Part 23
Mousing the other day in the library of a venerable citizen of Boston, who is no less skilled in the gospel (let us hope) than in the law, I stumbled over a seedy-looking folio containing _A Treatise of Original Sinne_, by one Anthony Burgesse, who flourished in England something more than two centuries ago. One of the discoloured fly-leaves of this entertaining tome informed me, in a hand-writing which resembled a dilapidated rail-fence looked at from the window of an express train, that _Jacobus Keith me possedit, An. Dom. 1655_; and also bore this inscription, so pertinent to my present theme: "Expositors are wise when they are not otherwise." I feel that it is safe to leave my readers to make the application of this apothegm to the Shakespearean annotators of their acquaintance, so few of whom are wise, so many otherwise. I think it was the late Mr. Hazlitt who said (and if it was not, it ought to have been) that if you desire to know to what sublimity human genius is capable of ascending, you must read Shakespeare; but that if you seek to ascertain to what a depth of imbecility the intellect of man may be brought down, you must read his commentators.
Notwithstanding the low estimate which I am inclined to place upon the labour of the majority of the commentators on Shakespeare, still I have often felt a strong temptation to enroll myself among them. Not all their stupidity in explaining things which are clear to the meanest capacity, not all their pedantry in elucidating matters which are simply inexplicable, not all their inordinate voluminousness, could quench my ambition to fasten my roll of waste paper to the bob (already so unwieldy) of the Shakespearean kite. Others have soared into fame by such means; why should not I? We ought not to study Shakespeare so many years for nothing, and I feel that a sacred duty would be neglected if the result of my researches were withheld from my suffering fellow-students. But let me be more merciful than other commentators; let me confine my remarks to a single play. From that one you may learn the tenor of my theories concerning the others; and if you wish for another specimen, I shall consider that I have achieved an unheard-of triumph in this department of literature.
The tragedy of _Hamlet_ has always been regarded as one of the most creditable of Shakespeare's performances. It needs no new commendation from me. Dramatic composition has made great progress within the two hundred and sixty years that have elapsed since Hamlet was written, yet few better things are produced nowadays. We may as well acknowledge the humiliating fact that Hamlet, with all its age, is every whit as good as if it had been written since Lady Day, and were announced on the playbills of to-morrow night, with one of Mr. Boucicault's most eloquent and elaborate prefaces. The character of Hamlet has been much discussed, but, with all due respect for the genius of those who have fatigued their reader with their treatment of the subject, I would humbly suggest that they are all wrong. Hamlet resembles a picture which has been scoured, and retouched, and varnished, and restored, until you can hardly see any thing of the original. Critics and commentators have bedaubed the original character so thoroughly, and those credulous people who rejoice that Chatham's language is their mother tongue, have heard so much of their estimate of Hamlet's character, that they receive them on faith, flattering themselves all the while that they are paying homage to the Hamlet of Shakespeare. High-flown philosophy exerts its powers upon the theme, and Goethe gives it as his opinion that the dramatist wished to portray the effects of a great action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accomplishment, and compares it to an oak planted in a china vase, proper to receive only the most delicate flowers, and which flies to pieces as soon as the roots begin to strike out.
Now let us drop all this metaphysical and poetical cant, and go back to the play itself. Shakespeare will prove his own best expositor, if we read him with docile minds, having previously instructed ourselves concerning the history of the time of which he wrote. There is a tradition common in the north of Ireland that Hamlet's father was a native of that country, named Howndale, and that he followed the trade of a tailor; that he was captured by the Danes, in one of their expeditions against that fair island, and carried to Jutland; that he married and set up in business again in that cold region, but that he afterwards forsook the sartorial for the regal line, by usurping the throne of Denmark. The tradition represents him to have been a man of violent character, a hard drinker, and altogether a most unprincipled and unamiable person, though an excellent tailor. Now, if we take the old chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus, (_Historia Danorum_,) from which Shakespeare drew the plot for his tragedy, we shall find there little that does not harmonize with this tradition. Saxo Grammaticus tells us that Hamlet was the son of Horwendal, who was a famous pirate of Jutland, whom the king, Huric, feared so much, that, to propitiate him, he was obliged to appoint him governor of Jutland, and afterwards to give him his daughter Gertrude in marriage. Thus he obtained the throne. The old Irish name, Howndale, might easily have been corrupted into Horwendal by the jaw-breaking Northmen, and for the rest, the Danish chronicle and the Irish tradition are perfectly consistent. That there was frequent communication at that early period between Denmark and Ireland, I surely need not take the trouble to prove. All the early chronicles of both of those countries bear witness to it. It was to the land evangelized by St. Patrick that Denmark was indebted for the blessings of education and the Christian faith. But the visits of the Danes were not dictated by any holy zeal for the salvation or mental advancement of their benefactors, if we may believe all the stories of their piratical expeditions. An Irish monk of the great monastery of Banchor, who wrote very good Latin for the age in which he lived, alludes to this period in his country's history in a poem, one line of which is sometimes quoted, even now:--
_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._ "Time was, O Danes, we feared your gifts."
