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Title: The Praise of Shakespeare - An English Anthology
Author: Various
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes: Words in italics in the original are surrounded
with _underscores_. Words in mixed case and all cap small caps are in
capital letters. Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in
the original. A row of asterisks represents a thought break. A row of
periods represents an ellipsis. Ellipses match the original. A complete
list of corrections follows the text.
THE PRAISE OF SHAKESPEARE
THE PRAISE OF
SHAKESPEARE
AN ENGLISH ANTHOLOGY
COMPILED BY
C. E. HUGHES
WITH A PREFACE BY
SIDNEY LEE
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
1904
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
RICHARD III., III. i. 87.
Who is it that says most? which can say more
Than this rich praise,—that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story;
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired everywhere.
SONNET LXXXIV.
PREFACE
I believe this volume serves a useful purpose. It is the fruit of a
suggestion which I made to its compiler, Mr. Hughes, in the following
circumstances.
At the beginning of last year I engaged in controversy in the _Times_
newspaper with certain persons who laboured under the delusion that the
evidence of Shakespeare’s authorship of those plays and poems, which
for three centuries have been published as his, was inconclusive. In
defiance of the fact that the acknowledged work of Bacon, the prose
writer and philosopher, proves him to be incapable of writing verse
of genuine merit, some of my opponents held Bacon and no other to be
responsible for those manifestations of supreme poetic genius which
are associated with Shakespeare’s name. Other sceptics, of less raw
judgment, hesitated to commit themselves to this extravagance,—they
confined themselves to the slightly more plausible contention that the
facts recorded of Shakespeare by contemporaries were scanty, and that
his career was clothed in a mystery, which justified wild attempts at a
solution.
The whole of the sceptical argument ignored alike the results of
recent Shakespearean research and the elementary truths of Elizabethan
literary history. But confirmed sceptics are not easily convinced
of defects of knowledge. With especial emphasis did even the most
enlightened among those who declared their doubt in print, persist in
affirming that Shakespeare was unnoticed by his contemporaries, and
that his achievements failed to win reputation in his lifetime or in
the generations succeeding his death. It was that allegation, to a
greater degree than any other, which seemed to encourage the inference
that the received tradition of the Shakespearean authorship of the
plays needed revision.
The conjecture that Shakespeare lived and died unhonoured rests on no
foundation of fact. The converse alone is true. Shakespeare’s eminence
was fully acknowledged by his contemporaries, and their acknowledgments
have long been familiar to scholars.
Yet the reiterated assertion that Shakespeare’s contemporaries left
on record no recognition of his worth, proved that information on the
subject was narrowly diffused, and that public intelligence suffered
by the strait limits as yet assigned to the distribution of genuine
knowledge of the topic. I suggested to Mr. Hughes that he should
remedy this defect by collecting in a volume that might be generally
accessible all notices of Shakespeare which were penned in early days.
Subsequently, when I considered the scheme in detail, I deemed it wise
for Mr. Hughes to enlarge its scope so that the volume might form a
contribution to the history of opinion respecting Shakespeare of no
single period, but of all periods from the earliest to the present
day. Thereby the force and persistence of that Shakespearean tradition
which ignorance had lately impugned might be rendered plainer, and the
liability to misconception might be to a greater degree diminished.
The fulfilment of the design on the extended scale might also, I
thought, give the work some value as a chart of æsthetic development
through the ages. Students of Shakespeare who in the course of three
centuries have recorded their impressions of him, include men and
women of varying degrees of intellectual capacity, and the orderly
presentation of their views could not fail to illustrate with some
graphic force the working of the law of taste in literature.
A further justification for the compilation of the work on an
exhaustive scale, lies in the fact that it has not been done already.
Charles Knight seems to be the only writer who has hitherto attempted
any sketch of a general history of opinion respecting Shakespeare. His
essay formed part of his _Studies of Shakespeare_, which were first
published in 1849, and it was reissued separately as the first volume
of a new edition of his Cabinet Edition of _Shakespeare_ which was
published in London by William S. Orr & Co., of Paternoster Row, in
1851.[vii:1] Knight surveys his subject somewhat perfunctorily from
Edmund Spenser to Coleridge. He devotes much space to the eighteenth
century, but he pays scant attention to the nineteenth, and he is far
from exhaustive in his treatment of earlier periods. Commendable as is
his pioneer effort, it is now, alike in form and matter, largely out of
date.
A more imposing endeavour was made later to deal with the earlier
section of the topic. Dr. Ingleby, a Shakespearean scholar of repute,
issued in 1874 the work entitled _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse_,
in which he dealt with the period extending from the year 1591, when
Shakespeare first came into notice as a dramatist, until 1693. A
second edition of Dr. Ingleby’s volume, revised and enlarged by Miss
Toulmin Smith, appeared five years later under the auspices of the
New Shakspere Society. A very substantial supplement to this volume,
called _Some 300 Fresh Allusions to Shakspere from 1594 to 1694_, was
edited by Dr. Furnivall for the New Shakspere Society in 1886. Thus the
_Centurie of Prayse_ in its final shape extends to 912 pages in quarto.
The large book is not at everybody’s disposal, but its contents, as far
as they go, are very valuable, and no Shakespeare library is complete
without it. None the less, it covers less than a third part of that
field which a full history of opinion about Shakespeare ought to
occupy; it leaves ample room for a treatise on the whole subject.
The general impression produced by Mr. Hughes’s extended survey seems
creditable to the discernment of the English literary public—of
all generations since Shakespeare began to write. The repute that
Shakespeare acquired in his lifetime, though it was rarely defined
with subtlety, was in spirit all that judicious admirers could desire.
The contemporary estimate was authoritatively summed up in the epitaph
which was inscribed on his monument in Stratford-on-Avon church soon
after his death. In that inscription he was hailed as the equal of
great heroes of classical antiquity—of Nestor in wisdom, of Socrates
in genius, of Virgil in literary art; he was acknowledged in plain
terms to be the greatest of contemporary writers; all living writers
were declared to be worthy only to serve him as pages or menials.
Shakespeare’s epitaph, the significance of which is not always
appreciated, justifies no doubt of the supremacy that he enjoyed in
the English world of letters of his own day. The homage of literary
contemporaries was confirmed without faltering and in finer phrase by
Milton, the next occupant of the throne of English letters.
No subsequent change of literary taste or literary fashion in England
really dimmed Shakespeare’s fame. In the days of the Restoration,
Dryden humbly acknowledged discipleship to him. Some censure he
suffered from thoughtless lips; but the right to the rank of a classic,
which had been granted him as soon as the breath left his body, was
never effectually disputed. The formal critics of the eighteenth
century sought to show that much of his work deviated from formal
standards or from rules of formal art. But these censors gave him the
worship of incessant study. They edited and annotated his writings,
with the result that a succeeding generation of readers acquired a
more accurate comprehension of his work than was possible before.
The triumphal progress of Shakespeare’s reputation was stimulated by
eighteenth century research and criticism to a quicker pace.
The critical faculty of the nation was especially acute and sagacious
at the opening of the nineteenth century, and Shakespeare’s
pre-eminence was then seen in sharper outline and in fuller grandeur
than at any earlier epoch. The sympathetic intuition of three early
nineteenth century critics—Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt—remains
unsurpassed. But there has been no trace of retrogression in the wise
and reasoned enthusiasm of later generations of the reading public.
The history of Shakespeare’s fame is indeed that of a flowing tide; the
ebbing was never long enough sustained to give it genuine importance;
the forward march was never seriously impeded, and is from start
to finish the commanding feature of the chronicle. If Mr. Hughes’s
endeavour succeed in impressing that pregnant fact on the public mind,
a perilous source of popular misconception regarding Shakespeare’s true
place in English literary history will be removed.
SIDNEY LEE.
FOOTNOTES:
[vii:1] This volume bore the title, _Studies of Shakspere: introductory
volume, containing A History of Opinion on the Writings of Shakspere;
with the Chronology of his Plays_. The book in this form seems now to
be difficult of access. No copy of it is in the British Museum Library.
I acquired a copy for a few pence many years ago.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE BY SIDNEY LEE v
SOME NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE’S REPUTATION 1
PART I
“THESE THREE HUNDRED YEARS”
THE FIRST PERIOD
1596 Francis Meres 35
1598 Richard Barnfield 36
1599 John Weever 37
1610 John Davies 38
1614 Thomas Freeman 39
1622 William Basse 40
1623 Anonymous 41
1623 Ben Jonson 42
1623 Hugh Holland 45
1623 John Heminge and Henrie Condell 46
1623 Leonard Digges 47
1627 Michael Drayton 48
1630 John Milton 49
1632 I. M. S. 50
_a._ 1633 John Hales 53
1637 Sir William D’Avenant 54
_c._ 1637 Anonymous 55
1639 Thomas Bancroft 57
1647 George Daniel 58
1651 Samuel Sheppard 59
_c._ 1661 Thomas Fuller 61
1662-7 Samuel Pepys 62
1664 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 64
1667 John Dryden 66
1668 John Dryden 67
1672 Anonymous 69
1675 Edward Phillips 71
1680 Thomas Otway 72
1681 “A Person of Honour” 74
1693 Sir Charles Sedley 75
THE SECOND PERIOD
1709 Sir Richard Steele 76
1709 Nicholas Rowe 78
1711 Elijah Fenton 80
1712 John Dennis 82
1712 Edward Young 83
1714 Joseph Addison 84
1725 Alexander Pope 85
1727 James Thomson 88
1733 Lewis Theobald 89
1740 Joseph Warton 91
1743 William Collins 92
1744 Sir Thomas Hanmer 93
1747 Samuel Johnson 94
1747 Bishop William Warburton 95
1751 Christopher Smart 96
1754 David Hume 97
1756 Horace Walpole 99
1758 John Armstrong 100
1759 William Mason 101
1759 Thomas Gray 102
1759 David Mallet 103
1759 Edward Young 104
_c._ 1760 Mark Akenside 105
1760 Robert Lloyd 106
1760 Edward Capell 107
1761 Charles Churchill 108
1762 William Whitehead 109
1763 William Thompson 110
1765 Samuel Johnson 111
1768 George Keate 112
1769 David Garrick 113
1769 Anonymous 116
1774 William Richardson 117
1775 William Julius Mickle 119
1777 William Hayley 120
1777 Thomas Warton 121
_a._ 1782 Anna Seward 123
1794 William Lisle Bowles 124
THE THIRD PERIOD
1802 William Wordsworth 127
1804 Felicia Dorothea Hemans 128
1814 Sir Walter Scott 129
1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 130
1817 Francis, Lord Jeffrey 133
1818 William Hazlitt 135
_c._ 1818 John Keats 138
_c._ 1818 John Keats 138
1819 John Wilson 140
1824 Charles Sprague 142
1824 Charles Lamb 144
1827 Julius Charles Hare 145
1831 James Hogg 146
1833 Charles Lamb 148
1833 Hartley Coleridge 149
1838 Thomas de Quincey 150
1839 John Sterling 153
1839 Henry Hallam 155
1840 —— Johnstone 156
1840 Thomas Carlyle 157
1841 William Wordsworth 159
1843 Lord Macaulay 160
1844 Ralph Waldo Emerson 162
1850 Frederick William Robertson 164
1851 Leigh Hunt 166
1852 James Anthony Froude 167
1853 David Masson 168
1853 Matthew Arnold 169
1853 Walter Savage Landor 170
1858 John Henry Newman 171
_c._ 1858 James Russell Lowell 173
1863 Nathaniel Hawthorne 175
1864 Bishop Charles Wordsworth 176
1864 Oliver Wendell Holmes 177
1865 Cardinal Wiseman 179
1865 Archbishop Trench 180
1865 Francis Turner Palgrave 181
1866 Frances Anne Kemble 183
1868 John Ruskin 184
1871 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 185
1872 Bayard Taylor 186
1874 William Minto 189
1875 Edward Dowden 190
1877 George Meredith 191
1877 Frederick James Furnivall 192
1878 Walter Horatio Pater 193
1879 Matthew Arnold 195
? _c._ 1880 Anonymous 197
1880 Algernon Charles Swinburne 199
1882 Algernon Charles Swinburne 201
1883 George Meredith 202
1884 Robert Browning 204
1886 William Wetmore Story 205
1886 Thomas Spencer Baynes 207
1888 Gerald Massey 209
1890 Walt Whitman 210
1891 Richard Watson Gilder 212
_c._ 1894 Mathilde Blind 213
_a._ 1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson 214
1899 Sidney Lee 215
PART II
“GOOD SENTENCES”
1639 Anonymous 219
1681 John Crowne 220
1737 Alexander Pope 221
1745 James Thomson 222
1767 Anonymous 223
_a._ 1767 George Colman 224
1776 Richard Graves 225
1778 Horace Walpole 226
1787 Daniel Webb 227
1801 William Lisle Bowles 228
1807 Felicia Dorothea Hemans 229
1811 Francis, Lord Jeffrey 230
1811 George Dyer 231
1812 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 232
1813 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 232
1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 232
1817 Leigh Hunt 233
1818 William Hazlitt 234
1818 Percy Bysshe Shelley 235
1819 John Keats 236
1821 William Hazlitt 237
1821 Robert Southey 238
1821 Lord Byron 239
1822 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 240
1827 Thomas Hood 241
1828 Thomas Carlyle 242
1830 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 243
1830 Anonymous 244
1831 Lord Macaulay 245
1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 246
1836 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 246
1837 Leigh Hunt 247
1838 Thomas de Quincey 248
1839 Thomas de Quincey 248
1839 Thomas Carlyle 249
1844 Leigh Hunt 250
1844 Ralph Waldo Emerson 251
1844 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 252
_a._ 1846 Walter Savage Landor 253
1847 Thomas de Quincey 254
1850 Robert Browning 255
_a._ 1850 William Wordsworth 256
_a._ 1851 David Macbeth Moir 257
1851 Thomas Lovell Beddoes 258
1853 Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton 259
1857 Charles Mackay 260
_c._ 1860 Abraham Lincoln 261
1860 Ralph Waldo Emerson 262
1865 Cardinal Wiseman 263
1867 Thomas Carlyle 264
1867 Matthew Arnold 265
1870 James Russell Lowell 266
1875 Edward Dowden 267
1879 Matthew Arnold 268
1882 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 269
1884 William Watson 270
1893 Richard Green Moulton 271
1894 Sir John Robert Seeley 272
1896 John Ruskin 273
PART III
“ROUND ABOUT”
1664 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 277
1711 Joseph Addison 278
1743 Henry Fielding 279
1747 Thomas Edwards 281
1749 Mark Akenside 284
1751 Robert Lloyd 288
1765 Oliver Goldsmith 291
1765 George, Lord Lyttelton 292
1768 Laurence Sterne 295
1769 Anonymous 298
1769 Isaac Bickerstaff 299
1778 Anonymous 302
1788 Horace Walpole 305
1790 Paul Whitehead 306
1812 William Combe 308
1826 Charles Lamb 313
1845 Nathaniel Hawthorne 314
1846 Walter Savage Landor 316
1868 William Schwenck Gilbert 318
1872 Oliver Wendell Holmes 323
1897 Theodore Watts-Dunton 325
1902 Judge Willis 326
To My Very Good Friend, Mr William Shakespeare 329
INDEX 331
SOME NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE’S REPUTATION
I
INTRODUCTORY
This book provides a chronological sequence of the best pieces in verse
and prose which the best writers in successive periods have written
in praise of Shakespeare, and thereby aims at presenting, as it were,
an index to the standard of estimation in which Shakespeare has been
held at any given point of time. Thus, as an anthology, it differs in
various respects from other anthologies. An anthology, as a rule, hopes
to confine itself to pieces of literature intrinsically valuable. The
conscientious compiler of an ordinary anthology includes nothing which,
according to his own canons of taste, can be considered of doubtful
merit. His choice may not always be approved by others—it frequently
is not; but he, at least, is satisfied. Here, however, is a different
case. My object has been to collect what may be called materials for a
history of opinion of Shakespeare, so that as many years as might be
of the three centuries and more, which have elapsed since Shakespeare’s
reputation was born, had to be represented. With these conditions it
has not always been possible to exclude bad pieces, for the obvious
reason that there has been at times a dearth of good writers. In such
cases the best has been given that could be found. The best has at
times been deplorably mediocre, but the scheme was inexorable.
The labour of selection has been guided by one or two principles.
In the first place, complete poems, or extracts in verse and prose,
which relate solely to Shakespeare have been taken in preference to
those which mention him in company with his contemporaries. Secondly,
passages that exhibit unusual characteristics, whether good or bad,
have frequently been chosen. For some of the poor pieces, and I hope
they are not many, something may be said. Though their writers are
practically forgotten to-day, they were considered great during their
own lives; so their productions have at least a historical value. If,
then, this volume includes, as I think it does, the best things that
have been written about Shakespeare, it includes also many things
that in a comparative estimate of the whole must be considered as
second-rate, though they happened to be the best in the period during
which they were produced. The distinctiveness of the book may perhaps
be indicated in this way. An ordinary anthology may be said to gather
into a garland the choicest flowers from various fields of literature;
this anthology claims to be little more than a collection of botanical
specimens.
II
DIVISION INTO PERIODS
The history of opinion of Shakespeare may be divided into three
periods, represented broadly by the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries. Definite limits cannot be assigned to these three
periods. Epochs of literary history must be determined ultimately,
not by the work produced in them, or by the lives of the producers,
but by the influences which gradually brought them into being. Thus,
there must always be at the beginning and end of a period of literary
history a kind of dovetailing with it of the periods before and after.
Still, the three periods I have indicated are reasonably distinct.
The first begins with the earliest mention of Shakespeare in print,
and may be taken to end with the death of Dryden. The second period
was largely affected by Dryden’s influence, and thus may be said to
begin with the eighteenth century. And the last period, which is due
to the reaction from the Augustan age of English literature, may be
fairly dated from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The style
of the literary products of these three centuries respectively goes to
confirm the division. The first period is that of personal knowledge
and oral tradition, and tributes to Shakespeare are for the most part
in verse. It is the period during which his historical position was in
the making. The second period is that of critics and emendators—the
period when people begin to realise that there is some great power in
Shakespeare’s work which finds no parallel in their own time, and must
therefore be praised blindly, accounted for, or explained away. Tribute
is clothed equally in verse and prose; it is, in short, the period of
doubt and astonishment. The last period is that of æsthetic criticism,
and tribute is mostly in prose. Shakespeare’s position is an accepted
fact.
Of the three periods, the second is by far the most interesting to the
literary historian. Opinion of Shakespeare during the first period
was to a large extent prejudiced by personal knowledge and tradition.
The praise is practically equivalent to that of friends; which is to
say, it is largely that of blind admiration. In the third period it
is open-eyed, intelligent admiration. The matter has been sifted. The
question of Shakespeare’s genius is no longer a debatable point. The
praise is that of disciples who appreciate the logical basis of their
master’s teaching, and who see the necessity of lucid explanation
for the purpose of adding recruits to their number. But the second
period is the time of trial. Shakespeare’s title to fame is weighed
judicially, and is not found wanting.
III
THE FIRST PERIOD
Of the seventeenth century not much need be said, and, indeed, not
much that is new can be said. The labours of the New Shakspere Society
have added several valuable volumes to the literature relating to
Shakespeare’s reputation during that period. Of these the _Centurie of
Prayse_ (of which the second and much enlarged edition was produced
under the direction of Miss L. Toulmin Smith in 1879) brought together
a very large number of allusions to Shakespeare both in print and
manuscript, and these were supplemented by _Some 300 Fresh Allusions_,
a work which was edited by Dr. Furnivall in 1886. These volumes display
an amazing amount of diligent research, and few additions can be made
to their contents. Seven hitherto unnoticed allusions to Shakespeare
were discovered by Dr. Edward J. L. Scott in the Sloane Manuscripts
at the British Museum, and communicated by him to the _Athenæum_
on 5th March 1898.[5:1] This evidence of Shakespeare’s reputation
during the period under discussion has been ably supplemented by an
article entitled _Shakespeare in Oral Tradition_, which Mr. Sidney
Lee contributed to the _Nineteenth Century_ in January 1902. This
traces the actual recollection of Shakespeare by his friends and their
descendants, from his personal acquaintance among the actors and the
townsfolk of Stratford-on-Avon, to the reminiscences transmitted
by word of mouth from Betterton to Nicholas Rowe, the poet’s first
biographer. Mr. Lee’s paper is of the utmost importance. As he
points out, “It was obviously the free circulation of the fame of
Shakespeare’s work which stimulated the activity of interest in his
private fortunes, and led to the chronicling of the oral tradition
regarding them. It could easily be shown that outside the circle
of professional poets, dramatists, actors, and fellow-townsmen,
Shakespeare’s name was, from his first coming into public notice,
constantly on the lips of scholars, statesmen, and men of fashion who
had any glimmer of literary taste.”
The ground, therefore, may be said to be covered in so far as positive
evidence of Shakespeare’s fame in the seventeenth century is concerned.
But at least three popular fallacies have come into being, and it
will be perhaps worth while to state them and definitely refute them.
Their existence is due partly to lack of acquaintance with documentary
evidence, and partly to misconception.
One of these popular fallacies is that Shakespeare practically vanished
from the minds of his countrymen when he retired from the stage; and
that what reputation he had in his lifetime was due to his prominence
as an actor, rather than to his genius as a poet.
The preface of the First Folio (1623) is enough to prove that this was
not the case. The tone of the address “to the great variety of readers”
is not that of publishers trying to awaken interest in a forgotten
personage, by calling attention to works that used to be popular. The
language is that of affectionate friends, the references to Shakespeare
those of intimate associates whose memories have not healed of the
wound inflicted by his death. It was addressed to the public, not with
the diffidence that is born of anxiety lest the subject of eulogy
should meet with an indifferent welcome, but with the confidence that
is inspired by friendship with a great man who is recognised as a
great man.
The second impression of the Folio appeared in 1632, and the spirit of
enthusiasm that breathes through the preliminary matter—the publisher’s
preface and the various sets of verses—has become in no way weakened.
The volume contains, indeed, two of the finest poems of direct personal
eulogy that have ever been written—that signed I. M. S., and attributed
by Coleridge somewhat fancifully to no less a person than John Milton,
and the noble _Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare_,
actually written by Milton in 1630. No sign of decayed reputation
here. Nor elsewhere. King Charles I., it is well known, read
Shakespeare. Copies of his plays and poems are mentioned in Prince
Rupert’s library catalogue. His works were given on the stage, and
formed topics of everyday discussion. One might multiply examples of
his popularity, but it is striking at shadows.
Another popular error has tinged the traditional notion of Milton’s
attitude to Shakespeare. It is supposed that his opinion of Shakespeare
underwent a complete change from that exhibited in the lines mentioned
above. The error that attributes to Milton this surprising revulsion
of feeling is due to a misconception of a certain passage in his
_Eikonoklastes_. Milton wrote thus:
“Andronicus Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, though a most
cruel tyrant, is reported by Nicetas to have been a most
constant reader of Saint Paul’s Epistles; and by continual
study had so incorporated the phrase and style of that
transcendent apostle into all his familiar letters, that the
imitation seemed to vie with the original. Yet this availed
not to deceive the people of that empire, who, notwithstanding
his saint’s vizard, tore him to pieces for his tyranny. From
stories of this nature, both ancient and modern, which abound,
the poets also, and some English, have been in this point so
mindful of decorum as to put never more pious words in the
mouth of any person than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an
abstruse author, wherein the king might be less conversant, but
one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his
solitudes, William Shakespeare, who introduces the person of
Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of piety and
mortification as is uttered in any passage of this book [_i.e._
the _Eikon Basilike_], and sometimes to the same sense and
purpose with some words in this place: ‘I intended,’ saith he,
‘not only to oblige to my friends, but my enemies.’ The like
saith Richard, Act II. Scene i.:
“‘I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds,
More than the infant that is born to-night:
I thank my God for my humility.’
Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the whole
tragedy, wherein the poet used not much licence in departing
from the truth of history, which delivers him a deep
dissembler, not of his affections only, but of religion.”
The blundering interpretation of this passage, which Warton accepted
and transmitted to his successors, including De Quincey, is that
Charles I. was reproved by Milton for having made Shakespeare
his closet companion. “The Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles
I.),” says De Quincey in his _Life of Shakespeare_, “had
learned to appreciate Shakespeare, not originally from reading him, but
from witnessing the Court representations of his plays at Whitehall.
Afterwards we know that he made Shakespeare his closet companion,
for he was reproached with doing so by Milton.” A careful perusal
of the passage will show that nothing was farther from Milton’s
intention. Such a deduction is logically impossible. Three things,
however, undoubtedly may be deduced from it; and they not only bear
a significance directly opposed to the erroneous interpretation, but
they are of the highest importance as positive evidence of Milton’s
appreciation of Shakespeare, and of Shakespeare’s literary fame. One
may deduce, firstly, that Shakespeare was known, at any rate by name,
to the Puritans, who chiefly composed the public for which Milton was
writing. Secondly (since Charles was not, we may believe, the man to
read in private books that he did not like), that the king’s knowledge
of Shakespeare was intimate and his appreciation sincere. And, thirdly,
that Shakespeare was, in Milton’s opinion, one who depicts human nature
with accuracy. For, consider the force of the parallel. Milton wrote
to show that the deeds of monarchs are not always the substantiation
of their words. The Byzantine tyrant, with his mouth full of piety, is
cited as one instance; Shakespeare’s Richard III. as being, by
familiarity, likely to bring the matter home to Charles, is cited as
another. Which is, in effect, that Shakespeare’s portrayal of a king
of such character is, in Milton’s opinion, proof that such a king may
exist. There is nothing slighting about that. It is high praise.
Milton wrote his _Eikonoklastes_ in 1649, when he was forty-one. In
1645 he had written his _L’Allegro_, with the lines:
“Then to the well-trod stage anon
If Jonson’s learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare fancy’s child,
Warble his native woodnotes wild.”
The lines attributed to him in the Second Folio had appeared in 1632,
and his fully authenticated _Epitaph_ in 1630. Further, his influence
has been traced in the notice of Shakespeare which appeared in the
_Theatrum Poetarum_, published in 1675 by Edward Phillips, Milton’s
nephew. Here, surely, is sufficient evidence that throughout his life
Milton’s early enthusiasm for Shakespeare did not diminish.
A third popular fallacy is that which maintains Shakespeare’s
reputation to have been at its lowest ebb after the Restoration. This
belief is well expressed in Victor Hugo’s _Shakespeare_.
“Shakespeare,” says Victor Hugo, “once dead entered into
oblivion. Under the Restoration he ‘completed his eclipse.’
He was so thoroughly dead that Davenant, possibly his son,
recomposed his pieces. There was no longer any _Macbeth_ but
the _Macbeth_ of Davenant. Dryden speaks of Shakespeare on
one occasion in order to say that he is ‘out of date.’ Lord
Shaftesbury calls him ‘a wit out of fashion’ . . .
“These two men having condemned Shakespeare, the oracle had
spoken. England, a country more obedient to conventional
opinion than is generally believed, forgot Shakespeare. Some
purchaser pulled down his house, New Place. A Rev. Dr. Gastrell
cut down and burnt his mulberry-tree.[10:1] At the commencement
of the eighteenth century the eclipse was total. In 1707 one
called Nahum Tate published a _King Lear_, warning his readers
‘that he had borrowed the idea of it from a play which he
had read by chance, the work of some nameless author.’ This
‘nameless author’ was Shakespeare.”
Now the numerous adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays which appeared
after the Restoration have been taken somewhat paradoxically as
indicative of his decline in the public estimation. Such a deduction is
by no means accurate. If we take into consideration the comparatively
low level to which imaginative literature had fallen under the
influence of Charles II.’s Court, the wonder is perhaps that
the theatre-going public should have received Shakespeare in any form.
Such neglect of Shakespeare as is seen at this time is attributable
merely to change of fashion in popular literature, and that was then,
and still is, as mutable as the sea. Popular literature does not live,
and the adaptations of the later Stuart reigns are now known only to
curious students. But Shakespeare lived through it all, known and
appreciated by all who had souls above the vulgar; and in this very
period he passed triumphantly his first examination at the hands of a
skilled critic, John Dryden. Dryden was in every respect typical of the
cultivated class of his period. His early judgment of Shakespeare was
formed in the somewhat flickering light of Restoration taste. His final
estimate was that of a matured thinker. Certainly, adaptations prepared
to suit the fickle taste of the playgoer of the period cannot be said
to reflect the true character of Shakespeare’s reputation. We see the
same thing at the present day. The altruism of theatrical managers
is compelled to make concessions to popular demands. The public are
still rather shy of going to see Shakespeare simply as Shakespeare.
They appear to feel that going to see a play of Shakespeare is like
sacrificing themselves for their own good. So the managers who gild
the pill for them are successful, and those who do not merely fail,
or at best earn a precarious livelihood. One might as well say that
Shakespeare’s reputation is at a very low ebb to-day, as make the
deduction from the fact of the Restoration adaptations. The playgoers
of that period wanted something piquant. One may suppose—to put the
matter in modern terms—that Heine and De Maupassant collaborating might
have produced a popular success. Wycherley and Congreve met the demand
as nearly as possible. But Shakespeare was not the thing.
IV
THE SECOND PERIOD
I have taken 1700, the date of Dryden’s death, as that which most
fittingly marks the close of the first period and the beginning of
the second, for it is very soon after that year that the spirit of
the eighteenth century begins to make itself manifest. In the history
of literature the eighteenth century stands out distinct as a whole.
The literature of the seventeenth century had many characteristics,
which, even in the most cursory survey, require attention, and these
characteristics were mainly due to the connection of literature with
the Court. The pedantic James I. was a patron of learning. His son
Charles I., and grandson Charles II., inherited the taste for polite
letters, and encouraged or influenced indirectly the authors of their
times. But the eighteenth century monarchs were different. They did
not concern themselves much with men of letters, and literature went
its course comparatively unaffected by fashion. But it was affected
by the spirit of the age—the spirit born of gradual recognition of
the Renaissance. As David Lloyd in his _State Worthies_ said of the
early seventeenth century, “it was the very guise at that time to be
learned; the wits of it were so excellent, the helps and assistants of
it were so great; printing was so common; the world (by navigation)
so open; great experiments so disclosed; the leisure of men so much,
the age so peaceable; and His Majesty, after whom all writ, so
knowing.” At that time learning was a novelty, and consequently it was
fashionable—it was “the very guise.” By the eighteenth century great
men had grown accustomed to it; and it was becoming the property of
the lesser worthies, who, unable to resist the temptation to “show
off,” turned out reams of didactic verse, the substance of which would
nowadays hide its light beneath the respectable bushel of the journal
of some scientific society. Dryden was perhaps mainly responsible.
He had pronounced the dictum: “They cannot be good poets who are not
accustomed to argue well.” At any rate, with the eighteenth century the
poetry of argument or logic, as distinct from that of inspiration, came
into being, and by far the greater part of the poetry of the hundred
years that followed Dryden’s death was that of poets who are made
rather than poets who are born. The same feeling informs the prose.
It is true that the age produced Horace Walpole. But Walpole was a
literary trifler, and liked to be thought so, though he was amazingly
industrious. The eighteenth century saw much excellent prose, but it is
almost always the prose of “will” or “must” rather than that of “can.”
It comes rather of fertility of reason than of fertility of fancy. Of
such stock are commentators born.
One finds, accordingly, that the principal producers of pure
literature, whether prose or verse, were also critics, and most of them
turned their attention, sooner or later, to Shakespeare. Prominent
figures in the history of Shakespearean criticism in the eighteenth
century stand Pope and Johnson. Both are classical scholars in an age
of pedants; both are among the foremost advocates of rigid adherence
to prescribed rules in literary production; both place imagination
below intellect in estimation of genius; and both are honoured by
their fellows as arbiters and dictators of literary taste. Each of
them is inclined to say unkind things about Shakespeare, and hardly
dares. Pope is the more generous of the two. “It will be,” he says,
“but fair to allow that most of our author’s faults are less to be
ascribed to his wrong judgment as a poet, than to his right judgment
as a player.” Which is to say, that Shakespeare, poor soul! must needs
trim his boat to suit the current of popular opinion; that the greater
part of his audience in the theatres consisted of low fellows who had
never heard of Aristotle, and must not be troubled with the unities and
such matters, which they could not understand. One has but to continue
this line of argument to conclude that Pope thought Shakespeare so
much a part and product of the age in which he was born, that had
he been born, say, in Pope’s age, he might (which Heaven forbid!)
have been a perfect poet according to Pope’s lights—might, in fact,
have translated Homer, to supply the sixpenny boxes of second-hand
booksellers two centuries later. But Pope certainly thought Shakespeare
very great. His greatness was, perhaps, not of quite the right kind
in Pope’s estimation; but greatness he undoubtedly thought it. As to
Shakespeare’s want of learning, Pope frankly refused to believe in it.
He says very wisely:
“There is certainly a vast difference between _learning_ and
_languages_. How far he was ignorant of the latter I cannot
determine; but ’tis plain he had much reading at least, if they
will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a
man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or from
another. . . . I am inclined to think this opinion proceeded
originally from the zeal of the partizans of our author and Ben
Jonson, as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of
the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes;
and nothing is so probable as that because Ben Jonson had much
the more learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespeare
had none at all; and because Shakespeare had much the most wit
and fancy, it was reported on the other that Jonson wanted
both. Because Shakespeare borrowed nothing, it was said that
Ben Jonson borrowed everything. Because Jonson did not write
extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every
piece; and because Shakespeare wrote with ease and rapidity,
they cried, he never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of
opposition ran so high, that whatever those of the one side
objected to in the other, was taken at the rebound and turned
into praises; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had
made them objections.”
Pope further attributed many of Shakespeare’s errors to the
carelessness or ignorance of the first publishers of his works,
suggesting that the original copies from which they were printed were
no better than the “_prompter’s book_, or _piecemeal parts_ written out
for the use of the actors,” who may be supposed to have made numerous
small excisions and additions.
Thus Pope says in effect that Shakespeare would have been perfect if
the age and conditions in which he lived had allowed him. He sees many
beauties in him, but he also sees many defects; and his edition of
Shakespeare’s works is remarkable chiefly for its omissions of passages
which the editor deems unworthy of his author.
Dr. Johnson is by no means so ready metaphorically to grasp Shakespeare
by the hand. He follows a procession of editors of more or less
ability, and he feels that the time has come for the final settlement
of Shakespeare’s true position. Rowe, the first editor, hardly realised
his responsibilities, and his edition of the plays which appeared
in 1709 has few merits from the critic’s point of view. Pope, who
followed him in 1725, had a reputation for brilliance to sustain,
and his preface is remarkable rather for neatness of expression
than for critical discernment. Theobald came after Pope, in 1733,
with much common sense, which made him the laughing-stock of his
successors. The next editor, Sir Thomas Hanmer, intended his edition
as a tribute to Shakespeare, and what was lacking in criticism was
supplied in good paper and printing. Warburton succeeded with a pompous
self-assertiveness that expressed itself in amusing but ineffective
paradoxes.
Johnson accordingly had a due sense of what was expected of him. His
critical equipment consisted in a knowledge of the classical drama,
and his æsthetic judgment was founded on the rules by which he had
succeeded in his own poetical ventures. Still, he did his best to
assume a strictly unbiassed judicial attitude. He did not, as Macaulay
states, take it for granted that “the kind of poetry which flourished
in his own time, which he had been accustomed to hear praised from
his childhood, and which he had himself written with success, was the
best kind of poetry.” He tried deliberately to approach Shakespeare
as he approached the Cock Lane Ghost. He dealt with him as with some
mysterious phenomenon which was attracting public attention, and which
admitted of explanation. The result was, perhaps, the best balanced
common-sense judgment on record. It contained, on the one hand, the
most tremendous indictment of Shakespeare that is ever likely to be
written; and, on the other, a triumphant defence, coupled with much
enthusiastic eulogy. Here are some of the “faults which,” as he puts
it, “are sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit”:
“He sacrifices virtue to convenience.”
“His plots are often so loosely formed that a very slight
consideration may improve them.”
“In many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected.”
“He had no regard to distinction of time or place.”
“In his comic scenes he is seldom very successful when he
engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and
contests of sarcasm.”
“In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as
his labour is more.”
“In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and
a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident
imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly
delivered in few.”
“His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak.”
“It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an
unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express and will not
reject.”
“What he does best he soon ceases to do.”
“A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the
traveller; he follows it at all adventures.”
“He neglects the unities—those laws which have been instituted
and established by the joint authority of poets and critics.”
Johnson proceeds to defend Shakespeare by an excellent demonstration
of the absurdity of the unities, and at the close of it owns himself
“almost frighted at his own temerity.” Then he follows Pope in finding
Shakespeare to be hampered by the age in which he lived. “The English
nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling to emerge from
barbarity.” Having to appeal to immature intellects, he was compelled
to base his plays on novels and traditions well known to his audience,
“for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies
of the drama had they not held the thread of the story in their
hands.” In reply to Voltaire, who expressed wonder that Shakespeare’s
extravagances should be endured by a nation which had seen the tragedy
of _Cato_, Johnson says that “Addison speaks the language of poets, and
Shakespeare of men.” He proceeds to deal with Shakespeare’s learning,
and Shakespeare emerges from the ordeal credited with rather less than
the average board-school boy of the present day. Johnson decides at
length that “if much of his praise is paid by perception and judgment,
much is likewise given by custom and veneration”; and, finally, he
sums up his merits in the following fine sentence:—
“It therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is
the mirror of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in
following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him,
may here be cured of his delirious ecstasies, by reading human
sentiments in human language; by scenes from which a hermit may
estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict
the progress of the passions.”[19:1]
It is difficult in the face of these pros and cons to determine
what Johnson’s attitude towards Shakespeare really was. Much of his
apparent hostility may, perhaps, be attributed to his instinctive
argumentativeness. It was his nature to object. If he were in a
loquacious mood, you had but to make a bald statement, and he was
upon you with an aggressively persuasive “Why, sir!” And here it may
be that he felt irresistibly impelled to combat the universal opinion
of Shakespeare’s greatness, and that he was hardly sincere in all he
wrote. However this may be, it is probable that he left on his readers
the impression that the balance of his inclination was against rather
than for Shakespeare. The very fact of the judicial attitude would
tend to produce such an impression. A judicial attitude towards
Shakespeare was not at that period so well understood as to be readily
distinguished from unfriendliness. And in estimating the critical
attitude of the age towards Shakespeare, it is necessary to bear in
mind that Dr. Johnson was a more important person when he lived than he
is now. Nothing is gained by speculating what he might have thought.
