Part 66

After the play of _Twelfth Night_ we become aware of the first ebb of summer. It has been suggested that the events shadowed forth in the _Sonnets_ took some of the joy out of Shakespeare's heart. It has been suggested that the fall of Essex, involving the disgrace of the poet's patron Southampton, tended to embitter his spirit. These are conjectures that cannot be verified. What is certain is, that he turned toward tragedy, and that his temper in comedy indicates a gathering of the clouds. The spirit of _All's Well that Ends Well_ is as courageous as is the title of the play; and there is a need for courage, not of the gay and sportive kind, but serious and steadfast. The hero is no gallant Orlando or high-spirited Benedick. He has in him, we must suppose, the possibilities of noble manhood, but these are obscured by the errors and the vices of youth. The heroine is no glad-hearted girl like Rosalind, no scatterer of coruscating jests like Beatrice, but a woman, clear-sighted, strong-willed, and bent on achieving her purpose. She, the poor daughter of a physician, is a healer in a world that stands in need of healing. The bright-winged Cupid of nods and becks and wreathed smiles has been transformed into Love, the physician. Helena, honoured and cherished by all who know her aright, is rejected by the one man on whom her heart is fixed, and whom she rescues from his baser self with something of that maternal protectiveness, which in certain instances constitutes the nucleus of wifely love. The Countess is Shakespeare's creation, and nowhere has he made age more beautiful. The comic business lies chiefly in the unmasking of the pretender, Parolles. It is required both by the action and the ethics of the play, but there is little to afford us pleasure in the humiliation of so paltry a _miles gloriosus_.

The atmosphere darkens in _Measure for Measure_. In the city of Vienna corruption boils and bubbles. From the Duke's deputy to the lowest drudge of vice, society is infected with the festering evil. To deal with the subtleties of sin, virtue itself must learn crafty ways; mines must be opposed by countermines. In Claudio the passions of youth, snatching too eagerly at unlicensed satisfaction, are brought into the presence of death; and to life, tender and florid, the vast regions of the grave are full of obscurity and uncertain horror. It is hardly a scene for the joy of love, though to two strong hearts love may come in the end as the sequel of a common struggle for justice and moral reformation. Rather is it a place for the trials and the victory of virgin chastity. The Duke moves through subterranean passages, guided by the dark lantern of moral prudence. Isabella illuminates the gloom with the light of an indignant saintliness. Here it is no pompous formalist who is humiliated; no common pretender who is detected and delivered over to laughter; the deadliest ambushes of evil are attacked; the heart, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," is laid bare. Angelo, the self-deceiver, is exposed not merely to others, but to himself; he gazes down appalled into the abyss discovered in his own soul. We have travelled far from the fresh wild-wood paths of Arden and from the glowing gardens of Illyria.

