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a play once erroneously attributed to Shakespeare, and was as little known among literary men as any of the plays of the secondary dramatists of the same age, who have since been made familiar, at least by name and in quotation, by the brilliant comments of Lamb and Hazlitt, and the large use made of them by the commentators.

Towards the end of the century, PERICLES appeared in the editions of Malone, and in those of Johnson and Stevens. after the associations of these two critics. This was mainly in consequence of the opinion maintained by Malone. who had the courage to assert and support by argument, that "PERICLES was the entire work of Shakespeare, and one of his earliest compositions." Stevens, on the other hand, resolutely maintained :—

“The drama before us contains no discrimination of manners, (except in the comic dialogues,) very few traces of original thought, and is evidently destitute of that intelligence and useful knowledge that pervade even the meanest of Shakespeare's undisputed performances. To speak more plainly, it is neither enriched by the gems that sparkle through the rubbish of LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, nor the good sense which so often fertilizes the barren fable of the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. PERICLES, in short, is little more than a string of adventures so nume rous, so inartificially crowded together, and so far removed from probability, that, in my private judgment, I mast acquit even the irregular and lawless Shakespeare of having constructed the fabric of the drama, though he has certainly bestowed some decoration on its parts. Yet even this decoration, like embroidery on a blanket, only serves by contrast to expose the meanness of the original materials. That the plays of Shakespeare have their inequalities likewise, is sufficiently understood; but they are still the inequalities of Shakespeare. He may occasionally be absurd, but is seldom foolish; he may be censured, but can rarely be despised.

"I do not recollect a single plot of Shakespeare's formation, (or even adoption from preceding plays or novels.) in which the majority of the characters are not so well connected, and so necessary in respect of each other, that they proceed in combination to the end of the story; unless the story (as in the cases of Antigonus and Mercutio) requires the interposition of death. In PERICLES this continuity is wanting:

disjectas moles, avulsaque saxis Saxa vides;

and even with the aid of Gower the scenes are rather loosely tacked together, than closely interwoven. We see no more of Antiochus after his first appearance. His anonymous daughter utters but one unintelligible couplet and then vanishes. Simonides likewise is lost as soon as the marriage of Thaisa is over; and the punishment of Cleon and his wife, which poetic justice demanded, makes no part of the action, but is related in a kind of epilogue by Gower. This is at least a practice which in no instance has received the sanction of Shakespeare. From such deficiency of mutual interest, and liaison among the personages of the drama, I am further strengthened in my be lief that our great Poet had no share in constructing it. Dr. Johnson long ago observed that his real power is not seen in the splendour of particular passages, but in the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and when it becomes necessary for me to quote a decision founded on comprehensive views, I can appeal to none in which I should more implicitly confide. Gower relates the story of Pericles in a manner not quite so desultory; and yet such a tale as that of Prince Appolyn, in its most perfect state, would hardly have attracted the notice of any playwright, except one who was quite a novice in the rules of his art."

In this view Malone finally acquiesced, in substance, though, with great truth and good taste, still insisting that

"The wildness and irregularity of the fable, the artless conduct of the piece, and the inequalities of the poetry, may be all accounted for, by supposing it either his first or one of his earliest essays in dramatic composition."

Stevens's decision long remained unquestioned, both as to the point of Shakespeare's share of authorship, and the poetic merits of the drama itself; and it has recently received more authority for having been substantially reaffirmed by Mr. Hallam:-" From the poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of effective and distinguishable character, and the general feebleness of the tragedy as a whole, I should not believe the structure to have been Shakespeare's. But (he adds) many passages are far more in his manner than in that of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted, and the extrinsic testimony, though not conclusive, being of some value, 1 should not dissent from the judgment of Stevens and Malone, that it was in 'no inconsiderable degree repaired and improved by his hand.'" (Literature of Europe.) He elsewhere insists, that "the play is full of evident marks of an inferior hand." Other modern critics, of nearly as high name, have gone still further in censure: W. Gifford, for example, rejects and brands the play as "the worthless PERICLES."

