Title: Shakspeare and His Times
Author: Guizot, François
Language: English
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{i}

             Shakspeare And His Times,


                   By M. Guizot.



                    New York:

          Harper & Brothers, Publishers

              329 & 331 Pearl Street,

                 Franklin Square.

{ii}

{iii}

                    Preface.


The Essay on the Life and Works of Shakspeare, which I reprint in
the present volume, appeared for the first time as an
Introduction to the French edition of Shakspeare's complete
works, which was published at Paris in 1821. This edition was
based upon the translation of Shakspeare's plays which was
commenced in 1776 by Le Tourneur, and which, at that period, gave
rise to such animated disputes in the literary world, and
especially in the Correspondence of Voltaire and of La Harpe. In
1821 I undertook to edit this translation of Shakspeare's
principal works, and I revised six tragedies, ten historical
dramas, and three comedies. M. De Barante kindly assisted me by
translating "Hamlet;" and M. Amédée Pichot, who is so thoroughly
acquainted with England and English literature, undertook to
revise all the remaining plays.

Since that period other translations of Shakspeare, both partial
and complete, in prose and in verse, have been published.
Whatever their merit may be, they have not been successful; and
no one will ever succeed, except imperfectly, in transfusing into
our language, with their true character and full effect, the
works of this prodigious genius. This arises not only from the
fact that every translation must necessarily be imperfect and
insufficient, but also on account of the particular turn of
Shakspeare's mind and style, as well as that of his national
tongue.
{iv}
Shakspeare is excellent in substance, but deficient in form; he
discerns, and brings admirably into view, the instincts,
passions, ideas--indeed, all the inner life of man; he is the
most profound and most dramatic of moralists; but he makes his
personages speak a language which is often fastidious, strange,
excessive, and destitute of moderation and naturalness. And the
English language is singularly propitious to the defects, as well
as to the beauties, of Shakspeare; it is rich, energetic,
passionate, abundant, striking; it readily admits the lofty
flights, and even the wild excesses, of the poetic imagination;
but it does not possess that elegant sobriety, that severe and
delicate precision, that moderation in expression and harmony in
imagery, which constitute the peculiar merit of the French
language; so that, when Shakspeare passes from England into
France, if he is translated with scrupulous fidelity, his defects
become more apparent, and more offensive, beneath his new dress,
than they were in his native form; and if, on the other hand, it
is attempted to adapt his language, even in the slightest degree,
to the genius of our tongue, he is inevitably robbed of a great
part of his wealth, force, and originality. A literal translation
and a free rendering do wrong to Shakspeare in a different
manner, but in an equal degree. When he is translated, or when he
is read in a translation, it must never be forgotten that he
labors under one or other of these disadvantages.

In continuation of the Essay on the Life and Works of Shakspeare,
I have published, in this volume, a series of Notices of his
principal dramas, and an Essay on Othello and Dramatic Art in
France in 1830, which the Duke De Broglie inserted, at that
period, in the "Revue Francaise," and which he has kindly allowed
me to include in this volume.
{v}
Those Essays constitute, in some sort, proofs in support of the
ideas which, in 1821, I endeavored to develop regarding the
nature of dramatic art in general, and the particular and
diversified forms which it has assumed among those nations and in
those ages in which it has shone with greatest brilliancy: an art
so powerful and attractive, that, in all times and at all places,
in the period of its infancy as well as in that of its
maturity--of its glory as well as of its decline--it has ever
remained invincibly popular, and has never ceased to charm all
men either by its master-pieces or by its sparkling
_bluettes_.

    Guizot.
    Paris, _June_ 10, 1852.


{6}

{7}

                    Contents.


Shakspeare And His Times -- 9

Shakspeare's Tragedies

    Romeo and Juliet -- 161

    Hamlet -- 174

    King Lear -- 185

    Macbeth -- 192

    Julius Cæsar -- 208

    Othello -- 216

Shakspeare In France -- 228

Shakspeare's Historical Dramas 295

    King John -- 297

    King Richard II. -- 304

    King Henry IV. -- 312

    King Henry V. -- 320

    King Henry VI. -- 322

    King Richard III. -- 334

    King Henry VIII. -- 340

Shakspeare's Comedies:

    The Merchant of Venice -- 343

    The Merry Wives of Windsor -- 348

    The Tempest -- 354


{8}

{9}

             Shakspeare And His Times


Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke of Shakspeare's
genius; and although he spoke of him merely as a barbarian
genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said
too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than
profanation to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which
they considered as crude as they were coarse.

At the present day, all controversy regarding Shakspeare's genius
and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to
dispute them; but a greater question has arisen, namely, whether
Shakspeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of
Voltaire.

This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is
now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward
progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which
have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the
fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that
literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer
remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly
confined.

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human
mind; it is compelled to follow it in its course--to transport
itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed; to gain
elevation and extension with the ideas which occupy its notice,
and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new
aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the
new state of thought and of society.

{10}

My readers will not, therefore, be surprised that, in order
properly to appreciate Shakspeare, I find it necessary to make
some preliminary researches into the nature of dramatic poetry
and the civilization of modern peoples, especially of England. If
we did not begin with these general considerations, it would be
impossible to keep pace with the confused, perhaps, but active
and urgent ideas, which such a subject originates in all minds.

A theatrical performance is a popular festival; that it should be
so is required by the very nature of dramatic poetry. Its power
rests upon the effects of sympathy--of that mysterious force
which causes laughter to beget laughter; which bids tears to flow
at the sight of tears, and which, in spite of the diversity of
dispositions, conditions, and characters, produces the same
impression on all upon whom it simultaneously acts. For the
proper development of these effects, a crowd must be assembled;
those ideas and feelings which would pass languidly from one man
to another, traverse the serried ranks of a multitude with the
rapidity of lightning; and it is only when large masses of men
are collected together that we observe the action of that moral
electricity which the dramatic poet calls into such powerful
operation.

Dramatic poetry, therefore, could originate only among the
people. At its birth it was destined to promote their pleasures;
in their festivities it once performed an active part; and with
the first songs of Thespis the chorus of the spectators
invariably united.

{11}

But the people are not slow to perceive that the pleasures with
which they can supply themselves are neither the best, nor the
only pleasures which they are capable of enjoying. To those
classes which spend their days in toil, complete repose seems to
be the first and almost the sole condition of pleasure. A
momentary suspension of the efforts or privations of daily life,
an interval of movement and liberty, a relative abundance; this
is all that the people seek to derive from those festivities
which they are able to provide for themselves--these are all the
enjoyments which it is in their power to procure. And yet these
men are born to experience nobler and keener delights; they are
possessed of faculties which the monotony of their existence has
allowed to lie dormant in inactivity. If these faculties be
awakened by a powerful voice; if an animated narrative, or a
stirring scene stimulate these drowsy imaginations, these torpid
sensibilities, they will gain an activity which they could never
have imparted to themselves, but which they will rejoice to
receive; and then will arise, without the co-operation of the
multitude, but in its presence and for its amusement, new games
and new pleasures which will speedily become necessities.

To such festivities as these the dramatic poet invites the
assembled people. He undertakes to divert them, but the amusement
which he supplies is one of which they would have been ignorant
without his assistance. Æschylus relates to his fellow-citizens
the victories of Salamis, the anxieties of Atossa, and the grief
of Xerxes. He charms the people of Athens, but it is by raising
them to a level with emotions and ideas which Æschylus alone
could exalt to so high a point; and he communicates to the
multitude impressions which they are capable of feeling, but
which Æschylus alone is able to awaken.
{12}
Such is the nature of dramatic poetry; for the people it calls
its creations into being, to the people it addresses itself; but
it is in order to ennoble their character, to extend and vivify
their moral existence, to reveal to them faculties which they
unconsciously possess, and to procure for them enjoyments which
they eagerly seize, but which they would not even seek after, if
a sublime art did not reveal to them their existence by making
them minister to their gratification.

And this work the dramatic poet must necessarily pursue; he must
elevate and civilize, as it were, the crowd that he summons to
hear his performance. How can he act upon the assembled
multitude, except by an appeal to the most general and elevated
characteristics of their nature? It is only by going out of the
narrow circle of common life and individual interests that the
imagination becomes exalted and the heart enlarged, that
pleasures become disinterested and the affections generous, and
that men can sympathize in those common emotions the expression
of which causes the theatre to resound with transports of
delight. Religion has, therefore, universally been the source and
furnished the primitive materials of dramatic art; at its origin,
it celebrated, among the Greeks, the adventures of Bacchus, and,
in Northern Europe, the mysteries of Christ. This arises from the
fact that, of all human affections, piety most powerfully unites
men in common feelings, because it most thoroughly detaches them
from themselves; it is also less dependent for its development
upon the progress of civilization, as it is powerful and pure
even in the most backward state of society. From its very
beginning, dramatic poetry has invoked the aid of piety, because,
of all the sentiments to which it could address itself, piety was
the noblest and the most universal.

{13}

Originating thus among the people and for the people, but
destined to elevate them by affording them delight, the dramatic
art speedily became, in every age and country, and by reason of
this very characteristic of its nature, the favorite pleasure of
the superior classes.

This was its natural tendency; and in this, also, it has
encountered its most dangerous quicksands. More than once,
allowing itself to be led astray by its high fortune, dramatic
art has lost or compromised its energy and liberty. When the
superior classes can fully give themselves up to their position,
they fall into the error or misfortune of isolating themselves
from their fellows, and ceasing, as it were, to share in the
general nature of man, and the public interests of society. Those
universal feelings, natural ideas, and simple relationships which
constitute the basis of humanity and of life, become changed and
enervated in a social condition which consists entirely of
exceptions and privileges. In such a state of society,
conventionalisms take the place of realities, and morals become
factitious and feeble. Human destiny ceases to be known under its
most salient and general aspects. It has a thousand phases, it
leads to a host of impressions and relations of which the higher
classes are utterly ignorant, unless they are compelled to enter
frequently into the public atmosphere. Dramatic art, when devoted
to their pleasure, finds its domain greatly diminished and
impoverished; it is invaded by a sort of monotony; events,
passions, characters, all those natural treasures which it lays
under contribution, no longer supply it with the same originality
and wealth. Its independence is imperiled as well as its variety
and energy. The habits of elegant society, as well as those of
the multitude, are characterized by their littlenesses, and it is
much more capable of imposing these littlenesses as laws.
{14}
It is stimulated by tastes rather than by necessities; it rarely
introduces into its pleasures that serious and ingenuous
disposition which abandons itself with transport to the
impressions which it receives; and it very frequently treats
genius as a servant who is bound to please it, and not as a power
that is capable of governing it by the enjoyments which it can
supply. If the dramatic poet does not possess, in the suffrages
of a larger and more simple public, the means of defending
himself against the haughty taste of a select coterie--if he can
not arm himself with public approbation, and rely for support
upon the universal feelings which he has been able to arouse in
all hearts--his liberty is lost; the caprices which he has
attempted to satisfy will weigh upon him like a chain, from which
he will be unable to free himself; talent, which is entitled to
command all, will find itself subject to the minority, and he who
ought to guide the taste of the people, will become the slave of
fashion.

Such, then, is the nature of dramatic poetry that, in order to
produce its most magical effects, and to preserve, during its
growth, its liberty as well as its wealth, it must not separate
from the people, to whom its earliest efforts were addressed. It
languishes, if it is transplanted from the soil in which it first
took root. Popular at its origin, it must continue to be
national, and it must not cease to comprehend beneath its sway,
and to charm with its productions, all classes that are capable
of experiencing the emotions from which it derives its power.

{15}

All ages of society, and all states of civilization are not
equally favorable to calling the people to the aid of dramatic
poetry, and insuring its prosperity under their influence. It was
the happy lot of Greece that the whole nation grew and developed
itself together with literature and the arts, keeping always on a
level with their progress, and acting as a competent judge of
their glory. That same people of Athens, who had surrounded the
chariot of Thespis, thronged to hear the master-pieces of
Sophocles and Euripides; and the most splendid triumphs of genius
were always, in that city, popular festivals. So brilliant a
moral equality has not presided over the destiny of modern
nations; their civilization, displaying itself upon a far more
extended scale, has undergone many more vicissitudes, and
presented much less unity. During more than ten centuries,
nothing was easy, general, or simple in our Europe. Religion,
liberty, public order, literature--nothing has been developed
among us without long-continued effort, in the midst of
incessantly-renewed struggles, and under the most diversified
influences. Amid this mighty and agitated chaos, dramatic poetry
did not possess the privilege of an easy and rapid career. It was
not its fate to find, almost at its birth, a public at once
homogeneous and various, the constituent members of which, both
great and small, rich and poor, in fine, all classes of citizens,
should be equally eager for, and worthy of its most brilliant
solemnities. Neither epochs of great social disorder nor periods
of severe necessity are times in which the masses can devote
themselves with enthusiasm to the pleasures of the stage.
Literature prospers only when it is so intimately united with the
tastes, habits, and entire existence of a people as to be
regarded at once as an occupation and a festivity, an amusement
and a necessity. Dramatic poetry, more than any other branch of
literature, depends upon this deep-seated and general union of
the arts with society.
{16}
It is not satisfied with the tranquil pleasures of enlightened
approbation, but it requires the quick impulses of passion; it
does not seek men in leisure and retirement that it may furnish
agreeable occupation for their hours of repose, but it requires
men to hasten and throng around it. A certain degree of mental
development and simplicity, a certain community of ideas and
habits between the different classes of society, greater ardor
than fixity of imagination, greater movement of soul than of
existence, a strongly-excited moral activity destitute of any
imperious and determined object, liberty of thought and repose of
life--these are the circumstances of which dramatic poetry has
need, in order to shine with its full splendor. These
circumstances never combined so completely or so harmoniously
among modern peoples as among the Greeks. But wherever their
leading characteristics have been found to exist, the drama has
become elevated; and neither have men of genius been failing to
the public, nor has the public proved wanting to men of genius.

The reign of Elizabeth, in England, was one of those decisive
epochs, so laboriously attained by modern peoples which terminate
the empire of force and inaugurate the reign of ideas. Original
and fruitful epochs are these, when the nations flock to mental
enjoyments as to a new kind of gratification, and when thought
prepares, in the pleasures of youth, for the discharge of those
functions which it will be called upon to exercise at a riper
age.

Scarcely recovered from the storms with which it had been ravaged
by the alternate successes and reverses of the Red and White
Roses, before it was again distracted and exhausted by the
capricious tyranny of Henry VIII. and the malevolent despotism of
Mary, England demanded of Elizabeth, at her accession, nothing
but order and peace; and this was precisely what Elizabeth was
most disposed to bestow.
{17}
Naturally prudent and reserved, though haughty and strong-willed,
she had been taught by the stern necessities of her youth never
to compromise herself. When upon the throne, she maintained her
independence by asking little of her people, and staked her
policy upon running no risks. Military glory could not seduce a
distrustful woman. The sovereignty of the Netherlands,
notwithstanding the efforts of the Dutch to induce her to accept
it, did not tempt her wary ambition. She resignedly determined to
make no attempt to recover Calais, or to retain Havre; and all
her desires of greatness, as well as all the cares of her
government, were concentrated upon the direct interests of the
country which she had to restore to repose and prosperity.

Surprised at so novel a state of things, the people reveled in it
with the intoxication of returning health. Civilization, which
had been destroyed or, suspended by their dissensions, revived or
progressed on every side. Industry brought wealth in its train,
and notwithstanding the shackles imposed by the oppressive
proceedings of the government, all the historians and all the
documents of this period bear testimony to the rapid progress of
popular luxury. The chronicler Harrison informs us that he had
heard many old men express their surprise at "the multitude of
chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were
not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of
the realm (the religious houses and manor-places of their lords
always excepted). 'Our fathers,' they said, 'lay full oft upon
straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, and a
good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow;
and if the good man of the house had, within seven years after
his marriage, purchased a mattress or stock-bed, and thereto a
sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as
well lodged as the lord of the town.'" [Footnote 1]

    [Footnote 1: Harrison's Description of England, prefixed to
    Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. i., p. 188.]

{18}

But Elizabeth ascended the throne, and Shakspeare tells us that
the busiest employment of the elves and fairies was to pinch
"black and blue" those servants who neglected to cleanse the
hearth-stone with due regularity. And Harrison informs us that
the farmers' houses in his time were well supplied "with three or
four feather-beds, as many coverlids and carpets of tapestry,
besides a fair garnish of pewter on the cupboard, with a silver
salt-cellar, a bowl for wine, and a dozen of spoons to furnish up
the suit." [Footnote 2]

    [Footnote 2: Ibid. p. 189.]

More than one generation will pass away before a people will have
exhausted the novel enjoyments of such unusual good fortune. The
reigns of both Elizabeth and her successor were scarcely
sufficient to wear out that taste for comfort and repose which
had been fostered by long-continued agitations; and that
religious ardor, the explosion of which subsequently revealed the
existence of new forces which had lain hid in the bosom of
society during the tranquillity of these two reigns, was then
spreading itself silently among the masses, without as yet giving
birth to any general and decisive movement.

The Reformation, though treated with hostility by the great
sovereigns of the Continent, had received from Henry VIII. enough
encouragement and support to lessen its ambition and retard its
progress for a time. The yoke of Rome had been cast off, and
monastic life abolished. By thus granting satisfaction to the
primary desires of the age, and turning the first blows of the
Reformation to the advantage of material interests, Henry VIII.
deterred many minds from inquiring more thoroughly into the
purely theological dogmas of Catholicism, which no longer shocked
them by the exhibition of its most obnoxious abuses.
{19}
Faith, it is true, was in a tottering state, and could no longer
cling firmly to disputed doctrines. These doctrines, therefore,
were fated one day to fall; but the day of their rejection was
delayed. At a time when the Catholic defender of the real
presence was burned at the stake for maintaining the supremacy of
the Pope, and the Reformer who denied the papal supremacy
suffered the same punishment for refusing to admit the real
presence, many minds necessarily remained in suspense. Neither of
the two conflicting opinions afforded to cowardice, which is so
plentifully manifested in difficult times, the refuge of a
victorious party. The dogma of political obedience was the only
one which docile consciences could adopt with any zeal; and among
the sincere adherents of either party, the hopes of triumph which
so singular a position allowed each to entertain still kept in
activity those timidly courageous individuals whom tyranny is
obliged to pursue into their last retrenchments, in order to
force them to offer any resistance.

The vicissitudes experienced by the religious establishment of
England, during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, tended to
maintain this disposition. Anxiety for martyrdom had not time, in
either party, to nourish and diffuse itself; and though the party
of the Reformation--which was already more influential over the
public mind, more persevering in its exertions, and more
remarkable for the number and courage of its martyrs--was
proceeding evidently toward a final victory, yet the success
which it had obtained at the accession of Elizabeth had supplied
it rather with leisure to prepare for new conflicts than with
power to engage in them at once, and to render them decisive.

{20}

Though connected, by her position, with the doctrines of the
Reformers, Elizabeth had, in common with the Catholic clergy, a
strong taste for pomp and authority. Her first regulations in
regard to religious matters were, consequently, of such a
character that most of the Catholics felt no repugnance to attend
the divine worship with which the Reformers were satisfied; and
the establishment of the Anglican Church, which was intrusted to
the hands of the existing clergy, met with very little
resistance, and at the same time very little encouragement, from
the general body of ecclesiastics. Religion continued to be
regarded, by a great many persons, as a merely political matter.
The disputes of England with the Court of Rome and with Spain, a
few internal conspiracies and the severities with which they were
repressed, successively created new causes for animosity between
the two parties. Religious interest, however, had so little
influence over public feeling, that in 1569, Elizabeth, the
daughter of the Reformation, but far more precious to her people
as the pledge of public repose and prosperity, found most of her
Catholic subjects zealous to assist her to crush the Catholic
rebellion of a part of the north of England.

For still stronger reasons, they willingly agreed to that joyous
forgetfulness of all great subjects of dispute which Elizabeth
encouraged them to entertain. It is true that, in the depths of
the masses of the people, the Reformation, which had been
flattered, but not satisfied, murmured indistinctly; and even
that voice which was destined soon to shake all England to its
centre was heard gradually rising to utterance.
{21}
But amid that movement of youthful vigor, which had, as it were,
carried away the whole nation, the stern severity of the
Reformers was still regarded as importunate, and those who had
bestowed on it a passing glance quickly turned their eyes in some
more agreeable direction; so that the accents of Puritanism,
united with those of liberty, were repressed without effort by a
power under whose protection the people had too recently been
sheltered to entertain any great fear of its encroachments.

No periods are perhaps more favorable to the fertility and
originality of mental productions than those times at which a
nation already free, but still ignorant of its own position,
ingenuously enjoys what it possesses without perceiving in what
it is deficient: times full of ardor, but very easy to please,
before rights have been narrowly defined, powers discussed, or
restrictions agreed upon. The government and the public,
proceeding in their course undisturbed by fears or scruples,
exist together without any distrustful observance of each other,
and even come into communication but rarely. If, on the one side,
power is unlimited, on the other liberty will be great; for both
parties will be ignorant of those general forms, those
innumerable and minute duties to which actions and minds are more
or less subjected by a scientifically constructed despotism, and
even by a well-regulated liberty. Thus it was that the age of
Richelieu and Louis XIV. consciously possessed that amount of
liberty which has furnished us with a literature and a drama. At
that period of our history, when even the name of public
liberties seemed to have been forgotten, and when a feeling of
the dignity of man served as the basis neither of the
institutions of the country nor of the acts of the government,
the dignity of individual positions still existed wherever power
had not yet found it necessary to crush it.
{22}
Beside the forms of servility, we meet with forms, and sometimes
even with manifestations of independence. The grand seigneur,
though submissive and adoring as a courtier, could nevertheless
proudly remember on certain occasions that he was a gentleman.
Corneille the citizen could find no terms sufficiently humble to
express his gratitude to, and dependence upon, Cardinal
Richelieu; but Corneille the poet disdained the authority which
assumed to prescribe rules for the guidance of his genius, and
defended, against the literary pretensions of an absolute
minister, those "secret means of pleasing which he might have
found in his art." In fine, men of vigorous mind evaded in a
thousand ways the yoke of a still incomplete or inexperienced
despotism; and the imagination soared freely in every direction
within the range of its flight.

In England, during the reign of Elizabeth, the supreme power,
though far more irregular and less skillfully organised than it
was in France under Louis XIV., had to treat with much more
deeply-rooted principles of liberty. It would be a mistake to
measure the despotism of Elizabeth by the speeches of her
flatterers, or even by the acts of her government. In her still
young and inexperienced court, the language of adulation far
exceeded the servility of the adulator; and in the country, in
which ancient institutions had by no means perished, the
government was far from exercising universal sway. In the
counties and chief towns, an independent administration
maintained habits and instincts of liberty. The queen imposed
silence upon the Commons when they pressed her to appoint a
successor, or to grant some article of religious liberty. But the
Commons had met, and spoken; and the queen, notwithstanding the
haughtiness of her refusal, took great care to give no cause for
complaints that might have increased the authority of their
words.
{23}
Despotism and liberty, thus avoiding a meeting instead of seeking
a battle, manifested themselves without feeling any hatred for
each other, with that simplicity of action which prevents those
collisions and banishes those bitter feelings which are
occasioned on both sides by continual resistance. A Puritan had
had his right hand cut off as a punishment for having written a
tract against the proposed marriage of Elizabeth to the Duke of
Anjou; and immediately after the sentence had been executed, he
waved his hat with his left hand, and shouted, "God save the
Queen!" When loyalty is thus deeply rooted in the heart of a man
exposed to such sufferings for the cause of liberty, liberty in
general must necessarily think that it has no great reason for
complaint.

This period, then, was deficient in none of the advantages which
it was capable of desiring. There was nothing to prevent the
minds of the people from indulging freely in all the intoxication
natural to thought when it has reached the age of development--an
age of follies and miracles, when the imagination revels in its
most puerile as well as in its noblest manifestations.
Extravagantly luxurious festivities, splendor of dress, addiction
to gallantry, ardent conformity to fashion, and sacrifices to
favor, employed the wealth and leisure of the courtiers of
Elizabeth. More enthusiastic temperaments went to distant lands
in search of adventures, which, in addition to the hope of
fortune, offered them the livelier pleasure of perilous
encounters. Sir Francis Drake sailed forth as a corsair, and
volunteers thronged on board his ship; Sir Walter Raleigh
announced a distant expedition, and scions of noble houses sold
their goods to join his crew.
{24}
Spontaneous ventures and patriotic enterprises followed each
other in almost daily succession; and, far from becoming
exhausted by this continual movement, the minds of men received
from it fresh vigor and impulse. Thought claimed its share in the
supply of pleasures, and became, at the same time, the sustenance
of the most serious passions. While the crowd hurried on all
sides into the numerous theatres which had been erected, the
Puritan, in his solitary meditations, burned with indignation
against these pomps of Belial, and this sacrilegious employment
of man, the image of God upon earth. Poetic ardor and religious
asperity, literary quarrels and theological controversies, taste
for festivities and fanaticism for austerities, philosophy and
criticism, sermons, pamphlets, and epigrams, appeared
simultaneously, and jostled each other in admired confusion. Amid
this natural and fantastic conflict of opposite elements, the
power of opinion, the feeling and habit of liberty, were silently
in process of formation: two forces, brilliant at their first
appearance and imposing in their progress, the first-fruits of
which belong to any skillful government that is able to use them,
but the maturity of which is terrible to any imprudent government
that may attempt to reduce them to servitude. The impulse which
has constituted the glory of a reign, may speedily become the
fever which will precipitate a people into revolution. In the
days of Elizabeth, the movement of the public mind summoned
England only to festivities; and dramatic poetry sprang into full
being under the master-hand of Shakspeare.

{25}

Who would not delight to go to the fountain-head of the first
inspirations of an original genius; to penetrate into the secret
of the causes which guided his nascent powers; to follow him step
by step in his progress; and, in a word, to behold the whole
inner life of a man who, after having in his own country opened
to dramatic poetry the road which she has never since quitted,
still reigns pre-eminent, and with almost undivided sway?
Unfortunately, Shakspeare is one of these superior men whose life
was but little noticed by his contemporaries, and it has
therefore remained obscure to succeeding generations. A few civil
registers in which traces of the existence of his family have
been preserved, a few traditions connected with his name in the
district in which he was born, and the splendid productions of
his own genius, are the only means which we possess of supplying
the deficiencies of his personal history.

The family of Shakspeare resided at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the
county of Warwick. His father, John Shakspeare, derived the
greater part of his income, as it would appear, from his business
as a wool-stapler. It is probable, however, that he connected
with this several other branches of trade; for in some anecdotes
collected at Stratford--fifty years, it is true, after
Shakspeare's death--Aubrey [Footnote 3] represents him to have
been the son of a butcher.

    [Footnote 3: A writer who lived about fifty years after
    Shakspeare, and who made a collection of anecdotes and
    traditions regarding the time in which he flourished.]

At such a distance of time, recollections handed down through two
or three generations might have become somewhat confused in the
memory of Shakspeare's fellow-townsmen; but professions were not
then so distinct or so numerous as they have become in our times,
and nothing could have been less strange, at this period, and
especially in a small town, than the union of the various trades
connected with the sale of cattle.
{26}
However this may be, Shakspeare's family belonged to that
_bourgeoisie_ which early acquired so much importance in
England. His great-great-grandfather had received from Henry
VII., "for his valiant and faithful services," a grant of land in
Warwickshire. His father filled the office of high bailiff of
Stratford in the year 1569; but, ten years afterward, it would
seem that he experienced a reverse of fortune, for in 1579 we
find, from the registers of Stratford, that two aldermen, of whom
John Shakspeare was one, were exempted from paying a small tax
paid by their colleagues. In 1586 he was removed from his office
of alderman, the duties of which he had for some time ceased to
perform. Other causes besides his poverty may have led to his
removal. It has been said that Shakspeare was a Catholic; and it
appears at least to be certain that such was the faith of his
father. In the year 1770, a bricklayer, while mending the roof of
the house in which Shakspeare was born, found, between the
rafters and the tiling, a manuscript, which had doubtless been
hidden there in a time of persecution, and which contained a
profession of the Catholic faith in fourteen articles, all of
which began with the words: "I, John Shakspeare." The
ever-increasing power of the doctrines of the Reformation had,
perhaps, rendered the duties of an alderman more difficult of
performance to a Catholic, who, as he advanced in age, may also
have become more scrupulous in the observance of the rules of his
faith.

William Shakspeare was born on the 23d of April, 1564. He was the
third or fourth of the nine, ten, or perhaps eleven children who
constituted the family of John. William, there is reason to
believe, was the first son, the eldest of his father's hopes.
Prosperity and respectability undoubtedly belonged, at this
period, to his family, as its head became chief magistrate of his
native town five years afterward.
{27}
We may therefore admit that Shakspeare's education, in his
earlier years, was in conformity with the circumstances of his
father; and when a change in his fortunes, from whatever cause it
may have arisen, occasioned an interruption of his studies, he
had probably acquired those first elements of a liberal education
which are quite sufficient to free the mind of a superior man
from the awkwardness of ignorance, and to put him in possession
of those forms which he will need for the suitable expression of
his thoughts. This is more than enough to explain how it was that
Shakspeare was deficient in those acquirements which constitute a
good education, although he possessed the elegance which is its
usual accompaniment.

Shakspeare was scarcely fifteen years old when he was taken from
school to assist his impoverished father in his business. It was
then that, according to Aubrey, William exercised the sanguinary
functions of a butcher's assistant. This supposition is
considered revolting by commentators on the poet at the present
day; but a circumstance related by Aubrey does not permit us to
doubt its correctness, and at the same time reveals to us that
his young imagination was already incapable of subjecting itself
to so vile an employment without connecting therewith some
ennobling idea or sentiment. "When he killed a calf," said the
people of the neighborhood to Aubrey, "he would do it in a high
style, and make a speech." Who can not catch a glimpse, in this
story, of the tragic poet inspired by the sight of death, even in
an animal, and striving to render it imposing or pathetic? Who
can not picture to himself the scholar of thirteen or fourteen
years of age, with his head full of his first literary
attainments, and his mind impressed, perhaps, by some theatrical
performance, elevating, in poetic transport, the animal about to
fall beneath his ax to the dignity of a victim, or perhaps even
to that of a tyrant?

{28}

In the year 1576, the brilliant Leicester celebrated the visit of
Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth by festivities, whose extraordinary
magnificence is attested by all the chronicles of the time.
Shakspeare was then twelve years old, and Kenilworth is only a
few miles from Stratford. It is difficult to doubt that the
family of the young poet participated, with all the population of
the surrounding country, in the pleasure and admiration excited
by these pompous spectacles. What an impulse would the
imagination of Shakspeare not fail to receive! Nevertheless, the
early years of the poet have transmitted to us, as the only sign
of those singularities which may announce the presence of genius,
the anecdote which I have just related; and the information which
we possess regarding the amusements of his youth gives no hint
whatever of the tastes and pleasures of a literary life.

We live in times of civilization, and progress, when every thing
has its place and rule, and when the destiny of every individual
is determined by circumstances more or less imperious, but which
manifest themselves at an early period. A poet begins by being a
poet; he who is to become one knows it almost from infancy;
poetry has been familiar to his earliest contemplation; it may
have been his first taste, his first passion when the movement of
the passions awakened in his heart. The young man has expressed
in verse that which he does not yet feel; and when feeling truly
arises within him, his first thought will be to express it in
verse. Poetry has become the object of his existence--an object
as important as any other--a career in which he may obtain
fortune as well as glory, and which may afford an opening to the
serious ideas of his future life, as well as to the capricious
sallies of his youth.
{29}
In so advanced a state of society, a man can not be long
ignorant, or spend much time in search of his own powers; an easy
way presents itself to the view of that youthful ardor which
would probably wander far astray before finding the direction
best suited to it; those forces and passions from which talent
will issue soon learn the secret of their destiny; and, summed up
in speeches, images, and harmonious cadences, the illusions of
desire, the chimeras of hope, and sometimes even the bitterness
of disappointment, are exhaled without difficulty in the
precocious essays of the young man.

In times when life is difficult and manners coarse, this is
rarely the case in regard to the poet, who is formed by nature
alone. Nothing reveals him so speedily to himself; he must have
felt much before he can think he has any thing to portray; his
first powers will be spent in action--in such irregular action as
may be provoked by the impatience of his desires--in violent
action, if any obstacle intervene between himself and the success
with which his fiery imagination has promised to crown him. In
vain has fate bestowed on him the noblest gifts; he can employ
them only upon the single object with which he is acquainted.
Heaven only knows what triumphs he will achieve by his eloquence,
in what projects and for what advantages he will display the
riches of his inventive faculty, among what equals his talents
will raise him to the first rank, and of what society the
vivacity of his mind will render him the amusement and the idol!
Alas for this melancholy subjection of man to the external world!
Gifted with useless power if his horizon be less extensive than
his capacity of vision, he sees only that which lies around him;
and Heaven, which has bestowed treasures upon him with such
lavish munificence, has done nothing for him if it does not place
him in circumstances which may reveal them to his gaze.
{30}
This revelation commonly arises from misfortune; when the world
fails the superior man, he falls back upon himself, and becomes
aware of his own resources; when necessity presses him, he
collects his powers; and it is frequently through having lost the
faculty of groveling upon earth that genius and virtue rise in
triumph to the skies.

Neither the occupations in which Shakspeare seemed destined to
spend his life, nor the amusements and companions of his leisure
hours, afforded him any materials adapted to affect and absorb
that imagination, the power of which had begun to agitate his
being. Rushing into all the excitements which he met on his way,
because nothing could satisfy him, the youth of the poet gave
admission to pleasure, under whatever form it presented itself. A
tradition of the banks of the Avon, which is in strict accordance
with probability, gives us reason to suppose that he had only a
choice of the most vulgar diversions. The anecdote is still
related, it is said, by the men of Stratford and of Bidford, a
neighboring village, renowned in past ages for the excellence of
its beer, and also, it is added, for the unquenchable thirst of
its inhabitants.

The population of the neighborhood of Bidford was divided into
two classes, known by the names of _Topers_ and
_Sippers_. These fraternities were in the habit of
challenging to drinking-bouts all those who, in the surrounding
country, took credit to themselves for any merit of this kind.
The youth of Stratford, when challenged in its turn, valiantly
accepted the defiance; and Shakspeare, who, we are assured, was
no less a connoisseur in beer than Falstaff in Canary sack,
formed a part of the joyous band, from which, doubtless, he
rarely separated.
{31}
But their strength was not equal to their courage. On arriving at
the place of meeting, the champions of Stratford found out that
the Topers had set out for a neighboring fair. The Sippers, who,
to all appearance, were less formidable opponents, remained
alone, and proposed to try the fortune of war. The offer was
accepted; but in a short time the Stratford party were thoroughly
knocked up, and reduced to the sad necessity of employing their
little remaining reason in using their legs as they best might to
effect a retreat. The operation was difficult, and soon became
impossible. They had hardly gone a mile, when their strength
failed, and the whole party bivouacked for the night under a
crab-tree, which, travelers tell us, is still standing on the
road from Stratford to Bidford, and is known by the name of
Shakspeare's Tree. On the following morning, his comrades,
refreshed and invigorated by rest and sleep, endeavored to induce
him to return with them to avenge the affront they had received
on the previous evening; but Shakspeare refused to go back, and,
looking round on the villages which were to be seen from the
point on which he stood, exclaimed, "No, I have had enough
drinking with

  'Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,
   Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton,
   Dudging [Footnote 4] Exhall, Papist Wicksford,
   Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.'" [Footnote 5]

    [Footnote 4: Sulky, stubborn, in dudgeon.]

    [Footnote 5: Several of these villages still retain the
    reputation ascribed to them by Shakspeare in this quatrain.]

{32}

This conclusion of the adventure gives rise to the presumption
that debauchery had less share than gayety in these excursions of
Shakspeare's youth, and that verse, if not poetry, was already
the natural language in which he gave expression to his feelings.
Tradition has handed down to us some other impromptus of the same
kind, but they are connected with anecdotes of less significance.
All that we know, however, combines to portray to us his merry
and quick imagination disporting itself with complacency amid the
uncouth objects of his amusements; and we behold the future
friend of Lord Southampton charming the rustic inhabitants of the
banks of the Avon with that graceful animation, that joyous
serenity of temper, and that benevolent openness of character
which every where found or made for itself pleasures and friends.

Meanwhile, amid these grotesque follies, a serious event took
place, and that was the marriage of Shakspeare. At the time when
he contracted this important engagement, Shakspeare was not more
than eighteen years of age, for his eldest daughter came into the
world just a month after he had completed his nineteenth year.
What motive led him thus early to undertake responsibilities
which he seemed as yet but ill calculated to discharge? Anne
Hathaway, his wife, the daughter of a farmer, and therefore a
little inferior to him in rank, was eight years older than
himself. She may, perhaps, have surpassed him in fortune, or
perhaps the parents of the poet were anxious to attach him, by an
advantageous marriage, to some settled occupation; it does not
appear, however, that Shakspeare's marriage added to his worldly
prosperity; the contrary, indeed, was the case. Perhaps love led
to the union of the young couple; perhaps even it constrained
their families to hasten the legitimate accomplishment of their
wishes. However this may be, in less than two years after the
birth of Susanna, the first-fruit of their marriage, twins were
born, a boy and a girl--the last proof of a conjugal intimacy
which had at first announced itself under such favorable
appearances.
{33}
According to some indications, which are, in truth, doubtful and
obscure, the wife of Shakspeare, who, as we shall presently see,
was remembered, or rather forgotten, in a strange manner in his
will, was only rarely present to his thoughts in the after part
of his life; and this irrevocable engagement, so hastily
contracted, seems to have been one of the most fleeting fancies
of his youth.

Among the facts and conjectures which have been stored up in
reference to this period of Shakspeare's life, we must place the
tradition related by Aubrey, which represents him as having for
some time filled the office of schoolmaster, though the truth of
this anecdote is denied by nearly all his biographers. Some
writers, basing their supposition upon passages contained in his
works, are inclined to believe that the poet of Elizabeth
attempted to subject the powers of his mind to the routine duties
of a lawyer's office. According to their conjectures, the new
duties of paternity compelled him to seek this employment for his
talents, whereas Aubrey places his brief experience as a
schoolmaster before his marriage. Nothing is, however, certain or
important on these points. Of one thing only we may speak with
certainty, and that is, the constant disposition of the husband
of Anne Hathaway to vary, by diversions of every kind, whatever
occupations might be imposed upon him by necessity. The
occurrence which forced Shakspeare to leave Stratford, and gave
to England her greatest poet, proves that his position as the
father of a family had not effected any great alteration in the
irregularity of his habits as a young man.

{34}

Jealous preservers of their game, like all gentlemen who are not
engaged in war, the possessors of parks were continually under
the necessity of defending them against invasions, which, in
places so open and unprotected, were as frequent as they were
easy. Danger does not always diminish temptation, but frequently
even makes it appear less illegitimate. A band of poachers
carried on their depredations in the neighborhood of Stratford,
and Shakspeare, who was eminently sociable, never refused to
engage in any thing that was done in common. He was caught in the
park of Sir Thomas Lucy, locked up in the keeper's lodge, where
he passed the night in no very agreeable manner, and taken the
next morning before Sir Thomas, in whose presence, according to
all appearance, he did not extenuate his fault by submission and
repentance. Shakspeare seems to have retained too merry a
recollection of this circumstance of his life for us to suppose
that it caused him any thing more than amusement. Sir Thomas
Lucy, whom he brought on the stage some years afterward as
Justice Shallow, had doubtless taken hold of his imagination less
as an object of ill humor than as a pleasant caricature. Whether,
in their interview, Shakspeare exercised the vivacity of his wit
at the expense of his powerful adversary, and consoled himself by
his success for his ill luck, or whether he enjoyed the scene
with that mocking pride which is so amusing to the person who
displays it, and so offensive to him who has to submit to it, we
do not know, but such a supposition is in itself very probable;
and the scene in the "Second Part of Henry IV.," in which
Falstaff treats with witty insolence Justice Shallow, who
threatens to prosecute him for just such an offense, evidently
conveys to us some of the repartees of the young poacher.
{35}
They were not intended, and could not have availed, to mollify
the resentment of Sir Thomas. In whatever manner he may have
vented his wrath upon the offender who was then in his power, the
necessity for vengeance had become reciprocal. Shakspeare
composed, and posted on Sir Thomas's gates, a ballad which was
quite bad enough to thoroughly divert the public, to whom he then
looked for triumph, and to excite to the last degree the anger of
the man whose name it held up to popular ridicule. A criminal
prosecution was commenced against the young man with such
violence, that he found it necessary to provide for his own
safety; so he left his family, and traveled to London in search
of an asylum and the means of subsistence.

Some of Shakspeare's biographers have supposed that pecuniary
difficulties may have occasioned this flight from home. Aubrey
attributes it only to his desire to find in London some
opportunity for the display of his talent. But, whatever may have
been the ulterior results of the poet's adventure with Sir Thomas
Lucy, the fact itself can not be called in question. Shakspeare
seems to have taken particular pains to state it. Of all
Falstaff's follies, the only one for which he is not punished is
having "beaten the men and killed the deer" of Shallow--an
exploit in far greater conformity to the idea which Shakspeare
may have retained of his own youth, than to the description he
has given us of the old knight, who is generally vanquished
instead of victorious. All the advantage, however, remains with
Falstaff in this affair; and Shallow, who is so clearly
designated by the arms of the Lucy family, is nowhere so
ridiculous as in the scene in which he vents his wrath against
the robber of his game. The poet, indeed, takes no further notice
of him, but leaves him, when he gets out of Falstaff's hands, as
if he had obtained from him all that he intended to extract.
{36}
The friendly care and complacency with which Shakspeare
reproduces in the piece, in reference to Shallow's armorial
bearings, the play upon words which formed the basis of his
ballad against Sir Thomas Lucy, have quite the appearance of a
tender recollection; and assuredly, few historical anecdotes can
produce in favor of their authenticity such conclusive moral
evidence.

It is unfortunate that we can not say as much with regard to the
employment of the early part of Shakspeare's residence in London,
to the circumstances which led to his connection with the stage,
and to the part which consciousness of his talent may have had in
forming the resolution which directed the flight of his genius.
But even the best authenticated traditions on these points are
deficient alike in probability and in proofs. That craving after
astonishment, which is the source of marvelous beliefs, and which
will almost always make our faith incline toward the stranger of
two narratives, disposes us in general to seek, for all important
events, an accidental cause in what we call chance. We then
admire, with singular delight, the miraculous shrewdness of that
chance which we suppose to be blind, because we are blind
ourselves; and our imagination rejoices in the idea of an
unreasoning force presiding over the destiny of a man of genius.
Thus, according to the most accredited tradition, misery alone
determined the choice of Shakspeare's first occupation in London,
and the care of holding horses at the door of the theatre was his
first connection with the stage--his first step toward dramatic
life. But the extraordinary man is always revealed by some
outward sign: such was the gracefulness manifested by the
newcomer in his humble duties, that soon no one would trust his
horse into other hands than those of William Shakspeare or his
assistants.
{37}
Extending his business, this favored servant of the public hired
boys to wait under his inspection, who, when Will Shakspeare was
summoned, were immediately to present themselves, as they were
certain to be preferred when they declared themselves
"Shakspeare's boys"--a title which, it is said, was long retained
by the waiters that held horses at the doors of the theatres.

Such is the anecdote related by Johnson, who had it, he said,
from Pope, to whom it was communicated by Rowe. Nevertheless,
Rowe, Shakspeare's first biographer, has not mentioned it in his
own narrative, and Johnson's authority is supported only by
Cibber's "Lives of the Poets," a work to which Cibber contributed
nothing but his name, and of which one of Johnson's own
amanuenses was almost the sole author.

Another tradition, which had been preserved among the actors of
the time, represents Shakspeare to us as filling at first the
lowest position in the theatrical hierarchy, namely, that of
call-boy, whose duty it was to summon the actors, when their time
came to appear upon the stage. Such, in fact, would have been the
gradual promotion by which the horse-holder might have raised
himself to the honor of admission behind the scenes. But, when
turning his idea to the theatre, is it likely that Shakspeare
would have stopped short at the door? At the time of his arrival
in London, in the year 1584 or 1585, he had a natural protector
at the Blackfriars' Theatre; for Greene, his townsman, and
probably his relative, figured there as an actor of some
reputation, and also as the author of several comedies. According
to Aubrey, it was with a positive intention to devote himself to
the stage that Shakspeare came to London; and, even if Greene's
influence had not been able to secure his reception in a higher
character than that of call-boy, it is easy to understand the
rapid strides with which a superior man reaches the summit of any
career into which he has once obtained admission.
{38}
But it would be more difficult to conceive that, with Greene's
example and protection, a theatrical career, or, at least, a
desire to try his powers as an actor, would not have been
Shakspeare's first ambition. The time had come when mental
ambitions were kindling on every side; and dramatic poetry, which
had long been numbered among the national pleasures, had at
length acquired in England that importance which calls for the
production of master-pieces.

Nowhere on the Continent has a taste for poetry been so constant
and popular as in Great Britain. Germany has had her
Minnesingers, France her Troubadours and _Trouvères;_  but
these graceful apparitions of nascent poetry rapidly ascended to
the superior regions of social order, and vanished before long.
The English minstrels are visible, throughout the history of
their country, in a position which has been more or less
brilliant according to circumstances, but which has always been
recognized by society, established by its acts, and determined by
its rules. They appear as a regularly-organized corporation, with
its special business, influence, and rights, penetrating into all
ranks of the nation, and associating in the diversions of the
people as well as in the festivities of their chiefs. Heirs of
the Breton bards and the Scandinavian Scalds, with whom they are
incessantly confounded by English writers of the Middle Ages, the
minstrels of Old England retained for a considerable length of
time a portion of the authority of their predecessors. When
afterward subjugated, and quickly deserted, Great Britain did
not, like Gaul, receive a universal and profound impression of
Roman civilization.
{39}
The Britons disappeared or retired before the Saxons and Angles;
after this period, the conquest of the Saxons by the Danes, and
of the united Danes and Saxons by the Normans, only commingled
upon the soil a number of peoples of common origin, of analogous
habits, and almost equally barbarous character. The vanquished
were oppressed, but they had not to humiliate their weakness
before the brutal manners of their masters; and the victors were
not compelled to submit by degrees to the rule of the more
polished manners of their new subjects. Among a nation so
homogeneous, and throughout the vicissitudes of its destiny, even
Christianity did not perform the part which devolved upon it
elsewhere. On adopting the faith of Saint Remi, the Franks found
in Gaul a Roman clergy, wealthy and influential, who necessarily
undertook to modify the institutions, ideas, and manner of life,
as well as the religious belief of the conquerors. The Christian
clergy of the Saxons were themselves Saxons, long as uncouth and
barbarous as the members of their flocks, but never estranged
from, or indifferent to, their feelings and recollections. Thus
the young civilization of the North grew up, in England, in all
the simplicity and energy of its nature, and in complete
independence of the borrowed forms and foreign sap which it
elsewhere received from the old civilization of the South. This
important fact, which perhaps determined the course of political
institutions in England, could not fail to exercise great
influence over the character and development of her poetry also.

{40}

A nation that proceeds in such strict conformity to its first
impulse, and never ceases to belong entirely to itself, naturally
regards itself with looks of complacency. The feeling of property
attaches, in its view, to all that affects it, and the joy of
pride to all that it produces. Its poets, when inspired to relate
to it its own deeds, and describe its own customs, are certain of
never meeting with an ear that will not listen or a heart that
will not respond; their art is at once the charm of the lower
classes of society, and the honor of the most exalted ranks. More
than in any other country, poetry is united with important events
in the ancient history of England. It introduced Alfred into the
tents of the Danish leaders; four centuries before, it had
enabled the Saxon Bardulph to penetrate into the city of York, in
which the Britons held his brother Colgrim besieged; sixty years
later, it accompanied Anlaf, king of the Danes, into the camp of
Athelstan; and, in the twelfth century, it achieved the honor of
effecting the deliverance of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. These old
narratives, and a host of others, however doubtful they may be
supposed, prove at least how present to the imagination of the
people were the art and profession of the minstrel. A fact of
more modern date fully attests the power which these popular
poets long exercised over the multitude: Hugh, first Earl of
Chester, had decreed, in the foundation-deed of the Abbey of St.
Werburgh, that the fair of Chester should be, during its whole
duration, a place of asylum for criminals, excepting in the case
of crimes committed in the fair itself. In the year 1212, during
the reign of King John, and at the time of this fair, Ranulph,
last Earl of Chester, traveling into Wales, was attacked by the
Welsh, and compelled to retire to his castle of Rothelan, in
which they besieged him. He succeeded in informing Roger, or John
de Lacy, the constable of Chester, of his position; this nobleman
interested the minstrels who had come to the fair in the cause of
the earl; and they so powerfully excited, with their songs, the
multitude of outlawed persons then collected at Chester beneath
the safeguard of the privilege of St. Werburgh, that they marched
forth, under the command of young Hugh Button, the steward of
Lord De Lacy, to deliver the earl from his perilous situation.
{41}
It was not necessary to come to blows, for the Welsh, when they
beheld the approach of this troop, thought it was an army, and
raised the siege; and the grateful Ranulph immediately granted,
to the minstrels of the county of Chester, various privileges,
which they were to enjoy under the protection of the Lacy family,
who afterward transferred this patronage to the Duttons and their
descendants. [Footnote 6]

    [Footnote 6: During the reign of Elizabeth, when fallen from
    their ancient splendor, but still of such importance that the
    law, which would no longer protect them, was obliged to pay
    attention to them, the minstrels were, by an act of
    Parliament, classed in the same category with beggars and
    vagabonds; but an exception was made in favor of those
    protected by the Dutton family, and they continued freely to
    exercise their profession and privileges, in honorable
    remembrance of the service by which they had gained them.]

Nor do the chronicles alone bear witness to the number and
popularity of the minstrels; from time to time they are mentioned
in the acts of the Legislature. In 1315, during the reign of
Edward II., the Royal Council, being desirous to suppress
vagabondage, forbade all persons, "except minstrels," to stop at
the houses of prelates, earls, and barons, to eat and drink; nor
might there enter, on each day, into such houses, "more than
three or four minstrels of honor," unless the proprietor himself
invited a greater number. Into the abodes of persons of humbler
rank even minstrels might not enter unless they were invited; and
they must then content themselves "with eating and drinking, and
with such courtesy" as it should please the master of the house
to add thereto.
{42}
In 1316, while Edward was celebrating the festival of
Whitsuntide, at Westminster, with his peers, a woman, "dressed in
the manner of minstrels," and mounted on a large horse,
caparisoned "according to the custom of minstrels," entered the
banqueting-hall, rode round the tables, laid a letter before the
king, and, quickly turning her horse, went away with a salute to
the company. The letter displeased the king, whom it blamed for
having lavished liberalities on his favorites to the detriment of
his faithful servants; and the porters were reprimanded for
having allowed the woman to come in. Their excuse was, "that it
was not the custom ever to refuse to minstrels admission into the
royal houses." During the reign of Henry VI., we find that the
minstrels, who undertook to impart mirth to festivals, were
frequently better paid than the priests who came to solemnize
them. To the festival of the Holy Cross, at Abingdon, came twelve
priests and twelve minstrels; each of the former received
"fourpence," and each of the latter "two shillings and
fourpence." In 1441, eight priests, from Coventry, who had been
invited to Maxtoke Priory to perform an annual service, received
two shillings each; but the six minstrels who had been appointed
to amuse the assembled monks in the refectory had four shillings
a piece, and supped with the sub-prior in the "painted chamber,"
which was lighted up for the occasion with eight large flambeaux
of wax, the expense of which is set down in due form in the
accounts of the convent.

Thus, wherever festivities took place, wherever men gathered
together for amusement, in convents and fairs, in the public
highways and in the castles of the nobility, the minstrels were
always present, mixing with all classes of society, and charming,
with their songs and tales, the inhabitants of the country and
the dwellers in towns, the rich and the poor, the farmers, the
monks, and the nobles of high degree.
{43}
Their arrival was at once an event and a custom, their
intervention a luxury and a necessity; at no time, and in no
place, could they fail to collect around them an eager crowd;
they were protected by the public favor, and Parliament often had
them under consideration, sometimes to recognize their rights,
but more frequently to repress the abuses occasioned by their
wandering life and increasing numbers.

What, then, were the manners of the people who took such
enthusiastic delight in these amusements? What leisure had they
for the indulgence of their taste? What opportunities, what
festive occasions collected these men so frequently together, and
provided these popular bards with a multitude ever ready to
listen and applaud? That, beneath the brilliant sky of the South,
free from the necessity of striving against natural hardships,
invited by the mildness of the climate and the genial warmth of
the sun to live in the open air beneath the cooling shade of
their olive-trees, devolving upon their slaves the performance of
all laborious duties, and uncontrolled by any domestic habits,
the Greeks should have thronged around their rhapsodists, and, at
a later period, crowded their open theatres, to yield their
imagination to the charm of the simple narratives or pathetic
delineations of poetry; or that even in our own day, under the
influence of their scorching atmosphere and idle life, the Arabs,
gathering round an animated story-teller, should spend entire
days in following the course of his adventures--all this we can
understand and explain; there the sky is not inclement, and
material life requires none of those efforts which prevent men
from giving themselves up to pleasures of this kind; nor are
their institutions opposed to their indulgence in such
enjoyments, but all things combine, on the contrary, to render
their attainment easy and natural, and to occasion numerous
meetings, frequent festivities, and protracted periods of
leisure.
{44}
But it was in a northern climate, beneath the sway of a cold and
severe nature, in a society partially subject to the feudal
system, and among a people living a difficult and laborious life,
that the English minstrels found repeated opportunities for the
exercise of their art, and were always sure that a crowd would
collect to witness their performance.

The reason of this is, that the habits of England, being formed
by the influence of the same causes that led to the establishment
of her political institutions, early assumed that character of
agitation and publicity which calls for the appearance of a
popular poetry. In other countries, the general tendency was to
the separation of the various social conditions, and even to the
isolation of individuals. In England, every thing combined to
bring them into contact and connection. The principle of common
deliberation upon matters of common interest, which is the
foundation of all liberty, prevailed in all the institutions of
England, and presided over all the customs of the country. The
freemen of the rural districts and the towns never ceased to meet
together for the discussion and transaction of their common
affairs. The county courts, the jury, corporate associations, and
elections of all kinds, multiplied occasions of meeting, and
diffused in every direction the habits of public life. That
hierarchical organization of feudalism, which, on the Continent,
extended from the poorest gentleman to the most powerful monarch,
and was incessantly stimulating the vanity of every man to leave
his own sphere and pass into the rank of suzerain, was never
completely established in Great Britain.
{45}
The nobility of the second order, by separating themselves from
the great barons, in order to take their place at the head of the
commons, returned, so to speak, into the body of the nation, and
adopted its manners as well as assumed its rights. It was on his
own estate, among his tenants, farmers, and servants, that the
gentleman established his importance; and he based it upon the
cultivation of his lands and the discharge of those local
magistracies which, by placing him in connection with the whole
of the population, necessitated the concurrence of public
opinion, and provided the adjacent district with a centre around
which it might rally. Thus, while active rights brought equals
into communication, rural life created a bond of union between
the superior and his inferior; and agriculture, by the community
of its interests and labors, bound the whole population together
by ties, which, descending successively from class to class, were
in some sort terminated and sealed in the earth, the immutable
basis of their union.

Such a state of society leads to competence and confidence; and
where competence reigns and confidence is felt, the necessity of
common enjoyment soon arises. Men who are accustomed to meet
together for business will meet together for pleasure also; and
when the serious life of the land-owner is spent among his
fields, he does not remain a stranger to the joys of the people
who cultivate or surround them. Continual and general festivals
gave animation to the country life of Old England. What was their
primary origin? What traditions and customs served as their
foundation? How did the progress of rustic prosperity lead
gradually to this joyous movement of meetings, banquets, and
games? It is of little use to know the cause; the fact itself is
most worthy of our observation; and in the sixteenth century,
when civil discord had been brought to a term, we may follow it
in all its brilliant details.
{46}
At Christmas, before the gates of the castles, the herald,
bearing the arms of the family, thrice shouted Largesse!
  "Then opened wide the baron's hall
   To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
   Power laid his rod of rule aside,
   And ceremony doffed his pride.
   The heir, with roses in his shoes,
   That night might village partner choose;
   The lord, underogating, share
   The vulgar game of 'post and pair.'" [Footnote 7]

     [Footnote 7: Scott's "Marmion," introduction to Canto
     sixth.]

Who shall describe the general joy and hospitality, the roaring
fire in the hall, the well-spread table, the beef and pudding,
and the abundance of good cheer which was then to be found in the
house of the farmer as well as in the mansion of the gentleman.
The dance, when the head began to swim with wassail; the songs of
minstrels, and tales of by-gone days, when the party had become
tired of dancing, were the pleasures which then reigned
throughout England, when

  "All hail'd, with uncontroll'd delight
   And general voice, the happy night,
   That to the cottage, as the crown,
   Brought tidings of salvation down.

   * * * *

  'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
  'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
  A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
  The poor man's heart through half the year." [Footnote 8]

    [Footnote 8: Ibid.]

{47}

These Christmas festivities lasted for twelve days, varied by a
thousand pleasures, kindled by the good wishes and presents of
New Year's Day, and terminated by the Feast of Kings on Twelfth
Day. But soon after came Plow Monday, the day on which work was
resumed, and the first day of labor also was marked by a feast.

  "Good housewives, whom God has enriched enough,
   Forget not the feasts that belong to the plow,"

says old Tusser, in his quaint rural poems. [Footnote 9]

    [Footnote 9: Thomas Tusser, a poet of the sixteenth century,
    was born about 1515, and died in 1583. He was the author of
    some English Georgies, under the title of "Five hundreth
    points of good husbandry, united to as many of good
    huswifery."]

The spindle also had its festival. The harvest feast was one of
equality, and an avowal, as it were, of those mutual necessities
which bring men into union. On that day, masters and, servants
collected round the same table, and, mingling in the same
conversation, did not appear to be brought into contact with each
other by the complaisance of a superior desirous of rewarding his
inferior, but by an equal right to the pleasures of the day:

  "For all that clear'd the crop or till'd the ground
   Are guests by right of custom--old and young;

   * * * *

  Here once a year distinction low'rs its crest,
  The master, servant, and the merry guest,
  Are equal all; and round the happy ring
  The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling,
  And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place,
  With sun-burn'd hands and ale-enliven'd face,
  Refills the jug his honor'd host to tend,
  To serve at once the master and the friend;
  Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale,
  His nuts, his conversation, and his ale.
  Such were the days--of days long past I sing." [Footnote 10]

    [Footnote 10: Bloomfield's "Farmer's Boy," p. 40, ed 1845.]

{48}

Sowing-time, sheep-shearing, indeed, every epoch of interest in
rural life, was celebrated by similar meetings and banquets, and
by games of all kinds. But what day could equal the first of May,
brilliant with the joys of youth and the hopes of the year?
Scarce had the rising sun announced the arrival of this festive
morn, than the entire youthful population hastened into the woods
and meadows, to the river-bank and hill-side, accompanied by the
sounds of music, to gather their harvest of flowers; and,
returning laden with hawthorn and verdure, adorned the doors and
windows of their houses with their spoils, covered with blossoms
the May-pole which they had cut in the forest, and crowned with
garlands the horns of the oxen which were to drag it in triumph
through the village. Herrick, a contemporary of Shakspeare, thus
invites his mistress to go a Maying:

  "Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn
   Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
      See how Aurora throws her fair
      Fresh-quilted colors through the air;
      Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
      The dew bespangling herb and tree.
   Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east
   Above an hour since, yet you are not dress'd,
      Nay, not so much as out of bed;
      When all the birds have matins said,
      And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin,
      Nay, profanation, to keep in,
   When, as a thousand virgins on this day,
   Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.

   Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark
   How each field turns a street, each street a park
      Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
      Devotion gives each house a bough
      Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,
      An ark, a tabernacle is,
   Made up of white thorn neatly interwove,
   As if here were those cooler shades of love."

