Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 9

It is not easy to conjecture why Shakespeare should have introduced this ludicrous scroll, which answers no one purpose, either propulsive, or explicatory, unless as a joke on etymology.

"t.i.tus Andronicus."

Act i. sc. 1. Theobald's note:-

"I never heard it so much as intimated, that he (Shakespeare) had turned his genius to stage-writing, before he a.s.sociated with the players, and became one of their body."

That Shakespeare never "turned his genius to stage-writing," as Theobald most _Theobaldice_ phrases it, before he became an actor, is an a.s.sertion of about as much authority as the precious story that he left Stratford for deer-stealing, and that he lived by holding gentlemen's horses at the doors of the theatre, and other trash of that arch-gossip, old Aubrey. The metre is an argument against _t.i.tus Andronicus_ being Shakespeare's, worth a score such chronological surmises. Yet I incline to think that both in this play and in _Jeronymo_, Shakespeare wrote some pa.s.sages, and that they are the earliest of his compositions.

Act v. sc. 2. I think it not improbable that the lines from-

"I am not mad; I know thee well enough;

to

So thou destroy Rapine, and Murder there"-

were written by Shakespeare in his earliest period. But instead of the text-

"Revenge, _which makes the foul offenders quake._ _t.i.t. Art thou_ Revenge? and art thou sent to me?"-

the words in italics ought to be omitted.

"Troilus And Cressida."

"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 have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer translated it. _Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy._"-Note in Stockdale's edition, 1807.

"Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy." So affirms the notary to whom the Sieur Stockdale committed the _disfacimento_ of Ayscough's excellent edition of Shakespeare. Pity that the researchful notary has not either told us in what century, and of what history, he was a writer, or been simply content to depose, that Lollius, if a writer of that name existed at all, was a somewhat somewhere. The notary speaks of the _Troy Boke_ of Lydgate, printed in 1513. I have never seen it; but I deeply regret that Chalmers did not subst.i.tute the whole of Lydgate's works from the MSS. extant, for the almost worthless Gower.

The _Troilus and Cressida_ of Shakespeare can scarcely be cla.s.sed with his dramas of Greek and Roman history; but it forms an intermediate link between the fict.i.tious Greek and Roman histories, which we may call legendary dramas, and the proper ancient histories,-that is, between the _Pericles_ or _t.i.tus Andronicus_, and the _Coriola.n.u.s_ or _Julius Caesar_.

_Cymbeline_ is a _congener_ with _Pericles_, and distinguished from _Lear_ by not having any declared prominent object. But where shall we cla.s.s the _Timon of Athens_? Perhaps immediately below _Lear_. It is a _Lear_ of the satirical drama; a _Lear_ of domestic or ordinary life;-a local eddy of pa.s.sion on the high road of society, while all around is the week-day goings on of wind and weather; a _Lear_, therefore, without its soul-searching flashes, its ear-cleaving thunder-claps, its meteoric splendours,-without the contagion and the fearful sympathies of nature, the fates, the furies, the frenzied elements, dancing in and out, now breaking through and scattering,-now hand in hand with,-the fierce or fantastic group of human pa.s.sions, crimes, and anguishes, reeling on the unsteady ground, in a wild harmony to the shock and the swell of an earthquake. But my present subject was _Troilus and Cressida_; and I suppose that, scarcely knowing what to say of it, I by a cunning of instinct ran off to subjects on which I should find it difficult not to say too much, though certain after all that I should still leave the better part unsaid, and the gleaning for others richer than my own harvest.

Indeed, there is no one of Shakespeare's plays harder to characterise. The name and the remembrances connected with it, prepare us for the representation of attachment no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakespeare calls forth nothing from the mausoleum of history, or the catacombs of tradition, without giving, or eliciting, some permanent and general interest, and brings forward no subject which he does not moralise or intellectualise,-so here he has drawn in Cressida the portrait of a vehement pa.s.sion, that, having its true origin and proper cause in warmth of temperament, fastens on, rather than fixes to, some one object by liking and temporary preference.

"There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirit looks out At every joint and motive of her body."

This Shakespeare has contrasted with the profound affection represented in Troilus, and alone worthy the name of love;-affection, pa.s.sionate indeed,-swoln with the confluence of youthful instincts and youthful fancy, and growing in the radiance of hope newly risen, in short, enlarged by the collective sympathies of nature;-but still having a depth of calmer element in a will stronger than desire, more entire than choice, and which gives permanence to its own act by converting it into faith and duty.

