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 Cornell University Library 
 PR 2976.D74 1881 
 
 Shakspere; a critical study of his mind a 
 
 3 1924 013 156 884 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 31 56884 
 
SHAKSPEEE 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY OF 
 
 HIS MIISTD A.NT> ^RT 
 
 EDWAKD DQ^DEN, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OP ENGIISH HIERATtTRE IN THE UNITERSITY OF DUBLIN 
 TICE-PKESIDENT OF "THE NEW SHAKSPEKE SOCIETY" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
SHAK8PEEE 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY OP 
 
 HIS M:i]Sri3 A-INTD A.RT 
 
 EDWARD D03VDEN, LL.D. 
 
 •7' ' 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNITERSITY OF DUBLIN 
 TICE-PKESIDENT OF "THE NEW SHAESFERE SOCIETY" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
PR , 
 
 /\SbZ6i(fi 
 
 "I am greaHy pleased to tjdnk tluU you intend to make 
 me better known to the American public, and I trust Mr. 
 William J. Holfe's favorable opinion of the book may be 
 confirmed by other readers." 
 
 Professor Dowdes, in a letter to Habper & Brothers, 
 
 Decom1)er 20th, 1880. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 In the present edition, I have made such corrections as 
 appeared needful, and have brought my statements on 
 some doubtful points into harmony with the latest re- 
 sults of Shaksperian scholarship. 
 
 I wish to insist npon the statement made on p. 246 
 that JuUus C<Bsar lies in point of time beside Hamlet. 
 Both are tragedies of thought rather than of passion; 
 both present, in their chief characters, the spectacle of 
 noble natures which fail through some weakness or defi- 
 ciency rather than through crime. Upon Brutus as upon 
 Hamlet a burden is laid which he is not able to bear ; 
 neither Brutus nor Hamlet is fitted for action, yet both 
 are called to act in dangerous and difficult affairs. Juli- 
 us CoBSCM!' was probably complete before Hamlet assumed 
 its latest form, perhaps before Hamlet was written. Still, 
 giving the reader a caution, as I did in the case of The 
 Tempest, I am not unwilling to speak of Hamlet as the 
 second of Shakspere's tragedies. Hamlet seems to have 
 its roots so deep in Shakspere's nature, it was so much a 
 subject of special predilection, it is so closely connected 
 with older dramatic work. We acquire the same feeling 
 with reference to Hamlet which we have for Goethe's 
 i'bMS^'— that it has to do with almost the whole of the 
 deeper part of the poet's life up to the date of its creation. 
 
vi Preface to the Third Edition. 
 
 After Shakspere had written these two tragedies, or 
 while he was writing them, he continued to write com- 
 edy. But the genial spirit of comedy was deserting him. 
 Twelfth Night resumes all the admirable humorous char- 
 acteristics of the group of comedies which it completes. 
 Then the change comes ; All 's Well that Ends WeU, is 
 grave and earnest; Measure for Measure is dark and 
 bitter. In the first edition of this work I did not vent- 
 ure to attempt an interpretation of Troilus and Cressida. 
 I now believe this strange and difficult play was a last 
 attempt to continue comedy, made when Shakspere had 
 ceased to be able to smile genially, and when he must be 
 either ironical or else take a deep, passionate, and trag- 
 ical view of life. 
 
 I have elsewhere written as follows : 
 
 " TroUus and Cressida appeared in two quarto editions in the year 1609 ; 
 in the title-page of the earlier of the two it is stated to have been acted at 
 the Globe ; the later contains a singular preface in which the play is spoken 
 of as ' never stal'd with the stage, never clapper-claw'd with the palmes of 
 the vulgar,' and as having been published against the will of ' the grand 
 possessors.' Perhaps the play was printed at first for the use of the thea- 
 tre, and with the intention of being published after being represented, and 
 that the printers, against the known wish of the proprietors of Shakspere's 
 manuscript, anticipated the first representation and issued the quarto with 
 the attractive announcement that it was an absolute novelty. The editors 
 of the folio, after having decided that Troilus and Cressida should follow 
 Borneo and Jvliet among the Tragedies, changed their minds, apparently un- 
 certain how the play should be classed, and placed it between the Histories 
 and Tragedies ; this led to the cancelling of a leaf, and the filling-up of a 
 blank space left by the alteration with the Prologue to TroUus and Cressida 
 — a prologue which is believed by several critics not to have come from 
 Shakspere's hand. 
 
 " There is extreme uncertainty with respect to the date of the play. Dek- 
 ker and Chettle were engaged in 1599 upon a play on this subject, and from 
 an entry in the Stationers' Register on Feb. "7, 1602-3, it appears that a 
 
Preface io the Third Edition. vU 
 
 Trmhis and Cressith had been acted by Shakspere's company, the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Servants. Was this Shakspere's play? Wo are thrown 
 back upon internal evidence to decide the question, and the internal evi- 
 dence is itself of a conflicting kind, and has led to opposite conclusions. 
 The massive worldly wisdom of Ulysses argues, it is supposed, in favor of a 
 late date, and the general tone of the play has been compared with that of 
 T^num of Atluma. The fact that it does not contain a single weak-ending 
 and only six light-endings is, however, almost decisive evidence against our 
 placing it after either 'Hmon or Macbetli, and the other metrical character- 
 istics are considered by Hertzberg, the most careful student of this class of 
 evidence, in the case of the present play, to point to a date about 1B03. 
 Other authorities place it as late as 1608 or 1609; while a third theory 
 (that of Verplanck and Grant White) attempts to solve the difficulties by 
 supposing that it was first written in 1603 and revised and enlarged shortly 
 before the publication of the quarto. Parts of the play — notably the last 
 battle of Hector — appear not to be by Shakspere. The interpretation of the 
 play itself is as difficult as the ascertainment of the external fasts of its 
 history. With what intention, and in what spirit, did Shakspere write this ( 
 strange comedy ? All the Greek heroes who fought against Troy are piti- ( 
 lessly exposed to ridicule ; Helen and Cressida are light, sensual, and heart- / 
 less, for whose sake it seems infatuated folly to strike a blow; Troilus is an 
 enthusiastic young fool ; and even Hector, though valiant and generous, 
 spends his life in a cause which he knows to be unprofitable, if not evil,i 
 All this is seen and said by Thersites, whose mind is made up of the scum 
 of the foulness of human life. But can Shakspere's view of things have 
 been the same as that of Thersites ? 
 
 " The central theme, the young love and faith of Troilus given to one who 
 was false and fickle, and his discovery of his error, lends its color to the 
 whole play. It is the comedy of disillusion. And as Troilus passed through 
 the illusion of his first love for woman, so by middle life the world itself 
 often appears like one that has not kept her promises, and who is a poor 
 deceiver. We come to see the seamy side of life ; and from this mood of 
 disillusion it is a deliverance to pass on oven to a dark and tragic view of 
 life, to which beauty and virtue reappear, even though human weakness or 
 human vice may do them bitter wrong. Now such a mood of contemptuous 
 depreciation of life may have come over Shakspere, and spoiled him, at that 
 time, for a writer of comedy. But for Isabella we should find the coming- 
 on of this mood in Measure for Measure ; there is perhaps a touch of it in 
 Hamld. At this time Troilus and Cressida may have been written, and 
 
viii Preface to the Third Edition. \ 
 
 tlien Shakspere, rousing himself to a peeper inquest into things, may have \ 
 passed on to his great series of tragedies. 
 
 "Let us call this, then, the comedy of disillusion ; and certainly, Trherever 
 we place it, we must notice a striking resemblance in its spirit and structure 
 to Tirnmi of AtTiens. Timon has a lax benevolence and shallow trust in the 
 goodness of men ; he is undeceived, and bitterly turns away from the whole 
 human race in a rage of disappointment. In the same play Alcibiades is, in 
 like manner, wronged by the world ; but he takes his injuries firmly, like a 
 man of action and experience, and sets about the subduing of his base an- 
 tagonists. Apemantus, again, is the dog-like reviler of men, knowing their 
 baseness, and base himself. Sere, Troilua, the noble green -goose, goes 
 through his youthful agony of ascertaining the unworthiness of her to whom 
 he had given his faith and hope ; but he is made of a stronger and more en- 
 ergetic fibre than Timon, and he comes out of his trial a man, no longer a 
 boy, somewhat harder perhaps than before, but strung up for sustained and 
 determined action. He is completely delivered from Cressida and from Pan- 
 dar, and by Hector's death supplied with a motive for the utmost exertion 
 of his heroic powers. TTlysses, the antithesis of Troilus, is the much-experi- 
 enced man of the world, possessed of its highest and broadest wisdom, which 
 yet always remains worldly wisdom, and never rises into the spiritual con- 
 templation of a Prospero. He sees all the unworthiness of human life, but 
 will use it for high worldly ends; the spirit of irreverence and insubordin.v 
 tion in the camp he would restrain by the politic machinery of what he calls 
 'degree' — I. iii. 75-136. Cressida he reads at a glance, seeing to the bottom 
 of her sensual shallow nature ; and he assists at the disillusioning of the 
 young Prince, whose nobleness is apparent to him from the first. Thersites 
 also sees through the illusions of the world, but his very incapacity to have 
 ever been deceived is a sign of the ignoble nature of the wretch. He feeds 
 and grows strong upon garbage ; physical nastinesses and moral sores are 
 the luxuries of his imagination. The other characters — the brute warrior, 
 Ajax ; the insolent self -worshipper, Achilles ; Hector, heroic, but too careless 
 how and when he expends his heroic strength — are of minor importance. As 
 the blindness of youthful love is shown in Troilus, so old age in its least ven- 
 erable form, given up to a gratification of sensuality by proxy, is exposed to 
 derision in Pandar. The materials for Troilus and Cressida were found by 
 Shakspere in Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida; Oaxton's translation from the 
 French, Eecuyles, or Destruction of Troy; perhaps, also, Lydgate's Troye Bohc. 
 Thersites he probably found in Book II. of Chapman's Homer. Shakspere's 
 conception of Cressida and of Pandar differs widely from Chaucer's; ia 
 
Preface to tti& i turn i^ditioft. 
 
 IX 
 
 Shakspere's hands, in accordance with the general design of the drama, 
 Cressida and Her uncle grow base and contemptible. Some critics have 
 supposed that the love-story was written at a much earlier date than the 
 part which treats of Ulysses ; but we have seen that the contrasted charac- 
 ters of Troilus and Ulysses are both essential parts of the conception of the 
 drama, and were created as counterparts." 
 
 The following table presents the plays in a series of 
 groups which succeed one another in chronological or- 
 der. The position of three or four plays of secondary 
 importance may be doubtful ; and I claim no certainty 
 for the order of the plays within the groups ; but I offer 
 the arrangement of groups with great confidence as to 
 its general correctness. It will be observed that in some 
 cases one group overlaps in point of time that which fol- 
 lows it. To keep the comedies together, I have placed 
 "Middle Tragedy" after the third division of what I 
 have named " Later Comedy ;" it will suffice if the reader 
 bear in mind that, as a fact, the comedy overlaps the suc- 
 ceeding group of tragedies. 
 
 1. Pbe-Shaksperian Geoup. 
 (Tamh^ by Shakspere.) 
 Titus Andronicus (1588-90). 
 
 1 Henry VL (1590-91). 
 
 2. Early Comedy. 
 Love's Labor 's Lost (1590). 
 Comedy of Errors (1591). 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona (1592- 
 
 93). 
 Midsummer-Night'sDream(1593-94). 
 
 3. Maelowe-Shakspekb Group. 
 Early History. 
 
 2 and 3 Henry VL (1891-92). 
 Richard HI. (1593). 
 
 4. Early Tragedy. 
 Romeo and Juliet (? two dates, 1691, 
 1597). 
 
 6. Middle History. 
 
 Richard IL (1594). 
 King John (1595). 
 
 6. Middle Comedy. 
 Merchant of Venice (1596). 
 
 7. Later History. 
 History and Comedy United. 
 
 1 and 2 Henry IV. (1597-98). 
 Henry V. (1599). 
 
Preface to the Third Edition. 
 
 8. Later Comedy. 
 
 (a) Rmigh and Bohferotis Camedy. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew (? 159^). 
 Merry Wives (? 1598). 
 
 (b) Joyous, Refined, Eomantic. 
 
 Much Ado about Nothiiig (I598)» 
 As You Like It (1599). 
 Twelfth Night (1600-1). 
 
 (e) Serious, Dark, Ironieal. 
 
 All 's Well (? 1601-2). 
 Measure for Measure (1603.). 
 Troilus and Cressida (? 1603 ; revised 
 1607 ?). 
 
 9. Middle Teagedt. 
 
 Julius Caesar (1601). 
 Hamlet (1602). 
 
 10. Later Tragedy. 
 Othello (1604). 
 Lear (1605). 
 Macbeth (1606). 
 Antony and Cleopatra (160T). 
 Coriolanus (160R). 
 Timon (160Y-8). 
 
 11. ROUAKCES. 
 
 Pericles (1608). 
 Cymbeline (1609). 
 Tempest (1610). 
 Winter's Tale (1610-11). 
 
 12. Fragments. 
 Two Noble Kinsmen (1612). 
 Henry VIIL (1612-13> 
 
 Poems. 
 
 Venus and Adonis (? 1592). 
 Lucreee (1593-94). 
 Sonnets (? 1695-1605). 
 
 The student will observe in this arrangement early, 
 middle, and later Comedy ; early, middle, and later His- 
 tory ; and early, middle, and later Tragedy. ISTot only 
 is it well to view the entire body of Shakspere's plays in 
 the order of their chronological succession, but also to 
 trace in chronological order the three separate lines of 
 Comedy, History, and Tragedy. The group named Eo- 
 mances connect themselves, of course, with the Come- 
 dies ; but there is a grave element in them which is con- 
 nected with tlie Tragedies which preceded them. It has 
 been noticed that the Komances have in common the in- 
 cidents of reunions, reconciliations, and the recovery of 
 lost children. Shakspere, though so remarkable for his 
 
Preface to the Third Edition. xi 
 
 power of creating character, is not distinguished among 
 dramatists for his power of inventing incident. Having 
 found a situation which interested his imagination or 
 was successful on the stage, he introduced it again and 
 again, with variations. Thus, in the Early Comedies, 
 mistakes of identity, disguises, errors, and bewilderments, 
 in various forms, recur as a source of merriment and 
 material for adventure. In the Later Comedies, again, 
 it is quite remarkable how Shakspere (generally in the 
 portions of tliese plays which are due to his own inven- 
 tion) repeats, with variations, the incident of a trick or 
 fraud practised upon one who is a self-lover, and its con- 
 sequences, grave or gay. Thus Falstaff is fatuous enough 
 to believe that two English matrons are dying of love 
 for him, and is made the victim of their merry tricks. 
 Malvolio is made an ass of by the mischievous Maria 
 taking advantage of his solemn self-esteem; Beatrice 
 and Benedick are cunningly entrapped, through their 
 good-natured vanity, into love for which they had been 
 already predisposed; the boastful Parolles is deceived, 
 flouted, and disgraced by his fellow-soldiers ; and (Shak- 
 spere's mood growing earnest, and his thoughts being 
 set upon deep questions of character) Angelo, the self-, 
 deceiver, by the craft of the Duke, is discovered painful- 
 ly to the eyes of others and to his own heart. 
 
 For the index, which adds to the usefulness of the 
 present edition, I have to thank my friend Mr. Arthur 
 E. Love, of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 It has been a happiness to me to find that what I have 
 written on Shakspere has been approved by distinguished 
 Shakspere scholars in England, in Germany, in France, 
 and in America. I do not thank my critics for their 
 
xii Preface to the Third Edition. 
 
 generous recognition of whatever may deserve commen- 
 dation in my work; I may, however, at least express the 
 sense of enconragement derived from what they have 
 said. One of the earliest voices which spoke a word of 
 emphatic approval of this book is now silent in death, 
 and I cannot but desire to associate, at least by my grate- 
 ful recollection, this Study of Shakspere with the hon- 
 ored name of its reviewer in The Academy, the late Mr. 
 Eichard Simpson. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 The attempt made in this volume to connect the study 
 of Shakspere's works with an inquiry after the personal- 
 ity of the writer, and to observe, as far as is possible, in 
 its sevei-al stages, the growth of his intellect and character 
 from youth to full maturity, distinguishes the work from 
 the greater number of preceding criticisms of Shakspere. 
 A sense of hazard and diflSculty necessarily accompanies 
 the attempt to pass through the creations of a great 
 dramatic poet to the mind of the creator. Still no one, 
 I suppose, would maintain that a product of mind so 
 large and manifold as the writings of Shakspere can fail 
 in some measure to reveal its origin and cause. 
 
 The reader must not fall into the error of supposing 
 that I endeavor to identify Shakspere with any one of 
 his dramatic personages. The complex nature of the 
 poet contained a love-idealist like Komeo (students of 
 the Sonnets will not find it difficult to admit the possi- 
 bility of this) ; it contained a speculative intellect like 
 that of Hamlet. But the complete Shakspere was un- 
 like Eomeo and unlike Hamlet. Still, it is evident, not 
 from one play, but from many, that the struggle between 
 "blood" and "judgment" was a great affair of Shak- 
 spere's life; and in all his later works we observe the 
 effort to control a wistful curiosity about the mysteries 
 
xiv Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 of human existence. And therefore, I say, a potential 
 Komeo and a potential Hamlet, taking these names as 
 representative of certain spiritual tendencies or habits, 
 existed in Shakspere. Nor do I identify Shakspere witii 
 Prospero ; although Shakspere's temper in the plays of 
 the last period is the temper of Prospero. It would not 
 be easy to picture to ourselves the great magician waited 
 ou by such ministering spirits as Sir John Falstaflf, Sir 
 Toby Belch, and the nurse of Juliet. 
 
 In order to get substantial ground to go upon, I have 
 thought it necessary to form acquaintance with a con- 
 siderable body of recent Shakspere scholarship, both 
 English and Continental. But I avoid the discussion of 
 purely scholastic questions. To approach Shakspere on 
 the human side is tlie object of this book ; but I believe 
 that Shakspere is not to be approached on any side 
 through dilettantism. 
 
 I have carefully acknowledged my obligations to pre- 
 ceding writers. In working out the general design and 
 main features of tliis study, I was able to obtain little 
 help; but in details I obtained much. My references 
 express, I may say, considerably more than my actual 
 debt ; for in those instances in which I found that my 
 thought had been anticipated, and well expressed else- 
 wliere, I have noted the coincidence. Doubtless many 
 instances of such coincidence remain unobserved by me. 
 Since I wrote the chapter in which The Tempest is con- 
 sidered, I have read for the first time Lloyd's essay upon 
 the play, and I have found some striking and satisfactory 
 points of agreement between myself and that good ci-itic. 
 
 In all essentials I have adhered to the chronological 
 method of studying Shakspere's writings. But it seemed 
 
Preface to the First Edition. xv 
 
 pedantry to saci'ifice certain advantages of contrast and 
 comparison to a procedure in every instance, from play 
 to play, according to dates. Thus, in the chapter on the 
 English Historical Plays I have, for convenience of illus- 
 tration, treated Henry VI. after King John, and before 
 Michard III. In the opening of the eighth chapter, I 
 have explained what I believe to be the right manner 
 of using the chronological method. I have called The 
 Tempest Shakspere's last play, but I am quite willing to 
 grant that A Winter's Tale, Henry VIII., and perhaps 
 Gymheline may actually have succeeded The Tempest. 
 For the purpose of such a study as the present, if it be 
 admitted that these plays belong to one and the same pe- 
 riod — the final period of the growth of Shakspere's art 
 — it matters little how the plays succeeded one another 
 within that period. 
 
 I refer in one passage to Henry VIII. (act iv., sc. 2) 
 as if written by Shakspere. The scene was, I believe, 
 conceived by Shakspere, and carried out in the spirit of 
 his design by Fletcher. 
 
 About half of this volume was read in the form of lect- 
 iires ("Saturday Lectures in connection with Alexandra 
 College, Dublin") in the Museum Buildings, Trinity Col- 
 lege, Dublin, during the spring of the year 1874. 
 
 In some instances I have referred to, and quoted from, 
 papers by the Kev. F. G. Fleay as read at meetings of 
 the New Shakspere Society, but which have not received 
 the final corrections of their author. 
 
 In seeing the volume through the press, I received 
 valuable suggestions and corrections from Mr. Harold 
 Littledale, the editor, for the New Shakspere Society, 
 of " The Two Noble Kinsmen," for which I thank him. 
 
XVI 
 
 Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 I have to thank the Director of the New Shakspere 
 Society, Mr. F. J. Furnivall, for permission to print the 
 " Trial Table of the Order of Shakspere's Plays," which 
 appears in his inti-oduction to the new edition of " Shake- 
 speare Commentaries " by Gervinus. 
 
 TRIAL TABLE OF THE OEDER OF SHAKSPERE'S PLATS. 
 
 [This, like all other tables, must be looked on as merely tentative, and open 
 to modification for any good reasons. But if only it comes near the truth, 
 then reading the plays in its order will the sooner enable the student to 
 find out Its mistakes. (M. stands for " mentioned by Francis Heres in his 
 'Palladis Tamia,' 1598.")] 
 
 In his introductory essays to " Shakespeare's Dramatische Werke " (German 
 Shakespeare Society), Prof. Hertzberg dates Tltvs ISS'Z-SO ; Loniis Labor 's 
 iMst, 1592 ; Comedy ofEn-ors, about New-year's-day, 1591 ; Tim Oenilemai, 
 1592; All 's Well, 1603 ; 2'roilus and Cressida, 1603 ; and Cynibdine, 1611. 
 
 Supposed 
 Date. 
 
 Earliest 
 Allusion. 
 
 Date of 
 FablicatioD. 
 
 First Period. 
 
 Venus and Adonis 
 
 Titus Andronicus touched up 
 Love's Labor 's Lost .... 
 [Love's Labor 's Wonne . . 
 
 Comedy of Errors 
 
 Midsummer-Night's Dream ) 
 
 (? two dates) \ 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona . 
 (?) 1 Henry VI. touched up . 
 (?) Troilus and Cressida begun 
 
 (?) Lucrece 
 
 Romeo and Juliet 
 
 (?) A Lover's Complaint . . . 
 
 Richard II 
 
 Richard IH 
 
 2 and 3 Henry VI. recast . . 
 John 
 
 Second Period. 
 
 Merchant of Venice 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, part . 
 
 1 Henry IV. 
 
 2 Henry IV. 
 
 1585-87 
 (?) 1588 
 1588-89 
 
 ] 
 1589-91 
 
 1590-91 
 
 1590-92 
 (?) 1590-92 
 
 (?) 1591-93 
 
 1593-94 
 1594 
 (?) 1594-95 
 1595 
 
 (?) 1596 
 (?) 1596-97 
 
 1596-97^; 
 
 1597-98 J 
 
 1594 M. 
 1598 M. 
 1598 M. 
 1598 M. 
 
 1598 M. 
 
 1598 M. 
 
 1594 
 
 1595 M. 
 
 (?) 1595 M. 
 (?) 1595 M. 
 
 1598 M. 
 
 1598 M. 
 
 1598 M. 
 1598 M. 
 
 1593 
 [(?) 1594] 1600 
 1698 (amended) 
 
 1623 
 
 1600 
 
 1623 
 1623 
 
 1594 
 1597 
 
 1597 
 1597 
 1623 
 1623 
 
 leoot 
 
 1623*1 
 
 1598 
 
 1600 
 
Preface to the First Edition. xvii 
 
 Trial Tablk of the Order of Shakspere's Plats — Continued. 
 
 Supposed 
 Date. 
 
 Earliest 
 Allusion. 
 
 Date of 
 Publication. 
 
 Merry Wives 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Much Ado 
 
 As You Like It 
 
 Twelfth Night 
 
 All 's Well (? Love's Labor 's i 
 
 Wonne recast) | 
 
 Sonnets '. 
 
 1598-99 
 1599J: 
 1599-1600^: 
 
 leoot 
 
 I6O1J 
 
 1601-2 
 
 (?) 1592-1602 
 
 Third Period. 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 Measure for Measure . . . 
 
 Julius CiBSar 
 
 Othello 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Lear 
 
 Troilus and Cressida (?) com- 
 pleted 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra . . . 
 
 Coriolanus 
 
 Timon, part 
 
 Fourth Period. 
 
 Pericles, part 
 
 Two Noble Kinsmen . 
 
 Tempest 
 
 Cymbeline 
 
 Winter's Tale 
 
 Henry VIIL, part . . . 
 
 1602-3 j: 
 (?) 1603 
 (?) 1601-3 
 (?) 1604 
 1606-6 
 1605-6 
 
 1606-7 
 
 1606-7 
 
 (?) 1607-8 
 
 1607-8 
 
 1608t 
 1609 
 1610 
 1610-12 
 (?) 1611 
 1613t 
 
 1602 
 1599 
 1600 
 1600 
 1602 
 
 1598 M. 
 
 (?) 
 
 (?) 
 1610 
 1610 
 1606 
 
 1609 
 
 1608 (?) 
 
 1608 
 
 (?) 1614 
 
 1611 
 1613 (?) 
 
 1602 
 
 1600 
 
 1600 
 
 1623§ 
 
 1623 
 
 1623 
 
 1609 
 
 1603* 
 
 1623 
 
 1623 
 
 1622 
 
 1623 
 
 1608* 
 
 1609 
 
 1623 
 1623 
 1623 
 
 1609* 
 
 1634 
 
 1623 
 
 1623 
 
 1623 
 
 1623 
 
 * Entered one year before at Stationers' Hall. 
 
 J- Entered two years before at Stationers' Hall. 
 
 i May be looked on as fairly certain. 
 
 § Entered in the Stationers' Registers in 1600. 
 
 y " The Taming of a Shrew " was published in 1694. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Shakspeee asd the Elizabethan Age 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Growth op Shakspeee's Mind and Art .... 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Fikst and the Second Tragedy : Romeo and Juliet ; Hamlet. 84 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The English Historical Plats 144 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Othello; Macbeth; Leab 198 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Roman Plats 245 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Humor of Shakspere 300 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Siiakspere's Last Plats 336 
 
 Index , . , 383 
 
SHAKSPERE-HIS MIND AND ART. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 SHAKSPEEE AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 
 
 In these chapters an attempt will be made to present 
 a view or aspect of a great poet, and the first word must 
 explain precisely what such a view or aspect is worth, 
 what it professes to be, and what it disclaims. Dr. New- 
 man, in his " Grammar of Assent," has distinguished two 
 modes of apprehending propositions. There is what he 
 calls the real a;pprehension of a proposition, and there is 
 the notional apprehension. In real apprehension there 
 is the perception of some actual, concrete, individual ob- 
 ject, either with the eye or some bodily sense, or with 
 the mind's ieye — memory or imagination. But onr 
 minds are not so constructed as to be able to receive and 
 retain only an exact image of eacb of the objects that 
 come before us one by one, in and for itself. On the 
 contrary, we compare and contrast; We see at once 
 " that man is like man, yet unlike ; and unlike & horse, 
 a tree, a mountain, or a monument. And in consequence 
 we are ever grouping and discriminating, measuring and 
 sounding, framing cross classes and cross divisions, and 
 thereby rising from particulars to generals ; that is, from 
 images to notions; . . . 'Man' is liO longer \vhat he really 
 is, an individual presented to us by our senses, but as we 
 read him in the light of those comparisons and contrasts 
 
 1 
 
2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 which we have made him suggest to us. He is attenuated 
 into an aspect, or relegated to his place in a classification. 
 Thus his appellation is made to suggest, not the real 
 being which he is in this or that specimen of himself, 
 but a definition." Thus individual propositions about 
 the concrete, in the mind of a thinker whose intellect 
 works in the way of notional apprehension, " almost cease 
 to be, and are diluted or starved into abstract notions. 
 The events of history and the characters who figure in it 
 lose their individuality." 
 
 Now, it is not such an aspect, such a view of Shakspere, 
 which it is here attempted to present. To come into 
 close and living relation with the individuality of a poet 
 must be the chief end of our study — to receive from his 
 nature the peculiar impulse and impression which he, 
 best of all, can give. We must not attenuate Shakspere 
 to an aspect, or reduce him to a definition, or deprive 
 him of individuality, or make of him a mere notion. 
 Yet, also, no experiment will here be made to bring Shak- 
 spere before the reader as he spoke and walked, as he 
 jested in his tavern or meditated in his solitude. It is a 
 real apprehension of Shakspere's character and genius 
 whicli is desired, but not such an apprehension as mere 
 observation of the externals of the man, of his life or of 
 his poetrj', would be likely to produce. I wish rather to 
 attain to some central principles of life in him which 
 animate and control the rest, for such there are existent 
 in every man whose life is life in any true sense of the 
 word, and not a mere affair of chance, of impulse, of 
 moods, and of accidents. 
 
 In such a study as this we endeavor to pass through 
 the creation of the artist to the mind of the creator ; but 
 it by no means prevents our returning to view the work 
 of art simply as such, apart from the artist, and as such 
 to receive delight from it. Nay, in the end it augments 
 
Shakspei'c and the Elizabethan Age. 3 
 
 our delight by enabling us to discover a mass of fac^ 
 which would otherwise be overlooked. To enjoy tlie 
 beauty of a landscape, it is not necessary to understand 
 the nature and arrangement of the rocks whicli underlie 
 or rise up from the soil. While studying the stratiiica- 
 tion of those rocks, we absolutely lose sight of tlie beauty 
 of the landscape. Nevertheless, a larger mass of pleasure 
 is in the end possessed by one who adds to his instinctive, 
 spontaneous feeling of delight a knowledge of the geology 
 of the country. In like manner, while the study of anat- 
 omy is quite distinct from the pleasure which the sight 
 of a beautiful human body gives, yet, in the end, the 
 sculptor who adds to his instinctive, spontaneous delight 
 in the beauty of moulded form and moving limb a 
 knowledge of human anatomy receives a mass of pleas- 
 ure greater than that of one who is unacquainted with 
 the facts of structure and function. There is an obvious 
 cause of this. The geologist and the anatomist see Tnore, 
 and see a new class of phenomena, which produce new 
 delights. The lines of force in a landscape, to which an 
 ordinary observer is entirely insensible, come out to the 
 instructed eye, and give it thrills of strong emotion, like 
 those which we receive from the athletes or the gods of 
 Michael Angelo. The lines of force are drawn in the 
 granite and the sandstone differently, and hence an end- 
 less variety of delights corresponding to the infinite va- 
 riety of the disposition of its rock-forces by nature. We 
 do not only understand better what is before us, we enjoy 
 it more. We are not attenuating it to an aspect, or inob- 
 servant of its individuality ; we are, on the contrary, pen- 
 etrating to the centre of that individuality. It is gen- 
 erally not until the dominant lines of force are clearly 
 perceived that we can group in just proportions the minor 
 details which investigation presents to our notice. 
 
 One who stands in the Sistine Chapel at Kome and 
 
4 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 looks up to its ceiling must in due time become aware 
 of his own spirit as if it were some overburdened cary- 
 atid sustaining the weight of the thought of Michael 
 Angelo. The first effort— and it is no trivial effort — 
 must be to raise one's self to the height of the great argur 
 inent. Merely to conceive prophet or sibyl, primitive 
 man or the awful demiurge, as placed before one's eyes 
 is an exercise which demands concentration of self and 
 abandonment of the world — an exercise which strains 
 and exhausts the imagination. To ascend from this to 
 a comprehension of the total product^to feel the stu- 
 pendous life which animates not alone each single figure, 
 rapt or brooding, but which circles through them all, 
 which plays from each to the other, and forms the one 
 vital soul that lies behind this manifold creation— to 
 achieve this is something rarer and more difiicult. Bat 
 there is yet a higher ascension possible. These vast 
 creations, and much besides these — St. Peter's at Home, 
 the David at Florence, the Slaves of the Louvre, the 
 Last Judgment, the Moses, the Tombs of the Medici, the 
 Poems for Tittoria Colonna — all these are less than 
 Michael Angelo. These were the projections of a single 
 mind. There is something higher and more wonderful 
 than St. Peter's or the Last Judgment — namely, the TnindL 
 which flung these creations into the world. And yet, it 
 is when we make the effort which demands our most 
 concentrated and most sustained energy^ — it is when we 
 strive to come into presence of the living mind of the 
 creator — that the sense of struggle and effort is relieved. 
 We are no longer surrounded by a mere world of 
 thoughts and imaginations which, in an almost selfish 
 way, we labor to appropriate and possess. "We are in 
 company with a man ; and a sense of real human sympa- 
 thy and fellowship rises within us. Yirtue goes out of 
 him. We are conscious of liis strength communicating 
 
Skakspere and the Elizabelhan Age, 5 
 
 itself to us. We may not overmaster him, and pluck out 
 the heart of his mystery ; yet it is good to remain in his 
 companionship, There is something iathis invigorating 
 struggle with a nature greater than one's own which un- 
 avoidably puts on in one's imagination the shape of the 
 Hebrew story of Peniel. We wrestle with an unknown 
 man until the freaking of the day. We say, '| Tell nje, 
 I pray thee, thj name," and he will not tell it. But 
 though we cannot conapel him to reveal his secret, we 
 wrestle with him still. We say, "I will not let thee go, 
 except thou bless me." And the blessing is obtained. 
 
 If to lay hold of Michael Angelo and to strive with 
 him be the most strenuous feat achievable by the critical 
 imagination in the world of plastic art, to deal with 
 Shakspere requires more endurance, a firmer nerve, and 
 a finer cunning. The great ideal artist; — a Milton, a 
 Michael Angelo, a Dante — betrays himself in spite of the 
 haughtiest reserve. But Shakspere, if an idealist,, was 
 also above all else a realist in art, and lurks almost im- 
 pregnably behind his work. " The secrets of nature have 
 not more gift in taciturnity." * And yet some few of 
 the secrets of nature can be wrested from her. But 
 Shakspere possessed that most baffling of self-defences — 
 humor. Just when we have laid hold of him he eludes 
 us, and we hear only distant ironical laughter. What is 
 to be done? How shall a dramatist — a dramatist pos- 
 sessed of humor — be cheated of liis privacy ? How shall 
 his reserve be overmastered? How shall we interrogate 
 him ? Is there any magic word which will compel him 
 to put off disguise, and declare himself in his true shape? 
 
 If we could watcli his writings closely, and observe 
 their growth, the laws of that growth wioulid be referable 
 to the nature of the man and to the natui-e of his en- 
 
 * Troilus and Cressida, act iv., sc. 2, 
 
6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 vironmeiit. And we might even be able to refer to one 
 and the other of tliese two factors producing a common 
 resultant that which is specially due to each. Fortunate- 
 ly the succession of Sliakspere's writings (although it is 
 probable that neither external nor internal evidence will 
 ever suffice to uinke the chronology certain and precise) 
 is sufficiently ascertained to enable us to study the main 
 features of the growth of Shakspere as an artist and as 
 a man. We do not now place A Midsummer -NigMs 
 Dream and The Tempest side by side as Sliakspere's 
 plays of fairy-land. We know that a long interval of 
 time lies between the two, and that if they resemble one 
 another in supei-ficial or accidental circumstances, they 
 nuist differ to tiie whole extent of tlie difference between 
 the youthful Shakspere and the mature, experienced, 
 fully developed man. Much is due to the industry of 
 Malone ; much to the ingenuity and industry of recent 
 Sliakspere scholars who, in the changes which took place 
 in the poet's manner of writing verse, have found an 
 index, trustworthy in the main, to the true chi'onology of 
 the plays.* 
 
 * Mr. Spedding, in his article " Who Wrote Henry VIII. ?" ( GetdlemaiCs 
 Magazine, August, 1850), first apphed quantitative criticism of verse pecu- 
 liarities to the study of Shakspere's writings. Mr. Charles Bathurst, in 
 "Remarks on the Differences of Shakspere's Versification in Different 
 Periods of his Life" (London, IBS'?), called attention to the change "from 
 broken to interrupted verse" which took place as Shakspere advanced in 
 his dramatic career ; and observed, also, the increase in the use of double- 
 endings in his later plays. Professor Craik, in his " English of Shakspere," 
 and Professor J. K. Ingram, in a lecture upon Sh.Tkspcre published in 
 "Afternoon Lectures" (Bell and Daldy, 1863), again called attention to 
 these peculiarities of versification as affording evidence for the ascertain- 
 ment of the chronology of the plays. Finally, about the same time in Eng- 
 land and in Germany, two investigators — Rev. F. G. Fleay and Professor 
 Hertzberg — began to apply " quantitative criticism " of the characteristics 
 of verse to the determination of the dates of plays. Tlie test on which 
 Hertzberg chiefly relies is the feminine (double) ending; he gives the per- 
 centiige of such endings in seventeen plays, and believes that the percentage 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age, 7 
 
 It will be well first to stand away from Shakspere, and 
 to view liiin as one element in a world larger than him- 
 self, lu order that an organism — plant or animal — 
 should exist at all, there ninst be a certain correspond- 
 ence between the organism and its environment. If it 
 be found to thrive and flourish, we infer that such corre-' 
 spondence is considerable. Now, we know something of 
 the Elizabethan period, and we know that Shakspere was 
 a man who prospered in that period. In that special 
 environment Shakspere throve : he put forth his blos- 
 soms and bore fruit. And in the smaller matter of ma- 
 terial success he flourished also. In an Elizabethan atmos- 
 phere he reached his full stature, and became not only 
 great and wise, but famous, rich, and happy. Can wc 
 discover any significance in these facts? We are told 
 that Siiakspere " was not of an age, but for all time." 
 That assertion misleads us; and, indeed, in the same poem 
 to the memory of his friend from which these words are 
 taken, Ben Jonson apostrophizes his great rival as " Soul 
 of the Age." Shakspere was for all time by virtue of 
 certain powers and perceptions ; but he also belonged 
 especially to an age — his own age, the age of Spenser, 
 Ealeigh, Jonson, Bacon, Burleigh, Hooker — a Protestant 
 age, a monarchical age, an age eminently positive and 
 practical. A man does not attain to the universal by 
 abandoning the particular, nor to the everlasting by an 
 
 indicates tlieir chronological order. See the preface to Cymbeline in the 
 German Shakespeare Societv's edition of Tiecli and Schlegel's translation. 
 Mr. Fleay's results, independently ascertained, were published subsequently 
 to Hertzberg's. See Trans. New Sh. Soc, and MacmillarCs Magadne, Sept., 
 ISYi. In 18Y3 Mv. Furnivall, in founding the New Shakspere Society — 
 before he was aware that Mr. Fleay's work was in progress — insisted on the 
 importance of metrical tests for determining the chronology, and gave the 
 proportion oJE stopped to unstopped lines in three early and three late plays. 
 The latest contribution to the subject is Professor Ingram's valuable paper 
 read before the New Sh. Soc. on the " Weak-ending" Test 
 
6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 endeavor to. overleap the limitations of time and place. 
 The abiding reality exists not somewhere apart in the 
 air, but under certain temporary and local forms of 
 thought, feeling, and endeavor. We come most deeply 
 into communion with the permanent facts and forces of 
 human nature and human life by accepting, first of all, 
 this fact — that a definite point of observation and sympa- 
 thy, not a vague nowhere, has been assigned to each of 
 us. 
 
 What is the ethical significance of that literary nnove- 
 ment to which Shakspere belonged, and of which he was 
 a part — the Elizabethan drama ? The question seems at 
 first improper. There is perhaps no body of literature 
 which has. less of an express tendency for the intellect 
 than the .drama of the age of Elizabeth. It is the out- 
 come of a rich and niauifold life ; it is full of a sense of 
 enjoyment, and overflowing with energy ; but it is for 
 the most part absolutely devoid of a conscious purpose. 
 The chief playwright of the movement declared that the 
 end of playing, " both at the first and now, was and is to 
 hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." A mirror has 
 no tendency. The questions we ask about it are, "Does 
 this mirror reflect clearly and faithfully ?" and " In what 
 dii'ection is it turned ?" Capacity for perceiving, for en- 
 joying, and for reproducing facts, and facts of as great 
 variety as possible — this was the qualification of a dram- 
 atist in the days of Elizabeth. The facts were those of 
 human passion and human activity. He needed not, as 
 each of our poets at the present time needs, to have a 
 doctrine or a revelation or an interpretation. The mei'e 
 fact was enough without any theory about the fact ; and 
 this fact men saw more in its totality, more in the round, 
 because they approached it in the spirit of frank enjoy- 
 ment. It was not for them attenuated into an aspect or 
 relegated to a class. 
 
Sliakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 9 
 
 In the Kenascence and Eeformation period life had 
 grown a real thing — this life on earth for threescore 
 years and ten. The terror and sadness of tlie Middle 
 Ages, the abandonment of earthly joy, the wistfulness 
 and pathos of spiritual desire, and, on the other hand, the 
 scepticism, irony, and sensuality under the ban were 
 things which, as dominant forms of human life, had 
 passed away. The highest mediaeval spirits were those 
 which had felt with most intensity that wo are strangers 
 and pilgrims here on earth, that we, have no abiding 
 place among human loves and human sorrows, that life 
 is of little worth except with reference to infinite, invisi- 
 ble antecedents and issues in other worlds. , With all his 
 tender affinities to the brotherhood of elemental powers 
 and of animals, Saint Francis felt allied to these as breth- 
 ren only because they had ceased to be rivals for his heart 
 ■\vith the supreme lover, Jesus. The deepest religious 
 voice of the Middle Ages conples in a single breath the 
 words de imitatipne Christi and de conUmptu omnium 
 vanitatum mundi. It is the ascetic quester, Galahad, 
 with vision undimmed by any mist of earthly passion, 
 who beholds the mystical Grail. Aiigelico paints Para- 
 dise, and, because the earth can afford no equal beauty, 
 then Paradise again ; below the glory of seraphim and 
 cherubim appear the homely faces of priest and monk, 
 transported into the pellucid and changeless atmosphere 
 of Heaven — for these men had abandoned earth, and may 
 therefore inherit perpetual blessedness. Dante, filled 
 with keen political passion as he was, finds his subjects 
 of highest imagina,tive interest not in the life of Florence 
 and Pisa and Verona, but in circles of Hell, and the mount 
 of Purgatory, and the rose of beatified spirits. Human 
 love ceases to be adequate for the needs of his adult 
 heart; the woman who was dearest to him ceases to ho 
 woman, and is sublimed into the supernatural wisdom ox 
 
 1* 
 
lo Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 theology. While the world was thus given over to Satan, 
 those who were lacking in the spiritual passion, and who 
 conld not abandon this world, closed a bargain with the 
 Evil One. Together with the world and the flesh, they 
 accepted the devil, as in the legend Fanstus does, and as 
 niiinj a one did in fact. Our imagination can hardly 
 find a place for Shakspere in any part of the Middle 
 As;es. Either they would transform hira, or he would 
 confound and disorganize them. With his ever-present 
 sense of trnth, his realization of fact, and especially of 
 that great fact, a moral order of the universe, we cannot 
 tliink of Shakspere among the men of pleasure, scepti- 
 cism, and irony ; he could not stay his energy or his humor 
 with the shallow lubricities of Boccaccio. Neither can 
 we picture to oureelves an ascetic Shakspere, suppressing 
 liis desire of knowledge, transforming his he.arty sense of 
 natural enjo3'ment into curiosities ipf mystic joy, exhaling 
 liis strength in sighs after an "Urte'beata lerasalem," or 
 in tender lamentation over the vanity of human love and 
 human grief. 
 
 But in the Renascence and Eeforraation period, instead 
 Oi! substituting supernatural powers and persons and 
 events for the natural facts of the world, men recurred 
 to those facts, and found in them inspiration and suste- 
 -nance for heart and intellect and conscience. Of Paradise 
 men knew somewhat less than Angelico had known, or 
 Dante; but they saw that this earth is good. Physical 
 nature was not damnable ; the outlying regions of the 
 earth were not all tenanted by vampires and devils. Sir 
 John Mandeville brought back stories of obscure valleys 
 communicating with Hell and haunted by homicidal de- 
 mons; Ealeigh brought back the tobacco-plant and the 
 potato. In the college of his New Atlantis, Bacon erects 
 a statue to the inventor of sugar. Dreams of unexplored 
 regions excited the imagination of Spaniard and English- 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 1 1 
 
 man in the later Eenascence; but it was of El Dorado 
 they dreamed, with its gold-roofed city and auriferous 
 sands. Hardy men went forth to establish plantations 
 and possess the earth. And as these were eager to ac- 
 quire power over the phj'sical world by extending in the 
 Indies and America the dominion of civilized man, others 
 were no less eagerly engaged in endeavoring to extend, 
 by means of scientific discovery, the dominion of man 
 over all forces and provinces of nature. The student of 
 science was not now a ihagician — a dealer in the black art, 
 in miracles of the diabolic kind ; he pleaded in the courts, 
 he held a seat in Parliament, he became Lord Chancellor 
 of England. It was ascertained that heaven was not con- 
 structed of a series of spheres moving over and around 
 the earth, but that the earth was truly in heaven. This 
 is typical of the moral discovery of the time. Men found 
 that the earth is in heaven, that God is not above nature, 
 touching it only through rare preternatural points of con- 
 tact — rather that he is not far from every one of us; that 
 human life is sacred, and time a fragment of eternity.* 
 
 Catholicism had endeavored to sanctify things secular 
 by virtue proceeding towards them from special ecclesi- 
 astical persons and places and acts. The modern spirit, 
 of whicii Protestantism is a part, revealed in the total 
 life of men a deeper and truer sanctity than can be con- 
 ferred by touches of any wand of ecclesiastical magic. 
 The burden of the curse was lightened. Knowledge was 
 good, and men set about increasing the store of knowl- 
 
 * See the excellent opening chapters of " Shakespeare als Protestant, 
 Politiker, Psjcholog und Dichter," by Dr. Eduard Vehse. " Shakespeare, 
 der ungelehrte, unstudirte Dichter, ist der erste, in welchem sich der modcrne 
 Geist, der von der Welt weiss, der die gesaramte Wirklichkeit zu begreifen 
 sucht, encrgisch zusammenfasst. Dieser moderne Geist ist der gerade 
 Gegensatz des inittelalterlichen Geistes ; er erfasst die Welt und nament- 
 lieh die innere Welt als ein Stiick des Himmels, und das Leben als cineii 
 Theil der Ewigkeit " (vol. i., p. 62). 
 
1 2 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 edge by interrogation of nature, and by researcb into the 
 life of mankind as preserved in ancient literatnres. Visi- 
 ble pomp was a thing which the eye might frankly enjoy ; 
 men tried to make life splendid. Ealeigh rode by the 
 Qneen in silver armor; the Jesuit Drexeliiis estimated 
 tlie value of tlie slioes worn by this minion of the Englisli 
 Cleopatra at six thousand six hundred gold pieces. The 
 essays " Of Building" and " Of Gardens," by Bacon, show 
 how this superb mundane ritualism had a charm for his 
 imagination. Beauty was now confessed to be good ; 
 not the beauty of Paradise which Angelico painted, but 
 that of Lionardb's Monna Lisa, and Eaffacle's Fornarina, 
 and of the daughters of Palma Vecchio. The earth, and 
 those excellent creatures, man and woman, walking upon 
 it, formed a spectacle worth a painter's soul. One's 
 country was for the present not the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 but a certain defined portion of this habitable globe;; and 
 patriotism became a virtue, and queen-worship a piece of 
 religion. Conscience was a faithful witness ; an actual 
 sense of sin and an actual need of righteousness were in- 
 dividual concerns belonging to the inmost self of each 
 human being, and not to be dealt with by ecclesiastical 
 mechanism, by sale of indulgence, or dispensation of a 
 pope. "Woman was neither a satanic bait to catch the 
 soul of man, nor was she the supernatural object of medi- 
 seval chivalric devotion ; she was no miracle, yet not less 
 nor other than that endlessly interesting thing — woman. 
 Love, friendship, marriage, the ties of parent and child, 
 jealousy, ambition, hatred, revenge, loyalty, devotion, 
 mercy — these were not insignificant affairs because be- 
 longing to a world which passes away ; human life being 
 of importance, these, the blessings and curses of hnman 
 life, were important also. Heaven may be very real ; we 
 have a good hope that it is so ; meanwhile here is our 
 earth — a substantial, indubitable fact. 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 1 3 
 
 Tlie self-conscious etliies of the Elizabethan period find 
 ill! imaginative utterance in Spenser's " Faerie Queene." 
 Spenser's view of human life is grave and earnest ; it is 
 that of a knightly encounter with principalities and pow- 
 ers of eyil. Yet Spenser is neither mediaeval nor essen- 
 tially Puritan ; the design of the " Faerie Queene " is in 
 harmony with the general Elizabethan movement. The 
 problem which the poet sets himself to consider is not 
 that of our.great English prose allegory — " The Pilgrim's 
 Progress" — how the soul of man may escape from earth 
 to heaven. Nor is the quest of a mystical Grail a central 
 point in this epic of Arthur. The general end of Spen- 
 sei"'s poem is " to fashion a gentleman or noble person in 
 virtuous and gentle discipline." A grand self-culture is 
 that about which Spenser is concerned ; not, as with 
 Banyan, the escape of the soul to heaven ; not the atta,in- 
 ment of supernatural grace through a point of mystical 
 contact, like the vision which was granted to the virgin 
 knight of the mediaeval allegory. Self-culture, the forma- 
 tion of a complete character for the uses of earth, and 
 afterwards, if need be, for the uses of heaven — this was 
 subject sufficient for the twenty-four books designed to 
 form the epic of the age of Elizabeth. And the means 
 oi that self-culture are of the active kind — namely, war- 
 fare — wa,rfare not for its own sake, but for the generous 
 accomplishment of unselfish ends. Godliness, self-mas- 
 tery, chastity, fraternity, justice, courtesy, constancy — 
 each of tl^ese is an element in the ideal, of human charac- 
 ter conceived by the poet ; not an ascetic, not a mediaeval 
 ideal. If we are to give a name to that ideal, we must 
 call it Magnificence, Great-doing. PenitentiaV discipline 
 and heavenly contemplation are recognized by Spenser 
 iis needful to the perfecting of the God ward side of man's 
 nature, and as preparing him for strenuous encounter with 
 evil ; yet it is characteristic that even Heavenly Con- 
 
1 4 Skakspere —His Mind and A rt. 
 
 templatiou in Spenser's allegory cannot forget the im- 
 portance of those wonderful things of earth — London 
 and the Queen. 
 
 Nor is each of Spenser's knights (although upon his 
 own strength and skill, assisted by divine grace, depends 
 the issup of his strife) a solitary knight-errant. The poet 
 is not without a sense of the corporate life of humanity. 
 As the virtues are linked one to another by a golden 
 chain, so is each noble nature bound to his fellows. 
 Ai-thur is the succorer of all ; all are the servants of 
 Gloriana. Spenser would seem to have longed for some 
 new order of lofty, corporate life, a later liound Table, 
 suitable to the Elizabethan age. If it were a dream, 
 more fitted for Faery Land than for England of the six- 
 teenth century, we may perhaps pardon Spenser for be- 
 lief in incalculable possibilities of virtue; for he had 
 known Sidnej', and the character of Sidney seems for- 
 ever to have lived with him, inspiring him with inex- 
 tinguishable faith in man. With national life Spenser 
 owned a sympathy which we do not expect to find in the 
 mediaeval romances of Arthur, written before England 
 had acquired an independent national character, nor in 
 Bunyan's allegory, wliich does not concern itself with af- 
 fairs of earthly polity, and which came into existence at 
 a period of national depression, a time when the political 
 enemies of England were her religious allies. But in 
 the days of Elizabeth the nation had sprang up to a con- 
 sciousness of new strength and vitality, and its political 
 and religious antagonists, Spain and the Papacy, were 
 identical. Faery Land with Spenser is indeed no dream- 
 world ; it lies in no distant latitude. His epic abounds 
 with contemporary political and religious feeling. The 
 combat with Orgoglio, the stripping of Duessa, the 
 death of Kirkrapine, could have been written only by 
 an Englishman and a Protestant possessed by no half- 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 1 5 
 
 hearted hatred towards Spain and tlio Papal power. 
 Spenser's views on Irish politics, wliich interested liim 
 so nearly, are to be discovered in the " Legend of Arthe- 
 gall " witli hardly less clearness than in his prose dialogue 
 upon the " Present State of Ireland." 
 
 Further, in his material life, Spenser appears to have 
 iiad a sufficient hold upon positive fact. During the 
 same year in which, for the second time, he became a 
 lover — the year during which he wooed liis Elizabeth, and 
 recorded his despairs and raptures in the Italian love- 
 philosophy of the Amoretti — the piping and pastoral 
 Colin Clout exhibited suit for three ploughlands, parcels 
 of Shanballymore, and was alleged to have " converted 
 a great deal of corn " elsewhere " to liis proper use." 
 Neither love nor poetry made him insensible to the sub- 
 stantial though minor fact of ploughlands of Slianbally- 
 niore. With measureless dominion in Faery Land, he 
 yet did not disdain a slice of the forfeited estate of the 
 Earl of Desmond. Some powerful hostility hindered his 
 court - preferment ; and the grievance finds a place in 
 Spenser's verse. His own material life he endeavored, 
 not altogetlier successfully, to render solid and prosper- 
 ous. The intention of his great poetical achievement is 
 one which, while in a high sense religious, is at the same 
 time eminently positive. A complete. development of 
 noble human character for active uses, not a cloistered 
 virtue, is that which Spenser looked upon as most needed 
 for God and man. Sucli a design is in harmony with the 
 spirit of England in the days of Elizabeth. To be great 
 and to do great things seemed better than to enter the 
 Celestial City and forget the City of Destruction ; bet- 
 ter than to receive in ecstasy the vision of a divine mys- 
 tery, or to be fed with miraculous food. In Spenser 
 these ethics of the Elizabethan age arrived at a self-con- 
 ficious existence. 
 
1 6 Shakspere— His Mind and Art. 
 
 Let us, remaining at the same point of view, glance 
 now at Bacon and the scientific movement. Bacon and 
 Shakspere stand far apart. In moral character and in 
 gifts of intellect and sonl we should find little resem- 
 blance between them. "While Bacon's sense of the pres- 
 ence of physical law in the universe was for his time ex- 
 traordinarily developed, he seems practically to have act- 
 ed upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are 
 riot inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may 
 be cleverly evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged 
 by Shakspere in the minutest as well as in the greatest 
 concerns of human life. Bacon's superb intellect was 
 neither disturbed nor impelled by the promptings of his 
 heart. Of perfect friendship or of perfect love he may, 
 without reluctance, be pronounced incapable. Shakspere 
 yielded his whole being to boundless and measureless 
 devotion. Bacon's ethical writings sparkle with a frosty 
 brilliance of fancy, playing over the worldly maxims 
 which constituted his wisdom for the conduct of life. 
 Shakspere reaches to the ultimate truths of human life 
 and character through a supreme and indivisible energy 
 of love, imagination, and thought. Yet Bacon and Shak- 
 spere belonged to one great movement of humanity. 
 The whole endeavor of Bacon in science is to attain the 
 fact, and to ascend from particular facts to general. He 
 turned away with utter dissatisfaction from the speculatr 
 ing in vacuo of the Middle Ages. His intellect demand- 
 ed positive knowledge; he could not feed upon the wind. 
 From the tradition of philosophy and from authority he 
 reverted to nature. Between faith and reason Bacon set 
 a great and impassable gulf. Theology is something too 
 liigh for human intellect to discuss. Bacon is profoundly 
 deferential to theology, because, as one cannot help sus- 
 pecting, ho was profoundly indifferent about it. Tlie 
 schoolmen for the service of faith had summoned human 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 1 7 
 
 reason to their aid, and Keason, the ally, had in time 
 proved a dangerous antagonist. Bacon, in the interest of 
 science, dismissed faith to the unexceptionahle province 
 of supernatural truths. To him a dogma of theology was 
 equally credible whether ij; possessed an appearance of 
 reasonahleness or appeared a.bsurd. The total force pf 
 intellect he reserved for subjugating to the understand- 
 ing the world of positive facti,; 
 
 As the matter with which Bacon's philosophy concerns 
 itself is positive, so its end is pre-eminently practical. 
 The knowledge he chiefly valued was that which prom- 
 ised to extend the dominion of man over nature, and thus 
 to enrich man's life. His conception of human welfare 
 was large and magnificent ; yet it was wanting in some 
 spiritual elements which had not been lost sight of in 
 earlier and darker times. To human welfare, tlius con- 
 ceived in a way somewhat materialistic, science is to min- 
 ister. And the instruments of science by which it attains 
 this end are the purely natural instruments of observa- 
 tion, experiment, and inference. Devotion to the fact, a 
 retiirn from the supernatural to , the strictly natural and. 
 human, with a practical, mundane object — these are the 
 characteristics of the Elizabethan movement in science.* 
 
 Let us now turn to the religious movement in Eng- 
 land. That movement cannot be said to have had, like 
 the Eeformation movement in Germany, a central point 
 of vitality and sustenance in the agony of an individual 
 conscience. Nor was it guided, like the movement in 
 France, by a supreme organizing power — theological and 
 political — capable of large, if somewhat too logically rigid, 
 
 * Mr. Spedding's estimate of Bacon differs much from that given above, 
 and Mr. Spedding has the best right of any living person to speak of Bacon. 
 One must, however, remain faithful to one's own impression of facts, even 
 when that impression is founded on partial (yet not wholly insufficient) 
 knowledge. 
 
1 8 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ideal conceptions. The dogma of Anglicanism is not, like 
 Calvinistic dogma, the expression and development of an 
 idea ; it becomes intelligible only through recollection of 
 a series of historical events — the balance of parties, com- 
 promises with this side and with that, the exigencies of 
 times and seasons. But if England had neither a Luther 
 nor a Calvin, she had Cranmer and Hooker. The relig- 
 ious revolution of France in tlie sixteenth century, like 
 the political revolution of 1789, though it sent a strong 
 wave of moral feeling through Europe, failed to sustain 
 itself. Its uncompromising ideality kept it too much out 
 of relation with the vital, concrete, and ever-altering facts 
 of human society. The English Reformation, on the oth- 
 er hand, if less presentable in logical formulae to the in- 
 tellect, was, like English political freedom as compared 
 with French liberty, equality, and fraternity, much more 
 of a practical success. 
 
 Cosmopolitan the English Reformation was not ; it was 
 a growtli of the soil, and cannot be transplanted : this is 
 its note of inferiority, and equally its characteristic excel- 
 lence. By combined firmness and easiness of temper, by 
 concessions and compromises, by unweariable good sense, 
 a Reformed Church was brought into existence — a manu- 
 facture rather than a creation — in which the average man 
 might find average piety, average rationality, and an aver- 
 age amount of soothing appeal to the senses ; while rarer 
 spirits could frame out of the moderation of the Angli- 
 can ritual and Anglican devotional temper a refined type 
 of piety, free from extravagance, delicate and pure — of- 
 fending, like the cathedrals of England, neither by rigid- 
 ity, on the one hand, nor by flamboyant fervore, on the 
 other, the type of piety realized in a distinguished degree 
 by George Herbert, by Ken, by Keble. In his " Ecclesias- 
 tical Sonnets," Wordsworth speaks of the ritual and litur- 
 gy of the Clmreh of England as affording material and 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 1 9 
 
 scope for "the intensities of hope and fear" and for 
 " passionate exercise of lofty thoughts." In the preface 
 to " The Christian Year," the moderation, the soothing 
 influence, of the devotional services of the Church are no- 
 ticed. Wordsworth, even when the iiood of spiritual light 
 and strength which encompassed his youth and early 
 manhood had ebbed, remained Wordsworth still; and 
 from beyond the little neatly ordered enclosure of Angli- 
 canism voices still came to him of mountain winds and 
 of "mighty waters rolling evermore." Keble, who was 
 born and bred in the Anglican paddock, understood its 
 limitations better, and wrote the true poetry of his com- 
 munion — a poetry free from all risk of being over-poeti- 
 cal. Dante is the poet of Catholicism ; Milton is the 
 poet of Puritanism ; the poet of Anglicanism is Keble. 
 
 Much in the ecclesiastical history of our country was 
 due to Cranmer. Had that unworthy right hand of his 
 been less sensitive or less pliable, the Church of England 
 might have been a more heroic witness for truth (some- 
 times a noble failure serves the world as faithfully as does 
 a distinguished success), but it could hardly have become 
 a national institution with roots which ramify through 
 every layer of society. And Hooker — in what lies the 
 special greatness of Hooker ? Is not his special qualitj' a 
 majestic common-sense ? * " If we are to fix on any fun- 
 damental position," writes the Dean of St. Paul's, " as the 
 key of Hooker's method of arguing, I should look for it 
 in his doctrine, so pertinaciously urged and always im- 
 plied, of the concurrence and co-operation, each in its 
 due place, of all possible means of knowledge for man's 
 direction." Puritanism appealed against reason to the 
 letter of Scripture, and sacrificed fact to theory. The 
 Kenascence philosophers appealed from authority to hu- 
 
 * I am not sure whether Mr. Matthew Arnold has not applied this expres- 
 sion " majestic common-sense " to Hooker. 
 
20 ShaJisperer^His Mind and Art, 
 
 man reason alone. Hooker, while assigning the ultimate, 
 judicial position to reason, will not deny its place to either 
 Scripture, or to the Church, or to tradition. He is an em- 
 bodiment of the ecclesiastical wisdom of England. While 
 providing the Church, as the Dean of St. Paul's has said, 
 with a broad, intelligible theoiy. Hooker saves this theory 
 from rigidity and inerely ideal constructiveness by root- 
 ing it in his rich feeling for the concrete fact. Charac- 
 teristically English the work of Hooker will always re- 
 main by its lying close to reality, by its practical tenden- 
 cy, by its moderation, by its large good-sense. More mas- 
 sive Hooker's spirituality becomes, because it includes a 
 noble realization of positive fact. 
 
 Now, the same soil that produced Bacon and Hooker 
 produced Shakspere; the same environment fostered the 
 growth of all tliree. Can we discover anything possessed 
 in common by the scientific roovement, the ecclesiastical 
 movement, and the drama of the period ? That which 
 appears to be common to all is a riohfeeling for positive, 
 concrete fact. The facts with which the drama concerns 
 itself are those of human character in its living play. 
 And assuredly, whatever be its imperfection, its crude- 
 nessjits extravagance, no other body of literature has 
 amassed in equal fulness and equal variety a store of con- 
 crete facts concerning liuman character and human life; 
 assuredly not the drama of -<Eschylus and Sophocles, not 
 the drama of Calderon and Lope de Vega, not the drama 
 of Corneille and Eacine. These give us views of human 
 life, and select portions of it for artistic handling. The 
 Elizabethan drama gives us the stuff of life itself — the 
 coarse with the fine, the mean with the heroic, the hu- 
 morous and grotesque with the tragic and the terrible. 
 The personages of the drama— if we except those of Mar- 
 lowe, " are not symbols of any absolute or ideal type. 
 . . . The human being is not defined by its most promi- 
 
Shakspe^e and the Elizabethan Age. 21 
 
 neut faculty, nor life by its most potent manifestation. 
 The beings themselves, life itself, are brought before us 
 on tlie scene, and tliat with a reality, truth, and perfection 
 the highest ever attained by man." * 
 
 Poetry, in this Elizabethan period, is put upon a purely 
 human basis. No fate broods over the actions of men 
 and the history of families ; the only fatality is the fatal- 
 ity of character, f Luck, an outstanding element help- 
 ing to determine the lives of mortals, and not reducible 
 to known law, luck good and bad, Shakspere readily ad- 
 mits; but luck is strictly a thing in the course of nature. 
 The divinity which shapes our ends works efficiently, but 
 Secretly. Men's lives in the drama of Shakspere are not 
 disorganized and denaturalized by irruptions of the mi- 
 raculous. The one standing miracle is the world itself. 
 That power and virtue which can achieve wonders, which 
 can do higher things than all feats of grotesque magic re- 
 corded in the Legend, is simply a noble or beautiful soul 
 of man or woman. If we recognize in a mCral order of 
 tlie world a divine presence, then the divine presence is 
 never absent from the Shaksperian world. For such sa- 
 cred thaumaturgy as that of Calderon's " Autos " we shall 
 in vain seek in the drama of England.;]: 
 
 * Josqjh Mazzini, "Critical aod Literary Writings," vol. ii.,pp. 133, 134. 
 On what follows Mazzini writes : " In Shalcspere, and tliis is a real progress 
 (as compared with .^scbylus), liberty does exist. The act of a single day, 
 or it may be of an hour, has thrown an entire life under tlie dominion of 
 necessity; but in that day or hour the man waS free, and arbiter of his own 
 future" (p. 135). 
 
 f " Shakespeare stellt« zuei-st seine Stttcke auf ganz rein monschlichen 
 Boden. . . . Wie einos Menschen Gemuth ist, so ist auch sein Schicksal. 
 AUes, was atisserlieh gesehieht, ist bci Shakespeare durch ein Inneres 
 bedingt." — E. Vehse,- Shakespeare ah Protestant, etc., vol. i., pp. 6*7, 68. 
 
 X It is remarkable' that the peculiar merit of Calderon recognized by Shel- 
 ley in his "Defence of Poetry" — a merit which Shelley cannot attribute to 
 the Elizabethan dramatists — should be his endeavor to connect art with re- 
 ligion. 
 
2 2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 A vigorous, mundane vitality — this constitutes the 
 basis of the Elizabethan drama. Vigor reveals, on the 
 one hand, the tragedy of life. Love and hatred, joy and 
 sorrow, life and death being very real to a vigorous nat- 
 ure, tragedy becomes possible. To one who exists lan- 
 guidly from day to day, neither can the cross and passion 
 of any human heart be intelligible, nor the solemn inten- 
 sities of joy, the glorious resurrection and ascension of a 
 life and soul. The heart must be all alive and sensitive 
 before the imagination can conceive, with swift assurance, 
 and no hesitation or error, extremes of rapture and of 
 pain. The stupendous mass of Lear's agony, and the 
 spasms of anguish which make Othello writhe in body as 
 in mind, fell within the compass of the same imagination 
 that included at tlie other extremity the trembling ex- 
 pectation of Troilus before the entrance of Cressida*— 
 into which the dramatist enters so profoundly, while at 
 the same time he holds himself ironically aloof — the 
 fulness of satisfied need when Posthumus embraces Im- 
 ogen — 
 
 " Hang there like fruit, my soul, 
 Till the tree die!" 
 
 and the rapture (almost transcending the bounds of con- 
 
 * Troilm. — " I am giddy ; expectation whirls me round. 
 The imaginary relish is so sweet 
 That it enchants my sense ; what will it be, 
 When that the watery palate tastes indeed 
 Love's thrice repurftd nectar ? Death, I fear me 
 Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine, 
 Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, 
 For the capacity of my ruder powers : 
 I fear it much: and I do fear, besides, 
 That I shall lose distinction in my joys ; 
 As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps 
 The enemy flying" (act iii., sc. 2). 
 
Shakspere aiid the Elisabethan Age. 23 
 
 sciousness) of Pericles upon tlie recovery of liis long-lost 
 Marina : 
 
 " Helicanus, strike me, houor'd sir ; 
 Give me a gash, put me to present pain ; 
 Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me 
 O'erbear the shores of my mortality. 
 And drown me with their sweetness." 
 
 On the other hand, this same vigor enables men to 
 perceive and enjoy the comedy of life ; for vigor enjoys 
 folly: when it langhs, like Shakspere's Valentine, "it 
 laughs like a cock." One who is thoroughly in earnest is 
 not afraid to laugh ; he knows that he may safel3' have 
 his laugh out, and that it will not disturb the solid rela- 
 tions of things. It is only when we are half in earnest 
 that we cherish our seriousness, and tremble lest the dig- 
 nity of our griefs or joj'S should be impaired. And, ac- 
 cordingly, wlien great ti-agedies can be written, joyous 
 comedies can be written also. But when life grows base 
 or trivial, when great tragedy ceases (as in the period of 
 tlie Eestoration ), when false heroics and showy senti- 
 mentality take the place of tragic passion, then the laugh- 
 ter of men becomes brutal and joyless — the crackling of 
 thorns under a pot. 
 
 This vigorous vitality which underlies the Elizabethan 
 drama is essentially mundane. To it all that is upon 
 tliis earth is real ; and it does not concern itself greatly 
 about the reality of other things. Of heaven or hell it 
 has no power to sing. It finds such and such facts here 
 and now, and does not invent or discover supernatu- 
 ral causes to explain the facts. It pursues man to the 
 moment of death, but it pursues him no further. If it 
 confesses " the burden of the mystery " of human life, it 
 does not attempt to lighten that burden by any " Thus 
 saith the Lord " which cannot be verified or attested by 
 actual experience. If it contains a divine element, the 
 
24 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 divine is to be looked for in the liuman, not apart fi'om 
 the iiuraan. It knows eternity only through time, which 
 is a part of eternity.* 
 
 * The following passage adds to what has been written above, and illus- 
 trates it : " The feeling which we commonly call pathos seems, when one 
 analyzes it, to arise out of a perception of grand incongruities — ^filling a 
 place in one class of our ideas corresponding to that in another in which 
 the sense of the ludicrous is placed by Locke. And this pathos was attain- 
 ed by mediaeval asceticisnl through its habit of dwarfing into insignificance 
 the earthly life and its belongings, and setting the meanness and wretched- 
 ness which it attributed to it in contrast to the far-off vision of glory and 
 greatness. . . . Another sort of pathos — the pagan — . . . results from a 
 full realizing of the joy and the beauty of the earth, and the nobleness of 
 men's lives on it, and from seeing a grand inexplicableness in the incongi-u- 
 ity between the brightness of these and the darkness which lies at either 
 end of them ; the infinite contradiction between actual greatness and the 
 apparent nothingness of its whence and whither ; the mystery of strong and 
 beautiful impulses finding no adequate outcome now, nor promise of ever 
 finding it hereafter ; human passion kindling into light and glow, only to 
 burn itself out into ashes ; the struggle kept up by the will of successive 
 generations against, Fate, ever beginning and ever ending in defeat, to re- 
 commence as vainly as before ; the never-answered Why ? uttered unceas- 
 ingly in myriad tones from out all human life. The poetry of the Greeks 
 gained from the contemplation of these things a pathos which, however 
 gladly a Christian poet may forego such gain for his art, was in its sadness 
 inexpressibly beautiful. The 'Iliad ' had a deep undercurrent of it even iu 
 the midst of all its healthy childlike objectivity, and it was ever present 
 amongst the great tragedian's introspective analyrings of humanity. Hi^h 
 art of later times has, for the most part, retained this pagan beauty. 
 Though there is no reason to think that there was any paganism in Shak- 
 spere's creed, yet we cannot help feeling that, whether the cause is to be 
 sought in his individual genius or in Renaissance influences, the spirit of 
 his art is in many respects pagan. In his great tragedies he traces the 
 
 workings of noble or lovely human characters on to the point and no fur- 
 
 ther^where they disappear into the darkness of death, and ends with a look 
 buck, never on towards anything beyond. His sternly truthful realism will 
 not, of course, allow him to attempt a shallow poetical justice, and mete out 
 to each of his men and women the portion of earthly good which mi^ht 
 seem their due ; and his artistic instincts — positive rather than speculative 
 ^prefer the majesty and infinite sadness of uuexplainedness to any attempt 
 
 to look on towards a future solution of hard riddles in human fates." ^E 
 
 D. West (in the first of two articles on " Browning as a Preacher " Tht 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 25 
 
 Without an ethical tendency, then, the Eh'zabethan 
 drama yet produces an ethical efEect. A faithful pres- 
 entation of the facts of the world does not leave us in- 
 different to good and evil, but rather rouses within us, 
 more than all maxims and all preaching can, an inextin- 
 guishable loyalty to good. It is any falsifying of those 
 facts, whether the falsification be that of the sensualist or 
 of the purist, whether it be a lie told to seduce us to vice 
 or to bribe us to virtue — it is this which may possibly lead 
 us aside from directness, simplicity, and uprightness of 
 action. Is the Elizabethan drama religious? No, if re- 
 ligion be something which stands over and above human 
 life, luring it away from earth : no, if the highest acts of 
 religion be an access to the divine presence through- spe- 
 cial ecclesiastical rites and places and persons. Yes, if 
 the facts of the world be themselves sacred — parts of a 
 divine order of things, and interpenetrated by that Su- 
 preme Eeality, apprehended yet unknowable, of which 
 the worlds of matter and of mind are a manifestation. 
 
 To many, at the present time, the sanity and the 
 strength of Shakspere would assuredly be an influence 
 that might well be called religious. The Elizabethan 
 drama is thoroughly free from lassitude and from that 
 lethargy of heart which most of us have felt at one time 
 or another. Those whose lot falls in a period of doubt 
 and spiritual alteration, between the ebb and the flow, in 
 tlie welter and wash of the waves, are^because theylack 
 the joyous energy of a faith — peculiarly subject to this 
 mood of barren lethargy. And it is not alone in the 
 mystic, spiritual life of the soul that we may suffer from 
 
 Dark Blue Magaeine^ Oct. and Nov., ISYl ). This passage may be borne 
 ill mind to illustrate the view taken of the great tragedies of Shak- 
 .■spei-e in a subsequent chapter of this volume. See also, on the agnosticism 
 of Shakspere, Mr. Ruskin's lecture "'The Mystery of Life and its Arts," in 
 " Afternoon Lectures" (Dublin : M'Gee, 1869), pp. 110, 111. 
 
 2 
 
26 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 coldness or aridity. Thei-e are seasons when a sterile 
 world-weariness is induced by the superficial barrenness 
 of life. The persons we know seem to shrivel up and 
 become wizened and grotesque. The places we have 
 loved transform themselves into ugly little prisons. The 
 ideals for which we lived appear absurd patterns, insig- 
 nificant arabesques, devoid of idea and of beauty. Our 
 own heart is a most impertinent and unprofitable hand- 
 ful of dust. It is well if some supreme joy or sorrow 
 which has overtaken us save us from possible recurrence 
 of this mood of weary cynicism. But humbler means at 
 times have served. The tear shed over a tale of Mar- 
 montel by one who recorded his malady and his recov- 
 ery has occasioned certain smiles on critical lips.* A 
 true physician of the soul diiscerns that such a tear is not 
 despicable, but significant as the beads of perspiration 
 which tell that the crisis of a fever is favorably passed. 
 To this mood of barren world- weariness the Elizabethan 
 drama comes with no direct teaching, but witli the vision 
 of life. Even though death end all, these things at least 
 are — ^beauty and force, purity, sin. and love, and anguish 
 and joy. These things are, and therefore life cannot be 
 a little idle whirl of dust. "We are shown the strong 
 man taken in the toils, the sinner sinking farther and 
 farther away from light and reality and the substantial 
 life of things into the dubious and the dusk, the pure 
 heart all vital and confident and joyous ; we are shown 
 the glad,. vicarious sacrifice of soul for soul, the malign 
 activity of evil, the vindication of right by the true jus- 
 ticiary; we are shown the good common things of the 
 world, and the good things that are rare ; the love of 
 parents and children, the comradeship of young men, the 
 exquisite vivacity, courage, and high-spirited intellect of 
 
 * J. S. Mill's Autobiography, pp. 140, 141. 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 27 
 
 noble girlhood, the devotion of man and woman to man 
 and woman. The vision of life rises before ns, and we 
 know that the vision represents a reality. Theso things, 
 then, being actual, howpoor^ and shallow a trick of the 
 heart is cynicism ! : 
 
 Two views of the character of Shakspere have been 
 offered, for our acceptance ; we are expected to raalce a 
 choice between the two. According to one of .these 
 views, Shakspere stands before us a clieerful, self-pos- 
 sessed, and prudent man, who conducted his life with 
 sQundWorldly -judgment ; and he MTote plays, about 
 which he did not greatly care ; acquired property, about 
 which he cared much ; retired to Stratford, and, attaimng 
 the end of , his .ambition, became a wealthy and respecta- 
 ble burgess of his native town, bore the arms, of a gentle- 
 man, married his two daughters with- prudence, and died 
 with the bappy consciousness of having gained a credit- 
 able and substaatial position in the world. The other 
 view of Shakspere's chai'acter has been recently present- 
 e.d by M. Taine with. his uniiagging brilliancy and energy. 
 According to this second conception, Shakspere was a man 
 of almost superhuman, passions, extreme in joy and pain, 
 impetuous in his transports, -disorderly in his conduct, 
 heedless of, conscience, but sensitive to every touch of 
 pleasure — a man of inordinate, extravagant genius. . 
 
 It is impossible to ajccepfe either of these representa- 
 tions, .of Shakspere. as a complete statement of the fact. 
 Certain it is,, .however, that a portion of truth is con- 
 tained in the first of these two Shakspere theories. 
 There can be no doubt that -Shakspere considered it 
 wortlihis while to be prudent, industrious, and economical. 
 He would appear to have had a very suflBcient sense of 
 life, and. in particular of his own life, as real, and of this 
 earth as a possession. He had seen his father sinking 
 deeper and deeper into .pecuniary embarrassment, and 
 
28 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 dropping away from the good position wliicli he had 
 held amongst his fellow-townsmen. Shakspere had mar- 
 ried at eighteen years of age ; he was at the age of twen- 
 ty-one the father of a son and of two daughters. A reck- 
 less, improvident life became more than ever iindesirable. 
 He took the means which gave him the best chance of 
 attaining worldly prosperity ; he made himself useful in 
 every possible way to his dramatic company. While 
 others — Greene and Peele and Marlowe — had squander- 
 ed their strengtli in the turbulent life of London, Shak- 
 spere husbanded his strength. The theatrical life did 
 not bring satisfaction to him' ; he felt that his moral be- 
 ing suffered loss while he spent himself upon the miscel- 
 laneous activities forced upon him by his position and 
 profession ; he was made for a higher, purer life of more 
 continuous progress towards all that is excellent, and he 
 felt painfully that his nature was being subdued to what 
 it worked in, as the dyer's hand receives its stain.* Nev- 
 ertheless, he did not, in the fashion of idealists, hastily 
 abandon the life which seemed to entail a certain spirit- 
 ual loss ; he recognized the reality of external, objective 
 duties and claims— duties to his father, to his family, to 
 his own future self ; he accepted the logic of facts ; he 
 compelled the lower and provisional life of player and 
 playwright to become the servant of his higher life, as 
 far as circumstances permitted; and he carefully and 
 steadily applied himself to effecting his deliverance from 
 that provisional life at the earliest suitable period ; bnt 
 not before that period had arrived. And afterwards, 
 when Shakspere had become a prospei-ous country gen- 
 tleman, he did not endeavor to cut himself loose from 
 his past life which had served him, and the associates 
 who had been his friends and helpers ; the Stratford gen- 
 
 * Sonnets, cxi. 
 
Shakspere and the Elisdbethan Age. ag 
 
 tleman who might write himself Armigero " in any bill, 
 warrant, quittance, or obligation " was not so enamoured 
 of this distinction as to be ashamed of the days when he 
 lived by public means ; he remembers in his will among 
 the rural esquires and gentry, "My Fellowes, John 
 Hemynges, Eichard Burbage, and Henry Cundell." 
 
 Thus, all through his life, we observe in Shakspere a 
 sufficient recognition of external fact, external claims, 
 and obligations. Hence worldly prosperity conld not be 
 a matter which would ever seem unimportant to Shak- 
 spere. In 1604, when he was a wealthy man, William 
 Shakspere brought an action against Philip Kogers, in 
 the court of Stratford, for £1 15s. 10<?., being the price 
 of malt sold and delivered to him at different times. The 
 incident is characteristic. Shakspere evidently could es- 
 timate the precise value for this temporal life (though 
 possibly not for eternity) of £1 15*. 10^. ; and, in addi- 
 tion to this, he bore down with unfaltering insistence on 
 the positive fact that the right place out of all the uni- 
 verse for the said £1 15s. V)d. to occupy lay in the pocket 
 of William Shakspere. 
 
 Practical, positive, and alive to material interests, Shak- 
 spere unquestionably was. But there is another side to 
 his character. About the same time that he brought his 
 action against Philip Rogers for the price of malt, the 
 poet was engaged upon his OtheUo and his Lear. Is it 
 conceivable that Shakspere thought more of his pounds 
 than of his plays? Strongly as he felt the fact about 
 the little sum of money which he sought to recover, 
 is it not beyond possibility of doubt that his whole 
 nature was immeasurably more kindled, aroused, and 
 swayed by the vision of Lear upon the heath, of Othello 
 taken in the snake-like folds of lago's cunning, and by 
 the inscrutable mysteries respecting human life which 
 these suggested ? It is highly important to fix our atten- 
 
30 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tion on what is positive, practical, and finite in Shakspere's 
 art" as -well as in Shakspere's life. But if the poet was of 
 his own age, he was also " for all time." He does not 
 merely endeavor to compass and comprehend the know- 
 able: he broods with a passionate intensity over that 
 which cannot be known. And, again, he not only studies 
 self-control : he could depict, and we cannot doubt that 
 lie knew by personal experience, absolute abandonment 
 and self-surrender. The infinite of meditation, the infi- 
 nite of passion, both these lay within the rangeof Shak- 
 spere's experience and Shakspere's art. He does not, in- 
 deed, come forward with explanations of the mysteries 
 of existence; perhaps because he felt more than other 
 men their mysteriousuess. Many of us seem to think it 
 the all-essential thing to be provided with answers to the 
 diflBeult questions which the world propounds, no matter 
 how little the answers be to these great questions. Shak- 
 spere seems to have considered it more important to put 
 the questions greatly, to feel the supreme problems. 
 
 Thus Shakspere, like nature and like the vision of hu- 
 man life itself, if he does not furnish us with a doctrine, 
 has the power to free, arouse, dilate. Again and again 
 we fall back into our little creed or bUr little theory. 
 Shakspere delivers us; under his influence we come 
 anew into the presence of stupendous mysteries, and, in- 
 stead of our little piece of comfort and support and con- 
 tentment, we receive the gift of solemn awe and bow 
 the head in reverential silence. These questions are not 
 stated by Shakspere as intellectual problems. He states 
 them pregnantly, for the emotions and for the imagina- 
 tion. And it is by virtue of his very knowledge that he 
 comes face to face with the mystery of the nnknown. 
 Because he had sent down his plunimet fartlier into the 
 depths than other men, he knew better than othere how 
 fathomless for human thought those depths remain. " TJn 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 3 1 
 
 g6nie," Victor Hugo has said, " est nn promontoire dans 
 I'infini." This promontory which we name Shakspere, 
 stretching out long and sharp, has before it measureless 
 sea and tlie mass of threatening cloud ; behind it the hab- 
 itable globe, ilhiminated, and alive with moving figures 
 of man and woman. 
 
 Our conclusion, therefore, is that Shakspere lived and 
 moved in two worlds — one limited, practical, positive ; 
 the other a world opening into two infinites, an infinite 
 of thought and an infinite of passion. He did not sup- 
 press either life to the advantage of the other ; but he 
 adjusted them, and by stern and persistent resolution held 
 them in the necessary adjustment. In the year 1602 
 Shakspere bought for the sum of three hundred and 
 twenty pounds one hundred and seven acres of arable land 
 in the parish of Old Stratford. It was in the same year 
 (if the chronology of Delius be accepted as correct) that 
 Shakspere, in the person of his Hamlet, musing on a skull, 
 was tracing out the relations of a buyer of land to the 
 soil in a somewhat singular fashion. " This fellow might 
 be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his 
 recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recover- 
 ies ; is tliis the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his re- 
 coveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dii't ?" The cour- 
 tier Osric, who has " much land and fertile," is described 
 by the Prince (who could he contented in a nut-shell, but 
 that he lias bad dreams) as " spacious in the possession of 
 dirt." Yet this dirt Shakspere used to serve his needs. 
 
 How shall a man live sanely in presence of the small 
 daily facts of life (which are also not small, but great), 
 and in presence of the vast mystery of death ? How 
 shall he proportion liis interests between the bright illu- 
 minated spot of the known and the dim environing un- 
 known which possesses such strong attraction for the 
 soul? How shall he restrain and attach his desires to tlie 
 
32 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 little objects which claim each its definite share of the 
 heart, while the heart longs to abandon itself to some one 
 thing with measureless devotion ? Sliakspere's attainment 
 of sanity and self-control was not that of a day or of a 
 year, it was the attainment of his life. Now he was 
 tempted by his speculative intellect and imagination to 
 lose all clear perception of his limited and finite life ; and 
 again he was tempted to resign the conduct of his being 
 by the promptings of a passionate heart. He is inexora- 
 ble in his plays to all rebels against the fact ; because he 
 was conscious of the strongest temptation to become him- 
 self a rebel. He cannot forgive an idealist, because in 
 spite of his practical and positive nature he was (let the 
 Sonnets witness) an idealist himself. His series of dra- 
 matic writings is one long study of self-control. 
 
 And Shakspere, we have good reason to believe, did at 
 last attain to the serene self-possession which he had 
 sought with such persistent eflEort. He feared that he 
 might become (in spite of Mercutio's jests) a Komeo ; be 
 feared that he might falter from his strong self-mainte- 
 nance into a Hamlet ; he suffered grievous wrong, and he 
 resolved that he would not be a Timon. He ended by 
 becoming Duke Prospero. Admired Miranda — truly " a 
 thread of his own life" — he made over to the young gal- 
 lant Ferdinand (and yet was there not a touch of sadness 
 in resigning to a somewhat shallow-sonled Fletcher the 
 art he loved ?). He broke his magic staff ; he drowned 
 his book deeper than ever plummet sounded ; he went 
 back, serenely looking down upon all of human life, yet 
 refusing liis share in none of it, to his dukedom at Strat- 
 ford, resolved to do duke's work, such as it is, well; yet 
 Prospero must forever have remained somewhat apart 
 and distinguished from other dukes and "Warwickshire 
 magnificoes, by virtue of the enchanted island and the 
 marvellous years of mageship. 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 33 
 
 It ]ias been asked whetlier Shakspere was a Protestant 
 or a Catholic, and he has been proved to belong to each 
 comninniou to the satisfaction of contending theological 
 zealots. Shakspere's poetry, resting upon a purely hu- 
 man basis, is not a rendering into art of the dogmas of 
 either Catholicism or Protestantism. Shakspere himself, 
 a great artistic nature, framed for manifold joy and pain, 
 may, like other artists, have had no faculty for the attain- 
 ment of certitude upon extra-mundane and superhuman 
 matters ; of concrete moral facts he had the clearest per- 
 ception, but we do not find that he was interested, at 
 least as an artist, in truths or alleged truths which tran- 
 scend the limits of human experience. That the world 
 suggests inquiries wliich cannot be answered ; that mj'S- 
 teries confront and baffle us ; that around our knowledge 
 lies ignorance, around our light darkness — this to Shak- 
 spere seemed a fact containing within it a profound sig- 
 nificance, which might almost be named religious. But, 
 studiously as Shakspere abstains from embodying theo- 
 logical dogma in his art, and tolerant as his spirit is, it is 
 certain that the spirit of Protestantism — of Protestantism 
 considered as portion of a great movement of humanity 
 — animates and breathes through his writings. Unless 
 he had stood in antagonism to his time, it could not be 
 otherwise. Shakspere's creed is not a series of abstract 
 statements of truth, but a body of concrete impulses, ten- 
 dencies, and habits. The spirit of his faith is not to be 
 ascertained by bringing together little sentences from the 
 utterances of this one of his dramatis jpersoncB and of 
 that. By such a method he might be proved (as Birch 
 tried to prove Shakspere) an atheist.* The faith by 
 
 * " Inquiry into the Philosophy and Religion of Shakespeare," 1848. 
 This is also too much the method (leading, however, to a very different 
 result) of Flathe in the laborious chapter " Die Anschauungen Sliakspeare's 
 uber sein Selbst, etc.," which opens the first volume of "Sliakspeare in 
 
 2* 
 
34 Shakspere'^His Mind and Art. 
 
 which Shakspere lived is rather to be discovered by 
 noting the total issue and resultant of his art towards the 
 fostering and sustenance of a certain type of human 
 character. It may be asserted, without hesitation, that 
 the Protestant type of character, and the Protestant poli- 
 ty in state and nation, is thatwliicli has received impulse 
 and vigor from the mind of the greatest of English poets. 
 Energy, devotion to the fact, self-government, tolerance, 
 a disbelief in minute apparatus for the improvement of 
 liuman character, an indifference to externals in compari- 
 son with that which is of tlie invisible life, and a resolu- 
 tion to judge all things from a purely human standpoint — 
 these grow upon ns as habits of thought and feeling, as 
 long as Shakspere remains an influence with us in the 
 building-up of character. Such habits of thought and 
 feeling are those which belong more especially to the 
 Protestant ideal of manhood.* 
 
 Is Shakspere a religious poet? An answer has been 
 given to this question by Mr. "Walter Bagehot, which con- 
 tains the essential truth : " If this world is not all evil, 
 he who has understood and painted it best miist probably 
 have some good. If the underlying and almighty essence 
 of this world be good, then it is likely that the writer 
 who most deeply approached to that essence will be him- 
 
 seiner Wirklichkeit." On this subject, see Vehse's book already referred 
 to; the last of Kreyssig's lectures in his smaller work, " Shakespeare- 
 rvagen ;" and Rumelin, " Shakespeare-Studien," pp. 207-21 5 (second edition). 
 * See on this subject the able reply to Rio by Michael Bernays, in " Jahr- 
 buoU der deutsoheu Shakespeare - Gesellschaft," vol. i., pp. 220-299. A 
 minute but perhaps significant piece of evidence has been noticed recently 
 by H. von Friesen. In Romeo and Juliet (act iv., ac. 1) we read, " Or shall T 
 come to you at evening mass ?" No Catholic, observes H. von Friesen, 
 could have spoken of "evening mass" ("Altengland uud William Shak- 
 spere " [18?4], pp. 286, 287). Staunton had previously noticed the difficulty. 
 But see tV-6 paper on this passage by the late Mr. E. Simpson, in Trans. 
 New Sh. 9''c., 1875-TS. 
 
Shakspere and the Elizabethan Age. 35 
 
 self good. There is a religion of week-days as well as of 
 Sundays, a religion of ' cakes and ale ' as well as of pews 
 and altar-cloths. This England lay before Shakspere as 
 it lies before us all, with its green iields, and its long 
 hedgerows, and its many trees, and its great towns, and 
 its endless hamlets, and its motley society, and its long 
 history, and its bold exploits, and its gathering power ; 
 and he saw that they were good. To him perhaps more 
 than to any one else has it been given to see that they 
 were a great unity, a great religious object ; that if you 
 cotild only descend to the inner life, to the deep things, 
 to the secret principles of its noble vigor, to the essence 
 of character, ... we might, so far as we are capable of 
 so doing, understand the nature which God has made. 
 Let us, then, think of him, not as a teacher of dry dogmas 
 or a sayer of hard saymgs, but as 
 
 ' A priest to us all 
 Of the wonder and bloom of the world,' 
 
 a teacher of the hearts of men and women." * 
 
 It is impossible, liowever, that the sixteenth or the 
 seventeenth century should set a limit to the nineteenth. 
 The voyaging spirit of man cannot remain within the 
 enclosure of any one age or any single mind. We need 
 to supplement the noble positivism of Shakspere with an 
 element not easy to describe or define, but none the less 
 actual, which the present century has demanded as essen- 
 tial to its spiritual life and well-being, and which its spir- 
 itual teachers — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Newman, 
 Maurice, Carlyle, Browning, Whitman (a strange and ap- 
 parently motley assemblage) — have supplied and are still 
 supplying. The scientific movement of the present cen- 
 tury is not more unquestionably a fact than this is a fact. 
 
 * " Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen," by Walter Bagehot, 
 p. 270. 
 
^6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Ill the meantime, to enter with strong and undisturbed 
 comprehension into Shakspere, let us endeavor to hold 
 ourselves strenuously at the Shaksperian standpoint, and 
 view the universe from thence. "We shall afterwards go 
 
 _ our way, as seems best, bearing with us Shakspere's gift. 
 And Shakspere has no better gift to bestow than the 
 strength and courage to pursue our own path, through 
 
 < pain or through joy, with vigor and resolution. 
 
Growth of Sliaksperis Mind and Art. 37 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF SHAXSPEEe's MIND AND AET. 
 