{49}

The elegance of the cottages on May morning was imitated by the
castles; and the young gentlefolks, as well as the lads and
maidens of the village, went forth into the fields in search of
flowers. Joy is sure to introduce equality into pleasures; the
symbols of joy never vary, and are changed as little by
difference of rank as by difference of season. Here enjoyment,
led by abundance, seems to spend the year in continual
festivities. Just as the first of May displays its profusion of
verdure, as sheap-shearing fills the streets with flowers, and
harvest-home is adorned with ears of corn, so Christmas will
decorate the walls with ivy, holly, and evergreen. Just as
dances, races, shows, and rustic sports cause the sky of spring
to resound with their joyous tones, so games in which

  "White shirts supplied the masquerade,
   And smutted cheeks the visors made,"

will waken the echoes, on the cold December nights, with shouts
of gayety; and the May-pole and Christmas log will alike be borne
in triumph and extolled in song.

Amid these games, festivals, and banquets, at these innumerable
friendly meetings, and in this joyous and habitual conviviality
(to use the national expression), the minstrels took their place
and sang their songs. The subjects of these songs were the
traditions of the country, the adventures of popular heroes as
well as of noble champions, the exploits of Robin Hood against
the sheriff of Nottingham, as well as the conflicts of the
Percies with the Douglas clan. Thus the public manners called for
poetry; thus poetry originated in the manners of the people, and
became connected with all the interests, and with the entire
existence, of a population accustomed to live, to act, to
prosper, and to rejoice in common.

{50}

How could dramatic poetry have remained unknown to a people of
such a character, so frequently assembling together, and so fond
of holidays? We have every reason to believe that it was more
than once introduced into the games of the minstrels. The ancient
writers speak of them under the names of _mimi,
joculatores_, and _histriones._ Women were frequently
connected with their bands; and several of their ballads, among
others that of "The Nut-brown Maid," are evidently in the form of
dialogue. The minstrels, however, rather formed the national
taste, and directed it to the drama, than originated the drama
itself. The first attempts at a true theatrical performance are
difficult and expensive. The co-operation of a public power is
indispensable; and it is only in important and general
solemnities that the effect produced by the play can possibly
correspond to the efforts of imagination and labor which it has
cost. England, like France, Italy, and Spain, was indebted for
her first theatrical performances to the festivals of the clergy;
only they were, it would appear, of earlier origin in that
country than elsewhere. The performance of Mysteries in England
can be traced back as far as the twelfth century, and probably
originated at a still earlier period. But in France, the clergy,
after having erected theatres, were not slow to denounce them.
They had claimed the privilege in the hope of being able, by the
means of such performances, to maintain or stimulate the
conquests of the faith; but ere long they began to dread their
effects, and abandoned their employment. The English clergy were
more intimately associated with the tastes, habits, and
diversions of the people. The Church, also, took advantage of
that universal conviviality which I have just described. Was any
great religious ceremony to be celebrated? or was any parish in
want of funds? A _Church-ale_ [Footnote 11] was announced;
the church-wardens brewed some beer, and sold it to the people at
the door of the church, and to the rich in the interior of the
church itself.

    [Footnote 11: Also called Whitsun-ale. Beer was so intimately
    connected with the popular festivals that the word ale had
    become synonymous with holiday.]

{51}

Every one contributed his money, presence, provisions, and mirth
to the festival; the joy of good works was augmented by the
pleasures of good cheer, and the piety of the rich rejoiced to
exceed, by their gifts, the price demanded. It often happened
that several parishes united to hold the _Church-ale_ by
turns for the profit of each. The ordinary games followed these
meetings; the minstrel, the morris-dance, and the performance of
Robin Hood, with Maid Marian and the Hobby-horse, were never
absent. The seasons of confession, Easter and Whitsuntide, also
furnished the Church and the people with periodical opportunities
for common rejoicings. Thus familiar with the popular manners,
the English clergy, when offering new pleasures to the people,
thought less of modifying them than of turning them to account;
and when they perceived the fondness of the people for dramatic
performances, whatever the subject might be, they had no idea of
renouncing so powerful a means of gaining popularity. In 1378,
the choristers of St. Paul's complained to Richard II. that
certain ignorant fellows had presumed to perform histories from
the Old Testament, "to the great prejudice of the clergy." After
this period, the Mysteries and Moralities never ceased to be,
both in churches and convents, a favorite amusement of the
nation, and a leading occupation of the ecclesiastics. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century, an Earl of Northumberland,
who was a great protector of literature, established, as a rule
of his household, that the sole business of one of his chaplains
should be to compose interludes. Toward the end of his reign,
Henry VIII. forbade the Church to continue these performances,
which, in the wavering state of his belief, were displeasing to
the king, and offended him sometimes as a Catholic and sometimes
as a Protestant.
{52}
But they reappeared after his death, and were sanctioned by such
high authority, that the young king, Edward VI., himself composed
a piece against the Papists, entitled "The Whore of Babylon;" and
Queen Mary, in her turn, commanded the performance; in the
churches, of popular dramas favorable to Popery. Finally, in
1569, we find the choristers of St. Paul's, "clothed in silk and
satin," playing profane pieces in Elizabeth's chapel, in the
different royal houses; and they were so well skilled in their
profession, that, in Shakspeare's time, they constituted one of
the best and most popular troops of actors in London.

Far, therefore, from opposing or seeking to change the taste of
the people for theatrical representations, the English clergy
hastened to gratify it. Their influence, it is true, gave to the
works which they brought on the stage a more serious and moral
character than was possessed in other countries by compositions
dependent upon the whims of the public, and cursed by the
anathemas of the Church. Notwithstanding its coarseness of ideas
and language, the English drama, which became so licentious in
the reign of Charles II., appears chaste and pure in the middle
of the sixteenth century, when compared to the first essays of
dramatic composition in France. But it did not the less continue
to be popular in its character, ignorant of all scientific
regularity, and faithful to the national taste. The clergy would
have lost much by endeavoring to suppress theatrical
performances. They possessed no exclusive privilege; and numerous
competitors vied with them for applause and success. Robin Hood
and Maid Marian, the Lord of Misrule and the Hobby-Horse, had not
yet disappeared.
{53}
Traveling actors, attached to the service of the powerful nobles,
traversed the counties of England under their auspices, and
obtained, by favor of a gratuitous performance before the mayor,
aldermen, and their friends, the right of exercising their
profession in the various towns, the court-yards of inns usually
serving as their theatre. As they were in a position to give
greater pomp to their exhibitions, and thus to attract a larger
number of spectators, the clergy struggled successfully against
their rivals, and even maintained a marked predominance, but
always upon condition of adapting their representations to the
feelings, habits, and imaginative character of the people, who
had been formed to a taste for poetry by their own festivals and
by the songs of the minstrels.

Such were the condition and tendency of dramatic poetry, when, at
the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, it appeared
threatened by a two-fold danger. As it daily became more popular,
it at last awakened the anxiety of religious severity and fired
the ambition of literary pedantry. The national taste found
itself attacked, almost simultaneously, by the anathemas of the
Reformers and the pretensions of men of letters.

If these two classes of enemies had united in their opposition to
the drama, it would, perhaps, have fallen a victim to their
attacks. But while the Puritans wished to destroy it, men of
letters only desired to get it into their own hands. It was,
therefore, defended by the latter when the former inveighed
against its existence. Some influential citizens of London
obtained from Elizabeth the temporary suppression of stage-plays
within the jurisdiction of the civic authorities; but, beyond
that jurisdiction, the Blackfriars' Theatre and the court of the
Queen still retained their dramatic privileges.
{54}
The Puritans, by their sermons, may have alarmed some few
consciences, and occasioned some few scruples; and perhaps, also,
some sudden conversions may here and there have deprived the
May-day games of the performance of the Hobby-Horse, their
greatest ornament, and the special object of the wrath of the
preachers. But the time of the power of the Puritans had not yet
arrived, and, to obtain decisive success, it was too much to have
to overcome at once the national taste and the taste of the
court.

Elizabeth's court would well have liked to be classical.
Theological discussions had made learning fashionable. At that
time it was an essential part of the education of a noble lady to
be able to read Greek, and to distill strong waters. The known
taste of the queen had added to these the gallantries of ancient
mythology. "When she paid a visit at the house of any of her
nobility," says Warton, "at entering the hall she was saluted by
the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. The
pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs, who peeped
from every bower; and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the
figure of Satyrs. When she rode through the streets of Norwich,
Cupid, at the command of the mayor and aldermen, advancing from a
group of gods who had left Olympus to grace the procession, gave
her a golden arrow, which, under the influence of such
irresistible charms, was sure to wound the most obdurate heart:
'a gift,' says Holinshed, 'which her majesty, now verging to her
fiftieth year, received very thankfully.'" [Footnote 12]

    [Footnote 12: Warton's "History of English Poetry," vol.
    iii., p. 492, 493.]

But the court may strive in vain; it is not the purveyor of its
own pleasures; it rarely makes choice of them, invents them even
less frequently, and generally receives them at the hands of men
who make it their business to provide for its amusement.
{55}
The empire of classical literature, which was established in
France before the foundation of the stage, was the work of men of
letters, who derived protection from, and felt justly proud of,
the exclusive possession of a foreign erudition which raised them
above the rest of the nation. The court of France submitted to
the guidance of the men of letters; and the nation at large,
undecided how to act, and destitute of those institutions which
might have given authority to its habits and influence to its
tastes, formed into groups, as it were, around the court. In
England the drama had taken precedence of classic lore; ancient
history and mythology found a popular poetry and creed in
possession of the means of delighting the minds of the people;
and the study of the classics, which became known at a late
period, and at first only by the medium of French translations,
was introduced as one of those foreign fashions by which a few
men may render themselves remarkable, but which take root only
when they fall into harmonious accordance with the national
taste. The court itself sometimes affected, in evidence of its
attainments, exclusive admiration for ancient literature; but as
soon as it stood in need of amusement, it followed the example of
the general public; and, indeed, it was not easy to pass from the
exhibition of a bear-baiting to the pretensions of classical
severity, even according to the ideas then entertained regarding
it.

The stage, therefore, remained under the almost undisputed
government of the general taste; and science attempted only very
timid invasions of the prerogative. In 1561, Thomas Sackville,
Lord Buckhurst, procured the representation, in presence of
Elizabeth, of his tragedy of "Grorboduc," or "Forrex and Porrex,"
which critics have considered as the dramatic glory of the time
preceding Shakspeare.
{56}
This was, in fact, the first play which was properly divided into
acts and scenes, and written throughout in an elevated tone; but
it was far from pretending to a strict observance of the unities,
and the example of a very tiresome work, in which every thing was
done by means of conversation, did not prove very alluring either
to authors or actors. About the same period, other pieces
appeared on the stage, in greater conformity to the natural
instincts of the country, such as "The Pinner of Wakefield," and
"Jeronimo, or the Spanish Tragedy;" and for these the public
openly demonstrated their preference. Lord Buckhurst himself was
able to exercise no influence over the dominant taste, except by
remaining faithful to it. His "Mirrour for Magistrates," a
collection of incidents from the history of England, narrated in
a dramatic form, passed rapidly into the hands of all readers,
and became an inexhaustible mine for poets to draw from. Works of
this kind were best suited to minds educated by the songs of the
minstrels; and this was the erudition most relished by the
majority of the gentlefolks of the country, whose reading seldom
extended beyond a few collections of tales, ballads, and old
chronicles. The drama fearlessly appropriated to itself subjects
so familiar to the multitude; and historical plays, under the
name of "Histories," delighted the English with the narrative of
their own deeds, the pleasant sound of national names, the
exhibition of popular customs, and the delineation of the mode of
life of all classes, which were all comprised in the political
history of a people who have ever taken part in the
administration of their national affairs.

{57}

Beside these national histories, some few incidents from ancient
histories, or the annals of other nations, took their place,
commonly disfigured by the mixture of fabulous events. But
neither authors nor public felt the slightest anxiety with regard
to their origin and nature. They were invariably overloaded with
those fantastic details, and those forms borrowed from the common
habits of life, with which children so often decorate the objects
which they are obliged to picture to themselves by the aid of
their imagination alone. Thus Tamburlaine appeared in his chariot
drawn by the kings whom he had conquered, and complaining
bitterly of the slow pace and miserable appearance of his team.
On the other hand, Vice, the usual buffoon of dramatic
compositions, performed, under the name of Ambidexter, the
principal part in Preston's tragedy of "Cambyses," which was thus
converted into a Morality which would have been intolerably
tedious if the spectators had not had the gratification of seeing
a prevaricating judge flayed alive upon the stage, by means of "a
false skin," as we are duly informed by the author. The
performance, though almost entirely deficient in decorations and
changes of scenery, was animated by material movement, and by the
representation of sensible objects. When tragedies were
performed, the stage was hung with black; and in an inventory of
the properties of a troop of comedies, we find enumerated, "the
Moor's limbs, four Turks' heads, old Mahomet's head, one wheel
and frame in the siege of London, one great horse with his legs,
one dragon, one rock, one cage, one tomb, and one hell's mouth."
[Footnote 13] This is a curious specimen of the means of interest
which it was then thought necessary to employ upon the stage.

    [Footnote 13: Malone's Shakspeare, vol. iii., p. 309-313 ed.
    1821.]

{58}

And yet, at this period, Shakspeare had already appeared! and,
before Shakspeare's advent, the stage had constituted, not only
the chief gratification of the multitude, but the favorite
amusement of the most distinguished men! Lord Southampton went to
the theatre every day. As early as 1570, one, and probably two,
regular theatres existed in London. In 1583, a short time after
the temporary victory gained by the Puritans over the performance
of stage-plays in that city, there were eight troops of actors in
London, each of whom performed three times a week. In 1592, that
is, eight years before the time when Hardy at length obtained
permission to open a theatre in Paris, which had previously been
impossible on account of the useless privilege possessed by the
"Brethren of the Passion," an English pamphleteer complained most
indignantly of "some shallow-brained censurers," who had dared
"mightily to oppugn" the performance of plays, which, he says,
are frequented by all "men that are their own masters--as
gentlemen of the Court, the Inns of Court, and the number of
captains and soldiers about London." [Footnote 14] Finally, in
1596, so vast a multitude of persons went by water to the
theatres, which were nearly all situated on the banks of the
Thames, that it became necessary considerably to augment the
number of boatmen.

    [Footnote 14: See Nash, "Pierce Penniless's Supplication to
    the Devil," p. 59, reprinted by the Shakspeare Society in
    1842.]

A taste so universal and so eager could not long remain satisfied
with coarse and insipid productions; a pleasure which is so
ardently sought after by the human mind, calls for all the
efforts and all the power of human genius, This national movement
now stood in need only of a man of genius, capable of receiving
its impulse, and raising the public to the highest regions of
art. By what stimulus was Shakspeare prompted to undertake this
glorious task? What circumstance revealed to him his mission?
What sudden light illumined his genius?
{59}
These questions we can not answer.  Just as a beacon shines in
the nighttime without disclosing to our view the prop by which it
is supported, so Shakspeare's mind appears to us, in his works,
in isolation, as it were, from his person. Scarcely, throughout
the long series of the poet's successes, can we discern any
traces of the man, and we possess no information whatever
regarding those early times of which he alone was able to give us
an account. As an actor, it does not appear that he distinguished
himself above his fellows. The poet is rarely adapted for action;
his strength lies beyond the world of reality, and he attains his
lofty elevation only because he does not employ his powers in
bearing the burdens of earth. Shakspeare's commentators will not
consent to deny him any of those successes to which he could
possibly lay claim, and the excellent advice which Hamlet gives
to the actors at the court of Denmark has been quoted in support
of a theory that Shakspeare must have executed marvelously well
that which he so thoroughly understood. But Shakspeare showed
equal acquaintance with the characters of great kings, mighty
warriors, and consummate villains, and yet no one would be likely
to conclude from this that he was capable of being a Richard the
Third or an Iago. Fortunately, we have reason to believe that
applause, which was then so easily obtained, was not bestowed in
a sufficient degree to tempt an ambition which the character of
the young poet would have rendered it too easy for him to
satisfy; and Rowe, his first historian, informs us that his
dramatic merits "soon distinguished him, if not as an
extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer."

{60}

Years nevertheless elapsed before Shakspeare made his appearance
on the stage as an author. He arrived in London in 1584, and is
not known to have engaged in any employment unconnected with the
theatre during his residence in the metropolis; but "Pericles,"
his first work, according to Dryden, though many of his other
critics and admirers have rejected it as spurious, did not appear
until 1590. How was it possible that, amid the novel scenes that
surrounded him, his active and fertile mind, whose rapidity,
according to his contemporaries, "equaled that of his pen," could
have remained for six years without producing any thing? In 1593,
he published his poem of "Venus and Adonis," which he dedicated
to Lord Southampton as "the first heir of his invention;" and
yet, during the two preceding years, two dramas which are now
ascribed to him had achieved success upon the stage. The
composition of the poem may have preceded them, although the
dedication was written subsequently to their production; but if
the "Venus and Adonis" is anterior to all his dramas, we must
come to the conclusion that, in the midst of his theatrical life,
Shakspeare's eminently dramatic genius was able to engage in
other labors, and that his first productions were not intended
for the stage. A more probable supposition is that Shakspeare
spent his labor, at first, upon works which were not his own, and
which his genius, still in its novitiate, has been unable to
rescue from oblivion. Dramatic productions, at that time, were
less the property of the author who had conceived them than of
the actors who had received them. This is always the case when
theatres begin to be established; the construction of a building
and the expenses of a performance are far greater risks to run
than the composition of a drama. To the founder of the theatre
alone is dramatic art indebted, at its origin, for that popular
concourse which establishes its existence, and which the talent
of the poet could never have drawn together without his
assistance.
{61}
When Hardy founded his theatre at Paris, each troop of actors had
its poet, who was paid a regular salary for the composition of
plays, just in the same way as the chaplain of the Earl of
Northumberland. In the time of Shakspeare, the English stage had
made much greater progress, and already enjoyed the facility of
selection and the advantages of competition. The poet no longer
disposed of his labor beforehand, but he sold it when completed;
and the publication of a piece, for permission to perform which
an author had been paid, was regarded, if not as a robbery, at
least as a want of delicacy which he found it difficult to defend
or excuse. While dramatic property was in this state, the share
which the self-love of an author might claim in it was held in
very low account the success of a work which he had sold did not
belong to him, and its literary merit became, in the hands of the
actors, a property which they turned to account by all the
improvements which their experience could suggest. Transported
suddenly into the midst of that moving picture of human
vicissitudes which even the paltriest dramatic productions then
heaped upon the stage, the imagination of Shakspeare doubtless
beheld new fields opening to its view. What interest, what
truthfulness might he not infuse into the store of facts
presented to him with such coarse baldness! What pathetic effects
might he not educe from all this theatrical parade! The matter
was before him, waiting for spirit and life. Why had not
Shakspeare attempted to communicate them to it? However confused
and incomplete his first views may have been, they were rays of
light arising to disperse the darkness and disorder of chaos. Now
a superior man possesses the power of making the light which
illumines his own eyes evident to the eyes of others.
{62}
Shakspeare's comrades doubtless soon perceived what new successes
he might obtain for them by remodeling the uncouth works which
composed their dramatic stock; and a few brilliant touches
imparted to a ground-work which he had not painted--a few
pathetic or terrible scenes intercalated in an action which he
had not directed--and the art of turning to account a plan which
he had not conceived, were, in all probability, his earliest
labors, and his first presages of glory. In 1592, a time at which
we can scarcely be certain that a single original and complete
work had issued from his pen, a jealous and discontented author,
whose compositions he had probably improved too greatly, speaks
of him, in the fantastic style of the time, as an "upstart crow,
beautified with our feathers; an absolute _Johannes
Factotum_, who is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in
the country." [Footnote 15]

    [Footnote 15: Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," published in
    1592.]

It was, we are inclined to believe, while engaged in these
labors, more conformable to the necessities of his position than
to the freedom of his genius, that Shakspeare sought to recreate
his mind by the composition of his "Venus and Adonis." Perhaps
even the idea of this work was not then entirely new to him; for
several sonnets, relating to the same subject, occur in a volume
of poems published in 1596, under Shakspeare's name, and the
title of which, "The Passionate Pilgrim," is expressive of the
condition of a man wandering, in affliction, far from his native
land. The amusement of a few melancholy hours, from which the age
and character of the poet had not availed to preserve him at his
entrance upon a painful or uncertain destiny--these little works
are doubtless the first productions which Shakspeare's poetic
genius allowed him to avow; and several of them, as well as the
poem of "Venus and Adonis," need to be excused, it must be
confessed, by the effervescence of a youth too much addicted to
dreams of pleasure not to attempt to reproduce them in all their
forms.
{63}
In "Venus and Adonis," the poet, absolutely carried away by the
voluptuous power of his subject, seems entirely to have lost
sight of its mythological wealth. Venus, stripped of the prestige
of divinity, is nothing but a beautiful courtesan, endeavoring
unsuccessfully, by all the prayers, tears, and artifices of love,
to stimulate the languid desires of a cold and disdainful youth.
Hence arises a monotony which is not redeemed by the simple
gracefulness and poetic merit of many passages, and which is
augmented by the division of the poem into stanzas of six lines,
the last two of which almost invariably present a _jeu
d'esprit_. But a metre singularly free from irregularities, a
cadence full of harmony, and a versification which had never
before been equaled in England, announced the "honey-tongued
poet," and the poem of "Lucrece" appeared soon afterward to
complete those epic productions which for some time sufficed to
maintain his glory.

After having, in "Venus and Adonis," employed the most lascivious
colors to depict the pangs of unsatisfied desire, Shakspeare has
described, in "The Rape of Lucrece," with the chastest pen, and
by way of reparation, as it were, the progress and triumph of
criminal lust. The refinement of the ideas, the affectation of
the style, and the merits of the versification, are the same in
both works: the poetry in the second is less brilliant, but more
emphatic, and abounds less in graceful images than in lofty
thoughts; but we can already discern indications of a profound
acquaintance with the feelings of man, and great talent in
developing them in a dramatic form, by means of the slightest
circumstances of life.
{64}
Thus Lucrece, weighed down by a sense of her shame, after a night
of despair, summons a young slave at dawn of day, to dispatch him
to the camp with a letter to call her husband home; the slave,
being of a timid and simple character, blushes on appearing in
the presence of his mistress; but Lucrece, filled with the
consciousness of her dishonor, imagines that he blushes at her
shame; and, under the influence of the idea that her secret is
discovered, she stands trembling and confused before her slave.

One detail in this poem seems to indicate the epoch at which it
was written. Lucrece, to while away her grief, stops to
contemplate a picture of the siege of Troy; and, in describing
it, the poet complacently refers to the effects of perspective:

  "The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
   To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind."

This is the observation of a man very recently struck with the
wonders of art, and a symptom of that poetic surprise which the
sight of unknown objects awakens in an imagination capable of
being moved thereby. Perhaps we may conclude, from this
circumstance, that the poem of "Lucrece" was composed during the
early part of Shakspeare's residence in London.

But whatever may be the date of these two poems, their place
among Shakspeare's works is at a period far more remote from us
than any of those which filled up his dramatic career. In this
career he marched forward, and drew his age after him; and his
weakest essays in dramatic poetry are indicative of the
prodigious power which he displayed in his last works.
Shakspeare's true history belongs to the stage alone; after
having seen it there, we can not seek for it elsewhere; and
Shakspeare himself no longer quitted it.
{65}
His sonnets--fugitive pieces which the poetic and sprightly grace
of some lines would not have rescued from oblivion but for the
curiosity which attaches to the slightest traces of a celebrated
man--may here and there cast a little light on the obscure or
doubtful portions of his life; but, in a literary point of view,
we have in future to consider him only as a dramatic poet.

I have already stated what was the first employment of his
talents in this kind of composition. Great uncertainty has
resulted therefrom with regard to the authenticity of some of his
works. Shakspeare had a hand in a vast number of dramas; and
probably, even in his own time, it would not have been always
easy to assign his precise share in them all. For two centuries,
criticism has been engaged in determining the boundaries of his
true possessions; but facts are wanting for this investigation,
and literary judgments have usually been influenced by a desire
to strengthen some favorite theory on the subject. It is,
therefore, almost impossible, at the present day, to pronounce
with certainty upon the authenticity of Shakspeare's doubtful
plays. Nevertheless, after having read them, I can not coincide
with M. Schlegel--for whose acumen I have the highest respect--in
attributing them to him. The baldness which characterizes these
pieces, the heap of unexplained incidents and incoherent
sentiments which they contain, and their precipitate progress
through undeveloped scenes toward events destitute of interest,
are unmistakable signs by which, in times still rude, we may
recognize fecundity devoid of genius; signs so contrary to the
nature of Shakspeare's talent, that I can not even discover in
them the defects which may have disfigured his earliest essays.
{66}
Among the multitude of plays which, by common consent, the latest
editors have rejected as being at least doubtful, "Locrine,"
"Thomas, Lord Cromwell," "The London Prodigal," "The Puritan,"
and "The Yorkshire Tragedy," scarcely present the slightest
indications of having been retouched by any hand superior to that
of their original author. "Sir John Oldcastle," which is more
interesting, and composed with greater good sense than any of the
foregoing, is animated in some scenes by a comic humor akin to
that of Shakspeare. But if it be true that genius, even in its
lowest abasement, gives forth some luminous rays to betray its
presence; if Shakspeare, in particular, bore that distinctive
mark which, in one of his sonnets, makes him say, in reference to
his writings,

  "That every word doth almost tell my name," [Footnote 16]

assuredly he had not to reproach himself with the production of
that execrable accumulation of horrors which, under the name of
"Titus Andronicus," has been foisted upon the English people as a
dramatic work, and in which, Heaven be thanked! there is not a
single spark of truth, or scintillation of genius, which can give
evidence against him.

    [Footnote 16: Sonnet 76, Knight's Library edition, vol. xii.,
    p. 152.]

Of the doubtful plays, "Pericles" is, in my opinion, the only one
to which the name of Shakspeare can be attached with any degree
of certainty; or at least, it is the only one in which we find
evident traces of his co-operation, especially in the scene in
which Pericles meets and recognizes his daughter Marina, whom he
believed dead. If, during Shakspeare's lifetime, any other man
could have combined power and truth in so high a degree in the
delineation of the natural feelings, England would then have
possessed another poet.
{67}
Nevertheless, though it contains one fine scene and many
scattered beauties, the play is a bad one; it is destitute of
reality and art, and is entirely alien to Shakspeare's system: it
is interesting only as marking the point from which he started;
and it seems to belong to his works as a last monument of that
which he overthrew--as a remnant of that anti-dramatic
scaffolding for which he was about to substitute the presence and
movement of vitality.

The spectacles of barbarous nations always appeal to their sense
of vision before they attempt to influence their imagination by
the aid of poetry. The taste of the English for those
_pageants_, which, during the Middle Ages, constituted the
chief attraction of public solemnities throughout Europe,
exercised great influence over the stage in England. During the
first half of the fifteenth century, the monk Lydgate, when
singing the misfortunes of Troy with that liberty of erudition
which English literature tolerated to a greater extent than that
of any other country, describes a dramatic performance which, he
says, took place within the walls of Troy. He describes the poet,
"with deadly face all devoid of blood," rehearsing from a pulpit
"all the noble deeds that were historical of kings, princes, and
worthy emperors." At the same time,

  "Amydde the theatre, shrowded in a tent
   There came out men, gastful of their cheres,
   Disfygured their faces with vyseres,
   Playing by signes in the people's sight
   That the poete songe hath on height."

Lydgate, a monk and poet, equally ready to rhyme a legend or a
ballad, to compose verses for a masquerade or to sketch the plan
of a religious pantomime, had probably figured in some
performance of this kind; and his description certainly gives us
an accurate idea of the dramatic exhibitions of his time.
{68}
When dialogue-poetry had taken possession of the stage, pantomime
remained as an ornament and addition to the performance. In most
of the plays anterior to Shakspeare, personages of an almost
invariably emblematical character appear between the acts, to
indicate the subjects of the scenes about to follow. An
historical or allegorical personage is introduced to explain
these emblems,  _moralize_ the piece, that is, to point out
the moral truths contained in it. In "Pericles," Gower, a poet of
the fourteenth century--celebrated for his "Confessio Amantis,"
in which he has related, in English verse, the story of Pericles
as told by more ancient writers--comes upon the stage to state
to the public, not that which is about to happen, but such
anterior facts as require to be explained, that the drama may be
properly understood. Sometimes his narrative is interrupted and
supplemented by the dumb representation of the facts themselves.
Gower then explains all that the mute action has not elucidated.
He appears not only at the commencement of the play and between
the acts, but even during the course of an act, whenever it is
found convenient to abridge by narrative some less interesting
part of the action, in order to apprise the spectator of a change
of place or a lapse of time, and thus to transport his
imagination wherever a new scene requires its presence. This was
decidedly a step in advance; a useless accessory had become a
means of development and of clearness. But Shakspeare speedily
rejected this factitious and awkward contrivance as unworthy of
his art and ere long he inspired the action with power to explain
itself, to make itself understood on appearance, and thus to give
dramatic performances that aspect of life and reality which could
never be attained by a machinery which thus coarsely displayed
its wheel-works to public view.
{69}
Among Shakspeare's subsequent dramas, "Henry V." and the
"Winter's Tale" are the only ones in which the chorus intervenes
to relieve the poet in the difficult task of conveying his
audience through time and space. The chorus of "Romeo and
Juliet," which was retained perhaps as a relic of ancient usage,
is only a poetic ornament, quite unconnected with the action of
the play. After the production of "Pericles," dumb pageants
completely disappeared; and if the three parts of "Henry VI." do
not attest, by their power of composition, a close relationship
to Shakspeare's system, nothing, at least in their material
forms, is out of harmony with it.

Of these three pieces, the first has been absolutely denied to
Shakspeare; and it is, in my opinion, equally difficult to
believe that it is entirely his composition, and that the
admirable scene between Talbot and his son does not bear the
impress of his hand. Two old dramas, printed in 1600, contain the
plan, and even numerous details of the second and third parts of
"Henry VI." These two original works were long attributed to our
poet, as a first essay which he afterward perfected. But this
opinion will not bear an attentive examination; and all the
probabilities, both literary and historical, unite in granting to
Shakspeare, in the last two parts of "Henry VI.," no other share
than that of a more important and extensive remodeling than he
was able to bestow upon other works submitted to his correction.
Brilliant developments, imagery conceived with taste and followed
up with skill, and a lofty, animated, and picturesque style, are
the characteristics which distinguish the great poet's work from
the primitive production which he had merely beautified with his
magnificent coloring.
{70}
As regards their plan and arrangement, the original pieces have
undergone no change; and even after the composition of the three
parts of "Henry VI.," Shakspeare might still speak of the "Venus
and Adonis" as the "first heir of his invention."

But when will this invention finally display itself in all its
freedom? When will Shakspeare walk alone on that stage on which
he is to achieve such mighty progress? Some of his biographers
place the "Comedy of Errors," and "Love's Labor Lost"--the first
two works the honors and criticisms of which he has to share with
no one--before "Henry VI." in order of time. In this unimportant
discussion, one fact alone is certain, and becomes a new subject
of surprise. The first dramatic work which the imagination of
Shakspeare truly produced was a comedy; and this comedy will be
followed by others: he has at last taken wing, but not as yet
toward the realms of tragedy. Corneille also began with comedy,
but he was then ignorant of his own powers, and almost ignorant
of the drama. The familiar scenes of life had alone presented
themselves to his thoughts; and the scenes of his comedies are
laid in his native town, in the Galerie du Palais and in the
Place Royale. His subjects are timidly borrowed from surrounding
circumstances; he has not yet risen above himself, or transcended
his limited sphere; his vision has not yet penetrated into those
ideal regions in which his imagination will one day roam at will.
But Shakspeare is already a poet; imitation no longer trammels
his progress; and his conceptions are no longer formed
exclusively within the world of his habits. How was it that the
frivolous spirit of comedy was his first guide in that poetic
world from which he drew his inspiration?
{71}
Why did not the emotions of tragedy first awaken the powers of so
eminently tragic a poet? Was it this circumstance which led
Johnson to give this singular opinion: "Shakspeare's tragedy
seems to be skill; his comedy to be instinct?"

Assuredly, nothing can be more whimsical than to refuse to
Shakspeare the instinct of tragedy; and if Johnson had had any
feeling of it himself, such an idea would never have entered his
mind. The fact which I have just stated, however, is not open to
doubt; it is well deserving of explanation, and has its causes in
the very nature of comedy, as it was understood and treated by
Shakspeare.

Shakspeare's comedy is not, in fact, the comedy of Molière; nor
is it that of Aristophanes, or of the Latin poets. Among the
Greeks, and in France, in modern times, comedy was the offspring
of a free but attentive observation of the real world, and its
object was to bring its features on the stage. The distinction
between the tragic and the comic styles is met with almost in the
cradle of dramatic art, and their separation has always become
more distinctly marked during the course of their progress. The
principle of this distinction is contained in the very nature of
things. The destiny and nature of man, his passions and affairs,
characters and events--all things within and around us--have
their serious and their amusing sides, and may be considered and
described under either of these points of view. This two-fold
aspect of man and the world has opened to dramatic poetry two
careers naturally distinct; but in dividing its powers to
traverse them both, art has neither separated itself from
realities, nor ceased to observe and reproduce them.
{72}
Whether Aristophanes attacks, with the most fantastic liberty of
imagination, the vices or follies of the Athenians; or whether
Molière depicts the absurdities of credulity and avarice, of
jealousy and pedantry, and ridicules the frivolity of courts, the
vanity of citizens, and even the affectation of virtues, it
matters little that there is a difference between the subjects in
the delineation of which the two poets have employed their
powers; it matters little that one brought public life and the
whole nation on the stage, while the other merely described
incidents of private life, the interior arrangements of families,
and the nonsensicality of individual characters; this difference
in the materials of comedy arises from the difference of time,
place, and state of civilization. But in both Aristophanes and
Molière realities always constitute the substance of the picture.
The manners and ideas of their times, the vices and follies of
their fellow-citizens--in a word, the nature and life of man--are
always the stimulus and nutriment of their poetic vein.
Comedy thus takes its origin in the world which surrounds the
poet, and is connected, much more closely than tragedy, with
external and real facts.

The Greeks, whose mind and civilization followed so regular a
course in their development, did not combine the two kinds of
composition, and the distinction which separates them in nature
was maintained without effort in art. Simplicity prevailed among
this people; society was not abandoned by them to a state of
conflict and incoherence; and their destiny did not pass away in
protracted obscurity, in the midst of contrasts, and a prey to
dark and deep uneasiness. They grew and shone in their land just
as the sun rose and pursued its course through the skies which
overshadowed them. National perils, intestine discord, and civil
wars agitated the life of a man in those days, without disturbing
his imagination, and without opposing or deranging the natural
and easy course of his thoughts.
{73}
The reflex influence of this general harmony was diffused over
literature and the arts. Styles of composition spontaneously
became distinguished from each other, according to the principles
upon which they depended and the impressions which they aspired
to produce. The sculptor chiseled, isolated statues or innumerous
groups, and did not aim at composing violent scenes or vast
pictures out of blocks of marble. Æschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides undertook to excite the people by the narration of the
mighty destinies of heroes and of kings. Cratinus and
Aristophanes aimed at diverting them by the representation of the
absurdities of their contemporaries or of their own follies.
These natural classifications corresponded with the entire system
of social order, with the state of the minds of the age, and with
the instincts of public taste--which would have been shocked at
their violation, which desired to yield itself without
uncertainty or participation to a single impression or a single
pleasure, and which would have rejected all those unnatural
mixtures and uncongenial combinations to which their attention
had never been called or their judgment accustomed. Thus every
art and every style received its free and isolated development
within the limits of its proper mission. Thus tragedy and comedy
shared man and the world between them, each taking a different
domain in the region of realities, and coming by turns to offer
to the serious or mirthful consideration of a people who
invariably insisted upon simplicity and harmony, the poetic
effects which their skill could derive from the materials placed
in their hands.

{74}

In our modern world, all things have borne another character.
Order, regularity, natural and easy development, seem to have
been banished from it. Immense interests, admirable ideas,
sublime sentiments, have been thrown, as it were, pell-mell with
brutal passions, coarse necessities, and vulgar habits.
Obscurity, agitation, and disturbance have reigned in minds as
well as in states. Nations have been formed, not of freemen and
slaves, but of a confused mixture of diverse, complicated
classes, ever engaged in conflict and labor; a violent chaos,
which civilization, after long-continued efforts, has not yet
succeeded in reducing to complete harmony. Social conditions,
separated by power, but united in a common barbarism of manners;
the germ of loftiest moral truths fermenting in the midst of
absurd ignorance; great virtues applied in opposition to all
reason; shameful vices maintained and defended with hauteur; an
indocile honor, ignorant of the simplest delicacies of honesty;
boundless servility, accompanied by measureless pride; in fine,
the incoherent assemblage of all that human nature and destiny
contain of that which is great and little, noble and trivial,
serious and puerile, strong and wretched--this is what man and
society have been in our Europe; this is the spectacle which has
appeared on the theatre of the world.

In such a state of mind and things, how was it possible for a
clear distinction and simple classification of styles and arts to
be effected? How could tragedy and comedy have presented and
formed themselves isolatedly in literature, when, in reality,
they were incessantly in contact, entwined in the same facts, and
intermingled in the same actions, so thoroughly, that it was
sometimes difficult to discern the moment of passage from one to
the other. Neither the rational principle, nor the delicate
feeling which separate them, could attain any development in
minds which were incapacitated from apprehending them by the
disorder and rapidity of different or opposite impressions.
{75}
Was it proposed to bring upon the stage the habitual occurrences
of ordinary life? Taste was as easily satisfied as manners. Those
religious performances which were the origin of the European
theatre, had not escaped this admixture. Christianity is a
popular religion; into the abyss of terrestrial miseries, its
divine founder came in search of men, to draw them to himself;
its early history is a history of poor, sick, and feeble men; it
existed at first for a long while in obscurity, and afterward in
the midst of persecutions, despised and proscribed by turns, and
exposed to all the vicissitudes and efforts of a humble and
violent destiny. Uncultivated imaginations easily seized upon the
triviality which might be intermingled with the incidents of this
history; the Gospel, the acts of martyrs, and the lives of
saints, would have struck them much less powerfully if they had
seen only their tragic aspect or their rational truths. The first
Mysteries brought simultaneously upon the stage the emotions of
religious terror and tenderness, and the buffooneries of vulgar
comicality; and thus, in the very cradle of dramatic poetry,
tragedy and comedy contracted that alliance which was inevitably
forced upon them by the general condition of nations and of
minds.

In France, however, this alliance was speedily broken off. From
causes which are connected with the entire history of our
civilization, the French people have always taken extreme
pleasure in drollery. Of this, our literature has from time to
time given evidence. This craving for gayety, and for gayety
without alloy, early supplied the inferior classes of our
countrymen with their comic farces, into which nothing was
admitted that had not a tendency to excite laughter.
{76}
In the infancy of the art, comedy in France may very possibly
have invaded the domain of tragedy, but tragedy had no right to
the field which comedy had reserved to itself; and in the
_piteous_ Moralities and _pompous_ Tragedies which
princes caused to be represented in their palaces, and rectors in
their colleges, the trivially comic element long retained a place
which was inexorably refused to the tragic element in the
buffooneries with which the people were amused. We may therefore
affirm that in France comedy, in an imperfect but distinct form,
was created before tragedy. At a later period, the rigorous
separation of classes, the absence of popular institutions, the
regular action of the supreme power, the establishment of a more
exact and uniform system of public order than existed in any
other country, the habits and influence of the court, and a
variety of other causes, disposed the popular mind to maintain
that strict distinction between the two styles which was ordained
by the classical authorities, who held undisputed sway over our
drama. Then arose among us true and great comedy, as conceived by
Molière; and as it was in accordance with our manners, as well as
with the rules of the art, to strike out a new path--as, while
adapting itself to the precepts of antiquity, it did not fail to
derive its subjects and coloring from the facts and personages of
the surrounding world, our comedy suddenly rose to a pitch of
perfection which, in my opinion, has never been attained by any
other country in any other age. To place himself in the interior
of families, and thereby to gain the immense advantage of a
variety of ideas and conditions, which extends the domain of art
without injuring the simplicity of the effects which it produces;
to find in man passions sufficiently strong, and caprices
sufficiently powerful to sway his whole destiny, and yet to limit
their influence to the suggestion of those errors which may make
man ridiculous, without ever touching upon those which would
render him miserable;
{77}
to describe an individual as laboring under that excess of
preoccupation which, diverting him from all other thoughts,
abandons him entirely to the guidance of the idea which possesses
him, and yet to throw in his way only those interests which are
sufficiently frivolous to enable him to compromise them without
danger; to depict, in "Tartuffe," the threatening knavery of the
hypocrite, and the dangerous imbecility of the dupe, in such a
manner as merely to divert the spectator, without incurring any
of the odious consequences of such a position; to give a comic
character, in the "Misanthrope," to those feelings which do most
honor to the human race, by condemning them to confinement within
the dimensions of the existence of a courtier; and thus to reach
the amusing by means of the serious; to extract food for mirth
from the inmost recesses of human nature, and incessantly to
maintain the character of comedy while bordering upon the
confines of tragedy--this is what Molière has done, this is the
difficult and original style which he bestowed upon France; and
France alone, in my opinion, could have given dramatic art this
tendency, and Molière.

Nothing of this kind took place among the English. The asylum of
German manners, as well as of German liberties, England pursued,
without obstacle, the irregular, but natural course of the
civilization which such elements could not fail to engender. It
retained their disorder as well as their energy, and, until the
middle of the seventeenth century, its literature, as well as its
institutions, was the sincere expression of these qualities. When
the English drama attempted to reproduce the poetic image of the
world, tragedy and comedy were not separated.
{78}
The predominance of the popular taste sometimes carried tragic
representations to a pitch of atrocity which was unknown in
France, even in the rudest essays of dramatic art; and the
influence of the clergy, by purging the comic stage of that
excessive immorality which it exhibited elsewhere, also deprived
it of that malicious and sustained gayety which constitutes the
essence of true comedy. The habits of mind which were entertained
among the people by the minstrels and their ballads, allowed the
introduction, even into those compositions which were most
exclusively devoted to mirthfulness, of some touches of those
emotions which comedy in France can never admit with out losing
its name, and becoming melodrama. Among truly national works, the
only thoroughly comic play which the English stage possessed
before the time of Shakspeare, "Gammer Grurton's Needle," was
composed for a college, and modeled in accordance with the
classic rules. The vague titles given to dramatic works, such as
_play, interlude, history,_ or even _ballad_, scarcely
ever indicate any distinction of style. Thus, between that which
was called _tragedy_ and that which was sometimes named
_comedy_, the only essential difference consisted in the
_denouement_, according to the principles laid down in the
fifteenth century by the monk Lydgate, who "defines a comedy to
begin with complaint and to end with gladness, whereas tragedy
begins in prosperity and ends in adversity."

Thus, at the advent of Shakspeare, the nature and destiny of man,
which constitute the materials of dramatic poetry, were not
divided or classified into different branches of art. When art
desired to introduce them on the stage, it accepted them in their
entirety, with all the mixtures and contrasts which they present
to observation; nor was the public taste inclined to complain of
this.
{79}
The comic portion of human realities had a right to take its
place wherever its presence was demanded or permitted by truth;
and such was the character of civilization, that tragedy, by
admitting the comic element, did not derogate from truth in the
slightest degree. In such a condition of the stage and of the
public mind, what could be the state of comedy, properly so
called? How could it be permitted to claim to bear a particular
name, and to form a distinct style? It succeeded in this attempt
by boldly leaving those realities in which its natural domain was
neither respected nor acknowledged; it did not limit its efforts
to the delineation of settled manners or of consistent
characters; it did not propose to itself to represent men and
things under a ridiculous but truthful aspect; but it became a
fantastic and romantic work, the refuge of those amusing
improbabilities which, in its idleness or folly, the imagination
delights to connect together by a slight thread, in order to form
from them combinations capable of affording diversion or
interest, without calling for the judgment of the reason.
Graceful pictures, surprises, the curiosity which attaches to the
progress of an intrigue, mistakes, quid-pro-quos, all the
witticisms of parody and travestie, formed the substance of this
inconsequent diversion. The conformation of the Spanish plays, a
taste for which was beginning to prevail in England, supplied
these gambols of the imagination with abundant frame-works and
alluring models. Next to their chronicles and ballads,
collections of French or Italian tales, together with the
romances of chivalry, formed the favorite reading of the people.
Is it strange that so productive a mine and so easy a style
should first have attracted the attention of Shakspeare? Can we
feel astonished that his young and brilliant imagination hastened
to wander at will among such subjects, free from the yoke of
probabilities, and excused from seeking after serious and
vigorous combinations?
{80}
The great poet, whose mind and hand proceeded, it is said, with
such equal rapidity that his manuscript scarcely contained a
single erasure, doubtless yielded with delight to those
unrestrained gambols in which he could display without labor his
rich and varied faculties. He could put any thing he pleased into
his comedies, and he has, in fact, put every thing into them,
with the exception of one thing which was incompatible with such
a system, namely, the ensemble which, making every part concur
toward the same end, reveals at every step the depth of the plan
and the grandeur of the work. It would be difficult to find in
Shakspeare's tragedies a single conception, position, act, or
passion, or degree of vice or virtue, which may not also be met
with in some one of his comedies; but that which in his tragedies
is carefully thought out, fruitful in result, and intimately
connected with the series of causes and effects, is in his
comedies only just indicated, and offered to our sight for a
moment to dazzle us with a passing gleam, and soon to disappear
in a new combination. In "Measure for Measure," Angelo, the
unworthy governor of Vienna, after having condemned Claudio to
death for the crime of having seduced a young girl whom he
intended to marry, himself attempts to seduce Isabella, the
sister of Claudio, by promising her brother's pardon as a
recompense for her own dishonor; and when, by Isabella's address
in substituting another girl in her place, he thinks he has
received the price of his infamous bargain, he gives orders to
hasten Claudio's execution. Is not this tragedy? Such a fact
might well be placed in the life of Richard the Third, and no
crime of Macbeth's presents this excess of wickedness.
{81}
But in "Macbeth" and "Richard III.," crime produces the tragic
effect which belongs to it, because it bears the impress of
probability, and because real forms and colors attest its
presence: we can discern the place which it occupies in the heart
of which it has taken possession: we know how it gained
admission, what it has conquered, and what remains for it to
subjugate: we behold it incorporating itself by degrees into the
unhappy being whom it has subdued: we see it living, walking, and
breathing with a man who lives, walks, and breathes, and thus
communicates to it his character, his own individuality. In
Angelo, crime is only a vague abstraction, connected _en
passant_ with a proper name, with no other motive than the
necessity of making that person commit a certain action which
shall produce a certain position, from which the poet intends to
derive certain effects. Angelo is not presented to us at the
outset either as a rascal or as a hypocrite; on the contrary, he
is a man of exaggeratedly severe virtue. But the progress of the
poem requires that he should become criminal, and criminal he
becomes; when his crime is committed, he will repent of it as
soon as the poet pleases, and will find himself able to resume
without effort the natural course of his life, which had been
interrupted only for a moment.

Thus, in Shakspeare's comedy, the whole of human life passes
before the eyes of the spectator, reduced to a sort of
phantasmagoria--a brilliant and uncertain reflection of the
realities portrayed in his tragedy. Just when the truth seems on
the point of allowing itself to be caught, the image grows pale,
and vanishes; its part is played, and it disappears. In the
"Winter's Tale," Leontes is as jealous, sanguinary, and
unmerciful as Othello; but his jealousy, born suddenly, from a
mere caprice, at the moment when it is necessary that the plot
should thicken, loses its fury and suspicion as suddenly, as soon
as the action has reached the point at which it becomes requisite
to change the situation.
{82}
In "Cymbeline"--which, notwithstanding its title, ought to be
numbered among the comedies, as the piece is conceived in entire
accordance with the same system--Iachimo's conduct is just as
knavish and perverse as that of Iago in "Othello;" but his
character does not explain his conduct, or, to speak more
correctly, he has no character; and, always ready to cast off the
rascal's cloak, in which the poet has enveloped him, as soon as
the plot reaches its term, and the confession of the secret,
which he alone can reveal, becomes necessary to terminate the
misunderstanding between Posthumus and Imogen, which he alone has
caused, he does not even wait to be asked, but, by a spontaneous
avowal, deserves to be included in that general amnesty which
should form the conclusion of every comedy.

I might multiply these examples to infinity; they abound not only
in Shakspeare's early comedies, but also in those which succeeded
the composition of his best tragedies. In all, we should find
characters as unstable as passions, and resolutions as changeful
as characters. Do not expect to find probability, or
consecutiveness, or profound study of man and society; the poet
cares little for these things, and invites you to follow his
example. To interest by the development of positions, to divert
by variety of pictures, and to charm by the poetic richness of
details--this is what he aims at; these are the pleasures which
he offers. There is no interdependence, no concatenation of
events and ideas; vices, virtues, inclinations, intentions, all
become changed and transformed at every step. Even absurdity does
not always continue to characterize the individual whom it
distinguishes at the outset.
{83}
In "Cymbeline," the imbecile Cloton becomes almost proud and
noble when opposing the independence of a British prince to the
threats of a Roman ambassador; and in "Measure for Measure,"
Elbow the constable, whose nonsensicalities furnish the diversion
of one scene, speaks almost like a man of sense when, in a
subsequent scene, another person is appointed to enliven the
dialogue. Thus negligent and truant is the flight of the poet
through these capricious compositions! Thus fugitive are the
light creations with which he has animated them!

But, then, what gracefulness and rapidity of movement, what
variety of forms and effects, what brilliancy of wit,
imagination, and poetry--all employed to make us forget the
monotony of their romantic frame-work! Doubtless, this is not
comedy as we conceive it, and as Molière wrote it; but who but
Shakspeare could have diffused such treasures over so frivolous
and fantastic a style of comedy? The legends and tales upon which
his plays are founded have given birth, both before and after
him, to thousands of dramatic works which are now plunged in
well-merited oblivion. A king of Sicily, jealous, without knowing
why, of a king of Bohemia, determines to put his wife to death,
and to expose his daughter; this child, left to perish on the
_shore_ of Bohemia, but saved by a shepherd from her cruel
fate, becomes, after sixteen years have elapsed, a marvelous
beauty, and is beloved by the heir to the crown. After all the
obstacles naturally opposed to their union, arrives the ordinary
_denouement_ of explanations and recognitions. This story
truly combines all the most common and least probable features of
the romances, tales, and pastorals of the time.
{84}
But Shakspeare takes it, and the absurd fable that opens the
"Winter's Tale" becomes interesting by the brutal truthfulness of
the jealous transports of Leontes, the amiable character of
little Mamillius, the patient virtue of Hermione, and the
generous inflexibility of Paulina; and, in the second part, the
rural festival, with its gayety and joyous incidents, and, amid
the rustic scene, the charming figure of Perdita, combining with
the modesty of an humble shepherdess the moral elegance of the
superior classes, assuredly present the most piquant and graceful
picture that truth could furnish to poetry. What particular charm
is there in the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta, and the
hackneyed incident of two pairs of lovers rendered unhappy by one
another? It is only a worn-out combination, destitute alike of
interest and truth. Yet Shakspeare has made of it his "Midsummer
Night's Dream;" and in the midst of the dull intrigue, he
introduces Oberon with his elves and fairies, who live upon
flowers, run upon the blades of grass, dance in the rays of the
moon, play with the light of the morning, and fly away,
"following darkness like a team," as soon as Aurora's first
doubtful rays begin to glimmer in the sky. Their employments,
pleasures, and tricks occupy the scene, participate in all its
incidents, and entwine in the same action the mournful destinies
of the four lovers and the grotesque performances of a troop of
artisans; and after having fled away at the approach of the sun,
when Night once more enshrouds earth in her sombre mantle, they
will resume possession of that fantastic world into which we have
been transported by this amazing and brilliant extravaganza.

In truth, it would be acting very rigorously toward ourselves,
and very ungratefully toward genius, to refuse to follow it
somewhat blindly when it invites us to a scene of such
attraction. Are originality, simplicity, gayety, and gracefulness
so common that we shall treat them severely because they are
lavished on a slight foundation of but little value?
{85}
Is it nothing to enjoy the divine charm of poetry amid the
improbabilities, or, if you will, the absurdities of romance?
Have we, then, lost the happy power of lending ourselves
complacently to its caprices? and do we not possess sufficient
vivacity of imagination and youthfulness of feeling to enjoy so
delightful a pleasure under whatever form it may be offered to
us?

Five only of Shakspeare's comedies, the "Tempest," the "Merry
Wives of Windsor," "Timon of Athens," "Troilus and Cressida," and
the "Merchant of Venice," have escaped, at least in part, from
the influence of the romantic taste. Some will, perhaps, be
surprised to find this merit ascribed to the "Tempest." Like the
"Mid-summer Night's Dream," the "Tempest" is peopled with sylphs
and sprites, and every thing is done under the sway of fairy
power. But after having laid the action in this unreal world, the
poet conducts it without inconsistency, complication, or languor;
none of the sentiments are forced, or ceaselessly interrupted;
the characters are simple and well sustained; the supernatural
power which disposes the events undertakes to supply all the
necessities of the plot, and leaves the personages of the drama
at liberty to show themselves in their natural character, and to
swim at ease in that magical atmosphere by which they are
surrounded, without at all injuring the truthfulness of their
impressions or ideas. The style is fantastic and sprightly; but,
when the supposition is once admitted, there is nothing in the
work to shock the judgment and disturb the imagination by the
incoherence of the effects produced.

{86}

In the system of intrigued comedy, the "Merry Wives of Windsor"
may be said to be almost perfect in its composition; it presents
a true picture of manners; the _denouement_ is as piquant as
it is well-prepared; and it is assuredly one of the merriest
works in the whole comic repertory. Shakspeare evidently aspired
higher in "Timon of Athens." It is an attempt at that scientific
style in which the ridiculous is made to flow from the serious,
and which constitutes _la grande comedie._ The scenes in
which Timon's friends excuse themselves, under various pretexts,
from rendering him assistance, are wanting neither in
truthfulness nor effect. But, then, Timon's misanthropy, as
furious as his confidence had previously been extravagant--the
equivocal character of Apemantus--the abruptness of the
transitions, and the violence of the sentiments, form a picture
more melancholy than true, which is scarcely softened down enough
by the fidelity of the old steward. Though far inferior to
"Timon," the drama of "Troilus and Cressida" is nevertheless
skillfully conceived; it is based upon the resolution taken by
the Grecian chiefs to flatter the stupid pride of Ajax, and make
him the hero of the army, in order to humble the haughty
disdainfulness of Achilles, and to obtain from his jealousy that
which he had refused to their prayers. But the idea is more comic
than its execution, and neither the buffooneries of Thersites nor
the truthfulness of the part played by Pandarus are sufficient to
impart to the piece that mirthful physiognomy without which
comedy is impossible.

These four works, which are less akin than his other comedies to
the romantic system, also belong more completely to Shakspeare's
invention. The "Merry Wives of Windsor" is an original creation;
no tale has been discovered from which Shakspeare could have
borrowed the subject of the "Tempest;" the composition of "Timon
of Athens" is indebted in no respect to Plutarch's account of
that misanthrope; and in "Troilus and Cressida" Shakspeare has
copied Chaucer in a very few particulars.

{87}

The story of the "Merchant of Venice" is of an entirely romantic
character, and was selected by Shakspeare, like the "Winter's
Tale," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Measure for Measure," and other
plays, merely that he might adorn it with the graceful brilliancy
of his poetry. But one incident of the subject conducted
Shakspeare to the confines of tragedy, and he suddenly became
aware of his domain; he entered into that real world in which the
comic and the tragic are commingled, and, when depicted with
equal truthfulness, concur, by their combination, to increase the
power of the effect produced. What can be more striking, in this
style of dramatic composition, than the part assigned to Shylock?
This son of a degraded race has all the vices and passions which
are engendered by such a position; his origin has made him what
he is, sordid and malignant, fearful and pitiless; he does not
think of emancipating himself from the rigors of the law, but he
is delighted at being able to invoke it for once, in all its
severity, in order to appease the thirst for vengeance which
devours him; and when, in the judgment scene, after having made
us tremble for the life of the virtuous Antonio, Shylock finds
the exactitude of that law, in which he triumphed with such
barbarity, turned unexpectedly against himself--when he feels
himself overwhelmed at once by the danger and the ridicule of his
position, two opposite feelings--mirth and emotion--arise almost
simultaneously in the breast of the spectator. What a singular
proof is this of the general disposition of Shakspeare's mind! He
has treated the whole of the romantic part of the drama without
any intermixture of comedy, or even of gayety; and we can discern
true comedy only when we meet with Shylock--that is, with
tragedy.

{88}

It is utterly futile to attempt to base any classification of
Shakspeare's works on the distinction between the comic and
tragic elements; they can not possibly be divided into these two
styles, but must be separated into the fantastic and the real,
the romance and the world. The first class contains most of his
comedies; the second comprehends all his tragedies--immense and
living stages, upon which all things are represented, as it were,
in their solid form, and in the place which they occupied in a
stormy and complicated state of civilization. In these dramas,
the comic element is introduced whenever its character of reality
gives it the right of admission and the advantage of opportune
appearance. Falstaff appears in the train of Henry V., and Doll
Tear-Sheet in the train of Falstaff; the people surround the
kings, and the soldiers crowd around their generals; all
conditions of society, all the phases of human destiny appear by
turns in juxtaposition, with the nature which properly belongs to
them, and in the position which they naturally occupy. The tragic
and comic elements sometimes combine in the same individual, and
are developed in succession in the same character. The impetuous
preoccupation of Hotspur is amusing when it prevents him from
listening to any other voice than his own, and substitutes his
sentiments and words in the place of the things which his friends
are desirous to tell him, and which he is equally anxious to
learn; but it becomes serious and fatal when it leads him to
adopt, without due examination, a dangerous project which
suddenly inspires him with the idea of glory. The perverse
obstinacy which renders him so comical in his dealings with the
boastful and vainglorious Glendower, will be the tragical cause
of his ruin when, in contempt of all reason and advice, and
unaided by any succor, he hastens to the battle-field, upon
which, ere long, left alone, he looks around and sees naught but
death. Thus we find the entire world, the whole of human
realities, reproduced by Shakspeare in tragedy, which, in his
eyes, was the universal theatre of life and truth.

{89}

In the year 1595, at latest, "Romeo and Juliet" had appeared.
This work was succeeded, almost without interruption, until 1599,
by "Hamlet," "King John," "Richard II.," "Richard III.," the two
parts of "Henry IV.," and "Henry V." From 1599 to 1605, the
chronological order of Shakspeare's works contains none but
comedies and the play of "Henry VIII." After 1605, tragedy
regains the ascendant in "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar,"
"Antony and Cleopatra," "Coriolanus," and "Othello." The first
period, we perceive, belongs rather to historical plays; and the
second to tragedy properly so called, the subjects of which, not
being taken from the positive history of England, allowed the
poet a wider field, and permitted the free manifestation of all
the originality of his nature. Historical dramas, generally
designated by the name of _Histories_, had enjoyed
possession of popular favor for nearly twenty years. Shakspeare
emancipated himself but slowly from the taste of his age; though
always displaying more grandeur, and gaining greater approbation
in proportion as he abandoned himself with greater freedom to the
guidance of his own instinct--he was nevertheless always careful
to accommodate his progress to the advancement of his audience in
their appreciation of his art. It appears certain, from the dates
of his plays, that he never composed a single tragedy until some
other poet had, as it were, felt the pulse of the public on the
same subject; just as though he were conscious that he possessed
within himself a superiority which, before it could be trusted to
the taste of the multitude, required the exercise of a vulgar
caution.

