The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare Part 10

Again, he was connected with the Greene and Lyly group by the pleasure he felt in composing imaginary letters. A number of such letters had been inserted by Lyly in his "Euphues," and had proved one of the attractions of the book; Greene and the other novelists of the period never missed an opportunity of making their heroes write to each other, and they always transcribed their letters in full, a process inherited from the romance writers of the Middle Ages. Breton, following the example already given by some of his contemporaries, went beyond that, and published a volume of imaginary letters from everybody to anybody on any subject, many of them rather coa.r.s.e, some good, some rather slow in their gait and heavy in their wit.[154] The public taste was so decidedly in favour of these compositions that this was the most successful of Breton's enterprises. It was often reprinted; a number of similar collections were circulated in the seventeenth century, and their popularity had not abated when Richardson was asked, by the publishers...o...b..rne and Rivington, to compose one for country people. He did so, and the only difference, and a sufficiently important one, was that in his series the letters were connected by the thread of a story.

Greene had a rival of much higher stature in his friend Thomas Lodge.

Lodge was a little older than Greene, and survived him long, so that he happened to be a contemporary both of Greene and of his imitators. He rivalled Greene, but did not imitate him, being himself a direct legatee of Lyly. The sort of life he led differed greatly from that of his friend, but it was scarcely less characteristic of the period. Lodge was the son of a rich London grocer who had been Lord Mayor. Born in 1557, he had known Lyly at Oxford; had studied law; then, yielding to those desires of seeing the dangers and beauties of the world which drove the English youths of the period to seek preferment abroad, he closed his books for a while, and became a corsair, visiting the Canary Isles, Brazil, and Patagonia. He brought back, as booty from his expeditions, romances written at sea to beguile the tedium of the pa.s.sage and the anxieties of the tempest. One was called "The Margarite of America"; another "Rosalynde." The latter fell into Shakespeare's hands and pleased him; he drew from it the plot of "As you like it."[155] Coming before the literary public, Lodge does not altogether forget his profession of corsair, and in order to deprive the critics of the temptation to sneer, he is careful to brandish his rapier from time to time, and to write prefaces that make one's hair stand on end. "Roome for a souldier and a sailer, that gives you the fruits of his labors that he wrote in the Ocean!" he cries to the reader at the beginning of his "Rosalynde," and let fault-finders keep silence; otherwise he will throw them overboard "to feed cods."

After such a warning there would be nothing it seems but to hold our tongue; but perhaps, taking the practical side of the question, we may consider that by this time Lodge's rapier must have grown very rusty, and would not offer more danger than any critic is bound to incur in the performance of his duty. Besides that admiration may in all sincerity be blended with criticism when it is a question of Lodge's masterpiece, "Rosalynde."

The tale itself bears a somewhat curious history. Twice at two hundred years' distance it took the fancy of the greatest genius of the period.

In the Middle Ages it was called the "Tale of Gamelyn,"[156] and Chaucer apparently intended to work it into his "Canterbury Tales," but he died before he had completed his wish, and some copy of the rough old poem having, as it seems, been found among his papers, it was in after time inserted in the ma.n.u.scripts of his works as the "Cooke's Tale." As it stood in the fourteenth century this story recited mere deeds of valour, of strong, sinewy fighters; love and women played no part in it; and it is a great loss for us not to know whether old Chaucer would have made this very necessary addition, and what sort of mediaeval Rosalind he would have depicted.

As things went, we are indebted to our gentleman adventurer for the invention of Rosalind. Lodge took up the tale and remodelled it entirely; he gave place in it to the fair she-page and to her friend Alinda and to Phoebe, the hard-hearted shepherdess, in such a way that when Shakespeare in his turn bethought himself of this story, he had nothing to add to fit it for his own stage, nothing except genius.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREPARING FOR THE HUNT, 1575.]

But if Lodge cannot be considered a man of genius, he is certainly a writer of very remarkable gifts. His novel is a pastoral tale that takes place somewhere in France, near Bordeaux, and reads as pleasantly as any story in "Astree," no mean compliment. Probability, geography and chronology, are not Lodge's strong points; we are in fact again in the country of nowhere, in an imaginary kingdom of France over which the usurper Torismond reigns. The true king has been deposed and leads a forester's life, untroubled, unknown, in the thick woods of Arden.

Rosalind, a daughter of the deposed king, has been kept as a sort of hostage at the court of the tyrant in Bordeaux, presumably his capital.

