offended, he tried to restrain himself, but was nearly sufTo-

1* In the Museum of Ghent. In 1377, Wycliff pleaded in St. Paul's

'* See in the " Jew of Malta " the se- before the bishop of London, and that

duction of Ithamore, by Bellamira, a raised a quarrel. The Duke of Lancas-

rough, but truly admirable picture. ter, Wycliff's protector, " threatened to

*> Nothing could be falser than the drag the bishop out of the church by

hesitation and arguments of Schiller's the hair"; and next day the furious

"William Tell"; for a contrast, see crowd sacked the duke's palace.
Goethe's " Goetz von Berlichingen."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 287

cated; and that in order to cure himself, he rushed with his
dagger upon his opponent. So, in " Edward the Second," the
nobles immediately appeal to arms ; all is excessive and unfore-
seen: between two replies the heart is turned upside down,
transported to the extremes of hate or tenderness. Edward,
seeing his favorite Gaveston again, pours out before him his
treasure, casts his dignities at his feet, gives him his seal, him-
self, and, on a threat from the Bishop of Coventry, suddenly
cries :

" Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole,
And in the channel christen him anew." **

Then, when the queen supplicates :

" Fawn not on me, French strumpet ! get thee gone. . . «
Speak not unto her : let her droop and pine." 22

Furies and hatreds clash together like horsemen in battle. The
Earl of Lancaster draws his sword on Gaveston to slay him, be-
fore the king; Mortimer wounds Gaveston. These powerful
loud voices growl; the noblemen will not even let a dog ap-
proach the prince, and rob them of their rank. Lancaster says
of Gaveston :

"... He comes not back,
Unless the sea cast up his shipwrack'd body.

Warwick. And to behold so sweet a sight as that,
There's none here but would run his horse to death." ^3

They have seized Gaveston, and intend to hang him " at a
bough " ; they refuse to let him speak a single minute with the
king. In vain they are entreated ; when they do at last consent,
they are sorry for it; it is a prey they want immediately, and
Warwick, seizing him by force, " strake off his head in a trench."
Those are the men of the Middle Ages. They have the fierce-
ness, the tenacity, the pride of big, well-fed, thorough-bred bull-
dogs. It is this sternness and impetuosity of primitive passions
which produced the Wars of the Roses, and for thirty years drove
the nobles on each other's swords and to the block.

What is there beyond all these frenzies and gluttings of blood?
The idea of crushing necessity and inevitable ruin in which

» Marlowe, " Edward the Second," i. " Ibid. p. 186.

p. 173- *3Ibid. p. 188.

288 TAINE

everything sinks and comes to an end. Mortimer, brought to
the block, says with a smile:

" Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which, when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down : that point I touch'd,
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall ? —
Farewell, fair queen ; weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown." 24

Weigh well these grand words; they are a cry from the heart,
the profound confession of Marlowe, as also of Byron, and of
the old sea-kings. The northern paganism is fully expressed in
this heroic and mournful sigh : it is thus they imagine the world
so long as they remain on the outside of Christianity, or as soon
as theyquit it. Thus, when men see in life, as they did, nothing
but a battle of unchecked passions, and in death but a gloomy
sleep, perhaps filled with mournful dreams, there is no other
supreme good but a day of enjoyment and victory. They glut
themselves, shutting theii^ eyes to the issue, except that they may
be swallowed up on the morrow. That is the master-thought of
" Doctor Faustus," the greatest of Marlowe's dramas: to satisfy
his soul, no matter at what price, or with what results:

" A sound magician is a mighty god. . . .
How am I glutted with conceit of this! . . .
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl. . . .
I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass.
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg. . . ,
Like lions shall they guard us when we please;
Like Almain rutters with their horsemen's staves,
Or Lapland giants, trotting by our sides;
Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of love." ^b

What brilliant dreams, what desires, what vast or voluptuous
wishes, worthy of a Roman Caesar or an Eastern poet, eddy in
this teeming brain! To satiate them, to obtain four-and-twenty

** Marlowe, " Edward the Second," ** Marlowe, " Doctor Faustus," i. p.

lasv scene, p. 288. 9 et passim.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 289

years of power, Faustus gave his soul, without fear, without
need of temptation, at the first outset, voluntarily, so sharp is
the prick within:

" Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I'd give them all for Mephistophilis.
By him I'll be great emperor of the world,
And make a bridge thorough the moving air. . . .
Why shouldst thou not? Is not thy soul thine own? " 2*

And with that he gives himself full swing: he wants to know
everything, to have everything ; a book in which he can behold
all herbs and trees which grow upon the earth ; another in which
shall be drawn all the constellations and planets ; another which
shall bring him gold when he wills it, and " the fairest courte-
zans " ; another which summons " men in armour " ready to
execute his commands, and which holds " whirlwinds, tempests,
thunder and lightning " chained at his disposal. He is like a
child, he stretches out his hands for everything shining; then
grieves to think of hell, then lets himself be diverted by shows :

" Faustus. O this feeds my soul !

Lucifer. Tut, Faustus, in hell is all manner of delight.

Faustus. Oh, might I see hell, and return again,
How happy were I then ! . . ." 27

He is conducted, being invisible, over the whole world : lastly
to Rome, amongst the ceremonies of the pope's court. Like a
schoolboy during a holiday, he has insatiable eyes, he forgets
everything before a pageant, he amuses himself in playing
tricks, in giving the pope a box on the ear, in beating the
monks, in performing magic tricks before princes, finally in
drinking, feasting, filling his belly, deadening his thoughts.
In his transport he becomes an atheist, and says there is no
hell, that those are " old wives' tales." Then suddenly the
sad idea knocks at the gates of his brain.

" I will renounce this magic, and repent . . .
My heart's so harden'd I cannot repent:
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears,
' Faustus, thou art damn'd! ' then swords and knives,
Poison, guns, halters, and envenom'd steel
Are laid before me to despatch myself;

•• Marlowe, " Doctor Faustus," i. pp. 22. 29. *'' Ibid. p. 43.

apo TAINE

And long ere this I should have done the deed.
Had not sweet pleasure conquer'd deep despair.
Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and CEnon's death?
And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephistophilis?
Why should I die, then, or basely despair?
I am resolv'd; Faustus shall ne'er repent. —
Come Mephistophilis, let us dispute again.
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon?
Are all celestial bodies but one globe.
As is the substance of this centric earth? . . ." *•
*' One thing ... let me crave of thee
To glut the longing of my heart's desire. . . .
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss !
Her lips suck forth my soul : see, where it flies !—
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena. . . .
O thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ! " 2»

** Oh, my God, I would weep! but the devil draws in my tears.
Gush forth blood, instead of tears! yea, life and soul! Oh, he
stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands; but see, they hold
them, they hold them ; Lucifer and Mephistophilis. . . .*' '*

" Ah, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come. . . « j^

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, jf

The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

Oh, I'll leap up to my God ! — Who pulls me down? — ^

See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! j

One drop would save my soul, half a drop : ah, my Christ, "^

Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ,
Yet will I call on him. . . .

Ah, half the hour is past I 'twill all be past anon. . . .
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd. . . .
It strikes, it strikes. ...

■ Marlowe, " Doctor Faustus," i. p. 37. *» Ibid. p. 75. *> Ibid. p. 78.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 291

Oh soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found ! " ^i

There is the living, struggling, natural, personal man, not the
philosophic type which Goethe has created, but a primitive and
genuine man, hot-headed, fiery, the slave of his passions, the
sport of his dreams, wholly engrossed in the present, moulded
by his lusts, contradictions, and follies, who amidst noise and
starts, cries of pleasure and anguish, rolls, knowing it and willing
it, down the slope and crags of his precipice. The whole Eng-
lish drama is here, as a plant in its seed, and Marlowe is to
Shakespeare what Perugino was to Raphael.

Section V — Formation of the Drama

Gradually art is being formed ; and toward the close of the
century it is complete. Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben
Jonson, Webster, Massinger, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, ap-
pear together, or close upon each other, a new and favored gen-
eration, flourishing largely in the soil fertilized by the efforts of
the generation which preceded them. Henceforth the scenes
are developed and assume consistency, the characters cease to
move all of a piece, the drama is no longer like a piece of statu-
ary. The poet who a little while ago knew only how to strike
or kill introduces now a sequence of situation and a rationale
in intrigue. He begins to prepare the way for sentiments, to
forewarn us of events, to combine effects, and we find a theatre
at last, the most complete, the most life-like, and also the most
strange that ever existed.

We must follow its formation, and regard the drama when it
was formed, that is, in the minds of its authors. What was
going on in these minds? What sorts of ideas were born there,
and how were they born? In the first place, they see the event,
whatever it be, and they see it as it is; I mean that they have it
within themselves, with its persons and details, beautiful and
ugly, even dull and grotesque. If it is a trial, the judge is there,
in their minds, in his place, with his physiognomy and his warts;
the plaintiff in another place, with his spectacles and brief-bag;
the accusdd is opposite, stooping and remorseful; each with his

*i Marlowe *' Doctor Faustus," i. p. 80.

292 TAINE

friends, cobblers, or lords; then the buzzing crowd behind, all
with their grinning faces, their bewildered or kindling eyes.^ It
is a genuine trial which they imagine, a trial like those they have
seen before the justice, where they screamed or shouted as wit-
nesses or interested parties, with their quibbling terms, their
pros and cons, the scribblings, the sharp voices of the counsel,
the stamping of feet, the crowding, the smell of their fellow-men,
and so forth. The endless myriads of circumstances which ac-
company and influence every event, crowd round that event in
their heads, and not merely the externals, that is, the visible and
picturesque traits, the details of color and costume, but also, and
chiefly, the internals, that is, the motions of anger and joy, the
secret tumult of the soul, the ebb and flow of ideas and passions
which are expressed by the countenance, swell the veins, make
a man to grind his teeth, to clench his fists, which urge him on
or restrain him. They see all the details, the tides that sway a
man, one from without, another from within, one through an-
other, one within another, both together without faltering and
without ceasing. And what is this insight but sympathy, an
imitative sympathy, which puts us in another's place, which car-
ries over their agitations to our own breasts, which makes our
life a little world, able to reproduce the great one in abstract?
Like the characters they imagine, poets and spectators make
gestures, raise their voices, act. No speech or story can show
their inner mood, but it is the scenic effect which can manifest
it. As some men invent a language for their ideas, so these act
and mimic them ; theatrical imitation and figured representation
is their genuine speech : all other expression, the lyrical song of
iEschylus, the reflective symbolism of Goethe, the oratorical de-
velopment of Racine, would be impossible for them. Involun-
tarily, instantaneously, without forecast, they cut life into scenes,
and carry it piecemeal on the boards; this goes so far that often
a mere character becomes an actor,^ playing a part within a part;
the scenic faculty is the natural form of their mind. Beneath
the effort of this instinct, all the accessory parts of the drama
come before the footlights and expand before your eyes. A bat-
tle has been fought; instead of relating it, they bring it before
the public, trumpets and drums, pushing crowds, slaughtering

'See the trial of Vittoria Corombona, « Falstaff in Shakespeare; the queen

of Virginia in Webster, of Coriolanus in " London," by Greene and Decker;
and Julius CaKar in Shakespeare. Rosalind in Shakespeare.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE tgs

combatants. A shipwreck happens; straightway the ship is
before the spectator, with the sailors' oaths, the technical orders
of the pilot. Of all the details of human life,^ tavern-racket and
statesmen's councils, scullion's talk and court processions, do-
mestic tenderness and pandering — none is to small or too lofty:
these things exist in life — let them exist on the stage, each in
full, in the rough, atrocious, or absurd, just as they are, no mat-
ter how. Neither in Greece, nor Italy, nor Spain, nor France,
has an art been seen which tried so boldly to express the soul,
and its innermost depths — the truth, and the whole truth.

How did they succeed, and what is this new art which tram-
ples on all ordinary rules? It is an art for all that, since it is
natural; a great art, since it embraces more things, and that
more deeply than others do, like the art of Rembrandt and Ru-
bens; but like theirs, it is a Teutonic art, and one whose every
step is in contrast with those of classical art. What the Greeks
and Romans, the originators of the latter, sought in everything,
was charm and order. Monuments, statues, and paintings, the
theatre, eloquence and poetry, from Sophocles to Racine, they
shaped all their work in the same mould, and attained beauty by
the same method. In the infinite entanglement and complexity
of things, they grasped a small number of simple ideas, which
they embraced in a small number of simple representations, so
that the vast confused vegetation of life is presented to the mind
from that time forth, pruned and reduced, and perhaps easily
embraced at a single glance. A square of walls with rows of
columns all alike; a symmetrical group of draped or undraped
forms; a young man standing up and raising one arm; a
wounded warrior who will not return to the camp, though they
beseech him : this, in their noblest epoch, was their architecture,
their painting, their sculpture, and their theatre. No poetry but
a few sentiments not very intricate, always natural, not toned
down, intelligible to all; no eloquence but a continuous argu-
ment, a limited vocabulary, the loftiest ideas brought down to
their sensible origin, so that children can understand such elo-
quence and feel such poetry; and in this sense they are classical.*

* In Webster's " Duchess of Malfi " classical spirit. But M. Taine has seem-
there is an admirable accouchement ingly not taken into account such
scene. products as the Medea on the one hand,

* This is, in fact, the English view of and the works of Aristophanes and the
the French mind, which is doubtless a Latin sensualists on the other.— Tr.
refinement, many times refined, of the

294 TAINE

In the hands of Frenchmen, the last inheritors of the simple art,
these great legacies of antiquity undergo no change. If poetic
genius is less, the structure of mind has not altered. Racine
puts on the stage a sole action, whose details he adjusts, and
whose course he regulates; no incident, nothing unforeseen,
no appendices or incongruities; no secondary intrigue. The
subordinate parts are effaced; at the most four or five principal
characters, the fewest possible; the rest, reduced to the condition
of confidants, take the tone of their masters, and merely reply to
them. All the scenes are connected, and flow insensibly one into
the other, and every scene, like the entire piece, has its order and
progress. The tragedy stands out symmetrically and clear in
the midst of human life, like a complete and solitary temple
which limns its regular outline on the luminous azure of the sky.
in England all is different. All that the French call proportion
and fitness is wanting; Englishmen do not trouble themselves
about them, they do not need them. There is no unity; they
leap suddenly over twenty years, or five hundred leagues.
There are twenty scenes in an act — we stumble without prepara-
tion from one to the other, from tragedy to buffoonery; usually
it appears as though the action gained no ground; the different
personages waste their time in conversation, dreaming, display-
ing their character. We were moved, anxious for the issue, and
here they bring us in quarrelling servants, lovers making poetry..
Even the dialogue and speeches, which we would think ought
particularly to be of a regular and continuous flow of engrossing
ideas, remain stagnant, or are scattered in windings and devia-
tions. At first sight we fancy we are not advancing, we do not
feel at every phrase that we have made a step. There are none
of those solid pleadings, none of those conclusive discussions,
which every moment add reason to reason, objection to objec-
tion; people might say that the different personages only knew
how to scold, to repeat themselves, and to mark time. And
the disorder is as great in general as in particular things. They
heap a whole reign, a complete war, an entire novel, into a
drama; they cut up into scenes an English chronicle or an
Italian novel: this is all their art; the events matter little; what-
ever they are, they accept them. They have no idea of progres-
sive and individual action. Two or three actions connected end-
wise, or entangled one within another, two or three incomplete

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 295

endings badly contrived, and opened up again; no machinery
but death, scattered right and left and unforeseen: such is the
logic of their method. The fact is, that our logic, the Latin,
fails them. Their mind does not march by the smooth and
straightforward paths of rhetoric and eloquence. It reaches the
same end, but by other approaches. It is at once more compre-
hensive and less regular than ours. It demands a conception
more complete, but less consecutive. It proceeds, not as with us,
by a line of uniform steps, but by sudden leaps and long pauses.
It does not rest satisfied with a simple idea drawn from a com-
plex fact, but demands the complex fact entire, with its number-
less particularities, its interminable ramifications. It sees in
man not a general passion — ambition, anger, or love; not a pure
quality — happiness, avarice, folly; but a character, that is, the
imprint, wonderfully complicated, which inheritance, tempera-
ment, education, calling, age, society, conversation, habits, have
stamped on every man; an incommunicable and individual im-
print, which, once stamped in a man, is not found again in any
other. It sees in the hero not only the hero, but the individual,
with his manner of walking, drinking, swearing, blowing his
nose; with the tone of his voice, whether he is thin or fat; ^ and
thus plunges to the bottom of things, with every look, as by a
miner's deep shaft. This sunk, it little cares whether the second
shaft be two paces or a hundred from the first; enough that it
reaches the same depth, and serves equally well to display the
inner and visible layer. Logic is here from beneath, not from
above. It is the unity of a character which binds the two actions
of the personage, as the unity of an impression connects the two
scenes of a drama. To speak exactly, the spectator is like a man
whom we should lead along a wall pierced at separate intervals
with little windows; at every window he catches for an instant a
glimpse of a new landscape, with its million details : the walk
over, if he is of Latin race and training, he finds a medley of
images jostling in his head, and asks for a map that he may
recollect himself; if he is of German race and training, he per-
ceives as a whole, by natural concentration, the wide country
which he has only seen piecemeal. Such a conception, by the
multitude of details which it combines, and by the depth of the

* See Hamlet, Coriolanus, Hotspur. " He f Hamlet) is fat, and scant of
The queen in " Hamlet " (v. 2) says . breath.

296 TAINE

vistas which it embraces, is a half-vision which shakes the whole
soul. What its works are about to show us is, with what energy,
what disdain of contrivance, what vehemence of truth, it dares
to coin and hammer the human medal; with what liberty it is
able to reproduce in full prominence worn-out characters, and
the extreme flights of virgin nature.

Section VI. — Furious Passions. — Exaggerated Characters

Let us consider the different personages which this art, so
suited to depict real manners, and so apt to paint the living soul,
goes in search of amidst the real manners and the living souls of
its time and country. They are of two kinds, as befits the nat-
ure of the drama: one which produces terror, the other which
moves to pity; these graceful and feminine, thos^ manly and
violent. All the differences of sex, all the extremes of life, all
the resources of the stage, are embraced in this contrast; and if
ever there was a complete contrast, it is here.

The reader must study for himself some of these pieces, or he
will have no idea of the fury into which the stage is hurled:
force and transport are driven every instant to the point of atroc-
ity, and further still, if there be any further. Assassinations,
poisonings, tortures, outcries of madness and rage; no passion
and no suffering are too extreme for their energy or their effort.
Anger is with them a madness, ambition a frenzy, love a de-
lirium. Hippolyto, who has lost his mistress, says, " Were thine
eyes clear as mine, thou mightst behold her, watching upon yon
battlements of stars, how I observe them." ^ Aretus, to be
avenged on Valentinian, poisons him after poisoning himself, and
with the death-rattle in his throat, is brought to his enemy's side,
to give him a foretaste of agony. Queen Brunhalt has panders
with her on the stage, and causes her two sons to slay each other.
Death everywhere; at the close of every play, all the great peo-
ple wade in blood: with slaughter and butcheries, the stage be-
comes a field of battle or a churchyard.^ Shall I describe a few
of these tragedies? In the " Duke of Milan," Francesco, to

* Middleton, " The Honest Whore," sembles Mussel's " Barberine." Tts

part i. iv. i. crudity, the extraordinary repulsive en-

^ Beaumont and Fletcher, " Valen- ergy, will show the difference of the twa

tinian," " Thierry and Theodoret." ages.
See Massinger's Picture," which re-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 297

avenge his sister, who has been seduced, wishes to seduce in his
turn the Duchess MarceHa, wife of Sforza, the seducer; he de-
sires her, he will have her ; he says to her, with cries of love and
rage:

" For with this arm I'll swim through seas of blood,
Or make a bridge, arch'd with the bones of men,
But I will grasp my aims in you, my dearest,
Dearest, and best of women ! " *

For he wishes to strike the duke through her, whether she lives
or dies, if not by dishonor, at least by murder; the first is as good
as the second, nay, better, for so he will do a greater injury. He
calumniates her, and the duke, who adores her, kills her; then,
being undeceived, loses his senses, will not believe she is dead,
has the body brought in, kneels before it, rages and weeps. He
knows now the name of the traitor, and at the thought of him he
swoons or raves :

" I'll follow him to hell, but I will find him,
And there live a fourth Fury to torment him.
Then, for this cursed hand and arm that guided
The wicked steel, I'll have them, joint by joint.
With burning irons sear'd off, which I will eat,
I being a vulture fit to taste such carrion." *

Suddenly he gasps for breath, and falls; Francesco has poi-
soned him. The duke dies, and the murderer is led to torture.
There are worse scenes than this; to find sentiments strong
enough, they go to those which change the very nature of man.
Massinger puts on the stage a father who judges and condemns
his daughter, stabbed by her husband; Webster and Ford, a son
who assassinates his mother; Ford, the incestuous loves of a
brother and sister.^ Irresistible love overtakes them; the an-
cient love of Pasiphae and Myrrha, a kind of madness-like
enchantment, and beneath which the will entirely gives way.
Giovanni says :

" Lost ! I am lost ! My fates have doom'd my death !
The more I strive, I love ; the more I love,
The less I hope: I see my ruin certain. . . .
I have even wearied heaven with pray'rs, dried up

• Massinger's Works, ed. H. Cole- the Sonne upon the Mother " (a play
ridee, 1859, " Duke of Milan," ii. i. not extant); 'Tis pity she's a Whore.

* Ibid. V. 2. See also Ford's " Broken Heart," with
•Massinger, "The Fatal Dowry"; its sublime scenes of agony and mad-

Webiter and Ford, " A late Murther of ness.

298 TAINE

The spring of my continual tears, even starv'd
My veins with daily fasts: what wit or art
Could counsel, I have practis'd; but, alas!
I find all these but dreams, and old men's tales,
To fright unsteady youth : I am still the same ;
Or I must speak, or burst." ^

What transports follow ! what fierce and bitter joys, and how
short too, how grievous and mingled with anguish, especially
for her! She is married to another. Read for yourself the
admirable and horrible scene which represents the wedding
night. She is pregnant, and Soranzo, the husband, drags her
along the ground, with curses, demanding the name of her
lover;

" Come strumpet, famous whore ? . . .

Harlot, rare, notable harlot,
That with thy brazen face maintain' st thy sin,
Was there no man in Parma to be bawd
To your loose cunning whoredom else but I?
Must your hot itch and plurisy of lust.
The heyday of your luxury, be fed
Up to a surfeit, and could none but I
Be pick'd out to be cloak to your close tricks,
Your belly-sports? — Now I must be the dad
To all that gallimaufry that is stuf?'d
In thy corrupted bastard-bearing womb?
Say, must I?

Annabella. Beastly man? why, 'tis thy fate.
I su'd not to thee. . . .
6". Tell me by whom." '

She gets excited, feels and cares for nothing more, refuses to tell
the name of her lover, and praises him in the following words.
This praise in the midst of danger is like a rose she has plucked,
and of which the odor intoxicates her:

" A. Soft ! 'twas not in my bargain.
Yet somewhat, sir, to stay your longing stomach
I am content t' acquaint you with the man.
The more than man, that got this sprightly boy —
(For 'tis a boy, and therefore glory, sir,
Your heir shall be a son.)

.S". Damnable monster?

A. Nay, and you will not hear, I'll speak no more.

S. Yes, speak, and speak thy last.

•Ford's Works, ed. H. Coleridge, 1859. "'Ibid. iv. 3,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 299

A. A match, a match? . . .
You, why you are not worthy once to name
His name without true worship, or, indeed,
Unless you kneel'd to hear another name him.

6". What was he call'd?

A. We are not come to that;
Let it suffice that you shall have the glory
To father what so brave a father got. . . .

S. Dost thou laugh?
Come, whore, tell me your lover, or, by truth,
I'll hew thy flesh to shreds; who is't? " ®

She laughs; the excess of shame and terror has given her cour-
age; she insults him, she sings; so like a woman !

"A. (Sings) Che morte piu dolce che morire per amore.

S. Thus will I pull thy hair, and thus I'll drag
Thy lust be-leper'd body through the dust. . . .

{Hales her up and down)

A. Be a gallant hangman. . . .

I leave revenge behind, and thou shalt feel't. . . .
{To Vasquez.) Pish, do not beg for me, I prize my life
As nothing ; if the man will needs be mad,
Why, let him take it." »

In the end all is discovered, and the two lovers know they must
die. For the last time, they see each other in Annabella's cham-
ber, listening to the noise of the feast below which shall serve for
their funeral feast. Giovanni, who has made his resolve like a
madman, sees Annabella richly dressed, dazzling. He regards
her in silence, and remembers the past. He weeps and says:

" These are the funeral tears,
Shed on your grave ; these furrow'd-up my cheeks
When first I lov'd and knew not how to woo. . . .
Give me your hand : how sweetly life doth run
In these well-colour'd veins ! How constantly
These palms do promise health ! . . .
Kiss me again, forgive me. . . . Farewell." 1®

He then stabs her, enters the banqueting room, with her heart
upon his dagger:

" Soranzo see this heart, which was thy wife's.
Thus I exchange it royally for thine." ^^

» Ford's Works, ed. H. Coleridge, ^o Ibid. v. 5.

1859, iv. 3. « Ibid. V. 6.

•Ibid. IV. 3.

300

TAINE

He kills him, and casting himself on the swords of banditti, dies.
It would seem that tragedy could go no further.

But it did go further; for if these are melodramas, they are
sincere, composed, not like those of to-day, by Grub Street
writers for peaceful citizens, but by impassioned men, experi-
enced in tragical arts, for a violent, over-fed, melancholy race.
From Shakespeare to Milton, Swift, Hogarth, no race has been
more glutted with coarse expressions and horrors, and its poets
supply them plentifully; Ford less so than Webster; the latter
a sombre man, whose thoughts seem incessantly to be haunting
tombs and charnel-houses. " Places in court," he says, " are
but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that
man's foot, and so lower and lower." ^^ Such are his images.
No one has equalled Webster in creating desperate characters,
utter wretches, bitter misanthropes," in blackening and blas-
pheming human life, above all, in depicting the shameless de-
pravity and refined ferocity of Italian manners.^* The Duchess
of Malfi has secretly married her steward Antonio, and her
brother learns that she has children; almost mad ^° with rage
and wounded pride, he remains silent, waiting until he knows
the name of the father; then he arrives all of a sudden, means to
kill her, but so that she shall taste the lees of death. She must
suffer much, but above all, she must not die too quickly! She
must suffer in mind ; these griefs are worse than the body's. He
sends assassins to kill Antonio, and meanwhile comes to her in
the dark, with" affectionate words ; he pretends to. be reconciled,
and suddenly shows her waxen figures, covered with wounds,
whom she takes for her slaughtered husband and children. She
staggers under the blow, and remains in gloom without crying
out. Then she says :

" Good comfortable fellow,
Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel

12 Webster's Works, ed. Dyce, 1857, "The Cenci," "The Duchess of Pal-

" Duchess of Malfi," i. i. liano," and all the biographies of the

"The characters of Bosola, Flaminio. time; of the Borgias, of Bianca Capello,

" See Stendhal, " Chronicles of Italy," of Vittoria Corombona.

** Ferdinand, one of the brothers, says (ii. 5):

" I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopp'd,
That their curs'a smoke might not ascend to heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in in pitch or sulphur.
Wrap them in't, and then light them as a match;
Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis,
And give't his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 301

To have all his bones new set ; entreat him live

To be executed again. Who must despatch me? . . .

Bosola. Come, be of comfort, I will save your life.

Duchess. Indeed, I have not leisure to tend
So small a business.

B. Now, by my life, I pity you.
D. Thou art a fool, then,

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched
As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers." ^^

Slow words, spoken in a whisper, as in a dream, or as if she were
speaking of a third person. Her brother sends to her a company
of madmen, who leap and howl and rave around her in mourn-
ful wise; a pitiful sight, calculated to unseat the reason; a kind
of foretaste of hell. She says nothing, looking upon them; her
heart is dead, her eyes fixed, with vacant stare :

" Cariola. What think you of, madam ?

Duchess. Of nothing :
When I muse thus, I sleep.

C. Like a madman, with your eyes open?

D. Dost thou think we shall know one another
In the other world ?

C. Yes, out of question.

D. O that it were possible we might

But hold some two days' conference with the dead!

From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,

I never shall know here. I'll teach thee a miracle;

I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow :

The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,

The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.

I am acquainted with sad misery

As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar. . . ." i'^

In this state, the limbs, like those of one who has been newly
executed, still quiver, but the sensibility is worn out; the miser-
able body only stirs mechanically; it has suffered too much.
At last the gravedigger comes with executioners, a coffin, and
they sing before her a funeral dirge:

" Duchess. Farewell, Cariola . . .
I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy
Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl
Say her prayers ere she sleep. — Now, what you please:
What death?
Bosola. Strangling; here are your executioners.

" " Duchess of Malfi," iv. i. " Ibid. iv. 2.

14 — Classics. Vol. 38

302 TAINE

D. I forgive them:
The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs
Would do as much as they do. . . . My body
Bestow upon my women, will you? . . .
Go, tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet." ^^

After the mistress the maid ; the latter cries and struggles :

" Cariola. I will not die ; I must not ; I am contracted
To a young gentleman.

\st Executioner. Here's your wedding-ring.

C. If you kill me now,
I am damn'd. I have not been at confession
This two years.

B. When?i» ,

C. I am quick with child." 2"

They strangle her also, and the two children of the duchess.
Antonio is assassinated ; the cardinal and his mistress, the duke
and his confidant, are poisoned or butchered; and the solemn
words of the dying, in the midst of this butchery, utter, as from
funereal trumpets, a general curse upon existence :

" We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,
That, ruin'd yield no echo. Fare you well. . . .

