SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE

With Other Essays

by

SIDNEY LEE

Author of "A Life of William Shakespeare"

LondonArchibald Constable and Company Limited1907

PREFACE

The eleven papers which are collected here were written between 1899and 1905. With the exception of one, entitled "Aspects ofShakespeare's Philosophy, " which is now printed for the first time, they were published in periodicals in the course of those six years. The articles treat of varied aspects of Shakespearean drama, itsinfluences and traditions, but I think that all may be credited withsufficient unity of intention to warrant their combination in a singlevolume. Their main endeavour is to survey Shakespearean drama inrelation to modern life, and to illustrate its living force in currentaffairs. Even in the papers which embody researches in sixteenth- orseventeenth-century dramatic history, I have sought to keep in viewthe bearings of the past on the present. A large portion of the bookdiscusses, as its title indicates, methods of representing Shakespeareon the modern stage. The attempt is there made to define, in the lightof experience, the conditions which are best calculated to conserve orincrease Shakespeare's genuine vitality in the theatre of our own day. 

In revising the work for the press, I have deemed it advisable tosubmit the papers to a somewhat rigorous verbal revision. Errors havebeen corrected, chronological ambiguities due to lapse of time havebeen removed, passages have been excised in order to avoid repetition, and reference to ephemeral events which deserve no permanent chroniclehave been omitted. But, substantially, the articles retain the shapein which they were originally penned. The point of view has undergoneno modification. In the essays dealing with the theatres of our owntime, I have purposely refrained from expanding or altering argumentor illustration by citing Shakespearean performances or othertheatrical enterprises which have come to birth since the papers werefirst written. In the last year or two there have been severalShakespearean revivals of notable interest, and some new histrionictriumphs have been won. Within the same period, too, at least half adozen new plays of serious literary aim have gained the approval ofcontemporary critics. These features of current dramatic history arewelcome to playgoers of literary tastes; but I have attempted nosurvey of them, because signs are lacking that any essential changehas been wrought by them in the general theatrical situation. My aimis to deal with dominant principles which underlie the past andpresent situation, rather than with particular episodes orpersonalities, the real value of which the future has yet todetermine. 

My best thanks are due to my friend Sir James Knowles, the proprietorand editor of _The Nineteenth Century and After_, for permission toreproduce the four articles, entitled respectively, "Shakespeare andthe Modern Stage, " "Shakespeare in Oral Tradition, " "Shakespeare inFrance, " and "The Commemoration of Shakespeare in London. " To MessrsSmith, Elder, & Co. , I am indebted for permission to print here thearticles on "Mr Benson and Shakespearean Drama, " and "Shakespeare andPatriotism, " both of which originally appeared in _The CornhillMagazine_. The paper on "Pepys and Shakespeare" was first printed inthe _Fortnightly Review_; that on "Shakespeare and the ElizabethanPlaygoer" in "An English Miscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall inhonour of his seventy-fifth birthday" (1901); that on "The MunicipalTheatre" in the _New Liberal Review_; and that on "A Peril ofShakespearean Research" in _The Author_. The proprietors of thesepublications have courteously given me permission to include thearticles in this volume. The essay on "Aspects of Shakespeare'sPhilosophy" was prepared for the purposes of a popular lecture, andhas not been in type before. 

In a note at the foot of the opening page of each essay, I mention thedate when it was originally published. An analytical list of contentsand an index will, I hope, increase any utility which may attach tothe volume. 

SIDNEY LEE. 

_1st October 1906. _

CONTENTS

 PAGE

PREFACE vii

I

SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE

 I. The Perils of the Spectacular Method of Production 1

 II. The Need for Simplifying Scenic Appliances 4

 III. Consequences of Simplification. The Attitude of the Shakespearean Student 7

 IV. The Pecuniary Experiences of Charles Kean and Sir Henry Irving 9

 V. The Experiment of Samuel Phelps 11

 VI. The Rightful Supremacy of the Actor 12

 VII. The Example of the French and German Stage 16

 VIII. Shakespeare's Reliance on the "Imaginary Forces" of the Audience 18

 IX. The Patriotic Argument for the Production of Shakespeare's Plays constantly and in their variety on the English Stage 23

II

SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYGOER

 I. An Imaginary Discovery of Shakespeare's Journal 25

 II. Shakespeare in the rôle of the Ghost on the First Production of _Hamlet_ in 1602 27

 III. Shakespeare's Popularity in the Elizabethan Theatre 29

 IV. At Court in 1594 31

 V. The Theatre an Innovation in Elizabethan England 36

 VI. Elizabethan Methods of Production 38

 VII. The Contrast between the Elizabethan and the Modern Methods 43

 VIII. The Fitness of the Audience an Essential Element in the Success of Shakespeare on the Stage 46

III

SHAKESPEARE IN ORAL TRADITION

 I. The Reception of the News of Shakespeare's Death 49

 II. The Evolution in England of Formal Biography 51

 III. Oral Tradition concerning Shakespeare in Theatrical Circles 57

 IV. The Testimonies of Seventeenth-century Actors 61

 V. Sir William D'Avenant's Devotion to Shakespeare's Memory 69

 VI. Early Oral Tradition at Stratford-on-Avon 73

 VII. Shakespeare's Fame among Seventeenth-century Scholars and Statesmen 78

 VIII. Nicholas Rowe's Place among Shakespeare's Biographers. The Present State of Knowledge respecting Shakespeare's Life 79

IV

PEPYS AND SHAKESPEARE

 I. Pepys the Microcosm of the Average Playgoer 82

 II. The London Theatres of Pepys's _Diary_ 85

 III. Pepys's Enthusiasm for the Later Elizabethan Drama 90

 IV. Pepys's Criticism of Shakespeare. His Admiration of Betterton in Shakespearean rôles 93

 V. The Garbled Versions of Shakespeare on the Stage of the Restoration 102

 VI. The Saving Grace of the Restoration Theatre. Betterton's Masterly Interpretation of Shakespeare 109

V

MR BENSON AND SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA

 I. A Return to the Ancient Ways 111

 II. The Advantages of a Constant Change of Programme. The Opportunities offered Actors by Shakespeare's Minor Characters. John of Gaunt 113

 III. The Benefit of Performing the Play of _Hamlet_ without Abbreviation 116

 IV. Mr Benson as a Trainer of Actors. The Succession to Phelps 119

VI

THE MUNICIPAL THEATRE

 I. The True Aim of the Municipal Theatre 122

 II. Private Theatrical Enterprise and Literary Drama. The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Actor-Manager System. The Control of the Capitalist 123

 III. Possibilities of the Artistic Improvement of Theatrical Organisation in England 127

 IV. Indications of a Demand for a Municipal Theatre 129

 V. The Teaching of Foreign Experience. The Example of Vienna 134

 VI. The Conditions of Success in England 138

VII

ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY

 I. The Conflicting Attitudes of Bacon and Shakespeare to Formal Philosophy 142

 II. Shakespeare's "Natural" Philosophy. Concealment of his Personality in his Plays 148

 III. His Lofty Conception of Public Virtue. Frequency of his Denunciation of Royal "Ceremony" 152

 IV. The Duty of Obedience to Authority 161

 V. The Moral Atmosphere of Shakespearean Drama 164

 VI. Shakespeare's Insistence on the Freedom of the Will 166

 VII. His Humour and Optimism 169

VIII

SHAKESPEARE AND PATRIOTISM

 I. The Natural Instinct of Patriotism. Dangers of Excess and Defect 170

 II. An Attempt to Co-ordinate Shakespeare's Detached Illustrations of the Working of Patriotic Sentiment. His Ridicule of Bellicose Ecstasy. Coriolanus illustrates the Danger of Disavowing Patriotism 172

 III. Criticism of One's Fellow-countrymen Consistent with Patriotism. Shakespeare on the Political History of England. The Country's Dependence on the Command of the Sea. The Respect Due to a Nation's Traditions and Experience 179

 IV. Shakespeare's Exposure of Social Foibles and Errors 184

 V. Relevance of Shakespeare's Doctrine of Patriotism to Current Affairs 187

IX

A PERIL OF SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH

 I. An Alleged Meeting of Peele, Ben Jonson, Alleyn, and Shakespeare at "The Globe" in 1600 188

 II. The Fabrication by George Steevens in 1763 of a Letter signed "G. Peel" 190

 III. Popular Acceptance of the Forgery. Its Unchallenged Circulation through the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries 194

X

SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE

 I. Amicable Literary Relations between France and England from the Fourteenth to the Present Century 198

 II. M. Jusserand on Shakespeare in France. French Knowledge of English Literature in Shakespeare's day. Shakespeare in Eighteenth-century France. Eulogies of Victor Hugo and Dumas _père_ 201

 III. French Misapprehensions of Shakespeare's Tragic Conceptions. Causes of the Misunderstanding 206

 IV. Charles Nodier's Sympathetic Tribute. The Rarity of his _Pensées de Shakespeare_, 1801 211

XI

THE COMMEMORATION OF SHAKESPEARE IN LONDON

 I. Early Proposals for a National Memorial of Shakespeare in London 214

 II. The Cenotaph in Westminster Abbey 215

 III. The Failure of the Nineteenth-century Schemes 217

 IV. The National Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon 219

 V. Shakespeare's Association with London 226

 VI. The Value of a London Memorial as a Symbol of his Universal Influence 228

 VII. The Real Significance of Milton's Warning against a Monumental Commemoration of Shakespeare 230

 VIII. The Undesirability of making the Memorial serve Utilitarian Purposes 235

 IX. The Present State of the Plastic Art. The Imperative Need of securing a Supreme Work of Sculpture 236

INDEX 245

SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE

I

SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE[1]

[Footnote 1: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth Century_, January 1900. ]

I

Without "the living comment and interpretation of the theatre, "Shakespeare's work is, for the rank and file of mankind, "a deep wellwithout a wheel or a windlass. " It is true that the whole of thespiritual treasures which Shakespeare's dramas hoard will never bedisclosed to the mere playgoer, but "a large, a very large, proportionof that indefinite all" may be revealed to him on the stage, and, ifhe be no patient reader, will be revealed to him nowhere else. 

There are earnest students of Shakespeare who scorn the theatre andarrogate to themselves in the library, often with some justification, a greater capacity for apprehending and appreciating Shakespeare thanis at the command of the ordinary playgoer or actor. But let SirOracle of the study, however full and deep be his knowledge, "use allgently. " Let him bear in mind that his vision also has itslimitations, and that student, actor, and spectator of Shakespeare'splays are all alike exploring a measureless region of philosophy andpoetry, "round which no comprehension has yet drawn the line ofcircumspection, so as to say to itself 'I have seen the whole. '" Actorand student may look at Shakespeare's text from different points ofview: but there is always as reasonable a chance that the efficientactor may disclose the full significance of some speech or scene whichescapes the efficient student, as that the student may supply theactor's lack of insight. 

It is, indeed, comparatively easy for a student of literature tosupport the proposition that Shakespeare can be, and ought to be, represented on the stage. But it is difficult to define the ways andmeans of securing practical observance of the precept. For some yearsthere has been a widening divergence of view respecting methods ofShakespearean production. Those who defend in theory the adaptabilityof Shakespeare to the stage are at variance with the leading managers, who alone possess the power of conferring on the Shakespearean dramatheatrical interpretation. In the most influential circles of thetheatrical profession it has become a commonplace to assert thatShakespearean drama cannot be successfully produced, cannot berendered tolerable to any substantial section of the playgoing public, without a plethora of scenic spectacle and gorgeous costume, much ofwhich the student regards as superfluous and inappropriate. Anaccepted tradition of the modern stage ordains that every revival of aShakespearean play at a leading theatre shall base some part of itsclaim to public favour on its spectacular magnificence. 

The dramatic interest of Shakespearean drama is, in fact, deemed bythe manager to be inadequate to satisfy the necessary commercialpurposes of the theatre. The average purveyor of public entertainmentreckons Shakespeare's plays among tasteless and colourlesscommodities, which only become marketable when they are reinforced bythe independent arts of music and painting. Shakespeare's words mustbe spoken to musical accompaniments specially prepared for theoccasion. Pictorial tableaux, even though they suggest topics withoutrelevance to the development of the plot, have at times to beinterpolated in order to keep the attention of the audiencesufficiently alive. 

One deduction to be drawn from this position of affairs isirrefutable. Spectacular embellishments are so costly that, accordingto the system now in vogue, the performance of a play of Shakespeareinvolves heavy financial risks. It is equally plain that, unless theviews of theatrical managers undergo revolution, these risks arelikely to become greater rather than smaller. The natural result isthat in London, the city which sets the example to mostEnglish-speaking communities, Shakespearean revivals are comparativelyrare; they take place at uncertain intervals, and only those plays areviewed with favour by the London manager which lend themselves in hisopinion to more or less ostentatious spectacle, and to theinterpolation of music and dancing. 

It is ungrateful to criticise adversely any work the production ofwhich entails the expenditure of much thought and money. Moreespecially is it distasteful when the immediate outcome is, as in thecase of many Shakespearean revivals at the great West-end theatres ofLondon, the giving of pleasure to large sections of the community. That is in itself a worthy object. But it is open to doubt whether, from the sensible literary point of view, the managerial activity bewell conceived or to the public advantage. It is hard to ignore afundamental flaw in the manager's central position. The pleasure whichrecent Shakespearean revivals offer the spectator reaches him mainlythrough the eye. That is the manager's avowed intention. Yet no onewould seriously deny that the Shakespearean drama appeals, bothprimarily and ultimately, to the head and to the heart. Whoever seeks, therefore, by the production of Shakespearean drama chiefly to pleasethe spectator's eye shows scant respect both for the dramatist and forthe spectator. However unwittingly, he tends to misrepresent the one, and to mislead the other, in a particular of first-rate importance. Indeed, excess in scenic display does worse than restrictopportunities of witnessing Shakespeare's plays on the stage in Londonand other large cities of England and America. It is to be feared thatsuch excess either weakens or distorts the just and proper influenceof Shakespeare's work. If these imputations can be sustained, then itfollows that the increased and increasing expense which is involved inthe production of Shakespeare's plays ought on grounds of publicpolicy to be diminished. 

II

Every stage representation of a play requires sufficient scenery andcostume to produce in the audience that illusion of environment whichthe text invites. Without so much scenery or costume the words fail toget home to the audience. In comedies dealing with concrete conditionsof modern society, the stage presentation necessarily relies to a verylarge extent for its success on the realism of the scenic appliances. In plays which, dealing with the universal and less familiarconditions of life, appeal to the highest faculties of thought andimagination, the pursuit of realism in the scenery tends to destroythe full significance of the illusion which it ought to enforce. Inthe case of plays straightforwardly treating of contemporary affairs, the environment which it is sought to reproduce is familiar and easyof imitation. In the case of drama, which involves larger spheres offancy and feeling, the environment is unfamiliar and admits of norealistic imitation. The wall-paper and furniture of Mrs So-and-so'sdrawing-room in Belgravia or Derbyshire can be transferred bodily tothe stage. Prospero's deserted island does not admit of the liketranslation. 

Effective suggestion of the scene of _The Tempest_ is all that can bereasonably attempted or desired. Plays which are wrought of purestimaginative texture call solely for a scenic setting which shouldconvey effective suggestion. The machinery to be employed for thepurpose of effective suggestion should be simple and unobtrusive. Ifit be complex and obtrusive, it defeats "the purpose of playing" byexaggerating for the spectator the inevitable interval between thevisionary and indeterminate limits of the scene which the poetimagines, and the cramped and narrow bounds, which the stage renderspracticable. That perilous interval can only be effectually bridgedby scenic art, which is applied with an apt judgment and a light hand. Anything that aims at doing more than satisfy the condition essentialto the effective suggestion of the scenic environment of Shakespeareandrama is, from the literary and logical points of view, "wasteful andridiculous excess. "[2]

[Footnote 2: A minor practical objection, from the dramatic point ofview, to realistic scenery is the long pause its setting on the stageoften renders inevitable between the scenes. Intervals of the kind, which always tends to blunt the dramatic point of the play, especiallyin the case of tragic masterpieces, should obviously be as brief aspossible. ]

But it is not only a simplification of scenic appliances that isneeded. Other external incidents of production require revision. Spectacular methods of production entail the employment of armies ofsilent supernumeraries to whom are allotted functions whollyornamental and mostly impertinent. Here, too, reduction is desirablein the interest of the true significance of drama. No valid reason canbe adduced why persons should appear on the stage who are notprecisely indicated by the text of the play or by the authentic stagedirections. When Cæsar is buried, it is essential to produce in theaudience the illusion that a crowd of Roman citizens is taking part inthe ceremony. But quality comes here before quantity. The fewer thenumber of supernumeraries by whom the needful illusion is effected, the greater the merit of the performance, the more convincing thetestimony borne to the skill of the stage-manager. Again, noprocessions of psalm-singing priests and monks contribute to theessential illusion in the historical plays. Nor does the text of _TheMerchant of Venice_ demand any assembly of Venetian townsfolk, however picturesquely attired, sporting or chaffering with one anotheron the Rialto, when Shylock enters to ponder Antonio's request for aloan. An interpolated tableau is indefensible, and "though it make theunskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. " In _Antony andCleopatra_ the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the river Cydnus tomeet her lover Antony should have no existence outside the gorgeousdescription given of it by Enobarbus. 

III

What would be the practical effects of a stern resolve on the part oftheatrical managers to simplify the scenic appliances and to reducethe supernumerary staff when they are producing Shakespearean drama?The replies will be in various keys. One result of simplification isobvious. There would be so much more money in the manager's pocketafter he had paid the expenses of production. If his outlay weresmaller, the sum that he expended in the production of one play ofShakespeare on the current over-elaborate scale would cover theproduction of two or three pieces mounted with simplicity and with astrict adherence to the requirements of the text. In such an event, the manager would be satisfied with a shorter run for each play. 

On the other hand, supporters of the existing system allege that nopublic, which is worth the counting, would interest itself inShakespeare's plays, if they were robbed of scenic upholstery andspectacular display. This estimate rests on insecure foundations. Thatsection of the London public which is genuinely interested inShakespearean drama for its own sake, is prone to distrust the moderntheatrical manager, and as things are, for the most part avoids thetheatre altogether. The student stays at home to read Shakespeare athis fireside. 

It may be admitted that the public to which Shakespeare in his puritymakes appeal is not very large. It is clearly not large enough tocommand continuous runs of plays for months, or even weeks. Buttherein lies no cause for depression. Long runs of a single play ofShakespeare bring more evil than good in their train. They develop ineven the most efficient acting a soulless mechanism. The literarybeauty of the text is obliterated by repetition from the actors'minds. Unostentatious mounting of the Shakespearean plays, howeverefficient be the acting with which it is associated, may always failto "please the million"; it may be "caviare to the general. "Nevertheless, the sagacious manager, who, by virtue of comparativelyinexpensive settings and in alliance with a well-chosen company ofefficient actors and actresses, is able at short intervals to producea succession of Shakespeare's plays, may reasonably expect to attracta small but steady and sufficient support from the intelligent sectionof London playgoers, and from the home-reading students ofShakespeare, who are not at present playgoers at all. 

IV

The practical manager, who naturally seeks pecuniary profit from hisventures, insists that these suggestions are counsels of perfectionand these anticipations wild and fantastic dreams. His last word isthat by spectacular method Shakespeare can alone be made to "pay" inthe theatre. But are we here on perfectly secure ground? Has thecommercial success attending the spectacular production of Shakespearebeen invariably so conspicuous as to put summarily out of court, onthe purely commercial ground, the method of simplicity? The pecuniaryresults are public knowledge in the case of the two most strenuous andprolonged endeavours to give Shakespeare the splendours of spectaclewhich have yet been completed on the London stage. What is the messageof these two efforts in mere pecuniary terms?

Charles Kean may be regarded as the founder of the modern spectacularsystem, though it had some precedents, and has been developed sincehis day. Charles Kean, between 1851 and 1859, persistently endeavouredby prodigal and brilliant display to make the production ofShakespeare an enterprise of profit at the Princess's Theatre, London. The scheme proved pecuniarily disastrous. 

Subsequently Kean's mantle was assumed by the late Sir Henry Irving, the greatest of recent actors and stage-managers, who in many regardsconferred incalculable benefits on the theatre-going public and on thetheatrical profession. Throughout the last quarter of the lastcentury, Irving gave the spectacular and scenic system in theproduction of Shakespeare every advantage that it could derive frommunificent expenditure and the co-operation of highly endowed artists. He could justly claim a finer artistic sentiment and a higherhistrionic capacity than Charles Kean possessed. Yet Irving announced, not long before his death, that he lost on his Shakespeareanproductions a hundred thousand pounds. Sir Henry added:

 The enormous cost of a Shakespearean production on the liberal and elaborate scale which the public is now accustomed to expect makes it almost impossible for any manager--I don't care who it is--to pursue a continuous policy of Shakespeare for many years with any hope of profit in the long run. 

In face of this authoritative pronouncement, it must be conceded thatthe spectacular system has been given, within recent memory, everychance of succeeding, and, as far as recorded testimony is available, has been, from the commercial point of view, a failure. 

Meanwhile, during and since the period when Sir Henry Irving filledthe supreme place among producers of Shakespeare on the stage, thesimple method of Shakespearean production has been given no seriouschance. The anticipation of its pecuniary failure has not been put insatisfactory conditions to any practical test. The last time that itwas put to a sound practical test it did not fail. While Irving was aboy, Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre gave, in well-consideredconditions, the simple method a trial. Phelps's playhouse was situatedin the unfashionable neighbourhood of Islington. But the prophets ofevil, who were no greater strangers to Phelps's generation than theyare to our own, were themselves confuted by his experience. 

V

On the 27th of May 1844 Phelps, a most intelligent actor and a seriousstudent of Shakespeare, opened the long-disused Sadler's Wells Theatrein partnership with Mrs Warner, a capable actress, whose rendering ofImogen went near perfection. Their design was inspired by "the hope, "they wrote in an unassuming address, "of eventually rendering Sadler'sWells what a theatre ought to be--a place for justly representing theworks of our great dramatic poets. " This hope they went far torealise. The first play that they produced was _Macbeth_. 

Phelps continued to control Sadler's Wells Theatre for more thaneighteen years. During that period he produced, together with manyother English plays of classical repute, no fewer than thirty-one ofthe thirty-seven great dramas which came from Shakespeare's pen. Inhis first season, besides _Macbeth_ he set forth _Hamlet_, _KingJohn_, _Henry VIII. _, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Othello_, and_Richard III. _ To these he added in the course of his second season, _Julius Cæsar_, _King Lear_, and _The Winter's Tale_. _Henry IV. _, part I. , _Measure for Measure_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _The Tempest_followed in his third season; _As You Like It_, _Cymbeline_, _TheMerry Wives of Windsor_, and _Twelfth Night_, in his fourth. Eachsucceeding season saw further additions to the Shakespeareanrepertory, until only six Shakespearean dramas were leftunrepresented, viz. --_Richard II. _, the three parts of _Henry VI. _, _Troilus and Cressida_, and _Titus Andronicus_. Of these, one alone, _Richard II. _, is really actable. 

The leading principles, to which Phelps strictly adhered throughouthis career of management, call for most careful consideration. Hegathered round him a company of actors and actresses, whom hezealously trained to interpret Shakespeare's language. He accustomedhis colleagues to act harmoniously together, and to sacrifice to thewelfare of the whole enterprise individual pretensions to prominence. No long continuous run of any one piece was permitted by the rules ofthe playhouse. The programme was constantly changed. The scenicappliances were simple, adequate, and inexpensive. The supernumerarystaff was restricted to the smallest practicable number. The generalexpenses were consequently kept within narrow limits. For everythousand pounds that Charles Kean laid out at the Princess's Theatreon scenery and other expenses of production, Phelps in his most ornaterevivals spent less than a fourth of that sum. For the pounds spent bymanagers on more recent revivals, Phelps would have spent only as manyshillings. In the result, Phelps reaped from the profits of hisa handsome unencumbered income. During the same period CharlesKean grew more and more deeply involved in oppressive debt, and at alater date Sir Henry Irving made over to the public a hundred thousandpounds above his receipts. 

VI

Why, then, should not Phelps's encouraging experiment be madeagain?[3]

[Footnote 3: It is just to notice, among endeavours of the late yearsof the past century, to which I confine my remarks here, the effortsto produce Shakespearean drama worthily which were made by CharlesAlexander Calvert at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, between 1864and 1874. Calvert, who was a warm admirer of Phelps, attempted toblend Phelps's method with Charles Kean's, and bestowed great scenicelaboration on the production of at least eight plays of Shakespeare. Financially the speculation saw every vicissitude, and Calvert'sexperience may be quoted in support of the view that a return toPhelps's method is financially safer than a return to Charles Kean's. More recently the Elizabethan Stage Society endeavoured to produce, with a simplicity which erred on the side of severity, many plays ofShakespeare and other literary dramas. No scenery was employed, andthe performers were dressed in Elizabethan costume. The Society's workwas done privately, and did not invite any genuine test of publicity. The representation by the Society on November 11, 1899, in the LectureTheatre at Burlington House, of _Richard II. _, in which Mr GranvilleBarker played the King with great charm and judgment, showed thefascination that a competent rendering of Shakespeare's text exerts, even in the total absence of scenery, over a large audience ofsuitable temper. ]

Before anyone may commit himself to an affirmative reply, it isneedful for him to realise fully the precise demands which a systemlike that of Phelps makes, when rightly interpreted, on the character, ability, and energy of the actors and actresses. If scenery inShakespearean productions be relegated to its proper place in thebackground of the stage, it is necessary that the acting, from top tobottom of the cast, shall be more efficient and better harmonised thanthat which is commonly associated with spectacular representations. The simple method of producing Shakespeare focusses the interest ofthe audience on the actor and actress; it gives them a dignity andimportance which are unknown to the complex method. Under the lattersystem, the attention of the spectator is largely absorbed by thetriumphs of the scene-painter and machinist, of the costumier and themusicians. The actor and actress often elude notice altogether. 

Macready, whose theatrical career was anterior to the modernspectacular period of Shakespearean representation, has left on recorda deliberate opinion of Charles Kean's elaborate methods at thePrincess's Theatre in their relation to drama and the histrionic art. Macready's verdict has an universal application. "The production ofthe Shakespearean plays at the Princess's Theatre, " the great actorwrote to Lady Pollock on the 1st of May 1859, rendered the spoken text"more like a running commentary on the spectacles exhibited than thescenic arrangements an illustration of the text. " No criticism coulddefine more convincingly the humiliation to which the author's wordsare exposed by spectacle, or, what is more pertinent to the immediateargument, the evil which is worked by spectacle on the actor. 

Acting can be, and commonly tends to be, the most mechanical ofphysical exercises. The actor is often a mere automaton who repeatsnight after night the same unimpressive trick of voice, eye, andgesture. His defects of understanding may be comparatively unobtrusivein a spectacular display, where he is liable to escape censure byescaping observation, or at best to be regarded as a showman. Furthermore, the long runs which scenic excess brings in its trainaccentuate the mechanical actor's imperfections and diminish hisopportunities of remedying them. On the other hand, acting can rise inopposite conditions into the noblest of the arts. The great actorrelies for genuine success on no mere gesticulatory mechanism. Imaginative insight, passion, the gift of oratory, grace and dignityof movement and bearing, perfect command of the voice in the wholegamut of its inflections are the constituent qualities of truehistrionic capacity. 

In no drama are these qualities more necessary, or are ampleropportunities offered for their use, than in the plays of Shakespeare. Not only in the leading rôles of his masterpieces, but in thesubordinate parts throughout the range of his work, the highestabilities of the actor or actress can find some scope for employment. It is therefore indispensable that the standard of Shakespeareanacting should always be maintained at the highest level, ifShakespearean drama is to be fitly rendered in the theatre. The worstof the evils, which are inherent in scenic excess, with itsaccompaniment of long runs, is its tendency to sanction themaintenance of the level of acting at something below the highest. Phelps was keenly alive to this peril, and his best energies weredevoted to training his actors and actresses for all the rôles in thecast, great and small. Actors and actresses of the first rank onoccasion filled minor parts, in order to heighten the efficiency ofthe presentation. Actors and actresses who have the dignity of theirprofession at heart might be expected to welcome the revival of asystem which alone guarantees their talent and the work of thedramatist due recognition, even if it leave histrionic incompetence nohope of escape from the scorn that befits it. It is on the aspirationand sentiment of the acting profession that must largely depend thefinal answer to the question whether Phelps's experiment can be madeagain with likelihood of success. 

VII

Foreign experience tells in favour of the contention that, ifShakespeare's plays are to be honoured on the modern stage as theydeserve, they must be freed of the existing incubus of scenicmachinery. French acting has always won and deserved admiration. Thereis no doubt that one cause of its permanently high repute is theabsolute divorce in the French theatre of drama from spectacle. 

Molière stands to French literature in much the same relation asShakespeare stands to English literature. Molière's plays areconstantly acted in French theatres with a scenic austerity which isunknown to the humblest of our theatres. A French audience wouldregard it as sacrilege to convert a comedy of Molière into aspectacle. The French people are commonly credited with a love ofornament and display to which the English people are assumed to bestrangers, but their treatment of Molière is convincing proof thattheir artistic sense is ultimately truer than our own. 

The mode of producing Shakespeare on the stage in Germany supplies anargument to the same effect. In Berlin and Vienna, and in all thechief towns of German-speaking Europe, Shakespeare's plays areproduced constantly and in all their variety, for the most part, inconditions which are directly antithetical to those prevailing in theWest-end theatres of London. Twenty-eight of Shakespeare'sthirty-seven plays figure in the répertoires of the leading companiesof German-speaking actors. 

The currently accepted method of presentation can be judged from thefollowing personal experience. A few years ago I was in theBurg-Theater in Vienna on a Sunday night--the night on which the greatworking population of Vienna chiefly take their recreation, as in thiscountry it is chiefly taken by the great working population onSaturday night. The Burg-Theater in Vienna is one of the largesttheatres in the world. It is of similar dimensions to Drury LaneTheatre or Covent Garden Opera-house. On the occasion of my visit theplay produced was Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_. The house wascrowded in every part. The scenic arrangements were simple andunobtrusive, but were well calculated to suggest the Orientalatmosphere of the plot. There was no music before the performance, orduring the intervals between the acts, or as an accompaniment to greatspeeches in the progress of the play. There was no making love, norany dying to slow music, although the stage directions were followedscrupulously; the song "Come, thou Monarch of the Vine, " was sung tomusic in the drinking scene on board Pompey's galley, and there werethe appointed flourishes of trumpets and drums. The acting wascompetent, though not of the highest calibre, but a satisfactory levelwas evenly maintained throughout the cast. There were no conspicuousdeflections from the adequate standard. The character of whom I havethe most distinct recollection was Enobarbus, the level-headed andstraight-hitting critic of the action--a comparatively subordinatepart, which was filled by one of the most distinguished actors of theViennese stage. He fitted his part with telling accuracy. 

The whole piece was listened to with breathless interest. It was actedpractically without curtailment, and, although the performance lastednearly five hours, no sign of impatience manifested itself at anypoint. This was no exceptional experience at the Burg-Theater. Playsof Shakespeare are acted there repeatedly--on an average twice aweek--and, I am credibly informed, with identical results to those ofwhich I was an eye-witness. 

VIII

It cannot be flattering to our self-esteem that the Austrian peopleshould show a greater and a wiser appreciation of the theatricalcapacities of Shakespeare's masterpieces than we who are Shakespeare'scountrymen and the most direct and rightful heirs of his gloriousachievements. How is the disturbing fact to be accounted for? Is itpossible that it is attributable to some decay in us of theimagination--to a growing slowness on our part to appreciate works ofimagination? When one reflects on the simple mechanical contrivanceswhich satisfied the theatrical audiences, not only of Shakespeare'sown day, but of the eighteenth century, during which Shakespeare wasrepeatedly performed; when one compares the simplicity of scenicmechanism in the past with its complexity in our own time, one canhardly resist the conclusion that the imagination of the theatre-goingpublic is no longer what it was of old. The play alone was then "thething. " Now "the thing, " it seems, is something outside theplay--namely, the painted scene or the costume, the music or thedance. 

Garrick played Macbeth in an ordinary Court suit of his own era. Thehabiliments proper to Celtic monarchs of the eleventh century wereleft to be supplied by the imagination of the spectators or not atall. No realistic "effects" helped the play forward in Garrick's time, yet the attention of his audience, the critics tell us, was neverknown to stray when he produced a great play by Shakespeare. InShakespeare's day boys or men took the part of women, and howcharacters like Lady Macbeth and Desdemona were adequately rendered byyouths beggars belief. But renderings in such conditions provedpopular and satisfactory. Such a fact seems convincing testimony, notto the ability of Elizabethan or Jacobean boys--the nature of boys isa pretty permanent factor in human society--but to the superiorimaginative faculty of adult Elizabethan or Jacobean playgoers, inwhom, as in Garrick's time, the needful dramatic illusion was far moreeasily evoked than it is nowadays. 

This is no exhilarating conclusion. But less exhilarating is theendeavour that is sometimes made by advocates of the system ofspectacle to prove that Shakespeare himself would have appreciated themodern developments of the scenic art--nay, more, that he himself hasjustified them. This line of argument serves to confirm the suggesteddefect of imagination in the present generation. The well-known chorusbefore the first act of _Henry V. _ is the evidence which is reliedupon to show that Shakespeare wished his plays to be, in journalisticdialect, "magnificently staged, " and that he deplored the inability ofhis uncouth age to realise that wish. The lines are familiar; but itis necessary to quote them at length, in fairness to those who judgethem to be a defence of the spectacular principle in the presentationof Shakespearean drama. They run:--

 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. But pardon, gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts, The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder; Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance: Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth. For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour glass. 

There is, in my opinion, no strict relevance in these lines to theenquiry whether Shakespeare's work should be treated on the stage asdrama or spectacle. Nay, I go further, and assert that, as far as thespeech touches the question at issue at all, it tells against thepretensions of spectacle. 

Shortly stated, Shakespeare's splendid prelude to his play of _HenryV. _, is a spirited appeal to his audience not to waste regrets ondefects of stage machinery, but to bring to the observation of hispiece their highest powers of imagination, whereby alone can fulljustice be done to a majestic theme. The central topic of the choricspeech is the essential limitations of all scenic appliances. Thedramatist reminds us that the literal presentation of life itself, inall its movement and action, lies outside the range of the stage, especially the movement and action of life in its most gloriousmanifestations. Obvious conditions of space do not allow "two mightymonarchies" literally to be confined within the walls of a theatre. Obvious conditions of time cannot turn "the accomplishments of manyyears into an hour glass. " Shakespeare is airing no private grievance. He is not complaining that his plays were in his own day inadequatelyupholstered in the theatre, or that the "scaffold" on which they wereproduced was "unworthy" of them. The words have no concern with thecontention that modern upholstery and spectacular machinery renderShakespeare's play a justice which was denied them in his lifetime. Asreasonably one might affirm that the modern theatre has now conqueredthe ordinary conditions of time and space; that a modern playhousecan, if the manager so will it, actually hold within its walls the"vasty fields of France, " or confine "two mighty monarchies. "

A wider and quite impersonal trend of thought is offered forconsideration by Shakespeare's majestic eloquence. The dramatist bidsus bear in mind that his lines do no more than suggest the things hewould have the audience see and understand; the actors aid thesuggestion according to their ability. But the crucial point of theutterance is the warning that the illusion of the drama can only berendered complete in the theatre by the working of the "imaginaryforces" of the spectators. It is needful for them to "make imaginarypuissance, " if the play is to triumph. It is their "thoughts" that"must deck" the kings of the stage, if the dramatist's meaning is toget home. The poet modestly underestimated the supreme force of hisown imaginative genius when giving these admonitions to his hearers. But they are warnings of universal application, and can never besafely ignored. 

Such an exordium as the chorus before _Henry V. _ would indeed bepertinent to every stage performance of great drama in any age orcountry. It matters not whether the spectacular machinery be of royalmagnificence or of poverty-stricken squalor. Let us make theextravagant assumption that all the artistic genius in the world andall the treasure in the Bank of England were placed at the command ofa theatrical manager in order to enable him to produce a great play onhis stage supremely well from his own scenic point of view. Even thenit would be neither superfluous nor impertinent for the manager toadjure the audience to piece out the "imperfections" of the scenerywith their "thoughts" or imagination. The spectator's "imaginarypuissance" is, practically in every circumstance, the key-stone of thedramatic illusion. 

The only conditions in which Shakespeare's adjuration would besuperfluous or impertinent would accompany the presentment in thetheatre of some circumscribed incident of life which is capable of soliteral a rendering as to leave no room for any make-believe orillusion at all. The unintellectual playgoer, to whom Shakespeare willnever really prove attractive in any guise, has little or noimagination to exercise, and he only tolerates a performance in thetheatre when little or no demand is made on the exercise of theimaginative faculty. "The groundlings, " said Shakespeare for all time, "are capable of [appreciating] nothing but inexplicable dumb shows andnoise. " They would be hugely delighted nowadays with a scene in whichtwo real motor cars, with genuine chauffeurs and passengers, raceduproariously across the stage. That is realism in its nakedness. Thatis realism reduced to its first principles. Realistic "effects, "however speciously beautiful they may be, invariably tend to realismof that primal type, which satisfies the predilections of thegroundling, and reduces drama to the level of the cinematograph. 

IX

The deliberate pursuit of scenic realism is antagonistic to theultimate law of dramatic art. In the case of great plays, the dramaticrepresentation is most successful from the genuinely artistic point ofview--which is the only point of view worthy of discussion--when thejust dramatic illusion is produced by simple and unpretending scenicappliances, in which the inevitable "imperfections" are frankly leftto be supplied by the "thoughts" or imagination of the spectators. 

Lovers of Shakespeare should lose no opportunity of urging the causeof simplicity in the production of the plays of Shakespeare. Practicalcommon-sense, practical considerations of a pecuniary kind, teach usthat it is only by the adoption of simple methods of production thatwe can hope to have Shakespeare represented in our theatres constantlyand in all his variety. Until Shakespeare is represented thus, thespiritual and intellectual enlightenment, which his achievement offersEnglish-speaking people, will remain wholly inaccessible to themajority who do not read him, and will be only in part at the commandof the few who do. Nay, more: until Shakespeare is represented on thestage constantly and in his variety, English-speaking men and womenare liable to the imputation, not merely of failing in the homage dueto the greatest of their countrymen, but of falling short of theirneighbours in Germany and Austria in the capacity of appreciatingsupremely great imaginative literature. 

II

SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYGOER[4]

[Footnote 4: This paper, which was first printed in "An EnglishMiscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall in honour of his seventy-fifthbirthday" (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1901), was written as alecture for delivery on Tuesday afternoon, March 20, 1900, at Queen'sCollege (for women) in Harley Street, London, in aid of the Fund forsecuring a picture commemorating Queen Victoria's visit to the Collegein 1898. ]

I

In a freak of fancy, Robert Louis Stevenson sent to a congenial spiritthe imaginary intelligence that a well-known firm of London publishershad, after their wont, "declined with thanks" six undiscoveredtragedies, one romantic comedy, a fragment of a journal extending oversix years, and an unfinished autobiography reaching up to the firstperformance of _King John_ by "that venerable but still respectedwriter, William Shakespeare. " Stevenson was writing in a frivolousmood; but such words stir the imagination. The ordinary person, if hehad to choose among the enumerated items of Shakespeare'snewly-discovered manuscripts, would cheerfully go without the six newtragedies and the one romantic comedy if he had at his disposal, byway of consolation, the journal extending over six years and theautobiography reaching up to the first performance of _King John_. Weshould deem ourselves fortunate if we had the journal alone. It wouldhardly matter which six years of Shakespeare's life the journalcovered. As a boy, as a young actor, as an industrious reviser ofother men's plays, as the humorous creator of Falstaff, Benedick, andMercutio, as the profound "natural" philosopher of the greattragedies, he could never have been quite an ordinary diarist. Greatmen have been known to keep diaries in which the level of interestdoes not rise above a visit to the barber or the dentist. The commonroutine of life interested Shakespeare, but something beyond it musthave found place in his journal. Reference to his glorious achievementmust have gained entry there. 

Some notice, we may be sure, figured in Shakespeare's diary of thefirst performances of his great plays on the stage. However eminent aman is through native genius or from place of power, he can never, whatever his casual professions to the contrary, be indifferent to thereception accorded by his fellow-men to the work of his hand and head. I picture Shakespeare as the soul of modesty and gentleness in thesocial relations of life, avoiding unbecoming self-advertisement, andrating at its just value empty flattery, the mere adulation of thelips. Gushing laudation is as little to the taste of wise men astreacle. They cannot escape condiments of the kind, but the smallerand less frequent the doses the more they are content. Shakespeare nodoubt had the great man's self-confidence which renders him to a largeextent independent of the opinion of his fellows. At the same time, the knowledge that he had succeeded in stirring the reader or hearerof his plays, the knowledge that his words had gripped their heartsand intellects, cannot have been ungrateful to him. To desirerecognition for his work is for the artist an inevitable and alaudable ambition. A working dramatist by the circumstance of hiscalling appeals as soon as the play is written to the playgoer for asympathetic appreciation. Nature impelled Shakespeare to note on thepages of his journal his impression of the sentiment with which thefruits of his pen were welcomed in the playhouse. 