All of a sudden she is exiled in her turn, without more explanation than "I have heard of thy aspiring speaches and intended treasons."[157]

Alinda, her friend, the daughter of the tyrant, refuses to leave her, and both fly the court, Rosalind being dressed as a page, a rapier at her side, her wit full of repartees, her mind full of shifts, and equal, in fact, as in Shakespeare, to any emergency. "Tush, quoth Rosalynd, art thou a woman and hast not a sodaine shift to prevent a misfortune? I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and would very well become the person and apparell of a page; thou shalt bee my mistris, and I will play the man so properly, that, trust me, in what company so ever I come, I will not bee discovered. I will buy mee a suite, and have my rapier very handsomely at my side, and if any knave offer wrong, your page will shew him the point of his weapon. At this Alinda smiled, and upon this they agreed, and presentlie gathered up all their jewels which they trussed up in a casket.... They travailed along the vineyards, and by many by-waies, at last got to the forrest side," the forest of Arden, which at that time happened to be near the vineyards of Gascony.

But this geographical situation is the least of the wonders offered by the forest. In it live not only Gerismond, the lawful king, very happy and contented, free and without care, wanting nothing; but, in the valleys, the most lovable shepherdesses and the most loving shepherds; they feed their flocks while piping their ditties; they inscribe their sonnets on the bark of trees; they are very learned, though mere shepherds; they quote Latin and write French; they know how to ask the G.o.d of love that the heart of their mistress may not be "de glace."

"Bien qu'elle ait de neige le sein."

They live in the shade of the most unaccountable woods, woods composed of pine-trees, fig-trees, and lemon-trees. "Then, comming into a faire valley, compa.s.sed with mountaines whereon grewe many pleasant shrubbs, they might descrie where two flocks of sheepe did feede. Then looking about they might perceive where an old shepheard sat, and with him a yong swaine, under a covert most pleasantlie scituated. The ground where they sat was diapred with Floras riches, as if she ment to wrap Tellus in the glorie of her vestments: round about, in the forme of an amphitheater were most curiouslie planted pine-trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thicknesse of their boughes so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not prie into the secret of that arbour.... Fast by ... was there a fount so christalline and cleere that it seemed Diana and her Driades and Hemadriades had that spring as the secret of all their bathings. In this glorious arbour sat these two shepheards seeing their sheepe feede, playing on their pipes...." It is like a landscape by Poussin. Alinda and her page find the place very pleasant, and decide to settle there, especially when they have heard what a shepherd's life is like. "For a shepheards life, oh! mistresse, did you but live a while in their content, you would saye the court were rather a place of sorrowe than of solace ... Envie stirres not us, wee covet not to climbe, our desires mount not above our degrees, nor our thoughts above our fortunes. Care cannot harbour in our cottages, nor doo our homely couches know broken slumbers." Fine a.s.sertions, to which some hundred and fifty years later Prince Ra.s.selas was most solemnly to give the lie. But his time had not yet come, and both princesses resolve to settle there, to purchase flocks, and "live quiet, unknowen, and contented."[158]

Many other pleasant things are to be found in the forest; in fact, the two ladies meet their lovers there; brave Rosader, the Gamelyn of Chaucerian times, the Orlando of Shakespeare, and wicked but repentant and reformed Saladin, who loves Alinda as Rosader loves Rosalind. They meet, too, the shepherdess Phoebe, "as faire as the wanton that brought Troy to ruine," but in a different dress; "she in a peticoate of scarlet, covered with a greene mantle, and to shrowde her from the sunne, a chaplet of roses;" in a different mood, too, towards shepherds, thinking nothing of her Paris, poor Monta.n.u.s whom she disdains while he is dying for her.

Yet there were even more wonders in this forest of Arcadian shepherds, exiled princesses, and lemon-trees. There were "certaine rascalls that lived by prowling in the forrest, who for feare of the provost marshall had caves in the groves and thickets";[159] there were lions, too, very dangerous, hungry, man-eating lions. Such animals appear in Shakespeare also, as well as "palm trees," and Shakespeare moreover takes the liberty of doubling his lion with a serpent.

"A wretched ragged man o'ergrown with hair Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd The opening of his mouth; but suddenly, Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, And with indented glides did slip away Into a bush: under which bush's shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching."[160]

Let us not be too much troubled; here will be good opportunities for lovers to show the sort of men they are, to be wounded, but not disfigured, and finally to be loved.