O this gloomy world !
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness.
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live ! " ^i

*' In all our quest of greatness.
Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care,
We follow after bubbles blown in the air.
Pleasure of life, what is't? only the good hours
Of an ague ; merely a preparative to rest,
To endure vexation. . . .
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust." 22

You will find nothing sadder or greater from the Edda to Lord
Byron.

We can well imagine what powerful characters are necessary
to sustain these terrible dramas. All these personages are ready

18 " Duchess of Malfi," iv. 2. ^ " Duchess of Malfi," iv. 3.

1* " When," an exclamation of im- ^ Ibid. v. 5.

patience, equivalent to "make haste," •* Ibid. V. 4 and 5.

very common among the old English
dramatists.— Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

303

for extreme acts; their resolves break forth hke blows of a
sword; we follow, meet at every change of scene their glowing
eyes, wan lips, the starting of their muscles, the tension of
their whole frame. Their powerful will contracts their violent
hands, and their accumulated passion breaks out in thunder-
bolts, which tear and ravage all around them, and in their own
hearts. We know them, the heroes of this tragic population,
lago, Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, Hot-
spur, full of genius, courage, desire, generally mad or criminal,
always self-driven to the tomb. There are as many around
Shakespeare as in his own works. Let me exhibit one character
more, written by the same dramatist, Webster. No one, except
Shakespeare, has seen further into the depths of diabolical and
unchained nature. The " White Devil " is the name which he
gives to his heroine. His Vittoria Corombona receives as her
lover the Duke of Brachiano, and at the first interview dreams
of the issue:

" To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace
A dream I had last night."

It is certainly well related, and still better chosen, of deep mean-
ing and very clear import. Her brother Flaminio says, aside:

" Excellent devil ! she hath taught him in a dream
To make away his duchess and her husband." ^s

So, her husband, Camillo, is strangled, the Duchess poisoned,
and Vittoria, accused of the two crimes, is brought before the
tribunal. Step by step, like a soldier brought to bay with his
back against a wall, she defends herself, refuting and defying
advocates and judges, incapable of blenching or quailing, clear
in mind, ready in word, amid insults and proofs, even menaced
with death on the scaffold. The advocate begins to speak in
Latin.

" Vittoria. Pray my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;
I'll make no answer else.

Francisco de Medicis. Why, you understand Latin.

V. I do, sir; but amongst this auditory
Which come to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in't."

■» " Vittoria Corombona," i. 2.

304

TAINE

She wants a duel, bare-breasted, in open day, and challenges the
advocate :

" I am at the mark, sir : I'll give aim to you,
And tell you how near you shoot."

She mocks his legal phraseology, insults him, with biting irony:

" Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallow'd
Some pothecaries' bills, or proclamations;
And now the hard and undigestible words
Come up, like stones we use give hawks for physic t
Why, this is Welsh to Latin."

Then, to the strongest adjuration of the judges :

" To the point,
Find me but guilty, sever head from body.
We'll part good friends ; I scorn to hold my life
At yours, or any man's entreaty, sir. . . .
These are but feigned shadows of my evils:
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;
The filth returns in's face." 2*

Argument for argument: she has a parry for every blow: a
parry and a thrust :

" But take you your course : it seems you have beggar'd me first,
And now would fain undo me. I have houses,
Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes :
Would those would make you charitable ! "

Then, in a harsher voice :

" In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies ;
The sport would be more noble."

They condemn her to be shut up in a house of convertites:

" V. A house of convertites! What's that?

Monticelso. A house of penitent whores.

V. Do the noblemen in Rome
Erect it for their wives, that I am sent
To lodge there? "26

The sflrcasm comes home like a sword-thrust; then another be-

^ Webster Dyce, 1857, " Vittoria Co- ** Ibid. iii. 2, p. 23.

rombona," p. io, 21.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

305

hind it; then cries and curses. She will not bend, she will not
weep. She goes off erect, bitter and more haughty than ever:

" I will not weep ;
No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice: bear me hence
Unto this house of what's your mitigating title?

Mont. Of convertites.

V. It shall not be a house of convertites ;
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable
Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal." 26

Against her furious lover, who accuses her of unfaithfulness, she
is as strong as against her judges; she copes with him, casts in
his teeth the death of his duchess, forces him to beg pardon, to
marry her; she will play the comedy to the end, at the pistol's
mouth, with the shamelessness and courage of a courtesan and
an empress ; ^^ snared at last, she will be just as brave and more
insulting when the dagger's point threatens her:

" Yes, I shall welcome death
As princes do some great ambassadors ;

I'll meet thy weapon half way. . . . 'Twas a manly blow;
The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;
And then thou wilt be famous." 28

When a woman unsexes herself, her actions transcend man's,
and there is nothing which she will not suffer or dare.

Section VII. — Female Characters

Opposed to this band of tragic characters, with their distorted
features, brazen fronts, combative attitudes, is a troop of sweet
and timid figures, pre-eminently tender-hearted, the most grace-
ful and loveworthy whom it has been given to man to depict.
In Shakespeare you will meet them in Miranda, Juliet, Desde-
mona, Virgilia, Ophelia, Cordelia, Imogen; but they abound
also in the others ; and it is a characteristic of the race to have
furnished them, as it is of the drama to have represented them.
By a singular coincidence, the women are more of women, the

^ " Vittoria Corombona," iii. 2, p. 24. ^s •< Vittoria Corombona," v. last

" Compare Mme. Marneffe in Balzac's scene, pp. 49, 50.
" La Cousine Bette."

3o6

TAINE

men more of men, here than elsewhere. The two natures go
each to its extreme : in the one to boldness, the spirit of enter-
prise and resistance, the warlike, imperious, and unpolished
character; in the other to sweetness, devotion, patience, inextin-
guishable affection ^ — a thing unknown in distant lands, in
France especially so: a woman in England gives herself without
drawing back, and places her glory and duty in obedience, for-
giveness, adoration, wishing and professing only to be melted
and absorbed daily deeper and deeper in him whom she has
freely and forever chosen.^ It is this, an old German instinct,
which these great painters of instinct diffuse here, one and all:
Penthea, Dorothea, in Ford and Greene; Isabella and the
Duchess of Malfi, in Webster; Bianca, Ordella, Arethusa,
JuHana, Euphrasia, Amoret, and others, in Beaumont and
Fletcher; there are a score of them who, under the severest
tests and the strongest temptations, display this wonderful power
of self-abandonment and devotion.' The soul, in this race, is at
once primitive and serious. Women keep their purity longer
than elsewhere. They lose respect less quickly; weigh worth
and characters less suddenly : they are less apt to think evil, and
to take the measure of their husbands. To this day, a great
lady, accustomed to company, blushes in the presence of an
unknown man, and feels bashful like a little girl : the blue eyes
are dropped, and a child-like shame flies to her rosy cheeks.
Englishwomen have not the smartness, the boldness of ideas, the
assurance of bearing, the precocity, which with the French make
of a young girl, in six months, a woman of intrigue and the queen
of a drawing-room.* Domestic life and obedience are more easy
to them. More pliant and more sedentary, they are at the same
time more concentrated and introspective, more disposed to fol-
low the noble dream called duty, which is hardly generated in
mankind but by silence of the senses. They are not tempted by
the voluptuous sweetness which in southern countries is breathed

» Hence the happiness and strength of of this kind of devotion, " this slavery

the marriage tie. In France it is but which English husbands have had the

an association of two comrades, toler- wit to impose on their wives under the

ably alike and tolerably equal, which name of duty." These are " the man-

fives rise to endless disturbance and ners of a seraglio." See also " Cor-

ickering. inne, by Mme. de Stael.

•See the representation of this char- * A perfect woman already: meek and

acter throughout English and German patient.— Heywood.

literature. Stendhal, an acute observer, * See, by way of contrast, all Moliere s

saturated with Italian and French women, so French; even Agaes and

morals and ideas, is astonished at this little Louison.
phenomenon. He understands nothing

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

307

out in the climate, in the sky, in the general spectacle of things;
which dissolves every obstacle, which causes privation to be
looked upon as a snare and virtue as a theory. They can rest
content with dull sensations, dispense with excitement, endure
weariness; and in this monotony of a regulated existence, fall
back upon themselves, obey a pure idea, employ all the strength
of their hearts in maintaining their moral dignity. Thus sup-
ported by innocence and conscience, they introduce into love a
profound and upright sentiment, abjure coquetry, vanity, and
flirtation : they do not lie nor simper. When they love, they are
not tasting a forbidden fruit, but are binding themselves for their
'vhole life. Thus understood, love becomes almost a holy thing;
the spectator no longer wishes to be spiteful or to jest; women
do not think of their own happiness, but of that of the loved ones;
they aim not at pleasure, but at devotion. Euphrasia, relating
her history to Philaster, says :

" My father oft would speak
Your worth and virtue ; and, as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so prais'd; but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found ; till sitting in my window.
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
I thought (but it was you), enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast,
As I had puff'd it forth and suck'd it in
Like breath : Then was I call'd away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man,
Heav'd from a sheep-cote to a sceptre, rais'd
So high in thoughts as I : You left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep "
From you forever, I did hear you talk,
Far above singing! After you were gone,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd
What stirr'd it so : Alas ! I found it love ;
Yet far from, lust ; for could I but have liv'd
In presence of you, I had had my end." ^

She had disguised herself as a nage,* followed him, was his ser-
vant; what greater happiness for a woman than to serve on her
knees the man she loves? She let him scold her, threaten her
with death, wound her=

• Beaumont and Fletcher, Works, ed. • Like Kaled in Byron's " Lara."

G. Colman, $ vols. 1811, " rhilaster, t.

3o8 TAINE

" Blest be that hand I
It meant me well. Again, for pity's sake! '* ^

Do what he will, nothing but words of tenderness and adoration
can proceed from this heart, these wan lips. Moreover, she
takes upon herself a crime of which he is accused, contradicts
him when he asserts his guilt, is ready to die in his place. Still
more, she is of use to him with the Princess Arethusa, whom he
loves; she justifies her rival, brings about their marriage, and
asks no other thanks but that she may serve them both. And
strange to say, the princess is not jealous.

" Euphrasia. Never, Sir, will I

Marry ; it is a thing within my vow :
But if I may have leave to serve the princess,
To see the virtues of her lord and her,
I shall have hope to live.

Arethusa. . . . Come, live with me;

Live free as I do. She that loves my lord,
Curst be the wife that hates her ! " *

What notion of love have they in this country? Whence hap-
pens it that all selfishness, all vanity, all rancor, every little
feeling, either personal or base, flees at its approach? How
comes it that the soul is given up wholly, without hesitation,
without reserve, and only dreams thenceforth of prostrating and
annihilating itself, as in the presence of a god? Biancha, think-
ing Cesario ruined, offers herself to him as his wife; and learning
that he is not so, gives him up straightway, without a murmur:

" Biancha. So dearly I respected both your fame
And quality, that I would first have perish'd
In my sick thoughts, than e'er have given consent
To have undone your fortunes, by inviting
A marriage with so mean a one as I am :
I should have died sure, and no creature known
The sickness that had kill'd me. . . Now since I know
There is no difference 'twixt your birth and mine,
Not much 'twixt our estates (if any be.
The advantage is on my side) I come willingly
To tender you the first-fruits of my heart,
And am content t' accept you for my husband,
Now when you are at the lowest. . . .

Cesario. Why. Biancha,

Report has cozen'd thee ; I am not fallen

» " Philaster," vr. • Ibid. v.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 309

From my expected honors or possessions,
The' from the hope of birth-right.

B. Are you not?

Then I am lost again ! I have a suit too ;
You'll grant it, if you be a good man. , . .
Pray do not talk of aught what I have said t'ye. . . .

. . . Pity me ;
But never love me more! . . » I'll pray for you,
That you may have a virtuous wife, a fair one;
And when I'm dead . . ,

C Fy, fy!

B, Thmk on me sometimes,
With mercy for this trespass !
C. Let us kiss
At parting, as at coming!

B. This I have
As a free dower to a virgin's grave,
All goodness dwell with you ! " »

Isabella, Brachiano's duchess, is detrayed, insulted by her faith-
less husband; to shield him from the vengeance of her family,
she takes upon herself the blame of the rupture, purposely plays
the shrew, and leaving him at peace with his courtesan, dies em-
bracing his picture. Arethusa allows herself to be wounded by
Philaster, stays the people who would hold back the murderer's
arm, declares that he has done nothing, that it is not he, prays
for him, loves him in spite of all, even to the end, as though all
his acts were sacred, as if he had power of life and death over
her. Ordella devotes herself, that the king, her husband, may
have children ; ^" she offers herself for a sacrifice, simply, without
grand words, with her whole heart :

" Ordella. Let it be what it may then, what it dare,
I have a mind will hazard it.

Thierry. But, hark you ;

What may that woman merit, makes this blessing?

O, Only her duty, sir.

r. 'Tis terrible !

O. 'Tis so much the more noble.

T. 'Tis full of fearful shadows!

O. So is sleep, sir.
Or anything that's merely ours, and mortal ;
We were begotten gods else: but those fears,

* Beaumont and Fletcher, " The Fair and Theodoret," " The Maid's Trag-
Maid of the Inn," iv. edy," " Philaster." See also the part

'^^ Beaumont and Fletcher, " Thierry of Lucina in " Valentinian."

3IO TAINE

Feeling but once the fires of noble thoughts,

Fly, like the shapes of clouds we form, to nothing.

T. Suppose it death !

O. I do.

T. And endless parting
With all we can call ours, with all our sweetness,
With youth, strength, pleasure, people, time, nay reason!
For in the silent grave, no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel, nothing's heard,
Nor nothing is, but all oblivion.
Dust and endless darkness : and dare you, woman.
Desire this place?

O. 'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest:
Children begin it to us, strong men seek it,
And kings from height of all their painted glories
Fall, like spent exhalations, to this centre. . . .

T. Then you can suffer?

O. As willingly as say it.

T. Martell, a wonder !
Here is a woman that dares die. — Yet, tell me,
Are you a wife?

O. I am, sir.

T. And have children? —
She sighs and weeps !

O. Oh, none, sir.

T. Dare you venture
For a poor barren praise you ne'er shall hear,
To part with these sweet hopes?

O. With all but Heaven." "

Is not this prodigious? Can you understand how one human
being can thus be separated from herself, forget and lose herself
in another? They do so lose themselves, as in an abyss. When
they love in vain and without hope, neither reason nor life resist;
they languish, grow mad, die like Ophelia. Aspasia, forlorn,

" Walks discontented, with her watry eyes
Bent on the earth. The unfrequented woods
Are her delight; and when she sees a bank
Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell
Her servants what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in ; and make her maids
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.
She carries with her an infectious grief,
That strikes all her beholders ; she will sing
The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard,
*i" Thierry and Theodoret," iv. i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 311

And sigh and sing again ; and when the rest
Of our young ladies, in their wanton blood,
Tell mirthful tales in course, that fill the room
With laughter, she will with so sad a look
Bring forth a story of the silent death
Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief
Will put in such a phrase, that, ere she end.
She'll send them weeping one by one away." 12

Like a spectre about a tomb, she wanders forever about the re-
mains of her destroyed love, languishes, grows pale, swoons,
ends by causing herself to be killed. Sadder still are those who,
from duty or submission, allow themselves to be married while
their heart belongs to another. They are not resigned, do not
recover, like Pauline in " Polyeucte." They are crushed to
death. Penthea, in Ford's " Broken Heart," is as upright, but
not so strong, as Pauline; she is the English wife, not the
Roman, stoical and calm.^^ She despairs sweetly, silently, and
pines to death. In her innermost heart she holds herself married
to him to whom she has pledged her soul : it is the marriage of
the heart which in her eyes is alone genuine; the other is only
disguised adultery. In marrying Bassanes she has sinned
against Orgilus ; moral infidelity is worse than legal infidelity,
and thenceforth she is fallen in her own eyes. She says to her
brother :

" Pray, kill me. . . .
Kill me, pray ; nay, will ye ?

Ithocles. How does thy lord esteem thee?

P. Such an one
As only you have made me ; a faith-breaker,
A spotted whore ; forgive me, I am one —
In act, not in desires, the gods must witness. . , «
For she's that wife to Orgilus, and lives
In known adultery with Bassanes,
Is, at the best, a whore. Wilt kill me now? . . »
The handmaid to the wages

M Beaumont and Fletcher, " The Maid's Tragedy," i.
*• Pauline says, in Corneille's "Polyeucte" (iii. 2):

" Avant qu'abandonner mon ame a mes douleurs,
II me faut essayer la force de mes pleurs ;
En qualite de femme ou de fille^ i espere
Qu'ils vaincront un epoux, ou flechiront un pere.
Que si sur I'un et I'autre ils manquent de pouvoir,
Je ne prendrai conseil que de mon desespoir.
Apprends-moi cependant ce qu'ils ont fait au temple." .
We could not find a more reasonable and reasoning woman. So with Eliante, and
Henriette in Moliere.

312 TAINE

Of country toil, drinks the untroubled streams
With leaping kids, and with the bleating lambs,
And so allays her thirst secure ; whiles I
Quench my hot sighs with fleetings of my tears." i*

With tragic greatness, from the height of her incurable grief,
she throws her gaze on life :

" My glass of life, sweet princess, hath few minutes
Remaining to run down; the sands are spent;
For by an inward messenger I feel

The summons of departure short and certain. . . . Glories
Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams,
And shadows soon decaying ; on the stage
Of my mortality, my youth hath acted
Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length
By varied pleasures, sweeten'd in the mixture,
But tragical in issue. . . That remedy
Must be a winding-sheet, a fold of lead,
And some untrod-on corner in the earth." ^^

There is no revolt, no bitterness ; she affectionately assists her
brother who has caused her unhappiness; she tries to enable
him to win the woman he loves ; feminine kindness and sweet-
ness overflow in her in the depths of her despair. Love here is
not despotic, passionate, as in southern climes. It is only deep
and sad ; the source of life is dried up, that is all ; she lives no
longer, because she cannot ; all go by degrees — health, reason,
soul ; in the end she becomes mad, and behold her dishevelled,
with wide staring eyes, with words that can hardly find utter-
ance. For ten days she has not slept, and will not eat any more ;
and the same fatal thought continually afflicts her heart, amidst
vague dreams of maternal tenderness and happiness brought to
nought, which come and go in her mind like phantoms:

" Sure, if we were all sirens, we would sing pitifully,
And 'twere a comely music, when in parts
One sung another's knell ; the turtle sighs
When he hath lost his mate ; and yet some say
He must be dead first: 'tis a fine deceit
To pass away in a dream ! indeed, I've slept
With mine eyes open, a great while. No falsehood
Equals a broken faith ; there's not a hair

" Ford's " Broken Heart," Hi. a. " Ibid. $,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 313

Sticks on my head, but, like" a leaden plummet,

It sinks me to the grave : I must creep thither ;

The journey is not long. . . .

Since I was first a wife, I might have been

Mother to many pretty prattling babes;

They would have smiled when I smiled; and, for certain,

I should have cried when they cried : — truly, brother,

My father would have pick'd me out a husband,

And then my little ones had been no bastards;

But 'tis too late for me to marry now,

I'm past child-bearing; 'tis not my fault. . . .

Spare your hand ;
Believe me, I'll not hurt it. . . .
Complain not though I wring it hard : I'll kiss it,
Oh, 'tis a fine soft palm ! — hark, in thine ear ;
Like whom do I look, prithee? — nay, no whispering.
Goodness ! we had been happy ; too much happiness
Will make folk proud, they say. . . .
There is no peace left for a ravish'd wife,
Widow'd by lawless marriage ; to all memory
Penthea's, poor Penthea's name is strumpeted. . . .
Forgive me ; Oh ! I faint." ^^

She dies, imploring that some gentle voice may sing her a plain-
tive air, a farewell ditty, a sweet funeral song. I know nothing
in the drama more pure and touching.

When we find a constitution of soul so new, and capable of
such great effects, it behooves us to look at the bodies. Man's
extreme actions come not from his will, but his nature.*^ In
order to understand the great tensions of the whole machine,
we must look upon the whole — I mean man's temperament, the
manner in which his blood flows, his nerves quiver, his muscles
act, the moral interprets the physical, and human qualities have
their root in the animal species. Consider then the species in
this case — namely, the race ; for the sisters of Shakespeare's
Ophelia and Virgilia, Goethe's Clara and Margaret, Otway's
Belvidera, Richardson's Pamela, constitute a race by them-
selves, soft and fair, with blue eyes, lily whiteness, blushing, of
timid delicacy, serious sweetness, framed to yield, bend, cling.
Their poets feel it clearly when they bring them on the stage ;
they surround them with the poetry which becomes them, the

*• Ford's " Broken Heart," iv. 2. which man is fundamentally irrational.

" Schopenhauer, " Metaphysics of In fact, it is the species and the in-

Love ana Death." Swift also said that stinct which are displayed in them, not

death and love are the two things in the will and the individual.

314 TAINE

murmur of streams, the pendant willow-tresses, the frail and
humid flowers of the country, so like themselves:

" The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azure harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath." ^^

They make them sweet, like the south wind, which with its
gentle breath causes the violets to bend their heads, abashed at
the slightest reproach, already half bowed down by a tender and
dreamy melancholy.^^ Philaster, speaking of Euphrasia, whom
he takes to be a page, and who has disguised herself in order
to be near him, says :

" Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain-side,
Of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst.
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself.
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: But ever when he turn'd
His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me, that his parents gentle dy'd,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots ; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses ; and the sun,
Which still, he thank'd him, yielded him his light
Then he took up his garland, and did shew
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, order'd thus,
Express'd his grief: And, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wish'd. ... I gladly entertain'd him,
Who was as glad to follow ; and have got
The trustiest, loving' st, and the gentlest boy
That ever master kept." 20

The idyl is self-produced among these human flowers: the
dramatic action is stopped before the angelic sweetness of their
tenderness and modesty. Sometimes even the idyl is bom com-

M " Cytnbeline," iv. 2.

*• The death of Ophelia, the obsequies of Imogen.

• "Philaster," i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 315

plete and pure, and the whole theatre is occupied by a sentimen-
tal and poetical kind of opera. There are two or three such
plays in Shakespeare ; in rude Jonson, " The Sad Shepherd " ; in
Fletcher, " The Faithful Shepherdess." Ridiculous titles now-
adays, for they remind us of the interminable platitudes of
d'Urfe, or the aflfected conceits of Florian ; charming titles, if
we note the sincere and overflowing poetry which they contain.
Amoret, the faithful shepherdess, lives in an imaginary country,
full of old gods, yet English, like the dewy verdant landscapes
in which Rubens sets his nymphs dancing:

" Thro' yon same bending plain
That flings his arms down to the main,
And thro' these thick woods, have I run,
Whose bottom never kiss'd the sun
Since the lusty spring began." . . .

" For to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moon-shine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality. . . ." "

" See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Ev'ry little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of christal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling.
And bright Hesperus down calling
The' dead Night from underground." 22

These are the plants and the aspects of the ever fresh English
country, now enveloped in a pale diaphanous mist, now glisten-
ing under the absorbing sun, teeming with grasses so full of
sap, so delicate, that in the midst of their most brilliant splendor
and their most luxuriant life, we feel that to-morrow will wither
them. There, on a summer night, the young men and girls,
after their custom,-^ go to gather flowers and plight their troth.
Amoret and Perigot are together ; Amoret,

" Fairer far
Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star
That guides the wand'ring seaman thro' the deep,"

fl* Beaninont and Fletcher, " The "' See the description in Nathan

Faithful Shepherdess," i. Drake, " Shakspeare and his Times."

J ibid. ii.

3i6 TAINE

modest like a virgin, and tender as a wife, says to Perigot :

" I dc believe thee : *Tis as hard for me
To think thee false, and harder, than for thee
To hold me foul." 2*

Strongly as she is tried, her heart, once given, never draws back.
Perigot, deceived, driven to despair, persuaded that she is un-
chaste, strikes her with his sword, and casts her bleeding to the
ground. The " sullen shepherd " throws her into a well ; but
the god lets fall " a drop from his watery locks " into the
wound ; the chaste flesh closes at the touch of the divine water,
and the maiden, recovering, goes once more in search of him
she loves :

" Speak, if thou be here,
My Perigot! Thy Amoret, thy dear.
Calls on thy loved name. . . . 'Tis thy friend,
Thy Amoret; come hither, to give end
To these consumings. Look up, gentle boy,
I have forgot those pains and dear annoy
I suffer'd for thy sake, and am content
To be thy love again. Why hast thou rent
Those curled locks, where I have often hung
Ribbons, and damask-roses, and have flung
Waters distill'd to make thee fresh and gay,
Sweeter than nosegays on a bridal day?
Why dost thou cross thine arms, and hang thy face
Down to thy bosom, letting fall apace.
From those two little Heav'ns, upon the ground,
Show'rs of more price, more orient, and more round,
Than those that hang upon the moon's pale brow?
Cease these complainings, shepherd ! I am now
The same I ever was, as kind and free,
And can forgive before you ask of me:
Indeed, I can and will." ^s

Who could resist her sweet and sad smile? Still deceived,
Perigot wounds her again ; she falls, but without anger.

" So this work hath end!
Farewell, and live! be constant to thy friend
That loves thee next." 28

A nymph cures her, and at last Perigot, disabused, comes and

"Beaumont and Fletcher, "The *» Ibid. iv.

Faithful Shepherdess," i. ••Ibid.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 317

throws himself on his knees before her. She stretches out her
arms ; in spite of all that he had done, she was not changed :

" I am thy love,
Thy Amoret, for evermore thy love!
Strike once more on my naked breast, I'll prove
As constant still. Oh, could' st thou love me yet,
How soon could I my former griefs forget ! " ^7

Such are the touching and poetical figures which these poets
introduce in their dramas, or in connection with their dramas,
amidst murders, assassinations, the clash of swords, the howl of
slaughter, striving against the raging men who adore or tor-
ment them, like them carried to excess, transported by their
tenderness as the others by their violence ; it is a complete expo-
sition, as well as a perfect opposition of the feminine instinct
ending in excessive self-abandonment, and of masculine harsh-
ness ending in murderous inflexibility. Thus built up and thus
provided, the drama of the age was enabled to bring out the
inner depths of man, and to set in motion the most powerful
human emotions ; to bring upon the stage Hamlet and Lear,
Ophelia and Cordelia, the death of Desdemona and the butcher-
ies of Macbeth.

