Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher

“Ha! Goneril!—with a white beard!—They flattered me like a dog; and told me, I had white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say _Ay_ and _No_ to every thing I...

_Ib._ sc. 1 and 2. Shakespeare seems to mean all Hamlet’s character to be brought together before his final disappearance from the scene;—his meditative excess in the grave-digg...

“Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad revolt...

How delightfully natural is the transition, to the retrospective narrative! And observe, upon the Ghost’s reappearance, how much Horatio’s courage is increased by having transla...

Admirable is the preparation, so truly and peculiarly Shakespearian, in the introduction of Roderigo, as the dupe on whom Iago shall first exercise his art, and in so doing disp...

Thus it is for no-poets to comment on the greatest of poets! To make Othello say that he, who had killed his wife, was like Herod who killed Mariamne!—O, how many beauties, in t...

I cannot see the necessity of this alteration. The editors and commentators are, all of them, ready enough to cry out against Shakespeare’s laxities and licenses of style, forge...

“Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us that the story of _Troilus and Cressida_ was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard: but Dryden goes yet further; he declares it to ha...

Yes! on a death-bed there is a feeling which may make all things appear but as puns and equivocations. And a passion there is that carries off its own excess by plays on words a...

“How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! which their keepers call A lightning before death. O, how may I Call this a lightning?—--O, my love, my wife!” &c.

There is something of disgust at the ruthless hypocrisy of her sisters, and some little faulty admixture of pride and sullenness in Cordelia’s “Nothing;” and her tone is well co...

I prefer the old text: the word “devil” implies “fiery.” You need only read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on “devil,” to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness...

This speech is of absolutely universal interest,—and yet to which of all Shakespeare’s characters could it have been appropriately given but to Hamlet? For Jaques it would have...

I remember in the Sophoclean drama no more striking example of the τὸ πρέπον καὶ σεμνὸν than this speech; and the rhymes in the last six lines well express the preconcertedness...

sort of talisman, or strange something, that might be lost without the least fault on the part of the owner. In short, their chaste ladies value their chastity as a material thi...

In all things dependent on, or rather made up of, fine address, the manner is no more or otherwise rememberable than the light notions, steps, and gestures of youth and health....

_Ib._ sc. 2. This scene, dreadful as it is, is still a relief, because a variety, because domestic, and therefore soothing, as associated with the only real pleasures of life. T...

two thoughts that had never subsisted in disjunction, the love for Hamlet, and her filial love, with the guileless floating on the surface of her pure imagination of the caution...

_Ib._ sc. 4. See here the skill and judgment of our poet in giving reality and individual life, by the introduction of accidents in his historic plays, and thereby making them d...

This seemingly strange assertion of Brutus is unhappily verified in the present day. What is an immense army, in which the lust of plunder has quenched all the duties of the cit...

This is an instance of that modifying of quantity by emphasis, without which our elder poets cannot be scanned. “Power,” here, instead of being one long syllable—pow’r—must be s...

and yet no reference to the guilt, but only to the accident, which she uses as an occasion for sneering at her father. Regan is not, in fact, a greater monster than Goneril, but...

What does “trunk” mean here, and in the first scene of the first act? Is it a large ear-trumpet?—or rather a tube, such as passes from parlour to kitchen, instead of a bell?

_Cas._ Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid That paragons description, and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, And, in the essential vesture of creatio...

There is a beauty here. The word “boy” naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of “elder brother,” he grasps him with firm h...

Merione’s speech. Had the scene of this tragi-comedy been laid in Hindostan instead of Corinth, and the gods here addressed been the Vishnu and Co. of the Indian Pantheon, this...

The speeches of Flavius and Marullus are in blank verse. Wherever regular metre can be rendered truly imitative of character, passion, or personal rank, Shakespeare seldom, if e...

“It must be by his death; and, for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crown’d: How that might change his nature, there’s the que...

There can be little doubt of Mr. Tyrwhitt’s emendations of “courtiers” and “king,” as to the sense;—only it is not impossible that Shakespeare’s dramatic language may allow of t...