This sweeping, unqualified censure was amusingly counterbalanced by as unqualified an expression of admiration, by William Godwin-a writer whose political ethics and metaphysics, full of the boldest opinions, expressed in the most startling and paradoxical form, had prepared the public to expect similar extravagances on all other subjects, and had thus taken away much of the weight of his literary judgments. Yet these judgments are in fact entitled to all the weight due to a writer of genius,-manifesting on all such subjects an extensive acquaintance with English literature, in its whole range, guided by a pure taste, and a quick and deep sensibility to every form of beauty. In his "Life of Chaucer," incidentally speaking of PERICLES, he designates it as "a beautiful drama,” "which in sweetness of manner, delicacy of description, truth of feeling, and natural ease of language, would do honour to the greatest author that ever existed." Since that period, many others have been more disposed to dwell upon the beauties of PERICLES-the existence of which few now deny-than upon its many defects, to which none but a blind idolater of the great bard can close his eyes. Accordingly its merits have been vindicated by the modern continental critics, and by several of the later English ones; as by Franz Horn, Ulrici, Knight, Dr. Drake, and especially by Mr. Proctor, (Barry Cornwall,) in a long and admirable note, in his memoir of Ben Jonson, prefixed to Moxon's edition of Jonson's works, (1838.) (See extracts in notes to this edition.) Barry Cornwall roundly charges the preceding critics (from Pope to Gifford) with having condemned PERICLES unread; while he proves that "the merit and style of the work sufficiently denote the author"-that author of whom he eloquently says, that he "was and is, bevond all competition, the greatest Poet that the world has ever seen. He is the

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greatest in general power, and greatest in style, which is symbol or evidence of power. For the motion of verse corresponds with the power of the poet; as the swell and tumult of the sea answer to the winds that call them up. From LEAR down to PERICLES, there ought to be no mistake between Shakespeare and any other writer.”— (Memoir of Ben Jonson, xxxi.)

The "glorious uncertainty of the law" has been exemplified and commemorated, in a large and closely printed volurie, containing nothing but the mere titles of legal decisions, once acknowledged as law, and since reversed or contradicted, as "cases overruled, doubted, or denied." The decisions of the critical tribunals would furnish materials for a much larger work; and Shakespearian criticism, by itself, would supply an ample record of varying or overruled judgments. Those on the subject of PERICLES alone would constitute a large title in the collection; and, as a slight contribution to such compilation, I have thrown together, at the end of the notes to this play, some of the judgments and dicta of the principal critical authorities, upon the long-controverted questions connected with this tragedy.

Yet, in the play itself may be found some foundation for all and each of those opinions, though least for the hasty and vague censures of Pope and Gifford. The play is awkwardly and unskilfully constructed, being on the plan of the old legendary drama, when it was thought sufficient to put some popular narrative into action, with little attempt at a condensed and sustained continuous interest in the plot or its personages. It rambles along through the period of two generations, without any attempt at the artist-like management of a similar duration in the WINTER'S TALE, by breaking up the story into parts, and making the one a natural sequel to the other, so as to keep up a uniform continuity of interest throughout both. The story itself is extravagant, and its denouement is caused by the aid of the heathen mythology, which, as we have had occasion to observe elsewhere, (Introductory Remarks to CYMBELINE,) every mind, trained under modern associations and habits of thought, feels as repugnant to dramatic truth, and at once refuses to lend to it that transient conventional belief so necessary to any degree of illusion or interest, and so readily given to shadowy superstitions of other kinds, as ghosts, witches, and fairies, more akin to our general opinions, or more familiar to our childhood. A still greater defect than this is one rare indeed in any thing from Shakespeare's mind-the vagueness and meagerness of the characters, undistinguished by any of that portrait-like individuality which gives life and reality to the humblest personages of his scene. Thence, in spite of the excellence of particular parts, there results a general feebleness of effect in the whole. The versification is, in general, singularly halting and uncouth, and the style is sometimes creeping and sometimes extravagant.

From these circumstances, if, at the time when PERICLES was excluded from the ordinary editions, its place had been supplied by a prose outline of the story, with occasional specimens of the dialogue, such as Voltaire gave of JULIUS CESAR, selected only from the most extravagant passages, there would be little hesitation in denying the whole or the greater part of the play to be Shakespeare's, or in allowing that it bore" evident marks of an inferior hand." Yet, on the other hand, it contains much to please, to surprise, to affect, and to delight. The introduction of old Gower, linking togethe: the broken action, by his antiquated legendary narrative, is original and pleasing. The very first scenes have nere and there some passages of sudden and unexpected grandeur, and the later acts bear everywhere the very "form and pressure" of Shakespeare's mind. Yet it is observable, that wherever we meet him, in his own unquestionable person, it is not as the poetic Shakespeare of the youthful comedies, but with the port and style of the author of Lear and Cordelia. Indeed, the scene in the last act, of Pericles's recognition of his daughter, recalls strongly the touching passages of Cordelia's filial love, and Lear's return to reason, by a resemblance, not so much of situation or language, as of spirit and feeling. The language and style of these nobler passages are peculiarly Shakespearian, and, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, "of the Poet's later manner." They have his emphatic mode of employing the plainest and most homely words in the highest and most poetical sense,—his original compounds, his crowded magnificence of gorgeous imagery, interspersed with the simplest touches of living nature. Thus, when Pericles retraces his lost wife's features in his recovered child:

My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one

My daughter might have been; my queen's square brows,

Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight;

As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like,

And cas'd as richly; in pace another Juno, etc.-(Act v. scene 1.)

Here, too, we find his peculiar mode of stating and enforcing general truths—not in didactic digression, but as interwoven with and growing out of the incidents or passing emotions of the scene. (See note, act i. scene 1.) Taking these characteristics into view, and these alone, the play must be pronounced worthy of all the praise bestowed by Godwin. If then we were to reverse the experiment just suggested, upon the supposed reader who knows no more of PERICLES than that it is a play which has been ascribed by some to Shakespeare, and to place before him a prose abstract of the plot, interspersed with large extracts from the finer passages, he would surely wonder why there could have been a moment's hesitation in placing PERICLES by the side of CYMBELINE and the WINTER'S TALE.

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There are two different solutions of these contradictory phenomena, and it is not easy to decide, with confidence, which is the true one. The first hypothesis is founded upon the old traditionary opinion, that PERICLES, in its original form, was one of the author's earliest dramatic essays, perhaps an almost boyish work; but that not long before 1609, when it was printed as a late much-admired play," the author, then in the meridian of his reputation, revised and enlarged it, as he had repeatedly done with others of his plays, which, like ROMEO AND JULIET, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, etc, are announced in their title-pages as having been "newly corrected, augmented, and amended." This hypothesis, of course, rejects the favourite notion that Shakespeare's genius burst forth at once,

in its full splendour and magnitude, and takes for granted what all experience teaches, that the first trials of his strength had the awkwardness and feebleness of boyish youth. This hypothesis corresponds with the legendary and inartificial structure of the main story, and the feebleness of characterization-points which would be least of all susceptible of improvement, without an entire recasting of the drama. It agrees too with the large stage-direction and ample allowance of dumb show, such as he afterwards introduced into his mimic play in HAMLET, and as remain in CYMBELINE, as remnants of the old groundwork of that drama, and which were strongly characteristic of the fashion of the stage in Shakespeare's youth. The additions and improvements are very perceptible, and stand out boldly from the weakly executed framework of the drama, which remains untouched-differing from similar enlargements and corrections of others of his own dramas, (as ROMEO AND JULIET, etc.,) by the Poet himself, in the greater contrast here afforded by the effusions of his matured mind, with the timid outline of his unpractised hand; and differing again from CYMBELINE (as Coleridge remarks) by the “entire rifacimento of the latter, when Shakespeare's celebrity as a poet, no less than his influence as manager, enabled him to bring forward the lordly labours of his youth." PERICLES having, from its first appearance, by means of its story, its dumb-show, and by its comparative merit relatively to its rivals for popular favour, succeeded, and kept possession of the stage, the author would not feel himself called upon to re-write a play which answered its main end, and the subject of which presented no peculiar attractions to him, while the reëxamination of his own boyish, half-formed thoughts would naturally expand and elevate them into nobler forms, and re-clothe them in that glowing language he had since created for himself.

This theory commends itself as every way probable to my judgment, as it has done to that of others, whose opinions are entitled to great deference.

Nevertheless, the other solution of the difficulty-that proposed by Mr. Hallam-may still be the true one; that the original "Pericles" was by some inferior hand, perhaps by a personal friend of Shakespeare's, and that he, without remodelling the plot, undertook to correct and improve it, beginning with slight additions, and his mind warming as he proceeded, breaking out towards the close of the drama with its accustomed vigour and abundance. This opinion has been the more generally received one among the English critics, and it has the advantage of solving one difficulty which the other theory leaves unexplained-why PERICLES was omitted by the editors of the first folio.

Mr. Collier has well summed up the argument on this side of the question, and as his statement contains some other facts of interest in relation to this piece, it is here inserted.

