Part 27

One common character is manifested in all Shakspeare's historical dramas, and that is, the profoundly national and popular feeling which animates the poet. Upon the events and personages which he represents, he thinks and feels like his audience, like the simplest and most ignorant of his audience; he cares neither for truth nor for justice; he has not the slightest pretension to redress errors or to reprehend public passions; he abandons himself without reserve to these feelings, for he shares in them, and reckons upon them for his success. {342} The profound and sensible moralist, the man who possesses so accurate a knowledge of the human heart, the truthful delineator of the most varied characters, is at the same time the blindest and most passionate of English patriots. He has penetrated, by turns, with admirable intelligence and independence, into the souls of Hamlet, of Romeo, of Macbeth, and of Othello; but as soon as he approaches the history of his own country in relation to that of other lands, all independence and impartiality of mind abandon him; in all things and regarding all persons, he thinks and judges absolutely like John Bull.

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The Merchant Of Venice.

(1598.)

The substance of the adventure which constitutes the subject of "The Merchant of Venice" will be found in the chronicles or literature of almost every country, sometimes entire, and sometimes unaccompanied by the very piquant episode of the loves of Bassanio and Portia. A judgment similar to that of Portia has been attributed to Pope Sixtus V., who, with greater severity, condemned, it is said, both the contractors of the engagement to a heavy fine, as a punishment for the immorality of their contract. On this occasion, the subject of dispute was a bet, and the Jew was the loser. A collection of French novels, entitled "Roger Bontemps en belle Humeur," relates the same story, but it is to the advantage of the Christian, and Sultan Saladin is the judge. In a Persian manuscript which narrates the same adventure, a rich Jew makes this bargain with a poor Syrian Mussulman, in order to obtain the means of ruining him, and thereby succeeding in gaining possession of his wife, with whom he is violently in love: this case is decided by a Cadi of Emesa. But the whole story is related, with a few slight differences, in a very old work written in Latin, and entitled "Gesta Romanorum;" as well as in the "Pecorone" of Ser Giovanni, a collection of novels composed before the end of the fourteenth century, and therefore long anterior to Sixtus V., which renders the anecdote told about this Pope by Gregorio Leti extremely improbable.

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In the novel of Ser Giovanni, the lady of Belmont is not a young girl forced to subject her choice to the condition prescribed by the singular will of her father, but a young widow who, of her own accord, imposes a much more singular condition upon those whom chance or choice may bring into her port. Compelled to share the bed of the lady, if they can succeed in profiting by the advantages afforded them by such a position, they will obtain possession of the widow's person and property. But if they fail, they lose their vessel and its cargo, and are sent off at once with a horse and a sufficient sum of money to defray their expenses homeward. Undeterred by this test, many tried the adventure, but all failed; for no sooner had they entered the bed than they fell into a sound sleep, from which they only awoke on the following morning to learn that the lady had already unloaded the ship, and prepared the horse which was intended to convey the unlucky aspirant home again. No one attempted to renew so costly an enterprise, the ill success of which discouraged even the boldest of adventurers. Gianetto alone (such is the name of the young Venetian in the novel) persevered, and after two failures determined to risk a third adventure. His godfather Ansaldo, notwithstanding the loss of the first two vessels, of which he had received no account, equips for him a third, with which Gianetto promises amply to repair their losses. But, exhausted by his previous undertakings, Ansaldo is obliged, for the third venture, to borrow the sum of ten thousand ducats from a Jew, on the same conditions as those which Shylock imposes upon Antonio. {345} Gianetto arrives at Belmont, and, being warned by a servant not to drink the wine which will be offered him before going to bed, at last surprises the lady, who, though at first greatly disconcerted at finding him awake, nevertheless resigns herself to her fate, and thinks herself happy to proclaim him her husband on the following day. Gianetto, intoxicated with his happiness, forgets poor Ansaldo until the fatal day when the bond becomes due. He then recollects the circumstance by chance, hastens to Venice, and the rest of the story occurs as Shakspeare has related it.

