One kiss from fair Emilia!--'Tis done: Take her.--I die!

_Palamon._ Thy brave soul seek Elys

ium!

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ _His part is played; and, though it were too short, He did it well._ Your day is lengthened, and The blissful dew of heaven does arrose

you: The powerful Venus well hath graced her al

tar, And given you your love; our master Mars Hath vouched his oracle, and to Arcite gave The grace of the contention: So the de

ities Have shewed due justice.--Bear this hence.

_Palamon._ Oh, cous

in!

That we should things desire, which do cost

us [55:1]The loss of our desire! that nought could buy Dear love, but loss of dear love!

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ ... Palamon!

Your kinsman hath confessed, the right o' the la

dy Did lie in you: for you first saw her, and Even then proclaimed your fancy. He restord

her As your stolen jewel, and desired your spir

it To send him hence forgiven! The G.o.ds my jus

tice Take from my hand, and they themselves become The executioners. Lead your lady off: And call your lovers from the stage of death, Whom I adopt my friends.--A day or two Let us look sadly, and give grace unto The funeral of Arcite; in whose end, The visages of bridegrooms we'll put on, And smile with Palamon; for whom, an hour, But one hour since, I was as dearly sor

ry, As glad of Arcite; and am now as glad, As for him sorry.--Oh, you _heavenly charm

ers_!

What things you make of us! For what we lack, We laugh; for what we have, are sorry still; Are children in some kind.--Let us be thank

ful For that which is, and with you leave disputes That are above our question.--Let us go off, And bear us like the time! (_Exeunt omnes._)

You have now before you an outline of the subject of this highly poetical drama, with specimens which may convey some notion of the manner in which the plan is executed. But detached extracts cannot furnish materials for a just decision as to the part which Shakspeare may have taken even in writing the scenes from which the quotations are given. If I addressed myself to one previously unacquainted with this drama, I should be compelled to request an attentive study of it from beginning to end. [Sidenote: Two authors wrote _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

Such a perusal would convince the most sceptical mind that two authors were concerned in the work; it would be perceived that certain scenes are distinguished by certain prominent characters, while others present different and dissimilar features. [Sidenote: Fletcher was one.] If we are to a.s.sume that Fletcher wrote parts of the play, we must admit that many parts of it were written by another person, and we have only to inquire who that other was. [Sidenote: The other was Shakspere.] Without recurring to any external presump[56:1]tions whatever, I think there is enough in most or all of the parts which are evidently not Fletcher's, to appropriate them to the great poet whose name, in this instance, tradition has a.s.sociated with his. Even in the pa.s.sages which have been here selected, you cannot but have traced Shakspeare's hand frequently and unequivocally. The introductory views which I slightly suggested to your recollection, may have furnished some rules of judgment, and cleared away some obstacles from the path; and where I have failed in bringing out distinctly the real points of difference, your own acute judgment and delicate taste must have enabled you to draw instinctively those inferences which I have attempted to reach by systematic deduction.

[Sidenote: Fletcher easily distinguisht from Shakspere.]

In truth, a question of this sort is infinitely more easy of decision where Fletcher is the author against whose claims Shakspeare's are to be balanced, than it could be if the poet's supposed a.s.sistant were any other ancient English dramatist. If a drama were presented to us, where, as in some of Shakspeare's received works, he had taken up the ruder sketch of an older poet, and exerted his skill in altering and enlarging it, it would be very difficult indeed to discriminate between the original and his additions. [Sidenote: Shakspere's Histories: their fault.] He has often, especially in his earlier works, and in his histories more particularly, much of that exaggeration of ideas, and that strained and labouring force of expression, which marked the Hercules-like infancy of the English Drama. [Sidenote: Marlowe.]

[Sidenote: Marlowe's magnificence like Shakspere sometimes.] The stateliness with which Marlowe paces the tragic stage, and the magnificence of the train of solemn shews which attend him like the captives in a Roman procession of triumph, bear no distant likeness to the shape which Shakspeare's genius a.s.sumes in its most lofty moods. And with those also who followed the latter, or trode side by side with him, he has many points of resemblance or ident.i.ty. [Sidenote: Jonson.]

[Sidenote: Ma.s.singer.] [Sidenote: Middleton.] Jonson has his seriousness of views, his singleness of purpose, his weight of style, and his "fulness and frequency of sentence;" Ma.s.singer has his comprehension of thought, giving birth to an involved and parenthetical mode of construction; and Middleton, if he possesses few of his other qualities, has much of his precision and straightforward earnestness of expression.[57:1] In examining isolated pa.s.sages with the view of ascertaining whether they were written by Shakspeare or by any of those other [57:2]poets, we should frequently have no ground of decision but the insecure and narrow one of comparative excellence. [Sidenote: Fletcher and Shakspere contrasted.] [Sidenote: They differ in _kind_.]