The great Danish poet, OEhlenschlaeger, makes frequent allusions in the course of his epic, _The Gods of the North_, to the relations that once existed between Denmark and Ireland, and to the fact that his native land received from Ireland the custom of imbibing spirituous liquors in large quantities.
Hamlet's Irish parentage would naturally be concealed as much as possible by him, as it might prejudice his claims to the throne of Denmark; therefore we can hardly expect to find the ancient legend confirmed in the play, except in a casual manner. The free, outspoken, Irish nature would make itself known occasionally. Thus we find that when Horatio tells him that "there's no offence," he rebukes him with
"Yes, _by St. Patrick_, but there is, Horatio!"
There certainly needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us that no true-born Scandinavian would have sworn in an unguarded moment by the Apostle of Ireland. Again, when Hamlet thinks of killing his uncle, the wrongful king, he apostrophizes himself by the name which he probably bore when he assisted his father (whose death he wishes to avenge) in his shop in Jutland:--
"Now, might I do it, Pat, now he is praying."
Then, too, he speaks to Horatio of the "funeral baked meats" coldly furnishing forth the marriage table at his mother's second espousal. The custom of baking meats is as well known to be of Irish origin, as that of roasting them is to be peculiar to the northern nations of continental Europe.
The frequent allusions in the course of the play to drinking customs not only prove that Hamlet descended from that nation whose hospitality is its greatest fault, but that he and his family were far from being the refined and philosophic people some of the commentators would have us believe. Thus he promises his old companion,--
"We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart,"--
which the most prejudiced person will freely allow to be truly a _Corkonian_ phrase. This frailty of the family may be seen throughout the play. In the last scene, it is especially apparent. All the royal family of Denmark seem to have joined an intemperance society. The queen even, in spite of her husband's remonstrances, joins in the carousal. Hamlet, too, while he is dying, starts up on hearing Horatio say, "Here's yet some liquor left," and insists upon the cup being given to him. I know that it may be urged, on the other hand, that in the scene preceding the first appearance of the ghost before Hamlet, he indulges in some remarks which would prove him to have entertained sentiments becoming his compatriot, the noble Father Mathew. Speaking of the custom of draining down such frequent draughts of Rhenish, he pronounces it to his mind
"a custom More honoured in the breach than the observance."
It must be remembered that the occasion on which this speech was uttered was a solemn one. Under such supernatural circumstances old Silenus or the King of Prussia himself might be pardoned for growing somewhat homiletic on the subject of temperance. The conclusion of this speech has given the commentators a fine chance to exercise their ingenuity.
"The dram of bale Doth all the noble substance often doubt To his own scandal."
They have called it the "dram of base," the "dram of eale," &c., and then have been as much in the dark as before. Some have thought that Shakespeare intended to have written it "the dram of Bale," as a sly hit at Dr. John Bale, the first Protestant Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, who was an unscrupulous dram-drinker as well as dramatist, for he wrote a play called "Kynge Johan," which was reprinted under the editorial care of my friend, Mr. J. O. Halliwell, by the Camden Society, in 1838. But this attempt to make it reflect upon the Ossory prelate is entirely uncalled for. A little research would have showed that _bale_ was a liquor somewhat resembling our whiskey of the true R. G. brand, the consumption of which in the dram-shops of his country the Prince Hamlet so earnestly deplored. The great Danish philosopher, V. Scheerer Homboegger, in his autobiography, speaks of it, and says that like all the Danes he prefers it to either wine or ale, or water even: _Der er vand, her er vun og oel,--men allested BAELE drikker saaledes de Dansker._ (Autobiog. II. xiii. Ed. Copenhag.)