"An opinion has long prevailed, and we have no doubt it is well founded, that two hands are to be traced in the composition of PERICLES. The larger part of the first three Acts were in all probability the work of an inferior dramatist: to these Shakespeare added comparatively little; but he found it necessary, as the story advanced and as the interest increased, to insert more of his own composition. His hand begins to be distinctly seen in the third Act, and afterwards we feel persuaded that we could extract nearly every line that was not dietated by his great intellect. We apprehend that Shakespeare found a drama on the story in the possession of one of the companies performing in London, and that, in accordance with the ordinary practice of the time, he made additions to and improvements in it, and procured it to be represented at the Globe theatre. Who might be the author of the the original piece, it would be vain to conjecture. Although we have no decisive proof that Shakespeare ever worked in immediate concert with any of his contemporaries, it was the custom with nearly all the dramatists of his day, and it is not impossible that such was the case with PERICLES.

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The circumstance that it was a joint production, may account for the non-appearance of PERICLES in the folio of 1623. Ben Jonson, when printing the volume of his Works, in 1616, excluded for this reason The Case is Altered,' and Eastward Ho in the composition of which he had been engaged with others; and when the player-editors of the folio of 1623 were collecting their materials, they perhaps omitted PERICLES because some living author might have an interest in it. Of course we advance this point as a mere speculation; and the fact that the publishers of the folio of 1623 could not purchase the right of the bookseller, who had then the property in Pericles,' may have been the real cause of its non-insertion.

"The Registers of the Stationers' Company show that on the 20th May, 1608, Edward Blount (one of the proprietors of the folio of 1623) entered The booke of Pericles, Prynce of Tyre,' with one of the undoubted works of Shakespeare, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. Nevertheless, PERICLES was not published by Blount, but by Gosson in the following year; and we may infer, either that Blount sold his interest to Gosson, or that Gosson anticipated Blount in procuring a manuscript of the play. Gosson may have subsequently parted with PERICLES to Thomas Pavier, and hence the re-impression by the latter in 1619.

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Having thus spoken of the internal evidence of authorship, we will now advert briefly to the external evidence, that it was the work of our great dramatist. In the first place it was printed in 1609, with his name at full length, and rendered unusually obvious, on the title-page. The answer, of course, may be that this was a fraud, and that it had been previously committed in the cases of the first part of Sir John Oldcastle,' 1600, and of The Yorkshire Tragedy,' 1608. It is undoubtedly true, that Shakespeare's name is upon those title-pages; but we know, with regard to Sir John Oldcastle,' that the original title-page, stating it to have been Written by William Shakespeare' was cancelled, no doubt at the instance of the author to whom it was falsely imputed; and as to The Yorkshire Tragedy,' many persons have entertained the belief, in which we join, that Shakespeare had a share in its composition. We are not to forget that, in the year preceding, Nathaniel Butter had made very prominent use of Shakespeare's name, for the sale of three impressions of KING LEAR; and that in the very year when PERICLES came out, Thorpe had printed a collection of scattered poems, recommending them to notice in very large capitals, by stating emphatically that they were 'Shakespeare's Sonnets.'

* "A list of theatrical apparel, formerly belonging to Alleyn the player, mentions spangled hose in Pericles,' from which it appears that he had probably acted in a play called 'Pericles.' See Memoirs of Edward Alleyn.' This might be the play which Shakespeare altered and improved."

"It seems that PERICLES was reprinted under the same circumstances in 1611. I have never been able to meet with a copy of this edition, and doubted its existence, until Mr. Halliwell pointed it out to me, in a sale catalogue in 184; it purported to have been printed for S. S.' This fact would show, that Shakespeare did not then contradict the reiterated assertion, that he was the author of the play."

"Confirmatory of what precedes, it may be mentioned, that previously to the insertion of PERICLES in the folio of 1664, it had been imputed to Shakespeare by S. Shepherd, in his Times displayed in Six Sestiads,' 1656; and in lines by J. Tatham, prefixed to R. Brome's 'Jovial Crew,' 1652. Dryden gave it to Shakespeare in 1675, in the Prologue to C. Davenant's Circe.' Thus, as far as stage tradition is of value, it is uniformly in favour of our position; and it is moreover to be observed, that until comparatively modern times it has never been contradicted."

1635.