It is well worthy of notice, and yet has not been, I believe, noticed hitherto, what a marked difference there exists in the dramatic writers of the Elizabetho-Jacobæan age—(Mer...

It is a real trial of charity to read this scene with tolerable temper towards Fletcher. So very slavish—so reptile—are the feelings and sentiments represented as duties. And ye...

What strange self-trumpeters and tongue-bullies all the brave soldiers of Beaumont and Fletcher are! Yet I am inclined to think it was the fashion of the age from the Soldier’s...

I cannot but think this rather a heroic resolve, than an infamous wish. It appears to me to be the grandest symptom of an immortal spirit, when even that bedimmed and overwhelme...

How is it that the commentators take no notice of the un-Shakespearian defect in the metre of the second line, and what in Shakespeare is the same, in the harmony with the sense...

Take notice in this enchanting scene of the contrast of Romeo’s love with his former fancy; and weigh the skill shown in justifying him from his inconstancy by making us feel th...

I cannot understand this. Perhaps there is a corruption both of words and speakers. Shallow no sooner corrects one mistake of Sir Hugh’s, namely, “louse” for “luce,” a pike, but...

Licentious as the comic metre of B. and F. is,—a far more lawless, and yet far less happy, imitation of the rhythm of animated talk in real life than Massinger’s—still it is mad...

Fine as this is, and delicately characteristic of one who had lived and been reared in the best society, and had been precipitated from it by dice and drabbing; yet still it str...

Warburton’s comment—“If the man be honest, for that reason he will be so in this, and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter without my consent”—is, like almost a...

“Did I for this consume my _quarters_ in meditations, vows, and woo’d her in heroical epistles? Did I expound the _Owl_, and undertake, with labour and expense, the recollection...

In this (as, indeed, in all other respects, but most in this) it is that Shakespeare is so incomparably superior to Fletcher and his friend,—in judgment! What can be conceived m...

Very Anacreon in perfectness, proportion, grace, and spontaneity! So far it is Greek;—but then add, O! what wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what compression and condensation...

There is no authority for any alteration;—but I never can help feeling how great an improvement it would be, if the two former of Hermia’s exclamations were omitted;—the third a...

It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest “bastards,” for “’bated.” As it stands, in spite of Wa...

The paucity of spondees in single words in English, and indeed in the modern languages in general, makes perhaps the greatest distinction, metrically considered, between them an...

“_Mer._ No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough: ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man,” &c.

This scene is unspeakably irrational. To believe, and yet to scoff at, a present miracle is little less than impossible. Sejanus should have been made to suspect priestcraft and...

Jonson has elsewhere proceeded thus far; but the part most difficult and delicate, yet, perhaps, not the least capable of being both morally and poetically treated, is the union...

_Ib._ sc. 2. Now that the deed is done or doing—now that the first reality commences, Lady Macbeth shrinks. The most simple sound strikes terror, the most natural consequences a...

It would be very easy to restore all this passage to metre, by supplying a sentence of four syllables, which the reasoning almost demands, and by correcting the grammar. Read th...

And yet Viola was to have been presented to Orsino as a eunuch!—Act i. sc. 2. Viola’s speech. Either she forgot this, or else she had altered her plan.

place with Schiller’s mistaken scene between Butler, Devereux, and Macdonald in _Wallenstein_.—(Part II. act iv. sc. 2.) The comic was wholly out of season. Shakespeare never in...

“Pardon me, Julius—here wast thou bay’d, brave hart: Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe. _O world! thou wast the fo...

What a strange notion Ben must have formed of a determined, remorseless, all-daring, foolhardiness, to have represented it in such a mouthing Tamburlane, and bombastic tonguebul...

Now, however, I doubt the legitimacy of my transposition of the “of” from the beginning of this latter line to the end of the one preceding;—for though it facilitates the metre...

Warburton’s conjecture of “stool” is ingenious, and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is...

Observe the easy style of chitchat between Camillo and Archidamus as contrasted with the elevated diction on the introduction of the kings and Hermione in the second scene: and...

Does not this confirm, what the passage itself cannot but suggest, the propriety of substituting “booty” for “beauty” in Falstaff’s speech, _Henry IV._ part i. act i. sc. 2. “Le...