The fact remains that what he wrote carried weight.
Johnson’s opinion was not, however, sufficiently weighty to make his
preface, as he intended it to be, the last word in Shakespearean
criticism. Other editors followed him. Edward Capell brought much
serious and laborious scholarship to the task; and his judgments were
frequently sound, though his lack of perspicuity in delivering them
detracts somewhat from their value. His edition appeared in 1768. Five
years later, in 1773, George Steevens revised Johnson’s edition, and,
bringing to the enterprise an unrivalled knowledge of Elizabethan
history and literature, embodied many improvements, which he treated
with a humour that was frequently malicious and occasionally obscene.
To the second edition (1778) of this work was added much valuable
material relating to Shakespeare’s biography and the sources of his
plots, due to the researches of Edmund Malone, who published an
edition of his own in 1790. The well-known “First Variorum” edition
appeared in twenty-one volumes in 1803, prepared by Isaac Reed from a
1793 copy of Steevens’, containing many manuscript notes. The “Second
Variorum” appeared in 1813; and the “Third Variorum,” arranged by James
Boswell, the son of Johnson’s biographer, which appeared in 1821, marks
the close of what may be called the eighteenth century period of
commentators.
It will be seen, then, that Shakespeare was at this time kept
prominently before the eyes of the reading public. He was equally a
topic of interest with men of letters who confined themselves to no
special branch of literature. The attitude of the eighteenth century
essayists toward Shakespeare was essentially one of admiration and
respect for his genius. They found fault with his plays, it is true,
frequently enough, but almost always apologetically. He was not
infrequently held up as a model for modern dramatists to follow. The
_Connoisseur_, for example, printed a paper discussing the sources
of the _Merchant of Venice_; and while elaborating the fact that
the plot was borrowed, insisted on the genius displayed in the use
which Shakespeare made of it. The _Guardian_, again, enlarges on the
naturalness of Shakespeare’s characters—remarkable at a time when
poetry was, above all things, rhetorical and artificial.
Let us glance now at the poetical critics. It will be noticed that
many of the pieces printed in the body of this book appear under
names that are not very familiar, and that the eighteenth century is
responsible for the majority of them. In modern anthologies it is not
usual to include selections from the works of such poets; nor, indeed,
if literary excellence be the compiler’s object, is it expedient.
They are included here not because their effusions appear to me to
reach even a modest standard of merit, but because they were accepted
as good poets by their contemporaries and by the literary dictator,
Dr. Johnson. Johnson, it is true, disclaimed responsibility for the
choice of names represented in his edition of British poets, but the
repudiation cannot be considered of much importance. Johnson’s name
had probably more weight with publishers than that of any other man
of his time, and it is hardly likely that his advice in the matter of
inclusion or rejection, had he thought it worth while to give it, would
have been ignored. So one may feel certain that every name on his list
appeared with his approval. The laudatory criticisms embodied in the
biographies, which he asserted marked the extent of his commission,
prove as much. Take Blackmore, for example, whose _Creation_ was
included, on Johnson’s recommendation, in his edition of the poets.
“This poem,” he says, “if he had written nothing else, would have
transmitted him to posterity among the first favourites of the English
Muse.” Posterity, on the whole, has not given the Muse’s favourite much
of a welcome, and Blackmore is one of a number of such chosen ones. But
even Johnson might have known better. They had their reputations ready
made for them by patrons. It was the age of patrons and extravagant
compliment, and Shakespeare in the hands of these small poets took a
place similar to that of the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome.
Poetical flatterers of great men permitted him to fill the position of
comparative in the scale of eulogy, the object of their praises being
the superlative. Just as the writers of light society compliments made
envious Venus second to Clorinda or Chloe or Celia, so Shakespeare
stood aside to find himself excelled by Addison or Pope or Dryden, or
even, on exceptional occasions, by some patron who scarcely did more
than pretend to throw off little trifles in verse. Witness the “Lines
to Mr. Addison,” by William Somervile:
“In heaven he [Shakespeare] sings; on earth your muse supplies
Th’ important loss, and heals our weeping eyes.”
Or take these lines by John Hughes, “To Mr. Addison on his Tragedy of
_Cato_”:
“Great Shakespeare’s ghost, the solemn strain to hear
(Methinks I see the laurel’d shade appear!),
Will hover o’er the scene, and wondering view
His favourite Brutus rival’d thus by you.”
If one could suppose this to have been written in an ironic vein, the
lines would be satisfactorily pointed; but it is impossible, for Hughes
continues:
“Such Roman greatness in each action shines,
Such Roman eloquence adorns your lines,
That sure the Sibyl’s books this year foretold,
And in some mystic leaf was found inroll’d,
Rome, turn thy mournful eyes from Afric’s shore,
Nor in her sands thy Cato’s tomb explore!
When thrice six hundred times the circling sun
His annual race shall through the zodiac run,
An isle remote his monument shall rear,
And every generous Briton pay a tear.”
Or take the following by William Pattison, “To Mr. John Saunders,
occasioned by a sight of some of his paintings at Cambridge.” It would
be difficult to imagine a more incongruous bracketing of names than
that in the sixth line. The italics are my own:
“When Nature, from her unexhausted mine,
Resolves to make some mighty science shine;
Her embryo seeds inform the future birth,
Improve the soul, and animate the earth;
From thence, an Homer, or Apelles rise,
_A Shakespeare, or a Saunders_, strike our eyes,
And, lo! the promis’d wonder charms my view,
The old Apelles rivall’d in the new!”
One might quote pages of such stuff—torrents of heroic couplets—whose
very form, apart from their sentiment, show that Shakespeare was deemed
rather out of date. But the mention of his name counts for something.
It means that all of these poets felt, as Dr. Johnson felt, that though
they were not quite in sympathy with the old Elizabethan playwright, he
was still some one to be reckoned with. Indeed, every now and then the
truth comes out that he was too much for them. William Whitehead, for
one, had a full appreciation of him.
“O for a Shakespeare’s pencil, while I trace
In nature’s breathing paint, the dreary waste
Of Buxton” . . .
he sighs in _An Hymn to the Nymph of Bristol_; and, for all the bathos
of its expression, the admiration is genuine.
William Hamilton wrote _A Soliloquy in Imitation of Hamlet_, a
paraphrase of the famous speech, almost as bald as that from which
Shakespeare copied his. But the effort is doubtless more of a literary
exercise than an attempt at improvement of the original, for Hamilton
shows at various points in his works a fairly intimate knowledge and
real regard for Shakespeare’s genius.
Mallet read his Shakespeare intelligently, as witness his _Edwin and
Emma_, a love ballad, with its text taken from _Twelfth Night_. And
William Shenstone shows the right spirit in this very passable stanza
from _The Schoolmistress_, happily describing a village school:
“Yet nurs’d with skill, what dazzling fruits appear!
Ev’n now sagacious foresight points to show
A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo,
Or bard sublime, if bard may e’er be so,
As Milton, Shakespeare, names that ne’er shall die!
Though now he crawl along the ground so low,
Nor weeting how the muse shall soar on high,
Wishes, poor starveling elf! his paper kite to fly.”
That is well meaning and temperate enough, but some of these writers
erred on the side of enthusiasm. The following passage from Robert
Lloyd’s _Shakespeare, an Epistle to Mr. Garrick_, may be quoted as an
example:
“Oh, where’s the bard, who at one view
Could look the whole creation through,
Who travers’d all the human heart,
Without recourse to Grecian art?
He scorn’d the modes of imitation,
Of altering, pilfering, and translation;
Nor painted horror, grief, or rage,
From models of a former age;
The bright original he took,
And tore the leaf from nature’s book.
’Tis Shakespeare, thus, who stands alone.”
It will be noted that this effusion approaches Shakespeare through
Garrick; and such is the case with many others that must remain
unquoted. The reason is that Garrick occupied, by public consent if
not by his own desire, the position of Shakespeare’s patron. He took,
for instance, a leading part in organising the Shakespeare jubilee
at Stratford-on-Avon. Among his enterprises on this occasion was the
issue of a volume of tributes to Shakespeare, containing several
poetical pieces by himself, distinguished rather for their enthusiasm
than for poetical inspiration. Dr. Johnson opened the book with some
light verses, addressed to The Fair in a vein of somewhat elephantine
playfulness; and Garrick collected into it a number of extracts from
various writers, in verse and prose, in praise of Shakespeare,
prefacing the whole with a high-flown effort of his own in heroic
couplets, and publishing it in handsome quarto.
In the garden of his house at Hampton, Garrick had a temple dedicated
to Shakespeare, and adorned with statuary, of which the chief piece, a
fine full-length figure by Roubiliac, is now in the entrance hall of
the British Museum. But to do him justice, his efforts, though they
carried the manner of the playhouse into private life, were conceived
in a spirit of genuine appreciation; and if many of his admirers
regarded him almost as the rescuer of Shakespeare from oblivion, he, at
any rate, was ready to acknowledge his indebtedness to the dramatist on
the presentation of whose characters his well-merited fame rested.
So much for the second period.[26:1] Its literature is like a troubled
sea of conflicting opinion, through which the ship of Shakespeare’s
genius sails, tossed and buffeted by winds fair and foul, from all
points of the compass, and emerges triumphant.
V
THE THIRD PERIOD
In the foregoing brief survey I have endeavoured to indicate in the
broadest manner possible the principal forces that affected the
opinions concerning Shakespeare held during the eighteenth century—the
chief boulders, so to say, round which the current of opinion swirled.
No such analysis seems necessary in dealing with the nineteenth
century. That is, comparatively speaking, smooth water. The poetic
reformation inaugurated by Wordsworth and Coleridge, who published
their _Lyrical Ballads_ in 1798, practically effaced the classic
traditions of the previous hundred years, and prepared a way for the
school of æsthetic criticism which set Shakespeare in the place which
he now holds.
Æsthetic criticism, of a kind, was not entirely unknown. So far
back, for instance, as 1736, an anonymous pamphlet appeared with the
title, _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_.
The author is an enthusiastic admirer of “the greatest tragic writer
that ever lived (except Sophocles and Euripides),” though most of the
beauties which he points out would be obvious to a reader of average
intelligence, and his expositions lack insight. Such efforts were, in
fact, nothing more than academic recreation, and but for their evidence
of a right tendency are hardly worthy of mention. In effect they were,
of course, immeasurably distant from the work of the æsthetic critics
of the early nineteenth century. Coleridge spoke truly when he thus
described his achievement:
“However inferior in ability I may be to some who have followed
me, I own I am proud that I was the first in time who publicly
demonstrated to the full extent of the position, that the
supposed irregularity and extravagances of Shakespeare were the
mere dreams of a pedantry that arraigned the eagle because it
had not the dimensions of the swan.”[28:1]
One has but to mention Hazlitt as Coleridge’s co-worker to feel that
Shakespeare’s position can never be seriously called in question.
In the mass of literature, much of it excellent, that has sprung from
this beginning, two works only—in English prose—are so pre-eminent as
to demand mention here, Mr. Swinburne’s _Study of Shakespeare_ (1880),
and Professor Dowden’s _Shakespeare, his Mind and Art_ (1874). Of
these, Mr. Swinburne’s book astounds one with a flow of eulogistic
rhetoric that can only be compared with the marvellous piece of
inspired enthusiasm on the same subject by Victor Hugo.
In nineteenth century verse Shakespeare’s name appears comparatively
seldom, excepting in poems written directly in his honour. This is a
logical result of the change from the poetic manner of the eighteenth
century, and the abandonment of the poetry of direct didacticism.
The characteristic poetry of the nineteenth century was as different
from that of the eighteenth century as the pictures of Turner were
from those of the English pre-Raphaelites. That is to say, the
typical poetry of the earlier age was marked by a clean symmetry, a
clearness of imagery, and a sharpness of detail paralleled in some
degree by the pictures of the pre-Raphaelites; whereas the poetry of
the nineteenth century leaned more to imaginative embroidery, and
what one may call, perhaps, the indefiniteness occasioned by artistic
introspection. It was, in fact, very much in the nature of a change
from a public oration to a private soliloquy. Even the mention, in
nineteenth century poetry, of a great man’s name to typify in a measure
the greatness of his country, is unusual. In Wordsworth’s sonnet, “It
is not to be thought of,” for example, the names of Shakespeare and
Milton come as something of a surprise from the poet who did most to
introduce the nineteenth century school of poetry. It is curious to
note that here the poet unconsciously imitates the manner of the verse
from which he deemed it his mission to effect a change; this sonnet
is, indeed, curiously typical of the period of poetic reformation in
which it was composed; for, though it belongs distinctly to the new
school, it possesses in the references to Shakespeare and Milton one
of the prominent characteristics of eighteenth century poetry. Thus,
though the poetry of the third period contains poems of the highest
order in direct praise of Shakespeare, as witness the sonnets of Mr.
Swinburne and Matthew Arnold, it is apparent that the anthologist
will find the greater part of his material in the works of prose
writers. At first glance one is bewildered by the mass of literature
which presents itself, but the scheme of this collection goes a small
way towards simplifying the choice. Pieces dealing with particular
merits of Shakespeare have generally been rejected, so that studies
of characters in the plays find no place. Similarly, studies, such,
for example, as De Quincey’s fine psychological analysis of the
knocking at the gate in _Macbeth_, have been excluded. Still, even
with these limitations, one feels that the task of selection is
beset with dangers. Every reader of Shakespearean literature has his
favourite passages, and though I have endeavoured to judge with a just
catholicity, I present the result of my labours in all meekness.
VI
SCHEME OF THE BOOK
The extracts have been arranged in three divisions. The first, which is
subdivided into three periods, corresponding with those described in
the foregoing notes, contains pieces in direct praise of Shakespeare.
The second part of the work contains brief passages in prose and verse
similar in character to those in the first part, but selected either
for their epigrammatic terseness or for their crystallisation of a fine
thought that is conveniently detachable from its context.
The third part is devoted to pieces which treat Shakespeare or his
works from a romantic standpoint. The devotion of only a small space to
this section was inevitable, and I regret the number of omissions. One
especially must be mentioned. Landor’s witty _Citation and Examination
of William Shakespeare_ on the charge of deer stealing, represents
exactly the kind of piece which I aimed at including. It is, however,
far too long to quote in full, and the interest is so deftly carried
throughout that I have found it quite impossible to select any portion
which could stand intelligibly by itself. I should have liked, also,
to include Browning’s poem, _At the Mermaid_, but here the question of
copyright intervened.
The dates immediately following the authors’ names show (sometimes
approximately) the earliest years with which the pieces quoted can be
definitely associated. Occasionally they mark the year in which the
piece was written, but in the majority of cases the year is that of
publication.
My best thanks are due to the following authors and publishers, who
have kindly given me permission to use copyright pieces:—Mr. A.
C. Swinburne, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, Mr. Gerald Massey, Mr. Theodore
Watts-Dunton, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, Mr. W.
S. Gilbert, Dr. Ludwig Mond (Mathilde Blind), Messrs. Macmillan & Co.
(Francis Turner Palgrave, Matthew Arnold, and John Henry Newman),
Messrs. Ellis & Elvey (Dante Gabriel Rossetti), Messrs. George Allen &
Son (John Ruskin), Messrs. Smith Elder & Co. (Robert Browning).
Finally, it is my pleasant duty to record my deep indebtedness to Mr.
Sidney Lee, at whose suggestion this book was undertaken.
C. E. H.
FOOTNOTES:
[5:1] I can myself add nothing but suggestions of possible borrowings
from Shakespearean diction. In the poem, _The Court Burlesqu’d_,
printed in Samuel Butler’s _Remains_, the lines—
“This, by a rat behind the curtain
Has been o’erheard, some say for certain,”
may be reminiscent of the scene in _Hamlet_ in which Polonius is
killed; and in Quarles’ _Argalus and Parthenia_, the expression “to
gild perfection,” which occurs in the 21st line of the first book,
seems to echo the passage in _King John_, “to gild refined gold, to
paint the lily,” etc.
[10:1] In 1756.
[19:1] Johnson several times expresses himself in a like spirit in his
_Rambler_:
“It may be doubtful whether from all his successors more maxims of
theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be
collected than he alone has given to his country.”—_Works_, v. 131.
“He that has read Shakespeare with attention will, perhaps, find little
new in the crowded world.”—_Ib._ 434.
“Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and
who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read
every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of
all his commentators. When his fancy is on the wing, let it not stoop
at correction or explanation.”—_Ib._ 152.
[26:1] A word may be said here of the eighteenth century anthologists.
Collections of poems were numerous. That by Dodsley, with its
supplement prepared by Pearch, contains nothing by Shakespeare, nor
indeed does Nichols’ collection, which claimed to include no poem
that had been printed in the volumes issued by Dodsley or Pearch. A
collection by Thomas Tomkins, entitled _Poems on Various Subjects:
selected to enforce the Practice of Virtue, and with a View to comprise
in One Volume the Beauties of English Poetry_ (1787), goes no farther
back than Milton; and the well-known anthology, _Select Beauties of
Ancient English Poetry_, with remarks by Henry Headley, contains such
names as Drayton, Warner, Drummond, Raleigh, Surrey, Carew, Wyat,
and Browne, but Shakespeare finds no place. He does not, in fact,
enter regularly collections of this kind until the beginning of the
nineteenth century—the period of “Elegant Extracts.” But he is quoted
frequently enough in Edward Bysshe’s _Art of English Poetry_ (1724);
and John Bowle, in his _Miscellaneous Pieces of Ancient English Poetry_
(1765), selects from _King John_.
[28:1] _Literary Remains_ (1836), vol. ii. p. 63.
PART I
“THESE THREE HUNDRED YEARS”
Any time these three hundred years.
_Merry Wives_, I. i. 13.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
_Sonnet LV._
THE FIRST PERIOD
SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
FRANCIS MERES, 1596
(1565-1647)
As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the
sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued
Shakespeare, witness his “Venus and Adonis,” his “Lucrece,” his sugared
sonnets among his private friends, etc.
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy
among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his
“Gentlemen of Verona,” his “Errors,” his “Love’s Labour’s Lost,”
his “Love’s Labour’s Wonne,” his “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and his
“Merchant of Venice”; for Tragedy, his “Richard the 2,” “Richard the
3,” “Henry the 4,” “King John,” “Titus Andronicus,” and his “Romeo and
Juliet.”
As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus’ tongue,
if they would speak Latin; so I say that the Muses would speak with
Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase, if they would speak English.
_Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury, Being the Second
Part of Wits Commonwealth._ 1598.
RICHARD BARNFIELD, 1598
(1574-1627)
“_A Remembrance of some English Poets._”
And Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing Vein
(Pleasing the World), thy Praises doth obtain.
Whose _Venus_, and whose _Lucrece_ (sweet, and chaste)
Thy Name in Fame’s immortal Book have placed.
Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever:
Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.
_Poems in Divers humors._ 1598. Sig. E2, back.
JOHN WEEVER, 1599
(1576-1632)
“_Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare._”
Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them and none other;
Their rosy-tinted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother:
Rose-cheeked _Adonis_, with his amber tresses,
Fair fire-hot _Venus_, charming him to love her,
Chaste _Lucretia_, virgin-like her dresses,
Proud lust-stung _Tarquin_, seeking still to prove her:
Romeo, Richard; more whose names I know not,
Their sugared tongues, and power attractive beauty
Say they are saints, although that saints they show not,
For thousands vow to them subjective duty:
They burn in love, thy children, Shakespeare het them, [heated
Go, woo thy Muse, more Nymphish brood beget them.
_Epigrammes in the oldest Cut, and newest Fashion._
John Weever. 1599. Epig. 22.
Some bibliographers have assigned the first edition of Weever’s
_Epigrammes_ to the year 1595, but no copy bearing that date is
known.
JOHN DAVIES, 1610
(1565?-1618)
“_To our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare._”
Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Had’st thou not play’d some kingly parts in sport,
Thou had’st been a companion for a king,
And been a king among the meaner sort.
Some others rail; but rail as they think fit,
Thou hast no railing, but a reigning wit:
And honesty thou sow’st which they do reap;
So, to increase their stock which they do keep:
_The Scourge of Folly, consisting of Satyricall
Epigramms and others._ 1611.
THOMAS FREEMAN, 1614
(_fl._ 1614)
“_To Master W. Shakespeare._”
Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury thy brain
Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleep,
So fit, for all thou fashionest thy rein,
At th’ horse-foot fountain thou hast drank full deep,
Vertues or vices theme to thee all one is:
Who loves chaste life, there’s _Lucrece_ for a Teacher:
Who but read lust there’s _Venus and Adonis_,
True model of a most lascivious leacher.
Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander:
Whence needy new-composers borrow more
Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander.
But to praise thee aright I want thy store:
Then let thine own works thine own worth upraise,
And help t’ adorn thee with deserved Bays.
_Runne, and a Great Caste. The Second Bowle._
(_Being the second part of a Rubbe, and
a Great Cast_, 1614.) Epigram 92, Sig.
K2, back.
WILLIAM BASSE, 1622
(_d._ 1653?)
“_On Mr. William Shakespeare._”
Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh
To learned Beaumont, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Chaucer, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until Doom’s day, for hardly will (a) fift
Betwixt this day and that by fate be slain,
For whom the curtains shall be drawn again.
For if precedency in death do bar
A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre,
In this uncarved marble of thy own,
Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakespeare, sleep alone;
Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave,
Possess as lord, not tenant, to the grave,
That unto others it may counted be
Honour hereafter to be layed by thee.
_Fennell’s Shakespere Repository_, 1853, p. 10.
Printed from a MS. _temp._ Charles I.
ANONYMOUS, 1623
_Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit,
populus maeret, Olympus habet._
Stay, passenger, who goest thou by so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed
Within this monument; Shakespeare with whom
Quick nature died; whose name doth deck this tomb
Far more than cost; sith all that he hath writ
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.
Inscription on the Monument erected to Shakespeare’s
Memory in the Parish Church at Stratford-on-Avon.
1623.
BEN JONSON, 1623
(1573-1637)
“_To the memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William
Shakespeare: and what he hath left us._”
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame:
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise:
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind Affection, which doth ne’er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem’d to raise . . .
But thou art proof against them, and in deed
Above th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
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.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
I mean with great, but disproportion’d Muses:
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how for thou didst our Lyly out-shine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlowe’s mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thundering Æschilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage: or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy’d to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie
As they were not of Nature’s family.
Yet must I not give Nature all: thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poet’s matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
Upon the Muse’s anvil: turn the same
(And himself in it) that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,
For a good Poet’s made, as well as born.
And such wert thou. Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue, even so, the race
Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines
In his well turned and true-filed lines:
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish’d at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn’d like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.
Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s
_Works_.
. . . “I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further to make thee a room.”
See William Basse, p. 40.
HUGH HOLLAND, 1623
(_d._ 1633)
“_Upon the Lines and Life of the famous Scenick Poet, Master
William Shakespeare._”
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britain’s brave; for done are Shakespeare’s days:
His days are done, that made the dainty Plays,
Which make the Globe of heav’n and earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian Spring,
Turn’d all to tears, and Phœbus clouds his rays:
That corpse, that coffin now bestick those bayes,
Which crown’d him Poet first, then Poet’s King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have,
All those he made, would scarce make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the grave
(Death’s public tiring-house), the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.
Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s
_Works_.
JOHN HEMINGE, 1623
(_d._ 1630)
HENRIE CONDELL
(_d._ 1627)
“_To the great Variety of Readers._”
His mind and hand went together: and what he thought he uttered with
that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his
papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works, and give
them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him. And there we hope,
to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw, and
hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, than it could be lost. Read
him, therefore; and again, and again: and if then you do not like him,
surely you are in some manifest danger, not to understand him. And so
we leave you to other of his friends, whom, if you need, can be your
guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And
such readers we wish him.
Address prefixed to the First Folio Edition of
Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1623.
LEONARD DIGGES, 1623
(1588-1635)
“_To the Memorie of the deceased Author, Maister W. Shakespeare._”
Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy Works: thy Works, by which, out-live
Thy Tomb, thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages: when posterity
Shall loath what’s new, thinke all is prodigy
That is not Shakespeare’s; ev’ry line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Book, shall once invade.
Nor shall I e’er believe, or think thee dead
(Though missed), until our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain t’ out-do
Passions of Juliet, and her Romeo;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-sword parlying Romans spake,
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be expressed,
Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But crown’d with laurel, live eternally.
Prefixed to the First Folio Edition of
Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1623.
MICHAEL DRAYTON, 1627
(1563-1631)
“_To my most dearly-loved friend Henery Reynolds, Esquire, of
Poets and Poesie._”
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein,
Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain,
As strong conception, and as clear a rage
As any one that trafick’d with the stage.
Elegies at the end of _The Battaile of Agincourt_.
1627, p. 206.
JOHN MILTON, 1630
(1608-1674)
“_An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare._”
What needs my Shakespeare for his honour’d bones,
The labour of an age in pilèd stones?
Or that his hallow’d relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a life-long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchr’d, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb should wish to die.
Prefixed to Second Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s
_Works_. 1632.
I. M. S., 1632
“_On worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems._”
A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear
And equal surface can make things appear
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours’ just extent.
To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where (confused) lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality.
In that deep dusky dungeon to discern
A royal ghost from churls: by art to learn
The physiognomy of shades, and give
Them sudden birth, wond’ring how oft they live.
What story coldly tells, what poets feign
At second hand, and picture without brain
Senseless and soulless shows. To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voice, action, age,
As Plato’s year and new scene of the world
Them unto us, or us to them had hurl’d.
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse,
Make kings his subjects, by exchanging verse
Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age
Joys in their joy, and trembles at their rage:
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain; and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad,
Then, laughing at our fear; abus’d, and glad
To be abus’d, affected with that truth
Which we perceive is false; pleas’d in that ruth
At which we start; and by elaborate play
Tortur’d and tickled; by a crablike way
Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort
Disgorging up his ravaine for our sport—
—While the Plebeian Imp, from lofty throne,
Creates and rules a world, and works upon
Mankind by secret engines; now to move
A chilling pity, then a rigorous love:
To strike up and stroke down, both joy and ire;
To steer th’ affections; and by heavenly fire
Mould us anew. Stol’n from ourselves—
This, and much more which cannot be express’d,
But by himself, his tongue and his own breast,
Was Shakespeare’s freehold, which his cunning brain
Improv’d by favour of the ninefold train.
The buskin’d Muse, the Comic Queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio; nimble hand,
And nimbler foot of the melodious pair,
The silver voiced Lady; the most fair
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,
And she whose praise the heavenly body chants.
These jointly woo’d him, envying one another
(Obey’d by all as spouse, but lov’d as brother),
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white,
The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright;
Branch’d and embroider’d like the painted Spring,
Each leaf match’d with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of silk; there run
Italian works whose thread the Sisters spun;
And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choice
Birds of a foreign note and various voice.
Here hangs a mossy rock; there plays a fair
But chiding fountain purled; not the air,
Nor clouds nor thunder, but were living drawn,
Not out of common tiffany or lawn,
But fine materials, which the Muses know,
And only know the countries where they grow.
Now, when they could no longer him enjoy
In mortal garments pent, death may destroy,
They say, his body, but his verse shall live;
And more than nature takes, our hands shall give.
In a less volume, but more strongly bound,
Shakespeare shall breath and speak, with laurel crown’d
Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meat,
In a well-lined vesture rich and neat.
So with this robe they clothe him, bid him wear it;
For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it.
The friendly admirer of his Endowments, I. M. S.
Prefixed to the Second Folio Edition of
Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1632.
Conjectures as to the authorship of this poem have been
numerous. Coleridge in his _Lectures on Shakespeare_ says:
“This poem is subscribed I. M. S., meaning, as some have
explained, the initials “John Milton, Student”: the internal
evidence seems to us decisive; for there was, I think, no
other man, of that particular day, capable of writing anything
so characteristic of Shakespeare, so justly thought, and so
happily expressed.”
JOHN HALES, BEFORE 1633
(1584-1656)
In a conversation between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D’Avenant,
Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Ben Jonson, Sir John Suckling,
who was a professed admirer of Shakespeare, had undertaken his defence
against Ben Jonson with some warmth. Mr. Hales, who had sat still for
some time, hearing Ben frequently reproaching him with the want of
learning, and ignorance of the ancients, told him at last, “That if
Mr. Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen
anything from ’em [a fault the other made no conscience of]; and that
if he would produce any one topic finely treated by any of them, he
would undertake to show something upon the same subject at least as
well written by Shakespeare.”
Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare,
prefixed to the edition of his _Works_ by
Nicholas Rowe, 1709, vol. i. p. xiv.
SIR WILLIAM D’AVENANT, 1637
(1606-1668)
“_Ode. In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare._”
1
Beware (delighted Poets!) when you sing
To welcome Nature in the early Spring;
Your num’rous feet not tread
The Banks of Avon; for each flower
(As it ne’er knew a sun or shower)
Hangs there the pensive head.
2
Each tree whose thick and spreading growth hath made
Rather a night beneath the boughs, than shade
(Unwilling now to grow),
Looks like the plume a captive wears
Whose rifled falls are steept i’ th’ tears
Which from his last rage flow.
3
The piteous river wept itself away
Long since (alas!) to such a swift decay;
That reach the map; and look
If you a river there can spy;
And for a river your mock’d eye
Will find a shallow brook.
_Madagascar, with other Poems._ 1638, p. 37.
Printed 1637.
ANONYMOUS, ABOUT 1637
“_An Elegie on the Death of that famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William
Shakspeare._”
I dare not do thy memory that wrong,
Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue;
I’ll only sigh in earnest, and let fall
My solemn tears at thy great funeral;
For every eye that rains a show’r for thee,
Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.
Nor is it fit each humble Muse should have
Thy worth his subject, now th’ art laid in grave;
No, it’s a flight beyond the pitch of those,
Whose worthless pamphlets are not sense in prose.
Let learned Jonson sing a Dirge for thee,
And fill our Orb with mournful harmony:
But we need no remembrancer; thy fame
Shall still accompany thy honoured name
To all posterity; and make us be
Sensible of what we lost in losing thee:
Being the age’s wonder, whose smooth rhymes
Did more reform than lash the looser times.
Nature herself did her own self admire,
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lustre, and confess
Thy dressing was her chiefest comliness.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest tutor, and the widowed stage
Her only favourite in thee hath lost,
And Nature’s self what she did brag of most?
Sleep then, rich soul of numbers, whilst poor we
Enjoy the profits of thy legacy;
And thinke it happiness enough we have
So much of thee redeemèd from the grave,
As may suffice to enlighten future times
With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhymes.
Appended to Shakespeare’s _Poems_. 1640. Sig. L.
THOMAS BANCROFT, 1639
(_fl._ 1633-1658)
“_To Shakespeare._”
Thy Muse’s sugared dainties seem to us
Like the fam’d apples of old Tantalus:
For we, admiring, see and hear thy strains;
But none I see or hear, those sweets attains.
“_To the same._”
Thou hast so us’d thy pen (or shook thy spear),
That Poets startle, nor thy wit come near.
_Two Bookes of Epigrammes, and Epitaphs._ 1639.
Nos. 118 and 119.
GEORGE DANIEL, 1647
(1616-1657)
The sweetest Swan of Avon, to ye fair
And cruel Delia, passionately sings;
Other men’s weaknesses and follies are
Honour and wit to him; each accent brings
A sprig to crown him Poet; and contrive
A monument, in his own work, to live.
_Poems. Vindication of Poesie._ Add. MS. 19255, p. 17.
(British Museum.) Privately printed by Dr.
Grosart. 1878, 4 vols. Vol. i. pp. 28, 29.
SAMUEL SHEPPARD, 1651
(_fl. c._ 1606-1652)
“_In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare._”
1
Sacred spirit, whiles thy Lyre
Echoed o’er the Arcadian Plains,
Even Apollo did admire,
Orpheus wondered at thy strains.
2
Plautus sigh’d, Sophocles wept
Tears of anger, for to hear,
After they so long had slept,
So bright a genius should appear.
3
Who wrote his Lines with a sun-beam,
More durable than Time or Fate;
Others boldly do blaspheme,
Like those that seem to preach, but prate.
4
Thou wert truly priest elect,
Chosen darling to the Nine;
Such a trophy to erect
By thy wit and skill divine.
5
That were all their other glories
(Thine excepted) torn away,
By thy admirable stories,
Their garments ever shall be gay.
6
Where thy honoured bones do lie
(As Statius once to Maro’s urn),
Thither every year will I
Slowly tread, and sadly mourn.
_Epigrams Theological, Philosophical, and Romantick._
Six Books, etc., with other Select Poems. 1651.
Book vi. Epig. 17, pp. 150, 152, 154.
THOMAS FULLER, _c._ 1661
(1608-1661)
He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, _Poeta non fit
sed nascitur_; one is not _made_, but _born_ a poet. Indeed, his
learning was very little, so that, as Cornish diamonds are not polished
by any lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken
out of the earth, so nature itself was all the _art_ which was used
upon him.
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.
_The History of the Worthies of England:
Warwickshire._ 1662, p. 126.
SAMUEL PEPYS, 1662-1667
(1633-1703)
1661-1662. March 1st. My wife and I by coach, first to see my little
picture that is a-drawing, and thence to the Opera, and there saw
“Romeo and Juliet,” the first time it was ever acted, but it is a play
of itself the worst that ever I heard, and the worst acts that ever I
saw these people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first
time of acting, for they were all of them out more or less.
1662. September 29th. To the King’s Theatre, where we saw “Midsummer
Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor ever shall again,
for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.
1666. December 28th. To the Duke’s House, and there saw “Macbeth” most
excellently acted, and a most excellent play for variety. I had sent my
wife to meet me there, who did come: so I did go to White Hall, and got
my Lord Bellassis to get me into the playhouse; and there, after all
staying above an hour for the players, the King and all waiting, which
was absurd, saw “Henry the Fifth” well done by the Duke’s people, and
in most excellent habit, all new vests, being put on but this night.
But I sat so high and far off, that I missed most of the words, and sat
with a wind coming into my back and neck, which did much trouble me.
The play continued till twelve at night; and then up, and a most horrid
cold night it was, and frosty, and moonshine.
1666-67. January 7th. To the Duke’s House, and saw “Macbeth,” which,
though I saw it lately, yet appears a most excellent play in all
respects, but especially in divertisement, though it be a deep tragedy;
which is a strange perfection in a tragedy, it being most proper here,
and suitable.
1667. October 16th. To the Duke of York’s House; and I was vexed to
see Young, who is but a bad actor at best, act Macbeth, in the room
of Betterton, who, poor man! is sick: but, Lord! what a prejudice it
wrought in me against the whole play, and everybody else agreed in
disliking this fellow. Thence home, and there find my wife gone home;
because of this fellow’s acting of the part, she went out of the house
again.
_Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, with a
Life and Notes_, by Richard, Lord Braybrooke.
1888.
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, 1664
(1624?-1674)
I wonder how that person you mention in your letter could either have
the conscience, or confidence to dispraise Shakespeare’s plays, as
to say they were made up only with clowns, fools, watchmen, and the
like; but to answer that person, though Shakespeare’s wit will answer
for himself, I say, that it seems by his judging, or censuring, he
understands not plays, or wit; for to express properly, rightly,
usually, and naturally, a clown’s, or fool’s humour, expressions,
phrases, garbs, manners, actions, words, and course of life, is as
witty, wise, judicious, ingenious, and observing, as to write and
express the expressions, phrases, garbs, manners, actions, words, and
course of life, of kings and princes; and to express naturally, to
the life, a mean country wench, as a great lady; a courtesan, as a
chaste woman; a mad man, as a man in his right reason and senses; a
drunkard, as a sober man; a knave, as an honest man; and so a clown,
as a well-bred man; and a fool, as a wise man; nay, it expresses
and declares a greater wit, to express, and deliver to posterity,
the extravagances of madness, the subtlety of knaves, the ignorance
of clowns, and the simplicity of naturals, or the craft of feigned
fools, than to express regularities, plain honesty, courtly garbs,
or sensible discourses, for ’tis harder to express nonsense than
sense, and ordinary conversations, than that which is unusual; and
’tis harder, and requires more wit to express a jester, than a grave
statesman; yet Shakespeare did not want wit to express to the life all
sorts of persons, of what quality, profession, degree, breeding, or
birth soever; nor did he want wit to express the divers and different
humours, or natures or several passions in mankind; and so well he hath
expressed in his plays all sorts of persons, as one would think he had
been transformed into every one of those persons he hath described....
Who could not swear he had been a noble lover, that could woo so
well? and there is not any person he had described in his book, but
his readers might think they were well acquainted with them; indeed,
Shakespeare had a clear judgment, a quick wit, a spreading fancy, a
subtle observation, a deep apprehension, and a most eloquent elocution;
truly he was a natural orator, as well as a natural poet, and he was
not an orator to speak well only on some subjects, as lawyers, who can
make eloquent orations at the bar, and plead subtly and wittily in
law-cases, or divines, that can preach eloquent sermons, or dispute
subtly and wittily in theology, but take them from that, and put them
to other subjects, and they will be to seek; but Shakespeare’s wit and
eloquence was general, for and upon all subjects, he rather wanted
subjects for his wit and eloquence to work on, for which he was forced
to take some of his plots out of history, where he only took the bare
designs, the wit and language being all his own.
_CCXI Sociable Letters written by the Lady Marchioness
of Newcastle._ 1664. Letter CXXIII.