 In the preceding chapter, a brief and partial study was 
 attempted of Shakspere the man and Shakspere the artist, 
 considered as one element in the great intellectual and 
 spiritual movement of the Elizabethan period. The or- 
 ganism — a dramatic poet — we endeavored to view in 
 connection witli its environment. Now we proceed to 
 observe, in some few of its stages of progress, the growth 
 of that organism. Shakspere in 1590, Shakspere in 1600, 
 and Shakspere in 1610 was one and the same living en- 
 tity ; but the adolescent Shakspere differed from the 
 adult, and again from Shakspere in the supremacy of his 
 ripened manhood, as much as the slender stem, graceful 
 and pliant, spreading its first leaves to the sunshine of 
 May, differs from the moving expanse of greenery visible 
 a century later, which is hard to comprehend and probe 
 with the eye in its infinite details, multitudinous and yet 
 one ; receiving through its sensitive surfaces the gifts of 
 light and dew, of noonday and of night ; grasping the 
 earth with inextricable living knots ; not unpossessed of 
 liannts of shadow and secrecy; instinct with ample mys- 
 terious murmurs — the tree which has a history, and bears, 
 in wrinkled bark and wrenched bough, memorials of time 
 and change, of hardship and drought and storm. The 
 poet Gray, in a well-known passage, invented a piece of 
 beautiful mythology, according to which the infant Shak- 
 spere is represented as receiving gifts from the great Dis- 
 pensatress : 
 
38 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 ■•' Far from the sun and summer gale, 
 In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, 
 What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 
 To him the mighty Mother did unveil 
 Her awful face ; the dauntless Child 
 Stretch'd forth his little arms and smiled ; 
 This pencil take, she said, whose colors clear 
 Richly paint the vernal year ; 
 Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy ! 
 This can unlock the gates of Joy, 
 Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, 
 Or ope the sacred fount of sympathetic Tears." 
 
 But the mighty Mother, moi-e studious of the welfare 
 of her chatge, in fact gave her gifts only as they could 
 he used. Those keys she did not intrust to Shakspere 
 until, by manifold experience, by consolidating of intel- 
 lect, imagination, and passions, and by the growth of 
 self-control, he had become fitted to confront the dread- 
 ful, actual presences of human anguish and of human 
 
 joy- 
 
 Everything takes np its place more rightly in a spa- 
 cious world, accurately observed, than in the narrow 
 world of the mere idealist. In bare acquisition of ob- 
 served fact, Shakspere marvellously increased from year 
 to year. He gi-ew in wisdom and in knowledge (such an 
 admission does not wrong the divinity of genius), not less, 
 but more, than other men. Quite a little library exists 
 illustrating the minute acquaintance of Shakspere with 
 this branch of information and with that : " The Legal 
 Acquirements of Shakspere," " Shakspere's Knowledge 
 and Use of the Bible," " Shakspere's Delineations of In- 
 sanity," " The Rural Life of Shakspere," " Shakspere's 
 Garden," « The Ornithology of Shakspere," " The In- 
 sects Mentioned by Shakspere," and such like. Conject- 
 ural inquiry, which attempts to determine whether Shak- 
 spere was an attorney's clerk, or whether he was a soldier ; 
 whether Shakspere was ever in Italy, or whether he was 
 
Growth of Skakspere's Mind attd Art. 39 
 
 in Germany, or whether he was in Scotland — inquiry such 
 as this may lead to no very certain result with respect to 
 the particular matter in question. But one thing which 
 such special critical studies as these establish is the enor- 
 mous receptivity of the poet. This vast and varied mass 
 of information he assimilated and made his own. And 
 such store of information came to Shakspere only, by the 
 way, as an addition to the more important possession of 
 knowledge about human character and human life which 
 forms the proper body of fact needful for dramatic art. 
 In proportion as an animal is of great size, the masses of 
 nutriment which he procures are large. " Tiie arctic 
 whale gulps in whole shoals of acalephae and mollusks." 
 
 But it was not alone or chiefly through mass of acquisi- 
 tion that Shakspere became great. He was not merely a 
 centre for the drifting capital of knowledge. Each faculty 
 expanded and became more energetic, while, at the same 
 time, the structural arrangement of the man's whole nat-- 
 ure became more complex and involved. His power of 
 thought increased steadily as years went by, both in sure 
 grasp" of the known and in brooding intensity of gaze 
 iipon the unknown. His emotions, instead of losing 
 their energy and subtlety as youth -deepened into man- 
 hood, instead of becoming dulled and crusted over by 
 contact with the world, became (as is the case with all 
 the greatest men and women), by contact with the world, 
 swifter and of more ample volume. As Shakspere pene- 
 trated further and further into the actual facts of our life, 
 he found in those facts more to rouse and kindle and sus- 
 tain the heart ; he discovered more awful and mysterious 
 darkness, and also more intense and lovelier light. And 
 it is clearly ascertainable from his plays and poems that 
 Shakspere's will grew, with advancing age, beyond meas- 
 ure calmer and more strong. Each formidable tempta- 
 tion he succeeded, before he was done with it, in subdu- 
 
40 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 iiig, at least so far as to preclude a fatal result. In the 
 end lie obtained serene and indefeasible possession of 
 himself. He still remained, indeed, baffled before the 
 mystery of life and deatli ; but he had gained vigor to 
 cope with fate ; he could " accept all things not under- 
 stood." And during these years, while each faculty was 
 augmenting its proper life, the vital play of one faculty 
 into and through the other became more swift, subtle, 
 and penetrating. In Shakspere's earlier writings, we can 
 observe him setting his wit to work or his fancy to work ; 
 now he is clever and intellectual, and again he is tender 
 and enthusiastic. But inhis later style, imagination and 
 thought, wisdom and mirth and charity, experience and 
 surmise, play into and through one another, until fre- 
 quently the significance of a passage becomes obscured 
 by its manifold vitality. The murmur of an embryo 
 thought or feeling already obscurely mingles with the 
 murmurs of the parent life in which it is enveloped.* 
 
 Now, what does extraordinary growth imply ? f It 
 implies capacity for obtaining the materials of growth ; 
 in this case materials for the growth of intellect, of im- 
 agination, of the will, of the emotions. It means, there- 
 fore, capacity of seeing many facts, of meditating, of feel- 
 ing deeply, and of controlling such feeling. It implies 
 the avoidance of injuries which interfere with growth, 
 escape from enemies which bring life to a sudden end, 
 and therefore strength and skill and prudence in dealing 
 with the world. It implies a power in the organism of 
 fitting its movements to meet numerous external coex- 
 
 * See the valuablfi criticism of Shakspere's style as contrasted with 
 Fletcher's in " A Letter on Shalsspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kins- 
 men" (1833), by Mr. Spalding, pp. 13-18. The criticism applies with 
 special propriety to Shakspere's later style. 
 
 t In my answer to this question, I borrow several expressions from Her- 
 bert Spencer's " Biology." 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Art. 41 
 
 isteiiees and sequences. In a word, we are brought back 
 once again to Bhakspere's resolute fidelity to the fact. 
 By virtue of this his life became a success, as far as suc- 
 cess is permitted to such a creature as man in such a 
 world as the present. 
 
 It seems mucli that the needy youth who left his na- 
 tive town probably under pressure of poverty should, at 
 the age of thirty-three, have become possessor of New 
 Place at Stratford, and from year to year have added to 
 his worldly dignity and wealtli. Such material advance- 
 ment argues a power of understanding, and adapting one's 
 self to, the facts of the material world. But that was not 
 the chief success in the life of Shakspere. When Words- 
 worth thought of " mighty poets in their misery dead " — 
 when, in sudden mood of dejection, he murmured to him- 
 self, 
 
 " We poets in our youth begin in gladness ; 
 But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness " — 
 
 he thought of Chatterton and of Burns, not of Shakspere. 
 Tlie early contemporaries of Shakspere, Marlowe and 
 Greene — one of them a man of splendid genius — failed as 
 Chatterton failed. It must have appeared to Shakspere 
 (who well enough understood honest frolic) a poor affair, 
 a flimsy kind of idealism — this reckless knocking of a 
 man's head against the solid laws of the universe. The 
 protest against fact, against our subjection to law, made 
 by such men as Marlowe and Greene, was a vulgar and 
 superficial protest. Shakspere could get no delight from 
 tlie insanity of sowing wild oats. His insanity was of a 
 far graver and more terrible kind. It assumed two forms 
 — the Romeo form and the Hamlet form — abandonment 
 to passion, abandonment to brooding thought — two dis- 
 eases of youth, each fatal in its own way ; two forms of 
 tiie one supreme crime in Shakspere's eyes, want of fidel- 
 ity to the fact. The noble practical energy of Shakspere 
 
42 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 was tempted to self-betrayal, on the one hand, by the 
 supremacy of blind desire ; on the other hand, by the 
 sapping-in of thought upon the will and active powers. 
 The struggle between self-will and reason, between 
 "blood" and "judgment," appears in all his writings to 
 be ever in the background — a theme ready at any mo- 
 ment, if permitted, to become prominent. And Shak- 
 sperfe's profonndest and most sympathetic psychological 
 study, Hamlet, represents in detail the other chief 
 temptation to which he was, it would seem, subjected. 
 In all the later plays his eye is intently fixed upon the 
 deep insoluble questions suggested by human character 
 and destiny, fixed with a brooding wistfulness which yet, 
 we perceive, he became, as years went on, more and more 
 able to control. 
 
 Shakspere's central self pronounced in favor of sanity 
 — in favor of seeing things as they are, and shaping life 
 accordirigly. He bought up houses and lands in Strat- 
 ford, and so made a protest, superficial, indeed, yet real, 
 against the Eomeo and the Hamlet within him. But the 
 idealist within him made Shakspere at all times far other 
 than a mere country magnate or wealthy burgher. It 
 remained, after all, nearly the deepest part of him : 
 
 " Handd. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins ? 
 Horatio. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too. 
 Ilamlef. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that." 
 
 And Prospero declares the end of the whole matter: 
 " We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 Shakspere's devotionto material interests was the least 
 part of the protest made against his temptation to ex- 
 travagance of soul. There are more important facts than 
 those of the material life. Shakspere cast his plummet 
 into the sea of human sorrow and wrong and loss. He 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind and Art. 43 
 
 studied evil. He would let none of that dark side of life 
 escape from him. He denied none of the bitterness, the 
 sins, the calamity, of the world. He looked steadily at 
 Cordelia strangled in the aniis of Lear ; and he sum- 
 moned up a strenuous fortitude, a stoical subniission to 
 nifike endurable such a spectacle. Bat, at the same time, 
 he retained his loyalty to good ; over against, Edmund 
 ;ind the monstrous sisters he saw the invincible loyalty of 
 a Kent, the practical genius of an Edgar in the service of 
 good, and the redeeming ardor of a Cordelia. Eescning 
 his sonl from all bitterness, he arrived finally at a temper 
 strong and self-possessed as that of stoicism, yet free from 
 the stoical attitude of defiance ; a temper liberal, gra- 
 cious, charitable, a tender yet strenuous calm. 
 
 The Venxis and Adonis is styled by its author, in the 
 dedication to the Earl of Southampton, " the first heir of 
 my invention." - Gervinus believes that the poem may 
 have been written before the poet left Stratford. Al- 
 though possibly separated by a considerable interval from 
 its companion poem,"TAe iip,pe of Lucreoe (1594), the two 
 may be regarded as essentially one in kind.* The special- 
 ty of these poems as portions of Shakspei'e's art has per- 
 haps not been sufliciently observed, f Each is an artistic 
 stxcdy ; and they form, as has been just observed, com- 
 
 * Mr. Furhivall notes in the Veivm aiid Adonis the following pictures 
 fi'ora Shakspere's youthful life at Stratford : the horse (1. 260-318) ; the 
 liare-hunt (763-768) ; the overflowing Avon (72) ; the two silver doves 
 (366); the milch doe and fawn in some brake in Charlecote Park (875, 876); 
 the red mom (453); the hush of the wind before it rains (468); the many 
 clo'uds consulting for foul weather (972); the night-owl (631); the lark 
 (853). The Luerece, he adds, " must have been written some time after the 
 Vmtia, as its prqportipn of unstopped lines is 1 in 10.81 (171 such lines 
 to the poem's 1855), against the Venm^s 1 in 25.40" (47 run-on lines in 
 1194)." — Preface by F. J. Furnivall to "Shakespeare Commentaries" by Ger- 
 vinus (ed. 1874). - 
 
 f Coleridge touches upon the fact, and it is noted by Lloyd. 
 
44 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 panion studies — one of female lust and boyish coldness, 
 the other of male lust and womanly chastity. Coleridge 
 noticed " the utter aloofness of the poet's own feelings 
 from those of which he is at once the painter and the 
 analyist ;" but it can hardly be admitted that this aloof- 
 ness of the poet's own feelings proceeds from a dramatic 
 abandonment of self. The subjects of these two poems 
 did not call and choose their poet ; they did not possess 
 him and compel him to render them into art. Ilather 
 the poet expressly made choice of the subjects, and de- 
 liberately set himself down before each to accomplish an 
 exhaustive study of it. 
 
 If the Venus and Adonis sonnets in The Passionate 
 Pilgrim be by Shakspere, it would seem that he had 
 been trying various poetical exercises on this theme. 
 And for a young writer of the Eenascence, the subject 
 of Shakspere's earliest poem was a splendid one — as 
 voluptuous and unspiritual as that of a classical picture 
 by Titian. It included two figures containing inexhaust- 
 ible pasture for the fleshly eye, and delicacies and dainties 
 for the sensuous imagination of the Kenascence — the en- 
 amoured Queen of Beauty, and the beautiful, disdainful 
 boy. It afforded occasion for endless exercises and varia- 
 tions ou the themes Beauty, Lust, and Death. In hold- 
 ing the subject before his imagination, Shakspere is per- 
 fectly cool and collected. He has made elioice of the 
 subject, and he is interested in doing his duty by it in the 
 most thorough way a young poet can ; but he remains un- 
 impassioned — ^intent wholly upon getting down the right 
 colors and lines upon his canvas. Observe his determi- 
 nation to put in accurately the details of each object ; to 
 omit nothing. Poor "Wat, the hare, is described in a dozen 
 stanzas. Another series of stanzas describes the stallion 
 — all his points are enumerated : 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Art. 45 
 
 "Round-hoof '(1, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, 
 Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide, 
 High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, 
 'Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide." 
 
 This passage of poetry has been admired; but is it 
 poetry or a paragraph from an advertisement of a horse- 
 sale ? It is part of Shakspere's study of an animal, and 
 he does his woi-k thoroughly. In like manner, he does 
 not shrink from faithfully putting down each one of the 
 amorous provocations and urgencies of Venus. The com- 
 plete series of manoeuvres must be detailed. 
 
 In Lucrece the action is delayed and delayed, that 
 every minute particular may be described, every minor 
 incident recorded. In the newness of her suffering and 
 shame, Lucrece finds time for an elaborate tirade appro- 
 priate to the theme " Night," another to that of " Time," 
 another to that of "Opportunity." Each topic is ex- 
 hausted. Then, studiously, a new incident is introduced, 
 and its- significance for the emotions is drained to the last 
 drop in a new tirade. We nowhere else discover Sliak- 
 spere so evidently engaged iipon his work. Afterwards 
 he puts a stress upon his verses to compel them to con- 
 tain the hidden wealth of his thought and imagination. 
 Here he displays at large sucii wealth as he possesses ; he 
 will have none of it half seen. The descriptions and dec- 
 lamations are undramatie, but they show us the materials 
 laid out in detail from which dramatic poetry originates. 
 Having drawn so carefully from models, the time comes 
 when he can trust himself to draw from memory, and he 
 possesses marvellous freedom of hand, because his pre- 
 vious studies have been so laborious. It was the same 
 hand that drew the stallion in Venus and Adonis which 
 afterwards drew with infallible touch, as though they 
 were alive, the dogs of Theseus : 
 
46 Shakspere—His Mtnd and Art. 
 
 "My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind 
 So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung 
 With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
 Crook-kneed, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; 
 Slow in pursuit; but match'd in mouth like bells, 
 Each under each. A cry more tunable 
 Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, 
 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in TheSsaly." * 
 
 When these poems were written, Shakspere was cautious- 
 ly feeling his way. Large, slow- growing natures, gifted 
 with a sense of concrete fact and with humor, ordinarily 
 possess no great self-confidence in youth. An idealist, 
 like Milton, may resolve in early manhood that he will 
 achieve a great epic poem, and in old age may turn into 
 fact the ideas of his youth. An idealist, like Marlowe, 
 may begin his career with a splendid youthful audacity, 
 
 * The comparison of these two passages is from Hazlitt, whose unfavor- 
 able criticism of Shakspere's poems expresses well one side of the truth. 
 "The two poems of Vemis and Adonis and of Targuin anrf Xm(!>"«k appear 
 to us like a couple of ice-houses. They are about as hard, as glittering, and 
 as cold. The author seems all the time to be thinking of his verses, and not 
 of his subject — not of what his characters would feel, but of what he shall 
 say ; and, as it must happen in all such cases, he always puts into their 
 mouths those things which they would be the last to think of, and which it 
 shows the greatest ingenuity in him to find out. The whole is labored, up- 
 hill work. The post is perpetually singling out the dilHculties of the art to 
 make an exhibition of his strength and skill in wrestling with them. He is 
 making perpetual trials of them as if his mastery over them were doubted. 
 ... A beautiful thought is sure to be lost in an endless commentary upon 
 it. . . . There is, besides, a strange attempt to substitute the language of 
 painting for that of poetry, to make us see their feelings in the faces of the 
 persons." — Charactei-s of Shakspere's Flays (ed. 1818), pp. 348, 349. Cole- 
 ridge's much more favorable criticism will be found in " Biographia Litera- 
 ria " (cd. 184T), vol. ii., ch. ii. The peculiarity of the poems last noticed in the 
 extract from Hazlitt is ingeniously accounted for by Coleridge. " The great 
 instinct which impelled the poet to the drama was secretly working in him 
 prompting him ... to provide a substitute for that visual language, that 
 constant intervention and running comment by tone, look, and gesture, 
 which in his dramatic works he was entitled to expect from the players " 
 (pp. 18, 19). 
 
Growth ofShaksperis Mind and Art. 47 
 
 a stupendous " Tamburlaine." A man of the kind to 
 which Shakspere belonged, althougli very resolute, and 
 determined, if possible, to succeed, requires the evidence 
 of objective facts to give him self-confidence. His spe- 
 cial virtue lies in a peculiarly pregnant and rich relation 
 with the actual world, and such relation commonly estab- 
 lishes itself by a gradual process. Accordingly, instead 
 of flinging abroad into the world while still a stripling 
 some unprecedented creation, as Marlowe did, or as Vic- 
 tor Hugo did, and securing thereby the position of a 
 leader of an insurgent school, Shakspere began, if not 
 timidly, at least cautiously and tentatively. He under- 
 takes work of any and every description, and tries and 
 tests himself upon all. He is therefore a valued person 
 in his theatrical company, ready to turn his hand to any- 
 thing helpful — a Jack-of -all-trades, a "Johannes-facto- 
 tum;" he is obliging and free fi'om self-assertion ; he is 
 waiting his time ; he is not yet sure of himself ; he finds 
 it the sensible thing not to profess singularity. " l>ivers 
 of worship" report his "uprightness of dealing;" he is 
 " excellent in the quality he professes ;" * his demeanor 
 is civil ; he is recognized even already as having a " face- 
 tious grace in writing." f Let us not suppose, because 
 Shakspere declines to assault the real world and the world 
 of imagination, and take them by violence, that he is 
 thei'efore a person of slight force of character. He is 
 determined to master both these worlds, if possible. He 
 approaches them with a facile and engaging air ; by-and- 
 
 * On the special use of the word " quality " for the stage-player's profes- 
 sion, see a note by Hermann Kurz in his article " Shaltespeare der Schau- 
 spieier," Sliakespeare^ahrhuch, vol. vi., pp. 317, 318. 
 
 f Chettle's " Kind Heart's Dream," 1592. But see Mr. Howard Staunton's 
 letter in The Atlierumim, Feb. 1, 1874 ; Mr. Simpson's article " Shakspere Al- 
 lusion Boolcs," The Academy, April 11, 1874 ; and Dr. Ingleby's preface to 
 " Shakspere Allusion Books," published for the New Shakspere Society. 
 
48 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 by his grasp upon facts will tighten. From MarloAve and 
 from Milton half of the world escapes. Shakpere will 
 lay hold of it in its totality, and, once that he has laid 
 hold of it, will never let it go. 
 
 This is the period of Shakspere's tentative dramatic 
 efforts. Among these, notwithstanding strong external 
 evidence — the testimony of Meres, and the fact that 
 Heminge and Condell included the play in the first 
 folio — ^it is difficult to admit Titus Andronicus. That 
 tragedy belongs to the pre-Shaksperian school of bloody 
 dramas. If any portions of it be from Shakspere's hand, 
 it has at least this interest — it shows that there was a pe- 
 riod of Shakspere's authorship when the poet had not yet 
 discovered himself, a period when he yielded to the popu- 
 lar influences of the day and hour ; this much interest, and 
 no more. That Shakspere himself entered with passion 
 or energy into the literary movement which the " Spanish 
 Tragedy" of Kyd may be taken to I'epresent, his other 
 early writings forbid us to believe. The supposed Sturm 
 und Drang period of Shakspere's artistic career exists 
 only in the imagination of liis German critics. The early 
 years of Shakspere's authorship were years of bright and 
 tender play of fancy and of feeling. If an epoch of storm 
 and stress at any time arrived, it was when Shakspere's 
 genius had reached its full maturity, and Lear was the 
 product of that epoch. But then, if the storm and stress 
 were prolonged and urgent, Shakspere possessed sufficient 
 power of endurance, and had obtained sufficient grasp of 
 the strong sure roots of life, to save him from being borne 
 away into the chaos or in any direction across the borders 
 of the ordered realm of art. Upon the whole, Titm An- 
 dranicus may be disregarded. Even if it were a work 
 of Shakspere, we should still call it un-Shakspcrian. 
 " Shakspere's tragedy," Gerald Massey has truly said, " is 
 the tragedy of Terror ; this is the tragedy of Horror. 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind and Art. 49 
 
 I-fc reeks blood, it smells of blood ; we almost feel that we 
 have handled blood— it is so gross. The mental stain is 
 not whitened by Shakspere's sweet. springs of pity ; the 
 horror is not hallowed by that appalling sublimity with 
 which he invested his chosen ministers of death. It is 
 tragedy only in' the coarsest material relationships."^ - 
 
 Of J*ericles, the portion written by Shaksperer^the 
 lovely little romance whieli Mr. Fleay lias separated from 
 the coarse work of Rowley and Wilkins, and named Ma- 
 rina — belongs to the pei'iod of Shakspere's maturity, 
 after 1600. Rowley's work "is always detached, • and 
 splits off from his coadjutors' with a clean cleavage. In 
 Fletcher's Maid of the Mill the work of the two men 
 might be published as two separate plays."t Similarly 
 in the play A Cure for a Ciuikeld, the work of Rowley 
 splits off from that of Webster, leaving the little drama 
 which Mr. Grosse claims the honor of having delivered 
 out of the compound manufacture of the two authors, 
 and which he has gracefully entitled Lov^s Oraduate-X 
 
 Setting aside Titus Andronicus and Marina, four 
 dramatic experiments by Shakspere remain, each in a 
 different manner from the rest. First, a portion at least- 
 of the Second and Third 'Paxisoi King Henry VI. — Eng- 
 lish historical drama.§ The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
 
 * " Shakespeare's Sonnets and his Private Friends," p. 581. Kreyssig, who 
 accepts Titus Andyonicui as an early worlc of Shakspere, gives an elaborate 
 study oif the play. For matters of external evidence, etc., consult the article 
 by H. Kurz itt Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, vol. v. ; and on characteristics of metre, 
 the preface by Hertzberg in Schlegel and Tieck's translation,, edited by 
 members of the German Shakespeare Society. See also Mr. Albert Cohn's 
 " Shakespeare in Germany," p. cxii. 
 
 f Trans. New Sh. Soc, part i,, "On the Play of Pericles," by the Rev. F. G. 
 Fleay. 
 
 J: FraserU Magagin£,Ma,j, 1874, "John Webster," by Edmund W.' Gosse. 
 
 g In Mr. R. Grant White's Essay upon the authorship of Hemry VI., he 
 argues that the early Contention and the True Tragedie contain portions by 
 
 3 
 
50 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 a comedy of graceful mirtli and sprightly and tender 
 feeling, with the interest of love predominant; Love's 
 Labor '« Lost, a comedy of dialogue, a piece of airy satire, 
 with, an underlying serious intention; the Comedy of Er- 
 rors, a comedy of incident, of almost farcical adventure — 
 the sole attempt of Shakspere at imitation of the comic 
 drama of ancient Eome. In this play Shakspere gayly 
 confronts improbabilities, and requires the spectator to 
 accept them. He adds to the twins Antipholus the twins 
 Dromio. If we are in for improbability, let us at least be 
 repaid for it by fun, and have that in abundance. Let 
 the incredible become a twofold incredibility, and it is 
 none the worse.* We may conclude that, while Shak- 
 spere was ready to try his hand upon a farcical subject, 
 a single experiment satisfied him that this was not his 
 province, for to such subjects he never returned. 
 
 During the years in which the poet was experimenting 
 in history, comedy, and farce, that about which he. was 
 most of all secretly concerned was a tragedy — a tragedy 
 of a kind altogether diilerent from Titus Andronicus and 
 the group of bloody plays to which it belongs. Such a 
 graceful piece of comedy as The Two Oentlemen ofYe- 
 rona did not profoundly engage his imagination. If the 
 
 Shakspere, afterwards transferred to his Henry VI., Parts II. and III. ; and 
 that the remaining portions are by Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. But see 
 note, p. 86. 
 
 * The source of this comedy is usually said to be a translation of the 
 Mencechmi of Plautus, by W. Warner. Hertzberg, in his preface to the play 
 in the German Shakespeare Society's edition of Schlegel and Tieck's trans- 
 lation, carefully distinguishes. the characters and incidents which Shakspere 
 did not owe to the Menceckmi. In the article "Zwei neuentdeckte Shakc- 
 spearequellen" {Die Liieratur, Jan. 16, 1874), the writer, Dr. Paul Wis- 
 licenus, points put another source in the AmpJiitnio. His supposition that 
 the incident of the storm in the Comedy of Errors is derived from the storm 
 in Pericles must be set aside as untenable. Shakspere's acquaintance with 
 the Amphitnio may have been made, in the first instance, through the rude 
 English imitation of Plantiis's comedy, Jack Juggler. 
 
Growth, of Skakspere's Mind and Art. 5 r 
 
 fifth act came from Shakspere's pen as it now stands, we 
 must believe that he handed over his play to the actois 
 while a portion of it still remained only a hasty sketch, 
 the denouement being left for future working out.* But 
 the designed tragedy seems to have been the great affair 
 of his literary career at tliis period. It is the opinion of 
 Dyce, of Grant White, and of others that Shakspere be- 
 gan to work upon Romeo and Juliet not later than about 
 1591 ; that is, according to the commonly received chro- 
 nology, almost at the moment when he began to write 
 for the stage; and that, having occupied him for a series 
 of years, the tragedy assumed its present form about 
 1595-97. If this be the case, and if, as there is reason 
 to believe, Shakspere was also during many years inter- 
 ested in the subject of Hamlet, we discover a fact whicli 
 is characteristic of the poet — that he accepted tlie knowl- 
 edge that his powers were nndeveloped and acted upon 
 it, waiting with his two chosen subjects — the story of the 
 
 * Hertzberg is of opinion that either the play was rehandled and cut down 
 by some Elizabethan playwright, or our text was imperfectly made up from 
 copies of the parts of the several actors. If either of these hypotheses be 
 correct, we are not in possession of Shakspere's complete play; The words 
 addressed by Valentine -to Proteus ( act v., sc. 4 ), " All that is mine in 
 Sylria I give thee," cannot be an intei-polation, for they are needed to ac- 
 count for Julia's fainting. Were they spoken by Valentine to test the loy- 
 alty of his professedly repentant friend ? And is there a gap here, originally 
 occupied by speeches of Proteus and Sylvia? See Hertzberg's preface in 
 the German Shakespeare Society's edition of Schlegel and Tieck's transla- 
 tion, Hertzberg (relying partly on metrical evidence) assigns a later place 
 to Tke Two Oentlemen of Verorm in the succession of Shakspere's plays 
 than that usually assigned by critics. I remain unconvinced by the argu^ 
 inents for lateness of date. See on this subject a lecture by Mr. Hales re- 
 ported in The Academy, Jan. 31, 1874, and Mr. Furnivall's criticism of the 
 paper by the Rev. F. G. Fleay in Trans. New Sh. So., 18*74. Having made 
 out the group of Shakspere's early comedies, it does not greatly matter, for 
 the purposes of the present study, in what order the plays followed one an- 
 other within the group ; but I incline towards placing A Mtdmmmer-MgM's 
 Dream last. 
 
52 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 star-crossed lovers, and the story of the man summoned 
 to action whose will was sapped — until he believed him- 
 self competent to do justice to his conceptions. What a 
 contrast is presented by this waiting of gehins, this pa- 
 tience "until the golden couplets are disclosed," to the 
 fevei'ish eagerness of Marlowe to appease his ambition 
 and unburden himself of the pressure of his imagination ! 
 
 As characteristic of these early plays, we may notice,* 
 (i.) frequency of rliyme in various arrangements: (a) 
 rhymed couplets; (5) rhymed quaitrains; (c) the sextain, 
 consisting of an alternately rhyming quatrain, followed 
 by a couplet (the arrangement of the last six lines of 
 Shakspere's Sonnets), (ii.) Occurrence of rhymed dog<- 
 gerel verse in two forms : (a) very short lines, and (J) 
 very long lines, (iii.) Compara,tive infrequency of the 
 fetninine (or double) ending; (iv.) comparative infre- 
 quency of the weak, ending ; (v.) comparative infrequen- 
 cy of the unstopped line ; (vi.) regular internal structure 
 of the line ; extra syllables seldom packed into the verse ; 
 (vii.) frequency of classical allusions ; (viii.) frequency of 
 puns and conceits.;, (ix.) wit and imagery drawn out in 
 detail to the. point pf exhaustion; (x.) clowns who are, 
 by comparison with the later comic characters, outstand- 
 ing persons in the play told off specially for clownage ; 
 (xi.) the presence of termagant or, shrewish women ; (xii.) 
 soliloquies addressed rather to tJie a,udience (to, explain 
 the business of the piece or the motives of the actoi"s) 
 than to the speaker's self ; (xiii.) symmetry in the group- 
 ing of persons. 
 
 To illustrate the last of these characteristics — and each 
 of the above-mentioned characteristics might readily be 
 illustrated at length^ we may observe the arrangement 
 
 * See on this subject a lecture by Mr. Hales, reported in 7%e Academy 
 Jan. 17, 1874. 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Art. 53 
 
 of dramatis personas in The Two Gentlemen ofYerona. 
 Proteus, the fickle, is set over against Valentine, the 
 faithful ;* Sjlvia, the bright and intellectual, is set over 
 against Julia, the ardent and tender ; Launce, the humor- 
 ist, is set over against Speed, the wit. So in Lovers La- 
 ior 's Lost, the King and his three f^llow-stndents balance 
 the Princess and her three ladies. The arrangement is 
 too geometrical ; the groups are obviously artificial, not 
 organic and vital. This indicates a certain want of con- 
 fidence on the part of the poet; he fears the weight of 
 too much liberty. He cannot yet feel that his structure 
 is secure without a system of mechanism to support the 
 structure. He endeavors to attain unity of effect less by 
 the inspiration of a common life thait by the disposition 
 of parts. He finds he can bring forward his forces in 
 turn, one after another, more readily when they are num- 
 bered and marshalled in definite order. In the opening 
 scene of his earliest tragedy, two Capulet men-servants 
 are first introduced, next two Montague men-servants; 
 then Benvolio on the Montague side, then Tybalt on the 
 Capulet side ; then on each side citizens ; then old Capulet 
 and Lady Capulet, then Montague and Lady Montague ; 
 finally, as keystone to bind all together, the Prince. In 
 the plays which belong to Shakspere's period of master- 
 ship he can dispense with such artifice. In these later 
 plays unity is present through the virtue of one living 
 force which animates the whole. The unity is not mere- 
 ly structural, but vital. And therefore the poet has no 
 apprehension that the minor centres of development in 
 his creation will suddenly become insubordinate. As- 
 sured that the organism is living, he fearlessly lets it de- 
 
 ' When Mr. Hales said, "Even Proteus's name is a sign of early work — 
 the riper Shakspere does not like significant names," he forgot Perdita, Ma- 
 rina, Miranda. 
 
54 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 velop itself in its proper mode, nnicentral (as Macbeth), 
 or mnlticentral (as King Lear). In the early plajs struct- 
 ure determines function ; in the later plays organization 
 is preceded by life.* 
 
 The growth of Shakspere's freedom as an artist was 
 Ideally identical with his passing under the influence of a 
 higher law. Tliis statement, which applies to the struct- 
 ure of his plays, applies in like manner to the altering 
 character of his versification. For, in truth, such an ap- 
 parently mechanical thing as the stopping of a passage 
 of verse is not mechanical, but in its essence spiritual. 
 At first, when we resolve to live a life somewhat higher 
 than the common life of vulgar accident, we do well to 
 put ourselves under a system of rules and precepts; 
 through strict observance of these we shall secure, in a 
 certain degree, the ideality our life has need of. But in 
 
 * Hebler, in his ingenious and delightfully bi-ief analyses of fourteen com- 
 edies of Shakspere, endeavors to point out a curiously symmetrical arrange- 
 ment in the structure and action of several, as well late as early. I give a 
 few examples, abbreviating Hebler yet further. T'wo Gentlemen, a loyal 
 friend and lover set over against a disloyal Merry Wives, an old sinner 
 flouted and disappointed, and a young pair of lovers whose rcniery is suc- 
 cessful. Measure for Measure, Angelo condemns Claudio to death'for con- 
 summating his marriage without Church rites ; by stratagem he is himself 
 placed in an identical position of guilt. Comedy of Errors, the twins Dro- 
 mio and their story repeat the twins Antipholus and theirs. Much Ado, two 
 lovers (Beatrice and Benedick) are brought together by an honest fraud ; two 
 lovers (Claudio and Hero) are separated by a criminal fraud. Midmmmer- 
 NigMs Dream, the love of Theseus and Hippolyta — ^its course ruunin" 
 smooth ; and the troubled course of love of the human mortals, of Oberon 
 and Titania, and (as comic contrast) of Pyramus and Thisbe. All 's Well a 
 young nobleman misled by a false friend to whom he cleaves, and from 
 whom he is separated at length ; and led aright by a true wife whom he de- 
 serts, and to whom he is united at length (the friend, I add, is all words 
 without deeds— Parolles. The wife is deeds without words). See the inter- 
 esting passage from Vischer, with reference to the double action of Shak- 
 spere's comedies, quoted by Hebler, "Aufsatze iiber Shakespeare," pp. 198, 
 
Growth of Skakspere's Mind and Art. 55 
 
 due time we fling away our mannals, our codes of spirit- 
 ual drill, our little rules and restrictions. A deeper or- 
 der takes authority over our being, and resumes in itself 
 the narrower order; the rhythm of our life acquires a 
 larger harmony, a movement free and yet sure as that of 
 nature. In like manner, a thought at first endeavors to 
 secure ideality for its life by adherence to a system of 
 narrow rule. This is the explanation of the early man- 
 ner of all great writers of verse, all great painters and 
 musicians, as compared with their later manner. Their 
 style becomes free and daring, because the great facts of 
 the world have now taken hold of them, and because 
 their subjection to highest law is at length complete. 
 They and their work are as free as the winds, or as the 
 growing grass, or as the waves, or the drift of clouds, or 
 the motion of the stars. As free, that is to say, in com- 
 plete, noble, and glad subjection. 
 
 Lovers Labor ^s-Lost, if we do not assign that place to 
 The Two OenUemen of Verona, is the first independent, 
 wholly original work of Shakspere. Mr. Charles Knight 
 named it " The Comedy of Affectations," and that title 
 aptly interprets one intention of the play. It is a satiri- 
 cal extravaganza embodying Shakspere's criticism upon 
 contemporary fashions and foibles in speech, in manners, 
 and in literature. This probably, more than any other 
 of the plays of Shakspere, suffers through lapse of time. 
 Fantastical speech, pedantic learning, extravagant love- 
 hyperbole, frigid fervors in poetry — against each of these, 
 with the brightness and vivacity of youth, confident in 
 the success of its cause, Shakspere directs the light artil- 
 lery of his wit. Being young and clever, he is absolutely 
 devoid of respect for nonsense, whether it be dainty, af- 
 fected nonsense, or grave, unconscious nonsense. 
 
 But, over and above this, there is a serious intention in 
 the play. It is a protest against youthful schemes of 
 
56 Shaksperc: — His Mind and A j-i. 
 
 shaping life according to notions rather than according 
 to reality, a protest against idealizing away the facts of 
 life. The play is chiefly. interesting as containing Shak- 
 spere's confession of faith with respect to the true princi- 
 ples of self-culture. The King of Navarre and his young 
 lords had resolved, for a definite period of time, to circum- 
 scribe their beings and their lives with a little code of 
 rules. They had designed to enclose a little favored park 
 in which ideas should rule to the exclusion of the blind 
 and rude forces of nature. Thfey were pleased to re- 
 arrange human character and humau life, so that it might 
 accord with their Jdealistic schieme of self -development. 
 The court was to be a little Academe ; no woman was to 
 big looked at for the space of three years ; food and sleep 
 were to be placed under precise regulation. And the re- 
 sult is — what ? That human nature refuses to be dealt 
 with in this fashion of arbitrary selection and rejection. 
 The youthful idealists had supposed that they would 
 form a little group of select, and refined ascetics of 
 knowledge and culture ; it was quickly proved that they 
 were meii. The play is Shakspere's declaration in favor 
 of the fact as it is. Here, he says, we are with such and 
 such appetites and passions. Lot us, in any scheme of 
 self-development, get that fact acknowledged at all events ; 
 otherwise we shall quicfkly enough betray ourselves as 
 ai-rant fools, fit to be flouted by women, and needing to 
 learn from them a portion of their directness, pi-acticality, 
 and good-sense. 
 
 And yet the Princess and Eosaline and Maria have 
 liot tlie entire advantage on their side. It is well to be 
 practical ; but to be practical, and also to have a capacity 
 for ideas, is better. Berowne, the exponent of Shakspere's 
 own thought, who entered into the youthful, idealistic 
 project of his friends, with a satisfactory assurance tlmt 
 the time would come when the entire dream-structure 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Art. 57 
 
 would tumble ridiculously about the cars of them all — 
 Berowne is yet a larger nature than the Princess or Eosa- 
 line. His good-sense is the good-sense of a thinker 
 and of a man of action. "When he is most flouted 
 and bemocked, we yet acknowledge him victorious and 
 the master; and Kosaline will confess the fact by-and- 
 
 In the midst of merriment and nonsense eomes a sud- 
 den and grievous incursion of fact full of pain. The 
 father of the Princess is dead. All the world is not 
 inirth — "this side is Hiems, Winter ; this Ver, the 
 Spring." The lovers must part — " Jack hath not his 
 Jill ;" and to engrave the lesson deeply, which each heart 
 needs, the King and two of his companions are dismissed 
 for a twelvemonth to learn the differenbe between reality 
 and unreality ; while Berowne, who has known the mirth 
 of the world, must also make acquaintance with its sor- 
 row, must visit the speechless sick and try to win " the 
 pained impotent to smile." 
 
 Let us get hold of the realities of human nature and 
 human life, Shakspere would say, and let us found upon 
 these realities, and nt)t upon the mist or the air, our 
 schemes of individual and social advancement. Not that 
 Shakspere is hostile to culture ; but lie knows that a per- 
 fect education must include the culture, through actual 
 experience, of the senses and of the afEections. Long 
 after this play was written, Shakspere imagined Perdita, 
 his shepherdess-princess, possessed of all the grace and 
 refinement of perfect breeding, with all the innocence 
 and native liberty of rustic girlhood. Perdita refuses to 
 admit into her garden the parti-colored flowers that had 
 been artificially produced, "streaked gillyvors, which 
 some call nature's bastards." But into Polixenes' mouth 
 Shakspere puts an unanswerable defence of culture, so 
 that to make good her decision there remains to Perdita 
 
 3* 
 
5 8 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 only an exquisite instinct of unreasoning sincerity, or a 
 graceful wilfulness which refuses to be convinced : 
 
 "■Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 
 
 Do you neglect them ? 
 
 Per. For I have heard it said, 
 
 There is an art which, in their piedness, shares 
 With great creating nature. 
 
 Pol. Say, there be ; 
 
 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
 But nature makes that mean; so over that art* 
 Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
 A gentler scion to the wildest stock. 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 By bud of nobler race ; this is an art 
 Which docs mend nature, change it rather, but 
 The art itself is nature. 
 
 Per. . So it is. 
 
 Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, 
 And do not call them bastards. 
 
 Per. I'll not put 
 
 The dibble in earth to set one slip of them." 
 
 Shakspere's view of human culture and human life ad- 
 mitted no essential opposition between Perdita's instinct 
 of sincerity and the maturer wisdom of Polixenes. 
 
 In the second act of the Comedy of Errors (sc. 2) oc- 
 curs the following dialogue : 
 
 "Zimana. Dromio, go bid the servants spi'ead for dinner, 
 
 Dro. 8. 0, for my beads ! I cross me for a sinner. 
 This is the fairy-land : spite of spites ! 
 We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites : 
 Jf we obey them not, this will ensue — 
 They'll suck our breath or pinch us black and blue. 
 
 Luc. Why prat'st thou to thyself and answer'st not ? 
 Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot ! 
 
 Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am I not ? 
 
 Aut. S. I think thou art, in mind, and so am I. 
 
 Dro. S. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape. 
 
 * Professor Ciuik conjectured "even that ai-t." 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Ari. 59 
 
 Avt. S. Thou hast thine own form. 
 
 -Dto. S. No, I am an ape, 
 
 Luc. I£ thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass." 
 
 When Shakspere wrote thus of fairj-land, of the pranks 
 of Robin Goodfellow, and of the transformation of a man 
 to an ass, can it be doubted that he liad in his thoughts 
 A Midsummer-NigMs Dream ? The play was perhaps 
 so named because it is a dream-play, the fantastic advent- 
 ures of a night, and because it was first represented in 
 midsummer — the midsummer, perhaps,, of 1594. The 
 imagined season of tlie action of the play is the begin- 
 ning of May, for, according to the magnificent piece of 
 mediaeval-classical mythology embodied here, and in the 
 Knightes Tale of Chaucer, and again in the Two Mdbh 
 Kinsmen of Shakspere and Fletcher, this was the month 
 of Theseus's marriage with his Amazonian bride.* In 
 like manner, the play of Twelfth Night received its name 
 probably because it was first enacted at that season of 
 festivity ; and as if to declare more emphatically that it 
 shall be nameless, Shakspere adds a second title, Twelfth. 
 Night, or What, You Will; that is (for we need seek no 
 deeper significance). Twelfth Night, or anything you like 
 to call it. A Midsummer-Nighfs Dream, was written on 
 the occasion of the marriage of some noble couple — ^pos- 
 sibly foi- the marriage of the poet's patron Southampton 
 with Elizabeth Vernon, as Mr. Gerald Massey supposes ; 
 possibly at an earlier date, to do honor to the marriage of 
 the Earl of Essex with Lady Sidney.f 
 
 * Titania says to Oberon (act ii., sc. 1) : 
 
 " And never since the middle summer's spring 
 Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead," etc. 
 Perhaps a night in early May might bo considered n night in the spring 
 of midsummer. 
 
 t Mr. Massey is obliged to entertain the supposition that the play was 
 written some time before the marriage actually took place (1598), " at a 
 
6o Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 The central figure of the play is that of Theseus. 
 There is no figure in the early drama of Shakspere so 
 magnificent. His are the large hands that have helped 
 to shape the world. His utterance is the rich -toned 
 speech of one who is master of events — who has never 
 known a shrill or eager feeling. His nuptial day is at 
 hand; and while the other lovers are agitated, bewildered, 
 incensed, Theseus, who does not think of himself as a 
 lover, biit rather as a beneficent conqueror, remains in 
 calm possession of his joy. Theseus, a grand ideal figure, 
 is to be studied as Shakspere's conception of the heroic 
 man of action in liis hour of enjoyment and of leisure. 
 With a splendid capacity for enjoyment, gracious to all, 
 ennobled by the glory, implied rather than explicit, of 
 great foregone achievement, he stands as centre of the 
 poem, giving their true proportions to the fairy tribe, 
 upon the one hand, and, upon the other, to the "human 
 mortals." The heroic men of action — Theseus, Henry 
 v., Hector — are supremely admired by Shakspere. Yet 
 it is observable that as the total Shakspere is superior to 
 Komeo, the man given over to passion, and to Hamlet, 
 
 period when it may have been thought the Queen's consent could be ob- 
 tained. ... I have ventured the date of 1 595 " (" Shakespeare's Sonnets and 
 his Private Friends," p. 481). Professor Karl Elze'a theory, maintained in a 
 highly ingenious paper in Shakesfpeare-Jalirbitch, vol. iii., that the play was 
 written for the marriage of the young Earl of Essex, would throw back the 
 date to 1590 — a good deal too early, I believe. Professor Elze has, however, 
 much to say in favor of this opinion. See also the excellent article by 
 Hermann Kurz in SJfial-espem-e-Jalu-hicTt, vol. iv. Illustrations of the Fairy 
 Mythology of A Midsitmmer-NiffJU's Dream will be found in the volume by 
 Halliwell bearing that name, issued by the Shakespeare Society (1845), and 
 also in " Shaksperc-Forschungen," ii., " Nachklange germanischer Mythe," by 
 Benno Tschischwitz (1868). Mr. Halpin's exceedingly ingenious study of 
 Oberon's Vision interprets that celebrated passage as having reference to 
 Leicester's intrigue with Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis KnoUys, and wife 
 of Walter Dcvoreux, E.irl of Essex. 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind and Art. 6 1 
 
 the man given over to thought, so the Hamlet and the 
 Eomeo within him give Shakspere an infinite advantage 
 over even the most heroic men of action. He 'admires 
 these men of action supremely, but he admires them from 
 an outside point of view. "These fellows of infinite 
 tongue," saj's Henrj, wooing the French princess, "that 
 can rhyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do always 
 reason themselves out again. What ! a speal^er is but a 
 prater, a rhyme is but a ballad." It is into Theseus's 
 mouth tliat Shakspere puts the words which class to- 
 gether "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" as of im- 
 agination all compact. That is the toneii which shows 
 how Shakspere stood off from Theseus, did not identify 
 himself with this grand ideal (vi'hich he admired so truly), 
 and admitted to himself a secret superiority of his own 
 soul over that of this noble master of the world. 
 
 Comments by Shakspere upon iiis own art are not so 
 numerous that we can afford to overlook tliem. It must 
 here be noted that Shakspere makes tlie " palpable gross" 
 interlude of the Athenian mechanicals serve as an indi- 
 rect apology for his own necessarily imperfect attempt to 
 represent fairy-land and the majestic world of heroic life. 
 Maginn writes, " When Hippolyta speaks scornfully of 
 the tragedy in which Bottom holds so conspicuous a part, 
 Theseus answers that the best of this kind [scenic per- 
 formances] are but shadows, and the worst no worse, if 
 imagination amend them. She answers [for Hippolyta 
 has none of Theseus's indulgence towards inefficiency, 
 but rather a woman's intolerance of the, absurd] that.it 
 must be your imagination then, not theirs. He retorts 
 with a joke on the vanity of actors, and the conversation 
 is immediately changed. The meaning of the Duke is 
 that, however we may laugh at the silliness of Bottom 
 and his companions in their ridiculous play, tlie author 
 labors under no move than the common calamity of 
 
62 Skakspere— His Mind and Art. 
 
 dramatists. They are all but dealere in shadowy repre- 
 sentations of life; and if the worst among them can set 
 the mind of the spectator at work, he is eqnal to the best. 
 
 Maginn has missed the more important significance of 
 the passage. Its dramatic appropriateness is the essential 
 point to observe. To Theseus, the great man of action, 
 the worst and the best of these shadowy representations 
 are all one. He gracionsly lends himself to be amused, 
 and will not give nn mannerly rebnfE to the painstaking 
 craftsmen who have so laboriously done their best to 
 please him. But Shakspere's mind by no means goes 
 along with the utterance of Theseus in this instance any 
 more than when he places in a single group the lover, 
 the lunatic, and the poet. With one principle enounced 
 by the Duke, however, Shakspere evidently does agree- 
 namely, that it is the business of the dramatist to set the 
 spectator's imagination to work ; that the dramatist must 
 rather appeal to the mind's eye than to the eye of sense ; 
 and that the co-operation of the spectator with the poet 
 is necessary. For the method of Bottom and his com- 
 pany is precisely the reverse, as Gervinus has observed^ 
 of Shakspere's own method. They are determined to 
 leave nothing to be supplied by the imagination. Wall 
 must be plastered; Moonshine must carry lantern and 
 bush. And when Hippolyta, Jigain becoming impatient 
 of absurdity, exclaims, " I am aweary of this moon ! 
 would he would change!" Shakspere further insists on 
 his piece of dramatic criticism by urging, through the 
 Duke's mouth, the absolute necessity of the man in the 
 moon being within his lantern. Shakspere as much as 
 says, " If yon do not approve my dramatic method of pre- 
 senting fairy-land and the heroic world, here is a speci- 
 men of the rival method. Yon think my fairy-world 
 might be amended. Well, amend it with your own im- 
 * " Shakspeare Papers," p. 119. 
 
Growth of Shaksperi s Mind and Art. 63 
 
 agination. I can do no more unless I adopt the artistic 
 ideas of these Athenian handicraftsmen."* 
 
 It is a delightful example of Shakspere's impartiality 
 that lie can represent Theseus with so much genuine en- 
 thusiasm. Mr. Matthew Arnold has named our aristo- 
 crats, with their hardy, efficient manners, their addiction 
 to field sports, and their hatred of ideas, " the Barbari- 
 ans." Theseus is a splendid and gracious aristocrat, per- 
 haps not without a touch of the Barbarian in him. He 
 would have found Hamlet a wholly unintelligible person, 
 who, in possession of his own thoughts, could be content- 
 ed in a nutshell. When Shakspere wrote The Two Gen- 
 tlemen ofYerona^ in which, with little dramatic propriety, 
 the Duke of Milan celebrates " the force of heaven-bred 
 poesy," we may reasonably suppose that the poet might 
 not have been quite just to one who was indifferent to 
 art. But now his self-mastery has increased, and there- 
 fore with unfeigned satisfaction he presents Theseus, 
 the master of the world, who, having beauty and heroic 
 strength in actual possession, does not need to summon 
 them to occupy his imagination — the great chieftain to 
 whom art is a very, small concern of life, fit for a leisure 
 hour between battle and battle. Theseus, who has noth- 
 ing antique or Grecian about him, is an idealized study 
 from the life. Perhaps he is idealized Essex, perhaps 
 idealized Southampton. Perhaps some night a dramatic 
 company was ordered to perform in presence of a great 
 Elizabethan noble — we know not whom — who needed to 
 entertain his guests, and there, in a moment of fine imag- 
 inative vision, the poet discovered Theseus. 
 
 * On Shakspere's studies of chivalric mediaeval poetry, see some interest- 
 in" pages in Mr. Spalding's "Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of the Two 
 Noble Kinsmen," pp. BT-TS ; the article " Chaucer and Shakspere " in the 
 Qmrterh) lieview, Jan., 1873 ; and Hertzberg'3 learned discussion of the 
 sources of the Troilus stoiy in Shakespeare-Mirbiich, vol.vi. 
 
64 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 A Midsmnmer-Nighf s Dream is, as its name implies, 
 a phantasmagory ; a mask of shadows full of marvel, sur- 
 prises, splendor, and grotesqueness. But during the same 
 years in which Shakspere was writing his comedies, and 
 while he was engaged upon his first great tragedy, he con- 
 tinued also steadily at work upon his series of English 
 liistorical plays. The culture afforded to Shakspere by 
 tlie writing of these plays was highly important at that 
 precise period of his career. The substantial matter upon 
 which he was engaged served to extend and consolidate 
 that relation which" was establishing itself slowly but 
 surely between the imagination of the dramatist and the 
 actual world. Tlie tougli clay of liistorical fact did not 
 take artistic shape too readily, and his hands were strength- 
 ened by the labor of moulding it into form. In treating 
 historical subjects, moreover, unrealities of every kind 
 must be sternly set aside ; no graceful poetical phrasing, 
 no delicate conceits, no quips and cranks of wit, Shak- 
 spere perceived, would compensate here for want of fidel- 
 ity to the essential truth of things. Then, again, if in 
 writing Romeo and, Juliet Shakspere ran a certain risk 
 of abandoning his genius over much to lyrical intensity, 
 the culture afforded by the historical dramas acted as a 
 safeguard. If in his early comedies Shakspere relied 
 upon symmetry of arrangement for securing unity of de- 
 sign, here such symmetry was obviously imattainable, and 
 he must look for a deeper ground of unity. 
 
 But tlie most important influence exercised by his dra- 
 matic studies in English history upon the mind of Shak- 
 spere was that they engaged his imagination in an inquiry 
 into the sources of power and of weakness, of success and 
 of failure, in a man's dealing with the positive, social 
 world. They kept constantly before Shakspere's mind 
 tiie problem " How is a man to obtain a mastery of the 
 actual world, and in what ways may he fail of such mas- 
 
Growth of Skdkspej'cs Mind and Art. 65 
 
 tery ?" This was a subject in which Shakspere had a 
 personal interest^ for he was himself resolved, as far as 
 in him lay, not to fail in this material life of oiirs, but 
 rather, if possible, to be, for his own needs, a maister of 
 events. The portraits of English kings from King John 
 to King Henry V. are a series of studies of weakness and 
 of strength for the attaining of kingly ends. To fail is 
 the supreme sin. Worse almost than criminality is weak- 
 ness, except that crime, besides being crime, is itself a cer- 
 tain kind of weakness. Henry VI. is a timid saint; it 
 were better that he had been a man. Does his timid 
 saintliness serve him in the plabe of energy of thought 
 and will, or secure him from a miserable overtln-ow? It 
 is important to observe the fundamental difference which 
 exists between the series of English historical plays and 
 the great series of tragedies, beginning with Haonlet, end- 
 ing with Tim,on of Athens^ in wliich Shakspere embodied 
 his ripest experience of life. In the historical plays the 
 question which inevitably comes forward again and again 
 is thiSj " By what means shall a man attain the noblest 
 practical success in the objective world?" In the great 
 tragediies the problem is a spiritual one. It is still the 
 problem of failure and success. But in these tragedies 
 success means not any practical achievement in the world, 
 but the perfected life of the soul ; and failure means the 
 ruin of the life of a soul through passion or weakness, 
 tlirongh calamity or crime. 
 
 The liistorical plays lead up to Henry V., in the chro- 
 liological succession of Shakspere's plays the last of the 
 series. The tragedies lead up to The Tempest, -which 
 closes Shakspere's entire career as dramatist. Gervinus 
 lias spoken of King Henry V. as if he were Shakspere's 
 ideal of highest manhood, and other critics liave assented 
 to this opinion. It is an opinion which, stated in an un- 
 qualified way, must be set aside as not warranted by the 
 
66 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 facts of Shakspere's dramas. But it is clear and unques- 
 tionable that King Henry V. is Sliakspere's ideal of the 
 practical heroic character. He is tlie king who will not 
 fail. He will not fail as the saintly Henry YI. failed, 
 nor as Eichard II. failed, a hectic, self-indulgent nature, 
 a mockery king of pageantry and sentiment arid rheto- 
 ric ; nor will he only partially succeed by pnidential de- 
 vices, and stratagems and crimes, like his father, " great 
 Bolingbroke." The success of Henry V. will be sound 
 throughout, and it will be complete. With his glorious 
 practical virtues, his courage, his integrity, his unfalter- 
 ing justice, his hearty English warmth, his modesty, his 
 love of plainness rather than of pageantry, his joyous 
 temper, his business-like English piety, Henry is indeed 
 the ideal of the king who must attain a success complete, 
 and thoroughly real and sound. 
 
 But is this practical, positive, efficient character, with 
 his soldier-like piety and his jolly fashion of wooing, is 
 this the highest ideal of our supreme poet ? Is this the 
 highest ideal of Shakspere, who lived and moved and had 
 his being not alone in the world of limitation, of tangible, 
 positive fact, but also in a world of the soul, a world open- 
 ing into two endless vistas — the vista of meditation and 
 the vista of passioii ? Assuredly it is not so. We turn to 
 the great tragedies, and what do we there discover ? In 
 these Shakspere is engaged in a series of studies not con- 
 cerning success in the mastery of events and things, but 
 concerning the higher success and the more awful failure 
 which appear in the exaltation or the ruin of a soul. 
 This with Shakspere is the true theme of tragedy. Hav- 
 ing exhibited various calamity overtaking the being and 
 essential life of man — calamity commonly arising from 
 flaws of character which disclose themselves and become 
 formidable in the test of circumstances ; having shown in 
 Macbeth, in Antony, in Othello, in Coriolanus the ruin of 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind and A rt. 6 7 
 
 character in greater or less degree, Shale spere represented 
 absolute, overwhehning, irretrievable ruin in Timon of 
 Athens, a play written probably not long before the Tem- 
 pest. And, after exhibiting the absolute ruin of a life 
 and of a soul,'Shakspere closed the wonderful series of 
 his dramatic writings by exhibiting the noblest elevation 
 of character, the most admirable attainment of heart, of 
 intellect, of will, which our present life admits, in the per- 
 son of Prospero. What more was left for Shakspere to 
 say? Is it so very strange that he accepted. as a good 
 possession the calm energy of his Stratford life, having 
 at last wholly liberated his mind ? 
 
 Shakspere, when he had completed his English histor- 
 ical plays, needed rest for his imagination ; and in such 
 a mood, craving refreshment and recreation, he wrote his 
 play of As You Like It. To understand the spirit of this 
 play, we must bear in mind that it was written immedi- 
 ately after Shakspere's great series of histories, ending 
 with Henry V. (1599), and before he began the great se- 
 ries of tragedies. Shakspere turned with a. sense of re- 
 lief, and a long easeful sigh, from the oppressive subjects 
 of history, so grave, so real, so massive, and found rest 
 and freedom and pleasure in escape from courts and 
 camps to the Forest of Arden : 
 
 " Who doth ambition shun. 
 And loves tp live i' the sun, 
 
 Come hither, come hither, come hither." 
 
 In somewhat the same spirit, needing relief for an over- 
 strained imagination, he wrote his other pastoral drama. 
 The Winter's Tale, immediately, or almost immediately, 
 after Timon of Athens. In such a case he chose a grace- 
 ful story, in great part made ready to his hand, from 
 among the prose writings of his early contemporaries, 
 Thomas Lodge and Kobert Greene. Like the banished 
 Duke, Shakspere himself found the forest life of Arden 
 
68 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 more sweet than that of painted pomp ; a life " exempt 
 from public haunt," in a quiet retreat, where for turbu- 
 lent citizens, the deer, "poor dappled fools," are the only- 
 native burghers. 
 
 The play has been represented bj' one of its recent 
 editors as an early attempt made by the poet to control 
 the dark spirit of melancholy in himself " by thinking it 
 away." The characters of the banished Duke, of Orlan^ 
 d6, of Eosalind, are desci'ibed as three gradations of cheer- 
 fulness in adversity, with Jaques placed over them in de- 
 sighed contrast.* But no real adversity has come to any 
 one of them. Shakspere, when he put into the Duke's 
 mouth the words "Sweet are the uses of adversity," 
 knew something of deeper affliction than a life in the 
 golden leisure of Ardeii. Of real melancholy there is 
 none in the play; for the melanclioly of Jaques is not 
 grave and earnest, but sentimental, a self-indulgent hu- 
 mor, a petted foible of character, melancholy prepense 
 and cultivated ; " it is a melancholy of mine own, com- 
 pounded of many simples, extracted from many objects ; 
 and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in 
 which my often rumination wraps me in a most humor- 
 ous sadness." The Duke declares that Jaqu€s has been 
 " a libertine, as sensual as the brutish sting itself ;" but 
 the Duke is unable to understand such a character as that 
 of Jaques.f Jaques has been no more than a curious 
 experimenter in libertinism, for the sake of adding an ex- 
 perience of madness and folly to the store of various su- 
 perficial experiences which constitute his unpractical fool- 
 ery of wisdom. The haunts of sin have been visited as 
 
 * As You like It, edited by the Rev. C. E. Mobeily (1872), pp. 7-9. 
 
 f The Duke accordingly repels Jaques. "Jaques. I have been all this 
 day to avoid him ; he is too disputable for my company ; I think of as many 
 matters as he, but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." 
 
Growth of Skakspere s Mind and Art. 69 
 
 a part of his travel. By-and-by he will go to the usurping 
 Duke, who has put on a i-eligious life, because 
 
 " Out of these convertites 
 There is much matter to be heard and learn'd." 
 
 Jaques died, we kuow not how or when or where ; 
 but he came to life again a century later, and appeared 
 in the world as an English clergyman. We need stand in 
 no doubt as to his character, for we all know him under 
 his later name of Lawrence Sterne. Mr. Yorick made 
 a mistake about his family tree ; he came not out of the 
 play of Hamlet, but out of As You Like It. In Arden 
 he wept and moralized over the wounded deer ; and at 
 Namport his tears and sentiment gushed forth for the 
 dead donkey. Jaques knows no bonds that unite him 
 to any living thing. He lives upon novel, curious, and 
 delicate sensations. He seeks the delicious imprevu so 
 loved and studiously sought for by that perfected French 
 egoist, Henri Beyle. "A foal ! a fool ! I met a fool i' 
 the forest !"^and in the delight of coming upon this ex- 
 quisite surprise, Jaques laughs lilce chanticleer, 
 
 " Sans intermission 
 An hour, by liis dial," ,. 
 
 His whole life is unsubstantial and unreal, a curiosity 
 of dainty mockery. To him "all the world 's a stage, 
 and all the men and women merely players;" to him 
 sentiment stands in place of passion ; an aesthetic, ama- 
 teurish experience of various modes of life stands in place 
 of practical wisdom, .and words in place of deeds. 
 
 " He fatigues me," wrote our earnest and sensitive 
 Thackeray of the Jaques of English literature, " with 
 his perpetual disquiet and his uneasy appeals to my risi- 
 ble or. sentimental faculties. He is always looking in 
 my face, watching his effect, uncertain whether I think 
 him an impostor or not; posture -making, coaxing, and 
 imploring me. ' See what sensibility I have — own now 
 
70 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 that I'm very clever — do cry now, you can't resist this.' " 
 Yes; for Jaques was at his best in the Forest of Arden, 
 and was a little spoiled by preaching weekly sermons, 
 and by writing so long a caprice as his " Tristram Shan- 
 dy." Shakspere has given us just enough of Jaques, 
 and not too much ; and, in his nudogmatic, artistic, ten- 
 der, playful, and yet earnest manner, upon Jaques Shak- 
 spere has pronounced judgment. Falstaff supposed that, 
 by infinite play of wit, and inexhaustible resource of a 
 genius creative of splendid mendacity, he could corus- 
 cate away the facts of life, and always remain master of 
 the situation by giving it a clever turn in the idea, or by 
 playing over it with an arabesque of arch waggery. 
 
 " I know thee not, old man ; fall to thy prayers ; 
 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester !" 
 
 That was the terrible incursion of fact. Sudi words as 
 tliese, coming from the lips of a man who had an uner- 
 ring perception and an unfaltering grasp of the fact, were 
 more than words — they were a deed, which FalstafE the 
 unsubduable, with all his wit, could not coruscate away. 
 " By my troth, he'll yield tl»e crow a pudding one of 
 these days ; the king has kill'd his heart." Jaques, in 
 his own way, supposes that he can dispense with' realities. 
 The world, not as it is, but as it mirrors itself in his own 
 mind, which gives to each object a humorous distortion — 
 this is what alone interests Jaques. Shakspere would 
 say to us, " This egoistic, contemplative, unreal manner 
 of treating life is only a delicate kind of foolery. Eeal 
 knowledge of life can never be acquired by the curious 
 seeker for experiences." But this Shakspere says in his 
 non-hortatory, undogmatie way. 
 
 Upon the whole. As You Like It is the sweetest and 
 happiest of all Shakspere's comedies. No one suflfei-s; 
 no one lives an eager intense life ; there is no tragic in- 
 terest in it as there is in The Merchant of Venice as 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind tind Art. ji 
 
 there is in Miich Ado about Nothing. It is mirthful, 
 but the mirth is sprightly, graceful, exquisite ; there is 
 none of the rollicking fun of a Sir Toby here ; the songs 
 are not "coziers' catches" shouted in the night-time, 
 " without any mitigation or remorse of voice," but the 
 solos and duets of pages in the wild-wood, or the noisier 
 chorus of foresters. The wit of Touchstone is not mere 
 clownage, nor has it any indirect serious significances ; it 
 is a dainty kind of absurdity worthy to hold comparison 
 with the melancholy of Jaques. And Orlando, in the 
 beauty and strength of early manhood, and Kosalind — 
 
 " A gallant curtle-axe upon ber thigh, 
 A boar-spear in lier hand," 
 
 and the bright, tender, loyal womanhood within — are fig- 
 ures which quicken and restore our spirits, as music does 
 which is neither noisy nor superficial, and yet which 
 knows little of the deep passion and sorrow of the world. 
 Shakspere, when he wrote this idyllic play, was him- 
 self in his Forest of Arden. He- had ended one great 
 ambition — the historical plays — and not yet commenced 
 his tragedies. It was a resting-place. He sends his im- 
 agination into the woods to find repose. Instead of the 
 courts and camps of England and the embattled plains of 
 France, here was this woodland scene, where the palm- / 
 tree, the lioness, and the serpent are to be found ; pos- 1 
 sessed of a flora and fauna that flourish in spite of phys- 1 
 ical geographers. There is an open-air feeling throughout 
 the play. The dialogue, as has been observed, catches 
 freedom and freshness from the atmosphere. " Never is 
 the scene within-doors, except when something discord- 
 ant is introduced to heighten, as it were, the harmony." * 
 After the trumpet-tones of Henry V. comes the sweet 
 pastoral strain, so bright, so tender. Must it not be all 
 
 * C. A. Brown, " Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems," p. 283. 
 
7 2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 in keeping ? Shakspere was not trying to control Lis 
 melancholy. When he needed to do that, Shakspere con- 
 fronted his melancholy very passionately, and looked it 
 full in the face. Here he needed refreshment, a sunlight 
 tempered by f orest-bonghs, a breeze npon his forehead, a 
 stream murmuring in his ears.* 
 
 Gf the group of comedies which belong to this period, 
 the two latest in date are ^vahnikA-y Measwre for Measure 
 and AU 's Well that Ends Well. When the former of these 
 plays was written, -Shakspere was evidently bidding fare- 
 well to mirth. Its significance is grave and earnest ; the 
 humorous scenes would be altogether repulsive were it 
 not that they are needed to present, without disguise or 
 extenuation, tlie world of moi'al license and corruption 
 out of and above which rise the virginal strength aiid se- 
 verity and beauty of Isabella. At the entrance to the 
 dark and dangerous tragic world into which Shakspere 
 was now about to pass stand the figures of Isabella and 
 of Helena^— one the embodiment of conscience, the other 
 the embodiment of will. Isabella is the only one of Shak-r 
 spere's women whose heart and eyes are fixed upon an 
 impersonal ideal, to whom something abstract is more, in 
 the ardor and energy of her youth, than any human per- 
 sonality. Out of this Vienna, in which 
 
 " Corruption boils and bubbles 
 Till it o'errun the stew," 
 
 * Hebler writes oi As Ymt Like It : " Eg ist eine Waldcur fur Hofleute, 
 die zum Gliick mit heutigen Bad- odcrLuftouren das gemein hat, dass viele 
 Gesunde dabei sind. Sovor Allen Orlando und Rosalinde, fiir welohe beidc 
 die Cur keine andere Bedeutung hat, als ihre Liebc auf die lieblichste WeiSc 
 zur Erscheinung und Eeife zu bringen, wahrend das voriibergehend Bedenk- 
 liehe ihfer Lage den Alles, selbst die Liebe noch, verschonenden Gotter- 
 funken dea Humors hervorlockt. Daneben der Contrast der blosaen lieben 
 Natur in dem Schaf erparchen, und die heitere Parodie des idyllischen Hof- 
 lebens in der Heirath des Narreh mit einem Landmadchen, wahrend der Bla- 
 sii-fo (Jaques) aueh der frisehesten Natur seine eigene Farbe ankrankelt." 
 — " Aufsatze iiber Shakespeare," p. 195. 
 
Growth of Shaksperis Mind and Art. 73 
 
 emerges this pure zeal, this rectitude of will, this virgin 
 sanctity. Isabella's saintliness is not of the passive, tim- 
 orous, or merely meditative kind. It is an active pursuit 
 of holiness through exercise and discipline. She knows 
 nothing of a Manichasan hatred of the body ; the life 
 runs strongly and gladly in her veins ; simply her soul 
 is set upon things belonging to the soul, and uses the body 
 for its own purposes. And that the life of the soul may 
 be invigorated, she would bring every unruly thought 
 into captivity, " having in a readiness to revenge all dis- 
 obedience." 
 
 " Isab. And have you nuns no farther privileges ? 
 Tran. Are these not large enough ? 
 hah. Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more ; 
 But rather wishing a more strict restraint 
 Upon the sisterhood." 
 
 This severity of Isabella proceeds from no real turning- 
 away, on her part, from the joys and hopes of woman- 
 hood ; her brother, her schoolfellow Julia, the memory 
 of her father, are precious to her. Her severity is only a 
 portion of the vital energy of her heart. Living actively, 
 she must live purely ; and to her the cloister is looked 
 upon as the place where her energy can spend itself in 
 stern efforts towards ideal objects. Bodily suffering is 
 bodily suffering to Isabella, whose "cheek-roses" pro- 
 claim her physical health and vigor ; but bodily suffer- 
 ing is swallowed up in the joy of quietened spiritual 
 existence : 
 
 " Were I under the terms of death, 
 The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, 
 And strip myself to death, as to a bed 
 That longing have been sick for ere I'd yield 
 My body up to shame." 
 
 And as she had strength to accept pain and death for 
 lierself rather than dishonor, so she can resolutely accept 
 pain and death for those who are dearest to her. "When 
 
 4 
 
74 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Claudio falters back dismayed from the immediate pros- 
 pect of the grave, Isabella utters her piteous " Alas, alas !" 
 to perceive the tenderness and timorousness of his spirit ; 
 but when he faintly invites her to yield herself to shame 
 for his sake, she severs herself with indignation, not from 
 her brother, not from Claudio, but from this disgrace of 
 manhood in her brother's form — this treason aga;inst 
 fidelity of the heart : 
 
 " 0, you beast ! 
 0, faithless coward ! 0, dishonest wretch ! 
 Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice ? 
 
 Take my defiance ! 
 Die; perish!" 
 
 Isabella does not return to the sisterhood of Saint 
 Clare. Putting aside from her the dress of religion, and 
 the strict conventual rule, she accepts her place as Duch- 
 ess of Vienna. In this there is no dropping-away, through 
 love of pleasure or through snpineness, from her ideal ; 
 it is entirely meet and right. She has learned that in 
 the world may be found a discipline more strict, more 
 awful, than the discipline of the convent; she has learned 
 that the world has need of her. Her life is still a conse- 
 crated life ; the vital energy of her heart can exert and 
 augment itself through glad and faithful wifehood, and 
 through noble station, more fully than in seclusion. To 
 preside over this polluted and feculent Vienna is the 
 office and charge of Isabella, " a thing ensky'd and saint- 
 ed:" 
 
 " Spirits are not finely touch'd 
 But to fine issues ; nor Nature never lends 
 The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 Herself the glory of a creditor — 
 Both thanks and use." * 
 
 * Measure for Measure, act i., sc. 1. 
 
Growth of Shaksperes Mind and Art. 75 
 
 In All 's Well that Ends Well, a subject of extreme diffi- 
 culty, when regarded on tlie ethical side, was treated by 
 Shakspere with a full consciousness of its difficulty.* A 
 woman who seeks her husband, and gains him against hia 
 will; who afterwards by a fraud — a fraud however pious 
 — defeats his intention of estranging her, and becomes 
 the mother of his child ; such a personage it would seem 
 a sufficiently difficult task to reuder attractive or admi- 
 rable. Yet Helena has been named by Coleridge " the 
 loveliest of Shakspere's characters." Possibly Coleridge 
 recognized in Helena the single quality which, if brought 
 to bear upon himself by one to whom he yielded love 
 and worship, would have given definiteness and energy 
 
 * Years wide apart have been assigned for the date of All 's Well that Ends 
 Well. Mr. Fleay believes that it was written at two different periods, and 
 that the play contains early and later work, which he endeavors to separate. 
 His date for the completed play is 1602. H. von Friesen is also of opinion 
 that this is one of Shakspere's earliest plays, and was afterwards rehandled. 
 See Slmkespeare-Jahrlmch, vol. ii., pp. 48-54. So also Gervinus. (H. von 
 Friesen observes resemblances of style to the Duke's speeches in Measure 
 for Measure ; and Professor Karl Elze points out various parallels to pas- 
 sages in Harrdei. Sliakespeare-Jahrhuch, vol. vii., pp. 235, 236.) Delius, whose 
 opinion on such a matter must be regarded as weighty, pronounces the style 
 and the verse thrcmghaui to be different in their characteristic peculiarities 
 from those of Shakspere's early plays. Professor Hertzberg assigns the 
 date 1603 ; and he expressly denies that an early and later style are observ- 
 able in the play. " Man muss eingestehen, dass die metrischen wie stili- 
 stischen Eigenthiimlichkeiton sich gleichmassig auf das ganze Gedicht er- 
 strocken und es durchaus als aus einem Guss gearbeitet erscheinen lassen. 
 Wenn also diese Characterzuge eiuer spatereu Periode, als einer zweiten 
 ' Textesrecension ' entsprungen sein sollten, so mtisste man annohmen, dass 
 der'Dichter mit Absicht von Anfang bis zu Ende seinen klaren Ausdruck 
 angedunkelt, den einfachen Satzbau verwickelt und die regelmassigen und 
 glatten Terse anomal und holprig gemacht habe. Dies kann Niemand an- 
 nehmcn." Hertzberg rejects the opinion that AU 's Well is the play (in an 
 earlier form) mentioned by Meres as "Love's Labor 's Won." Hertzberg con- 
 "tfnds that Love's Labor 's Won was the Taming of the Shrew. Kreyssig con- 
 nects All '« Well (the subdual of husband by wife) with the Shrew (the 
 ,;^bdual of wife by husband). 
 
76 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 to bis sonievvliat vague and incoherent life. For sake of 
 this one thing Shakspere was interested in the story, and 
 so admirable did it seem, to him that he could not choose 
 but endeavor to make beautiful and noble the entire char- 
 acter and action of Helena. This one thing is the en- 
 ergy, the leap-up, the direct advance of the will of Hel- 
 ena, her prompt, uiierroneous tendency towards the right 
 and efficient deed. She does not display herself through 
 her words ; she does not, except on rarest occasions, allow 
 her feelings to expand and deploy themselves ; her entire 
 force of character is concentrated in what she does. And 
 therefore we see her quite as much indirectly, through 
 the effect which she has produced upon other persons of 
 the drama, as through self-confession or immediate pres- 
 entation of her character. 
 
 A motto for the play may be found in the words ut- 
 tered with pious astonishment by the clown, when his 
 mistress bids him to begone, " That man should be at 
 woman's command, and yet no hurt done." Helena is 
 the providence of the play ; and there is " no hurt done," 
 but rather healing — healing of the body of the French 
 king, healing of the spirit of the man she loves.* For 
 Bertram, when the story begins, though endowed with 
 beauty and bravery and the advantages (and disadvan- 
 tages) of rank, is in character, in heart, in will, a crude, 
 ungracious boy. Helena loves him, and sets him, in her 
 love, above herself, the poor physician's daughter, out of 
 her sphere : 
 
 " 'Twere all oue 
 That I should love a bright, particular star 
 And think to wed it, lie is so above me." 
 
 She loves him thus, but (if love can be conceived as 
 
 * " Nicht nur am Konige, sondern auch an Bertram voUbringt sie eine 
 gliickliche Heilung." — Professor Karl Elze, SImkespeare-Jahrhuch, vol. vii., 
 p. 222. 
 
Growth of Skakspere's Mind and Art. 77 
 
 distinct from liking) she does not wholly like hira. She 
 admits to herself that in worship of Bertram there is a 
 certain fatuousness — 
 
 " Now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy 
 Must sanctify his reliques." 
 
 She sees from the first that the friend of his choice, the 
 French captain, is " a notorious liar," " solely a coward," 
 " a great way fool ;" she trembles for what Bertram may 
 learn at the court. 
 
 " God send him well ! 
 The court's a learning place ; and he is one — 
 Parol. What one i' faith ? 
 Hd. That I wish well." 
 
 Yet she sees in Bertram a potential nobleness waiting to 
 be evoked. And her will leaps forward to help him. 
 Now she loves him — loves him with devotion which 
 comes from a consciousness that she can confer much ; 
 and she will form him so that one day she shall like him 
 also. 
 
 " Hd. 'Tis pity. 
 
 Parol. What's pity ? 
 
 Hd. That wishing well had not a body in't, 
 Which might be felt ; that we, the poorer born, 
 Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes, 
 Might with effects of them follow our friends. 
 And show what we alone must think." 
 
 But the " wishing well " of such a woman as Helena has 
 indeed a sensible and apprehensible body in it. With a 
 sacred boldness she assumes a command over Bertram's 
 fate and her own. She cannot believe in the piety of 
 resignation or passiveness, in the religious duty of letting 
 things drift ; rather, she linds in the love which prompts 
 her a true mandate from above, and a veritable providen- 
 tial power : 
 
 " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie 
 Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky 
 
78 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Gives ns free scope, only doth backward pull 
 Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. 
 What power is it that mounts my love so high?" 
 
 Helena goes forth, encouraged by her mistress, the 
 mother of the man she seeks to win ; goes forth to gain 
 her husband, to allay her own need of service to him, to 
 impose herself on Bertram as the blessing that he requires. 
 All this Helena does openly, with perfect courage. She 
 does not conceal her love from the Countess ; she does 
 not for a moment dream of stealing after Bertram in 
 man's attire. It is the most impulsively or the most deli- 
 cately and exquisitely feminine of Shakspere's women 
 whom he delights to disguise in the "garnish of a boy" 
 — Julia, with her hair knit np " in twenty odd-conceited 
 true-love knots;" Eosalind, the gallant curtle-axe upon 
 her thigh ; Viola, the sweet-voiced, in whom " all is sem- 
 blative a woman's part ;" Jessica, for whose transforma- 
 tion Cupid himself would blush ; Portia, the wise young 
 judge, so poignantly feminine in her gifts of intellect 
 and heart ; Imogen, who steps into the cavern's mouth 
 with the advanced sword in a slender and trembling 
 hand. In Helena there is so much solidity and strength 
 of character that we feel she would be enfeebled by any 
 male disguise which might complicate the impression 
 produced by her plain womanhood. There could be no 
 charm in presenting as a pretender to male courage one 
 who was actually courageous as a man. 
 
 But throughout, while Helena is abundantly coura- 
 geous, Shakspere intends that she shall at no moment 
 appear unwomanly. In offering herself to Bertram, she 
 first discloses her real feeling by words addressed to one 
 of the young lords, from among whom it is granted her 
 to choose a husband : 
 
 " Be not afraid that I your hand should take ; 
 I'll never do you wrong for your own sake." 
 
Growth of Shakspere^s Mind and Art. 79 
 
 Only witli Bertram she would venture on the bold ex- 
 periment of wronging him for his own sake. The experi- 
 ment, indeed, does not at first seem to succeed. Helena 
 is wedded to Bertram ; she has laid her will without re- 
 serve in her husband's hands ; she had desired to sur- 
 render all to him, for his good, and she has surrendered 
 all. But Bertram does not find this providential super- 
 intendence of his affairs of the heart altogether to his 
 taste; and in company with Parolles he flies from his 
 wife's presence to the Ita,lian war. Upon reading the 
 concise and cruel letter in which Bertram has declared 
 the finality of his separation from her, Helena does not 
 faint, nor does she break forth into bitter lamentatiou. 
 " This is a dreadful sentence," " 'Tis bitter." Thus, prun- 
 ing her words, Helena controls " the thoughts which swelK 
 and throng" over her, until they condense themselves into 
 one strong pni'pose. She will leave her mother, leave 
 her home; and when she is gone and forgotten, Bertram 
 will return from hardship and danger. But she would 
 fain see him ; and if anything can still be done, she will 
 do that thing. 
 
 The mode by which Helena succeeds in accomplishing 
 the conditions upon which Bertram has promised to ac- 
 knowledge her as his wife seems indeed hardly to pos- 
 sess any moral force, any validity for the heart or the con- 
 science. It can only be said, in explanation, that to Hel- 
 ena an infinite virtue and significance resides in a deed. 
 Out of a woi'd or out of a feeling she does not hope for 
 measureless good to come ; but out of a deed, what may 
 not come? That Bertram should actually have received 
 her as his wife, actually, though unwittingly ; that he 
 should indeed be father of the child she bears him — these 
 are facts, accomplished things, which must work out some 
 real advantage. And now Bertram has learned his need 
 of self-distrust, perhaps has learned true modesty. His 
 
So Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 friend (who was all vain words apart from deeds) has 
 been unmasked and pitilessly exposed. May not Ber- 
 tram now be capable of estimating the worth of things 
 and of persons more justly ? Helena, in taking the place 
 of Diana, in beguiling her husband into at least material 
 virtue, is still " doing him wrong, for his own sake." The 
 man is "at woman's command," and there is "no hurt 
 done." 
 
 Even at the last, Bertram's attainment is but small; he 
 is still no more than a potential piece of worthy man- 
 hood. We cannot suppose that Shakspere has represent- 
 ed him thus without a pui-pose. Does not the poet wish 
 us to feel that although much remains to be wrought in 
 Bertram, his welfare is now assured? The courageous 
 title of the play, AU 's Well that Ends Well, is like an ut- 
 terance of the heart of Helena, who has strength and en- 
 durance to attain the end, and who will measure things, 
 not by the pains and trials of the way, not by the du- 
 bious and diiBcult means, but by that end, by the accom- 
 plished issue. We need not, therefore, concern ourselves 
 any longer about Bertram ; he is safe in the hands of 
 Helena; she will fashion him as he should be fashioned. 
 Bertram is at length delivered from the snares and de- 
 lusions which beset his years of haughty ignorance and 
 dulness of the heart ; he is doubly won by Helena ; there- 
 fore he cannot wander far, therefore he cannot finally be 
 lost.* 
 
 The changes of type which took place in the promi- 
 nent female characters of Shakspere's plays as the poet 
 
 * On this play consult Professor Karl Elze's article in Shakespears-JaJa-- 
 buch, vol. vii., and preface by Hertzbcrg in the German Shakespeare Society's 
 edition of Schlegel and Tieck's translation of Shakspere, vol. xi. Hertzberg j 
 maintains that love of Lafeu's daughter is a motive of Bertram's rejection #• 
 of Helena. But see Elze's reply in the above-mentioned article, p. 226. .f 
 
 f 
 
Growth of Shaksper^ s Mind and Art. 8 1 
 
 passed from youth to manhood, and from early manhood 
 to riper maturity, would form an interesting subject for 
 detailed study. The emotional women of the early plays, 
 if not turbulent and aggressive, are still deficient in del- 
 icacy of heart, in refinement of instinct, impulse, and 
 habit. The intellectual women, who stand by the side 
 of these, are bright and clever, but over-confident, for- 
 ward, or defiant. In the early historical plays appear 
 terrible female forms — women whose ambitions have 
 been foiled, whose hearts have been torn and crushed, 
 who are filled with fierce sorrow, passionate indignation, 
 a thirst for revenge. Such are the Duchess of Gloster, 
 Margaret of Anjou, Queen Elinor, Constance. As com- 
 edy succeeds comedy, the female characters become more 
 complex, more subtle, more exquisite. Eosaline's flout- 
 ing of Berowne becomes Eosalind's arch mockery of 
 Orlando, or the sportive contests of Beatrice with Ben- 
 edick. In Portia, of The Merchant of Venice, intellect 
 and emotions play into one another with exquisite swift- 
 ness, brightness, and vital warmth. 
 
 Just at the close of the period which gave birth to 
 Shakspere's most joyous comedies, and at the entrance 
 to the tragic period, appear types of female character 
 which are distinguished by some single element of pe- 
 culiar strength — Helena, Isabella, Portia of Julius Cossar 
 (type of perfect womanly heroism, yet environed by the 
 weakness of her sex) ; and over against these are studies 
 of feminine incapacity or ignobleness — Ophelia, Ger- 
 trude, Cressida. It is as if Shakspere at this time need- 
 ed some one strong, outstanding excellence to grasp and 
 steady himself by, and had lost his delight in the even 
 harmony of character which suits us, and bi'ings us joy 
 when we make no single, urgent, and peculiar demand 
 for help. Next follow the tragic figures — Desdemona, 
 the invincible loyalty of wifehood; Cordelia, the invin- 
 
 4* 
 
82 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 cibJe filial loyalty — sacrificial lives, which are offered 
 up, and which sanctify the earth; lives which fall in the 
 strife with evil, and which, falling, achieve their victo- 
 ries of love. And as these make the world beautiful and 
 sacred, even while they leave it strange and soiTowful,60 
 over against them appear the destroyers of life — Lady 
 Macbeth and the monsters Goneril, Kegan. 
 
 Finally, in Shakspere's latest plays appear, upon the 
 one hand, the figures of the great sufferers — calm, self- 
 possessed, much-enduring ; free from self-partiality, un- 
 just resentment, and the passion of revenge — Queen 
 Katharine, Hermione ; and, on the other hand, are ex- 
 quisite girlisli figures, children who have known no sor- 
 row, over whoia is shed a magical beauty, an ideal light, 
 while above them Shakspere is seen, as it were, bowing 
 tenderly — Miranda, Perdita. How great a distance has 
 been traversed ! Instead of the terrible Margaret of 
 Anjou, wo have here Queen Katharine. Sliakspere in 
 liis early period would have found cold, and without 
 suitability for the purposes of art, Katharine's patience, 
 reserve, and equilibrium of soul. Instead of Rosaline, 
 here is Perdita. A death-bed, glorious with a vision of 
 angels, and the exquisite dawn of a young girl's life — 
 these are the two last things on which the ima<rination 
 of the poet cared to dwell affectionately and long. 
 
 Here, for the present, we may pause. We have glanced 
 at the growth of Shakspere's mind and art as far onward 
 MS the opening of the period of the great tragedies. "What 
 Sliakspere gained of insight and of strength during that 
 period a subsequent chapter will attempt to tell.* 
 
 * I am unwilling to offer any criticism of the play of Ti-oilvs and Cresni- 
 da until I see my way more clearly through certain difficulties respecting its 
 date and its ethical significance. Mr. Fleay believes that three stories can 
 be distinguished — (1) Troilus and CreSsida; (2) Hector; (3) Ajax, Ulysses, 
 
Growth of Skaksperes Mind and Art. 83 
 
 and the Greek Camp ; and that these stories were written at different pe- 
 riods. (See Trans. New Sh. Soc.) Mr. Furnivall says, "That there are two 
 parts, an early and a late, I do not doubt." Hertzberg assigns the date 
 1603. ' See his valuable preface in the German Shakespeare Society's edi- 
 tion of Tieck and Schlegel's translation of Shakspere, toI. xi., and on the 
 sources of the play his article in Skakespeare-Jahrbuch, vol. vi. ; also, in vol. 
 iii., the article by Karl Eitner. Hertzberg believes that the play remained 
 unprinted and unacted until 1609. Ulrici's article on Troiltis and Cressida 
 in SImkespeare-Jahrbuch, vol. ix., makes it clear-that the play belongs rather 
 to comedy than tragedy. This article may be consulted (as well as Hertz- 
 berg's preface) on the questions raised by the concluding lines of the diffi- 
 cult epilogue by Pandarus. 
 
 So far was written in 18T5 ; but since then I have come to understand in 
 some degree, I believe, the significance of this difficult play. (See anfe, pref- 
 ace to the third edition.) 
 
84 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FIEST AND SECOND TKAGEDY ." EOMEO AND JULIET ; 
 HAMLET. 
 
 DuEiNa the first ten years of Shakspere's dramatic ca- 
 reer he wrote quickly, producing (if we suppose that he 
 commenced authorship in 1590, at the age of twenty- 
 six), on an average, about two plays in each year. These 
 eighteen or twenty plays written between 1590 and 1600 
 include some eight or nine comedies, and the whole of 
 the great series of English historical dramas, which, when 
 Henry V. was written, Shakspere probably looked upon 
 as complete. To this field he did not return, except in 
 one instance, when it would seem that a portion of a play 
 on the subject of Henry VIII. was written, and, while 
 still incomplete, was handed over, on some special occa- 
 sion, to the dramatist Fletcher to expand from three acts 
 into five. In the first decade of Shakspere's authorship 
 (if we set aside Titus Andronious as the work of an un- 
 known writer), a single tragedy appears — Romeo and 
 Juliet. This play is believed to have engaged Shak- 
 spere's attention during a number of years. Dissatisfied, 
 probably, with the first form which it assumed, Shak- 
 spere worked upon the play again, rewriting and enlarg- 
 ing it* But it is not unlikely that even then he con- 
 
 * The opinion of Mr. Rieliard Grant White deserves to be stated. It is 
 " that the Romeo and Juliet which has come down to us (for there may have 
 been an antecedent play upon the same story) was first written [in 1591] 
 
Romeo and Juliet. 85 
 
 eidered his powers to be insufficiently matured for the 
 great dealing, as artist, with human life and passion 
 which tragedy demands ; for, having written Romeo and 
 Juliet, Shakspere returned to the histories, in which, 
 doubtless, he was aware that he was receiving the best 
 possible culture for future tragedy; and he wrote the 
 little group of comedies in which Shaksperian mirth 
 obtains its highest and most complete expression. Then, 
 after an interval of about five years, a second tragedy, 
 Hamlet, was produced. Over Hamlet, as over Romeo 
 and Juliet, it is supposed that Shakspere labored long 
 and carefully. Like Romeo and Juliet, the play exists 
 in two forms, and there is reason to believe that in the 
 earlier form in each instance we possess an imperfect 
 report of Shakspere's first treatment of his theme.* 
 
 It may be thought paradoxical to infer from the ab- 
 sence of tragedy in the earlier years of Shakspere's dra- 
 matic career, that he looked upon the writing of tragedy 
 as his chief vocation as author ; yet the inference is not 
 unconfirmed by facts in Shakspere's subsequent career. 
 Almost from the first it would appear that he had before 
 him the design of Rom£o and Juliet. When, after five 
 or six years, it was actually accomplished, there still ap- 
 
 by two or more playwrights, of whom Shakspere was one ; that subsequent- 
 ly [in 1696] Shakspere rewrote this old play, of which he was part author, 
 making his principal changes in thepassages which were contributed by his 
 co-laborers." Mr. White believes the first quarto of Romeo and Juliet to 
 be an imperfect and garbled copy, obtained by the aid of a reporter, of 
 Shakspere's new work, the defects of which were supplied partly by some 
 verse-mongers of the day, and partly from the old play in the composition 
 of which Shakspere was one of two or more co-laborers. 
 
 * The editors of the Cambridge Shakspere believe that there was an old 
 play on the subject of Hamlet, " some portions of which are still preserved 
 in the quarto of 1603." For various bits of evidence (some good, some 
 bad) to prove that the text of this quarto was obtained orally, and not direct- 
 Iv from a manuscript, see Tschischwitz's "Shakspere-Forschungen — I. Ham- 
 let," pp. 10-14. 
 
86 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 peared in the play unmistakable marks of immature judg- 
 ment. Sliakspere accordingly, who in his histories had 
 abundance of work planned ont for him, wisely abstained 
 for some time further from writing tragedy. Bnt as soon 
 as Hamlet was completed, and it became a demonstrated 
 fact to the poet that he had attained his full maturity, 
 and was master of his craft, then he no longer hesitated 
 or delayed ; and year by year, from 1602 to 1612, he add- 
 ed to the great roll of his tragedies, accomplishing in 
 those years, by sustained energy of heart and imagina- 
 tion, as marvellous a feat of authorship as the world has 
 seen. 
 