But Shakespeare's journal does not exist, and we can only speculate asto its contents. 

II

We would give much to know how Shakespeare recorded in his diary thefirst performance of _Hamlet_, the most fascinating of all his works. He himself, we are credibly told, played the Ghost. We would give muchfor a record of the feelings which lay on the first production of theplay beneath the breast of the silent apparition in the first scenewhich twice crossed the stage and affrighted Marcellus, Horatio, andthe guards on the platform before the castle of Elsinore. No piece ofliterature that ever came from human pen or brain is more closelypacked with fruit of the imaginative study of human life than isShakespeare's tragedy of _Hamlet_; and while the author acted the partof the Ghost in the play's initial representation in the theatre, hewas watching the revelation of his pregnant message for the first timeto the external world. When the author in his weird rôle of Hamlet'smurdered father opened his lips for the first time, we might almostimagine that in the words "pity me not, but lend thy serious hearingto what I shall unfold, " he was reflecting the author's personalinterest in the proceedings of that memorable afternoon. [5] We canimagine Shakespeare, as he saw the audience responding to his graveappeal, giving with a growing confidence, the subsequent words, whichhe repeated while he moved to the centre of the platform-stage, andturned to face the whole house:--

 I find thee apt; And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this. 

[Footnote 5: Performances of plays in Shakespeare's time always tookplace in the afternoon. ]

As the Ghost vanished and the air rang mysteriously with his piercingwords "Remember me, " we would like to imagine the whole intelligenceof Elizabethan England responding to that cry as it sprang on itsfirst utterance in the theatre from the great dramatist's own lips. Since that memorable day, at any rate, the whole intelligence of theworld has responded to that cry with all Hamlet's ecstasy, and withbut a single modification of the phraseology:--

 Remember thee! Ay, thou _great soul_, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. 

III

There is a certain justification, in fact, for the fancy that the_plaudites_ were loud and long, when Shakespeare created the rôle ofthe "poor ghost" in the first production of his play of _Hamlet_ in1602. There is no doubt at all that Shakespeare conspicuously caughtthe ear of the Elizabethan playgoer at a very early date in hiscareer, and that he held it firmly for life. "These plays, " wrote twoof his professional associates of the reception of the whole series inthe playhouse in his lifetime--"These plays have had their trialalready, and stood out all appeals. " Matthew Arnold, apparently quiteunconsciously, echoed the precise phrase when seeking to expresspoetically the universality of Shakespeare's reputation in our ownday. 

 Others abide our judgment, thou art free, is the first line of Arnold's well-known sonnet, which attests therank allotted to Shakespeare in the literary hierarchy by theprofessional critic, nearly two and a half centuries after thedramatist's death. There was no narrower qualification in theapostrophe of Shakespeare by Ben Jonson, a very criticalcontemporary:--

 Soul of _the age_, The applause, delight, and wonder of _our stage_. 

This play of _Hamlet_, this play of his "which most kindled Englishhearts, " received a specially enthusiastic welcome from Elizabethanplaygoers. It was acted within its first year of production repeatedly("divers times"), not merely in London "and elsewhere, " but also--anunusual distinction--at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Itwas reprinted four times within eight years of its birth. 

Thus the charge sometimes brought against the Elizabethan playgoer offailing to recognise Shakespeare's sovereign genius should be reckonedamong popular errors. It was not merely the recognition of thecritical and highly educated that Shakespeare received in person. Itwas by the voice of the half-educated populace, whose heart andintellect were for once in the right, that he was acclaimed thegreatest interpreter of human nature that literature had known, and, as subsequent experience has proved, was likely to know. There isevidence that throughout his lifetime and for a generation afterwardshis plays drew crowds to pit, boxes, and gallery alike. It is truethat he was one of a number of popular dramatists, many of whom hadrare gifts, and all of whom glowed with a spark of the genuineliterary fire. But Shakespeare was the sun in the firmament: when hislight shone, the fires of all contemporaries paled in the contemporaryplaygoer's eye. There is forcible and humorous portrayal of humanfrailty and eccentricity in plays of Shakespeare's contemporary, BenJonson. Ben Jonson was a classical scholar, which Shakespeare was not. Jonson was as well versed in Roman history as a college tutor. Butwhen Shakespeare and Ben Jonson both tried their hands at dramatisingepisodes in Roman history, the Elizabethan public of all degrees ofintelligence welcomed Shakespeare's efforts with an enthusiasm whichthey rigidly withheld from Ben Jonson's. This is how an ordinaryplaygoer contrasted the reception of Jonson's Roman play of_Catiline's Conspiracy_ with that of Shakespeare's Roman play of_Julius Cæsar_:--

 So have I seen when Cæsar would appear, And on the stage at half-sword parley were Brutus and Cassius--oh! how the audience Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence; When some new day they would not brook a line Of tedious though well-laboured Catiline. 

Shakespeare was the popular favourite. It is rare that the artist whois a hero with the multitude is also a hero with the cultivated few. But Shakespeare's universality of appeal was such as to include amonghis worshippers from the first the trained and the untrained playgoerof his time. 

IV

Very early in his career did Shakespeare attract the notice of thecultivated section of Elizabeth's Court, and hardly sufficient noticehas been taken by students of the poet's biography of the earliestrecognition accorded him by the great queen, herself an inveteratelover of the drama, and an embodiment of the taste of the people inliterature. The story is worth retelling. In the middle of December1594, Queen Elizabeth removed from Whitehall to Greenwich to spendChristmas at that palace of Greenwich in which she was born sixty-oneyears earlier. And she made the celebration of Christmas of 1594 morememorable than any other in the annals of her reign or in the literaryhistory of the country by summoning Shakespeare to Court. It was lessthan eight years since the poet had first set foot in the metropolis. His career was little more than opened. But by 1594 Shakespeare hadgiven his countrymen unmistakable indications of the stuff of which hewas made. His progress had been more sure than rapid. A young man oftwo-and-twenty, burdened with a wife and three children, he had lefthis home in the little country town of Stratford-on-Avon in 1586 toseek his fortune in London. Without friends, without money, he had, like any other stage-struck youth, set his heart on becoming an actorin the metropolis. Fortune favoured him. He sought and won the humbleoffice of call-boy in a London playhouse; but no sooner had his foottouched the lowest rung of the theatrical ladder than his geniustaught him that the topmost rung was within his reach. He tried hishand on the revision of an old play, and the manager was not slow torecognise an unmatched gift for dramatic writing. 

It was not probably till 1591, when Shakespeare was twenty-seven, thathis earliest original play, _Love's Labour's Lost_, was performed. Itshowed the hand of a beginner; it abounded in trivial witticisms. Butabove all, there shone out clearly and unmistakably the dramatic andpoetic fire, the humorous outlook on life, the insight into humanfeeling, which were to inspire Titanic achievements in the future. 

Soon after, Shakespeare scaled the tragic heights of _Romeo andJuliet_, and he was hailed as the prophet of a new world of art. Fashionable London society then, as now, befriended the theatre. Cultivated noblemen offered their patronage to promising writers forthe stage, and Shakespeare soon gained the ear of the young Earl ofSouthampton, one of the most accomplished and handsome of the queen'snoble courtiers, who was said to spend nearly all his time in goingto the playhouse every day. It was at Southampton's suggestion, that, in the week preceding the Christmas of 1594, the Lord Chamberlain sentword to The Theatre in Shoreditch, where Shakespeare was at work asplaywright and actor, that the poet was expected at Court on two daysfollowing Christmas, in order to give his sovereign on the twoevenings a taste of his quality. He was to act before her in his ownplays. 

It cannot have been Shakespeare's promise as an actor that led to theroyal summons. His histrionic fame had not progressed at the same rateas his literary repute. He was never to win the laurels of a greatactor. His most conspicuous triumph on the stage was achieved inmiddle life as the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_, and he ordinarilyconfined his efforts to old men of secondary rank. Ample compensationwas provided by his companions for his personal deficiencies as anactor on his first visit to Court; he was to come supported by actorsof the highest eminence in their generation. Directions were giventhat the greatest of the tragic actors of the day, Richard Burbage, and the greatest of the comic actors, William Kemp, were to bear theyoung actor-dramatist company. With neither of these was Shakespeare'shistrionic position then or at any time comparable. For years theywere leaders of the acting profession. 

Shakespeare's relations with Burbage and Kemp were close, bothprivately and professionally. Almost all Shakespeare's great tragiccharacters were created on the stage by Burbage, who had lately rousedLondon to enthusiasm by his stirring presentation of Shakespeare's_Richard III. _ for the first time. As long as Kemp lived, he conferreda like service on many of Shakespeare's comic characters; and he hadrecently proved his worth as a Shakespearean comedian by his originalrendering of the part of Peter, the Nurse's graceless attendant, in_Romeo and Juliet_. Thus stoutly backed, Shakespeare appeared for thefirst time in the royal presence-chamber of Greenwich Palace on theevening of St Stephen's Day (the Boxing Day of subsequent generations)in 1594. 

Extant documentary evidence attests that Shakespeare and his twoassociates performed one "comedy or interlude" on that night of BoxingDay in 1594, and gave another "comedy or interlude" on the next nightbut one; that the Lord Chamberlain paid the three men for theirservices the sum of £13, 6s. 8d. , and that the queen added to thehonorarium, as a personal proof of her satisfaction, the further sumof £6, 13s. 4d. These were substantial sums in those days, when thepurchasing power of money was eight times as much as it is to-day, andthe three actors' reward would now be equivalent to £160. 

Unhappily the record does not go beyond the payment of the money. Whatwords of commendation or encouragement Shakespeare received from hisroyal auditor are not handed down, nor do we know for certain whatplays were performed on the great occasion. All the scenes came fromShakespeare's repertory, and it is reasonable to infer that they weredrawn from _Love's Labour's Lost_, which was always popular in lateryears at Elizabeth's Court, and from _The Comedy of Errors_, where thefarcical confusions and horse-play were after the queen's own heartand robust taste. But nothing can be stated with absolute certaintyexcept that on December 29 Shakespeare travelled up the river fromGreenwich to London with a heavier purse and a lighter heart than onhis setting out. That the visit had in all ways been crowned withsuccess there is ample indirect evidence. He and his work hadfascinated his sovereign, and many a time during her remaining nineyears of life was she to seek delight again in the renderings of playsby himself and his fellow-actors at her palaces on the banks of theThames. When Shakespeare was penning his new play of _A MidsummerNight's Dream_ next year, he could not forbear to make a passingobeisance of gallantry (in that vein for which the old spinster queenwas always thirsting) to "a fair vestal throned by the West, " whopassed her life "in maiden meditation, fancy free. "

Although literature and art can flourish without royal favour androyal patronage, still it is rare that royal patronage has any othereffect than that of raising those who are its objects in theestimation of contemporaries. The interest that Shakespeare's workexcited at Court was continuous throughout his life. When James I. Ascended the throne, no author was more frequently honoured by"command" performances of his plays in the presence of the sovereign. And then, as now, the playgoer's appreciation was quickened by hisknowledge that the play they were witnessing had been produced beforethe Court at Whitehall a few days earlier. Shakespeare's publisherswere not above advertising facts like these, as may be seen by asurvey of the title-pages of editions published in his lifetime. "Thepleasant conceited comedy called _Love's Labour's Lost_" wasadvertised with the appended words, "as it was presented before herhighness this last Christmas. " "A most pleasant and excellentconceited comedy of _Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives ofWindsor_" was stated to have been "divers times acted both before hermajesty and elsewhere. " The great play of _Lear_ was advertised, "asit was played before the king's majesty at Whitehall on St Stephen'snight in the Christmas holidays. "

V

Although Shakespeare's illimitable command of expression, hisuniversality of knowledge and insight, cannot easily be overlooked byany man or woman of ordinary human faculty, still, from some points ofview, there is ground for surprise that the Elizabethan playgoer'senthusiasm for Shakespeare's work was so marked and unequivocal as weknow that it was. 

Let us consider for a moment the physical conditions of the theatre, the methods of stage representation, in Shakespeare's day. Theatreswere in their infancy. The theatre was a new institution in sociallife for Shakespeare's public, and the whole system of the theatricalworld came into being after Shakespeare came into the world. Inestimating Shakespeare's genius one ought to bear in mind that he wasa pioneer--almost the creator or first designer--of English drama, aswell as the practised workman in unmatched perfection. There werebefore his day some efforts made at dramatic representation. TheMiddle Ages had their miracle plays and moralities and interludes. Butof poetic, literary, romantic drama, England knew nothing untilShakespeare was of age. Marlowe, who in his early years inauguratedEnglish tragedy, was Shakespeare's senior by only two months. It wasnot till 1576, when Shakespeare was twelve, that London for the firsttime possessed a theatre--a building definitely built for the purposeof presenting plays. Before that year, inn-yards or platforms, whichwere improvised in market-places or fields, served for the performanceof interludes or moralities. 

Nor was it precisely in London proper that this primal theatre, whichis known in history simply as The Theatre, was set up. London inShakespeare's day was a small town, barely a mile square, with apopulation little exceeding 60, 000 persons. Within the circuit of thecity-walls vacant spaces were sparse, and public opinion deprecatedthe erection of buildings upon them. Moreover, the puritan clergy andtheir pious flocks, who constituted an active section of the citizens, were inclined to resist the conversion of any existing building intosuch a Satanic trap for unwary souls as they believed a playhouse ofnecessity to be. 

It was, accordingly, in the fields near London, not in London itself, that the first theatre was set up. Adjoining the city lay pleasantmeadows, which were bright in spring-time with daisies and violets. Green lanes conducted the wayfarer to the rural retreat of Islington, and citizens went for change of air to the rustic seclusion ofMary-le-bone. A site for the first-born of London playhouses waschosen in the spacious fields of Finsbury and Shoreditch, which theGreat Eastern Railway now occupies. The innovation of a theatre, eventhough it were placed outside the walls of the city, excited seriousmisgiving among the godly minority. But, after much controversy, thebattle was finally won by the supporters of the play, and The Theatrewas launched on a prosperous career. Two or three other theatresquickly sprang up in neighbouring parts of London's environment. WhenShakespeare was reaching the zenith of his career, the centre oftheatrical life was transferred from Shoreditch to the Southwark bankof the river Thames, at the south side of London Bridge, which layoutside the city's boundaries, but was easy of access to residentswithin them. It was at the Globe Theatre on Bankside, which wasreached by bridge or by boat from the city-side of the river, thatShakespearean drama won its most glorious triumphs. 

VI

Despite the gloomy warnings of the preachers, the new London theatreshad for the average Elizabethan all the fascination that a new toy hasfor a child. The average Elizabethan repudiated the jeremiads of theultra-pious, and instantaneously became an enthusiastic playgoer. During the last year of the sixteenth century, an intelligent visitorto London, Thomas Platter, a native of Basle, whose journal hasrecently been discovered, [6] described with ingenuous sympathy thedelight which the populace displayed in the new playhouses. 

[Footnote 6: Professor Binz of Basle printed in September 1899 someextracts from Thomas Platter's unpublished diary of travels under thetitle: _Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599_. Platter spenta month in London--September 18 to October 20, 1599. Platter'smanuscript is in the Library of Basle University. ]

Some attractions which the theatres offered had little concern withthe drama. Their advantages included the privileges of eating anddrinking while the play was in progress. After the play there wasinvariably a dance on the stage, often a brisk and boisterous Irishjig. 

Other features of the entertainment seem to have been lessexhilarating. The mass of the spectators filled the pit, where therewas standing room only; there were no seats. The admission rarely costmore than a penny; but there was no roof. The rain beat at pleasure onthe heads of the "penny" auditors; while pickpockets commonly pliedtheir trade among them without much hindrance when the piece absorbedthe attention of the "house. " Seats or benches were only to be foundin the two galleries, the larger portions of which were separated into"rooms" or boxes; prices there ranged from twopence to half-a-crown. If the playgoer had plenty of money at his command he could, accordingto the German visitor, hire not only a seat but a cushion to elevatehis stature; "so that, " says our author, "he might not only see theplay, but"--what is also often more important for rich people--"beseen" by the audience to be occupying a specially distinguished place. Fashionable playgoers of the male sex might, if they opened theirpurses wide enough, occupy stools on the wide platform-stage. Such apractice proved embarrassing, not only to the performers, but to thosewho had to content themselves with the penny pit. Standing in frontand by the sides of the projecting stage, they could often only catchglimpses of the actors through chinks in serried ranks of stools. 

The histrionic and scenic conditions, in which Shakespeare's playswere originally produced, present a further series of disadvantageswhich, from our modern point of view, render the more amazing theunqualified enthusiasm of the Elizabethan playgoer. 

There was no scenery, although there were crude endeavours to createscenic illusion by means of "properties" like rocks, tombs, caves, trees, tables, chairs, and pasteboard dishes of food. There was at theoutset no music, save flourishes on trumpets at the opening of theplay and between the acts. The scenes within each act were playedcontinuously without pause. The bare boards of the platform-stage, which no proscenium nor curtain darkened, projected so far into theauditorium, that the actors spoke in the very centre of the house. Trap-doors were in use for the entrance of "ghosts" and othermysterious personages. At the back of the stage was a raised platformor balcony, from which often hung loose curtains; through them theactors passed to the forepart of the stage. The balcony was pressedinto the service when the text of the play indicated that the speakerswere not actually standing on the same level. From the raised platformJuliet addressed Romeo in the balcony scene, and the citizens ofAngers in _King John_ held colloquy with the English besiegers. Thiswas, indeed, almost the furthest limit of the Elizabethanstage-manager's notion of scenic realism. The boards, which were baresave for the occasional presence of rough properties, were held topresent adequate semblance, as the play demanded, of a king'sthrone-room, a chapel, a forest, a ship at sea, a mountainous pass, amarket-place, a battle-field, or a churchyard. 

The costumes had no pretensions to fit the period or place of theaction. They were the ordinary dresses of various classes of the day, but were often of rich material, and in the height of the currentfashion. False hair and beards, crowns and sceptres, mitres andcroziers, armour, helmets, shields, vizors, and weapons of war, hoods, bands, and cassocks, were mainly relied on to indicate among thecharacters differences of rank or profession. 

The foreign observer, Thomas Platter of Basle, was impressed by thesplendour of the actors' costumes. He accounted for it in a mannerthat negatives any suggestion of dramatic propriety:--

 "The players wear the most costly and beautiful dresses, for it is the custom in England, that when noblemen or knights die, they leave their finest clothes to their servants, who, since it would not be fitting for them to wear such splendid garments, sell them soon afterwards to the players for a small sum. "

The most striking defect in the practice of the Elizabethan playhouse, according to accepted notions, lies in the allotment of the femalerôles. It was thought unseemly for women to act at all. Female partswere played by boys or men--a substitution lacking, from the modernpoint of view, in grace and seemliness. But the standard of proprietyin such matters varies from age to age. Shakespeare alludes quitecomplacently to the appearance of boys and men in women's parts. Hemakes Rosalind say, laughingly and saucily, to the men of theaudience in the epilogue to _As You Like It_: "If I were a woman Iwould kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me. " "_If I were_a woman, " she says. The jest lies in the fact that the speaker was nota woman but a boy. Similarly, Cleopatra on her downfall in _Antony andCleopatra_, (V. Ii. 220), laments

 the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us . .. And I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra _boy_ my greatness. 

The experiment of entrusting a boy with the part of Ophelia was latelytried in London not unsuccessfully; but it is difficult to realise howa boy or young man could adequately interpret most of Shakespeare'sfemale characters. It seems almost sacrilegious to conceive the partof Cleopatra, the most highly sensitised in its minutest details ofall dramatic portrayals of female character, --it seems almostsacrilegious to submit Cleopatra's sublimity of passion tointerpretation by an unfledged representative of the other sex. Yetsuch solecisms were imperative under the theatrical system of the latesixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Men taking women's partsseem to have worn masks, but that can hardly have improved matters. Flute, when he complains that it would hardly befit him to play awoman's part because he had a beard coming, is bidden by hisresourceful manager, Quince, play Thisbe in a "mask. " At times actorswho had long lost the roses of youth masqueraded in women's rôles. Thereby the ungainliness, which marked the distribution of the cast inElizabethan and Jacobean playhouses, was often forced into strongerlight. 

It was not till the seventeenth century was well advanced that womenwere permitted to act in public theatres. Then the gracelessness ofthe masculine method was acknowledged and deplored. It was thecharacter of Desdemona which was first undertaken by a woman, and theabsurdity of the old practice was noticed in the prologue written forthis revival of _Othello_, which was made memorable by the innovation. Some lines in the prologue describe the earlier system thus:--

 For to speak truth, men act, that are between Forty or fifty, wenches of fifteen, With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant, When you call Desdemona, enter Giant. 

Profound commiseration seems due to the Elizabethan playgoer, who wasliable to have his faith in the tenderness and gentleness of Desdemonarudely shaken by the irruption on the stage of a brawny, broad-shouldered athlete, masquerading in her sweet name. Boys or menof all shapes and sizes squeaking or bawling out the tender andpathetic lines of Shakespeare's heroines, and no joys of scenery todistract the playgoer from the uncouth inconsistency! At first sightit would seem that the Elizabethan playgoer's lot was anything buthappy. 

VII

The Elizabethan's hard fate strangely contrasts with the situation ofthe playgoer of the nineteenth or twentieth century. To the latterShakespeare is presented in a dazzling plenitude of colour. Musicpunctuates not merely intervals between scenes and acts, but criticalpauses in the speeches of the actors. Pictorial tableaux enthral themost callous onlooker. Very striking is the contrast offered by themethods of representation accepted with enthusiasm by the Elizabethanplaygoer and those deemed essential by the fashionable modern manager. There seems a relish of barbarism in the ancient system when it iscompared with the one now in vogue. 

I fear the final conclusion to be drawn from the contrast is, contraryto expectation, more creditable to our ancestors than to ourselves. The needful dramatic illusion was obviously evoked in the playgoer ofthe past with an ease that is unknown to the present patrons of thestage. The absence of scenery, the substitution of boys and men forwomen, could only have passed muster with the Elizabethan spectatorbecause he was able to realise the dramatic potency of the poet's workwithout any, or any but the slightest, adventitious aid outside thewords of the play. 

The Elizabethan playgoer needs no pity. It is ourselves who aredeserving objects of compassion, because we lack those qualities, thepossession of which enabled the Elizabethan to acknowledge inShakespeare's work, despite its manner of production, "the delight andwonder of his stage. " The imaginative faculty was far from universalamong the Elizabethan playgoers. The playgoing mob always includesgroundlings who delight exclusively in dumb shows and noise. Many ofShakespeare's contemporaries complained that there were playgoers whoapproved nothing "but puppetry and loved ridiculous antics, " and thatthere were men who, going to the playhouse only "to laugh and feedfool-fat, " "checked at all goodness there. "[7] No public of any age orcountry is altogether free from such infirmities. But the receptionaccorded to Shakespeare's plays in the theatre of his day, incontemporary theatrical conditions, is proof-positive of a signalimaginative faculty in an exceptionally large proportion of theplaygoers. 

[Footnote 7: Chapman's _Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_, Act I. , Sc. I. ]

To the Elizabethan actor a warm tribute is due. Shakespeare hasdeclared with emphasis that no amount of scenery can secure genuinesuccess on the stage for a great work of the imagination. He is noless emphatic in the value he sets on competent acting. In _Hamlet_, as every reader will remember, the dramatist points out the perennialdefects of the actor, and shows how they may and must be corrected. Hedid all he could for the Elizabethan playgoer in the way of insistingthat the art of acting must be studied seriously, and that thedramatist's words must reach the ears of the audience, clearly andintelligibly enunciated. 

"Speak the speech, I pray you, " he tells the actor, "as I pronounce itto you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of yourplayers do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do notsaw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for inthe very torrent, tempest, and--as I may say--whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. 

"Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor:suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this specialobservance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. O! there beplayers that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and thathighly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent ofChristians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so struttedand bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had mademen and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. "

The player amiably responds: "I hope we have reformed thatindifferently with us. " Shakespeare in the person of Hamlet retorts ina tone of some impatience: "O! reform it altogether. And let thosethat play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them. " Theapplause which welcomed Shakespeare's masterpieces on their firstrepresentation is adequate evidence that the leading Elizabethanactors in the main obeyed these instructions. 

VIII

Nevertheless the final success of a great imaginative play on thestage does not depend entirely on the competence of the actor. Encircling and determining all conditions is the fitness of theaudience. A great imaginative play well acted will not achieve genuinesuccess unless the audience has at command sufficient imaginativepower to induce in them an active sympathy with the efforts, not onlyof the actor, but of the dramatist. 

It is not merely in the first chorus to _Henry V. _ that Shakespearehas declared his conviction that the creation of the needful dramaticillusion is finally due to exercise of the imagination on the part ofthe audience. [8] Theseus, in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, in thecapacity of a spectator of a play which is rendered by indifferentactors, makes a somewhat depreciatory reflection on the character ofacting, whatever its degree or capacity. But the value of Theseus'sdeliverance lies in its clear definition of the part which theaudience has to play, if it do its duty by great drama. 

[Footnote 8: See pp. 20-1, _supra_. ]

"The best in this kind, " says Theseus of actors, "are but shadows, andthe worst are no worse, _if imagination amend them_. " To whichHippolyta, less tolerant than Theseus of the incapacity of the playersto whom she is listening, tartly retorts: "It must be your imagination(_i. E. _, the spectator's), then, and not theirs (_i. E. _, theactors'). "

These sentences mean that at its very best acting is but a shadow orsimulation of life, and that acting at its very worst is likewise ashadow or simulation. But the imagination of the audience is supremecontroller of the theatre, and can, if it be of adequate intensity, even cause inferior acting to yield effects hardly distinguishablefrom those of the best. 

It would be unwise to press Theseus's words to extreme limits. Allthat it behoves us to deduce from them is the unimpeachable principlethat the success of the romantic drama on the stage depends not merelyon the actor's gift of imagination, but to an even larger extent onthe possession by the audience of a similar faculty. Good acting isneedful. Scenery in moderation will aid the dramatic illusion, although excess of scenery or scenic machinery may destroy italtogether. Dramatic illusion must ultimately spring from the activeand unrestricted exercise of the imaginative faculty by author, actor, and audience in joint-partnership. 

What is the moral to be deduced from any examination of theElizabethan playgoer's attitude to Shakespeare's plays? It issomething of this kind. We must emulate our ancestors' command of theimagination. We must seek to enlarge our imaginative sympathy withShakespeare's poetry. The imaginative faculty will not come to us atour call; it will not come to us by the mechanism of study; it may notcome to us at all. It is easier to point out the things that willhinder than the things that will hasten its approach. Absorption inthe material needs of life, the concentration of energy on theincrease of worldly goods, leave little room for the entrance into thebrain of the imaginative faculty, or for its free play when it isthere. The best way of seeking it is by reading the greatest of greatimaginative literature, by freely yielding the mind to its influence, and by exercising the mind under its sway. And the greatestimaginative literature that was ever penned was penned by Shakespeare. No counsel is wiser than that of those two personal friends of his, who were the first editors of his work, and penned words to thiseffect: "Read him therefore, and again and again, and then if you donot like him, surely you are in some manifest danger" of losing asaving grace of life. 

III

SHAKESPEARE IN ORAL TRADITION[9]

[Footnote 9: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth Centuryand After_, February 1902. ]

I

Biographers did not lie in wait for men of eminence on theirdeath-beds in Shakespeare's epoch. To the advantage of literature, andto the less than might be anticipated disadvantage of history (foryour death-bed biographer, writing under kinsfolk's tear-laden eyes, must needs be smoother-tongued than truthful), the place of the modernmemoir-writer was filled in Shakespeare's day by friendly poets, whowere usually alert to pay fit homage in elegiac verse to a dead hero'sachievements. In that regard, Shakespeare's poetic friends showed athis death exceptional energy. During his lifetime men of letters hadbestowed on his "reigning wit, " on his kingly supremacy of genius, most generous stores of eulogy. Within two years of the end asonneteer had justly deplored that something of Shakespeare's ownpower, to which he deprecated pretension, was needful to those whoshould praise him aright. But when Shakespeare lay dead in the springof 1616, when, as one of his admirers technically phrased it, he hadwithdrawn from the stage of the world to the "tiring-house" ordressing-room of the grave, the flood of panegyrical lamentation wasnot checked by the sense of literary inferiority which in allsincerity oppressed the spirits of surviving companions. 

One of the earliest of the elegies was a sonnet by William Basse, whogave picturesque expression to the conviction that Shakespeare wouldenjoy for all time an unique reverence on the part of his countrymen. In the opening lines of his poem Basse apostrophised Chaucer, Spenser, and the dramatist Francis Beaumont, three poets who had alreadyreceived the recognition of burial in Westminster Abbey--Beaumont, theyoungest of them, only five weeks before Shakespeare died. To thishonoured trio Basse made appeal to "lie a thought more nigh" oneanother, so as to make room for the newly-dead Shakespeare withintheir "sacred sepulchre. " Then, in the second half of his sonnet, thepoet, developing a new thought, argued that Shakespeare, in right ofhis pre-eminence, merited a burial-place apart from all his fellows. With a glance at Shakespeare's distant grave in the chancel ofStratford-on-Avon Church, the writer exclaimed:--

 Under this carved marble of thine own Sleep, brave tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep _alone_. 

The fine sentiment found many a splendid echo. It resounded in BenJonson's lines of 1623:--

 My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further to make thee a room. Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give. 

Milton wrote a few years later, in 1630, how Shakespeare, "sepulchred"in "the monument" of his writings, in such pomp doth lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 

Never was a glorious immortality foretold for any man with more solemnconfidence than it was foretold for Shakespeare at his death by hiscircle of adorers. When Time, one elegist said, should dissolve his"Stratford monument, " the laurel about Shakespeare's brow would wearits greenest hue. Shakespeare's critical friend, Ben Jonson, was butone of a numerous band who imagined the "sweet swan of Avon, " "thestar of poets, " shining for ever as a constellation in the firmament. Such was the invariable temper in which literary men gave vent totheir grief on learning the death of the "beloved author, " "the famousscenicke poet, " "the admirable dramaticke poet, " "that famous writerand actor, " "worthy master William Shakespeare" of Stratford-on-Avon. 

II

Unqualified and sincere was the eulogy awarded to Shakespeare, alikein his lifetime and immediately after his death. But the spirit andcustom of the age confided to future generations the duty of firstoffering him the more formal honour of prosaic and critical biography. The biographic memoir, which consists of precise and dulyauthenticated dates and records of domestic and professionalexperiences and achievements, was in England a comparatively lategrowth. It had no existence when Shakespeare died. It began to blossomin the eighteenth century, and did not flourish luxuriantly till a farmore recent period. Meagre seeds of the modern art of biography were, indeed, sown within a few years of Shakespeare's death; but outsidethe unique little field of Izaak Walton's tillage, the firstsproutings were plants so different from the fully developed tree, that they can with difficulty be identified with the genus. Apart fromIzaak Walton's exceptional efforts, the biographical spirit firstbetrayed itself in England in slender, occasional pamphlets ofrhapsodical froth, after the model of the funeral sermon. Therequickly followed more substantial volumes of collective biography, which mainly supplied arbitrarily compiled, if extended, catalogues ofnames. To each name were attached brief annotations, whichoccasionally offered a fact or a date, but commonly consisted of a fewsentences of grotesque, uncritical eulogy. 

Fuller's _Worthies of England_, which was begun about 1643 and waspublished posthumously in 1662, was the first English compendium ofbiography of this aboriginal pattern. Shakespeare naturally foundplace in Fuller's merry pages, for the author loved in his eccentricfashion his country's literature, and he had sought the society ofthose who had come to close quarters with literary heroes of the pastgeneration. Of that generation his own life just touched the fringe, he being eight years old when Shakespeare died. Fuller described thedramatist as a native of Stratford-on-Avon, who "was in some sort acompound of three eminent poets"--Martial, "in the warlike sound ofhis name"; Ovid, for the naturalness and wit of his poetry; andPlautus, alike for the extent of his comic power and his lack ofscholarly training. He was, Fuller continued, an eminent instance ofthe rule that a poet is born not made. "Though his genius, " he warnsus, "generally was jocular and inclining him to festivity, yet hecould, when so disposed, be solemn and serious. " His comedies, Fulleradds, would rouse laughter even in the weeping philosopher Heraclitus, while his tragedies would bring tears even to the eyes of the laughingphilosopher Democritus. 

Of positive statements respecting Shakespeare's career Fuller iseconomical. He commits himself to nothing more than may be gleanedfrom the following sentences:--

 Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention. He died _Anno Domini_ 1616, and was buried at Stratford-upon-Avon, the town of his nativity. 

Fuller's successors did their work better in some regards, becausethey laboured in narrower fields. Many of them showed a welcomeappreciation of a main source of their country's permanent reputationby confining their energies to the production of biographicalcatalogues, not of all manners of heroes, but solely of those who haddistinguished themselves in poetry and the drama. [10] In 1675 abiographical catalogue of poets was issued for the first time inEngland, and the example once set was quickly followed. No less thanthree more efforts of the like kind came to fruition before the end ofthe century. 

[Footnote 10: Such a compilation had been contemplated in 1614, twoyears before the dramatist died, by one of Shakespeare's ownassociates, Thomas Heywood. Twenty-one years later, in 1635, Heywoodspoke of "committing to the public view" his summary _Lives of thePoets_, but nothing more was heard of that project. ]

In all four biographical manuals Shakespeare was accorded more or lessimposing space. Although Fuller's eccentric compliments were usuallyrepeated, they were mingled with far more extended and discriminatingtributes. Two of the compilers designated Shakespeare "the glory ofthe English stage"; a third wrote, "I esteem his plays beyond any thathave ever been published in our language"; while the fourth quotedwith approval Dryden's fine phrase: "Shakespeare was the Man who ofall Modern and perhaps Ancient Poets had the largest and mostcomprehensive Soul. " But the avowed principles of these tantalisingvolumes justify no expectation of finding in them solid information. The biographical cataloguers of the seventeenth century did littlemore than proclaim Shakespeare and the other great poets of thecountry to be fit subjects for formal biography as soon as the typeshould be matured. That was the message of greatest virtue which thesehalting chroniclers delivered. 

In Shakespeare's case their message was not long neglected. In 1709Nicholas Rowe, afterwards George the First's poet laureate, publishedthe first professed biography of the poet. The eminence of thesubject justified such alacrity, and it had no precise parallel. Moreor less definite lives of a few of Shakespeare's great literarycontemporaries followed his biography at long intervals. But the wholefield has never been occupied by the professed biographer. In somecases the delay has meant loss of opportunity for ever. Very manydistinguished Elizabethan and Jacobean authors have shared the fate ofJohn Webster, next to Shakespeare the most eminent tragic dramatist ofthe era, of whom no biography was ever attempted, and no positivebiographic fact survives. 

But this is an imperfect statement of the advantages whichShakespeare's career enjoyed above that of his fellows from thecommemorative point of view. Although formal biography did not layhand on his name for nearly a century after his death, the authentictradition of his life and work began steadily to crystallise in theminds and mouths of men almost as soon as he drew his last breath. Fuller's characteristically shadowy hint of "wit-combats betwixtShakespeare and Ben Jonson" and of the contrasted characters of thetwo combatants, suggests pretty convincingly that Shakespeare's namepresented to the seventeenth-century imagination and tongue a betterdefined personality and experience than the embryonic biographer knewhow to disclose. The commemorative instinct never seeks satisfactionin biographic effort exclusively, even when the art of biography hasripened into satisfying fulness. A great man's reputation and themoving incidents of his career never live solely in the printed bookor the literary word. In a great man's lifetime, and for many yearsafter, his fame and his fortunes live most effectually on living lips. The talk of surviving kinsmen, fellow-craftsmen, admiringacquaintances, and sympathetic friends is the treasure-house whichbest preserves the personality of the dead hero for those who comesoon after him. When biography is unpractised, no other treasure-houseis available. 

The report of such converse moves quickly from mouth to mouth. In itsprogress the narration naturally grows fainter, and, when nobiographer lies in wait for it, ultimately perishes altogether. Butoral tradition respecting a great man whose work has fascinated theimagination of his countrymen comes into circulation early, persistslong, even in the absence of biography, and safeguards substantialelements of truth through many generations. Although no biographer putin an appearance, it is seldom that some fragment of oral traditionrespecting a departed hero is not committed to paper by one or otheramateur gossip who comes within earshot of it early in its career. Thecasual unsifted record of floating anecdote is not always abovesuspicion. As a rule it is embodied in familiar correspondence, or indiaries, or in commonplace books, where clear and definite language israrely met with; but, however disappointingly imperfect and trivial, however disjointed, however deficient in literary form the registeredjottings of oral tradition may be, it is in them, if they exist at allwith any title to credit, that future ages best realise the fact thatthe great man was in plain truth a living entity, and no mere shadowof a name. 

III

When Shakespeare died, on the 23rd of April, 1616, many men and womenwere alive who had come into personal association with him, and therewere many more who had heard of him from those who had spoken withhim. Apart from his numerous kinsfolk and neighbours atStratford-on-Avon, there was in London a large society offellow-authors and fellow-actors with whom he lived in closecommunion. Very little correspondence or other intimate memorials, whether of Shakespeare's professional friends or of his kinsfolk orcountry neighbours, survive. Nevertheless some scraps of the talkabout Shakespeare that circulated among his acquaintances or washanded on by them to the next generation has been tracked to writtenpaper of the seventeenth century and to printed books. A portion ofthese scattered memorabilia of the earliest known oral traditionsrespecting Shakespeare has come to light very recently; other portionshave been long accessible. As a connected whole they have never beennarrowly scrutinised, and I believe it may serve a useful purpose toconsider with some minuteness how the mass of them came into being, and what is the sum of information they conserve. 

The more closely Shakespeare's career is studied the plainer itbecomes that his experiences and fortunes were identical with those ofall who followed in his day his profession of dramatist, and that hisconscious aims and ambitions and practices were those of everycontemporary man of letters. The difference between the results of hisendeavours and those of his fellows was due to the magical andinvoluntary working of genius, which, since the birth of poetry, hasexercised "as large a charter as the wind, to blow on whom itpleases. " Speculation or debate as to why genius bestowed its fullestinspiration on Shakespeare is no less futile than speculation ordebate as to why he was born into the world with a head on hisshoulders instead of a block of stone. It is enough for wise men toknow the obvious fact that genius endowed Shakespeare with its richestgifts, and a very small acquaintance with the literary history of theworld and with the manner in which genius habitually plays its partthere, will show the folly of cherishing astonishment thatShakespeare, rather than one more nobly born or more academicallytrained, should have been chosen for the glorious dignity. Nowhere isthis lesson more convincingly taught than by a systematic survey ofthe oral tradition. Shakespeare figures there as a supremely favouredheir of genius, whose humility of birth and education merely serves tointensify the respect due to his achievement. 

In London, where Shakespeare's work was mainly done and his fortuneand reputation achieved, he lived with none in more intimate socialrelations than with the leading members of his own prosperous companyof actors, which, under the patronage of the king, produced hisgreatest plays. Like himself, most of his colleagues were men ofsubstance, sharers with him in the two most fashionable theatres ofthe metropolis, occupiers of residences in both town and country, owners of houses and lands, and bearers of coat-armour of thatquestionable validity which commonly attaches to the heraldry of the_nouveaux riches_. Two of these affluent associates predeceasedShakespeare; and one of them, Augustine Phillips, attested hisfriendship in a small legacy. Three of Shakespeare's fellow-actorswere affectionately remembered by him in his will, and a fourth, oneof the youngest members of the company, proved his regard forShakespeare's memory by taking, a generation after the dramatist'sdeath, Charles Hart, Shakespeare's grand-nephew, into his employ as a"boy" or apprentice. Grand-nephew Charles went forth on a prosperouscareer, in which at its height he was seriously likened to hisgrand-uncle's most distinguished actor-ally, Richard Burbage. Aboveall is it to be borne in mind that to the disinterested admiration forhis genius of two fellow-members of Shakespeare's company we owe thepreservation and publication of the greater part of his literary work. The personal fascination of "so worthy a friend and fellow as was ourShakespeare" bred in all his fellow-workers an affectionate pride intheir intimacy. 

Such men were the parents of the greater part of the surviving oraltradition of Shakespeare, and no better parentage could be wished for. To the first accessible traditions of proved oral currency afterShakespeare's death, the two fellow-actors who called the great FirstFolio into existence pledged their credit in writing only seven yearsafter his death. They printed in the preliminary pages of that volumethese three statements of common fame, viz. , that to Shakespeare andhis plays in his lifetime was invariably extended the fullest favourof the court and its leading officers; that death deprived him of theopportunity he had long contemplated of preparing his literary workfor the press; and that he wrote with so rapidly flowing a pen thathis manuscript was never defaced by alteration or erasure. Shakespeare's extraordinary rapidity of composition was an especiallyfrequent topic of contemporary debate. Ben Jonson, the most intimatepersonal friend of Shakespeare outside the circle of working actors, wrote how "the players" would "often mention" to him the poet'sfluency, and how he was in the habit of arguing that Shakespeare'swork would have been the better had he devoted more time to itscorrection. The players, Ben Jonson adds, were wont to grumble thatsuch a remark was "malevolent, " and he delighted in seeking tovindicate it to them on what seemed to him to be just criticalgrounds. 