JOHN DRYDEN, 1667
(1631-1700)
As when a tree’s cut down, the secret root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;
So, from old Shakespeare’s honour’d dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakespeare who, taught by none, did first impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art.
He, monarch-like, gave those his subjects law,
And is that Nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach’d that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Jonson crept and gather’d all below.
This did his love, and this his mirth digest:
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since out-writ all other men,
’Tis with the drops which fell from Shakespeare’s pen.
The storm which vanish’d on the neighb’ring shore,
Was taught by Shakespeare’s _Tempest_ first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
But Shakespeare’s magick could not copy’d be,
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
I must confess ’twas bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar wits allow,
Which works by magick supernatural things:
But Shakespeare’s pow’r is sacred as a king’s.
Those legends from old priesthood were receiv’d,
And he then writ, as people then believed.
_Prologue to the Tempest or the Enchanted Island,
by Sir William D’Avenant and John Dryden._
1676.
See also Dryden’s _Prologue to Troilus and Cressida_, spoken by
Mr. Betterton representing the Ghost of Shakespeare.
1668
To begin, then, with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all modern, and
perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All
the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not
laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than
see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning,
give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed
not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and
found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I
should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is
many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his
serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great
occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject
for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of
poets,
_Quantum lenta solent inter viberna cupressi._
_Of Dramatic Poesie, an Essay_, 1668, p. 47.
The following is from Dryden’s _Defence of the Epilogue_:—Let
any man who understands English read diligently the works of
Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will
find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some
notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced, when
we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times
their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny.
——_Neque ego illis detrahere ausim
Hærentem capiti multa cum laude coronam._
But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was
then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to
its vigour and maturity. Witness the lameness of their plots;
many of which, especially those which they writ first (for even
that age refined itself in some measure), were made up of some
ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took
up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name “Pericles,
Prince of Tyre,” nor the historical plays of Shakespeare;
besides many of the rest, as the “Winter’s Tale,” “Love’s
Labour’s Lost,” “Measure for Measure,” which were either
grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written that
the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your
concernment.
ANONYMOUS, 1672
In country beauties, as we often see
Something that takes in their simplicity;
Yet while they charm, they know not they are fair,
And take without their spreading of the snare;
Such artless beauty lies in Shakespeare’s wit,
’Twas well in spite of him what ere he writ.
His excellencies came and were not sought,
His words like casual atoms made a thought:
Drew up themselves in rank and file, and writ,
He wond’ring how the Devil it were such wit.
Thus like the drunken tinker, in his play,
He grew a prince, and never knew which way.
He did not know what trope or figure meant,
But to persuade is to be eloquent;
So in this Cæsar which this day you see,
Tully ne’er spoke as he makes Anthony.
Those then that tax his learning are to blame,
He knew the thing, but did not know the name:
Great Jonson did that ignorance adore,
And though he envied much, admir’d him more.
The faultless Jonson equally writ well:
Shakespeare made faults; but then did more excell.
One close at guard like some old fencer lay,
T’other more open, but he show’d more play.
In imitation Jonson’s wit was shown,
Heaven made his men but Shakespeare made his own.
Wise Jonson’s talent in observing lay,
But other’s follies still made up his play.
He drew the like in each elaborate line,
But Shakespeare, like a master, did design.
Jonson with skill dissected human kind,
And show’d their faults that they their faults might find.
But then, as all anatomists must do,
He to the meanest of mankind did go,
And took from gibbets such as he would show.
Both are so great that he must boldly dare,
Who both of ’em does judge and both compare.
If amongst poets, one more bold there be,
The man that dare attempt in either way, is he.
_Covent Garden Drollery, or a Collection of all the
Choice Songs, Poems, Prologues, and Epilogues
(Sung and Spoken at Courts and Theaters),
never in Print before._ Written by the
refined’st Witts of the Age, and collected by
A. B. [? Alex. Brome]. 1672.
EDWARD PHILLIPS, 1675
(1630-1696?)
William Shakespeare, the glory of the English Stage; whose nativity
at Stratford-upon-Avon is the highest honour that town can boast of:
from an actor of tragedies and comedies, he became a maker; and such
a maker, that though some others may perhaps pretend to a more exact
decorum and economy, especially in tragedy, never any expressed a more
lofty and tragic height, never any represented nature more purely
to the life; and where the polishments of art are most wanting, as
probably his learning was not extraordinary, he pleaseth with a certain
wild and native elegance; and in all his writings hath an unvulgar
style, as well in his _Venus and Adonis_, his _Rape of Lucrece_, and
other various poems, as in his dramatics.
_Theatrum Poetarum._ 1675. Preface. _The Modern
Poets_, p. 194.
THOMAS OTWAY, 1680
(1652-1685)
In ages past (when will those times renew?),
When empires flourish’d, so did poets too.
When great Augustus the world’s empire held,
Horace and Ovid’s happy verse excell’d.
Ovid’s soft genius, and his tender arts
Of moving Nature, melted hardest hearts.
It did th’ imperial beauty, Julia, move
To listen to the language of his love.
Her father honour’d him: and on her breast
With ravish’d sense in her embraces prest,
He lay transported, fancy-full and blest.
Horace’s lofty genius boldlier rear’d
His manly head, and through all Nature steer’d;
Her richest pleasures in his verse refin’d,
And wrought ’em to the relish of the mind.
He lash’d with a true poet’s fearless rage,
The villanies and follies of the age;
Therefore Mecænas, that great fav’rite rais’d
Him high, and by him was he highly prais’d.
Our Shakespeare wrote, too, in an age as blest,
The happiest poet of his time, and best;
A gracious Prince’s favour cheer’d his muse,
A constant favour he ne’er fear’d to lose.
Therefore he wrote with fancy unconfin’d,
And thoughts that were immortal as his mind;
And from the crop of his luxuriant pen
E’er since succeeding poets humbly glean.
_Prologue to the History and Fall of Caius Marius.
A Tragedy._ 1712.
“A PERSON OF HONOUR,” 1681
I can’t, without infinite ingratitude to the memory of those excellent
persons, omit the first famous masters in’t, of our nation, venerable
Shakespeare and the great Ben Jonson. I have had a particular kindness
always for most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and for many of his
comedies, and I can’t but say that I can never enough admire his style
(considering the time he writ in, and the great alteration that has
been in the refining of our language since), for he has expressed
himself so very well in’t that ’tis generally approved of still; and
for maintaining of the characters of the persons design’d, I think none
ever exceeded him.
“_An Essay on Dramatic Poetry_” appended to _Amaryllis
to Tityrus, Being the First Heroick Harangue of
the excellent pen of Monsieur Scudery. A Witty and
Pleasant Novel._ Englished by a Person of Honour,
1681, pp. 66-67.
SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, 1693
(1639?-1701)
But against old as well as new to rage,
Is the peculiar frenzy of this age.
Shakespeare must down, and you must praise no more
Soft Desdemona, nor the jealous Moor:
Shakespeare whose fruitful genius, happy wit
Was fram’d and finish’d at a lucky hit;
The pride of Nature, and the shame of schools,
Born to create, and not to learn from rules;
Must please no more, his bastards now deride,
Their father’s nakedness they ought to hide,
But when on spurs their Pegasus they force,
Their jaded Muse is distanc’d in the course.
_The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat. A Comedy._
By Henry Higden. Prologue by Sir Charles
Sydley. 1693.
THE SECOND PERIOD
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1709
(1672-1729)
The play of “The London Cuckolds” was acted this evening before a
suitable audience, who were extremely well diverted with that heap of
vice and absurdity. The indignation which Eugenio, who is a gentleman
of just taste, has, upon occasion of seeing human nature fall so low
in their delights, made him, I thought, expatiate upon the mention
of this play very agreeably. “Of all men living,” said he, “I pity
players (who must be men of good understanding to be capable of being
such) that they are obliged to repeat and assume proper gestures for
representing things, of which their reason must be ashamed, and which
they must disdain their audience for approving. The amendment of
these low gratifications is only to be made by people of condition,
by encouraging the presentation of the noble characters drawn by
Shakespeare and others, from whence it is impossible to return without
strong impressions of honour and humanity. On these occasions distress
is laid before us with all its causes and consequences, and our
resentment placed according to the merit of the persons afflicted. Were
dramas of this nature more acceptable to the taste of the town, men who
have genius would bend their studies to excel in them.”
_The Tatler_, No. 8, 28 April 1709.
_The London Cuckolds_, by Edward Ravenscroft, first produced
1682.
NICHOLAS ROWE, 1709
(1674-1718)
The delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own genius
(equal, if not superior, to some of the best of theirs [the ancients]),
would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much
pleasure, that some of their fine images would naturally have
insinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; so
that his not copying at least something from them, may be an argument
of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients
were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a dispute: for though
the knowledge of them might have made him more correct, yet it is not
improbable but that the regularity and deference for them, which would
have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that
fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in
Shakespeare: and I believe we were better pleased with those thoughts,
altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supplied him so
abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful passages
out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
that it was possible for a master of the English language to deliver
them.
_Some Account of the Life, etc., of Mr. William
Shakespear_, p. iii. prefixed to _Works of
Shakespeare_, ed. N. Rowe. 1709.
Of this passage and the question of Shakespeare’s knowledge
of the ancients, Theobald, who favoured the view that his
acquaintance with classical writings was not inconsiderable,
remarks in his preface, “The result of the controversy must
certainly, either way, terminate to our author’s honour: how
happily he could imitate them, if that point be allowed; or how
gloriously he could think like them, without owing anything to
imitation.”
ELIJAH FENTON, 1711
(1683-1730)
Shakespeare, the genius of our isle, whose mind
(The universal mirror of mankind)
Express’d all images, enrich’d the stage,
But sometimes stoop’d to please a barbarous age.
When his immortal bays began to grow,
Rude was the language, and the humour low:
He, like the God of Day, was always bright,
But rolling in its course, his orb of light
Was sullied, and obscur’d, though soaring high,
With spots contracted from the nether sky.
But whither is th’ adventurous Muse betray’d?
Forgive her rashness, venerable shade!
May Spring with purple flowers perfume thy urn;
And Avon with his greens thy grave adorn:
Be all thy faults, whatever faults there be,
Imputed to the times, and not to thee.
Some scions shot from this immortal root,
Their tops much lower, and less fair the fruit,
Jonson the tribute of my verse might claim,
Had he not strove to blemish Shakespeare’s name.
But, like the radiant twins that gild the sphere,
Fletcher and Beaumont next in pomp appear:
The first a fruitful vine, in blooming pride,
Had been by superfluity destroy’d,
But that his friend, judiciously severe,
Prun’d the luxuriant boughs with artful care;
On various sounding harps the Muses play’d,
And sung, and quaff’d their nectar in the shade.
Few moderns in the lists with these may stand,
For in those days were giants in the land:
Suffice it now by lineal right to claim,
And bow with filial awe to Shakespeare’s fame;
The second honours are a glorious name.
Achilles dead, they found no equal lord
To wear his armour, and to wield his sword.
_An Epistle to Mr. Southerne, from Kent._
January 28, 1710-11.
JOHN DENNIS, 1712
(1657-1734)
Shakespeare was one of the greatest geniuses that the world e’er saw
for the Tragic Stage. Though he lay under greater disadvantages than
any of his successors, yet had he greater and more genuine beauties
than the best and greatest of them. And what makes the brightest glory
of his character, those beauties were entirely his own, and owing to
the force of his own nature; whereas his faults were owing to his
education, and to the age that he lived in. One may say of him as they
did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is himself inimitable.
_An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear:
with some Letters of Criticism to the
SPECTATOR._ 1712, pp. 1, 2.
EDWARD YOUNG, 1712
(1683-1765)
To claim attention, and the heart invade,
Shakespeare but _wrote_ the play th’ Almighty _made_.
Our neighbour’s stage art too bare-fac’d betrays,
’Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature’s surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.
. . . . . .
And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all humankind;
He made one nature and another found,
Both in his page with master-strokes abound;
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle,
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
Nor think it the creation of his brain.
_Epistle to the Right Honourable George, Lord
Lansdowne._ 1712, ll. 295-302 and 313-20.
JOSEPH ADDISON, 1714
(1672-1719)
Our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works
of a great genius who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those
of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of these men
of genius that Terence speaks in opposition to the little artificial
cavillers of his time:
_Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam
Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam._
A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play,
as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient,
that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a
stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would
not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of
the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there
is not one of them violated? Shakespeare was indeed born with all the
seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus’s ring,
which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses
in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature, without
any help from art.
_The Spectator_, No. 592, 10 Feb. 1714.
ALEXANDER POPE, 1725
(1688-1744)
If ever any author deserved the name of an _Original_, it was
Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the
fountains of Nature; it proceeded through Egyptian strainers and
channels, and came to him not without some tincture of the learning, or
some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakespeare
was inspiration indeed; he is not so much an imitator as an instrument
of Nature: and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as
that she speaks through him.
His _characters_ are so much Nature herself, that ’tis a sort of injury
to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. Those of other
poets have a constant resemblance, which shows that they received them
from one another, and were but multipliers of the same image; each
picture, like a mock rainbow, is but the reflection of a reflection.
But every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as
those in life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; as
such as from their relation or affinity in any respect appear most to
be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct. To this
life and variety of character we must add the wonderful preservation of
it, which is such throughout his Plays, that, had all the speeches been
printed without the very names of the persons, I believe one might have
applied them with certainty to every speaker.
The power over our passions was never possessed in a more eminent
degree, or displayed in so different instances. Yet all along there is
seen no labour, no pains to raise them; no preparation to guide our
guess to the effect, or be perceiv’d to lead toward it; but the heart
swells, and the tears burst out, just at the proper places. We are
surprised the moment we weep; and yet upon reflection find the passion
so just, that we should be surprised if we had not wept, and wept at
that very moment.
How astonishing is it, again, that the passions directly opposite to
these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command! that he is not
more a master of the _great_ than of the _ridiculous_ in human nature;
of our noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles; of our
strongest emotions, than of our idlest sensations!
Nor does he only excel in the passions: in the coolness of reflection
and reasoning he is full as admirable. His _sentiments_ are not only
in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by
a talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity,
he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument
turns, or the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing,
from a man of no education or experience in those great and public
scenes of life which are usually the subject of his thoughts: so that
he seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through
human nature at one glance, and to be the only author that gives ground
for a very new opinion: That the philosopher, and even the man of the
world, may be _born_, as well as the poet.
It must be owned that with all these great excellencies, he has almost
as great defects; and that as he has certainly written better, so he
has perhaps written worse, than any other. But I think I can in some
measure account for these defects, from several causes and accidents;
without which it is hard to imagine that so large and so enlightened
a mind could ever have been susceptible of them. That all these
contingencies should unite to his disadvantage seems to me almost as
singularly unlucky, as that so many various (nay contrary) talents
should meet in one man, was happy and extraordinary.
. . . . . . .
I will conclude by saying of Shakespeare, that with all his faults,
and with all the irregularity of his _drama_, one may look upon his
works in comparison of those that are more finished and regular, as
upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture compared with a
neat modern building; the latter is more elegant and glaring, but the
former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed, that in one
of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has
much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are
often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does
the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the
parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur.
Preface to _The Works of Shakespeare_. 1725.
De Quincey in his essay on Pope says of this preface: “For the
edition we have little to plead; but for the editor it is but
just to make three apologies. In the _first_ place he wrote a
brilliant preface, which, although (like other works of the
same class) too much occupied in displaying his own ability,
and too often, for the sake of an effective antithesis, doing
deep injustice to Shakespeare, yet undoubtedly, as a whole,
extended his fame, by giving the sanction and countersign of
a great wit to the national admiration. _Secondly_, as Dr.
Johnson admits, Pope’s failure pointed out the right road to
his successors. _Thirdly_, even in this failure it is but fair
to say, that in a graduated scale of merit, as distributed
amongst the long succession of editors through that century,
Pope holds a rank proportionable to his age. For the year 1720,
he is no otherwise below Theobald, Hanmer, Capell, Warburton,
or even Johnson, than as they are successively below each
other, and all of them as to accuracy below Steevens, as he
again was below Malone and Reed.”
JAMES THOMSON, 1727
(1700-1748)
Happy Britannia! where the Queen of Arts,
Inspiring vigour, Liberty abroad
Walks unconfined, even to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand
. . . . . .
Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war,
And more heroic peace, when govern’d well,
Combine; whose hallow’d name _the Virtues Saint_,
And his own Muses love; the best of kings!
. . . . . .
Fair thy renown
In awful sages and in noble bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and waked the Muses’ song.
. . . . . .
For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature’s boast?
_The Seasons: Summer._ 1727, ll. 1442-6,
1479-83, 1531-4, and 1563-6.
LEWIS THEOBALD, 1733
(1688-1744)
In how many points of light must we be obliged to gaze at this great
poet! In how many branches of excellence to consider and admire him!
Whether we view him on the side of art or nature, he ought equally to
engage our attention; whether we respect the force and greatness of his
genius, the extent of his knowledge and reading, the power and address
with which he throws out and applies either nature or learning, there
is ample scope both for our wonder and pleasure. If his diction and the
clothing of his thoughts attract us, how much more must we be charmed
with the richness and variety of his images and ideas! If his images
and ideas steal into our souls, and strike upon our fancy, how much are
they improved in price when we come to reflect with what propriety and
justness they are applied to character. If we look into his characters,
and how they are furnished and proportioned to the employment he cuts
out for them, how are we taken up with the mastery of his portraits!
What draughts of Nature! What variety of originals, and how differing
each from the other! How are they dressed from the stores of his own
luxurious imagination; without being the apes of mode, or borrowing
from any foreign wardrobe! each of them are the standard of fashion
for themselves: like gentlemen that are above the direction of their
tailors, and can adorn themselves without the aid of imitation.
Preface to _The Works of Shakespeare, collated with
the Oldest Copies and corrected; with Notes,
Explanatory and Critical_. By Mr. Theobald.
1733, vol. i. pp. ii-iii.
JOSEPH WARTON, 1740
(1722-1800)
What are the lays of artful Addison,
Coldly correct, to Shakespeare’s warblings wild?
Whom on the winding Avon’s willow’d banks
Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe
To a close cavern (still the shepherds show
The sacred place, whence with religious awe
They hear, returning from the field at eve,
Strange whisp’rings of sweet music through the air):
Here, as with honey gather’d from the rock
She fed the little prattler, and with songs
Oft sooth’d his wond’ring ears with deep delight.
On her soft lap he sat, and caught the sounds.
_The Enthusiast: or the Lover of Nature_, ll. 168-79.
WILLIAM COLLINS, 1743
(1721-1759)
Too nicely Jonson knew the critic’s part;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Of softer mould the gentle Fletcher came,
The next in order, as the next in name:
With pleas’d attention ’midst his scenes we find
Each glowing thought that warms the female mind;
Each melting sigh and every tender tear,
The lover’s wishes, and the virgin’s fear.
His every strain the smiles and graces own,
But stronger Shakespeare felt for man alone:
Drawn by his pen, our ruder passions stand
Th’ unrival’d picture of his early hand.
_Verses humbly address’d to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his
Edition of Shakespeare’s Works._ 1743, p. 7.
Hanmer’s edition of Shakespeare appeared in 1744. See p. 93.
SIR THOMAS HANMER, 1744
(1677-1746)
If that rich vein of sense which runs through the works of this author
can be retrieved in every part and brought to appear in its true
light, and if it may be hoped without presumption that this is here
effected; they who love and admire him will receive a new pleasure,
and all probably will be more ready to join in doing him justice, who
does great honour to his country as a rare and perhaps singular genius:
one who hath attained an high degree of perfection in those two great
branches of poetry, tragedy and comedy, different as they are in their
natures from each other; and who may be said without partiality to have
equalled, if not excelled, in both kinds, the best writers of any age
or century who have thought it glory enough to distinguish themselves
in either.
Preface to _The Works of Shakespear. Carefully Revised
and Corrected by the former Editions, and Adorned
with Sculptures designed and executed by the best
hands._ Oxford, 1744, vol. i. pp. v-vi.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1747
(1709-1784)
When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes
First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil’d after him in vain:
His powerful strokes presiding truth impress’d,
And unresisted passion storm’d the breast.
Prologue spoken by Mr. Garrick at the opening of
the Theatre in Drury Lane, 1747.
“Drinking tea one day at Garrick’s with Mr. Langton, he [Dr.
Johnson] was questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretic as
to Shakespeare; said Garrick, ‘I doubt he is a little of an
infidel.’—‘Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘I will stand by the lines I
have written on Shakespeare in my Prologue at the opening of
your Theatre.’ Mr. Langton suggested, that in the line
“‘And panting Time toil’d after him in vain,’
Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in the _Tempest_,
where Prospero says of Miranda:
“‘. . . She will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.’
Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, ‘I do
not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakespeare.’
Johnson exclaimed (smiling), ‘Prosaical rogues! next time I
write, I’ll make both time and space pant.’”—Notes by Langton
in Boswell’s _Life of Dr. Johnson_.
BISHOP WILLIAM WARBURTON, 1747.
(1698-1779)
Of all the literary exercitations of speculative men, whether designed
for the use or entertainment of the world, there are none of so much
importance, or what are more our immediate concern, than those which
let us into the knowledge of our nature. Others may exercise the reason
or amuse the imagination; but these only can improve the heart, and
form the human mind to wisdom. Now, in this science, our Shakespeare is
confessed to occupy the foremost place; whether we consider the amazing
sagacity with which he investigates every hidden spring and wheel of
human action; or his happy manner of communicating this knowledge,
in the just and living paintings which he has given us of all our
passions, appetites, and pursuits. These afford a lesson which can
never be too often repeated, or too constantly inculcated.
Preface to _The Works of Shakespear. The genuine Text
(collated with all the former Editions and then
corrected and emended) is here settled. Being
restored from the Blunders of the first Editors,
and the Interpolations of the two last. With a
Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory._
By Mr. Pope and Mr. Warburton. 1747, vol. i. p.
xxiv.
CHRISTOPHER SMART, 1751
(1722-1771)
Methinks I see with fancy’s magic eye,
The shade of Shakespeare, in yon azure sky.
On yon high cloud behold the bard advance,
Piercing all nature with a single glance:
In various attitudes around him stand
The passions, waiting for his dread command.
First kneeling Love before his feet appears,
And, musically sighing, melts in tears.
Near him fell Jealousy with fury burns,
And into storms the amorous breathings turns;
Then Hope, with heavenward look, and Joy draw near,
While palsied Terror trembles in the rear.
Prologue to _Othello_, as it was acted at the
Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on Thursday
the 7th of March 1751 by Persons of
Distinction for their Diversion. Ll.
21-32.
DAVID HUME, 1754.
(1711-1774)
If Shakespeare be considered as a MAN, born in a rude age, and
educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction, either from the
world or from books, he may be regarded as a prodigy. If represented
as a POET, capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a
refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy.
In his compositions, we regret, that many irregularities, and even
absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated and passionate
scenes intermixed with them; and at the same time, we perhaps admire
the more those beauties, on account of their being surrounded with
such deformities. A striking peculiarity of sentiment, adapted to a
single character, he frequently hits, as it were, by inspiration; but a
reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold. Nervous
and picturesque expressions as well as descriptions abound in him; but
it is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of diction. His
total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a
defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can
more easily excuse, than that want of taste which often prevails in his
productions, and which gives way only by intervals to the irradiations
of genius. A great and fertile genius he certainly possessed, and one
enriched equally with a tragic and comic vein; but he ought to be cited
as a proof, how dangerous it is to rely on these advantages alone for
attaining an excellence in the finer arts. And there may even remain a
suspicion, that we over-rate, if possible, the greatness of his genius;
in the same manner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account
of their being disproportioned and misshapen. He died in 1616, aged
fifty-three years.
Jonson possessed all the learning which was wanting to Shakespeare,
and wanted all the genius of which the other was possessed. Both of
them were equally deficient in taste and elegance, in harmony and
correctness. A servile copyist of the ancients, Jonson translated into
bad English the beautiful passages of the Greek and Roman authors,
without accommodating to the manners of his age and country. His merit
has been totally eclipsed by that of Shakespeare, whose rude genius
prevailed over the rude art of his contemporary. The English theatre
has ever since taken a strong tincture of Shakespeare’s spirit and
character; and thence it has proceeded, that the nation has undergone
from all its neighbours the reproach of barbarism, from which its
valuable productions in some parts of learning would otherwise have
exempted it.
_Appendix to the Reign of James I. History of
England from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar
to the Revolution in 1688._ 1754.
HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD, 1756
(1717-1797)
John and I are just going to Garrick’s with a grove of cypresses in our
hands, like the Kentish men at the Conquest. He has built a temple to
his master Shakespeare, and I am going to adorn the outside, since his
modesty would not let me decorate it within, as I proposed, with these
mottoes:
_Quod spiro et placeo, si placeo, tuum est._
That I spirit have and nature,
That sense breathes in ev’ry feature,
That I please, if please I do,—
Shakespeare,—all I owe to you.
Letter to George Montagu, 14 Oct. 1756.
_Letters_, ed. Peter Cunningham,
1857, vol. iii. p. 36.
JOHN ARMSTRONG, 1758
(1709-1779)
Shakespeare, who I will venture to say had the most musical ear of
all the English poets, is abundantly irregular in his versification:
but his wildest licences seldom hurt the ear; on the contrary, they
give his verse a spirit and variety, which prevent its ever cloying.
Our modern tragedy-writers, instead of using the advantages of their
own languages, seem in general to imitate the monotony of the French
versification: and the only licence they ever venture upon, is that
poor tame one the supernumerary syllable at the end of a line; which
they are apt to manage in such a manner as to give their verse a most
ungraceful halt. But it is not want of ear alone which makes our common
manufacturers of tragedy so insipidly solemn and so void of harmony: it
is want of feeling.
“Of the Versification of English Tragedy.”
_Works_, 1770, ii. 164-5.
Shakespeare, indeed, without one perfect plan, has perhaps excelled all
other dramatic poets as to detached scenes. But he was a wonder!—His
deep knowledge of human nature, his prodigious variety of fancy and
invention, and of characters drawn with the strongest, truest, and most
exquisite strokes, oblige you to forget his most violent irregularities.
Of the Dramatic Unities, _ib._, p. 242.
WILLIAM MASON, 1759
(1724-1797)
How oft I cried, “Oh come, thou tragic queen!
March from thy Greece with firm majestic tread!
Such as when Athens saw thee fill her scene,
When Sophocles thy choral graces led:
Saw thy proud pall its purple length devolve;
Saw thee uplift the glittering dagger high;
Ponder with fixed brow thy deep resolve,
Prepar’d to strike, to triumph, and to die.
Bring then to Britain’s plain that choral throng;
Display thy buskin’d pomp, thy golden lyre;
Give her historic forms the soul of song,
And mingle Attic art with Shakespeare’s fire.”
“Ah, what, fond boy, dost thou presume to claim?”
The Muse replied, “mistaken suppliant, know,
To light in Shakespeare’s breast the dazzling flame
Exhausted all Parnassus could bestow.
True, art remains; and if from his bright page
Thy mimic power one vivid beam can seize,
Proceed; and in that best of tasks engage,
Which tends at once to profit, and to please.”
_Caractacus_, 1759.
THOMAS GRAY, 1759
(1716-1771)
Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap [_i.e._ Albion’s] was Nature’s darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon strayed,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: The dauntless child
Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smil’d.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:
Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;
Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.
_The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode_, 1759,
iii. 1.
DAVID MALLET, 1759
(1705?-1765)
Pride of his own, and wonder of this age,
Who first created, and yet rules, the Stage,
Bold to design, all powerful to express,
Shakespear each passion drew in every dress:
Great above rule, and imitating none;
Rich without borrowing, nature was his own.
Yet is his sense debas’d by gross alloy:
As gold in mines lies mix’d with dirt and clay.
Now, eagle-wing’d, his heavenward flight he takes;
The big stage thunders, and the soul awakes:
Now, low on earth, a kindred reptile creeps;
Sad Hamlet quibbles, and the hearer sleeps.
_Of Verbal Criticism_, ll. 47-58.
_Works_, 1759, vol. i. p. 21.
EDWARD YOUNG, 1759
(1683-1765)
Who knows whether Shakespeare might not have thought less, if he had
read more? Who knows if he might not have laboured under the load of
Jonson’s learning, as Enceladus under Ætna? His mighty genius, indeed,
though the most mountainous oppression, would have breathed out some
of his inextinguishable fire; yet possibly he might not have risen up
into that giant, that much more than common man, at which we now gaze
with amazement and delight. Perhaps he was as learned as his dramatic
province required; for whatever other learning he wanted, he was master
of two books unknown to many of the profoundly read, though books which
the last conflagration alone can destroy: the book of Nature, and that
of Man.
_Conjectures on Original Composition._ 1759.
MARK AKENSIDE, _c._ 1760
(1721-1770)
“_An Inscription._”
O youths and virgins: O declining eld:
O pale misfortune’s slaves: O ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet; ye who wait
In courts, or fill the golden seat of kings:
O sons of sport and pleasure: O thou wretch
That weep’st for jealous love, or the sore wounds
Of conscious guilt, or death’s rapacious hand
Which left thee void of hope: O ye who roam
In exile; ye who through th’ embattl’d field
Seek bright renown; or who for nobler palms
Contend, the leaders of a public cause;
Approach: behold this marble. Know ye not
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own estate,
The secrets of your bosom? Here then round
His monument with reverence while ye stand,
Say to each other: “This was Shakespeare’s form;
Who walk’d in every path of human life,
Felt every passion; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield
Which his own genius only could acquire.”
_Poetical Works._ 1805, ii. pp. 136-7.
ROBERT LLOYD, 1760
(1733-1764)
When Shakespeare leads the mind a dance,
From France to England, hence to France,
Talk not to me of time and place;
I own I’m happy in the chase.
Whether the drama’s here or there,
’Tis nature, Shakespeare, everywhere.
The poet’s fancy can create,
Contract, enlarge, annihilate,
Bring past and present close together,
In spite of distance, seas, or weather;
And shut up in a single action
What cost whole years in its transaction.
So, ladies at a play or rout,
Can flirt the universe about,
Whose geographical account
Is drawn and pictured on the mount:
Yet when they please, contract the plan,
And shut the world up in a fan.
_Shakespeare: An Epistle to Mr. Garrick._
1760, ll. 37-54.
See also Lloyd’s _Ode to Genius_, 1760, ll. 1-14.
EDWARD CAPELL, 1760
(1713-1781)
It is said of the ostrich, that she drops her egg at random, to be
disposed of as chance pleases; either brought up to maturity by
the sun’s kindly warmth, or else crushed by beasts and the feet of
passers-by: such, at least, is the account which naturalists have
given us of this extraordinary bird; and admitting it for a truth, she
is in this a fit emblem of almost every great genius: they conceive
and produce with ease those noble issues of human understanding; but
incubation, the dull work of putting them correctly upon paper and
afterwards publishing, is a task they cannot away with. If the original
state of all such authors’ writings, even from Homer downward, could
be inquired into and known, they would yield proof in abundance of the
justness of what is here asserted: but the author now before us shall
suffice for them all; being at once the greatest instance of genius
in producing noble things, and of negligence in providing for them
afterwards.
Preface to _Mr. William Shakespeare, his Comedies,
Histories, and Tragedies set out by himself in
quarto or by the Players his Fellows in folio,
and now faithfully republished from those
Editions in ten volumes octavo; with an
Introduction, etc._ 1760, vol. i. pp. 1-2.
Of this preface Dr. Johnson remarked: “If the man would have
come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purpose with
words, for as it is, he doth gabble monstrously.”—Boswell’s
_Life of Dr. Johnson_, iii. 251, 2nd ed.
CHARLES CHURCHILL, 1761
(1731-1764)
In the first seat, in robe of various dyes,
A noble wildness flashing from his eyes,
Sat Shakespeare.—In one hand a wand he bore,
For mighty wonders fam’d in days of yore;
The other held a globe, which to his will
Obedient turn’d, and own’d the master’s skill:
Things of the noblest kind his genius drew,
And look’d through Nature at a single view:
A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll;
Call’d into being scenes unknown before,
And, passing Nature’s bounds, was something more.
_The Rosciad_, 1761, l. 259.
WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, 1762
(1715-1785)
But chief avoid the boisterous roaring sparks,
The sons of fire!—you’ll know them by their marks.
Fond to be heard, they always court a crowd,
And, though ’tis borrow’d nonsense, talk it loud.
One epithet supplies their constant chime,
Damn’d bad, damn’d good, damn’d low, or damn’d sublime.
But most in quick short repartee they shine,
Of local humour; or from plays purloin
Each quaint stale scrap which every subject hits,
Till fools almost imagine, they are wits.
Hear them on Shakespeare! there they foam, they rage!
Yet taste not half the beauties of his page,
Nor see that art, as well as nature strove,
To place him foremost in th’ Aonian grove.
For there, there only, where the sisters join,
His genius triumphs, and the work’s divine.
Or would ye sift more near these sons of fire,
’Tis Garrick, and not Shakespeare, they admire,
Without his breath, inspiring every thought,
They ne’er perhaps had known what Shakespeare wrote;
Without his eager, his becoming zeal,
To teach them, though they scarce know why, to feel,
A crude unmeaning mass had Jonson been,
And a dead letter Shakespeare’s noblest scene.
_A Charge to the Poets._ 1762, ll. 167-190.
WILLIAM THOMPSON, 1763
(1712?-1766?)
“_In Shakespeare’s Walk._”
By yon hills, with morning spread,
Lifting up the tufted head,
By those golden waves of corn,
Which the laughing fields adorn,
By the fragrant breath of flowers,
Stealing from the woodbine bowers,
By this thought-inspiring shade,
By the gleamings of the glade,
By the babblings of the brook,
Winding slow in many a crook,
By the rustling of the trees,
By the humming of the bees,
By the woodlark, by the thrush,
Wildly warbling from the bush,
By the fairy’s shadowy tread
O’er the cowslip’s dewy head,
Father, monarch of the stage,
Glory of Eliza’s age,
Shakespeare! deign to lend thy face,
This romantic nook to grace,
Where untaught nature sports alone,
Since thou and nature are but one.
_Garden Inscriptions. Poetical Calendar, 1763._
First reprinted in Anderson’s _Poets of
Great Britain_, 1794, vol. x. p. 993.
SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1765
(1709-1784)
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed
and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers;
the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their
branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds
and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses;
filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless
diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely
finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare
opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty,
though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled
with a mass of meaner minerals.
Preface to Shakespeare’s _Works_. 1765.
In _The Rambler_, No. 156 (14 Sept. 1751), Johnson wrote:
“Instead of vindicating tragi-comedy by the success of
Shakespeare, we ought perhaps to pay new honours to that
transcendent and unbounded genius that could preside over the
passions in sport; who, to actuate the affections, needed
not the slow gradation of common means, but could fill the
heart with instantaneous jollity or sorrow, and vary our
disposition as he changed his scenes. Perhaps the effects even
of Shakespeare’s poetry might have been greater, had he not
counteracted himself; and we might have been more interested
in the distresses of his heroes, had we not been so frequently
diverted by the jokes of his buffoons.”
GEORGE KEATE, 1768
(1729-1797)
Yes! jealous wits may still for empire strive,
Still keep the flames of critick rage alive:
Our Shakespeare yet shall all his rights maintain,
And crown the triumphs of Eliza’s reign,
Above control, above each classick rule,
His tutress Nature, and the World his school.
On daring pinions borne, to him was given
Th’ aerial range of Fancy’s brightest Heaven,
To bid rapt thought o’er noblest heights aspire,
And wake each passion with a Muse of Fire.
Revere his genius—to the dead be just,
And spare the laurels, that o’ershade the dust.
Low sleeps the bard, _in cold obstruction laid_,
Nor asks the chaplet from a rival’s head.
O’er the dear vault, Ambition’s utmost bound,
Unheard shall Fame her airy trumpet sound!
Unheard alike, nor grief nor transport raise,
Thy blast of censure, or thy note of praise!
As Raphael’s own creation grac’d his hearse,
And sham’d the pomp of ostentatious verse,
Shall Shakespeare’s honours by himself be paid,
And Nature perish ere his pictures fade.
_Ferney: An Epistle to Monsr. De Voltaire._ 1768.
_Poetical Works_, 1781, pp. 136-7.
_Raphael’s Own Creation_:—The TRANSFIGURATION, that
well-known picture of RAPHAEL, was carried before
his body to the grave, doing more real honour to his memory
than either his epitaph in the Pantheon, the famous distich
of CARDINAL BEMBO, or all the other adulatory verses
written on the same occasion.—KEATE.
DAVID GARRICK, 1769
(1717-1779)
“_Warwickshire._”
Ye _Warwickshire_ lads, and ye lasses,
See what at our Jubilee passes;
Come revel away, rejoice and be glad;
For the lad of all lads, was a _Warwickshire_ lad,
_Warwickshire_ lad,
All be glad;
For the lad of all lads, was a _Warwickshire_ lad.
Be proud of the charms of your county,
Where Nature has lavish’d her bounty;
Where much she has giv’n, and some to be spar’d;
For the bard of all bards, was a _Warwickshire_ bard,
_Warwickshire_ bard,
Never pair’d;
For the bard of all bards, was a _Warwickshire_ bard.
Each shire has its different pleasures,
Each shire has its different treasures;
But to rare _Warwickshire_, all must submit;
For the wit of all wits, was a _Warwickshire_ wit,
_Warwickshire_ wit,
How he writ!
For the wit of all wits, was a _Warwickshire_ wit.
Old Ben, Thomas Otway, John Dryden,
And half a score more we take pride in;
Of famous Will Congreve, we boast too the skill;
But the Will of all Wills, was _Warwickshire_ Will,
_Warwickshire_ Will,
Matchless still;
For the Will of all Wills, was a _Warwickshire_ Will.
