Chapter X: Part 10

Nothing can be better. Dryden gave us large and grand outlines. Pope's is closer criticism. But it is more than that which Johnson says, that all the successors of Dryden have produced--an expansion only of his notions; unless, in that sense in which every follower in time could by possibility do nothing but expand the notions of the first critic who should have said--"Shakspeare was a poet of the highest description, with a good many troublesome faults." Pope's portraiture is drawn from near and intent inspection; a likeness after the life, and reflecting the life; thoroughly independent of any thing preceding him. Thus, THE COMPLETE SEVERING OF NEARLY-ALLIED PERSONAGES (upon which Pope insists, and which, more than the immense multiplicity, contemplated in a general way, of the some hundred DRAMATIS PERSONAE, determines essential variety; attests the constituting of every character, after the manner of Nature, from an indivisible SELF, which at once rules it into unity, and holds it unconfused with all others) is a finely-just observation, of which we have not a hint from Dryden; and it carries us, instantly, deep into a most interesting study of comparisons. As of Macbeth and Richard III., both murderous usurpers, as different as two men can well be; of Leontes and Othello, two jealous husbands, and as different, even in their jealousy, as two men can be; of Coriolanus and Hotspur, each an earthly Mars; each "the soul of honour;" each sudden in passion, impetuous, and ungovernable; each with a kindliness of nature that draws and attaches his friends as much as the superiority of his character overrules them; each with a rough, abrupt, penetrating strength of intellect; each endowed, which is more peculiar, with vivid imagination, that leaps into bold poetical figures; each of a cutting wit, and, in his own way, humourous pleasantry; and yet the semi-traditionary Roman patrician, and the quite historical English earl's son, so distinct that you shall read the two plays, in which they are, ten and twenty times over, without thinking of putting the towering heroes, twinned by so many, so marked, and so profound affinities, upon a line of comparison. Or put all Shakspeare's gallant warriors in a catalogue, and what a diversified list have you drawn up! Hector, Troilus, Diomed, Coriolanus, Tullus Aufidius, Mark Antony, Othello, Cassio, nay, and Iago, Falconbridge, Hotspur, Glendower, Mortimer, Henry V., Talbot, Warwick, Richard III., Richmond, Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, Old Seward, Edmund, Edgar, Benedict, Bertram, are some of them; for Shakspeare like Scott loved a good soldier. Compare the melancholy Hamlet and the melancholy Jaques; both shrewd observers of men; both given to philosophizing; and yet different--Heaven knows. And so on. Thus, the remark of Pope goes to the root of Shakspeare's creative art, and leads you into a method of thinking, not soon exhausted.

We endeavour, says Dryden, to follow the VARIETY and greatness of characters that are derived to us from Shakspeare and Fletcher. But does this most general attribution of a characteristic--shared with Fletcher--and such as the loosest observation of the plays forces upon the most uncritical reader--does the accident that Dryden left this inevitable word "VARIETY" written, make the critical observation of Pope no more than a "diffusing" and "paraphrasing" of Dryden's "Epitome?" Has he only "changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value, though of greater bulk?" It would at least be as near the truth to say, that he has made Dryden's bill good money by accepting it. Pope, in the precise and critical sense in which he has attached the praise of "variety" to Shakspeare, would certainly not have communicated the praise, with him, to Fletcher.

Shakspeare, says Dryden, "drew the images of Nature, _not laboriously_, but luckily." "All along," says Pope, "there is seen _no labour_, no pains to raise the passions, no preparation to lead towards the effect; but the heart swells, and the tears burst out, just at the proper places." The unstudied, spontaneous movement of the scene, in Shakspeare, both of the Action and of the Passion, as if every thing went on of its own impulse, and not as willed and ruled by the poet, is an imitation of Nature which no other dramatist has so closely urged. Pope insists upon it--for the passion, at least. Is this characteristic already contained in the "not laboriously, but luckily," of Dryden? If it is contained, it is hardly conveyed. A seed has dropped from the hand of Dryden. Under the gardening of Pope, it springs up into a fair and fairly-spread plant. That is a sort of "diffusion" very distinct from turning gold into base metal. So Pope of himself admires that, in the comedies, histories, and tragedies of the unversed Shakspeare, all the businesses, high and low, of human life, turn upon their own hinges.--If a statesman counsel, he lays down the very grounds of proceeding which greyheaded statesmanship would have propounded--a king reigns like a king, a soldier fights like a soldier, woman loves and hates like a woman, a clown is a clown, a thief is a thief. In short, besides the individual constitution and self-consistency of the CHARACTERS, besides the spontaneous and self-timed motion of the PASSIONS, we are further and distinctly to admire this--that the springs, the constitution, and the government of ACTION are imitated;--as if the inexperienced player from Avon side had stood personally, confidentially, participatingly present in the heart of all human transactions: And if it appears to the acute critic wonderful that Shakspeare should have found, in his own bosom, the archetypes of so many and so diverse individualities, that he should have found there the law given by original Nature for the flow and current, the impulsion, the meandering, and the precipitation of the _passions_; it strikes him as yet more wonderful, more like an inspiring, that he should have found there a divination of that which is subsequent to and ingrafted upon Nature--namely, of human life itself, of universal human experience; much in the same way as Ulysses admired most, in the song of Demodocus, his knowledge of that which had passed withinside the Wooden Horse, and concluded, hence, to the undoubted inspiration of the Muse.