^ Beaumont and Fletcher, " The the Italian pastorals, Tasso's "Aminta,"
Faithful Shepherdess," v. Compare, as Guarini's " II Pastor fido," etc
an illustration of the contrast of races,

CHAPTER THIRD

BEN JONSON

Section I.— The Man. — His Life

WHEN a new civilization brings a new art to light, there
are about a dozen men of talent who partly express
the general idea, surrounding one or two men of gen-
ius who express it thoroughly. Guillen de Castro, Perez de
Montalvan, Tirzo de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcon, Agustin Moreto,
surrounding Calderon and Lope de Vega; Crayer, Van Oost,
Rombouts, Van Thulden, Vandyke, Honthorst, surrounding
Rubens; Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, Webster, Beaumont,
Fletcher, surrounding Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The first
constitute the chorus, the others are the leading men. They
sing the same piece together, and at times the chorist is equal
to the solo artist ; but only at times. Thus, in the dramas which
I have just referred to, the poet occasionally reaches the summit
of his art, hits upon a complete character, a burst of sublime
passion; then he falls back, gropes amid qualified successes,
rough sketches, feeble imitations, and at last takes refuge in
the tricks of his trade. It is not in him, but in great men like
Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, that we must look for the attain-
ment of his idea and the fulness of his art. " Numerous were
the wit-combats," says Fuller, " betwixt him (Shakespeare)
and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great
galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson (like the
former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in
his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-
war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with
all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by
the quickness of his wit and invention." * Such was Ben Jonson

» Fuller's " Worthies," ed. Nuttall, 1840, 3 vols. iii. 284.
318

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 319

physically and morally, and his portraits do but confirm this just
and animated outline : a vigorous, heavy, and uncouth person ;
a broad and long face, early disfigured by scurvy, a square jaw,
large cheeks ; his animal organs as much developed as those of
his intellect: the sour aspect of a man in a passion or on the
verge of a passion ; to which add the body of an athlete, about
forty years of age, " mountain belly, ungracious gait." Such
was the outside, and the inside is like it. He was a genuine
Englishman, big and coarsely framed, energetic, combative,
proud, often morose, and prone to strange splenetic imagina-
tions. He told Drummond that for a whole night he imagined
" that he saw the Carthaginians and Romans fighting on his
great toe." ^ Not that he is melancholic by nature ; on the con-
trary, he loves to escape from himself by free and noisy, unbri-
dled merriment, by copious and varied converse, assisted by
good Canary wine, which he imbibes, and which ends by becom-
ing a necessity to him. These great phlegmatic butchers'
frames require a generous liquor to give them a tone, and to
supply the place of the sun which they lack. Expansive more-
over, hospitable, even lavish, with a frank imprudent spirit,'
making him forget himself wholly before Drummond, his
Scotch host, an over-rigid and malicious pedant, who has
marred his ideas and vilified his character.* What we know
of his life is in harmony with his person ; he suffered much,
fought much, dared much. He was studying at Cambridge,
when his stepfather, a bricklayer, recalled him, and taught him
to use the trowel. He ran away, enlisted as a common soldier,
and served in the English army, at that time engaged against
the Spaniards in the Low Countries, killed and despoiled a
man in single combat, " in the view of both armies." He was a
man of bodily action, and he exercised his limbs in early life."
On his return to England, at the age of nineteen, he went on the

' There is a similar hallucination to be seventy-four after Jonson's, which ren»

met with in the life of Lord Castle- ders quite nugatory all Gifford's accu-

reagh, who afterwards committed sui- sations of Drummond's having pub-

cide. lished them ' without shame.' As to

• His character lies between those of Drummond decoying Tonson under his
Fielding and Dr. Johnson. roof with any premeditated design on

♦ Mr. David Laing remarks, however, his reputation, as Mr. Campbell has re-
in Drummond's defence, that as " Jon- marked, no one can seriously believe
son died August 6, 1637, Drummond it." — " Archseologica Scotica," vol. iv.
survived till December 4, 1649, and no page 243.— Tr.

portion of these Notes (Conversations) * At the age of forty-four be went to

were made public till 171 1, or sixty-two Scotland on foot,
years after Drummond's death, and

320

TAINE

Stage for his livelihood, and occupied himself also in touching
up dramas. Having been challenged, he fought a duel, was
seriously wounded, but killed his adversary; for this he was
cast into prison, and found himself " nigh the gallows." A
Catholic priest visited and converted him ; quitting his prison
penniless, at twenty years of age, he married. At last, four
years later, his first successful play was acted. Children came,
he must earn bread for them ; and he was not inclined to follow
the beaten track to the end, being persuaded that a fine philoso-
phy— a special nobleness and dignity — ought to be introduced
into comedy — that it was necessary to follow the example of the
ancients, to imitate their severity and their accuracy, to be above
the theatrical racket and the common improbabilities in which
the vulgar delighted. He openly proclaimed his intention in
his prefaces, sharply railed at his rivals, proudly set forth on
the stage^ his doctrines, his morality, his character. He thus
made bitter enemies, who defamed him outrageously and be-
fore their audiences, whom he exasperated by the violence of
his satires, and against whom he struggled without intermission
to the end. He did more, he constituted himself a judge of the
public corruption, sharply attacked the reigning vices, " fearing
no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab." ' He treated his hear-
ers like schoolboys, and spoke to them always like a censor and
a master. If necessary, he ventured further. His companions,
Marston and Chapman, had been committed to prison for some
reflections on the Scotch in one of their pieces called " East-
ward-Hoe " ; and the report spreading that they were in danger
of losing their noses and ears, Jonson, who had written part of
the piece, voluntarily surrendered himself a prisoner, and "ob-
tained their pardon. On his return, amid the feasting and
rejoicing, his mother showed him a violent poison which 'she
intended to put into his drink, to save him from the execution
of the sentence ; and " to show that she was not a toward," adds
Jonson, " she had resolved to drink first." We see that in vig-
orous actions he found examples in his own family. Toward
the end of his life, money was scarce with him ; he was liberal,
improvident ; his pockets always had holes in them, and his'hand
was always ready to give ; though he had written a vast quan-

• Parts of " Crites " and " Asper." '' " Every Man out ol his Humour,**-

i.i Gilford's "Jonson," p. 30.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 32X

tity, he was still obliged to write in order to live. Paralysis
came on, his scurvy became worse, dropsy set in. He could
not leave his room, nor walk without assistance. His last plays
did not succeed. In the epilogue to the " New Inn " he says :

" If you expect more than you had to-night,
The maker is sick and sad. . . .
All that his faint and fait' ring tongue doth crave.
Is, that you not impute it to his brain,
That's yet unhurt, altho, set round with pain,
It cannot long hold out."

His enemies brutally insulted him :

" Thy Pegasus . . •
He had bequeathed his belly unto thee.
To hold that little learning which is fled
Into thy guts from out thy emptye head."

Inigo Jones, his colleague, deprived him of the patronage of the
court. He was obliged to beg a supply of money from the Lord
Treasurer, then from the Earl of Newcastle:

" Disease, the enemy, and his engineers,
Want, with the rest of his concealed compeers,
Have cast a trench about me, now five years. . » ■
The muse not peeps out, one of hundred days;
But lies blocked up and straitened, narrowed in,
Fixed to the bed and boards, unlike to win
Health, or scarce breath, as she had never been." *

His wife and children were dead; he lived alone, forsaken,
waited on by an old woman. Thus almost always sadly and
miserably is dragged out and ends the last act of the human
comedy. After so many years, after so many sustained efforts,
amid so much glory and genius, we find a poor shattered body,
drivelling and suffering, between a servant and a priest.

Section II.— His Freedom and Precision of Style

This is the life of a combatant, bravely endured, worthy of
the seventeenth century by its crosses and its energy ; courage
and force abounded throughout. Few writers have labored
more, and more conscientiously; his knowledge was vast, and

•Ben Tonson's Poems, ed. Bell, An Weston, Lord High Treasurer (1631), p.
Epistle Mendicant, to Richard, Lord 244.

322

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in this age of eminent scholars he was one of the best classics
of his time, as deep as he was accurate and thorough, having
studied the most minute details and understood the true spirit
of ancient life. It w^as not enough for him to have stored his
mind from the best writers, to have their whole works contin-
ually in his mind, to scatter his pages whether he would or no,
with recollections of them. He dug into the orators, critics,
scholiasts, grammarians, and compilers of inferior rank ; he
picked up stray fragments ; he took characters, jokes, refine-
ments, from Athenseus, Libanius, Philostratus. He had so
well entered into and digested the Greek and Latin ideas, that
they were incorporated with his own. They enter into his
speech without incongruity ; they spring forth in him as vigor-
ous as at their first birth ; he originates even when he remem-
bers. On every subject he had this thirst for knowledge, and
this gift of mastering knowledge. He knew alchemy when he
wrote the " Alchemist." He is familiar with alembics, retorts,
receivers, as if he had passed his life seeking after the philos-
opher's stone. He explains incineration, calcination, imbibi-
tion, rectification, reverberation, as Well as Agrippa and Para-
celsus. If he speaks of cosmetics,^ he brings out a shopful of
them ; we might make out of his plays a dictionary of the oaths
and costumes of courtiers ; he seems to have a specialty in all
branches. A still greater proof of his force is, that his learning
in no wise mars his vigor ; heavy as is the mass with which he
loads himself, he carries it without stooping. This wonderful
mass of reading and observation suddenly begins to move, and
falls like a mountain on the overwhelmed reader. We must
hear Sir Epicure Mammon unfold the vision of splendors and
debauchery, in which he means to plunge, when he has learned
to make gold. The refined and unchecked impurities of the
Roman decadence, the splendid obscenities of Heliogabalus, the
gigantic fancies of luxury and lewdness, tables of gold spread
with foreign dainties, draughts of dissolved pearls, nature de-
vastated to provide a single dish, the many crimes committed
by sensuality against nature, reason, and justice, the delight in
defying and outraging law — all these images pass before the
eyes with the dash of a torrent and the force of a great river.
Phrase follows phrase without intermission, ideas and facts

* " The Devil is an Ass."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

323

crowd into the dialogue to paint a situation, to give clearness to
a character, produced from this deep memory, directed by this
solid logic, launched by this powerful reflection. It is a pleas-
ure to see him advance weighted with so many observations and
recollections, loaded with technical details and learned remin-
iscences, without deviation or pause, a genuine literary Levia-
than, like the war elephants which used to bear towers, men,
weapons, machines, on their backs, and ran as swiftly with their
freight as a nimble steed.

In the great dash of this heavy attempt, he finds a path which
suits him. He has his style. Classical erudition and education
made him a classic, and he writes like his Greek models and his
Roman masters. The more we study the Latin races and lit-
eratures in contrast with the Teutonic, the more fully we become
convinced that the proper and distinctive gift of the first is the
art of development ; that is, of drawing up ideas in continuous
rows, according to the rules of rhetoric and eloquence, by
studied transitions, with regular progress, without shock or
bounds. Jonson received from his acquaintance with the an-
cients the habit of decomposing ideas, unfolding them bit by bit
in natural order, making himself understood and believed.
From the first thought to the final conclusion, he conducts the
reader by a continuous and uniform ascent. The track never
fails with him as with Shakespeare. He does not advance like
the rest by abrupt intuitions, but by consecutive deductions;
we can walk with him without need of bounding, and we are
continually kept upon the straight path : antithesis of words un-
folds antithesis of thoughts; symmetrical phrases guide the
mind through difficult ideas ; they are like barriers set on either
side of the road to prevent our falling into the ditch. We do
not meet on our way extraordinary, sudden, gorgeous images,
which might dazzle or delay us ; we travel on, enlightened by
moderate and sustained metaphors. Jonson has all the methods
of Latin art ; even, when he wishes it, especially on Latin sub-
jects, he has the last and most erudite, the brilliant conciseness
of Seneca and Lucan, the squared, equipoised, filed-off antithe-
sis, the most happy and studied artifices of oratorical architect-
ure.^ Other poets are nearly visionaries ; Jonson is almost a
logician.

*SejaQus, Catiline, passim.

3*4

TAINE

Hence his talent, his successes, and his faults : if he has a bet-r
ter style and better plots than the others, he is not, like them,
a creator of souls. He is too much of a theorist, too preoccu-
pied by rules. His argumentative habits spoil him when he
seeks to shape and motion complete and living men. No one is
capable of fashioning these unless he possesses, like Shake-
speare, the imagination of a seer. The human being is so com-
plex that the logician who perceives his different elements in
succession can hardly study them all, much less gather them all
in one flash, so as to produce the dramatic response or action in
which they are concentrated and which should manifest them.
To discover such actions and responses, we need a kind of in-
spiration and fever. Then the mind works as in a dream. The
characters move within the poet, almost involuntarily : he waits
for them to speak, he remains motionless, hearing their voices,
wholly wrapt in contemplation, in order that he may not disturb
the inner drama which they are about to act in his soul. That is
his artifice : to let them alone. He is quite astonished at their
discourse ; as he observes them he forgets that it is he who in-
vents them. Their mood, character, education, disposition of
mind, situation, attitude, and actions, form within him so well-
connected a whole, and so readily unite into palpable and solid
beings, that he dares not attribute to his reflection or reasoning
a creation so vast and speedy. Beings are organized in him as in
nature; that is, of themselves, and by a force which the combina-
tions of his art could not replace.^ Jonson has nothing wherje-
with to replace it but these combinations of art. He chooses a
general idea — cunning, folly, severity — and makes a person out
of it. This person is called Crites, Asper, Sordido, Deliro, Pe-
cunia. Subtil, and the transparent name indicates the logical
process which produced it. The poet took an abstract quality,
and putting together all the actions to which it may give rise,
trots it out on the stage in a man's dress. His characters, like
those of La Bruyere and Theophrastus, were hammered out of
solid deductions. Now it is a vice selected from the catalogue
of moral philosophy, sensuality thirsting for gold : this perverse
double inclination becomes a personage, Sir Epicure Mammon ;
before the alchemist, before the famulus, before his friend, be-
fore his mistress, in public or alone, all his words denote a greed

•Alfred de Musset, preface to "La Coupe et les Levres." Plato: "Ion."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 325

of pleasure and of gold, and they express nothing more.* Now
it is a mania gathered from the old sophists, a babbling with
horror of noise ; this form of mental pathology becomes a per-
sonage, Morose ; the poet has the air of a doctor who has under-
taken to record exactly all the desires of speech, all the necessi-
ties of silence, and to record nothing else. Now he picks out
a ridicule, an affectation, a species of folly, from the manners
of the dandies and the courtiers ; a mode of swearing, an extrav-
agant style^ a habit of gesticulating, or any other oddity con-
tracted by vanity or fashion. The hero whom he covers with
these eccentricities is overloaded by them. He disappears be-
neath his enormous trappings ; he drags them about with 'him
everywhere ; he cannot get rid of them for an instant. We no
longer see the man under the dress ; he is like a manikin, op-
pressed under a cloak, too heavy for. him. Sometimes, doubt-
less, his habits of geometrical construction produce personages
almost Hfe-like. Bobadil, the grave boaster ; Captain Tucca,the
begging bully, inventive buffoon, ridiculous talker ; Amorphus
the traveller, a pedantic doctor of good manners, laden with
eccentric phrases, create as much illusion as we can wish ; but
it is because they are flitting comicalities and low characters.
It is not necessary for a poet to study such creatures; it is
enough that he discovers in them three or four leading features ;
it is of little consequence if they always present themselves with
the same attitudes ; they produce laughter, like the Countess
d'Escarbagans or any of the Facheux in Moliere ; we want noth-
ing else of them. On the contrary, the others weary and repel
us. They are stage-masks, not living figures. Having ac-
quired a fixed expression, they persist to the end of the piece in
their unvarying grimace or their eternal frown. A man is not
an abstract passion. He stamps the vices and virtues which he
possesses with his individual mark. These vices and virtues
receive, on entering into him, a bent and form which they have
not in others. No one is unmixed sensuality. Take a thou-
sand sensualists, and you will find a thousand different modes
of sensuality ; for there are a thousand paths, a thousand circum-
stances and degrees, in sensuality. If Jonson wanted to make
Sir Epicure Mammon a real being, he should have given him

* Compare Sir Epicure Mammon with Jonson, creates real beings like Shake*
Baron Hulot from Balzac's " Cousine speare.
Bette." Balzac, who is learned like

15— Classics. Vol. 38

326 TAINE

the kind of disposition, the species of education, the manner
of imagination, which produce sensuaUty. When we wish to
construct a man, we must dig down to the foundations of man-
kind ; that is, we must define to ourselves the structure of his
bodily machine, and the primitive gait of his mind. Jonson
has not dug sufficiently deep, and his constructions are incom-
plete ; he has built on the surface, and he has built but a single
story. He was not acquainted with the whole man and he ig-
nored man's basis ; he put on the stage and gave a representation
of moral treatises, fragments of history, scraps of satire ; he did
not stamp new beings on the imagination of mankind.

He possesses all other gifts, and in particular the classical;
first of all, the talent for composition. For the first time we see
a connected, well-contrived plot, a complete intrigue, with its
beginning, middle, and end ; subordinate actions well arranged,
well combined ; an interest which grows and never flags ; a lead-
ing truth which all the events tend to demonstrate ; a ruling idea
which all the characters unite to illustrate ; in short, an art like
that which Moliere and Racine were about to apply and teach.
He does not, like Shakespeare, take a novel from Greene, a
chronicle from Holinshed, a life from Plutarch, such as they
are, to cut them into scenes, irrespective of likelihood, indifferent
as to order and unity, caring only to set up men, at times wan-
dering into poetic reveries, at need finishing up the piece abrupt-
ly with a recognition or a butchery. He governs himself and
his characters ; he wills and he knows all that they do, and all
that he does. But beyond his habits of Latin regularity, he pos-
sesses the great faculty of his age and race — the sentiment of
nature and existence, the exact knowledge of precise detail, the
power in frankly and boldly handling frank passions. This
gift is not wanting in any writer of the time ; they do not fear
words that are true, shocking, and striking details of the bed-
chamber or medical study; the prudery of modern England
and the refinement of monarchical France veil not the nudity
of their figures, or dim the coloring of their pictures. They
live freely, amply, amidst living things; they see the ins and
outs of lust raging without any feeling of shame, hypocrisy, or
palliation ; and they exhibit it as they see it, Jonson as boldly as
the rest, occasionally more boldly than the rest, strengthened
as he is by the vigor and ruggedness of his athletic tempera-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

327

ment, by the extraordinary exactness and abundance of his ob-
servations and his knowledge. Add also his moral loftiness,
his asperity, his powerful chiding wrath, exasperated and bitter
against vice, his will strengthened by pride and by conscience :

" With an armed and resolved hand,
I'll strip the ragged follies of the time
Naked as at their birth . . . and with a whip of steel,
Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs.
I fear no mood stampt in a private brow,
When I am pleas'd t' unmask a public vice.
I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab,
Should I detect their hateful luxuries ; " ^

above all, a scorn of base compliance, an open disdain for

"Th
That run a broken pac(

an enthusiasm, or deep love of

" Those jaded wits
That run a broken pace for common hire," *

" A happy muse,
Borne on the wings of her immortal thought,
That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel,
And beats at heaven gates with her bright hoofs." ^

Such are the energies which he brought to the drama and to
comedy ; they were great enough to insure him a high and sep-
arate position.

Section III. — The Dramas Catiline and Sejanus

For whatever Jonson undertakes, whatever be his faults,
haughtiness, rough-handling, predilection for morality and the
past, antiquarian and censorious instincts, he is never little or
dull. It signifies nothing that in his latinized tragedies,
" Sejanus," " Catiline," he is fettered by the worship of the old
worn models of the Roman decadence; nothing that he plays
the scholar, manufactures Ciceronian harangues, hauls in
choruses imitated from Seneca, holds forth in the style of Lucan
and the rhetors of the empire ; he more than once attains a gen-
uine accent ; through his pedantry, heaviness, literary adoration
of the ancients, nature forces its way ; he lights, at his first at-

* " Every Man out of his Humour," • " Poetaster," i. i.

Prologue. * Ibid.

328 TAINE

tempt, on the crudities, horrors, gigantic lewdness, shameless
depravity of imperial Rome ; he takes in hand and sets in motion
the lusts and ferocities, the passions of courtesans and prin-
cesses, the daring of assassins and of great men, which pro-
duced Messalina, Agrippina, Catiline, Tiberius.^ In the Rome
which he places before us we go boldly and straight to the end ;
justice and pity oppose no barriers. Amid these customs of
victors and slaves, human nature is upset, corruption and vil-
lany are held as proofs of insight and energy. Observe how,
in " Sejanus," assassination is plotted and carried out with mar-
vellous coolness. Livia discusses with Sejanus the methods of
poisoning her husband, in a clear style, without circumlocution,
as if the subject were how to gain a lawsuit or to serve up a din-
ner. There are no equivocations, no hesitation, no remorse in
the Rome of Tiberius. Glory and virtue consist in power;
scruples are for base minds ; the mark of a lofty heart is to de-
sire all and to dare all. Macro says rightly :

" Men's fortune there is virtue ; reason their will ;
Their license, law ; and their observance, skill.
Occasion is their foil ; conscience, their stain ;
Profit, their lustre ; and what else is, vain." 2

Sejanus addresses Livia thus:

" Royal lady, . . .
Yet, now I see your wisdom, judgment, strength,
Quickness, and will, to apprehend the means
To your own good and greatness, I protest
Myself through rarified, and turn'd all aflame
In your affection." ^

These are the loves of the wolf and his mate ; he praises her
for being so ready to kill. And observe in one moment the
morals of a prostitute appear behind the manners of the poi-
soner. Sejanus goes out, and immediately, like a courtesan,
Livia turns to her physician, saying:

" How do I look to-day?

Eudetnus. Excellent clear, believe it. This same fucus
Was well laid on.
Livia. Methinks 'tis here not white.

* See the second act of " Catiline."

2 " The Fall of Sejanus," iii. last scene.

»Ibid. ii.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 329

E. Lend me your scarlet, lady. 'Tis the sun
Hath giv'n some little taint unto the ceruse,
You should have us'd of the white oil I gave you.
Sejanus, for your love! His very name
Commandeth above Cupid or his shafts. . . .

[Paints her cheeks.]
" 'Tis novif well, lady, you should
Use of the dentrifice I prescrib'd you too,
To clear your teeth, and the prepar'd pomatum,
To smooth the skin. A lady cannot be
Too curious of her form, that still would hold
The heart of such a person, made her captive,
As you have his : who, to endear him more
In your clear eye, hath put away his wife . . .
Fair Apicata, and made spacious room
To your new pleasures.

L. Have not we return'd

That with our hate to Drusus, and discovery
Of all his counsels? . . .

E. When will you take some physic, lady?

L. When

I shall, Eudemus : but let Drusus' drug
Be first prepar'd.

E. Were Lygdus made, that's done. . . .
I'll send you a perfume, first to resolve
And procure sweat, and then prepare a bath
To cleanse and clear the cutis ; against when
I'll have an excellent new fucus made
Resistive 'gainst the sun, the rain or wind.
Which you shall lay on with a breath or oil,
As you best like, and last some fourteen hours.
This change came timely, lady, for your health." *

He ends by congratulating her on her approaching change of
husbands ; Drusus was injuring her complexion ; Sejanus is far
preferable ; a physiological and practical conclusion. The
Roman apothecary kept on the same shelf his medicine-chest,
his chest of cosmetics, and his box of poisons.^

After this we find one after another all the scenes of Roman
life unfolded, the bargain of murder, the comedy of justice, the
shamelessness of flattery, the anguish and vacillation of the Sen-
ate. When Sejanus wishes to buy a conscience, he questions,
jokes, plays round the offer he is about to make, throws it out
as if in pleasantry, so as to be able to withdraw it, if need be ;

* " The Fall of Sejanus," ii. mated, on the dissipation of the higher

^ See "Catiline," Act ii.; a very fine ranks in Rome,
scene, no less plain spoken and ani-

33©

TAINE

then, when the intelligent look of the rascal, whom he is traffick-
ing with, shows that he is understood :

" Protest not,
Thy looks are vows to me. . . .
Thou art a man, made to make consuls. Go." ^

Elsewhere, the senator Latiaris in his own house storms before
his friend Sabinus against tyranny, openly expresses a desire
for liberty, provoking him to speak. Then two spies who were
hid " between the roof and ceiling," cast themselves on Sabinus,
crying, " Treason to Caesar ! " and drag him, with his face cov-
ered, before the tribunal, thence to " be thrown upon the Ge-
monies." ' So, when the Senate is assembled, Tiberius has
chosen beforehand the accusers of Silius, and their parts dis-
tributed to them. They mumble in a corner, whilst aloud is
heard, in the emperor's presence :

" Caesar,
Live long and happy, great and royal Caesar ;
The gods preserve thee and thy modesty,
Thy wisdom and thy innocence. . . .

Guard
His meekness, Jove, his piety, his care,
His bounty." ^

Then the herald cites the accused; Varro, the consul, pro-
nounces the indictment ; Afer hurls upon therri his bloodthirsty
eloquence : the senators get excited ; we see laid bare, as in Tac-
itus and Juvenal, the depths of Roman servility, hypocrisy, in-
sensibility, the venomous craft of Tiberius. At last, after so
many others, the turn of Sejanus comes. The fathers anxiously
assemble in the temple of Apollo ; for some days past Tiberius
has seemed to be trying to contradict himself ; one day he ap-
points the friends of his favorite to high places, and the next day
sets his enemies in eminent positions. The senators mark the
face of Sejanus, and know not what to anticipate ; Sejanus is
troubled, then after a moment's cringing is more arrogant than
ever. The plots are confused, the rumors contradictory.
Macro alone is in the confidence of Tiberius, and soldiers are
seen, drawn up at the porch of the temple, ready to enter at the
slightest commotion. The formula of convocation is read, and
the council marks the names of those who do not respond to the

""The Fall of Sejanus," i. 'Ibid. iv. »Ibid. iii.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE ,31

summons; then Regulus addresses them, and announces that
Caesar

Propounds to this grave Senate, the bestowing
Upon the man he loves, honor'd Sejanus,
The tribunitial dignity and power :
Here are his letters, signed with his signet.
What pleaseth now the Fathers to be done ? "

" Senators. Read, read them, open, publicly read them,

Cotta. Caesar hath honor'd his own greatness much
In thinking of this act.

Trio. It was a thought

Happy, and worthy Cxsar.

Latiaris. And the lord

As worthy it, on whom it is directed !

Hater ins. Most worthy !

Sanquinius. Rome did never boast the virtue
That could give envy bounds, but his: Sejanus —

1st Sen. Honor'd and noble !

2d Sen. Good and great Sejanus !

PrcBcones. Silence ! " *

Tiberius's letter is read. First, long, obscure, and vague
phrases, mingled with indirect protestations and accusations,
foreboding something and revealing nothing. Suddenly comes
an insinuation against Sejanus. The fathers are alarmed, but
the next line reassures them. A word or two further on the
same insinuation is repeated with greater exactness. " Some
there be that would interpret this his public severity to be par-
ticular ambition ; and that, under a pretext of service to us, he
doth but remove his own lets: alleging the strengths he hath
made to himself, by the praetorian soldiers, by his faction in
court and Senate, by the offices he holds himself, and confers on
others, his popularity and dependents, his urging (and almost
driving) us to this our unwilling retirement, and lastly, his
aspiring to be our son-in-law." The fathers rise : " This is
strange ! " Their eager eyes are fixed on the letter, on Sejanus,
who perspires and grows pale; their thoughts are busy with
conjectures, and the words of the letter fall one by one, amidst
a sepulchral silence, caught up as they fall with all devouring
and attentive eagerness. The senators anxiously weigh the
value of these shifty expressions, fearing to compromise them-

•»"The Fall of Sejanus," v.

33*

TAINE

selves with the favorite or with the prince, all feeling that they
must understand, if they value their lives.

" ' Your wisdoms, conscript fathers, are able to examine, and censure
these suggestions. But, were they left to our absolving voice, we durst
pronounce them, as we think them, most malicious.'

Senator. O, he has restor'd all ; list.

Prceco. ' Yet are they offered to be averr'd, and on the lives of the
informers.' " '^^

At this word the letter becomes menacing. Those next Se-
janus forsake him. " Sit farther. . . . Let's remove ! "
The heavy Sanquinius leaps panting over the benches. The
soldiers come in; then Macro. And now,, at last, the letter
orders the arrest of Sejanus.

" Regulus. Take him hence ;
And all the gods guard Caesar!
Trio. Take hira hence.
Haterius. Hence.
Cotta. To the dungeon with him.
Sanquinius. He deserves it.
Senator. Crown all our doors with bays.
San. And let an ox,

With gilded horns and garlands, straight be led
Unto the Capitol.
Hat. And sacrific'd

To Jove, for Caesar's safety.
Tri. All our gods

Be present still to Caesar ! . . .
Cot. Let all the traitor's titles be defac'd.
Tri. His images and statues be puU'd down. . , .
Sen. Liberty, liberty, liberty ! Lead on,

And praise to Macro that hath saved Rome ! " ^''■

It is the baying of a furious pack of hounds, let loose at last
on him, under whose hand they had crouched, and who had
for a long time beaten and bruised them. Jonson discovered
in his own energetic soul the energy of these Roman passions ;
and the clearness of his mind, added to his profound knowledge,
powerless to construct characters, furnished him with general
ideas and striking incidents, which suffice to depict manners.

» " The Fall of Sejanus," v. " Ibid.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 333

Section IV. — Comedies

Moreover, it was to this that he turned his talent. Nearly all
his work consists of comedies, not sentimental and fanciful as
Shakespeare's, but imitative and satirical, written to represent
and correct follies and vices. He introduced a new model ; he
had a doctrine; his masters were Terence and Plautus. He
observes the unity of time and place, almost exactly. He ridi-
cules the authors who, in the same play,

" Make a child now swaddled, to proceed
Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threescore years ; or, with three rusty swords.
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars. . . .
He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see." ^

He wishes to represent on the stage

" One such to-day, as other plays shou'd be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please:
Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard
The gentlewomen. . . .

But deeds, and language, such as men do use. . . .
You, that have so grac'd monsters, may like men." 2

Men, as we see them in the streets, with their whims and hu-
mors—

" When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humor." '

It is these humors which he exposes to the light, not with the
artist's curiosity, but with the moralist's hate :

" I will scourge those apes.
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
As large as is the stage whereon we act ;
Where they shall see the time's deformity
Anatomized in every nerve, and sinew,
With constant courage, and contempt of fear. . . .

1 " Every Man in his Humour," Prologue. * Ibid. » Ibid.

334 TAINE

My strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
As lick up every idle vanity." *

Doubtless a determination so strong and decided does vio-
lence to the dramatic spirit. Jonson's comedies are not rarely
harsh ; his characters are too grotesque, laboriously constructed,
mere automatons ; the poet thought less of producing living
beings than of scotching a vice ; the scenes get arranged, or are
confused together in a mechanical manner ; we see the process,
we feel the satirical intention throughout; delicate and easy-
flowing imitation is absent, as well as the graceful fancy which
abounds in Shakespeare. But if Jonson comes across harsh
passions, visibly evil and vile, he will derive from his energy
and wrath the talent to render them odious and visible, and will
produce a " Volpone," a sublime work, the sharpest picture of
the manners of the age, in which is displayed the full brightness
of evil lusts, in which lewdness, cruelty, love of gold, shameless-
ness of vice, display a sinister yet splendid poetry, worthy of one
of Titian's bacchanals.^ All this makes itself apparent in the
first scene, when Volpone says :

" Good morning to the day ; and next, my gold !

Open the shrine, that I may see my saint."

This saint is his piles of gold, jewels, precious plate :

" Hail the world's soul, and mine ! . . . O thou son of Sol,
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss.
With adoration, thee, and every relick
Of sacred treasure in this blessed room." «

Presently after, the dwarf, the eunuch, and the hermaphro-
dite of the house sing a sort of pagan and fantastic interlude ;
they chant in strange verses the metamorphoses of the her-
maphrodite, who was first the soul of Pythagoras. We are at
Venice, in the palace of the magnifico Volpone. These de-
formed creatures, the splendor of gold, this strange and poetical
buffoonery, carry the thought immediately to the sensual city,
queen of vices and of arts.

* " Every Man out of his Humour," sixteenth with the beginning of the

Prologue. eighteenth century.

•Compare "Volpone" with Reg- '"Volpone," i. i.
nard's L6gataire ; the end of the

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 335

The rich Volpone lives like an ancient Greek or Roman.
Childless and without relatives, playing the invalid, he makes
all his flatterers hope to be his heir, receives their gifts,

" Letting the cherry knock against their lips,
And draw it by their mouths, and back again." '^

Glad to have their gold, but still more glad to deceive them,
artistic in wickedness as in avarice, and just as pleased to look at
a contortion of suffering as at the sparkle of a ruby.