Hence, with excellent judgment, and with an excellence higher than mere judgment can give, at the close of the play, when Cressida has sunk into infamy below retrieval and beneath hope, the same will, which had been the substance and the basis of his love, while the restless pleasures and pa.s.sionate longings, like sea-waves, had tossed but on its surface,-this same moral energy is represented as s.n.a.t.c.hing him aloof from all neighbourhood with her dishonour, from all lingering fondness and languishing regrets, whilst it rushes with him into other and n.o.bler duties, and deepens the channel, which his heroic brother's death had left empty for its collected flood. Yet another secondary and subordinate purpose Shakespeare has inwoven with his delineation of these two characters,-that of opposing the inferior civilisation, but purer morals, of the Trojans to the refinements, deep policy, but duplicity and sensual corruptions of the Greeks.

To all this, however, so little comparative projection is given,-nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupying the fore-ground, that the subservience and va.s.salage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy seems to be the lesson most often in our poet's view, and which he has taken little pains to connect with the former more interesting moral impersonated in the t.i.tular hero and heroine of the drama. But I am half inclined to believe, that Shakespeare's main object, or shall I rather say his ruling impulse, was to translate the poetic heroes of paganism into the not less rude, but more intellectually vigorous, and more _featurely_, warriors of Christian chivalry,-and to substantiate the distinct and graceful profiles or outlines of the Homeric epic into the flesh and blood of the romantic drama;-in short, to give a grand history-piece in the robust style of Albert Durer.

The character of Thersites, in particular, well deserves a more careful examination, as the Caliban of demagogic life;-the admirable portrait of intellectual power deserted by all grace, all moral principle, all not momentary impulse;-just wise enough to detect the weak head, and fool enough to provoke the armed fist of his betters;-one whom malcontent Achilles can inveigle from malcontent Ajax, under the one condition, that he shall be called on to do nothing but abuse and slander, and that he shall be allowed to abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can;-in short, a mule,-quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature;-a slave by tenure of his own baseness,-made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable. "Aye, Sir, but say what you will, he is a very clever fellow, though the best friends will fall out. There was a time when Ajax thought he deserved to have a statue of gold erected to him and handsome Achilles, at the head of the Myrmidons, gave no little credit to his _friend Thersites_!"

Act iv. sc. 5. Speech of Ulysses:-

"O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give a _coasting_ welcome ere it comes"-

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" being taken as the epithet and adjective of "welcome"), that had the following words been, "ere _they land_,"

instead of "ere it comes," I should have preferred the interpretation. The sense now is, "that give welcome to a salute ere it comes."

"Coriola.n.u.s."

This play ill.u.s.trates the wonderfully philosophic impartiality of Shakespeare's politics. His own country's history furnished him with no matter but what was too recent to be devoted to patriotism. Besides, he knew that the instruction of ancient history would seem more dispa.s.sionate. In _Coriola.n.u.s_ and _Julius Caesar_, you see Shakespeare's good-natured laugh at mobs. Compare this with Sir Thomas Brown's aristocracy of spirit.

Act i. sc. 1. Marcius' speech:-

... "He that depends Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead, And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?"

I suspect that Shakespeare wrote it transposed!

"Trust ye? Hang ye!"

_Ib._ sc. 10. Speech of Aufidius:-

... "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 get him.- ... My valour (poison'd With only suffering stain by him) for him Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep, nor sanctuary, Being naked, sick, nor fane, nor capitol, The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifices, Embankments all of fury, shall lift up Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst My hate to Marcius."

I have such deep faith in Shakespeare's heart-lore, that I take for granted that this is in nature, and not as a mere anomaly; although I cannot in myself discover any germ of possible feeling, which could wax and unfold itself into such sentiment as this. However, I perceive that in this speech is meant to be contained a prevention of shock at the after-change in Aufidius's character.

Act ii. sc. 1. Speech of Menenius:-

"The most sovereign prescription in _Galen_," &c.

Was it without, or in contempt of, historical information that Shakespeare made the contemporaries of Coriola.n.u.s quote Cato and Galen? I cannot decide to my own satisfaction.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Speech of Coriola.n.u.s:-

"Why in this wolvish toge should I stand hero"

That the gown of the candidate was of whitened wool, we know. Does "wolvish" or "woolvish" mean "made of wool?" If it means "wolfish," what is the sense?

Act iv. sc. 7. Speech of Aufidius:-

"All places yield to him ere he sits down," &c.