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INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.

PART I.

"POETRY is the child of nature," says Shirley in his Preface to Beaumont and Fletcher, "which, regulated and made beautiful by art, presenteth the most harmonious of all other composition; among which (if we rightly consider) the dramatical is the most absolute, in regard of those transcendent abilities which should wait upon the composer; who must have more than the instruction of libraries (which is of itself but a cold, contemplative knowledge); there being required in him a soul miraculously knowing and conversing with all mankind, enabling him to express not only the phlegm and folly of thick-skinned men, but the strength and maturity of the wise, the air and insinuations of the court, the discipline and resolution of the soldier, the virtues and passions of every noble condition nay, the counsels and characters of the greatest princes.'

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Yes, truly, this is the great fulness of knowledge demanded by the Drama in its matured ripeness and giant-like grasp; obtained, however, only in the sacred volumes of William Shakspeare in this satisfying completeness, though glimmering imperfectly, with more or less power, in the works of his contemporaries! The Drama includes all human sympathies, and expresses them with more or less distinctness, it is the highest form of intellectual production, and the rarest in its excellence. The Epic tells us of the deeds of men-the Lyric sings to us the emotions of men; but the Drama does the deeds, and feels the emotions, of men. And therefore is it that, in some imperfect shape or other, every nation has had its Drama; and every human being, giving way to his natural impulses and sympathies (not checked, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined," as in Quakers or Puritans), is intensely delighted with its representation-from the child to the reflecting man "honoured with pangs austere," there is an uninterrupted link of sympathy W with the Drama. How could it be otherwise? Have we not allhappiest of us-suffered? Have we not all loved, hoped, been defeated, wronged, trampled on, or cherished, fondled, struggled, and been successful? Have we not all "stood too much i' the sun had our day-dreams shattered, our faiths undermined, our friendships sundered? Have we not all acted a part in this Drama of life, wherein, as Bacon grandly says, "Gods alone are spectators?”* Have we not all an irresistible desire to do to realize the faintest of our conceptions, and thereby equally impelled to witness things done? In the Drama, as Schlegel observes, "we see important actions when we cannot act importantly ourselves;" and this is one secret source of delight. Therefore in a critical age like the present, we cannot be indifferent to any attempt to open wider this vast field of enjoyment, or to point out its productiveness, and the best manner of perfecting it; besides which, there is

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How strongly men have been impressed with the simile of life and the stage may be seen by every nation having some such allusion in their poetry. Our Shakspeare's "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," might otherwise be almost supposed to have been literally taken from Calderon.

VOL. VI.

"En el teatro del mundo,
Todos son representantes
Cual hace un Rey soberano,
Cual un principe, un grande
A quien obedecen todos.".

Saber del Mal y del Bien.

so strong and unmistakeable a tendency towards a reaction and re-creation of a new dramatic literature, both in the endeavours of poets themselves and of critics also, that we feel it a sort of duty to direct the attention of our readers to the rich well-head of our Dramatists, the republication of whose works by Messrs. Pickering and Moxon demands our warmest gratitude. But, while these vast treasures are thus placed within our reach, the nearer we are to their possession, the more imperative becomes an earnest and initiative criticism, that we may not mistake their true value, either in depreciation or over-appreciation. There are so many contending influences, there is so much difference between the modes of thought, of feeling, of life, of stage conditions, &c. between this age and that of Elizabeth, that unless we be first initiated into the deeper spirit of that age,—unless we fulfil that first grand law of criticism laid down by Schlegel, of "throwing aside all personal predilections and blind habits, enabling us to transport ourselves into the peculiarities of other ages and nations, and to feel them as it were from their proper central point"—the saddest waste, extravagance, and error must perforce ensue.

The appearance of a new edition of Hazlitt's "Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth" seems to call forth some remarks by way of introduction to the study of these writers; and although we only presume to afford a few hints, we think a work on the subject would be peculiarly adapted to the wants of the age. One of the bad features in the present state of literature is the necessity for so much second-hand information : amidst the prodigious mass of really valuable works (especially when a knowledge of various languages is so general) which are still currently read, or talked about, it is a matter of impossibility for any man who passes his days otherwise than in incessant reading, to have more than a very slight or second-hand acquaintance with more than a few; but this would be no great matter, were there not, strangely enough, such a supposed necessity of judgment on these works which contents itself with the first opinion it meets with rather than have none at all. A person, for example, has never read Ariosto; he gets a judgment by some critic who has read him, or who in default thereof "has read a man wot has;" - this rests not here; for he in his turn diligently hands that opinion abroad, stamped with his own seal of ignorance and presumption: hence our hebdomadal and popular literature is infected with a certain amount of traditionary judgments (for in time they become so current as to be sacred), such as the "dreaminess of Plato," the "quaintness of Webster," the "correctness of Pope," the "sentimentality of Kotzebue," the "vielseitigkeit of Göthe," the " Atheism of Shelley," &c.; so that you take up every author with some previous prejudice, which turning out to be altogether false, or partly so, you either conclude that it has escaped your penetration, or at least hold your tongue, because "every body says it. Now one thing it is always necessary to bear in mind, — that owing to the want of any system of æsthetics, however faint- owing to the ignorance of all the fundamental philosophy of art, and to judgments being almost always delivered from parts, not from the whole, coupled with a vague loose way of praising and condemning, it is not always easy definitely to understand in what sense the critic means his praise or blame. The critics, for example, of the last age are eternally talking about the "elegance of Homer -every person with them is "elegant " or " inelegant;" "elegant and sublime" are common juxtapositions: we must charitably suppose that they attached some idea to this word - but what was that idea? The same