The advocate Voltore arrives, bearing a " huge piece of
plate." Volpone throws himself on his bed, wraps himself in
furs, heaps up his pillows, and coughs as if at the point of death :

" Volpone. I thank you, signior Voltore,
Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad. . . . Your love
Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswer'd. . . .
I cannot now last long. ... I feel me going —
Uh, uh, uh, uh ! " 8

He closes his eyes, as though exhausted :

*' Voltore. Am I inscrib'd his heir for certain ?

Mosca {Volpone' s Parasite). Are you!

I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe
To write me in your family. All my hopes
Depend upon your worship : I am lost.
Except the rising sun do shine on me.

Volt. It shall both shine and warm thee, Mosca.

M. Sir,

I am man, that hath not done your love
All the worst offices: here I wear your keys,
See all your coffers and your caskets lock'd.
Keep the poor inventory of your jewels.
Your plate and monies ; am your steward, sir,
Husband your goods here.

Volt. But am I sole heir?

M. Without a partner, sir ; confirm'd this morning
The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry
Upon the parchment.

Volt. Happy, happy me!

By what good chance, sweet Mosca?

M. Your desert, sir ;

I know no second cause." *

•"Volpone," i. i. «Ibid. i. 3. 'Ibid.

336 TAINE

And he details the abundance of the wealth in which Voltore is
about to revel, the gold which is to pour upon him, the opulence
which is to flow in his house as a river :

" When will you have your inventory brought, sir?
Or see a copy of the will ? "

The imagination is fed with precise words, precise details.
Thus, one after another, the would-be heirs come like beasts of
prey. The second who arrives is an old miser, Corbaccio, deaf,
" impotent," almost dying, who, nevertheless, hopes to survive
Volpone. To make more sure of it, he would fain have Mosca
give his master a narcotic. He has it about him, this excellent
opiate : he has had itprepared under his own eyes, he suggests
it. His joy on finding Volpone more ill than himself is bitterly
humorous :

" Corbaccio. How does your patron ? . . .

Mosca. His mouth

Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang.

C. Good.

M. A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints.
And makes the color of his flesh like lead.

C. 'Tis good.

M. His pulse beats slow, and dull.

C. Good symptoms still.

M. And from his brain —

C. I conceive you ; good.

M. Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum,
Forth the resolved corners of his eyes.

C. Is't possible? Yet I am better, ha!
How does he, with the swimming of his head?

M. O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy ; he now
Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort :
You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes.

C. Excellent, excellent ! sure I shall outlast him :
This makes me young again, a score of years." ^^

If you would be his heir, says Mosca, the moment is favorable,
but you must not let yourself be forestalled. Voltore has been
here, and presented him with this piece of plate :

" C. See, Mosca, look.

Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequines.
Will quite weigh down his plate. . . .

""Volpone," i. 4.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 337

M. Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed;
There, frame a will ; whereto you shall inscribe
My master your sole heir. . . .

C. This plot

Did I think on before. . . .

M. And you so certain to survive him —

C. Ay.

M. Being so lusty a man —

C. 'Tis true." ^*

And the old man hobbles away, not hearing the insults and ridi-
cule thrown at him, he is so deaf.

When he is gone the merchant Corvino arrives, bringing an
orient pearl and a splendid diamond :

" Corvino. Am I his heir?

Mosca. Sir, I am sworn, I may not show the will
Till he be dead ; but here has been Corbaccio,
Here has been Voltore, here were others too,
I cannot number 'em, they were so many;
All gaping here for legacies : but I,
Taking the vantage of his naming you,
Signior Corvino, Signior Corvino, took
Paper, and pen, and ink, and there I asked him,
Whom he would have his heir? Corvino. Who
Should be executor? Corvino. And,
To any question he was silent to,
I still interpreted the nods he made.

Through weakness, for consent : and sent home th' others,
Nothing bequeath'd them, but to cry and curse.

Cor. O my dear Mosca! . . . Has he children?

M. Bastards,
Some dozen, or more, that he begot on beggars,
Gypsies, and Jews, and black-moors, when he was drunk. . . »

Speak out;
You may be louder yet. ...
Faith, I could stifle him rarely with a pillow.
As well as any woman that should keep him,

C. Do as you will ; but I'll begone." 12

Corvino presently departs ; for the passions of the time have all
the beauty of frankness. And Volpone, casting aside his sick
man's garb, cries :

" My divine Mosca !
Thou hast to-day out gone thyself. . . . Prepare
Me music, dances, banquets, all delights ;

" " Volpone," i. 4. " Ibid. i. j.

338 TAINE

The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures,
Than will Volpone." ^^

On this invitation, Mosca draws a most voluptuous portrait of
Corvino's wife, Celia. Smitten with a sudden desire, Volpone
dresses himself as a mountebank, and goes singing under her
windows with all the sprightliness of a quack ; for he is natu-
rally a comedian, like a true Italian, of the same family as Scara-
mouch, as good an actor in the public square as in his house.
Having once seen Celia, he resolves to obtain her at any price :

" Mosca, take my keys.
Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion;
Employ them how thou wilt; nay, coin me too:
So thou, in this, but crown my longings, Mosca." ^*

Mosca then tells Corvino that some quack's oil has cured his
master, and that they are looking for a " young woman, lusty
and full of juice," to complete the cure:

" Have you no kinswoman?
Odso — Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir.
One o' the doctors offer'd there his daughter.

Corvino. How !

Mosca. Yes, signior Lupo, the physician.

C. His daughter !

M. And a virgin, sir. . . .

C. Wretch !

Covetous wretch." ^^

Though unreasonably jealous, Corvino is gradually induced
to offer his wife. He has given too much already, and would
not lose his advantage. He is like a half-ruined gamester, who
with a shaking hand throws on the green cloth the remainder
of his fortune. He brings the poor sweet woman, weeping and
resisting. Excited by his own hidden pangs, he becomes furi-
ous:

" Be damn'd !

Heart, I will drag thee hence, home, by the hair ;

Cry thee a strumpet through the streets ; rip up

Thy mouth unto thine ears; and slit thy nose;

Like a raw rochet ! — Do not tempt me ; come.

Yield, I am loth — Death ! I will buy some slave

Whom I will kill, and bind thee to him, alive;

And at my window hang you forth, devising

w *' Volpone," i. s- " Ibid. ii. 2. " Ibid.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 3^9

Some monstrous crime, which I, in capital letters,
Will eat into thy flesh with aquafortis,
And burning corsives, on this stubborn breast.
Now, by the blood thou hast incensed, I'll do it !

Celia. Sir, what you please, you may, I am your martyr.

Corvino. Be not thus obstinate, I have not deserv'd it:
Think who it is intreats you. Prithee, sweet ; —
Good faith thou shalt have jewels, gowns, attires,
What thou wilt think, and ask. Do but go kiss him,
Or touch him, but. For my sake. — At my suit. —
This once. — No ! not ! I shall remember this.
Will you disgrace me thus? Do you thirst my undoing? " 1*

Mosca turned a moment before, to Volpone :

" Sir,
Signior Corvino . . . hearing of the consultation had
So lately, for your health, is come to oflfer,
Or rather, sir, to prostitute. —

Corvino. Thanks, sweet Mosca.

Mosca. Freely, unask'd, or unintreated.

C. Well.

Mosca. As the true fervent instance of his love,
His own most fair and proper wife ; the beauty
Only of price in Venice. —

C. 'Tis well urg'd." ^^

Where can we see such blows launched and driven hard, full
in the face, by the violent hand of satire? CeHa is alone with
Volpone, who, throwing off his feigned sickness, comes upon
her " as fresh, as hot, as high, and in as jovial plight," as on
the gala days of the Republic, when he acted the part of the
lovely Antinous. In his transport he sings a love-song; his
voluptuousness culminates in poetry ; for poetry was then in
Italy the blossom of vice. He spreads before her pearls, dia-
monds, carbuncles. He is in raptures at the sight of the treas-
ures, which he displays and sparkles before her eyes:

" Take these,
And wear, and lose them : yet remains an ear-ring
To purchase them again, and this whole state.
A gem but worth a private patrimony.
Is nothing : we will eat such at a meal.
The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales,

i« " Volpone," iii. 5. We pray the indulgence to the historian as to the

reader to pardon us for Ben Jonson's anatomist,

broadness. If I omit it, I cannot depict " Ibid,
the sixteenth century. Grant the same

340 TAINE

The brains of peacocks, and of ostriches,
Shall be our food. . . .

Conscience? 'Tis the beggar's virtue. . . «
Thy baths shall be of the juice of July flowers,
Spirit of roses, and of violets,
The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath
Gather'd in bags, and mixt with Cretan wines.
Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber;
Which we will take, until my roof whirl round
With the vertigo : and my dwarf shall dance,
My eunuch sing, my fool make up the antic.
Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales,
Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove,
Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine ;
So, of the rest, till we have quite run through,
And wearied all the fables of the gods." ^^

We recognize Venice in this splendor of debauchery — Venice,
the throne of Aretinus,the country of Tintoretto and Giorgione.
Volpone seizes CeHa : " Yield, or I'll force thee ! " But sud-
denly Bonario, disinherited son of Corbaccio, whom Mosca had
concealed there with another design, enters violently, delivers
her, wounds Mosca, and accuses Volpone before the tribunal, of
imposture and rape.

The three rascals who aim at being his heirs, work together
to save Volpone. Corbaccio disavows his son, and accuses him
of parricide.. Corvino declares his wife an adulteress, the
shameless mistress of Bonario. Never on the stage was seen
such energy of lying, such open villany. The husband, who
knows his wife to be innocent, is the most eager :

" This woman (please your fatherhoods) is a whore.
Of most hot exercise, more than a partrich,
Upon record.

1st Advocate. No more.

Corvino. Neighs like a jennet.

Notary. Preserve the honor of the court.

C. I shall,

And modesty of your most reverend ears.
And yet I hope that I may say, these eyes
' Have seen her glued unto that piece of cedar,
That fine well-timber'd gallant; and that here
The letters may be read, thorough the horn.
That make the story perfect. . . .

" " Volpone," iii. 5.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 341

3d Adv. -His grief hath made him frantic. (Celia swoons.)
C. Rare ! Prettily feign'd ! again ! " ^^

They have Volpone brought in, Hke a dying man ; manufacture
false " testimony," to which Voltore gives weight with his ad-
vocate's tongue, with words worth a sequin apiece. They throw
CeHa and Bonario into prison, and Volpone is saved. This
public imposture is for him only another comedy, a pleasant pas-
time, and a masterpiece.

" Mosca. To gull the court.

Volpone. And quite divert the torrent
Upon the innocent. . . .

M. You are not taken with it enough, methinks.

V. O, more than if I had enjoy'd the wench? " 20

To conclude, he writes a will in Mosca's favor, has his death re-
ported, hides behind a curtain, and enjoys the looks of the
would-be heirs. They had just saved him from being thrown
into prison, which makes the fun all the better ; the wickedness
will be all the greater and more exquisite. " Torture 'em
rarely," Volpone says to Mosca. The latter spreads the will on
the table, and reads the inventory aloud. " Turkey carpets
nine. Two cabinets, one of ebony, the other mother-of-pearl.
A perfum'd box, made of an onyx." The heirs are stupefied
with disappointment, and Mosca drives them off with insults.
He says to Corvino :

"Why should you stay here? with what thought, what promise?
Hear you ; do you not know, I know you an ass,
And that you would most fain have been a wittol.
If fortune would have let you? That you are
A declar'd cuckold, on good terms? This pearl.
You'll say, was yours? Right: this diamond?
I'll not deny't, but thank you. Much here else?
It may be so. Why, think that these good works
May help to hide your bad. [Exit Corvino.] . . .

Corbaccio. I am cozen'd, cheated, by a parasite slave;
Harlot, thou hast guU'd me.

Mosca. Yes, sir. Stop your mouth*

Or I shall draw the only tooth is left.
Are not you he, that filthy covetous wretcli.
With the three legs, that here, in hope of prey,
Have, any time this three years, snufft about,
With your most grov'ling nose, and would have hir'd

" " Volpone," iv. i. «> Ibid. v. i.

342 TAINE

Me to the pois'ning of my patron, sir?

Are not you he that have to-day in court

Profess'd the disinheriting of your son?

Perjur'd yourself? Go home, and die, and stink." 21

Volpone goes out disguised, comes to each of them in turn, and
succeeds in wringing their hearts. But Mosca, who has the
will, acts with a high hand, and demands of Volpone half his
fortune. The dispute between the two rascals discovers their
impostures, and the master, the servant, with the three would-be
heirs, are sent to the galleys, to prison, to the pillory — as Cor-
vino says, to

" Have mine eyes beat out with stinking fish,
Bruis'd fruit, and rotten eggs. — 'Tis well. I'm glad,
I shall not see my shame yet." 22

No more vengeful comedy has been written, none more persist-
ently athirst to make vice suffer, to unmask, triumph over, and
to punish it.

Where can be the gayety of such a theatre ? In caricature and
farce. There is a rough gayety, a sort of physical, external
laughter which suits this combative, drinking, blustering mood.
It is thus that this mood relaxes from war-waging and murder-
ous satire ; the pastime is appropriate to the manners of the time,
excellent to attract men who look upon hanging as a good joke,
and laugh to see the Puritan's ears cut. Put yourself for an
instant in their place, and you will think like them, that " The
Silent Woman " is a masterpiece. Morose is an old monoma-
niac, who has a horror of noise, but loves to speak. He inhabits
a street so narrow that a carriage cannot enter it. He drives
off with his stick the bear-leaders and sword-players, who vent-
ure to pass under his windows. He has sent away his servant
whose shoes creaked; and Mute, the new one, wears slippers
" soled with wool," and only speaks in a whisper through a tube.
Morose ends by forbidding the whisper, and makes him reply by
signs. He is also rich, an uncle, and he ill-treats his nephew
Sir Dauphine Eugenie, a man of wit, but who lacks money. We
anticipate all the tortures which poor Morose is to suffer. Sir
Dauphine finds him a supposed silent woman, the beautiful Epi-
coene. Morose, enchanted by her brief replies and her voice,

» " Volpone," V. i. *2 Ibid. v. 8.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 343

which he can hardly hear, marries her, to play his nephew a
trick. It is his nephew who has played him a trick. As soon
as she is married, Epiccene speaks, scolds, argues as loud and
as long as a dozen women : " Why, did you think you had
married a statue? or a motion only? one of the French pup-
pets, with the eyes turned with a wire? or some innocent out
of the hospital^ that would stand with her hands thus, and a
plaise mouth, and look upon you ? " 23

She orders the servants to speak louder ; she opens the doors
wide to her friends. They arrive in shoals, offering their noisy
congratulations to Morose. Five or six women's tongues over-
whelm him all at once with compliments, questions, advice, re-
monstrances. A friend of Sir Dauphine comes with a band of
music, who play all together, suddenly, with their whole force.
Morose says, " O, a plot, a plot, a plot, a plot, upon me ! This
day I shall be their anvil to work on ; they will grate me asunder.
'Tis worse than the noise of a saw." ^* A procession of ser-
vants is seen coming, with dishes in their hands ; it is the racket
of a tavern which Sir Dauphine is bringing to his uncle. The
guests clash the glasses, shout, drink healths ; they have with
them a drum and trumpets which make great noise. Morose
flees to the top of the house, puts " a whole nest of night-caps "
on his head and stuffs up his ears. Captain Otter cries, " Sound,
Tritons o' the Thames ! Nunc est hihendum, nunc pede lihero."
" Villains, murderers, sons of the earth and traitors," cries Mo-
rose from above, " what do you there ? " The racket increases.
Then the captain, somewhat " jovial," maligns his wife, who
falls upon him and gives him a good beating. Blows, cries,
music, laughter, resound like thunder. It is the poetry of up-
roar. Here is a subject to shake coarse nerves, and to make the
mighty chests of the companions of Drake and Essex shake
with uncontrollable laughter. " Rogues, hell-hounds, Stentors !
. . . They have rent my roof, walls, and all my windows
asunder, with their brazen throats ! " Morose casts him-
self on his tormentors with his long sword, breaks the instru-
ments, drives away the musicians, disperses the guests amidst
an inexpressible uproar, gnashing his teeth, looking haggard.
Afterwards they pronounce him mad and discuss his madness

** " Epiccene," iii. 2. ** Ibid. iii. 2.

344 TAINE

before him.^^ The disease in Greek is called fiavia, in Latin
insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica; that is, egressio, when
a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus. . . . But he may
be but phreneticus yet, mistress ; and phrenetis is only delirium,
or so." They talk of the books which he must read aloud to
cure him. They add, by way of consolation, that his wife talks
in her sleep, " and snores like a porpoise." " O redeem me,
fate ; redeem me, fate ! " cries the poor man.^^ " For how
many causes may a man be divorced, nephew ? " Sir Dauphine
chooses two knaves, and disguises them, one as a priest, the
other as a lawyer, who launch at his head Latin terms of civil
and canon law, explain to Morose the twelve cases of nullity,
jingle in his ears one after another the most barbarous words in
their obscure vocabulary, wrangle, and make between them as
much noise as a couple of bells in a belfry. Following their ad-
vice, he declares himself impotent. The wedding-guests pro-
pose to toss him in a blanket ; others demand an immediate
inspection. Fall after fall, shame after shame ; nothmg serves
him ; his wife declares that she consents to " take him with all
his faults." The lawyer proposes another legal method; Mo-
rose shall obtain a divorce by proving that his wife is faithless.
Two boasting knights, who are present, declare that they have
been her lovers. Morose, in raptures, throws himself at their
knees, and embraces them. Epicoene weeps, and Morose seems
to be delivered. Suddenly the lawyer decides that the plan is
of no avail, the infidelity having been committed before the
marriage. " O, this is worst of all worst worsts that hell could
have devis'd ! marry a whore, and so much noise ! " There
is Morose then, declared impotent and a deceived husband, at
his own request, in the eyes of the whole world, and moreover
married forever. Sir Dauphine comes in like a clever rascal,
and as a succoring deity. " Allow me but five hundred during
life, uncle, and I free you." Morose signs the deed of gift with
alacrity ; and his nephew shows him that Epiccene is a boy in
disguise.^'^ Add to this enchanting farce the funny parts of
the two accomplished and gallant knights, who, after having
boasted of their bravery, receive gratefully, and before the

» Compare M. de Pourccaugnac in ** ' Epicoene," iv. i, a.

Moliere. " Ibid. v.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 345

ladies, flips and kicks.^* Never was coarse physical laughter
more adroitly produced. In this broad coarse gayety, this ex-
cess of noisy transport, you recognize the stout roisterer, the
stalwart drinker who swallowed hogsheads of Canary, and
made the windows of the Mermaid shake with his bursts of
humor.

Section V. — Limits of Jonson*s Talent. — His Smaller Poems.
— His Masques

Jonson did not go beyond this ;' he was not a philosopher
like Moliere, able to grasp and dramatize the crisis of human
life, education, marriage, sickness, the chief characters of his
country and century, the courtier, the tradesman, the hypocrite,
the man of the world.^ He remained on a lower level, in the
comedy of plot,^ the painting of the grotesque,^ the represen-
tation of too transient subjects of ridicule,* too general vices.'
If at times, as in the " Alchemist," he has succeeded by the per-
fection of plot and the vigor of satire, he has miscarried more
frequently by the ponderousness of his work and the lack of
comic lightness. The critic in him mars the artist ; his literary
calculations strip him of spontaneous invention ; he is too much
of a writer and moralist, not enough of a mimic and an actor.
But he is loftier from another side, for he is a poet ; almost all
writers, prose-authors, preachers even, were so at the time we
speak of. Fancy abounded, as well as the perception of colors
and forms, the need and wont of enjoying through the imagi-
nation and the eyes. Many of Jonson's pieces, the " Staple of
News," " Cynthia's Revels," are fanciful and allegorical come-
dies like those of Aristophanes. He there dallies with the real,
and beyond the real, with characters who are but theatrical
masks, abstractions personified, buffooneries, decorations,
dances, music, pretty laughing whims of a picturesque and sen-
timental imagination. Thus, in " Cynthia's Revels," three chil-
dren come on " pleading possession of the cloke " of black vel-
vet, which an actor usually wore when he spoke the prologue.
They draw lots for it ; one of the losers, in revenge, tells the

^ Compare Polichinelle in " Le Ma- ' Compare " Les Fourberics de Sca-

lade imaginaire " ; Geronte in '"Les pin."
Fourberies de Scanin." ' Co-npare " Les Fach'iux."

^ Compare " L E,eole des Femmes," * Compare " Les Pi *ci»«ses Ridi-

"Ta'tiiffe," " Le Misan'/nrope," " Le culej."

Bouigeois-gentilhomme." " Le Maladc * Compare the plays o* Destouches.

imaginaire, " Georges Dandin."

346

TAINE

audience beforehand the incidents of the piece. The others in-
terrupt him at every sentence, put their hands on his mouth,
and taking the cloak one after the other, begin to criticise the
spectators and authors. This child's play, these gestures and
loud voices, this little amusing dispute, divert the public from
their serious thoughts, and prepare them for the oddities which
they are to look upon.

We are in Greece, in the valley of Gargaphie, where Diana *
has proclaimed " a solemn revels." Mercury and Cupid have
come down, and begin by quarrelling ; the latter says : " My
light feather-heel'd coz, what are you any more than my uncle
Jove's pander? a lacquey that runs on errands for him, and
can whisper a light message to a loose wench with some round
volubility? . . . One that sweeps the gods' drinking-room
every morning, and sets the cushions in order again, which they
threw one at another's head over night ? " ^

They are good-tempered gods. Echo, awoke by Mercury,
weeps for the " too beauteous boy Narcissus " :

" That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature,
Who, now transformed into this drooping flower,
Hangs the repentant head, back from the stream. . . .
Witness thy youth's dear sweets, here spent untasted,
Like a fair taper, with his own flame wasted ! . . .
And with thy water let this curse remain,
As an inseparate plague, that who but taste
A drop thereof, may, with the instant touch.
Grow doatingly enamour'd on themselves." ^

The courtiers and ladies drink thereof, and behold, a sort of
a review of the follies of the time, arranged, as in Aristophanes,
in an improbable farce, a brilliant show. A silly spendthrift,
Asotus, wishes to become a man of the court and of fashionable
manners ; he takes for his master Amorphus, a learned traveller,
expert in gallantry, who, to believe himself, is

" An essence so sublimated and refined by travel . . . able . . .
to speak the mere extraction of language; one that . . . was your
first that ever enrich'd his country with the true laws of the duello;
whose optics have drunk the spirit of beauty in some eight-score and
eighteen princes' courts, where I have resided, and been there fortunate
in the amours of three hundred forty and five ladies, all nobly if not

• By Diana, Queen Elizabeth is ^ " Cynthia's Revels," i. i.

meant. ' Ibid.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 347

princely descended, ... in all so happy, as even admiration her-
self doth seem to fasten her kisses upon me." ^

Asotus learns at this good school the language of the court,
fortifies himself like other people with quibbles, learned oaths,
and metaphors; he fires off in succession supersubtle tirades,
and duly imitates the grimaces and tortuous style of his masters.
Then, when he has drunk the water of the fountain, becoming
suddenly pert and rash, he proposes to all comers a tournament
of " court compliment." This odd tournament is held before
the ladies ; it comprises four jousts^ and at each the trumpets
sound. The combatants perform in succession " the bare ac-
cost "; " the better regard; " " the solemn address; " and " the
perfect close." ^® In this grave buffoonery the courtiers are
beaten. The severe Crites, the moralist of the play, copies their
language, and pierces them with their own weapons. Already,
with grand declamation, he had rebuked them thus :

" O vanity,
How are thy painted beauties doated on,
By light, and empty idiots ! how pursu'd
With open and extended appetite !
How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,
Rais'd on their toes, to catch thy airy forms,
Still turning giddy, till they reel like drunkards,
That buy the merry m.adness of one hour.
With the long irksomeness of following time ! " ^^

To complete the overthrow of the vices, appear two symbolical
masques, representing the contrary virtues. They pass gravely
before the spectators, in splendid array, and the noble verses
exchanged by the goddess and her companions raise the mind
to the lofty regions of serene morality, whither the poet desires
to carry us :

" Queen, and huntress, chaste and fair.
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep. . . «
Lay thy bow of pearl apart.
And thy crystal shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever." *'

• " Cynthia's Revels," i. i. ^ Ibid. :. i,

"Ibid. V. 3, "Ibid. v. 3.

348 TAINE

In the end, bidding the dancers to unmask, Cynthia shows that
the vices have disguised themselves as virtues. She condemns
them to make fit reparation, and to bathe themselves in Helicon.
Two by two they go off singing a palinode, whilst the chorus
sings the supplication " Good Mercury defend us." ^' Is it an
opera or a comedy ? It is a lyrical comedy ; and if we do not
discover in it the airy lightness of Aristophanes, at least we
encounter, as in the " Birds " and the " Frogs," the contrasts
and medleys of poetic invention, which, through caricature and
ode, the real and the impossible, the present and the past, sent
forth to the four quarters of the globe, simultaneously unites
all kinds of incompatibilities, and culls all flowers.

Jonson went further than this, and entered the domain of
pure poetry. He wrote delicate, voluptuous, charming love
poems, worthy of the ancient idyllic muse.^* Above all, he was
the great, the inexhaustible inventor of Masques, a kind of
masquerades, ballets, poetic choruses, in which all the mag-
nificence and the imagination of the English Renaissance is
displayed. The Greek gods, and all the ancient Olympus, the
allegorical personages whom the artists of the time delineate in
their pictures; the antique heroes of popular legends; all
worlds, the actual, the abstract, the divine, the human, the an-
cient, the modern, are searched by his hands, brought on the
stage to furnish costumes, harmonious groups, emblems, songs,
whatever can excite, intoxicate the artistic sense. The elite,
moreover, of the kingdom is there on the stage. They are not
mountebanks moving about in borrowed clothes, clumsily worn,
for which they are still in debt to the tailor ; they are ladies of
the court, great lords, the queen, in all the splendor of their rank
and pride, with real diamonds, bent on displaying their riches,
so that the whole splendor of the national life is concentrated
in the opera which they enact, like jewels in a casket. What
dresses ! what profusion of splendors ! what medley of strange
characters, gipsies, witches, gods, heroes, pontiffs, gnomes, fan-
tastic beings ! How many metamorphoses, jousts, dances, mar-
riage songs ! What variety of scenery, architecture, floating
isles, triumphal arches, symbolic spheres ! Gold glitters ; jewels
flash; purple absorbs the lustre-lights in its costly folds;
streams of light shine upon the crumpled silks ; diamond neck-

"" Cynthia's Revels," last scene. "Celebration of Charis; "Miscellane-

ous Poems."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 349

laces, darting flame, clasp the bare bosoms of the ladies ; strings
of pearls are displayed, loop after loop, upon the silver-sown
brocaded dresses; gold embroidery, weaving whimsical ara-
besques, depicts upon their dresses flowers, fruits, and figures,
setting picture within picture. The steps of the throne bear
groups of Cupids, each with a torch in his hand.^^ On either
side the fountains cast up plumes of pearls ; musicians, in pur-
ple and scarlet, laurel-crowned, make harmony in the bowers.
The trains of masques cross, commingling their groups ; " the
one half in orange-tawny and silver, the other in sea-green and
silver. The bodies and short skirts (were of) white and gold
to both."

Such pageants Jonson wrote year after year, almost to the
end of his life, true feasts for the eyes, like the processions of
Titian. Even when he grew to be old, his imagination, like that
of Titian, remained abundant and fresh. Though forsaken, ly-
ing gasping on his bed, feeling the approach of death, in his
supreme bitterness he did not lose his faculties, but wrote " The
Sad Shepherd," the most graceful and pastoral of his pieces.
Consider that this beautiful dream arose in a sick-chamber,
amidst medicine bottles, physic, doctors, with a nurse at his
side, amidst the anxieties of poverty and the choking-fits of a
dropsy! He is transported to a green forest, in the days of
Robin Hood, amidst the gay chase and the great barking grey-
hounds. There are the malicious fairies, who, like Oberon and
Titania, lead men to flounder in mishaps. There are open-
souled lovers, who, like Daphne and Chloe, taste with awe the
painful sweetness of the first kiss. There lived Earine, whom
the stream has " suck'd in," whom her lover, in his madness, will
not cease to lament :

" Earine,
Who had her very being, and her name
With the first knots or buddings of the spring,
Born with the primrose or the violet,
Or earliest roses blown : when Cupid smil'd,
And Venus led the graces out to dance,
And all the flowers and sweets in nature's lap
Leap'd out, and made their solemn conjuration
To last but while she liv'd ! " . . .^^
" But she, as chaste as was her name, Earine,

"■"Masque of Beauty." *• " The Sad Shepherd," i. a,

16— Classics. Vol. 38

35°

TAINE

Died undeflower'd : and now her sweet soul hovers
Here in the air above us." ^"^

Above the poor old paralytic artist, poetry still hovers like a
haze of light. Yes, he had cumbered himself with science,
clogged himself with theories, constituted himself theatrical
critic and social censor, filled his soul with unrelenting indigna-
tion, fostered a combative and morose disposition ; but divine
dreams never left him. He is the brother of Shakespeare.