The copious deliverances of Jonson in the tavern-parliaments of theLondon wits, which were in almost continuous session during the firstfour decades of the seventeenth century, set flowing much other oraltradition of Shakespeare, whom Jonson said he loved and whose memoryhe honoured "on this side idolatry as much as any. " One of Jonson'sremarks which seems to have lived longest on the lips ofcontemporaries was that Shakespeare "was indeed honest and [like hisown Othello] of an open and free nature, [11] had an excellentphantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed withthat facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. "

[Footnote 11: Iago says of Othello, in _Othello_ I. , iii. 405: "TheMoor is _of a free and open nature_. "]

To the same category of oral tradition belongs the further piece whichFuller enshrined in his slender biography with regard to Shakespeare'salert skirmishes with Ben Jonson in dialectical battle. Jonson'sdialectical skill was for a long period undisputed, and for gossip tocredit Shakespeare with victory in such conflict was to pay hismemory even more enviable honour than Jonson paid it in his own_obiter dicta_. 

There is yet an additional scrap of oral tradition which, reduced towriting about the time that Fuller was at work, confirms Shakespeare'sreputation for quickness of wit in everyday life, especially inintercourse with the critical giant Jonson. Dr Donne, the Jacobeanpoet and dean of St Paul's, told, apparently on Jonson's authority, the story that Shakespeare, having consented to act as godfather toone of Jonson's sons, solemnly promised to give the child a dozen good"_Latin_ spoons" for the father to "translate. " _Latin_ was a playupon the word "latten, " which was the name of a metal resemblingbrass. The simple quip was a good-humoured hit at Jonson's pride inhis classical learning. Dr Donne related the anecdote to Sir NicholasL'Estrange, a country gentleman of literary tastes, who had nointerest in Shakespeare except from the literary point of view. Heentered it in his commonplace book within thirty years ofShakespeare's death. 

IV

Of the twenty-five actors who are enumerated in a preliminary page ofthe great First Folio, as filling in Shakespeare's lifetime chiefrôles in his plays, few survived him long. All of them came inpersonal contact with him; several of them constantly appeared withhim on the stage from early days. 

The two who were longest lived, John Lowin and Joseph Taylor, came atlength to bear a great weight of years. They were both Shakespeare'sjuniors, Lowin by twelve years, and Taylor by twenty; but bothestablished their reputation before middle age. Lowin at twenty-seventook part with Shakespeare in the first representation of Ben Jonson's_Sejanus_ in 1603. He was an early, if not the first, interpreter ofthe character of Falstaff. Taylor as understudy to the great actorBurbage, a very close ally of Shakespeare, seems to have achieved somesuccess in the part of Hamlet, and to have been applauded in the rôleof Iago, while the dramatist yet lived. When the dramatist died, Lowinwas forty, and Taylor over thirty. 

Subsequently, as their senior colleagues one by one passed from theworld, these two actors assumed first rank in their company, andbefore the ruin in which the Civil War involved all theatricalenterprise, they were acknowledged to stand at the head of theirprofession. [12] Taylor lived through the Commonwealth, and Lowin farinto the reign of Charles the Second, ultimately reaching hisninety-third year. Their last days were passed in indigence, and Lowinwhen an octogenarian was reduced to keeping the inn of the "ThreePigeons, " at Brentford. 

[Footnote 12: Like almost all their colleagues, they had much literarytaste. When public events compulsorily retired them from the stage, they, with the aid of the dramatist Shirley and eight other actors, two of whom were members with them of Shakespeare's old company, didan important service to English literature. In 1647 they collected forfirst publication in folio Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; only one, _The Wild Goose Chase_, was omitted, and that piece Taylor and Lowinbrought out by their unaided efforts five years later. ]

Both these men kept alive from personal knowledge some oralShakespearean tradition during the fifty years and more that followedhis death. Little of their gossip is extant. But some of it was puton record, before the end of the century, by John Downes, the oldprompter and librarian of a chief London theatre. According toDownes's testimony, Taylor repeated instructions which he had receivedfrom Shakespeare's own lips for the playing of the part of Hamlet, while Lowin narrated how Shakespeare taught him the theatricalinterpretation of the character of Henry the Eighth, in that play ofthe name which came from the joint pens of Shakespeare and Fletcher. 

Both Taylor's and Lowin's reminiscences were passed on to ThomasBetterton, the greatest actor of the Restoration, and the mostinfluential figure in the theatrical life of his day. Through him theywere permanently incorporated in the verbal stage-lore of the country. No doubt is possible of the validity of this piece of oral tradition, which reveals Shakespeare in the act of personally supervising theproduction of his own plays, and springs from the mouths of those whopersonally benefited by the dramatist's activity. 

Taylor and Lowin were probably the last actors to speak of Shakespearefrom personal knowledge. But hardly less deserving of attention arescraps of gossip about Shakespeare which survive in writing on theauthority of some of Taylor's and Lowin's actor-contemporaries. Thesemen were never themselves in personal relations with Shakespeare, butknew many formerly in direct relation with him. Probably theseventeenth century actor with the most richly stored memory of theoral Shakespearean tradition was William Beeston, to whose house inHog Lane, Shoreditch, the curious often resorted in Charles theSecond's time to listen to his reminiscences of Shakespeare and ofthe poets of Shakespeare's epoch. 

Beeston died after a busy theatrical life, at eighty or upwards, in1682. He belonged to a family of distinguished actors oractor-managers. His father, brothers, and son were all, like himself, prominent in the profession, and some of them were almost aslong-lived as himself. His own career combined with that of his fathercovered more than a century, and both sedulously and with pridecultivated intimacy with contemporary dramatic authors. 

It was probably William Beeston's grandfather, also William Beeston, to whom the satirical Elizabethan, Thomas Nash, dedicated in 1593, with good-humoured irony, one of his insolent libels on GabrielHarvey, a scholar who had defamed the memory of a dead friend. Nashlaughed at his patron's struggles with syntax in his efforts to writepoetry, and at his indulgence in drink, which betrayed itself in hisred nose. But, in spite of Nash's characteristic frankness, he greetedthe first William Beeston as a boon companion who was generous in hisentertainment of threadbare scholars. Christopher Beeston, this man'sson, the father of the Shakespearean gossip, had in abundance thehereditary taste for letters. He was at one time Shakespeare'sassociate on the stage. Both took part together in the firstrepresentation of Ben Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_, in 1598. Hisname was again linked with Shakespeare's in the will of theirfellow-actor, Augustine Phillips, who left each of them a legacy as atoken of friendship at his death in 1605. Christopher Beeston leftShakespeare's company of actors for another theatre early in hiscareer, and his closest friend among the actor-authors of his day inlater life was not Shakespeare himself but Thomas Heywood, the populardramatist and pamphleteer, who lived on to 1650. This was a friendshipwhich kept Beeston's respect for Shakespeare at a fitting pitch. Heywood, who wrote the affectionate lines:

 Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose inchanting Quill Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but _Will_, enjoys the distinction of having published in Shakespeare's lifetimethe only expression of resentment that is known to have come from thedramatist's proverbially "gentle lips. " Shakespeare (Heywood wrote)"was much offended" with an unprincipled publisher who "presumed tomake so bold with his name" as to put it to a book of which he was notthe author. And Beeston had direct concern with the volume called _AnApology for Actors_, to which Heywood appended his report of thesewords of Shakespeare. To the book the actor, Beeston, contributedpreliminary verses addressed to the author, his "good friend andfellow, Thomas Heywood. " There Beeston briefly vindicated therecreation which the playhouse offered the public. Much else inChristopher Beeston's professional career is known, but it issufficient to mention here that he died in 1637, while he was fillingthe post that he had long held, of manager to the King and Queen'sCompany of Players at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane. It was thechief playhouse of the time, and his wife was lessee of it. 

Christopher's son, William Beeston the second, was his father'scoadjutor at Drury Lane, and succeeded him in his high managerialoffice there. The son encountered difficulties with the Governmentthrough an alleged insult to the King in one of the pieces that heproduced, and he had to retire from the Cockpit to a smaller theatrein Salisbury Court. Until his death he retained the respect of theplay-going and the literature-loving public, and his son George, whomhe brought up to the stage, carried on the family repute to a latergeneration. 

William Beeston had no liking for dissolute society, and the open viceof Charles the Second's Court pained him. He lived in old age much inseclusion, but by a congenial circle he was always warmly welcomed forthe freshness and enthusiasm of his talk about the poets whoflourished in his youth. "Divers times (in my hearing), " one of hisauditors, Francis Kirkman, an ardent collector, reader, and publisherof old plays, wrote to him in 1652--"Divers times (in my hearing), tothe admiration of the whole company you have most judiciouslydiscoursed of Poesie. " In the judgment of Kirkman, his friend, the oldactor, was "the happiest interpreter and judg of our Englishstage-Playes this Nation ever produced; which the Poets and Actorsthese times cannot (without ingratitude) deny; for I have heard thechief, and most ingenious of them, acknowledg their Fames and Profitsessentially sprung from your instructions, judgment, and fancy. " Fewwho heard Beeston talk failed, Kirkman continues, to subscribe "to hisopinion that no Nation could glory in such Playes" as those that camefrom the pens of the great Elizabethans, Shakespeare, Fletcher, andBen Jonson. "Glorious John Dryden" shared in the general enthusiasmfor the veteran Beeston, and bestowed on him the title of "thechronicle of the stage"; while John Aubrey, the honest antiquary andgossip, who had in his disorderly brain the makings of a Boswell, sought Beeston's personal acquaintance about 1660, in order to "takefrom him the lives of the old English Poets. "

It is Aubrey who has recorded most of such sparse fragments ofBeeston's talk as survive--how Edmund "Spenser was a little man, woreshort hair, little bands, and short cuffs, " and how Sir John Sucklingcame to invent the game of cribbage. Naturally, of Shakespeare Beestonhas much to relate. In the shrewd old gossip's language, he "did actexceedingly well, " far better than Jonson; "he understood Latin prettywell, for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in thecountry;" "he was a handsome, well-shaped man, very good company, andof a very ready and pleasant smooth wit;" he and Ben Jonson gathered"humours of men daily wherever they came. " The ample testimony to theexcellent influence which Beeston exercised over "the poets and actorsof these times" leaves little doubt that Sir William D'Avenant, Beeston's successor as manager at Drury Lane, and Thomas Shadwell, thefashionable writer of comedies, largely echoed their old mentor'swords when, in conversation with Aubrey, they credited Shakespearewith "a most prodigious wit, " and declared that they "did admire hisnatural parts beyond all other dramatical writers. "[13]

[Footnote 13: Aubrey's _Lives_, being reports of his miscellaneousgossip, were first fully printed from his manuscripts in the BodleianLibrary by the Clarendon Press in 1898. They were most carefullyedited by the Rev. Andrew Clark. ]

John Lacy, another actor of Beeston's generation, who made an immensereputation on the stage and was also a successful writer of farces, was one of Beeston's closest friends, and, having been personallyacquainted with Ben Jonson, could lend to many of Beeston's storiesuseful corroborative testimony. With Lacy, too, the gossip Aubreyconversed of Shakespeare's career. 

At the same time, the popularity of Shakespeare's grand-nephew, Charles Hart, who was called the Burbage of his day, whetted amongactors the appetite for Shakespearean tradition, especially of thetheatrical kind. Hart had no direct acquaintance with his greatkinsman, who died fully ten years before he was born, while hisfather, who was sixteen at Shakespeare's death, died in his son'sboyhood. But Hart's grandmother, the poet's sister, lived till he wastwenty-one, and Richard Robinson, the fellow-member of Shakespeare'scompany who first taught Hart to act, survived his pupil'sadolescence. That Hart did what he could to satisfy the curiosity ofhis companions there is a precise oral tradition to confirm. Accordingto the story, first put on record in the eighteenth century by thepainstaking antiquary, William Oldys, it was through Hart that someactors made, near the date of the Restoration, the exciting discoverythat Gilbert, one of Shakespeare's brothers, who was the dramatist'sjunior by only two years, was still living at a patriarchal age. Oldysdescribes the concern with which Hart's professional acquaintancesquestioned the old man about his brother, and their disappointmentwhen his failing memory only enabled him to recall William'sperformance of the part of Adam in his comedy of _As You Like It_. 

It should be added that Oldys obtained his information of the episode, which deserves more attention than it has received, from an actor ofa comparatively recent generation, John Bowman, who died over eightyin 1739, after spending "more than half an age on the Londontheatres. "

V

Valuable as these actors' testimonies are, it is in another rank ofthe profession that we find the most important link in the chain ofwitnesses alike to the persistence and authenticity of the oraltradition of Shakespeare which was current in the middle of theseventeenth century. Sir William D'Avenant, the chief playwright andpromoter of theatrical enterprise of his day, enjoyed among persons ofinfluence and quality infinite credit and confidence. As a boy he andhis brothers had come into personal relations with the dramatist undertheir father's roof, and the experience remained the proudest boast oftheir lives. D'Avenant was little more than ten when Shakespeare died, and his direct intercourse with him was consequently slender; butD'Avenant was a child of the Muses, and his slight acquaintance withthe living Shakespeare spurred him to treasure all that he could learnof his hero from any who had enjoyed fuller opportunities of intimacy. 

To learn the manner in which the child D'Avenant and his brothers cameto know Shakespeare is to approach the dramatist through oral traditionat very close quarters. D'Avenant's father, a melancholy person whowas never known to laugh, long kept at Oxford the Crown Inn in Carfax. Gossip which was current in Oxford throughout the seventeenth century, and was put on record before the end of it by more than one scholar ofthe university, establishes the fact that Shakespeare on his annualjourneys between London and Stratford-on-Avon was in the habit ofstaying at the elder D'Avenant's Oxford hostelry. The report ran that"he was exceedingly respected" in the house, and was freely admittedto the inn-keeper's domestic circle. The inn-keeper's wife wascredited with a mercurial disposition which contrasted strangely withher husband's sardonic temperament; it was often said in Oxford thatShakespeare not merely found his chief attraction at the Crown Inn inthe wife's witty conversation, but formed a closer intimacy with herthan moralists would approve. Oral tradition speaks in clearer tonesof his delight in the children of the family--four boys and threegirls. We have at command statements on that subject from the lips oftwo of the sons. The eldest son, Robert, who was afterwards a parsonin Wiltshire, and was on familiar terms with many men of culture, often recalled with pride for their benefit that "Mr WilliamShakespeare" had given him as a child "a hundred kisses" in hisfather's tavern-parlour. 

The third son, William, was more expansive in his reminiscences. Itwas generally understood at Oxford in the early years of theseventeenth century that he was the poet's godson, as his Christianname would allow, but some gossips had it that the poet's paternitywas of a less spiritual character. According to a genuine anecdote ofcontemporary origin, when the boy, William D'Avenant, in Shakespeare'slifetime, informed a doctor of the university that he was on his wayto ask a blessing of his godfather who had just arrived in the town, the child was warned by his interlocutor against taking the name ofGod in vain. It is proof of the estimation in which D'Avenant heldShakespeare that when he came to man's estate he was "content enoughto have" the insinuation "thought to be true. " He would talk freelywith his friends over a glass of wine of Shakespeare's visits to hisfather's house, and would say "that it seemed to him that he wrotewith Shakespeare's very spirit. " Of his reverence for Shakespeare hegave less questionable proof in a youthful elegy in which herepresented the flowers and trees on the banks of the Avon mourningfor Shakespeare's death and the river weeping itself away. He wascredited, too, with having adopted the new spelling of his nameD'_Aven_ant (for Davenant), so as to read into it a reference to theriver Avon. 

In maturer age D'Avenant sought out the old actors Taylor and Lowin, and mastered their information respecting Shakespeare, their earlycolleague on the stage. With a curious perversity he mainly devotedhis undoubted genius in his later years to rewriting in accordancewith the debased taste of Charles the Second's reign the chief worksof his idol; but until D'Avenant's death in 1668 the unique characterof Shakespeare's greatness had no stouter champion than he, and in thecircle of men of wit and fashion, of which he was the centre, nonekept the cult alive with greater enthusiasm. His early friend Sir JohnSuckling, the Cavalier poet, who was only seven years old whenShakespeare died, he infected so thoroughly with his own affectionateadmiration that Suckling wrote of the dramatist in familiar letters as"my friend Mr William Shakespeare, " and had his portrait painted byVandyck with an open volume of Shakespeare's works in his hand. Evenmore important is Dryden's testimony that he was himself "firsttaught" by D'Avenant "to admire" Shakespeare. 

One of the most precise and valuable pieces of oral tradition whichdirectly owed currency to D'Avenant was the detailed story of thegenerous gift of £1000, which Shakespeare's patron, the Earl ofSouthampton, made the poet, "to enable him to go through with apurchase which he heard he had a mind to. " Rowe, Shakespeare's firstbiographer, recorded this particular on the specific authority ofD'Avenant, who, he pointed out, "was probably very well acquaintedwith the dramatist's affairs. " At the same time it was often repeatedthat D'Avenant was owner of a complimentary letter which James theFirst had written to Shakespeare with his own hand. A literarypolitician, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave and Duke ofBuckinghamshire, who survived D'Avenant nearly half a century, saidthat he had examined the epistle while it was in D'Avenant's keeping. The publisher Lintot first printed the Duke's statement in the prefaceto a new edition of Shakespeare's Poems in 1709. 

D'Avenant's devotion did much for Shakespeare's memory; but itstimulated others to do even more for the after-generations who wishedto know the whole truth about Shakespeare's life. The great actor ofthe Restoration, Thomas Betterton, was D'Avenant's close associate inhis last years. D'Avenant coached him in the parts both of Hamlet andof Henry the Eighth, in the light of the instruction which he hadderived through the medium of Taylor and Lowin from Shakespeare's ownlips. But more to the immediate purpose is it to note that D'Avenant'sardour as a seeker after knowledge of Shakespeare fired Bettertoninto making a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon to glean oral traditionsof the dramatist's life there. Many other of Shakespeare's admirershad previously made Stratford Church, where stood his tomb, a place ofpilgrimage, and Aubrey had acknowledged in hap-hazard fashion thevalue of Stratford gossip. But it was Betterton's visit that laid thetrain for the systematic union of the oral traditions of London andStratford respectively. 

It was not until the London and Warwickshire streams of traditionmingled in equal strength that a regular biography of Shakespeare waspossible. Betterton was the efficient cause of this conjunction. Allthat Stratford-on-Avon revealed to him he put at the disposal ofNicholas Rowe, who was the first to attempt a formal memoir. OfBetterton's assistance Rowe made generous acknowledgment in theseterms:--

 I must own a particular Obligation to him [_i. E. _, Betterton] for the most considerable part of the Passages relating to his [_i. E. _, Shakespeare's] Life, which I have here transmitted to the Publick; his veneration for the Memory of Shakespear having engag'd him to make a Journey into Warwickshire, on purpose to gather up what Remains he could of a Name for which he had so great a Value. 

VI

The contemporary epitaph on Shakespeare's tomb in Stratford-on-AvonChurch, which acclaimed Shakespeare a writer of supreme genius, gavethe inhabitants of the little town no opportunity of ignoring at anyperiod the fact that the greatest poet of his era had been theirfellow-townsman. Stratford was indeed openly identified withShakespeare's career from the earliest possible day, and Sir WilliamDugdale, the first topographer of Warwickshire, writing about 1650, noted that the place was memorable for having given "birth andsepulture to our late famous poet Will Shakespeare. " But the obscurelittle town produced in the years that followed Shakespeare's deathnone who left behind records of their experience, and such fragmentsof oral tradition of Shakespeare at Stratford as are extant surviveaccidentally, with one notable exception, in the manuscript notes ofvisitors, who, like Betterton, were drawn thither by a venerationacquired elsewhere. 

The one notable exception is John Ward, a seventeenth-century vicar ofStratford, who settled there in 1662, at the age of thirty-three, forty-six years after Shakespeare's death. Ward remained at Stratfordtill his death in 1681. He is the only resident of the century whowrote down any of the local story. Ward was a man of good sentiment. He judged that it became a vicar of Stratford to know his Shakespearewell, and one of his private reminders for his own conductruns--"Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays, and bee much versed inthem, that I may not bee ignorant in that matter. "

Ward was a voluminous diarist and a faithful chronicler as far as hecared to go. Shakespeare's last surviving daughter, Judith Quiney, wasdying when he arrived in Stratford; but sons of Shakespeare's sister, Mistress Joan Hart, were still living in the poet's birthplace inHenley Street. Ward seems, too, to have known Lady Barnard, Shakespeare's only grandchild and last surviving descendant, who, although she only occasionally visited Stratford after her secondmarriage in 1649 and her removal to her husband's residence atAbington, near the town of Northampton, retained much property in hernative place till her death in 1670. Ward reported from localconversation six important details, viz. , that Shakespeare retired toStratford in his elder days; that he wrote at the most active periodof his life two plays a year; that he made so large an income from hisdramas that "he spent at the rate of £1000 a year"; that heentertained his literary friends Drayton and Jonson at "a merrymeeting" shortly before his death, and that he died of its effects. 

Oxford, which was only thirty-six miles distant, supplied the majorityof Stratford tourists, who, before Betterton, gathered oral traditionthere. Aubrey, the Oxford gossip, roughly noted six local items otherthan those which are embodied in Ward's diary, or are to be gleanedfrom Beeston's reminiscences, viz. , that Shakespeare had as a ladhelped his father in his trade of butcher; that one of the poet'scompanions in boyhood, who died young, had almost as extraordinary a"natural wit"; that Shakespeare betrayed very early signs of poeticgenius; that he paid annual visits to his native place when his careerwas at its height; that he loved at tavern meetings in the town tochaff John Combe, the richest of his fellow-townsmen, who was accusedof usurious practices; and finally, that he died possessed of asubstantial fortune. 

Until the end of the century, visitors were shown round the church byan aged parish clerk, some of whose gossip about Shakespeare wasrecorded by one of them in 1693. The old man came thus to supply twofurther items of information: how Shakespeare ran away in youth, andhow he sought service at a playhouse, "and by this meanes had anopportunity to be what he afterwards proved. " A different visitor toStratford next year recorded in an extant letter to a friend yet morescraps of oral tradition. These were to the effect that "the greatShakespear" dreaded the removal of his bones to the charnel-houseattached to the church; that he caused his grave to be dug seventeenfeet deep; and that he wrote the rude warning against disturbing hisbones, which was inscribed on his gravestone, in order to meet thecapacity of the "very ignorant sort of people" whose business it wasto look after burials. 

Betterton gained more precise particulars--the date of baptism and thelike--from an examination of the parochial records; but the mostvaluable piece of oral tradition with which the great actor's researchmust be credited was the account of Shakespeare's deer-stealingescapade at Charlecote. Another tourist from Oxford privately andindependently put that anecdote into writing at the same date, butRowe, who first gave it to the world in his biography, reliedexclusively on Betterton's authority. At a little later periodinquiries made at Stratford by a second actor, Bowman, yielded atrifle more. Bowman came to know a very reputable resident atBridgtown, a hamlet adjoining Stratford, Sir William Bishop, whosefamily was of old standing there. Sir William was born ten years afterShakespeare died, and lived close to Stratford till 1700. He toldBowman that a part of Falstaff's character was drawn from afellow-townsman at Stratford against whom Shakespeare cherished agrudge owing to his obduracy in some business transaction. Bowmanrepeated the story to Oldys, who put it on record. 

Although one could wish the early oral tradition of Stratford to havebeen more thoroughly reported, such as is extant in writing issufficient to prove that Shakespeare's literary eminence was wellknown in his native place during the century that followed his death. In many villages in the neighbourhood of Stratford--at Bidford, atWilmcote, at Greet, at Dursley--there long persisted like oraltradition of Shakespeare's occasional visits, but these were notwritten down before the middle of the eighteenth century; and althoughthey are of service as proof of the local dissemination of his fame, they are somewhat less definite than the traditions that sufferedearlier record, and need not be particularised here. One light pieceof gossip, which was associated with a country parish at some distancefrom Stratford, can alone be traced back to remote date, and wasquickly committed to writing. A trustworthy Oxford don, Josias Howe, fellow and tutor of Trinity, was born early in the seventeenth centuryat Grendon in Buckinghamshire, where his father was long rector, andhe maintained close relations with his birthplace during his life ofmore than ninety years. Grendon was on the road between Oxford andLondon. Howe stated that Shakespeare often visited the place in hisjourney from Stratford, and that he found the original of hischaracter of Dogberry in the person of a parish constable who lived onthere till 1642. Howe was on familiar terms with the man, and heconfided his reminiscence to his friend Aubrey, who duly recorded it, although in a somewhat confused shape. 

VII

It is with early oral tradition of Shakespeare's personal experiencethat I am dealing here. It is not my purpose to notice early literarycriticism, of which there is abundant supply. It was obviously thefree circulation of the fame of Shakespeare's work which stimulatedthe activity of interest in his private fortunes and led to thechronicling of the oral tradition regarding them. It could easily beshown that, outside the circle of professional poets, dramatists, actors, and fellow-townsmen, Shakespeare's name was, from his firstcoming into public notice, constantly on the lips of scholars, statesmen, and men of fashion who had any glimmer of literary taste. The Muse of History indeed drops plain hints of the views expressed atthe social meetings of the great in the seventeenth century whenShakespeare was under discussion. Before 1643, "all persons of qualitythat had wit and learning" engaged in a set debate at Eton in therooms of "the ever-memorable" John Hales, Fellow of the College, onthe question of Shakespeare's merits compared with those of classicalpoets. The judges who presided over "this ingenious assembly"unanimously and without qualification decided in favour ofShakespeare's superiority. 

A very eminent representative of the culture and politicalintelligence of the next generation was in full sympathy with theverdict of the Eton College tribunal. Lord Clarendon held Shakespeareto be one of the "most illustrious of our nation. " Among the manyheroes of his admiration, Shakespeare was of the elect few who were"most agreeable to his lordship's general humour. " Lord Clarendon wasat the pains of securing a portrait of Shakespeare to hang in hishouse in St James's. Similarly, the proudest and probably the richestnobleman in political circles at the end of the seventeenth century, the Duke of Somerset, was often heard to speak of his "pleasure inthat Greatness of Thought, those natural Images, those Passions finelytouch'd, and that beautiful Expression which is everywhere to be metwith in Shakespear. "

VIII

It was to this Duke of Somerset that Rowe appropriately dedicated thefirst full and formal biography of the poet. That work was designed asa preface to the first critical edition of Shakespeare's plays, whichRowe published in 1709. "Though the works of Mr Shakespear may seem tomany not to want a comment, " Rowe wrote modestly enough, "yet I fancysome little account of the man himself may not be thought improper togo along with them. " Rowe did his work quite as well as therudimentary state of the biographic art of his day allowed. He wasunder the complacent impression that his supply of informationsatisfied all reasonable curiosity. He had placed himself in the handsof Betterton, an investigator at first hand. But the fact remains thatRowe made no sustained nor scholarly effort to collect exhaustivelyeven the oral tradition; still less did he consult with thoroughnessofficial records or references to Shakespeare's literary achievementsin the books of his contemporaries. Such labour as that was to beundertaken later, when the practice of biography had assimilated morescientific method. Rowe preferred the straw of vague rhapsody to thebrick of solid fact. 

Nevertheless Rowe's memoir laid the foundations on which hissuccessors built. It set ringing the bell which called together thatmass of information drawn from every source--manuscript archives, printed books, oral tradition--which now far exceeds what isaccessible in the case of any poet contemporary with Shakespeare. Somelinks in the chain of Shakespeare's career are still missing, and wemust wait for the future to disclose them. But, though the clues atpresent are in some places faint, the trail never altogether eludesthe patient investigator. The ascertained facts are already numerousenough to define beyond risk of intelligent doubt the direction thatShakespeare's career followed. Its general outline is, as we haveseen, fully established by one source of knowledge alone--one out ofmany--by the oral tradition which survives from the seventeenthcentury. 

It may be justifiable to cherish regret for the loss of Shakespeare'sautograph papers and of his familiar correspondence. But the absenceof such documentary material can excite scepticism of the receivedtradition only in those who are ignorant of the fate that invariablybefell the original manuscripts and correspondence of Elizabethan andJacobean poets and dramatists. Save for a few fragments of smallliterary moment, no play of the era in its writer's autograph escapedearly destruction by fire or dustbin. No machinery then ensured, nocustom then encouraged, the due preservation of the autographs of mendistinguished for poetic genius. Provision was made in the publicrecord offices or in private muniment-rooms for the protection of theofficial papers and correspondence of men in public life, and ofmanuscript memorials affecting the property and domestic history ofgreat county families. But even in the case of men of the sixteenth orseventeenth century in official life who, as often happened, devotedtheir leisure to literature, the autographs of their literarycompositions have for the most part perished, and there usually onlyremain in the official depositories remnants of their writings aboutmatters of official routine. 

Not all those depositories, it is to be admitted, have yet been fullyexplored, and in some of them a more thorough search than has yet beenundertaken may be expected to throw new light on Shakespeare'sbiography. Meanwhile, instead of mourning helplessly over the lack ofmaterial for a knowledge of Shakespeare's life, it becomes us toestimate aright what we have at our command, to study it closely inthe light of the literary history of the epoch, and, while neglectingno opportunity of bettering our information, to recognise frankly theactivity of the destroying agencies which have been at work from theoutset. Then we shall wonder, not why we know so little, but why weknow so much. 

IV

PEPYS AND SHAKESPEARE[14]

[Footnote 14: A paper read at the sixth meeting of the Samuel PepysClub, on Thursday, November 30, 1905, and printed in the _FortnightlyReview_ for January, 1906. ]

I

In his capacity of playgoer, as indeed in almost every other capacity, Pepys presents himself to readers of his naïve diary as theincarnation, or the microcosm, of the average man. No other writer haspictured with the same lifelike precision and simplicity the averageplaygoer's sensations of pleasure or pain. Of the play and itsperformers Pepys records exactly what he thinks or feels. He usuallytakes a more lively interest in the acting and in the scenic andmusical accessories than in the drama's literary quality. Subtlety isat any rate absent from his criticism. He is either bored or amused. The piece is either the best or the worst that he ever witnessed. Hisepithets are of the bluntest and are without modulation. Wiser thanmore professional dramatic critics, he avoids labouring at reasons forhis emphatic judgments. 

Always true to his rôle of the average man, Pepys suffers his mind tobe swayed by barely relevant accidents. His thought is rarely freefrom official or domestic business, and the heaviness or lightness ofhis personal cares commonly colours his playhouse impressions. Hispraises and his censures of a piece often reflect, too, the physicalcomforts or discomforts which attach to his seat in the theatre. He ispeculiarly sensitive to petty annoyances--to the agony of sitting in adraught, or to the irritation caused by frivolous talk in his nearneighbourhood while a serious play is in progress. On one occasion, when he sought to practise a praiseworthy economy by taking a backseat in the shilling gallery, his evening's enjoyment was well-nighspoiled by finding the gaze of four clerks in his office steadilydirected upon him from more expensive seats down below. On anotheroccasion, when in the pit with his wife and her waiting-woman, he wasovercome by a sense of shame as he realised how shabbily hiscompanions were dressed, in comparison with the smartly-attired ladiesround about them. 

Everyone knows how susceptible Pepys was in all situations of life tofemale charms. It was inevitable that his wits should often wanderfrom the dramatic theme and its scenic presentation to the features ofsome woman on the stage or in the auditory. An actress's pretty faceor graceful figure many times diverted his attention from herprofessional incompetence. It is doubtful if there were any affrontwhich Pepys would not pardon in a pretty woman. Once when he was inthe pit, this curious experience befell him. "I sitting behind in adark place, " he writes, "a lady spit backward upon me by mistake, notseeing me; but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was nottroubled at it at all. " The volatile diarist studied much besides thedrama when he spent his afternoon or evening at the play. 

Never was there a more indefatigable playgoer than Pepys. Yet hisenthusiasm for the theatre was, to his mind, a failing which requiredmost careful watching. He feared that the passion might do injury tohis purse, might distract him from serious business, might lead himinto temptation of the flesh. He had a little of the Puritan's dreadof the playhouse. He was constantly taking vows to curb his love ofplays, which "mightily troubled his mind. " He was frequently resolvingto abstain from the theatre for four or five months at a stretch, andthen to go only in the company of his wife. During these periods ofabstinence he was in the habit of reading over his vows every Sunday. But, in spite of all his well-meaning efforts, his resolution wasconstantly breaking down. On one occasion he perjured himself sothoroughly as to witness two plays in one day, once in the afternoonand again in the evening. On this riotous outbreak he makes thecharacteristic comment: "Sad to think of the spending so much money, and of venturing the breach of my vow. " But he goes on to thank Godthat he had the grace to feel sorry for the misdeed, at the same timeas he lamented that "his nature was so content to follow the pleasurestill. " Pepys compounded with his conscience for such breaches of hisoath by all manner of casuistry. He excused himself for going, contrary to his vow, to the new theatre in Drury Lane, because it wasnot built when his vow was framed. Finally, he stipulated with himselfthat he would only go to the theatre once a fortnight; but if he wentoftener he would give £10 to the poor. "This, " he added, "I hope inGod will bind me. " The last reference that he makes to his vows iswhen, in contravention of them, he went with his wife to the Duke ofYork's House, and found the place full, and himself unable to obtainseats. He makes a final record of "the saving of his vow, to his greatcontent. "

II

All self-imposed restrictions notwithstanding, Pepys contrived tovisit the theatre no less than three hundred and fifty-one timesduring the nine years and five months that he kept his diary. It hasto be borne in mind that, for more than twelve months of that period, the London playhouses were for the most part closed, owing to theGreat Plague and the Fire. Had Pepys gone at regular intervals, whenthe theatres were open, he would have been a playgoer at least once aweek. But, owing to his vows, his visits fell at most irregularintervals. Sometimes he went three or four times a week, or even twicein one day. Then there would follow eight or nine weeks of abstinence. If a piece especially took his fancy, he would see it six or seventimes in fairly quick succession. Long runs were unknown to thetheatre of Pepys's day, but a successful piece was frequently revived. Occasionally, Pepys would put himself to the trouble of attending afirst night. But this was an indulgence that he practised sparingly. He resented the manager's habit of doubling the price of the seats, and he was irritated by the frequent want of adequate rehearsal. 

Pepys's theatrical experience began with the reopening of theatresafter the severe penalty of suppression, which the Civil Wars and theCommonwealth imposed on them for nearly eighteen years. His playgoingdiary thus became an invaluable record of a new birth of theatricallife in London. When, in the summer of 1660, General Monk occupiedLondon for the restored King, Charles II. , three of the old theatreswere still standing empty. These were soon put into repair, andapplied anew to theatrical uses, although only two of them seem tohave been open at any one time. The three houses were the Red Bull, dating from Elizabeth's reign, in St John's Street, Clerkenwell, wherePepys saw Marlowe's _Faustus_; Salisbury Court, Whitefriars, off FleetStreet; and the Old Cockpit in Drury Lane, both of which were of morerecent origin. To all these theatres Pepys paid early visits. But theCockpit in Drury Lane, was the scene of some of his most stirringexperiences. There he saw his first play, Beaumont and Fletcher's_Loyal Subject_; and there, too, he saw his first play by Shakespeare, _Othello_. 

But these three theatres were in decay, and new and sumptuousbuildings soon took their places. One of the new playhouses was inPortugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields; the other, on the site of thepresent Drury Lane Theatre, was the first of the many playhouses thatsprang up there. It is to these two theatres--Lincoln's Inn Fields andDrury Lane--that Pepys in his diary most often refers. He calls eachof them by many different names, and the unwary reader might inferthat London was very richly supplied with playhouses in Pepys's day. But public theatres in active work at this period of our history werenot permitted by the authorities to exceed two. "The Opera" and "theDuke's House" are merely Pepys's alternative designations of theLincoln's Inn Field's Theatre; while "the Theatre, " "Theatre Royal, "and "the King's House, " are the varying titles which he bestows on theDrury Lane Theatre. [15]

[Footnote 15: At the restoration of King Charles II. , no more than twocompanies of actors received licenses to perform in public. One ofthese companies was directed by Sir William D'Avenant, Shakespeare'sreputed godson, and was under the patronage of the King's brother, theDuke of York. The other was directed by Tom Killigrew, one of CharlesII. 's boon companions, and was under the patronage of the Kinghimself. In due time the Duke's, or D'Avenant's, company occupied thetheatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the King's, or Killigrew's, company occupied the new building in Drury Lane. ]

Besides these two public theatres there was, in the final constitutionof the theatrical world in Pepys's London, a third, which stood on adifferent footing. A theatre was attached to the King's Court atWhitehall, and there performances were given at the King's command byactors from the two public houses. [16] The private Whitehall theatrewas open to the public on payment, and Pepys was frequently there. 

[Footnote 16: Charles II. Formed this private theatre out of adetached building in St James's Park, known as the "Cockpit, " and tobe carefully distinguished from the Cockpit of Drury Lane. Part of theedifice was occupied by courtiers by favour of the King. General Monkhad lodgings there. At a much later date, cabinet councils were oftenheld there. ]

At one period of his life Pepys held that his vows did not apply tothe Court theatre, which was mainly distinguished from the otherhouses by the circumstances that the performances were given at night. At Lincoln's Inn Fields or Drury Lane it was only permitted to performin the afternoon. Half-past three was the usual hour for opening theproceedings. At Whitehall the play began about eight, and often lastedtill near midnight. 

The general organisation of Pepys's auditorium was much as it isto-day. It had improved in many particulars since Shakespeare died. The pit was the most popular part of the house; it covered the floorof the building, and was provided with seats; the price of admissionwas 2s. 6d. The company there seems to have been extremely mixed; menand women of fashion often rubbed elbows with City shopkeepers, theirwives, and apprentices. The first gallery was wholly occupied byboxes, in which seats could be hired separately at 4s. Apiece. Abovethe boxes was the middle gallery, the central part of which was filledwith benches, where the seats cost 1s. 6d. Each, while boxes lined thesides. The highest tier was the 1s. Gallery, where footmen soon heldsway. As Pepys's fortune improved, he spent more on his place in thetheatre. From the 1s. Gallery he descended to the 1s. 6d. , and thencecame down to the pit, occasionally ascending to the boxes on the firsttier. 

In the methods of representation, Pepys's period of playgoing wascoeval with many most important innovations, which seriously affectedthe presentation of Shakespeare on the stage. The chief was thedesirable substitution of women for boys in the female rôles. Duringthe first few months of Pepys's theatrical experience, boys were stilltaking the women's parts. That the practice survived in the first daysof Charles II. 's reign we know from the well-worn anecdote that whenthe King sent behind the scenes to inquire why the play of _Hamlet_, which he had come to see, was so late in commencing, he was answeredthat the Queen was not yet shaved. But in the opening month of 1661, within five months of Pepys's first visit to a theatre, the reign ofthe boys ended. On January 3rd of that year, Pepys writes that he"first saw women come upon the stage. " Next night he makes entry of aboy's performance of a woman's part, and that is the final record ofboys masquerading as women in the English theatre. I believe thepractice now survives nowhere except in Japan. This mode ofrepresentation has always been a great puzzle to students ofElizabethan drama. [17] Before, however, Pepys saw Shakespeare's workon the stage, the usurpation of the boys was over. 

[Footnote 17: For a fuller description of this theatrical practice, see pages 41-3 _supra_. ]

It was after the Restoration, too, that scenery, rich costume, andscenic machinery became, to Pepys's delight, regular features of thetheatre. When the diarist saw _Hamlet_ "done with scenes" for thefirst time, he was most favourably impressed. Musical accompanimentwas known to pre-Restoration days; but the orchestra was now for thefirst time placed on the floor of the house in front of the stage, instead of in a side gallery, or on the stage itself. The musicalaccompaniment of plays developed very rapidly, and the methods ofopera were soon applied to many of Shakespeare's pieces, notably to_The Tempest_ and _Macbeth_. 

Yet at the side of these innovations, one very important feature ofthe old playhouses, which gravely concerned both actors and auditors, survived throughout Pepys's lifetime. The stage still projected farinto the pit in front of the curtain. The actors and actresses spokein the centre of the house, so that, as Colley Cibber put it, "themost distant ear had scarce the least doubt or difficulty in hearingwhat fell from the weakest utterance . .. Nor was the minutest motionof a feature, properly changing with the passion or humour it suited, ever lost, as they frequently must be, in the obscurity of too great adistance. " The platform-stage, with which Shakespeare was familiar, suffered no curtailment in the English theatres till the eighteenthcentury, when the fore-edge of the boards was for the first time madeto run level with the proscenium. 

III

One of the obvious results of the long suppression of the theatresduring the Civil Wars and Commonwealth was the temporary extinction ofplay-writing in England. On the sudden reopening of the playhouses atthe Restoration, the managers had mainly to rely for sustenance on thedrama of a long-past age. Of the one hundred and forty-five separateplays which Pepys witnessed, fully half belonged to the great periodof dramatic activity in England, which covered the reigns ofElizabeth, James I. , and Charles I. John Evelyn's well-known remark inhis _Diary_ (November 26, 1661): "I saw _Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, played; but now the old plays begin to disgust this refined age, "requires much qualification before it can be made to apply to Pepys'srecords of playgoing. It was in "the old plays" that he and allaverage playgoers mainly delighted. 

