"To out-run hasty time, retrieve the fates, Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates Of death and Lethe-by art to learn The physiognomy of shades, and give Them sudden birth-' and' from his' lofty throne, was deemed, even by his contemporaries, the peculiar destiny of our bard; a destination that has been still more thoroughly felt and acknowledged by succeeding ages, and by which, without sacrificing any of the more legitimate provinces of the drama, he has acquired for his poetry that stamp of glowing inspiration, which more than places it on a level with the daring flights of Homer, of Dante, or of Milton; while, at the same time, there exclusively belongs to him an insinuating loveliness of fancy that endears him to our feelings, and brings with it a recognition of that visionary happiness which charmed our earliest youth, when all around us breathed enchantment, and the heart alone responded to the fairy melodies of love and hope. What contrast, for instance, of poetic power has ever exceeded that which we experience in passing from the mysterious horrors of Hamlet and Macbeth, from the visitations of the midnight spectre, and the unhallowed rites of witchcraft, to the sportive revelry of the tripping elves, and the exquisite delights of Ariel; from the fiend-like character of lago, from the soul-harrowing distraction of Lear, and the unearthly wildness of Edgar, to that music of paradise which falls melting from the tongue of Juliet or Miranda! Were we to lengthen this summary by any dissertation on the morality of our author's drama, it might justly be considered as a work of supererogation. So completely, indeed, does this, the most valuable result of composition, pervade every portion of his dramatic writings, that we can scarcely open a page of his best plays without being forcibly struck by its lessons of virtue and utility; such as are applicable, not only to extraordinary occasions, but to the common business and routine of life; and such as, while they must make every individual better acquainted with his own nature and conditional destiny, are calculated, beyond any other productions of unrevealed wisdom, to improve that nature, and to render that destiny more happy and exalted. Still less it is necessary to comment on the faults of Shakspeare, for they lie immediately on the surface. When we add, that some coarsenesses and indelicacies which, however, as they excite no passion and flatter no vice, are, in a moral light, not injurious; some instances of an injudicious play on words, and a few violations, not of essential, but merely of technical, costume, form their chief amount, no little surprise, it is possible, may be excited; but let us recollect, that many of the defects which prejudice and ignorance have attributed to Shakspeare, have, on being duly weighed and investigated, assumed the character of positive excellencies. Among these, for example, it will be sufficient to mention the composite or mixed nature of his drama, and his general neglect of the unities of time and place, features in the conduct of his plays which, though they have for a long period heaped upon his head a torrent of contemptuous abuse, are, at length, acknowledged to have laid the foundation, and to have furnished the noblest model of a dramatic literature, in its principles and spirit infinitely more profound and comprehensive than that which has descended to us from the shores of Greece. It was in reference to the narrow and mistaken views which were once entertained of the genius of Shakspeare; it was in refutation of the calumnies of Rymer, and the senseless invective of Voltaire, who had charged us with an extravagant admiration of this barbarian, that Mr. Morgan, forty years ago, stood forward the avowed champion, and, we may add, one of the most eloquent defenders which his country has yet produced, of England's calumniated Bard. Speaking of the magic influence which our poet almost invariably exerts over his auditors, he remarks, that "On such an occasion, a fellow, like Rymer, waking from his trance, shall lift up his Constable's staff, and charge this great Magician, this daring practiser of arts inhibited, in the name of Aristotle, to surrender; whilst Aristotle himself, disowning his wretched officer, would fall prostrate at his feet and acknowledge his supremacy.—‘O supreme of Dramatic excellence! (might he say) not to me be imputed the insolence of fools. The bards of Greece were confined within the narrow circle of the Chorus, and hence they found themselves constrained to practise, for the most part, the precision, and copy the details of nature. I followed them, and knew not that a larger circle might be drawn, and the drama extended to the whole reach of human genius. Convinced, I see that a more compendious nature may be obtained; a nature of effects only, to which neither the relations of place, or continuity of time, are always essential. Nature, condescending to the faculties and apprehensions of man, has drawn through human life a regular chain of visible causes and effects: but Poetry delights in surprize, conceals her steps, seizes at once upon the heart, and obtains the sublime of things without betraying the rounds of her ascent. True Poesy is magic, not nature: an effect from causes hidden or unknown. To the Magician I prescribed no laws; his law and his power are one; his power is his law.