CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

By WILLIAM HAZLITT

With an Introduction by SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH

INTRODUCTION

The book here included among The World's Classics made its firstappearance as an octavo volume of xxiv + 352 pages, with the title-page:

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, By William Hazlitt. London:Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21 Piccadilly, 1817. 

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, andof a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from thecounty of Antrim to Tipperary. His father migrated, at nineteen, tothe University of Glasgow (where he was contemporary with AdamSmith), graduated in 1761 or thereabouts, embraced the principles ofthe Unitarians, joined their ministry, and crossed over to England;being successively pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, atMarshfield in Gloucestershire, and at Maidstone. At Wisbech hemarried Grace Loftus, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Of themany children granted to them but three survived infancy. William, the youngest of these, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, on April10, 1778. From Maidstone the family moved in 1780 to Bandon, Co. Cork; and from Bandon in 1783 to America, where Mr. Hazlitt preachedbefore the new Assembly of the States-General of New Jersey, lectured at Philadelphia on the Evidences of Christianity, foundedthe First Unitarian Church at Boston, and declined a proffereddiploma of D. D. In 1786-7 he returned to England and took up hisabode at Wem, in Shropshire. His elder son, John, was now old enoughto choose a vocation, and chose that of a miniature-painter. Thesecond child, Peggy, had begun to paint also, amateurishly in oils. William, aged eight--a child out of whose recollection all memoriesof Bandon and of America (save the taste of barberries) soon faded--took his education at home and at a local school. His fatherdesigned him for the Unitarian ministry. 

The above dry recital contains a number of facts not to beoverlooked as predisposing causes in young Hazlitt's later career;as that he was Irish by blood, intellectual by geniture, born intodissent, and a minority of dissent, taught at home to value thethings of the mind, in early childhood a nomad, in later childhood'privately educated'--a process which (whatever its merits) is aptto develop the freak as against the citizen, the eccentric and lop-sided as against what is proportionate and disciplined. YoungHazlitt's cleverness and his passion for individual liberty werealike precocious. In 1791, at the age of thirteen, he composed andpublished in The Shrewsbury Chronicle a letter of protest againstthe calumniators of Dr. Priestley: a performance which, for thegravity of its thought as for the balance of its expression, woulddo credit to ninety-nine grown men in a hundred. At fifteen, hisfather designing that he should enter the ministry, he proceeded tothe Unitarian College, Hackney; where his master, a Mr. Corrie, found him 'rather backward in many of the ordinary points oflearning and, in general, of a dry, intractable understanding', thetruth being that the lad had set his heart against the ministry, aspiring rather to be a philosopher--in particular a politicalphilosopher. At fourteen he had conceived ('in consequence of adispute one day, after coming out of Meeting, between my father andan old lady of the congregation, respecting the repeal of theCorporation and Test Acts and the limits of religious toleration')the germ of his Project for a New Theory of Civil and CriminalLegislation, published in his maturer years (1828), but drafted andscribbled upon constantly in these days, to the neglect of histheological studies. His father, hearing of the project, forbade himto pursue it. 

Thus four or five years at the Unitarian College were wasted, or, atleast, had been spent without apparent profit; and in 1798 youngHazlitt, aged close upon twenty, unsettled in his plans as in hisprospects, was at home again and (as the saying is) at a loose end;when of a sudden his life found its spiritual apocalypse. It camewith the descent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge upon Shrewsbury, to takeover the charge of a Unitarian Congregation there. 

He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was topreach; and Mr. Rowe [the abdicating minister], who himself wentdown to the coach in a state of anxiety and expectation to look forthe arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering thedescription, but a round-faced man, in a short black coat (like ashooting-jacket) which hardly seemed to have been made for him, butwho seemed to be talking at a great rate to his fellow-passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarce returned to give an account of hisdisappointment when the round-faced man in black entered, anddissipated all doubts on the subject by beginning to talk. He didnot cease while he stayed; nor has he since. 

Of his meeting with Coleridge, and of the soul's awakening thatfollowed, Hazlitt has left an account (My First Acquaintance withPoets) that will fascinate so long as English prose is read. 'Somehow that period [the time just after the French Revolution] wasnot a time when NOTHING WAS GIVEN FOR NOTHING. The mind opened, anda softness might be perceived coming over the heart of individualsbeneath "the scales that fence" our self-interest. ' As Wordsworthwrote:

 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven. 

It was in January, 1798, that I was one morning before daylight, towalk ten miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such anotherwalk as this cold, raw, comfortless one in the winter of 1798. Il-y-a des impressions que ni le tems ni les circonstances peuventeffacer. Dusse-je vivre des siecles entiers, le doux tems de majeunesse ne peut renaitre pour moi, ni s'effacer jamais dans mamemoire. When I got there the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, andwhen it was done Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, 'And hewent up into the mountain to pray, HIMSELF, ALONE. ' As he gave outthis text, his voice 'rose like a stream of distilled perfumes', andwhen he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the soundshad echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayermight have floated in solemn silence through the universe . .. Thepreacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying withthe wind. 

Coleridge visited Wem, walked and talked with young Hazlitt, andwound up by inviting the disciple to visit him at Nether Stowey inthe Quantocks. Hazlitt went, made acquaintance with William andDorothy Wordsworth, and was drawn more deeply under the spell. Inlater years as the younger man grew cantankerous and the elderdeclined, through opium, into a 'battered seraph', there was anestrangement. But Hazlitt never forgot his obligation. 

My soul has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and unsatisfed; my heart, shut up in theprison-house of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it everfind, a heart to speak to; but that my understanding also did notremain dumb and brutish, or at length found a language thatexpresses itself, I owe to Coleridge. 

Coleridge, sympathizing with the young man's taste for philosophyand abetting it, encouraged him to work. Upon a treatise which sawthe light in 1805, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Beingan Argu-ment in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the HumanMind. Meantime, however, --the ministry having been renounced--thequestion of a vocation became more and more urgent, and after longindecision Hazlitt packed his portmanteau for London, resolved tolearn painting under his brother John, who had begun to doprosperously. John taught him some rudiments, and packed him off toParis, where he studied for some four months in the Louvre andlearned to idolize Bonaparte. This sojourn in Paris--writes hisgrandson and biographer--'was one long beau jour to him'. Hisallusions to it are constant. He returned to England in 1803, withformed tastes and predilections, very few of which he afterwardsmodified, much less forsook. 

We next find him making a tour as a portrait-painter through thenorth of England, where (as was to be expected) he attempted aportrait of Wordsworth, among others. 'At his desire', saysWordsworth, 'I sat to him, but as he did not satisfy himself or myfriends, the unfinished work was destroyed. ' He was more successfulwith Charles Lamb, whom he painted (for a whim) in the dress of aVenetian Senator. As a friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth he hadinevitably made acquaintance with the Lambs. He first met Lamb atone of the Godwins' strange evening parties and the two becameintimate friends and fellow theatre-goers. 

Hazlitt's touchy and difficult temper suspended this inintimacy inlater years, though to the last Lamb regarded him as 'one of thefinest and wisest spirits breathing'; but for a while it wasunclouded. At the Lambs', moreover, Hazlitt made acquaintance with aDr. Stoddart, owner of some property at Winterslow near Salisbury, and his sister Sarah, a lady wearing past her first youth but yetaddicted to keeping a number of beaux to her string. Hazlitt, attracted to her from the first, --he made a gloomy lover and hissubsequent performances in that part were unedifying--for some yearsplayed walking gentleman behind the leading suitors with whom MissStoddart from time to time diversified her comedy. But Mary Lamb wason his side; the rivals on one excuse or another went their ways orwere dismissed; and on May 1, 1808, the marriage took place at St. Andrew's Church, Holborn. Lamb attended, foreboding little happinessto the couple from his knowledge of their temperaments. Seven yearsafter (August 9, 1815), he wrote to Southey. 'I was at Hazlitt'smarriage, and had like to have been turned out several times duringthe ceremony. Anything awful makes me laugh. ' The marriage was not ahappy one. 

Portrait-painting had been abandoned long before this. The Essay onthe Principles of Human Action (1805) had fallen, as the saying is, stillborn from the press: Free Thoughts on Public Affairs (1806) hadearned for the author many enemies but few readers: and a treatiseattacking Malthus's theory of population (1807) had allured thepublic as little. A piece of hack-work, The Eloquence of the BritishSenate, also belongs to 1807: A New and Improved Grammar of theEnglish Tongue for the use of Schools to 1810. The nutriment to bederived from these works, again, was not of the sort thatreplenishes the family table, and in 1812 Hazlitt left Winterslow(where he had been quarrelling with his brother-in-law), settled inLondon in 19 York Street, Westminster--once the home of John Milton--and applied himself strenuously to lecturing and journalism. Hislectures, on the English Philosophers, were delivered at the RussellInstitution: his most notable journalistic work, on politics and thedrama, was done for The Morning Chronicle, then edited by Mr. Perry. From an obituary notice of Hazlitt contributed many years later(October 1830) to an old magazine I cull the following:

He obtained an introduction, about 1809 or 1810, to the late Mr. Perry, of The Morning Chronicle, by whom he was engaged to reportParliamentary debates, write original articles, etc. He alsofurnished a number of theatrical articles on the acting of Kean. Asa political writer he was apt to be too violent; though in generalhe was not a man of violent temper. He was also apt to conceivestrong and rooted prejudices against individuals on very slightgrounds. But he was a good-hearted man . .. Private circumstances, itis said, contributed to sour his temper and to produce a peculiarexcitement which too frequently held its sway over him. Mr. Hazlittand Mr. Perry did not agree. Upon one occasion, to the greatannoyance of some of his colleagues, he preferred his wine with afew friends to taking his share in reporting an important discussionin the House of Commons. Added to this, he either did not understandthe art of reporting, or would not take the trouble to master it. .. . His original articles required to be carefully looked after, to weedthem of strong expressions. 

Hazlitt's reputation grew, notwithstanding. In 1814 Jeffrey enlistedhim to write for The Edinburgh Review, and in 1815 he began tocontribute to Leigh Hunt's paper The Examiner. In February 1816 hereviewed Schlegel's 'Lectures on Dramatic Literature' for theEdinburgh, and this would seem to have started him on his Charactersof Shakespeare's Plays. Throughout 1816 he wrote at it sedulously. 

The MS. , when completed, was accepted by Mr. C. H. Reynell, of 21, Piccadilly, the head of a printing establishment of old and highstanding; and it was agreed that 100 pounds should be paid to theauthor for the entire copyright . .. The volume was published by Mr. Hunter of St. Paul's Churchyard; and the author was gratified by theprompt insertion of a complimentary notice in the Edinburgh Review. The whole edition went off in six weeks; and yet it was a half-guinea book. ' [Footnote: Memoirs of William Hazlitt, by W. CarewHazlitt, 1887. Vol. I, p. 228. ]

The reader, who comes to it through this Introduction, will note twopoints to qualify his appreciation of the book as a specimen ofHazlitt's critical writing, and a third that helps to account forits fortune in 1817. It was the work of a man in his thirty-eighthyear, and to that extent has maturity. But it was also his firstserious essay, after many false starts, in an art and in a stylewhich, later on, he brilliantly mastered. The subject is mostpleasantly handled, and with an infectious enthusiasm: the readerfeels all the while that his sympathy with Shakespeare is beingstimulated and his understanding promoted: but it scarcely yieldseither the light or the music which Hazlitt communicates in hislater and more famous essays. 

For the third point, Hazlitt had made enemies nor had ever beencautious of making them: and these enemies were now the 'upper dog'. Indeed, they always had been: but the fall of Napoleon, which almostbroke his heart, had set them in full cry, and they were not clementin their triumph. It is not easy, even on the evidence before us, torealize that a number of the finest spirits in this country, nursedin the hopes of the French Revolution, kept their admiration ofNapoleon, the hammer of old bad monarchies, down to the end andbeyond it: that Napier, for example, historian of the war in thePeninsula and as gallant a soldier as ever fought under Wellington, when--late in life, as he lay on his sofa tortured by an old wound--news was brought him of Napoleon's death, burst into a storm ofweeping that would not be controlled. On Hazlitt, bound up heart andsoul in what he regarded as the cause of French and European libertyand enlightenment, Waterloo, the fall of the Emperor, therestoration of the Bourbons, fell as blows almost stupefying, andhis indignant temper charged Heaven with them as wrongs not onlypublic but personal to himself. 

In the writing of the Characters he had found a partial drug fordespair. But his enemies, as soon as might be, took hold of theanodyne. Like the Bourbons, they had learnt nothing and forgottennothing. 

The Quarterly Review moved--for a quarterly--with something likeagility. A second edition of the book had been prepared, and wasselling briskly, when this Review launched one of its diatribesagainst the work and its author. 

Taylor and Hessey [the booksellers] told him subsequently that theyhad sold nearly two editions in about three months, but after theQuarterly review of them came out they never sold another copy. 'Mybook, ' he said, 'sold well--the first edition had gone off in sixweeks--till that review came out. I had just prepared a secondedition--such was called for--but then the Quarterly told the publicthat I was a fool and a dunce, and more, that I was an evil disposedperson: and the public, supposing Gifford to know best, confessedthat it had been a great ass to be pleased where it ought not to be, and the sale completely stopped. 

The review, when examined, is seen to be a smart essay in detractionwith its arguments ad invidiam very deftly inserted. But as a pieceof criticism it misses even such points as might fairly have beenmade against the book; as, for example, that it harps toomonotonously upon the tense string of enthusiasm. Hazlitt could nothave applied to this work the motto--'For I am nothing if notcritical'--which he chose for his View of the English Stage in 1818;the Characters being anything but 'critical' in the sense thereconnoted. Jeffrey noted this in the forefront of a sympatheticarticle in the Edinburgh. 

It is, in truth, rather an encomium on Shakespeare than a commentaryor a critique on him--and it is written more to show extraordinarylove than extraordinary knowledge of his productions . .. The authoris not merely an admirer of our great dramatist, but an Idolater ofhim; and openly professes his idolatry. We have ourselves too greata leaning to the same superstition to blame him very much for hiserror: and though we think, of course, that our own admiration is, on the whole, more discriminating and judicious, there are not manypoints on which, especially after reading his eloquent exposition ofthem, we should be much inclined to disagree with him. 

The book, as we have already intimated, is written less to tell thereader what Mr. H. KNOWS about Shakespeare or his writings than whathe FEELS about them--and WHY he feels so--and thinks that all whoprofess to love poetry should feel so likewise. .. . He seems prettygenerally, indeed, in a state of happy intoxication--and hasborrowed from his great original, not indeed the force or brilliancyof his fancy, but something of its playfulness, and a large share ofhis apparent joyousness and self-indulgence in its exercise. It isevidently a great pleasure to him to be fully possessed with thebeauties of his author, and to follow the impulse of hisunrestrained eagerness to impress them upon his readers. 

Upon this, Hazlitt, no doubt, would have commented, 'Well, and whynot? I choose to understand drama through my FEELINGS. ' To surrenderto great art was, for him, and defnitely, a part of the critic'sfunction--' A genuine criticism should, as I take it, repeat thecolours, the light and shade, the soul and body of a work. ' Thiscontention, for which Hazlitt fought all his life and foughtbrilliantly, is familiar to us by this time as the gage flung todidactic criticism by the 'impressionist', and in our day, in thegeneration just closed or closing, with a Walter Pater or a JulesLemaitre for challenger, the betting has run on the impressionist. But in 1817 Hazlitt had all the odds against him when he stood upand accused the great Dr. Johnson of having made criticism 'a kindof Procrustes' bed of genius, where he might cut down imagination tomatter-of-fact, regulate the passions according to reason, andtranslate the whole into logical diagrams and rhetoricaldeclamation'. 

Thus he says of Shakespeare's characters, in contradiction to whatPope had observed, and to what every one else feels, that eachcharacter is a species, instead of being an individual. He in factfound the general species or DIDACTIC form in Shakespeare'scharacters, which was all he sought or cared for; he did not findthe individual traits, or the DRAMATIC distinctions whichShakespeare has engrafted on this general nature, because he felt nointerest in them. 

Nothing is easier to prove than that in this world nobody everinvented anything. So it may be proved that, Johnson having written'Great thoughts are always general', Blake had countered him byaffirming (long before Hazlitt) that 'To generalize is to be anidiot. To particularize is the great distinction of merit': even asit may be demonstrable that Charles Lamb, in his charming personalchat about the Elizabethan dramatists and his predilections amongthem, was already putting into practice what he did not trouble totheorize. But when it comes to setting out the theory, grasping theworth of the principle, stating it and fighting for it, I thinkHazlitt may fairly claim first share in the credit. 

He did not, when he wrote the following pages, know very much, evenabout his subject. As his biographer says:

My grandfather came to town with very little book-knowledge . .. Hehad a fair stock of ideas . .. But of the volumes which form thefurniture of a gentleman's library he was egregiously ignorant . .. Mr. Hazlitt's resources were emphatically internal; from his ownmind he drew sufficient for himself. 

Now while it may be argued with plausibility, and even with truth, that the first qualification of a critic--at any rate of a critic ofpoetry--is, as Jeffrey puts the antithesis, to FEEL rather than toKNOW; while to be delicately sensitive and sympathetic counts morethan to be well-informed; nevertheless learning remains respectable. He who can assimilate it without pedantry (which is another word forintellectual indigestion) actually improves and refines his feelingswhile enlarging their scope and at the same time enlarging hisresources of comparison and illustration. Hazlitt, who had somethinglike a genius for felicitous, apposite quotation, and steadilybettered it as he grew older, would certainly have said 'Yes' tothis. At all events learning impresses; it carries weight: andtherefore it has always seemed to me that he showed small tact, ifsome modesty, by heaping whole pages of Schlegel into his ownpreface. 

For Schlegel [Footnote: Whose work, by the way, cries aloud for anew and better English translation. ] was not only a learned criticbut a great one: and this mass of him--cast with seemingcarelessness, just here, into the scales--does give the reader, aswith a jerk, the sensation that Hazlitt has, of his rashness, invited that which suddenly throws him up in the air to kick thebeam: that he has provoked a comparison which exhibits his ownperformance as clever but flimsy. 

Nor is this impression removed by his admirer the late Mr. Ireland, who claims for the Characters that, 'although it professes to bedramatic criticism, it is in reality a discourse on the philosophyof life and human nature, more suggestive than many approvedtreatises expressly devoted to that subject'. Well, for the secondhalf of this pronouncement--constat. 'You see, my friend, ' writesGoldsmith's Citizen of the World, 'there is nothing so ridiculousthat it has not at some time been said by some philosopher. ' But forthe first part, while a priori Mr. Ireland ought to be right--sinceHazlitt, as we have seen, came to literary criticism by the road ofphilosophical writing--I confess to finding very little philosophyin this book. 

Over and above the gusto of the writing, which is infectious enough, and the music of certain passages in which we foretaste the masterlyprose of Hazlitt's later Essays, I find in the book three meritswhich, as I study it, more and more efface that first impression offlimsiness. 

(1) To begin with, Hazlitt had hold of the right end of the stick. He really understood that Shakespeare was a dramatic craftsman, studied him as such, worshipped him for his incomparable skill indoing what he tried, all his life and all the time, to do. In thesedays much merit must be allowed to a Shakespearian critic who takeshis author steadily as a dramatist and not as a philosopher, or apropagandist, or a lawyer's clerk, or a disappointed lover, or forhis acquaintance with botany, politics, cyphers, Christian Science, any of the thousand and one things that with their rival degrees ofintrinsic importance agree in being, for Shakespeare, nihil ad rem. 

(2) Secondly, Hazlitt always treats Shakespeare as, in my opinion, he deserves to be treated; that is, absolutely and as 'patrone andnot compare' among the Elizabethans. I harbour an ungracious doubtthat he may have done so in 1816-17 for the simple and sufficientreason that he had less than a bowing acquaintance with the otherElizabethan dramatists. But he made their acquaintance in duecourse, and discussed them, yet never (so far as I recall) committedthe error of ranking them alongside Shakespeare. With all love forthe memory of Lamb, and with all respect for the memory ofSwinburne, I hold that these two in their generations, both soakedin enjoyment of the Elizabethan style--an enjoyment derivative fromShakespeare--did some disservice to criticism by classing them withhim in the light they borrow; whenas truly he differs from them inkind and beyond any reach of degrees. One can no more estimateShakespeare's genius in comparison with this, that, or the otherman's of the sixteenth century, than Milton's in comparison with anyone's of the seventeenth. Some few men are absolute and can only bejudged absolutely. 

(3) For the third merit--if the Characters be consideredhistorically--what seems flimsy in them is often a promise of whathas since been substantiated; what seems light and almost juvenilein the composition of this man, aged thirty-nine, gives the scent onwhich nowadays the main pack of students is pursuing. No one not afool can read Johnson's notes on Shakespeare without respect or failto turn to them again with an increased trust in his common-sense, as no one not a fool can read Hazlitt without an equal sense that hehas the root of the matter, or of the spirit which is the matter. 

ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH 1916

TO CHARLES LAMB, ESQ. 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCBIBED AS A MARK OF OLD FRIENDSHIP AND LASTINGESTEEM

BY THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS

PREFACE CYMBELINE MACBETH JULIUS CAESAR OTHELLO TIMON OF ATHENS CORIOLANUS TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA HAMLET THE TEMPEST THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ROMEO AND JULIET LEAR RICHARD II HENRY IV IN TWO PARTS HENRY V HENRY VI IN THREE PARTS RICHARD III HENRY VIII KING JOHN TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA THE MERCHANT OF VENICE THE WINTER'S TALE ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING AS YOU LIKE IT THE TAMING OF THE SHREW MEASURE FOR MEASURE THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR THE COMEDY OF ERRORS DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE POEMS AND SONNETS

PREFACE

It is observed by Mr. Pope, that 'If ever any author deserved thename of an ORIGINAL, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not hisart so immediately from the fountains of nature; it proceededthrough AEgyptian strainers and channels, and came to him notwithout some tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration:indeed, he is not so much an imitator, as an instrument of nature;and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that shespeaks through him. 

His CHARACTERS are so much nature herself, that it is a sort ofinjury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. Those ofother poets have a constant resemblance, which shows that theyreceived them from one another, and were but multipliers of the sameimage: each picture, like a mock-rainbow, is but the reflection of areflection. But every single character in Shakespeare, is as much anindividual, as those in life itself; it is as impossible to find anytwo alike; and such, as from their relation or affinity in anyrespect appear most to be twins, will, upon comparison, be foundremarkably distinct. To this life and variety of character, we mustadd the wonderful preservation of it; which is such throughout hisplays, that had all the speeches been printed without the very namesof the persons, I believe one might have applied them with certaintyto every speaker. '

The object of the volume here offered to the public, is toillustrate these remarks in a more particular manner by a referenceto each play. A gentleman of the name of Mason, [Footnote: Hazlittis here mistaken. The work to which he alludes, 'Remarks on some ofthe Characters of Shakespeare, by the Author of Observations onModern Gardening', was by Thomas Whately, Under-Secretary of Stateunder Lord North. Whately died in 1772, and the Essay was publishedposthumously in 1785 [2nd edition, 1808; 3rd edition, with a prefaceby Archbishop Whately, the author's nephew, 1839]. Hazlitt confusedT. Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening with George Mason'sEssay on Design in Gardening, and the one error led to the other. ]the author of a Treatise on Ornamental Gardening (not Mason thepoet), began a work of a similar kind about forty years ago, but heonly lived to finish a parallel between the characters of Macbethand Richard III which is an exceedingly ingenious piece ofanalytical criticism. Richardson's Essays include but a few ofShakespeare's principal characters. The only work which seemed tosupersede the necessity of an attempt like the present wasSchlegel's very admirable Lectures on the Drama, which give by farthe best account of the plays of Shakespeare that has hithertoappeared. The only circumstances in which it was thought notimpossible to improve on the manner in which the German critic hasexecuted this part of his design, were in avoiding an appearance ofmysticism in his style, not very attractive to the English reader, and in bringing illustrations from particular passages of the playsthemselves, of which Schlegel's work, from the extensiveness of hisplan, did not admit. We will at the same time confess, that somelittle jealousy of the character of the national understanding wasnot without its share in producing the following undertaking, for'we were piqued' that it should be reserved for a foreign critic togive 'reasons for the faith which we English have in Shakespeare'. Certainly, no writer among ourselves has shown either the sameenthusiastic admiration of his genius, or the same philosophicalacuteness in pointing out his characteristic excellences. As we havepretty well exhausted all we had to say upon this subject in thebody of the work, we shall here transcribe Schlegel's generalaccount of Shakespeare, which is in the following words:

'Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent for thedelineation of character as Shakespeare's. It not only grasps thediversities of rank, sex, and age, down to the dawnings of infancy;not only do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truth; not onlydoes he transport himself to distant ages and foreign nations, andpourtray in the most accurate manner, with only a few apparentviolations of costume, the spirit of the ancient Romans, of theFrench in their wars with the English, of the English themselvesduring a great part of their history, of the Southern Europeans (inthe serious part of many comedies) the cultivated society of thattime, and the former rude and barbarous state of the North; hishuman characters have not only such depth and precision that theycannot be arranged under classes, and are inexhaustible, even inconception:--no--this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens thegates of the magical world of spirits; calls up the midnight ghost;exhibits before us his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries;peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs:--and these beings, existing only in imagination, possess such truth and consistency, that even when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts theconviction, that if there should be such beings, they would soconduct themselves. In a word, as he carries with him the mostfruitful and daring fancy into the kingdom of nature, --on the otherhand, he carries nature into the regions of fancy, lying beyond theconfines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing theextraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of, in such intimatenearness. 

'If Shakespeare deserves our admiration for his characters, he isequally deserving of it for his exhibition of passion, taking thisword in its widest signification, as including every mentalcondition, every tone from indifference or familiar mirth to thewildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of minds; he laysopen to us, in a single word, a whole series of precedingconditions. His passions do not at first stand displayed to us inall their height, as is the case with so many tragic poets, who, inthe language of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal style oflove. He paints, in a most inimitable manner, the gradual progressfrom the first origin. "He gives", as Lessing says, "a livingpicture of all the most minute and secret artifices by which afeeling steals into our souls; of all the imperceptible advantageswhich it there gains; of all the stratagems by which every otherpassion is made subservient to it, till it becomes the sole tyrantof our desires and our aversions. " Of all poets, perhaps, he alonehas pourtrayed the mental diseases, --melancholy, delirium, lunacy, --with such inexpressible, and, in every respect, definite truth, thatthe physician may enrich his observations from them in the samemanner as from real cases. 

'And yet Johnson has objected to Shakespeare, that his pathos is notalways natural and free from affectation. There are, it is true, passages, though, comparatively speaking, very few, where his poetryexceeds the bounds of true dialogue, where a too soaringimagination, a too luxuriant wit, rendered the complete dramaticforgetfulness of himself impossible. With this exception, thecensure originates only in a fanciless way of thinking, to whicheverything appears unnatural that does not suit its own tameinsipidity. Hence, an idea has been formed of simple and naturalpathos, which consists in exclamations destitute of imagery, andnowise elevated above every-day life. But energetical passionselectrify the whole of the mental powers, and will, consequently, inhighly favoured natures, express themselves in an ingenious andfigurative manner. It has been often remarked, that indignationgives wit; and, as despair occasionally breaks out into laughter, itmay sometimes also give vent to itself in antithetical comparisons. 

'Besides, the rights of the poetical form have not been dulyweighed. Shakespeare, who was always sure of his object, to move ina sufficiently powerful manner when he wished to do so, hasoccasionally, by indulging in a freer play, purposely moderated theimpressions when too painful, and immediately introduced a musicalalleviation of our sympathy. He had not those rude ideas of his artwhich many moderns seem to have, as if the poet, like the clown inthe proverb, must strike twice on the same place. An ancientrhetorician delivered a caution against dwelling too long on theexcitation of pity; for nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears;and Shakespeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim, withoutknowing it. 

"The objection, that Shakespeare wounds our feelings by the opendisplay of the most disgusting moral odiousness, harrows up the mindunmercifully, and tortures even our senses by the exhibition of themost insupportable and hateful spectacles, is one of much greaterimportance. He has never, in fact, varnished over wild and blood-thirsty passions with a pleasing exterior, --never clothed crime andwant of principle with a false show of greatness of soul; and inthat respect he is every way deserving of praise. Twice he haspourtrayed downright villains; and the masterly way in which he hascontrived to elude impressions of too painful a nature, may be seenin Iago and Richard the Third. The constant reference to a petty andpuny race must cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately for hisart, Shakespeare lived in an age extremely susceptible of noble andtender impressions, but which had still enough of the firmnessinherited from a vigorous olden time not to shrink back with dismayfrom every strong and violent picture. We have lived to seetragedies of which the catastrophe consists in the swoon of anenamoured princess. If Shakespeare falls occasionally into theopposite extreme, it is a noble error, originating in the fulness ofa gigantic strength: and yet this tragical Titan, who storms theheavens, and threatens to tear the world from off its hinges; who, more terrible than AEschylus, makes our hair stand on end, andcongeals our blood with horror, possessed, at the same time, theinsinuating loveliness of the sweetest poetry. He plays with lovelike a child; and his songs are breathed out like melting sighs. Heunites in his genius the utmost elevation and the utmost depth; andthe most foreign, and even apparently irreconcilable propertiessubsist in him peaceably together. The world of spirits and naturehave laid all their treasures at his feet. In strength a demi-god, in profundity of view a prophet, in all-seeing wisdom a protectingspirit of a higher order, he lowers himself to mortals, as ifunconscious of his superiority: and is as open and unassuming as achild. 

'Shakespeare's comic talent is equally wonderful with that which hehas shown in the pathetic and tragic: it stands on an equalelevation, and possesses equal extent and profundity. All that Ibefore wished was, not to admit that the former preponderated. He ishighly inventive in comic situations and motives. It will be hardlypossible to show whence he has taken any of them; whereas, in theserious part of his drama, he has generally laid hold of somethingalready known. His comic characters are equally true, various, andprofound, with his serious. So little is he disposed to caricature, that we may rather say many of his traits are almost too nice anddelicate for the stage, that they can only be properly seized by agreat actor, and fully understood by a very acute audience. Not onlyhas he delineated many kinds of folly; he has also contrived toexhibit mere stupidity in a most diverting and entertaining manner. 'Vol. Ii, p. 145. 

We have the rather availed ourselves of this testimony of a foreigncritic in behalf of Shakespeare, because our own countryman, Dr. Johnson, has not been so favourable to him. It may be said ofShakespeare, that 'those who are not for him are against him': forindifference is here the height of injustice. We may sometimes, inorder 'to do a great right, do a little wrong'. An over-strainedenthusiasm is more pardonable with respect to Shakespeare than thewant of it; for our admiration cannot easily surpass his genius. Wehave a high respect for Dr. Johnson's character and understanding, mixed with something like personal attachment: but he was neither apoet nor a judge of poetry. He might in one sense be a judge ofpoetry as it falls within the limits and rules of prose, but not asit is poetry. Least of all was he qualified to be a judge ofShakespeare, who 'alone is high fantastical'. Let those who have aprejudice against Johnson read Boswell's Life of him: as those whomhe has prejudiced against Shakespeare should read his Irene. We donot say that a man to be a critic must necessarily be a poet: but tobe a good critic, he ought not to be a bad poet. Such poetry as aman deliberately writes, such, and such only will he like. Dr. Johnson's Preface to his edition of Shakespeare looks like alaborious attempt to bury the characteristic merits of his authorunder a load of cumbrous phraseology, and to weigh his excellencesand defects in equal scales, stuffed full of 'swelling figures andsonorous epithets'. Nor could it well be otherwise; Dr. Johnson'sgeneral powers of reasoning overlaid his critical susceptibility. All his ideas were cast in a given mould, in a set form: they weremade out by rule and system, by climax, inference, and antithesis:--Shakespeare's were the reverse. Johnson's understanding dealt onlyin round numbers: the fractions were lost upon him. He reducedeverything to the common standard of conventional propriety; and themost exquisite refinement or sublimity produced an effect on hismind, only as they could be translated into the language of measuredprose. To him an excess of beauty was a fault; for it appeared tohim like an excrescence; and his imagination was dazzled by theblaze of light. His writings neither shone with the beams of nativegenius, nor reflected them. The shifting shapes of fancy, therainbow hues of things, made no impression on him: he seized only onthe permanent and tangible. He had no idea of natural objects but'such as he could measure with a two-fool rule, or tell upon tenfingers': he judged of human nature in the same way, by mood andfigure: he saw only the definite, the positive, and the practical, the average forms of things, not their striking differences--theirclasses, not their degrees. He was a man of strong common sense andpractical wisdom, rather than of genius or feeling. He retained theregular, habitual impressions of actual objects, but he could notfollow the rapid flights of fancy, or the strong movements ofpassion. That is, he was to the poet what the painter of still lifeis to the painter of history. Common sense sympathizes with theimpressions of things on ordinary minds in ordinary circumstances:genius catches the glancing combinations presented to the eye offancy, under the influence of passion. It is the province of thedidactic reasoner to take cognizance of those results of humannature which are constantly repeated and always the same, whichfollow one another in regular succession, which are acted upon bylarge classes of men, and embodied in received customs, laws, language, and institutions; and it was in arranging, comparing, andarguing on these kind of general results, that Johnson's excellencelay. But he could not quit his hold of the commonplace andmechanical, and apply the general rule to the particular exception, or show how the nature of man was modified by the workings ofpassion, or the infinite fluctuations of thought and accident. Hencehe could judge neither of the heights nor depths of poetry. Nor isthis all; for being conscious of great powers in himself, and thosepowers of an adverse tendency to those of his author, he would befor setting up a foreign jurisdiction over poetry, and makingcriticism a kind of Procrustes' bed of genius, where he might cutdown imagination to matter-of-fact, regulate the passions accordingto reason, and translate the whole into logical diagrams andrhetorical declamation. Thus he says of Shakespeare's characters, incontradiction to what Pope had observed, and to what every one elsefeels, that each character is a species, instead of being anindividual. He in fact found the general species or DIDACTIC form inShakespeare's characters, which was all he sought or cared for; hedid not find the individual traits, or the DRAMATIC distinctionswhich Shakespeare has engrafted on this general nature, because hefelt no interest in them. Shakespeare's bold and happy flights ofimagination were equally thrown away upon our author. He was notonly without any particular fineness of organic sensibility, aliveto all the 'mighty world of ear and eye', which is necessary to thepainter or musician, but without that intenseness of passion, which, seeking to exaggerate whatever excites the feelings of pleasure orpower in the mind, and moulding the impressions of natural objectsaccording to the impulses of imagination, produces a genius and ataste for poetry. According to Dr. Johnson, a mountain is sublime, or a rose is beautiful; for that their name and definition imply. But he would no more be able to give the description of Dover cliffin Lear, or the description of flowers in The Winter's Tale, than todescribe the objects of a sixth sense; nor do we think he would haveany very profound feeling of the beauty of the passages herereferred to. A stately common-place, such as Congreve's descriptionof a ruin in The Mourning Bride, would have answered Johnson'spurpose just as well, or better than the first; and anindiscriminate profusion of scents and hues would have interferedless with the ordinary routine of his imagination than Perdita'slines, which seem enamoured of their own sweetness--

 Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath. --

No one who does not feel the passion which these objects inspire cango along with the imagination which seeks to express that passionand the uneasy sense of delight accompanying it by something stillmore beautiful, and no one can feel this passionate love of naturewithout quick natural sensibility. To a mere literal and formalapprehension, the inimitably characteristic epithet, 'violets DIM', must seem to imply a defect, rather than a beauty; and to any one, not feeling the full force of that epithet, which suggests an imagelike 'the sleepy eye of love', the allusion to 'the lids of Juno'seyes' must appear extravagant and unmeaning. Shakespeare's fancylent words and images to the most refined sensibility to nature, struggling for expression: his descriptions are identical with thethings themselves, seen through the fine medium of passion: stripthem of that connexion, and try them by ordinary conceptions andordinary rules, and they are as grotesque and barbarous as youplease!--By thus lowering Shakespeare's genius to the standard ofcommon-place invention, it was easy to show that his faults were asgreat as his beauties; for the excellence, which consists merely ina conformity to rules, is counterbalanced by the technical violationof them. Another circumstance which led to Dr. Johnson'sindiscriminate praise or censure of Shakespeare, is the verystructure of his style. Johnson wrote a kind of rhyming prose, inwhich he was as much compelled to finish the different clauses ofhis sentences, and to balance one period against another, as thewriter of heroic verse is to keep to lines of ten syllables withsimilar terminations. He no sooner acknowledges the merits of hisauthor in one line than the periodical revolution in his stylecarries the weight of his opinion completely over to the side ofobjection, thus keeping up a perpetual alternation of perfectionsand absurdities. 

We do not otherwise know how to account for such assertions as thefollowing: 'In his tragic scenes, there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedypleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy, for thegreater part, by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct. ' Yet after saying that 'his tragedy wasskill', he affirms in the next page, 'His declamations or setspeeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power ofnature: when he endeavoured, like other tragic writers, to catchopportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what theoccasion demanded, to show how much his stores of knowledge couldsupply, he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of hisreader. ' Poor Shakespeare! Between the charges here brought againsthim, of want of nature in the first instance, and of want of skillin the second, he could hardly escape being condemned. And again, 'But the admirers of this great poet have most reason to complainwhen he approaches nearest to his highest excellence, and seemsfully resolved to sink them in dejection, or mollify them withtender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love. What he does best, he soon ceases to do. Heno sooner begins to move than he counteracts himself; and terror andpity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted bysudden frigidity. ' In all this, our critic seems more bent onmaintaining the equilibrium of his style than the consistency ortruth of his opinions. --If Dr. Johnson's opinion was right, thefollowing observations on Shakespeare's plays must be greatlyexaggerated, if not ridiculous. If he was wrong, what has been saidmay perhaps account for his being so, without detracting from hisability and judgement in other things. 

It is proper to add, that the account of the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAMhas appeared in another work. 

April 15, 1817

CYMBELINE

CYMBELINE is one of the most delightful of Shakespeare's historicalplays. It may be considered as a dramatic romance, in which the moststriking parts of the story are thrown into the form of a dialogue, and the intermediate circumstances are explained by the differentspeakers, as occasion renders it necessary. The action is lessconcentrated in consequence; but the interest becomes more aerialand refined from the principle of perspective introduced into thesubject by the imaginary changes of scene as well as by the lengthof time it occupies. The reading of this play is like going [on?] ajourney with some uncertain object at the end of it, and in whichthe suspense is kept up and heightened by the long intervals betweeneach action. Though the events are scattered over such an extent ofsurface, and relate to such a variety of characters, yet the linkswhich bind the different interests of the story together are neverentirely broken. The most straggling and seemingly casual incidentsare contrived in such a manner as to lead at last to the mostcomplete development of the catastrophe. The ease and consciousunconcern with which this is effected only makes the skill morewonderful. The business of the plot evidently thickens in the lastact; the story moves forward with increasing rapidity at every step;its various ramifications are drawn from the most distant points tothe same centre; the principal characters are brought together, andplaced in very critical situations; and the fate of almost everyperson in the drama is made to depend on the solution of a singlecircumstance--the answer of Iachimo to the question of Imogenrespecting the obtaining of the ring from Posthumus. Dr. Johnson isof opinion that Shakespeare was generally inattentive to the windingup of his plots. We think the contrary is true; and we might cite inproof of this remark not only the present play, but the conclusionof LEAR, of ROMEO AND JULIET, of MACBETH, of OTHELLO, even ofHAMLET, and of other plays of less moment, in which the last act iscrowded with decisive events brought about by natural and strikingmeans. 