Section VI — General Idea of Shakespeare

So now at last we are in the presence of one, whom we per-
ceived before us through all the vistas of the Renaissance, like
some vast oak to which all the forest ways converge. I will
treat of Shakespeare by himself. In order to take him in com-
pletely, we must have a wide and open space. And yet how
shall we comprehend him ? how lay bare his inner constitution ?
Lofty words, eulogies, are all used in vain ; he needs no praise,
but comprehension merely ; and he can only be comprehended
by the aid of science. As the complicated revolutions of the
heavenly bodies become intelligible only by use of a superior
calculus, as the delicate transformations of vegetation and life
need for their explanation the intervention of the most difficult
chemical formulas, so the great works of art can be interpreted
only by the most advanced psychological systems ; and we need
the loftiest of all these to attain to Shakespeare's level — to the
level of his age and his work, of his genius and of his art.

After all practical experience and accumulated observations
of the soul, we find as the result that wisdom and knowledge are
in man only effects and fortuities. Man has no permanent and
distinct force to secure truth to his intelligence, and common-
sense to his conduct. On the contrary, he is naturally unreason-
able and deceived. The parts of his inner mechanism are like
the wheels of clock-work, which go of themselves, blindly, car-
ried away by impulse and weight, and which yet sometimes, by
virtue of a certain unison, end by indicating the hour. This
final intelligent motion is not natural, but fortuitous ; not spon-
taneous, but forced; not innate, but acquired. The clock did

" " The Sad Shepherd," iii. a.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 351

not always go regularly ; on the contrary, it had to be regulated
little by little, with much difficulty. Its regularity is not in-
sured ; it may go wrong at any time. Its regularity is not com-
plete ; it only approximately marks the time. The mechanical
force of each piece is always ready to drag all the rest from
their proper action, and to disarrange the whole agreement.
So ideas, once in the mind, pull each their own way blindly and
separately, and their imperfect agreement threatens confusion
every moment. Strictly speaking, man is mad, as the body is
ill, by nature ; reason and health come to us as a momentary
success, a lucky accident.^ If we forget this, it is because we
are now regulated, dulled, deadened, and because our internal
motion has become gradually, by friction and reparation, half
harmonized with the motion of things. But this is only a
semblance ; and the dangerous primitive forces remain untamed
and independent under the order which seems to restrain them.
Let a great danger arise, a revolution take place, they will break
out and explode, almost as terribly as in earlier times. For an
idea is not a mere inner mark, employed to designate one aspect
of things, inert, always ready to fall into order with other
similar ones, so as to make an exact whole. However it may be
reduced and disciplined, it still retains a sensible tinge which
shows its likeness to an hallucination ; a degree of individual
persistence which shows its likeness to a monomania ; a net-
work of singular affinities which shows its likeness to the rav-
ings of delirium. Being such, it is beyond question the rudi-
ment of a nightmare, a habit, an absurdity. Let it become once
developed in its entirety, as its tendency leads it,^ and you will
find that it is essentially an active and complete image, a vision
drawing along with it a train of dreams and sensations, which
increases of itself, suddenly, by a sort of rank and absorbing
growth, and which ends by possessing, shaking, exhausting the
whole man. After this, another, perhaps entirely opposite, and
so on successively: there is nothing else in man, no free and
distinct power : he is in himself but the process of these head-
long impulses and swarming imaginations : civilization has mu-
tilated, attenuated, but not destroyed them ; shocks, collisions,

^ This idea may be expanded psycho- reason and health are the natural goals,

logically: external perception, memory, * See Spinoza and Dugald Stewart:

are real hallucinations, etc. This is the Conception in its natural state is belief,
analytioal aspect: under another aspect

352 TAINE

transports, sometimes at long intervals a sort of transient partial
equilibrium : this is his real life, the life of a lunatic, who now
and then simulates reason, but who is in reality " such stuff as
dreams are made on";^ and this is man, as Shakespeare has
conceived him. No writer, not even Moliere, has penetrated
so far beneath the semblance of common-sense and logic in
which the human machine is enclosed, in order to disentangle
the brute powers which constitute its substance and its main-
spring.

How did Shakespeare succeed? and by what extraordinary
instinct did he divine the remote conclusions, the deepest in-
sights of physiology and psychology? He had a complete im-
agination ; his whole genius lies in that complete imagination.
These words seem commonplace and void of meaning. Let us
examine them closer, to understand what they contain. When
we think a thing, we, ordinary men^ we only think a part of it ;
we see one side, some isolated mark, sometimes two or three
marks together; for what is beyond, our sight fails us; the
infinite network of its infinitely complicated and multiplied
properties escapes us ; we feel vaguely that there is something
beyond our shallow ken, and this vague suspicion is the only
part of our idea which at all reveals to us the great beyond. We
are like tyro naturalists, quiet people of limited understanding,
who, wishing to represent an animal, recall its name and ticket
in the museum, with some indistinct image of its hide and
figure ; but their mind stops there. If it so happens that they
wish to complete their knowledge, they lead their memory, by
regular classifications, over the principal characters of the ani-
mal, and slowly, discursively, piecemeal, bring at last the bare
anatomy before their eyes. To this their idea is reduced, even
when perfected ; to this also most frequently is our conception
reduced, even when elaborated. What a distance there is be-
tween this conception and the object, how imperfectly and
meanly the one represents the other, to what extent this muti-
lates that ; how the consecutive idea, disjoined in little, regularly
arranged and inert fragments, resembles but slightly the or-
ganized, living thing, created simultaneously, ever in action,
and ever transformed, words cannot explain. Picture to your-
self, instead of this poor dry idea, propped up by a miserable

• " Tempest." iv. i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 353

mechanical linkwork of thought^ the complete idea, that is, an
inner representation, so abundant and full that it exhausts all
the properties and relations of the object, all its inward and
outward aspects; that it exhausts them instantaneously; that
it conceives of the entire animal, its color, the play of the light
upon its skin, its form, the quivering of its outstretched limbs,
the flash of its eyes, and at the same time its passion of the mo-
ment, its excitement, its dash ; and beyond this its instincts,
their composition, their causes, their history ; so that the hun-
dred thousand characteristics which make up its condition and
its nature find their analogues in the imagination which concen-
trates and reflects them : there you have the artist's conception,
the poet's — Shakespeare's ; so superior to that of the logician,
of the mere savant or man of the world, the only one capable
of penetrating to the very essence of existences, of extricating
the inner from beneath the outer man, of feeling through sym-
pathy, and imitating without effort, the irregular oscillation of
human imaginations and impressions, of reproducing life with
its infinite fluctuations, its apparent contradictions, its con-
cealed logic ; in short, to create as nature creates. This is what
is done. by the other artists of this age ; they have the same kind
of mind, and the same idea of life : you will find in Shakespeare
only the same faculties, with a still stronger impulse ; the same
idea, with a still more prominent relief.

CHAPTER FOURTH

SHAKESPEARE

I AM about to describe an extraordinary species of mind, per-
plexing to all the French modes of analysis and reason-
ing, all-powerful, excessive, master of the sublime as well
as of the base; the most creative mind that ever engaged in
the exact copy of the details of actual existence, in the dazzling
caprice of fancy, in the profound complications of superhuman
passions ; a nature poetical, immoral, inspired, superior to rea-
son by the sudden revelations of its seer's madness ; so extreme
in joy and grief, so abrupt of gait, so agitated and impetuous
in its transports, that this great age alone could have cradled
such a child.

Section I. — Life and Character of Shakespeare

Of Shakespeare all came from within — I mean from his soul
and his genius; circumstances and the externals contributed
but slightly to his development.^ He w^as intimately bound up
with his age; that is, he knew by experience the manners of
country, court, and town; he had visited the heights, depths,
the middle ranks of mankind ; nothing more. In all other re-
spects his life was commonplace; its irregularities, troubles,
passions, successes, were, on the whole, such as we meet with
everywhere else.^ His father, a glover and wool-stapler, in very
easy circumstances, having married a sort of country heiress,
had become high-bailiff and chief alderman in his little town ;
but when Shakespeare was nearly fourteen he was on the verge
of ruin, mortgaging his wife's property, obliged to resign his
municipal offices, and to remove his son from school to assist

* HalHwell's " Life of Shakespeare." entirely from his pen appeared in 1593.
' Born 1564, died 1616. He adapted — Payne Collier,
plays as early as 1591. The first play

354

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 355

him in his business. The young fellow applied himself to it
as well as he could, not without some scrapes and frolics : if we
are to believe tradition, he was one of the thirsty souls of the
place, with a mind to support the reputation of his little town
in its drinking powers. Once, they say, having been beaten at
Bideford in one of these ale-bouts, he returned staggering from
the fight, or rather could not return, and passed the night with
his comrades under an apple-tree by the roadside. Without
doubt he had already begun to write verses, to rove about like
a genuine poet, taking part in the noisy rustic feasts, the gay
allegorical pastorals, the rich and bold outbreak of pagan and
poetical life, as it was then to be found in an English village.
At all events, he was not a pattern of propriety, and his passions
were as precocious as they were imprudent. While not yet nine-
teen years old, he married the daughter of a substantial yeoman,
about eight years older than himself — and not too soon, as she
was about to become a mother.^ Other of his outbreaks were
no more fortunate. It seems that he was fond of poaching, after
the manner of the time, being " much given to all unluckinesse
in stealing venison and rabbits," says the Rev. Richard Davies ; *
"particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oftwhipt
and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly the coun-
try ; . . . but his revenge was so great, that he is his Justice
Clodpate." Moreover, about this time Shakespeare's father
was in prison, his affairs were not prosperous, and he himself
had three children, following one close upon the other; he
must live, and life was hardly possible for him in his native town.
He went to London, and took to the stage: took the lowest
parts, was a " servant " in the theatre, that is, an apprentice, or
perhaps a supernumerary. They even said that he had begun
still lower, and that to earn his bread he had held gentlemen's
horses at the door of the theatre.^ At all events he tasted mis-
ery, and felt, not in imagination, but in fact, the sharp thorn
of care, humiliation, disgust, forced labor, public discredit, the
power of the people. He was a comedian, one of " His Majes-
ty's poor players " " — b. sad trade, degraded in all ages by the

• Mr. Halliwell and other commen- * Halliwell, 123.

tators try to prove that at this time the * All these anecdotes are traditions,

preliminary trothplight was regarded as and consequently more or less doubt-

the real marriage; that this trothplight ful ; but the other facts are authentic,

had taken place, and that there was * Terms of an extant document. He

therefore no irregularity in Shake- is named along with Burbage and

speare's conduct. Greene.

3S6 TAINE

contrasts and the falsehoods which it allows: still more de-
graded then by tne brutalities of the crowd, who not seldom
would stone the actors, and by the severities of the magistrates,
who would sometimes condemn them to lose their ears. He
felt it, and spoke of it with bitterness :

" Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear." ^

And again:

" When in disgrace with fortune ^ and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed. , « «
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in those thoughts myself almost despising." ^

We shall find further on the traces of this long-enduring dis-
gust, in his melancholy characters, as where he says :

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay.
The insolence of office and the spurns
The patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? "lo

But the worst of this undervalued position is, that it eats into

the soul. In the company of actors we become actors: it is
vain to wish to keep clean, if you live in a dirty place ; it cannot
be. No matter if a man braces himself ; necessity drives him
into a corner and sullies him. The machinery of the decorations,
the tawdriness and medley of the costumes, the smell of the
tallow and the candles, in contrast with the parade of refine-
ment and loftiness, all the cheats and sordidness of the repre-
sentation, the bitter alternative of hissing or applause, the keep-
ing of the highest and lowest company, the habit of sporting

T Sonnet no. an actor than a prince. See also the

* See Sonnets 91 and in; also "Ham- 66th Sonnet, "Tired with all these."

let," iii. 2. Many of Hamlet's words * Sonnet 29.

would come better from the mouth of ^" " Hamlet," iii. i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 357

with human passions, easily unhinge the soul, drive it down the
slope of excess, tempt it to loose manners, green-room ad-
ventures, the loves of strolling actresses. Shakespeare escaped
them no more than Moliere, and grieved for it, like Moliere :

" O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds." **

They used to relate in London how his comrade Burbage, who
played Richard III, having a rendezvous with the wife of a
citizen, Shakespeare went before, was well received, and was
pleasantly occupied when Burbage arrived, to whom he sent
the message that William the Conqueror came before Richard
III.^^ We may take this as an example of the tricks and some-
what coarse intrigues which are planned, and follow in quick
succession, on this stage. Outside the theatre he lived with
fashionable young nobles, Pembroke, Montgomery, Southamp-
ton,^^ and others, whose hot and licentious youth gratified his
imagination and senses by the example of Italian pleasures and
elegances. Add to this the rapture and transport of poetical
nature, and this kind of afflux, this boiling over of all the powers
and desires which takes place in brains of this kind, when the
world for the first time opens before them, and you will under-
stand the " Venus and Adonis," " the first heir of his invention."
In fact, it is a first cry, a cry in which the whole man is dis-
played. Never was seen a heart so quivering to the touch of
beauty, of beauty of every kind, so delighted with the freshness
and splendor of things, so eager and so excited in adoration
and enjoyment, so violently and entirely carried to the very es-
sence of voluptuousness. His Venus is unique; no painting
of Titian's has a more brilliant and delicious coloring;^* no
strumpet-goddess of Tintoretto or Giorgione is more soft and
beautiful :

" With blindfold fury she begins to forage,
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil. . . .

" Sonnet iii. teen years old when Shakespeare dedi-

^ Anecdote written in 1602 on the au- cated his " Adonis " to him.

thority of Tooley the actor. " See Titian's picture, Loves of the

" The Earl of Southampton was nine- Gods, at Blenheim.

358 TAINE

And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;

Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey.

Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,

That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry." ^^

" Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either gorge be stuff'd or prey be gone;
Even so she kiss'd his brow, his cheek, his chin,
And where she ends she doth anew begin." ^^

All is taken by storm, the senses first, the eyes dazzled by carnal
beauty, but the heart also from whence the poetry overflows :
the fulness of youth inundates even inanimate things; the
country looks charming amidst the rays of the rising sun, the
air, saturated with brightness, makes a gala-day :

" Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest.
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breaSt
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." "

An admirable debauch of imagination and rapture, yet disquiet-
ing ; for such a mood will carry one a long way.^^ No fair and
frail dame in London was without " Adonis " on her table."
Perhaps Shakespeare perceived that he had transcended the
bounds, for the tone of his next poem, the " Rape of Lucrece,"
is quite different ; but as he had already a mind liberal enough
to embrace at the same time, as he did afterwards in his dramas,
the two extremes of things, he continued none the less to follow
his bent. The " sweet abandonment of love " was the great
occupation of his life; he was tender-hearted, and he was a
poet : nothing more is required to be smitten, deceived, to suffer,
to traverse without pause the circle of illusions and troubles,
which whirls and whirls round, and never ends.

He had many loves of this kind, amongst others one for a sort
of Marion Delorme,^*' a miserable deluding despotic passion, of

" " Venus and Adonis," lines 548-553. *? Crawley, quoted by Ph. Chasles,

" Ibid, lines 55-60. " Etudes sur Shakspeare."

" Ibid, lines 853-858. *> A famed French courtesan (1613-

" Compare the first pieces of Alfred 1650), the heroine of a drama of that

de Musset, " Contes d'ltalie et d'Es- name, by Victor Hugo, having for its

pagne." subject-matter: "Love purifies every-
thing."— Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 359

which he felt the burden and the shame, but from which never-
theless he could not and would not free himself. Nothing can
be sadder than his confessions, or mark better the madness of
love, and the sentiment of human weakness :

" When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies." ^i

So spoke Alceste of Celimene ; ^^ but what a soiled Celimene
is the creature before whom Shakespeare kneels, with as much
of scorn as of desire !

" Those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee." 2»

This is plain-speaking and deep shamelessness of soul, such as
we find only in the stews ; and these are the intoxications, the
excesses, the delirium into which the most refined artists fall,
when they resign their own noble hand to these soft, voluptuous,
and clinging ones. They are higher than princes, and they de-
scend to the lowest depths of sensual passion. Good and evil
then lose their names ; all things are inverted :

" How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name !
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose !
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report." **

What are proofs, the will, reason, honor itself, when the passion
is so absorbing? What can be said further to a man who
answers, " I know all that you are going to say, and what does
it all amount to ? " Great loves are inundations, which drown
all repugnance and all delicacy of soul, all preconceived opin-
ions and all received principles. Thenceforth the heart is dead

•» Sonnet 138. «» Sonnet 143.

•* Two characters in Moliere's " Mia- •• Sonnet 95.

anthrope." The scene referred to is
Act V. bceae 7.— Ta.

36o TAINE

to all ordinary pleasures : it can only feel and breathe on one
side. Shakespeare envies the keys of the instrument over which
his mistress's fingers run. If he looks at flowers, it is she whom
he pictures beyond them ; and the extravagant splendors of
dazzling poetry spring up in him repeatedly, as soon as he
thinks of those glowing black eyes :

" From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him." 26

He saw none of it:

" Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose." 2*

All this sweetness of spring was but her perfume and her shade:

" The forward violet thus I did chide :
* Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride,
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.'
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; . . #
More i^owers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or color it had stol'n from thee." ^7

Passionate archness, delicious affectations, worthy of Heine and
the contemporaries of Dante, which tell us of long rapturous
dreams concentrated on one subject. Under a sway so imperi-
ous and sustained, what sentiment could maintain its ground?
That of family? He was married and had children — a family
which he went to see " once a year "; and it was probably on his
return from one of these journeys that he used the words above
quoted. Conscience? " Love is too young to know what con-
science is." Jealousy and anger?

" For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason." "

» Sonnet 98. *• Ibid. " Sonnet 99. * Sonnet 151.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 361

Repulses?

'' He is contented thy poor drudge to be
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side." 29

He is no longer young; she loves another, a handsome, young,
light-haired fellow, his own dearest friend, whom he has pre-
sented to her, and whom she wishes to seduce:

" Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman color'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side." ^^

And when she has succeeded in this,^^ he dares not confess it to
himself, but suflfers all, like Moliere. What wretchedness is
there in these trifles of every-day life! How man's thoughts
instinctively place by Shakespeare's side the great unhappy
French poet (Moliere), also a philosopher by nature, but more of
a professional laugher, a mocker of old men in love, a bitterrailer
at deceived husbands, who, after having played in one of his
most approved comedies, said aloud to a friend, " My dear fel-
low, I am in despair; my wife does not love me!" Neither
glory, nor work, nor invention satisfies these vehement souls :
love alone can gratify them, because, with their senses and heart,
it contents also their brain ; and all the powers of man, imagina-
tion like the rest, find in it their concentration and their employ-
ment. " Love is my sin," he said, as did Musset and Heine;
and in the Sonnets we find traces of yet other passions, equally
abandoned ; one in particular, seemingly for a great lady. The
first half of his dramas, " Midsummer Night's Dream," " Romeo
and Juligt," the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," preserve the warm
imprint more completely; and we have only to consider his
latest women's character,^'' to see with what exquisite tenderness,
what full adoration, he loved them to the end.

"* Sonnet 151. fcrred to the personal circumstances of

»° Sonnet 144; also the " Passionate Shakspeare."— Tr.

Pilgrim," 2. sa Miranda, Desdemona, Viola. The

»* This new interpretation of the Son- following are the first words of the

nets is due to the ingenious and learned Duke in " Twelfth Night ":

conjectures of M. Ph. Chasles.— For a " If music be the food of love, play on;

short history of these Sonnets, see Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

Dyce's *' Shakspeare," i. pp. 96-102. The appetite may sicken, and so die.

This learned editor says: "I contend That strain again! it had a dying fall:

that allusions scattered through the O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet

whole series are not to be hastily re- south.

362 TAINE

In this is all his genius; his was one of those delicate souls
which, like a perfect instrument of music, vibrate of themselves
at the slightest touch. This fine sensibility was the first thing
observed in him, " My darling Shakespeare," " Sweet Swan of
Avon": these words of Ben Jonson only confirm what his
contemporaries reiterate. He was afifectionate and kind, " civil
in demeanor, and excellent in the qualitie he professes "; " if he
had the impulse, he had also the effusion of true artists; he was
loved, men were delighted in his company; nothing is more
sweet or winning than this charm, this half-feminine abandon-
ment in a man. His wit in conversation was ready, ingenious,
nimble; his gayety brilliant; his imagination fluent, and so copi-
ous, that, as his friends tell us, he never erased what he had writ-
ten; at least when he wrote out a scene for the second time,
it was the idea which he would change, not the words, by an
after-glow of poetic thought, not with a painful tinkering of the
verse. All these characteristics are combined into a single one:
he had a sympathetic genius; I mean that naturally he knew
how to forget himself and become transfused into all the objects
which he conceived. Look around you at the great artists of
your time, try to approach them, to become acquainted with
them, to see them as they think, and you will observe the full
force of this word. By an extraordinary instinct, they put
themselves at once in a position of existences; men, animals,
flowers, plants, landscapes, whatever the objects are, living or
not, they feel by intuition the forces and tendencies which pro-
duce the visible external; and their soul, infinitely complex, be-
comes by its ceaseless metamorphoses a sort of abstract of the
universe. This is why they seem to live more than other men;
they have no need to be taught, they divine. I have seen such a
man, h propos of a piece of armor, a costume, a colJWtion of
furniture, enter into the Middle Ages more fully ^han three
savants together. They reconstruct, as they build, naturally,
surely, by an inspiration which is a winged chain of reasoning.
Shakespeare had only an imperfect education, " small Latin and

That breathes upon a bank of violets, Of what validity and pitch soever,

Stealing and giving odor! Enough; But falls into abatement and low price,

no more: Even in a minute: so full of shapes is

Tis not so sweet now as it was before. fancy

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh That it alone is high-fantastical."

art thou, •• H. Chettle, in repudiating Greene's

That, notwithstanding thy capacity sarcasm, attributed it to him.
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters

there.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 363

less Greek," barely French and Italian,^* nothing else; he had
not travelled, he had only read the current literature of his day,
he had picked up a few law words in the court of his little town:
reckon up, if you can, all that he knew of man and of history.
These men see more objects at a time; they grasp them more
closely than other men, more quickly and thoroughly; their
mind is full, and runs over. They do not rest in simple reason-
ing; at every idea their whole being, reflections, images, emo-
tions, are set a-quiver. See them at it ; they gesticulate, mimic
their thought, brim over with comparisons; even in their talk
they are imaginative and original, with familiarity and boldness
of speech, sometimes happily, always irregularly, according to
the whims and starts of the adventurous improvisation. The
animation, the brilliancy of their language is marvellousj so are
their fits, the wide leaps which they couple widely removed
ideas, annihilating distance, passing from pathos to humor, from
vehemence to gentleness. This extraordinary rapture is the last
thing to quit them. If perchance ideas fail, or if their melan-
choly is too violent, they still speak and produce, even if it be
nonsense: they become clowns, though at their own expense,
and to their own hurt. I know one of these men who will talk
nonsense when he thinks he is dying, or has a mind to kill him-
self; the inner wheel continues to turn, even upon nothing, that
wheel which man must needs see ever turning, even though it
tear him as it turns; his buflfoonery is an outlet: you will find
him, this inextinguishable urchin, this ironical puppet, at
Ophelia's tomb, at Cleopatra's death-bed, at Juliet's funeral.
High or low, these men must always be at some extreme. They
feel their good and their ill too deeply; they expatiate too abun-
dantly on each condition of their soul, by a sort of involuntary
novel. After their traducings and the disgusts by which they
debase themselves beyond measure they rise and become exalted
in a marvellous fashion, even trembling with pride and joy.
" Haply," says Shakespeare, after one of these dull moods:

" Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate." *'

«« Dyee, " Shakespeare," i. 27: " Of French and Italian, I apprehend, he knew
but little."— Tr.
" Sonnet 29.

364 TAINE

Then all fades away, as in a furnace where a stronger flare than
usual has left no substance fuel behind it.

" That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west.
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. . . ." ••

*' No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so.
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe." ^'

These sudden alternatives of joy and sadness, divine transports
and grand melancholies, exquisite tenderness and womanly de-
pressions, depict the poet, extreme in emotions, ceaselessly
troubled with grief or merriment, feeling the slightest shock,
more strong, more dainty in enjoyment and suffering than other
men, capable of more intense and sweeter dreams, within whom
is stirred an imaginary world of graceful or terrible beings, all
impassioned like their author.

Such as I have described him, however, he found his resting-
place. Early, at least what regards outward appearances, he
settled down to an orderly, sensible, almost humdrum existence,
engaged in business, provident of the future. He remained on
the stage for at least seventeen years, though taking secondary
parts; ^^ he sets his wits at the same time to the touching up of
plays with so much activity, that Greene called him " an upstart
crow beautified with our feathers ; . « . an absolute Johannes
factotum, in his owne conceyte the onely shake-scene in a
countrey." *• At the age of thirty-three he had amassed money
enough to buy at Stratford a house with two barns and two gar-
dens, and he went on steadier and steadier in the same course.
A man attains only to easy circumstances by his own labor; if

•* Sonnet 73. " Sonnet 71. ^ Greene's " A Groatsworth of Wit,"

'*The part in which he excelled was etc
that oi the ghost in " Hamlet"

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 365

he gains wealth, it is by making others labor for him. This is
why, to the trades of actor and author, Shakespeare added those
of manager and director of a theatre. He acquired a share in
the Blackfriars and Globe theatres, farmed tithes, bought large
pieces of land, more houses, gave a dowry to his daughter Su-
sanna, and finally retired to his native town on his property, in
his own house, like a good landlord, an honest citizen, who man-
ages his fortune fitly, and takes his share of municipal work. He
had an income of two or three hundred pounds, which would
be equivalent to about eight or twelve hundred at the present
time, and according to tradition, lived cheerfully and on good
terms with his neighbors; at all events, it does not seem that
he thought much about his literary glory, for he did not even
take the trouble to collect and publish his works. One of his
daughters married a physician, the other a wine merchant; the
last did not even know how to sign her name. He lent money,
and cut a good figure in this little world. Strange close; one
which at first sight resembles more that of a shopkeeper than of
a poet. Must we attribute it to that English instinct which
places happiness in the life of a country gentleman and a land-
lord with a good rent-roll, well connected, surrounded by com-
forts, who quietly enjoys his undoubted respectability,*" his
domestic authority, and his county standing? Or rather, was
Shakespeare, like Voltaire, a common-sense man, though of an
imaginative brain, keeping a sound judgment under the spark-
ling of his genius, prudent from scepticism, saving through a de-
sire for independence, and capable, after going the round of
human ideas, of deciding with Candide,*^ that the best thing one
can do in this world is "to cultivate one's garden"? I had
rather think, as his full and solid head suggests,*^ that by the
mere force of his overflowing imagination he escaped, like
Goethe, the perils of an overflowing imagination; that in de-
picting passion, he succeeded, like Goethe, in deadening passion j
that the fire did not break out in his conduct, because it found
issue in his poetry; that his theatre kept pure his life; and that,
having passed, by sympathy, through every kind of folly and
wretchedness that is incident to human existence, he was able to

** " He was a respectable man." "A *• The model of an optimisti the hero

good word; what does it mean? " " He of one of Voltaire's tales. — Tr.

kepi a gig. "—From Thurtell's trial for "See his portraits, and in particular

the murder of Weare. his bust.

366 TAINE

settle down amidst them with a calm and melancholic smile, lis-
tening, for the sake of relaxation, to the aerial music of the fan-
cies in which he revelled.*^ I am willing to believe, lastly, that
in frame as in other things, he belonged to his great generation
and his great age; that with him, as with Rabelais, Titian,
Michelangelo, and Rubens, the solidity of the muscles was a
counterpoise to the sensibility of the nerves; that in those days
the human machine, more severely tried and more firmly con-
structed, could withstand the storms of passion and the fire of
inspiration; that soul and body were still at equilibrium; that
genius was then a blossom, and not, as now, a disease. We can
but make conjectures about all this: if we would become ac-
quainted more closely with the man, we must seek him in his
works.

Section II. — Shakespeare's Style. — Copiousness. — Excesses

Let us then look for the man, and in his style. The style ex-
plains the work; whilst showing the principal features of the
genius, it infers the rest. When we have once grasped the dom-
inant faculty, we see the whole artist developed like a flower.

Shakespeare imagines with copiousness and excess ; he scat-
ters metaphors profusely over all he writes; every instant ab-
stract ideas are changed into images; it is a series of paintings
which is unfolded in his mind. He does not seek them, they
come of themselves ; they crowd within him, covering his argu-
ments; they dim with their brightness the pure light of logic.
He does not labor to explain or prove ; picture on picture, image
on image, he is forever copying the strange and splendid visions
which are engendered one after another, and are heaped up
within him. Compare to our dull writers this passage, which I
take at hazard from a tranquil dialogue:

" The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armor of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance ; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone: but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it with it : it is a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,

•• Especially in his later plays : " Tempest," " Twelfth Night."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 367

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls.
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan." *

Here we have three successive images to express the same
thought. It is a whole blossoming; a bough grows from the
trunk, from that another, which is multiplied into numerous
fresh branches. Instead of a smooth road, traced by a regular
line of dry and cunningly fixed landmarks, you enter a wood,
crowded with interwoven trees and luxuriant bushes, which
conceal and prevent your progress, which delight and dazzle
your eyes by the magnificence of their verdure and the wealth
of their bloom. You are astonished at first, modern mind that
you are, business man, used to the clear dissertations of classical
poetry; you become cross; you think the author is amusing
himself, and that through conceit and bad taste he is misleading
you and himself in his garden thickets. By no means; if he
speaks thus, it is not from choice, but of necessity; metaphor is
not his whim, but the form of his thought. In the height of pas-
sion, he imagines still. When Hamlet, in despair, remembers
his father's noble form, he sees the mythological pictures with
which the taste of the age filled the very streets :

" A station like the herald Mercury-
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill," 2

This charming vision, in the midst of a bloody invective, proves
that there lurks a painter underneath the poet. Involuntarily
and out of season, he tears off the tragic mask which covered
his face; and the reader discovers, behind the contracted features
of this terrible mask, a graceful and inspired smile which he did
not expect to see.