—If his end is obtained, who shall question his course? Means, whether apparent or hidden, are justified in Poesy by success; but then most perfect and most admirable when most concealed.' "Yes,' whatever may be the neglect of some, or the censure of others, there are those, who firmly believe that this wild, this uncultivated Barbarian has not yet obtained one half of his fame ; and who trust that some new Stagyrite will arise, who, instead of pecking at the surface of things, will enter into the inward soul of his compositions, and expel, by the force of congenial feelings, those foreign impurities which have stained and disgraced his page. And as to those spots which still remain, they may perhaps become invisible to those who shall seek them thro' the medium of his beauties, instead of looking for those beauties, as is too frequently done, thro' the smoke of some real or imputed obscurity. When the hand of time shall have brushed off his present Editors and Commentators, and when the very name of Voltaire, and even the memory of the language in which he has written, shall be no more, the Apalachian mountains, the banks of the Ohio, and the plains of Sciola shall resound with the accents of this Barbarian. In his native tongue he shall roll the genuine passions of nature; nor shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or the charms and wit of Rosalind be abated by time."* Since this eloquently prophetic passage was written, how has the fame of Shakspeare increased! Not only in England has the growth of a more enlightened criticism operated in his favour, but on the Continent an enthusiasm for his genius has been kindled, which, we may venture to say, will never be extinguished. In Germany, the efforts of Herder, of Goëthe, of Tieck, and, above all, of Augustus William Schlegel, the "new Stagyrite," as he may justly be termed, the best critic on, and the best translator, of our author,† have, as it were, naturalised the poet; and if in France the labours of Lemercier and Ducis have failed to produce a similar effect, yet a taste for Shakspeare in the original has been very powerfully heightened by the nervous and elegant compositions of De Staël. Nor has Europe alone borne testimony to the progress of his reputation; not twenty years had passed over the glowing predictions of Morgan, when the first transatlantic edition of Shakspeare appeared at Philadelphia;‡ nor is it too much to believe that, ere another century elapse, the plains of Northern America, and even the unexplored wilds of Australasia, shall be as familiar with the fictions of our poet, as are now the vallies of his native Avon, or the statelier banks of the Thames. It is, indeed, a most delightful consideration for every lover and cultivator of our literature, and one which should excite, amongst our authors, an increased spirit of emulation, that the language in which they write, is destined to be that of so large a portion of the new world; a field of glory to which the genius of Shakspeare will assuredly give an unperishable permanency; for the diffusion and durability of his fame are likely to meet with no limit, save that which circumscribes the globe, and closes the existence of time. Essay on the Dramatic Character of Falstaff, p. 69, 70, 71, and 64, 65. For just and discriminative characters of Schlegel and his writings, see the Germany of Madame De Staël, and the Monthly and Edinburgh Reviews. In the year 1795. Printed and sold by Bioren and Madan. CHAPTER XIII. A Brief View of Dramatic Poetry, and its Cultivators, during Shakspeare's Connection with the Stage. THAT the master-spirit which Shakspeare exhibited in the eyes of his contemporaries; that the great improvements which he had made on the drama of Peele and Marlowe, and their associates, should excite the wonder and call for the emulation of his age, were events naturally to be expected. He was accordingly the founder of a school of dramatic art which continued to flourish until extinguished by those convulsions that destroyed the monarch, and overturned the government of the country,—a school to which we have since had nothing similar, or even approximating in excellence. The fate, however, of the leader and his disciples has been widely different. During the life-time of Shakspeare, the spirit of competition forbade an open acknowledgment of his pre-eminence, and those who had run the race of glory with him, and outlived his day, had influence sufficient, either from personal interest, or the charm of novelty, to procure a more frequent representation of their own productions, however inferior, than of those of their departed luminary. But when the grave had closed alike on their great exemplar and on themselves, apart, indeed, was their allotment in the estimation of the living; for while the former sprang from the tomb with fresh energy and beauty, over the latter dropped, comparatively, the mantle of oblivion! Yet, not for ever! Though lost, for a time, in the effulgence of that lustre which has continued to brighten ever since