No problems connected with the plays of Shakespeare are more difficult of solution than those offered by the satiric drama, in which matter from the story of Troy is handled in so enigmatic a fashion. Shall we place _Troilus and Cressida_ hard by _Measure for Measure_, or date it some six years later, regarding it as a successor in comedy to the tragic study of the misanthrope in _Timon of Athens_? The evidence inclines in favour of the earlier date. Is some of the wood, hay, and stubble of the lost _Troilus and Cressida_ of Dekker and Chettle imbedded in Shakespeare's play? Is it a satire of humanity or of contemporary individuals? Was this the "purge" which Shakespeare administered to Ben Jonson, and, with Jonson disguised as Ajax, and Marston as Thersites, was the play one of those alarums and excursions connected with the war of the theatres, in which Marston, Dekker, and Jonson were the principal combatants?[1949] Is Cressida a malicious portrait of the deceitful enchantress of the _Sonnets_, and was a satirical presentment of the heroes of Homer a retort upon the rival poet, conjectured to be Chapman, the translator of Homer, who had stolen away the favour of Shakespeare's young friend and patron. These questions remain unanswered. We can only say that the spirit of this comedy of disillusion is alien to that of genuine comedy as conceived by Shakespeare in his happier days. The young love of Troilus is betrayed by the courtesan born. Achilles is a dull-brained fellow, barren of wit, who sulks or wantons in his tent; Ajax is a clumsy elephant; Thersites lives on garbage, and spews his filth; Pandar is a lecher, incapable except by proxy; to fight on account of Helen is to set the world at odds for an harlot, yet on her behalf it is that Hector, knowing the folly of it, dies. Troilus is indeed a gallant youth, but his passion is a greenhorn's infatuation: let him be cured of it by surgical incision, however cruel! Shall we say that _Troilus and Cressida_ and _Measure for Measure_ are connected by a certain contrast and resemblance? In each the world is bubbling with corruption. The mighty persons of the earth in the one play are as ignoble as the mean persons of the other; the confraternity of Mistress Overdone includes the champions of the world and their renowned lady-loves; the worldly wisdom of the Duke is lowered and broadened into the all-embracing but wholly mundane experience of Ulysses; and in this sorry society it is from worldly wisdom alone that we can hope for any rescue or deliverance, for here we find no saintly Isabella, but a Cressida, offering her lips to every solicitor of the Grecian tents.

The spirit of mirth withdrew itself for a time from Shakespeare's art. He could still write comic scenes, but they were used to deepen the effects of tragedy. The grave-diggers of _Hamlet_, the porter turning the key of hell-gate on the night of murder in _Macbeth_, Lear's poor fool jesting across the storm upon the heath, the clown whose basket of figs conceals the worm of Nilus--these are humorous figures created in the service of pity and terror. Shakespeare did not return to comedy until his perception of the world and human life had been purified by the tragic _katharsis_. With every faculty of his mind labouring at its highest, he had pursued a long dramatic inquisition of the evil that is in the world and in the heart of man. He had not retreated into any facile creed of pleasant optimism, but boldly explored the face of night, and night had brought out the stars. Such love as that of Cordelia, such loyalty as that of Kent, could be fully revealed only in and through the darkness. Man pleased Shakespeare and woman also, when he wrote his tragedies, else the players would have had lenten entertainment; for a drama founded upon misanthropy would have been unendurable. In _Timon of Athens_ the poet exhibits misanthropy as the evasion of weakness from the ruins of a self-indulgent optimism, and we may say that in _Timon of Athens_ he bade farewell to gloom.