 "When Shakspere began to write for the stage, as was 
 noticed in the preceding chapter, he was by no means 
 misled by self-confidence. He began cantiously and ten- 
 tatively, feeling his way- And there was one cause 
 which might reasonably make him timid in the direc- 
 tion of tragedy. Shakspere, at the age of twenty-six, 
 was not afraid to compete with contemporary writers in 
 comedy and history. He co-opei'ated, it may be, in the 
 writing of historical plays. The First Part of the Conten- 
 tion and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Ywlce, 
 at an early age ; and afterwards by revision and addition 
 made these plays still more his own.* But the depart- 
 ment of tragedy was dominated by a writer of superb 
 genius, Christopher Marlowe. Shakspere, whose powers 
 ripened slowly, may, at the time when he wrote The Com- 
 edy of Errors and Lovis Labor ^sLost, have well hesitated 
 to dispute with Marlowe his special province. Imitators 
 
 * The latest study of 2 and 3 Henry VI. and the relation of these to 37i« 
 Cmtieniion and Tt-ue Tragedie is the admirably careful essay by Miss Jane 
 Lee, Traus. New Sh. Soc, \%K-16. The opinion arrived at by Miss Lee is 
 that in 2 and 3 Henry VI. Shakspere and Marlowe are revisers of work by 
 Marlowe, Greene, and perhaps Peele. 
 
Romeo and yuliet. 87 
 
 and disciples had crowded around the master. All the 
 vices of his style had been exaggerated. Shakspere saw 
 one thing cleaa:ly, that if the time ever came when he 
 would write tragedy, tlie tragedy must be of a kind alto- 
 gether different fi'om that created upon Marlowe's meth- 
 od — the method of idealizing passions on a gigantic scale. 
 To add to the pieces of the school of Marlowe a rhapsody 
 of blood eommiogled with nonsense was impossible for 
 Shakspere, who was never altogether wanting in a sane 
 judgment and a lively sei>se of the absurd. 
 
 Thus it came about that Shakspere, at nearly forty 
 years of age, was the author of but two or three trage- 
 dies. , Of these, Rameo and Juliet _ may be looked upon 
 as the work of the artist's adolescence ; and Hamlet as 
 the evidence that he had become adult, and, in this su- 
 preme department, master of Jiis craft. To add to the 
 interest of these plays as subjects of Shaksperian study, 
 each, as was observed above, exists in two very different 
 forms ; and from these something may be learned as 
 to the poet's method of rehandling his own work. In 
 the case of Romeo and Juliet, we possess the English 
 original, a poem by Arthur Brooke, upon which Shak- 
 spere founded his drama, and whicli in many particulars 
 he minutely followed. . It is therefore possible, in the 
 case of this play, to investigate with peculiar advantage 
 Shakspere's method of treating his original. 
 
 The first two tragedies having been so carefully and 
 deliberately thought out, having been looked upon by 
 tlieir author as of chief importance among his writings, 
 we might anticipate that the second could hardly have 
 been written without conscious reference to the first. 
 Ill his early tentative plays, Shakspere made trial of va- 
 rious styles ; he broke out now on this side, now on that, 
 in directions which were wide apart; now lie was en- 
 gaged upon a history, now upon a comedy of incident, 
 
83 Shakspere—^His Mind and Art. 
 
 almost a farce ; now a comedy of dialogue, and again a 
 comedy of tender and graceful sentiment. He evidently 
 had resolved that he would not repeat himself, that he 
 would not allow his invention to come under control of 
 any one of its own creatures. Too often a distinguished 
 literary success is the prelude to literary failure. The 
 artist, in fainter colors and with a more uncertain outline, 
 repeats his admired figures and situations. Shakspere 
 instinctively and by resolve put himself into relation 
 with facts of the most diverse kinds, and preferred a 
 comparatively slow attainment of a comprehension of 
 life to a narrow intensity of individuality. The broad 
 history of the nation interested him, but also the passion 
 of love and death in two young hearts : he could laugh 
 brightly, and mock the affectations and fashionable follies 
 of his day; but he must also stand before the tomb of 
 the Capulets possessed by a sense ~of mystery, and that 
 strenuous pain in which something else than mere sor- 
 row is predominant. 
 
 Now, when writing Hamlet, his second tragedy, Shak- 
 spere, we must needs believe, determined that he would 
 break away from the influence of his first tragedy, Homeo 
 and Juliet. JRomeo and Juliet is steeped in passion ; 
 Hamlet is steeped in meditation. Contrast the hero of 
 the one play, the man of the South, with the chief figure 
 of the other, the Teuton, the man of the North. Con- 
 trast Hamlet's friend and comforter, Horatio, possessed 
 of grave strength, self-government, and balance of char- 
 acter, with Eomeo's friend, Mercutio, all brilliance, intel- 
 lect, wit, and effervescent animal spirits. Contrast the 
 gay festival in Capulet's house with the brutal drinking 
 of the Danish king and courtiers. Contrast the moonlit 
 night in the garden, while the nightingale's song is pant- 
 ing forth from the pomegranate tree, with the silence, 
 tlie nipping and eager air of the platform of Elsinore, 
 
Romeo and ytiliet. 89 
 
 the beetling height to seaward, and the form of terror 
 which stalked before the sentinels. Contrast the perfect 
 love of Juliet and her Roineo with the piteous foiled de- 
 sire for love in Hamlet and Ophelia. Contrast the pas- 
 sionate seizure upon death, as her immediate and high- 
 est need, of the Italian wife with the misadventure of 
 the crazed Ophelia, so pitiful, so accidental, so unheroic, 
 ending in " muddy death." Yet, with all their points of 
 contrast, there is one central point of affinity between the 
 plays. Like Mr. Browning's " Paracelsus " and his " Sor- 
 dello," the poems are companion poems, while they are set 
 over one against the other; they are contrasted, but com- 
 plementary.* Hamlet resembles Eonieo in his inability 
 to maintain the will in a fruitful relation with facts and 
 with the real world. Neither is a ruler of events. Luck 
 is forever against Eomeo; the stars are inauspicious to 
 him, and to such men the stars will always be inauspi- 
 cious, as to a Henry V. they will always prove auxiliary. 
 With Hamlet to resolve is to stand at gaze before an ac- 
 tion, and to become incapable of achieving it. The nec- 
 essary coupling between the purpose and the deed has 
 been fatally dissolved. There is this central point in 
 common between Hamlet and Komeo — the will in each 
 is sapped, but in each it is sapped by a totally different 
 disease of soul.f 
 
 The external atmosphere of the tragedy of Romeo and 
 Juliet, its Italian color and warmth, have been so finely 
 felt by M. Philarfete Chasles that his words deserve to be 
 a portion of every criticism of that play : 
 
 * See the writer's lecture on the poetry of Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Brown- 
 ing, "Afternoon Lectures," vol. v., p. 178. 
 
 f "Komeo is Hamlet in love. There is the same rich exuberance of passion 
 and sentiment in the one that there is of thought and sentiment in the other. 
 Both are absent and self -involved ; both live out of themselves in a world of 
 imagination." — Hazlitt, Characters of Shahpeare's Playg, p. 147 (ed. 1818), 
 
go Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 "Wlio does not recall those lovely summer nights in 
 which tlie forces of nature seem eager for development, 
 and constrained to remain in drovrsy languor — a mingLng 
 of intense heat, superabundant energy, impetuous power, 
 and silent freshness ? 
 
 "The nightingale sings in the depths of the woods. 
 The flower-cups are half closed. A pale lustre is shed 
 over the foliage of the forests and upon the brow of the 
 hills. The deep repose conceals, we are aware, a procre- 
 ant force; the melancholy reserve of nature is the mask 
 of a passionate emotion. Under the paleness and the 
 coolness of the night, you divine restrained ardors, 
 and flowers which brood in silence, impatient to shine 
 forth. 
 
 "Such is the peculiar atmosphere with which Shak- 
 spere has enveloped one of his most wonderful creations 
 — Romeo aiid Juliet. 
 
 . " Not only the substance, but the forms of the language 
 come from the South. Italy was the inventor of the tale : 
 she drew it from her national memorials, her old family 
 feuds, her annals filled with amorous and bloody intrigues. 
 In its lyric accent, its blindness of passion, its blossoming 
 and abundant vitality, in the brilliant imagery, in the bold 
 composition, no one can fail to recognize Italy. Komeo 
 utters himself like a sonnet of Petrarch, with the same 
 refined choice and the same antitheses ; there is the same 
 grace and the same pleasure in versifying passion in al- 
 legorical stanzas. Juliet, too, is wholly the woman of 
 Italy ; with small gift of foi-ethought, and absolutely in- 
 genuous in her abandon, she is at once vehement and 
 pure." * 
 
 The season is midsummer. It wants a fortnight and 
 odd days of Lammas-tide (August 1st). Wilhelm Schle- 
 
 * " iStudes sur W. Shakspeare, Marie Stuart, et I'Arfitin," pp. 141, 142. 
 
Romeo and ytiliet. gi 
 
 gel, and after hini Hazlitt, have spoken as if the atmos- 
 phere of the play were that of a southern spring.* Such 
 a criticism indicates a want of sensibility to the tone and 
 coloring of the piece. The mid- July heat broods over 
 the five tragic days of the story. The mad blood is stir- 
 ring in men's veins during these hot summer days.f 
 There is a thunderous feeling in the moral element. 
 Tlie summer was needed also, that the nights and morn- 
 ings might quickly meet. The nights are those luminous 
 nights from whicli the daylight seems never wholly to de- 
 part — nights through which the warmth of day still hangs 
 over tlie trees and flowers. 
 
 It is worth while to pause and note Shakspere's method 
 of treating external nature as the milieu or enveloping 
 medium of human passion ; while sometimes, in addition, 
 between external nature and human passion Shakspere re- 
 veals acute points of special contact. We recall in King 
 Lear the long and terrible day which begins at moonset 
 before the dawn, when Kent is put in the stocks, and 
 which ends Avith the storm upon the heath. The agony 
 is intensified by the stretch of time, strained with passion 
 and events, until the time tingles and is intense; it cul- 
 minates in the night of furious wind and spouting rain, 
 of lightning and of thunder, when the roots of nature 
 seem shaken in the same upheaval of things which makes 
 a daughter cruel. We remember how Duncan breathed a 
 delicate air when he entered under the martlet-haunted 
 portals of Macbetli, as though nature insinuated into 
 Duncan's senses a treacherous presentiment of peace and 
 security ; and there followed upon this the night when 
 the earth was feverous and the air was filled witli lament- 
 
 * So also Flathe, " Shakspeare," etc., part ii., p. 188. 
 
 \ " Bemiolio. For now these hot days is the mad blood stirring." See 
 the extract from Dr. Theodor Strater, in H. H. Furness's variorum edition of 
 Eomeo and Mid, pp. 461, 462. 
 
92 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ings and strange screams of death. We remember that 
 other night of tempest and prodigy which preceded the 
 fall of Julius Caesar, when Cassius, catching exhilaration 
 and energy from the mutiny in the heaven, walked about 
 the streets unbraced, " submitting him unto the perilous 
 night." Then in contrast with these we think of the lyric 
 love of Lorenzo and Jessica under the star-sown sky, ev- 
 ery orb of which sings in its motion like an angel " still 
 quiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;" we think of the 
 Forest of Arden, with its tempered light and shade, its 
 streams where the deer comes to drink, and green haunts 
 in which adversity grows sweet ; we think of the moun- 
 tain country of Wales, and the salutations to the heaven 
 of the royal youths whom Cymbeline had lost. The air 
 wiiich surrounds the island of Prospero is one of enchant- 
 ment fit to breathe upon marvel and beauty : 
 
 " The isle is full of noises, 
 Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not." 
 
 In the play of Pericles, we are forever in presence of 
 the waters, furious or serene ; and their voices of tumult 
 or of calm are forever mingling with the human voices — 
 with the sorrow of the bereaved father, and the magical 
 sir)ging of the sea-pure and sea-sensitive Marina. Once 
 again, in Timon, we are in presence of the sea : but it is 
 not the stormy waters of Pericles that we gaze at ; it is 
 not the yellow sands of Prospero's island, where the sea- 
 nymphs dance and courtesy and take hands ; in Timon it 
 is neither the strength nor the beauty of the waves we 
 are made to feel : 
 
 "Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
 Who once a day with his embossed froth 
 The turbulent surge shall cover." 
 
 We see the cold white lip of the wave curling over and 
 curling over again, with bitter monotony upon the sand ; 
 
Romeo and Juliet. 93 
 
 and it is there, touched by the salt and pitiless edge of 
 the sea, that the corpse of the desperate man must lie 
 abandoned. 
 
 Romeo is not the determiner of events in the play. 
 He does not stand prominently forward, a single figure 
 in the first scene, as does Marlowe's Barrabas, and Shak- 
 spere's Kichard III., soliloquizing about his own person 
 and his plans. The first scene of the play prepares a 
 place for Eomeo ; it presents the moral environment of 
 the hero ; it exhibits the feud of the houses which deter- 
 mines the lovers' fate, although they, for a bi-ief space, 
 forget these grim realities in the rapture of their joy. 
 The strife of the houses Capulet and Montague appears 
 in this first scene in its trivial, ludicrous aspect ; threat- 
 ening, however, in a moment to become earnest and for- 
 midable. The serving-men Gregory and Samson biting 
 thumbs at the serving-men Abraham and Balthasar, this 
 is the obverse of the tragic show. Turn to the other 
 side, and what do we see ? Tlie dead bodies of young 
 and beautiful human creatures — of Tybalt and Paris, of 
 Juliet and Eomeo — the bloody harvest of the strife. This 
 first scene, half ludicrous but wholly grave, was written 
 not without a reference to the final scene. The bandying 
 of vulgar wit between the servants must not hide from 
 us a certain grim irony which underlies the opening of 
 the play. Here the two old rivals meet ; they will meet 
 again. And tlie Prince appears in the last scene as in the 
 first. Then old Capulet and Montague will be pacified ; 
 then they will consent to let their desolated lives decline 
 to the grave in quietness. Meanwhile serving-men with 
 a sense of personal dignity must bite their tliumbs, and 
 other incidents may happen. 
 
 Few critics of tlie play have omitted to call attention 
 to the fact that Shakspere represents Eomeo as already 
 in love before he gives his heart to Juliet — in love with 
 
94 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 the pale-cheeked, dark-ej'ed, disdainful Kosaline. " If wa 
 are riglit," Coleridge wrote,". . . in pronouncing this 
 one of Sliakspeare's early dramas, it affords a strong in- 
 stance of the fineness of Iiis insight into the nature of 
 the passions that Koineo is introduced already love-be- 
 wildered." The circumstance is not of Shakspere's in- 
 vention. He has retained it from Brooke's poem ; but 
 that lie thought fit to retain the circumstance, fearlessly 
 declaring that Ronieo's supreme love is not his first love, 
 is noteworthy. The contrast in the mind of the earlier 
 poet between Eosaline, who 
 
 " From her youth was fostered evermore 
 With vertues foode, and taught in sohole, of wisdomes skilf ull lore," 
 
 and Juliet, who yields to her passion, and by it is de- 
 stroyed, was a contrast which Shakspere rejected as a 
 piece of formal and barren morality. Of what character 
 is the love of Romeo for Rosaline? Romeo's is not an. 
 active, practical nature like Henry Y. ; neither is ho 
 great by intellect, a thinker, in any high sense of the 
 word. But if he lives and moves and has his being nei- 
 ther heroically in the objective world of action, like Hen- 
 ry v., nor in the world of the mind, like Hamlet, all the 
 more he lives, moves, and has his being in the world of 
 mere emotion. To hira emotion which enriches and ex- 
 alts itself with the imagination, emotion apart from 
 tliought and apart from action, is an end in itself. 
 Therefore it delights him to hover over his own senti- 
 ment, to brood upon it, to feed upon it richly. Romeo 
 must needs steep his whole nature in feeling, and, if 
 Juliet does not appear, he must love Rosaline. 
 
 Nevertheless, the love of Rosaline cannot be to Romeo 
 as is the love of Juliet. It is a law in moral dynamics, 
 too little recognized, that the breadth and height and 
 permanence of a feeling depend, in a certain degrev3 at 
 least, upon the actual force of its external panso, "N"(< 
 
Romeo and Juliet. 95 
 
 ardor of self -protection, no abandonment prepense, no 
 self-sustained energy, can create and shape a passion of 
 equal volume, and possessing a like certainty and direct- 
 ness of advance, with a passion shaped, determined, and 
 forever reinvigorated by positive, objective fact. Shak- 
 spere had become assured that the facts of the world are 
 worthy to command our highest ardor, our most resolute 
 action, our most solemn awe ; and that the more we pen- 
 etrate into fact, tlie more will our nature be quickened, 
 enriched, and exalted. The play of Romeo and Juliet 
 exhibits to us tlie deliverance of a man from dream into 
 reality. In Romeo's love of Eosaline we find represent- 
 ed the dream-life as yet undisturbed, the abandonment to 
 emotion for emotion's sake. Romeo nurses his love ; he 
 sheds tears ; he cultivates solitude j he utters his groans 
 in the hearing of the comfortable friar; he stimulates his 
 fancy with the sought-out phrases, the curious antitheses, 
 of the amorous dialect of the period :* 
 
 " Why, then, brawling love ! loving hate ! 
 anything, of nothing first create ! 
 heavy lightness ! serious vanity ! 
 Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms ! 
 Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health !" 
 
 He broods upon the luxury of his sorrow. And then 
 Romeo meets Juliet. Juliet is an actual force beyond 
 and above himself, a veritable fact of the world. Never- 
 theless, there jemains a certain clinging self- conscious- 
 ness, an absence of perfect simplicity and directness, even 
 in Romeo's very real love of Juliet. This is placed by 
 Shakspere in designed contrast with the singleness of Ju- 
 liet's nature, her direct unerroneous passion, which goes 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson has noticed that in All 's Well that Ends Well Helena 
 mockingly reproduces this style of amorous antitheses (act i., sc. 1, 11. 180- 
 189). Helena, who lives so effectively in the world of fact, is contemptuous 
 towards all unreality and affectation. 
 
96 Shakspere — His Mind and Art'. 
 
 straight to its object, and never broods upon itself. It 
 is Komeo who saj's in the garden scene, 
 
 " How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, 
 Like softest music to attending ears !" 
 
 He has overheard the voice of Juliet, and lie cannot an- 
 swer her call until he has drained the sweetness of the 
 sound. He is one of those men to whom the emotional 
 atmosphere which is given out by the real object, and 
 which surrounds it like a luminous mist, is more impor- 
 tant than the reality itself. As he turns slowly away, 
 loath to leave, Komeo exclaims, 
 
 " Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books ; 
 But love from love, toward school with heavy looks." 
 
 But Juliet's first thought is of the danger to which Ro- 
 meo is exposed in her father's grounds. It is Juliet who 
 will not allow the utterance of any oath, because the whole 
 reality of that night's event, tei'rible in its joy, has flashed 
 upon her ; and she, who lives in no golden haze of luxu- 
 rious feeling, is aroused and alarmed by the sudden shock 
 of too much happiness. It is Juliet who uses direct and 
 simple words : 
 
 " Farewell compliment ! 
 Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,' 
 And I will take thy word." 
 
 She has declared that her bounty is measureless, that her 
 love is infinite, when a sudden prosaic interruption oc- 
 curs : the nurse calls within, Juliet leaves the window, 
 and Eomeo is left alone. Is this new joy a dream % 
 
 " blessed, blessed night ! I am afeard, 
 Being in night, all this is but a dream. 
 Too flattering-sweet to be substantial." 
 
 But Juliet hastily reappears with words upon her lips 
 which make it evident that it is no dream of joy in which 
 she lives : 
 
Romeo and yuliet. 97 
 
 " Three words, dear Eomeo, and good night indeed. 
 If that thy beut of love be honorable, 
 Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow. 
 By one that I'll procure to come to thee. 
 Where, and what time thou wilt perform the rite. 
 And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay. 
 And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world." 
 
 The wholeness and crystalline purity of Juliet's, pas- 
 sion is flawed by no double self. She is all and entire in 
 each act of her soul. While Komeo, on the contrary, is 
 as yet but half delivered from self-consciousness. 
 
 If Shakspere ventured upon any generalization about 
 women, it was perhaps this — that the natures of women 
 are usually made up of fewer elements than those of men, 
 but that those elements are ordinarily in juster poise, 
 more fully organized, more coherent and compact; and 
 that, consequently, prompt and efiicient action is more a 
 woman's gift than a man's. " Man delights not me, nor 
 woman neither," confessed Hamlet ; and the courtiers 
 declare they smiled to think if he delighted not in man 
 what Lenten entertainment the players would receive 
 from him. The players — for the drama is founded on 
 mere delight in human personality. Man delighted Shak- 
 spere, and woman also ; but the chief problems of life 
 seemed to lurk for Shakspere in the souls and in the lives 
 of men, and therefore he was more profoundly interested 
 in the natures of men than in those of women. His great 
 tragedies are not Cordelia, Desdemona, Ophelia, Volum- 
 nia ; but Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Coriolanus. Shakspere's 
 men have a history, moral growth or moral decay; his 
 women act and are acted upon, but seldom grow and are 
 transformed. We get from Shakspere no histories of a 
 woman's soul like the history of Eomola or of Maggie 
 TuUiver or of Dorothea Brooke ; none — unless, perhaps, 
 that of Cleopatra — at all so carefully studied and curi- 
 ously detailed as may be found in the novels of Goethe. 
 
 5 
 
98 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Shakspere creates his women by a single strong or ex- 
 quisite inspiration, but lie studies bis men. His witty- 
 women are not a complex of all various qualities, like 
 Falstaff ; his wicked women are simply wicked, like Gon- 
 eril and Eegan, not an inscrutable mystery of iniquity 
 like lago; his women of intellect are bright, are effective 
 with ideas which they use as the means of action or of 
 enjoyment, but among them there is not a female Ham- 
 let* 
 
 Yet the women of Shakspere have almost always the 
 advantage of his men. Although their natures are made 
 up of fewer elements, yet, because those elements are 
 quite vital and coherent, his women are in the highest 
 degree direct in ieeling and efficient in action. All the 
 half-organized power of men is not a match for their di- 
 rectness and efficiency. Portia, iu the Merehant of Yen- 
 ice, can bring all her wits at a moment's notice into play ; 
 every faculty is instinct with a single and indivisible en- 
 ergy ; eet over against the great masculine force of Shy- 
 lock, she proves more than a match for him. In Helena 
 {All 's Well that Ends Well) there is perfect rectitude of 
 intellect and will, and a solid unity of character which 
 enables her to shape events as she has decided it is well 
 
 * See on this subject Mrs. Jameson's " Characteristies of Women," In- 
 ' troduction ; also a remarkable passage in Mr. Ruskin's " Sesame and Lilies," 
 -pp. 126 ^ 131. EUnielin maintains that in xionsequence of his position as 
 player, Shakspere was excluded from the acquaintance of women of fine 
 culture and character, and therefore drew upon his fancy for his female por- 
 traits. At the same time, Shakspere shared with Goethe, Petrarch, Baphacl, 
 Dante, Kousseau, Jean Paul (a strange assemblage !), a mystical veneration 
 for the feminine element «f humanity as the higher and more divine. For 
 a comparison of Shakspere with Goethe in this respect, see Rumelin, " Shake- 
 speare-Studien," pp. 282-292.. It is clever and superficial, like much of 
 the " realistic criticism " of Riimelin. Xeo's " Shakespeare's Frauen-Ideale " 
 is a somewhat misleading title. In the few pages on Shakspere'S women 
 (pp. 36-44) thei'e is contained little that is new or valuable. 
 
Romeo and yuliet. 99 
 
 tliey should be shaped, and secures her from all distrac- 
 tion and all illusion. She imposes herself as a blessing 
 upon the high-born youth, who, for his part, had been 
 sufficiently blind and dull; at length he perceives that 
 while he stumbled and seemed to go astray, Helena was 
 the providence which forced him to stumble into securi- 
 ty and strength and the abiding-place of love. Yolum- 
 nia, by the unfaltering insistence of her single moral 
 motive, subdues Coriolanus. Macbeth is brave and cow- 
 ardly, sceptical and superstitious, loyal and treacherous, 
 ambitious and capable of service, at once restrained and 
 stimulated by his imagination. Lady Macbeth is terribly 
 efficient: at one time a will strung tense, at another a 
 conscience strung tense ; possessed of only that active 
 kind of imagination which masters practical difficulties. 
 She has violently wrenched her nature, and the wrench 
 is fatal. But Macbeth can live on, sinking further and 
 further from reality and strength and joy, dropping away 
 into the shadow, \indergoing gradual extinction, decay, 
 and disintegration of his moral being; never a sudden 
 and absolute ruin. 
 
 Juliet at once takes the lead. It is she \yho proposes 
 and urges on the sudden marriage. She is impatient for 
 complete self-surrender, eager that the deed should be- 
 come perfect and irreversible. When, after the death of 
 Tybalt, Komeo learns from the lips of the friar that he 
 has been condemned to banishment he is utterly un- 
 manned. He abandons himself to helpless and hopeless 
 despair. He turns the tender emotion upon himself, and 
 extracts all the misery which is contained in that one 
 word "banished." He throws himself upon the grouttd, 
 and grovels pitifully in the abjectness of his dismay. His 
 will is unable to deal with his own emotions so as to sub- 
 due or control them. Upon the next day, after her cast- 
 ing-away of her own kindred, after her parting with her 
 
I oo Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 husband, Juliet comes to the same cell of Friar Laurence, 
 her face pale, and traces of tears upon it which she can- 
 not hide. Paris, the lover whom her father and mother 
 have designed for Juliet, is there. She meets him with 
 gay words, gallantly concealing the heart which is eager 
 and trembling, and upheld from desperation only by a 
 high-strung fortitude. Then when the door is shut her 
 heart relieves itself, and she urges the friar, with pas- 
 sionate energy, to devise forthwith a remedy for the evil 
 that has befallen. 
 
 In her home, Juliet is now without adviser or sustainer. 
 A girl of fourteen years, she stands tlie centre of a circle 
 of power which is tyrannous, and pledged to criish her 
 resistance; old Capulet (the Capulets are a fiery, self- 
 willed race, unlilce the milder Montagues) has vehement- 
 ly urged upon her the marriage with Count Paris. She 
 turns her pale face upon iier father, and addresses him 
 appealingly :* 
 
 " Good father, I beseech you on my knees 
 Hear me with patience but to speak a word." 
 
 She turns to her mother — the proud Italian matron, 
 still young, who had not married for love, whose hatred 
 is cold and deadly, and whose relation with the child, 
 who is dear to her, is pathetically imperfect if 
 
 * Shakspere, as Mr. Clarke notices, contrives to bring before us the pale- 
 ness of Juliet's face in this great crisis of her life, dramatically, by means 
 of old Capulet's vituperative terms : 
 
 " Out, you green-sickness carrion ! out, you baggage ! 
 You tallow face !" 
 f Shakspere reduces Juliet's age from the sixteen years of Brooke's poem 
 to fourteen. He loved the years of budding womanhood : Miranda is fifteen 
 years of age, Marina fourteen. Lady Capulet says to Juliet, 
 
 " By my count 
 I was your mother much upon these 3'ears 
 That you are now a maid " (act i., so. 3). 
 Therefore she is perhajis under thirty years of age. But it is thirty years 
 
Romeo and yuliet. loi 
 
 " Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, 
 That sees into the bottom of my grief ? 
 sweet my mother, cast me not away ! 
 Delay this marriage for a month, a week." 
 
 Last, she looks for support to lier nurse, turning in 
 that dreadful moment with the instinct of childhood to 
 the woman on wlioso breast she had lain, and uttering 
 words of desperate and simple earnestness : 
 
 " God ! nurse ! how shall this be prevented ? 
 Some comfort, nurse." 
 
 The same unfaltering severity with which a surgeon 
 operates is shown by Shakspere in his fidelity here to the 
 nnrse's character. The gross and wanton heart, while 
 the sun of prosperity is full, blossoms into broad vulgar- 
 ity ; and the raillery of Mercntio deals with it sufficient- 
 ly. Now in the hour of trial her grossness rises to the 
 dignity of a crime. " The Count is a lovely gentleman ; 
 Komeo 's a dishclout to him. The second match excels 
 the first ; or, if it does not, Juliet's first is dead, or as 
 good as dead, being away from her." " This moment," 
 Mrs. Jameson has finely said, " reveals Juliet to herself. 
 She does not break into upbraidings ; it is no moment for 
 anger ; it is incredulous amazement, succeeded by the ex- 
 tremity of scorn and abhorrence, which takes possession 
 of her mind. She assumes at once and asserts all her 
 own superiority, and rises to majesty in the strength of 
 her despair." Here Juliet enters into her solitude.* 
 
 since old Capulet last went masking (act i., so. 5). Observe Lady Capulet's 
 manner of speech with her husband in act iv., sc. 4, and note her announce- 
 ment (intended to gratify Juliet) that she will despatch a messenger to Man- 
 tua to poison Eomeo (act iii., sc. 5). 
 
 * " The nurse has a certain vulgarized air of rank and refinement, as if, 
 priding herself on the confidence of her superiors, she had caught and as. 
 similated their manners to her own vulgar nature. In this mixture of re- 
 finement and vulgarity both elements are made the worse for being together. 
 
102 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 The friar has given Juliet a phial containing a strange, 
 untried mixture, and she is alone in her chamber. Juli- 
 et's soliloquy ends with one of those triumphant touches 
 by which Shakspere glorified that which lie appropriated 
 from his originals. In Brooke's poem, Juliet swallows 
 the sleeping-potion hastily, lest her courage should fail. 
 " Shakspeare," Coleridge wrote, " provides for the finest 
 decencies. It would have been too bold a thing for a 
 girl of fifteen — but she swallows the draught in a fit of 
 fright." This deprives Juliet of all that is most charac- 
 teristic in the act. In the night and the solitude, with a 
 desperate deed to do, her imagination is intensely and 
 morbidly excited. All the hideous secrets of the tomb 
 appear before her. Suddenly, in her disordered vision, 
 the figure of the murdered Tybalt rises, and is manifestly 
 in pursuit of some one. Of whom? Not of Juliet, but 
 of her lover, who had slain him. A moment before, Ju- 
 liet had shrunk with horror f I'om the thought of confront- 
 ing Tybalt in the vault of the Capulets. But now Ro- 
 meo is in danger. All fear deserts her. To stand by 
 Komeo's side is her one necessity. With a confused 
 sense that this draught will somehow place her close to 
 the murderous Tybalt, and close to Komeo whom she 
 would save, calling aloud to Tybalt to delay one moment 
 — " Stay, Tybalt, stay !" — she drains the phial, not "in a 
 fit of fright," but with the words " Eomeo ! I come ; this 
 do I drink to thee." 
 
 The brooding nature of Eomeo, which cherishes emo- 
 tion, and lives in it, is made salient by contrast with Mer- 
 cutio, who is all wit and intellect and vivacity, an uncon- 
 
 . . . She abounds, however, in serviceable qualities." — Hitdson, Sliake- 
 gpere's life. Art, and Cliaraders, vol. ii., pp. 214, 216. Mrs. Jameson ob- 
 serves justly that the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's character could hard- 
 ly have been preserved inviolate if Shakspere had placed her in connection 
 , with any commonplace dramatic waiting-woman. 
 
Homeo and JiilLt. 103 
 
 trollable play of, gleaming aud glaixcing life. Upon the 
 morning after the .betrothal with Juliet, a meeting. hap- 
 pens between Romeo and Mercutio. Ei'eyiously, while 
 lover of Kosaline, EiOmeo had. cultivated a lover JUce mel- 
 ancholy. But now, partly because his blood runs gladlj, 
 partly because the union of soul with Juliet has made the 
 whole world more real and Bubstantial, and things have 
 grown too solid and lasting to be disturbed by a laugh, 
 Eomeo can contend in jest with Mercutio. himself, and 
 stretch his wit of cheveril " from an inch narrow to an ell 
 broad." Mercutio and the nurse are Shakspere's crea- 
 tions in this play. For the character of the former he 
 had but a slight hint in the poem of Arthur Brooke. 
 There we read of Mercutio as a courtier who was bold 
 among the bashful maidens as a lion among lambs, and 
 we are told that he had an " ice-cold hand." Putting to- 
 gether these two suggestions, discovering a significance in 
 them, and animating them with the breath of his own 
 life, Shakspere created the brilliant figure which lights 
 up the first half of Romeo and Juliet, and disappears 
 when the colors become all too grave and-sombre. 
 
 Eomeo has accepted the great bond of love. Mercu- 
 tio, with his ice-cold hand, the lion amopg maidens, 
 chooses, above all things, a defiant liberty — a liberty of 
 speech gayly at war with the proprieties, an airy freedom 
 of fancy, a careless and masterful courage in dealing with 
 life as though it were a matter of slight importance. He 
 will not attach himself to either of the houses. He is in- 
 vited by Capulet to the banquet, but he goes to the ban- 
 quet iu company with Komeo and the Montagues. He 
 can do generous and disinterested things, but he will not 
 submit to the trammels of being recognized as generous. 
 He dies maintaining his freedom, and defying death with 
 a jest. To be made worm's meat of so stupidly, by a vil- 
 lain that fights by the book of arithmetic, and through 
 
1 04 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 Borneo's awkwardness, is enough to make a man impa- 
 tient. " A plague o' both your houses !" The death of 
 Mercutio is like the removal of a shifting breadth of sun- 
 light, which sparkles on the sea ; now the clouds close in 
 upon one another, and the stress of the gale begins.* 
 
 The moment that Eomeo receives the false tidings of 
 Juliet's death is the moment of his assuming full man- 
 hood. Now, for the first time, he is completely delivered 
 from the life of dream, completely adult, and able to act 
 with an initiative in his own will, and with manly deter- 
 mination. Accordingly, he now speaks with masculine 
 directness and energy : 
 
 " Is it even so ? Then I defy yoii, stars !" 
 
 Yes ; he is now master of events ; the stars cannot alter 
 his course. 
 
 " Thou know'st my lodgings : get me ink and paper, 
 And hire post-horses ; I will hence to-night. 
 
 Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience. 
 Your looks are pale and wild, and do import 
 Some misadventure. 
 
 Bom. TuRh ! thou art deceived. 
 
 Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. 
 Hast thou no letters to me from the friar ? 
 
 Bal. No, my good lord. 
 
 Rom. No matter ; get thee gone, 
 
 And hire those horses ; I'll be with thee straight." 
 
 "Nothing," as Maginn has observed, "can be more 
 quiet than his final determination, 
 
 ' Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.' 
 
 "It is plain Juliet. . . . There is nothing about 'Cu- 
 pid's arrow' or 'Dian's wit;' no honeyed word escapes 
 
 * The German professor sometimes does not quite keep pace with Shak- 
 spere, and is heard stumbling heavily behind him. Gervinus thus describes 
 Mercutio: "A man without culture, coarse and rude, ugly, a scornful ridi- 
 culer of all sensibilitv and love." 
 
Romeo and jfuliet. 105 
 
 his lips, nor, again, does any accent of despair. His mind 
 is so made np, the whole course of the short remainder 
 of his life so unalterably fixed, that it is perfectly useless 
 to think more about it." * These words, because they 
 are the simplest, are among the most memorable that 
 Komeo utters. Is this, indeed, the same Komeo who 
 sighed and wept and spoke sonnet-wise, and penned him- 
 self in his chamber, shutting the daylight out for love of 
 Rosaline? Now passion, imagination, and will are fused 
 together, and Komeo, who was weak, has at length be- 
 come strong. 
 
 In two noteworthy particulars Shakspere has varied 
 from his original. He has compressed the action from 
 some months into four or five days.f Thus precipitancy 
 
 * " Shakespeare Papers," p. 99. 
 
 f The following passage, quoted by II. H. Furness (variorum Romeo and 
 Julia, pp. 226, 227) from Mr. Clarke, may be serviceable as giving some of 
 the notes of time which occur in this play : " In scene 1, the Prince desires 
 Capulet to go with him at once, and Montague to come to him ' this afternoon.' 
 In scene 2, Capulet speaks of Montague being 'bound' as well as himself, 
 which indicates that the Prince's charge has just been given to both of them, 
 and shortly after speaks of the festival at his house ' this night.' At tliis fes- 
 tival Romeo sees Juliet, when she speaks of sending to him ' to-morrow,' and 
 on that ' morrow ' the lovers are united by Friar Laurence. Act iii. opens 
 witli the scene where Tybalt kills Mercutio, and during which scene Romeo's 
 words, 'Tybalt, that mi liour hath been my kinsman,' show that the then 
 time is the afternoon of the same day. The friar, at the close of scene 3 
 of that act, bids Romeo ' good night ;' and in the next scene Paris, in reply to 
 Capulet's inquii-y, ' What day is this ?' replies, ' Momlay, my lord.' Thi3, by 
 the way, denotes that the ' old accustomed feast ' of the Capulets, according 
 to a usual practice in Catholic countries, was celebrated on a Sunday even- 
 in". In scene 5 of act iii. comes the parting of the lovers at the dawn of 
 Tuesdaj', and when, at the close of the scene, Juliet says she shall repair to 
 Friar Laurence's cell. Act iv. commences with her appearance there, thus 
 carrying on the action during the same day, Tuesday. But the effect of long 
 time' is''introduced by the mention of 'evening mass,' and by the friar's de- 
 tailed directions and reference to ' to-morrow's night ;' so that when the mind 
 . has been prepared by the change of scene, by Capulet's anxious preparations 
 for the wedding and by Juliet's return to filial submission, there seems no 
 
 6* 
 
io6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 is added to the course of events and passions. Shakspere 
 has also made the catastrophe more calamitous than it is 
 in Brooke's poem. It was his invention to bring Paris 
 across Eonieo in the church-yard. Paris comes to strew 
 his flowers, uttering in a rhymed sextain (such as might 
 have fallen from Borneo's lips in the first act) his pretty 
 lamentation. Romeo goes resolutely forward to death, 
 lie is no longer " young Komeo," but adult, and Paris is 
 the boy. He speaks with the gentleness and with the 
 authority of one who knows what life and death are, of 
 one who has gained the superior position of those who 
 are about to die over those who still may live : 
 
 " Good, gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man. 
 Fly hence and leave me ; think upon these gone ; 
 Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, 
 Put not another sin upon my head 
 By urging me to fury." 
 
 He would save Paris, if that might be. But Paris still 
 crosses Komeo, and he must needs be dealt with : 
 " Wilt thou provoke me ? then have at thee, boy !" 
 
 Komeo has now a definite object ; he has a deed to do, 
 and he will not brook obstacles.* 
 
 violence done to the imagination by Lady Capulet's remarking, ' 'Tis now- 
 near night.' . . . Juliet retires to her own room with the intention of select- 
 ing wedding attire for the next morning, which her father has said shall be 
 that of the marriage, anticipating it by a whole day — ^Wednesday instead of 
 Thursday." The sleeping-potion is expected by the friar to operate during 
 two -and -forty hours (act iv., sc. 1). Juliet drinks it upon Tuesday night, 
 or rather in the night hours of Wednesday morning — delaying as long as 
 she dare. On the night of Thursday she awakens in the tomb and dies. 
 Maginn believed that there must be some mistake in the reading " two-and- 
 forty hours ;" but there is no need to suppose this. The play, as Ma"Tun 
 observes, is dated by Shakspere throughout with a most exact attention to 
 hours. 
 
 * In the first quarto, Benvolio dies. Montague (act v., sc. 3) announces 
 the death of his wife ; the quarto adds the line, " And young Benvolio is de- 
 ceased too." 
 
Romeo and Juliet. 107 
 
 Friar Laurence i-emains to furnish the Prince with an 
 explanation of the events. It is impossible to agree with 
 those critics, among others Gervinus, who represent the 
 friar as a kind of chorus expressing Shakspere's own eth- 
 ical ideas, and his opinions respecting the characters and 
 action. It is n'ot Shakspere's. practice to expound the 
 moralities of his artistic CTeations; nor does he ever, by 
 means of a chorus, stand above and outside the men and 
 women of his plays, who are bone of his bone, and ilesh 
 of his flesh. The nearest approach, perhaps, to a chorus 
 is to be found in the person of Enobarbus in Antony and 
 Cleopatra. Hamlet commissions Horatio to report him 
 and his cause aright to the unsatisfied ; and Horatio, plac- 
 ing the bodies of the dead upon a stage, is about, in ju^ 
 dicial manner, to declare the causes of things ; but Shak- 
 spere declines to put on record for us the explanations 
 made by Horatio. No ! Friar Laurence also is moving 
 in the cloud, and misled by error as well as the rest. 
 Shakspere has never made the moderate, self-possessed, 
 sedate person a final or absolute judge of the impulsive 
 and the passionate. The one sees a side of truth which is 
 unseen by the other ; but to neither is the whole truth 
 visible. The friar had supposed that by virtue of his 
 prudence, his moderation, his sage counsels, his amiable 
 sophistries, he could guide these two young, passionate 
 lives, and do away the old tradition of enmity between 
 the houses. There in the tomb of the Capulets is the re- 
 turn brought in by his investment of kindly scheming. 
 Shakspere did not believe that the highest wisdom of 
 human life was acquirable by mild, monastic meditation, 
 and by gathering of simples in the coolness of the dawn. 
 Friar Laurence too, old man, had his lesson to learn. 
 
 In accordance with his view that the friar represents 
 the chorus in this tragedy, Gervinus discovei-s as the 
 leading idea of the piece a lesson of moderation : the 
 
io8 Shakspere — His Mind aiid Art. 
 
 poet makes his confession that " excess in any enjoyment, 
 however pure in itself, transforms its sweet into bitter- 
 ness ; that devotion to any single feeling, however noble, 
 bespeaks its ascendency; that this ascendency moves the 
 man and woman out of their natural spheres." * It is 
 somewhat hard upon Shakspere to suppose that he secret- 
 ed in each of his dramas a central idea for a German crit- 
 ic to discover. But if there be a central idea in Komeo 
 mid Juliet, ca,n this be it? What! did Shakspere, then, 
 mean that Eomeo and Juliet loved too well? That all 
 would have been better if they had surrendered their 
 lives each to the other less raptnroush', less absolutely ? 
 At what precise point ought a discreet regard for another 
 human soul to cheek itself and saj-, " Tlius far towards 
 complete union will I advance, but here it is prudent to 
 stop ?" Or are not Eomeo's words at lefist as true as the 
 friar's? 
 
 " Come what sorrow can. 
 It cannot counterrail the exchange of joy 
 That one short minute gives me in her sight. 
 Do thou but close our hands with holy words, 
 Then love^ievouring Denth do what he dare, 
 It is enough I may but call her mine." 
 
 Doubtless, also, Cordelia misunderstood the true nature 
 of the filial relation ; upon perceiving a possibility of de- 
 feat, she ought to have retreated to the safe coast of 
 France. Portia, upon hearing that the enemies of Brutus 
 were making head, weakly " fell distract " and swallowed 
 fire, not having learned that a well-balanced heart bestows 
 upon a husband only a regulated moderation of love ; 
 Shakspere, by the example of Portia, would teach us that 
 a penalty is paid for excess of wifely loyalty ! No ; this 
 method of judging characters and actions by gross awards 
 
 * "Shakespeare Commcntariep," by Gorrinus, translated by F. E. BunnctL 
 1863. Vol. i., p. 293. 
 
Romeo and yuliet. 109 
 
 of pleasure and pain as measured by the senses does not 
 interpret the ethics or the art of Shakspere or of any 
 great poet. Shakspere was aware that every strong emo- 
 tion which exalts and quickens the inner life of man at 
 the same time exposes the outer life of accident and cir- 
 cumstance to increased risk. But the theme of tragedy, 
 as conceived by the poet, is not material prosperity or 
 failui'e : it is spiritual ; fulfilment or failure of a destiny 
 higher than that whicli is related to the art of getting on 
 in life. To die, under certain conditions, may be a higher 
 rapture than to live. 
 
 Shakspere did not intend that the feeling evoked by 
 the last scene of this ti-agedy of Romeo and Juliet should 
 be one of hopeless sorrow or despair in presence of fail- 
 ure, ruin, and miserable collapse.* Juliet and Komeo, to 
 whom Verona has been a harsh stepmother, have accom- 
 
 * Kreyssig writes with reference to this tragedy : " Nicht zufaUig ist die 
 ideale, leidensehaftliche Jugendliebe in Sage und Gedioht aller Volker die 
 Sohwester des Leides. Sie Iiat ihreu Lohn in sich selbst. Das Leben hat 
 ihr Nichts welter zu bieten " (" Shalcespeare-Fragen," p. 120). In the Shake- 
 speare-Jahrbuch, vol. ix., p. 328, will be found a notice of a study of Borneo 
 and Juliet (Leipsic, 1874) by the celebrated author of the " Philosophic des 
 TJnbewussten," E. von Hartmann. He pronounces that the love between 
 Juliet and Eomeo is not the deep, spiiitiial, German ideal of love, but a 
 sensuous play of passionate fancy. (Did not this latest leader of German 
 thought previously teach that love at its best and truest is an illusion im- 
 posed upon the individual by the Unconscious Somewhat which displays 
 itself through nature and man — an illusion which serves the important pur- 
 pose of securing the continuance of the species ?) To such criticism the 
 true answer was given long since by Franz Horn: "Shakspeare knows 
 nothing, and chooses to know nothing, of that false division of love into 
 spiritual and sensual ; or, rather, he knows of it only when he purposely 
 takes notice of it — that is, wlien he wishes to depict affectation striving after 
 a misconceived Platonism ; or, on the other hand, when he portrays a coarse, 
 brutish, merely earthly passion " (translated in Purness's Romeo and Juliet, 
 p. 446). Contrast Juliet with Cressida ; or Goethe's Mignon with his Philina. 
 See /SAa/fcespeare-JijAj-iMcA, vol. vii., p. 16; and Mrs. Jamesou's "Character- 
 istics of Women," especially the passage in which she comments upon Ju- 
 liet's soliloquy, " Gallop apace." 
 
I lo Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 plislied their lives. They loved perfectly. Eomeo had 
 attained to manhood. Juliet had suddenly blossomed 
 into heroic womanhood. Through her, and through an- 
 guish and joy, her lover had emerged from the life of 
 dream into the waking life of truth. Juliet had saved 
 his soul; she had i-escued him from abandonment to 
 spurious feeling, from abandonment to morbid self -con- 
 sciousness, and the enervating luxury of emotion for 
 emotion's sake. What more was needed ? And as sec- 
 ondary to all this, the enmity of the houses is appeased. 
 Montague will raise in pure gold the statue of true and 
 faithful Juliet; Capulet will place Komeo by her side. 
 Their lives are accomplished ; they go to take up their 
 place in the large history of the world, which contains 
 many such things. Shakspere in this last scene carries 
 forward our imagination from the horror of the tomb to 
 the better life of man, when such love as that of Juliet 
 and Eomeo will be publicly honored and remembered by 
 a memorial all gold.* 
 
 * Among the critics of this play, one of the most intelligently appreciative 
 is George Fletcher, in his " Studies of Shakespeare" (1847). Fletcher's in- 
 terpretation of Juliet's soliloquy before she drinks the sleeping-potion differs 
 from that given above ; and I will not assert that Fletcher may not be right 
 (pp. 349-355). It may be worth while to add a note on the chief critical 
 crux of the play, " Kunnawayes Eyes " (act iii., sc. 2, 1. 6). The notes on 
 this passage in Mr. Furness's edition of the play fill nearly thirty closely 
 printed pages. " Die Zeit ist unendlieh lang," said Goethe. I add my stone 
 to this cairn, under which the meaning lies buried. In The Merc/umt of 
 Venice (act ii., sc. 6) there is an echo of the sense and of the language of 
 this passage which confirms the reading Ruraiawayes. Gratiano and Salariuo 
 have spoken of the eagerness of lovers outrunning time. This set Shak- 
 spere thinking of the passage in Uemeo and Juliet. Jessica, in her boy's 
 disguise, says, 
 
 " Love is blind, and lovers cannot see 
 The pretty follies that themselves commit. 
 
 Lorenzo. But come at once ; 
 For the close night doth play the runaway.''' 
 
Hamlet. ii\ 
 
 II. 
 When Hamlet was written, Sliakspere had passed 
 through his years of apprenticeship and become a mas- 
 ter-dramatist. In point of style the play stands midway 
 between his early and his latest works. The studious 
 superintendence of the poet over the development of his 
 thought and imaginings, very apparent in Shakspere's 
 early writings, now conceals itself ; but the action of im- 
 agination and thought has not yet become embarrassing 
 in its swiftness and multiplicity of direction.* Eapid 
 dialogue in verse, admirable for its combination of veri- 
 similitude with artistic metrical effects, occurs in the 
 scene in which Hamlet questions his friends respecting 
 the appearance of the ghost {act i., sc. 2) ; the soliloquies 
 of Hamlet are excellent examples of the slow, dwelling 
 verse which Shakspere appropriates to the utterance of 
 thought in solitude ; and nowhere did Shakspere write a 
 nobler piece of prose than the speech in which Hamlet 
 describes to Eosencrantz and Guildenstern his melan- 
 
 Comparo the first ten lines of Juliet's soliloquy, and observe the echo of 
 sense and speech. 
 
 *The characteristics of Shakspere's latest style are described by Mr. Sped- 
 ding in the following masterly piece of criticism : " The opening of [Henry 
 VJII.'] . . . seemed to have the full stamp of Shakspere in his latest man- 
 ner ; the same close - packed expression ; the same life and reality and 
 freshness ; the same rapid and abrupt turnings of thought, so quick that 
 language can hardly follow fast enough ; the same impatient activity of in- 
 tellect and fancy, which, having once disclosed an idea, cannot wait to work 
 it orderly out; the same daring confidence in the resources of language 
 which plunges headlong into a sentence without knowing how it is to come 
 forth ; the same careless metre which disdains to produce its harmonious 
 effects by the ordinary devices, yet is evidently subject to a master of har- 
 mony; the same entire freedom from book-language and commonplace" 
 (on the several shares of Shakspere and Fletcher in the play of ffenry VIIL, 
 by James Spe'dding ; reprinted in Trans. New Sh. Soc. from The OerUleman's 
 Ma(/ami£ for August, 1850). 
 
1 12 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 choly. But such particulars as these do not constitute 
 the chief evidence which proves that the poet had now 
 attained raaturitj. The mystery, the baflSiing, vital ob- 
 scurity of the play, and, in particular, of the character of 
 its chief person, make it evident that Shakspere had left 
 far behind him that early stage of development when an 
 artist obtrudes his intentions, or, distrusting his own abil- 
 ity to keep sight of one uniform design, deliberately and 
 with effort holds that design persistently before him. 
 When Shakspere completed Hamlet, he must have trust- 
 ed himself and trusted his audience ; he trusts himself to 
 enter into relation with his subject, highly complex as 
 that subject was, in a pure, emotional manner. Hamlet 
 might so easily have been manufactured into an enigma 
 or a puzzle ; and then the puzzle, if sufficient pains were 
 bestowed, could be completely taken to pieces and ex- 
 plained. But Shakspere created it a mysterj', and there- 
 fore it is forever suggestive ; forever suggestive, and 
 never wholly explicable. 
 
 It must not be supposed, then, that any idea, any 
 magic phrase, will solve the difficulties presented by the 
 play, or suddenly illuminate everything in it which is 
 obscure. The obscurity itself is -a vital part of the work 
 of art which deals not with a problem, but with a life; 
 and in that life, the history of a soul which moved 
 through shadowy borderlands between the night and 
 day, there is much (as in many a life that is real) to elude 
 and baffle inquiry. It is a remarkable circumstance that 
 while the length of the play in the second quarto con- 
 siderably exceeds its length in the earlier form of 1603 
 and thus materials for the interpretation of Shakspere's 
 purpose in the play are offered in greater abundance, the 
 I ibscurity does not diminish, but, on the contrary, deepens ; 
 iuid if some questions appear to be solved, other questions 
 in greater number spring into existence. 
 
Hamlet. 1 1 3 
 
 We may at once set aside as misdirected a certain class 
 of Hamlet interpretations — those which would transform 
 this tragedy of an individual life into a dramatic study 
 of some general social phenomenon, or of some period in 
 the history of civilization. A writer who has applied an 
 admirable genius for criticism, comprehensive and pene- 
 trative, to the study of this play * describes it as Shak- 
 spere's artistic presentation of a phenomenon recurrent 
 in the world with the regularity of a law of nature, the 
 phenomenon of revolutions. Hamlet cannot escape from 
 the world which surrounds him. In the wreck of a so- 
 ciety which is rotten to the core, he goes down ; with the 
 accession of Fortinbras, a new and sounder era opens. 
 "We must not allow any theory, however ingenious, to 
 divert our attention from fixing itself on this fact, that 
 Hamlet is the central point of the play of Hamlet. It is 
 not the general cataclysm in which a decayed order of 
 things is swept away to give place to new rough mate- 
 rial ; it is not the downfall of the Danish monarchy and 
 of a corrupt society, together with the accession of a new 
 dynasty and of a hardier civilization, that chiefly interest- 
 ed Shakspere. The vital heart of the tragedy of Hamlet 
 cannot be an idea ; neither can it be a fragment of polit- 
 ical philosophy. Out of Shakspere's profound sympathy 
 with an individual soul and a personal life, the wonderful 
 creation came into being. 
 
 It is true, however, as the critic referred to maintains, 
 that the weakness of Hamlet is not to be wholly set down 
 to >his own account. The world is against him. There 
 is no such thing as naked manhood. Shakspere, who felt 
 so truly the significance of external nature as the environ- 
 ing medium of human passion, understood also that no 
 
 * H. A. Werner, " TTeber das Dunkel in der Hamlet-Tragodie," Jahrbucit 
 der deutscken S7iake$peare-0escUschafi, vol. v., pp. 3T-81. 
 
114 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 man is independent of the social and moral conditions 
 under which he lives and acts. Goethe, in the celebrated 
 criticism npon this play contained in his " Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter," has only offered a half-interpretation of its difficul- 
 ties ; and subsequent criticism, under the influence of 
 Goethe, has exhibited a tendency too exclusively subjec- 
 tive. " To me," wrote Goethe, " it is clear that Shakspere 
 meant ... to represent the effects of a great action laid 
 upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view 
 the whole piece seems to be composed. There is an oak- 
 tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne 
 pleasant flowers in its bosom : the roots expand, the jar 
 is shivered." 
 
 This is one half of the truth ; but only one half. In 
 several of the tragedies of Shakspere, the tragic disturb- 
 ance of character and life is caused by the subjection of 
 the chief person of the drama to some dominant passion, 
 essentially antipathetic to his nature, though proceeding 
 from some inherent weakness or imperfection — a passion 
 from which the victim cannot deliver himself, and which 
 finally works out his destruction. Thus Othello, whose 
 nature is instinctively trustful and confiding, with a noble 
 childlike trust — a man 
 
 " Of a free and open nature, 
 That thinks men honest that but seem to be so," 
 
 a man " not easily jealous " — Othello is inoculated with 
 the poison of jealousy and suspicion, and the poison mad- 
 dens and destroys him. Macbeth, made for subordination ■ 
 is the victim of a terrible and unnatural ambition. Lear 
 ignorant of true love, yet with a supreme need of loving 
 and of being loved, is compelled to hatred, and drives 
 from his presence the one being who could have satisfied 
 the hunger of his heart. Timon, who would fain indulge \ 
 a universal lax benevolence, is transformed to a revolter 
 from humanity : " I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." 
 
Hamlet. 115 
 
 "We may reasonably conjecture that the. Hamlet of the 
 old play — a play at least as old as that group of bloody 
 tragedies inspired by the earlier works of Marlowe — was 
 actually what Shakspere's Hamlet, with a bitter pleasure 
 in misrepresenting his own nature, describes himself as 
 being, " very proud, revengeful, ambitious." This, re^ 
 vengeful Hanjlet of the old play exhibited, we may sup- 
 pose, a elose kinship to the Hamlet of the French novelist 
 Belleforest, and of the English " Historie " — the Hamlet 
 who in the banquet-hall burns to death his uncle's cour- 
 tiers, whom he had previously stupefied with strong drink. 
 But Shakspere,in accordance with his dramatic method, 
 and his interest as artist in complex rather than- simple 
 phenomena of human passion and experience, when re- 
 creating the character of the Danish Prince, fashions him 
 as a man to whom persistent action, and in an especial 
 degree the duty of deliberate revenge, is peculiarly anti- 
 pathetic Under the pitiless burden imposed upon him, 
 Hamlet trembles, totters, falls. Thus far Goethe is 
 right. 
 
 But the tragic nodus in Shakspere's first tragedy — 
 Romeo amd Juliet. — was not wholly of a subjective char- 
 acter. The two. lovers are in harmony with one another, 
 and with the purest and highest impulses of their own 
 hearts. . The discord comes from the outer world : they 
 are a pair of "star-crossed lovers." Their love is envel- 
 oped in the hatred of the houses. Their life had grown 
 upon a larger life, a tradition and inheritance of hostility 
 and crime ; against this they rebelled, and the larger life 
 subdued tliem. The world fought against Komeo and 
 Juliet, and they fell in the unequal strife. Now, Goethe 
 failed to observe, or did not observe sufficiently, that this 
 is also the case with Hamlet : 
 
 " The time is out of joint : cursed spite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right !" 
 
1 1 6 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 Hamlet is called upon to assert moral order in a world 
 of moral confusion and obscurity. He has not an open 
 plain or a hillside on which to fight his battle, but a place 
 dangerous and misleading, with dim and winding ways. 
 He is made for honesty, and he is compelled to use the 
 weapons of his adversaries, compelled to practise a shift- 
 ing and subtle stratagem ; thus he comes to waste him- 
 self in ingenuity and crafty device. All the strength 
 which he possesses would have become organized and 
 available had his world been one of honesty, of happi- 
 ness, of human love. But a woi-ld of deceit, of espionage, 
 of selfishness, surrounds him. His idealism, at thirty years 
 of age, almost takes the form of pessimism ; his life and 
 his heart become sterile ; he loses the energy which sound 
 and joyous feeling snpplies; and in the wide-spreading 
 waste of corruption which lies around him, he is tempted 
 to nnderstand and detest things rather than accomplish 
 some limited practical service. In the unweeded garden 
 of the world, why should he task his life to uproot a sin- 
 gle weed ? 
 
 If Goethe's study of the play, admirable as it was, mis- 
 led criticism in one way by directing attention too exclu- 
 sively upon the inner nature of Hamlet, the studies by 
 Schlegel and by Coleridge tended to mislead criticism 
 in another by attaching an exaggerated importance to 
 one element of Hamlet's character. " The whole," wrote 
 Schlegel, "is intended to show that a calculating consid- 
 eration, which exhausts all the relations and possible con- 
 sequences of a deed, must cripple the power of acting." 
 It is true that Hamlet's power of acting was crippled by 
 his habit of " thinking too precisely on the event ;" and 
 it is true, as Coleridge said, that in Hamlet we see "a 
 great, an almost enormous intellectual activity, and a pro- 
 portionate aversion to real action consequent upon it." 
 But Hamlet is not merely or chiefly intellectual ; the 
 
Hamlet, 117 
 
 emotional side of liis character is quite as important as 
 the intellectual ; his malady is as deep-seated in his sen- 
 sibilities and in his heart as it is in the brain. If all his 
 feelings translate themselves into thoughts, it is no less 
 true that all his thoughts are impregnated with feeling. 
 To represent Hamlet as a man of preponderating power 
 of reflection, and to disregard his craving, sensitive heart, 
 is to make the whole play incoherent and unintelligible.* 
 
 It is Hamlet's intellect, however, together with his 
 deep and abiding sense of the moral qualities of things, 
 which distinguishes him, upon the glance of a moment, 
 from the hero of Sliakspere's first tragedy, Komeo. If 
 Komeo fail to retain a sense of fact and of the real world 
 because the fact, as it were, melts away and disappears 
 in a solvent of delicious emotion, Hamlet equally loses 
 a sense of fact because with him each object and event 
 transforms and expands itself into an idea. When the 
 play opens he has reached the age of thirty years — the 
 age, it has been said, when the ideality of youth ought to 
 become one with and inform the practical tendencies of 
 manhood — and he has received culture of every kind 
 except the culture of active life. During the reign of 
 the strong-willed elder Hamlet, there was no call to ac- 
 tion for his meditative son. He has slipped on into 
 years of full manhood still a haunter of the university, 
 a student of philosophies, an amateur in art, a ponderer 
 on the things of life and death, who has never formed a 
 resolution or executed a deed. 
 
 This long course of thinking, apart from action, has 
 destroyed Hamlet's very capacity for belief, since in be- 
 lief there exists a certain element contributed by the 
 will. Hamlet cannot adjust the infinite part of him to 
 
 * See W. Oehlmann'a article " Die Gemiithsseite des Hamlet-Characters," 
 in Jahrbuch der deutsdwii Slmke^eare - Gesdlschafi, vol. iii. , p. 208. 
 
1 1 8 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 the finite; the one invades the Other and infects it; or, 
 rather, the finite dislimns and dissolves, and[ leaves him 
 only in presence of the idea. He cannot make real to 
 himself the actual world, even while he supposes himself 
 a materialist ; he cannot steadily keep alive within him- 
 self a sense of the importance of any positive, limited 
 thing — a deed, for example. Things in their actual, phe- 
 nomenal aspect flit before him as transitory, accidental, 
 and unreal. And the absolute truth of things is so hard 
 to attain, and only, if at all, is to be attained in the mind. 
 Accordingly, Hamlet can lay hold of nothing with calm, 
 resolved energy ; he cannot even retain a thought in in- 
 defeasible possession. Thus all through the play he wa- 
 vers between materialism and spiritualism, between be- 
 lief in immortality and disbelief, between reliance upon 
 providence and a bowing under fate.* In presence of 
 the ghost, a sense of his own spiritual existence and the 
 immortal life of the soul grows strong within him. In 
 presence of spirit he is himself a spirit : 
 
 " I do not set my life at a pin's fee ; 
 And for my soul, what can it do to that, 
 Being a thing immortal as itself ?" 
 
 ■ When left to his private thoughts, he wavers uncer- 
 tainly to and fro ; death is a sleep — a sleep, it may be, 
 troubled with dreams. In the graveyard, in the pres- 
 ence of human dust, the base affinities of our bodily nat- 
 ure prove irresistibly attractive to the curiosity of Ham- 
 let's imagination ; and he cannot choose but pursue the 
 history of human dust through all its series of hideous 
 
 * In " Shakspere-Forschungen— I. Hamlet," by Benno Tschisehwitz (Halle, 
 1868), the author endeavors to prove that Shakspere was acquainted with 
 the philosophy of Bruno, and embodied portions of it in the play of Handet. 
 Giordano Bruno lived in London from the year 1583 to 1586, where he 
 seems to have received the patronage of Sir P. Sidney, Lord Buckhurst, and 
 the Earl of Leicester. He became professor at Wittenberg. 
 
Hamlet. 119 
 
 metamorphoses. Tims, as Eomeo's emotions while he 
 lived in abandonment to the life of feeling for feeling's 
 sake are not genuine emotions, so Hamlet's thoughts 
 while he is given over to the life of brooding medita- 
 tion are hardly even so much as real thoughts, but are 
 rather phantom ideas which dissolve, reform, and dis- 
 solve again, changing forever with every wind of cir- 
 cumstance. He is incapable of certitude. 
 
 When Hamlet first stands before us, his father has 
 been two months dead ; his mother has been for a month 
 the wife of Claudius. He is solitary in the midst of the 
 court. A mass of sorrow and of wounded feeling, of 
 shame and of disgust, has been thrown back upon him ; 
 and this secretion of. feeling which obtains no vent is 
 busy in producing a wide-spreading!, morbid humor. The 
 misery of seltsuppression. leaves him in a state of. weak 
 and intense irritability. Every word uttered pricks him, 
 and he is longing to be alone. A little bitterness es- 
 capes in his brief acrid answers to the King; and when 
 his mother, in her insensibility to true feeling, chances 
 upon the word " seems," his irritation breaks forth, and, 
 after his fashion, (that of one who relieves himself by 
 speech rather than by deeds), he unpacks his heart in 
 words. The Queen, who is soft and sensual, a lover of 
 ease, withal a little sentimental, and therefore incapable 
 of genuine passion, does not resent the outbreak of her 
 strange son ; and Hamlet, somewhat iashamed of Ijis dem- 
 onsti-ation, which has the look of a display of superior 
 feeling, endures in silence his uncle's tedious moralizing 
 on the duties of mourners. Then with grave courtesy 
 he yields to his mother's request that he should renounce 
 his intention of returning to Wittenberg — 
 
 "I shall in all my best obey you, madam." 
 
 What.;m'atters it whether he gq or stay ! Life is all so 
 flat, stale, and unprofitable that the difference between 
 
1 20 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 AVittenberg aud Elsinore cannot be worth contending 
 for* But when at length he is alone, Hamlet feels 
 himself enfranchised — free to shed abroad his sorrow, 
 to gaze intensely and mournfully upon his own aridity 
 of spirit, and to compensate in the idea for the expendi- 
 ture of kindness in act made on his mother's behalf. A 
 fi'ail mother, an incestuous mother, a mother endowed 
 with less discourse of reason than the beasts! He has 
 satisfied the Queen with an act; and action, this way or 
 that, is profoundly insignificant to Hamlet. But in his 
 mind she shall get no advantage of him. He will see 
 her as she is ; and if he is gracious to her in his deeds, 
 ho will, in his thoughts, be stern and inexorable. 
 
 In this scene we make acquaintance with two impor- 
 tant persons in Hamlet's world. " Something is rotten 
 in the state of Denmark," exclaimed Marcellus. Rather 
 all is rotten — the whole head is sick and the whole heart 
 faint. On the throne, the heart of the living organism 
 of a state, reigns the appearance of a king; but under 
 this kingly appearance is hidden a wretched, corrupt, and 
 cowardly soul; a poisoner of the true ting and of true 
 kingship ; incestuous, gross, and wanton ; a fierce drink- 
 er ; a palterer with his conscience ; and, as Hamlet, vehe- 
 mently urging the fact, describes him, " a vice of kings," 
 " a villain and a cut-purse," " a paddock, a bat, a gib." 
 Such is kingship in Denmark. 
 
 And the Queen, Hamlet's mother, one of the two wom- 
 en from whom Hamlet must infer what womanhood is — 
 what is she ? For thirty years she had given the appear- 
 ance, the simulacrum, of true love to her husband, one 
 on whom 
 
 * Observe the contrast between Hamlet and Laertes. The latter wrings, 
 by laborsome petition, leave from his father to return to Paris. Laertes 
 had come from Paris to the coronation ; Horatio from Wittenbei^ to the 
 late king's funeral. 
 
Hamlet. . 121 
 
 " Every god did seem to set his seal 
 To give the world assurance of a man ;" 
 
 one who, even in the place of penance, still retains his 
 solicitude for her. And this show of thirty years' love 
 had proved to be without reality or root in her being : it 
 had been no more than a sinking-dowu upon the acci- 
 dental things of life, its comforts and pleasures. Her hus- 
 band had passed out of her existence like any other cas- 
 ual object. During all those years of blameless wifehood, 
 she had never once conceived the possibility of a love 
 which is founded upon the essential, not the accidental, 
 elements of life ; she had never once known what is the 
 bond of life to life, and of soul to soul. The timid, self- 
 indulgent, sensuous, sentimental Queen is as remote from 
 true woman's virtue as Claudius is from the virtues of 
 royal manhood. 
 
 The third scene of the first act introduces another 
 group of personages, distinguished figures of the Danish 
 coiirt. Laertes is the cultured young gentleman of the 
 period.* He is accomplished, chivalric, gallant ; but the 
 accomplishments are superficial, the chivalry theatrical, 
 the gallantry of a showy kiiid. He is master of events 
 up to a certain point, because he sees their coarse, gaud}'^, 
 superficial significance. '^Et is his part to do fine things 
 and make fine speeches ; to enter the king's presence 
 gallantly demanding atonement for his father's murder ; 
 to leap into his sister's grave and utter a theatrical rant 
 of sorrow. Hamlet sees in his own "cause an image of 
 
 * Gervinus has described Hamlet as a man of a civilized period stand- 
 ing in the centre of an heroic age of rough manners and physical daring 
 (" Shakespeare Commentaries," vol. ii., p. 161). No piece of criticism could 
 fall more wide of the mark. The age of Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, Osric, 
 and of the students of philosophy at Wittenberg, is an age complex and 
 refined, and in all things the reverse of heroic. See Kreyssig, " Vorlesun- 
 gan iiber Shakespeare," vol. ii., p. 222 (ed. 1862). 
 
1 2 2 Sliakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 that of Laertes. Each has lost a father by foul means, 
 and Laertes delays not to seek revenge. But Shakspere 
 does not make the contrast between Hamlet and Laer- 
 tes favorable to the latter. No overweight of tliought, 
 no susceptibility of conscience, retards the action of the 
 young gallant. He readily falls in with the King's 
 scheme of assassination, and adds his private contribu- 
 tion of villainy — the venom on his rapier's point. La- 
 ertes has been no student of philosophic Wittenberg.* 
 The French capital, "so dear to the average, sensual 
 man," is Laertes' school of education. What lessons he 
 learned there we may conjecture from the conversation 
 of Polonius with his servant Keynaldo. 
 
 Laertes' little sister, Ophelia, is loved by the Lord 
 Hamlet. What is Ophelia ? Can she contribute to the 
 deliverance of Hamlet from his sad life of brooding 
 thought, from his weakness and his melancholy ? Juliet 
 had delivered Komeo from his dream of self-conscious 
 egoistic feeling into the reality of anguish and of joy. 
 What can Ophelia do ? Nothing. She is a tender little 
 fragile soul, who might have grown to her slight perfec- 
 tion in some neat garden-plat of life. Hamlet falls into 
 the too frequent error of supposing that a man gains 
 rest and composure through the presence of a nature 
 weak, gentle, and clinging ; and that the very incapacity 
 of such a nature to share the troubles of heart and brain 
 which beset one must be a source of refreshment and 
 repose. And so it is for moments when the pathos of 
 slender joy, unaware of the great interests and sorrows 
 of the world, touches us. But a strong nature was what 
 Hamlet really needed. All the comfort he ever got in 
 life came from one who was " more an antique Roman 
 
 * Shakspere remembered Luther, thinks Gervimis. He had Giordano 
 Bruno in his mind, says Tschisehwitz. The university was famous : Gior- 
 dano Bruno names it the Athens of Germany. 
 
Hamlet. 123 
 
 than a Dane," his friend Horatio. If he had found one 
 who to Horatio's fortitude, his passive strength, had 
 added ardor and enthusiasm, Hamlet's melancholy must 
 have vanished away ; he would have been lifted up 
 into the light and strength of the good facts of. the 
 world, and then he could not have faltered upon his 
 way. 
 
 As things were, Hamlet quickly learned, and the knowl- 
 edge embittei-ed him, that Ophelia could neither receive 
 great gifts of soul, nor in return render equivalent gifts. 
 There is an exchange of little tokens between the lovers, 
 but of the large exchange of soul there is none; and 
 Hamlet, in his bitter mood, can truthfully exclaim, " I 
 never gave you auglit." Hamlet was conscious of no 
 constraining power to prevent him, when he thought of 
 his mother's frailty, from extending his words to her 
 whole sex — " Frailty, thy name is woman." Had a noble 
 nature stood in Ophelia's place, to utter such words would 
 have been treason against his inmost consciousness. Let 
 the reader contrast Juliet's commanding energy of feel- 
 ing, of imagination, of will, with Ophelia's timidity and 
 self-distrust, the incapable sweetness and gentleness of 
 her heart, her docility to all lawful guardians and gov- 
 ernors. Juliet throws oS father, mother, and nurse, and 
 stands in solitary strength of love; she always uses the 
 directest word, always counsels the bravest action. In 
 his later plays, Shakspere can still be seen to rejoice and 
 expand in presence of the courage of true love.. Desde- 
 mona — „ . .:, i, u 
 
 "A maiden never bold ; 
 Of spirit so still and quiet that her inotipn 
 Blush'd at herself"— 
 
 standing by Othello's side can confront her indignant 
 father, with the Duke and magnificoes. Imogen, for 
 Posthumas's sake, can shoot against the King her shafts 
 
1 24 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 of indignant scorn, so keen and exquisite, yet heavily 
 timbered enough to wing forward through the wind ol 
 Cymbehne's anger. But Ophelia is decorous and timid, 
 with no initiative in her own heart; unimaginative; 
 choosing her phrases with a sense of maidenly propri- 
 ety: 
 
 " He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders 
 Of his affection to me." 
 
 And Polonius inquires, " Do you believe his tenders, as 
 you call them ?" " I do not know, my lord, what I should 
 tliink." It may be that her brother and father are right ; 
 that the " holy vows " of Hamlet on which she, poor little 
 soul, had relied are but " springes to catch woodcocks." In 
 her madness, the impression made upon her by the words 
 of Polonius and Laertes, which she had until then con- 
 cealed, finds utterance : " She says she hears there's tricks 
 i' the world." Juliet resolved her doubts, not by con- 
 sulting old Capnlet or her nurse, but by pressing forward 
 to perfect knowledge of the heart of Komeo, and by oc- 
 cupying that heart with a purity of passion only less than 
 her own. Ophelia, when her father directs her to dis- 
 trust the man she loves, to deny him her presence, to re- 
 pel his letters, has only her meek little submission to 
 utter, " I shall obey, my lord." 
 
 The comic element in this scene is present, but is 
 not obtruded. Shakspere, "der feiue Shakspere, der 
 Schalk,"* smiles visibly, but restrains himself from 
 downright laughter. Laertes has read his moral lecture 
 to Ophelia, and she in turn ventures upon a gentle little 
 piece of sisterly advice. Laertes suddenly discovers that 
 lie ought to be aboard his ship : " I stay too long." Ophe- 
 lia " is giving the conversation a needless and inconven- 
 
 * r. Th. Vischer, in Jahrhuch der deutsclwi SJiakespeare- GesdhcJuift, toL 
 ii., p. 149. 
 
Hamlet. 125 
 
 lent turn ; . . . for sisters to lecture brothers is an inver- 
 sion of the natural order of things."* But at this mo- 
 ment the venerable Chamberlain appears. Laertes, who 
 was supposed to have gone, is caught. There is only one 
 mode of escape from the imminent scolding — to kneel 
 and ask a second blessing. "What matter that it has all 
 been said once before ? Start the old man on his hobby 
 of uttering wisdom, and off he will go : 
 
 "A double blessing is a doable grace; 
 Occasion smiles upon a second leave." 
 
 The advice of Polonius is a cento of quotations from 
 Lyly's " Euphues." f Its significance must be looked for 
 less in the matter than in the sententious manner. Polo- 
 nius has been wise with the little wisdom of worldly pru- 
 dence. He has been a master of indirect means of get- 
 ting at the truth, " windlaces and assays of bias." In the 
 shallow lore of life he has been learned. Of true wisdom 
 he has never had a gleam. And what Shakspere wishes 
 to signify in this speech is that wisdom of Polonius's 
 kind consists of a set of maxims ; all such wisdom might 
 be set down for the head-lines of copybooks. That is to 
 say, his wisdom is not the outflow of a rich or deep nat- 
 ure, but the little accumulated hoard of a long and su- 
 perficial experience. This is what the sententious man- 
 ner signifies. And very rightly Shakspere has put into 
 Polonius's mouth the noble lines, 
 
 * C. E. Moberly, Eugby edition of HamM, p. 21. 
 
 t Mr. W. L. Kushton, in his " Shakespeare's Euphuism," pp. 44-47 (Lon- 
 don, 1871), places side by side the precepts of Polonius and of Euphues. 
 "Pol. Give thy thoughts no tongue. Euph. Be not lavish of thy tongue. 
 Pol. Do not dull thy palm, etc, Euph. Every one that shaketh thee by the 
 hand is not joined to thee in heart. Pol. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, 
 etc. Euph. Be not quarrellous for every light occasion. Pol. Give every 
 man thine ear, but few thy voice. Euph, It shall be there better to hear 
 what they say than to speak what thou thinkest." Both Polonius and Eu- 
 phues speak of the advice given as " these few precepts." 
 
1 26 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 " To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow as the night the day 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 Yes ; Polonius has got one great truth among liis copy- 
 book maxims, but it comes in as a little bit of hard, un- 
 vital wisdom like tlie rest: ^'^ Dress well, donH lend or 
 Ijorrow moneys to thine own self he true." * 
 
 But to appreciate and enjoy fully the Chamberlain's 
 morality, we must observe him in the first scene of the 
 second act. Reynaldo is despatched as a spy upon the 
 conduct of the son on wliom the paternal blessing had 
 been so tenderly bestowed. Polonius does not expect 
 inorality of an ideal. kind from the boj'. As is natural, 
 Laertes in Paris will sow his wild oats. If he come back 
 the accomplished cavalier, skilful in manage of his horse, 
 a master of fencing, able to finger a lute, Polonius will 
 treasure up in his heart, not discontented, the knowledge 
 of his son's " wild slips and sallies." f 
 
 Meanwhile, Hamlet, in the midst of his sterile world- 
 weariness, has received a shock, but not the shock of joy. 
 His father's spirit is abroad. "With Horatio and Mar- 
 cellus, Hamlet on the platform at night is awaiting the 
 appearance of the ghost. The sounds of Claudius's revelry 
 reach their ears. Hamlet is started upon a series of re- 
 flections suggested by the Danish drinking customs ; his 
 surroundings disappear ; he has ceased to remember the 
 
 * Compare and contrast with the advice of Polonius the parting words of 
 the Countess to Bertram {All 's Wdl that Ends Well, act i., so. 1). Observe 
 how the speech of the Countess opens and ends with motherly passion of 
 fear and pride, in which lies enclosed her little effort at moral precept. 
 
 f The last words of Polonius to Kejnaldo are, " And let him [Laertes] 
 ply his music." On these words Vischer observes, "Die paar Wortcheu erst 
 enhalten den ganzen Schlussel ; der Sohn darf spielen, trinkcn, raufen flu- 
 chen, zanken, in saubre Hiiuser, ' videlicet Bordelle,' gehen, wenn er nnr Musik 
 treibt; achte Cavalierserziehung !" ("Die rcalistisehe Shakespeare - Kritik 
 imd Hamlet," von P. Th. Vischer, in Jahrbuch der deutsclten Shakenpeare-Ge- 
 sclhchaft, vol. ii., p. 149.) 
 
Hamlet. 127 
 
 purpose with which he has come liither ; he is lost in his 
 own thoughts. The ghost is present before Hamlet is 
 aware. It is Horatio who interrupts his meditation, and 
 rouses him to behold the apparition. No sooner has 
 Hamlet heard the word "Murder" upon his father's lips 
 than he is addressed to " sweep to his revenge " — in the 
 idea — 
 
 " With wings as swift 
 As meditation or the thoughts of love." 
 
 He will change his entire mental stock and store ; he will 
 forget his arts and his philosophies; he will retain no 
 thought save of his murdered father. And wlien the 
 ghost departs, he draws — " not his sword, but his note- 
 book." ^ There, at least, he can get it down in black and 
 white that the smiling Claudius is a villain — can put that 
 fact beyond the reach of doubt or vicissitude ; for sub- 
 jective impressions, Hamlet is too well aware, do not re- 
 tain the certitude which during one vivid moment seemed 
 to characterize them. He will heneef ortli remember noth- 
 thing but the ghost ; and, to assure himself of that, he sets 
 down his father's parting words, "Adieu, adieu ! remem- 
 ber me." That is to say, " he puts a knot upon his hand- 
 kerchief." t He is conscious that he is not made for the 
 world of action ; that the fact is always in process of glid- 
 ing away from him and being replaced by an idea. And 
 he is resolved to guard against this in the present instance. 
 It is now, in a sudden inspiration of excited feeling, 
 that Hamlet conceives the possibility of his assuming an 
 antic disposition. What is Hamlet's purpose in this? 
 He finds that he is involuntarily conducting himself in a 
 wild and unintelligible fashion. He has escaped "from 
 
 * W. Oehlmann, Jahrhiieh der deuiachen Sliakespeare- Gesellscha/t, -vol. iil, 
 
 p. 211. 
 f Hebler, " Aaf=atze iiber Shakespeare" (Bern, 1868), p. 138. 
 
1 2 8 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 his own feelings of tte overwhelming and supernatural 
 by a wild transition to the ludicrous — a sort of cunning 
 bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium." His mind 
 struggles " to resume its accustomed course, and effect a 
 dominion over the awful shapes and sounds that have 
 usui-ped its sovereignty."* He assumes madness as a 
 means of concealing his actual disturbance of mind. His 
 over-excitability may betray him ; but if it be a received 
 opinion that his mind is unhinged, such an access of 
 over-excitement will pass unobserved and unstudied. At 
 this moment Hamlet's immediate need is to calm him- 
 self, to escape into solitude, there to recover self-mastery, 
 and come to a clear understanding of the altered state 
 of things. In the light of the court, he is persecuted by 
 the eyes of the curious and the suspicious ; he is " too 
 much i' the sun." To be in presence of all, and yet to 
 be hidden ; to be intelligible to himself, and a perplexity 
 to others; to be within reach of every one, and to be 
 himself inaccessible — that would be an enviable position ! 
 Madness possesses exquisite immunities and privileges. 
 From the safe vantage of unintelligibility, he can delight 
 himself by uttering his whole mind, and sending forth 
 his words among the words of others, with their mean- 
 ing disguised, as he himself must be, clothed in an antic 
 garb of parable, dark sayings which speak the truth in a 
 mystery. 
 
 * The first quotation is from S. T. Coleridge ; the second from an essay 
 by Hartley Coleridge^ " On the Character of Hamlet," " Essays and Margi- 
 nalia," vol. i., pp. 151-171. An earlier writer than S. T. Coleridge had well 
 said, " Hamlet was fully sensible how strange those inyoluntary improprie- 
 ties must appear to others. He was conscious he could not suppress them ; 
 he knew he was surrounded with spies ; and he was justly apprehensive lest 
 his suspicions or purposes should be discovered. But how are these conse- 
 quences to be prevented ? By counterfeiting an insanity which in part 
 exists." — Richardson's Essays on Shakespcare'a Bramafie Characters (1786)j 
 p. 163. 
 
Hamlet. 129 
 
 Hamlet does not assume madness to conceal any plan 
 of revenge. He possesses no such plan. And as far as 
 liis active powers are concerned, the assumed madness is 
 a inisfortune. Instead of assisting him to achieve any- 
 thing, it is one of the causes which tend to retard his 
 action. For now, instead of forcing himself upon the 
 world, and conipelling it to accept a mandate of his 
 will, he can enjoy the delight of a mere observer and 
 critic — an observer and critic both of himself and of oth- 
 ers. He can understand and mock; whereas he ought 
 to set himself sternly to his piece of work. He utters 
 himself henceforth at large, because he is unintelligible. 
 He does not aim at producing any effect with his speech, 
 except in the instance of his appeal to Gertrude's con- 
 science. His words are not deeds. They are uttered 
 self-indulgently to please the intellectual or artistic part 
 of him, or to gratify his passing mood of melancholy, 
 of irritation, or of scorn. He bewilders Polonius with 
 mockery, which effects nothing, but which bitterly de- 
 lights Hamlet by its subtlety and cleverness. He speaks 
 with singular openness to his courtier friends, because 
 they, filled with thoughts of worldly advancement and 
 ambition, read all his meanings upside down, and the 
 heart of his mystery is absolutely inaccessible to their 
 shallow wits. When he describes to them his melancholy, 
 he is in truth speaking in solitude to himself. Nothing 
 is easier than to throw them off the scent. "A knavisli 
 speech sleeps in a foolish ear." The exquisite cleverness 
 of his mimetics and his mockery is some compensation 
 to Hamlet for his inaction. This intellectual versatility, 
 this agility, flatters his consciousness; and it is only on 
 occasions that he is compelled to observe into what a 
 swoon or syncope his will has fallen. 
 
 Yet it has been truly said that only one who feels 
 Hamlet's strength should venture to speak of Hamlet's 
 
 6* 
 
1 30 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 weakness. That in spite of difficulties without, and in- 
 ward difficulties, he still clings to his terrible duty— let- 
 ting it go, indeed, for a time, but returning to it again, 
 and in the end accomplishing it — implies strength. He 
 is not incapable of vigorous action, if only he be allowed 
 no chance of thinking the fact away into an idea. He 
 is the first to board the pirate ; he stabs Polonius through 
 the arras ; he suddenly alters the sealed commission, and 
 sends his schoolfellows to the English headsman; he 
 finally executes iustice upon the king. But all his ac- 
 tion is sudden and fragmentary. It is not continuous 
 and coherent. His violent excitability exhausts him. 
 After the night of encounter witli the ghost, a fit of ab- 
 ject despondency, we may be certain, ensued, which had 
 besun to set in when the words were uttered — 
 
 "The time is out of joint; 0, cursed spite, 
 Tiiat ever I was born to set it rigiit !" 
 
 After he has slain Polonius, he weeps ; after his strug- 
 gle with Laertes in Ophelia's grave a mood of depression 
 
 ensues : 
 
 " Thus awliile the fit will worlc on him ; 
 Anon as patient as the female dove 
 When that her golden couplets are disclosed, 
 His silence will sit drooping." 
 
 His feelings are not under control. They quickly fa- 
 tigue themselves, like a dog who now hurries before his 
 master, and now drops behind, but will not advance 
 steadily.* 
 
 At the moment when Polonius has dismissed Key- 
 naldo, Ophelia comes rnnning to her father, " Alas, my 
 lord, I have been so affrighted !" Such is the piteously 
 inadequate response of Ophelia to Hamlet's mute confes- 
 sion of his sorrow. His letters have been repelled ; her 
 
 * The illustration is Hebler's. 
 
Hamlet. 13 ^ 
 
 ipresence has been denied to him. Hamlet resolves that 
 he will see her, and hear her speak. He goes, profoundly, 
 agitated, in the disordered attire which is now nothing 
 unusual with him, and which constitntes part of Hamlet's 
 "transformation." He is not in the mood to consider 
 very attentively particulars of tlie toilet. He discovers 
 Ophelia sewing in her closet. He stands, unable to 
 speak, holding her hand, gazing in her face, trying to 
 discover if there be in her any virtue or strength, any- 
 thing which can give a shadow of hope that the widening 
 gulf between them is not quite impassable. He endeav- 
 ors to make a new study of her soul through lier eyes. 
 And in her eyes he reads — fright. The most piteous 
 part of the incident is that Ophelia is wholly blameless. 
 She is shocked, bewildered, alarmed, anxious to run away 
 and get under the protection of her father. No wonder 
 Hamlet cannot utter a word ! No wonder that his gest- 
 ure expresses absolute confirmation of liis unhappy fears, 
 utter despair of finding virtue in her ! A sigh rises from 
 the depths of his spirit. Ho feels that all is over. He 
 knows how strange and remote his voice would sound. 
 And as Hamlet can feel nothing without generalizing, he 
 recognizes in tliis failure of heart to answer heart a type 
 of one great sorrow of the world. 
 
 Polonius receives from the docile Ophelia the letters of 
 Hamlet. She does not shrink from betraying the secrets 
 of his weakness and his melancholy confided to her. The 
 oddest of the letters, that which seemed most incoherent, 
 is carried off to be read aloud to the King — Ophelia con- 
 senting. What is the purport of this letter? "Was it 
 meant as a kind of test ? Did Hamlet wish to ascertain 
 whether Ophelia would be puzzled by the superficial odd- 
 ity of it, or would penetrate to the grief and the love 
 which lay beneath it ? " He that hath ears to hear, let him 
 ■hear" — upon this principle Hamlet constantly acts. He 
 
132 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 is content that the feeble-hearted and dnll-witted shonld 
 find him a puzzle and an offence. 
 
 The Prince comes by reading. Polonins accosts him, 
 assuming that Hamlet is downright mad. Hamlet's ironj 
 here consists in his adoption and exaggeration of the 
 ideas of Polonius. " You have immured jour daughter ; 
 you ])ave repelled my letters, and denied me sight of 
 lier ; O wise old man ! for woman's virtue is the frailest 
 of things, and there is no male creature who is not a 
 corrupter of virtue. If the most glorious and vivifying 
 thing in the universe, the sun, will breed maggots out of 
 carrion, truly Prince Hamlet may be suspected ! Beware 
 of your daughter! Friend, look to't." And then, in 
 more direct fashion, Hamlet breaks forth into a satire on 
 old men with their weak hams and most plentiful lack of 
 wit. Polonius retires bewildered, and two new persecu- 
 tors appear. 
 
 In Goethe's novel, " Wilhelm Meister," the hero, when 
 adapting the play of Hamlet to the German stage, alters 
 it in certain particulars. Serlo, the manager of the thea- 
 tre, suggests that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should 
 be "compressed into one." "Heaven keep me from all 
 such curtailments!" exclaims Wilhelm; "they destroy at 
 once the sense and the.effect. What these two pei-sons 
 are and do, it is impossible to represent by one. In such 
 email matters we discover Shakspere's greatness. These 
 soft approaches, this smirking and bowing, this assenting, 
 wheedling, flattering, this whisking agility, this wagging 
 of the tail, this allness and emptiness, this legal knavery, 
 this ineptitude and insipidity, how can they be expressed 
 by a single man ? There ought to be at least a dozen of 
 these people if they could be had ; for it is only in soci- 
 ety that they are anything; they are society itself, and 
 Shakspere showed no little wisdom and discernment in 
 bringing in a pair of them." What Goethe admirably 
 
Hamlet. 133 
 
 expresses, Shakspere, " der Schalk," lias perhaps hinted in 
 the address of the King and Queen to the pair of court- 
 iers : 
 
 " Kiitg. Thanks, Eosencrantz and gentle Guildenstem. 
 Qiieen. Thanks, Guildenstem and gentle Eosencrantz." 
 
 That is, "six to one, and half a dozen to the other." 
 With no tie of friendship or capacity for true human 
 comradeship, the companions hunt in a couple ; and they 
 go, with the same indistinguishable smirking and bowing, 
 to their fate in England. There is grim irony in this end- 
 ing of the courtiers' history. " They were lovely and 
 pleasant in their lives," after the taste of Claudius's court, 
 "and in their death they were not divided." 
 
 In the first scene of the third act Ophelia is stationed 
 as a decoy to expose to her father and the King the dis- 
 ease of the man she loves. It will assist, she is assured, 
 to bring about Hamlet's restoration ; and Ophelia is doc- 
 ile, and does not question her instructors. A book of 
 devotions is placed in h«r hand.* Hamlet comes by, 
 brooding upon suicide, upon the manifold ills of the 
 world, and his own weakness. He sees Ophelia, so love- 
 ly, so childlike, so innocent, praying. She is for a mo- 
 ment something better and more beautiful than woman, 
 something " afar from the sphere of his sorrow ;" and he 
 involuntarily exclaims, 
 
 * Polonius (giving the book) says, 
 
 " Eead on this book ; 
 That show of such an exercue may color 
 Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this — 
 'Tis too much proved — ^that with devotion's visage. 
 And pious action, we do sugar o'er 
 The devil himself." 
 
 Hamlet, seeing ier at prayer, exclaims, 
 
 " Nymph, in thy orisons, 
 Be all my sins remember'd." 
 
1 34 Shakspere—^His Mind and Art. 
 
 " Nymph, in thy orisons, 
 Be all my sins remember'd." 
 
 But Ophelia plays her part with a manner that betrays 
 her. Observe the four rhymed lines, ending with the lit- 
 tle set sentence (which looks as if prepared beforehand), 
 
 " For to the noble mind 
 Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." 
 
 And then, upon the spot, the Prince's presents are pro- 
 duced. How could Hamlet, endowed with swift penetra- 
 tion as he is, fail to detect the fraud? He had unmasked 
 Eosencrantz and Guildenstern, and thereby his suspicions 
 had been quickened. And, as for a moment he had been 
 touched and exalted by the presence of Ophelia's inno- 
 cence and piety, he is now proportionately indignant. 
 
 One of the deepest characteristics of Hamlet's nature 
 is a longing for sincerity, for truth in mind and manners; 
 an aversion from all that is false, affected, or exaggerat- 
 ed.* Ophelia is joined with the rest of them ; she is an 
 impostor, a spy ; incapable of truth, of honor, of love. 
 Have they desired to observe an outbreak of his insanity? 
 He will give it to them with a vengeance. With an al- 
 most savage zeal, wliich is underneath nothing but bitter 
 pain, he pounces upon Ophelia's deceit. " Ha, ha ! are you 
 honest?" His cruelty is that of an idealist, who cannot 
 precisely measure the effect of his words upon his hearer, 
 but who requires to liberate his mind. And again Ham- 
 let plays bitterly at approving of the principles and con- 
 duct of Polonius in the matter of his relations with 
 Ophelia : " You have been secluded from that dangerous 
 corrupter of youth, Prince Hamlet ; you love to devote 
 yourself to prayer and solitude. Most wise and right ! 
 I am all that your father has represented me, and worse 
 
 * False, as the bearing of Eosencrantz and Guildenstern ; affected, as the 
 manner of Osric ; exaggerated, as Laertes' theatrical rant in Ophelia's grave. 
 
