;. &ttt|)cr. ENGLAND WITHOUT AND WITHIN. In one volume, 12010, $2.00. WO90S AND THEIR USES. PAST AND PRESENT. A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. New and Re- vised Edition. In one volume, izmo, #2.co. EVERY-DAY ENGLISH. A SEQUEL TO " WORDS AND THEIR USES." In one volume, i2rno, $2.00. THE FATE OF MANSFIELD HUMPHREYS. With the Episode of Mr. Washington Adams in England, and an Apology. In one volume, i6mo, $i 25. STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. In one volume, 12010, $i-75- SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS. Riverside Edition. Ed- ited by RICHARD GRANT WHITE. With Glossarial, His- torical,, and Explanatory Notes. In three volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top, the set, $7.50; half calf, $15.00. THE SAME. Insixvols. cr. 8vo, gilt top, the set, $10.00; half calf, $18.00. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers, BOSTON AND NEW YORK. STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE EDITOR OF THE RIVERSIDE EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS THIRD EDITION BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1887 Copyright, 1885, BY ALEXINA B. WHITE. All rights reserved. The Riversiffe Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co, INTRODUCTORY NOTE. A NUMBEE of Shakespearean studies, which have been published from time to time in periodical form, are gathered in this volume. All of them have been revised, and some of them have been condensed and emended by the author ; who also added fresh matter on Shakespeare Glossaries and Lexicons, and a note on Mr. Walker's " Critical Examination of the Text." It was while preparing this book for publication, that Mr. Grant White was seized by the long and painful illness from which recovery became impossi- ble. His work upon it had so nearly reached com- pletion, however, that little remained to be done be- yond the customary corrections for the press. And his readers will remember, should inaccuracies appear in its pages, that they did not receive these last finish- ing touches from the hand now laid at rest forever. CONTENTS. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. PAGU I. PLATS OF THE FIRST PERIOD 1 II. PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD 19 III. PLAYS OF THE THIRD PERIOD . . 38 NARRATIVE ANALYSIS. I. THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND 58 II. THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER 77_ III. THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN 101 IV. THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN 127 MISCELLANIES. I. THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE 151 II. KING LEAR | THE TEXT 183 ( PLOT AND PERSONAGES 210 III. STAGE ROSALINDS 233 IV. ON THE ACTING OF IAGO 258 EXPOSITORS. GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS 280 NOTE ON W. S. WALKER'S "CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE TEXT " . . 364 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAREo ON BEADING SHAKESPEAEE. I. PLAYS OF THE FIRST PERIOD. MANY letters have come to ine during the last few years asking what seems to me a very strange ques- tion How to read Shakespeare. My answer would naturally be : the way to read Shakespeare is to read him. The rest follows as matter of course. If, not having read before, you read anywhere, you will know a new delight ; you will read more ; you will go on ; in your eager reading you will consume the book. Having read all, you will read again, and now will be- gin to ponder, and compare, and analyze, and seek to fathom ; and having got thus far, you will have found an occupation which lights with pleasure the whole of your leisure life. This seems to me to be the natural way of reading Shakespeare. This is the way in which I have found that most of the truest lovers of Shake- speare came to know him, to delight in him, and finally to wait upon him with a kind of intellectual wor- ship. It is hard for these men to apprehend that there are others not without intelligence and education, and who read, who have not read Shakespeare, or who hav- ing read a little of him do not read more. But there are such men ; and there are still many more such women. On the whole I am inclined to think that 1 2 STUDIES IN, SHAKESPEARE. Shakespeare ' is iioc a woman's poet. He deals too largely with life ; he handles the very elements of hu- man nature ; he has a great fancy, but is not fanciful ; his imagination moulds the essential and the central rather than the external ; he is rarely sentimental, never except in his youngest work. Women, with the exception of a few who are not always the most lov- able or the happiest of the sex, like something upon a lower plane, something that appeals more directly to them, because it was written to appeal directly to some one else (for in literature that which is directed to one point always keeps its aim) ; they like the personal, the external ; that which seems to be showing them either themselves or some other real person. Shake- speare's humor, which is equalled by no other, but most nearly approached by Sir Walter Scott's when he is in his happiest moods, is appreciated by still fewer women than the number who find pleasure in his poetry. They receive it in rather a dazed fashion, and don't know exactly what it means. All this, just as they would rather look at a woman of the first fashion in a dress of their time than at the grand simplicity of ideal woman in the Venus (so-called) of Melos. Then there are people who read Shakespeare as an elder acquaintance of my boyish years read him. He asked me if I would lend him my Shakespeare. Strip- ling as I was, I thought it a strange thing for a fellow who lived in a big, handsome house to borrow ; but I lent him my treasure. He brought it back the day but one afterward, with the remark that he " liked it very much," which I heard with mingled amuse- ment and amazement. Yet he was a not unintelligent youth, did well in life, and becoming a man of wealth, ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 3 developed in one department of art " quite a taste." Perhaps if he had had some advice about reading Shakespeare he would not have returned the volume containing his entire works after thirty-six hours' pos- session, with just that expression