So many rare encounters of men and animals, and shepherds and lovers, give excellent occasions for Rosalind to display the special turn of her mind, and if, in Lodge, she has not all the ready wit that Shakespeare has given her, she is by no means slow of speech; she possesses besides much more of that human kindness in which we sometimes find the brilliant page of the play a little deficient. The conversations between her and Alinda are very pleasant to read, and show how at last, not only on the stage, but even in novels, the tongues of the speakers had been loosened.

"No doubt, quoth Aliena,[161] this poesie is the pa.s.sion of some perplexed shepheard, that being enamoured of some fair and beautifull shepheardesse suffered some sharpe repulse, and therefore complained of the cruelty of his mistris.

"You may see, quoth Ganimede [Rosalind's page-name], what mad cattell you women be, whose hearts sometimes are made of adamant that will touch with no impression, and sometimes of waxe that is fit for everie forme; they delight to be courted and then they glorie to seeme coy, and when they are most desired, then they freeze with disdaine....

"And I pray you, quoth Aliena, if your roabes were off, what mettall are you made of that you are so satyricall against women?... Beware, Ganimede, that Rosader heare you not....

"Thus, quoth Ganimede, I keepe decorum, I speake now as I am Alienas page, not as I am Gerismonds daughter; for put me but into a peticoate, and I will stand in defiance to the uttermost, that women are courteous, constant, virtuous, and what not."

Thus there is much merry prattle between these two, especially when the presence of the lover of the one sharpens the teasing disposition of the other; when, for example, Rosader finding, not without good cause, some resemblance between the page and his Rosalind, pities the former, for not equalling the perfection of his mistress.

"He hath answered you, Ganimede, quoth Aliena, it is inough for pages to waite on beautifull ladies and not to be beautifull themselves.

"Oh! mistres," answers the she-page, who cannot help feeling some spite, "holde your peace, for you are partiall; who knowes not, but that all women have desire to tie sovereigntie to their peticoats, and ascribe beautie to themselves, where if boyes might put on their garments, perhaps they would proove as comely; if not as comely, it may be more curteous."

There are also some morning scenes full of pleasant mirth and cheerful light, in which perhaps there is more of Phoebus than of the sun, and more of Aurora than of the dawn; but this light, such as it is, is worth the looking at, so merrily it shines; and the talk of these early risers well suits the half-cla.s.sic landscape.

"The sunne was no sooner stept from the bed of Aurora, but Aliena was wakened by Ganimede, who restlesse all night, had tossed in her pa.s.sions; saying it was then time to goe to the field to unfold their sheepe.

"Aliena ... replied thus: What? wanton, the sun is but new up, and as yet Iris riches lies folded in the bosom of Flora; Phoebus hath not dried the pearled deaw, and so long Coridon hath taught me it is not fit to lead the sheepe abroad lest the deaw being unwholesome they get the rot. But now see I the old proverbe true ..." (and here comes some euphuism).

"Come on," answers Ganimede, who does not seem in a mood to appreciate euphuism just then, "this sermon of yours is but a subtiltie to lie still a bed, because either you think the morning colde, or els I being gone, you would steale a nappe; this shifte carries no palme, and therefore up and away. And for Love, let me alone; Ile whip him away with nettles and set Disdaine as a charme to withstand his forces; and therefore, looke you to your selfe; be not too bolde, for Venus can make you bend; nor too coy, for Cupid hath a piercing dart that will make you cry _Peccavi_.

"And that is it, quoth Aliena, that hath raysed you so early this morning?

"And with that she slipt on her peticoate, and start up; and a.s.soone as she had made her readie and taken her breakfast, away goe these two with their bagge and bottles to the field, in more pleasant content of mind than ever they were in the court of Torismond."

In the same way as in Shakespeare, fair Phoebe, deceived by Rosalind's dress, Phoebe, who thought herself beyond the reach of love, becomes enamoured of the page and feels at last all the pangs of an unrequited pa.s.sion. Lodge's Rosalind, more human we think than her great Shakespearean sister, uses, to persuade Phoebe into loving Monta.n.u.s, a kindly, tender language, meant to heal rather than irritate the poor shepherdess's wounds. "What!" will exclaim the great sister, ...

"... What though you have no beauty ...

Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's sale-work: Od's my little life!

I think she means to tangle my eyes too:-- No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it; 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk-hair, Your bugle eyeb.a.l.l.s, nor your cheek of cream That can entame my spirits to your worship."[162]

Very spiritless, and tame, and old fashioned, will the other Rosalind appear by the side of this impetuous, relentless deity. A few perhaps will consider that her tame, kindly, old-fashioned, mythological piece of advice to the shepherdess, makes her the more lovable: "What, shepheardesse, so fayre and so cruell?... Because thou art beautifull, be not so coye: as there is nothing more faire, so there is nothing more fading, as momentary as the shadowes which growes from a cloudie sunne.