Hamlet. 135 
 
 — very proud, revengeful, ambitious [all that Hamlet was 
 no{\. And yet there is in the world such a thing as cal- 
 umny ; it may happen to touch yourself some day. You 
 who are so fair and frail, so pious in appearance, so false 
 in deed, do you look on us men as dangerous to virtue ? 
 Zhave heard a little of women's doings too; keep your 
 precious virtue, if you can, and let us male monsters be. 
 Get thee to a nunnery !" And to complete the startling 
 effect of this outbreak of insanity, solicited by his perse- 
 cutors, he sends a shaft after the Chamberlain, and a shaft 
 after the King : 
 
 " Ham. Where's your father ? 
 Oph. [comimf out with Iter docile Utile lie]. At home, my lord. 
 Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no- 
 where butin's own house." 
 
 This for Polonius ; and for the King, witli menacing em- 
 phasis the words are uttered, "I say we will have no 
 more inarriages : those that are married already, all but 
 one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a 
 nunnery, go !" 
 
 Hamlet bursts out of the lobby with a triumphant and 
 yet bitter sense of having turned the tables upon his tor- 
 mentors. He has thrown into sudden confusion the 
 ranks of the enemy. Ophelia remains to weep. In the 
 pauses of Hamlet's cruel invective, she had uttered her 
 piteous little appeals to heaven: "Heavenly powers, re- 
 store him !" " O, help him, you sweet heavens !" When 
 he abruptly departs, the poor girl's sorrow overflows. In 
 liel- lament, Hauilet's noble reason, which is overthrown, 
 somehow gets mixed up with the elegance of his cos- 
 tume, which, has suffered equal rnin. He who was the 
 " glass of fashion," noticed by every one, " Mie observed 
 of all observers," is a- hopeless lunatic. She has no bitter 
 thought about lier lover. She is " of ladies most deject 
 
1 36 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 and wretched ;" all her emotion is helpless tenderness and 
 sorrow. Pier grief is as deep as her soul is deep. 
 
 Hamlet now binds himself more closely tlian ever to 
 Horatio. This friend and fellow-scholar id the one ster- 
 ling thing in the rotten state of Denmark. There is a 
 touching devotion shown by Hamlet to Horatio in the 
 meeting which follows the scene in the lobby with Ophe- 
 lia — a devotion which is the overflow of gratitude for the 
 comfort and refuge he finds with his friend after the re- 
 cent proof of the incapacity and want of integrity in the 
 woman he had loved. Horatio's equanimity, his evenness 
 of temper, is like solid land to Hamlet after the tossings 
 and tumult. of his own heart. The Prince apologizes 
 with beautiful delicacy for seeming to flatter Horatio. 
 It is not flattery; what can he expect from a man so 
 poor ? It is genuine delight in the sanity, the strength, 
 the constancy, of Horatio's character. Yet all the while 
 Shakspere compels us to feel that it is Hamlet with his 
 manifold weakness and ill-commingled blood and judg- 
 ment who is the rarer nature of the two ; and that Hora- 
 tio is made to be his helpmate, recognizing in service his 
 highest duty. 
 
 There is no Friar Laurence in this play. To him the 
 Catholic children of Verona carried their troubles, and 
 received from their father comfort and counsel. Hamlet 
 is hardly the man to seek for wisdom or for succor from 
 a priest. Let them resolve his doubts about the soul, 
 about immortality, about God flrst. But Shakspere has 
 taken care to show us, in the effete society of Denmark, 
 where everything needs renewing, what religion is. To 
 Ophelia's funeral the Church reluctantly sends her rep- 
 resentative. All that the occasion suggests of harsh, for- 
 mal, and essentially inhuman dogmatics is uttered by the 
 priest. The distracted girl has by untimely accident met 
 her death ; and therefore, instead of charitable prayers. 
 
Hamlet. 137 
 
 " Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her." 
 
 These are the sacred words of truth, of peace, of consola- 
 tion, which religion has to whisper to wounded hearts ! 
 
 " We should profane the service of the dead, 
 To sing a requiem and such rest to her 
 As to peace-parted'souls." 
 
 This is the religion which helps to make Claudius a.pal- 
 terer with his conscience, and Hamlet an aimless wander- 
 er after truth. Better consort in Denmark with players 
 than with priests !* 
 
 When the play is about to be enacted, Hamlet declines 
 a seat near his mother, because he wishes to occupy a 
 position from which he can scrutinize the King's counte- 
 nance. He is now fully roused, every nerve high-strung. 
 Just at present Ophelia is nothing to him. If he say 
 anything to her, it will be for the sake of staying his own 
 heart in its tremulous, intensity, and getting through the 
 eager moments of suspense. It will be something issu- 
 ing from the bitter upper surface of his soul — a bitter 
 jest most likely. Hamlet derives an acrid pleasure from 
 perplexing and embarrassing Polonius and Kosencrantz 
 and Guildenstern. Now it pleases him to embarrass 
 Ophelia with half- ambiguous obscenities. These are 
 the electrical sparks which scintillate and snap while the 
 current is streaming to its receptacle. With Ophelia, 
 who cherished the proprieties as though they constitut- 
 ed the moral law, Hamlet finds himself tempted to be 
 intolerably improper. Ophelia understands his words, 
 and ventures to deliver a gentle reprimand. " Ton are 
 naught, you are naught ; I'll mark the play." But Ham- 
 let continues his persecution. All this comes from the 
 
 * H. A. Werner, Jahrhuch der deutschen Shalcespeare-GeselUchaft, vol. v., 
 p. 56. 
 
1 38 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 superficial part of Hamlet; as one toys with some trifle 
 while a doom is impending. His passion is concentrat- 
 ed in watching the countenance of the King.* 
 
 This is the night of Hamlet's triumph. The King's 
 guilt is unkennelled ; Hamlet disposes of one after an- 
 other of his tormentors ; he has superabundant energy ; 
 he takes each in turn, and is equal to all. And yet Ham- 
 let is forever walking over the ice ; his power of self-con- 
 trol is never quite to be trusted. The success of his de- 
 vice for ascertaining the guilt of Claudius is followed by 
 the same mood of wild excitement which followed the 
 encounter with his father's spirit; again he seems in- 
 coherently, extravagantly gay ; again his words are " wild 
 and whirling words." f And as on that occasion Ham- 
 let had felt the need of calming himself, and, in his 
 somewhat fantastic way, had expressed that need, "For 
 my own poor part, look you, I'll go pray," so now he 
 calls for music, "Come, some music; come the record- 
 ers!" But he is haunted b^' the irrepressible Eoseii- 
 crantz and Guildenstern. With them Hamlet is now se- 
 verely and imperiousl}'- courteous, now enigmatical, now 
 ironical. At last, when he advances to interpret his par- 
 able of the recorders, he becomes terribly direct and frank. 
 The courtiers are silenced ; they have not the spirit even 
 to mutter a lie. And having disposed of them, Hamlet 
 takes in hand Polonius. He is assuming the ofEensive 
 with his foes. He steps forward to assist the old Cham- 
 berlain to expose his folly ; he lends him a hand to ren- 
 der himself contemptible. Next Hamlet hastens to his 
 
 * On the speech of " some dozen or sixteen lines " which Hamlet inserts 
 in the play, see the discussion by Professoi- Seeley, Mr. Malleson, and others, 
 Trans. New Sh. Soc, 1 8*74. 
 
 t On the line " A very, very— pajook," see the article on Shakspere in 
 Edinhurgh Jievuw, Oct., 1872, pp. S61, 362. 
 
Hamlet. 1 39 
 
 mother's closet. * He has words that must be spoken. 
 He has a great essay to make towards the deliverance 
 of a human soul from the bondage of corruption. The 
 slaughter of Polonins appears to him a trivial incident, 
 by the way ; it does not affect him until he has spent liis 
 powers in the effort to uplift his mother's weak soul, and 
 breathe into it strength and courage and constancy. Then, 
 in the exhaustion which succeeds his effort, his tears flow 
 fast. 
 
 In the dawn of the following morning, Hamlet is de- 
 spatched to England. From this time forward he acts, if 
 not with continuity and with a plan, at least with ener- 
 gy. He has fallen in love with action ; but the action is 
 sudden, convulsive, and interrupted. He is abandoning 
 himself more than previously to his chances of achieving 
 things, and thinks less of forming any consistent scheme. 
 The death of Polonius was accidental, and Hamlet recog- 
 nized, or tried to recognize, in it (since in his own will 
 the deed had no origin) the pleasure of heaven : 
 
 " I do repent : but heaven hath pleased it so, 
 To punish me with this, and this with me. 
 That I must be their scourge and minister." 
 
 When about to depart for England, Hamlet accepts the 
 necessity with as i-esolute a spirit as may be, believing, or 
 trying to believe, that he and his concerns are in the hand 
 of God. 
 
 * Of the speech in presence of the praying Claudius, Richardson had Said 
 Avliat S. T. Coleridge iu other words repeated, " I venture to aflSrm that these 
 are not Hamlet's real sentiments." Notice that the ghost appears precise- 
 ly at the point where Hamlet's words respecting Claudius are most vituper- 
 ative. Hamlet is immediately sensible that he is weakening his heart with 
 words, and has neglected deeds. The air, which has been so heated, seems 
 to grow icy, and the temperature of Hamlet's passion suddenly falls — to rise 
 again bv-and-by. 
 
140 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ^^Ham. For England! 
 
 Eing. Ay, Hamlet 
 
 Ham. Good. 
 
 Eing. So is it, if thou knew'st oui' purposes. 
 Ham. I see a cherub that sea t/iem." 
 
 That is, My times are in God's hand. Again, when he 
 reflects that, acting upon a sudden impulse, in which there 
 was nothing voluntary (for the deed was accomplished be- 
 fore he had conceived what it was), he had sent his two 
 schoolfellows to death, Hamlet's thoughts go on to dis- 
 cover the divine purpose in the event : 
 
 " Let us know 
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well. 
 When our deep plots do pall ; and that should teach us 
 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Kough-hew them how we wiU. 
 Horatio. That is most certain." 
 
 Once more, when Horatio bids the Prince yield to the 
 secret misgiving which troubled his heart before he went 
 to the trial of skill with Laertes, Hamlet puts aside his 
 friend's advice with the words "We defy augury ; there's 
 a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 
 'tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if 
 it be not now, yet it will come ; the readiness is all." 
 
 Does Shakspere accept the interpretation of events 
 which Hamlet is led to adopt ? No ; the providence in 
 which Shakspere believed is a moral order which in- 
 cludes man's highest exercise of foresight, energy, and 
 resolution. The disposition of Hamlet to reduce to a 
 minimum the share which man's conscious will and fore- 
 sight have in the disposing of events, and to enlarge the 
 sphere of the action of powers outside the will, has a 
 dramatic, not a theological, significance. Helena, who 
 clearly sees what she resolves to do, and accomplishes 
 neither less nor more than she has resolved, professes a 
 different creed : 
 
Hamlet. 141 
 
 " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 
 Which we ascribe to heaven ; the fated sky 
 Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull 
 Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull." * 
 
 Horatio, a believer in the " divinity that shapes our 
 ends," by his promised explanation of the events, deliv- 
 ers us from the transcendental optimism of Hamlet, and 
 restores the purely human vray of viewing things : 
 
 " Give order that these bodies 
 High on a stage be placid to the view ; 
 And let me speak to the yet unknowing world 
 How these things came about : so shall you hear 
 Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts. 
 Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters. 
 Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause. 
 And in this upshot purposes mistook, 
 Fall'n on the inventors' heads : all this can I 
 Truly deliver." 
 
 The arrival of Fortinbras contributes also to the res- 
 toration of a practical and positive feeling. With none 
 of the rare qualities of the Danish prince, he excels him 
 in plain grasp of ordinary fact. Shakspere knows that 
 the success of these men, who are limited, definite, posi- 
 tive, will do no dishonor to the failure of the rarer nat- 
 ures, to whom the problem of living is more embarrass- 
 ing, and for whom the tests of the world are stricter and 
 more delicate. Shakspere " beats triumphant marches" 
 not for successful persons alone, but also "for conquered 
 and slain persons." 
 
 Does Hamlet finally attain deliverance from his dis- 
 ease of will? Shakspere has left the answer to that 
 question doubtful. Probably if anything could supply 
 the link which was wanting between the purpose and 
 the deed, it was the achievement of some supreme ac- 
 
 ' All 's Well that Ends Well, Act i., so. 1. 
 
1 4 2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tion. The last moments of Hamlet's life are well spent, 
 and, for energy and foresight, are the noblest moments 
 of-his existence. He snatches the poisoned bowl from 
 Horatio, and saves his friend ; he gives his d^'ing voice 
 for Fortinbras, and saves his country. The rest is si- 
 lence : 
 
 " Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, death, 
 Is strict in his arrest), 0, 1 could tell you." 
 
 But he has not told. Let us not too readily assume that 
 we "know the stops" of Hamlet, that we can "pluck 
 out the heart of his mystery." 
 
 One thing, however, we do know — that the man who 
 wrote the play of Hamlet had obtained a thorough com- 
 prehension of Hamlet's malady. And, assured, as we are 
 by abimdant evidence, that Shakspere transformed with 
 energetic will his knowledge into fact, we may be confi- 
 dent that when Hamlet was written Shakspere had gained 
 a further stage in his culture of self-control, and that he 
 had become not only adult as an author, but had entered 
 upon the full maturity of his manhood. * 
 
 ♦ To refer even to the best portion of the immense Hamlet literature would 
 require considerable space. I believe my study of the play is indebted 
 chiefly to the article by H. A. Werner, in Jahrhuch der deutichen Shake- 
 speare -Gesdlscliaft, vol. v., and to an essay by my friend J. Todhunter, M.D., 
 read before the Dublin University Shakspere Society. The doctors of the 
 y insane have been studious of the state of Hamlet's mind — Doctors Ray, Kel- 
 logg, Conolly, Maudsley, Bucknill. They are unanimous in wishing to put 
 Hamlet under judicious medical treatment ; but they find it harder than 
 Polonius did to hit upon a definition of madness : 
 
 " For to define true madness. 
 What is't but to be nothing else but mad ?" 
 
 The critics are nearly equally divided in their estimates of Ophelia. Flathe 
 is extravagantly hostile to the Polonius family. Mr. Euskin (" Sesame and 
 Lilies ") may be mentioned among English writers as forming no favorable 
 estimate of Ophelia ; and against Mrs. Jameson's authority we may set the 
 authority of a lady writer in Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gexetl- 
 
Hamlet. 143 
 
 sclmft, vol. ii., pp. 16-36. Vischer chivalrously defends Ophelia, and He- 
 bler coincides. The study of Hamlet by Benno Tschischwitz is learned and 
 ingenious. H. von Friesen's " Brief e iiber Shakespeare's Hamlet " contains 
 much more than its name implies, and is, indeed, a study of the entire de- 
 velopment of Shakspere. Sir Edward Strachey's " Shakspeare's Hamlet," 
 1848, interprets the play throughout in a different sense from the interpre- 
 tation attempted in this chapter. See especially what is called "Hamlet's 
 Final Discovery," pp. 91-93. 
 
 Werder's " Vorlesungeu iiber Shakespeare's Hamlet," 1875, presents 
 with remarkable force the view that Hamlet's was not a weak nature. 
 Mr. Frank Marshall's " A Study of Hamlet," if less brilliant, is, I think, 
 more sound. Last must be mentioned Mr. Furness's magnificent variorum 
 edition of the play, in two volumes, 1877. 
 
1 44 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTOEICAL FLATS. 
 
 The historical plays of Shakspere may be approached 
 from many sides. It would be interesting to endeavor 
 to ascertain from them what was Shakspere's political 
 creed.* It would be interesting to compare his method 
 as artist when handling historical matter with that of 
 some other great dramatist — with that of Schiller when 
 writing " Wallenstein," or Goethe when writing "Eg- 
 mont," or Yictor Hugo when writing " Cromwell." 
 Shakspere's opinions, however, and Shakspere's meth- 
 od as artist, are less than Shakspere himself. It is the 
 man we are still seeking to discover — behind his works, 
 behind his opinions, behind his artistic process. Shak- 
 spere's life, we must believe, ran on below his art, and 
 was to himself of deeper import than his work as artist. 
 Not, perhaps, his material life, though to this also he con- 
 trived to make his art contribute, but the life of his in- 
 most being. To him art was not, as it has been to some 
 poets and painters and musicians, a temple-worship ; a 
 devotion of self, a surrender which is at once blissful 
 and pathetic to some presence greater and nobler than 
 
 * See on this subject " Shakspere-Forschungen," by Benno Tschisch- 
 witz, III. — "Shakspere's Staat und Konigthum." The writer dwells on 
 the moral and religious character of the relation between king and people 
 as conceived bj Shakspere. He says well, "Fur Shakspere namlich ist das 
 Konigthum dftrchaus nicht die gekrmte Spitze einer Pyramide, sondern der 
 lebendige Mittelpunkt eines organischen Ganzen, nach wclehem zu das Ge- 
 sammtleben des Organismus pulsirt," p. 84. See the subsequent chapter in 
 this volume upon "The Roman Tlays," pp. 2'76-336. 
 
The English Historical Plays. 145 
 
 one's self. Of such pathos we discover none in Shak- 
 spere's life. He possessed his art, and was not possessed 
 by it. "With him poetry was not, as it was with Keats, 
 or as it was with Shelley, a passion from which deliver- 
 ance was impossible. Shakspere delivered himself from 
 his life as artist with quiet determination, and found it 
 well to enjoy his store of worldly success, and learn to 
 possess his soul among the fields and streams of Strat- 
 ford, before there came an end of all. The main ques- 
 tion, therefore, which it is desirable to put in the case of 
 the historical plays now to be considered is this^What 
 was Shakspere gaining for himself of wisdom or of 
 strength while these were the organs through which his 
 faculties of thought and imagination nourished them- 
 selves, inhaling and exhaling their breath of life ? That 
 Shakspere should have accomplished so great an achieve- 
 ment towards the interpreting of history is much; that 
 he should have grasped in thought the national life of 
 England during a century and upwards, in her periods 
 of disaster and collapse, of civil embroilment, and of he- 
 I'oic union and exaltation — this is much. But that, by 
 his study of history, Shakspere should have built up his 
 own moral nature, and have fortified himself for the con- 
 duct of life, was, we may surmise, to Shakspere the chief 
 outcome of his toil. 
 
 And certainly not the least remarkable thing about 
 these historical plays is that while each is an effort so 
 earnest to realize objective fact, at the same time they 
 disclose so much of the writer's personality. Even Shak- 
 spere cannot transcend himself. Facts must group and 
 organize themselves before they become available for 
 the service of art ; and for each artist they g^oup them- 
 selves around his strongest feelings and most cherished 
 convictions respecting human life. If, by favorable 
 chance, hands at work among confused slips of ancient 
 
 7 
 
1 46 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 parchment were to lay hold of tlie inventory of Shak- 
 spere's goods and chattels — ^if it were ascertained what 
 household stuff the poet had gathered around him at 
 Stratford — the information would be eagerly welcomed 
 IS throwing light upon the obscure story ^f his worldly 
 ;areer. But here in these historical plays, and in all his 
 plays, are documents written over everywhere with facts 
 about Shakspere. The facts are there — must be there. 
 What is required to ascertain them can be nothing but 
 eyes to which those facts will disclose themselves. 
 
 If the outline of Shakspere's character sketched in 
 these pages be at all a genuine likeness, we shall not 
 think of him merely or chiefly as the gay, genial, quick- 
 witted haunter of the Mermaid, careering in light defi- 
 ance around the bulk of Ben Jonson's mind ; we shall 
 not remember him as the Shakspere about whose deer- 
 stealing expeditions in the country, and less innocent ad- 
 ventures in town, stories of dubious authority have come 
 down to us. We shall rather think of him as a man pos- 
 sessing immense potential strength, but aware of certain 
 Weaknesses of his own nature ; resolved, therefore, to be 
 stern with himself and to master those weaknesses ; re- 
 solved to realize all that potential strength which lay 
 within him. That his sensitiveness to pleasure and to 
 pain was of extraordinary range and delicacy we are cer- 
 tain ; we are certain, also, that he determined he would 
 not leave himself to be the plaything, the thrall, or the 
 victim of that sensitiveness. We are accustomed to speak 
 of the tenderness, the infinite tolerance, of the genius of 
 Shakspere. The impartial student must surely be no less 
 impressed by the unyielding justice of Shakspere, his 
 stern fidelity to fact, and by the large demands he makes 
 upon human character. By much of our passionate in- 
 tolerance founded upon prejudice and personal or class 
 ■feeling, Shaksp&re remained wholly untouched. When 
 
The English Historical Plays. 147 
 
 we come to Shakspere and miss our own little bitterness 
 and violences, and find him so large and human, we nat- 
 urally describe him as tolerant. Shakspere's tolerance, 
 however, is nothing else but justice ; and even his humor, 
 the humor of a man framed for abundant joy and sor- 
 row, has in it something of severity, because he employs 
 it to recover himself from the narrowinaiotensity of his 
 enthusiasms, and to restore hira to the level of every-day 
 fact. In the characters of the weak or the wicked whom 
 he condemns, Shakspere denies no beautiful or tender 
 trait ; but he condemns them without reprieve. 
 
 The characters in the historical plays are conceived 
 chiefly with reference to action. The world represented 
 in these plays is not so much the world of feeling or of 
 thought as the limited world of the practicable. In the 
 great tragedies we are concerned more with what man is 
 than with what he does. At the close of each tragedy 
 we are left with a sense of measureless failure, or with 
 the stern joy of absolute awd concluded attainment. 
 There is something infinite in thought and emotion. 
 We do not think so far, and then stop; beyond the 
 known our thoughts must travel until they are confront- 
 ed by the unknowable. We do not love, we do not suffer, 
 so much and no more; our love is without limitation, 
 and our anguish and our joy cannot be weighed in the 
 balances of earth. But our deeds are definite ; and each 
 man, when tested by deeds, can be brought to a positive 
 standard. The question in this ease is not, What has 
 been the life of your soul, what have you thought and 
 suffered and enjoyed ? The question is, What have you 
 done? And accordingly, in the historical plays, we are 
 conscious of a certain limitation, a certain measuring of 
 men by positive achievements and results : 
 
 " Action is transitory — a step, a blow, 
 Tlie motion of a muscle — this way or that^- 
 
148 Skakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 'Tis done ; and in the after-vacancy 
 We wonder at ourselves like men betray'd : 
 Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark, 
 And has the nature of infinity." 
 
 The histories, like the tragedies, are for the reader a school 
 of discipline ; but the issues with wliich they deal are not 
 the infinite issues of life and death ; the impression each 
 leaves at the close is not an impression of measureless 
 pathos, or of pain dissolved in perfect joy. They deal 
 with the finite issues of failure or success in the achiev- 
 ing of practical ends ; and the feeling which they leave 
 with us is that of a wholesome, mundane pity and terror, 
 or a sane and strong mundane satisfaction. 
 
 But, if the historical plaj^s cannot compete with the 
 tragedies in depth of spiritual significance, they compen- 
 sate in some measure for this, as Gerviuus has observed, 
 by their breadth and comprehensiveness. The life of 
 man, good or evil, is not seen in its infinite significance 
 for the individual, but its consequences are shown in a 
 definite series of events, as a sanative virtue in society, 
 or as a spreading infection. The mystery of evil is not 
 here an awful shadow, before which we stand appalled, 
 striving to accept the darkness which is not understood 
 for the light's sake, which authenticates and justifies it- 
 self. Evil in the historical plays is wrong-doing, which 
 is followed by inevitable retribution. Sir Walter Ea- 
 leigh, in the preface to the " History of the "World," has 
 traced in a remarkable passage, written possibly to vindi- 
 cate his own orthodoxy, the justice of God in the lives 
 of English kings. " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
 he also reap ;" " The sins of the fathers shall be visited 
 
 upon the childi-en to the third and fourth generation " 
 
 these are the texts of Kaleigh's theology of history. Go- 
 ing over the same period of history, Shakspere, with an 
 unfaltering hand, exposes the consequences of weakness 
 
The English Historical Plays. 149 
 
 of error, and of crime. Our greatest living novelist has 
 insisted with dreadful emphasis upon the irreparable, ir- 
 reversible issue, still developing itself, of every base or 
 evil deed. Shakspere denies fact as little as George 
 Eliot. But he shows us also how the sources of good 
 are incalculable ; he shows us how the consequences of 
 ill deeds may, at a later time, be caught up by a flood of 
 blessing, and may i-eally be borne away forever into ob- 
 livion. It is, indeed, demonstrably true that the power 
 which survives an evil act can be subdued or transformed 
 only at the expense of so much of the virtuous force of 
 the world. Still it is well to be assured that evil, even 
 at the expense of good, can be subdued ; such an assur- 
 ance buoys us above despair. In the stern justice of 
 George Eliot there is a certain idealism which proceeds 
 from a desire for scientific rigor, definiteness, and certi- 
 tude. Shakspere, possessing himself of the concrete facts 
 of the world with a larger grasp, shows us the mingled 
 web of good and evil, as it actually is ; and to draw the 
 threads asunder, and observe each one apart from the rest, 
 is hardly less diflScult to accomplish in Shakspere's world 
 of imagination than in that of the veritable life of man. 
 Setting aside Henry VIII., a play written probably 
 for some special occasion, or upon some special occasion 
 handed over to the dramatist Fletcher to complete ; set- 
 ting aside also the somewhat slight sketch of Edwai'd IV. 
 which appears in King Henry VI., Part iii., and in the 
 opening scenes of King Bichard III., six full-length 
 portraits of kings of England have been left by Shak- 
 spere. These six fall into two groups of three each — 
 one group consisting of studies of kingly weakness, the 
 other group of studies of kingly strength. In the one 
 group stand King John, King Eichard II., and King 
 kenry VI. ; in the other King Henry IV., King Henry 
 v., and King Eichard III. John is the royal criminal, 
 
1 50 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 weak in his criminality ; Henry VI. is tlio royal saint, 
 weak in his saintliness. The feebleness of Eichard II. 
 cannot be characterized in a word ; he is a graceful, sen- 
 timental monarch. Eichard III., in the other group, is a 
 royal criuiiual, strong in his crime. Henry lY., the usurp- 
 ing Boliugbroke, is strong by a fine craft in dealing with 
 events, by resolution and policy, by eqnal caution and 
 daring. The strength of Henry V. is that of plain heroic 
 magnitude, thoroughly sound and substantial, founded 
 upon the eternal verities. Here, then, we may recognize 
 the one dominant subject of the histories — viz., bow a man 
 may fail, and how a man may succeed, in attaining a prac- 
 tical mastery of the world. These plays are, as Sehlegel 
 has named them, a "mirror for kings;" and the charac- 
 ters of these plays all lead up to Henry Y., the man 
 framed for the most noble and joyous mastery of things. 
 
 I. 
 
 In King John the hour of utmost ebb in the national 
 life of England is investigated by the imagination of the 
 poet. The king reigns neither by warrant of a just title, 
 nor, like Bolingbroke, by warrant of the right of the 
 strongest. He knows that his house is founded upon 
 the sand ; he knows that he has no justice of God and 
 no virtue of man on which to rely. Therefore he as- 
 sumes an air of authority and regal grandeur. But 
 within all is rottenness and shame. IJnlike the bold 
 usurper Eichard, John endeavors to turn away his eyes 
 from facts of which he is yet aware ; he dare not gaze 
 into his own wretched and cowardlj' soul. When threat- 
 ened by France with war, and now alone with his mother, 
 John exclaims, making an effort to fortify his heart : 
 " Our strong possession and our right for us." 
 
 But Elinor, with a woman's courage and directness, for- 
 bids the unavailing self-deceit : 
 
The English Historical Plays. 151 
 
 " Your strong possession mudi more than your right, 
 Or else it must go wrong with you and me." 
 
 King Kichard, when he would make away with the young 
 princes, summons Tyrrel to his presence, and iuquires, 
 with cynical indifference to human sentiment, 
 
 "Dar'st thou resolve to kill a friend of mine ?" 
 
 and when Tyrrel accepts the commission, Kichard, in a 
 moment of undisguised exultation, breaks forth with 
 " Thou sing'st sweet music !" John would inspire Hu- 
 bert with his murderous purpose rather like some vague 
 influence than like a personal will, obscni'ely as some pale 
 mist works which creeps across the fields, and leaves 
 blight behind it in the sunshine. He trembles lest he 
 should have said too much ; he trembles lest he should 
 not have said enough ; at last the nearer fear prevails, 
 and the words " deathj" " a grave," form themselves upon 
 his lips. Having touched a spring which will produce 
 assassination, he furtively withdraws himself from the 
 mechanism of crime. It suits the King's interest afterr 
 wards that Arthur should 'be living, and John adds to 
 his crime the baseness of a miserable atternpt by chican- 
 ery and timorous sophisms to transfer the responsibility 
 of murder from himself to his instrument and accomplice. 
 He would fain darken the eyes of his conscience and of 
 his understanding. 
 
 The show of kingly strength and dignity in which 
 John is- clothed in the earlier scenes of the play must 
 therefore be recognized (although Shakspere does not 
 obtrude the fact) as no more than a poor pretence of true 
 regal strength and honor. The fact, only hinted in these 
 earlier scenes, becomes afterwards all the more inipressive, 
 when the time comes to show this dastard king, who had 
 been so great in the barter of territory, in the sale of 
 cities, in the sacrifice of love and marriage-truth to poli- 
 cy, now changing from pale to red in tlie presence of 
 
152 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 his own nobles, now vainly trying to tread back the path 
 of crime, now incapable of enduring the physical suffering 
 of the hour of death. Sensible that he is a king with no 
 inward strength of justice or of virtue, John endeavors 
 to buttress up his power with external supports ; against 
 the advice of his nobles he celebrates a second coronation, 
 only forthwith to remove the crown from his head and 
 place it in the hands of an Italian priest. Pandulph, " of 
 fair Millaine cardinal," who possesses the astuteness and 
 skill to direct the various conflicting forces of the time to 
 liis own advantage — Pandulph is the de facto master of 
 England, and, as he pleases, makes peace or announces 
 war. 
 
 The country, as in periods of donbt and danger, was 
 " possessed with mmors, full of idle dreams." Peter of 
 Pomfret had announced that before Ascension-day at 
 noon the King should deliver np his crown. John sub- 
 mits to the degradation demanded of him, and has the 
 incredible baseness to be pleased that he has done so of 
 his own free-will : 
 
 " Is this Ascension-day ? did not the prophet 
 Say that before Ascension-day at noon 
 My crown I should give off ? Eren so I hava 
 I did suppose it should be on constraint ; 
 But, Heaven be thank'd ! it is but voluntary." 
 
 After tliis, we are not surprised that when the Bastard 
 endeavors to rouse him to manliness and resolution — 
 
 " Away and glister like the god of war 
 When he intendeth to become the field " — 
 
 John is not ashamed to announce the "happy peace" 
 which he has made with the papal legate, on whom he 
 relies for protection against the invaders of England. 
 Fanlconbridge still urges the duty of an effort at self-de- 
 fence for the sake of honor and of safety; and the King, 
 incapable of accepting his own responsibilities and priv- 
 
The English Historical Plays. 153 
 
 ileges, Lands over the care of England to Lis illegitimate 
 nepLew : " Plave thou tLe ordering of tLis present time." 
 TLere is little in tLe play of King John wLich strength- 
 ens or gladdens tlie Leart. In the tug of selfish power 
 hither and thither, amidst the struggle of kingly greeds 
 and priestly pride, amidst the sales of cities, the loveless 
 marriage of princes, the rumors and confusion of the 
 people, a pathetic heauty illumines the boyish figure of 
 Arthur, so gracious, so passive, untouched by the adult 
 rapacities and crimes of the others : 
 
 " Good, my mother, peace ! 
 I would that I were low laid in my grave ; 
 I am not worth this coil that's made for me.'' 
 
 The voice of maternal passion, a woman's voice, impo- 
 tent and shrill, among the unheeding male forces, goes 
 up also from the play. There is the pity of stern armed 
 men for the ruin of a child's life. These, and the bois- 
 terous but genuine and hearty patriotism of Faulcon- 
 bridge, are the only presences of human virtue or beauty 
 ■which are to be perceived in the degenerate world de- 
 picted by Shakspere. And the end, like what preceded 
 it, is miserable. The King lies poisoned, overmastered by 
 mere physical agony — agony which leaves little room for 
 any pangs of conscience, were the palsied moral nature 
 of the criminal capable of such nobler suffering : 
 
 " I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen 
 Upon a parchment, and against this fire 
 Do I shrink up." 
 
 II. 
 
 "Whether any portions of the first part of Henry VI. 
 be from the hand of Shakspere, and, if there be, what 
 those portions are, need not be here investigated. The 
 play belongs, in the main, to the pre-Shaksperian school. 
 Shakspere finds his own genius for the dramatic render- 
 
 7* 
 
154 S/iakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ing of history for the first time distinctly in the second 
 and third parts of Henry VI. The writer of the first 
 part does not stand above the characters which lie cre- 
 ates ; he is violently prejudiced against some, and he feels 
 a lyrical delight in singing the praises of others. But in 
 the treatment of the characters of the King, of Gloster, 
 of York, of Eichard, in the later parts of the trilogy the 
 Sliaksperian impartiality and irony are clearly discern- 
 ible. Shakspere does not hate King Henry ; he is as fa- 
 vorably disposed to him as is possible ; but he says, with 
 the same clear and definite expression in which the his- 
 torical fact uttered itself, that this saint of a feeble type 
 upon the throne of England was a curse to the land and 
 to the time only less than a royal criminal as weak as 
 Henry would have been. 
 
 The heroic daj'S of the fifth Henry, when the play 
 opens, belong to the past ; but their memory survives in 
 the hearts and in the vigorous muscles of the great lords 
 and earls who surround the King. He only, who most 
 should have treasured and augmented his inheritance of 
 glory and of power, is insensible to the large responsibil- 
 ities and privileges of his place. He is cold in great af- 
 fairs ; his supreme concern is to remain blameless. Free 
 from all greeds and ambitions, he yet is possessed by 
 egoism, the egoism of timid saintliness. His virtue is 
 negative, because there is no vigorous basis of manhood 
 within him out of which heroic saintliness might develop 
 itself. For fear of what is wrong, he shrinks from what 
 is right. This is not the virtue ascribed to the nearest 
 followers of " the Faithful and True " who in his right- 
 eousness doth judge and make war. Henry is passive in 
 the presence of evil, and weeps. He would keep his gar- 
 ments clean ; but the garments of God's soldier-saints 
 who do not fear the soils of struggle, gleam with a high- 
 er, intensei- purity. " His eyes were as a flame of fire, 
 
The English Historical Plays. 155 
 
 and on his head were many crowns ; . . . and tlie armies 
 Avliieh were in heaven followed him npon white horses, 
 clothed in fine linen, white and clean." These' soldiers 
 in heaven have their representatives in earth, and Henry 
 was not one of these. Zeal must come before charity, 
 and then when charity comes it will appear as a. self-de- 
 nial.* But Henry knows nothing of zeal; and he is 
 amiable, not charitable. 
 
 There is something of irony- in the scene with which 
 the second part of Henry VI. opens. Suffolk, the Lance- 
 lot of this tragedy, has brought from France the Princess 
 Margaret, and the joy of the blameless King, upon receiv- 
 ing, at the cost of two hard-won provinces, this terrible 
 wife, who will " dandle him like a baby," has in it some- 
 thing pitiable, something pathetic, and something ludi- 
 crous. The relations of the King to Margaret through- 
 out the play are delicately and profoundly conceived. 
 He clings to her as to something stronger than himself ; 
 he dreads her as a boy might dread some formidable 
 master : 
 
 "Mceter. Here comes the Que^n, whose looks betray her anger: 
 I'll steal away. 
 
 Henry. And so will I." 
 
 Yet through his own freedom from passion he derives a 
 sense of superiority to his wife ; and after she has dashed 
 him all over with the spray of her violent anger and her 
 scorn, Henry may be seen mildly wiping away the drops, 
 insufferably placable, offering excuses for the vitupera- 
 tion and the insults which he has received :. 
 
 " Poor Queen, how love to me and to her son 
 Hath made her break out into terms of rage !" 
 
 Among his " wolfish earls " Henry is in constant ter- 
 
 * J. H. Newman, "Verses on Various Occasions," p. 60. 
 
1 5 6 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 ror, not of being bimself torn to pieces, but of tbeir fly- 
 ing at one another's throats. Violent scenes, disturbing 
 the cloistral peace which it would please him to see reign 
 throughout the universe, are hateful and terrible to Hen- 
 ry. He rides out hawking with his Queen and Suffolk, 
 the Cardinal and Gloster ; some of the riders hardly able 
 for an hour to conceal their emulation and their hate. 
 Henry takes a languid interest in the sport, but all occa- 
 sions supply food for his contemplative piety ; he suffers 
 from a certain incontinence of devout feeling, and now 
 the falcons set him moralizing : 
 
 " But what a point, ray lord, ymir falcon made, 
 And what a pitch she flow above the rest ! 
 To see how God in all liis creatures works !" 
 
 A moment after and the peers, with Margaret among 
 them, are bandying furious woi'ds. Henry's anguish is 
 extreme, but he hopes that something may be done by a 
 few moral reflections suitable to the occasion : 
 
 " I pr'ythee, peace, 
 Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers. 
 For blessed are the peacemakers on earth. 
 
 Cardinal. Let me be blessed for the peace I make 
 Against this proud Protector with my sword." 
 
 The angry colloquy is presently silenced by the cry, 
 " A miracle ! a miracle !" and the impostor Simcox and 
 his wife appear. Henry, with his fatuous proclivity tow- 
 ards the edifying, rejoices in this manifestation of God's 
 grace in the restoration to sight of a man born blind : 
 
 " Great is his comfort in this earthly vale, 
 Although by his sight his sin be multiplied." 
 
 (That is to say, " If we had the good-fortune to be de- 
 prived of all our senses and appetites, we should have a 
 fair chance of being quite spotless ; yet let us thank God 
 for his mysterious goodness to this man !") And once 
 more, when the Protector, by a slight exercise of shrewd- 
 
The English Historical Plays. 1 5 7 
 
 ness and common-sense, has unmasked the rogue and has 
 had him whipped, extreme is the anguish of the King : 
 
 " K. Henry. God ! seest thou this, and bearest so long ? 
 Queen. It made me laugh to see the villain run." 
 
 But the feeble saint, who is cast down upon the occur- 
 rence of a piece of vulgar knavery, can himself abandon 
 to butchers the noblest life in England. His conscience 
 assures him that Gloster is innocent ; he hopes the Duke 
 will be able to clear himself; but Gloster's judges are 
 Suffolk, " with his cloudy brow," sharp Buckingham, 
 " And dogged York, that reaches at the moon." 
 
 Henry is not equal to confronting such terrible faces as 
 tliese ; and so, trusting to God, who will do all things 
 well, lie slinks out of the Parliament shedding tears, and 
 leaves Gloster to his fate : 
 
 " My lords, what to your wisdom seemeth best, 
 Do, or undo, as if ourseU were here." 
 
 When Henry hears that his uncle is dead, he swoons; 
 he suspects tliat the noble old man has been foully dealt 
 with ; but judgment belongs to God ; possibly his sus- 
 picion may be a false one ; how terrible if he should 
 sully his purity of heart with a false suspicion ! may God 
 forgive him if he do so ! And thus humoring his tim- 
 orous, irritable conscience, Henry is incapable of action, 
 and allows things to take their course. 
 
 This morbid scrupulosity of conscience which charac- 
 terizes Henry while he neglects the high duties of his 
 position sets him speculating uneasily about the validity 
 of his title to the throne — a title which has descended 
 through the great victor of Agincourt from Henry's 
 grandfather. He turns from York to "Warwick, from 
 Warwick to Northumberland, uncertain what he ought 
 to think. Clifford boldly cuts the knot; and Henry's 
 courage revives: 
 
1 58 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 " King Henry, be thy title light or wrong, 
 Lord Clifford tows to fight in thy defence." 
 
 But the King, in the presence of armed force, cannot 
 maintain his resolution, and ends by a compromise, 
 which, npon condition of the forfeiture of his son's 
 rights, will secure peace in his days. "We sympathize 
 with the indignant Margaret. Yet in Henry's conduct 
 there has been no active selfishness; he has only accept- 
 ed peace at the price required. 
 
 Between York, on the one hand, and York's instru- 
 ment, Jack Cade, on the other, the unhappy King is hard 
 set. Not that it is of himself he chiefly thinks ; he suf- 
 fers on account of the rebels as much as on his own ac- 
 count. He will parley with Cade ; still better, he will 
 send " some holy bishop " to entreat with the rebels. 
 York, meanwhile, is approaching, and demands that the 
 King's adviser, Somerset, be removed. Henry, with plac- 
 id acquiescence, sees Somerset prepared to sacrifice him- 
 self, and despatches Buckingham to confer in gentle lan- 
 guage with his antagonist. At least, the virtue to refrain 
 from disguising, as John disguised, under high-sounding 
 words, the abjectness of his state, belongs to Henry : 
 
 " I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him, 
 And ask him what's the reason of these arms. 
 Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower; 
 And, Somerset, we will commit thee hither 
 Until his army be dismissed from him. 
 
 Som. My lord, 
 I'll yield myself to prison willingly. 
 Or unto death, to do my country good. 
 
 K. Hen. In any case be not too rough in terms, 
 For he is fierce, and cannot brook hard language. 
 
 Buck. I will, my lord ; and doubt not so to deal 
 As all things shall redound unto your good. 
 
 K. Hen. Come, wife, let's in and learn to govern better. 
 For yet may England curse my wretched reign." 
 
 At length the wretched reign approaches its end 
 
The English Historical Plays. \ 59 
 
 Henry, has longed to be a subject, and he is such for 
 some short time before iiis death. From the battle in 
 winch, Eicliard, bloodhound - wise, is pursuing Clifford, 
 Hemy withdraws, and, seating himself upon a mole-hill 
 meditates on the happy life of shepherd - swains, and 
 prays that to whom God wills the victory may fall. He 
 mildly begs the fugitives to take him along with them : 
 
 " Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter ; 
 Not that I fear to stay, but love to go 
 Whither the queen intends." 
 
 _ When the keepers make him their prisoner, Henry is 
 sincerely concerned about the purity of conscience of" his 
 captors. He inquires, with unfeigned and disinterested 
 anxiety, whether they have taken an oath of allegiance 
 to him. At all events, he will not now command them 
 to release him, and so they cannot offend. His own fate 
 doea not concern him ; he wears his crown Content; and 
 he is, sure tliat the new king will execute neither more 
 nor less than God wills. 
 
 In prison Henry, at last, is really happy ; now be is 
 responsible for nothing; he enjoys, for the first time, 
 tranquil solitude ; he is a bird who sings in his cage. 
 His latter days he will spend, to the rebuke of sin and 
 the praise of his Creator, in devotion. Henry's equanim- 
 ity is not of the highest kind ; he is incapable of com- 
 motion. His peace is not that which underlies whole- 
 some agitation, a peace which passes understanding. 
 "Quietness is a grace — not in itself, only when it is 
 grafted on the stem of faith, zeal, self-abasement, and 
 diligence." * If Henry had known the nobleness of true 
 kingship, his content in prison might be admirable ; as it 
 is, the beauty of that content does not strike us as of a 
 rich or vivid kind. But the end is come, and that is a 
 
 * John H. Newman, " Parochial and Plain Sennons," vol. v., p. 11, 
 
1 60 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 gain. Henry lias yielded to the House of York, and the 
 evil time is growing shorter. The words of the great 
 Duke of York are confirmed by our sense of fact and right : 
 " King did I call thee ? nay, thou art not king. 
 
 Give place ; by heaven, thou shall rule no more 
 O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler !" * 
 
 III. 
 Certain qualities wliich make it unique among the 
 dramas of Shakspere characterize the play oi King Rich- 
 ard III. Its maimer of conceiving and presenting char- 
 acter has a certain resemblance, not elsewhere to be found 
 in Shakspere's writings, to the ideal manner of Marlowe. 
 As in the plays of Marlowe, there is here one dominant 
 lignre distinguished by a few strongly marked and inor- 
 dinately developed qualities. There is in the character- 
 ization no mystery, but much of a demonic intensity. 
 Certain passages are entirely in the lyrical-dramatic style 
 — an emotion wliieh is one and the same, occupying, at 
 the same moment, two or three of the personages, and 
 obtaining utterance through them almost simultaneously, 
 or in immediate succession ; as a musical motive is in- 
 terpreted by an orchestra, or taken up singly by suc- 
 cessive instruments : 
 
 * Without entering into the controversy as to t)ie authorship of the First 
 Part of the Contention and The True Tragedie (the old plays correspondin" 
 to the second and third parts of King Henry VI.), it may be instructive to 
 mention how authorities are divided. In favor of Shalispere's authorship 
 of these plays — Johnson, Stecvens, Knight, Schlegel, Tieck, Ulrici, Delius, 
 Oechelhauser, H. von Friesen. In favor of Greene's or Marlowe's authorship 
 — Malone, Collier, Dyce, Courtenay, Gervinus, Kreyssig, and the French critics. 
 Clark and Wright, Halliwell, Lloyd, and others believe that a portion of Shak- 
 spere's work may be found in these old plays. See the note from which I 
 partly obtain this list of authorities in Jalirbuch der deutschen Shakespeare- 
 Geselhchaft, vol. iii., p. 42. See also, in vol. i., the article by Ulrici, " Christo- 
 pher Marlowe und Shakespeare's Verhaltniss zu ihm." See the previous 
 notes, p. 49 and p. 86, for the opinions of Mr. Grant White and Miss J. Lea 
 
The English Historical Plays. 1 6 1 
 
 " Q. Mk. Was never widow had so dear a loss I 
 Children. Were never orphans had so dear a loss ! 
 Duchess. Was never mother had so dear a loss ! 
 Alas ! I am the mother of these griefs." 
 
 Mere verisimilitude in the play of Xing Biohard III. 
 becomes, at times, subordinate to effects of symphonic 
 orchestration or of statuesque composition. There is a 
 Blake-like terror <and beauty in the scene in whicli the 
 three women — queens and a ducliess — seat themselves 
 upon the ground in their desolation and despair and cry 
 aloud in utter anguish of spirit. First by the mother of 
 two kings, then by Edward's widow, last by the terrible 
 Medusa -like Queen Margaret, the same attitude is as- 
 sumed and the same grief is poured forth. Misery has 
 made them indifferent to all ceremony of queenship, and, 
 for a time, to their private differences ; they are seated, 
 a rigid yet turn nltuously passionate group, in the majesty 
 of mere womanhood and supreme calamity. Readers ac- 
 quainted with Blake's illustrations to the Book of Job 
 will remember what effects, sublime and appalling, the 
 artist produces by animating a group of figures with one 
 common passion, which spontaneously produces in each 
 individual the same extravagant movement of head and 
 limbs. 
 
 The demonic intensity which distinguishes the play 
 proceeds from the character of Kichard as from its source 
 and centre. As with the chief personages of Marlowe's 
 plays, so Ilichard in this play rather occupies the imag- 
 ination by audacity and force than insinuates himself 
 through some subtle solvent, some raagic and mystery 
 of art. His character does not grow upon us ; from the 
 first it is complete. We are not curious to discover what 
 Ilichard is, as we are curious to come into presence of 
 the soul of Hamlet. We are in no doubt about Eichard ; 
 but it yields lis a strong sensation to observe him in va- 
 
1 6 2 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 rious circumstances and situations ; we are roused and 
 animated by the presence of almost superhuman energy 
 and power, even though that power and that energy be 
 malign. 
 
 Coleridge has said of Eicliard that pride of intellect is 
 his characteristic. This is true ; but his dominant char- 
 acteristic is not intellectual, it is rather a demonic en- 
 ergy of will. The same canse which produces tempest 
 and shipwreck produces Kichard ; he is a fierce elemen- 
 tal power raging through the world ; but this elemental 
 power is concentrated in a human will. The need of 
 action is with Kichard an appetite to which all the other 
 appetites are subordinate. He requires space in the 
 world to bustle in ; his will must wreak itself on men 
 and things. All that is done in the play proceeds from 
 Kichard ; there is, as has been observed by Mr. Hudson, 
 no interaction. " The drama is not so much a composi- 
 tion of co-operative characters, mutually developing and 
 developed, as the prolonged yet hurried outcome of a 
 single character, to which the other persons serve but as 
 exponents and conductors; as if he were a volume of 
 electricity disclosing himself by means of others, and 
 quenching their active powers in the very process of 
 doing so."* 
 
 Kichard, with his distorted and withered body, his arm 
 shrunk like " a blasted sapling," is yet a sublime figure 
 by virtue of his energy of will and tremendous power of 
 intellect. All obstacles give way before him — the cour- 
 age of men and the bitter animosity of women. And 
 Kichard has a passionate scorn of men, because they are 
 weaker and more obtuse than he, the deformed outcast 
 of nature. He practises hypocrisy not merely for the 
 sake of success, but because his hypocrisy is a cynical 
 
 * H. N. Hudson, " Shakespeare, his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., p. 156. 
 
The English Historical Plays. 163 
 
 jest or a gross insult to hutnamty. The Mayor of Lon- 
 don has a bourgeois veneration for piety and established 
 forms of religion. Kichard advances to meet him read- 
 ing a book of prayers, and supported on each side by a 
 bishop. The grim joke, the contemptuous insult to the 
 citizen faith in Church and King, flatters his malignant 
 sense of power. To cheat a gull, a coarse hypocrisy suf- 
 fices.* 
 
 Towards his tool Buckingham, when occasion suits, 
 Richard can be frankly contemptuous. Buckingham is 
 unable to keep pace with Eichard in his headlong ca- 
 reer; he falls behind and is scant of breath : 
 
 " The deep-revolving, witty Buckingham 
 No more shall be the neighbor to my counsel ; 
 Hath he so long held out with me untired, 
 And stops he now for breath ?" 
 
 The Duke, " his other self, his counsel's consistory, his 
 oracle, his prophet," comes before the King claiming the 
 fulfilment of a promise that he, should receive the Earl- 
 dom of Hereford. Richard becomes suddenly deaf, and, 
 contemptuously disregarding the interpellations of Buck- 
 ingham, continues his talk on indifferent matters. At 
 length he turns to " his other self :" 
 
 " Buck. My lord ! 
 
 K. Rich. A.J, what's o'clock ? 
 
 Bitch. I am thus bold to put your grace in mind 
 Of what you promised me. 
 
 K. Rich. , Well, but what's o'clock ? 
 
 Buck. Upon the stroke of ten. 
 
 K. Rich. Well, let it strike. 
 
 Buck. Why let it strike? 
 
 K. Rich. Because that like a Jack thou fceep'st the stroke 
 Betwixt thy begging and my meditation. 
 I am not in the giving vein to-day." 
 
 * The plan originates with Buckingham, but Richard plays his part with 
 manifest delight. Shakspere had no historical authority for the presence 
 of the Bishops. See Skottowe's "Life of Shakspeare," vol. i., pp. 195, 196. 
 
164 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Kichard's cynicism and insolence have in them a kind 
 of grim mirth — sneh a ionhomie as might be met with 
 among the humorists of Pandemonium. His bmtality is 
 a manner of joking with a purpose. When his mother, 
 with Queen Elizabeth, comes by " copious in exclaims," 
 ready to "smother her damned son in the breath of bit- 
 ter words," the mirthful Kichard calls for a flourish of 
 trumpets to drown these shrill female voices: 
 
 " A flourish, trumpets ! strike alarum, drums ! 
 Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women 
 Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say !" 
 
 On an occasion when hypocrisy is more serviceable than 
 brutality, Rieliard kneels to implore his motlier's blessing, 
 but has a characteristic word of contemptuous impiety to 
 utter aside : 
 
 " Duc/iess. God bless thee and put meekness in thy breast. 
 Love, charity, obedience, and true duty. 
 
 Riclmrd. Amen ! and make me die a good old man ! 
 That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing; 
 I marvel that her grace did leave it out. " 
 
 He plays liis part before his future wife, the Lady 
 Anne, laying open his breast to the sword's point with 
 a malicious confidence. He knows the measure of wom- 
 an's frailty, and relies on the spiritual force of his audac- 
 ity and dissimulation to subdue the weak hand which tries 
 to lift the sword. With no friends to back his suit, with 
 nothing but " tlie plain devil, and dissembling looks," lie 
 wins his bride. The hideous irony of such a courtship, 
 the mockery it implies of human love, is enough to make 
 a man "your only jigmaker," and sends Eichard's blood 
 dancing along his veins. 
 
 While Richard is plotting for the crown. Lord Hastings 
 threatens to prove an obstacle in the way. What is to 
 bo done? Buckingham is dubious and tentative : 
 " Now, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive 
 Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots ?" 
 
Tlie English Historical Plays. 165 
 
 With sharp detonation, quickly begun and quickly over, 
 Eichai'd's answer is discharged, " Chop off his head, man !" 
 There can be no beginning, middle, or end to a deed so 
 simple and so summary. Presently, Hastings, making 
 sundry small assignations for future days and weeks, 
 goes, a murdered man, to the conference at the Tower. 
 Kichard, whose startling figure emerges from the back- 
 ground throughout the play with small regard for veri- 
 similitude, and always at the most effective moment, is 
 suddenly on the spot, just as Hastings is about to give 
 his voice in the conference as though he were the repre- 
 sentative of the absent Duke. Richard is prepared, when 
 tlie opportune instant has arrived, to spring a mine under 
 Hastings's feet. But meanwhile a matter of equal im- 
 portance concerns him — my Lord of Ely's strawberries : 
 the flavor of Holborn strawberries is exquisite, and the 
 fruit must be sent for. Richard's desire to appear dis- 
 engaged from sinister thought is less important to note 
 than Richard's need of indulging a cynical contempt of 
 hnman life. The explosion takes place ; Hastings is 
 seized ; and the delicacies are reserved until the head 
 of Richard's enemy is off. There is a wantonness of 
 diablerie in this incident : 
 
 " Talk'st thou to me of ifs ? Thou art a traitor— 
 Off with his head ! Now, by Saint Paul, I swear 
 I will not dine until I see the same !"* 
 
 The fiery energy of Richard is at its simplest, unmin- 
 gled with irony or dissimulation in great days of military 
 movement and of battle. Then the force within him 
 expends itself in a paroxysm which has all the intensity 
 of ungovernable spasmodic action, and which is yet or- 
 ganized and controlled by his intellect. Then he is en- 
 
 * This scene, including the incident of the dish of strawberries, is from 
 Sir T. More's history. See Courtenaj's " Commentaries on Shakspeare," vol 
 ii., pp. 84-87. 
 
1 66 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 gaged at his truest devotions, and nnmbei's his Ave-Ma- 
 rias not with beads, but with ringing strokes upon the 
 hehnets of his foes.* He is inspired with "the spleen 
 of fiery dragons;" "a thousand hearts are great within 
 his bosom." On the eve of the battle of Bosworth Field, 
 Richard, with uncontrollable eagerness, urges his inquiry 
 into the minutias of preparation which may insure suc- 
 cess. He lacks his usual alacrity of spirit, yet a dozen 
 subalterns would hardly suflBce to receive the orders 
 which he rapidly enunciates. He is upon the wing of 
 " fiery expedition :" 
 
 " I will not sup tOniiight. Give me some ink and paper. 
 What, ia my beaver easier than it was ? 
 And all my armor laid within my tent ? 
 
 Catesby. It is, my liege, and all things are in readiness. 
 
 K. Rich. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge ; 
 Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels. 
 
 Norfolk. I go, my lord. 
 
 K. Rich. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk. 
 
 Norfolk. I warrant you, my lord. 
 
 ICRuIu Catesby! 
 
 Catesby. My lord ? 
 
 K. Rich. Send out a pursuivant at arms 
 To Stanley's regiment ; bid him bring his power 
 Before sunrising, lest his sou George fall 
 Into the blind cave of eternal night. 
 
 Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch. [Exit Catesby. 
 Saddle White Surrey for the field to-mon'ow. 
 Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy. 
 EatclifiE!" 
 
 And, learning from Eatcliff that Northumberland and 
 Surrey are alert, giving his last direction that his attend- 
 ant should return at midnight to help him to arm, Kino- 
 Richard retires into his tent. 
 
 In all his military movements, as in the whole of Rich- 
 ard's career, there is something else than self-seeking. It 
 is true that Richard, like Edmund, like lago, is solitary; 
 
 * 3 Henry VI., act ii., se. 1. 
 
The English Historical Plays. \ 6 7 
 
 he has no friend, no brother ; " I am myself alone ;" and 
 all that Eichard achieves tends to his own supremacy. 
 ]S"evertheless, the central characteristic of Eichard is not 
 self-seeking or ambition. It is the necessity of releasing 
 and letting loose upon the world the force within him 
 (mere force in which there is nothing moral), the neces- 
 sity of deploying before himself and others the terrible 
 resources of his will. One human tie Shakspere attrib- 
 iites to Eichard : contemptuous to his mother, indiffer- 
 ent to the life or death of Clarence and Edward except 
 as their life or death may serve his own attempt upon 
 the crown^ cynically loveless towards his feeble and un- 
 happy wife, Eichard admires with an enthusiastic admi- 
 ration his great father : 
 
 " Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.'' 
 
 And the memory of his father supplies him with a 
 family pride, which, however, does not imply attachment 
 or loyalty to any member of his house. 
 
 ^'But I was bom so high ; 
 Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, 
 And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun." 
 
 History supplied Shakspere with the iigure of his 
 Eichard. He has been accused of darkening the colors 
 and exaggerating the deformity of the character of the 
 historical Eichard found in More and Holinshed. The 
 fact is precisely the contrary. The mythic Eichard of 
 the historians (and there must have been some appalling 
 fact to originate such a myth) is made somewhat less 
 grim and bloody by the dramatist.* Essentially, how- 
 
 * See the detailed study of this play by W. Oechelhauser, in Jahrlmch der 
 deuiseJmi Shakespeare- Oesellsehaft, voliii., pp. 37-39, and pp. 47, 53. Hol- 
 inshed's treatment of the character of Richard is hardly in harmony with 
 itself. From the death of Edwai'd IV. onwards the Kichard of Holinshed 
 resembles Shakspere's Richard, but possesses fainter traces of humanity. 
 •'Wenn hiernach also thatsachlieh zwei Holinshed'sche Versionen des Cha- 
 
1 68 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ever, Sliakspere's Richard is of the diabolical (something 
 more dreadful than the criminal) class. He is not weak, 
 because he is single-hearted in his devotion to evil. 
 Richard does not serve two masters. He is not, like 
 John, a dastardly criminal ; he is not, like Macbeth, joj-- 
 less and faithless because he has deserted loyalty and 
 honor. He has a fierce joy, and he is an intense believer 
 — in the creed of hell. And therefore he is strong. He 
 inverts the moral order of things, and tries to live in this 
 inverted system. He does not succeed ; he dashes him- 
 self to pieces against the laws of the world which he has 
 outraged. Yet, while John is wholly despicable, we can- 
 not refrain from yielding a certain tribute of admiration 
 to the bolder malefactor, who ventures on the daring ex- 
 periment of choosing evil for his good. 
 
 Such an experiment, Shakspere declares emphatically, 
 as experience and history declare, must in the end fail. 
 The ghosts of the usurper's victims rise between the 
 camps, and are to Richard the Erinnyes, to Richmond 
 inspirers of hope and victorious coui-age. At length 
 Richard trembles on the brink of annihilation, trembles 
 over the loveless gulf : 
 
 " I shall despair ; there is no creatflre loves me ; 
 And if I die, no soul shall pity me." 
 
 But the stir of battle restores him to resolute thoughts — 
 " Come, bustle, bustle ; caparison my horse " — and he dies 
 in a fierce paroxysm of action. Richmond conquers, and 
 he conquers expressly as the champion and representative 
 of the moral order of the world, which Richard had en- 
 deavored to set aside : 
 
 rakters und der Handlungen Richard's vorliegen, so hat Shakespeare aller- 
 dings die auf More basirte, also die schwarzere, gewahit; iiber diese ist er 
 aber nicht, wie so vielfach behauptet wird, hinausgegangen, sondern er hat 
 sie sogar gemildert, hat die Filden, welche das Ungeheuer noch mit der 
 Menschheit verkniipfen, verstiirkt, statt sie ganz zu losen." 
 
The English Historical Plays. 169 
 
 " Thou, whose captain I account myself, 
 Look on my forces with a gracious eye ; 
 Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath, 
 That they may crush down with a heavy fall 
 The usurping helmets of our adyersaries ! 
 Make us thy ministers of chastisement. 
 That we may praise thee in thy Tictory." 
 
 The female figures of this play — Queen Elizabeth, 
 Queen Margaret, the Duchess of York, the Lady Anne^ 
 and with these the women of Shakspere's other historical 
 plays, would form an interesting subject for a separate 
 study. The women of the histories do not attain the 
 best happiness of women. In the rough struggle of in- 
 terests, of parties, of nations, they are defrauded of their 
 joy, and of its objects. Like Constance, like Elizabeth, 
 like Margaret, like the Qneen of the second Eichard, 
 like Katharine of Aragon, they mourn — some the loss of 
 children, some of husbands, some of brothers, and all of 
 love. Or else, like Harry Percy's wife (who also lives to 
 lament her husband's death, and to tremble for her fa- 
 ther's fate),* they are the wives of men of action to whom 
 they are dear, but " in sort or limitation," dwelling but in 
 the suburbs of their husbands' good pleasure, 
 
 "To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed. 
 And talk with you sometimes." 
 
 The wooing of the French Katharine by King Henry 
 V. is business-like, and soundly affectionate, but by no 
 means of the kind which is most satisfying to the heart 
 of a sensitive or ardent woman. That Shakspere him- 
 self loved in another fashion than that of Hotspur or 
 Henry might be inferred, if no other suflScient evidence 
 were forthcoming, from the admirable mockery of the 
 love given by men of letters and men of imagination — 
 poets in chief — which he puts into Henry's mouth: 
 
 • See the pathetic scene, 2 Henry IV., act ii., sc. 3. 
 
1 70 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 "And while tliou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain 
 and uncoined constancy ; for he perforce must do thee 
 right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other 
 places; for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can 
 rliyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do always rea- 
 son themselves out again." "Was this a skit by Shak- 
 pere against himself, or against an interpretation of him- 
 self for which he perceived there was a good deal to be 
 said, from a point of view other than his own ? While 
 the poet was buying up land near Stratford, he could de- 
 scribe his courtier Osric as " very spacious in the posses- 
 sion of dirt." Is this a piece of irony similar in kind? 
 
 The figure of Queen Margaret is painfully persistent 
 upon the mind's eye, and tyrannizes, almost as much as 
 the figure of King Kichard himself, over the imagina- 
 tion. "Although banished upon pain of death, she re- 
 turns to England to assist at the intestine conflicts of the 
 House of York. Shakspere personifies in her the an- 
 cient ITemesis ; he gives her more than human propor- 
 tions, and represents her as a sort of supernatural appa- 
 rition. She penetrates freely into the palace of Edward 
 IV., she there breathes forth her hatred in presence of 
 the family of York and its courtier attendants. IS.0 one 
 dreams of arresting her, although she is an exiled woman, 
 and she goes forth, meeting no obstacle, as she had en- 
 tered. The same magic ring, which on the first occasion 
 opened the doors of the royal mansion, opens them for 
 her once again, when Edward IV. is dead, and his sons 
 have been assassinated in the Tower by the order of 
 Richard. She came, the first time, to curse her enemies ; 
 she comes now to gather the fruits of her malediction. 
 Like an avenging Fury or the classical Fate, she has an- 
 nounced to each his doom." * 
 
 * A. Meziferes, " Shakspeare, ses CEuvres et ses Critiques,'' p. 139. 
 
The English Historical Plays. iji 
 
 The play must not be dismissed without one word 
 spoken of King Edward IV. He did not interest the 
 imagination of Shakspere. Edward is the self-indulgent, 
 luxurious king. The one thing which Shakspere cared 
 to say about him was that his pleasant delusion of peace- 
 making shortly before his death was a poor and insuffi- 
 cient compensation for a life spent in ease and luxury 
 rather than in laying the hard and strong bases of a sub- 
 stantial peace. A few soft words and placing of hands 
 in hands will not repair the ravage of fiei-ce years, and 
 the decay of sound human bonds during soft, effeminate 
 years. Just as the peace-making is perfect, Richard is 
 present on the scene : 
 
 " There wanteth now our brother Gloster here 
 To make the blessed period of our peace." 
 
 And Gloster stands before the dying king to announce 
 that Clarence lies murdered in the Tower. This is 
 Shakspere's comment upon, and condemnation of, the 
 self-indulgent King.* 
 
 IV. 
 The play of King Richard II. possesses none of the 
 titanic stormy force which breathes through King Rich- 
 ard III.., but in delicate cunning in the rendering of 
 character it excels the more popular play. The two 
 principal figures in King Richard II., t hat of the king 
 who fell, and that of the king who ro ser=thfiL.nsui-ping 
 "JJ oJingbroke — ^grow befor e us insensibly through a series 
 STfine and characteristic strokes. ThefgolTo E^Iike the . 
 
 * otto Ludwig notices the ideal treatment of time in King Richard III. 
 But does it differ from the treatment of time in other historical plays of 
 Shakspere? "Wie in keinem anderen seiner Stiicke die Begebenheiten 
 gewaltsamer zusammengeriickt sind, so ist auch in keinem anderen die Zeit 
 so ideal behandelt als hier. Hier giebt es kein Gestern, kein Morgen, keine 
 Uhr, und keinen Kalender." — BkaJeespeare-Studien, pp. 450, 451. 
 
172 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 figures in King Richa/rd III., forcibly possess themBelvea _ 
 of on r imafflnatiou, but engage it before it is aware, and 
 py degrees advance ^ Btrgpger claJmsja^Oajif, g"*^ moirn 
 j^oiTthose claims. It will be worth while to try to as- 
 certain what Shakspere looked upon as most significant 
 in the characters of these two royal persons — the weak 
 king who could not rule, and the strong king who pressed 
 him from his place. 
 
 There is a condition of the intellect which we describe 
 by the word "-hoyiahnfiss ." The mind in the boyish 
 .stage of growth " has nodiscriminaLing convinLiS ns^d 
 n o grasp of co nsequences." It has not as yet goFhold 
 of ^ealities ; it is^^nnereTy- dazzledlSy phenomena, instead 
 of perceiving things as they "are." "The talk ofa'person 
 ^Pfro remaihsln iEhis"sense l3oyish is often clever, but it is 
 unreal ; now he will say brilliant things upon this side 
 of a question, and now upon the opposite side. He has 
 no consistency of view. He is wanting as yet in serious- 
 ness of intellect, in the adult mind.* Now, if we extend 
 this characteristic of boyishness from the intellect to the 
 entire character, we may underetand much of what Shak- 
 spere meant to represenfe_iB.^th&- per oon «f BiebM^ IL^. 
 Not alone his intellect, but his feelings, live in the world 
 of phenomena, and altogether fail to lay hold of things 
 as they are ; they have no consistency and no continuity. 
 His will is entirely unformed ; it possesses no authority 
 and no executive power; h e is at the mercy of every 
 chance impulse an d transitOTy mood. lie has a kind oJf 
 artistic relation to IH'e, witliout ngiing an artist. An ar- 
 tist in life seizes upon the stuff of circumstance, and, with 
 strenuous will and strong creative power, shapes some 
 new and noble form of human existence. 
 
 Kichard, to whom all things are unreal, has a fine feel- 
 
 * John Henry Newman, " Idea of a University," preface. 
 
4f 
 
 The English Historical Plays. 173 
 
 ing for " situations." Without true kingly strengtli or 
 dignity, lie has a fine feeling for the royal situation. 
 Without any making real to himself what God or what 
 deatli is, he can put himself, if need be, in the appropri- 
 ate attitude towards God and towards death. Instead of 
 comprehending tilings as they are, and achieving heroic 
 deeds, he satiates his heart with the grace, the tenderness, 
 the beauty, or the pathos of situations. Life is to Kich- 
 ard a show, a succession of images ; and to put himself 
 into accord with the aesthetic requirements of his position 
 is Richard's first necessity. He is equal to playing any 
 part gracefully which he is called upon by circumstances 
 to enact. But when he has exhausted the aesthetic satis- 
 faction to be derived from the situations of his life, he is 
 left with nothing further to do. He is an amateur in 
 living ; not an artist.* 
 
 Nothing had disturbed the graceful dream of Kichard's 
 adolescence. The son of the Black Prince, beautiful in 
 face and form, though now past liis youth, a king since 
 boyhood, he has known no antagonism of men or cir- 
 cumstance which might arouse the will. He has an in- 
 describable charm of person and presence ; Hotspur re- 
 members him as " Eichard, that sweet, lovely rose." But 
 a king who rules a discontented people and turbulent 
 nobles needs to be' something more than a beautiful blos- 
 soming flower. Eichard has abandoned his nature to 
 self-indulgence, and therefore the world becomes to him 
 more unreal than ever. He has been surrounded by flat- 
 
 * " Die guten Eigenschaften seiner Natur werden ihm unniitz, ja gefahr- 
 lich ; er gewahrt das erschiitternde Schauspiel eines beispiellosen, geistigen 
 und gemiithliehen nicht weniger ala ausserlicheii Bankerutts in Folge des 
 einen Umstandea — dasa die Natur ihn mit einem Dilettantencharaeter auf 
 eine Steile berufen, die mehr als jede andere einen Kiinstler fordert." — 
 Kbetssig, VorUmngen vber Shakespeare (ed. 1874), vol. i., p. 189: See what 
 follows on Richard's " Dilettantismus." 
 
1 74 Shakspere-^His Mind and Art. 
 
 terers, who helped to make his atmosphere a luminous 
 mist, through which the facts of life appeared -with all 
 their ragged outlines smoothed away. In the first scene 
 of the play he enacts the part of a king with a fine show 
 of dignity; his bearing is splendid and irreproachable. 
 Mowbray is obstinate, and will not throw down the gage 
 of Bolingbroke ; Kichard exclaims, 
 
 " Kage must be withstood. 
 Give me his gage : lions malie leopards tame." 
 
 But Mowbray retains the gage. " We were not born to 
 sue, but to command," declares Kichard, with royal majes- 
 ty ; yet he admits that to command exceeds his power. 
 What of that ? Has not Kichard borne himself splendid- 
 ly, and uttered himself in a royal metaphor — "Lions make 
 leopards tame ?" 
 
 At this very moment Bolingbroke, with eye set upon 
 his purpose afar off, has resolutely taken the first step 
 towards attaining it. The challenge of Mowbray conceals 
 a deeper purpose. So little does Bolingbroke rea llx.fegl 
 of hostility to his antagonist-thftfrone-trf^iis-firsFacts, as. 
 soon as he~is in a position to act with authority,ja-tQ ,de- 
 cTareMiowbray'sTepear.^^ But to^ stand forward as cham- 
 pion of the wrongs of England, to make himself the emi- 
 nent justiciary by right of nature, this is the initial step 
 towards future kingship ; and Bolingbroke perceives 
 clearly that the fact of Gloster's death may serve as ful- 
 crum for the lever which is to shake the throne of Eng- 
 land. Nor is the King quite insensible of the tendency 
 of his cousin's action. Already he begins to quail before 
 his bold antagonist : 
 
 " How higli a pitch his resolution soars !" 
 
 * Kreyasi^ suggests tha t this piece of magnanimity was really a piece of 
 <jn e tl|'r"""°y i H "'i"p;'^"^° was perhaps "aware^f^orfolE'S^attf^tTEIle. 
 ,.^mejhat-be^aye_ftrder for his repeal. 
 
The English Historical Plays. 175 
 
 Kichard tries gracefully to conceal his discomposure, and 
 to deceive Bolingbroke ; but he is not, like Kichard the 
 hunchback, a daring and efficient hypocrite. He betrays 
 his weakness and his distrust, administering to the two 
 men decreed to exile an oath which pledges them never 
 to reconcile themselves in their banishment, and never to 
 plot against the King. 
 
 Bolingbroke accepts his exile, parts from the English 
 crowd with an air of gracious, condescending familiarity 
 which flatters (whereas Kichard's undignified familiarity 
 only displeases),* and bids farewell to his country as a 
 son bids farewell to the mother with whom his natural 
 loyalty remains, and whom, in due time, he will see again. 
 John of Gaunt is lying" on his death-bed. The last of 
 the great race of the time of Edward III., no English 
 spirit will breathe such patriotism as his until the days 
 of Agincourt. With the prophetic inspiration of a dying 
 man, he dares to warn his grand-nephew, and to rebuke 
 him for his treason against the ancient honor of England. 
 Eichard, who, with his characteristic sensibility of a super- 
 ficial kind, turns pale as he listens, recovers himself by a 
 transition from overawed alarm to boyish insolence. The 
 white-haired warrior, now a prophet, who lies dying be- 
 
 ' "A lunatic, lean-witted fool, 
 
 Presuming on an ague's privilege," 
 
 who dares, with a frozen admonition, to make pale the 
 
 * " The skipping king, he ambled up and down 
 With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, 
 Soon kindled and soon burnt ; carded his state. 
 Mingled his royalty with capering fools. 
 
 Grew a companion to the common streets." 
 Thus Henry IV. describes his predecessor as a lesson to Prince Henry, 
 whose familiarity with his future subjects is neither in his 'father's manner 
 nor in that of Richard II. 
 
1 76 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 royal cheek of Kichard. The facts are very disagreeable, 
 and why should a king admit into his consciousness an 
 ■ugly or disagreeable fact ? 
 
 By- and- by, being informed that John of Gaunt is 
 dead, Kichard lias the most graceful and appropriate 
 word ready for so solemn an occasion : 
 
 " The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he ; 
 His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be." 
 
 In which pilgrimage the first step is to seize upon 
 
 " The plate, coin, revenues, and movables, 
 Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd." 
 
 Even York, the temporizing York, who would fain be 
 all things to all men if by any means he might save him=- 
 self, is amazed, and ventures to remonstrate against the 
 criminal folly of this act. But Richard, like all self-in- 
 dulgent natures, has only a half-belief in any possible 
 future. He chooses to make the present time easy, and 
 let the future provide for itself; he has been living upon 
 chances too long ; he has too long been mortgaging the 
 health of to-morrow for the pleasure of to-day : 
 
 " Think what you will, we seize into our hands 
 His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands." 
 
 But now the tempest begins to sing. Bolingbroke 
 (before he can possibly have heard of his father's death 
 and the seizure by Kichard of his own rights and royal- 
 ties) has equipped an expedition, and is about to land 
 upon the English coast. The King makes a hasty return 
 from his "military promenade" in Ireland.* The first 
 words of each, as he touches his native soil, are character- 
 istic, and were doubtless placed by Shakspere in designed 
 contrast. '■'■How far is it, my lord, to BerTceUy now?" 
 The banished man has no tender phrases to bestow upon 
 
 * Fr. Kreyssig, " Vorlesungen iiber Shakespeare," vol. i., p. 191. 
 
The English Historical Plays 177 
 
 English earth, now that he sets foot upon it once more. 
 All his faculties are firm-set, and bent upon achievement. 
 But Eichard, who has been absent for a few days in Ire- 
 land, enters with all possible zeal into the sentiment of 
 his situation: ,,^ . . 
 
 I weep lor joy 
 To stand upon my kingdom once again. 
 Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, 
 Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs ; 
 As a long-parted mother with her child 
 Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, 
 So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, 
 And do thee favors with my royal hands." 
 
 Which sentimental favors form a graceful incident in the 
 play of Eichard's life, but can hardly compensate the want 
 •of true and manly patriotism. This same earth which 
 Eichard caressed with extravagant sensibility was the 
 England which John of Gaunt, with strong enthusiasm, 
 had apostrophized : 
 
 " This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 
 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
 Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth. 
 Renowned for their deeds." 
 
 It was the England which Eichard had alienated from 
 himself and leased out " like to a tenement or pelting 
 farm." What of that, however? Did not Eichard ad- 
 dress his England with phrases full of tender sensibility, 
 and render her mockery favors with his royal hands ? 
 
 Bolingbroke has already gained the support of the 
 Welsh. Eichard has upon his side powers higher than 
 natural flesh and blood. Shall he not rise like the sun 
 in the eastern sky, and with the majesty of his royal ap- 
 parition scare away the treasons of the night ? Is he not 
 the anointed deputy of God ? 
 
 " Not all the water in the rough rude sea 
 Can wash the balm from an anointed king: 
 The breath of worldly men cannot depose 
 The deputy elected by the Lord." 
 8* 
 
1 78 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Yes ; he will i-ely on God ; it is devout ; it is not labori- 
 ous. ~ For everj armed man who figlits for Bolingbroke, 
 
 "God for his Kichard hath in heavenly pay 
 jLglorjous angel." 
 
 And at this moment Salisbury enters to announce the 
 revolt of Wales. Kichard has been slack in action, and 
 arrived a day too late. Kemorseless comment upon the 
 rhetorical piety of the King ! A company of angels fight 
 upon his side) true, but the sturdy Welshmen stand for 
 Bolingbroke! He is the deputy elected by the Lord ; but 
 the Lord's deputy has arrived a day too late ! 
 
 And now Kichard alternates, between abje ct des £ mid- 
 enc y (r elieved by accepting all the aesthetic satisfaction 
 derivable from the situation of vanquished kin gVand an 
 airy T^ni-pa] pnnfirlPTif^P There is in Kichard, as Coleridge 
 las finely observed, " a constant overflow of emotions 
 from a total incapability of controlling them, and thence 
 a waste of that energy, which should have been reserved 
 for actions, in the passion and effort of mere resolves and 
 menaces. The consequence is moral exhaustion and rapid 
 alternations of unmanly despair and ungrounded hope, 
 every feeling being abandoned fpr its direct opposite 
 upon the pressure of external accident." * A certain un- 
 reality infects every motion of Kichard ; his feelings are 
 but the shadows of true feeling. Now he will be great 
 and a king ; now what matters it to lose a kingdom % If 
 Bolingbroke and he alike serve God, Bolingbroke can be 
 no more than his fellow-servant. !N" ow he plays the waiii 
 
 tasugith JufiLpddp, fliiifil nnw ;ff,iUniILmifififHyl4 ""^' 
 
 " Of comfort no man speak : 
 Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs ; 
 
 For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 
 And tell sad stories of the death of kings." 
 
 * " Lectures upon Shakespeare " (ed. 1849), vol. i., p. 178. 
 
I he tLiigltsn mstoncal Plays. 1 79 
 
 At one moment he pictures God mustering armies of 
 I)estilence in his clouds to strike the usurper and his de- 
 scendants ; in the next he yields to Bolinghroke's de- 
 mands, and welcomes his "right noble cousin." He is 
 r^'"'1iili and h^ i^ pious: he is courageous and cowardly; 
 and pride and piety "cowardice and courage," are all the 
 passions of a dream. 
 
 Yet Shalvspere has thrown over the figure of liieliard 
 a certain atmosphere of charm. If only the world were 
 not a real world, to which serious hearts are due, we could 
 find in Kichard some wavering, vague attraction. There 
 is a certain wistf ulness about him ; without any genuine 
 kingly power, he has a feeling for what kingly power 
 must be ; without any veritable religion, he has a pale 
 shadow of religiosity. And few of us have ourselves 
 wholly escaped from unreality. " It takes a long time 
 really to feel and understand things as they are ; we learn 
 to do so only gradually." * Into what glimmering limbo 
 will such a soul as that of Eichard pass when the breath 
 leaves the body ? The pains of hell and the joys of heav- 
 en belong to tnose who have serious hearts. Eichard has 
 been a graceful phantom. Is there some tenuous, unsub- 
 stantial world of spirits reserved for the sentimentalist, 
 the dreamer, and the dilettante ? Kichard is, as it were, 
 fading out of existence. Bolingbroke seems not only, t a, 
 have robhe d him ,qf >is au£bflntr.. JmUQj±a£fi.en.eiaa£he^ 
 upon his very personaliti[, and^to hav^.sjjegihisjBdafe, 
 aj^u^inganahis wHlT Eichard is discovering that he is 
 
 no more thaifTaT^hadow ; but the discovery itself has 
 something unreal and shadowy about it. Is not some 
 such fact as Ihis symbolized by the incident of the mir- 
 ror? Before he quite ceases to be king, Kichard, with his 
 
 * John H. Newman, " Parochial and Plain Sermons " (" Unreal Words "), 
 vol. v., p. 43. 
 
1 80 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 taste for " pseudo-poetic pathos," * would once more look 
 upon the image of his face, and see what wrinkles have 
 been traced upon it by sorrow. And Bolingbroke, sup- 
 pressing his inward feeling of disdain, directs that the 
 mirror be brought. Kichard gazes against it, and finds 
 that sorrow has wrought no change upon the beautiful 
 lips and forehead. And then, exclaiming, 
 
 "A brittle glory shineth in this face, 
 As brittle as the glory is the face," 
 
 he dashes the glass against the ground. 
 
 " For there it is crack'd in a hundred shivers. 
 Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, 
 How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face. 
 
 Bolinff. The shadow gj ygur. sorrow hatk destroy'd 
 The shadowJtypurS^, 
 
 -E Jiicli. Say that again. 
 
 The shadow of my sorrow ! ha ! let's see." 
 
 Does Kichard, as Professor Flathe (contemptuously 
 dismissing the criticisms of Gervinus and of Kreyssig) 
 
 maintains,^ morall;j£gngbi|ajMmUi&iloi>, as,.a.iiB£L 
 Is he heartily sorry for his misdoings ? While drinking 
 the wine and eating the bread of sorrow, does he truly 
 and earnestly repent, and intend to lead a new life? The 
 habit of his nature is not so quickly unlearned. Kichard 
 in prison remains the same person as Eichard on the 
 throne. Calamity is no more real to him now than pros- 
 perity had been m brighter days. The soliloquy of 
 Eichard in Pomfret""OSle (act v., sc. 5) might almost 
 be transferred, as far as tone and manner are concerned, 
 to one other personageJn_ShakspereVp]ajs — to Jaqnes. 
 '|]lj£.„9'^"°'i^-ifti^l^<^* .oi JaqHes_^yjQfi.Jum liis_jdistin£- 
 Jion. He playsjiis parts for t he sake of understandiiig 
 ^e^worid Jnhjg^way elsuperfigijl fool's-wisdom. Kleh- 
 
The English Historical Plays. 1 8 1 
 
 ard plays his parts to possess himself of the aesthetic sat- 
 isfaction of an amateur in life, witli a fine feeling for sit- 
 uations. But each lives in the world of shadow, in the 
 world of mockery wisdom or the world of mockery pas- 
 sion. Mr. Hudson is right when he says, " Richard is so 
 steeped in voluptuous habits that he must needs be a vo- 
 luptuary even in his sorrow, and rnake a luxury"bf woe 
 llsgl|^ pleasure_lias ia3HSca5gEIy"rnastered his spirit that 
 he cannot think of bearing pain as a duty or an honor, 
 but merely as a license for the pleasure of maudlin self- 
 compassion ; so he hangs over his griefs, hugs them, 
 nurses then3,j3uries__himself in them, as if the sweet ago- 
 ny thereof were^to him a glad refuge from the stings of 
 self-reproach, or a dear releasaf rom the exercise of manly. .. 
 thought."* 
 
 Tnt. to t.hft last a. Uttlfi of rpial lovft is rpaprvp.d h,v nnn 
 Tip ni-t-. "'• t TO iifor tillfi p1l'"^"'^jrj "^^'^'•''^^•j-Y't Tji'»]i.jiy^^ ■ tho 
 I gve ot awife who is filled wit^h ^ pifpona spnsp of \\py 
 husband's mental and mora l pff^pp.mfinf:, spping Iiqv "fai'i- 
 rose wither^ " and the love of a groom whose loyalty to 
 his master is associated with loyalty to his master's horse, 
 roan Barbarj'. This incident of roan Earbary is an ip - 
 vention of the poet. Did iShakspere intend only a little 
 
 ■ -^, iMMiiMii ■■[■■^^Miii I iiiiiaiiBilii linn 1— null lawiiljm i •_'"ii[ii ii 
 
 •( 
 
 lere a toucnoi 
 
 bit_of lielpless pat'hbs'j Ur IS 
 irony here ?_ A poor spark of aifection remains for iiieh- 
 ard, but it has been kindled half by Richard, and half by 
 Richard's horse. The fancy of the. fallen king disports 
 itself for the last time, and hangs its latest wreath around 
 this incident. Then suddenly comes the darkness. Sud- 
 denly the hectic passion of Richard flares ; he snatches an 
 axe from a servant, and deals about him. deadly blows. 
 In another moment he is extinct ; the graceful, futile ex- 
 istence has ceased. 
 
 * " Shakespeare : his Life, Art, and Character," vol. ii., p. 55. 
 
1 8 2 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 V. 
 Bolingbroke utters few words in the play of Richard 
 II. ; Tet we feel that from t lift fifRt. the, nliief fQrce.cen^ 
 tres in him. He possesses every element of power ex- 
 cept those which are spontaneous and unconscious. He 
 is dauntles s, but his courage is under the control of "his . 
 iudgment • it never becomes a glorious TtiarMal rafrp. like. 
 
 5t?Mry, T^f)]i"ip;>^r»ka'ii snn_ TTfi 1> ""^bitimis. but his am- 
 hitfpyi I's Tint, an inordinate dftsireio wj-eak his -gJUjpon 
 th e world, and expend a fierv energy like that of Bichard 
 ill. : it is an ambition which aims at definite e nds, and 
 can be held in reserve until these see m a tt aina ble, ilgja. 
 studiouslcTobtain the, good graces.ofaabl^an5.Qf jaSP- 
 pie, and h e succeeds because, wed d ed t o his end, he does 
 nnt. hpmmft-fippi^ii^l-. of the means : but he is wholly 
 lacking in genius of the heart ; and, therefore, he obtains 
 the love of no man. j leTsmdeed formidable; his ene- 
 mies describe England as 
 
 f)5 "A bleeding land, 
 
 Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke ;'' 
 
 ^^A t)p ^p fiw""" "^^ ^''° "'•••"nctih ; bnf. there is in hianature 
 
 Tin fnnd f^f innalpnlablft Rti;gngt.h .nf. whif^h lia.CaaBflLiiS 
 awai:e. All his faculties are well organized , and help one 
 another ; he is embarrassed by no throng of conflicting 
 desires or sympathies. He is resolved to win the throne, 
 and has no personal hostility to the King to divide or 
 waste his energies; only a little of contempt. In the 
 (Re position scen e he gives as l ittle pain as mayTe to 
 Bichard ; lie controls and checks Northumberland, who 
 irritates and excites the King by requiring him to read 
 the articles of his accusation. Because "RoliTighrpl-f i;^ 
 strong, he is not crueL* He decides when to augment 
 
 * M6ziferes, " Shaltspeare, ses (Euvres ct ses Critiques," p. 205. Kreyssig, 
 " Vorlesunsen uber Shakespeare," vol. i., p. 194 (ed. 18V4). 
 
Ihe JtLngltsn. tltstorual Plays. 183 
 
 his power by clemeiicj, and when by severity. Anmerle 
 he can pardon, who will live to fight and fall gallantly 
 for Henry's son at Agincourt. He can dismiss to a dig- 
 nified retreat the bishop, who, loyal to the hereditary 
 principle, had pleaded against Henry's title to the throne. 
 But Bushy. Green, and snchlik e cater pilla rfj nf thp ^^'^'n- 
 monwealth. Henry has &mavivX.(\ weed a.n.d-pl.uiik. ajcajL— 
 And when he pardons Aumerle he sternly decrees to 
 death his own brother-in-law . 7 
 
 The honor of England he cherished not with passionate 
 devotion, but with a strong considerate care, as though it 
 were his own honor. There is nothing infinite in the 
 character of Henry, but his is a strong finite character, 
 "When he has attained the object of his ambition, he is still 
 aspiring, but he does not aspire towards anything higher 
 and further than that which he had set before him ; his 
 ambition is now to hold firmly that which he has ener- 
 getically grasped. He tries to control England as he con- 
 trolled roan Barbary : 
 
 " Great Bolingbroke, 
 Mounted upon a bot and fiery steed, 
 Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, 
 With slow but stately pace kept on his course." 
 
 "Even in his policy," Mr. Hudson has truly said, 
 " there was much of the breadth and largeness which dis- 
 tinguished the statesman from the politician." He can 
 conceive beforehand with practical imaginative faculty 
 the exigencies of a case and provide for them. Of Eich- 
 ard's hectic fancy (which must not be mistaken for imag- 
 ination) Henry has none. Nor does he ever unpack his 
 heart with words. Aiming at things, his words are right 
 and efficient without aiming. In the scene of Kichard's 
 deposition, while the King is setting his fancy to work in 
 making arabesques out of all the details of the situation, 
 Bolingbroke does not become impatient. The wound 
 
J 84 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 which he inflicts on Eicliard must, of course, suppurate. 
 " I thought you had been willing to resign." " Are yon 
 contented to resign the crown ?" With these brief and 
 decisive sentences Henry calmly urges his point. In a 
 later scene, where Aumerle has flung himself before the 
 King and confessed his treason, while York, who speedily 
 transferred all his loyalty from the deposed prince to his 
 successor, pleads eagerly against his son, and the Duchess 
 on her knees implores his pardon, Henry allows the pas- 
 sionate..J[QD,d to loam ahaiiLhisJeet, Jle has resolved 
 upon his part, and knows that in a little while he can al- 
 lay this tempest. "Eise up, good aunt," "Good aunt, 
 rise np," " Good aunt, stand up " — these words, uttered in 
 each pause of the passionate appeal, are all that Henry 
 has at first to say ; and then the traitor is forfflven. and-a 
 loyal subject gained forever. " I pardon him as God will 
 pardon me ;" " With all my heart I pardon him." 
 
 Yet the success of Bolingbroke — although he succeeded 
 to the full measure of his powers, and lost no point of ad- 
 vantage by laxness or self-indulgence — was not a com- 
 plete achievement. When, a little before his death, his 
 heart was at last set right with his son's heart, he could 
 
 confess — 
 
 " God knows, my son, 
 By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways 
 I met this crown, and I myself know well 
 How troublesome it sat upon my head. 
 To thee it shall descend with better quiet, 
 Better opinion, better confirmation." * 
 
 By caution and by boldness he had won the crown, and 
 
 * 2 Henry IV. (act iv., so. 5). Of the King in this scene, Mr. Hudson says 
 well, " Though we have indeed his subtle policy, working out like a ruling 
 passion strong in death, still its workings are suffused with gushes of right 
 feeling, enough to show that he was not all politician; that beneath his 
 close-knit prudence there was a soul of moral sense, a kernel of religion." — 
 Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters, vol. ii., p. 71. 
 
The English Historical Plays. 185 
 
 held it resolutely. But bis followers fell away ; the tur- 
 bulent nobles of the North were in revolt, and there was a 
 profound suspicion of the policy of the King. One son 
 had reproduced the character of his father without the 
 larger and finer features of that character. The other he 
 could not understand, failing to discern, almost up to the 
 last, the steadfast hidden loyalty and love of that son. It 
 is hard for the free, spontaneous heart to disclose itself to 
 the deliberate and cautious heart, which yet yearns pa- 
 thetically for a child's affection. There is something pit- 
 epusly undiscerning in the wish of the father of a Henry 
 V. that he might have been the father of a Hotspur. 
 
 22lf"'ii tinn, hiB lifo nn'f^iHfrrrnrTrprrTr-qnri rrfrrnhmrnt 
 The incessant care and labor of his mind went on day af- 
 ter day, night after night. He has no exultant faith in 
 Grod, no strong Telianceupon principles. Every future 
 contingency must be anticipated and provided for by pol- 
 icy.- , Henry, can neverj:idJaimsel£~of-Gai«s^ £aa.iiever 
 f or an houineF"tIiing s be, and join in. t he_ wholesom e 
 laughter and frolic of the- world. And, accordingly, in 
 spite of his energy and strenuous resolution, seasons of 
 exhaustion and depression necessarily come. Sleep for- 
 sakes him ; he summons his councillors at midnight ; he 
 broods, over the rank diseases that grow near the heart of 
 his kingdom. He longs inexpressibly to read the secrets 
 of futurity. He can hardly sustain himself from sinking 
 into discouragement and languor: 
 
 " God ! that one might read the book of fate, 
 And see the revolution of the times 
 Make mountains level, and the continent. 
 Weary of solid firmness, melt itself 
 Into the sea ! and, other times, to see 
 The beachy girdle of the ocean 
 Too wide for Neptune's hips : how chances mock. 
 And changes fill the cup of alteration 
 With divers liquors ! 0, if this were seen, 
 
1 86 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, 
 
 What perils past, what crosses to ensue, 
 
 Would shut the book, and sit him down and die." 
 
