Chapter XII (2)

The spirit in the christall stone having produced Sibylia within the circle, she is bound to appear "at all times visiblie, as the conjuration of words leadeth, written in the _booke_," and the ceremony is wound up in the subsequent terms:—"I conjure thee _Sibylia_, O blessed virgine of fairies, by the king and queene of fairies, and by their vertues,—to give me good counsell at all times, and to come by treasures hidden in the earth, and all other things that is to doo me pleasure, and to fulfill my will, without any deceipt or tarrieng; nor yet that thou shalt have anie power of my bodie or soule, earthlie or ghostlie, nor yet to perish so much of my bodie as one haire of my head. I conjure thee _Sibylia_ by all the riall words aforesaid, and by their vertues and powers, I charge and bind thee by the vertue thereof, to be obedient unto me, and to all the words aforesaid, and this bond to stand betweene thee and me, upon paine of everlasting condemnation, _Fiat, fiat, fiat_. Amen."[520:A]

The _Sibylia_ of this incantation was, therefore, in origin, form, manners, and potency, very much assimilated to the _Ariel_ of our author's _Tempest_, being gentle, beautiful, yet possessing great influence, and exerting high authority over numerous inferior essences and powers. Thus the spirits employed by Prospero were subservient to Ariel, and under his immediate direction, partly by his own rank in the hierarchy of elemental existences, and partly by the aid of Prospero.[520:B]

The orders of spirits constituting the miraculous machinery of _The Tempest_ are in _Hamlet_ ranged under four heads,

—— "In sea or fire, in earth or air,"—

a distribution which, though seeming naturally to spring from the usual nomenclature of the elements, was not the division generally adopted; for Scot, detailing the opinion of _Psellus_ "De Operatione Demonum," classes the elementary spirits under six heads, by the addition of _subterranean spirits_, and _spirits of darkness_, "_subterranei_ et _lucifugi_;" and the _Talmudists_ and _Platonists_ add to these, _solar_, _lunar_, and _stellar_ spirits; but our poet was probably influenced in his enumeration, by the perusal of _Batman uppon Bartholome_, who tells us, in a manner calculated to make an impression on the mind, that "spirites are divided one from another, that some are called _firie_, some _earthly_, some _airie_, some _watrie_. Heereupon those foure rivers in Hell, are sayd to be of divers natures, to wit, PHLEGETHON _firie_, COCYTUS _airie_, STYX _watrye_, ACHERON _earthly_."[521:A] We are the more inclined to believe this to have been the case, notwithstanding the obvious facility of such a classification, because it appears to us, that in a prior part of this book, the germ of _Caliban's_ generation may be detected. "_Incubus_," observes this commentator on Bartholome, "doth infest and trouble women, and _Succubus_ doth infest men, by the which wordes (taken from Augustine "De Civitate Dei") it is manifest, that the godly, chast, and honest minded, are not free from this gross subjection, although more commonly the _dishonest_ are molested therewith. Some hold opinion, that _Marline_ in the time of _Vortiger_ king of great _Britaine_ 470 yeres before Christ, was borne after this manner. _Hieronimus Cardanus_ in his tretise _De rebus contra naturam_, seemes to be of opinion that spirits or divells may beget and conceive but not after y{e} common manner, yet he reciteth a storie of a young damoisell of _Scotland_ which was got with child of an inchaunted divell, thinking that he had bene a fayre young man which had layen with hir, whereupon _she brought foorth so deformed a monster, that he feared the beholders_." He then proceeds to observe, that the spirits thus procreating are not of a "subtill Materia," "but a more grose and earthie cause, as _Nymphæ_, _Dryades_, _Hobgoblins_, and _Fairies_," adding, that two instances of such connection, "it is no straunge secret to disclose," had taken place "in fewe yeares heere in _Englande_."[522:A]

We find Prospero, in fact, employing these four classes of spirits in succession, but in every instance, through the immediate or remote agency of _Ariel_. Those of _fire_ are thus described:—

——————— "Now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-out-running were not:—

—————————— "All, but mariners,
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair,)
Was the first man that leap'd; cried, _Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here_."[522:B]

The spirits of the _water_ are divided into _sea-nymphs_, or _elves of brooks_ and _standing lakes_. Under the first of these characters they are most exquisitely introduced as solacing Ferdinand, after the terrors of his shipwreck:—

"Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,
(The wild waves whist,)
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear."

Nothing, indeed, can be more appropriately wild than the imagery of the ensuing song, which arrests the ear of Ferdinand whilst he is uttering his astonishment at the previous melody:—

"Where should this musick be? i' the air, or the earth?
It sounds no more:——Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This musick crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With it's sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather:—But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again."

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
_Sea-nymphs_ hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them,—ding—dong, bell."[523:A]

Well may Ferdinand exclaim, "This is no mortal business!"

The spirits of _earth_, or _goblins_, were usually employed by Prospero as instruments of punishment. Thus Caliban, apprehensive of chastisement for bringing in his wood too slowly, gives us a fearful detail of their inflictions:—

——————————— "His spirits hear me—
For every trifle are they set upon me:
Sometime like apes, that moe and chatter at me,
And after bite me; then like hedg-hogs, which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my foot-fall: sometime am I
All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues,
Do hiss me into madness."[524:A]

They are afterwards commissioned, in the shape of hounds, to hunt this hag-born monster, and his friends Trinculo and Stephano, Prospero telling Ariel,—

"Go, charge _my goblins_ that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,
Than pard, or cat o'mountain."[524:B]

Lastly, the spirits of _air_, as beings of a more delicate and refined nature, are appointed by our magician to personate, under the direction of Ariel, a "most majestic vision;" "spirits," says their great task-master,

———————————— "which by mine art
I have from their confines call'd to enact
My present fancies;"[524:C]

and which, on the fading of this "insubstantial pageant," melt "into air, into thin air."