Not that the new demand failed quickly to create a supply ofnew plays for the stage. Dryden and D'Avenant, the chief dramatistsof Pepys's day, were rapid writers. To a large extent they carriedon, with exaggeration of its defects and diminution of its merits, the old Elizabethan tradition of heroic romance, tragedy, andfarce. The more matter-of-fact and lower-principled comedy ofmanners, which is commonly reckoned the chief characteristicof the new era in theatrical history, was only just beginningwhen Pepys was reaching the end of his diary. The virtual leadersof the new movement--Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Congreve--werenot at work till long after Pepys ceased to write. He records only thefirst runnings of that sparkling stream. He witnessed some impudentcomedies of Dryden, Etherege, and Sedley. But it is important to notethat he formed a low opinion of all of them. Their intellectual glitterdid not appeal to him. Their cynical licentiousness seemed to him to bemerely "silly. " One might have anticipated from him a differentverdict on the frank obscenity of Restoration drama. But there are thefacts. Neither did Mr Pepys, nor (he is careful to remind us) did MrsPepys, take "any manner of pleasure in" the bold indelicacy of Dryden, Etherege, or Sedley. 

When we ask what sort of pieces Pepys appreciated, we seem to be facedby further perplexities. His highest enthusiasm was evoked by certainplays of Ben Jonson, of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of Massinger. Nearthe zenith of his scale of dramatic excellence he set the comedies ofBen Jonson, which are remarkable for their portrayal of eccentricityof character. These pieces, which incline to farce, give greatopportunity to what is commonly called character-acting, andcharacter-acting always appeals most directly to average humanity. Pepys called Jonson's _Alchemist_ "a most incomparable play, " and hefound in _Every Man in his Humour_ "the greatest propriety of speechthat ever I read in my life. " Similarly, both the heroic tragedies andthe comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, of which he saw no less thannineteen, roused in him, as a rule, an ecstatic admiration. But of alldramatic entertainments which the theatre offered him, Pepys was most"taken" by the romantic comedy from the pen of Massinger, which iscalled _The Bondman_. "There is nothing more taking in the world withme than that play, " he writes. 

Massinger's _Bondman_ is a well-written piece, in which an heroicinterest is fused with a genuine spirit of low comedy. Yet Pepys'sunqualified commendation of it presents a problem. Massinger's play, like the cognate work of Fletcher, offers much episode which is hardlyless indecent than those early specimens of Restoration comedy ofwhich Pepys disapproved. A leading character is a frowsy wife whofaces all manner of humiliation, in order to enjoy, behind her elderlyhusband's back, the embraces of a good-looking youth. 

Pepys is scarcely less tolerant of Fletcher's more flagrantinfringements of propriety. In the whole of the Elizabethan dramathere was no piece which presented so liberal a mass of indelicacy asFletcher's _Custom of the Country_. Dryden, who was innocent ofprudery, declared that there was "more indecency" in that drama "thanin all our plays together. " This was one of the pieces which Pepystwice saw performed after carefully reading it in his study, and heexpressed admiration for the rendering of the widow's part by hispretty friend, Mistress Knipp. One has to admit that Pepys condemnedthe play from a literary point of view as "a very poor one, methinks, "as "fully the worst play that I saw or believe shall see. " But thepleasure which Mistress Knipp's share in the performance gave himsuggests, in the absence of any explicit disclaimer, that theimproprieties of both plot and characters escaped his notice, or, atany rate, excited in him no disgust. Massinger's _Bondman_, Pepys'sideal of merit in drama, has little of the excessive grossness of the_Custom of the Country_. But to some extent it is tarred with the samebrush. 

Pepys's easy principles never lend themselves to very strictdefinition. Yet he may be credited with a certain measure ofdiscernment in pardoning the indelicacy of Fletcher and Massinger, while he condemns that of Dryden, Etherege, or Sedley. Indelicacy inthe older dramatists does not ignore worthier interests. Other topicsattracted the earlier writers besides conjugal infidelity and thefrailty of virgins, which were the sole themes of Restoration comedy. Massinger's heroes are not always gay seducers. His husbands are notalways fools. Pepys might quite consistently scorn the ribaldry ofEtherege and condone the obscenity of Fletcher. It was a question ofdegree. Pepys was clear in his own mind that a line must be drawnsomewhere, though it would probably have taxed his logical power tomake the delimitation precise. 

IV

There is, apparently, a crowning difficulty of far greater moment whenfinally estimating Pepys's taste in dramatic literature. Despite hisadmiration for the ancient drama, he acknowledged a very temperedregard for the greatest of all the old dramatists--Shakespeare. Helived and died in complacent unconsciousness of Shakespeare's supremeexcellence. Such innocence is attested by his conduct outside, as wellas inside, the theatre. He prided himself on his taste as a reader anda book collector, and bought for his library many plays in quartowhich he diligently perused. Numerous separately issued pieces byShakespeare lay at his disposal in the bookshops. But he only recordsthe purchase of one--the first part of _Henry IV. _, though he mentionsthat he read in addition _Othello_ and _Hamlet_. When his booksellerfirst offered him the great First Folio edition of Shakespeare'sworks, he rejected it for Fuller's _Worthies_ and the newly-publishedButler's _Hudibras_, in which, by the way, he failed to discover thewit. Ultimately he bought the newly-issued second impression of theThird Folio Shakespeare, along with copies of Spelman's _Glossary_ andScapula's _Lexicon_. To these soporific works of reference heapparently regarded the dramatist's volume as a fitting pendant. Heseemed subsequently to have exchanged the Third Folio for a Fourth, bywhich volume alone is Shakespeare represented in the extant librarythat Pepys bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

As a regular playgoer at a time when the stage mainly depended on thedrama of Elizabethan days, Pepys was bound to witness numerousperformances of Shakespeare's plays. On the occasion of forty-one ofhis three hundred and fifty-one visits to the theatre, Pepys listenedto plays by Shakespeare, or to pieces based upon them. Once in everyeight performances Shakespeare was presented to his view. Fourteenwas the number of different plays by Shakespeare which Pepys sawduring these forty-one visits. Very few caused him genuine pleasure. At least three he condemns, without any qualification, as "tedious, "or "silly. " In the case of others, while he ignored the literarymerit, he enjoyed the scenery and music with which, in accordance withcurrent fashion, the dramatic poetry was overlaid. In only two cases, in the case of two tragedies--_Othello_ and _Hamlet_--does he show atany time a true appreciation of the dramatic quality, and in the caseof _Othello_ he came in course of years to abandon his good opinion. 

Pepys's moderate praise and immoderate blame of Shakespeare are onlysuperficially puzzling. The ultimate solution is not difficult. Despite his love of music and his zeal as a collector, Pepys was themost matter-of-fact of men; he was essentially a man of business. Notthat he had any distaste for timely recreation; he was, indeed, readily susceptible to every manner of commonplace pleasures--to allthe delights of both mind and sense which appeal to the practical andhard-headed type of Englishman. Things of the imagination, on theother hand, stood with him on a different footing. They were out ofhis range or sphere. Poetry and romance, unless liberally compoundedwith prosaic ingredients, bored him on the stage and elsewhere. 

In the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Massinger and Ben Jonson, poetry and romance were for the most part kept in the background. Suchelements lay there behind a substantial barrier of conventional stagemachinery and elocutionary scaffolding. In Shakespeare, poetry andromance usually eluded the mechanical restrictions of the theatre. The gold had a tendency to separate itself from the alloy, and Pepysonly found poetry and romance endurable when they were pretty thicklyveiled behind the commonplaces of rhetoric or broad fun or therealistic ingenuity of the stage carpenter and upholsterer. 

There is, consequently, no cause for surprise that Pepys should writethus of Shakespeare's ethereal comedy of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_:"Then to the King's Theatre, where we saw _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is themost insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, Iconfess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all mypleasure. " This is Pepys's ordinary attitude of mind to undilutedpoetry on the stage. 

Pepys only saw _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ once. _Twelfth Night_, ofwhich he wrote in very similar strains, he saw thrice. On the firstoccasion his impatience of this romantic play was due to externalcauses. He went to the theatre "against his own mind and resolution. "He was over-persuaded to go in by a friend, with whom he was casuallywalking past the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Moreover, he had justsworn to his wife that he would never go to a play without her: allwhich considerations "made the piece seem a burden" to him. Hewitnessed _Twelfth Night_ twice again in a less perturbed spirit, andthen he called it a "silly" play, or "one of the weakest plays thatever I saw on the stage. "

Again, of _Romeo and Juliet_, Pepys wrote: "It is a play of itself theworst I ever heard in my life. " This verdict, it is right to add, wasattributable, in part at least, to Pepys's irritation at the badnessof the acting, and at the actors' ignorance of their words. It was afirst night. 

The literary critic knows well enough that the merit of these threepieces--_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Twelfth Night_, and _Romeo andJuliet_--mainly lies in their varied wealth of poetic imagery andpassion. One thing alone could render the words, in which poeticgenius finds voice, tolerable in the playhouse to a spectator ofPepys's prosaic temperament. The one thing needful is inspired acting, and in the case of these three plays, when Pepys saw them performed, inspired acting was wanting. 

It is at first sight disconcerting to find Pepys no less impatient of_The Merry Wives of Windsor_. He expresses a mild interest in thehumours of "the country gentleman and the French doctor. " But hecondemns the play as a whole. It is in his favour that his bitterestreproaches are aimed at the actors and actresses. One can hardlyconceive that Falstaff, fitly interpreted, would have failed tosatisfy Pepys's taste in humour, commonplace though it was. He is notquite explicit on the point; but there are signs that the histrionicinterpretation of Shakespeare's colossal humorist, rather than thedramatist's portrayal of the character, caused the diarist'sdisappointment. 

Just before Pepys saw the first part of _Henry IV. _, wherein Falstafffigures to supreme advantage, he had bought and read the play inquarto. "But my expectation being too great" (he avers), "it did notplease me as otherwise I believe it would. " Here it seems clear thathis hopes of the actor were unfulfilled. However, he saw _Henry IV. _again a few months later, and had the grace to describe it as "a goodplay. " On a third occasion he wrote that, "contrary to expectation, "he was pleased by the delivery of Falstaff's ironical speech abouthonour. For whatever reason, Pepys's affection for Shakespeare's fatknight, as he figured on the stage of his day, never touched the noteof exaltation. 

Of Shakespeare's great tragedies Pepys saw three--_Othello_, _Hamlet_, and _Macbeth_. But in considering his several impressions of thesepieces, we have to make an important proviso. Only the first two ofthem did he witness in the authentic version. _Macbeth_ underwent inhis day a most liberal transformation, which carried it far from itsprimordial purity. The impressions he finally formed of _Othello_ and_Hamlet_ are not consistent one with the other, but are eminentlycharacteristic of the variable moods of the average playgoer. 

_Othello_ he saw twice, and he tells us more of the acting than of theplay itself. On his first visit he notes that the lady next himshrieked on seeing Desdemona smothered: a proof of the strength of thehistrionic illusion. Up to the year 1666 Pepys adhered to thepraiseworthy opinion that _Othello_ was a "mighty good" play. But inthat year his judgment took a turn for the worse, and that for areason which finally convicts him of incapacity to pass just sentenceon the poetic or literary drama. On August 20, 1666, he writes: "Read_Othello, Moor of Venice_, which I have ever heretofore esteemed amighty good play; but having so lately read the _Adventures of FiveHours_, it seems a mean thing. "

Most lovers of Shakespeare will agree that the great dramatist rarelyshowed his mature powers to more magnificent advantage than in histreatment of plot and character in _Othello_. What, then, is this_Adventures of Five Hours_, compared with which _Othello_ became inPepys's eyes "a mean thing"? It is a trivial comedy of intrigue, adapted from the Spanish by one Sir Samuel Tuke. A choleric guardianarranges for his ward, who also happens to be his sister, to marryagainst her will a man whom she has never seen. Without her guardian'sknowledge she, before the design goes further, escapes with a lover ofher own choosing. In her place she leaves a close friend, who is wooedin mistake for herself by the suitor destined for her own hand. Thisis the main dramatic point; the thread is very slender, and is drawnout to its utmost limits through five acts of blank verse. Thelanguage and metre are scrupulously correct. But one cannot credit theplay with any touch of poetry or imagination. It presents a tritetheme tamely and prosaically. Congenital inability of the mostinveterate toughness to appreciate dramatic poetry could alone accountfor a mention of the _Adventures of Five Hours_ in the same breathwith _Othello_. 

Pepys did not again fall so low as this. The only other tragedy ofShakespeare which he saw in its authentic purity moved him, contradictorily, to transports of unqualified delight. One is glad torecall that _Hamlet_, one of the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, received from Pepys ungrudging commendation. Pepys's favourableopinion of _Hamlet_ is to be assigned to two causes. One is theliterary and psychological attractions of the piece; the other, andperhaps the more important, is the manner in which the play wasinterpreted on the stage of Pepys's time. 

Pepys is not the only owner of a prosaic mind who has foundsatisfaction in Shakespeare's portrait of the Prince of Denmark. Overminds of almost every calibre, that hero of the stage has alwaysexerted a pathetic fascination, which natural antipathy to poetryseems unable to extinguish. Pepys's testimony to his respect for thepiece is abundant. The whole of one Sunday afternoon (November 13, 1664), he spent at home with his wife, "getting a speech out of_Hamlet_, 'To be or not to be, ' without book. " He proved, indeed, hissingular admiration for those familiar lines in a manner which Ibelieve to be unique. He set them to music, and the notes are extantin a book of manuscript music in his library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The piece is a finely-elaborated recitative fully equal tothe requirements of grand opera. The composer gives intelligent anddignified expression to every word of the soliloquy. Very impressiveis the modulation of the musical accompaniment to the lines--

 To die, to sleep! To sleep, perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub. 

It is possible that the cadences of this musical rendering of Hamlet'sspeech preserve some echo of the intonation of the great actor, Betterton, whose performance evoked in Pepys lasting adoration. [18]

[Footnote 18: Sir Frederick Bridge, by permission of the Master andFellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, caused this setting of "To beor not to be" (which bears no composer's signature) to be transcribedfrom the manuscript, and he arranged the piece to be sung at themeeting of the Pepys Club on November 30, 1905. Sir Frederick Bridgebelieves Pepys to be the composer. ]

It goes without saying that, for the full enjoyment of a performanceof _Hamlet_ by both cultured and uncultured spectators, acting ofsupreme quality is needful. Luckily for Pepys, Hamlet in his day wasrendered by an actor who, according to ample extant testimony, interpreted the part to perfection. Pepys records four performances of_Hamlet_, with Betterton in the title-rôle on each occasion. Withevery performance Pepys's enthusiasm rose. The first time he writes(August 24, 1661): "Saw the play done with scenes very well at theOpera, but above all Betterton did the Prince's part beyondimagination. " On the third occasion (May 28, 1663) the rendering gavehim "fresh reason never to think enough of Betterton. " On the lastoccasion (August 31, 1668) he was "mightily pleased, " but above allwith Betterton, "the best part, I believe, that ever man acted. "

_Hamlet_ was one of the most popular plays of Pepys's day, mainlyowing to Betterton's extraordinary faculty. The history of theimpersonation presents numerous points of the deepest interest. Theactor was originally coached in the part by D'Avenant. The latter issaid to have derived hints for the rendering from an old actor, JosephTaylor, who had played the rôle in Shakespeare's own day, and had beeninstructed in it by the dramatist himself. This tradition givesadditional value to Pepys's musical setting in recitative of the "Tobe or not to be" soliloquy. If we accept the reasonable theory thatthat piece of music preserves something of the cadences of Betterton'senunciation, it is no extravagance to suggest that a note here orthere enshrines the modulation of the voice of Shakespeare himself. For there is the likelihood that the dramatist was Betterton'sinstructor at no more than two removes. Only the lips of D'Avenant, Shakespeare's godson, and of Taylor, Shakespeare's acting colleague, intervened between the dramatist and the Hamlet of Pepys's diary. Those alone, who have heard the musical setting of "To be or not tobe" adequately rendered, are in a position to reject this hypothesisaltogether. 

Among seventeenth century critics there was unanimous agreement--arare thing among dramatic critics of any period--as to the merits ofBetterton's performance. In regard to his supreme excellence, men ofthe different mental calibre of Sir Richard Steele, Colley Cibber, andNicholas Rowe, knew no difference of opinion. According to Cibber, Betterton invariably preserved the happy "medium between mouthing andmeaning too little"; he held the attention of the audience by "atempered spirit, " not by mere vehemence of voice. His solemn, trembling voice made the Ghost equally terrible to the spectator andto himself. Another critic relates that when Betterton's Hamlet sawthe Ghost in his mother's chamber, the actor turned as pale as hisneckcloth; every joint of his body seemed to be affected with a tremorinexpressible, and the audience shared his astonishment and horror. Nicholas Rowe declared that "Betterton performed the part as if it hadbeen written on purpose for him, as if the author had conceived it ashe played it. " It is difficult to imagine any loftier commendation ofa Shakespearean player. 

V

There is little reason to doubt that the plays of Shakespeare which Ihave enumerated were all seen by Pepys in authentic shapes. Bettertonacted Lear, we are positively informed, "exactly as Shakespeare wroteit"; and at the dates when Pepys saw _Hamlet_, _Twelfth Night_, andthe rest, there is no evidence that the old texts had been tamperedwith. The rage for adapting Shakespeare to current theatricalrequirements reached its full tide after the period of Pepys's diary. Pepys witnessed only the first-fruits of that fantastic movement. Itacquired its greatest luxuriance later. The pioneer of the greatscheme of adaptation was Sir William D'Avenant, and he was aided inPepys's playgoing days by no less a personage than Dryden. It wasduring the succeeding decade that the scandal, fanned by the energiesof lesser men, was at its unseemly height. 

No disrespect seems to have been intended to Shakespeare's memory bythose who devoted themselves to these acts of vandalism. Howeverdifficult it may be to realise the fact, true admiration forShakespeare's genius seems to have flourished in the breasts of allthe adapters, great and small. D'Avenant, whose earliest poeticproduction was a pathetic elegy on the mighty dramatist, never ceasedto write or speak of him with the most affectionate respect. Dryden, who was first taught by D'Avenant "to admire" Shakespeare's work, attests in his critical writings a reverence for its uniqueexcellence, which must satisfy the most enthusiastic worshipper. Thesame temper characterises references to Shakespeare on the part ofdramatists of the Restoration, who brought to the adaptation ofShakespeare abilities of an order far inferior to those of Dryden orof D'Avenant. Nahum Tate, one of the least respected names in Englishliterature, was one of the freest adapters of Shakespearean drama tothe depraved taste of the day. Yet even he assigned to the masterplaywright unrivalled insight into the darkest mysteries of humannature, and an absolute mastery of the faculty of accuratecharacterisation. For once, Tate's literary judgment must gounquestioned. 

It was no feeling of disrespect or of dislike for Shakespeare'swork--it was the change that was taking place in the methods oftheatrical representation, which mainly incited the Shakespeareanadapters of the Restoration to their benighted labours. Shakespearehad been acted without scenery or musical accompaniment. As soon asscenic machinery and music had become ordinary accessories of thestage, it seemed to theatrical managers almost a point of honour tofit Shakespearean drama to the new conditions. To abandon himaltogether was sacrilege. Yet the mutation of public taste offered, asthe only alternative to his abandonment, the obligation of bestowingon his work every mechanical advantage, every tawdry ornament in thelatest mode. 

Pepys fully approved the innovations, and two of the earliest ofShakespearean adaptations won his unqualified eulogy. These wereD'Avenant's reconstructions of _The Tempest_ and _Macbeth. _ D'Avenanthad convinced himself that both plays readily lent themselves tospectacle; they would repay the embellishments of ballets, new songs, new music, coloured lights, and flying machines. Reinforced by thesecharms of novelty, the old pieces might enjoy an everlasting youth. Nospectator more ardently applauded such bastard sentiment than theplaygoing Pepys. 

Of the two pieces, the text of _Macbeth_ was abbreviated, butotherwise the alterations in the blank-verse speeches werecomparatively slight. Additional songs were provided for the Witches, together with much capering in the air. Music was specially written byMatthew Locke. The liberal introduction of song and dance rendered thepiece, in Pepys's strange phrase, "a most excellent play for variety. "He saw D'Avenant's version of it no less than eight times, withever-increasing enjoyment. He generously praised the clevercombination of "a deep tragedy with a divertissement. " He detected noincongruity in the amalgamation. "Though I have seen it often, " hewrote later, "yet is it one of the best plays for a stage, and forvariety of dancing and music, that ever I saw. "

_The Tempest_, the other adapted play, which is prominent in Pepys'sdiary, underwent more drastic revision. Here D'Avenant had theco-operation of Dryden; and no intelligent reader can hesitate toaffirm that the ingenuity of these worthies ruined this splendidmanifestation of poetic fancy and insight. It is only fair to Drydento add that he disclaimed any satisfaction in his share in theoutrage. The first edition of the barbarous revision was firstpublished in 1670, after D'Avenant's death, and Dryden wrote apreface, in which he prudently remarked: "I do not set a value onanything I have written in this play but [_i. E. _, except] out ofgratitude to the memory of Sir William Davenant, who did me the honourto join me with him in the alteration of it. "

The numerous additions, for which the distinguished coadjutors areresponsible, reek with mawkish sentimentality, inane vapidity, orvulgar buffoonery. Most of the leading characters are duplicated ortriplicated. Miranda has a sister, Dorinda, who is repellentlycoquettish. This new creation finds a lover in another new character, a brainless youth, Hippolito, who has never before seen a woman. Caliban becomes the most sordid of clowns, and is allotted a sister, Milcha, who apes his coarse buffoonery. Ariel, too, is given a femaleassociate, Sycorax, together with many attendants. The sailors areincreased in number, and a phalanx of dancing devils join in theirantics. 

But the chief feature of the revived _Tempest_ was the music, the elaborate scenery, and the scenic mechanism. [19] There wasan orchestra of twenty-four violins in front of the stage, withharpsichords and "theorbos" to accompany the voices; new songswere dispersed about the piece with unsparing hand. The curiousnew "Echo" song in Act III. --a duet between Ferdinand and Ariel--wasdeemed by Pepys to be so "mighty pretty" that he requested thecomposer--Bannister--to "prick him down the notes. " Many times did theaudience shout with joy as Ariel, with a _corps de ballet_ inattendance, winged his flight to the roof of the stage. 

[Footnote 19: The Dryden-D'Avenant perversion of _The Tempest_ whichPepys witnessed underwent a further deterioration in 1673, when ThomasShadwell, poet laureate, to the immense delight of the playgoingpublic, rendered the piece's metamorphosis into an opera morecomplete. In 1674 the Dryden-D'Avenant edition was reissued, withShadwell's textual and scenic amplification, although no indicationwas given on the title-page or elsewhere of his share in the venture. Contemporary histories of the stage make frequent reference toShadwell's "Opera" of _The Tempest_; but no copy was known to beextant until Sir Ernest Clarke proved, in _The Athenæum_ for August25, 1906, that the second and later editions of the Dryden-D'Avenantversion embodied Shadwell's operatic embellishments, and are copies ofwhat was known in theatrical circles of the day as Shadwell's "Opera. "Shadwell's stage-directions are more elaborate than those of Drydenand D'Avenant, and there are other minor innovations; but there islittle difference in the general design of the two versions. Shadwellmerely bettered Dryden's and D'Avenant's instructions. ]

The scenic devices which distinguished the Restoration production of_The Tempest_ have, indeed, hardly been excelled for ingenuity in ourown day. The arrangements for the sinking of the ship in the firstscene would do no discredit to the spectacular magnificence of theLondon stage of our own day. The scene represented "a thick cloudysky, a very rocky coast, and a tempestuous sea in perpetualagitation. " "This tempest, " according to the stage-directions, "hasmany dreadful objects in it; several spirits in horrid shapes flyingdown among the sailors, then rising and crossing in the air; and whenthe ship is sinking, the whole house is darkened and a shower of firefalls upon the vessel. This is accompanied by lightning and severalclaps of thunder till the end of the storm. " The stage-manager's notesproceed:--"In the midst of the shower of fire, the scene changes. Thecloudy sky, rocks, and sea vanish, and when the lights return, discover that beautiful part of the island, which was the habitationof Prospero: 'tis composed of three walks of cypress trees; eachside-walk leads to a cave, in one of which Prospero keeps hisdaughter, in the other Hippolito (the interpolated character of theman who has never seen a woman). The middle walk is of great depth, and leads to an open part of the island. " Every scene of the play wasframed with equal elaborateness. 

Pepys's comment on _The Tempest_, when he first witnessed itsproduction in such magnificent conditions, runs thus:--"The play hasno great wit but yet good above ordinary plays. " Pepys subsequently, however, saw the piece no less than five times, and the effect of themusic, dancing, and scenery, steadily grew upon him. On his secondvisit he wrote:--"Saw _The Tempest_ again, which is very pleasant, andfull of so good variety, that I cannot be more pleased almost in acomedy. Only the seamen's part a little too tedious. " Finally, Pepyspraised the richly-embellished _Tempest_ without any sort of reserve, and took "pleasure to learn the tune of the seamen's dance. "

Other adaptations of Shakespeare, which followed somewhat lessspectacular methods of barbarism, roused in Pepys smaller enthusiasm. _The Rivals_, a version by D'Avenant of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (thejoint production of Fletcher and Shakespeare), was judged by Pepys tobe "no excellent piece, " though he appreciated the new songs, whichincluded the familiar "My lodging is on the cold ground, " with musicby Matthew Locke. Pepys formed a higher opinion of D'Avenant'sliberally-altered version of _Measure for Measure_, which the adaptercalled _The Law against Lovers_, and into which he introduced, withgrotesque effect, the characters of Beatrice and Benedick from _MuchAdo about Nothing_. But it is more to Pepys's credit that he bestoweda very qualified approval on an execrable adaptation by the actor Lacyof _The Taming of the Shrew_. Here the hero, Petruchio, isovershadowed by a new character, Sawney, his Scottish servant, whospeaks an unintelligible _patois_. "It hath some very good pieces init, " writes Pepys, "but generally is but a mean play, and the bestpart, Sawny, done by Lacy, hath not half its life by reason of thewords, I suppose, not being understood, at least by me. "

VI

It might be profitable to compare Pepys's experiences as a spectatorof Shakespeare's plays on the stage with the opportunities open toplaygoers at the present moment. Modern managers have been producingShakespearean drama of late with great liberality, and usually in muchsplendour. Neither the points of resemblance between the modern andthe Pepysian methods, nor the points of difference, are flattering tothe esteem of ourselves as a literature-loving people. It is true thatwe no longer garble our acting versions of Shakespeare. We are contentwith abbreviations of the text, some of which are essential, but manyof which injure the dramatic perspective, and with inversion of sceneswhich may or may not be justifiable. But, to my mind, it is in ourlarge dependence on scenery that we are following too closely thattradition of the Restoration which won the wholehearted approval ofPepys. The musico-scenic method of producing Shakespeare can alwayscount on the applause of the average multitude of playgoers, of whichPepys is the ever-living spokesman. It is Shakespeare with scenicmachinery, Shakespeare with new songs, Shakespeare with incidentalmusic, Shakespeare with interpolated ballets, that reaches the heartof the British public. If the average British playgoer were giftedwith Pepys's frankness, I have little doubt that he would echo thediarist's condemnation of Shakespeare in his poetic purity, ofShakespeare as the mere interpreter of human nature, of Shakespearewithout flying machines, of Shakespeare without song and dance; hewould characterise undiluted Shakespearean drama as "a mean thing, " orthe most tedious entertainment that ever he was at in his life. 

But the situation in Pepys's day had, despite all the perils thatmenaced it, a saving grace. Great acting, inspired acting, is anessential condition to any general appreciation in the theatre ofShakespeare's dramatic genius. However seductive may be themusico-scenic ornamentation, Shakespeare will never justly affect themind of the average playgoer unless great or inspired actors are athand to interpret him. Luckily for Pepys, he was the contemporary ofat least one inspired Shakespearean actor. The exaltation of spirit towhich he confesses, when he witnessed Betterton in the rôle of Hamlet, is proof that the prosaic multitude for whom he speaks will alwaysrespond to Shakespeare's magic touch when genius wields the actor'swand. One could wish nothing better for the playgoing public of to-daythan that the spirit of Betterton, Shakespeare's guardian angel in thetheatre of the Restoration, might renew its earthly career in our owntime in the person of some contemporary actor. 

V

MR BENSON AND SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA[20]

[Footnote 20: This paper was first printed in the _Cornhill Magazine_, May 1900. ]

I

Dramatic criticism in the daily press of London often resembles thatmethod of conversation of which Bacon wrote that it seeks "rathercommendation of wit, in being able to hold argument, than of judgment, in discerning what is true. " For four-and-twenty years Mr F. R. Bensonhas directed an acting company which has achieved a reputation inEnglish provincial cities, in Ireland, and in Scotland, by itsexclusive devotion to Shakespearean and classical drama. Mr Benson'svisits to London have been rare. There he has too often made sport forthe journalistic censors who aim at "commendation of wit. "

Even the best-intentioned of Mr Benson's critics in London have falleninto the habit of concentrating attention on unquestionable defects inMr Benson's practice, to the neglect of the vital principles which arethe justification of his policy. Mr Benson's principles have beenlargely ignored by the newspapers; but they are not wiselydisregarded. They are matters of urgent public interest. They pointthe right road to the salvation of Shakespearean drama on the modernstage. They cannot be too often pressed on public notice. 

These, in my view, are the five points of the charter which Mr Bensonis and has long been championing with a persistency which claimsnational recognition. 

Firstly, it is to the benefit of the nation that Shakespeare's playsshould be acted constantly and in their variety. 

Secondly, a theatrical manager who undertakes to produce Shakespeareandrama should change his programme at frequent intervals, and shouldpermit no long continuous run of any single play. 

Thirdly, all the parts, whatever their significance, should beentrusted to exponents who have been trained in the delivery of blankverse, and have gained some knowledge and experience of the range ofShakespearean drama. 

Fourthly, no play should be adapted by the manager so as to givegreater prominence than the text invites to any single rôle. 

Fifthly, the scenic embellishment should be simple and inexpensive, and should be subordinated to the dramatic interest. 

There is no novelty in these principles. The majority of them wereaccepted unhesitatingly in the past by Betterton, Garrick, EdmundKean, the Kembles, and notably by Phelps. They are recognisedprinciples to-day in the leading theatres of France and Germany. Butby some vagary of fate or public taste they have been reckoned inLondon, for a generation at any rate, to be out of date. 

In the interest of the manager, the actor, and the student, a returnto the discarded methods has become, in the opinion of an influentialsection of the educated public, imperative. Mr Benson is the onlymanager of recent date to inscribe boldly and continuously on hisbanner the old watchwords: "Shakespeare and the National Drama, ""Short Runs, " "No Stars, " "All-round Competence, " and "UnostentatiousSetting. " What better title could be offered to the support andencouragement of the intelligent playgoer?

II

A constant change of programme, such as the old methods of the stagerequire, causes the present generation of London playgoers, to whom itis unfamiliar, a good deal of perplexity. Londoners have grownaccustomed to estimate the merits of a play by the number ofperformances which are given of it in uninterrupted succession. Theyhave forgotten how mechanical an exercise of the lungs and limbsacting easily becomes; how frequent repetition of poetic speeches, even in the most competent mouths, robs the lines of their poetictemper. 

Numbness of intellect, rigidity of tone, artificiality of expression, are fatal alike to the enunciation of Shakespearean language and tothe interpretation of Shakespearean character. The system of shortruns, of the nightly alterations of the play, such as Mr Benson hasrevived, is the only sure preservative against maladies so fatal. 

Hardly less important is Mr Benson's new-old principle of "casting" aplay of Shakespeare. Not only in the leading rôles of Shakespeare'smasterpieces, but in subordinate parts throughout the range of hiswork, the highest abilities of the actor can find some scope foremployment. A competent knowledge of the poet's complete work isneeded to bring this saving truth home to those who are engaged inpresenting Shakespearean drama on the stage. An actor hardly realisesthe real force of the doctrine until he has had experience of thepotentialities of a series of the smaller characters by makingpractical endeavours to interpret them. Adequate opportunities of thekind are only accessible to members of a permanent company, whoseenergies are absorbed in the production of the Shakespearean dramaconstantly and in its variety, and whose programme is untrammelled bythe poisonous system of "long runs. " Shakespearean actors should drinkdeep of the Pierian spring. They should be graduates in Shakespeare'suniversity; and, unlike graduates of other universities, they shouldmaster not merely formal knowledge, but a flexible power of using it. 

Mr Benson's company is, I believe, the only one at present inexistence in England which confines almost all its efforts to theacting of Shakespeare. In the course of its twenty-four years'existence its members have interpreted in the theatre no less thanthirty of Shakespeare's plays. [21] The natural result is that MrBenson and his colleagues have learned in practice the varied callsthat Shakespearean drama makes upon actors' capacities. 

[Footnote 21: Mr Benson, writing to me on 13th January 1906, gives thefollowing list of plays by Shakespeare which he has produced:--_Antonyand Cleopatra_, _As You Like It_, _The Comedy of Errors_, _Coriolanus_, _Hamlet_, _Henry IV. (Parts 1 and 2)_, _Henry V. _, _Henry VI. (Parts 1, 2, and 3)_, _Henry VIII. _, _Julius Cæsar_, _KingJohn_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_, _The Merchant of Venice_, _The MerryWives of Windsor_, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Much Ado AboutNothing_, _Othello_, _Pericles_, _Richard II. _, _Richard III. _, _Romeoand Juliet_, _The Taming of the Shrew_, _The Tempest_, _Timon ofAthens_, _Twelfth Night_, and _A Winter's Tale_. Phelps's record onlyexceeded Mr Benson's by one. He produced thirty-one of Shakespeare'splays in all, but he omitted _Richard II. _, and the three parts of_Henry VI. _, which Mr Benson has acted, while he included _Love'sLabour's Lost_, _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _All's Well that EndsWell_, _Cymbeline_, and _Measure for Measure_, which Mr Benson, sofar, has eschewed. Mr Phelps and Mr Benson are at one in avoiding_Titus Andronicus_ and _Troilus and Cressida_. ]

Members of Mr Benson's company have made excellent use of theiropportunities. An actor, like the late Frank Rodney, who could on onenight competently portray Bolingbroke in _Richard II. _ and on thefollowing night the clown Feste in _Twelfth Night_ with equal effect, clearly realised something of the virtue of Shakespearean versatility. Mr Benson's leading comedian, Mr Weir, whose power of presentingShakespeare's humorists shows, besides native gifts, the advantagesthat come of experienced study of the dramatist, not only interprets, in the genuine spirit, great rôles like Falstaff and Touchstone, butgives the truest possible significance to the comparativelyunimportant rôles of the First Gardener in _Richard II. _ and Grumio in_The Taming of the Shrew_. 

Nothing could be more grateful to a student of Shakespeare than themanner in which the small part of John of Gaunt was played by MrWarburton in Mr Benson's production of _Richard II. _ The part includesthe glorious panegyric of England which comes from the lips of thedying man, and must challenge the best efforts of every actor ofambition and self-respect. But in the mouth of an actor who lacksknowledge of the true temper of Shakespearean drama, this speech iscertain to be mistaken for a detached declamation of patriotism--anerror which ruins its dramatic significance. As Mr Warburton deliveredit, one listened to the despairing cry of a feeble old man roused fora moment from the lethargy of sickness by despair at the thought thatthe great country he loved was in peril of decay through the selfishand frivolous temper of its ruler. Instead of a Chauvinist manifestodefiantly declaimed under the limelight, there was offered us thequiet pathos of a dying patriot's lament over his beloved country'smisfortunes--an oracular warning from a death-stricken tongue, foreshadowing with rare solemnity and dramatic irony the violent doomof the reckless worker of the mischief. Any other conception of thepassage, any conscious endeavour to win a round of applause byelocutionary display, would disable the actor from doing justice tothe great and sadly stirring utterance. The right note could only besounded by one who was acclimatised to Shakespearean drama, and hadrecognised the wealth of significance to be discovered and to bedisclosed (with due artistic restraint) in Shakespeare's minorcharacters. 

III

The benefits to be derived from the control of a trained school ofShakespearean actors were displayed very conspicuously when Mr Bensonundertook six years ago the heroic task of performing the play of_Hamlet_, as Shakespeare wrote it, without any abbreviation. _Hamlet_is the longest of Shakespeare's plays; it reaches a total of over 3900lines. It is thus some 900 lines longer than _Antony and Cleopatra_, which of all Shakespeare's plays most nearly approaches its length. Consequently it is a tradition of the stage to cut the play of_Hamlet_ by the omission of more than a third. Hamlet's part isusually retained almost in its entirety, but the speeches of everyother character are seriously curtailed. Mr Benson ventured on thebold innovation of giving the play in full. [22]

[Footnote 22: The performance occupied nearly six hours. One half wasgiven in the afternoon, and the other half in the evening of the sameday, with an interval of an hour and a half between the two sections. Should the performance be repeated, I would recommend, in theinterests of busy men and women, that the whole play be rendered at asingle sitting, which might be timed to open at a somewhat earlierhour in the evening than is now customary, and might, if need be, close a little later. There should be no difficulty in restricting thehours occupied by the performance to four and a half. ]

Only he who has witnessed the whole play on the stage can fullyappreciate its dramatic capabilities. It is obvious that, in whatevershape the play of _Hamlet_ is produced in the theatre, its successmust always be primarily due to the overpowering fascination exertedon the audience by the character of the hero. In every conceivablecircumstance the young prince must be the centre of attraction. Nevertheless, no graver injury can be done the play as an acting dramathan by treating it as a one-part piece. The accepted method ofshortening the tragedy by reducing every part, except that of Hamlet, is to distort Shakespeare's whole scheme, to dislocate or obscure thewhole action. The predominance of Hamlet is exaggerated at the expenseof the dramatist's artistic purpose. 

To realise completely the motives of Hamlet's conduct, and the processof his fortunes, not a single utterance from the lips of the King, Polonius, or Laertes can be spared. In ordinary acting versions thesethree parts sink into insignificance. It is only in the full text thatthey assume their just and illuminating rank as Hamlet's foils. 

The King rises into a character almost of the first class. He is avillain of unfathomable infamy, but his cowardly fear of the discoveryof his crimes, his desperate pursuit of the consolations of religion, the quick ingenuity with which he plots escape from the inevitableretribution that dogs his misdeeds, excite--in the full text of theplay--an interest hardly less intense than those wistful musings ofthe storm-tossed soul which stay his nephew's avenging hand. 

Similarly, Hamlet's incisive wit and honesty are brought into thehighest possible relief by the restoration to the feebly guilefulPolonius of the speeches of which he has long been deprived. Among thereinstated scenes is that in which the meddlesome dotard teaches hisservant Reynaldo modes of espionage that shall detect the moral lapsesof his son Laertes in Paris. The recovered episode is not onlyadmirable comedy, but it gives new vividness to Polonius's maudlinegotism which is responsible for many windings of the tragic plot. 

The story is simplified at all points by such amplifications of thecontracted version which holds the stage. The events are evolved withunsuspected naturalness. The hero's character gains by the expansionof its setting. One downright error which infects the standardabridgement is wholly avoided. Ophelia is dethroned. It is recognisedthat she is not entitled to share with Hamlet the triumphal honours ofthe action. Weak, insipid, destitute of all force of character, shedeserves an insignificant place in Shakespeare's gallery of heroines. Hamlet's mother merits as much or more attention. At any rate, thereis no justification for reducing the Queen's part in order to increaseOphelia's prominence. Such distortions are impossible in theproduction of the piece in its entirety. Throughout _Hamlet_, in thefull authorised text, the artistic balance hangs true. Mr Bensonrecognised that dominant fact, and contrived to illustrate it on thestage. No higher commendation could be allowed a theatrical manager oractor. 

IV

Much else could be said of Mr Benson's principles, and of hispraiseworthy energy in seeking to familiarise the playgoer withShakespearean drama in all its fulness and variety, but only one otherspecific feature of his method needs mention here. Perhaps the mostconvincing proof that he has given of the value of his principles tothe country's dramatic art is his success in the training of actorsand actresses. Of late it is his company that has supplied the greatLondon actor-managers with their ablest recruits. Nearly all the bestperformers of secondary rôles and a few of the best performers ofprimary rôles in the leading London theatres are Mr Benson's pupils. Their admission to the great London companies is raising the standardof acting in the metropolis. The marked efficiency of these newcomersis due to a system which is inconsistent with any of the acceptedprinciples of current theatrical enterprise in London. Mr Benson'sdisciples mainly owe their efficiency to long association with apermanent company controlled by a manager who seeks, single-mindedly, what he holds to be the interests of dramatic art. The many-headedpublic learns its lessons very slowly, and sometimes neglects themaltogether. It has been reluctant to recognise the true significanceof Mr Benson's work. But the intelligent onlooker knows that he ismarching along the right road, in intelligent conformity with the bestteaching of the past. 