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"Je veux m'appuyer de l'autorité, parceque la Verité est si peu de chose quand elle est seule," was the sarcastic remark of Des Cartes in dedicating his Meditations to the Sorbonne.

observation applies to the criticisms of our old Dramatists. Does the reader definitely understand the eulogiums? No; we are convinced that he cannot understand them precisely, because the critic has no principle of reference beyond his admiration, real or affected; and for what he admires them we are mostly in the dark. We are sorry to include Hazlitt in this list: he praises warmly, and with a fine sense and appreciation; but he forgets that the reader does not know always the plays of which he is speaking.

The critic who would be understood must distinctly demarcate his opinions according to the three modes of judgment which works of a past era demand:

these are,—

I. Historically; i. e. its merit in relation to time, predecessors, necessities of the stage, &c.

II. Absolutely; i. e. its intrinsic merit unaffected by any such nimbus, and merely viewed in relation to the delight and instruction flowing from its perusal.

III. As models for others to study and profit by.

According to this the merits of the old dramatists are in a descending scale, "small by degrees and beautifully less." Their historical worth is prodigious, for they were a band of real poets; their absolute worth is less; and their worth as models is considerably so, for they were not artists in any sense of the word, and this without much fault on their side, for what could even a Phidias make with the flint knife of a wild Indian? The dramatic art that which shall please at all times— they certainly did not understand; and in proof of it may be taken the very slight number of their plays which can now be acted, without reference to indelicacy of subjects. Scenes of tremendous passion touches of the deepest pathos - subtlest eagle-eyed glances into the perplexed heart, or complex intellect of man, with the most eternal and refreshing poetry, are all to be found in their volumes in Shakspeare's most luxuriantly; but in construction, that harmonious-linked unity of incident and dialogue, that narrowing intensity demanded by the drama as differing from the epic, that æsthetic regulation (whether forethought and forecast, or the result of a secret feeling of its propriety which guides the unconscious artist) in a word, that mighty problem, dramatic art, cannot be learnt from their works. "Macbeth,"

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"Othello," "Romeo and Juliet," "Rollo," "New Way to Pay Old Debts," and a few others, by the possession, in some measure, of this virtue, would always remain effective performances, though even these must be lopped of some excrescences. Let us not be thought irreverently speaking when we say this, with all our love and intense admiration of Shakspeare, we must insist on his being regarded as a man, not as a god; and as this dramatic art must be the result of a long experience, which in the infant state of the drama in his day no mortal could have obtained, it is this, therefore, with some others, which peculiarly demands our attention, that we may separate the temporal from the eternal, and by looking into the necessary conditions of the time and of the stage, not commit the same blunder as the French and Italians, who, unable to separate what was choice, and what necessity (of the religious rites and peculiarities of the stage) in the Greek drama, set the whole thing up as a model. "We are always talking about study of the ancients," said Göthe; "but what else is meant by it than to gaze steadily at Nature, and endeavour to reproduce her; for that is what the ancients themselves did." *

"Man spricht immer von Studium der Alten; allein was will das anders sagen als: richte dich auf die wirkliche Welt, und suche sie auszusprechen; denn das thaten die Alten auch, da sie lebten."- Gespräche mit Eckermann.

They were a band of real poets these old dramatists; and, rightly considered, this is the greatest praise that can be given to any one: this is their immortality: this is the light that blazes forth through the mists of error or inexperience, and hurries us onwards with them in spite of all: this it is which makes us love them, and think so lightly of their faults. "The minds of these old authors," says Barry Cornwall, "were, it may be, rugged, erratic, perverse, or even savage; but at the same time they had strength and stature; oftentimes magnificence and beauty. They were not free from the faults of an age struggling out of barbarism; but they were free from feebleness, and mimicry, and pretence, and had little or nothing of the meanness and hypocrisy, the squalid or penurious intellect of some of their successors. In regard to the supposed antiquity of their style, it is more imaginary than real. Their thoughts are never antique: their images have never grown old: there is the same vigour, the same freshness and beauty, and diversity of colour within and upon them, as on the morning in which they were born."* Truly English, with all the English strength and weakness, and with all its island originality — before it became infected with French notions these dramatists,