It is easy to perceive the reason and necessity of the various changes which he has introduced into this adventure. It was not, however, so impossible of representation upon the stage, in his time, as not to authorize us to suppose that he was induced to make these changes by a desire to impart greater morality to his personages, and greater interest to the action. Thus the position of the generous Antonio, and the delineation of his character, at once so devoted, courageous, and melancholy, are not the only source of the charm which reigns so powerfully throughout the work. The gaps which this position leaves are, at ail events, so happily filled up that we can perceive no void, so pleasantly is the soul occupied with the feelings which naturally arise from it. It seems as though Shakspeare were desirous here to describe the first delightful days of a happy marriage beneath their different points of view. The speech of Portia to Bassanio, at the moment when fate has just decided in his favor, and when she already regards herself as his happy spouse, is full of such pure abandonment, and of conjugal submission at once so touching and so noble, that her character derives from it an inexpressible charm; and Bassanio, assuming from that instant the superior rank which befits him, no longer has to fear that he will be degraded by the spirit and courage of his wife, although the part which she takes the moment afterward is so decided. {346} We know that now the moment of necessity is past, every thing falls into its proper order, and that the high qualities which she will subject to her duty as a wife will only add to the happiness of her husband.

In a subordinate class, Lorenzo and Jessica afford a pleasing exhibition of the tender jocoseness of two young married people, who are so filled with their happiness that they diffuse it over objects most foreign to themselves, and enjoy the most indifferent thoughts and actions as if they were so many portions of an existence entirely pervaded by happiness. The conversation between Lorenzo and Jessica, the garden, the moonlight, the music which welcomes the return of Portia and Bassanio, and the arrival of Antonio, dispose the soul to all the sweet impressions which will be occasioned by the image of complete felicity, in the union of Portia and Bassanio in the midst of all the friends who are about to enjoy their cares and benefactions. Shakspeare is almost the only dramatic poet who has not feared to dwell upon the picture of happiness; but he felt he had the means of filling it.

The invention of the three coffers, the original of which also occurs in many places, is to be found, in almost the same shape as that which Shakspeare has used, in another adventure of the "Gesta Romanorum," excepting only that the person subjected to the trial is the daughter of a king of Apulia, who, from the wisdom of her choice, is deemed worthy to espouse the son of the Emperor of Rome. It will be seen from that circumstance that these "Gesta Romanorum" do not precisely extend so far back as the ages of historical antiquity.

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The character of the Jew, Shylock, is justly celebrated in England.

This drama was performed before the year 1598; but we possess no certain information regarding its date. Several plays on the same subject had previously been brought on the stage; and it had also formed the substance of a number of ballads.

In 1701, Mr. Granville, afterward Marquis of Lansdowne, restored "The Merchant of Venice" to the stage, with numerous alterations, under the title of "The Jew of Venice." It was performed for a long time under this new form.

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The Merry Wives Of Windsor.

(1601.)

According to a generally received tradition, the comedy of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was composed by order of Queen Elizabeth, who, having been greatly delighted with Falstaff, desired to see him once again on the stage. Shakspeare had promised that Falstaff should die in "Henry V.," [Footnote 36] but doubtless, after having introduced him once again, feeling embarrassed by the difficulty of establishing new relations between Falstaff and Henry when the latter had become king, he satisfied himself with announcing, at the opening of the piece, the sickness and death of Falstaff, without presenting him afresh to the eyes of the public.

[Footnote 36: See the Epilogue of the Second Part of "Henry IV."]

Elizabeth was of opinion that this was a breach of faith, and required a new description of the life of the fat knight. It therefore appears that "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was composed after "Henry V.," although in historical order it ought to take precedence. Some commentators have even held, in opposition to Johnson's opinion, that this drama should be placed between the two parts of "Henry IV.;" but there appears to be in favor of Johnson's opinion, which places it between "Henry IV." and "Henry V.," one conclusive reason, and that is, that according to the other supposition, the unity, if not of character, at least of impression and effect, would be entirely destroyed.

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The two parts of "Henry IV." were composed at a single effort, or, at least, without wandering from the same train of ideas; not only is the Falstaff of the Second Part precisely the same man as the Falstaff of the First Part, but he is presented under the same aspect; and if, in this Second Part, Falstaff is not quite so amusing, because he has made his fortune, and because his wit is no longer employed in incessantly extricating him from the ridiculous embarrassments into which he is thrown by the assertion of pretensions so utterly at variance with his tastes and habits, he is, nevertheless, brought upon the stage with the same class of tastes and habits. He brings his influence with Henry to bear upon Justice Shallow, just as he used to boast, among his confidants, of the freedom with which he treated the prince; and the public affront which serves as his punishment at the end of the Second Part of "Henry IV." is only the consequence and complement of the private affronts which Henry V., when Prince of Wales, had amused himself by putting upon him during the course of the two plays. In a word, the action which is begun between Falstaff and the prince, in the First Part, is followed up without interruption in the Second Part, and then terminated as it necessarily was destined to finish, and as he had announced that it would finish.

