Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 14

And it certainly seems that Shakespeare's historic dramas produced a very deep effect on the minds of the English people, and in earlier times they were familiar even to the least informed of all ranks, according to the relation of Bishop Corbett. Marlborough, we know, was not ashamed to confess that his princ.i.p.al acquaintance with English history was derived from them; and I believe that a large part of the information as to our old names and achievements even now abroad is due, directly or indirectly, to Shakespeare.

Admirable is the judgment with which Shakespeare always in the first scenes prepares, yet how naturally, and with what concealment of art, for the catastrophe. Observe how he here presents the germ of all the after events in Richard's insincerity, partiality, arbitrariness, and favouritism, and in the proud, tempestuous, temperament of his barons. In the very beginning, also, is displayed that feature in Richard's character, which is never forgotten throughout the play-his attention to decorum, and high feeling of the kingly dignity. These antic.i.p.ations show with what judgment Shakespeare wrote, and ill.u.s.trate his care to connect the past and the future, and unify them with the present by forecast and reminiscence.

It is interesting to a critical ear to compare the six opening lines of the play-

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band," &c.

each closing at the tenth syllable, with the rhythmless metre of the verse in _Henry VI._ and _t.i.tus Andronicus_, in order that the difference, indeed, the heterogeneity, of the two may be felt _etiam in simillimis prima superficie_. Here the weight of the single words supplies all the relief afforded by intercurrent verse, while the whole represents the mood. And compare the apparently defective metre of Bolingbroke's first line-

"Many years of happy days befal"-

with Prospero's-

"Twelve years since, Miranda! twelve years since."

The actor should supply the time by emphasis, and pause on the first syllable of each of these verses.

Act i. sc. 1. Bolingbroke's speech:-

"First (heaven be the record to my speech!), In the devotion of a subject's love," &c.

I remember in the Sophoclean drama no more striking example of the t?

p??p?? ?a? se??? than this speech; and the rhymes in the last six lines well express the preconcertedness of Bolingbroke's scheme so beautifully contrasted with the vehemence and sincere irritation of Mowbray.

_Ib._ Bolingbroke's speech:-

"Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries, Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To _me_, for justice and rough chastis.e.m.e.nt."

Note the de???? of this "to me," which is evidently felt by Richard:-

"How high a pitch his resolution soars!"

and the affected depreciation afterwards;-

"As he is but my father's brother's son."

_Ib._ Mowbray's speech:-

"In haste whereof, most heartily I pray Your highness to a.s.sign our trial day."

The occasional interspersion of rhymes, and the more frequent winding up of a speech therewith-what purpose was this designed to answer? In the earnest drama, I mean. Deliberateness? An attempt, as in Mowbray, to collect himself and be cool at the close?-I can see that in the following speeches the rhyme answers the end of the Greek chorus, and distinguishes the general truths from the pa.s.sions of the dialogue; but this does not exactly justify the practice, which is unfrequent in proportion to the excellence of Shakespeare's plays. One thing, however, is to be observed,-that the speakers are historical, known, and so far formal characters, and their reality is already a fact. This should be borne in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by antic.i.p.ation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment compared with Mowbray's unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the other it is desolation and a looking backward of the heart,

_Ib._ sc. 2.-

"_Gaunt._ G.o.d's is the quarrel; for G.o.d's subst.i.tute, His deputy anointed in his right, Hath caus'd his death: the which, if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister."

Without the hollow extravagance of Beaumont and Fletcher's ultra-royalism, how carefully does Shakespeare acknowledge and reverence the eternal distinction between the mere individual, and the symbolic or representative, on which all genial law, no less than patriotism, depends.

The whole of this second scene commences, and is antic.i.p.ative of, the tone and character of the play at large.

_Ib._ sc. 3. In none of Shakespeare's fict.i.tious dramas, or in those founded on a history as unknown to his auditors generally as fiction, is this violent rupture of the succession of time found:-a proof, I think, that the pure historic drama, like _Richard II._ and _King John_, had its own laws.

_Ib._ Mowbray's speech:-

"A dearer _merit_ Have I deserved at your highness' hand."

O, the instinctive propriety of Shakespeare in the choice of words!

_Ib._ Richard's speech:-

"Nor never by advised purpose meet, To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land."

Already the selfish weakness of Richard's character opens. Nothing will such minds so readily embrace, as indirect ways softened down to their _quasi_-consciences by policy, expedience, &c.

_Ib._ Mowbray's speech:-

... "All the world's my way."

"The world was all before him."-_Milt._

_Ib._-

"_Boling._ How long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs, End in a word: such is the breath of kings."

Admirable antic.i.p.ation!

_Ib._ sc. 4. This is a striking conclusion of a first act,-letting the reader into the secret;-having before impressed us with the dignified and kingly manners of Richard, yet by well managed antic.i.p.ations leading us on to the full gratification of pleasure in our own penetration. In this scene a new light is thrown on Richard's character. Until now he has appeared in all the beauty of royalty; but here, as soon as he is left to himself, the inherent weakness of his character is immediately shown. It is a weakness, however, of a peculiar kind, not arising from want of personal courage, or any specific defect of faculty, but rather an intellectual feminineness, which feels a necessity of ever leaning on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of others, and of reclining on those who are all the while known to be inferiors. To this must be attributed as its consequences all Richard's vices, his tendency to concealment, and his cunning, the whole operation of which is directed to the getting rid of present difficulties.

Richard is not meant to be a debauchee; but we see in him that sophistry which is common to man, by which we can deceive our own hearts, and at one and the same time apologize for, and yet commit, the error. Shakespeare has represented this character in a very peculiar manner. He has not made him amiable with counterbalancing faults; but has openly and broadly drawn those faults without reserve, relying on Richard's disproportionate sufferings and gradually emergent good qualities for our sympathy; and this was possible, because his faults are not positive vices, but spring entirely from defect of character.

Act ii. sc. 1.-

"_K. Rich._ Can sick men play so nicely with their names?"

Yes! on a death-bed there is a feeling which may make all things appear but as puns and equivocations. And a pa.s.sion there is that carries off its own excess by plays on words as naturally, and, therefore, as appropriately to drama, as by gesticulations, looks, or tones. This belongs to human nature as such, independently of a.s.sociations and habits from any particular rank of life or mode of employment; and in this consists Shakespeare's vulgarisms, as in Macbeth's-

"The devil d.a.m.n thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!" &c.

This is (to equivocate on Dante's words) in truth the _n.o.bile volgare eloquenza_. Indeed it is profoundly true that there is a natural, an almost irresistible, tendency in the mind, when immersed in one strong feeling, to connect that feeling with every sight and object around it; especially if there be opposition, and the words addressed to it are in any way repugnant to the feeling itself, as here in the instance of Richard's unkind language:-

"Misery makes sport to mock itself."

No doubt, something of Shakespeare's punning must be attributed to his age, in which direct and formal combats of wit were a favourite pastime of the courtly and accomplished. It was an age more favourable, upon the whole, to vigour of intellect than the present, in which a dread of being thought pedantic dispirits and flattens the energies of original minds.

But independently of this, I have no hesitation in saying that a pun, if it be congruous with the feeling of the scene, is not only allowable in the dramatic dialogue, but oftentimes one of the most effectual intensives of pa.s.sion.

_Ib._-

"_K. Rich._ Right; you say true, as Hereford's love, so his; As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is."