gone. From that time on there was an almost unvarying uniformity of censure bestowed upon him for his mixture of comic and tragic scenes in the same production. This in turn affected English critical opinion, which in dramatic matters was then largely a mere echo of the French. It was rarely the case that Shakespeare's professed admirers attempted to defend his course in this particular. When Walpole did so in the preface to the second edition of his 'Castle of Otranto,' he was sneered at by the critics who were in good and regular standing. The ones favorably disposed towards the dramatist constantly shifted the burden of responsibility for his conceded excesses and absurdities from his shoulders to those of his age.

Nor was this all. Milton, in the passage just quoted, had done more than condemn the intermingling of the serious and the humorous in the same piece. His censure had further fallen upon the introduction into tragedy of low and trivial persons. One was not exactly a consequent of the other; but it was reasonably sure to be its accompaniment. Here was a peculiar aggra vation of the original offence. A practice of this sort was contrary to all classical precedent; nor had it any support from the moderns who had followed classical models. At times exception had been taken to Ben Jonson's course in introducing into his two tragedies scenes below the dignity of tragedy. In 'Sejanus' Livia and her physician satirize artificial helps to beauty. In Catiline' there is a parliament of women. But in neither case do those who take part in the dialogue belong to a low class. This hostility to the introduc

tion of men of an inferior social grade was based upon the generally accepted doctrine that tragedy must never deal with persons who belong to common life. If otherwise, it could not properly bear Milton's epithet of gorgeous. Its characters must hold the sceptre and wear the pall. Any treatment of the theme that did not conform essentially to this practice showed by that very fact that it was deficient in art. There is a good deal to be said in justification of the wide prevalence of such a view when two authors, so great in genius and so unlike in nature as Voltaire and Milton, agreed in maintaining it. Under such circumstances the ordinary man may be pardoned for believing that it must be true.

The belief in the necessity of preserving unimpaired the dignity of tragedy by excluding from it all men of the baser sort prevailed generally in the critical literature of the eighteenth century. To no small extent it was affected by political considerations, especially by the feeling entertained for the ruler. Even less on the stage than in the court itself was there to be any tampering with the dignity of so divinely an accredited being. The moment a king appeared he must discover himself in every word and sentence. Both thought and language were to be in accordance with his high position. Voltaire insisted that not only nothing common must be said by him, but nothing common could be said before him. This was not merely in the play itself, but in its representation in his presence. The phrase, “not a mouse stirring," in the opening of Hamlet,' he asserted, might do for a guard-house; "but not

upon the stage, before the first persons of a nation, who express themselves nobly, and before whom men must express themselves in the same way." The French idea of the conduct of a tragedy seems, then, to have much resembled the conception which children have of the behavior of a king. In the eyes of these he always goes about with a crown upon his head. That he can act like other men, can share both their feelings and their failings, can enjoy the same pleasures and suffer the same pains seemed never to enter their minds. The French extended even to themselves the deference that was to be paid to their rulers. On their own account, as well as the king's, they objected to the introduction of inferior persons upon the stage. Like Hotspur's lord, they wished no rude, unmannerly knaves to come between the wind and their nobility.

Far otherwise had been the practice of Shakespeare. By him all these conventions so cherished by the classicists had been systematically violated. On his crowded stage men of all sorts and conditions of life appear. They talk to each other in the chamber, they jostle one another in the street. What was perhaps even worse was the introduction of the professional fools, holding conversation with the graver personages of the play, especially with the monarch. Such a course was against all classical precedent. It was one of the points of extremest divergence between the English and French theatres. Upon the latter, characters belonging to low life would never have been permitted by the audience to play their parts, had the author been audacious enough to introduce them. But to introduce them the

author had no disposition. Voltaire tells us, in the preface to his tragedy of Rome Sauvée, that he was particular not to bring upon the stage the deputies of the Allobroges. It was their station in life that kept them from appearing before the cultivated audience to which his play was addressed. They were not really ambassadors of the Gauls, he tells us. In that case their presence would not have disgraced the distinguished assemblage before which they were to act. But, as a matter of fact, they were the agents of a petty Italian province, who were nothing but low informers, and therefore not proper persons to appear in company with Cicero, Cæsar, and Cato. As might be expected from a man holding such views, Shakespeare's course offered a favorite subject of criticism. attacked the opening scene in Julius Cæsar,' where the lowest class of the populace are represented as exchanging speeches with the tribunes. It was not the character of the conversation that called forth his special censure. It was not because it abounded in dreadful quibbles and plays upon words—and in the wretchedness of this wretched practice, it must be admitted, Shakespeare surpassed all his contemporaries. But while these things aggravated the offence, they did not constitute it. That consisted in there being any conversation at all.

He

In all the numerous and varied censures which the professed guardians of taste passed upon the dramatist for his assumed violations of decorum, it never seemed to occur to any one of them that, from the point of view of dramatic art itself, he, the great

master, might be right, and they, the critics, might be wrong. Being a man, he was liable in matters of detail to fall into error through haste, or carelessness, or even mistaken judgment. But being a man of genius, was he likely to err in the broad general methods which he had followed? A possibility that he knew much more than his censurers was never taken into consideration. His incorrectness was assumed as a matter of course. The only thing left was to explain how it came about. His severer critics did not impute his intermixture of tragic and comic scenes to ignorance. It was all owing, in their opinion, to his villanous taste. In this belief as to its origin they may be conceded to be right, even if we dispute the justice of the adjective applied to the noun. It would, indeed, be preposterous to take the ground that Shakespeare was not familiar with views which his practice shows that he did not accept. His remarks in Hamlet' upon the many sorts of dramatic writing in vogue show that he knew perfectly well what he was doing. The course which he adopted was, without doubt, the course that had been common with his predecessors and was common with his contemporaries. But there is not the slightest reason to suppose that he followed it ignorantly or unadvisedly.

He had had, indeed, ample opportunity to learn the opinions of the school whose precepts he did not regard. There had been a number of plays written in accordance with its canons. They exist still, and are occasionally read, though read only by the painful student

of the drama. There had also been a number of critical prophets going before him to point out the error of the