A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 15

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[89:1] The theory which, denying to the Beautiful any capacity of giving pleasure through its innate qualities, ascribes its effects exclusively to the a.s.sociated ideas which the contemplation of it calls up, proceeds wholly on the a.s.sumption, that the sentiment awakened by Beauty when it is beheld bodily present, is the same with that which flows from a poetical description of it. If it be true (as I must believe it is) that the feelings in the two cases are essentially different, the hypothesis falls to the ground. Its maintainers seem in truth to have drawn their conclusions altogether from reflection on the effects produced by Beauty when it is represented in poetry, where a.s.sociation is undoubtedly the source of the enjoyment; and an attention to the working of the fine arts would have taught other inferences.

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[Sidenote: Invention is making a _new_ thing out of a thing already made.]

Alfieri appears to have himself perceived accurately wherein it is that his power lies, when he says, with his usual self-reliance: "Se la parola 'invenzione' in tragedia si restringe al trattare soltanto soggetti non prima trattati, nessuno autore ha inventato meno di me."

"Se poi la parola 'invenzione' si estende fino al _far cosa nuova di cosa gia fatta_, io son costretto a credere che nessuno autore abba inventato piu di me."

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[101:1] ? in Jaques.

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[102:1] ? _All's Well_, Bertram; _Oth.e.l.lo_, Ca.s.sio; _Meas. for Meas._ Claudio; _Ant. & Cleop._ Antony; _Timon_, Alcibiades.--F.

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A FEW INSTANCES OF SHAKSPERE'S PECULIARITIES AS NOTED BY SPALDING.

=Repet.i.tion=, p. 12. 1. Prologue to _Henry V._:

'And at his heels, Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire, Crouch for employment.'

Compare _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act I. scene iv.:

'Where thou slew'st, Hirtus and Pausa, consuls, at thy heel Did famine follow.'

2. _Macbeth_, Act V. scene vii.:

'They have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course';

and _Lear_, Act III. scene vii.:

'I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.'

=Conciseness verging on obscurity=, p. 13. _Macbeth_, Act I. scene iii.:

'Present fears are less than horrible imaginings: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man, that function Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.'

Act I. scene vii.:

'If it were done when 'tis done,' etc.

Act V. scene vii.:

'Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands: Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; Those he commands, move only in command, Nothing in love.'

_Coriola.n.u.s_, Act IV. scene vii.:

'Whether 'twas pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man; whether defect of judgement, To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of; or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace, Even with the same austerity and garb, As he controlled the war; but one of these As he hath spices of them all, not all, For I dare so far free him,--made him feared, So hated, and so banished.'

=Metaphors crowded with ideas=, p. 17. _Julius Caesar_, Act II. scene i.

l. 81-4.

'Seek none, conspiracy.