{90}

It can not be doubted that, between historical dramas and
tragedies, properly so called, Shakspeare's genius inclined in
preference toward the latter class. The general and unvarying
opinion which has placed "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet," "King
Lear," "Macbeth," and "Othello" at the head of his works, would
suffice to prove this. Among his national dramas, "Richard III."
is the only one which has attained the same rank, and this is an
additional proof of the truth of my assertion; for it is the only
work which Shakspeare was able to conduct, in the same manner as
his tragedies, by the influence of a single character or idea.
Herein resides the fundamental difference between the two kinds
of dramatic works; in one class, events pursue their course, and
the poet accompanies them; in the other, events group themselves
around a man, and seem to serve only to bring him into bold
relief. "Julius Cæsar" is a true tragedy, and yet the progress of
the piece is framed in accordance with Plutarch's narrative, just
as "King John," "Richard II.," and "Henry IV." are made to
coincide with Holinshed's Chronicles; but in the first-named
piece, Brutus imparts to the play the unity of a great individual
character. In the same manner, the history of "Richard III." is
entirely his own history, the work of his design and will;
whereas, the history of the other kings with whom Shakspeare has
peopled his dramas is only a part, and frequently the smallest
part, of the picture of the events of their time.

{91}

This arises from the fact that events were not what chiefly
occupied Shakspeare's mind; his special attention was bestowed
upon the men who occasioned them. He establishes his domain, not
in historical, but in dramatic truth. Give him a fact to
represent upon the stage, and he will not inquire minutely into
the circumstances which accompanied it, or into the various and
multiplied causes which may have combined to produce it; his
imagination will not require an exact picture of the time or
place in which it occurred, or a complete acquaintance with the
infinite combinations of which the mysterious web of destiny is
composed. These constitute only the materials of the drama; and
Shakspeare will not look to them to furnish it with vitality. He
takes the fact as it is related to him; and, guided by this
thread, he descends into the depths of the human soul. It is man
that he wishes to resuscitate; it is man whom he interrogates
regarding the secret of his impressions, inclinations, ideas, and
volitions. He does not inquire, "What hast thou done?" but, "How
art thou constituted? Whence originated the part thou hast taken
in the events in which I find thee concerned? What wert thou
seeking after? What couldst thou do? Who art thou? Let me know
thee; and then I shall know in what respects thy history is
important to me."

Thus we may explain that depth of natural truth which reveals
itself, in Shakspeare's works, even to the least practiced eyes,
and that somewhat frequent absence of local truth which he would
have been able to delineate with equal excellence if he had
studied it with equal assiduity. Hence, also, arises that
difference of conception which is observable between his
historical dramas and his tragedies. Composed in accordance with
a plan more national than dramatic, written beforehand in some
sort by events well known in all their details, and already in
possession of the stage under determinate forms, most of his
historical plays could not be subjected to that individual unity
which Shakspeare delighted to render dominant in his
compositions, but which so rarely holds sway in the actual
narratives of history.
{92}
Every man has usually a very small share in the events in which
he has taken part; and the brilliant position which rescues a
name from oblivion has not always preserved the man who bore it
from sinking into a nullity. Kings especially, who are forced to
appear upon the stage of the world independently of their
aptitude to perform their part upon it, frequently afford less
assistance than embarrassment to the conduct of an historical
action. Most of the princes whose reigns furnished Shakspeare
with his national dramas, undoubtedly exercised some influence
upon their own history; but none of them, with the exception of
Richard III., wrought it out entirely for himself. Shakspeare
would have sought in vain to discover, in their conduct and
personal nature, that sole cause of events, that simple and
pregnant truth, which was called for by the instinct of his
genius. While, therefore, in his tragedies, a moral position, or
a strongly conceived character, binds and confines the action in
a powerful knot, from whence the facts as well as the sentiments
of the drama issue to return thither again, his historical plays
contain a multitude of incidents and scenes which are destined
rather to fill up the action than to facilitate its progress. As
events pass in succession before his view, Shakspeare stops them
to catch some few details, which suffice to determine their
character; and these details he derives, not from the lofty or
general causes of the facts, but from their practical and
familiar results. An historical event may originate in a very
exalted source, but it always descends to a very low position; it
matters little that its sources be concealed in the elevated
summits of social order, it ever reaches its consummation in the
popular masses, producing among them a widely-diffused and
manifest effect and feeling.
{93}
At this point, Shakspeare seems to wait for events, and here he
takes his stand to portray them. The intervention of the people,
who bear so heavy a part of the weight of history, is assuredly
legitimate, at least in historical representations. It was,
moreover, necessary to Shakspeare. Those partial pictures of
private or popular history, which lie far behind its great
events, are brought by Shakspeare to the front of the stage, and
placed in prominent relief; indeed, we feel that he relies upon
them to impart to his work the form and coloring of reality. The
invasion of France, the battle of Agincourt, the marriage of a
daughter of France to a king of England, in whose favor the
French monarch disinherits the dauphin, are not sufficient, in
his opinion, to occupy the whole of the historical drama of
"Henry V.;" so he summons to his aid the comic erudition of the
brave Welshman, Fluellen, the conversations of the king with the
soldiers, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, all the subaltern movement
of an army, and even the joyous loves of Catharine and Henry. In
the two parts of "Henry IV.," the comedy is more closely
connected with the events, and yet it does not emanate from them.
Even if Falstaff and his crew occupied less space, the principal
facts would not be less determinate, and would not follow another
course; but these facts have only supplied Shakspeare with the
external conformation of the drama; the incidents of private
life, the comic details, Hotspur and his wife, and Falstaff and
his companions, give it life and animation.

{94}

In true tragedy, every circumstance assumes another character and
another aspect; no incident is isolated, or alien to the very
substance of the drama; no link is slight or fortuitous. The
events grouped around the principal personage present themselves
to view with the importance which they derive from the impression
that he receives of them; to him they address themselves, and
from him they proceed; he is the beginning and the end, the
instrument and the object of the decrees of God, who, in the
world which He has created for man, wills that every thing should
be done by the hands of man, and nothing according to his
designs. God employs the human will to accomplish intentions
which man never entertained, and allows him to proceed freely
toward a goal which he has not selected. But though man is
exposed to the influence of events, he does not fall into
subjection to them; if impotence be his condition, liberty is his
nature; the feelings, ideas, and wishes with which he is inspired
by external objects emanate from himself alone; in him resides an
independent and spontaneous power which rejects and defies the
empire to which his destiny is subjected. Thus was the world
constituted, and thus has Shakspeare conceived tragedy. Give him
an obscure and remote event; let him be bound to conduct it
toward a determinate result, through a series of incidents more
or less known; amid these facts he will place a passion or a
character, and put all the threads of the action into the hands
of the creature of his own origination. Events follow their
course, and man enters upon his; he employs his power to divert
them from the direction which he does not wish them to pursue, to
conquer them when they thwart him, and to elude them when they
embarrass him; he subjects them for a moment to his authority, to
find them soon acting with greater hostility toward him in the
new course which he has forced them to take; and at last he
succumbs entirely in the struggle in which his destiny and his
life have gone to wreck.

{95}

The power of man in conflict with the power of fate--this is the
spectacle which fascinated and inspired the dramatic genius of
Shakspeare. Perceiving it for the first time in the catastrophe
of "Romeo and Juliet," he felt his will suddenly terror-struck at
the aspect of the vast disproportion which exists between the
efforts of man and the inflexibility of destiny--between the
immensity of our desires and the nullity of our means. In
"Hamlet," the second of his tragedies, he reproduces this picture
with a sort of shuddering dread. A feeling of duty has prescribed
to Hamlet a terrible project; he does not think that any thing
can permit him to evade it; and from the very outset, he
sacrifices every thing to it--his love, his self-respect, his
pleasures, and even the studies of his youth. He has now only one
object in the world--to prove and punish the crime which had
caused his father's death. That, in order to accomplish this
design, he must break the heart of her he loves; that, during the
course of the incidents which he originates in order to effect
his purpose, a mistake renders him the murderer of the
inoffensive Polonius; that he himself becomes an object of mirth
and contempt--he cares not, does not even bestow a thought upon
it; these are the natural results of his determination, and in
this determination his whole existence is concentrated. But he is
desirous to accomplish his plan with certainty; he wishes to feel
assured that the blow will be legitimate, and that it will not
fail to strike home. Henceforward accumulate in his path those
doubts, difficulties, and obstacles which the course of things
invariably sets in opposition to the man who aims at subjecting
it to his will. By bestowing a less philosophical observation
upon these impediments, Hamlet would surmount them more easily;
but the hesitation and dread which they inspire form part of
their power, and Hamlet must undergo its entire influence.
{96}
Nothing, however, can shake his resolution, nothing divert him
from his purpose: he advances, slowly it is true, with his eyes
constantly fixed upon his object; whether he originates an
opportunity, or merely appropriates one already existing, every
step is a progress, until he seems to border on the final term of
his design. But time has had its career; Providence is at its
limit; the events which Hamlet has prepared hasten onward without
his co-operation; they are consummated by him, and to his own
destruction; and he falls a victim to those decrees whose
accomplishment he has insured, destined to show how little man
can avail to effect, even in that which he most ardently desires.

Already more inured to the contemplation of human life, Richard
III., at the commencement of his sanguinary career, contemplates,
with steady gaze, that immense disproportion before which the
thought of the courageous but inexperienced Hamlet had
incessantly quailed. Richard merely promises himself greater
pride and pleasure from the subjugation of this hostile power;
and resolves to give the lie to fate, which appeared to have
destined him to abasement and contempt. In fact, we behold him
ruling, like a conqueror, the chances of his life; events spring
from his hands bearing the impress of his will; just as his
thought conceives them, his power accomplishes them; he completes
what he has projected, raises his existence to a level with his
ambition, and falls at the moment appointed by inflexible
destiny, to render the punishment of his crimes more striking, by
inflicting it in the midst of his successes. Macbeth, Othello,
Coriolanus, all equally active and blind in the conduct of their
destiny, bring down upon themselves, in the same manner, with all
the force of a passionate will, the event which is fated to crush
them.

{97}

Brutus dies in consequence of the death of Caesar; no one desired
more than himself the blow which killed him; no one resolved on
his death by a freer choice of his reason; he had not, like
Hamlet, a ghost to dictate to him his duty; in himself alone he
found that severe law to which he sacrificed his repose, his
affections, and his inclinations; no one is more thoroughly
master of himself; and yet, like all the rest, he dies, powerless
to resist fate. With him perishes the liberty which he aspired to
save; the hope of rendering his death useful does not even flash
across his mind; and yet Shakspeare does not make him exclaim,
when dying, "Virtue, thou art only an empty name!" And why not?
Because above this terrible conflict of man against necessity
soars his moral existence, independent and sovereign, free from
all the perils of the combat. The mighty genius whose view had
embraced the whole destiny of man could not have failed to
recognize its sublime secret; a sure instinct revealed to him
this final explanation, without which all is darkness and
uncertainty. Furnished, therefore, with the moral thread which
never breaks in his hands, he proceeds with firm steps through
the embarrassments of circumstances and the perplexities of
varied feelings; nothing can be simpler at bottom than
Shakspeare's action; nothing less complicated than the impression
which it leaves upon our minds. Our interest is never divided,
and still less does it waver between two opposite inclinations,
or two equally powerful affections. As soon as the characters
become known, and their position is developed, our choice is
made; we know what we desire and what we fear, whom we hate and
whom we love. There is also as little conflict of duties as of
interests; and the conscience wavers no more than the affections.
{98}
In the midst of political revolutions, in times when society is
at war with itself, and can no longer guide individuals by those
laws which it has imposed upon them for the maintenance of its
unity, then alone does Shakspeare's judgment hesitate, and allow
ours to hesitate also; he can himself no longer accurately
determine on which side lies the right, or what duty requires,
and he is therefore unable to tell us. "King John," "Richard
II.," and the three parts of "Henry VI.," furnish examples of
this. In every other drama, the moral position is evident, free
from ambiguity, and undisguised by complaisance; the characters
are not represented as deceiving or deceived, hovering between
vice and virtue, weakness and crime; what they are, they are
frankly and openly; their actions are depicted in vigorous
outlines, so that even the weakest eyesight can not mistake them.
And yet--so admirable is his perception of truths--in these
actions, so positive, complete, and consistent, all the
inconsistencies and fantastic mixtures of human nature exist and
are displayed. Macbeth has fully made up his mind to crime; no
link binds his conduct any longer to virtue; and yet who can
doubt that, in the character of Macbeth, side by side with the
passions which stimulate him to crime, there still exist those
inclinations which constitute virtue? The mother of Hamlet has
set no bounds to her incestuous love; she knows her crime and
boldly commits it; her position is that of a shameless culprit;
but her soul is that of a woman capable of loving modesty, and
finding happiness within the bounds of duty. Even Claudius
himself, the wretch Claudius, would wish to be able still to
pray; he can not do so, but he wishes he could. Thus the keen
vision of the philosopher enlightens and directs the imagination
of the poet; thus man appears to Shakspeare only when fully
furnished with all that belongs to his nature. The truth is
always there, before the eyes of the poet: he looks down and
writes.

{99}

But there is one truth which Shakspeare does not observe in this
manner, which he derives from himself, and without which all the
external truths which he contemplates would be merely cold and
sterile images; and that is, the feeling which these truths
excite within him. This feeling is the mysterious bond which
unites us to the outer world, and makes us truly know it; when
our mind has taken realities into consideration, our soul is
moved by an analogous and spontaneous impression; but for the
anger with which we are inspired by the sight of crime, whence
should we obtain the revelation of that element which renders
crime odious? No one has ever combined, in an equal degree with
Shakspeare, this double character of an impartial observer and a
man of profound sensibility. Superior to all by his reason, and
accessible to all by sympathy, he sees nothing without judging
it, and he judges it because he feels it. Could any one who did
not detest Iago have penetrated, as Shakspeare has done, into the
recesses of his execrable character? To the horror with which he
regards the criminal must be ascribed the terrible energy of the
language which he puts into his mouth. Who could make us tremble,
so much as Lady Macbeth herself, at the action for which she
prepares with so little fear? But when it becomes needful to
express pity or tenderness, the unrestraint of love, the
extravagance of maternal apprehension, or the stern and deep
grief of manly affection--then the observer may quit his post,
and the judge his tribunal. Shakspeare himself develops all the
abundance of his nature, and gives expression to those familiar
feelings of his soul which are set in motion by the slightest
contact with his imagination.
{100}
Women, children, old men--who has described them with such
truthfulness as he? Where the ingenuousness of requited affection
given birth to a purer flower than Desdemona? Has old age, when
shamefully deserted, and driven to madness by the weakness of
senility and the violence of grief, ever given utterance to more
pathetic lamentations than in "King Lear?" Who has not felt his
heart assailed by all the emotions of anguish which childhood can
inspire, on beholding the scene in which Hubert, in performance
of his promise to King John, is about to burn out the eyes of
young Arthur? And if this barbarous project were carried into
execution, who could endure it? But in such a case Shakspeare
would not have described the scene. There is an excess of grief
in presence of which he pauses; he takes pity on himself, and
repels impressions too powerful to be borne. Scarcely does he
permit Juliet to utter any words between Romeo's death and her
own; Macduff is silent after the massacre of his wife and
children; and Constance dies before we are allowed to behold the
death of Arthur. Othello alone approaches the whole of his
sufferings without mitigation; but his misfortune was so
horrible, when he was ignorant of it, that the impression which
he receives from it, after the discovery of his error, becomes
almost a consolation.

Thus moved by all that moves us, Shakspeare obtains our
confidence; we yield ourselves in security to that open soul in
which our feelings have already reverberated, and to that ready
imagination which is as much illumined by the splendid sun of
Italy as darkened by the sombre fogs of Denmark. Dramatic in the
portraiture of a mother's gambols with her child, and simple in
the terrible apparition which opens the first scene of "Hamlet,"
the poet is never unequal to the realities which ho has to
delineate, or the man to the emotions with which he wishes to
imbue our hearts.

{101}

Why, then, are we sometimes painfully compelled to pause while
following him? Why does a sort of impatience and fatigue
frequently disturb the admiration which we feel for his works?
One misfortune happened to Shakspeare; though he was always
lavish of his wealth, he was not always able to distribute it
either opportunely or skillfully. This was frequently the
misfortune of Corneille also. Ideas accumulated about Corneille,
as about Shakspeare, confusedly and tumultuously, and neither of
them had the courage to treat his own mind with prudent severity.
They forgot the position of the character they were describing,
in order to indulge in the thoughts which it awakened in the soul
of the poet. In Shakspeare, especially, this excessive indulgence
in his own ideas and feelings sometimes arrests and interrupts
the emotions awakened in the breast of the spectator, in a manner
which is fatal to the dramatic effect. It is not merely, as in
Corneille, the ingenious loquacity of a rather talkative mind;
but it is the restless and fantastic reverie of a mind astonished
at its own discoveries, not knowing how to reproduce the whole
impression which it has received from them, and heaping ideas,
images, and expressions one upon another, in order to awaken in
us feelings similar to those by which it is itself oppressed. The
feelings developed at such length are not always, however, those
which should properly occupy the personage by whom they are
expressed; and not only is the harmony of the position injured by
them, but we find ourselves compelled to undertake a certain
labor which, in the end, diverts our attention from the subject
on which it ought to be concentrated.
{102}
Though always simple in their emotions, the heroes of Shakspeare
are not always equally simple in their speeches; though always
true and natural in their ideas, they are not as constantly true
and natural in the combinations which they form from them. The
poet's gaze embraced an immense field, and his imagination,
traversing it with marvelous rapidity, perceived a thousand
distant or singular relations between the objects which met his
view, and passed from one to another by a multitude of abrupt and
curious transitions, which it afterward imposed upon both the
personages of the drama and the spectators. Hence arose the true
and great fault of Shakspeare, the only one that originated in
himself, and which is sometimes perceptible even in his finest
compositions; and that is, a deceptive appearance of laborious
research, which is occasioned, on the contrary, by the absence of
labor. Accustomed, by the taste of his age, frequently to connect
ideas and expressions by their most distant relations, he
contracted the habit of that learned subtlety which perceives and
assimilates every thing, and leaves no point of resemblance
unnoticed; and this fault has more than once marred the gayety of
his comedies, as well as destroyed the pathos of his tragedies.
If meditation had taught Shakspeare to fall back upon himself, to
contemplate his own strength, and to concentrate it by skillful
management, he would soon have rejected the abuse which he has
made of it, and would have speedily become conscious that neither
his heroes nor his spectators could follow him in that prodigious
movement of ideas, feelings, and intentions which, on every
occasion, and under the slightest pretext, arose and obtruded
themselves upon his own thought.

{103}

But so far as we are able, at the present day, to form any idea
of Shakspeare's character, from the scattered and uncertain
details which have reached us regarding his life and person, we
have every reason to believe that he never bestowed so much care
either on his labors or on his glory. More disposed to enjoy his
own powers than to turn them to their best account--docile to the
inspiration, rather than guided by the consciousness of his
genius--vexed but little by a craving after success, and more
inclined to doubt its value than attentive to the means of
obtaining it--the poet advanced without measuring his progress,
unvailing himself, as it were, at every step, and perhaps
retaining, even at the end of his career, some remains of
ingenuous ignorance of the marvelous riches which he scattered so
lavishly in every direction. His sonnets alone, of all his works,
contain a few allusions to his personal feelings, and to the
condition of his soul and life; but we rarely meet in them with
the idea, so natural to a poet, of the immortality which his
works are destined to achieve. He could not have been a man who
reckoned much upon posterity, or who cared at all about it, who
ever displayed so little anxiety to throw light upon the only
monuments of his private existence which posterity possesses
concerning him.

Printed for the first time in 1609, these sonnets were,
doubtless, published with Shakspeare's consent, although nothing
seems to indicate that he took the slightest part in their
publication. Neither his publisher nor himself has endeavored to
impart to them an historical interest by naming the persons to
whom they were addressed, or the occasions which inspired their
composition. Thus the light which they throw upon some of the
circumstances of his life is often so doubtful that it tends
rather to perplex than to guide the biographer. The passionate
style which pervades them all--even those which are evidently
addressed merely to a friend--has thrown the commentators upon
Shakspeare into great embarrassment.
{104}
Of all the conjectures which have been hazarded in explanation of
this fact, one alone, in my opinion, seems to possess any
likelihood. At a time when the mind, tormented, as it were, by
its youth and inexperience, tried all forms of expression, except
simplicity--and at a court in which _euphuism_, the
fashionable language, had introduced the most whimsical
travesties, both of persons and ideas, into familiar
conversation--it is possible that, in order to express real
feelings, the poet may sometimes have assumed, in these fugitive
compositions, the tone and language of conventionality. It is
known, from a pamphlet published in 1598, that Shakspeare's
"sugar'd sonnets," which were already celebrated, although they
had not yet been printed, were the delight of his private circle
of friends; and if it be remarked that the idea which terminates
them is almost always repeated, with variations, in several
successive sonnets, we shall feel strongly tempted to regard them
as the simple amusements of a mind which could never resist the
opportunity of expressing an ingenious idea. Not only, therefore,
are Shakspeare's sonnets insufficient to explain the facts to
which they allude, but it is only by a more or less logical
process of induction that they can be made to supply any details
regarding the occupations of Shakspeare's life during his
residence in London, and during those thirty years, now so
glorious, regarding which he has been at such pains to supply us
with no information.

Perhaps his position, as well as his character, may have
contributed to cause this silence. A feeling of pride, as much as
a sentiment of modesty, may have induced Shakspeare to leave in
oblivion an existence which gave him but little satisfaction. The
condition of an actor then possessed, in England, neither
consistency nor reputation. Whatever difference Hamlet may place
between strolling players and those who belonged to an
established theatre, the latter could not but bear the weight of
the coarseness of the public upon whom they were dependent, as
well as that of the colleagues with whom they shared the task of
diverting the public.

{105}

The general fondness for theatrical amusements furnished
employment to persons of every condition, from those who engaged
in bear-baitings, to the choristers of St. Paul's and the players
of Blackfriars. It was probably of some theatre holding a middle
rank between these two extremes that Shakspeare gives us so
amusing a description in the "Midsummer Night's Dream." But the
means of illusion to which the artisan performers of this drama
have recourse, are in no respect inferior to those of which the
most distinguished theatres made use. The actor, covered "with
lime and rough-cast," who represents the wall that separated
Pyramus and Thisbe, and moves his fingers to provide "the chink
through which the lovers whisper," and the man who, with his
lantern, his dog, and his thorn-bush, "doth the horned moon
present," did not require a much greater stretch of the
imagination of the spectators than was necessary to regard the
same scene as a garden full of flowers; then, without any
changes, as a rock upon which a vessel has just suffered
shipwreck; and, finally, as a field of battle, upon which "two
armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers."
[Footnote 17] There is reason to believe that all these
performances collected together very nearly the same audience; at
least, it is certain that Shakspeare's plays were performed both
at Blackfriars and at the Globe, two different theatres, although
both belonged to the same troop.

    [Footnote 17: See the ironical description of the uncouth
    state of the stage, given by Sir Philip Sidney in his
    "Defense of Poesy."]

{106}

Strolling players were accustomed to give their performances in
the court-yards of inns. The stage was erected in one corner,
while the spectators occupied the remainder of the yard,
standing, like the actors, in the open air; the lower rooms and
the gallery which ran round the court, were doubtless opened to
the public at a higher rate of admission. The London theatres
were constructed upon this plan; and those which were called
"public playhouses," in opposition to the "private theatres,"
kept up the custom of performing in the open air, without any
other canopy than the sky. The Globe was a public theatre, and
the Blackfriars a private one; these last establishments
doubtless occupied a superior rank; and, at a later period, to
frequent the Blackfriars theatre was regarded as a mark of
elegant taste and superior discernment. But such distinctions are
incapable of being clearly defined, and when Shakspeare appeared
on the stage these shades of difference were probably very
confused. In 1609, Decker wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Gul's
Horne-booke," which contains a chapter, "How a gallant should
behave himself in a play-house." We learn from this authority
that a gentleman, on entering a public or private theatre, should
walk at once on the stage, and sit down either on the ground or
on a stool, as he found it convenient to pay for a seat or not.
He must valiantly keep his post, in spite of the gibes and
insults of the populace in the pit; because it becomes a
gentleman to laugh at "the mews and hisses of the opposed
rascality." However, if the multitude should begin to shout "Out
with the fool!" the danger becomes sufficiently serious for good
taste to permit the gentleman to withdraw. During the
performance, the common people were supplied with beer and
apples, of which the actors also frequently partook; while the
gentlemen, on their side, smoked their pipes and played at cards;
indeed, it was not at all unusual for the elegant _habitues_
of the theatre to begin a game at cards before the commencement
of the play.
{107}
"The Gul's Horne-booke" recommends them to play with an
appearance of great eagerness, even if they return the money to
each other at supper-time; and nothing, says Decker, can give
greater notoriety to a gentleman than to throw his cards on the
stage, after having torn up three or four of them with every
manifestation of rage. The duties of the spectators in possession
of the honors of the stage were to speak, to laugh, and to turn
their backs on the actors whenever they were displeased with
either the author or the play. These pleasures of the gentlemen
give a sufficient clue to those of the populace in the pit, whom
contemporary writers usually designate by the name of
"stinkards." The condition of the actors compelled to minister to
the amusement of such an audience could not but be attended by
more than one unpleasantness, and we may attribute to
Shakspeare's experience of an actor's life that aversion for
popular assemblies which is frequently displayed with great
energy in his works.

Nor do the condition and habits of the poets who wrote for the
stage give us a more honorable idea, in these two respects, of
the actors with whom they associated; and, in order to suppose
that Shakspeare, young, gay, and easy-tempered, could have
escaped from the influence of his two-fold character of poet and
actor, we need the assistance of that unshrinking faith which the
commentators repose in their patron. Shakspeare himself leaves us
little room to doubt that he fell into errors, which he at least
has the merit of regretting.
{108}
In one of his sonnets, he inquires why Fortune, whom he calls

  "The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,"

should alone bear the reproach of the "public means" to which he
has been obliged to resort for his subsistence. And he adds:

  "Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
   And almost thence my nature is subdued
   To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
   Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed,
   While, like a willing patient, I will drink
   Potions of eysel [Footnote 18] 'gainst my strong infection;
   No bitterness that I will bitter think,
   Nor double penance to correct correction."

    [Footnote 18: Vinegar.]

In the next sonnet, addressing the same person, still in the same
tone of confident yet respectful affection, he says:

  "Your love and pity doth th' impression fill
   Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
   For what care I who calls me well or ill,
   So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?"

In another sonnet, he laments over the blot which had divided two
lives united by affection, and says:

  "I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
   Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame;
   Nor thou with public kindness honor me,
   Unless thou take that honor from my name."

And in another sonnet, he complains that he is, if not
calumniated, at least wrongly judged; and that the "frailties of
his sportive blood" are spied out by censors, who are frailer
than himself. It is easy to divine the nature of Shakspeare's
frailties; and several sonnets on the infidelities, and even on
the vices, of the mistress whom he celebrates, give sufficient
proof that his errors were not always caused by persons capable
of excusing them. However, how can we suppose that, in the state
of morals in the sixteenth century, public severity could have
looked with great rigor on such disorders?
{109}
In order to explain the humiliation of the poet, we must suppose
either that he had been guilty of some extraordinarily scandalous
conduct, or that particular dishonor attached to the disorders
and position of an actor. The latter hypothesis appears to me the
most probable. No grave reproach can, at any time, have weighed
upon a man whose contemporaries never speak of him without
affection and esteem, and whom Ben Jonson declares to have been
"truly honest," without deriving from this assertion either the
opportunity or the right of relating some circumstance
disgraceful to his memory, or some well-known error which the
officious rival would not have failed to establish while excusing
it.

Perhaps, on being brought into contact with the higher classes of
society, struck by the display of a relative elegance of
sentiments and manners of which he had previously had no idea,
and becoming suddenly aware that his nature gave him a right to
participate in these delicacies which had hitherto been foreign
to his habits, Shakspeare felt himself oppressed, by his
position, with painful shackles; perhaps even he was led to
exaggerate his humiliation, by the natural disposition of a
haughty soul, which feels itself all the more abased by an
unequal condition, because it is conscious of its worthiness to
enjoy equality. At all events, there can be no doubt that, with
that measured circumspection which is as frequently the
accompaniment of pride as of modesty, Shakspeare labored to
overleap these humiliating differences of station, and succeeded
in his attempt. His first dedication to Lord Southampton, that of
"Venus and Adonis," is written with respectful timidity.
{110}
That of the poem of "Lucrece," which was published in the
following year, expresses grateful attachment, which feels sure
of being well received; and he vows to his protector "love
without end." The resemblance of the tone of this preface to that
of a great many of the sonnets, the repeated benefits in which
the friendship of Lord Southampton enabled their recipient to
glory, and the lively affection with which the sensitive and
confident Shakspeare was naturally inspired by the amiable and
generous protection of a young man of such brilliant rank and
merit--all these circumstances have led some of the commentators
to suppose that Lord Southampton may have been the object of the
poet's inexplicable sonnets. Without inquiring to what extent the
_euphuism_ then prevalent, the exaggeration of poetic
language, and the false taste of the age, may have imparted to
Lord Southampton the features of an adored mistress, we can not
but admit that most of these sonnets are addressed to a person of
superior rank, the devotion of the poet to whom bears the
character of submissive but passionate respect. Several of them,
also, seem to point to habitual and intimate literary
connections. Sometimes Shakspeare congratulates himself on
possessing the guidance and inspiration of his friend; and
sometimes he complains that he has ceased to be the sole
recipient of that inspiration, and says,

  "I grant thou wert not married to my Muse;"

but yet the grief occasioned by this divided favor is expressed
under all the forms of jealousy, sometimes resigned to its fate,
and sometimes stimulated, by the bitterness of its feelings, to
give utterance to strong reproaches, which, however, never
transgress the bounds of respect.
{111}
Elsewhere he accuses himself, as it would appear, of infidelity
to "an old friend;" he has too "frequent been with unknown
minds," and "given to time" the "dear-purchased rights" of an
affection

  "Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;"

but he confesses his fault; and implores pardon in the name of
the confidence with which he is always inspired by the affection
he has neglected. Another sonnet speaks of mutual wrongs
pardoned, but the sorrow of which is still present. If these are
not mere forms of language, employed, perhaps, on occasions very
different from those which they appear to indicate, the feeling
which thus occupied the inner life of the poet must have been as
tempestuous as it was passionate.

Externally, however, his existence seems to have pursued a
tranquil course. His name is mixed up in no literary quarrel;
and, but for the malicious allusions of the envious Ben Jonson,
scarcely would a single criticism be associated with the
panegyrics which bear witness to his superiority. All the
documents which we possess exhibit Shakspeare to us placed at
last in the position which he was rightfully entitled to occupy,
and valued as much for the charm of his character as for the
brilliancy of his talents, and the admiration due to his genius.
A glance, too, at the affairs of the poet will prove that he was
beginning to introduce into the details of his existence that
order and regularity which are essential to respectability. We
find him successively purchasing, in his native town, a house and
various portions of land, which soon formed a sufficient estate
to insure him a competent income. The profits which he derived
from the theatre, in his double capacity of author and actor,
have been estimated at two hundred pounds a year, a very
considerable sum at that time; and if the liberalities of Lord
Southampton were added to the economy of the poet, we may
conclude that, at least, they were not unwisely employed.
{112}
Rowe, in his Life of Shakspeare, seems to think that the gifts of
Queen Elizabeth also had some share in building up the fortune of
her favorite poet. The grant of an escutcheon which was made, or
rather confirmed to his father in 1599, proves a desire to bestow
honor on his family. But there is nothing to indicate that
Shakspeare obtained from Elizabeth and her court any marks of
distinction superior, or even equal to those conferred by Louis
XIV. upon Molière, like himself an actor and a poet. If we except
his intimacy with Lord Southampton, Shakspeare, like Molière,
chose his habitual acquaintance chiefly among men of letters,
whose social condition he had probably contributed to elevate.
The Mermaid Club, founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and of which
Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, and many others were
members, was long celebrated for the brilliant "wit-combats,"
which took place there between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, and in
which the vivacity of the former gave him an immense advantage
over the laborious slowness of his opponent. The anecdotes which
are quoted on this point are not worthy of being collected at the
present day. Few _bons-mots_ are sufficiently good to
survive for two centuries.

{113}

Who would not suppose that a life which had become so honorable
and pleasant would long have retained Shakspeare in the midst of
society conformable to the necessities of his mind, and upon the
theatre of his glory? Nevertheless, in 1613, or 1614 at the
latest, three or four years after having obtained from James I.
the direction of the Blackfriars Theatre, without having
apparently incurred the displeasure of the king to whom he was
indebted for this new mark of favor, or of the public for whom he
had just produced "Othello" and "The Tempest," Shakspeare left
London and the stage to take up his residence at Stratford, in
his house at New Place, in the midst of his fields. Had he become
anxious to taste the joys of family life? He might have brought
his wife and children to London. Nothing seems to indicate that
he was greatly grieved at separation from them. During his
residence in London, he used, it is said, to make frequent
journeys to Stratford; but he has been accused of having found,
on the road, pleasures of a kind which may have consoled him, at
least, for the absence of his wife; and Sir William Davenant used
loudly to boast of the poet's intimacy with his mother, the
pretty and witty hostess of the Crown, at Oxford, where
Shakspeare always stopped on his way to Stratford. If
Shakspeare's sonnets were to be regarded as the expression of his
dearest and most habitual feelings, we might reasonably be
astonished at not finding in them a single allusion to his native
place, to his children, or even to the son whom he lost at twelve
years of age. And yet Shakspeare could not have been ignorant of
the power of paternal love. He who, in "Macbeth," has described
pity as "a naked, new-born babe;" he who has put these words into
the mouth of Coriolanus,

  "Not of a woman's tenderness to be,
   Requires nor child nor woman's face to see;"

he who has so well depicted the tender puerilities of maternal
affection, could not have looked upon his own children without
experiencing the fond emotions of a father's heart.
{114}
But Shakspeare, as his character presents itself to our mind, had
long been able to find, in the distractions of the world, enough
to occupy the place, in his soul and life, which he was capable
of giving up to family affections. However this may be, it is
more difficult to discern the causes which led to his departure
from London, than to perceive those which might have tended to
prolong his residence in that city. Perhaps the arrival of
infirmities may have warned him of the necessity of repose; and
perhaps, also, the very natural desire of showing himself in his
native place, under circumstances so different from those in
which he had left it, made him hasten the moment of renouncing
labors which no longer had the pleasures of youth for their
compensation.

New pleasures could not fail to spring up for Shakspeare in his
retirement. A natural disposition to enjoy every thing heartily
rendered him equally adapted to delight in the calm happiness of
a tranquil life, and to find enjoyment in the vicissitudes of an
agitated existence. The first mulberry-tree introduced into the
neighborhood of Stratford was planted by Shakspeare's hands, in a
corner of his garden at New Place, and attested for more than a
century the gentle simplicity of the occupations in which his
days were spent. A competent fortune seemed to unite with the
esteem and friendship of his neighbors to promise him that best
crown of a brilliant life, a tranquil and honored old age, when,
on the 23d of April, 1616, the very day on which he attained his
fifty-second year, death carried him off from that calm and
pleasant position, the happy leisure of which he would doubtless
not have consecrated to repose alone.

{115}

We have no information regarding the nature of the disease to
which he fell a victim. His will is dated on the 25th of March,
1616; but the date of February, effaced to make way for that of
March, gives us reason to believe that he had commenced it a
month previously. He declares that he had written it in perfect
health; but the precaution taken thus opportunely, at an age
still so distant from senility, leads to the presumption that
some unpleasant symptom had awakened within him the idea of
danger. There is no evidence either to confirm or to set aside
this supposition; and Shakspeare's last days are surrounded by an
obscurity even deeper, if possible, than that which enshrouds his
life.

His will contains nothing very remarkable, with the exception of
a new proof of the little estimation in which he held the wife
whom he had so hastily married. After having appointed his
daughter Susannah, who had married Mr. Hall, a physician at
Stratford, his chief legatee, he bequeaths tokens of friendship
to various persons, among whom he does not include his wife, but
mentions her afterward, in an interlineation, merely to leave to
her his "second best bed." A similar piece of forgetfulness,
repaired in the same manner, is remarkable in reference to
Burbage, Heminge, and Condell, the only ones of his theatrical
friends of whom he makes mention; to each of these he bequeaths,
also in an interlineation, thirty-six shillings, "to buy them
rings." Burbage, the best actor of his time, had contributed
greatly to the success of Shakspeare's plays; Heminge and
Condell, seven years after his death, published the first
complete edition of his dramatic works.

This singular omission of the name of Shakspeare's wife, repaired
in so slight a manner, probably indicates something more than
forgetfulness; and we are tempted to regard it as the sign of an
aversion or dislike, the manifestation of which the poet was
induced to modify, in a slight degree, by the approach of death
alone.

{116}

Shakspeare's second daughter, Judith, had married a vintner, and
received a much smaller share of her father's inheritance than
her sister, Mrs. Hall. Was it in her quality of eldest daughter,
or in consequence of some special predilection, that Shakspeare
thus distinguished Susannah? An epitaph engraved upon her tomb,
at her death in 1649, represents her as "witty above her sex," in
which she had "something of Shakspeare," hut more because she was
"wise to salvation," and "wept for all." About Judith we know
nothing, except that she could not write; which fact is
established by a deed still existing, to which she has affixed a
cross, or some analogous sign, indicated by a marginal note as
"Judith Shakspeare, her mark." Judith left three sons, who died
childless. Susannah had one daughter, who married, first, Thomas
Nash, and afterward Sir John Barnard, of Abington. No child was
born of either of these marriages, and thus Shakspeare's
posterity became extinct in the second generation.

It is somewhat remarkable that Shakspeare died on the same day as
his great contemporary, Cervantes.

Shakspeare was buried in Stratford church, in which his tomb
still exists. It represents the poet of the size of life, sitting
under an arch, with a cushion before him, and a pen in his right
hand. Like many other monuments of the time, the figure was
originally colored after the life; the eyes being painted light
brown, with hair and beard of a deeper tinge. The doublet was
scarlet, and the gown black. The colors having become faded by
time, were restored, in 1748, by Mr. John Ward, the grandfather
of Mrs. Siddons and of Kemble, out of the profits of a
performance of "Othello." But in 1793, Mr. Malone, one of the
principal commentators upon Shakspeare, covered the statue with a
thick coat of white paint; being doubtless led to do this by that
exclusive prejudice in favor of modern customs which has so
frequently led him into error in his commentaries.
{117}
An indignant traveler, in some lines written in the Album of
Stratford church, has called down the malediction of the poet
upon Malone,

  "Whose meddling zeal his barb'rous taste displays,
   And smears his tombstone, as he marred his plays."

Without giving an absolute assent to these harsh expressions of
legitimate anger, we can not refrain from a smile at observing,
in Mr. Malone's coat of white paint, a symbol of the spirit which
dictated his commentaries, as well as a type of the general
character of the eighteenth century, held in servitude by its own
tastes, and incapable of comprehending any thing that did not
enter into the sphere of its ordinary habits and ideas.

Although this injudicious reparation effected a great change in
the physiognomy of the portrait of Shakspeare, it was not able
altogether to efface that expression of gentle serenity which
appears to have characterized the countenance as well as the soul
of the poet. On the sepulchral stone below the monument, the
following inscription is engraved:

  "Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear
   To dig the dust inclosed here.
   Bless'd be the man that spares these stones,
   And cursed be he that moves my bones."

These lines are said to have been composed by Shakspeare himself,
and were the cause which prevented the transference of his tomb
to Westminster, as had once been intended. Some years ago, an
excavation by the wall of Stratford church exposed to view the
grave in which his body had been laid; and the sexton, who, in
order to prevent the sacrilegious depredations of curiosity or
admiration, kept guard by the opening until the vault had been
repaired, having attempted to look inside the tomb, saw neither
bones nor coffin, but only dust. "It seems to me," says the
traveler who relates this circumstance, "that it was something to
have seen the dust of Shakspeare."

{118}

This tomb now remains in sole possession of the honors which it
once shared with Shakspeare's mulberry-tree. About the middle of
last century, the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a man of large fortune,
became the proprietor of New Place. This house, which had
remained for some time in the possession of the Nash family, had
afterward passed through several hands, and undergone many
alterations; but the mulberry-tree remained standing, the object
of the veneration of the curious. Mr. Gastrell, annoyed at the
number of visitors which it attracted, had it cut down, with a
savage brutality in which indifference would probably not have
indulged, but which frequently characterizes that furious pride
of liberty and property which would deem itself compromised if it
yielded in the slightest degree to public opinion. A few years
afterward, this same Mr. Gastrell, in consequence of a dispute
which he had had with the town of Stratford regarding a slight
tax which he was required to pay on his house, swore that
_that_ house should never be taxed again, and he therefore
had it pulled down, and sold the materials. As for the
mulberry-tree, part of it was saved from the fire to which it had
been consigned by Mr. Gastrell, by a clock-maker of Stratford, a
man of sense, who gained a great deal of money by making it into
snuff-boxes, toys, and other articles. The house in which
Shakspeare was born still exists at Stratford, and is still shown
as an object of interest to travelers, who may always see, and,
it is said, are constantly able to purchase, either the chair or
the sword of the poet, the lantern which he used in performing
the part of Friar Lawrence in "Romeo and Juliet," or pieces of
the arquebuse with which he killed the deer in Sir Thomas Lucy's
park.

{119}

It is not from the death of Shakspeare that we must date, in
England, that worship, the devotedness of which, after having
been maintained with such fervor for sixty years, seems now to
have diffused a reflection of its heat over several countries of
Europe. Though Shakspeare was dead, Ben Jonson still lived; and
though Beaumont had lost his friend Fletcher, he still possessed
his talent, the effects of which had been weakened, rather than
fortified, by Fletcher. The necessities of curiosity too often
overcome those of taste; and the pleasure of going again to
admire Shakspeare could not fail to yield to the keener interest
of going to judge the newest productions of his competitors. It
was not to his dramatic pedantry that Ben Jonson was then
indebted for the empire which, in Shakspeare's lifetime, he did
not venture to aspire to share. The triumphs of classical taste
were confined, in his case, to the unanimous eulogies of the
literary men of his time, who were easily satisfied on the score
of regularity, and were always glad of an opportunity to avenge
science upon the disdain of the vulgar; but the tragedies and
comedies of Ben Jonson were not the less coolly received by the
public, and were sometimes even rejected with an irreverence for
which he afterward took his revenge in his prefaces. But his
masques, a kind of opera, obtained general success; and the more
Ben Jonson and the erudite strove to render tragedy and comedy
tiresome, the more strongly did the public fall back upon masques
for their amusement. Several poets of Shakspeare's school also
endeavored to satisfy the taste of the public for the kind of
pleasure to which he had accustomed them.
{120}
Their efforts, attended with varying success, but maintained with
untiring activity, kept up that taste for the drama which
survives the epoch of its master-pieces. About five hundred and
fifty dramas, without reckoning those of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson,
Beaumont and Fletcher, were printed before the Restoration of
Charles II. Of these only thirty-eight can date from times
anterior to Shakspeare; and it has been seen that, during his
life, the custom was not to print those plays which were intended
for representation on the stage. From 1640 to 1660, the Puritans
closed nearly all the theatres; and most of these productions,
therefore, belong to the twenty-five years which elapsed between
the death of Shakspeare and the commencement of the civil wars.
This was the weight beneath which the popularity of England's
first dramatic poet succumbed for a time.

His memory, however, did not perish. In 1623, Heminge and Condell
published the first complete edition of his dramas, thirteen of
which only had been printed during his lifetime. His name was
still held in respect; but for a finished reputation to inspire
something beside respect, time must come to its aid, and must at
first efface and suppress it, to give it at some future time the
attraction of a neglected glory, and to stimulate the self-love
and curiosity of inquiring minds to give it new life by a new
examination, and to find in it the charm of a new discovery. A
great writer rarely obtains, in the generation succeeding his
own, the homage which posterity will lavish upon him. Sometimes
even long spaces of time are necessary for the revolution
commenced by a superior man to accomplish its course, and to
bring the world to perceive its merits. Several causes combined
to prolong the interval during which Shakspeare's works were
regarded with coldness, and almost utterly forgotten.

{121}

The civil wars and the triumph of Puritanism occurred first, not
only to interrupt all dramatic performances, but to destroy, as
far as possible, every trace of amusement of this kind. The
Restoration afterward introduced into England a foreign taste,
which did not, perhaps, pervade the nation, but which held sway
over the court. English literature then assumed a character which
was not effaced by the new revolution of 1688; and French ideas,
made honorable by the literary glory of the seventeenth century,
and sustained by that of the eighteenth, retained in England a
youthful and vigorous influence which had been lost by the old
glories of Shakspeare. Fifty years after his death, Dryden
declared that his idiom was a little "out of use." At the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Lord Shaftesbury complained
of his "natural rudeness, his unpolished style, and his
antiquated phrase and wit;" and Shakspeare was then, for these
reasons, excluded from several collections of the modern poets.
In fact, Dryden did not understand Shakspeare, grammatically
speaking; of this fact we have several proofs, and Dryden himself
has proved, by recasting his pieces, that poetically he
comprehended him as little. But not only was Shakspeare not
understood, he soon became no longer known. In 1707, a poet named
Tate produced a work entitled "King Lear," the subject of which,
he said, he had borrowed from an obscure piece of the same name,
recommended to his notice by a friend. This obscure piece was
Shakspeare's "King Lear."

Distinguished writers, however, had not altogether ceased to
allow Shakspeare a share in the literary glory of their country;
but it was timidly and by degrees that they shook off the yoke of
the prejudices of their time. If, in concert with Davenant,
Dryden had recast the works of Shakspeare, Pope, in the edition
which he published in 1725, contented himself with omitting all
that he could not bring himself to regard as the work of the
genius to whom he paid at least this homage.
{122}
With regard to that which he was obliged to leave, Shakspeare,
says Pope, "having at his first appearance no other aim in his
writings than to procure a subsistence," wrote "for the people,"
without seeking to obtain "patronage from the better sort." In
1765, Johnson, waxing bolder, and gaining encouragement from the
dawn of a return to the national taste, vigorously defended the
romantic liberties of Shakspeare against the pretensions of
classical authority; and though he made some concessions to the
contempt of a more polished age for the vulgarity and ignorance
of the old poet, he at least had the courage to remark that, when
a country is "unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the
vulgar."

Shakspeare's works, then, were reprinted and commentated; but the
mutilations alone obtained the honors of the stage. The
Shakspeare amended by Dryden, Davenant, and others, was the only
one which actors ventured to perform; and the "Tattler," having
to quote some lines from "Macbeth," copied them from Davenant's
amended edition. It was Garrick who, finding nowhere so fully as
in Shakspeare means to supply the requirements of his own talent,
delivered him from this disgraceful protection, lent to his
ancient glory the freshness of his own young renown, and restored
the poet to possession of the stage as well as of the patriotic
admiration of the English.

Since that period, national pride has daily extended and
redoubled this admiration. It nevertheless remained barren of
results, and Shakspeare, to use the language of Sir Walter Scott,
"reigned a Grecian prince over Persian slaves, and they who
adored him did not dare attempt to use his language."
{123}
A new impulse can not be entirely due to old recollections; and
an old epoch, that it may bear new fruit, needs to be again
fertilized by a movement analogous to that which gave it its
first fertility.

This movement has made itself felt in Europe, and England also is
beginning to feel its impulse, as Sir Walter Scott's novels
sufficiently demonstrate. But England will not be the only
country indebted to Shakspeare for the new direction which is
manifesting itself in her drama, as well as in other branches of
her literature. In the literary movement by which it is now
agitated, Continental Europe turns its eyes toward Shakspeare.
Germany has long adopted him as a model rather than as a guide;
and thereby it has, perhaps, suspended in their course those
vivifying juices which impart their vigor and freshness only to
fruits of native growth. Nevertheless, the path on which Germany
has entered is leading to the discovery of true wealth; and if
she will but work her own mines, a rich and fertile vein will not
be wanting. The literature of Spain, a natural fruit of her
civilization, already possesses its own original and distinct
character. Italy alone and France, the fatherlands of modern
classicism, are not yet recovered from their astonishment at the
first shock given to those opinions which they have established
with the rigor of necessity, and maintained with the pride of
faith. Doubt presents itself to us as yet only as an enemy whose
attacks we are beginning to fear; it seems as though discussion
bears a threatening aspect, and that examination can not probe
without undermining and overturning. In this position we
hesitate, as if about to destroy that which will never be
replaced; we are afraid of finding ourselves without law, and of
discovering nothing but the insufficiency or illegitimacy of
those principles upon which we were formerly wont to rely without
disquietude.

{124}

This disturbance of mind can not cease so long as the question
remains undecided between science and barbarism, the beauties of
order and the effects of disorder; so long as men persist in
seeing, in that system of which the first outlines were traced by
Shakspeare, nothing but an allowance of unrestrained liberty and
undefined latitude to the flights of the imagination, as well as
to the course of genius. If the romantic system has beauties, it
necessarily has its art and rules. Nothing is beautiful, in the
eyes of man, which does not derive its effects from certain
combinations, the secret of which can always be supplied by our
judgment when our emotions have attested its power. The knowledge
or employment of these combinations constitutes art. Shakspeare
had his own art. We must seek it out in his works, examine into
the means which he employs, and the results to which he aspires.
Then only shall we possess a true knowledge of his system; then
we shall know how far it is capable of increased development,
according to the nature of dramatic art, considered in its
application to modern society.

It is, in fact, nowhere else--neither in past times, nor among
peoples unacquainted with our habits--but among ourselves, and in
ourselves, that we must seek the conditions and necessities of
dramatic poetry. Differing in this respect from other arts, in
addition to the absolute rules imposed upon it, as on all others,
by the unchangeable nature of man, dramatic art has relative
rules which flow from the changeful state of society. In
imitating the antique style, modern statuaries labor under no
other constraint but the difficulty of equaling its perfection;
and the most fervent and powerful adorer of antiquity would not
venture to reproduce, even upon the most submissive stage, all
that he admires in a tragedy of Sophocles.
{125}
It is easy to discern the cause of this. When contemplating a
statue or a picture, the spectator receives at first, from the
sculptor or the painter, the first impression which occurs to
him; but it rests with himself to continue the work. He stops and
looks; his natural disposition, his recollections and thoughts,
group themselves around the leading idea which is presented to
his view, and gradually develop within him the ever-increasing
emotion which will soon hold entire dominion over him. The artist
has done nothing but awaken in the spectator the faculty of
conceiving and feeling; it takes hold of the movement which has
been communicated to it, follows it up in its own direction,
accelerates it by its own strength, and thus creates for itself
the pleasure which it enjoys. Before a picture of a martyrdom,
one person is moved by the expression of fervent piety, another
by the manifestation of resigned grief; some are filled with
indignation at the cruelty of the executioners. A tinge of
courageous satisfaction which is evident in the look of the
victim, reminds the patriot of the joys of devotion to a sacred
cause; and the soul of the philosopher is elevated by the
contemplation of man sacrificing himself for truth. The diversity
of these impressions is of little consequence; they are all
equally natural and equally free; each spectator chooses, as it
were, the feeling which suits him best, and when it has once
entered into his soul, no external fact can disturb its
supremacy, no movement can interrupt the course of that to which
every man yields himself according to his inclination.

{126}

In the prolonged course of dramatic action, on the contrary, all
becomes changed at every step, and each moment produces a new
impression. The painter is satisfied with establishing one first
and unvarying connection between his picture and the spectator.
The dramatic poet must incessantly renew this relation, and
maintain it through all the vicissitudes of the most various
positions. All the acts in which human existence is manifested,
all the forms which it assumes, and all the feelings which may
modify it during the continuance of an always complicated
event--these are the numerous and changeful objects which he
presents to the public view; and he is never allowed to separate
himself from his spectators, or to leave them for an instant
alone and at liberty; he must be incessantly acting upon them,
and must at every step excite in their souls emotions analogous
to the ever-changing position in which he has placed them. How
can he succeed in this, unless he carefully adapts himself to
their dispositions and inclinations; unless he supplies the
actual requirements of their mind; unless he addresses himself
constantly to ideas which are familiar to them, and speaks to
them in the language which they are accustomed to hear? Passion
will not appear to us so touching if it be displayed in a manner
contrary to our habits; and sympathy will not be awakened with
the same vivacity in regard to interests of which we have ceased
to be personally conscious. The necessity for appeasing the gods
by a human sacrifice does not, in our mind, give that force to
the speeches of Menelaus which it would have imparted to them
among the Greeks, who were attached to their faith: the stern
chastity of Hippolytus does not interest us in his fate: and
virtue itself, in order to obtain from us that affectionate
reverence which it has a right to expect, needs to connect itself
with duties which our habits have taught us to respect and
cherish.

{127}

Subject, therefore, at once to the conditions of the arts of
imitation and to those of the purely poetical arts; bound, like
epic poetry in its narratives, to set human life in motion; and
called upon, like painting and sculpture, to present in its
person and under its individual features--the dramatic poet is
obliged to include, within the probabilities of one action, all
the means which he requires to make it understood. His characters
can only tell us what they would say if they were actually there,
really occupied with the fact which they represent. The epic
poet, as it were, does the honors, to his readers, of the edifice
into which he introduces them; he accompanies them with his own
speeches, assists them by his explanations, and, by the
description of manners, times, and places, prepares them for the
scene which he is about to disclose to their view, and opens to
them in every sense the world into which he is desirous to
transport them, and himself also. The dramatic personage comes
forward alone, concerned with himself only; he places himself,
without preliminary explanation, in communication with the
spectator; and without calling or guiding them, he must make his
audience follow him. Thus separated from one another, how can
they succeed in coming into connection, unless a profound and
general analogy already exists between them? Evidently those
heroes, who do nothing for the public but speak and feel in their
presence, will be understood and received by them only so far as
they coincide with them in their mode of conceiving, feeling, and
speaking; and dramatic effect can result only from their aptitude
to unite in the same impressions.

{128}

The impressions of man communicated to man--this is, in fact, the
sole source of dramatic effects. Man alone is the subject of the
drama; man alone is its theatre. His soul is the stage upon which
the events of this world come to play their part; it is not by
their own virtue, but merely by their relations to the moral
being whose destiny occupies our attention, that events take part
in the action; every dramatic character abandons them as soon as
they aspire to exercise a direct influence over us, instead of
acting by the intermediary of a visible person, and by means of
the emotion which we receive, in our turn, from the emotion which
they have excited in him. Why is the narrative of Theramenes
epic, and not dramatic? Because he addresses himself to the
spectator, and not to Theseus. Theseus, being already aware of
his son's death, is no longer capable of experiencing the
impressions occasioned by the narrative; and if, while still in
uncertainty, he were only to arrive at a knowledge of his
misfortune through the anguish of such a recital, the poetical
ornaments with which it is, perhaps, overloaded would not prevent
it from being dramatic, for the impressions which it produces
would be to us those of a person interested in the result: we
should be conscious of them in the heart of Theseus.

In the heart of man alone can the dramatic fact take place; the
event which is its occasion does not constitute it. The death of
the lover is rendered dramatic by the grief of his mistress--the
danger of the son by the terror of his mother; and however
horrible may be the idea of the murder of a child, Andromache
inspires us with greater solicitude than Astyanax. An earthquake
and the physical convulsions which accompany it will furnish only
a spectacle for contemplation, or the subject of an epic
narrative; but the rain is dramatic upon the bald head of old
Lear, and especially in the heart of his companions, racked by
the pity which they feel for him.
{129}
The apparition of a spectre would have no effect upon the
audience unless some one on the stage were alarmed by it; and to
produce the dramatic effect of Lady Macbeth's somnambulism,
Shakspeare has taken care that it should be witnessed by a
physician and a waiting-woman, whom he has employed to transmit
to us the terrible impressions which it produces upon themselves.

Thus man alone occupies the stage; his existence is displayed
upon it, animated and aggrandized by the events which are
connected with it, and which owe their theatrical character to
this connection alone. In comedy, events, being of less magnitude
than the passion which they excite in man, derive a laughable
importance from this passion; in tragedy, being more powerful
than the means which man has at his disposal, they move us by the
exhibition of his grandeur and his weakness. The comic poet
invents them freely, for his art consists in originating, in man
himself and his absurdities, those events by which man is
agitated. This invention is rarely a merit in the tragic poet,
for his work is to discern and exhibit man and his soul in the
midst of the events to which he is subjected. If it be generally
requisite that the subject of tragedy should be taken from the
history of the great and powerful, it is because the strong
impressions which it aims at producing upon us can only be
communicated to us by strong characters, incapable of succumbing
beneath the blows of an ordinary destiny. It is in the
development of high fortune and its terrible vicissitudes that
the whole man appears, with all the wealth and energy of his
nature. Thus the spectacle of the world, concentrated in an
individual, is revealed to us upon the stage; thus, by the medium
of the soul which receives their impress, events reach us through
sympathy, the source of dramatic illusion.

{130}

If material illusion were the aim of the arts, the wax-figures of
Curtius would surpass all the statues of antiquity, and a
panorama would be the ultimate effort of painting. If their
object were to impose upon the reason, and to impart to the
imagination a shock sufficiently powerful to pervert the judgment
to such a degree that a theatrical representation could be taken
for the accomplishment of a real and actual fact, a very few
scenes would suffice to work up the spectators to such a pitch of
excitement that its effect would soon be to interrupt the
performance by the violence of their emotions. If even it were
desired that, in presence of objects imitated by art of any kind,
the soul, affected at least by the reality of the impressions
which it receives from them, should really experience those
feelings of which the image is produced in it by a fictitious
representation, the labor of genius would have succeeded only in
multiplying, in this world, the pains of life and the exhibition
of human miseries. These feelings, however, occupy and pervade
us, and on their existence depends the effect which the poet aims
to produce upon us. We must believe in them in order to yield to
them; and we could not believe in them unless we assigned to them
a cause worthy to awaken them. When our tears flow before
Raphael's picture of Christ bearing his cross, before we can
allow them to flow, we must believe that we bestow them upon that
sorrowful compassion which we should feel at really beholding
such dreadful sufferings.
{131}
If, in the emotions with which we are inspired by the sight of
Tancred dying on the stage, we did not think we could recognize
the emotions which we should feel for Tancred dying in reality,
we should be displeased with ourselves for indulging in a pity
which was not rendered legitimate by its application to sorrows
that at least were possible. And yet we deceive ourselves; that
which we then discern in our breasts is not that power which is
awakened at the aspect of the suffering of our fellows--a power
full of bitterness if reduced to inactivity, but full of activity
if it be allowed liberty and hope to render assistance. It is not
this power, but its shadow--the image of our features repeated
with striking accuracy, but without life, in a mirror. Moved at
the aspect of what we should be capable of experiencing, we give
up our imagination to it without having any demands to make upon
our will. No one is tormented with an irrepressible desire to
shout out to Tancred, Orosmane, or Othello, that they are
laboring under a mistake; no one suffers through not being able
to rush to the assistance of Gloster against the execrable Duke
of Cornwall. The unendurable painfulness of the position of the
spectators of such a scene is removed by the idea that it is
utterly unreal; an idea which is presented to our minds, and
which we retain without clearly perceiving its presence, because
we are absorbed by the contemplation of the more vivid
impressions which crowd upon our brain. If this idea were clearly
present to our thoughts, it would dissipate the whole
_cortège_ of illusions which surround us, and we should
summon it to our assistance to deaden their effect, if they
should change into a subject for real grief. Bat so long as the
spectator takes delight in forgetting it, art should studiously
avoid every thing that might remind him that the spectacle which
he contemplates is not real. Hence arises the necessity of
bringing all the parts of the performance into harmonious unison,
and of not diffusing unequally the force of the illusion, which
loses strength as soon, as it allows itself to be perceived.
{132}
This is what would happen if, at the moment when he is indulging
in feelings which are familiar to him, the spectator were
disconcerted by the presentation of forms of manners entirely
foreign to his experience. Hence also arises the necessity of
giving a certain amount of attention to the accessories not in
order to increase the illusion, but in order not to interfere
with it. The actor alone is expected to produce that moral
illusion which is aimed at by the drama. Where could we find
means equal to those which he possesses for so doing? What
imitation could stand beside his? What object in nature could be
so well represented as man, when it is man himself who represents
it? Let not dramatic art, therefore, seek assistance from other
imitations which are far inferior to that which man can offer it;
all that the machinist and the decorator have to do with the
moral illusion is to remove every thing that might injure its
effect. Perhaps even art would have reason to dread too great
efforts on their part to do it service; who can tell whether a
too brilliant magic of painting, employed to enhance the effect
of the decorations, would not weaken the dramatic effect by
diverting the attention to the enchantments of another art?

