The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 39

But I will give a greater state and glory, And raise to time a _n.o.ble_ memory Of what these lovers are.

I suspect that 'n.o.bler,' p.r.o.nounced as 'n.o.biler'--[Symbol (metrical): U-=shape below the line]--, was the poet's word, and that the accent is to be placed on the penultimate of 'memory.' As to the pa.s.sage--

Yet, while our reign lasts, let us stretch our power, &c.

removed from the text of Cinthia's speech by these foolish editors as unworthy of B. and F.--the first eight lines are not worse, and the last couplet incomparably better, than the stanza retained.

Act ii. Amintor's speech:--

Oh, thou hast nam'd a word, that wipes away All thoughts revengeful! In that sacred name, 'The king,' there lies a terror.

It is worth noticing that of the three greatest tragedians, Ma.s.singer was a democrat, Beaumont and Fletcher the most servile _jure divino_ royalist, and Shakspeare a philosopher;--if aught personal, an aristocrat.

A KING AND NO KING.

Act IV. Speech of Tigranes:--

She, that forgat the greatness of her grief And miseries, that must follow such mad pa.s.sions, Endless and wild _as_ women! &c.

Seward's note and suggestion of 'in.'

It would be amusing to learn from some existing friend of Mr. Seward what he meant, or rather dreamed, in this note. It is certainly a difficult pa.s.sage, of which there are two solutions;--one, that the writer was somewhat more injudicious than usual;--the other, that he was very, very much more profound and Shakspearian than usual. Seward's emendation, at all events, is right and obvious. Were it a pa.s.sage of Shakspeare, I should not hesitate to interpret it as characteristic of Tigranes' state of mind,--disliking the very virtues, and therefore half-consciously representing them as mere products of the violence, of the s.e.x in general in all their whims, and yet forced to admire, and to feel and to express grat.i.tude for, the exertion in his own instance. The inconsistency of the pa.s.sage would be the consistency of the author. But this is above Beaumont and Fletcher.

THE SCORNFUL LADY.

Act II. Sir Roger's speech:--

Did I for this consume my _quarters_ in meditations, vows, and woo'd her in heroical epistles? Did I expound the Owl, and undertake, with labor and expense, the recollection of those thousand pieces, consum'd in cellars and tobacco-shops, of that our honor'd Englishman, Nic.

Broughton? &c.

Strange, that neither Mr. Theobald, nor Mr. Seward, should have seen that this mock heroic speech is in full-mouthed blank verse! Had they seen this, they would have seen that 'quarters' is a subst.i.tution of the players for 'quires' or 'squares,' (that is) of paper:--

Consume my quires in meditations, vows, And woo'd her in heroical epistles.

They ought, likewise, to have seen that the abbreviated 'Ni. Br.' of the text was properly 'Mi. Dr.'--and that Michael Drayton, not Nicholas Broughton, is here ridiculed for his poem The Owl and his Heroical Epistles.

Ib. Speech of Younger Loveless:--

Fill him some wine. Thou dost not see me mov'd, &c.

These Editors ought to have learnt, that scarce an instance occurs in B.

and F. of a long speech not in metre. This is plain staring blank verse.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY.

I cannot but think that in a country conquered by a n.o.bler race than the natives, and in which the latter became villeins and bondsmen, this custom, 'lex merchetae', may have been introduced for wise purposes,--as of improving the breed, lessening the antipathy of different races, and producing a new bond of relationship between the lord and the tenant, who, as the eldest born, would, at least, have a chance of being, and a probability of being thought, the lord's child. In the West Indies it cannot have these effects, because the mulatto is marked by nature different from the father, and because there is no bond, no law, no custom, but of mere debauchery. 1815.

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

Yet if you play not fair play, &c.

Evidently to be transposed and read thus:--

Yet if you play not fair, above-board too, I'll tell you what--I've a foolish engine here:--I say no more--But if your Honor's guts are not enchanted--

Licentious as the comic metre of B. and F. is,--a far more lawless, and yet far less happy, imitation of the rhythm of animated talk in real life than Ma.s.singer's--still it is made worse than it really is by ignorance of the halves, thirds, and two-thirds of a line which B. and F. adopted from the Italian and Spanish dramatists. Thus in Rutilio's speech:--

Though I confess Any man would desire to have her, and by any means, &c.

Correct the whole pa.s.sage--

Though I confess Any man would Desire to have her, and by any means, At any rate too, yet this common hangman That hath whipt off a /THOUsand maids' HEADS/ already-- That he should glean the harvest, sticks in my stomach!

[Between the two /, upper-case syllables have the stress, written as a horizontal line above them in the original text, and lower-case syllables are unstressed, written as a u-shape (the u-symbol previously described) above them. text Ed.]