It appears, also, that these etherial forms were occupied night and day in chanting the most delicious melodies, or in suggesting the most delightful dreams. The isle, says Caliban,

————————————— "is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open, and shew riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,
I cry'd to dream again."[524:D]

But of the filmy texture, the tiny dimensions, and fairy recreations of these elegant beings, we have the most exquisite description in the song which the poet puts into the mouth of Ariel on the prospect of his approaching freedom:—

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."[525:A]

That all these elementary spirits were agents only on compulsion, and their obedience the result solely of magic power, is evident from the conduct of Ariel, and the language of Caliban; the former repeatedly asking for liberty, and the latter declaring, that "they all do hate him, as rootedly as I."

It is equally clear, from various parts of this play, that each class had a period prescribed for its operations: thus Prospero threatens Caliban, that

———————————————— "urchins
Shall for that _vast of night that may work_,
All exercise on thee;"[525:B]

and, in invoking the various elves, he speaks of those

"that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew;"[525:C]

a doctrine which is still more minutely expressed in other dramas of our poet. In _Hamlet_, for instance, we are told that, at "the _crowing of the cock_,"

"The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine;"[525:D]

and in _King Lear_, that the foul "fiend Flibbertigibbet _begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock_."[526:A]

One principal reason for the reluctancy expressed by Ariel and his associates was, that they were driven, by the irresistible control of the magician, to perform deeds often alien to their dispositions, and to which, if left to themselves, they were either partially or totally inadequate, and, indeed, for the most part utterly averse. We accordingly find Prospero, in his celebrated invocation to these various ministers of his art, addressing them in a tone of high authority; "by 'your' aid," he exclaims,

"(Weak masters though ye be) I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their sleepers; oped, and let them forth
By my so potent art."[526:B]

This is a passage, in which, with its immediately preceding context, Shakspeare has been indebted, as Dr. Farmer observes, to Gelding's translation of the Medea of Ovid; having evidently, in many parts, adopted the very language of that version. But it is also strictly conformable to the powers with which the magicians of his own day were invested. "These," says Scot, "deale with no inferiour causes: these fetch divels out of hell, and angels out of heaven; these raise up what bodies they list, though they were dead, buried, and rotten long before; and fetch soules out of heaven or hell.—These, I saie, take upon them also the raising of tempests, and earthquakes, and to doo as much as God himselfe can doo. These are no small fooles, they go not to worke with a baggage tode, or a cat, as witches doo; but with a _kind of majestie_, and with _authoritie_ they call up by name, and have at their commandement—divells, who have under them, as their ministers, a great multitude of legions of petty divels."[527:A]

We may finally remark, that over the popular creed relative to the Art of Magic, and which, as detailed in the common books and traditions on the subject, presents us with little but what is either ridiculous or revolting, Shakspeare has exerted a species of enchantment which infinitely surpasses that of the most profound _Magi_ of classic or of Gothic lore; eliciting from materials equally crude, gigantic, and extravagant, the elements of beauty, sublimity, and awful wonder; and unfolding such a picture of what _may be conceived_ within the reach of human skill and science, and so much of the philosophy of poetry in his glimpses of the spiritual world, that while we are spell-struck by the creations of a fancy beyond all others glowing and romantic, we yet feel ourselves in the presence, and bow before the throne, of Nature.

34. OTHELLO: 1612. Mr. Malone has assigned the composition of this play to the year 1611, though, as he confesses, with little satisfaction to himself, in consequence of Dr. Warburton having considered the following passage, in the third act of this play, as an allusion to the institution of the order of Baronets, created by James the First, in 1611:—

—————— "the hearts of old gave hands,
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts."[527:B]

The baronets, remarks Warburton, "had an addition to their paternal arms, of an hand _gules_ in an escutcheon argent. And we are not to doubt but that this was _the new heraldry_ alluded to by our author."[527:C]

That the text contains a sly allusion to the _new heraldry of hands_ in the baronet's arms, there cannot, as Mr. Douce has justly observed, be a doubt[528:A]; but, unfortunately for Mr. Malone's chronology, Dr. Warburton was mistaken as to the _period_ of the grant of arms, Mr. Chalmers having clearly proved, that "the additional armorial bearing, of the bloody hand, was not given by the patent of creation.—But the King, wishing to _ampliate_ his favour towards the baronets, granted them, by a _second_ patent, dated the _28th of May 1612_, among other preheminences, 'the arms of Ulster, that is, in a field argent, a hand _geules_, or a _bloudie hand_.'"[528:B]

Now, as we have it recorded, on the authority of Mr. Vertue's MS., that _Othello_ was acted at court _EARLY in the year 1613_[528:C], it might have been imagined that Mr. Chalmers's discovery would have led him to the adoption of the epoch which we have chosen. But, strange as it may appear, this is not the case; for, finding Iago, in the subsequent act, remarking to Othello, in reference to Desdemona, "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her _patent_ to [528:D]offend," he immediately disputes the testimony of Vertue, which had been allowed in every other instance, and because a clamour had occurred in the House of Commons against patents of monopoly, in May, 1614, places _Othello_ in this very year[528:E], when, but three pages before, he had spoken of "the _audience_" knowing, "from their feelings, how much vexation had arisen from the _patents of monopoly_, which _Queen Elizabeth_, and King James, had so frequently granted;" and referring, in a note, to a declaration of Sir Francis Bacon to the House of Commons, in which he tells them, "if you make a penal statute, the _Queen_ will dispense with it, and grant a _patent_ with a _non obstante_."[528:F]

Convinced that an allusion so indeterminate, and which might have been as much relished by an audience before, as after, the year 1614, ought not to weigh against a positive and respectable testimony, we feel no hesitation in expressing our belief that _Othello_ was written in the interval elapsing between the 28th of May, 1612, and the 1st of January, 1613.

