 CHAPTER XIX Richard the Third may be considered as properly a stage-play. It belongs to the theatre, rather than to the closet. We shall therefore criticise it chiefly with a reference to the manner in which we have seen it performed. It is the character in which Garrick came out. It was the second character in which Mr. Keane appeared, and in which he acquired his fame. Shakespeare we have always with us, actors we have only for a few seasons, and therefore some account of them may be acceptable, if not to our contemporaries, to those who come after us, if that rich and idle personage, posterity, should deign to look into our writings. It is possible to form a higher conception of the character of Richard than that given by Mr. Keane, but we cannot imagine any character represented with greater distinctness and precision, more perfectly articulated in every part. Perhaps indeed there is too much of what is technically called execution. When we first saw the celebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from an exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the general character by the variety of his resources. To be complete, his delineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions. The Richard of Shakespeare is towering in lofty, equally impetuous and commanding, haughty, violent and subtle, bold and treacherous, confident in his strength as well as in his cunning, raised high by his birth and higher by his talents in his crimes, a royal usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant, and a murderer of the house of Plantagenet. But I was born so high, our airy builders in the cedar's top, and dallys with the wind, and scorns the sun. The idea conveyed in these lines, which are indeed omitted in the miserable medley acted for Richard III, is never lost sight of by Shakespeare, and should not be out of the actor's mind for a moment. The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a man striving to be great, but to be greater than he is. Conscious of his strength of will, his power of intellect, his daring courage, his elevated station, and making use of these advantages to commit unheard of crimes, and to shield himself from remorse and infamy. If Mr. Keen does not entirely succeed in concentrating all the lines of the character as drawn by Shakespeare, he gives an animation, vigor and relief to the part which we have not seen equalled. He is more refined than Cook, more bold, varied, and original than Kemble in the same character. In some parts he is deficient in dignity, and particularly in the scenes of state business he has by no means an error of artificial authority. There is at times an aspiring elevation, an enthusiastic rapture in his expectations of attaining the crown, and at others a gloating expression of sullen delight, as if he already clenched the bobble and held it in his grasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling villainy. The progress of wily adulation, of encroaching humility, is finally marked by his action, voice and eye. He seems, like the first tempter, to approach his prey, secure the event, and, as if success, had smoothed his way before him. The late Mr. Cook's manner of representing the scene was more vehement, hurried, and full of anxious uncertainty. This, though, more natural in general, was less in character in this particular instance. Richard should woo less as a lover, than as an actor, to show his mental superiority and power of making others the playthings of his purposes. Mr. Keane's attitude in leaning against the side of the stage, before he comes forward to address Lady Anne, is one of the most graceful and striking ever witnessed on the stage. It would do for Titian to paint. The frequent and rapid transition of his voice, from the expression of the fiercest passion, to the most familiar tones of conversation, was that which gave a peculiar grace of novelty to his acting on his first appearance. This has been since imitated and caricatured by others, and he himself uses the artifice more sparingly than he did. His by-play is excellent, his manner of bidding his friends goodnight after pausing with the point of his sword drawn slowly backward and forward on the ground, as if considering the plan of the battle next day, is a particularly happy and natural thought. He gives to the two last acts of the play the greatest animation and effect. He fills every part of the stage, and makes up for the deficiency of his person by what he has been sometimes objected to as an excess of action. The concluding scene in which he is killed by Richmond is the most brilliant of the whole. He fights at last like one drunk with wounds, and the attitude in which he stands with his hands stretched out after his sword is arrested from him has a preternatural and terrific grandeur, as if his will could not be disarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair had power to kill. Mr. Keane has since, in a great measure, effaced the impression of his Richard III by the superior efforts of his genius and Othello, his masterpiece, in the murder scene in Macbeth, in Richard II, in Sir Giles' Overreach, and lastly, in Orinico. But we still like to look back to his first performance of this part, both because it first assured his admirers of his future success, and because we bore our feeble butt at that time, not useless testimony to the merits of this very original actor, on which the town was considerably divided for no other reason than because they were original. The manner in which Shakespeare's plays have been generally altered or rather mangled by modern mechanists is a disgrace to the English stage. The patchwork Richard III, which is acted under the sanction of his name, and which was manufactured by Kiber, is a striking example of this remark. The play itself is undoubtedly a very powerful effusion of Shakespeare's genius. The groundwork of the character of Richard, the mixture of intellectual vigor with moral depravity, in which Shakespeare delighted to show his strength, gave full scope as well as temptation to the exercise of his imagination. The character of his hero is almost everywhere predominant and marks its lurid track throughout. The original play is, however, too long for representation, and there are some few scenes which might be better spared than preserved, and by omitting which it would remain a complete whole. The only rule indeed for altering Shakespeare is to retrench certain passages, which may be considered either superfluous or obsolete, but not to add or transpose anything. The arrangement and development of this story and the mutual contrast and combination of the dramatic personae are in general as finely managed as the development of the characters or the expression of the passions. This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of the most important and striking passages in the principal character have been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts from other plays. The only intention of which seems to have been to make the character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. It is apparently for no other purpose than to make a gloucester stab King Henry on the stage that the fine abrupt introduction of the character in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whining morality of the auxorious King taken from another play. We say tedious because it interrupts the business of the scene and loses its beauty and effect by having no intelligible connection with the previous character of the mild, well-meaning monarch. The passages, which the unfortunate Henry has to recite are beautiful and pathetic in themselves, but they have nothing to do with the world that Richard has to bustle in. And the same spirit of vulgar caricature is the scene between Richard and Lady Anne, when his wife, interpolated without any authority, merely to gratify this favorite propensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverse consistency Richard, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up by some galvanic process to utter the imprecation without any motive but pure malignity, which Shakespeare has so properly put into the mouth of Northumberland on hearing of Percy's death. To make room for these worse than needless additions, many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the phoperian ignorance of the prompt book critics. We do not mean to insist merely on passages, which are fine as poetry, and to the reader, such as Clarence's dream, etc., but on those which are important to the understanding of the character and peculiarly adapted for stage effect. We will give the following as instances among several others. The first is the scene where Richard enters abruptly to the Queen and her friends to defend himself. Gloucester. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it. Who are they that complain unto the King that I forsooth am stern and love them not? By holy Paul, that I love his grace but lightly, that fill his ears with such dissentuous rumors. Because I cannot flatter and look fair, smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, duck with French nods, and apish courtesy, I must be held a rankerous enemy. Cannot a plain man live and think no harm, but thus his simple truth must be abused with silken sly insinuating jacks? Gray. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace? Gloucester. To thee that hast nor honesty nor grace, when have I injured thee, when done thee wrong, or thee, or thee, or any of your faction, a plague upon you all. Nothing can be more characteristic than the turbulent pretensions to meekness and simplicity in this address. Again, the versatility and adroitness of Richard is admirably described in the following ironical conversation with Breakinberry. Breakinberry. I beseech your graces both to pardon me. His Majesty hath straightly given in charge that no man shall have private conference of what degree soever with your brother. Gloucester. In so, and please, your worship, Breakinberry, you may partake of anything we say. We speak no trees in man. We say the king is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen, well-struck in years, fair and not jealous. We say that shore's wife hath a pretty foot, a cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing, pleasing tongue, that the queen's kindred are made gentle folks. How say you, sir? Can you deny all this? Breakinberry. With this, my lord, myself have not to do. Gloucester. What, fellow, not to do with Mistress Shore? I tell you, sir, he that doth not with her, accepting one, were best to do it secretly alone. Breakinberry. What one, my lord? Gloucester. Her husband, Nave, what's thou betray me? The feigned reconciliation of Gloucester, with the queen's kinsmen, is also a masterpiece, one of the finest strokes in the play, and which serves to show as much as anything the deep, plausible manners of Richard, is the unsuspecting security of Hastings, at the very time when the former is plotting his death. And when the very appearance of cordiality and good humor, on which Hastings builds his confidence, arises from Richard's consciousness of having betrayed him to his room. This, with a whole character of Hastings, is omitted. Perhaps the two most beautiful passages in the original play are the farewell apostrophe of the queen to the tower, where the children are shot up from her in Tyrell's description of their death. We will finish our quotations with them. Queen. Stay, yet look back with me on to the tower, pity you ancient stones, those tender babes, whom Envy hath emured within your walls. Rough cradle for such little pretty ones. Rude, rugged nurse old sullen playfellow, for tender princes. The other passage is the account of their death by Tyrell. Dytyn and Forrest, whom I did suborn, to do this piece of ruthless butchery, albeit they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs, wept like two children in their death's sad story. Oh, thus, quoth Dytyn, lay the gentle babes, thus, thus, quoth Forrest, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another within their innocent alabaster arms. Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, and in that summer beauty kissed each other, a book of prayers on their pillow lay. Which one, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind. But, oh, the devil, there the villains stopped. When Dytyn thus told on, we smothered the most replenished, sweet work of nature, that from the prime creation ere she framed. These are some of those wonderful bursts of feeling, done to the life, to the very height of fancy and nature, which our Shakespeare alone could give. We do not insist on the repetition of these last passages as proper for the stage. We should indeed be loathed to trust them in the mouth of almost any actor. But we should wish them to be retained in preference, at least, to the Fantagini Exhibition of the Young Princes, Edward New York, banding Childish Witt with their uncle. End of Richard III. Chapter 20 of Characters of Shakespeare's Plays by William Haslett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Nemo. Henry VIII. This play contains little action or violence of passion, yet it has considerable interest of a more mild and thoughtful cast, and some of the most striking passages in the author's works. The character of Queen Catherine is the most perfect delineation of matronly dignity, sweetness and resignation that can be conceived. Her appeals to the protection of the king, her remonstrances to the cardinal, her conversations with her women, show a noble and generous spirit accompanied with the utmost gentleness of nature. What can be more affecting than her answer to Campius and Wolsey, who come to visit her as pretended friends? Nay, foresooth my friends, they that must weigh out my afflictions, they that my trust must grow to, live not here. They are, as all my comforts are, far hence, in my own country, lords. Dr. Johnson observes of this play that the meek, sorrowous and virtuous distress of Catherine have furnished some scenes which may be justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy, but the genius of Shakespeare comes in and goes out with Catherine. Every other part may be easily conceived and easily written. This is easily said, but with all due deference, to a so great a reputed authority, is that of Johnson. It is not true. For instance, the scene of Buckingham led to execution is one of the most affecting and natural in Shakespeare, and one to which there is hardly an approach in any other author. Again, the character of Wolsey, the description of his pride and of his fall, are inevitable, and have, besides their gorgeousness of effect, a pathos which only the genius of Shakespeare could lend to the distresses of a proud bad man, like Wolsey. There is a sort of childlike simplicity in the very helplessness of his situation, arising from the recollection of his past overbearing ambition. After the cutting sarcasms of his enemies on his disgrace, against which he bears up with a spirit conscious of his own superiority, he breaks out into that fine apostrophe. Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness. This is the state of man. Today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, and bears his blushing honors thick upon him. The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and, when he thinks good easy man, full surely his greatness is a ripening, nips his root, and then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, these many summers in a sea of glory, but far beyond my depth, my high blown pride at length broke under me, and now has left me, weary and old with service to the mercy of a rude stream that must forever hide me. Vane pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye. I feel my heart new opened. Oh, how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors. There's betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes and our ruin. More pangs and fears than war and women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer. Never to hope again. There is in this passage, as well as in the well-known dialogue of Cromwell which follows, something which stretches beyond commonplace, nor is the account which Griffiths gives of Woolsey's death less Shakespearean, and the candor with which Queen Catherine listens to the praise of him whom of all men, while living she hated most, adds the last graceful finishing to her character. Among other images of great individual beauty might be mentioned, the description of the effect of Anne Boleyn's presenting herself to the crowd at her coronation. While her grace sat down to rest a while, some half an hour or so, in a rich chair of state, opposing freely the beauty of her person to the people. Believe me, sir, she's the goodliest of women that ever lay by man, which, when the people had the full view of, such a noise arose as the shrouds make it see in a stiff tempest as loud and as many tunes. The character of Henry VIII is drawn with great truth and spirit. It is like a very disagreeable portrait, sketched by the hand of a master. His gross appearance, his blustering demeanor, his vulgarity, his ignorance, his sensuality, his cruelty, his hypocrisy, his want of common decency and common humanity are marked in strong lines. His traditional peculiarities of expression complete the reality of the picture. The authoritative expletive, ha, with which he intimates his indignation or surprise, has an effect like the first startling sound that breaks from a thundercloud. He is of all the monarchs in our history the most disgusting, for he unites in himself all the vices of barbarism and refinement without their virtues. Other kings before him, such as Richard III, were tyrants and murderers out of ambition or necessity. They gained or established unjust power by violent means. They destroyed there or made its tenure insecure. But Henry VIII's power is most fatal to those whom he loves. He is cruel and remorseless to pamper his luxurious appetites, bloody and voluptuous, and amorous murderer, and exorious debauchee. His hardened insensibility to the feelings of others is strengthened by the most profligate self-indulgence. The religious hypocrisy, under which he masks his cruelty and his lust, is admirably displayed in the speech in which he describes the first misgivings of his conscience and its increasing throes and terrors which have induced him to divorce his queen. The only thing in his favour in this play is his treatment of Cranmer. There is also another circumstance in his favour, which is his patronage of Hans Holblen. It has been said of Shakespeare, no maid could live near such a man. It might, with his good reason be said, no king could live near such a man. His eye would have penetrated through the pomp of circumstance in the veil of opinion. As it is, he has represented such persons to the life. His plays are in this respect the glass of history. He has done them the same justice as if he had been a privy counselor of his life and in each successive reign. Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters. It is only while living that they are the best of kings. It is their power, their splendour. It is the apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour, or their hatred, that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgment of their favourites or their vassals. But death cancels the bond of allegiance and of interest. In seen as they were, their power and their pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous. The charge brought against modern philosophy as inimical to loyalty is unjust because it might as well be brought lover of kings. We have often wondered that Henry VIII, as he is drawn by Shakespeare, and as we have seen him represented in all the bloated deformity of mind and person, is not hooded from the English stage. King John is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of, and we are not sorry that it is. If we are to indulge our imaginations, we would rather do it upon an imaginary theme. If we are to find subjects for the exercise of our pity and terror, we prefer seeking them in fictitious danger and fictitious distress. It gives a soreness to our feelings of indignation or sympathy, when we know that in tracing the progress of sufferings and crimes we are treading upon real ground, and recollect that the poet's dream denoted a foregone conclusion, irrevocable ills not conjured up by fancy, but placed beyond the reach of poetical justice. That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur, the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies. To consider thus may be to consider too curiously, but still we think that the actual truth of the particular events in proportion, as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure as well as the dignity of tragedy. King John has all the beauties of language and all the richness of the imagination to relieve the painfulness of the subject. The character of King John himself is kept pretty much in the background. It is only marked in by comparatively slight indications. The crimes he is tempted to commit are such as are thrust upon him, rather by circumstances and opportunity, than of his own seeking. He is here represented as more cowardly than cruel, and is more contemptible than odious. The play embraces only a part of his history. There are, however, few characters on the stage that excite more disgust and loathing. He has no intellectual grandeur or strength of character to shield him from the indignation which his immediate conduct provokes. He stands naked and defenseless in that respect, to the worst we can think of him. And besides, we are impelled to put the very worst construction on his meanness and cruelty by the tender picture of the beauty and helplessness of the object of it, as well as by the frantic and heart-rending pleadings of maternal despair. We do not forgive him the death of Arthur because he had too late revoked his doom and tried to prevent it, and perhaps because he has himself repented of his black design. Our moral sense gains courage to hate him the more for it. We take him at his word, and think his purposes must be odious indeed when he himself shrinks back from them. The scene in which King John suggests to Hubert the design of murdering his nephew is a masterpiece of dramatic skill, but it is still inferior, very inferior, to the scene between Hubert and Arthur, when the latter learns the orders to put out his eyes. If anything ever was penned, heart piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, of that which shocks and that which soothes the mind, it is this scene. We will give it entire, though perhaps it is tasking the reader's sympathy too much. Enter Hubert in executioner. Hubert, hate me those irons hot, and look you stand within the harass, when I strike my foot upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth and bind the boy, which you shall find with me. Fast to the chair, be heedful hence and watch. Executioner, I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. Hubert, uncleanly scruples, fear not you, look to it. Young lad, come forth, I have to say with you. Enter Arthur. Arthur. Good morrow, Hubert. Hubert. Morrow, little prince. Arthur. As little prince, having so great a title to be more prince, as may be, you are sad. Hubert. Indeed, I have been merrier. Arthur. Mercy on me, me thinks nobody should be sad but I. Yet I remember when I was in France. Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, only for wantonness. By my Christendom, so were I out of prison, and kept sheep. I should be merry as the day is long, and so I would be here. But that I doubt my uncle practices more harm to me. He is afraid of me, and I of him. Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey's son? Indeed it is not, and I would to heaven I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. Hubert. If I talk to him with his innocent prait, he will awake my mercy, which lies dead. Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch. Aside. Arthur. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale today. And, Soothe, I would you were a little sick, that I might sit all night and watch with you. Alas, I love you more than you do me. Hubert. His words do take possession of my bosom. Read here, young Arthur, showing a paper. How now, foolish room! Aside. Turning this bittiest torture out of door. I must be brief. Lest resolution drop out at mine eyes and tender womanish tears. Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ? Arthur. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul a fact. Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes? Hubert. Young boy, I must. Arthur. And will you? Hubert. And I will. Arthur. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, I knit my handkerchief about your brows. The best I had, a princess rotted to me. And I did never ask at you again. And with my hand at midnight held your head. And, like the watchful minutes to the hour, still at a non-cheered up the heavy time, saying what lack you, and where lies your grief? Or what good love may I perform for you? Many a poor man's son would have lain still, and narrow spoke a loving word to you. But you at your sick service had a prince, nay, you may think my love was a crafty love and call it to cunning. Do, and if you will, if heaven be pleased that you must use me ill. Why, then, you must. Will you put out mine eyes? These eyes that never did and never shall so much as frown on you. Hubert. I've sworn to do it, and with hot irons must I burn them out. Arthur. Oh, if an angel should have come to me and told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, I would not have believed a tongue but Hubert's. Hubert. Come forth, do as I bid you. Stamps, and the men enter. Arthur. Oh, save me, Hubert, save me. My eyes are out even with the fierce looks of these bloody men. Hubert. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. Arthur. Alas, what need you be so boisterous rough? I will not struggle. I will stand stone still. For heaven say, Hubert, let me not be bound. Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away, and I will sit as quiet as a lamb. I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, nor look upon the iron angrily. Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you. Whatever torment you do put me to. Hubert. Go, stand within, and let me alone with him. Executioner. I am best pleased to be from such a deed. Exit. Arthur. Alas, I then have chid away my friend. You have to stir and look but a gentle heart. Let him come back, that his compassion may give life to yours. Hubert. Come, boy, prepare yourself. Arthur. Is there no remedy? Hubert. None but to lose your eyes. Arthur. Oh, heaven, that there were but a moat in yours, a grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair. Any annoyance in that precious sense. Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there, your vile intent must need seem horrible. Hubert. Is this your promise? Go to hold your tongue. Arthur. Let me not hold my tongue. Let me not, Hubert. Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue, so I may keep mine eyes. Oh, spare mine eyes, though to no use, but still to look on you. Lo, by my troth the instrument is cold and would not harm me. Hubert. I can heed it, boy. Arthur. Now, in good sooth, the fire is dead with grief. Being create for comfort to be used in undeserved extremes. See, Elch yourself. There is no malice in this burning coal. The breath of heaven hath blown its spirit out and strewed repentant ashes on its head. Hubert. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. Arthur. All things that you shall use to do me wrong, deny their office. Only you do lack that mercy which fierce fire and iron extend. Creatures of note for mercy lacking uses. Hubert. Well, see to live. I will not touch thine eyes for all the treasure that thine uncle owns. Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, with the same very iron to burn them out. Arthur. Oh, now you look like Hubert. All this while you were disguised. Hubert. Peace, no more ado. Your uncle must not to know, but you are dead. I'll fill these dogs spies with false reports. And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure that Hubert for the wealth of all the world will not offend thee. Arthur. Oh, heaven, I thank you, Hubert. Hubert. Silence, no more. Go closely in with me. Much danger do I undergo for thee. Exit. His death afterwards, when he throws himself from his prison walls, excites the utmost pity for his innocence and friendless situation, and while justifies the exaggerated denunciations of Falcon Bridge to Hubert, whom he suspects wrongfully of the deed. There's not yet so ugly a fiend of hell as thou shalt be, if thou dits kill this child. If thou dits but consent to this most cruel act, do but despair. And if thou wants a cord, the smallest thread that ever spider twisted from her womb will strangle thee. A rush will be a beam to hang thee on. Her wits thou drown thyself, but put a little water in a spoon, and it shall be as all the ocean. Enough, the stifle such a villain up. The excess of maternal tenderness, rendered desperate by the fickleness of friends and the injustice of fortune, and made stronger in will, in proportion to the want of all other power, was never more finely expressed than in constants. The dignity of her answer to King Philip, when she refuses to accompany his messenger, to me and to the state of my great grief, let kings assemble. Her indignant reproach to Austria for deserting her cause, her invocation to death, that love of misery, however fine and spirited, all yield to the beauty of the passage where, her passions subsiding into tenderness, she addresses the cardinal in these words. O Father Cardinal, I have heard you say that we shall see and know our friends in heaven. If that be true, I shall see my boy again. For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, to him that did but yesterday's aspire, there was not such a gracious creature born. But now we'll canker sorrow eat my bud, and chase the native beauty from his cheek, and he will look as hollow as a ghost, as dim and meagre as an egg is fit, and so he'll die, and rising so again, when I shall meet him in the court of heaven, I shall not know him. Therefore never, never must I behold my pretty Arthur Moore. King Philip, you are as fond of grief as of your child, Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child. Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, remembers me of all his gracious parts, stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. Then have I reason to be fond of grief. The contrasts between the mild resignation of Queen Catherine to her own wrongs and the wild, uncontrollable affliction of Constance for the wrongs which she sustains as a mother is no less naturally conceived than it is ably sustained throughout these two wonderful characters. The accompaniment of the comic character of the bastard was well chosen to relieve the poignant agony of suffering and the cold, cowardly policy of behavior and the principal characters of this play. It's spirit and vengeance, volubility of tongue, and forwardness and action are unbounded. Alakwondo, suffle menandes irrat, says Ben Johnson of Shakespeare, but we should be sorry if Ben Johnson had been his licensor. We prefer the heedless magnanimity of his wit infinitely to all Johnson's laborious caution. The character of the bastard's comic humor is the same, in essence, as that of other comic characters in Shakespeare. They always run on with good things and are never exhausted. They are always daring and successful. They have words at will and a flow of wit like a flow of animal spirits. The difference between Falconbridge and the others is that he is a soldier and brings his wit to bear upon action, is courageous with his sword as well as tongue, and stimulates his gallantry by his jokes, his enemies feeling the sharpness of his blows and the sting of his sarcasms at the same time. Among his happiest sallies are his descanting on the composition of his own person, his invective against commodity, tickling commodity, and his expression of contempt for the archduke of Austria, who had killed his father, which begins in jest but ends in serious earnest. His conduct at the Siege of Angears shows that his resources were not confined to verbal retorts. The same exposure to the policy of courts and camps of kings, nobles, priests, and cardinals takes place here, as in the other plays we have gone through, and we shall not go into a disgusting repetition. This, like the other plays taken from English history, is written in a remarkably smooth and flowing style, very different from some of the tragedies Macbeth, for instance. The passages consist of a series of single lines, not running into one another. This peculiarity in the versification, which is most common in the three parts of Henry VI, has been assigned as a reason why those plays were not written by Shakespeare, but the same structure verse occurs in his other undoubted plays, as in Richard II and in King John. The following are instances. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanche, is near to England. Look upon the years of Lewis to the Dauphin, and that lovely maid. If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, where should he find it fairer than in Blanche? If zealous love should go in search of virtue, where should he find it purer than in Blanche? If love ambitious sought a match of birth, whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanche? Such as she is, in beauty virtue birth, is the young Dauphin, every way complete. If not complete of, say he is not she, and she again wants nothing, to name want. If want it be not, that she is not he. He is the half part of a blessed man, left to be finished by such as she, and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him. Oh, two such silver currents, when they join do glorify the banks that bound them in. When two such shores, to two such streams made one, two such controlling bounds shall you be kings, to these two princes, if you marry them. Another instance, which is certainly very happy as an example of the simple enumeration of a number of particulars is Salisbury's Remonstrance, against the second crowning of the king. Therefore to be possessed would double pomp, to guard a title that was rich before, to guild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, to add another hue onto the rainbow, or with taper light, to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful, and ridiculous excess. End of King John. the most delightful of Shakespeare's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind, not despise them, and still less bear any ill will towards them. Shakespeare's comic genius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons than in leaving a sting behind it. He gives the most amusing exaggeration of the prevailing foibles of his characters, but in a way that they themselves, instead of being offended at, would almost join in to humor. He rather contrives opportunities for them to show themselves off in the happiest lights than renders them contemptible in the perverse construction of the witch or a malice of others. There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on those preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those who would impose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit in satire, such as we see it in congreve, witchery, vambrach, etc. To this succeeds a state of society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world, or by their successful exposure on the stage, and which by neutralizing the materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all but the sentimental, such as our modern comedy. There is a period in the progress of manners anterior to both these, in which the foibles and follies of individuals are of natures planting, not the growth of art or study, in which they are therefore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can have their whim out, and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasure from humoring the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, them wish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is the comedy which we generally find in Shakespeare. Whether the analysis here given be just or not, the spirit of his comedies is evidently quite distinct from that of the authors above mentioned, as it is in its essence the same with that of Cervantes, and also very frequently of Molière, though he was more systematic in his extravagance than Shakespeare. Shakespeare's comedy is of a pastoral and poetical cast. Folly is indigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, unchecked luxurience. Absurdity has every encouragement afforded it, and nonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs a riot in a conceit and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turn the meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. The relish which he has of a pun, or the quaint humor of a low character, does not interfere with the delight with which he describes a beautiful image, or the most refined love. The clown's forced jests do not spoil the sweetness of the character of Viola. The same house is big enough to hold Malvolio, the Countess, Maria, Sertobi, and Sir Andrew Aguicic. For instance, nothing can fall much lower than this last character in Intellect or Morals. Yet, how are his weaknesses nursed and dandled by Sertobi into something high fantastical? When on Sir Andrew's commendation of himself for dancing and fencing, Sertobi answers, What does thou mean? Wherefore these things hid? Wherefore had these gifts curtain before them? Are they like to take dust like Mistress Mal's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a caranto? My very walk should be a cheek. I would not so much make water, but in a sink-pace. What dost thou mean? Is this a world I had virtues in? I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg it was framed under the star of a galliard. How, Sertobi, Sir Andrew, and the clown afterward chirp over their cups, how they rouse the night owl in a catch, able to draw three souls out of one weaver. What can be better than Sertobi's unanswerable answer to Malvolio? Does thou think? Because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes than ale? In a word, the best turn is given to everything instead of the worst. There is a constant infusion of the romantic and enthusiastic, in proportion as the characters are natural and sincere. Whereas, in the more artificial style of comedy, everything gives way to ridicule and indifference. There being nothing left but affectation on one side and incredulity on the other. Much as we like Shakespeare's comedies, we cannot agree with Dr. Johnson that they are better than his tragedies, nor do we like them half so well. If his inclination to comedy sometimes led him to trifle with the seriousness of tragedy, the poetical and impassioned passages are the best parts of his comedies. The great and secret charm of Twelfth Night is the character of