of approval. Most of those who have asked this advice are, I am inclined to think, very young, as indeed some of them say they are ; and a large proportion are plainly girls just beginning to feel their way in literature, and they ask, in the words of one of them, " How shall I begin ? and which plays shall I read first, so as to be sure to like them and their author? " Such uncertainty, I must confess, does not promise any genuine, strong taste for Shakespeare. Boys are of slower mental growth than girls, especially upon the poetical and sentimental side ; but no boy who is a born Shake- speare-lover needs to ask such a question as that at sixteen. He has then already stepped in too far to pick his way or to turn back. In beginning to read Shakespeare the first rule and it is absolute and without exception, a rare rule indeed is to read him only. Throw the commenta- tors and the editors to the dogs. Don't read any man's notes, or essays, or introductions, aesthetical, historical, philosophical, or philological. Don't read mine. Read the plays themselves. Be absolutely unconcerned what is their origin, what the date of their production, or what the condition of their text. Don't attempt criti- cism, either aesthetic or verbal ; above all keep your mind entirely free from the influence of what this or that eminent critic has said about them. Read at first chiefly, rather only, for the story ; that is, for the dra- matic development and interest of the plot. If you have the capacity of appreciating Shakespeare, you 4 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. will find that it takes hold of you at once. But don't hurry through a play as you would through a society novel, skipping the unessential, or what seems to you to be so. Don't skip anything ; even the briefest scene or the most trivial speech of the most unimpor- tant personage. Shakespeare flung abroad his wealth ; for his hand was full of it, and it fell upon all his creatures. The lips of his very peasants and beggars drop jewels. But until you have mastered the story, and have a clear and strong apprehension of the dra- matic relations of the personages, do not stop any longer than you must needs to admire even the match- less beauty of his utterance. There is time enough for that. That is a pleasure that will last your whole life, and grow greater as you grow older. Look at the men and women that he sets before you, and see the way of their moral and mental growth, and the way that they work upon each other, and what comes in the end of what they are and what they do. After you have read all the plays in this way, with a few exceptions which I shall point out, you may then begin to study Shakespeare as a poet, and, with the help of critics, to observe his use of language that which is peculiar to him, and that which is pecu- liar to his time ; to inquire into the allusions that he makes to subjects which are new to you because they are old; to examine the construction of his plays, and the manner in which they were developed from the tales, the chronicles, and the older plays upon which they are founded. In a word, you may then enter upon the critical study of Shakespeare, for which of course a critical edition is necessary. But first, and above all, begin by reading him, pure and simple, and in an humble and receptive spirit. When ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 5 you meet with anything, either in the language or in the action of the personages, that you do not under- stand, or which seems unnatural or out of keeping, as- sume, for the nonce at least, that Shakespeare, or even his editors, may be right and you wrong. Don't waste much time in beating your head against the difficulty, but leave it as a subject for future consideration, and go on with the play. The plays which you would do well to pass over in your first reading are, " Titus Andronicus," " Pericles," "King Henry VI.," and perhaps "Love's Labour's Lost." The reasons for the omission of these plays from your acquaintance-making with Shakespeare are : that " Titus Andronicus " is a horrible, coarse, and child- ishly constructed tragedy, filled with bombastic lan- guage and bloody deeds, a play of which Shake- speare wrote but a part ; it being chiefly the work of Christopher Marlowe, and probably George Peele, two playwrights who were elder contemporaries of his, and with whom he worked more or less in the begin- ning of his theatrical life : that " Pericles," although it is rich, particularly in the later acts, in work of Shakespeare's best period, was not planned by him, and was written by him only in part, and cannot be read as an example of his dramatic characterization or with much pleasure by a novice in Shakespeare reading, because of its very unskilful construction, and repulsive, puerile story : that " King Henry VI." is open to exceptions of the same kind as to author- ship, the particulars of which need not be given here : and that "Love's Labour's Lost," although it is Shakespeare's beyond question, and his probably without the interpolation of a single line by another playwright, lacks dramatic interest in its construction 6 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. and its dialogue, and is full of cold conceits and of personages more like stage puppets than those which appear in any other of Shakespeare's undoubted works. One reason of this is tltat " Love's Labour 's Lost," we may be sure, is the first existing play that he wrote single-handed ; an almost boyish production. And yet his worthy reader will find in it touches of fancy, of humor, and even of wisdom, which we know could then have come from no other hand. Con- sidering who wrote it, its chief lack, regarded even as a youthful work, is in poetic fancy. Of knowledge of human nature it displays a remarkable store in one so young as its author was. The reading of it ought not to check the enthusiasm of a true Shakespeare lover at any period of his pupilage. At what time of life the reading of Shakespeare may be begun with profit and with pleasure, it is hard to say. One thing is sure : it is never too late to begin, and however late, always begin in just this way. The young reader may begin Shakespeare read- ing at the first temptation to do so. A one-volume edition of Shakespeare's plays is a good book to leave in the way of young people. It may do them a great deal of good; it can do no one of them any harm. There is no art or mystery in reading Shakespeare. It should not be thrust upon any one, but be left to come by nature ; for if it come not in that way, look for it in no other. I have said that most boys who are Shakespeare lovers have the love strongly upon them before they are sixteen. Such I know was my own case. I was not fifteen when, to my father ask- ing, as he saw my delight in my hand, which of the plays I liked best, I answered, " King Lear ; " sur- prising him, as I found, for he had supposed that I ON BEADING SHAKESPEARE. 