Does “grace” mean the king’s own peculiar domains and legal revenue, and “highness” his feudal rights in the military service of his nobles?—I have sometimes thought it possible...

... “Mine emulation Hath not that honour in’t, it had; for where I thought to crush him in an equal force, True sword to sword; I’ll potch at him some way Or wrath, or craft may...

A most obscure passage: but I think Theobald’s interpretation right, namely, that “thirsty entrance” means the dry penetrability, or bibulous drought, of the soil. The obscurity...

The editors, and their contemporaries in general, were ignorant of any but the regular iambic verse. A study of the Aristophanic and Plautine metres would have enabled them to r...

It would be amusing to learn from some existing friend of Mr. Seward what he meant, or rather dreamed, in this note. It is certainly a difficult passage, of which there are two...

_Ros._ You must be purged too, your sins are rank; You are attaint with fault and perjury: Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest...

The anachronic mixture in this Arruntius of the Roman republican, to whom Tiberius must have appeared as much a tyrant as Sejanus, with his James-and-Charles-the-First zeal for...

Instead of reading with Whalley “ply” for “play,” I would suggest “horse” for “house.” The meaning would then be obvious and pertinent. The punlet, or pun-maggot, or pun intenti...

external nature in a storm, all moral nature convulsed,—the real madness of Lear, the feigned madness of Edgar, the babbling of the Fool, the desperate fidelity of Kent—surely s...

It would form an interesting essay, or rather series of essays, in a periodical work, were all the attempts to ridicule new phrases brought together, the proportion observed of...

“O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point:—Stay, Tybalt, stay!— Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.”

“Adultery! it is the lightest ill I will commit. A race of wicked acts Shall flow out of my anger, and o’erspread The world’s wide face, which no posterity Shall e’er approve, n...

Should it be “accosting?” “Accost her, knight, accost!” in the _Twelfth Night_. Yet there sounds a something so Shakespearian in the phrase—“give a coasting welcome” (“coasting”...

Either, methinks, “plays” should be “play’d,” or “and” should be changed to “while.” I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an interadditive of scorn; but it does not s...

I know no argument by which to persuade any one to be of my opinion, or rather of my feeling; but yet I cannot help feeling that “Happy low-lie-down!” is either a proverbial exp...

Ludicrous as these introductory scraps of French appear, so instantly followed by good, nervous mother-English, yet they are judicious, and produce the impression which Shakespe...

Mr. Seward discards the words “for lying,” because “most of the things spoke of Estifania are true, with only a little exaggeration, and because they destroy all appearance of m...

That Shakespeare never “turned his genius to stage-writing,” as Theobald most _Theobaldice_ phrases it, before he became an actor, is an assertion of about as much authority as...

A fondness for judging one work by comparison with others, perhaps altogether of a different class, argues a vulgar taste. Yet it is chiefly on this principle that the _Catiline...

This character of Aubrey, and the whole spirit of this and several other plays of the same authors, are interesting as traits of the morals which it was fashionable to teach in...

_Cap._ He shall be endur’d. What, goodman boy!—I say, he shall:—Go to;— Am I the master here, or you?—Go to. You’ll not endure him!—God shall mend my soul— You’ll make a mutiny...

This is either an unintelligible, or, in every sense, a most unnatural, passage,—improbable, if not impossible, at the moment of signing and swearing such a conspiracy, to the m...

Surely Warburton could never have wooed by kisses and won, or he would not have flounder-flatted so just and humorous, nor less pleasing than humorous, an image into so profound...

The poet intended no allusion to the word “Erota” itself; but says that her very name, “the proud Erota,” became a character and adage;—as we say, a Quixote or a Brutus: so to s...

where the verse recommences. This transition from the prose to the verse enhances, and indeed forms the comic effect. Lazarillo concludes his soliloquy with a hymn to the goddes...

Jealous of Virgil’s honour, he is afraid lest, by referring to the _Georgics_ alone, he might be understood as undervaluing the preceding work. “Not that I do not admire the _Bu...