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"Tearing the passions with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life,”

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remain as peculiarly valuable studies, were they only considered as expressing the spirit of their age. Their originality, their independence of the ancients, whose works were familiar to them all, being scholars, and their keeping to the spirit of the romantic rather than following blindly the classic, was one of their happy instincts. Energy and action are their grand characteristics, as they are the great demands of an English audience, too cold a people to be touched with fanciful sportings of imagination, or the more refined pleasures of art, and requiring something to stir them-something to be doing; they wanted a strong sensation. † Art was nothing to them; they never had a notion of it; and have not even now, even in these days of criticism, and with so long a dramatic celebrity, they are very few who understand and relish the art, and what is more (an assertion perfectly staggering), there are no works on the subject! Compare the Greeks and the French. An Athenian citizen, it may safely be asserted, had a finer relish and taste than any English R. A.; and the pit of a French theatre tolerates no violation of those confined but established principles of art which it has considered perfection; and the violent war between the Classicists and Romanticists, when Victor Hugo dared to strike out a new path in dramatic literature, is a tolerable evidence of their demand for certain fulfilments of art, however bigoted and short-sighted we may please to call it.

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Let this not be supposed to militate against what was said above, touching their not being artists. If the audience do not relish the art as art, they must nevertheless be necessarily more affected by a play artistically constructed than one which is not so; for what is art but the "conclusions which critics have come to respecting the means adopted by the best poets for giving the greatest amount of pleasure.”

It is at first a matter of extreme surprise that such unrivalled excellence and grovelling nonsense should be so abundantly united in the works of these poets; that scenes of the most empassioned beauty, of the most

* Life of Ben Jonson, p. 30.

+ Hence their peculiar susceptibility to Tom and Jerrys and Jack Sheppards: hence that "innate tendency to the gallows" which has always characterized the English.

dramatic skill, should be mixed up with the most laborious dulness and impertinence; that dignity should walk side by side with

"Conceits which Clownage kept in pay;"

and the large mixture of the veriest clay with the purest gold sets the reader "thinking how such things could be:" nor can we satisfactorily reconcile such things otherwise than by supposing that it was intentional on their part, and done to please the pit, to tickle "the ears of the groundlings." To suppose that men, who knew so well what was grand and noble, did not equally know what was ignoble; who knew what wit was,

"So nimble and so full of subtile flame,"

did not distinguish it from the senseless folly of their "right merrie and conceited comedies," is really drawing too large a draught on our credulity. Nor can we wholly agree with Hazlitt, that "any kind of activity of mind might seem to the writers better than none; any nonsense might serve to amuse their hearers; any cant phrase, any coarse allusion, any pompous absurdity, was taken for wit and drollery; nothing could be too mean, too foolish, too improbable, or too offensive, to be a proper subject for laughter;" for though the "groundlings" must have been then as now "pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw," and ready to laugh at any "Jim Crow," "What a shocking bad hat," " Who are you?" &c.; yet this does not account for the poets taking a delight in such things, it being their office to elevate the audience, not descend to them.

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Here, as indeed every where, we are struck with the fact, that the significance of every thing lies enrolled in its history; there it lies for whoever shall trace its growth: if we would know what it is, we must endeavour to know how it became what it is; and it is therefore in the history of the English drama that we must seek the peculiar spirit of its works, whereby we shall be able to separate somewhat the temporal which invests all things from the enduring which can alone interest us. It is to this portion of the inquiry, therefore, that we would earnestly direct our readers, the various works of Collier, Hawkins, Drake, Dyce, affording ample data; in the meanwhile some hints may be found in our lucubrations.

All the European nations have had their "mystery plays and moralities" devised by the priests for the mingled instruction and entertainment of the mob; and this universal origin of the theatre meets with a remarkable coincidence in the history of the Greek drama. What are the "mysteries," those strange compounds of the sacred and profane, of fiery earnestness and extravagant buffooneries and mummeries, but the wild Dithyramb, with its mummeries of the satyr and fawn, - rude, wild, grotesque, and obscene, yet delighting and awe-inspiring? Here we see the soul of art destitute of form; but whenever there is a soul it will soon develop for itself a form, even as a spirit breathing upon chaos. Thespis was the first in Greece who gave to these rude elements some more definite outline and form; and John Heywood is the English Thespis. In 1520 he first appeared as a dramatist, and, as the titles of his plays evince, had boldly broken through the trammels of "mysteries" - "The merrie playe between Johan the husband, Tyb his wife, and Sir Johan the priest," and the "Pardoner, Fryar, Curate, and Neighbour Pratte," which met with universal applause. Popular wit,

Compare Trinculo's Account of John Bull (Tempest, Act ii. sc. ii.): -"Were I in England now, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man; where they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian."

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