Our Shakespeare compar’d is to no man—
Nor Frenchman, nor Grecian, nor Roman;
Their swans are all geese, to the Avon’s sweet swan;
And the man of all men, was a _Warwickshire_ man,
_Warwickshire_ man,
Avon’s swan;
And the man of all men, was a _Warwickshire_ man.
As ven’son is very inviting,
To steal it our bard took delight in.
To make his friends merry he never was lag;
And the wag of all wags, was a _Warwickshire_ wag,
_Warwickshire_ wag,
Ever brag;
For the wag of all wags, was a _Warwickshire_ wag.
There never was seen such a creature,
Of all she was worth, he robbed Nature;
He took all her smiles, and he took all her grief;
And the thief of all thieves, was a _Warwickshire_ thief.
_Warwickshire_ thief,
He’s the chief;
For the thief of all thieves, was a _Warwickshire_ chief.
“Warwickshire: a Song.” _Shakespeare’s Garland.
Being a Collection of New Songs, Ballads,
Roundelays, Catches, Glees, Comic
Serenades, etc., performed at the Jubilee
at Stratford-upon-Avon._ 1769, p. 2.
ANONYMOUS, 1769
“_To the Immortal Memory of Shakespeare._”
Immortal be his name,
His memory, his fame!
Nature and her works we see,
Matchless Shakespeare, full in thee!
Join’d by everlasting ties,
Shakespeare but with Nature dies.
Immortal be his Name,
His memory, his fame!
_Shakespeare’s Garland. Being a Collection of New
Songs, Ballads, etc., performed at the
Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon._ 1769, p. 15.
WILLIAM RICHARDSON, 1774
(1743-1814)
No writer has hitherto appeared who possesses in a more eminent degree
than Shakespeare, the power of imitating the passions. All of them seem
familiar to him; the boisterous no less than the gentle; the benign no
less than the malignant. There are several writers, as there are many
players, who are successful in imitating some particular passions,
but who appear stiff, awkward, and unnatural, in the expression of
others. Some are capable of exhibiting very striking representations
of resolute and intrepid natures, but cannot so easily bend themselves
to those that are softer and more complacent. Others, again, seem full
of amiable affection and tenderness, but cannot exalt themselves to
the boldness of the hero, or magnanimity of the patriot. The genius
of Shakespeare is unlimited. Possessing extreme sensibility, and
uncommonly susceptible, he is the Proteus of the drama; he changes
himself into every character, and enters easily into every condition of
human nature.
* * * * *
Many dramatic writers of different ages are capable, occasionally, of
breaking out, with great fervour of genius, in the natural language
of strong emotion. No writer of antiquity is more distinguished for
abilities of this kind than Euripides. His whole heart and soul seem
torn and agitated by the force of the passion he imitates. He ceases
to be Euripides; he is Medea; he is Orestes. Shakespeare, however, is
most eminently distinguished, not only by these occasional sallies, but
by imitating the passion in all its aspects, by pursuing it through
all its windings and labyrinths, by moderating or accelerating its
impetuosity according to the influence of other principles and of
external events, and finally by combining it in a judicious manner with
other passions and propensities, or by setting it aptly in opposition.
He thus unites the two essential powers of dramatic invention, that of
forming characters; and that of imitating in their natural expressions,
the passions and affections of which they are composed.
_A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of some of
Shakespeare’s remarkable Characters._ 1774.
Introduction, pp. 39-42.
WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE, 1775
(1735-1788)
When Heaven decreed to soothe the feuds that tore
The wolf-eyed barons, whose unletter’d rage
Spurn’d the fair muse, Heaven bade on Avon’s shore
A Shakespeare rise, and soothe the barbarous age:
A Shakespeare rose; the barbarous heats assuage.
At distance due how many bards attend!
Enlarged and liberal from the narrow cage
Of blinded zeal, new manners wide extend,
And o’er the generous breast the dews of heaven descend.
Introduction to _The Lusiad, or the Discovery of
India. An Epic Poem._ Translated, 1775.
WILLIAM HAYLEY, 1777
(1745-1820)
When mighty Shakespeare to thy judging eye
Presents that magic glass whose ample round
Reflects each figure in Creation’s bound,
And pours, in floods of supernatural light,
Fancy’s bright beings on the charmed sight,
This chief enchanter of the willing breast
Will teach thee all the magic he possessed.
Placed in his circle, mark in colours true
Each brilliant being that he calls to view:
Wrapt in the gloomy storm, or robed in light,
His weird sister or his fairy sprite.
Boldly o’erleaping, in the great design,
The bounds of nature, with a guide divine.
_A Poetic Epistle to an Eminent Painter_ [George
Romney]. 2nd edition, 1779. Part II. ll.
472-84.
THOMAS WARTON, 1777
(1728-1790)
Avon, thy rural view, thy pastures wild,
The willows that o’erhang thy twilight edge,
Their boughs entangling with the embattled sedge;
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fring’d,
Thy surface with reflected verdure ting’d;
Soothe me with many a pensive pleasure mild.
But while I muse, that here the bard divine,
Whose sacred dust yon high arch’d aisles enclose,
Where the tall windows rise in stately rows
Above the embowering shade,
Here first, at Fancy’s fairy-circled shrine,
Of daisies pied his infant offering made;
Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe,
Fram’d of thy reeds a shrill and artless pipe:
Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled,
As at the waving of some magic wand;
An holy trance my charmed spirit wings,
And awful shapes of warriors and of kings
People the busy mead,
Like spectres swarming to the wizard’s hall;
And slowly pace, and point with trembling hand
The wounds ill-cover’d with the purple pall.
Before me Pity seems to stand
A weeping mourner, smote with anguish sore,
To see Misfortune rend in frantic mood
His robe, with regal woes embroider’d o’er.
Pale Terror leads the visionary band,
And sternly shakes his sceptre dropping blood.
“Monody written near Stratford-upon-Avon.”
_Miscellaneous Odes._ 1777.
ANNA SEWARD, BEFORE 1782
(1747-1809)
“_On Shakespeare’s Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon._”
Great Homer’s birth sev’n rival cities claim,
Too mighty such monopoly of Fame;
Yet not to birth alone did Homer owe
His wondrous worth; what Egypt could bestow,
With all the schools of Greece and Asia join’d,
Enlarg’d th’ immense expansion of his mind.
Nor yet unrival’d the Mæonian strain,
The British Eagle and the Mantuan Swan
Tow’r equal heights. But happier Stratford, thou
With incontested laurels deck thy brow:
Thy bard was thine _unschool’d_, and from thee brought
More than all Egypt, Greece, or Asia taught.
Not Homer’s self such matchless honours won;
The Greek has rivals, but thy Shakespeare none.
Dodsley’s _Collection of Poems by Several Hands_.
1782, ii. p. 315.
“The British Eagle,” _i.e._ Milton.
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1794
(1762-1850)
“_On Shakespeare._”
O sovereign master, who with lovely state
Dost rule as in some isle’s enchanted land,
On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait,
Whilst scenes of faerie bloom at thy command!
On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie,
And list, till earth dissolved, to thy sweet minstrelsy!
Called by thy magic from the hoary deep,
Aërial forms should in bright troops ascend,
And then a wondrous masque before me sweep;
While sounds _that the earth owned not_, seem to blend
Their stealing melodies, that when the strain
Ceased, _I should weep, and would so dream again_!
The charm is wound: I see an aged form,
In white robes, on the winding sea-shore stand;
O’er the careering surge he waves his wand:
Upon the black rock bursts the bidden storm.
Now from bright opening clouds I hear a lay,
_Come to these yellow sands, fair stranger, come away_.
Saw ye pass by the weird sisters pale?
Marked ye the lowering castle on the heath?
Hark! hark! is the deed done? the deed of death!
The deed is done—hail, king of Scotland, hail!
I see no more;—to many a fearful sound
The bloody cauldron sinks, and all is dark around.
Pity! touch the trembling strings,
A maid, a beauteous maniac, wildly sings:
“They laid him in the ground so cold,
Upon his breast the earth is thrown;
High is heaped the grassy mould,
_Oh! he is dead and gone_.
The winds of the winter blow o’er his cold breast,
But pleasant shall be his rest.”
The song is ceased. Ah! who, pale shade, art thou,
Sad raving to the rude tempestuous night?
Sure thou hast had much wrong, so stern thy brow;
So piteous thou dost tear thy tresses white;
So wildly thou dost cry, “_Blow, bitter wind,
Ye elements, I call not _you_ unkind_.”
Beneath the shade of nodding branches grey,
And rude romantic woods, and glens forlorn,
The merry hunters wear the hours away;
Rings the deep forest to the joyous horn!
Joyous to all, but him who with sad look
Hangs idly musing by the brawling brook.
But mark the merry elves of fairy land!
To the high moon’s gleamy glance,
They with shadowy morris dance;
Soft music dies along the desert sand;
Soon at peep of cold-eyed day
Soon the numerous lights decay;
Merrily, now merrily,
After the dewy moon they fly.
Let rosy laughter now advance,
And wit with sparkling eye,
Where quaint powers lurking lie
Bright fancy, the queen of the revels, shall dance,
And point to the frolicsome train
And antic forms that flit unnumbered o’er the plain.
O sovereign master! at whose sole command
We start with terror, or with pity weep;
O! where is now thy all-creating wand?
Buried ten thousand fathoms in the deep.
The staff is broke, the powerful spell is fled,
And never earthly guest shall in thy circle tread.
_Sonnets, with other Poems._ 3rd edition.
1794, pp. 67-70.
This poem appears in later editions of Bowle’s sonnets in a
different form. Stanza 9 is omitted, and the remaining stanzas
are arranged thus: 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 3, 4, 5, 10:
“Come to these yellow sands.” Ferdinand. See _The Tempest_.
“The weird sisters.” See _Macbeth_.
“A beauteous maniac.” Ophelia. See _Hamlet_.
“Blow, bitter wind.” See _King Lear_.
“Him, who with sad look.” Jacques. See _As You Like It_.
“Elves of fairy land.” See _Midsummer Night’s Dream_.
THE THIRD PERIOD
NINETEENTH CENTURY
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1802
(1770-1850)
It is not to be thought of that the flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed “with pomp of waters unwithstood,”
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakspeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.
“Sonnets dedicated to Liberty.” _Poems._ 1807.
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, 1804
(1793-1835)
“_Shakespeare._”
I love to rove o’er history’s page,
Recall the hero and the sage;
Revive the actions of the dead,
And memory of ages fled:
Yet it yields me greater pleasure
To read the poet’s pleasing measure.
Led by Shakespeare, bard inspired,
The bosom’s energies are fired;
We learn to shed the generous tear
O’er poor Ophelia’s sacred bier;
To love the merry moonlit scene,
With fairy elves in valleys green;
Or borne on fancy’s heavenly wings,
To listen while sweet Ariel sings.
How sweet the native wood notes wild
Of him, the Muse’s favourite child!
Of him whose magic lays impart
Each various feeling to the heart.
_Poems._ By Felicia Dorothea Browne, 1808, p. 48.
One of Mrs. Hemans’ earliest tastes—relates her sister in her
_Memoirs_—was a passion for Shakespeare, which she read as her
choicest recreation at six years old. The above lines were
written when she was eleven years of age.
SIR WALTER SCOTT, 1814
(1771-1832)
The English stage might be considered as equally without rule and
without model when Shakespeare arose. The effect of the genius of an
individual upon the taste of a nation is mighty; but that genius, in
its turn, is formed according to the opinions prevalent at the period
when it comes into existence. Such was the case with Shakespeare. With
an education more extensive, and a taste refined by the classical
models, it is probable that he also, in admiration of the ancient
drama, might have mistaken the form for the essence, and subscribed to
those rules which had produced such masterpieces of art. Fortunately
for the full exertion of a genius as comprehensive and versatile,
as intense and powerful, Shakespeare had no access to any models of
which the commanding merit might have controlled and limited his own
exertions. He followed the path which a nameless crowd of obscure
writers had trodden before him; but he moved in it with the grace and
majestic step of a being of a superior order, and vindicated for ever
the British theatre from a pedantic restriction to classical rule.
Nothing went before Shakespeare which in any respect was fit to fix
and stamp the character of a national drama; and certainly no one will
succeed him, capable of establishing by mere authority, a form more
restricted than that which Shakespeare used.
Article on “Drama,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
4th ed. 1814. 6th ed. vol. viii. p. 157.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1817
(1772-1834)
No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a
profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy
of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions,
language. In Shakespeare’s POEMS, the creative power, and the
intellectual energy, wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess
of strength seems to threaten the extinction of the other. At length
in the DRAMA they were reconciled, and fought each with its
shield before the breast of the other. Or, like two rapid streams, that
at their first meeting within narrow and rocky banks, mutually strive
to repel each other, and intermix reluctantly and in tumult; but soon
finding a wider channel and more yielding shores, blend, and dilate,
and flow on in one current and with one voice. The “Venus and Adonis”
did not, perhaps, allow the display of the deeper passions. But the
story of Lucretia seems to favour, and even demand their intensest
workings. And yet we find in _Shakespeare’s_ management of the tale,
neither pathos, nor any other _dramatic_ quality. There is the same
minute and faithful imagery as in the former poem, in the same vivid
colours, inspirited by the same impetuous vigour of thought, and
diverging and contracting with the same activity of the assimilative
and of the modifying faculties; and with a yet larger display, a
yet wider range of knowledge and reflection; and, lastly, with the
same perfect dominion, often _domination_, over the whole world of
language. What then shall we say? even this: that—
Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no
passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing
it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely,
till knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his
habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power,
by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to
that power, which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten summits
of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not rival. While
the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human
character and passion, to one Proteus of the fire and the flood; the
other attracts all forms and things to himself, in the unity of his
own IDEAL. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the
being of MILTON; while SHAKESPEARE becomes all things, yet for ever
remaining himself. O what great men hast thou not produced, England! my
country!
_Biographia Literaria._ 1817, chap. xv.
The following is from Coleridge’s _Literary Remains_, ed.
Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1867, ii. pp. 68-69:—I greatly dislike
beauties and selections in general; but as proof positive of
his unrivalled excellence, I should like to try Shakespeare
by this criterion. Make out your amplest catalogue of all the
human faculties, as reason or the moral law, the will, the
feeling of the coincidence of the two (a feeling _sui generis
et demonstratio demonstrationum_) called the conscience,
the understanding or prudence, wit, fancy, imagination,
judgment,—and then of the objects on which these are to be
employed, as the beauties, the terrors, and the seeming
caprices of nature, the realities and the capabilities, that
is, the actual and the ideal, of the human mind, conceived
as an individual or as a social being, as in innocence or in
guilt, in a play-paradise, or in a war-field of temptation;
and then compare with Shakespeare under each of these heads
all or any of the writers in prose and verse that have ever
lived! Who, that is competent to judge, doubts the result? And
ask your own hearts,—ask your own common-sense—to conceive the
possibility of this man being—I say not, the drunken savage
of that wretched sciolist, whom Frenchmen, to their shame,
have honoured before their elder and better worthies,—but
the anomalous, the wild, the irregular, genius of our daily
criticism! What! are we to have miracles in sport? Or, I speak
reverently, does God choose idiots by whom to convey divine
truths to man?
For a passage on Shakespeare as a “philosophical aristocrat”
who “never promulgates any party tenets,” see “Notes on the
_Tempest_.”
FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY, 1817
(1773-1850)
More full of wisdom and ridicule and sagacity, than all the moralists
and satirists that ever existed—he [Shakespeare] is more wild, airy and
inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all
regions and ages of the world:—and has all those elements so happily
mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so temperately, that
the most severe reader cannot complain of him for want of strength or
of reason—nor the most sensitive for defect of ornament or ingenuity.
Every thing in him is in unmeasured abundance, and unequalled
perfection—but everything so balanced and kept in subordination, as not
to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most exquisite
poetical conceptions, images, and descriptions are given with such
brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn, without
loading the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple and
perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his voyage,
not less, but more rapidly and directly than if they had been composed
of baser materials. All his excellences, like those of Nature herself,
are thrown out together; and instead of interfering with, support and
recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his
fruits crushed into baskets—but spring living from the soil, in all the
dew and freshness of youth; while the graceful foliage in which they
lurk, and the ample branches, the rough and vigorous stem, and the
wide-spreading roots on which they depend, are present along with them,
and share, in their places, the equal care of their Creator.
_The Edinburgh Review_, August 1817. Art. IX.
“Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, by
William Hazlitt.” Vol. xxviii. p. 474.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, 1818
(1778-1830)
The striking peculiarity of Shakespeare’s mind was its generic quality,
its power of communication with all other minds—so that it contained a
universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar
bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any
other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an
egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but
he was all that others were, or that they could become. He not only
had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could
follow them by anticipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable
ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict of passion,
or turn of thought. He had “a mind reflecting ages past,” and
present:—All the people that ever lived are there. There was no respect
of persons with him. His genius alone shone equally on the evil and on
the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar: “All
corners of the earth, kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay,
the secrets of the grave,” are hardly hid from his searching glance.
He was like the genius of humanity, changing places with all of us at
pleasure, and playing with our purposes as with his own. He turned the
globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men,
and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns,
passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives—as well those
that they knew, as those which they did not know, or acknowledge to
themselves. The dreams of childhood, the ravings of despair, were the
toys of his fancy. Airy beings waited at his call, and came at his
bidding. Harmless fairies nodded to him, and did him curtesies: and the
night-hag bestrode the blast at the command of “his so potent art.”
The world of spirits lay open to him, like the world of real men and
women: and there is the same truth in his delineations of the one as
of the other; for if the preternatural characters he describes could
be supposed to exist, they would speak, and feel, and act, as he makes
them. He had only to think of any thing in order to become that thing,
with all the circumstances belonging to it. When he conceived of a
character, whether real or imaginary, he not only entered into all its
thoughts and feelings, but seemed instantly, and as if by touching a
secret spring, to be surrounded with all the same objects, “subject to
the same skyey influences,” the same local, outward, and unforeseen
accidents which would occur in reality.
“On Shakespeare and Milton,” _Lectures on The
English Poets_. 1818, pp. 91-3.
For a comment on this passage by William Minto, see p. 189.
* * * * *
The following occurs in Hazlitt’s essay “On Dryden and Pope”
(_ib._, pp. 137-38):—The poet of nature is one who, from
the elements of beauty, of power, and of passion in his own
breast, sympathises with whatever is beautiful, and grand, and
impassioned in nature, in its simple majesty, in its immediate
appeal to the senses, to the thoughts and hearts of all men; so
that the poet of nature, by the truth, and depth, and harmony
of his mind, may be said to hold communion with the very soul
of nature; to be identified with and to foreknow and to record
the feelings of all men at all times and places, as they are
liable to the same impressions; and to exert the same power
over the minds of his readers, that nature does. He sees things
in their eternal beauty, for he sees them as they are; he feels
them in their universal interest, for he feels them as they
affect the first principles of his and our common nature. Such
was Homer, such was Shakespeare, whose works will last as long
as nature, because they are a copy of the indestructible forms
and everlasting impulses of nature, welling out from the bosom
as from a perennial spring, or stamped upon the senses by the
hand of their maker. The power of the imagination in them, is
the representative power of all nature. It has its centre in
the human soul, and makes the circuit of the universe.
See also _The Round Table_, 1817—“On Posthumous Fame—whether
Shakespeare was influenced by a love of it.”
JOHN KEATS, _c._ 1818
(1795-1821)
The genius of Shakespeare was an innate universality—wherefore he
had the utmost achievement of human intellect prostrate beneath his
indolent and kingly gaze. He could do easily Man’s utmost. His plans
of tasks to come were not of this world—if what he purposed to do
hereafter would not in his own Idea “answer the aim,” how tremendous
must have been his Conception of Ultimates!
_Note on Troilus and Cressida_, I. iii. Marginalia
from the Shakespeare Folio of 1808. (_Works_,
ed. H. Buxton Forman. 1901, iii. p. 254.)
_c._ 1818
“_Sonnet on sitting down to read KING LEAR once again._”
O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair-plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodising on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit:
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak Forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phœnix wings to fly at my desire.
_Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats_,
edited by Richard Monckton Milnes. Vol. i. p.
96.
JOHN WILSON, 1819
(1785-1854)
Shakespeare is of no age. He speaks a language which thrills in our
blood in spite of the separation of two hundred years. His thoughts,
passions, feelings, strains of fancy, all are of this day, as they were
of his own—and his genius may be contemporary with the mind of every
generation for a thousand years to come. He, above all poets, looked
upon man, and lived for mankind. His genius, universal in intellect,
could find, in no more bounded circumference, its proper sphere. It
could not bear exclusion from any part of human existence. Whatever
in nature and life was given to man, was given in contemplation and
poetry to him also, and over the undimmed mirror of his mind passed
all the shadows of our mortal world. Look through his plays and tell
what form of existence, what quality of spirit, he is most skilful to
delineate. Which of all the manifold beings he has drawn, lives before
our thoughts, our eyes, in most unpictured reality? Is it Othello,
Shylock, Falstaff, Lear, the wife of Macbeth, Imogen, Hamlet, Ariel? In
none of the other great dramatists do we see anything like a perfected
art. In their works, everything, it is true, exists in some shape or
other, which can be required in a drama taking for its interest the
absolute interest of human life and nature; but, after all, may not
the very best of their works be looked on as sublime masses of chaotic
confusion, through which the elements of our moral being appear? It
was Shakespeare, the most unlearned of all our writers, who first
exhibited on the stage perfect models, perfect images of all human
characters, and all human events. We cannot conceive any skill that
could from his great characters remove any defect, or add to their
perfect composition. Except in him, we look in vain for the entire
fulness, the self-consistency, and self-completeness of perfect art.
“A few words on Shakespeare, May 1819.” _Essays
Critical and Imaginative._ 1866, vol. iii.
pp. 420-21.
CHARLES SPRAGUE, 1824
(1791-1875)
Who now shall grace the glowing throne,
Where, all unrivall’d, all alone,
Bold Shakespeare sat, and look’d creation through,
The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?
That throne is cold—that lyre in death unstrung,
On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.
Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,
One spot shall spare—the grave where Shakespeare sleeps.
Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,
But Nature’s laureate bards shall never die.
Art’s chisell’d boast and glory’s trophied shore
Must live in numbers or can live no more.
While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim,
Still roars the Olympic car in Pindar’s fame:
Troy’s doubtful walls, in ashes pass’d away,
Yet frown on Greece in Homer’s deathless lay;
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands all immortal in her Maro’s strains;
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun for ever smiles,
To Time’s unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end!
O thou! to whose creative power
We dedicate the festal hour,
While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand,
Learning’s anointed train, and Beauty’s rose-lipp’d band—
Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown,
Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own.
Deep in the west, as Independence roves,
His banners planting round the land he loves,
Where Nature sleeps in Eden’s infant grace,
In Time’s full hour shall spring a glorious race:
Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear,
And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.
Our Roman-hearted fathers broke
Thy parent empire’s galling yoke,
But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind,
Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind;
Still o’er our land shall Albion’s sceptre wave,
And what her mighty Lion lost, her mightier Swan shall save.
Prize Ode recited at the representation of the
Shakespeare Jubilee, Boston, February 13,
1824.
CHARLES LAMB, 1824
(1775-1834)
In “sad civility” once Garrick sate
To see a play, mangled in form and state;
Plebeian Shakespeare must the words supply,—
The actors all were fools—of Quality.
The scenes—the dresses—were above rebuke;—
Scarce a performer there below a Duke.
He sate, and mused how in his Shakespeare’s mind
The idea of old nobility enshrined
Should thence a grace and a refinement have
Which passed these living Nobles to conceive—
Who with such apish, base gesticulation,
Remnants of starts, and dregs of playhouse passion,
So foul belied their great forefathers’ fashion!
He saw—and true nobility confessed
Less in the high-born blood, than lowly poet’s breast.
“Epilogue to an amateur Performance of Richard II.,”
ll. 10-24. _Works of Charles and Mary Lamb._
Ed. E. V. Lucas, 1903-4. Vol. v. p. 128.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, 1827
(1795-1855)
Shakespeare “glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.”
All Nature ministers to him, as gladly as a mother to her child.
Whether he wishes her to tune her myriad-voiced organ to Romeo’s
love, or to Miranda’s innocence, or to Perdita’s simplicity, or
to Rosalind’s playfulness, or to the sports of the Fairies, or to
Timon’s misanthropy, or to Macbeth’s desolating ambition, or to Lear’s
heart-broken frenzy—he has only to ask, and she puts on every feeling
and every passion with which he desires to invest her.
* * * * *
No poet comes near Shakespeare in the number of bosom lines,—of lines
that we may cherish in our bosoms, and that seem almost as if they
had grown there,—of lines that, like bosom friends, are ever at hand
to comfort, counsel, and gladden us, under all the vicissitudes of
life,—of lines that, according to Bacon’s expression, “come home to our
business and bosoms,” and open the door for us to look in, and see what
is nestling and brooding there.
_Guesses at Truth._ 1827.
JAMES HOGG, 1831
(1770-1835)
“_To the Genius of Shakespeare._”
Spirit all limitless,
Where is thy dwelling-place?
Spirit of him whose high name we revere,
Come on thy seraph wings,
Come from thy wanderings,
And smile on thy votaries, who sigh for thee here!
Come, O thou spark divine,
Rise from thy hallowed shrine;
Here in the windings of Forth thou shalt see
Hearts true to nature’s call
Spirits congenial,
Proud of their country, yet bowing to thee.
Here with rapt heart and tongue,
While our fond minds were young,
Oft thy bold numbers we poured in our mirth;
Now in our hall for aye
This shall be holiday,
Bard of all Nature, to honour thy birth.
Whether thou tremblest o’er
Green grave of Elsinore,
Stayest o’er the hill of Dunsinnan to hover,
Bosworth, or Shrewsbury,
Egypt or Philippi;
Come from thy roamings the universe over.
Whether thou journey’st far
On by the morning star,
Dream’st on the shadowy brows of the moon,
Or linger’st in fairyland,
’Mid lovely elves to stand,
Singing thy carols unearthly and boon;—
Here thou art called upon,
Come thou to Caledon!
Come to the land of the ardent and free!
The land of the love recess,
Mountain and wilderness,
This is the land, thou wild meteor, for thee!
Oh, never since time had birth,
Rose from the pregnant earth
Gems such as late have in Scotia sprung;—
Gems that in future day,
When ages pass away,
Like thee shall be honoured, like thee shall be sung!
Then here, by the sounding sea,
Forest, and greenwood tree,
Here to solicit thee cease shall we never:
Yes, thou effulgence bright,
Here must thy flame relight,
Or vanish from Nature for ever and ever!
_Songs._ By the Ettrick Shepherd. Now first
collected. 1831, p. 304.
CHARLES LAMB, 1833
(1775-1834)
I am jealous of the combination of the sister arts. Let them sparkle
apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did Boydell’s Shakespeare
Gallery do me with Shakespeare?—to have Opie’s Shakespeare, Northcote’s
Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli’s Shakespeare, heavy-headed Romney’s
Shakespeare, wooden-headed West’s Shakespeare (though he did the
best in “Lear”), deaf-headed Reynolds’s Shakespeare, instead of my,
and everybody’s Shakespeare. To be tied down to an authentic face of
Juliet! To have Imogen’s portrait! To confine the illimitable!
Letter to Samuel Rogers, December 21, 1833.
_Works of Charles and Mary Lamb._ Ed.
E. V. Lucas, 1903-4. Vol. vii.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE, 1833
(1796-1849)
“_To Shakespeare._”
The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathom’d centre. Like that Ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O’er the drown’d hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So in the compass of the single mind
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great Poet, ’twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate’er love, hate, ambition, destiny,
Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart,
Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.
_Poems._ Sonnet XXVIII. 1833, p. 28.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 1838
(1785-1859)
In the great world of woman, as the interpreter of the shifting phases
and the lunar varieties of that mighty changeable planet, that lovely
satellite of man, Shakespeare stands not the first only, not the
original only, but is yet the sole authentic oracle of truth. Woman,
therefore, the beauty of the female mind, _this_ is one great field of
his power. The supernatural world, the world of apparitions, _that_
is another.... In all Christendom, who, let us ask, who, who but
Shakespeare has found the power for effectually working this mysterious
mode of being?
. . . . . . .
A third fund of Shakespeare’s peculiar power lies in his teeming
fertility of fine thoughts and sentiments. From his works alone might
be gathered a golden bead-roll of thoughts, the deepest, subtilest,
most pathetic, and yet most catholic and universally intelligible; the
most characteristic, also, and appropriate to the particular person,
the situation, and the case, yet, at the same time, applicable to
the circumstances of every human being, under all the accidents of
life, and all vicissitudes of fortune. But this subject offers so
vast a field of observation, it being so eminently the prerogative of
Shakespeare to have thought more finely and more extensively than all
other poets combined, that we cannot wrong the dignity of such a theme
by doing more, in our narrow limits, than simply noticing it as one of
the emblazonries upon Shakespeare’s shield.
Fourthly, we shall indicate (and, as in the last case, _barely_
indicate, without attempting in so vast a field to offer any adequate
illustrations) one mode of Shakespeare’s dramatic excellence, which
hitherto has not attracted any special or separate notice. We allude
to the forms of life, and natural human passion, as apparent in the
structure of his dialogue. Among the many defects and infirmities
of the French and of the Italian drama, indeed, we may say of the
Greek, the dialogue proceeds always by independent speeches, replying
indeed to each other, but never modified in its several terminal forms
immediately preceding. Now, in Shakespeare, who first set an example
of that most important innovation, in all his impassioned dialogues,
each reply or rejoinder seems the mere rebound of the previous speech.
Every form of natural interruption, breaking through the restraints
of ceremony under the impulses of tempestuous passion; every form
of hasty interrogative, ardent reiteration when a question has been
evaded; every form of scornful repetition of the hostile words; every
impatient continuation of the hostile statement; in short, all modes
and formulæ by which anger, hurry, fretfulness, scorn, impatience,
or excitement under any movement whatever, can disturb or modify or
dislocate the formal bookish style of commencement,—these are as rife
in Shakespeare’s dialogue as in life itself; and how much vivacity,
how profound a verisimilitude, they add to the scenic effect as an
imitation of human passion and real life, we need not say. A volume
might be written, illustrating the vast varieties of Shakespeare’s art
and power in this one field of improvement; another volume might be
dedicated to the exposure of the lifeless and unnatural result from the
opposite practice in the foreign stages of France and Italy. And we may
truly say, that were Shakespeare distinguished from them by this single
feature of nature and propriety, he would on that account alone have
merited a great immortality.
_Encyclopædia Britannica._ 7th edition, 1838.
Article on Shakespeare.
The following fine apostrophe to Shakespeare occurs at the
end of De Quincey’s essay “On the knocking at the gate in
_Macbeth_”:—O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other
men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like
the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars
and the flowers,—like frost and snow, rain and dew, hailstorm
and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of
our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there
can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert,—but
that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more we
shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement
where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident.
JOHN STERLING, 1839
(1806-1844)
“_Shakespeare._”
How little fades from earth when sink to rest
The hours and cares that moved a great man’s breast!
Though nought of all we saw the grave may spare,
His life pervades the world’s impregnate air;
Though Shakespeare’s dust beneath our footsteps lies,
His spirit breathes amid his native skies;
With meaning won from him for ever glows
Each air that England feels, and star it knows;
His whispered words from many a mother’s voice
Can make her sleeping child in dreams rejoice,
And gleams from spheres he first conjoined to earth
Are blent with rays of each new morning’s birth.
Amid the sights and tales of common things,
Leaf, flower, and bird, and wars, and deaths of kings,
Of shore, and sea, and nature’s daily round,
Of life that tills, and tombs that load the ground,
His visions mingle, swell, command, pace by,
And haunt with living presence heart and eye;
And tones from him by other bosoms caught
Awaken flush and stir of mounting thought,
And the long sigh, and deep impassioned thrill,
Rouse custom’s trance, and spur the faltering will.
Above the goodly land more his than ours
He sits supreme enthroned in skyey towers,
And sees the heroic brood of his creation
Teach larger life to his ennobled nation.
O! shaping brain! O! flashing fancy’s hues!
O! boundless heart kept fresh by pity’s dews!
O! wit humane and blythe! O! sense sublime
For each dim oracle of mantled Time!
Transcendent Form of Man! in whom we read
Mankind’s whole tale of impulse, thought, and deed;
Amid the expanse of years beholding thee,
We know how vast our world of life may be;
Wherein, perchance, with aims as pure as thine,
Small tasks and strengths may be no less divine.
_Poems._ 1839, p. 151.
HENRY HALLAM, 1839
(1777-1859)
Of William Shakespeare, whom, through the mouths of those whom he has
inspired to body forth the modifications of his immense mind, we seem
to know better than any human writer, it may be truly said that we
scarcely know anything. We see him, so far as we do see him, not in
himself, but in a reflex image from the objectivity in which he was
manifested: he is Falstaff, and Mercutio, and Malvolio, and Jaques, and
Portia, and Imogen, and Lear, and Othello; but to us he is scarcely
a determined person, a substantial reality of past time, the man
Shakespeare. The two greatest names in poetry are to us little more
than names. If we are not yet come to question his unity, as we do that
of “the blind old man of Scios’ rocky isle,” an improvement in critical
acuteness doubtless reserved for a distant posterity, we as little feel
the power of identifying the young man who came up from Stratford, was
afterwards an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired to
his native place in middle life, with the author of Macbeth and Lear,
as we can give a distinct historic personality to Homer. All that
insatiable curiosity and unwearied diligence have hitherto detected
about Shakespeare serves rather to disappoint and perplex us than to
furnish the slightest illustration of his character.
_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth
Centuries._ 1839, ii. 382-3.
—— JOHNSTONE, 1840
Some men can only acquire knowledge by a careful process of painstaking
investigation, while the minds of others descend at once, and with a
swoop, as it were, upon the truth of which they are in search. Others,
again, can not only do this, but having grasped the truth, they soar
upward with it to the highest pinnacles of imaginative loftiness, or
beyond these even, to the empyrean of thought, where the minds of
ordinarily gifted men may not follow them. Of this last class was
Shakespeare, the most wonderful of mere men that we know to have ever
lived.
_The Table Talker, or Brief Essays on Society and
Literature._ 1840, vol. i. p. 183.
THOMAS CARLYLE, 1840
(1795-1881)
“_The Hero as Poet._”
It is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and
things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great. All the greatness
of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that
calm creative perspicacity of Shakespeare. The thing he looks at
reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic
secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns
the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said; poetic creation, what
is this too but _seeing_ the thing sufficiently? The _word_ that will
describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of
the thing. And is not Shakespeare’s _morality_, his valour, candour,
tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness,
which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great
as the world! No _twisted_, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting
all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a perfectly
_level_ mirror;—that is to say withal, if we will understand it, a man
justly related to all things and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly
spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects, a
Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us
in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all.
_Novum Organum_, and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a
quite secondary order; earthly, material, poor in comparison with this.
Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of the same
rank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakespeare, reminds me of it. Of
him too you say that he _saw_ the object; you may say what he himself
says of Shakespeare: “His characters are like watches with dial-plates
of transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others, and the
inward mechanism also is all visible.”
_On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History._
Ed. H. D. Traill. 1898, pp. 104-5.
In Carlyle’s essay on “Corn Law Rhymes” (_Edinburgh Review_,
July, 1832, p. 342) occurs the following:—Foolish Pedant,
that sittest there compassionately descanting on the Learning
of Shakespeare! Shakespeare had penetrated into innumerable
things; far into Nature with her divine Splendours and infernal
Terrors, her Ariel Melodies, and mystic mandragora Moans; far
into man’s workings with Nature, into man’s Art and Artifice;
Shakespeare knew (_Kenned_, which in those days still partially
meant _Can-ned_) innumerable things; what men are, and what
the world is, and how and what men aim at there, from the Dame
Quickly of modern Eastcheap to the Cæsar of ancient Rome, over
many countries, over many centuries: of all this he had the
clearest understanding and constructive comprehension; all this
was his Learning and Insight.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1841
(1770-1850)
“_Shakespeare and Goethe._”
He (Goethe) does not seem to me to be a great poet in either of the
classes of poets. At the head of the first class I would place Homer
and Shakespeare, whose universal minds are able to reach every variety
of thought and feeling without bringing their own individuality before
the reader. They infuse, they breathe life into every object they
approach, but you never find _themselves_. At the head of the second
class, those whom you can trace individually in all they write, I would
place Spenser and Milton. In all that Spenser writes you can trace
the gentle affectionate spirit of the man; in all that Milton writes
you find the exalted sustained being that he was. Now, in what Goethe
writes, who aims to be of the first class, the _universal_, you find
the man himself, the artificial man where he should not be found; so
that I consider him a very artificial writer, aiming to be universal,
and yet constantly exposing his individuality, which his character
was not of a kind to dignify. He had not sufficiently clear moral
perceptions to make him anything but an artificial writer.
_Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, by Christopher
Wordsworth. 1851, vol. ii. pp. 437-8.
The value of this estimate of Goethe is somewhat discounted
by a remark made at another time by Wordsworth: “I have tried
to read Goethe. I never could succeed.... I am not intimately
acquainted with them [his poems] generally.” _Memoirs_, ii. p.
478.
THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY, 1843
(1800-1859)
Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of
dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of
nature, endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters
of which he has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we
receive from the characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned
by scores. Yet in all these scores hardly one character is to be found
which deviates widely from the common standard, and which we should
call very eccentric if we met it in real life. The silly notion that
every man has one ruling passion, and that this clue, once known,
unravels all the mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in
the plays of Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a
crowd of passions, which contend for the mastery over him, and govern
him in turn. What is Hamlet’s ruling passion? Or Othello’s? Or Harry
the Fifth’s? Or Wolsey’s? Or Lear’s? Or Shylock’s? Or Benedick’s? Or
Macbeth’s? Or that of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might
go on for ever. Take a single example, Shylock. Is he so eager for
money as to be indifferent to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be
indifferent to money? Or so bent on both together as to be indifferent
to the honour of his nation and the law of Moses? All his propensities
are mingled with each other, so that, in trying to apportion to each
its proper part, we find the same difficulty which constantly meets us
in real life. A superficial critic may say, that hatred is Shylock’s
ruling passion. But how many passions have amalgamated to form that
hatred? It is partly the result of wounded pride: Antonio has called
him dog. It is partly the result of covetousness: Antonio has hindered
him of half a million; and, when Antonio is gone, there will be no
limit to the gains of usury. It is partly the result of national and
religious feeling: Antonio has spit on the Jewish gabardine; and the
oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sabbath. We might go
through all the characters which we have mentioned, and through fifty
more in the same way; for it is the constant manner of Shakespeare to
represent the human mind as lying, not under the absolute dominion
of one despotic propensity, but under a mixed government, in which a
hundred powers balance each other. Admirable as he is in all parts
of his art, we most admire him for this, that while he has left us a
greater number of striking portraits than all other dramatists put
together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature.
Essay on “Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay,”
_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1843. Art. IX. vol.
lxxvi. pp. 560-1.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1844
(1803-1882)
Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare; and even he can
tell nothing except to the Shakespeare in us; that is, to our most
apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his tripod,
and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique documents
extricated, analysed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and Collier;
and now read one of those skiey sentences—aerolites,—which seem to
have fallen out of heaven, and which, not your experience, but the man
within the breast, has accepted as words of fate; and tell me if they
match, if the former account in any manner for the latter: or, which
gives the most historical insight into the man.
Hence, though our external history is so meagre, yet, with Shakespeare
for biographer, instead of Aubrey and Rowe, we have really the
information which is material, that which describes character and
fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man and deal with
him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded convictions
on those questions which knock for answer at every heart,—on life and
death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the prizes of life, and
the ways whereby we come at them; on the characters of men, and the
influences, occult and open, which affect their fortunes; and on those
mysterious and demoniacal powers which defy our science, and which yet
interweave their malice and their gift in our brightest hours. Whoever
read the volume of the Sonnets, without finding that the poet had
there revealed, under masks that are no masks to the intelligent, the
lore of friendship and of love; the confusion of sentiments in the most
susceptible, and, at the same time, the most intellectual of men? What
trait of his private mind has he hidden in his dramas? One can discern,
in his ample pictures of the gentleman and the king, that forms and
humanities pleased him; his delight in troops of friends, in large
hospitality, in cheerful giving. Let Timon, let Warwick, let Antonio
the merchant, answer for his great heart. So far from Shakespeare’s
being the least known, he is the one person, in all modern history,
known to us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of
philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not
settled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What
office, or function, or district of man’s work, has he not remembered?
What king has he not taught State, as Talma taught Napoleon? What
maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he
not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not
instructed in the rudeness of his behaviour?
“Shakespeare; or, the Poet.” _Representative
Men._ 1844, p. 154.
FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 1850
(1816-1853)
What I admire in Shakspeare, however, is that his loves are all
human—no earthliness hiding itself from itself in sentimental
transcendentalism—no loves of the angels, which are the least angelic
things, I believe, that float in the clouds, though they do look down
upon mortal feelings with contempt, just as the dark volumes of smoke
which issue from the long chimney of a manufactory might brood very
sublimely over the town which they blacken, and fancy themselves far
more ethereal than those vapours which steam up from the earth by day
and night. Yet these are pure water, and those are destined to condense
in black soot. So are the transcendentalisms of affection. Shakspeare
is healthy, true to Humanity in this: and for that reason I pardon him
even his earthly coarseness. You always know that you are on an earth
which has to be refined, instead of floating in the empyrean with wings
of wax. Therein he is immeasurably greater than Shelley. Shelleyism is
very sublime, sublimer a good deal than God, for God’s world is all
wrong and Shelley is all right—much purer than Christ, for Shelley can
criticise Christ’s heart and life—nevertheless, Shelleyism is only
atmospheric profligacy, to coin a Montgomeryism. I believe this to
be one of Shakespeare’s most wondrous qualities—the humanity of his
nature and heart. There is a spirit of sunny endeavour about him, and
an acquiescence in things as they are—not incompatible with a cheerful
resolve to make them better.
_Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M.A._
Edited by Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. 1886,
vol. i. p. 289, Letter LX.
LEIGH HUNT, 1851
(1784-1859)
“_Associations with Shakespeare._”
How naturally the idea of Shakespeare can be made to associate itself
with anything which is worth mention! Take Christmas for instance:
“Shakespeare and Christmas”; the two ideas fall as happily together
as “wine and walnuts,” or heart and soul. So you may put together
“Shakespeare and May,” or “Shakespeare and June,” and twenty passages
start into your memory about spring and violets. Or you may say
“Shakespeare and Love,” and you are in the midst of a bevy of bright
damsels, as sweet as rosebuds; or “Shakespeare and Death,” and all
graves, and thoughts of graves, are before you; or “Shakespeare and
Life,” and you have the whole world of youth, and spirit, and Hotspur,
and life itself; or you may say even, “Shakespeare and Hate,” and he
will say all that can be said for hate, as well as against it, till you
shall take Shylock himself into your Christian arms, and tears shall
make you of one faith.
_Table Talk._ 1851, p. 154.
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, 1852
(1818-1894)
We wonder at the grandeur, the moral majesty of some of Shakespeare’s
characters, so far beyond what the noblest among ourselves can imitate,
and at first thought we attribute it to the genius of the poet, who
has outstripped nature in his creations. But we are misunderstanding
the power and the meaning of poetry in attributing creativeness to
it in any such sense. Shakespeare created, but only as the spirit of
nature created around him, working in him as it worked abroad in those
among whom he lived. The men whom he draws were such men as he saw
and knew; the words they utter were such as he heard in the ordinary
conversations in which he joined. At the Mermaid with Raleigh and
with Sidney, and at a thousand unnamed English firesides, he found
the living originals for his Prince Hals, his Orlandos, his Antonios,
his Portias, his Isabellas. The closer personal acquaintance which we
can form with the English of the age of Elizabeth, the more we are
satisfied that Shakespeare’s great poetry is no more than the rhythmic
echo of the life which it depicts.
_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ First Series.
“England’s Forgotten Worthies.” 1878, i.
445-6, reprinted from _Westminster Review_.
1852.
DAVID MASSON, 1853
(_b._ 1822)
Shakespeare is as astonishing for the exuberance of his genius in
abstract notions, and for the depth of his analytic and philosophic
insight, as for the scope and minuteness of his poetic imagination.
It is as if into a mind poetical in _form_ there had been poured all
the _matter_ that existed in the mind of his contemporary Bacon. In
Shakespeare’s plays we have thought, history, exposition, philosophy,
all within the round of the poet. The only difference between him and
Bacon sometimes is that Bacon writes an essay and calls it his own,
while Shakespeare writes a similar essay and puts it into the mouth of
a Ulysses or a Polonius.
_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays._ 1874.
Essay V. p. 242, reprinted from _North British
Review_. 1853.
MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1853
(1822-1888)
“_Shakespeare._”
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil’d searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguessed at.—Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.
_Poems._ 1853.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 1853
(1775-1864)
“_Shakespeare and Milton._”
The tongue of England, that which myriads
Have spoken and will speak, were paralysed
Hereafter, but two mighty men stand forth
Above the flight of ages, two alone;
One crying out,
_All nations spoke thro’ me_.
The other:
True; and thro’ this trumpet burst
God’s word; the fall of Angels, and the doom
First of immortal, then of mortal, Man,
Glory! be glory! not to me, to God.
_The Lost Fruit off an old Tree._ No. LVII.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 1858
(1801-1890)
A great author, gentlemen, is not one who merely has a _copia
verborum_, whether in prose or verse, and can, as it were, turn on at
his will any number of splendid phrases and swelling sentences; but he
is one who has something to say and knows how to say it. I do not claim
for him, as such, any great depth of thought, or breadth of view, or
philosophy, or sagacity, or knowledge of human nature, or experience
of human life, though these additional gifts he may have, and the
more he has of them the greater he is; but I ascribe to him, as his
characteristic gift, in a large sense the faculty of Expression. He
is master of the twofold Logos, the thought and the word, distinct,
but inseparable from each other. He may, if so be, elaborate his
compositions, or he may pour out his improvisations, but in either
case he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily before him, and is
conscientious and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give
forth what he has within him; and from his very earnestness it comes to
pass that, whatever be the splendour of his diction or the harmony of
his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity.
Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its
own sake. If he is a poet, “nil molitur _inepte_.” If he is an orator,
then too he speaks, not only “distincte” and “splendide,” but also
“apte.” His page is the lucid mirror of his mind and life:
“Quo fit, ut omnis
Votivâ pateat veluti descripta labellâ
Vita senis.”
He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; forcibly, because
he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too
serious to be otiose; he can analyse his subject, and therefore he is
rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is
consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous;
when his imagination wells up, it overflows its ornament; when his
heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right
word for the right idea, and never a word too much. If he is brief, it
is because few words suffice; when he is lavish of them, still each
word has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the vigorous march of
his elocution. He expresses what all feel, but all cannot say; and his
sayings pass into proverbs among his people, and his phrases become
household words and idioms of their daily speech, which is tessellated
with the rich fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the
marbles of Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern
palaces.
Such pre-eminently is Shakespeare among ourselves; such pre-eminently
is Virgil among the Latins; such in their degree are all those writers
who in every nation go by the name of Classics.
“The Idea of a University defined and illustrated.”
_Literature_, ix. 1873, pp. 291-3.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, _c._ 1858
(1819-1891)
Only Shakespeare was endowed with that healthy equilibrium of nature
whose point of rest was midway between the imagination and the
understanding,—that perfectly unruffled brain which reflected all
objects with almost inhuman impartiality,—that outlook whose range was
ecliptical, dominating all zones of human thought and action,—that
power of verisimilar conception which could take away Richard
III. from History, and Ulysses from Homer,—and that creative
faculty whose equal touch is alike vivifying in Shallow and in Lear.
He alone never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the
risks and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a
jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot. He is never, like many
of his fellow-dramatists, confronted with unnatural Frankensteins of
his own making, whom he must get off his hands as best he may. Given
a human foible, he can incarnate it in the nothingness of Slender, or
make it loom gigantic through the tragic twilight of Hamlet. We are
tired of the vagueness which classes all the Elizabethan playwrights
together as “great dramatists,”—as if Shakespeare did not differ from
them in kind as well as in degree. Fine poets some of them were; but
though imagination and the power of poetic expression are, singly, not
uncommon gifts, and even in combination not without secular examples,
yet it is the rarest of earthly phenomena to find them joined with
those faculties of perception, arrangement, and plastic instinct in
the loving union which alone makes a great dramatic poet possible.
We suspect that Shakespeare will long continue the only specimen of
the genus. His contemporaries, in their comedies, either force what
they call “a humour” till it becomes fantastical, or hunt for jokes,
like rat-catchers, in the sewers of human nature and of language.
In their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson,
or mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too
often do. Every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist is but the
putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility of
Shakespeare’s standpoint as poet and artist.
_Library of Old Authors._ 1858-64.
For an interesting note on Shakespeare’s “artistic discretion”
and the “impersonality” of his writings, see “Shakespeare once
more” (_Among My Books._ 1870, pp. 226-7).
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 1863
(1804-1864)
Shakespeare has surface beneath surface, to an immeasurable depth,
adapted to the plummet-line of every reader; his works present many
phases of truth, each with scope large enough to fill a contemplative
mind. Whatever you seek in him you will surely discover, provided
you seek truth. There is no exhausting the various interpretation of
his symbols; and a thousand years hence, a world of new readers will
possess a whole library of new books, as we ourselves do, in these
volumes old already.
_Our Old Home._ 1863, i. 171.
In _Our Old Home_ (i. 158-60) Hawthorne records his impressions
on visiting Shakespeare’s house.
BISHOP CHARLES WORDSWORTH, 1864
(1806-1892)
Take the entire range of English literature; put together our best
authors, who have written upon subjects not professedly religious or
theological, and we shall not find, I believe, in them _all united_,
so much evidence of the Bible having been read and used, as we have
found in Shakespeare _alone_. This is a phenomenon which admits of
being looked at from several points of view; but I shall be content to
regard it solely in connection with the undoubted fact, that of all our
authors, Shakespeare is also, by general confession, the greatest and
the best. According to the testimony of Charles Lamb, a most competent
judge in regard to all the literary elements of the question, our poet,
“in his divine mind and manners, surpassed not only the great men his
contemporaries, but all mankind.” And, looking at this superiority from
my own point of view, I cannot but remark that, while most of the great
laymen of that great Elizabethan age—Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh,
the poet Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Burleigh, Ben Jonson—have
paid homage to Christianity, if not always in their practice, yet in
the conviction of their understanding, none of them has done this so
fully or so effectively as Shakespeare.
“_On Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of the
Bible._” 1864, pp. 291-2.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1864
(1809-1894)
O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past,
Till these last years that make the sea so wide,
Think not the jar of battle’s trumpet-blast
Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride
In every noble word thy sons bequeathed
The air our fathers breathed!
War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife,
We turn to other days and far-off lands,
Live o’er in dreams the Poet’s faded life,
Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands
To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,—
Not his the need, but ours!
We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth’s dull mist the coming of the dawn,—
Who see in twilight’s gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone;
For him the Lord of light the curtain rent
That veils the firmament . . .
With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name
Stamped once on dust that moved with pulsed breath,
As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame
Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death:
We praise not star or sun; in these we see
Thee, Father, only Thee!
Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love:
We read, we reverence on this human soul,—
Earth’s clearest mirror of the light above,—
Plain as the record on Thy prophet’s scroll,
When o’er his page the effluent splendours poured,
Thine own, “Thus saith the Lord!”
This player was a prophet from on high,
Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage,
For him Thy sovereign pleasure passed them by;
Sidney’s fair youth, and Raleigh’s ripened age,
Spenser’s chaste soul, and his imperial mind
Who taught and shamed mankind.
“Shakespeare Tercentennial Celebration, 23 April
1864.” _Songs of Many Seasons._ 1875.
CARDINAL WISEMAN, 1865
(1802-1865)
We may compare the mind of Shakespeare to a diamond, pellucid, bright,
and untinted, cut into countless polished facets, which, in constant
movement, at every smallest change of direction or of angle, caught a
new reflection, so that not one of its brilliant mirrors could be for a
moment idle, but by a power beyond its control was ever busy with the
reflection of innumerable images, either distinct or running into one
another, or repeated each so clearly as to allow him, when he chose, to
fix it in his memory.
_William Shakespeare._ 1865, p. 50.
ARCHBISHOP RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, 1865
(1807-1886)
A counsellor well fitted to advise
In daily life, and at whose lips no less
Men may inquire or nations, when distress
Of sudden doubtful danger may arise,
Who, though his head be hidden in the skies,
Plants his firm foot upon our common earth,
Dealing with thoughts which everywhere have birth,—
This is the poet, true of heart and wise:
No dweller in a baseless world of dream,
Which is not earth nor heaven: his words have passed
Into man’s common thought and week-day phrase;
This is the poet and his verse will last.
Such was our Shakespeare once, and such doth seem
One who redeems our later gloomier days.
_Poems collected and arranged anew._ 1865, p. 83.
FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, 1865
(1824-1897)
Only three or four generations of fairly long-lived men lie between
us and Shakespeare; literature in his own time had reached a high
development; his grandeur and sweetness were freely recognised; within
seventy years of his death his biography was attempted; yet we know
little more of Shakespeare himself than we do of Homer. Like several of
the greatest men,—Lucretius, Virgil, Tacitus, Dante,—a mystery never
to be dispelled hangs over his life. He has entered into the cloud.
With a natural and an honourable diligence, other men have given their
lives to the investigation of his, and many external circumstances,
mostly of a minor order, have been thus collected: yet of “the man
Shakespeare,” in Mr. Hallam’s words, we know nothing. Something which
seems more than human in immensity of range and calmness of insight
moves before us in the Plays; but, from the nature of dramatic writing,
the author’s personality is inevitably veiled; no letter, no saying
of his, or description by an intimate friend, has been preserved: and
even when we turn to the _Sonnets_, though each is an autobiographical
confession, we find ourselves equally foiled. These revelations of
the poet’s innermost nature appear to teach us less of the man than
the tone of mind which we trace, or seem to trace, in _Measure for
Measure_, _Hamlet_, and the _Tempest_: the strange imagery of passion
which passes over the magic mirror has no tangible existence before or
behind it:—the great artist, like Nature herself, is still latent in
his works; diffused through his own creation.
. . . . . .
Yet there is, after all, nothing more remarkable or fascinating in
English poetry than these personal revelations of the mind of our
greatest poet. We read them again and again, and find each time some
new proof of his almost superhuman insight into human nature; of his
unrivalled mastery over all the tones of love.
_Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare._ Edited
by Francis Turner Palgrave. 1865, pp. 238-9
and 243.
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE, 1866
(1809-1893)
“_To Shakespeare._”
Shelter and succour such as common men
Afford the weaker partners of their fate,
Have I derived from thee—from thee, most great
And powerful genius! whose sublime control
Still from thy grave governs each human soul,
That reads the wondrous record of thy pen.
From sordid sorrows thou hast set me free,
And turned from want’s grim ways my tottering feet,
And to sad empty hours, given royally,
A labour, than all leisure far more sweet.
The daily bread, for which we humbly pray,
Thou gavest me as if I were a child,
And still with converse noble, wise, and mild,
Charmed with despair my sinking soul away;
Shall I not bless the need, to which was given
Of all the angels in the host of heaven,
Thee, for my guardian, spirit strong and bland!
Lord of the speech of my dear native land!
_Poems._ 1866, p. 61.
JOHN RUSKIN, 1868
(1819-1900)
It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read,
either of Homer, or Shakespeare: everything round us, in substance,
or in thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek gentlemen were
educated under Homer. All Roman gentlemen by Greek literature. All
Italian, and French, and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and
by its principles. Of the scope of Shakespeare, I will say only, that
the intellectual measure of every man since born, in the domains of
creative thought, may be assigned to him, according to the degree in
which he has been taught by Shakespeare.
_The Mystery of Life and its Arts._ Afternoon
Lectures on Literature and Art, delivered
at Royal College of Science, St.
Stephen’s Green, Dublin, 1867 and 1868.
1869, p. 109.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1871
(1828-1882)
“_On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree._”
_Planted by William Shakespeare; felled by the Rev. F. Gastrell._
This tree, here fall’n, no common birth or death
Shared with its kind. The world’s enfranchised son,
Who found the trees of Life and Knowledge one,
Here set it, frailer than his laurel-wreath.
Shall not the wretch whose hand it fell beneath
Rank also singly—the supreme unhung?
Lo! Sheppard, Turpin, pleading with black tongue,
This viler thief’s unsuffocated breath!
We’ll search thy glossary, Shakespeare! whence almost,
And whence alone, some name shall be reveal’d
For this deaf drudge, to whom no length of years
Sufficed to catch the music of the spheres;
Whose soul is carrion now,—too mean to yield
Some Starveling’s ninth allotment of a ghost.
_Academy_, 15 Feb. 1871.[185:1] _Collected Works._ Ed.
W. M. Rossetti. 1886, vol. i. p. 285.
FOOTNOTES:
[185:1] The last line in the earlier version—that printed in the
_Academy_—has “tailor’s” for “Starveling’s.” Rossetti made the
alteration from fear of offending sensitive members of the tailoring
profession.
BAYARD TAYLOR, 1872
(1825-1878)
“_Shakespeare’s Statue, Central Park, New York, 23 May 1872._”
Here, in his right, he stands!
No breadth of earth-dividing seas can bar
The breeze of morning, or the morning star,
From visiting our lands:
His wit the breeze, his wisdom as the star,
Shone where our earliest life was set, and blew
To freshen hope and plan
In brains American,—
To urge, resist, encourage, and subdue!
He came, a household ghost we could not ban:
He sat, on winter nights, by cabin fires;
His summer fairies linked their hands
Along our yellow sands;
He preached within the shadow of our spires;
And when the certain Fate drew nigh, to cleave
The birth-cord, and a separate being leave,
He, in our ranks of patient-hearted men,
Wrought with the boundless forces of his fame,
Victorious, and became
The Master of our thought, the land’s first Citizen!
If, here, his image seem
Of softer scenes and grayer skies to dream,
Thatched cot and rustic tavern, ivied hall,
The cuckoo’s April call
And cowslip-meads beside the Avon stream,
He shall not fail that other home to find
We could not leave behind!
The forms of Passion, which his fancy drew,
In us their ancient likenesses beget:
So, from our lives for ever born anew,
He stands amid his own creations yet!
Here comes lean Cassius, of conventions tired;
Here, in his coach, luxurious Antony
Beside his Egypt, still of men admired;
And Brutus plans some purer liberty!
A thousand Shylocks, Jew and Christian, pass;
A hundred Hamlets, by their times betrayed;
And sweet Anne Page comes tripping o’er the grass,
And awkward Falstaff pants beneath the shade.
Here toss upon the wanton summer wind
The locks of Rosalind;
Here some gay glove the damned spot conceals
Which Lady Macbeth feels:
His ease here smiling smooth Iago takes,
And outcast Lear gives passage to his woe,
And here some foiled Reformer sadly breaks
His wand of Prospero!
In liveried splendour, side by side,
Nick Bottom and Titania ride,
And Portia, flushed with cheers of men,
Disdains dear faithful Imogen;
And Puck beside the form of Morse,
Stops on his forty-minute course;
And Ariel from his swinging bough
A blossom casts on Bryant’s brow,
Until, as summoned from his brooding brain,
He sees his children all again,
In us, as on our lips, each fresh, immortal strain!
_Poetical Works._ Stanzas II.-III. 1880, p. 224.
WILLIAM MINTO, 1874
(1845-1893)
It is a favourite way with some eulogists of Shakespeare to deny him
all individuality whatsoever. He was not one man, they say, but an
epitome of all men. His mind, says Hazlitt, “had no one peculiar bias
or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other
man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist
that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but he was all
that others were or that they could become.” Against such a degradation
of Shakespeare’s character, or of any man’s character, it is our duty
to protest. On trying to make Shakespeare more than human, the reckless
panegyrist makes him considerably less than human: instead of the man
whose prudence made him rich, whose affectionate nature made him loved
almost to idolatry, and whose genius has been the wonder of the world,
we are presented with plasticity in the abstract, an object not more
interesting than a quarry of potter’s clay.
“William Shakespeare, his Life and Character.”
_Characteristics of English Poets._ 1874,
p. 350.
See the passage from Hazlitt’s _Lectures on the English Poets_,
p. 135.
EDWARD DOWDEN, 1875
(_b._ 1843)
There are certain problems which Shakespeare at once pronounces
insoluble. He does not, like Milton, propose to give any account of
the origin of evil. He does not, like Dante, pursue the soul of man
through circles of unending torture, or spheres made radiant by the
eternal presence of God. Satan, in Shakespeare’s poems, does not come
voyaging on gigantic vans across Chaos to find the earth. No great
deliverer of mankind descends from the heavens. Here, upon the earth,
evil _is_—such was Shakespeare’s declaration in the most emphatic
accent. Iago actually exists. There is also in the earth a sacred
passion of deliverance, a pure redeeming ardour. Cordelia exists. This
Shakespeare can tell for certain. But how Iago can be, and why Cordelia
lies strangled across the breast of Lear—are these questions which
you go on to ask? Something has been already said of the severity of
Shakespeare. It is a portion of his severity to decline all answers
to such questions as these. Is ignorance painful? Well, then, it is
painful. Little solutions of your large difficulties can readily be
obtained from priest or _philosopher_. Shakespeare prefers to let you
remain in the solemn presence of a mystery. He does not invite you into
his little church or his little library brilliantly illuminated by
philosophical or theological rushlights. You remain in the darkness.
But you remain in the vital air. And the great night is overhead.
_Shakspere: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art._
1875, p. 226.
GEORGE MEREDITH, 1877
(_b._ 1828)
Shakespeare is a well-spring of characters which are saturated with the
comic spirit; with more of what we will call blood-life than is to be
found anywhere out of Shakespeare; and they are of this world, but they
are of the world enlarged to our embrace by imagination, and by great
poetic imagination. They are, as it were—I put it to suit my present
comparison—creatures of the woods and wilds, not in walled towns, not
grouped and toned to pursue a comic exhibition of the narrower world of
society. Jaques, Falstaff and his regiment, the varied troop of clowns,
Malvolio, Sir Hugh Evans and Fluellen—marvellous Welshmen!—Benedict
[_sic_] and Beatrice, Dogberry, and the rest, are subjects of a special
study in the poetically comic.
_On the Idea of Comedy and of the Uses of the Comic
Spirit._ A lecture delivered at the London
Institution, 1 Feb. 1877. Published 1897.
FREDERICK JAMES FURNIVALL, 1877
(_b._ 1825)
Altogether “a manly man” (as Chaucer says) this Shakespeare, strong,
tender, humourful, sensitive, impressionable, the truest friend,
the foe of none but narrow minds and base. And as we track his work
from the lightness and fun of its rise, through the fairy fancy, the
youthful passion, the rich imaginings, the ardent patriotism, the
brilliant sunshine, of his first and second times, through the tender
affection of his Sonnets, the whirlwind of passions in his Tragedies,
and then to the lovely sunset of his latest plays, what can we do but
bless his name, and be thankful that he came to be a delight, a lift
and strength, to us and our children’s children to all time—a bond that
shall last for ever between all English-speaking, English-reading men,
the members of that great Teutonic brotherhood which shall yet long
lead the world in the fight for freedom and for truth!
Introduction to _The Leopold Shakspere_.
1877, p. cxvi.
WALTER HORATIO PATER, 1878
(1839-1894)
As happens with every true dramatist, Shakespeare is for the most
part hidden behind the persons of his creation. Yet there are certain
of his characters in which we feel that there is something of
self-portraiture. And it is not so much in his grander, more subtle and
ingenious creations that we feel this—in “Hamlet” and “King Lear”—as
in those slighter and more spontaneously developed figures, who, while
far from playing principal parts, are yet distinguished by a peculiar
happiness and delicate ease in the drawing of them; figures which
possess, above all, that winning attractiveness which there is no man
but would willingly exercise, and which resemble those works of art
which, though not meant to be very great or imposing, are yet wrought
of the choicest material. Mercutio, in “Romeo and Juliet,” belongs to
this group of Shakespeare’s characters—versatile, mercurial people,
such as make good actors, and in whom the
“Nimble spirits of the arteries,”
the finer but still merely animal elements of great wit, predominate.
A careful delineation of minor yet expressive traits seems to mark
them out as the characters of his predilection; and it is hard not
to identify him with these more than with others. Biron, in “Love’s
Labour’s Lost,” is perhaps the most striking member of this group.
In this character, which is never quite in touch, never quite on a
perfect level of understanding, with the other persons of the play, we
see, perhaps, a reflex of Shakespeare himself, when he has just become
able to stand aside from and estimate the first period of his poetry.
“Love’s Labour’s Lost.” _Appreciations with an
Essay on Style._ 1889, pp. 174-5.
See also “Shakspere’s English Kings,” _ib._, pp. 201-2.
MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1879
(1822-1888)
Let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentence about Shakespeare, which
I met with by accident not long ago in the _Correspondant_, a French
review which not a dozen English people, I suppose, look at. The writer
is praising Shakespeare’s prose. “With Shakespeare,” he says, “prose
comes in whenever the subject, being more familiar, is unsuited to the
majestic English iambic.” And he goes on: “Shakespeare is the king of
poetic rhythm and style, as well as the king of the realm of thought;
along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare has succeeded in giving us
the most varied, the most harmonious verse which has ever sounded upon
the human ear since the verse of the Greeks.” M. Henry Cochin, the
writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitude for it; it would not
be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a single sentence, more justly. And
when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thus of Shakespeare, and when
Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was so much to repel Goethe rather
than to attract him, that “nothing has ever been done so entirely in
the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_,” and that “Milton is
in very truth a poet whom we must treat with all reverence,” then we
understand what constitutes a European recognition of poets and poetry
as contradistinguished from a merely national recognition, and that
in favour both of Milton and of Shakespeare the judgment of the high
court of appeal has finally gone.
_Essays in Criticism._ Second Series: Wordsworth.
1888, pp. 129-31. Reprinted from Preface to
_The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited
by Matthew Arnold. 1879.
For a comment on Shakespeare’s double faculty of interpreting
the physiognomy and movement of the outward world, and the
ideas and laws of man’s moral and spiritual nature, see _Essays
in Criticism_, 1865, p. 108.
ANONYMOUS ?_c._ 1880
So much has been written, so much spoken about Shakespeare, that it
would seem a needless, almost a presumptuous superfluity to say more,
and yet from another point of view, the man is as strange to us to-day
as though we had never heard his name. Johnson and Pope, Warburton,
Steevens, Malone and Theobald, Chalmers, Dyce, and a host of foreign
exegetes, have edited and annotated, emendated and obelised; but the
figure of Shakespeare is clothed in mist, and whilst we laugh and
wonder at the vanity and versatility of a Cicero, and stroll lovingly
with a Horace about his Sabine farm, dead both of them two millennia,
we still grope about in the dark for the meaning, the character,
and the inner life of our wondrous poet. Like the ghost in Hamlet,
he arose, and, having uttered his pregnant message, disappeared,
unregarded at the time but by a few, and still unrealised by the many.
. . . . . . .
There is a grandeur about the poets of the world, and a reward for
those that study them aright. Amid the hurricane of battle and the
crash of empires, the calm pulse of life and the glories of the drama
remain the same. Men are inclined to gaze upon the outward symbols of
existence as though they were primary causes, when they are only the
emblems of a deeper power. We have had our Constitution-builders, but
where are they? Our Tamerlanes and our Attilas, but whither are they
departed? The intellect that revolves a kingdom pales before a heart
that speaks to the soul of man. All nations turn their faces toward
a Hamlet, a Lear, or a Catherine of Aragon. The influence of these
through the genius of the poet will spread and yield abundant fruit,
when the havoc of a Cannæ or an Austerlitz is but dimly discernible in
the skeleton of history.
The study of our finer literature is therefore the study of the soul;
and the progress made will be upward and inward, and the result
a purifying of the ideals and a chastening of the chords of man.
Shakespeare gives us all this, he is ennobling as well as instructive;
without paying homage in a measure to his memory by the maintenance of
a certain form of excellence, no poet since his time has succeeded in
being appreciated as great. For they all bear his mark, and although
much below him, all dramatic writers since his day are modelled upon
his plan.
Manuscript Note inserted before fly-leaf of copy
of the 1602 quarto of _Merry Wives of
Windsor_, now in Rowfant Library. Printed in
_A Catalogue of the Printed Books, etc.,
collected since 1886 by the late Frederick
Locker Lampson_. 1900, pp. 28-30.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1880
(_b._ 1837)
In his first stage Shakespeare had dropped his plummet no deeper into
the sea of the spirit of man than Marlowe had sounded before him; and
in the channel of simple emotion no poet could cast surer line with
steadier hand than he. Further down in the dark and fiery depths of
human pain and mortal passion no soul could search than his who first
rendered into speech the aspirations and the agonies of a ruined and
revolted spirit. And until Shakespeare found in himself the strength of
eyesight to read, and the cunning of handiwork to render those wider
diversities of emotion and those further complexities of character
which lay outside the range of Marlowe, he certainly cannot be said
to have outrun the winged feet, outstripped the fiery flight of his
forerunner. In the heaven of our tragic song, the first-born star on
the forehead of its herald god was not outshone till the full midsummer
meridian of that greater godhead before whom he was sent to prepare
a pathway for the sun. Through all the forenoon of our triumphant
day, till the utter consummation and ultimate ascension of dramatic
poetry incarnate and transfigured in the master-singer of the world,
the quality of his tragedy was as that of Marlowe’s, broad, single,
and intense; large of hand, voluble of tongue, direct of purpose.
With the dawn of its latter epoch a new power comes upon it, to find
clothing and expression in new forms of speech and after a new style.
The language has put off its foreign decorations of lyric and elegiac
ornament; it has found already its infinite gain in the loss of those
sweet superfluous graces which encumbered the march and enchained the
utterance of its childhood. The figures which it invests are now no
more types of a single passion, the incarnations of a single thought.
They now demand a scrutiny which tests the power of a mind and tries
the value of a judgment; they appeal to something more than the instant
apprehension which sufficed to respond to the immediate claim of those
that went before them. Romeo and Juliet were simply lovers, and their
names bring back to us no further thought than of their love and the
lovely sorrow of its end; Antony and Cleopatra shall be before all
things lovers, but the thought of their love and its triumphant tragedy
shall recall other things beyond number—all the forces and all the
fortunes of mankind, all the chance and all the consequence that waited
on their imperial passion, all the infinite variety of qualities and
powers wrought together and welded into the frame and composition of
that love which shook from end to end all nations and kingdoms of the
earth.
_A Study of Shakespeare._ 1880, pp. 77-9.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1882
(_b._ 1837)
“_William Shakespeare._”
Not if men’s tongues and angels’ all in one
Spake, might the word be said that might speak thee.
Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea the sea,
What power is in them all to praise the sun?
His praise is this,—he can be praised of none.
Man, woman, child, praise God for him; but he
Exults not to be worshipped, but to be.
He is; and, being, beholds his work well done.
All joy, all glory, all sorrow, all strength, all mirth,
Are his: without him, day were night on earth.
Time knows not his from time’s own period.
All lutes, all harps, all viols, all flutes, all lyres,
Fall dumb before him ere one string suspires.
All stars are angels; but the sun is God.
_Tristram of Lyonesse and other Poems._
1882, p. 280.
See also Mr. Swinburne’s _An Autumn Vision, October 31, 1889_.
GEORGE MEREDITH, 1883
(_b._ 1828)
“_The Spirit of Shakespeare._”
Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsoured
He knew thy sons. He probed from hell to hell
Of human passions, but of love deflowered
His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.
Thence came the honeyed corner of his lips,
The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails
Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,
Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,
Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laugh
We feel is thine: broad as ten thousand beeves
At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff
From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves
Whirl, if they have no recompense—they enforced
To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.
How smiles he at a generation ranked
In gloomy noddings over life! They pass.
Not he to feed upon a breast unthanked,
Or eye a beauteous face in a cracked glass.
But he can spy that little twist of brain
Which moved some mighty leader of the blind,
Unwitting ’twas the goad of personal pain,
To view in curst eclipse our Mother’s mind,
And show us of some rigid harridan
The wretched bondman till the end of time.
O lived the Master now to paint us Man,
That little twist of brain would ring a chime
Of whence it came and what it caused, to start
Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart.
_Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth._
1883, pp. 161-2.
ROBERT BROWNING, 1884
(1812-1889)
“_The Names._”
Shakespeare!—to such name’s sounding, what succeeds
Fitly as a silence? Falter forth the spell,—
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads
With his soul only: if from lips it fell,
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,
Would own, “Thou didst create us!” Nought impedes
We voice the other name, man’s most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as below—above—
Shakespeare’s creation rises: one remove
Though dread—this finite from that infinite.
_Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert
Browning._ Cambridge edition, U.S.A.
1895.
Browning wrote this sonnet as a contribution to the
_Shakespearean Show-Book_ issued at the “Shakespearean Show”
held in the Albert Hall, London, 29-31 May 1884, in aid of the
Hospital for Women in Fulham Road. The sonnet is dated 12 March
1884.
WILLIAM WETMORE STORY, 1886
(_b._ 1819)
“_The Mighty Makers._”
Whose are those forms august that, in the press
And busy blames and praises of to-day,
Stand so serene above life’s fierce affray
With ever youthful strength and loveliness?
Those are the mighty makers, whom no stress
Of time can shame, nor fashion sweep away,
Whom Art begot on Nature in the play
Of healthy passion, scorning base excess.
Rising perchance in mists, and half obscure
When up the horizon of their age they came,
Brighter with years they shine in steadier light,
Great constellations that will aye endure,
Though myriad meteors of ephemeral fame
Across them flash, to vanish into night.
Such was our Chaucer in the early prime
Of English verse, who held to Nature’s hand
And walked serenely through its morning land,
Gladsome and hale, brushing its dewy rime.
And such was Shakespeare, whose strong soul could climb
Steeps of sheer terror, sound the ocean grand
Of passions deep, or over Fancy’s strand
Trip with his fairies, keeping step and time.
His too the power to laugh out full and clear,
With unembittered joyance, and to move
Along the silent, shadowy paths of love
As tenderly as Dante, whose austere
Stern spirit through the worlds below, above,
Unsmiling strode, to tell their tidings here.
_Poems._ 1886, vol. ii. pp. 273-4.
THOMAS SPENCER BAYNES, 1886
(1823-1887)
Shakespeare’s work alone can be said to possess the organic strength
and infinite variety, the throbbing fulness, vital complexity, and
breathing truth of Nature herself. In points of artistic resource and
technical ability—such as copious and expressive diction, freshness and
pregnancy of verbal combination, richly modulated verse, and structural
skill in the handling of incident and action—Shakespeare’s supremacy
is indeed sufficiently assured. But, after all, it is of course in the
spirit and substance of his work, his power of piercing to the hidden
centres of character, of touching the deepest springs of impulse and
passion, out of which are the issues of life, and of evolving those
issues dramatically with a flawless strength, subtlety, and truth,
which raises him so immensely above and beyond not only the best of
the playwrights who went before him, but the whole line of illustrious
dramatists that came after him. It is Shakespeare’s unique distinction
that he has an absolute command over all the complexities of thought
and feeling that prompt to action and bring out the dividing lines of
character. He sweeps with the hand of a master the whole gamut of human
experience, from the lowest note to the very top of its compass, from
the sportive childish treble of Mamilius, and the pleading boyish tones
of Prince Arthur, up to the spectre-haunted terrors of Macbeth, the
tropical passion of Othello, the agonised sense and tortured spirit
of Hamlet, the sustained elemental grandeur, the Titanic force, the
utterly tragical pathos of Lear.
_Encyclopædia Britannica._ 9th edition. Art.