Such an imagination must needs be vehement. Every meta-
phor is a convulsion. Whosoever involuntarily and naturally
transforms a dry idea into an image, has his brain on fire; true
metaphors are flaming apparitions, which are like a picture in a
flash of lightning. Never, I think, in any nation of Europe, or
in any age of history, has so grand a passion been seen. Shake-
speare's style is a compound of frenzied expressions. No man

* " Hasniet," iii, 3. ' A«t iii. Scene 4.

368

TAINE

has submitted words to such a contortion. Mingled contrasts,
tremendous exaggerations, apostrophes, exclamations ; the
whole fury of the ode, confusion of ideas, accumulation of
images, the horrible and the divine, jumbled into the same line;
it seems to my fancy as though he never writes a word without
shouting it. " What have I done? " the queen asks Hamlet.
He answers:

" Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass.
With tristful visage, as against the doom.
Is thought-sick at the act." ^

It is the style of frenzy. Yet I have not given all. The meta-
phors are all exaggerated, the ideas all verge on the absurd. All
is transformed and disfigured by the whirlwind of passion. The
contagion of the crime, which he denounces has marred all nat-
ure. He no longer sees anything in the world but corruption
and lying. To vilify the virtuous were little; he vilifies virtue
herself. Inanimate things are sucked into this whirlpool of
grief. The sky's red tint at sunset, the pallid darkness spread by
night over the landscape, become the blush and the pallor of
shame, and the wretched man who speaks and weeps sees the
whole world totter with him in the dimness of despair.

Hamlet, it will be said, is half-mad; this explains the vehe-
mence of his expressions. The truth is that Hamlet, here, is
Shakespeare. Be the situation terrible or peaceful, whether he
is engaged on an invective or a conversation, the style is exces-
sive throughout. Shakespeare never sees things tranquilly.
All the powers of his mind are concentrated in the present image
or idea. He is buried and absorbed in it. With such a genius,
we are on the brink of an abyss; the eddying water dashes in
headlong, swallowing up whatever objects it meets, and only
bringing them to light transformed and mutilated. We pause

** Act iii. Scene 4.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 3O9

Stupefied before these convulsive metaphors, which might have
been written by a fevered hand in a night's delirium, which
gather a pageful of ideas and pictures in half a sentence, which
scorch the eyes they would enlighten. Words lose their mean-
ing; constructions are put out of joint; paradoxes of style, ap-
parently false expressions, which a man might occasionally vent-
ure upon with difftdence in the transport of his rapture, become
the ordinary language. Shakespeare dazzles, repels, terrifies,
disgusts, oppresses; his verses are a piercing and sublime song,
pitched in too high a key, above the reach of our organs, which
offends our ears, of which our mind alone can divine the justice
and beauty.

Yet this is little; for that singular force of concentration is re-
doubled by the suddenness of the dash which calls it into exist-
ence. In Shakespeare there is no preparation, no adaptation, no
development, no care to make himself understood. Like a too
fiery and powerful horse, he bounds, but cannot run. He
bridges in a couple of words an enormous interval; is at the
two poles in a single instant. The reader vainly looks for the
intermediate track; dazed by these prodigious leaps, he wonders
by what miracle the poet has entered upon a new idea the very
moment when he quitted the last, seeing perhaps between the
two images a long scale of transitions, which we mount with
difficulty step by step, but which he has spanned in a stride.
Shakespeare flies, we creep. Hence comes a style made up of
conceits, bold images, shattered in an instant by others still
bolder, barely indicated ideas completed by others far removed,
no visible connection, but a visible incoherence; at every step
we halt, the track failing; and there, far above us, lo, stands
the poet, and we find that we have ventured in his footsteps,
through a craggy land, full of precipices, which he threads as if
it were a straightforward road, but on which our greatest efforts
barely carry us along.

What will you think, further, if we observe that these vehe-
ment expressions, so natural in their up-welling, instead of fol-
lowing one after the other, slowly and with effort, are hurled out
by hundreds, with an impetuous ease and abundance, like the
bubbling waves from a welling spring, which are heaped to-
gether, rise one above another, and find nowhere room enough
to spread and exhaust themselves? You may find in " Romeo

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TAINE

and Juliet " a score of examples of this inexhaustible inspiration.
The two lovers pile up an infinite mass of metaphors, impas-
sioned exaggerations, clenches, contorted phrases, amorous ex-
travagances. Their language is like the trill of nightingales.
Shakespeare's wits, Mercutio, Beatrice, Rosalind, his clowns,
buffoons, sparkle with far-fetched jokes, which rattle out like a
volley of musketry. There is none of them but provides enough
play on words to stock a whole theatre. Lear's curses, or Queen
Margaret's, would suffice for all the madmen in an asylum, or all
the oppressed of the earth. The sonnets are a delirium of ideas
and images, labored at with an obstinacy enough to make a man
giddy. His first poem, " Venus and Adonis," is the sensual
ecstasy of a Correggio, insatiable and excited. This exuberant
fecundity intensifies qualities already in excess, and multiplies a
hundred-fold the luxuriance of metaphor, the incoherence of
style, and the unbridled vehemence of expression.*

All that I have said may be compressed into a few words.
Objects were taken into his mind organized and complete; they
pass into ours disjointed, decomposed, fragmentarily. He
thought in the lump, we think piecemeal; hence his style and our
style — two languages not to be reconciled. We, for our part,
writers and reasoners, can note precisely by a word each isolated
fraction of an idea, and represent the due order of its parts by
the due order of our expressions. We advance gradually; we
follow the filiations, refer continually to the roots, try and treat
our words as numbers, our sentences as equations ; we employ
but general terms, which every mind can understand, and regu-
lar constructions, into which any mind can enter; we attain just-
ness and clearness, not life. Shakespeare lets justness and clear-
ness look out for themselves, and attains life. From amidst his
complex conception and his colored semi-vision, he grasps a
fragment, a quivering fibre, and shows it; it is for you, from this
fragment, to divine the rest. He, behind the word, has a whole
picture, an attitude, a long argument abridged, a mass of swarm-
ing ideas; you know them, these abbreviative, condensive
words: these are they which we launch out amidst the fire of
invention, in a fit of passion — words of slang or of fashion, which

* This is why, in the eyes of a writer tentious, painful, barbarous, and ab»
of the seventeenth century, Shake- surd, that could be imagined,
speare's style is the most obscure, pre*

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 371

appeal to local memory or individual experience; ^ little desul-
tory and incorrect phrases, which, by their irregularity, express
the suddenness and the breaks of the inner sensation; trivial
words, exaggerated figures.^ There is a gesture beneath each,
a quick contraction of the brows, a curl of laughing lips, a
clown's trick, an unhinging of the whole machine. None of
them mark ideas, all suggest images; each is the extremity and
issue of a complete mimic action; none is the expression and
definition of a partial and limited idea. This is why Shakespeare
is strange and powerful, obscure and creative, beyond all the
poets of his or any other age; the most immoderate of all vicH-
lators of language, the most marvellous of all creators of souls,
the farthest removed from regular logic and classical reason, the
one most capable of exciting in us a world of forms and of plac-
ing living beings before us.

Section III. — Shakespeare's Language and Manners

Let us reconstruct this world, so as to find in it the imprint of
its creator. A poet does not copy at random the manners which
surround him; he selects from this vast material, and involun-
tarily brings upon the stage the habits of the heart and conduct
which best suit his talent. If he is a logician, a moralist, an
orator, as, for instance, one of the French great tragic poets
(Racine) of the seventeenth century, he will only represent noble
manners; he will avoid low characters; he will have a horror of
menials and the plebs; he w-ill observe the greatest decorum
amidst the strongest outbreaks of passion; he will reject as
scandalous every low or indecent word ; he will give us reason,
loftiness, good taste throughout ; he will suppress the familiar-
ity, childishness, artlessness, gay banter of domestic life; he will
blot out precise details, special traits, and will carry tragedy into
a serene and sublime region, where his abstract personages,
unencumbered by time and space, after an exchange of eloquent
harangues and able dissertations, will kill each other becomingly,
and as though they were merely concluding a ceremony.

* Shakespeare's vocabulary is the in " Hamlet." The style is foreign to

most copiour of all. It comprises the situation; and we see here plainly

about 15,000 words; Milton's only 8,000. the natural and necessary process of

' See the conversation of Laertes and Shakespeare's thought,
his sister, and of Laertes and Polonius,

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TAINE

Shakespeare does just the contrary, because his genius is the
exact opposite. His master faculty is an impassioned imagina-
tion, freed from the shackles of reason and morality. He aban-
dons himself to it, and finds in man nothing that he would care to
lop off. He accepts nature and finds it beautiful in its entirety.
He paints it in its littlenesses, it deformities, its weaknesses, its
excesses, its irregularities, and its rages; he exhibits man at his
meals, in bed, at play, drunk, mad, sick; he adds that which
ought not to be seen to that which passes on the stage. He
does not dream of ennobling, but of copying human life, and
aspires only to make his copy more energetic and more striking
than the original.

Hence the morals of this drama; and first, the want of dig-
nity. Dignity arises from self-command. A man selects the
most noble of his acts and attitudes, and allows himself no other.
Shakespeare's characters select none, but allow themselves all.
His kings are men, and fathers of families. The terrible Le-
ontes, who is about to order the death of his wife and his friend,
plays like a child with his son : caresses him, gives him all the
pretty pet names which mothers are wont to employ; he dares
be trivial; he gabbles like a nurse; he has her language and
fulfils her duties :

" Leontes. What, hast smutch'd thy nose?
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat ; not neat, but cleanly, captain : . . .
Come, sir page,

Look on me with your welkin eye : sweet villain !
Most dear' st! my coll op . . . Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd.
In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled.
Lest it should bite its master. . . .
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel.
This squash, this gentleman ! . . . My brother.
Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours?

Polixenes. If at home, sir,

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter.
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all :
He makes a July's day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood." ^
» " Winter's Tale." :. 2.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 373

There are a score of such passages in Shakespeare. The
great passions, with him as in nature, are preceded or followed
by trivial actions, small-talk, commonplace sentiments. Strong
emotions are accidents in our life: to drink, to eat, to talk of in-
different things, to carry out mechanically a habitual duty, to
dream of some stale pleasure or some ordinary annoyance, that
is in which we employ all our time. Shakespeare paints us as
we are; his heroes bow, ask people for news, speak of rain and
fine weather, as often and as casually as ourselves, on the very
eve of falling into the extremity of misery, or of plunging into
fatal resolutions. Hamlet asks what's o'clock, finds the wind
biting, talks of feasts and music heard without; and this quiet
talk, so unconnected with the action, so full of slight, insignifi-
cant facts, which chance alone has raised up and guided, lasts
until the moment when his father's ghost, rising in the darkness,
reveals the assassination which it is his duty to avenge.

Reason tells us that our manners should be measured; this is
why the manners which Shakespeare paints are not so. Pure
nature is violent, passionate: it admits no excuses, suffers no
middle course, takes no count of circumstances, wills blindly,
breaks out into railing, has the irrationality, ardor, anger of chil-
dren. Shakespeare's characters have hot blood and a ready
hand. They cannot restrain themselves, they abandon them-
selves at once to their grief, indignation, love, and plunge des-
perately down the steep slope, where their passion urges them.
How many need I quote ? Timon, Posthumus, Cressida, all the
young girls, all the chief characters in the great dramas; every-
where Shakespeare paints the unreflecting impetuosity of the
impulse of the moment. Capulet tells his daughter Juliet that in
three days she is to marry Earl Paris, and bids her be proud of
it; she answers that she is not proud of it, and yet she thanks
the earl for this proof of love. Compare Capulet's fury with the
anger of Orgon,^ and you may measure the difference of the two
poets and the two civilizations :

" Capulet. How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?
' Proud,' and ' I thank you,' and ' I thank you not ; '
And yet ' not proud,' mistress minion, you.
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,

2 One of Moliere's characters in " Tartuffe." — Tr.
17 — Classics. Vol. 38

374 TAINE

To go with Paris to Saint Peter's church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Out, you green- sickness carrion! out, you baggage?

You tallow-face !

Juliet. Good father, I beseech you on my knees.
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

C. Hang thee, young baggage ! disobedient wretch
I tell thee what : get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face :
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch. . . ,

Lady C. You are too hot.

C. God's bread ! it makes me mad :
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd : and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage.
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honorable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thoughts would wish a man;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer, ' /'// not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me/ —
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you :
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near ; lay hand on heart, advise :
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend ;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee." ^

This method of exhorting one's child to marry is peculiar to
Shakespeare and the sixteenth century. Contradiction to these
men was like a red rag to a bull ; it drove them mad.

We might be sure that in this age, and on this stage, decency
was a thing unknown. It is wearisome, being a check; men
got rid of it, because it was wearisome. It is a gift of reason
and morality; as indecency is produced by nature and passion.
Shakespeare's words are too indecent to be translated. His
characters call things by their dirty names, and compel the
thoughts to particular images of physical love^ The talk of
gentlemen and ladies is full of coarse allusions ; we should have
to find out an alehouse of the lowest description to hear like
words nowadays.*

• " Romeo and Juliet," iii. j. * " Henry VIII," ii. 3, and many

other scenes.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 375

It would be in an alehouse too that we should have to look
for the rude jests and brutal kind of wit which form the staple of
these conversations. Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of ad-
vanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied
to small acts and everyday discourse ; it bids man soften towards
others, and forget himself for the sake of others; it constrains
genuine nature, which is selfish and gross. This is why it is ab-
sent from the manners of the drama we are considering. You
will see carmen, out of sportiveness and good humor, deal one
another hard blows ; so it is pretty well with the conversation of
the lords and ladies of Shakespeare who are in a sportive mood;
for instance, Beatrice and Benedick, very well bred folk as things
go,° with a great reputation for wit and politeness, whose smart
retorts create amusement for the bystanders. These " skir-
mishes of wit " consist in telling one another plainly: You are a
coward, a glutton, an idiot, a buffoon, a rake, a brute! You are
a parrot's tongue, a fool, a . . . (the word is there). Bene-
dick says :

" I will go ... to the Antipodes , . . rather than hold three
words' conference with this harpy. ... I cannot endure my
Lady Tongue. . . .

Don Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

Beatrice. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should
prove the mother of fools." ^

We can infer the tone they use when in anger. Emilia, in
"Othello," says:

" He call'd her whore ; a beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat." '

They have a vocabulary of foul words as complete as that of
Rabelais, and they exhaust it. They catch up handfuls of mud
and hurl it at their enemy, not conceiving themselves to be
smirched.

Their actions correspond. They go without shame or pity to
the limits of their passion. They kill, poison, violate, burn; the
stage is full of abominations. Shakespeare lugs upon the stage
all the atrocious deeds of the Civil Wars. These are the ways of
wolves and hyenas. We must read of Jack Cade's sedition ^ to

""Much Ado about Nothing." See 'Ibid. H. i.

also the manner in which Henry V in ' Act iv. 2.

Shakespeare's " King Henry V " pays ^ Second part of " Henry VI," iv. 6.
court to Katharine of France (v. 2).

576 TAINE

gain an idea of this madness and fury. We mtght imagine we
were seeing infuriated beasts, the murderous recklessness of a
wolf in a sheepfold, the brutality of a hog fouling and rolling
himself in filth and blood. They destroy, kill, butcher each
other; with their feet in the blood of their victims, they call for
food and drink ; they stick heads on pikes and make them kiss
one another, and they laugh.

" Jack Cade. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold
for a penny. . . . There shall be no money ; all shall eat and drink
on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery. . . . And
here sitting upon London-stone, 1 charge and command that, of the
city's cost, the pissing-conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year
of our reign. . . . Away, burn all the records of the realm; my
mouth shall be the parliament of England. . . . And henceforth all
things shall be in common. . . . What canst thou answer to my
majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu, the dau-
phin of France ? . . . The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear
a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a
maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have
it. (Re-enter rebels with the heads of Lord Say and his son-in-law,)
But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for they loved well
when they were alive." *

Man must not be let loose ; we know not what lusts and rage
may brood under a sober guise. Nature was never so hideous,
and this hideousness is the truth.

Are these cannibal manners only met with among the scum?
Why, the princes are worse. The Duke of Cornwall orders the
old Earl of Gloucester to be tied to a chair, because, owing to
him, King Lear has escaped:

" Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.

{Gloucester is held down in the chair, while Cornwall plucks
out one of his eyes, and sets his foot on it.)
Glou. He that will think to live till he be old.
Give me some help ! O cruel : O you gods !
Regan. One side will mock another; the other too.
Cornwall. If you see vengeance —
Servant. Hold your hand, my lord:

I have served you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you.
Than now to bid you hold.
Regan. How now, you dog!

• " Henry VI," 2d part, iv. 2, 6, 7,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 377

Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
I'd shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?

Corn. My villain! {Draws and runs at him.)

Serv. Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

{Draws; they fight; Cornwall is wounded.)

Regan. Give me thy sword. A peasant stands up thus.

{Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him.)

Serv. O, I am slain ! My lord, you have one eye left
To see some mischief on him. O! {Dies.)

Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?

Clou. All dark and comfortless. Where's my son? . . .

Regan. Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover." 1°

Such are the manners of that stage. They are unbridled, like
those of the age, and like the poet's imagination. To copy the
common actions of every-day life, the puerilities and feeblenesses
to which the greatest continually sink, the outbursts of passion
which degrade them, the indecent, harsh, or foul words, the atro-
cious deeds in which license revels, the brutality and ferocity of
primitive nature, is the work of a free and unencumbered imagi-
nation. To copy this hideousness and these excesses with a
selection of such familiar, significant, precise details, that they
reveal under every word of every personage a complete civiliza-
tion, is the work of a concentrated and all-powerful imagination.
This species of manners and this energy of description indicate
the same faculty, unique and excessive, which the style had
already indicated.

Section IV. — Dramatis Personae

On this common background stands out in striking relief a
population of distinct living figures, illuminated by an intense
light. This creative power is Shakespeare's great gift, and it
communicates an extraordinary significance to his words.
Every phrase pronounced by one of its characters enables us to
see, besides the idea which it contains and the emotion which
prompted it, the aggregate of the qualities and the entire char-
acter which produced it — the mood, physical attitude, bearing,
look of the man, all instantaneously, with a clearness and force
aproached by no one. The words which strike our ears are not

*" " King Lear," iii. 7.

378 TAINE

the thousandth part of those we hear within ; they are like sparks
thrown off here and there; the eyes catch rare flashes of flame;
the mind alone perceives the vast conflagration of which they are
the signs and the effect. He gives us two dramas in one: the
first strange, convulsive, curtailed, visible; the other consistent,
immense, invisible; the one covers the other so well, that as a
rule we do not realize that we are perusing words: we hear the
roll of those terrible voices, we see contracted features, glowing
eyes, pallid faces; we see the agitation, the furious resolutions
which mount to the brain with the feverish blood, and descend
to the sharp-strung nerves. This property possessed by every
phrase to exhibit a world of sentiments and forms, comes from
the fact that the phrase is actually caused by a world of emotions
and images. Shakespeare, when he wrote, felt all that we feel,
and much besides. He had the prodigious faculty of seeing in
a twinkling of the eye a complete character, body, mind, past and
present, in every detail and every depth of Lis being, with the
exact attitude and the expression of face, which the situation de-
manded. A word here and there of Hamlet or Othello would
need for its explanation three pages of commentaries; each of
the half-understood thoughts, which the commentator may have
discovered, has left its trace in the turn of the phrase, in the
nature of the metaphor, in the order of the words ; nowadays, in
pursuing these traces, we divine the thoughts. These innumer-
able traces have been impressed in a second, within the compass
of a line. In the next line there are as many, impressed just as
quickly, and in the same compass. You can gauge the concen-
tration and the velocity of the imagination which creates thus.

These characters are all of the same family. Good or bad,
gross or delicate, witty or stupid, Shakespeare gives them all the
same kind of spirit which is his own. He has made of them
imaginative people, void of will and reason, impassioned ma-
chines, vehemently jostled one against another, who were out-
wardly whatever is most natural and most abandoned in human
nature. Let us act the play to ourselves, and see in all its stages
this clanship of figures, this prominence of portraits.

Lowest of all are the stupid folk, babbling or brutish. Imagi-
nation already exists there, where reason is not yet born; it ex-
ists also there where reason is dead. The idiot and the brute
blindly follow the phantoms which exist in their benumbed or

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 379

mechanical brains. No poet has understood this mechanism
Hke Shakespeare. His Cahban, for instance, a deformed savage,
fed on roots, growls like a beast under the hand of Prospero, who
has subdued him. He howls continually against his master,
though he knows that every curse will be paid back with
" cramps and aches." He is a chained wolf, trembUng and fierce,
who tries to bite when approached, and who crouches when he
sees the lash raised. He has a foul sensuality, a loud base laugh,
the gluttony of degraded humanity. He wishes to violate Mi-
randa in her sleep. He cries for his food, and gorges himself
when he gets it. A sailor who had landed in the island, Steph-
ano, gives him wine; he kisses his feet, and takes him for a god;
he asks if he has not dropped from heaven, and adores him. We
find in him rebellious and baffled passions, which are eager to
rise again and to be satiated. Stephano had beaten his comrade.
Caliban cries, " Beat Him enough : after a little time I'll beat him
too." He prays Stephano to come with him and murder Pros-
pero in his sleep ; he thirsts to lead him there, dances through joy
and sees his master already with his " weasand " cut, and his
brains scattered on the earth :

" Prithee, my king, be quiet. See'st thou here.
This is the mouth o' the cell : no noise, and enter.
Do that good mischief which may make this island
Thine own forever, and I, thy Caliban,
For aye thy foot-licker." *

Others, like Ajax and Cloten, are more like men, and yet it is
pure mood that Shakespeare depicts in them, as in Caliban.
The clogging corporeal machine, the mass of muscles, the thick
blood sluggishly moving along in the veins of these fighting
men, oppress the intelligence, and leave no life but for animal
passions. Ajax uses his fists, and devours meat; that is his
existence; if he is jealous of Achilles, it is pretty much as a bull
is jealous of his fellow. He permits himself to be restrained and
led by Ulysses, without looking before him : the grossest flattery
decoys him. The Greeks have urged him to accept Hector's
challenge. Behold him puffed up with pride, scorning to
answer anyone, not knowing what he says or does. Thersites
cries, " Good-morrow, Ajax " ; and he replies, " Thanks, Aga-
memnon." He has no further thought than to contemplate his

» " The Tempest," iv. i.

38o TAINE

enormous frame, and roll majestically his big stupid eyes.
When the day of the fight has come, he strikes at Hector as on
an anvil. After a good while they are separated. " I am not
warm yet," says Ajax, " let us fight again." ^ Cloten is less mas-
sive than this phlegmatic ox; but he is just as idiotic, just as
vainglorious, just as coarse. The beautiful Imogen, urged by
his insults and his scullion manners, tells him that his whole
body is not worth as much a Posthumus's meanest garment.
He'is stung to the quick, repeats the words several times; he
cannot shake oflf the idea, and runs at it again and again with his
head down, like an angry ram:

" Cloten. ' His garment ? ' Now, the devil —
Imogen. To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently —
C. 'His garment?' . . . You have abused me: 'His meanest
garment ! ' . . . I'll be revenged : ' His meanest garment ! ' Well." ^

He gets some of Posthumus's garments, and goes to Milford
Haven, expecting to meet Imogen there. On his way he mut-
ters thus :

" With that suit upon my back, will I ravish her : first kill him, and
in her eyes ; there shall she see my valor, which will then be a torment
to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of insultment ended
on his dead body, and when my lust has dined — which, as I say, to vex
her I will execute in the clothes that she so praised — to the court I'll
knock her back, foot her home again."*

Others again, are but babblers: for example, Polonlus, the
grave brainless counsellor; a great baby, not yet out of his
" swathing clouts "; a solemn booby, who rains on men a shower
of counsels, compliments, and maxims ; a sort of court speaking-
trumpet, useful in grand ceremonies, with the air of a thinker,
but fit only to spout words. But the most complete of all these
characters is that of the nurse in " Romeo and Juliet," a gossip,
loose in her talk, a regular kitchen oracle, smelling of the stew-
pan and old boots, foolish, impudent, immoral, but otherwise a
good creature, and affectionate to her nurse-child. Mark this
disjointed and never-ending gossip's babble :

" Nurse. 'Faith I can tell her age unto an hour.
Lady Capulet. She's not fourteen. ...

* See " Troilus and Cressida," ii. 3, * " Cymbeline," ii. 3.

the jesting manner in which the gen- * Ibid. iii. 5.

erals drive on this fierce brute.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 381

Nurse. Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she — God rest all Christian souls! —
Were of an age : well, Susan is with God ;
She was too good for me : but, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry ; I remember it well,
*Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean'd — I never shall forget it —
Of all the days of the year, upon that day :
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua: —
Nay, I do bear a brain : — but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug 1
Shake, quoth the dove-house : 'twas no need, I trow.
To bid me trudge :

And since that time it is eleven years ;
For then she could stand alone ; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before, she broke her brow." ^

Then she tells an indecent anecdote, which she begins over again
four times. She is silenced: what then? She has her anecdote
in her head, and cannot cease repeating it and laughing to her-
self. Endless repetitions are the mind's first step. The vulgar
do not pursue the straight line of reasoning and of the story; they
repeat their steps, as it were merely marking time : struck with
an image, they keep it for an hour before their eyes, and are
never tired of it. If they do advance, they turn aside to a hun-
dred subordinate ideas before they get at the phrase required.
They allow themselves to be diverted by all the thoughts which
come across them. This is what the nurse does; and when she
brings Juliet news of her lover, she torments and wearies her,
less from a wish to tease than from a habit of wandering from
the point :

"Nurse. Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?
Do you not see that I am out of breath?

Juliet. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath ?
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied: is't good or bad?

' " Romeo and Juliet," i. j.

382 TAINE

A^. Well, you have made a simple choice ; you know not how to choose
a man: Romeo! no, not he: though his face be better than any man's,
yet his legs excels all men's; and for a hand and a foot, and a body,
though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare: he is
not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb.
Go thy ways, wench ; serve God. What, have you dined at home ?

/. No, no : but all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? what of that?

N. Lord, how my head aches ! what a head have I !
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. »

My back o' t'other side — O, my back, my back!
Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
To catch my death with jaunting up and down !

/, r faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

N. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous, and
a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a virtuous — Where is your
mother? " ^

It is never-ending. Her gabble is worse when she comes to an-
nounce to Juliet the death of her cousin and the banishment of
Romeo. It is the shrill cry and chatter of an overgrown asth-
matic magpie. She laments, confuses the names, spins rounda-
bout sentences, ends by asking for aqua-vitce. She curses
Romeo, then brings him to Juliet's chamber. Next day Juliet
is ordered to marry Earl Paris; Juliet throws herself into her
nurse's arms, praying for comfort, advice, assistance. The other
finds the true remedy: Marry Paris,

" O, he's a lovely gentleman !
Romeo's a dishclout to him : an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match.
For it excels your first." '

This cool immorality, these weather-cock arguments, this
fashion of estimating love like a fishwoman, completes the por-
trait.

Section V. — Men of Wit

The mechanical imagination produces Shakespeare's fool-
characters: a quick, venturesome, dazzling, unquiet imagina-
tion, produces his men of wit. Of wit there are many kinds.

• " Romeo and Juliet," ii. 5. ' Ibid. iii. s-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 383

One, altogether French, which is but reason, a foe to paradox,
scorner of folly, a sort of incisive common-sense, having no oc-
cupation but to render truth amusing and evident, the most
effective weapon with an intelligent and vain people : such was
the wit of Voltaire and the drawing-rooms. The other, that of
improvisatores and artists, is a mere inventive rapture, paradoxi-
cal, unshackled, exuberant, a sort of self-entertainment, a phan-
tasmagoria of images, flashes of wit, strange ideas, dazing and
intoxicating, like the movement and illumination in a ball-roomo
Such is the wit of Mercutio, of the clowns, of Beatrice, Rosalind,
and Benedick. They laugh, not from a sense of the ridiculous,
but from the desire to laugh. You must look elsewhere for the
campaigns with aggressive reason makes against human folly^
Here folly is in its full bloom. Our folk think of amusement,
and nothing more. They are good-humored; they let their wit
prance gayly over the possible and the impossiblCo They play
upon words, contort their sense, draw absurd and laughable in-
ferences, send them back to one another, and without intermis-
sion, as if with shuttlecocks, and vie with each other in singu-
larity and invention. They dress all their ideas in strange or
sparkling metaphors. The taste of the time was for masque-
rades; their conversation is a masquerade of ideas. They say
nothing in a simple style; they only seek to heap together subtle
things, far-fetched, difficult to invent and to understand ; all their
expressions are over-refined, unexpected, extraordinary; they
strain their thought, and change it into a caricature. " Alas,
poor Romeo!" says Mercutio, "he is already dead; stabbed
with a white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
love-song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-
boy's butt-shaft." ^ Benedick relates a conversation he has just
held with his mistress: " O, she misused me past the endurance
of a block! an oak, but with one green leaf on it would have
answered her; my very visor began to assume life, and scold with
her." ^ These gay and perpetual extravagances show the bear-
ing of the speakers. They do not remain quietly seated in their
chairs, like the Marquesses in the " Misanthrope "; they whirl
round, leap, paint their faces, gesticulate boldly their ideas;
their wit-rockets end with a song. Young folk, soldiers and
artists, they let ofif their fireworks of phrases, and gambol round

» " Romeo and Juliet " ii. 4. • " Much Ado about Nothing," ii. i.