When Fletcher is Shakspeare's only compet.i.tor, we are very seldom driven to adopt so doubtful a footing; we are not compelled to reason from difference in _degree_, because we are sensible of a striking dissimilarity in _kind_. [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.]

[Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] We observe ease and elegance of expression opposed to energy and quaintness; brevity is met by dilation, and the obscurity which results from hurry of conception has to be compared with the vagueness proceeding from indistinctness of ideas; lowness, narrowness, and poverty of thought, are contrasted with elevation, richness, and comprehension: on the one hand is an intellect barely active enough to seek the true elements of the poetical, and on the other a mind which, seeing those finer relations at a glance, darts off in the wantonness of its luxuriant strength to discover qualities with which poetry is but ill fitted to deal; in the one poet we behold that comparative feebleness of fancy which willingly stoops to the correction of taste, and in the other, that warmth, splendour, and quickness of imagination, which flows on like the burning rivers from a volcano, quenching all paler lights in its spreading radiance, and destroying every barrier which would impede or direct its devouring course. You will remark that certain pa.s.sages or scenes in this play are attributed to Shakspeare, not because they are superior to Fletcher's tone or manner, but because they are unlike it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's work unlike Fletcher's.] It may be true that most of these possess higher excellence than Fletcher could have easily reached; but this is merely an extrinsic circ.u.mstance, and it is not upon it that the judgment is founded. [Sidenote: Test between Shakspere and Fletcher.] These pa.s.sages are recognized as Shakspeare's, not from possessing in a higher degree those qualities in which Fletcher's merit lies, but from exhibiting other qualities in which he is partially or wholly wanting, and which even singly, and still more when combined, const.i.tute a style and manner opposite to his.

Indeed, since Fletcher is acknowledged to stand immeasurably lower than Shakspeare, the excellence of some pa.s.sages might perhaps in itself be no unfair reason for refusing to the inferior poet the credit of their execution. But an a.n.a.lysis of the means by which the excellence is produced places us beyond [58:1]the necessity of resorting, in the first instance at least, to this general ground of decision, which must, however, be taken into view, when we have been able to a.s.sume a position which ent.i.tles us to take advantage of it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's external qualities in the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.] [Sidenote: Are they imitations?] In many parts of this play we find those external qualities which form Shakspeare's distinguishing characteristics, not separately and singly present, but combined most fully and most intimately; and it is consequently indisputable that we have, either Shakspeare's own writing, or a faithful and successful imitation of it. [Sidenote: Imitation of Shakspere difficult.] It is not easy to perceive with perfect clearness why it is that imitation of Shakspeare is peculiarly difficult; but every one is convinced that it is far more so than in the case of any other poet whatever. [Sidenote: Why it is so.] The range and opposition of his qualities, the rarity and loftiness of the most remarkable of these, and still more, the coincident operation of his most dissimilar powers, make it next to impossible, even in short and isolated pa.s.sages, to produce an imitation which shall be mistaken for his original composition: but there is not even a possibility of success in an attempt to carry on such an imitation of him throughout many entire scenes. [Sidenote: Given, his outside dress, ask whether his spirit is inside it.] Where the external qualities of a work resemble his, the question of his authorship can be determined in no other way than by inquiring whether the essential elements, and the spirit which animates the whole, are his also; and that inquiry is not one for logical argument; it can be answered only by reflection on the effect which the work produces on our own minds. [Sidenote: The poetic sense alone can judge.] The dullest eye can discriminate the free motions of the living frame from the convulsed writhings which art may excite in the senseless corpse; the nightly traveller easily distinguishes between the red and earthy twinkling of the distant cottage-lamp, and the cold white gleam of the star which rises beyond it;--and with equal quickness and equal certainty the poetical sense can decide whether the living and ethereal principle of poetry is present, or only its corporeal clothing, its dead and inert resemblance. [Sidenote: By the emotion it creates, must Shakspere's work be judgd.] The emotion which poetry necessarily awakens in minds qualified as the subjects of its working, is the only evidence of its presence, and the measure and index of its strength. If we can read with coldness and indifference the drama which we are now examining, we must p.r.o.nounce it to [59:1]be no more than a skilful imitation of Shakspeare; but we must acknowledge it as an original if the heart burns and the fancy expands under its influence,--if we feel that the poetical and dramatic spirit breathes through all,--and if the mind bows down involuntarily before the powers of whose presence it is secretly but convincingly sensible. [Sidenote: And his part of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ witnesses for itself.] I cannot have a doubt that the parts of this work which I have pointed out as Shakspeare's will the more firmly endure this trial, the more closely and seriously they are revolved and studied.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's share of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

The portions of the drama which, on such principles as these, have been set down as Shakspeare's, compose a large part of its bulk, and embrace most of the material circ.u.mstances of the story. [Sidenote: Act I.]

[Sidenote: Act III. sc. i.] [Sidenote: Act V. except scene iv.] They are,--the First Act wholly,--one scene out of six in the Third,--and the whole of the Fifth Act, (a very long one,) except one unimportant scene.