The pathos in CYMBELINE is not violent or tragical, but of the mostpleasing and amiable kind. A certain tender gloom o'erspreads thewhole. Posthumus is the ostensible hero of the piece, but itsgreatest charm is the character of Imogen. Posthumus is onlyinteresting from the interest she takes in him, and she is onlyinteresting herself from her tenderness and constancy to herhusband. It is the peculiar characteristic of Shakespeare'sheroines, that they seem to exist only in their attachment toothers. They are pure abstractions of the affections. We think aslittle of their persons as they do themselves, because we are letinto the secrets of their hearts, which are more important. We aretoo much interested in their affairs to stop to look at their faces, except by stealth and at intervals. No one ever hit the trueperfection of the female character, the sense of weakness leaning onthe strength of its affections for support, so well as Shakespeare--no one ever so well painted natural tenderness free from affectationand disguise--no one else ever so well showed how delicacy andtimidity, when driven to extremity, grow romantic and extravagant;for the romance of his heroines (in which they abound) is only anexcess of the habitual prejudices of their sex, scrupulous of beingfalse to their vows, truant to their affections, and taught by theforce of feeling when to forgo the forms of propriety for theessence of it. His women were in this respect exquisite logicians;for there is nothing so logical as passion. They knew their ownminds exactly; and only followed up a favourite idea, which they hadsworn to with their tongues, and which was engraven on their hearts, into its untoward consequences. They were the prettiest little setof martyrs and confessors on record. Cibber, in speaking of theearly English stage, accounts for the want of prominence andtheatrical display in Shakespeare's female characters from thecircumstance, that women in those days were not allowed to play theparts of women, which made it necessary to keep them a good deal inthe background. Does not this state of manners itself, whichprevented their exhibiting themselves in public, and confined themto the relations and charities of domestic life, afford a truerexplanation of the matter? His women are certainly very unlikestage-heroines; the reverse of tragedy-queens. 

We have almost as great an affection for Imogen as she had forPosthumus; and she deserves it better. Of all Shakespeare's womenshe is perhaps the most tender and the most artless. Her incredulityin the opening scene with Iachimo, as to her husband's infidelity, is much the same as Desdemona's backwardness to believe Othello'sjealousy. Her answer to the most distressing part of the picture isonly, 'My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain. ' Her readiness to pardonIachimo's false imputations and his designs against herself, is agood lesson to prudes; and may show that where there is a realattachment to virtue, it has no need to bolster itself up with anoutrageous or affected antipathy to vice. The scene in which Pisaniogives Imogen his master's letter, accusing her of incontinency onthe treacherous suggestions of Iachimo, is as touch-ing as it ispossible for any thing to be:

Pisanio. What cheer, Madam? Imogen. False to his bed! What is it tobe false? To lie in watch there, and to think on him? To weep 'twixtclock and clock? If sleep charge nature, To break it with a fearfuldream of him, And cry myself awake? That's false to's bed, is it?Pisanio. Alas, good lady! Imogen. I false? thy conscience witness, Iachimo, Thou didst accuse him of incontinency, Thou then look'dstlike a villain: now methinks, Thy favour's good enough. Some jay ofItaly, Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him: Poor I amstale, a garment out of fashion, And for I am richer than to hang byth' walls, I must be ript; to pieces with me. Oh, Men's vows arewomen's traitors. All good seeming, By thy revolt, oh husband, shallbe thought Put on for villany: not born where't grows, But worn abait for ladies. Pisanio. Good madam, hear me--Imogen. Talk thytongue weary, speak: I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear, Therein false struck, can take no greater wound, Nor tent to bottomthat. --

When Pisanio, who had been charged to kill his mistress, puts her ina way to live, she says:

 Why, good fellow, What shall I do the while? Where bide? How live? Or in my life what comfort, when I am Dead to my husband?

Yet when he advises her to disguise herself in boy's clothes, andsuggests 'a course pretty and full in view', by which she may'happily be near the residence of Posthumus', she exclaims:

 Oh, for such means, Though peril to my modesty, not death on't, I would adventure. 

And when Pisanio, enlarging on the consequences, tells her she mustchange

 --Fear and niceness, The handmaids of all women, or more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage, Ready in gibes, quick answer'd, saucy, and As quarrellous as the weasel--

she interrupts him hastily;

 Nay, be brief; I see into thy end, and am almost A man already. 

In her journey thus disguised to Milford Haven, she loses her guideand her way; and unbosoming her complaints, says beautifully:

 --My dear Lord, Thou art one of the false ones; now I think on thee, My hunger's gone; but even before, I was At point to sink for food. 

She afterwards finds, as she thinks, the dead body of Posthumus, andengages herself as a foot-boy to serve a Roman officer, when she hasdone all due obsequies to him whom she calls her former master:

 --And when With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave, And on it said a century of pray'rs, Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh, And leaving so his service, follow you, So please you entertain me. 

Now this is the very religion of love. She all along relies littleon her personal charms, which she fears may have been eclipsed bysome painted jay of Italy; she relies on her merit, and her merit isin the depth of her love, her truth and constancy. Our admiration ofher beauty is excited with as little consciousness as possible onher part. There are two delicious descriptions given of her, onewhen she is asleep, and one when she is supposed dead. Arviragusthus addresses her:

 --With fairest flowers, While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack The flow'r that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, which not to slander, Out-sweeten'd not thy breath. 

The yellow Iachimo gives another thus, when he steals into her bed-chamber:

 --Cytherea, How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily, And whiter than the sheets I That I might touch-- But kiss, one kiss--Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o' th' taper Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids, To see th' enclosed lights now canopied Under the windows, white and azure, laced With blue of Heav'ns own tinct--on her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip. 

There is a moral sense in the proud beauty of this last image, arich surfeit of the fancy, --as that well--known passage beginning, 'Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained, and prayed me oftforbearance, ' sets a keener edge upon it by the inimitable pictureof modesty and self-denial. 

The character of Cloten, the conceited, booby lord, and rejectedlover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at presentobsolete, is drawn with great humour and knowledge of character. Thedescription which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her--'Whose love-suit hath been to me as fearful as a siege'--is enoughto cure the most ridiculous lover of his folly. It is remarkablethat though Cloten makes so poor a figure in love, he is describedas assuming an air of consequence as the Queen's son in a council ofstate, and with all the absurdity of his person and manners, is notwithout shrewdness in his observations. So true is it that folly isas often owing to a want of proper sentiments as to a want of under-standing! The exclamation of the ancient critic, 'O Menander andNature, which of you copied from the other?' would not be misappliedto Shakespeare. 

The other characters in this play are represented with great truthand accuracy, and as it happens in most of the author's works, thereis not only the utmost keeping in each separate character; but inthe casting of the different parts, and their relation to oneanother, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we may observein the gradations of colour in a picture. The striking and powerfulcontrasts in which Shakespeare abounds could not escape observation;but the use he makes of the principle of analogy to reconcile thegreatest diversities of character and to maintain a continuity offeeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. InCymbeline, for instance, the principal interest arises out of theunalterable fidelity of Imogen to her husband under the most tryingcircumstances. Now the other parts of the picture are filled up withsubordinate examples of the same feeling, variously modified bydifferent situations, and applied to the purposes of virtue or vice. The plot is aided by the amorous importunities of Cloten, by thetragical determination of Iachimo to conceal the defeat of hisproject by a daring imposture: the faithful attachment of Pisanio tohis mistress is an affecting accompaniment to the whole; theobstinate adherence to his purpose in Bellarius, who keeps the fateof the young princes so long a secret in resentment for theungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigiblewickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence ofCymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to thesame point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt thanobserved; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind ofthe reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind ofthe author, not from design, but from the force of naturalassociation, a particular train of feeling suggesting differentinflections of the same predominant principle, melting into, andstrengthening one another, like chords in music. 

The characters of Bellarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, and theromantic scenes in which they appear, are a fine relief to theintrigues and artificial refinements of the court from which theyare banished. Nothing can surpass the wildness and simplicity of thedescriptions of the mountain life they lead. They follow thebusiness of huntsmen, not of shepherds; and this is in keeping withthe spirit of adventure and uncertainty in the rest of the story, and with the scenes in which they are afterwards called on to act. How admirably the youthful fire and impatience to emerge from theirobscurity in the young princes is opposed to the cooler calculationsand prudent resignation of their more experienced counsellor! Howwell the disadvantages of knowledge and of ignorance, of solitudeand society, are placed against each other!

 Guiderius. Out of your proof you speak: we poor unfledg'd Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest; nor know not What air's from home. Haply this life is best, If quiet life is best; sweeter to you That have a sharper known; well corresponding With your stiff age: but unto us it is A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed, A prison for a debtor, that not dares To stride a limit. 

 Arviragus. What should we speak of When we are old as you? When we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December! How, In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing. We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey, Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat: Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, And sing our bondage freely. 

The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardlysatisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passionof the mind for unknown good, but experience. --The forest of Ardenin As You Like It can alone compare with the mountain scenes inCymbeline: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one fromthe enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in theother! Shakespeare not only lets us into the minds of hischaracters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describesfrom the feelings of their imaginary inhabitants. He at the sametime preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and givesall their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatestthings, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus thegallant sportsmen in Cymbeline have to encounter the abruptdeclivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along alevel path. The deer in Cymbeline are only regarded as objects ofprey, 'The game's a-foot', &c. --with Jaques they are fine subjectsto moralize upon at leisure, 'under the shade of melancholy boughs'. 

We cannot take leave of this play, which is a favourite with us, without noticing some occasional touches of natural piety andmorality. We may allude here to the opening of the scene in whichBellarius instructs the young princes to pay their orisons toheaven:

 --See, Boys! this gate Instructs you how t' adore the Heav'ns; and bows you To morning's holy office. 

 Guiderius. Hail, Heav'n!

 Arviragus. Hail, Heav'n!

 Bellarius. Now for our mountain-sport, up to yon hill. 

What a grace and unaffected spirit of piety breathes in thispassage! In like manner, one of the brothers says to the other, whenabout to perform the funeral rites to Fidele:

 Nay, Cadwall, we must lay his head to the east; My Father hath a reason for't. 

Shakespeare's morality is introduced in the same simple, unobtrusivemanner. Imogen will not let her companions stay away from the chaseto attend her when sick, and gives her reason for it:

 Stick to your journal course; THE BREACH OF CUSTOM IS BREACH OF ALL!

When the Queen attempts to disguise her motives for procuring thepoison from Cornelius, by saying she means to try its effects on'creatures not worth the hanging', his answer conveys at once atacit reproof of her hypocrisy, and a useful lesson of humanity:

 --Your Highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart. 

MACBETH

 The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. 

MACBETH and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are usually reckonedShakespeare's four principal tragedies. Lear stands first for theprofound intensity of the passion; Macbeth for the wildness of theimagination and the rapidity of the action; Othello for theprogressive interest and powerful alternations of feeling; Hamletfor the refined development of thought and sentiment. If the forceof genius shown in each of these works is astonishing, their varietyis not less so. They are like different creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. Thisdistinctness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence oftruth and nature. Shakespeare's genius alone appeared to possess theresources of nature. He is 'your only tragedy-maker'. His plays havethe force of things upon the mind. What he represents is broughthome to the bosom as a part of our experience, implanted in thememory as if we had known the places, persons, and things of whichhe treats. Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and tragicalevent. It has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all thatthe imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. Thecastle of Macbeth, round which 'the air smells wooingly', and where'the temple-haunting martlet builds', has a real subsistence in themind; the Weird Sisters meet us in person on 'the blasted heath';the 'air-drawn dagger' moves slowly before our eyes; the 'graciousDuncan', the 'blood-boltered Banquo' stand before us; all thatpassed through the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of atittle, through ours. All that could actually take place, and allthat is only pos-sible to be conceived, what was said and what wasdone, the workings of passion, the spells of magic, are broughtbefore us with the same absolute truth and vividness. -Shakespeareexcelled in the openings of his plays: that of Macbeth is the moststriking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting ofthe situations and characters, the bustle, the expectations excited, are equally extraordinary. From the first entrance of the Witchesand the description of them when they meet Macbeth:

 --What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants of th' earth And yet are on't?

the mind is prepared for all that follows. 

This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination itdisplays, and for the tumultuous vehemence of the action; and theone is made the moving principle of the other. The overwhelmingpressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passionwith redoubled force. Macbeth himself appears driven along by theviolence of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm: he reelsto and fro like a drunken man; he staggers under the weight of hisown purposes and the suggestions of others; he stands at bay withhis situation; and from the superstitious awe and breathlesssuspense into which the communications of the Weird Sisters throwhim, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify theirpredictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veilwhich hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not equal to thestruggle with fate and conscience. He now 'bends up each corporalinstrument to the terrible feat'; at other times his heart misgiveshim, and he is cowed and abashed by his success. 'The deed, no lessthan the attempt, confounds him. ' His mind is assailed by the stingsof remorse, and full of 'preternatural solicitings'. His speechesand soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths. In thought he is absent andperplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his ownresolution. His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of hismind. His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his ambition andrevenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassedstate of his feelings. --This part of his character is admirably setoff by being brought in connexion with that of Lady Macbeth, whoseobdurate strength of will and masculine firmness give her theascendancy over her husband's faltering virtue. She at once seizeson the opportunity that offers for the accomplishment of all theirwished-for greatness, and never flinches from her object till all isover. The magnitude of her resolution almost covers the magnitude ofher guilt. She is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fearmore than we hate. She does not excite our loathing and abhorrencelike Regan and Goneril. She is only wicked to gain a great end; andis perhaps more distinguished by her commanding presence of mind andinexorable self-will, which do not suffer her to be diverted from abad purpose, when once formed, by weak and womanly regrets, than bythe hardness of her heart or want of natural affections. Theimpression which her lofty determination of character makes on themind of Macbeth is well described where he exclaims:

 --Bring forth men children only; For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males!

Nor do the pains she is at to 'screw his courage to the sticking-place', the reproach to him, not to be 'lost so poorly in himself', the assurance that 'a little water clears them of this deed', showanything but her greater consistency in depravity. Her strong-nervedambition furnishes ribs of steel to 'the sides of his intent'; andshe is herself wound up to the execution of her baneful project withthe same unshrinking fortitude in crime, that in other circumstancesshe would probably have shown patience in suffering. The deliberatesacrifice of all other considerations to the gaining 'for theirfuture days and nights sole sovereign sway and masterdom', by themurder of Duncan, is gorgeously expressed in her invocation onhearing of 'his fatal entrance under her battlements':

 --Come all you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here: And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage of remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night! And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, hold, hold!--

When she first hears that 'Duncan comes there to sleep' she is soovercome by the news, which is beyond her utmost expectations, thatshe answers the messenger, 'Thou'rt mad to say it': and on receivingher husband's account of the predictions of the Witches, consciousof his instability of purpose, and that her presence is necessary togoad him on to the consummation of his promised greatness, sheexclaims:

 --Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And chastise with me valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal. 

This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumph, thisuncontrollable eagerness of anticipation, which seems to dilate herform and take possession of all her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh-and-blood display of passion, exhibit a strikingcontrast to the cold, abstracted, gratuitous, servile malignity ofthe Witches, who are equally instrumental in urging Macbeth to hisfate for the mere love of mischief, and from a disinterested delightin deformity and cruelty. They are hags of mischief, obscene pandersto iniquity, malicious from their impotence of enjoyment, enamouredof destruction, because they are themselves unreal, abortive, half-existences, and who become sublime from their exemption from allhuman sympathies and contempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbethdoes by the force of passion! Her fault seems to have been an excessof that strong principle of self-interest and family aggrandizement, not amenable to the common feelings of compassion and justice, whichis so marked a feature in barbarous nations and times. A passingreflection of this kind, on the resemblance of the sleeping king toher father, alone prevents her from slaying Duncan with her ownhand. 

In speaking of the character of Lady Macbeth, we ought not to passover Mrs. Siddons's manner of acting that part. We can conceive ofnothing grander. It was something above nature. It seemed almost asif a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere toawe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seatedon her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine; shewas tragedy personified. In coming on in the sleeping-scene, hereyes were open, but their sense was shut. She was like a personbewildered and unconscious of what she did. Her lips movedinvoluntarily--all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. Sheglided on and off the stage like an apparition. To have seen her inthat character was an event in every one's life, not to beforgotten. 

The dramatic beauty of the character of Duncan, which excites therespect and pity even of his murderers, has been often pointed out. It forms a picture of itself. An instance of the author's power ofgiving a striking effect to a common reflection, by the manner ofintroducing it, occurs in a speech of Duncan, complaining of hishaving been deceived in his opinion of the Thane of Cawdor, at thevery moment that he is expressing the most unbounded confidence inthe loyalty and services of Macbeth. 

 There is no art To find the mind's construction in the face: He was a gentleman, on whom I built An absolute trust. O worthiest cousin, [addressing himself to Macbeth] The sin of my ingratitude e'en now Was great upon me, &c. 

Another passage to show that Shakespeare lost sight of nothing thatcould in anyway give relief or heightening to his subject, is theconversation which takes place between Banquo and Fleanceimmediately before the murder-scene of Duncan. 

 Banquo. How goes the night, boy?

 Fleance. The moon is down: I have not heard the clock. 

 Banquo. And she goes down at twelve. 

 Fleance. I take't, tis later, Sir. 

 Banquo. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heav'n, Their candles are all out. -- A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose. 

In like manner, a fine idea is given of the gloomy coming on ofevening, just as Banquo is going to be assassinated. 

 Light thickens and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood. . . . . . Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn. 

Macbeth (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and moresystematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare'splays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constantstruggle between life and death. The action is desperate and thereaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; thetransitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror tothe repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion bringsin its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle againsteach other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos ofstrange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespeare's genius here took its full swing, and trod upon thefurthest bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance willaccount tor the abruptness and violent antitheses of the style, thethroes and labour which run through the expression, and from defectswill turn them into beauties. 'So fair and foul a day I have notseen, ' &c. 'Such welcome and unwelcome news together. ' 'Men's livesare like the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken. ' 'Looklike the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. ' The scenebefore the castle-gate follows the appearance of the Witches on theheath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut offbetimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macduff is rippeduntimely from his mother's womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, afterthe death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant terms, 'To him and all we thirst, ' and when his ghost appears, cries out, 'Avaunt and quit my sight, ' and being gone, he is 'himself again'. Macbeth resolves to get rid of Macduff, that 'he may sleep in spiteof thunder'; and cheers his wife on the doubtful intelligence ofBanquo's taking-off with the encouragement--'Then be thou jocund:ere the bat has flown his cloistered flight; ere to black Hecate'ssummons the shard-born beetle has rung night's yawning peal, thereshall be done--a deed of dreadful note. ' In Lady Macbeth's speech, 'Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't, ' there ismurder and filial piety together, and in urging him to fulfil hisvengeance against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the bloodneither of infants nor old age. The description of the Witches isfull of the same contradictory principle; they 'rejoice when goodkings bleed'; they are neither of the earth nor the air, but both;'they should be women, but their beards forbid it'; they take allthe pains possible to lead Macbeth on to the height of his ambition, only to betray him in deeper consequence, and after showing him allthe pomp of their art, discover their malignant delight in hisdisappointed hopes, by that bitter taunt, 'Why stands Macbeth thusamazedly?' We might multiply such instances everywhere. 

The leading features in the character of Macbeth are strikingenough, and they form what may be thought at first only a bold, rude, Gothic outline. By comparing it with other characters of thesame author we shall perceive the absolute truth and identity whichis observed in the midst of the giddy whirl and rapid career ofevents. Macbeth in Shakespeare no more loses his identity ofcharacter in the fluctuations of fortune or the storm of passion, than Macbeth in himself would have lost the identity of his person. Thus he is as distinct a being from Richard III as it is possible toimagine, though these two characters in common hands, and indeed inthe hands of any other poet, would have been a repetition of thesame general idea, more or less exaggerated. For both are tyrants, usurpers, murderers, both aspiring and ambitious, both courageous, cruel, treacherous. But Richard is cruel from nature andconstitution. Macbeth becomes so from accidental circumstances. Richard is from his birth deformed in body and mind, and naturallyincapable of good. Macbeth is full of 'the milk of human kindness, is frank, sociable, generous. He is tempted to the commission ofguilt by golden opportunities, by the instigations of his wife, andby prophetic warnings. Fate and metaphysical aid conspire againsthis virtue and his loyalty. Richard, on the contrary, needs noprompter, but wades through a series of crimes to the height of hisambition from the ungovernable violence of his temper and a recklesslove of mischief. He is never gay but in the prospect or in thesuccess of his villanies; Macbeth is full of horror at the thoughtsof the murder of Duncan, which he is with difficulty prevailed on tocommit, and of remorse after its perpetration. Richard has nomixture of common humanity in his composition, no regard to kindredor posterity, he owns no fellowship with others, he is 'himselfalone'. Macbeth is not destitute of feelings of sympathy, isaccessible to pity, is even made in some measure the dupe of hisuxoriousness, ranks the loss of friends, of the cordial love of hisfollowers, and of his good name, among the causes which have madehim weary of life, and regrets that he has ever seized the crown byunjust means, since he cannot transmit it to his own posterity:

 For Banquo's issue have I 'fil'd my mind-- For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd, To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings. 

In the agitation of his thoughts, he envies those whom he has sentto peace. 'Duncan is in his grave; after life's fitful fever hesleeps well. ' It is true, he becomes more callous as he plungesdeeper in guilt, 'direness is thus rendered familiar to hisslaughterous thoughts', and he in the end anticipates his wife inthe boldness and bloodiness of his enterprises, while she, for wantof the same stimulus of action, is 'troubled with thick-comingfancies that rob her of her rest', goes mad and dies. 

Macbeth endeavours to escape from reflection on his crimes byrepelling their consequences, and banishes remorse for the past bythe meditation of future mischief. This is not the principle ofRichard's cruelty, which resembles the wanton malice of a fiend asmuch as the frailty of human passion. Macbeth is goaded on to actsof violence and retaliation by necessity; to Richard, blood is apastime. --There are other decisive differences inherent in the twocharacters. Richard may be regarded as a man of the world, aplotting, hardened knave, wholly regardless of everything but hisown ends, and the means to secure them. --Not so Macbeth. Thesuperstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the localscenery and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur tohis character. From the strangeness of the events that surround him, he is full of amazement and fear; and stands in doubt between theworld of reality and the world of fancy. He sees sights not shown tomortal eye, and hears unearthly music. All is tumult and disorderwithin and without his mind; his purposes recoil upon himself, arebroken and disjointed; he is the double thrall of his passions andhis evil destiny. Richard is not a character either of imaginationor pathos, but of pure self-will. There is no conflict of oppositefeelings in his breast. The apparitions which he sees only haunt himin his sleep; nor does he live like Macbeth in a waking dream. Macbeth has considerable energy and manliness of character; but thenhe is 'subject to all the skyey influences'. He is sure of nothingbut the present moment. Richard in the busy turbulence of hisprojects never loses his self-possession, and makes use of everycircumstance that happens as an instrument of his long-reachingdesigns. In his last extremity we can only regard him as a wildbeast taken in the toils: we never entirely lose our concern forMacbeth; and he calls back all our sympathy by that fine close ofthoughtful melancholy:

 My way of life is fallen into the sear, The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, As honour, troops of friends, I must not look to have; But in their stead, curses not loud but deep, Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart Would fain deny and dare not. 

We can conceive a common actor to play Richard tolerably well; wecan conceive no one to play Macbeth properly, or to look like a manthat had encountered the Weird Sisters. All the actors that we haveever seen, appear as if they had encountered them on the boards ofCovent Garden or Drury Lane, but not on the heath at Fores, and asif they did not believe what they had seen. The Witches of Macbethindeed are ridiculous on the modern stage, and we doubt if thefuries of Aeschylus would be more respected. The progress of mannersand knowledge has an influence on the stage, and will in timeperhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch's picking pockets, inthe Beggars' Opera, is not so good a jest as it used to be: by theforce of the police and of philosophy, Lillo's murders and theghosts in Shakespeare will become obsolete. At last there will benothing left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatreor in real life. A question has been started with respect to theoriginality of Shakespeare's Witches, which has been well answeredby Mr. Lamb in his notes to the Specimens of Early Dramatic Poetry:

"Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms in Macbethand the incantations in this play (the Witch of Middleton), which issupposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract muchfrom the originality of Shakespeare. His Witches are distinguishedfrom the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These arecreatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief mightresort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes firstmeet with Macbeth's, he is spellbound. That meeting sways hisdestiny. He can never break the fascination. These Witches can hurtthe body; those have power over the soul. --Hecate in Middleton has ason, a low buffoon: the hags of Shakespeare have neither child oftheir own, nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foulanomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whetherthey have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunderand lightning, and vanish to airy music. This is all we know ofthem. --Except Hecate, they have no names, which heightens theirmysteriousness. The names, and some of the properties whichMiddleton has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sistersare serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the Witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their power too is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies, strifes, 'LIKE A THICK SCURF O'ER LIFE. '

JULIUS CASESAR

JULIUS CAESAR was one of three principal plays by different authors, pitched upon by the celebrated Earl of Halifax to be brought out ina splendid manner by subscription, in the year 1707. The other twowere the King and No King of Fletcher, and Dryden's Maiden Queen. There perhaps might be political reasons for this selection, as faras regards our author. Otherwise, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is notequal, as a whole, to either of his other plays taken from the Romanhistory. It is inferior in interest to Coriolanus, and both ininterest and power to Antony and Cleopatra. It, however, abounds inadmirable and affecting passages, and is remarkable for the profoundknowledge of character, in which Shakespeare could scarcely fail. Ifthere is any exception to this remark, it is in the hero of thepiece himself. We do not much admire the representation here givenof Julius Caesar, nor do we think it answers to the portrait givenof him in his Commentaries. He makes several vapouring and ratherpedantic speeches, and does nothing. Indeed, he has nothing to do. So far, the fault of the character might be the fault of the plot. 

The spirit with which the poet has entered at once into the mannersof the common people, and the jealousies and heartburnings of thedifferent factions, is shown in the first scene, when Flavius andMarullus, tribunes of the people, and some citizens of Rome, appearupon the stage. 

 Flavius. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

 Cobbler. Truly, Sir, ALL that I live by, is the AWL: I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor woman's matters, but with-al, I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. 

 Flavius. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day? Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

 Cobbler. Truly, Sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But indeed. Sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and rejoice in his triumph. 

To this specimen of quaint low humour immediately follows thatunexpected and animated burst of indignant eloquence, put into themouth of one of the angry tribunes. 

 Marullus. Wherefore rejoice!--What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive-bonds his chariot-wheels? Oh you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome! Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The live-long day with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath his banks To hear the replication of your sounds, Made in his concave shores? And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now cull out an holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Begone-- Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague, That needs must light on this ingratitude. 

The well-known dialogue between Brutus and Cassius, in which thelatter breaks the design of the conspiracy to the former, and partlygains him over to it, is a noble piece of high-minded declamation. Cassius's insisting on the pretended effeminacy of Caesar'scharacter, and his description of their swimming across the Tibertogether, 'once upon a raw and gusty day', are among the fineststrokes in it. But perhaps the whole is not equal to the short scenewhich follows when Caesar enters with his train. 

 Brutus. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 

 Cassius. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What has proceeded worthy note to-day. 

 Brutus. I will do so; but look you, Cassius-- The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train. Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being crost in conference by some senators. 

 Cassius. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 

 Caesar. Antonius--

 Antony. Caesar?

 Caesar. Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much; such men are dangerous. 

 Antony. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous; He is a noble Roman, and well given. 

 Caesar. Would he were fatter; but I fear him not: Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much; He is a great observer; and he looks Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music; Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort, As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit, That could be mov'd to smile at any thing. Such men as he be never at heart's ease, Whilst they behold a greater than themselves; And therefore are they very dangerous. I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. 

We know hardly any passage more expressive of the genius ofShakespeare than this. It is as if he had been actually present, hadknown the different characters and what they thought of one another, and had taken down what he heard and saw, their looks, words, andgestures, just as they happened. 

The character of Mark Antony is further speculated upon where theconspirators deliberate whether he shall fall with Caesar. Brutus isagainst it:

 And for Mark Antony, think not of him: For "he can do no more than Caesar's arm, When Caesar's head is off. "

 Cassius. Yet do I fear him: For in th' ingrafted love he bears to Caesar--

 Brutus. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him: If he love Caesar, all that he can do Is to himself, take thought, and die for Caesar: And that were much, he should; for he is giv'n To sports, to wildness, and much company. 

 Trebonius. There is no fear in him; let him not die. For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. 

They were in the wrong; and Cassius was right. 

The honest manliness of Brutus is, however, sufficient to find outthe unfitness of Cicero to be included in their enterprise, from hisaffected egotism and literary vanity. 

 O, name him not: let us not break with him; For he will never follow any thing, That other men begin. 

His scepticism as to prodigies and his moralizing on the weather--"This disturbed sky is not to walk in"--are in the same spirit ofrefined imbecility. 

Shakespeare has in this play and elsewhere shown the samepenetration into political character and the springs of publicevents as into those of everyday life. For instance, the wholedesign to liberate their country fails from the generous temper andoverweening confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their cause andthe assistance of others. Thus it has always been. Those who meanwell themselves think well of others, and fall a prey to theirsecurity. That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resistinjustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning andpower of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trustto the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurtto its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their ownunprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. Cassiuswas better cut out for a conspirator. His heart prompted his head. His habitual jealousy made him fear the worst that might happen, andhis irritability of temper added to his inveteracy of purpose, andsharpened his patriotism. The mixed nature of his motives made himfitter to contend with bad men. The vices are never so well employedas in combating one another. Tyranny and servility are to be dealtwith after their own fashion: otherwise, they will triumph overthose who spare them, and finally pronounce their funeral panegyric, as Antony did that of Brutus. All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did in envy of great Caesar: He only in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. 

The quarrel between Brutus and Cassius is managed in a masterly way. The dramatic fluctuation of passion, the calmness of Brutus, theheat of Cassius, are admirably described; and the exclamation ofCassius on hearing of the death of Portia, which he does not learntill after the reconciliation, 'How 'scap'd I killing when I crostyou so?' gives double force to all that has gone before. The scenebetween Brutus and Portia, where she endeavours to extort the secretof the conspiracy from him, is conceived in the most heroicalspirit, and the burst of tenderness in Brutus:

 You are my true and honourable wife; As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart--

is justified by her whole behaviour. Portia's breathless impatienceto learn the event of the conspiracy, in the dialogue with Lucius, is full of passion. The interest which Portia takes in Brutus andthat which Calphurnia takes in the fate of Caesar are discriminatedwith the nicest precision. Mark Antony's speech over the dead bodyof Caesar has been justly admired for the mixture of pathos andartifice in it: that of Brutus certainly is not so good. 

The entrance of the conspirators to the house of Brutus at midnightis rendered very impressive. In the midst of this scene we meet withone of those careless and natural digressions which occur sofrequently and beautifully in Shakespeare. After Cassius hasintroduced his friends one by one, Brutus says:

 They are all welcome. What watchful cares do interpose themselves Betwixt your eyes and night?

 Cassius. Shall I entreat a word? [They whisper. ]

 Decius. Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

 Casca. No. 

 Cinna. O pardon, Sir, it doth; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day. 

 Casca. You shall confess, that you are both deceiv'd: Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, Which is a great way growing on the south, Weighing the youthful, season of the year. Some two months hence, up higher toward the north He first presents his fire, and the high east Stands as the Capitol, directly here. 

We cannot help thinking this graceful familiarity better than allthe formality in the world. The truth of history in Julius Caesar isvery ably worked up with dramatic effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles, are represented to the life. Thedeath of Brutus is worthy of him--it has the dignity of the Romansenator with the firmness of the Stoic philosopher. But what isperhaps better than either, is the little incident of his boy, Lucius, falling asleep over his instrument, as he is playing to hismaster in his tent, the night before the battle. Nature had playedhim the same forgetful trick once before on the night of theconspiracy. The humanity of Brutus is the same on both occasions. 

 --It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber. Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men. Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. 

OTHELLO

It has been said that tragedy purifies the affections by terror andpity. That is, it substitutes imaginary sympathy for mereselfishness. It gives us a high and permanent interest, beyondourselves, in humanity as such. It raises the great, the remote, andthe possible to an equality with the real, the little and the near. It makes man a partaker with his kind. It subdues and softens thestubbornness of his will. It teaches him that there are and havebeen others like himself, by showing him as in a glass what theyhave felt, thought, and done. It opens the chambers of the humanheart. It leaves nothing indifferent to us that can affect ourcommon nature. It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passionswound up to the utmost pitch by the power of imagination or thetemptation of circumstances; and corrects their fatal excesses inourselves by pointing to the greater extent of sufferings and ofcrimes to which they have led others. Tragedy creates a balance ofthe affections. It makes us thoughtful spectators in the lists oflife. It is the refiner of the species; a discipline of humanity. The habitual study of poetry and works of imagination is one chiefpart of a well-grounded education. A taste for liberal art isnecessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone ishard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things outof ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, orengrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests. --OTHELLOfurnishes an illustration of these remarks. It excites our sympathyin an extraordinary degree. The moral it conveys has a closerapplication to the concerns of human life than that of any other ofShakespeare's plays. 'It comes directly home to the bosoms andbusiness of men. ' The pathos in LEAR is indeed more dreadful andoverpowering: but it is less natural, and less of every day'soccurrence. We have not the same degree of sympathy with thepassions described in MACBETH. The interest in HAMLET is more remoteand reflex. That of OTHELLO is at once equally profound andaffecting. 

The picturesque contrasts of character in this play are almost asremarkable as the depth of the passion. The Moor Othello, the gentleDesdemona, the villain Iago, the good-natured Cassio, the foolRoderigo, present a range and variety of character as striking andpalpable as that produced by the opposition of costume in a picture. Their distinguishing qualities stand out to the mind's eye, so thateven when we are not thinking of their actions or sentiments, theidea of their persons is still as present to us as ever. Thesecharacters and the images they stamp upon the mind are the farthestasunder possible, the distance between them is immense: yet thecompass of knowledge and invention which the poet has shown inembodying these extreme creations of his genius is only greater thanthe truth and felicity with which he has identified each characterwith itself, or blended their different qualities together in thesame story. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to thatof Iago: at the same time, the force of conception with which thesetwo figures are opposed to each other is rendered still more intenseby the complete consistency with which the traits of each characterare brought out in a state of the highest finishing. The making oneblack and the other white, the one unprincipled, the otherunfortunate in the extreme, would have answered the common purposesof effect, and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter ofcharacter. Shakespeare has laboured the finer shades of differencein both with as much care and skill as if he had had to depend onthe execution alone for the success of his design. On the otherhand, Desdemona and Aemilia are not meant to be opposed withanything like strong contrast to each other. Both are, to outwardappearance, characters of common life, not more distinguished thanwomen usually are, by difference of rank and situation. Thedifference of their thoughts and sentiments is, however, laid asopen, their minds are separated from each other by signs as plainand as little to be mistaken as the complexions of their husbands. 

The movement of the passion in OTHELLO is exceedingly different fromthat of MACBETH. In MACBETH there is a violent struggle betweenopposite feelings, between ambition and the stings of conscience, almost from first to last: in Othello, the doubtful conflict betweencontrary passions, though dreadful, continues only for a short time, and the chief interest is excited by the alternate ascendancy ofdifferent passions, the entire and unforeseen change from thefondest love and most unbounded confidence to the tortures ofjealousy and the madness of hatred. The revenge of Othello, after ithas once taken thorough possession of his mind, never quits it, butgrows stronger and stronger at every moment of its delay. The natureof the Moor is noble, confiding, tender, and generous; but his bloodis of the most inflammable kind; and being once roused by a sense ofhis wrongs, he is stopped by no considerations of remorse or pitytill he has given a loose to all the dictates of his rage and hisdespair. It is in working his noble nature up to this extremitythrough rapid but gradual transitions, in raising passion to itsheight from the smallest beginnings and in spite of all obstacles, in painting the expiring conflict between love and hatred, tenderness and resentment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding thestrength and the weaknesses of our nature, in uniting sublimity ofthought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motionthe various impulses that agitate this our mortal being, and at lastblending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestic, that 'flows on to the Propontic, and knowsno ebb', that Shakespeare has shown the mastery of his genius and ofhis power over the human heart. The third act of Othello is hismasterpiece, not of knowledge or passion separately, but of the twocombined, of the knowledge of character with the expression ofpassion, of consummate art in the keeping up of appearances with theprofound workings of nature, and the convulsive movements ofuncontrollable agony, of the power of inflicting torture and ofsuffering it. Not only is the tumult of passion heaved up from thevery bottom of the soul, but every the slightest undulation offeeling is seen on the surface, as it arises from the impulses ofimagination or the different probabilities maliciously suggested byIago. The progressive preparation for the catastrophe is wonderfullymanaged from the Moor's first gallant recital of the story of hislove, of 'the spells and witchcraft he had used', from his unlooked-for and romantic success, the fond satisfaction with which he doteson his own happiness, the unreserved tenderness of Desdemona and herinnocent importunities in favour of Cassio, irritating thesuspicions instilled into her husband's mind by the perfidy of lago, and rankling there to poison, till he loses all command of himself, and his rage can only be appeased by blood. She is introduced, justbefore lago begins to put his scheme in practice, pleading forCassio with all the thoughtless gaiety of friendship and winningconfidence in the love of Othello. 

 What! Michael Cassio? That came a wooing with you, and so many a time, When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, Hath ta'en your part, to have so much to do To bring him in?--Why this is not a boon: 'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves, Or feed on nourishing meats, or keep you warm; Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit To your person. Nay, when I have a suit, Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed, It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted. 

Othello's confidence, at first only staggered by broken hints andinsinuations, recovers itself at sight of Desdemona; and he exclaims

 If she be false, O then Heav'n mocks itself: I'll not believe it. 

But presently after, on brooding over his suspicions by himself, andyielding to his apprehensions of the worst, his smothered jealousybreaks out into open fury, and he returns to demand satisfaction ofIago like a wild beast stung with the envenomed shaft of thehunters. 'Look where he comes', &c. In this state of exasperationand violence, after the first paroxysms of his grief and tendernesshave had their vent in that passionate apostrophe, 'I felt notCassio's kisses on her lips, ' Iago by false aspersions, and bypresenting the most revolting images to his mind, [Footnote: See thepassage beginning, 'It is impossible you should see this, Were theyas prime as goats, ' &c. ] easily turns the storm of Passion fromhimself against Desdemona, and works him up into a trembling agonyof doubt and fear, in which he abandons all his love and hopes in abreath. 

 Now do I see'tis true. Look here, Iago, All my fond love thus do I blow to Heav'n. Tis gone. Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell; Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught; For'tis of aspicks' tongues. 

From this time, his raging thoughts 'never look back, ne'er ebb tohumble love' till his revenge is sure of its object, the painfulregrets and involuntary recollections of past circumstances whichcross his mind amidst the dim trances of passion, aggravating thesense of his wrongs, but not shaking his purpose. Once indeed, whereIago shows him Cassio with the handkerchief in his hand, and makingsport (as he thinks) of his misfortunes, the intolerable bitternessof his feelings, the extreme sense of shame, makes him fall topraising her accomplishments and relapse into a momentary fit ofweakness, 'Yet, oh, the pity of it, Iago, the pity of it!' Thisreturning fondness, however, only serves, as it is managed by Iago, to whet his revenge, and set his heart more against her. In hisconversations with Desdemona, the persuasion of her guilt and theimmediate proofs of her duplicity seem to irritate his resentmentand aversion to her; but in the scene immediately preceding herdeath, the recollection of his love returns upon him in all itstenderness and force; and after her death, he all at once forgetshis wrongs in the sudden and irreparable sense of his loss:

 My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife. Oh insupportable! Oh heavy hour!