The tragedy of _Othello_, certainly _one_ of the first-rate productions of its author, is yet, in our opinion, inferior, in point of originality and poetic wealth, to _Macbeth_, to _Lear_, to _Hamlet_, and _The Tempest_, though superior, perhaps, to every other play. It is, without doubt, an unrivalled representation of the passion of jealousy, in all its stages and effects; but the incidents, if we except the catastrophe, are pretty closely copied from the novel of _Giraldi Cinthio_, who, as Mr. Steevens has observed, "supplied our author with a regular and circumstantial outline." It has also been remarked by Mr. Dunlop, and with some truth, that "the characters of Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio, are taken from Cinthio with scarcely a shade of difference[529:A];" a declaration, however, which, with respect to Desdemona, cannot be admitted without great qualification; for with what beauty, with what pathetic impressiveness, is her part filled up, when compared with the sketch of the Italian novellist! We must also recollect, that although the incidents in which Othello is concerned be nearly the same in both productions, the _character_ of the Moor has no prototype in Cinthio, but is exclusively the property of Shakspeare.

But the most extraordinary criticism which was probably ever passed on the general cast and execution of _Othello_, has fallen from the pen of Mr. Steevens. "Should readers," says this gentleman, "who are alike conversant with the appropriate excellences of poetry and painting, pronounce on the reciprocal merits of these great productions, (_Othello_ and _Macbeth_,) I must suppose they would describe them as of different pedigrees. They would add, that one was of the school of Raphael, the other from that of Michael Angelo; and that if the steady Sophocles and Virgil should have decided in favour of _Othello_, the remonstrances of the daring Æschylus and Homer would have claimed the laurel for _Macbeth_."[530:A]

That _Othello_, being more regular in the construction of its fable than _Macbeth_, might, on that account, be preferred by Sophocles and Virgil, will readily be granted; but that it has, in its general style of composition, any pretensions to be classed as a production of the school of Raffaelle, the leading features of which, according to Sir Joshua Reynolds, are, in conception, _beauty_, _dignity_, and _grace_, and in execution, _correctness of drawing_ and _purity of taste_[530:B], is an imagination alike extravagant and unfounded. Were we disposed to carry on the allusion to the art of painting, it might be said with a much greater approximation to truth, that this very impressive drama was _designed_ in the school of _Spagnuoletto_, and tinted in that of _Rembrandt_; the dark strong manner of the former, and the bold pencil and distinct colouring of the latter, being infinitely more analogous to the strength of its characterisation, and the forcible and often contrasted tone of its composition.

What, for instance, can be more opposed in structure, or contrasted in manner, more partaking of the rapid transition of light and shade which distinguish the school of Rembrandt, than the characters of Othello and Desdemona. From the one we involuntarily retire, appalled by the storm of vindictive passion which agitates his breast; while the other, all tenderness, gentleness, and humility, is entwined about our hearts by the most fascinating ties of simplicity and spotless purity. The prevailing tone of the picture is, nevertheless, gloomy and terrific in the extreme, and the denouement such, as not even Spagnuoletto, though remarkable for the direful nature of his subjects, has ever exceeded.

We must acknowledge, however, that there is a grandeur and sublimity in the delineation of Othello, of which the painter just mentioned had no conception; for though in his jealousy he is sensual and ferocious, apart from this horrid phrenzy which burns within him quenchless as the fervors of his native climate, he exhibits many of the noblest virtues of humanity, being open, magnanimous, and brave, confiding, grateful, and affectionate; and, considering the subtlety with which his suspicions are fostered and inflamed, he becomes at length, from the intensity of his sufferings, an object both of pity and admiration.

Iago, the artful instrument of his ruin, the most cool and malignant villain which the annals of iniquity have ever recorded, would, from the detestation which accompanies his every action, be utterly insupportable in the representation, were it not for the talents, for the skill and knowledge in the springs and principles of human thought and feeling, which he constantly displays, and which, fortunately for the moral of the scene, while they excite and keep alive an eager interest and curiosity, shield him not from our abhorrence and condemnation.

Amid this whirlwind and commotion of hatred and revenge, the modest, the artless, the unsuspicious Desdemona, seems, in the soothing but transient influence which she exerts, like an evening star, that beams lovely, for a moment, on the dark heavings of the tempest, and then is lost for ever!