These parts are not of equal excellence, but the grounds on which a decision as to their authorship rests, seem to be almost equally strong with regard to each.

We have as yet been considering these scenes as so many separate pieces of poetry; and they are valuable even in that light, not less from their intrinsic merit than as being the work of our greatest poet. If it be true merely that Shakspeare has here executed some portions of a plan which another had previously fixed on and sketched, the drama demands our zealous study, and is ent.i.tled to a place among Shakspeare's works.

An examination of separate details cannot enable us to form any more specific opinion as to the part which he may have taken in its composition.

[Sidenote: Is the design of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's?]

But there is a further inquiry on which we are bound to enter, whatever its result may be,--whether it shall allow us to attribute to Shakspeare a wider influence over the work, or compel us to limit his claim to the subsidiary authorship, which only we have yet been able to establish for him. We must now endeavour to trace the design of the work to its origin; we must look on the parts in their relation to the whole, and investigate the qualities and character of that whole which the parts compose. Such an a.n.a.lysis is essential to an appreciation of the real merit of the drama, and suggests views of far-greater inte[60:1]rest than any which offer themselves in the examination of isolated pa.s.sages.

And it is likewise necessary as a part of the inquiry which is our object, not merely because it may tend to strengthen or modify the decisions which we have already formed, but because it will allow us to determine other important questions which we have had no opportunity of treating. [Sidenote: Yes, it is.] It will justify us, if I mistake not, in p.r.o.nouncing with some confidence, that this drama owes to Shakspeare much more than the composition of a few scenes,--that he was the poet who chose the story, and arranged the leading particulars of the method in which it is handled.

[Sidenote: The tragic-comic underplot not Shakspere's.]

Before we enter the extensive and interesting field of inquiry thus opened to us, it may be well that I explain the reasons which seem distinctly to exclude from Shakspeare's part of the work one considerable portion of it,--the whole of the tragi-comic under-plot. I have as yet a.s.signed no ground of rejection, but inferiority in the execution; but there are other reasons, which, when combined with that, remove all uncertainty. Slightly as this subordinate story has been described, enough has been said to point out remarkable imitations of Shakspeare, both in incident and character. [Sidenote: Fletcher's borrowings in the underplot, from Shakspere.] The insane maiden is a copy of Ophelia, with features from 'Lear'; the comments of the physician on her sickness of the mind, are borrowed in conception from 'Macbeth'; the character of the fantastic schoolmaster is a repet.i.tion of the pedagogue in 'Love's Labour Lost'; and the exhibition of the clowns which he directs, resemble scenes both in that play and in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' All these circ.u.mstances together, or even one of them by itself, are enough to destroy the notion of Shakspeare's authorship. The likeness which is found elsewhere to Shakspeare's style, (and which is far closer in those other parts of the play than it is here,) is an argument, as I have shewn, in favour of his authorship; the likeness here in character and incident is even a stronger one against it. [Sidenote: Shakspere doesn't imitate himself in character as he does in style.] In neither of these latter particulars does Shakspeare imitate himself as he does in style. In some of his earlier plays indeed we may trace the rude outlines of characters, chiefly comic, which he was afterwards able to develope with [61:1]greater distinctness and more striking features; but though the likeness, in those cases, were nearer and more frequent than it is, the transition from the rude block to the finished sculpture is the allowable and natural progress of genius.

[Sidenote: He doesn't reproduce a figure badly.] The bare reproduction of a figure or a scene already drawn with clearness and success, stands in a very different situation; and, even if it should be nearly equal to the original in actual merit, it creates a strong presumption of its being no more than the artifice of an imitator. Where the inferiority of the execution is palpable, the doubt is raised into certainty.

[Sidenote: Shakspere could not have turned his Ophelia into the Jailer's daughter of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.] In the case before us, it is impossible to receive the idea of Shakspeare sitting down in cold blood to imitate the Ophelia, and to transfer all the tenderness of her situation to a new drama of a far lower tone, in which also it should occupy only a subordinate station. He could not have been guilty of this; he neither needed it, nor would have done it of free will; and, therefore, I could not have believed it to be his, though the execution had been far better than it is. [Sidenote: This Daughter is an utter failure.] But the inferiority is decided; the imitation produces neither vigour of style nor depth of feeling; in short, Shakspeare, if he had made the attempt, could not have failed so utterly. [Sidenote: The Schoolmaster is not Shakspere's.] The comic parts are only subservient to the serious portion of this story; and if Shakspeare did not write the leading part, he was still less likely to have written the accessory; but, besides, the imitation is equally unsuccessful; and the original of the schoolmaster is said to have been a personal portrait, which was very unlikely to have been repeated by the first painter after the freshness of the jest was gone. I have been the more anxious to place in its true light the question as to this part of the drama, because, on its seeming likeness to Shakspeare, Steevens founds an ingenious hypothesis, by which he endeavours to account for the origin of the tradition as to Shakspeare's concern in the play. That this is a designed imitation of Shakspeare is abundantly clear; and it is not difficult to see why it is an unsuccessful one. [Sidenote: Fletcher's designd imitation of Shakspere.] Fletcher possesses much humour, but it is of a cast very unlike Shakspeare's, and very unfit to harmonise with it, or to qualify him for the imitation which he has here attempted. Why he made the attempt, we shall be able to discover only when the freaks of caprice, and of poetical caprice, [62:1]the wildest of all, shall be fully a.n.a.lyzed and fully accounted for. [Sidenote: The underplot not Shakspere's.] All that I have to prove is, that this portion of the work is not, and could not have been, Shakspeare's.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's choice of subjects for his Plays.]