This happens before he is assured of her innocence; but afterwardshis remorse is as dreadful as his revenge has been, and yields onlyto fixed and death like despair. His farewell speech, before hekills himself, in which he conveys his reasons to the senate for themurder of his wife, is equal to the first speech in which he gavethem an account of his courtship of her, and 'his whole course oflove'. Such an ending was alone worthy of such a commencement. 

If anything could add to the force of our sympathy with Othello, orcompassion for his fate, it would be the frankness and generosity ofhis nature, which so little deserve it. When Iago first begins topractise upon his unsuspecting friendship, he answers:

 --Tis not to make me jealous, To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well; Where virtue is, these are most virtuous. Nor from my own weak merits will I draw The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt, For she had eyes and chose me. 

This character is beautifully (and with affecting simplicity)confirmed by what Desdemona herself says of him to Aemilia after shehas lost the handkerchief, the first pledge of his love to her:

 Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse Full of cruzadoes. And but my noble Moor Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness, As jealous creatures are, it were enough To put him to ill thinking. 

 Aemilia. Is he not jealous?

 Desdemona. Who he? I think the sun where he was born drew all such humours from him. 

In a short speech of Aemilia's there occurs one of those side-intimations of the fluctuations of passion which we seldom meet withbut in Shakespeare. After Othello has resolved upon the death of hiswife, and bids her dismiss her attendant for the night, she answers:

 I will, my Lord. 

 Aemilia. How goes it now? HE LOOKS GENTLER THAN HE DID. 

Shakespeare has here put into half a line what some authors wouldhave spun out into ten set speeches. 

The character of Desdemona herself is inimitable both in itself, andas it contrasts with Othello's groundless jealousy, and with thefoul conspiracy of which she is the innocent victim. Her beauty andexternal graces are only indirectly glanced at; we see 'her visagein her mind'; her character everywhere predominates over her person:

 A maiden never bold: Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion Blushed at itself. 

There is one fine compliment paid to her by Cassio, who exclaimstriumphantly when she comes ashore at Cyprus after the storm:

 Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, As having sense of beauty, do omit Their mortal natures, letting safe go by The divine Desdemona. 

In general, as is the case with most of Shakespeare's females, welose sight of her personal charms in her attachment and devotednessto her husband. 'She is subdued even to the very quality of herlord'; and to Othello's 'honours and his valiant parts her soul andfortunes consecrates'. The lady protests so much herself, and she isas good as her word. The truth of conception, with which timidityand boldness are united in the same character, is marvellous. Theextravagance of her resolutions, the pertinacity of her affections, may be said to arise out of the gentleness of her nature. They implyan unreserved reliance on the purity of her own intentions, anentire surrender of her fears to her love, a knitting of herself(heart and soul) to the fate of another. Bating the commencement ofher passion, which is a little fantastical and headstrong (thougheven that may perhaps be consistently accounted for from herinability to resist a rising inclination [Footnote: Iago. Ay, toogentle. Othello. Nay, that's certain. ]) her whole character consistsin having no will of her own, no prompter but her obedience. Herromantic turn is only a consequence of the domestic and practicalpart of her disposition; and instead of following Othello to thewars, she would gladly have 'remained at home a moth of peace', ifher husband could have stayed with her. Her resignation and angelicsweetness of temper do not desert her at the last. The scenes inwhich she laments and tries to account for Othello's estrangementfrom her are exquisitely beautiful. After he has struck her, andcalled her names, she says:

 --Alas, Iago, What shall I do to win my lord again? Good friend, go to him; for by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel; If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed, Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense Delighted them on any other form- Or that I do not, and ever did And ever will, though he do shake me off To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly, Comfort forswear me. Unkindness may do much, And his unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love. 

 Iago. I pray you be content:'tis but his humour. The business of the state does him offence. 

 Desdemona. If'twere no other!--

The scene which follows with Aemilia and the song of the Willow areequally beautiful, and show the author's extreme power of varyingthe expression of passion, in all its moods and in allcircumstances;

 Aemilia. Would you had never seen him. 

 Desdemona. So would not I: my love doth so approve him, That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns, Have grace and favour in them, &c. 

Not the unjust suspicions of Othello, not Iago's treachery, placeDesdemona in a more amiable or interesting light than the casualconversation (half earnest, half jest) between her and Aemilia onthe common behaviour of women to their husbands. This dialogue takesplace just before the last fatal scene. If Othello had overheard it, it would have prevented the whole catastrophe; but then it wouldhave spoiled the play. 

The character of Iago is one of the supererogations of Shakespeare'sgenius. Some persons, more nice than wise, have thought this wholecharacter unnatural, because his villainy is WITHOUT A SUFFICIENTMOTIVE. Shakespeare, who was as good a philosopher as he was a poet, thought otherwise. He knew that the love of power, which is anothername for the love of mischief, is natural to man. He would know thisas well or better than if it had been demonstrated to him by alogical diagram, merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt orkill flies for sport. Iago in fact belongs to a class of characterscommon to Shakespeare and at the same time peculiar to him; whoseheads are as acute and active as their hearts are hard and callous. Iago is, to be sure, an extreme instance of the kind; that is tosay, of diseased intellectual activity, with an almost perfectindifference to moral good or evil, or rather with a decidedpreference of the latter, because it falls more readily in with hisfavourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts and scopeto his actions. He is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fateas to that of others; he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtfuladvantage; and is himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion--an insatiable craving after action of the most difficult anddangerous kind. 'Our ancient' is a philosopher, who fancies that alie that kills has more point in it than an alliteration or anantithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family abetter thing than watching the palpitations in the heart of a fleain a microscope; who plots the ruin of his friends as an exercisefor his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ennui. Hisgaiety, such as it is, arises from the success of his treachery; hisease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateurof tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention onimaginary characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes thebolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connexions, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves andunabated resolution. We will just give an illustration or two. 

One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately afterthe marriage of Othello. 

 Roderigo. What a full fortune does the thick lips owe, If he can carry her thus!

 Iago. Call up her father: Rouse him [Othello], make after him, poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen, And tho' he in a fertile climate dwell, Plague him with flies: Tho' that his joy be joy, Yet throw such changes of vexation on it, As it may lose some colour. 

In the next passage, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he isplotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of realenthusiasm. 

 Roderigo. Here is her father's house: I'll call aloud. 

 Iago. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell, As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied in populous cities. 

One of his most favourite topics, on which he is rich indeed, and indescanting on which his spleen serves him for a Muse, is thedisproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is aclue to the character of the lady which he is by no means ready topart with. It is brought forward in the first scene, and he recursto it, when in answer to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says:

 I cannot believe that in her--she's full of most blest conditions. 

 Iago. Bless'd fig's end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If she had been blest, she would never have married the Moor. 

And again with still more spirit and fatal effect afterwards, whenhe turns this very suggestion arising in Othello's own breast to herprejudice. 

 Othello. And yet how nature erring from itself--

 Iago. Aye, there's the point;--as to be bold with you, Not to affect many proposed matches Of her own clime, complexion, and degree, &c. 

This is probing to the quick. Iago here turns the character of poorDesdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing butthe genius of Shakespeare could have preserved the entire interestand delicacy of the part, and have even drawn an additional eleganceand dignity from the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed. The habitual licentiousness of Iago's conversation is not to betraced to the pleasure he takes in gross or lascivious images, butto his desire of finding out the worst side of everything, and ofproving himself an over-match for appearances. He has none of 'themilk of human kindness' in his composition. His imagination rejectseverything that has not a strong infusion of the most unpalatableingredients; his mind digests only poisons. Virtue or goodness orwhatever has the least 'relish of salvation in it' is, to hisdepraved appetite, sickly and insipid: and he even resents the goodopinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were an affrontcast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus at themeeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims, 'Oh, you arewell tuned now: but I'll set down the pegs that make this music, ASHONEST AS I AM--his character of bonhommie not sitting at all easilyupon him. In the scenes where he tries to work Othello to hispurpose, he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark, anddeliberate. We believe nothing ever came up to the profounddissimulation and dexterous artifice of the well-known dialogue inthe third act, where he first enters upon the execution of hisdesign. 

 Iago. My noble lord. 

 Othello. What dost thou say, Iago?

 Iago. Did Michael Cassio, When you woo'd my lady, know of your love?

 Othello. He did from first to last. Why dost thou ask?

 Iago. But for a satisfaction of my thought, No further harm. 

 Othello. Why of thy thought, Iago?

 Iago. I did not think he had been acquainted with it. 

 Othello. O yes, and went between us very oft--

 Iago. Indeed!

 Othello. Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught of that? Is he not honest?

 Iago. Honest, my lord?

 Othello. Honest? Ay, honest. 

 Iago. My lord, for aught I know. 

 Othello. What do'st thou think?

 Iago. Think, my lord!

 Othello. Think, my lord! Alas, thou echo'st me, As if there was some monster in thy thought Too hideous to be shown. 

The stops and breaks, the deep workings of treachery under the maskof love and honesty, the anxious watchfulness, the cool earnestness, and if we may so say, the PASSION of hypocrisy marked in every line, receive their last finishing in that inconceivable burst ofpretended indignation at Othello's doubts of his sincerity. 

 O grace! O Heaven forgive me! Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense? God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool, That lov'st to make thine honesty a vice! Oh monstrous world! take note, take note, O world! To be direct and honest, is not safe. I thank you for this profit, and from hence I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence. 

If Iago is detestable enough when he has business on his hands andall his engines at work, he is still worse when he has nothing todo, and we only see into the hollowness of his heart. Hisindifference when Othello falls into a swoon, is perfectlydiabolical. 

 Iago. How is it. General? Have you not hurt your head?

 Othello. Dost thou mock me?

 Iago. I mock you not, by Heaven, &c. 

The part indeed would hardly be tolerated, even as a foil to Thevirtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, But forits indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, Which divertthe attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end hehas in view to the means by which it must be accomplished. --Edmundthe Bastard in Lear is something of the same character, placed inless prominent circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it. 

TIMON OF ATHENS

TIMON OF ATHENS always appeared to us to be written with as intensea feeling of his subject as any one play of Shakespeare. It is oneof the few in which he seems to be in earnest throughout, never totrifle nor go out of his way. He does not relax in his efforts, norlose sight of the unity of his design. It is the only play of ourauthor in which spleen is the predominant feeling of the mind. It isas much a satire as a play: and contains some of the finest piecesof invective possible to be conceived, both in the snarling, captious answers of the cynic Apemantus, and in the impassioned andmore terrible imprecations of Timon. The latter remind the classicalreader of the force and swelling impetuosity of the moraldeclamations in Juvenal, while the former have all the keenness andcaustic severity of the old Stoic philosophers. The soul of Diogenesappears to have been seated on the lips of Apemantus. The churlishprofession of misanthropy in the cynic is contrasted with theprofound feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldierlike anddetermined resentment of Alcibiades against his countrymen, who havebanished him, though this forms only an incidental episode in thetragedy. 

The fable consists of a single event--of the transition from thehighest pomp and profusion of artificial refinement to the mostabject state of savage life, and privation of all socialintercourse. The change is as rapid as it is complete; nor is thedescription of the rich and generous Timon, banqueting in gildedpalaces, pampered by every luxury, prodigal of his hospitality, courted by crowds of flatterers, poets, painters, lords, ladies, who:

 Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear; And through him drink the free air--

more striking than that of the sudden falling off of his friends andfortune, and his naked exposure in a wild forest digging roots fromthe earth for his sustenance, with a lofty spirit of self-denial, and bitter scorn of the world, which raise him higher in our esteemthan the dazzling gloss of prosperity could do. He grudges himselfthe means of life, and is only busy in preparing his grave. Howforcibly is the difference between what he was and what he isdescribed in Apemantus's taunting questions, when he comes toreproach him with the change in his way of life!

 --What, think'st thou, That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moist trees That have out-liv'd the eagle, page thy heels, And skip when thou point'st out? will the cold brook, Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit? Call the creatures, Whose naked natures live in all the spight Of wreakful heav'n, whose bare unhoused trunks, To the conflicting elements expos'd, Answer mere nature, bid them flatter thee. 

The manners are everywhere preserved with distinct truth. The poetand painter are very skilfully played off against one another, bothaffecting great attention to the other, and each taken up with hisown vanity, and the superiority of his own art. Shakespeare has putinto the mouth of the former a very lively description of the geniusof poetry and of his own in particular. 

 --A thing slipt idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum, which issues From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame Provokes itself--and like the current flies Each bound it chafes. 

The hollow friendship and shuffling evasions of the Athenian lords, their smooth professions and pitiful ingratitude, are verysatisfactorily exposed, as well as the different disguises to whichthe meanness of self-love resorts in such cases to hide a want ofgenerosity and good faith. The lurking selfishness of Apemantus doesnot pass undetected amidst the grossness of his sarcasms and hiscontempt for the pretensions of others. Even the two courtezans whoaccompany Alcibiades to the cave of Timon are verycharacteristically sketched; and the thieves who come to visit himare also 'true men' in their way. --An exception to this generalpicture of selfish depravity is found in the old and honest steward, Flavius, to whom Timon pays a full tribute of tenderness. Shakespeare was unwilling to draw a picture 'all over ugly withhypocrisy'. He owed this character to the good-natured solicitationsof his Muse. His mind was well said by Ben Jonson to be the 'sphereof humanity'. 

The moral sententiousness of this play equals that of Lord Bacon'sTreatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients, and is indeed seasoned withgreater variety. Every topic of contempt or indignation is hereexhausted; but while the sordid licentiousness of Apemantus, whichturns everything to gall and bitterness, shows only the naturalvirulence of his temper and antipathy to good or evil alike, Timondoes not utter an imprecation without betraying the extravagantworkings of disappointed passion, of love altered to hate. Apemantussees nothing good in any object, and exaggerates whatever isdisgusting: Timon is tormented with the perpetual contrast betweenthings and appearances, between the fresh, tempting outside and therottenness within, and invokes mischiefs on the heads of mankindproportioned to the sense of his wrongs and of their treacheries. Heimpatiently cries out, when he finds the gold, This yellow slave Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd; Make the hoar leprosy ador'd; place thieves, And give them title, knee, and approbation, With senators on the bench; this is it, That makes the wappen'd widow wed again; She, whom the spital-house Would cast the gorge at, THIS EMBALMS AND SPICES TO TH' APRIL DAY AGAIN. 

One of his most dreadful imprecations is that which occursimmediately on his leaving Athens. 

 Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall, That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth, And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent; Obedience fail in children; slaves and fools Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench, And minister in their steads. To general filths Convert o' th' instant green virginity! Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast; Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your trusters' throats! Bound servants, steal: Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed: Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen, Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire, And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety, Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth, Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, Instructions, manners, mysteries and trades, Degrees, observances, customs and laws, Decline to your confounding contraries; And let confusion live!--Plagues, incident to men, Your potent and infectious fevers heap On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica, Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt As lamely as their manners! Lust and liberty Creep in the minds and manners of our youth, That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains, Sow all th' Athenian bosoms; and their crop Be general leprosy: breath infect breath, That their society (as their friendship) may Be merely poison!

Timon is here just as ideal in his passion for ill as he had beforebeen in his belief of good. Apemantus was satisfied with themischief existing in the world, and with his own ill-nature. One ofthe most decisive intimations of Timon's morbid jealousy ofappearances is in his answer to Apemantus, who asks him:

 What things in the world can'st thou nearest compare with thy flatterers?

 Timon. Women nearest: but men, men are the things themselves. 

Apemantus, it is said, 'loved few things better than to abhorhimself'. This is not the case with Timon, who neither loves toabhor himself nor others. All his vehement misanthropy is forced, up-hill work. From the slippery turns of fortune, from the turmoilsof passion and adversity, he wishes to sink into the quiet of thegrave. On that subject his thoughts are intent, on that he findstime and place to grow romantic. He digs his own grave by the sea-shore; contrives his funeral ceremonies amidst the pomp ofdesolation, and builds his mausoleum of the elements. 

 Come not to me again; but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; Which once a-day with his embossed froth The turbulent surge shall cover. --Thither come, And let my grave-stone be your oracle. 

And again, Alcibiades, after reading his epitaph, says of him:

 These well express in thee thy latter spirits: Though thou abhorred'st in us our human griefs, Scorn'd'st our brain's flow, and those our droplets, which From niggard nature fall; yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye On thy low grave--

thus making the winds his funeral dirge, his mourner the murmuringocean; and seeking in the everlasting solemnities of nature oblivionof the transitory splendour of his lifetime. 

CORIOLANUS

Shakespeare has in this play shown himself well versed in historyand state affairs. CORIOLANUS is a storehouse of politicalcommonplaces. Any one who studies it may save himself the trouble ofreading Burke's Reflections, or Paine's Rights of Man, or theDebates in both Houses of Parliament since the French Revolution orour own. The arguments for and against aristocracy or democracy, onthe privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty andslavery, power and the abuse of it, peace and war, are here veryably handled, with the spirit of a poet and the acuteness of aphilosopher. Shakespeare himself seems to have had a leaning to thearbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling ofcontempt for his own origin; and to have spared no occasion ofbaiting the rabble. What he says of them is very true: what he saysof their betters is also very true, though he dwells less upon it. --The cause of the people is indeed but little calculated as a subjectfor poetry: it admits of rhetoric, which goes into argument andexplanation, but it presents no immediate or distinct images to themind, 'no jutting frieze, buttress, or coigne of vantage' for poetry'to make its pendant bed and procreant cradle in'. The language ofpoetry naturally falls in with the language of power. Theimagination is an exaggerating and exclusive faculty: it takes fromone thing to add to another: it accumulates circumstances togetherto give the greatest possible effect to a favourite object. Theunderstanding is a dividing and measuring faculty: it judges ofthings, not according to their immediate impression on the mind, butaccording to their relations to one another. The one is amonopolizing faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of presentexcitement by inequality and disproportion; the other is adistributive faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of ultimategood, by justice and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, theother a republican faculty. The principle of poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It aims at effect, it exists by contrast. Itadmits of no medium. It is everything by excess. It rises above theordinary standard of sufferings and crimes. It presents a dazzlingappearance. It shows its head turretted, crowned, and crested. Itsfront is gilt and blood-stained. Before it 'it carries noise, andbehind it tears'. It has its altars and its victims, sacrifices, human sacrifices. Kings, priests, nobles, are its train-bearers, tyrants and slaves its executioners. --'Carnage is its daughter. 'Poetry is right-royal. It puts the individual for the species, theone above the infinite many, might before right. A lion hunting aflock of sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poetical objectthan they; and we even take part with the lordly beast, because ourvanity or some other feeling makes us disposed to place ourselves inthe situation of the strongest party. So we feel some concern forthe poor citizens of Rome when they meet together to compare theirwants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and with blows andbig words drives this set of 'poor rats', this rascal scum, to theirhomes and beggary before him. There is nothing heroical in amultitude of miserable rogues not wishing to be starved, orcomplaining that they are like to be so: but when a single man comesforward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the lastindignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of hisprowess is immediately converted into contempt for theirpusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea ofnecessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even thenatural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter theimagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppressothers that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We hadrather be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power inourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural toman: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. Wrong dressedout in pride, pomp, and circumstance has more attraction thanabstract right. --Coriolanus complains of the fickleness of thepeople: yet the instant he cannot gratify his pride and obstinacy attheir expense, he turns his arms against his country. If his countrywas not worth defending, why did he build his pride on its defence?He is a conqueror and a hero; he conquers other countries, and makesthis a plea for enslaving his own; and when he is prevented fromdoing so, he leagues with its enemies to destroy his country. Herates the people 'as if he were a God to punish, and not a man oftheir infirmity'. He scoffs at one of their tribunes for maintainingtheir rights and franchises: 'Mark you his absolute SHALL?' notmarking his own absolute WILL to take everything from them, hisimpatience of the slightest opposition to his own pretensions beingin proportion to their arrogance and absurdity. If the great andpowerful had the beneficence and wisdom of Gods, then all this wouldhave been well: if with a greater knowledge of what is good for thepeople, they had as great a care for their interest as they havethemselves, if they were seated above the world, sympathizing withthe welfare, but not feeling the passions of men, receiving neithergood nor hurt from them, but bestowing their benefits as free giftson them, they might then rule over them like another Providence. Butthis is not the case. Coriolanus is unwilling that the senate shouldshow their 'cares' for the people, lest their 'cares' should beconstrued into 'fears', to the subversion of all due authority; andhe is no sooner disappointed in his schemes to deprive the peoplenot only of the cares of the state, but of all power to redressthemselves, than Volumnia is made madly to exclaim:

 Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, And occupations perish. 

This is but natural: it is but natural for a mother to have moreregard for her son than for a whole city; but then the city shouldbe left to take some care of itself. The care of the state cannot, we here see, be safely entrusted to maternal affection, or to thedomestic charities of high life. The great have private feelings oftheir own, to which the interests of humanity and justice mustcurtsy. Their interests are so far from being the same as those ofthe community, that they are in direct and necessary opposition tothem; their power is at the expense of OUR weakness; their riches ofOUR poverty; their pride of OUR degradation; their splendour of OURwretchedness; their tyranny of OUR servitude. If they had thesuperior knowledge ascribed to them (which they have not) it wouldonly render them so much more formidable; and from Gods wouldconvert them into Devils. The whole dramatic moral of Coriolanus isthat those who have little shall have less, and that those who havemuch shall take all that others have left. The people are poor;therefore they ought to be starved. They are slaves; therefore theyought to be beaten. They work hard; therefore they ought to betreated like beasts of burden. They are ignorant; therefore theyought not to be allowed to feel that they want food, or clothing, orrest, that they are enslaved, oppressed, and miserable. This is thelogic of the imagination and the passions; which seek to aggrandizewhat excites admiration and to heap contempt on misery, to raisepower into tyranny, and to make tyranny absolute; to thrust downthat which is low still lower, and to make wretches desperate: toexalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods; to degrade subjectsto the rank of slaves, and slaves to the condition of brutes. Thehistory of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed uponthe principles of POETICAL JUSTICE; it is a noble or royal hunt, inwhich what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in whichthe spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase, though they do not share in the spoil. We may depend upon it that what men delight to read in books, theywill put in practice in reality. 

One of the most natural traits in this play is the difference of theinterest taken in the success of Coriolanus by his wife and mother. The one is only anxious for his honour; the other is fearful for hislife. 

 Volumnia. Methinks I hither hear your husband's drum: I see him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair: Methinks I see him stamp thus--and call thus-- Come on, ye cowards; ye were got in fear Though you were born in Rome; his bloody brow With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes Like to a harvest man, that's task'd to mow Or all, or lose his hire. 

 Virgila. His bloody brow! Oh Jupiter, no blood. 

 Volumnia. Away, you fool; it more becomes a man Than gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood At Grecian swords contending. 

When she hears the trumpets that proclaim her son's return, she saysin the true spirit of a Roman matron:

 These are the ushers of Martius: before him He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie, Which being advanc'd, declines, and then men die. 

Coriolanus himself is a complete character: his love of reputation, his contempt of popular opinion, his pride and modesty, areconsequences of each other. His pride consists in the inflexiblesternness of his will; his love of glory is a determined desire tobear down all opposition, and to extort the admiration both offriends and foes. His contempt for popular favour, his unwillingnessto hear his own praises, spring from the same source. He cannotcontradict the praises that are bestowed upon him; therefore he isimpatient at hearing them. He would enforce the good opinion ofothers by his actions, but does not want their acknowledgements inwords. 

 Pray now, no more: my mother, Who has a charter to extol her blood, When she does praise me, grieves me. 

His magnanimity is of the same kind. He admires in an enemy thatcourage which he honours in himself: he places himself on the hearthof Aufidius with the same confidence that he would have met him inthe field, and feels that by putting himself in his power, he takesfrom him all temptation for using it against him. 

In the title-page of Coriolanus it is said at the bottom of theDramatis Personae, 'The whole history exactly followed, and many ofthe principal speeches copied, from the life of Coriolanus inPlutarch. ' It will be interesting to our readers to see how far thisis the case. Two of the principal scenes, those between Coriolanusand Aufidius and between Coriolanus and his mother, are thus givenin Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, dedicated to QueenElizabeth, 1579. The first is as follows:

It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium, and manypeople met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So he wentdirectly to Tullus Aufidius' house, and when he came thither, he gothim up straight to the chimney-hearth, and sat him down, and spakenot a word to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the housespying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they durst not bidhim rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and disguised as he was, yetthere appeared a certain majesty in his countenance and in hissilence: whereupon they went to Tullus, who was at supper, to tellhim of the strange disguising of this man. Tullus rose presentlyfrom the board, and coming towards him, asked him what he was, andwherefore he came. Then Martius unmuffled himself, and after he hadpaused awhile, making no answer, he said unto himself, If thouknowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing me, dost not perhaps believeme to be the man I am indeed, I must of necessity discover myself tobe that I am. 'I am Caius Martius, who hath done to thyselfparticularly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurt andmischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of Coriolanus that Ibear. For I never had other benefit nor recompence of the true andpainful service I have done, and the extreme dangers I have been in, but this only surname; a good memory and witness of the malice anddispleasure thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name only remainethwith me; for the rest, the envy and cruelty of the people of Romehave taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobility andmagistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by thepeople. This extremity hath now driven me to come as a poor suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope I have to save my lifethereby. For if I had feared death, I would not have come hither toput myself in hazard; but pricked forward with desire to be revengedof them that thus have banished me, which now I do begin, in puttingmy person into the hands of their enemies. Wherefore if thou hastany heart to be wrecked of the injuries thy enemies have done thee, speed thee now, and let my misery serve thy turn, and so use it asmy service may be a benefit to the Volsces: promising thee, that Iwill fight with better good will for all you, than I did when I wasagainst you. Knowing that they fight more valiantly who know theforce of the enemy, than such as have never proved it. And if it beso that thou dare not, and that thou art weary to prove fortune anymore, then am I also weary to live any longer. And it were no wisdomin thee to save the life of him who hath been heretofore thy mortalenemy, and whose service now can nothing help, nor. Pleasure thee. 'Tullus hearing what he said, was a marvellous glad man, and takinghim by the hand, he said unto him: 'Stand up, O Martius, and be ofgood cheer, for in proffering thyself unto us, thou doest us greathonour: and by this means thou mayest hope also of greater things atall the Volsces' hands. ' So he feasted him for that time, andentertained him in the honourablest manner he could, talking withhim of no other matter at that present: but within few days after, they fell to consultation together in what sort they should begintheir wars. 

The meeting between Coriolanus and his mother is also nearly thesame as in the play. 

Now was Martius set then in the chair of state, with all the honoursof a general, and when he had spied the women coming afar off, hemarvelled what the matter meant: but afterwards knowing his wifewhich came foremost, he determined at the first to persist in hisobstinate and inflexible rancour. But overcome in the end withnatural affection, and being altogether altered to see them, hisheart would not serve him to tarry their coining to his chair, butcoming down in haste, he went to meet them, and first he kissed hismother, and embraced her a pretty while, then his wife and littlechildren. And nature so wrought with him, that the tears fell fromhis eyes, and he could not keep himself from making much of them, but yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had beenviolently carried with the fury of a most swift-running stream. After he had thus lovingly received them, and perceiving that hismother Volumnia would begin to speak to him, he called the chiefestof the council of the Volsces to hear what she would say. Then shespake in this sort: 'If we held our peace, my son, and determinednot to speak, the state of our poor bodies, and present sight of ourraiment, would easily betray to thee what life we have led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad; but think now with thyself, howmuch more unfortunate than all the women living, we are come hither, considering that the sight which should be most pleasant to allothers to behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us:making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her husband, besieging the walls of his native country: so as that which is theonly comfort to all others in their adversity and misery, to prayunto the Gods, and to call to them for aid, is the only thing whichplungeth us into most deep perplexity. For we cannot, alas, togetherpray, both for victory to our country, and for safety of thy lifealso: but a world of grievous curses, yea more than any mortal enemycan heap upon us, are forcibly wrapped up in our prayers. For thebitter sop of most hard choice is offered thy wife and children, toforgo one of the two; either to lose the person of thyself, or thenurse of their native country. For myself, my son, I am determinednot to tarry till fortune in my lifetime do make an end of this war. For if I cannot persuade the rather to do good unto both parties, than to overthrow and destroy the one, preferring love and naturebefore the malice and calamity of wars, thou shalt see, my son, andtrust unto it, thou shalt no sooner march forward to assault thycountry, but thy foot shall tread upon thy mother's womb, thatbrought thee first into this world. And I may not defer to see theday, either that my son be led prisoner in triumph by his naturalcountrymen, or that he himself do triumph of them, and of hisnatural country. For if it were so, that my request tended to savethy country, in destroying the Volsces, I must confess, thouwouldest hardly and doubtfully resolve on that. For as to destroythy natural country, it is altogether unmeet and unlawful, so wereit not just and less honourable to betray those that put their trustin thee. But my only demand consisteth, to make a gaol delivery ofall evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety, both to theone and the other, but most honourable for the Volsces. For it shallappear, that having victory in their hands, they have of specialfavour granted us singular graces, peace and amity, albeitthemselves have no less part of both than we. Of which good, if soit came to pass, thyself is the only author, and so hast thou theonly honour. But if it fail, and fall out contrary, thyself alonedeservedly shalt carry the shameful reproach and burthen of eitherparty. So, though the end of war be uncertain, yet thisnotwithstanding is most certain, that if it be thy chance toconquer, this benefit shalt thou reap of thy goodly conquest, to bechronicled the plague and destroyer of thy country. And if fortuneoverthrow thee, then the world will say, that through desire to, revenge thy private injuries, thou hast for ever undone thy goodfriends, who did most lovingly and courteously receive thee. 'Martius gave good ear unto his mother's words, without interruptingher speech at all, and after she had said what she would, he heldhis peace a pretty while, and answered not a word. Hereupon shebegan again to speak unto him, and said; 'My son, why dost thou notanswer me? Dost thou think it good altogether to give place unto thycholer and desire of revenge, and thinkest thou it not honesty forthee to grant thy mother's request in so weighty a cause? Dost thoutake it honourable for a nobleman, to remember the wrongs andinjuries done him, and dost not in like case think it an honestnobleman's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do showto their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they oughtto bear unto them? No man living is more bound to show himselfthankful in all parts and respects than thyself; who so universallyshowest all ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken ofthy country, exacting grievous payments upon them, in revenge of theinjuries offered thee; besides, thou hast not hitherto showed thypoor mother any courtesy. And therefore it is not only honest, butdue unto me, that without compulsion I should obtain my so just andreasonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuadethee to it, to what purpose do I defer my last hope?' And with thesewords herself, his wife and children, fell down upon their kneesbefore him: Martius seeing that, could refrain no longer, but wentstraight and lifted her up, crying out, 'Oh mother, what have youdone to me?' And holding her hard by the right hand, 'Oh mother, 'said he, 'you have won a happy victory for your country, but mortaland unhappy for your son: for I see myself vanquished by you alone. 'These words being spoken openly, he spake a little apart with hismother and wife, and then let them return again to Rome, for so theydid request him; and so remaining in the camp that night, the nextmorning he dis-lodged, and marched homeward unto the Volsces'country again. 

Shakespeare has, in giving a dramatic form to this passage, adheredvery closely and properly to the text. He did not think it necessaryto improve upon the truth of nature. Several of the scenes in JULIUSCAESAR, particularly Portia's appeal to the confidence of herhusband by showing him the wound she had given herself, and theappearance of the ghost of Caesar to Brutus, are, in like manner, taken from the history. 

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

This is one of the most loose and desultory of our author's plays:it rambles on just as it happens, but it overtakes, together withsome indifferent matter, a prodigious number of fine things in itsway. Troilus himself is no character: he is merely a common lover;but Cressida and her uncle Pandarus are hit off with proverbialtruth. By the speeches given to the leaders of the Grecian host, Nestor, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Achilles, Shakespeare seems to haveknown them as well as if he had been a spy sent by the Trojans intothe enemy's camp--to say nothing of their being very lofty examplesof didactic eloquence. The following is a very stately and spiriteddeclamation:

 Ulysses. Troy, yet upon her basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected. 

 . . . . . 

 The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order: And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol, In noble eminence, enthron'd and spher'd Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But, when the planets, In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents? what mutinies? What raging of the sea? shaking of earth? Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shaken, (Which is the ladder to all high designs) The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, (But by degree) stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters Would lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength would be lord of imbecility, And the rude son would strike his father dead: Force would be right; or rather, right and wrong (Between whose endless jar Justice resides) Would lose their names, and so would Justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite (an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power) Must make perforce an universal prey, And last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking: And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdained By him one step below; he, by the next; That next, by him beneath: so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation; And'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength. 

It cannot be said of Shakespeare, as was said of some one, that hewas 'without o'erflowing full'. He was full, even to o'erflowing. Hegave heaped measure, running over. This was his greatest fault. Hewas only in danger 'of losing distinction in his thoughts' (toborrow his own expression)

 As doth a battle when they charge on heaps The enemy flying. 

There is another passage, the speech of Ulysses to Achilles, showinghim the thankless nature of popularity, which has a still greaterdepth of moral observation and richness ofillustration than the former. It is long, but worth the quoting. Thesometimes giving an entire extract from the unacted plays of ourauthor may with one class of readers have almost the use ofrestoring a lost passage; and may serve to convince another class ofcritics, that the poet's genius was not confined to the productionof stage effect by preternatural means. --

 Ulysses. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion; A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past, Which are devour'd as fast as they are made, Forgot as soon as done: Persev'rance, dear my lord, Keeps Honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For Honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path, For Emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forth-right, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost;-- Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand, And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: the Welcome ever smiles, And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds, Tho' they are made and moulded of things past. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye, Than what not stirs. The cry went out on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent. --

The throng of images in the above lines is prodigious; and thoughthey sometimes jostle against one another, they everywhere raise andcarry on the feeling, which is metaphysically true and profound. Thedebates beween the Trojan chiefs on the restoring of Helen are fullof knowledge of human motives and character. Troilus enters wellinto the philosophy of war, when he says in answer to something thatfalls from Hector:

 Why there you touch'd the life of our design: Were it not glory that we more affected, Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds. 

The character of Hector, in the few slight indications which appearof it, is made very amiable. His death is sublime, and shows in astriking light the mixture of barbarity and heroism of the age. Thethreats of Achilles are fatal; they carry their own means ofexecution with them. 

 Come here about me, you my Myrmidons, Mark what I say. --Attend me where I wheel: Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath; And when I have the bloody Hector found, Empale him with your weapons round about: In fellest manner execute your arms. Follow me, sirs, and my proceeding eye. 

He then finds Hector and slays him, as if he had been hunting down awild beast. There is something revolting as well as terrific in theferocious coolness with which he singles out his prey: nor does thesplendour of the achievement reconcile us to the cruelty of themeans. 

The characters of Cressida and Pandarus are very amusing andinstructive. The disinterested willingness of Pandarus to serve hisfriend in an affair which lies next his heart is immediately broughtforward. 'Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were agrace, or a daughter were a goddess, he should take his choice. Oadmirable man! Paris, Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant Helen, tochange, would give money to boot. ' This is the language he addressesto his niece; nor is she much behindhand in coming into the plot. Her head is as light and fluttering as her heart. It is theprettiest villain, she fetches her breath so short as a new-ta'ensparrow. ' Both characters are originals, and quite different fromwhat they are in Chaucer. In Chaucer, Cressida is represented as agrave, sober, considerate personage (a widow--he cannot tell herage, nor whether she has children or no) who has an alternate eye toher character, her interest, and her pleasure: Shakespeare'sCressida is a giddy girl, an unpractised jilt, who falls in lovewith Troilus, as she afterwards deserts him, from mere levity andthoughtlessness of temper. She may be wooed and won to anything andfrom anything, at a moment's warning: the other knows very well whatshe would be at, and sticks to it, and is more governed bysubstantial reasons than by caprice or vanity. Pandarus again, inChaucer's story, is a friendly sort of go-between, tolerably busy, officious, and forward in bringing matters to bear: but inShakespeare he has 'a stamp exclusive and professional': he wearsthe badge of his trade; he is a regular knight of the game. Thedifference of the manner in which the subject is treated arisesperhaps less from intention, than from the different genius of thetwo poets. There is no double entendre in the characters of Chaucer:they are either quite serious or quite comic. In Shakespeare theludicrous and ironical are constantly blended with the stately andthe impassioned. We see Chaucer's characters as they saw themselves, not as they appeared to others or might have appeared to the poet. He is as deeply implicated in the affairs of his personages as theycould be themselves. He had to go a long journey with each of them, and became a kind of necessary confidant. There is little relief, orlight and shade in his pictures. The conscious smile is not seenlurking under the brow of grief or impatience. Everything with himis intense and continuous--a working out of what went before. --Shakespeare never committed himself to his characters. He trifled, laughed, or wept with them as he chose. He has no prejudices for oragainst them; and it seems a matter of perfect indifference whetherhe shall be in jest or earnest. According to him, 'the web of ourlives is of a mingled yam, good and ill together'. His genius wasdramatic, as Chaucer's was historical. He saw both sides of aquestion, the different views taken of it according to the differentinterests of the parties concerned, and he was at once an actor andspectator in the scene. If anything, he is too various and flexible;too full of transitions, of glancing lights, of salient points. IfChaucer followed up his subject too doggedly, perhaps Shakespearewas too volatile and heedless. The Muse's wing too often lifted himoff his feet. He made infinite excursions to the right and the left. 

 --He hath done Mad and fantastic execution, Engaging and redeeming of himself With such a careless force and forceless care, As if that luck in very spite of cunning Bade him win all. 

Chaucer attended chiefly to the real and natural, that is, to theinvoluntary and inevitable impressions on the mind in givencircumstances: Shakespeare exhibited also the possible and thefantastical, --not only what things are in themselves, but whateverthey might seem to be, their different reflections, their endlesscombinations. He lent his fancy, wit, invention, to others, andborrowed their feelings in return. Chaucer excelled in the force ofhabitual sentiment; Shakespeare added to it every variety ofpassion, every suggestion of thought or accident. Chaucer describedexternal objects with the eye of a painter, or he might be said tohave embodied them with the hand of a sculptor, every part is sothoroughly made out, and tangible: Shakespeare's imagination threwover them a lustre

 --Prouder than when blue Iris bends. 

Everything in Chaucer has a downright reality. A simile or asentiment is as if it were given in upon evidence. In Shakespearethe commonest matter-of-fact has a romantic grace about it; or seemsto float with the breath of imagination in a freer element. No onecould have more depth of feeling or observation than Chaucer, but hewanted resources of invention to lay open the stores of nature orthe human heart with the same radiant light that Shakespeare hasdone. However fine or profound the thought, we know what was coming, whereas the effect of reading Shakespeare is 'like the eye ofvassalage encountering majesty'. Chaucer's mind was consecutive, rather than discursive. He arrived at truth through a certainprocess; Shakespeare saw everything by intuition, Chaucer had greatvariety of power, but he could do only one thing at once. He sethimself to work on a particular subject. His ideas were keptseparate, labelled, ticketed and parcelled out in a set form, inpews and compartments by themselves. They did not play into oneanother's hands. They did not re-act upon one another, as theblower's breath moulds the yielding glass. There is something hardand dry in them. What is the most wonderful thing in Shakespeare'sfaculties is their excessive sociability, and how they gossiped andcompared notes together. 

We must conclude this criticism; and we will do it with a quotationor two. One of the most beautiful passages in Chaucer's tale is thedescription of Cresseide's first avowal of her love:

 And as the new abashed nightingale, That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, When that she heareth any herde's tale, Or in the hedges any wight stirring, And, after, sicker doth her voice outring; Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, Opened her heart, and told him her intent. 