7 would say, "Romeo and Juliet." But I had been brought up on the Bible, which I had read until even at this day I know it better than I know any other book, and this with the " Pilgrim's Progress " and the Waverley novels, every one of which I had read over and over again, had made poor books distasteful to me, and awakened in me a greed for the good ; for which wise training of my boyhood I cannot be too grateful. Let therefore no young person shrink from beginning an acquaintance with Shakespeare on the ground of youth, or through fear of not understanding him. True, all young people will find much in his pages that they cannot fully comprehend, and some things that they may not quite apprehend ; but so will old people; there is always some new revelation to be received from Shakespeare. So I was told in my youth by old people who had loved and read him from youth to age; and so I have found, myself, as years have gone by. As to the play with which it is best for a young reader of Shakespeare to begin, I should not hesitate to say that the first play in most editions, " The Tempest," is as good as any, although it is among the last productions of his later years as a dramatic writer. The novelty and interest of its personages and its situations, its simple construction, and its poetry, which soars but never gets among the clouds or into atmosphere too rare for ordinary mortals' breathing, make it the source of a pleasure that no one capable of literary art can fail to drink in with a delight unknown before. The tempest ceases, and the lowering sky breaks, after the first scene ; the rest is filled with the light of coming happiness. If not this, " As You Like It " might first be taken up ; then 8 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. " The Merchant of Venice " and " Much Ado about Nothing." To these " Romeo and Juliet " might well succeed, after which a return to the comedies would be advisable, except that I should recommend that "All's Well that Ends Well," "The Winter's Tale," and " Measure for Measure " should be left until the last, and indeed until the reader shall have made further acquaintance with the tragedies, and read at least two of the histories the First and Second Parts of "King Henry IV." To these it would be well to pass from " The Merry Wives of Windsor," because of Falstaff, whose humor appears in its lowest (yet high) form in " The Merry Wives," and in its highest in the Second Part of " Henry IV." The reader cannot now well go astray ; but I should advise that the Roman and Grecian plays should be left until the last, " Troilus and Cressida " being read last of all ; not because of any superiority, al- though it is one of Shakespeare's greatest works, but because of a peculiarity which I shall speak of further on. The plays (with the exceptions named) having been read in this way once (but two or three times would be better), the Shakespeare-lover will wish to know them more intimately, to study their language, to un- derstand their construction, to fathom their thought and their feeling. But before doing this he should read the poems, remembering that " Venus and Ado- nis " is a very youthful production, and not in Shake- speare's peculiar manner, but in the manner of the time, and that " Lucrece," although freer in style, is open to the same criticism. One reading will suffice for these. The " Sonnets " are of an altogether different cast ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 9 Whatever was their occasion, they came from Shake- speare's heart of hearts. Whoever can read them once, and not read them again and again, borne on and up by their strong flow of feeling, lost in the fas- cinating mystery of their allusions, has not the root of the matter in him, and may as well attempt to see no further into Shakespeare than a very little way be- low the surface. This done, in the more thoughtful re-reading of the plays it will be well to take a course which follows the development of Shakespeare's mind, reading his plays in the order of their production, so far at least as that has been discovered with reasonable probability. For we know so little about Shakespeare that even the order in which he wrote his plays must be determined by inference from internal and external evidence. It is as a guide to such a course that the following remarks upon the plays are offered. The reader who, having mastered and enjoyed the whole of the plays, although only in outline as it were, returns to " Love's Labour 's Lost," or then takes it up for the first time, will see one of the most striking- examples in all literature of the difference that exists between mature and immature genius of the highest order. The whole play is stiff and crude (remember that we are standing upon the Shakespearean plane) ; its personages show germs of character or imperfect outlines, rather than character ; they are book-made, and, like most very youthful work, show reminiscence, with little of that modification and enrichment by which greatly gifted minds, imparting their gifts, ren- der reminiscences their own. 1 The play is constructed upon a fantastic conceit, and indeed, with " The Com- 1 In the Introduction and Notes to this play in my edition, 1857, this view and what follows are more particularly set forth. 