I have said that I consider as his, both the selection of the plot, and much of its arrangement. [Sidenote: He differs from his chief contemporaries and successors.] As to the Choice of the Subject, my position is, that in this particular, Shakspeare stands in unequivocal opposition to Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and those others, contemporary with him, or a little his juniors, with whom his name is generally a.s.sociated. I can easily shew that this opposition to the newer school in the choice of stories exists in Shakspeare individually; and this would be enough for my purpose; but I will go a little farther than I am called on, because I conceive him to share that opposition with some other poets, and because views open to us from this circ.u.mstance, which are of some value for the right understanding of his characteristics. [Sidenote: He belongs to the old school.] I say then, that in the choice of subjects particularly, as well as in other features, Shakspeare belongs to a school older than that of Fletcher, and radically different from it. [Sidenote: Shakspere took old stories; new poets new ones.] The principle of the contrariety in the choice of subjects between the older and newer schools, is this: the older poets usually prefer stories with which their audience must have been previously familiar; the newer poets avoid such known subjects, and attempt to create an advent.i.tious interest for their pieces, by appealing to the pa.s.sion of curiosity, and feeding it with novelty of incident. [Sidenote: Early Plays founded on] The early writers may have adopted their rule of choice from a distrust in their own skill: but they are more likely to have been influenced by reflecting on the inexperience of their audience in theatrical exhibitions. [Sidenote: History and Tales of Chivalry.] By insisting on this quality in their plots, they hampered themselves much in the choice of them; and the subjects which offered themselves to the older among them, were mainly confined to two cla.s.ses, history and the chivalrous tales, being the only two cycles of story with which, about the time of Shakspeare's birth, any general familiarity could be presumed. That such were the favourite themes of the infant English drama is abundantly clear, even from the lists of old lost dramas which have been preserved to us.

[Sidenote: Cla.s.sical fables and foreign novels.] By the time when Shakspeare stepped into [63:1]the arena, the zeal for translation had increased the stock of popular knowledge by the addition of the cla.s.sical fables and the foreign modern novels; and his immediate precursors, some of whom were men of much learning, had especially availed themselves of the former cla.s.s of plots. [Sidenote: Plots of Shakspere's successors.] If, pa.s.sing over Shakspeare, we glance at the plots of Fletcher, Jonson, or others of the same period, we find, among a great diversity of means, a search for novelty universally set on foot. Jonson is fond of inventing his plots; Beaumont and Fletcher usually borrow theirs; but neither by the former nor the latter were stories chosen which were familiar to the people, nor in any instance perhaps do they condescend to use plots which had been previously written on. [Sidenote: Beaumont and Fletcher's.] Where Beaumont and Fletcher do avail themselves of common tales, they artfully combine them with others, and receive a.s.sistance from complexity of adventure in keeping their uniform purpose in view. [Sidenote: Historical Drama grew obsolete.] The historical drama was regarded by the new school as a rude and obsolete form; and there are scarcely half a dozen instances in which any writer of that age, but Shakspeare, adopted it later than 1600. Historical subjects indeed wanted the coveted charm, as did also the Romantic and the Cla.s.sical Tales, both of which shared in the neglect with which the Chronicles were treated. [Sidenote: Plots were got from foreign novels and invention.] The Foreign Novels, and stories partly borrowed from them, or wholly invented, were almost the sole subjects of the newer drama, which has always the air of addressing itself to hearers possessing greater dramatic experience and more extended information than those who were in the view of the older writers.

[Sidenote: Shakspere belongs to the older cla.s.s of dramatists.]

Shakspeare, in point of time, stood between these two cla.s.ses: does he decidedly belong to either, or shew a leaning, and to which? He unequivocally belongs to the older cla.s.s; or rather, the opposition to the newer writers a.s.sumes in him a far more decided shape than in any of his immediate forerunners; for in them are found numerous exceptions to the rule, in him scarcely one. He returns, in fact, to more than one of the principles of the old school, which had begun in his time to fall into disuse. [Sidenote: Compare his Histories, narrative chorus long rymed pa.s.sages,] The external form of some of his plays, particularly his histories, is quite in the old taste. The narrative chorus is the most observable remnant of antiquity; and the long rhymed pas[64:1]sages frequent in his earlier works, are abundant in the older writers: Peele uses them through whole scenes, and Marlowe likewise to excess.