Viola. Much as we like catches and cakes and ale, there is something that we like better. We have a friendship for Sertobi. We patronize Sir Andrew. We have an understanding with the clown, a sneaking kindness for Maria and her rogueries. We feel a regard for Malvolio, and sympathize with his gravity, his smiles, his cross-scarters, his yellow stockings, and imprisonment in the stocks. But there is something that excites in us a stronger feeling than all this. It is Viola's confession of her love. Duke. What's her history? Viola. A blank, my lord. She never told her love. She let concealment, like a warm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was this not love indeed? We men may say more, swear more, but indeed our shows are more than will. For still we prove much in our vows, but little in our love. Died thy sister of her love, my boy? I am all the daughters of my father's house, and all the brothers too, and yet I know not. Shakespeare alone could describe the effect of his own poetry. Oh, it came over the ear, like the sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor. What we so much admire here is not the image of patience on a monument, which has been generally quoted, but the lines before and after it. They give a very echo to the seat, where love is thrown. How long ago it is since we first learned to repeat them, and still, still they vibrate on the heart, like the sounds which the passing wind draws from the trembling strings of a harp left on some desert shore. There are other passages of not less impassioned sweetness, such as Olivia's address to Sebastian, whom she supposes to have already deceived her in a promise of marriage. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well, now go with me and with this holy man into the chantry by, there before him, and underneath that consecrated roof, plate me the full assurance of your faith, that my most jealous and too doubtful soul may live at peace. We have already said something of Shakespeare's songs. One of the most beautiful of them occurs in this play, with a preface of his own to it. Duke. Oh, fellow come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cicero. It is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters and the sun and the freemades that weave their threat with bones. Do use to chant it. It is silly sooth. Dally's with the innocence of love, like the old age. Song. Come away, come away, death. And in sad cypress, let me be laid. Fly away, fly away, breath. I am slain by a fair cool maid. My shroud of white stuck all with you, oh, prepare it. My part of death, no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet. On my black coffin, let there be strone. Not a friend, not a friend, greet my poor corpse, where my bone shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me aware. Sad true love never find my grave to weep there. Who after this will say that Shakespeare's genius was only fitted for comedy? Yet after reading other parts of this play, and particularly the garden scene where Malvolio picks up the letter, if we were to say that his genius for comedy was less than his genius for tragedy, it would perhaps only prove that our own taste in such matters is more sadder nine than mercurial. Enter Maria, Sir Toby. Here comes the little villain. How now, my nettle of India? Maria, get your three into the box tree. Malvolio's coming down this walk. He has been yonder in the sun, practicing behavior to his own shadow this half hour. Observe him for the love of mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close in the name of jesting, lie thou there, for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. They hide themselves. Maria throws down a letter and exits. Malvolio, tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me, and I've heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy it, should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than anyone else that follows her. What should I think of it? Sir Toby, here's an overwinning rogue. Fabian, oh peace, contemplation makes a rare turkey cock of him, how he jets under his advanced plumes. Sir Andrew, slight I could so be the rogue. Sir Toby, peace I say. To be Count Malvolio. Sir Toby, oh rogue. Sir Andrew, pistol him, pistol him. Sir Toby, peace, peace. There is example for it. A lady of the starchy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. Sir Andrew, fire on him, Jezebel. Fabian, oh peace, now he's deeply in. Look how imagination blows him. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my chair of state. Sir Toby, alpha stone bowed hit him in the eye. Calling my officers about to me in my branched velvet gown, haven't come from a daybed, while I've left Olivia sleeping. Sir Toby, fire on him, stone. Fabian, oh peace, peace. Then to have the humor of state, and after a demure travel of regard, telling them, I know my place as I would they should do theirs. To ask for my kinsman Toby. Sir Toby, thulson shackles. Fabian, oh peace, peace, peace. Now now. Seven of my people, with an obedient start to make out for him, I frown the while. Perchance, wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches, curtsies there to me. Sir Toby, shall this fellow live? Fabian, though our silence be drawn from us with cares, yet peace. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an awestare regard to control. Sir Toby, and does not Toby take you below the lips then? Saying, cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech. Sir Toby, what, what? You must amend your drunkenness. Fabian, nay, patience, we break this in use of our plot. Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish night. Sir Andrew, that's me, I warn you. One, Sir Andrew. Sir Andrew, I knew it was I for many to call me fool. What employment have we here? Ticking up the letter. The letter and his comments on it are equally good. If poor Malvolio's treatment afterwards is a little hard, poetical justice is done in the uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of her mistaken attachment to Cesario, as her insensibility to the violence of the Duke's passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's concealed love of him. End of Twelfth Night Chapter 23 Of Characters of Shakespeare's Place by William Haslett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Two Gentlemen of Rurona This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatized with very little labour or pretension, yet there are passages of high poetical spirit and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which are undoubtedly Shakespeare's. And there is, throughout the conduct of the fable, a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his. One of the editors, we believe, Mr. Pope, remarks in a marginal note to the Two Gentlemen of Rurona. It is observable, I know not for what cause, that the style of this comedy is less figurative and more natural and unaffected than the greater part of this authors, that's supposed to be one of the first he wrote. Yet so little does the editor appear to have made up his mind upon this subject that we find the following note to the very next, the second scene. Quote, This whole scene, like many others in these plays, some of which I believe were written by Shakespeare and others interpolated by the players, is composed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only by the gross taste of the age he lived in, papalout placerant. I wish I had authority to leave them out, but I have done all I could, set to mark of reprobation upon them throughout this edition. It is strange that our fastidious critic should fall so soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiar parts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits, lo, they may be for what we know, but then they are not poor, but rich ones. The scene of Launce with his dog, not that in the second but that in the fourth act, is a perfect treat in the way of farcical drollery and invention, nor do we think Speed's manner of proving his master to be in love, deficient in wit or sense, though the style may be criticized as not simple enough for the modern taste. Valentine, why, how know you that I am in love? Speed, married by these special marks. First, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish a love song like a robin red breast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his ABC, to weep like a young wench that had buried a grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak pooling like a beggar at Halimas. You were want when you laughed, to crow like a cock, when you walked, to walk like one of the lions, when you fasted it was presently after dinner, when you looked sadly it was for want of money, and now you're a metamorphosed with a mistress that when I look on you, I can hardly think you, my master. The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shows such a disposition to Kokutry about receiving the letter from Proteus, and her behavior afterwards, and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy, her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful piece of poetry. Lucetta, I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, but qualify the fire's extremist rage, lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. Julia, the more that damps it up, the more it burns, the current that with gentle murmur glides, thou knowest, being stopped, impatiently doth rage. But when his fair course is not hindered, he makes sweet music with the enameled stones, giving a gentle kiss to every sedge he overtakeeth in his pilgrimage, and so by many winding nooks he strays, with willing sport to the wild ocean. Footnote, the river wanders at its own sweet will, Wordsworth. Then let me go, and hinder not my course, I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, and