35. TWELFTH NIGHT: 1613. When Mr. Malone adopted the following passage, on the suggestion of Mr. Tyrwhitt[531:A], as a sufficient basis for the assignment of this play to the year 1614, he appears to have been easily and egregiously misled. Antonio, addressing Sir Toby Belch, says,—

——————— "If this young gentleman
Have done offence, _I take the fault on me_:"

to which the knight replies:—"Nay, if you be an _undertaker_, I am for you[532:A];" a retort which Mr. Tyrwhitt imagined to contain an allusion to some persons who, in 1614, "had _undertaken_, through their influence in the House of Commons, to carry things according to His Majesty's wishes;" and who, in consequence of this conduct, were stigmatised with the invidious name of _undertakers_.[532:B] But we find, from a reference to the Journals of the House of Commons, that the terms _Takers_ and _Undertakers_ had been frequently used in King James's parliaments, anteriorly to 1614[532:C], and Mr. Ritson pertinently observes, that "_Undertakers_ were persons employed by the King's purveyors to take up provisions for the royal household, and were no doubt exceedingly odious[532:D];" so that an allusion to this epithet, in a _political_ sense, if one were here intended, could not serve to appropriate the date of 1614. This being the case, there can be no hesitation in adopting the opinion of Ritson and Mason, who conceive Sir Toby intended a mere quibble on the word, of which the simple meaning is, that of one man taking upon himself the quarrel of another.[532:D]

Having set aside, therefore, any chronological inference from this source, let us turn to Mr. Chalmers, who seems to have determined the date of this drama on better grounds. Yet of the three intimations on which he has formed his conclusion, the _first_, derived from a supposed reference to the British Undertakers for the plantation of Ulster, we believe to be entitled to as little credit as the kindred hypothesis of Mr. Malone. The _second_, which is founded on the evident intention of our poet to place in a ludicrous light the then very fashionable rage for duelling, is exclusively his own, and carries with it no inconsiderable weight. "In _Twelfth Night_," he remarks, "Shakspeare tried to effect, by ridicule, what the state was unable to perform by legislation. The duels, which were so incorrigibly frequent in that age, were thrown into a ridiculous light by _the affair_ between Viola and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek. Sir Francis Bacon had lamented, in the House of Commons, on the 3d of March, 1609-10, the great difficulty of redressing the evil of duels, owing to the corruption of man's nature.[533:A] King James tried to effect what the Parliament had despaired of effecting; and, in 1613, he issued 'An Edict and Censure against Private Combats[533:B],' which was conceived with great vigour, and expressed with decisive force; but, whether with the help of Bacon, or not, I am unable to ascertain. This is another remarkable event in 1613, which the commentators have overlooked, though it may have caught Shakspeare's eye."[533:C]

The _third_, common to both chronologers, but which has only received its due influence, in the chronological scale, from the statement of Mr. Chalmers, turns on the declaration of Fabian to Sir Toby, that he would not give his part of the sport, alluding to the plot against Malvolio, "for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy[533:D];" and on the assertion of Sir Toby to Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, that Viola had been "fencer to the Sophy."[533:E] Now it appears from Mr. Chalmers, that "in 1613, Sir Anthony Shirley published his travels into Persia; with his _dangers_ and _distresses_, and his _strange_ and _unexpected deliverances_;" that "Sir Robert Shirley, the brother of Sir Anthony, arrived in October, 1611, as Ambassador from _the Sophy_; bringing with him a Persian Princess, as his wife;" that "he remained here, through the whole of the year 1612, at an expence to King James of four pounds a day," and that "he departed in January, 1613."[533:F]

These intimations induced Mr. Chalmers to infer, "that _Twelfth Night_ was written in 1613, while these various objects were in the eye, or in the recollection of the public;" a conclusion which we see no reason to dispute.

The dramatic career of our immortal poet could not be closed with a production, in its kind, more exquisitely finished, than the comedy of _Twelfth Night_. The serious and the humorous scenes are alike excellent; the former

——————— "give a very echo to the seat
Where love is thron'd,"[534:A]

and are tinted with those romantic hues, which impart to passion the fascinations of fancy, and which stamp the poetry of Shakspeare with a character so transcendently his own, so sweetly wild, so tenderly imaginative. Of this description are the loves of Viola and Orsino, which, though involving a few improbabilities of incident, are told in a manner so true to nature, and in a strain of such melancholy enthusiasm, as instantly put to flight all petty objections, and leave the mind rapt in a dream of the most delicious sadness. The fourth scene of the second act more particularly breathes the blended emotions of love, of hope, and of despair, opening with a highly interesting description of the soothing effects of music, in allaying the pangs of unrequited affection, and in which the attachment of Shakspeare to the simple melodies of the olden time is strongly and beautifully expressed.

From the same source which has given birth to this delightful portion of the drama, appears to spring a large share of that rich and frolic humour which distinguishes its gayer incidents. The delusion of Malvolio, in supposing himself the object of Olivia's desires, and the ludicrous pretensions of Sir Andrew Ague-cheek to the same lady, fostered as they are by the comic manœuvres of the convivial Sir Toby, and the keen-witted Maria, furnish, together with the professional drollery of Feste the jester, an ever-varying fund of pleasantry and mirth; scenes in which wit and raillery are finely blended with touches of original character, and strokes of poignant satire.