This appears to us to be the meaning of Pope's eulogy; and if it but unfolds the hints of Dryden's, it unfolds them, be it said, uninvidiously, something after the fashion in which Shakspeare himself unfolded the hints which he found in old books, of plots and personages; that is to say, originally, creatively, with quite independent power; and certainly with no deterioration to the matter. Pope goes on to admit faults. We must here dissent as to facts and opinions, and must qualify.

"It must be owned, that with all these great excellences, he has
almost as great defects: and that as he has certainly written better,
so he has perhaps written worse than any other. But I think I can in
some measure account for these defects, from several causes and
accidents; without which it is hard to imagine that so large and so
enlightened a mind could ever have been susceptible of them. That all
these contingencies should unite to his disadvantage seems to me
almost as singularly unlucky, as that so many various, nay, contrary
talents should meet in one man, was happy and extraordinary.

"It must be allowed that stage-poetry, of all other, is more
particularly levelled to please the _populace_, and its success more
immediately depending upon the _common suffrage_. One cannot
therefore wonder, if Shakspeare having at his first appearance no
other aim in his writings than to procure a subsistence, directed his
endeavours solely to hit the taste and humour that then prevailed.
The audience was generally composed of the meaner sort of people, and
therefore the images of life were to be drawn from those of their own
rank; accordingly we find, that not our author's only, but almost all
the old comedies have their scene among _tradesmen_ and _mechanics_;
and even their historical plays strictly follow the common _old
stories_ or _vulgar traditions_ of that kind of people. In tragedy,
nothing was so sure to _surprise_ and cause _admiration_, as the most
strange, unexpected, and consequently most unnatural, events and
incidents; the most exaggerated thoughts; the most verbose and
bombast expression; the most pompous rhymes, and thundering
versification. In comedy, nothing was so sure to _please_ as mean
buffoonery, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns.
Yet even in these, our author's wit buoys up, and is borne above his
subject; his genius in those low parts is like some prince of a
romance in the disguise of a shepherd or peasant; a certain greatness
and spirit now and then break out, which manifest his higher
extraction and qualities.

"It may be added, that not only the common audience had no notion of
the rules of writing, but few even of the better sort piqued
themselves upon any great degree of knowledge or nicety that way;
till Ben Jonson, getting possession of the stage, brought critical
learning into vogue; and that this was not done without difficulty,
may appear from those frequent lessons (and indeed almost
declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and
put into the mouth of his actors, the _grex_, _chorus_, &c., to
remove the prejudices, and inform the judgment of his hearers. Till
then, our authors had no thoughts of writing on the model of the
ancients: their tragedies were only histories in dialogue; and their
comedies followed the thread of any novel as they found it, no less
implicitly than if it had been true history.

"To judge, therefore, of Shakspeare by Aristotle's rules, is like
trying a man by the laws of one country, who acted under those of
another. He writ to the _people_; and writ at first without patronage
from the better sort, and therefore without aims of pleasing them:
without assistance or advice from them: learned, as without the
advantage of education or acquaintance among them; without that
knowledge of the best of models, the ancients, to inspire him with an
emulation of them: in a word, without any views of reputation, and of
what poets are pleased to call immortality: some or all of which have
encouraged the vanity, or animated the ambition, of other writers.

"Yet it must be observed, that when his performances had merited the
protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had
succeeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years are
manifestly raised above those of his former. The dates of his plays
sufficiently evidence that his productions improved, in proportion to
the respect he had for his auditors. And I make no doubt this
observation would be found true in every instance, were but editions
extant, from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was
composed, and whether writ for the town or the court."

Pope here apologises for the very middling sort of company which Shakspeare, in his Comedies, obliges us to keep, by the obligation he was under of "holding the mirror up to" his hearers, who being, for the most part, "the meaner sort of people," would only duly recognise and sympathize with "images of life drawn from those of their own rank." And so we have a pardonable cause, wherefore "our author's" (like "almost all the old") Comedies, HAVE THEIR SCENE among TRADESMEN and MECHANICS;" and some excuse for the degradation of history by the historical plays, which strictly follow the common OLD STORIES or VULGAR TRADITIONS of that sort of people.

The DEFENCE is kindly; and bears with it, we must acknowledge, a specious air. In the mean time, here lacks surely something to the regular ordering of the trial. Where, we should be glad to know, is the CORPUS DELICTI? Before justifying, let us hear some witnesses to the OFFENCE. Let us call over the Comedies. Here is the roll of them.

THE TEMPEST!--_Dramatis Personae:_--Alonso, KING of Naples;--Sebastian, HIS BROTHER;--Prospero, the RIGHTFUL DUKE of Milan!--Antonio, HIS BROTHER, the USURPING DUKE of Milan!--Ferdinand, SON TO THE KING OF NAPLES!--Gonzalo, an honest old COUNSELLOR of Naples!--Adrian, Francisco, LORDS!--Really, we are afraid that all the ignobler males left, Caliban, a savage and deformed SLAVE; Trinculo, a JESTER; Stephano, a drunken BUTLER; the MASTER OF A SHIP, the BOATSWAIN, and MARINERS--will not, any more than Miranda, with Ariel and the Spirits who personate in Prospero's masque, and who clear out the playbill, suffice to lay THE SCENE of the "Tempest" AMONG tradesmen and mechanics. Next come, handsomely cloaked and feathered in old Italian garb, "The TWO GENTLEMEN of Verona!"