Shakespeare's latest comedies--_Pericles_(as far as it is his), _Cymbeline_, _The Winter's Tale_, _The Tempest_--form a group, which is distinguished by a special character. The atmosphere is light and pellucid, like that which follows a thunder-storm. There is a great and wide serenity abroad; the heavens seem more spacious, and they bend down to embrace the margins of the land. The healing influences of nature are felt in the country lanes where Autolycus sings his tirra-lirra, and the meadows where Perdita follows her sheep, on the seacoast of Tarsus where Marina bears her basket of flowers, among the wild Welsh mountains with the gallant sons of Cymbeline, on the enchanted island full of "sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not." The life of cities and courts had lost much of its attraction for one who perhaps was now finding repose and restoration among the Warwickshire fields. But Shakespeare did not plead, in the manner of Rousseau, for a reversion to the primitive conditions of humanity; he could smile at Gonzalo's imaginary commonwealth, where property has no existence; he saw in Caliban the rudimentary man not half informed with soul; he had faith in an art which mends nature, while yet it is an art which nature makes. And nature itself, with all of human life, seems to hang, dreamlike and yet real, in the encompassing power of something that is above nature and that means well, however little we can trace its ways. Dian appears to Pericles in a vision, guiding him to her temple where joy awaits him; the innocence of Hermione is vindicated by the oracle of Apollo; Posthumus in prison is visited by Jupiter, giving him assurance of divine succour--"whom best I love I cross"; Prospero is aided in his beneficent designs by ministering elemental spirits. The growing resources of the Jacobean stage assisted the dramatist in scenic effects, to which he imparted a beautiful significance. The temper of these latest plays is a temper of reconciliation; the wrongs of life are present, but for those who can transcend the baser passions they work for good. Injuries are felt but are forgiven; broken bonds of affection are reunited; the lost are restored to hearts that have loved and suffered. "The oldest hath borne most," says Albany in the closing lines of _King Lear_. The old are seen in these last romances of Shakespeare as experienced in suffering, caused by the offence of others or by the errors of their own hearts; but they have learnt through suffering a certain detachment from the greed of personal gain, and they lean over the joy of young hearts, still immersed in the innocent egoism of youth, with a fond protectiveness. Cymbeline and his recovered sons, Pericles and Marina, Hermione and Perdita, Prospero and Miranda--it is the same sentiment, varied and repeated, in each of its exemplars. Certain indications that Shakespeare was loosening his connection with the theatre are present in these plays. He could, as in the instance of _Pericles_ and perhaps in those of _King Henry VIII._ and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ contribute fragments to a drama in which, as a whole, he took little interest. In plays of which he is the sole author, his dramatic energy flags at times, to be renewed where the subject moved his feelings or charmed his imagination. The versification is breeze-like in its freedom, but sometimes the breeze falls away and sometimes it wanders with too vague an aim. The treatment of time passes from the extreme of romantic license, as in _The Winter's Tale_, to the strictest observation of the rule of unity in _The Tempest_. In _Pericles_, the earliest of these romances, Shakespeare cared only for certain scenes and situations. In _Cymbeline_, wherever Imogen, the loveliest figure in his gallery of portraits of women appears, we are certain to receive his finest workmanship. Hermione and Perdita wholly possessed his imagination, while a crude sketch sufficed for the jealousy of Leontes. _The Tempest_, if we set aside the laborious jesting of Antonio and Sebastian (designed to express the barren brain that often accompanies a callous heart), is wrought with equal power from the first scene to the last.

Perhaps the conjecture is well founded that _The Tempest_, with its masque of wedding blessings, was written for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Frederick, Elector Palatine, in February, 1613. Perhaps it was Shakespeare's latest play. And it may not be altogether an idle notion of the poet Campbell, that in Prospero's breaking his magic staff and dismissing his airy spirits we have the farewell to the stage of the great enchanter who had summoned Prospero into being.

Shakespeare found poetic comedy in its rudiments; he left it fully formed. He brought together its various elements and organized them to fulfil the functions of a single living spirit. He made laughter wise, and taught seriousness how to be winning and gracious. Through no ascetic doctrine but by virtue of the spirit of life and beauty he purified the drama from the dulness of what is gross, and kept its temper above the seductions of sentimental morals and a nerveless lubricity. Wit, fancy, grace, constructive dexterity, are found among his successors. Shakespeare's sane outlook upon life as a whole, his gentleness of strength in dealing with the passions, his reserve of power, his moral wisdom, were lost to English comedy when Prospero abjured his magic and retired to the duties of his Stratford lordship of the soil.

EDWARD DOWDEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[1949] On this subject, see _The War of the Theatres_, by Mr. J. H. Penniman, 1897, and _The Stage-Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters_ by R. A. Small (Breslau, 1899).

INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL MATERIALS

ABERDEEN, Records of, xxxviii.

_Acolastus_, the, by Gnapheus (W. Fullonius), transl. by Palsgrave, lxx, lxxi, lxxxi.

Acting and actors: in churches, xiii, xv, xix, xxi; in schools, xiv, lxix; in churchyards, xii; by crafts, xviii, xx, xxxiii; the councils against mimi, xix, xl; actors of Wakefield, xxv; mummers, xl; English actors in Germany, xlv; acting at Cambridge, lxxi, 197; Udall and school actors, 98; Lyly and boy actors, 265–268, 270, 279; Greene and the companies, 399, 403, 408, 411, 418; Porter and the companies, 515, 516, 519–522, 524, 526–527.