“Shakespeare.” Vol. xxi. 1886, p. 763.
GERALD MASSEY, 1888
(_b._ 1828)
Our Prince of Peace in glory hath gone,
With no Spear shaken, no Sword drawn,
No Cannon fired, no flag unfurled,
To make his conquest of the World.
For him no Martyr-fires have blazed,
No limbs been racked, no scaffolds raised;
For him no life was ever shed,
To make the Victor’s pathway red.
And for all time he wears the Crown
Of lasting, limitless renown:
He reigns, whatever Monarchs fall;
His Throne is in the heart of all.
_The Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets._ 1888.
WALT WHITMAN, 1890
(1819-1892)
The inward and outward characteristics of Shakespeare are his vast and
rich variety of persons and themes, with his wondrous delineation of
each and all—not only limitless funds of verbal and pictorial resource,
but great excess, superfœtation—mannerism, like a fine aristocratic
perfume, holding a touch of musk (Euphues, his mark)—with boundless
sumptuousness and adornment, real velvet and gems, not shoddy nor
paste—but a good deal of bombast and fustian—(certainly some terrific
mouthing in Shakespeare!).
Superb and inimitable as all is, it is mostly an objective and
physiological kind of power and beauty the soul finds in Shakespeare—a
style supremely grand of the sort, but in my opinion stopping short of
the grandest sort, at any rate for fulfilling and satisfying modern
and scientific and democratic American purposes. Think, not of growths
as forests primeval, or Yellowstone geysers, or Colorado ravines, but
of costly marble palaces, and palace rooms, and the noblest fixings
and furniture, and noble owners and occupants to correspond—think of
carefully built gardens from the beautiful but sophisticated gardening
art at its best, with walks and bowers and artificial lakes, and
appropriate statue groups, and the finest cultivated roses and lilies
and japonicas in plenty—and you have the tally of Shakespeare. The
low characters, mechanics, even the loyal henchmen—all in themselves
nothing—serve as capital foils to the aristocracy. The comedies
(exquisite as they certainly are), bringing in admirably portrayed
common characters, have the unmistakable hue of plays, portraits, made
for the divertisement only of the élite of the castle, and from its
point of view. The comedies are altogether non-acceptable to America
and Democracy.
But to the deepest soul, it seems a shame to pick and choose from the
riches Shakespeare has left us—to criticise his infinitely royal,
multiform quality—to gauge, with optic glasses, the dazzle of his
sun-like beams.
From _Poet-Lore_, July 1890. _Complete Prose Works._
Boston, Mass., 1898, p. 394.
Walt Whitman, when he says that “the comedies are altogether
non-acceptable to America and Democracy,” states rather what
he considers ought to be, than what actually is. In his essay,
“Poetry To-day in America,” he says of Shakespeare, “In
portraying mediæval European lords and barons, the arrogant
poet, so dear to the inmost human heart (pride! pride! dearest,
perhaps, of all—touching us, too, of the States closest of
all—closer than love), he stands alone, and I do not wonder he
so witches the world.”—_Prose Works_, Boston, 1898, p. 283.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 1891
(_b._ 1844)
“_The Twenty-Third of April._”
A little English earth and breathèd air
Made Shakespeare the divine; so is his verse
The broidered soil of every blossom fair;
So doth his song all sweet bird-songs rehearse.
But tell me, then, what wondrous stuff did fashion
That part of him which took those wilding flights
Among imagined worlds; whence the white passion
That burned three centuries through the days and nights!
Not heaven’s four winds could make, nor round the earth,
The soul wherefrom the soul of Hamlet flamed;
Nor anything of merely mortal birth
Could lighten as when Shakespeare’s name is named.
How was his body bred we know full well,
But that high soul’s engendering who may tell!
“Five Books of Song.” IV. _The Two Worlds._
1894, p. 154.
MATHILDE BLIND, _c._ 1894
(1841-1896)
“_Shakespeare._”
Yearning to know herself for all she was,
Her passionate clash of warring good and ill,
Her new life ever ground in Death’s old mill,
With every delicate detail and _en masse_,—
Blind Nature strove. Lo, then it came to pass,
That Time, to work out her unconscious will,
Once wrought the mind which she had groped to fill,
And she beheld herself as in a glass.
The world of men, unrolled before our sight,
Showed like a map, where stream and waterfall,
And village-cradling vale and cloud-capped height
Stand faithfully recorded, great and small,
For Shakespeare was, and at his touch with light
Impartial as the sun’s, revealed the All.
“Shakespeare Sonnets, VII.” _Poetical Works._ Ed.
Arthur Symons. 1900, p. 443.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, BEFORE 1892
(1809-1892)
There are three repartees in Shakespeare which always bring tears to my
eyes from their simplicity.
One is in _King Lear_, when Lear says to Cordelia, “So young and so
untender,” and Cordelia lovingly answers, “So young, my lord, and
true.” And in _The Winter’s Tale_, when Florizel takes Perdita’s hand
to lead her to the dance, and says, “So turtles pair that never mean
to part,” and the little Perdita answers, giving her hand to Florizel,
”I’ll swear for ’em.” And in _Cymbeline_, when Imogen in tender rebuke
says to her husband:
“Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock; and now,
Throw me again!”
and Posthumus does not ask forgiveness, but answers, kissing her:
“Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.”
_Life and Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson._ Ed.
Hallam, Lord Tennyson. 1898, vol. iv. pp.
39 _et seq._
See also _ib._, pp. 39-43.
SIDNEY LEE, 1899
(_b._ 1859)
Shakespeare’s mind, as Hazlitt suggested, contained within itself the
germs of all faculty and feeling. He knew intuitively how every faculty
and feeling would develop in any conceivable change of fortune. Men
and women—good or bad, old or young, wise or foolish, merry or sad,
rich or poor—yielded their secrets to him, and his genius enabled him
to give being in his pages to all the shapes of humanity that present
themselves on the highway of life. Each of his characters gives voice
to thought or passion with an individuality and a naturalness that
rouse in the intelligent playgoer and reader the illusion that they are
overhearing men and women speak unpremeditatingly among themselves,
rather than that they are reading written speeches or hearing written
speeches recited. The more closely the words are studied, the completer
the illusion grows. Creatures of the imagination—fairies, ghosts,
witches—are delineated with a like potency, and the reader or spectator
feels instinctively that these supernatural entities could not speak,
feel, or act otherwise than Shakespeare represents them. The creative
power of poetry was never manifested to such effect as in the corporeal
semblances in which Shakespeare clad the spirits of the air.
So mighty a faculty sets at nought the common limitations of
nationality, and in every quarter of the globe to which civilised life
has penetrated, Shakespeare’s power is recognised. All the world over,
language is applied to his creations that ordinarily applies to beings
of flesh and blood. Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth, Falstaff and
Shylock, Brutus and Romeo, Ariel and Caliban are studied in almost
every civilised tongue as if they were historic personalities, and the
chief of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are rooted
in the speech of civilised humanity. To Shakespeare the intellect of
the world, speaking in divers accents, applies with one accord his own
words: “How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in apprehension
how like a god!”
_Life of William Shakespeare._ 1899, chap. xxi.
PART II
“GOOD SENTENCES”
Good sentences.
_Merchant of Venice_, I. ii. 11.
* * * * *
Brief, short, quick, snap.
_Merry Wives_, IV. v. 2.
* * * * *
In the quick forge and working-house of thought.
_Henry V._ V. prol. 23.
* * * * *
A good swift simile.
_Taming of the Shrew_, V. ii. 54.
“GOOD SENTENCES”
Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
’Cause our encomions will but blast thy bays,
Which envy could not, that thou didst so well,
Let thine own histories prove thy chronicle.
ANONYMOUS. Epig. 25. _Witts Recreations._
1640, printed 1639.
* * * * *
To-day we bring old gather’d herbs, ’tis true,
But such as in sweet Shakespeare’s garden grew.
And all his plants immortal you esteem,
Your mouths are never out of taste with him.
JOHN CROWNE (_d._ 1703?). Prologue to _Henry the
Sixth, the First Part_. Adapted from
Shakespeare’s _1 Henry VI._ 1681. Sig. A2.
* * * * *
Shakespeare (whom you and every playhouse bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing’d his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). _Imitations of Horace._
Bk. II. ch. i. ll. 69-72. 1737.
* * * * *
Thrice happy! could we catch great Shakespeare’s art,
To trace the deep recesses of the heart;
His simple plain sublime, to which is given
To strike the soul with darted flame from heaven.
JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748). Prologue to _Tancred
and Sigismundâ_. 1745. Sig. A4.
* * * * *
Let others seek a monumental fame,
And leave for one short age a pompous name;
Thou dost not e’en this little tomb require,
Shakespeare can only with the world expire.
Epitaph on a Tombstone of Shakespeare. _Gentleman’s
Magazine._ June 1767, vol. xxvii. p. 324.
* * * * *
Shakespeare came out of Nature’s hand like Pallas out of Jove’s head,
at full growth and mature.
GEORGE COLMAN (1733-1794), before 1767.
George Colman, who advocated the theory that Shakespeare had
some classic learning, commenting in the Appendix to the second
edition of his translation of the comedies of Terence (1768)
on Richard Farmer’s _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_
(1767), which maintains that Shakespeare got his knowledge of
the ancients from translations, says: “Mr. Farmer closes these
general testimonies of Shakespeare’s having been only indebted
to Nature, by saying, ‘He came out of her hand, _as some one
else expresses it_, like Pallas out of Jove’s head, at full
growth and mature.’ It is whimsical enough, that this _some
one else_, whose expression is here quoted to countenance the
general notion of Shakespeare’s want of literature, should be
no other than myself. Mr. Farmer does not choose to mention
where he met with this expression of _some one else_; and _some
one else_ does not choose to mention where he dropped it.”
Colman’s “Appendix” was printed in the “Variorum” editions of
Shakespeare, and that of 1785 gave an anonymous note, stating
that Young “in his _Conjectures on Original Composition_ (vol.
v. p. 100, ed. 1773) has the following sentence: ‘An adult
genius comes out of Nature’s hands, as Pallas out of Jove’s
head, at full growth and mature.’ Shakespeare’s genius was
of this kind.” Young’s _Conjectures_ appeared in 1759, so
perhaps Colman borrowed, though, as he says (_Prose on Several
Occasions_, 1787, ii. p. 186), “The thought is obvious, and
might, without improbability, occur to different writers.” At
any rate, his form of the thought is better than Young’s, so he
has here been given the credit for it.
* * * * *
To mark her Shakespeare’s worth, and Britain’s love,
Let Pope design, and Burlington approve:
Superfluous care! when distant times shall view
This tomb grown old—his works shall still be new.
RICHARD GRAVES (1715-1804). “On erecting a
Monument to Shakespeare under the
direction of Mr. Pope and Lord
Burlington.” _Euphrosyne_, 1776.
This refers to the monument erected by public subscription in
Westminster Abbey in 1741. The design was by William Kent, and
the statue of Shakespeare, which was part of it, was executed
by Peter Scheemachers.
* * * * *
Our modern tragedies, hundreds of them do not contain a good line; nor
are they a jot the better, because Shakespeare, who was superior to all
mankind, wrote some whole plays that are as bad as any of our present
writers’.
HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797). Letter to Sir Horace
Mann, Oct. 8, 1778. _Letters._ Ed. Peter
Cunningham, 1858, vol. vii. p. 135.
* * * * *
Write like Shakespeare, and laugh at the critics.
DANIEL WEBB (1719?-1798). _Literary Amusements_,
1787, p. 22.
* * * * *
Shakespeare, . . .
Lord of the mighty spell: around him press
Spirits and fairy forms. He, ruling wide
His visionary world, bids terror fill
The shivering breast, or softer pity thrill
E’en to the inmost heart.
W. L. BOWLES (1762-1850). “Monody on the
Death of Dr. Warton,” 1801. _Poems_,
1803, vol. ii. pp. 141-2.
* * * * *
Is there no bard of heavenly power possess’d,
To thrill, to rouse, to animate the breast?
Like Shakespeare o’er the sacred mind to sway,
And call each wayward passion to obey?
F. D. HEMANS (1793-1835). “England and
Spain,” 1807.
* * * * *
Our love of Shakespeare, therefore, is not a _monomania_ or solitary
and unaccountable infatuation; but is merely the natural love which
all men bear to those forms of excellence that are accommodated to
their peculiar character, temperament, and situation; and which will
always return, and assert its power over their affections, long after
authority has lost its reverence, fashions been antiquated, and
artificial tastes passed away.
FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY (1773-1850). _Edinburgh
Review_, Aug. 1811, vol. xviii. p. 285.
* * * * *
Shakespeare had the inward clothing of a fine mind; the outward
covering of solid reading, of critical observation, and the richest
eloquence; and compared with these, what are the trappings of the
schools?
GEORGE DYER (1755-1841). “The Relation of
Poetry to the Arts and Sciences,” in
_The Reflector_, 1811. Reprinted in
_Poetics_, 1812, ii. p. 19.
* * * * *
Shakespeare has been accused of profaneness. I for my part have
acquired from perusal of him, a habit of looking into my own heart,
and am confident that Shakespeare is an author of all others the most
calculated to make his readers better as well as wiser.
S. T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834). “Outline of an introductory
Lecture on Shakespeare,” 1812.
* * * * *
Let no man blame his son for learning history from Shakespeare.
_Id._ _Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton._
Ed. J. P. Collier, p. 19.
* * * * *
The greatest genius that, perhaps, human nature has yet produced, our
_myriad-minded_[232:1] Shakespeare.
_Id._ _Biographia Literaria_, 1817, chap. xv.
FOOTNOTES:
[232:1] Coleridge says that he borrowed this phrase from a Greek monk,
who applied it to a Patriarch of Constantinople.
* * * * *
The great, ever-living, dead man.
_Ibid._
* * * * *
Humanity’s divinest son,
That sprightliest, gravest, wisest, kindest one—
Shakespeare.
LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859). _Thoughts of the Avon
on 28 Sept. 1817._
* * * * *
His plays alone are properly expressions of the passions, not
descriptions of them. His characters are real beings of flesh and
blood; they speak like men, not like authors.
WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). “On Shakespeare
and Milton,” _Lectures on the English
Poets_, 1818, p. 98.
* * * * *
In trying to recollect any other author, one sometimes stumbles, in
case of failure, on a word as good. In Shakespeare, any other word but
the true one, is sure to be wrong.[234:1]
_Ibid._, p. 108.
FOOTNOTES:
[234:1] “These remarks,” Hazlitt adds, “are strictly applicable only
to the impassioned parts of Shakespeare’s language, which flowed from
the warmth and originality of his imagination, and were his own. The
language used for prose conversation and ordinary business is sometimes
technical, and involved in the affectation of the time.”
* * * * *
Shakespeare was the least of a coxcomb of any one that ever lived, and
much of a gentleman.
_Ibid._, p. 111.
* * * * *
. . . Divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fills Avon and the world with light,
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality.
P. B. SHELLEY (1792-1822). “Lines written among
the Euganean Hills,” October 1818.
* * * * *
Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821). Letter to George and
Georgiana Keats, 18 Feb. 1819.
* * * * *
If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read
Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we
may study his commentators.
WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830). _Table Talk_, 1821,
vol. i. p. 177.
* * * * *
. . . Shakespeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erected an empire
Not to be shaken by time, nor e’er by another divided.
ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843). _A Vision of
Judgment_, 1821, ix. ll. 17, 18.
* * * * *
I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most
extraordinary of writers.
LORD BYRON (1788-1824). Letter to Murray,
14 July 1821. Moore’s _Life of
Byron_.
* * * * *
Schiller has the material sublime: to produce an effect, he sets you
a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the
flames, or locks up a father in an old tower. But Shakespeare drops a
handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow.
S. T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Table Talk_,
29 Dec. 1822.
* * * * *
An immortal man,—
Nature’s chief darling, and illustrious mate,
Destined to foil old Death’s oblivious plan,
And shine untarnish’d by the fogs of Fate,
Time’s famous rival till the final date!
THOMAS HOOD (1799-1845). _The Plea of the
Midsummer Fairies_, cv. 1827, p. 53.
* * * * *
Who knows or can figure what the Man Shakespeare was, by the first, by
the twentieth, perusal of his works? He is a Voice coming to us from
the Land of Melody: his old brick dwelling-place, in the mere earthly
burgh of Stratford-on-Avon, offers us the most inexplicable enigma.
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). _Critical and Miscellaneous
Essays_, “Goethe.” Reprinted from _Foreign Review_,
No. 3, 1828.
* * * * *
Students of poetry admire Shakespeare in their tenth year; but go on
admiring him more and more, understanding him more and more, till their
threescore-and-tenth.
_Ibid._
* * * * *
No one can understand Shakespeare’s superiority fully until he has
ascertained, by comparison, all that which he possessed in common with
several other great dramatists of his age, and has then calculated the
surplus which is entirely Shakespeare’s own.
S. T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Table Talk_,
12 May 1830.
* * * * *
His was the wizard spell,
The spirit to enchain:
His grasp o’er nature fell,
Creation own’d his reign.
“Poetical Portraits” by A Modern Pythagorean in
_Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. xxvii.
1830, p. 632.
* * * * *
It is not too much to say, that the great plays of Shakespeare would
lose less by being deprived of all the passages which are commonly
called the fine passages, than those passages lose by being read
separately from the play. This is, perhaps, the highest praise which
can be given to a dramatist.
LORD MACAULAY (1800-1859). _Edinburgh Review_,
June 1831, vol. liii. pp. 567-8.
* * * * *
I believe Shakespeare was not a whit more intelligible in his own day
than he is now to an educated man, except for a few local allusions
of no consequence. And I said, he is of no age—nor, I may add, of
any religion, or party, or profession. The body and substance of his
works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind: his
observation and reading, which were considerable, supplied him with the
drapery of his figures.
S. T. COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Table Talk_,
15 March 1834.
* * * * *
I would be willing to live only as long as Shakespeare were the mirror
to Nature.
_Id._, _Letters_, etc., 1836, i. 196.
* * * * *
Than Shakespeare and Petrarch pray who are more living?
Whose words more delight us? whose touches more _touch_?
LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859). “Blue-stocking Revels;
or, the Feast of the Violets.” Canto III.
_Monthly Repository_, 1837.
* * * * *
In the gravest sense it may be affirmed of Shakespeare, that he is
among the modern luxuries of life.
T. DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). “Shakespeare,”
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 7th ed.,
1842. Written 1838.
* * * * *
Produce us from any drama of Shakespeare one of those leading passages
that all men have by heart, and show us any eminent defect in the very
sinews of the thought. It is impossible; defects there may be, but they
will always be found irrelevant to the main central thought, or to its
expression.
_Id._ “Pope,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 7th ed.,
1842. Written 1839.
* * * * *
Shakespeare, a wool-comber, poacher, or whatever else at Stratford in
Warwickshire, who happened to write books! The finest human figure, as
I apprehend, that Nature has hitherto seen fit to make of our widely
diffused Teutonic clay. Saxon, Norman, Celt or Sarmat, I find no human
soul so beautiful, these fifteen hundred known years;—our supreme
modern European man.
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). “Geschichte der
Teutschen Sippschaft,” translated by
Carlyle in _Chartism_, 1839. _Critical
and Miscellaneous Essays._
* * * * *
It is to be doubted whether even Shakespeare could have told a story
like Homer, owing to that incessant activity and superfœtation of
thought, a little less of which might be occasionally desired even in
his plays;—if it were possible, once possessing anything of his, to
wish it away.
LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859). “What is Poetry?”
_Imagination and Fancy_, 1844. Ed.
A. S. Cook, 1893, p. 65.
* * * * *
Now, literature, philosophy, and thought are Shakespearised. His mind
is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see.
R. W. EMERSON (1803-1882). “Representative
Men.” _Shakespeare; or the Poet_, 1844.
* * * * *
Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world: O eyes sublime,
With tears and laughter for all time!
E. B. BROWNING (1809-1861). _A Vision of Poets_,
1844.
* * * * *
A rib of Shakespeare would have made a Milton: the same portion of
Milton, all poets born ever since.
W. S. LANDOR (1775-1846). “Imaginary Conversations.”
_Works_, 1846, ii. p. 74.
* * * * *
In poetry there is but one supreme,
Tho’ there are many angels round his throne,
Mighty, and beauteous, while his face is hid.
_Id._ “On Shakespeare.” “Poems and
Epigrams.” _Works_, 1846.
* * * * *
A long list can be cited of passages in Shakespeare, which have been
solemnly denounced by many eminent men (all blockheads) as ridiculous:
and if a man _does_ find a passage in a tragedy that displeases him, it
is sure to seem ludicrous: witness the indecent exposures of themselves
made by Voltaire, La Harpe, and many billions beside of bilious people.
T. DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). “Schlosser’s Literary
History.” _Tait’s Magazine_, Sept., Oct.,
1847.
* * * * *
A thousand poets pried at life,
And only one amid the strife
Rose to be Shakespeare.
R. BROWNING (1812-1889). _Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day_, xvi., 1850.
* * * * *
When I began to give myself up to the profession of a poet for life,
I was impressed with a conviction, that there were four English
poets whom I must have continually before me as examples—Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. These I must study, and equal _if I
could_; and I need not think of the rest.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850). _Memoirs._ By
Christopher Wordsworth, 1851, vol. ii. p.
470.
* * * * *
I cannot account for Shakespeare’s low estimate of his own writings,
except from the sublimity, the superhumanity of his genius. They were
infinitely below his conception of what they might have been, and ought
to have been.
_Ibid._
* * * * *
. . . Matchless Shakespeare, who, undaunted, took
From Nature’s shrinking hand her secret book,
And page by page the wondrous tome explored.
D. M. MOIR (1798-1851), before 1851. “Stanzas
on an Infant.” _Poetical Works_, 1852,
vol. ii. p. 50.
* * * * *
Shakespeare’s glowing soul,
Where mightiness and meekness met.
_Ibid._, p. 341, “Hymn to the Moon.”
* * * * *
Kind Shakespeare, our recording angel.
T. L. BEDDOES (1803-1849). “Lines written in
Switzerland.” _Poems_, 1851, vol. i. p.
215.
* * * * *
Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakespeare sung!
EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON (1805-1873). “The
Souls of Books,” i. l. 21. _Works_,
1853, vol. iii. p. 282.
* * * * *
Shakespeare . . .
. . . Wise and true,
Bright as the noon-tide, clear as morning dew,
And wholesome in the spirit and the form.
CHARLES MACKAY (1814-1899). “Mist.” _Under
Green Leaves_, 1857.
* * * * *
I care not how Shakespeare is acted: with him the thought suffices.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865), _c._ 1860.
* * * * *
I am always happy to meet persons who perceive the transcendent
superiority of Shakespeare over all other writers.
R. W. EMERSON (1803-1882). “Culture.” _Conduct
of Life_, 1860.
* * * * *
We may consider Shakespeare, as an ancient mythologist would have done,
as “enskied” among “the invulnerable clouds,” where no shaft, even of
envy, can assail him. From this elevation we may safely predict that he
never can be plucked.
CARDINAL WISEMAN (1802-1856). _William Shakespeare_,
1865, p. 28.
* * * * *
To say truth, what I most of all admire are the traces he shows of a
talent that could have turned the _History of England_ into a kind of
_Iliad_, almost perhaps into a kind of _Bible_.
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). “Shooting Niagara:
and After?” _Macmillan’s Magazine_,
August, 1867.
* * * * *
Shakespeare! loveliest of souls,
Peerless in radiance, in joy.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888). “Heine’s Grave.”
_New Poems_, 1867, p. 198.
* * * * *
If Shakespeare did not know the ancients, I think they were at least as
unlucky in not knowing him.
J. R. LOWELL (1819-1891). _Among my Books_,
1870, p. 190.
* * * * *
Shakespeare recognised both our human imperfections and our human
greatness. . . . A woman is dearer to Shakespeare than an angel; a man
is better than a god.
EDWARD DOWDEN (_b._ 1843). _Shakespeare: His Mind
and Art_, 1875, p. 346.
* * * * *
Shakespeare frequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false,
and which are entirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine his smiling
if one could meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling
and replying that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it
matter?
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888). “Preface to Poems of
Wordsworth,” 1879. _Essays in Criticism_,
2nd ser., p. 135.
* * * * *
All Castaly flowed crystalline
In gentle Shakespeare’s modulated breath.
D. G. ROSSETTI (1828-1882). “On certain Elizabethan
Revivals.” _Recollections of D. G. Rossetti._
By T. Hall Caine, 1882, p. 256.
* * * * *
Conception, fundamental brain work, that is what makes the difference
in all art. Work your metal as much as you like, but first take care
that it is gold, and worth working. A Shakespearean sonnet is better
than the most perfect in form, because Shakespeare wrote it.
_Ibid._, p. 249.
* * * * *
I close your Marlowe’s page, my Shakespeare’s ope,
How welcome—after gong and cymbal’s din—
The continuity, the long slow slope
And vast curves of the gradual violin!
WILLIAM WATSON (_b._ 1858). _Epigrams of Art, Life,
and Nature_, 1884, vii.
* * * * *
Shakespeare illustrates every phase and variety of humour: a complete
analysis of Shakespeare’s humour would make a system of psychology.
G. MOULTON (_b._ 1849). _Shakespeare as a Dramatic
Artist_, 1893, p. 285.
* * * * *
From Shakespeare, no doubt, the world may learn, and has learnt, much;
yet he professed so little to be a teacher, that he has often been
represented as almost without personal opinions, as a mere undisturbed
mirror, in which all Nature reflects herself. Something like a century
passed before it was perceived that his works deserved to be in a
serious sense studied.
J. R. SEELEY (1834-1895). _Goethe reviewed after
Sixty Years_, 1894, p. 98.
* * * * *
Shakespeare and Chaucer throw off, at noble work, the lower part of
their natures as they would a rough dress.
JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900). _Fors Clavigera._ Letter
XXXIV., 1896, ii. 235.
PART III
“ROUND ABOUT”
What’s here? A scroll; and written round about?
Let’s see.
_Titus Andronicus_, IV. ii. 19.
* * * * *
With his steerage shall your thoughts grow on.
_Pericles_, IV. iv. 19.
* * * * *
_Falstaff._ Of what quality was your love, then?
_Ford._ Like a fair house built on another man’s ground.
_Merry Wives_, II. ii. 223.
“ROUND ABOUT”
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, 1664
(1624?-1674)
Remember, when we were very young maids, one day we were discoursing
about lovers, and we did enjoin each other to confess who professed to
love us, and whom we loved, and I confessed I was in love with three
dead men, which were dead long before my time, the one was Cæsar, for
his valour, the second Ovid, for his wit, and the third our countryman
Shakespeare, for his comical and tragical humour; but soon after we
both married two worthy men, and I will leave you to your own husband,
for you best know what he is. As for my husband, I know him to have
the valour of Cæsar, the fancy and wit of Ovid, and the tragical,
especially comical art of Shakespeare, in truth, he is as far beyond
Shakespeare for comical humour, as Shakespeare is beyond an ordinary
poet in that way.
Letter CLXII. _CCXI Sociable Letters written by the
Lady Marchioness of Newcastle_, 1664. Letters
CXXIII. and CLXII.
JOSEPH ADDISON, 1711
(1672-1719)
Some years ago I was at the tragedy of “Macbeth,” and unfortunately
placed myself under a woman of quality, that is since dead; who, as I
found by the noise she made, was newly returned from France. A little
before the rising of the curtain, she broke out into a loud soliloquy,
“When will the dear witches enter?” and immediately upon their first
appearance, asked a lady that sat three boxes from her, on her right
hand, if those witches were not charming creatures. A little later, as
Betterton was in one of the finest speeches of the play, she shook her
fan at another lady, who sat as far on her left hand, and told her in
a whisper that might be heard all over the pit, “We must not expect to
see Balloon to-night.” Not long after, calling out to a young baronet
by his name, who sat three seats before me, she asked him whether
Macbeth’s wife was still alive; and before he could give an answer,
fell a-talking of the ghost of Banquo. She had by this time formed a
little audience to herself, and fixed the attention of all about her.
But as I had a mind to hear the play, I got out of the sphere of her
impertinence, and planted myself in one of the remotest corners of the
pit.
_The Spectator_, No. 45, 21 April 1711.
HENRY FIELDING, 1743
(1707-1754)
I then observed Shakespeare standing between Betterton and Booth, and
deciding a difference between these two great actors concerning the
placing an accent in one of his lines: this was disputed on both sides
with a warmth which surprised me in Elysium, till I discovered by
intuition that every soul retained its principal characteristic, being,
indeed, its very essence. The line was that celebrated one in _Othello_—
Put out the light, and then put out the light,
according to Betterton. Mr. Booth contended to have it thus:—
Put out the light, and then put out _the_ light.
I could not help offering my conjecture on this occasion, and suggested
it might perhaps be—
Put out the light, and then put out _thy_ light.
Another hinted a reading very sophisticated in my opinion—
Put out the light, and then put out _thee_, light.
Making light to be the vocative case. Another would have altered the
last word, and read—
Put out thy light, and then put out thy _sight_.
But Betterton said, if the text was to be disturbed, he saw no reason
why a word might not be changed as well as a letter, and instead of
“put out thy light,” you may read “put out thy eyes.” At last it was
agreed on all sides to refer the matter to the decision of Shakespeare
himself, who delivered his sentiments as follows: “Faith, gentlemen,
it is so long since I wrote the line, I have forgot my meaning. This I
know, could I have dreamt so much nonsense would have been talked and
writ about it, I would have blotted it out of my works; for I am sure,
if any of these be my meaning, it doth me very little honour.”
He was then interrogated concerning some other ambiguous passages
in his works; but he declined any satisfactory answer; saying, if
Mr. Theobald had not writ about it sufficiently, there were three or
four more new editions of his plays coming out, which he hoped would
satisfy every one: concluding, “I marvel nothing so much as that men
will gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author.
Certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest
and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in
the least balance our judgments which to prefer, I hold it matter of
unquestionable certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing.”
From his works our conversation turned on his monument; upon which
Shakespeare, shaking his sides, and addressing himself to Milton, cried
out, “On my word, brother Milton, they have brought a noble set of
poets together; they would have been hanged erst have convened such a
company at their tables when alive.” “True, brother,” answered Milton,
“unless we had been as incapable of eating then as we are now.”
“A Journey from this World to the Next,”
Chapter viii. _Miscellanies_, 1743.
THOMAS EDWARDS, 1747
(1699-1757)
CANON I. A Professed Critic has a right to declare that his Author
wrote whatever He thinks he ought to have written, with as much
positiveness as if he had been at his elbow.
CANON II. He has a right to alter any passage which He does not
understand.
CANON III. These alterations He may make in spite of the exactness of
measure.
CANON IV. Where He does not like an expression, and yet cannot mend it,
He may abuse his Author for it.
CANON V. Or He may condemn it as a foolish interpolation.
CANON VI. As every Author is to be corrected into all possible
perfection, the Professed Critic is the sole judge; He may alter any
word or phrase, which does not want amendment, or which _will do_,
provided He can think of anything which He imagines _will do better_.
CANON VII. He may find out obsolete words, or coin new ones, and put
them in the place of such as He does not like, or does not understand.
CANON VIII. He may prove a reading or support an explanation by any
sort of reasons, no matter whether good or bad.
CANON IX. He may interpret his Author so as to make him mean directly
contrary to what he says.
CANON X. He should not allow any poetical licences, which He does not
understand.
CANON XI. He may make foolish amendments or explanations, and refute
them, only to enhance the value of his critical skill.
CANON XII. He may find out a bawdy or immoral meaning in his Author
where there does not appear to be any hint that way.
CANON XIII. He need not attend to the low accuracy of orthography, or
pointing; but may ridicule such trivial criticisms in others.
CANON XIV. Yet, when He pleases to condescend to such work, He may
value himself upon it; and not only restore lost puns, but point out
such quaintnesses where, perhaps, the Author never thought of them.
CANON XV. He may explain a difficult passage by words absolutely
unintelligible.
CANON XVI. He may contradict himself for the sake of showing his
critical skill on both sides of the question.
CANON XVII. It will be necessary for the Professed Critic to have by
him a good number of pedantic and abusive expressions, to throw about
upon proper occasions.
CANON XVIII. He may explain his Author, or any former Editor of him, by
supplying such words, or pieces of words, or marks, as He thinks fit
for that purpose.
CANON XIX. He may use the very same reasons for confirming his own
observations, which he has disallowed in his adversary.
CANON XX. As the design of writing notes is not so much to explain
the Author’s meaning as to display the Critic’s knowledge, it may be
proper, to show his universal learning, that He minutely point out from
whence every metaphor and allusion is taken.
CANON XXI. It will be proper, in order to show his wit, especially if
the Critic be a married man, to take every opportunity of sneering at
the fair sex.
CANON XXII. He may mis-quote himself, or anybody else, in order to make
an occasion of writing notes, when he cannot otherwise find one.
CANON XXIII. The Professed Critic, in order to furnish his quota to the
bookseller, may write notes of nothing; that is to say, notes which
either explain things which do not want explanation, or such as do not
explain matters at all, but merely fill up so much paper.
CANON XXIV. He may dispense with truth, in order to give the world a
higher idea of his parts, or the value of his work.
_The Canons of Criticism_, first published as a
_Supplement to Mr. Warburton’s Edition of
Shakespear. Collected from Notes in that
Celebrated Work, and proper to be bound up
with it._ By the OTHER GENTLEMAN of
_Lincoln’s_ Inn.
Warburton’s edition also elicited _An Attempte to Rescue that
Auncient English Poet and Play-Wrighte, Maister Willaume
Shakespere, from the many Errores faulsely charged on him
by Certaine New-fangled Wittes, by a Gentleman formerly of
Greys-Inn_. 1749. This small treatise dealt with _The Tempest_
in a spirit of genuine zeal, but with less controversial
ability than was displayed by the “Other Gentleman.”
MARK AKENSIDE, 1749
(1721-1770)
“_The Remonstrance of Shakespeare: supposed to have been spoken at the
Theatre Royal, while the French comedians were acting by subscription._
1749.”
If, yet regardful of your native land,
Old Shakespeare’s tongue you deign to understand,
Lo, from the blissful bowers where Heaven rewards
Instructive sages and unblemish’d bards,
I come, the ancient founder of the stage,
Intent to learn, in this discerning age,
What form of wit your fancies have embrac’d,
And whither tends your elegance of taste,
That thus at length our homely toils you spurn,
That thus to foreign scenes you proudly turn,
That from my brow the laurel wreath you claim
To crown the rivals of your country’s fame.
What though the footsteps of my devious Muse
The measur’d walks of Grecian art refuse?
Or though the frankness of my hardy style
Mock the nice touches of the critic’s file?
Yet, what my age and climate held to view,
Impartial I survey’d, and fearless drew.
And say, ye skilful in the human heart,
Who know to prize a poet’s noblest part,
What age, what clime, could e’er an ampler field
For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield?
I saw this England break the shameful bands
Forg’d for the souls of men by sacred hands:
I saw each groaning realm her aid implore;
Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore;
Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard’s bane)
Obey’d through all the circuit of the main.
Then too great Commerce, for a late-found world,
Against your coast her eager sails unfurl’d:
New hopes, new passions, thence to bosom fir’d;
New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspir’d;
Thence every scene, which private fortune knows,
In stronger life, with bolder spirit, rose.
Disgrac’d I this full prospect which I drew?
My colours languid, or my strokes untrue?
Have not your sages, warriors, swains, and kings
Confess’d the living draught of men and things?
What other bard in any clime appears
Alike the master of your smiles and tears?
Yet have I deigned your audience to entice
With wretched bribes to luxury and vice?
Or have my various scenes a purpose known
Which freedom, virtue, glory, might not own?
Such from the first was my dramatic plan,
It should be yours to crown what I began:
And now that England spurns her Gothic chain,
And equal laws and social science reign,
I thought, Now surely shall my zealous eyes
View nobler bards and juster critics rise,
Intent with learned labour to refine
The copious ore of Albion’s native mine,
Our stately Muse more graceful airs to teach,
And form her tongue to more attractive speech,
Till rival nations listen at her feet,
And own her polish’d as they own’d her great.
But do you thus my favourite hopes fulfil?
Is France at last the standard of your skill?
Alas for you! that so betray a mind
Of art unconscious and to beauty blind.
Say; does her language your ambition raise,
Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase,
Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds,
And maims the cadence of poetic sounds?
Say; does your humble admiration choose
The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse,
While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear,
Charg’d to say nought but what the king may hear?
Or rather melt your sympathising hearts,
Won by her tragic scene’s romantic arts,
Where old and young declaim on soft desire,
And heroes never, but for love, expire?
No. Though the charms of novelty, awhile,
Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless smile,
Yet not for you design’d indulgent fate
The modes or manners of the Bourbon state.
And ill your minds my partial judgment reads,
And many an augury my soul misleads,
If the fair maids of yonder blooming train
To their light courtship would an audience deign,
Or those chaste matrons a Parisian wife
Choose for the model of domestic life;
Or if one youth of all that generous band,
The strength and splendour of their native land,
Would yield his portion of his country’s fame,
And quit old freedom’s patrimonial claim,
With lying smiles oppressions pomp to see,
And judge of glory by a king’s decree.
O blest at home with justly-envied laws,
O long the chiefs of Europe’s general cause,
Whom Heaven hath chosen at each dangerous hour
To check the inroads of barbaric power,
The rights of trampled nations to reclaim,
And guard the social world from bonds and shame;
Oh, let not luxury’s fantastic charms
Thus give the lie to your heroic arms:
Nor for the ornaments of life embrace
Dishonest lessons from that vaunting race,
Whom fate’s dread laws (for, in eternal fate
Despotic rule was heir to freedom’s hate,)
Whom in each warlike, each commercial part,
In civil counsel, and in pleasing art,
The judge of earth predestin’d for your foes,
And made it fame and virtue to oppose.
_Odes on Several Subjects._ Book II., ode i.