Thirty years ago a meeting took place at the Mansion House to discussthe feasibility of founding a State theatre in London, a project whichwas not realised. The most memorable incident which was associatedwith the Mansion House meeting was a speech of the theatrical managerPhelps, who argued, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of his hearers, that it was in the highest interests of the nation that theShakespearean drama should continuously occupy the stage. "Imaintain, " Phelps said, "from the experience of eighteen years, thatthe perpetual iteration of Shakespeare's words, if nothing more, goingon daily for so many months of the year, must and would produce agreat effect upon the public mind. " No man or woman of sense willto-day gainsay the wisdom of this utterance; but it is needful for thepublic to make greater exertion than they have made of late if "theperpetual iteration of Shakespeare's words" in the theatre is to bepermanently secured. 

Mr Benson's efforts constitute the best organised endeavour to realisePhelps's ambition since Phelps withdrew from management. Mr Benson'sscheme is imperfect in some of its details; in other particulars itmay need revision. But he and his associates have planted their feetfirmly on sure ground in their endeavours to interpret Shakespeareandrama constantly and in its variety, after a wise and well-consideredsystem and with a disinterested zeal. When every allowance has beenmade for the Benson Company's shortcomings, its achievement cannot bedenied "a relish of salvation. " Mr Benson deserves well of those whohave faith in the power of Shakespeare's words to widen the horizon ofmen's intellects and emotions. The seed he has sown should not besuffered to decay. 

VI

THE MUNICIPAL THEATRE[23]

[Footnote 23: This paper was first printed in the _New LiberalReview_, May 1902. ]

I

Many actors, dramatic critics, and men in public life advocate themunicipal manner of theatrical enterprise. Their aim, as I understandit, is to procure the erection, and the due working, of a playhousethat shall serve in permanence the best interests of the literary orartistic drama. The municipal theatre is not worth fighting for, unless there is a reasonable probability that its establishment willbenefit dramatic art, promote the knowledge of dramatic literature, and draw from the literary drama and confer on the public the largestbeneficial influence which the literary drama is capable ofdistributing. 

None of Shakespeare's countrymen or countrywomen can deny with a goodgrace the importance of the drama as a branch of art. None willseriously dispute that our dramatic literature, at any rate in itsloftiest manifestation, has contributed as much as our armies or ournavies or our mechanical inventions to our reputation through theworld. 

There is substantial agreement among enlightened leaders of publicopinion in all civilised countries that great drama, when fitlyrepresented in the theatre, offers the rank and file of a nationrecreation which brings with it moral, intellectual, and spiritualadvantage. 

II

The first question to consider is whether in England the existingtheatrical agencies promote for the general good the genuine interestsof dramatic art. Do existing theatrical agencies secure for the nationall the beneficial influence that is derivable from the trulycompetent form of drama? If they do this sufficiently, it is otioseand impertinent to entertain the notion of creating any new theatricalagency. 

Theatrical agencies of the existing type have never ignored theliterary drama altogether. Among actor-managers of the pastgeneration, Sir Henry Irving devoted his high ability to theinterpretation of many species of literary drama--from that byShakespeare to that by Tennyson. At leading theatres in London therehave been produced in the last few years poetic dramas written inblank verse on themes drawn from such supreme examples of the world'sliterature as Homer's _Odyssey_ and Dante's _Inferno_. Signs have notbeen wanting of public anxiety to acknowledge with generosity theseand other serious endeavours in poetic drama, whatever their precisedegree of excellence. But such premisses warrant no very largeconclusion. Two or three swallows do not make a summer. The literarydrama is only welcomed to the London stage at uncertain intervals;most of its life is passed in the wilderness. 

The recognition that is given in England to literary or poetic drama, alike of the past and present, is chiefly notable for itsirregularity. The circumstance may be accounted for in various ways. It is best explained by the fact that England is the only country inEurope in which theatrical enterprise is wholly and exclusivelyorganised on a capitalist basis. No theatre in England is workedto-day on any but the capitalist principle. Artistic aspiration may bewell alive in the theatrical profession, but the custom andcircumstance of capital, the calls of the counting-house, hamper thetheatrical artist's freedom of action. The methods imposed aredictated too exclusively by the mercantile spirit. 

Many illustrations could be given of the unceasing conflict whichcapitalist methods wage with artistic methods. One is sufficient. Thecommercially capitalised theatre is bound hand and foot to the systemof long runs. In no theatres of the first class outside London and NewYork is the system known, and even here and in New York it is ofcomparatively recent origin. But Londoners have grown so accustomed tothe system that they overlook the havoc which it works on the theatreas a home of art. Both actor and playgoer suffer signal injury fromits effects. It limits the range of drama which is available at ourgreat theatres to the rank and file of mankind. Especially serious isthe danger to which the unchangeable programme exposes histrioniccapacity and histrionic intelligence. The actor is not encouraged towiden his knowledge of the drama. His faculties are blunted by thenarrow monotony of his experience. Yet the capitalised conditions oftheatrical enterprise, which are in vogue in London and New York, seem to render long runs imperative. The system of long runs ispeculiar to English-speaking countries, where alone theatricalenterprise is altogether under the sway of capital. It is specificallyprohibited in the national or municipal theatre of every great foreigncity, where the interests of dramatic art enjoy foremostconsideration. 

The artistic aspiration of the actor-manager may be set on theopposite side of the account. Although the actor-manager belongs tothe ranks of the capitalists (whether he be one himself or bedependent on one), yet when he exercises supreme control of hisplayhouse, and is moved by artistic feeling, he may check many of theevils that spring from capitalist domination. He can partiallyneutralise the hampering effect on dramatic art of the merelycommercial application of capital to theatrical enterprise. 

The actor-manager system is liable to impede the progress of dramaticart through defects of its own, but its most characteristic defectsare not tarred with the capitalist brush. The actor-manager is proneto over-estimate the range of his histrionic power. He tends to claimof right the first place in the cast of every piece which he produces. He will consequently at times fill a rôle for which his powers unsuithim. If he be wise enough to avoid that error, he may imperil theinterests of dramatic art in another fashion; he may neglect pieces, despite their artistic value, in which he knows the foremost part tobe outside his scope. The actor-manager has sometimes undertaken asecondary rôle. But then it often happens, not necessarily by hisdeliberate endeavour, but by the mere force and popularity of his nameamong the frequenters of his playhouse, that there is focussed on hissecondary part an attention that it does not intrinsically merit, withthe result that the artistic perspective of the play is injured. Aprimary law of dramatic art deprecates the constant preponderance ofone actor in a company. The highest attainable level of excellence inall the members is the true artistic aim. 

The dangers inherent in the "star" principle of the actor-managersystem may be frankly admitted, but at the same time one shouldrecognise the system's possible advantages. An actor-manager does notusually arrive at his position until his career is well advanced andhe has proved his histrionic capacity. Versatility commonlydistinguishes him, and he is able to fill a long series of leadingrôles without violating artistic propriety. At any rate, theactor-manager who resolutely cherishes respect for art can do much totemper the corrupting influences of commercial capitalism in thetheatrical world. 

It is probably the less needful to scrutinise closely the theoreticmerits or demerits of the actor-manager system, because the dominantprinciple of current theatrical enterprise in London and Americarenders most precarious the future existence of that system. Theactor-manager seems, at any rate, threatened in London by a new andirresistible tide of capitalist energy. Six or seven leading theatresin London have recently been brought under the control of an Americancapitalist who does not pretend to any but mercantile inspiration. TheAmerican capitalist's first and last aim is naturally to secure thehighest possible remuneration for his invested capital. He iscatholic-minded, and has no objection to artistic drama, provided hecan draw substantial profit from it. Material interests alone have anyreal meaning for him. If he serve the interests of art by producing anartistic play, he serves art by accident and unconsciously: his objectis to benefit his exchequer. His philosophy is unmitigatedutilitarianism. "The greatest pleasure for the greatest number" is hismotto. The pleasure that carries farthest and brings round him thelargest paying audiences is his ideal stock-in-trade. Obviouslypleasure either of the frivolous or of the spectacular kind attractsthe greatest number of customers to his emporium. It is consequentlypleasure of this spectacular or frivolous kind which he habituallyendeavours to provide. It is Quixotic to anticipate much diminution inthe supply and demand of either frivolity or spectacle, both of whichmay furnish quite innocuous pleasure. But each is the antithesis ofdramatic art; and whatever view one holds of the methods of theAmerican capitalist, it is irrational to look to him for theintelligent promotion of dramatic art. 

III

From the artistic point of view the modern system of theatricalenterprise thus seems capable of improvement. If it be incapable ofgeneral improvement, it is at least capable of having a better exampleset it than current modes can be reckoned on to offer. The latter arenot likely to be displaced. All that can be attempted is to create anew model at their side. What is sought by the advocates of amunicipal theatre is an institution which shall maintain inpermanence a high artistic ideal of drama, and shall give the publicthe opportunity of permanently honouring that ideal. Existing theatreswhose programmes ignore art would be unaffected by such a newneighbour. But existing enterprises, which, as far as presentconditions permit, reflect artistic aspiration, would derive from suchan institution new and steady encouragement. 

The interests of dramatic art can only be served whole-heartedly in atheatre organised on two principles which have hitherto beenunrecognised in England. In the first place, the management shouldacknowledge some sort of public obligation to make the interests ofdramatic art its first motive of action. In the second place, themanagement should be relieved of the need of seeking unrestrictedcommercial profits for the capital that is invested in the venture. Both principles have been adopted with successful results inContinental cities; but their successful practice implies theacceptance by the State, or by a permanent local authority, of acertain amount of responsibility in both the artistic and thefinancial directions. 

It is foolish to blind oneself to commercial considerationsaltogether. When the municipal theatre is freed of the unimaginativecontrol of private capital seeking unlimited profit, it is still wiseto require a moderate return on the expended outlay. The municipaltheatre can only live healthily in the presence of a public desire ordemand for it, and that public desire or demand can only be measuredby the playhouse receipts. A municipal theatre would not besatisfactorily conducted if money were merely lost in it, or spent onit without any thought of the likelihood of the expenditure provingremunerative. Profits need never be refused; but all above a fixedminimum rate of interest on the invested capital should be applied tothe promotion of those purposes which the municipal theatre primarilyexists to serve--to cheapen, for example, prices of admission, or toimprove the general mechanism behind and before the scenes. No surplusprofits should reach the pocket of any individual manager orfinancier. 

IV

There is in England a demand and desire on the part of a substantialsection of the public for this new form of theatrical enterprise, although its precise dimensions may not be absolutely determinate. Thequestion is thereby adapted for practical discussion. The demand anddesire have as yet received inadequate recognition, because they havenot been satisfactorily organised or concentrated. The trend of anappreciable section of public opinion in the direction of a limitedmunicipalisation of the theatre is visible in many places. Firstly, one must take into account the number of small societies which havebeen formed of late by enthusiasts for the exclusive promotion of oneor other specific branch of the literary drama--the Elizabethan drama, the Norwegian drama, the German drama. Conspicuous success has beendenied these societies because their leaders tend to assert narrowsectional views of the bases of dramatic art, or they lack thepreliminary training and the influence which are essential to theefficient conduct of any public enterprise. Many of their experiencesoffer useful object-lessons as to the defects inherent in all narrowsectional effort, however enthusiastically inspired. But at the sametime they testify to a desire to introduce into the current theatricalsystem more literary and artistic principles than are at presenthabitual to it. They point to the presence of a zeal--often, it maybe, misdirected--for change or reform. 

The experiment of Mr Benson points more effectively in the samedirection. A public-spirited champion of Shakespeare and the classicaldrama, he has maintained his hold in the chief cities of Ireland, Scotland, and the English provinces for a generation. Although forreasons that are not hard to seek, he has failed to establish hisposition in London, Mr Benson's methods of work have enabled him torender conspicuous service to the London stage in a manner which islikely to facilitate reform. For many years he has supplied theleading London theatres with a succession of trained actors andactresses. Graduates in Mr Benson's school can hardly fail toco-operate willingly in any reform of theatrical enterprise, which iscalculated to develop the artistic capacities of the stage. 

Other circumstances are no less promising. The justice of the cry forthe due safeguarding of the country's dramatic art by means ofpublicly-organised effort has been repeatedly acknowledged of late bymen of experience alike in dramatic and public affairs. In 1898 apetition was presented to the London County Council requesting thatbody to found and endow a permanent opera-house "in order to promotethe musical interest and refinement of the public and the advancementof the art of music. " The petition bore the signatures of two hundredleaders of public opinion, including the chief members of the dramaticprofession. In this important document, particulars were given of themanner in which the State or the municipality aided theatres inFrance, Germany, Austria, and other countries of Europe. It was shown, that in France twelve typically efficient theatres received frompublic bodies an annual subsidy amounting in the aggregate to£130, 000. The wording of the petition and the arguments employed bythe petitioners were applicable to drama as well as to opera. In fact, the case was put in a way which was more favourable to the pretensionsof drama than to those of opera. One argument which always tellsagainst the establishment of a publicly-subsidised opera-house inLondon does not affect the establishment of a publicly-subsidisedtheatre. Opera is an exotic in England; drama is a native product, andhas exerted in the past a wider influence and has attracted a widersympathy than Italian or German music. 

The London County Council, after careful inquiry, gave the scheme of1898 benevolent encouragement. Hope was held out that a site foreither a theatre or an opera-house might be reserved "in connectionwith one of the contemplated central improvements of London. " Nothingin the recent history of the London County Council gives ground fordoubting that it will be prepared to give practical effect to athoroughly matured scheme. 

Within the Council the principle of the municipal theatre has foundpowerful advocacy. Mr John Burns, who is not merely the spokesman ofthe working classes, but is a representative of earnest-mindedstudents of literature, has supported the principle with generousenthusiasm. The intelligent artisans of London applaud his attitude. The London Trades Council passed resolutions in the autumn of 1901recommending the erection of a theatre by the London County Council, "so that a higher standard of dramatic art might be encouraged andmade more accessible to the wage-earning classes, as is the case inthe State and municipal theatres in the principal cities on theContinent. " The gist of the argument could hardly be put morepintally. [Transcriber's Note: so in original. ]

Of those who have written recently in favour of the scheme of amunicipal theatre many speak with the authority of exceptionalexperience. The actor Mr John Coleman, one of the last survivors ofPhelps's company at Sadler's Wells Theatre, argued with cogency, shortly before his death in 1903, that the national credit owed it toitself to renew Phelps's experiment of the middle of last century;public intervention was imperative, seeing that no other means wereforthcoming. The late Sir Henry Irving in his closing years announcedhis conviction that a municipal theatre could alone keep the classicaland the poetic drama fully alive in the theatres. The dramatic criticMr William Archer, has brought his expert knowledge of dramaticorganisation at home and abroad to the aid of the agitation. Variousproposals--unhappily of too vague and unauthoritative a kind toguarantee a satisfactory reception--have been made from time to timeto raise a fund to build a national theatre, and to run it for fiveyears on a public subsidy of £10, 000 a year. 

The advocates of the municipalising principle have worked for the mostpart in isolation. Such independence tends to dissipate rather thanto conserve energy. A consolidating impulse has been sorely needed. But the variety of the points of views from which the subject has beenindependently approached renders the less disputable the genuine widthof public interest in the question. 

The argument that it is contrary to public policy, or that it isopposed to the duty of the State or municipality, to provide for thepeople's enlightened amusement, is not formidable. The State and themunicipality have long treated such work as part of their dailyfunctions, whatever the arguments that have been urged against it. TheState, in partnership with local authorities, educates the people, whether they like it or no. The municipalities of London and othergreat towns provide the people, outside the theatre, with almost everyopportunity of enlightenment and enlightened amusement. In Londonthere are 150 free libraries, which are mainly occupied in providingthe ratepayers with the opportunities of reading fiction--recreationwhich is not always very enlightened. The County Council of Londonfurnishes bands of music to play in the parks, at an expenditure ofsome £6000 a year. Most of our great cities supply, in addition, municipal picture galleries, in which the citizens take pride, and towhich in their corporate capacity they contribute large sums of money. The municipal theatre is the natural complement of the municipallibrary, the municipal musical entertainment, and the municipal artgallery. 

V

Of the practicability of a municipal theatre ample evidence is athand. Foreign experience convincingly justifies the municipal mode oftheatrical enterprise. Every great town in France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland has its municipal theatre. In Paris there are three, in addition to four theatres which are subsidised by the State. It isestimated that there are seventy municipal theatres in theGerman-speaking countries of Europe, apart from twenty-seven Statetheatres. At the same time, it should be noted that in the French andGerman capitals there are, at the side of the State and municipalplayhouses, numerous theatres which are run on ordinary commerciallines. The prosperity of these houses is in no way checked by thecontiguity of theatrical enterprise of State or municipality. 

All municipal theatres on the continent of Europe pursue the sameaims. They strive to supply the citizens with true artistic dramacontinuously, and to reduce the cost of admission to the playhouse tothe lowest possible terms. But the working details of the foreignmunicipal theatres differ widely in individual cases, and amunicipality which contemplates a first theatrical experiment isoffered a large choice of method. In some places the municipality actswith regal munificence, and directly assumes the largest possibleresponsibilities. It provides the site, erects the theatre, and allotsa substantial subsidy to its maintenance. The manager is a municipalofficer, and the municipal theatre fills in the social life of thetown as imposing a place as the town-hall, cathedral, or university. 

Elsewhere the municipality sets narrower limits to its sphere ofoperations. It merely provides the site and the building, and thenlets the playhouse out at a moderate rental to directors of provedefficiency and public spirit, on assured conditions that they honestlyserve the true interests of art, uphold a high standard of production, avoid the frivolity and spectacle of the market, and fix the price ofseats on a very low scale. Here no public funds are seriouslyinvolved. The municipality pays no subsidy. The rent of the theatresupplies the municipality with normal interest on the capital that isinvested in site and building. It is public credit of a moral ratherthan of a material kind which is pledged to the cause of dramatic art. 

In a third class of municipal theatre the public body confines itsmaterial aid to the gratuitous provision of a site. Upon that siteprivate enterprise is invited to erect a theatre under adequateguarantee that it shall exclusively respect the purposes of art, andspare to the utmost the pockets of the playgoer. To render dramaticart accessible to the rank and file of mankind, with the smallestpossible pressure on the individual citizen's private resources, is ofthe essence of every form of municipal theatrical enterprise. 

The net result of the municipal theatre, especially in German-speakingcountries, is that the literary drama, both of the past and present, maintains a grip on the playgoing public which is outside Englishexperience. There is in Germany a very flourishing modern German dramaof literary merit. Sudermann and Hauptmann hold the ears of men ofletters throughout Europe. Dramas by these authors are constantlypresented in municipal theatres. At the same time, plays by theclassical dramatists of all European countries are performed asconstantly, and are no less popular. Almost every play of Shakespeareis in the repertory of the chief acting companies on the Germanmunicipal stage. At the side of Shakespeare stand Schiller and Goetheand Lessing, the classical dramatists of Germany; Molière, theclassical dramatist of France; and Calderon, the classical dramatistof Spain. Public interest is liberally distributed over the wholerange of artistic dramatic effort. Indeed, during recent yearsShakespeare's plays have been performed in Germany more often thanplays of the modern German school. Schiller, the classical nationaldramatist of Germany, lives more conspicuously on the modern Germanstage than any one modern German contemporary writer, eminent andpopular as more than one contemporary German dramatist deservedly is. Thus signally has the national or municipal system of theatricalenterprise in Germany served the cause of classical drama. All thebeneficial influence and gratification, which are inherent in artisticand literary drama, are, under the national or municipal system, enjoyed in permanence and security by the German people. 

Vienna probably offers London the most instructive example of thenational or municipal theatre. The three leading Vienneseplayhouses--the Burg-Theater, the Stadt-Theater, and theVolks-Theater--illustrate the three modes in which public credit maybe pledged to theatrical enterprise. The palatial Burg-Theater iswholly an institution of the State. The site of the Stadt-Theater, andto a large extent the building, were provided by the municipality, which thereupon leased them out to a private syndicate, under amanager of the syndicate's choosing. The municipality assumes no moredirect responsibility for the due devotion of the Stadt-Theater todramatic art than is implied in its retention of reversionary rightsof ownership. The third theatre, the Volks-Theater, illustrates theminimum share that a municipality may take in promoting theatricalenterprise, while guaranteeing the welfare of artistic drama. 

The success of the Volks-Theater is due to the co-operation of apublic body with a voluntary society of private citizens who regardthe maintenance of the literary drama as a civic duty. The site of theVolks-Theater, which was formerly public property and estimated to beworth £80, 000, is in the best part of the city of Vienna. It was afree gift from the government to a limited liability company, formedof some four hundred shareholders of moderate means, who formallypledged themselves to erect on the land a theatre with the sole objectof serving the purposes of dramatic art. The interest payable toshareholders is strictly limited by the conditions of association. Anofficially sanctioned constitution renders it obligatory on them andon their officers to produce in the playhouse classical and moderndrama of a literary character, though not necessarily of the severesttype. Merely frivolous or spectacular pieces are prohibited, and atleast twice a week purely classical plays must be presented. No piecemay be played more than two nights in immediate succession. Theactors, whose engagements are permanent, are substantially paid, andan admirably devised system of pensions is enforced without makingdeductions from salaries. The price of seats is fixed at a low rate, the highest price being 4s. , the cheapest and most numerous seatscosting 10d. Each. Both financially and artistically the result hasbeen all that one could wish. There is no public subsidy, but theEmperor pays £500 a year for a box. The house holds 1800 persons, yielding gross receipts of £200 for a nightly expenditure of £125. There are no advertising expenses, no posters. The newspapers givenotice of the daily programme as an attractive item of news. 

VI

There is some disinclination among Englishmen deliberately to adoptforeign methods, to follow foreign examples, in any walk of life. Butno person of common sense will reject a method merely because it isforeign, if it can be proved to be of utility. It is spuriouspatriotism to reject wise counsel because it is no native product. Onthe other hand, it is seriously to asperse the culture andintelligence of the British nation to assume that no appreciablesection of it cherishes that taste for the literary drama which keepsthe national or municipal theatre alive in France and Germany. At anyrate, judgment should be held in suspense until the British playgoers'mettle has been more thoroughly tested than hitherto. 

No less humiliating is the argument that the art of acting in thiscountry is at too low an ebb to justify the assumption by a publicbody of responsibility for theatrical enterprise. One or two criticsassert that to involve public credit in a theatre, until there existan efficient school of acting, is to put the cart before the horse. This objection seems insubstantial. Competent actors are notaltogether absent from the English stage, and the municipal system oftheatrical enterprise is calculated to increase their number rapidly. 

Abroad, the subsidised theatres, with their just schemes of salary, their permanent engagements, their well-devised pension systems, attract the best class of the profession. A competent company ofactors, which enjoys a permanent home and is governed by highstandards of art, forms the best possible school of acting, not merelyby force of example, but by the private tuition which it could readilyprovide. In Vienna the companies at the subsidised theatres arerecruited from the pupils of a State-endowed conservatoire of actors. It is improbable that the British Government will found a likeinstitution. But it would be easy to attach a college of acting to themunicipal theatre, and to make the college pay its way. 

Much depends on the choice of manager of the enterprise. The managerof a municipal theatre must combine with business aptitude a genuinedevotion to dramatic art and dramatic literature. Without a fitmanager, who can collect and control a competent company of actors, the scheme of the municipal theatre is doomed to failure. Managers ofthe requisite temper, knowledge, and ability are not lacking in Franceor Germany. There is no reason to anticipate that, when the call issounded, the right response will not be given here. 

Cannot an experiment be made in London on the lines of the ViennaVolks-Theater? In the first place, it is needful to bring together abody of citizens who, under leadership which commands publicconfidence, will undertake to build and control for a certain term ofyears a theatre of suitable design in the interests of dramatic art, on conditions similar to those that have worked with success inBerlin, Paris, and notably Vienna. Then the London County Council, after the professions it has made, might be reasonably expected toundertake so much responsibility for the proper conduct of the newplayhouse as would be implied by its provision of a site. If theexperiment failed, no one would be much the worse; if it succeeded, asit ought to succeed, the nation would gain in repute for intelligence, culture, and enlightened patriotism; it would rid itself of thereproach that it pays smaller and less intelligent regard toShakespeare and the literary drama than France, Germany, Austria, orItaly. 

Phelps's single-handed effort brought the people of London foreighteen years face to face with the great English drama at hisplayhouse at Sadler's Wells. "I made that enterprise pay, " he said, after he retired; "not making a fortune certainly, but bringing up alarge family and paying my way. " Private troubles and illnesscompelled him suddenly to abandon the enterprise at the end ofeighteen years, when there happened to be none at hand to take hisplace of leader. All that was wanting to make his enterprisepermanent, he declared, was some public control, some publicacknowledgment of responsibility which, without impeding the efficientmanager's freedom of action, would cause his post to be filledproperly in case of an accidental vacancy. Phelps thought that if hecould do so much during eighteen years by his personal, isolated, andindependent endeavour, much more could be done in permanence undersome public method of safeguard and guarantee. Phelps's services tothe literary drama can hardly be over-estimated. His mature judgmentis not to be lightly gainsaid. It is just to his memory to put hisfaith to a practical test. 

VII

ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY[24]

[Footnote 24: This paper, which was originally prepared in 1899 forthe purposes of a popular lecture, is here printed for the firsttime. ]

I

A French critic once remarked that a whole system of philosophy couldbe deduced from Shakespeare's pages, though from all the works of thephilosophers one could not draw a page of Shakespeare. The secondstatement--the denial of the presence of a page of Shakespeare in theworks of all the philosophers--is more accurate than the assertionthat a system of philosophy could be deduced from the plays ofShakespeare. It is hopeless to deduce any precise system of philosophyfrom Shakespeare's plays. Literally, philosophy means nothing morerecondite than love of wisdom. Technically, it means scientificallyrestrained speculation about the causes of human thought and conduct;it embraces the sciences of logic, of ethics, of politics, ofpsychology, of metaphysics. Shakespeare's training and temper unfittedhim to make any professed contribution to any of these topics. 

Ignorant persons argue on hazy grounds that the great avowedphilosopher of Shakespeare's day, Francis Bacon, wrote Shakespeare'splays. There is no need to confute the theory, which confutes itself. But, if a confutation were needed, it lies on the surface in theconflicting attitudes which Shakespeare and Bacon assume towardsphilosophy. There is no mistaking Bacon's attitude. The supreme aim ofhis writings was to establish the practical value, the majesticimportance, of philosophy in its strict sense of speculative science. He sought to widen its scope, and to multiply the ranks of itsstudents. 

Bacon's method is formally philosophic in texture. He carefullyscrutinises, illustrates, seeks to justify each statement beforeproceeding to a conclusion. Every essay, every treatise of Bacon, conveys the impression not merely of weighty, pregnant eloquence, butof the argumentative and philosophic temper. Bacon's process ofthinking is conscious: it is visible behind the words. The argumentprogresses with a cumulative force. It draws sustenance from therecorded opinions of others. The points usually owe consistency andfirmness to quotations from old authors--Greek and Latin authors, especially Plato and Plutarch, Lucretius and Seneca. To Bacon, as toall professed students of the subject, philosophy first revealeditself in the pages of the Greek writers, Plato and Aristotle, thefounders for modern Europe of the speculative sciences of humanthought and conduct. Greatly as Bacon modified the Greek system ofphilosophy, he began his philosophic career under the influence ofAristotle, and, despite his destructive criticism of his master, henever wholly divested himself of the methods of exposition to whichthe Greek philosopher's teaching introduced him. 

In their attitudes to philosophy, Shakespeare and Bacon are as thepoles asunder. Shakespeare practically ignores the existence ofphilosophy as a formal science. He betrays no knowledge of its Greekorigin and developments. 

There are two short, slight, conventional mentions of Aristotle's namein Shakespeare's works. One is a very slight allusion to Aristotle's"checks" or "moral discipline" in _The Taming of the Shrew_. Thatpassage is probably from a coadjutor's pen. In any case, it is merelya playful questioning of the title of "sweet philosophy" to monopolizea young man's education. [25]

[Footnote 25: Tranio, the attendant on the young Pisan, Lucentio, whohas come to Padua to study at the university, counsels his master towiden the field of his studies:--

 Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue and this moral discipline, Let's be no Stoics, nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to _Aristotle's checks_, As Ovid be an outcast quite adjured. 

 (_The Taming of the Shrew_, I. , ii. , 29-33. )]

The other mention of Aristotle is in _Troilus and Cressida_, andraises points of greater interest. Hector scornfully likens hisbrothers Troilus and Paris, when they urge persistence in the strifewith Greece, to "young men whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear_moral_ philosophy" (II. , ii. , 166). The words present the meaning, but not the language, of a sentence in Aristotle's "NicomacheanEthics" (i. 8). Aristotle there declares passionate youth to beunfitted to study _political_ philosophy; he makes no mention of_moral_ philosophy. The change of epithet does, however, no injusticeto Aristotle's argument. His context makes it plain, that by_political_ philosophy he means the ethics of civil society, whichare hardly distinguishable from what is commonly called "morals. " Themaxim, in the slightly irregular shape which Shakespeare adopted, enjoyed proverbial currency before the dramatist was born. Erasmusintroduced it in this form into his far-famed _Colloquies_. In Franceand Italy the warning against instructing youth in _moral_ philosophywas popularly accepted as an Aristotelian injunction. Sceptics aboutthe obvious Shakespearean tradition have made much of the circumstancethat Bacon, who cited the aphorism from Aristotle in his _Advancementof Learning_, substituted, like Shakespeare in _Troilus and Cressida_, the epithet "moral" for "political. " The proverbial currency of theemendation deprives the coincidence of point. 

The repetition of a proverbial phrase, indirectly drawn fromAristotle, combined with the absence of other references to the Greekphilosopher, renders improbable Shakespeare's personal acquaintancewith his work. In any case, the bare mention of the name of Aristotleimplies nothing in this connection. It was a popular synonym forancient learning. It was as often on the lips of Elizabethans asBacon's name is on the lips of men and women of to-day, and it wouldbe rash to infer that those who carelessly and casually mentionedBacon's name to-day knew his writings or philosophic theories at firsthand. 

No evidence is forthcoming that Shakespeare knew in any solid senseaught of philosophy of the formal scientific kind. On scientificphilosophy, and on natural science, Shakespeare probably looked withsuspicion. He expressed no high opinion of astronomers, who pursuethe most imposing of all branches of scientific speculation. 

 Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's light, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. 

 (_Love's Labour's Lost_, I. , i. , 86-91. )

This is a characteristically poetic attitude; it is the antithesis ofthe scientific attitude. Formal logic excited Shakespeare's disdaineven more conspicuously. In the mouths of his professional fools heplaces many reductions to absurdity of what he calls the "simplesyllogism. " He invests the term "chop-logic" with the significance offoolery _in excelsis_. [26] Again, metaphysics, in any formal sense, were clearly not of Shakespeare's world. On one occasion he wrote ofthe topic round which most metaphysical speculation revolves:--

 We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded by a sleep. 

 (_Tempest_, IV. , i. , 156-8. )

[Footnote 26: The speeches of the clown in _Twelfth Night_ areparticularly worthy of study for the satiric adroitness with whichthey expose the quibbling futility of syllogistic logic. _Cf. _ Act I. , Scene v. , ll. 43-57. 

_Olivia. _ Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides yougrow dishonest. 

_Clown. _ Two faults, Madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend:for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry: bid thedishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; ifhe cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that's mended is butpatched: virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sinthat amends is but patched with virtue. If that _this simplesyllogism_ will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy?]

Such a theory of human life is first-rate poetry; it is anilluminating figure of poetic speech. But the simplicity with whichthe theme is presented, to the exclusion of many material issues, putsthe statement out of the plane of metaphysical disquisition, whichinvolves subtle conflict of argument and measured resolution of doubt, rather than imaginative certainty or unconditional assertion. Nor isHamlet's famous soliloquy on the merits and demerits of suicideconceived in the spirit of the metaphysician. It is a dramaticdescription of a familiar phase of emotional depression; it explainsnothing; it propounds no theory. It reflects a state of feeling; itbreathes that torturing spirit of despondency which kills all hope ofmitigating either the known ills of life or the imagined terrors ofdeath. 

The faint, shadowy glimpses which Shakespeare had of scientificphilosophy gave him small respect for it. Like the typical hard-headedEnglishman, he doubted its practical efficacy. Shakespeare viewed allformal philosophy much as Dr Johnson's Rasselas, whose faith in itdwindled, when he perceived that the professional philosopher, whopreached superiority to all human frailties and weaknesses, succumbedto them at the first provocation. 

 There are more things in heaven and earth Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. [27]

 For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently. [28]

[Footnote 27: _Hamlet_, I. , v. , 166-7. ]

[Footnote 28: _Much Ado About Nothing_, V. , i. , 35-6. ]

Such phrases sum up Shakespeare's habitual bearing to formalphilosophy. The consideration of causes, first principles, abstracttruths, never, in the dramatist's opinion, cured a human ill. Thefutility of formal philosophy stands, from this point of view, in nofurther need of demonstration. 

II

But it is permissible to use the words philosopher and philosophy, without scientific precision or significance, in the popularinaccurate senses of shrewd observer and observation of life. Byphilosophy we may understand common-sense wisdom about one'sfellow-men, their aspirations, their failures and successes. As soonas we employ the word in that significance, we must allow that few menwere better philosophers than Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare is what Touchstone calls the shepherd in _As You LikeIt_--"a natural philosopher"--an observer by light of nature, an acuteexpositor of phases of human life and feeling. Character, thought, passion, emotion, form the raw material of which ethical ormetaphysical systems are made. The poet's contempt for formal ethicalor metaphysical theory co-existed with a searching knowledge of theultimate foundations of all systematised philosophic structures. Therange of fact or knowledge within which the formal theorist speculatesin the fields of ethics, logic, metaphysics, or psychology, is, indeed, very circumscribed when it is compared with the region ofobservation and experience over which Shakespeare exerted completemastery. 

Almost every aspect of life Shakespeare portrays with singularevenness of insight. He saw life whole. The web of life alwayspresented itself to him as a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Hedid not stay to reconcile its contradictions. He adduces a wealth ofevidence touching ethical experience. It may be that the patientscrutiny of formal philosophers can alone reveal the full significanceof his harvest. But the dramatist's exposition of the workings ofvirtue or vice has no recondite intention. Shakespeare was no patientscholar, who deliberately sought to extend the limits of humanknowledge. With unrivalled ease and celerity he digested, in therecesses of his consciousness, the fruit of personal observation andreading. His only conscious aim was to depict human conduct and humanthought. He interpreted them unconsciously by virtue of an involuntaryintuition. 

Shakespeare's intuition pierces life at the lowest as well as at thehighest level of experience. It is coloured by delicate imaginativegenius as well as by robust and practical worldliness. Not hiswritings only, but the facts of his private life--his mode of managinghis private property, for example--attest his alert knowledge of thematerial and practical affairs of human existence. Idealism andrealism in perfect development were interwoven with the texture of hismind. 

Shakespeare was qualified by mental endowment for success in anycareer. He was by election a dramatist, and, necessarily, one ofunmatched versatility. His intuitive faculty enabled him, afterregarding life from any point of view that he willed, to depictthrough the mouths of his characters the chosen phase of experience inconvincing, harmonious accord with his characters' individualcircumstances and fortunes. No obvious trace of his own personalcircumstance or experience was suffered to emerge in the utterances ofhis characters, who lived for the moment in his brain. It is acommonplace to credit Shakespeare with supreme dramatic instinct. Itis difficult fully to realise the significance of that attribute. Itmeans that he could contract or expand at will and momentarily, hisown personality, so that it coincided exactly, now with aself-indulgent humorist like Falstaff, now with an introspectivestudent like Hamlet, now with a cynical criminal like Iago, now with ahigh-spirited girl like Rosalind, now with an ambitious woman likeLady Macbeth, and then with a hundred more characters hardly lessdistinctive than these. It means that he could contrive thecoincidence so absolutely as to leave no loophole for theintroduction, into the several dramatic utterances, of any sentimentthat should not be on the face of it adapted by right of nature to thespeakers' idiosyncracies. That was Shakespeare's power. It is a powerof which the effects are far easier to recognise than the causes orsecret of operation. 

In the present connection it is happily only necessary to dwell onShakespeare's dramatic instinct in order to guard against the peril ofdogmatising from his works about his private opinions. So various andconflicting are Shakespeare's dramatic pronouncements on phases ofexperience that it is difficult and dangerous to affirm whichpronouncements, if any, present most closely his personal sentiment. He fitted the lips of his _dramatis personæ_ with speeches andsentiments so peculiarly adapted to them as to show no one quiteundisputed sign of their creator's personality. 

Yet there are occasions, when, without detracting from the omnipotenceof Shakespeare's dramatic instinct, one may tentatively infer thatShakespeare gave voice through his created personages to sentimentswhich were his own. The Shakespearean drama must incorporate somewherewithin its vast limits the personal thoughts and passions of itscreator, even although they are for the most part absorbed pastrecognition in the mighty mass, and no critical chemistry can withconfidence disentangle them. At any rate, there are in the plays manyutterances--ethical utterances, or observations conceived in thespirit of "a natural philosopher"--which are repeated to much the sameeffect at different periods of the poet's career. These reiteratedopinions frequently touch the conditions of well-being or calamity incivilised society; they often deal with man in civic or socialrelation with his neighbour; they define the capabilities of his will. It is unlikely that observations of this nature would be repeated ifthe sentiments they embody were out of harmony with the author'sprivate conviction. Often we shall not strain a point or do ourcritical sense much violence if we assume that these recurringthoughts are Shakespeare's own. I purpose to call attention to a fewof those which bear on large questions of government and citizenshipand human volition. Involuntarily, they form the framework of apolitical and moral philosophy which for clear-eyed sanity is withoutrival. 

III

Shakespeare's political philosophy is instinct with the loftiest moralsense. Directly or indirectly, he defines many times the essentialvirtues and the inevitable temptations which attach to personsexercising legalised authority over their fellow-men. The topic alwaysseems to stir in Shakespeare his most serious tone of thought andword. No one, in fact, has conceived a higher standard of publicvirtue and public duty than Shakespeare. His intuition rendered himtolerant of human imperfection. He is always in kindly sympathy withfailure, with suffering, with the oppressed. Consequently he brings atthe outset into clearer relief than professed political philosophers, the saving quality of mercy in rulers of men. Twice Shakespeare pleadsin almost identical terms, through the mouths of created characters, for generosity on the part of governors of states towards those whosin against law. In both cases he places his argument, withsignificant delicacy, on the lips of women. At a comparatively earlyperiod in his career as dramatist, in _The Merchant of Venice_, Portiafirst gave voice to the political virtue of compassion. At a muchlater period Shakespeare set the same plea in the mouth of Isabella in_Measure for Measure_. The passages are too familiar to justifyquotation. Very brief extracts will bring out clearly the identity ofsentiment which finds definition in the two passages. 

These are Portia's views of mercy on the throne (_Merchant of Venice_, IV. , i. , 189 _seq. _):--

 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown;

 * * * * *

 Mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. 

 Consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. [29]

[Footnote 29: In a paper on "Latin as an Intellectual Force, " readbefore the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St Louis inSeptember 1904, Professor E. A. Sonnenschein sought to show thatPortia's speech on mercy is based on Seneca's tract, _De Clementia_. The most striking parallel passages are the following:--

 It becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. 

 (_M. Of V. _, IV. , i. 189-90. )

Nullum clementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet. (Seneca, _De Clementia_, I. , iii. , 3):--

 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. 

Eo scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo inmaiore praestabitur potestate (I. , xix. , 1):--

 But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself. 

 (_M. Of V. _, IV. , i. , 193-5. )

Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibuspersequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum mitianimo exercere imperium? (I. , vii. , 2):--

 And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. 

 (_M. Of V. _, IV. , i. , 196-7. )

Quid autem? Non proximum eis (dîs) locum tenet is qui se ex deorumnatura gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens? (I. , xix. , 9):--

 Consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. 

 (_M. Of V. _, IV. , i. , 198-200. )

Cogitato . .. Quanta solitudo et vastitas futura sit si nihilrelinquitur nisi quod iudex severus absolverit (I. , vi. , 1). 

This remarkable series of parallelisms does not affect the argument inthe text that Shakespeare, who reiterated Portia's pleas andphraseology in Isabella's speeches, had a personal faith in thedeclared sentiment. Whether the parallelism is to be explained asconscious borrowing or accidental coincidence is an open question. ]

Here are Isabella's words in _Measure for Measure_ (II. , ii. , 59_seq. _):--

 No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. 

 How would you be If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?

 O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. 

Mercy is the predominating or crowning virtue that Shakespeare demandsin rulers. But the Shakespearean code is innocent of any taint ofsentimentality, and mercifulness is far from being the sovereign'ssole qualification or primal test of fitness. More especially arekings and judges bound by their responsibilities and their duties toeschew self-glorification or self-indulgence. It is the _virtues_ ofthe holders of office, not their office itself, which alone in the endentitles them to consideration. Adventitious circumstances give no manclaim to respect. A man is alone worthy of regard by reason of hispersonal character. Honour comes from his own acts, neither from his"foregoers, " _i. E. _, ancestors, nor from his rank in society. "Goodalone is good without a name. " This is not the view of the world, which values lying trophies, rank, or wealth. The world is thereby thesufferer. [30]

[Footnote 30:

 From lowest place, when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer's deed: Where great additions swell's, and virtue none, It is a dropsied honour: good alone Is good without a name; vileness is so: The property by what it is should go, Not by the title; . .. That is honour's scorn, Which challenges itself as honour's born, And is not like the sire: honours thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave, Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb Of honour'd bones indeed. 

