Part 21

Pause, gentle reader, for a while, and reflect kindly on these paragraphs for the sake of Alexander Pope and Christopher North. And now accompany us while we select our specimens of the British critics, from the "Nightingale of Twickenham's" preface to the works of Shakspeare. What he proposed to accomplish in this undertaking was, "to give a more correct text from the collated copies of the old editions, without any innovation or indulgence to his own private sense, or conjecture; to insert the various readings in the margin, and to place the suspected passages or interpolations at the bottom of the page; to this was added an explanation of some of the more obsolete or unusual words; and such as appeared to him the most striking passages were marked by a star, or by inverted commas." Warton laments that Pope ever undertook this edition; "a task which the course of his reading and studies did not qualify him to execute with the ability and skill which it deserved, and with which it has since been executed;" but though it was a failure, there was no occasion for lamentation. Johnson says more wisely, "that Pope did many things wrong, and left many things undone, but let him not be defrauded of his due praise. He was the first that knew, or at least, the first that told by what helps the text might be improved. If he inspected the early editions negligently, he taught others to be more accurate. In his preface he expanded with great skill and eloquence the character which had been given of Shakspeare by Dryden; and he drew the public attention upon his works, which, though often mentioned, had been little read."

Warton, too, admits that the "preface is written with taste, judgment, purity, and elegance." Pope speaks modestly of the design of his preface, which is not, he says, to enter into a criticism upon Shakspeare, "though to do it effectually, and not superficially, would be the best occasion that any just writer could take to form the judgment and taste of our nation." His humbler aim is but to give an account of the fate of his works, and the disadvantages under which they have been transmitted to us. But he cannot neglect the opportunity thus afforded him, "of mentioning some of the principal and characteristic excellences for which (notwithstanding his defects) _he is justly and universally elevated above all other dramatic writers_."

"If ever any author deserved the name of an _original_, it was Shakspeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of nature; it proceeded through Egyptian strainers and channels, and came to him not without some tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakspeare was inspiration indeed: he is not so much an imitator, as an instrument, of Nature; and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him.

"His _characters_ are so much nature herself, that it is a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. Those of other poets have a constant resemblance, which shows that they received them from one another, and were but multipliers of the same image; each picture, like a mock rainbow, is but the reflection of a reflection. But every single character in Shakspeare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity in any respect appear most to be twins, will, upon comparison, be found remarkably distinct. To this life and variety of character, we must add the wonderful preservation of it; which is such throughout his plays, that had all the speeches been printed without the very names of the persons, I believe one might have applied them with certainty to every speaker.

"The _power_ over our _passions_ was never possessed in a more eminent degree, or displayed in so different instances. Yet all along, there is seen no labour, no pains to raise them; no preparation to guide or guess to the effect, or be perceived to lead toward it, but the heart swells, and the tears burst out, just at the proper places; we are surprised at the moment we weep; and yet upon reflection, find the passion so just, that we should be surprised if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.

"How astonishing is it again, that the passions directly opposite to these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command? that he is not more a master of the _great_ than the _ridiculous_ in human nature; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles; of our strongest emotions, than of our idlest sensations!

"Nor does he only excel in the passions; in the coolness of reflection and reasoning he is full as admirable. His _sentiments_ are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no education or experience in those great and public scenes of life which are usually the subject of his thoughts; so that he seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through human nature at one glance, and to be the only author that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the philosopher, and even the man of the world, may be _born_, as well as the poet."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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