_Poetical Works._ Aldine edition, 1835,
p. 199.
ROBERT LLOYD, 1751
(1733-1764)
There stood an ancient mount, yclept Parnass,
(The fair domain of sacred poesy,)
Which, with fresh odours ever-blooming, was
Besprinkled with the dew of Castaly;
Which now in soothing murmurs whisp’ring glides
Wat’ring with genial waves the fragrant soil,
Now rolls adown the mountain’s steepy sides,
Teaching the vales full beauteously to smile,
Dame Nature’s handiwork, not form’d by lab’ring toil.
The Muses fair, these peaceful shades among,
With skilful fingers sweep the trembling strings;
The air in silence listens to the song,
And Time forgets to ply his lazy wings;
Pale-visag’d Care, with foul unhallow’d feet,
Attempts the summit of the hill to gain,
Ne can the hag arrive the blissful seat,
Her unavailing strength is spent in vain,
Content sits on the top, and mocks her empty pain.
Oft Phœbus’ self left his divine abode,
And here enshrouded in a shady bow’r,
Regardless of his state, laid by the god,
And own’d sweet music’s more alluring pow’r.
On either side was plac’d a peerless wight,
Whose merit long had fill’d the trump of Fame;
This, Fancy’s darling child, was Spenser hight,
Who pip’d full pleasing on the banks of Tame;
That, no less fam’d than he, and Milton was his name.
. . . . . . .
Next Shakespeare sat, irregularly great,
And in his hand a magic rod did hold,
Which visionary beings did create,
And burn the foulest dross to purest gold:
Whatever spirits rose in earth or air,
Or bad or good, obey his dread command;
To his behests these willingly repair,
Those aw’d by terrors of his magic wand,
The which not all their pow’rs united might withstand.
Beside the bard there stood a beauteous maid,
Whose glittering appearance dimm’d the eyen;
Her thin-wrought vesture various tints display’d,
Fancy her name, ysprong of race divine;
Her mantle wimpled low, her silken hair,
Which loose adown her well-turn’d shoulders stray’d,
She made a net to catch the wanton air,
Whose love-sick breezes all around her play’d,
And seem’d in whispers soft to court the heav’nly maid.
And ever and anon she wav’d in air
A sceptre, fraught with all-creative pow’r:
She wav’d it round: eftsoons there did appear
Spirits and witches, forms unknown before:
Again she lifts her wonder-working wand;
Eftsoons upon the flow’ry plain were seen
The gay inhabitants of Fairy-Land,
And blithe attendants upon Mab their queen
In mystic circles danc’d along th’ enchanted green.
On th’ other side stood Nature, goddess fair;
A matron seem’d she, and of manners staid;
Beauteous her form, majestic was her air,
In loose attire of purest white array’d:
A potent rod she bore, whose pow’r was such
(As from her darling’s works may well be shown,)
That often with its soul-enchanting touch,
She rais’d or joy or caus’d the deep-felt groan,
And each man’s passions made subservient to her own.
_The Progress of Envy_, 1751, Stanzas 2-4 and 7-10.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1765
(1728-1774)
The character of old Falstaff, even with all his faults, gives me more
consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an
agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing me the way to be
young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not so
comical, as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit,
at least as much vivacity?—Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone!—I
give you to the winds. Let’s have t’other bottle: here’s to the memory
of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap.
Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the
Boar’s-head tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire,
in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the
very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes
polluted by his immoral merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the
follies of youth; wished to be young again; but was resolved to make
the best of life while it lasted, and now and then compared past and
present times together.
“A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap.”
_Collected Essays_, 1765.
GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON, 1765
(1709-1773)
“_Boileau—Pope._”
BOILEAU
. . . The office of an _editor_ was below you, and your mind was unfit
for the drudgery it requires. Would anybody think of employing a
Raphael to clean an old picture?
POPE
The principal cause of my undertaking that task was zeal for the honour
of Shakespeare: and if you knew all his beauties as well as I, you
would not wonder at this zeal. No other author had ever so copious,
so bold, so _creative_ an imagination, with so perfect a knowledge of
the passions, the humours, and sentiments of mankind. He painted all
characters, from kings down to peasants, with equal truth and equal
force. If human nature were destroyed, and no monument were left of it
except his works, other beings might know _what man was_ from those
writings.
BOILEAU
You say he painted all characters, from kings down to peasants, with
equal truth and equal force. I cannot deny that he did so; but I wish
he had not jumbled those characters together, in the composition of his
pictures, as he has frequently done.
POPE
The strange mixture of tragedy, comedy, and farce in the same
play, nay, sometimes in the same scene, I acknowledge to be quite
inexcusable. But this was the taste of the times when Shakespeare wrote.
BOILEAU
A great genius ought to guide, not servilely follow, the taste of his
contemporaries.
POPE
Consider from how thick a darkness of barbarism the genius of
Shakespeare broke forth! What were the English, and what (let me
ask you) were the French dramatic performances, in the age when he
flourished? The advances he made towards the highest perfection both of
tragedy and comedy are amazing! In the principal points, in the power
of exciting terror and pity, or raising laughter in an audience, none
yet has excelled him, and very few have equalled.
BOILEAU
Do you think he was equal in comedy to Moliere?
POPE
In _comic force_ I do: but in the fine and delicate strokes of satire,
and what is called _genteel comedy_, he was greatly inferior to
that admirable writer. There is nothing in him to compare with the
_Misanthrope_, the _Ecole des Femmes_, or _Tartuffe_.
BOILEAU
This, Mr. Pope, is a great deal for an Englishman to acknowledge.
A veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of your national
religion, and the only part in which even your men of sense are
fanatics.
POPE
He who can read Shakespeare, and be cool enough for all the accuracy of
sober criticism, has more of reason than taste.
BOILEAU
I join with you in admiring him as a prodigy of genius, though I find
the most shocking absurdities in his plays; absurdities which no critic
of my nation can pardon.
POPE
We will be satisfied with your feeling the excellence of his beauties.
_Dialogues of the Dead_, xiv., 4th edition, 1765.
XIV. _Boileau—Pope_, pp. 125-128.
Three editions of _Dialogues of the Dead_ were published
in 1760. Practically the whole of the passage quoted above
appeared for the first time in the fourth edition in 1765.
LAURENCE STERNE, 1768
(1713-1768)
“_The Passport—Versailles._”
I could not conceive why the Count de B * * * had gone so abruptly
out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the
Shakespeare into his pocket—_Mysteries which must explain themselves,
are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes
up_: it was better to read Shakespeare; so, taking up _Much Ado about
Nothing_, I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to
Messina in Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro and Benedick and
Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the Passport.
Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself
to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their wearied
moments!—long, long since had you numbered out my days, had I not trod
so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground: when my way is too
rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some
smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of
delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened
and refreshed—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat
from them in this world, then I take a new course—I leave it—and as I
have a clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I
force myself, like Æneas, into them—I see him meet the pensive shade
of his forsaken Dido—and wish to recognise it—I see the injured spirit
wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her miseries
and dishonours—I lose the feelings for myself in hers—and in those
affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at
school.
_Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow—nor does man disquiet
himself_ in vain _by it_—he oftener does so in trusting the issue of
his commotions to reason only—I can safely say for myself, I was never
able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively,
as by beating up as fast as I could some kindly and gentle sensation,
to fight it upon its own ground.
When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de B * * *
entered with my passport in his hand. M. Le Duc de C * * *, said the
Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman—_Un homme
qui rit_, said the Duke, _ne sera jamais dangereux_. Had it been for
any one but the King’s jester, added the Count, I could not have got
it these two hours—_Pardonnez moi_, M. Le Compte, said I—I am not the
King’s jester—But you are Yorick?—Yes—_Et vous plaisantez?_—I answered,
Indeed I did jest—but was not paid for it—it was entirely at my own
expense.
We have no jester at court, M. Le Compte, said I—the last we had was
in the licentious reign of Charles II.—since which time our
manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is
so full of patriots, who wish for _nothing_ but the honours and wealth
of their country—and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so
good, so devout—there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of—
_Voila un persiflage!_ cried the Count.
_Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and
Italy_, etc., 1768, vol. ii.
ANONYMOUS, 1769
“_The Dramatic Race. A Catch. By a Lover of the Turf._”
Clear, clear the course—make room—make room, I say!
Now they are off, and _Jonson_ makes the play.
I’ll bet the odds—done, sir, with you, and you;
SHAKESPEARE keeps near him—and he’ll win it too:
Here’s even money—done for a hundred, done—
Now, _Jonson!_ now or never—he has won.
I’ll take my oath, that SHAKESPEARE won the prize,—
Damme! whoever says he lost it, lies.
_Shakespeare’s Garland. Being a Collection of New
Songs, Ballads, Roundelays, Catches, Glees,
Comic Serenatas, etc., performed at the
Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon_, 1769, p. 16.
ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, 1769
(_d._ 1812?)
“_Queen Mab. A Cantata._”
RECITATIVE
Not long ago, ’tis said, a proclamation
Was sent abroad through all the Fairy nation;
Mab to her loving subjects—A decree,
At Shakespeare’s tomb to hold a Jubilee.
ACCOMPANIED
The night was come, and now on Avon’s side
The pigmy race was seen,
Attended by their queen,
On chafers some, and some on crickets ride.
The queen appear’d from far,
Mounted in a nut-shell car;
Six painted lady-birds the carriage drew:
And now the cavalcade,
In order due array’d,
March’d first
Where erst
The sacred Mulb’ry grew,
And there their homage paid.
Next they sought the holy ground,
And while
A thousand glow-worm torches glimmer’d round;
Thus Good Fellow, the herald of his fame,
Did from the alabaster height proclaim
The poet’s titles and his style.
AIR
SHAKESPEARE, heaven’s most favour’d creature,
Truest copier of Nature,
First of the Parnassian train;
Chiefest fav’rite of the Muses,
Which soe’er the poet chooses,
Blest alike in ev’ry strain.
Life’s great censor, and inspector,
Fancy’s treasurer, wit’s director,
Artless, to the shame of art;
Master of the various passions,
Leader of all inclinations,
Sov’reign of the human heart.
RECITATIVE
Then did the queen an acorn take,
Fill’d with morn and ev’ning dew,
Brush’d from ev’ry fragrant brake
That round the lawns of Stratford grew.
ACCOMPANIED
“And thus,” said she, “libation do I make
To our friend and father’s shade:
’Twas Shakespeare that the Fairies made;
And men shall give us honour for his sake.”
AIR
O happy bard, whose potent skill
Can give existence where it will!
Let giant wisdom strive to chase
From man’s belief the Fairy race;
Religion stern our pow’r reject,
Philosophy our tales neglect,
Only trusting what ’tis seeing;
Combat us howe’er they list,
In thy scenes we shall exist,
Sure as if Nature gave us being.
_Shakespeare’s Garland. Being a Collection of New
Songs, Ballads, Roundelays, Catches, Glees,
Comic Serenatas, etc., performed at the
Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon_, 1769, p. 21.
This piece was set to music by Dibdin.
ANONYMOUS, 1778
“_Shakespeare’s Bedside, or his Doctors enumerated._”
Old Shakespeare was sick;—for a doctor he sent;—
But ’twas long before any one came:
Yet at length his assistance Nic Rowe did present,
Sure all men have heard of his name.
As he found that the Poet had tumbled his bed,
He smooth’d it as well as he could;
He gave him an anodyne, comb’d out his head,
But did his complaint little good.
Doctor Pope to incision at once did proceed,
And the Bard for the simples he cut;
For his regular practice was always to bleed,
Ere the fees in his pocket he put.
Next Theobald advanc’d, who at best was a quack,
And dealt but in old women’s stuff;
Yet he caus’d the Physician of Twick’nam to pack,
And the patient grew cheerful enough.
Next Hanmer, who fees ne’er descended to crave,
In gloves lily-white did advance;
To the Poet the gentlest of purges he gave,
And, for exercise, taught him to dance.
One Warburton then, though allied to the Church,
Produc’d his alternative stores;
But his med’cines the case so oft left in the lurch,
That Edwards kick’d him out of doors.
Next Johnson arriv’d to the patient’s relief,
And ten years he had him in hand;
But, tir’d of his task, ’tis the general belief,
He left him before he could stand.
Now Capell drew near,—not a Quaker more prim,—
And numbered each hair on his pate;
By styptics, call’d stops, he contracted each limb,
And crippled for ever his gait.
From Gopsall then strutted a formal old goose,
And he’d cure him by inches, he swore;
But when the poor Poet had taken one dose,
He vow’d he would swallow no more.
But Johnson, determin’d to save him, or kill,
A second prescription display’d;
And, that none might find fault with his drop or his pill,
Fresh doctors he call’d to his aid.
First Steevens came loaded with black-letter books,
Of fame more desirous than pelf;
Such reading, observers might read in his looks,
As no one e’er read but himself.
Then Warner, by Plautus and Glossary known,
And Hawkins, historian of sound;
Then Warton and Collins together came on,
For Greek and Potatoes renown’d.
With songs on his pontificalibus pinn’d,
Next Percy the great did appear;
And Farmer, who twice in a pamphlet had sinn’d,
Brought up his empirical rear.
“The cooks the more numerous, the worse is the broth,”
Says a proverb I well can believe;
And yet to condemn them untried I am loth,
So at present shall laugh in my sleeve.
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1787, vol. lvii. ii. 912.
_Muses’ Mirror_, 1778, i. 90.
“Edwards,”—the author of _Canons of Criticism_, see p. 281.
“Capell ... numbered each hair on his pate,”—Edward Capell (see
p. 107), of whom Dr. Johnson remarked that his abilities “were
just sufficient to enable him to select the black hairs from
the white for the use of periwig makers.” He gave most of his
attention to the production of an accurate text, based on a
careful collation of the old copies, and he did his work very
thoroughly.
“From Gopsall ... a formal old goose,”—Charles Jennens
(1700-1773), who printed some of Shakespeare’s tragedies,
and brought upon himself the unmerciful ridicule of George
Steevens. He lived at Gopsall in Leicestershire.
“Warner,”—Richard Warner (1713?-1775), the botanist and
classical scholar. He made extensive collections for an edition
and for a glossary of Shakespeare. Neither was published.
“Hawkins,”—Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789), who published _The
General History of the Science and Practice of Music_, 1776.
“Warton and Collins,”—Joseph Warton (1722-1800) and William
Collins (1721-1759) were school-fellows at Winchester, and
life-long friends.
“Percy,”—Bishop Percy of _Percy’s Reliques_.
“Farmer,”—Richard Farmer (1735-1797), author of the _Essay on
the Learning of Shakespeare_, 1767.
HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD, 1788
(1717-1797)
My histrionic acquaintance spreads. I supped at Lady Dorothy Hotham’s
with Mrs. Siddons, have visited and been visited by her, and have
seen and liked her much, yes, very much, in the passionate scenes in
“Percy”; but I do not admire her in cool declamation, and find her
voice very hollow and defective. I asked her in which part she would
most wish me to see her? She named Portia in the “Merchant of Venice”;
but I begged to be excused. With all my enthusiasm for Shakespeare, it
is one of his plays that I like the least. The story of the caskets is
silly, and, except the character of Shylock, I see nothing beyond the
attainment of a mortal; Euripides, or Racine, or Voltaire might have
written all the rest.
Letter to the Countess of Ossory, 15 Jan. 1788.
_Letters_, ed. Peter Cunningham, 1859, vol.
ix. p. 124.
PAUL WHITEHEAD, 1790
(1710-1774)
While here to Shakespeare Garrick pays
His tributary thanks and praise;
Invokes the animated stone,
To make the poet’s mind his own;
That he each character may trace
With humour, dignity, and grace;
And mark, unerring mark, to men,
The rich creation of his pen:
Preferr’d the prayer—the marble god
Methinks I see, assenting, nod,
And, pointing to his laurell’d brow,
Cry—“Half this wreath to you I owe:
Lost to the stage, and lost to fame;
Murder’d my scenes, scarce known my name;
Sunk in oblivion and disgrace
Among the common scribbling race,
Unnotic’d long thy Shakespeare lay,
To dulness and to time a prey:
But now I rise, I breathe, I live
In you—my representative!
Again the hero’s breast I fire,
Again the tender sigh inspire;
Each side, again, with laughter shake,
And teach the villain-heart to quake;
All this, my son! again I do—
I?—No, my son!—’Tis I, and you.”
While thus the grateful statue speaks,
A blush o’erspreads the suppliant’s cheeks—
“What!—Half this wreath, wit’s mighty chief?—
O grant,” he cries, “one single leaf;
That far o’erpays his humble merit,
Who’s but the organ of thy spirit.”
Phoebus the generous contest heard—
When thus the god address’d the bard:
“Here, take this laurel from my brow,
On him your mortal wreath bestow;—
Each matchless, each the palm shall bear,
In heav’n the bard, on earth the play’r.”
“Verses dropped in Mr. Garrick’s Temple of
Shakespeare.” _Poems and Miscellaneous
Compositions_, 1790.
Garrick had in his garden at Hampton a temple dedicated to
Shakespeare, containing a statue of the poet by Roubiliac.
WILLIAM COMBE, 1812
(1741-1823)
“_Dr. Syntax in the Pit of Covent Garden Theatre._”
CRITIC.—
“Oh, what a _Falstaff_! Oh, how fine!
Oh, ’tis great acting—’tis divine!”
SYNTAX.—
“His acting’s great—that I can tell ye;
For all the acting’s in his belly.”
CRITIC.—
“But, with due def’rence to your joke,
A truer word I never spoke
Than when I say—you’ve never been
The witness of a finer scene.
Th’ admir’d actor whom you see
Plays the fat knight most charmingly:
’Tis in this part he doth excel;
_Quin_ never played it half so well.”
SYNTAX.—
“You ne’er saw Quin the stage adorn:
He acted ere your sire was born,
And critics, sir, who liv’d before you,
Would have disclos’d a different story.
This play I’ve better acted seen
In country towns where I have been.
I do not hesitate to say—
I’d rather read this very play
By my own parlour fireside,
With my poor judgment for my guide,
Than see the actors of this stage,
Who make me gape at Shakespeare’s page.
When I read Falstaff to myself,
I laugh like any merry elf;
While my mind feels a cheering glow
That Shakespeare only can bestow.
The swaggering words in his defence,
Which scarce are wit and yet are sense;
The ribald jest—the quick conceit—
The boast of many a braggart feat;
The half-grave questions and replies
In his high-wrought soliloquies;
The dubious thought—the pleasant prate,
Which give no time to love or hate,
In such succession do they flow,
From no to yea—from yea to no,
Have not been to my mind convey’d
By this pretender to his trade.
The smile sarcastic, and the leer
That tells the laughing mock’ry near;
The warning look, that ere ’tis spoke
Aptly forbodes the coming joke;
The air so solemn, yet so sly,
Shap’d to conceal the ready lie;
The eyes, with some shrewd meaning bright,
I surely have not seen to-night:
Again, I must beg leave to tell ye,
’Tis nought of Falstaff but his belly.”
CRITIC.—
“All this is fine—and may be true;
But with such truths I’ve nought to do.
I’m sure, sir, I shall say aright,
When I report the great delight
Th’ enraptur’d audience feel to-night;
It is indeed, with no small sorrow,
I cannot your opinions borrow
To fill the columns of to-morrow.
My light critique will be preferr’d,
The public always takes my word;
Nay, the loud plaudits heard around
Must all your far-fetch’d thoughts confound:
I truly wonder when I see
You do not laugh as well as me.”
SYNTAX.—
“My muscles other ways are drawn:
I cannot laugh, sir,—while I yawn.”
CRITIC.—
“But you will own the scenes are fine?”
SYNTAX.—
“Whate’er the acting, they’re divine,
And fit for any pantomime.
Of this it is that I complain;
These are the tricks which I disdain:
The painter’s art the play commends;
On gaudy show success depends:
The clothes are made in just design;
They are well character’d and fine.
The actors now, I think, Heav’n bless ’em,
Must learn their art from those who dress ’em;
But give me actors, give me plays,
On which I could with rapture gaze,
Tho’ coats and scenes were made of baise:
For if the scene were highly wrought;
If actors acted as they ought;
You would not then be pleased to see
This heavy mass of frippery.
Hear Horace, sir, who wrote of plays
In Ancient Rome’s Augustan days:—
‘_Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur, et artes,
Divitiæque peregrinæ: quibus oblitus actor
Cum stetit in scena, concurrit dextera lævæ.
Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo?
Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno._’”
CRITIC.—
“Your pardon, sir, but all around me
There are such noises they confound me:
And though I full attention paid,
I scarcely know a word you said.
To say the truth, I must acknowledge
’Tis long since I have quitted college:
Virgil and Horace are my friends,
I have them at my fingers’ ends.
But Grecian lore, I blush to own,
Is wholly to my mind unknown.
I therefore must your meaning seek:
Oblige me, sir, translate your Greek.
But see, the farce is now begun,
And you must listen to the fun,
It sure has robb’d you of your bile;
For now, methinks, you deign to smile.”
SYNTAX.—
“The thing is droll, and aptly bent
To raise a vulgar merriment:
But Merry-Andrews, seen as such,
Have often made me laugh as much.
An actor does but play the fool
When he forsakes old Shakespeare’s rule,
And lets his own foul nonsense out,
To please th’ ill-judging rabble rout:
But when he _swears_, to furnish laughter,
The beadle’s whip should follow after.”
_The Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque._
1812, Canto XXIV. ll. 173 _sq._
_Tanto cum strepitu_, etc., Horace, _Epistles_, II. i.
203-7.
CHARLES LAMB, 1826.
(1775-1834)
Your fair critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman who assured me
that he did not see much in Shakespeare. I replied, I dare say _not_.
He felt the equivoke, lookd awkward, and reddish, but soon returnd to
the attack, by saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakespeare:
I said that I had no doubt he was—to a _Scotchman_. We exchangd no more
words that day.
Letter to J. B. Dibdin, June 30, 1826. _Works of
Charles and Mary Lamb._ Ed. E. V. Lucas.
1903-4. Vol. vii.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 1845
(1804-1864)
The human race had now reached a stage of progress so far beyond what
the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever dreamed of, that
it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the earth to be any
longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the literary line.
Accordingly, a thorough and searching investigation had swept the
booksellers’ shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private libraries, and
even the little bookshelf by the country fireside, and had brought the
world’s entire mass of printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell
the already mountain-bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy
folios, containing the labours of lexicographers, commentators, and
encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling among the embers with a
leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes, like rotten wood. The small,
richly-gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of
Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles, and
little jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation
burnt red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of
the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of parti-coloured
fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of brimstone.
The English standard authors made excellent fuel, generally exhibiting
the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s works, in particular, sent
up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal, which promised
to endure longer than almost any other material of the pile. From
Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendour, that men
shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor even when
the works of his own elucidators were flung upon him, did he cease to
flash forth a dazzling radiance beneath the ponderous heap. It is my
belief that he is still blazing as fervidly as ever.
“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he
might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.”
“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do,
or at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be
expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is,
that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps at the
sun or stars.”
_Mosses from an Old Manse_: “Earth’s Holocaust,”
ii. 146-7.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 1846
(1775-1864)
“_Shakespeare and Bacon._”
SOUTHEY.—In so wide and untrodden a creation as that of
Shakespeare’s, can we wonder or complain that sometimes we are
bewildered and entangled in the exuberance of fertility? Dry-brained
men upon the continent, the trifling wits of the theatre, accurate
however and expert calculators, tell us that his beauties are balanced
by his faults. The poetical opposition, puffing for popularity, cry
cheerily against them, _his faults are balanced by his beauties_; when,
in reality, all the faults that ever were committed in poetry would be
but as air to earth, if we could weigh them against one single thought
or image, such as almost every scene exhibits in every drama of this
unrivalled genius. Do you hear me with patience?
PORSON.—With more; although at Cambridge we rather discourse
on Bacon, for we know him better. He was immeasurably a less wise man
than Shakespeare, and not a wiser writer: for he knew his fellow-man
only as he saw him in the street and in the Court, which indeed is but
a dirtier street and a narrower; Shakespeare, who also knew him there,
knew him everywhere else, both as he was and as he might be.
SOUTHEY.—There is as great a difference between Shakespeare
and Bacon as between an American forest and a London timber-yard. In
the timber-yard the materials are sawed and squared and set across; in
the forest we have the natural form of the tree, all its growth, all
its branches, all its leaves, all the mosses that grow about it, all
the birds and insects that inhabit it; now deep shadows absorbing the
whole wilderness; now bright bursting glades, with exuberant grass and
flower and fruitage; now untroubled skies; now terrific thunderstorms;
everywhere multiformity, everywhere immensity.
“Southey and Porson.” _Imaginary Conversations._
_Works_, 1846, i. pp. 12-13.
This is from the enlarged edition of the _Imaginary
Conversations_. It does not appear in the original
Southey-Porson “Conversation” published in 1824.
WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT, 1868
AN UNFORTUNATE LIKENESS
(_b._ 1836)
I’ve painted Shakespeare all my life,
“An Infant” (even then at “play”!)
“A boy” with stage-ambition rife,
Then “married to Ann Hathaway.”
“The bard’s first ticket night” (or “ben.”),
His “First appearance on the stage,”
His “Call before the curtain”—then
“Rejoicings when he came of age.”
The bard play-writing in his room,
The bard a humble lawyer’s clerk,
The bard a lawyer—parson—groom—
The bard deer-stealing, after dark.
The bard a tradesman—and a Jew—
The bard a botanist—a beak—
The bard a skilled musician too—
A sheriff and a surgeon eke!
Yet critics say (a friendly stock)
That, though it’s evident I try,
Yet even _I_ can barely mock
The glimmer of his wondrous eye!
One morning as a work I framed,
There passed a person, walking hard:
“My gracious goodness,” I exclaimed,
“How very like my dear old bard!
“Oh what a model he would make!”
I rushed outside—impulsive me!—
“Forgive the liberty I take,
But you’re so very”—“Stop!” said he.
“You needn’t waste your breath or time,—
I know what you are going to say,—
That you’re an artist, and that I’m
Remarkably like Shakespeare. Eh?
“You wish that I would sit to you?”
I clasped him madly round the waist,
And breathlessly replied, “I do!”
“All right,” said he, “but please make haste.”
I led him by his hallowed sleeve,
And worked away at him apace,
I painted him till dewy eve,—
There never was a nobler face!
“Oh sir,” I said, “a fortune grand
Is yours, by dint of merest chance,—
To sport _his_ brow at second hand,
To wear _his_ cast-off countenance!
“To rub _his_ eyes whene’er they ache—
To wear _his_ baldness ere you’re old—
To clean _his_ teeth when you awake—
To blow _his_ nose when you’ve a cold!”
His eyeballs glistened in his eyes—
I sat and watched and smoked my pipe;
“Bravo!” I said, “I recognise
The phrensy of your prototype!”
His scanty hair he wildly tore:
“That’s right,” said I, “it shows your breed.”
He danced—he stamped—he wildly swore—
“Bless me, that’s very fine indeed!”
“Sir,” said the grand Shakespearean boy
(Continuing to blaze away),
“You think my face a source of joy;
That shows you know not what you say.
“Forgive these yells and cellar-flaps:
I’m always thrown in some such state
When on his face well-meaning chaps
This wretched man congratulate.
“For oh! this face—this pointed chin—
This nose—this brow—these eyeballs too,
Have always been the origin
Of all the woes I ever knew!
“If to the play my way I find,
To see a grand Shakespearean piece,
I have no rest, no ease of mind,
Until the author’s puppets cease.
“Men nudge each other—thus—and say,
‘This certainly is Shakespeare’s son,’
And merry wags (of course in play)
Cry ‘Author,’ when the piece is done.
“In church the people stare at me,
Their soul the sermon never binds;
I catch them looking round to see,
And thoughts of Shakespeare fill their minds.
“And sculptors, fraught with cunning wile,
Who find it difficult to crown
A bust with Brown’s insipid smile
Or Tomkins’s unmannered frown,
“Yet boldly make my face their own,
When (oh, presumption!) they require
To animate a paving-stone
With Shakespeare’s intellectual fire.
“At parties where young ladies gaze,
And I attempt to speak my joy,
‘Hush, pray,’ some lovely creature says,
‘The fond illusion don’t destroy!’
“Whene’er I speak, my soul is wrung
With these or some such whisperings:
‘’Tis pity that a Shakespeare’s tongue
Should say such un-Shakespearean things!’
“I should not thus be criticised
Had I a face of common wont:
Don’t envy me—now, be advised!”
And, now I think of it, I don’t!
Reprinted from _Fun_, 14 Nov. 1868.
“The bard a lawyer”—
“Go with me to a notary: seal me there
Your single bond.”
_Merchant of Venice_, I. iii.
“Parson”—
“And there shall she at friar Laurence’ cell
Be shriv’d, and married.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, II. iv.
“Groom”—
“And give their fasting horses provender.”
_Henry V._, IV. ii.
“A tradesman”—
“Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, I. iii.
“A Jew”—
“Then must the Jew be merciful.”
_Merchant of Venice_, IV. i.
“A botanist”—
“The spring, the summer,
The chiding autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, II. ii.
“A beak”—
“In the county of Gloster, justice of the peace, and coram.”
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, I. i.
“A skilled musician”—
“What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?”
_King John_, V. ii.
“A sheriff”—
“And I’ll provide his executioner.”
_II Henry VI._, III. i.
“A surgeon”—
“The lioness had torn some flesh away,
Which all this while had bled.”
_As You Like It_, IV. iii.
W. S. GILBERT.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1872
(1809-1894)
I wonder if anything like this ever happened:—
Author writing,—
“_To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobl—_”
“William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?”
“Flapjacks an it please thee, Anne, or a pudding for that
matter; or what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt
me and my thought.”
Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door,
and murmurs to the effect: “Ay, marry, ’tis well for thee to
talk as if thou hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must
swink for our masters, while they sit in their arm-chairs,
growing as great in the girth through laziness as that
ill-mannered old fat man, William, hath writ of in his books of
players’ stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which
hath thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his
eyes be rolling in that mad way.”
William—writing once more—after an exclamation in strong
English of the older pattern,—
“Whether ’tis nobler—nobler—nobler—
To do what? O these women! these women! to have puddings or
flapjacks! Oh!
“Whether ’tis nobler—in the mind—to suffer
The slings—and arrows—of—
Oh! Oh! these women! I’ll e’en step over to the parson’s, and
have a cup of sack with his reverence, for methinks Master
Hamlet hath forgot that which was just now on his lips to
speak.”
_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, 1872, pp. 10-11.
THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON, 1897
“_Shakespeare’s Friend speaks._”
To sing the nation’s song, or do the deed
That crowns with richer light the motherland,
Or lend her strength of arm in hour of need,
When fangs of foes shine fierce on every hand,
Is joy to him whose joy is working well—
Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame
Should find a thrill of music in his name;
Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn should aim
Her arrows at his soul’s high citadel.
But if the fates withhold the joy from me
To do the deed that widens England’s day,
Or join that song of Freedom’s jubilee
Begun when England started on her way—
Withhold from me the hero’s glorious power
To strike with song or sword for her, the mother,
And give that sacred guerdon to another,
Him will I hail as my more noble brother—
Him will I love for his diviner dower.
Enough for me who have our Shakespeare’s love
To see a poet win the poet’s goal,
For Will is he; enough and far above
All other prizes to make rich my soul.
“Christmas at the Mermaid.” _The Coming of Love,
and Other Poems_, 1898 [1897].
JUDGE WILLIS, 1902
(_b._ 1835)
“_Examination of Edward Blount, one of the printers and publishers of
the Shakespeare folio of 1623._”
Did you never hear that Shakespeare the actor, whom you knew, had
nothing to do with the pieces published under his name?
I never did.
Did you never hear that the name “Shakespeare,” that is, with the “e”
after the “k,” was assumed to cover and conceal the writings of a very
great, distinguished man?
I never did.
Would you be surprised to hear that Lord Bacon—
The reporter says that as soon as this word escaped from Counsel’s
lips, the whole Court was convulsed with laughter, in which the jury
joined.
To save appearances, the learned Judge retired into his private room,
as he said, in order to fetch his copy of “Venus and Adonis.” His
laughter was heard in the hall.
“We noticed,” says the reporter, “that Mr. Jonson never smiled. He
seemed deeply moved, and exclaimed, ‘What next? And next?’”
On the return of the Judge, the laughter had not quite subsided, and
the usher cried “Order, Order.”
The Judge, on again taking his seat, said to the Counsel for the
defence, “I am sorry, sir, your question should have been so received,
but you must remember the spectators are human, and that the jury and
myself are not free from infirmity. We are, however, quite impartial.”
The Counsel resumed.
Now that this indecent laughter is over, tell me, sir, do you not know
that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays contained in the folio
volume?
I do not know it, and never until now have I heard a doubt cast upon
the authorship of Shakespeare.
Did you never have any communication from Lord Bacon in respect of the
publishing the folio volume?
Never. I never received a paper of any kind from him, nor did I
communicate any portion of the manuscript to him.
Did not Mr. Benjamin Jonson bring you the manuscripts, or some of them,
from which you printed?
“My lord, my lord!” said Jonson.
“Pray be quiet, Mr. Jonson, you will have your turn directly,” said the
Judge.
He did not, nor did he touch any sheet of them. As I have told you, I
never communicated with him until I spoke to him about writing some
lines for the portrait.
Did not Mr. Jonson write the Dedication or Preface?
He wrote neither. Heminge and Condell wrote the Dedication, and the
Address to the Readers they composed in consultation with myself.
Did you not receive money from some one in order to induce you to print
the folio?
I did not. I looked to the sale, and the sale only, to recoup myself
and my co-adventurers.
_Re-examined._—I myself never touched the manuscripts, nor added a line
to them. After they were in my possession, Heminge and Condell never,
to my knowledge, altered the manuscripts, nor did any one else.
I could, if necessary, have written a Dedication and the Address to the
Readers. I wrote a work entitled “A Hospital for Incurable Fools.” I
hope some day such hospital will be founded.
_The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy; A Report of
The Trial of an Issue in Westminster Hall,
20 June 1627. Read in the Inner Temple
Hall, Thursday, May the 29th, 1902_, by
William Willis, Treasurer of the Honourable
Society of the Inner Temple, pp. 15-16.
This extract is taken from an account of an imaginary suit in
connection with the administration of Shakespeare’s estate,
to determine whether the testator was the author of the plays
published under the name of William Shakespeare in the folio
volume of 1623.
* * * * *
The _Dictionary of National Biography_ states that Edward
Blount (_fl._ 1588-1632), the stationer, has been credited
on doubtful grounds with the authorship of the very curious
_Hospitall of Incvrable Fooles: Erected in English, as neer the
first Italian Modell and platforme as the vnskilful hand of an
ignorant Architect could deuise. Printed by Edm. Bollifant for
Edward Blount_, 1600.
_TO MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE_
_It’s not because I know that you
Are really what the World has found you,
That I collect and tell anew
The tributes that have gathered round you.
Not moved to tread the lofty ways
Of those great souls who turned their powers,
As duty-bounden, to your praise,
Weave I this little wreath of flowers._
_You have, I know, a “myriad mind,”
A “honey tongue” to tell a story;
You left poor “panting Time” behind,
(See Johnson) in the race for glory—
’Tis true. But when all’s said and done,
With thought and rhetoric impassioned,
You’ve been, and are, a Friend to one
Whose mind is not supremely fashioned._
INDEX
Addison, Joseph. _Cato_, 18, 23.
Compared with Shakespeare, 18.
His contemporary fame, 22.
_Lines_ to. By William Somervile, and by John Hughes, 23.
_The Spectator_ (No. 45), 278;
(No. 592), 84.
Voltaire’s opinion of, 18.
Akenside, Mark. _An Inscription_, 105.
_The Remonstrance of Shakespeare_, 284.
_Among My Books._ By James Russell Lowell, 174, 266.
_Appreciations, with an Essay on Style._ By Walter Pater, 193.
_Argalus and Parthenia._ By Francis Quarles. Possible allusion
to Shakespeare in, 5 _n._
Armstrong, John. _Of the Versification of English Tragedy_, 100.
_Of the Dramatic Unities_, 100.
Arnold, Matthew. _Essays in Criticism_, 195.
_Heine’s Grave_, 265.
His Sonnet on Shakespeare, 29, 169.
His edition of Wordsworth’s _Poems_, 195.
_Art of English Poetry._ By Edward Bysshe, 26 _n._
_At the Mermaid._ By Robert Browning, 31.
_Autumn Vision, An._ By A. C. Swinburne, 201.
B., A. _Covent Garden Drollery_, 69.
_Bab Ballads._ By W. S. Gilbert, 318.
Bacon, Francis, Lord Verulam, 145.
Compared with Shakespeare, 168, 316.
His supposed authorship of Shakespeare’s _Works_, v, 326.
Bancroft, Thomas. _To Shakespeare_, from _Two Bookes of
Epigrammes and Epitaphs_, 57.
Barnfield, Richard. _A Remembrance of some English Poets_, from
_Poems in Divers Humors_, 36.
Basse, William. _On Mr. William Shakespeare_, 40.
_Battaile of Agincourt, The._ By Michael Drayton, 48.
Baynes, Thomas Spencer. Article on “Shakespeare” in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 207.
Beaumont, Francis, 40, 42, 80.
Beddoes, T. L. _Lines written in Switzerland_, 258.
Betterton, Thomas, seen by Samuel Pepys as Macbeth, 63.
Bickerstaff, Isaac. _Queen Mab_, 299.
_Biographia Literaria._ By S. T. Coleridge, 130, 232.
Blackmore, Sir Richard. His _Creation_, Johnson’s criticism of, 21.
Blind, Mathilde. _Shakespeare_, from _Shakespeare Sonnets_, 213.
Blount, Edward, 326-8.
_Blue-stocking Revels._ By Leigh Hunt, 247.
Boileau and Pope, 292.
Boston, Shakespeare Jubilee at, 1824. Prize Ode by Charles Sprague,
142.
Boswell, James, the elder. _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 94, 107.