“How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!—takes virtuous copies to be wicked; _like those that under hot, ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire. Of such a nature is his...

“Nay, some will swear they love their mistress so, They would hazard lives and fortunes to preserve One of her hairs brighter than Berenice’s, Or young Apollo’s; and yet, after...

It should be “quit” no doubt, but not meaning “discharged from working,” &c.—but quit, that is, acquitted. The pewterer was at his holiday diversion as well as the other apprent...

Pity, that the editor did not explain wherein the sense, “seemingly enforced by the next line,” consists. May the true word be “a sable”—that is, a black fox, hunted for its pre...

I can make sense of this passage as little as Mr. Seward;—the passage from Philaster is nothing to the purpose. Instead of “a story,” I have sometimes thought of proposing “Astr...

Perhaps it is a misprint, or a provincial pronunciation, for “leach,” that is, blood-suckers. Had it been gnats, instead of fleas, there might have been some sense, though small...

Shall we say here, that Shakespeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lie?—Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretend...

is one of those fine hair-strokes of exquisite judgment peculiar to Shakespeare;—thus detaching the Lady’s speech, and giving it the individuality and entireness of a little poe...

The present text, and that proposed by Seward, are equally vile. I have endeavoured to make the lines sense, though the whole is, I suspect, incurable except by bold conjectural...

I think the original word is Shakespeare’s. 1. My ear feels it to be Shakespearian; 2. The involved grammar is Shakespearian—“show thee, being a fool naturally, to have improved...

Alinda’s interview with her father is lively, and happily hit off; but this scene with Roderigo is truly excellent. Altogether, indeed, this play holds the first place in B. and...

O true Warburton! and the _sancta simplicitas_ of honest dull Theobald’s faith in him! Nothing can be more lively or characteristic than “Philip? Sparrow!” Had Warburton read ol...

I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakespeare wrote the first “mermaids.” He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless anticipation the fine image immedia...

“_Æmil._ Why, the wrong is but a wrong i’ the world; and having the world for your labour, ’tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right.”

Nonsense! “Whiteness of name” is in apposition to “the serious part of life,” and means a deservedly pure reputation. The following line—“You _must_ be mine!” means—“Though I do...

Pshaw! “Sit” is either a misprint for “set,” or the old and still provincial word for “set,” as the participle passive of “seat” or “set.” I have heard an old Somersetshire gard...

This Mr. Seward is a blockhead of the provoking species. In his itch for correction, he forgot the words—“lies my safe way!” The bear is the extreme pole, and thither he would t...

I have always thought this, in itself so beautiful speech, the least explicable from the mood and full intention of the speaker of any in the whole works of Shakespeare. I cheri...

Warburton’s alteration of _is_ into _in_ is needless. “Fancy” may very well be interpreted “exclusive affection,” or “passionate preference.” Thus, bird-fanciers; gentlemen of t...

Probably, the meaning is—that intending to give false evidence, he carried a Greek _Xenophon_ to pass it off for a Greek Testament, and so avoid perjury—as the Irish do, by cont...

It is worth noticing that of the three greatest tragedians, Massinger was a democrat, Beaumont and Fletcher the most servile _jure divino_ royalists, and Shakespeare a philosoph...

I conjecture “imports,”—that is, duties or offices of importance. The flow of the versification in this speech seems to demand the trochaic ending - u; while the text blends jin...

I question whether there exists a parallel instance of a phrase, that like this of “horns” is universal in all languages, and yet for which no one has discovered even a plausibl...

This worse than superfluous “like” is very like an interpolation of some matter of fact critic—all _pus, prose atque venenum_. The “your” in the next line, instead of “their,” i...

Theobald’s etymology of “cheveril” is, of course, quite right;—but he is mistaken in supposing that there were no such things as gloves of chicken-skin. They were at one time a...

confessed, was in the right in considering the Fly, Tipto, Bat Burst, &c., of this play mere dotages. Such a scene as this was enough to damn a new play; and Nick Stuff is worse...

The whole of this speech seems corrupt; and if accurately printed,—that is, if the same in all the prior editions,—irremediable but by bold conjecture. “_Till_ my tackle,” shoul...