To these _thirty-five genuine_ plays[535:A], as they may be termed, a large number, when we consider that the life of their author extended very little beyond half a century, interest and unauthorised rumour have added a long list of spurious productions. Among these, we have assigned our reasons for placing what has been commonly called the _First Part of King Henry the Sixth_, but which, in Henslowe's catalogue of plays performed at the Rose theatre, is simply designated by the title of _Henry the Sixth_. In the same catalogue, also, is to be found _Titus Andronicus_, which, though printed like _Henry_, in the first folio, has, if possible, still fewer pretensions to authenticity, having been clearly ascertained by the commentators, both from external and internal evidence, to possess no claim to such distinction, and to hold no affinity with the undisputed works of Shakspeare.[536:A]

In a new edition of the _Supplement_, therefore, which Mr. Malone published in 1780, it is our recommendation that these two pieces be inserted, as proper companions for _Locrine_, _Sir John Oldcastle_, _Lord Cromwell_, _The London Prodigal_, _The Puritan_, and _A Yorkshire Tragedy_. Of these wretched dramas, it has been now positively proved, through the medium of the Henslowe Papers, "that the name of Shakspeare, which is printed at length in the title-pages of _Sir John Oldcastle_, 1600, and _The London Prodigal_, 1605, was affixed to those pieces by a knavish bookseller, without any foundation," the following entry occurring in the manuscript, on the 16th of October, 1599:—"Received by me Thomas Downton, of Philip Henslowe, to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson, and Hathway, for _The first part of the Lyfe of Sir Jhon Ouldcastell_, and in earnest of _the Second Pte_, for the use of the company, ten pound, I say received 10lb."[536:B]

Not content with this ample addition, which first appeared in the folio of 1664, the public has been further imposed upon by another illegitimate group, principally derived from a blind confidence in the accuracy of catalogues, and the fabrication of booksellers. From these sources, and from the authority of a volume formerly in the possession of King Charles the Second, and lettered on the back, SHAKSPEARE, Vol. I., the subsequent enumeration has been given by Mr. Steevens, viz.:—1. _The Arraignment of Paris_; 2. _The Birth of Merlin_; 3. _Edward III._; 4. _Fair Emm_; 5. _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_; and 6. _Mucedorus_; to which may be added, from Warburton's Collection of Old Dramas, where they are said to have been entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, as written by Shakspeare, 7. _Duke Humphrey_, a Tragedy; and 8. The History of _King Stephen_, both registered, June 29. 1660.[537:A] George Peele, it appears, was the author of _The Arraignment of Paris_[537:B], and a writer, who signs himself T.B., of _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_[537:C], while the ascription of the plays, once in Warburton's library, was probably owing, at that distance of time, either to the ignorance, credulity, or fraud, of some heedless or mercenary trader.

To enter into any critical discussion of the merits or defects of these pieces, would be an utter abuse of time. We do not believe that, either in the play of _Henry the Sixth_, or _Titus Andronicus_, twenty lines can be found of Shakspeare's composition; and, in the residue of this first group, consisting of six more, we decidedly think not so many. In the second, including also eight dramas, the only production now extant, of any worth, is _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, which contains a few pleasing and interesting passages expressed with ease and simplicity.

We have still to notice some vague reports relative to our poet's occasional junction with his contemporaries in dramatic composition: thus, we are told, that he assisted Ben Jonson in his [537:D]_Sejanus_; Davenport, in his _Henry the First_[537:E], and Fletcher, in his _Two Noble Kinsmen_.[537:F] Of these traditional stories, the first has been very deservedly given up, as "entirely out of the question[538:A];" the second rests merely on the unsupported assertion of a Stationers' Register[538:B], and the third, though more express and distinct, has been completely refuted by Colman and Steevens.[538:C] Indeed, there is much reason to suppose that _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ was not written until after the death of Shakspeare.[538:D]

From what has been said, under each article of the preceding chronology, perhaps no very inadequate idea may be formed of the DRAMATIC CHARACTER of our poet; but, it will be expected here, and it is indeed essential to a just and facile comprehension of the subject, that a summary or condensed view of this character be attempted, in order, by collecting the scattered rays into a focus, to throw upon it a due degree of brilliancy and strength.

With the view of ascertaining the peculiar GENIUS OF HIS DRAMA, it is necessary that we should attend to a distinction, which has been very correctly and luminously laid down by some late German critics, particularly by _Herder_ and _Schlegel_, who oppose the modern to the ancient drama, under the appellation of the _Gothic_ or _romantic_, assimilating the _antique_ or _classical_ theatre to _a group in sculpture_, and the _Gothic_ or _romantic_ to _an extensive picture_, _separation_ being the essence of the _former_, and _combination_ of the latter; or, in other words, that the spirit of the Grecian drama is _plastic_, and that of the English _picturesque_.

In fact, the _Romantic_ Drama is the result of that great change which took place in society on the extinction of the western empire, when the blended influence of Christianity and Chivalry, operating on the stern virtues of the Teutonic tribes, gave birth to a spirit of seriousness and sentiment, of love and honour, of enterprise and adventure, which led to a constant aspiration after the great, the wonderful, the wild, and, by mingling the melancholy of a sublime religion with an enthusiastic homage for female worth, threw an anxious but unparalleled interest over all the relations of existence, and all the products of intellectual effort.