[Sidenote: jesters, and choice of known stories.] His continual introduction of those conventional characters, his favourite jesters, is another point of resemblance to the ruder stage. [Sidenote: He's of the school of Lodge and Greene.] And his choice of subjects, when combined with the peculiarities of economy just noticed, as well as others, clearly appropriates him to the school of Lodge, Greene, and those elder writers who have left few works and fewer names. His Historical Plays are the perfection of the old school, the only valuable specimens of that cla.s.s which it has produced, and the latest instance in which its example was followed; and he has had recourse to the Cla.s.sical story for such subjects as approached most nearly to the nature of his English Chronicles. [Sidenote: Of new novel stories,] And you must take especial note, that, even in the cla.s.s of subjects in which he seems to coincide with the new school,--I mean his Plots borrowed from Foreign Novels,--he a.s.sumes no more of conformity than its appearance, while the principle of contrariety is still retained. [Sidenote: Shakspere chose the most widely known.] The new writers preferred untranslated novels, and, where they chose translated ones, disguised them till the features of the original were lost: Shakspeare not only uses translated tales--(this indeed from necessity)--and closely adheres to their minutest circ.u.mstances, but in almost every instance he has made choice of those among them which can be proved to have been most widely known and esteemed at the time. Most of his plots founded on fanciful subjects, whether derived from novels or other sources, can be shewn to have been previously familiar to the people. [Sidenote: 6 Plays of Shakspere founded on well-known stories.] The story of 'Measure for Measure' had been previously told; that of 'As you Like It', he might have had from either of two popular collections of tales; the fable of 'Much Ado about Nothing' seems to have been widely spread, and those of 'All's Well that Ends Well', and 'The Winter's Tale'; 'Romeo and Juliet' appears in at least one collection of English novels, and in a poem which enjoyed much popularity. These are sufficient as examples; but a still more remarkable circ.u.mstance is this. [Sidenote: 12 on subjects of former Plays.] In repeated instances, about twelve in all, Shakspeare has chosen subjects on which plays had been previously written; nay more, on the sub[65:1]jects which he has so re-written, he has produced some of his best dramas, and one his very masterpiece. 'Julius Caesar' belongs to this list; '_Lear_' does so likewise; and 'HAMLET.' Is not that a singular fact? I can use it at present only as a most valuable proof that the view which I take is an accurate one. But Shakspeare has also, oftener than once, applied to the chivalrous cla.s.s of subjects, which was exclusively peculiar to the older school. Its tales indeed bore a strong likeness to his own most esteemed subjects of study; for, amidst all their extravagancies and inconsistencies, the Gothic romances and poems, the older of them at all events, professed in form to be chronicles of fact, and in principle to a.s.sume historical truth as their groundwork. [Sidenote: 3 on Cla.s.sical subjects turned into romances.]

'Pericles' is founded on one of the most popular romances of the middle ages, which had been also versified by Gower, the second father of the English poetical school. The characters in 'The Midsummer Night's Dream'

are cla.s.sical, but the costume is strictly Gothic, and shews that it was through the medium of romance that he drew the knowledge of them; and the 'Troilus and Cressida' presents another cla.s.sical and chivalrous subject, which Chaucer had handled at great length, also invested with the richness of the romantic garb and decoration.

[Sidenote: Shakspere chose the story of the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

Fletcher and Shakspeare being thus opposed to each other in their choice of subjects, what qualities are there in the Plot of The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen, which may appropriate the choice of it to either? In the first place, it is a chivalrous subject,--a cla.s.sical story which had already been told in the Gothic style. [Sidenote: Fletcher would neither have chosen Chaucer's cla.s.sical story for his plot,] The nature of the story then could have been no recommendation of it to Fletcher. He has not a single other subject of the sort; he has even written one play in ridicule of chivalrous observances; and the sarcasm of that humorous piece[66:1], both in the general design and the particular references, is aimed solely at the prose romances of knight-errantry, a diseased and posthumous off-shoot from the parent-root, whose legitimate and ancient offspring, the metrical chronicles and tales, he seems neither to have known nor cared for. [Sidenote: nor an old story,] Secondly, this story must have been unacceptable to Fletcher, because it was a fa[66:2]miliar one in England. This fact is perhaps sufficiently proved by its being the subject of that animated and admirable poem of Chaucer, which Dryden has p.r.o.nounced little inferior to the Iliad or aeneid; but it is still more distinctly shewn by a third fact, which completely clenches the argument against Fletcher's choice of it as a subject. [Sidenote: nor one on which two 16th-century plays had been written.] No fewer than two plays had been written on this story before the end of the sixteenth century; the earlier of the two, the Palamon and Arcite of Edwards, acted in 1566, and printed in 1585, and another play called by the same name, brought on the stage in 1594.[66:3]