Such, my faire shepheardesse, as disdaine in youth, desire in age, and then are they hated in the winter, that might have been loved in the prime. A wrinkled maid is like a parched rose, that is cast up in coffers to please the smell, not worn in the hand to content the eye.

There is no folly in love to had-I-wist, and therefore, be rulde by me.

Love while thou art young, least thou be disdained when thou art olde.

Beautie nor time cannot bee recalde, and if thou love, like of Monta.n.u.s; for if his desires are manie, so his deserts are great."[163] And it is indeed quite touching to see poor Monta.n.u.s in the simplest lover fashion verify by his acts this description of himself; for while reduced to the last degree of despair, seeing the unconquerable love Phoebe entertains for the page, he beseeches Rosalind to save her by returning her love; sorrow will kill him any way, but he will die contented if he thinks that even through another's love Phoebe will live happy in her Arcadian vale.

I need not add that all these troubles end as happily as possible; the storms pa.s.s away and a many-coloured rainbow encompa.s.ses Arden, Arcady, and the kingdom of France; every lover becomes loved, the three couples get married, and while the music of the bridal fete is still in our ears, news is brought that "hard by, at the edge of this forest, the twelve peers of France are up in arms" to recover Gerismond's rights.

They accomplish this feat in a twinkling, as French peers should; why they did not do it before does not appear: probably because the treble marriage would not have looked so pretty in Notre Dame as under the lemon trees. There is much bloodshed of course, but it is blood we do not care for, and we are allowed to part from our shepherd friends with the pleasing thought that they will see no end to their loves and happiness.

Such is "Euphues golden legacy," one of the best examples of the sort of novel that was being written at this period. It has all the characteristics of this kind of writing such as it had come to be understood at that date; prose is mixed with verse, and several of Lodge's best songs are included in "Rosalynde"; it is full of meditations and monologues like those with which the neo-cla.s.sic drama of the French school has made us familiar.[164] In the more important places, in monologues, speeches and letters euphuistic style usually prevails;[165] the chronology and geography of the tale, its logic and probability, the grouping of events are of the loosest description; but it has moreover a freshness and sometimes a pathos which is more easily felt than expressed and of which the above quotations may have given some idea.

In "Rosalynde" we see Lodge at his best. Perhaps, remembering his threats, it is better not to try to see him at his worst; it will therefore be sufficient to add that, having published also satires and epistles imitated from Horace, eclogues, some other short stories or romances, a translation of the philosophical works of Seneca, two or three incoherent dramas (in one of which a whale comes on to the stage, and without any ceremony vomits forth the prophet Jonah),[166] Lodge changed his profession once again, abandoned the sword for the lancet, became a physician, gained a fortune, and died quietly a rich citizen in 1625.

He had thus lived beyond the period of Lyly's fame, of Greene's reputation, of Shakespeare's splendour, and saw, before he died, the beginnings of a new and very different era in which both the drama and the novel were to undergo, as we shall see, many and vast transformations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCORPIO.]

FOOTNOTES:

[103] "Prose and Verse" by John d.i.c.kenson, ed. Grosart, Manchester, 1878, 4to. At a later date d.i.c.kenson took Greene for his model when he wrote his "Greene in conceipt new raised from his grave, to write the tragique history of the faire Valeria of London," 1598. In this d.i.c.kenson imitates Greene's descriptions of the life of the courtezans of London (Troy-novant). See _infra_, pp. 187 _et seq._

[104] "The straunge and wonderfull Adventures of Don Simonides," London, 1581, 4to; in 1584 appeared "The second tome of the travailes ... of Don Simonides."

[105] "Riche his Farewell to Militarie profession: Conteining verie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme. Gathered together for the onely delight of the Courteous Gentlewoemen bothe of England and Irelande, for whose onely pleasure thei were collected together, and unto whom thei are directed and dedicated," London, 1581, 4to. By the same: "The Adventures of Brusa.n.u.s, Prince of Hungaria," 1592; "Greenes newes both from heaven and h.e.l.l," 1593, &c.

[106] London, 1580, 4to. One copy in the Bodleian Library.

[107] "Philotimus, the warre betwixt nature and fortune," London, 1583, 4to. A copy in the Bodleian Library.

[108] "Syrinx or a seavenfold historie ... newly perused and amended by the original author," London, 1597, 4to. Warner died in 1609.