make a pastime of each weary step, till the last step have brought me to my love, and they are all rest, as after much turmoil, a blessed soul doth in Elysium. If Shakespeare indeed had written only this and other passages, and the two gentlemen of Verona, he would almost have deserved Milton's praise of him, and sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child, warbles in his native wood notes wild. But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this. End of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. That in spite of the change of manners and of prejudices, still holds undisputed possession of the stage. Shakespeare's malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolent you. In proportion, as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear, baited with a rabble's curse, he becomes a half-favorite with a philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries. Shylock is a good hater, a man no less sinned against than sinning. If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has strong grounds for the lodged hate he bears in Tonio, which he explains with equal force of eloquence and reason. He seems the depository of the vengeance of his race, and though the long habit of booting over daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper with inverted misanthropy and hardened him against the contempt of mankind, this adds but little to the triumphant pretensions of his enemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixed up with a gall and bitterness of his resentment. The constant apprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled, and trampled on might be supposed to sour the most forebearing nature and to take something from that milk of human kindness with which his persecutors contemplated his indignities. The desire of revenge is almost inseparable from the sense of wrong, and we can hardly help sympathizing with the proud spirit hid beneath his Jewish gabardine, stung to madness by repeated undeserved provocations and laboring to throw off the load of obliquary and oppression heaped upon him and all his tribe by one desperate act of lawful revenge, till the ferociousness of the means by which he is to execute his purpose and the pertinacity with which he adheres to it turn us against him. But even at last, when disappointed of the sanguinary revenge with which he had blooded his hopes and exposed to beggary contempt by the letter of the law on which he had insisted with so little remorse we pity him and think him hardly dealt with by his judges. In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries he has the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoning on their own principle and practice. They are so far from allowing of any measure of equal dealing of common justice or humanity between themselves and the Jew, that even when they come to ask a favor of him and Shylock reminds them that on such a day they spit upon him another spurned him, another called him dog, and for these courtesies request he'll lend them so much monies, Antonio, his old enemy, instead of any acknowledgment of the shrewdness and justice of his remonstrance, which would have been preposterous in a respectable Catholic merchant in those times, threatens him with a repetition of the same treatment. I am as like to call thee so again, to spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. After this, the appeal to the Jews' mercy, as if there were any common principle of right and wrong between them, is the rankest hypocrisy, or the blindest prejudice, and the Jews answer to one of Antonio's friends who ask him what his pound of forfeit flesh is good for, is irresistible. To bait fish with all, if it will feed nothing else it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me of half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies, and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer that a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you and the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wronged a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wronged a Jew, why should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why revenge? The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. The whole of the trial scene, both before and after the entrance of Portia, is a masterpiece of dramatic skill. The legal acuteness, the passionate declamations, the sound maxims of jurisprudence, the wit and irony interspersed in it, the fluctuations of hope and fear in the different persons, and the completeness and suddenness of the catastrophe cannot be surpassed. Shylock, who is his own counsel, defends himself well, and is triumphant on all the general topics that are urged against him, and only fails through illegal flaw. Take the following as an instance. Shylock. What judgment shall I dread doing no wrong? You have among you many a purchase slave, which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, you use an abject and slavish part, because you bought them. Shall I say to you, let them be free, marry them to your heirs? Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds be made as soft as yours, and let their pallets be seasoned with such vines? You will answer. The slaves are ours. So do I answer you. The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it. If you deny me, fie upon your law. There is no force in the decree of Venice. I stand for judgment. Answer. Shall I have it? The keenness of his revenge awakes all his faculties, and he beats back all opposition to his purpose, whether grave or gay, whether of wit or argument, with an equal degree of earnestness and self-possession. His characters displayed as distinctly and other less prominent parts of the play, and we may collect from a few sentences the history of his life, his descent and origin, his thrift and domestic economy, his affection for his daughter whom he loves next to his wealth, his courtship, and his first present to Leah his wife. I would not have parted with it, the ring which he first gave her, for a wilderness of monkeys, what a fine hebreism is implied in this expression. Portia is not a very great favorite with us. Neither are we in love with her maid Nerissa. Portia has a certain degree of affectation and pedantry about her, which is very unusual in Shakespeare's women, but which perhaps was a proper qualification for the office of a civil doctor, which she undertakes and executes so successfully. The speech about mercy is very well, but there are a thousand finer ones in Shakespeare. We did not admire the scene of the caskets, and object entirely to the black prince, Marochius. We should like Jessica better if she had not deceived and robbed her father, and Lorenzo, if he had not married a Jewish, though he thinks he has a right to wrong a Jew. The dialogue between this newly married couple by moonlight, beginning on such a night etc., is a collection of classical elegancies. Lancelot, the Jews man, is an honest fellow. The dilemma in which he describes himself placed between his conscience and the fiend, the one of which advises him to run away from his master's service, and the other, to stay in it, is exquisitely humorous. Grasciano is a very admirable subordinate character. He is the jester of the peace, yet one speech of his, in his own defense, contains a whole volume of wisdom. Antonio. I hold the world but is the world, Grasciano, a stage where everyone must play his part, and mine a sad one. Grasciano. Let me play the fool, with mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come, and let my liver rather heat with wine, than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster, sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice by being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio, I love thee, and it is my love that speaks. There are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond, and do a woeful stillness entertain, with purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit. As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, and when I hope my lips let no dog bark? Now, my Antonio, I do know of these that therefore are only reputed wise, for saying nothing, who, I am very sure, if they should speak, would almost dam those ears, which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time, but fish not with a smell and collie bait, for this fools gudgen, this opinion. Grasciano's speech, on the philosophy of love, and the effect of habit in taking off the force of passion, is as full of spirit and good sense. The graceful winding up with this play in the fifth act, after the tragic business is dispatched, is one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's knowledge of the principles of the drama. We do not mean the pretended quarrel between Portia and Narissa and their husbands about the rings, which is amusing enough, but the conversation just before and after the return of Portia to her own house, beginning, how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank, and ending, peace, how the moon sleeps within dominion, and would not be awaked. There's a number of beautiful thoughts crowded into that short space and linked together by the most natural transitions. When we first went to see Mr. Keen in Shylock, we expected to see, what we had been used to see, a decrepit old man, bent with age and ugly with mental deformity, grinning with deadly malice, with a venom of his heart congealed in the expression of his countenance, sullen, morose, gloomy, and flexible, brooding over one idea, that of his hatred, and fixed on one unalterable purpose, that of his revenge. We were disappointed, because we had taken our idea from other actors, not from the play. There is no proof there that Shylock is old but a single line. Masonic and old