[Sidenote: Fletcher didn't choose the subject of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

It is thus, I think, proved almost to demonstration, that the person who chose this subject was not Fletcher; and what has been already said, even without the specific evidence of individual pa.s.sages, creates a strong probability that the choice was made by Shakspeare rather than by any other dramatic poet of his time. If the question be merely one between the two writers,--if, a.s.suming it to be proved that Shakspeare wrote parts of the play, we have only to ask which of the two it was that chose the subject,--we can surely be at no loss to decide.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's study of chivalrous poetry.] But the presumption in Shakspeare's favour may be elevated almost into absolute certainty, while, at the same time, some important qualities of his will be ill.u.s.trated,--if we inquire what was the real extent to which he attached himself to the study of the chivalrous poetry, from which this subject is taken, and the influence which that study was likely to have had, and did actually exercise on his writings.

If, being told that a dramatic poet was born in England in the latter half of the sixteenth century, whose studies, for all effectual benefit which they could have afforded him, were limited to his own tongue, we were asked to say what course his acquisitions were likely to have taken, our reply would be ready and unhesitating. English literature was of narrow extent before the time in question, and, according to the invariable progress of mental culture, had been evolved first in those finer branches which issue primarily from the ima[67:1]gination and affections, and appeal for their effect to the principles in which they have their source. [Sidenote: Shakspere certain to have first studi'd, and been influenct by, our old narrative poets,] Poetry had reached a vigorous youth, history was in its infancy, philosophy had not come into being. Had the field of study been wider, it was to poetry in an especial manner that a poet had to betake himself for an experience and skill in his art, and in the language which was to be its instrument.

And it was almost solely to the narrative poets that Shakspeare had to appeal for aid and guidance; for preceding writers in the dramatic walk could teach him little. They could serve as beacons only, and not examples, and he had to search in other mines for the materials to rear his palace of thought. [Sidenote: who were of the Gothic school.] But the English poetical writers who preceded him are all more or less impressed with the seal of the Gothic school, and the most noted among them belong to it essentially. Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, to more than one of whom Shakspeare is materially indebted, were the heads of a sect whose subjects and form of composition were varied only as the various forms and subjects of the foreign romantic writers. [Sidenote: Britain the mother of much fine chivalrous poetry.] The rhymed romance, the metrical vision, the sustained allegorical narrative or dialogue, were but differing results of the same principle, and forms too of its original development; for Britain was the mother and nurse of much of the finest chivalrous poetry, as well as the scene where some of its most fascinating tales are laid. It is true that English poetry before the time of Elizabeth presents but few distinguished names; but there is a world of unappropriated treasures of the chivalrous cla.s.s of poetry, which are still the delight of those who possess the key to their secret chambers, and were the archetypes of the earlier poets of that prolific age. It is important to recollect, that among the poets who adorn that epoch, the narrative preceded the dramatic. [Sidenote: Spenser belongs to the Gothic school.] Spenser belongs, in every view, to the romantic or Gothic school; the heroic Mort d'Arthur was the rule of his poetical faith; and it was that school, headed by him, which Shakspeare, on commencing his course and choosing his path, found in possession of all the popularity of the day. [Sidenote: Shakspere too.] Every thing proves that he allowed himself to be guided by the prevailing taste. His early poems belong in design to Spenser's school, and their style is [68:1]often imitative of his. In his dramas he has many points of resemblance to the older chivalrous poets, besides his occasional adoption of their subjects. His respect for Gower is shewn by the repeated introduction of his shade as the speaker in his choruses[68:2]; and particular allusions and images, borrowed from Gothic usages and chivalrous facts, occur at the first blush to the recollection of every one. But there is a more widely spread influence than all this.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's mistakes and] Many of his most faulty peculiarities are directly drawn from this source, and his innumerable misrepresentations or mistakes are not so truly the fruit of his own ignorance, as the necessary qualities of the cla.s.s of poets to which he belonged, shared with him by some of the greatest poetical names which modern Europe can cite. [Sidenote: anomalies, those of his Gothic school.] In this situation are indeed almost all the irregularities and anomalies which have furnished the unbelievers in the divinity of his genius with objects of contemptuous abuse;--his creation of geographies wholly fict.i.tious,--his anachronisms in facts and customs,--his misstatements of historical detail,--his dukes and kings in republics,--his harbours in the heart of continents, and his journies over land to remote islands,--his heathenism in Christian lands and times, and his bishops, and priests, and ma.s.ses, _in partibus infidelium_. [Sidenote: Chaucer and Spenser had the like.] We may censure him for these irregularities if we will; but it is inc.u.mbent on us to recollect that Chaucer and Spenser must bear the same sentence: and if the faults are considered so weighty as to shut out from our notice the works in which they are found, the early literature, not of our own country only, but of the whole of continental Europe, must be thrown aside as one ma.s.s of unworthy fable.