See also the two next stanzas, and particularly that divine onebeginning

 Her armes small, her back both straight and soft, &c. 

Compare this with the following speech of Troilus to Cressida in theplay. 

 O, that I thought it could be in a woman; And if it can, I will presume in you, To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Out-living beauties outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays. Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnow'd purity in love; How were I then uplifted! But alas, I am as true as Truth's simplicity, And simpler than the infancy of Truth. 

These passages may not seem very characteristic at first sight, though we think they are so. We will give two, that cannot bemistaken. Patroclus says to Achilles;

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

Troilus, addressing the God of Day on the approach of the morningthat parts him from Cressida, says with much scorn:

 What! proffer'st thou thy light here for to sell? Go, sell it them that smalle seles grave. 

If nobody but Shakespeare could have written the former, nobody butChaucer would have thought of the latter. --Chaucer was the mostliteral of poets, as Richardson was of prose-writers. 

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

This is a very noble play. Though not in the first class ofShakespeare's productions, it stands next to them, and is, we think, the finest of his historical plays, that is, of those in which hemade poetry the organ of history, and assumed a certain tone ofcharacter and sentiment, in conformity to known facts, instead oftrusting to his observations of general nature or to the unlimitedindulgence of his own fancy. What he has added to the history, isupon a par with it. His genius was, as it were, a match for historyas well as nature, and could grapple at will with either. This playis full of that pervading comprehensive power by which the poetcould always make himself master of time and circumstances. Itpresents a fine picture of Roman pride and Eastern magnificence: andin the struggle between the two, the empire of the world seemssuspended, 'like the swan's down-feather:

 That stands upon the swell at full of tide, And neither way inclines. '

The characters breathe, move, and live. Shakespeare does not standreasoning on what his characters would do or say, but at onceBECOMES them, and speaks and acts for them. He does not present uswith groups of stage-puppets or poetical machines making setspeeches on human life, and acting from a calculation of ostensiblemotives, but he brings living men and women on the scene, who speakand act from real feelings, according to the ebbs and flows ofpassion, without the least tincture of the pedantry of logic orrhetoric. Nothing is made out by inference and analogy, by climaxand antithesis, but everything takes place just as it would havedone in reality, according to the occasion. --The character ofCleopatra is a masterpiece. What an extreme contrast it affords toImogen! One would think it almost impossible for the same person tohave drawn both. She is voluptuous, ostentatious, conscious, boastful of her charms, haughty, tyrannical, fickle. The luxuriouspomp and gorgeous extravagance of the Egyptian queen are displayedin all their force and lustre, as well as the irregular grandeur ofthe soul of Mark Antony. Take only the first four lines that theyspeak as an example of the regal style of love-making. 

 Cleopatra. If it be love, indeed, tell me how much?

 Antony. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd. 

 Cleopatra. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd. 

 Antony. Then must thou needs find out new heav'n, new earth. 

The rich and poetical description of her person, beginning:

 The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love-sick--

seems to prepare the way for, and almost to justify the subsequentinfatuation of Antony when in the sea-fight at Actium, he leaves thebattle, and 'like a doting mallard' follows her flying sails. 

Few things in Shakespeare (and we know of nothing in any otherauthor like them) have more of that local truth of imagination andcharacter than the passage in which Cleopatra is representedconjecturing what were the employments of Antony in his absence. 'He's speaking now, or murmuring--WHERE'S MY SERPENT OF OLD NILE?'Or again, when she says to Antony, after the defeat at Actium, andhis summoning up resolution to risk another fight--'It is mybirthday; I had thought to have held it poor; but since my lord isAntony again, I will be Cleopatra. ' Perhaps the finest burst of allis Antony's rage after his final defeat when he comes in, andsurprises the messenger of Caesar kissing her hand:

 To let a fellow that will take rewards, And say, God quit you, be familiar with My play-fellow, your hand; this kingly seal, And plighter of high hearts. 

It is no wonder that he orders him to be whipped; but his lowcondition is not the true reason: there is another feeling whichlies deeper, though Antony's pride would not let him show it, exceptby his rage; he suspects the fellow to be Caesar's proxy. 

Cleopatra's whole character is the triumph of the voluptuous, of thelove of pleasure and the power of giving it, over every otherconsideration. Octavia is a dull foil to her, and Fulvia a shrew andshrill-tongued. What a picture do those lines give of her:

 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. 

What a spirit and fire in her conversation with Antony's messengerwho brings her the unwelcome news of his marriage with Octavia! Howall the pride of beauty and of high rank breaks out in her promisedreward to him:

 --There's gold, and here My bluest veins to kiss!

She had great and unpardonable faults, but the beauty of her deathalmost redeems them. She learns from the depth of despair thestrength of her affections. She keeps her queen-like state in thelast disgrace, and her sense of the pleasurable in the last momentsof her life. She tastes a luxury in death. After applying the asp, she says with fondness:

 Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep? As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle. Oh Antony!

It is worth while to observe that Shakespeare has contrasted theextreme magnificence of the descriptions in this play with picturesof extreme suffering and physical horror, not less striking--partlyperhaps to excuse the effeminacy of Mark Antony to whom they arerelated as having happened, but more to preserve a certain balanceof feeling in the mind. Caesar says, hearing of his conduct at thecourt of Cleopatra:

 --Antony, Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once Wert beaten from Mutina, where thou slew'st Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel Did famine follow, whom thou fought'st against, Though daintily brought up, with patience more Than savages could suffer. Thou did'st drink The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle Which beast would cough at. Thy palate then did deign The roughest berry on the rudest hedge, Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, The barks of trees thou browsed'st. On the Alps, It is reported, thou did'st eat strange flesh, Which some did die to look on: and all this, It wounds thine honour, that I speak it now, Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek So much as lank'd not. 

The passage after Antony's defeat by Augustus where he is made tosay:

 Yes, yes; he at Philippi kept His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck The lean and wrinkled Cassius, and 'twas I That the mad Brutus ended, is one of those fine retrospections which show us the winding andeventful march of human life. The jealous attention which has beenpaid to the unities both of time and place has taken away theprinciple of perspective in the drama, and all the interest whichobjects derive from distance, from contrast, from privation, fromchange of fortune, from long-cherished passion; and contracts ourview of life from a strange and romantic dream, long, obscure, andinfinite, into a smartly contested, three hours' inauguraldisputation on its merits by the different candidates for theatricalapplause. 

The latter scenes of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA are full of the changes ofaccident and passion. Success and defeat follow one another withstartling rapidity. For-tune sits upon her wheel more blind andgiddy than usual. This precarious state and the approachingdissolution of his greatness are strikingly displayed in thedialogue between Antony and Eros:

 Antony. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?

 Eros. Ay, noble lord. 

 Antony. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish, A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion, A towered citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto the world And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs, They are black vesper's pageants. 

 Eros. Ay, my lord. 

 Antony. That which is now a horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water. 

 Eros. It does, my lord. 

 Antony. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is Even such a body, &c. 

This is, without doubt, one of the finest pieces of poetry inShakespeare. The splendour of the imagery, the semblance of reality, the lofty range of picturesque objects hanging over the world, theirevanescent nature, the total uncertainty of what is left behind, are' just like the mouldering schemes of human greatness. It is finerthan Cleopatra's passionate lamentation over his fallen grandeur, because it is more dim, unstable, unsubstantial. Antony's headstrongpresumption and infatuated determination to yield to Cleopatra'swishes to fight by sea instead of land, meet a merited punishment;and the extravagance of his resolutions, increasing with thedesperateness of his circumstances, is well commented upon byEnobarbus:

 --I see men's judgements are A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them To suffer all alike. 

The repentance of Enobarbus after his treachery to his master is themost affecting part of the play. He cannot recover from the blowwhich Antony's generosity gives him, and he dies broken-hearted 'amaster-leaver and a fugitive'. 

Shakespeare's genius has spread over the whole play a richness likethe overflowing of the Nile. 

HAMLET

This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of in our youth, and whomwe seem almost to remember in our after-years; he who made thatfamous soliloquy on life, who gave the advice to the players, whothought 'this goodly frame, the earth, a sterile promontory, andthis brave o'er-hanging firmament, the air, this majestical rooffretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation ofvapours'; whom 'man delighted not, nor woman neither'; he who talkedwith the grave-diggers, and moralized on Yorick's skull; theschoolfellow of Rosencraus and Guildenstern at Wittenberg; thefriend of Horatio; the lover of Ophelia; he that was mad and sent toEngland; the slow avenger of his father's death; who lived at thecourt of Horwendillus five hundred years before we were born, butall whose thoughts we seem to know as well as we do our own, becausewe have read them in Shakespeare. 

Hamlet is a name: his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage ofthe poet's brain. What then, are they not real? They are as real asour own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is WEwho are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above thatof history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through hisown mishaps or those of others; whoever has borne about with him theclouded brow of reflection, and thought himself 'too much i' th'sun'; whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by enviousmists rising in his own breast, and could find in the world beforehim only a dull blank with nothing left remarkable in it; whoeverhas known "the pangs of despised love, the insolence of office, orthe spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes"; he who hasfelt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like amalady, who has had his hopes blighted and his youth staggered bythe apparitions of strange things; who cannot be well at ease, whilehe sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; whose powers ofaction have been eaten up by thought, he to whom the universe seemsinfinite, and himself nothing; whose bitterness of soul makes himcareless of consequences, and who goes to a play as his bestresource to shove off, to a second remove, the evils of life by amock-presentation of them--this is the true Hamlet. 

We have been so used to this tragedy that we hardly know how tocriticize it any more than we should know how to describe our ownfaces. But we must make such observations as we can. It is the oneof Shakespeare's plays that we think of oftenest, because it aboundsmost in striking reflections on human life, and because thedistresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of his mind, tothe general account of humanity. Whatever happens to him, we applyto ourselves, because he applies it so himself as a means of generalreasoning. He is a great moralizer; and what makes him worthattending to is, that he moralizes on his own feelings andexperience. He is not a commonplace pedant. If Lear shows thegreatest depth of passion, Hamlet is the most remarkable for theingenuity, originality, and unstudied development of character. Shakespeare had more magnanimity than any other poet, and he hasshown more of it in this play than in any other. There is no attemptto force an interest: everything is left for time and circumstancesto unfold. The attention is excited without effort, the incidentssucceed each other as matters of course, the characters think andspeak and act just as they might do, if left entirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point. The observationsare suggested by the passing scene--the gusts of passion come and golike sounds of music borne on the wind. The whole play is an exacttranscript of what might be supposed to have taken place at thecourt of Denmark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, beforethe modern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. It wouldhave been interesting enough to have been admitted as a bystander insuch a scene, at such a time, to have heard and seen something ofwhat was going on. But here we are more than spectators. We have notonly 'the outward pageants and the signs of grief; but 'we have thatwithin which passes show'. We read the thoughts of the heart, wecatch the passions living as they rise. Other dramatic writers giveus very fine versions and paraphrases of nature: but Shakespeare, together with his own comments, gives us the original text, that wemay judge for ourselves. This is a very great advantage. 

The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effusion of genius. It isnot a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, butby refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of thehero as a man can well be: but he is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility--the sport ofcircumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his ownfeelings, and forced from the natural bias of his disposition by thestrangeness of his situation. He seems incapable of deliberateaction, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of theoccasion, when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where hekills Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters whichRosencraus and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, dallies with hispurposes, till the occasion is lost, and always finds some pretenceto relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reasonhe refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by arefinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his ownwant of resolution, defers his revenge to some more fatalopportunity, when he shall be engaged in some act 'that has norelish of salvation in it':

 He kneels and prays, And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven, And so am I reveng'd; THAT WOULD BE SCANN'D. He kill'd my father, and for that, I, his sole son, send him to heaven. Why this is reward, not revenge. Up sword and know thou a more horrid time, When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage. 

He is the prince of philosophical speculators, and because he cannothave his revenge perfect, according to the most refined idea hiswish can form, he misses it altogether. So he scruples to trust thesuggestions of the Ghost, contrives the scene of the play to havesurer proof of his uncle's guilt, and then rests satisfied with thisconfirmation of his suspicions, and the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet he is sensible of his own weakness, taxes himself with it, and tries to reason himself out of it:

 How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast; no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To rust in us unus'd: now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event, -- A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward;--I do not know Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do; Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me: Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd, Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. 'Tis not to be great, Never to stir without great argument; But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain?--O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth. 

Still he does nothing; and this very speculation on his owninfirmity only affords him another occasion for indulging it. It isnot for any want of attachment to his father or abhorrence of hismurder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste toindulge his imagination in reflecting upon the enormity of the crimeand refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them intoimmediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: andany vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly divertshim from his previous purposes. 

The moral perfection of this character has been called in question, we think, by those who did not understand it. It is more interestingthan according to rules: amiable, though not faultless. The ethicaldelineations of 'that noble and liberal casuist' (as Shakespeare hasbeen well called) do not exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism ofmorality. His plays are not copied either from The Whole Duty ofMan, or from The Academy of Compliments! We confess, we are a littleshocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at thewant of refinement in Hamlet. The want of punctilious exactness inhis behaviour either partakes of the 'license of the time', or elsebelongs to the very excess of intellectual refinement in thecharacter, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his ownpurposes, sit loose upon him. He may be said to be amenable only tothe tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too much taken up with theairy world of contemplation to lay as much stress as he ought on thepractical consequences of things. His habitual principles of actionare unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Opheliais quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumedseverity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitterregrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by thedistractions of the scene around him! Amidst the natural andpreternatural horrors of his situation, he might be excused indelicacy from carrying on a regular courtship. When 'his father'sspirit was in arms', it was not a time for the son to make love in. He could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind by explaining thecause of his alienation, which he durst hardly trust himself tothink of. It would have taken him years to have come to a directexplanation on the point. In the harassed state of his mind, hecould not have done otherwise than he did. His conduct does notcontradict what he says when he sees her funeral:

 I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. 

Nothing can be more affecting or beautiful than the Queen'sapostrophe to Ophelia on throwing flowers into the grave:

 --Sweets to the sweet, farewell. I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife: I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave. 

Shakespeare was thoroughly a master of the mixed motives of humancharacter, and he here shows us the Queen, who was so criminal insome respects, not without sensibility and affection in otherrelations of life. --Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitelytouching to be dwelt upon. Oh rose of May, oh flower too soon faded!Her love, her madness, her death, are described with the truesttouches of tenderness and pathos. It is a character which nobody butShakespeare could have drawn in the way that he has done, and to theconception of which there is not even the smallest approach, exceptin some of the old romantic ballads. Her brother, Laertes, is acharacter we do not like so well; he is too hot and choleric, andsomewhat rodomontade. Polonius is a perfect character in its kind;nor is there any foundation for the objections which have been madeto the consistency of this part. It is said that he acts veryfoolishly and talks very sensibly. There is no inconsistency inthat. Again, that he talks wisely at one time and foolishly atanother; that his advice to Laertes is very sensible, and his adviceto the King and Queen on the subject of Hamlet's madness veryridiculous. But he gives the one as a father, and is sincere in it;he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and isaccordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In short, Shakespeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and othercharacters, only because he has kept up the distinction which thereis in nature, between the understandings and the moral habits ofmen, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of theirmotives. Polonius is not a fool, but he makes himself so. His folly, whether in his actions or speeches, comes under the head ofimpropriety of intention. 

We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all, Hamlet. There is no play that suffers so much in being transferredto the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted. Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails in this character from a want of easeand variety. The character of Hamlet is made up of undulating lines;it has the yielding flexibility of 'a wave o' th' sea'. Mr. Kembleplays it like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy ofpurpose, in one undeviating straight line, which is as remote fromthe natural grace and refined susceptibility of the character as thesharp angles and abrupt starts which Mr. Kean introduces into thepart. Mr. Kean's Hamlet is as much too splenetic and rash as Mr. Kemble's is too deliberate and formal. His manner is too strong andpointed. He throws a severity, approaching to virulence into thecommon observations and answers. There is nothing of this in Hamlet. He is, as it were, wrapped up in his reflections, and only THINKSALOUD. There should therefore be no attempt to impress what he saysupon others by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or manner; noTALKING AT his hearers. There should be as much of the gentleman andscholar as possible infused into the part, and as little of theactor, A pensive air of sadness should sit reluctantly upon hisbrow, but no appearance of fixed and sullen gloom. He is full ofweakness and melancholy, but there is no harshness in his nature. Heis the most amiable of misanthropes. 

THE TEMPEST. 

There can be little doubt that Shakespeare was the most universalgenius that ever lived. 'Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene individableor poem unlimited, he is the only man. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light for him. ' He has not only the same absolutecommand over our laughter and our tears, all the resources ofpassion, of wit, of thought, of observation, but he has the mostunbounded range of fanciful invention, whether terrible or playful, the same insight into the world of imagination that he has into theworld of reality; and over all there presides the same truth ofcharacter and nature, and the same spirit of humanity. His idealbeings are as true and natural as his real characters; that is, asconsistent with themselves, or if we suppose such beings to exist atall, they could not act, speak, or feel otherwise than as he makesthem. He has invented for them a language, manners, and sentimentsof their own, from the tremendous imprecations of the Witches inMACBETH, when they do 'a deed without a name', to the sylph-likeexpressions 'of Ariel, who 'does his spiriting gently'; themischievous tricks and gossiping of Robin Goodfellow, or the uncouthgabbling and emphatic gesticulations of Caliban in this play. 

THE TEMPEST is one of the most original and perfect of Shakespeare'sproductions, and he has shown in it all the variety of his powers. It is full of grace and grandeur. The human and imaginarycharacters, the dramatic and the grotesque, are blended togetherwith the greatest art, and without any appearance of it. Though hehas here given 'to airy nothing a local habitation and a name', yetthat part which is only the fantastic creation of his mind, has thesame palpable texture, and coheres 'semblably' with the rest. As thepreternatural part has the air of reality, and almost haunts theimagination with a sense of truth, the real characters and eventspartake of the wildness of a dream. The stately magician, Prospero, driven from his dukedom, but around whom (so potent is his art) airyspirits throng numberless to do his bidding; his daughter Miranda('worthy of that name') to whom all the power of his art points, andwho seems the goddess of the isle; the princely Ferdinand, cast byfate upon the haven of his happiness in this idol of his love; thedelicate Ariel; the savage Caliban, half brute, half demon; thedrunken ship's crew--are all connected parts of the story, and canhardly be spared from the place they fill. Even the local scenery isof a piece and character with the subject. Prospero's enchantedisland seems to have risen up out of the sea; the airy music, thetempest-tossed vessel, the turbulent waves, all have the effect ofthe landscape background of some fine picture. Shakespeare's pencilis (to use an allusion of his own) 'like the dyer's hand, subdued towhat it works in'. Everything in him, though it partakes of 'theliberty of wit', is also subjected to 'the law' of theunderstanding. For instance, even the drunken sailors, who are madereeling-ripe, share, in the disorder of their minds and bodies, inthe tumult of the elements, and seem on shore to be as much at themercy of chance as they were before at the mercy of the winds andwaves. These fellows with their sea-wit are the least to our tasteof any part of the play: but they are as like drunken sailors asthey can be, and are an indirect foil to Caliban, whose figureacquires a classical dignity in the comparison. 

The character of Caliban is generally thought (and justly so) to beone of the author's masterpieces. It is not indeed pleasant to seethis character on the stage any more than it is to see the God Panpersonated there. But in itself it is one of the wildest and mostabstracted of all Shakespeare's characters, whose deformity whetherof body or mind is redeemed by the power and truth of theimagination displayed in it. It is the essence of grossness, butthere is not a particle of vulgarity in it. Shakespeare hasdescribed the brutal mind of Caliban in contact with the pure andoriginal forms of nature; the character grows out of the soil whereit is rooted uncontrolled, uncouth and wild, uncramped by any of themeannesses of custom. It is 'of the earth, earthy'. It seems almostto have been dug out of the ground, with a soul instinctivelysuperadded to it answering to its wants and origin. Vulgarity is notnatural coarseness, but conventional coarseness, learnt from others, contrary to, or without an entire conformity of natural power anddisposition; as fashion is the commonplace affectation of what iselegant and refined without any feeling of the essence of it. Schlegel, the admirable German critic on Shakespeare observes thatCaliban is a poetical character, and 'always speaks in blank verse'. He first comes in thus:

 Caliban. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both: a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er!

 Prospero. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made 'em. 

 Caliban. I must eat my dinner. This island's mine by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first, Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st give me Water with berries in 't; and teach me how To name the bigger light and how the less That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile: Curs'd be I that I did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Who first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o' th' island. 

And again, he promises Trinculo his services thus, if he will freehim from his drudgery. 

 I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries, I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. I pr'ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow, And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts: Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmozet: I'll bring thee To clust'ring filberds; and sometimes I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock. 

In conducting Stephano and Trinculo to Prospero's cell, Calibanshows the superiority of natural capacity over greater knowledge andgreater folly; and in a former scene, when Ariel frightens them withhis music, Caliban to encourage them accounts for it in the eloquentpoetry of the senses:

 Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, That if I then had waked after long sleep, Would make me sleep again; and then in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me: when I wak'd I cried to dream again. 

This is not more beautiful than it is true. The poet here shows usthe savage with the simplicity of a child, and makes the strangemonster amiable. Shakespeare had to paint the human animal rude andwithout choice in its pleasures, but not without the sense ofpleasure or some germ of the affections. Master Barnardine inMeasure for Measure, the savage of civilized life, is an admirablephilosophical counterpart to Caliban. 

Shakespeare has, as it were by design, drawn off from Caliban theelements of whatever is ethereal and refined, to compound them inthe unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceivedthan this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the grossand delicate. Ariel is imaginary power, the swiftness of thoughtpersonified. When told to make good speed by Prospero, he says, 'Idrink the air before me. ' This is something like Puck's boast on asimilar occasion, 'I'll put a girdle round about the earth in fortyminutes. ' But Ariel differs from Puck in having a fellow-feeling inthe interests of those he is employed about. How exquisite is thefollowing dialogue between him and Prospero!

 Ariel. Your charm so strongly works 'em, That if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. 

 Prospero. Dost thou think so, spirit?

 Ariel. Mine would, sir, were I human. 

 Prospero. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion'd as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?

It has been observed that there is a peculiar charm in the songsintroduced in Shakespeare, which, without conveying any distinctimages, seem to recall all the feelings connected with them, likesnatches of half-forgotten music heard indistinctly and atintervals. There is this effect produced by Ariel's songs, which (aswe are told) seem to sound in the air, and as if the person playingthem were invisible. We shall give one instance out of many of thisgeneral power. 

 Enter Ferdinend; and Ariel invisible, playing and singing. 

 Ariel's Song

 Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands; Curt'sied when you have, and kiss'd, (The wild waves whist;) Foot it featly here and there; And sweet sprites the burden bear. [Burden dispersedly. ] Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs bark, Bowgh-wowgh. 

 Ariel. Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry cock-a-doodle-doo. 

 Ferdinand. Where should this music be? in air or earth? It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank Weeping against the king my father's wreck, This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it, Or it hath drawn me rather:--but 'tis gone. -- No, it begins again. 

 Ariel's Song

 Full fathom Eve thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change, Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell-- Hark! I now I hear them, ding-dong bell. [Burden ding-dong. ]

 Ferdinand. The ditty does remember my drown'd father. This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owns: I hear it now above me. 

The courtship between Ferdinand and Miranda is one of the chiefbeauties of this play. It is the very purity of love. The pretendedinterference of Prospero with it heightens its interest, and is incharacter with the magician, whose sense of preternatural powermakes him arbitrary, tetchy, and impatient of opposition. 

The Tempest is a finer play than the Midsummer Night's Dream, whichhas sometimes been compared with it; but it is not so fine a poem. There are a greater number of beautiful passages in the latter. Twoof the most striking in The Tempest are spoken by Prospero. The oneis that admirable one when the vision which he has conjured updisappears, beginning, 'The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeouspalaces, ' &c. , which has so often been quoted that every schoolboyknows it by heart; the other is that which Prospero makes inabjuring his art:

 Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid (Weak masters tho' ye be) I have be-dimm'd The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder Have I giv'n fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure; and when I have requir'd Some heav'nly music, which ev'n now I do, (To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for) I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fadoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book. 

We must not forget to mention among other things in this play, thatShakespeare has anticipated nearly all the arguments on the Utopianschemes of modern philosophy:

Gonzalo. Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord--Antonio. He'dsow't with nettle-seed. Sebastian. Or docks or mallows. Gonzalo. Andwere the king on't, what would I do? Sebastian. 'Scape being drunk, for want of wine. Gonzalo. I' th' commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things: for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name ofmagistrate; Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty, And use ofservice, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; Nooccupation, all men idle, all, And women too; but innocent and pure:No sov'reignty. Sebastian. And yet he would be king on't. Antonio. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. Gonzalo. All things in common nature should produce Without sweat orendeavour. Treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of anyengine Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, Of its ownkind, all foison, all abundance To feed my innocent people!Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects? Antonio. None, man; allidle; whores and knaves. Gonzalo. I would with such perfectiongovern, sir, T' excel the golden age. Sebastian. Save his majesty!

THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Bottom the Weaver is a character that has not had justice done him. He is the most romantic of mechanics. And what a list of companionshe has--Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Joiner, Flute the Bellows-mender, Snout the Tinker, Starveling the Tailor; and then again, what a group of fairy attendants, Puck, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed! It has been observed that Shakespeare's charactersare constructed upon deep physiological principles; and there issomething in this play which looks very like it. Bottom the Weaver, who takes the lead of

 This crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, follows a sedentary trade, and he is accordingly represented asconceited, serious, and fantastical. He is ready to undertakeanything and everything, as if it was as much a matter of course asthe motion of his loom and shuttle. He is for playing the tyrant, the lover, the lady, the lion. 'He will roar that it shall do anyman's heart good to hear him'; and this being objected to asimproper, he still has a resource in his good opinion of himself, and 'will roar you an 'twere any nightingale'. Snug the Joiner isthe moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement anddiscretion in all things. You see him with his rule and compasses inhis hand. 'Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. '--'You may do it extempore, 'says Quince, 'for it is nothing but roaring. ' Starveling the Tailorkeeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. 'Ibelieve we must leave the killing out when all's done. ' Starveling, however, does not start the objections himself, but seconds themwhen made by others, as if he had not spirit to express his fearswithout encouragement. It is too much to suppose all thisintentional; but it very luckily falls out so. Nature includes allthat is implied in the most subtle analytical distinctions; and thesame distinctions will be found in Shakespeare. Bottom, who is notonly chief actor, but stage-manager for the occasion, has a deviceto obviate the danger of frightening the ladies: 'Write me aprologue, and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm withour swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for betterassurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom theWeaver; this will put them out of fear. ' Bottom seems to haveunderstood the subject of dramatic illusion at least as well as anymodern essayist. If our holiday mechanic rules the roast among hisfellows, he is no less at home in his new character of an ass, 'withamiable cheeks, and fair large ears'. He instinctively acquires amost learned taste, and grows fastidious in the choice of dried peasand bottled hay. He is quite familiar with his new attendants, andassigns them their parts with all due gravity. 'Monsieur Cobweb, good Monsieur, get your weapon in your hand, and kill me a red-hipthumble-bee on the top of a thistle, and, good Monsieur, bring me thehoney-bag. ' What an exact knowledge is here shown of naturalhistory!

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is the leader of the fairy band. He isthe Ariel of the MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM; and yet as unlike as canbe to the Ariel in THE TEMPEST. No other poet could have made twosuch different characters out of the same fanciful materials andsituations. Ariel is a minister of retribution, who is touched witha sense of pity at the woes he inflicts. Puck is a mad-cap sprite, full of wantonness and mischief, who laughs at those whom hemisleads--'Lord, what fools these mortals be!' Ariel cleaves theair, and executes his mission with the zeal of a winged messenger;Puck is borne along on his fairy errand like the light andglittering gossamer before the breeze. He is, indeed, a mostEpicurean little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices and faring indainty delights. Prospero and his world of spirits are a set ofmoralists; but with Oberon and his fairies we are launched at onceinto the empire of the butterflies. How beautifully is this race ofbeings contrasted with the men and women actors in the scene, by asingle epithet which Titania gives to the latter, 'the humanmortals'! It is astonishing that Shakespeare should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomyand heavy writer, who painted nothing but 'gorgons and hydras, andchimeras dire'. His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramaticwriters, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day saidthat he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. Hisdelicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In the MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTDREAM alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beautyof description than in the whole range of French poetry puttogether. What we mean is this, that we will produce out of thatsingle play ten passages, to which we do not think any ten passagesin the works of the French poets can be opposed, displaying equalfancy and imagery. Shall we mention the remonstrance of Helena toHermia, or Titania's description of her fairy train, or her disputeswith Oberon about the Indian boy, or Puck's account of himself andhis employments, or the Fairy Queen's exhortation to the elves topay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolita'sdescription of a chace, or Theseus's answer? The two last are asheroical and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight:the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds offlowers. 

Titania's exhortation to the fairies to wait upon Bottom, which isremarkable for a certain cloying sweetness in the repetition of therhymes, is as follows:

 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 moon-beams from his sleeping eyes; Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. 

The sounds of the lute and of the trumpet are not more distinct thanthe poetry of the foregoing passage, and of the conversation betweenTheseus and Hippolita:

 Theseus. Go, one of you, find out the forester, For now our observation is perform'd; And since we have the vaward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my hounds. Uncouple in the western valley, go, Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 

 Hippolita. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear Such gallant chiding. For besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seena'd all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 

 Theseus. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd, like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with hom, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly: Judge when you hear. 

Even Titian never made a hunting-piece of a gusto so fresh andlusty, and so near the first ages of the world as this. 

It had been suggested to us, that the MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM woulddo admirably to get up as a Christmas after-piece; and our prompterproposed that Mr. Kean should play the part of Bottom, as worthy ofhis great talents. He might, in the discharge of his duty, offer toplay the lady like any of our actresses that he pleased, the loveror the tyrant like any of our actors that he pleased, and the lionlike 'the most fearful wild-fowl living'. The carpenter, the tailor, and joiner, it was thought, would hit the galleries. The youngladies in love would interest the side-boxes; and Robin Goodfellowand his companions excite a lively fellow-feeling in the childrenfrom school. There would be two courts, an empire within an empire, the Athenian and the Fairy King and Queen, with their attendants, and with all their finery. What an opportunity for processions, forthe sound of trumpets and glittering of spears! What a fluttering ofurchins' painted wings; what a delightful profusion of gauze cloudsand airy spirits floating on them!

Alas, the experiment has been tried, and has failed; not through thefault of Mr. Kean, who did not play the part of Bottom, nor of Mr. Liston, who did, and who played it well, but from the nature ofthings. The Midsummer Night's Dream, when acted, is converted from adelightful fiction into a dull pantomime. All that is finest in theplay is lost in the representation. The spectacle was grand; but thespirit was evaporated, the genius was fled. --Poetry and the stage donot agree well together. The attempt to reconcile them in thisinstance fails not only of effect, but of decorum. The IDEAL canhave no place upon the stage, which is a picture withoutperspective; everything there is in the foreground. That which wasmerely an airy shape, a dream, a passing thought, immediatelybecomes an unmanageable reality. Where all is left to theimagination (as is the case in reading) every circumstance, near orremote, has an equal chance of being kept in mind, and tellsaccording to the mixed impression of all that has been suggested. But the imagination cannot sufficiently qualify the actualimpressions of the senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to begot rid of by explanation. Thus Bottom's head in the play is afantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage, it is anass's head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for agentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than asimile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as topersonate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairiessix feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen ata proper distance. When ghosts appear at midday, when apparitionsstalk along Cheapside, then may the MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM berepresented without injury at Covent Garden or at Drury Lane. Theboards of a theatre and the regions of fancy are not the same thing. 

ROMEO AND JULIET

ROMEO AND JULIET is the only tragedy which Shakespeare has writtenentirely on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his firstplay, and it deserves to stand in that proud rank. There is thebuoyant spirit of youth in every line, in the rapturous intoxicationof hope, and in the bitterness of despair. It has been said of ROMEOAND JULIET by a great critic, that 'whatever is most intoxicating inthe odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of thenightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, is tobe found in this poem'. The description is true; and yet it does notanswer to our idea of the play. For if it has the sweetness of therose, it has its freshness too; if it has the languor of thenightingale's song, it has also its giddy transport; if it has thesoftness of a southern spring, it is as glowing and as bright. Thereis nothing of a sickly and sentimental cast. Romeo and Juliet are inlove, but they are not love-sick. Everything speaks the very soul ofpleasure, the high and healthy pulse of the passions: the heartbeats, the blood circulates and mantles throughout. Their courtshipis not an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, learnt atsecond-hand from poems and plays, --made up of beauties of the mostshadowy kind, of 'fancies wan that hang the pensive head', ofevanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy thatshrinks from the touch and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, truth, and nature!--It is the reverse of all this. It isShakespeare all over, and Shakespeare when he was young. 

We have heard it objected to ROMEO AND JULIET that it is founded onan idle passion between a boy and a girl, who have scarcely seen andcan have but little sympathy or rational esteem for one another, whohave had no experience of the good or ills of life, and whoseraptures or despair must be therefore equally groundless andfantastical. Whoever objects to the youth of the parties in thisplay as 'too unripe and crude' to pluck the sweets of love, andwishes to see a first-love carried on into a good old age, and thepassions taken at the rebound, when their force is spent, may findall this done in the Stranger and in other German plays, where theydo things by contraries, and transpose nature to inspire sentimentand create philosophy. Shakespeare proceeded in a morestraightforward and, we think, effectual way. He did not endeavourto extract beauty from wrinkles, or the wild throb of passion fromthe last expiring sigh of indifference. He did not 'gather grapes ofthorns nor figs of thistles'. It was not his way. But he has given apicture of human life, such as it is in the order of nature. He hasfounded the passion of the two lovers not on the pleasures they hadexperienced, but on all the pleasures they had NOT experienced. Allthat was to come of life was theirs. At that untried source ofpromised happiness they slaked their thirst, and the first eagerdraught made them drunk with love and joy. They were in fullpossession of their senses and their affections. Their hopes were ofair, their desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, because theheart is then first melted in tenderness from the touch of novelty, and kindled to rapture, for it knows no end of its enjoyments or itswishes. Desire has no limit but itself. Passion, the love andexpectation of pleasure, is infinite, extravagant, inexhaustible, till experience comes to check and kill it. Juliet exclaims on herfirst interview with Romeo:

 My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. 

And why should it not? What was to hinder the thrilling tide ofpleasure, which had just gushed from her heart, from flowing onwithout stint or measure, but experience which she was yet without?What was to abate the transport of the first sweet sense ofpleasure, which her heart and her senses had just tasted, butindifference which she was yet a stranger to? What was there tocheck the ardour of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in herbreast, but disappointment which she had not yet felt? As are thedesires and the hopes of youthful passion, such is the keenness ofits disappointments, and their baleful effect. Such is thetransition in this play from the highest bliss to the lowestdespair, from the nuptial couch to an untimely grave. The only evilthat even in apprehension befalls the two lovers is the loss of thegreatest possible felicity; yet this loss is fatal to both, for theyhad rather part with life than bear the thought of surviving allthat had made life dear to them. In all this, Shakespeare has butfollowed nature, which existed in his time, as well as now. Themodern philosophy, which reduces the whole theory of the mind tohabitual impressions, and leaves the natural impulses of passion andimagination out of the account, had not then been discovered; or ifit had, would have been little calculated for the uses of poetry. 

It is the inadequacy of the same false system of philosophy toaccount for the strength of our earliest attachments, which has ledMr. Wordsworth to indulge in the mystical visions of Platonism inhis Ode on the Progress of Life. He has very admirably described thevividness of our impressions in youth and childhood, and how 'theyfade by degrees into the light of common day', and he ascribes thechange to the supposition of a pre-existent state, as if our earlythoughts were nearer heaven, reflections of former trails of glory, shadows of our past being. This is idle. It is not from theknowledge of the past that the first impressions of things derivetheir gloss and splendour, but from our ignorance of the future, which fills the void to come with the warmth of our desires, withour gayest hopes, and brightest fancies. It is the obscurity spreadbefore it that colours the prospect of life with hope, as it is thecloud which reflects the rainbow. There is no occasion to resort toany mystical union and transmission of feeling through differentstates of being to account for the romantic enthusiasm of youth; norto plant the root of hope in the grave, nor to derive it from theskies. Its root is in the heart of man: it lifts its head above thestars. Desire and imagination are inmates of the human breast. Theheaven 'that lies about us in our infancy' is only a new world, ofwhich we know nothing but what we wish it to be, and believe allthat we wish. In youth and boyhood, the world we live in is theworld of desire, and of fancy: it is experience that brings us downto the world of reality. What is it that in youth sheds a dewy lightround the evening star? That makes the daisy look so bright? Thatperfumes the hyacinth? That embalms the first kiss of love? It isthe delight of novelty, and the seeing no end to the pleasure thatwe fondly believe is still in store for us. The heart revels in theluxury of its own thoughts, and is unable to sustain the weight ofhope and love that presses upon it. --The effects of the passion oflove alone might have dissipated Mr. Wordsworth's theory, if hemeans anything more by it than an ingenious and poetical allegory. THAT at least is not a link in the chain let down from other worlds;'the purple light of love' is not a dim reflection of the smiles ofcelestial bliss. It does not appear till the middle of life, andthen seems like 'another morn risen on midday'. In this respect thesoul comes into the world 'in utter nakedness'. Love waits for theripening of the youthful blood. The sense of pleasure precedes thelove of pleasure, but with the sense of pleasure, as soon as it isfelt, come thronging infinite desires and hopes of pleasure, andlove is mature as soon as born. It withers and it dies almost assoon!

This play presents a beautiful coup d'oeil of the progress of humanlife. In thought it occupies years, and embraces the circle of theaffections from childhood to old age. Juliet has become a greatgirl, a young woman since we first remember her a little thing inthe idle prattle of the nurse. Lady Capulet was about her age whenshe became a mother, and old Capulet somewhat impatiently tells hisyounger visitors:

 --I've seen the day, That I have worn a visor, and could tell A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear, Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone. 

Thus one period of life makes way for the following, and onegeneration pushes another off the stage. One of the most strikingpassages to show the intense feeling of youth in this play isCapulet's invitation to Paris to visit his entertainment. 

 At my poor house, look to behold this night Earth-treading stars that make dark heav'n light; Such comfort as do lusty young men feel When well-apparel'd April on the heel Of limping winter treads, even such delight Among fresh female-buds shall you this night Inherit at my house. 

The feelings of youth and of the spring are here blended togetherlike the breath of opening flowers. Images of vernal beauty appearto have floated before the author's mind, in writing this poem, inprofusion. Here is another of exquisite beauty, brought in more byaccident than by necessity. Montague declares of his son smit with ahopeless passion, which he will not reveal:

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

This casual description is as full of passionate beauty as whenRomeo dwells in frantic fondness on 'the white wonder of hisJuliet's hand'. The reader may, if he pleases, contrast theexquisite pastoral simplicity of the above lines with the gorgeousdescription of Juliet when Romeo first sees her at her father'shouse, surrounded by company and artificial splendour. 

 What lady's that which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight? O she doth teach the torches to burn bright; Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Aethiop's ear. 

It would be hard to say which of the two garden scenes is thefinest, that where he first converses with his love, or takes leaveof her the morning after their marriage. Both are like a heaven uponearth: the blissful bowers of Paradise let down upon this lowerworld. We will give only one passage of these well-known scenes toshow the perfect refinement and delicacy of Shakespeare's conceptionof the female character. It is wonderful how Collins, who was acritic and a poet of great sensibility, should have encouraged thecommon error on this subject by saying--'But stronger Shakespearefelt for man alone'. 