These accesssory imitations are dangerous auxiliaries, whether,
by their perfection, they usurp the effect to which they ought
merely to contribute, or whether they destroy it by their
inefficiency. In England, as we have seen, the early stage was
entirely unacquainted with the art of decoration, a recent homage
paid to probability, which becomes really useful to the dramatic
illusion when, without pretending to increase it, it simply
prevents it from having to surmount obstacles of too uncouth a
nature, and enables the mind of the spectator to picture to
itself with greater distinctness the position into which it is
required to transport itself.
{133}
Imaginations more susceptible than they were delicate, and more
easily affected than undeceived, had no need of that management
which is now demanded by a restless reason, incessantly occupied
in exercising surveillance over even our pleasures. Those
spectators, who exacted so little with regard to the decoration
of the theatre, exacted a great deal in reference to the material
movement of the scene; though indulgent to the insufficiency and
rudeness of theatrical imitations, they were fond of variety, and
scarcely perceived the improprieties which resulted therefrom.
Just as a man might, without diminishing their emotion, represent
to them the sensitive Ophelia or the delicate Desdemona, they
could see stationed at one end of the stage the cannon which was
to kill the Duke of Bedford at the opposite end, and this great
event did not strike them less forcibly on account of the poverty
of the arrangement; indeed, they could receive with all the force
of dramatic illusion the touching impression of the death of the
two Talbots on a field of battle, which was animated, by the
movements of four soldiers!

When the illusion becomes at once more difficult and more
necessary to imaginations less quickly seduced, and to minds less
easily amused, it is the study of art to remove every object that
might prove injurious to it; and, as the representation of
material objects becomes more perfect, it interferes less in the
action of the drama, which is almost exclusively reserved for
man, who alone can impart to it the appearance of reality. It was
to man that, notwithstanding the habits of his time, Shakspeare
felt that he must look for the production of this great effect.
The movement of the stage, which, before his time, had
constituted the chief interest of dramatic works, became in his
plays a simple accessory which the taste of his age did not allow
him to omit, and which, perhaps, his own taste did not require
him to sacrifice, but which he reduced to its true value.
{134}
It matters little, therefore, that, in his dramas, the moral
illusion may still be sometimes disturbed by the imperfect
representation of objects which theatrical imitation could not
compass; Shakspeare did not the less discern the true source of
this illusion, and did not seek the means of producing it
elsewhere.

He was equally well acquainted with its nature also; he felt that
an illusion of this kind, akin to no error of the senses or the
reason, but the simple result of a disposition of the soul, which
forgets all extraneous things in order to contemplate itself,
could only be sustained by the perpetual consent of the spectator
to the seduction which the poet is desirous to exercise over him,
and that this seductive influence must therefore be maintained
unintermittingly. Whatever might be the power of a dramatic
representation, it could not, from the outset, obtain a
sufficient hold upon us to deliver us over in a defenseless state
to all the feelings which will take possession of us in
proportion as we advance in the position in which it has placed
us. The imagination must lend itself gradually to this new
position, and the soul must accustom itself to it, and accept the
sway of the impressions which must arise from it, just as, when
we experience an unexpected piece of good or bad fortune, we
require some time to bring our feelings to a level with our fate.
But if, after having obtained our consent to this position, and
after having moved us by the impressions which accompany it, the
poet imprudently attempts to make us pass into a new position,
attended by new impressions, the work must be begun over again,
and will require all the more effort, because it will be
necessary to efface the traces of a work already accomplished.
{135}
Then the imagination becomes chilled and disturbed; the spectator
refuses to lend himself to a movement from which he is diverted
after having been desired to yield himself unresistingly to its
influence. The illusion vanishes, and with it the interest also;
for dramatic interest, in common with dramatic illusion, can only
be attached to impressions which are continued and renewed in one
and the same direction.

Unity of impression, that prime secret of dramatic art, was the
soul of Shakspeare's great conceptions, and the instinctive
object of his assiduous labor, just as it is the end of all the
rules invented by all systems. The exclusive partisans of the
classic system believed that it was impossible to attain unity of
impression, except by means of what are called the three unities.
Shakspeare attained it by other means. If the legitimacy of these
means were recognized, it would greatly diminish the importance
hitherto attributed to certain forms and rules, which are
evidently invested with an abusive authority, if art, in order to
accomplish its designs, does not need the restrictions which they
impose upon it, and which often deprive it of a portion of its
wealth.

The mobility of our imagination, the variety of our interests,
and the inconstancy of our inclinations, have given to times, and
even to places, a power which should not be lost sight of by the
poet who is desirous to make use of the affections of man in
order to excite the sympathy of his fellows. If he presents his
hero to them at intervals too widely distant in the duration of
his existence, they will inquire, "What has become of the man
whom we knew six months ago?" just as naturally as, when meeting
a friend six months after the occurrence of an event which has
plunged him into grief, we begin by inquiring discreetly into the
state of that grief which we once saw so painfully manifested,
for fear lest we should enter into communication with his soul
before we know what feeling we shall have to participate.
{136}
If compelled to give an account of the changes which have
occurred during the course of six months or a year, to spectators
who, only a short time previously, saw him disappear from the
stage, would not the tragic hero present a strange incongruity
with himself? would not the thread of his identity be broken?
and, far from feeling the same interest in him, should we not
have some difficulty in avowing him to be the same person?

From this condition of human nature has been derived the true
motive of the unities of time and place, which have often been
most preposterously founded upon a pretended necessity of
satisfying the reason by accommodating the duration of the real
action to that of the theatrical representation; as if the reason
could consent to believe that, during the interval of a few
minutes between the acts, the persons of the drama had passed
from evening to morning without having slept, or from morning to
evening without having eaten; and as if it were more easy to take
three hours for a day than for a week, or even for a month!

Nevertheless, it can not be denied that the mind feels a certain
repugnance to behold intervals of time and place disappear before
it, without its being able to account for their departure, or
receiving any modification from it. The more these intervals are
prolonged, the more does this discontent increase, for the mind
feels that many things are thus concealed from its knowledge of
which it is its province to dispose, and it would not like to be
told too often, as Crispin says to Géronte, "_C'est votre
lethargie_."
{137}
But these difficulties are not insurmountable by the skill of
art; if the mind becomes easily alarmed at that which, without
its consent, disturbs the settled habits of its character, it is
easy to make it forget them. Place it in view of the object
toward which you have succeeded in directing its desires, and, in
its forward spring to reach it, it will no longer care to measure
the space which you compel it to traverse. When reading an
interesting work, our strongly-excited attention transports us
without difficulty from one time to another; our thought
concentrates itself upon the event at which we expect to arrive,
and sees nothing in the interval which separates us from it; and
as it enables us to reach it, without having, as it were, changed
our place, we are scarcely conscious that we have been obliged to
change the time. When Claudius and Laertes have agreed together
upon the duel in which Hamlet is to be slain, between that moment
and the consummation of their plans we care little to know
whether two hours or a week have elapsed.

This arises from the fact that the chain of the impressions has
not been broken, and the position of the characters has not been
changed; their places have continued the same; their ardor is not
less energetic; time has not acted upon them; it counts for
nothing in the feelings with which they inspire us; it finds
them, and us with them, in the same disposition of soul; and thus
the two periods are brought together by that unity of impression
which makes us say, when thinking of an event which occurred long
ago, but the traces of which are still fresh in our memory, "It
seems as though it had happened only yesterday."

{138}

In fact, what care we about the time which elapses between the
actions with which Macbeth fills up his career of crime? When he
commands the murder of Banquo the assassination of Duncan is
still present to our eyes, and seems as though it had been
committed only yesterday; and when Macbeth determines upon the
massacre of Macduff's family, we fancy we see him still pale from
the apparition of Banquo's ghost. None of his actions has
terminated without necessitating the action which follows it;
they announce and involve each other, thus forcing the
imagination to go forward, full of trouble and sad expectation.
Macbeth, who, after having killed Duncan, is urged, by the very
terror which he feels at his crime, to kill the chamberlains, to
whom he intends to attribute the murder, does not permit us to
doubt the facility with which he will commit new crimes whenever
occasion requires. The witches, who, at the opening of the play,
have taken possession of his destiny, do not allow us to hope
that they will grant any respite to the ambition and the
necessities of his crimes. Thus all the threads are laid open to
our eyes from the beginning; we follow, we anticipate the course
of events; we stint no haste to arrive at that which our
imagination devours beforehand; intervals vanish with the
succession of the ideas which should occupy them; one succession
alone is distinctly marked in our mind, and that is, the
succession of the events which compose the absorbing spectacle
which sweeps us onward in its rapidity. In our view, they are as
closely connected in time as they are intimately linked together
in thought; and any duration that may separate them is a duration
as empty and unperceived as that of sleep--as all those epochs in
which the soul is manifested by no sensible symptom of its
existence. What, in our mind, is the connection of the hours in
comparison with this train of ideas? and what poet, subjecting
himself to unity of time, would deem it sufficient to establish,
between the different parts of his work, that powerful bond of
union which can result only from unity of impression? So true is
it that this alone is the object, whereas the others are only the
means.

{139}

These means may, undoubtedly, sometimes have their efficiency;
the rapidity of a great action executed, or a great event
accomplished, within the space of a few hours, fills the
imagination, and animates the soul with a movement to which it
yields with ardor. But few actions really permit so sudden an
action; few events are composed of parts so exactly connected in
time and space; and, without alluding to the improbabilities
which are consequent upon their forced cohesion, the surprises
which result from it very often disturb the unity of impression,
which is the rigorous condition of dramatic illusion. Zaire,
passing suddenly from her devoted love for Orosmane to entire
submission to the faith and will of Lusignan, has some difficulty
in restoring to us, in her new position, as much illusion as she
has made us lose by so abrupt a change. Voltaire sought his
effects in the contrast of perfectly happy love with love in
despair; a powerful means, it is true, but less powerful,
perhaps, than the preoccupation of a constant and unchanging
position, which develops itself only to redouble the feeling
which it has at first inspired. When we have thoroughly
established ourselves in an affection, it is far from prudent to
attempt to move us in favor of an opposite affection. Corneille
has not shown us Rodrigue and Chimène together before the quarrel
between their fathers; he felt so little desire to impress us
with the idea of their happiness, that Chimène, when told of it,
can not believe it, and disturbs by her presentiments the too
delightful position of which the poet is exceedingly careful not
to put us in possession, lest we should afterward find it too
difficult to sacrifice it to that duty which will soon command us
to leave it.
{140}
In the same manner we have become associated with the feelings of
Polyeucte, and have trembled for him before becoming aware of the
love of Pauline for Sévère; if our first interest had been
attached to this love, perhaps it would have been difficult for
us afterward to feel much for Polyeucte, whose presence would be
importunate. Thus, when Zaire has awakened our emotion as a
lover, we are inclined to think that she abandons the position in
which she has placed us rather too easily, in order to fulfill
her duty as a daughter and a Christian. The philosophical
indifference which Voltaire has imparted to her in the first
scene, in order to facilitate her subsequent conversion, renders
still more improbable the devotedness with which she so quickly
enters upon a duty so recently discovered. If, on the other hand,
at the outset, Voltaire had described her to us as troubled with
scruples, and disquieted with regard to her happiness, fear would
have prepared us beforehand to comprehend in all its extent, at
its first appearance, the misfortune which threatens her, and to
see her yield to it with that abandonment which is improbable
because it is too sudden.

The employment of sudden changes of fortune, by which it is
attempted to disguise, beneath a great alteration in
circumstances, the too sudden transitions which the rule of unity
in point of time may impose, frequently renders the
inconveniences of this rule more striking, by depriving it of the
means of making preparation for the different impressions which
it accumulates within too limited a space. It is, on the
contrary, by a single impression that Shakspeare, at least in his
finest compositions, takes possession at the very outset, of our
thought, and, by means of our thought, of space also.
{141}
Beyond the magic circle which he has traced, he leaves nothing
sufficiently powerful to interfere with the effect of the only
unity of which he has need. Change of fortune may exist in
reference to the persons of the drama, but never to the
spectator. Before we are informed of Othello's happiness, we know
that Iago is preparing to destroy it; the Ghost which is to
devote the life of Hamlet to the punishment of a crime, appears
on the stage before he does; and before we have seen Macbeth
virtuous, the utterance of his name by the Witches tells us that
he is destined to become guilty. In the same manner, in
"Athalie," the whole idea of the drama is displayed, in the first
scene, in the character and promises of the high-priest; the
impression is begun, and it will continue and increase always in
the same direction. Thus, who could say that an interval of eight
days, interposed, if necessary, between the promises of Joad and
their performance, would have broken the unity of impression
which results from the invariable constancy of his plans?

To constancy of character, feelings, and resolutions exclusively
belongs that moral unity which, braving time and distance,
includes all the parts of an event in a compact action, in which
the gaps of material unity are no longer perceptible. A violently
excited passion could not aim at such an effect; it has its
momentary storms, the course of which, being subject to external
and variable causes, must in a short time reach its term. As soon
as jealousy has seized upon the heart of Othello, if any interval
separated that moment from the time which witnesses the death of
Desdemona, the unity would be broken; nothing would attest to us
the link which must unite the first transports of the Moor to his
final resolution; the action must therefore hasten rapidly
forward, and must hurry him onward to his destruction, which a
day's reflection would perhaps prevent him from consummating.
{142}
In the same manner, the simple description of events, unless the
presence of a great individual character should, by dominating
over them, impress upon them its own unity, will make us feel the
want of the material unities; and the efforts which Shakspeare
has made, in his historical dramas, to approximate to them, or to
disguise their absence, are a new homage paid to that moral unity
which is sufficient for every thing when the poet possesses it,
and which nothing can replace when he has it not. In "Hamlet" and
"Macbeth," Shakspeare, inattentive to the course of time, allows
it to pass unnoticed. In his historical plays, on the other hand,
he conceals and dissembles its lapse by all the artifices that
can deceive us in reference to its duration; the scenes follow
and announce each other in such a way, that an interval of
several years seems to be included within a few weeks, or even a
few days. All the probabilities are sacrificed to this theatrical
unity, which time would break too easily between events which are
not linked together by a uniform principle. The scene in which
Richard II. learns from Aumerle the departure of Bolingbroke into
exile, is that in which he announces that he is himself about to
go to Ireland; and it is not yet thoroughly known at court
whether he has actually embarked on this voyage, when the news is
received of the disembarkation of Bolingbroke, returning with an
army, under the pretext of asserting his rights to the succession
of his father, who has died in the interval, but, in reality, to
take possession of the crown; in which attempt he has almost
succeeded before Richard, cast by a tempest upon the coasts of
England, can have been informed of his arrival. And we are told
at the end of the play, which, dating from the banishment of
Bolingbroke, can not have lasted more than fifteen days, that
Mowbray, who was exiled at the same time, has made several
journeys to the Holy Land during the interval, and is at last
dead in Italy.

{143}

These monstrous extravagances would assuredly not be numbered
among the proofs of Shakspeare's genius, if they did not attest
the empire assumed over him by the great dramatic thought to
which he sacrificed all beside. Whether in his historical plays,
he multiplies improbabilities and impossibilities in order to
conceal the flight of time, or whether, in his finest tragedies,
he allows it to pass without the slightest notice, he invariably
pursues and attempts to maintain unity of impression, the great
source of dramatic effect. We may see in "Macbeth," the true type
of his system, with what art he overcomes the difficulties which
arise from it, and links together in the soul of the spectator
the chain of places and times which is constantly being broken in
reality. Macbeth, when resolved on the destruction of Macduff,
whom he fears, learns that he has taken flight into England; and
he leaves the stage, announcing his intention to surprise his
castle, and to put to death his wife, his children, and all who
bear his name. The next scene opens in Macduff's castle, by a
conversation between Lady Macduff and her relative, Rosse, who
has come to inform her of her husband's departure, and to express
his fears for her own safety. The two scenes, thus closely
connected in thought, seem to be so in time also; distance has
disappeared; and who would think of pointing out, as an interval
of which some recount should be given, the leagues which separate
Macduff's castle from Macbeth's palace, and the time that would
be required to traverse them.
{144}
We have entered without effort into this new part of the
position; it follows its course; the assassins appear; the
massacre commences. We pass into England; we behold the arrival
of Macduff in that country; the terrible events of which he is
ignorant fill up, for us, the interval which must separate his
departure from his arrival. Rosse appears some time after him,
and informs him of his misfortune. Both describe to Malcolm the
desolation of Scotland, and the general hatred which Macbeth has
incurred. The army which is destined to overthrow the tyrant is
collected together, and the order for departure is given. But,
while the army is on its road, the poet recalls our imagination
toward Macbeth; with him we prepare for the approach of the
troops, whose march is effected without any thing occurring to
inform us of its duration, or to lead us to make inquiries about
it. Scarcely ever, in Shakspeare, do the personages of the drama
arrive immediately in the place for which they have set out; so
abrupt a conjunction would be contrary to the natural order of
the succession of ideas. We have seen Richard II. set out for the
castle of John of Gaunt; it is therefore in John of Gaunt's
castle that we await the arrival of Richard, whose journey has
taken place without our mind being able to complain of not having
been consulted with regard to the time which it occupied. In the
same manner, between two events evidently separated by an
interval long enough for us not to like to see it disappear
without taking some part in it, Shakspeare interposes a scene
which may belong with equal propriety to either the first or the
second epoch, and he makes us pass from one to the other without
shocking us by its intimate connection with the scene which
immediately precedes or follows it. Thus, in "King Lear," between
the time when Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, and
the moment when Goneril, already tired of her father's presence,
determines to get rid of him, the scenes at Gloster's castle, and
the commencement of Edmund's intrigue, are interposed.
{145}
Guided by that instinct which is the science of genius, the poet
knows that our imagination will traverse without effort both time
and space with him, if he spares those moral improbabilities
which could alone arrest its progress. With this view, he
sometimes accumulates material unlikelihoods, and sometimes
exhausts the ingenuity of his art; but, ever attentive to the
object at which he aims, he can reduce to unity of action those
artifices and preparatory means which he employs to remove every
thing that could interfere with the dramatic illusion, and to
dispose freely of our thought.

Unity of action, being indispensable to unity of impression,
could not escape Shakspeare's notice. But how, it may be asked,
could he maintain it in the midst of so many events of so
changeful and complicated a nature--in that immense field which
includes so many places, so many years, all conditions of
society, and the development of so many positions? Shakspeare
succeeded in maintaining it, nevertheless: in "Macbeth,"
"Hamlet," "Richard III.," and "Romeo and Juliet," the action,
though vast, does not cease to be one, rapid and complete. This
is because the poet has seized upon its fundamental condition,
which consists in placing the centre of interest where he finds
the centre of action. The character which gives movement to the
drama is also the one upon which the moral agitation of the
spectator is bestowed. Duplicity of action, or at least of
interest, has been urged against Racine's tragedy of
"Andromaque," and the charge is not without foundation; it is not
that all the parts of the action do not work together toward the
same end, but the interest is divided, and the centre of action
is uncertain.
{146}
If Shakspeare had had to treat of such a subject, which, it must
be said, is not in great conformity to the nature of his genius,
he would have made Andromache the centre of the action as well as
of the interest. Maternal love would have pervaded the entire
drama, displaying its courage as well as its fears, its strength
as well as its sorrows. Shakspeare, indeed, would not have
hesitated to introduce the child upon the stage, as Racine
subsequently did in "Athalie," when he had grown more bold. All
the emotions of the spectator would have been directed toward a
single point: we should have beheld Andromache, with greater
activity, trying other means to save Astyanax than "the tears of
her mother," and constantly riveting upon her son and herself an
attention which Racine has too often diverted to the means of
action which he was constrained to derive from the vicissitudes
of the destiny of Hermione. According to the system imposed upon
our dramatic poets in the seventeenth century, Hermione should be
the centre of the action; and so, in fact, she is. Upon a stage
which daily became more subject to the authority of the ladies
and of the court, love seemed destined to take the place of the
fatality of the ancients: a blind power, as inflexible as
fatality, and, like it, leading its victims toward an object
defined from the very outset, love became the fixed point around
which all things should revolve. In "Andromaque," love makes
Hermione a simple personage, swayed by her passion, referring to
it every thing that occurs beneath her view, and careful to bring
events into subjection to herself, in order to make them serve
and satisfy her affection. Hermione alone directs and gives
movement to the drama; Andromaque only appears to suffer the
agony of a position as powerless as it is painful.
{147}
Such an idea may admit of admirable developments of the passive
affections of the heart; but it does not constitute a tragic
action; and in those developments which do not lead immediately
to action, our interest runs the risk of wandering astray, and
returns afterward with difficulty into the only direction in
which it can be maintained.

When, on the contrary, the centre of action and the centre of
interest are identical--when the attention of the spectator has
been fixed upon the hero of the drama, at once active and
unchanging, whose character, though it remains ever the same,
will lead to incessant changes in his destiny--then the events in
agitation around such a man strike us only by their relation to
him, and the impression which we receive from them assumes the
color which he has himself imparted to them. Richard III.
proceeds from plot to plot; every new success redoubles the
terror with which we are inspired at the outset by his infernal
genius; the pity which each one of his victims successively
awakes, becomes merged in the feelings of hate which accumulate
upon their persecutor; none of these particular feelings diverts
our impressions to its own advantage; they are directed
incessantly, and always with increasing vigor, toward the author
of so many crimes; and thus Richard, the centre of action, is at
the same time the centre of interest also; for dramatic interest
is not only the unquiet pity which we feel for misfortune, or the
passionate affection with which we are inspired by virtue; it is
also hatred, the thirst for vengeance, the invocation of Heaven's
justice upon the malefactor, as well as the prayer for the
salvation of the innocent. All strong feelings, capable of
exciting the human soul, can draw us in their train, and inspire
us with passionate interest, they have no need to promise us
happiness, or to gain our attachment by tenderness: we can also
raise ourselves to that sublime contempt for life which makes men
heroes and martyrs, and to that noble indignation beneath which
tyrants succumb.

{148}

Every element may enter into an action, thus reduced to one sole
centre, from which emanate, and to which are related, all the
events of the drama, and all the impressions of the spectator.
Every thing that moves the heart of man, every thing that
agitates his life, may combine to produce dramatic interest,
provided that, being directed toward the same point, and marked
with the same impress, the most various facts present themselves
only as satellites of the principal fact, the brilliancy and
power of which they serve to augment. Nothing will appear
trivial, insignificant, or puerile, if it imparts greater
vitality to the predominant position, or greater depth to the
general feeling. Grief is sometimes redoubled by the aspect of
gayety; in the midst of danger, a joke may increase our courage.
Nothing is foreign to the impression but that which destroys it;
it nourishes itself, and gains greater power from every thing
that can mingle with it. The prattle of young Arthur with Hubert
becomes heart-rending from the idea of the horrible barbarity
which Hubert is about to practice upon him. We are filled with
emotion by the sight of Lady Macduff lovingly amused by the witty
sallies of her little son, while at her door are the assassins
who have come to massacre that son, and her other children, and
afterward herself. Who, but for these circumstances, would take a
deep interest in this scene of maternal childishness? But, if
this scene were omitted, should we hate Macbeth as much as we
ought to do for this new crime?
{149}
In "Hamlet," not only is the scene of the grave-diggers connected
with the general idea of the piece by the kind of meditations
which it inspires, but--and we know it--it is Ophelia's grave
which they are digging in Hamlet's presence; and to Ophelia will
relate, when he is informed of this circumstance, all the
impressions which have been kindled in his soul by the sight of
those hideous and despised bones, and the indifference which is
felt for the mortal remains of those who were once beautiful and
powerful, honored or beloved. No detail of these mournful
preparations is lost to the feeling which they occasion; the
coarse insensibility of the men devoted to the habits of such a
trade, their songs and jokes, all have their effect; and the
forms and means of comedy thus enter, without effort, into
tragedy, the impressions of which are never more keen than when
we see them about to fall upon a man who is already their
unwitting subject, and who is amusing himself in presence of the
misfortune of which he is unaware.

Without this use of the comic, and without this intervention of
the inferior classes, how many dramatic effects, which contribute
powerfully to the general effect, would become impossible!
Accommodate to the taste of the pleasantry of our age the scene
with Macbeth's porter, and there is no one who will not shudder
at the thought of the discovery that will follow this exhibition
of jovial buffoonery, and of the spectacle of carnage still
concealed beneath these remnants of the intoxication of a
festival.
{150}
If Hamlet were the first brought into connection with his
father's ghost, what preparation and explanations would be
indispensable to place us in the state of mind in which a prince,
a man belonging to the highest class of society, must be in order
to believe in a ghost! But the phantom appears first to soldiers,
men of simple a kind, who are more ready to be alarmed than
astonished at it; and they relate the story to one another in the
night-watch:

                        "Last night of all,
  When yond' same star, that's westward from the pole,
  Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
  Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
  The bell then beating one--

                    Marcellus.

  Peace! break thee off: look, where it comes again!"

The effect of terror is produced, and we believe in the spectre
before Hamlet has ever heard it mentioned.

Nor is this all; the intervention of the inferior classes
furnishes Shakspeare with another means of effect, which would be
impracticable in any other system. The poet who can take his
actors from all ranks of society, and place them in all
positions, may also bring every thing into action--that is to
say, may remain constantly dramatic. In "Julius Caesar," the
scene opens with a living picture of popular movements and
feelings; what explanation or conversation could make us so well
acquainted with the nature of the seductive influence exercised
by the Dictator over the Romans, of the kind of danger to which
liberty is exposed, and of the error, as well as the peril, of
the republicans who hope to restore liberty by the death of
Caesar? When Macbeth determines to get rid of Banquo, he has not
to inform us of his project in the person of a confidant, or to
receive an account of the execution of the deed in order to make
us aware of it: he sends for the assassins and converses with
them; we witness the artifices by which a tyrant renders the
passions and misfortunes of man subservient to his designs; and
we afterward see the murderers lie in wait for their victim,
strike the fatal blow, and return, with blood-stained hands, to
demand their reward. Banquo can then appear to us; the real
presence of crime has produced all its effect, and we reject none
of the terrors which accompany it.

{151}

When we desire to produce man upon the stage in all the energy of
his nature, it is not too much to summon to our aid man as a
whole, and to exhibit him under all the forms and in all the
positions of which his existence admits. Such a representation is
not merely more complete and striking, but it is also more
truthful and accurate. We deceive the mind with regard to an
event, if we present to it merely one salient part adorned with
the colors of truth, while the other part is rejected and effaced
in a conversation or a narrative. Thence results a false
impression which, in more than one instance, has injured the
effect of the finest works. "Athalie," that masterpiece of our
drama, still finds us imbued with a certain prejudice against
Joad and in favor of Athalie, whom we do not hate sufficiently to
rejoice in her destruction, and whom we do not fear enough to
approve the artifice which draws her into the snare. And yet
Athalie has not only massacred her son's children, in order that
she might reign in their stead; but she is a foreigner,
maintained on the throne by foreign troops; the enemy of the God
adored by her people, she insults and braves Him by the presence
and pomp of a foreign worship, while the national religion,
stripped of its power and honors, and clung to with fear and
trembling by only "a small number of zealous worshipers," daily
expects to fall a victim to the hatred of Mathan, the insolent
despotism of the queen, and the avidity of her base courtiers.
Here is, indeed, an exhibition of tyranny and misfortune; here is
matter enough to drive the people to revolt, and to lead to
conspiracies among the last defenders of their liberties.
{152}
And all these facts are related in the speeches of Joad, of
Abner, of Mathan, and even of Athalie herself. But they are
displayed in speeches only; all that we behold in action is Joad
conspiring with the means which his enemy still leaves at his
disposal, and the imposing grandeur of the character of Athalie.
The conspiracy is under our eyes; but we have only heard of
tyranny. If the action had revealed to us the evils which
oppression involves; if we had beheld Joad excited and stimulated
to revolt by the cries of the unhappy victims of the vexations of
the foreigner; if the patriotic and religious indignation of the
people against a power "lavish of the blood of the defenseless,"
had given legitimacy to Joad's conduct in our eyes--the action,
when thus completed, would leave no uncertainty in our minds; and
"Athalie" would perhaps present to us the ideal of dramatic
poetry, at least, according to our conception of it at the
present time.

Though easily attained among the Greeks, whose life and feelings
might be summed up in a few large and simple features, this ideal
did not present itself to modern nations under forms sufficiently
general and pure to receive the application of the rules laid
down in accordance with the ancient models. France, in order to
adopt them, was compelled to limit its field, in some sort, to
one corner of human existence. Our poets have employed all the
powers of genius to turn this narrow space to advantage; the
abysses of the heart have been sounded to their utmost depth, but
not in all their dimensions. Dramatic illusion has been sought at
its true source, but it has not been required to furnish all the
effects that might have been obtained from it. Shakspeare offers
to us a more fruitful and a vaster system. It would be a strange
mistake to suppose that he has discovered and brought to light
all its wealth.
{153}
When we embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and human
nature in all the conditions of man upon earth, we enter into
possession of an exhaustless treasure. It is the peculiar
advantage of such a system, that it escapes, by its extent, from
the dominion of any particular genius. We may discover its
principles in Shakspeare's works; but he was not fully acquainted
with them, nor did he always respect them. He should serve as an
example, not as a model. Some men, even of superior talent, have
attempted to write plays according to Shakspeare's taste, without
perceiving that they were deficient in one important
qualification for the task; and that was, to write as he did, to
write them for our age, just as Shakspeare's plays were written
for the age in which he lived. This is an enterprise, the
difficulties of which have hitherto, perhaps, been maturely
considered by no one. We have seen how much art and effort was
employed by Shakspeare to surmount those which are inherent in
his system. They are still greater in our times, and would unvail
themselves much more completely to the spirit of criticism which
now accompanies the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with
spectators of more fastidious taste, and of more idle and
inattentive imagination, that the poet would have to do, who
should venture to follow in Shakspeare's footsteps. He would be
called upon to give movement to personages embarrassed in much,
more complicated interests, pre-occupied with much more various
feelings, and subject to less simple habits of mind, and to less
decided tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the
scruples of conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought,
frequently encumber Shakspeare's heroes; doubt is of little use
among them, and the violence of their passions speedily transfers
their belief to the side of their desires, or sets their actions
above their belief.
{154}
Hamlet alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by
the enlightenment of society, in conflict with a position
contrary to its laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to
determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his
project. If incessantly placed in an analogous position, the
personages of a tragedy conceived at the present day, according
to the romantic system, would offer us the same picture of
indecision. Ideas now crowd and intersect each other in the mind
of man, duties multiply in his conscience, and obstacles and
bonds around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt
to communicate the spark which they have received--instead of
those ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects, like
Macbeth's, "will to hand"--the world now presents to the poet
minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of those inward
conflicts which our classical system has derived from a state of
society more advanced than that of the time in which Shakspeare
lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the necessary
consequences of modern civilization, might become, even in their
simplest form of expression, a troublesome burden, which it would
be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold
advances of the romantic system.

We must, however, satisfy every demand; success itself requires
it. The reason must be contented at the same time that the
imagination is occupied. The progress of taste, of enlightenment,
of society, and of mankind, must serve, not to diminish or
disturb our enjoyment, but to render them worthy of ourselves,
and capable of supplying the new wants which we have contracted.
Advance without rule and art in the romantic system, and you will
produce melodrames calculated to excite a passing emotion in the
multitude, but in the multitude alone, and for a few days; just
as, by dragging along without originality in the classical
system, you will satisfy only that cold literary class who are
acquainted with nothing in nature which is more important than
the interests of versification, or more imposing than the three
unities.
{155}
This is not the work of the poet who is called to power and
destined for glory; he acts upon a grander scale, and can address
the superior intellects, as well as the general and simple
faculties of all men. It is doubtless necessary that the crowd
should throng to behold those dramatic works of which you desire
to make a national spectacle; but do not hope to become national
if you do not unite in your festivities all those classes of
persons and minds whose well-arranged hierarchy raises a nation
to its loftiest dignity. Genius is bound to follow human nature
in all its developments; its strength consists in finding within
itself the means for constantly satisfying the whole of the
public. The same task is now imposed upon government and upon
poetry; both should exist for all, and suffice at once for the
wants of the masses and for the requirements of the most exalted
minds. Doubtless stopped in its course by these conditions, the
full severity of which will only be revealed to the talent that
can comply with them, dramatic art, even in England, where, under
the protection of Shakspeare, it would have liberty to attempt
any thing, scarcely ventures at the present day to endeavor
timidly to follow him. Meanwhile, England, France, and the whole
of Europe demand of the drama pleasures and emotions that can no
longer be supplied by the inanimate representation of a world
that has ceased to exist. The classical system had its origin in
the life of its time; that time has passed; its image subsists in
brilliant colors in its works, but can no more be reproduced.
{156}
Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of another age are
now beginning to arise. What will be their form? I can not tell;
but the ground upon which their foundations may rest is already
perceptible. This ground is not the ground of Corneille and
Racine, nor is it that of Shakspeare; it is our own; but
Shakspeare's system, as it appears to me, may furnish the plans
according to which genius ought now to work. This system alone
includes all those social conditions and all those general or
diverse feelings, the simultaneous conjunction and activity of
which constitute for us, at the present day, the spectacle of
human things. Witnesses, during thirty years, of the greatest
revolutions of society, we shall no longer willingly confine the
movement of our mind within the narrow space of some family
event, or the agitations of a purely individual passion. The
nature and destiny of man have appeared to us under their most
striking and their simplest aspect, in all their extent and in
all their variableness. We require pictures in which this
spectacle is reproduced, in which man is displayed in his
completeness, and excites our entire sympathy. The moral
dispositions which impose this necessity upon poetry will not
change; but we shall see them, on the contrary, manifesting
themselves more plainly, and receiving greater development, day
by day. Interests, duties, and a movement common to all classes
of citizens, will strengthen among them that chain of habitual
relations with which all public feelings connect themselves.
Never could dramatic art have taken its subjects from an order of
ideas at once more popular and more elevated; never was the
connection between the most vulgar interests of man and the
principles upon which his highest destinies are dependent, more
clearly present to all minds; and the importance of an event may
now appear in its pettiest details as well as in its mightiest
results.
{157}
In this state of society, a new dramatic system ought to be
established. It should be liberal and free, but not without
principles and laws. It should establish itself like liberty, not
upon disorder and forgetfulness of every check, but upon rules
more severe and more difficult of observance, perhaps, than those
which are still enforced to maintain what is called order against
what is designated license.


{158}

{159}

           Historical And Critical Notices

                      of the

            Principal Dramas Of Shakspeare.

{160}

{161}

                  Romeo And Juliet.

                      (1595.)



Two powerful families of Verona, the Montecchi and the Capelletti
(the Montagues and Capulets), had long lived on terms of such
hostility to each other, that it had frequently led to sanguinary
conflicts in the open streets. Alberto della Scala, the second
perpetual captain of Verona, had ineffectually endeavored to
reconcile them; but he succeeded so far in bridling their enmity,
that "when they met," says Grirolamo della Corte, the historian
of Verona, "the younger men made way for their elders, and they
mutually exchanged salutations."

In the year 1303, under the reign of Bartolommeo della Scala, who
had been chosen perpetual captain on the death of his father
Alberto, Antonio Capelletto, the leader of his faction, gave a
great entertainment during the carnival, to which he invited most
of the nobility of Verona. Romeo Montecchio, who was about
twenty-one years of age, and one of the handsomest and most
amiable young men in the city, went thither in a mask,
accompanied by some of his friends. After some time, taking off
his mask, he sat down in a corner, from which he could see and be
seen. Much astonishment was felt at the boldness with which he
had thus ventured in the midst of his enemies.
{162}
However, as he was young and of agreeable manners, the Capulets,
says the historian, "did not pay so much attention to his
presence as they might have done if he had been older." His eyes
and those of Giulietta Capelletto soon met, and being equally
struck with admiration, they did not cease to look at each other.
The festivities terminated with a dance, which "among us," says
Girolamo, "is called the hat-dance (_dal cappello_)," in
which Romeo engaged; but, after having danced a few figures with
his partner, he left her to join Juliet, who was dancing with
another. "Immediately that she felt him touch her hand, she said,
'Blessed be your coming!' And he, pressing her hand, replied,
'What blessing do you receive from it, lady?' And she answered,
with a smile, 'Be not surprised, sir, that I bless your coming;
Signor Mercurio had been chilling me for a long while, but by
your politeness you have restored me to warmth.' (The hands of
this young man, who was called Mercurio the Squinter, and who was
beloved by every one for the charms of his mind, were always
colder than ice.) To these words, Romeo replied, 'I am greatly
delighted to do you service in any thing.' When the dance was
over, Juliet could say no more than this: 'Alas! I am more yours
than my own.'"

Romeo having repaired on several occasions to a small street upon
which Juliet's windows looked out, one evening she recognized him
"by his sneezing or some other sign," and opened the window; they
saluted each other very courteously (_cortesissimamente_),
and, after having conversed for a long while of their loves, they
agreed that they must be married, whatever might happen; and that
the ceremony should be performed by Friar Leonardo, a Franciscan
monk, who was "a theologian, a great philosopher, an admirable
distiller, a proficient in the art of magic," and the confessor
of nearly all the town.
{163}
Romeo went to see this worthy; and the monk, thinking of the
credit he would gain, not only with the perpetual captain, but
also with the whole city, if he succeeded in reconciling the two
families, acceded to the request of the young couple. On
Quadragesima Sunday, when confession was obligatory, Juliet went
with her mother to the church of St. Francis in the citadel; and
having entered first into the confessional, on the other side of
which Romeo was stationed, they received the nuptial benediction
through the window of the confessional, which the monk had had
the kindness to leave open. Afterward, by the connivance of a
very adroit old nurse of Juliet's, they spent the night together
in her garden.

However, after the festival of Easter, a numerous troop of
Capulets met, at a little distance from the gates of Verona, a
band of Montagues, and attacked them, at the instigation of
Tebaldo, a cousin-german of Juliet, who, seeing Romeo use every
effort to put an end to the combat, went up to him, and, forcing
him to defend himself, received a sword-thrust in his throat,
from which he fell dead on the spot. Romeo was banished; and a
short time afterward, Juliet, on the point of finding herself
compelled to marry another, had recourse to Friar Leonardo, who
gave her a powder to swallow, by means of which she would appear
to be dead, and would be interred in the family vault, which
happened to be in the church attached to Leonardo's convent. The
monk was to deliver her immediately from her grave, and to send
her in disguise to Mantua, where Romeo was residing; and he
promised to inform her lover of their design.

{164}

Matters were arranged as Leonardo had suggested; but Romeo,
having been informed of Juliet's death by an indirect source,
before he received the monk's letter, set out at once for Verona
with a single domestic, and, having provided himself with a
violent poison, hastened to the tomb, opened it, bathed Juliet's
body with his tears, swallowed the poison, and died. Juliet
awaking from her trance the instant afterward, seeing Romeo dead,
and learning from the monk, who had come up in the meanwhile, all
that had happened, was seized with such violent paroxysms of
grief, that, "without being able to utter a word, she fell dead
upon the bosom of her Romeo." [Footnote 19]

    [Footnote 19: See Girolamo della Corte, "Istorie di Verona,"
    vol. i., p. 89, _et seq_ ed. 1594.]

This story is told as true by Girolamo della Corte, and he
assures his readers that he had often seen the tomb of Romeo and
Juliet, which, rising a little above the level of the ground, and
being situated near a well, then served as a laundry to the
orphan asylum of St. Francis, which was being built in that
locality. He relates, at the same time, that the Cavalier Gerardo
Boldiero, his uncle, who had first taken him to this tomb, had
pointed out to him, at a corner of the wall, near the Capuchin
Convent, the place from which he had heard it said that the bones
of Romeo and Juliet, and of several other persons, had been
transferred a great number of years before. Captain Bréval, in
his Travels, also mentions that he saw at Verona, in 1762, an old
building which was then an orphan asylum, and which his guide
informed him had once contained the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, but
that it no longer existed.

It was probably not in accordance with the narrative of Girolamo
della Corte that Shakspeare composed his tragedy. It was first
performed, as it would appear, in 1595, under the patronage of
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth, and was
printed for the first time in 1597.
{165}
Now the work of Girolamo della Corte, which was intended to
contain twenty-two books, was interrupted in the middle of the
twentieth book, and in the year 1560, by the illness of the
author. We learn, moreover, from the editor's preface, that this
illness was prolonged, and terminated in the death of the
historian; that the necessity for revising a work, to which
Girolamo himself had been unable to give the finishing stroke,
occupied a considerable period; and, finally, that the lawsuits,
"both civil and criminal," with which the editor was tormented,
prevented him from bringing his undertaking to a conclusion as
promptly as he could have desired; so that the work of Girolamo
could not have been published until a long while after his death.
The edition of 1594 is, therefore, to all appearance, the first
edition, and could scarcely have fallen into Shakspeare's hands
so early as 1595.

But the history of Romeo and Juliet, which was doubtless very
popular at Verona, had already formed the subject of a novel by
Luigi da Porto, published at Venice in 1535, six years after the
death of the author, under the title of "La Giulietta." This
novel was reprinted, translated and imitated in several
languages, and furnished Arthur Brooke with the subject of an
English poem, which was published in 1562, and from which
Shakspeare certainly derived the subject of his tragedy.
[Footnote 20]

    [Footnote 20: The title is, "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus
    and Juliet, containing a rare Example of true Constancie;
    with the Subtill Counsels and Practises of an old Fryer, and
    their ill event." This poem has been reprinted at the end of
    the tragedy in the large editions of Shakspeare; among
    others, in Malone's edition.]

{166}

The imitation is complete. Juliet, in Brooke's poem, as well as
in the novel of Luigi da Porto, kills herself with Romeo's
dagger, instead of dying of grief, as in the history of Girolamo
della Corte; but it is a singular circumstance, that both Arthur
Brooke's poem and Shakspeare's tragedy make Romeo die, as in the
history, before Juliet awakes, whereas, in the novel of Luigi da
Porto, he does not die until after he has witnessed her
restoration to life, and had a scene of sorrowful farewell with
her. Shakspeare has been blamed for not having adopted this
version, which would have furnished him with a very pathetic
position; and it has been inferred that he was not acquainted
with the Italian novel, although it had been translated into
English. Several circumstances, however, give us reason to
believe that Shakspeare was acquainted with this translation. As
for his motives for preferring the poet's narrative to that of
the novelist, he may have had many; in the first place, to
account for his departing in so important a point from the novel
of Luigi da Porto, which he has followed most scrupulously in
almost every other particular, perhaps Arthur Brooke, the author
of the poem, may have had some knowledge of the true history, as
related by Girolamo della Corte. Being a contemporary of
Shakspeare, he may have communicated this to him, and
Shakspeare's careful conformity, as far as he was able, to
history, or to the narratives received as such, would not have
allowed him to hesitate as to his choice. Moreover--and this was
probably the true reason of the poet--Shakspeare very seldom
precedes a strong resolution by long speeches. As Macbeth says:

  "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."

Whatever anguish reflection may add to grief, it fixes the mind
on too large a number of objects not to distract it from the
single and absorbing idea which leads to desperate actions. After
having received Romeo's farewell, and lamented his death in
concert with him, it might have happened that Juliet would have
bewailed him all her life instead of killing herself on the spot.
{167}
Garrick rewrote the scene in the monument, in accordance with the
supposition adopted in the novel of Luigi da Porto; the scene is
touching, but, as was perhaps inevitable in such a situation,
which it would be impossible to delineate in words, the feelings
are too much and too little agitated, and the despair is either
excessive or not sufficiently violent. In the laconism of
Shakspeare's "Romeo and Juliet," in these last moments, there is
much more passion and truth.

This laconism is all the more remarkable, because during the
whole course of the play, Shakspeare has abandoned himself
without constraint to that abundance of reflection and discourse
which is one of the characteristics of his genius. Nowhere is the
contrast more striking between the depth of the feelings which
the poet describes, and the form in which he expresses them.
Shakspeare excels in seeing our human feelings as they really
exist in nature, without premeditation, without any labor of man
upon himself, ingenuous and impetuous, mingled of good and evil,
of vulgar instincts and sublime inspirations, just as the human
soul is, in its primitive and spontaneous state. What can be more
truthful than the love of Romeo and Juliet, so young, so ardent,
so unreflecting, full at once of physical passion and of moral
tenderness, without restraint, and yet without coarseness,
because delicacy of heart ever combines with the transports of
the senses! There is nothing subtle or factitious in it, and
nothing cleverly arranged by the poet; it is neither the pure
love of piously exalted imaginations, nor the licentious love of
palled and perverted lives; it is love itself--love complete,
involuntary and sovereign, as it bursts forth in early youth, in
the heart of man, at once simple and diverse, as God made it.
{168}
"Romeo and Juliet" is truly the tragedy of love, as "Othello" is
that of jealousy, and "Macbeth" that of ambition. Each of the
great dramas of Shakspeare is dedicated to one of the great
feelings of humanity; and the feeling which pervades the drama
is, in very reality, that which occupies and possesses the human
soul when under its influence. Shakspeare omits, adds, and alters
nothing; he brings it on the stage simply and boldly, in its
energetic and complete truth.

Pass now from the substance to the form, and from the feeling
itself to the language in which it is clothed by the poet; and
observe the contrast! In proportion as the feeling is true and
profoundly known and understood, its expression is often
factitious, laden with developments and ornaments in which the
mind of the poet takes delight, but which do not flow naturally
from the lips of a dramatic personage. Of all Shakspeare's great
dramas, "Romeo and Juliet" is, perhaps, the one in which this
fault is most abundant. We might almost say that Shakspeare had
attempted to imitate that copiousness of words, and that verbose
facility which, in literature as well as life, generally
characterize the peoples of the South. He had certainly read, at
least in translation, some of the Italian poets; and the
innumerable subtleties interwoven, as it were, into the language
of all the personages in "Romeo and Juliet," and the introduction
of continual comparisons with the sun, the flowers, and the
stars, though often brilliant and graceful, are evidently an
imitation of the style of the sonnets, and a debt paid to local
coloring. It is, perhaps, because the Italian sonnets almost
always adopt a plaintive tone, that choice and exaggeration of
language are particularly perceptible in the complaints of the
two lovers.
{169}
The expression of their brief happiness is, especially in the
mouth of Juliet, of ravishing simplicity; and when they reach the
final term of their destiny, when the poet enters upon the last
scene of this mournful tragedy, he renounces all his attempts at
imitation, and all his wittily wise reflections. His characters,
who, says Johnson, "have a conceit left them in their misery,"
lose this peculiarity when misery has struck its heavy blows; the
imagination ceases to play; passion itself no longer appears,
unless united to solid, serious, and almost stern feelings; and
that mistress, who was so eager for the joys of love, Juliet,
when threatened in her conjugal fidelity, thinks of nothing but
the fulfillment of her duties, and how she may remain without
blemish the wife of her dear Romeo. What an admirable trait of
moral sense and good sense is this in a genius devoted to the
delineation of passion!

However, Shakspeare was mistaken when he thought that, by
prodigality of reflections, imagery, and words, he was imitating
Italy and her poets. At least he was not imitating the masters of
Italian poetry, his equals, and the only ones who deserved his
notice. Between them and him, the difference is immense and
singular. It is in comprehension of the natural feelings that
Shakspeare excels, and he depicts them with as much simplicity
and truth of substance as he clothes them with affectation and
sometimes whimsicality of language. It is, on the contrary, into
these feelings themselves that the great Italian poets of the
fourteenth century, and especially Petrarch, frequently introduce
as much refinement and subtlety as elevation and grace; they
alter and transform, according to their religious and moral
beliefs, or even to their literary tastes, those instincts and
passions of the human heart to which Shakspeare leaves their
native physiognomy and liberty.
{170}
What can be less similar than the love of Petrarch for Laura, and
that of Juliet for Romeo? In compensation, the expression, in
Petrarch, is almost always as natural as the feeling is refined;
and whereas Shakspeare presents perfectly simple and true
emotions beneath a strange and affected form, Petrarch lends to
mystical, or at least singular and very restrained emotions, all
the charm of a simple and pure form.

I will quote only one example of this difference between the two
poets, but it is a very striking example, for it is one in which
both have tried their powers upon the same position, the same
feeling, and almost the same image.

Laura is dead. Petrarch is desirous of depicting, on her entrance
upon the sleep of death, her whom he had painted so frequently,
and with such charming passion, in the brilliancy of life and
youth:

  "Non come fiamma che per forza è spenta,
      Ma che per sè medesraa si consume,
      Se n'andò in pace l'animo contenta.
   A guisa d'un soave e chiaro lume,
      Cui nutrimento a poco a poco manca,
      Tenendo al fin il suo usato costume;
   Pallida no, ma più che neve bianca
      Che senza vento in un bel colle fiocchi,
      Parea posar come persona stanca.
   Quasi un dolce dormir ne' suoi begli occhi,
      Sendo lo sperto già de lei diviso,
      Era quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi,
   Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso." [Footnote 21]

    [Footnote 21: Petrarch, "Trionfo della Morte,"
    cap. i., lines 160-172]

{171}

The following translation is from the pen of Captain Macgregor:

   "Not as a flame which suddenly is spent,
    But one that gently finds its natural close,
    To heaven, in peace, her willing spirit rose;
    As, nutriment denied, a lovely light,
    By fine gradations failing, less, less bright,
    E'en to the last gives forth a lambent glow:
    Not pale, but fairer than the virgin snow,
    Falling, when winds are laid, on earth's green breast,
    She seem'd a saint from life's vain toils at rest.
    As if a sweet sleep o'er those bright eyes came,
       Her spirit mounted to the throne of grace!
    If this we, in our folly, Death do name,
       Then Death seem'd lovely on that lovely face." [Footnote 22]

       [Footnote 22: Macgregor's "Odes of Petrarch," p. 220.]

Juliet also is dead. Romeo contemplates her as she lies in her
tomb, and he also expatiates upon her beauty:

    * * * "O, my love! my wife!
    Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty;
    Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
    Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks,
    And death's pale flag is not advanced there."

I need not insist upon the comparison; who does not feel how much
more simple and beautiful the form of expression is in Petrarch?
It is the brilliant and flowing poetry of the South, beside the
strong, rough, and vigorous imagination of the North.

The love of Romeo for Rosaline is an invention of Luigi da Porto,
retained in the poem of Arthur Brooke. This invention imparts so
little interest to the first acts of the drama, that Shakspeare
probably adopted it merely with a view to giving greater effect
to that character of suddenness which distinguishes the passions
of a Southern clime. The part of Mercutio was suggested to him by
these lines of the English poem:

  "A courtier that eche where was highly had in price,
   For he was courteous of his speeche, and pleasant of devise.
   Even as a lyon would emong the lambs be bolde,
   Such was emong the bashful maydes Mercutio to beholde."

{172}

Such was, doubtless, the _bel air_ in Shakspeare's time, and
it is as the type of the amiable and amusing companion that he
has described Mercutio. However, though he was not bold enough to
attack, like Molière, the ridiculous absurdities of the court, he
very frequently makes it evident that its tone was a burden to
him; and the part of Mercutio seems to have been a great tax upon
his taste and uprightness of mind. Dryden relates as a tradition
of his time, that Shakspeare used to say, "that he was obliged to
kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been killed
by him." Mercutio has, nevertheless, had many zealous partisans
in England; among others, Johnson, who, on this occasion, soundly
rates Dryden for his irreverent words regarding the witty
Mercutio, "some of whose sallies," he says, "are perhaps out of
the reach of Dryden." Shakspeare's aversion for the kind of wit
of which he has been so lavish in "Romeo and Juliet," is
sufficiently proved by Friar Laurence's injunction to Romeo when
he begins to explain his position in the sonnet style:

  "Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
   Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift."

Friar Laurence is the wise man of the play, and his speeches are,
in general, as simple as it was allowable for those of a
philosopher to be in his time.

The part of Juliet's nurse also contains but few of these
subtleties, which Shakspeare seems to have reserved, in this
work, to persons of the higher classes, and sometimes to the
valets who ape their manners. The character of the nurse is
indicated in Arthur Brooke's poem; in which, however, it is far
from possessing the same homely truthfulness as in Shakspeare's
drama.

{173}

Wherever they are not disfigured by conceits, the lines in "Romeo
and Juliet" are perhaps the most graceful and brilliant that ever
flowed from Shakspeare's pen. They are, for the most part,
written in rhyme, another homage paid to Italian habits.


{174}
                     Hamlet.

                     (1596.)


"Hamlet" is not the finest of Shakspeare's dramas; "Macbeth,"
and, I think, "Othello" also, are, on the whole, superior to it:
but it perhaps contains the most remarkable examples of its
author's most sublime beauties, as well as of his most glaring
defects. Never has he unvailed with more originality, depth, and
dramatic effect the inmost state of a mighty soul; never, also,
has he yielded with greater unrestraint to the terrible or
burlesque fancies of his imagination, and to the abundant
intemperance that is characteristic of a mind which hastens to
diffuse its ideas without any selection, and which delights to
render them striking by a strong, ingenious, and unexpected
expression, without caring to give them a pure and natural form.

According to his custom, Shakspeare took no trouble in "Hamlet,"
either to invent or to arrange his subject. He took the facts as
he found them recorded in the fabulous stories of the ancient
history of Denmark, by Saxo Grammaticus, which wore transformed
into tragical histories by Belleforest, about the middle of the
sixteenth century, and were immediately translated and became
popular in England, not only among the reading public, but also
on the stage, for it appears certain that six or seven years
before Shakspeare, in 1589, an English poet named Thomas Kyd had
already written a tragedy on the subject of Hamlet.
{175}
This is the text of the historical romance out of which, as a
sculptor chisels a statue from a block of marble, Shakspeare
modeled his drama.

"Fengon, having secretly assembled certain men, and perceiving
himself strong enough to execute his enterprise, Horvendile, his
brother, being at a banquet with his friends, suddenly set upon
him, where he slew him as traitorously as cunningly he purged
himself of so detestable a murder to his subjects; for that
before he had any violent or bloody hands, or once committed
parricide upon his brother, he had incestuously abused his wife,
whose honor he ought to have sought and procured, as traitorously
he pursued and effected his destruction. * * *

"Boldened and encouraged by his impunity, Fengon ventured to
couple himself in marriage with her whom he used as his concubine
during good Horvendile's life, * * * and the unfortunate and
wicked woman, that had received the honor to be the wife of one
of the valiantest and wisest princes of the North, imbased
herself in such vile sort as to falsify her faith unto him, and,
which is worse, to marry him that had been the tyrannous murderer
of her lawful husband. * * *

"Geruth having so much forgotten herself, the prince Hamblet
perceiving himself to be in danger of his life, as being
abandoned of his own mother, to beguile the tyrant in his
subtleties, counterfeited the madman with such craft and subtle
practices that he made show as if he had utterly lost his wits;
and under that vail he covered his pretense, and defended his
life from the treasons and practices of the tyrant his uncle.
{176}
For every day being in the queen's palace (who as then was more
careful to please her whoremaster, than ready to revenge the
cruel death of her husband, or to restore her son to his
inheritance), he rent and tore his clothes, wallowing and lying
in the dirt and mire, running through the streets like a man
distraught, not speaking one word, but such as seemed to proceed
of madness and mere frenzy; all his actions and gestures being no
other than the right countenances of a man wholly deprived of all
reason and understanding, in such sort, that as then he seemed
fit for nothing but to make sport to the pages and ruffling
courtiers that attended in the court of his uncle and
father-in-law. But many times he did divers actions of great and
deep consideration, and often made such and so fit answers, that
a wise man would soon have judged from what spirit so fine an
invention might proceed. * * *

"Hamblet likewise had intelligence in what danger he was like to
fall, if by any means he seemed to obey, or once like the wanton
toys and vicious provocations of the gentlewoman sent to him by
his uncle; which much abashed the prince, as then wholly being in
affection to the lady; but by her he was likewise informed of the
treason, as being one that from her infancy loved and favored
him, and would have been exceeding sorrowful for his misfortune.
* * *

"Among the friends of Fengon, there was one that, above all the
rest, doubted of Hamblet's practices in counterfeiting the
madman. His device to entrap Hamblet in his subtleties was
thus--that King Fengon should make as though he were to go some
long voyage concerning affairs of great importance, and that in
the mean time Hamblet should be shut up alone in a chamber with
his mother, wherein some other should secretly be hidden behind
the hangings, there to stand and hear their speeches, and the
complots by them to be taken concerning the accomplishment of the
dissembling fool's pretense; * * * and withal offered himself to
be the man that should stand to hearken and bear witness of
Hamblet's speeches with his mother. This invention pleased the
king exceeding well. * * *

{177}

"Meantime, the counselor entered secretly into the queen's
chamber, and there hid himself behind the arras, not long before
the queen and Hamblet came thither, who, being crafty and
politic, as soon as he was within the chamber, doubting some
treason, used his ordinary manner of dissimulation, and began to
come like a cock, beating with his arms (in such manner as cocks
use to strike with their wings) upon the hangings of the chamber;
whereby, feeling something stirring under them, he cried, "A rat!
a rat!" and presently drawing his sword, thrust it into the
hangings, which done, he pulled the counselor, half dead, out by
the heels, and made an end of killing him. * * * By which means
having discovered the ambush, and given the inventor thereof his
just reward, he came again to his mother, who in the mean time
wept and tormented herself; and having once again searched every
corner of the chamber, perceiving himself to be alone with her,
he began in sober and discreet manner to speak unto her, saying,

"'What treason is this, most infamous woman of all that ever
prostrated themselves to the will of an abominable whoremonger,
who, under the vail of a dissembling creature, covereth the most
wicked and detestable crime that man could ever imagine or was
committed? Now may I be assured to trust you, that like a vile
wanton adulteress, altogether impudent and given over to her
pleasure, runs spreading forth her arms to embrace the traitorous
villainous tyrant that murdered my father, and most incestuously
receivest the villain into the lawful bed of your loyal spouse? *
* *
{178}
O, Queen Geruth! it is licentiousness only that has made you
deface out of your mind the memory of the valor and virtues of
the good king, your husband and my father. * * * Be not offended,
I pray you, madam, if, transported with dolor and grief, I speak
so boldly unto you, and that I respect you less than duty
requireth; for you, having forgotten me, and wholly rejected the
memory of the deceased king my father, must not be ashamed if I
also surpass the bounds and limits of due consideration. * * *'

"Although the Queen perceived herself nearly touched, and that
Hamblet moved her to the quick, where she felt herself
interested, nevertheless she forgot all disdain and wrath, which
thereby she might as then have had, hearing herself so sharply
chidden and reproved, to behold the gallant spirit of her son,
and to think what she might hope, and the easier expect of his so
great policy and wisdom. But on the one side, she durst not lift
up her eyes to behold him, remembering her offense, and on the
other side, she would gladly have embraced her son, in regard of
the wise admonitions by him given unto her, which as then
quenched the flames of unbridled desire that before had moved
her. * * *

"After this, Fengon came to the court again, and determined that
Hamblet should be sent into England. Now to bear him company were
assigned two of Fengon's faithful ministers, bearing letters
engraved in wood, that contained Hamblet's death, in such sort as
he had advertised the King of England. But the subtle Danish
prince, while his companions slept, having read the letters, and
known his uncle's great treason, with the wicked and villainous
minds of the two courtiers that led him to the slaughter erased
out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof
graved others, with commission to the King of England to hang his
two companions. * * *

{179}

"Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that
devilish art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind, and
advertiseth him of things past. It toucheth not the matter herein
to discover whether this prince, by reason of his over great
melancholy, had received those impressions, divining that which
never any but himself had before declared. * * *" [Footnote 23]

    [Footnote 23: See "The Hystorie of Hamblet," in Payne
    Collier's "Shakspeare's Library," vol, i. London, 1843.]