10 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. edy of Errors " and " A Midsummer Night's Dream," belongs to the region of pure fantasy. The first and last of these three plays are almost like glorified fairy pieces or masques ; the " Errors " being like a glorified burlesque. . Shakespeare doubtless formed it in a measure upon the model of the court comedies of his elder contemporary John Lilly, the author of " Eu- phues," a very clever book, but quaint, stiff, little read, less understood, and therefore much misrepre- sented. But fantastic and jejune as the play is, ob- serve in the drawing of Birone and Rosaline, stiff and formal although it is, like that of one of Raphael's early Perugine Madonnas, tokens of the hand which afterward ^rew Benedick and Beatrice with such free- dom and such strength. Note the worldly wisdom which appears in this work of a young man of twenty- three or twenty-four ; of which I cite first three well known surprisingly sagacious lines; A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it. Act V. Sc. 2. Then these not less sagacious, but not so well known as they should be : Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Act I. Sc. 1. But remark chiefly the wisdom with which Rosaline disciplines Birone, almost " chastising him with the valor of her tongue." She preaches at him too much, it is true ; but none the less it is great sermonizing o come from a young actor's pen. This play, Shake- - ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 11 speare's first, has the remarkable distinction of being the only one which contains a passage in praise of woman a theme upon which other poets have been so copious. Shakespeare's women are far beyond the creative power of other poets and dramatists ; but only in this play, of all the thirty-seven, does he speak one word in praise of the sex, and that with no very ex- alted feeling, so that it does not amount to praise of woman in the abstract. 1 This neglect to pay tribute of praise to the sex, and the fact that passages of an opposite bearing may be found in Shakespeare's works, cannot be without significance ; and I attribute it to his ill fortune in his wife and afterward in his mistress that beautiful dark woman whose infidelity to him with his best friend he reproaches so bitterly in the " Sonnets." For that the more important of those " Sonnets " were not written as an expression of per- sonal feeling is to me improbable to the verge of in- credibility. The next play of this little group, " The Comedy of Errors-," is a mere interweaving of farcical contretemps which come of the likeness of two twin masters and two twin servants who have been separated since child- hood. It is an imitation of Plautus's " Mensechmi," of which Shakespeare saw a translation which he took, as a mere playwright, and worked it over into some- thing that would please his audience. In this " Errors " the thought is of lighter weight than in any other of his undoubted works ; lighter even than in " Love's Labour 's Lost " or " A Midsummer Night's Dream." Naturally it is so from the character of the plot, which 1 The few lines of Act IV. Sc. 3, beginning " From women's eyes." WIiMi, some fifteen years ago, I made the assertion that Shakespeare had written nothing in praise of woman it was received with astonishment, de- nial, and derision. 12 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. is not only, like those of the two others, impossible, although supposable, but coarsely farcical rather than fanciful. It is a burlesque of the supposable impos- sible. Yet observe how, notwithstanding this, in the serious passages which merely serve as a stable frame- work for the fantastic fun, a knowledge of human nature crops out as it had done in no other play writ- ten before by a modern dramatist. Here is Shake- speare's first exhibition of jealousy; and it is the woman who is jealous. And indeed women only are truly jealous. To this rule the exceptions among men are very rare ; sexual jealousy being essentially a femi- nine passion. This we shall see when we come to consider the cases of Othello, Claudio, and Leontes. Adriana, being jealous of her husband that is, sus- picious that she has not his love, that he slights her person breaks out thus against him to her sister : I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still. My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. He is deformed, crooked, old and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere ; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. Act IV. Sc. 2. To which the sister thus unanswerably replies : Who would be jealous then of such a one ? No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone. Act IV. Sc. 2. Then comes the fine feminine touch : Ah ! but" I hold him better than I say, And vet would herein others' eyes were worse. Far from her nest the lapwing cries away : Mv heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse. Act. IV. Sc. 2. Woman is very concretely faithless in this matter, and will slander sometimes, to her rival, the very man she dotes upon, in hopes that thereby she may ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 13 keep him to herself. The passage just quoted is very rude work for Shakespeare. It lacks all the delicacy and subtleness of suggestion with which he in his later plays deploys any passion, particularly on the part of a woman. But nevertheless, as a whole, this is a rev- elation of natural feeling in speech very far superior to anything of the kind that had been written before by a dramatist in any modern language. And after- ward the abbess of a convent in which Antipholus takes sanctuary, he being supposed to be mad, talks with Adriana about her treatment of her husband; tells her that she did not reprehend him enough for his wanderings, or at least not roughly enough, or only in private, and again, not enough ; by which she craftily leads Adriana to this strong plea of self -justification : It was the copy of our conference : In bed he slept not for my urging it ; At board he fed not for my urging it ; Alone, it was the subject of my theme ; In company I often glanced it ; Still did I tell him he was vile and bad. Act V. Sc. 1. Whereupon the abbess, having ingeniously got at the truth and gained her point, thus promptly replies : And thereof came it that the man was mad: The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. Act V. Sc. 1. Nothing like this had then been written in a modern play, and we might almost safely say in modern litera- ture. And Shakespeare when he wrote this was only about twenty-six years old. True, he married when he was but eighteen a woman eight years older than himself, and lived with her some three or four years before he escaped to London, where he lived, not with her, until he was about forty-eight. 