The passage we mean is Juliet's apology for her maiden boldness. 

 Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke--but farewell compliment: Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, aye, And I will take thee at thy word--Yet if thou swear'st, Thou may'st prove false; at lovers' perjuries They say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully; Or if thou think I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo: but else not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think my 'haviour light; But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou over-heard'st, ere I was ware, My true love's passion; therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered. 

In this and all the rest her heart, fluttering between pleasure, hope, and fear, seems to have dictated to her tongue, and 'callstrue love spoken simple modesty'. Of the same sort, but bolder invirgin innocence, is her soliloquy after her marriage with Romeo. 

 Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a wagoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night; That run-aways' eyes may wink; and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!--- Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties: or if love be blind, It best agrees with night. --Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Thinks true love acted, simple modesty. Come night!--Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. --- Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world shall be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun. --- O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it; and though I am sold, Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child, that hath new robes, And may not wear them. 

We the rather insert this passage here, inasmuch as we have no doubtit has been expunged from the Family Shakespeare. Such critics donot perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, withoutdisguising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German critic, Schlegel. Speaking of Romeo and Juliet, he says, 'It was reservedfor Shakespeare to unite purity of heart and the glow ofimagination, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionateviolence, in one ideal picture. ' The character is indeed one ofperfect truth and sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettish about it;--it is a pure effusion ofnature. It is as frank as it is modest, for it has no thought thatit wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on thestrength of its affections. Its delicacy does not consist incoldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of imagination andtenderness of heart with the most voluptuous sensibility. Love is agentle flame that rarefies and expands her whole being. What an ideaof trembling haste and airy grace, borne upon the thoughts of love, does the Friar's exclamation give of her, as she approaches his cellto be married:

 Here comes the lady. Oh, so light of foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint: A lover may bestride the gossamer, That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall, so light is vanity. 

The tragic part of this character is of a piece with the rest. It isthe heroic founded on tenderness and delicacy. Of this kind are herresolution to follow the Friar's advice, and the conflict in herbosom between apprehension and love when she comes to take thesleeping poison. Shakespeare is blamed for the mixture of lowcharacters. If this is a deformity, it is the source of a thousandbeauties. One instance is the contrast between the guilelesssimplicity of Juliet's attachment to her first love, and theconvenient policy of the nurse in advising her to marry Paris, whichexcites such indignation in her mistress. 'Ancient damnation! ohmost wicked fiend', &c. 

Romeo is Hamlet in love. There is the same rich exuberance ofpassion and sentiment in the one, that there is of thought andsentiment in the other. Both are absent and self-involved, both liveout of themselves in a world of imagination. Hamlet is abstractedfrom everything; Romeo is abstracted from everything but his love, and lost in it. His 'frail thoughts dally with faint surmise', andare fashioned out of the suggestions of hope, 'the flatteries ofsleep'. He is himself only in his Juliet; she is his only reality, his heart's true home and idol. The rest of the world is to him apassing dream. How finely is this character portrayed where herecollects himself on seeing Paris slain at the tomb of Juliet!

 What said my man when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think He told me Paris should have married Juliet. 

And again, just before he hears the sudden tidings of her death:

 If I may trust the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand; My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead, (Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think) And breath'd such life with kisses on my lips, That I reviv'd and was an emperor. Ah me! how sweet is love itself possessed, When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

Romeo's passion for Juliet is not a first love: it succeeds anddrives out his passion for another mistress, Rosaline, as the sunhides the stars. This is perhaps an artifice (not absolutelynecessary) to give us a higher opinion of the lady, while the firstabsolute surrender of her heart to him enhances the richness of theprize. The commencement, progress, and ending of his second passionare however complete in themselves, not injured, if they are notbettered by the first. The outline of the play is taken from anItalian novel; but the dramatic arrangement of the different scenesbetween the lovers, the more than dramatic interest in the progressof the story, the development of the characters with time andcircumstances, just according to the degree and kind of interestexcited, are not inferior to the expression of passion and nature. It has been ingeniously remarked among other proofs of skill in thecontrivance of the fable, that the improbability of the mainincident in the piece, the administering of the sleeping-potion, issoftened and obviated from the beginning by the introduction of theFriar on his first appearance culling simples and descanting ontheir virtues. Of the passionate scenes in this tragedy, thatbetween the Friar and Romeo when he is told of his sentence ofbanishment, that between Juliet and the Nurse when she hears of it, and of the death of her cousin Tybalt (which bear no proportion inher mind, when passion after the first shock of surprise throws itsweight into the scale of her affections), and the last scene at thetomb, are among the most natural and overpowering. In all of theseit is not merely the force of any one passion that is given, but theslightest and most unlooked-for transitions from one to another, themingling currents of every different feeling rising up andprevailing in turn, swayed by the master-mind of the poet, as thewaves undulate beneath the gliding storm. Thus when Juliet has byher complaints encouraged the Nurse to say, 'Shame come to Romeo', she instantly repels the wish, which she had herself occasioned, byanswering:

 Blister'd be thy tongue For such a wish, he was not born to shame. Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit, For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd Sole monarch of the universal earth! O, what a beast was I to chide him so!

 Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

 Juliet. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah my poor lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?

And then follows on the neck of her remorse and returning fondness, that wish treading almost on the brink of impiety, but still heldback by the strength of her devotion to her lord, that 'father, mother, nay, or both were dead', rather than Romeo banished. If sherequires any other excuse, it is in the manner in which Romeo echoesher frantic grief and disappointment in the next scene at beingbanished from her. --Perhaps one of the finest pieces of acting thatever was witnessed on the stage, is Mr. Kean's manner of doing thisscene and his repetition of the word, BANISHED. He treads closeindeed upon the genius of his author. 

A passage which this celebrated actor and able commentator onShakespeare (actors are the best commentators on the poets) did notgive with equal truth or force of feeling was the one which Romeomakes at the tomb of Juliet, before he drinks the poison. 

 --Let me peruse this face-- Mercutio's kinsman! noble county Paris! What said my man, when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode! I think, He told me, Paris should have married Juliet! Said he not so? or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, To think it was so?--O, give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave-- For here lies Juliet. 

 . . . . . . 

 --O, my love! my wife! Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, And Death's pale flag is not advanced there. -- Tybalt, ly'st thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain, To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair! I will believe That unsubstantial death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour. For fear of that, I will stay still with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. --Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!-- Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks my sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love!--[Drinks. ] O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. --Thus with a kiss I die. 

The lines in this speech describing the loveliness of Juliet, who issupposed to be dead, have been compared to those in which it is saidof Cleopatra after her death, that she looked 'as she would takeanother Antony in her strong toil of grace;' and a question has beenstarted which is the finest, that we do not pretend to decide. Wecan more easily decide between Shakespeare and any other author, than between him and himself. --Shall we quote any more passages toshow his genius or the beauty of ROMEO AND JULIET? At that rate, wemight quote the whole. The late Mr. Sheridan, on being shown avolume of the Beauties of Shakespeare, very properly asked--'Butwhere are the other eleven?' The character of Mercutio in this playis one of the most mercurial and spirited of the productions ofShakespeare's comic muse. 

LEAR

We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even ofwhat we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a descriptionof the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mereimpertinence: yet we must say something. --It is then the best of allShakespeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was the most inearnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his ownimagination. The passion which he has taken as his subject is thatwhich strikes its root deepest into the human heart; of which thebond is the hardest to be unloosed; and the cancelling and tearingto pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. Thisdepth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of theelements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and thegiddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding thisprop failing it, the contrast between the fixed, immoveable basis ofnatural affection, and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-placesin the soul, this is what Shakespeare has given, and what nobodyelse but he could give. So we believe. --The mind of Lear staggeringbetween the weight of attachment and the hurried movements ofpassion is like a tall ship driven about by the winds, buffeted bythe furious waves, but that still rides above the storm, having itsanchor fixed in the bottom of the sea; or it is like the sharp rockcircled by the eddying whirlpool that foams and beats against it, orlike the solid promontory pushed from its basis by the force of anearthquake. 

The character of Lear itself is very finely conceived for thepurpose. It is the only ground on which such a story could be builtwith the greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, hisviolent impetuosity, his blindness to everything but the dictates ofhis passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes, thataggravates his impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him. The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful:the story is almost told in the first words she utters. We see atonce the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his ownextravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity ofher love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacyin it) and the hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost thefirst burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through theplay, is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on theinjustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter--'Be Kentunmannerly, when Lear is mad!' This manly plainness which draws downon him the displeasure of the unadvised king is worthy of thefidelity with which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. The truecharacter of the two eldest daughters, Regan and Gonerill (they areso thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat theirnames) breaks out in their answer to Cordelia who desires them totreat their father well--'Prescribe not us our duties'--their hatredof advice being in proportion to their determination to do wrong, and to their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Their deliberatehypocrisy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of theircharacters. It is the absence of this detestable quality that is theonly relief in the character of Edmund the Bastard, and that attimes reconciles us to him. We are not tempted to exaggerate theguilt of his conduct, when he himself gives it up as a bad business, and writes himself down 'plain villain'. Nothing more can be saidabout it. His religious honesty in this respect is admirable. Onespeech of his is worth a million. His father, Gloster, whom he hasjust deluded with a forged story of his brother Edgar's designsagainst his life, accounts for his unnatural behaviour and thestrange depravity of the times from the late eclipses in the sun andmoon. Edmund, who is in the secret, says when he is gone: 'This isthe excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune(often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of ourdisasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains onnecessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, andtreacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, andadulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and allthat we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasionof whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge ofa star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tale, and my nativity was under Ursa Major: so that it follows, I am roughand lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenlieststar in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. '--The wholecharacter, its careless, light-hearted villany, contrasted with thesullen, rancorous malignity of Regan and Gonerill, its connexionwith the conduct of the under-plot, in which Gloster's persecutionof one of his sons and the ingratitude of another, form acounterpart to the mistakes and misfortunes of Lear--his doubleamour with the two sisters, and the share which he has in bringingabout the fatal catastrophe, are all managed with an uncommon degreeof skill and power. 

It has been said, and we think justly, that the third act ofOTHELLO, and the three first acts of LEAR, are Shakespeare's greatmasterpieces in the logic of passion: that they contain the highestexamples not only of the force of individual passion, but of itsdramatic vicissitudes and striking effects arising from thedifferent circumstances and characters of the persons speaking. Wesee the ebb and flow of the feeling, its pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of opposition, its accumulating force when it hastime to recollect itself, the manner in which it avails itself ofevery passing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, thealternate contraction and dilatation of the soul, and all 'thedazzling fence of controversy' in this mortal combat with poisonedweapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have seenin OTHELLO, how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions ofthe Moor are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity ofIago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense ofsympathy in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swollenheart of Lear, is the petrifying indifference, the cold, calculating, obdurate selfishness of his daughters. His keenpassions seem whetted on their stony hearts. The contrast would betoo painful, the shock too great, but for the intervention of theFool, whose well-timed levity comes in to break the continuity offeeling when it can no longer be borne, and to bring into play againthe fibres of the heart just as they are growing rigid from over-strained excitement. The imagination is glad to take refuge in thehalf-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just as the mindunder the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents itself insallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of thebarbarous times, in which alone the tragic ground-work of the storycould be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as while it is a diversion to the too great intensity ofour disgust, it carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which itis capable, by showing the pitiable weakness of the old king'sconduct and its irretrievable consequences in the most familiarpoint of view. Lear may well 'beat at the gate which let his follyin', after, as the Fool says, 'he has made his daughters hismothers'. The character is dropped in the third act to make room forthe entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well accords with theincreasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can bemore complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar'sassumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of theirdistresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of naturalaffection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakespeare's mastery overhis subject, if it was not art, was owing to a knowledge of theconnecting links of the passions, and their effect upon the mind, still more wonderful than any systematic adherence to rules, andthat anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinctive by genius. 

One of the most perfect displays of dramatic power is the firstinterview between Lear and his daughter, after the designed affrontsupon him, which till one of his knights reminds him of them, hissanguine temperament had led him to overlook. He returns with histrain from hunting, and his usual impatience breaks out in his firstwords, 'Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready. ' He thenencounters the faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in hisservice; and the first trial of his honest duty is to trip up theheels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent and despicablea figure through the piece. On the entrance of Gonerill thefollowing dialogue takes place:

 Lear. How now, daughter? what makes that frontlet on? Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown. 

 Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou had'st no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing. --Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; [To Gonerill. ] so your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum. 

 He that keeps nor crust nor crum, Weary of all, shall want some-- That's a sheal'd peascod! [Pointing to Lear. ]

 Gonerill. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. I had thought, by making this well known unto you, To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful, By what yourself too late have spoke and done, That you protect this course, and put it on By your allowance; which if you should, the fault Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses sleep, Which in the tender of a wholesome weal, Might in their working do you that offence, (Which else were shame) that then necessity Would call discreet proceeding. 

 Fool. For you trow, nuncle, The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had its head bit off by its young. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling. 

 Lear. Are you our daughter?

 Gonerill. Come, sir, I would, you would make use of that good wisdom Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away These dispositions, which of late transform you From what you rightly are. 

 Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?--Whoop, Jug, I love thee. 

 Lear. Does any here know me?--Why, this is not Lear: Does Lear walk thus? speak thus?--Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, or his discernings Are lethargy'd--Ha! waking?--'Tis not so. -- Who is it that can tell me who I am?--Lear's shadow? I would learn that: for by the marks Of sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters. -- Your name, fair gentlewoman?

 Gonerill. Come, sir: This admiration is much o' the favour Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you To understand my purposes aright: As you are old and reverend, you should be wise: Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires; Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold, That this our court, infected with their manners, Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust Make it more like a tavern, or a brothel, Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak For instant remedy: be then desir'd By her, that else will take the thing she begs, A little to disquantity your train; And the remainder, that shall still depend, To be such men as may besort your age, And know themselves and you. 

 Lear. Darkness and devils! Saddle my horses; call my train together. -- Degenerate Bastard! I'll not trouble thee; Yet have I left a daughter. 

 Gonerill. You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabble Make servants of their betters. 

 Enter Albany

 Lear. Woe, that too late repents--O, sir, are you come? Is it your will? speak, sir. --Prepare my horses. -- [To Albany. ] Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child, Than the sea-monster!

 Albany. Pray, sir, be patient. 

 Lear. Detested kite! thou liest. [To Gonerill. ] My train are men of choice and rarest parts, That all particulars of duty know; And in the most exact regard support The worships of their name. --O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show! Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature From the fixt place; drew from my heart all love, And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at the gate, that let thy folly in, [Striking his head. ] And thy dear judgement out!--Go, go, my people!

 Albany. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant Of what hath mov'd you. 

 Lear. It may be so, my lord-- Hear, nature, hear: dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility; Dry up in her the organs of increase; And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her! If she must teem, Create her child of spleen: that it may live, To be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits, To laughter and contempt; that she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!--Away, away! [Exit. ]

 Albany. Now, gods, that we adore, whereof comes this?

 Gonerill. Never afflict yourself to know the cause; But let his disposition have that scope That dotage gives it. 

 Re-enter Lear

 Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap! Within a fortnight!

 Albany. What's the matter, sir?

 Lear. I'll tell thee; life and death! I am asham'd That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus: [To Gonerill. ] That these hot tears, which break from me perforce, Should make thee worth them. --Blasts and fogs upon thee! The untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee!--Old fond eyes, Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out; And cast you, with the waters that you lose, To temper clay. --Ha! is it come to this? Let it be so:--Yet have I left a daughter, Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable; When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails She'll flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think I have cast off forever. 

 [Exeunt Lear, Kent, and Attendants. ]

This is certainly fine: no wonder that Lear says after it, 'O let menot be mad, not mad, sweet heavens, ' feeling its effects byanticipation: but fine as is this burst of rage and indignation atthe first blow aimed at his hopes and expectations, it is nothingnear so fine as what follows from his double disappointment, and hislingering efforts to see which of them he shall lean upon forsupport and find comfort in, when both his daughters turn againsthis age and weakness. It is with some difficulty that Lear gets tospeak with his daughter Regan, and her husband, at Gloster's castle. In concert with Gonerill they have left their own home on purpose toavoid him. His apprehensions are fast alarmed by this circumstance, and when Gloster, whose guests they are, urges the fiery temper ofthe Duke of Cornwall as an excuse for not importuning him a secondtime, Lear breaks out:

 Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion! Fiery? What fiery quality? Why, Gloster, I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. 

Afterwards, feeling perhaps not well himself, he is inclined toadmit their excuse from illness, but then recollecting that theyhave set his messenger (Kent) in the stocks, all his suspicions areroused again, and he insists on seeing them. 

 Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloster, and Servants. 

 Lear. Good-morrow to you both. 

 Cornwall. Hail to your grace!

 [Kent is set at liberty. ]

 Regan. I am glad to see your highness. 

 Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason I have to think so; if thou should'st not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb, Sepulch'ring an adultress. --O, are you free? [To Kent. ] Some other time for that. --Beloved Regan, Thy sister's naught: O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here-- [Points to his heart. ] I can scarce speak to thee; thou'lt not believe, Of how deprav'd a quality--o Regan!

 Regan. I pray you, sir, take patience; I have hope You less know how to value her desert, Than she to scant her duty. 

 Lear. Say, how is that?

 Regan. I cannot think my sister in the least Would fail her obligation; if, sir, perchance, She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, 'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, As clears her from all blame. 

 Lear. My curses on her!

 Regan. O, sir, you are old; Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine: you should be rul'd, and led By some discretion, that discerns your state Better than you yourself: therefore, I pray you, That to our sister you do make return; Say, you have wrong'd her, sir. 

 Lear. Ask her forgiveness? Do you but mark how this becomes the use? Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; Age is unnecessary; on my knees I beg, That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food. 

 Regan. Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks: Return you to my sister. 

 Lear. Never, Regan: She hath abated me of half my train; Look'd blank upon me; struck me with her tongue, Most serpent-like, upon the very heart:-- All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall On her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, with lameness!

 Cornwall. Fie, sir, fie!

 Lear: You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, To fall, and blast her pride!

 Regan. O the blest gods! So will you wish on me, when the rash mood is on. 

 Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse; Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give Thee o'er to harshness; her eyes are fierce, but thine Do comfort, and not burn: 'Tis not in thee To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train, To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes, And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt Against my coming in: thou better know'st The offices of nature, bond of childhood, Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude; Thy half o' the kingdom thou hast not forgot, Wherein I thee endow'd. 

 Regan. Good sir, to the purpose. [Trumpets within]

 Lear. Who put my man i' the stocks?

 Cornwall. What trumpet's that?

 Enter Steward

 Regan. I know't, my sister's; this approves her letter, That she would soon be here. --Is your lady come?

 Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows:-- Out, varlet, from my sight!

 Cornwall. What means your grace?

 Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou did'st not know on't. --Who comes here? O heavens, Enter Gonerill

 If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!-- Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?-- [To Gonerill. ] O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

 Gonerill. Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All's not offence, that indiscretion finds, And dotage terms so. 

 Lear. O, sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold?--How came my man i' the stocks?

 Cornwall. I set him there, sir: but his own disorders Deserv'd much less advancement. 

 Lear. You! did you?

 Regan. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so. If, till the expiration of your month, You will return and sojourn with my sister, Dismissing half your train, come then to me; I am now from home, and out of that provision Which shall be needful for your entertainment. 

 Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To be a comrade with the wolf and owl-- To wage against the enmity o' the air, Necessity's sharp pinch!--Return with her! Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took Our youngest born, I could as well be brought To knee his throne, and squire-like pension beg To keep base life afoot. --Return with her! Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter To this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward. ]

 Gonerill. At your choice, sir. 

 Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad; I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: We'll no more meet, no more see one another:-- But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter; Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, Which I must needs call mine: thou art a bile, A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee: Let shame come when it will, I do not call it: I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: Mend when thou canst; be better, at thy leisure: I can be patient; I can stay with Regan, I, and my hundred knights. 

 Regan. Not altogether so, sir; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister; For those that mingle reason with your passion Must be content to think you old, and so-- But she knows what she does. 

 Lear. Is this well spoken now?

 Regan. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers? Is it not well? What should you need of more? Yea, or so many? Sith that both charge and danger Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house, Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity? Tis hard; almost impossible. 

 Gonerill. Why might you not, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

 Regan. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you, We would control them: if you will come to me (For now I spy a danger) I entreat you To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more Will I give place, or notice. 

 Lear. I gave you all--

 Regan. And in good time you gave it. 

 Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries; But kept a reservation to be follow'd With such a number: what, must I come to you With five-and-twenty, Regan! said you so?

 Regan. And speak it again, my lord; no more with me. 

 Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd, When others are more wicked; not being the worst, Stands in some rank of praise:--I'll go with thee; [To Gonerill. ] Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, And thou art twice her love. 

 Gonerill. Hear me, my lord; What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, To follow in a house, where twice so many Have a command to tend you?

 Regan. What need one?

 Lear. O, reason not the need: our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st; Which scarcely keeps thee warm. --But, for true need-- You heavens, give me that patience which I need! You see me here, you gods; a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both! If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger! O, let no woman's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks!--No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall--I will do such things-- What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep: No, I'll not weep:-- I have full cause of weeping; but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, Or e'er I'll weep:--O, fool, I shall go mad! [Exeunt Lear, Gloster, Kent, and Fool. ]

If there is anything in any author like this yearning of the heart, these throes of tenderness, this profound expression of all that canbe thought and felt in the most heart-rending situations, we areglad of it; but it is in some author that we have not read. 

The scene in the storm, where he is exposed to all the fury of theelements, though grand and terrible, is not so fine, but themoralizing scenes with Mad Tom, Kent, and Gloster, are upon a parwith the former. His exclamation in the supposed trial-scene of hisdaughters, 'See the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, andSweetheart, see they bark at me, ' his issuing his orders, 'Let themanatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart, ' and hisreflection when he sees the misery of Edgar, 'Nothing but his unkinddaughters could have brought him to this, ' are in a style of pathos, where the extremest resources of the imagination are called in tolay open the deepest movements of the heart, which was peculiar toShakespeare. In the same style and spirit is his interrupting theFool who asks, 'whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman', byanswering 'A king, a king!'

The indirect part that Gloster takes in these scenes where hisgenerosity leads him to relieve Lear and resent the cruelty of hisdaughters, at the very time that he is himself instigated to seekthe life of his son, and suffering under the sting of his supposedingratitude, is a striking accompaniment to the situation of Lear. Indeed, the manner in which the threads of the story are woventogether is almost as wonderful in the way of art as the carrying onthe tide of passion, still varying and unimpaired, is on the scoreof nature. Among the remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar'smeeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises uponhim when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff--'Comeon, sir, here's the place, ' to prevent his ending his life andmiseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom hekills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother uponhim which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel ofJustice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle andrapid succession of events in the last scenes is surprising. But themeeting between Lear and Cordelia is by far the most affecting partof them. It has all the wildness of poetry, and all the heartfelttruth of nature. The previous account of her reception of the newsof his unkind treatment, her involuntary reproaches to her sisters, 'Shame, ladies, shame, ' Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, thepicture of the desolate state to which he is reduced, 'Alack, 'tishe; why he was met even now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singingaloud, ' only prepare the way for and heighten our expectation ofwhat follows, and assuredly this expectation is not disappointedwhen through the tender care of Cordelia he revives and recollectsher. 

 Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty!

 Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead. 

 Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

 Lear. You are a spirit I know: when did you die?

 Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!

 Physician. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile. 

 Lear. Where have I been? Where am I?--Fair daylight?-- I am mightily abus'd. --I should even die with pity, To see another thus. --I know not what to say. -- I will not swear these are my hands:--let's see; I feel this pin prick. 'Would I were assur'd Of my condition. 

 Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir, And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:-- No, sir, you must not kneel. 

 Lear. Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; Not an hour more, nor less: and, to deal plainly, I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia. 

 Cordelia. And so I am, I am!

Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their consolation of eachother when, after the triumph of their enemies, they are led toprison. 

 Cordelia. We are not the first, Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown. -- Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?

 Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too-- Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;-- And take upon us the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by the moon. 

 Edmund. Take them away. 

 Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense. 

The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos isextreme. The oppression of the feelings is relieved by the veryinterest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by thereflections to which they give birth. Cordelia is hanged in prisonby the orders of the bastard Edmund, which are known too late to becountermanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, lamenting over her. 

 Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life. And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!-- Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir. ---

He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what Kent says on theoccasion--

 Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him, That would upon the rack of the rough world Stretch him out longer. 

Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which isapproved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A betterauthority than either, on any subject in which poetry and feelingare concerned, has given it in favour of Shakespeare, in someremarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude thisaccount. 

The Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinerywith which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not moreinadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than anyactor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not incorporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of hispassions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up anddisclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vastriches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh andblood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himselfneglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmitiesand weakness, the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see notLear, but we are Lear;--we are in his mind, we are sustained by agrandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in theaberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregular power ofreasoning, immethodized from the ordinary purposes of life, butexerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will onthe corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones todo with that sublime identification of his age with that of THEHEAVENS THEMSELVES, when in his reproaches to them for conniving atthe injustice of his children, he reminds them that "they themselvesare old!" What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has thevoice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond allart, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; itmust have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough thatCordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has puthis hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and hisfollowers, the showmen of the scene, to draw it about more easily. Ahappy ending!--as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gonethrough, --the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fairdismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. Ifhe is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world'sburden after, why all this pudder and preparation--why torment uswith all this unnecessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure ofgetting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act overagain his misused station--as if at his years and with hisexperience anything was left but to die. ' [Footnote: See an article, called 'Theatralia', in the second volume of the Reflector, byCharles Lamb. ]

Four things have struck us in reading LEAR:

1. That poetry is an interesting study, for this reason, that itrelates to whatever is most interesting in human life. Whoevertherefore has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for himself andhumanity. 

2. That the language of poetry is superior to the language ofpainting; because the strongest of our recollections relate tofeelings, not to faces. 

3. That the greatest strength of genius is shown in describing thestrongest passions: for the power of the imagination, in works ofinvention, must be in proportion to the force of the naturalimpressions, which are the subject of them. 

4. That the circumstance which balances the pleasure against thepain in tragedy is, that in proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our sense and desire of the opposite good excited; and that oursympathy with actual suffering is lost in the strong impulse givento our natural affections, and carried away with the swell-ing tideof passion, that gushes from and relieves the heart. 

RICHARD II

RICHARD II is a play little known compared with RICHARD III, whichlast is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical famechooses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confessthat we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise andbustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see itacted. In RICHARD II the weakness of the king leaves us leisure totake a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. 'After thefirst act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proveshis want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-forblows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power; not preventingit, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authoritytrampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and brokendown under insults and injuries, which his own misconduct hadprovoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. Thechange of tone and behaviour in the two competitors for the throneaccording to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentenceof banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliantoffers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to thehigh and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard's resignation ofthe crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes ofthe deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streetsof London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, whichimmediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout withcomplete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. Thesteps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by whichRichard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love forthe deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle:but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no meanshardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke ofmischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, andunused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its ownsufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and wesympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make usforget that he ever was a king. 

The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with thehappiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exerciseas a matter of favour, is strikingly shown in the sentence ofbanishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and inwhat Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are takenoff, with as little reason:

 How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings. 

A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile canhardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of hishaving 'sighed his English breath in foreign clouds'; or than thatconveyed in Mowbray's complaint at being banished for life. 

 The language I have learned these forty years, My native English, now I must forego; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now. --

How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how veryENGLISH too!

RICHARD II may be considered as the first of that series of Englishhistorical plays, in which 'is hung armour of the invincible knightsof old', in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats ofmail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but theharbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism theappeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Anotherof these 'keen encounters of their wits', which serve to whet thetalkers' swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence ofBolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being anaccessory in Gloster's death. 

 Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine; By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death. If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest, And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart Where it was forged, with my rapier's point. 

 Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day, Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour. 

 Aumerle. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. 

 Percy. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true, In this appeal, as thou art all unjust; And that thou art so, there I throw my gage To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st. 

 Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off, And never brandish more revengeful steel Over the glittering helmet of my foe. Who sets me else? By heav'n, I'll throw at all. I have a thousand spirits in my breast, To answer twenty thousand such as you. 

 Surrey. My lord Fitzwater, I remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk. 

 Fitzwater. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then; And you can witness with me, this is true. 

 Surrey. As false, by heav'n, as heav'n itself is true. 

 Fitzwater, Surrey, thou liest. 

 Surrey. Dishonourable boy, That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword, That it shall render vengeance and revenge, Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest In earth as quiet as thy father's skull. In proof whereof, there is mine honour's pawn: Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st. 

 Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse: If I dare eat or drink or breathe or live, I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness, And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith, To tie thee to thy strong correction. As I do hope to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal. 

The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all thesenoble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows withblows, in mere self-defence: nor have they any principle whateverbut that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, orany falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How differentwere these noble knights and 'barons bold' from their more refineddescendants in the present day, who instead of deciding questions ofright by brute force, refer everything to convenience, fashion, andgood breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then. 

The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, unclesto the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, arewell kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is oneof the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardlybe disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen byquoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it(which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree ofexultation. 

 This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall (Or as a moat defensive to a house) Against the envy of less happy lands: This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd for their breed and famous for their birth, Renown'd for their deeds, as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son; This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it) Like to a tenement or pelting farm. England bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame, With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds. That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 

The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV, is drawn with amasterly hand:--patient for occasion, and then steadily availinghimself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on itwhen he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfolded byRichard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make aproper use of his knowledge. 

 Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship of the common people; How he did seem to dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' next degree in hope. 

Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words:

 I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends; And as my fortune ripens with thy love, It shall be still thy true love's recompense. 

We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion ofhis own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and theascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claimingit, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits ofthis ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himselfgives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, hismisfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keepit, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits ofhectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the moststriking touches of pathos are his wish, 'O that I were a mockeryking of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke', and theincident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, andtells him how 'it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon hiscoronation day rode on Roan Barbary. We shall have occasion toreturn hereafter to the character of Richard II in speaking of HenryVI. There is only one passage more, the description of his entranceinto London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, ifit had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, sopraised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all theseconsiderations. 

 Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins coming into London. 

 York. Where did I leave?

 Duchess. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window tops, Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head. 

 York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, While all tongues cried--God save thee, Bolingbroke! You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag'ry, had said at once-- Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke! Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus--I thank you, countrymen: And thus still doing thus he pass'd along. 

 Duchess. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?

 York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him! No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: But dust was thrown upon his sacred head! Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off-- His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience-- That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted. And barbarism itself have pitied him. 

HENRY IV

IN TWO PARTS

If Shakespeare's fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faultsin his tragedies (which was not often the case), he has made usamends by the character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the mostsubstantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carriesa most portly presence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speakit profanely, 'we behold the fullness of the spirit of wit andhumour bodily'. We are as well acquainted with his person as hismind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish fromthe quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as heshakes his fat sides with laughter, or 'lards the lean earth as hewalks along'. Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handlethem, to resolve themselves into air, 'into thin air'; but this isembodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies 'threefingers deep upon the ribs', it plays about the lungs and thediaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like agood estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenuesof profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent, and therichness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute forpleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at thecomforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit isan emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humourand good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter, and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease and over-contentmentwith himself and others. He would not be in character, if he werenot so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in theboundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgenceof his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind withjests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out hisjokes, as he would a capon, or a haunch of venison, where there iscut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. Histongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain 'it snows ofmeat and drink'. He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, andwe live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen. --Yetwe are not to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is asmuch in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engrossand stupify his other faculties, but 'ascends me into the brain, clears away all the dull, crude vapours that environ it, and makesit full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes'. His imaginationkeeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems tohave even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of goodcheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerateddescriptions which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails toenrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but wenever see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself 'a tun of man'. His pulling out the bottle in thefield of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompaniedwith danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy inthe most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberateexaggeration of his own vices, that it does not seem quite certainwhether the account of his hostess's bill, found in his pocket, withsuch an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with only onehalfpenny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick tohumour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a consciouscaricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, acoward, a glutton, &c. , and yet we are not offended but delightedwith him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratifyhimself, He openly assumes all these characters to show the humorouspart of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon thestage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moralpoint of view than we should think of bringing an excellentcomedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of thepolice offices. We only consider the number of pleasant lights inwhich he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposedto the received rules and necessary restraints of society) and donot trouble ourselves about the consequences resulting from them, for no mischievous consequences do result. Sir John is old as wellas fat, which gives a melancholy retrospective tinge to thecharacter; and by the disparity between his inclinations and hiscapacity for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous andfantastical. 

The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part a masterlypresence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing candisturb. His repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self-love;instinctive evasions of everything that threatens to interrupt thecareer of his triumphant jollity and self-complacency. His very sizefloats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits;and he turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with everyoccasion and at a moment's warning. His natural repugnance to everyunpleasant thought or circumstance of itself makes light ofobjections, and provokes the most extravagant and licentious answersin his own justification. His indifference to truth puts no checkupon his invention, and the more improbable and unexpected hiscontrivances are, the more happily does he seem to be delivered ofthem, the anticipation of their effect acting as a stimulus to thegaiety of his fancy. The success of one adventurous sally gives himspirits to undertake another: he deals always in round numbers, andhis exaggerations and excuses are 'open, palpable, monstrous as thefather that begets them'. His dissolute carelessness of what he saysdiscovers itself in the first dialogue with the Prince. 

Falstaff. By the lord, thou say'st true, lad; and is not minehostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

P. Henry. As the honey of Hibla, my old lad of the castle; and isnot a buff-jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

Falstaff. How now, how now, mad wag, what in thy quips and thyquiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff-jerkin?

P. Henry. Why, what a pox have I to do with mine hostess of thetavern?

In the same scene he afterwards affects melancholy, from puresatisfaction of heart, and professes reform, because it is thefarthest thing in the world from his thoughts. He has no qualms ofconscience, and therefore would as soon talk of them as of anythingelse when the humour takes him. 

Falstaff. But Hal, I pr'ythee trouble me no more with vanity. Iwould to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were tobe bought: an old lord of council rated me the other day in thestreet about you, sir; but I mark'd him not, and yet he talked verywisely, and in the street too. 

P. Henry. Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the street, andno man regards it. 

Falstaff. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able tocorrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal; God forgivethee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now I am, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. Imust give over this life, and I will give it over, by the lord; an Ido not, I am a villain. I'll be damn'd for never a king's son inChristendom, P. Henry. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow. Jack?

Falstaff. Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call mevillain, and baffle me. 

P. Henry. I see good amendment of life in thee, from praying topurse-taking. 

Falstaff. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man tolabour in his vocation. 

Of the other prominent passages, his account of his pretendedresistance to the robbers, 'who grew from four men in buckram intoeleven' as the imagination of his own valour increased with hisrelating it, his getting off when the truth is discovered bypretending he knew the Prince, the scene in which in the person ofthe old king he lectures the prince and gives himself a goodcharacter, the soliloquy on honour, and description of his new-raised recruits, his meeting with the chief justice, his abuse ofthe Prince and Poins, who overhear him, to Doll Tearsheet, hisreconciliation with Mrs. Quickly who has arrested him for an olddebt and whom he persuades to pawn her plate to lend him ten poundsmore, and the scenes with Shallow and Silence, are all inimitable. Of all of them, the scene in which Falstaff plays the part, first, of the King, and then of Prince Henry, is the one that has been themost often quoted. We must quote it once more in illustration of ourremarks. 

Falstaff. Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendeth thy time, but also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the moreit is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it iswasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thymother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainoustrick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, thatdoth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;--Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shaft the blessed sunof heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to beask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? aquestion not to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hastoften heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name ofpitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; sodoth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak tothee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not inwords only, but in woes also:--and yet there is a virtuous man, whomI have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. 

P. Henry. What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

Falstaff. A goodly portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent; of acheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as Ithink, his age some fifty, or, by'r-lady, inclining to threescore;and now I do remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man shouldbe lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in hislooks. If then the fruit may be known by the tree, as the tree bythe fruit, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in thatFalstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thounaughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

P. Henry. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, andI'll play my father. 

Falstaff. Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, somajestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for arabbit-sucker, or a poulterer's hare. 

P. Henry. Well, here I am set. 

Falstaff. And here I stand:--judge, my masters. 

P. Henry. Now, Harry, whence come you?

Falstaff. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. 

P. Henry. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 

Falstaff. S'blood, my lord, they are false:--nay, I'll tickle ye fora young prince, i'faith. 

P. Henry. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look onme. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there is a devilhaunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thycompanion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, thatbolting-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, thathuge bombard of sack, that stuft cloak-bag of guts, that roastedManning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat andcleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but incraft? wherein crafty, but in villainy? wherein villainous, but inall things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

Falstaff. I would, your grace would take me with you: whom meansyour grace?

P. Henry. That villainous, abominable mis-leader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. 

Falstaff. My lord, the man I know. 

P. Henry. I know thou dost. 

Falstaff. But to say, I know more harm in him than in myself, wereto say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) hiswhite hairs do witness it: but that he is (saving your reverence) awhore-master, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, Godhelp the wicked! if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an oldhost that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, thenPharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kindJack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, andtherefore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banishnot him thy Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all theworld. 

P. Henry. I do, I will. 

[Knocking; and Hostess and Bardolph go out. ]

Re-enter Bardolph, running. 

Bardolph. O, my lord, my lord; the sheriff, with a most monstrouswatch, is at the door. 

Falstaff. Out, you rogue! play out the play: I have much to say inthe behalf of that Falstaff. 

One of the most characteristic descriptions of Sir John is thatwhich Mrs. Quickly gives of him when he asks her, 'What is the grosssum that I owe thee?'

Hostess. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the moneytoo. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in myDolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire on Wednesdayin Whitsunweek, when the prince broke thy head for likening hisfather to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, asI was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, comein then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess ofvinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thoudidst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for agreen wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people;saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou notkiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now tothy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst. 

This scene is to us the most convincing proof of Falstaff's power ofgaining over the goodwill of those he was familiar with, exceptindeed Bardolph's somewhat profane exclamation on hearing theaccount of his death, 'Would I were with him, wheresoe'er he is, whether in heaven or hell. '

One of the topics of exulting superiority over others most common inSir John's mouth is his corpulence and the exterior marks of goodliving which he carries about him, thus 'turning his vices intocommodity'. He accounts for the friendship between the Prince andPoins, from 'their legs being both of a bigness'; and comparesJustice Shallow to 'a man made after supper of a cheese-paring'. There cannot be a more striking gradation of character than thatbetween Falstaff and Shallow, and Shallow and Silence. It seemsdifficult at first to fall lower than the squire; but this fool, great as he is, finds an admirer and humble foil in his cousinSilence. Vain of his acquaintance with Sir John, who makes a butt ofhim, he exclaims, 'Would, cousin Silence, that thou had'st seen thatwhich this knight and I have seen!'--'Aye, Master Shallow, we haveheard the chimes at midnight, ' says Sir John. To Falstaff'sobservation, 'I did not think Master Silence had been a man of thismettle', Silence answers, 'Who, I? I have been merry twice and onceere now. ' What an idea is here conveyed of a prodigality of living?What good husbandry and economical self-denial in his pleasures?What a stock of lively recollections? It is curious that Shakespearehas ridiculed in Justice Shallow, who was 'in some authority underthe king', that disposition to unmeaning tautology which is theregal infirmity of later times, and which, it may be supposed, heacquired from talking to his cousin Silence, and receiving noanswers. 

Falstaff. You have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich. 

Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:marry, good air. Spread Davy, spread Davy. Well said, Davy. 

Falstaff. This Davy serves you for good uses. 

Shallow. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet. By themass, I have drank too much sack at supper. A good varlet. Now sitdown, now sit down. Come, cousin. 