It was evidently Hamlet who, in this narrative, struck and
allured the imagination of Shakspeare. This young prince, mad
from calculation, and perhaps slightly mad by nature; cunning and
melancholy; burning to avenge the death of his father, and
skillful in defending his own life; adored by the young girl sent
to work his ruin; an object of dread, and yet of tenderness, to
his guilty mother; and, until the moment of throwing off the
mask, hidden and incomprehensible to both: this personage, full
of passion, danger, and mystery, well versed in the occult
sciences, and whom, perhaps, "by reason of his over great
melancholy, the wicked spirit enabled to divine that which never
any but himself had before declared;" what an admirable character
was this for Shakspeare, that curious and deep-searching observer
of the secret agitations of the human soul and destiny! Had he
done nothing more than depict, with the bold outline and
brilliant coloring of his pencil, this character and situation as
delineated in the chronicle, he would assuredly have produced a
masterpiece.

{180}

But Shakspeare did much more than this: under his treatment,
Hamlet's madness becomes something altogether different from the
obstinate premeditation or melancholy enthusiasm of a young
prince of the Middle Ages, placed in a dangerous position, and
engaged in a dark design; it is a grave moral condition, a great
malady of soul which, at certain epochs and in certain states of
society and of manners, diffuses itself among mankind, frequently
attacks the most highly gifted and the noblest of our species,
and afflicts them with a disturbance of mind which sometimes
borders very closely upon madness. The world is full of evil, and
of all kinds of evil. What sufferings, crimes, and fatal,
although innocent errors! What general and private iniquities,
both strikingly apparent and utterly unknown! What merits, either
stifled or neglected, become lost to the public, and a burden to
their possessors! What falsehood, and coldness, and levity, and
ingratitude, and forgetfulness, abound in the relations and
feelings of men! Life is so short, and yet so agitated--sometimes
so burdensome, and sometimes so empty! The future is so
obscure! so much darkness at the end of so many trials! In
reference to those who only see this phase of the world and of
human destiny, it is easy to understand why their mind becomes
disturbed, why their heart fails them, and why a misanthropic
melancholy becomes an habitual feeling which plunges them by
turns into irritation or doubt--into ironical contempt or utter
prostration.

This was assuredly not the disease of the times in which the
chronicle represents Hamlet to have lived, nor indeed of the age
in which Shakspeare himself flourished. The Middle Ages and the
sixteenth century were epochs too active and too rude to give
ready admittance to these bitter contemplations and unhealthy
developments of human sensibility.
{181}
They belong much rather to times of luxurious life, and of moral
excitement at once keen and leisurely, when souls are roused from
their repose, and deprived of every strong and obligatory
occupation. It is then that arise these meditative discontents,
these partial and irritated impressions, this entire
forgetfulness of all that is good, this passionate susceptibility
to all that is evil in the condition of man, and all this
pedantic wrath of man against the laws and order of the universe.

That painful uneasiness and profound disturbance which are
introduced into the soul by so gloomy and false an appreciation
of things in general, and of man himself--which he never met
with in his own time, or in those times with the history of which
he was acquainted--Shakspeare devined, and constructed from them
the figure and character of Hamlet. Read once again the four
great monologues in which the Prince of Denmark abandons himself
to the reflective expression of his inmost feelings; gather
together from the whole play the passages in which he casually
gives them utterance; seek out and sum up that which is manifest,
and that which is hidden in all that he thinks and says, and you
will every where recognize the presence of the moral malady which
I have just described. Therein truly resides, much more than in
his personal griefs and perils, the source of Hamlet's
melancholy; in this consists his fixed idea and his madness.

And with the admirable good sense of genius, in order to render
the exhibition of so sombre a disease not only endurable, but
attractive, Shakspeare has endowed the sufferer himself with the
gentlest and most alluring qualities. He has made Hamlet
handsome, popular, generous, affectionate, and even tender. He
was desirous that the instinctive character of his hero should in
some sort redeem human nature from the distrust and anathemas
with which it was laden by his philosophic melancholy.

{182}

But, at the same time, guided by that instinct of harmony which
never deserts the true poet, Shakspeare has diffused over the
whole drama the same gloomy color which opens the scene; the
spectre of the assassinated monarch gives its impress to the
movement of the drama from its very outset, and leads it onward
to its termination, and when that term arrives, death reigns once
more; all die, the innocent as well as the guilty, the young girl
as well as the prince, and she more mad than he is; all depart to
join the spectre who had left the tomb only that he might drag
them all with him on his return. The whole circumstance is as
mournful as Hamlet's thoughts. None are left upon the stage but
the Norwegian strangers, who then appear for the first time, and
who have previously taken no part in the action.

After this great moral painting comes the second of Shakspeare's
superior beauties, dramatic effect. This is nowhere more complete
and more striking than in "Hamlet," for the two conditions of
great dramatic effect are found in it, unity in variety--one
sole, constant, and dominant impression; and this impression
varied according to the character, the turn of mind, and the
condition of the different personages in whom it is developed.
Death hovers over the whole drama; the spectre of the murdered
king represents and personifies it; he is always there, sometimes
present himself, sometimes present to the thoughts, and in the
language of the other personages. Whether great or small,
innocent or guilty, interested or indifferent to his history,
they are all constantly concerned about him; some with remorse,
others with affection and grief, others again merely with
curiosity, and some ever without curiosity, and simply by chance:
for example, that rude grave-digger, who says that he entered on
his trade on the day on which the late king had gained a great
victory over his neighbor, the King of Norway, and who, while
digging the grave of the beautiful Ophelia, the mad mistress of
the madman Hamlet, turns up the skull of poor Yorick, the jester
of the deceased monarch--the skull of the jester of that spectre,
who issues at every moment from his tomb to alarm the living and
enforce the punishment of his assassin.
{183}
All these personages, in the midst of all these circumstances,
are brought forward, withdrawn, and introduced again by turns,
each with his own peculiar physiognomy, language, and impression;
and all ceaselessly concur to maintain, diffuse, and strengthen
the sole, general impression of death--of death, just or unjust,
natural or violent, forgotten or lamented, but always
present--which is the supreme law, and should be the permanent
thought of all men.

On the stage, before a large and mingled crowd of spectators, the
effect of this drama, at once so gloomy and so animated, is
irresistible; the soul is stirred to its lowest depths, at the
same time that the imagination and senses are occupied and
carried away by a continuous and rapid external movement. Herein
is displayed the two-fold genius of Shakspeare, equally
inexhaustible as a philosopher and as a poet; by turns a moralist
and a machinist; as skillful in filling the stage with uproarious
movement, as in penetrating and bringing to light the inmost
secrets of the human heart. Subjected to the immediate action of
such a power, men _en masse_ require nothing beyond that
which it gives them; it holds them under its dominion, and
carries by assault their sympathy and their admiration.
{184}
Fastidious and delicate minds, which judge almost at the same
moment that they feel, and carry the necessity for perfection
even into their liveliest pleasures, have an immense taste and
admiration for Shakspeare also; but they are disagreeably
disturbed in their admiration and enjoyment, sometimes by the
accumulation and confusion of useless personages and interests,
sometimes by long and subtle developments of a reflection or an
idea which it would be proper for the personage to indicate _en
passant_, but in which the poet takes pleasure, and so pauses
for his own gratification; but more frequently still by that
fantastic mixture of coarseness and refinement of language which
sometimes imparts factitious and pedantic forms even to the
truest feelings, and a barbarous physiognomy to the noblest
inspirations of philosophy or poetry. These defects abound in
"Hamlet." I will neither give myself the painful satisfaction of
proving this assertion, nor will I omit to state it. In point of
genius, Shakspeare has perhaps no rivals; but in the high and
pure regions of art, he can not be taken as a model.


{185}


                    King Lear.

                     (1605.)


In the year of the world 3105, say the chronicles, "at what time
Joas ruled in Judah, Leir the son of Baldud was admitted ruler
over the Britons." He was a wise and powerful prince, who
maintained his country and subjects in a state of great
prosperity, and founded the town of Caerleir, now called
Leicester. He had three daughters, Gonerilla, Regan, and
Cordelia, "which daughters he greatly loved, but specially
Cordelia, the youngest, far above the two elder." Having attained
a great age, and becoming enfeebled both in body and mind, "he
thought to understand the affections of his daughters toward him,
and prefer her whom he best loved to the succession over the
kingdom. Whereupon he first asked Gonerilla, the eldest, how well
she loved him; who, calling her gods to record, protested that
she loved him more than her own life, which by right and reason
should be most dear to her. With which answer the father, being
well pleased, turned to the second, and demanded of her how well
she loved him, who answered (confirming her sayings with great
oaths) that she loved him more than tongue could express, and far
above all other creatures of the world." When he put the same
question to Cordelia, she answered, "Knowing the great love and
fatherly zeal that you have always borne toward me (for the which
I may not answer you otherwise than I think, and as my conscience
leadeth me), I protest unto you that I have loved you ever, and
will continually (while I live) love you as my natural father.
{186}
And if you would more understand of the love that I bear you,
ascertain yourself, that so much as you have, so much you are
worth, and so much I love you, and no more." Her father,
displeased with this answer, married his two eldest daughters,
one to Henninus, duke of Cornwall, and the other to Maglanus,
duke of Albany, "betwixt whom he willed and ordained that his
land should be divided after his death, and the one half thereof
immediately should be assigned to them in hand; but for the third
daughter, Cordelia, he reserved nothing."

It happened, however, that Aganippus, one of the twelve kings who
then governed Gaul, heard of the beauty and merit of this
princess, and desired to have her in marriage. He was told that
she had no dowry, as every thing had been bestowed on her two
sisters; but Aganippus persisted in his request, obtained
Cordelia's hand, and carried her in triumph to his kingdom.

Meanwhile, Leir's two sons-in-law, beginning to think he was
reigning too long, seized violently upon the land which he had
reserved for himself, and assigned him only a sufficient income
to live and maintain his rank. Even this allowance was gradually
diminished; but what caused Leir most pain was the extreme
unkindness of his daughters, who "seemed to think that all was
too much which their father had, the same being never so little;
insomuch that, going from one to the other, he was brought to
that misery that scarcely they would allow him one servant to
wait upon him." The old king, in despair,' fled from the country,
and took refuge in Gaul, where Cordelia and her husband received
him with great honors, and raised an army and equipped a fleet to
restore him to his possessions the succession of which he
promised to bequeath to Cordelia, who accompanied her father and
husband on this expedition.
{187}
The two dukes having been slain, and their armies defeated, in a
battle fought with Aganippus, Leir reascended his throne, and
died two years afterward, forty years after his first accession.
Cordelia succeeded him, and reigned five years; but in the mean
while, her husband having died, her nephews, Margan and Cunedag,
rebelled against her, conquered her, and cast her into prison,
where, "being a woman of a manly courage, and despairing to
recover liberty," she committed suicide. [Footnote 24]

    [Footnote 24: Holinshed's Chronicle, History of England, book
    ii., chaps. 5, 6.]

This story is borrowed by Holinshed from Geoffrey of Monmouth,
who probably constructed the history of Leir from an anecdote of
Ina, king of the Saxons, and the answer of the "youngest and
wisest of the daughters" of that king, who, under circumstances
similar to those in which Cordelia was placed, gave a similar
answer to her father, that, although she loved, honored, and
revered him in the highest degree that nature and filial duty
could require, yet she thought it might one day happen that she
would more ardently love her husband, with whom, by the command
of God, she was to constitute one flesh, and for whom she might
leave father and mother. It does not appear that Ina disapproved
of the "wise speech" of his daughter; and the sequel of
Cordelia's history is probably a development added by the
imagination of the chroniclers to this primary fact. However this
may be, the anger and misfortunes of King Lear had, before
Shakspeare's time, found a place in several poems, as well as
formed the subject of one drama and several ballads.
{188}
In one of these ballads, mentioned by Johnson, under the title of
"A lamentable Song of the Death of King Leir and his three
Daughters," Lear, as in the tragedy, goes mad, and Cordelia,
having been killed in the battle gained by the troops of the King
of France, her father dies of grief upon her body, and her
sisters are condemned to death by the judgment of the "lords and
nobles of the kingdom." Whether the ballad preceded Shakspeare's
tragedy or not, it is very probable that the author of the ballad
and the dramatic poet derived their facts from the same source,
and that it was not without some authority that Shakspeare, in
his _denouement_, departed from the chronicles, which give
the victory to Cordelia. This _dénouement_ was changed by
Tate, and Cordelia restored to her rights. The play remained on
the stage in this second form, to the great satisfaction of
Johnson, and, says Mr. Steevens, of "the upper gallery." Addison,
however, pronounced against this change.

As to the episode of the Earl of Gloster, Shakspeare has imitated
it from the adventure of a king of Paphlagonia, related in
Sidney's "Arcadia;" only, in the original narrative, the bastard
himself deprives his father of sight, and reduces him to a
condition similar to that of Lear. Leonatus, the legitimate son,
who, having been condemned to death, had been obliged to seek
service in a foreign army, on learning the misfortunes of his
father, leaves all at the moment when his merits were about to
gain him a high rank, in order to hasten, at the risk of his
life, to share and succor the misery of the old king. The latter,
restored to his throne by the aid of his friends, dies of joy on
crowning his son Leonatus; and the bastard Plexirtus, by a
feigned repentance, succeeds in disarming the anger of his
brother.

{189}

It is evident that the situation of King Lear and of the King of
Paphlagonia, both persecuted by the children whom they preferred,
and succored by the one whom they rejected, struck Shakspeare as
fitted to enter into the same subject, because they belonged to
the same idea. Those who have blamed him for having thus injured
the simplicity of his action have given their opinion according
to their own system, without taking the trouble to examine that
of the author whom they criticised. Starting even from the rules
which they are desirous to impose, we might answer that the love
of the two women for Edmund, which serves to effect their
punishment, and the intervention of Edgar at this part of the
_dénouement_, are sufficient to acquit the play of the
charge of duplicity of action; for, provided that all the threads
at last unite in one knot which it is easy to seize, the
simplicity of the progress of an action depends much less upon
the number of the interests and personages concerned in it than
upon the natural and clearly visible play of the springs which
set it in motion. But further, we must never forget that unity,
in Shakspeare's view, consists in one dominant idea, which,
reproducing itself under various forms, incessantly produces,
continues, and redoubles the same impression. Thus as, in
"Macbeth," the poet displays man in conflict with the passions of
crime, so in "King Lear" he depicts him in conflict with
misfortune, the action of which is modified according to the
different characters of the individuals who experience it. The
first spectacle which he brings under our notice is the
misfortune of virtue, or of persecuted innocence, as exemplified
in Cordelia, Kent, and Edgar. Then comes the misfortune of those
who, by their passion or blindness, have rendered themselves the
tools of injustice, namely, Lear and Gloster; and upon these the
effort of compassion is directed.
{190}
As for the wicked personages, we do not witness their sufferings;
the sight of their misfortune would be disturbed by the
remembrance of their criminality; they can have no punishment but
death?

Of the five personages subjected to the action of misfortune,
Cordelia, a heavenly figure, hovers almost invisible and
half-vailed over the composition, which she fills with her
presence, although she is almost always absent from it. She
suffers, but never complains, never defends herself: she acts,
but her action is manifested only by its results; serene
regarding her own fate, reserved and restrained even in her most
legitimate feelings, she passes and disappears like a denizen of
a better world, who has traversed this world of ours without
experiencing any mere earthly emotion.

Kent and Edgar each have a very decided physiognomy; the first of
them is, like Cordelia, a victim to his duty; the second
interests us at first only by his innocence. Having entered upon
misfortune at the same time, so to speak, that he entered into
life, and equally new to both conditions, Edgar gradually
develops his faculties, learns their character at once, and
discovers within himself, as need requires, the qualities with
which he is gifted; in proportion as he advances, his duties, and
his difficulties, and his importance increase; he grows up and
becomes a man, but, at the same time, he learns how costly is
this growth; and he finally discovers, when bearing it with
nobleness and courage, the whole weight of that burden which he
had hitherto borne almost with gayety. Kent, on the contrary, a
wise and firm old man, has known all and foreseen all from the
very outset; as soon as he enters upon action, his march is
determined and his object defined. He is not, like Edgar, urged
by necessity or met by chance; his will determines his conduct;
nothing can change or disturb it; and the aspect of the
misfortune to which he devotes himself, scarcely wrings from him
an exclamation of grief or pain.

{191}

Lear and Gloster, in an analogous situation, receive from it an
impression which corresponds to their different characters. Lear,
impetuous and irritable, spoiled by power and by the habit and
need of admiration, rebels both against his position and against
his own conviction; he can not believe in what he knows; his
reason offers no resistance; and he becomes mad. Gloster,
naturally weak, yields to his misery, and is equally incapable of
resistance to his joy; he dies on recognizing Edgar. If Cordelia
were alive, Lear would still find strength to live; but he breaks
down by the effort of his grief.

Amid all this confusion of incidents and coarseness of manners,
interest and pathos have never, perhaps, been carried further
than in this tragedy. The time in which Shakspeare laid his
action seems to have emancipated him from all conventional forms;
and just as he felt no difficulty in placing a King of France, a
Duke of Albany, and a Duke of Cornwall, eight hundred years
before the Christian era, so he felt no necessity for connecting
the language and the characters of his drama with any determinate
period. The only trace of intention which can be remarked in the
general color of the style of the drama is the vagueness and
uncertainty of the grammatical constructions, which seem to
belong to a language still quite in its infancy; at the same
time, a considerable number of expressions which bear a close
resemblance to the French language, indicate an epoch, if not
correspondent with that in which King Lear is supposed to have
lived, at least far anterior to that at which Shakspeare wrote.

{192}


                     Macbeth.

                     (1606.)


In the year 1034, Duncan succeeded his grandfather, Malcolm, on
the throne of Scotland. He held his right of his mother,
Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Malcolm; the younger daughter,
Doada, was the mother of Macbeth, who was thus cousin-german to
Duncan. The father of Macbeth was Finleg, thane of Glamis,
mentioned under the name of Sinel in the tragedy, and in the
chronicle of Holinshed, on the authority of Hector Boëtius, from
whom the narrative of the events concerning Duncan and Macbeth is
borrowed. As Shakspeare has followed Holinshed's chronicle with
the utmost exactness, it becomes necessary to give the facts as
therein related; and they are, moreover, in themselves replete
with interest.

Macbeth had rendered himself celebrated by his bravery, and "if
he had not been somewhat cruel of nature," says the chronicle,
"he might have been thought most worthy of the government of a
realm." Duncan, on the other hand, was an unwarlike prince, and
carried his gentleness and kindness to excess; so that if it had
been possible to fuse the characters of the two cousins together,
and to temper the one by the other, the people would have had,
says the chronicle, "an excellent captain, and a worthy king."

{193}

After some years of peaceful dominion, the weakness of Duncan
having encouraged malefactors, Banquo, the thane of Lochaber, "as
he gathered the finances due to the king," found himself
compelled to punish "somewhat sharply" several notorious
offenders, which occasioned a revolt. Banquo was robbed of all
the money he had collected, and "had much ado to get away with
life, after he had received sundry grievous wounds." As soon as
he had recovered of his hurts, he proceeded to court to lay his
complaints before Duncan, and at last persuaded the king to
summon the rebels to appear before him; but they slew the
sergeant-at-arms, who had been sent with the royal mandate, and
prepared for defense, at the instigation of Macdowald, one of
their most important chieftains, who, collecting his clansmen and
friends around him, represented Duncan to them as a
"faint-hearted milksop, more meet to govern a set of idle monks
in some cloister, than to have the rule of such valiant and hardy
men of war as the Scots were." The revolt spread particularly
throughout the Western Isles, from whence a host of warriors came
to join Macdowald at Lochaber; and the hope of plunder attracted
from Ireland a large number of Kernes and Galloglasses, [Footnote
25] ready to follow Macdowald whithersoever it should please him
to lead them. By means of these re-enforcements, Macdowald
defeated the troops which the king had sent to oppose him, took
prisoner their leader, Malcolm, and beheaded him after the
battle.

    [Footnote 25: The Kernes were a species of light infantry,
    and the Galloglasses heavy-armed foot-soldiers.]

{194}

Duncan, in consternation at this news, assembled his council, at
which Macbeth, after having blamed the king severely for his
lenity and slackness in punishing the offenders, which had given
them time to collect an army, offered to undertake the conduct of
the war in concert with Banquo. His offer was gladly accepted,
and the mere report of his approach with fresh troops struck such
terror into the rebels, that a great number of them secretly
deserted; and Macdowald, having tried to make head against
Macbeth with the remainder, was utterly routed, and forced to fly
to a castle in which he had placed his wife and children; but,
despairing of being able to hold out, and fearing the cruelties
of his opponents, he killed himself, after having first put his
wife and children to death. Macbeth entered without obstacle into
the castle, the gates of which had been left open. He found only
the body of Macdowald in the midst of his murdered family; and
the barbarism of that rude age was revolted by the fact that,
unmoved by this tragic spectacle, Macbeth cut off Macdowald's
head, and sent it to the king, and hanged the body upon a
gallows. He made the inhabitants of the isles purchase the pardon
of their revolt at a very high price, which did not, however,
prevent him from putting to execution all those whom he could
find in Lochaber. The inhabitants exclaimed loudly against this
violation of his pledge, and the reproaches which they heaped
upon him irritated Macbeth to such a degree that he was on the
point of crossing over to the isles with an army to take
vengeance upon them; but he was dissuaded from this project by
the counsels of his friends, and more particularly by the
presents with which the islanders a second time purchased their
pardon.

{195}

A short time afterward, Sweno, king of Norway, having made a
descent upon Scotland, Duncan, to resist him, placed himself at
the head of the largest portion of his army, and intrusted the
rest to the command of Macbeth and Banqno. Duncan was defeated
and put to flight; and he took refuge in the castle of Perth, in
which he was besieged by Sweno. Duncan, having secretly informed
Macbeth of his intentions, feigned a desire to surrender, and
protracted the negotiation, until at last, having learned that
Macbeth had collected a sufficient force, he appointed a day for
giving up the fortress; and, meanwhile, he offered to send the
Norwegians a supply of provisions, which they accepted all the
more eagerly because they had suffered greatly from famine for
several days. The bread and ale with which he furnished them had
been adulterated with the juice of an extremely narcotic berry,
so that, having eaten and drank greedily, they fell into "a fast
dead sleep, that in manner it was impossible to awake them." Then
Duncan sent word to Macbeth, who arriving in all haste, and
entering without opposition into the camp, massacred almost all
the Norwegians, most of whom never stirred, while the others were
rendered so dizzy by the effects of the narcotic that they could
make no defense. A large number of sailors from the Norwegian
fleet, who had come to share in the abundance which prevailed in
the camp, shared also in the fate of their fellow-countrymen; and
Sweno, who escaped with ten others from this butchery, could
scarcely find enough mariners to man the ship in which he fled to
Norway. Those vessels which he left behind were, three days
afterward, so tossed by an east wind, "that, beating and rushing
one against another, they sank there," at a place called
Drownelow Sands, where they lie "even unto these days (1574), to
the great danger of other such ships as come on that coast; for,
being covered with the flood when the tide cometh, at the ebbing
again of the same some parts of them appear above water."

{196}

This disaster caused such consternation in Norway, that, for many
years afterward, no knights were made until they had sworn to
avenge their countrymen who had thus been slaughtered in
Scotland. Duncan, in celebration of his deliverance, ordered
solemn processions to be made throughout the realm; but while
these thanksgivings were in progress, he was informed of the
disembarkation of an army of Danes, under the command of Canute,
king of England, who had come to avenge the defeat of his brother
Sweno. Macbeth and Banquo hastened to meet them, defeated them in
a pitched battle, and forced them to re-embark, and to pay a
considerable sum for permission to bury their dead at St. Colm's
Inch, where, says the chronicle, "many old sepulchres are yet to
be seen graven with the arms of the Danes."

Such are the exploits of Macbeth and Banquo, of which Shakspeare,
following Holinshed, has made use in his tragedy. A short time
afterward, Macbeth and Banquo were traveling to Forres, where the
king then lay, "and went sporting by the way together, without
other company save only themselves," when they were suddenly
accosted by three women "in strange and wild apparel, resembling
creatures of the elder world," who saluted Macbeth precisely as
it is related in the tragedy. Upon this, Banquo said, "What
manner of women are you that seem so little favorable unto me,
whereas, to my fellow here, besides high offices, ye assign also
the kingdom, appointing forth nothing for me at all?" "Yes,"
saith the first of them, "we promise greater benefits unto thee
than unto him, for he shall reign, indeed, but with an unlucky
end; neither shall he leave any issue behind him to succeed in
his place; whereas, contrarily, thou indeed shalt not reign at
all, but of thee those shall be born who shall govern the
Scottish kingdoms by long order of continual descent."
{197}
Herewith the women immediately disappeared. Soon afterward, the
thane of Cawdor having been put to death for treason, his title
was conferred upon Macbeth, who now began, as well as Banquo, to
place great faith in the predictions of the witches, and to
devise means for obtaining the crown.

He had a good chance of succeeding legitimately to the throne,
for Duncan's sons were not yet of age to reign, and the law of
Scotland ordained that, if the king died before his sons or
direct descendants were old enough to undertake the management of
affairs, the nearest relative of the deceased king should be
elected in their stead. But Duncan having appointed his son
Malcolm, while still under age, Prince of Cumberland and
successor to the throne, Macbeth, who saw his hopes destroyed by
this proceeding, thought himself entitled to take revenge for the
injustice he had experienced. To this, moreover, he was
incessantly stimulated by his wife, Guach, who, burning with
desire to bear the name of queen, and being, says Boetius, "like
all women, impatient of delay," continually reproached him with
his want of courage. Macbeth, therefore, having assembled a large
number of his friends at Inverness, or, as some say, at
Botgosuane, communicated to them his design, killed Duncan, and
repaired with his party to Scone, where he obtained possession of
the crown without difficulty.

Holinshed's chronicle relates the murder of Duncan without any
detail. The incidents which Shakspeare has interwoven into his
drama are taken from another part of the same chronicle
concerning the murder of King Duff, who had been assassinated
more than sixty years before by a Scottish lord named Donwald.
The following are the circumstances of this murder, as related in
the chronicle:

{198}

Duff had shown himself, from the commencement of his reign, very
anxious to protect the people against malefactors, and "idle
persons who sought to live only upon other men's goods." He put
several to death, and compelled others to withdraw to Ireland, or
else to learn "some manual occupation wherewith to get their
living." Although, as it would appear, these fellows were
connected only in a very remote degree with the high nobility of
Scotland, the nobles, says the chronicle, "were much offended
with this extreme rigor, accounting it a great dishonor for such
as were descended of noble parentage to be constrained to get
their living with the labor of their hands, which only
appertained to plowmen, and such others of the base degree as
were born to travail for the maintenance of the nobility, and to
serve at their commandment." The king was consequently regarded
by them as an enemy of the nobles, and unworthy to govern them,
as he was, they said, devoted solely to the interests of the
people and clergy, who at that time made common cause against the
oppression of the great lords. The discontent increased daily,
and several rebellions arose, in one of which some young
gentlemen engaged, who were relatives of Donwald, the king's
lieutenant of the castle of Forres. These young men were taken
prisoners, and Donwald, who until then had faithfully and
usefully served the king, hoped to obtain their pardon; but not
succeeding in his attempt, he was filled with resentment. His
wife, who was irritated against the king from a similar cause,
spared no efforts to increase his anger, and reminded him how
easy it would be to take his revenge when Duff came, as
frequently happened, to reside at Forres without any other guard
than the garrison of the castle, which was entirely devoted to
them; and "she showed him the means whereby he might soonest
accomplish it."

{199}

Duff came to Forres a short time afterward, and, on the evening
before his departure, when he had gone to bed after spending a
longer time than usual at prayers in his oratory, Donwald and his
wife sat down to table with the two chamberlains, whose
"reare-supper or collation" they had carefully prepared, and
feasted them so well that they fell into a lethargic sleep. Then
Donwald, "though he abhorred the act greatly in heart," at the
instigation of his wife, summoned four of his servants who were
aware of his plot, and whom he had gained over by presents. These
entered the king's chamber, killed him, carried his body out of
the castle by a postern-gate, and, placing it on a horse which
they had provided for the purpose, conveyed it to a place about
two miles distant from the castle. Having got some laborers to
help them to turn the course of a little river that ran through
the fields, they dug a deep hole in the channel and buried the
body in it, "ramming it up with stones and gravel so closely,
that, setting the water in the right course again, no man could
perceive that any thing had been newly digged there. This they
did by order of Donwald, that the body should not be found, and
by bleeding, when Donwald was present, declare him to be guilty
of the murder." Donwald, in the mean while, was careful to be one
of those who kept guard, and did not leave his post during the
whole night. The subsequent circumstances relative to the murder
of the two chamberlains are exactly as Shakspeare has represented
them in "Macbeth;" and the same may be said of the prodigies
which he relates, and which took place at the death of Duff.
{200}
The sun did not appear for six months, until at last, the
murderers having been discovered and executed, it shone forth
again upon the earth, and the fields became covered with flowers,
"clean contrary to the time and season of the year."

To return to Macbeth. The first ten years of his reign were
marked by a wise, equitable, and vigorous government. Several of
his laws have been preserved, of which the following are
specimens:

"He that attendeth any man to the church, market, or to any other
public assembly, as a retainer, shall suffer death, except he
have living at his hands, on whom he so attendeth." The
punishment of death was also decreed against all who became sworn
retainers of any other person than the king.

"All manner of lords and great barons shall not contract
matrimony with other, under pain of death, specially if their
lands and rooms be near together."

"All armor and weapon borne to other effect than in defense of
the king and realm in time of wars, shall be confiscated to the
king's use, with all other movable goods of the party that herein
offendeth." It was also enacted that "a horse kept by any of the
commons or husbandmen to any other use than for tillage and
laboring of the earth shall be forfeited to the king by escheat."

"Such as be appointed governors or (as I may call them) captains,
that buy within those limits where their charges lie any lands or
possessions, shall lose both lands and possessions, and the money
which they have paid fur the same. And if any of the said
captains or governors marry their sons or daughters unto any
manner of person that dwelleth within the bounds of their rooms,
they shall lose their office; neither shall it be lawful for any
of their sons or copartners to occupy the same office."

{201}

"No man shall sit as judge in any temporal court without the
king's commission authorizing him thereto. All conventions,
offices, and acts of justice shall pass in the king's name."

Other laws are intended to assure the immunity of the clergy and
the authority of the censures of the Church, to regulate the
duties of knighthood, the succession of property, and so forth.
Several of these laws, some of which are rather singular for the
time, were passed from motives of order and regularity; others
were destined to maintain civil independence against the
oppressive power of the officers of the crown; but most of them
are evidently intended to diminish the power of the nobles, and
to concentrate all authority in the hands of the king. All are
mentioned by the historians of the period as wise and beneficent
laws; and if Macbeth had obtained the throne by legitimate means,
and had continued in the ways of justice as he began, he might,
says Holinshed, "have been numbered among the most noble princes
that any where had reigned."

"But this," continues our chronicle, "was but a counterfeit zeal
of equity showed by him against his natural inclination." Macbeth
appeared at length in his true colors, and the same feeling of
his position which had led him to seek public favor by justice
changed justice into cruelty; "for the prick of conscience caused
him ever to fear lest he should be served of the same cup as he
had ministered to his predecessor." Now begins the Macbeth of the
tragedy. The murder of Banquo, executed in the same manner and
for the same reasons as those which Shakspeare ascribes to him,
was followed by a great number of other crimes, so that "at
length he found such sweetness by putting his nobles thus to
death, that his earnest thirst after blood in this behalf might
in no wise be satisfied."
{202}
Certain wizards, in whom he placed great trust, had warned him to
beware of Macduff, whose power, moreover, gave him great umbrage,
and he only sought a pretext for giving vent to his hatred of
him. Macduff, informed of his danger, passed over into England to
invite Malcolm, who had taken refuge in that country, to return
to claim his rights. Macbeth became acquainted with this plot,
"for kings," says the chronicle, "have sharp sight like unto
lynx, and long ears like unto Midas;" and Macbeth maintained
spies in the houses of all the nobles of his realm. The flight of
Macduff, the massacre of all his family, and his conversation
with Malcolm, are all facts taken from the chronicle. Malcolm at
first met Macduff's entreaties with objections based upon his
own incontinence, and Macduff replied as in Shakspeare, with this
addition only, "Make thyself king, and I shall convey the matter
so wisely that thou shalt be so satisfied at thy pleasure in such
secret wise that no man shall be aware thereof." The remainder of
the scene is faithfully imitated by the poet; and all that
concerns the death of Macbeth, the predictions that had been made
to him, and the manner in which they were at once eluded and
accomplished, is taken almost word for word from the chronicle,
in which we see at last how, "by illusion of the devil, he
defamed, with most terrible cruelty, his reign, which in the
beginning was very profitable to the commonwealth." Macbeth had
assassinated Duncan in the year 1040, and he was himself killed
in 1057, after a reign of seventeen years. [Footnote 26]

    [Footnote 26: Holinshed's Chronicle, "History of Scotland,"
    vol. i., p. 168-176. The story of the murder of King Duff is
    contained in p. 150, 151. It was probably of the facts
    furnished by Hector Boëtius to this chronicle that Buchanan,
    when relating in a much more summary manner the history of
    Macbeth, said, "Multa hic fabulose quidam nostrorum
    affingunt; sed quia theatris aut Milesiis fabulis sunt
    aptiora quam historiæ, ea omitto."--_Rerum. Scot.
    Hist._, lib. vii.]

{203}

Such is a general view of the facts to which Shakspeare undertook
to impart a soul and life. He places himself simply in the midst
of the events and personages, and, setting all these inanimate
things in motion with a breath, he enables us to witness the
spectacle of their existence. Far from adding any thing to the
incidents furnished him by the narrative from which he has
borrowed his subject, he omits many things; he is especially
careful to lop off every thing that might injure the simplicity
of his progress, and embarrass the action of his personages; and
he suppresses every thing that might prevent him from fathoming
them with a single glance, and portraying them with a few bold
touches. Macbeth, with all the crimes and great qualities
ascribed to him by his history, would be too complicated a being;
it would be necessary for him to possess at once too much
ambition and too much virtue for one of his dispositions to
maintain itself for any time in presence of the other, and too
cumbrous machinery would be required to make the balance finally
incline to one or the other side. Shakspeare's Macbeth is
brilliant only by his warlike virtues, and especially by his
personal bravery; he has only the qualities and the defects of a
barbarian; brave, but not a stranger to the fear of peril when he
believes in its proximity; cruel and sensitive by fits and
starts; perfidious through his inconstancy; always ready to yield
to any temptation that presents itself, whether it lead to crime
or to virtue--he displays, in his ambition as well as in his
criminality, that character of thoughtlessness and mobility which
belongs to an almost savage state of civilization.
{204}
His passions are imperious, but no series of reasonings and
projects determines and governs them; they form a lofty tree, but
one devoid of roots, which the least breeze may shake, and the
fall of which is a disaster. Hence arises his tragic grandeur; it
resides in his destiny more than in his character. Macbeth, if
placed at a greater distance from the expectation of succession
to the throne, would have remained virtuous; but his virtue,
would have been restless, for it would have been merely the fruit
of circumstance. His crime becomes a punishment to him, because
it is circumstance which has forced him to commit it; this crime
did not proceed from the depths of Macbeth's nature, and yet it
clings to him, envelops him, enchains him, racks him in every
part, and thus creates for him a troubled and irremissible
destiny, in which the unhappy victim vainly writhes, doing
nothing that does not plunge him still deeper, and with
increasing despair, into the career which is henceforward
prescribed to him by his implacable persecutor. Macbeth is one of
those characters marked out in all superstitions to become the
prey and instrument of the perverse spirit who takes pleasure in
destroying them, because they have received some spark of the
divine nature, and who, at the same time, meets with but few
difficulties in his task, for the heavenly light darts but a few
fleeting rays into their souls, which are obscured by storms at
every instant.

Lady Macbeth is just exactly the wife of such a man, the product
of the same state of civilization, and of the same habit of
passions. She adds to this, moreover, the fact that she is a
woman without prudence, without generality in her views,
perceiving at once only a single part of a single idea, and
giving herself up to it entirely, without ever admitting any
thing that might distract or disturb her attention from it.
{205}
The feelings which belong to her sex are not unknown to her; she
loves her husband, knows the pleasures of a mother, and could not
kill Duncan herself, because he resembled "her father as he
slept;" but she aspires to be queen, and for this cause Duncan
must die; she sees nothing in the death of Duncan but the
pleasure of being queen; her courage is easy, for she does not
perceive any thing to make her recoil from the deed. When her
passion is satisfied and the action committed, then only will the
other consequences be revealed to her as a novelty of which she
previously had not the slightest anticipation. Those fears, and
that necessity for new crimes, which her husband had foreseen at
the outset, she has never thought of. She was quite willing to
throw the crime upon the two chamberlains, but it was not her
idea to kill them; she did not arrange the murder of Banquo, or
the massacre of Macduff's family; she did not see so far forward;
she had not even divined the effect which would be produced upon
her by such a sight, when she entered the room in which Duncan
lay dead. She leaves it in agitation, no longer contemning the
terrors of her husband, but merely urging him not to dwell too
much upon images, by which we see that she is beginning to feel
herself besieged. The blow is struck, and will reveal itself in
the admirable and terrible scene of her somnambulism: there we
shall learn what becomes of a character apparently so immovable,
when it is no longer sustained by the blind fury of passion.
Macbeth has become hardened in crime, after having hesitated to
commit it, because he knew its character; but we shall see his
wife, succumbing beneath the knowledge which she has acquired too
late, substitute one fixed idea for another, die to deliver
herself from its influence, and punish, by the madness of
despair, the crime which she was led to commit by the madness of
ambition.

{206}

The other personages, introduced merely to fill up this great
picture of the progress and destiny of crime, have no other color
than that of the position given them by history. The Witches are,
indeed, what they should be, and I do not know why it is the
custom to exclaim with disgust against this portion of the
representation of "Macbeth." When we see these vile creatures the
arbiters of life and death, of all the chances and all the
interests of humanity, disposing of them in accordance with the
most contemptible caprices of their odious nature, to the terror
which their power inspires is added the dread occasioned by their
unreason, and the very absurdity of such a spectacle only
augments its effect.

The style of "Macbeth" is remarkable, in its wild energy, for a
refinement which we may indeed blame, but which it would be wrong
to consider as contrary to truth as it is to naturalness.
Refinement of language is not incompatible with rudeness of
manners and ideas; it seems even to be rather common in times and
positions in which general ideas are wanting. The mind, which can
not remain idle, then attaches itself to the slightest verbal
connections, takes delight in them, and makes a habit of them,
which we meet with in all analogous positions. Nothing can be
more far-fetched than the spirit of the literature of the Middle
Ages; and what we know of the speech of savages contains many
choice ideas. Refinement is the characteristic of the wits of the
lower classes; and even the insults of the common people are
sometimes composed with a quite singular fastidiousness, as if,
at those times when anger excites their faculties, their mind
seized with greater facility and abundance upon relations of this
kind, the only ones which it was capable of attaining.

{207}

It is believed that "Macbeth" was performed in 1606. The idea of
writing a tragedy upon this subject, which would necessarily be
pleasing to King James, who had just ascended the throne of
England, was probably suggested to Shakspeare by a short poetical
dialogue, which the students of Oxford, in 1605, recited in Latin
before the king, and in English before the queen, who had
accompanied him to that city. The students were three in number,
and probably spoke in turn. Their speech turned upon the
prediction uttered to Banquo; and, in allusion to the triple
salutation which Macbeth had received, they hailed James King of
England, Scotland, and Ireland. They also hailed him King of
France, which destroyed, somewhat gratuitously, the virtue of the
number _three_.

{208}


                  Julius Cæsar.

                     (1607.)


Among those tragedies of Shakspeare to which public opinion has
assigned a first rank, "Julius Cæsar" is the one of which the
commentators have spoken most coldly. Johnson, the coldest of
them all, contents himself with saying: "Of this tragedy, many
particular passages deserve regard, and the contention and
reconcilement of Brutus and Cassius is universally celebrated;
but I have never been strongly agitated in perusing it, and think
it somewhat cold and unaffecting, compared with some other of
Shakspeare's plays."

It is to adopt an entirely false principle of criticism to judge
Shakspeare by himself, and to compare the impressions which he
has succeeded in producing, in a given style and subject, with
those which he calls forth in another style and subject; as if he
possessed only a special and singular merit, which he was bound
to display on every occasion, and which constituted his sole
title to glory. His vast and true genius must be measured on a
larger scale; we must compare Shakspeare with nature, with the
world; and in every particular case, the comparison must be made
between that portion of the world and of nature which it was his
intention to represent, and the picture which he has drawn of it.
{209}
Do not expect from the painter of Brutus the same impressions and
the same effects as from the delineator of King Lear, or of Romeo
and Juliet. Shakspeare penetrates to the inmost recesses of all
subjects, and can derive from each the impressions which
naturally flow from it, and the distinct and original effects
which it ought to produce.

That, after this, the spectacle of the soul of Brutus should he,
to Johnson, less touching and dramatic than the display of any
particular passion, or of any particular position in life, is a
result of the personal inclinations of the critic, and of the
turn taken by his ideas and feelings. We can not find in it a
general rule upon which we may found a comparison between works
of an absolutely different kind. There are minds so constituted
that Corneille will fill them with more emotions than Voltaire,
and a mother will feel her nature more agitated and disturbed by
Mérope than by Zaire. The mind of Johnson, more strong and
upright than it was elevated, could understand tolerably well the
interests and passions which agitate the middle region of life,
but he never could attain to those lofty eminences in which a
truly stoical soul can exist without effort or distraction. The
age in which Johnson lived, moreover, was not an age of great
devotements; and although, even at that epoch, the political
climate of England preserved its literature in some degree from
that effeminate influence which had enervated our own, it could
not entirely escape from that general disposition of the national
mind, that sort of moral materialism, which, granting, as it
were, to the soul no other life but that which it derives from
the contact of external objects, did not suppose it possible for
it to be supplied with other sources of interest than the
_pathetic_, properly so called--the individual sorrows of
life, the anguish of the heart, and the storms of the passions.
{210}
This disposition of the eighteenth century was so powerful, that,
when introducing the death of Cæsar upon our stage, Voltaire, who
justly boasted that he had made a tragedy succeed without the aid
of love, nevertheless did not think that such a spectacle could
dispense with the pathetic interest which results from the
painful conflict of duty and affection. In this great struggle of
the last efforts of dying liberty against budding despotism, he
sought out, and gave the first place to, an obscure and doubtful
fact, but one which was adapted to furnish him with the kind of
emotions of which he stood in need; and from the position, real
or fictitious, of Brutus placed between his father and his
country, Voltaire has constructed the basis and lifespring of his
tragedy.

Shakspeare's drama rests entirely upon the character of Brutus;
and he has even been blamed for not having entitled his work
"Marcus Brutus" instead of "Julius Cæsar." But if Brutus is the
hero of the play, the power and death of Cæsar form its subject.
Cæsar alone occupies the foreground; the horror felt for his
power, and the necessity of deliverance from it, fill the whole
of the first part of the drama; the other half is consecrated to
the recollection and consequences of his death. It is, as Antony
says,

  "Cæsar's spirit ranging for revenge;"

and, that his sway may not be lost sight of, it is still his
spirit which, on the plains of Sardis and of Philippi, appears to
Brutus as his evil genius.

{211}

The picture of this great catastrophe, however, finishes with the
death of Brutus. Shakspeare desired to interest us in the event
of his drama only as it related to Brutus, just as he has
presented Brutus to us only in relation to the event. The fact
which furnishes the subject of the tragedy, and the character
which accomplishes it, the death of Cæsar and the character of
Brutus--this is the union which constitutes Shakspeare's dramatic
work, just as the union of soul and body constitutes life, both
elements being equally necessary to the existence of the
individual. Before the death of Cæsar was planned, the play does
not begin; after the death of Brutus, it ends.

It is, then, upon the character of Brutus, the soul of his drama,
that Shakspeare has stamped the impress of his genius; and it is
all the more admirable in this picture, because, while remaining
faithful to history, he has made it also a work of creation, and
has presented Plutarch's Brutus to us as truthfully and
completely in the scenes which the poet has imagined, as in those
which the historian had supplied. That dreamy spirit ever busied
in self-examination, that disturbance of a stern conscience at
the first indications of a duty that is still doubtful, that calm
and resolute firmness as soon as the duty becomes certain, that
profound and almost painful sensibility, ever restrained by the
rigor of the most austere principles, that gentleness of soul
which never disappears for a single moment amid the most cruel
offices of virtue--in fine, the character of Brutus, as its idea
is present to us all, proceeds animate and unchanging through the
different scenes of life in which we meet it, and in which we can
not doubt that it appeared under the very aspect with which the
poet has clothed it.

Perhaps this historical fidelity may have occasioned the coldness
of Shakspeare's critics regarding the tragedy of "Julius Cæsar."
They could not discover in it those features of almost wild
originality which strike us in the works which Shakspeare has
composed upon modern subjects, foreign to the actual habits of
our life, as well as to the classical ideas upon which the habits
of our mind nave been formed.
{212}
The manners of Hotspur are certainly more original to us than
those of Brutus, and they are also more original in themselves.
The grandeur of the characters of the Middle Ages is strongly
impressed with originality; the grandeur of the ancients arises
with regularity upon the basis of certain general principles,
which leave no other sensible difference between individuals than
the difference of elevation to which they attain. This was felt
by Shakspeare; he merely thought to enhance Brutus, and not to
make him singular. The other personages, being placed in an
inferior sphere, resume somewhat of the liberty of their
individual character, because they are free from that rule of
perfection which duty imposes upon Brutus. The poet also seems to
play around them with less respect, and to allow himself to
ingraft upon them several forms which belong to himself rather
than to them. Cassius, disdainfully comparing the bodily strength
of Cæsar to his own, and running through the streets of Rome by
night in the midst of the storm, to assuage the fever of dangers
which devours him, bears much greater resemblance to a comrade of
Canute or of Harold than to a Roman of the time of Cæsar; but
this barbarian tint throws over the irregularities of Cassius an
interest which would not, perhaps, arise with such liveliness
from the historical resemblance. M. Schlegel, whose opinions upon
Shakspeare always deserve great consideration, seems to me,
however, to fall into a slight error when he remarks that "the
poet has pointed out with great nicety the superiority of Cassius
over Brutus in independent volition and discernment in judging of
human affairs."
{213}
I think, on the contrary, that Shakspeare's admirable art
consists, in this piece, in preserving to the principal personage
an entire superiority, even when he is mistaken, and in making
this evident by the very fact that he falls into error, and yet
is deferred to, and that the reason of the others yields with
confidence to the mistake of Brutus. Brutus goes so far as to do
himself a wrong; in his quarrel with Cassius, overcome for a
moment by terrible and secret grief, he forgets the moderation
which becomes him; in fine, Brutus is wrong once, and yet Cassius
humbles himself, for Brutus has in fact continued greater than
he.

Cæsar's character may perhaps appear to us rather too much
disfigured by that boastfulness which is common to all barbarous
times in which individual force, incessantly called upon to
engage in the most terrible struggles, can sustain itself only by
a lofty consciousness of its own power, and even has need to be
supported by the idea which others entertain of it. It was
necessary to display in Cæsar the force which had subjugated the
Romans, and the pride which crushed them; Shakspeare had only one
position in which he could manifest this state of the soul of his
hero; and he, consequently, laid the color on too thickly.
Nevertheless, his Cæsar, I confess, does not appear to me more
false than our own. Shakspeare even seems to me to have better
preserved, in the midst of his rhodomontades, those forms of
equality which the despot of a republic ever maintains toward
those whom he oppresses.

The tone of "Julius Cæsar" is more generally sustained than that
of most of the other tragedies of Shakspeare. Scarcely,
throughout the whole of the part of Brutus, do we meet with a
single vulgar image; and the only one at all open to the charge
of vulgarity occurs when he gives way to anger.
{214}
The visible care which the poet has taken to imitate the laconic
language which history attributes to his hero has very rarely led
him into affectation, unless perhaps in the speech of Brutus to
the people, which is a model of the scholastic eloquence of the
age in which the author lived. The language of Cassius, more
figurative because it is more passionate, and distinguished by a
less simple loftiness than that of Brutus, is nevertheless
equally exempt from triviality. Antony's harangue is a model of
adroitness, and of the feigned simplicity of a skillful tactician
who is desirous to gain the minds of a coarse and changeful
multitude. Voltaire blames Shakspeare, at least with severity,
for having presented under a comic form the scene at the feast of
Lupercal, the substance of which, he says, "is so noble and
interesting." Voltaire sees here nothing but a crown demanded of
a free people who refuse it; but Cæsar making himself, in
presence of the people, the actor of a farce prepared for his own
aggrandizement, and in despair at the applause bestowed on the
manner in which he acts his part, was in truth, to the wits of
Rome, something extremely comic, which could not be presented to
them under any other form.

The action of the piece comprises the period from the triumph of
Cæsar, after the victory gained over young Pompey, until the
death of Brutus, which gives it a duration of nearly three years
and a half.

There is in English another tragedy on "Julius Cæsar," composed
by Lord Sterline, and known to the public, as it would appear,
several years before Shakspeare composed his drama, so that he
may have borrowed some ideas from it. This tragedy ends with the
death of Cæsar, which the author has thrown into the narrative
form.
{215}
A Doctor Richard Eedes, celebrated in his time as a tragic poet,
had also written a Latin play on the same subject, which was
printed, it is said, in 1582, but which has been lost, as well as
an English play entitled "The History of Cæsar and Pompey," which
was written before the year 1579. In 1607, a play was printed in
London under the title of "The Tragedie of Cæsar and Pompey, or
Cæsar's Revenge." This drama, which extends from the battle of
Pharsalia to that of Philippi, was performed at a private theatre
by some students of Oxford, and it is supposed that it was
printed in consequence of the successful performance of
Shakspeare's tragedy, which Malone's chronology refers to the
same year, 1607.

"Julius Cæsar" was performed, as corrected by Dryden and
Davenant, under the title of "Julius Cæsar, with the Death of
Brutus," and was printed in London in 1719.

The Duke of Buckingham also remodeled this same tragedy, dividing
it into two parts; the first under the title of "Julius Cæsar,"
with many alterations, a prologue, and a chorus; and the second
under the title of "Marcus Brutus," with a prologue and two
choruses. Both were printed in 1722.

{216}


                    Othello.

                    (1611.)


"There was once in Venice a Moor of great merit, who, for his
personal courage, and the proofs he had given of his conduct, as
well as his vigorous genius in the affairs of war, was held in
great esteem by the lords of the republic. It happened that a
virtuous woman, of great beauty, called Desdemona, not drawn by
female appetite, but by the virtue of the Moor, fell in love with
him; and he, subdued by the charms and noble sentiments of the
lady, became equally enamored of her. Their passion was so
successful that they were married, although her relations did all
in their power to make her take another husband. They lived
together in such peace and concord while they were at Venice,
that there never passed between them either word or action that
was not expressive of affection. The Venetians, resolving to
change the garrison which they maintain in Cyprus, selected the
Moor to the command of the troops which they destined for that
island. Although he was extremely pleased with the honor proposed
to him, yet was his joy diminished when he reflected on the
length and inconvenience of the voyage. His wife was very much
vexed at seeing the Moor disturbed; and, not knowing the reason,
said to him one day at dinner, 'How can you be so melancholy,
after having received from the Senate so high and so honorable a
distinction?'
{217}
'My love for you, Desdemona,' replied the Moor, 'disturbs my
enjoyment of the rank conferred upon me, since I am now exposed
to this alternative--I must either endanger your life by sea, or
leave you at Venice. The first will be terrible, as I shall
suffer extremely from every fatigue you undergo, from every
danger that threatens you; the second would render me
insupportable to myself, as parting from you would be parting
from my life.' 'Ah! husband,' returned Desdemona, 'why do you
perplex yourself with such idle imaginations? I will follow you
wherever you go, though it were necessary to pass through fire
instead of only going by water in a safe and well-equipped
vessel.' The Moor then tenderly embraced his wife, saying, 'May
Heaven long preserve us in this degree of reciprocal affection!'
Soon afterward, he went on board the galley with his wife, and
sailed for Cyprus with a favorable wind.

"He had in his company an ensign of a very amiable outward
appearance, but whose character was extremely treacherous and
base. This rascal had also conducted his wife with him to Cyprus,
who was a handsome and discreet woman; and, being an Italian,
Desdemona was so fond of her that they passed the greatest part
of their time together. In the same company was also a
lieutenant, to whom the Moor was much attached. The lieutenant
went often to the Moor's house, and dined frequently with him and
his wife. Desdemona, seeing that the Moor was so fond of him,
showed him every mark of attention and civility, with which the
Moor was much pleased. The detestable ensign, forgetting his duty
to his own wife, and violating all the laws of friendship, honor,
and gratitude with which he was bound to the Moor, fell
passionately in love with Desdemona, and sought by all the
private means in his power to make her conscious of his love.
{218}
But she was so entirely taken up with the Moor that she thought
neither of him nor of any one else; and all that he did to engage
her affections produced not the least effect. He then took it
into his head that this neglect arose from her being pre-engaged
in favor of the lieutenant; and not only determined to get rid of
him, but changed his affection for her into the most bitter
hatred. He studied, besides, how he might prevent in future the
Moor from living happily with Desdemona, should his passion not
be gratified. Revolving in his mind a variety of methods, all
impious and abominable, he at last determined to accuse her to
the Moor of adultery with the lieutenant. But knowing the Moor's
great affection for Desdemona, and his friendship for the
lieutenant, he determined to wait till time and place afforded
him a fit opportunity for entering on his wicked design; and it
was not long before the Moor degraded the lieutenant for having
drawn his sword and wounded a soldier upon guard. This accident
was so painful to Desdemona that she often tried to obtain for
him her husband's pardon. In the mean time, the Moor had observed
to the ensign that his wife teased him so much in favor of the
lieutenant that he feared he should be obliged at last to restore
to him his commission. 'Perhaps,' said the villain, 'Desdemona is
fond of his company.' 'And why?' said the Moor. 'Nay,' replied
he, 'I do not choose to meddle between man and wife; but if you
watch her properly, you will understand me.' Nor would he, to the
earnest entreaties of the Moor, afford any further explanation."
[Footnote 27]

    [Footnote 27: See Giraldi Cinthio's "Hecatommithi," printed
    in Payne Collier's "Shakspeare's Library," vol. ii.]

{219}

The novelist then goes on to relate all the practices of the
perfidious ensign to convince Othello of Desdemona's infidelity.
There is not a single detail in Shakspeare's tragedy which does
not occur also in Cinthio's novel. The handkerchief of Desdemona,
that precious handkerchief which the Moor had inherited from his
mother, and which he had given to his wife during the early days
of their love; the manner in which the ensign obtains possession
of it, and leads to its discovery in the chamber of the
lieutenant, whom he is desirous to ruin; the Moor's insistence
upon having this handkerchief produced, and the trouble into
which Desdemona is thrown by its loss; the artful conversation of
the ensign with the lieutenant, to which the Moor listens at a
distance, and fancies he hears all that he dreads; the plot of
the duped Moor and the wretch who is deceiving him, to
assassinate the lieutenant; the blow which the ensign strikes him
from behind, and which cuts off his leg; in a word, all the
facts, whether important or not, upon which the various scenes of
the play successively rest, have been supplied to the poet by the
novelist, who had doubtless added a great number of
embellishments to the historical tradition which he had
discovered. The _dénouement_ alone is different; in the
novel, the Moor and the ensign together murder Desdemona during
the night, pull down the ceiling on the bed in which she slept,
and say she has been crushed by this accident. The true cause of
her death long remains unknown. Ere long the Moor conceives a
dislike to the ensign, and dismisses him from his army. Another
adventure leads the ensign, on his return to Venice, to accuse
the Moor of the murder of his wife. The Moor is recalled to
Venice and put to the torture, but he denies the charge; he is
banished, and the relatives of Desdemona have him assassinated in
his exile.
{220}
A new crime leads to the arrest of the ensign, and he dies racked
with tortures. "The ensign's wife, who had been informed of the
whole affair," says Giraldi Cinthio, "after his death, thus
circumstantially related this story."

It is clear that this _dénouement_ could nob be brought on
the stage; and Shakspeare changed it because it was absolutely
necessary to do so. In other respects, he has retained and
reproduced every incident; and not only has he omitted nothing,
but he has added nothing. He seems to have attached almost no
importance to the facts themselves; he took them as he found
them, without giving himself the trouble to invent the slightest
addition, or to alter the slightest incident.

He has, however, created the whole; for, into the facts which he
has thus exactly borrowed from another, he has infused a vitality
which they did not inherently possess. The narrative of Giraldi
Cinthio is complete; it is deficient in nothing that seems
essential to the interest of a recital; situations, incidents,
progressive development of the principal event, external and
material construction, so to speak, of a pathetic and singular
adventure--all these things are contained in it, ready for use;
and some of the conversations even are not wanting in a natural
and touching simplicity. But the genius which supplies the actors
to such a scene, which creates individuals, imparts to each his
peculiar figure and character, and enables us to witness their
actions, to hear their words, to anticipate their thoughts, and
to enter into their feelings; that vivifying power which commands
facts to rise, to go onward, to display themselves and to effect
their accomplishment; that creative breath, which, diffusing
itself over the past, resuscitates it, and fills it in some sort
with a present and imperishable vitality; this is what Shakspeare
alone possessed; and by means of this, from a forgotten novel, he
made "Othello."

{221}

All subsists, in fact, and yet all is changed. We no longer hear
of a Moor, a lieutenant, an ensign, and a woman, the victim of
jealousy and treason. We behold Othello, Cassio, Iago, and
Desdemona real and living beings, who resemble no other, who
present themselves in flesh and bone before the spectator--all
entwined by the bonds of a common position, all carried away by
the same event, yet each having his own personal nature and
distinct physiognomy, and each co-operating to produce the
general effect by ideas, feelings, passions, and acts which are
peculiar to him, and result from his individuality. It was not
the fact, it was not the position which struck the poet, and from
which he sought to obtain all his means of a wakening interest
and emotion. The position appeared to him to possess the
conditions of a great dramatic scene; the fact struck him as a
suitable frame-work into which life might be appropriately
introduced. Suddenly he gave birth to beings complete in
themselves, animated and tragic, independently of every
particular position and every determinate fact; he brought them
forth capable of feeling, and of displaying beneath our eyes all
that the special event in which they were about to take part
could make human nature experience and produce; and he launched
them forth into this event, feeling very sure that, whatever
circumstances might be furnished him by the narrative, he would
find in them, as he had made them, a fruitful source of pathetic
effects and of truth.

{222}

Thus the poet creates, and such is poetical genius. Events, and
even positions, are not what he deems most important, or what he
takes delight in inventing; his power aims at exercising itself
otherwise than in searching after incidents of a more or less
singular character, and adventures of a more or less touching
nature; it manifests itself by the creation of man himself; and
when it creates man, it creates him complete, armed at all points
as he should be, to suffice for all the vicissitudes of life, and
to present the aspect of reality in every sense of the word.
Othello is something far more than a blind and jealous husband,
urged to commit murder by his jealousy; this is only his position
during the play, and his character goes far beyond his position.
The sun-burned Moor, with ardent blood, and a keen and brutal
imagination, credulous by the violence of his temperament as well
as by the excess of his passion; the successful soldier, proud of
his fortune and his glory, respectful and submissive to the power
from which he holds his rank, never forgetting the duties of war
in the blandishments of love, and bitterly regretting the joys of
war when he loses all the happiness of love; the man whose life
has been harsh and agitated, for whom gentle and tender pleasures
are something novel which astonishes while it delights him, and
which does not inspire him with a feeling of security, although
his character is full of generosity and confidence; Othello, in a
word, delineated, not only in those portions of himself which
have a present and direct connection with the accidental position
in which he is placed, but in the whole extent of his nature, and
as he has been made by the entire course of his destiny; this is
what Shakspeare enables us to see. In the same manner, Iago is
not merely an irritated enemy desirous of revenge, or an ordinary
rascal anxious to destroy a happiness which he can not
contemplate with satisfaction; he is a cynical and reasoning
wretch, who has made for himself a philosophy of egotism and a
science of crime; who looks upon men merely as instruments or
obstacles to his personal interests; who despises virtue as an
absurdity, and yet hates it as an injury; who preserves entire
independence of thought, while engaged in the most servile
conduct; and who, at the very moment when his crimes are about to
cost him his life, still enjoys, with ferocious pride, the evil
which he has done, as if it were a proof of his superiority.