 (_All's Well_, II. , iii. , 130 _seq. _)]

The world honours a judge; but if the judge be indebted to his officeand not to his character for the respect that is paid him, he maydeserve no more honour than the criminal in the dock, whom hesentences to punishment. "A man may see how this world goes with noeyes, " says King Lear to the blind Gloucester. "Look with thine ears;see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear;change places, and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is thethief? Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And thecreature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great imageof authority; a dog's obeyed in office. " "The great image ofauthority" is often a brazen idol. 

Hereditary rulers form no inconsiderable section of Shakespeare's_dramatis personæ_. In _Macbeth_ (IV. , iii. , 92-4) he specificallydefined "the king-becoming graces":--

 As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude. 

But the dramatist's main energies are devoted to exposure of thehollowness of this counsel of perfection. Temptations to vice besetrulers of men to a degree that is unknown to their subjects. Toavarice rulers are especially prone. Stanchless avarice constantlyconverts kings of ordinary clay into monsters. How often they forge

 Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, Destroying them for wealth. 

 (_Macbeth_, IV. , iii. , 83-4. )

Intemperance in all things--in business and pleasure--is a standingmenace of monarchs. 

 Boundless intemperance In Nature is a tyranny: it hath been Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne And fail of many kings. 

 (_Macbeth_, IV. , iii. , 66-9. )

A leader of men, if he be capable of salvation, must "delight no lessin truth than life. " Yet "truth, " for the most part, is banished fromthe conventional environment of royalty. 

Repeatedly does Shakespeare bring into dazzling relief the irony whichgoverns the being of kings. Want of logic and defiance of ethicalprinciple underlie their pride in magnificent ceremonial andpageantry. The ironic contrast between the pretensions of a king andthe actual limits of human destiny is a text which Shakespearerepeatedly clothes in golden language. 

It is to be admitted that nearly all the kings in Shakespeare'sgallery frankly acknowledge the make-believe and unreality which dogsregal pomp and ceremony. In self-communion they acknowledge theruler's difficulty in finding truth in their traditional scope oflife. In a great outburst on the night before Agincourt, Henry V. --theonly king whom Shakespeare seems thoroughly to admire--openlydescribes the inevitable confusion between fact and fiction whichinfects the conditions of royalty. Anxiety and unhappiness are soentwined with ceremonial display as to deprive the king of the reliefsand recreations which freely lie at the disposal of ordinary men. 

 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 of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd 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? Canst 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 intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced 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 fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread. 

 (_Henry V. _, IV. , i. , 253-287. )

Barely distinguishable is the sentiment which finds expression in thepathetic speech of Henry V. 's father when he vainly seeks that sleepwhich thousands of his poorest subjects enjoy. The sleepless kingpoints to the irony of reclining on the kingly couch beneath canopiesof costly state when sleep refuses to weigh his eyelids down or steephis senses in forgetfulness. The king is credited with control ofevery comfort; but he is denied by nature comforts which she placesfreely at command of the humblest. So again does Richard II. Soliloquize on the vain pride which imbues the king, while death allthe time grins at his pomp and keeps his own court within the hollowcrown that rounds the prince's mortal temples. Yet again, to identicaleffect is Henry VI. 's sorrowful question:--

 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?

 (III. _Henry VI. _, II. , v. , 42-5. )

To this text Shakespeare constantly recurs, and he bestows on it allhis fertile resources of illustration. The reiterated exposition byShakespeare of the hollowness of kingly ceremony is a notable featureof his political sentiment The dramatist's independent analysis of thequiddity of kingship is, indeed, alike in manner and matter, astartling contribution to sixteenth century speculation. In manner itis worthy of Shakespeare's genius at its highest. In matter it is forits day revolutionary rationalism. It defies a popular doctrine, heldalmost universally by Shakespeare's contemporary fellow-countrymen, that royalty is divine and under God's special protection, that thegorgeous ceremony of the throne reflects a heavenly attribute, andthat the king is the pampered favourite of heaven. 

Bacon defined a king with slender qualifications, as "a mortal god onearth unto whom the living God has lent his own name. " Shakespeare waswell acquainted with this accepted doctrine. He often gives dramaticdefinition of it. He declines to admit its soundness. Wherever hequotes it, he adds an ironical comment, which was calculated toperturb the orthodox royalist. Having argued that the day-labourer orthe shepherd is far happier than a king, he logically refuses to admitthat the monarch is protected by God from any of the ills ofmortality. Richard II. May assert that "the hand of God alone, and nohand of blood or bone" can rob him of the sacred handle of hissceptre. But the catastrophe of the play demonstrates that that theftis entirely within human scope. The king is barbarously murdered. In_Hamlet_ the graceless usurping uncle declares that "such divinitydoth hedge a king, " that treason cannot endanger his life. But thespeaker is run through the body very soon after the brag escapes hislips. 

Shakespeare is no comfortable theorist, no respecter of orthodoxdoctrine, no smooth-tongued approver of fashionable dogma. His acuteintellect cuts away all the cobwebs, all the illusions, all thedelusions, of formulæ. His untutored insight goes down to the root ofthings; his king is not Philosopher Bacon's "mortal god on earth"; hisking is "but a man as I am, " doomed to drag out a large part of hisexistence in the galling chains of "tradition, form and ceremoniousduty, " of unreality and self-deception. 

Shakespeare's intuitive power of seeing things as they are, affectshis attitude to all social conventions. Not merely royal rulers of menare in a false position, ethically and logically. "Beware ofappearances, " is Shakespeare's repeated warning to men and women ofall ranks in the political or social hierarchy. "Put not your trust inornament, be it of gold or of silver. " In the spheres of law andreligion, the dramatist warns against pretence, against shows ofvirtue, honesty, or courage which have no solid backing. 

 The world is still deceiv'd with ornament. In law what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts: How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who, inward searched, have livers white as milk. 

 (_Merchant of Venice_, III. , ii. , 74-86. )

Shakespeare was no cynic. He was not unduly distrustful of hisfellow-men. He was not always suspecting them of somethingindistinguishable from fraud. When he wrote, "The world is stilldeceived with ornament" which "obscures the show of evil, " he wasexpressing downright hatred--not suspicion--of sham, of quackery, ofcant. His is the message of all commanding intellects which seethrough the hearts of men. Shakespeare's message is Carlyle's messageor Ruskin's message anticipated by nearly three centuries, and morepotently and wisely phrased. 

IV

At the same time as Shakespeare insists on the highest and trueststandard of public duty, he, with characteristically practicalinsight, acknowledges no less emphatically the necessity or duty ofobedience to duly regulated governments. There may appearinconsistency in first conveying the impression that governments, ortheir officers, are usually unworthy of trust, and then in biddingmankind obey them implicitly. But, although logical connection betweenthe two propositions be wanting, they are each convincing in theirplace. Both are the outcome of a robust common-sense. Order isessential to a nation's well-being. There must be discipline incivilised communities. Officers in authority must be obeyed. These arethe axiomatic bases of every social contract, and no question of thepersonal fitness of officers of state impugns their stability. 

Twice does Shakespeare define in the same terms what he understands bythe principle of all-compelling order, which is inherent ingovernment. Twice does he elaborate the argument that precise orderlydivision of offices, each enjoying full and unquestioned authority, isessential to the maintenance of a state's equilibrium. 

The topic was first treated in the speeches of Henry V. 'scouncillors:--

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

_Cant. _ Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixèd, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

(_Henry V. _, I. , ii. , 180-9. )

There follows a very suggestive comparison between the commonwealth ofbees and the economy of human society. The well-worn comparison hasbeen fashioned anew by a writer of genius of our own day, M. Mæterlinck. 

In _Troilus and Cressida_ (I. , iii. , 85 _seq. _) Shakespeare returns tothe discussion, and defines with greater precision "the specialty ofrule. " There he approaches nearer than anywhere else in his writingsthe sphere of strict philosophic exposition. He argues that:--

 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. 

Human society is bound to follow this celestial example. At allhazards, one must protect "the unity and married calm of states. "Degree, order, discipline, are the only sure safeguards against bruteforce and chaos which civilised institutions exist to hold in check:--

 How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogeniture 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 Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing 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. 

Deprived of degree, rank, order, society dissolves itself in "chaos. "

Near the end of his career, Shakespeare impressively re-stated hisfaith in the imperative need of the due recognition of social rank andgrade in civilised communities. In _Cymbeline_ (IV. , ii. , 246-9) "aqueen's son" meets his death in fight with an inferior, and theconqueror is inclined to spurn the lifeless corpse. But a wise veteransolemnly uplifts his voice to forbid the insult. Appeal is made to thesacred principle of social order, which must be respected even indeath:--

 Though mean and mighty, rotting Together, make one dust; yet reverence, -- That angel of the world, --doth make distinction Of place 'twixt high and low. 

"Reverence, that angel of the world, " is the ultimate bond of civilsociety, and can never be defied with impunity, it is the savingsanction of social order. 

V

I have quoted some of Shakespeare's avowedly ethical utterances whichbear on conditions of civil society--on morals in their social aspect. There is no obscurity about their drift. Apart from direct ethicaldeclaration, it may be that ethical lessons touching political virtueas well as other specific aspects of morality are deducible from astudy of Shakespeare's plots and characters. Very generous food forreflection seems to be offered the political philosopher by the plotsand characters of _Julius Cæsar_ and _Coriolanus_. The personality ofHamlet is instinct with ethical suggestion. The story and personagesof _Measure for Measure_ present the most persistent of moralproblems. But discussion of the ethical import of Shakespeare'sseveral dramatic portraits or stories is of doubtful utility. There isa genuine danger of reading into Shakespeare's plots and charactersmore direct ethical significance than is really there. Dramatic artnever consciously nor systematically serves obvious purposes ofmorality, save to its own detriment. 

Nevertheless there is not likely to be much disagreement with thegeneral assertion that Shakespeare's plots and charactersinvoluntarily develop under his hand in conformity with thestraightforward requirements of moral law. He upholds the broad canonsof moral truth with consistency, even with severity. There is nomistaking in his works on which side lies the right. He never rendersvice amiable. His want of delicacy, his challenges of modesty, needno palliation. It was characteristic of his age to speak more plainlyof many topics about which polite lips are nowadays silent. ButShakespeare's coarsenesses do no injury to the healthy-minded. They donot encourage evil propensities. Wickedness is always wickedness inShakespeare, and never deludes the spectator by masquerading assomething else. His plays never present problems as to whether vice isnot after all in certain conditions the sister of virtue. Shakespearenever shows vice in the twilight, nor leaves the spectator or readerin doubt as to what its features precisely are. Vice injures him whopractises it in the Shakespearean world, and ultimately proves hisruin. One cannot play with vice with impunity. 

 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. 

It is not because Shakespeare is a conscious moralist, that the wheelcomes full circle in his dramatic world. It is because his sense ofart is involuntarily coloured by a profound conviction of the ultimatejustice which governs the operations of human nature and society. 

Shakespeare argues, in effect, that a man reaps as he sows. It may becontended that Nature does not always work in strict accord with thisShakespearean canon, and that Shakespeare thereby shows himself moreof a deliberate moralist than Nature herself. But the dramatistidealises or generalises human experience; he does not reproduce itliterally. There is nothing in the Shakespearean canon that runsdirectly counter to the idealised or generalised experience of theouter world. The wicked and the foolish, the intemperate and theover-passionate, reach in Shakespeare's world that disastrous goal, which nature at large keeps in reserve for them and only by rareaccident suffers them to evade. The father who brings up his childrenbadly and yet expects every dutiful consideration from them is only inrare conditions spared the rude awakening which overwhelms King Lear. The jealous husband who wrongly suspects his wife of infidelitycommonly suffers the fate either of Othello or of Leontes. 

VI

Shakespeare regards it as the noblest ambition in man to master hisown destiny. There are numerous passages in which the dramatistfigures as an absolute and uncompromising champion of the freedom ofthe will. "'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus, " says one ofhis characters, Iago; "Our bodies are our gardens, to the which ourwills are gardeners. " Edmond says much the same in _King Lear_ when hecondemns as "the excellent foppery of the world" the ascription toexternal influences of all our faults and misfortunes, whereas theyproceed from our wilful, deliberate choice of the worser way. Repeatedly does Shakespeare assert that we are useful or uselessmembers of society according as we will it ourselves. 

 Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky Gives us free scope, says Helena in _All's Well_ (I. , i. , 231-3). 

 Men at some time are masters of their fates, says Cassius in _Julius Cæsar_ (I. , ii. , 139-41);

 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves that we are underlings. 

Hereditary predispositions, the accidents of environment, are notinsuperable; they can be neutralised by force of will, by character. Character is omnipotent. 

The self-sufficing, imperturbable will is the ideal possession, besidewhich all else in the world is valueless. But the quest of it isdifficult, and success in the pursuit is rare. Mastery of the will isthe result of a rare conjunction--a perfect commingling of blood andjudgment. Without such harmonious union man is "a pipe"--a musicalinstrument--"for Fortune's finger to sound what stop she pleases. " Mancan only work out his own salvation when he can control his passionsand can take with equal thanks Fortune's buffets or rewards. 

The best of men is--

 Spare in diet Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger, Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood. 

 (_Henry V. _, II. , ii. , 131-3. )

His is

 the nature Whom passion could not shake--whose solid virtue The shot of accident nor dart of chance Could neither graze nor pierce. 

 (_Othello_, IV. , i. , 176-9. )

Stability of temperament is the finest fruit of the free exercise ofthe will; it is the noblest of masculine excellences. 

 Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core--ay, in my heart of hearts. 

 (_Hamlet_, III. , ii. , 76-8. )

In spite of his many beautiful portrayals of the charms and tendernessand innocence of womanhood, Shakespeare had less hope in the ultimatecapacity of women to control their destiny than in the ultimatecapacity of men. The greatest of his female creations, Lady Macbethand Cleopatra, stand in a category of their own. They do not lack highpower of will, even if they are unable so to commingle blood andjudgment as to master fate. 

Elsewhere, the dramatist seems to betray private suspicion of thenormal woman's volitional capacity by applying to her heart and mindthe specific epithet "waxen. " The feminine temperament takes theimpress of its environment as easily as wax takes the impress of aseal. In two passages where this simile is employed, [31] the deductionfrom it is pressed to the furthest limit, and free-will is deniedwomen altogether. Feminine susceptibility is pronounced to beincurable; wavering, impressionable emotion is a main constituent ofwoman's being; women are not responsible for the sins they commit northe wrongs they endure. 

[Footnote 31:

 For men have marble, _women waxen minds_, And therefore are they formed as marble will; The weak oppressed, the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill. Then call them not the authors of their ill, No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil. 

 (_Lucrece_, 1240-6. )

 How easy it is for the proper-false In _women's waxen hearts_, to set their forms! Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we; For, such as we are made of, such we be. 

 (_Twelfth Night_, II. , ii. , 31. )]

This is reactionary doctrine, and one of the few points inShakespeare's "natural" philosophy which invites dissent. But he makesgenerous amends by ascribing to women a plentiful supply of humour. Nowriter has proclaimed more effectively his faith in woman's brillianceof wit nor in her quickness of apprehension. 

VII

Despite the solemnity which attaches to Shakespeare's philosophicreflections, he is at heart an optimist and a humorist. He combineswith his serious thought a thorough joy in life, an irremovablepreference for the bright over the dismal side of things. The creatorof Falstaff and Mercutio, of Beatrice and the Princess in _Love'sLabour's Lost_, could hardly fail to set store by that gaiety ofspirit which is the antidote to unreasoning discontent, and keepssociety in good savour. 

 Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, There shall be no more cakes and ale?

is the voice of Shakespeare as well as of Sir Toby Belch. Thedramatist was at one with Rosalind, his offspring, when she toldJaques:--

 I had rather have a fool to make me merry, Than experience to make me sad. 

The same sanguine optimistic temper constantly strikes a moreimpressive note. 

 There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out, is a comprehensive maxim, which sounds as if it came straight fromShakespeare's lips. This battle-cry of invincible optimism is utteredin the play by Shakespeare's favourite hero, Henry V. It is hard toquarrel with the inference that these words convey the ultimateverdict of the dramatist on human affairs. 

VIII

SHAKESPEARE AND PATRIOTISM[32]

[Footnote 32: This paper was first printed in the _Cornhill Magazine_, May 1901. ]

 His noble negligences teach What others' toils despair to reach. 

I

Patriotism is a natural instinct closely allied to the domesticaffections. Its normal activity is as essential as theirs to thehealth of society. But, in a greater degree than other instincts, thepatriotic impulse works with perilous irregularity unless it becontrolled by the moral sense and the intellect. 

Every student of history and politics is aware how readily thepatriotic instinct, if uncontrolled by morality and reason, comes intoconflict with both. Freed of moral restraint it is prone to engender apeculiarly noxious brand of spurious sentiment--the patriotism offalse pretence. Bombastic masquerade of the genuine impulse is notuncommon among place-hunters in Parliament and popularity-hunters inconstituencies, and the honest instinct is thereby brought intodisrepute. Dr Johnson was thinking solely of the frauds and moraldegradation which have been sheltered by self-seekers under the nameof patriotism when he none too pleasantly remarked: "Patriotism is thelast refuge of a scoundrel. "

The Doctor's epigram hardly deserves its fame. It embodies avery meagre fraction of the truth. While it ignores the beneficenteffects of the patriotic instinct, it does not exhaust its evilpropensities. It is not only the moral obliquity of place-hunters orpopularity-hunters that can fix on patriotism the stigma of offence. Its healthy development depends on intellectual as well as on moralguidance. When the patriotic instinct, however honestly it becherished, is freed of intellectual restraint, it works even moremischief than when it is deliberately counterfeited. Among theempty-headed it very easily degenerates into an over-assertive, aswollen selfishness, which ignores or defies the just rights andfeelings of those who do not chance to be their fellow-countrymen. Noone needs to be reminded how much wrong-doing and cruelty have beenencouraged by perfectly honest patriots who lack "intellectualarmour. " Dr Johnson knew that the blockhead seeks the shelter ofpatriotism with almost worse result to the body politic than thescoundrel. 

On the other hand, morality and reason alike resent the defect ofpatriotism as stoutly as its immoral or unintellectual extravagance. Atotal lack of the instinct implies an abnormal development of moralsentiment or intellect which must be left to the tender mercies of themental pathologist. The man who is the friend of every country but hisown can only be accounted for scientifically as the victim of anaberration of mind or heart. Ostentatious disclaimers of the patrioticsentiment deserve as little sympathy as the false pretenders to anexaggerated share of it. A great statesman is responsible for anapophthegm on that aspect of the topic which always deserves to bequoted in the same breath as Dr Johnson's familiar half-truth. WhenSir Francis Burdett, the Radical leader in the early days of the lastcentury, avowed scorn for the normal instinct of patriotism, Lord JohnRussell, the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, sagely retorted: "The honourable member talks of the _cant_ ofpatriotism; but there is something worse than the _cant_ ofpatriotism, and that is the _recant_ of patriotism. "[33] Mr Gladstonedeclared Lord John's repartee to be the best that he ever heard. 

[Footnote 33: The pun on "cant" and "recant" was not original, thoughLord John's application of it was. Its inventor seems to have beenLady Townshend, the brilliant mother of Charles Townshend, the elderPitt's Chancellor of the Exchequer. When she was asked if GeorgeWhitefield, the evangelical preacher, had yet recanted, she replied:"No, he has only been canting. "]

It may be profitable to consider how patriotism, which is singularlyliable to distortion and perversion, presented itself to the mind ofShakespeare, the clearest-headed student of human thought andsentiment. 

II

In Shakespeare's universal survey of human nature it was impossiblethat he should leave patriotism and the patriotic instinct out ofaccount. It was inevitable that prevalent phases of both shouldfrequently occupy his attention. In his rôle of dramatist henaturally dealt with the topic incidentally or disconnectedly ratherthan in the way of definite exposition; but in the result, histreatment will probably be found to be more exhaustive than that ofany other English writer. The Shakespearean drama is peculiarlyfertile in illustration of the virtuous or beneficent working of thepatriotic instinct; but it does not neglect the malevolent or morbidsymptoms incident either to its exorbitant or to its defective growth;nor is it wanting in suggestions as to how its healthy development maybe best ensured. Part of Shakespeare's message on the subject is sowell known that readers may need an apology for reference to it; butShakespeare's declarations have not, as far as I know, beenco-ordinated. [34]

[Footnote 34: In passing cursorily over the whole field I must askpardon for dwelling occasionally on ground that is in detached detailsufficiently well trodden, as well as for neglecting some points whichrequire more thorough exploration than is practicable within mypresent limits. ]

Broadly speaking, the Shakespearean drama enforces the principle thatan active instinct of patriotism promotes righteous conduct. Thisprinciple lies at the root of Shakespeare's treatment of history andpolitical action, both English and Roman. Normal manifestations of theinstinct in Shakespeare's world shed a gracious light on life. But itis seen to work in many ways. The patriotic instinct gives birth tovarious moods. It operates with some appearance of inconsistency. Nowit acts as a spiritual sedative, now as a spiritual stimulant. 

Of all Shakespeare's characters, it is Bolingbroke in _Richard II. _who betrays most effectively the tranquillising influence ofpatriotism. In him the patriotic instinct inclines to identity withthe simple spirit of domesticity. It is a magnified love for his ownhearthstone--a glorified home-sickness. The very soil of England, England's ground, excites in Bolingbroke an overmastering sentiment ofdevotion. His main happiness in life resides in the thought thatEngland is his mother and his nurse. The patriotic instinct thusexerts on a character which is naturally cold and unsympathetic asoftening, soothing, and purifying sway. Despite his forbiddingself-absorption and personal ambition he touches hearts, and rarelyfails to draw tears when he sighs forth the bald lines:--

 Where'er I wander, boast of this I can, Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman. 

In such a shape the patriotic instinct may tend in natures weaker thanBolingbroke's to mawkishness or sentimentality. But it is incapable ofactive offence. It makes for the peace and goodwill not merely ofnations among themselves, but of the constituent elements of eachnation within itself. It unifies human aspiration and breeds socialharmony. 

Very different is the phase of the patriotic instinct which isportrayed in the more joyous, more frank, and more impulsivecharacters of Faulconbridge the Bastard in the play of _King John_, and of the King in _Henry V. _ It is in them an inexhaustible stimulusto action. It is never quiescent, but its operations are regulated bymorality and reason, and it finally induces a serene exaltation oftemper. It was a pardonable foible of Elizabethan writers distinctlyto identify with the English character this healthily energetic sortof patriotism--the sort of patriotism to which an atmosphere ofknavery or folly proves fatal. 

Faulconbridge is an admirable embodiment of the patriotic sentiment inits most attractive guise. He is a manly soldier, blunt in speech, contemning subterfuge, chafing against the dictates of politicalexpediency, and believing that quarrels between nations which cannotbe accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or theother, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He isthe sworn foe of the bully or the braggart. Cruelty is hateful to him. The patriotic instinct nurtures in him a warm and generous humanity. His faith in the future of his nation depends on the confident hopethat she will be true to herself, to her traditions, to herresponsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will be at oncecourageous and magnanimous:--

 Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. 

Faulconbridge's patriotism is a vivacious spur to good endeavour inevery relation of life. 

Henry V. Is drawn by Shakespeare at fuller length than Faulconbridge. His character is cast in a larger mould. But his patriotism is of thesame spirited, wholesome type. Though Henry is a born soldier, hediscourages insolent aggression or reckless displays of prowess infight. With greater emphasis than his archbishops and bishops heinsists that his country's sword should not be unsheathed except atthe bidding of right and conscience. At the same time, he is terriblein resolution when the time comes for striking blows. War, when it isonce invoked, must be pursued with all possible force and fury:--

 In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in his ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger. [35]

[Footnote 35: On this point the Shakespearean oracle always speakswith a decisive and practical note:--

 Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. 

 (_Hamlet_, I. , iii. , 65-7. )]

But although Henry's patriotic instinct can drive him into battle, itkeeps him faithful there to the paths of humanity. Always alive to thehorrors of war, he sternly forbids looting or even the use ofinsulting language to the enemy. It is only when a defeated enemydeclines to acknowledge the obvious ruin of his fortunes that a saneand practical patriotism defends resort on the part of the conquerorto the grimmest measure of severity. The healthy instinct stiffens thegrip on the justly won fruits of victory. As soon as Henry V. Seesthat the French wilfully deny the plain fact of their overthrow, he ismoved, quite consistently, to exclaim:--

 What is it then to me if impious war, Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats, Enlinked to waste and desolation?

The context makes it clear that there is no confusion here between thepatriotic instinct and mere bellicose ecstasy. 

The confusion of patriotism with militant aggressiveness is asfamiliar to the Shakespearean drama as to the external world; but itis always exhibited by Shakespeare in its proper colours. TheShakespearean "mob, " unwashed in mind and body, habitually yields toit, and justifies itself by a speciousness of argument, against whicha clean vision rebels. The so-called patriotism which seeks expressionin war for its own sake is alone intelligible to Shakespeare'spavement orators. "Let me have war, say I, " exclaims the professedlypatriotic spokesman of the ill-conditioned proletariat in_Coriolanus_; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it'sspritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible. .. . Ay, and it makes menhate one another. " For this distressing result of peace, the reason isgiven that in times of peace men have less need of one another than inseasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the cry: "The warsfor my money. " There is irony in this suggestion of the mercantilevalue of war on the lips of a spokesman of paupers. It is solely theimpulsive mindless patriot who strains after mere military glory. 

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

 (I. _Henry VI. _, I. , ii. , 133-5. )

No wise man vaunts in the name of patriotism his own nation'ssuperiority over another. The typical patriot, Henry V. , once makesthe common boast that one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen, buthe apologises for the brag as soon as it is out of his mouth. (Hefears the air of France has demoralised him. )

Elsewhere Shakespeare utters a vivacious warning against the patriot'sexclusive claim for his country of natural advantages, which all theworld shares substantially alike. 

 Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night, Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't; In a great pool, a swan's nest: prithee, think There's livers out of Britain. [36]

[Footnote 36: _Cymbeline_, III. , iv. , 139-43. ]

It is not the wild hunger for war, but the stable interests of peacethat are finally subserved in the Shakespearean world by true andwell-regulated patriotism. _Henry V. _, the play of Shakespeare whichshows the genuine patriotic instinct in its most energetic guise, endswith a powerful appeal to France and England, traditional foes, tocherish "neighbourhood and Christianlike accord, " so that never againshould "war advance his bleeding sword 'twixt England and fairFrance. "

However whole-heartedly Shakespeare rebukes the excesses and illogicalpretensions to which the lack of moral or intellectual disciplineexposes patriotism, he reserves his austerest censure for thedisavowal of the patriotic instinct altogether. One of the greatest ofhis plays is practically a diagnosis of the perils which follow in thetrain of a wilful abnegation of the normal instinct. In _Coriolanus_Shakespeare depicts the career of a man who thinks that he can, byvirtue of inordinate self-confidence and belief in his personalsuperiority over the rest of his countrymen, safely abjure and defythe common patriotic instinct, which, after all, keeps the State inbeing. "I'll never, " says Coriolanus, "Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand As if a man were author of himself, And knew no other kin. "[37]

[Footnote 37: _Coriolanus_, V. , iii. , 34-7. ]

Coriolanus deliberately suppresses the patriotic instinct, and, withgreater consistency than others who have at times followed hisexample, joins the fighting ranks of his country's enemies by way ofillustrating his sincerity. His action proves to be in conflict withthe elementary condition of social equilibrium. The subversion of thenatural instinct is brought to the logical issues of sin and death. Domestic ties are rudely severed. The crime of treason is risked withan insolence that is fatal to the transgressor. With relentless logicdoes the Shakespearean drama condemn defiance of the natural instinctof patriotism. 

III

It does not, however, follow that the patriotic instinct of theShakespearean gospel encourages blind adoration of state or country. Intelligent citizens of the Shakespearean world are never prohibitedfrom honestly criticising the acts or aspirations of their fellows, and from seeking to change them when they honestly think they can bechanged for the better. It is not the business of a discerning patriotto sing pæans in his nation's honour. His final aim is to help hiscountry to realise the highest ideals of social and political conductwhich are known to him, and to ensure for her the best possible"reputation through the world. " Criticism conceived in a patrioticspirit should be constant and unflagging. The true patriot speaks outas boldly when he thinks the nation errs as when, in his opinion, sheadds new laurels to her crown. The Shakespearean patriot applies arigorous judgment to all conditions of his environment--both socialand political. 

Throughout the English history plays Shakespeare bears convincingtestimony to the right, and even to the duty, of the patriot toexercise in all seriousness his best powers of criticism on thepolitical conduct of his fellow-citizens and of those who rule overhim. 

Shakespeare's studies of English history are animated by a patriotismwhich boldly seeks and faces the truth. His dramatic presentations ofEnglish history have been often described as fragments of a nationalepic, as detached books of an English _Iliad_. But they embody no epicor heroic glorification of the nation. Taking the great series whichbegins chronologically with _King John_ and ends with _Richard III. _(_Henry VIII. _ stands apart), we find that Shakespeare makes thecentral features of the national history the persons of the kings. Only in the case of _Henry V. _ does he clothe an English king with anygenuine heroism. Shakespeare's kings are as a rule but men as we are. The violet smells to them as it does to us; all their senses have buthuman conditions; and though their affections be higher mounted thanours, yet when they stoop they stoop with like wing. Excepting _HenryV. _, the history plays are tragedies. They "tell sad stories of thedeath of kings. " But they do not merely illustrate the crushingburdens of kingship or point the moral of the hollowness of kinglypageantry; they explain why kingly glory is in its essence brittlerather than brilliant. And since Shakespeare's rulers reflect ratherthan inspire the character of the nation, we are brought to a study ofthe causes of the brittleness of national glory. 

The glory of a nation, as of a king, is only stable, we learn, whenthe nation, as the king, lives soberly, virtuously, and wisely, andis courageous, magnanimous, and zealous after knowledge. Cowardice, meanness, ignorance, and cruelty ruin nations as surely as they ruinkings. This is the lesson specifically taught in the most eloquent ofall the direct avowals of patriotism which are to be found inShakespeare's plays--in the dying speech of John of Gaunt. 

That speech is no ebullition of the undisciplined patriotic instinct. It is a solemn announcement of the truth that the greatness and glory, with which nature and history have endowed a nation, may be dissipatedwhen, on the one hand, the rulers prove selfish, frivolous, andunequal to the responsibilities which a great past places on theirshoulders, and when, on the other hand, the nation acquiesces in thedepravity of its governors. In his opening lines the speaker laysemphasis on the possibilities of greatness with which the naturalphysical conditions of the country and its political and militarytraditions have invested his countrymen. Thereby he brings into luridrelief the sin and the shame of paltering with, of putting to ignobleuses, the national character and influence. The dying patriotapostrophises England in the familiar phrases, as:--

 This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle. .. . 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 happier lands: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world. 

 (_Richard II. _, II. , i. , 40-58. )

The last line identifies with the patriotic instinct the aspiration ofa people to deserve well of foreign opinion. Subsequently the speakerturns from his survey of the ideal which he would have his countryseek. He exposes with ruthless frankness the ugly realities of herpresent degradation. 

 England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds, -- That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 

 (_Richard II. _, II. , i. , 61-6. )

At the moment the speaker's warning is scorned, but ultimately ittakes effect. At the end of the play of _Richard II. _, England castsoff the ruler and his allies, who by their self-indulgence and moralweakness play false with the traditions of the country. 

In _Henry V. _, the only one of Shakespeare's historical plays in whichan English king quits the stage in the full enjoyment of prosperity, his good fortune is more than once explained as the reward of hisendeavour to abide by the highest ideals of his race, and of hisresolve to exhibit in his own conduct its noblest mettle. Hisstrongest appeals to his fellow-countrymen are:--

 Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you;

 * * * * *

 Let us swear That you are worth your breeding. 

The kernel of sound patriotism is respect for a nation's traditionalrepute, for the attested worth of the race. That is the large lessonwhich Shakespeare taught continuously throughout his career as adramatist. The teaching is not solely enshrined in the poeticeloquence either of plays of his early years like _Richard II. _ or ofplays of his middle life like _Henry V. _ It is the last as well as thefirst word in Shakespeare's collective declaration on the truecharacter of patriotism. _Cymbeline_ belongs to the close of hisworking life, and there we meet once more the assurance that a dueregard to the past and an active resolve to keep alive ancestralvirtue are the surest signs of health in the patriotic instinct. 

The accents of John of Gaunt were repeated by Shakespeare with littlemodulation at that time of his life when his reflective power was atits ripest. The Queen of Britain, Cymbeline's wife, is the personagein whose mouth Shakespeare sets, not perhaps quite appropriately, thelatest message in regard to patriotism that he is known to havedelivered. Emissaries from the Emperor Augustus have come from Rome todemand from the King of Britain payment of the tribute that JuliusCæsar had long since imposed on the island, by virtue of a _forcemajeure_, which is temporarily extinguished. The pusillanimous KingCymbeline is indisposed to put himself to the pains of contesting theclaim, but the resolute queen awakens in him a sense of patriotism andof patriotic obligation by recalling the more nobly inspired attitudeof his ancestors, and by convincing him of the baseness of ignoringthe physical features which had been bestowed by nature on his domainsas a guarantee of their independence. 

 Remember, sir my liege, The kings your ancestors, together with The natural bravery of your isle, which stands As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters, With sands, that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. 

 (_Cymbeline_, III. , i. , 16-22. )

The appeal prevails, and the tribute is refused. Although theevolution of the plot which is based on an historical chroniclecompels the renewed acquiescence of the British king in the Roman taxat the close of the play, the Queen of Britain's spirited insistenceon the maritime strength of her country loses little of itssignificance. 

IV

Frank criticism of the social life of the nation is as characteristicof Shakespearean drama as outspoken exposition of its politicalfailings. There is hardly any of Shakespeare's plays which does notoffer shrewd comment on the foibles and errors of contemporary Englishsociety. 

To society, Shakespeare's attitude is that of a humorist who invitesto reformation half-jestingly. His bantering tone, when he turns tosocial censure, strikingly contrasts with the tragic earnestness thatcolours his criticism of political vice or weakness. Some of thenational failings on the social side which Shakespeare rebukes mayseem trivial at a first glance. But it is the voice of prudentpatriotism which prompts each count in the indictment. The keenness ofShakespeare's insight is attested by the circumstance that everycharge has a modern application. None is yet quite out of date. 

Shakespeare rarely missed an opportunity of betraying contempt for theextravagances of his countrymen and countrywomen in regard to dress. Portia says of her English suitor Faulconbridge, the young baron ofEngland: "How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet inItaly, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and hisbehaviour everywhere. " Another failing in Englishmen, which Portiadetects in her English suitor, is a total ignorance of any languagebut his own. She, an Italian lady, remarks: "You know I say nothing tohim, for he understands not me nor I him. He hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas! who canconverse with a dumb show. " This moving plaint draws attention to adefect which is not yet supplied. There are few Englishmen nowadayswho, on being challenged to court Portia in Italian, would not cut asorry figure in dumb show--sorrier figures than Frenchmen or Germans. No true patriot ought to ignore the fact or to direct attention to itwith complacency. 

Again, Shakespeare was never unmindful of the drunken habits ofhis compatriots. When Iago sings a verse of the song beginning, "And let me the cannikin clink, " and ending, "Why then let asoldier drink, " Cassio commends the excellence of the ditty. Thereupon Iago explains: "I learned it in England, where indeedthey are most potent in potting; Your Dane, your German, andyour swag-bellied Hollander--drink, ho!--are nothing to yourEnglish. " Cassio asks: "Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?"Iago retorts: "Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane deaddrunk, " and gains, the speaker explains, easy mastery over the Germanand the Hollander. 

A further stroke of Shakespeare's social criticism hits thethoughtless pursuit of novelty, which infected the nation and foundvent in Shakespeare's day in the patronage of undignified shows andsports. When Trinculo, perplexed by the outward aspect of the hideousCaliban, mistakes him for a fish, he remarks: "Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool therebut would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man;any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit torelieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. "

Shakespeare seems slyly to confess a personal conviction of defectivebalance in the popular judgment when he makes the first grave-diggerremark that Hamlet was sent into England because he was mad. 

"He shall recover his wits there, " the old clown suggests, "or if hedo not, 'tis no great matter there. "

"Why?" asks Hamlet. 

"'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. "

So, too, in the emphatically patriotic play of _Henry V. _, Shakespeareimplies that he sees some purpose in the Frenchman's jibes at thefoggy, raw, and dull climate of England, which engenders in itsinhabitants, the Frenchman argues, a frosty temperament, an ungenialcoldness of blood. Nor does the dramatist imply dissent from theFrench marshal's suggestion that Englishmen's great meals of beefimpair the efficiency of their intellectual armour. The point of thereproof is not blunted by the subsequent admission of a French criticin the same scene to the effect that, however robustious and rough inmanner Englishmen may be, they have the unmatchable courage of theEnglish breed of mastiffs. To credit men with the highest virtues ofwhich dogs are capable is a grudging compliment. 

V

To sum up. The Shakespearean drama enjoins those who love theircountry wisely to neglect no advantage that nature offers in the wayof resisting unjust demands upon it; to remember that her prosperitydepends on her command of the sea, --of "the silver sea, which servesit in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, againstthe envy of less happier lands"; to hold firm in the memory "the dearsouls" who have made "her reputation through the world"; to subject atneed her faults and frailties to criticism and rebuke; and finally totreat with disdain those in places of power, who make of no accounttheir responsibilities to the past as well as to the present and thefuture. The political, social, and physical conditions of his countryhave altered since Shakespeare lived. England has ceased to be anisland-power. The people rule instead of the king. Socialresponsibilities are more widely acknowledged. But the dramatist'sdoctrine of patriotism has lost little of its pristine vitality, andis relevant to current affairs. 

IX

A PERIL OF SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH[38]

[Footnote 38: This paper was first printed in _The Author_, October1903. ]

I

For some years past scarcely a month passes without my receipt of acommunication from a confiding stranger, to the effect that he hasdiscovered some piece of information concerning Shakespeare which hashitherto eluded research. Very often has a correspondent put himselfto the trouble of forwarding a photograph of the title-page of a latesixteenth or early seventeenth century book, on which has beenscrawled in old-fashioned script the familiar name of WilliamShakespeare. At intervals, which seem to recur with mathematicalregularity, I receive intelligence that a portrait of the poet, ofwhich nothing is hitherto known, has come to light in some reconditecorner of England or America, and it is usually added that acontemporary inscription settles all doubt of authenticity. 

I wish to speak with respect and gratitude of these confidences. Iwelcome them, and have no wish to repress them. But truth does notpermit me to affirm that such as have yet reached me have done morethan enlarge my conception of the scope of human credulity. I lookforward to the day when the postman shall, through the generosity ofsome appreciative reader of my biography of Shakespeare, deliver at mydoor an autograph of the dramatist of which nothing has been heardbefore, or a genuine portrait of contemporary date, the existence ofwhich has never been suspected. But up to the moment of writing, despite the good intentions of my correspondents, no experience of thekind has befallen me. 

There is something pathetic in the frequency with whichcorrespondents, obviously of unblemished character and most generousinstinct, send me almost tearful expressions of regret that I shouldhave hitherto ignored one particular document, which throws (in theireyes) a curious gleam on the dramatist's private life. At least sixtimes a year am I reminded how it is recorded in more than one obscureeighteenth-century periodical that the dramatist, George Peele, wroteto his friend Marle or Marlowe, in an extant letter, of a merrymeeting which was held at a place called the "Globe. " Whether therendezvous were tavern or playhouse is left undetermined. Theassembled company, I am assured, included not merely Edward Alleyn theactor, and Ben Jonson, but Shakespeare himself. Together thesecelebrated men are said to have discussed a passage in the new play of_Hamlet_. The reported talk is at the best tame prattle. Yet, ifShakespeare be anywhere revealed in unconstrained intercourse withprofessional associates, no biographer deserves pardon for overlookingthe revelation, however disappointing be its purport. 

Unfortunately for this neglected intelligence, the letter in questionis an eighteenth century fabrication. It is a forgery of no intrinsicbrilliance or wit. It bears on its dull face marks of guilt whichcould only escape the notice of the uninformed. It is not likely tomislead the critical. Nevertheless it has deceived many an uncriticalreader, and has constantly found its way into print without meetingserious confutation. It may therefore be worth while setting its trueorigin and subsequent history on record. No endeavour is likely in allthe circumstances of the case to prevent an occasional resurrection ofthe meagre spectre; but at present it appears to walk in variousquarters quite unimpeded, and an endeavour to lay it may not bewithout its uses. 