As to the proofs that Hamlet's family was closely connected with the tailoring interest, they are so thickly scattered through the entire tragedy, and are so apparent even to the casual reader, that, even if I had room, it would only be necessary to mention a few of the principal ones. In the very first scene in which he is introduced, Hamlet talks in an experienced manner about his "inky cloak," "suits of solemn black," "forms" and "modes," and tries to defend himself from the suspicion which he feels is attached to him by many of the courtiers, by saying plainly, "I know not _seams_." This first speech of Hamlet's is a key to the wanton insincerity of his character. His mother has begged him to change his clothes,--to "cast his nighted colour off,"--and he answers her requests with, "I shall _in all my best_ obey you, madam;" yet it is notorious that he heeds not this promise, but wears black to the end of his career.
He repeatedly uses the expressions which a tailor would naturally employ. His figures of speech frequently smell of the shop. As, for instance, he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb;" in the scene preceding the play he declares that, though the devil himself wear black, he'll "have a suit of sables." In the interview with his mother, who may be supposed not to have forgotten the early history of the family, he uses such figures with still greater freedom:--
"That monster _custom_ who all sense doth eat Of _habit's_ devil, is angel yet in this; That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a _frock_ or _livery_, That aptly is put on."
In his instruction to the players he speaks of tearing "a passion to _tatters_, to very _rags_" and says of certain actors that when he saw them it seemed to him as if "some of nature's _journeymen_ had made men and not made them well." In the fourth act, he calls Rosencrantz a _sponge_.
What better evidence of the skill of Hamlet and his father in their common trade can we have than that afforded by the fair Ophelia, who speaks of the Prince as "the glass of fashion and the mould of form"? In the chamber scene with his mother, Hamlet is taken entirely off his guard by the sudden appearance of his father's ghost, whom he apostrophizes, not in the set phrases which he used when Horatio and Marcellus were by, but as "_a king of shreds and patches_". Old Polonius does not wish his daughter to marry a tailor, but is too polite to tell her all of his objections to Lord Hamlet's suit; so he cloaks his reasons under these figures of speech, instead of telling her, out of whole cloth, that Hamlet is a tailor, and the match will never do:--
"Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers, Not of that dye which there in vestments show, But implorators of unholy suits," &c.
Some late editions of the Bard make the second line of this passage read,--
"Not of that die which their investments show,"----
which is as evident a corruption of the text as any of those detected by the indefatigable Mr. Payne Collier.
If any further proof is needed of a matter which must be clear to every reasoning mind, it may be found in that solemn scene in which the Prince, oppressed by the burden of a life embittered and defeated in its highest aims, meditates suicide. Now, if there is a time when all affectation of worldly rank would be likely to be forgotten and swallowed up in the contemplation of the terrible deed which occupies the mind, it is such a time as this. And here we find Shakespeare as true as Nature herself. The soldier, weary of life, uses the sword his enemies once feared, to end his troubles. Hamlet's mind overleaps the interval of his princely life, and the weapon which is most naturally suggested by his youthful career is "_a bare bodkin_."
Had I not already written more than I intended on this subject, I might go on with many other evidences of the truth of my view of this remarkable character. I did wish also to show that Hamlet was a most disreputable character, and by no means entitled to the sympathy or admiration of men. Suffice it to say that he was, even to his last hour, fonder of drink than became a prince (except perhaps a Prince Regent)--that he treated Ophelia improperly--that he often spoke of his step-father in profane terms--that he indulged in the use of profane language even in his soliloquies, as for example,--
"The spirit I have seen May be a devil; and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness, and my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits) Abuses me too,--damme!"
His familiarity with the players likewise is an incontrovertible proof of his depravity; for the theatrical people of Denmark in his age were not what the players of our day are. They were too often people of loose and reckless lives, careless of moral and social obligations, and whose company would by no means be acceptable to a truly philosophic prince.
If this pre-Raphaelite sketch of Hamlet's character should seem unsatisfactory, it can be filled out by a perusal of the play itself, if the reader will only cast aside the trammels which the commentators have placed in his way. It may be a new view to most of my readers; but I am convinced that the theory, of which I have given an outline, is fully as tenable as many of the countless conjectural essays to which that matchless drama has given rise. If it be untrue, why, then we must conclude that all similar theories, though they may be sustained by as many passages as I have adduced in support of my Hibernico-sartorial hypothesis, are equally devoid of a foundation of common sense. If my theory stands, I have the satisfaction of having connected my name (which would else be soon forgotten) with one of Shakespeare's masterpieces; and that is all that any commentator has ever done. And if my theory proves false, it consoles me to think that the splendour of the genius which I so highly reverence is in no wise obscured thereby; for the stability and grandeur of the temple cannot be impaired by the obliteration of the ambitious scribblings and chalk-marks with which some aspiring worshippers may have defaced its portico.