In truth, Shakspeare, in throwing himself on a style of thought and a track of study which exposed him to such errors, did no more than retire towards those principles which not only were the sources of poetry in his own country, but are the fountains from which, in every nation, her first draughts of inspiration are drunk. [Sidenote: Poetry is first a falsifying of History,] Poetry in its earlier stages is universally neither more nor less than a falsifying of history. The decoration of the Real is an exertion of the fancy which marks an age elder than the creation of the purely Ideal; it is an effort more successful than the [69:1]attempt which follows it, and the wholly fict.i.tious has always the appearance of being resorted to from necessity rather than choice.

Cathay is an older and fitter seat of romance than Utopia; and the historical paladins and soldans are characters more poetical than the creatures of pure imagination who displaced them. [Sidenote: and has Ignorance as her ally.] [Sidenote: Her errors depend on the kind of her small knowledge.] But this walk of poetry is one in which she never can permanently linger; her citadel indeed is real existence partially comprehended, but she is unable to defend the fortress after knowledge has begun to sap its outworks; she needs ignorance for her ally while she occupies the domain of history, and when that companion deserts her, she unwillingly retreats on the Possible and Invented[69:2], where she has no enemy to contest her possession of the ground.--While however she does continue in her older haunt, she must sometimes wander out of her imperfectly defined path, and her errors will depend, both in kind and in amount, on the amount and kind of her knowledge. That the qualities of poetical literature, in every nation, are dependent on the number and species of those experiences from which in each particular case the art receives its materials, is indeed too evident to need ill.u.s.tration; but some curious inferences are deducible from an application of this truth to the contrast which is found between the poetical literature of modern Europe, and that older school which has been called the cla.s.sical.

[Sidenote: And hence come distinctive qualities of the Greek and Modern school.] The inherent excellencies of the ancient Greek poetry may yet remain to be accounted for from other causes; but this one principle was adequate to produce the most distinguishing qualities of the pagan literature, while it is distinctly the very same principle, acting in different circ.u.mstances, which has given birth to the opposite character of the modern school of invention. [Sidenote: Middle-Age knowledge of vast extent, but never thorough.] During the period which witnessed the gradual rise of that anomalous fabric of poetry, from whose prostrate fragments the perfected literature of Christian Europe has been erected, knowledge (I am uttering no paradox) was of vast extent; it embraced many different ages and many distant regions: but it was also universally imperfect; much was known in part, but nothing wholly.

[Sidenote: So it invested History with incongruous attributes.] Hence proceeded the specific difference of that widely-spread form of poetical invention, namely, the super-abundance and incongruity of attributes with which [70:1]it invested historical truth; and it is not very difficult to discover why many of those attributes have never thoroughly amalgamated with the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s. The various sources from which the materials of the romantic poetry were drawn, present themselves at once to every mind. [Sidenote: Early modern poets invented a national and original literature,] By the peculiar state of their knowledge, and the rude activity of spirit which was its consequence, the early poets of modern Europe were prepared to invent a species of literature which should be strictly national in its subjects, and in its essential parts wholly original. That new branch was exposed, however, to modifications of various kinds. One temptation to introduce foreign elements, by which its authors were a.s.sailed, was singularly strong, and can scarcely in any other instance have operated on a literature arising in circ.u.mstances otherwise so favourable to originality, as those in which they were placed. [Sidenote: but, knowing cla.s.sics badly,] That temptation was offered by the imperfect acquaintance with the cla.s.sical authors which formed one part of their scattered and ill-reconciled knowledge. [Sidenote: grafted on their own works excrescences from cla.s.sical literature,] They were influenced by this cause, as they could not have failed to be; and the representations of feelings, habits, and thought, which they borrowed from this source, being in their nature dissimilar to the const.i.tuent parts of the system to which they were adjected, never could have harmonised with these, and, under any circ.u.mstances, must have always continued to be excrescences. Other elements of the new system were naturally neither evil in themselves, nor inconsistent with the principles with which it was attempted to combine them, but have a.s.sumed the aspect of deformity and incongruity solely from incidental and extraneous causes. [Sidenote: and on History, fictions and mistakes.] The fictions and mistakes which the ignorance of those fathers of our modern poetical learning superinduced on history ancient and modern, and on every thing which related to the then existing state either of the material world or of human society, were allowable ornaments, so long as knowledge afterwards acquired did not stamp on them the brand of falsehood; but the moment that the falsity was exposed, and the charm of possible existence broken, those adjuncts lost their empire over the imagination, and with it their appearance of fitness as materials for mental activity. [Sidenote: Supernaturalism of the Romantic Poets only believable by superst.i.tion.] In supernatural invention, the early romantic poets [71:1]were still more unfortunate; for when they endeavoured to colour with imaginary hues the awful outlines of the true faith, they attempted a conjunction of holiness with impurity, an identification of the spirit with the flesh, a marriage between the living and the dead; the purer essence revolted from the union, and the human mind could acquiesce in imagining it only while it remained bound in the darkness and fetters of religious corruption. [Sidenote: Characteristics of early Greek poetry.] Turn now to the Grecian poetry, and mark how closely the same principles have operated on it, although the difference of the circ.u.mstances has made the result different. [Sidenote: its tendency to orientalism;] The first Grecian inventors were, it is true, protected in a great measure from the influence of any foreign literature, simply by the ignorant rudeness of those ages of the world during which their task was performed; and even here I have no doubt that an influence not very dissimilar did actually operate; for there seems to be good reason for supposing that, if we had before us the wild songs of such bards as the Thracian Orpheus, or the old Musaeus, we should find them strongly marked by that orientalism towards which the later Greek poetry which remains to us betrays so continual a tendency. In other respects, the spirit in which the Greeks formed their poetical system was identical with our own.