{223}

Pass in review all the personages of the tragedy, from its heroes
down to the least important characters--Desdemona, Cassio,
Emilia, Bianca; we behold them appearing, not under vague
aspects, and with those features only which correspond to their
dramatic position, but with precise and complete forms, and all
the elements which constitute personality. Cassio is not
introduced merely to become the object of Othello's jealousy, and
as a necessity of the drama; he has his own character,
inclinations, qualities, and defects; and from what he is
naturally flows the influence which he exercises upon what occurs
to him. Emilia is not merely an attendant employed by the poet as
an instrument either of the entanglement or of the discovery of
the perfidies which lead to the catastrophe; she is the wife of
Iago, whom she does not love, and whom she obeys because she
fears him; but although she distrusts him, she has actually
contracted, in the society of that man, somewhat of the
immorality of his mind; nothing is pure either in her thoughts or
in her words; and yet she is kind-hearted and attached to her
mistress, and detests evil and deeds of darkness. Bianca herself
has her own physiognomy, entirely independent of the little part
which she plays in the action. Forget the events, set aside the
drama, and all these personages will continue real, animated, and
distinct; they possess inherent vitality, and their existence
will not disappear with their position. In them is displayed the
creative power of the poet, and the facts, to him, are only the
stage upon which he bids his characters appear.

{224}

Just as the novel of Giraldi Cinthio, in Shakspeare's hands,
became "Othello," so, in the hands of Voltaire, "Othello" became
"Zaire." I do not wish to compare the two works; such comparisons
are almost always vain _jeux d'esprit_, which prove nothing,
except the personal opinion of the judge himself. Voltaire also
was a man of genius; the best proof of genius is the empire which
it wields over men; wherever the power of interesting, moving,
and charming a whole people is displayed, this fact alone answers
every objection; genius is there, whatever fault may be found
with the dramatic system or the poet. But it is curious to
observe the infinite variety of the means by which genius
manifests itself, and how many different forms the same
ground-work of positions and feelings may receive from it.

Shakspeare borrowed facts from the Italian novelist; with the
exception of the _dénouement_, he has rejected and invented
none. Now facts are precisely what Voltaire has not borrowed from
Shakspeare. The entire contexture of the drama, the places,
incidents, and springs of action, are all new--all of his own
creation. That which struck Voltaire, and which he desired to
reproduce, was the passion, the jealousy--its blindness and
violence; the conflict of love and duty, and its tragic results.
The whole power of his imagination was brought to bear upon the
development of this position. The fable, a free invention, was
constructed with this sole end in view. Lusignan, Nerestan, the
ransom of the prisoners--all the circumstances are intended to
place Zaire between her love and the faith of her father, to
explain the error of Orosmane, and thus to lead to the
progressive manifestation of the feelings which the poet desired
to delineate.
{225}
He has not impressed upon his personages an individual and
complete character, independent of the circumstances in which
they appear. They exist only by and for passion. Beyond their
love and their misfortune, Orosmane and Zaire have nothing to
distinguish them, to give them a physiognomy peculiarly their
own, and to make them every where recognizable. They are not real
individuals, in whom are revealed, in connection with one of the
incidents of their life, the particular characteristics of their
nature and the impress of their whole existence. They are in some
sort general, and consequently, somewhat vague beings, in whom
love, jealousy, and misfortune are momentarily personified, and
who interest less on their own account, and by reason of their
own character, than because they then become for a time the
representatives of this portion of the feelings and possible
destinies of human nature.

From this manner of conceiving the subject, Voltaire has derived
admirable beauties. Grave defects and omissions have also
resulted from it. The gravest of all is that romantic tint which,
as it were, subjects the whole man to love, and thus limits the
field of poetry, at the same time that it derogates from truth. I
will quote only one example of the effects of this system; but it
will suffice to indicate all.

The Senate of Venice has just assured Othello of the tranquil
possession of Desdemona; he is happy, but he must depart; he must
embark for Cyprus, and devote his attention to the expedition
confided to his care; so he says,

  "Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
   Of love, of worldly matter and direction,
   To spend with thee: we must obey the time."

{226}

These lines struck Voltaire, and he has imitated them; but, in
imitating them, what does he put into the mouth of Orosmane, when
equally happy and confident? Just the contrary of what Othello
says:

  "Je vais donner une heure aux soins de mon empire,
   Et le reste du jour sera a Zaire."

Thus Orosmane, the proud sultan, who, a moment before, was
speaking of war and conquest, expressing his alarm for the fate
of the Mussulmans, and blaming the sloth of his neighbors, now
appears as neither sultan nor warrior; he forgets all else, and
becomes only a lover. Assuredly, Othello is not less passionate
than Orosmane, and his passion will be neither less credulous nor
less violent; but he does not abdicate, in an instant, all the
interests, and all the thoughts, of his past and future life.
Love possesses his heart without invading his whole existence.
The passion of Orosmane is that of a young man who has never done
any thing, and never had any thing to do, and who is as yet
ignorant of the necessities and labors of the real world. That of
Othello takes root in a more complete, more experienced, and more
serious character. I believe it to be less factitious, and in
greater conformity to moral probabilities, as well as to positive
truth. But, however this may be, the difference between the two
systems is fully revealed in this feature alone. In one the
passion and the position are all; from them the poet derives all
his means. In the other he obtains his resources from individual
characters and the whole of human nature; passion and a position
are, for him, only an opportunity for bringing them on the stage
with greater energy and interest.

{227}

The action which constitutes the subject of "Othello" must be
referred to the year 1570, the period of the principal attack of
the Turks on the island of Cyprus, then under the rule of the
Venetians. As for the date of the composition of the tragedy
itself, Mr. Malone fixes it in the year 1611. Some critics doubt
whether Shakspeare was acquainted with the original novel of
Giraldi Cinthio, and suppose that he only had access to a French
imitation of it, published at Paris in 1584, by Gabriel Chappuys.
But the exactness with which Shakspeare has conformed to the
Italian narrative, even in the slightest details, leads me to
believe that he made use of some more literal English
translation.

{228}

              Shakspeare's Othello,

                       And

          Dramatic Art In France In 1830

          By The Duke De Broglie. [Footnote 28]

    [Footnote 28: Reprinted from the "Revue Franca se."
    January. 1830]


It was not in vain that some far-seeing, conservative, and
especially wise spirits addressed themselves to the authorities
in the year of grace 1829; and not without good reason did they
call to their aid Cæsar and his legions--that is to say, his
excellency the Minister of the Interior and the honorable
gentlemen of the Chamber of Deputies, adjuring them to save the
sanctuary of the Muses from ruin, and to repulse the onward
advance of the barbarians. The danger was only too real; and this
time, as in times gone by, as Cæsar paid no regard to it, their
pathetic complaints, their _gemitus Britannorum_, having
been dissolved into empty vapor, behold now the evil has become
irremediable! The barbarians who knocked at the doors, emboldened
by impunity, have forced their way through the first inclosure;
they have made a breach in the body of the place; or rather, they
have constrained the citadel itself to capitulate. The Théâtre
Français has surrendered through want of timely succor, because
the opportunity for infusing into it new vitality was neglected.
Attila-Shakspeare has taken possession of it with arms and
baggage, his banners are streaming, and the clang of a thousand
trumpet-calls sound in wild confusion.
{229}
Alas! poor poets of the old school, what will become of you?
Naught remains but that feeble souls should surrender at
discretion, and sacrifice themselves on the altars of the false
gods, and that true believers should cover their faces with their
mantles.

Banter apart, the revolution which has for some time been going
on in the taste of the public is a curious phenomenon, and one
singularly worthy of attention. Never has a remarkable change
been introduced in a more startling mode and with greater
rapidity.

Scarcely twenty years have elapsed since M. Nepomucène Lemercier
launched, on the stage of the Odeon, the vessel which conveyed
Christopher Columbus and his genius from Spain to America. We
know what was the actual reception which this attempt in the
romantic style met with. However, the name of the author
commanded respect, and his rare talent gave him at least a right
to indulgence. In other respects he proved himself quite as hardy
and prudent as his hero; he had, before hazarding his adventure,
neglected nothing in order to disarm the prejudices of the pit.
He only offered this foundling child as a caprice of his
imagination--an unimportant freak; in decorating it, he had not
scrupled to profane the consecrated regulations of tragedy, of
comedy, yea, even of melodrama. His friends protested in favor of
his profound regard for the triple unity; for the most sacred
Aristotelian trinity; for the canonical precepts which had been
consecrated in the poetic codes of Horace and Boileau, and
illustrated in the learned glosses of Le Batteux and La Harpe,
and in the "Rhetoric for Young Ladies." Useless precautions! In
spite of the originality and unquestionable beauties which he
displayed, his unfortunate "Columbus" was outrageously and
repeatedly hissed.
{230}
Those who ventured to do him justice paid dearly for such
audacity; they narrowly escaped being torn to pieces by the rest
of the spectators, to such an excessive height was the popular
indignation roused; there were, if we remember rightly, two who
were almost knocked down on the spot--martyrs to a cause which
had hardly sprung into life--the John Huss and Jerome of Prague,
of a doctrine which was yet to have its Luther and its
Melancthon.

At the present day, we behold at our theatres, with the greatest
composure, the representation of pieces in which a duration of
some twenty, thirty, or forty years, as the case may be, is
condensed into an hour between eight and nine o'clock in the
evening; pieces in which, literally speaking, the principal
personage,

  "Enfant au premier acte, est barbon au dernier;"

pieces which are not, in other respects, very much entitled to
the indulgence which is thus shown to them. While seated serenely
upon our benches, we follow, without the smallest compunction,
King Louis XI. from Plessis-les-Tours to Péronne, only regretting
that this trifling cruise is not for us entirely a
pleasure-voyage.

Seven or eight years ago two or three English comedians, who
happened to be in Paris, formed the scheme of giving us at the
Theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin--the Theatre of the "Femme à
deux Maris" and of the "Pied de Mouton"--a specimen of their
skill. Forthwith a great stir arose. The capture of Calais and of
Dunkirk by the troops of his Britannic majesty would not
certainly have excited a more patriotic wrath. As the guardians
of pure doctrines, and the depositaries of wholesome traditions
in all matters of taste, the boulevard public took this matter in
hand with a quite inconceivable violence, and had it not been for
the intervention of the police, Heaven only knows whether the
unfortunate gentlemen of the histrionic art from the other side
of the Channel would not have been stoned.

{231}

Who could then have foreseen that, three years later, the lions
of Covent Garden and Drury Lane would continually cross and
recross the Channel to minister to our gratification? that the
most brilliant company of Paris would assiduously throng the most
fashionable of our theatres in order to applaud them to the echo,
and to lavish upon their system of declamation eulogies which
(may we venture to say so?) were perhaps rather exaggerated?

Every one will recollect the murmurs which, on the occasion of
the first representation of the "Cid d'Andalousie," interrupted
that charming scene in which the hero of the piece, sitting
tranquilly at the feet of his beloved--without purpose for the
future, undisturbed by present cares, completely possessed with
the idea of his approaching happiness, profoundly forgetful of
the world, of men, and of all things--occupies her with the fond
recital of the progress of their mutual love, and recalls to her,
in verses full of delicacy and grace, the first stealthy
indications of their unspoken attachment.

On this occasion, neither the talents of Talma nor those of
Mademoiselle Mars could obtain any tolerance from the rigorous
severity of the pit. The pit found that a beautiful scene was an
appendage, that it interfered with the rapidity of the action; in
one word, that it openly violated the rule, _Semper ad eventum
festina;_ it was, therefore, inexorable.

{232}

Enter into the Thèâtre Français on the following day there you
will see Desdemona devoted to death by the stern Othello, yet
half escaping from his sinister designs and terribly distorted
misconceptions, on the point of crossing the threshold of that
fatal chamber which was to become her sepulchre; you will see
her, we say, pausing to detach, piece by piece, in the presence
of the public, the ornaments with which she is decked, and to
converse carelessly with her maid; you will see her interrupt
your confidence in the reality of the distress which is harrowing
her, by informing herself of the news brought from Venice by her
young relative, the messenger of the Senate; then, all at once,
recalling to her memory the days of her childhood, you will hear
her murmur, in an under-tone, an old ballad no way indicating her
position, except by the inexplicable sadness which is impressed
upon her. You will see her at length terminate this conversation
by gravely discussing the virtue and the frailty of women; by
reproving with a modest and indulgent dignity the fickleness of
Emilia, and humbly praying God to watch over her, and to keep her
ever pure and discreet. And you will see the public justly
delighted with this scene, and manifesting far more chagrin than
impatience at its close.

It is right, nevertheless, to remark one thing; namely, that this
remarkable revolution has been accomplished in respect to the
taste of the public rather, or at least more decidedly, than with
respect to its doctrines.

If a dramatic work be presented to the public, constructed
according to the new ideas, it is received with a degree of
eagerness--the public is pleased with it--it alone suffices to
put them into good humor. The cup-and-ball and penny-trumpet
playthings of the favorites of Henry III., more than any kind of
merit that belongs to the piece, have sustained the position of
M. Dumas's drama. [Footnote 29]

    [Footnote 29: "Henri III. et sa Cour."]

{233}

The delight of seeing Richard of England--deformed, crippled, and
facetious--has redeemed whatever might be deemed repulsive in the
subject of "Jane Shore." "Olga" owes its success to the singular
circumstance of its having been played by comic actors; and
"Marino Faliero" owes some little of its repute to the idea which
it suggests of a false alliance between tragedy and melodrama.

But to tolerate, to connive, even to look with some satisfaction,
is not entirely to approve. Should any one attempt to build too
hastily on this foundation, if he were to rush to the conclusion
that this same public has distinctly taken part in the
controversy which has divided the literary world for fifteen or
twenty years, he would very soon find himself considerably
mistaken; in fact, there is often a very great difference between
a man's actions and his principles, and many men who would gladly
be libertines would not dare openly to declare themselves
free-thinkers. Our public smiles at the attempts of the
innovators, but can not escape feeling a few qualms of
conscience; it is gratified at them, but it is not quite sure
whether it has any good right and reason for its gratification.
Success and applause you may obtain from them, and that even at a
very cheap rate; provided, however, that this shall not be
understood as furnishing any authoritative precedent. If, on the
other hand, matters take a more serious turn; if you ask the
public to commit itself by a definite profession of faith, and to
give its sanction, by any reflective and irrevocable act, to any
dogmas of dramatic reform, you will be surprised at finding this
same public infinitely circumspect.

We need not go far in search of the proof of this; the
manifestations which were made at the first representation of the
"Moor of Venice" were such as to leave no doubts on this point.

{234}

On this occasion, in fact, the attempt was made without disguise.
In its reception, there was no possibility of giving a tacit
recognition of the change, while refusing, under shallow
pretexts, to avow it. It was no longer a question as to the
amount of encouragement that might be bestowed on a young author;
there could be no pretense of complacently shutting the eyes to
this or that license, in consideration of the address and caution
shown in the style of its presentation; and no motive for
indulgence could be suggested either by the small importance of
the work itself, or by the more or less fluctuating condition of
the theatre. No! Now a real verdict had to be pronounced; either
a dramatic system entirely opposed to our own must be
inaugurated, before gods and men, or its establishment must be
defeated; either William Shakspeare must be received, or rejected
as a rival of the masters of our stage.

This event had been for a long time in preparation; and the
result was awaited with some impatience. While announcing it with
the most varying expectations, the majority of our public
journals agreed in declaring that this would be a memorable
day--a day on which the dispute between the classical and
romantic schools would be fought out upon an open arena--a day
which must decide either for the triumph or for the failure of
the new doctrines in literature.

Alas for the feebleness of human foresight! This so decisive day
has passed, and, on the whole, we remain in very nearly the same
position as before. The work of the great British tragedian was
saluted with a thunder of applause; this intelligence was
communicated by these same journals, but they also informed us
that the thunder of applause proceeded almost exclusively from a
small group of passionate admirers, who had come with the set
purpose of going into ecstasies at every point, comma, or
interjection, and of bestowing with profuse liberality the
epithets of idiot, imbecile, and dolt upon every one who might
seem to hesitate.
{235}
On the other hand, sufficiently audible hisses broke out in
different places; but it appeared that these hisses proceeded not
less exclusively from another small group, quite as insignificant
as the other, of embittered detractors, resolved to consider
every thing detestable, and to repay with equal liberality the
vituperative epithets hurled at them by their adversaries.
Between these two factions, the body of the audience in the pit
appears to have preserved a reasonable neutrality. They were
evidently on their guard, fearing lest their consecrated maxims
should be violated, and they be led into some hasty
demonstrations of feeling; and yet they were sensible, profoundly
sensible, of the great beauties of the piece. Accordingly, during
the whole course of the representation, they appeared constantly
curious, astonished, moved, indulgent, submitting with good grace
to the boldest departures from received rules; they willingly,
though without warmth or violence, joined in the attempt to
silence the detractors; and they good-naturedly allowed free
scope to the enthusiasts, while taking great care not to enlist
themselves on their side, or to mingle in their transports. Thus,
then, their hearts were gained, but their minds remained still
undecided; the difficulty with our reformers is not in obtaining
a hearing; it is in procuring an open recognition even from those
who give them their best possible wishes. They are in the same
position as that which the negroes of Saint Domingo occupied
during twenty years; the public refuses, or at least hesitates,
to recognize them. But with patience they will ultimately attain
their end; when once, in a revolution, power has been decidedly
gained, right is never long withheld; they have triumphed over
unreasonable habits and prejudices, and over involuntary
opposition; this was the most intricate part of their work;
theories, especially those which are a little superannuated, have
not so lingering an existence.

{236}

Such, then, being the state of things--the progress of the spirit
of innovation becoming every day increasingly manifest--it
remains that we should inquire into the cause of this, and ask
whether the change is for the better or for the worse--whether
the spirit of innovation is, this time, a spirit of light or a
spirit of darkness!

A spirit of darkness, it is exclaimed, from one quarter--a
veritable child of perdition!

Consult, for instance, many of our men of taste; enter, if
admission is allowed to you, into one of their assemblies; and
there, at first, you will hear much noise about the confusion of
species, the neglect of rules, the forgetfulness of sound
doctrines, and the contempt for true models; afterward, however
little you may feel at ease in this select committee, you will
speedily learn the parties to whom all this disorder is
attributed. The author of "L'Allemagne," the writer of the "Génie
du Christianisme," the translator of "Wallenstein," the two
Schlegels, besides many others, are the guilty individuals; their
heads have been turned, and so they have turned the heads of
their fellows. M. De Stendhal takes his share in these anathemas;
the "Globe" has its allotment. Not even M. Ladvocat, the
publisher of the "Thèâtre Etranger," has escaped from them. More
than one sage poet, whether in the tragic or comic line, will
inform you of this with all the seriousness in the world.
{237}
If no one had ever taken it into his head to translate by the
yard the monstrous productions of the countries situated beyond
the Rhine, the Channel, or the Pyrenees; if he had not afterward
taken pains to publish them on fine paper and in elegant type,
all with a huge parade of advertisements and placards, we should
not have been brought into our present condition.

Well said this, undoubtedly, and still better reasoned!

The innocence of this unsuspecting public has been wantonly
abused. The Parisian folk, like the Pnyxian people in the
"Knights" of Aristophanes, are poor fools who allow themselves to
be misled and duped by evil counsels.

If we diligently make all possible inquiries, we shall also find,
on the left bank of the Seine, a number of saloons, in which are
gathered every evening a company of worthy souls, who lament,
with the truest sincerity, over the corruption of our manners.
Hearing them, we might suspect that fire from heaven must fall
upon us sooner or later; our wretched country is in a worse pass
than even Sodom and Gomorrah; the French Revolution has fatally
corrupted the very core of our hearts; and whom have we to thank
for this accursed revolution? The Encyclopedists, M. Turgot and
his reforms, the publication of M. Necker's Compte-Rendu,
the--who knows what? perhaps the substitution of waistcoats for
vests, and the introduction of cabs!

The two arguments are equally forcible. To throw fire and flames
at the corruption of manners, and to raise loud cries about the
decay of taste, to attribute it either to this or that event, to
accuse these or those writers--one is, in truth, worth about as
much as the other; the justice, good sense, and discernment are
equal in either case.

{238}

May we not, in fact, say that the general sentiments of the
masses, their habitual dispositions, and the ideas which rule
them, are things which attach themselves to nothing, and which
totter when they are but touched with the finger's end? May we
not say that these are at the mercy of any fortuitous
circumstances--things to be disposed of at pleasure by any half
dozen volumes?

The influence of great men is, indeed, vast; we can not forget
it--we would thank Heaven that it is so. And this influence is
especially striking at epochs in which any important change is
accomplished in government, laws, manners, or national taste;
nothing, assuredly, is more natural than this--nothing can be
more just and salutary. But whence do great men derive this
unquestionable ascendency?

They belong to their time--in this fact is the mystery explained;
they respond to its instincts, they anticipate its tendencies;
the appeal which is addressed to all indiscriminately, they are
the first to hear. That which to others is as yet only an
indistinct longing, has disclosed its secret to them. Superior as
they are, they march at the head, unfolding their wings to every
breeze that rises, clearing the path, removing obstacles, and
revealing to the astonished masses the luminous truths and the
eternal laws which occasion their confused desires and their
latest fancies. Herein, and herein only, resides all their power:
this is the condition of their success.

The philosophers of the last century, then, were not the
efficient causes of the great and glorious movement of 1789: such
honor is not theirs. The general causes which, during a long
course of years, prepared for 1789, these same causes in their
early infancy gave birth to the philosophers of the last century.

{239}

And neither are the great writers of the present day the men who
have transformed the taste of the public; we would rather say
that the general causes, which were destined to produce this
metamorphosis, excited and inspired, when the proper moment
arrived, the great writers of our time.

What, then, were the causes of the French Revolution?

This, certainly, is neither the time nor the place to make such
an inquiry; but every man of good sense and true wisdom will
unhesitatingly allow that the causes for such an event must have
been, and in fact were, very numerous, very profound, and very
diversified; that they were active and potent causes--causes
which, by reason of their number, their depth, and their
diversity, were beyond all external control, and against which it
were puerile to entertain any spite, and absurd to attempt any
revolt.

And, perchance, no other than these same causes have now changed
the face of our literature--perchance these same causes have now
renovated the theatre, after having reformed, and precisely
because they have reformed the spectators. If so, need we feel
surprise? is there any thing very extraordinary in this? Would it
not argue a ridiculous puerility to take offense at such a
circumstance, and angrily to hurl stones at it?

Indeed, every thing depends upon the state of all other things;
the human mind is one single fabric. The different faculties,
which in their union constitute the entire man, aid and appeal to
one another continually. Rarely do they march in a regular and
parallel advance; but as soon as any one of them has gained
decidedly upon the others, the others hasten to overtake it.

{240}

During two centuries, the French people offered a singular
spectacle to the world; for that time it moved in the foremost
ranks of European civilization, that is to say, so far as it was
intrinsically worthy of occupying such a position; but to any one
who takes merely a superficial glance, it might appear almost to
have solved the problem of being at once the most frivolous and
the most serious of all peoples--the most frivolous in important
matters, the most flippant in all that affects the great
interests of society and humanity, and the most grave, the most
pedantic in puerilities and trifles. It was, by a hierarchical
division, separated into classes, but this classification no
longer corresponded to any thing that was useful or even real; it
had no end out of itself, that is to say, it only existed for the
mere sake of existence, to excite arrogance and vanity in the
higher ranks, and envy in the lower. However, all social
conditions had this in common, that they were all equally
deprived of all political rights, equally estranged from all
public existence, equally excluded from all participation in
affairs of state, and from all active or civic callings.

The first rank was held by the court nobility. This nobility,
excepting some months of occupation in times of war, was, by its
very birth-right, given up to enjoyment; and this was their
glory.

The provincial nobility occupied the second rank. These, in their
smaller circle, imitated their betters at court. While detesting
their brilliant model, they yet copied it; it never entered into
the thoughts of any of their members to seek, by relations with
the people, a credit and importance which they did not possess by
any qualities of their ancestors, or any favors from their
prince.

{241}

The civic robe had its functions; it was absolutely necessary
that the townsmen should embrace different professions; but the
functions of the magistracy were often an object of ridicule and
disdain. In the great parliamentary families, each aimed at
laying aside the civic robe, in order to become invested with the
embroidered dress. The professions of civic life stamped those
who abandoned themselves to it with vulgarity; in the good
families among the townspeople, each aimed at acquiring some
polish by purchasing a position as secretary to the king.

The artisans in the towns, the villagers in the country, worthy
heirs of Jacques Bonhomme--a gentleman subject to taxes and
duties at discretion--counted for nothing, and were nothing.

What must have been the preferences of a society so constituted?

Three things--three, in truth, and no more: ambition, gallantry,
and dissipation. Ambition, that is to say, the disposition to
gain advancement from a master, to obtain favors, distinctions,
eminent positions, pensions, and to obtain them by favoritism and
the power of being agreeable, by intrigues and solicitations.
Gallantry--the gratification of personal vanity or sensuality.
Lastly, dissipation--dissipation under all forms, hunting
parties and gambling parties, assemblies for pleasure or
debauchery, balls, suppers, sights; dissipation as the definitive
aim of existence, the final end of all means--life having
apparently been given to man only for enjoyment, and time only to
be squandered and killed.

We are speaking of society in general, and without forgetting the
fact that these absolute verdicts, by reason of their very
absoluteness, are always somewhat unjust and exaggerated.

{242}

But it is worthy of remark that in this so vain a mode of
existence, in this state of living and acting, of thinking and
feeling, in which vanity was so predominant, nothing was
abandoned to caprice; no one affected a style of independence; on
the contrary, all was done according to rule--every where was
method to be observed.

Louis XIV., while changing his nobles into courtiers, reducing
his Parliaments to the level of dramatic critics, despoiling the
townspeople of their franchises, and, to say all in one word,
while transforming the political order of the entire nation into
a civil order--had nevertheless contrived in some sort to impress
on the manners and habits which resulted therefrom something of
dignity and formality which belonged not to their nature--far
from it--but to his character.

His court was grave, although the morals of the courtiers were in
no respect better on this account; his magistrates were grave
without being independent; the temper of his times was grave, and
yet servile.

After his reign, that imperious necessity by which man is
impelled to exalt into maxims the motives, whatever they may be,
which determine his conduct, and to refer his own conduct to
certain principles, were it only in order that he may know what
he has done and whither he is tending--which also leads him thus
to regard the actions of others, were it only that he may be able
to approve or condemn them--this necessity operated, if not in
the same sense, yet in one analogous to that in which it had
operated under Louis XIV. Thus the best method of making way in
the world became a science which the old courtier taught _ex
cathedra_ to his children--a science which had its dogmas, its
precepts, and its traditions.

{243}

Not more methodically does an engineer make his approaches to a
place which he is besieging, than did those ambitious of
vindicating the worthiness of their descent push their researches
into the offices of the minister and the cabinets of Versailles.
The Duke De Saint Simon, the most severe, the sincerest, and the
most honorable man that ever lived at the court, devoted three
fourths of his honorable life to the decision of points of
precedence or respect, on his own account or for those connected
with him--questions of which even the most important could, at
the present day, only induce us to shrug our shoulders and to
smile derisively. Sometimes he displayed more character than
would have been necessary, on the other side of the Channel, to
enable a Marlborough or a Bolingbroke to impose peace or war on
their sovereign, and more erudition and research than a
Benedictine would put into a folio volume.

Gallantry was a perpetual war between the two sexes--a war which
had its tactics and stratagems, its principles of attack and
defense, its appropriate times for resistance and surrender, its
rights of conquest, and its law of nations.

In fact, the life of society was obliged to submit to all the
exigencies of a conventional morality, very different from true
morality, often in direct opposition to it, but quite as
rigorous, and even more inaccessible to repentance. It recognized
as the supreme law, even in its most minute details, a certain
code of proprieties, the yoke of which must be borne
gracefully--the sensibilities were to be controlled, while the
scholar must appear perfectly at ease.

Good breeding was the highest of human attainments, and the art
of living the first of all arts.

{244}

It is said that literature expresses the life of society--
especially is this affirmed of dramatic literature. If this be
true, and, in a certain sense, it undoubtedly is true, due
limitations being conceded, then our general literature, and more
especially our drama, must have reflected more or less accurately
this two-fold character of frivolity as to the essence of things,
and pedantry as to their forms.

Accordingly it has done both. Here, too, undoubtedly, exceptions
must be made, and that to a considerable extent. Our literature
has ruled in Europe for a hundred years, and never has it
demanded from men an admiration to which it was not reasonably
and justly entitled; but still, with regard to its most general
features, we may admit that it has been neither learned, as the
literature of Germany at the present time is, and as was Italian
literature in the times of Petrarch and Politian, nor popular as
the literature of Spain was during the period of its greatest
vigor. It was essentially and pre-eminently a polite literature,
in which the main result aimed at was conversation.

The same may be said of our drama. Regarded in its most general
features, it was not so much a national drama as an elegant and
fashionable amusement, a pastime for gentlemen of respectable
station and bearing, at which the public might assist if it paid
liberally for the honor; nearly as it is allowed occasionally to
look on from the outer side of the barriers, and watch the
progress of a dress ball or a state dinner.

Admiration for the ancients was universally affected; our
watch-word was, "Imitate the Ancients;" this was our "Montjoie
Saint-Denis!" in literature. And yet a true appreciation of
antiquity was not possessed by really learned men, even by those
who really did possess a hearty appreciation of the refinements
of Greek and Latin idiom. It is, however, well known that the
period of erudition quickly passed.
{245}
It is not to be denied that, by the middle of the seventeenth
century, sound learning and substantial erudition were every
where on the decline, and that, at the end of the eighteenth,
they had fallen almost into entire neglect. Accordingly, our
dramatic productions only resembled the master-pieces of Greece
in name and in the choice of subjects, by certain purely external
characteristics, by the blind observance of certain maxims, whose
origin was not cared for and whose relative importance was not
appreciated, and by a punctilious deference to the distinction
between different species of the drama. So far as the real
character of the works was concerned, as to the characters,
sentiments, ideas, and colorings introduced, all this was not
only modern, but belonged to the existing state of society--not
only French, but the French of Paris, or even of Versailles.

The appreciation of national history and monuments was hardly in
a better position. There was no taste for antiquities; no
sympathy with the recollections of the masses and the traditions
of the country; there was nothing fresh and living in the study
of foreign languages and literatures.

And how can we wonder at it? In mental culture, as in all other
things, the thread of destiny was in the keeping of good society.
At the cost of living and dying ignorant, it was necessary to be
fashionable, first in the _ruelles_, then in the circles and
entertainments of social life. Poets, orators, historians, or
moralists, under the influence of the court during the reign of
Louis XIV., who honored them increasingly with his notice, but
who always kept them at a proper distance, became all-powerful
under his successor, so as to be in some sort a fourth order in
the state, astonishing at that time France and Europe by the
boldness of their thoughts and the ascendency of their talent:
they were not ashamed to affect the lofty airs of nobles of high
rank, and the petty dignities of coxcombs.
{246}
Thus the writers of France have always ruled the life of men of
the world, and have by their intrigues gained successes in
society, degraded their genius to the limits of its narrow and
confined atmosphere, and flattered those very whims which they
professed to ridicule. No country has shown itself more fertile
in men of great mind than ours; no country has, so much as our
own, compelled these minds, whether they like it or not, to
muffle themselves up in the livery of respectability. We may find
even books of the greatest literary weight which seem, like their
authors, to have adopted the fineries of the time, in order to
adorn their exterior. Can we forbear smiling, for example, when
we see the illustrious Montesquieu sometimes decking his great
work with spangles, and oftener still using epigrams for the
purpose of giving smartness to it; and all in order that the
leaves of his immortal work might enjoy the rare advantage of
being turned over by flippant spirits, and read aloud at ladies'
toilets.

And then, what immeasurable importance was attached to light
literature! What an event was the publication of a new piece, or
of a collection of fugitive poems! What a hit for some election
to a chair, or for some green-room intrigues! What a swarm of
poetasters of all dimensions! What a herd of pretentious
prose-writers on all subjects of interest! And what a conviction
on the part of all these, that the human race ought, laying aside
every other occupation, to fix its eyes upon them alone; and that
the world had been created, five or six thousand years before,
merely that it might enjoy their small productions, assist in
their small triumphs, and take part in their small controversies!

{247}

The French Revolution cast down the whole of this social edifice;
and it has, so to speak, razed it to the ground!

Whether this is an evil or a good, each man must determine for
himself. Certain it is that we owe to this revolution the
restitution of men to their proper ranks, and of things to their
appropriate places; this it is that has restored the true
relation of names and things. Henceforth the serious is serious,
the frivolous is frivolous. Conventionalities have given place to
realities.

The French are equal among themselves; they have their individual
rights to carry out; and they have duties to fulfill toward the
state. All honorable professions are honored; each leads to a
worthy end. No longer are there legal distinctions which are not
derived from any diversity of rights and functions; no longer are
there social distinctions which rest upon no superior merit,
education, or enlightenment. Ambition is obliged to exhibit its
titles, and to show itself in open daylight; depraved habits must
seek concealment; crime must shelter itself under excuses.

In presence of such a new condition of men and things, that which
was formerly denominated the great world must consent that its
star should decline. It has finished as the monarchy of the great
King Louis has finished; it has abdicated as did the Emperor
Napoleon, who regarded the great king as his predecessor, and
neglected no means of reviving the state that existed in his
time. We have seen this great world pass away, with its fantastic
prohibitions and its immoral indulgences, with its flimsy
proprieties and its scrupulous injunctions, with its heroes of
good fortune and its jurisdiction of old women.
{248}
Our court is now only a coterie, if, indeed, it can claim even to
be so much as that; a thousand other coteries share the town
among them; each city of any considerable extent has its own
coteries; all these partial societies are independent of each
other, and make no foolish pretensions to mutual domination or
remonstrance; every one amuses himself where and how he can, and
no one finds fault with him; and, accordingly, no one attempts to
extract glory out of his pleasures, and to believe himself on
this account a great man.

With a change of manners there has been a change of tastes.
General life has become simple and active, laborious and
animated. Every man occupies his place, has a distinct aim, and
aims at that which is worth the labor he bestows upon it. Public
discussions and a free press afford an uninterrupted stream of
information concerning the greatest human and national interests.
The bloodless, but ardent and vehement, struggles of the tribune
divide, excite, irritate, or enliven every day, and carry us
onward from fear to hope, from triumph to defeat.

In order to beguile the attention of the public from these
powerful attractions, literature must present something else
besides distractions which it no longer needs; and must afford a
means of passing the time which shall not impose any extra
burden. Literature must either attract or instruct--it must raise
man from himself and from all around him, or it must powerfully
urge him to reflection and meditation. The rivalries of poets are
no longer any thing to him; academic disputes lie out of his
world. He has no disposition to engage in the controversy which
would determine,

  "Des deux Poinsinet lequel fait le mieux les vers;"

nor to subsist for a fortnight on that which is worth no more
than one of Chamfort's epigrams, one of Panard'a songs, or one of
Dorat's heroics.

{249}

Accordingly, for the last twelve or fifteen years, that is to
say, since the time when France first began to breathe quietly
again after the horrors of anarchy and the confusions of
conquest, while we see all that small, affected literature which
had its summer of _Saint Martin_ under the empire, fall into
insignificance and disrepute, at the same time that we see
genteel garbs, court manners, and beautiful monarchical
principles abandoned, we also see springing up on all sides a
taste for whatever is solid and true. Erudition is being
restored; there is a more real appreciation of the ancients now
than there ever was in any former time; the knowledge of foreign
languages is being extended every day; voyages are being
multiplied; scientific and literary correspondence is being
extended on all sides; central institutions for intellectual
pursuits are established in our departments, and are beginning to
undertake laborious inquiries respecting our national
antiquities. The Normal School glittered only for a season, but
it has left permanent memorials of its existence; it has founded,
for example, a philosophical school, which now occupies a
foremost position in Europe, which does not swear by the words of
any master, which does not despise the labors of any of its
predecessors, which does not blink any of the great problems of
the world and of humanity; while it neither arrogantly attempts
to decide them by a few phrases, nor infatuatedly dismisses them
with disdain. Side by side with this philosophical school, a
historical school has arisen, in which a union is often effected
between that vast erudition which allows no details to escape it,
and that powerful imagination, we would willingly say, that
half-creative imagination, which knows how to revive times and
men that have passed away, and presents them before us glowing
with the colors of life and of truth
{250}
The admirable romances of the most original and fertile genius of
our period, so riveting and instructive, filled at once with
reality and poetic invention, with the idiosyncrasy of the writer
and the erudition of the schools, with ability and
gracefulness--these romances all testify, by their immense
popularity, to the not less popularity of that mental disposition
which they inspire. For, in fact, the delight felt by the upper
classes, and the admiration expressed for them by those of high
culture is but a small part of their success; they penetrate into
counting-houses, they descend into shops, answering a universal
and imperious necessity, and affording it an aliment which
entertains without completely satisfying it.

Can we seriously believe that, in this general forward movement,
the theatre will remain stationary? Can it be that the public
will bring to the drama other ideas, other tastes, other
dispositions than those which it carries into all other places
and all other things?

The play must, in these times, address itself to the public; it
must interest and excite them; no longer is it designed to
relieve the monotony of a couple of hours for a select number of
languid, lounging, fashionable gentlemen, or to supply materials
for conversation to four or five recognized cliques and their
dozens of humbler imitators who may frequent the coffee-houses.
And this change must inevitably influence, sooner or later, the
general tone of all dramatic writings. Those immortal beauties--
beauties for all times and all places--with which our theatre
abounds, have not, thank Heaven! lost their power over our minds;
but where, henceforth, will an audience be found to relish the
precious metaphysical gallantry, the comic or tragic balderdash,
the philosophical and sentimental declamation which so often
disfigure it?

{251}

Can we really think, for instance, that if the great Corneille
were to return to earth, the Romans which he might exhibit would
not be somewhat sensible of the increased efficiency of our
colleges? Can we believe that the illustrious Racine, if he
should revisit us, would still make Achilles talk like a French
chevalier, and put madrigals into the mouth of Pyrrhus,
Mithridates, or Nero? Can we believe that Voltaire, the brilliant
and pathetic Voltaire, if he should once again take his place
among us, would make Zaire profess indifference to all matters of
religion, and declaim to the savages of America on toleration
--that he would represent Mohammed employing the inflated periods
of a Tartuffe, and depict Gengis-Khan under the guise of a faded
libertine and a philosopher disappointed with human greatness?
No! Emphatically No! Every thing in its place and time! Voltaire
himself was the first to ridicule the heroes who preceded
him--_tender, mild, and discreet;_ he was the first to hold
up to scorn the ridiculous fashion of describing

  "Caton galant et Brutus dameret."

He has attempted tragedies in which there are no love scenes; he
has proposed to restore to us, once for all, the Greeks of Greece
and the Romans of Rome; and the reason why he did not completely
succeed was only that he was not sufficiently acquainted with
them. Chenier, in his turn, has thought good to remodel
Voltaire's "Œdipe." Still, Voltaire was the first who attempted
to appeal to national sentiments and popular recollections, and
many others since his time have followed in his track. We might
trace back to a time considerably anterior to the beginning of
this century, a confused sense of the necessity for a reform in
the theatre, a dim consciousness how much there was in the
existing state of the theatre that was formal, narrow, and
contemptible.
{252}
Grimm's correspondence indicates this in every page. More than
seventy years ago, Collé lampooned the French tragedy in a
satiric poem full of wit, in which great good sense is contained
beneath an inexhaustible vein of drollery. And if this want was
felt thus strongly at this period, what must be the case now,
when authors, as we have just said, have to do no longer with a
fictitious, but with a real public? when that same public has,
for more than forty years, taken its part in all the great
realities of public as well as private life.

Indeed, we ourselves, who are now occupying the scene, have taken
part in terrible events; we have witnessed the fall and rise of
empires: and how can we be persuaded that such revolutions are
accomplished by some six or seven persons, whose two or three
uninteresting confidants bustle and declaim in a space of fifty
square feet? We have known, and that personally, great
men--conquerors, statesmen, conspirators--men of flesh and blood:
powerful by their arms, by their genius, and by their eloquence;
and, in order to be interested, we must be pointed to men equally
real, to men who resemble them in all respects.

Still, if our actually existing poets were men of the stamp of
Racine and Voltaire--if, like those great men, they knew how to
animate a deplorably withered frame by lavishing upon it all the
treasures of sentiment and of poetry--if, imitating the noble
birds of the days of chivalry, they could, like them, although
carried on the hand, release themselves from time to time from
the straitness of their position, and soar into the clouds with a
brilliant and rapid flight, they might win some success. But it
is not so; and this is exactly the one inconvenience of a style
which flourished a hundred years ago, with which we, the public
of to-day, are obliged to remain contented and happy.

{253}

Tragedies have been almost all fashioned after one model--all
cast so very nearly in the same mode, that any one rather
experienced in theatrical progression might boldly foretell the
scheme of each scene as it arrived. In the first act there is the
narrative of the dream or the storm; the second contains the
declaration, the third the recognition, and so on. The
Alexandrines march on in stately order, and seem, most of them,
to belong to the stock of theatrical properties, as much as the
decorations and costumes. The personages have their parts and
movements appropriated and determined like the pieces in a game
of chess; so much so, that we might call them, for the sake of
convenience, by some generic name; for example, the king, the
tyrant, the queen, the conspirator, the confidant--almost, as
Goëthe has entitled the interlocutors in one of his dramas, the
father, the mother, the sister, and so on. What, for instance,
does it matter whether the queen, who has killed her husband, be
called Semiramis, Clytemnestra, Joan of Naples, or Mary Stuart;
whether the royal legislator is called Minos or Peter the Great;
whether the usurper is called Artaban, Polyphontes, or
Cromwell--when their words and actions, their thoughts and
feelings, are always the same, or very nearly so? when they are
only so many variations on one necessary plot?

It is said that a young poet, whose name we have forgotten,
having borrowed the subject of his tragedy from the history of
Spain, and finding himself on this account brought into collision
with the censor of the press, took it into his head to transport
the scene, by two strokes of his pen, from Barcelona to Babylon,
and to carry the events back from the sixteenth century to a
period somewhere near the time of the deluge; a plan which
succeeded to his heart's content, besides that, as
_Babylone_ rhymes to the same words as _Barcelone_, and
is composed of exactly the same number of syllables, there was
but little necessity for changing the most vigorous and lofty
speeches. We do not guarantee the truth of the story, but we do
not think it at all improbable.

{254}

Doubtless, this insupportable monotony--the evils and puerilities
of so much conventional apparatus--the disgust, the weariness,
the satiety which it all excites in such a public as ours--the
despondency at seeing nothing true produced for the stage--these
causes have constantly led the way to all kinds of innovation.
Our public is not to be captivated either by system or by
caprice; it is no despiser of really excellent productions; it
has no disposition to blaspheme the demi-gods of past times; but,
like the little girl, it says, "My good friend, I have seen the
sun so often!" Like the grand Condé, it says, "I am quite ready
to forgive the Abbé D'Aubignac for not having observed the rules,
but I can not forgive the rules which have made him produce such
an execrable piece."

In the midst of this perplexity, not knowing what saint to
invoke, who can deliver them from this

  "Race d'Agamemnon qui ne finit jamais,"

these everlasting bores who, if they are hissed down today in the
toga, will reappear to-morrow hooded with a turban; in this
perplexity, certain talented critics make their appearance,
writers of the rarest ability and of the greatest sagacity, who,
with a good-natured smile, address the public in some such terms
as these:

{255}

"Can you not see what all this weariness under which you groan is
owing to? and whence arises this monotony which sickens you? In a
given time and space only a certain number of things are
possible; and the more circumscribed the space, the more limited
the time, the fewer events can be brought before you. Names may
be changed, costumes may be changed, but no further change is
possible. And much more must this be the case if you multiply
arbitrary prescriptions and prohibitions; if you demand, for
instance, that the individual who weeps shall do nothing but
weep, and that the laugher shall do nothing but laugh; if you
forbid him who has once spoken in verse from speaking afterward
in prose, or _vice versâ_, or if you forbid him who has once
spoken in a verse of twelve syllables from ever making use of a
verse of rather smaller dimensions; and if you determine it to be
beneath the dignity of tragedy to employ any colloquial forms of
expression. Bind a man hand and foot--as you please; put a mask
on his countenance--very good; condemn him to recite litanies to
the Virgin in a style of passive imperturbability--be it so; but
do not then demand of him variety in his movements, flexibility
in his physiognomy, or diversity in his language."

And the public must confess that this is very plausible
reasoning.

Accordingly, when young poets, encouraged by favorable
circumstances, advance timidly before the people, and humbly beg
them to hold them, for a time, free from consecrated rules and
cruelly rigorous fetters, promising, in return for this
indulgence, to move them, to interest them, to show them living
and real events--the public answers them, "Make the attempt, we
will listen attentively."

{256}

This is the secret of that which is transpiring at the present
day. Are not we then, in France, in danger of being betrayed into
some rash procedures? For forty years, established usages have
been attacked which appeared more solid than our theatrical
system; things which seemed more sacred even than Aristotle's
precepts have been looked at with bold defiance.

If, at this crisis, a great dramatic poet should arise among
us--if this great dramatic poet would take part with the
innovators, all difficulties would very soon be overcome. But,
unfortunately, we have no such dramatist; as far as talent is
concerned, the authors of the new school have not hitherto had a
very decided advantage over their brethren of the old school.
Their works certainly possess more interest, more movement, more
variety; but these merits belong to the school to which they have
attached themselves, and this is the reason why their works have
drawn crowds, while the productions of their more old-fashioned
brethren are abandoned. But their works are indicative rather of
reminiscence than of invention; more of an honest disposition to
create than of a creative genius. The execution betrays absence
of power and groping after effect, rather than native vigor and
genuine originality. The blame rests with the individuals; and
this is the reason why the public is as yet undecided which of
the two opposed systems it shall finally adopt, and shows itself
much more disposed to thank them for their efforts than to award
them the palm of triumph.

How long, then, is this feeble flight of dramatic talent, this
sterility of true genius, with which, to our great regret, the
new school--that school which has hardly existed more than four
or five years--has been stricken: how long is this to last?
{257}
The answer to such a question must remain unknown to man, and
must be, left to Providence; our fervent wish, both for the
credit of art and the honor of our country, is that it may not be
delayed very long. Meanwhile, is it graceful, and, above all, is
it just, for the partisans of the old system in literature to
exult over this fact, as they too often do? Are they reasonable
in asking us, with an air of raillery, what master-pieces the new
theatrical system can boast of? Have they any right to say to the
critics who have expounded and displayed it, "You know not
whereof you are speaking; and, as a proof of this, nothing that
has been done under your auspices at all corresponds to your
magnificent promises?"

We might even agree with them; for if, by way of reprisal, we
should afterward ask, concerning Aristotle's _Poetics_, what
tragedies of worth it succeeded in inspiring in Greece;
concerning Horace's _Ars Poetica_, what illustrious
monuments of its truthfulness remain from the theatre of the
Latins; concerning La Harpe's _Cours de Littérature_, what
master-pieces we may thank it for? the answer would not be very
much to their advantage.

Nature alone creates great poets; by her sole agency the world
has been gifted, at long intervals, with a Sophocles, a
Shakspeare, a Racine, a Molière; and after each such effort, the
repose is long and protracted. No human endeavors can be so
successful as to supply the lack of that which nature alone can
give; and any theory for the creation of great men--any pompous
_megalanthropogenesy_--is an insane imposition, either in
literature or any where else. We will even go further; what is
true of genius is equally true of talent: however little of it
may exist, yet in whatever degree it is to be found, nature alone
has all the honor. Criticism does for it nothing more than it
does for every one else; it has no formula of talent ready made;
it has no receipts for the manufacture of good tragedies and
amusing comedies.

{258}

Nothing is, in fact, more common than thus to misapprehend the
design and nature of certain things.

When the _Organon_ of the Stagyrite philosopher was
rediscovered in the Middle Ages, those who first studied it
thought they had met with a kind of enchantment, and certainly
they had good reason for so thinking; for this _Organon_,
this admirable logical system, is one of the most wonderful
monuments of the greatness and power of the human mind that
exists. But immediately they started to the conclusion that the
aim of logic was to teach men reasoning, and that reasoning was,
if not the only, yet certainly the principal means of attaining
truth--that whosoever should thoroughly master the syllogism
could never again be deceived in any thing, and would have
reached the utmost boundaries of human knowledge. This was a
great mistake; no one can estimate the follies and sophistries,
the strifes and subtleties, which this has cost us. Logic teaches
man nothing which he could not already do alone, and without its
assistance; the syllogistic procedure is the natural and
spontaneous method; it need not be formally learned in order to
its being employed. There are, besides, other conditions for good
reasoning--a clear vision and an adequate conception of the
subject, a just regard to all the conditions implied in the
problem to be solved, and the faculty of retaining them firmly
during the whole course of the deduction. And these things are
all given by nature; logic can not impart the secret of acquiring
them. Must we, then, on the other hand, conclude, as some
philosophers have concluded, that logic is good for nothing? By
no means; this would be to rush blindly to the opposite extreme.
{259}
The design of logic is not to teach men to reason, but to teach
them how they actually do reason; it is a branch of mental
philosophy; it discloses to us the nature of one of our most
remarkable mental processes; it explains to us its laws, its
action, its mechanism; it reveals the human mind to itself. He
who studies it properly will always study it advantageously; he
will rise from this study with a more enlightened and practiced,
a stronger and more dexterous mental organ--more fitted, in one
word, for all things, not even excepting reasoning itself; for
never is it in any respect fruitless to develop human
intelligence, and to enlarge and purify the judgment.

The same must be said of criticism. It also is a branch of mental
philosophy. It also enlightens the mind with regard to its own
operations, and shows it in reflection the method of its own
activity; but it neither confines it within the limits of the
schools, nor subjects it to a dwarfing and lasting pupillage.

The beautiful exists; it exists in the external world and in the
soul of man, in the phenomena of nature and in the events in
which humanity displays itself. Sometimes it is manifested
entirely in these regions; but oftener it gives only a glimpse
and a hint of its presence. Genius seizes it and makes it its own
possession; it receives the impression, and then gives it out in
a purer and more vivid state than that in which it first
appeared; it is surprised by the vision, and it surprises in its
turn by the presentation of it. Thus genius acts under the
influence of an inspiration; unconsciously, yet most
spontaneously, it avails itself of the processes of art. The
eagle flies because it is an eagle; the stag bounds because it is
a stag.

{260}

What, then, is the province of criticism? Its position is that of
a mediator between the master-pieces of art and the minds which
are desirous of appreciating them; between the man of talent and
the readers whom he addresses; sometimes between him and the man
of genius. Whether we be small or great, gifted with insight or
not, it initiates us into the secret of these marvelous beauties;
it displays before us their delicate processes, their hidden
relations, their mystic laws. This is its work; neither more nor
less.

But now is the time for the approach of ratiocinative mediocrity;
it advances with lofty assumption, bearing the staff of office,
availing itself of these expositions in order to erect, by means
of them, a clumsy structure of exact formulas--burlesquing these
delicate and cautious explanations by resolving them into
pedantic precepts, and appealing to lesser spirits to experiment
upon their select list of instructions, practical precepts, and
petty routines. At its bidding, the laborers set to work.
Equipped with their rule and compass, they draw the lines and
measure out the compartments, they dissect most methodically the
mighty productions of men of genius, plundering on the right hand
and on the left, pillaging from one a posture, from another a
stroke of sentiment, from a third an idea, from a fourth a poetic
touch, and, readjusting all these bits according to the best of
their ability, they at length produce a sorry, complicated piece
of mosaic, dressed in truly harlequin gear. Hence arises, in all
languages which have received a small amount of culture, a deluge
of bastard productions, which are neither good nor bad, neither
beautiful nor ugly, neither interesting nor ridiculous, and which
have no other fault than the irremediable one of corresponding to
nothing whatever that exists either in Man or nature, neither in
the mind of the would-be poet nor in that of his unfortunate
reader.
{261}
Hence, for example, the amusement which so many poets of the last
century gave themselves, of composing tens of thousands of
pastoral verses, which gave no indication that during the whole
period of their existence they had so much as cast a glance upon
any tree in the Tuileries, or watched the course of any river in
the Gobelins. Hence arose, in a word, all that rendered
literature dull and poetry fantastic.

Criticism that is worthy of the name--true criticism, indeed--has
nothing to do with this foolish attempt to construct the
agreeable and the beautiful into a fabric. Its aim is not to
teach how beautiful things may be made, but to exhibit before all
eyes, and help all minds to understand the lustre of those things
which are beautiful. Its aim is to increase the number of lofty
and refined spirits--minds of liberality and sagacity, of
delicacy and enlightenment; it is to prepare for men of genius
and of talent, whenever nature may please to inspire such, a
public worthy of receiving them, whose admiration may animate
them, and whose severe taste may calm and moderate their too
exuberant activity.

This being granted, may we say that the new criticism, that
criticism to which has been imputed, whether advisedly or
not--or, rather, we would question whether or not it is fitting
to impute to this criticism alone and entirely--the revolution
which has been declared in our theatre, may we say that this
criticism has entirely failed in its object? If it has not, by
one stroke of any magic wand, transformed men of moderate talent
into great poets, may it not have smoothed the way before great
poets who may yet arise? If it has not caused beautiful works of
art to spring forth from the bosom of the earth, may it not have
opened many eyes, and unstopped many deafened ears? May it not,
to a certain extent, have so prepared the way for great works, if
ever Heaven shall grant them to us, that they may, on their
arrival, find an audience disposed to appreciate them and
qualified to estimate them?

{262}

Far are we from thinking that, in this respect, its labors have
been entirely unavailing. On the contrary, we are much more
disposed to suspect that, in more than one relation, and we will
by no means limit ourselves to unimportant relations, the new
criticism has succeeded beyond its expectations, and perhaps even
beyond its desires; we are disposed to suspect that it has made
something which is of greater value than itself--that it has
involuntarily disencumbered us of more shackles than it was
itself aware of, of more even than it had estimated. What is, in
fact, the error of criticism in general--we mean of all criticism
that has any weight (the smaller species are not worth our
notice)--a kind of error from which the new criticism is not
exempt to any great extent?

It is, as it seems to us, a certain absence of mental liberty
when absorbed in the contemplation of things which the mind
either approves or condemns; a certain impulsive, passionate,
intolerant disposition, which prevents it from reproving with the
severity of justice any thing faulty in that which it admires,
and of admiring with generous self-abandonment whatever may be
excellent in the productions which it condemns.

The ancients, for example, are admired every where--and
unquestionably they are entitled to be so: they are admired in
France, in Germany, in England; they are admired from very
different motives, sometimes from motives contradictory to one
another, and certainly this admiration rests upon very different
principles in different cases.
{263}
But, in truth, where have they as yet been judged? where have
they been appreciated without conventional enthusiasm, without an
unquestioning devotion? Will not the man who shall first venture
openly to expose their defects, whatever respect he may retain
for them, stand a chance of being browbeaten, and abused as a
Barbarian and a Goth? We ourselves, who dare to hint such an
insinuation--what a storm of wrath may possibly be preparing to
burst over our head?

The great masters of our language have been very ably
appreciated, analyzed, and commented upon by La Harpe--for La
Harpe was no vulgar critic--but, on the one hand, he would not
have deemed that sufficient homage had been shown to Racine and
Voltaire, had he not fastened Shakspeare by the heels to their
triumphal car, and dragged him along in the mud; and, on the
other hand, he can not venture, except at rare intervals, and
with faltering accents, to expose any trifling imperfection in
the objects of his adoration; the enormous defects of our drama
do not at all shock him; he does not even seem to have perceived
them.

On the other hand, let us take, as representative of the new
criticism, the man who is undeniably its glory and ornament--the
man who, by the extent and variety of his knowledge, by the
profundity and originality of his views, by the lively
appreciation of the beautiful, which ever animates him, and by
that ingenious sagacity which never forsakes him, has had the
greatest influence on the ideas and opinions of his
contemporaries--Wilhelm Schlegel. He will be found to exhibit the
obverse side of the medal.

{264}

He admires Shakspeare most thoroughly; he has translated him with
all the fondness of a pupil for a master; he has also a
passionate admiration for Calderon and the Spanish drama. But, in
order to balance his excesses in these directions, he habitually
judges our drama with something more than rigor; to the admirable
unaffectedness and comic vein of Molière he is entirely
insensible; he deprecates the "Phedre" of Racine as much inferior
to the "Phædra" of Euripides; to many of our merits he frequently
grants neither sympathy nor justice; to our most venial defects
he is mercilessly severe. He admires Shakspeare, and, in his
enthusiasm, not only is Shakspeare perfect in all respects, but
all that appertains, either immediately or more remotely to
Shakspeare, participates in the perfection of this ideal.

According to his judgment, the period in which Shakspeare
flourished was not only a great and remarkable period, but a
period of taste and politeness; it was not only learned, but
refined; urbanity, grace, and refined pleasantry were its most
prominent and characteristic features.

Shakspeare himself is not only a great poet, but a profound
philosopher, whose thoughts have sounded, down to their lowest
depths, all the mysteries of the world, and all the intricacies
of the human soul. Not only are his pieces in the highest degree
effective, but they are composed with a marvelous and
irreproachable art; every thing, whether it be great or small,
finds its proper place and its just estimate in his writings. The
gross obscenities with which he abounds are bursts of native
humor; the puns, quips, and quibbles which are to be met with at
every step, even in the most pathetic passages, are sallies of
the most irreproachable taste; his anachronisms have their
merits; his errors in geography, in history, in the portraiture
of men and manners, all have their explanations.

The same idolatry, the same superstitious ardor is shown for the
Spanish drama.

{265}

It must be admitted that those of our French critics who were the
first to adopt the doctrines of Schlegel have taken care not to
go quite so far as he. They were sensible of his exaggerations.
They have maintained their former admiration for Racine side by
side with their more recent admiration for Shakspeare; and they
have persisted in throwing the blame of the mistakes of
Shakspeare himself upon the times in which he lived, and upon the
rare genius with which Heaven endowed him.

But we must confess, also, that this wisdom has been neither
general nor of long duration. To see how the leaders of our
modern school express themselves when speaking of the English and
the Germans--of Schiller, of Shakspeare, and of Goëthe--we may
easily perceive that they occupy, with reference to these
writers, the same mental posture which La Harpe occupied with
reference to Racine or Voltaire; that while they are quite
willing to express censure on a point of trifling importance,
they do so on the implied condition that nothing of a serious or
fundamental character shall be questioned by them.

For example, in the attempt to present "Othello" in its complete
form for the Théâtre Français (an attempt which, moreover, we
will applaud from the very bottom of our heart), in this attempt
to reproduce "Othello," verse by verse, without any abridgment,
except of a part which the police would not have suffered to
pass--the part of a girl of vicious life, a part besides which is
quite useless, and a crowd of indecent equivoques and disgusting
obscenities--who could be persuaded to see in all this a design
to offer to the public, not a spectacle interesting on account of
its novelty, or curious because of the period to which it carries
us back, but an accomplished model of art--a work perfect in all
its features?

{266}

Well! we will venture to assert that the time for these
exaggerations has already passed in France; we will venture to
predict that there is in the general good sense of the people--a
good sense which the controversies that have been going on for
the last fifteen or twenty years have developed and
prepared--something which will prove an invincible obstacle to
these adorations of individuals, and will prevent them from ever
so gaming ground as to become common opinions and recognized
doctrines. We have, with some trouble, emancipated ourselves from
one extreme--we will not allow ourselves to run heedlessly into
its opposite. We have disencumbered ourselves from some thousands
of small prejudices--we will not allow ourselves to be swathed in
a host of prejudices of another kind.