The true spirit of humanity, the thorough knowledge of the stuff weare made of, the practical wisdom with the seeming fooleries in thewhole of the garden-scene at Shallow's country-seat, and just beforein the exquisite dialogue between him and Silence on the death ofold Double, have no parallel anywhere else. In one point of view, they are laughable in the extreme; in another they are equallyaffecting, if it is affecting to show what a little thing is humanlife, what a poor forked creature man is!

The heroic and serious part of these two plays founded on the storyof Henry IV is not inferior to the comic and farcical. Thecharacters of Hotspur and Prince Henry are two of the most beautifuland dramatic, both in themselves and from contrast, that ever weredrawn. They are the essence of chivalry. We like Hotspur the bestupon the whole, perhaps because he was unfortunate. --The charactersof their fathers, Henry IV and old Northumberland, are kept upequally well. Henry naturally succeeds by his prudence and cautionin keeping what he has got; Northumberland fails in his enterprisefrom an excess of the same quality, and is caught in the web of hisown cold, dilatory policy. Owen Glendower is a masterly character. It is as bold and original as it is intelligible and thoroughlynatural. The disputes between him and Hotspur are managed withinfinite address and insight into nature. We cannot help pointingout here some very beautiful lines, where Hotspur describes thefight between Glendower and Mortimer. 

 --When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank, In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower: Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood; Who then affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. 

The peculiarity and the excellence of Shakespeare's poetry is, thatit seems as if he made his imagination the hand-maid of nature, andnature the plaything of his imagination. He appears to have been allthe characters, and in all the situations he describes. It is as ifeither he had had all their feelings, or had lent them all hisgenius to express themselves. There cannot be stronger instances ofthis than Hotspur's rage when Henry IV forbids him to speak ofMortimer, his insensibility to all that his father and uncle urge tocalm him, and his fine abstracted apostrophe to honour, 'By heavenmethinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the moon, '&c. After all, notwithstanding the gallantry, generosity, goodtemper, and idle freaks of the mad-cap Prince of Wales, we shouldnot have been sorry if Northumberland's force had come up in time todecide the fate of the battle at Shrewsbury; at least, we alwaysheartily sympathize with Lady Percy's grief when she exclaims:

 Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers, To-day might I (hanging on Hotspur's neck) Have talked of Monmouth's grave. 

The truth is, that we never could forgive the Prince's treatment ofFalstaff; though perhaps Shakespeare knew what was best, accordingto the history, the nature of the times, and of the man. We speakonly as dramatic critics. Whatever terror the French in those daysmight have of Henry V, yet to the readers of poetry at present, Falstaff is the better man of the two. We think of him and quote himoftener. 

HENRY V

Henry V is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and heappears to have been also a favourite with Shakespeare, who labourshard to apologize for the actions of the king, by showing us thecharacter of the man, as 'the king of good fellows'. He scarcelydeserves this honour. He was fond of war and low company:--we knowlittle else of him. He was careless, dissolute, and ambitious--idle, or doing mischief. In private, he seemed to have no idea of thecommon decencies of life, which he subjected to a kind of regallicense; in public affairs, he seemed to have no idea of any rule ofright or wrong, but brute force, glossed over with a littlereligious hypocrisy and archiepiscopal advice. His principles didnot change with his situation and professions. His adventure onGadshill was a prelude to the affair of Agincourt, only a bloodlessone; Falstaff was a puny prompter of violence and outrage, comparedwith the pious and politic Archbishop of Canterbury, who gave theking carte blanche, in a genealogical tree of his family, to rob andmurder in circles of latitude and longitude abroad--to save thepossessions of the Church at home. This appears in the speeches inShakespeare, where the hidden motives that actuate princes and theiradvisers in war and policy are better laid open than in speechesfrom the throne or woolsack. Henry, because he did not know how togovern his own kingdom, determined to make war upon his neighbours. Because his own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid claim tothat of France. Because he did not know how to exercise the enormouspower, which had just dropped into his hands, to any one goodpurpose, he immediately undertook (a cheap and obvious resource ofsovereignty) to do all the mischief he could. Even if absolutemonarchs had the wit to find out objects of laudable ambition, theycould only 'plume up their wills' in adhering to the more sacredformula of the royal prerogative, 'the right divine of kings togovern wrong', because will is only then triumphant when it isopposed to the will of others, because the pride of power is onlythen shown, not when it consults the rights and interests of others, but when it insults and tramples on all justice and all humanity. Henry declares his resolution 'when France is his, to bend it to hisawe, or break it all to pieces'--a resolution worthy of a conqueror, to destroy all that he cannot enslave; and what adds to the joke, helays all the blame of the consequences of his ambition on those whowill not submit tamely to his tyranny. Such is the history of kinglypower, from the beginning to the end of the world--with thisdifference, that the object of war formerly, when the people adheredto their allegiance, was to depose kings; the object latterly, sincethe people swerved from their allegiance, has been to restore kings, and to make common cause against mankind. The object of our lateinvasion and conquest of France was to restore the legitimatemonarch, the descendant of Hugh Capet, to the throne: Henry V in histime made war on and deposed the descendant of this very Hugh Capet, on the plea that he was a usurper and illegitimate. What would thegreat modern catspaw of legitimacy and restorer of divine right havesaid to the claim of Henry and the title of the descendants of HughCapet? Henry V, it is true, was a hero, a king of England, and theconqueror of the king of France. Yet we feel little love oradmiration for him. He was a hero, that is, he was ready tosacrifice his own life for the pleasure of destroying thousands ofother lives: he was a king of England, but not a constitutional one, and we only like kings according to the law; lastly, he was aconqueror of the French king, and for this we dislike him less thanif he had conquered the French people. How then do we like him? Welike him in the play. There he is a very amiable monster, a verysplendid pageant. As we like to gaze at a panther or a young lion intheir cages in the Tower, and catch a pleasing horror from theirglistening eyes, their velvet paws, and dreadless roar, so we take avery romantic, heroic, patriotic, and poetical delight in the boastsand feats of our younger Harry, as they appear on the stage and areconfined to lines of ten syllables; where no blood follows thestroke that wounds our ears, where no harvest bends beneath horses'hoofs, no city flames, no little child is butchered, no dead men'sbodies are found piled on heaps and festering the next morning--inthe orchestra!

So much for the politics of this play; now for the poetry. Perhapsone of the most striking images in all Shakespeare is that given ofwar in the first lines of the Prologue. 

 O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars, and AT HIS HEELS LEASH'D IN LIKE HOUNDS, SHOULD FAMINE, SWORD, AND FIRE CROUCH FOR EMPLOYMENT. 

Rubens, if he had painted it, would not have improved upon thissimile. The conversation between the Archbishop of Canterbury andthe Bishop of Ely relating to the sudden change in the manners ofHenry V is among the well-known BEAUTIES of Shakespeare. It isindeed admirable both for strength and grace. It has sometimesoccurred to us that Shakespeare, in describing 'the reformation' ofthe Prince, might have had an eye to himself--

 Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain, His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow, His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports; And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity. 

 Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Under the veil of wildness, which no doubt Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty. 

This at least is as probable an account of the progress of thepoet's mind as we have met with in any of the Essays on the Learningof Shakespeare. 

Nothing can be better managed than the caution which the king givesthe meddling Archbishop, not to advise him rashly to engage in thewar with France, his scrupulous dread of the consequences of thatadvice, and his eager desire to hear and follow it. 

 And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul With opening titles miscreate, whose right Suits not in native colours with the truth. For God doth know how many now in health Shall drop their blood, in approbation Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 

 Therefore take heed how you impawn your person, How you awake our sleeping sword of war; We charge you in the name of God, take heed. For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 'Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality. Under this conjuration, speak, my lord; For we will hear, note, and believe in heart, That what you speak, is in your conscience wash'd, As pure as sin with baptism. 

Another characteristic instance of the blindness of human nature toeverything but its own interests is the complaint made by the kingof 'the ill neighbourhood' of the Scot in attacking England when shewas attacking France. 

 For once the eagle England being in prey, To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs. 

It is worth observing that in all these plays, which give anadmirable picture of the spirit of the good old times, the moralinference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, buton the dignity or meanness of the persons committing them. 'Theeagle England' has a right 'to be in prey', but 'the weazel Scot'has none 'to come sneaking to her nest', which she has left topounce upon others. Might was right, without equivocation ordisguise, in that heroic and chivalrous age. The substitution ofright for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abusesof modern philosophy. 

A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the effects ofsubordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than thefollowing:

 For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congruing in a full and natural close, Like music. --Therefore heaven doth divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience; for so work the honey bees; Creatures that by a rule in nature, teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing mason building roofs of gold; The civil citizens kneading up the honey; The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate; The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, -- That many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously: As many arrows, loosed several ways, Fly to one mark; As many several ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's centre; So may a thousand actions, once a-foot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat. 

HENRY V is but one of Shakespeare's second-rate plays. Yet byquoting passages, like this, from his second-rate plays alone, wemight make a volume 'rich with his praise', As is the oozy bottom of the sea With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries. 

Of this sort are the king's remonstrance to Scroop, Grey, andCambridge, on the detection of their treason, his address to thesoldiers at the siege of Harfleur, and the still finer one beforethe battle of Agincourt, the description of the night before thebattle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of theking. 

 O hard condition; twin-born with greatness, Subjected to the breath of every fool, Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect, That private men enjoy? and what have kings, That privates have not too, save ceremony? Save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul, O adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy, being feared, Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Can'st thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose, I am a king, that find thee: and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The enter-tissu'd robe of gold and pearl, The farsed title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave; Who, with a body fili'd, and vacant mind, Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, Never sees horrid night, the child of hell: But, like a lacquey, from the rise to set, Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn, Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse; And follows so the ever-running year With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, Has the forehand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots, What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages. 

Most of these passages are well known: there is one, which we do notremember to have seen noticed, and yet it is no whit inferior to therest in heroic beauty. It is the account of the deaths of York andSuffolk. 

 Exeter. The duke of York commends him to your majesty. 

 K. Henry. Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour, I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting; From helmet to the spur all blood he was. 

 Exeter. In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie, Larding the plain; and by his bloody side (Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds) The noble earl of Suffolk also lies. Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled o'er, Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd, And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes, That bloodily did yawn upon his face; And cries aloud--Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk! My soul shall thine keep company to heaven: Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast; As, in this glorious and well-foughten field, We kept together in our chivalry! Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him up: He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand, And, with a feeble gripe, says--Dear my lord, Commend my service to my sovereign. So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips; And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd A testament of noble-ending love. 

But we must have done with splendid quotations. The behaviour of theking, in the difficult and doubtful circumstances in which he isplaced, is as patient and modest as it is spirited and lofty in hisprosperous fortune. The character of the French nobles is also veryadmirably depicted; and the Dauphin's praise of his horse shows thevanity of that class of persons in a very striking point of view. Shakespeare always accompanies a foolish prince with a satiricalcourtier, as we see in this instance. The comic parts of HENRY V arevery inferior to those of HENRY IV. Falstaff is dead, and withouthim. Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph are satellites without a sun. Fluellen the Welshman is the most entertaining character in thepiece. He is good-natured, brave, choleric, and pedantic. Hisparallel between Alexander and Harry of Monmouth, and his desire tohave 'some disputations' with Captain Macmorris on the discipline ofthe Roman wars, in the heat of the battle, are never to beforgotten. His treatment of Pistol is as good as Pistol's treatmentof his French prisoner. There are two other remarkable prosepassages in this play: the conversation of Henry in disguise withthe three sentinels on the duties of a soldier, and his courtship ofKatherine in broken French. We like them both exceedingly, thoughthe first savours perhaps too much of the king, and the last toolittle of the lover. 

HENRY VI

IN THREE PARTS

During the time of the civil wars of York and Lancaster, England wasa perfect bear-garden, and Shakespeare has given us a very livelypicture of the scene. The three parts of HENRY VI convey a pictureof very little else; and are inferior to the other historical plays. They have brilliant passages; but the general ground-work iscomparatively poor and meagre, the style 'flat and unraised'. Thereare few lines like the following:

 Glory is like a circle in the water; Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught. 

The first part relates to the wars in France after the death ofHenry V and the story of the Maid of Orleans. She is here almost asscurvily treated as in Voltaire's Pucelle. Talbot is a verymagnificent sketch: there is something as formidable in thisportrait of him, as there would be in a monumental figure of him orin the sight of the armour which he wore. The scene in which hevisits the Countess of Auvergne, who seeks to entrap him, is a veryspirited one, and his description of his own treatment while aprisoner to the French not less remarkable. 

 Salisbury. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd. 

 Talbot. With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts, In open market-place produced they me, To be a public spectacle to all. Here, said they, is the terror of the French, The scarecrow that affrights our children so. Then broke I from the officers that led me, And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground, To hurl at the beholders of my shame. My grisly countenance made others fly, None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deem'd me not secure: So great a fear my name amongst them spread, That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel, And spurn in pieces posts of adamant. Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had: They walk'd about me every minute-while; And if I did but stir out of my bed, Ready they were to shoot me to the heart. 

The second part relates chiefly to the contests between the noblesduring the minority of Henry and the death of Gloucester, the goodDuke Humphrey. The character of Cardinal Beaufort is the mostprominent in the group: the account of his death is one of ourauthor's masterpieces. So is the speech of Gloucester to the nobleson the loss of the provinces of France by the king's marriage withMargaret of Anjou. The pretensions and growing ambition of the Dukeof York, the father of Richard III, are also very ably developed. Among the episodes, the tragi-comedy of Jack Cade, and the detectionof the impostor Simcox are truly edifying. 

The third part describes Henry's loss of his crown: his death takesplace in the last act, which is usually thrust into the commonacting play of RICHARD III. The character of Gloucester, afterwardsKing Richard, is here very powerfully commenced, and his dangerousdesigns and long-reaching ambition are fully described in hissoliloquy in the third act, beginning, 'Aye, Edward will use womenhonourably. ' Henry VI is drawn as distinctly as his high-spiritedQueen, and notwithstanding the very mean figure which Henry makes asa king, we still feel more respect for him than for his wife. 

We have already observed that Shakespeare was scarcely moreremarkable for the force and marked contrasts of his characters thanfor the truth and subtlety with which he has distinguished thosewhich approached the nearest to each other. For instance, the soulof Othello is hardly more distinct from that of Iago than that ofDesdemona is shown to be from Aemilia's; the ambition of Macbeth isas distinct from the ambition of Richard III as it is from themeekness of Duncan; the real madness of Lear is as different fromthe feigned madness of Edgar [Footnote: There is another instance ofthe name distinction in Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet's pretendedmadness would make a very good real madness in any other author. ] asfrom the babbling of the fool; the contrast between wit and folly inFalstaff and Shallow is not more characteristic though more obviousthan the gradations of folly, loquacious or reserved, in Shallow andSilence; and again, the gallantry of Prince Henry is as littleconfounded with that of Hotspur as with the cowardice of Falstaff, or as the sensual and philosophic cowardice of the Knight is withthe pitiful and cringing cowardice of Parolles. All these severalpersonages were as different in Shakespeare as they would have beenin themselves: his imagination borrowed from the life, and everycircumstance, object, motive, passion, operated there as it would inreality, and produced a world of men and women as distinct, as trueand as various as those that exist in nature. The peculiar propertyof Shakespeare's imagination was this truth, accompanied with theunconsciousness of nature: indeed, imagination to be perfect must beunconscious, at least in production; for nature is so. We shallattempt one example more in the characters of Richard II and HenryVI. 

The characters and situations of both these persons were so nearlyalike, that they would have been completely confounded by acommonplace poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shakespeare. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owingto their mismanagement and imbecility; the one from a thoughtless, wilful abuse of power, the other from an indifference to it. Themanner in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds exactly tothe causes which led to them. The one is always lamenting the lossof his power which he has not the spirit to regain; the other seemsonly to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid ofthe power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of avoluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, andinconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is thatof an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoilsof ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass histime in monkish indolence and contemplation. --Richard bewails theloss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifying hispride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the advantages to be derived from possessingit than afraid of exercising it wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives him ghostly advice--

 Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight, And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right. 

Richard II in the first speeches of the play betrays his realcharacter. In the first alarm of his pride, on hearing ofBolingbroke's rebellion, before his presumption has met with anycheck, he exclaims:

 Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords: This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under proud rebellious arms. . . . . . Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king; The breath of worldly man cannot depose The Deputy elected by the Lord. For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest, To lift sharp steel against our golden crown, Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel; then if angels fight, Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right. 

Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the veryfirst news of actual disaster, all his conceit of himself as thepeculiar favourite of Providence vanishes into air. 

 But now the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled. All souls that will be safe fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride. 

Immediately after, however, recollecting that 'cheap defence' of thedivinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arminghis name against his enemies. 

 Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep'st; Is not the King's name forty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name: a puny subject strikes At thy great glory. 

King Henry does not make any such vapouring resistance to the lossof his crown, but lets it slip from off his head as a weight whichhe is neither able nor willing to bear; stands quietly by to see theissue of the contest for his kingdom, as if it were a game at push-pin, and is pleased when the odds prove against him. 

When Richard first hears of the death of his favourites, Bushy, Bagot, and the rest, he indignantly rejects all idea of any furtherefforts, and only indulges in the extravagant impatience of hisgrief and his despair, in that fine speech which has been so oftenquoted:

 Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power?

 K. Richard. No matter where: of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow in the bosom of the earth! Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: And yet not so--for what can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth, Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of Kings: How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kili'd; All murder'd:--for within the hollow crown, That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp! Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit-- As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and, with a little pin, Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence; throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while: I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief, Need friends, like you; subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a king?

There is as little sincerity afterwards in his affected resignationto his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture ofhis misfortunes before they have happened. 

When Northumberland comes back with the message from Bolingbroke, heexclaims, anticipating the result, --

 What must the king do now? Must he submit? The king shall do it: must he be depos'd? The king shall be contented: must he lose The name of king? O' God's name let it go. I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an almsman's gown, My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood, My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff, My subjects for a pair of carved saints, And my large kingdom for a little grave-- A little, little grave, an obscure grave. 

How differently is all this expressed in King Henry's soliloquy, during the battle with Edward's party:

 This battle fares like to the morning's war, When dying clouds contend with growing light, What time the shepherd blowing of his nails, Can neither call it perfect day or night. Here on this mole-hill will I sit me down; To whom God will, there be the victory! For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too, Have chid me from the battle; swearing both They prosper best of all when I am thence. Would I were dead, if God's good will were so. For what is in this world but grief and woe? O God! methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain, To sit upon a hill as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run: How many make the hour full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times: So many hours must I tend my flock, So many hours must I take my rest, So many hours must I contemplate, So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young, So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean, So many months ere I shall shear the fleece: So many minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years Past over, to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? O yes it doth, a thousand-fold it doth. And to conclude, the shepherds' homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Is far beyond a prince's delicates, His viands sparkling in a golden cup, His body couched in a curious bed, When care, mistrust, and treasons wait on him. 

This is a true and beautiful description of a naturally quiet andcontented disposition, and not, like the former, the spleneticeffusion of disappointed ambition. 

In the last scene of RICHARD II his despair lends him courage: hebeats the keeper, slays two of his assassins, and dies withimprecations in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who 'hadstaggered his royal person'. Henry, when he is seized by the deer-stealers, only reads them a moral lecture on the duty of allegianceand the sanctity of an oath; and when stabbed by Gloucester in theTower, reproaches him with his crimes, but pardons him his owndeath. 

RICHARD III

RICHARD III may be considered as properly a stageplay: it belongs tothe theatre, rather than to the closet. We shall therefore criticizeit chiefly with a reference to the manner in which we have seen itperformed. It is the character in which Garrick came out: it was thesecond character in which Mr. Kean appeared, and in which heacquired his fame. Shakespeare we have always with us: actors wehave only for a few seasons; and therefore some account of them maybe acceptable, if not to our cotemporaries, to those who come afterus, if 'that rich and idle personage, Posterity', should deign tolook into our writings. 

It is possible to form a higher conception of the character ofRichard than that given by Mr. Kean: but we cannot imagine anycharacter represented with greater distinctness and precision, moreperfectly ARTICULATED in every part. Perhaps indeed there is toomuch of what is technically called execution. When we first saw thiscelebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from anexuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the generalcharacter by the variety of his resources. To be complete, hisdelineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained andimpassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewerglancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions. 

The Richard of Shakespeare is towering and lofty; equally impetuousand commanding; haughty, violent, and subtle; bold and treacherous;confident in his strength as well as in his cunning; raised high byhis birth, and higher by his talents and his crimes; a royalusurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant and a murderer of the houseof Plantagenet. 

 But I was born so high: Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun. 

The idea conveyed in these lines (which are indeed omitted in themiserable medley acted for Richard III) is never lost sight of byShakespeare, and should not be out of the actor's mind for a moment. The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a man striving to begreat, but to be greater than he is; conscious of his strength ofwill, his power of intellect, his daring courage, his elevatedstation; and making use of these advantages to commit unheard-ofcrimes, and to shield himself from remorse and infamy. 

If Mr. Kean does not entirely succeed in concentrating all the linesof the character, as drawn by Shakespeare, he gives an animation, vigour, and relief to the part which we have not seen equalled. Heis more refined than Cooke; more bold, varied, and original thanKemble in the same character. In some parts he is deficient indignity, and particularly in the scenes of state business, he has byno means an air of artificial authority. There is at times anaspiring elevation, an enthusiastic rapture in his expectations ofattaining the crown, and at others a gloating expression of sullendelight, as if he already clenched the bauble, and held it in hisgrasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is an admirable exhibitionof smooth and smiling villainy. The progress of wily adulation, ofencroaching humility, is finely marked by his action, voice and eye. He seems, like the first Tempter, to approach his prey, secure ofthe event, and as if success had smoothed his way before him. Thelate Mr. Cooke's manner of representing this scene was morevehement, hurried, and full of anxious uncertainty. This, thoughmore natural in general, was less in character in this particularinstance. Richard should woo less as a lover than as an actor--toshow his mental superiority, and power of making others theplaythings of his purposes. Mr. Kean's attitude in leaning againstthe side of the stage before he comes forward to address Lady Anne, is one of the most graceful and striking ever witnessed on thestage. It would do for Titian to paint. The frequent and rapidtransition of his voice from the expression of the fiercest passionto the most familiar tones of conversation was that which gave apeculiar grace of novelty to his acting on his first appearance. This has been since imitated and caricatured by others, and hehimself uses the artifice more sparingly than he did. His by-play isexcellent. His manner of bidding his friends 'Good night', afterpausing with the point of his sword drawn slowly backward andforward on the ground, as if considering the plan of the battle nextday, is a particularly happy and natural thought. He gives to thetwo last acts of the play the greatest animation and effect. Hefills every part of the stage; and makes up for the deficiency ofhis person by what has been sometimes objected to as an excess ofaction, The concluding scene in which he is killed by Richmond isthe most brilliant of the whole. He fights at last like one drunkwith wounds; and the attitude in which he stands with his handsstretched out, after his sword is wrested from him, has apreternatural and terrific grandeur, as if his will could not bedisarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair had power to kill. --Mr. Kean has since in a great measure effaced the impression of hisRichard III by the superior efforts of his genius in Othello (hismasterpiece), in the murder-scene in MACBETH, in RICHARD II, in SIRGILES OVERREACH, and lastly in OROONOKO; but we still like to lookback to his first performance of this part, both because it firstassured his admirers of his future success, and because we bore ourfeeble but, at that time, not useless testimony to the merits ofthis very original actor, on which the town was considerably dividedfor no other reason than because they WERE original. 

The manner in which Shakespeare's plays have been generally alteredor rather mangled by modern mechanists, is a disgrace to the Englishstage. The patch-work Richard III which is acted under the sanctionof his name, and which was manufactured by Cibber, is a strikingexample of this remark. 

The play itself is undoubtedly a very powerful effusion ofShakespeare's genius. The ground-work of the character of Richard, that mixture of intellectual vigour with moral depravity, in whichShakespeare delighted to show his strength--gave full scope as wellas temptation to the exercise of his imagination. The character ofhis hero is almost everywhere predominant, and marks its lurid trackthroughout. The original play is, however, too long forrepresentation, and there are some few scenes which might be betterspared than preserved, and by omitting which it would remain acomplete whole. The only rule, indeed, for altering Shakespeare isto retrench certain passages which may be considered either assuperfluous or obsolete, but not to add or transpose anything. Thearrangement and development of the story, and the mutual contrastand combination of the dramatis personae, are in general as finelymanaged as the development of the characters or the expression ofthe passions. 

This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some ofthe most important and striking passages in the principal characterhave been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts fromother plays; the only intention of which seems to have been to makethe character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. It isapparently for no other purpose than to make Gloucester stab KingHenry on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of thecharacter in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whiningmorality of the uxorious king (taken from another play);--we sayTEDIOUS, because it interrupts the business of the scene, and losesits beauty and effect by having no intelligible connexion with theprevious character of the mild, well-meaning monarch. The passageswhich the unfortunate Henry has to recite are beautiful and patheticin themselves, but they have nothing to do with the world thatRichard has to 'bustle in'. In the same spirit of vulgar caricatureis the scene between Richard and Lady Anne (when his wife)interpolated without any authority, merely to gratify this favouritepropensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverseconsistency, Richard, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up bysome galvanic process, to utter the imprecation, without any motivebut pure malignity, which Shakespeare has so properly put into themouth of Northumberland on hearing of Percy's death. To make roomfor these worse than needless additions, many of the most strikingpassages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery andignorance of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean to insistmerely on passages which are fine as poetry and to the reader, suchas Clarence's dream, &c. , but on those which are important to theunderstanding of the character, and peculiarly adapted for stage-effect. We will give the following as instances among severalothers. The first is the scene where Richard enters abruptly to thequeen and her friends to defend himself:

 Gloucester. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it. Who are they that complain unto the king, That I forsooth am stern, and love them not? By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly, That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours: Because I cannot flatter and look fair, Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, Duck with French nods, and apish courtesy, I must be held a rancorous enemy. Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm, But thus his simple truth must be abus'd With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

 Gray. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

 Gloucester. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace; When have I injur'd thee, when done thee wrong? Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction? A plague upon you all!

Nothing can be more characteristic than the turbulent pretensions tomeekness and simplicity in this address. Again, the versatility andadroitness of Richard is admirably described in the followingironical conversation with Brakenbury:

 Brakenbury. I beseech your graces both to pardon me. His majesty hath straitly given in charge, That no man shall have private conference, Of what degree soever, with your brother. 

 Gloucester. E'en so, and please your worship, Brakenbury, You may partake of anything we say: We speak no treason, man--we say the king Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen Well strook in years, fair, and not jealous. We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot, A cherry lip, A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue; That the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks. How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?

 Brakenbury. With this, my lord, myself have nought to do. 

 Gloucester. What, fellow, naught to do with mistress Shore? I tell you, sir, he that doth naught with her, Excepting one, were best to do it secretly alone. 

 Brakenbury. What one, my lord?

 Gloucester. Her husband, knave--would'st thou betray me?

The feigned reconciliation of Gloucester with the queen's kinsmen isalso a masterpiece. One of the finest strokes in the play, and whichserves to show as much as anything the deep, plausible manners ofRichard, is the unsuspecting security of Hastings, at the very timewhen the former is plotting his death, and when that very appearanceof cordiality and good-humour on which Hastings builds hisconfidence arises from Richard's consciousness of having betrayedhim to his ruin. This, with the whole character of Hastings, isomitted. 

Perhaps the two most beautiful passages in the original play are thefarewell apostrophe of the queen to the Tower, where the childrenare shut up from her, and Tyrrel's description of their death. Wewill finish our quotations with them. 

 Queen. Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower; Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes, Whom envy hath immured within your walls; Rough cradle for such little pretty ones, Rude, rugged nurse, old sullen play-fellow, For tender princes! The other passage is the account of their death by Tyrrel:

 Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn To do this piece of ruthless butchery, Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, -- Wept like to children in their death's sad story: O thus! quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes; Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another Within their innocent alabaster arms; Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, And in that summer beauty kissed each other; A book of prayers on their pillow lay, Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind: But oh the devil!--there the villain stopped; When Dighton thus told on--we smothered The most replenished sweet work of nature, That from the prime creation ere she framed. 

These are some of those wonderful bursts of feeling, done to thelife, to the very height of fancy and nature, which our Shakespearealone could give. We do not insist on the repetition of these lastpassages as proper for the stage: we should indeed be loath to trustthem in the mouth of almost any actor: but we should wish them to beretained in preference at least to the fantoccini exhibition of theyoung princes, Edward and York, bandying childish wit with theiruncle. 

HENRY VIII

This play contains little action or violence of passion, yet it hasconsiderable interest of a more mild and thoughtful cast, and someof the most striking passages in the author's works. The characterof Queen Katherine is the most perfect delineation of matronlydignity, sweetness, and resignation, that can be conceived. Herappeals to the protection of the king, her remonstrances to thecardinals, her conversations with her women, show a noble andgenerous spirit accompanied with the utmost gentleness of nature. What can be more affecting than her answer to Campeius and Wolsey, who come to visit her as pretended friends. 

 --'Nay, forsooth, my friends, They that must weigh out my afflictions, They that my trust must grow to, live not here; They are, as all my comforts are, far hence, In mine own country, lords. '

Dr. Johnson observes of this play, that 'the meek sorrows andvirtuous distress of Katherine have furnished some scenes, which maybe justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But thegenius of Shakespeare comes in and goes out with Katherine. Everyother part may be easily conceived and easily written. ' This iseasily said; but with all due deference to so great a reputedauthority as that of Johnson, it is not true. For instance, thescene of Buckingham led to execution is one of the most affectingand natural in Shakespeare, and one to which there is hardly anapproach in any other author. Again, the character of Wolsey, thedescription of his pride and of his fall, are inimitable, and have, besides their gorgeousness of effect, a pathos, which only thegenius of Shakespeare could lend to the distresses of a proud, badman, like Wolsey. There is a sort of child-like simplicity in thevery helplessness of his situation, arising from the recollection ofhis past overbearing ambition. After the cutting sarcasms of hisenemies on his disgrace, against which he bears up with a spiritconscious of his own superiority, he breaks out into that fineapostrophe:

 Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening--nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye! I feel my heart new open'd; O how wretched Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and our ruin, More pangs and fears than war and women have; And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again!--

There is in this passage, as well as in the well-known dialogue withCromwell which follows, something which stretches beyondcommonplace; nor is the account which Griffiths gives of Wolsey'sdeath less Shakespearian; and the candour with which Queen Katherinelistens to the praise of 'him whom of all men while living she hatedmost' adds the last graceful finishing to her character. 

Among other images of great individual beauty might be mentioned thedescription of the effect of Ann Boleyn's presenting herself to thecrowd at her coronation. 

 --While her grace sat down To rest awhile, some half an hour or so, In a rich chair of state, opposing freely The beauty of her person to the people. Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman That ever lay by man. Which when the people Had the full view of, 'such a noise arose As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest, As loud and to as many tunes'. 

The character of Henry VIII is drawn with great truth and spirit. Itis like a very disagreeable portrait, sketched by the hand of amaster. His gross appearance, his blustering demeanour, hisvulgarity, his arrogance, his sensuality, his cruelty, hishypocrisy, his want of common decency and common humanity, aremarked in strong lines. His traditional peculiarities of expressioncomplete the reality of the picture. The authoritative expletive, 'Ha!' with which ne intimates his indignation or surprise, has aneffect like the first startling sound that breaks from a thunder-cloud. He is of all the monarchs in our history the most disgusting:for he unites in himself all the vices of barbarism and refinement, without their virtues. Other kings before him (such as Richard III)were tyrants and murderers out of ambition or necessity: they gainedor established unjust power by violent means: they destroyed theiror made its tenure insecure. But Henry VIII's power is most fatal tothose whom he loves: he is cruel and remorseless to pamper hisluxurious appetites: bloody and voluptuous; an amorous murderer; anuxorious debauchee. His hardened insensibility to the feelings ofothers is strengthened by the most profligate self-indulgence. Thereligious hypocrisy, under which he masks his cruelty and his lust, is admirably displayed in the speech in which he describes the firstmisgivings of his conscience and its increasing throes and terrors, which have induced him to divorce his queen. The only thing in hisfavour in this play is his treatment of Cranmer: there is alsoanother circumstance in his favour, which is his patronage of HansHolbein. --It has been said of Shakespeare, 'No maid could live nearsuch a man. ' It might with as good reason be said, 'No king couldlive near such a man. ' His eye would have penetrated through thepomp of circumstance and the veil of opinion. As it is, he hasrepresented such persons to the life--his plays are in this respectthe glass of history--he has done them the same justice as if he hadbeen a privy counsellor all his life, and in each successive reign. Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, theyare very disagreeable characters: it is only while living that theyare 'the best of kings'. It is their power, their splendour, it isthe apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour ortheir hatred that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgementof their favourites or their vassals; but death cancels the bond ofallegiance and of interest; and seen AS THEY WERE, their power andtheir pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous. The charge broughtagainst modern philosophy as inimical to loyalty is unjust becauseit might as well be brought lover of kings. We have often wonderedthat Henry VIII as he is drawn by Shakespeare, and as we have seenhim represented in all the bloated deformity of mind and person, isnot hooted from the English stage. 

KING JOHN

KING JOHN is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speakof; and we are not sorry that it is. If we are to indulge ourimaginations, we had rather do it upon an imaginary theme; if we areto find subjects for the exercise of our pity and terror, we preferseeking them in fictitious danger and fictitious distress. It givesa SORENESS to our feelings of indignation or sympathy, when we knowthat in tracing the progress of sufferings and crimes we aretreading upon real ground, and recollect that the poet's 'dream'DENOTED A FOREGONE CONCLUSION--irrevocable ills, not conjured up byfancy, but placed beyond the reach of poetical justice. That thetreachery of King John, the death of Arthur, the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while ithangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Somethingwhispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities likethese, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and playthingof our fancies. 'To consider thus' may be 'to consider toocuriously'; but still we think that the actual truth of theparticular events, in proportion as we are conscious of it, is adrawback on the pleasure as well as the dignity of tragedy. 

KING JOHN has all the beauties of language and all the richness ofthe imagination to relieve the painfulness of the subject. Thecharacter of King John himself is kept pretty much in thebackground; it is only marked in by comparatively slightindications. The crimes he is tempted to commit are such as arethrust upon him rather by circumstances and opportunity than of hisown seeking: he is here represented as more cowardly than cruel, andas more contemptible than odious. The play embraces only a part ofhis history. There are however few characters on the stage thatexcite more disgust and loathing. He has no intellectual grandeur orstrength of character to shield him from the indignation which hisimmediate conduct provokes: he stands naked and defenceless, in thatrespect, to the worst we can think of him: and besides, we areimpelled to put the very worst construction on his meanness andcruelty by the tender picture of the beauty and helplessness of theobject of it, as well as by the frantic and heart-rending pleadingsof maternal despair. We do not forgive him the death of Arthurbecause he had too late revoked his doom and tried to prevent it, and perhaps because he has himself repented of his black design, ourMORAL SENSE gains courage to hate him the more for it. We take himat his word, and think his purposes must be odious indeed, when hehimself shrinks back from them. The scene in which King Johnsuggests to Hubert the design of murdering his nephew is amasterpiece of dramatic skill, but it is still inferior, veryinferior to the scene between Hubert and Arthur, when the latterlearns the orders to put out his eyes. If anything ever was penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, of thatwhich shocks and that which soothes the mind, it is this scene. Wewill give it entire, though perhaps it is tasking the reader'ssympathy too much. 

 Enter Hubert and Executioner

 Hubert. Heat me these irons hot, and look you stand Within the arras; when I strike my foot Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth And bind the boy, which you shall find with me, Fast to the chair: be heedful: hence, and watch. 

 Executioner. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. 

 Hubert. Uncleanly scruples! fear not you; look to't. -- Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you. 

 Enter Arthur

 Arthur. Good morrow, Hubert. 

 Hubert. Morrow, little Prince. 

 Arthur. As little prince (having so great a title To be more prince) as may be. You are sad. 

 Hubert. Indeed I have been merrier. 

 Arthur. Mercy on me! Methinks no body should be sad but I; Yet I remember when I was in France, Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness. By my Christendom, So were I out of prison, and kept sheep, I should be merry as the day is long. And so I would be here, but that I doubt My uncle practises more harm to me. He is afraid of me, and I of him. Is it my fault that I was Geoffery's son? Indeed it is not, and I would to heav'n I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. 

 Hubert. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate He will awake my mercy, which lies dead; Therefore I will be sudden, and dispatch. [Aside. ]

 Arthur. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day? In sooth, I would you were a little sick, That I might sit all night and watch with you. Alas, I love you more than you do me. 

 Hubert. His words do take possession of my bosom. Read here, young Arthur--[Showing a paper. ] How now, foolish rheum, [Aside. ] Turning dis-piteous torture out of door! I must be brief, lest resolution drop Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears. -- Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?

 Arthur. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect. Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes?

 Hubert. Young boy, I must. 

 Arthur. And will you?

 Hubert. And I will. 

 Arthur. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, I knit my handkerchief about your brows, (The best I had, a princess wrought it me) And I did never ask it you again; And with my hand at midnight held your head; And, like the watchful minutes to the hour, Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time, Saying, what lack you? and where lies your grief? Or, what good love may I perform for you? Many a poor man's son would have lain still, And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you; But you at your sick service had a prince. Nay, you may think my love was crafty love, And call it cunning. Do, and if you will: If heav'n be pleas'd that you must use me ill, Why then you must. --Will you put out mine eyes? These eyes, that never did, and never shall, So much as frown on you?

 Hubert. I've sworn to do it; And with hot irons must I burn them out. 

 Arthur. Oh if an angel should have come to me, And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, I would not have believ'd a tongue but Hubert's. Hubert, Come forth; do as I bid you. [Stamps, and the men enter. ]

 Arthur. O save me, Hubert, save me! my eyes are out Ev'n with the fierce looks of these bloody men. 

 Hubert. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. 

 Arthur. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough? I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. For heav'n's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound! Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away, And I will sit as quiet as a lamb: I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, Nor look upon the iron angrily: Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, Whatever torment you do put me to. 

 Hubert. Go, stand within; let me alone with him. 

 Executioner. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed. [Exit. ]

 Arthur. Alas, I then have chid away my friend. He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart; Let him come back, that his compassion may Give life to yours. 

 Hubert. Come, boy, prepare yourself. 

 Arthur. Is there no remedy?

 Hubert. None, but to lose your eyes. 

 Arthur. O heav'n! that there were but a mote in yours, A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand'ring hair, Any annoyance in that precious sense! Then, feeling what small things are boist'rous there, Your vile intent must needs seem horrible. 

 Hubert. Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue. 

 Arthur. Let me not hold my tongue; let me not, Hubert; Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue, So I may keep mine eyes. O spare mine eyes! Though to no use, but still to look on you. Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold, And would not harm me. 

 Hubert. I can heat it, boy. 

 Arthur. No, in good sooth, the fire is dead with grief. Being create for comfort, to be us'd In undeserv'd extremes; see else yourself, There is no malice in this burning coal; The breath of heav'n hath blown its spirit out, And strew'd repentant ashes on its head. 

 Hubert. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. 

 Arthur. All things that you shall use to do me wrong, Deny their office, only you do lack That mercy which fierce fire and iron extend, Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses. '

 Hubert. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eyes For all the treasure that thine uncle owns: Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to bum them out. 

 Arthur. O, now you look like Hubert. All this while You were disguised. 

 Hubert. Peace! no more. Adieu, Your uncle must not know but you are dead. I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports: And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure, That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world, Will not offend thee. 

 Arthur. O heav'n! I thank you, Hubert. 