 But the thought that such things as these are necessities 
 of human life restores Henry to liimself . " I am sworn 
 brother, sweet, to grim Necessit}'," exclaimed King Kich- 
 ard II. to his Queen, "and he and I will keep a league 
 till death." Henry does not personify Necessity, and 
 greet it with this romantic display of fraternity; but he 
 admits the inevitable fact, and the fact is something to lay 
 hold of firmly, a support and resting-place — something 
 which reanimates him for exertion. 
 
 "Are these things then necessities? 
 Then let us meet them lilce necessities ; 
 And that same word even now cries out on us: 
 They say the Bishop and Northumberland 
 Are fifty thousand strong." 
 
 His faculties are firm-set and reorganized, and go to 
 
 work once more. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Shakspere has judged Henry lY., and pronounced that 
 his life was not a failure ; still, it was at best a partial 
 success. Shakspere saw, and he proceeded to show to oth- 
 ers, that all whieli Bolingbroke had attained, and almost 
 incalculably greater possession of good things, could be 
 attained more joyously by nobler means. The unmis- 
 takable enthusiasm of the poet about his Henry V. has 
 induced critics to believe that in him we find Shakspere's 
 ideal of manhood. He must certainly be regarded as 
 Shakspere's ideal of manhood in the sphere of practical 
 achievement — the hero and central figure, therefore, of 
 the historical plays. 
 
 The fact has been noticed that with respect to Henry's 
 youthful follies, Shakspere deviated from all authorities 
 known to have been accessible to him. "An extraordi- 
 
The English Historical Plays. 1 8 7 
 
 navy conversion was generally thought to have fallen 
 upon the Prince on coming to the crown — insomuch that 
 the old chroniclers could only account for the change by 
 some miracle of grace or touch of supernatural benedic- 
 tion."* Shakspere, it would seem, engaged now upon 
 historical matter, and not the fantastic substance of a com- 
 edy, found something incredible in the sudden transfor- 
 mation of a reckless libertine (the Henry described by 
 Caxton, by Fabyan, and others) into a cliaracter of ma- 
 jestic force and large practical wisdoui. Eather than 
 reproduce this incredible popular tradition concerning 
 Henry, Shakspere preferred to attempt the difficult task 
 of exhibiting the Prince as a sharer in the wild frolic of 
 youth, while at the same time he was holding himself 
 prepared for the splendid entrance upon his manhood, 
 and stood really aloof in his inmost being from the un- 
 worthy life of his associates. 
 
 The change which efEected itself in the Prince, as 
 represented by Shakspere, was no miraculous conver- 
 sion, but merely the transition from boyhood to adult 
 years, and from unchartered freedom to the solemn re- 
 sponsibilities of a great ruler. We must not suppose 
 that Henry formed a deliberate plan for concealing the 
 strength and splendor of his character, in order, after- 
 wards, to flash forth upon men's sight, ^nd overwhelm 
 and dazzle them. When he soliloquizes (1 Henry IV., 
 act i., sc. 2), liaving bidden farewell to Poins and Falstaflf, 
 
 " I know you all, and will awhile uphold 
 The unyoked humor of your idleness : 
 Yet herein will I imitate the sun, 
 Who doth permit the base contagious clouds 
 To smother up his beauty from the world, 
 
 * Hudson, " Shakespeare : his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., p. IS. 
 See also C. Knight's " Studies of Shakspere," bk. iv., ch. ii., p. 164. 
 
1.88 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 That, when he please again to be himself, 
 Seing wanted, he may be more wondered at, 
 By breaking through the foul and ugly mists 
 Of vapors, that did seem to strangle him." 
 
 — when Henry soliloquizes thus, we arc not to suppose 
 that he was quite as wise and diplomatical as he pleased 
 to represent himself, for the time being, to his own heart 
 and conscience.* The Prince entered heartily, and with- 
 out reserve, into the fun and frolic of his Eastcheap life ; 
 the vigor and the folly of it were delightful ; to be clapped 
 on the back, and sliouted for as " Hal," was far better 
 than the doffing of caps and crooking of knees, and del- 
 icate, unreal phraseology of the court. But Henry, at 
 the same time, kept himself from subjugation to what 
 was really base. He could truthfully stand before his 
 father (1 Henry IV., act iii., sc. 2) and maintain that his 
 nature was substantially sound and untainted, capable of 
 redeeming itself from all past, superficial dishonor. 
 
 Has Shakspere erred 1 Or is it not possible to take 
 energetic part in a provisional life which is known to be 
 provisional, while, at the same time, a man holds his 
 truest self in reserve for the life that is best and hish- 
 ^st and most real ? May not the very consciousness, in- 
 deed, that sucli a life is provisional enable one to give 
 one's self away_ to it, satisfying its demands with scru- 
 pulous care, or with full and free enjoyment, as a man 
 could not if it were a life which had any chance of en- 
 gaging his whole personality, and that finally ? Is it pos- 
 sible to adjust two states of being, one temporary and 
 provisional, the otlier absolute and final, and to pass free- 
 ly out of one into the other? Precisely because the one 
 is perfect and indestructible, it does not fear the counter-' 
 
 * Kreyssig, " Vorlesungen uber Shakespeare" (ed. ISW), vol. 1. p. 212. 
 R. Gen^e, " Shakespeare, sein Leben und seine Werke," p. 202. 
 
The English Historical Plays. 189 
 
 life. May there not liave been passages in Shakspere's 
 own experience -which authorized him in his attempt to 
 exhibit the successful adjustment of two apparently in- 
 coherent lives ? * 
 
 The central element in the character of Henry is his 
 noble realization of fact. To Eichard II., life was a 
 graceful and shadowy ceremony, containing beautiful 
 and pathetic situations. Henry IV. saw in the world a 
 substantial realitj', and he resolved to obtain mastery 
 over it by courage and by craft. But while Bolingbroke, 
 with his caution and his policy, his address and his am- 
 bition,, penetrated only a little way among tlie facts of 
 life, his son, with a true genius for the discovery of the 
 noblest facts, and of all facts, came into relation with the 
 central and vital forces of the universe, so that, instead 
 of constructing a strong but careful life for himself, life 
 breathed through him, and blossomed into a glorious en- 
 thusiasm of existence. And, therefore, from all tliat was 
 unreal, and from all exaggerated egoism, Henry was ab- 
 solutely delivered. A man who firmly holds, or, rather, 
 is held by, the beneficent forces of the world, whose feet 
 are upon a rock, and whose goings are established, may 
 with confidence abandon much of the prudence and 
 many of the artificial proprieties of the world. For ev- 
 ery unreality Henry exhibits a sovereign disregard — 
 for unreal manners, unreal glory, unreal heroism, unreal 
 piety, unreal warfare, unreal love. The plain fact is so 
 precious it needs no ornament. 
 
 * Kumelin, who argues that Shakspere wrote to please the jeimesse doree 
 of the period, suggests that the character of the Prince was drawn from 
 that of the Earl of Southampton ! The originals of many of Shakspere's 
 historical personages, Riimelin supposes, sat upon the side-seats of the 
 stage, and are, alas ! irrecoverably lost. (With such conjectures must " real- 
 ist" criticism buttress up its case!) " Shakespeare-Studien " (ed. 18V4), 
 p. 121. 
 
1 90 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 From the coldness, the caution, the convention, of his 
 father's court (an atmosphere which suited well the tem- 
 perament of John of Lancaster), Henry escapes to the 
 teeming vitality of the London streets, and the tavern 
 where FalstaflE is monarch. There, among hostlers, and 
 carriers, and drawers, and merchants, and pilgrims, and 
 loud robustious women, he at least has freedom and 
 frolic. " If it be a sin to covet honor," Henry declares, 
 " I am the most offending soul alive." But the honor 
 that Henry covets is not that which Hotspur is ambi- 
 tious after : 
 
 "By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap 
 To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon." * 
 
 The honor that Henry covets is the achievement of great 
 deeds, not the words of men which vibrate around such 
 deeds. Falstaff, the despiser of honor, labors across the 
 field, bearing the body of the fallen Hotspur, the impas- 
 sioned pursuer of glory, and, in his fashion of splendid 
 imposture or stupendous joke, the fat Knight claims 
 credit for the achievement of the day's victory. Hen- 
 ry is not concerned, on this occasion, to put the old sin- 
 ner to shame. To have added to the deeds of the world 
 a glorious deed is itself the only honor that Henry seeks. 
 Nor is his heroic greatness inconsistent with the admis- 
 sion of very humble incidents of humanity : 
 
 "Prince. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? 
 Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember 
 so weak a composition. 
 Prince. Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got ; for, by my troth 
 
 * 1 Henry IV., act i., sc. S. Kreyssig contrasts Hotspur's passion for 
 honor with FalstafE's indifference to it. " Can honor set to a leg or an 
 arm ? no : or take away the grief of a wound ? no." Henry, in this matter 
 is equally remote from Falstaff and from Hotspur (" Vorlesungen fiber 
 Shakespeare," vol. i., pp. 244, 245). 
 
The English Historical Plays. 191 
 
 I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But indeed these hum- 
 ble considerations make me out of love with my greatness."* 
 
 Henry, with his lank frame and vigorous muscle (the 
 opposite of the Danish Prince, who is " fat, and scant of 
 breath"), is actually wearied to excess, and thirsty — and 
 he is by no means afraid to confess the fact ; his appe- 
 tite, at least, has not been pampered. "Before God, 
 Kate," such is Henry's fashion of wooing, "I cannot 
 look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no 
 cunning in protestation ; only downright oaths, which I 
 never use till urged, nor never break for urging. ... I 
 speak to thee plain soldier ; if thou canst love me for 
 this, take me ; if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is 
 true ; but for thy love, by the Lord, no ; yet I love thee, 
 too." 
 
 And, as in his love there is a certain substantial home- 
 liness and heartiness, so is there also in his piety. He is 
 not harassed like his son, the saintly Henry, with refine- 
 ments of scrupulosity, the disease of an irritable con- 
 science, which is delivered from its irritability by no ac- 
 tive pursuit of noble ends. Henry has done what is 
 right ; he has tried to repair his father's faults ; he has 
 built " two chantries, where tlie sad and solemn priests 
 still siug for Kichard's soul." He has done his part by 
 God and man ; will not God, in like manner, stand by 
 him and perform what belongs to God? Henry's free- 
 dom from egoism, his modesty, his integrity, his joyous 
 humor, his practical piety, his habit of judging things 
 by natural, and not artificial, standards — all these are va- 
 rious developments of the central element of his charac- 
 ter, his noble realization of fact. 
 
 * Jack Cade, in his aspiration after greatness, announces, " I will make 
 it a felony to drmk small beer . . . when I am king, as king I will be." 
 Henry's desire would seem, then, to be inexpressibly humiliating. 
 
1 92 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 But his realization of fact produces something more 
 than this integrity, this homely honesty of nature. It 
 breathes through him an enthusiasm which would be in- 
 tense if it were not so massive. Through his union with 
 the vital strength of the world, he becomes one of the 
 world's most glorious and beneficent forces. From the 
 plain and mirth-creating comrade of his fellow-soldiers, 
 he rises into the genius of impassioned battle. From the 
 modest and quiet adviser with his counsellors and prel- 
 ates, he is transformed, when the occasion requires it, into 
 th e terrible administrator of. j ustice. When Henry takes 
 from his father's pillow the crown, and places it upon 
 his own head, the deed is done with no fluttering rapture 
 of attainment. He has entered gravely upon his man- 
 hood. He has made very real to himself the long, care- 
 ful, and joyless life of the father who had won for him 
 this " golden care." His heart is full of tenderness for 
 this sad father, to whom he had been able to bring so 
 little happiness. But now he takes his due, the crown, 
 and the world's whole force shall not wrest it from him : 
 
 " Thy due from me 
 Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood, 
 Which nature, love, and .filial tenderness 
 Shall, dear father, pay thee plenteously: 
 My due from thee is this imperial crown, 
 Which, as immediate from thy place and blood, 
 Derives itself to me. Lo, here itsits. 
 Which God shall guard ; and put the world's whole strength 
 Into one giant arm, it shall not force 
 This lineal honor from me." 
 
 Here is no aesthetic feeling for the "situation," only the 
 profoundest and noblest entrance into the fact. 
 
 The same noble and disinterested loyalty to the trutli 
 of things renders it easy, natural, and indeed inevitable 
 that Henry should confirm in his office the Chief-justice 
 who had formerly esecuted the law against himself ; and 
 
The English Historical Plays. 193 
 
 equally inevitable that he should disengage himself abso- 
 lutely from Falstaff and the associates of his provisional 
 life of careless frolic. To such a life an end must come ; 
 and, as no terms of half-acquaintance are possible with 
 the fat knight, exorbitant in good-fellowship as he is, 
 and inexhaustible in resources, Henry must become to 
 Falstaff an absolute stranger : 
 
 " I know thoe not, old man : fall to thy prayers : 
 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester !" 
 
 Henry has been stern to his former self, and turned him 
 away forever; therefore he can be stern to Falstaff. 
 There is no faltering. But at an enforced distance of 
 ten miles from his person (for the fascination, of Falstaff 
 can hardly weave a bridge across that interval) Falstaff 
 shall be sufficiently provided for : 
 
 " For competence of life I will allow you 
 That lack of means enforce you not to evil : 
 And as we hear you do reform yourselves, 
 We will, according to your strengths and qualities, 
 Give you advancement." * - 
 
 Shortly before the English army sets sail for France, 
 the treason of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey is disclosed 
 to the King. He does not betray his acquaintance with 
 their designs. Surrounded by traitors, he boldly enters 
 his council-chamber at Southampton (the wind is sitting 
 fair, and but one deed remains to do before they go 
 abroad). On the preceding day a man was arrested who 
 had railed against the person of the King. Henry gives 
 orders that he be set at liberty : 
 
 * It is noteworthy that although we meet Sir John so often in 2 Henry 
 IV., we find the Prince only on a single occasion in his company; and it 
 would be beyond human nature to deny himself the delight and edification 
 of such a spectacle as the fat knight cuddling and kissing Doll Tearsheet : 
 Henry must go. 
 
 9 
 
1 94 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 " We consider 
 It was excess of wine that set him on ; 
 And on hia more advice we pardon him." 
 
 But Scroop and Grey and Cambridge interpose. It 
 would be true mercj, they insist, to punish such an of- 
 fender. And then, when they have unawares brought 
 diemselves within the range of justice, Henry nnfolds 
 cheir guilt. The wrath of Henry has in it some of that 
 awfnl ness and terror suggested by th e Ap ocalyptic refer- 
 e nce to "the wrath of the Lamb." It is the more terrible 
 because it transcends all egoistic feeling. What fills the 
 King with indignation is not so much that his life should 
 have been conspired against by men on whom his boun- 
 ty has been bestowed without measure, as that the y shou ld 
 have revolted against the loyalty of man, weakened the 
 bonds of fellowship, and lowered the^high tr adition o f 
 humanity : 
 
 " 0, how hast thou with jealousy infected 
 The sweetness of affiance ! Show men dutiful ? 
 Why, so didst thou : seem they grave and learned ? 
 Why, so didst thou : come they of nohle family ? 
 Why, so didst thou : seem they reUgious ? 
 Why, so didst thou : or are they spare in diet. 
 Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger, 
 Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, 
 Garnish'd and deek'd in modest complement. 
 Not working with the eye without the ear, 
 And but in purged judgment trustmg neither? 
 Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem : 
 And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot 
 To mark the full-fraught man and best indued 
 With some suspicion. I will weep for thee ; 
 For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like 
 Another fall of man." 
 
 No wonder that the terrible moral insistence of these 
 words can subdue consciences made of penetrable stuff; 
 no wonder that such an awful discovery of high realities 
 of life should call forth the loyalty that lurked within a 
 
The English Historical Plays. 195 
 
 traitor's heart. Bat, though tears escape Henry, he can- 
 not relent : 
 
 " Touching our person seek ire no revenge ; 
 But we our kingdom's safety must so tender, 
 Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws 
 We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence, 
 Poor miserable wretches, to your death, 
 The taste whereof God of his mercy give 
 You patience to endure, and true repentance 
 Of all your dear offences I" 
 
 And, having vindicated the justice of God and^urged 
 his country of treason, Henry__set&_his_._£acfi_.to_ Erance 
 with the light of splendid achievement in his eyes. 
 
 On the night before the great battle, Henry moves 
 among his soldiers, and passes disguised from sentinel to 
 sentinel. He is not, like his father, exhausted and out- 
 worn by the careful construction of a life. If an hour 
 of depression comes upon him, he yet is strong, because 
 he can look through his depression to a strength and vir- 
 tue outside of and beyond himself. Joy may ebb with 
 him, or rise, as it will ; the current of his inmost being is 
 fed by a source that springs from the hard rock of life, 
 and is no tidal flow. He accepts his weakness and his 
 weariness as part of the surrender of ease and strength 
 and self which he makes on behalf of England. With a 
 touch of his old love of frolic, he enters on the quarrel 
 with Williams, and exchanges gages with the soldier. 
 When morning dawns, he looks freshly, and " oyerbears 
 attaint" with cheerful semblance and sweet majesty: 
 
 " A largess universal like the sun 
 His liberal eye doth give to every one. 
 Thawing cold fear." 
 
 With a prayer to God he sets to rights the heavenward 
 side of his nature, and there leaves it. In the battle 
 Henry does not, in the manner of his politic father, send 
 into the field a number of counterfeit kings to attract 
 
1 96 Shakspere—'His Mind and Art. 
 
 away from himself the centre of the war. There is no 
 stratagem at Agincourt. It is "plain shock and even 
 play of battle." If Henry for a moment ceases to be Jlie 
 skilful wielder of resolute stren^thj it is onlyjwhen_he 
 rises into^the genius o^the rageof. battle : 
 
 " I was not angry since I came to France 
 Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald ; 
 Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill: 
 If they will fight with us, bid them come down, 
 Or void the field ; they do offend our sight: 
 If they do neither, we will come to them, 
 And make them skirr away as swift as stones 
 Enforced from the old Assyrian slings ; 
 Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have, 
 And not a man of them that we shall take 
 Shall taste our mercy." 
 
 It is in harmony with the spirit of the play and with 
 I the character of Henry that it should close with no os- 
 . tentatious heroics, but with the half-jocular, whole-ear- 
 nest wooing of the French princess by the English king. 
 With a touch of irony, to which one of the critics of the 
 play has called attention,* we are furnished with a hint 
 as to the events which must follow Henry's glorious 
 reign. " Shall not thou and I," exclaims the King, in his 
 unconventional manner of winning a bride — " Shall not 
 thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, com- 
 pound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to 
 Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard ?" This 
 boy, destined to go to Constantinople and confront the 
 Turk, was the helpless Henry VI. 
 
 The historical plays are documents written all over 
 with facts about Shakspere. Some of these facts are 
 now discernible. "We have learned something about 
 Shakspere's convictions as to how the noblest^ practical 
 
 • H. N. Hudson. 
 
. The English Historical Plays^ 19^7 
 
 sijccess in life may bo achie ved. We know what Shak- 
 spere would have tried to become himself if there had 
 not been a side of his character which acknowledged 
 closer affinity with Hamlet than with Henry. We can 
 in some measure infer how Sbakspere would endeavor 
 to control, and in what directions he would endeavor to 
 reinforce, his own nature while in pursuit of a pr actical 
 mastery over ev ents and things. 
 
1 98 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 OTHELLO ; MACBETH; LEAK. 
 
 If Shakspere had died at the age of forty, it might 
 have been said, " The world has lost much, but the world's 
 chief poet could hardly have created anything more won- 
 derful than MartxletP But after Hamlet came Kirug 
 Lear. Hamlet was, in fact, only the point of departure 
 in Shakspere's immense and final sweep of mind — that 
 in which he endeavored to include and comprehend life 
 for the first time adequately. Through Hamlet — per- 
 haps, also, through events in the poet's personal history, 
 which tested his will as Hamlet's will was tested — Shak- 
 spere had been reached and touched by the shadow of 
 some of the deep mysteries of human existence. Some- 
 how, a relation between his soul and the dark and ter- 
 rible forces of the world was established, and to escape 
 from a thorough investigation and sounding of the depths 
 of life was no longer possible. Shakspere had by this 
 time mastered the world from a practical point of view. 
 He was a prosperous and wealthy man. He had com- 
 pleted his English historical plays, which are concerned 
 with this practical mastery of the world. But all the 
 more because he had resolved his material diflJcnlties 
 was his mind open to the profounder spiritual problems 
 of life. Having completed Henry F., for a short period 
 he yielded his imagination and his heart to the brightest 
 and most exuberant enjoyment. Around the year 1600 
 are grouped some of the most mirthful comedies that 
 Shakspere ever wrote. Then, a little later, as soon as 
 
Othello; Macbetfi; Lear. 199 
 
 Hamlet is completed, all changes. From 1604 to 1610 
 a show of tragic figures, like the kings who passed before 
 Macbeth, filled the vision of Shakspere, until at last the 
 desperate image of Timou rose before him ; when, as 
 though unable to endure or to conceive a more lament- 
 able ruin of man, he turned for relief to the pastoral 
 loves of Prince Florizel and Perdita ; and, as soon as the 
 tone of his mind was restored, gave expression to its 
 ultimate mood of grave serenity in The Ternpest, and 
 so ended. 
 
 During these years the imaginative fervor of Shak- 
 spere was at its highest, and sustained itself without 
 abatement. There was no feverish excitement in his 
 energy, and there was no pause. In some of his earlier 
 years of authorship (if the generally received chronology 
 be accepted), two or even three plays were produced 
 within a twelvemonth, of which this or that was after- 
 wards acknowledged by its author to be a hasty piece of 
 work, yet of sufficient substance and merit to deserve re- 
 handling. During a certain brief season, it may have 
 been that Shakspere altogether ceased to write for the 
 stage. But now, in unbroken series, year by year, one 
 great tragedy succeeds another. Having created Othello, 
 surely the eye of a poet's mind would demand quietude, 
 passive acceptance of some calm beauty, a period of res- 
 toration. But Othello is pursued by Lear, Lear by Mao- 
 heth, Macbeth by Antony <md Cleopatra, Antorvy and 
 Cleopatra by Coriolanus. It is evident that the artist 
 was now completely roused. The impetus of his ad- 
 vance continued, and carried him without effort on from 
 subject to subject. He could not put aside his stupen- 
 dous task; neither would he accomplish any part of it 
 imperfectly. In these years the utmost imaginative sus- 
 ceptibility is united with the utmost self-control. Every 
 portion of his being is at length engaged in the magnifi- 
 
200 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 cent effort. At first, in tlie career of most artists, a por- 
 tion of their nature holds aloof from art, and is ready for 
 application to other serrice. They have a poetical side, 
 and a side which is prosaic. Gradually, as they advance 
 towards maturity, faculty after faculty is brought into 
 fruitful relation with the art-instinct, until at length the 
 entire nature of thie artist is fused in one, and his work 
 becomes the expression of a complete personality. This 
 period had now arrived for Shakspere. In the great trag- 
 edies, passion and thought, humor and pathos, severity 
 and tenderness, knowledge and guess, are all accepted as 
 workers together with the imagination. 
 
 Tragedy, as conceived by Shakspere, is concerned witli 
 the ruin or the restoration of the soul, and of the life of 
 men. In other words, its subject is the struggle of good 
 and evil in the world. This strikes down upon the roots 
 of things. The comedies of Shakspere had, in compar- 
 ison, played upon the surface of life. The histories, 
 though very earnest, had not dealt with the deeper mys- 
 teries of being. Henry Y., the ideal figure of the histori- 
 cal plays, has a real and firm grasp of the actual world. 
 He has his religion, and he has his passion of love ; but 
 both are positive, practical, and limited. "So more can 
 his religion than his love ever embarrass Henry in his 
 joyous mastery over men and things. His soldier-like 
 piety and large, incurious trust in God suffice to resolve 
 all questions with regard to that dark outlying region 
 which surrounds the knowable and the practicable. With 
 a devout optimism, Henry perceives there is " some soul 
 of goodness in things evil," and he proceeds to confirm 
 this principle by the very substantial and business-like 
 instance that their bad neighbors, the French, had made 
 his soldiers early stirrers. But such devout optimism 
 was absolutely without avail for the spiritual needs of the 
 man who had conceived Hamlet. "To say to thee that 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 201 
 
 I shall die," declares King Henry to Katharine, " is true ; 
 but for thy love, by the Lord, no." Yet Shakspere had 
 discovered that to die for love may be the highest need 
 of a life under certain extreme conditions. Juliet had 
 died for love ; Eomeo had died for love ; and, in so doing, 
 they had fulfilled and accomplished their lives. There- 
 fore, this love of Henry is tested by Shakspere, and de- 
 clared to be a passion with limitation, serviceable for 
 useful ends of marriage, and for the producing of chil- 
 dren ; but not that devotion of soul to soul which does 
 not recognize the limitations of space or of time. " There 
 is some soul of goodness in things evil," declares King 
 Henry. And as comment upon such devout optimism, 
 Shakspere produces Goneril and Began, lago, and the 
 Witches in Macbeth. Now, in the tragedies, Shakspere 
 has flung himself abroad upon the dim sea which moans 
 around our little solid sphere of the known. Such easy 
 and pious answers to the riddles of the world as consti- 
 tuted the working faith of a Henry Y. belong to a smaller 
 , and safer world of thought, feeling, and action ; not to this. 
 There are certain problems which Shakspere at once 
 pronounces insoluble. He does not, like Milton, propose 
 to give any account of the origin of evil. He does not, 
 like Dante, pursue the soul of man through circles of un- 
 ending torture, or spheres made radiant by the eternal 
 presence of God. Satan in Shakspere's poems does not 
 come voyaging on gigantic vans across Chaos to find the 
 earth. No great deliverer of mankind descends from the 
 heavens. Here, upon the earth, evil is — such was Shak- 
 spere's declaration in the most emphatic accent. lago 
 actually exists. There is also in the earth a sacred pas- 
 sion of deliverance, a pure redeeming ardor. Cordelia 
 exists. This Shakspere can tell for certain. But how 
 lago can be, and why Cordelia lies strangled across the 
 breast of Lear — are these questions which you go on to 
 
 9* 
 
202 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ask? Something has been already said of the severity 
 of Shakspere. It is a portion of his severity to decline 
 all answers to such questions as these. Is ignorance 
 painful? "Well, then, it is painful. Little solutions of 
 your large difficulties can readily be obtained from priest 
 or pMlosoj>he. Shakspere prefers to let you remain in 
 the solemn presence of a mystery. He does not invite 
 you into his little church or his little library brilliantly 
 illuminated by philosophical or theological rushlights. 
 Yon remain in the darkness. But yon remain in the 
 vital air. And the great night is overhead. 
 
 Critics of the last century were much exercised in mind 
 about Shakspei'e's violations of the rule of poetical jus- 
 tice. Dr. Johnson, with his sturdy British morality, could 
 not endure to read the last scenes of King Lea?', and de- 
 clared in favor of Nahum Tate's improvement on Shak- 
 spere's play, according to which Edgar makes love to 
 Cordelia, and she retires in the end " with victory and 
 felicity." To die is so exceedingly uncomfortable; to 
 live and be a happy wife is so eminently satisfactory. 
 Shakspere's morality is somewhat more stern than that 
 of the great moralist. Shakspere introduces into the 
 world no little ethical code. Such a little ethical code 
 Avould flutter away in tatters across the tempest and the 
 night of Lear's agony. But Shakspere discovers the 
 supreme fact — that the moral world stands in sovereign 
 independence of the world of the senses.* Cordelia lies 
 
 * Kreyssig describes Shakspere's ethics as essentially identical with the 
 ethics of Kant : " Von alien Tragodien Shakespeare's, ja von alien uns be- 
 kannten Tragodien alter und neuer Zeit, scheint Lear uns am voUstandigsten 
 die Bezeiohnung ' erhaben,' im Schiller'schen Sinne, zu verdienen, insofem sie 
 mit ganz besonderem Nachdruck die unbedingte souveraue TJnabhangigkeit 
 der sittlicheu Welt von der der Sinne zur Anschauung bringt : die Tra^odie 
 des kategorischen Imperativ's von deni grossten germanischen Dichter ge- 
 scliaut und geschaffen, zwei Jahrhunderte ehe der grosste germanische Den- 
 ker sein Gesetz wissenschaftlich begrundete." — Sliakespeare-Fragen, p. 128. 
 
Othello: Macbeth; Lear. 203 
 
 upon the breast of Lear. " Upon such sacrifices the gods 
 themselves throw incense." Cordelia, forgetting her fa- 
 ther, might have returned to France, and have lived pros- 
 perously. But then Cordelia, the pure zeal of redeem- 
 i tig ardor, would, indeed, have ceased to be. Now she 
 has fulfilled the end of her being. It is not so hard to 
 die. Cordelia had accepted her lot with fortitude : 
 
 " We are not the first 
 Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worBt." 
 
 And for us the earth is made more beautiful by her life 
 and by her death. That which satisfies our heart, that 
 which brings us strength and consolation, is not that by 
 happy concurrence of circumstances Cordelia should suc- 
 ceed in her enterprise, but merely that Cordelia existed. 
 Lesser happiness can be dispensed with if we are granted 
 the joy of the presence of beautiful, heroic souls. Cor- 
 delia has strengthened the bonds of humanity ; she has 
 enriched the tradition of human goodness. It is better 
 for each of us to breathe because she has been a woman. 
 Thus although there was no possibility for Shakspere 
 to become a facile optimist, bearing jauntily a banner 
 with the de-viceWAaiever is, is iest, and singing to some 
 tune, secular or sacred, the perfections of this the best of 
 all possible worlds, he is equally far removed from de- 
 spair. The absolute despair as represented by Shakspei-e 
 — that of Timon — is despair of human virtue. And to 
 such despair of human virtue Shakspere never yielded 
 himself- At the entrance to his long series of tragic writ- 
 ings stands the figure of Isabel, in Lucio's eyes "a thing 
 ensky'd and sainted " in that Vienna where 
 
 " Corruption boils and bubbles 
 Till it o'errun the stew." 
 
 At the close stand Prospero and Hermione. The ills 
 of life had sunk deep into Hamlet's soul : .: . . 
 
204 Shakspere—His Miird aiid A rt. 
 
 " The oppressor's wrong, the proucl man's contumely. 
 The pangs of despised love, the law's delay. 
 The insolence of office, and the spurns 
 That patient merit of the unworthy takes." 
 
 But presently by his side stood human virtue : Horatio, 
 " a man that Fortune buffets and rewards " — these Tery 
 ills which Hamlet enumerated — "had ta'en with equal 
 thanks." lago is a devouring gulf of evil, " more fell than 
 anguish, hunger, or the sea." But over against his malig- 
 nity and cold impureness rises Desdemona, who cannot 
 extend her imagination so far as to credit any breach of 
 wifely faith or modesty in any woman. Goneril and Ee- 
 gan dismiss the old man into the tempest and the night ; 
 but Cordelia restores him with the warmth of her bosom. 
 This period during which Shakspere was engaged upon 
 his great tragedies was not, as it has been sometimes rep- 
 resented, a period of depression and of gloom in Shak- 
 spere's spiritual progress. True, he was now sounding 
 tlie depths of evil as he had never sounded them before. 
 But his faith in goodness had never been so strong and 
 sure. Hitherto it had not been thoroughly tested. In 
 the overstrained loyalty of Valentine to his unworthy 
 friend there is something fantastic and unreal. The 
 graver friendship of Horatio for Hamlet is deeper and 
 more genuine. Tliere is gallantry in Portia's rescue of 
 her husband's friend from death; but the devotion of 
 Cordelia nourishes itself from springs of strength which 
 lie farther down among the roots of things. Now, with 
 every fresh discovery of crime, Shakspere made disco verv 
 of virtue which cannot suffer defeat. The knowledge of 
 evil and of good grow together. While Shakspere moved 
 giiyly upon the surface of life, it was the play of intellect 
 that stirred within him the liveliest sense of pleasure. 
 Th6 hright speech and unsubduable mirth, not disjoined 
 from common-sense and goodness of heart of a Bosalhid 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 205 
 
 or a Beatrice, filled him with a sense of quickened exists 
 ence. Now that he had come to comprehend more of 
 the sorrow and more of the evil of the earth — treachery, 
 ingratitude, cruelty, lust — Shakspere found perhaps less 
 to delight him in mere brightness of intellect ; he cer- 
 tainly gave his heart away with more fervor of loyalty to 
 human goodness, to fortitude, purity of heart, self-surren- 
 der, self-mastery^to every noble expression of character. 
 Such mellowing and enriching of Shakspere's nature 
 could not have proceeded during a period in vvhich his 
 moral being was in confusion,' and heaven and- earth 
 seemed to lie chaotically around him. "Were his delight 
 in man and woman, his faith and joy in human goodness, 
 stained with sullenness and ignoble resentment, could he 
 have discovered Horatio and Kent, Cordelia and Desde- 
 mona? !N"o. If the sense of wrong sank deep into, his 
 soul, if life became harder and more grave, yet he sur-r 
 mounted all sense of personal wrong ; and while life grew 
 more severe, it grew more beautiful. 
 
 The tragedy of OtheUo is the tragedy of a free and 
 lordly creature taken in the toilSj and writhing to death. 
 In one' ofhis sonnets Shfikspere has spoken of 
 
 " Some fierce thing replete with too much rage 
 Whose strength's abundance weakens' his own heart." 
 
 Such a fierce thing, made weak by his very strength, is 
 Othello. There is a barbaresque grandeur and simplicity 
 about the movements of his soul. He sees things with 
 a large and generous eye, not prying into the curious or 
 the occult. He is a liberal accepter of life, and with a 
 careless magnificence wears about him the ornament of 
 strange experience — memories of 
 
 " Antres vast, and desarts idle, 
 Bough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven," 
 
2o6 Shakspere^—His Mind and Art, 
 
 memories of "disastrous chances, of moving accidents by 
 flood and field." There is something of grand innocence 
 in his loyalty to Yenice, by which Mr. Browning was not 
 unaffected when he conceived his Mooi'ish commander, 
 Luria. Othello, a stranger, with tawny skin and fierce 
 traditions in his blood, is fascinated by the grave senate, 
 the nobly ordered life (possessing a certain rich coloring 
 of its own), and the astute intelligence of the City of the 
 Sea. At his last moment, through the blinding sand- 
 storm of his own passion, this feeling of disinterested 
 loyalty recurs to Othello, and brings him a moment's joy 
 and pride. His history has been, indeed, a calamitous 
 mistake; like the base Indian, he has thrown away "a 
 pearl richer than all his tribe." But there is one fact 
 with which the remembrance of him may go down to 
 men, one fact which will rescue from complete deformity 
 and absurd unreason the story of Othello : 
 
 " Set you down this ; 
 And say, besides, that in Aleppo once, 
 Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk 
 Beat a Venetian and traduced the State, 
 I took by the throat the circumcised dog, 
 And smote him, thus." 
 
 With this loyalty to Yenice, there is also an instinctive 
 turning towards the barbaric glory which he has surren- 
 dered. He is the child of royal ancestry : " I fetch my 
 life and being from men of royal siege." All the more 
 joyous on this account it is to devote himself to the ser- 
 vice of the State. And thus Othello has reached man- 
 hood, and passed on to middle life. 
 
 Then in the house of Brabantio this simple and mag- 
 nificent nature found his fate. Desdemona, moving to 
 and fro at her house-affairs, or listening with grave won- 
 der, and eager restrained sj'mpathy, to the story of his 
 adventurous life, became to him, at first in an unconscious 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 20? 
 
 I 
 
 way, the type of beauty, gentleness, repose, and tender 
 womanhood. And Desdemona, in her turn, brought up 
 amidst the refinements and ceremonies of Venetian life, 
 watching each day the same gondolas glide by, hearing 
 her father's talk of some little new law of the Diike, 
 found in the Moor strangeness and splendor of strong 
 manhood, heroic simplicity, the charm of one who had 
 suffered in solitude, and on whose history compassion 
 might be lavished. Thus, while Brutus and Portia were 
 indissolubly bound together by their likeness, Desdemona 
 and Othello were mutually attracted by the wonder and 
 grace of uulikeness. In the love of each there was a ro- 
 mantic element ; and romance is not the highest form of 
 the service which imagination renders to love. For ro- 
 mance disguises certain facts, or sees them, as it were, 
 through a luminous mist ; but the highest service which 
 the imagination can render to the heart is the discovery 
 of every fact, the hard and bare as well as the beautiful ; 
 and, to effect this, like a clear north wind it blows all 
 mists away. There was a certain side of Othello's nature 
 which it were well that Desdemona had seen, though she 
 trembled. 
 
 But if Desdemona loves not with the most instructed 
 heart, she yet loves purely and with tender devotion. 
 And because her love was so entirely that of the heart 
 and of" the imagination, Desdemona felt the tawny face 
 and the mature years and half-barbaric origin of Othello 
 only as dim under-chords enriching the harmonies of her 
 love. The whole current of her being, ordinarily so easy 
 and tranquil, hurried forward with what to herself seemed 
 " downright violence," to unite itself with the inmost be- 
 ing of the Moor : 
 
 " That I did love the Moor to live with him, 
 My downright violence and storm of fortunes 
 May trumpet to the world ; my heart 'a subdued 
 
208 Shdkspere^—His Mind and Art. 
 
 Even to the very quality of my lord ; 
 I saw Othello's visage in his mind, 
 And to his honors and his valiant parts 
 Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate." 
 
 Hazlitt has observed truly, " The extravagance of her 
 resolutions, the pertinacity of her affections, may be said 
 to arise out of the gentleness of her nature. They imply 
 an unreserved reliance on tlie purity of her own inten- 
 tions, and entire surrender of her fears to her love, a knit- 
 ting of herself, heart and soul, to the fate of another." * 
 And it is this being, who is to Othello " a wonder and a 
 beauty and a terror," 
 
 " A gentle tone 
 Amid rude voices, a beloved light, 
 A solitude, a refuge, a delight " — 
 
 it is this being whom he must hereafter cast away and 
 
 trample underfoot: 
 
 " thou weed 
 Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet 
 That the sense aches at thee, would thou had'st ne'er been born !" 
 
 Portia was to Brutus the ideal of all he would fain be- 
 come himself; the attraction was that of identical quali- 
 ties : " O ye gods, render me worthy of this noble wife !" 
 and Portia could come to Brutus and urge upon him her 
 right of sharing in all that concerned him. Between 
 Portia and Brutus, therefore, no errors of the heart were 
 possible. But to Desdemona her husband was her lord, 
 a beiug to be worshipped and served, and in his gentler 
 mood to be played with, and graciously be contradicted 
 and caressed. And Othello, for his part, has a care to 
 stand between his gentle wife and the rough vexations 
 which beset himself. When, roused at night by the brawl, 
 she appears in the streets, the Moor is doubly indignant 
 with the offenders, because they have troubled her repose, 
 
 * " Characters of Shakespear'a Plays," by W. Hazlitt, p. 52, second edition. 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 209 
 
 and with affectionate force he turns her back from inquir- 
 ing into what had caused liim disturbance : 
 
 " Look, if my gentle love be not raised up ! 
 I'll make tliec an example. 
 
 Hes. What's the matter? 
 
 Otli. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed." 
 
 The nature of Othello is free and open ; he looks on 
 men with a gaze too large and royal to suspect them of 
 malignity and fraud ; he is a man " not easily jealous :" 
 
 " My noble Moor 
 Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness 
 As jealous creatures are." 
 
 !He lias, however, a sense of his own inefficiency in deal- 
 ing with the complex and subtle conditions of life in his 
 adopted country. Where all is plain and broad, he relies 
 upon his own judgment and energy. He is a master of 
 simple, commanding action. When, upon tlie night of 
 Desdemona's departure from her father's house, Braban- 
 tio and the officers with torches and weapons meet him, 
 and a tumult seems inevitable, Othello subdues it witli 
 the imtroubled, large validity of his will: 
 
 " Keep up your briglit swords, for the dew will rust them." 
 
 But for curious inquiry into complex facts he has no fac- 
 ulty ; he loses his bearings ; " being wrought upon," he is 
 " perplexed in the extreme." Then, too, his hot Mauri- 
 tanian blood mounts quickly to the point of boiling. If 
 lie be infected, the poison hurries through his veins, and 
 he rages in his agony. 
 
 Here, upon the one side, is material for a future catas- 
 trophe. And, on the other, there is Desdemona's timid- 
 ity. When she could stand by Othello's side, Desdemona 
 was able to confront her father, and, in presence of the 
 Duke and magnificoes, declare that she would not return 
 to the home she had abandoned. But during Othello's 
 courtship Desdemona had shrunk from any speech upon 
 
2 lo Shakspere — His Mind and Art, 
 
 this matter with Brabantio, and by innocent reserves and 
 little dissemblings had kept liiui in ignorance of this 
 great event in her history.* The Moor had naoved her 
 imagination by his strange nobility, his exotic grandeur. 
 But how if afterwards her imagination be excited by 
 some strange terror about her husband ? What will her 
 refined feminine accomplishments avail her then — her 
 delicacy with her needle, the admirable music with which 
 she " will sing the savageness out of a bear." 
 
 "I fear you, for you are fatal then, 
 When your eyes roll so." 
 
 The handkerchief which she has lost becomes terrible to 
 her, when Othello, with Oriental rapture into the marvel- 
 lous, describes its virtue : 
 
 " There's magic in the web of it : 
 A sibyl that had number'd in the world 
 The sun to course two hundred compasses. 
 In her prophetic fury sew'd the work ; 
 The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk, 
 And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful 
 Conserved of maidens' hearts." 
 
 For Desdemona, with her smooth, intelligible girl's life 
 in Yenice, having at largest its little pathetic romance of 
 her maid Barbara, with her song of " Willow," here flowed 
 in romance too stupendous, too torrid and alien, to be 
 other than dreadful. Shall we wonder that in her dis- 
 turbance of mind she trembles to declare to her husband 
 that this talisman could not be found ? Underneath the 
 momentary, superficial falsehood remains the constancy 
 and fidelity of her heart ; through alarm and shock and 
 
 "■ A circumstance which lago afterwards turns to account against the 
 peace of Othello's mind : 
 
 " She did deceive her father marrying you ; 
 And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks, 
 She loved them most. 
 
 Oth. And so she did.'* 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 211 
 
 surprise, and awful alteration of the world, lier heart never 
 swerves from loyalty to her husband. If she had de- 
 ceived Brabantio, as in his anger he declares, and if in 
 this matter of the handkerchief she had faltered from the 
 truth, Desdemoua atones for these uti veracities; not by 
 acquisition of a confident candor — such courageous deal- 
 ing with difficulties was impossible for Desdemona — but 
 by one more falsehood, the sacred lie which is murmured 
 by her lips as they grow forever silent : 
 
 " Emilia. 0, who hath done this deed ? 
 
 Des. Nobody ; I myself : farewell ; 
 Commend me to my kind lord ; 0, farewell." * 
 
 If the same unknowable force which manifests itself 
 through man manifests itself likewise through the ani- 
 mal world, we might suppose that there were some spe- 
 cial affinities between the soul of Othello and the lion of 
 his ancestral desert. Assuredly the same malignant pow- 
 er that lurks in the eye and that fills with venom the 
 fang of the serpent would seem to have brought into ex- 
 
 * In 1830, in period of full revolution in matters of dramatic art at Paris, 
 the OOidlo translated and prefaced by Alfred de Vigny was acted at the 
 Theatre Fran9ais. The Due de Broglie on this occasion published in the 
 Same M-anfaise a remarkable article (reprinted by M. Guizot in his " Shak- 
 spcare et son Temps," pp. 264-343) on the " State of Dramatic Art in France." 
 Of these last words of Desdemona, as delivered by Mile. Mars, the Due de 
 Broglie writes: "Ifous devons le declarer; I'effet de ce mot a ete nul — et 
 franchemcnt nous nous etions toujours dout6 qu'il en devait arriver ainsi. 
 . . . Depuis le jour de son mariage Desdemona s'est consid^rde comme la 
 pi'opri^te d'Othello, comme quelque chose dont Othello est le maltre d'user 
 et d'abuser, comme une esclave qu'il pent battre ou tuer s'il lui en prend 
 f antaisie ; comment viendrait-elle k penser tout - k - coup qu'Othello eoure 
 aucun risque h propos d'elle, ni qu'il soit n^cessaire de le mettre k I'abri 
 d'une poursuite criminelle?" The criticism is more curious than just; but 
 the recorded fact is interesting. See, on the feeling towards Shakspere in 
 France at the time of this representation of Othello, " Histoire de I'Influence 
 de Shakspeare sur le Theatre Fran5ais (Septifeme Phase)," par Albert Laoroix 
 (BruxcUes, 1856). 
 
212 Shakspere — His Mind' mtd Art. 
 
 istence lago. "It is the strength of the base element 
 that is so dreadful in the serpent ; it is the very omnipo- 
 tence of the earth. ... It scarcely breathes with its one 
 lung (the other shrivelled and abortive); it is passive to 
 the sun and shade, and is cold or hot like a stone ; yet ' it 
 can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the 
 zebra, ontwrestle the athlete, and ci*ush the tiger.' It is a 
 divine hieroglyph of the demoniac power of the earth — 
 of the entii'e earthly nature."* Such is the serpent 
 lago. 
 
 In the last scene of the play Othello calls on Cassio (for 
 he cannot himself approach the horror) to interrogate 
 lago respecting the motives of his malignant crime : ^ 
 
 " Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil 
 Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body ?" 
 
 And lago forecloses all such inquiry with the words — 
 they are the last words that he utters — 
 
 " Demand me nothing : what you know you know : 
 From this time forth I never will speak word." 
 
 Shakspere would have us believe that as there is a pas- 
 sion of goodness with no motive but goodness itself, so 
 there is also a dreadful capacity in the soul for devotion 
 to evil independently of motives, or out of all proportion 
 to such motives as may exist.f lago is the absolute in- 
 
 * Euskin, " The Queen of the Air,'' pp. 83, 84. The words quoted by Mr. 
 Ruskin are those of Mr. Richard Owen. 
 
 \ For a discussion of the motives of lago, see Hebler, "Aufsatze uber 
 Shakespeare " (BeBp, 1865), pp. 42-60. The Due de Broglie, in the article 
 quoted already, endeavors to show that the character of lago is incoherent. 
 " Qu'est-ce qu'Iago ? Est-ce le malin esprit ou du moins son reprfisentant 
 Bur la terre? Othello a-t-il raison quand il le regarde aux pieds pour voir 
 s'il ne les aurait pas fourchus ? , , . Alors pourquoi donner ^ lago des mo- 
 tifs humains et int^ress^s ? Pourquoi nous montrer en lui une basse cupi- 
 dity, le ressentiment d'une injure faite \ son honneur ; I'envie d'un poste plus 
 61ev6 que le sien ? . . . Ces passions de bas alpi ddtruisent tout le fantas- 
 tique du role ; le dfimon n'a ni humeur ni honneur ; il n'a ni rancune, ni 
 
Othello ; Macbeth ; Lear. ii-i^ 
 
 fidel ; for he is devoid of all faith in beanty and in vir- 
 tue. Timon disbelieves, but he becomes desperate and 
 abandons. life. lago finds it right and natural to live in 
 a world in. which all men are knaves or fools, and all 
 women are that which Desdemona is unable to name. 
 
 Together with everything beautiful, everything noble, 
 there inevitably exists a gross element of the earth; It is 
 upon this gross element alone that lago battens, and he 
 can discover it everywhere by denying and dismissing all 
 that transforms, pnriiies, and ennobles it. Othello, with 
 his heroic simplicity and royalty of soul, 
 
 " Will as tenderly be led by the nose 
 As asses are." 
 
 Cassio, who is full of chivalric enthusiasm for his great 
 leader and the beautiful bride whom he has won, is to 
 lago " a knave very voluble ; no farther conscionable than 
 in putting on the mere form of civil and humane feeling, 
 for the better compassing of his salt and most hidden 
 loose affection." Desdemona, exclaims Koderigo, is "full 
 of most blessed condition." logo. " Blessed fig's - end ! 
 the wine she drinks is made of grapes : if she had been 
 blessed she would never have loved the Moor. Blessed 
 pudding ! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm 
 of his hand ! Didst not mark that ?" The Moor has in- 
 
 col^re, ni convoitise ; c'est un personnage desint^ress^ ; il fait le mal parce 
 que le mal est le mal, et qu'il est, lui, le malin. lago est-il au contraire, 
 comme 11 s'en fait gloire, le parfait egoiste, I'homme qui sait au supreme 
 degrfi s'aimer lui-mSme, I'Stre qui sait subordonner hi^rarchiquement ses 
 desirs selon leur degr6 d'importance, et disposer ensuile ses actions de 
 maniftre i. tendre invariablement i. sa plus haute satisfaction, cofite que- 
 coiite % autrui, sans scrupule, sans remords, et aussi sans se laisser ddtourner 
 par des vell6ites d'un ordre inf erieur ? Alors pourquoi poursuit-il en mdme 
 temps trois ou quatre buts distincts, et d'une importance pour lui trfe in^- 
 galef . . . Pourquoi surtout prodigue-t-il, dans chaque occasion, cent fois 
 plus de mechaneet6 que le besoin de la circonstance lie le comporte ?" Ee- 
 printed in Guizot's "Shakspeare et son Temps," pp. 322, 323. 
 
2 1 4 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 flamed her imagination with " bragging and telling her 
 fantastical lies." Love " is merely a lust of the blood and 
 a permission of the will." Virtue is " a fig ! 'tis in our- 
 ' selves that we are thus or thus." " O, I have lost ray 
 reputation !" Cassio cries, " I have lost the immortal part 
 of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, . 
 lago, my reputation," logo. " As I am an honest man, I 
 thought you had received some bodily wound." All this 
 is the earthiness of the serpent; the dull eye which 
 quickens only to fascinate and to strike ; the muddy skin, 
 discolored with foul blotches ; and the dust, which is the 
 serpent's meat. This cold malignant power, passionless 
 and intellectually sensual — the soul itself having become 
 more animal than the body can ever be — ^is incarnated in 
 the person of a man still young. lago has reached the 
 age of twenty-eight. And he would pass for a merry 
 knave. "While enticing Cassio to his ruin, he entertains 
 the company with clattering song : 
 
 " And let me the canakin clink, clink ; 
 And let me the canakin clink." 
 
 It is the grin of a death's-head, the mirth of a ghoul.* 
 
 These are the chief forces, and the play of these foi'ces 
 constitutes the tragedy. Since Coleridge made the re- 
 mark, all critics of Othello are constrained to repeat after 
 him that the passion of the Moor is not altogether jeal- 
 ousy — ^it is rather the agony of being compelled to hate 
 that which he supremely loved : 
 
 * The passionless character of lago, Coleridge says, " is all will in intel- 
 lect ;" and he notices well " the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity," in 
 lago's soliloquy (act i., sc. 8). Mr. Hudson's study of the character of lago 
 is careful and discriminating. "lago's creed," writes Mr. Hudson, "is that 
 the yielding to any inspirations from without argues an ignoble want of 
 mental force. . . . Intelleotuality^is lago's proper character; that is, intellect 
 has in him cast off all allegiance to the moral reason, and become a law unto 
 itself, so that the mere fact of his being able to do a thing is suflScient cause 
 for doing it " 
 
Othello: Macbeth; Lear. 215 
 
 " Excellent wretch ! Perdition catch my soul, 
 But I do love thee ! and when I love thee not, 
 Chaos 13 come again." 
 
 Othello does not feel himself placed in rivalry with 
 Cassio for the affection of his wife. lago has contrived 
 that the Moor shall overhear him conversing with Cassio 
 about Bianca. Cassio, at thought of the exti-avagant pur- 
 suit of him by, the Venetian courtesan, laughs aloud. It 
 is then that Othello breaks out with the enraged cry, 
 " How shall I murder him, lago ?" But Othello supposed 
 that Cassio had been speaking of Desdemona, and that 
 his laugh was a profane. mockery of her fall. It was 
 Cassio's supposed ignoble thought respecting Desdemona, 
 even more than jealousy, which made him seem to Othel- 
 lo to merit mortal vengeance. Ordinarily Othello thinks 
 little about Cassio. His agony is concentrated in the 
 thought that the fairest thing on earth should be foul, 
 that the fountain from which the current of his life had 
 seemed to run so pure and free should be 
 
 " A cistern for foul toads 
 To knot and gender in!" 
 
 It is with an agonized sense of justice that he destroys 
 the creature who is dearest to him in the world, knowing 
 certainly that with hers his own true life must cease. 
 Nay, it is not with the cessation of Desdemona's breath 
 that the life of Othello ends ; he is unable to survive the 
 loss of faith in her perfect purity. All that had been 
 glorious becomes remote and impossible for him if Des- 
 demona be false. We hear the great childlike sob of 
 Othello's soul : 
 
 " 0, now, forever 
 Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content ! 
 Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars 
 That make ambition virtue !" 
 
 From the first suggestion of suspicion by his ensnarer, 
 
2i6 Shakspere- — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Othello is impatient for assurance, and finds suspense in- 
 tolerable. Wlij ? I^ot surely because he is eager to 
 convict his wife of infidelity ; but rather because he will 
 not allow his passionate desire to believe her pure to 
 abuse him, and retain hiin in a fool's paradise, while a 
 great agony may possibly remain before him. 
 
 Of the tragic story, what is the final issue ? The cen- 
 tral point of its spiritual import lies in the contrast be- 
 tween the two men, lago and his victim. lago, with keen 
 intellectual faculties and manifold culture in Italian vice, 
 lives and thrives after his fashion in a world from which 
 all virtue and all beauty are absent. Othello, with his 
 barbaric innocence and regal magnificence of soul, must 
 cease to live the moment he ceases to retain faith in the 
 purity and goodness which were to him the highest and 
 most real things upon earth. Or, if he live, life must be- 
 come to him a cruel a^ony. Shakspere compels us to ac- 
 knowledge that self-slaughter is a rapturous energy — that 
 such prolonged agony is joy in comparison with the 
 earthly life-jti-death of such a soul as that of lago. The 
 noble nature is taken in the toils because it is noble, 
 lago suspects his wife of every baseness, but the suspicion 
 has no other effect than to intensify his malignity. lago 
 could not be captured and constrained to heroic suffering 
 and rage. The shame of every being who bears the 
 name of woman is credible to lago, and yet he can grate 
 from his throat the jarring music : 
 
 "And let me the canakin clink, clink ; 
 And let me the canakin clink." 
 
 There is^ therefore, Shakspere would have us understand, 
 
 something more inimical to humanity than suffering 
 
 namely, an incapacity for noble pain. To die as Othello 
 dies is indeed grievous. But to live as lago lives, de- 
 vouring the dust and stinging — this is more appalling. 
 
OtIieUo; Macbeth; Lear, 217 
 
 Such is the spii-itnal motive that controls the tragedy. 
 And the validity of this truth is demonstrable to every 
 sound conscience. No supernatural authority needs to 
 be summoned to bear witness to this reality of human 
 life. No pallid flame of hell, no splendor of dawning 
 heaven, needs show itself beyond the verge of earth to 
 illumine this truth. It is a portion of the ascertained 
 fact of human nature, and of this our mortal existence. 
 We look upon " the tragic loading of the bed," aud we 
 see lago in pi'esence of the ruin he lias wrought. "We 
 are not compelled to seek for any resolution of these ap- 
 parent discords in any alleged life to come. That may 
 also be ; we shall accept it, if it be. But looking sternly 
 and strictly at wh^- is now actual and present to our 
 sight, we yet rise above despair. Desdemona's adhesion 
 to''her husband and to love survived the ultimate trial. 
 Othello dies " upon a kiss." He perceives his own 
 calamitcps error, and he recognizes Desdemona pure and 
 loyal as she/was. Goodness is justified of her child. It 
 is evil which suffers defeat. It is lago whose whole ex- 
 istence has been most blind, purposeless, and miserable^ — 
 a struggle against the virtuous powers of the world, by 
 which at last he stands convicted and condemned. 
 
 There is a line in the play of Macbeth, uttered as the 
 evening shadows begin to gather on the day of Banquo's 
 murder, which we may repeat to ourselves as a motto of 
 the entire tragedy, "Good things of day begin to droop 
 and drowse." It is the tragedy of the twilight and the 
 setting-in of thick darkness upon a human soul. We assist 
 at the spectacle of a terrible sunset in folded clouds of 
 blood. To the last, however, one thin hand's-breadth of 
 melancholy light remains — the sadness of the day with- 
 out its strength. Macbeth is the prey of a profound 
 
 10 
 
2i8 ^-tShakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 world-weariness. And while a huge ennui pursues crime, 
 the criminal is not yet in utter blackness of night. When 
 the play opens, the sun is already dropping below the 
 verge. And as at sunset strange winds arise and gather 
 the clouds to westward with mysterious pause and stir, 
 so the play of Macbeth opens with movement of mysteri- 
 ous, spiritual powers, which are auxiliary of that awful 
 shadow which first creeps and then strides across the 
 moral horizon. 
 
 It need hardly be once more repeated that the Witches 
 of Mcicbeth are not the broom-stick witches of vulgar tra- 
 dition.* If they are grotesque, they are also sublime. 
 
 * The theory of Messrs. Clark and Wright (Clarendon Press edition of 
 MachetK), that the play is an alteration by Middleton of a tragedy of Shak- 
 spere, is accepted by Mr. Fleay, and carried farther into detail (Trans. New 
 Sb. Soo., ISM). Mr. Fleay is of opinion that the witches around the caldron 
 (act iv., sc. 1) are creations of Shakspere; but he believes that they are en- 
 tirely distinct from the three "weird sisters," the Nornae of act i., sc, 3. 
 He writes : " In Holinshed we find that ' Macbeth and Banquo were met by 
 ilj women in straunge and ferly apparell resembling creatures of an elder 
 world ;' that they vanished ; that at first by Macbeth and Banquo ' they were 
 reputed but some vayne fantasticall illusion,' but afterwards the common 
 opinion was that they were ' eyther the weird sisters — ^that is, ye Goddesses 
 of destinie-^ov else some Nimphes or Feiries endowed with knowledge of 
 prophesie by their Nicromauticall science ' (act ii., sc. 2). But in the part 
 corresponding to IV. i., Macbeth is warned to take heed of Macduff by' cer- 
 tain wysardes ;' but he does not kill him, because ' a certain witch whom be 
 had in great trust' had given him the two other equivocal predictions. 
 Now, it is to me incredible that Shakspere, who in the parts of the play not 
 rejected by the Cambridge editors never uses the word, or alludes to witches 
 in any way, should have degraded ' ye Goddesses of destinie ' to three old 
 women, who are called by Paddock and Grimalkin, . . . sail in sieves, kill 
 swine, serve Hecate, and deal in all the common charms, illusions, and in- 
 cantations of vulgar witches. The three, who 'look not like the inhabitants 
 o' th' earth, and yet are on't ;' they who ' can look into the seeds of time and 
 say which grain will grow ;' they who ' seem corporal,' but ' melt into the 
 air ' like ' bubbles of the earth ;' ' the weyward sisters,' who ' make them- 
 selves air,' and have 'more than mortal knowledge,' are not beings of this 
 stamp." Mr. Fleay's difficulty is tliat in III. iv. 133, and IV. i. 186, Macbeth 
 calls the witches of IV. i. " the weird sisters," and he acknowledges that he 
 
Othello: Macbeth; Lear. 219 
 
 The weird sisters of our dramatist may take their place 
 beside the terrible old women of Michael Angelo, who 
 spin the destinies of man. Shakspere is no more afraid 
 than Michael Angelo of being vulgar. It is the feeble, 
 sentimental-ideal artist who is nervous about the dignity 
 of his conceptions, and who, in aiming at the great, attains 
 only the grandiose ; he thins away all that is positive and 
 material, in the hope of discovering some novelty of shad- 
 owy horror. But the great ideal artists — Michael Angelo, 
 Dante, Blake, Beethoven — see things far more dreadful 
 than the vague horrors of the romanticist ; they are per- 
 fectly fearless in their use of the material, the definite, 
 the gross, the so-called vulgar. And thus Shakspere 
 fearlessly showed us his weird sisters, " the Goddesses of 
 destinie," brewing infernal charms in their wicked cal- 
 dron. We cannot quite dispense in this life with ritual- 
 ism, and the ritualism of evil is foul and ugly ; the hell- 
 broth which the Witches are cooking bubbles up with no 
 refined, spiritual poison ; the quintessence of mischief is 
 being brewed out of foul things which can be enumerat- 
 ed ; thick and slab the gruel must be made. Yet these 
 weird sisters remain terrible and sublime. They tingle 
 in every fibre with evil energy, as the tempest does witli 
 the electric current ; their malignity is inexhaustible ; 
 they are wells of sin springing up into everlasting death ; 
 they have their raptures and ecstasies in crime; they 
 snatch with delight at the relics of impiety and foul dis- 
 ease; they are the awful inspirers of murder, insanity, 
 suicide. 
 
 The weird sisters, says Gervinus, " are simply the em- 
 bodiment of inward temptation." Tbey are surely much 
 more than this. If we must regard, the entire universe 
 
 cannot at present sojve this difiSculty. It is hardly, perhaps, a sound method 
 of criticism to invent an hypothesis which creates an insoluble difficulty. 
 
2 2 o Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 as a manifestation of an unknown somewhat which lies 
 behind it, we are compelled to admit that there is an 
 apocalypse of power auxiliary to vice, as really as there 
 is a manifestation of virtuous energy. All venerable 
 mythologies admit this fact. The Mephistopheles of 
 Goethe remains as the testimony of our scientific nine- 
 teenth century upon the matter. The history of the race, 
 and the social medium in which we live and breathe, have 
 created forces of good and evil which are independent of 
 the will of each individual man and woman. The sins 
 of past centuries taint the atmosphere of to-day. We 
 move through the world subject to accumulated forces 
 of evil and of good outside ourselves. We are caught up 
 at times upon a stream of virtuous force, a beneficent 
 current which bears us onward towards an abiding-place 
 of joy, of purity, and of sacrifice ; or a counter-current 
 drifts us towards darkness and cold and deatli. And 
 therefore no great realist in art has hesitated to admit 
 the existence of what theologians name divine grace, and 
 of what theologians name Satanic temptation. There is, 
 in truth, no such thing as " naked manhood." The at- 
 tempt to divorce ourselves from the large impersonal life 
 of the world, and to erect ourselves into independent 
 wills, is tlie dream of the idealist. And between the evil 
 within and the evil without subsists a terrible sympathy 
 and reciprocity. There is in the atmosphere a zymotic 
 poison of sin ; and the constitution which is morally en- 
 feebled supplies appropriate nutriment for the germs of 
 disease ; while the hardy moral nature repels the same 
 germs. Macbetli is infected ; Banquo passes free.* Let 
 us, then, not inquire after the names of these fatal sisters. 
 
 *"Banqito. Merciful powers 
 
 Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature 
 Gires way to in repose !" 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 221 
 
 Nameless they are, and sexless. It is enough to know 
 that such powers auxiliary to vice do exist outside our- 
 selves, and that Shakspere was scientifically accurate in 
 his statement of the fact. 
 
 But it is also by no means difiScult to believe that in 
 the mere matter of superstition, in all that relates to pre- 
 sentiments, dreams, omens, ghost belief, and such like, 
 Shakspere would have failed to satisfy the requirements 
 of enlightened persons of to-day, who receive their re- 
 ports of the universe through the scientific article in the 
 newest magazine : 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 " They say miracles are past " (Lafeu is speaking in All 's 
 Well that Mids Well) ; " and we have our philosophical per- 
 sons, to make modern and familiar things supernatural 
 and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors ; 
 ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when wc 
 should submit ourselves to an unknown fear." * How- 
 ever we may account for it, the fact is unquestionable 
 that some of the richest creative natures of the Avorld 
 have all their lives been believers, if not with their intel- 
 lect, at least with their instinctive feelings and their im- 
 agination, in much of the old-wives' lore of the nursery. 
 Scott does not as a sceptic make use in his novels of 
 ghostly and supernatural machinery merely for the sake 
 of producing certain artistic effects. He retained at least 
 a half -faith in the Gothic mythology of the Nortli. 
 Goethe for a time devoted himself to the pursuit of al- 
 chemy. In " The Spanish Gypsy" of George Eliot, from 
 the necklace of Zarea dim mastering powers, blind yet 
 strong, pass into his daughter's will ; and in that poem 
 the science of modern psychology accepts certain of the 
 
 * Act ii., BC. 3. 
 
2 22 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 facts of old superstitions — accepts tliem and explains 
 them. "VVe slighter and smaller natnres can deprive our- 
 selves altogether of the sense for snch phenomena ; we 
 can elevate ourselves into a rare atmosphere of intellect- 
 nality and incredulity. The wider and richer natures of 
 creative artists have received too large an inheritance 
 from the race, and liave too f ull_y absorbed all tlie influ- 
 ences of their environment for this to be possible in their 
 case. While dim recollections and forefeelings haunt their 
 blood, they cannot enclose themselves in a little pinfold 
 of demonstrable knowledge and call it the universe. 
 
 " Tlie true reason for the first appearance of the 
 Witches," Coleridge has said, " is to strike the key-note 
 of the character of the whole drama." They appear in a 
 desert place, with thunder and lightning ; it is the barren 
 and blasted place where evil has obtained the mastery of 
 things. Observe that the last words of the Witches, in 
 the opening scene of the play, are the first words which 
 Macbeth himself utters, 
 
 " Fair is foul, and foul is fair, 
 Hover through the fog and filthy air." * 
 
 Macbeth. " So foul and fair a day I have not seen." 
 Shakspere intimates by this that although Macbeth has 
 not yet set eyes upon these hags, the connection is already 
 established between his soul and them. Their spells have 
 already wrought upon his blood. When the three sisters 
 meet Macbeth and Banquo upon the heath, it is Banquo 
 to whom they are first visible in the gray, nortliern air. 
 To Banquo they are objective — they are outside himself, 
 aud he can observe and describe their strange aspect, 
 their wild attire, and their mysterious gesture. Macbeth 
 is rapt in silence, and then with eager longing demands, 
 " Speak if you can : what are you ?" When tliey have 
 
 * Words uttered by all three witches, after each has singly spoken thrice. 
 
Othello ; Macbeth ; Lear. 223 
 
 given him the three hails — as G-lamis, as Cawdor, and as 
 King ; the hail of the past, of tlie present, of the future- 
 Macbeth starts. " It is a full revelation of his criminal 
 aptitudes," Mr, Hudson has well said, " that so startles 
 and surprises him into a rapture of meditation," And, 
 besides -this, Macbeth is startled to find that there is a 
 terrible correspondence established between the baser in- 
 stincts of his own heart and certain awful external agen- 
 cies of evil. 
 
 " Sliakspere does not believe in any sudden transforma- 
 tion of a noble and loyal soul into that of a traitor an(f 
 murderer. At the outset Macbeth possesses no real fideL 
 ity to things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely. He 
 is simply not yet in alliance with the powers of evil. 
 He has aptitudes for goodness and aptitudes for crime, 
 Shakspere felt profoundly that this careless attitude of 
 suspense or indifference between virtue and vice cannot 
 continue long. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, 
 and the violent take it by force. Those who lack energy 
 of goodness, and drop into a languid neutrality between 
 the antagonist spiritual forces of the world, mtist serve 
 the devil as slaves if they will not decide to serve God as 
 freemen. 
 
 But beside the vague yet mastering!^ inspiration of 
 crime received from the Witches, there is the more defi- 
 nite inspiration received from his wife. Macbeth is ex- 
 citably imaginative, and his imagination alternately stim- 
 ulates and enfeebles him. The facts in tlieir clear-cut 
 outline disappear in the dim atmosphere of surmise, de- 
 sire, fear, hope, which the spirit of Macbeth effuses around 
 the fact. But his wife sees things in the clearest and 
 most definite outline. Her delicate frame is filled with 
 high-strung nervous energy.* With her to perceive is 
 
 * " According to my notion," Mrs. Siddons wrote, " [Lady Macbeth's beau- 
 ty] is of that character which I believe is generally allowed to ie most cap- 
 
224 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 forthwith to decide, to decide is to act. Having resolved 
 upon her end, a practical logic convinces her that the 
 means are implied and determined. Macbeth resolves, 
 and falters back from action ; now he is restrained by his 
 imagination, now by his fears, now by his lingering vel- 
 loities towards a loyal and honorable existence. He is 
 nnable to keep in check or put under restraint any one 
 of the various incoherent powers of his nature, which 
 impede and embarrass each the action of the other. Lady 
 Macbeth gains, for the time, sufficient strength by throw- 
 ing herself passionately into a single purpose, and by res- 
 olutely repressing all that is inconsistent with that pur- 
 pose.. Into the service of evil she carries some of the 
 intensity and energy of asceticism — she cuts oil from her- 
 self her better nature, she yields to no weak paltering 
 with conscience. " I have given suck," she exclaims, 
 " and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks 
 me." She is unable to stab Duncan because he resembles 
 her father in his sleep ; she is appalled by the copious 
 blood in which the old man lies, and the horror of the 
 sight clings to her memory ; the smell of the blood is 
 hateful to her, and almost insupportable; she had not been 
 without apprehension that her feminine nature might fail 
 to carry her through the terrible ordeal, through which 
 she yet resolved that it should be compelled to pass. She 
 must not waste an atom of her strength of will, which 
 lias to serve for two murderers — cfor her husband as well 
 as for herself. She puts into requisition, with the aid of 
 
 tivatiiig to the other sex — fair, feminine, nay, perhaps even fragile." Dr. 
 Uiickuill (before he was aware that Mrs. Siddons held a similar opinion) 
 wrote, " Lady Macbeth was a lady beautiful and delicate, whose one vivid 
 passion proves that her organization was instinct with nerve force, unop- 
 pressed by weight of flesh. Probably she was small ; for it is the smaller 
 sort of woman whose emotional fire is the most fierce, and she herself bears 
 unconscious testimony to the fact that her hand was little " (" Mad Folk of 
 Shakespeare," p. 45). She is Macbeth's " dearest chuck." 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 225 
 
 wine and of stimulant words, the reserve of nervous force 
 which lay unused. No witches have given her "Hail;" 
 no airy dagger marshals her the way tliat she is going ; 
 nor is she afterwards haunted by the terrible vision of 
 Banquo's gory head. As long as her will remains her 
 own, she can throw herself upon external facts, and main- 
 tain herself in relation with the definite, actual surround- 
 ings ; it is in her sleep, when the will is incapable of 
 action, that slie is persecuted by the past, which perpetu- 
 ally renews itself, not in ghostly shapes, but by the im- 
 agined recurrence of real and terrible incidents. 
 
 The fears of Lady Macbeth upon tlie night of Dun- 
 can's murder are the definite ones, tliat the murderers 
 may be detected ; that some omission in the preari-anged 
 plan may occur; that she or her husband may be sum- 
 moned to appear before the traces of their crime have 
 been removed. More awful considerations would press 
 in upon lier and overwhelm her sanity, but that she forc- 
 ibly repels them for the time : 
 
 " These deeds must not be thought 
 After these ways ; so, it will make us mad." 
 
 To her the sight of Duiican dead is as terrible as to Mac- 
 beth ; but slie takes theflagger from her husband, and, 
 witli a forced jest, hideous in the self-violence which it 
 implies, she steps forth into the dark corridor : 
 
 "If he do bleed, 
 I'll gild the faces of the groom§ withal ; 
 For it must seem their guilt." 
 
 " A play of fancy here is like a gleam of ghastly sun- 
 shine striking across a stormy landscape."* The knock- 
 ino- at the gate clashes upon her overstrained nerves and 
 tlirills her ; but she has determination and energy to di- 
 rect the actions of Macbeth and rouse him fronl the mood 
 
 * Macbeth, Clarendon Press edition, p. 108. 
 10* 
 
2 26 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 of abject depression which succeeded his crime. A white 
 flame of resohition glows tiirongh her delicate organiza- 
 tion, like light through an alabaster lamp : 
 
 " Infirm cf purpose ! 
 Give me the daggers : the sleeping and the dead 
 Are but as pictures : 'tis the eye of childhood 
 That fears a painted devil." 
 
 If the hold which she possesses over her own faculties 
 should relax for a moment, all would be lost. For dread- 
 ful deeds anticipated and resolved upon she has strength; 
 but the surprise of a novel horror on which she has not 
 counted deprives her suddenly of consciousness. WIigti 
 Macbeth announces his butchery of Duncan's grooms, the 
 lady swoons — not in feigning, but in fact — and is borne 
 away insensible. 
 
 Macbeth wastes himself in vague, imaginative i-emorse : 
 
 " Will not great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
 Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather 
 The multitudinous seas incarnadine. 
 Making the green one red." 
 
 Thus his imagination serves to dissipate the impression 
 of his conscience. What is the worth of this vague, im- 
 aginative remorse ? Macbeth retained enough of good- 
 ness to make him a haggard, miserable criminal ; never 
 enough to restraiu him from a crime. His hand soon 
 became subdued to what it worked in — the blood in 
 which it paddled and plashed. And yet the loose inco- 
 herent faculties, ever becoming more and more disorgan- 
 ized and disintegrated, somehow held together till the 
 end. "My hands are of your color," exclaims Lady 
 Macbeth ; " but I shame to wear a heart so white. A 
 little water clears lis of this deed." Yet it is she, who 
 has uttered no large words about " the multitudinous 
 seas," who will rise in slumbery agitation, and, with her 
 accustomed action, eagerly essay to remove from her 
 
Othello: Macbeth; Lear. 227 
 
 little hand its ineffaceable stain, "and, with her delicate 
 sense, sicken at the-smell of blood npon it, which "all 
 the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten ;" and, last, will 
 loosen the terrible constriction of her heart with a sigh 
 that longs to be perpetual. It is the queen, and not her 
 husband, who is slain by conscience. 
 
 Yet the soul of Macbeth never quite disappears into 
 the blackness of darkness. He is a cloud without water, 
 carried about of winds ; a tree whose fruit withers, but 
 not, even to the last, quite plucked up by the roots. For 
 the dull ferocity of Macbeth is -joyless. All his life has 
 gone irretrievably astray, and he is aware of this. His 
 suspicion becomes uncontrollable ; his reign is a reign of 
 terror; and as he drops deeper and deeper into the sol- 
 itude and the gloom, his sense of error and misfortune, 
 futile and unproductive as that sense is, increases. He 
 moves under a dreary cloud, and all things look gray and 
 cold. He has lived long enough, yet he clings to life ; 
 that which should accompany old age, " as honor, love,, 
 obedience, troops of friends," he may not look to have. 
 Finally, liis sensibility has grown so dull that even the 
 intelligence of his wife's death — the death of her who 
 had been bound to him by such close communion in 
 crime — hardly touches him, and seems little more than 
 one additional incident in the weary, meaningless tale of 
 
 human life : „ ^^^ ^^^^^^ j^^^^ ^j^^ hereafter ; 
 
 There would have been a time for such a word. 
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle I 
 Life's but a walljing shadow, a poor player 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more ; it is a tale 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
 Signifying nothing," 
 
228 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 This world-weariness, wliieh has not tlie energy of Ti- 
 mon's despair, is yet less remote from the joy and glory 
 of true living than is the worm -like vivacity of lago. 
 Macbeth remembers that he once knew there was such a 
 thing as human goodness. He stands a haggard shadow 
 against the hand's-breadth of pale sky Avhich yields us suf- 
 lieient light to see him. But lago rises compact with 
 tiend-like energy, seen brightly in the godless glare of 
 hell. The end of Macbeth is savage and almost brutal — 
 a death without honor or loveliness. He fights noAV not 
 like "Bellona's bridegroom lapp'd in proof," but with a 
 wild and animal clinging to life : 
 
 " They have tied me to a stake ; I cannot fly, 
 But, bear-like, I must fight the course." 
 
 His followers desert bim ; he feels himself taken in a 
 trap. The powers of evil in which he had trusted turn 
 against him and betray him. His courage becomes a des- 
 perate rage. We are in pain until the horrible necessity 
 is accomplished. 
 
 Shakspere pursues Macbeth no farther. He does not 
 follow him with yearning conjecture, as Mr. Browning 
 follows the murderer of his poem, " The King and the 
 Book," 
 
 " Into that sad, obscure, sequester'd state, 
 Where God unmakes but to remake the soul 
 He else made first in vain." 
 
 Our feet remain on solid Scottish earth. But a new 
 and better era of history dawns. Macbeth and Siward's 
 son lie dead; but the world goes on. The tragic deeds 
 tiike up their place in the large life of a country. We 
 suffer no dejection ; " the time is free." Sane and stron;^, 
 v..e expect the day when Malcolm will be crowned at 
 Scone. 
 
 III. 
 
 The tragedy of King Lear was estimated by Shelley, 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 229 
 
 in his "Defence of Poetry," as an equivalent in modern 
 literature for the trilogy in the literature of Greece with 
 Avhich the (Edipus Tyrannus, or that with which the 
 Agamemnon stands connected. King Lear is, indeed, 
 the greatest single achievement in poetry of the Teu- 
 tonic, or Northern, genius. By its largeness of concep- 
 tion and the variety of its details, by its revelation of a 
 harmony existing between the forces of nature and the 
 passions of man, by its grotesqueness and its sublimity, 
 it owns kinship with the great cathesdrals of Gothic ar- 
 chitecture. To conceive, to compass, to comprehend, at 
 once in its stupendous unity and in its almost endless 
 variety, a building like the cathedral of Eheims, or that 
 of Cologne, is a feat which might seem to defy the most 
 athletic imagination. But the impression which Shak- 
 spere's tragedy produces, while equally large — almost 
 monstrous — and equally intricate, lacks the material fix- 
 ity and determinateness of that produced by these great 
 works in stone. Everything in the tragedy is in motion, 
 and the motion is that of a tempest. A grotesque head, 
 which was peering out upon us from a point near at 
 hand, suddenly changes its place and its expression, and 
 now is seen driven or fading away into the distance with 
 lips and eyes tliat, instead of grotesque, appear sad and 
 pathetic. All that we see around us is tempestuously 
 whirling and heaving, yet we are aware that a law pre- 
 sides over this vicissitude and apparent incoherence. We 
 are confident that there is a logic of the tempest. While 
 each thing appears to be torn from its proper place, and 
 to have lost its natural supports and stays, instincts, pas- 
 sions, reason, all wrenched and contorted, yet each thing 
 in this seeming chaos takes up its place with infallible 
 assurance and precision. 
 
 In King Lear, more than in any other of his plays, 
 Shakspere stands in presence of the mysteries of human 
 
230 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 life. A more impatient intellect would have proposed 
 explanations of these. A less robust spirit would have 
 permitted the dominant tone of the play to become an 
 eager or pathetic wistfulness respecting the significance 
 of these hard riddles in the destiny of man. Shakspere 
 checks such wistful curiosity, though it exists discern- 
 ibly ; he will present life as it is. If life proposes inex- 
 plicable riddles, Shakspere's art must propose them also. 
 But, while Shakspere will present life as it is,' and sug- 
 gest no inadequate explanations of its difficult problems, 
 he will gaze at life not only from within, but, if possible, 
 also from an extra-mundane, extra-human point of view, 
 and, gazing thence at life, will try to discern what aspect 
 this fleeting and wonderful phenomenon presents to the 
 eyes of gods. Hence a grand irony in the tragedy of 
 Lear I hence all in it that is great is also small; all that 
 is tragically sublime is also grotesque. Hence it sees 
 man walking in a vain shadow ; groping in the mist ; 
 committing extravagant mistakes ; wandering from light 
 into darkness ; stumbling back again from darkness into 
 light ; spending his strength in barren and impotent 
 rages; man in his weakness, his unreason, his affliction, 
 liis anguish, his poverty and meanness, his everlasting 
 greatness and majesty. Hence, too, the characters, while 
 they remain individual men and women, are ideal, rep- 
 resentative, typical ; Goneril and Regan, the destructive 
 force, the ravening egoism in humanity which is at war 
 with all goodness ; Kent, a clear, unmingled fidelity ; 
 Cordelia, unmingled tenderness and strength, a pure re- 
 deeming ardor. As we read the play we are haunted by 
 a presence of something beyond the story of a suffering 
 old man ; we become dimly aware that the play has some 
 vast impersonal significance, like the ProvietJieus Bound 
 of JEschylus, and like Goethe's Faust. We seem to gaze 
 upon " huge, cloudy symbols of some high romance." 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 231 
 
 What was irony when human life was viewed from tlie 
 outside, extra-mundane point, of view becomes, when life 
 is viewed from within, Stoicism. For to Stoicism the 
 mere phenomenon of human existence is a vast piece of 
 unreason and grotesqueness, and from this unreason and 
 grotesqueuess Stoicism makes its escape by becoming in- 
 different to the phenomenon, and by devotion to the mor- 
 al idea, the law of the soul, which is forever one with it- 
 self and with the highest reason. The ethics of the play 
 of King Lear ai-e Stoical ethics. Shakspere's fidelity to 
 the fact will allow him to deny no pain or calamity that 
 befalls man. "There was never yet philosopher that 
 could endure the toothache patiently." * He knows that 
 it is impossible to 
 
 " Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, 
 Charm ache with air, and agony with words." 
 
 He admits the suffering, the weakness, of humanity ; but 
 he declares that in the inner law there is a constraining 
 power stronger than a silken thread; in the fidelity of 
 pure hearts, in the rapture of love and sacrifice, thei'e is 
 a charm which is neither air nor^ words, but, indeed, po- 
 tent enough to subdue pain and '"make calamity accepta- 
 ble. Cordelia, who utters no word in excess of her actual 
 feeling, can declare, as she is led to prison, her calm and 
 decided acceptance of her lot : 
 
 " We are not the first 
 Who, with best meaning, have incurred the worst; 
 For thee, oppressed king, I am cast down ; 
 Myself could else ouf-f rown false fortune's frown." f 
 
 But though ethical principles radiate through the play 
 
 * Mudk, Ado About Nothing, act v., sc. 1. 
 
 f Compare also, as expressing the mood in which calamity must be con- 
 fronted, the words of Edgar : 
 
 " Men must endure 
 Their going hence, even as their coming hither; 
 Ripeness is all." 
 
232 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 oiLear, its chief function is not, even indirectly, to teach 
 or inculcate moral truth, but ratlier, by the direct presen- 
 tation of a vision of human life and of the enveloping 
 foi'ces of nature, to "free, arouse, dilate." We may be 
 unable to set down in words any set of truths which we 
 have been taught by the drama. But can we set. down 
 in words the precise moral significance of a fugue of 
 Handel or a symphony of Beethoven ? "VVe are kindled 
 and aroused by tliein ; our whole nature is quickened ; it 
 passes from the habitual, hard, encrusted, and cold condi- 
 tion into "the fluid and attaching state" — the state in 
 which we do not seek truth and beauty, but attract and 
 are sought by them; the state in which "good thoughts 
 stand before us like free children of God, and cry ' We 
 are come.' " * The play or the piece of music is not a 
 code of precepts or a body of doctrine ;f it is "a focus 
 where a number of vital forces unite in their purest en- 
 ergy." 
 
 . In the play of King Lear we come into contact with 
 the imagination, the heart, the soul of Shakspere, at a 
 moment when they attained their most powerful and in- 
 tense vitality. " He was here," Hazlitt wrote, " fairly 
 caught in the web of his own imagination." And being 
 thus aroused about deeper things, Shakspere did not in 
 this play feel that mere historical verisimilitude was of 
 chief importance. He found the incidents i-ecorded in 
 history and ballad and drama ; he accepted them as he 
 found tliem. Our imagination must grant Shakspere 
 certain postulates, those which the story that had taken 
 root in the hearts of the people already specified. The 
 
 * Goothe'a " Conversations with Eckermann," Feb. 2i, 1824. 
 
 f Flathe, wlio ordinarily finds all preceding critics wrong and himself pro- 
 foundly right, discovers in King Lear Shakspere's " warning letter against 
 naturalism and pseudo-rationalism ;" the play is translated into a didactic 
 discourse on infidelity. 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 233 
 
 old "Chronicle History of King Leir" had assigned in- 
 genious motives for the apparently improbable conduct 
 ascribed to the King. He resolves that upon Cordelia's 
 protesting that she loves him he will say, " Then, daugh- 
 ter, grant me one request — accept the husband I have 
 cliosen for yon," and thus he will take lier at a vantage. 
 It would liave been easy for Shakspere to have secured 
 this kind of verisimilitude ; it would have been easy for 
 him to have referred the conduct of Lear to ingeniously 
 invented motives ; he could, if he had chosen, by psycho- 
 logical fence have turned aside the weapons of those as- 
 sailants who lay to his charge improbability and unnatu- 
 ralness. But then the key-note of the play would have 
 been struck in another mode. Shakspere did not at all 
 care to justify himself by special pleading and psycholog- 
 ical fence. The sculptor of the Laocoon has not engraved 
 below his group the lines of Yirgil which describe the 
 progress of the serpent towards his victims ; he was in- 
 terested in the supreme moment of the father's agony, 
 and in the piteous effort and unavailing appeal of the 
 children. Shakspere, in accordance with his dramatic 
 method, drove forward across the intervening accidents 
 towards the passion of Lear in all its stages, his wild re- 
 volt against humanity, his conflict with the powers of 
 night and tempest, his restoration through the sacred 
 balm of a daughter's love. 
 
 Nevertheless, though its chief purpose be to get the 
 forces of the drama into position before their play upon 
 one another begins, the first scene cannot be incoherent. 
 In the opening sentence Shakspere gives us clearly to un- 
 derstand that the partition of the kingdom between Al- 
 bany and Cornwall is already accomplished. In the con- 
 cluding sentences we are reminded of Lear's "inconstant 
 starts," of "the unruly waywardness that infirm and 
 choleric years bring with them." It is evidently intend- 
 
234 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 ed that we should understand tlio demand made upon 
 his daughters for a profession of their love to have been 
 a sudden freak of self -indulged waywardness, in which 
 there was something of jest, something of unreason, some- 
 thing of the infirmity whicli requires demonstrations of 
 the heart.* Having made the demand, however, it must 
 not be refused. Lear's will must be opposelcss. It is 
 the centre and prime force of his little universe. To be 
 thrown out of this passionate wilfulness, to be made a 
 passive thing, to be stripped first of affection, then of 
 power, -then of home or shelter, last, of reason itself, and, 
 finally, to learn the preciousness of true love only at the 
 moment when it must be forever renounced — such is the 
 awful and purifj'ing ordeal through which Lear is com- 
 pelled to pass. 
 
 Shakspere " takes ingratitude," Victor Hugo has said, 
 "and he gives this monster two heads, Goneril . . . and 
 Kegan." The two terrible creatures are, however, dis- 
 
 * Coleridge writes, " The first four or five lines of the play let us know 
 that the trial is but a trick ; and that the grossness of the old King's rage 
 is in part the natural result of a silly trick suddenly and most unexpectedly 
 baffled and disappointed." Dr. Bucknill maintains that the partition of the 
 kingdom is "the first act of Lear's developing insanity." Skakespeare-Jahr- 
 buch, vol. ii., contains a short and interesting article by TJlrici on " Ludwi" 
 Devrient as King Lear." That great actor, if Ulriei might trust his own im- 
 pression, would seem to have understood the first scene of the play in the 
 sense in which Ulriei himself explains it — viz., that Lear's demand for a dec- 
 laration of his daughter's love was sudden and sportive, made partly to pass 
 the time until the arrival of Burgundy and France. Having assigned their 
 portions to Goneril and Began, there could not be a serious meanin" in Lear's 
 words to Cordelia : 
 
 "What can you say to draw 
 A third more opulent than your sisters?" 
 The words were said with a smile, yet, at the same time, with a secret and 
 clinging desire for the demonstration of love demanded. All the more is 
 Lear surprised and offended by Cordelia's earnest and almost judicial replv. 
 But Cordelia is at onee suppressing and in this way manifesting her indigna- 
 tion against her sisters' heartless flattery. 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 235 
 
 tingiiisliable. Gonerii is the calm wielder of a pitiless 
 iorce, the resolute initiator of cruelty. Began is a small- 
 er, shriller, fiercer, more eager piece of malice. The tyr- 
 anny of the elder sister is a cold, persistent pressure, as 
 little affected by tenderness or scruple as the action of 
 some crushing hammer; Regan's ferocity is more un- 
 measured, and less abnormal or monstrous. Eegan would 
 avoid her father, and, while she confronts him alone, quails 
 a little as she hears the old man's curse pronounced against 
 her sister : 
 
 "0 the blest gods! so will you wish en me 
 When the rash mood is on." 
 
 But Gonerii knows that a helpless old man is only a help- 
 less old man, that words are merely words. When, after 
 Lear's terrible malediction, he rides away with his train, 
 Gonerii, who would bring things to an issue, pursues her 
 father, determined to see matters out to the end.* To 
 complete the horror they produ6e in us, these monsters 
 are amorous. Their love is even more hideous than their 
 
 hate. The wars of 
 
 " Dragons of the prime 
 That tare each other in their slime " 
 
 formed a spectacle less prodigious than their mutual 
 blandishments and caresses. 
 
 '■'■Regan. I know your lady does not love her husband; 
 I am sure of that : and at her late being here 
 She gave strange osillades and most speaking looks 
 To noble Edmund." 
 
 To the last Gonerii is true to her character. Eegan is 
 despatched out of life by her sister ; Gonerii thrusts her 
 own life aside, and boldly enters the great darkness of the 
 grave. 
 
 Of the secondary plot of this tragedy — the story of 
 
 * It is Gonerii who first suggests the plucking-out of Gloucester's eyes. 
 The points of contrast between the sisters are well brought out by Gervinus. 
 
236 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Gloucester and his sons — Scblegel has explained one 
 chief significance : " Were Lear alone to suffer from his 
 daughters, the impression would be limited to the pow- 
 erful compassion felt by us for his private misfortune. 
 But two such unheard-of examples taking place at the 
 same time have the appearance of a great commotion in 
 the moral world ; the picture becomes gigantic, and fills 
 us with such alarm as we should entertain at the idea 
 that the heavenly bodies might one day fall from their 
 appointed orbits." * The treacheiy of Edmund, and the 
 torture to which Gloucester is subjected, are out of the 
 course of familiar experience ; but they are commonplace 
 and prosaic in comparison with the inhumanity of the 
 sisters and the agony of Lear. When we have climbed 
 the steep ascent of Gloucester's mount of passion, we see 
 still above us another via dolorosa leading to that 
 
 " Wall of eagle-bafSing mountain, 
 Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured," 
 
 to which Lear is chained. Thus the one story of horror 
 serves as a means of approach to the other, and helps us 
 to couceive its magnitude. The two, as Schlegel observes, 
 produce the impression of a great commotion in the moral 
 world. The thunder which breaks over our head does 
 not suddenly cease to resound, but is reduplicated, multi- 
 plied, and magnified, and rolls away with long reverbera- 
 tion. 
 
 Shakspere also desires to augment the moral mystery, 
 the grand inexplicableness of the play. We can assign 
 causes to explain the evil in Edmund's heart. His birth 
 is shameful, and the brand burns into his heart and brain. 
 ITe has been thrown abroad in the world, and is con- 
 strained by none of the bonds of nature or memory, of 
 
 * " Lectures on Dramatic Art," translated by J. Black, p. 412. 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 237 
 
 habit or association.* A hard, sceptical intellect, unin- 
 spired and unfed by the instincts of the heart, can easily 
 enough reason away the consciousness of obligations the 
 most sacred. Edmund's thought is "active as a virulent 
 acid, eating its rapid way tlu'ough all the tissues of human 
 sentiment."f His mind is destitute of dread of tlie Di- 
 vine Nemesis. Like lago, like Kichard III., he finds the 
 regulating force of the universe in the ego — in the in- 
 dividual will. But that terror of the unseen which Ed- 
 mund scorned as so much superstition is " the initial rec- 
 ognition of a moral law restraining desire, and checks the 
 hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations 
 which can never be proved to have any sanctity in the 
 absence of feeling." We can, therefore, in some degree 
 account for Edmund's bold egoism and inhumanity. 
 What obligations should a child feel to the man who, for 
 a moment's selfish pleasure, had degraded and stained his 
 entire life ? In like manner, Gloucester's sufferings do 
 not appear to us inexplicably mysterious. 
 
 " The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to plague us ; 
 The dark and vicious place where tbee he got 
 Cost him his eyes." 
 
 But, having gone to the end of our tether, and ex- 
 plained all that is explicable, we are met by enigmas 
 which will not be explained. We were, perhaps, some- 
 what too ready to 
 
 " Take upon us the mystery of things 
 As if we were God's spies." % 
 
 Now we are baflled, and bow the head in silence. Is it, 
 
 * Gloucester (act i., sc. 1) says of Edmund, " He hath been out nine years, 
 and away he shall again." 
 
 t This and the quotation next followmg will be remembered by readers of 
 " Eomola ;" they occur in that memorable chapter entitled " Tito's Dilemma." 
 