its revivescence, they have nevertheless, through an intrinsic though more subdued brilliancy of their own, begun, at length, to emerge into day, and their demand upon the justice of criticism, for their station and their fame, is loud and imperative. Let us, therefore, as far as our brief limits will permit, and in furtherance of what has been so judiciously commenced, co-operate in the endeavour to apportion to these immediate successors of our matchless bard, the honour due to their exertions. If correctly attributed, it cannot be trifling, and may assist in forming a just notion of the most valuable period of our dramatic poesy. We shall commence with those who, in their own age, were deemed the rivals, and followed, indeed, fast upon the footsteps of Shakspeare, hesitating not to give priority of notice to the name of John Fletcher, who, though hitherto inseparably united in fame and publication with his friend Francis Beaumont, deserves, both from the comparative number and value of his pieces, a separate and exclusive consideration. Of the fifty-three plays which have been ascribed to these poetical friends, it appears that not more than nine or ten were the joint productions of Beaumont and Fletcher; in still fewer was he assisted by Massinger, Rowley, and Field, and the ample residue, independent of two pieces now lost, and known to have been his sole composition, was therefore the entire product of Fletcher's genius.* With this curious fact, we were first made acquainted by Sir Aston Cokain, who, speaking of the thirty-four plays of these poets, as published in the folio of 1647, informs us, that "Beaumont of those many writ in few; And Massinger in other few: the main Being sole issues of sweet Fletcher's brain." † Vide Malone's Dryden, vol. i. part ii. p. 101. + Verses addressed to Mr. Humphrey Mosely, published in his Poems, Epigrams, &c. 1658. In fact, as Sir Aston has elsewhere told us, the bulk of the collection was written after Beaumont's death, which took place in 1615; the fecundity of Fletcher being so great, that in the interval between that event and his own decease in 1625, he had produced nearly forty dramas, besides some which were left in an unfinished state, and completed by Shirley. It is also necessary to add, that the ten plays which issued from the firm of Beaumont and Fletcher are, by no means, the best of the entire series: they are Philaster, The Maids Tragedy,-King and No King,-The Knight of the Burning Pestle,-Cupid's Revenge,-The Coxcomb,--The Captain,-The Honest Man's Fortune,-The Scornful Lady, and The False One;+ productions, in allusion to which it has been said, and perhaps with no great injustice, that “if the plays of Beaumont were thrown out of the collection by Beaumont and Fletcher, the remainder would form a richer ore."‡ Warrantable, therefore, upon this statement, must it be deemed, should we now drop the name of Beaumont, after observing, that a portion of the merits and defects of Fletcher may be attributed to his friend, and that, in the estimation of Ben Jonson (on this subject the most unexceptionable testimony), he possessed, beyond all others of his age, a sound and correct judgment. S The characteristic of Fletcher, in the serious department of his art, was a peculiar mastery in the delineation of the softer passions, especially of love. There is a sweetly pensive tone in many of his pictures of this kind, which steals upon the mind with the most insinuating charm, producing that species of pathos which soothes while it gently agitates the soul; a feeling too sad and melancholy for the genius of comedy, and too mild and subdued for that of tragedy, but admirably adapted to an intermediate style of composition, of which he has given us some happy instances under the title of tragi-comedy. It must be confessed, however, that an impression of feebleness and effeminacy, a sickliness of sentiment, and a want of dignity in the pity which he endeavours to excite, but too often accompany his efforts, even in this his favourite province. Yet not unfrequently did Fletcher aspire to the loftiest heights of the dramatic muse; to the terrible, to the wildly awful, to the agony of grief. But here he sank beneath the genius of Shakspeare; in his endeavour to be great, there is a labour and contortion which frequently betrays the struggle to have been painfully arduous; an impression which we never receive from the drama of his predecessor, who seems to attain the highest elevation with an ease and spontaneity of movement, which suggests an idea, approaching to sublimity, of the fulness and extent of his resources. But, as an elegant critic has observed, Fletcher was "too mistrustful of Nature; he always goes a little on one side of her. Shakspeare chose her without a reserve and had riches, power, understanding, and long-life, with her, for a dowry." Very different, however, was the result of his efforts, when he touched the gaieties of life; for in this path, he moves with a grace and legerity which has not often been equalled. He displays, it is true, little humour, and consequently not much strength of character; but we are told, on good authority, †† that no poet before him painted the conversation of the gentlemen of his day with such fidelity and truth; a declaration which impresses us with an high opinion of the vivacity and intellectual smartness of the dialogue of that age; for there is in the representation of Fletcher an almost perpetual effervescency and corruscation of wit and repartee. The imagination of Fletcher, when not straining after the eagle wing of the Verses addressed to Mr. Charles Cotton. See Malone's Dryden, vol. i. part ii. p. 101. note. that Malone's Dryden, vol. i. part ii. p. 100.