The effect of this combination on the poetry of the middle ages, and more especially on that of the immediately subsequent centuries, in impressing it with an awful and mysterious character, has been beautifully sketched by Schlegel, particularly where, as in the following passage, he accounts for the solemn and contemplative cast of its structure, by tracing its dependency on the genius of our faith. "Among the Greeks," he observes, "human nature was in itself all-sufficient; they were conscious of no wants, and aspired at no higher perfection than that which they could actually attain by the exercise of their own faculties. We, however, are taught by superior wisdom that man, through a high offence, forfeited the place for which he was originally destined; and that the whole object of his earthly existence is to strive to regain that situation, which, if left to his own strength, he could never accomplish. The religion of the senses had only in view the possession of outward and perishable blessings; and immortality, in so far as it was believed, appeared in an obscure distance like a shadow, a faint dream of this bright and vivid futurity. The very reverse of all this is the case with the Christian; every thing finite and mortal is lost in the contemplation of infinity; life has become shadow and darkness, and the first dawning of our real existence opens in the world beyond the grave. Such a religion must waken the foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, to the most thorough consciousness, that the happiness after which we strive we can never here attain; that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls; and that every mortal enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary deception. When the soul, resting as it were under the willows of exile, breathes out its longing for its distant home, the prevailing character of its songs must be melancholy. Hence the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, and ours is that of desire: the former has its foundation in the scene which is present, while the latter hovers betwixt recollection and hope. Let me not be understood to affirm that every thing flows in one strain of wailing and complaint, and that the voice of melancholy must always be loudly heard. As the austerity of tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views of the Greeks, so the romantic poetry can assume every tone, even that of the most lively gladness; but still it will always, in some shape or other, bear traces of the source from which it originated. The feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more intense, their fancy more incorporeal, and their thoughts more contemplative."[540:A]

Who does not perceive that this reference to futurity, this apprehension of the possible consequences of death, which chills the blood with awful emotion, and mingles fear even with the energies of hope, is peculiarly characteristic of the serious drama of Shakspeare? In what poet, for instance, shall we find the terrors of dissolution painted with such appalling strength? where nature recoiling with such involuntary horror from the thoughts of extinction? and where those blended feelings which, on the eve of our departure, even agitate the good, ere the forms of earthly love sink into night, and a world unknown receives the disembodied spirit? Need we point to _Henry the Sixth_, to _Hamlet_, to _Measure for Measure_, to _Macbeth_, and to many others, for proofs of this continual appeal to life beyond the grave, this perpetual effort to unite, with influential power, these two states of our existence, certainly one of the most striking distinctions which separate the _romantic_ from the _antique_ style of dramatic fiction, and in which, as in every other feature of this species of poetry, Shakspeare was the first who, in our own or any other country, exhibited such unrivalled excellence, as to constitute him, in every just sense of the term, the founder of this species of the drama.

For have we not, in his productions, the noblest model of that comprehensive form which, including under one view all the varieties and vicissitudes of human being, presents us with a picture in which not only the virtues and the vices, but the follies and the frailties, the levities and the mirth of man, are harmonised and blended into a perfect whole, connected too, and that intimately, with a vast range of surrounding circumstances which, both in the foreground and in the distance, are so managed, as, by the illusory aid of tinting, grouping, and shadowing, to assist in the production of a great and determinate effect. To evince the superiority of this mode of composition over that which prevailed on the Grecian stage, it is only necessary to reflect, that the concatenated series of events which is unfolded, with so much unity of design, in the single drama of _Macbeth_, could only be represented, on the simple and confined plan of the school of Athens, by a trilogy, or succession of distinct tragedies! Can a system, thus necessarily broken into insulated parts, be put into competition with the rich and full evolution of the _romantic_ or Shakspearean drama?

It is evident, therefore, that the _romantic_ or _picturesque_ drama should be judged by laws and regulations of its own; that it is a distinct order of art, displaying great originality and invention, and a much more perfect and profound view of human life and its dependencies, than any anterior effort in the same department of literature; and as all the productions of our poet are exclusively referable to this order, of which he is, without dispute, the greatest master, a brief enquiry into the CONDUCT OF HIS DRAMA cannot fail to throw some light on the subject.

Of the three unities, upon which so much stress has been laid by the French critics, Shakspeare has in general, and, for the most part, very judiciously, rejected two. One of these, the _unity of place_, was, indeed, indissolubly connected with the tragedy of the Greeks; for as the chorus was continually on their stage, no curtain could be dropped, nor was any change of scene therefore possible; but the _unity of time_ was, most assuredly, neither rigidly observed by them, nor did it constitute any essential part of their system; on the contrary, Aristotle, after remarking, "that the dramatic fable should have such a length that the connexion of the circumstances may easily be remembered," immediately afterwards declares of this very length, that "as far as regards the time of the performance and the spectators, it has no relation to the poetic art," and that "as to the natural boundary of the action, _the greater it is the better, provided it be perspicuous_."[542:A] In fact, as to _unity of place_, no rule was required, this limitation, as we have seen, being the inevitable consequence of the defective and insulated construction of their dramatic fable; and as to _unity of time_, the observation which we have just quoted from Aristotle is decisive, the circumstances attending both these _supposed_ laws being such, as fully to warrant the assertion of Mr. Twining, who, commenting on the Stagyrite, observes, that "with respect to the _strict_ unities of _time_ and _place_, no such rules were imposed on the Greek poets by the critics, or by themselves; nor are imposed on _any_ poet, either by the _nature_, or the _end_, of the dramatic imitation itself;" and we may add, that, in as far as both have been simultaneously reduced to practice, either by the Greeks themselves, or by their still more scrupulous imitators the French, have interest and probability been proportionably sacrificed.

Whether Shakspeare, therefore, acting solely from his own judgment, rejected, or, guided merely by the usage of his day, overlooked, these unities, a great point was gained for all the lovers of nature and verisimilitude. For, omitting regulations which, though generally or partially observed by the ancients, were either altogether arbitrary, or only locally necessary, he has adopted two of which it may be said, that neither time, circumstance, nor opinion, can diminish the utility. To _unity of action_, the indispensable requisite of every well-constituted fable, he has added, what in him is found more perfect than in any other writer, _unity of feeling_, as applicable not only to individual character, but to the prevailing tone and influence of each play. Thus, while it must be confessed that the former is, in a few instances, broken in upon, by the admission of extraneous personages or occurrences, in no respect is the latter, throughout the whole range of his productions, forgotten or violated.