II

Through the first half of 1763 there was published in London a monthlymagazine called the _Theatrical Review, or Annals of the Drama_, ananonymous miscellany of dramatic biography and criticism. It was acolourless contribution to the journalism of the day, and lackedpowers of endurance. It ceased at the end of six months. The sixinstalments were re-issued as "Volume I. " at the end of June 1763; butthat volume had no successor. [39]

[Footnote 39: Other independent publications of similar characterappeared under the identical title of _The Theatrical Review_ both in1758 and 1772. The latter collected the ephemeral dramatic criticismsof John Potter, a well-known writer for the stage. ]

All that is worth noting of the _Theatrical Review_ of 1763 now isthat among its contributors was an extremely interesting personality. He was a young man of good education and independent means, who hadchambers in the Temple, and was enthusiastically applying himself to astudy of Shakespeare and Elizabethan dramatic literature. His name, George Steevens, acquired in later years world-wide fame as that ofthe most learned of Shakespearean commentators. Of the real value ofSteevens's scholarship no question is admissible, and his reputationjustly grew with his years. Yet Steevens's temper was singularlyperverse and mischievous. His confidence in his own powers led him tocontemn the powers of other people. He enjoyed nothing so much asmystifying those who were engaged in the same pursuits as himself, andhis favourite method of mystification was to announce anonymously thediscovery of documents which owed all their existence to his owningenuity. This, he admitted, was his notion of "fun. " Whenever thewhim seized him, he would in gravest manner reveal to the Press, oreven contrive to bring to the notice of a learned society, somealleged relic in manuscript or in stone which he had deliberatelymanufactured. His sole aim was to recreate himself with laughter atthe perplexity that such unholy pranks aroused. It is one of thesePuck-like tricks on Steevens's part that has spread confusion amongthose of my correspondents, who allege that Peele has handed down tous a personal reminiscence of the great dramatist. 

The _Theatrical Review_, in its second number, offered an anonymousbiography of the great actor and theatrical manager of Shakespeare'sday, Edward Alleyn. This biography was clearly one of Steevens'searliest efforts. It is for the most part an innocent compilation. Butit contains one passage in its author's characteristic vein ofmischief. Midway in the essay the reader is solemnly assured that abrand-new contemporary reference to Alleyn's eminent associateShakespeare was at his disposal. The new story "carries with it"(asserts the writer) "all the air of probability and truth, and hasnever been in print before. " "A gentleman of honour and veracity, " runthe next sentences, which were designed to put the unwary student offhis guard, "in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, has shown usa letter dated in the year 1600, which he assures us has been in thepossession of his family, by the mother's side, for a long series ofyears, and which bears all the marks of antiquity. " The superscriptionwas interpreted to run: "For Master Henrie Marle, livynge at the sygneof the rose by the palace. "

There follows at length the paper of which the family of thehonourable and veracious gentleman "in the commission of the peace forMiddlesex" had become possessed "by the mother's side. " The words werethese:--

 "FRIENDE MARLE, "I must desyre that my syster hyr watche, and the cookerie booke you promysed, may be sent by the man. I never longed for thy company more than last night; we were all very merrye at the Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasantely to thy friend Will, that he had stolen his speech about the qualityes of an actor's excellencye, in _Hamlet_ hys tragedye, from conversations manyfold which had passed between them, and opinyons given by Allen touchinge the subject. Shakespeare did not take this talke in good sorte; but Jonson put an end to the stryfe with wittielie saying: 'This affaire needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned, no doubt; do not marvel; have you not seen him act tymes out of number?'

 "Believe me most syncerelie, "Harrie, "Thyne, "G. PEEL. "

The text of this strangely-spelt, strangely-worded epistle, with itspuny efforts at a jest, was succeeded by a suggestion that "G. Peel, "the alleged signatory, could be none other than George Peele, thedramatist, who achieved reputation in Shakespeare's early days, andwas an industrious collector of anecdotes. 

Thus the impish Steevens baited his hook. The sport which followedmust have exceeded his expectations. Any one familiar with the bareoutline of Elizabethan literary history should have perceived that atrap had been set. The letter was assigned to the year 1600. Shakespeare's play of _Hamlet_, to the performance of which itunconcernedly refers, was not produced before 1602; at that dateGeorge Peele had lain full four years in his grave. Peele could neverhave passed the portals of the theatre called the "Globe"; for it wasnot built until 1599. No historic tavern of the name is known. Thesurname of the person, to whom the letter was pretended to have beenaddressed, is suspicious. "Marle" was one way of spelling "Marlowe" ata period when forms of surnames varied with the caprice of the writer. The great dramatist, _Christopher_ Marle, or Marloe, or Marlowe, haddied in 1593. "Henrie Marle" is counterfeit coinage of no doubtfulstamp. 

The language and the style of the letter are undeserving of seriousexamination. They are of a far later period than the Elizabethan age. They cannot be dated earlier than 1763. Safely might the heaviest oddsbe laid that in no year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth "did friendeMarle promyse G. Peel his syster that he would send hyr watche and thecookerie book by the man, " or that "Ned Alleyn made pleasanteaffirmation to G. Peel of friend Will's theft of the speech in_Hamlet_ concerning an actor's excellencye. "

From top to toe the imposture is obvious. But the general reader ofthe eighteenth century was confiding, unsuspicious, greedy of novelinformation. The description of the source of the document seemed tohim precise enough to silence doubt. 

III

The _Theatrical Review_ of 1763 succeeded in launching the fraud on aquite triumphal progress. Again and again, as the century advanced, was G. Peel's declaration to "friende Marle" paraded, without hint ofits falsity, before snappers-up of Shakespearean trifles. Seven yearsafter its first publication, the epistle found admission in a slightlyaltered setting to so reputable a periodical as the _Annual Register_. Burke was still directing that useful publication, and whateverinformation the _Register_ shielded, was reckoned to be of veracity. "G. Peel" and "friende Marle" were there, in the year 1770, sufferedto exchange their confidences in the most honourable environment. 

Another seven years passed, and in 1777 there appeared an ambitiouswork of reference, entitled _Biographia Literaria, or a BiographicalHistory of Literature_, which gave its author, John Berkenhout, afree-thinking physician, his chief claim to remembrance. Steevens wasa friend of Berkenhout, and helped him in the preparation of the book. Into his account of Shakespeare, the credulous physician introducedquite honestly the fourteen-year-old forgery. The reputed date of1600, which the supposititious justice of the peace had given it inthe _Theatrical Review_, was now suppressed. Berkenhout confined hiscomment to the halting reminiscence: "Whence I copied this letter I donot recollect; but I remember that at the time of transcribing it, Ihad no doubt of its authenticity. "

Thrice had the trick been worked effectively in conspicuous placesbefore Steevens died in 1800. But the evil that he did lived afterhim, and within a year of his death the imposture renewed its youth. Acorrespondent, who concealed his identity under the signature of"Grenovicus" (_i. E. _, of Greenwich), sent Peel's letter in 1801 to the_Gentleman's Magazine_, a massive repertory of useful knowledge. Thereit was duly reprinted in the number for June. "Grenovicus" had theassurance to claim the letter as his own discovery. "To my knowledge, "he wrote, "it has never yet appeared in print. " He refrained fromindicating how he had gained access to it, but congratulated himselfand the readers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ on the valiant feastthat he provided for them. His action was apparently taken by thereaders of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ at his own valuation. 

Meanwhile the discerning critic was not altogether passive. IsaacD'Israeli denounced the fraud in his _Curiosities of Literature_; buthe and others did their protesting gently. The fraud looked to theexpert too shamefaced to merit a vigorous onslaught. He imagined thespurious epistle must die of its own inanity. In this he miscalculatedthe credulity of the general reader. "Grenovicus" of the _Gentleman'sMagazine_ had numerous disciples. 

Many a time during the past century has that worthy's exploit beenrepeated. Even so acute a scholar as Alexander Dyce thought it worthwhile to reprint the letter in 1829 in the first edition of hiscollected works of George Peele (Vol. I. , page 111), although hedeclined to pledge himself to its authenticity. The latest historianof Dulwich College[40] has admitted it to his text with too mildlyworded a caveat. Often, too, has "G. Peel" emerged more recently froma long-forgotten book or periodical to darken the page of a modernpopular magazine. I have met him unabashed during the present centuryin two literary periodicals of repute--in the _Academy_ (of London), in the issue of 18th January 1902, and in the _Poet Lore_ (of Boston)in the following April number. Future disinterments may safely beprophesied. In the jungle of the _Annual Register_ or the _Gentleman'sMagazine_ the forgery lurks unchallenged, and there will always beinexperienced explorers, who from time to time will run the unhallowedthing to earth there, and bring it forth as a new and unsuspectedtruth. 

[Footnote 40: William Young's _History of Dulwich College_, 1889, II. , 41-2. ]

Perhaps forgery is too big a word to apply to Steevens's concoction. Others worked at later periods on lines of mystification similar tohis; but, unlike his disciples, he did not seek from his misdirectedingenuity pecuniary gain or even notoriety. He never set his name tothis invention of "Peel" and "Marle, " and their insipid chatter about_Hamlet_ at the "Globe. " Steevens's sole aim was to delude the unwary. It is difficult to detect humour in the endeavour. But the perversityof the human intellect has no limits. This ungainly example of it isonly worth attention because it has sailed under its false colourswithout very serious molestation for one hundred and forty-threeyears. 

X

SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE[41]

[Footnote 41: This paper was first printed in _The NineteenthCentury_, June 1899. ]

I

Nothing but good can come of a comparative study of English and Frenchliterature. The political intercourse of the two countries hasinvolved them in an endless series of broils. But between theliteratures of the two countries friendly relations have subsisted forover five centuries. In the literary sphere the interchange ofneighbourly civilities has known no interruption. The same literaryforms have not appealed to the tastes of the two nations; butdifferences of æsthetic temperament have not prevented the literatureof the one from levying substantial loans on the literature of theother, and that with a freedom and a frequency which were calculatedto breed discontent between any but the most cordial of allies. Whilethe literary geniuses of the two nations have pursued independentideals, they have viewed as welcome courtesies the willingness andreadiness of the one to borrow sustenance of the other on the road. Itis unlikely that any full or formal balance-sheet of such lendings andborrowings will ever be forthcoming, for it is felt instinctively byliterary accountants and their clients on both shores of the EnglishChannel that the debts on the one side keep a steady pace with thedebts on the other, and there is no balance to be collected. 

No recondite research is needed to establish this general viewof the situation. It is well known how the poetic career of Chaucer, the earliest of great English poets, was begun under French masters. The greatest poem of mediæval France, the _Roman de la Rose_, was turned into English by his youthful pen, and the chief Frenchpoet of the day, Eustace Deschamps, held out to him the hand offellowship in the enthusiastic _balade_, in which he apostrophised"le grand translateur, noble Geoffroi Chaucer. " Following Chaucer'sexample, the great poets of Elizabeth's reign and of James theFirst's reign most liberally and most literally assimilated theverse of their French contemporaries, Ronsard, Du Bellay, andDesportes. [42] Early in the seventeenth century, Frenchmen returnedthe compliment by naturalising in French translations the proseromances of Sir Philip Sidney and Robert Greene, the philosophicalessays of Bacon, and the ethical and theological writings of BishopJoseph Hall. From the accession of Charles the Second until thatof George the Third, the English drama framed itself on Frenchmodels, and Pope, who long filled the throne of a literary dictatorin England, acknowledged discipleship to Boileau. A little later theliterary philosophers of France--Rousseau and the Encyclopédistes--drewtheir nutrition from the writings of Hobbes and Locke. Frenchnovel-readers of the eighteenth century found their chief joy in thetearful emotions excited by the sentimentalities of Richardson andSterne. French novel-writers one hundred and thirty years ago hadsmall chance of recognition if they disdained to traffic in thelachrymose wares which the English novelists had brought into fashion. 

[Footnote 42: In the Introduction to a collection of ElizabethanSonnets, published in Messrs Constable's re-issue of Arber's _EnglishGarner_ (1904), the present writer has shown that numerous sonnets, which Elizabethan writers issued as original poems, were literaltranslations from the French of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Desportes. Numerous loans of like character were levied silently on Italianauthors. ]

At the present moment the cultured Englishman finds his most palatablefiction in the publications of Paris. Within recent memory the Englishplaygoer viewed with impatience any theatrical programme which lackeda Parisian flavour. The late Sir Henry Irving, who, during the pastgeneration, sought to sustain the best traditions of the Englishdrama, produced in his last years two original plays, _Robespierre_and _Dante_, by the _doyen_ of living French dramatists, M. Sardou. Complementary tendencies are visible across the Channel. The Frenchstage often offers as cordial a reception to plays of Englishmanufacture as is offered in London to the plays derived from France. No histrionic event attracts higher interest in Paris than theassumption by a great actor or actress of a Shakespearean rôle for thefirst time; and French dramatic critics have been known to generatesuch heat in debates over the right conception of a Shakespeareancharacter that their differences have required adjustment at thesword's point. 

Of greater interest is it to note that in all the cultivated centresof France a new and unparalleled energy is devoted to-day to the studyof English literature of both the present and the past. The researchrecently expended on the topic by French scholars has not beenexcelled in Germany, and has rarely been equalled in England. Criticalbiographies of James Thomson (of _The Seasons_), of Burns, of Young, and of Wordsworth have come of late from the pens of French professorsof English literature, and their volumes breathe a minute accuracy anda fulness of sympathetic knowledge which are certainly not habitual toEnglish professors of English literature. This scholarly movement inFrance shows signs of rapid extension. Each summer vacation sees anincrease in the number of French visitors to the British Museumreading-room, who are making recondite researches into Englishliterary history. The new zeal of Frenchmen for English studies claimsthe most cordial acknowledgment of English scholars, and it isappropriate that the most coveted lectureship on English literature inan English University--the Clark lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge--should have been bestowed last year on the learnedprofessor of English at the Sorbonne, M. Beljame, author of _Le Publicet les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIIIe Siècle_. M. Beljame's unexpected death (on September 17, 1906), shortly after hiswork at Cambridge was completed, is a loss alike to English and Frenchletters. 

II

In view of the growth of the French interest in English literaryhistory, it was to be expected that serious efforts should be made inFrance to determine the character and dimensions of the influenceexerted on French literature by the greatest of all English men ofletters--by Shakespeare. That work has been undertaken by M. Jusserand. In 1898 he gave to the world the results of hisinvestigation in his native language. Subsequently, with a welcomeconsideration for the linguistic incapacities of Shakespeare'scountrymen, he repeated his conclusions in their tongue. [43] TheEnglish translation is embellished with many pictorial illustrationsof historic interest and value. 

[Footnote 43: _Shakespeare in France under the Ancien Régime_, by J. J. Jusserand. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1899. ]

Among French writers on English literature, M. Jusserand is the mostvoluminous and the most widely informed. His career differs in animportant particular from that of his countrymen who pursue the samefield of study. He is not by profession a teacher or writer: he is adiplomatist, and now holds the high office of French ambassador to theUnited States of America. M. Jusserand has treated in his books ofalmost all periods of English literary history, and he has been longengaged on an exhaustive _Literary History of the English People_, ofwhich the two volumes already published bring the narrative as far asthe close of the Civil Wars. 

M. Jusserand enjoys the rare, although among modern Frenchmen by nomeans unexampled, faculty of writing with almost equal ease andfelicity in both French and English. His walk in life gives him asingularly catholic outlook. His learning is profound, but he is notoverburdened by it, and he preserves his native gaiety of style evenwhen solving crabbed problems of bibliography. He is at timesdiscursive, but he is never tedious; and he shows no trace of thatphilological pedantry and narrowness or obliquity of critical visionwhich the detailed study of literary history has been known to breedin English and German investigators. While M. Jusserand betrays allthe critical independence of his compatriot M. Taine, his habit ofcareful and laborious research illustrates with peculiar vividness theprogress which English scholarship has made in France since M. Tainecompleted his sparkling survey of English literature in 1864. 

M. Jusserand handles the theme of _Shakespeare in France under theAncien Régime_ with all the lightness of touch and wealth of minutedetail to which he has accustomed his readers. Nowhere have so manyfacts been brought together in order to illustrate the literaryintercourse of Frenchmen and Englishmen between the sixteenth and thenineteenth centuries. It is true that his opening chapters have littleconcern with Shakespeare, but their intrinsic interest and noveltyatone for their irrelevance. They shed a flood of welcome light onthat interchange of literary information and ideas which is a constantfeature in the literary history of the two countries. 

Many will read here for the first time of the great poet Ronsard'svisits to this country; of the distinguished company of English actorswhich delighted the court of Henry IV. Of France; and of Ben Jonson'sdiscreditable drunken exploits in the French capital when he wentthither as tutor to Sir Walter Ralegh's son. To these episodes mightwell be added the pleasant personal intercourse of Francis Bacon'sbrother, Anthony, with the great French essayist Montaigne, when theEnglishman was sojourning at Bordeaux in 1583. Montaigne's Essaysachieved hardly less fame in Elizabethan England than in France. BothShakespeare and Bacon gave proof of indebtedness to them. 

By some freak of fortune Shakespeare's fame was slow in crossing theEnglish Channel. The French dramatists of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries lived and died in the paradoxical faith that theBritish drama reached its apogee in the achievement of the ScottishLatinist, George Buchanan, who was reckoned in France "prince of thepoets of our day. " In Buchanan's classical tragedies Montaigne playeda part, while he was a student at Bordeaux. His tragedy of _Jephtha_achieved exceptional fame in sixteenth century France; three Frenchmenof literary repute rendered it independently into their own language, and each rendering went through several editions. Another delusionwhich French men of letters cherished, not only during Shakespeare'slifetime, but through three or four generations after his death, wasthat Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and the father of LordChancellor Bacon were the greatest authors which England had begottenor was likely to beget. French enthusiasm for the suggestive irony ofMore's Latin romance of _Utopia_ outran that of his fellow-countrymen. A French translation anticipated the earliest rendering of the work inthe author's native tongue. No less than two independent Frenchversions of Sir Philip Sidney's voluminous fiction of _Arcadia_ werecirculating in France one hundred and twenty years before the likehonour was paid to any work of Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare's work first arrived in France towards the close of theseventeenth century. Frenchmen were staggered by its originality. Theyperceived the dramatist's colossal breaches of classical law. Theywere shocked by his freedom of speech. When Louis the Fourteenth'slibrarian placed on the shelves of the Royal Library in Paris a copyof the Second Folio of his works which had been published in London in1632, he noted in his catalogue that Shakespeare "has a rather fineimagination; he thinks naturally; but these fine qualities areobscured by the filth he introduces into his comedies. " An increasingmass of pedestrian literature was imported into France from Englandthrough the middle and late years of the seventeenth century. YetShakespeare had to wait for a fair hearing there till the eighteenthcentury. 

Then it was very gradually that Shakespeare's pre-eminence wasrealised by French critics. It is to Voltaire that Frenchmen owe afull knowledge of Shakespeare. Voltaire's method of teachingShakespeare to his countrymen was characteristically cynical. Hestudied him closely when he visited England as a young man. At thatperiod of his career he not merely praised him with discerningcaution, but he paid him the flattery of imitation. Voltaire's tragedyof _Brutus_ betrays an intimate acquaintance with Shakespeare's_Julius Cæsar_. His _Eryphile_ was the product of many perusals of_Hamlet_. His _Zaïre_ is a pale reflection of _Othello_. But whenVoltaire's countrymen showed a tendency to better Voltaire'sinstruction, and one Frenchman conferred on Shakespeare the title of"the god of the theatre, " Voltaire resented the situation that he hadhimself created. He was at the height of his own fame, and he feltthat his reputation as the first of French writers for the stage wasin jeopardy. 

The last years of Voltaire's life were therefore consecrated to anendeavour to dethrone the idol which his own hands had set up. Voltaire traded on the patriotic prejudices of his hearers, but hisefforts to depreciate Shakespeare were very partially successful. Fewwriters of power were ready to second the soured critic, and afterVoltaire's death the Shakespeare cult in France, of which he was theunwilling inaugurator, spread far and wide. 

In the nineteenth century Shakespeare was admitted without demur intothe French "pantheon of literary gods. " Classicists and romanticistsvied in doing him honour. The classical painter Ingres introduced hisportrait into his famous picture of "Homer's Cortège" (now in theLouvre). The romanticist Victor Hugo recognised only three men asmemorable in the history of humanity, and Shakespeare was one of thethree; Moses and Homer were the other two. Alfred de Musset became adramatist under Shakespeare's spell. To George Sand everything inliterature seemed tame by the side of Shakespeare's poetry. The princeof romancers, the elder Dumas, set the English dramatist next to Godin the cosmic system; "after God, " wrote Dumas, "Shakespeare hascreated most. "

III

It would be easy to multiply eulogies of Shakespeare from French lipsin the vein of Victor Hugo and Dumas--eulogies besides which theenthusiasm of many English critics appears cold and constrained. Sounfaltering a note of admiration sounds gratefully in the ears ofShakespeare's countrymen. Yet on closer investigation there seems arift within the lute. When one turns to the French versions ofShakespeare, for which the chief of Shakespeare's French encomiastshave made themselves responsible, an Englishman is inclined tomoderate his exultation in the French panegyrics. 

No one did more as an admiring critic and translator of Shakespearethan Jean François Ducis, who prepared six of Shakespeare's greatestplays for the French stage at the end of the eighteenth century. Notonly did Ducis introduce Shakespeare's masterpieces to thousands ofhis countrymen who might otherwise never have heard of them, but hisrenderings of Shakespeare were turned into Italian and many languagesof Eastern Europe. They spread the knowledge of Shakespeare'sachievement to the extreme boundaries of the European Continent. Apparently Ducis did his work under favourable auspices. Hecorresponded regularly with Garrick, and he was never happier thanwhen studying Shakespeare's text with a portrait of Shakespeare at hisside. Yet, in spite of Ducis's unquestioned reverence and hishonourable intentions, all his translations of Shakespeare are grossperversions of their originals. It is not merely that he is verballyunfaithful. He revises the development of the plots; he gives the_dramatis personæ_ new names. 

Ducis's _Othello_ was accounted his greatest triumph. The play showsShakespeare's mastery of the art of tragedy at its highest stage ofdevelopment, and rewards the closest study. But the French translatorignored the great tragic conception which gives the drama its pith andmoment. He converted the piece into a romance. Towards the end of hisrendering Iago's villanies are discovered by Othello; Othello andDesdemona are reconciled; and the Moor, exulting in his newlyrecovered happiness, pardons Iago. The curtain falls on a dazzlingscene of domestic bliss. 

Ducis frankly acknowledged that he was guilty of a somewhat strainedinterpretation of Shakespeare's tragic scheme, but he defended himselfon the ground that French refinement and French sensitiveness couldnot endure the agonising violence of the true catastrophe. It is, indeed, the fact that the patrons of the Comédie Française strictlywarned the adapter against revolting their feelings by reproducing the"barbarities" that characterised the close of Shakespeare's tragicmasterpiece. 

If so fastidious a flinching from tragic episode breathe the trueFrench sentiment, what, we are moved to ask, is the significance ofthe unqualified regard which Ducis and his countrymen profess forShakespearean drama? There seems a strange paradox in the situation. The history of France proves that Frenchmen can face without quailingthe direst tragedies which can be wrought in earnest off the stage. There is a startling inconsistency in the outcry of Ducis's Frenchclients against the terror of Desdemona's murder. For the protestswhich Ducis reports on the part of the Parisians bear the date 1792. In that year the tragedy of the French Revolution--a tragedy of reallife, grimmer than any that Shakespeare imagined--was being enacted inliteral truth by the Parisian playgoers themselves. It would seem thatDucis and his countrymen deemed the purpose of art to be alonefulfilled when the artistic fabric was divorced from the ugly facts oflife. 

A like problem is presented by Dumas's efforts in more pacificconditions to adapt Shakespeare for the Parisian stage. With hisfriend Paul Meurice Dumas prepared the version of _Hamlet_ which longenjoyed a standard repute at the Comédie Française. Dumas's ecstaticadoration for Shakespeare's genius did not deter him, any more thanDucis was deterred by his more subdued veneration, from working havocon the English text. Shakespeare's blank verse was necessarily turnedinto Alexandrines. That was comparatively immaterial. Of greatermoment is it to note that the _dénouement_ of the tragedy wascompletely revolutionised by Dumas. The tragic climax is undermined. Hamlet's life is spared by Dumas. The hero's dying exclamation, "Therest is silence, " disappears from Dumas's version. At the close of theplay the French translator makes the ghost rejoin his son andgood-naturedly promise him indefinite prolongation of his earthlycareer. According to the gospel of Dumas, the tragedy of Hamlet ends, as soon as his and his father's wrongs have been avenged, in thisfashion:--

_Hamlet. _ Et moi, vais-je rester, triste orphelin sur terre, À respirer cet air imprégné de misère?. .. Est-ce que Dieu sur moi fera peser son bras, Père? Et quel châtiment m'attend donc?

_Le Fantôme. _ Tu vivras. 

Such defiant transgressions of the true Shakespearean canon as thoseof which Ducis and Dumas stand convicted may well rouse the suspicionthat the critical incense they burn at Shakespeare's shrine isoffered with the tongue in the cheek. But that suspicion is notjustified. Ducis and Dumas worship Shakespeare with a whole heart. Their misapprehensions of his tragic conceptions are due, involuntarily, to native temperament. In point of fact, Ducis andDumas see Shakespeare through a distorting medium. The two Frenchmenwere fully conscious of Shakespeare's towering greatness. Theyperceived intuitively that Shakespeare's tragedies transcended allother dramatic achievement. But their æsthetic sense, which, as far asthe drama was concerned, was steeped in the classical spirit, set manyof the essential features of Shakespeare's genius outside the focus oftheir vision. 

To a Frenchman a tragedy of classical rank connotes "correctness, " anabsence of tumult, some observance of the classical law of unity oftime, place, and action. The perpetration of crime in face of theaudience outraged all classical conventions. Ducis and Dumasrecognised involuntarily that certain characteristics of theShakespearean drama could not live in the classical atmosphere oftheir own theatre. Excision, expansion, reduction was inevitablebefore Shakespeare could breathe the air of the French stage. Thegrotesque perversions of Ducis and Dumas were thus not the fruit ofmere waywardness, or carelessness, or dishonesty; they admit ofphilosophical explanation. 

By Englishmen they may be viewed with equanimity, if not withsatisfaction. They offer strong proof of the irrepressible strength orcatholicity of the appeal that Shakespeare's genius makes to the mindand heart of humanity. His spirit survived the French efforts atmutilation. The Gallicised or classicised contortions of his mightywork did not destroy its saving virtue. There is ground forcongratulation that Ducis's and Dumas's perversions of Shakespeareexcited among Frenchmen almost as devoted an homage as the dramatist'swork in its native purity and perfection claims of men whose souls arefree of the fetters of classical tradition. 

IV

If any still doubt the sincerity of the worship which is offeredShakespeare in France, I would direct the sceptic's attention to apathetically simple tribute which was paid to the dramatist by aFrench student in the first year of the last century, when England andFrance were in the grip of the Napoleonic War. It was then that ayoung Frenchman proved beyond cavil by an ingenuous confession thatthe English poet, in spite of the racial differences of æstheticsentiment, could touch a French heart more deeply than any French orclassical author. In 1801 there was published at Besançon, "del'imprimerie de Métoyer, " a very thin volume in small octavo, underfifty pages in length, entitled, _Pensées de Shakespeare, Extraites deses Ouvrages_. No compiler's name is mentioned, but there is no doubtthat the book was from the pen of a precocious native of Besançon, Charles Nodier, who was in later life to gain distinction as abibliographer and writer of romance. 

This forgotten volume, of which no more than twenty-five copies wereprinted, and only two or three of these seem to survive, has escapedthe notice of M. Jusserand. No copy of it is in the British Museum, or in La Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, with which the author, Nodier, waslong honourably associated as librarian. I purchased it a few yearsago by accident in a small collection of imperfectly cataloguedShakespeareana. Lurking in the rear of a very ragged regiment on theshelves of the auctioneer stood Charles Nodier's _Pensées deShakespeare_. None competed with me for the prize. A very slighteffort delivered into my hands the little chaplet of French laurel. 

The major part of the volume consists of 190 numbered sentences--eacha French rendering of an apophthegm or reflection drawn fromShakespeare's plays. The translator is not faithful to his Englishtext, but his style is clear and often rises to eloquence. The bookdoes not, however, owe its interest to Nodier's version ofShakespearean maxims. Nor can one grow enthusiastic over thededication "A elle"--an unidentified fair-one to whom the youthfulwriter proffers his homage with respectful propriety. The salt of thelittle volume lies in the "Observations Préliminaires, " which coverless than five widely-printed pages. These observations breathe agenuine affection for Shakespeare's personality and a sense ofgratitude for his achievement in terms which no English admirer hasexcelled for tenderness and simplicity. 

"Shakespeare, " writes this French worshipper, "is a friend whom Heavenhas given to the unhappy of every age and every country. " The writerwarns us that he offers no eulogy of Shakespeare; that is to be foundin the poet's works, which the Frenchman for his own part prefers toread and read again rather than waste time in praising them. "Thefeatures of Alexander ought only to be preserved by Apelles. " Nodiermerely collects some of Shakespeare's thoughts on great moral truthswhich he thinks to be useful to the conduct of life. But suchextracts, he admonishes his reader, supply no true knowledge ofShakespeare. "From Shakespeare's works one can draw forth aphilosophy, but from no systems of philosophy could one construct onepage of Shakespeare. " Nodier concludes his "Observations" thus:--

 "I advise those who do not know Shakespeare to study him in himself. I advise those who know him already to read him again. .. . I know him, but I must needs declare my admiration for him. I have reviewed my powers, and am content to cast a flower on his grave since I am not able to raise a monument to his memory. "

Language like this admits no questioning of its sincerity. Nodier'smodest tribute handsomely atones for his countrymen's misapprehensionsof Shakespeare's tragic conceptions. None has phrased more delicatelyor more simply the sense of personal devotion, which is roused byclose study of his work. 

XI

THE COMMEMORATION OF SHAKESPEARE IN LONDON[44]

[Footnote 44: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth Centuryand After_, April 1905. ]

I

The public memory is short. At the instant the suggestion thatShakespeare should receive the tribute of a great national monument inLondon is attracting general attention. In the ears of the vastmajority of those who are taking part in the discussion the proposalappears to strike a new note. Few seem aware that a national memorialof Shakespeare has been urged on Londoners many times before. Thrice, at least, during the past eighty-five years has it exercised thepublic mind. 

At the extreme end of the year 1820, the well-known actor CharlesMathews set on foot a movement for the erection of "a nationalmonument to the immortal memory of Shakespeare. " He pledged himself toenlist the support of the new King, George the Fourth, of members ofthe royal family, of "every man of rank and talent, every poet, artist, and sculptor. " Mathews's endeavour achieved only a specioussuccess. George the Fourth, readily gave his "high sanction" to aLondon memorial. Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tom Moore, and Washington Irving were among the men of letters; Sir ThomasLawrence, [Sir] Francis Chantrey, and John Nash, the architect, wereamong the artists, who approved the general conception. For three orfour years ink was spilt and breath was spent in the advocacy of thescheme. But nothing came of all the letters and speeches. 

In 1847 the topic was again broached. A committee, which was hardlyless influential than that of 1821, revived the proposal. Again noresult followed. 

Seventeen years passed away, and then, in 1864, the arrival of thetercentenary of Shakespeare's birth seemed to many men of eminence inpublic life, in letters or in art, an appropriate moment at which tocarry the design into effect. A third failure has to be recorded. 

The notion, indeed, was no child of the nineteenth century whichfathered it so ineffectually. It was familiar to the eighteenth. Oneeighteenth century effort was fortunate enough to yield a littlepermanent fruit. To an eighteenth-century endeavour to offerShakespeare a national memorial in London was due the cenotaph inWestminster Abbey. 

II

The suggestion of commemorating Shakespeare by means of a monument inLondon has thus something more than a "smack of age" about it, something more than a "relish of the saltness of time"; there arepoints of view from which it might appear to be already "blasted withantiquity. " On only one of the previous occasions that the questionwas raised was the stage of discussion passed, and that was in theeighteenth century when the monument was placed in the Poets' Cornerof Westminster Abbey. The issue was not felicitous. The memorial inthe Abbey failed to satisfy the commemorative aspirations of thenation; it left it open to succeeding generations to reconsider thequestion, if it did not impose on them the obligation. Most of thepoets, actors, scholars, and patrons of polite learning, who in 1741subscribed their guineas to the fund for placing a monument inWestminster Abbey, resented the sculpturesque caricature to whichtheir subscriptions were applied. Pope, an original leader of themovement, declined to write an inscription for this national memorial, but scribbled some ironical verses beginning:--

 Thus Britons love me and preserve my fame. 

A later critic imagined Shakespeare's wraith pausing in horror by thefamiliar monument in the Abbey, and lightly misquoting Shelley'sfamiliar lines:--

 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, . .. And long to unbuild it again. 

One of the most regrettable effects of the Abbey memorial, with itsmawkish and irrelevant sentimentality, has been to set a bad patternfor statues of Shakespeare. Posterity came to invest the design withsome measure of sanctity. 

The nineteenth century efforts were mere abortions. In 1821, in spiteof George the Fourth's benevolent patronage, which included anunfulfilled promise to pay the sum of 100 guineas, the total amountwhich was collected after six years' agitation was so small that itwas returned to the subscribers. The accounts are extant in theLibrary of Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1847 thesubscriptions were more abundant, but all was then absorbed in thepurchase of Shakespeare's Birthplace at Stratford; no money wasavailable for a London memorial. In 1864 the expenses of organisingthe tercentenary celebration in London by way of banquets, concerts, and theatrical performances, seem to have left no surplus for thepurpose which the movement set out to fulfil. 

III

The causes of the sweeping failure of the proposal when it came beforethe public during the nineteenth century are worthy of study. Therewas no lack of enthusiasm among the promoters. Nor were their highhopes wrecked solely by public apathy. The public interest was neveraltogether dormant. More efficient causes of ruin were, firstly, theactive hostility of some prominent writers and actors who declaimedagainst all outward and visible commemoration of Shakespeare; andsecondly, divisions in the ranks of supporters in regard to theprecise form that the memorial ought to take. The censorious refusalof one section of the literary public to countenance any memorial atall, and the inability of another section, while promoting theendeavour, to concentrate its energies on a single acceptable form ofcommemoration had, as might be expected, a paralysing effect. 

"England, " it was somewhat casuistically argued in 1864, "has neverbeen ungrateful to her poet; but the very depth and fervour of thereverence in which he is held have hitherto made it difficult for hisscholars to agree upon any common proceeding in his name. " Neither in1864 nor at earlier and later epochs have Shakespearean scholarsalways formed among themselves a very happy family. That amiablesentiment which would treat the realisation of the commemorative aimas a patriotic obligation--as an obligation which no good citizencould honourably repudiate--has often produced discord rather thanharmony among the Shakespearean scholars who cherish it. One school ofthese has argued in the past for a work of sculpture, and has beenopposed by a cry for a college for actors, or a Shakespearean theatre. "We do not like the idea of a monument at all, " wrote _The Times_ onthe 20th of January 1864. "Shakespeare, " wrote _Punch_ on the 6th ofFebruary following, "needs no statue. " In old days it was frequentlyinsisted that, even if the erection of a London monument weredesirable, active effort ought to be postponed until an adequatememorial had been placed in Stratford-on-Avon where the poet's memoryhad been hitherto inadequately honoured. At the same time a band ofstudents was always prepared to urge the chilling plea that thepayment of any outward honour to Shakespeare was laboursome futility, was "wasteful and ridiculous excess. " Milton's query: "What needs myShakespeare for his honoured bones?" has always been quoted to satietyby a vociferous section of the critics whenever the commemoration ofShakespeare has come under discussion. 

IV

Once again the question of a national memorial of Shakespeare inLondon has been revived in conditions not wholly unlike those thathave gone before. Mr Richard Badger, a veteran enthusiast forShakespeare, who was educated in the poet's native place, has offeredthe people of London the sum of £3500 as the nucleus of a greatShakespeare Memorial Fund. The Lord Mayor of London has presided overa public meeting at the Mansion House, which has empowered aninfluential committee to proceed with the work. The London CountyCouncil has promised to provide a site. With regard to the form thatthe memorial ought to take, a variety of irresponsible suggestions hasbeen made. It has now been authoritatively determined to erect asculptured monument on the banks of the Thames. [45]

[Footnote 45: The proceedings of the committee which was formed in thespring of 1905 have been dilatory. Mr Badger informs me that he paidthe organisers, nearly two years ago, the sum of £500 for preliminaryexpenses, and deposited bonds to the value of £3000 with Lord Avebury, the treasurer of the committee. The delay is assigned to thecircumstance that the London County Council, which is supporting theproposal, is desirous of associating it with the great Council Hallwhich it is preparing to erect on the south side of the Thames, andthat it has not yet been found practicable to invite designs for thatwork. (Oct. 1, 1906. )]

The propriety of visibly and outwardly commemorating Shakespeare inthe capital city of the Empire has consequently become once more anurgent public question. The public is invited anew to form an opinionon the various points at issue. No expression of opinion should carryweight which omits to take into account past experience as well aspresent conditions and possibilities. If regard for the publicinterest justify a national memorial in London, it is most desirableto define the principles whereby its precise form should bedetermined. 

In one important particular the consideration of the subject to-day issimpler than when it was debated on former occasions. Differencesexisted, then as now, in regard to the propriety of erecting anational memorial of Shakespeare in London; but almost all whointerested themselves in the matter in the nineteenth century agreedthat the public interest justified, if it did not require, thepreservation from decay or demolition of the buildings atStratford-on-Avon with which Shakespeare's life was associated. Solong as those buildings were in private hands, every proposal tocommemorate Shakespeare in London had to meet a formidable objectionwhich was raised on their behalf. If the nation undertook tocommemorate Shakespeare at all, it should make its first aim (it wasargued) the conversion into public property of the surviving memorialsof Shakespeare's career at Stratford. The scheme of the Londonmemorial could not be thoroughly discussed on its merits while theclaims of Stratford remained unsatisfied. It was deemed premature, whether or no it were justifiable, to entertain any scheme ofcommemoration which left the Stratford buildings out of account. 

A natural sentiment connected Shakespeare more closely withStratford-on-Avon than with any other place. Whatever part Londonplayed in his career, the public mind was dominated by the fact thathe was born at Stratford, died, and was buried there. If he leftStratford in youth in order to work out his destiny in London, hereturned to it in middle life in order to end his days there "in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. "

In spite of this widespread feeling, it proved no easy task, nor onecapable of rapid fulfilment, to consecrate in permanence to publicuses the extant memorials of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. Stratford was a place of pilgrimage for admirers of Shakespeare fromearly days in the seventeenth century--soon, in fact, afterShakespeare's death in 1616. But local veneration did not prevent thedemolition in 1759, by a private owner, of New Place, Shakespeare'slast residence. That act of vandalism was long in provoking anyeffective resentment. Garrick, by means of his Jubilee Festival of1769, effectively, if somewhat theatrically, called the attention ofthe English public to the claims of the town to the affectionateregard of lovers of the great dramatist. Nevertheless, it was left tothe nineteenth century to dedicate in perpetuity to the public servicethe places which were the scenes of Shakespeare's private life in hisnative town. 

Charles Mathews's effort of 1821 took its rise in an endeavour topurchase in behalf of the nation the vacant site of Shakespeare'sdemolished residence of New Place, with the great garden attached toit. But that scheme was overweighted by the incorporation with it ofthe plan for a London monument, and both collapsed ignominiously. In1835 a strong committee was formed at Stratford to commemorate thepoet's connection with the town. It was called "the MonumentalCommittee, " and had for its object, firstly, the repair ofShakespeare's tomb in the Parish Church; and secondly, thepreservation and restoration of all the Shakespearean buildings inthe town. Subscriptions were limited to £1, and all the members of theroyal family, including the Princess Victoria, who two years latercame to the throne, figured, with other leading personages in thenation's life, in the list of subscribers. But the subscriptions onlyproduced a sum sufficient to carry out the first purpose of theMonumental Committee--the repair of the tomb. 

In 1847 the sale by public auction was announced of the house in whichShakespeare was born. It had long been a show-place in private hands. A general feeling declared itself in favour of the purchase of thehouse for the nation. Public sentiment was in accord with theungrammatical grandiloquence of the auctioneer, the famous Robins, whose advertisement of the sale included the sentence: "It is trustedthe feeling of the country will be so evinced that the structure maybe secured, hallowed, and cherished as a national monument almost asimperishable as the poet's fame. " A subscription list was headed byPrince Albert with £250. A distinguished committee was formed underthe presidency of Lord Morpeth (afterwards the seventh Earl ofCarlisle), then Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, who offeredto make his department perpetual conservators of the property. (Thatproposal was not accepted. ) Dickens, Macaulay, Lord Lytton, and thehistorian Grote were all active in promoting the movement, and itproved successful. The property was duly secured by a private trust inbehalf of the nation. The most important house identified withShakespeare's career in Stratford was thus effectively protected fromthe risks that are always inherent in private ownership. The step wasnot taken with undue haste; two hundred and thirty-one years hadelapsed since Shakespeare's death. 