14 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," although in the same category with the two plays already remarked upon, shows a great advance upon them, and in my opinion was written, or at least completed, some three or four years later than either. Because it belongs to the same fanciful or fantastical school in its construc- tion, some critics have inferred that the three were written in close succession. This, however, seems too strait a limitation of mental action on the part of a playwright, if not of a poet. Must we assume that Shakespeare adhered to one method so strictly, and exchanged his style so suddenly and so absolutely that there was a violent and visible rupture, and that he wrote nothing in his fanciful style after a certain year, and nothing in another manner before it ? Is it not rather according to the common course of intellectual development that such changes should be somewhat gradual ? Certainly great painters and poets, great masters of all arts, have not unfrequently reverted, to a certain degree at least, to a former manner before they abandoned it entirely. This course of events is intellectual growth ; the former would be intellectual transmutation. " A Midsummer-Night's Dream " may have been one of its author's earliest dramatic concep- tions, but in its execution it shows, both in thought and in structure, and no less in poetical form, a marked mental development in the author of " Love's Labour 's Lost " and the " Errors." The " Dream " seems to be in substance and in structure entirely Shakespeare's. No prototype of it is known either in drama or in story. And it is in these respects of very much higher quality than either of the others. Like them, indeed, it is fantastical and impossible ; but unlike them, it has a real human in- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 15 terest, while its satire is that of a man who has had opportunities of studying his fellow-men widely as well as closely, and its poetry is very far beyond theirs in beauty both of form and of spirit. For the first time we have here a personage whose character has made him a widely known and accepted type. 1 The con- ceited, pretentious man of some ability, who is yet an ass, has in Nick Bottom his earliest and also his most admirable representative in literature. On the other hand, we have in this comedy the first childing of its author's fruitful fancy, and of his ability to clothe his fancies in phrases of delicious beauty, the sweetness of which never palls upon ear or mind. The enchant- ing compliment to Queen Elizabeth is perhaps the finest example in poetry of fancy pushed to the verge of extravagance, and yet kept within the limits of good taste. But although the most admirable passage of its kind in the comedy, it is only one of many of that kind. Two or three lines of it are very familiar ; but its highest beauty is in the sustained grace and elevation of the whole ; and for that reason, and for another important one, I quote the whole : Oberon. Thou rememb'rest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music? Puck. I remember. Oberon. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, 1 Unless we except Jack Cade, the t} r pe of the ignorant crafty dema- gogue. Cade, however, is not only much inferior to Bottom, but he is of doubtful origin, as he appears in the First Part of The Contention, etc., which was rewritten as the Second Part of King Henry VI. 16 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Act II. Sc. 1. The last line is the most beautiful example in all literature of the beauty of alliteration a trait of style which may become, and often does become, pesti- lent. But turning for the moment from this passage, the beauty of which is of a kind that appears in a marked degree in no earlier play of Shakespeare's, and indicates a rapid development of high poetic faculty, I direct the reader's attention to another manifestation of mental growth that poetical sen- tentiousness which is so peculiar a trait of Shake- speare ; that faculty of welding together truth, wis- dom, and fancy in such a closely wrought unity that they are essentially one, and that it is impossible even to distinguish the one from the other. Such, for ex- ample, is that passage upon imagination, with its fine distinction between apprehension and comprehen- sion, and its description of the poet's method and function. 1 This is a long step in advance of anything of its kind that Shakespeare had produced before. And thus the play, although it bears the marks of youth the youth of Shakespeare and although it belongs to the class in which fancy predominates, and the fantastic-impossible is the groundwork of the ac- tion, and the depths of man's nature are left un- sounded, rises as a whole into the upper, although not the topmost, heaven of dramatic poetry, and is the first of the works of its author which lift him into a place which others only approach. 1 " Lovers and madmen have such seething brains," etc, Act V. Sc. 1 ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 17 The observant reader of these three comedies (whom I suppose to have made himself generally acquainted with the whole of the plays) will be struck by the form of their poetry. They contain a great deal of rhyming verse. This is an outward and vis- ible sign of Shakespeare's youthful work; a sign which, taken in connection with his tone of feeling and his cast of thought, enables us to classify his plays according to their periods of production. For as his mind matured, his taste purified itself, and his hand acquired dramatic power and freedom, he cast off the fetters of rhyme, so that even in the plays of his second or middle period it rarely clogs the dra- matic utterance of his personages. But there is an- other external indication of poetical progress, even in these three early plays. The blank verse changes in character. Read the passage quoted above from " A Midsummer-Night's Dream " with careful attention to its structure, and mark its easy flow. See how the pauses are varied, how the course of the thought and of the rhythm is carried on