 X Words of Lear (act v., sc. 3). 
 
238 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 indeed, the stars that govern our condition 1 Upon what 
 theory shall we account for the sisterhood of a Goncril 
 and a Cordelia % And why is it that Gloucester, whose 
 suffering is tlie retribution for past misdeeds, should be 
 restored to spiritual calm and light, and should pass away 
 in a rapture of mingled gladness and grief, 
 
 " His flaw'd heart, 
 Alack ! too weak the conflict to support, 
 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief. 
 Burst smilingly ; 
 
 while Lear, a man more sinned against than sinning, 
 should be robbed of the comfort of Cordelia's love, 
 should be stretched to the last moment upon "the rack 
 of this tough world," and should expire in the climax of 
 a paroxysm of unproductive anguish ? 
 
 Shakspere does not attempt to answer these questions. 
 The impression which the facts themselves produce, their 
 influence to "free, arouse, dilate," 'seems to Shakspere 
 more precious than any proposed explanation of the facts 
 which cannot be verified. Tlie heart is purified not by 
 dogma, but by pity and terror. But there are other ques- 
 tions which the play suggests. If it be the stars that 
 govern our conditions ; if that be, indeed, a possibility 
 wTrich Gloucester, in his first shock and confusion of 
 mind, declares, 
 
 "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; 
 They kill us for their sport ;" 
 
 if, measured by material standards, the innocent and the 
 guilty perish by a like fate— what then ? Shall we yield 
 ourselves to the lust for pleasure ? shall we organize our 
 lives upon the principles of a studious and pitiless ego 
 
 ism? 
 
 To these questions the answer of Shakspere is clear 
 and emphatic. Shall we stand upon Goneril's side or 
 upon that of Cordelia? Shall we join Edgar or join the 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 239 
 
 traitor ? Shakspere opposes the presence and the influ- 
 ence of evil not by any transcendental denial of evil, but 
 bj the presence of human virtue, fide:lity, and self-sacriti- 
 cial love. In no play is there a clearer, an intenser man- 
 ifestation of loyal manhood, of strong and tender woman- 
 hood. The devotion of Kent to his master is a passion- 
 ate, unsubduable devotion, which might choose for its 
 watchword the saying of Goethe, " I love you ; what is 
 that: to you ?" Edgar's nobility of nature is not dis- 
 guised by the beggar's rags ; he is the skilful resister of 
 evil, the champion of right to the utterance. And if 
 Goneril and Kegan alone would leave the world unintel- 
 ligible and desperate, there is 
 
 " One daughter, 
 Who redeems nature from the general curse 
 Which twain have brought her to." 
 
 "We feel throughout the play that evil is abnormal; a 
 curse which brings down destruction upon itself ; that it 
 is without any long career ; that evil-doer is at variance 
 with evil-doer. But good is normal ; for it the career is 
 long ; and " all lionest and good men are disposed to be- 
 friend honest and good men, as such." * 
 
 " Corddia. thou good Kent, how shall I live, and work, 
 To match thy goodness ! My life will be too short, 
 And every measure fail me. 
 
 Kent To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid. 
 All my reports go with the modest truth ; 
 Nor more, nor clipped, but so." 
 
 ^Nevertheless, when everything has been said that can 
 be said to make the world intelligible, when we have 
 striven our utmost to realize all the possible good that 
 exists in the world, a need of fortitude remains. 
 
 It is worthy of note that each of the principal person- 
 ages of the play is brought into presence of those mys- 
 
 * Butler, " Analogy," part i., ch. iii. 
 
240 Suakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tenons powers which dominate life and preside over hu- 
 man destiny ; and each, according to his character, is made 
 to offer an interpretation of the great riddle. Of these 
 interpretations, none is adequate to account for all the 
 facts. Shakspere (diflPering in this from the old play) 
 placed the story in heathen times, partly, we may sur- 
 mise, that he might be able to put the question boldly, 
 " What are the gods ?" Edmund, as we have seen, dis- 
 covers no power or autliority higher than the will of the 
 individual and a hard trenchant intellect. In the open- 
 ing of the play lie utters his ironical appeal : 
 
 " I grow ; I prosper — 
 Now gods stand up for bastards." * 
 
 It is not until he is mortally wounded, with his brother 
 standing over him, that the recognition of a moral law 
 forces itself painfully upon his consciousness, and he 
 makes his bitter confession of faith : 
 
 " The wheel is come full circle, I am here." 
 His self-indulgent father is, after the manner of the self- 
 indulgent, prone to superstition ; and Gloucester's super- 
 stition affords some countenance to Edmund's scepticism. 
 " This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when 
 we are sick in fortune — often the surfeit of our own be- 
 havior — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the 
 moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity ; 
 fools by heavenly compulsion ; knaves, thieves, and treach- 
 crs by spherical predominance ; drunkards, liars, and adul- 
 terers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence ; 
 and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on." 
 
 Edgar, on the contrary, the champion of right, ever ac- 
 tive in opposing evil and advancing the good cause, dis- 
 
 * Compare Edmund's words (uttered with inward scorn) spoken of Edgar : 
 "I told him the revenging gods 
 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend." 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. 241 
 
 covers that the gods are lapon the side of right, are un- 
 ceasingly at work in the vindication of truth and the 
 execution of Justice. His, faith lives through trial and 
 disaster, a flame which will not be quenched. And he 
 buoys up, by virtue of his ownenergy of soul, the spirit 
 of his father, which, unprepared for calamity, is stagger- 
 ing blindly, stunned from its^ power to think, and ready 
 to sink into darkness and a welter of chaotic disbelief. 
 Gloucester, in his first confusion of spirit, exclaims bit- 
 terly against the divine government : 
 
 "As fliea to wanton boys are we to the gods 5 
 They kill us for their sport," , 
 
 But before the end has come he "shakes patiently his 
 great affliction ofE;'' he will not quarrel with the *^ great 
 opposeless wills" of the gods; nay, more than this, he 
 can identify bis own will with, theirs, he can accept life 
 contentedly at their hands, or death. The words of ^d- 
 gar find a response in his own inmost heart : 
 
 " Thou happy father, 
 Think that the clearest gods, who make them honors 
 Of men's impossibilities, have preserved thee." 
 
 And as Edgar, the justiciary, finds in the gods his fellow- 
 workers in the execution of justice, so Cordelia, in whose 
 heart love is a clear and "perpetual illumination, can turn 
 for assistance and co-operancy in her deeds of love to the 
 strong and; gentle rulers of the world : 
 
 - . "0 you kind gods, 
 
 Cure this great breach in his abus&d nature." 
 
 Kent possesses no vision, like that which gladdens Ed- 
 gar, of a divine providence. His loyalty to right has 
 somfething in it of a desperate instinct, which persists, in 
 spite of the appearances presented by the world. Shak- 
 spere would have us know that there is not any devotion 
 to truth, to justice, to charity, more intense and real than 
 that of the man who is faithful to them out of the sheer 
 
 11 
 
242 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 spirit of loyalty, unstimulated and unsupported by any 
 faith which can be called theological. Kent, who has 
 seen the vicissitude of things, knows of no higher pow- 
 er presiding over the events of the world than fortune. 
 Therefore, all the more, Kent clings to the passionate in- 
 stinct of right-doing, and to the hardy temper, the forti- 
 tude which makes evil, when it happens to come, endura- 
 ble. It is Kent who utters his thought in the words — 
 
 " Nothing almost sees miracles 
 But misery." 
 
 And the miracle he sees, in his distress, is the approach- 
 ing succor from France, and the loyalty of Cordelia's 
 spirit. It is Kent, again, who, characteristically making 
 the best of an unlucky chance, exclaims, as he settles him- 
 self to sleep in the stocks, 
 
 " Fortune, good night ; smile once more, turn thy wheeL" 
 
 And again : 
 
 " It is the stars, 
 The stars above ua, govern our conditions." 
 
 And again (of Lear) : 
 
 " If Fortune brag of two she loved and hated. 
 One of them we behold." 
 
 Accordingly, there is at once an exquisite tenderness 
 in Kent's nature, and also a certain roughness and hard- 
 ness, needful to protect, from the shocks of life, the ten- 
 derness of one who finds no refuge in communion with 
 the higher powers, or in a creed of religious optimism. 
 
 But Lear himself — the central figure of the tragedy — 
 what of him? What of suffering humanity that wan- 
 ders from the darkness into light, and from the light 
 into the darkness? Lear is grandly passive — played 
 upon by all the manifold sources of nature and of so- 
 ciety. And though he is in part delivered from his im- 
 perious self-will, and learns, at last, what true love is, and 
 that it exists in the world, Lear passes away from our 
 
Othello; Macbeth; Lear. ' 243 
 
 sight, not in any mood of resignation or faith or ilhimi- 
 nated peace, but in a piteous agony of yearning for that 
 love which he had found only to lose forever. Does 
 Shakspere mean to contrast the pleasure in a demonstra- 
 tion of spurious affection in the first scene with the 
 agonized cry for real love in the last scene, and does he 
 wish us to understand that the true gain from the bitter 
 discipline of Lear's old age was precisely this — ^his ac- 
 quiring a supreme need of what is best, though a need 
 which finds, as far as we can learn, no satisfaction ? 
 
 We guess at the spiritual significance of the great 
 tragic facts of the world, but, after our guessing, their 
 mysteriousness remains. 
 
 Our estimate of this drama as a whole, Mr. Hudson has 
 said, depends very much on the view we take of the Fool ; 
 and Mr. Hudson has himself understood Lear's " poor 
 boy " with such delicate sympathy that to arrive at pre- 
 cisely the right point of view we need not go beyond his 
 words : " I know not how I can better describe the Fool 
 than as the soul of pathos in a sort of comic masquerade ; 
 one in whom fun and frolic are sublimed and idealized 
 into tragic beauty. . . . His ' laboring to outjest Lear's 
 heart-struck injuries ' tells us that his wits are set a-danc- 
 ing by grief ; that his jests bubble up from the depths 
 of a heart struggling with pity and sorrow, as foam en- 
 wreathes the face of deeply troubled waters. . . . There 
 is all along a shrinking, velvet-footed delicacy of step 
 in the Fool's antics, as if awed by the holiness of 
 the ground ; and he seems bringing diversion to the 
 thoughts, that he may the better steal a sense of woe 
 into the heart. And I am not clear whether the in- 
 spired antics that sparkle from the surface of his mind 
 are in more impressive contrast with the dark, tragic 
 scenes into which they are thrown, like rockets into a 
 midnight tempest, or with the undercurrent of deep tragic 
 
244 Shakspere^—His Mind and Art. 
 
 thoughtfulness out of whicli they falteringly issue and 
 play." * 
 
 Of the tragedy of King Lear a critic wishes to say as 
 little as may be ; for, in the case of this play, words are 
 more than ordinarily inadequate to express or describe its 
 true impression. A tempest or a dawn will not be ana- 
 lyzed in words ; we must feel the shattering fury of the 
 gale, we must watch the calm light broadening.f And 
 the sensation experienced by the reader of King Lear re- 
 sembles that produced by some grand natural phenome- 
 non. The effect cannot be received at second-hand ; it 
 cannot be described ; it can hardly be suggested. % 
 
 * " Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., pp. 351, 352. What 
 follows, too long to quote, is also excellent. 
 
 t lu Victor Hugo's volume of dithyrambic prophesying entitled "Will- 
 iam Shakespeare," a passage upon JKiriff Zear (cd. 1869, pp. 205-209) is par- 
 ticularly noteworthy His point of view — that the tragedy is " Cordelia," not 
 " King Lear," that the old King is only an occasion for his daughter — ^is abso- 
 lutely wrong; but the criticism, notwithstanding, catches largeness and pas- 
 sion from the play. " Et quelle figure que le pfere ! quelle cariatide ! C'est 
 I'homme courb£. H ne fait que changer de fardeaux, toujours plus lourds. 
 Plus le vieillard faiblit, plus le poids augmente. H vit sous la surcharge. 
 H porte d'abord I'empire, puis I'ingratitude, puis I'isolement, puis le d6ses- 
 poir, puis la faim et la soif; puis la folic, puis toute la nature. Les nuees 
 viennent sur sa tSte, les forets I'accablent d'ombre, I'ouragan s'abat sur sa 
 nuque, I'orage plombe son manteau, la pluie pfese sur ses 6paules, U marche 
 pU6 et hagard, comme s'il ayait les deux genoux de la nuit sur son dos. 
 Eperdu et immense, il jette aux bourrasquea et aux greles ce cri 6pique : 
 Pourquoi me haissez-vous, tempetes ? pourquol me pers6cutez-vous ? vmts 
 n'Stes pas mes files. Et alors, c'est fini ; la lueur s'^teint, la raison se Ak- 
 courage, et s'en va, Lear est en enfance. Ah ! 11 est enfant, ce vieillard. Eh 
 bien ! il lui faut une m&re. Sa fiUe paraJt. Son unique fiUe, Cordelia. Car 
 les deux autres, Regane et Goneril ne sent plus ses fiUes que de la quantity 
 n^cessaire pour avoir droit au nom de parricides." For the description of 
 "I'adorable allaitement," "the maternity of the daughter over the father," 
 see what follows, p. 208. 
 
 X In addition to the medical studies of Lear's case by Doctors Bneknill 
 and Kellogg, we may mention the "Konig Lear" of Dr. Carl Stark (Stutt- 
 gart, 1871), favorably noticed in Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, vol. vi. ; and again by 
 Meissner, in his study of the play, Shakeiipeare-Jahrbueh, vol. vii., pp. 1 1 n_i i ^ 
 
The Roman Plays. 245 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE EOMAN PLAYS. 
 I. 
 
 The two books whicli contributed tlie largest material 
 towards the building-up of Shakspere's art-structure were 
 the chronicles of Holinshed, a quarry worked by the poet 
 previous to 1600, and North's translation of Flutarch's^ 
 "Lives," a quarry worked after 1600; To this latter source 
 we owe Julius CcBsar, Goriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, 
 and, in part, Timon of Athens. Shakspere treated the 
 material which lay before him in Holinshed and in Plu- 
 tarch with reverent care. It was not a happy falsifying 
 of the facts of history to which he, as dramatist, aspired, 
 but an imaginative rendering of the very facts them- 
 selves. Plutarch he follows even more studiously and 
 closely than he followed Holinshed. Yet it is to be 
 noted that, while Shakspei'e is profoundly faithful to 
 Koman life and character, it is an ideal truth, truth spir- 
 itual rather than truth material, which he seeks to dis- 
 cover. His method, as critics have pointed out, is wide- 
 ly different from that of his contemporary, Ben Jonson. 
 Mr. Knight, treating this subject, has said, " Jonson has 
 left us two Roman plays produced essentially upon a 
 different principle. In his Sejanus there is scarcely a 
 speech or an incident that is not derived from the an- 
 cient authorities ; and Jonson's own edition of the play 
 is crowded with references as minute as would have been 
 required from any modern annalist. . . . His characters 
 . . . are made to speak according to the very words of 
 
246 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Tacitus and Suetonius; but they are not living men."* 
 Shakspere was aware that his personages must be men 
 before they were Komans. He felt that the truth of 
 poetry must be vital and self-evidencing ; that if it has 
 got hold of the fact, no reference to authority will make 
 the validity of the fact more valid. He knew that the 
 buttressing-up of art with erudition will not give stabil- 
 ity to that which must stand by no aid of material props 
 and stays, but, if at all, by virtue of the one living soul 
 of which it is the body. 
 
 The German romanticist critic Franz Horn has said 
 that the hero of Shakspere's King John " stands not in 
 the list of personages, and could not stand with them. . . . 
 The hero is England." Mr. Knight adds that the hero 
 of Shakspere's great classical trilogy is Home. Impor- 
 tant, liowever, as the political significance doubtless is, 
 there is something more important. Whether at any 
 time Shakspere was concerned as deeply about corporate 
 life — ecclesiastical, political, or even national — as he was 
 about the life and destiny of the individual man may 
 well be questioned. But at this time the play of social 
 forces certainly did not engage his imagination with ex- 
 clusive or supreme interest. The struggle of patrician 
 and plebeian is not the subject of Coriolanus, and the 
 tragedy resolves itself by no solution of that political 
 problem. Primarily, the tragedy is that of an individual 
 soul. It is important to note the dates of these plays. 
 Jvlius Ocesar, which Malone assigned to the year 1607, 
 is now, with good reason, carried back as early as 1601 ; 
 and thus it lies side by side, in point of time, with Ham- 
 let.\ After an interval of seven years or upwards, the 
 
 * Charles Knight, " Studies of Shakspere " (1851), p. 405. 
 f Mr. Halliwell pointed out the following lines in WeeTer's " Mirror of 
 Martyrs" (1601): 
 
The Roman Plays, 247 
 
 second of the Eoman plays, Antony and Cleopatra, was 
 written.* The events of Koman history connect Antony 
 and Cleopatra immediately with Julius CoBsar; yet Shak- 
 spere allowed a number of years to pass, during which 
 he was actively engaged as author, before he seems to 
 have thought of his second Koman play. What is the 
 significance of this fact? Does it not mean that the 
 historical connection was now a connection too external 
 and too material to carry Shakspere on from subject to 
 subject, as it had sufficed to do while he was engaged 
 upon his series of English historical plays ? The pro- 
 foundest concerns of the individual soul were now press- 
 ing upon the imagination of the poet. Dramas now 
 written upon subjects taken from history became not 
 chronicles, but tragedies. The moral interest was su- 
 preme. The spiritual material dealt with by Shakspere's 
 
 " The many-headed multitude were drawn 
 By Brutus' speech, that Giesar was ambitious ; 
 When eloquent Mark Antony had shown 
 His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious ?" 
 
 The theory of Mr. Fleay (Trans. New Sh. Soe., 18V4), that our present Julius 
 Ccesar is a play of Shalcspere's altered by Ben Jonson about 1607, is unsup- 
 ported by any sufficient evidence, internal or external. Belius dates Julius 
 CcBsar " before December, 1604." 
 
 * There is an entry in the Stationers' Registers, by Edward Blount, May 
 20, 1608, of "a booke called Antony and Cleopatra." This is generally 
 supposed to have been Shakspere's play (so Malone, Chalmers, Drake, Col- 
 lier, Delius, Gervinus, Hudson, Fleay, and others). Knight and Verplanck 
 assign a later date. Mr. Halliwell, on comparing the early editions of 
 North's Plutarch — 1579, 1696, 1603, 1612 — noticed many small differ- 
 ences between them, " and in one case, in Coriolarms, hit on a word ' vnfor- 
 tunate,' altered by the 1612 edition from the former one's ' vnf ortunately,' 
 which ' vnf ortunate ' was the word used by Shakspere in his tragedy of 
 Coriolarms. This was, therefore, ^Wma-/aae evidence that Shakspere used 
 the 1612 edition of North for his Coriolarms, if not for his other Roman 
 plays " (Trans. New Sh. Soc). Mr. Paton claims for a copy of North's Plu- 
 tarch now in the Greenock library the honor of having been Shakspere's 
 own copy. In it appear the initials W. S. It is a copy of the 1612 edition. 
 
248 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 imagination in the play of Julius Cmsar lay wide apart 
 from that which forms the centre of the Antony and 
 Cieqpal^a. Therefore the poet was not carried directly 
 forward from one to the other. 
 
 But having in Macbeth (about 1606) studied the ruin 
 of a nature which gave fair promise in men's eyes of 
 gi-leatness and nobility, Shakspete, it may be, proceeded 
 directly to a similar study in the case of Antony. In 
 the nature of Antony, as in the nature of Macbeth, there 
 is a moral fault or flaw, which circumstances discover, 
 ^and which in the end works his destruction. In each 
 play the pathos is of the same kind — it lies in the grad- 
 ual severing of a man, through the lust of power or 
 through the lust of pleasure, from his better self. By 
 the side of Antony, as by Macbeth's side, there stood a 
 terrible force, in the form of a woman, whose function it 
 was to realize and ripen the unorganized and undevel- 
 oped evil of his soul. Antony's sin was an inordinate 
 passion for enjoyment at the expense of Koraan virtue 
 and manly energy; a prodigality of heart, a superb ego- 
 ism of pleasure. After a brief interval, Shakspere went 
 on to apply his imagination to the investigating of an- 
 other form of egoism — not the egoism of self-diffusion, 
 but of self -concentration. As Antony betrays himself 
 and his eansc through his sin of indulgence and laxity, 
 so Coriolanus does violence to his own soul and to his 
 country through his sin of haughtiness, rigidity, and in- 
 ordinate pride. Thus an ethical tendency connects these 
 two plays, which are also connected in point of time; 
 while Antony and Cle&patra, although historically a con- 
 tinuation of Julius CoBsar, stands separated from it, both 
 in the chronological order of Shakspere's plays and in 
 the logical order assigned by successive developments of 
 the conscience, the intellect, and the imagination of the 
 dramatist. 
 
The Roman Plays. 249 
 
 The theme of the English historical plays is the suc- 
 cess and the failure of men to achieve noble practical 
 ends. Shakspere observed that there are two classes of 
 men in the world — those who use the right- means for 
 effecting their ends, who, if they want fruit> plant fruit- 
 trees ; and, secondly, those who will not accept the fact, 
 ■who try to get fruit by various ingenious methods, only 
 not by planting fruit-trees. Success in the visible mate- 
 rial world, the world of noble positive action, is the meas- 
 ure of greatness in the English historical plays ; and the 
 ideal, heroic character of those plays is that of the king 
 who so gloriously succeeded — ^ Henry Y. But in the 
 tragedies, the men who fail are not necessarily less worthy 
 of admii'ation than the men who succeed. Octavius, who 
 deals skilfully with life and is misled by no enthusiasms, 
 whose cool heart does not disturb his efficient hand; who 
 sees the fact with clear-cut edgesj and achieves the nec- 
 essary deed with logical precision, which is pitiless, but 
 not cruel— ^Octavius is successful. Yet we should rather 
 fail with Brutus. Prosperity or adversity in the mate- 
 rial world-is liere a secondary affair. By this time Shak- 
 spere himself, by use of means which he would not re- 
 ject, however distasteful they were, had succeeded : he 
 had practically mastered life from the material point of 
 view. But the breaking -down or the building-up of 
 character seemed to him, now more than ever before, of 
 supreme importance. 
 
 In Julius CcBsar Shakspere makes a complete imagi- 
 native study of the case of a man predestined to failure, V 
 who nevertheless retains to the end the moral integrity 
 wliicli lie prized as his highest possession, and who, with 
 each new error, advances a fresh claim upon our admira- '• 
 tion and our love. To maintain the will in a fruitful 
 relation with facts — that was what Eomeo could not do, 
 because he brooded over things as they reflected and re- 
 
 11* 
 
250 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 peated themselves in his own emotions; what Hamlet 
 could not do, because he would not, or could not, come 
 into direct contact with events, but studied them as they 
 endlessly repeated and reflected themselves in his own 
 thinking. Henry V. had been a ruler of men, because, 
 possessing a certain plain genius for getting into direct 
 relation with concrete fact, and possessing, also, entire 
 moral soundness, his will, his conscience, his intellect, 
 and his enthusiasms had all been at one and had all 
 tended to action. Shakspere's admiration of the great 
 men of action is immense, because he himself was pri- 
 marily not a man of action. He is stern to all idealists, 
 because he was aware that he might too easily yield him- 
 self to the tendencies of an idealist. "When Shakspere 
 feels himself shooting up too rapidly, he " stops " himself, 
 as gardeners do a plant, that he may throw out shoots be- 
 low and increase in strength and massiveness. If his 
 feelings begin to idealize, he stops them, in order that by 
 coming into more fruitful relation with fact he may add 
 force and amplitude to his feelings. If his ideas tend to 
 become abstract and notional, he plunges them into con- 
 crete matter, in order that they may enrich and vitalize 
 themselves. Against his idealizing tendency Shakspere 
 constantly plays o£E his humor, resolved that he will not 
 let himself escape from the real world, and from the 
 whole of it. But with his sternness to idealists there is 
 mingled a passionate tenderness. He shows us, remorse- 
 lessly, their failure ; but while they fail we love them. 
 
 Shakspere "stops" himself because he has entire con- 
 fidence in the vigor of both his intellect and his heart, 
 and also in the good powers of this present world. He 
 does not suppose that his thoughts will be less strong 
 and fruitful because he plunges his ideas back into con- 
 crete fact. He does not suppose that he will cease to 
 love because he chooses to see things as they are, and 
 
The Roman Plays. 251 
 
 each thing on every side, rather than refine things away 
 into the abstractions of the heart which are desired by 
 the purist or the sentimentalist. He does not fear that 
 his will may grasp things with less energy or less tenac- 
 ity, because he knows his purpose and can refrain. And 
 accordingly, while we may note many particulars which 
 distinguish Shakspere's later writings from those of his 
 earlier years, the great distinction of all is this, that his 
 power of thought, while losing none of its litheness and 
 celerity, became, as time went on, more massive and stern- 
 ly capable of endurance ; so that he dared to confront the 
 most awful problems of life, and could at will either sto- 
 ically detain his mind from contemplation of the unknown 
 or could brood upon it with long and wistful intensity ; 
 and, at the same time, his feelings, increasing in ardor and 
 swiftness, grew in massiveness and complexity, until from 
 such lyric melody of passion as reaches us from Romeo 
 a/nd Juliet we make transition to the orchestral symphony 
 of emotion which envelops us when we approach King 
 Lear. 
 
 Brutus is the political Girondin. He is placed in con- 
 trast with his brother-in-law Cassius, the political Jaco- 
 bin. Brutus is an idealist ; he lives among books ; lie 
 nourishes himself with philosophies; he is secluded from 
 the impression of facts. Moral ideas and principles are 
 more to him than concrete realities ; he i& studious of 
 self-perfection, jealous of the purity of his own character, 
 unwilling that so clear a character should receive even 
 the apparent stain of misconception or misrepresentation. 
 He is, therefore, as such men are, too much given to ex- 
 planation of his conduct. Had he lived, he would have 
 written an Apology for his life, educing evidence, with a 
 calm superiority, to prove that each act of his life pro- 
 ceeded from an honorable motive. Cassius, on the con- 
 trary, is by no means studious of moral perfection." He 
 
252 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 is frankly envious, and hates Caesar. Yet lie is not igno- 
 ble. Brutus loves him, a!nd the love of Brutus is a patent 
 which establishes a man's nobility : 
 
 " The last of all the Eomans, fare thee well ! 
 It Is Impossible that ever Borne 
 Should breed thy fellow." * 
 
 And Cassius has one who will die for him. Titinius 
 crowns the dead brow of the conspirator : 
 
 " Brutus, come apace, 
 And see how I regarded Caius Cassius. — 
 By your leave, gods — ^this is a Boman's part : 
 Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart." 
 
 Cassius has a swift and clear perception of the fact. He 
 is not, like Brutus, a theorist, but " a great observer," who 
 "looks quite through the deeds of men." Brutus lives in 
 the abstraction, in the idea ; Cassius lives in the concrete, 
 in the fact. 
 
 The conspiracy has been conceived and hatched by 
 Cassius. The one thing wanting to the conspirators, as 
 he perceives, is moral elevation, and that prestige wliicli 
 would be lent to the enterprise by a disinterested and 
 lofty soul like that of Brutus. The time is the feast of 
 Lupercal, and Antony is to run in the games. Caesar 
 passes by, and as he passes a soothsayer calls in shrill 
 tones from the press of people, "Beware the Ides of 
 March." Caesar summons him forward, gazes in his face, 
 and dismisses him with authoritative gesture, "He is a 
 dreamer; let us leave him: pass." It is evidently in- 
 tended that Caesar shall have a foible for supposing that 
 he can read off character from the faces of men : 
 
 "Tond Cassius has a lean and hungry look." 
 
 * These Unes are taken almost word for word from North's Plutarch. 
 Besides having read Plutarch, it seems probable that Shakspere was ac- 
 quainted with the translation of Appian, 1578, from which he probably ob- 
 tained the hints for his great speeches of Brutus and of Antony. 
 
The Roman Plays. 253 
 
 Caesar need not condescend to the ordinary ways of ob- 
 taining acquaintance with facts. Pie asks no question of 
 the soothsayer. He takes the royal road to knowledge — S/^ 
 intuition. This self-indulgence of his own foibles is, as 
 it were, symbolized by his physical infirmity, which he 
 admits in lordly fashion — "Come on my right hand, for 
 this ear is deaf." Caesar is entitled to own such a foible 
 as deafness ; it may pass well with Caesar. If men would 
 have him hear them, let them come to his right ear. 
 Meanwhile, things may be whispered which it were well 
 for him if he strained an ear — right or left — to catcli. In 
 Shakspere's rendering of the character of Caesar, which 
 has considerably bewildered his critics, one thought of 
 the poet would seem to be this — that unless a man con- 
 tinually keeps himself in relation with facts, and with his 
 present person and character, he may become to himself 
 legendary and mythical. The real man Caesar disappears 
 for himself under the greatness of the Caesar myth. He 
 forgets himself as he actually is, and knows only the vast 
 legendary power named Caesar. He is a numen to him- 
 self, speaking of Caesar in the third person, as if of some 
 power above and behind his consciousness. And at this 
 very moment — so ironical is the time-spirit — Cassius is 
 cruelly insisting to Brutus upon all those, infirmities 
 which prove this god no more than a pitiful mortal. 
 
 Julius Caesar appears in only three scenes of the play. 
 In the fi,rst scene of the third act he dies. Where he does / 
 appear, the poet seems anxious to insist upon the weakness v 
 rather than the strength of Caesar. He swoons when the 
 crown is offered to him, and upon his recovery enacts a 
 piece of stagy heroism ; he suffers from the falling-sick- 
 , ness ; he is deaf ; his body does not retain its early vigor. 
 He is subject to the vain hopes and vain alarms of super- 
 stition. His manner of speech is pompous and arrogant ; 
 he accepts flattery as a right ; he vacillates, while profess- 
 
254 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ing unalterable constancy; lie has lost in part liis gift of 
 perceiving facts, and of dealing eflBciently with men and 
 with events. Why is this ? And why is the play, not- 
 withstanding, "Julius Caesar?" Why did Shakspere de- 
 cide to represent in such a light the chief man of the Ko- 
 man world ? Passages in other plays prove that Shak- 
 spere had not really misconceived " the mightiest Julius," 
 " broad-fronted Caesar," the conqueror over whom " death 
 makes no conquest." * " The poet," writes Gervinus, " if 
 he intended to make the attempt of the republicans his 
 main theme, could not have ventured to create too great 
 an interest in Caesar ; it was necessary to keep him in the 
 background, and to present that mew of him which gave a 
 reason for the conspiracy. According even to Plutarch, 
 . . . Caesar's character altered much for the worse shortly 
 before his death, and Shakspere has represented him ac- 
 cording to this suggestion." f Mr. Hudson offers a some- 
 what similar explanation : " I have sometimes thought 
 that the policy of the drama may have been to represent 
 Caesar not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared 
 to the conspirators ; to make us see him as they saw him, 
 in order that they, too, might have fair and equal judg- 
 ment at our hands. For Caesar was literally too great to 
 be seen by them, save as children often see bugbears by 
 moonlight, when their inexperienced eyes are mocked 
 with air." And Mr. Hudson believes that he can detect 
 a "refined and subtle irony" diffusing itself through 
 the texture of the play ; that Brutus, a shallow idealist, 
 should outshine the greatest practical genius the world 
 ever saw, can have no other than an ironical significance. 
 Neither Gervinus nor Mr. Hudson has solved the dif- 
 ficulty. Julius Caesar is indeed protagonist of the trag- 
 
 * Samlet, act i., sc. 1 ; Antony and Cleopatra, act L, sc. 6 ; King Richard 
 III., act iii., sc. 1. 
 f Gervinus, "Shakespeare Commentaries" (1863), vol. ii., p. 860. 
 
The Roman Plays. 255 
 
 edy ; but it is not the Cassar whose bodily presence is 
 weak, whose mind is declining in strength and sure-footed 
 energy, the Csesar who stands exposed to all the accidents 
 of fortune. This bodily presence of Oeesar is but of sec- 
 ondary importance, and may be supplied when it actually 
 passes away, by Octavius as its substitute. It is the spirit \J 
 of Csesar which is the dominant power of the tragedy ; 
 against this — the spirit of Csesar — Brutus fought; but 
 Brutus, who forever errs in practical politics, succeeded 
 only in striking down Csesar's body ; he who had been 
 weak now rises as pure spirit, strong and terrible, and 
 avenges himself upon the conspirators. The contrast be- 
 tween the weakness of Csesar's bodily presence in the 
 first half of the play, and the might of his spiritual pres- 
 ence in the latter half of the play, is emphasized, and per- 
 haps over-emphasized, by Shakspere. It was the error of 
 Brutus that he failed to perceive wherein lay the true 
 Csesarean power, and acted with short-sighted eagerness 
 and violence. Mark Antony, over the dead body of his 
 lord, announces what is to follow : 
 
 " Over thy wounds now do I prophesy — 
 
 A curse shall light upon the limbs of men ; 
 Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
 Shall cumber all the parts of Italy ; 
 
 And Csesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 
 With Ate by his side come hot from hell, 
 Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 
 Cry ' Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." 
 
 The ghost of Csesar (designated by Plutarch only the 
 " evil spirit " of Brutus), which appears oti the night be- 
 fore the battle of Philippi, serves as a kind of visible 
 symbol of the vast posthumous power of the dictator. 
 Cassius dies with the words — 
 
256 * Shakspere^^His Mind and Art. 
 
 " Caesar, thou art revenged. 
 Even with the sword that killed thee." 
 
 Brutus, when he looks upon the dead face of his brother, 
 exclaims, 
 
 " Julius Csesar, thou art mighty yet ! 
 Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
 In our own proper entrails." 
 
 Filially, the little effort of the aristocrat republicans sinks 
 
 to the ground, foiled and crushed by the force which they 
 
 had hoped to abolish with one violent blow. Brutus 
 
 dies: 
 
 " CiEsar, now be still : 
 I kill'd not thee with half so good a will." 
 
 Brutus dies ; and Octavius lives to reap the fruit whose 
 seed liad been sown by his great predecessor. With 
 strict propriety, therefore, the play bears the name of 
 Julius CcBsar.* 
 
 Brutus has seen Antony going to the course where he 
 is to run with others. The feast of Lupercal, in honor of 
 the god Pan, is being celebrated, and Antony is present 
 as chief of one of the companies of priests. The Stoic 
 Brutus looks upon all this as an offence. He despises 
 Antony, because Antony is "gamesome," and he loves 
 the dignified gravity of his own character : 
 
 " Cos. Will you go see the order of the course ? 
 
 B)-u. Not I. 
 
 Ca». I pray you, do. 
 
 Bra. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part 
 Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
 Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires ; 
 I'll leave you." 
 
 * I am in great part indebted for this explanation of the difficulty to the 
 article " Die dramatische Einheit im Julius Cassar," by Dr. Albert Lindner • 
 in the Jahrhich der deutsehen Shakespeare -Geaellschaft, vol. ii., pp. 90-95. 
 Dr. Lindner fails, however, to bring out the relation of Shakspere's concep. 
 tion of Caesar in this play to the character and act of Brutus. 
 
The Roman Plays. - 257 
 
 Antony is a man of genius without moral fibre ; a nat- 
 ure of a rich, sensitive, pleasure-loving kind ; the prey of 
 good impulses and of bad ; looking on life as a gkme, in 
 which he has a distinguished part to play, and playing 
 that part with magnificent grace and skill. He is capa- 
 ble of personal devotion (though not of devotion to an 
 idea), and has, indeed, a gift for subordination — subordi- 
 nation to a Julius Caesar, to a Cleopatra. And as he has 
 enthusiasm about great personalities, so he has a con- 
 tempt for ineflBciency and ineptitude. Eepidus is to liim 
 " a slight, unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errands," 
 one that is to be talked of not as a person, but as a prop- 
 erty. Antony possesses no constancy of self-esteem ; he 
 can drop quickly out of favor with himself ; and being 
 without reverence for his own type of character, and be- 
 ing endowed with a fine versatility of perception and 
 feeling, he can admire qualities the most remote frbtti 
 his own. It is Antony who utters the ^ge over the 
 body of Brutus at Philippi. Antony is not without an 
 sesthetic sense and imagiriation, though of a somewhat 
 nnspiritual kind: he does not judge men by a severe 
 moral code, btit he feels in an aesthetic way the grace, 
 the splendor, the piteous interest of the actors in the ex- 
 citing drama of life, or'their impertinence, ineptitude, and 
 comicality ; and he feels that the play is poorer by the 
 loss of so noble a figure as that of a Brutus. But Bru- 
 tus, over whom his ideals dominate, and who is blind to 
 facts which are not in harmony with his theory of the 
 universe, is quite unable to perceive the power for good 
 or for evil that is lodged in Antony, and there is in the 
 great figure of Antony nothing which can engage or in- 
 terest his imagination ; for Brutus's view of life is not 
 imaginative or pictorial or dramatic, but wholly ethical. 
 The fact that Antony abandons himself to pleasure, is 
 "gamesome," reduces him in the eyes of Brutus to a very 
 
258 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ordinary person — one who is silly or stupid enongli not 
 to recognize the first principle of human conduct, the 
 need of self-mastery ; one against whom the laws of the 
 world must fight, and who is therefore of no importance. 
 And Brutus was right with respect to the ultimate issues 
 for Antony. Sooner or later Antony must fall to ruin. 
 But before the moral defect in Antony's nature destroyed 
 his fortune, much was to happen. Before Actium might 
 come Philippi. 
 
 The procession passes on ; Caesar and Antony are out 
 of sight; Brutus and Cassius are left alone. Cassius 
 complains of want of warmth and gentleness in the bear- 
 ing of Brutus towards him of late. The manner of self- 
 restraint habitual to Brutus is noticeable, his grave cour- 
 tesy and desire for a sincere explanation and vindication 
 of himself. Cassius now endeavors to gain over Brutus 
 to the conspiracy, avoiding any suggestion of an interest- 
 ed motive, but holding up, as it were, a mirror in which 
 Brutus may see himself reflected, and thence infer what 
 lofty achievement is expected by Eome from one so no- 
 ble. As his own credentials Cassius puts forward his 
 freedom from those vices which Brutus most contemns, 
 as if there were no dangers from the man whose life is 
 not lax, ostentatious, and self-indulgent: 
 
 "And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus. 
 Were I a common laugher, or did use 
 To stale with ordinary oaths my love 
 To every new protester ; if you know 
 That I do fawn on men and hug them hard 
 And after scandal them, or if you know 
 That I profess myself in banqueting 
 To all the rout, then hold me dangerous." 
 
 It is noteworthy that while Cassius thus plays with 
 Brutus and secures him, almost using him as his tool lie 
 is fully conscious of the superiority of Brutus. The very 
 weaknesses of Brutus come from the nobility of his nat- 
 
The Roman Plays. 259 
 
 ure. He cannot credit or conceive the base facts of life. 
 He has no instrument by which to gauge the littleness ^ 
 of little souls. 
 
 The last scene of the first act brings us to the tem- 
 pestuous night of prodigies which preceded the death of 
 Julius Csesar. Casca appears with the superficial garb 
 of cynicism dropped. Does Shakspere in this play mean 
 to signify to us unobtrusively that the philosophical creed 
 which a man professes grows out of his character and 
 circumstances as far as it is really a portion of his own 
 being ; and that as far as it is received by the intellect in 
 the calm of life from teachers and schools, such a philo- 
 sophical creed does not adhere very closely to the soul of 
 a man, and may, upon the pressure of events or of pas- 
 sions, be cast aside ? The Epicurean Cassius is shaken 
 out of his philosophical scepticism by the portents which 
 appeared upon the march to Philippi : 
 
 " Tou know that I held Epicurus strong, 
 And his opinion ; now I change my mind, 
 And partly credit things that do presage." 
 
 The Stoic Brutus, who, by the rules of his philosophy, 
 blamed Oato for a self-infiicted death, runs upon his ownV 
 sword and dies. The dramatic self-consistency of the 
 characters created by certain writers is to be noticed. We 
 must notice in the case of Shakspere, as a piece of higher 
 art, the dramatic inconsistency of his characters. In 
 the preceding scene, describing in his cynical mood the 
 ceremony at which an offer of the crown was made to 
 Csesar, Casca utters himself in prose ; here Shakspere 
 puts verse into his mouth. " Did Cicero say anything?" 
 Cassius inquired in the preceding conversation, and Casca 
 answered, with curt scorn, " Ay, he spoke Greek." But 
 now, so moved out of himself is Casca by the portents of 
 the night that he enlarges himself and grows effusive to 
 
26o Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 this very Cicero, the recollection of whom he had dis- 
 missed with such impatient contempt. 
 
 Cicero passes along the streets perceiving no more 
 than a storm from which it is prudent that an old man 
 should he housed. His spirit is insulated by a thin, non- 
 conducting web of scepticism and intellectuality from 
 the electric atmosphere of the time. This electric atmo- 
 sphere plays through every nerve of Cassius. His energy 
 of brain and limb is stimulated and intensified until it 
 needs to relieve itself in movement. It is to him a night 
 of high-strung delight. Besides, Cassius has much work 
 to do, and the tempest suits his purposes : 
 
 " For my part, I have walk'd about the streets, 
 Submitting me unto the perilous night ; 
 And thus, unbraced, Casca, as you see, 
 Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone : 
 And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open 
 The breast of heaven, I did present myself 
 Even in the aim and very flash of it." 
 
 Brutus is in his orchard alone. He has stolen away from 
 Portia. He is seeking to master himself in solitude, and \ 
 bring under the subjection of a clear idea and a definite ) 
 resolve the tumultuary powers of his nature, which have 
 been roused and thrown into disorder by the suggestions 
 of Cassius. In the soliloquy of Brutus, after he has been 
 left alone, will be found an excellent example of the pe- 
 culiar brooding or dwelling style which Shakspere ap- 
 propriated at this period to the soliloquies of men. The 
 soliloquies of his women are conceived in a different 
 manner. Of this speech Coleridge has said, " I do not at 
 present see into Shakspelfe's motive, his rationale, or in 
 what point of view he meant Brutus's character to ap- 
 pear." Shakspere's motive is not far to seek. He wishes \ 
 to show upon what grounds the political idealist acts. \ 
 Brutus resolves that Caesar shall die by his hand as the 
 
The Roman Plays, 261 
 
 conclusion of a series of hypotheses. There is, as it were, 
 a sorites of abstract principles abont ambition and power, 
 and reason and affection ; finally, a profound suspicion of 
 Caesar is engendered, -and his death is decreed. It is 
 idealists who create a political terror ; they are free from 
 all desire for blood-shedding; but to them the lives of v 
 men and women are accidents; the lives of ideas are ) 
 the true realities; and, armed with an abstract principle 
 and a suspicion, they perform deeds Vhich are at once 
 beautiful and hideous : 
 
 " 'Tis a common proof 
 That lowliness is young Ambition's ladder, 
 Whereto the climber-upward turns his face ; 
 But when he once attains the utmost round, 
 He then unto the ladder turns his back, 
 Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
 Bywhich he did ascend: so Caesar may; 
 Then, lest he may, prevent !" 
 
 The written instigations which Cassius has caused to 
 be thrown in at Brutus's window add the final confirma- 
 tion to his resolve ; and at this moment the conspirators 
 enter. While Brutus and Cassius converse apart, and 
 the others are turned in the direction of the east, the first 
 gray lines of morning begin doubtfully to fi'et the clouds. 
 Naturefwith her ministries of. twilight and day-dawn, 
 suffers no interruption of her calm, beneficent operancy, 
 and, after tempest, another morning is broadening for 
 all Eome. Casca points his sword towards the Capitol, 
 and at the same moment the sun arises. " Is there not," 
 asks Mr. Craik, "some allusion, which the look and tone 
 of the speaker might express more plearly than his words, 
 to the great act about to be performed in the Capitol, 
 and the change, as of a new day, that M'as expected to 
 follow it?" Observe how strongly Shakspere marks 
 the passage of time up to the moment of Caesar's death ; 
 
262 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 night, dawn, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, that our sus- 
 pense may be heightened, and our interest kept upon the 
 strain. 
 
 It is characteristic of Brutus that he will allow no oath 
 to be taken by the conspiratoi-s. He who has been all 
 his life cultivating reliance on the will, apart from exter- 
 nal props, cannot now fall back for support upon the 
 objective bond of a vow or pledge. Their entei-prise 
 looks more clear and beautiful in the light of its own 
 courage and justice than when associated with a vulgar 
 formula of words : 
 
 " Do not stain 
 The even virtue of our enterprise, 
 Nor the insuppresaive mettle of our spirits, 
 To think that or our cause or our performance 
 Did need an oath." 
 
 Cassius now proposes to bring Cicero into the plot; 
 Casca, Cinna, and Metellus Cimber warmly concur. 
 Brutus objects (and it is to be noticed that Shakspere 
 did not obtain from Plutarch this fine trait) : 
 
 " 0, name him not ; let us not break with him ; 
 For he will never follow anything 
 Thai oilier men hegin." 
 
 And, by mere force of his moral authority, Brutus carries 
 his point. So, again, with the next matter under discus- 
 sion. Cassius, estimating the importance of Antony, just- 
 ly urges that Antony should perish with Caesar. But 
 Brutus again objects. The political Girondin is not war- 
 ring against men, but against ideas : 
 
 "Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. 
 We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar; 
 And in the spirit of men there is no blood." 
 
 Besides, apart from Caesar, Antony can do nothing. Is 
 lie not given "to sports, to wildness, and much com- 
 pany," and, therefore, an insignificant person ? A short- 
 
The Roman Plays. 263 
 
 sighted idealism ! Yet it was better that Bmtus should 
 die with foiled purpose at Philippi than that he should 
 sully the brightness of his virtue by the stahi of what 
 seemed to him needless blood-shedding. Like the Gi- 
 rondin that he is, Brutus trusts to moral forces and ideas, 
 which operate in the real world in a large incalculable 
 way, unlike that allowed for in any of our idealistic 
 schemes of the world. While committing an act of vio- 
 lence against constituted authority, Brutus fails to per- 
 ceive the necessary consequences of that act. Cassius, 
 who with Caesar would have stabbed Antony, might have 
 served his cause better than did Brutus. The gift with 
 which Brutus enriched the world was the gift of himself, 
 a soul of incorruptible virtue. 
 
 As the conspirators depart, Brutus, who is not fashion- 
 ed for conspiracy, bids them look fresh and merrily, 
 
 "And bear it as our Eoman actors do, 
 With untired spirits and formal constancy." 
 
 How ill Brutus can conceal his inward trouble appears 
 from what immediately follows. Portia enters. The 
 strange behavior and distraught aspect of Brutus have 
 roused her tenderest wifely anxieties. 'Ko relation of 
 man and woman in the plays of Shakspei^e is altogeth- 
 er so noble as that of Portia and Brutus. The love of 
 Brutus could not be given except with admiration equal 
 to his love. He could not separate a public life of ac- 
 tion from his life of the home, ov sink down upon mild 
 domestic comfort, some "gracious silence" like theVir- 
 gilia of Coriolanus. His love must be strenuous, like 
 every other part of his character, and must constantly 
 infuse vigor and ardor into his life. Portia, while per- 
 fectly a woman, must be to him more than a woman ; 
 she must be /an ideal of august and adorable heroism. 
 Portia, Cato's daughter, Brutus's wife, is a Stoic, like her 
 
264 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 husband. To test her constancy, she had inflicted upon 
 herself a wound in the thigh — the will dealing hardly 
 with the body, the idea daring to transform itself with 
 eaeerness and keen conviction into the act. We read of 
 no embrace, no toucli of hands or lips, between Brntus 
 and Portia ; but we know that their souls have met, that 
 they are inseparably one, and absolutely equal. Juliet, 
 heroic nature though hers be, is but a passionate girl by 
 the side of this perfect woman. And the nobility of 
 Portia makes the love of Brutus for her almost a re- 
 ligion : 
 
 " ye gods, 
 
 Render me worthy of this noble wife !" 
 
 He had thought not to burden her with the secret of the 
 conspiracy ; the sense of something concealed has made 
 his manner towards her constrained. Now, as an equal, 
 she demands her right, she pleads for her happiness of 
 sharing all that concerns her husband. She will not be 
 put ofi with kind evasions ; she presses forward to know 
 the formidable truth ; and pleads upon her knees before 
 the husband whom she venerates even as he venerates 
 her: 
 
 " Upon my kneea 
 I charm you, by my once commended beauty, 
 By all your vowa of love, and that great vow 
 Which did incorporate and make us one. 
 That you unfold to me,' your self, your half. 
 Why you are heavy." , 
 
 And Brutus grants her the share in his enterprise to 
 which she is entitled. 
 
 With this scene may be compared and contrasted the 
 scene in the first part of ^ing Henry IV. (act ii., sc. 3), 
 in which Lady Percy, alarmed by the evidences of excite- 
 ment which her husband cannot conceal, but of which he 
 will not render an account, persecutes him with loving 
 importunity to disclose his secret. Lady Percy loves 
 
The Roman Plays. 265 
 
 Hotspur as a loyal wife ; but she has no serious confi- 
 dence in her own influence with her gallant madcap 
 Harry; and, while playfully insisting on her demands, 
 she expects a refusal. 
 
 " Come, come, you paraquito, answer me 
 Directly unto this question that I ask ; 
 In faitli I'll break thy little finger, Harry, 
 An if thou wilt not tell me all things true." 
 
 Hotspur, through his seeming recklessness, has in real- 
 ity a genuine manly tenderness for his wife ; he is troub- 
 led by her importunities, and anxious to escape from 
 them ; but he is not going to be so weak as to betray his 
 secret to a woman : 
 
 " Whither I must, I must ; and, to conclude. 
 This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. 
 I know you wise, but yet no farther wise 
 Than Harry Percy's wife ; constant you are. 
 But yet a woman ; and for secrecy 
 No lady closer ; for I will believe 
 Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know ; 
 And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate. 
 
 Zady. How ! so far ? 
 
 Hot. Not an inch further." 
 
 And then comes the explanation of his apparent rough- 
 
 "^®^ ■ " But hark you, Kate ; 
 
 Whither I go, thither shall you go too ; 
 To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you. 
 Will this content you, Kate ? 
 
 Lady. It must of force." 
 
 The relation of husband and wife as conceived in the his- 
 torical plays differs throughout from that relation as con- 
 ceived in the tragedies. 
 
 In the fourth scene we again meet Portia. Brutus 
 has gone forth to bring Caesar to the Capitol. Portia is 
 standing without the door of her house, straining her ear 
 to catch any sound the wind may bear from that direc- 
 tion. " Think you," asked Portia, in the preceding scene, 
 
 12 
 
266 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 "I am no stronger than my sexl" Now she discovers 
 her womanhood : 
 
 " constancy, be strong upon my side, 
 
 Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue ! 
 
 I have a man's mind, but a woman's might." 
 
 She is one strung nerve of suspense and anxiety. She is 
 uncontrollably eager (for this stoical woman is of an or- 
 ganization as far as possible removed from the phlegmat- 
 ic) ; yet when the soothsayer speaks, adding to her anxi- 
 ety as to the event the apprehension that the plot has 
 been discovered, she for the time controls herself, and 
 appears calm. When he is gone, she can endure no 
 
 ° ■ "I must go in. Ay me, how « eak a thing 
 
 The heart of woman is !" 
 
 Such a woman as Poi"tia pays a terrible tax for her self- 
 mastery. The chief payment of effusive tears and hyster- 
 ical cries she cannot render as her tribute to the tyran- 
 nous powers. When tears escape her, each one is distilled 
 from an intense agony. And because she yields less than 
 /Others, she may snap the more suddenly. "It is the 
 1 strongest hearts," said Landor, "that are the soonest 
 \broken." Had Portia been less her husband's equal, less 
 absolutely one with him in his aims and endeavors, she 
 might have lived. Her death, like her life, excludes all 
 common grief and joy ; the pain is a pain which makes 
 us stronger ; the joy is stricter than duty, and of higher 
 power to constrain to all that is excellent. Shakspere, 
 with fine judgment, has allowed us to see Portia seldom 
 in the play ; otherwise an interest alien from that which 
 he intended might have grown predominant.* 
 
 * Mr. Hudson (" Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., p. 
 239) notices a touching incident from Plutarch respecting Portia which 
 Shakspere did not use. At the parting of Portia from Brutus in the sea- 
 side city of Elea, she tried to dissemble her sorrow. " But a certain paint- 
 
The Roman Plays. 267 
 
 .<r - 
 
 Upon the death of Caesar, Cassius parts the crowd and 
 delivers an oration. This speech of Cassius Shakspere 
 has not recorded for us. "We may be tsertain that it was 
 fiery, triumphant, and effective ; we may be certain tliat 
 he did not, like Brutus, make studious effort to exclude 
 all appeal to passion. It is characteristic of the idealist 
 that he should treat the Eoman crowd — that sensitive, va- 
 riable, irrational mass — as if it must not be indulged in 
 any manner of persuasion except a calm appeal to reason, 
 and the presentation of an ideal of Justice. He begins 
 with a vindication of his own conduct, an apology for 
 Brutus. His manner is deliberate and constrained until 
 he passes from self-defence to a direct appeal to his coun- 
 trymen's patriotism and love of freedom ; and it is no- 
 ticeable that at this point his speech, which began as 
 prose, if not actually verse, hovers on the brink of verse. 
 But Brutus, who is utterly unable to calculate the com- 
 position of concrete forces, commits a yet graver error. 
 When Antony, after the assassination, comes into the 
 presence of the leaders of the conspiracy, Brutus address- 
 es him also with a speech of explanation, an apologia. 
 Cassius, who at their private conclave had urged Mark 
 Antony's death, now comes forward with a brief and ef- 
 fective appeal to Antony's interests : 
 
 " Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
 In the disposing of new dignities." 
 
 Antony begs to be allowed to speak at Caesar's funeral. 
 In the joy of having achieved an eminent deed which, 
 though it look savage, was indeed merciful, and for which 
 
 iug bewrayed her in the end. The device was taken out of the Greek stories 
 how Andromache accompanied her husband, Hector, when he went out of Troy 
 to the wars, and how Hector delivered her his little son, and how her eyes 
 were never off him. Portia, seeing this picture, and hkening herself to be 
 in the same case, fell a-weeping; and coming thither oftentimes in a day to 
 see it, she wept still." 
 
268 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 he can render ample " reasons " — Brutus is well pleased 
 to act generously to a partisan of Caesar, and gives con- 
 sent. Cassius is still urgent to have the future rela- 
 tion of Antony to the conspirators determined and made 
 clear : 
 
 " Will you be prick'd in number of our friends ; 
 Or shall we on, and not depend on you ?" 
 
 Upon hearing Brutus give consent to Antony's request, 
 Cassius interposes : 
 
 " Brutus, a word with you. 
 You know not what you do ; do not consent 
 That Antony speak in his funeral." 
 
 But Brutus replies that he will himself go first into the 
 pulpit, "And show the reason of our Csesar's death." 
 Show the reason ! After which, doubtless, appeal to the 
 passions of a Eoman crowd must be ineffectual. But in 
 reality the speech of Brutus is unable to rouse any en- 
 thusiasm among his hearers for Liberty or an ideal of 
 Justice. The people require a Caesar ; and if their former 
 lord be dead, then they will have Brutus himself for their 
 new lord. 
 
 " 1 at. Bring him in triumph home unto his house. 
 2 Cii. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 
 S Cii. Let him be Cajsar." 
 
 This is not the mood in which the citizens can offer re- 
 sistance to the appeals of Antony. The political idealist 
 adds another to his series of fatal miscalculations.* 
 
 * Mr. Hudson notices that " Plutarch has a short passage which served as 
 a hint, not indeed of the matter, but for the style, of that speech -[of Brutus]. 
 ' They do note,' says he, ' that in some of his epistles he counterfeited that 
 brief compendious manner of the Lacedajmonians. As, when the war was 
 begun, he wrote to the Pergamenians in this sort : " I understand you have 
 given Dolabella money: if you have done it willingly, you confess you have 
 offended me; if against your wills, show it by giving me willingly." This 
 was Brutus's manner of letters, which were honored for their briefness ' " 
 (" Shakespeare : his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., pp. 234, 236). This 
 
The Roman Plays', 269 
 
 The second scene of the foiii'th act was already cele- 
 brated in Shakspere's own day. Leonard Digges records 
 its popularity. It was imitated by Beaumont and Fletch- 
 er in The MaiWs Tragedy, and afterwards by Dryden 
 in All for Love. "I know no part of Shakspeare," 
 Coleridge wrote, " that more impressfes on me the belief 
 of his genius being superhumjin than this scene between 
 Brutus and Cassius." Brutus has alienated his friend by 
 uncompromising adherence to his own ideal standard of 
 purity ; he has condemned Lucius Pella for taking bribes, 
 although Cassius had written in his behalf. Brutus loves 
 virtue and despises gold ; but in the logic of faqjs there 
 is an irony cruel or pathetic. Brutus^ maintains a lofty 
 position of immaculate honor above Cassius ; but ideals, 
 and an heroic contempt for gold, will not fill the military 
 coffer or pay the legions, and the poetry of noble senti- 
 ment suddenly drops down to the prosaic complaint that 
 Cassius had denied the demands made by Bru^is for cer- 
 tain sums of money,* Nor is Bratns, though he worship 
 an ideal of Justice, quite just in matters of concrete prac- 
 tical detail. 
 
 " Cos. I denied you noti 
 
 Brii. You did. 
 
 Cos. I did not ; he was but a fool 
 
 That brought ray answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart ; 
 A friend should bear his friend's infinnities, 
 But Brutus makes mine greater than they are." 
 
 peculiarity of style is not confined to Brutus's address to the people. It ap- 
 pears, for example, in his final and deliberate reply to Cassius, act i., sc. 2 : 
 " That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
 What you would work me to, I have some aim ; 
 
 What you have said 
 I will consider ; what you have to say 
 I will with patience hear." 
 * Kreyssig, " Vorlesungen iiber Shakespeare " (ed. 1874), vol. i., p. 424. 
 
2 70 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Each is naturally and inevitably aggrieved with the 
 other ; one from the practical, the other from the ideal, 
 standpoint. Shakspere, in his infinite pity for human 
 error and frailty, makes us love Brutus and Cassius the 
 better through the little v^rongs which bring the great 
 wealth of their love and true fraternity to light. Brutus 
 calls for a bowl of wine in which to pledge their recon- 
 ciliation. Then when their hearts are tenderest comes 
 the confession of the sorrow which Brutus could not ut- 
 ter as long as a shadow lay between his soul and his 
 friend's : 
 
 , " Cos. I did not think you could have been so angry. 
 
 Bra. Cassius, I am sick of many griefs. 
 
 Cos. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 If you give place to accidental evils. 
 
 Bm. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead." 
 
 But Brutus is sustained by the spirit of Portia. To live 
 in her spirit of Stoicism becomes now the highest act of 
 religion to her memory. 
 
 " Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine; 
 In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius." 
 
 The armed men talking so gravely, before the great day 
 which is to decide the fate of the world, of the "insup- 
 portable and touching loss" make us know what this 
 woman was. Profound emotion, Shakspere -was aware, 
 can express itself quietly and with reserve. The noisy 
 demonstration of grief over the supposed dead Juliet is 
 the extravagant abandonment to sorrow, partly real and 
 partly formal, of hearts which were little sensitive, and 
 which had little concerned themselves about the joy or 
 misery of Juliet living. Laertes' rant in the grave of 
 Ophelia is reproved by the more violent hyperbole of 
 Hamlet. Brutus will henceforth be silent and possess 
 
 his soul : 
 
 " Cast. Portia, thou art gone. 
 Bra. No more, I pray you." 
 
f 
 
 The Roman Plays. 271 
 
 The remainder of the life of Brutus is a sad, sustained 
 devotion to his cause. 
 
 And now once moi-e he helps to ruin that cause. Cas- 
 sius, with good reason, urges that the army should not 
 dvanee upon Philippi ; Brutus is in favor of advancing. 
 Cassius, as always, is in the right ; Brutus, as always, car- 
 ries his point. Night has crept upon their talt, and with 
 a profound reconciliation, with a sense of full and meas- 
 ureless fraternity, they part. The Eoman leader, now 
 that the great battle has drawn near, does not occupy 
 himself, like Henry Y. before the morning of Agineourt, 
 in moving from sentinel to sentinel with words of cheer. 
 He is in his tent, and the boy Lucius touches his instru- 
 ment, drowsily fingei'ing the strings.* Brutus, with his 
 beautiful freedom from the petty self-interests of daily 
 life, is gentle and considerate towards every one. The I 
 servants have lain down. Lucius drops away into the 
 irresistible sleep of boyhood. Brutus, who, at the call of 
 duty and honor, could plunge his dagger into Caesar, 
 cannot wake a sleeping boy. Shakspere had somehow 
 
 learned 
 
 " The derotion to something afar 
 From the sphere of our sorrow." 
 
 Brutus gently disengages the instrument from the hand 
 of Lucius, and continues his book where he had left it off 
 last night. There is nothing more tender in the plays 
 of Shakspere than this scene. The tenderness of a man 
 who is stern is the only tenderness which is wholly deli- 
 cate and refined. 
 In the battle at Philippi it is Brutus who, by his in- 
 
 * Brutus loves music ; but of Cassius, Csesar notes, " he hears no music." 
 Compare Merchani of Venice, act v., so. 1 : 
 
 " The man that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." 
 
272 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 considerate rashness and miscalcnlation of facts, insures 
 defeat. This is his last error. He is willing that Strato 
 should hold the sword while he falls upon it : 
 
 " Thou art a fellow of a good respect, 
 Thy life hath had some smatoh of honor in it ; 
 Hold then my sword." 
 
 Brutus must die by no ignoble hand. To the last mo- 
 ment he reveres himself. And the concluding words of 
 the play convey to us an assurance, which we require, 
 that his body shall suffer no wrong. 
 
 The life of Brutus, as the lives of such men must be, 
 was a good life, in spite of its disastrous fortunes. He 
 had found no man who was not true to him. And he 
 had known Portia. The idealist was predestined to fail- 
 tire in the positive world. But for him the true failure 
 would have been disloyalty to his ideals. Of such fail- 
 ure he suffered none. Octavius and Mark Antony re- 
 mained victors at Philippi. Yet the purest wreath of 
 victory rests on the forehead of the defeated conspirator. 
 
 II. 
 The transition from the Jvlius Caesar of Shakspere to 
 his Antony and GUopat/ra produces in us the change of 
 pulse and temper experienced in passing from a gallery 
 of antique sculpture to a room splendid with the colors 
 of Titian and Paul Veronese. In the characters of the 
 Julius CoBsar there is a severity of outline ; they impose 
 themselves with strict authority npon the imagination ; 
 subordinated to the great spirit of Caesar, the conspira- 
 tors appear as figures of life-size, but they impress ns as 
 no larger than life. The demand wliicli they make is 
 exact ; such and such tribute must be rendered by the 
 soul to each. The characters of the Antony and Cleo- 
 patra insinuate themselves through the senses, trouble 
 the blood, ensnare the imagination, invade our whole 
 
The Roman Plays. 273 
 
 being, like color or like music. The figures dilate to 
 proportions greater than human, and are seen through a 
 golden liaze of sensuous splendor. JuUus CoBsar and 
 Antony and Cleopatra are related as works of art rather 
 by points of contrast than by points of resemblance. In 
 the one an ideal of duty is dominant ; the other is a div- 
 inization of pleasure followed by the remorseless Nem- 
 esis of eternal law. Brutus, the Stoic, constant, loyal to 
 liis ideas, studious of moral perfection, bent upon gain- 
 ing self-mastery, unsullied and untarnished to the end, 
 stands over against Antony, swayed hither and thither 
 by appetites, interests, imagination, careless of his own 
 moral being, incapable of self-control, soiled with the 
 stains of passion and decay. And of Cleopatra what 
 shall be said ? Is she a creature of the same breed as 
 Cato's daughter, Portia ? Does the one word woman in- 
 clude natures so diverse ? Or is Cleopatra — Antony's 
 "serpent of old Nile" — no mortal woman, but Lilitb, 
 who ensnared Adam before the making of Eve ? Shak- 
 spere has made the one as truly woman as the other — 
 Portia, the ideal of moral loveliness, heroic and femi- 
 nine ; Cleopatra, the ideal of sensual attractiveness, femi- 
 nine also : 
 
 " A blisa in proof, and prbved, a very woe ; 
 Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream." * 
 
 We do not once see the lips of Brutus laid on Portia's 
 lips as seal of perfect union, but we know that their 
 beings and their lives had embraced in flawless confi- 
 dence and perfect mutual service. Antony, embracing 
 Cleopatra, exclaims, 
 
 " The nobleness of life 
 Is to do thus ; when such a mutual pair 
 And such a twain can do't, in which I bind, 
 On pain of punishment, the world to weet 
 We stand up peerless." 
 
 * Shakspere's Sonnets, cxxix. 
 12* 
 
2 74 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Yet tliis " mutual pair," made each to fill the body and 
 soul of the other with voluptuous delight, are made also 
 each for the other's torment. Antony is haunted by suspi- 
 cion that Cleopatra will betray him ; he believes it possible 
 that she could degrade herself to familiarity with Ceesar's 
 menials. And Cleopatra is aware that she must weave 
 her snares with endless variety, or Antony will escape. 
 
 The spirit of the play, though superficially it appear 
 voluptuous, is essentially severe. That is to say, Shak- 
 spere is faithful to the fact. The fascination exercised 
 by Cleopatra over Antony, and hardly less by Antony 
 over Cleopatra, is not so much that of the senses as of 
 the sensuous imagination. A third of the world is theirs. 
 They have left youth behind with its slight melodious 
 raptures and despairs. Theirs is the deeper intoxication 
 of middle age, when death lias become a reality ; when 
 the world is limited and positive ; when life is urged to 
 yield up quickly its utmost treasures of delight. What 
 may they not achieve of joy who have power and beauty, 
 and pomp and pleasure, all their own ? How shall they 
 fill every minute of their time with the quintessence of 
 enjoyment and of glory ? 
 
 " Let Eome in Tiber melt ! and the wide arch 
 Of the ranged empire fall ? here is my space." 
 
 Only (yne thing they had not allowed for — that over 
 and above power and beauty, and pleasure and pomp, 
 there is a certain inevitable fact — a law — which cannot 
 be evaded. Pleasure sits enthroned as queen ; there is 
 a revel, and the lords of the earth, crowned with roses, 
 dance before her to the sound of lascivious flutes. But 
 presently the scene changes ; the hall of revel is trans- 
 formed to an arena ; the dancers are armed gladiators ; 
 and as they advance to combat they pay the last homage 
 to their queen with the words Morituri te salutant. 
 
The Roman Plays. 275 
 
 ^ The pathos of Antony and Cleopatra resembles the 
 pathos of Macbeth. But Shakspere, like Dante, allows 
 tlie soul of the perjurer and murderer to drop into a 
 lower, blacker, and more lonely circle of Hell than the 
 sonl of the man who has sinned through voluptuous self- 
 indulgence. Yet none the less Antony is daily dropping 
 away farther from all that is sound, strong, and enduring. 
 His judgment wanes with his fortune. He challenges to 
 a combat with swords his clear-sighted and unimpassioned 
 rival, into whose hands the empire of the world is about 
 to fall. He abandons himself to a senseless exasperation : 
 
 " I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed, 
 And fight maliciously ; for when mine hours 
 Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives 
 Of me with jests ; but now I'll set ray teeth. 
 And send to darkness all that stop me." 
 
 He sees his fate closing in upon him ; he will sell his 
 life dearly ; and, meantime, like a man condemned to ex- 
 ecution upon the morrow, he will have one more night 
 
 of pleasure : 
 
 " Come, 
 Let's have one other gaudy night : call to me 
 All my sad captains ; fill our bowls once more ; 
 Let's mock the midnight bell. 
 CUo. It is my birthday." 
 
 But Antony's struggle after boisterous mirth proves a 
 piteous mockery. The banquet is a valediction ; the great 
 leader's followers are transformed to women ; Enobarbus 
 turns away "onion -eyed." Antony makes one rude ef- 
 fort to lift himself up above the damps and depression 
 which have fallen on his spirit ; one effort to fling aside 
 the consciousness of the failure of his life, which yet 
 clings to him : 
 
 " Ho, ho, ho ! 
 Now the witch take me, if I meant it thus ! 
 Grace grow where those drops fall ! My hearty friends. 
 Ton take me in too dolorous a sense ; 
 
276 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 For I spake to you for your comfort ; did desire you 
 To burn this night with torches : know, my hearts, 
 I hope well of to-morrow ; and will lead you 
 Where rather I'll expect Tictorious life 
 Than death and honor. Let's to supper, come, 
 And drown consideration." 
 
 Hercules, the generous wielder of strength, whom An- 
 tony loved, is departing from him ; music heard at mid- 
 night by the sentinels warn them of the withdrawal of 
 the favor of the divinity. Experience, manhood, honor, 
 more and more violate themselves in Antony. Cleopa- 
 tra's ship turns the rudder and flies from the sea-fight. 
 Antony, regardless of fortnno and of shame, 
 
 " Claps on the sea-wing and, like a doting mallard. 
 Leaving the fight in height, flies after her." 
 
 He is, indeed, the ruin of Cleopatra's magic ; yet he is 
 a lordly arid eminent ruin ; and before all sinks in black- 
 ness and ashes there is a last leaping-up of tlie flame of liis 
 fortune, by which we see the figure of Antony, still ma- 
 jestic, pathetically illuminated by a glory that passes away. 
 He is made glad with one hour's victory. Though de- 
 serted by Enobarbus, Scaras has been faithful, and is at 
 his side, red from honorable wounds : 
 
 " Give me thy hand ; 
 [Enter Cleopatra, attended^] 
 To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts. 
 
 Make her thanks bless thee. — [To Cleo.'] thou day o' the world. 
 Chain mine arm'd neck ; leap thou, attire and all. 
 Through proof of harness to my heart, and there 
 Ride on the pants triumphing ! 
 
 Cleo. Lord of lords ! 
 
 infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from 
 The world's great snare uneaught? 
 
 Ant. My nightingale, 
 
 We have beat them to their beds. What, ^rl ! though gray 
 Do something mingle with our younger brown, 
 Tet ha' we a brain that nourishes our nerves. 
 And can get goal for goal of youth." 
 
The Roman Plays. 277 
 
 Measure things only by the sensnous imagination, and 
 everything in the world of Oriental voluptuousness, in 
 which Antony lies bewitched, is great. The passion and 
 the pleasure of the Egyptian queen and of her para- 
 mour toil after the infinite. The Herculean strength of 
 Antony, the grandeur and prodigal power of his nature, 
 inflate and buoy up the imagination of Cleopatra: 
 
 " The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm 
 And burgonet of men." 
 
 While he is absent, Cleopatra would, if it were possible, 
 annihilate time — 
 
 " Cliaiinian. Why, madam ? 
 
 Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time. 
 My Antony is away." 
 
 When Antony dies, the only eminent thing in the earth 
 is gone, and a universal flatness, an equality of insignifi- 
 cances, remains : 
 
 " Young boys and girls 
 Are level now with men ; the odds Is gone. 
 And there is nothing left remarkable 
 Beneath the visiting moon." 
 
 We do not mistake this feeling of Cleopatra towards 
 Antony for love ; but he has been for her ( who had 
 known Osesar and Pompey) the supreme sensation. She 
 is neither faithful to him nor faithless ; in her complex 
 nature, beneath each fold or layer of sincerity lies one of 
 insincerity, and we cannot tell which is the last and in- 
 nermost. Her imagination is stimulated and nourished 
 by Antony's presence. And he, in his turn, finds in the 
 beauty and witchcraft of the Egyptian something no less 
 incommensurable and incomprehensible. Yet no one 
 felt more profoundly than Shakspere — as his Sonnets 
 abundantly testify — that the glory of strength and of 
 beauty is subject to limit and to time. What he would 
 seem to say to us in this play, not in the manner of a 
 
2 78 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 doctrinaire or a moralist, but wholly as an artist, is that 
 this sensuous infinite is but a dream, a deceit, a snare. 
 The miserable change comes upon Antony. The re- 
 morseless practice of Cleopatra upon bis heart has done 
 him to death. And among things which the barren 
 world offers to the Queen she now finds death — a pain- 
 less death — the least hateful. Shakspere, in his high im- 
 partiality to fact, denies none of the glory of the lust of 
 the eye and the pride of life. He compels us to ac- 
 knowledge these to the utmost. But he adds that there 
 is another demonstrable fact of the world which tests the 
 visible pomp of the earth, and the splendor of sensuous 
 passion, and finds them wanting. The glory of the royal 
 festival is not dulled by Shakspere or diminished; but, 
 also, he shows us, in letters of flame, the handwriting upon 
 the wall. 
 
 This Shakspere effects, however, not merely or chiefly 
 by means of a catastrophe. He does not deal in precepts 
 or moral reflections, or practical applications. He is an 
 artist, but an artist who grasps truth largely. The ethr 
 ical truth lives and breathes in every part of his work as 
 artist, no less than the truth to things sensible and pre- 
 sentable to the imagination. At every moment in this 
 play we assist at a catastrophe — the decline of a lordly 
 nature. At every moment we are necessarily aware of 
 the gross, the mean, the disorderly womanhood in Cleo- 
 patra, no less than of the witchery and wonder which ex- 
 cite and charm and subdue. We see her a dissembler, 
 a termagant, a coward ; and yet " vilest things become 
 her." The presence of a spirit of life in Cleopatra, 
 quick, shifting, multitudinous, incalculable, fascinates the 
 eye, and would, if it could, lull the moral sense to sleep, 
 as the sea does with its endless snake-like motions in the 
 sun and shade. She is a wonder of the world, which we 
 would travel far to look upon. Enobarbus, while con- 
 
The Roman Plays. 279 
 
 temptuously irouical, and looking through her manifest 
 practice upon Mark Antony with perfect clearness of vis- 
 ion, admits also that she repays the cost of inspection. 
 
 " Ant. She is cunuing past man's thought. 
 
 Eno. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part 
 of pure love; we cannot caU her winds and waters, sighs and tears ; they 
 are greater storms and tempests than almanaoe can report ; this cannot be 
 cunning in her— if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. 
 
 Ant. Would I had never seen her ! 
 
 Mio. 0, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work ; which 
 not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel." 
 
 "Great crimes, springing from high passions, grafted on 
 high qualities, are the legitimate source of tragic poetry. 
 But to make the extreme of littleness produce an effect 
 like grandeur— to make the excess of frailty produce an 
 effect like power— to heap up together all that is most 
 unsubstantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, and variable, 
 till the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a 
 sense of the sublime spring from the very elements of 
 littleness — to do this belonged only to Shakspere, that 
 worker of miracles. Cleopatra is a brilliant antithesis, a 
 compound of contradictions, of all that we most hate, wit. 
 what we most admire." * 
 
 If we would know how an artist devoted to high moral 
 ideals would treat such a character as that of the fleshly 
 enchantress, we have but to turn to the Samson Ago- 
 nistes. Milton exposes Dalila only to drive her explosive- 
 ly from the stage. Shakspere would have studied her 
 with equal delight and detestation. Tet the severity of 
 Shakspere, in his own dramatic fashion, is as absolute as 
 that of Milton. Antony is dead. The supreme sensation 
 of Cleopatra's life is ended, and she seems, in the first 
 
 * Mrs. Jameson, " Characteristics of Women," vol. ii., p. 122, ed. 1858. 
 The study of Cleopatra's character is among the best of this writer's crit- 
 icisms of Shakspere. 
 
28o Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 passionate burst of chagrin, to have no longer interest in 
 anything but death. By-and-by she is in the presence of 
 CiBsar, and hands over to him a document, the " brief of 
 money, plate, and jewels " of which she is possessed. She 
 calls on her treasurer, Seleucus, to vouch for its accuracy : 
 
 " Speak the truth, Seleucus. 
 
 Sel. Madam, 
 I had rather seal my lips than to my peril 
 Speak that which is not. 
 
 Cho. What have I kept back ? 
 
 Stl. Enough to purchase what you have made known. 
 
 Cues. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra ; I approve 
 Your wisdom in the deed." • 
 
 In her despair, while declaring that she will die " in the 
 high Eoman fashion," Cleopatra yet clings to her plate 
 and jewels. And the cold approval of Csesar, who never 
 gains the power which passion supplies, nor loses the 
 power which passion withdraws and dissipates — the ap- 
 proval of Csesar is confirmed by the judgment of the 
 spectator. It is right and natural that Cleopatra should 
 love her jewels, and practise a fraud upon her conqueror. 
 
 Nor is her death quite in that " high Koman fashion " 
 which she had announced. She dreads physical pain, and 
 is fearful of the ravage which death might commit upon 
 her beauty;* under her physician's direction, she has 
 " pursued conclusions infinite of easy ways to die." And 
 now to die painlessly is better than to grace the triumph 
 of Octavius. In her death there is something dazzling 
 and splendid, something sensuous, something theatrical, 
 something magnificently coquettish, and nothing stern. 
 
 * " Shall they hoist me up, 
 
 And show me to the shouting varletry 
 Of censaring Kome ? Eather a ditch in Egypt 
 Be gentle grave unto me ! rather on Nilus' mud 
 Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies 
 Blow me into abhorring." 
 
The Roman -Plays. 281 
 
 Yet Shakspere does not play the rude moralist ; he needs 
 no chorus of Israelite captives to utter invective against 
 this Dalila. Let her possess all her grandeur and her 
 charm. Shakspere can show us more excellent things 
 which will make us proof against the fascination of these. 
 
 " Cleo. Give me my robe, put on my crown ; I have 
 Immortal longings in me : now no more 
 The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip : — 
 Yare, yare, good Iras ; quiclt. — Methinks I hear 
 Antony call : I see him rouse himself 
 To praise my noble act ; I hear him mock 
 The luck of Csesar, which the gods give men 
 To excuse their after-wrath. Husband, I come : 
 Now to that name my courage prove my title ! 
 I am fire and air ; my other elements 
 I give to baser life. — So ; have you done ? 
 Come, then, and take the last warmth of my lips. 
 Farewell, kind Charmian. — ^Iras, long farewell. 
 
 \Kuwsi'}um. Iras fdUs and dies. 
 Have I the aspic in my lips ? Dost fall ? 
 If thou and nature can so gently part. 
 The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, 
 Which hurts and is desired. Dost thou lie still ? 
 If thus thou vanishes!, thou tell'st the world 
 It is not worth leave-taking. 
 
 Char. Dissolve, thick cloud and rain, that I may say 
 The gods themselves do weep ! 
 
 Cleo. This proves me base : 
 
 If she fii'st meet the curled Antony, 
 He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss 
 Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch : 
 [ To an asp, which site applies to her breast. 
 With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate 
 Of life at once untie : poor venomous fool. 
 Be angry and despatch. 0, couldst thou speak, 
 That I might hear thee call great Csesar ass 
 Unpolicied ! 
 
 CMr. eastern star ! 
 
 Cleo. Peace, peace ! 
 
 Dost thou not see my baby at my breast 
 That sucks the nurse asleep ? 
 
 Char. 0, break ! 0, break ! 
 
282 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Cleo. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle — 
 Antony ! — Nay, I will take thee too : 
 
 [Applying anoihei- asp to lur arm. 
 What should I stay [iMa. 
 
 Clmr. In this vile world ? So, fare thee well. 
 Now boast thee, Death ! in thy possession lies 
 A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close ; 
 And golden Phoebus never be beheld 
 Of eyes again so royal." 
 
 III. 
 
 The subject of Coriolwnus is the ruin of a noble life 
 through the sin of pride. If duty be the dominant ideal 
 with Brutus, and pleasure of a magnificent kind be the 
 ideal of Antony and Cleopatra, that which gives tone and 
 color to Coriolanus is an ideal of self-centred power. 
 The greatness of Brutus is altogether that of the moral 
 conscience; his external figure does not dilate upon the 
 world through a golden haze like that of Antony, nor 
 bulk massively and tower like that of Coriolanus. Bru- 
 tus venerates his ideals, and venerates himself; but this 
 veneration of self is in a certain sense disinterested. A 
 haughty and passionate personal feeling, a superb egoism, 
 are with Coriolanus the sources of weakness and of 
 strength. Brutus is tender and considerate to all — to 
 his household servants, to the boy Lucius, to the poor 
 peasantry from whom he will not wring their petty hard- 
 earned gains. . The Theseus of A Midsurrwier-NigMs 
 Dream, the great lord and conqueror, now in his mood 
 of leisure and enjoyment, is graciously indulgent to the 
 rough-handed and thick-witted mechanicals of Athens. 
 In Henry V. Shakspere had drawn the figure of a man 
 right royal, who yet keeps his sympathies in living con- 
 tact with the humblest of his subjects, and who, by his 
 real rising above self, his noble disinterestedness, is saved 
 from arrogance and haughty self-will. On the ground of 
 common manhood he can meet John Bates and Michael 
 
The Roman Plays; 283 
 
 Williams ; and the great King, strong, because lie pos- 
 sesses in himself so large a fund of this plain, sound man- 
 hood, finds comfort and support in his sense of equality 
 with his subjects and fellow - soldiers. "For though I 
 speak it to you," says Henry, while playing the private 
 soldier on the night before the battle, " I think the King 
 is but a man as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth 
 to me ; the element shows to him as it doth to me ; all 
 his senses have but human conditions ; his ceremonies laid 
 by, in his nakedness he appears but a man ; and though 
 his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when 
 they stoop, they stoop with the like wing." Only the 
 greatness of a high responsibility distinguishes the King, 
 and gives him weightier cares and nobler toil. Such is 
 the spirit, neither aristocratic nor, in the modern doctri- 
 naire sense, democratic, of Shakspere's Henry Y. 
 
 "The whole dramatic moral of Coriolanus" Hazlitt 
 wrote, " is that those who have little shall have less, and 
 that those who have much shall take all that others have 
 left. The people are poor, therefore they ought to be 
 starved. They are slaves, therefore they ought to be 
 beaten. They work hard, therefore they ought to be 
 treated like beasts of burden. They are ignorant, there- 
 fore they ought not to be allowed to feel that they want 
 food or clothing or rest; that they are enslaved, op- 
 pressed, and miserable."* This is simply impossible; 
 this is extravagantly untrue, a piece of the passionate in- 
 justice which breaks forth every now and again in Haz- 
 litt's writings. The dramatic moral of Ooriokmus lies 
 far nearer to the very opposite of Hazlitt's statement. 
 Had the hero of the play possessed some of the human 
 sympathies of Henry V., the tragic issue would have be- 
 come impossible. 
 
 • " Characters of Shakspear's Plays," p. 74 (ed. 1818). 
 
284 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 " Shakspere," a great modern poet has said, " is incar- 
 nated, uncompromising feudalism in literature." * Shak- 
 spere is surely something more human and permanent 
 than feudalism ; but it is true that he is not in a modern 
 sense democratic. That he recognized the manly worth 
 and vigor of the common English character is evident. 
 It cannot be denied, however, that when the people are 
 seen in masses in Shakspere's plays, tliey are nearly al- 
 ways shown as factious, fickle, and irrational. To explain 
 this fact, we need not suppose that Shakspere wrote to 
 flatter the prejudice of \hQ jeunesse doree of the Eliza- 
 bethan theatre.f How could Shakspere represent the 
 people otherwise ? In the Tudor period the people had 
 not yet emerged. The people, like Milton's half-created 
 animals, is still pawing to get free its hinder parts from 
 the mire. The mediaeval attempts to resist oppression, 
 the risings of peasants or of citizens, inaugurated com- 
 monly by the murder of a lord or of a bishop, were for 
 the most part desperate attempts, rash and dangerous, sus- 
 tained by no sense of adequate moral or material power. 
 It is only after such an immense achievement as tliat of 
 1789, such a proof of power as the French Kevolution af- 
 forded, that moral dignity, the spirit of self-control and 
 self-denial, the heroic devotion of masses of men to ideas, 
 and not merely interests, could begin to manifest them- 
 selves. Shakspere studied and represented in liis art the 
 world which lay before him. If he prophesied the fut- 
 ure, it was not in the ordinary manner of prophets, but 
 only by completely embodying the present, in which the 
 f ntnre was contained. 
 
 It has been asked, if Shakspere had been born a gener- 
 ation later, what side would he have taken in that great 
 
 * Walt Whitman, "Democratic Vistas," p. 81. 
 f See Kiimelin, " Shakespeare-Studien," p. 222. 
 
The Roman Plays. 285 
 
 conflict in which Milton struggled so nobly on the side 
 of liberty. A critic of admirable insight, already referi'ed 
 to — H. A. Werner — discovers in the author of Hamlet 
 and of Lear a thinker in the foremost ranks of modern 
 and patriotic spirits, a forerunner of the struggle in which 
 England was to engage first among the nations of Eu- 
 rope. The drama of Hamlet is " a Prometheus-sigh for 
 freedom and deliverance, for honor and influence, for se- 
 curity and peace." It portrays the collision between an 
 effete society buttressing itself np against the past, and 
 " an idea, ever young, to which all the future belongs." 
 But Shakspere's statement of the fact concerning the rev- 
 olutionary epochs of the world is uttered, the critic adds, 
 not as a piece of political instruction, but as a question to 
 fate ; it is, as it were, " the first half of a Book of Job," a 
 solemn balancing 6f good and evil in the world, wherein 
 neither appears preponderant ; and the longer the poet 
 tliought, the more definitely the political phenomenon, 
 and its influence upon the life and character of individ- 
 ual man, assumed the shape of an insoluble riddle.* It 
 is impossible to accept this interpretation of Shakspere's 
 political tendencies otherwise than as an ingenious read- 
 ing-in of modern ideas between the lines of Shakspere's 
 art. 
 
 Bnt neither can we admit with the champion of so- 
 called "realist" criticism, Kiimelin, that Shakspei'e per- 
 ceived the existence already in Elizabeth's time of the 
 Royalist and Eoundhead parties, and that, being person- 
 ally associated with the young Elizabethan nobility, and, 
 as actor, playwright, and stage-manager, opposed to the 
 Puritan bourgeoisie, " Shakspere was an extreme Eoyalist, 
 and an adherent of the purest water to the court party and 
 
 * "Ueber das Dunkel ia der Hamlet -Tragodie," von H. A. Werner, 
 JaTvrhich der deutschm Shakespeare-&esdlschaft, vol. v., pp. 87-81. 
 
286 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tlie nobles."* No; had Shakspere lived when Milton 
 lived, he would probably have passed through his life 
 and gone to the grave in silence. He would certainly 
 never have consumed himself in writing passionate pam- 
 phlets of huge dimensions, as Milton did, on behalf either 
 of this party or of that. We cannot suppose that he 
 would have been satisfied with the cavalier ideal of man- 
 hood, with its gallantry of showy devotion to Church and 
 King — ^to the church of Laud and the royalty of Charles. 
 "We cannot imagine Shakspere among the court singers 
 who grated " lean and flashy songs " on scrannel pipes. 
 But neither could he have accepted as complete the Pu- 
 ritan ideal. Sir Toby Belch is not an embodiment of the 
 highest wisdom ; but Malvolio has no answer when the 
 irrepressible knight addresses him: "Dost thou think, 
 because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes 
 and ale 1" Ginger is hot in the mouth. Teste, the clown, 
 justly declares ; and that fact must enter into every ad- 
 equate idea of human life. Had Shakspere lived when 
 Milton lived, he would have seen and mourned over the 
 breach in humanity, the violence done to human happi- 
 ness and human culture by two opposite ideals which tore 
 the truth in sunder. It would have been impossible for 
 him to attain his own complete development either as an 
 artist or as a man. He would have looked on, and ut- 
 tered now and again the cry of pain and indignation, 
 " A plague on both your houses !" 
 
 What were Shakspere's political views ? It is matter 
 of congratulation that Shakspere approached history, not 
 through political theories or philosophies, but through a 
 wide and deep sympathy with human action and human 
 suffering. That a poet of the nineteenth century should 
 disregard political theories, and philosophies of history, 
 
 * Rumelin, " Shakespeare-Studien," p. 217. 
 
The Roman Plays. 287 
 
 would prove that he was lacking in that very sympathy 
 with humanity which made Shakspere what he was. But 
 the seventeenth century was one in which, in the world 
 of politics, nation struggled with nation, and man with 
 man, rather than idea with idea. Shakspere has no po- 
 litical doctrine to apply to the civil contest of the houses 
 of Lancaster and York by which to resolve the claims of 
 the contending parties. If we discover any principle in 
 which he had faith, it is that of the right of the klngliest 
 nature to be king. The divine right of Eichard II., gal- 
 lantly urged by the Bishop of Carlisle, is hardly as sacred 
 in Shakspere's eyes as the divine right of the son of the 
 usurping Bolingbroke. It is Heniy YI. whose over-irri- 
 table conscience suggests to him doubts respecting the 
 title of his house. Happily we are not afflicted by Shak- 
 spere with doctrinaire utterances, with sentiments liberal 
 or reactionary uttered by the heroes of monarchy or of 
 republicanism. A time will perhaps come, more favora-~ 
 ble to true art than the present, when ideas are less out- 
 standing factors in history than they have been in this 
 century ; when thought will be obscurely present in in- 
 stinctive action and in human emotion, and will vitalize 
 and inspire these jo3'inisly rather than tyrauically domi- 
 nate them. And then men's sympathy with the Eliza- 
 bethan drama will be more prompt and sure than in our 
 day it can be. 
 
 Party spirits are baffled by the great human poet. They 
 can, with entire ease and self-satisfaction, read their sev- 
 eral creeds, political and religious, into the poetry of Shak- 
 spei-e ; hyiXjmd them there they cannot. Only if we look 
 for what is truly human and of permanent interest to 
 man, we shall not be disappointed. " Many reproaches 
 have been uttered against Shakspere. But the hypocrite 
 whom his poetry does not unmask and cover with confu- 
 sion, the tyrant who does not suffer in himself the pangs 
 
288 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 of conscience and earn the general liatred, the coward 
 who is not made a laughing-stock, the dressed-up imposi- 
 tion who, discovered in his nakedness, does not experi- 
 ence the poet's annihilating scorn, is in vain to be sought 
 for among the historical figures of these dramas."* 
 
 That the people should appear at all in the histories of 
 Shakspere is worthy of note. In French tragedy the peo- 
 ple plays no part ; and naturally, for " Frenclb history does 
 not speak of the people before the nineteenth century." f 
 Shakspere's representation of the people is by no means 
 harsh or ungenial. He does not discover in them heroic 
 virtues; he does not think that a crowd of citizens is 
 invariably very wise, patient, or temperate ; and he has 
 a certain aversion, quite under control, however, to the 
 sweaty caps and grimy hands and stinking breath of gar- 
 lic-eaters and men of occupation.;]: Nevertheless, Shak- 
 
 * F: Kreyssig, " Shakespeare-Fi-agcn," pp. 97, 98. The discussion of this 
 subject by Kreyssig is cxcelleat. "Shakespeare hatte sich bei seinen 
 Zuschauera so wenig Dank verdient als bei den Behorden, wenn er etwa in 
 der SchilderuDg des Eonig Johanh fiir die Barone und die Communen ge- 
 gen den Eonig Partei genommen hatte, statt fur England gegen Frankreicli 
 und gegen den Papst. Ja, er hatte ganz aus der ihn umgebenden geistigeu 
 Atmosphare heraustreten miissen, um nach politischer Gesinnungstiichtig- 
 keit und Gcschichtsphilosophie im Sinne seiner heutigen Eritiker und Nach- 
 ahmer zu trachten. Man wird seine Historien vergeblich nach liberalen 
 Sentenzen durchsuchen. Wenn er dann aber. Ton seinem Standpunkte, 
 dabei im Reohte war, sind es seine Geguer von dem ihrigen nicht ebenso 
 sehr, indem sie sich lieber an den Gedanken- und Gesinnungshelden unserer 
 modemen historischen Dramen erbauen als an den Schlagezu's und Halte- 
 fest's, den unbarmherzigen Tyrannen, den hochfahrenden Bittern, den in- 
 triguanten Priestern und leidenschaftlichen Weibern der Shakespeare'schen 
 Historien f" — SIiakespeare-Fraffm, p. 92. I am indebted to other passages 
 in the same lecture for some suggestions. 
 
 f A. M^ziferes, "Shakespeare, ses (Euvres et ses Critiques," p. 154. M. 
 M6ziferes studies the historical dramas of Shakspere in a highly interesting 
 manner, throwing the characters into groups — the women, the children the 
 people, the lords, the prelates, the kings. 
 
 t Ereyssig, "Shakespeare-Fragen," p. 95, 
 
The Roman Plays. 289 
 
 epere recognizes that the heart of the people is sound ; 
 their feelings are generally right, but their view of facts 
 is perverted by interests, by passions, by stupidity. In 
 the play of Coriolanus the citizens are not insensible to 
 the virtues of the great Consul ; they appreciate the hu- 
 morous kindliness of the patrician Menenius. But they 
 are as wax in the hands of their demagogues. Is Shak- 
 spere's representation so wholly unjust to the seven- 
 teenth century, or even to the nineteenth ? He had no 
 political doctrinaire philosophy, no humanitarian ideal- 
 ism, to put between himself and the facts concerning the 
 character of the people. His age did not supply him 
 with humanitarian idealism; but man delighted Shak- 
 spere, and woman also. Thersites was not beyond the 
 range of his sympathy. And to Shakspere the people 
 did not appear as Thersites ; at worst it appeared as Cal- 
 iban. 
 