Admiral's men, the, (_i.e._ under patronage of Lord Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, 1585–1603) and Greene, 403, 408, 410; and Porter, 515–517, 520–528, _et passim_.

_Agamemnon_, Dekker and Chettle's, 523.

Agrippa, Henry Cornelius (von Nettesheim), 281.

Alberti, his _Philodoxeos_, lxvii.

_Albyon Knight_, lxxxvi.

_Alcmæon_, the play of, 268.

_Alda_, Latin play by William of Blois, xvii.

Aldrich, Robert, and Udall, 92.

Alençon, the _duc d'_, and _Endymion_, 268.

_Alexander, the Life of_ by Plutarch, 269, 283, _et seq._

_Alexander and Campaspe_, by Lyly, edition of, with essay, by Professor Baker, 263–333; dates, sources, literary estimate, etc., 268–276.

_Alexander and Lodowick_, by Martin Slater, 523, 526.

Alexandrine, the Middle English, 189.

Allegory, and the drama, xxxvii, xl, lxxxi, xcii, 267.

Alleyn, Edward, and Greene's plays, 408, 410; catalogue of his MSS. at Dulwich, 515; acquaintance with Porter, 524.

Alleyn, Richard, an actor in the Admiral's company, 524.

_All for Money_, Lupton's, xlviii, li, lxxxvi.

Allott, his _England's Parnassus_, 421.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, Shakespeare's, 191, 656.

_Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany_, by Chapman, attributed to Peele, 336.

_Alphonsus, King of Arragon, Comicall Historie_ of, by Greene, 389, 403–405, 407, 410, 411, 421.

_Andria_, of Terence, the English translation of, lxviii, lxxi, 107.

Antichrist legend, Protestant version of the, lxxv.

_Apius and Virginia, The tragical comedy of_, by R. B., lxxxvi, 141, 336, 341.

Apollodorus Tarsensis, compared with Peele, 337.

Apuleius, Adlington's translation of his _Metamorphoses of the Golden Ass_, a possible source of Peele's 'Meroe,' 346, 383.

Arber, Professor E., his _English Garner_, 89; his reprint of _Roister Doister_, 90, 104, 194; his _Transcripts of the Stationers' Registers_, 97, 197, 347, _et passim_.

_Archæologia_, on Udall, 93.

_Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen_, on Peele, 348.

Aretino, his _Poliscene_, lxvii.

Ariosto, his _I Suppositi_, lxviii; Gascoigne's translation of, lxxv, lxxxiv; compared with Peele, 337; his _Orlando Furioso_, 389.

Argumentative plays, _debats_, and controversial morals, lxv, lxvi, lxxv, xci; Heywood's, 10.

_Arraignment of Paris, The_, by Peele, 336, 341.

_Ascension, The_, Wakefield play of, xxvi, xxvii.

Ascham, Roger, referred to, 135.

_Asotus_, the, by Macropedius, lxx.

Ass, Feast of the, xx, xxi.

_As You Like It_, by Shakespeare, lxv, 275, 645, 654, 655.

BABIO, a Latin elegiac comedy, xviii.

Baker, D. E. (with Reed and Jones), his _Biographia Dramatica_, 200, 348.

Baker, Professor G. P., _Critical Essay on Lyly_, his life and place in comedy, with special reference to _Alexander and Campaspe_, 263–277; edition of _A. and C._, with notes, 278–333.

Bale, Bishop, his _Catalogus_, xviii, 89, 93; translation of _Pammachius_, lxx, lxxi; his _Kyng Johan_, lxxii, lxxv.

Ballad plays, xli.

Bandello, 645.

Barclay, Alexander, and fool-literature, lii, liii.

Bardani, xli.