 Hubert. Silence, no more; go closely in with me; Much danger do I undergo for thee. [Exeunt. ]

His death afterwards, when he throws himself from his prison-walls, excites the utmost pity for his innocence and friendless situation, and well justifies the exaggerated denunciations of Falconbridge toHubert whom he suspects wrongfully of the deed. 

 There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell As thou shalt be, if thou did'st kill this child. --If thou did'st but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair: And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb Will strangle thee; a rush will be a beam To hang thee on: or would'st thou drown thyself, Put but a little water in a spoon, And it shall be as all the ocean, Enough to stifle such a villain up. 

The excess of maternal tenderness, rendered desparate by thefickleness of friends and the injustice of fortune, and madestronger in will, in proportion to the want of all other power, wasnever more finely expressed than in Constance, The dignity of heranswer to King Philip, when she refuses to accompany his messenger, 'To me and to the state of my great grief, let kings assemble, ' herindignant reproach to Austria for deserting her cause, herinvocation to death, 'that love of misery', however fine andspirited, all yield to the beauty of the passage, where, her passionsubsiding into tenderness, she addresses the Cardinal in thesewords:

 Oh father Cardinal, I have heard you say That we shall see and know our friends in heav'n: If that be, I shall see my boy again, For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, To him that did but yesterday suspire, There was not such a gracious creature born. But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud, And chase the native beauty from his cheek, And he will look as hollow as a ghost, As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, And so he'll die; and rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heav'n, I shall not know him; therefore never, never Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 

 K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child. 

 Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child: Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 

The contrast between the mild resignation of Queen Katherine to herown wrongs, and the wild, uncontrollable affliction of Constance forthe wrongs which she sustains as a mother, is no less naturallyconceived than it is ably sustained throughout these two wonderfulcharacters. 

The accompaniment of the comic character of the Bastard was wellchosen to relieve the poignant agony of suffering, and the cold, cowardly policy of behaviour in the principal characters of thisplay. Its spirit, invention, volubility of tongue, and forwardnessin action, are unbounded. Aliquando sufflaminandus erat, says BenJonson of Shakespeare. But we should be sorry it Ben Jonson had beenhis licenser. We prefer the heedless magnanimity of his witinfinitely to all Jonson's laborious caution. The character of theBastard's comic humour is the same in essence as that of other comiccharacters in Shakespeare; they always run on with good things andare never exhausted; they are always daring and successful. Theyhave words at will and a flow of wit, like a flow of animal spirits. The difference between Falconbridge and the others is that he is asoldier, and brings his wit to bear upon action, is courageous withhis sword as well as tongue, and stimulates his gallantry by hisjokes, his enemies feeling the sharpness of his blows and the stingof his sarcasms at the same time. Among his happiest sallies are hisdescanting on the composition of his own person, his invectiveagainst 'commodity, tickling commodity', and his expression ofcontempt for the Archduke of Austria, who had killed his father, which begins in jest but ends in serious earnest. His conduct at thesiege of Angiers shows that his resources were not confined toverbal retorts. --The same exposure of the policy of courts andcamps, of kings, nobles, priests, and cardinals, takes place here asin the other plays we have gone through, and we shall not go into adisgusting repetition. 

This, like the other plays taken from English history, is written ina remarkably smooth and flowing style, very different from some ofthe tragedies, MACBETH, for instance. The passages consist of aseries of single lines, not running into one another. Thispeculiarity in the versification, which is most common in the threeparts of HENRY VI, has been assigned as a reason why those playswere not written by Shakespeare. But the same structure of verseoccurs in his other undoubted plays, as in RICHARD II and in KINGJOHN. The following are instances:

 That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, Is near to England; look upon the years Of Lewis the Dauphin, and that lovely maid. If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? If zealous love should go in search of virtue, Where should he find it purer than in Blanch? If love ambitious sought a match of birth, Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch? Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth, Is the young Dauphin every way complete: If not complete of, say he is not she; And she again wants nothing, to name want, If want it be not, that she is not he. He is the half part of a blessed man, Left to be finished by such as she; And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. O, two such silver currents, when they join, Do glorify the banks that bound them in; And two such shores to two such streams made one, Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, kings, To these two princes, if you marry them. 

Another instance, which is certainly very happy as an example of thesimple enumeration of a number of particulars, is Salisbury'sremonstrance against the second crowning of the king. 

 Therefore to be possessed with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before; To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, to add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper light To seek the beauteous eye of heav'n to garnish: Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

This is justly considered as one of the most delightful ofShakespeare's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. Itis perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire, and nospleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. Itmakes us laugh at the follies of mankind, not despise them, andstill less bear any ill-will towards them. Shakespeare's comicgenius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweetsfrom weeds or poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it. He givesdie most amusing exaggeration of the prevailing foibles of hischaracters, but in a way that they themselves, instead of beingoffended at, would almost join in to humour; he rather contrivesopportunities for them to show themselves off in the happiestlights, than renders them contemptible in the perverse constructionof the wit or malice of others. --There is a certain stage of societyin which people become conscious of their peculiarities andabsurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set uppretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a correspondingstyle of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises ofself-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptionsof vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affectedcharacter as severely as possible, and denying to those who wouldimpose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as wesee it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To this succeeds astate of society from which the same sort of affectation andpretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world or bytheir successful exposure on the stage; and which by neutralizingthe materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all--but the sentimental. Such is our moderncomedy. There is a period in the progress of manners anterior toboth these, in which the foibles and follies of individuals are ofnature's planting, not the growth of art or study; in which they aretherefore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knowsthem, if they can but have their whim out; and in which, as there isno attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasurefrom humouring the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, thanwish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may becalled the comedy of nature, and it is the comedy which we generallyfind in Shakespeare. --Whether the analysis here given be just ornot, the spirit of his comedies is evidently quite distinct fromthat of the authors above mentioned, as it is in its essence thesame with that of Cervantes, and also very frequently of Moliere, though he was more systematic in his extravagance than Shakespeare. Shakespeare's comedy is of a pastoral and poetical cast. Folly isindigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, uncheckedluxuriance. Absurdity has every encouragement afforded it; andnonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by thechurlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs riotin a conceit, and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turnthe meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. The relishwhich he has of a pun, or of the quaint humour of a low character, does not interfere with the delight with which he describes abeautiful image, or the most refined love. The clown's forced jestsdo not spoil the sweetness of the character of Viola; the same houseis big enough to hold Malvolio, the Countess, Maria, Sir Toby, andSir Andrew Aguecheek. For instance, nothing can fall much lower thanthis last character in intellect or morals: yet how are hisweaknesses nursed and dandled by Sir Toby into something 'highfantastical', when on Sir Andrew's commendation of himself fordancing and fencing, Sir Toby answers: 'Wherefore are these thingshid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? Are they liketo take dust like Mistress Moll's picture? Why dost thou not go tochurch in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walkshould be a jig! I would not so much as make water but in a cinque-pace. What dost thou mean? Is this a world to hide virtues in? I didthink by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was framed underthe star of a galliard!'--How Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clownafterwards chirp over their cups, how they 'rouse the night-owl in acatch, able to draw three souls out of one weaver'!--What can bebetter than Sir Toby's unanswerable answer to Malvolio, 'Dost thouthink, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes andale?' In a word, the best turn is given to everything, instead ofthe worst. There is a constant infusion of the romantic andenthusiastic, in proportion as the characters are natural andsincere: whereas, in the more artificial style of comedy, everythinggives way to ridicule and indifference, there being nothing left butaffectation on one side, and incredulity on the other. --Much as welike Shakespeare's comedies, we cannot agree with Dr. Johnson thatthey are better than his tragedies; nor do we like them half sowell. If his inclination to comedy sometimes led him to trifle withthe seriousness of tragedy, the poetical and impassioned passagesare the best parts of his comedies. The great and secret charm ofTWELFTH NIGHT is the character of Viola. Much as we like catches andcakes and ale, there is something that we like better. We have afriendship for Sir Toby; we patronize Sir Andrew; we have anunderstanding with the Clown, a sneaking kindness for Maria and herrogueries; we feel a regard for Malvolio, and sympathize with hisgravity, his smiles, his cross-garters, his yellow stockings, andimprisonment in the stocks. But there is something that excites inus a stronger feeling than all this--it is Viola's confession of herlove. 

 Duke. What's her history?

 Viola. A blank, my lord, she never told her love: She let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Feed on her damask cheek, she pin'd in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more, but indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. 

 Duke. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

 Viola. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too; and yet I know not. 

Shakespeare alone could describe the effect of his own poetry. 

 Oh, it came o'er the ear like the sweet south That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. 

What we so much admire here is not the image of Patience on amonument, which has been generally quoted, but the lines before andafter it. 'They give a very echo to the seat where love is throned. 'How long ago it is since we first learnt to repeat them; and still, still they vibrate on the heart, like the sounds which the passingwind draws from the trembling strings of a harp left on some desertshore! There are other passages of not less impassioned sweetness. Such is Olivia's address to Sebastian whom she supposes to havealready deceived her in a promise of marriage. 

 Blame not this haste of mine: if you mean well, Now go with me and with this holy man Into the chantry by: there before him, And underneath that consecrated roof, Plight me the full assurance of your faith, THAT MY MOST JEALOUS AND TOO DOUBTFUL SOUL MAY LIVE AT PEACE. 

We have already said something of Shakespeare's songs. One of themost beautiful of them occurs in this play, with a preface of hisown to it. 

 Duke. O fellow, come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chaunt it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age. 

 Song

 Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O prepare it; My part of death no one so true Did share it. 

 Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown; A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O! where Sad true-love never find my grave, To weep there. 

Who after this will say that Shakespeare's genius was only fittedfor comedy? Yet after reading other parts of this play, andparticularly the garden-scene where Malvolio picks up the letter, ifwe were to say that his genius for comedy was less than his geniusfor tragedy, it would perhaps only prove that our own taste in suchmatters is more saturnine than mercurial. 

 Enter Maria

 Sir Toby. Here comes the little villain:--How now, my Nettle of India?

 Maria. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk: he has been yonder i' the sun, practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour; observe him, for the love of mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. 

 [They hide themselves. Maria throws down a letter, and exit. ]

 Enter Malvolio

 Malvolio. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't?

 Sir Toby. Here's an over-weening rogue!

 Fabian. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey- cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

 Sir Andrew. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue:--

 Sir Toby. Peace, I say. 

 Malvolio. To be Count Malvolio;--

 Sir Toby. Ah, rogue!

 Sir Andrew. Pistol him, pistol him. 

 Sir Toby. Peace, peace!

 Malvolio. There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. 

 Sir Andrew. Fire on him, Jezebel!

 Fabian. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look, how imagination blows him. 

 Malvolio. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my chair of state, --

 Sir Toby. O for a stone bow, to hit him in the eye!

 Malvolio. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping. 

 Sir Toby. Fire and brimstone!

 Fabian. O peace, peace!

 Malvolio. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard, --telling them, I know my place, as I would they should do theirs, --to ask for my kinsman Toby. --

 Sir Toby. Bolts and shackles!

 Fabian. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now. 

 Malvolio. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him; I frown the while; and, perchance, wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me. 

 Sir Toby. Shall this fellow live?

 Fabian. Though our silence be drawn from us with cares, yet peace. 

 Malvolio. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard to control. 

 Sir Toby. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?

 Malvolio. Saying--Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech;--

 Sir Toby. What, what?

 Malvolio. You must amend your drunkenness. 

 Fabian. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. 

 Malvolio. Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight--

 Sir Andrew. That's me, I warrant you. 

 Malvolio. One Sir Andrew--

 Sir Andrew. I knew, 'twas I; for many do call me fool. 

 Malvolio. What employment have we here? [Taking up the letter. ]

The letter and his comments on it are equally good. If poorMalvolio's treatment afterwards is a little hard, poetical justiceis done in the uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of hermistaken attachment to Cesario, as her insensibility to the violenceof the Duke's passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola'sconcealed love of him. 

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy looselysketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatized with very littlelabour or pretension; yet there are passages of high poeticalspirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which areundoubtedly Shakespeare's, and there is throughout the conduct ofthe fable a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his. Oneof the editors (we believe, Mr. Pope) remarks in a marginal note tothe TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA: 'It is observable (I know not for whatcause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and morenatural and unaffected than the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote. ' Yet so little doesthe editor appear to have made up his mind upon this subject, thatwe find the following note to the very next (the second) scene. 'This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which Ibelieve were written by Shakespeare, and others interpolated by theplayers) is composed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to beaccounted for only by the gross taste of the age he lived in: Populout placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out, but I havedone all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them, throughoutthis edition. ' It is strange that our fastidious critic should fallso soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiarparts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits--low they may befor what we know, but then they are not poor, but rich ones. Thescene of Launce with his dog (not that in the second, but that inthe fourth act) is a perfect treat in the way of farcical drolleryand invention; nor do we think Speed's manner of proving his masterto be in love deficient in wit or sense, though the style may becriticized as not simple enough for the modern taste. 

Valentine. Why, how know you that I am in love?

Speed. Marry, by these special marks; first, you have learned, likeSir Protheus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish alove-song like a robin-red-breast, to walk alone like one that hadthe pestilence, to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C, toweep like a young wench that had buried her grandam, to fast likeone that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speakpuling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk; like one of thelions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when youlooked sadly, it was for want of money; and now you aremetamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardlythink you my master. 

The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as insome others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Juliawith her maid, when she shows such a disposition to coquetry aboutreceiving the letter from Proteus; and her behaviour afterwards andher disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remindus at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. Her answer toLucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, isa beautiful piece of poetry. 

Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualifythe fire's extremes! rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds ofreason. 

Julia. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns; The currentthat with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, Hemakes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss toevery sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage: And so by many windingnooks he strays, With willing sport, to the wild ocean. 

[Footnote: 'The river wanders at its own sweet will. ' Wordsworth. ]

Then let me go, and hinder not my course; I'll be as patient as agentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the laststep have brought me to my love; And there I'll rest, as after muchturmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium. 

If Shakespeare indeed had written only this and other passages inthe TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, he would ALMOST have deserved Milton'spraise of him--

And sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warbles his native wood-notes wild. 

But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

This is a play that in spite of the change of manners and ofprejudices still holds undisputed possession of the stage. Shakespeare's malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolentJew. In proportion as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear, 'baited with the rabble's curse', he becomes a half favourite withthe philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to thinkthat Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries. Shylock is A GOOD HATER; 'a. Man no less sinned against thansinning'. If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has stronggrounds for 'the lodged hate he bears Anthonio', which he explainswith equal force of eloquence and reason. He seems the depositary ofthe vengeance of his race; and though the long habit of broodingover daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper withinveterate misanthropy, and hardened him against the contempt ofmankind, this adds but little to the triumphant pretensions of hisenemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixedup with the gall and bitterness of his resentment. The constantapprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled, andtrampled on, might be supposed to sour the most forbearing nature, and to take something from that 'milk of human kindness', with whichhis persecutors contemplated his indignities. The desire of revengeis almost inseparable from the sense of wrong; and we can hardlyhelp sympathizing with the proud spirit, hid beneath his 'Jewishgaberdine', stung to madness by repeated undeserved provocations, and labouring to throw off the load of obloquy and oppression heapedupon him and all his tribe by one desperate act of 'lawful' revenge, till the ferociousness of the means by which he is to execute hispurpose, and the pertinacity with which he adheres to it, turn usagainst him; but even at last, when disappointed of the sanguinaryrevenge with which he had glutted his hopes, and exposed to beggaryand contempt by the letter of the law on which he had insisted withso little remorse, we pity him, and think him hardly dealt with byhis judges. In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries, hehas the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoningon their own principles and practice. They are so far from allowingof any measure of equal dealing, of common justice or humanitybetween themselves and the Jew, that even when they come to ask afavour of him, and Shylock reminds them that 'on such a day theyspit upon him, another spurned him, another called him dog, and forthese courtesies request hell lend them so much monies'--Anthonio, his old enemy, instead of any acknowledgement of the shrewdness andjustice of his remonstrance, which would have been preposterous in arespectable Catholic merchant in those times, threatens him with arepetition of the same treatment--

 I am as like to call thee so again, To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. 

After this, the appeal to the Jew's mercy, as if there were anycommon principle of right and wrong between them, is the rankesthypocrisy, or the blindest prejudice; and the Jew's answer to one ofAnthonio's friends, who asks him what his pound of forfeit flesh isgood for, is irresistible:

To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed myrevenge. He hath disgrac'd me, and hinder'd me of half a million, laughed at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorn'd my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, heated mine enemies; andwhat's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes; hath not a Jewhands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed withthe same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the samediseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the samewinter and summer that a Christian is? If you prick us, do we notbleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do wenot die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are likeyou in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong aChristian, what is his humility? revenge. If a Christian wrong aJew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? whyrevenge. The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall gohard but I will better the instruction. 

The whole of the trial scene, both before and after the entrance ofPortia, is a masterpiece of dramatic skill. The legal acuteness, thepassionate declamations, the sound maxims of jurisprudence, the witand irony interspersed in it, the fluctuations of hope and fear inthe different persons, and the completeness and suddenness of thecatastrophe, cannot be surpassed. Shylock, who is his own counsel, defends himself well, and is triumphant on all the general topicsthat are urged against him, and only Tails through a legal flaw. Take the following as an instance:

Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? You have amongyou many a purchas'd slave, Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, You use in abject and in slavish part, Because you boughtthem:--shall I say to you, Let them be free, marry them to yourheirs? Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds Be made as softas yours, and let their palates Be season'd with such viands? youwill answer, The slaves are ours:--so do I answer you: The pound offlesh, which I demand of him, Is dearly bought, is mine, and I willhave it; If you deny me, fie upon your law! There is no force in thedecrees of Venice: I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?

The keenness of his revenge awakes all his faculties; and he beatsback all opposition to his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether ofwit or argument, with an equal degree of eamestness and self-possession. His character is displayed as distinctly in other lessprominent parts of the play, and we may collect from a few sentencesthe history of his life--his descent and origin, his thrift anddomestic economy, his affection for his daughter, whom he loves nextto his wealth, his courtship and his first present to Leah, hiswife! 'I would not have parted with it' (the ring which he firstgave her) 'for a wilderness of monkeys!' What a fine Hebraism isimplied in this expression!

Portia is not a very great favourite with us, neither are we in lovewith her maid, Nerissa. Portia has a certain degree of affectationand pedantry about her, which is very unusual in Shakespeare'swomen, but which perhaps was a proper qualification for the officeof a 'civil doctor', which she undertakes and executes sosuccessfully. The speech about mercy is very well; but there are athousand finer ones in Shakespeare. We do not admire the scene ofthe caskets; and object entirely to the Black Prince, Morocchius. Weshould like Jessica better if she had not deceived and robbed herfather, and Lorenzo, if he had not married a Jewess, though hethinks he has a right to wrong a Jew. The dialogue between thisnewly married couple by moonlight, beginning 'On such a night', &c. , is a collection of classical elegancies. Launcelot, the Jew's man, is an honest fellow. The dilemma in which he describes himselfplaced between his 'conscience and the fiend', the one of whichadvises him to run away from his master's service and the other tostay in it, is exquisitely humorous. 

Gratiano is a very admirable subordinate character, He is the jesterof the piece: yet one speech of his, in his own defence, contains awhole volume of wisdom, Anthonio. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A stage, where every one must play his part; And mine a sad one. 

Gratiano. Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let oldwrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heartcool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warmwithin, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when hewakes? and creep into the jaundice By being peevish? I tell theewhat, Anthonio--I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;--Thereare a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standingpond: And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be drestin an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who shouldsay, 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark'! O, my Anthonio, I do know of these, That therefore only are reputedwise, For saying nothing; who, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, Which hearing them, would call theirbrothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time; But fishnot, with this melancholy bait, For this fool's gudgeon, thisopinion. 

Gratiano's speech on the philosophy of love, and the effect of habitin taking off the force of passion, is as full of spirit and goodsense. The graceful winding up of this play in the fifth act, afterthe tragic business is dispatched, is one of the happiest instancesof Shakespeare's knowledge of the principles of the drama. We do notmean the pretended quarrel between Portia and Nerissa and theirhusbands about the rings, which is amusing enough, but theconversation just before and after the return of Portia to her ownhouse, begining 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank', andending 'Peace! how the moon sleeps with Endymion, and would not beawaked'. There is a number of beautiful thoughts crowded into thatshort space, and linked together by the most natural transitions. 

When we first went to see Mr. Kean in Shylock we expected to see, what we had been used to see, a decrepid old man, bent with age andugly with mental deformity, grinning with deadly malice, with thevenom of his heart congealed in the expression of his countenance, sullen, morose, gloomy, inflexible, brooding over one idea, that ofhis hatred, and fixed on one unalterable purpose, that of hisrevenge. We were disappointed, because we had taken our idea fromother actors, not from the play. There is no proof there thatShylock is old, but a single line, 'Bassanic and old Shylock, bothstand forth, '--which does not imply that he is infirm with age--andthe circumstance that he has a daughter marriageable, which does notimply that he is old at all. It would be too much to say that hisbody should be made crooked and deformed to answer to his mind, which is bowed down and warped with prejudices and passion. That hehas but one idea, is not true; he has more ideas than any otherperson in the piece: and if he is intense and inveterate in thepursuit of his purpose, he shows the utmost elasticity, vigour, andpresence of mind, in the means of attaining it. But so rooted wasour habitual impression of the part from seeing it caricatured inthe representation, that it was only from a careful perusal of theplay itself that we saw our error. The stage is not in general thebest place to study our author's characters in. It is too oftenfilled with traditional common-place conceptions of the part, handeddown from sire to son, and suited to the taste of THE GREAT VULGARAND THE SMALL. --''Tis an unweeded garden: things rank and gross domerely gender in it!' If a man of genius comes once in an age toclear away the rubbish, to make it fruitful and wholesome, they cry, "Tis a bad school: it may be like nature, it may be likeShakespeare, but it is not like us. " Admirable critics!

THE WINTER'S TALE

We wonder that Mr. Pope should have entertained doubts of thegenuineness of this play. He was, we suppose, shocked (as a certaincritic suggests) at the Chorus, Time, leaping over sixteen yearswith his crutch between the third and fourth act, and at Antigonus'slanding with the infant Perdita on the seacoast of Bohemia. Theseslips or blemishes, however, do not prove it not to beShakespeare's; for he was as likely to fall into them as anybody;but we do not know anybody but himself who could produce thebeauties. The STUFF of which the tragic passion is composed, theromantic sweetness, the comic humour, are evidently his. Even thecrabbed and tortuous style of the speeches of Leontes, reasoning onhis own jealousy, beset with doubts and fears, and entangled moreand more in the thorny labyrinth, bears every mark of Shakespeare'speculiar manner of conveying the painful struggle of differentthoughts and feelings, labouring for utterance, and almost strangledin me birth. For instance:

 Ha' not you seen, Camillo? (But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn) or heard, (For to a vision so apparent, rumour Cannot be mute) or thought (for cogitation Resides not within man that does not think) My wife is slippery? If thou wilt, confess, Or else be impudently negative, To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought. --

Here Leontes is confounded with his passion, and does not know whichway to turn himself, to give words to the anguish, rage, andapprehension which tug at his breast. It is only as he is worked upinto a clearer conviction of his wrongs by insisting on the groundsof his unjust suspicions to Camillo, who irritates him by hisopposition, that he bursts out into the following vehement strain ofbitter indignation: yet even here his passion staggers, and is as itwere oppressed with its own intensity. 

 Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible Of breaking honesty!) horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? the noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only, That would, unseen, be wicked? is this nothing? Why then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing, The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia's nothing, My wife is nothing!

The character of Hermione is as much distinguished by its saint-likeresignation and patient forbearance, as that of Paulina is by herzealous and spirited remonstrances against the injustice done to thequeen, and by her devoted attachment to her misfortunes. Hermione'srestoration to her husband and her child, after her long separationfrom them, is as affecting in itself as it is striking in therepresentation. Camillo, and the old shepherd and his son, aresubordinate but not uninteresting instruments in the development ofthe plot, and though last, not least, comes Autolycus, a verypleasant, thriving rogue; and (what is the best feather in the capof all knavery) he escapes with impunity in the end. 

THE WINTER'S TALE is one of the best-acting of our author's plays. We remember seeing it with great pleasure many years ago. It was onthe night that King took leave of the stage, when he and Mrs. Jordanplayed together in the after-piece of The Wedding-day. Nothing couldgo off with more eclat, with more spirit, and grandeur of effect. Mrs. Siddons played Hermione, and in the last scene acted thepainted statue to the life--with true monumental dignity and noblepassion; Mr. Kemble, in Leontes, worked himself up into a very fineclassical frenzy; and Bannister, as Autolycus, roared as loud forpity as a sturdy beggar could do who felt none of the pain hecounterfeited, and was sound of wind and limb. We shall never seethese parts so acted again; or if we did, it would be in vain. Actors grow old, or no longer surprise us by their novelty. But truepoetry, like nature, is always young; and we still read thecourtship of Florizel and Perdita, as we welcome the return ofspring, with the' same feelings as ever. 

 Florizel. Thou dearest Perdita, With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not The mirth o' the feast: or, I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's: for I cannot be Mine own, nor anything to any, if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Tho' destiny say. No. Be merry, gentle; Strangle such thoughts as these, with anything That you behold the while. Your guests are coming: Lift up your countenance; as it were the day Of celebration of that nuptial which We two have sworn shall come. 

 Perdita. O lady Fortune, Stand you auspicious!

 Enter Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, Dobcas, Servants; with Polixenes, and Camillo, disguised. 

 Florizel. See, your guests approach. Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth. 

 Shepherd. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook; Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all: Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle: On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire With labour; and the thing she took to quench it She would to each one sip. You are retir d, As if you were a feasted one, and not The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is A way to make us better friends, more known. Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, As your good flock shall prosper. 

 Perdita. Sir, welcome! [To Polixenes and Camillo. ] It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day: you're welcome, sir! Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. --Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long: Grace and remembrance be unto you both And welcome to our shearing!

 Polixenes. Shepherdess, (A fair one are you) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter. 

 Perdita. Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. 

 Polixenes. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them?

 Perdita. For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. 

 Polixenes. Say, there be: Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather: but The art itself is nature. 

 Perdita. So it is. [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind. ]

 Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards. 

 Perdita. I'll not put The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them; [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind. ] No more than, were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me. --Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given To men of middle age. You are very welcome. 

 Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. 

 Perdita. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now my fairest friends. I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina! For the flowers now that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares and take The winds of March with beauty: violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady Most incident to maids); bold oxlips, and The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, The fleur-de-lis being one! O, these I lack To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend To strow him o'er and o'er. 

 Florizel. What, like a corse?

 Perdita. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if--not to be buried, But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers; Methinks, I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition. 

 Florizel. What you do, Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever: when you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms; Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs, To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function. Each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens. 

 Perdita. O Doricles, Your praises are too large; but that your youth And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it, Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd; With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way. 

 Florizel. I think you have As little skill to fear, as I have purpose To put you to't. But come, our dance, I pray. Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair, That never mean to part. 

 Perdita. I'll swear for 'em. 

 Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-bom lass that ever Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does, or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place. 

 Camillo. He tells her something That makes her blood look out: good sooth she is The queen of curds and cream. 

This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the princediscovering himself to Florizel, and haughtily breaking off theintended match between his son and Perdita. When Polixenes goes out, Perdita says, Even here undone! I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak; and tell him plainly The self-same sun that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on't alike. Wilt please you, sir, be gone? [To Florizel. ] I told you what would come of this. Beseech you, Of your own state take care; this dream of mine, Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further, But milk my ewes and weep. 

As Perdita, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughterof Hermione, and a princess in disguise, both feelings of the prideof birth and the claims of nature are satisfied by the fortunateevent of the story, and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled tothe strictest court-etiquette. 

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is one of the most pleasing of ourauthor's comedies. The interest is, however, more of a serious thanof a comic nature. The character of Helen is one of great sweetnessand delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most criticalkind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife: yetthe most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush intoher cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhapsthe romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to oneplaced above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune, was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which sheutters when young Roussillon leaves his mother's house, under whoseprotection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the Frenchking's court. 

 Helena. Oh, were that all--I think not on my father, And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him. My imagination Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's. I am undone, there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it; he is so above me: In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself; The hind that would be mated by the lion, Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague, To see him every hour, to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls In our heart's table: heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics. 

The interest excited by this beautiful picture of a kind andinnocent heart is kept up afterwards by her resolution to follow himto France, the success of her experiment in restoring the king'shealth, her demanding Bertram in marriage as a recompense, hisleaving her in disdain, her interview with him afterwards disguisedas Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation when the consequences of herstratagem and the proofs of her love are fully made known. Thepersevering gratitude of the French king to his benefactress, whocures him of a languishing distemper by a prescription hereditary inher family, the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride ofbirth yields, almost without struggle, to her affection for Helen, the honesty and uprightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make veryinteresting parts of the picture. The wilful stubbornness andyouthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. Thecomic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardiceof Parolles, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection ofwhose false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a very amusingepisode. He is first found out by the old lord Lafeu, who says, 'Thesoul of this man is in his clothes'; and it is proved afterwardsthat his heart is in his tongue, and that both are false and hollow. The adventure of'the bringing off of his drum' has become proverbialas a satire on all ridiculous and blustering undertakings which theperson never means to perform: nor can anything be more severe thanwhat one of the bystanders remarks upon what Parolles says ofhimself, 'Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that heis?' Yet Parolles himself gives the best solution of the difficultyafterwards when he is thankful to escape with his life and the lossof character; for, so that he can live on, he is by no meanssqueamish about the loss of pretensions, to which he had senseenough to know he had no real claims, and which he had assumed onlyas a means to live. 

 Parolles. Yet I am thankful; if my heart were great, 'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more, But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall. Simply the thing I am Shall make me live; who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it shall come to pass, That every braggart shall be found an ass. Rust sword, cool blushes, and Parolles live Safest in shame; being fooi'd, by fool'ry thrive; There's place and means for every man alive. I'll after them. 

The story of ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, and of several others ofShakespeare's plays, is taken from Boccaccio. The poet hasdramatized the original novel with great skill and comic spirit, andhas preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment withoutimproving upon it, which was impossible. There is indeed inBoccaccio's serious pieces a truth, a pathos, and an exquisiterefinement of sentiment, which is hardly to be met with in any otherprose writer whatever. Justice has not been done him by the world. He has in general passed for a mere narrator of lascivious tales oridle jests. This character probably originated in his obnoxiousattacks on the monks, and has been kept up by the grossness ofmankind, who revenged their own want of refinement on Boccaccio, andonly saw in his writings what suited the coarseness of their owntastes. But the truth is, that he has carried sentiment of everykind to its very highest purity and perfection. By sentiment wewould here understand the habitual workings of some one powerfulfeeling, where the heart reposes almost entirely upon itself, without the violent excitement of opposing duties or, untowardcircumstances. In this way, nothing ever came up to the story ofFrederigo Alberigi and his Falcon. The perseverance in attachment, the spirit of gallantry and generosity displayed in it, has noparallel in the history of heroical sacrifices. The feeling is sounconscious too, and involuntary, is brought out in such small, unlooked-for, and unostentatious circumstances, as to show it tohave been woven into the very nature and soul of the author. Thestory of Isabella is scarcely less fine and is more affecting in thecircumstances and in the catastrophe. Dryden has done justice to theimpassioned eloquence of the Tancred and Sigismunda; but has notgiven an adequate idea of the wild preternatural interest of thestory of Honoria. Cimon and Iphigene is by no means one of the best, notwithstanding the popularity of the subject. The proof ofunalterable affection given in the story of Jeronymo, and the simpletouches of nature and picturesque beauty in the story of the twoholiday lovers, who were poisoned by tasting of a leaf in the gardenat Florence, are perfect masterpieces. The epithet of Divine waswell bestowed on this great painter of the human heart. Theinvention implied in his different tales is immense: but we are notto infer that it is all his own. He probably availed himself of allthe common traditions which were floating in his time, and which hewas the first to appropriate. Homer appears the most original of allauthors--probably for no other reason than that we can trace theplagiarism no further. Boccaccio has furnished subjects tonumberless writers since his time, both dramatic and narrative. Thestory of Griselda is borrowed from his DECAMERON by Chaucer; as isthe KNIGHT'S TALE (Palamon and Arcite) from his poem of the THESEID. 

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

If we were to part with any of the author's comedies, it should bethis. Yet we should be loth to part with Don Adriano de Armado, thatmighty potentate of nonsense, or his page, that handful of wit; withNathaniel the curate, or Holofernes the schoolmaster, and theirdispute after dinner on 'the golden cadences of poesy'; with Costardthe clown, or Dull the constable. Biron is too accomplished acharacter to be lost to the world, and yet he could not appearwithout his fellow courtiers and the king: and if we were to leaveout the ladies, the gentlemen would have no mistresses. So that webelieve we may let the whole play stand as it is, and we shallhardly venture to 'set a mark of reprobation on it'. Still we havesome objections to the style, which we think savours more of thepedantic spirit of Shakespeare's time than of his own genius; moreof controversial divinity, and the logic of Peter Lombard, than ofthe inspiration of the Muse. It transports us quite as much to themanners of the court, and the quirks of courts of law, as to thescenes of nature or the fairyland of his own imagination. Shakespeare has set himself to imitate the tone of politeconversation then prevailing among the fair, the witty, and thelearned, and he has imitated it but too faithfully. It is as if thehand of Titian had been employed to give grace to the curls of afull-bottomed periwig, or Raphael had attempted to give expressionto the tapestry figures in the House of Lords. Shakespeare has putan excellent description of this fashionable jargon into the mouthof the critical Holofernes 'as too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it'; and nothingcan be more marked than the difference when he breaks loose from thetrammels he had imposed on himself, 'as light as bird from brake', and speaks in his own person. We think, for instance, that in thefollowing soliloquy the poet has fairly got the start of QueenElizabeth and her maids of honour;

Biron. O! and I forsooth in love, I that have been love's whip; Avery beadle to an amorous sigh: A critic; nay, a night-watchconstable, A domineering pedant o'er the boy, Than whom no mortalmore magnificent. This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, This signior Junio, giant dwarf, Dan Cupid, Regent of love-rimes, lord of folded arms, Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans:Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets. King of codpieces, Sole imperator, and great general Of trottingparators (O my little heart!) And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What? I love! I sue! Iseek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still arepairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright, being a watch, And being watch'd, that it may still go right? Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all: And among three to love the worst of all, Awhitely wanton with a velvet brow, With two pitch balls stuck in herface for eyes; Ay, and by heav'n, one that will do the deed, ThoughArgus were her eunuch and her guard; And I to sigh for her! to watchfor her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid willimpose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well, Iwill love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan: Some men must love mylady, and some Joan. 

The character of Biron drawn by Rosaline and that which Biron givesof Boyet are equally happy. The observations on the use and abuse ofstudy, and on the power of beauty to quicken the understanding aswell as the senses, are excellent. The scene which has the greatestdramatic effect is that in which Biron, the king, Longaville, andDumain, successively detect each other and are detected in theirbreach of their vow and in their profession of attachment to theirseveral mistresses, in which they suppose themselves to be overheardby no one. The reconciliation between these lovers and theirsweethearts is also very good, and the penance which Rosalineimposes on Biron, before he can expect to gain her consent to marryhim, full of propriety and beauty. 

Rosaline. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron, Before I saw you:and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete withmocks; Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts; Which you on allestates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit. To weedthis wormwood from your faithful brain; And therewithal to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won) You shall thistwelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick, andstill converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, Withall the fierce endeavour of your wit, T' enforce the pained impotentto smile. 

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be:it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 

Rosaline. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whoseinfluence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughinghearers give to fools; A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of himthat hears it; never in the tongue Of him that makes it: then, ifsickly ears, Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans, Willhear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have you, and thatfault withal; But, if they will not, throw away that spirit, And Ishall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of yourreformation. 

Biron. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall, I'll jest atwelvemonth in an hospital. 

The famous cuckoo-song closes the play; but we shall add no morecriticisms: 'the words of Mercury are harsh after the songs ofApollo'. 

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

This admirable comedy used to be frequently acted till of lateyears. Mr. Garrick's Benedick was one of his most celebratedcharacters; and Mrs. Jordan, we have understood, played Beatricevery delightfully. The serious part is still the most prominenthere, as in other instances that we have noticed. Hero is theprincipal figure in the piece, and leaves an indelible impression onthe mind by her beauty, her tenderness, and the hard trial of herlove. The passage in which Claudio first makes a confession of hisaffection towards her conveys as pleasing an image of the entranceof love into a youthful bosom as can well be imagined. 

 Oh, my lord, When you went onward with this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love; But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant; in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars. 

In the scene at the altar, when Claudio, urged on by the villain DonJohn, brings the charge of incontinence against her, and as it weredivorces her in the very marriage-ceremony, her appeals to her ownconscious innocence and honour are made with the most affectingsimplicity. 

 Claudio. No, Leonato, I never tempted her with word too large, But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity, and comely love. 

 Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?

 Claudio. Out on thy seeming, I will write against it: You seem to me as Dian in her orb, As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown; But you are more intemperate in your blood Than Veilus, or those pamper'd animals That rage in savage sensuality. 

 Hero. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

 Leonato. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

 John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. 

 Benedick. This looks not like a nuptial. 

 Hero. True! O God!

The justification of Hero in the end, and her restoration to theconfidence and arms of her lover, is brought about by one of thosetemporary consignments to the grave of which Shakespeare seems tohave been fond. He has perhaps explained the theory of thispredilection in the following lines:

 Friar. She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, Upon the instant that she was accus'd, Shall be lamented, pity'd, and excus'd, Of every hearer: for it so falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth, While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, Why then we rack the value; then we find The virtue, that possession would not show us Whilst it was ours. --So will it fare with Claudio; When he shall hear she dy'd upon his words, The idea of her love shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparel'd in more precious habit, More moving, delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she liv'd indeed. 

The principal comic characters in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Benedickand Beatrice, are both essences in their kind. His character as awoman-hater is admirably supported, and his conversion to matrimonyis no less happily effected by the pretended story of Beatrice'slove for him. It is hard to say which of the two scenes is the best, that of the trick which is thus practised on Benedick, or that inwhich Beatrice is prevailed on to take pity on him by overhearingher cousin and her maid declare (which they do on purpose) that heis dying of love for her. There is something delightfullypicturesque in the manner in which Beatrice is described as comingto hear the plot which is contrived against herself:

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

In consequence of what she hears (not a word of which s true) sheexclaims when these good-natured informants are gone:

 What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee; Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand; If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in an holy band: For others say thou dost deserve; and I Believe it better than reportingly. 

And Benedick, on his part, is equally sincere in his repentance withequal reason, after he has heard the grey-beard, Leonato, and hisfriend, 'Monsieur Love', discourse of the desperate state of hissupposed inamorata. 

This can be no trick; the conference was sadly borne. --They have thetruth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems heraffections have the full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. Ihear how I am censur'd: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if Iperceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will ratherdie than give any sign of affection. --I did never think to marry; Imust not seem proud:--happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 'tis atruth, I can bear them witness: and vir-tuous;--'tis so, I cannotreprove it; and wise--but for loving me;--by my troth it is noaddition to her wit;--nor no great argument of her folly, for I willbe horribly in love with her. --I may chance to have some odd quirksand remnants of wit broken on me, because I have rail'd so longagainst marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves themeat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age. --Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man fromthe career of his humour? No: the world must be peopled. When Isaid, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till Iwere marry'd. --Here comes Beatrice; by this day, she's a fair lady:I do spy some marks of love in her. 

The beauty of all this arises from the characters of the persons soentrapped. Benedick is a professed and staunch enemy to marriage, and gives very plausible reasons for the faith that is in him. Andas to Beatrice, she persecutes him all day with her jests (so thathe could hardly think of being troubled with them at night), she notonly turns him but all other things into jest, and is proof againsteverything serious. 