But we will not spare, any further, the curious reader the labour of turning over the leaves of his own copy, or of his memory. The truth is, as every reader's recollection at once answers, that the rule for the comedy of Shakspeare, respectively to the social degrees along which it moves, may be worded safely enough from the scheme of persons exhibited above. The comedy of Shakspeare removes itself, by two great strides, from the meaner sort of its auditory; for light-footed, or more seriously-pacing, it loves to tread on floors of state; it associates familiarly with the highly-born and the highly-natured. His Thalia is of a very aristocratic humour. But, more than this, she further distances the vulgar associations and experience of her spectators, by putting between herself and them the Romance of Manners. We have seen the names--Naples, Milan, Verona. Let us pursue the roll-call. In "Twelfth Night," the "scene" is a city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it;--in "Measure for Measure," VIENNA;--in "Much Ado about Nothing," MESSINA;--in the "Midsummer Night's dream," ATHENS, AND A WOOD NOT FAR FROM IT;--in "Love's Labour's Lost," NAVARRE;--in the "Merchant of Venice," PARTLY AT VENICE, AND PARTLY AT BELMONT, THE SEAT OF PORTIA, ON THE CONTINENT (understand, OF ITALY;)--in "As You Like It," THE SCENE LIES, FIRST, NEAR OLIVER'S HOUSE; AFTERWARDS, PARTLY IN THE USURPER'S COURT, AND PARTLY IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN;--in "All's Well that End's Well," PARTLY IN FRANCE, AND PARTLY IN TUSCANY;--in the "Taming of the Shrew," SOMETIMES IN PADUA, AND SOMETIMES IN PETRUCHIO'S HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY;--in "The Winter's Tale," (a comedy, wherein only two of the personages die--one eaten,) THE SCENE IS SOMETIMES IN SICILIA, SOMETIMES IN BOHEMIA;--in the "Comedy of Errors," at EPHESUS;--Last of all, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," in WINDSOR and the parts adjacent. THIRTEEN comedies lying in Italy, Illyria, Germany, Greece, France, Asia Minor, Sicily, Bohemia, and in that uninhabited island, inhabited by a day-dream, and which lies nowhere. _One_ in _England_.

We throw every thing together. To Shakspeare the boarded stage is the field of imagination. He comes from the hand of Nature an essential poet. That he is a dramatic poet, should have two reasons. The first, given in his poetical constitution; that the piercing and various inquisition of humanity for which he was gifted; the intimate mastery of passion; and the extraordinary activity of ratiocination which distinguish him, are satisfied only by the Drama. Then, in the accident of the times--that as the stage rose for AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and they for the stage--so, with Shakspeare, in England. At a certain point of the social progression, the theatre becomes the spot where poetry has living power. Shakspeare must seize upon the mind of his countrymen, as Homer took possession of Greece--VIVA VOCE. The silent and retired press is for the dream-like Spenser--for the star-like Milton. To Shakspeare, the Promethean maker of men and women, earthly-moulded if kindled into life with fire from heaven--give a stage and actors!--Give men and women, to personate men and women!--And give three thousand men and women, to throng roundabout, and look and listen--thrill and weep--suspended in one breathlessness! But not because he has deigned to trace upon those actual boards his magical ring, and because within it his powerful art calls up no air-made phantasmagoria, but breathing and sentient _substantial_ humanity; not, therefore, is he less a magician--less a POET--less, if you will, a dreamer. Imagination is the faculty which habitually divides him, as all his brotherhood, from us, the vulgar of mankind. To him the stage is the field of imagination; therefore, he avails himself of all allowed imaginative resources. Distance, in time and place, which renders indefinite; strange, picturesque, poetical manners, and regions, are such legitimate means. In particular, imagination prefers high rank to low, for half a dozen reasons. The outward show, state, pomp, retinue, splendour of costume, of habitation, of all daily accidental conditions;--these allure imagination, which, like grief, "is easily beguiled." EASE, in human life, like that attributed to the heavenly divinities--the [Greek: reia zontes]--the gods who live at ease, pleases imagination;--which might be justified. But imagination is not a light and idle child, to be won by the mere toy of a throne and robe, crown and sceptre. These are the signs of a universal homage rendered; and in this meaning, besides their natural richness and beauty, pleasing. Again, imagination itself does homage to stately power--not homage servile, as to that from which it dreads evil--but free homage, contemplatively, to a wellspring of momentous effects. The power that invests the person of a sovereign, of necessity clothes him in majesty. Again, many and grave destinies hang about high persons. Each stands for many of less note; and imagination is a faculty, taking delight in the representation of many by one. Besides, high persons carry on high actions; and they are free to act. They will, and straightway they do.

Here, then, is good cause why the imaginative drama, comic or tragic, shall delight in high persons. And you see accordingly, that the plays of Shakspeare, of whatsoever description, move regularly amongst the loftily born--kings, independent dukes, nobles, gentlemen.

"The Emperor of Russia was my father:"

says the falsely accused Hermione, and you sympathize with her proud consciousness, and you THE MORE feel her abhorred indignity.

If Spenser could say, that it belongs to gentle blood to sit well on horseback--much more does the easy and inborn courage and worth of gentle blood bestride bravely, gracefully, lightly, and well, the careering, rearing, bounding, plunging, and headlong rushing horses of human destinies.