beyond the end of a line to find a pause or a half pause in the body of the next line. See how the answer of Puck completes a verse left incomplete by Oberon. There is no blank verse of corresponding variety and beauty in " Love's La- bour 's Lost " or the " Errors." In them the pauses and the ends of the verses almost always coincide ; and the rhythm is comparatively formal and con- strained. This difference, as I have already remarked, is another trait of Shakespeare's poetical growth. The change in the rhythm of his blank verse is one of the guides to the period of the production of his several plays ; one which we cannot trust absolutely, and which indeed has itself to be studied and determined 18 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. in connection with facts which establish or at least limit the dates of production, but which, when once we have thus got upon its trail, rarely fails to lead us aright. About the same time that Shakespeare wrote these three plays he entered upon another dramatic field that of the comedy of society and produced " The Two Gentlemen of Verona," which should be taken up next by the reader who wishes to follow the course of his dramatic and poetic development. Whether it was written before or after the time when " A Mid- summer - Night's Dream " was completed and pro- duced, we cannot, I think, be quite sure. I am in- clined to the opinion that the latter, as tue have it, contains later work than appears in " The Two Gen- tlemen of Verona," which, although of a higher sort, is much inferior in point of art to the former. It is one of the weakest of Shakespeare's plays ; but yet it is a very much better comedy in every respect than had been written before by a modern dramatist. It has some charming passages and some fine touches of pure Shakespearean humor. But it lacks thoughtful- ness (for him) ; it is unfinished, feeble in characteriza- tion, and improbable and almost offensive in some of its incidents. The lovers, except sweet Julia, do not seem to be thoroughly in earnest, or to be touched with the fine fire of that passion as it is generally lit up by Shakespeare. It shows that Shakespeare had not freed himself from the influence of the prose ro- mancers of his early day, in whose tedious and un- natural tales such incidents as Silvia's giving the rejected Proteus her picture, Valentine's giving up Silvia to Proteus, and Proteus offering violence to Sil- via, are not uncommon. It has rhymed dialogue > ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 19 and its best blank verse is much inferior to the best blank verse of "A Midsummer - Night's Dream." Still it is the first comedy cf society in our literature which is at all tolerable as a representation of the daily intercourse of real human beings. It is to be remarked that in no department of the drama, com- edy, history, tragedy, is there extant any play ear- lier than Shakespeare which is entirely acceptable because of its intrinsic value. And this not because we are so dazzled by the splendor of his genius that we are blinded to the lesser lights that rose upon the world before him, but because they failed entirely to do what he did supremely. He was really first as well as greatest. From these comedies the reader would do well to turn to the earliest historical plays, which were pro- duced about the same time with them, or soon after, and which will next engage our attention. H. PLAYS OF THE SECOND PERIOD. OUR examination of Shakespeare's plays, in search of a course of reading them which, following the order of their production, would enable us to trace the development of his mind as a poet, a playwright, and a philosophical observer of human nature, has led us to the time when he entered upon the composition of his remarkable series of historical plays, called by his fellow actors and first editors, in the first collected edition of his works (1623), "histories." This kind of play is not peculiar to Shakespeare, nor was he by any means the first either to introduce it upon the English stage or to bring it into popular favor- In- deed, it is to be remarked, and noted as a fact full of 20 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. significance, that Shakespeare, the greatest of the cre- ative minds who have left their mark upon the ages, produced nothing new in design. His supreme excel- lence was attained simply by doing better than any one else that which others had done before him, and which others did after him, with the same purpose, upon the same plan, and with the same art motive. This fact, and the other previously mentioned, that Shakespeare did his work with no other purpose what- ever, moral, philosophical, artistic, literary, than to make an attractive play which would bring him money, should be constantly borne in mind by the critical and reflective reader of his plays. The clear apprehen- sion of them will save him from wandering off, him- self, or being led off by others profound people who set themselves very solemnly to the task of seeing what is not to be seen into various fantastical by- ways which will end in profound bogs and pitfalls, or, like the road we have heard of, in a foot-path that tapers off into a squirrel- track that will leave him who follows it " up a tree." Shakespeare wrote " histories " because, others hav- ing written them before him, it was found that the theatre-going people of the day liked them, and he, I feel quite sure, began at first to write them in connec- tion with other playwrights, after the fashion of the time ; when it was customary for two or three dra- matic poets, or even more, to work together in the production of one play. When he first went into the theatrical business there was no reason why he should be exempted from any of its laws or customs. He was only a young man from the provinces who had come up to London to seek his fortune; and he might ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 21 well be glad, and we may be sure that he was glad, to be admitted to write in company with other play- wrights who had already established some reputation. His first dramatic work that is, such work as was undertaken for a theatrical company and with prospect of immediate performance, or, what was more im- portant to him, payment would naturally be