384 TAINE

about. " There was a star danced, and under that was I
born," ' This expression of Beatrice's aptly describes the kind
of poetical, sparkling, unreasoning, charming wit, more akin to
music than to literature, a sort of dream, which is spoken out
aloud, and whilst wide awake, not unlike that described by
Mercutio:

" O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams.
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film.
Her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream. . . .
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose.
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a person's nose as a' lies asleep.
Then dreams he of another benefice :
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck.
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats.
Of breaches, ambuscadoes. Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep : and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs.
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes. « «.t^
This is she."*

• " Romeo and Juliet," ii. i. * Ibid. i. 4,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 385

Romeo interrupts him, or he would never end. Let the reader
compare with the dialogue of the French theatre this little poem

" Child of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy," '

introduced without incongruity in the midst of a conversation
of the sixteenth century, and he will understand the difiference
between the wit which devotes itself to reasoning, or to record a
subject for laughter, and that imagination which is self-amused
with its own act.

Falstaff has the passions of an animal, and the imagination of
a man of wit. There is no character which better exemplifies
the fire and immorality of Shakespeare. Falstaff is a great sup-
porter of disreputable places, swearer, gamester, idler, wine-
bibber, as low as he well can be. He has a big belly, bloodshot
eyes, bloated face, shaking legs; he spends his life with his
elbows among the tavern-jugs, or asleep on the ground behind
the arras; he only wakes to curse, lie, brag, and steal. He is as
big a swindler as Panurge, who had sixty-three ways of making
money, " of which the honestest was by sly theft." And what
is worse, he is an old man, a knight, a courtier, and well edu-
cated. Must he not be odious and repulsive? By no means;
we cannot help liking him. At bottom, like his brother Pan-
urge, he is " the best fellow in the world." He has no malice in
his composition; no other wish than to laugh and be amused.
When insulted, he bawls out louder than his attackers, and pays
them back with interest in coarse words and insults; but he
owes them no grudge for it. The next minute he is sitting
down with them in a low tavern, drinking their health like a
brother and comrade. If he has vices, he exposes them so
frankly that we are obliged to forgive him them. He seems to
say to us, " Well, so I am, what then? I like drinking: isn't the
wine good? Itake to my heels when hard hitting begins; don't
blows hurt? I get into debt, and do fools out their money; isn't
it nice to have money in your pocket? I brag; isn't it natural
to want to be well thought of? " — " Dost thou hear, Hal? thou
knowest, in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should
poor Jack FalstafT do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have
more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty." ^

• " Romeo and Juliet," i. 4- « First part of " King Henry FV," iii. 3.

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Falstaff is so frankly immoral, that he ceases to be so. Con-
science ends at a certain point; nature assumes its place, and
man rushes upon what he desires, without more thought of be-
ing just or unjust than an animal in the neighboring wood.
Falstaff, engaged in recruiting, has sold exemptions to all the
rich people, and only enrolled starved and half-naked wretches.
There's but a shirt and a half in all his company: that does not
trouble him. Bah : " they'll find linen enough on every hedge."
The prince, who has seen them, says, " I did never see such piti-
ful rascals." " Tut, tut," answers Falstaflf, " good enough to
toss; food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better; tush,
man, mortal men, mortal men."' His second excuse is his
unfailing spirit. If ever there was a man who could jabber, it is
he. Insults and oaths, curses, jobations, protests, flow from
him as from an open barrel. He is never at a loss ; he devises a
shift for every difficulty. Lies sprout out of him, fructify, in-
crease, beget one another, like mushrooms on a rich and rotten
bed of earth. He lies still more from his imagination and nat-
ure than from interest and necessity. It is evident from the
manner in which he strains his fictions. He says he has fought
alone against two men. The next moment it is four. Pres-
ently we have seven, then eleven, then fourteen. He is stopped
in time, or he would soon be talking of a whole army. When
unmasked, he does not lose his temper, and is the first to laugh
at his boastings. " Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold. . . .
What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore?"®
He does the scolding part of King Henry with so much truth
that we might take him for a king, or an actor. This big pot-
bellied fellow, a coward, a cynic, a brawler, a drunkard, a lewd
rascal, a pothouse poet, is one of Shakespeare's favorites. The
reason is, that his morals are those of pure nature, and Shake-
speare's mind is congenial with his own.

Section VI, — Shakespeare's Women

Nature is shameless and gross amidst this mass of flesh, heavy
with wine and fatness. It is delicate in the delicate body of
women, but as unreasoning and impassioned in Desdemona as in
Falstaff. Shakespeare's women are charming children, who

' First Part of " King Henry IV," iv. a. • Ibid. ii. 4-

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 387

feel in excess and love passionately. They have unconstrained
manners, little rages, nice words of friendship, a coquettish re-
belliousness, a graceful volubility, which recall the warbling and
the prettiness of birds. The heroines of the French stage arc
almost men; these are women, and in every sense of the word.
More imprudent than Desdemona a woman could not be. She
is moved with pity for Cassio, and asks a favor for him passion-
ately, recklessly, be the thing just or no, dangerous or no. She
knows nothing of man's laws, and does not think of them. All
that she sees is that Cassio is unhappy:

" Be thou assured, good Cassio . . . My lord shall never rest;
I'll watch him, tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I'll intermingle everything he does
With Cassio's suit." ^

She asks her favor:

"Othello. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some ether time.

Desdemona. But shall't be shortly?

O. The sooner, sweet, for you.

Des. Shall't be to-night at supper?

O. No, not to-night.

Des. To-morrow dinner, then?

O. I shall not dine at home ;
I meet the captains at the citadel.

Des. Why, then, to-morrow night ; or Tuesday morn :
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn;
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days : in faith, he's penitent." 2

She is somewhat astonished to see herself refused: she scolds
Othello. He yields: who would not yield seeing a reproach in
those lovely sulking eyes? O, says she, with a pretty pout;

" This is not a boon ;
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do peculiar profit
To your own person." ^

A moment after, when he prays her to leave him alone for a
while, mark the innocent gayety, the ready observance, the
playful child's tone:

1 " Othello," in. 3. "Ibid. •IbiA

388 TAINE

" Shall I deny you ? no : farewell, my lord. <, . «
Emilia, come : Be as your fancies teach you ;
Whate'er you be, I am obedient/' *

This vivacity, this petulance, does not prevent shrinking mod-
esty and silent timidity: on the contrary, they spring from a
common cause, extreme sensibility. She who feels much and
quickly has more reserve and more passion than others; she
breaks out or is silent; she says nothing or everything. Such
is this Imogen.

" So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her." ^

Such is Virgilia, the sweet wife of Coriolanus; her heart is not a
Roman one; she is terrified at her husband's victories: when
Volumnia describes him stamping on the field of battle, and
wiping his bloody brow with his hand, she grows pale:

" His bloody brow ! O Jupiter, no blood ! = . »
Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius ! " •

She wishes to forget all that she knows of these dangers; she
dare not think of them. When asked if Coriolanus does not
generally return wounded, she cries, " O, no, no, no." She
avoids this cruel picture, and yet nurses a secret pang at the bot-
tom of her heart. She will not leave the house: " I'll not over
the threshold till my lord return." ' She does not smile, will
hardly admit a visitor; she would blame herself, as for a lack of
tenderness, for a moment's forgetfulness or gayety. When he
does return, she can only blush and weep. This exalted sensi-
bility must needs end in love. All Shakespeare's women love
without measure, and nearly all at first sight. At the first look
Juliet cast on Romeo, she says to the nurse :

" Go, ask his name : if he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed." •

It is the revelation of their destiny. As Shakespeare has
made them, they cannot but love, and they must love till death.
But this first look is an ecstasy: and this sudden approach of
love is a transport. Miranda seeing Fernando, fancies that she

• " Othello." iii. 3 . '' Ibid.

B " Cymbeline," iii. 5. * " Romeo and Juliet," i. $•

^ " Coriolanus," i. 3.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 389

sees " a thing divine." She halts motionless, in the amazement
of this sudden vision, at the sound of these heavenly harmonies
which rise from the depths of her heart. She weeps, on seeing
him drag the heavy logs; with her slender white hands she
would do the work whilst he reposed. Her compassion and
tenderness carry her away; she is no longer mistress of her
words, she says what she would not, what her father has forbid-
den her to disclose, what an instant before she would never have
confessed. The too full heart overflows unwittingly, happy,
and ashamed at the current of joy and new sensations with which
an unknown feeling has flooded her :

" Miranda. I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of. . . .

Fernando. Wherefore weep you?

M. At mine unworthiness that dare not offer
What I desire to give, and much less take
What I shall die to want. . . .
I am your wife, if you will marry me ;
If not, I'll die your maid." ^

This irresistible invasion of love transforms the whole charac-
ter. The shrinking and tender Desdemona, suddenly, in full
Senate, before her father, renounces her father ; dreams not for
an instant of asking his pardon, or consoling him. She will
leave for Cyprus with Othello, through the enemy's fleet and
the tempest. Everything vanishes before the one and adored
image which has taken entire and absolute possession of her
whole heart. So, extreme evils, bloody resolves, are only the
•natural sequence of such love. Ophelia becomes mad, Juliet
commits suicide; no one but looks upon such madness and
death as necessary. You will not then discover virtue in these
souls, for by virtue is implied a determinate desire to do good,
and a rational observance of duty. They are only pure through
delicacy or love. They recoil from vice as a gross thing, not as
an immoral thing. What they feel is not respect for the mar-
riage vow, but adoration of their husband. " O sweetest, fairest
lily!" So Cymbeline speaks of one of these frail and lovely
flowers which cannot be torn from the tree to which they have
grown, whose least impurity would tarnish their whiteness.
When Imogen learns that her husband means to kill her as
being faithless, she does not revolt at the outrage; she has no

•"The Tempest," iii. i.

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pride, but only love. " False to his bed! " She faints at the
thought that she is no longer loved. When Cordelia hears her
father, an irritable old man, already almost insane, ask her how
she loves him, she cannot make up her mind to say aloud the
flattering protestations which her sisters have been lavishing.
She is ashamed to display her tenderness before the world, and
to buy a dowry by it. He disinherits her, and drives her away;
she holds her tongue. And when she afterwards finds him
abandoned and mad, she goes on her knees before him, with
such a touching emotion, she weeps over that dear insulted head
with so gentle a pity, that you might fancy it was the tender
voice of a desolate but delighted mother, kissing the pale lips of

her child :

" O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father ! . . .
O my dear father ! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made ! . . . Was this a face
To be opposed against the warring winds?

. . . Mine enemy's dog.
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire. . . .
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? " *<>

If, in short, Shakespeare comes across a heroic character,
worthy of Corneille, a Roman, such as the mother of Coriolanus,
he will explain by passion what Corneille would have explained
by heroism. He will depict it violent and thirsting for the vio-
lent feelings of glory. She will not be able to refrain herself.
She will break out into accents of triumph when she sees her son
crowned; into imprecations of vengeance when she sees him
banished. She will descend to the vulgarities of pride and
anger; she will abandon herself to mad efifusions of joy, to
dreams of an ambitious fancy," and will prove once more that

** " King Lear," iv. 7.
" " O ye're well met : the hoarded plague o' the gods
Requite your love!

If that I could for weeping, you should hear-
Nay, and you shall hear some. . . .

I'll tell thee what; yet go:
Nay but thou shalt stay too: I would my son
Were in Arabia, and ttiy tribe before him,
His good sword in his hand." — Coriolanus, iv. a.
See again, " Coriolanus," i. 3, the frank and abandoned triumph of a woman of
the people, " I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than
now in first seeing he had proved himself a man."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 391

the impassioned imagination of Shakespeare has left its trace in
all the creatures whom it has called forth.

Section VII — Types of Villains

Nothing is easier to such a poet than to create perfect villains.
Throughout he is handling the unruly passions which make
their character, and he never hits upon the moral law which re-
strains them ; but at the same time, and by the same faculty, he
changes the inanimate masks, which the conventions of the
stage mould on an identical pattern, into living and illusory
figures. How shall a demon be made to look as real as a man?
lago is a soldier of fortune who has roved the world from Syria
to England, who, nursed in the lowest ranks, having had close
acquaintance with the horrors of the wars of the sixteenth cen-
tury, had drawn thence the maxims of a Turk and the philoso-
phy of a butcher; principles he has none left, '* O my reputa-
tion, my reputation! " cries the dishonored Cassio. " As I am
an honest man," says lago, " I thought you had received some
bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation," *
As for woman's virtue, he looks upon it like a man who has
kept company with slave-dealers. He estimates Desdemona's
love as he would estimate a mare's: that sort of thing lasts so
long — then . . . And then he airs an experimental theory
with precise details and nasty expressions like a stud doctor.
" It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to
the Moor, nor he his to her. , . . These Moors are change-
able in their wills; , . . the food that to him now is as
luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquin-
tida. She must change for youth : when she is sated with his
body, she will find the error of her choice," ^ Desdemona, on
the shore, trying to forget her cares, begs him to sing the praises
of her sex. For every portrait he finds the most insulting insinu-
ations. She insists, and bids him take the case of a deserving
woman. " Indeed," he replies, " she was a wight, if ever such
wight were, ... to suckle fools and chronicle small
beer." ' He also says, when Desdemona asks him what he
would write in praise of her: " O gentle lady do not put me to't,

1 " Othello," ii. 3. » Ibid. i. 3. » Ibid. ii. 1.

392

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for I am nothing, if not critical." * This is the key to his char-
acter. He despises man; to him Desdemona is a Httle wanton
wench, Cassio an elegant word-shaper, Othello a mad bull, Rod-
erigo an ass to be basted, thumped, made to go. He diverts
himself by setting these passions at issue ; he laughs at it as at
a play. When Othello, swooning, shakes in his convulsions, he
rejoices at this capital result: " Work on, my medicine, work!
Thus credulous fools are caught." ^ You would take him for
one of the poisoners of the time, studying the effect of a new
potion on a dying dog. He only speaks in sarcasms; he has
them ready for everyone, even for those whom he does not
know. When he wakes Brabantio to inform him of the elope-
ment of his daughter, he tells him the matter in coarse terms,
sharpening the sting of the bitter pleasantry, like a conscientious
executioner, rubbing his hands when he hears the culprit groan
under the knife. " Thou art a villain! " cries Brabantio. "You
are — a senator!" answers lago. But the feature which really
completes him, and makes him take rank with Mephistopheles,
is the atrocious truth and the cogent reasoning by which he
likens his crime to virtue.^ Cassio, under his advice, goes to see
Desdemona, to obtain her intercession for him; this visit is to
be the ruin of Desdemona and Cassio. lago, left alone, hums
for an instant quietly, then cries;

" And what's he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again." '

To all these features must be added a diabolical energy,^ an in»
exhaustible inventiveness in images, caricatures, obscenity, the
manners of a guard-room, the brutal bearing and tastes of a
trooper, habits of dissimulation, coolness, hatred, and patience,
contracted amid the perils and devices of a military life, and
the continuous miseries of long degradation and frustrated
hope; you will understand how Shakespeare could transform
abstract treachery into a concrete form, and how lago's atro-
cious vengeance is only the natural consequence of his character,
life, and training.

* " Othello," ii. i. dering human nature, and both are mjs-

^ Tbid. iv. I. _ _ anthropical of malice prepense.

' See the like cynicism and scepticism '' " Othello," ii. 3.

in Richard III. Both begin by slan- * See his conversation with Brabanti >,

then with Roderigo, Act i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 393

Section VIII. — Principal Characters

How much more visible is this impassioned and unfettered
genius of Shakespeare in the great characters which sustain the
whole weight of the drama! The starthng imagination, the fu-
rious velocity of the manifold and exuberant ideas, passion let
loose, rushing upon death and crime, hallucinations, madness,
all the ravages of delirium bursting through will and reason:
such are the forces and ravings which engender them. Shall I
speak of dazzling Cleopatra, who holds Antony in the whirlwind
of her devices and caprices, who fascinates and kills, who scat-
ters to the winds the lives of men as a handful of desert dust,
the fatal Eastern sorceress who sports with love and death, im-
petuous, irresistible, child of air and fire, whose life is but a
tempest, whose thought, ever barbed and broken, is like the
crackling of a lightning flash? Of Othello, who, beset by the
graphic picture of physical adultery, cries at every word of lago
like a man on the rack; who, his nerves hardened by twenty
years of war and shipwreck, grows mad and swoons for grief,
and whose soul, poisoned by jealousy, is distracted and dis-
organized in convulsions and in stupor? Or of old King Lear,
violent and weak, whose half-unseated reason is gradually top-
pled over under the shocks of incredible treacheries, who pre-
sents the frightful spectacle of madness, first increasing, then
complete, of curses, bowlings, superhuman sorrows, into which
the transport of the first access of fury carries him, and then of
peaceful incoherence, chattering imbecility, into which the shat-
tered man subsides; a marvellous creation, the supreme effort
of pure imagination, a disease of reason, which reason could
never have conceived?^ Amid so many portraitures let us
choose two or three to indicate the depth and nature of them
all. The critic is lost in Shakespeare, as in an immense town;
he will describe a couple of monuments, and entreat the reader
to imagine the city.

Plutarch's Coriolanus is an austere, coldly haughty patrician,
a general of the army. In Shakespeare's hands he becomes a
coarse soldier, a man of the people as to his language and man-

* See again, in Timon, and Hotspur more particularly, perfect examples of
vehement and unreasoning imagination.

394 TAINE

ners, an athlete of war, with a voice like a trumpet ; whose eyes
by contradiction are filled with a rush of blood and anger, proud
and terrible in mood, a lion's soul in the body of a bull. The
philosopher Plutarch told of him a lofty philosophic action, say-
ing that he had been at pains to save his landlord in the sack of
Corioli. Shakespeare's Coriolanus has indeed the same dis-
position, for he is really a good fellow; but when Lartius asks
him the name of this poor Volscian, in order to secure his
liberty, he yawns out :

" By Jupiter ! forgot.

I am weary; yea, my memory is tired.

Have we no wine here ? " ^

He is hot, he has been fighting, he must drink; he leaves his
Volscian in chains, and thinks no more of him. He fights like
a porter, with shouts and insults, and the cries from that deep
chest are heard above the din of the battle like the sounds from
a brazen trumpet. He has scaled the walls of Corioli, he has
butchered till he is gorged with slaughter. Instantly he turns to
the army of Cominius, and arrives red with blood, " as he were
flay'd." " Come I too late? " Cominius begins to compliment
him, " Come I too late? " he repeats. The battle is not yet
finished: he embraces Cominius:

" O ! let me clip ye
In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart
As merry as when our nuptial day was done." ^

For the battle is a real holiday to him. Such senses, such a
strong frame, need the outcry, the din of battle, the excitement
of death and wounds. This haughty and indomitable heart
needs the joy of victory and destruction. Mark the display of
his patrician arrogance and his soldier's bearing, when he is
offered the tenth of the spoils :

" I thank you, general ;
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword." *

The soldiers cry, Marcius! Marcius! and the trumpets sound.
He gets into a passion : rates the brawlers :

" No more, I say ! For that I have not wash'd
]\Iy nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch —
» " Coriolanus," i. g. ■ Ibid. i. 6. * Ibid. i. 9.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 395

. . . You shout me forth

In acclamations hyperbolical ;

As if I loved my little should be dieted

In praises sauced with lies," ^

They are reduced to loading him with honors : Cominius gives
him a war-horse; decrees him the cognomen of Coriolanus;
the people shout Caius Marcius Coriolanus! He replies:

" I will go wash ;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.
I mean to stride your steed." *

This loud voice, loud laughter, blunt acknowledgment, of a man
who can act and shout better than speak, foretell the mode in
which he will treat the plebeians. He loads them with insults ;
he cannot find abuse enough for the cobblers, tailors, envious
cowards, down on their knees for a coin. " To beg of Hob and
Dick ! " " Bid them wash their faces and keep their teeth
clean." But he must beg, if he would be consul; his friends
constrain him. It is then that the passionate soul, incapable of
self-restraint, such as Shakespeare knew how to paint, breaks
forth without hindrance. He is there in his candidate's gown,
gnashing his teeth, and getting up his lesson in this style:

" What must I say ?
* I pray, sir * — Plague upon't ! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace : — * Look, sir, my wounds I
I got them in my country's service, when
Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran
From the noise of our own drums.' " '

The tribunes have no difficulty in stopping the election of a can"
didate who begs in this fashion. They taunt him in full Senate,
reproach him with his speech about the com. He repeats it,
with aggravations. Once roused, neither danger nor prayer
restrains him :

" His heart's his mouth :

And, being angry, does forget that ever

He heard the name of death." ^

He rails against the people, the tribunes, ediles, flatterers of
the plebs. " Come, enough," says his friend Menenius.

• " Coriolanus," i. 9. • Ibid. ' Ibid. ii. 3. » Ibid. iii. i.

396 TAINE

" Enough, with over-measure," says Brutus the tribune. He

retorts:

" No, take more :
What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal ! ... At once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue ; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison." ^

The tribune cries, Treason ! and bids seize him. He cries:

" Hence, old goat ! . . .
Hence, rotten thing ! or I shall shake thy bones
Out of thy garments ! " i®

He strikes him, drives the mob off: he fancies himself amongst
Volscians. " On fair ground I could beat forty of them 1 "
And when his friends hurry him off, he threatens still, and

" Speak (s) o' the people
As if you (he) were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity." ^^

Yet he bends before his mother, for he has recognized in her a
soul as lofty and a courage as intractable as his own. He has
submitted from his infancy to the ascendancy of this pride which
he admires. Volumnia reminds him : " My praises made thee
first a soldier." Without power over himself, continually
tossed on the fire of his too hot blood, he has always been the
arm, she the thought. He obeys from involuntary respect, like
a soldier before his general, but with what effort!

" Coriolanus. The smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up
The glances of my sight! a beggar's tongue
Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees
Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath received an alms ! — I will not do't. . . .

Volumnia. . .' . Do as thou list

Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself.

Cor. Pray, be content:
Mother, I am going to the market-place;
Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved
Of all the trades in Rome." 12

• " Coriolanus," iii. i. » Ibid. " Ibid. ^ Ibid. iii. 2.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 397

He goes, and his friends speak for him. Except a few bitter
asides, he appears to be submissive. Then the tribunes pro-
nounce the accusation, and summon him to answer as a traitor:.

" Cor. How ! traitor !

Men. Nay, temperately : your promise.

Cor. The fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people!
Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say,
' Thou liest,' unto thee with a voice as free
As I do pray the gods." ^^

His friends surround him, entreat him: he will not listen; he
foams at the mouth, he is like a wounded lion:

" Let them pronounce rne steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word." ^*

The people vote exile, supporting by their shouts the sentence of
the tribune:

" Cor. You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose love I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you. . . . Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back :
There is a world elsewhere." ^^

Judge of his hatred by these raging words. It goes on increas-
ing whilst waiting for vengeance. We find him next with the
Volscian army before Rome. His friends kneel before him, he
lets them kneel. Old Menenius, who had loved him as a son,
only comes now to be driven away. " Wife, mother, child, I
know not," ^* He knows not himself. For this strength of
hating in a noble heart is the same as the force of loving. He
has transports of tenderness as of rage, and can contain himself
no more in joy than in grief. He runs, spite of his resolution, to
his wife's arms; he bends his knee before his mother. He had
summoned the Volscian chiefs to make them witnesses of his
refusals; and before them, he grants all, and weeps. On his

" " Coriolanus," iii. 3. " Ibid. » Ibid. »« Ibid. v. 2.

18— Classics. Vol. 38

398 TAINE

return to Corioli. an insulting word from Aufidius maddens him,
and drives liinx upon the daggers of the Volscians. Vices and
virtues, glory and misery, greatness and feebleness, the un-
bridled passion which composes his nature, endowed him with
all.

If the life of Coriolanus is the history of a mood, that of Mac-
beth is the history of a monomania. The witches' prophecy has
sunk into his mind at once, like a fixed idea. Gradually this
idea corrupts the rest, and transforms the whole man. He is
haunted by it; he forgets the thanes who surround him and
" who stay upon his leisure " ; he already sees in the future an
indistinct chaos of images of blood :

". . . Why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs? . . .
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical.
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not." "

This is the language of hallucination. Macbeth's hallucination
becomes complete when his wife has persuaded him to assassi-
nate the king. He sees in the air a blood-stained dagger, " in
form as palpable, as this which now I draw." His whole brain
is filled with grand and terrible phantoms, which the mind of a
common murderer could never have conceived: the poetry of
which indicates a generous heart, enslaved to an idea of fate, and
capable of remorse :

". . . Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep ; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Wfcose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
Witfi Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. ... (A bell rings.)

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan ; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell." ^^

He has done the deed, and returns tottering, haggard, like a
drunken man. He is horrified at his bloody hands, " these

" " Macbctb," i. 3. " Ibid, ii, i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 399

hangman's hands." Nothing now can cleanse them. The
whole ocean might sweep over them, but they would keep the
hue of murder. " What hands are here? ha, they pluck out
mine eyes! " He is disturbed by a word which the sleeping
chamberlains uttered:

" One cried, ' God bless us ! ' and ' Amen ' the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say ' Amen,'
When they did say, ' God bless us ! ' . . .
But wherefore could not I pronounce ' Amen ! '
I had most need of blessing, and ' Amen *
Stuck in my throat." ^^

Then comes a strange dream ; a frightful vision of the punish-
ment that awaits him descends upon him.

Above the beating of his heart, the tingling of the blood which
seethes in his brain, he had heard them cry:

" ' Sleep no more !
Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care.
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath.
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast." 20

And tne voice, like an angel's trumpet, calls him by all his titles :

" ' Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more ! ' " 21

This idea, incessantly repeated, beats in his brain, with monoto-
nous and quick strokes, like the tongue of a bell. Insanity be-
gins; all the force of his mind is occupied by keeping before
him, in spite of himself, the image of the man whom he has mur-
dered in his sleep:

" To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself. (Knock.)
Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst ! " 22

Thenceforth, in the rare intervals in which the fever of his mind
is assuaged, he is like a man worn out by a long malady. It is
the sad prostration of maniacs worn out by their fits of rage:

" Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time ; for from this instant

tf " Macbeth," ii. 2. "Ibid. »' Ibid. 2* Ibid. ii. 3.

400 TAINE

There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys : renown and grace is dead ;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of." ^3

When rest has restored force to the human machine, the fixed
idea shakes him again, and drives him onward, like a pitiless
horseman, who has left his panting horse only for a moment, to
leap again into the saddle, and spur him over precipices. The
more he has done, the more he must do:

" I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more.
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. . . ." ^*

He kills in order to preserve the fruit of his murders. The fatal
circlet of gold attracts him like a magic jewel; and he beats
down, from a sort of blind instinct, the heads which he sees be-
tween the crown and him :

" But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer.
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly : better be with the dead,
Whom we to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further." 25

Macbeth has ordered Banquo to be murdered, and in the
midst of a great feast he is informed of the success of his plan.
He smiles, and proposes Banquo's health. Suddenly, con-
science-smitten, he sees the ghost of the murdered man ; for this
phantom, which Shakespeare summons, is not a mere stage-
trick: we feel that here the supernatural is unnecessary, and that
Macbeth would create it even if hell would not send it. With
muscles twitching, dilated eyes, his mouth half open with deadly
terror, he sees it shake its bloody head, and cries with that hoarse
voice, which is only to be heard in maniacs' cells:

"Prithee, see there? Behold! look! lo! how say you?
Why, what care I ? If thou canst nod, speak too.

M " Macbeth," ii. 3. ** Ibid. iii. 4- " Ibid. iii. a.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 40X

If charnel-houses and our graves must send

Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites. . . .

Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, . , ,

Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd

Too terrible for the ear : the times have been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end ; but now they rise again.

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns.

And push us from our stools: . . .

Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! let the earth hide thee !

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with ! " 26

His body trembling like that of an epileptic, his teeth clenched,
foaming at the mouth, he sinks on the ground, his limbs writhe,
shaken with convulsive quiverings, whilst a dull sob swells his
panting breast, and dies in his swollen throat. What joy can re-
main for a man beset by such visions? The wide dark country,
which he surveys from his towering castle, is but a field of death,
haunted by ominous apparitions; Scotland, which he is depopu-
lating, a cemetery,

" Where . . . the dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask'd for who ; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken." 2t

His soul is " full of scorpions." He has " supp'd full with hor-
rors," and the loathsome odor of blood has disgusted him with
all else. He goes stumbling over the corpses which he has
heaped up, with the mechanical and desperate smile of a maniac-
murderer. Thenceforth death, life, all are one to him; the
habit of murder has placed him out of the pale of humanity.
They tell him that his wife is dead :

" Macbeth. She should have died hereafter ;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player

29 " Macbeth," iii. 4. ^ Ibid. iv. 3,

402 TAINE

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more : it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." 28

There remains for him the hardening of the heart in crime, the
fixed belief in destiny. Hunted down by his enemies, " bear-
like, tied to a stake," he fights, troubled only by the prediction
of the witches, sure of being invulnerable so long as the man
whom they have described does not appear. Henceforth his
thoughts dwell on a supernatural world, and to the last he walks
with his eyes fixed on the dream, which has possessed him, from
the first.