Every time that the attempt which has just been made at the
Théâtre Français shall be renewed (and we hope it may be often
renewed--this will be a much more worthy thing than the
presentation before us of new and mediocre pieces), the problem
which has already been once offered will be repeated--whether the
public will consent to abandon the freedom of its judgment in
favor of any thing, by whatever sanctions it may be
supported--whether many of the things which it is asked to admire
it will be contented only to tolerate--whether other things,
similarly presented, it will condemn--whether others will be
received with admiration, but from new motives, of a more
immediate and personal character--whether, so far at least as
impartiality is concerned, it will show itself to be superior to
its leaders--and whether it will regard what is presented to it
from a point of view more elevated than theirs.

{267}

We say that this has already been once realized; and we say so,
not only because the mass of the public refused to take a decided
stand either with the detractors of Shakspeare or with his
enthusiastic admirers--this neutrality was rather owing, as we
have already explained, to the unsettled state of its ideas and
doctrines than to the fear lest they should be compromised--but
because the impression which the piece made, in its general
effect and in its details, appeared to us to involve a true
judgment, an unconscious, not a premeditated judgment, which
could only be read on the countenances of the audience, a
judgment which did not always square (far from it) with those
ideas which the most accredited critics endeavor to give us on
the English work, but which was more original, and, in our
judgment, more worthy of respect than theirs.

The drama in question is divided into two nearly equal parts; in
the first part, which comprises the first two acts and some
scenes of the third, the comic element is most conspicuous; the
tragic, or to speak more exactly, the dignified, the serious,
element only appears once for a brief space; in the second part,
on the contrary, the tragic element predominates, the comic only
appears in transient flashes.

This distinction is made with such precision in the original,
that, in general, the comic part is written in prose, while the
tragic part is written almost uniformly in verse; a kind of
mixture which Shakspeare ordinarily used with most marvelous
dexterity, but which the French translator has not ventured to
introduce upon our stage.

The comic part appeared to be long and rather overdrawn; the
general effect which it produced was a feeling of disapprobation
and impatience.

{268}

To what is this to be attributed? Was it merely the effect of the
admixture of comedy and tragedy? a feeling of the incompatibility
of these equally simultaneous impressions? Doubtless the majority
of the audience would thus have interpreted what they felt. But
suppose the comic part had been of a different character--that it
had been better managed, disposed more judiciously, distributed
according to a juster proportion--would the same effect have been
produced? There was nothing to indicate that it would; and the
favor with which some salient points were received, and the
universal laughter which they excited, may even induce a contrary
opinion.

The idea of allotting an equal, or nearly an equal share of
attention to two opposite elements, appears to us a violation of
due proportions, and to rest upon a false principle. We are not
usually sticklers for the unities; still, however, we believe
that a certain fundamental unity is, in every case, a condition
under which the beautiful is manifested here below. The effect,
the legitimate effect of the beautiful, whatever it may be, is to
raise the soul above itself, to transport it, by a kind of magic
enchantment, into a sphere where all its transitory interests
disappear, and to abolish for a time the sentiment of its
individuality. Now the soul of man, as it is at present
constituted, can not entirely abandon itself; it can not forget
itself, and lose itself, either in simultaneous, or in two
successive impressions of a precisely opposite character and of
equal force. To attempt this is to do violence to its
constitution.

If the subject of "Othello" had been perfectly unknown to the
public, if the public could have freely allowed itself to be
carried unresistingly along with the constant mysteriousness that
is connected with Roderigo, the surprise and the wrath of
Brabantio, the drunkenness of Cassio, and the ill-natured jokes
of the buffoon, uttered in a strain of mere pleasantry, it would
from the first have ascended to the proper elevation of gladness
and hilarity; but the shock could not but be unpleasant to them
when they were so soon to pass abruptly from this gay and playful
disposition to the terrible pathos of the gigantic scenes of
jealousy which terminate the third act.

{269}

But as they, on the contrary, had entered the theatre with their
expectations directed entirely to those scenes of jealousy, and
to other scenes not less terrible, which were to grow out of
these, as they were anxiously looking forward to the catastrophe,
two or more acts full of sarcasms, facetiæ, and jokes appeared to
the public a severe trial, a somewhat grim preparation; they saw
in it something not merely contrary, but opposed and shocking to
their tastes, something which overshot the mark, whatever that
mark may be.

Were they wrong? Was this mere prejudice? We, for our part, can
hardly think so.

The mixture of comedy and tragedy is not, or certainly ought not
to be, a purely arbitrary thing. The two are not brought together
merely for the sake of the union. Opposition, antithesis, in
works of art, is not in itself a merit, has no intrinsic value.
They are brought together when a certain kind of beauty results
naturally from their juxtaposition; they are united because, in
the vicinity of those events which change and reverse an entire
life, there are the world, society, and the crowd of indifferent
egotists who move on without caring for these events, whose
movements are neither disturbed nor disarranged by them, who
pursue their individual interests, ruled by their habits,
abandoned to selfishness; and because the contrast between
situations of such an opposite character, and sentiments so
unlike to one another, after it has compelled us to smile, opens
to us a point of view from which human life is seen shaded with a
fanciful and melancholy tinge.
{270}
Comedy and tragedy are blended, because a flash of unpremeditated
gayety sometimes crosses the minds of those who are corroded by
remorse or stricken by despair, and restores them for an instant
to a state which is lost to them--irremediably and hopelessly
lost--leaving them immediately afterward, as a ray of light which
only glittered for a moment to exhibit more clearly the depth of
the abyss:

              Nessun maggior dolore
  Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
  Nella miseria.

The two are blended, because the same fact often presents varying
aspects, and the waning light, which exhibits the one, brings the
other into bolder relief. Lastly, they are blended, because an
accidental link is often found to connect a terrible misfortune
with a fantastic incident--some singular relation which
involuntarily and unexpectedly takes hold upon us, and which our
spirit not unwillingly grasps as if to find some kind of
unbending to regain its equilibrium and recover breath.

Never should the contrast be allowed unless under the condition
that the dominant impression, which is chiefly to be regarded,
should be developed and not destroyed, should not be lost sight
of, but rendered more lasting and profound. No one knew this
better than Shakspeare, no one has illustrated it by more
numerous and beautiful examples. But we confess we can not find
them in "Othello." In this play the comic element is purely
arbitrary; it is, in some sort, appended to the tragic, while
there is no intimate relation between the one and the other, no
common aim, no alliance to be ratified by the deep experiences of
the soul.

{271}

Let Roderigo be eliminated from the piece--a genuine melodramatic
simpleton, who only appears that he may serve as a butt to Iago,
to be beduped and befooled by him; you can do so; what Roderigo
does might be done quite as well by any one else; no one, Iago
excepted, would know or care for his absence. Let Brabantio, the
firm and prudent senator, full of ability and self-possession,
dignified and respected, be true to his proper character; let him
not be transformed, during the two whole scenes, merely to suit
the whim of the author, into a Géronte or a Sganarelle. Let
Cassio fall into disgrace with his general from some more worthy
motive than that supplied by taking a glass of wine at an
unseasonable time, which would also be much more in keeping both
with his good qualities, and with the defects which are
attributed to him. Lastly, erase entirely the part of the clown,
a part so false that the French imitator, though he has in
general adhered most conscientiously to the original, did not
think himself bound to preserve it; all that is comic in the
piece will have disappeared, it will have disappeared without
being observed at all by any of the essential characters, without
producing any chasms in the representation of the principal
positions; it may be detached, as two objects are separated which
have nothing in common but the circumstance of their both being
in the same vessel. This is assuredly quite sufficient to explain
the impression produced upon the spectators; they might, without
any injustice, have shown a greater degree of severity, and
doubtless they would have done so if they had had to express
themselves upon the work as one entirely unknown to them. But
they were placed, as we have already said, in a more rational
point of view than that occupied by the French translator; they
had come, not to behold a marvel, but to study, with a true and
living sympathy, an ancient and renowned work.
{272}
They were unpleasantly surprised at first, but they showed
patience, and gave due credit. One circumstance, we think, proves
most convincingly the freedom of their minds and the docility of
their attention, the fact that this deluge of tiresome
pleasantries did not at all injure the effect of the three
beautiful scenes in the first act--the scene in which Othello
calmly meets the violent passion of Desdemona's father; that in
which he explains to the Senate how he managed to conquer the
young girl's heart; and that in which Desdemona herself appears,
and demands to be permitted to follow the Moor, as her lord and
master, to Cyprus.

The effect of Othello's narration was irresistible. This portion
of the play is translated into all languages--its beauty is
perfectly entrancing, its originality is unequaled. Even La Harpe
could not refuse to it the tribute of his admiration. But perhaps
the scene which precedes and that which follows are even still
more adapted to exhibit Shakspeare in all his greatness. How
wonderful a painter of human nature was this man! How true is it
that he has received from on high something of that creative
power which, by breathing on a little dust, can transform it into
a creature of life and immortality!

In the interview with Brabantio, Othello only utters some fifteen
lines; before the Senate, Desdemona only about thirty; and yet
already both Othello and Desdemona stand before us as complete
characters: there they both are, showing themselves without any
constraint, in all the gracefulness and singularity of their
characters, in all their native and imperishable individuality.
Suppress the rest of the piece, you can never efface Desdemona
and Othello from your memory; place them, if you please, in
another order of circumstances, use your utmost, but do not think
you can obliterate them; we know them, and we know beforehand
what they must do and say.

{273}

And yet what complexities, what contrasts, what delicate shades,
belong to these characters!

In Othello there are two individualities: in the first place,
there is the savage, who has for a long time remained alone; who
has for a long time lived the life of a brute, and who abandons
himself, without even the smallest indication of an internal
struggle, to the first effervescence of passion which crosses his
soul; a man who is yet furnished with that interior goodness,
that native generosity which the instinct of our poetic fictions
has been pleased to attribute to the lion, the monarch of the
deserts. In the second place, there is the civilized man, who has
become such by war, and by war alone, by the greatness of his
courage, by that self-possession which is educated and
disciplined by constant, habitual, and regular familiarity with
danger. In the amenities of a peaceful life the civilized man is
naturally and spontaneously uppermost; Othello is calm, confident
in the superiority of his character, in the haughtiness of his
spirit, in the magnitude of his services; but he obeys the first
signal, he marches at the first word of command--his discipline
is that of the soldier, his moderation is that of the tamed
animal. He has captivated Desdemona's young heart by an
unexpected turn of fortune, the very possibility of which belongs
solely to the region of poetry, the reality of which is
inconceivable by vulgar minds: as Iago says, "What delight shall
she have to look on the devil?" But this stroke of fortune
appeared quite simple to him, an unreflecting and unsuspicious
being; it has not cost him one step, not one moment of
disquietude: he has not stopped to think of his age, his
appearance, or the rudeness of his manners.
{274}
He possesses Desdemona as his property, as he possesses his good
sword, not imagining that his claims to her can be disputed in
any other way than by brute force. He is, therefore, at rest. If,
however, he gives himself up to love; love is yet only an
accident of his existence; war is his life, his element, the
stage on which his character really acts; love can only thwart
his true destiny; meanwhile, he neither knows how to rule it, nor
how thoroughly to receive its influence.

Desdemona, on the other hand, is the most perfect ideal, the
purest type of woman--of woman as she is in herself, a being
inferior and yet divine, subordinate by the order of human life,
free before her choice is made, but the slave of her choice when
once she has made it. She is composed of modesty, tenderness, and
submission. Her modesty is unsullied, her tenderness is
unbounded, her submission is unlimited and absolute. That which
distinguishes her among all other women is that she does not so
much possess these qualities as they possess and absorb her. In
her soul there is no place for any thing else, whether it be
indifferent, or bad, or even good; there is no room for other
inclinations, other feelings, or even other duties. She has given
herself up entirely, body and soul, thought and will, hope and
memory. Nothing remains in her nature which she can appropriate
to any thing else whatever. She forsakes her father, she deceives
him, she braves him, as far as she can brave any thing--his
exasperated feelings, his exterior harshness--but without any
exhibition of either hesitation or repentance.
{275}
The very appearance of the object of her choice may convince us
how chaste are her thoughts. There is not the least allusion,
either as to the kind of life that awaits her, nor as to the
possible price which she may one day pay for such affection; from
the first she is resigned--resigned to all--certain of what was
to be her lot in the world--certain that, whatever may arrive,
she will never cast back one look of regret--that she will never
have to hesitate between two courses.

And, in order that we may be put in possession of all this, what
was required from Shakspeare? Four strokes of his pen complete
the work. See, for example, how he concludes the scene.

The Moor has been dragged from the very steps of the altar by
Brabantio; since the moment of their union he has hardly been
able to exchange two words with the object of his best love. The
simple and pathetic recital of their passion has disarmed all
hearts and drawn tears from every eye. Desdemona has just
resisted the authority of her father with mildness and
moderation, but with invincible firmness. The duke confirms their
happiness--the father delivers his daughter up to the Moor; all
the senators surround them and wish them joy; Desdemona is
allowed to rejoin her husband at Cyprus as soon as he shall be
settled there. The duke then says to the old soldier,

                   "The affair cries--haste!
  And speed must answer it. You must hence to-night."

The only words which escape Desdemona are

  "To-night, my lord?"

Othello's answer is,

  "With all my heart."

He has heard the sound of the trumpet, and all other thoughts are
already far away. Desdemona, the tender, loving girl, so resolute
when in the presence of her father--Desdemona, who has scarcely
entered into the bonds of wedlock, casts down her eyes, and
follows timidly after her husband, without uttering one word,
without directing to him one significant look, without framing
any reproach in her heart.

{276}

Othello's narrative has been rapturously applauded--as was most
natural; but the united impression of the three scenes must
obtain, we think, an admiration of an entirely different kind.
Imagine a man who has lived for a long time in rooms lighted only
by wax-candles, chandeliers, or colored glasses--who has only
breathed in the faint, suffocating atmosphere of drawing-rooms,
who has seen only the cascades at the opera, calico mountains,
and garlands of artificial flowers: imagine such a man suddenly
transported, one magnificent July morning, to a region where he
could breathe the purest air, under the tranquil and graceful
chestnut-trees which fringe the waters of Interlachen, and within
view of the majestic glaciers of the Oberland, and you will have
a pretty accurate idea of the moral position of one accustomed to
the dramatic representations which formerly occupied our stage,
when he unexpectedly finds himself witnessing these so simple,
grand, and natural beauties.

A second point with respect to which the involuntary feeling of
the French public has found itself at issue with Shakspeare's
admirers is the character of Iago. This character, which is the
concealed agent producing the catastrophe of the piece, is
greatly celebrated in England and elsewhere; all the critics,
without exception, English, German, or French, are unwearying in
their eulogies upon it. When acted, it appeared to us that this
character was generally disapproved, and that in a very marked
way, which kept on increasing with every act: so much so that,
had it not been played with great firmness and determination, it
would certainly have received some decided rebuff. Why was this?

{277}

It was rather curious, at the end of every act, to hear each
spectator give the reason of his repugnance, the cause of his
aversion. One thought Iago too immoral; another, on the contrary,
thought he was not a sufficiently accomplished hypocrite; he
should not boast so offensively of his wickedness, said a third
censor; while a fourth was revolted at seeing him perpetrate his
crimes with so much pleasantry. And so on.

In our judgment, the part was disapproved because it is in itself
bad; because it is, we do not say inconsistent, (for what is more
natural to man than inconsistency?), but incoherent; because the
parts of which it is composed do not naturally associate; and
because, in regard to it, we are uncertain which idea to adopt.
Such, at least, is our mode of viewing it. Let Shakspeare's
devotees anathematize us, if they feel disposed.

What really is Iago? Is he the Evil Spirit, or at least his
representative on earth? Is Othello right when he looks down to
his feet to see whether they are not cloven? Is he a being who
can do evil from the mere love of it, and who deliberately
breathes a poisonous atmosphere into the union of Othello and
Desdemona solely because Desdemona is a being of angelic purity,
and Othello is a loyal, brave, and generous man.

If so, why ascribe to Iago any human and interested motives? Why
are we pointed to his low cupidity, the resentment which he feels
for an injury done to his honor, his envy of a position more
elevated than his own? Why must we see him plundering poor
Roderigo, as Scapin or Sbrigani jiggle the purse out of the
pocket of some imbecile?
{278}
The introduction of these passions destroy every thing that is
fantastic in the part. The devil has neither humor nor honor; he
has neither rancor, nor rage, nor covetousness; he is a
disinterested person; he does evil because it is evil, and
because he is the Evil One.

Iago, on the other hand, is, as he himself boasts, the type of an
egotist--a man who is perfected in the art of self-love--a being
who can arrange his desires in hierarchical subordination,
according to the degree of their importance, and then so plan his
actions as that they shall invariably turn out to his infinite
satisfaction, whatever may be the consequences to other people,
without scrupulosity, without remorse, and also without allowing
himself to be diverted from his aim by any temptation of an
inferior order.

Why, then, does he pursue, at the same time, three or four
different ends, which are to him of very unequal importance? Why
does he undertake successively twenty different projects which he
abandons one after the other? Why especially does he, on every
occasion, lavish his villainy with a hundred times greater
prodigality than is called for by the circumstances? Jonathan
Wild the Great, notorious in the lists of rascality, was much
more expert when he said, "Be chary with your crimes; they are
far too good things to be squandered away in pure waste."

Moreover, how are we to reconcile the different ideas which are
given us of this character? He is first represented to us as an
intrepid, intelligent soldier, worthy of all the confidence of
Othello and the Senate, who might judiciously have been promoted
to a high rank; and then he is exhibited before us as a sharper
of the first quality, and as a miserable ruffian.

{279}

He has a profound contempt for the human race, and, in the human
race, he has a profound contempt for women; he shrugs his
shoulders at the bare suggestion of the possibility of female
honor. His own wife, especially, is an insupportable burden to
him. His only aim in the world is fortune--his enjoyments are
palpable and material--and yet we are required to see, in the
mere suspicion of an old intrigue between his wife and Othello, a
force powerfully acting upon and moving his soul!

He is presented as the most artful villain that ever existed, and
yet all his projects are so ill-contrived, so clumsy, so
destitute of foresight, that not one of them succeeds--neither
was it possible that they could be successful.

He is presented as an impostor of fearful penetration, capable of
impenetrable dissimulation; and yet the traps that he sets are so
palpable that, although he has to do with an idiot, in comparison
with whom any pig-headed imbecile would be a marvel of
perspicacity, every one possessed of the smallest relic of sense
would not allow himself to be decoyed by them for the space of
two minutes.

This, forsooth, is his scheme! Desdemona has espoused Othello;
she has chosen him, as he is, out of a thousand others more
worthy of her; she has left all for him; to all appearance she
loves him; Iago himself does not doubt it; hardly have they
received the nuptial benediction before they are separated;
Othello sets out with Cassio--observe, with Cassio; Desdemona
also departs for Cyprus; by accident the two parties, who had
left Venice at different times, arrive in Cyprus the same day,
within half an hour of one another. To the knowledge and in the
sight of all, Othello included, Cassio, the companion of his
voyage, has not been able to speak to Desdemona more than ten
minutes on the public road.
{280}
And yet on the afternoon of this same day, in the midst of the
first transports of a union which has been for so long a time
retarded, Iago takes upon himself to persuade the amorous Othello
that Desdemona, the gentle Desdemona, has betrayed him, before
even she has belonged to him--that she has delivered up her heart
and her person--to whom?--to Cassio, who has been able neither to
see her nor to converse with her. And Iago speaks of his passion
as a thing already ancient, and yet--and yet as a thing posterior
to her marriage with Othello; for he represents Cassio as
exclaiming,

  "Cursed fate, that gave thee to the Moor!"

and Iago speaks of Cassio's intrigue with innumerable details and
interminable explanations.

Which is the greatest simpleton, the man who conceives such a
project, or the man who allows himself to be entrapped by it?

Will it be said that he succeeded? He succeeded according to the
representation of the author; but what will common sense say of
the matter?

The author is himself successful: but why? Because, such is the
intensity and vivacity of his original conception, that the most
revolting improbabilities, the most inconceivable absurdities,
pass by unperceived; because no one is so ungracious, no one has
time to notice the stratagems of the drama. It is, however,
another thing to offer these absurdities to be admired as merits.

And yet that is not without truth: from that moment when the
first insinuation escapes the lips of Iago, and reaches the ears
of the Moor--from the utterance of those fatal words, "Ay, well
said, whisper; with as little a web as this will I ensnare as
great a fly as Cassio"--to that awful moment when the curtain
falls on the corpses of the two lovers, the spectator is in a
state of breathless expectation. You might hear the flight of a
gnat across the room, and those are ill-judged spirits whose zeal
compels them to interrupt by their applause the anxiety which is
momentarily increasing.

{281}

In that first word all has been said, all has been determined.
Farewell forever to Desdemona! Farewell to Othello! Desdemona
only appears henceforth as the innocent bird struggling feebly in
the grasp of a vulture, but of a vulture who is himself furiously
struggling under the grasp of another vulture, and who avenges
himself by his treatment of his unhappy victim for the frightful
tortures which he is suffering in his own person.

The spectator looks upon this picture, not with that restless
curiosity which passes alternately from fear to hope, but, if we
may say so--and we do it fully sensible that there are important
differences--with something of that inexpressible anguish which
absorbs us when, in a court of justice, we are watching the vain
efforts of a criminal who is being hurried along to a fatal and
inevitable condemnation.

Othello has never thought, has never had occasion to think, how
strange, how incomprehensible is the sentiment which he has
inspired in Desdemona; now for the first time he thinks of it:

                    "Haply, for I am black,
  And have not those soft parts of conversation
  That chamberers have; or, for I am declined
  Into the vale of years."

One irregular taste, Iago suggests to him, indicates other
irregularities. Beyond a doubt she is lost--"she's gone."

{282}

This first suspicion, to use Schlegel's energetic language, is "a
drop of poison in his veins, and sets his whole blood in the
wildest ferment." The savage is again uppermost. The civilized
portion of his nature, which has never met him in this region,
which has only subdued him on the field of battle, is powerless
to hold him in check. The struggle goes on for some moments; for
some moments does Othello, the warrior, the statesman, the lord
of others and of himself, attempt to treat his own love as a
sportive flame, his jealousy as a folly.

                   "Exchange me for a goat,
  When I shall turn the business of my soul
  To such exsufflicate and blown surmises.
  * * * * *
                   No, Iago;
  I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
  And, on the proof, there is no more but this--
  Away at once with love and jealousy.
  * * * * *
                   Look here, Iago;
  All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
  'Tis gone!"

But his efforts are vain; his defiance is fruitless; at the first
onslaught he sees his mighty courage fail, at the first shock of
battle he knows himself to be vanquished; he turns a last fond
look toward that which has so long charmed him; he remembers
dreamily the courser and the trumpet, the assault and the
victory:

                   "O now forever
  Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content!
  Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
  That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
  Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
  The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
  The royal banner; and all quality,
  Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
  And O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats
  The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,
  Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!"

{283}

After this cry, all the struggle within him ceases. In proportion
as jealousy spreads its ravages in this spirit which is already
wrecked, we can watch the reappearance under all the most hideous
forms of the semi-brutish nature; we may see its growth; we may
hear its roar; a creature not to be controlled by reason, deaf to
the accents of truth, insensible to utterances of tenderness,
unapproachable by moral evidence, which, in the wildness of its
fury, passes from one extreme to another, now delighting, with
savage joy, in its own detailed recital, in terms of the most
revolting barbarity, of the outrage which it contemplates, crying
out,

  "O, blood, Iago, blood!"

And then, in conclusion, falling, without knowing how or why,
from rage down to despair.

Humanity has altogether forsaken him, except it be in his
frequently returning fits of emotion, pity, or regret; but these
are always provoked by the remembrance of Desdemona's charms--by
ideas which are connected with sensual enjoyments; and perhaps,
also, it may yet lurk in certain glimmerings of a rough equity,
such as may be found under the Bedouin's tent or in a bandit's
cavern: "For she had eyes and chose me." And when Iago proposes
to him to "strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath
contaminated," he replies, "Good, good; the justice of it
pleases; very good."

There is, however, no trace of the sentiments which he ought to
have imbibed by his connection with civilized and polite society;
no respect for himself or for others, no remembrance of
kindnesses; he gives directions for a base act of
assassination--that of Cassio; he strikes Desdemona brutally, in
presence of the messengers of the Senate and of his own officers,
in public, and in his own private interviews with her; he treats
her as the most abandoned of women, heaping upon her the
bitterest sarcasms and the most degrading epithets.

{284}

The sight of an heroic soul thus debased by its ferocity down to
the level of the mere animal would almost of necessity
contaminate the dignity of art, had not the poet brought it into
constant contrast with the graceful, pure, and truly celestial
figure of Desdemona. Never has any artist portrayed with greater
delicacy that astonishment which is felt by an innocent soul
when, for the first time, the overflow of its warm affection is
repulsed by a hard word or a severe look--its timid efforts to
turn the repulse into wanton playfulness, to renew a tender and
free exchange of sentiment and thought, to exercise for some
moments that pleasant and transient ascendency which shall afford
the young spouse many bright recollections in days yet to come.

In proportion as this new character of Othello develops itself,
we may see (so to speak)--through that transparent poetry of
which Shakspeare alone possesses the secret--the mild
countenance of Desdemona gradually lose its serenity. The first
idea that presents itself to her mind is, that Othello's
roughness--that roughness for which she had prepared herself long
before--has somewhat too soon made its appearance. But her heart
is immediately resigned--she has an excuse ready at hand:

                    "Nay, we must think men are not gods;
  Nor of them look for such observances
  As fit the bridal."

And when Othello strikes her in public, she is content only to
weep and to say, "I have not deserved this."

{285}

But when Othello bursts out into rage against her, when he loads
her with outrageous reproaches, when he reviles her as a
shameless prostitute, her voice fails her, the blood which rushes
to her face stifles all utterance; she sinks rather under the
confusion of hearing such language than because it is Othello who
addresses her: some feeble sighs, some useless protests, are her
only defense; she has seen her fate written in the terrific looks
of her husband. She lowers her head, and directs Emilia to spread
upon her couch her wedding-dress, in which she desires to be
enshrouded; she offers her breast to the knife as a "stainless
sacrifice" (another of Schlegel's happy expressions), as a lamb
which has been accustomed only to bound and frolic in its native
meadows, and which walks to the altar without knowing why, and
licks the hand which is conducting it thither.

This it is precisely which explains the inexpressible charm and
painful interest of this scene, which we have already alluded to;
a scene which, placed entirely apart from this, would transgress
the proper limits of a work of art.

Othello, when he has taken leave of the messengers of the Senate,
says, with a rugged, severe tone of voice, to Desdemona, "Get you
to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith; look it be
done." Her reply is, "I will, my lord." This is the sentence of
death, and she knows it; but not even a thought of disobedience
enters her mind; she does not dream of securing the least
assistance: Othello has spoken.

The scene in which she undresses herself, before retiring to her
bed, is then most truly for her that respite of a quarter of an
hour which is granted to criminals before they are conducted to
punishment. In vain does she attempt to suggest a different mood
to Emilia, or to practice deception upon herself by turning her
thoughts to any trifling subjects that may arise: the inmost
conviction of her soul rises in rebellion against every word.
{286}
And, for the agitated spectator, this scene is of a similar
character; he counts the minutes, he clings to the least thing,
he asks impatiently why there is still no other knot to untie, no
other clasp to unloose; his wishes would almost urge him to take
hold on Desdemona's robe and save her from impending fate.

Tragic poets, behold your master! learn a lesson from him, if you
can!

The scene in which the Moor kills Desdemona surprised the public;
but their surprise was not of long duration, and was soon changed
into fullest approval. Accustomed as they were to see this scene
lengthened out in Rossini's opera--to watch the imposing
attitudes of Madame Pasta, or the efforts of Madame Malibran, to
save her life, the brevity of the English original at first
astonished them. But, at the same time, the dialogue, so concise,
so rapid, moving so directly to the mark--those ambiguous, and,
at the same time, distracted words which Othello mutters in
suppressed tones of voice; that inexorable determination which he
has made, and which he executes with agitated haste, with
bursting heart and teeth closely set, hardly daring to look upon
his victim, but without even a momentary wavering--Desdemona's
entreaties, short, tender, timid: so much so, that they only show
her concern for life; her replies, in which all the bold
confidence of innocence declares itself, when Othello alludes to
her handkerchief, which had been found on Cassio:

                   "He found it there!"

{287}

and, when Othello declares to her that Cassio has confessed his
crime:

                   "He will not say so."

Words of simple sublimity, which Mademoiselle Mars renders with
an accent of corresponding simplicity and sublimity; those cries
from without which hasten the fatal stroke, and, as it were,
nerve the arm of Othello--all this was most deeply felt,
applauded as far as the emotion which it caused would allow,
and--if we may say so without suggesting any comparison that
would be invidious--the tragic scene appeared as superior to the
lyric scene as the tragedy of Othello itself is superior to the
libretto which is sold for thirty sous at the entrance of the
Opéra Bouffon.

Immediately after this scene an incident follows which, we are
perfectly aware, has been much applauded by all critics, which is
greatly celebrated in all modern poetical criticism, which is
even strongly commended by philosophers as an inimitable touch of
nature.

Emilia enters the chamber, and Desdemona in her last moments yet
finds enough strength left to accuse herself of her own death,
and to exculpate Othello:

  "Nobody: I myself: Farewell!
   Commend me to my kind lord: Oh, farewell!"

We must give our testimony that there was no effect whatever
produced by these words, and we will freely confess that we
should always doubt whether there ought to be any.

Let the critics fulminate against us, let them, if they will,
launch their thunder-bolts against us; but it has always appeared
to us that this short passage betrays a theatrical artifice, and
that here it is the poet who speaks to us through the mouth of
his character. It has always appeared to us that this last
expiring utterance of Desdemona involves an idea far too
complicated, far too refined--a prevision, a precaution, which
harmonize neither with her position, nor even with her character.

{288}

Since the day of her marriage, Desdemona has regarded herself as
Othello's property--as a thing of which Othello is the absolute
master, to use or abuse at his pleasure--as a slave whom he may
beat or kill, according as his fancy may lead him; how then came
she to think all at once that Othello could run any risk so far
as she was concerned, or that it was necessary to place him under
shelter from a criminal prosecution? Let her kiss Othello's hand
when dying; this is quite in keeping with her character--but for
her to give her evidence in his favor, by anticipating the
proceedings in a court of justice, is not.

Whether we are right or wrong is yet to be seen; this, however,
is of little importance. For the fact we can vouch--we repeat
it--that these words made little or no impression.

On the other hand, we can hardly say enough in praise of the last
scene--a scene about which the critics say little, but which is,
in our humble opinion, one of the most admirable in the whole
piece, and which produced an impression worthy of its
transcendent beauty.

Hardly has Desdemona breathed out her last sigh, scarcely has the
blind fury of Othello satiated himself, when the scene changes,
his reason returns, the light of truth bursts upon him like a
flood, and encounters him on all sides. Not by the explanations
of Emilia is he undeceived, nor even by the confessions of Iago.
Half an hour previously he would not have listened to any thing
of the kind, but now he anticipates it all.

{289}

Even as he had attempted at first to summon his good sense and
firmness to his assistance, against the first assaults of
jealousy, so now he attempts to summon his frenzy and blind
infatuation to his assistance, against the clamorous reproaches
of his reason. He cries out with affected brutality, when
speaking of Desdemona:

  "She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell,
  'Twas I that killed her."

He calls with vaunting impetuosity upon Iago,

  "Honest, honest Iago!"

to afford him shelter and protection; he constrains himself to
recount once more the baseness which he has always before spoken
of in accents of wild fury; but now his language is involuntarily
changed:

         "'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows
  That she with Cassio has the act of shame
  A thousand times committed."

Vain efforts! he is at length compelled to contemplate himself as
he really is. Deprived of a being of spotless goodness, whom he
adored, he now sees himself as others see him, the object not
only of horror, but also of derision and contempt. Such epithets
as calumniator, murderer assassin, are too gentle for him--he is
an infuriated mad man, an enraged wild beast, a bull goaded by
the gad-fly, or which has thrown itself, with determination to
trample under its feet and to gore with its horns, upon a piece
of red cloth which a malicious hand has placed before its eyes.
He is in exactly the same position as Ajax, in Sophocles, at the
moment when he recovers his senses, after his unhappy mania has
departed.

Such words as

                   "O, gull! O, dolt!
         As ignorant as dirt!"

are showered down upon Othello from all sides. At first he holds
down his head, abandoned to his self-recriminations--he is
disarmed like a child.

{290}

               "I am not valiant, neither,
    But every puny whipster gets my sword."

But immediately he adds, and this relieves him,

     "But why should honor outlive honesty?
      Let it go, all."

And then,

                    "I have seen the day,
  That, with this little arm and this good sword,
  I have made my way through more impediments
  Than twenty times your stop. But O, vain boast!
  Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now.
  Be not afraid though you do see me weapon'd.
  Here is my journey's end--here is my butt
  And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
  Do you go back dismayed? 'Tis a lost fear:
  Make but a rush against Othello's breast,
  And he retires."

Then he falls upon the body of Desdemona, uttering wild,
inarticulate cries, which it is impossible to hear without a
shudder of grief and sympathy.

However, this paroxysm of humiliation and despair only lasts for
a moment. Othello soon recovers his self-possession. In
proportion as reason regains its empire in him, he, in his turn,
regains his accustomed ascendency over all the circumstances that
surround him. Two or three stern and significant words show that
he has determined in his own soul what course he shall pursue. He
seizes another sword, and none of those present will dare now to
deprive him of it. In the presence of Cassio, he excuses himself
with nobleness and simplicity; he contemplates with a look of
indifference, in which there is a mixture of disdain, the
preparations made to secure his person; and when, at last,
Ludovico advances toward him, and, in an already half-intimidated
tone, orders him to be in readiness to take his departure to
Venice, under a strong escort, in order to appear before the
Senate, he interrupts him with the words,

  "Soft you; a word or two before you go."

{291}

See here, again, the mighty power of the poet; how much he can
indicate by a single stroke. Ludovico shall depart alone, such is
Othello's determination; Othello is not to go at all, such is his
wish; no one is to dispose of him but himself; he will not hear
one remark on this point. He then proceeds, in a strain of
dignified sadness:

  "I have done the state some service, and they know it;
   No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
   When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
   Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
   Nor set down aught in malice; then must you speak
   Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well:
   Of one not easily jealous; but, being wrought,
   Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
   Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
   Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
   Albeit unused to the melting mood,
   Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
   Their medicinal gum. Set you down this."

This said, and after having provided, as far as is possible for
him, for his good name, he returns to self-revenge--he turns,
with all the lofty pride of his indignant spirit, against that
miserable body which he is about to chastise as a rebellious
slave, as a ferocious animal which has dared to trample upon its
master, and has thereby abandoned him to dishonor; and, seeking
for words expressive of the direst insult, which recall at once
what he was, and the works of his life, and what he has always
most bitterly despised, he says,

  "And say, besides, that in Aleppo, once,
   Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
   Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,
   I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
   And smote him--thus."

{292}

We have dilated on the effect produced by this faithful and, we
may say, literal translation of "Othello," because this effect
seemed to us to augur very favorably for the French theatre. The
piece was better played than any of the master-pieces of our
dramatic writers is at this time; it has been better judged than
any other piece, so far as we know, ever has been; for it has
been judged sincerely, without prejudice, without any spirit of
partisanship, and each scene has been estimated according to its
true value.

If the public will resolutely maintain this freedom of mind, if
they will continue henceforth, on every renewed attempt, to
applaud only what seems to them to be good, to condemn that which
strikes them as bad, to take up an attitude of indifference to
things which are in themselves indifferent, it will, by these
means, do much for art, and still more for its own gratification.
It will save us the annoyance of an inundation of those
imitations of the romantic school of the drama which already
threaten to supersede the imitations of the classical school.
After we have tried, for a hundred years, under a thousand
different names, endless variations on the "Andromaque," the
"Mérope," and the "Zaïre"--variations, however, which are devoid
of all the beauties which belong to the originals--we shall be
preserved from the misfortune of experiencing, under a thousand
other names, and perhaps during another hundred years, mere
repetitions of "Macbeth," "Othello," or "William Tell," minus the
real beauties of "Macbeth," "Othello," and "William Tell."

{293}

The beautiful can never be the result of imitation: what is
really imitated are the defects, the exterior forms, the
mannerism of great poets; and when the public, in its
unreflecting enthusiasm for great poets, allows itself to applaud
even their faults, or merely their mannerism, it is sure to have
very soon more than enough of these.

Let those who are attached to the romantic school be well assured
that this school will not establish itself among us by means of
reversed reproductions of old works of art in a thin, transparent
disguise, nor by counterfeits foisted upon us under the pretense
of being borrowed. Let them traduce the beautiful productions of
foreign literature, line by line; their work will not be thrown
away; but, in Heaven's name, let them not produce these as
novelties, and present them before us as fruits which are
indigenous to their soil. They would not even have the excuse of
their colleagues--originality must always be original. And let
not the public allow themselves to be duped--never let them
applaud a modern author merely because he can dress himself up in
the plumage of a great master.

And let the friends of the classic school be well assured, in
their turn, that their only chance of safety is in being able to
rival the romantic school. It is now already dead--it has been
slain by the copyists; imitations at second and third hand have
filled us with an insurmountable disgust. It will revive--of this
there can be no doubt; but its revival must be under a new and
transformed appearance, released from the shackles by which it
has been unreasonably entangled, free in its movements, prepared
to enter upon a new career.

This service must be rendered to it by the existing romantic
school.

{294}

That will be a happy time when we shall be able to see these two
schools flourishing in the presence of each other, in a
reasonable degree of independence, governed, each for itself, by
the laws appropriate to its true nature, and distributing with
lavish hand the beauties which are their own native growths.

But it will be said, Do you then believe that the classic school
has an actual existence--that it is not a mistake, a folly, as
has been so often declared? Assuredly, we believe this. Do you
think that the romantic school has its laws, and that it does not
consist in the abnegation of all laws? Far from it. You do not
regard as laws of the classic school those rules about which so
much noise has been made? Not at all.

Explain yourself, then. Where is the line of demarkation between
the two schools to be drawn? What is your idea of the classic,
what of the romantic school? What are those laws of which you
speak?

These are questions which we would very gladly answer; but time
presses, and the amount of space which can be allotted to us in a
review of this kind is already more than exhausted. We must,
then, of necessity delay our answer till another opportunity.
Moreover, the adherents of the romantic school have now a
favorable breeze; and as besides, they do not lack expertness to
find pretexts, the occasion will not long be wanting to us.

{295}


                   Historical Dramas.


Shakspeare did not write his historical dramas in chronological
order, and with the intention of reproducing upon the stage the
great events and characters of the history of England, as they
had been successively developed in fact. He had no idea of
working on so general and systematic a plan. He composed his
plays just according as some particular circumstance either
suggested the idea, or inspired the whim, or imposed the
necessity of composing them, never troubling himself about the
chronology of the subjects, or about the uniform whole which
certain works might form. He has introduced upon the stage nearly
all the history of England from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century, from John Lackland to Henry VIII.; beginning with King
Henry VI. and the fifteenth century, then ascending to King John
and the thirteenth century, and finally ending with Henry VIII.
and the sixteenth century, after having several times transposed
the order of both centuries and kings. The following is the
dramatic chronology of his six historical dramas, according to
his most learned commentators, and among others, Mr. Malone:

  1. The First Part of King Henry VI. (1422-1461), composed in 1569.

  2. The Second Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591.

  3. The Third Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591.

  4. King John (1199-1216), composed in 1596.

  5. King Richard II. (1377-1399), composed in 1597.

  6. King Richard III. (1483-1485), composed in 1597.

  7. The First Part of King Henry IV. (1399-1413), composed in 1598.

  8. The Second Part of King Henry IV., composed in 1598.

  9. King Henry V. (1413-1422), composed in 1599.

 10. King Henry VIII. (1509-1547), composed in 1601.

{296}

But, after having indicated with precision the chronological
order of the composition of Shakspeare's historical dramas, we
must, in order properly to appreciate their character and
dramatic connection, replace them in the true order of events.
This I have done in the notices which I have written on these
dramas; and thus alone can we really behold the genius of
Shakspeare unfolding and giving new life to the history of his
country.

{297}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of John
Lackland in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter VIII.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                   King John.

                     (1596.)


In choosing the reign of John Lackland as the subject of a
tragedy, Shakspeare imposed upon himself the necessity of not
scrupulously respecting history. A reign in which, as Hume says,
"England was baffled and affronted in every enterprise," could
not be represented in its true colors before an English public
and an English court; and the only recollection of King John to
which the nation could attach any value--I refer to Magna
Charta--was not a topic likely to interest, in any great degree,
such a queen as Elizabeth. Shakspeare's play accordingly presents
only a summary of the last years of this disgraceful reign; and
the skill of the poet is employed to conceal the character of his
principal personage without disfiguring it, and to dissemble the
color of events without altogether changing it. The only fact
concerning which Shakspeare has distinctly adopted a resolution
to substitute invention for truth is the relation of King John to
France; and assuredly, all the illusions of national vanity were
necessary to enable Shakspeare to describe, and the English to
witness, Philip Augustus succumbing beneath the ascendency of
John Lackland.
{298}
Such a picture might indeed have been presented to John himself
when--living in total inactivity at Rouen, while Philip was
regaining all his possessions in France--he vauntingly said, "Let
the French go on; I will retake in a day what it has cost them
years to acquire." All that which, in Shakspeare's play, is
relative to the war with France, seems to have been invented in
justification of this gasconade of the most cowardly and insolent
of princes.

In the rest of the drama, the action itself, and the indication
of facts which it was impossible to dissemble, are sufficient to
give us a glimpse of a character into the inmost recesses of
which the poet did not venture to penetrate, and into which he
could not have penetrated without disgust. But such a personage,
and so constrained a manner of description, were not capable of
producing a great dramatic effect; and Shakspeare has therefore
concentrated the interest of his drama upon the fate of young
Arthur, and has devolved upon Faulconbridge that original and
brilliant part in which we feel that he takes delight, and which
he never refuses to introduce into any of his works.

Shakspeare has presented the young Duke of Bretagne to us at that
age at which it first became necessary to assert his rights after
the death of King Richard--that is, at about twelve years old. We
know that at the period to which Shakspeare's tragedy refers
Arthur was about twenty-five or twenty-six, and that he was
already married, and an object of interest from his amiable and
brilliant qualities, when he was taken prisoner by his uncle; but
the poet felt how much more interesting the exhibition of
weakness in conflict with cruelty became when exemplified in a
child. And besides, if Arthur had not been a child, it would not
have been allowable to put forward his mother in his place; and,
by suppressing Constance, Shakspeare would, perhaps, have
deprived us of the most pathetic picture that he ever drew of
maternal love--one of the feelings of which he evinced the
profoundest appreciation.

{299}

But, at the same time that he rendered the fact more touching, he
lessened the horror which it inspires by diminishing the atrocity
of the crime. The most generally received opinion is, that Hubert
de Bourg, who had promised to put Arthur to death only that he
might save him, had, in fact, deceived the cruelty of his uncle
by false reports and a pretended burial; but that John, on being
informed of the truth, first withdrew Arthur from the Castle of
Falaise, in which he was confined under Hubert's guardianship,
and transferred him to the Castle of Rouen, whither he proceeded
at night, and by water, had his nephew conveyed into his boat,
stabbed him with his own hand, tied a stone to his body, and
threw him into the river. Such an image would naturally be
rejected by a true poet. Independently of the necessity of
absolving his principal personage of so odious a crime,
Shakspeare perceived how much more dramatic and conformable to
the general nature of man the cowardly remorse of John, when he
perceived the danger in which he was plunged by the report of his
nephew's death, would be, than this excess of brutal ferocity;
and certainly, the fine scene between John and Hubert, after the
withdrawal of the lords, is amply sufficient to justify his
choice. Besides, the picture which Shakspeare presents had too
strong a hold upon his imagination, and had acquired too much
reality in his eyes, for him not to be conscious that, after the
incomparable scene in which Arthur obtains his safety from
Hubert, it would be impossible to endure the idea of any human
being laying hands on this poor child, and forcing him again to
undergo the agony from which he has just escaped.

{300}

The poet also knew that the sight of Arthur's death, although
less cruel, would be intolerable if accompanied, in the minds of
the spectators, by the anguish which the thought of Constance
would add to it; and he is, therefore, careful to inform us of
the death of the mother before making us witness the death of the
child; just as if, when his genius had conceived, to a certain
degree, the painfulness of any particular feeling or passion, his
tender heart became alarmed at it, and sought to modify it for
its own sake. Whatever misfortune Shakspeare may depict, he
almost invariably leads us to anticipate a still greater
misfortune, before which his mind recoils, and which he spares us
the unhappiness of beholding.

The character of the bastard Faulconbridge was suggested to
Shakspeare by a drama of Rowley's, entitled "The Troublesome
Reign of King John," which appeared in 1591, that is, five years
before Shakspeare's play, which was composed, it is believed, in
1596. Rowley's play was reprinted in 1611, with Shakspeare's name
attached to it--rather a common trick of the booksellers and
publishers of that time. This circumstance, and the extent to
which Shakspeare has borrowed from this work, has led several
critics to believe that he had had a hand in it, and that "The
Life and Death of King John" was only a recast of the first work;
but it does not appear that this supposition has any foundation
in fact.

According to his custom, while borrowing whatever he pleased from
Rowley, Shakspeare has added great beauties to his original, and
has retained nearly all its errors.
{301}
Thus, Rowley supposed that it was the Duke of Austria who killed
Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and at the same time he makes the Duke of
Austria perish by the hand of Faulconbridge, an historical
personage whom Matthew Paris mentions under the name of Falcasius
de Breaute, the natural son of King Richard, and who, according
to Holinshed, slew the Viscount of Limoges, in revenge for the
death of his father, who, it is well known, was killed at the
siege of Chaluz, a fortress belonging to that nobleman. In order
to reconcile Holinshed's version with his own, Rowley has made
Limoges the family name of the Duke of Austria, whom he
designates as "Limoges, duke of Austria." Shakspeare has copied
him exactly in this part of his story. He also attributes the
murder of Richard to the Duke of Austria; in his play, also, the
Duke of Austria falls by the hand of Faulconbridge; and, as
regards the confusion of the two personages, it would appear that
Shakspeare was as unscrupulous about it as Rowley, if we may
judge from Constance's speech to the Duke of Austria in the first
scene of the third act, in which she addresses him as "O Lymoges!
O Austria!" The character of Faulconbridge is one of those
creations of Shakspeare's genius in which we discover the nature
of all times and of all countries. Faulconbridge is the true
soldier, the soldier of fortune, personally recognizing no
inflexible duty but that which he owes to the chief to whom he
has devoted his life, and from whom he has received the rewards
of his valor; and yet a stranger to none of those feelings upon
which other duties are founded, and even obeying the instincts of
natural rectitude whenever they do not come into contradiction
with the vow of implicit fidelity and submission to which his
existence, and even his conscience, is devoted. He will be
humane, generous, and just, whenever this vow does not ordain him
to practice inhumanity, injustice, and bad faith; he forms a
correct judgment of the things to which he is subject, and is in
error only regarding the necessity of subjecting himself to them.
{302}
He is as skillful as he is brave, and does not alienate his
judgment while renouncing its guidance: he is a man of powerful
nature, whom circumstances, and the necessity of employing his
activity in some way or other, have reduced to a moral
inferiority, from which a calmer disposition, and profounder
reflections upon the true destination of man, would most probably
have preserved him. But, with the fault of not having sought the
objects of his fidelity and devotion in a sufficiently lofty
sphere, Faulconbridge possesses the eminent merit of unchangeable
fidelity and devotion, two singularly lofty virtues, both as
regards the feeling from which they emanate and the great actions
of which they may be the source. His language is, like his
conduct, the result of a mixture of good sense and ardor of
imagination, which frequently involves his reason in a jumble of
words very natural to men of Faulconbridge's profession and
character; being incessantly exposed to the shock of the most
violent scenes and actions, they can not find in ordinary
language the means of conveying the impressions which compose the
habit of their life.

The general style of the play is less firm and decided in color
than that of several other tragedies by the same poet; the
contexture of the work is also rather vague and feeble, but this
is the result of the absence of one leading idea, which should
continually direct all the parts of the drama toward the same
centre. The only idea of this kind which can be discerned in
"King John" is the hatred of foreign dominion gaining the victory
over the hatred of tyrannical usurpation. In order for this idea
to be salient, and constantly to occupy the mind of the
spectator, it would be necessary for it to be reproduced in every
direction, and for every thing to contribute to give conspicuity
to the misfortune of a conflict between the two feelings.
{303}
But this plan, which would be rather vast for a dramatic work,
was, moreover, irreconcilable with the reserve which Shakspeare
had imposed upon himself with regard to the character of the
king; and thus a great part of the play is passed in discussions
of but little interest, and in the remainder the events are not
well arranged; the lords change sides too lightly, first on
account of the death of Arthur, and afterward from motives of
personal alarm, which does not present their return to the cause
of England under a sufficiently honorable point of view. The
poisoning of King John, moreover, is not prepared with that care
which Shakspeare usually bestows upon the foundation and
justification of the slightest circumstances in his dramas; and
there is nothing to indicate the motive which could have led the
monk to commit so desperate an action, as at that moment John was
reconciled to Rome. The tradition from which Shakspeare has
borrowed this apocryphal anecdote ascribes the monk's conduct to
a desire to revenge an offensive epithet which the king had used
regarding him. We can not tell what could have induced Shakspeare
to adopt this story, which he has turned to so little account;
perhaps he desired to mingle with John's last moments something
of infernal suffering, without having recourse to remorse, which,
in fact, would not have been in more accordance with the real
character of this contemptible prince than with the modified
delineation of it which the poet has supplied.

{304}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Richard II
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                 King Richard II.

                     (1597.)


In proportion as Shakspeare advances toward the more modern times
of the history of his country, the chronicles upon which he
relies for information coincide more exactly with historical
truth; and already, in "The Life and Death of King Richard III.,"
the details furnished him by Holinshed differ only in a slight
degree from the historical data which have been handed down to us
as authentic. With the exception of the queen, who is a pure
invention of the poet's imagination, and passing over the
chronological disorder occasioned by Shakspeare's negligence in
keeping events at a proper distance from each other, the facts
contained in this tragedy differ in no respect from historical
narratives of the same period, except with regard to the kind of
death which Richard suffered. Holinshed, who copied other
chroniclers, supplied Shakspeare with the story which he has
followed; but the most probable opinion, and that which is in
most accordance with the care taken publicly to expose Richard's
body after his death, is, that he was left to die of hunger. This
attention to evade, at least, the material appearances of crime,
while caring little to avoid suspicion, was beginning to be
introduced into the ferocious politics of these times; and
Richard himself had stifled, beneath a mattress, the Duke of
Gloucester, whom he held prisoner in Calais, and had afterward
announced that he had died of an attack of apoplexy.
{305}
Besides Shakspeare's tendency to follow implicitly the historical
guide whom he had once adopted, this version allowed him to
preserve to the character of Bolingbroke that interest with which
he has invested it, both in this drama and in the two parts of
"King Henry IV." The choice between different versions of the
same story, is, moreover, the least contested and the least
contestable privilege of dramatic authors.

The tragedy of "Richard II." is then, generally speaking,
sufficiently conformable to history; and the manner in which the
poet has described the deposition of Richard, and the accession
to the throne of Henry of Lancaster, appears singularly in
accordance with what Hume says on the subject: "Henry IV. became
king, nobody could tell how or wherefore." But it would be
necessary to be like Hume, entirely unacquainted with the sight
of revolutions, to be puzzled to say how and why the Duke of
Lancaster, after having acted for some time in the name of the
king, whom he kept prisoner, finally established himself without
difficulty in his place. Shakspeare did not think it necessary to
explain this; Richard left Flint Castle with the title of king,
in the retinue of Bolingbroke; and we next see him signing his
own deposition. The poet does not in any way indicate to us what
has passed; but in order not to guess how the fall of Richard was
accomplished it would be necessary for us to have very ill
understood the picture presented to us of his first degradation;
and the conversation of the gardener with his servants completes
the description by revealing to us its effects upon public
opinion.
{306}
It was a characteristic of Shakspeare's art to make us present at
every part of the event; and he always transports us to the scene
in which he strikes his most decisive blows, while at a distance
from our view the action pursues its course, and contents itself
with meeting us again when it has reached its consummation.

Although this tragedy is entitled "The Life and Death of King
Richard II.," it only comprises the last two years of that
prince's reign, and contains only a single event, namely, his
downfall--the catastrophe toward which every circumstance tends
from the very outset of the play. This event has been considered
under different aspects, and a rather singular anecdote has
revealed to us the existence of another tragedy on the same
subject, anterior, as it would appear, to Shakspeare's drama, and
treated in an altogether different point of view. Some of the
partisans of the Earl of Essex, on the day preceding his
extravagant enterprise, procured the performance of a tragedy in
which, as in Shakspeare's drama, Richard II. was deposed and put
to death on the stage. The actors having represented to them that
the play was entirely out of fashion, and would not attract a
sufficient audience to cover the expense of the performance, Sir
Gilly Merrick, one of the confederates, gave them forty shillings
above the receipts. This fact was mentioned at the trial of Sir
Gilly, and served to procure his condemnation.

The conspiracy of the Earl of Essex occurred in 1601, and
Shakspeare's tragedy appeared, it is believed, in the year 1597.
Notwithstanding this precedence, no one will be disposed to
suspect that one of Shakspeare's plays could have figured in a
factious enterprise against Elizabeth. Besides, the drama in
question seems to have been known by the name of "Henry IV.," and
not by that of "Richard II.;" and there is reason to believe that
the history of Henry IV. was its true subject, and Richard's
death only an incident.
{307}
But in order to remove every kind of doubt, it is sufficient to
read Shakspeare's tragedy; the doctrine of divine right is
incessantly presented in it, accompanied by that interest which
is excited by the aspect of the misfortunes of fallen greatness.
If the poet has not given to the usurper that odious physiognomy
which produces hatred and the dramatic passions, it is sufficient
to read history to understand the cause of this.

This vagueness of the moral aspect under which men and things
present themselves, and which does not allow the feelings to
attach themselves vigorously to any one object, because they can
rest upon nothing with satisfaction, is not a fact peculiar to
Richard II. and his destiny, in the history of these disastrous
times. Parties ever at conflict with each other for the supreme
power, vanquished by turns, and always deserving their defeat,
without any one of them having ever deserved victory, do not
present a very dramatic spectacle, nor one very well calculated
to elevate our feelings and faculties to that degree of
exaltation which is one of the noblest objects of art. Pity is,
in such a case, often wanting to indignation, and esteem almost
always to pity. We have no difficulty in finding out the crimes
of the strongest, but we look with anxiety for the virtues of the
weakest; and the same effect is produced when the circumstances
are changed: follies, depredations, injustice, and violence have
led to Richard's downfall, and have even rendered it necessary;
and they detach us from him by the two-fold reason that we behold
him working out his own ruin, and that we find it impossible to
save him. It would, however, be easy to discover at least as many
crimes in the party which triumphs over his degradation.
{308}
Shakspeare might, with little trouble, have amassed against the
rebels those treasures of indignation which would animate all
hearts in favor of the legitimate sovereign; but one of the
principal characteristics of Shakspeare's genius is a
truthfulness, I may say a fidelity of observation, which
reproduces nature as it is and time as it actually occurs.
History supplied him neither with heroes superior to their
fortune, nor with innocent victims, nor with instances of heroic
devotion or of imposing passion; he merely found the very
strength of his characters employed in the service of those
interests which degrade them--perfidy considered as a means of
conduct, treason almost justified by the dominant principle of
personal interest, and desertion almost rendered legitimate by
the consideration of the risk that would be run by remaining
faithful; and all this he has described. It is, in truth, the
Duke of York, a personage of whose incapacity and nullity we are
informed by history, whom Shakspeare has selected to represent
this ever-ardent devotedness to the man who governs, this
facility in transferring his obedience from rightful to actual
power, and vice versa, merely allowing himself, for his honor, to
shed a few solitary tears on behalf of the monarch whom he has
abandoned. To any one who has not witnessed the sport of fortune
with empires, this personage would be only comic; but to any one
who has beheld such changes, does he not possess alarming
truthfulness?

Surrounded by characters of this kind, whence could Shakspeare
derive that pathetic element which he would have loved to infuse
into the spectacle of fallen greatness? He who had given old
Lear, in his misery, so many noble and faithful friends, could
not find one for Richard; the king had fallen, stripped and
naked, into the hands of the poet, as he fell from his throne;
and in himself alone the poet has been obliged to seek all his
resources; the character of Richard II. is, therefore, one of the
profoundest conceptions of Shakspeare.

{309}

The commentators have had a great discussion as to whether it was
from the court of James or of Elizabeth that Shakspeare derived
the maxims which he so frequently professes in favor of divine
right and absolute power. Shakspeare derived them ordinarily from
his personages themselves; and it was sufficient for him here to
have to describe a king already seated on the throne. Richard
never imagined that he ever was, or could be, any thing but a
king; his royalty was, in his eyes, a part of his nature, one of
the constituent elements of his being, which he brought into the
world with him at his birth, subject to no conditions but his
life; as he had nothing to do to retain it, it was no more in his
power to cease to be worthy of it than to cease to be invested
with it; and hence arose his ignorance of his duties to his
subjects and to his own safety, and his indolent confidence in
the midst of danger. Although this confidence abandons him for a
moment at every new reverse, it returns immediately, doubling its
force in proportion as he requires more of it to take the place
of other props, which successively crumble away. When he has
arrived at last at a point at which it is no longer possible for
him to hope, the king becomes astonished, looks around, and
inquires if he is really himself. Another kind of courage then
springs up within him--the courage imparted by such a misfortune
that the man who experiences it becomes excited by the surprise
into which he is thrown by his own position; it becomes to him an
object of such lively attention, that he dares to contemplate it
in all its bearings, were it only for the purpose of
understanding it; and by this contemplation he escapes from
despair, and sometimes rises to truth, the discovery of which
always calms a man to a certain degree.
{310}
But this calmness is barren, and this courage inactive; it
sustains the mind, but it is fatal to action; all the actions of
Richard are, therefore, deplorably feeble: even his reflections
upon his actual condition reveal a consciousness of his own
nullity, which descends, at certain moments, almost to baseness;
and who could raise a man who, on ceasing to be a king, has lost,
in his own opinion, the distinctive quality of his being, the
dignity of his nature? He believed himself precious in the sight
of God, sustained by His arm, and armed with His power; when
fallen from the mysterious rank which he had once occupied, he
knows no place for himself upon earth: when stripped of the power
which he believed his right, he does not suppose that any
strength can remain to him: he, therefore, makes no resistance;
to do so would be to try something which he believes impossible:
in order to arouse his energy, some sudden and pressing danger
must, as it were, provoke, without his knowledge, faculties which
he disavows; when his life is attacked, he defends himself, and
dies with courage; but in order always to have possessed courage,
he needed to know what a man is worth.

We must not expect to find in "Richard II.," any more than in the
majority of Shakspeare's historical dramas, a particular
character of style. Its diction is not greatly elaborated; though
frequently energetic, it is frequently also so vague as to leave
the reason to decide as it pleases upon the meaning of the
expressions, which can be determined by no rule of syntax.

{311}

This play is written entirely in verse, a great part of which is
in rhyme. The author appears to have made some changes in it
after the first edition, which was published in 1597. The scene
of Richard's trial, in particular, is entirely wanting in this
edition, and occurs for the first time in that published in 1608.

{312}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry IV
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


              First And Second Parts

                 Of King Henry IV.

                   (1597-1598.)