It is to this sedulous attention in the preservation of _unity of feeling_, that Shakspeare owes much of his fascination and powers of impression over the hearts and minds of his audience. It has been duly panegyrised by the critics with respect to his delineation of character; but as referable to the expression and effect of an entire drama, it has been too much overlooked. What, for example, can be more distinct than the tone of feeling which pervades every portion of _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Macbeth_, and how consistently is this tone preserved throughout each! Through the first, from its opening to its close, breathe the freshness and the fragrance of youth and spring, their sweetness, their innocency, and alas! their transiency; while in the second, a tempest of more than midnight horror, and the still more turbulent strife of human vice and passion, howl for ever in our ears! Again, how delightful is the tender and philosophic melancholy, which steals upon us in every scene of _As You Like It_, and how contrasted with the bustle and vivacity, the light and effervescent wit which animate, and sparkle in, the dialogue of _Much Ado about Nothing_!—We consider this _unity_, by which the separate parts of a drama are rendered so strictly subservient to a single and a common object, namely, the production of a combined and uniform impression, as one of the most remarkable proofs of the depth and comprehensiveness of the mind of Shakspeare.

This excellence is the more extraordinary, as no part in the _conduct of his drama_ is perhaps so prominent, as that mixture of seriousness and mirth, of comic and tragic effect, which springs from the very structure itself of the _romantic drama_. But this interchange of emotion serves only to place the intention of the poet, and the fulness of his success, more completely in our view; for he has almost always contrived, that the ludicrous personages of his play should give essential aid to the pre-determined effect of the composition as a whole; and this co-operation is even most apparent, where the impression intended to be excited is the most tragic: thus the anguish which lacerates the bosom of Lear, when deserted by his children, and driven forth amid the horrors of the tempest, is augmented almost to madness by the sarcastic drollery of the fool; developed, indeed, with an energy and strength which no other expedient could have accomplished.

These contrasts, which are, in fact, of the very essence of the _romantic drama_, as requiring richer and more varied accompaniments than the _antique_ species, form, in their whole spirit and effect, a sufficient apology, were one in the least necessary, for the _tragi-comic_ texture of our author's principal productions.

By embracing in one view the whole of the checkered scene of human existence, its joys and sorrows, its perpetually shifting circumstances and relations, and by blending these into one harmonious picture, Shakspeare has achieved a work to which the ancient world had nothing similar, and which, of all the efforts of human genius, demands perhaps the widest and profoundest exertion of intellect. It demands a knowledge of man, both as a genus and a species; of man, as acting from himself, and of man in society under all its aspects and revolutions: it demands a knowledge of what has influenced and modified his character from the earliest dawn of record; and, above all, it demands a conversancy of the most intimate kind with his constitution, moral, intellectual, and religious; so that in detaching a portion of history for the purposes of dramatic composition, the philosopher shall be as discernible in the execution as the poet.

It is this depth and comprehension of design in the conduct of his drama, this amplitude of "a mind reflecting ages past[545:A]," which, while it has rendered Shakspeare an object of admiration to the intelligent student of nature, has occasioned him to be so often and so grossly misinterpreted by the narrow critic and the careless reader.

To these brief remarks on the _Genius_ and _Conduct_, it will be necessary to add a few observations on the _Characters_, the _Passions_, the _Comic Painting_, and the _Imaginative Powers_, of his drama.

"To give a stage,
Ample, and true with life,—voice, action, age,
To story coldly told—
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their herse,
To enliven their pale trunks,"

and to make us

"Joy in their joy, and tremble at their rage,"

is, indeed, a task of the utmost magnitude and difficulty, but one in which our poet has succeeded with a felicity altogether unparalleled. His _characters_ live and breathe before us; we perceive not only what they say and do, but what they feel and think; and we are tempted to believe, that like some magician of old, he possessed the art of transfusing himself into the frame, and of speaking through the organs, of those whom he wished to represent; so exactly has he drawn, without deviation from the general laws and broad tract of life, each class and condition of mankind.

Whether he delineate the possessor of a throne, or the tenant of a cottage; the warrior in battle, or the statesman in debate; youth in its fervour, or old age in its repose; guilt in agony, or innocence in peace; the votaries of pleasure, or the victims of despair; we behold each character developing itself, not through the medium of self-description, but, as in actual experience, through the influence and progression of events, and through the re-action of surrounding agents. Thus, from the mutual working of conflicting interests and emotions, from their various powers of coalescence and repulsion, the characters of Shakspeare are, like those in real life, evolved with an energy and strength, with a freedom and boldness of outline which will, probably for ever, stamp them with the seal of unapproachable excellence.

Nor is he less distinguished for an illimitable sway over the _Passions_:—

——————————— "To move
A chilling pity—
To strike—both joy and ire;
To steer the affections; and by heavenly fire
Mold us anew,—
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both weep and smile"—

are some of the noblest attributes of the dramatic poet, and more peculiarly characteristic of Shakspeare than of any other writer. The birth and progress of the numerous passions which awaken _pity_ and _terror_, he has unfolded, indeed, with such minute fidelity to nature, that it is scarcely possible, as Madame De Stael has observed, to sympathise thoroughly with Shakspeare's sufferers, without tasting also of the bitter experience of real life.