The fact, then, is this:--Shakspeare thus views the world; and he frames his idea of the drama accordingly.

What, then, does Pope mean, when he says that Shakspeare "lays his scene amongst tradesmen and mechanics?"

Surely he does not include under _tradesmen_, great _merchants_. Not, for example, the "Merchant of Syracusa," the grave and good old AEgaeon, condemned to death in the "Comedy of Errors" because Ephesus and Syracusa have war. He and his fortune are as far away as a king with his--from the 'prentices of London. It is not the Venetian merchant, the princely Antonio, with his argosies, spice and silk laden, that Pope regards as letting down the dignity of the sock; nor, we hope, the Jew and usurer, Shylock; the sublime in indignation, when he vindicates to his down-spurned race the parity of the human tempering in body and soul; the sublime in hate, when he fastens like a devil his fangs--or prepares to fasten--in the quivering, living flesh of his Christian debtor.

No! these are not yet the key to the enigma--"_tradesmen_ and mechanics."

In the "Midsummer Night's Dream," "a crew" of six "rude _mechanicals_," "hard-handed men," "that work for bread upon Athenian stalls," enact TWO scenes wholly to themselves--ONE, which mixes them up with the fairies; and ONE, in the presence of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and of his fair warrior-bride Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons; to say nothing of ONE, or possible TWO fairy scenes, which include one of the said "swaggering hempen homespuns," transformed by faery.

Is _this_ that "laying" of the "scene amongst tradesmen and mechanics," which has afforded our critic his absolute description of Shakspeare's comedy?

We greatly suspect, that it had too much to do in suggesting the strange misrepresentation.

And is this all?

No! It is not.

There is one play that, by its whole invention, lies nearest the reality, which must be taken as habitually possessing the understandings of an English--a London--audience, in the reign of Elizabeth. It is that one comedy which haunts upon English ground--"The Merry Wives of Windsor." The complexion and constitution of the play lay it in the bosom--the manners are those--of MIDDLE English life.

Here are the persons:--Sir John Falstaff; Fenton, (he is Ann Page's lover, the list of the names assigns him no rank. In conversation with mine host of the Garter, however, he asserts his own quality; with "as I am a gentleman;") Shallow, _a country justice_; Slender, _cousin to Shallow_; Mr Ford, Mr Page, _two gentlemen_ dwelling at Windsor; William Page, a boy, _son to Mr Page_; Sir Hugh Evans, _a Welsh parson_; Dr Caius, _a French Physician; Host of the Garter Inn_; Bardolf, Pistol, Nym, _followers_ of Falstaff; Robin, _page_ to Falstaff; Simple, _servant_ to Slender; Rugby, _servant_ to Dr Caius.

There is no need of adding two wives and a daughter. Here is the _toning_ of that which we will take leave to call Shakspeare's _only unromantic and unaristocratical_ comedy.

Was this written to please the "meaner sort" of people who frequented the playhouses?

Dennis hands down the tradition--which he may have had from Dryden, who may have had it from Sir W. Davenant--that "the comedy was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, and _by her direction_." At all events, and whatsoever other tastes it courted and may have gratified, it won the favour of the highest audience. The quarto edition of 1602, describes it as having been "divers times acted by the right honourable my Lord Chamberlaine's servants, both before her Maiestie, and else-where;" and in the accounts of the _Revels at Court_, in the latter end of 1604, it figures as performed on the Sunday following November first, "by his Majestie's plaiers."

We have thus, in part explicitly and in part summarily, documented the TONE, if it may be so called, of Shakspeare's Comic Theatre--being impelled so to do, first of all, by the duty of contradicting, the most injurious and utterly groundless characterization of a critic, whom we cite with the highest esteem and applause; further, by the fear that the positive and unqualified averment of a high and critical authority might entrap a docile and easy reader into an unhappy _misrecollection_ of his own true and clear knowledge upon the matter. Thirdly, we were not sorry to find ourselves engaged in clearing up, once for all, our own hitherto somewhat confused and insecure impressions. In the fourth place, we do always rejoice, and are irresistibly swayed from our equipoise, and are liable to be hurried any lengths, when we fall in with any opportunity of talking in any way about Shakspeare. But in particular we are glad to be obliged to approve and authenticate any general and grounding views of his poetry; and it came not amiss to our humour, in this day of the world, to show how tenderly and reverently the Spirit, who has the most lovingly, largely, and profoundly comprehended humanity, viewed the mistrusted and assailed institutions which have all along built and sustained the societies of men. If there is "beauty" that "maketh beautiful old rhyme," there is verse that reacts upon its matter; the poetry of Shakspeare shall stand in the place of a more easily fallible political science, to strengthen, whilst it adorns, the old pillars of man's world. Song can draw down the moon from the sky--song shall draw and charm many a rugged, uncouth, untamed understanding to a more submissive political docility.

But, indeed, there lurked one other less ambitious motive. What could the accurate Pope mean by this most inaccurate description of his author? We presume that there is an answer. The eulogy which precisely describes Shakspeare, is Pope's own. The imputations against Shakspeare, of which Pope will palliate the edge, are not Pope's. They are the impeachments laid by the adversary, which Pope, zealous of mitigating, too largely and hastily concedes. Standing, then, in bare and sharp opposition, as they do, to the fact, they may serve us as constituting a fact in themselves. They attest the opinion of the day--opinion, at least, prevalent high and wide, since Pope allows it. We can understand the opinion itself only as a confused and excessive exaggeration of the admixture which Shakspeare allowed to the lower comic, in comedy and in tragedy; as a protest--in which how far did Pope join?--against that admixture. The conclusion which this day will draw, must be, that the criticism of Shakspeare in polite circles, at that day, stood low.