The commentators have given to these two plays the title of
comedies, and, in fact, although their subject belongs to
tragedy, their intention is comic. In Shakspeare's tragedies, the
comic sometimes arises spontaneously from the position of the
personages introduced to assist the tragic action; here not only
does a part of the action absolutely turn upon the comic
personages, but most of those whose rank, the interest in which
they are concerned, and the dangers to which they expose
themselves, might raise them to the dignity of tragic personages,
are presented under the aspect which belongs to comedy, namely,
under the weak or whimsical features of their nature. The almost
puerile impetuosity of the fiery Hotspur, the brutal originality
of his good sense, and his soldier-like ill temper with all who
endeavor to detain his thoughts for a moment beyond the circle of
the interests to which his life is devoted, give rise to some
extremely piquant scenes. The Welshman, Glendower, boastful and
vainglorious, as loquacious as he is brave, who makes head
against Hotspur whenever he threatens or contradicts him, but who
yields and retires whenever a pleasantry alarms his self-love
with the fear of ridicule, is a truly comic conception.
{313}
Even the three or four words which Douglas utters are also
characterized by a tinge of braggadocio. Neither of these three
courages is expressed in the same way; but all yield to that of
Hotspur, the comic hue of whose character does not detract in the
slightest degree from the interest which he inspires. We become
attached to him as to Alceste in the "Misanthrope"--to a great
character who is the victim of a quality which the impetuosity of
his temper and the preoccupation of his own ideas have turned
into a defect. We see the brave Hotspur accepting the enterprise
proposed to him before he knows its nature, as he feels certain
of success as soon as he is struck with the idea of action; we
see him successively losing all the supporters upon whom he had
reckoned, abandoned or betrayed by those who have involved him in
danger, and urged onward, as it were, by a sort of fatality
toward the abyss which he does not perceive until the moment when
he finds it impossible to draw back; and he falls regretting
nothing but his glory. This is doubtless a tragical catastrophe,
and the substance of the first part of the drama, the subject of
which is the first step of Henry V. toward glory, required one of
this kind; but the picture of the vagaries of the prince's youth,
nevertheless, forms the most important part of the work, the
principal character in which is Falstaff. Falstaff is one of the
most celebrated personages of English comedy, and perhaps no
drama can present a gayer one. The description of the follies of
a youth so disorderly as that of Henry V., at a time when manners
were so coarse and rude, would be a very melancholy picture, if,
in the midst of its uncouth debauchery, habits and pretensions of
a higher order did not effect a contrast, and perform a part all
the more amusing because it is so out of place.
{314}
It would have been very moral, undoubtedly, to cast the ridicule
of this impropriety upon the prince who thus degrades himself;
but, even if Shakspeare had not been the poet of the court of
England, neither probability nor art would have permitted him to
debase such a personage as Henry V. He is careful, on the
contrary, always to preserve to him the dignity of his character
and the superiority of his position; and Falstaff, who is
destined to amuse us, is admitted into the play only for the
diversion of the prince.

Born to move in good society, Falstaff has not yet renounced all
his pretensions of this kind; he has not adopted the coarseness
of the positions to which he is degraded by his vices; he has
given up every thing except his self-love; he does not make a
merit of his intemperance, nor does he base his vanity upon the
exploits of a bandit. If there were any thing to which he would
cling, it would be to the manners and qualities of a gentleman;
to this character he would pretend, if he were permitted to
entertain, or able to maintain, a pretension of any kind. At
least, he is determined to give himself the pleasure of affecting
these qualities, even should the gratification of this pleasure
gain him an affront; though he neither believes in it himself,
nor hopes that others believe in it, he must at any cost rejoice
his ears with panegyrics upon his bravery, and almost upon his
virtues. This is one of his weaknesses, just as the taste of
Canary sack is a temptation which he finds it impossible to
resist; and the ingenuousness with which he yields to it, the
embarrassments in which it involves him, and the sort of
hypocritical impudence which assists him to get out of his
dilemmas, make him an extraordinarily amusing personage. The play
upon words, although frequent in this drama, are much less
numerous than in several other dramas of a more serious
character, and are infinitely better placed.
{315}
The mixture of subtlety, for which Shakspeare was indebted to the
spirit of his time, does not prevent the gayety in this piece, as
well as in those in which Falstaff reappears, from being perhaps
more frank and natural than in any other work of the English
drama.

The first part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1597.

Henry V. is the true hero of the second part; his accession to
the throne, and the great change which results from it,
constitute the event of the drama. The defeats of the Archbishop
of York and of Northumberland are only the complement of the
facts contained in the first part. Hotspur is no longer present
to give these facts a life of their own, and the horrible treason
of Westmoreland is not of a nature to establish a dramatic
interest. The dying Henry IV. appears only to prepare the way for
the reign of his son, and all our attention is already directed
toward the successor, who possesses equal importance from the
fears and hopes which he occasions.

Shakspeare has not borrowed the picture of these varied feelings
entirely from history. The accession of Henry V. was generally a
subject of rejoicing. Holinshed relates that, during the three
days which followed the decease of his father, "diverse noblemen
and honorable personages did to him homage, and swore to him due
obedience, which had not been seen done to any of his
predecessors--such good hope and great expectation was had of
this man's fortunate success to follow." [Footnote 30]

    [Footnote 30: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 543.]

{316}

The inconstant ardor of the public mind, which was maintained by
frequent overthrows, necessarily rendered a new reign a subject
of hope; and the troubles which had agitated the reign of Henry
IV., the cruelties with which they had been attended, and the
continual distrust which had resulted from them, naturally turned
the eyes and the affections of the nation toward a young prince
whose irregularities, at such a period of disorder, gave far less
offense than his generous qualities inspired confidence. A
portion of these irregularities was, moreover, ascribed to the
jealous distrust of his father, who, by keeping him unconnected
with public business, for which he had manifested great aptitude
and even denying him an opportunity to display his military
talents, had cast his impetuous spirit into courses of disorder,
in which the manners of the time did not permit him to pause
until he had been guilty of its extremest excesses. Holinshed
attributes to the malevolence of those who surrounded the king
not only the suspicions which he was disposed to entertain
regarding his son, but also the odious reports which were spread
in reference to the conduct of the prince. He relates an occasion
on which the prince, having to defend himself against certain
insinuations which had created a misunderstanding between his
father and himself, appeared at court with a retinue, the
splendor and number of which were not calculated to diminish the
suspicions of the king, and in a costume so singular that the
chronicler thinks it worthy of special mention. It was "a gown of
blue satin, full of small eyelet holes, at every hole the needle
hanging by a silk thread with which it was sewn." Whatever may be
thought would be the constraint of the movements of a person clad
in so unprepossessing a manner, the prince threw himself at his
father's feet, and, after having protested his fidelity,
presented him with a dagger, that he might rid himself of his
suspicions by putting him to death, and "in presence of these
lords," he added, "and before God at the general judgment, I
faithfully protest clearly to forgive you."
{317}
The king, "moved herewith, cast from him the dagger," embraced
his son with tears in his eyes, confessed his suspicions, and
declared, at the same time, that they were effaced. The prince
demanded the punishment of his accusers, but the king replied
that some delay was required by prudence, and did not punish them
after all. But it appears that the general opinion sufficiently
avenged the young prince; and without precisely believing with
Holinshed, who contradicts himself in another place on this
point, that Henry was always careful "to tether his affections
within the tract of virtue," [Footnote 31] we are led to suppose
that there may be some exaggeration in the account of the
excesses of his youth, which are rendered more remarkable by the
sudden revolution which brought them to a termination, and by the
splendor of glory which followed them.

    [Footnote 31: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 539.]

Shakspeare naturally adopted the tradition most favorable to
dramatic effect; and he also felt how admirably adapted the part
of a dying king and father, anxious about the fate of his son and
his subjects, was to produce a touching and pathetic picture upon
the stage; and, just as he has invented the episode of Gascoigne
to enhance the beauty of his _dénouement_, he has added to
the scene of the death of Henry IV. developments which render it
infinitely more interesting. Holinshed simply relates that the
king, perceiving that the crown had been taken from his pillow,
and learning that the prince had carried it away, sent for him,
and required an explanation of his conduct, "Upon which the
prince with a good audacity answered, 'Sir, to mine and all men's
judgments you seemed dead in this world, wherefore I, as your
next heir-apparent, took that as mine own, and not as yours.'
'Well, fair son,' said the king, with a great sigh, 'what right I
had to it, God knoweth.' 'Well,' said the prince, 'if you die
king, I will have the garland, and trust to keep it with the
sword against all mine enemies, as you have done.'
{318}
Then said the king, 'I commit all to God, and remember you to do
well;' with that he turned himself in his bed, and shortly after
departed to God." [Footnote 32]

    [Footnote 32: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 541.]

Perhaps the answer of the young prince, rendered as a poet might
have rendered it, would have been preferable to the studied
speech which Shakspeare has put into his mouth; he has, however,
retained a part of it in the last reply of the Prince of Wales,
and the rest of the scene is full of great beauties, as are also
those which follow between Gascoigne and the prince. In the
whole, Shakspeare seems to have desired to redeem, by beauties of
detail, the necessary coldness of the tragic part; it contains
many excellences, and its style is generally more careful and
more free from whimsicality than that of most of his other
historical dramas.

The comic part, which is very important and very considerable in
the second part of "Henry IV.," is not, however, equal in merit
to the corresponding portion of the first part of the same play.
Falstaff has got on in the interval; he has a pension and a rank;
his relations with the prince are less frequent; his wit does
not, therefore, so frequently serve to deliver him from those
embarrassments which rendered him so comic; and comedy is obliged
to descend a stage to represent him in his true nature, under the
influence of his real tastes, and in the midst of the rascals
with whom he associates or the fools whom he makes his dupes.
These pictures are undoubtedly painted with striking truth, and
abound in comic features, but the truth is not always
sufficiently removed from disgust for its comicality to find us
disposed to enter into all the mirth which it inspires; and the
personages upon whom the ridicule falls do not always appear to
us to be worth the trouble of laughing at them. The character of
Falstaff is, however, perfectly sustained, and will appear in all
its completeness when we next meet with it in another play.

{319}

The second part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1598.

{320}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry V.
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIII.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                   King Henry V.

                     (1599.)


It is erroneously that most critics have regarded "Henry V." as
one of the weakest of Shakspeare's works. The fifth act, it is
true, is empty and cold, and the conversations which compose it
possess as little poetic merit as dramatic interest. But the
progress of the first four acts is simple, rapid, and animated;
the events of the history, plans of government or of conquest,
plots, negotiations, and wars, are transformed in them without
effort into dramatic scenes full of life and effect. If the
characters are not completely developed, they are at least well
drawn and well sustained; and the double genius of Shakspeare, as
a profound moralist and a brilliant poet, even in the painful and
fantastic forms in which he sometimes clothes his thought and
imagination, retains, in these four acts, all its abundance and
its splendor.

We also meet, in the words of the chorus which fills up the
intervals between the acts, with remarkable proofs of
Shakspeare's good sense, and of the instinct which led him to
feel the inconveniences of his dramatic system. At the very
opening of the play, he thus addresses his audience. "Let us," he
says,

  "On your imaginary forces work;
   For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
   Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
   Turning the accomplishment of many years
   Into an hour-glass."

{321}

And in another place he says,

  "Linger your patience on; and well digest
   The abuse of distance, while we force a play."

The popular and comic part of the drama, although the originality
of Falstaff's wit is absent, contains scenes of perfect natural
gayety; and the Welshman Fluellen is a model of that serious,
ingenious, inexhaustible, unexpected, and jocose military
talkativeness, which excites at once our laughter and our
sympathy.

{322}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry VI
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIII.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                  King Henry VI.

                   (1589-1591.)


Among the editors and commentators of Shakspeare, the three parts
of "Henry VI." have formed a subject of controversy which is not
yet decided, nor, perhaps, even exhausted. Several of them have
thought that the first of these pieces belonged to him in no
respect; others, fewer in number, have also denied him the
original invention of the last two parts, which, in their
opinion, he had merely retouched, and the primitive conception of
which belonged to one or two other authors. Neither of these
three pieces was printed during Shakspeare's lifetime; but this
proves nothing, for the same may be said of several other works,
the authenticity of which is contested by no one, although it
certainly leaves every latitude to doubt and discussion.

The general weakness of these three compositions, in which we can
find only a small number of scenes which reveal the touch of a
master's hand, would nevertheless not be a sufficient reason for
ascribing them to another pen than his; for, if they belonged to
him, they would be his first works, a circumstance that would
sufficiently explain their inferiority, at least so far as
regards the conduct of the drama, the connection of the scenes,
and the art of sustaining and augmenting the interest
progressively, by bringing all the various parts of the
composition to one single impression which increases as it
advances, just as a river becomes larger at every step from the
influx of waters from every side
{323}
Such is, in fact, Shakspeare's character in his great
compositions, but it is essentially wanting to the three parts of
"Henry VI.," and especially to the first part. But Shakspeare's
defects are equally absent--that refinement and emphasis from
which he has not always escaped even in his finest works, and
which are the almost necessary result of the juvenility of ideas
which, being astonished, as it were, at themselves, are unable to
exhaust the pleasure which they feel in their own production. It
would, indeed, be strange if Shakspeare's first essays were
exempt from these defects.

We must, however, distinguish here between the three parts of
"Henry VI.," those circumstances which concern the first part, to
which it is believed that Shakspeare was almost entirely a
stranger, and those which have reference to the other two parts,
the invention and original composition of which are alone denied
to him, although it is admitted that he retouched them to a
considerable extent. These are the facts.

In 1623, that is, seven years after the death of Shakspeare,
appeared the first complete edition of his works. Fourteen only
of his dramas had been printed during his lifetime, and the three
parts of "Henry VI." were not among the number; they appeared in
1623, in the state in which they are given at the present day,
and were all three ascribed to Shakspeare, although a sort of
tradition, as it would appear, already disputed his title to the
authorship of the first part. On the other hand, as early as the
year 1600, had been published, without the author's name, by
Thomas Millington, bookseller, two plays, entitled--one, "The
first part of the Contention between the two famous Houses of
York and Lancaster;" and the other, "The true Tragedy of Richard,
Duke of York, and Death of Good King Henry VI."
{324}
Of these two plays, one served as a matrix, if I may be allowed
the expression, for the second part of "Henry VI.," and the other
for the third. The progress and conformation of the scenes and
dialogue are the same in both, with the exception of a few slight
differences; entire passages have been transferred verbatim from
the original plays into those which Shakspeare has given us under
the name of the "Second and Third Parts of Henry VI." Most of the
lines have been merely embellished, and a very small number only
are entirely new.

In 1619, that is, three years after the death of Shakspeare,
these two original dramas were reprinted by a bookseller named
Pavier, and this time with the name of our poet. Hence arose
among the critics the opinion that they belonged to Shakspeare,
and ought to be regarded either as a first composition, which he
had himself revised and corrected, or as an imperfect copy,
prepared for the actors, and printed in this state--which often
happened at this period, as authors were not generally in the
habit of having their plays printed. This last opinion was for a
long while the most general; but it can not bear investigation,
for, as it is observed by Mr. Malone, who of all the commentators
has thrown most light upon this question, an awkward copyist
omits and maims, but does not add to his original; and the two
original plays contain several passages, and also some short
scenes, which do not occur in the others. Besides, nothing about
them bears the impress of an ill-made copy; the versification is
regular, and the style is only much more prosaic than that of the
passages which undubitably belong to Shakspeare: from whence it
would result that the copyist had omitted precisely those
features which were most striking, and best calculated to impress
themselves upon the imagination and the memory.

{325}

There only remains, therefore, the supposition of a first sketch,
afterward perfected by its author. Among the proofs of detail
which Mr. Malone accumulates in opposition to this opinion, and
which are not all equally conclusive, there is, however, one
which deserves to be taken into consideration, and that is, that
the original plays are evidently based upon Hall's chronicle,
whereas Shakspeare always followed Holinshed, never borrowing
from Hall except when Holinshed has copied him. It is not at all
probable that, if he had used Hall for his first works, he would
afterward have left the original for the copyist.

If these two opinions be rejected, we must suppose that
Shakspeare borrowed without scruple, from the work of another,
the substance and stuff which he afterward enriched with his own
embroidery. His numerous borrowings from the dramatic authors of
this time render this supposition very easy of credence, and the
following fact, in this special instance, is almost equivalent to
a proof of its legitimacy. In the first place, it must be
observed that the two original pieces which were printed in 1600
existed as early as 1593; for we find them, at that period,
registered under the same title, and with the name of the same
bookseller, in the registers of the Stationers' Company. What
cause delayed the publication of these two plays until 1600, it
is useless just now to discuss; but the proof of the antiquity of
their existence acquires, in the discussion which now occupies
our attention, considerable importance from the following passage
in a pamphlet by Greene, a very prolific author, who died in the
month of September, 1592.
{326}
In this pamphlet, which was written a short time before his
death, and printed immediately after, as he had ordered in his
will, Green addresses his farewell advice to several of his
friends, literary men like himself; and the object of this advice
is to dissuade them from working for the theatre, if they desire
to escape the griefs of which he complains. One of the motives
which he gives for so doing is the imprudence of trusting to the
actors; for, he says, "there is an upstart crow, beautified with
our feathers, that with his _Tiger's heart wrapped in a
player's hide_, [Footnote 33] supposes he is as well able to
bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an
absolute _Johannes Factotum_, is, in his own conceit, the
only Shake-scene in the country." [Footnote 34]

    [Footnote 33: In allusion to a line in the old play--
        "The First Part of the Contention:"

        "O, tyger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide."]

    [Footnote 34: Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," 1592.]

These passages leave no doubt as to Shakspeare's having borrowed
from Greene as early as in 1592; and as the three parts of "Henry
VI." are the only dramas of our poet which it is believed can be
placed before that period, the question would seem to be almost
settled; while, at the same time, the quotation by Greene, on
this occasion, of a line from the original play, would prove that
it was this borrowing which went to his heart. It is, therefore,
very probable that Shakspeare, who was then an actor, and
exercised the activity of his genius as yet only for the
advantage of his troop, may have tried to bring upon the stage,
with greater success, dramas already known, and the substance of
which furnished him with a few beauties which he could turn to
account. As plays then belonged, according to all appearances, to
the actors who had bought them, the undertaking was a natural
one, and the success of "Henry VI." may probably have been the
first indication, in reliance upon which a genius as yet ignorant
of its own strength ventured to dart forward on its career.

{327}

In order to explain why Shakspeare, after thus remodeling the two
plays from which he constructed the second and third parts of
"Henry VI.," did not do the same work for the first part, it will
be sufficient to suppose that the first part already enjoyed
enough success upon the stage to prevent the interest of the
actors from requiring any change in it. This supposition is,
moreover, supported by a passage in a pamphlet by Thomas Nashe,
in which he says, "How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the
terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred
years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have
his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators
at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that
represents his person, behold him fresh bleeding." [Footnote 35]

    [Footnote 35: Nashe's "Pierce Penniless; his Supplication to
    the Devil."]

Nashe, the intimate friend of Greene, would probably not have
spoken in such terms of one of Shakspeare's plays, and perhaps
the success achieved by this drama may have induced Shakspeare to
render the other two parts worthy to share in its triumph; but
even with this supposition, it would be difficult not to believe
that, either before or afterward, Shakspeare had enhanced, by a
few touches, the coloring of a work which had only succeeded in
pleasing his contemporaries because Shakspeare had not yet made
his appearance. The scenes, therefore, between Talbot and his son
must be by him, or else we must believe that before his time
there existed in England a dramatic author capable of attaining
that touching and noble truthfulness of which very few, even of
his successors, have divined the secret.
{328}
Nothing can be finer than this description of the two heroes--one
dying, and the other scarcely initiated into a warrior's life;
the first, satiated with glory, and, in his paternal anxiety,
desirous rather to save the life than the honor of his son; the
other, stern and inflexible, determined to prove his filial
affection by seeking death at his father's side, and by his
carefulness thus to maintain the honor of his race. This
position, varied by all the alternations of fear and hope which
can be occasioned by the chances of a battle, in which the father
saves his son, and the son is eventually slain at a distance from
his father, contains in itself almost the interest of a drama;
and there is every reason to believe that Shakspeare added this
ornament to a play which his close connection with those parts of
it which he had remodeled had, as it were, incorporated into his
works. It must also be observed, that the scenes between Talbot
and his son are almost entirely in rhyme, as is the case in many
of Shakspeare's works, whereas, in the rest of the play, as well
as in the two plays which appear to be intended as a continuation
of it, there is scarcely a rhyme to be found. The scene which, in
the first part of "Henry VI.," contains most rhyme, is that in
which we behold Mortimer dying in prison, and we might therefore
suppose that it had received at least some additions from the
hand of Shakspeare. These additions, and a few others perhaps, in
all not very numerous, may have furnished the editors of 1623
with what appeared to them a sufficient reason for including,
among the works of a poet who had excelled all competitors, a
play which owed entire its merit to what he had added to it, and
which was also necessarily connected with two other works which
contained too much of his composition to be omitted from the
number of his productions.

{329}

As to the insertion of Shakspeare's name in Pavier's edition of
the two original plays, it is easy to explain it as a
bookseller's trick--a kind of fraud extremely common at that
time, and which has been practised in reference to several
dramatic works composed upon subjects which Shakspeare had
treated, and which the publishers hoped to sell by favor of his
name. This conjecture is rendered all the more probable by the
fact that this edition is undated, although we know that it
appeared in 1619, which might be a petty bookselling scheme to
make purchasers believe that it had appeared during the lifetime
of the author whose name it had borrowed.

We are ignorant of the precise period of the performance of the
first part of "Henry VI.," which, according to Malone, originally
bore the name of "The Historical Play of King Henry the Sixth."
The style of this play, except so much of it as we may attribute
to Shakspeare, bears the same character as that of all the
dramatic works of the period which preceded the compositions of
our poet: the grammatical construction is very irregular, the
tone is simple but undignified, and the versification
sufficiently prosaic. The interest, which is somewhat
mediocre--although the play is full of movement--is furthermore
greatly diminished, in our view, by the ridiculous and uncouth
absurdity of the part of Joan of Arc, which may, however, give us
a most exact idea of the spirit in which the English chroniclers
have written the history of this heroic maiden, and of the aspect
under which they have described her. In this sense the play is
historical.

{330}

The second part of "Henry VI.," though much more interesting than
the first, is not conducted with much greater art: monologues are
continually employed to explain the facts, and feelings are
expressed in asides. The scenes, separated by considerable
intervals (for the whole play comprehends the space of ten
years), are connected with each other by no link; we can perceive
none of those efforts which Shakspeare made, in most of his other
works, to unite them together, sometimes even at the expense of
probability; and as, at the same time, we are never informed of
the interval which separates them, we are frequently astonished
at finding ourselves transferred, without having remarked it, to
a distance of several years from the event which we have just
seen accomplished. The different parts of the play, moreover, do
not depend essentially upon each other, which is a fault very
rare in the works that are indisputably acknowledged to be
productions of Shakspeare's pen. Thus, for example, the adventure
of Simpcox is absolutely superfluous; that of the armorer and his
apprentice is but feebly connected with the subject; and the
pirates who put Suffolk to death have nothing whatever to do with
the rest of the plot. As to the general cast of the characters,
it is far from corresponding to Shakspeare's ordinary talent. It
can not, however, be denied, that there is some merit in the
portraiture of Henry, a prince whose pious sentiments and
constant goodness almost always succeed in interesting us,
notwithstanding the ridiculousness of his weakness and poverty of
mind, which border closely upon imbecility. The part of Margaret,
also, is tolerably well sustained; but her excess of falsity to
her husband exceeds the limits of probability; and Shakspeare
would not, in his good time at least, have ascribed to two such
criminals as Margaret and Suffolk such tender feelings as those
which mark their last interview. As for Warwick and Salisbury,
they arc two characters without any kind of connection, and which
it is utterly impossible to explain.

{331}

Whether Shakspeare is or is not the author of the play entitled
"The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses
of York and Lancaster,'" the Second Part of "Henry VI." is
entirely based upon that work. Shakspeare has, however, quoted
from it verbatim only to a small extent, and particularly in the
scenes of rapid dialogue, like that of the adventure of Simpcox,
the fight between the two artisans, and the dispute between
Gloster and the Cardinal at the hunt; he has made but few
alterations in these pieces, as well as in a part of Cade's
rebellion. That horribly effective scene, however, in which Lord
Say falls into the hands of the populace, is almost entirely by
Shakspeare. As for the rather long speeches, he has embellished
them all, more or less, and most of them even belong entirely to
him, as, for instance, those of Henry on behalf of Gloster, those
of Margaret to her husband, a great part of Gloster's defense,
some of York's monologues, and nearly the whole of the part of
young Clifford. It is not difficult to discern Shakspeare's hand
in these, as the poetry is bolder, more brilliant with imagery,
and less free, perhaps, from that abuse of wit which Shakspeare
does not appear to have borrowed from the dramatic poets of the
period. Moreover, with the exception of a certain number of
anachronisms common to all Shakspeare's works, this play is
tolerably faithful to history; and the perusal of chronicles
imparted to the authors of historical dramas, at this period, a
character of truthfulness, and means of interest, which superior
men alone can derive from subjects of their own invention.

{332}

The third part of "Henry VI." comprises the interval from the
spring of the year 1455 until the end of 1471, that is, a space
of nearly sixteen years, during which fourteen battles were
fought, which, according to a probably much exaggerated
calculation, cost more than eighty thousand combatants their
lives. Blood and deaths are, therefore, not spared in this drama,
although, of these fourteen battles, only four are represented,
with which the author has been careful to connect the principal
facts of all the fourteen; these facts are, for the most part,
assassinations in cold blood, accompanied by the most atrocious
circumstances, sometimes borrowed from history, and sometimes
added by the author or authors. Thus, the circumstance of the
handkerchief steeped in the blood of Rutland, and given to his
father, York, to dry his tears, is a pure invention; and the
character of Richard, both in this piece and the preceding one,
is equally fictitious. Richard was much younger than his brother
Rutland, who is here represented as his junior, and he could not
possibly have taken any part in the events upon which the two
dramas are founded; but his character is, in other respects, well
announced and well sustained. That of Margaret does not belie
itself; and that of Henry, through the progress of his weakness
and imbecility, still affords us casual glimpses of those gentle
and pious feelings which made him so interesting in the first
part. These portions of his part belong entirely to Shakspeare,
as well as most of Henry's meditations during the battle of
Towton, his speech to the lieutenant of the Tower, his scene with
the keepers, and so forth; and these pieces are either entirely
wanting, or merely outlined, in the original play. It is easy to
distinguish the passages which were added, for they are
characterized by a charm and simplicity of imagery which the
style of the original work nowhere presents.
{333}
Sometimes, also, the passages retouched by Shakspeare, whether of
his own work or that of another, are remarkable for that
refinement of wit which is familiar to him, and which is not
compensated, in this case, by that consistency and coherence of
imagery which, in his best works, almost always accompany his
subtleties. This may be remarked, for example, in Richard's
lamentations over the death of his father; it would be difficult
to attribute them to any other than Shakspeare, so clearly do
they bear his impress; but it would be equally difficult to
ascribe them to his better time, and their imperfection might
serve as an additional proof that the three parts of "Henry VI.,"
as we possess them at the present day, present us, not with
Shakspeare corrected by himself, but with Shakspeare employing
the first efforts of his genius to correct the works of others.
He has, besides, embellished this part much less than the
preceding one, which probably appeared to him more worthy of his
attention; with the exception of Margaret's speech before the
battle of Tewkesbury, a part of the scene between Edward and Lady
Grey, and a few other unimportant passages, we can add no more to
those which have been quoted already as belonging entirely to the
corrected work. The greater part of the original play is
reproduced word for word; and we also meet with the same want of
connection which is noticeable in the first and second parts. The
horrors which are accumulated in this part are painted with a
certain amount of energy, but it is far removed from that
profound truthfulness which, in his finest works, Shakspeare has
extracted, as it were, from the very bowels of nature.

{334}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Richard III
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIV.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                 King Richard III.

                      (1597.)


Richard III. is one of those men who have produced upon the time
in which they lived an impression of horror and dread which is
always based upon some real cause, although it may afterward lead
to an exaggeration of the realities of the case. Holinshed calls
him "one of those bad persons who will not live an hour without
doing and exercising cruelty, mischief, and an outrageous manner
of living." Undoubtedly--and historical criticism has supplied
the proof of this--the life of Richard has been charged with
several crimes which do not properly belong to him; but these
errors and exaggerations, the natural result of the popular
feeling, explain, though they do not justify, the whimsical
attempt of Horace Walpole to rehabilitate the memory of Richard,
by purging him of most of the crimes of which he is accused. This
is one of those paradoxical questions upon which the mind of the
critic who allows himself to engage in it becomes excited, and in
which the most ingenious discussion serves only to prove to what
extent the mind may be employed to embarrass the simple and
steady progress of truth. Doubtless we must not judge a person
who lived in those times of disorder by the gentle and regular
habits of our modern ideas, and many things must be laid to the
charge of the men and facts in the midst of which historical
characters appear.
{335}
But when, at the epoch at which Richard III. lived, after the
horrors of the Red and White Roses, the public hatred chose out
one man from among all to present him as a model of cruelty and
perfidy, there must assuredly have been something extraordinary
in his crimes, were it only the distinction which is added to
them by superiority of talents and character, which, when it is
employed in the service of crime, renders it at once more
dangerous and more insulting.

The generally received opinion regarding Richard may have
contributed to the success of the play which bears his name; and,
perhaps, not one of Shakspeare's works has attained more abiding
popularity in England. The critics have not usually treated it so
favorably as the public; some of them, and Johnson among the
number, have expressed their astonishment at its prodigious
success. We might, on the other hand, feel astonished at their
surprise, if we did not know, by experience, that the critic,
whose duty it is to introduce order into riches which the public
has enjoyed at first confusedly, sometimes becomes so attached to
this order, and particularly to the manner in which he has
conceived it, that he allows himself easily to be induced to
condemn those beauties for which he can not find a convenient
place within the limits of his system.

"Richard III.," more than any other of Shakspeare's great works,
presents the defects common to the historical dramas which,
before his time, held possession of the stage; we find in it that
accumulation of facts, that aggregation of catastrophes, that
improbability of dramatic progress and theatrical execution,
which are the necessary results of all that material movement
which Shakspeare has reduced, as much as possible, in those
objects which he had more freely at his disposal, but which could
not be avoided in national subjects of such recent date, all the
details of which were so freshly present to the memory of the
spectators.
{336}
Perhaps we ought, therefore, to admire all the more that genius
which could trace out its course through this chaos, and follow
up in this labyrinth a thread which is never broken or lost. One
idea dominates the whole drama, and that is, the just punishment
of the crimes which stained the quarrels of York and Lancaster
with blood. At once an example and an organ of the divine wrath,
Margaret, by her cries of agony, incessantly invokes vengeance
upon those who have committed so many evil deeds, and even upon
those who have profited by them; she it is who appears to them
when this vengeance has fallen upon them; her name is mingled
with the terror of their last moments; and they believe they fall
as much beneath her curse as under the blows of Richard--the
sacrificial priest of the bloody temple of which Margaret is the
sibyl, and who will himself fall, the last victim of the
holocaust, carrying with him all the crimes he has avenged, as
well as all that he has committed.

That fatality which, in "Macbeth," is revealed in the shape of
the witches, and in "Richard III." in the person of Margaret, is
nevertheless by no means the same in both dramas. Macbeth, drawn
aside from virtue into crime, presents to our imagination a
terrible picture of the power of the enemy of man--a power which
is, however, subject to the eternal and supreme Master, who
prepares its punishment with the same stroke which effects its
overthrow. Richard, a much more direct and voluntary agent of the
spirit of evil, seems rather to play with him than to obey him;
and in this terrible sport of the infernal powers, it is, as it
were _en passant_, that the justice of Heaven is exercised,
until the final moment when it bursts forth without mitigation
upon the guilty and insolent wretch who fancied he was braving
it, while he was working out its designs.

{337}

This difference in the progress of the ideas is carried out in
all the details of the character and destiny of the personages.
Macbeth, when once fallen, sustains himself only by the
intoxicating influence of the blood into which he plunges deeper
and deeper; and he reaches his term, fatigued by a movement so
alien to his nature, disabused with regard to the possessions
which have cost him so dear, and deriving from the natural
elevation of his character alone the force to defend that which
he hardly desires any longer to preserve. Richard, as inferior to
Macbeth for depth of feeling as he is superior to him in strength
of mind, has sought in crime itself the pleasure of exercising
his stifled faculties, and of making others feel a superiority
which they had ignored or disdained. He deceives, that he may at
once succeed and deceive--that he may subject men to himself, and
give himself the pleasure of despising them. He laughs both at
his dupes and at the means which he has employed to dupe them;
and to the satisfaction which he feels at having conquered them
is added that of having acquired a proof of their weakness. His
discoveries, however, are not yet sufficient to satisfy the
tyranny of his will; baseness never goes quite so far as he
intended, and as he found it necessary to suppose. Compelled
afterward to sacrifice the means which he had first corrupted, he
is incessantly obliged to seduce new agents in order to ruin new
victims.
{338}
But at length the moment arrives when his means of seduction are
no longer sufficient to surmount the difficulties which he has
created, and when the bait which he can offer to the passions of
men is no longer strong enough to overcome the terror with which
he has inspired them regarding their most pressing interests; and
then those whom he had divided, in order to make them fall by
means of one another, unite against himself. He once felt himself
too strong for each of them; he is now alone against them all,
and he has ceased to hope for himself; he does himself justice,
but without abandoning his own cause, and goes to wreck upon the
obstacle which he is indignant at being no longer able to
overcome.

The portraiture of such a personage, and of the passions which he
can bring into play in order to make them subserve his interests,
presents a spectacle which is all the more striking because we
clearly see that Richard's hypocrisy acts only upon those whose
interest it is to allow themselves to be blinded by it. The
people remain mute to the cowardly appeals by which they are
invited to unite with the men in power, who are about to give
their voice in favor of injustice; or, if a few inferior voices
be raised, it is to express a general feeling of alienation and
disquietude, and to disclose the existence of a discontented
nation, side by side with a servile court. The expectations which
result from this state of things, the pathos of several scenes,
the sombre energy of Margaret's character, and the restless
curiosity connected with projects so threatening in their nature
and so animated in their conduct, unite to impart to this work an
interest which fully explains the constancy of its success.

The style of "Richard III." is tolerably simple, and, with the
exception of one or two dialogues, it is marked by few of those
subtleties which sometimes fatigue us even in Shakspeare's finest
dramas. In the part of Richard, one of the wittiest of the tragic
portion of the play, the wit is almost entirely exempt from
refinement.

{339}

This drama comprises a space of fourteen years, from 1471 until
1485. It appears to have been performed in 1597; but before its
production several other plays had been written on the same
subject.

{340}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry VIII
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XVI.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]


                  King Henry VIII.

                      (1601.)


Although Johnson places "Henry VIII." in the second rank of
Shakspeare's historical dramas, with "Richard III.," "Richard
II," and "King John," this work is far from approaching in merit
the least of those with which the critic compares it. A desire to
please Queen Elizabeth, or perhaps a command from that princess
that he should compose a drama of which her birth should in some
sort constitute the subject, could not supply the place of that
liberty which is the soul of genius. The attempt to introduce
Henry VIII. upon the stage in presence of his daughter, and of a
daughter whose mother he had put to death, presented a
complication of difficulties which the poet did not endeavor to
surmount. The character of Henry is completely insignificant; but
it is somewhat extraordinary to notice the interest with which
the poet of Elizabeth has invested Catharine of Aragon. In the
part of Wolsey, especially at the moment of his downfall, we may
discern the touch of the great master; but it appears that, in
the opinion of the English, the great merit of the work consists
in its pomps and splendor, which have led to its being frequently
reproduced upon the stage on occasions of great solemnity. "Henry
VIII." has for us a literary interest, on account of its style,
which the poet has certainly been careful to bring into
conformity with the language of the court, as spoken in his own
time, or a few years previously.
{341}
In no other of his works is the style so elliptical; the habits
of conversation seem to introduce into the construction of its
sentences that economy and abbreviation which, in English
pronunciation, deprive words of nearly half their syllables.
Moreover, we find in it scarcely any play upon words, and,
excepting only in a few passages, very little poetry.

"Henry VIII." was performed, it is believed, in 1601, at the end
of the reign of Elizabeth, and revived, as it would appear, after
her death, in 1613. There is reason to believe that the panegyric
on James I., which is inserted at the end of the prediction
concerning Elizabeth, was added at this period, either by
Shakspeare himself, or by Ben Jonson, to whom the prologue and
epilogue are pretty generally attributed. It was, it is believed,
at this revival, in 1613, that the cannon discharged on the
arrival of the king at Wolsey's palace set fire to the Globe
Theatre, which was burned to the ground.

The play comprises a period of twelve years, from 1521 until
1533. Before the composition of Shakspeare's drama, we are not
aware of the existence of any play on the same subject.

---------------

One common character is manifested in all Shakspeare's historical
dramas, and that is, the profoundly national and popular feeling
which animates the poet. Upon the events and personages which he
represents, he thinks and feels like his audience, like the
simplest and most ignorant of his audience; he cares neither for
truth nor for justice; he has not the slightest pretension to
redress errors or to reprehend public passions; he abandons
himself without reserve to these feelings, for he shares in them,
and reckons upon them for his success.
{342}
The profound and sensible moralist, the man who possesses so
accurate a knowledge of the human heart, the truthful delineator
of the most varied characters, is at the same time the blindest
and most passionate of English patriots. He has penetrated, by
turns, with admirable intelligence and independence, into the
souls of Hamlet, of Romeo, of Macbeth, and of Othello; but as
soon as he approaches the history of his own country in relation
to that of other lands, all independence and impartiality of mind
abandon him; in all things and regarding all persons, he thinks
and judges absolutely like John Bull.

{343}


              The Merchant Of Venice.

                     (1598.)


The substance of the adventure which constitutes the subject of
"The Merchant of Venice" will be found in the chronicles or
literature of almost every country, sometimes entire, and
sometimes unaccompanied by the very piquant episode of the loves
of Bassanio and Portia. A judgment similar to that of Portia has
been attributed to Pope Sixtus V., who, with greater severity,
condemned, it is said, both the contractors of the engagement to
a heavy fine, as a punishment for the immorality of their
contract. On this occasion, the subject of dispute was a bet, and
the Jew was the loser. A collection of French novels, entitled
"Roger Bontemps en belle Humeur," relates the same story, but it
is to the advantage of the Christian, and Sultan Saladin is the
judge. In a Persian manuscript which narrates the same adventure,
a rich Jew makes this bargain with a poor Syrian Mussulman, in
order to obtain the means of ruining him, and thereby succeeding
in gaining possession of his wife, with whom he is violently in
love: this case is decided by a Cadi of Emesa. But the whole
story is related, with a few slight differences, in a very old
work written in Latin, and entitled "Gesta Romanorum;" as well as
in the "Pecorone" of Ser Giovanni, a collection of novels
composed before the end of the fourteenth century, and therefore
long anterior to Sixtus V., which renders the anecdote told about
this Pope by Gregorio Leti extremely improbable.

{344}

In the novel of Ser Giovanni, the lady of Belmont is not a young
girl forced to subject her choice to the condition prescribed by
the singular will of her father, but a young widow who, of her
own accord, imposes a much more singular condition upon those
whom chance or choice may bring into her port. Compelled to share
the bed of the lady, if they can succeed in profiting by the
advantages afforded them by such a position, they will obtain
possession of the widow's person and property. But if they fail,
they lose their vessel and its cargo, and are sent off at once
with a horse and a sufficient sum of money to defray their
expenses homeward. Undeterred by this test, many tried the
adventure, but all failed; for no sooner had they entered the bed
than they fell into a sound sleep, from which they only awoke on
the following morning to learn that the lady had already unloaded
the ship, and prepared the horse which was intended to convey the
unlucky aspirant home again. No one attempted to renew so costly
an enterprise, the ill success of which discouraged even the
boldest of adventurers. Gianetto alone (such is the name of the
young Venetian in the novel) persevered, and after two failures
determined to risk a third adventure. His godfather Ansaldo,
notwithstanding the loss of the first two vessels, of which he
had received no account, equips for him a third, with which
Gianetto promises amply to repair their losses. But, exhausted by
his previous undertakings, Ansaldo is obliged, for the third
venture, to borrow the sum of ten thousand ducats from a Jew, on
the same conditions as those which Shylock imposes upon Antonio.
{345}
Gianetto arrives at Belmont, and, being warned by a servant not
to drink the wine which will be offered him before going to bed,
at last surprises the lady, who, though at first greatly
disconcerted at finding him awake, nevertheless resigns herself
to her fate, and thinks herself happy to proclaim him her husband
on the following day. Gianetto, intoxicated with his happiness,
forgets poor Ansaldo until the fatal day when the bond becomes
due. He then recollects the circumstance by chance, hastens to
Venice, and the rest of the story occurs as Shakspeare has
related it.

It is easy to perceive the reason and necessity of the various
changes which he has introduced into this adventure. It was not,
however, so impossible of representation upon the stage, in his
time, as not to authorize us to suppose that he was induced to
make these changes by a desire to impart greater morality to his
personages, and greater interest to the action. Thus the position
of the generous Antonio, and the delineation of his character, at
once so devoted, courageous, and melancholy, are not the only
source of the charm which reigns so powerfully throughout the
work. The gaps which this position leaves are, at ail events, so
happily filled up that we can perceive no void, so pleasantly is
the soul occupied with the feelings which naturally arise from
it. It seems as though Shakspeare were desirous here to describe
the first delightful days of a happy marriage beneath their
different points of view. The speech of Portia to Bassanio, at
the moment when fate has just decided in his favor, and when she
already regards herself as his happy spouse, is full of such pure
abandonment, and of conjugal submission at once so touching and
so noble, that her character derives from it an inexpressible
charm; and Bassanio, assuming from that instant the superior rank
which befits him, no longer has to fear that he will be degraded
by the spirit and courage of his wife, although the part which
she takes the moment afterward is so decided.
{346}
We know that now the moment of necessity is past, every thing
falls into its proper order, and that the high qualities which
she will subject to her duty as a wife will only add to the
happiness of her husband.

In a subordinate class, Lorenzo and Jessica afford a pleasing
exhibition of the tender jocoseness of two young married people,
who are so filled with their happiness that they diffuse it over
objects most foreign to themselves, and enjoy the most
indifferent thoughts and actions as if they were so many portions
of an existence entirely pervaded by happiness. The conversation
between Lorenzo and Jessica, the garden, the moonlight, the music
which welcomes the return of Portia and Bassanio, and the arrival
of Antonio, dispose the soul to all the sweet impressions which
will be occasioned by the image of complete felicity, in the
union of Portia and Bassanio in the midst of all the friends who
are about to enjoy their cares and benefactions. Shakspeare is
almost the only dramatic poet who has not feared to dwell upon
the picture of happiness; but he felt he had the means of filling
it.

The invention of the three coffers, the original of which also
occurs in many places, is to be found, in almost the same shape
as that which Shakspeare has used, in another adventure of the
"Gesta Romanorum," excepting only that the person subjected to
the trial is the daughter of a king of Apulia, who, from the
wisdom of her choice, is deemed worthy to espouse the son of the
Emperor of Rome. It will be seen from that circumstance that
these "Gesta Romanorum" do not precisely extend so far back as
the ages of historical antiquity.

{347}

The character of the Jew, Shylock, is justly celebrated in
England.

This drama was performed before the year 1598; but we possess no
certain information regarding its date. Several plays on the same
subject had previously been brought on the stage; and it had also
formed the substance of a number of ballads.

In 1701, Mr. Granville, afterward Marquis of Lansdowne, restored
"The Merchant of Venice" to the stage, with numerous alterations,
under the title of "The Jew of Venice." It was performed for a
long time under this new form.

{348}


            The Merry Wives Of Windsor.

                     (1601.)


According to a generally received tradition, the comedy of "The
Merry Wives of Windsor" was composed by order of Queen Elizabeth,
who, having been greatly delighted with Falstaff, desired to see
him once again on the stage. Shakspeare had promised that
Falstaff should die in "Henry V.," [Footnote 36] but doubtless,
after having introduced him once again, feeling embarrassed by
the difficulty of establishing new relations between Falstaff and
Henry when the latter had become king, he satisfied himself with
announcing, at the opening of the piece, the sickness and death
of Falstaff, without presenting him afresh to the eyes of the
public.

    [Footnote 36: See the Epilogue of the Second Part of "Henry
    IV."]

Elizabeth was of opinion that this was a breach of faith, and
required a new description of the life of the fat knight. It
therefore appears that "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was composed
after "Henry V.," although in historical order it ought to take
precedence. Some commentators have even held, in opposition to
Johnson's opinion, that this drama should be placed between the
two parts of "Henry IV.;" but there appears to be in favor of
Johnson's opinion, which places it between "Henry IV." and "Henry
V.," one conclusive reason, and that is, that according to the
other supposition, the unity, if not of character, at least of
impression and effect, would be entirely destroyed.

{349}

The two parts of "Henry IV." were composed at a single effort,
or, at least, without wandering from the same train of ideas; not
only is the Falstaff of the Second Part precisely the same man as
the Falstaff of the First Part, but he is presented under the
same aspect; and if, in this Second Part, Falstaff is not quite
so amusing, because he has made his fortune, and because his wit
is no longer employed in incessantly extricating him from the
ridiculous embarrassments into which he is thrown by the
assertion of pretensions so utterly at variance with his tastes
and habits, he is, nevertheless, brought upon the stage with the
same class of tastes and habits. He brings his influence with
Henry to bear upon Justice Shallow, just as he used to boast,
among his confidants, of the freedom with which he treated the
prince; and the public affront which serves as his punishment at
the end of the Second Part of "Henry IV." is only the consequence
and complement of the private affronts which Henry V., when
Prince of Wales, had amused himself by putting upon him during
the course of the two plays. In a word, the action which is begun
between Falstaff and the prince, in the First Part, is followed
up without interruption in the Second Part, and then terminated
as it necessarily was destined to finish, and as he had announced
that it would finish.

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" presents a different action, and
exhibits Falstaff in another position, and under another point of
view. He is, indeed, the same man; it would be impossible to
mistake him; but he has grown older, and plunged deeper into his
material tastes, and is solely occupied in satisfying the wants
of his gluttony.
{350}
Doll Tear-Sheet, at least, still abused his imagination, for
with her he thought himself a libertine; but here he has
no such thought; he is anxious to make the insolence of
his gallantries serve to supply him with money; and his
vanity still deceives him with regard to the means of
obtaining this money. Elizabeth, it is said, had desired
Shakspeare to describe Falstaff in love; but Shakspeare,
who was better acquainted with the personages of his own
conception, felt that this kind of ridiculousness was not
suited to such a character, and that it was necessary to
punish Falstaff in a more sensitive point. Even his vanity
would not be sufficient for this purpose; for Falstaff could
derive advantage from every disgrace in which he was
involved; and he had now reached such a point as no longer even
to seek to dissemble his shame. The liveliness with which he
describes to Mr. Brook his sufferings in the basket of dirty
linen is no longer the vivacity of Falstaff relating his exploits
against the robbers of Gadshill, and afterward getting out of the
scrape so pleasantly when his falsehood is brought home to him.
The necessity for boasting of himself is no longer one of his
chief necessities; he wants money, money above all things, and he
will be suitably chastised only by inconveniences as real as the
advantages which he promises himself. Thus the buck-basket and
the blows of Mr. Ford are perfectly adapted to the kind of
pretensions which draw upon Falstaff such a correction; but
although such an adventure may, without any difficulty, be
adapted to the Falstaff of "Henry IV.," it applies to him in
another part of his life and character; and if it were introduced
between the two parts of the action which is continued in the two
parts of "Henry IV.," it would chill the imagination of the
spectator to such a degree as entirely to destroy the effect of
the second part.

{351}

Although this reason may appear sufficient, we might adduce many
others in justification of Johnson's opinion. They must not,
however, be sought for in chronology. It would be an
impracticable work to endeavor to harmonize the different
chronological data which Shakspeare is pleased to establish,
often in the same piece; and it is as impossible to find,
chronologically, the place of "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
between "Henry IV." and "Henry V.," as between the two parts of
"Henry IV." But, adopting this last supposition, the interview
between Shallow and Falstaff in the Second Part of "Henry IV.,"
the pleasure which Shallow feels at seeing Falstaff again, after
so long a separation, and the respect which he professes for him,
and which he carries so far as to lend him a thousand pounds,
become shocking improbabilities; for, after the comedy of "The
Merry Wives of Windsor," Shallow can not be caught by Falstaff.
Nym, whom we find in "Henry V." is not numbered among
Shakspeare's followers in the Second Part of "Henry IV." With
either supposition, it would be somewhat difficult to account for
the personage Quickly, if we did not suppose that it referred to
another Quickly--a name which Shakspeare found it convenient to
render common to all procuresses. The Quickly of "Henry IV." is
married, and her name is therefore not that of a girl; but the
Quickly of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is not married.

After all, it would be superfluous to seek to establish in a very
accurate manner the historical order of these three dramas;
Shakspeare himself did not bestow a thought upon the matter. We
may, however, believe that, from the uncertainty in which he has
left the whole affair, he was at least desirous that it should
not be altogether impossible to make "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
the continuation of "Henry IV."
{352}
Hurried, as it would appear, by the orders of Elizabeth, he at
first produced only a kind of sketch of this comedy, which was
nevertheless acted for a considerable period, as we find it
printed in the first editions of his works; and it was not until
several years afterward that he arranged it in the form in which
we now possess it. In this early play, Falstaff, at the moment
when he is in the forest, alarmed by the noises which he hears on
every side, inquires if it is not "the mad Prince of Wales
stealing his father's deer." This supposition is suppressed in
the revised copy of the comedy, in which the poet apparently
wished to endeavor to indicate a rather more probable order of
facts. In the piece as we now possess it, Page reproaches Fenton
with "having been of the company" of the Prince of Wales and of
Poins. At all events, he no longer belongs to it; and we may
suppose that the name of "wild prince" was still retained to show
what the Prince of Wales had been, and what Henry V. no longer
was. However this may be, although "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
may present a less exalted kind of comicality than the First Part
of "Henry IV.," it is, nevertheless, one of the most diverting
productions of that gayety of mind which Shakspeare has displayed
in several of his comedies.

A number of novels may contest the honor of having furnished
Shakspeare with the substance of the adventure upon which he has
based the plot of the "Merry Wives of Windsor." It was probably
from the same sources that Molière borrowed the idea of his
"Ecole des Femmes." Shakspeare's own invention consists in having
made the same intrigue serve to punish both the jealous husband
and the insolent lover. He has thus imparted to the drama, with
the exception of the license of a few expressions, a much more
moral tone than that of the novels from which he may have derived
his subject, and in which the husband always ends by being duped,
while the lover is made happy.

This comedy appears to have been composed in 1601.

{353}

{354}


                   The Tempest.

                     (1611.)


"Whether this be or be not, I'll not swear," says old Gonzalo, at
the conclusion of the "Tempest," when utterly confounded by the
marvels which have surrounded him ever since his arrival on the
island. It seems as though, through the mouth of the honest man
of the drama, Shakspeare desired to express the general effect of
this charming and singular work. As brilliant, light, and
transparent as the aerial beings with which it is filled, it
scarcely allows itself to be apprehended by reflection; and
hardly, through its changeful and diaphanous features, can we
feel certain that we perceive a subject, a dramatic contexture,
and real adventures, feelings, and personages. Nevertheless, it
contains all these, and all these are revealed in it; and, in
rapid succession, each object in its turn moves the imagination,
occupies the attention, and disappears, leaving no trace behind
but a confused emotion of pleasure and an impression of truth, to
which we dare not either refuse or grant our belief.

"This drama," says Warburton, "is one of the noblest efforts of
that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to Shakspeare,
which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense;
or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her
established limits."
{355}
Everything is, in this picture, at once fantastic and true. As if
he were the creator of the work, as if he were the true
enchanter, surrounded by all the illusions of his art, Prospero,
manifesting himself to us, seems the only opaque and solid body
in the midst of a populace of airy phantoms clothed with the
forms of life, but unpossessed of the appearances of duration. A
few minutes scarcely elapse before the amiable Ariel, lighter
even than when he comes with the quickness of thought, escapes
from the contact of the magic wand, and, freed from the forms
which are prescribed to him--free, in fact, from all sensible
form, dissolves into thin air, in which his individual existence,
as far as we are concerned, vanishes away. Is not that
half-intelligence, which seems to glimmer in the monster Caliban,
an effect of magic? and does it not seem that, on setting foot
out of the disenchanted isle in which he is about to be left to
himself, we shall see him relapse into his natural state of an
inert mass, assimilating itself by degrees to the earth, from
which it is scarcely distinct? When far from our view, what will
become of that Antonio and that Sebastian, who were so ready to
conceive plans of crime, and of that Alonzo, who was so easily
and frivolously accessible to feelings of every kind? What will
become of the young lovers, so quickly and so completely enamored
of each other, and who, in our view, seem to have been created
only that they might love, and to have no other object in life
than to disclose to our view the delightful pictures of love and
innocence? Each of these personages displays to us only that
portion of his existence which concerns his present position;
none of them reveals to us in himself those abysses of nature, or
those deep sources of thought into which Shakspeare descends so
frequently and so thoroughly; but they manifest before our eyes
all the outward effects of these inward feelings; we do not know
whence they come, but we recognize perfectly well what they seem
to be--true visions of which we can discern neither the flesh nor
the bones, but the forms of which are distinct and familiar to
us.

{356}

Thus, by the suppleness and lightness of their nature,
these singular creatures conduce to a rapidity of action
and a variety of movement, unexampled, perhaps, in any
other of Shakspeare's dramas. None of his other plays are
more amusing or more animated than this, and in none is
a lively, and even waggish, gayety more naturally conjoined
with serious interests, melancholy feelings, and
touching affections. It is a fairy tale in all the force of
the term, and in all the vivacity of the impressions which such a
tale can impart.

The style of the "Tempest" shares in this kind of magic.
Figurative and aerial, bringing before the mind a host of images
and impressions as vague and fugitive as those uncertain forms
which are depicted in the clouds, it moves the imagination
without riveting it, and maintains it in a state of undecided
excitement, which renders it accessible to all the spells under
which the enchanter desires to place it. It is a tradition in
England, that the celebrated Lord Falkland, [Footnote 37] Mr.
Selden, and Lord Chief-justice Vaughan, regarded the style of the
part of Caliban, in the "Tempest," as quite peculiar to that
personage, and as one of Shakspeare's own creations.

    [Footnote 37: The most virtuous, amiable, and erudite man in
    England, during the reign of Charles I., of whom Lord
    Clarendon has said that "if there were no other brand upon
    the Civil War than his single loss, it must be most infamous
    and execrable to all posterity." After having boldly
    maintained the liberties of his country against Charles I. in
    Parliament, he joined the cause of that prince as soon as it
    became the cause of justice; and having been made a minister
    of Charles, he died at the battle of Newbury, in despair at
    the misfortunes which he foresaw; he was then thirty-three
    years of age.]

{357}

Johnson is of a contrary opinion; but, supposing the tradition to
be authentic, the authority of Johnson would not be sufficient to
invalidate that of Lord Falkland, a man of eminently elegant
mind, and who was remarkable, as it would appear, for a delicacy
of tact, which, in criticism at least, was often wanting in the
Doctor. Besides, Lord Falkland, who was almost a contemporary of
Shakspeare, as he was born several years before the death of the
poet, would be entitled to be believed in preference regarding
shades of language which, a hundred and fifty years later, were
naturally merged by Johnson under a general color of oldness. If,
therefore, we had any right to decide between them, we should be
rather disposed to adhere to the opinion of Lord Falkland, and
even to apply to the whole work what he has said regarding the
part of Caliban alone. At all events, we may remark, that the
style of the "Tempest" appears, more than any other of
Shakspeare's works, to differ from that general type of
expression of thought which is found and maintained more or less
every where, in spite of the difference of idioms. We must
probably ascribe this fact partly to the singularity of the
position, and to the necessity for bringing into harmony so many
different conditions, feelings, and interests, which, for a few
hours, are involved in a common fate, and surrounded by the same
supernatural atmosphere. In none of his other works, moreover,
has Shakspeare been so sparing of plays upon words.

It would be somewhat difficult to determine with precision to
what species of the marvelous that which Shakspeare has employed
in the "Tempest" belongs. Ariel is a true sylph; but the sprites
which Prospero subjects to him, fairies, imps, and goblins,
belong to the popular superstitions of the North.
{358}
Caliban is akin at once to the gnome and the demon; his brute
existence is animated only by an infernal malice; and the "Oho!
Oho!" with which he answers Prospero, when he charges him with
having attempted to dishonor his daughter, was the exclamation,
and probably the kind of chuckle, ascribed, in England, to the
Devil, in the old Mysteries in which he played a part. Setebos,
whom the monster invokes as the god, and perhaps as the husband,
of his mother, was held to be the devil or god of the
Patagonians, who represented him, it was said, with horns growing
out of his head. We can not exactly picture to ourselves the
manner in which this Caliban must have been formed, so as to
account for his being so frequently taken for a fish; it appears
that he was represented with his arms and legs covered with
scales; but it seems to me that a fish's head, or something like
it, would be necessary to impart any probability to the mistakes
of which he is the object. But Shakspeare may very probably not
have looked so closely into the matter, and may have troubled
himself but little to obtain an exact idea of the form suited to
his monster. He played with his subject, and allowed it to flow
from his brilliant imagination clothed with all the poetic tints
which it received while passing through his brain. The lightness
of his labor is sufficiently observable from the various
inadvertences which have escaped from him; as, for example, when
he makes Ferdinand say that the Duke of Milan "and his brave son"
have perished in the storm, although nothing whatever is said
about this son in the remainder of the drama, and there is
nothing to lead us to suppose that he is in existence upon the
island, although Ariel, who assures Prospero that no one has
perished, has only confined the crew under the hatches.

{359}

The "Tempest" is a drama tolerably regular as regards the
unities, since the storm which swamps the vessel in the first
scene occurs within view of the island, and the entire action
does not embrace an interval of more than three hours. Some
commentators have thought that Shakspeare might have intended to
reply, by this specimen of what he was able to do, to Ben
Jonson's continual criticisms upon the irregularity of his works.
Dr. Johnson is of an opposite opinion, and regards this
circumstance as an effect of chance and the natural result of the
subject; but there is one thing that might give us reason to
believe that Shakspeare, at least, intended to avail himself of
this advantage, and that is, the care with which the different
personages, even including the boatswain, who has slept during
the whole of the action, mark the time which has elapsed since
the beginning of the play. More than this; when Ariel informs
Prospero that they are drawing near the sixth hour, the hour in
which his master had promised him that their labors should cease,
Prospero replies:

  "I did say so, when first I raised the tempest."

This remark would even seem to indicate an intention which the
poet desired should be perceived.

It is not known from what sources Shakspeare derived the subject
of the "Tempest;" but it appears sufficiently certain that he
borrowed it from some Italian novel, which it has hitherto been
impossible to discover.

Malone's chronology places the composition of the "Tempest" in
the year 1612, which conjecture, however, agrees ill with another
supposition equally probable. While reading the Masque performed
before Ferdinand and Miranda, it is impossible not to be struck
with the idea that the "Tempest" was first composed to be
performed on the occasion of some marriage festival; and the
lightness of the subject, as well as the brilliant carelessness
which is remarkable in the composition, seem entirely to confirm
this conjecture.
{360}
Mr. Holt, one of the commentators upon Shakspeare, has supposed
that the marriage upon which Shakspeare has poured so many
blessings, through the mouths of Juno and Ceres, might very
probably be that of the Earl of Essex, who married Lady Frances
Howard in 1611, or rather terminated in that year his marriage,
which had been contracted ever since 1606, but the consummation
of which had been delayed by the travels of the earl, and
probably by the youth of the contracting parties. This last
circumstance appears even to be indicated with considerable
clearness in the scene in which great stress is laid upon the
continence which the young lovers have promised to observe until
the complete accomplishment of all the necessary ceremonies.
Would it not also be possible to suppose that this piece, though
composed in 1611 for the nuptials of the Earl of Essex, was not
performed in London until the following year?


                     The End.





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