[Sidenote: its falsification of History,] Their elder poets falsified historical facts, invented or disguised historical characters, and framed erroneous representations of the past in time and the distant in place, no otherwise than did the romantic fabulists; and the cla.s.sical inventors continued to have sufficient faith placed in their fictions, merely because knowledge advanced too slowly to allow detection of their falsity so long as the literature of the nation continued to exist for it as a present possession. [Sidenote: its treatment of Religion.] With their religious belief, again, every attractive invention harmonised, and every splendid addition was readily incorporated as a consistent part; where all was false, a falsity the more was unperceived or uncensured, and where sublimity and beauty were almost the only objects sought, they were gladly accepted from whatever quarter or in whatever shape they came.

[Sidenote: Shakspere, for his stories and form, left his own time, and delighted in the past.]

So far as these considerations seem to elucidate the principles on which Shakspeare proceeded, they do so by exhibiting him as withdrawing from his own times as to his subjects and the ex[72:1]ternal form of his works, though not as to their animating spirit,--as placing himself delightedly amidst the rude greatness of older poetry and past ages, and viewing life and nature from their covert, as if he had sat within a solitary and ruined aboriginal temple, and looked out upon the valley and the mountains from among those broken and ma.s.sive columns, whose aspect gave majesty and solemnity to the landscape which was beheld through their moss-grown vistas. [Sidenote: Thence his faults.] So far as these views have any force as a defence of faults detected in the great poet, that defence is founded on the consideration that the errors were unavoidable consequences of the system which produced so much that was admirable, and that they were shared with him by those whom he followed in his selection of subjects and form of writing. So far as all that has been said on this head has a close application to the main subject of our inquiry, its sum is briefly this. [Sidenote: Summary of reasons why Shakspere chose the plot of _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.] [Sidenote: He went back to the school of Chaucer and Spenser; which Milton, after, sought.] [Sidenote: Shakspere's love of old poems.] An argument arises in favour of Shakspeare's choice of the plot of this drama, from its general qualities, as a familiar and favourite story, and one of a cla.s.s which had been frequently used by the older dramatists; that argument receives additional strength from the fact of this individual subject having been previously treated in a dramatic form; and it is rendered almost impregnable when we consider the subject particularly as a chivalrous story, and as belonging and leading us back to that native school to which Shakspeare, though in certain respects infected by the exotic taste of the age, yet in essentials belonged,--the wilderness in which Chaucer had opened up the well-head of poetry, where Gower and Lydgate had drunk freely, and Sackville had more sparingly dipped his brow,--the paradise through which Spenser had joyfully wandered with the heavenly Una,--the patriarchal forest into which afterwards Milton loved to retire from his lamp-lighted chamber, to sleep at the foot of some huge over-hanging oak, and dream of mailed knights riding by his resting-place, or fairy choirs dancing on the green hillocks around,--the enchanted rose garden where Shakspeare himself gathered those garlands of beauty, which he has described as adding glory even to his thoughts of love.

[73:1]When in the chronicle of wasted time I see description of the fairest wights, _And beauty making beautiful old ryme_ In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights; Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see this antique pen would have expresst Even such a beauty as you master now.

_Sonnet 106._

In the Arrangement of the Plot also there are circ.u.mstances which point emphatically to Shakspeare's agency. [Sidenote: Shakspere seen in the simplicity of the plot.] One strong argument is furnished by a very prominent quality of the plot as it is managed,--its simplicity.

[Sidenote: He relied on the execution of the parts, not the complication of the whole.] This quality is like him, as being in this case the result of a close adherence to the original story; but it is also like him in itself, since the arrangement of all his works indicates the operation of a principle tending to produce it, namely, a reliance for dramatic effect on the execution of the parts rather than on the mechanical perfection or complication of the whole. His contemporaries, in their own several ways, bestowed extreme care on their plots.