Barry, Lodowick, the song of "Three merrie men" in his _Ram Alley_, 352.

_Bartholomew Fayre_, by Ben Jonson, _Induction to_, 410.

_Basoche, clercs de la_, lxvi.

_Battle of Alcazar, The_, by Peele, 335, 337, 341.

_Baucis_, a Latin elegiac comedy, xviii.

Bayne, on Henry Porter in _Dict. Nat. Biog._, 519.

Beaumont and Fletcher, and the play within a play, 343.

_Beaux Stratagem, The_, by Farquhar, referred to, 429.

Bernhardi, his _R. Greene's Leben u. Schritten_, 397, 411.

_Bewick and Grahame_, the ballad, referred to, 366.

Bibbiena, Cardinal de, bis _Calandria_, lxviii.

Biblical miracles, xiii–xxxvii; _genre_ drama, idyllic or heroic miracle, lxxvi.

_Bien-Avisé et Mal-Avisé_, a French _moralité_, liii, lxxii.

Birde, William, and Henry Porter, 516.

_Blacke Battman of the North_, Porter's relation to the play, 515, 521, 522.

Blank Verse, Peele's, 339, 340; Greene's, 404, 407, 414, 417; on the rhetorical quality of dramatic; examination of Greene's practice, and a few general conclusions, 503–513.

_Bloody Brother, The_, by Fletcher, Jonson, _et al._, parodies "Three merry men," 352.

Blount, Edward, publisher of Lyly's plays, 269, 276.

_Blyssyd Sacrament, The_, Croxton play of, xxxix.

Boase and Clark, _Register of Univ. Oxford_, and the two Henry Porters, 518.

_Boccaccio, G._, 645.

Bodel, Jean, his play of _St. Nicholas_, xvi.

Bojardo, his _Timone_, lxviii.

Bower, his _Scotichronicon_, on Robin Hood, xli.

Bower, the R. B. of _Apius and Virginia_ (Fleay's conjecture), lxxxvi, 336.

Boy Bishop, the election of the, xx, xxi.

Bradley, Henry, mentioned, lxxii; his _Critical Essay on Gammer Gurton's Nedle_, 197–204; date of _Gammer Gurton's Nedle_, and its authorship, by Wm. Stevenson, 197; place of _G. G. N._ in the history of comedy, 202; dialect, 203; previous editions and the present text, 204; edition of _G. G. N._, 205–257; appendix, 259.

Brand, the Rev. John, his _Popular Antiquities_, 127, 192.

Brandl, Professor A., his _Quellen u. Forschungen d. weltlichen Dramas in England_, referred to, lx, lxxiii, lxxiv, lxxx, lxxxii, lxxxvii.

Brandt, Sebastian, his _Narrenschiff_, lii, liii.

Brasenose, the College Register of, and Henry Porter, 520.

Bridges, Dr. John, and _Gammer Gurton's Nedle_, 199; his _Defence of the Government of the Church_, 200.

Briggs, the Rev. Thomas, his copy of _Roister Doister_, 97.

Broome, William, and _Alex. and Camp._, 276.

Brotherhood in Arms, Scott on the institution, 366.

Brown, Professor J. M., on Greene (_An Early Rival of Shakespeare_, Auckland, 1877), 402, 405, 410, 415, 417.

_Brute Grenshillde_, and Henslowe, 523.

Bücher, K., _Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, referred to, on songs of labour, 384.

_Buffeting, The_, Wakefield play of, xxvii, xxviii.

_Bugbears, The_, a comedy of intrigue, lxxxviii.

Bulæus, on the _Ludus de S. Katharina_, xiv.

Bullen, Mr. A. H., his edition of Peele, 346, 348; see, also, notes to Gummere's edition of _O. W. T._; on Henry Porter, 519.

Burby, Cuthbert, publisher, and Greene's plays, 418, etc.