"Another cause (and no less strong than the former) may be deduced
from our author's being a _player_, and forming himself first upon
the judgments of that body of men whereof he was a member. They have
ever had a standard to themselves, upon other principles than those
of Aristotle. As they live by the majority, they know no rule but
that of pleasing the present humour, and complying with the wit in
fashion; a consideration which brings all their judgment to a short
point. Players are just such judges of what is _right_, as tailors
are of what is _graceful_. And in this view it will be but fair to
allow, that most of our author's faults are less to be ascribed to
his wrong judgment as a poet, than to his right judgment as a player.

"By these men it was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce
ever _blotted a line_. This they industriously propagated, as appears
from what we are told by Ben Jonson in his _Discoveries_, and from
the preface of Heminges and Condell to the first folio edition. But
in reality (however it has prevailed) there never was a more
groundless report, or to the contrary of which there are more
undeniable evidences; as the comedy of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
which he entirely new writ; the _History of Henry VI._, which was
first published under the title of _The Contention of York and
Lancaster_, and that of _Henry V._, extremely improved: that of
_Hamlet_, enlarged to almost as much again as at first, and many
others. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning
proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise
by some, and to this his errors have as injudiciously been ascribed
by others. For it is certain, were it true, it could concern but a
small part of them; the most are such as are not properly defects,
but superfoetations; and arise not from want of learning or
reading, but from want of thinking or judging: or rather (to be more
just to our author) from a compliance to those wants in others. As to
a wrong choice of the subject, a wrong conduct of the incidents,
false thoughts, forced expressions, &c., if these are not to be
ascribed to the aforesaid accidental reasons, they must be charged
upon the poet himself, and there is no help for it. But I think the
two disadvantages which I have mentioned, (to be obliged to please
the lowest of people, and to keep the worst of company,) if the
consideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear
sufficient to mislead and depress the greatest genius upon earth.
Nay, the more modesty with which such a one is endued, the more he is
in danger of submitting and conforming to others against his own
better judgment."

On the other hand, as the intellectual destiny of Shakspeare was to be the greatest of dramatists, the trade of a player had its advantages. He learned absolutely what a stage is, what actors can do, and what audiences are. Charles Lamb feebly maintained, that Shakspeare's Plays are unfitted for acting, by being above it. They are above reading too; at least, they are above most--why not say the truth at once--above all readers of them. Yet it would be a pity to leave them unread. They are the best fitted of all plays for acting; for of all plays they best possess the stage, and command the audience. In thus extolling the essential poetry of Shakspeare, he condemns his practical understanding, his art. He oversteps, too, the inabilities of the histrionic art. The inabilities of the histrions themselves, is another matter. The difficulty of understanding Shakspeare, must not be turned into the impossibility of representing him when understood. The power, art, science, capacity, what you will, with which he has fitted his works to their immediate use, shows itself remarkably in this, that as the stage grows in its material means, the play comes out in power, splendour, majesty, magnificence, as if the stage but grew to the dimensions of that which it must contain; and it must have been hundreds of times felt in the green-room, that only the Plays of Shakspeare try, and form actor and actress, foster and rear them to the height of their possible stature.

"But as to his _want of learning_, it may be necessary to say
something more: there is certainly a vast difference between
_learning_ and _languages_. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I
cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if
they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man
has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or another.
Nothing is more evident than that he had a taste of natural
philosophy, mechanics, ancient and modern history, poetical learning,
and mythology: we find him very knowing in the customs, rights, and
manners of antiquity. In _Coriolanus_ and _Julius Caesar_, not only
the spirit, but manners of Romans are exactly drawn: and still a
nicer distinction is shown between the manners of the Romans in time
of the former and of the latter. His reading in the ancient
historians is no less conspicuous, in many references to particular
passages, and the speeches copied from Plutarch in _Coriolanus_ may,
I think, as well be made an instance of his learning as those copied
from Cicero in _Catiline_, of Ben Jonson's. The manners of other
nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, French, &c., are drawn
with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature or branch of science
he either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent, if not
extensive knowledge; his descriptions are still exact; all his
metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and
inherent qualities of each subject. When he treats of ethic or
politic, we may constantly observe a wonderful justness of
distinction as well as extent of comprehension. No one is more a
master of the poetical story, or has more frequent allusions to the
various parts of it. Mr Waller (who has been celebrated for this last
particular) has not shown more learning this way than Shakspeare. We
have translations from Ovid published in his name, among those poems
which pass for his, and for some of which we have undoubted
authority, (being published by himself, and dedicated to his noble
patron, the Earl of Southampton.) He appears also to have been
conversant in Plautus, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his
plays. He follows the Greek authors, and particularly Dares Phrygius,
in another; although I will not pretend to say in what language he
read them. The modern Italian writers of novels he was manifestly
acquainted with; and we may conclude him to be no less conversant
with the ancients of his own country; from the use he has made of
Chaucer in _Troilus and Cressida_, and in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, if
that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was; and indeed it has
little resemblance of Fletcher, and more of our author than some of
those that have been received as genuine.