STATE OF THE TEXT AND SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

"PERICLES was five times printed before it was inserted in the folio of 1664, viz. in 1609, 1611, 1619, 1630, and The folio seems to have been copied from the last of these, with a multiplication of errors, but with some corrections. The first edition of 1609 was obviously brought out in haste, and there are many corruptions The commentators dwelt upon the blunders of the old copies, in order to warrant their own extraordinary innovations, but wherever we could do so, with due regard to the sense of the author, we have restored the text to that of the earliest impression."-COLLIER.

in it.

The variations of the text, its corruptions and metrical irregularities are so frequent, and often of so little importance to the sense and poetry, that the present editor has been often content to adopt what seemed the preferable reading, without caring to swell the notes with various readings and verbal discussions. In two or three places conjectural emendations of evidently misprinted passages are adopted, for which the reasons are assigned.

PERICLES is a version of the old romance of “Apollonius Tyrus," or "King Appolyn of Tyre," according to the old English name, which had been a favourite of all Europe during the middle ages, and has been traced by Mr. Douce, Collier, and others, back to the twelfth century, and through the Latin, Italian, Anglo-Saxon, Norman and Provençal French, old English, and modern Greek. The author of our PERICLES professed to have drawn his materials from the poet Gower, whom he has made the presiding genius of his plot; and it is evident that he is mainly indebted to him, though it seems also certain that he used the prose version of the romance, " gathered into English" by Laurence Twine, and first published in 1576. Both Gower's poem, " Appolinus, the Prince of Tyre," and Twine's romance, have lately been reprinted in Collier's "Shakespeare Library," (vol. i.) The latter bears the amusing title of "The Patterne of painefull Adventures; containing the most excellent, pleasant and variable history of the strange accidents that befell unto Prince Apollonius, the lady Lucina his wife, and Thaisa his daughter, wherein the uncertainty of this world and the feeble state of man's life are lively described." Gower, one of the fathers of English literature, and indeed of the English language, is little known, except by name, to the modern reader. The friend and fellow-student of Chaucer, perhaps his precursor, certainly his friendly rival in English poetry, he received from him the title of "the moral Gower," by which epithet he was long celebrated by succeeding English and Scottish poets. Chaucer, Lydgate and Gower, formed the triumvirate of poets who, from the reign of Edward III. to that of Queen Mary, were held in equal honour, and were the objects of admiration and imitation, for two centuries. Gower wrote much in Latin and French as well as in English; and his quaint old French sonnets, or " Balades," as he styles them, were his most poetical works. But his great merit is that of the assiduous cultivation of his native language, and the share he had in bringing its rich but rude materials into the form of a cultivated style. In these respects, (justly observes Warton, History of English Poetry, sect. xix.,) he resembled his friend and contemporary, Chaucer; but he participated no considerable portion of Chaucer's spirit, imagination, and elegance. His language is perspicuous, and his versification often harmonious; but his poetry is of a grave and sententious turn. He has much good sense, solid reflection, and useful observation. But he is serious and didactic on all occasions; he preserves the tone of the scholar and moralist on all occasions." Thus, while the spirit, wit, and invention of Chaucer have kept his ancient laurels fresh and green, so that his works are not only reprinted in the original form, and familiar to all students of our older language and its literature, but his tales have been clad in modern garb by Dryden and Pope, as well as by inferior versifiers; worthy old Gower's learning and good sense have barely saved him from oblivion. His "Confessio Amantis," his principal English poem, was originally printed by Caxton, the well-known father of English typography, in 1483, and was reprinted in 1532 and 1554; the last time in a form quite splendid for those days. Since that period Gower has been completely overshadowed by his great contemporary, and is mainly indebted to this play, and to Warton, and Godwin, or Southey, who have quoted and criticised him, for being remembered at all. There is, I believe, no separate edition of any of his works, since 1554; and none of them are to be found at large, in any modern form, except in Chalmers's collection of British Poets," which contains the "Confessio," upon which Gower's reputation as an English poet is mainly founded.

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"This poem is a dialogue between a lover and his confessor, who is a priest of Venus. Here the ritual of religion is applied to the tender passion, and Ovid's Art of Love' is blended with the breviary. In the course of the confession, every evil affection, which may impede the progress and counteract the success of love, is scientifically subdivided; and its fatal effects exemplified by apposite stories, extracted from classic authors."—(T. WARTON's History of Poetry.)

Gower makes no claim of invention of the incidents of the tale on which PERICLES is founded, but acknowledges his obligation to a Latin compilation entitled "Pantheon," by Godfrey of Viterbo, who died in 1190:

Of a cronique in daies gone,
The wich is cleped Panteon,
In love's cause I ride thus, etc.

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