The history of Hamlet, like that of Macbeth, is a story of
moral poisoning. Hamlet has a delicate soul, an impassioned
imagination, like that of Shakespeare. He has lived hitherto,
occupied in noble studies, skilful in mental and bodily exercises,
with a taste for art, loved by the noblest father, enamored of the
purest and most charming girl, confiding, generous, not yet
having perceived, from the height of the throne to which he was
born, aught but the beauty, happiness, grandeur of nature and
humanity.^" On this soul, which character and training make
more sensitive than others, misfortune suddenly falls, extreme,
overwhelming of the very kind to destroy all faith and every
motive for action : with one glance he has seen all the vileness of
humanity; and this insight is given him in his mother. His
mind is yet intact; but judge from the violence of his style, the
crudity of his exact details, the terrible tension of the whole
nervous machine, whether he has not already one foot on the
verge of madness :

" O that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew !
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! O God ! God I
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Fie on't ! ah fie ! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this !
But two months dead : nay, not so much, not two :
So excellent a king, ... so loving to my mother

•• " Macbeth," v. 5. ■• Goethe, " Wilhelm Meister."

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 403

That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth !
. . . And yet, within a month —
Let me not think on't — Frailty, thy name is woman ! —
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body, . , »
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good !
But break, my heart ; for I must hold my tongue ! " so

Here already are contortions of thought, a beginning of hal-
lucination, the symptoms of what is to come after. In the mid-
dle of conversation the image of his father rises before his mind.
He thinks he sees him. How then will it be when the " canon-
ised bones have burst their cerements," " the sepulchre hath
oped his ponderous and marble jaws," and when the ghost
comes in the night, upon a high " platform " of land, to tell him
of the tortures of his prison of fire, and of the fratricide, who
has driven him thither? Hamlet grows faint, but grief strength-
ens him, and he has a desire for living:

"Hold, hold, my heart;
And you my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up ! Remember thee !
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. — Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, . • •
And thy commandment all alone shall live, . . ,
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain !
My tables — meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark :
So, uncle, there you are." ^i (Writing.')

This convulsive outburst, this fevered writing hand, this
frenzy of intentness, prelude the approach of a kind of mono-
mania. When his friends come up, he treats them with the
speeches of a child or an idiot. He is no longer master of his
words; hollow phrases whirl in his brain, and fall from his
mouth as in a dream. They call him; he answers by imitating

•» " Hamlet," i. a, « Ibid. i. 5.

404 TAINE

the cry of a sportsman whistling to his falcon : " Hillo, ho, ho,
boy! come, bird, come." Whilst he is in the act of swearing
them to secrecy, the ghost below repeats " Swear." Hamlet
cries, with a nervous excitement and a fitful gayety :

"Ah ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny?
Come on — you hear this fellow in the cellarage —
Consent to swear. . . .

Ghost (beneath). Swear.

Hamlet. Hie et ubiquef then we'll shift our ground
Come hither, gentlemen. . . . Swear by my sword.

Ghost (beneath). Swear.

Ham. Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?
A worthy pioneer ! " ^^

Understand that as he says this his teeth chatter, *' pale as his
shirt, his knees knocking each other." Intense anguish ends
with a kind of laughter, which is nothing else than a spasm.
Thenceforth Hamlet speaks as though he had a continuous nerv-
ous attack. His madness is feigned, I admit; but his mind, as a
door whose hinges are twisted, swings and bangs with every
wind with a mad haste and with a discordant noise. He has no
need to search for the strange ideas, apparent incoherencies, ex-
aggerations, the deluge of sarcasms which he accumulates. He
finds them within him; he does himself no violence, he simply
gives himself up to himself. When he has the piece played
which is to unmask his uncle, he raises himself, lounges on the
floor, lays his head in Ophelia's lap; he addresses the actors, and
comments on the piece to the spectators; his nerves are strung,
his excited thought is like a surging and crackling flame, and
cannot find fuel enough in the multitude of objects surrounding
it, upon all of which it seizes. When the king rises unmasked
and troubled, Hamlet sings, and says, " Would not this, sir, and
a forest of feathers — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with
me — with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fel-
lowship in a cry of players, sir! " ^^ And he laughs terribly, for
he is resolved on murder. It is clear that this state is a disease,
and that the man will not survive it.

In a soul so ardent of thought, and so mighty of feeling,
what is left but disgust and despair? We tinge all nature with
the color of our thoughts; we shape the world according to our

»« " Hamlet," i. 5. ^ Ibid. iii. 3.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 405

own ideas; when our soul is sick, we see nothing but sickness in
the universe:

" This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this
most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firma-
ment, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no
other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in
faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action
how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the
world ! the paragon of animals ! And yet, to me, what is this quintes-
sence of dust ? man delights not me : no, nor woman neither." 3*

Henceforth his thought sullies whatever it touches. He rails
bitterly before Ophelia against marriage and love. Beauty!
Innocence! Beauty is but a means of prostituting innocence:
" Get thee to a nunnery : why wouldst thou be a breeder of sin-
ners? . . . What should such fellows as I do crawling be-
tween earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe
none of us." ^^

When he has killed Polonius by accident, he hardly repents it;
it is one fool less. He jeers lugubriously:

"King. Now Hamlet, where's Polonius?
Hamlet. At supper.
K. At supper! where?

H. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convoca-
tion of politic worms are e'en at him." ^^

And he repeats in five or six fashions these gravedigger jests.
His thoughts already inhabit a churchyard; to this hopeless
philosophy a genuine man is a corpse. Public functions,
honors, passions, pleasures, projects, science, all this is but a
borrowed mask, which death removes, so that people may see
what we are, an evil-smelling and grinning skull. It is this
sight he goes to see by Ophelia's grave. He counts the skulls
which the gravedigger turns up; this was a lawyer's, that a
courtier's. What bows, intrigues, pretensions, arrogance! And
here now is a clown knocking it about with his spade, and play-
ing " at loggats with 'em." Caesar and Alexander have turned
to clay and make the earth fat; the masters of the world have
served to " patch a wall." " Now get you to my lady's cham-
ber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must

•* " Hamlet," ii. 2. •» Ibid. iii. i. •• Ibid. iv. 3.

|o6

TAINE

come; make her laugh at that," " When a man has come to
this, there is nothing left but to die.

This heated imagination, which explains Hamlet's nervous
disease and his moral poisoning, explains also his conduct. If
he hesitates to kill his uncle, it is not from horror of blood or
from our modern scruples. He belongs to the sixteenth cen-
tury. On board ship he wrote the order to behead Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, and to do so without giving them " shriving-
time." He killed Polonius, he caused Ophelia's death, and has
no great remorse for it. If for once he spared his uncle, it was
because he found him praying, and was afraid of sending him to
heaven. He thought he was killing him when he killed Po-
lonius. What his imagination robs him of, is the coolness and
strength to go quietly and with premeditation to plunge a sword
into a breast. He can only do the thing on a sudden sugges-
tion; he must have a moment of enthusiasm; he must think the
king is behind the arras, or else, seeing that he himself is poi-
soned, he must find his victim under his foil's point. He is not
master of his acts ; opportunity dictates them ; he cannot plan a
murder, but must improvise it. A too lively imagination ex-
hausts the will, by the strength of images which it heaps up, and
by the fury of intentness which absorbs it. You recognize in
him a poet's soul, made not to act, but to dream, which is lost in
contemplating the phantoms of its creation, which sees the
imaginary world too clearly to play a part in the real world ; an
artist whom evil chance has made a prince, whom worse chance
has made an avenger of crime, and who, destined by nature for
genius, is condemned by fortune to madness and unhappiness.
Hamlet is Shakespeare, and, at the close of this gallery of por-
traits which have all some features of his own, Shakespeare has
painted himself in the most striking of all.

If Racine or Corneille had framed a psychology, they would
have said, with Descartes: Man is an incorporeal soul, served by
organs, endowed with reason and will, dwelling in palaces or
porticos, made for conversation and society, whose harmonious
and ideal action is developed by discourse and replies, in a world
constructed by logic beyond the realms of time and place.

If Shakespeare had framed a psychology, he would have said,
with Esquirol:^* Man is a nervous machine, governed by a

*' " Hamlet," v. i. celebrated for his endeavors to improve

'*A French physician (1772-1844), the treatment of the insane. — Tr.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 407

mood, disposed to hallucinations, carried away by unbridled
passions, essentially unreasoning, a mixture of animal and poet,
having instead of mind rapture, instead of virtue sensibility,
imagination for prompter and guide, and led at random, by the
most determinate and complex circumstances, to sorrow, crime,
madness, and death.

Section IX. — Characteristics of Shakespeare's Genius

Could such a poet always confine himself to the imitation of
nature? Will this poetical world which is going on in his brain
never break loose from the laws of the world of reality? Is he
not powerful enough to follow his own laws? He is; and the
poetry of Shakespeare naturally finds an outlet in the fantastical.
This is the highest grade of unreasoning and creative imagina-
tion. Despising ordinary logic, it creates another; it unites
facts and ideas in a new order, apparently absurd, in reality
regular; it lays open the land of dreams, and its dreams seem
to us the truth.

When we enter upon Shakespeare's comedies, and even his
half-dramas,^ it is as though we met him on the threshold, like
an actor to whom the prologue is committed, to prevent misun-
derstanding on the part of the public, and to tell them : " Do
not take too seriously what you are about to hear: I am amus-
ing myself. My brain, being full of fancies, desired to array
them, and here they are. Palaces, distant landscapes, transpar-
ent clouds which blot in the morning the horizon with their gray
mists, the red and glorious flames into which the evening sun
descends, white cloisters in endless vista through the ambient
air, grottos, cottages, the fantastic pageant of all human pas-
sions, the irregular sport of unlooked-for adventures — this is the
medley of forms, colors, sentiments, which I let become entan-
gled and confused in my presence, a many-tinted skein of glis-
tening silks, a slender arabesque, whose sinuous curves, crossing
and mingled, bewilder the mind by the whimsical variety of their
infinite complications. Don't regard it as a picture. Don't
look for a precise composition, a sole and increasing interest,
the skilful management of a well-ordered and congruous plot.

» " Twelfth Night." " As You Like " Cymbeline," " Merchant of Venice,"
it," " Tempest," " Winter's Tale," etc., etc

4o8 TAINE

I have tales and novels before rae which I am cutting up into
scenes. Never mind the finis, I am amusing myself on the
road. It is not the end of the journey which pleases me, but
the journey itself. Is there any need in going so straight and
quick? Do you only care to know whether the poor mer-
chant of Venice will escape Shylock's knife? Here are two
happy lovers, seated under the palace walls on a calm night;
wouldn't you like to listen to the peaceful reverie which arises
like a perfume from the bottom of their hearts?

" * How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bankt
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold :
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold' stf
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

(Enter musicians.y'i
Come, ho ! and wake Diana with a hymn :
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
Jessica. I am never merry when I hear sweet music* •

" Have I not the right, when I see the big laughing face of a
clownish servant, to stop near him, see him gesticulate, frolic,
gossip, go through his hundred pranks and his hundred gri-
maces, and treat myself to the comedy of his spirit and gayety ?
Two fine gentlemen pass by. I hear the rolling fire of their
metaphors, and I follow their skirmish of wit. Here in a corner
is the artless, arch face of a young wench. Do you forbid me to
linger by her, to watch her smiles, her sudden blushes, the child-
ish pout of her rosy lips, the coquetry of her pretty motions ?
You are in a great hurry if the prattle of this fresh and musical
voice can't stop you. Is it no pleasure to view this succession
of sentiments and faces? Is your fancy so dull that you must
have the mighty mechanism of a geometrical plot to shake
it? My sixteenth century playgoers were easier to move. A
sunbeam that had lost its way on an old wall, a foolish song

• " Merchant of Venice," v. i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 409

thrown into the middle of a drama, occupied their mind as well
as the blackest of catastrophes. After the horrible scene in which
Shylock brandished his butcher's knife before Antonio's bare
breast, they saw just as willingly the petty household wrangle,
and the amusing bit of raillery which ends the piece. Like soft
moving water, their soul rose and sank in an instant to the level
of the poet's emotion, and their sentiments readily flowed in the
bed he had prepared for them. They let him stray here and
there on his journey, and did not forbid him to make two voy-
ages at once. They allowed several plots in one. If but the
slightest thread united them it was sufficient. Lorenzo eloped
with Jessica, Shylock was frustrated in his revenge, Portia's
suitors failed in the test imposed upon them ; Portia, disguised
as a doctor of laws, took from her husband the ring which he
had promised never to part with ; these three or four comedies,
disunited, mingled, were shuffled and unfolded together, like
an unknotted skein in which threads of a hundred colors are
entwined. Together with diversity, my spectators allowed im-
probability. Comedy is a slight winged creature, which flutters
■from dream to dream, whose wings you would break if you
held it captive in the narrow prison of common-sense. Do not
press its fictions too hard; do not probe their contents. Let
them float before your eyes like a charming swift dream. Let
the fleeting apparition plunge back into the bright misty land
from whence it came. For an instant it deluded you ; let it
suffice. It is sweet to leave the world of realities behind you ;
the mind rests amidst impossibilities. We are happy when
delivered from the rough chains of logic, to wander amongst
strange adventures, to live in sheer romance, and know that we
are living there. I do not try to deceive you, and make you
believe in the world where I take you. A man must disbelieve
it in order to enjoy it. We must give ourselves up to illusion,
and feel that we are giving ourselves up to it. We must smile
as we listen. We smile in " The Winter's Tale " when Her-
mione descends from her pedestal, and when Leontes discovers
his wife in the statue, having believed her to be dead. We smile
in "Cymbeline" when we see the lone cavern in which the young
princes have lived like savage hunters. Improbability deprives
emotions of their sting. The events interest or touch us without
making us suffer. At the very moment when sympathy is too

4IO TAINE

intense, we remind ourselves that it is all a fancy. They become
like distant objects, whose distance softens their outline, and
wraps them in a luminous veil of blue air. Your true comedy is
an opera. We listen to sentiments without thinking too much
of plot. We follow the tender or gay melodies without reflecting
that they interrupt the action. We dream elsewhere on hearing
music ; here I bid you dream on hearing verse."

Then the speaker of the prologue retires, and the actors come
on.

"As You Like It " is a caprice.^ Action there is none ; in-
terest barely ; likelihood still less. And the whole is charming.
Two cousins, princes' daughters, come to a forest with a court
clown, Celia disguised as a shepherdess, Rosalind as a boy.
They find here the old duke, Rosalind's father, who, driven
out of his duchy, lives with his friends like a philosopher and a
hunter. They find amorous shepherds, who with songs and
prayers pursue intractable shepherdesses. They discover or
they meet with lovers who become their husbands. Suddenly
it is announced that the wicked Duke Frederick, who had
usurped the crown, has just retired to a cloister, and restored
the throne to the old exiled duke. Everyone gets married,
everyone dances, everything ends with a " rustic revelry."
Where is the pleasantness of these puerilities? First, the fact
of its being puerile; the absence of the serious is refreshing.
There are no events, and there is no plot. We gently follow the
easy current of graceful or melancholy emotions, which takes
us away and moves us about without wearying. The place adds
to the illusion and charm. It is an autumn forest, in which the
sultry rays permeate the blushing oak leaves, or the half-stripped
ashes tremble and smile to the feeble breath of evening. The
lovers wander by brooks that " brawl " under antique roots.
As you listen to them you see the slim birches, whose cloak of
lace grows glossy under the slant rays of the sun that gilds
them, and the thoughts wander down the mossy vistas in which
their footsteps are not heard. What better place could be
chosen for the comedy of sentiment and the play of heart-
fancies? Is not this a fit spot in which to listen to love-talk?
Someone has seen Orlando, Rosalind's lover, in this glade ; she

* In English, a word is wanting to what in music is called a capriccio.
express the French " fantaisie " used Tennyson calls the " Princess " a med-
by M. Taine, in describing this scene: ley, but it i« ambiguous.— Ts.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 411

hears it and blushes. " Alas the day ! . . . What did he,
when thou sawest him? What said he? How looked he?
Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for
me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and
when shalt thou see him again ? " Then, with a lower voice,
somewhat hesitating : " Looks he as freshly as he did the day
he wrestled ? " She is not yet exhausted : " Do you not know
I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. Sweet, say
on." * One question follows another, she closes the mouth of
her friend, who is ready to answer. At every word she jests,
but agitated, blushing, with a forced gayety ; her bosom heaves,
and her heart beats. Nevertheless she is calmer when Orlando
comes ; bandies words with him ; sheltered under her disguise,
she makes him confess that he loves Rosalind. Then she plagues
him, like the frolic, the wag, the coquette she is. " Why, how
now, Orlando, where have you been all this while? You a
lover ? " Orlando repeats that he loves Rosalind, and she pleases
herself by making him repeat it more than once. She sparkles
with wit, jests, mischievous pranks ; pretty fits of anger, feigned
sulks, bursts of laughter, deafening babble, engaging caprices.
*' Come, woo me, woo me ; for now I am in a holiday humor,
and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now,
an I were your very, very Rosalind ? " And every now and then
she repeats with an arch smile, " And I am your Rosalind ; am I
not your Rosalind ? " ^ Orlando protests that he would die.
Die! Who ever thought of dying for love? Leander? He took
one bath too many in the Hellespont ; so poets have said he
died for love. Troilus ? A Greek broke his head with a club ;
so poets have said he died for love. Come, come, Rosalind will
be softer. And then she plays at marriage with him, and makes
Celia pronounce the solemn words. She irritates and torments
her pretended husband; tells him all the whims she means to
indulge in, all the pranks she will play, all the teasing he will
have to endure. The retorts come one after another like fire-
works. At every phrase we follow the looks of these sparkling
eyes, the curves of this laughing mouth, the quick movements of
this supple figure. It is a bird's petulance and volubility. " O
coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how
many fathom deep I am in love." Then she provokes her cousin

^" As You Like It," iii. 2. ^ Ibid. iv. i.

412

TAINE

Celia, sports with her hair, calls her by every woman's name.
Antitheses without end, words all a-jumble, quibbles, pretty
exaggerations, word-racket; as you listen, you fancy it is the
warbling of a nightingale. The trill of repeated metaphors, the
melodious roll of the poetical gamut, the summer-warbling
rustling under the foliage, change the piece into a veritable
opera. The three lovers end by chanting a sort of trio. The
first throws out a fancy, the others take it up. Four times this
strophe is renewed ; and the symmetry of ideas, added to the
jingle of the rhymes, makes of a dialogue a concerto of love:

" Phebe. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

Silvius. It is to be all made of sighs and tears ;
And so am I for Phebe.

P. And I for Ganymede.

Orlando. And I for Rosalind.

Rosalind. And I for no woman. . . .

S. It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion, and all made of wishes.
All adoration, duty, and observance.
All humbleness, all patience and impatience.
All purity, all trial, all observance;
And so I am for Phebe.

P. And so am I for Ganymede.

O. And so am I for Rosalind.

R. And so am I for no woman." ®

The necessity of singing is so urgent that a minute later songf
break out of themselves. The prose and the conversation end
in lyric poetry. We pass straight on into these odes. We do
not find ourselves in a new country. We feel the emotion and
foolish gayety as if it were a holiday. We see the graceful
couple whom the song of the two pages brings before us, pass-
ing in the misty light " o'er the green corn-field," amid the hum
of sportive insects, on the finest day of the flowering spring-
time. Unlikelihood grows natural, and we are not astonished
when we see Hymen leading the two brides by the hand to give
them to their husbands.

Whilst the young folk sing, the old folk talk. Their life also
is a novel, but a sad one. Shakespeare's delicate soul, bruised
by the shocks of social life, took refuge in contemplations of soli-

• " As You Like It," v. 2,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 413

tary life. To forget the strife and annoyances of the world, he
must bury himself in a wide silent forest, and

" Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Loose and neglect the creeping hours of time." ''

We look at the bright images which the sun carves on the white
beech-boles, the shade of trembling leaves flickering on the thick
moss, the long waves of the summit of the trees ; then the sharp
sting of care is blunted ; we suffer no more, simply remembering
that we suffered once ; we feel nothing but a gentle misanthropy,
and being renewed, we are the better for it. The old duke is
happy in his exile. Solitude has given him rest, delivered him
from flattery, reconciled him to nature. He pities the stags
which he is obliged to hunt for food :

" Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools.
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored." »

Nothing sweeter than this mixture of tender compassion,
dreamy philosophy, delicate sadness, poetical complaints, and
rustic songs. One of the lords sings .

" Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho ! sing, heigh-ho ! unto the green holly :
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly !
This life is most jolly." ^

Amongst these lords is found a soul that suffers more, Jacques
the melancholy, one of Shakespeare's best-loved characters, a
transparent mask behind which we perceive the face of the poet.
He is sad because he is tender ; he feels the contact of things
too keenly, and what leaves others indifferent, makes him weep.^**

^ " As You Like It," ii. 7. of Moliere. It is the contrast between

• Ibid. ii. I. a misanthrope through reasoning and

• Ibid. ii. 7. one through imagination.
" Compare Jacques with the Alceste

414

TAINE

He does not scold, he is sad ; he does not reason, he is moved ;
he has not the combative spirit of a reforming moraUst ; his soul
is sick and weary of life. Impassioned imagination leads quickly
to disgust. Like opium, it excites and shatters. It leads man
to the loftiest philosophy, then lets him down to the whims of a
child. Jacques leaves other men abruptly, and goes to the quiet
nooks to be alone. He loves his sadness, and would not ex-
change it for joy. Meeting Orlando, he says :

" Rosalind is your love's name?
Orlando. Yes, just.
Jacques. I do not like her name." ^^

He has the fancies of a nervous woman. He is scandalized be-
cause Orlando writes sonnets on the forest trees. He is eccen-
tric, and finds subjects of grief and gayety where others would
see nothing of the sort :

" A fool, a fool ! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool ; a miserable world !
As I do live by food, I met a fool ;
Who laid him dovirn and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a; motley fool. . . ."

Jacques hearing him moralize in such a manner begins to laugh
" sans intermission " that a fool could be so meditative :

*' O noble fool ; a worthy fool ! Motley's the only wear. . . .

0 that I were a fool !

1 am ambitious for a motley coat." 12

The next minute he returns to his melancholy dissertations,
bright pictures whose vivacity explains his character, and be-
trays Shakespeare, hiding under his name :

" All the world's a stage.
And all the men and women merely players :
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

M " As You Like It," iii. 2. " Ibid. ii. y.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 415

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined.

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut.

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon.

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice.

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all.

That ends this strange eventful history.

In second childishness and mere oblivion.

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." ^^

" As you Like it " is a half dream. " Midsummer Night's
Dream " is a complete one.

The scene, buried in the far-off mist of fabulous antiquity,
carries us back to Theseus, Duke of Athens, who is preparing
his palace for his marriage with the beautiful queen of the Ama-
zons. The style, loaded with contorted images, fills the mind
with strange and splendid visions, and the airy elf-world divert
the comedy into the fairy-land from whence it sprung.

Love is still the theme: of all sentiments, is it not the greatest
fancy-weaver? But love is not heard here in the charming
prattle of Rosalind ; it is glaring, like the season of the year.
It does not brim over in slight conversations, in supple and
skipping prose; it breaks forth into big rhyming odes, dressed
in magnificent metaphors, sustained by impassioned accents,
such as a warm night, odorous and star-spangled, inspires in a
poet and a lover. Lysander and Hermia agree to meet.

" Lysander. To-morrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass.
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal.
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.

Hermia. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie. . . .
There my Lysander and myself shall meet." ^*
»» «• As You Like It," ii. 7. »* " Midsummer Night's Dream," i. i.

4i6 TAINE

They get lost, and fall asleep, wearied, under the trees. Puck
squeezes in the youth's eyes the juice of a magic flower, and
changes his heart. Presently, when he awakes, he will become
enamored of the first woman he sees. Meanwhile Demetrius,
Hermia's rejected lover, wanders with Helena, whom he rejects,
in the solitary wood. The magic flower changes him in turn,
he now loves Helena. The lovers flee and pursue one another,
beneath the lofty trees, in the calm night. We smile at their
transports, their complaints, their ecstasies, and yet we join in
them. This passion is a dream, and yet it moves us. It is like
those airy webs which we find at morning on the crest of the
hedgerows where the dew has spread them, and whose weft
sparkles like a jewel-casket. Nothing can be more fragile, and
nothing more graceful. The poet sports with emotions; he
mingles, confuses, redoubles, interweaves them ; he twines and
untwines these loves like the mazes of a dance, and we see the
noble and tender figures pass by the verdant bushes, beneath the
radiant eyes of the stars, now wet with tears, now bright with
rapture. They have the abandonment of true love, not the
grossness of sensual love. Nothing causes us to fall from the
ideal world in which Shakespeare conducts us. Dazzled by
beauty, they adore it, and the spectacle of their happiness, their
emotion, and their tenderness, is a kind of enchantment.

Above these two couples flutters and hums the swarm of elves
and fairies. They also love. Titania, their queen, has a young
boy for her favorite, son of an Indian king, of whom Oberon,
her husband, wishes to deprive her. They quarrel, so that the
elves creep for fear into the acorn cups, in the golden primroses.
Oberon, by way of vengeance, touches Titania's sleeping eyes
with the magic flower, and thus on waking the nimblest and
most charming of the fairies finds herself enamored of a stupid
blockhead with an ass's head. She kneels before him ; she sets
on his " hairy temples a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers":

" And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty floweret's eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail." ^'^

She calls round her all her fairy attendants ;

*• " Midsummer Night's Dream," iv. i.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 417

*' Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes ;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. . . s
Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye;
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently." *'

It was necessary, for her love brayed horribly, and to all the
offers of Titania, replied with a petition for hay. What can be
sadder and sweeter than this irony of Shakespeare? What
raillery against love, and what tenderness for love ! The senti-
ment is divine; its object unworthy. The heart is ravished, the
eyes blind. It is a golden butterfly, fluttering in the mud ; and
Shakespeare, whilst painting its misery, preserves all its beauty :

" Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. . . .
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. . . ,
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist ; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee ! how I dote on thee ! " ^^

At the return of morning, when

" The eastern gate, all fiery red.
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams.
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams," ^^

the enchantment ceases, Titania awakes on her couch of wild
thyme and drooping violets. She drives the monster away; her
recollections of the night are effaced in a vague twilight:

"These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds." ^^

•• " Midsummer Night's Dream," iii. 1. >• Ibid. iii. 2.

" Ibid. Iv. I. »• Ibid. iv. i.

4i8 TAINE

And the fairies

" Go seek some dew drops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear." 20

Such is Shakespeare's fantasy, a sHght tissue of bold inventions,
of ardent passions, melancholy mockery, dazzling poetry, such as
one of Titania's elves would have made. Nothing could be more
like the poet's mind than these nimble genii, children of air and
flame, whose flights " compass the globe " in a second, who glide
over the foam of the waves and skip between the atoms of the
winds. Ariel flies, an invisible songster, around shipwrecked
men to console them, discovers the thoughts of traitors, pursues
the savage beast Caliban, spreads gorgeous visions before lovers,
and does all in a lightning-flash :

" Where the bee sucks, there suck I :
In a cowslip's bell I lie. . . .
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. . . .
I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat." 21

Shakespeare glides over things on as swift a wing, by leaps as
sudden, with a touch as delicate.

What a soul ! what extent of action, and what sovereignty of
an unique faculty ! what diverse creations, and what persistence
of the same impress ! There they all are united, and all marked
by the same sign, void of will and reason, governed by mood,
imagination, or pure passion, destitute of the faculties contrary
to those of the poet, dominated by the corporeal type which his
painter's eyes have conceived, endowed by the habits of mind
and by the vehement sensibility which he finds in himself.^^ Go
through the groups, and you will only discover in them divers
forms and divers states of the same power. Here, a herd of
brutes, dotards, and gossips, made up of a mechanical imagina-
tion ; further on, a company of men of wit, animated by a gay
and foolish imagination; then, a charming swarm of women
whom their delicate imagination raises so high, and their self-
forgetting love carries so far; elsewhere a band of villains, hard-
ened by unbridled passions, inspired by artistic rapture ; in the

*» "Midsummer Night's Dream," ii. i. and in the moral world. It is what
" " Tempest," v. i. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire calls unity of

** There is the same law in the organic composition.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 419

centre a mournful train of grand characters, whose excited
brain is filled with sad or criminal visions, and whom an inner
destiny urges to murder, madness, or death. Ascend one stage,
and contemplate the whole scene : the aggregate bears the same
mark as the details. The drama reproduces promiscuously
uglinesses, basenesses, horrors, unclean details, profligate and
ferocious manners, the whole reality of life just as it is, when
it is unrestrained by decorum, common-sense, reason, and duty.
Comedy, led through a phantasmagoria of pictures, gets lost in
the likely and the unlikely, with no other connection but the
caprice of an amused imagination, wantonly disjointed and
romantic, an opera without music, a concerto of melancholy
and tender sentiments, which bears the mind into the supernat-
ural world, and brings before our eyes on its fairy-wings the
genius which has created it. Look now. Do you not see the
poet behind the crowd of his creations? They have heralded
his approach. They have all shown somewhat of him. Ready,
impetuous, impassioned, delicate, his genius is pure imagination,
touched more vividly and by slighter things than ours. Hence
his style, blooming with exuberant images, loaded with exag-
gerated metaphors, whose strangeness is like incoherence, whose
wealth is superabundant, the work of a mind, which, at the least
incitement, produces too much and takes too wide leaps. Hence
this involuntary psychology, and this terrible penetration, which
instantaneously perceiving all the effects of a situation, and all
the details of a character, concentrates them in every response,
and gives to a figure a relief and a coloring which create illusion.
Hence our emotion and tenderness. We say to him, as Desde-
mona to Othello: " I love thee for the battles, sieges, fortunes
thou hast passed, and for the distressful stroke that thy youth
suffered."

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