"I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the
zeal of the partisans of our author and Ben Jonson; as they
endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of the other. It is ever
the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable,
as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said,
on the one hand, that Shakspeare had none at all; and because
Shakspeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted, on the
other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakspeare borrowed nothing,
it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed every thing. Because Jonson did
not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every
piece; and because Shakspeare wrote with ease and rapidity, they
cried, he never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of opposition ran
so high, that whatever those of the one side objected to the other,
was taken at the rebound, and turned into praises; as injudiciously
as their antagonists before had made them objections."

The learning of Shakspeare! Pope, like Dryden, has said well upon it. Shakspeare, the personal friend of men of highest rank, learning, genius; and reading in the English language as much as he chose of the wit and wisdom there entreasured, inherited the mind of the world. What will you have more? That he shall read his own spirit; and, therefore, is he above all men learned. As for that seeming wildness and irregularity of his style, which many are inclined, even at this day, to set down to his imperfect education, we beg you to recollect his more elaborated rhymed poems; his Venus and Adonis; his Rape of Lucrece; his Passionate Pilgrim; his Sonnets. And are you quite sure that some of the most finished, the strictest composition as to language and verse, of his age, shall not be found there, far beyond the experience or even comprehension of Dr Parr and all his scholars?

Reader beloved from old, and with whom we have ever loved, on pleasant landing-place in spacious article, lovingly to confabulate--while printer's devil, forgetful of copy, in the far depths of Altisidora indulged in snoreless sleep--reader, beloved anew, tell us who were the Greeks? "They were that division of mankind in which Homer took mortal existence. Homer spoke Greek." Good. And so, three or five thousand years hence, somebody will be asking somebody, who were the English? "Oh! they inhabited the island in which Shakspeare was born! Then, and a little while before and after. Shakspeare spoke English. He was an Englishman." Good. Ay, ay, rough and ready, and gentle reader, in what civilized part of Central Africa such question and reply will be made, we predict not; but you and we feel, that when and wheresoever the little dialogue shall occur, we two shall have for ourselves our own sufficient share of posthumous reputation, and eke Charles Knight. These twelve volumes always lying on their own line of our table, are Charles' edition of Shakspeare, alone of all our valuables uninsured at the Sun, for they are bound in asbestos. And now, obedient reader, listen to us lecturing, like a philosophical critic as we are, on Pope's ESSAY ON CRITICISM, involved in these ten volumes, edited twenty years ago by William Roscoe, now with the saints.

Essay on Criticism! What does one expect? Criticism, be it noted, has two phases. This is the first. In its origin, it follows now afar, now close upon the works out of which it has arisen. It describes the methods which genius has half-instinctively, half-thoughtfully followed. It brings out into clear statement, certain movements and felt workings of genius; and it defines formal imitation to workers that shall come. It appears, therefore, as an embodying of rules. This is, in the main, the shape in which criticism appears in classical antiquity. This was the meaning of the name with Pope and his contemporaries. "_Dicta sunt omnia_," remarks Quinctilian, (insisting upon the order in which nature produces, first, the arts themselves, poetry or eloquence, in power--operative; _then_, the deduction and exposition of the method,) "_antequam praeciperentur_." And so in Pope and his contemporaries, we read of nothing but RULES--RULES--RULES! At this day, the word then in honour, grates, albeit a smooth one, upon one's ear. It seems to depress and to tame, to shut up and imprison thought, which would range and soar, and asks breath, and vigour, and liberty, from true criticism. The truth is, that since that day the world has turned round, and we are turned philosophers. Thus the second phasis has arisen. We want no longer the rules, but the PRINCIPLES--the facts or the laws in our nature, and the nature of things about us, which have given out the rules; whence they flowed to Homer and to Demosthenes. We will drink from the fountains; not even from those "golden urns!" And with right and with reason, for we, too, are the children of nature. Besides, we will JUDGE Homer and Demosthenes. Without doubt, criticism, founded as an art empirical, tends continually to its second phasis, of a science grounding an art. And it is to be hoped, that something towards this profounder constitution has been attained, and that we, in following down our critics, shall follow out some part of such a progress. In the mean time, let us not rate our predecessors too low, merely upon the showing of their own modesty. Do not believe that Aristotle could propound a rule, through which a principle did not gleam out. And, in sooth, when this Essay sprang from the brain of Pope,--were not, possibly, the papers lying in the desk of Addison, in which he began, for our literature, the deliberate and express examination into the Philosophy of Criticism, within the domain of the beautiful in Art and Nature?

Addison, in a commendatory critique in the _Spectator_, said, that the observations in the Essay "follow one another without that methodical regularity that would have been requisite in a prose writer." And Warton, in opposition to Warburton, who asserted that it was a regular piece, written on a regular and consistent plan, has spoken scornfully of the Bishop's Commentary, and concluded in his usual forcible-feeble way, that Pope had no plan in the poem at all. Roscoe spiritedly rates Warton for assuming to know Pope's mind better than Pope himself, who gave the Commentary his _imprimatur_. It may occasionally refine rather too ingeniously, but on the whole it is elucidatory, and Roscoe did well to give it entire in his edition of Pope. The Essay is in one book, but divided into three principal parts or numbers; and Warburton in a few words tells its plan:--"The rest gives the rules for the study of the art of criticism; the second exposes the causes of wrong judgment; and the third marks out the morals of the critic." And Roscoe says, with equal truth, that "a certain degree of order and succession prevails, which leads the reader through the most important topics connected with the subject; thereby uniting the charm of variety with the regularity of art." Adding finely, that "poetry abhors nothing so much as the _appearance_ of formality and restraint."