-Fuller tells us, in his quaint but emphatic manner, Beaumont brought "the ballast of judgment," and Fletcher "the sail of phantasie."--Worthies, part ii. p. 288. Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, p. 409. ++ Dryden on Dramatic Poesy. bard of Avon, was fertile and felicitous in an extraordinary degree. The romantic, the fanciful, the playful, are epithets peculiarly descriptive of its range and tone, within which he frequently emulates with success the excellence of his great master. There appears, indeed, in several of his pieces, an evident intention of entering the lists with Shakspeare. Thus the exquisitely pleasing character of Euphrasia, under the disguise of a page, in Philaster, was undoubtedly intended to rival the similar concealments in The Two Gentleman of Verona, in As You Like It, in Cymbeline, and in Twelfth Night. Amoret, in The Faithful Shepherdess, is a delightful counterpart of Perdita, in The Winter's Tale, and throughout The Two Noble Kinsmen, and especially in the character of the Jailor's daughter, there is a striking, and, in general, a very happy effort made, to copy the express colouring of Shakspeare's style, and his mode of representing the wanderings of a disordered intellect. But when, regardless of the hazardous nature of the experiment, he attempts, in his Sea Voyage, to emulate the magic structure and wild imagery of The Tempest, his ambition serves but to show, that he had formed a very inadequate estimate of his own powers. Yet the failure in such an enterprise can reflect no disgrace, and from what has been said, it must necessarily be inferred, that we consider Fletcher as holding a very high, if not the highest rank, in the school of Shakspeare. How much is it to be lamented then, that excellence such as this should have been polluted by the grossest spirit of licentiousness; for it would appear, from the tenour of many of our author's plays, that, in his vocabulary, sensuality and sensibility were synonymous terms; so nakedly and ostentatiously has he brought forward the most immodest impulses of sexual appetite. Shakspeare may be, and is, occasionally, coarse and unreserved in his language; but, if compared with Fletcher, the nudity of his expressions is like the marble statue of a vestal, when contrasted with the wanton exposure of a prostitute. As we wish to be spared the pain of reverting to such a subject, for which the age of Fletcher and his successors offers, unfortunately, but too many opportunities, it shall here be closed with a single expression of regret, that a department of poetry which, in itself, seems better calculated than any other to serve the cause of virtue, should be degraded to a purpose thus base and unworthy.* On a level with, if not one degree above, the writings of Fletcher, follow the purer and more chastised productions of Philip Massinger, a poet of unwearied vigour and consummate elegance. That he had, in conjunction with others, composed for the stage some years anterior to the death of Shakspeare, there is every reason to conclude; for his first arrival in London, in 1606, was, we are told, under necessitous circumstances, and with the view of dedicating his talents to dramatic literature; and though his Virgin Martyr, his earliest publication, did not appear until 1622, it was a notorious fact, that he had written in conjunction both with Beaumont and Fletcher. It is almost certain, indeed, from what Mr. Gifford has stated, that, in the interval just mentioned, he had brought on the stage not less than eight or ten plays.‡ The English drama never suffered a greater loss (for all Shakspeare's pieces have descended to us) than in the havoc which time and negligence have committed among the works of Massinger; for of thirty-eight plays attributed to his pen, only eighteen have been preserved! Massinger, like Fletcher, pursued the path in which Shakspeare had preceded * Would that the Commentators on Shakspeare had pursued the plan which Mr. Gifford has adopted in his edition of Massinger, who, speaking of the freedoms of his author, declares, that "those who examine the notes with a prurient eye, will find no great gratification of their licentiousness. I have called in no ‘one' (he adds) to drivel out gratuitous obscenities in uncouth language; no 'one' to ransack the annals of a brothel for secrets better hid: where I wished not to detain the reader, I have been silent, and instead of aspiring to the fame of a licentious commentator, sought only for the quiet approbation with which the father or the husband may reward the faithful editor."-Massinger, vol. i. p. lxxxiii, lxxxiv. Gifford's Massinger, vol. i. p. xii, xiv. Introduction. Ibid. vol. i. p. xviii.-xx. |