MEMORIALS OF MRS. GRUNDY
Of all the studies to which I was ever impelled in my youth, either by fear of the birch or by the hope of the laurel or the bays, mythology was perhaps the most charming. It was refreshing, after trying in vain to conjugate a verb, and being at last obliged to decline it--after adding up a column of figures several times, and getting many different results, and none of them the right one--and after making a vain attempt to comprehend the only algebraic knowledge that ever was forced into my unmathematical brain, viz., that _x_ equals an unknown quantity,--it was, I say, refreshing to turn over the leaves of my Classical Dictionary, and revel among the gods and heroes whose wondrous careers were embalmed in its well-thumbed pages. Lempriere was the great magician who summoned up before my delighted eyes the denizens of a sphere where existence was unvexed by any pestilent arithmetics, and where the slavery of the inky desk was unknown. It always seemed to me as if the knowledge that I gained out of those enchanted chronicles not only improved my mind, but made my body more robust; for I joined in the chase, fought desperate battles, as the gods willed it, and breathed all the while the pure, invigorating air of old Olympus. The consecrated groves were the dwelling-place of my mind, and I became for a time a sharer in the joys of beings in whom I believed with all the ardour and simplicity of childhood. I enjoyed my mythological readings all the more because they did not generally find favour with my school companions, most of whom vindicated their nationality by professing their affection for the Rule of Three. One of them, I remember, was especially severe on the uselessness of the studies in which I took pleasure. He, _parcus deorum cultor, et infrequens_, could get no satisfaction out of the books in which I revelled; if _he_ had got to study or read, he could not afford to waste his brains over the foolish superstitions of three thousand years ago. He did not care how much romance and poetic beauty there might be in the ancient mythology: what did it all come to in the end? It didn't pay. It was a humbug. Our paths in life separated when we graduated from jackets and peg-tops. He remained faithful to his boyish instincts, and pursued the practical as if it were a reality. After a few years his face lost all its youthful look; an intense spirit of acquisitiveness gleamed in his calculating eye, and an interest table seemed to be written in the lines of his care-worn countenance. We seldom had any conversation in our after years, for he always seemed to be under some restraint, as if he feared that I wished to borrow a little money of him, and he did not wish to refuse for the sake of the old time when we sat at the same desk, although he knew that my note was good for nothing. His devotion to his deity, the practical, did not go unrewarded. He became like the only mythological personage whom he would have envied, had he known any thing of the science he despised. His touch seemed to transmute every thing into gold. His speculations during the war of 1812 were all successful. Eastern lands harmed him not. The financial panic of 1837 only put money in his purse. He rolled up a large fortune, and was happy. He looked anxious, but of course he was happy. What man ever devoted his life to the working out of the dreams of his youth in the acquisition of riches, and succeeded beyond his anticipations, without being very happy? But, if his gains were something practical and real, his losses were doubly so. Each one of them was as a dagger stuck into that sere heart. His only son gave him much trouble by his wild life, and, what touched him still more, wasted the money he had laboured to pile up, at the gaming tables of Baden. I saw him walking down Tremont Street the other day, looking care-worn and miserable, and I longed to ask him what he thought of the real and practical after trying them. He would certainly have been willing to acknowledge that there is more reality in the romance and poetry of mythology than in the thousands which he invested in the Bay State Mills. His practical life has brought him vanity and vexation of spirit, while the old Lempriere, which he used to treat so contemptuously, flourishes in immortal youth, unhurt amid the wreck of fortunes and the depreciation of stocks.
But I am not writing an essay on mythology. I wish to treat of one who is sometimes considered a myth, but who is a living and breathing personality like all of us. This wide-spread scepticism is one of the most fatal signs of the times. Because the late Mrs. Sairey Gamp supposed herself justified in cultivating a little domestic mythology in the shade of the famous Mrs. Harris, are we to take all the personages who have illustrated history as myths and unrealities? Shade of Herodotus, forbid it! There are some unbelieving and irreverent enough to doubt whether there is really such a person as Mrs. Partington; other some there are so hardened in their incredulity as to question the existence of the individual who smote Mr. William Patterson, and even of the immortal recipient of the blow himself. Therefore we ought not to think it strange that the lady whose name adorns the title of this article should not have escaped the profane spirit of the age.