Burlesque in church and festival plays, xix–xxi; in miracle cycles, xxiv, xxix, xxxvi; in farces, lxv, lxvi; in school plays, lxxi–lxxii, lxxv.

CADMAN, Thos., and Lyly's plays, 276.

_Cain_, the York play of, xxv.

_Calandria_, the, by Bibbiena, lxviii.

_Calisto and Melibœa_, by Cota and de Rojas, lxviii; the English play, lxxii.

_Cambyses, King of Percia_, etc., by Thomas Preston, lii, liii, lxxxvi, 342.

Camden's _Proverbs_, 108, 194, _et passim_.

_Campaspe_, by Lyly, 263–333.

_Cante-fable_, reminiscences of the, 356, 375.

_Carde of Fancie, The_, by Greene, the _Dedication to_, 403.

_Carle off Carlile_, the poem, 127.

_Carmina Burana_, referred to, 191.

Carpenter, Professor F. I., his edition of Wager's _Marie Magdalene_ (University of Chicago Press), xciv.

_Castell of Perseverance, The_, play of, xlvii, xlviii, l, li, lviii.

Caxton, William, his translation of the _Legenda Aurea_, xxxi, xliv; his _Prol. Eneydos_, 115.

Chaderton, William, his play and _Gammer Gurton_, 198.

_Challenge for Beauty, A_, by T. Heywood, 521.

Chalmers, Alexander, his _English Poets_, 191.

Chapman, George, lxxxviii; and Lyly, 275; and Porter, 517, 524, 533; his _Humerous Dayes Mirth_, 527; and Shakespeare, 658.

Chappell's _Popular Music of the Olden Time_ and the song of "Three merrie men," 352.

Character, portrayal of in miracles, xxxi, xxxiii; in marvels, etc., xxxix, xli; in morals, lii–liv, lxii–lxiii; in other plays, lxix, lxxxvii, xcii; and see under _Authors_ and _Comedies_.

Chaucer, xix; the episode after his style, lxv, lxvi; and Heywood, 10–13; referred to, 127, 398, 426; and see notes to _R. D._; on "hunting the letter," 374.

_Chester Cycle, The_, of miracle plays, xxiii, xxiv, xxix.

Chettle, Henry, his relations with Greene: his _Kind Hart's Dreame_, 419; his _Robert Greene to Pierce Pennilesse_, 422; and the 'Groatsworth Group,' 423, 424; his relations with Porter, 515–517, 522, 524; his _Troilus and Cressida_, 657.

Child, Professor, on Robin Hood plays, xl; on St. George plays, xliii, 176.

_Childe Maurice_, reference to, 359.

_Childe Rowland_, a possible reference to, in _O. W. T._, 345, 354, 356.

Children as players, 14, 98, 266, 267, 270, 275, 276.

_Christ led up to Calvary_, the York miracle of, xxvii.

Chronicle play, The English, lxxvi, Lyly and, 270.

Cicero, Lyly's indebtedness to, 267.

Cinthio, Giraldi, Shakespeare's indebtedness to, 645.

Clergy, the, and miracle plays, xiii, xviii–xx.

Clown, the, xlvii, xlviii, li, lii, liv, 388, 430, 644–646, 649, 651, 655.

_Coliphizatio_, one of the Wakefield plays, see _Buffeting_.

Collier, J. Payne, references to his _History of Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the English Stage_, _Illustrations of Old English Literature_, _Henslowe's Diary_, _Memoirs of Alleyn_, etc., xiv, xx, xl, xlii, xlix, lvi, lviii, lxxiv, lxxvii, lxxix, lxxxvii, lxxxviii, lxxxix, 97, 346, 409, 417, 515, 517, 518, 523, _et passim_; his _Old Ballads_, 167.

Colman, George, the elder, his _Jealous Wife_, 530.

Colwell, Thomas, publisher of _Gammer Gurton_, 197, 199, 201, and of the _Disobedient Child_.