The _pathos_ of Shakspeare is either simple or figurative, in accordancy with the character, and in proportion to the intensity of the feeling, from which it emanates. The sigh of suffering merit, or the pang of unrequited love, affects us most when clothed in the language of perfect simplicity; but the energy, the paroxysm of extreme sorrow, naturally bursts into figurative language, nay often demands that very play of imagery and words, for which our bard has been ignorantly condemned, but which, like laughter amid the horrors of madness, can alone impress us with an adequately keen sense of the overwhelming agony of the soul. Of these two modes of exciting pity, we possess very striking examples in the sufferings of Katherine in _Henry the Eighth_, and in the parental afflictions of Constance in _King John_.

The excitement, indeed, of unallayed pity must necessarily either be very short, or very painful, and it has therefore been the endeavour of our dramatist, according to the language of the fine old bard just quoted,

———— "so to temper passion, that our ears
Take pleasure in their pain;"

and this he has effected, and often with great skill and judgment, by a transient intermixture of playful fancy or comic allusion, of which, instances without number are to be found dispersed throughout his plays.

Yet great as we acknowledge the influence of Shakspeare to have been, in eliciting the tears of pity and compassion, he has surpassed not only others, but himself, in the power and extent of his dominion over the sources and operation of _terror_. "It may be said of crimes painted by Shakspeare," remarks an accomplished critic, "as the Bible says of Death, that he is the KING OF TERRORS[547:A];" an assertion fully warranted by an appeal to _Richard_, to _Lear_, to _Hamlet_, to _Macbeth_, where this soul-harrowing emotion, as derived from natural or supernatural causes, from remorseless cruelty, from phrenzy-stricken sorrow, from conscious guilt or withering fear, is depicted with an energy so awful and appalling as to blanch the cheek and chill the blood of every intellectual being. More especially do we pursue his creations with trembling hope and breathless apprehension, when he traces the wanderings of despair, when he presents to our view that "shipwreck of moral nature," in which "the storm of life surpasses its strength."[548:A]

The scenes which are necessarily required for the developement of villany and its artifices, must, of course, disclose many deeds of atrocity and vice, from which the unpolluted mind recoils with shuddering astonishment; but vividly, and justly too, as these have been portrayed by our poet, in all their native deformity, he has, with only one or two exceptions, so managed the exhibition, that, unless to very feeble minds, the impression never becomes too painful to be borne. Some qualifying property in the head or heart of the offender, or some repose from the intervention of more amiable or more cheerful characters, occurs to subdue to its proper tone what would otherwise amount to torture. Thus the disgust which would be apt to arise from contemplating the gigantic iniquity of _Richard the Third_, is corrected by an almost involuntary admiration of his intellectual vigour; and the merciless revenge of Shylock, being perpetually broken in upon by the alleviating harmonies of love and pity in the characters of those who surround him, passes not beyond the due limits of tragic emotion.[548:B]

The inimitable felicity, indeed, with which Shakspeare has intermingled the finest chords of _pity_ and of _terror_, such as we listen to, with unsated rapture in his _Romeo_, his _Lear_, and his _Othello_, has been a subject of eulogium to thousands, but never can it meet, from mortal tongue, with praise of corresponding worth. For who shall paint the beauty of those transitions, when on a night of horror breaks the first bright ray of heaven, the dawn of light and hope; when, like the sounds of an Æolian harp amid the pauses of a tempest, the still soft voice of love succeeds the tumult of despair, and whispers to the troubled spirit accents of mercy, peace, and pardon?

It is perhaps only of Shakspeare that it can be said with truth, that his _comic_ possesses the same unrivalled merit as his _tragic_ drama. The force and versatility of his _painting_ in this department, its richness, its depth, and its expression, and, more than all, the originality and fecundity of invention which it every where exhibits, astonish, and almost overwhelm the mind in its endeavour to form an estimate of powers so gigantic, and which may not be altogether incommensurate with its scope and comprehensiveness. Whether we consider his delineations of this kind as the product of pure fiction, or founded on the costume of his age, they alike delight us by their novelty and their adhesion to nature. _Falstaff_ and _Parolles_ are, in many respects, as much the birth of fancy as _Caliban_ or _Ariel_; but being strictly confined within the pale of humanity, and displaying all its features with living truth and distinctness, the _inventive felicity_ of their _combination_ is apt to escape us through our familiarity with its component parts. His _Fools_, or Clowns, on the contrary, were, in his time, of daily occurrence, and not only to be found in the court of the monarch, and the castle of the baron, but in the hall of the squire, and even beneath the roof of the churchman; yet, from comparing what history has recorded of this motley tribe with the spirited sketches of our author, how has he heightened their wit and sarcasm!—to such a degree, indeed, that they have frequently become in his hands personages of poetic growth, wild and grotesque, it is true, yet powerfully original.

This pre-eminence of Shakspeare in the characterisation of his fools probably led to their dramatic extinction; for it must have been found very difficult to support their tone and spirit after such a model. Beaumont and Fletcher, it has been observed, have but rarely introduced them; Ben Jonson and Massinger never[550:A]; and yet the _court_-fool had not ceased to exist in the reign of Charles the First, nor the _domestic_ until the commencement of the eighteenth century.[550:B]

Another of the great distinctions which have elevated Shakspeare so completely above the _dramatic_ class of poets, is the splendour and infinity of his _imagination_—