Shylock both stand forth, which does not imply that he is infirm with age, and the circumstance that he has a daughter marriageable, which does not imply that he is old at all. It would be too much to say that his body should be made cryptid and deformed to answer to his mind, which is bowed down and warped, with prejudices and passion. That he has but one idea it is not true. He has more ideas than any other person in the peace. And, if he is intense and inveterate in the pursuit of his purpose, he shows the utmost elasticity, vigor, and presence of mind in the means of attain it. But so rooted was our habitual impression of the part, from seeing it caricatured in the representation, that it was only from a careful perusal of the play itself that we saw our error. The stage is not in general the best place to study our author's characters in. It is too often filled with traditional common place conceptions of the part, handed down from sire to son, and suited to the taste of the great vulgar and the small. Tis an unweeded garden. Things rank and gross, do merely gender in it. If a man of genius comes once in an age to clear away the rubbish, to make it fruitful and wholesome, they cry. Tis a bad school. It may be like nature. It may be like Shakespeare. But it is not like us. Admirable critics. End of The Merchant of Venice We wonder that Mr. Pope should have entertained doubts as to the genuineness of this play. He was, we suppose, shocked, as a certain critic suggests, at the chorus, time, leaping over 16 years with his crutch between the third and fourth act, and at Antigonus' landing with the infant Peridice on the sea coast of Bohemia. These slips or blemishes, however, do not prove it not to be Shakespeare's, for he was as likely to fall into them as anybody. But we do not know anybody but himself, who could produce the beauties. The stuff of which the tragic passion is composed, the romantic sweetness, the comic humor, are evidently his. Even the crapped and tortuous style of the speeches of Leonty's, reasoning on his own jealousy, beset with doubts and fears, and entangled more and more in the thorny labyrinth, there's every mark of Shakespeare's peculiar manner of conveying the painful struggle of different thoughts and feelings, laboring for utterance and almost strangled in the birth, for instance. How you not seen, Camillo, but that's past doubt you have for your eyeglass is thicker than a cuckold's horn, or heard, for to a vision so apparent, rumour cannot be mute, or thought, for cogitation resides not within man that does not think my wife is slippery. If thou wilt confess, or else be impudently negative, thou have no eyes, nor ears, nor thought. Here Leonty's is confounded with his passion, and does not know which way to turn himself, to give words to the anguish, rage, and apprehension which tug at his breast. It is only as he has worked up into a clearer conviction of his wrongs by insisting on the grounds of his unjust suspicions to Camillo, who irritates him by his opposition, that he bursts out into the following vehement strain of bitter indignation, yet even here his passion staggers, and is, as it were, oppressed with its own intensity. Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek as meeting noses, kissing with inside lip, stopping the career of laughter with a sigh, a note infallible of breaking honesty, horsing foot on foot, skulking in corners, wishing clocks were swift, hours, minutes, the noon, midnight, and all eyes blind with a pin in wet, but theirs, theirs only, that wouldn't seem bewicked. Is this nothing? What in the world and all that's in it is nothing? The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia is nothing, my wife is nothing. The character of Hermione is as much distinguished by its saint-like resignation and patient forbearance as that of Polina is, by her zealous and spirited remonstrances against the injustice done to the queen, and by her devoted attachment to her misfortunes. Hermione's restoration to her husband and her child, after her long separation from them, is as affecting in itself as it is striking in the representation. Camillo and the old shepherd and his son are subordinate, but not uninteresting instruments in the development of the plot, and though last not least comes Autolicus, a very pleasant, thriving rogue, and what is the best feather in the cap of all-navery, he escapes with impunity in the end. The Winter's Tale is one of the best acting of our author's plays. We remember seeing it with great pleasure many years ago. It was on the night that King took leave of the stage, when he and Mrs. Jordan played together in the after-piece of the wedding day. Nothing could go off with more kala, with more spirit and grandeur of effect. Mrs. Sidon's played Hermione, and in the last scene acted the painted statue to the life, with true monumental dignity and noble passion. Mr. Kemble, in Leontes, worked himself up into a very fine, classical frenzy, and Bannister, as Autolicus, roared as loud for pity as a sturdy beggar could do, who felt none of the pain he counterfeited, and was sound of wind and limb. We shall never see these parts so acted again, or if we did, it would be in vain. Actors grow old, or no longer surprise us by their novelty. But true poetry, like nature, is always young, and we still read the courtship of Florizel and Perdita as we welcome the return of spring with the same feelings as ever. Florizel, the dearest Perdita, with these forced thoughts I prithee, darken not the mirth of the feast, or I'll be thine, my fair, or not my father's, for I cannot be mine own nor anything to any if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, though destinies say no. Be merry, gentle, strangle such thoughts as these with anything that you behold the while. Your guests are coming, lift up your countenance, as it were the day of celebration of that natural which we too have sworn will come. Perdita, O Lady Fortune, stand you as spacious. Enter shepherd, clown, mobs, a dog, a servant, with polyxonies and Camillo disguised. Florizel, see your guest's approach. Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, and let's be read with mirth. Shepherd, fight, daughter, when my old wife lived upon this day she was both pantler, butler, cook, both dame and servant, welcomed all, served all, would sing her song and dance her turn, now here at the upper end of the table, now at the middle, on his shoulder and his, her face afar with labour, and the things she took to quench it she would teach one sip. You are retired as if you were a feasted one and not the hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid these unknown friends to us welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends more known. Come, quench your blushes and present yourself that which you are, mistress of the feast. Come on, and bid us welcome to your sheep-sharing, as your good flock shall prosper. Perdita, sir, welcome to polyxonies and Camillo. It is my father's will I should take on me, the hostess' ship of the day. You're welcome, sir. Give me those flowers, their darkest. Reverend sirs, for you there's rosemary and roue. These keep seeming and savor all the winter long. Grace and remembrance be unto you both, and welcome to our sharing. Polyxonies, shepherdess, a fair one are you. Well, you fit our ages with flowers of winter. Perdita, sir, the year-growing ancient. Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth of trembling winter. The fairest flowers of the season are our carnations, and streaked ghillie flowers, which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind are rustic gardens barren, and I care not to get slips of them. Polyxonies, wherefore, gentle maiden, do you neglect them? Perdita, for I've heard it said there is an art which in their piousness shares with great creating nature. Polyxonies, say there be, yet nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean, so all that art, which you say adds to nature, is an art that nature makes. You cease, we made, we marry a gentler scion to the wildest stock, and make conceive a bark of bacer kind by bud of nobler race. This is an art which does mend to nature, change it rather, but the art itself is nature. Perdita, so it is. Footnote, the lady we see here gives up the argument, but keeps her mind. Polyxonies, they make your garden rich in ghillie flowers, and do not call them bastards. Perdita, I'll not put the dibble in earth to set one's slip of them. No more than where I painted, I would wish this youth should say it were well, and only therefore desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you. Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, the marigold that goes to bed with the sun and with him rises, weeping. These are flowers of middle summer, and I think they are given to men of middle age. You are very welcome. Camillo, I should leave grazing where I owe you a flock, and only live by gazing. Perdita, out alas, you'd be so lean, the blasts of January would blow you through and through. Now, my fairest friends, I would I had some flowers of the spring that might become your time of day, and yours, and yours, that wear upon your virgin branches yet your maiden heads growling. Oh, preserpina, for the flowers now that frighted thou, let's fall from disses wagon, daffodils that come before the swallowed dares and take the winds of march with beauty. Violet's dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juneau's eyes, or Sithria's breath. Pale primroses, the dye unmarried ere they can behold bright febis in his strength, a malady most incident to maids. Bold ox lips and the crown imperial, lilies of all kinds, the fleur-de-liebing one. Oh, these I lack to make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, to throw him o'er and o'er. Florizel, what, like a course, purditor? No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on. Not like a course, or if not to be buried, but quick, and in my arms. Come, take your flowers, methinks, I play as I have seen them do in wits and pastoral's. Sure this robe of mine does change my disposition. Florizel, what you do still better's what is done. When you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever. When you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms, pray so, and for the ordering your affairs, to sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you a wave of the sea that you might ever do, nothing but that. Move still, still so, and own no other function. Each you're doing so singular in each particular, crowns what you're doing in the present deeds, that all your acts are queens. Purditor, oh, dorklees, your praises are too large, but that your youth and the true blood which peeps forth fairly through it, do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd. With wisdom, I might fear my dorklees, you would me the fosway. Florizel, I think you have as little skill to fear as I have purpose to put you to it. But come, our dance, I pray, your hand, my Purditor, so turtles pair that never mean depart. Purditor, I'll swear for him. Polyxonies, this is the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sword. Nothing she does or seems but smacks of something greater than herself. Too noble for this place. Camillo, he tells us something that makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is the queen of curds and cream. This delicious scene is interrupted by the father of the prince discovering himself to Florizel and hotly breaking off the intended match between his son and Purditor. When Polyxonies goes out, Purditor says, even here, undone. I was not much afraid. For once or twice I was about to speak and tell him plainly the self-same son that shines upon his court hides not his visage from our cottage, but looks on to like. Well, please, you sir, be gone. To Florizel, I told you what would come of this. Beseech you of your own state, take care. This dream of mine being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further, but milk my use and weep. As Purditor, the supposed shepherdess, turns out to be the daughter of Hermione and a princess in disguise. Both feelings of the pride of birth and the claims of nature are satisfied, but the fortunate event of the story and the fine romance of poetry is reconciled to the strictest court etiquette. End of The Winter's Tale Chapter 26 Of Characters of Shakespeare's Plays by William Haslett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. All's well that ends well. All's well that ends well is one of the most pleasing of our author's comedies. The interest is, however, more of a serious than of a comic nature. The character of Helen is one of great sweetness and delicacy. She is placed in circumstances of the most critical kind, and has to court her husband both as a virgin and a wife, yet the most scrupulous nicety of female modesty is not once violated. There is not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheeks, or that for a moment lessens her in our esteem. Perhaps the romantic attachment of a beautiful and virtuous girl to one placed above her hopes by the circumstances of birth and fortune was never so exquisitely expressed as in the reflections which she utters when young Roussillian leaves his mother's house, under whose protection she has been brought up with him, to repair to the French king's court. Helena, oh, that were all. I think not on my father, and these great tears grace his remembrance more than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgotten him. My imagination carries no favour in it, but Bertram's. I am undone. There is no living, none, if Bertram be away. It were all one that I should love a bright, particular star, and think to edit. He is so above me, in his bright radiance and collateral light, must I be comforted, not in his fear? The ambition in my love thus plagues itself. The hind that would be mated by the lion must die for love. Twas pretty, though a plague, to see him every hour, to sit and draw his arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, and our hearts' table. Heart too capable of every lion and trick of his sweet favour. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy must sanctify his relics. The interest excited by this beautiful picture of a kind and innocent heart is kept up afterwards by her resolution to follow him to France, the success of her experiment in restoring the king's health, her demanding Bertram in marriage's recompense, his leaving her in disdain, her interview with him afterwards disguised as Diana, a young lady whom he importunes with his secret addresses, and their final reconciliation when the consequences of her stratagem and the proofs of her love are fully made known. The persevering gratitude of the French king to his benefactors who cures him of a languishing distemper by a prescription hereditary in her family. The indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride of birth yields almost without struggle to her affection for Helen, the honesty and uprightness of the good old Lord Lefieux, makes very interesting parts of the picture. The willful stubbornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting and cowardice of parolees, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose false pretenses to bravery and honor forms a very amusing episode. He is first found out by the old Lord Lefieux, who says, the soul of this man is in his clothes, and it is proved afterwards that his heart is in his tongue, and that both are false and hollow. The adventure of the bringing off of his drum has become proverbial as a satire on all ridiculous and blustering undertakings which the person never means to perform. Nor can anything be more severe than what one of the bystanders remarks upon what parolees says of himself. Is it possible he should know what he is and be that he is? Yet parolees himself gives the best solution of the difficulty afterwards when he is thankful to escape with his life and the loss of character, for so that he can live on, he is by no means squeamish about the loss of pretensions, to which he had sense enough to know that he had no real claims, and which he had assumed only as a means to live. Paroles. Yet I am thankful. If my heart were great, to adburst at this, Captain I'll be no more, but I will eat and drink and sleep as soft as Captain shall. Simply the thing I am shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart, let him fear this, for it shall come to pass, that every braggart shall be found an ass. Rust sword, cool blushes, and parolees live, safest in shame. Being fooled by foolery thrive, this place and means for every man alive. I'll after them. The story of Allswell that ends well, and of several others of Shakespeare's place, is taken from Boccaccio. The poet has dramatized the original novel with great skill and comic spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment without improving upon it, which was impossible. There is indeed in Boccaccio serious pieces a truth, a pathos, and an exquisite refinement of sentiment, which is hardly to be met with in any other prose writer whatever. Justice has not been done him by the world. He has in general passed for a mere narrator of lascivious tales or idle jests. This character probably originated in his obnoxious attacks on the monks, and has been kept up by the grossness of mankind, who revenged their own want of refinement on Boccaccio, and only saw in his writings what suited the coarseness of their own taste. But the truth is that he has carried sentiment of every kind to its very highest purity and perfection. By sentiment we would here understand the habitual workings of some one powerful feeling, where the heart reposes almost entirely upon itself, without the violent excitement of opposing duties or untoward circumstances. In this way, nothing ever came up to the story of Frederigo albergi and his falcon. The perseverance and attachment, the spirit of gallantry and generosity displayed in it, has no parallel in the history of heroical sacrifices. The feeling is so unconscious too and involuntary, is brought out in such small, unlooked-for and unaustentatious circumstances as to show to have been woven into the very nature and soul of the author. The story of Isabella is scarcely less fine and is more affecting in the circumstances and the catastrophe. Dryden has done justice to the impassioned eloquence of the Tancred and Sigismunda, but has not given an adequate idea of the wild, preternatural interest of the story of Anoria. Himon and Ephigeny is by no means one of the best, notwithstanding the popularity of the subject. The proof of unalterable affection given in the story of Geronimo and the simple touches of nature and picturesque beauty in the story of the two holiday lovers who were poisoned by tasting of a leaf in the garden at Florence are perfect masterpieces. The epithet of divine was well bestowed on this great painter of the human heart. The invention implied in his different tales is immense, but we are not to infer that it is all his own. He probably availed himself of all the common traditions which were floating in his time and which he was the first to appropriate. Homer appears the most original of all authors, probably for no other reason than that we can trace the plagiarism no further. Boccaccio has furnished subjects to numberless writers since his time, both dramatic and narrative. The story of Griselda is borrowed from his to-camera on Boccaccio, as is the night's tale, Palomón and Arcity, from his poem of The Thesiod. End of All's Well, The End's Well