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" presents a different action, and exhibits Falstaff in another position, and under another point of view. He is, indeed, the same man; it would be impossible to mistake him; but he has grown older, and plunged deeper into his material tastes, and is solely occupied in satisfying the wants of his gluttony. {350} Doll Tear-Sheet, at least, still abused his imagination, for with her he thought himself a libertine; but here he has no such thought; he is anxious to make the insolence of his gallantries serve to supply him with money; and his vanity still deceives him with regard to the means of obtaining this money. Elizabeth, it is said, had desired Shakspeare to describe Falstaff in love; but Shakspeare, who was better acquainted with the personages of his own conception, felt that this kind of ridiculousness was not suited to such a character, and that it was necessary to punish Falstaff in a more sensitive point. Even his vanity would not be sufficient for this purpose; for Falstaff could derive advantage from every disgrace in which he was involved; and he had now reached such a point as no longer even to seek to dissemble his shame. The liveliness with which he describes to Mr. Brook his sufferings in the basket of dirty linen is no longer the vivacity of Falstaff relating his exploits against the robbers of Gadshill, and afterward getting out of the scrape so pleasantly when his falsehood is brought home to him. The necessity for boasting of himself is no longer one of his chief necessities; he wants money, money above all things, and he will be suitably chastised only by inconveniences as real as the advantages which he promises himself. Thus the buck-basket and the blows of Mr. Ford are perfectly adapted to the kind of pretensions which draw upon Falstaff such a correction; but although such an adventure may, without any difficulty, be adapted to the Falstaff of "Henry IV.," it applies to him in another part of his life and character; and if it were introduced between the two parts of the action which is continued in the two parts of "Henry IV.," it would chill the imagination of the spectator to such a degree as entirely to destroy the effect of the second part.

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Although this reason may appear sufficient, we might adduce many others in justification of Johnson's opinion. They must not, however, be sought for in chronology. It would be an impracticable work to endeavor to harmonize the different chronological data which Shakspeare is pleased to establish, often in the same piece; and it is as impossible to find, chronologically, the place of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" between "Henry IV." and "Henry V.," as between the two parts of "Henry IV." But, adopting this last supposition, the interview between Shallow and Falstaff in the Second Part of "Henry IV.," the pleasure which Shallow feels at seeing Falstaff again, after so long a separation, and the respect which he professes for him, and which he carries so far as to lend him a thousand pounds, become shocking improbabilities; for, after the comedy of "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Shallow can not be caught by Falstaff. Nym, whom we find in "Henry V." is not numbered among Shakspeare's followers in the Second Part of "Henry IV." With either supposition, it would be somewhat difficult to account for the personage Quickly, if we did not suppose that it referred to another Quickly--a name which Shakspeare found it convenient to render common to all procuresses. The Quickly of "Henry IV." is married, and her name is therefore not that of a girl; but the Quickly of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is not married.

After all, it would be superfluous to seek to establish in a very accurate manner the historical order of these three dramas; Shakspeare himself did not bestow a thought upon the matter. We may, however, believe that, from the uncertainty in which he has left the whole affair, he was at least desirous that it should not be altogether impossible to make "The Merry Wives of Windsor" the continuation of "Henry IV." {352} Hurried, as it would appear, by the orders of Elizabeth, he at first produced only a kind of sketch of this comedy, which was nevertheless acted for a considerable period, as we find it printed in the first editions of his works; and it was not until several years afterward that he arranged it in the form in which we now possess it. In this early play, Falstaff, at the moment when he is in the forest, alarmed by the noises which he hears on every side, inquires if it is not "the mad Prince of Wales stealing his father's deer." This supposition is suppressed in the revised copy of the comedy, in which the poet apparently wished to endeavor to indicate a rather more probable order of facts. In the piece as we now possess it, Page reproaches Fenton with "having been of the company" of the Prince of Wales and of Poins. At all events, he no longer belongs to it; and we may suppose that the name of "wild prince" was still retained to show what the Prince of Wales had been, and what Henry V. no longer was. However this may be, although "The Merry Wives of Windsor" may present a less exalted kind of comicality than the First Part of "Henry IV.," it is, nevertheless, one of the most diverting productions of that gayety of mind which Shakspeare has displayed in several of his comedies.