An excellent feature of the Essay, giving it practical worth, and interesting as native to the character of the writer, is the strenuous requisition to the poet himself, that he shall within his own soul, and for his own use of his own art, accomplish himself in criticism. It is recorded that Walsh, "the muses' judge and friend," said to Pope--"There is at least one virtue of writing in which an English poet of to-day may excel his predecessors; that is--CORRECTNESS." But it is more likely that the perception of this virtue in the poetical intellect of Pope drew out the remark from Walsh, than that the remark suggested to the poet the pursuit of the virtue. Pope, in his verse, in his prose, in his life, _rules himself_. Deliberated purpose, resolutely adopted and consistently executed, characterises the man and the writer. It is nature, or some profounder control than a casual suggestion of a literary aim, that imparts this pervading character. As little could he owe to another the nice discrimination, the intellectual precision, the delicacy of perception--in a word, the critical sense and apprehension which make up one aspect of the mind, impressed upon the style, generally considered, of Pope. As far, then, as the virtue of correctness is to be predicated of his writings--and we do not believe that the countrymen of a poet go on predicating of him, for generation after generation, gratuitously--we must believe that we have to thank himself for it, and not Walsh.

We said, "UPON THE STYLE, GENERALLY CONSIDERED,"--for we acknowledge exceptions and contradictions to the general position; inaccuracies and incorrectnesses, that would make an answer to the question--"What is the CORRECTNESS OF POPE?" a somewhat troublesome affair. But we resolutely insist that when, in his "Essay on Criticism," he calls upon the poet himself severely to school his own mind in preparation; when he requires, that in working he shall not only feel and fancy, but understand too; when, in a word, he claims that he shall possess his art AS AN ART; he speaks, his own spirit impelling; and so stamps a fine personality, which is one mode of originality, on his work.

The praise that is uppermost in one's mind of the _Essay on Criticism_, is its rectitude of legislation. Pope is an orthodox doctor--a champion of the good old cause. Hence, after almost a century and a half, this poem of a minor (Warburton says his twentieth year) carries in our literature the repute and weight of an authority and a standard. It is of the right good _English_ temper--thoughtful and ardent--discreet and generous--firm, with sensibility--bold and sedate--manly and polished. He establishes himself in well-chosen positions of natural strength, commanding the field; and he occupies them in the style of an experienced leader, with forces judiciously disposed, and showing a resolute front every way of defence and offence. You do not curiously enquire into the novelty of his doctrines. He has done well if, in small compass, he has brought together, and vigorously compacted and expressed with animation, poignancy, and effect, the best precepts. Such writing is beneficial, not simply by the truths which it newly propounds, or more luminously than heretofore unfolds, but by the authority which it vindicates to true art--by the rallying-point which it affords to the loyal adherents of the high and pure muses--by the sympathy which its wins, or confirms, to good letters--by its influence in dispersing pestilent vapours, and rendering the atmosphere wholesome.

In perusing the "Essay on Criticism," the reader is occasionally tempted to ask himself "whether he has under his eyes an art of criticism or an art of poetry." 'Tis no wonder; since, in some sort, the two arts are one and the same. They coincide largely; criticism being nothing else than the reasoned intelligence of poetry. Just the same spirit, power, precision, delicacy, and accomplishment of understanding, which reign in the soul of the great poet creating, rule in that of the good critic judging. The poet, creating, criticizes his own work; he is poet and critic both. The critic is a poet without the creation. As Apelles is eye and hand, both; the critic of Apelles is eye only. This identification, so far as it goes, has been variously grounded and viewed. Of old, it was urged that only the poet is the judge of poetry, the painter of painting, the musician of music, and so on. Such positions proceed upon a high and reverential estimation of art. To judge requires the depth and sharpness of sensibility, the vivid and pathetic imagination, which characterize the artist. It asks more. To see the picture as it should be gazed upon, to hear the poem as it would be listened to, laborious preparation is needed--study, strenuous and exact, learned and searching--that ardent and lover-like communing with nature, the original of arts, and that experience in the powers, the difficulties, and the significancy of art, which only the dedication of the votary to the service of an art can easily be supposed to induce. There is, in practice, a verity and an intimacy of knowledge, without which theoretical criticism wants both light and life. So Pope contends--

"Let such judge others who themselves excel;
And censure freely, who have written well."

He seems, at the same time, to be aware that this doctrine is not likely to find general favour; and that an objection will be taken up by those with whom it is unpalatable, grounded in the poet's liability to be seduced, beguiled, transported, misled, by his sympathy with that which is in the art specifically his own--the inventive power. And he admits the danger; but rebuts the objection by averring that, on the other side, the critic who is not a poet has his own temptation. He will be run away with by his intellectual propensities; the opinion of his own infallibillity; the pleasure of pronouncing sentence--dispositions all, that move to a hasty, and are adverse to a generous, decision.

"Poets are partial to _their wit_, 'tis true,
But are not critics to _their judgment_, too?"

The two arts, poetry and the criticism of poetry, thus running together, so as that in the mind of the poet they are one thing, and that it is hard well to distinguish in speaking of them in prose, it will not seem surprising if Pope, intending to write of the lesser, and so inveigled into writing of the greater, should not always distinctly know of which he writes.