 Further, if Shakspere exposes the vices of a mob, he 
 shrinks as little from exposing the vices of a court. The 
 wisdom of the populace is not inferior to the wisdom of a 
 Polonius. The manners of handicraftsmen are as truly 
 gentle as the manners of Osric. Of ceremony Shakspere 
 was no lover ; but he was deeply in love with all that is 
 sound, substantial, honest. Prince Henry flies from the 
 inanimate, bloodless, and insincere world of his father's 
 court to the society of drawers and carriers in Eastcheap. 
 In the play of Coriolanus, the intolerant haughtiness and 
 injustice of the patrician is brutal and stupid, not less, 
 but rather more, than the plebeian inconstancy and tur- 
 bulence. 
 
 In Shakspei-e's late play, The Tempest, written when 
 he was about to retire for good to his Stratford home, he 
 indulges in a sly laugh at the principles of communism. 
 He who had earned the N"ew Place, and become a landed 
 gentleman by years of irksome toil, did not see that he 
 
 13 
 
2 go Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 was bound to share his tenements and lands with his less 
 industrious neighbors. On the contrary, he meant to hold 
 them himself by every legal title, and, at his decease, to 
 hand them down to his daughter and her sons and sons' 
 sons. Into the mouth of the honest old counsellor Gon- 
 zalo, the dramatist puts the pleasant theory of commu- 
 nism and of human perfectibility, and Gonzalo is amus- 
 ingly landed in the inconsequence of resolving to be him- 
 self sovereign of his kingless commonwealth.* In Shak- 
 spere's earliest play, or one of the earliest, Henry VT., and 
 in a passage certainly not written by Marlowe, nor in the 
 manner of Greene, Jack Cade announces his intended 
 reformation of the state of England. " Be brave, then ; 
 for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There 
 shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a 
 penny ; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; and 
 I will make it felony to drink small beer ; all the realm 
 shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey 
 go to grass : and when I am king, as king I will be — " 
 And the people shout, " God save your majesty !" George 
 Bevis and John Holland discuss affairs of state : 
 
 " Beois. I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the common- 
 wealth, and turn it, and get a new nap upon it. 
 
 .ffoU. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never merry 
 world in England since gentlemen came up. 
 
 Sevis. miserable age ! virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen. 
 
 Holl. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons. 
 
 JBevis. Nay, more, the King's council are no good workmen. 
 
 Holl. True ; and yet it is said. Labor in thy vocation ; which is as much as 
 to say, let the magistrates be laboring men ; and therefore should we be 
 magistrates. 
 
 Jievis. Thou hast hit it ; for there's no better sign of a brave mind than a 
 hard hand." 
 
 * Shakspere borrows his imaginary commonwealth from Montaigne. On 
 Shakspere's obligations to Montaigne, see M. Philarbte Chasles : " Etudes 
 Bur. Shakespeare," pp. 162-187. 
 
The Roman Plays, 291 
 
 " An audience," writes Mr. "Walter Bagehot, " which Ixnxa 
 fide entered into the merit of this scene would never be- 
 lieve in everybody's suffrage. They would know that 
 there is such a thing as nonsense ; and when a man has 
 once attained to that deep conception, you may be sure 
 of him ever after. . . . The author of Coriolanus never 
 believed in a mob, and did something towards prevent- 
 ing anybody else from doing so. But this political idea 
 was not exactly the strongest in Shakspere's mind. . . . 
 He had two others stronger, or as strong. First, the feel- 
 ing of loyalty to the ancient polity of this country, not 
 because it was good, but because it existed. . . . The 
 second peculiar tenet which we ascribe to his political, 
 creed is a disbelief in the middle classes. We fear he had 
 no opinion of traders. . . . You will generally find that 
 when a ' citizen ' is mentioned, he does or says something 
 absurd.* Shakspere had a clear perception that it is pos- 
 sible to bribe a class as well as an individual. . . . He 
 everywhere speaks in praise of a tempered and ordered 
 and qualified polity, in which the pecuniary classes have 
 a certain influence, but no more; and shows in every 
 page a keen sensibility to the large views and high-souled 
 energies, the gentle refinements and disinterested desires, 
 in which those classes are likely to be especially defi- 
 cient. He is particularly the poet of personal nobility, 
 though throughout his writings there is a sense of free- 
 dom ; just as Milton is the poet of freedom, though with 
 an underlying reference to personal nobility ; indeed, we 
 might well expect our two poets to combine the appre- 
 ciation of a rude and generous liberty with that of a del- 
 icate and refined nobleness, since it is the union of these 
 
 * Not always. See, for example, King Richard III., act ii., so. 3, where a 
 "divine instinct," informing men's minds of coming danger, moves in the 
 breasts of the citizens. 
 
292 Shakspere- — His Mind and Art. 
 
 two elements tHat characterizes our society and their ex- 
 perience." * 
 
 Although the play of Coriolanus almost inevitably 
 suggests a digression into the consideration of the poli- 
 tics of Shakspiere, it must once again be asserted that the 
 central and vivifying element in the play is not a politi- 
 cal problem, but an individual character and life. The 
 tragic struggle of the play is not that of patricians with 
 plebeians, but of Coriolanus with his own self. It is not 
 the Koman people who bring about his destruction ; it is 
 the patrician haughtiness and passionate self-will of Cor- 
 iolanus himself. Were the contest of political parties 
 the chief interest of Shakspere's drama, the figures of 
 the tribunes must have been drawn upon a larger scale. 
 They would have beeii endowed with something more 
 than " foxship." As representatives of a great principle, 
 or of a power constantly tending in one direction, they 
 mi^t have appeared worthy rivals of the leaders of the 
 patrician party ; and the fall of Coriolanus would be sig- 
 nalized by some conquest and advance of the tide of 
 popular power.f Shakspere's drama is the drama of in- 
 dividuality, including under this name all those bonds 
 of duty and of affection which attach man to his fellow- 
 man, but not impersonal principles and ideas.:]: The pas- 
 
 * Walter Bagehot, " Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen,'' pp. 
 267-260. . See on the subject generally of the literature of aristocratic and of 
 democratic epochs the writer's article "The Poetry of Democracy — Walt 
 Whitman," Westminster Reeiew, July, 1871. 
 
 f I owe this observation to Professor H. Th. RStschcr, " Shakespeare in 
 seinen hochsten Charactergebilden,""etc. (Dresden, 1864), p. 20. 
 
 t " His [Shakspere's] drama is the drama of indivuluality. . . . Shak- 
 spere shows neither the consciousness of a law nor of humanity ; the fut- 
 ure is mute in his dramas, and enthusiasm for great principles unknown. 
 His genius comprehends and sums up the past and the present ; it does not 
 initiate the future. He interpreted an epoch ; he announced none." — Jo- 
 seph Mazzini, Life and Writings, vol. ii., pp. 133, 134. See Riimelin, " Shake- 
 speare-Studien," pp. 169, 1'FO. 
 
Tke Roman Plays. 293 
 
 sion of patriotism, high-toned and enthusiastic, stands 
 with Shakspere instead of general political principles 
 and ideas ; and the life of the individual is widened and 
 elevated by the national life, to which the individual sur- 
 renders himself with gladness and with pride. 
 
 The pride of Coriolanus is, however, not that which 
 comes from self-surrender to and union with some pow- 
 er or person or principle higher than one's self. It is 
 twofold — a passionate self-esteem which is essentially 
 egoistic, and, secondly, a passionate prejudice of class. 
 Hia nature is the reverse of cold or selfish ; his synipa- 
 thies are deep, warm, and generous ; but a line, hard and 
 fast, has been drawn for him by the aristocratic tradition, 
 and it is only within that line that he permits his sympa- 
 thies to play. To the surprise of the tribunes, he can 
 accept, well pleased, a subordinate command under Comin- 
 ius. He yields with kindly condescension to accept the 
 devotion and fidelity of Menenins, and cherishes towards 
 the old man a filial regard — the feeling of a son who has 
 the consciousness that he is greater than his father. He 
 must dismiss Menenius disappointed from the Yolscian 
 camp ; but he contrives an innocent fraud by means of 
 which the old senator will fancy that he has effected 
 more for the peace of Rome than another could. For 
 Virgilia, the gentle woman in whom his heart finds rest, 
 Coriolanus has a manly tenderness and constant freshness 
 of adhesion : „ „ , . 
 
 " 0, a kiss . 
 Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge ! 
 Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss 
 I carried from thee, dear; and my true lip 
 Hath virgin'd it e'er since !" 
 
 In his boy he has a fathei"'s joy, and yields to an ambitious 
 hope, and a yearning forward to his son's possible future 
 of heroic action, in which there is something of touching 
 paternal weakness : 
 
294 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 " The god of soldiers, 
 With the consent of supreme Jore, inform 
 Thy thoughts with nobleness ; that thou may'st prove 
 To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars 
 Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw. 
 And saving those that eye thee !" 
 
 His wife's friend Valeria is the " moon of Kome," 
 
 " Chaste as the icicle 
 That's curdled by the frost from purest snow 
 And hangs on Dian's temple." * 
 
 In his mother, Volumnia, the awful Koman matron, he 
 rejoices with a noble enthusiasm and pride ; and while 
 she is present always feels himself, by comparison with 
 this great mother, inferior and unimportant. 
 
 But Cominius, Menenius, and Yirgilia, Yaleria and 
 Yolumnia, and his boy belong to the privileged class ; 
 they are patrician. Beyond this patrician class neither 
 his sympathies nor his imagination find it possible to 
 range. The plebeians are " a common cry of curs " 
 whose breath Coriolanus hates. He cannot, like Boling- 
 broke, flatter their weakness while he despises them in- 
 wardly. He is not even indifferent towards them; he 
 rather rejoices in their malice and displeasure ; if the 
 nobility would let him use his sword, he would make a 
 quarry " with thousands of these quarter'd slaves" as high 
 as he could pick his lance. Sicinius the Tribune is " the 
 Triton of the minnows." When Coriolanus departs from 
 Eome, as though all the virtue of the city were resident 
 ^ in himself, he reverses the apparent fact and pronounces 
 I a sentence of banishment against those whom he leaves 
 \ 
 
 * Observe the extraordinary vital beauty and illuminating quality of Shak- 
 spere's metaphors and similes. A commonplace poet would have written 
 "as chaste as snow;" but Shakspere's imagination discovers degrees of 
 chastity in ice and snow, and chooses the chastest of all frozen things. On 
 this subject, see an excellent study by Kev. H. N. Hudson, " Shakespeare : 
 his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. i., pp. 21'7-237. 
 
The Roman Plays. 295 
 
 behind — "J lanish youP Brutus is warranted by the 
 fact when he says, 
 
 " You speak o' the people 
 As if you were a god to punish, not 
 A man of their infirmity." 
 
 And yet the weakness, the inconstancy, and the inca- 
 pacity of apprehending facts which are the vices of the 
 people, reflect and. repeat themselves in the great patri- 
 cian ; his aristocratic vices counterbalance their plebeian. 
 He is rigid and obstinate ; but under the influence of an 
 angry egoism he can renounce his principles, his party, 
 and his native city. He will not bear away to his private 
 use the paltry booty of the Volsces ; but to obtain the 
 consulship he is urged by his proud mother and his patri- 
 cian friends to stand bareheaded before the mob, to ex- 
 pose his wounds, to sue for their votes, to give his heart 
 the lie, to bend the knee like a beggar asking an alms. 
 The judgment and blood of Coriolanus are ill commin- 
 gled ; he desires the end, but can only half submit to the 
 means which are necessary to attain that end ; he has not 
 sufficient self-control to enable him to dispose of those 
 chances of which he is lord. And so he mars his fortune. 
 The pride of Coriolanus, as Mr. Hudson has observed, is 
 " rendered altogether inflammable and uncontrollable by 
 passion ; insomuch that if a spark of provocation is struck 
 into the latter, the former instantly flames up beyond 
 measure, and sweeps away all the regards of prudence, of 
 decorum, and even of common-sense." * Now, such pas- 
 sion as this Shakspere knew to be weakness, and not 
 strength ; and by this uncontrollable violence of temper 
 Coriolanus draws down upon himself his banishment 
 from Eome and his subsequent fate. 
 
 At the moment when he passes forth through the gates 
 
 * " Shakespeare : his Life, Art, and Characters," vol. ii., p. 4V3. 
 
 V 
 
296 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 of the city, and only then, his passion, instead of break- 
 ing violently forth, subdues his nature in a more evil 
 fashion, and becomes dark and deadly. He feels that he 
 /has been deserted by "the dastard nobles," and given 
 over as a prey to the mob. He, who had been so warm, 
 so generous, so loyal towards his class, now feels himself 
 betrayed ; and the deadly need of revenge, together with 
 the sense that he is in solitude and must depend upon his 
 own strength and prudence, makes him calm. He en- 
 deavors to pacify his mother and to check the old man's 
 tears ; he utters no violent speech. Only one obscure 
 and formidable word escapes his lips : 
 
 " I go alone 
 Like to a lonely dragon that his fen 
 Makes fear'd and talked of more than seen." 
 
 And in this spirit he strides forward towards Corioli. 
 
 No passage in the play is quick with such bright, spon- 
 taneous, almost lyrical feeling as the address of his de- 
 feated rival to Coriolanus, when he finds the great leader 
 an unbidden guest within his house at Antium. Enthu- 
 siasm about great personalities finds nobler expression 
 perhaps in the writings of Shakspere than in those of 
 any other poet of any country. The reader will recall 
 that wonderful outbreak of admiration and homage from 
 the aged Nestor when he gazes for the first time upon 
 Hector's unhelmeted head : 
 
 " I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft, 
 Laboring for destiny, make cruel way 
 Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee 
 As hot as Perseus spur thy Phrygian steed, 
 Despising many forfeits and subduements, 
 When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' the air, 
 Not letting it decline on the declined, 
 That I have said to some my standers-by, 
 '■Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life !' 
 And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath, 
 When that a ring of Greeks have heram'd thee in, 
 Like an Olympian wrestling." 
 
The Roman Plays. 297 
 
 And the old man continues in the like strain until almost 
 breath must fail him. The instantaneous and involun- 
 tary homage paid by Aufidius to Coriolanus is the same 
 in kind — the overwhelming joy of standing face to face 
 with veritable, human greatness and nobility. 
 
 But Coriolanus has found in Antium no second home. 
 Honored and defen-ed to, tended on, and treated as al- 
 most sacred, he is still the " lonely dragon that his fen 
 makes fear'd." Cut off from his kindred and his friends, 
 wronged by his own passionate sense of personality, his 
 violent egoism, he resolves to stand 
 
 " As if a man were author of himself, 
 And knew no other kin." 
 
 But the loves and loyalties to which he has done vio- 
 lence react against him. The struggle, pi'odigious and 
 pathetic, begins between all that is massive, stern, inflex- 
 ible, and all that is tender and winning in his nature ; and 
 the strength is subdued by the weakness. It is as if an 
 oak were rent and uprooted not by the stroke of light- 
 ning, but by some miracle of gientle yet irresistible music. 
 And while Coriolanus yields under the influence of an 
 instinct not to be controlled, he possesses the distinct con- 
 sciousness that such yielding is mortal to himself. He 
 has come to hate and to conquer, but he must needs per- 
 ish and love : 
 
 "My wife comes foremost; then the honor'd mould 
 Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand 
 The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection ! 
 All bond and privilege of nature, break ! 
 Let it be virtuous to be obstinate ! 
 What is that curt'sy worth 1 Or those doves' eyes, 
 Which can make gods forsworn ? I melt, and am not 
 Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows ; 
 As if Olympus to a molehill should 
 In supplication nod ; and my young boy 
 Hath an aspect of intercession, which 
 Great nature cries ' Deny not.' " 
 
 13* 
 
/ 
 
 298 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 The convulsive efforts to maintain his hardness and 
 
 /rigidity are in vain ; Coriolanus yields ; his obstinacy 
 
 and pride are broken ; he is compelled to learn that a 
 
 man cannot stand as if he were author of himself. And 
 
 so the fortunes of Coriolanus fall, but the man rises with 
 
 ^ that fall. 
 
 Delivered from patrician pride and his long habit of 
 egoism, Coriolanus cannot be. The purely human influ- 
 ences have reached him through the only approaches by 
 which he was accessible — through his own family. To 
 the plebeian class he must still remain the intolerant 
 patrician. Nevertheless, he has undergone a profound 
 experience ; he has acknowledged purely human influ- 
 ences in the only way in which it was possible for him 
 to do so. No single experience, Shakspere was aware, 
 can deliver the soul from the long habit of passionate 
 egoism. And, accordingly, at the last it is this which be- 
 trays him into the hands of the conspirators. His con- 
 duct before Eome is about to be judicially inquired into 
 at Antium. But the word "boy," ejaculated against him 
 by Aufidius, " touches Coriolanus into an ecstasy of pas- 
 sionate rage :" 
 
 "Boy! slave! 
 Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever 
 I was forced to scold. 
 
 Boy ! false hound ! 
 If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there 
 That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
 Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli ; 
 Alone, I did it. Boy!" 
 
 And in a moment the swords of the conspirators have 
 ])iorced him. A Volscian lord, reverent for fallen great- 
 11 OSS, protects the body : 
 
 " Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet ; 
 Put up your swords." 
 
The Roman Plays. 299 
 
 So suddenly has he passed from towering passion to 
 the helplessness of death, the victim of his own violent 
 egoism and uncontrollable self-will. We remain with 
 the sense that a great gap iu the world has been made ; 
 that a sea-mark " standing every flaw " has for all time 
 disappeared. We see the lives of smaller men still going 
 on ; we repress all violence of lamentation, and bear 
 about with us a memory in which pride and pity are 
 blended. 
 
300 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE HUMOE OF SHAKSPEEE. 
 
 A STUDY of Shakspere which fails to take account of 
 Shakspere's humor must remain essentially incomplete. 
 The character and spiritual history of a man who is en- 
 dowed with a capacity for humorous appreciation of the 
 world must differ throughout and in every particular from 
 those of the man whose moral nature has never rippled 
 over with genial laughter. At whatever final issue Shak- 
 spere arrived, after long spiritual travail, as to the attain- 
 ment of his life, that precise issue rather than another 
 was arrived at in part by virtue of the fact of Shakspere's 
 humor. In the composition of forces which determined 
 the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be 
 allowed for as a force among others, in importance not 
 the least, and efficient at all times, even when little ap- 
 parent. A man whose visage " holds one stern intent " 
 from day to day, and whose joy becomes at times almost 
 a supernatural rapture, may descend through circles of 
 hell to the narrowest and the lowest ; he may mount from 
 sphere to sphere of Paradise until he stands within the 
 light of the Divine Majesty ; but he will hardly succeed 
 in presenting us with an adequate image of life as it is on 
 this earth of ours in its oceanic amplitude and variety. 
 A few men of genius there have been who, with vision 
 penetrative as lightning, have gazed, as it were, through, 
 life, at some eternal significances of which life is the 
 symbol. Intent upon its sacred meaning, they have had 
 no eye to note the forms of the grotesque hieroglyph of 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 301 
 
 humaa existence. Such men are not framed for laugh- 
 ter. To this little group the creator of Falstaff, of Bot- 
 tom, and of Touchstone does not belong. 
 
 Shakspere, who saw life more widely and wisely than 
 any other of the seers, could laugh. That is a comforta- 
 ble fact to bear in mind — a fact which serves to rescue us 
 from the domination of intense and narrow natui'es, who 
 claim authority by virtue of their grasp of one haK of the 
 realities of our existence and their denial of the rest. 
 Shakspere could laugh. But we must go on to ask, 
 "What did he laugh at? and what was the manner of 
 his laughter?" There are as many modes of laughter as 
 there are facets of the common soul of humanity to re- 
 flect the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, 
 in one of his pieces of coarse yet subtle engraving, has 
 presented a group of occupants of the pit of a theatre 
 sketched during the performance of some broad comedy 
 or farce. What proceeds upon the stage is invisible and 
 undiscoverable save as we catch its reflection on the faces 
 of the spectators, in the same way that we infer a sunset 
 from the evening flame upon windows that front the west. 
 Each laughing face in Hogarth's print exhibits a different 
 mode or a different stage of the risible paroxysm. There 
 is the habitual enjoyer of the broad comic abandoned, to 
 his mirth, which is open and unashamed — mirth which he 
 is evidently a matchior, and able to sustain. By his side is 
 a companion female portrait, a woman with head thrown 
 back to ease the violence of the guffaw ; all her loose re- 
 dundant flesh is tickled into an orgasm of merriment; 
 she is fairly overcome. On the other side sits the spec- 
 tator who has passed the climax of his laughter ; he wipes 
 the tears from his eyes, and is on the way to regain an 
 insecure and temporary composure. Below appears a 
 girl of eighteen or twenty, whose vacancy of intellect is 
 captured and occupied by the innocuous, folly still in 
 
302 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 progress ; she gazes on expectantly, assured that a new 
 blossom of the wonder of absurdity is about to display it- 
 self. Her father, a man who does not often surrender 
 himself to an indecent convulsion, leans his face upon his 
 hand, and with the other steadies himself by grasping one 
 of the iron spikes that enclose the orchestra. In the 
 right corner sits the humorist, whose eyes, around which 
 the wrinkles gather, are half closed, while he already goes 
 over the jest a second time in his imagination. At the 
 opposite side an elderly woman is seen, past the period 
 when animal violences are possible, laughing because she 
 knows there is something to laugh at, though she is too 
 dull-witted to know precisely what. One spectator, as 
 we guess from his introverted air, is laughing to think 
 what somebody else would think of this. Finally, the 
 thin-lipped, perk-nosed person of refinement looks aside, 
 and by his critical indifference condemns the broad, inju- 
 dicious mirth of the company. 
 
 All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, 
 and some are very vulgar persons ; one trivial, ludicrous 
 spectacle is the occasion of their mirth. When from such 
 laughter as this we turn to the laughter of men of gen- 
 ins, who gaze at the total play of the world's life, and 
 when we listen to this, as with the ages it goes on gather- 
 ing and swelling, our sense of hearing is enveloped and 
 almost annihilated by the chorus of mock and jest, of an- 
 tic and buffoonery, of tender mirth and indignant satire, 
 of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of desperate 
 misanthropic derision and genial, affectionate caressing of 
 human imperfection and human. folly. We hear from 
 behind the mask the enormous laughter of Aristophanes, 
 ascending peal above peal, until it passes into jubilant 
 ecstasy, or from the uproar springs some exquisite lyric 
 strain. We hear laughter of passionate indignation from 
 Juvenal, the indignation of " the ancient and free soul of 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 303 
 
 the dead republics."* And there is Eabelais, with liis 
 huge bufEoonery, and the earnest eyes intent on freedom 
 which look out at us in the midst of the zany's tumblings 
 and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his refined Castil- 
 ian air, and deep melancholy mirth at odds with the en- 
 thusiasm which is dearest to his soul. And Moliere, with 
 his laugliter of unerring good-sense, undeluded by fashion 
 or vanity, or folly or hypocrisy, and brightly mocking 
 these into modesty. And Milton, with his fierce objur- 
 gatory laughter, Elijah-like insult against the enemies of 
 freedom and of England. And Voltaire, with his quick 
 intellectual scorn and eager malice of the brain. And 
 there is the urbane and amiable play of Addison's inven- 
 tion, not capable of large achievement, but stirring the 
 corners of the mouth with a humane smile — gracious 
 gayety for the breakfast tables of England. And Field- 
 ing's careless mastery of the whole broad, common field 
 of mirtli. And Sterne's exquisite curiosity of oddness, 
 his subtle extravagances and humors prepense. And 
 there is the tragic laughter of Swift, which announces the 
 extinction of reason, and loss beyond recovery of liuman 
 faith and charity and hope. How, in this chorus of 
 laughters, joyous and terrible, is the laughter of Shak- 
 spere distinguishable ? 
 
 In the first place, the humor of Shakspere, like his 
 total genius, is many-sided. He does not pledge liimself 
 as dramatist to any one view of human life. If we open 
 a novel by Charles Dickens, we feel assured beforehand 
 that we are condemned to an exuberance of philan- 
 thropy ; we know how the writer will insist that we 
 must all be good friends, all be men and brothers intoxi- 
 cated with the delight of one another's presence ; we ex- 
 
 * " Juv6nal, c'est la rieille ^me libre des r^publiqaes mortes ; il a en lui 
 nne Rome dans rairain de laquelle sont fondues Ath&nes ct Sparte." — Vic- 
 tor Hugo, William. Shakespeare, p. 45 (ed. 1869). 
 
304 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 pect him to hold out the right hand of fellowship to man, 
 woman, and child ; we are prepared for the bacchanalia 
 of benevolence. The lesson we have to learn from this 
 teacher is that, with the exception of a few inevitable and 
 incredible monsters of cruelty, every man naturally en- 
 gendered of the offspring of Adam is of his own nature 
 inclined to every amiable virtue. Shakspere abounds in 
 kindly mirth ; he receives an exquisite pleasure from the 
 alert wit and bright good sense of a Kosaliud ; he can 
 dandle a fool as tenderly as any nurse qualified to take a 
 baby from the birth can deal with her charge. But 
 Shakspere is not pledged to deep-dyed, ultra amiability. 
 "With Jaques he can rail at the world, while remaining 
 curiously aloof from all deep concern about its interests, 
 this way or that. With Timon he can turn upon the 
 world with a rage no less than that of Swift, and discover 
 in man and woman a creature as abominable as the Ya- 
 hoo. In other words, the humor of Shakspere, like his 
 total genius, is dramatic. 
 
 Then, again, although Shakspere laughs incomparably, 
 mere laughter wearies him. The only play of Shak- 
 spere's, out of nearly forty, which is farcical. The Comedy 
 of Errors, was written in the poet's earliest period of au- 
 thorship, and was formed upon the suggestion of a pre- 
 ceding piece. It has been observed with truth by Ger- 
 vinus that the farcical incidents of this play have been 
 connected by Shakspere with a tragic background which 
 is probably his own invention. With beauty or with pa- 
 thos or with thought, Shakspere can mingle his mirth, 
 and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with play 
 of wit or humorous characterization ; but an entirely 
 comic subject somewhat disconcerts the poet. On this 
 ground, if no other were forthcoming, it might be sus- 
 pected that The Taming of the Shrew was not altogether 
 the work of Shakspere's hand. The secondary intrigues 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 305 
 
 and minor incidents were of little interest to the poet. 
 But in the buoyant force of Petruchio's character, in his 
 subduing tempest of high spirits, and in the person of the 
 foiled revoltress against the law of sex, who carries into 
 lier wifely loyalty the same energy which she had shown 
 in her virgin' sauvagerie, there were elements of human, 
 character in which the imagination of the poet took de- 
 light* 
 
 Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakspere's 
 laughter seems to fear nothing. It does not, when it 
 has once arrived at its full development, fear enthusi- 
 asm or passion or tragic intensity ; nor do these fear it. 
 The traditions of the English drama had favored the jux- 
 taposition of the serious and comic ; but it was reserved 
 for Shakspere to make each a part of the other ; to inter- 
 penetrate tragedy with comedy, and comedy with tragic 
 earnestness. In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, as we now 
 possess it, the scenes of extravagant burlesque are merely 
 a divertissement after the terror and awftil solemnity of 
 the tragic scenes. One cannot but desire to believe that 
 such passages of rude burlesque were the invention of 
 some clumsy playwright, and not the laborious degrada- 
 tion of his own art by Marlowe, who possessed no gift of 
 
 * " Farmer, nearly a hundred years ago, said that Shakspere wrote only 
 the Petruchio scenes in ITie Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Collier hesitatingly, 
 adopted this view. Mr. Grant White developed it, and I (and Mr. Fleay af- 
 terwards) turned it into figures, making the following parts Shakspere's^ 
 though in many places they are worked up by him from the old Taming of 
 a Shrew: Induction; act ii., sc. 1, 1. 168-326 (? touching 115-16'?); III. ii. 
 1. 125, 161-240; IV. i. (and ii. Dyce); IV. iii., v. (iv., vi., Dyce); V. ii. 1. 1- 
 180 ; in short, the parts of Katharine and Petruchio, and almost all Grumio, 
 with the characters on the stage with them, and possible occasional touches 
 elsewhere (Trans. New Sh. Soc, 1874, pp. 103-110). The rest is by the alterer 
 and adapter of the old A Shrew, probably Marlowe, as there are deliberate 
 copies or plagiarisms of him in ten passages (G. White)." — P. J. Fobnivall, 
 Preface to Gervinus's Shakespeare Commentaries, 1874. I cannot accept the 
 opinion that Marlowe was the adapter of The Taming of a Shrew. 
 
3o6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 humor. In Doctor Faustus the juxtaposition of the ele- 
 vated and the burlesque scenes produces an effect as in- 
 congruous as if a gi-oup of Dutch boors carousing in a 
 tavern of Teniers were transferred into some great sacred 
 or classical composition by Lionardo da Vinci or Eaffa- 
 elle. The serious and the comic portions of the play move 
 upon different planes of feeling, and the one cannot as- 
 sist or co-operate with the other. In Shakspere's earliest 
 tragedy his method is already in existeuce. He is not 
 afraid that the passion and the anguish of the lives of 
 Eomeo and Juliet will suffer abatement because Mercutio 
 coruscates and scintillates, or because the nurse puffs and 
 perspires, tells long-winded stories, and tipples her aqucv- 
 vikB. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, while Julia, 
 standing by disguised, hears her faithless lover devoting 
 himself to Silvia, the Host falls sound asleep. This is 
 quite as it should be. The world is not all made for pas- 
 sionate young gentlemen and ladies. The stout body of 
 mine host has its rights and dues also : " By my halidom, 
 I was fast asleep." Shakspere's humor here is a portion 
 of his fidelity to the fact, his content in seeing things as 
 they are, his justice, his impartiality. The clown laughs 
 at the lover, and not without a fair show of clown-like 
 common-sense. Shakspere is disposed to let no side of a 
 fact escape him. If it have a trivial, ludicrous aspect, by 
 all means let us have that put upon record. The valet- 
 de-chambre range of emotion is as undeniable a piece of 
 reality as is the heroic ; and the world, somehow, is wide 
 enough for both valet and hero. It is desirable to ascer- 
 tain what lights the one may throw upon the other. 
 
 This apparent holding himself aloof from, and above, 
 his own creations, his perfect impartiality towards each 
 person, and sometimes towards the entire action of his 
 drama, is what Schlegel has spoken of as Shakspere's 
 irony. This irony, Schlegel has said, is " the grave of en- 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 307 
 
 thiisiasm. We arrive at it only after we have had the 
 misfortune to see human nature through and through, 
 and when no choice remains but to adopt the melancholy 
 truth that ' no virtue or greatness is altogether pure or 
 genuine,' or the dangerous error that ' the highest perfec- 
 tion is attainable.' " " Here," the critic continues, " we 
 therefore may perceive in the poet himself, notwithstand- 
 ing his power to excite the most fervent emotions, a cer- 
 tain cool indifference, but still the indifference of a supe- 
 rior mind, which has run through the whole sphere of 
 human existence and survived feeling." * 
 
 In this criticism by Schlegel there is an appearance of 
 truth, but no more than an appearance. Shakspere's im- 
 partiality towards the persons and motives of his plays is 
 not real aloofness. It rather proceeds from his profound 
 interest in his subject, his determination to do justice to 
 every side of it. " In troth," exclaims Prince Henry, " I 
 do now remember the poor creature small beer, but, in- 
 deed, these humble considerations make me out of love 
 with my greatness." Does Shakspere feel less enthusiasm 
 for the glorious manhood of Henry because Henry re- 
 members the poor creature small beer ? ITo ; Shakspere 
 is prepared to admit that Henry is every whit human, 
 and therefore it is that the splendor- of his manhood 
 strengthens us, and fills us, as it were, with a personal 
 pride and joy : 
 
 " I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 
 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, 
 Eise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, 
 And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
 As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds. 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship." 
 
 * " Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature," by A. W. Schlegel (ed. 1846), 
 p. 369. 
 
3o8 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 It is because Shakspere so entirely acknowledges the 
 heroic in Henry that lie has no timidity in risking his 
 reputation as hero by confession of tlie common incidents 
 of humanity, heroic as well as non-heroic. That a most 
 Christian ,king should each morning receive his peruke 
 inserted upon a cane through an aperture of his bed-cur- 
 tains is entirely correct ; for the valet cannot retain faith 
 in a perukeless grand monarch. But Shakspere dares to 
 inspect his hero as " unaccommodated man." " Unaccom- 
 modated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked 
 animal as thou art," exclaims Lear to the shivering Ed- 
 gar ; and yet he is, at the same time, " How noble in rea- 
 son ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how 
 express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in 
 apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! 
 the paragon of animals 1" 
 
 Shakspere recognized both our human imperfection 
 and our human greatness ; he denied the one as little as 
 the other; hence his enthusiasm is not suppressed by, 
 but at one with, his tenderness, his pity, his pathos. Des- 
 demona falters from the truth before the terrible eye of 
 her husband; but she utters her dying and redeeming 
 falsehood. Imogen's quick resentment wrongs for a mo- 
 ment the honor of Posthumus ; but Imogen's arms around 
 Posthumus's neck do more than make amends. A woman 
 is dearer to Shakspere than an angel ; a man is better than 
 a god. At the Diet of Worms, in 1521, his Imperial Maj- 
 esty, who did not know High-German, required Martin 
 Luther to repeat his long defence in the Latin tongue. 
 The sweat flowed on Luther's forehead ; his lungs were 
 exhausted, his throat was parched. The Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, who sat by his side, despatched a servant for three 
 flagons of the best Eimbeck beer. " I shall never forget 
 that noble action," writes Heine, with a genuine burst of 
 delight in the homely heroism of our dear master Martin 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 309 
 
 Luther, " which does so much honor to the House of 
 Brunswick." * The host falls fast asleep while Julia's 
 heart is only just sound and strong enough to keep from 
 breaking. Does the propinquity of the snoring host 
 make the anguish of Julia less real ? Must we suppose 
 that love was an illusion which Shakspere had transcend- 
 ed because Friar Laurence moralizes on the violent ends 
 of violent delights % In. Antony and OUopat/ra a clown 
 bears the basket in which is hidden " the pretty worm of 
 Nilus that kills and pains not." Is Shakspere indifEerent 
 to the gravity of dying because a grotesque rustic becomes 
 the messenger of death to the great Egyptian queen ? Is 
 dying not altogether a reality?. Assuredly, though a 
 clown has brought the basket, the worm " will do his 
 kind " upon Iras and Charmian and Cleopatra. Death 
 is real. Anguish and love are real, though Peter call for 
 some " merry dump " to comfort him, and though mine 
 host yield to the luxurious obsession of a snooze. 
 
 Tragedy with Shakspere becomes more tragic because 
 it lies surrounded by the common realities of life. He- 
 roics which are so elevated as to disdain all that is actual 
 and ordinary, like those of the Eestoration drama and 
 that of a subsequent period, tend rapidly to become 
 pseudo-heroics, and affect us, in the end, as actually com- 
 ic — a ridiculous, undesigned parody of genuine nobility 
 of feeling and conduct. Hector becomes Draweansir. 
 The statuesque group of which Whiskerandos is the cen- 
 tre — uncles and nieces — stand in menacing attitude at a 
 deadlock, each with a dagger at the breast. Shakspere, 
 a German poet has said, inoculates his tragedy with a 
 comic virus, and thus it is preserved from the great dis- 
 ease of absurdity.f Abstract from Eomeo and Juliet 
 
 * Heine, "Sammtliche Wei-ke," vol. v. (" Ueber Deutschland "), p. 76. 
 f "Das Komiaohe ist der naturliche Feind des Gravitatischen ; es verbal t 
 sich zum Tragischen wie die sogenannte geforderte Farbe zu der andeni 
 
3 lo Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 the scenes in wliicli the serving -men bite thumbs, the 
 scenes in which Mercutio jests, those in wliich the nurse 
 lets loose her wanton tongue, those in which old Capulet 
 fusses and frets, and leave only the passages of joy and 
 of sorrow between the lovers — how insubstantial the joy 
 and the sorrow appear ! In order that the angels in the 
 dream of Jacob might descend to this abiding-place of 
 ours, and might ascend again, there was needed "a ladder 
 set up on the earth, the top of which reached to heaven." 
 The ardors and virtues and spiritual presences of the hu- 
 man soul are most energetically operant when they find 
 footing on this ladder, which has its base upon the com- 
 mon ground. 
 
 Can we discover any single expression which will re- 
 sume the various humorous appearances of life as they 
 presented themselves to Shakspere ? It would be hazard- 
 ous to adopt any such expression and make of it a theory 
 of Shaksperian humor, with which facts must be com- 
 pelled to square. Yet, by contrasting the tragic with the 
 comic developments of human character in the drama of 
 Shakspere, it is possible to discover at least one main feat- 
 ure of the comic as it was conceived by the poet.* Ev- 
 
 (Gothe) ; wenn man nicht Roth mit Grvin abwechseln lasst, so wird zuletzt 
 das Koth selber Griin. So wird das Tragische komisch, das Komische lang- 
 weilig. In der Beimischung von Humor liegt cine Art Inoculation der ko- 
 misohen Kuhpocken, damit nicht die Menschenpocken, d. i., der Umschlag 
 in's Liicherliehe eintrete. Dann Tollendet sich durch die Hinzuthat des Ko- 
 mischen zum Tragiscben erst die Weltganzheit, die Ganzheit des Lebens. 
 So haben Shakespeare's Figuren ihr charakteristisches Pathos nicht immer 
 wie ein Kleid am Leibe, sie haben noch andere leichtere Charakterziige, die 
 in mittleren Zustanden jene so lange ersetzen, bis sie wieder eintreten, und 
 besonders in diesem Wechsel liegt eine wunderbare Wirklichkeit ihres Le- 
 bena und des ganzen Stiickes. Die vertraulichste Sprache gewohnlicher 
 Zustande und der kuhnste Sohwung des Pathos in den ausserordentlichsten 
 Situationen ; dazwischen eine Unendlichkeit von Mitteltinten." — Otto Lcd. 
 WIG, SImkespeare-Slvdim, pp. V, 8. 
 
 * See Gervinus on the different branches of the drama, " Shakespeare 
 Commentaries " (ed. 1863), vol. ii., pp. 697-612. 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 311 
 
 eiy embodiment of thought, of passion, or of will which 
 passes considerably beyond the normal standard is tragic, 
 or contains within it potential elements of tragedy. All 
 embodiments of thought, passion, and volition which fall 
 considerably below the normal standard are comic, or con- 
 tain possible comic elements. Eomeo is a tragic person- 
 age, because in him the passion of love has grown su- 
 premely great, and under its influence bis external, ma- 
 terial life, the life of limitation, is wrecked and ruined. 
 Hamlet is a tragic personage, because in him thought has 
 developed itself in a way and degree which is without 
 suitability or proportion to this finite life. Kichard III. 
 is tragic, because his will is unsatisfied by ever-renewed 
 victory, and still needs to wreak itself absolutely upon 
 the world. But Slender is comic, whose love of sweet 
 Anne Page is so faint a velleity that he is compelled to 
 borrow all the suggestions of his passion fi'ora his uncle : 
 
 "Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. 
 
 Sim. Ay, tliat I do ; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. 
 
 Shal. He will maintain you lilie a gentlewoman. 
 
 Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire. 
 
 8hd. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. 
 
 Anne. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself." 
 
 Slender, too evidently, is not a Komeo ; and when he is 
 pnt in the embarrassing position of being allowed to woo 
 for himself, the dialogue proceeds : 
 
 " Anne. Now, Master Slender — 
 
 Slen. Now, good Mistress Anne — 
 
 Anne. What is your will ? 
 
 Slen. [Brigliiening up under tite inspiration of a happy thoufflU.'] My will ! 
 'ods heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed ! I ne'er made my will yet, I 
 thank heaven ; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. 
 
 Anne. 1 mean. Master Slender, what would you with me? 
 
 Sim. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you ; your 
 father and my uncle have made motions ; if it be my luck, so ; if not, happy 
 man be his dole ! They can tell you how things go better than I can ; you 
 may ask your father." 
 
3 1 2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Slender's meek resignation to a successful issue of bis 
 wooing, " If it be my luck, so," brought doubtless an arch 
 smile, quickly smoojihed away, to the lips and an amused 
 twinkle to the eyes of sweet Anne Page. The painful 
 obligation of making love, which he makes with all his 
 heart, and with his largest oaths ("'ods heartlings !") is 
 submitted to by Slender with the same good grace with 
 which Falstaff's ragged conscripts accept the necessity of 
 fighting. Slender, under the conduct of love, advances 
 to conquest with a like gallantry to that exhibited by 
 Mouldy, Shadow, and Feeble, when marshalled for war 
 under the banner of patriotism and honor. Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek is a common personage, whose being, as it 
 trembles upon the border of non-existence, is kept from 
 quite vanishing away by the faint reflections it catches 
 of Sir Toby's boisterous vitality. Through his soft veil 
 of silliness and imbecility (Providence tempering the 
 wind to the shorn lamb) glimmers for a moment the 
 faint suspicion that he is an ass ; but any want of brill- 
 iancy on Sir Andrew's part is to be set down to acciden- 
 tal, and not inherent, causes: "Methinks sometimes I 
 have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary Inan 
 has ; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that 
 does harm to my wit." And Dogberry is comic with 
 his laborious ineflSciency, delivering to the "Watch most 
 painful instructions how to do nothing : 
 
 ^^Bog. You shall comprehend all Tagrom men ; you are to bid any man 
 stand in the Prince's name. 
 
 Second Watch. How i{ a' will not stand ? 
 
 Bog. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call 
 the rest of the watch, and thank God you are rid of a knave." 
 
 Alike in the tragic and in the comic there is an incon- 
 gruity to be found. The tragic incongruity arises from 
 the disproportion between the world and the soul of man ; 
 life is too small to satisfy the soul ; the desires of man 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 3 1 3 
 
 are infinite, and all possible attainment exists under 
 strictest limitation. The comic incongruity is the re- 
 verse of -this. It arises from the disproportion between 
 certain souls of men and even this very oi-dinary world 
 of ours. When a man's wits are so unjointed and so ill- 
 trained that, if put into motion, they forthwith get at 
 cross purposes with themselves, while the happy imbecile 
 remains supremely unconscious of his incapacity, we are in 
 presence of an example of the comic incongruity. Ham- 
 let brooding wistfully upon the unknown, until the mind's 
 eye is baffled by the darkness^ that is an example of 
 grand incongruity, essentially tragic. Komeo would love 
 infinitely, and be loved ; and there lies his body motion- 
 less and senseless in the tomb of the Capnlets. Cordelia 
 spends all her wealth of piety to redeem her father from 
 inhumanity and solitude ; and Lear hangs over her body 
 comfortless and desperate. "We can endure these sights 
 because we know; that there is no absolute failure for, the 
 love and devotion which necessarily scorn all such conse- 
 quences as these, and which do not owe allegiance to ac- 
 cident or time or place. Never tlieless, there remains a 
 terrible tragic incongruity. Hamlet's baffled movempnt, 
 his beating to and fro in a vast and obscure world which 
 he cannot comprehend, has in it something pathetic and 
 something sublime. Polonius, with his mastery of court 
 manners and secrets and policy, with his assumed om- 
 niscience and real ineptitude, excites a smile which car- 
 i-ies with.it something of, contempt. His knowledge of 
 the world falls so ludicrously short of what true knowl- 
 edge is. If personal Jinllity be dressed up in formal dig- 
 nity and the pretension of office, it becomes more con- 
 spicuous.; If, where incapacity be all but absolutOj there 
 yet are discovered degrees of incapacity greater and less, 
 we dilute in presence of the infinitely little, and expect 
 inexhaustibly varied and ever-diminishing quantums of 
 
 14 
 
3 1 4 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 Bense on this side of idiocy * Dogberry, the city oflBcer, 
 is not a very competent person, but he is in a position to 
 apologize for the feebler intellect of Verges, whom he 
 patronizes, as a condescending superior person should. 
 " Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter ; an 
 old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I 
 would desire they were ; but in faith, honest as the skin 
 between his brows." 
 
 Persons who are curious about possessing the most 
 delicate sentiments might maintain that incapacity of 
 heart, or will, or understanding is the appropriate object 
 of sympathy and pity rather than of mirth. There is, in- 
 deed, an incapacity which is pathetic — that which being 
 conscious of itself, yearns for a higher comprehension of 
 things, for a more understanding heart, as a dog dumbly 
 yearns for more full intelligence of his master's wishes 
 and thoughts. But the kindly laugh of Shakspere at 
 self-complacent folly and ineptitude is a much more sin- 
 cere and wholesome manifestation of feeling than the 
 I'efinements of sympathy dear to the heart of the pathos- 
 monger. It is deeply lamentable, no doubt, that some 
 of our neighbors are not qualified to stand as models for 
 an Apollo Belvedere or a Venus of Melos. Still, to weep 
 because middle-aged gentlemen display at times an un- 
 graceful rotundity of peraon, or because every nose is 
 not straight, would hardly improve the condition of the 
 world. These facts are recognized and allowed for most 
 wholesomely by an honest laugh like that of Crnikshank 
 or of Leech. It is well to smile at these grotesque de- 
 partures from the ideal, and reserve our tears for higher 
 uses. The genial laughter of Shakspere at human ab- 
 surdity is free from even that amiable cynicism, which 
 
 * See Hazlitton Shallow and Silence, "English Comic Writers," lecture ii, 
 pp. 41, 42 (ed. 1869). 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 3 1 5 
 
 gives to tlie humor of Jane Austen a certain piquant 
 flavor. It is like the play of summer lightning, which 
 hurts no living creature, but surprises, ilhiminates, and 
 charms. 
 
 To keep us constantly sensible of the grotesque which 
 surrounds us is, indeed, to render us a service of no slight 
 importance ; for we are too ready to accept imperfection, 
 and rapidly to forget it when once accepted. With most 
 of us, so habituated has tlie eye become to the visible 
 grotesque in human face and form, costume and gesture, 
 that we are unable at first to recognize the profound 
 fidelity of such matter-of-fact pictures as those of Ho- 
 garth, or the ideal truth which exists as living centre 
 of the inexhaustible, fantastic inventions of Cruikshank. 
 "We need to have our sense of seeing renewed and ren- 
 dered fresh and childlike before we can perceive in every 
 street through which we walk the types of our Cruik- 
 shank and our Hogarth. And around the life of each of 
 us there is forever gathering an accretion of the grotesque 
 in habit and character to which we quickly become in- 
 sensible. To deliver the ideal man from this requires 
 constant freshness of perception and vigilance of will. 
 Shakspere does not seem to feel that Dogberry and Yerges 
 are creatures of another breed from himself. He stands, 
 it is true, at the opposite pole of humanity ; nevertheless, 
 a potential Dogberry element existed even in Shakspere. 
 " Common people," as Mr. Bagehot has happily said, 
 "could be cut out of Shakspere;" just as the robust and 
 prosaic statesman of Westmoreland could have been cut 
 out of the great spiritual thinker and poet of the Lake 
 district. Thei-efore, apart from the interest of sympathy, 
 we have a personal interest in understanding the com- 
 mon features of the most ordinary lives. Our own life 
 is akin to them, and may readily lapse into a resemblance 
 curiously exact. But as long as we can smile at them 
 
3 1 6 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 we are safe ; our sense of humor is servant of our pas- 
 sion for perfection. We have no need to grow impatient 
 or indignant with these grotesque portions of humanity ; 
 that would unnecessarily disturb the balance of our lives 
 and the purity of our perceptions : we only need to un- 
 derstand them and to smile. 
 
 The humor of Shakspere, however, is much more than 
 a laughter-producing power. It is a presence and jjervad- 
 ing influence throughout his most earnest creations. This 
 it is which preserves Shakspere from all eager and shrill 
 intensity ; this it is which makes his emotions volumi- 
 nous and massive. And of this humor there are two 
 principal stages or degrees. First — given a person or an 
 event, a passion or a thought, Shakspere examines it on 
 every side, compares it with all other objects with which 
 it may naturally be connected or may happen to be asso- 
 ciated ; puts it in its environment, sees the fine and the 
 coarse, the poetic and the prosaic, and thus acquires a 
 rich and pregnant feeling for it. So abundant and va- 
 ried is the body of fact which he is possessed of that one 
 portion, as it were, balances the other, and he is saved 
 from all the violence and extravagance that originate in 
 the partial views of the idealist. Ophelia's death is pa- 
 thetic ; but the pathos of Shakspere is not the pretty pa- 
 thos of Beaumont and Pletcher ; a soft, a sweet and ten- 
 der sorrow ; a gentle investiture of melancholy. Shak- 
 spere sees the fact from the Queen's point of view, and 
 from Hamlet's; from the priest's and from the grave- 
 digger's points of view. That is to say, he sees the fact 
 in the round ; and the pathos of Ophelia's death is in the 
 drama as real as it would be if the occurrence became 
 actual. This is the manner in which the humor of Shak- 
 spere works in the first stage or degree. 
 
 But, secondly, when all realities of tliis world and of 
 time have been represented as far as they can be in their 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 317 
 
 totality, Shakspere raeasttres these by absolute standards. 
 He lays the ineasuring-reed of the infinite by the side of 
 what is finite, and he perceives how little, how imperfect, 
 the finite is. And he smiles at human greatness, while 
 yet he paj-s loyal homage to what is great ; he smiles at 
 human love and human joy, while yet they are deeply 
 real to him (inore real to him than .they could possibly 
 be to an eager intense Shelley); it is JProspero's smile 
 upon seeing the new happiness of the youthful lovers : 
 
 " So glad of this as they I cannot be, 
 Who are surprised with all; but my rejoicing 
 At nothing can be more." 
 
 And he smiles at human sorrow, while he enters into the 
 deep anguish of the soul ; he knows that for it, too, there 
 is an end and a quietus. The greatest poetic seers are 
 not angry or eager or hortatory or objugatory or shrill. 
 Homer and Shakspere are " too great for contest ; . . . 
 men to whose unofEended, uncondemning sight the whole 
 of human nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness 
 with which they will not strive, or in mournful and tran- 
 sitory strength which they dare not praise." * Shakspere 
 sees with purged eyes ; and he loves and pities men. But 
 while this view of things from an extra-mundane point 
 of vision is to be taken account of in any study of Shak- 
 spere's mind and art, it must be insisted upon that the 
 facts are at the same time thoroughly apprehended, stud- 
 ied, and felt from the various points which are strictly 
 finite and mundane. 
 
 But it is not alone Sliakspere's humor, and the laugh- 
 ter of Shakspere, which are significant. There is some- 
 thing also to be discovered from the history of his laugh- 
 ter. Every man must be aware that in his own case his 
 
 *" Afternoon Lectures," 1869 ("The Mystery of Lite and its Arts"), by 
 John Ruskin, p. 109. 
 
3 1 8 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 laughter has had a history, and that if the liistory were 
 faithfully made out, a good deal would necessarily be as- 
 certained respecting the development of his whole moral 
 nature. Now, we have documents which contain the his- 
 tory of Shakspere's laughter during a period of upwards 
 of twenty years. Surely from these something about the 
 growth of his intellect and character must be ascertain- 
 able. 
 
 In Shakspere's life as artist we may distinguish four pe- 
 riods. First of these is the tentative period, the years of 
 experiments. The dramatist has not as yet got a sure 
 and firm grasp upon life. He is somewhat deficient in 
 the material of deep thought and of deep emotion. Both 
 of these originate through a vital connection between the 
 soul and the graver realities of life, and such a connec- 
 tion is as yet only establishing itself for Shakspere. A 
 man who is not as yet under the controlling influence of 
 any of the graver realities of human life, and who at the 
 same time possesses extraordinary mental gifts, will take 
 pleasure in the mere play of his wits, apart from the spe- 
 cial occasion or object which sets his wits to work. If 
 he have high spirits, he will enjoy fun pure and simple, 
 comical surprises, and grotesque incidents. If he hare 
 a turn for satire, the objects of his gay, satirical attack 
 will be superficial oddities, follies, and affectations of the 
 world. It is during this period of clever "youngman- 
 ishness" (Mr. Furnivall's descriptive word) that Shak- 
 spere's laughter first becomes audible to us. The Two 
 GenUemen of Verona, Lovers Labor 's Lost, and The Come- 
 dy of Errors suflBciently represent this stage in the history 
 of the growth of Shakspere's mind. In Lov^s Labor '« 
 Lost, as was attempted to be shown in a former chapter, 
 there is a serious underlying intention. It concerns it- 
 self, as the work of a young man naturally may, with the 
 subject of self-culture, and it gayly maintains the thesis 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 319 
 
 that in our schemes of self-improvement the first requisite 
 is this — that we take account of all the facts of human 
 nature, including its appetites, instincts, and passions, 
 and that any attempt to idealize these away will surely 
 end in failure and egregious folly. Such is the under- 
 lying serious intention of the plaj'. But, by the way, the 
 poet takes an opportunity to have his laugh and skit at 
 the fashionable affectations of the time. 
 
 Nearly at this same period, Spenser, in " The Tears of 
 the Muses," was lamenting the condition of the English 
 comic drama. The stage had been made the means of 
 cruel personal and party satire; "seasoned wit" and 
 "goodly pleasure" had disappeared from comedy; in 
 place of these, " scoffing scurrility" and "scornful folly" 
 had possessed the stage, 
 
 " Rolling in rhymes of shameless ribaldry, 
 Without regard of due decorum kept." 
 
 Whether Spenser's words in this passage, " Our pleas- 
 ant "Willy, ah ! is dead of late," refer to some temporary 
 silence of Shakspere, or have no such reference, it is at 
 least worthy of note that Shakspere abstained altogether 
 from this abusing of the stage to unworthy purposes, 
 and found the objects of his mirth in fashions and follies 
 of the time, not in the misfortunes or weaknesses of in- 
 dividuals.* Shakspere was probably not without enemies. 
 He was successful, and that secured for him the hatred 
 of men who failed. Greene, upon his death-bed, assailed 
 him with bitter and insolent words, and wrote as if his 
 feeling would naturally be shared by Peele, by Lodge or 
 Nash, and by Marlowe. Yet we do not anywhere find 
 the name of Shakspere, as we find the names of Jonson 
 
 * The identity of Holofemes with Florio of dictionary-making celebrity 
 must be supported by better evidence before we regard it as other than an 
 ingenious conjecture. 
 
320 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 and i)ekker, and other contemporary dramatists, occupy- 
 ing a place in the record of the quarrels of authors. The 
 light and airy satire of Lm^s LoAor 's Lost, with its grave, 
 iinderlying intention, is thus characteristic of the youth- 
 ful Shakspere, both in a positive way, and also negative- 
 ly, because it contains no particle of the scurrility and 
 ribaldry of which Spenser made complaint. The pleas- 
 ure which Shakspere derives from the quick encounter 
 of wits, from the bandying of a jest to and fro in the air 
 until at last it falls, in elaborate play upon words — this 
 was in part a pleasure of the period, and in part it is sig- 
 nificant of the fact that Shakspere, in his years of clever 
 " youngmanishness," enjoyed the mere exercise of a nim- 
 ble brain. " Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterranean, 
 a sweet touch ; a quick venew of wit ; snip snap, quick 
 and home; it rejoiceth my intellect." 
 
 In this tentative period the comic and the serious, ten- 
 der or sentimental, elements of the drama exist side by 
 side, and serve as a kind of criticism each upon the oth- 
 er ; the lover serves to convict the clown of insensibility 
 to the higher facts of life, and the clown convicts the 
 lover of the blindness or extravagance of passion. But 
 though the comic and the tender or serious elements ex- 
 ist side by side, and reflect certain lights one upon the 
 other, they do not as yet interpenetrate. One set of 
 personages is reserved for the grave or tender business 
 of the drama ; and a different set of personages is told 
 off for the comic business. In The Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona, the comedy is intrusted to a pair of clowns, 
 Speed and Launce: Speed is the professed wit; after 
 serving his turn, he finally disappears from the fully de- 
 veloped drama of Shakspere. Launce, on the other hand, 
 is a humorist, who, not without a sufficiency of clownisli 
 sense, blunders into mirthful matter of a more -vital, 
 more pregnant kind than the nimble tongue of Speed 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 321 
 
 can command. Launce, attended by his dog Crab, heads 
 the procession of Shakspere's humorous characters ; there 
 march behind him a long train, inchiding manifold va- 
 rieties of the mirth -provoking tribe — from the naive, 
 comic Touchstone, with his mingled instinct of sense and 
 nonsense, to Hotspur and Mercutio, in whom overflow- 
 ing energy or an exquisite zest in living produces a hu- 
 morous extravagance ; and, again, from these to Falstaff, 
 in whom humor has acquired clear consciousness of itself 
 and become free ; and, yet again, from Falstaff to the pa- 
 thetic, tragically earnest figure of the Fool in Lear* 
 
 In A Midsummer-Night^ s Dream, Shakspere's humor 
 has enriched itself by coalescing with the fancy. The 
 comic is here no longer purely comic; it is a mingled 
 web, shot through with the beautiful. Bottom and Tita- 
 nia meet ; and this meeting of Bottom and Titania may 
 be taken, by any lover of symbolism that pleases, as an 
 undesigned symbol of the fact that the poet's faculties, 
 which at first had stood apart, and were accustomed to 
 go to work each faculty by itself, were now approaching 
 one another. At a subsequent period, when the shocks 
 of life had roused to highest energy every nerve, every 
 fibre of the genius of Shakspere, the actions of all facul- 
 ties were fused together iii one. Bottom- is incompara- 
 bly a finer efflorescence of the absurd than any preceding 
 character of Shakspere's invention. How lean and im- 
 poverished his fellows, the Athenian craftsmen, confess 
 themselves in presence of the many-sided genius of Nick 
 Bottom ! Rarely is a great artist appreciated in the de- 
 gree that Bottom is — "He hath simply the best wit of 
 any handicraft man in Athens ; yea, and the best person. 
 
 * See the hierarchy of comic characters as made out by Dr. Eduard Vehse, 
 in " Shakespeare als Protestant, Politiker, Psycholog und Dichter," vol. ii, 
 pp. 5, 6. 
 
 14* 
 
32 2 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 too ; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice." With 
 v/hat a magnificent multiplicity of gifts he is endowed ! 
 How vast has the bounty of nature been to him ! The 
 self-doubtful Snug hesitates to undertake the moderate 
 duties assigned to the lion. Bottom, though his chief 
 humor is for a tyrant, knows not how to suppress his 
 almost equal gift for playing a lady. How, witliout a 
 pang, can he deprive the world, through devotion to " the 
 Ercles vein," of the monstrous little voice in which he can 
 utter " Thisne, Thisne ! — Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear ! 
 thy Tliisby dear and lady dear ?" And as to the part as- 
 signed to the too bashful Snug — that Bottom can under- 
 take in either of two styles, or in both, so that the Dnke 
 must say, " Let him roar again, let him roar again," or 
 the ladies may be soothed by the "aggravated voice" in 
 which he will " roar you as gently as any sucking dove." 
 But from these dreams of universal ambition he is re- 
 called by Quince to his most appropriate impersonation : 
 " You can play no part but Pyramus ; for Pyramus is a 
 sweet-faced man, a proper man as one shall see in a sum- 
 mer's day, a most lovel}', gentlemanlike man ; therefore 
 you must needs play Pyramus." 
 
 During the second period of the development of Shak- 
 spere's genius he was gaining a sure grasp of the positive 
 facts of life. This is the period of the histories. At 
 first, impressed, perhaps, by a sense of the dignity of the 
 historical drama, Shakspei'e held his humor aloof. In 
 Richard II. there is no humorous scene. Had Shak- 
 spere written the play a few years later, we may be 
 certain that the gardener and servants (act iii., sc. 4) 
 would not have uttered stately speeches in verse, but 
 would have spoken liomely prose, and that humor would 
 have mingled with the pathos of this scene. The same 
 remark may be made with reference to the subsequent 
 scene, in which his groom visits the dethroned King in 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 323 
 
 the. Tower. But as yet the pathetic, although with Shak- 
 spere approximating to the humorous, looked at it some- 
 what askance and suspiciously. In Biohard III. there 
 is a certain grim humor; — humor of the diabolic kind — 
 wliieh is part of tlie demonic personality of Kichard, and 
 has for its central element a fierce contempt of human- 
 ity. Richard kneels before Anne, and she offers at his 
 breast with the sword; but the sword falls; Anne is 
 overpowered by the malign strength of Eichard's voli- 
 tion, and presently his ring is on her finger. The sense 
 of power, which stands with Kichard iu tlie place of joy 
 and beauty and virtue, is fiattered by his achievement; 
 his triumph over Anne is an insult to womanhood. That 
 Eichard should be supreme, the order of things must be 
 inverted, the moral facts of the world must be reversed, 
 and a new empire of the diabolic and the grotesque must 
 be accepted as the normal condition of things. It is as 
 if we stood beneath some monument before which men 
 were bowing, and when we looked np we beheld the 
 mocking figure of the Fiend upon the pedestal. 
 
 Except grim irony of this description, Richard III., 
 like Richard II., contains no comic element. In the 
 Jack Cade scenes of Henry VI. the satire effective, if at 
 times rude, which Shakspere directs against the weaker 
 side of popular politica;! movements, appears in its frank- 
 est and least subtle form. But it is in the play of King 
 John that the humorous element first breaks forth ener- 
 getically, and in reckless defiance of the dignity of his- 
 tory. Something genuine, hearty, spontaneous, was es- 
 pecially needed in this play. A spurious appearance of 
 majesty, with inward rottenness, the selfish policy of 
 kings, the craft of priests, the barter of hearts and of 
 lives — all these are exposed and explained by the one 
 honest thing in the play, the character of Faulconbridge : 
 the bounding courage in his veins, his loyalty to the 
 
324 Shakspere — His Mmd and Art. 
 
 memory of the father who had given him a dishonorable 
 birth ; his dauntless, patriotic enthusiasm in presence of 
 his country's disaster; and, not inconsistent with this, 
 his humorous assumption of a baseness and selfishness 
 of which he was incapable.* 
 
 The two parts of King Henry IV. exhibit a further 
 advance of the comic element in connection with the 
 historical drama. Already the humor of Shakspere has 
 marvellously deepened and enriched itself since tlie pe- 
 riod of Lofois Labor 's Lost and The Comedy of Errors. 
 Sir John Falstaff is a conception hardly less complex, 
 hardly less wonderful, than that of Hamlet. He is for- 
 ever creating a fresh series of impressions, which seems 
 at first inconsistent with the preceding series, and whicli 
 yet, after a while, somehow conciliates itself in an obscure 
 and vital way with all that had gone before. " He is a 
 man at once young and old, enterprising and fat, a dnpe 
 and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle and res- 
 olute by constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave 
 in reality, a knave without malice, a liar without deceit, 
 and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier without either 
 dignity, decency, or honor. This is a character which, 
 though it may be decompounded, could not, I believe, 
 have been formed, nor the ingredients of it duly min- 
 gled, upon any receipt whatever* It required the hand 
 of Shakspeare himself to give to every particular part a 
 relish of the whole, and of the whole to every particu- 
 lar part — alike the same incongraous, identical Falstaff, 
 whether to the grave Chief-justice he vainly talks of his 
 youth and offers to caper for a thousand, or cries to Mrs. 
 
 * Notice how the Bastard's utterance, in sonnet-form (act il, sc. 2), be- 
 ginning 
 
 " Drawn in the flattering table of her eye," 
 
 serves to expose the true character of the Dauphin's elaborately conipU 
 mentary wooing of Blanch and her dowry. 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 325 
 
 Doll, ' I am old ! I am old !' although she is seated on 
 his lap, and he is courting her for busses." * 
 
 Sir John, although, as he truly declares, " not only witty 
 in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men," is by 
 no means a purely comic character. Were he no more 
 than this, the stern words of Henry to his old companion 
 would be unendurable. The central principle of Fal- 
 stafE's method of living is that the facts and laws of the 
 world may be evaded or set at defiance, if only the re- 
 sources of inexhaustible wit be called upon to supply, by 
 brilliant ingenuity, whatever deficiencies may be found 
 in character and conduct.f Therefore, Shakspere con- 
 denmed FalstafE inexorably. Falstaff, the invulnerable, 
 endeavors, as was said in a preceding chapter, to corus- 
 cate away the realities of life. But the fact presses in 
 upon FalstafE at the last relentlessly. Shakspero's ear- 
 nestness here is at one with his mirth ; there is a certain- 
 sternness underlying his laughter. Mere detection of 
 his stupendous unveracities leaves Sir John just where 
 he was before ; the success of his lie is of less impor- 
 tance to him than is the glory of its invention. " There 
 is no such thing as totally demolishing Falstaff; he has 
 
 " An " Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff," by Maurice 
 Morgann, Esq., pp. 150, 151 (ed, 1825). No piece of eighteenth-century crit- 
 icism of Shalfspere ij more intelligently and warmly appreciative than is 
 this delightful essay. 
 
 t " Falstaff's innerste Natur geht yielmehr auf die Auflosung alles Ernstes 
 des Lebeng, aller Leidenschaft, aller Affecte, welche den Menschen unter ihre 
 Herrachaft bringen, ihn beschranken, und ihra die voile Freiheit des Gemiiths 
 rauben. Der Ernst des Lebens fordert eine Vertiefung in den Inhalt des 
 Lebens; der Ernst concentrirt den Menschen auf einen bestimmten und 
 daher nothwendig beschraukten Inhalt und Zweek, der sein Wohl und Wehe 
 ausmacht. . . . Falstaff ist daher der naturliche Feind aller idealen Interes- 
 sen und Leidensohaften, denn sie rauben zugleich dem Gemiith die Behag- 
 lichkeit und beeintrachtigen natiirlieh eben, well sie den Menschen concen- 
 triren, die unbeschrankte Freiheit der Seele." — Dr. H. Th. Eotscheb, Shake: 
 speare in seinen hScksten CharaklergMlden, p. '70. 
 
^26 Shakspere — His Mitid and Art. 
 
 so much of the invulnerable in his frame that no ridicule 
 can destroy him ; he is safe even in defeat, and seems to 
 rise, like another Antseus, with recruited vigor from every 
 fail." * It is not ridicule, but some stern invasion of fact 
 not to be escajjed from which can subdue Falstaflf. Per- 
 liaps Nym and Pistol got at the truth of the matter when 
 they discoursed of Sir John's unexpected collapse : 
 
 '■'■Nym. The king hath ruu bad humors on the knight ; that's the even of it. 
 
 Pislol. Nym, thou hast spoke the right ; 
 His heart is fracted and corroborate." 
 
 In the relation, by Mrs. Quickly, of the death of Falstaff, 
 pathos and humor have run together and become one. 
 " A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any 
 christom child ; a' parted even just between twelve and 
 one, even at the turning o' the tide : for after I saw him 
 fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers and smile 
 upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way ; 
 for his nose was as sliarp as a pen, and a' babbled of 
 green fields." f Here the smile and the tear rise at the 
 same instant. Nevertheless, the union of pathos with 
 humor as yet extends only to an incident ; no entire pa- 
 thetic-humorous character has been created like that of 
 Lear's Fool. 
 
 Pathetically, however, the fat knight disappears, and 
 disappears forever. The Falstaff of The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor is another person than the Sir John who is 
 " in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bos- 
 cm." The epilogue to the second part of Henry lY. 
 (whether it was written by Shakspere or not remains 
 doubtful) had promised that " our humble author will 
 continue the story with Sir John in it." But our hum- 
 
 * Maurice Morgann, " Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Fal- 
 staff," p. 1 80. 
 
 f Dr. Newman incidentally (by way of illustration) discusses the claim 
 fi Theobald's emendation to stand in the text ("Grammar of Assent," 
 pp. 264-2'70). 
 
The Humor of Sliakspere. 327 
 
 ble author decided (with a finer judgment than Cervan- 
 tes in the case of his hero) that the public was not to be 
 indulged in laughter for laughter's sake at the expense 
 of his play. The tone of the entire play of Henry 7. 
 would have been altered if Falstaff had been allowed to 
 appear in it. During the monarchy of a Henry IV. no 
 glorious enthusiasm animated England. It was distracted 
 by civil contention. Monldy, Shallow, and Feeble were 
 among the champions of the royal cause. Patriotisu".. 
 and the national pride of England could not, under the 
 careful policy of a Bolingbroke, burst forth as one as- 
 cending and universal flame. At such a time our imagi- 
 nation can loiter among the humors and frolics of a tav- 
 ern. When the nation was divided into various parties, 
 when no interest was absorbing and supreme, Sir John 
 might well appear upon his throne at Eastcheap, mon- 
 arch by virtue of his wit, and form with his company of 
 followers a state within the state. But with the corona- 
 tion of Henry V. opens a new period, when a higher in- 
 terest animates history, when the national life was uni- 
 fied, and the glorious struggle Avith France began. At 
 such a time private and secondary interests must cease ; 
 the magnificent swing, the impulse and advance of the 
 life of England, occupy our whole imagination. It goes 
 hard with us to part from Falstaff, but, like the King, 
 part from him we must ; we cannot be encumbered with 
 that tun of flesh; Agincourt is not the battle-field for 
 splendid mendacity. Falstaff, whose principle of life is 
 an attempt to coruscate away the facts of life, and who 
 was so potent during the Prince's minority, would now 
 necessarily appear trivial. There is no place for Falstaff 
 any longer on eartii ; he must needs find refuge " iu Ar- 
 thur's bosom." * 
 
 * This is well brought out by Rotscher, " Shakespeare iu seinen hochsten 
 Charaktergebilden," p. 11. 
 
328 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 At the close of this second period in the development 
 of Shakspere's mind and art the brightest and loveliest 
 comedies were written. In these years were created Eos- 
 alind and Yiola, Jaques and Malvolio, Beatrice and Ben- 
 edick. The essential characteristic of the close of the sec- 
 ond pei'iod is this: Shakspere had quite left behind him 
 his spirit of clever " youngmanishness ;'^ he had come into 
 possession of himself and of his own powers, and he had 
 entered into vital union with the real life of the world ; 
 but as yet (concerned, as he was, a good deal about mate- 
 rial success) he had not started upon any profound in- 
 quiry concerning the deeper and more terrible problems 
 of existence. He haid not begun to prosecute his pro- 
 longed investigation of evil. It was precisely the period 
 at which Shakspere's mirth was freest for disport. He 
 had put aside the massive material supplied by history. 
 He had not as j'et fallen profoundly under the influence 
 of those obscure and passionate interests of life which 
 lie about the roots of tragedy. If ever there was a time 
 when Shakspere's laughter would be clear and musical 
 and free, it was this time. Comedy, which had been in- 
 volved with the grave matter of history, now disengages 
 itself, and appears as something widely different from the 
 tentative comedy of Shakspere's earliest period. If we 
 compare Touchstone with Speed, Eosalind with Eosaline, 
 the scenes of mistaken identity in Twelfth Night with 
 those of The Comedy of Errors, we shall have a measure 
 of the distance traversed. 
 
 From among the plays so bright, so tender, so gracious 
 of these years, one play — The Merry Wives of Windsor — 
 stands apart with a unique character. It is essentially 
 prosaic, and is indeed the only play of Shakspere written 
 almost wholly in prose. There is no reason why we 
 should refuse to accept the tradition put upon record by 
 Dennis and by Kowe that The Merry Wives was written 
 
The Humor of Skakspere. 329 
 
 by Shakspere upon compulsion, by order of Elizabeth, 
 who, in. her lust for gross mirth, required the poet to 
 expose his Falstaff to ridicule by exhibiting him, tlie 
 most delightful of egoists, in love. Shakspere yielded to 
 the necessity. His Merchant of Venice might pass well 
 enough with the miscellaneous gathering of upper, mid- 
 dle, and lower classes which crowded to a public theatre. 
 Now he had to cater specially for gentle-folk and for a 
 queen. And knowing how to please every class of spec- 
 tators, he knew how to hit off the taste of " the barbarian." 
 ^e Merri/ Wives of Windsor is a play written expressly 
 for the barbarian aristocrats witli their hatred of ideas, 
 tlieir insensibility to beauty, their hard efficient mariners, 
 and their demand for impropriety. The good folk of 
 London liked to see a prince or a duke, and they liked to 
 see him made gracious and generous. These royal and 
 noble persons at Windsor wished to see the interior life 
 of country gentlemen of the middle class, and to see the 
 women of the middle class with their excellent hourgeois 
 morals, and rough, jocose ways. The comedy of hearing 
 a French physician and a Welsh parson speak broken 
 English was appreciated by these spectators, who uttered 
 their mother-tongue with exemplary accent. Shakspere 
 did not make a grievance of his task. He threw himself 
 into it with spirit, and despatched his work quickly — in 
 fourteen days, if we accept the tradition. But Falstaff he 
 was not prepared to recall from heaven or from hell. 
 He dressed up a fat rogue, brought forward for the occa- 
 sion from the back premises of the poet's imagination, 
 in Falstaff's clothes ; he allowed persons and places and 
 times to jumble themselves up as they pleased ; he made 
 it impossible for the most laborious nineteenth-century 
 critic to patch on The Merry Wives to Henry IV. But 
 tlie Queen and her court laughed as the buck-basket was 
 emptied into the ditch, no more suspecting that its gross 
 
330 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 lading was not the incomparable jester of Eastcheap than 
 Ford suspected the woman with a great beard to be other 
 than the veritable Dame Pratt.* 
 
 The third period of Shakspere's development is that 
 which contains the great tragedies. Shakspere's laughter 
 now is more than pathetic — though pathetic it is as it 
 had never been before — it is also tragic and terrible. 
 The gaze of the poet during this period was concentrated 
 upon the evil in man's heart, the deepest mystery of be- 
 ing, and upon the good which is at odds in the world 
 
 * With respect to the difficulty of identifying the characters of Mrs. 
 Quickly, Pistol, Bardolph, and Sir John with the persons bearing the same 
 names in the historical plays, see Mr. Halliwell's introduction to " The First 
 Sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor" (Sh. Soc, 1842). My impression 
 of this play is confirmed by that of competent critics. Mr. Hudson writes, 
 " That the free impulse of Shakespeare's genius, without suggestion or in- 
 ducement from any other source, could have led him to put FalstaS through 
 such a series of uncharacteristic delusions and collapses is to me well-nigh 
 incredible" {" Shakespeare : his Life," etc., vol. i., p. 298). See also Hazlitt's 
 criticism of the play. Hartley Coleridge writes, " That Queen Bess should 
 have desired to see FalstafE making love proves her to have been, as she 
 was, a gross-minded old baggage. Shakespeare has evaded the difficulty 
 with great skill. He knew that FalstafE could not be in love ; and has mixed 
 but a little, a very little, pi-uritus with his fortune-hunting courtship. But 
 the FalstafE of T/ie Merry Wives is not the FalstafE of Henry IV. It is a 
 big-bellied impostor, assuming his name and style, or, at best, it is FalstafE 
 in dotage. The Mrs. Quickly of Windsor is not mine hostess of the Boar's 
 Head ; but she is a very pleasant, busy, good-natured, unprincipled old 
 woman, whom it is impossible to be angry with. Shallow should not have 
 left his seat in Gloucestershire and his magisterial duties. Ford's jealousy 
 is of too serious a complexion for the rest of the play. The merry wives 
 are a delightful pair. Methinks I see them, with their comely, midie-aged 
 visages, their dainty white rufEs and toys, their half-witch-like conic hats 
 their full farthingales, their neat though not over-slim waists, their house- 
 wifely keys, their girdles, their sly laughing looks, their apple-red cheeks 
 their brows the lines whereon look more like the work of mirth than years. 
 And sweet Anne Page — she is a pretty little creature whom one would like 
 to take on one's knee" ("Essays and Marginalia," vol. ii., pp. 133, 134). it 
 is noteworthy that Maurice Morgann, in his essay on Falstaff avoids The 
 Merry Wives. 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 331 
 
 with this evil. He studies human life now with refer- 
 ence to its most solemn issues. Of unalloyed mirth, of 
 bright and tender fancy, we can now look for none. In 
 Shakspere's earliest tragedy, Mercutio disappears before 
 half the play is over ; and the gloom instantly deepens 
 upon the withdrawal of his gleaming vivacity. The 
 Mercutio in Shakspere's brain also disappears when the 
 tragedy of life becomes with him very grave and real. 
 In Hamlet, the humorous figures of the court are all a 
 little contemptible and odious. Polonius, Osric, Kosen- 
 crantz, and Guildenstern serve as irritants to stimulate 
 Hamlet's dissatisfaction with living and impatience of the 
 world. The grave-diggers have a grim grotesqueness, and 
 might almost appear as figures in the danses macdbres of 
 the Middle Ages ; each a humorous jester in the court of 
 Death; hail-fellow-well-met with chap-fallen skulls; a 
 go-between for my lady Worm and him she desires; a 
 connoisseur in corpses; a chronicler of dead men's bones. 
 The scene of the knocking in Macbeth has similarly a 
 grave significance.* To the criticism of De Quincey 
 nothing, from the aesthetic point of view, remains to be 
 added. " The retiring of the human heart, and the en- 
 trance of the fiendish heart, was to be expressed and made 
 sensible. Another world has stepped in ; and the murder- 
 
 * Coleridge rejected the Porter's soliloquy with the exception of two 
 lines — viz., " I'll devil-porter it no further ; I had thought to let in some of 
 all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." On the 
 other side, see (Trans. New Sh. Soc, 1874) Mr. Hales, " On the Porter in 
 Macbeth." Mr. Hales endeavors to establish the genuineness of the speech 
 on the grounds — 
 
 (i.) That a Porter's speech is an integral part of the play. 
 
 (ii.) Tiat it is necessary as a relief to the surrounding horror. 
 
 (iii.) That it is necessary according to the law of contrast elsewhere 
 obeyed. 
 
 (iv,) That the speech we have is dramatically relevant. 
 
 (v.) That its style and language are Shaksperian. 
 
332 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ers are taken out of the region of Imman things, human 
 purposes, human desires. Tiiey are transfigured. Lady 
 Macbeth is ' unsexed ;' Macbeth has forgotten that he was 
 born of woman ; both are conformed to the image of 
 devils ; and the world of devils is suddenly revealed. 
 But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable % In 
 order that a new world may step in, this world must for 
 a time disappear. The murderers and the murder must 
 • be insulated — cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the 
 ordinary tide and succession of human affaii"s ; we must 
 be made sensible that the world of ordinary life is sud- 
 denly arrested — laid asleep, tranced, racked into a dread 
 armistice ; time must be annihilated, relations to things 
 without abolished ; and all must pass self-withdrawn into 
 a deep syncope and suspension of earthly passion. Hence 
 it is that when the deed is done, when the work of dark- 
 ness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away 
 like a pageantry in the clouds ; the knocking at the gate 
 is heard ; and it makes known audibly that the reaction 
 has commenced ; the human has made its reflux upon the 
 fiendish ; the pulses of life are beginning to beat again ; 
 and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in 
 which we live first makes us profoundly sensible of the 
 awful parenthesis that had suspended them." * 
 
 In Lear, where all else of Shakspere's art attains a 
 deeper and more intense life than in any other of his 
 poems, the interpenetration of the humorous, the pathet- 
 ic, and the tragic has become complete. When Lear, 
 
 * De Quincey'a Works (1st ed.), vol. xiv., p. 197. Bodenstedt (quoted by 
 Fumess, Variorum Shakespeare — Macbeth, p. 110) writes of the Porter, 
 " After all, his uncouth comicality has a tragic background : he never 
 dreams, while imagining himself a porter of hell, how near he comes to the 
 truth. What are all these petty sinners who go the primrose way to the 
 everlasting bonfire compared with those great criminals whose gates he 
 guards ?" 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 333 
 
 assisted by the most learned justicer poor Tom, and Lis 
 yoke-fellow in equity the Fool, arraigns a joint-stool as 
 Goneril, we do not smile, we hardly as yet can pity ; we 
 gaze on. with suspended intellect, as if the entire spectacle 
 were some mysterious, grotesque hieroglyph, the secret 
 of which we were about to discover. In the smallest 
 atom of the speeches of Lear, of Edgar, of the Fool, and 
 equally in the entire drama, tragic earnestness is seen ar- 
 rayed in fantastic motley. It is as if the writer were 
 looking down at human life from a point of view without 
 and above life, from which the whole appears as some 
 monstrous farce-tragedy, in which all that is terrible is 
 ludicrous, and all that is ludicrous terrible. 
 
 If, during this tragic period, Shakspere retain any ten- 
 dency to observe the comedy of incident in life, the inci- 
 dent will be of another sort from that which moves our 
 laughter in The Comedy of Errors. It will rather be a 
 fragment of titanic burlesque, overhung by some impend- 
 ing horror, and inspired by a deep "idea of world-destruc- 
 tion." * Such a stupendous piece of burlesque, inspired 
 by an idea of .world -destruction, Shakspere found in 
 Plutarch's life of Antony, and having allowed it to dilate 
 and take color in his own imagination, he transfei'red it 
 to his play. Aboard Pompey's galley. the masters of the 
 earth .hold hands and dance the Egyptian bacchanals,^ 
 joining in the volleying chorus, "Cup lis, tUl the. world 
 goes round !" and Menas whispers his leader to bid him 
 cut the cable ^nd fall to the throats of the triumvirs. A 
 great painting by Orcagna shows a terrible figure. Death, 
 armed with the scythe, and sweeping down through 
 bright air upon the glad and careless garden-party of 
 noble and beautiful persons — men and women who lean 
 to one another, and caress their dogs and hawks, while 
 
 » A wotd applied by Heine to Aristophanes — WeltverniiMwi»gMee. 
 
334 Shakspere — His Mitid and Art. 
 
 they listen to the music of stringed instruments. In 
 Shakspere's scene of revelry, death seems to be more 
 secretly, more intimately present, seems more siirely to 
 dominate life : though it passes by, it passes, as it were, 
 with an ironical smile at the security of the possessors of 
 this world, and at the noisy insubstantial triumph of life, 
 permitted for a while. If now Shakspere be a satirist, 
 his satire will not resemble the bright, airy mockery of 
 fashions and affectations which made the early Lovers 
 Labor 's Lost effective with youthful aristocratic patrons 
 of the theatre. How great a distance has been measured 
 since then ! Shakspere's satire will now be the deep or 
 fierce complaint against the world, of a soul in its agony 
 — the frenzied accusations of nature and of man uttered 
 by Lear, or the Juvenalian satire of the Athenian misan- 
 thrope. 
 
 There is in every man of passionate genius a revolt 
 against the insuflBciency of the world, a revolt against the 
 base facts of life. Most of us surrender to the world, sign 
 a treaty of alliance with engagements of mutual service, 
 and end by acquiescence. It is remarkable that Shak- 
 spere's revolt against the world increased in energy and 
 comprehensiveness as he advanced in years. When he 
 was thirty or five-and-thirty years of age, he found less in 
 the world to arouse his indignation than when he was 
 forty. Neither by force nor fraud, by bribe or menace, 
 did the world subdue or gain over Shakspere. If he at- 
 tained serenity, it was by some procedure other than that 
 of selfish or indolent acquiescence. E"o mood of egoistic 
 laissezfaire succeeded Siiakspere's mood of indignation. 
 
 Serenity Shakspere did attain. Once again before the 
 end his mirth is bright and tender. When in some War- 
 wickshire field, one breezy morning, as the daffodil began 
 to peer, the poet conceived his Autolycus, there might 
 seem to be almost a return of the light-heartedness of 
 
The Humor of Shakspere. 335 
 
 youth. But the same play that contains Autolycus con- 
 tains the grave and noble figure of Hermione. From its 
 elevation and calm Shakspere's heart can pass into the 
 simple merriment of rustic festivity; he- can enjoy the 
 open-mouthed happiness of country clowns ; he is de- 
 lighted by the gay defiance of order and honesty which 
 Autolycus, most charming of rogues, professes ; he is 
 touched and exquisitely thrilled by the pure and vivid 
 joy of Perdita among her flowers. Now that Shakspere 
 is most a householder, he enters most into the pleasures 
 of truantship.* And in like manner it is when he is 
 most grave that he can smile most brightly, most tender- 
 ly. But one kind of laughter Shakspere at this time 
 found detestable — the laughter of an Antonio or a Se- 
 bastian, barren and forced laughter of narrow heads and 
 irreverent and loveless hearts. The sly knavery of Au- 
 tolycus has nothing in it that is criminal; heaven is his 
 accomplice. " If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune 
 would not suflEer me; she drops booties in my mouth." 
 Whether Schillei"'s Franz Moor made many robbers may 
 be doubtful. But certainly no person of spii-it can read 
 A Winter's Tale without feeling a dishonest and delight- 
 ful itching of the fingers, an interest not wholly virtuous 
 in his neighbor's bleaching-green, and an impatience to 
 be off for once on an adventure of roving and roguing 
 with Autolycus. 
 
 * Headers of Mr. Browning's "Fifine at the Fair" will associate an esoteric 
 sense with the word " householder," and will remember his admirably bright 
 and yigorous study of the causes of our love of truantship in the opening 
 sections of that poem. 
 
336 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 shakspeee's last plats. 
 
 In these chapters we have been chiefly concerned with 
 observing the growth of Shakspere's mind and art. The 
 essential prerequisite of such a study was a scheme of the 
 chronological succession of Shakspere's plays which could 
 be accepted as trustworthy in the main. But for such a 
 study it is fortunately not necessary that we should in 
 every case determine how play followed play. It would 
 for many reasons be important and interesting to ascer- 
 tain the date at which each work of Shakspere came into 
 existence; but as a fact this has not been accomplished, 
 and we may safely say that it never will be accomplished. 
 To understand in all essentials the iistory of Shakspere's 
 character and Shakspere's art, we have obtained what is 
 absolutely necessary when we have made out the succes- 
 sion, not of Shakspere's plays, but of Shakspere's chief 
 visions of trath, his most intense moments of inspiration, 
 his greater discoveries about human life. 
 
 In the history of every artist and of every man there 
 are periods of quickened existence, when spiritual discov- 
 ery is made without an effort, and attainment becomes 
 easy and almost involuntary. One does not seek for 
 truth, but rather is sought for by truth, and found ; one 
 does not construct beautiful imaginings, but beauty itself 
 haunts and startles and waylays. These periods may be 
 arrived at through prolonged moral conflict and victory, 
 or through some sudden revelation of joy, or through 
 supreme anguish and renouncement. Such epochs of 
 
Shaksperis Last Plays. 337 
 
 spiritual discovery lie behind the art of the artist, it may 
 be immediately, or it may be remotely, and out of these 
 it springs. Among many art-products some single work 
 ■will perhaps give to a unique experience its highest, its 
 absolute expression ; and this, whether produced at the 
 moment or ten years afterwards, properly belongs to that 
 crisis of which it is the outcome. Lyrical writers usually 
 utter themselves nearly at the moment when they arc 
 smitten with the sharp stroke of joy or of pain. Dramatic 
 writers, for the purity and fidelity of whose work a cer- 
 tain aloofness from their individuality is needed, utter 
 themselves more often not on the moment, but after an 
 interval, during which self-possession and self-mastery 
 have been attained. 
 
 Now, although we are not in all cases able to say con- 
 fidently this play of Shakspere preceded that, the order 
 of his writings has been sufficiently determined to enable 
 us to trace with confidence the succession of Shakspere's 
 epochs of spiritual alteration and development. Whether 
 Macbeth preceded Othello, or Othetto Macbeth, need not 
 greatly concei'n us ; the question is one chiefly of literary 
 curiosity ; we do not understand Shakspere much the 
 better when the question has been settled than we did 
 while the answer remained doubtful. Both plays belong, 
 and they belong in an equal degree, to one and the same 
 period in the history of Shakspere's mind and art, to 
 which period we can unquestionably assign its place. In 
 tlie present chapter Timon of Athens is placed near The 
 Temjpest, although it is possible that a play, or two or 
 three plays, in the precise chronological order, may lie 
 between them. They are placed near one another be- 
 cause in Timon of Athens Shakspere's mood of indigna- 
 tion with the world attains its highest, its ideal expression, 
 while in The Tempest we find the ideal expression of the 
 temper of mind which succeeded his mood of indigna- 
 
 15 
 
338 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tion — the pathetic yet august serenity of Shakspere's 
 final period. For the purposes of such a study as this 
 we may look upon The Tempest as Shakspere's latest 
 play. Perhaps it actually was such ; perhaps A Winter' 8 
 Tale or Cymieline, or both, may have followed it in point 
 of time. It does not matter greatly, for the purposes of 
 the present study, which preceded and which succeeded. 
 These three plays, as we shall see, form a little group by 
 themselves, but it is The Tempest which gives its most 
 perfect expression to the spirit that breathes through 
 these three plays which bring to an end the dramatic 
 career of Shakspere ; and therefore for us it is Shak- 
 spere's latest play.* "We have been endeavoring, so to 
 speak, to scan the metre of Shakspere's life ; to do this 
 rightly, we must count rather by accents than by sylla- 
 bles ; if we can find the last accented syllable, we have 
 found the real close of the verse, although it may be an 
 additional syllable or two follow, and enrich the verse 
 with a dying fall. And so in the case of Timon of Athens^ 
 it may actually lie, in point of time, at a considerable dis- 
 tance from those discoveries of evil in man's heart which 
 inspired the soliloquies of Hamlet and the frenzied utter- 
 ances of Lear; but in Timon indignation has attained its 
 
 * Professor Ingram, in his paper " On the ' Weak-endings ' of Shakspere," 
 arranges the plays of the weak-ending period in the following order : Aniony 
 and Cleopatra, Coriolanm, Pericles, Tempest, Cymheline, Winter's Tale, Two 
 Nolle Kinsmen, Henry VIII. From an aesthetic point of view, Antony and 
 Cleopatra and Coriolanm seem to me connected with the plays that imme- 
 diately precede, not with those that follow them. Professor Ingram is dis- 
 posed to place Macbeth immediately before Atdony and Cleopatra. I had 
 independently arrived at the same opinion. J^mora cannot be far off, and 
 must, I think, come before TI>e Tempest. Observe that Pericles, Two Noble 
 Kinsmen, and Henry VIII. are Shaksperian fragments. Thus the Tempest, 
 Winter's Tale, and Cymieline remain as the three complete plays which repre- 
 sent the final period of Shakspere's authorship. I treat Timon, in this chap- 
 ter, as earlier than these, but not a great deal earlier. 
 
Shaksperds Last Plays. 339 
 
 ideal expression ; it is the decuman wave which sets 
 shoreward from that infinite and stormy sea of human 
 passion. 
 
 Timon of Athens, although deservedly one of the least 
 popular of Shakspere's plays, belongs to his best period, 
 and was written by the poet with no half-hearted regard 
 for his subject. Whether Shakspere wrote his portion 
 first, and left it unfinished to be completed by a later 
 dramatist — the conjecture of Mr. Eleay ; whether Shak- 
 spere's play was cut down and altered for the stage, to 
 please a public which demanded comedy and the conceits 
 of clownage, either during the poet's lifetime or in the 
 interval between his death and the appearance of the first 
 folio;* or whether Shakspere worked upon the material 
 
 * See the laborious actiele by N. Delius, " Ueber Shakespeare's Timon of 
 Athens," Jahrbuch der deutschm Shakespeare- Qesellschaft, vol. ii. ; and that 
 by B. Tschischwitz, " Timon von Athen. Ein kritiseher Versuoh," JaJirhuch, 
 vol. iv. There is yet another and plausible theory, originated by Ulrici and 
 modified by Karl Elze. In the first folio Timon ends upon p. 99. A vacant 
 page (100) follows. Then immediately comes Julins Ccemr, beginning not 
 on p. 101, but on p. 109. Although there are irregularities in the pagination 
 of the first folio, such a gap between two plays does not occur elsewhere in 
 the volume. Sheet ii is wanting. Timon ends with sheet hh ; Julius Ccesar 
 begins with kk. Ulrici is of opinion that the printing of Julius Caesar was 
 begun before that of Timon was finished, probably because the manuscript 
 of Timon was imperfect, and the deficiencies could not be immediately sup- 
 plied. Shakspere's manuscript was not forthcoming ; the play had to be 
 made up from the scattered parts of the individual actors. These parts 
 were marred by omissions, and by the introduction of passages not by Shak- 
 spere. Karl Elze adds the conjecture that only the parts of the principal 
 actors could be found. (The play seems not to have been popular, and per- 
 haps it had not been represented for several years.) To complete the play, 
 the editors of the first folio fell back, for minor parts, upon the old Timon 
 of Athens (not much older, perhaps, than Shakspere's play), which may have 
 been the work of George Wilkins. Hence the incoherences and incon- 
 sistencies of the play as it exists at present. See the preface by Karl Elze 
 to Timon in the German Shakespeare Society's edition of Tieck and Sehle- 
 gol's translation of Shakspere. For Mr. Fleay's study of this play, see Trans, 
 New Sh. See. 
 