A number of novels may contest the honor of having furnished Shakspeare with the substance of the adventure upon which he has based the plot of the "Merry Wives of Windsor." It was probably from the same sources that Molière borrowed the idea of his "Ecole des Femmes." Shakspeare's own invention consists in having made the same intrigue serve to punish both the jealous husband and the insolent lover. He has thus imparted to the drama, with the exception of the license of a few expressions, a much more moral tone than that of the novels from which he may have derived his subject, and in which the husband always ends by being duped, while the lover is made happy.

This comedy appears to have been composed in 1601.

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The Tempest.

(1611.)

"Whether this be or be not, I'll not swear," says old Gonzalo, at the conclusion of the "Tempest," when utterly confounded by the marvels which have surrounded him ever since his arrival on the island. It seems as though, through the mouth of the honest man of the drama, Shakspeare desired to express the general effect of this charming and singular work. As brilliant, light, and transparent as the aerial beings with which it is filled, it scarcely allows itself to be apprehended by reflection; and hardly, through its changeful and diaphanous features, can we feel certain that we perceive a subject, a dramatic contexture, and real adventures, feelings, and personages. Nevertheless, it contains all these, and all these are revealed in it; and, in rapid succession, each object in its turn moves the imagination, occupies the attention, and disappears, leaving no trace behind but a confused emotion of pleasure and an impression of truth, to which we dare not either refuse or grant our belief.

"This drama," says Warburton, "is one of the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense; or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits." {355} Everything is, in this picture, at once fantastic and true. As if he were the creator of the work, as if he were the true enchanter, surrounded by all the illusions of his art, Prospero, manifesting himself to us, seems the only opaque and solid body in the midst of a populace of airy phantoms clothed with the forms of life, but unpossessed of the appearances of duration. A few minutes scarcely elapse before the amiable Ariel, lighter even than when he comes with the quickness of thought, escapes from the contact of the magic wand, and, freed from the forms which are prescribed to him--free, in fact, from all sensible form, dissolves into thin air, in which his individual existence, as far as we are concerned, vanishes away. Is not that half-intelligence, which seems to glimmer in the monster Caliban, an effect of magic? and does it not seem that, on setting foot out of the disenchanted isle in which he is about to be left to himself, we shall see him relapse into his natural state of an inert mass, assimilating itself by degrees to the earth, from which it is scarcely distinct? When far from our view, what will become of that Antonio and that Sebastian, who were so ready to conceive plans of crime, and of that Alonzo, who was so easily and frivolously accessible to feelings of every kind? What will become of the young lovers, so quickly and so completely enamored of each other, and who, in our view, seem to have been created only that they might love, and to have no other object in life than to disclose to our view the delightful pictures of love and innocence? Each of these personages displays to us only that portion of his existence which concerns his present position; none of them reveals to us in himself those abysses of nature, or those deep sources of thought into which Shakspeare descends so frequently and so thoroughly; but they manifest before our eyes all the outward effects of these inward feelings; we do not know whence they come, but we recognize perfectly well what they seem to be--true visions of which we can discern neither the flesh nor the bones, but the forms of which are distinct and familiar to us.

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Thus, by the suppleness and lightness of their nature, these singular creatures conduce to a rapidity of action and a variety of movement, unexampled, perhaps, in any other of Shakspeare's dramas. None of his other plays are more amusing or more animated than this, and in none is a lively, and even waggish, gayety more naturally conjoined with serious interests, melancholy feelings, and touching affections. It is a fairy tale in all the force of the term, and in all the vivacity of the impressions which such a tale can impart.

The style of the "Tempest" shares in this kind of magic. Figurative and aerial, bringing before the mind a host of images and impressions as vague and fugitive as those uncertain forms which are depicted in the clouds, it moves the imagination without riveting it, and maintains it in a state of undecided excitement, which renders it accessible to all the spells under which the enchanter desires to place it. It is a tradition in England, that the celebrated Lord Falkland, [Footnote 37] Mr. Selden, and Lord Chief-justice Vaughan, regarded the style of the part of Caliban, in the "Tempest," as quite peculiar to that personage, and as one of Shakspeare's own creations.

[Footnote 37: The most virtuous, amiable, and erudite man in England, during the reign of Charles I., of whom Lord Clarendon has said that "if there were no other brand upon the Civil War than his single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity." After having boldly maintained the liberties of his country against Charles I. in Parliament, he joined the cause of that prince as soon as it became the cause of justice; and having been made a minister of Charles, he died at the battle of Newbury, in despair at the misfortunes which he foresaw; he was then thirty-three years of age.]

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