Fourteen years later, in very similar circumstances, the still vacantsite of Shakespeare's demolished residence, New Place, with the greatgarden behind it, and the adjoining house, was acquired by the public. A new Shakespeare Fund, to which the Prince Consort subscribed £100, and Miss Burdett-Coutts (afterwards Baroness Burdett-Coutts) £600, wasformed not only to satisfy this purpose, but to provide the means ofequipping a library and museum which were contemplated at theBirthplace, as well as a second museum which was to be provided on theNew Place property. It was appropriate to make these buildingsdepositories of authentic relics and books which should illustrate thepoet's life and work. This national Shakespeare Fund was activelypromoted, chiefly by the late Mr Halliwell-Phillipps, for more thanten years; a large sum of money was collected, and the aims with whichthe Fund was set on foot were to a large extent fulfilled. It onlyremained to organise on a permanent legal basis the completedStratford Memorial of Shakespeare. By an Act of Parliament passed in1891 the two properties of New Place and the Birthplace weredefinitely formed into a single public trust "for and in behalf of thenation. " The trustees were able in 1892, out of their surplus income, which is derived from the fees of visitors, to add to their estatesAnne Hathaway's Cottage at Shottery, a third building of high interestto students of Shakespeare's history. 

The formation of the Birthplace Trust has every title to be regardedas an outward and visible tribute to Shakespeare's memory on the partof the British nation at large. [46] The purchase for the public ofthe Birthplace, the New Place property, and Anne Hathaway's Cottagewas not primarily due to local effort. Justly enough, a very smallportion of the necessary funds came from Stratford itself. The Britishnation may therefore take credit for having set up at least onefitting monument to Shakespeare by consecrating to public uses theproperty identified with his career in Stratford. Larger funds thanthe trustees at present possess are required to enable them to carryon the work which their predecessors began, and to compete with anychance of success for books and relics of Shakespearean interest--suchas they are empowered by Act of Parliament to acquire--when thesememorials chance to come into the market. But a number of small annualsubscriptions from men of letters has lately facilitated theperformance of this part of the trustees' work, and that source ofincome may, it is hoped, increase. 

[Footnote 46: Nor is this all that has been accomplished at Stratfordin the nineteenth century in the way of the national commemoration ofShakespeare. While the surviving property of Shakespearean interestwas in course of acquisition for the nation, an early ambition toerect in Stratford a theatre in Shakespeare's memory was realised--inpart by subscriptions from the general public, but mainly by themunificence of members of the Flower family, three generations ofwhich have resided at Stratford. The Memorial Theatre was opened in1879, and the Picture Gallery and Library which were attached to itwere completed two years later. The Memorial Buildings at Stratfordstand on a different footing from the properties of the BirthplaceTrust. The Memorial institution has an independent government, and isto a larger extent under local control. But the extended series ofperformances of Shakespearean drama, which takes place each year inApril at the Memorial Theatre, has something of the character of anannual commemoration of Shakespeare by the nation at large. ]

At any rate, the ancient objection to the erection of a nationalmonument in London, which was based on the absence of any memorial inStratford, is no longer of avail. In 1821, in 1847, and in 1864, whenthe acquisition of the Stratford property was unattempted oruncompleted, it was perfectly just to argue that Stratford wasentitled to have precedence of London when the question ofcommemorating Shakespeare was debated. It is no just argument in 1906, now that the claims of Stratford are practically satisfied. 

Byron, when writing of the memorial to Petrarch at Arquà, expressedwith admirable feeling the sentiment that would confine outwardmemorials of a poet in his native town to the places where he wasborn, lived, died, and was buried. With very little verbal changeByron's stanza on the visible memorials of Petrarch's association withArquà is applicable to those of Shakespeare's connexion withStratford:--

 They keep his dust in Stratford, where he died; The midland village where his later days Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride-- An honest pride--and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger's gaze His birthplace and his sepulchre; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. [47]

[Footnote 47: Cf. _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. , St. Xxxi. ]

Venerable simplicity is hardly the characteristic note ofShakespeare's "strain" any more than it is of Petrarch's "strain. " Butthere can be no just quarrel with the general contention that atStratford, where Shakespeare gave ample proof of his characteristicmodesty, a pyramidal fane would be out of harmony with theenvironment. There his birthplace, his garden, and tomb are thefittest memorials of his great career. 

V

It may justly be asked: Is there any principle which justifies anothersort of memorial elsewhere? On grounds of history and sentiment, butin conditions which demand most careful definition, the right answerwill, I think, be in the affirmative. For one thing, Shakespeare'slife was not confined to Stratford. His professional career was spentin London, and those, who strictly insist that memorials to great menshould be erected only in places with which they were personallyassociated, can hardly deny that London shares with Stratford a titleto a memorial from a biographical or historical point of view. OfShakespeare's life of fifty-two years, twenty-four years were in allprobability spent in London. During those years the work that makeshim memorable was done. It was in London that the fame which isuniversally acknowledged was won. 

Some valuable details regarding Shakespeare's life in London areaccessible. The districts where he resided and where he passed hisdays are known. There is evidence that during the early part of hisLondon career he lived in the parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, andduring the later part near the Bankside, Southwark. With the southside of the Thames he was long connected, together with his youngestbrother, Edmund, who was also an actor, and who was buried in thechurch of St Saviour's, Southwark. 

In his early London days Shakespeare's professional work, alike asactor and dramatist, brought him daily from St Helen's, Bishopsgate, to The Theatre in Shoreditch. Shoreditch was then the chieftheatrical quarter in London. Later, the centre of London theatricallife shifted to Southwark, where the far-famed Globe Theatre waserected, in 1599, mainly out of the materials of the dismantledShoreditch Theatre. Ultimately Shakespeare's company of actorsperformed in a theatre at Blackfriars, which was created out of aprivate residence on a part of the site on which _The Times_ officestands now. At a few hundred yards' distance from the BlackfriarsTheatre, in the direction of Cannon Street, Shakespeare, too, shortlybefore his death, purchased a house. 

Thus Shakespeare's life in London is well identified with fourdistricts--with Bishopsgate, with Shoreditch, with Southwark, and withBlackfriars. Unhappily for students of Shakespeare's life, London hasbeen more than once remodelled since the dramatist sojourned in thecity. The buildings and lodgings, with which he was associated inShoreditch, Southwark, Bishopsgate, or Blackfriars, have long sincedisappeared. 

It is not practicable to follow in London the same historical schemeof commemoration which has been adopted at Stratford-on-Avon. It isimpossible to recall to existence the edifices in which Shakespearepursued his London career. Archæology could do little in thisdirection that was satisfactory. There would be an awkward incongruityin introducing into the serried ranks of Shoreditch warehouses andSouthwark wharves an archæological restoration of Elizabethanplayhouse or private residence. Pictorial representations of the GlobeTheatre survive, and it might be possible to construct something thatshould materialise the extant drawings. But the _genius loci_ hasfled from Southwark and from Shoreditch. It might be practicable toset up a new model of an Elizabethan theatre elsewhere in London, butsuch a memorial would have about it an air of unreality, artificiality, and affectation which would not be in accord with thescholarly spirit of an historic or biographic commemoration. Thedevice might prove of archæological interest, but the commemorativepurpose, from a biographical or historical point of view, would be illserved. Wherever a copy of an Elizabethan playhouse were brought tobirth in twentieth-century London, the historic sense in the onlookerwould be for the most part irresponsive; it would hardly be quickened. 

VI

Apart from the practical difficulties of realising materiallyShakespeare's local associations with London, it is doubtful if themere commemoration in London of Shakespeare's personal connection withthe great city ought to be the precise aim of those who urge thepropriety of erecting a national monument in the metropolis. Shakespeare's personal relations with London can in all thecircumstances of the case be treated as a justification in only thesecond degree. The primary justification involves a somewhat differenttrain of thought. A national memorial of Shakespeare in London must bereckoned of small account if it merely aim at keeping alive in publicmemory episodes of Shakespeare's London career. The true aim of anational London memorial must be symbolical of a larger fact. It musttypify Shakespeare's place, not in the past, but in the present lifeof the nation and of the world. It ought to constitute a perpetualreminder of the position that he fills in the present economy, and islikely to fill in the future economy of human thought, for those whosegrowing absorption in the narrowing business of life tends to makethem forget it. 

The day is long since past when vague eulogy of Shakespeare ispermissible. Shakespeare's literary supremacy is as fully recognisedby those who justly appreciate literature as any law of nature. To theman and woman of culture in all civilised countries he symbolises thepotency of the human intellect. But those who are content to read andadmire him in the cloister at times overlook the full significance ofhis achievement in the outer world. Critics of all nationalities arein substantial agreement with the romance-writer Dumas, who pointedout that Shakespeare is more than the greatest of dramatists; he isthe greatest of thinking men. 

The exalted foreign estimate illustrates the fact that Shakespearecontributes to the prestige of his nation a good deal beyond reputefor literary power. He is not merely a literary ornament of ourBritish household. It is largely on his account that foreign nationshonour his country as an intellectual and spiritual force. Shakespeareand Newton together give England an intellectual sovereignty whichadds more to her "reputation through the world" than any exploit inbattle or statesmanship. If, again, Shakespeare's pre-eminence hasadded dignity to the name of Englishman abroad, it has also quickenedthe sense of unity among the intelligent sections of theEnglish-speaking peoples. Admiration, affection for his work has cometo be one of the strongest links in the chain which binds theEnglish-speaking peoples together. He quickens the fraternal senseamong all who speak his language. 

London is no nominal capital of the kingdom and the Empire. It is theheadquarters of British influence. Within its boundaries are assembledthe official insignia of British prestige. It is the mother-city ofthe English-speaking world. To ask of the citizens of London someoutward sign that Shakespeare is a living source of British prestige, an unifying factor in the consolidation of the British Empire, and apowerful element in the maintenance of fraternal relations with theUnited States, seems therefore no unreasonable demand. Neithercloistered study of his plays, nor the occasional representation ofthem in the theatres, brings home to either the English-speaking orthe English-reading world the full extent of the debt that Englandowes to Shakespeare. A monumental memorial, which should symboliseShakespeare's influence in the universe, could only find anappropriate and effective home in the capital city of the BritishEmpire. It is this conviction, and no narrower point of view, whichgives endeavour to commemorate Shakespeare in London its title toconsideration. 

VII

The admitted fact that Shakespeare's fame is established beyond riskof decay does not place him outside the range of conventional methodsof commemoration. The greater a man's recognised service to hisfellows, the more active grows in normally constituted minds thatnatural commemorative instinct, which seeks outward and tangibleexpression. A strange fallacy underlies the objection that has beentaken to any commemoration of Shakespeare on the alleged ground thatMilton warned the English people of all time against erecting amonument to Shakespeare. 

In 1630 Milton asked the question that is familiar to thousands oftongues:

 What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones?

By way of answer he deprecated any such "weak witness of his name" as"pilèd stones" or "star-y-pointing pyramid. " The poet-laureate ofEngland echoed Milton's sentiment in 1905. He roundly asserted that"perishable stuff" is the fit crown of monumental pedestals. "Gods forthemselves, " he concluded, "have monument enough. " There are amplesigns that the sentiment to which Milton and the laureate give voicehas a good deal of public support. 

None the less the poet-laureate's conclusion is clearly refuted byexperience and cannot terminate the argument. At any rate, in theclassical and Renaissance eras monumental sculpture was in habitualrequest among those who would honour both immortal gods and mortalheroes--especially mortal heroes who had distinguished themselves inliterature or art. 

A little reflection will show, likewise, that Milton's fervid coupletshave small bearing on the question at issue in its present conditions. Milton's poem is an elegy on Shakespeare. It was penned when thedramatist had lain in his grave less that fourteen years, and when thewriter was in his twenty-second year. The exuberant enthusiasm ofyouth was couched in poetic imagery which has from time immemorialbeen employed in panegyrics of great poets. The beautiful figure whichpresents a great man's work as his only lasting monument is as old aspoetry itself. The conceit courses through the classical poetry ofGreece from the time of Pindar, and through that of Italy from thetime of Ennius. No great Renaissance writer of modern Italy, ofsixteenth-century France, or of Elizabethan England, tired of arguingthat the poet's deathless memorial is that carved by his own pen. Shakespeare himself clothed the conceit in glowing harmonies in hissonnets. Ben Jonson, in his elegy on the dramatist, adapted thetime-honoured figure when he hailed his dead friend's achievement as"a monument without a tomb. "

"The truest poetry is the most feigning, " and, when one recalls thetrue significance and influence of great sculptured monuments throughthe history of the civilised world, Milton's poetic argument can onlybe accepted in what Sir Thomas Browne called "a soft and flexiblesense"; it cannot "be called unto the rigid test of reason. " To treatMilton's eulogy as the final word in the discussion of the subjectwhether or no Shakespeare should have a national monument, is to comeinto conflict with Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson, Ruskin, Dickens, andall the greatest men of letters of the nineteenth century, whoanswered the question in the affirmative. It is to discredit crowds ofadmirers of great writers in classical and modern ages, who havecommemorated the labours of poets and dramatists in outward andvisible monuments. 

The genius of the great Greek dramatists was not underrated by theircountrymen. Their literary efforts were adjudged to be true memorialsof their fame, and no doubt of their immortality was entertained. Nonethe less, the city of Athens, on the proposition of the Attic orator, Lycurgus, erected in honour of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripidesstatues which ranked with the most beautiful adornments of the Greekcapital. Calderon and Goethe, Camoens and Schiller, Sir Walter Scottand Burns enjoy reputations which are smaller, it is true, thanShakespeare's, but are, at the same time, like his, of both nationaland universal significance. In memory of them all, monuments have beenerected as tokens of their fellow-countrymen's veneration andgratitude for the influence which their poetry wields. 

The fame of these men's writings never stood in any "need" ofmonumental corroboration. The sculptured memorial testified to thesense of gratitude which their writings generated in the hearts andminds of their readers. 

Again, the great musicians and the great painters live in their workin a singularly vivid sense. Music and painting are more direct inpopular appeal than great poetry. Yet none can ridicule the sentimentwhich is embodied in the statue of Beethoven at Bonn, or in that ofPaolo Veronese at Verona. To accept literally the youthful judgment ofMilton and his imitators is to condemn sentiments and practices whichare in universal vogue among civilised peoples. It is to deny to thePoets' Corner in Westminster Abbey a rational title to existence. 

To commemorate a great man by a statue in a public place in thecentral sphere of his influence is, indeed, a custom inseparable fromcivilised life. The theoretic moralist's reminder that monuments ofhuman greatness sooner or later come to dust is a doctrine toodiscouraging of all human effort to exert much practical effect. Monuments are, in the eyes of the intelligent, tributes for servicesrendered to posterity by great men. But incidentally they have aneducational value. They help to fix the attention of the thoughtlesson facts which may, in the absence of outward symbols, escape notice. They may act as incentives to thought. They may convert thethoughtless into the thoughtful. Wide as are the ranks ofShakespeare's readers, they are not, in England at any rate, incapableof extension; and, whatever is likely to call the attention of thosewho are as yet outside the pale of knowledge of Shakespeare to whatlies within it, deserves respectful consideration. 

It is never inconsistent with a nation's dignity for it to giveconspicuous expression of gratitude to its benefactors, among whomgreat writers take first rank. Monuments of fitting character givethat conspicuous expression. Bacon, the most enlightened of Englishthinkers, argued, within a few years of Shakespeare's death, that noself-respecting people could safely omit to erect statues of those whohad contributed to the genuine advance of their knowledge or prestige. The visitors to Bacon's imaginary island of New Atlantis saw statueserected at the public expense in memory of all who had won greatdistinction in the arts or sciences. The richness of the memorialvaried according to the value of the achievement. "These statues, " theobserver noted, "are some of brass, some of marble and touchstone, some of cedar and other special woods, gilt and adorned, some of iron, some of silver, some of gold. " No other external recognition of greatintellectual service was deemed, in Bacon's Utopia, of equalappropriateness. Bacon's mature judgment deserves greater regard thanthe splendid imagery of Milton's budding muse. 

VIII

In order to satisfy the commemorative instinct in a people, it isnecessary, as Bacon pointed out, strictly to adapt the means to theend. The essential object of a national monument to a great man is topay tribute to his greatness, to express his fellow-men's sense of hisservice. No blunder could be graver than to confuse the issue byseeking to make the commemoration serve any secondary or collateralpurpose. It may be very useful to erect hospitals or schools. It mayhelp in the dissemination of knowledge and appreciation ofShakespearean drama for the public to endow a theatre, which should bedevoted to the performance of Shakespeare's plays. The public interestcalls loudly for a playhouse that shall be under public control. Promoters of such a commendable endeavour might find their laboursfacilitated by associating their project with Shakespeare's name--withthe proposed commemoration of Shakespeare. But the true aim of thecommemoration will be frustrated if it be linked with any purpose ofutility, however commendable, with anything beyond a symbolisation ofShakespeare's mighty genius and influence. To attempt aught else is"wrenching the true cause the false way. " A worthy memorial toShakespeare will not satisfy the just working of the commemorativeinstinct, unless it take the sculpturesque and monumental shape whichthe great tradition of antiquity has sanctioned. A monument toShakespeare should be a monument and nothing besides. 

Bacon's doctrine that the greater the achievement that is commemoratedthe richer must be the outward symbol, implies that a memorial toShakespeare must be a work of art of the loftiest merit conceivable. Unless those who promote the movement concentrate their energies on anobject of beauty, unless they free the movement of all suspicion thatthe satisfaction of the commemorative instinct is to be a secondaryand not the primary aim, unless they resolve that the Shakespearememorial in London is to be a monument pure and simple, and one asperfect as art can make it, then the effort is undeserving of nationalsupport. 

IX

This conclusion suggests the inevitable objection that sculpture inEngland is not in a condition favourable to the execution of a greatpiece of monumental art. Past experience in London does not make onevery sanguine that it is possible to realise in statuary a worthyconception of a Shakespearean memorial. The various stages throughwhich recent efforts to promote sculptured memorials in London havepassed suggest the mock turtle's definition in _Alice in Wonderland_of the four branches of arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Save the old statue of James the Second, at Whitehall, and the new statue of Oliver Cromwell, which stands ata disadvantage on its present site beneath Westminster Hall, there isscarcely a sculptured portrait in the public places of London which isnot

 A fixèd figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at. 

London does not lack statues of men of letters. There are statues ofBurns and John Stuart Mill on the Thames Embankment, of Byron inHamilton Place, and of Carlyle on Chelsea Embankment. But all conveyan impression of insignificance, and thereby fail to satisfy thenation's commemorative instinct. 

The taste of the British nation needs rigorous control when it seeksto pay tribute to benefactors by means of sculptured monuments. Duringthe last forty years a vast addition has been made throughout GreatBritain--with most depressing effect--to the number of sculpturedmemorials in the open air. The people has certainly shown far tooenthusiastic and too inconsiderate a liberality in commemorating bymeans of sculptured monuments the virtues of Prince Albert and thenoble character and career of the late Queen Victoria. The deductionto be drawn from the numberless statues of Queen Victoria and herconsort is not exhilarating. British taste never showed itself toworse effect. The general impression produced by the most ambitious ofall these memorials, the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, isespecially deplorable. The gilt figure of the Prince seems to defyevery principle that fine art should respect. The endeavour to produceimposing effect by dint of hugeness is, in all but inspired hands, certain to issue in ugliness. 

It would, however, be a mistake to take too gloomy a view of thesituation. The prospect may easily be painted in too dismal colours. It is a commonplace with foreign historians of art to assert thatEnglish sculpture ceased to flourish when the building of the oldGothic cathedrals came to an end. But Stevens's monument of the Dukeof Wellington in St Paul's Cathedral, despite the imperfect executionof the sculptor's design, shows that the monumental art of England hasproved itself, at a recent date, capable of realising a greatcommemorative conception. There are signs, too, that at least threeliving sculptors might in favourable conditions prove worthycompetitors of Stevens. At least one literary memorial in the BritishIsles, the Scott monument in Edinburgh, which cost no more than£16, 000, satisfies a nation's commemorative aspiration. There thenatural environment and an architectural setting of impressive designreinforce the effect of sculpture. The whole typifies with fittingdignity the admiring affection which gathers about Scott's name. Thissuccessful realisation of a commemorative aim--not wholly dissimilarfrom that which should inspire a Shakespeare memorial--must checkforebodings of despair. 

There are obviously greater difficulties in erecting a monument toShakespeare in London than in erecting a monument to Scott inEdinburgh. There is no site in London that will compare with thegardens of Princes Street in Edinburgh. It is essential that aShakespeare memorial should occupy the best site that London canoffer. Ideally the best site for any great monument is the summit of agently rising eminence, with a roadway directly approaching it andcircling round it. In 1864, when the question of a fit site for aShakespeare memorial in London was warmly debated, a too ambitiousscheme recommended the formation of an avenue on the model of theChamps-Elysées from the top of Portland Place across Primrose Hill;and at the end of the avenue, on the summit of Primrose Hill, at anelevation of 207 feet above the river Thames, the Shakespeare monumentwas to stand. This was and is an impracticable proposal. The sitewhich in 1864 received the largest measure of approbation was a spotin the Green Park, near Piccadilly. A third suggestion of the samedate was the bank of the river Thames, which was then calledThames-way, but was on the point of conversion into the ThamesEmbankment. Recent reconstruction of Central London--of the districtnorth of the Strand--by the London County Council now widens the fieldof choice. There is much to be said for a site within the centre ofLondon life. But an elevated monumental structure on the banks of theThames seems to meet at the moment with the widest approval. In anycase, no site that is mean or cramped would be permissible if theessential needs of the situation are to be met. 

A monument that should be sufficiently imposing would need anarchitectural framework. But the figure of the poet must occupy theforemost place in the design. Herein lies another embarrassment. It isdifficult to determine which of the extant portraits the sculptorought to follow. The bust in Stratford Church, the print in the FirstFolio, and possibly the Chandos painting in the National PortraitGallery, are honest efforts to present a faithful likeness. But theyare crudely executed, and are posthumous sketches largely depending onthe artist's memory. The sculptor would be compelled to work in thespirit of the historian, who recreates a past event from theindication given him by an illiterate or fragmentary chronicle orinscription. He would be bound to endow with artistic life thosefeatures in which the authentic portraits agree, but the highesteffort of the imagination would be needed to create an impression ofartistic truth. 

The success of a Shakespeare memorial will ultimately depend on thepecuniary support that the public accord it. But in the initial stageof the movement all rests on the discovery of a sculptor capable ofrealising the significance of a national commemoration of the greatestof the nation's, or indeed of the worlds, heroes. It would be well tosettle satisfactorily the question of such an artist's existencebefore anything else. The first step that any organising committee ofa Shakespeare memorial should therefore take, in my view, would be toinvite sculptors of every country to propose a design. The monumentshould be the best that artistic genius could contrive--the artisticgenius of the world. There may be better sculptors abroad than athome. The universality of the appeal which Shakespeare's achievementmakes, justifies a competition among artists of every race ornationality. 

The crucial decision as to whether the capacity to execute themonument is available, should be entrusted to a committee of taste, toa committee of liberal-minded connoisseurs who command generalconfidence. If this jury decide by their verdict that the presentconditions of art permit the production of a great memorial ofShakespeare on just principles, then a strenuous appeal for funds maybe inaugurated with likelihood of success. It is hopeless to reversethese methods of procedure. If funds are first invited before rationaldoubts as to the possibility of a proper application of them aredispelled, it is improbable that the response will be satisfactory orthat the issue of the movement of 1905 will differ from that of 1821or 1864. 

In 1864 Victor Hugo expressed the opinion that the expenses of aShakespeare memorial in London ought to be defrayed by the BritishGovernment. There is small likelihood of assistance from that source. Individual effort can alone be relied upon; and it is doubtful if itbe desirable to seek official aid. A great national memorial ofShakespeare in London, if it come into being at all on the lines whichwould alone justify its existence, ought to embody individualenthusiasm, ought to express with fitting dignity the personal senseof indebtedness and admiration which fills the hearts of hisfellow-men. 

INDEX

Acting, importance of, in Shakespearean drama, 13; evil effects of long runs, 14; Shakespeare on, 45, 47

Actor-manager, his merits and defects, 125, 126

Actors, training of, 139; English, in France, 203. (See also Benson, Mr F. R. , and Boys. )

Æschylus, statue of, 233

Albert, Prince (Consort), and Shakespeare's birthplace, 222; statues of, 237

Alleyn, Edward, 191, 194

_Annual Register_ of 1770, 194

Aristotle, Shakespeare's mention of, 144, 145; Bacon's study of, 145

Arnold, Matthew, on Shakespeare, 29

Astronomy, Shakespeare on, 146

Athens, statuary at, 233

Aubrey, John, his gossip about Shakespeare, 67, 68

Austria, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134

Bacon, Anthony, in France, 203

Bacon, Francis, philosophical method of, 143; on memorial monuments in _New Atlantis_, 234, 235

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, his fame in France, 204

Badger, Mr Richard, proposal for a Shakespeare monument, 219

Bannister, John, his music for _The Tempest_, 107

Barker, Mr Granville, as Richard II. , 13 _n. _

Basse, William, his tribute to Shakespeare, 50

Beeston, Christopher, Elizabethan actor, 64

Beeston, William the first, patron of Nash, 64

Beeston, William the second, his theatrical career, 65, 66; his gossip about Shakespeare, 65; his conversation, 66; Aubrey's account of, 67

Beethoven, statue of, 233

Beljame, Alexandre, on English literature, 201; death of, 201

Benson, Mr F. R. , his company of actors, 111; his principles, 112 _seq. _; list of Shakespeare plays produced by, 114 _n. _; his production of _Hamlet_ unabridged, 116-118; his training of actors, 119; his services to Shakespeare, 121; his pupils on the London stage, 130

Berkenhout, John, 195

Betterton, Thomas, at Stratford-on-Avon, 73; contributes to Rowe's biography, 73, 76; his rendering of Hamlet, 101, 102

Biography, art of, in England, 51

Bishop, Sir William, 76

Bishopsgate (London), Shakespeare at, 226, 227

Blackfriars, Shakespeare's house at, 227

Boileau, and English literature, 199

Bolingbroke, in _Richard II. _, patriotism of, 173

Bowman, John, actor, 69; at Stratford-on-Avon, 76

Boys in women's parts in Elizabethan theatres, 19, 41; abandonment of the practice, 43; superseded by women, 88, 89

Buchanan, George, his plays, 204

Burbage, Richard, Shakespeare's friend and fellow-actor, 33

Burns, Mr John, 131

Burns, Robert, French study of, 201; monument to, 233, 237

Byron, Lord, on Petrarch at Arquà, 225; statue of, 237

Calderon, 136; monument to, 233

Calvert, Charles A. , his Shakespearean productions at Manchester, 12 _n. _

Camoens, monument to, 233

Capital and the literary drama, 124, 126, 127, 128

Carlyle, Thomas, statue of, 237

_Cataline's Conspiracy_, by Ben Jonson, 30, 31

Ceremony, Shakespeare on, 157, 158

Chantrey, Sir Francis, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

Charlecote, Shakespeare's escapade at, 76

Chaucer, Geoffrey, French influence on, 199

Clarendon, Lord, on Shakespeare, 78

Cockpit theatre, Drury Lane, 65, 86

Cockpit theatre, Whitehall, 87 and _n. _

Coleman, John, on the subsidised theatre, 132

Coleridge S. T. , and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

Congreve, William, 91

Coriolanus and the patriotic instinct, 178, 179

Cromwell, Oliver, statue of, 237

Davenant, Robert, Sir William's brother, 70

D'Avenant, Sir William: theatrical manager, 67; his youth at Oxford, 69; relations in boyhood with Shakespeare, 70; elegy on Shakespeare, 71; champion of Shakespeare's fame, 71; his story of Shakespeare and Southampton, 72; his influence on Betterton, 72; manager of the Duke's Company, 87 _n. _; as dramatist, 91; his adaptations of Shakespeare, 103-105, 106 _n. _, 108

Deschamps, Eustace, on Chaucer, 199

Desportes, Philippe, and Elizabethan poetry, 199

D'Israeli, Isaac, on Steevens's forgery, 195

Downs, John, prompter and stage annalist, 63

Dramatic societies in England, 129

Dress, Shakespeare on extravagant, 185

Drunkenness, Shakespeare on, 185

Dryden, John, on William Beeston, 66; as dramatist, 91; his share in the adaptation of _The Tempest_, 105

Du Bellay, Joachim, and Elizabethan poetry, 199

Ducis, Jean François, his translation of Shakespeare, 207, 208

Dugdale, Sir William, 74

Dumas _père_, on Shakespeare, 206; his translation of _Hamlet_, 209-211

Dyce, Alexander, on Steevens's forgery, 196

Elizabeth, Queen, summons Shakespeare to Greenwich, 31

Elizabethan Stage Society, 13 _n. _

England, Shakespeare on history of, 180

Ennius on poetic fame, 232

Etherege, Sir George, 91

Eton College, debate about Shakespeare at, 78

Euripides, statue of, 233

Evelyn, John, on _Hamlet_, 90

Farquhar, George, 91

Faulconbridge (in _King John_), patriotism of, 174

Fletcher, John, his _Custom of the Country_, 92, 93; its obscenity, 93

Folio, the First [of Shakespeare's plays], actors' co-operation in, 59; list of actors in, 61; rejected by Pepys, 94

Folio, the Second [of Shakespeare's plays], in France, 205

Folio, the Third [of Shakespeare's plays], purchased by Pepys, 94

Folio, the Fourth [of Shakespeare's plays], in Pepysian library, 94

France, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134; Shakespeare in, 198 _seq. _; English actors in, 203

Freedom of the will, Shakespeare on, 166

Fuller, Thomas, his _Worthies of England_, 52; notice of Shakespeare, 52

Garrick, David, his stage costume, 18

_Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1801, 195

George IV. And commemoration of Shakespeare, 215

German drama, 129, 135, 136

Germany, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134

Goethe, 136; monument to, 233

Greene, Robert, French translation of romance by, 199

Grendon, tradition of Shakespeare at, 77

"Grenovicus" contributes to _Gentleman's Magazine_, 195

Hales, John, of Eton, 78

Hall, Bishop Joseph, French translation of works by, 199

Hart, Charles, Shakespeare's grand-nephew, actor, 59, 68

Hauptmann, Gerhart, 135

Henry V. , on kingly ceremony, 157; patriotism of, 175, 182

Heywood, Thomas, projected _Lives of the Poets_, 54 _n. _; affection for Shakespeare, 65; his _Apology for Actors_, 65

History plays of Shakespeare, character of, 180

Hobbes, Thomas, in France, 200

Howe, Josias, on a Shakespeare tradition, 77

Hugo, Victor, on Shakespeare, 206; on Shakespeare memorial, 241

Imagination in the audience, 22, 47, 48

Ingres, Jean, his painting of Shakespeare, 206

Irving, Sir Henry, experience of Shakespearean spectacle, 10; and the literary drama, 123; and the municipal theatre, 132; and French drama, 200

Irving, Washington, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

James I. , his alleged letter to Shakespeare, 72

James II. , statue of, 236

John of Gaunt in _Richard II. _, dying speech of, 115-116, 181

Johnson, Dr, on false patriots, 171

Jonson, Ben, testimony to Shakespeare's popularity, 29; his classical tragedies compared with Shakespeare's, 30; his elegy on Shakespeare, 50, 232; his dialectical powers contrasted with Shakespeare's, 53; on the players' praise of Shakespeare, 60; his son, Shakespeare's godson, 61; Beeston's talk of, 67; popularity of his plays at Restoration, 91, 92

Jusserand, Jules, on English literature, 202; his _Shakespeare in France_, 203

Kean, Charles, experience of Shakespearean spectacle, 9; Macready's criticism of, 14

Kemp, William, Elizabethan comedian, 33

Killigrew, Tom, manager of the King's Company, 87 _n. _

Kingship, Shakespeare on, 155-160, 180-182

Kirkman, Francis, his account of William Beeston the second, 66

Lacy, John, actor, 67; acquaintance with Ben Jonson, 68; adaptation of _The Taming of the Shrew_, 108

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

Lessing, 136

Lincoln's Inn Fields (Portugal Row), Theatre at, 86, 87 and _n. _

Literary drama, on the modern stage, 123; antagonism of capital to, 126-128

_Lives of the Poets_ of the seventeenth century, 54

Locke, John, in France, 200

Locke, Matthew, Shakespearean music of, 105, 108

Logic, Shakespeare on, 146

London, Shakespeare's association with, 226 _seq. _; statues in, 236, 237; proposed sites for Shakespeare monument in, 239

London County Council, and the theatre, 130, 131; and subsidised enlightenment, 133; and Shakespeare monument, 219

London Trades Council and the theatre, 132

Lowin, John, original actor in Shakespeare's plays, 61; coached by Shakespeare in part of _Hamlet_, 63, 71, 72

Lycurgus, Attic orator, 233

Macready, W. C. , his criticism of spectacle, 14

Marlowe, Christopher, Shakespeare's senior by two months, 37, 193

Massinger, Philip, his _Bondman_, 92, 93

Mathews, Charles, on a monument of Shakespeare, 214

Mercy, Shakespeare on, 152, 153

Metaphysics, Shakespeare on, 146-148

Mill, John Stuart, statue of, 237

Milton, his elegy on Shakespeare, 51, 231

Molière, accepted methods of producing his plays, 16, 18, 136

Montaigne, Michel de, and Anthony Bacon, 203; his essays in English, 204

Moore, Thomas, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

More, Sir Thomas, his _Utopia_ in France, 204

Municipal theatre, its justification, 122; in Europe, 134

Musset, Alfred de, on Shakespeare, 206

Nash, John, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216

Nash, Thomas, 64

Nodier, Charles, his _Pensées de Shakespeare_, 211-213

Norwegian drama, 129

Obedience, the duty of, 161

Oldys, William, antiquary, 68, 69

Opera in England, 131

Oxford, the Crown Inn at, 69; Shakespeare at, 70; visitors from, to Stratford, 75-77

Patriotism, Shakespeare on, 170 _seq. _

Peele, George, alleged letter of, 189 _seq. _

Pepys, Samuel, his play-going experience, 81-86; on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, 91-93; on Shakespeare, 94 _seq. _; his attitude to poetic drama, 95, 96; his musical setting of "To be or not to be, " 100

Petrarch, his tomb at Arquà, 225

Phelps, Samuel, at Sadler's Wells, 11; list of plays produced by, 11, 114 _n. _; his mode of producing Shakespeare, 12; on a State theatre in London, 120; on public control of theatres, 140, 141

Philosophy, Shakespeare's attitude to, 143 _seq. _

Pindar on poetic fame, 232

Platter, Thomas, journal of his London visit (1599), 38

Playhouses in London, Blackfriars, 227; Drury Lane, 86, 87 and _n. _; "The Globe, " 38, 227; "The Red Bull, " 86; Sadler's Wells, 11; Salisbury Court, Whitefriars, 66, 86; "The Theatre" at Shoreditch, 37, 227

Pope, Alexander, and French literature, 199; on the Shakespeare cenotaph, 216

Richardson, Samuel, in France, 200

Robinson, Richard, actor, 68

Ronsard, Pierre de, and Elizabethan poetry, 199; in England, 203

Rousseau, J. J. , and English literature, 200

Rowe, Nicholas, Shakespeare's first formal biographer, 54; his acknowledgment to Betterton, 73; his biography of Shakespeare, 79, 80

Royal ceremony, irony of, 158

Russell, Lord John, on patriotism, 172

Sadler's Wells Theatre, 11

Sand, George, on Shakespeare, 206

Sardou, Victorien, work of, 200

Scenery, its purpose, 5; uselessness of realism, 23

Schiller, on the German stage, 136; monument to, 233

Scott, Sir Walter, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216, 232; Edinburgh monument of, 238

Sedley, Sir Charles, 91

Seneca on mercy, 153 _n. _

Shadwell, Thomas, 67, adaptation of _The Tempest_, 106 _n. _

Shakespeare, Edmund, actor, 227

Shakespeare, Gilbert, actor, 68

Shakespeare, William, his creation of the Ghost in _Hamlet_, 27; contemporary popularity of, 29; at Court, 31; early London career, 32; advice to the actor, 45; his modest estimate of the actor's powers, 47; elegies on death of, 49; Fuller's notice of, 52; early biographies of, 54; oral tradition of, in seventeenth century, 55; similarity of experience with that of contemporary dramatists and actors, 57; Elizabethan players' commendation of, 60; resentment with a publisher, 65; William Beeston's reminiscences of, 67; Stratford gossip about, 74-76; present state of biographical knowledge, 81; his attitude to philosophy, 143 _seq. _; his intuition, 149-150; concealment of his personality, 150; his private sentiments, 151; on mercy, 152-153; on rulers of states, 154; on divine right of kings, 159; on obedience, 161; on social order, 162-163; on freedom of the will, 166; on women's will, 168; his humour and optimism, 169; on patriotism, 170 _seq. _; on English history, 180; on social foibles, 184-186; commemoration of, in London, 214 _seq. _; portraits of, 239

Shakespearean drama, attitude of students and actors to, 1; costliness of modern production, 2; the simple method and the public, 8; Charles Kean's spectacular method, 9; Irving's method, 10; plays produced by Phelps, 11; reliance on the actor, 13; in Vienna, 17; advantage of its performance constantly and in variety, 23; importance of minor rôles of, 115; its ethical significance, 164, 165; in France, 198 _seq. _; and British prestige, 229

----, (separate plays):-- _Antony and Cleopatra_ in Vienna, 17 _Coriolanus_, political significance of, 164; and patriotism, 178 _Cymbeline_ (III. I. , 16-22), on patriotism, 183 _Hamlet_, Shakespeare's performance of the Ghost, 27; early popularity of the play, 29; Pepys's criticism of, 95, 99-101; the stage abridgment contrasted with the full text, 117-119 _Henry IV. _ (Part I. ), Pepys's criticism of, 97, 98 _Henry V. _, meaning of first chorus, 19, 46; quoted, 157, 158, 162 _Julius Cæsar_, preferred by contemporary playgoers to Jonson's _Cataline_, 31; political significance of, 164 _Lear, King_, performed at Elizabeth's Court, 36; quarto of, 36 _Love's Labour's Lost_, performed at Court, 34; title-page of the quarto, 35 _Macbeth_, Pepys's criticism of, 104-105; quoted, 156 _Measure for Measure_, ethics of, 164 _Merry Wives of Windsor, The_, title-page of the quarto, 36; Pepys's criticism of, 97 _Midsummer Night's Dream, A_, Pepys's criticism of, 96 _Othello_, Pepys's criticism of, 95, 98, 99 _Richard II. _, purport of John of Gaunt's dying speech, 115-116, 181 _Romeo and Juliet_, Pepys's criticism of, 96 _Tempest, The_, Pepys's criticism of, 105-108; spectacular production of, at Restoration, 107 _Troilus and Cressida_ (II. Ii. , 166), on Aristotle, 144, 145; (I. Iii. , 101-124), on social equilibrium, 163 _Twelfth Night_, Pepys's criticism of, 96

Sheffield, John, Earl of Mulgrave and Duke of Buckinghamshire, 72

Shoreditch, the theatre in, 227

Sidney, Sir Philip, French translations of _Arcadia_, 199, 204

Somerset, the "proud" Duke of, on Shakespeare, 79

Sophocles, statue of, 233

Southampton, Earl of, and Shakespeare, 72

Southwark, the Globe Theatre at, 227

Spenser, Edmund, Beeston's gossip about, 67

Steevens, George, character of, 191; a forged letter by, 192, 193

Sterne, Laurence, in France, 200

Stevenson, R. L. , his imaginary discovery of lost works by Shakespeare, 25

Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's tomb at, 50; Betterton at, 73; visitors from Oxford to, 75, 76, 77; Shakespeare tradition at, 75, 76; Shakespeare memorials at, 218; destruction of New Place, 221; the monumental committee of, 221; sale of Shakespeare's birthplace, 222; purchase of New Place site, 223; the Birthplace Trust, 223, 224

Suckling, Sir John, his love for Shakespeare, 71

Sudermann, Hermann, 135

Tate, Nahum, his adaptations of Shakespeare, 103, 104

Theatres in Elizabethan London, 36; seating arrangements, 39; prices of admission, 39; the scenery, 40; the costumes, 41; contrast between their methods of production and those of later date, 44

Theatres, at Restoration, 86; characteristics of, 87-90. (See also Playhouses. )

_Theatrical Review_ of 1763, 190

Theatrical spectacle in Shakespearean drama, effect of excess, 3; its want of logic, 4; its costliness, 7; at the Restoration, 89, 109; at the present day, 110

Thomson, James, French study of, 201

Tuke, Sir Samuel, his _Adventures of Five Hours_, 98-99

Taylor, Joseph, original actor in Shakespeare's plays, 61; coached by Shakespeare in part of Henry VIII. , 63, 71, 72

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 91

Veronese, Paolo, statue of, 233

Victoria, Queen, and Stratford-on-Avon, 222; statues of, 237

Vienna, production of _Antony and Cleopatra_ at the Burg-Theater, 17; types of subsidised theatres at, 136, 138; conservatoire of actors at, 139

Voltaire on Shakespeare, 205, 206

War, popular view of, 177

Ward, John, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, 74; his _Diary_, 74

Warner, Mrs, at Sadler's Wells, 11

Wellington, Duke of, monument to, 238

Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare's exclusion from, 50; his cenotaph in, 215-216

Will, freedom of, 166

Women, Shakespeare's views on, 168

Wordsworth, William, French study of, 201

Wycherley, William, 91

Young, Edward, French study of, 201