Boswell, James, the younger. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_,
20.
Bowle, John. _Miscellaneous Pieces of Ancient English Poetry_, 26
_n._
Bowles, William Lisle. _Monody on the Death of Dr. Warton_, 228.
_On Shakespeare_, from _Sonnets, with other Poems_, 124.
Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, 148.
Braybrooke, Lord. Samuel Pepys’ _Diary and Correspondence_, 62.
Brooke, Stopford A. _Life and Letters of Frederick William
Robertson_, 164.
Browne, Felicia Dorothea, afterwards Mrs. Hemans. _England and
Spain_, 229.
_Shakespeare_, 128.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. _A Vision of Poets_, 252.
Browning, Robert. _At the Mermaid_, 31.
_Christmas Eve and Christmas Day_, 255.
_The Names_, 204.
Burlington, Lord, 225.
Butler, Samuel. _The Court Burlesqu’d._ Possible allusion to
Shakespeare in, 5.
Byron, Lord. Letter to Murray, 239.
Bysshe, Edward. _Art of English Poetry_, 26 _n._
_Caius Marius, a Tragedy._ Otway’s _Prologue_ to, 72.
_Canons of Criticism._ By Thomas Edwards, 281, 303, 304 _n._
Capell, Edward. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20, 107, 303,
304 _n._
Johnson’s criticism of, 304 _n._
_Caractacus._ By William Mason, 101.
Carlyle, Thomas. _Chartism_, 249.
_Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, 242, 249.
_Essay on Corn Law Rhymes_ in _Edinburgh Review_, 158.
_Goethe_, 242.
_The Hero as Poet_, from _On Heroes and Hero Worship_, 157.
_Shooting Niagara: and After?_ 264.
_Catalogue of Printed Books collected by Frederick Locker-Lampson_,
198.
_Characteristics of English Poets._ By William Minto, 189.
_Charge to the Poets, A._ By William Whitehead, 109.
Charles I. His influence on literature, 12.
His knowledge of Shakespeare, 7.
Charles II. His influence on literature, 12.
_Chartism._ By Thomas Carlyle, 249.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 40, 42.
_Christmas at the Mermaid._ By Theodore Watts-Dunton, 325.
_Christmas Eve and Christmas Day._ By Robert Browning, 255.
Churchill, Charles. _The Rosciad_, 108.
_Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare._ By W. S. Landor,
30.
Coleridge, Hartley. _To Shakespeare_, 148.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ix.
His achievement as an æsthetic critic, 28.
_Biographia Literaria_, 130, 232.
His general dislike of “Selections,” 131.
His influence on the poetry of the nineteenth century, 27.
_Letters_, 246.
_Literary Remains_, 28, 131.
His notes on _The Tempest_, 132 _n._
_Outline of an Introductory Lecture on Shakespeare_, 232.
_Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton_, 232.
_Table Talk_, 240, 243, 246.
Collier, John Payne, 162.
Collins, William. _Verses_ addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 92.
Colman, George, 224.
_Prose on several Occasions_, 224.
His translation of Terence, 224.
Combe, William. _The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the
Picturesque_, 308.
_Coming of Love, The._ By Theodore Watts-Dunton, 325.
Condell, Henrie, and John Heminge. _To the Great Variety of
Readers_, from the Shakespeare First Folio, 46.
_Conduct of Life._ By Ralph Waldo Emerson, 251.
Congreve, William, 12, 114.
_Conjectures on Original Composition._ By Edward Young, 104, 224.
_Connoisseur, The._ Its attitude towards Shakespeare, 21.
Cook, A. S. Leigh Hunt’s _Imagination and Fancy_, 250.
_Court Burlesqu’d, The._ By Samuel Butler. Possible allusion to
Shakespeare in, 5 _n._
_Covent Garden Drollery._ Collected by A. B., 69.
Covent Garden Theatre, Dr. Syntax in the pit of, 308.
_Creation, The._ By Sir Richard Blackmore, 21.
Crowne, John. _Prologue_ to _Henry the Sixth_, 220.
Cunningham, Peter. _Letters_ of Horace Walpole, 99, 226, 305.
_Cymbeline_, 148.
Daniel, George. _Vindication of Poesie_, 58.
D’Avenant, Sir William, 53.
His adaptations of Shakespeare’s Plays, 10.
_Ode. In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare_, from
_Madagascar_, 54.
His version of _The Tempest_, 67.
Davies, John. “_To our English Terence, Mr. Will Shakespeare_,” from
_The Scourge of Folly_, 38.
Dennis, John. _An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare_,
82.
De Quincey, Thomas. His article on “Pope” in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, 248.
His article on “Shakespeare” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
150, 248.
His criticism of Pope’s _Preface_, 87 _n._
His misinterpretation of the allusion to Shakespeare in Milton’s
_Eikonoklastes_, 8.
On the knocking at the gate in _Macbeth_, 30, 152 _n._
_Schlosser’s Literary History_, 254.
_Dialogues of the Dead._ By Lord Lyttelton, 292.
_Diary and Correspondence_ of Samuel Pepys, 62.
Dibdin, J. B. Letter to, from Charles Lamb, 313.
Digges, Leonard. _To the Memory of the deceased Author, Maister W.
Shakespeare_: from the Shakespeare First Folio, 47.
Dodsley, J. His _Collection of Poems by Several Hands_, 26 _n._,
123.
Dowden, Edward. _Shakespeare, his Mind and Art_, 28, 190, 267.
_Dramatic Poesie, An Essay._ By John Dryden, 67.
_Dramatic Poetry, An Essay on._ By a Person of Honour, 74.
_Dramatic Race, The_, 298.
_Dramatic Unities, Of the._ By John Armstrong, 100.
Drayton, Michael. _To my most dearly-beloved friend Henery
Reynolds_, from _The Battaile of Agincourt_, 48.
Dryden, John, 3, 10, 114.
His contemporary fame, 22.
_Defence of the Epilogue_, 68.
The first skilled critic of Shakespeare, 11.
His influence on eighteenth century literature, 13.
_Of Dramatic Poesie_, 66.
_Prologue_ to _The Tempest_, 66.
_Prologue_ to _Troilus and Cressida_, 67.
Dyce, Alexander, 162.
Dyer, George. _Poetics_, 231.
_Earth’s Holocaust._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 314.
_Edinburgh Review._ Article by Carlyle in, 158.
Articles by Jeffrey in, 133, 230.
Articles by Macaulay in, 160, 245.
Edwards, Thomas, 303, 304 _n._
_Canons of Criticism_, 281.
_Edwin and Emma._ By David Mallet, 24.
_Eikonoklastes._ By John Milton. Allusion to Shakespeare in, 7.
_Elegie on the Death of the famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William
Shakespeare_, from Shakespeare’s _Poems_, 55.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. _Conduct of Life_, 262.
_Representative Men_, 162, 251.
_Shakespeare, or the Poet_, 162.
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 150, 208, 248.
_England and Spain._ By Felicia Dorothea Hemans, 229.
_Enthusiast, The._ By Joseph Warton, 91.
_Epigrammes and Epitaphs._ By Thomas Bancroft, 57.
_Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion._ By John Weever,
37.
_Epigrams._ By Samuel Sheppard, 59.
_Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature._ By William Watson, 270.
_Epitaph_ on a Tombstone of Shakespeare, 223.
_Essays, Critical and Imaginative._ By John Wilson, 140.
_Essays in Criticism._ By Matthew Arnold, 195.
_Euphrosyne._ By Richard Graves, 225.
Falstaff, 308.
Farmer, Richard, 304 and _n._
_Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, 224.
_Fennell’s Shakespeare Repository_, 40.
Fenton, Elijah. _An Epistle to Mr. Southerne_, 80.
_Ferney: An Epistle to Monsr. De Voltaire._ By George Keate, 112.
Fielding, Henry. _A Journey from this World to the Next_, 279.
First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 6, 42, 45, 46, 47.
_Five Books of Song._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.
Fletcher, John, compared with Shakespeare, 66, 80, 92.
His “solecism of speech,” 68.
Forman, H. Buxton. _Works_ of John Keats, 138.
_Fors Clavigera._ By John Ruskin, 273.
Freeman, Thomas. _To Master W. Shakespeare_, from _Runne, and a
Great Caste_, 39.
Froude, James Anthony. _Short Studies on Great Subjects_, 167.
Fuller, Thomas. _The History of the Worthies of England_, 61.
Furnivall, Dr. Frederick James. _The Leopold Shakspere_, 192.
_Some 300 Fresh Allusions to Shakspere from 1594 to 1694_, viii,
5.
Fuseli, John Henry, 148.
_Garden Inscriptions._ By William Thomson, 110.
Garrick, David, 144.
His criticism of Johnson’s praise of Shakespeare, 94.
_Epistle_ to. By Robert Lloyd, 106.
Shakespeare’s debt to, 106.
His connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon,
25.
His Shakespeare temple at Hampton, 26, 306-7.
Verses addressed to, 25.
_Warwickshire: A Song_, from _Shakespeare’s Garland_, 113.
Gastrell, Rev. Dr. F., and Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, 10, 185.
_Genius and Writings on Shakespeare, An Essay on the._ By John
Dennis, 82.
_Genius of Shakespeare, To the._ By James Hogg, 146.
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 223, 301.
Gilbert, William Schwenck. _An Unfortunate Likeness_, from _More Bab
Ballads_, 318.
Gilder, Richard Watson. _The Twenty-third of April_, from _Five
Books of Song_, 212.
Goethe, Carlyle’s Essay on, 242.
Compared with Shakespeare, 158, 159.
_Goethe reviewed after Sixty Years._ By J. R. Seeley, 272.
Goldsmith, Oliver. _A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Inn_, 291.
Graves, Richard. _On Erecting a Monument to Shakespeare_, from
_Euphrosyne_, 225.
Gray, Thomas. _The Progress of Poesy_, 102.
_Guardian, The._ Its attitude towards Shakespeare, 20.
_Guesses at Truth._ By Julius Charles Hare, 145.
Hales, John. Quoted in Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 53.
Hallam, Henry. _Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries_, 155.
Hamilton, William. _A Soliloquy in Imitation of Hamlet_, 24.
_Hamlet_, 323.
Early æsthetic criticism of, 27.
Hanmer, Sir Thomas. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 16, 93.
Verses addressed to. By William Collins, 92.
Hare, Julius Charles. _Guesses at Truth_, 145.
Hawkins, Sir John, 303, 304 _n._
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. _Earth’s Holocaust_, from _Mosses from an Old
Manse_, 314.
_Our Old Home_, 175.
On visiting Shakespeare’s house, 175.
Hayley, William. _A Poetical Epistle to an Eminent Painter_ [_George
Romney_], 120.
Hazlitt, William, ix, 28.
_Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays_, Jeffrey’s review of, 134.
_On Dryden and Pope_, 136.
_Lectures on the English Poets_, 135-7, 189, 234.
_Round Table, The_, 137.
_On Shakespeare and Milton_, 135, 234.
_Table Talk_, 237.
Headley, Henry. _Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry_, 26 _n._
_Heine’s Grave._ By Matthew Arnold, 265.
Hemans, Felicia Dorothea. _England and Spain_, 229.
_Shakespeare_, 128.
Heminge, John, and Henrie Condell. _To the great Variety of
Readers_, from the Shakespeare First Folio, 46.
_Henry V._ Performance of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62.
_Henry VI., part I._ John Crowne’s adaptation of, 220.
_Heroes and Hero Worship, On._ By Thomas Carlyle, 157.
Higden, Henry. _The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat_, 75.
_History of England._ By David Hume, 97.
Hogg, James. _To the Genius of Shakespeare_, from _Songs by the
Ettrick Shepherd_, 146.
Holland, Hugh. _Upon the Lines and Life of the Famous Scenick Poet,
Master William Shakespeare_, from the Shakespeare First Folio,
45.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. _The Poet at the Breakfast Table_, 323.
_Shakespeare Tercentennial Celebration_, from _Songs of Many
Seasons_, 177.
Hood, Thomas. _The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, 241.
_Hospitall of Incurable Fooles_, 328 and _n._
Hughes, John. _Verses to Mr. Addison_, 23.
Hugo, Victor. _Shakespeare_, 10, 28.
On Shakespeare’s posthumous fame, 10.
Hume, David. _History of England_, 97.
Hunt, Leigh. _Associations with Shakespeare_ from _Table Talk_, 166.
_Blue-Stocking Revels_, 247.
_Thoughts on the Avon_, 233.
_What is Poetry?_ from _Imagination and Fancy_, 250.
_Hymn to the Moon._ By D. M. Moir, 257.
_Hymn to the Nymph of Bristol._ By William Whitehead, 24.
_Idea of a University, The._ By John Henry Newman, 171.
_Idea of Comedy, On the._ By George Meredith, 191.
_Imaginary Conversations._ By Walter Savage Landor, 253, 316.
_Imagination and Fancy._ By Leigh Hunt, 247.
_Imitations of Horace._ By Alexander Pope, 221.
_Immortal Memory of Shakespeare, To the_, 116.
I. M. S. _On Worthy Master Shakespeare and his Poems_, from the
Shakespeare Second Folio, 50.
Coleridge’s conjecture as to the identity of, 7, 52 _n._
Ingleby, Dr. _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse_, vii, 4.
_Inscription, An._ By Mark Akenside, 105.
_In Shakespeare’s Walk._ By William Thompson, 110.
_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth,
Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries._ _By Henry Hallam_, 155.
James I. His influence on literature, 12, 13.
Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, 230.
His article on Hazlitt’s _Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays_ in
the _Edinburgh Review_, 133.
Jennens, Charles, 303, 304 _n._
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his attitude towards Shakespeare, 16.
His criticism of Capell’s _Preface_, 107.
His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 17-18, 111.
His edition of _British Poets_, 21-22.
The effect of his judgment on contemporary thought, 19-20.
His indictment and defence of Shakespeare, 17-18.
His connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon,
25.
His _Life_. By James Boswell, 94, 107.
His position as a literary censor, 14.
His _Prologue_ at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747, 94.
_The Rambler_, 111.
Jonson, Ben, 74.
Compared with Shakespeare, 15, 53, 66, 69, 80, 92, 98, 104.
_To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author_, from the Shakespeare
First Folio, 42.
Johnstone, ——. _The Table Talker_, 156.
_Journey from this World to the Next, A._ By Henry Fielding, 279.
Keate, George, _Ferney: an Epistle to Monsr. De Voltaire_, 112.
Keats, John. Letter to George and Georgiana Keats, 236.
_Notes on Troilus and Cressida_, 138.
_Sonnet on sitting down to read “King Lear” once again_, 138.
Kemble, Frances Anne. _To Shakespeare_, 183.
Kid, Thomas, 43.
_King Lear_, 145, 148, 214.
Nahum Tate’s “borrowings” from, 10.
Sonnet on sitting down to read it once again. By John Keats, 138.
Knight, Charles. His history of opinion respecting Shakespeare, vii.
_Studies of Shakespeare_, vii.
Lamb, Charles, ix.
Epilogue to an amateur performance of “Richard II.,” 144.
Letter to J. B. Dibdin, 313.
Letter to Samuel Rogers on portraits of Shakespeare, 148.
_Works._ Edited by E. V. Lucas, 144, 148, 313.
Landor, Walter Savage.
_Citation and Examination_ of William Shakespeare, 30.
_Imaginary Conversations_, 253, 316.
_On Shakespeare_, 253.
Comparison between Shakespeare and Bacon, 316.
_Shakespeare and Milton_, from _The lost Fruit off an old Tree_,
170.
Lansdowne, Lord, _Epistle_ to. By Edward Young, 83.
_Learning of Shakespeare, Essay on the._ By Richard Farmer, 224.
_Lectures on the English Poets._ By William Hazlitt, 135-7.
Lee, Sidney, and the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, v.
_Life of William Shakespeare_, 215.
_Shakespeare in Oral Tradition_, 5.
_Leopold Shakspere, The._ Edited by F. J. Furnivall, 192.
_Library of Old Authors._ By James Russell Lowell, 173.
Lily, William, 43.
Lincoln, Abraham, 261.
_Lines written among the Euganean Hills._ By P. B. Shelley, 235.
_Lines written in Switzerland._ By T. L. Beddoes, 258.
_Literary Amusements._ By Daniel Webb, 227.
Lloyd, David. _State Worthies_, 13.
Lloyd, Robert. _The Progress of Envy_, 288.
_Shakespeare, an Epistle to Mr. Garrick_, 25, 106.
Locker-Lampson, Frederick. His copy of the 1602 Quarto of _The Merry
Wives of Windsor_, 198.
_London Cuckolds, The._ By Edward Ravenscroft. A performance of,
criticised by Steele, 76.
_Lost Fruit off an old Tree, The._ By Walter Savage Landor, 170.
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, 194.
Dryden’s criticism of, 68.
Lowell, James Russell. _Among My Books_, 174, 266.
_Library of Old Authors_, 173.
On Shakespeare’s “artistic discretion” and the “impersonality” of
his writings, 174.
Lucas, E. V. _Works of Charles and Mary Lamb_, 144, 148, 313.
_Lusiad, The._ By William Julius Mickle, 119.
_Lyrical Ballads._ By Wordsworth and Coleridge, 27.
Lyttelton, George, Lord. _Dialogues of the Dead_, 292.
Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord. _The Souls of Books_, 259.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, 295.
Essay on _The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay_ in the
_Edinburgh Review_, 160.
_Macbeth_, 145.
D’Avenant’s adaptation of, 10.
De Quincey on the knocking at the gate in, 30.
Performance of, described by Addison, 278.
Performances of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62, 63.
Mackay, Charles. _Mist_, from _Under Green Leaves_, 260.
_Madagascar._ By Sir William D’Avenant, 54.
Malone, Edmund. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.
Mallet, David. _Edwin and Emma_, 24.
_Of Verbal Criticism_, 103.
Mann, Sir Horace. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 226.
Marlowe, Christopher, 43.
Mason, William. _Caractacus_, 101.
Massey, Gerald. _The Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets_, 209.
Masson, David. _Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays_, 168.
_Merchant of Venice, The._ The _Connoisseur’s_ criticism of, 20.
Meredith, George. _On the Idea of Comedy_, 191.
_The Spirit of Shakespeare_, from _Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of
Earth_, 202.
Meres, Francis. _Palladis Tamia_, 35.
_Merry Wives of Windsor._ Manuscript note in 1602 Quarto of, 189.
Mickle, William Julius. _The Lusiad_, 119.
_Midsummer Night’s Dream._ Performance of, witnessed by Samuel
Pepys, 62.
_Mighty Makers, The._ By William Wetmore Story, 205.
Milnes, Richard Monckton. _Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of
John Keats_, 138.
Milton, John, 127.
Compared with Shakespeare, 131, 170.
Credited with authorship of verses signed I. M. S., 52.
_Eikonoklastes_, 7, 9.
_An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare_, from
the Shakespeare Second Folio, 49.
_L’Allegro_, 9.
Mistaken conception of his attitude towards Shakespeare, 7-10.
His tributes to Shakespeare, 9-10.
Minto, William. _Characteristics of English Poets_, 189.
_Miscellaneous Pieces of Ancient English Poetry._ Collected by John
Bowle, 26 _n._
Moir, D. M. _Hymn to the Moon_, 257.
_Stanzas on an Infant_, 257.
_Monody written near Stratford-upon-Avon._ By Thomas Warton, 121.
Montagu, George. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 99.
Moore, Thomas. _Life of Byron_, 239.
_Mosses from an Old Manse._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 314.
Moulton, G. _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_, 271.
_Much Ado About Nothing_, 295.
_Mystery of Life and its Arts, The._ By John Ruskin, 184.
_Names, The._ By Robert Browning, 204.
Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of. _CCXI Sociable Letters_,
64, 277.
Newman, John Henry. _The Idea of a University_, 171.
_New Shakspere Society_, 4.
Northcote, James, 148.
Opie, John, 148.
Ossory, Countess of. Letter to, from Horace Walpole, 305.
_Othello_, Disputed line in, 279.
Christopher Smart’s _Prologue_ to, 96.
Otway, Thomas, 114.
_Prologue_ to _The History and Fall of Caius Marius_, 72.
_Our Old Home._ By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 175.
Palgrave, Francis Turner. _Songs and Sonnets of William
Shakespeare_, 181.
_Palladis Tamia._ By Francis Meres, 35.
Pater, Walter Horatio. _Appreciations, with an Essay on Style_, 193.
Pattison, William. His verses _To Mr. John Saunders_, 23.
Pearch, G. His _Supplement_ to Dodsley’s _Collection of Poems by
Several Hands_, 26 _n._
Pepys, Samuel. _Diary and Correspondence_, edited by Lord
Braybrooke, 62.
Percy, Bishop, 304 and _n._
_Pericles._ Dryden’s criticism of, 68.
Phillips, Edward. _Theatrum Poetarum_, 10, 71.
_Philosophical Analysis of some of Shakespeare’s Remarkable
Characters._ By William Richardson, 117.
_Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, The._ By Thomas Hood, 241.
_Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth._ By George Meredith, 202.
_Poems by Several Hands._ Collected by J. Dodsley, 26 _n._
Pearch’s _Supplement_ to, 26 _n._
_Poems Collected and Arranged anew._ By Archbishop Trench, 180.
_Poems in Divers Humors._ By Richard Barnfield, 36.
_Poems on Various Subjects._ Collected by Thomas Tomkins, 26 _n._
_Poet at the Breakfast Table, The._ By Oliver Wendell Holmes, 323.
_Poetical Portraits._ By “A Modern Pythagorean,” 244.
_Poetics._ By George Dyer, 231.
Pope, Alexander, 225.
And Boileau, 292.
His contemporary fame, 22.
His criticism and defence of Shakespeare, 14-16.
De Quincey’s criticism of, 87 _n._
His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 15, 16, 85, 292.
_Imitations of Horace_, 221.
On Shakespeare’s learning, 15.
Porson, Richard, and Robert Southey. Imaginary conversation. By
W. S. Landor, 316.
Porter, Endymion, 53.
_Progress of Envy, The._ By Robert Lloyd, 288.
_Progress of Poesy, The._ By Thomas Gray, 102.
_Prose on Several Occasions._ By George Colman, 224.
Quarles, Francis. _Argalus and Parthenia_, 5 _n._
_Queen Mab._ By Isaac Bickerstaff, 299.
Quin, James, 308.
_Rambler, The._ By Dr. Johnson, 111.
_Rape of Lucrece._ Edward Phillips’ criticism of, 71.
Raphael. His picture, _The Transfiguration_, 112.
Ravenscroft, Edward. _The London Cuckolds_, A performance of,
criticised by Steele, 76.
_Reflector, The_, 231.
_Remonstrance of Shakespeare, The._ By Mark Akenside, 284.
_Representative Men._ By Ralph Waldo Emerson, 162, 251.
Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, 10-12.
_Reverie at the Boar’s Head Inn, A._ By Oliver Goldsmith, 291.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 148.
Richardson, William. _A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of
some of Shakespeare’s remarkable characters_, 117.
Robertson, Frederick William. _Life and Letters_, edited by Stopford
A. Brooke, 164.
Rogers, Samuel. Letter to, from Charles Lamb, 148.
_Romeo and Juliet_, 145, 148.
Performance of, witnessed by Samuel Pepys, 62.
Romney, George, 148.
_Poetical Epistle_ to. By William Hayley, 120.
_Rosciad, The._ By Charles Churchill, 108.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. _On the Site of a Mulberry Tree planted by
W. Shakespeare_, 185.
Rossetti, W. M. _Collected Works_ of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 185.
Roubiliac. His statue of Shakespeare, 26, 307.
_Round Table, The._ By William Hazlitt, 137.
Rowe, Nicholas. _Some Account of the life of William Shakespeare_,
78.
On Shakespeare’s knowledge of the ancients, 78.
Shakespeare’s first editor, 16.
His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 53, 78.
Rowfant Library Catalogue, 198.
_Runne, and a Great Caste._ By Thomas Freeman, 39.
Rupert, Prince. His knowledge of Shakespeare, 7.
Ruskin, John. _Fors Clavigera_, 273.
_The Mystery of Life and its Arts_, 184.
Saunders, John. William Pattison’s verses to, 23.
Schlosser’s _Literary History_. De Quincey’s article on, 254.
_Schoolmistress, The._ By William Shenstone, 24.
Scott, Dr. Edward J. L. His discovery of allusions to Shakespeare in
the Sloane Manuscripts, 5.
Scott, Sir Walter. His article on “Drama” in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, 129.
_Scourge of Folly, The._ By John Davies, 38.
_Seasons, The._ By James Thomson, 88.
Second Folio edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 7, 10, 49, 50.
_Secret Drama of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The._ By Gerald Massey, 209.
Sedley, Sir Charles. _Prologue_ to _The Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy
Parrat_, by Henry Higden, 75.
Seeley, J. R. _Goethe reviewed after Sixty Years_, 217.
_Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry._ Collected by Henry
Headley, 26 _n._
Seward, Anna. _On Shakespeare’s Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon_,
123.
Shaftesbury, Lord. His estimate of Shakespeare, 10.
Shakespeare, William. His “artistic discretion,” 174.
His knowledge and use of the Bible, 176.
Compared with Addison, 18, 91.
Compared with Bacon, 168, 316.
Compared with Fletcher, 92.
Compared with Goethe, 158, 159.
Compared with Homer, 82.
Compared with Ben Jonson, 15, 53, 61, 69, 80, 92, 98, 104, 114.
Compared with Milton, 131, 170.
His creation of the fairy world, 83.
Debased by interpolations, 15, 103.
The effect of his genius on the taste of the nation, 129.
His epitaph in Stratford-on-Avon Church, viii, 41.
First Folio edition of his _Works_, 6, 42, 45, 46, 47.
History of opinion of, its division into periods, 3.
The “impersonality” of his writings, 155, 174.
Influence of eighteenth century research on his reputation, ix.
Jubilee celebration at Boston, 1824, 142.
His learning, 79, 224.
_Life._ By Sidney Lee, 216.
_Life._ By Nicholas Rowe, 78.
His monument in Westminster Abbey, 225.
As a “philosophical aristocrat,” 132 _n._
Presentation of his plays on the stage, 10-12.
His _Poems_, 55.
Popular fallacies relating to his reputation, 6-12.
Was he influenced by posthumous fame? 137.
His use of prose, 195.
His reputation in the seventeenth century, 4-12;
in the eighteenth century, 12-26;
in the nineteenth century, 27-30.
Second Folio edition of his _Works_, 7, 10, 49, 50.
The “Shakespearean Show,” 1884, 204 _n._
His “solecism of speech,” 68.
His statue in Central Park, New York, 186.
The Stratford-on-Avon Jubilee, 25.
Tercentennial celebration, 177.
His time compared with that of Augustus, 72.
His neglect of the unities, 17, 18.
_Shakespeare, an Epistle to Mr. Garrick._ By Robert Lloyd, 25.
_Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist._ By G. Moulton, 271.
_Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy, The._ By Judge Willis, 326.
_Shakespeare in oral Tradition._ By Sidney Lee, 5.
_Shakespeare’s Bedside_, 301.
_Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse._ By Dr. Ingleby, vii, 4.
Edited by L. Toulmin Smith, viii, 5.
_Shakespeare’s Garland_, 113, 116, 298, 299, 301.
_Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of the Bible._ By Bishop Charles
Wordsworth, 176.
_Shakespeare Sonnets._ By Mathilde Blind, 213.
_Shakspere: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art._ By Edward Dowden,
28, 190, 267.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. _Lines written among the Euganean Hills_,
235.
Shenstone, William. _The Schoolmistress_, 24.
Sheppard, Samuel. _In Memory of our Famous Shakespeare_, from
_Epigrams_, 59.
_Shooting Niagara: and After?_ By Thomas Carlyle, 264.
_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ By James Anthony Froude, 167.
Sloane Manuscripts, Allusions to Shakespeare in, 5.
Smart, Christopher. _Prologue to Othello_, 96.
Smith, L. Toulmin. Her edition of Ingleby’s _Shakespeare’s Centurie
of Prayse_, viii, 5.
_Sociable Letters. By the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle_, 64, 277.
_Soliloquy in Imitation of Hamlet._ By William Hamilton, 24.
_Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, 27.
Somervile, William. _Lines to Mr. Addison_, 23.
_Some 300 Fresh Allusions to Shakspere from 1594 to 1694._ Edited by
Dr. Furnivall, viii, 5.
_Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare._ Edited by Francis Turner
Palgrave, 181.
_Songs of many Seasons._ By Oliver Wendell Holmes, 177.
Sonnets. By Matthew Arnold, 29, 169.
By Mathilde Blind, 213.
By Robert Browning, 204.
By Hartley Coleridge, 148.
By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.
By Thomas Freeman, 39.
By Hugh Holland, 45.
By John Keats, 138.
By George Meredith, 202.
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 185.
By Algernon Charles Swinburne, 29, 201.
By Archbishop Trench, 180.
By John Weever, 37.
By William Wordsworth, 127.
_Sonnets, with other Poems._ By William Lisle Bowles, 124.
_Sonnets dedicated to Liberty._ By William Wordsworth, 127.
_Souls of Books, The._ By Lord Lytton, 259.
_Southerne, Mr., An Epistle to._ By Elijah Fenton, 80.
Southey, Robert, and Richard Porson. Imaginary conversation. By
W. S. Landor, 316.
_A Vision of Judgment_, 238.
_Spectator, The_, No. 45. By Joseph Addison, 278.
No. 592. By Joseph Addison, 84.
Spenser, Edmund, 40, 42.
Sprague, Charles. Prize Ode recited at the representation of the
Shakespeare Jubilee at Boston, 1824, 142.
_Spirit of Shakespeare, The._ By George Meredith, 202.
_Stanzas on an Infant._ By D. M. Moir, 257.
_State Worthies._ By David Lloyd, 13.
Steele, Sir Richard. _The Tatler_, No. 8, 76.
Steevens, George. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.
Sterling, John. _Shakespeare_, 153.
Sterne, Laurence. _Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and
Italy_, 295.
Story, William Wetmore. _The Mighty Makers_, 205.
Stratford-on-Avon. Lines _on Shakespeare’s Monument_ at. By Anna
Seward, 123.
_Monody_ written near. By Thomas Warton, 121.
Shakespeare’s epitaph in the church at, viii, 41.
_Study of Shakespeare, A._ By A. C. Swinburne, 28, 199, 201.
Suckling, Sir John, 53.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles. _An Autumn Vision_, 201 _n._
_A Study of Shakespeare_, 28, 199, 201.
_William Shakespeare_, from _Tristram of Lyonesse and other
Poems_, 29, 201.
Symons, Arthur. _Poetical Works_ of Mathilde Blind, 213.
_Table Talk._ By S. T. Coleridge, 240, 243, 246.
_Table Talk._ By William Hazlitt, 237.
_Table Talk._ By Leigh Hunt, 166.
_Table Talker, The._ By —— Johnstone, 156.
_Tancred and Sigismunda._ James Thomson’s _Prologue_ to, 222.
Tate, Nahum. His “borrowings” from _King Lear_, 10.
_Tatler, The_, No. 8. By Richard Steele, 76.
Taylor, Bayard. _Shakespeare’s Statue, Central Park, New York_, 186.
_Tempest, The_, 145.
Coleridge’s _Note_ on, 132 _n._
Dryden’s _Prologue_ to, 66.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, on _King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and
Cymbeline_, 214.
_Life and Works._ Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson, 214.
Tennyson, Hallam, Lord. _Life and Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_,
214.
Terence, George Colman’s translation of, 224.
_Theatrum Poetarum._ By Edward Phillips, 10, 71.
Theobald, Lewis. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 16, 89.
Thomson, James. _Prologue to Tancred and Sigismunda_, 222.
_The Seasons_, 88.
Thomson, William. _In Shakespeare’s Walk_, from _Garden
Inscriptions_, 110.
_Thoughts on the Avon._ By Leigh Hunt, 233.
Tomkins, Thomas. _Poems on Various Subjects_, 26 _n._
_Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, The._ By William
Combe, 308.
Trench, Archbishop Richard Chevenix. _Poems Collected and Arranged
anew_, 180.
_Tristram of Lyonesse and other Poems._ By A. C. Swinburne, 201.
_Troilus and Cressida_, Dryden’s _Prologue_ to, 67.
_Twenty-third of April, The._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.
_Two Worlds, The._ By Richard Watson Gilder, 212.
_Under Green Leaves._ By Charles Mackay, 260.
_Unfortunate Likeness, An._ By W. S. Gilbert, 318.
“Variorum” editions of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 20.
_Venus and Adonis._ Edward Phillips’ criticism of, 71.
_Verbal Criticism, Of._ By David Mallet, 103.
_Versification of English Tragedy, Of the._ By John Armstrong, 100.
_Vindication of Poesie._ By George Daniel, 58.
_Vision of Judgment, A._ By Robert Southey, 238.
_Vision of Poets, A._ By Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 252.
Voltaire. His comparison of Shakespeare with Addison, 18.
_An Epistle to._ By George Keate, 112.
Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford, 13.
_Letters_, 99, 226, 305.
Warburton, Bishop William. His edition of Shakespeare’s _Works_, 95,
283.
On Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Ancients, 79.
Warner, Richard, 303, 304 _n._
Warton, Joseph, 303, 304 _n._
_The Enthusiast_, 91.
_Monody_ on the Death of. By W. L. Bowles, 228.
Warton, Thomas. His misinterpretation of the Shakespeare allusion in
Milton’s _Eikonoklastes_, 8.
_Monody written near Stratford-upon-Avon_, 121.
_Wary Widdow, or Sir Noisy Parrat, The._ By Henry Higden, 75.
Sir Charles Sedley’s _Prologue_ to, 75.
Watson, William. _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_, 270.
Watts-Dunton, Theodore. _Christmas at the Mermaid_, from _The Coming
of Love_, 325.
Webb, Daniel. _Literary Amusements_, 227.
Weever, John. _Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare_, from _Epigrammes in the
Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion_, 37.
West, Benjamin, 148.
Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare’s Monument in, 225.
Whitehead, Paul. _Verses dropped in Mr. Garrick’s Temple of
Shakespeare_, 30.
Whitehead, William. His Appreciation of Shakespeare, 24.
_A Charge to the Poets_, 109.
_An Hymn to the Nymph of Bristol_, 24.
Whitman, Walt. On Shakespeare’s unacceptability to America and
Democracy, 210.
_Poetry to-day in America_, 211.
Willis, Judge William. _The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy_, 326.
Wilson, John. _A Few Words on Shakespeare_, from _Essays, Critical
and Imaginative_, 140.
_Winter’s Tale, The_, 145, 214.
Dryden’s criticism of, 68.
Wiseman, Cardinal. _William Shakespeare_, 179, 263.
_Witt’s Recreations_, 219.
Wordsworth, Bishop Charles. _On Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of
the Bible_, 176.
Wordsworth, Christopher. _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, 159, 256.
Wordsworth, William. His influence on the poetry of the nineteenth
century, 27.
_Memoirs._ By Christopher Wordsworth, 159, 256.
_Poems._ Edited by Matthew Arnold, 196.
On Shakespeare and Goethe, 159.
His Sonnet, “It is not to be thought of,” 29, 127.
_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays._ By David Masson,
168.
_Worthies of England._ By Thomas Fuller, 61.
Wycherley, William, 12.
Young, Edward. _Conjectures on Original Composition_, 104, 224.
_Epistle to Lord Lansdowne_, 83.
_Yorick’s Sentimental Journey through France and Italy._ By Laurence
Sterne, 295.
_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The following corrections have been made to the original text:
Page vii: but he pays scant attention[original has “attentien”]
to the nineteenth
Page 25: his paper kite to fly.”[quotation mark missing in
original]
Page 36: RICHARD BARNFIELD[original has “BARNFEILD”], 1598
Page 78: p. iii.[period missing in original] prefixed to _Works
of Shakespeare_
Page 105: Which his own genius only could acquire.”[quotation
mark missing in original]
Page 109: dead letter Shakespeare’s noblest scene.[original has
a comma]
Page 112: adulatory verses written on the same
occasion.[letters “sion.” missing in original]—KEATE.
Page 117: He ceases to be Euripides; he is Medea[original has
“Meda”]
Page 123: “[original has a single quote]The British Eagle,”
_i.e._ Milton.
Page 129: mistaken the form for the essence[original has
“esssence”]
Page 129: as comprehensive and versatile,[comma missing in
original] as intense
Page 151: the emblazonries upon Shakespeare’s[original has
“Shakepeare’s”] shield.
Page 151: seems the mere rebound of the previous[original has
“precious”] speech
Page 206: _Poems._ 1886, vol. ii. pp. 273-4.[period missing in
original]
Page 218: _Henry V._[original has “v.”] V. prol. 23.
Page 300: And men shall give us honour for his sake.”[quotation
mark missing in original]
Page 321: Should say such un-Shakespearean things!’[quotation
mark missing in original]
Page 331: _Art of English Poetry._[original has a comma] By
Edward Bysshe
Page 331: Barnfield[original has “Barnfeild”], Richard.
Page 331: Bowle, John.[original has a comma] _Miscellaneous
Pieces of Ancient English Poetry_
Page 333: under “Dodsley,” 26 _n._[period missing in original],
123.
Page 333: Elegie[original has “Elgie”] on the Death of the
famous Writer
Page 334: Hanmer[original has “Hamner”], Sir Thomas.
Page 335: under “Headley, Henry,” 26 _n._[italics added to
match pattern of Index entries]
Page 336: Johnstone, ——.[period missing in original] _The Table
Talker_, 156.
Page 336: performance of “Richard II.,”[comma missing
in original] 144
Page 338: _Poems in Divers Humors._ By Richard
Barnfield[original has “Barnfeild”], 36.
Page 340: _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse._ By Dr. Ingleby,
vii,[original has a period] 4.
Page 341: under “Stratford-on-Avon,” _Monody_ written near. By
Thomas Warton, 121.[original has a period after “Warton” and
“121.” is missing]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Praise of Shakespeare - An English Anthology" ***
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