 Hero. Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly, that to her All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. 

 Ursula. Sure, I think so; And therefore, certainly, it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. 

 Hero. Why, you speak truth: I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac'd, She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick, Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut: If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. 

These were happy materials for Shakespeare to work on, and he hasmade a happy use of them. Perhaps that middle point of comedy wasnever more nicely hit in which the ludicrous blends with the tender, and our follies, turning round against themselves in support of ouraffections, retain nothing but their humanity. 

Dogberry and Verges in this play are inimitable specimens of quaintblundering and misprisions of meaning; and are a standing record ofthat formal gravity of pretension and total want of commonunderstanding, which Shakespeare no doubt copied from real life, andwhich in the course of two hundred years appear to have ascendedfrom the lowest to the highest offices in the state. 

AS YOU LIKE IT

Shakespeare has here converted the forest of Arden into anotherArcadia, where they 'fleet the time carelessly, as they did in thegolden world'. It is the most ideal of any of this author's plays. It is a pastoral drama in which the interest arises more out of thesentiments and characters than out of the actions or situations. Itis not what is done, but what is said, that claims our attention. Nursed in solitude, 'under the shade of melancholy boughs', theimagination grows soft and delicate, and the wit runs riot inidleness, like a spoiled child that is never sent to school. Capriceis and fancy reign and revel here, and stern necessity is banishedto the court. The mild sentiments of humanity are strengthened withthought and leisure; the echo of the cares and noise of the worldstrikes upon the ear of those 'who have felt them knowingly', softened by time and distance. 'They hear the tumult, and arestill. ' The very air of the place seems to breathe a spirit ofphilosophical poetry; to stir the thoughts, to touch the heart withpity, as the drowsy forest rustles to the sighing gale. Never wasthere such beautiful moralizing, equally free from pedantry orpetulance. 

 And this their life, exempt from public haunts, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

Jaques is the only purely contemplative character in Shakespeare. Hethinks, and does nothing. His whole occupation is to amuse his mind, and he is totally regardless of his body and his fortunes. He is theprince of philosophical idlers; his only passion is thought; he setsno value upon anything but as it serves as food for reflection. Hecan 'suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs'; themotley fool, 'who morals on the time', is the greatest prize hemeets with in the forest. He resents Orlando's passion for Rosalindas some disparagement of his own passion for abstract truth; andleaves the Duke, as soon as he is restored to his sovereignty, toseek his brother out, who has quitted it, and turned hermit. 

 --Out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learnt. 

Within the sequestered and romantic glades of the Forest of Arden, they find leisure to be good and wise, or to play the fool and fallin love. Rosalind's character is made up of sportive gaiety andnatural tenderness: her tongue runs the faster to conceal thepressure at her heart. She talks herself out of breath, only to getdeeper in love. The coquetry with which she plays with her lover inthe double character which she has to support is managed with thenicest address. How Full of voluble, laughing grace is all herconversation with Orlando:

 --In heedless mazes running With wanton haste and giddy cunning. 

How full of real fondness and pretended cruelty is her answer to himwhen he promises to love her 'For ever and a day'!

Say a day without the ever: no, no, Orlando, men are April when theywoo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, butthe sky changes when they are wives: I will be more jealous of theethan a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than aparrot against rain; more newfangled than an ape; more giddy in mydesires than a monkey; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in thefountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; Iwill laugh like a hyen, and that when you are inclined to sleep. 

 Orlando. But will my Rosalind do so?

 Rosalind. By my life she will do as I do. 

The silent and retired character of Celia is a necessary relief tothe provoking loquacity of Rosalind, nor can anything be betterconceived or more beautifully described than the mutual affectionbetween the two cousins:

 --We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together, And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable. 

The unrequited love of Silvius for Phebe shows the perversity ofthis passion in the commonest scenes of life, and the rubs and stopswhich nature throws in its way, where fortune has placed none. Touchstone is not in love, but he will have a mistress as a subjectfor the exercise of his grotesque humour, and to show his contemptfor the passion, by his indifference about the person. He is a rarefellow. He is a mixture of the ancient cynic philosopher with themodern buffoon, and turns folly into wit, and wit into folly, justas the fit takes him. His courtship of Audrey not only throws adegree of ridicule on the state of wedlock itself, but he is equallyan enemy to the prejudices of opinion in other respects. The loftytone of enthusiasm, which the Duke and his companions in exilespread over the stillness and solitude of a country life, receives apleasant shock from Touchstone's sceptical determination of thequestion. 

 Corin. And how like you this shepherd's life, Mr. Touchstone?

 Clown. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, took you, it fits my humour; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. 

Zimmennan's celebrated work on Solitude discovers only half thesense of this passage. 

There is hardly any of Shakespeare's plays that contains a greaternumber of passages that have been quoted in books of extracts, or agreater number of phrases that have become in a manner proverbial. If we were to give all the striking passages, we should give halfthe play. We will only recall a few of the most delightful to thereader's recollection. Such are the meeting between Orlando andAdam, the exquisite appeal of Orlando to the humanity of the Dukeand his company to supply him with food for the old man, and theiranswer, the Duke's description of a country life, and the account ofJaques moralizing on the wounded deer, his meeting with Touchstonein the forest, his apology for his own melancholy and his satiricalvein, and the well-known speech on the stages of human life, the oldsong of 'Blow, blow, thou winter's wind', Rosalind's description ofthe marks of a lover and of the progress of time with differentpersons, the picture of the snake wreathed round Oliver's neck whilethe lioness watches her sleeping prey, and Touchstone's lecture tothe shepherd, his defence of cuckolds, and panegyric on the virtuesof 'an If. --All of these are familiar to the reader: there is onepassage of equal delicacy and beauty which may have escaped him, andwith it we shall close our account of As You Like it. It is Phebe'sdescription of Ganimed at the end of the third act. 

 Think not I love him, tho' I ask for him; Tis but a peevish boy, yet he talks well;-- But what care I for words! yet words do well, When he that speaks them pleases those that hear; It is a pretty youth; not very pretty; But sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him; He'll make a proper man; the best thing in him Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue Did make offence, his eye did heal it up: He is not very tall, yet for his years he's tall; His leg is but so so, and yet'tis well; There was a pretty redness in his lip, A little riper, and more lusty red Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him In parcels as I did, would have gone near To fall in love with him: but for my part I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet I have more cause to hate him than to love him; For what had he to do to chide at me?

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is almost the only one of Shakespeare'scomedies that has a regular plot, and downright moral. It is full ofbustle, animation, and rapidity of action. It shows admirably howself-will is only to be got the better of by stronger will, and howone degree of ridiculous perversity is only to be driven out byanother still greater. Petruchio is a madman in his senses; a veryhonest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds inall his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to thelife, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete presenceof mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of illhumour from beginning to end. --The situation of poor Katherine, wornout by his incessant persecutions, becomes at last almost aspitiable as it is ludicrous, and it is difficult to say which toadmire most, the unaccountableness of his actions, or theunalterableness of his resolutions. It is a character which mosthusbands ought to study, unless perhaps the very audacity ofPetruchio's attempt might alarm them more than his success wouldencourage them. What a sound must the following speech carry to somemarried ears!

 Think you a little din can daunt my ears? Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds, Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field? And heav'n's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang? And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to hear, As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?

Not all Petruchio's rhetoric would persuade more than 'some dozenfollowers' to be of this heretical way of thinking. He unfolds hisscheme for the Taming of the Shrew, on a principle of contradiction, thus:

 I'll woo her with some spirit when she comes. Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale; Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew; Say she be mute, and will not speak a word, Then I'll commend her volubility, And say she uttereth piercing eloquence: If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As tho' she bid me stay by her a week; If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day, When I shall ask the banns, and when be married. 

He accordingly gains her consent to the match, by telling her fatherthat he has got it; disappoints her by not returning at the time hehas promised to wed her, and when he returns, creates no smallconsternation by the oddity of his dress and equipage. This howeveris nothing to the astonishment excited by his madbrained behaviourat the marriage. Here is the account of it by an eye-witness:

 Gremio. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him; I'll tell you. Sir Lucentio; when the priest Should ask if Katherine should be his wife? Ay, by gogs woons, quoth he; and swore so loud, That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book; And as he stooped again to take it up, This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff, That down fell priest and book, and book and priest. Now take them up, quoth he, if any list. 

 Tronio. What said the wench when he rose up again?

 Gremio. Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore, As if the vicar meant to cozen him. But after many ceremonies done, He calls for wine; a health, quoth he; as if He'd been aboard carousing with his mates After a storm; quaft off the muscadel, And threw the sops all in the sexton's face; Having no other cause but that his beard Grew thin and hungerly, and seem'd to ask His sops as he was drinking. This done, he took The bride about the neck, and kiss'd her lips With such a clamorous smack, that at their parting All the church echoed; and I seeing this, Came thence for very shame; and after me, I know, the rout is coming;-- Such a mad marriage never was before. 

The most striking and at the same time laughable feature in thecharacter of Petruchio throughout, is the studied approximation tothe intractable character of real madness, his apparentinsensibility to all external considerations, and utter indifferenceto everything but the wild and extravagant freaks of his own self-will. There is no contending with a person on whom nothing makes anyimpression but his own purposes, and who is bent on his own whimsjust in proportion as they seem to want common-sense. With him athing's being plain and reasonable is a reason against it. The airshe gives himself are infinite, and his caprices as sudden as theyare groundless. The whole of his treatment of his wife at home is inthe same spirit of ironical attention and inverted gallantry. Everything flies before his will, like a conjurer's wand, and heonly metamorphoses his wife's temper by metamorphosing her sensesand all the objects she sees, at a word's speaking. Such are hisinsisting that it is the moon and not the sun which they see, &c. This extravagance reaches its most pleasant and poetical height inthe scene where, on their return to her father's, they meet oldVincentio, whom Petruchio immediately addresses as a young lady:

 Petruchio. Good morrow, gentle mistress, where away? Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman? Such war of white and red within her cheeks; What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty, As those two eyes become that heav'nly face? Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee: Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake. 

 Hortensio. He'll make the man mad to make a woman of him. 

 Katherine. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet, Whither away, or where is thy abode? Happy the parents of so fair a child; Happier the man whom favourable stars Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow. 

 Petruchio. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad: This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd, And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is. 

 Katherine. Pardon, old father, my mistaken eyes That have been so bedazed with the sun That everything I look on seemeth green. Now I perceive thou art a reverend father. 

The whole is carried on with equal spirit, as if the poet's comicMuse had wings of fire. It is strange how one man could be so manythings; but so it is. The concluding scene, in which trial is madeof the obedience of the new-married wives (so triumphantly forPetruchio), is a very happy one. --In some parts of this play thereis a little too much about music-masters and masters of philosophy. They were things of greater rarity in those days than they are now. Nothing, however, can be better than the advice which Tranio giveshis master for the prosecution of his studies:

 The mathematics, and the metaphysics, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you: No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most affect. 

We have heard the Honey-Moon called 'an elegant Katherine andPetruchio'. We suspect we do not understand this word ELEGANT in thesense that many people do. But in our sense of the word, we shouldcall Lucentio's description of his mistress elegant:

 Tranio. I saw her coral lips to move, And with her breath she did perfume the air: Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her. 

When Biondello tells the same Lucentio for his encouragement, 'Iknew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden forparsley to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir'--there is nothingelegant in this, and yet we hardly know which of the two passages isthe best. 

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is a play within a play. It is supposed tobe a play acted for the benefit of Sly the tinker, who is made tobelieve himself a lord, when he wakes after a drunken brawl. Thecharacter of Sly and the remarks with which he accompanies the playare as good as the play itself. His answer when he is asked how helikes it, 'Indifferent well; 'tis a good piece of work, would 'tweredone, ' is in good keeping, as if he were thinking of his Saturdaynight's job. Sly does not change his tastes with his new situation, but in the midst of splendour and luxury still calls out lustily andrepeatedly 'for a pot o' the smallest ale'. He is very slow ingiving up his personal identity in his sudden advancement. 'I amChristophero Sly, call not me honour nor lordship. I ne'er dranksack in my life: and if you give me any conserves, give me conservesof beef; ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear, for I have no moredoublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoesthan feet, nay, sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as mytoes look through the over-leather. --What, would you make me mad? Amnot I Christophero Sly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth apedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, andnow by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fatalewife of Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen-pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying'st knavein Christendom. '

This is honest. 'The Slies are no rogues', as he says of himself. Wehave a great predilection for this representative of the family; andwhat makes us like him the better is, that we take him to be of kin(not many degrees removed) to Sancho Panza. 

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

This is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. Yet there is anoriginal sin in the nature of the subject, which prevents us fromtaking a cordial interest in it. The height of moral argument' whichthe author has maintained in the intervals of passion or blendedwith the more powerful impulses of nature, is hardly surpassed inany of his plays. But there is in general a want of passion; theaffections are at a stand; our sympathies are repulsed and defeatedin all directions. The only passion which influences the story isthat of Angelo; and yet he seems to have a much greater passion forhypocrisy than for his mistress. Neither are we greatly enamoured ofIsabella's rigid chastity, though she could not act otherwise thanshe did. We do not feel the same confidence in the virtue that issublimely good' at another's expense, as if it had been out to someless disinterested trial. As to the Duke, who makes a very imposingand mysterious stage-character, he is more absorbed in his own plotsand gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state; moretenacious of his own character than attentive to the feelings andapprehensions of others. Claudio is the only person who feelsnaturally; and yet he is placed in circumstances of distress whichalmost preclude the wish for his deliverance. Mariana is also inlove with Angelo, whom we hate. In this respect, there may be saidto be a general system of cross-purposes between the feelings of thedifferent characters and the sympathy of the reader or the audience. This principle of repugnance seems to have reached its height in thecharacter of Master Barnardine, who not only sets at defiance theopinions of others, but has even thrown off all self-regard, --'onethat apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep;careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, and tocome. ' He is a fine antithesis to the morality and the hypocrisy ofthe other characters of the play. Barnardine is Caliban transportedfrom Prospero's wizard island to the forests of Bohemia or theprisons of Vienna. He is the creature of bad habits as Caliban is ofgross instincts. He has, however, a strong notion of the naturalfitness of things, according to his own sensations--'He has beendrinking hard all night, and he will not be hanged that day'--andShakespeare has let him off at last. We do not understand why thephilosophical German critic, Schlegel, should be so severe on thosepleasant persons, Lucio, Pompey, and Master Froth, as to call them'wretches'. They appear all mighty comfortable in their occupations, and determined to pursue them, 'as the flesh and fortune shouldserve'. A very good exposure of the want of self-knowledge andcontempt for others, which is so common in the world, is put intothe mouth of Abhorson, the jailer, when the Provost proposes toassociate Pompey with him in his office--'A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery. ' And the same answer would serve innine instances out of ten to the same kind of remark, 'Go to, sir, you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. ' Shakespeare wasin one sense the least moral of all writers; for morality (commonlyso called) is made up of antipathies; and his talent consisted insympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, degrees, depressions, and elevations. The object of the pedantic moralist is to find outthe bad in everything: his was to show that 'there is some soul ofgoodness in things evil'. Even Master Barnardine is not left to themercy of what others think of him; but when he comes in, speaks forhimself, and pleads his own cause, as well as if counsel had beenassigned him. In one sense, Shakespeare was no moralist at all: inanother, he was the greatest of all moralists. He was a moralist inthe same sense in which nature is one. He taught what he had learntfrom her. He showed the greatest knowledge of humanity with thegreatest fellow-feeling for it. 

One of the most dramatic passages in the present play is theinterview between Claudio and his sister, when she comes to informhim of the conditions on which Angelo will spare his life. 

 Claudio. Let me know the point. 

 Isabella. --O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 

 Claudio. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness; if I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. 

 Isabella. There spake my brother! there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy-- Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew As faulcon doth the fowl--is yet a devil. 

 Claudio. The princely Angelo?

 Isabella. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, If I would yield him my virginity, Thou might'st be freed?

 Claudio. Oh, heavens! it cannot be. 

 Isabella. Yes, he would give it thee, for this rank offence, So to offend him still: this night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou dy'st to-morrow. 

 Claudio. Thou shalt not do't. 

 Isabella. Oh, were it but my life, I'd throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. 

 Claudio. Thanks, dear Isabel. 

 Isabella. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. 

 Claudio. Yes. --Has he affections in him, That thus can make him bite the law by the nose? When he would force it, sure it is no sin; Or of the deadly seven it is the least. 

 Isabella. Which is the least?

 Claudio. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fin'd? Oh, Isabel!

 Isabella. What says my brother?

 Claudio. Death is a fearful thing. 

 Isabella. And shamed life a hateful. 

 Claudio. Aye, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; 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 pendant world; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling!--'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. 

 Isabella. Alas! alas!

 Claudio. Sweet sister, let me live: What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far, That it becomes a virtue. 

What adds to the dramatic beauty of this scene and the effect ofClaudio's passionate attachment to life is, that it immediatelyfollows the Duke's lecture to him, on the character of the Friar, recommending an absolute indifference to it. 

 --Reason thus with life, -- If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing, That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet run'st toward him still: thou art not noble; For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st, Are nurs'd by baseness: thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm: thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains!; That issue out of dust: happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get; And what thou hast, forget'st; thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon; if thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee: friend thou hast none; For thy own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner: thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even. 

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

The MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR is no doubt a very amusing play, with agreat deal of humour, character, and nature in it: but we shouldhave liked it much better, if any one else had been the hero of it, instead of Falstaff. We could have been contented if Shakespeare hadnot been 'commanded to show the knight in love'. Wits andphilosophers, for the most part, do not shine in that character; andSir John himself by no means comes off with flying colours. Manypeople complain of the degradation and insults to which Don Quixoteis so frequently exposed in his various adventures. But what are theunconscious indignities which he suffers, compared with the sensiblemortifications which Falstaff is made to bring upon himself? Whatare the blows and buffetings which the Don receives from the stavesof the Yanguesian carriers or from Sancho Panza's more hard-heartedhands, compared with the contamination of the buck-basket, thedisguise of the fat woman of Brentford, and the horns of Herne thehunter, which are discovered on Sir John's head? In reading theplay, we indeed wish him well through all these discomfitures, butit would have been as well if he had not got into them. Falstaff inthe MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR is not the man he was in the two parts ofHENRY IV. His wit and eloquence have left him. Instead of making abutt of others, he is made a butt of by them. Neither is there asingle particle of love in him to excuse his follies: he is merely adesigning, bare-faced knave, and an unsuccessful one. 

The scene with Ford as Master Brook, and that with Simple, Slender'sman, who comes to ask after the Wise Woman, are almost the only onesin which his old intellectual ascendancy appears. He is like aperson recalled to the stage to perform an unaccustomed andungracious part; and in which we perceive only 'some faint sparks ofthose flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the hearers in aroar'. But the single scene with Doll Tearsheet, or Mrs. Quickly'saccount of his desiring 'to eat some of housewife Keach's prawns', and telling her 'to be no more so familiarity with such people', isworth the whole of the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR put together. Ford'sjealousy, which is the mainspring of the comic incidents, iscertainly very well managed. Page, on the contrary, appears to besomewhat uxorious in his disposition; and we have pretty plainindications of the effect of the characters of the husbands on thedifferent degrees of fidelity in their wives. Mrs. Quickly makes avery lively go-between, both between Falstaff and his Dulcineas, andAnne Page and her lovers, and seems in the latter case so intent onher own interest as totally to overlook the intentions of heremployers. Her master, Doctor Caius, the Frenchman, and her fellowservant Jack Rugby, are very completely described. This last-mentioned person is rather quaintly commended by Mrs. Quickly as 'anhonest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in housewithal, and I warrant you, no tell-tale, nor no breed-bate; hisworst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevishthat way; but nobody but has his fault. ' The Welsh Parson, Sir HughEvans (a title which in those days was given to the clergy) is anexcellent character in all respects. He is as respectable as he islaughable. He has 'very good discretions, and very odd humours'. Theduel-scene with Caius gives him an opportunity to show his 'cholersand his tremblings of mind', his valour and his melancholy, in anirresistible manner. In the dialogue, which at his mother's requesthe holds with his pupil, William Page, to show his progress inlearning, it is hard to say whether the simplicity of the master orthe scholar is the greatest. Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, are but theshadows of what they were; and Justice Shallow himself has little ofhis consequence left. But his cousin, Slender, makes up for thedeficiency. He is a very potent piece of imbecility. In him thepretensions of the worthy Gloucestershire family are well kept up, and immortalized. He and his friend Sackerson and his book of songsand his love of Anne Page and his having nothing to say to her cannever be forgotten. It is the only first-rate character in the play, but it is in that class. Shakespeare is the only writer who was asgreat in describing weakness as strength. 

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

This comedy is taken very much from the Menaechmi of Plautus, and isnot an improvement on it. Shakespeare appears to have bestowed nogreat pains on it, and there are but a few passages which bear thedecided stamp of his genius. He seems to have relied on his author, and on the interest arising out of the intricacy of the plot. Thecuriosity excited is certainly very considerable, though not of themost pleasing kind. We are teased as with a riddle, whichnotwithstanding we try to solve. In reading the play, from thesameness of the names of the two Antipholises and the two Dromios, as well from their being constantly taken for each other by thosewho see them, it is difficult, without a painful effort ofattention, to keep the characters distinct in the mind. And again, on the stage, either the complete similarity of their persons anddress must produce the same perplexity whenever they first enter, orthe identity of appearance which the story supposes will bedestroyed. We still, however, having a clue to the difficulty, cantell which is which, merely from the practical contradictions whicharise, as soon as the different parties begin to speak; and we areindemnified for the perplexity and blunders into which we are thrownby seeing others thrown into greater and almost inextricable ones. --This play (among other considerations) leads us not to feel muchregret that Shakespeare was not what is called a classical scholar. We do not think his forte would ever have lain in imitating orimproving on what others invented, so much as in inventing forhimself, and perfecting what he invented, --not perhaps by theomission of faults, but by the addition of the highest excellences. His own genius was strong enough to bear him up, and he soaredlongest and best on unborrowed plumes. --The only passage of a veryShakespearian cast in this comedy is the one in which the Abbess, with admirable characteristic artifice, makes Adriana confess herown misconduct in driving her husband mad. 

 Abbess. How long hath this possession held the man?

 Adriana. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much, much different from the man he was; But, till this afternoon, his passion Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. 

 Abbess. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck at sea? Bury'd some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray'd his affection in unlawful love? A sin prevailing much in youthful men, Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows is he subject to?

 Adriana. To none of these, except it be the last: Namely, some love, that drew him oft from home. 

 Abbess. You should for that have reprehended him. 

 Adriana. Why, so I did. 

 Abbess. But not rough enough. 

 Adriana. As roughly as my modesty would let me. 

 Abbess. Haply, in private. 

 Adriana. And in assemblies too. 

 Abbess. Aye, but not enough. 

 Adriana. It was the copy of our conference: In bed, he slept not for my urging it; At board, he fed not for my urging it; Alone it was the subject of my theme; In company, I often glanc'd at it; Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. 

 Abbess. And therefore came it that the man was mad: The venom'd clamours of a jealous woman Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing: And therefore comes it that his head is light. Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings: Unquiet meals make ill digestions, Therefore the raging fire of fever bred; And what's a fever but a fit of madness? Thou say'st his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls; Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, But moody and dull melancholy, Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair; And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life? In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast; The consequence is then, thy jealous fits Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits. 

 Luciana. She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demeaned himself rough, rude, and wildly. -- Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?

 Adriana. She did betray me to my own reproof. 

Pinch the conjurer is also an excrescence not to be found inPlautus. He is indeed a very formidable anachronism. 

 They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain, A meer anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-bare juggler and a fortune-teller, A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch, A living dead man. 

This is exactly like some of the Puritanical portraits to be metwith in Hogarth. 

DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE

We shall give for the satisfaction of the reader what the celebratedGerman critic, Schlegel, says on this subject, and then add a veryfew remarks of our own. 

'All the editors, with the exception of Capell, are unanimous inrejecting TITUS ANDRONICUS as unworthy of Shakespeare, though theyalways allow it to be printed with the other pieces, as thescapegoat, as it were, of their abusive criticism. The correctmethod in such an investigation is first to examine into theexternal grounds, evidences, &c. , and to weigh their worth; and thento adduce the internal reasons derived from the quality of the work. The critics of Shakespeare follow a course directly the reverse ofthis; they set out with a preconceived opinion against a piece, andseek, in justification of this opinion, to render the historicalgrounds suspicious, and to set them aside. TITUS ANDRONICUS is to befound in the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works, which itwas known was conducted by Heminge and Condell, for many years hisfriends and fellow-managers of the same theatre. Is it possible topersuade ourselves that they would not have known if a piece intheir repertory did or did not actually belong to Shakespeare? Andare we to lay to the charge of these honourable men a designed fraudin this single case, when we know that they did not show themselvesso very desirous of scraping everything together which went by thename of Shakespeare, but, as it appears, merely gave those plays ofwhich they had manuscripts in hand? Yet the following circumstanceis still stronger: George Meres, a contemporary and admirer ofShakespeare, mentions TITUS ANDRONICUS in an enumeration of hisworks, in the year 1598. Meres was personally acquainted with thepoet, and so very intimately, that the latter read over to him hisSonnets before they were printed. I cannot conceive that all thecritical scepticism in the world would be sufficient to get oversuch a testimony. 

This tragedy, it is true, is framed according to a false idea of thetragic, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enormitiesdegenerates into the horrible, and yet leaves no deep impressionbehind: the story of Tereus and Philomela is heightened andovercharged under other names, and mixed up with the repast ofAtreus and Thyestes, and many other incidents. In detail there is nowant of beautiful lines, bold images, nay, even features whichbetray the peculiar conception of Shakespeare. Among these we mayreckon the joy of the treacherous Moor at the blackness and uglinessof his child begot in adultery; and in the compassion of TitusAndronicus, grown childish through grief, for a fly which had beenstruck dead, and his rage afterwards when he imagines he discoversin it his black enemy; we recognize the future poet of LEAR. Are thecritics afraid that Shakespeare's fame would be injured, were itestablished that in his early youth he ushered into the world afeeble and immature work? Was Rome the less the conqueror of theworld because Remus could leap over its first walls? Let any oneplace himself in Shakespeare's situation at the commencement of hiscareer. He found only a few indifferent models, and yet these metwith the most favourable reception, because men are never difficultto please in the novelty of an art before their taste has becomefastidious from choice and abundance. Must not this situation havehad its influence on him before he learned to make higher demands onhimself, and by digging deeper in his own mind, discovered therichest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly probable that hemust have made several failures before getting into the right path. Genius is in a certain sense infallible, and has nothing to learn;but art is to be learned, and must be acquired by practice andexperience. In Shakespeare's acknowledged works we find hardly anytraces of his apprenticeship, and yet an apprenticeship he certainlyhad. This every artist must have, and especially in a period wherehe has not before him the example of a school already formed. Iconsider it as extremely probable, that Shakespeare began to writefor the theatre at a much earlier period than the one which isgenerally stated, namely, not till after the year 1590. It appearsthat, as early as the year 1584, when only twenty years of age, hehad left his paternal home and repaired to London. Can we imaginethat such an active head would remain idle for six whole yearswithout making any attempt to emerge by his talents from anuncongenial situation? That in the dedication of the poem of Venusand Adonis he calls it "the first heir of his invention", provesnothing against the supposition. It was the first which he printed;he might have composed it at an earlier period; perhaps, also, hedid not include theatrical labours, as they then possessed butlittle literary dignity. The earlier Shakespeare began to composefor the theatre, the less are we enabled to consider the immaturityand imperfection of a work as a proof of its spuriousness inopposition to historical evidence, if we only find in it prominentfeatures of his mind. Several of the works rejected as spurious maystill have been produced in the period betwixt TITUS ANDRONICUS andthe earliest of the acknowledged pieces. 

'At last, Steevens published seven pieces ascribed to Shakespeare intwo supplementary volumes. It is to be remarked, that they allappeared in print in Shakespeare's lifetime, with his name prefixedat full length. They are the following:

'1. LOCRINE. The proofs of the genuineness of this piece are notaltogether unambiguous; the grounds for doubt, on the other hand, are entitled to attention. However, this question is immediatelyconnected with that respecting TITUS ANDRONICUS, and must be at thesame time resolved in the affirmative or negative. 

'2. PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. This piece was acknowledged by Dryden, but as a youthful work of Shakespeare. It is most undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several of the late editions. Thesupposed imperfections originate in the circumstance, thatShakespeare here handled a childish and extravagant romance of theold poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the subject out of itsproper sphere. Hence he even introduces Gower himself, and makes himdeliver a prologue entirely in his antiquated language andversification. This power of assuming so foreign a manner is atleast no proof of helplessness. 

'3. THE LONDON PRODIGAL. If we are not mistaken, Lessing pronouncedthis piece to be Shakespeare's, and wished to bring it on the Germanstage. 

'4. THE PURITAN; OR, THE WIDOW OF WATLING STREET. One of my literaryfriends, intimately acquainted with Shakespeare, was of opinion thatthe poet must have wished to write a play for once in the style ofBen Jonson, and that in this way we must account for the differencebetween the present piece and his usual manner. To follow out thisidea, however, would lead to a very nice critical investigation. 

'5. THOMAS, LORD CROMWELL. 

'6. SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE--FIRST PART. 

'7. A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 

'The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakespeare's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best andmaturest works. Steevens admits at last, in some degree, that theyare Shakespeare's, as well as the others, excepting LOCRINE, but hespeaks of all of them with great contempt, as quite worthlessproductions. This condemnatory sentence is not, however, in theslightest degree convincing, nor is it supported by critical acumen. I should like to see how such a critic would, of his own naturalsuggestion, have decided on Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpieces, and what he would have thought of praising in them, had the publicopinion imposed on him the duty of admiration. THOMAS, LORDCROMWELL, and SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, are biographical dramas, andmodels in this species: the first is linked, from its subject, toHENRY THE EIGHTH, and the second to HENRY THE FIFTH. The second partof OLDCASTLE is wanting; I know not whether a copy of the oldedition has been discovered in England, or whether it is lost. THEYORKSHIRE TRAGEDY is a tragedy in one act, a dramatized tale ofmurder: the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is extremelyimportant to see how poetically Shakespeare could handle such asubject. 

'There have been still farther ascribed to him: 1st. THE MERRY DEVILOF EDMONTON, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's old plays. This has certainly some appearances in its favour. It contains amerry landlord, who bears a great similarity to the one in the MERRYWIVES OF WINDSOR. However, at all events, though an ingenious, it isbut a hasty sketch. 2nd. THE ACCUSATION OF PARIS. 3rd. THE BIRTH OFMERLIN. 4th. EDWARD THE THIRD. 5th. THE FAIR EMMA. 6th. MUCEDORUS. 7th. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM. I have never seen any of these, and cannottherefore say anything respecting them. From the passages cited, Iam led to conjecture that the subject of MUCEDORUS is the popularstory of Valentine and Orson; a beautiful subject which Lope de Vegahas also taken for a play. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM is said to be atragedy on the story of a man, from whom the poet was descended bythe mother's side. If the quality of the piece is not too directlyat variance with this claim, the circumstance would afford anadditional probability in its favour. For such motives were notforeign to Shakespeare: he treated Henry the Seventh, who bestowedlands on his forefathers for services performed by them, with avisible partiality. 

'Whoever takes from Shakespeare a play early ascribed to him, andconfessedly belonging to his time, is unquestionably bound toanswer, with some degree of probability, this question: who has thenwritten it? Shakespeare's competitors in the dramatic walk arepretty well known, and if those of them who have even acquired aconsiderable name, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood, are still so veryfar below him, we can hardly imagine that the author of a work, which rises so high beyond theirs, would have remained unknown'--LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE, vol. Ii, page 252. 

We agree to the truth of this last observation, but not to thejustice of its application to some of the plays here mentioned. Itis true that Shakespeare's best works are very superior to those ofMarlow, or Heywood, but it is not true that the best of the doubtfulplays above enumerated are superior or even equal to the best oftheirs. THE YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY, which Schlegel speaks of as anundoubted production of our author's, is much more in the manner ofHeywood than of Shakespeare. The effect is indeed overpowering, butthe mode of producing it is by no means poetical. The praise whichSchlegel gives to THOMAS, LORD CROMWELL, and to SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, is altogether exaggerated. They are very indifferent compositions, which have not the slightest pretensions to rank with HENRY V orHENRY VIII. We suspect that the German critic was not very wellacquainted with the dramatic contemporaries of Shakespeare, or awareof their general merits; and that he accordingly mistakes aresemblance in style and manner for an equal degree of excellence. Shakespeare differed from the other writers of his age not in themode of treating his subjects, but in the grace and power which hedisplayed in them. The reason assigned by a literary friend ofSchlegel's for supposing THE PURITAN; OR, THE WIDOW OF WATLINGSTREET, to be Shakespeare's, viz. That it is in the style of BenJonson, that is to say, in a style just the reverse of his own, isnot very satisfactory to a plain English understanding. LOCRINE, andTHE LONDON PRODIGAL, if they were Shakespeare's at all, must havebeen among the sins of his youth. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM containsseveral striking passages, but the passion which they express israther that of a sanguine tem-perament than of a lofty imagination;and in this respect they approximate more nearly to the style ofother writers of the time than to Shakespeare's. TITUS ANDRONICUS iscertainly as unlike Shakespeare's usual style as it is possible. Itis an accumulation of vulgar physical horrors, in which the powerexercised by the poet bears no proportion to the repugnance excitedby the subject. The character of Aaron the Moor is the only thingwhich shows any originality of conception; and the scene in which heexpresses his joy 'at the blackness and ugliness of his child begotin adultery', the only one worthy of Shakespeare. Even this isworthy of him only in the display of power, for it gives nopleasure. Shakespeare managed these things differently. Nor do wethink it a sufficient answer to say that this was an embryo or crudeproduction of the author. In its kind it is full grown, and itsfeatures decided and overcharged. It is not like a first imperfectessay, but shows a confirmed habit, a systematic preference ofviolent effect to everything else. There are occasional detachedimages of great beauty and delicacy, but these were not beyond thepowers of other writers then living. The circumstance which inclinesus to reject the external evidence in favour of this play beingShakespeare's is, that the grammatical construction is constantlyfalse and mixed up with vulgar abbreviations, a fault that neveroccurs in any of his genuine plays. A similar defect, and thehalting measure of the verse are the chief objections to PERICLES OFTYRE, if we except the far-fetched and complicated absurdity of thestory. The movement of the thoughts and passions has something in itnot unlike Shakespeare, and several of the descriptions are eitherthe original hints of passages which Shakespeare has engrafted onhis other plays, or are imitations of them by some contemporarypoet. The most memorable idea in it is in Marina's speech, where shecompares the world to 'a lasting storm, hurrying her from herfriends'. 

POEMS AND SONNETS

Our idolatry of Shakespeare (not to say our admiration) ceases withhis plays. In his other productions he was a mere author, though nota common author. It was only by representing others, that he becamehimself. He could go out of himself, and express the soul ofCleopatra; but in his own person, he appeared to be always waitingfor the prompter's cue. In expressing the thoughts of others, heseemed inspired; in expressing his own, he was a mechanic. Thelicence of an assumed character was necessary to restore his geniusto the privileges of nature, and to give him courage to breakthrough the tyranny of fashion, the trammels of custom. In hisplays, he was 'as broad and casing as the general air'; in hispoems, on the contrary, he appears to be 'cooped, and cabined in' byall the technicalities of art, by all the petty intricacies ofthought and language, which poetry had learned from thecontroversial jargon of the schools, where words had been made asubstitute for things. There was, if we mistake not, something ofmodesty, and a painful sense of personal propriety at the bottom ofthis. Shakespeare's imagination, by identifying itself with thestrongest characters in the most trying circumstances, grappled atonce with nature, and trampled the littleness of art under his feet:the rapid changes of situation, the wide range of the universe, gavehim life and spirit, and afforded full scope to his genius; butreturned into his closet again, and having assumed the badge of hisprofession, he could only labour in his vocation, and conformhimself to existing models. The thoughts, the passions, the wordswhich the poet's pen, 'glancing from heaven to earth, from earth toheaven', lent to others, shook off the fetters of pedantry andaffectation; while his own thoughts and feelings, standing bythemselves, were seized upon as lawful prey, and tortured to deathaccording to the established rules and practice of the day. In aword, we do not like Shakespeare's poems, because we like his plays:the one, in all their excellences, are just the reverse of theother. It has been the fashion of late to cry up our author's poems, as equal to his plays: this is the desperate cant of moderncriticism. We would ask, was there the slightest comparison betweenShakespeare, and either Chaucer or Spenser, as mere poets? Not any. --The two poems of VENUS AND ADONIS and of TARQUIN AND LUCRECE appearto us like a couple of ice-houses. They are about as hard, asglittering, and as cold. The author seems all the time to bethinking of his verses, and not of his subject, --not of what hischaracters would feel, but of what he shall say; and as it musthappen in all such cases, he always puts into their mouths thosethings which they would be the last to think of, and which it showsthe greatest ingenuity in him to find out. The whole is laboured, up-hill work. The poet is perpetually singling out the difficultiesof the art to make an exhibition of his strength and skill inwrestling with them. He is making perpetual trials of them as if hismastery over them were doubted. The images, which are oftenstriking, are generally applied to things which they are the leastlike: so that they do not blend with the poem, but seem stuck uponit, like splendid patchwork, or remain quite distinct from it, likedetached substances, painted and varnished over. A beautiful thoughtis sure to be lost in an endless commentary upon it. The speakersare like persons who have both leisure and inclination to makeriddles on their own situation, and to twist and turn every objector incident into acrostics and anagrams. Everything is spun out intoallegory; and a digression is always preferred to the main story. Sentiment is built up upon plays of words; the hero or heroinefeels, not from the impulse of passion, but from the force ofdialectics. There is besides, a strange attempt to substitute thelanguage of painting for that of poetry, to make us SEE theirfeelings in the faces of the persons; and again, consistently withthis, in the description of the picture in TARQUIN AND LUCRECE, those circumstances are chiefly insisted on, which it would beimpossible to convey except by words. The invocation to Opportunityin the TARQUIN AND LUCRECE is full of thoughts and images, but atthe same time it is overloaded by them. The concluding stanzaexpresses all our objections to this kind of poetry:

 Oh! idle words, servants to shallow fools; Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators; Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools; Debate when leisure serves with dull debaters; To trembling clients be their mediators: For me I force not argument a straw, Since that my case is past all help of law. 

The description of the horse in VENUS AND ADONIS has beenparticularly admired, and not without reason:

 Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. 

Now this inventory of perfections shows great knowledge of thehorse; and is good matter-of-fact poetry. Let the reader but compareit with a speech in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM where Theseusdescribes his hounds--

 And their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew--

and he will perceive at once what we mean by the difference betweenShakespeare's own poetry, and that of his plays. We prefer thePASSIONATE PILGRIM very much to the LOVER'S COMPLAINT. It has beendoubted whether the latter poem is Shakespeare's. 

Of the Sonnets we do not well know what to say. The subject of themseems to be somewhat equivocal; but many of them are highlybeautiful in themselves, and interesting as they relate to the stateof the personal feelings of the author. The following are some ofthe most striking:

 CONSTANCY

 Let those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, But as the marigold in the sun's eye; And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famous'd for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: Then happy I, that love and am belov'd, Where I may not remove, nor be removed. 

 LOVE'S CONSOLATION

 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, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 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; For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

 NOVELTY

 My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song. 

 LIFE'S DECAY

 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. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

In all these, as well as in many others, there is a mild tone ofsentiment, deep, mellow, and sustained, very different from thecrudeness of his earlier poems.