340 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 oi a preceding writer (perhaps George Wilkins), as Mr. 
 Knight believed, and Delius and Mr. Spedding now main- 
 tain — these are questions which do not essentially concern 
 us. 
 
 With few exceptions, those portions of the play in 
 which Timon is the speaker can have come from no 
 other hand than that of Shakspere. If such conjectures 
 were allowed to possess any worth, one might venture to 
 assert that by the time this play was written, Shakspere 
 had mastered the impulses within himself to mere rage 
 against the evil that is in the world. The impression 
 which the play leaves is that of Shakspere's sanity. He 
 could now so fully and fearlessly enter into Timon's 
 mood, because he was now past all danger of Timon's 
 malady. He had now learned to strive with evil and to 
 subdue it ; he had now learned to forgive. And there- 
 fore he could dare to utter that wrath against mankind 
 to which he had assuredly been tempted, but to which he 
 had never wholly yielded. 
 
 It would seem that about this period Shakspere's mind 
 was much occupied with the questions, In what temper 
 are we to receive the injuries inflicted upon us by our 
 fellow-men ? How are we to bear ourselves towards those 
 thit wrong us? How shall we secure our inward being 
 from chaos amid the evils of the world \ How shall we 
 attain to the most just and noble attitude of soul in which 
 life and the injuries of life may be confronted? Now, 
 here in Timon we see one way in whicli a man may make 
 his response to the injuries of life ; he may turn upon the 
 world with a fruitless and suicidal rage. Shakspere was 
 interested in the history of Timon, not merely as a dra- 
 matic study, and not merely for the sake of moral edifi- 
 cation, but because he recognized in the Athenian misan- 
 thrope one whom he had known, an intimate acquaintance, 
 the Timon of Shakspere's own breast. Shall we hesitate 
 
Skaksper^s Last Plays. 341 
 
 to admit that there was such a Timon in the breast of 
 ishakspere ? We are accustomed to speak of Shakspere's 
 gentleness and Shakspere's tolerance so foolishly that we 
 find it easier to conceive of Shakspere as indulgent tow- 
 ards baseness and wickedness than as feeling measureless 
 rage and indignation against them — ^rage and indignation 
 which would sometimes flash beyond their bounds and 
 strike at the whole wicked race of man. And it is cer- 
 tain that Shakspere's delight in human character, his 
 quick and penetrating sympathy with almost every vari- 
 ety of man, saved him from any persistent injustice tow- 
 ards the world. But it can hardly be doubted that the 
 creator of Hamlet, of Lear, of Timon, saw clearly, and felt 
 deeply, that there is a darker side to the world and to the 
 soul of man. 
 
 The Shakspere invariably bright, gentle, and genial is 
 the Shakspere of a myth. The man actually discoverable 
 behind the plays was a man tempted to passionate ex- 
 tremes, but of strenuous will, and whose highest self pro- 
 nounced in favor of sanity. Therefore he resolved that 
 he would set to rights his material life, and he did so. 
 And, again, he resolved that he would bring into harmony 
 with the highest facts and laws of the world his spiritual 
 being, and that in his own liigh fashion he accomplished 
 also. The plays impress us as a long study of self-control 
 — of self-control at one with self-surrender to the highest 
 facts and laws of human life. Shakspere set about at- 
 taining self-mastery, not of the petty, pedantic kind, which 
 can be dictated by a director or described in a manual, 
 but large, powerful, luminous, and calm ; and by sustained 
 effort he succeeded in attaining this in the end. It is im- 
 possible to conceive that Shakspere should have traversed 
 life, and felt its insufficiencies and injuries and griefs, 
 without incurring Timon's temptation — the temptation 
 to fierce and barren resentment. What man or woman 
 
342 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 who has sought good things, and with whom life has not 
 gone altogether smoothly and pleasantly, has not known — 
 if not for days and weeks, then for hours ; if not for hours, 
 then for intense moments — a Timon within him, incapable 
 for the while of making any compromise with the world, 
 and fiercely abandoning it with cries of weak and passion- 
 ate revolt ? And when again such a man accepts life and 
 human society, it is not what it had been before. The 
 music of his life is a little lowered throughout ; the pegs 
 are set down. Or what had been a nerve is changed to 
 a sinew. Or he finds himself a little more indifferent to 
 pain. Or now and then a pungent sentence escapes his 
 lips, which is unintelligible to those who had only known 
 his former self. 
 
 In the character of Timon, Shakspere gained dramatic 
 remoteness from his own personality. It would have 
 been contrary to the whole habit of the dramatist's gen- 
 ius to have used one of his characters merely as a mask 
 to conceal his visage, while he relieved himself with lyi-- 
 ical vehemence of the feelings that oppressed him. No ; 
 Shakspere, when Timon was written, had attained self- 
 possession, and could transfer himself with real disinter- 
 estedness into the person of the young Athenian favorite 
 of fortune. This, in more than one instance, was Shak- 
 spere's method — having discovered some single central 
 point of sympathy between his chief character and his 
 past or present self, to secxire freedom from all mere lyr- 
 ical intensity by studj'ing that one common element iin- 
 der conditions remote from those which had ever been 
 proper or peculiar to himself. 
 
 Timon, in the opening scene, surrounded by the para- 
 sites of Athens, abandoned to a prodigality of heart and 
 of hand, lives on terms of careless fellowship with all 
 mankind and with himself. Like Lear, he is slenderly 
 acquainted with his own heart, and he knows nothing of 
 
Shaksperis Last Plays. 343 
 
 the hearts and the lives of the men about him. To him 
 life's business is a summer mood. He moves in a dream 
 — a beneficent genius waited on by spirits, which the 
 magic of his bounty has conjured around him. " We are 
 born to do benefits ; and what better or properer can we 
 call our own than the riches of our friends ? Oh, what a 
 precious comfort 'tis to have so many, like brothers, com- 
 manding one another's fortunes !" Ventidius is impris- 
 oned for debt, and sends a servant to beg for the sum of 
 five talents. Timon, who has had no eye for the base- 
 ness -of the man, exclaims, 
 
 " Noble Ventidius ! Well ; 
 
 I am not of that feather to shake off 
 
 My friend when he must need me. I do know him, 
 
 A gentleman that well deserves a help ; 
 
 Which he shall hare ; FlI pay the debt and free him." 
 
 Timon is acquainted with the commonplaces about the 
 deceitfulness of the world, and utters them, but in an un- 
 real, insubstantial way of talking : 
 
 " Painting is welcome. 
 The painting is almost the natural man ; 
 For since dishonor traffics with man's nature, 
 He is but outside ; these pencill'd figures are 
 Even such as they give out. I like your work." 
 
 These words are not insincere, but they are altogether 
 unreal and notional. And precisely because the good- 
 ness of Timon is so indiscriminating, so lax and liberal, 
 it is not veritable goodness, which, as Shakspere was well 
 aware, has in it something of severity.* Precisely be- 
 cause Timon has not discovered evil in man's heart, he 
 has made no genuine discovery of human goodness. He 
 is altogether remote from the fact. His friends are sum- 
 mer swallows, who will fly away when the days grow cold. 
 
 * In Richardson's "Essa)'s on Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters" (1Y86), 
 the truth about Timon is brought out under a number of heads in a method- 
 ical and somewhat dry manner, but rightly and carefully. 
 
344 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 The one honest heart that he might have known— his 
 steward's — is to him indistinguishable from the rest. 
 His wealth has melted away, and he remains unaware 
 that such is the case. The steward presses the truth 
 upon him, but Timon has no ears to hear it. The sum- 
 mer sea of happiness and imiversal benevolence, how shall 
 it ever be ruffled ? 
 
 Having never made discovery of human virtue, the first 
 incursion of veritable fact upon Timon, the first in his 
 whole life, is that of the selfishness, ingratitude, and base- 
 ness of man. The entire dream-structure of his life top- 
 ples, totters, and crashes down. The mirage of universal 
 brotherhood among men vanishes, and he is left in the 
 barren wastes of the world. And because Timon has 
 lived carelessly, with relaxed moral fibre, now, when ca- 
 lamity overtakes him, he is wanting in all capacity for pa- 
 tient endurance of the heart. He is " passion's slave :" 
 
 " A pipe for Fortune's finger 
 To sonnd what stop she please." 
 
 Shakspere in an earlier play — that from which these 
 words are borrowed — had pictured a man who had taken 
 " Fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks." But 
 the character of Horatio was not lax and self-indulgent ; 
 he was " more an antique Koman than a Dane." Timon 
 is unable to accept his sorrow, and hold his nature stren- 
 uously under command until it can adjust itself to the 
 altered state of things. He flings himself from an airy, 
 unreal philanthropy into passionate hatred of men. He 
 is a revolter from humanity. He foams at the mouth 
 with imprecation. He shakes off the dust of Atliens 
 from his feet, and strives to maintain himself in isolation, 
 the one protester in the world against the cruelty and self- 
 ishness and baseness of the race. 
 
 Here is one way of bearing a man's self towards the 
 world which wrongs us. Nor is it devoid of a certain 
 
Shaksperes Last Plays. 345 
 
 mistaken nobleness. There is, at least, something baser 
 than the misanthropy of Timon — compkcent acquies- 
 cence in the life of greed, of selfishness, of nnrighteoTis- 
 ness in the cowardly and lascivious Athens. Timon's 
 rage proceeds, in part at least, from the natural goodness 
 of Timon's heart. Misanthropy, as Ulrici has said, was 
 an atmosphere of poison to him ; he was therefore of 
 necessity the victim of his annihilating rage against him- 
 self and all mankind. But one entrance into peace re- 
 mained for Timon — death, and the oblivion of death. 
 There, upon the very " hem of the sea," as far from the 
 world of men as may be, where the wave twice a day ef- 
 faces the print of human feet, and where no tear will be 
 shed for him except the salt spray of the breaking bil- 
 low, Timon will cease to be, and will attain everlasting 
 forgetfulness. Gold he had become again possessed' of, 
 yellow and massy ; but gold, without the human love of 
 which he had dreamed, is to him worse than worthless — 
 it is the detestable corrupter of men. Power and influ- 
 ence he is offered again by the Athenian senate ; but he 
 cannot accept them among the proud wrong-doers, the 
 loveless voluptuaries of the city. Better gnaw his root 
 in solitude, and curse; yet better still to let sour words 
 go by, and rest beneath the sands and the waves ! The 
 misanthropy of Timon was less a crime than a cruel dis- 
 ease, to which no one could be liable who did not possess 
 a potential nobleness of nature. Neither his love was 
 wise nor his hatred, but neither his love nor his hatred 
 was altogether ignoble : 
 
 " Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, 
 Scom'dst our brains' flow and those our droplets which 
 From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit 
 Taught thee to malie vast Neptune weep for aye 
 On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead 
 Is noble Timon ; of whose memory 
 Hereafter more." 
 
 15* 
 
346 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 The play of Tvmon contains a twofold contrast : first, 
 the misanthropy of Tiinon is contrasted with that of 
 Apemantus; and, secondly, Timon's attitude towards 
 those who have wronged him is contrasted witli the 
 bearing and conduct of Aleibiades. Apemantus serves 
 as an interpreter and apologist of Timon. He has erect- 
 ed his natural churlishness into a philosophy and a creed. 
 He snarls at the heels of humanity with a currish viru- 
 lence, and yet is willing, in currish fashion, to pick up the 
 scraps that fall. As lago grows and puts forth his evil 
 blossoms in an atmosphere of disbelief in beauty and vir- 
 tue, which is death to Othello, so Apemantus finds it 
 right and natural to hate mankind, and he does it with 
 a zest and vulgar good-pleasure in hatred ; while Timon 
 hates, and is slain by hatred, because it was his need to 
 love. 
 
 Gervinus has rightly noticed that Shakspere, in several 
 of his dramas, reflects his main plot in a secondary plot, 
 making the latter serve to illustrate and illuminate the 
 former. Thus the story of Gloucester and his unnatural 
 Edmund is a secondary plot reflecting the story of Lear 
 and his daughters; the thunder of that moral tempest 
 rolls away with reverberations, which prolong and inten- 
 sify its menace. In Hamlet, the position of Laertes, who 
 had lost a father by foul means, and who hastens to re- 
 venge his death, repeats the position of the Danish prince 
 himself. In The Tempest, the treasonable attempt of 
 Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo upon the life of Pros- 
 pero is by its wickedness and its folly a kind of parody 
 upon the treason of Antonio and Sebastian against the 
 King of Naples. Here, in Timon of Athens, the story of 
 Aleibiades, so ill connected by external points of contact 
 with that of the principal character, fulfils the same eth- 
 ical and sesthetic purpose that the secondary plots fulfil 
 in Lear, in Hamlet, and in The Tempest. Tljis portion 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 347 
 
 of the play, if not written by Sbakspere, was written ei- 
 ther under Shakspere's direction or by one who had a 
 certain comprehension of his method as an artist. 
 
 Alcibiades comes before the Athenian senate to plead 
 oil behalf of the life of a friend who had slain one who 
 wronged his honor : 
 
 " With a noble fury and fair spirit, 
 Seeing his reputation touch'd to death, 
 He did oppose his foe." 
 
 It was precisely such plain loyalty of friendship as this 
 shown by Alcibiades which Timon had not found, and, 
 not finding which, he had abandoned himself to despera- 
 tion. The senators— whose words are excellent words, 
 but wholly unreal — ^utter wise maxims about the patient ' 
 bearing of injuries and the unworthiness of revenge. 
 
 " He's truly valiant that can wisely, suffer 
 The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs 
 His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, 
 And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart 
 To bring it into danger." 
 
 But Alcibiades, who is of an active, practical, unideal 
 character, is not able to discover wisdom in the suffering 
 of evils, which, by opposing, a man may end. 
 
 " Why do fond men expose themselves to battle. 
 And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't. 
 And let the foes quietly cut their throats 
 Without repugnancy ?" 
 
 Alcibiades, for daring the anger of the Senate, is sent 
 into perpetual banishment. He, like Timon, is com- 
 .pelled to experience the ingratitude of his fellows. But 
 Alcibiades has been living in the real world, and is able 
 immediately to assign its place to this ingratitude and 
 baseness in a world in which evil and good are mingled. 
 Although possessed of none of the potential nobleness 
 of Timon, Alcibiades possesses one virtue— -that of per- 
 
348 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 ceiving such facts as lie within the range of his limited 
 observation. He does not see the whole world, but he 
 sees the positive limited half of it rightly in the main. 
 He is less than Timon, and yet greater ; for Timon mis- 
 erably fails through want of the one gift which Alcibi- 
 ades possessed. In like manner, Hamlet had failed for 
 want of the gift which Fortinbras possessed; and yet 
 Hamlet's was beyond all measure a larger and rarer soul 
 than that of the Prince of Norway. Alcibiades has, at 
 least, not been living in a dream ; he lays hold of tlie 
 positive and coarser pleasures of life, and endnres its pos- 
 itive, limited pains, definite misfortunes which lie within 
 appreciable bounds. No absolute, ideal anguish like that 
 of Timon can overwhelm him. Accordingly, instead of 
 wasting himself in futile rage against mankind, Alcibia- 
 des resolves to set himself in active opposition to those 
 who have wronged him. While Timon is lifting weak 
 hands of indignation to the gods, Alcibiades advances 
 against Athens with swords and drums. To him the 
 Senate will bow with humble entreaties for grace. Timou 
 had fiercely thrust away their advances, because he could 
 not accept benefits or render service in a base world which 
 was remote from the ideal he had dreamed. Alcibiades, 
 who deals with the world as it is, will punish and will 
 pardon. The rage of Timon had been barren ; it is 
 hushed at last under the sands and the wasli of waves. 
 But the positive opposition offered to evil by Alcibia- 
 des, though in kind of no ideal purity or virtue, bears 
 fruit : 
 
 "Bring me to your city, 
 And I will use the olive with my sword, 
 Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each 
 Prescribe to other as each other's leech. 
 Let our drums strike." 
 
 The olive and the sword — punishment and pardon — these 
 were the beneficent gifts which Athens really needed. 
 
Shaksperds Last Plays. 349 
 
 These, and not the lax philanthropy, not the frustrate 
 rage against mankind, of Timon. 
 
 Yet the idealist Timon was infinitely interesting to 
 the imagination of Shakspere. The practical and limit- 
 ed character of Alcibiades was esteemed highly by him, 
 but did not really interest him. In like manner, Hamlet, 
 who failed, interested Shakspere; Fortinbras, who suc- 
 ceeded, seemed admirable to him, but in his presence 
 Shakspere's sympathies and imagination were not deeply 
 moved. Can we miss the significance of such a fact as 
 this? Can we doubt that the Hamlets and Timons of 
 Shakspere's plays represent the side of the dramatist's 
 own character in which lay his peculiar strengtli, and 
 also his specialdanger and weakness? An Alcibiades or 
 a Fortinbras represents that side of his character into 
 which he threw himself for protection against the weak- 
 ness of excess of passion or excess of thouglit. It was 
 the portion of his being which was more elaborated than 
 the rest, and less spontaneous; and therefore he highly 
 esteemed it, and loved it little. There is a poem by 
 Shakspere in which he expresses his admiration of the 
 calm, self-possessed, successful man upon whom nature 
 bestows her gifts, because she is a good housewife, and 
 knows that by such bestowal lier gifts are husbanded; 
 while the sensitive, the eager, the enthusiastic, who can- 
 not possess themselves, squander the largess of the great 
 giver of good things. But while Shakspere thus express- 
 es admiration, he remains remote and unmoved in the 
 presence of such a practical, successful, unideal character. 
 "We discern that in his secret heart he knew there was a 
 more excellent way. " The children of this world," Shak- 
 spere would say, " are wiser in their generation than the 
 children of light." Let us borrow from the children of 
 this world the secret of their success. Yet we cannot go 
 over to them ; in spite of danger and in spite of weakness, 
 we remain the children of liglit. 
 
350 Shakspere—His Mind and Art. 
 
 " They who have power to hurt and will do none, 
 That do not do the thing they most do show, 
 Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, 
 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, 
 They rightly do inherit heaven's graces 
 And husband nature's riches from expense ; 
 They are the lords and owners of their faces, 
 Others but stewards of their excellence." 
 
 Were there in the life of Shakspere certain events 
 which compelled him to a bitter yet precious gain of ex- 
 perience in the matter of the wrongs of man to man, and 
 from which he procured instruction in the difficult art of 
 bearing one's self justly towards one's wrongers \ If the 
 Sonnets of Shakspere, written many years before the close 
 of Shakspere's career as dramatist, be autobiographical, 
 we may perhaps discover the sorrow which first roused 
 his heart and imagination to their long inquisition of 
 evil and grief, and which, sinking down into his great 
 soul, and remaining there until all bitterness had passed 
 away, bore fruit in the most mature of Shakspere's writ- 
 ings, distinguished as these are by serene pathetic strength 
 and stern yet tender beauty.* 
 
 * I shall not enter into the controversy as to the interpretation of the 
 Sonnets. The principal theories held with respect to them may be classi- 
 fied as follows : I. They are poems about an imaginary friendship and love : 
 Dyce, Delius, H. Morley. II. They are partly imaginary, partly autobio- 
 graphical : C. Knight, H. von Friesen, R. Simpson (on the Italian love-phi- 
 losophy, see Simpson's interesting " Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets," 
 Triibner, 1868). III. They form a great allegory : Dr. Bamstorff (" Schliissel 
 zu Shakspere's Sonnetten," 1860; Mr. W. H.=Mr. William Himself !), Mr. 
 Heraud ("Shakspere's Inner Life;" the young friend=Ideal Manhood), 
 Carl Karpf. IV. They are autobiographical ; (a) Mr. W. H. = Henry 
 Wriothesley (the initials reversed). Earl of Southampton : Drake, Gervinus, 
 Kroyssig, and others ; (6) Mr. W. H.= William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke : 
 Bright, Boaden, A. Brown, Hallam, H. Brown. V. They were partly ad- 
 dressed to Southampton : other sonnets were written in his name to Eliza- 
 beth Vernon ; other some, to Southampton in E. Vernon's name ; and sub- 
 sequently the Earl of Pembroke engaged Shakspere to write sonnets on his 
 behalf to the dark woman. Lady Rich. Of part of this theory, the first sng- 
 
Shaksperis Last Plays. 351 
 
 The Sonnets of Shakspere were probably written dur- 
 ing those years when, as dramatist, he was engaged upon 
 the substantial material of English history, and when he 
 was accumulating those resources which were to make 
 him a wealthy burgher of Stratford. This practical, suc- 
 cessful man, who had now arrived at middle age, and was 
 growing rich ; who had never found delight, as Marlowe, 
 Nash, Greene, and other wild livers had, in the flimsy 
 idealism of knocking his head against the solid laws of 
 the world — was yet not altogether that self-possessed, 
 cheerful, prudent person who has stood with some writ- 
 ers for the veritable Shakspere. In the Sonnets we rec- 
 ognize three things : that Shakspere was capable of meas- 
 ureless personal devotion ; that he was tenderly sensitive 
 — sensitive, above all, to every diminution or alteration 
 of that love his heart so eagerly craved ; and that when 
 wronged, although he suffered anguish, he transcended 
 his private injury, and learned to forgive. There are 
 lovers of Shakspere so jealous of liis honor that they are 
 nnable to suppose that any grave moral flaw could have 
 impaired the nobility of his life and manhood. Shak- 
 spere, as he is discovered in his poems and his plays, ap- 
 
 gestion was given by Mrs. Jameson. It was elaborated by Mr. Gerald Mas- 
 sey in tlie Quarterly Heview, April, 1864, and in his large volume " Shak- 
 speare's Sonnets and his Private Friends." The peculiarity of Mr. Henry 
 Brown's interpretation (" The Sonnets of Shakespeare Solved," J. R. Smith, 
 1810) is that he discovers in the Sonnets an intention of Shakspere to par- 
 ody or jest at the fashionable love-poetry and love-philosophy of the day. 
 See on this subject the articles by Delius and H. von Friesen in Shakespeare- 
 ' Jahrbuclier, vols. i. and iv. ; the chapter " Shakspere's episch-lyrische Ge- 
 dichte und Sonnette " in H. von Friesen's " Altengland und William Shak- 
 spere" (ISli); and "Der Mythus von William Shakspere," by N. Delius 
 (isonn, 1851), pp. 29-31. Critics whose minds are of the businessJike, mat- 
 ter-of-fact, prosaic type cannot conceive how the poems could be autobio- 
 graphical. Coleridge, on the other hand, found no difficulty in believing 
 them to be such ; and Wordsworth emphatically declares them to expres^ 
 Shakspere's " own feelings in his own person." 
 
352 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 peai-s rather to have been a man who, by strennous ef- 
 fort, and with the aid of the good powers of the world, 
 was saved, so as by fire. Before Shakspere zealots de- 
 mand our attention to ingenious theories which help us 
 credit the immaculateness of Shakspere's life, let them 
 prove to us that his writings never offend. When they 
 have shown tliat Shakspere's poetiy possesses the proud 
 virginity of Milton's poetry, they may go on to show that 
 Shakspere's youth was devoted, like the youth of Milton, 
 to an ideal of moral elevation and purity. When we have 
 been convinced that the same moral and spiritual temper 
 which gave rise to the Comus gave rise to the Yenits and 
 Adonis, we shall think it probable that Shakspere could 
 have uttered the proud words about his unspotted life 
 that Milton uttered. 
 
 Assuredly, the inference from Shakspere's writings is 
 not that he held himself, with virginal strength and 
 pride, remote from the blameful pleasures d the world. 
 What no reader will find anywhere in the plays or po- 
 ems of Shakspere is a cold-blooded, hard, or selfish line ; 
 all is warm, sensitive, vital, radiant i^ith delight, or 
 athrill with pain. And what we n<&y dare to affirm 
 of Shakspere's life is, that whatever its sins may have 
 been, they were not hard, selfish, deliberate, cold-blooded 
 sins. The errors of his heart originated in his sensitive- 
 ness, in his imagination (not at first inured to the hard- 
 ness of fidelity to the fact), in his quick consciousness 
 of existence, and in the self-abandoning devotion of his 
 heart. There are some noble lines by Chapman in which 
 he pictures to himself the life of great energy, enthusi- 
 asms, and passions which forever stands npon the edge 
 of utmost danger, and yet forever remains in absolute 
 security : 
 
 " Give me the spirit that on this life's rough sea 
 LoTes to have his sails filled with a lusty wind 
 
Shaksperis Last Plays. 353 
 
 Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts craeb, 
 And his rapt ship run on her side so low 
 That she drinks water, and her Iceel ploughs air ; 
 There is no danger to a man that knows 
 What life and death is — ^there's not any law 
 Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful 
 That he should stoop to any other law."* 
 
 Such a master-spirit, pressing forward under strained 
 canvas, was Shabspere. If tlie ship dipped and drank 
 water, she rose again ; and, at length, we behold her 
 within view of her haven, sailing under a large, calm 
 Avind, not without tokens of stress of weather, but, if bat- 
 tered, yet unbroken by the waves. It is to dull, lethar- 
 gic natures that a moral accident is fatal, because they 
 are tending nowhither, and lack energy and momentum 
 to right themselves again. To say anything against de- 
 cent lethargic vices and timid virtues, anything to the 
 advantage of the strenuous life of bold action and eager 
 emotion, which necessarily incurs risks, and sometimes 
 suffers, is, we shall be told, " dangerous." Well, then, be 
 it so ; it is dangerous. 
 
 The Shakspere whom we discern in the Sonnets had cer- 
 tainly not attained the broad mastery of life which the 
 Stratford bust asserts to have been Shakspere's in his clos- 
 ing years. Life had been found good by him who owned 
 those lips, and whose spirit declares itself in the massive 
 animation of the total outlook of that face.f "When the 
 greater number of these Son/nets were written, Shakspere 
 could have understood Komeo ; he could have understood 
 Hamlet ; he could not have conceived Duke Prospero. Un- 
 der the joyous exterior of those days lay a craving, sensi- 
 
 * Byron's Conspiracy, act iii., sc, 1 (last lines). 
 
 t This is the more remarkable, because the original of the bust was al- 
 most certainly a mask taken after death; and the bust betrays the pres- 
 ence of physical death, over which, however, life triumphs. 
 
354 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 tive, unsatisfied heart, wliich had not entire possession 
 of itself, which could misplace its affections, and resort 
 to all those pathetic frauds by which misplaced affec- 
 tions strive to conceal an error from themselves. The 
 friend in whose personality Shakspere found a source of 
 measureless delight — high-born, beautiful, young, clever, 
 accomplished, ardent — wronged him. The woman from 
 whom Shakspere for a time received a joyous quicken- 
 ing of his life, which was half pain — a woman of stained 
 character, and the reverse of beautiful, but a strong nat- 
 ure, intellectual, a lover of art, and possessed of curious 
 magnetic attraction, with her dark eyes, which illuminat- 
 ed a pale face — wronged him also. Shakspere bitterly 
 felt the wrong — felt most bitterly the wrong which was 
 least to be expected, that of his friend. It has been held 
 to be an additional baseness that Shakspere could for- 
 give, that he could rescue himself from indignant resent- 
 ment, and adjust his nature to the altered circumstances. 
 Possibly Shakspere may not have subscribed to all the 
 items in the code of honor ; he may not have regarded as 
 inviolable the prohibited degrees of forgiveness. He may 
 liave seen that tlie wrong done to him was human, nat- 
 ural, almost inevitable. He certainly saw that the chief 
 wrong was not that done to him, but committed by his 
 friend against liis own better nature. Delivering his 
 heart from the prepossessions of wounded personal feel- 
 ing, and looking at the circumstances as they actually 
 were, he may have found it very natural and necessary 
 not to banish from his heart the man he loved. How- 
 ever this may have been, his own sanity and strength, 
 and the purity of his work as artist, depended on his ul- 
 timately delivering his soul from all bitterness. Besides 
 life was not exhausted. The ship righted itself, and went 
 ploughing forward across a broad sea. Shakspere found 
 ever more and more in life to afford adequate sustenance 
 
Shaksperes Last Plays. 355 
 
 for man's highest needs of intellect and of heart. Life 
 became ever more encircled with presences of beauty, 
 of goodness, and of terror ; and Shakspere's fortitude of 
 heart increased. Nevertheless, such experiences as those 
 recorded in the Sonnets could not pass out of his life, and 
 in the imaginative recurrence of past moods might at any 
 subsequent time become motives of his art. Passion had 
 been purified ; and at last the truth of things stood out 
 clear and calm.* 
 
 The Sonnets tell more of Shakspere's sensitiveness 
 than of Shakspere's strength. In the earlier poems of 
 the collection, his delight in human beauty, intellect, 
 grace, expresses itself with endless variation. Nothing 
 seems to him more admirable than manhood. But this 
 joy is controlled and saddened by a sense of the transi- 
 toriness of all things, the ruin of time, the inevitable 
 progress of decay. The love expressed in the early Son- 
 nets is love which has known no sorrow, no change, no 
 wrong ; it is an ecstasy which the sensitive heart is as 
 yet unable to control : 
 
 " As an unperfect actor on tlie stage 
 Who with his fear is put beside his part, 
 Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, 
 Whose strength's abundance wcaliens his own heart, 
 So I, for fear of trust, forget to say 
 The perfect ceremony of love's rite. 
 And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, 
 O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might." 
 
 The prudent and sober Shakspere — was it he who 
 bore this burden of too much love, he whose heart was 
 made weak by the abundance of its strength ? He can- 
 
 * All that refers in the above paragraph to the supposed facts which un- 
 derlie the Sonnets may be taken with reserve. Only if this portion of " the 
 mythus of Shakspere" be no myth, but a reality, the interpretation of events 
 in their moral aspect ^ven above is the one borne out by the Sonnets and 
 by Shakspere's subsequent life. 
 
356 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 not sleep ; he lies awake, haunted in the darkness by the 
 face that is dear to him. He falls into sudden moods of 
 despondency, when his own gifts seem narrow and of lit- 
 tle wortii ; when his poems, which yield him his keenest 
 enjoyment, seem wretchedly remote from what he had 
 dreamed, and, in the midst of his depression, he almost 
 despises himself because he is depressed : 
 
 " Wishing me lilce to one more rich in hope, 
 Featured lilie him, like him with friends possess'd. 
 Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
 With what I most enjoy contented least." * 
 
 He weeps for the loss of precious friends, for "love's 
 long-since-cancelled woe;" but out of all these clouds 
 and damps the thought of one human soul, which he be- 
 lieves beautiful, can deliver him : 
 
 " Haply I think on thee, and then my state. 
 Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate." 
 
 Then comes the bitter discovery — a change in love that 
 had seemed to be made for eternity ; coldness, estrange- 
 ment, wrongs upon both sides ; and, at the same time, ex- 
 ternal trials and troubles arise, and the injurious life of 
 actor and playwright — injurious to the delicate harmony 
 and purity of the poet's nature — becomes more irksome : 
 
 " And almost thence my nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." 
 
 He pathetically begs, not now for love, but for pity. 
 Yet at the worst, and through all suffering, he believes in 
 love : ' 
 
 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds." 
 
 * From its connection, we may infer that this last line refers to Shak- 
 spere's poems and plays. 
 
Shakspere s Last Plays. 357 
 
 It can accept its object even tbough imperfect, and 
 still love on. It is not, in the common acceptation of 
 the word, prudential— but the infinite prudence of the 
 heart is indeed no other than love : 
 
 " It fears not Policy, that heretic 
 Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, 
 But all alone stands hugely politic, 
 That it nor glows with heat, nor drowns with showers." 
 
 He has learned his lesson ; his romantic attachment, 
 which attributed an impossible perfection to his friend, 
 has become the stronger love which accepts his friend 
 and knows the fact; knows the fact of frailty and imper- 
 fection; knows also the greater and infinitely precious 
 fact of central and surviving loyalty and goodness : and 
 this new love is better than the old, because more real : 
 
 " benefit of ill ! now I find true 
 That better is by evil still made better ; 
 And ruin'd love, when it is built anew. 
 Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater." 
 
 And thus he possesses his soul once more ; he " returns 
 to his content." 
 
 Such, briefly and imperfectly hinted, is the spirit of 
 Shakspere's Sonnets. A great living poet, who has dedi- 
 cated to the subject of friendship one division of his col- 
 lected works, has written these words : 
 
 " Recorders ages hence ? 
 Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior — 
 
 I will tell you what to say of me ; 
 Publish my name, and hang up ray picture as that of the tenderest lover." 
 
 And elsewhere, of these Calamus poems, the poems of 
 tender and hardy friendship, he says, 
 
 "Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting: 
 Here I shade and hide my thoughts— I myself do not expose them. 
 And yet they expose me more than all my other poems." 
 
358 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 These words of Whitman may be taken as a motto of 
 the Sonnets of Shakspere. In these poems Shakspere has 
 hidden himself, and is exposed. 
 
 The plays belonging to Shakspere's final period of aii- 
 thorship, which I shall consider, are three : Cynibeline, 
 The Wmter's Tale, and The Tempest.* The position in 
 which they were placed in the first folio (whether it was 
 the result of design or accident) is remarkable. The 
 volume opens with The Tempest; it closes with Cymbe- 
 line. The Winter's Tale is the last of the comedies, which 
 all lie between this play and The Tempest. The circum- 
 stance may have been a piece of accident ; but if so, it 
 was a lucky accident, which suggests that our first and 
 our last impression of Shakspere shall be that of Shak- 
 spere in his period of large, serene wisdom, and that in 
 the light of the clear and solemn vision of his closing 
 years all his writings shall be read. Characteristics of 
 versification and style, and the enlarged place given to 
 scenic spectacle, indicate that these plays were produced 
 much about the same time. But the ties of deepest kin- 
 ship between them are spiritual. There is a certain ro- 
 mantic element in each.f They receive contributions 
 from every portion of Shakspere's genius, but all are 
 mellowed, refined, made exquisite ; they avoid the ex- 
 tremes of broad humor and of tragic intensity ; they 
 
 * Mr. Fleay at one time placed Oymbdine considerably earlier in the cliron- 
 ological succession of Shakspere's plays (begun, 1605; finished, 1607- 
 1 608). See his article " Who Wrote our Old Plays ?" in MaanillaiCs Maga- 
 zine, September, 18H. Professor Hertzberg, upon aesthetic grounds and the 
 evidence of metrical tests, confirms the view taken above, and assigns Cym- 
 hdine to the year 1611. In the percentage of feminine endings (on which 
 verse-test Hertzberg chiefly relies for the determining of the dates of Shak- 
 spere's plays), the difference between Cymbeline, Winter^s Tale, and The Tem- 
 pest is less than two. Mr. Fleay has recently adopted the date 1609. 
 
 f The same remark applies to Shakspere's part of Pericles, which belongs 
 to this period. 
 
Shaksperes Last Plays. 359 
 
 were written with less of passionate concentration than 
 the plays which immediately precede them, but with 
 more of a spirit of deep or exquisite recreation. 
 
 There are moments when Shakspere was not wholly 
 absorbed in his work as artist at this period ; it is as if he 
 were thinking of his own life, or of the fields and streams 
 of Stratford, and still wrote on ; it is as if the ties which 
 bound him to his art were not severing with thrills of 
 strong emotion, but were quietly growing slack. The so- 
 liloquy of Belarius, at the end of the third scene of the 
 third act of Cymheline, and that of Imogen when she dis- 
 covers the headless body of Cloten, were written as if 
 Shakspere were now only moderately interested in certain 
 portions of his dramatic work.* Such lines as the fol- 
 lowing, purporting to be part of a soliloquy, but being, in 
 fact, an explanation addressed to the audience, could only 
 have been written when the poet did not care to energize 
 over the less interesting but still necessary passages of 
 his drama : 
 
 " Belarius. Cymbeline ! heaven and my conscience knows 
 Thou didst unjustly banish me : whereon, 
 At three and two years old, I stoile these babes ; 
 Thinking to bar thee of succession, as 
 Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile, 
 Thou wast their nurse ; they took thee for their mother, 
 And every day do honor to her grave ; 
 
 * Gervinus, writing of Antony and Cleopatra (and he repeats the remark 
 in the criticism of Tirrum of Athens), says, " It would appear as if Shake- 
 speare, about the time between 1607-10, had had . . . intervals in which he 
 wrote his poetry in a manner altogether more careless, whether we consider 
 it from an aesthetic or an ethical point of view." — Shakespeare, Commenia- 
 ries, vol. ii., p. 358. Gervinus attributes this carelessness to "the state of 
 the poet's mind," p. 422. I see none of this alleged carelessness in Aniony 
 and Cleopatra or in Timon. Both plays are written with intense and com- 
 plete imaginative energy. Not so, however, with Cymbeline and The Win- 
 ter's Tale. See on this subject some excellent remarks of Kreyssig, " Vor- 
 lesungen iiber Shakespeare " (ed. 1858), vol. iii., pp. 422-424. 
 
360 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd, 
 They take for natural father." * 
 
 The impression that Shakspere's interest in his art was 
 less intense than previously it had been is confirmed by 
 the circnmstance that he now contributes portions to 
 plays which are completed by other hands in an inferior 
 manner. Into the subject of Pericles he entered with 
 manifest delight ; but he could be content to see his Ma- 
 rina wedged in between the rough and coarse work of 
 another writer. In The Two Noble Kinsmen the degra- 
 dation of Shakspere's work by the unclean underplot of 
 Fletcher is painful, and almost intolerable. And in Hen- 
 ry YIII. all artistic and ethical unity is sacrificed to the 
 vulgar demand for an occasional play and for a spectacle. 
 
 Yet it is not to be wondered at that Shakspere now 
 should feel delivered from the strong urge of imagina- 
 tion and feeling, and should write in a more pleasurable, 
 more leisurely, and not so great a manner. The period of 
 the tragedies was ended. In the tragedies Shakspere had 
 made his inquisition into the mj'stery of evil. He had 
 studied those injuries of man to man which are irrepara- 
 ble. He had seen the innocent suffering with the guilty. 
 Death came and removed the criminal and his victim 
 from human sight, and we were left with solemn awe 
 upon our hearts in presence of the insoluble problems of 
 life. There lay Duncan, who had " borne his faculties so 
 meek," who had been " so clear in his great office," foully 
 done to death ; there lay Cordelia lifeless in the arms of 
 Lear ; there Desdemona, murmuring no word, upon the 
 bed; there Antony, the ruin of Cleopatra's magic; and 
 last, Timon, most desperate fugitive from life, finding his 
 
 * Professor Ingram suggests to me that the speech as written by Shak- 
 spere ended immediately before these lines with the words " The game is 
 roused." These words are awkwardly repeated at the end of the speech, 
 " The game is up." 
 
Shaksperi s Last Plays. 36 1 
 
 sole refuge under the oblivious and barren wave. At the 
 same time that Shakspere had shown the tragic mystery 
 of human life, he had fortified the heart by showing that 
 to suffer is not the supreme evil with man, and that loy- 
 alty and innocence, and self-saci'ifice and pure redeeming 
 ardor, exist, and cannot be defeated. Now, in his last 
 period of authorship, Shakspere remained grave — how 
 conld it be otherwise ?^but his severity was tempered 
 and purified. He had less need of the crude doctrine of 
 Stoicism, because the tonic of such wisdom as exists in 
 Stoicism had been taken up and absorbed into his blood. 
 
 Shakspere still thought of the graver trials and tests 
 which life applies to human character, of the wrongs 
 which man inflicts on man ; but his present temper de- 
 manded not a tragic issue — it rather demanded an issue 
 into joy or peace. The dissonance must be resolved into 
 a harmony, clear and rapturous, or solemn and profound. 
 And, accordingly, in each of these plays. The Winter's 
 Tale, Cyiribeline, The Tempest, while grievous errors of 
 the heart are shown to us, and wrongs of man to man as 
 cruel as those of the great tragedies, at the end there is a 
 resolution of the dissonance, a reconciliation. This is the 
 word which interprets Shakspere's latest plays — reconcil- 
 iation, " word over all, beautiful as the sky." It is not, as 
 in the earlier comedies — The Two Oentlemen of Verona, 
 Much Ado about Nothing, As You, Like It, and others — 
 a mere denouement. The resolution of the discords in 
 these latest plays is not a mere stage necessity, or a neces- 
 sity of composition, resorted to by the dramatist to effect 
 an ending of his play, and little interesting his imagina- 
 tion or his heart. Its significance here is ethical and 
 spiritual ; it is a moral necessity. 
 
 In The Winter's Tale, the jealousy of Leontes is not 
 less, but more fierce and unjust, than that.of Othello. No 
 lago whispers poisonous suspicion in Leontes' ear. His 
 
 16 
 
362 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 wife is not untried, nor did she yield to him her heart 
 with the sweet proneness of Desdenaona : 
 
 " Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death 
 Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, 
 And clap thyself my love ; then didst thou utter 
 ' I am yours forever.' " 
 
 Hermioneis suspected of sudden and shameless dishonor — 
 she who is a matron, the mother of Leontes' children, a 
 woman of serious and sweet dignity of character, inured 
 to a noble self-command, and frank only through the con- 
 sciousness of invulnerable loyalty.* The passion of Le- 
 ontes is not, like that of Othello, a terrible chaos of soul 
 — confusion and despair at the loss of what had been to 
 him the fairest thing on earth ; there is a gross personal 
 resentment in the heart of Leontes, not sorrowful, judi- 
 cial indignation ; his passion is hideously grotesque, while 
 that of Othello is pathetic. 
 
 The consequences of this jealous madness of Leontes 
 are less calamitous than the ruin wrought by Othello's 
 jealousy, because Hermione is courageous and collected, 
 and possessed of a fortitude of heart which years of suf- 
 fering are unable to subdue : 
 
 " There's some ill planet reigns; 
 I must be patient till the heavens look 
 With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords, 
 I am not prone to weeping, as our sex 
 Commonly are ; the want of which vain dew 
 Perchance shall dry your pities ; but I have 
 That honorable grief lodged here, which burns 
 Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords. 
 With thoughts so qualified as your charities 
 Shall best instruct you, measure me ; and so 
 The king's will be performed !" f 
 
 * The contrast between Othello and 77je Winteifi Tale has been noticed by 
 Coleridge, and is admirably drawn out in detail by Grervinus and Kreyssig to 
 whose treatment of the subject the above paragraph is indebted. 
 
 f Mrs. Jameson applies to the passion of Hermione the fine saying of 
 
Skakspere's Last Plays. 363 
 
 But although the wave of calamity is broken by the firm 
 resistance offered by the fortitude of Hermione, it com- 
 mits i-avage enough to make it remembered. Upon the 
 Queen comes a lifetime of solitude and pain. The hope- 
 ful son of Leontes and Hermione is done to death, and 
 the infant Perdita is estranged from her kindred and her 
 friends. But at length the heart of Leontes is instructed 
 and purified by anguish and remorse. He has "per- 
 formed a saint - like sorrow," redeemed his faults, paid 
 down more penitence than done trespass : 
 
 " Whilst I remember 
 Her and her virtues, I cannot forget 
 My blemishes in them, and so still think of 
 The wrong I did myself ; which was so much 
 That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and 
 Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man 
 Bred his hopes out of." 
 
 And Leontes is received back without reproach into the 
 arms of his wife ; she embraces him in silence, allowing 
 the good pain of his repentance to effect its utmost work. 
 The sin of Posthumus had been less grievous ; it had 
 been half an error, and his restoration is proportionately 
 more joyful. He, too, had learned his own unworthiness, 
 and learned the measureless worth of Imogen. He will 
 not render to the gods, in atonement for his wrong, less 
 than his whole life : 
 
 " For Imogen's dear life take mine : and though 
 'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life : you coin'd it : 
 'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp ; 
 Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake ; 
 You rather mine, being yours ; and so, great powers, 
 If you will take this audit, take this life. 
 And cancel these cold bonds." 
 
 It is not with silent forgiveness that Imogen receives 
 
 Madame de Stael, "H pouvait y avoir des vagues majestueuses, et non de 
 I'orage dans son eceur." 
 
364 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 back her husband ; there are words of quick and exqui- 
 site naockery of joy. Posthumus had struck her to the 
 ground, in her disguise as Lucius's page, because she had 
 seemed to make light of his love and of his anguish. 
 Imogen, with one word of playful reproach for this last 
 error of her husband, as if that were all she had suffered 
 at his hands, and a happy mocking challenge to him to 
 be cruel again, has her arms round his neck, making the 
 union of wife and husband perfect in a moment, fore- 
 stalling all explanation, rendering forever needless the 
 painful utterance of penitential sorrow : 
 
 " Imo. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you ? 
 Think that you are upon a rock, and now 
 Throw me again. 
 
 Pmt. Hang there like fruit, my soul, 
 
 Till the tree die!"* 
 
 The wrong-doers of Ths Tempest are a group of per- 
 sons of various degrees of criminality, from Prospero's 
 perfidious brother, still active in plotting evil, to Alonzo, 
 whose obligations to the Duke of Milan had been of a 
 public or princely kind. Spiritual powers are in alliance 
 with Prospero ; and these, by terror and the awakening 
 of remorse, prepare Alonzo for receiving the balm of 
 Prospero's forgiveness. He looks upon his son as lost, 
 and recognizes in his son's loss the punishment of his 
 own guilt. " The powers delaying, not forgetting," have 
 incensed the sea and shores against the sinful men ; 
 nothing can deliver them except "heart -sorrow and a 
 clear life ensuing." Goethe, in the opening of the sec- 
 ond part of Faust, has represented the ministry of exter- 
 
 * The line "Think that you are upon a rock" is probably corrupt; no 
 proposed emendation is satisfactory. The criticism of the play of Cymbe- 
 tine in George Fletcher's "Studies of Shakespeare" (1847) may be men- 
 tioned as intelligent and appreciative. 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 365 
 
 nal nature fulfilling functions with reference to the hu- 
 man conscience precisely the reverse of those ascribed to 
 it in The Tempest. Faust, escaped from the prison-scene 
 and the madness of Margarete, is lying on a flowery 
 grass-plot, weary, restless, striving to sleep. The Ariel 
 of Goethe calls upon his attendant elvish spirits to pre- 
 pare the soul of Faust for renewed energy by bathing 
 him in the dew of Lethe's stream, by assuaging his pain, 
 by driving back remorse : 
 
 " Besantf tiget des Eerzens grimmen Strauss ; 
 Entfernt des Vorwurfs gliihend bittre Pfeile, 
 Sein Innres reinigt von erlebtem Graus." 
 
 To dismiss from his conscience the sense of the wrong 
 he has done to a dead woman is the initial step in the 
 further education and development of Faust. Shakspere's 
 Ariel, breathing through the elements and the powers of 
 nature, quickens the remorse of the King for a crime of 
 
 twelve years since : 
 
 " 0, it is monstrous, monstrous ! 
 Methought the billows spoke and told me of it ; 
 The winds did sing jt to me ; and the thunder, 
 That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
 The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass, 
 Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded, and 
 I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, 
 And with hiui there lie mudded." 
 
 The enemies of Prospero are now completely in his pow- 
 er. How shall he deal with them ? They had perfid- 
 iously taken advantage of his unworldly and impractical 
 habits of life ; they had thrust him away from his duke- 
 dom ; they had exposed him, with his three -years -old 
 daughter, in a rotten boat, to the mercy of the waves. 
 Shall he not now avenge himself without remorse? 
 What is Prospero's decision ? 
 
 " Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, 
 Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 
 
366 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Do I take part ; the rarer action is 
 
 In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent, 
 
 The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
 
 Not a frown further." 
 
 "We have seen how Timon turned fiercely upon man- 
 kind and hated the wicked race — " I am Misanthropos, 
 and hate mankind." The wrongs inflicted upon Pros- 
 pero were crueller and more base than those from which 
 Timon suffered. But Prospero had not lived in a sum- 
 mer mood of lax and prodigal benevolence; he had lived 
 severely, " all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of 
 my mind." And out of the strong comes forth sweet- 
 ness. In the play of Cymheliiie, the wrong which Pos- 
 thnmus has suffered from the Italian lachimo is only less 
 than that which Othello endures at the hands of lago. 
 But lachimo, unlike lago, is unable to sustain the burden 
 of his guilt, and sinks under it. In the closing scene 
 of Oymheline, that in which Posthumus is himself wel- 
 comed home to the heart of Imogen, Posthumus in his 
 turn becomes the pardoner : 
 
 " Kneel not to me ; 
 The power that I have on you is to spare you ; 
 The malice toward you to forgive you ; live, 
 And deal with others better." 
 
 Hermione, Imogen, Prospero — these are, as it were, 
 names for gracious powers which extend forgiveness to 
 men. From the first Hermione, whose clear-sightedness 
 is equal to her courage, had perceived that her husband 
 labored under a delusion which was cruel and calamitous 
 to himself. From the first she transcends all blind re- 
 sentment, and has true pity for the man who wrongs her. 
 But if she has fortitude for her own uses, she also is able 
 to accept for her husband the inevitable pain which is 
 needful to restore him to his better mind. She will not 
 shorten the term of his suffei-ing, because that suffering 
 
Shakspere s Last Plays. 367 
 
 is beneficent. And at the last her silent embrace carries 
 with it — and justly — a portion of that truth she had ut- 
 tered long before : 
 
 " How will this grieye you, 
 When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that 
 You thus have published me ! Gentle my lord, 
 You scarce can right me throughly then to say 
 You did mistake." 
 
 The calm and complete comprehension of the fact is a 
 possession painful yet precious to Hermione, and it lifts 
 her above all vulgar confusion of heart or temper, and 
 above all unjust resentment. 
 
 Imogen, who is the reverse of grave and massive in 
 character, but who has an exquisite vivacity of feeling 
 and of fancy, and a heart pure, quick, and ardent, passes 
 from the swoon of her sudden anguish to a mood of 
 bright and keen resentment, which is free from every 
 trace of vindictive passion, and is, indeed, only pain dis- 
 guised. And in like manner she forgives, not with self- 
 possession and a broad, tranquil joy in the accomplished 
 fact, but through a pure ardor, an exquisite eagerness of 
 love and of delight. Prospero's forgiveness is solemn, 
 judicial, and has in it something abstract and impersonal. 
 He cannot wrong his own higher nature, he cannot wrong 
 the nobler reason, by cherishing so unworthy a passion as 
 the desire of vengeance. Sebastian and Antonio, from 
 whose conscience no remorse has. been elicited, are met 
 by no comfortable pardon. They have received their 
 lesson of failure and of pain, and may possibly be con- 
 vinced of the good sense and prudence of honorable 
 dealing, even if they cannot perceive its moral obliga- 
 tion. Alonzo, who is repentant, is solemnly pardoned. 
 The forgiveness of Prosper© is an embodiment of impar- 
 tial wisdom and loving justice. 
 
 A portion of another play certainly belongs to this lat- 
 
368 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 est period of Shaksper&'s authorship — a portion of King 
 Henry VIII.* Dr. Johnson observed that the genius of 
 Shakspere comes in and goes out with Queen Katharine. 
 What, then, chiefly interested the dramatist in this de- 
 signed and partly accomplished Henry YIII. ? The pres- 
 ence of a noble sufferer — one who was grievously wrong- 
 ed, and who, by a plain loyalty to what is fai^ful and 
 true, by a disinterestedness of soul and enduring mag- 
 nanimity, passes out of all passion and personal resent- 
 ment into the reality of things, in which much, indeed, 
 of pain remains, but no ignoble wrath or shallow bitter- 
 ness of heart. Her earnest endeavor for the welfare of 
 her English subjects is made with fearless and calm per- 
 sistence in the face of Wolsey's opposition. It is integ- 
 rity and freedom from self-regard set over against guile 
 and power and pride. In her trial-scene, the indignation 
 of Katharine flashes forth against the Cardinal, but is an 
 indignation which unswervingly progresses towards and 
 penetrates into the truth. 
 
 When a man has attained some high and luminous 
 table-land of joy or of renouncement, when he has really 
 
 * Karl Elze, in his article "Zu Heinrich VIII." (Shakey>eare-Jakrbuc7i, 
 vol. jx.), attempts to show, not successfully, I think, that the play was writ- 
 ten in 1603, and "was set aside on account of Elizabeth's death, and kept 
 there till Rowley brought out his When, You See Me Ymt Kmm Me ; m\ the 
 Famous Chronicle Historie of King Hmrie the Eight, in 1613. The Globe 
 Company thereupon thought of their unused Hemry VIIL, put it into Fleteh- 
 ei's hands to alter, and then acted it." The portions of the play by Shak. 
 spere are — act i., sc. 1 and 2 ; act ii., sc. 3 and 4 ; act iii., sc. 2 (in part Shak- 
 spere); act v.,sc. 1. Eoderick, in Edwards's "Canons of Criticism" (1765), 
 noticed the peculiarity of the versification of this play. Mr. Spedding and 
 Mr. Hickson (1850) independently arrived at identical results as to the divis- 
 ion of parts between Fletcher and- Shakspere. Mr. Fleay (1874) has con- 
 firmed the conclusions of Mr. Spedding (double endings forming in this in- 
 stance his chief test). Professor Ingram has further confirmed them by the 
 weak-ending test, and Mr. Pumivall by the stopped-line test. 
 
Shaksperes Last Plays. 369 
 
 transcended self, or when some one of the everlasting, 
 virtuous powers of the world — duty or sacrifice, or the 
 strength of anything higher than one's self — has assumed 
 authority over him, forthwith a strange, pathetic, ideal 
 light is shed over all beautiful things in the lower world 
 which has be$n abandoned. "We see the sunlight on our 
 neighbor's field, while we are preoccupied about the grain 
 that is growing in our own. And when we have ceased 
 to hug our souls to any material possession, we see the 
 sunlight wherever it falls. In the last chapter of George 
 Eliot's great novel, Komola, who has ascended into her 
 clear and calm solitude of self-transcending duty, bends 
 tenderly over the children of Tito, uttering, in words 
 made simple for their needs, the lore she has learned 
 from life, and seeing on their faces the light of strange, 
 ideal beauty. In the latest plays of Shakspere the sym- 
 pathetic reader can discern unmistakably a certain aban- 
 donment of the common joy of the world, a certain re- 
 moteness from the usual pleasures and sadnesses of life, 
 and, at the same time, all the more, this tender bending 
 over those who are, like children, still absorbed in their 
 individual joys and sorrows. 
 
 Over the beauty of youth and the love of youth there 
 is shed, in these plays of Shakspere's final period, a clear 
 yet tender luminousness not elsewhere to be perceived 
 in his writings. In his earlier plays, Shakspere writes 
 concerning young men and maidens — their loves, their 
 mirth, their griefs — as one who is among them ; who has 
 a lively, personal interest in their concerns ; who can 
 make merry with them, treat them familiarly, and, if 
 need be, can mock them into good sense. There is noth- 
 ing in these early plays wonderful, strangely beautiful, 
 pathetic, about youth and its joys and sorrows. In the 
 histories and tragedies, as was to be expected, more mas- 
 sive, broader, or more profound objects of interest en- 
 
 16* 
 
370 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 gage the poet's imagination. But-in these latest plays, 
 the beautiful pathetic light is always present. There are 
 the sufferers, aged, experienced, tried — Queen Katharine, 
 Prospero, Hermione. And over against these there are 
 the children, absorbed in their happy and exquisite ego- 
 ism — Perdita and Miranda, Florizel and Ferdinand, and 
 the boys of old Belarius. 
 
 Tlie same means to secure ideality for these figures, so 
 young and beautiful, is in each case (instinctively, per- 
 liaps, rather than deliberately) resorted to. They are lost 
 children — princes, or a princess, removed from the court 
 and its conventional surroundings into some scene of rare, 
 natural beauty. There are the lost princes — Arviragus 
 and Guiderius — among the mountains of "Wales, drink- 
 ing the free air and offering their salutations to the risen 
 sun. There is Perdita, the shepherdess-princess, " queen 
 of curds and cream," sharing, with old and young, her 
 flowers, lovelier and more undying than those that Pros- 
 erpina let fall from Dis's wagon. There is Miranda 
 (whose very name is significant of wonder), made up of 
 beauty and love and womanly pity, neither courtly nor 
 rustic, with the breeding of an island of enchantment, 
 where Prospero is her tutor and protector, and Caliban 
 her servant, and the Prince of Naples her lover. In each 
 of these plays we can see Shakspere, as it were, tenderly 
 bending over the joys and sorrows of youth. "We rec- 
 ognize this rather through the total characterization, and 
 through a feeling and a presence, than through definite 
 incident or statement. But some of this feeling es- 
 capes in the disinterested joy and admiration of old 
 Belarius when he gazes at the princely youths, and in 
 Camillo's loyalty to Florizel and Perdita; while it ob- 
 tains more distinct expression in such a word as that 
 which Prospero utters when from a distance he watch- 
 es with pleasure Miranda's zeal to relieve Ferdinand 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 371 
 
 from his task of log-bearing : " Poor worm, thou art in- 
 fected."* 
 
 It is not chiefly because Prospero is a great enchanter, 
 now about to break his magic staff, to drown his book 
 deeper than ever plummet sounded, to dismiss his airy 
 spirits, and to return to the practical service of his Duke- 
 dom, that we identify Prospero in some measure with 
 Shakspere himself. It is rather because the temper of 
 Prospero, the grave harmony of his character, his self- 
 mastery, his calm validity of will, his sensitiveness to 
 wrong, his unfaltering justice, and, witli these, a certain 
 abandonment, a remoteness from the common joys and 
 sorrows of the world, are characteristic of Shakspere as 
 discovered to us in all his latest plays. Prospero is an 
 harmonious and fully developed will. In the earlier play 
 of fairy enchantments, A Midsummer-NigMs Dream, 
 the " human mortals " wander to and fro in a maze of 
 error, misled by the mischievous frolic of Puck, the jest-' 
 er and clown of Fairy-land. But here the spirits of the 
 elements, and Caliban, the gross genius of brute matter — 
 needful for the service of life — are brought under sub- 
 jection to the human will of Prospero.f 
 
 What is more, Prospero has entered into complete pos- 
 session of himself. Shakspere has shown us his quick 
 sense of injury, his intellectual impatience, his ocqasional 
 moment of keen irritability, in order that we may be 
 more deeply aware of his abiding strength and self-pos- 
 
 * The same feeling appears in the lines which end act iii., sc. 1 : 
 
 "Prospero. So glad of this as they I cannot be, 
 Who are surprised with all ; but my rejoicmg 
 At nothing can be more." 
 
 f This point of contrast between The Tempest and A Midxummer-Nighfs 
 Dream is noticed by M6zi6res, " ShakSpeare, ses (Euvres et ses Critiques," 
 pp. 441, 442. 
 
372 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 session, and that we may perceive how these have been 
 grafted upon a temperament not impassive or tinexcita- 
 ble. And Prospero has reached not only the higher levels 
 of moral attainment ; he has also reached an altitude of 
 thought from which he can survey the whole of human 
 life, and see how small and yet how great it is. His heart 
 is sensitive ; he is profoundly touched by the joy of the 
 children with whom, in the egoism of their love, he passes 
 for a thing of secondary interest; he is deeply moved 
 by the perfidy of his brother. His brain is readily set 
 a-work, and can with difficulty be checked from eager 
 and excessive energizing; he is subject to the access of 
 sudden and agitating thought. But Prospero masters 
 his own sensitiveness, emotional and intellectual : 
 
 " We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, aad our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd ; 
 Bear with my weakness ; my old brain is troubled : 
 Be not disturb'd with my infirmity; 
 If you be pleased, retire into my cell 
 And there repose ; a turn or two I'll walk. 
 To still my beating mind." 
 
 "Snch Stuff as dreams are made on." Nevertheless, 
 in this little life, in this dream, Prospero will maintain 
 his dream rights and fulfil his dream duties. In the 
 dream, he, a Duke, will accomplish Duke's work. Hav- 
 ing idealized everything, Shakspere left everything real. 
 Bishop Berkeley's foot was no less able to set a pebble 
 flying than was the lumbering foot of Dr. Johnson. 
 STevertheless, no material substance intervened between 
 the soul of Berkeley and the immediate presence of the 
 play of Divine power.* 
 
 * See a remarkable article on Goethe and Shakspere by Frofessor Masson, 
 reprinted among his collected Essays. On The Tempest, the reader may con- '' 
 suit, as an excellent summary of facts, the article " On the Origin of Shak- 
 
Skakspere's Last Plays. 373 
 
 A thought which seems to run thi-ongh the whole of 
 The Tempest, appearing here and there like a colored 
 thread in some web, is the thought that the true freedom 
 of man consists in service. Ariel, untouched by human 
 feeling, is panting for his liberty. In the last words of 
 Prospero are promised his enfranchisement and dismissal 
 to the elements. Ariel reverences his great master, and 
 serves him with bright alacrity ; but he is bound by none 
 of our human ties, strong and tender, and he will rejoice 
 when Prospero is to him as though he never were.* To 
 Caliban, a land-fish, with the duller elements of earth 
 and water in his composition, but no portion of the high- 
 er elements, air and fire, though he receives dim intima- 
 tions of a higher world — a musical humming, or a twang- 
 ling, or a voice heard in sleep — to Caliban, service is 
 slavery.f He hates to bear his logs ; he fears the incom- 
 prehensible power of Prospero, and obeys and curses. 
 The great master lias usurped the rights of the brute- 
 power Caliban. And when Stephano and Trinculo ap- 
 pear, ridiculously impoverished specimens of humanity, 
 
 speare's Tempest," Cornhill Magazine, October, 18'72. It is founded upon 
 Meissner's " Untersuchungen uber Shakespeare's Sturm" (I'ZSa). See also 
 Meissner's article in the Jahrbucli der deutscTieti SfiaJcespeare-Gesellsehafl, vol. 
 V. Jacob Ayrer's "Comedia von der schonen Sidea" will be found, with a 
 translation, in Mr. Albert Cohn's interesting volume " Shakespeare in Ger- 
 many" (Asher, 1865). 
 
 * Ariel is promised his freedom after two days, act i., sc. 2. Why two days ? 
 The time of the entire action of The Tempest is only three hours. What was 
 to be the employment of Ariel during two days ? To make the winds and 
 seas favorable during the voyage to Naples. Prospero's island, therefore, 
 was imagined by Shakspere as within two days' quick sail of Naples. 
 
 f The conception of Caliban, the "servant-monster," "plain fish, and no 
 doubt marketable," the "tortoise," "his fins like arms," with "a very an- 
 cient and fish-like smell," who gabbled until Prospero taught him language 
 
 this conception was in Shakspere's mind when he wrote Troilus and Ores- 
 
 sida. Thersites describes Ajax (act iii., sc. 3), " ffe's grown a very land-fah, 
 languageless, a monster." 
 
374 Shakspere — His Mind and A rt. 
 
 with their shallow understandings and vulgar greeds, this 
 poor earth-monster is possessed by a sudden Schwa/rmerei, 
 a fanaticism for liberty ! — 
 
 " 'Ban, 'ban, Ca'- Caliban, 
 Has a new master ; — get a new man. 
 Freedom, heyday ! heyday, freedom ! freedom ! heyday, freedom !" 
 
 His new master also sings his impassioned hymn of 
 liberty, the MarseiMaise of the enchanted island : 
 
 " Flout 'em and scout 'em. 
 And scout 'em and flout 'em; 
 Thought is free." 
 
 The leaders of the revolution, escaped from tlie stench 
 and foulness of the horse-pond, King Stephano and his 
 prime-minister Trinculo, like too many leaders of the 
 people, bring to an end their great achievement on be- 
 half of liberty by quarrelling over booty — the trumpery 
 which the providence of Prospero had placed in their 
 way. Caliban, though scarce more truly wise or instruct- 
 ed than before, at least discovers his particular error of 
 the day and hour : 
 
 " What a thrice-double ass 
 Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, 
 And worship this dull fool !" 
 
 It must be admitted that Shakspere, if not, as Hartley 
 Coleridge asserted, " a Tory and a gentleman," had with- 
 in him some of the elements of English conservatism. 
 
 But while Ariel and Caliban, each in his own way, is 
 impatient of service, the human actors, in whom we are 
 chiefly interested, are entering into bonds — bonds of 
 affection, bonds of duty, in which they find their truest 
 freedom. Ferdinand and Miranda emulonsly contend in 
 the task of bearing the burden which Prospero has im- 
 posed upon the prince : 
 
 " I am in my condition 
 
 A prince, Miranda ; I do think, a king : 
 
 I would, not so! and would no more endure 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 375 
 
 This wooden slavery than to suffer 
 
 The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak : 
 
 The very instant that I saw you, did 
 
 My heart fly to your service ; there resides, 
 
 To make me slave to it ; and for your sake 
 
 Am I this patient log-man." 
 
 And Miranda speaks with the sacred candor from which 
 spring the nobler manners of a world more real and glad 
 than the world of convention and proprieties and prud- 
 
 " Hence, bashful cunning ! 
 And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 
 I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
 If not, I'll die your maid : to be your fellow 
 You may deny me ; but I'll be your servant, 
 Whether you will or no. 
 
 Fer. My mistress, dearest ; 
 
 And I thus humble ever. 
 
 Mir. My husband, then ? 
 
 Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing 
 As bondage e'er of freedom." 
 
 In an earlier part of tlie play, this chord which runs 
 through it had been playfully struck in the description of 
 Gonzalo's imaginary commonwealth, in which man is to 
 be enfranchised from all the laborious necessities of life. 
 Here is the ideal of notional liberty, Shakspere would 
 say, and to attempt to realize it at once lands us in ab- 
 surdities and self-contradictions : 
 
 " For no kind of traffic 
 Would I admit : no name of magistrate ; 
 Letters should not be known : riches, poverty. 
 And use of service none ; contract, succession. 
 Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; 
 No use of metal, com, or wine, or oil ; 
 No occupation ; all men idle, all. 
 And women too, but innocent and pure ; 
 No sovereignty. 
 Seb. Yet he would be king on't." * 
 
 * Act ii., sc. 1. The prolonged and dull joking of Sebastian in this scene 
 
376 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 Finally, in the Epilogue, which was written perhaps by 
 Shakspere, perhaps by some one acquainted with his 
 thoughts, Prospero, in his character of a man, no longer 
 a potent enchanter, petitions the spectators of the theatre 
 for two things, pardon and freedom. It would be strain- 
 ing matters to discover in this Epilogue profound signiii- 
 cances. And yet, in its playfulness, it curiously falls in 
 with the moral purport of the whole. Prospero, the par- 
 doner, implores pardon. Shakspere was aware — whether 
 sueii be the significance (aside, for the writer's mind) 
 of this Epilogue or not — that no life is ever lived which 
 does not need to receive as well as to render forgive- 
 ness. Pie knew that every energetic dealer with the 
 world must seek a sincere and liberal pardon for many 
 things. Forgiveness and freedom: tiiese are key-notes 
 of the play. When it was occupying the mind of Shak- 
 spere, he was passing from his service as artist to his ser- 
 vice as English country gentleman. Had his mind been 
 dwelling on the question of how he should employ his 
 new freedom, and had he been enforcing upon himself 
 the truth that the highest freedom lies in the bonds of 
 duty ?* 
 
 It remains to notice of The Tempest that it has had 
 
 cannot be meant by Shakspere to be really bright and witty. It is meant 
 to show that the intellectual poverty of the conspirators is as great as their 
 moral obliquity. They are monsters more ignoble than Caliban. Their 
 laughter is "the crackling of thorns under a pot." 
 
 * Mr. Furnivall, observing that in these later plays breaches of the family 
 bond are dramatically studied, and the reconciliations are domestic recon- 
 ciliations in Oymbelim and A Winter's Tcde, suggests to me that they were a 
 kind of confession on Shakspere's part that he had inadequately felt the 
 beauty and tenderness of the common relations of father and child, wife and 
 Imaband; and that he was now quietly resolving to be gentle, and whoUy 
 just to his wife and his home. I cannot altogether make this view of the 
 later plays my own, and leave it to the reader to accept and develop as he 
 miiy be able. 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 377 
 
 the quality, as a work of art, of setting its critics to work 
 as if it were an allegory; and forthwitli it baffles them, 
 and seems to mock them for supposing that they bad 
 power to " pluck out the heart of its mystery." A curi- 
 ous and interesting chapter in the history of Shaksperian 
 criticism might be written if the various interpretations 
 were brought together of the allegorical significances of 
 Prospero, of Miranda, of Ariel, of Caliban. Caliban, says 
 Kreyssig, is the People. He is Understanding apart from 
 Imagination, declares Professor Lowell. He is the prim- 
 itive man abandoned to himself, declares M. Mfeieres ; 
 Shakspere would say to Utopian thinkers, predecessors 
 of Jean Jacques Kousseau, " Tour hero walks on four 
 feet as well as on two." That Caliban is the missing link 
 between man and brute (Shakspere anticipating Darwin- 
 ian theories) has been elaborately demonstrated by Dan- 
 iel Wilson. Caliban is one of the powers of nature over 
 which the scientific intellect obtains command, another 
 critic assures us, and Prospero is tlie founder of the In- 
 ductive Philosophy. Caliban is the colony of Yirginia. 
 Caliban is the untutored early drama of Marlowe.* Such 
 
 * This last suggestion is that of M. ifimile Mont^gut, in the lieaue des Deux 
 Mondes. The following passage from Professor Lowell will compensate for 
 its length by its ingenuity: "In The Tempest the scene is laid nowhere, or 
 certainly in no country laid down on any map. Nowhere, then ? At once 
 nowhere and anywhere — for it is in the soul of man that still vexed island 
 hung between the upper and the nether world, and liable to incursions from 
 both. . . . Consider for a moment if ever the Ima^nation has been so em- 
 bodied as in Prospero, the Fancy as in Ariel, the brute Understanding as 
 in Caliban, who, the moment his poor wits are warmed with the glorious liq- 
 uor of Stephano, plots rebellion against his natural lord, the higher Eeason. 
 Miranda is mere abstract Womanhood, as truly so before she sees Ferdinand 
 as Eve before she was awakened to consciousness by the echo of her own 
 nature coming back to her, the same, and yet not the same, from that 
 of Adam. Ferdinand, again, is nothing more than Youth, compelled to 
 drudge at something he despises, till the sacrifice of will and abnegation of 
 self win him his ideal in Miranda. The subordinate personages are simply 
 
378 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 allegorical interpretations, however ingenious, we cannot 
 set mucli store by. But the sigiiiiicance of a work of art, 
 like the character of a man, is not to be discovered solely 
 by investigation of its inward essence. Its dynamical 
 qualities, so to speak, must be considered as well as its 
 statical. It must be viewed in action ; the atmosphere it 
 effuses, its influence upon the minds of men, must be 
 noted. And it is certainly remarkable that this, the last, 
 or almost the last, of Shakspere's plays, more than any 
 other, has possessed this quality of soliciting men to at- 
 tempt the explanation of it, as of an enigma, and, at the 
 same time, of bafliing their inquiry. 
 
 If I were to allow my fancy to run out in play after 
 
 types : Sebastian and Antonio, of weak character and evil ambition ; Gon- 
 zalo, of average sense and honest; ; Adrian and Francisco, of the walking 
 gentlemen, who serre to fill up a world. They are not characters in the 
 same sense with lago, Falstaff, Shallow, or Leontius ; and it is curious how 
 every one of them loses his way in this enchanted island of life, all the vic- 
 tims of one illusion after another, except Prospero, whose ministers are 
 purely ideal. The whole play, indeed, is a succession of illusions, winding 
 up with those solemn words of the great enchanter, who had summoned to 
 his service every shape of merriment or passion, every figure in the great 
 tragi-comedy of life, and who was now bidding farewell to the scene of his 
 triumphs. For in Prospero shall we not recognize the Artist himself — 
 
 ' That did not better for his life provide 
 Than public means which public manners breeds. 
 Whence comes it that his name receives a brand ' — 
 
 who has forfeited a shining place in the world's eye by devotion to his art, 
 and who, turned adrift on the ocean of life in the leaky carcass of a boat, 
 has shipwrecked on that Fortunate Island (as men always do who find their 
 true vocation) where he is absolute lord, making all the powers of Nature 
 serve him, but with Ariel and Caliban as special ministers ? Of whom else 
 could he have been thinking when he says, 
 
 ' Graves, at my command. 
 Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth. 
 By my so potent art?'" 
 
 — Among my Boohs. Shahesjxare Once More, pp. 191 - 192. 
 
Shakspere's Last Plays. 379 
 
 such an attempted interpretation, I should describe Pros- 
 pero as the man of genius, the great artist, lacking at first 
 in practical gifts which lead to material success, and set 
 adrift on the perilous sea of life, in which he finds his 
 enchanted island, where he may achieve his works of 
 wonder. He bears with him Art in its infancy — the 
 marvellous child, Miranda. The grosser passions and ap- 
 petites — Caliban — he subdues to his service : 
 
 "Mir. 'Tia a villain, sir, 
 
 I do not love to look on. 
 
 Pros. But as 'tis, 
 
 We cannot miss him." 
 
 And he partially informs this servant-monster with intel- 
 lect and imagination ; for Caliban has dim affinities with 
 the higher world of spirits. But these grosser passions 
 and appetites attempt to violate the purity of art. Cali- 
 ban would seize upon Miranda and people the island with 
 Calibans; therefore his servitude must be strict. And 
 who is Ferdinand ? Is he not, with his gallantry and his 
 beauty, the young Fletcher in conjunction with whom 
 Shakspere worked upon The Two Noble Kinsmen and 
 Henry VIII.? Fletcher is conceived as a follower of 
 the Shaksperian style and method in dramatic art; he 
 had " eyed full many a lady with best regard," for sev- 
 eral virtues had liked several women, but never any with 
 whole-hearted devotion except Miranda. And to Ferdi- 
 nand the old enchanter will intrust his daughter, " a third 
 of his own life." But Shakspere had perceived the weak 
 point in Fletcher's genius — its want of hardness of fibre, 
 of patient endurance, and of a sense of the solemnity and 
 sanctity of the service of art. And therefore he finely 
 hints to liis friend that his winning of Miranda must not 
 be too light and easy. It shall be Ferdinand's task to 
 remove some thousands of logs and pile them according 
 to the strict injunction of Prospero. "Don't despise 
 
380 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 drudgery and dryasdnst work, young poets," Shakspere 
 would seem to say, who had himself so carefully labored 
 over his English and Roman histories ; " for Miranda's 
 sake snch drudgery may well seem light." Therefore, 
 also, Prospero surrounds the marriage of Ferdinand to 
 his daughter with a religious awe. Ferdinand must 
 honor her as sacred, and win her by hai'd toil. But the 
 work of the higher imagination is not drudgery; it is 
 swift and serviceable among all the elements — fire upon 
 the topmast, the sea-nymph upon the sands ; Ceres, the 
 goddess of earth, with harvest blessings, in the masque. 
 It is essentially Ariel, an airy spirit — the imaginative 
 genius of poetry but recently delivered in England from 
 long slavery to Sycorax. Prospero's departure from the 
 island is the abandoning by Shakspere of the theatre, the 
 scene of his marvellous works : 
 
 " Graves, at my command, 
 Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth, 
 By my so potent art." 
 
 Henceforth Prospero is but a man — no longer a great 
 enchanter. He returns to the dukedom he had lost, in 
 Stratford-upon-Avon, and will pay no tribute henceforth 
 to any Alonzo or Lucy of them all.* 
 
 Thus one may be permitted to play with the grave 
 subject of The Tempest; and I ask no more credit for 
 the interpretation here proposed than is given to 'any 
 other equally innocent, if trifling, attempt to read the 
 supposed allegory. 
 
 Shakspere's work, however, will, indeed, not allow itself 
 to be lightly treated. The prolonged study of any great 
 interpreter of human life is a discipline. Our loyalty to 
 
 * tJlrici has recently expressed his opinion that a farewell to the theatre 
 may be discovered in The Tempest; but he rightly places Heary VIII. later 
 than The Tempest {Shakespeare-Jahrbucli, vol. vi., p. 858). 
 
Skakspere's Last Plays. 381 
 
 Sbakspere must not lead us to assert that the discipline 
 of Sbakspere will be suitable to every nature. He will 
 deal rudely with heart and will and intellect, and lay 
 hold of them in unexpected ways, and fashion bis dis- 
 ciple, it may be, in a manner which at first is painful 
 and almost terrible. There are persons who, all through 
 their lives, attain their highest strength only by virtue of 
 the presence of certain metaphysical entities which rule 
 their lives ; and in the lives of almost all men there is a 
 metaphysical period when, they need such supposed en- 
 tities more than the real presences of those personal and 
 social forces which surround them. For such persons, 
 and during such a period, the discipline of Sbakspere 
 will be unsuitable. He will seem precisely the reverse 
 of what he actually is : he will seem careless about great 
 facts and ideas; limited, restrictive, deficient in enthu- 
 siasms and imagination. To one who finds the highest 
 poetry in Shelley, Sbakspere will always remain a kind 
 of prose. Sbakspere is the poet of concrete things and 
 real. True, but are not these informed with passion and 
 with thought ? A time not seldom comes when a man, 
 abandoning abstractions and metaphysical entities, turns 
 to the actual life of the world, and to the real men and 
 women who surround him, for the sources of emotion 
 and thought and action — a time when he strives to come 
 into»communion with the Unseen, not immediately, but 
 through the revelation of the Seen. And then he finds 
 the strength and sustenance with which Sbakspere has 
 enriched the world. 
 
 " ' The true question to ask,' says the Librarian of Con- 
 gress, in a paper read before the Social Science Conven- 
 tion at New York, October, 1869 — ' The true question to 
 ask respecting a book is, Has it helped any human soul f ' 
 This is the hint, statement, not only of the great Litera- 
 tus, his book, but of every great artist. It may be that 
 
382 Shakspere — His Mind and Art. 
 
 all works of art are to be first tried by their art-qualities, 
 their image-forming talent, and their dramatic, pictorial, 
 plot-constructing, euphonious, and other talents. Then, 
 whenever claiming to be first-class works, they are to be 
 strictly and sternly tried by their foundation in, and radi- 
 ation (in the highest sense, and always indirectly) of, the 
 ethic principles, and eligibility to free, arouse, dilate." * 
 
 What shall be said of Shakspere's radiation, through 
 art, of the ultimate truths of conscience and of conduct ? 
 What shall be said of his power of freeing, arousing, 
 dilating ? Something may be gathered out of the fore- 
 going chapters in answer to these questions. But the 
 answers remain insufficient. There is an admirable sen- 
 tence by Emerson: "A good reader can in a sort nestle 
 into Plato's brain, and think from thence ; but not into 
 Shakspere's. We are still out of doors." 
 
 We are still out of doors; and, for the present, let us 
 cheerfully remain in the large, good space. Let us not 
 attenuate Shakspere to a theory. He is careful that we 
 shall not thus lose our true reward : " The secrets of nat- 
 ure have not more gift in taciturnity." f Shakspere does 
 not supply us with a doctrine, with an interpretation, with 
 a revelation. What he brings to us is this — to each one, 
 courage and energy and strength to dedicate himself and 
 Iiis work to that, whatever it be, which life has revealed 
 to him as best and highest and most real. 
 
 * Whitman, " Democratic Vistas," p. 67. 
 f Trmlvx and Cressida, act iv., so. 2. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alcibiades, practical wisdom of, Sil. 
 All's Well that Ends Well, date of, '75. 
 Antony and Cleopatra, contrasted with 
 
 Jalius Csesar, 273 ; linked with Co- 
 
 riolanus, 248. 
 Antony, character of, 256 ; failure of, 
 
 275. 
 As You Like It, characteristics of, 
 
 70 ; and Winter's Tale, date of, 67. 
 Aufidius and Coriolanus, 296. 
 Autolycus, 835. 
 
 Bacon and Sbakspcre compared, 16. 
 Bagehot, W., on Shakspere's politics, 
 
 291 ; on religious teaching of Shak- 
 
 spere, 34. 
 Beauty, feeling for, in last plays, 369. 
 Berowne as exponent of Shakspere's 
 
 mind, 67. 
 Bolingbroke, causes of success of, 
 
 182 ; strength of, and weakness of 
 
 Bichard II. contrasted, 175. 
 Bottom and Titania, humor and fancy 
 
 combined in, S21. 
 Broglie, Due de, on lago, 213. 
 Brutus, mistakes of, 271. 
 Brutus and Cassius, 258 ; contrasted, 
 
 231 ; speeches of, apologetic, 287. 
 
 Csesar, character of, 252 ; weakness 
 
 of, 253. 
 Capulet and Montague, strife of, 93. 
 Chasles, M., criticism of Romeo and 
 
 Juliet by, 89. 
 Chronological arrangement, value of, 
 
 337; Etudyof Shakspere,6; groups 
 
 of plays. Preface. 
 Clarke, C. C, on notes of time in 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, 105. 
 
 Cleopatra, and Csesar, 280 ; death of, 
 281 ; feeling of, to Antony, 277. 
 
 Coleridge, on cause of failure of Bich- 
 ard II., 178 ; on Hamlet, 116. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, source of, 60. 
 
 Cordelia, Shakspere's fidelity to fact 
 in, 202. 
 
 Coriolanus, egoism of, 298 ; himself 
 central point of play, 292; pride 
 of, twofold, 293. 
 
 Culture, Shakspere's idea of, 57. 
 
 Denmark, state of, in Hamlet's titqe, 
 120. 
 
 De Quincey, on the knocking in Mac- 
 beth, 331. 
 
 Desdemona, love to Othello of, 207 ; 
 weakness of, 210. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, humor of, 303. 
 
 Early and later writings of Shak- 
 spere, difference between, 251. 
 
 Early plays, characteristics of, 52. 
 
 Edmund, inhumanity of, 237. 
 
 Edward IV., Shakspere's opinion of, 
 171. 
 
 Elizabethan drama, as remedy for cyn- 
 icism, 26 ; ethics and effect of, 25 ; 
 realistic quality of, 8 ; vigor of, 22. 
 
 Environment, influence on the man 
 of his, 7. 
 
 Experiments, dramatic, of Shakspere, 
 49. 
 
 External nature, treatment of, by 
 Shakspere, 91. 
 
 Faerie Queene, object of, self-culture, 
 13 ; exponent of Renascence ideas, 
 12. 
 
384 
 
 Index. 
 
 FalstafE, ethics of, 325 ; view of life 
 of, 70. 
 
 Farce unpleasing to Shakspere, 304. 
 
 Female characters, change iu type 
 of, 80. 
 
 Fleay,Mr.,on Witches of Macbeth,218. 
 
 Friar Laurence, position of, in play, 
 lOT. 
 
 Furnivall, on Shakspere's part in The 
 Taming of the Shrew, 305 ; on Ve- 
 nus and Adonis, and Lucrece, 43. 
 
 Gertrude, Queen, emptiness of char- 
 acter of, 120. 
 
 Goethe, criticism of Hamlet of, 114. 
 
 Goneril and Regan compared, 234. 
 
 Great minds, belief in supernatural 
 of, 221. 
 
 Greatness of Shakspere's heroes, 282. 
 
 Grotesque, perception of, useful, 315. 
 
 Hamlet, indications of later style in, 
 111; literature, 142 ; turning-poiut 
 in career of Shakspere, 198. 
 
 Hamlet, compared with Romeo, 117; 
 causes of failure of, 138 ; cause of 
 weakness of, 130; condjct of, at 
 the play, 137; effect of Ghost on, 
 127 ; fatalism of, 139 ; love of truth 
 of, 134; madness of, 128; mind of, 
 incapable of certitude, 118; posi- 
 tion of, at opening of play, 119; 
 Shakspere's own character illus- 
 trated by, 142. 
 
 Hazlitt, W., on love of Desdemona, 
 208 ; on Venus and Adonis, and 
 Lucrece, 46. 
 
 Hebler, on symmetry of some play3,54. 
 
 Helena, Bertram's good sole aim of, 
 76 ; energy of, 76. 
 
 Henry V., conduct in war of, 195 ; 
 double character of, 188 ; hearty 
 piety of, 191 ; hero of historical 
 plays, 195 ; his realization of fact, 
 189; inner character of, 187; re- 
 lentlessnessof wrathof,194; Shak- 
 spere's ideal of practical character, 
 66. 
 
 Henry VL, authorship of first part, 
 153; origin of second part and of 
 third part, 160. 
 
 Henry VL, as a prisoner, 159 ; causes 
 of failure of, 154 ; timid saintliness 
 of, 155 ; vacillation of, 157. 
 
 Henry VIIL, authorship of, 368. 
 
 Hermione, calm justice of, 366. 
 
 Hogarth, study of laughter by, 301. 
 
 Hooker, influence of, on Reformation, 
 19. 
 
 Horatio and Hamlet, 186. 
 
 Hudson, Mr., on Fool in Lear, 243. 
 
 Humor of Shakspere, influence of, 
 300 ; innocence of, 320 ; two stages 
 of, 316. 
 
 lago, personification of frandful evil, 
 212. 
 
 Ideal and Real, conflict of, in mind 
 of Shakspere, 31,41. 
 
 Imogen, 413. 
 
 Impartiality of Shakspere, source of, 
 307. 
 
 Incongruity, tragic and comic, 312. 
 
 Ingram, Professor, on chronology of 
 last plays, 338. 
 
 Interest of Shakspere in his art di- 
 minishing, 359. 
 
 Interpenetration of humor, pathos, 
 and tragedy, 332. 
 
 Isabella, energy and will of, 72. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., on Cleopatra, 279. 
 
 Juliet, state of mind of, when taking 
 the poison, 102. 
 
 Julius Cffisar, date of. Preface ; dom- 
 inant power of, 255 ; apparent in- 
 consistency of character of, 258. 
 
 Katharme, love of Henry V. to, 
 169. 
 
 King John, substance of, misery and 
 failure, 153. 
 
 King John, fails from weakness of 
 his wickedness, 150; strength in 
 early scenes not real, 151. 
 
 King Lear, creed of leading persons 
 in, 240; ethics of, 289; great- 
 est Teutonic poem, 229 ; irony of, 
 280; Shakspere's treatment of his- 
 tory in, 232; significance of sec 
 ondary plot in, 236 ; teaching of, 
 232. 
 
Index. 
 
 385 
 
 Knowledge of a great mind a great 
 
 good, 3. 
 Kreyssig, on Shakspere's freedom 
 
 from party spirit, 288. 
 
 Lady Macbeth, appearance of, 224. 
 Lady Percy and Portia contrasted, 
 
 264. 
 Laertes, superficiality of, 121. 
 Last Plays, characteristics of, 358. 
 Laughter, of men of genius, 302; 
 
 Shakspere's, history of, 317. 
 Leontes and Othello contrasted, S62. 
 Love's Labor 's Lost, character and 
 
 design of, 6S. 
 
 Macbeth, motto of, 217. 
 
 Macbeth, and the Witches, 222 ; and 
 Lady M. contrasted, 223; dishon- 
 orable death of, 227 ; weakness of, 
 223. 
 
 Maginn on Theseus, 61. 
 
 Margaret, Queen, an avenging fury, 
 170. 
 
 Marlowe, influence of, on Shakspere, 
 86. 
 
 Mental progress, style a sign of, 64. 
 
 Mercutio, character of, 103. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, criticism 
 of, 328. 
 
 Middle Ages, ethics and idealism of, 9. 
 
 Morality of Shakspere's writings, 362. 
 
 Morgann, M.,criticism of Falstaff, 824. 
 
 Mysteries of Life, Shakspere's treat- 
 ment of, 202. 
 
 Ophelia compared with Juliet, 123. 
 Othello, aim of, to contrast lago and 
 , Othello, 216. 
 
 Othello, f orcef ulness of, 209 ; strength 
 and weakness of, 205. 
 
 Periods, four, in art-life of Shakspere, 
 
 318, 322, 330. 
 Polonius, morality of, 126. 
 Portia, strength of, 266. 
 Portia and Brutus, noble relations of, 
 
 263. 
 Fosthumus, reconciliation of, with 
 
 Imogen, 363. 
 Progress of Shakspere cautious, 47. 
 
 17 
 
 Prospero, conduct of, to his enemies, 
 366 ; Shakspere's ideal character, 
 67 ; Shakspere seen in, 371. 
 
 Queen Katharine, chief interest to 
 Shakspere in Henry VIII., 368. 
 
 Reconciliation, characteristic of last 
 plays, 361. 
 
 Reformation in England, characteris- 
 tics of, 17. 
 
 Renascence, ethics of, 10; positivism 
 characteristic of, 20. 
 
 Richard II., aims at effect without 
 definite end, 173 ; and Jaques com- 
 pared, 180; boyishness of, 172; 
 unreality of, discussed, 178. 
 
 Richard III., uniqueness of, and re- 
 semblance to Marlowe's work, 160. 
 
 Richard III., cynicism and devilry of, 
 164 ; energy of, best seen in battle, 
 165; Shakspere's teaching from 
 character of, 168 ; sources of pow- 
 er of, 162. 
 
 Roman Plays, measure of greatness 
 in, 249 ; Shakspere's and Jonson's, 
 contrasted, 246 ; significance of 
 date of, 246. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, feeling evoked by 
 last scene of, 109 ; Shakspere's va- 
 riation from original, 105. 
 
 Romeo, contrasted with Mercutio, 
 102 ; development of character of, 
 104 ; love of, for Rosaline and 
 Juliet, 94. 
 
 Rosencrantz and Gnildenstern, 132. 
 
 Rushton on euphuism of Shakspere, 
 125. 
 
 Ruskin on lago, 212. 
 
 Runnawayes eyes, note on, 110. 
 
 Satire, late and early, of Shakspere 
 contrasted, 332. 
 
 Secondary plots, function of, 346. 
 
 Second period, characteristics of, 328. 
 
 Shakspere, as a poet of feudalism, 
 284 ; caution of, in trying styles, 
 87; character of, 146; character 
 illustrated by life, 27; develop- 
 ment of nature of, 39; enormous 
 receptivity of, 38 ; ideal of practi- 
 
386 
 
 Index. 
 
 cal strength of, 197; incapable of 
 despair, 203 ; influence of writings 
 of, on student, 381 ; mode of study- 
 ing, 2 ; on communism, 289 ; polit- 
 ical views of, 286 ; practical and 
 ideal sides of character illustrated, 
 29; relation of his life to his art,144; 
 religion of, 33 ; sympathy of, with 
 ideal, 349 ; two existences of, 31. 
 
 Slender, the comic in, 311. 
 
 Sonnets, Shakspere's life at time of 
 writing the, 353 ; spirit of, 355 ; 
 teaching of, 351 ; theories of in- 
 terpretation of, 350. 
 
 Spenser, positive character of, 15. 
 
 Tempest, allegorical interpretation of, 
 377; freedom and forgiveness in, 
 373. 
 
 Theseus^ example of Shakspere's im- 
 partiality, 63 ; man of action, 60. 
 
 Timon, a study of self-control, 342 ; 
 as an illustration of Shakspere's 
 mind, 340 ; conjectures on origin 
 of, 339 ; contrasts in, 346. 
 
 Timon, fails from ignorance of life, 
 342 ; misanthropy of, 345. 
 
 Titus Andronicus, pre-Shaksperian in 
 tone, 48. 
 
 Tragedies, deal with deepest passions, 
 200 ; engrossed whole nature of 
 Shakspere, 199; first, influence of 
 external events on actors in, 115; 
 first, gradual development of, 50, 
 84 ; influence of, on spiritual prog- 
 ress of Shakspere, 204; of Shak- 
 spere and Restoration contrasted, 
 309. 
 
 Tragedy, first and second contrasted, 
 88. 
 
 Tragic and comic defined, 310. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, diificulties in, 
 83 ; significance of, Prefeux. 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, author- 
 ship of, 61. 
 
 Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, ex- 
 
 haustiveness of, 43. 
 Victor Hugo on King Lear, 244. 
 
 West, E. D., on realism of Shakspere, 
 
 25. 
 White, E. Grant, on authorship of 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, 84. 
 Witches of Macbeth, interpretation 
 
 of, 218. 
 Women of Shakspere contrasted with 
 
 the men, 97. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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