Let us cite a celebrated passage as an example of such almost unavoidable confusion.

"First fathom nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same.
Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light;
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides.
In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains,
Itself unseen, but in th' effect remains.
Some, to whom heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide than spur the muse's steed
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most his mettle when you check his course."

Now, lend your ears. Pray, _attend_.

It these memorable twenty lines--memorable by the truth of the thinking, and the spirited or splendid felicity of expression--the subject of the rules delivered is for two verses--CRITICISM PROPER, that is to say, the faculty of judging in the mind of the critic, who is not necessarily a poet, and whose function in the world is the judgment of the work produced and complete, and exposed for free censure.

"First fathom nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same."

This general reference to the fountain-head of law and of power, is spoken to the critic--the writer of critiques--the public censurer--the man of judgment.

For the next four lines, the creative power, and the presiding criticism in the mind of the poet, and the judicial criticism in the mind of the official critic, are all three in hand together.

"Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light;
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art."

Warburton has remarked, that the two last verses run parallel to one another, inasmuch as "source" respects "life," the ever-welling--"end" reflects "force," for the force of any thing arises from its being directed to its end--and "test" looks back to "beauty," for every thing acquires beauty by its being reduced to its true standard. Very well said.

But in what sense is nature the "end" of art? Warburton explains the word, by "the design of poetry being to convey knowledge of nature in the most agreeable manner." Might not one think that nature is this "end" rather, inasmuch as art aims at reaching nature in our bosoms? In this acceptation, "end" and "force" would precisely belong to one another.

In the mean time, "life" and "source" distinctly concern the creative power in the soul of the poet; art's "end" must be known, and fixedly looked at, as the lodestar by the mariner, by presiding criticism in the same soul; and the "test" of art must evidently be applied by the critic discharging his peculiar functions; whilst "unerring nature," imaged as the sun, enlightens, of course, both poet and critic.

And now the critic, who was at the outset of the strain--six verses ago--alone in contemplation, is dismissed for good or for ill. The poet is on Pegasus's back; the lashing out of a heel kicks the unfortunate devil to the devil; and away we go.

For one verse, the creative power, and the presiding criticism in the mind of the poet, are confounded together under the freshly suggested name--ART.

"Art from that fund each just supply provides."

That is to say, "Art," as the inventive power in the poet, draws from the sole "fund," nature, its abundant "supplies." Art, as the critical power in the poet, takes care that precisely the "just" supply be drawn.

In the next line, this same art, signifies this presiding criticism only.

"Works without show, and without pomp presides."

Clearly, the intent, inostensive, virtuous faculty of criticism alone, influencing, guarding, leading, and ruling.

Then out of the four lines, which elaborate an excellent simile, due in propriety to the presiding criticism, two are chequered with a lingering recollection of the creative power--

"In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirit feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th' effect remains."

What feeds? What fills? You cannot help looking back to that provision of "supplies;" and yet a profounder truth would be disclosed, another brilliancy imparted, and an unperplexed significancy given to the fine image, if Criticism alone might be the informing soul--if the delicate Reason of Art in the accomplished poetical spirit, had been boldly and frankly represented as inspiriting and invigorating, no less than as guiding and supporting; for criticism is the virtue of art, ruling the passions, and surely neither orator, nor poet, nor philosopher, will pause in answering, that virtue "feeds" with "spirits," and "fills with vigour." That which, itself unseen, remains in its effect, is clearly that authorized criticism which genius, in the poet's soul, obeys.

In the next verse wit signifies the creative power alone.

"Some to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse."

In the next, wit is the presiding criticism alone.

"Want as much more to turn it to its use."

In the two following, wit is the creative power only, and judgment is the presiding criticism.

"For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife."

The four closing verses, which deservedly ring in every ear, and grace every tongue--lucid and vigorous--born of the true poetical self-understanding--extol duly the presiding criticism, of which only they speak.

"'Tis more to guide than spur the muse's steed,
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most his mettle when you check his course."

A happy commentary on the "feeding with spirits," and "filling with vigour," as we would accept them. The rein provokes into action the plenitude of life that else lies unused.

By the by, Gilbert Wakefield, not the happiest of critics in his services to Pope, here rightly warns against the unskilful and indolent error of apprehending from the word "like" a most inapt simile, which would explain a horse by a horse, and exalt Pegasus by cutting off his wings. The words are clearly to be understood, "like a generous horse--AS HE IS."

We have seen, then, instructed reader, that the poet begins giving advice to the critic. Then he entangles for a moment the critic and poet together. Then he discards the critic wholly, and takes the poet along with him to the end. Do not forget, we beseech you, that there are, in the soul of the poet, two great distinct powers. There is the primary creative power, which, strong in love and passion and imagination, converses with nature, draws thence its heaped intellectual wealth, and transmutes it all into poetical substance. Then there is the great presiding power of criticism, which sits in sovereignty, ruling the work of the poet engaged in exercising his art. These two are confounded and confused by Pope once and again. They are so, under the name of _Art_!--which, at first, comprehends the two; and then suddenly means only the power of criticism in the poet. Again, they shift place confusedly under the name "_Wit_"--which at first means the creative power only--then, the critical power only. Then, once more, the creative power only; in which sense it is here at last opposed explicitly to judgment. The close is, under a fit and gallant figure, a spirited description of the creative power firily working under the control of criticism.