of this kind. That he had already written poetry, I think much more than probable, almost certain ; but his first dramatic work that went before the public was, I am of the opinion, a part of two plays called " The Con- tention of the Houses of York and Lancaster," and " The True Tragedy of the Duke of York," which he wrote in collaboration with Christopher Marlowe, George Peele, and probably Eobert Greene, three playwrights who were in very high repute when he went up to London. These historical plays may be found reprinted in Charles Knight's " Pictorial Edi- tion," and in the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's Works ; but I should not advise any person who has not the desire and the intention to make a very thorough critical study, not only of Shakespeare, but of Eliza- bethan dramatic literature generally, to undertake the reading of them. They afford- neither instruction nor pleasure. Parts of them are very dreary ; and all that is in them of Shakespeare's, I believe, he afterward took out and incorporated in the Second and Third Parts of " King Henry VI.," as they appeared in the collected editions of his works. The reasons of this opinion will be found fully set forth in my " Essay on the Authorship of the Three Parts of Henry VI. ; " and they were afterward ably summarized and en- forced in an abridgment of that essay by another 2U STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. writer, which took the Harkness Shakespeare Essay prize at Cambridge University, England. 1 The reader who wishes really to sturdy Shake- speare's mind in its peculiarities and its development would do well to go carefully over my essay ; and, as an ingenious setting forth of another theory, which I regard as entirely untenable, that Shakespeare had no hand in the construction and real writing of these plays, I commend to his attention an essay by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, in " Macmillan's Magazine " for Novem- ber, 1875. Then let him read the Second and Third Parts of " King Henry VI." Part I. may be left un- read ; Shakespeare had little if anything to do with the writing of it ; but possibly he may have touched its substance and modified its form here and there, suffi- ciently to bring it into keeping, for stage purposes, with Parts II. and III., and with " Richard III.," which was produced very soon afterward. In all these plays the observant reader will find marks of Shake- speare's 'prentice hand, and also, if he is at all familiar with the dramatic poetry of the early Elizabethan period, of the influence of Marlowe and Peele. TJje pretence which has been made for Shakespeare, that none of his work a* any period of his life resem- bles that of any other poet or playwright, and can al- ways be separated from that of his co-workers, is en- tirely irreconcilable with the facts and the probabilities of the case, and with the history of all arts, poetry in- cluded. True, Shakespeare's mind was, in the highest and largest sense of the terms, original and creative. But such minds, no less than others of narrower and 1 It is almost imperatively necessary that I should mention this fact in self-protection. The judges, as I have reason to believe, recognized it; but they felt obliged to give their decision "in favor of the best essay be> fore them," as it was not a bald plagiarism. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 23 inferior power, are imitative in their first essays. They, like others, may attempt at first some new, strange thing ; they may possibly strive to be original, although they are less likely to do so than the smaller and weaker men. For a seeking after originality is one of the sure accompaniments, or at least one of the unmistakable tokens, of a felt although perhaps an unconscious mental weakness. To original creative minds their originality and their creative powers come spontaneously and by a development more or less slow, and the originality always comes unsought. In the early work of even such strong, original minds in art as Raphael and Michael Aiigelo, Mozart and Beetho- ven, we find not only traces of their predecessors, but such absolute assimilation to them in form and in spirit that were it not for slight touches, manifestly in the least labored and least purposed passages, we could believe them the productions of some one of their elder contemporaries. In the Second and Third Parts of " King Henry VI.," therefore, and in " Richard III.," which contain the earliest of his historical works, we find traces of the principal dramatic poets whom he found in possession of the stage when he took to it for a living. Marlowe and Peele are those who seem to have impressed him most. A likeness to both these, and largely to Peele, appears in " Richard III.," which, although (because of its rapid recurrence of exciting scenes and inci- dents, its turbulent action, and the centring of the in- terest upon one chief personage) it is the greatest favorite of all the histories for the stage, is yet the poorest and thinnest in thought, the least free and harmonious in rhythm in a word, the least Shake- spearean of them all. Compare it with " Richard II.,'" 24 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. which was written a year or two after it, and in which Shakespeare seems to have taken his first great step toward originality in style and in the treatment of his material. As not unfrequently happens in such cases, he went too far, and produced a play the very reverse in style and spirit of " Richard III." It is a tragic dramatic poem rather than an historical play. The action, which in the earlier history of the later Rich- ard is so vivid, lags ; the movement is languid, and passages t)f reflection and contemplation abound. It has passages which are somewhat in Shakespeare's early and constrained manner both as to thought and versification. Such are these : Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thon, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son, Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ? Act I. Sc. 1. Alas, the parti had in Glou'ster's blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims, To stir against the butchers of his life ! But since correction lieth in those hands Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven ; Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. Act I. Sc. 2. Compare these passages with the blank verse of "A Midsummer - Night's Dream" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," and see the similarity between them ; not, of course, in the thoughts, but in the manner of thought and "in the rhythm. Observe, in all, the frequency of the pause at the end of the line ; the sense and the rhythm drooping together. These traits and the frequent recurrence of rhymed pas. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 2t> sages and of couplets in rhyme at the close of speeches in blank verse, a style of ending sometimes called tag-rhymes, might lead a reader with whom the ex- ternal and material had more weight than the internal and spiritual to infer that "Richard II." was the earliest in production of all Shakespeare's historical plays, before even " Richard III., 1 ' as it is of all those which are wholly original. But such traits, although they are of some value as guides in decid- ing the question of the succession in which Shake- speare's plays were produced, and so as to the order in which they should be read by those who wish to follow the development of his genius, are of an infe- rior order, and cannot be relied upon. Their evidence is to be accepted as confirmatory or accessory, and should be reckoned as a part only of that which must be taken into consideration. For it could not be relied upon, even should we set aside all other as of no account. Thus, for example, the tag-rhymes in "Love's Labour's Lost" and "The Two Gentle- men of Verona" are very few in comparison with those in "Richard II." and "Richard III.," al- though the comedies were produced at about the same time as the histories and unquestionably before them. As to the order of production, such passages as the following are of great weight : To please the king I did ; to please myself I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard. Yet again, methinks, Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, Is coming towards me; and my inward soul With nothing trembles : at some thing it grieves More than with parting from my lord the king. Act II. Sc. 2. 26 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd To bear the tidings of calamity. Like an unseasonable stormy day, Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores As if the world were all dissolved to tears, So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty ; and boys with women's voices Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown. Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double fatal yew against th}' state. Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have power to tell. Act III. Sc. 2. Compare these with any parts of the four plays that we took np for examination in our previous sec- tion, and see in them unmistakable evidence of greater maturity of thought, freer command of language, more skilful construction of verse. There can be no doubt, I think, that they are the product of Shake- speare's mind at its first attainment of free and in- dependent action, while, however, other passages in the same play show that it was yet somewhat restrained in its action by a memory of his predecessors and by the influence of his contemporaries. It would be well, therefore, to begin acquaintance with Shakespeare's historical plays by reading the mixed play " Richard III." first, then " Richard II.," and then "King John." This, it will be seen, re- verses the order of these histories according to the chronology of their events, which would place " King John " first and " Richard III." last of these three, and of all the histories except " Henry VIII. ; " which is the order in which they have always been printed. But chronology should be entirely disre- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 27 garded by the student, and even by the general reader of Shakespeare's plays. He took very little thought of it himself ; and only the " Henry VI." series and "Richard III." have any connection or relations of interdependence. Indeed, as to historical fact, the histories are in some cases inconsistent with each other ; but it is in minor and unessential fact which does not affect the dramatic motive of the play. Such points as this are not to be regarded by the reader of Shakespeare, whether in historical play, tragedy founded upon history, or in comedy. In all alike Shakespeare regarded his facts, i. e., the story, as mere material on which he was to work. He was as in- different in regard to anachronism as he was in regard to the unities of time and place. Nothing, however, affecting Shakespeare's mental development or his dramatic art can be inferred from his practice in these respects. The unities of time and place, for example, are preserved in his first two plays, " Love's Labour 's Lost " and " The Comedy of Errors," absolutely; in his third, "A Midsummer- Night's Dream," he began that disregard of them which he observed throughout his career, and which culminates in " The Winter's Tale," one of his very latest plays, in which the very semblance of them is so disregarded that it affects to a certain degree even a reader's enjoyment of it. But on the other hand, in " The Tempest," written in the same year, or at least the same twelvemonth, as " The Winter's Tale," the unities of time and place are observed with a strictness which cannot be surpassed. I do wrong to say that they are observed, which implies purpose on the part of the dramatist ; and nothing is clearer to me, the more I read and re- 28 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. fleet upon his works, than that, after his first three or four years' experience as a poet and a dramatist, he was entirely without even any art-purpose or aim whatever, and used his materials just as they came to his hand, taking no more pains with them than he thought necessary to work them into a play that would please his audience and suit his company; while at the same time, from the necessities of his nature and the impulse that was within him, he wrought out the characters of his personages with the knowledge of a creator of human souls, and in his poetry showed him- self the supremest master of human utterance. " The Tempest " conforms to the unities of time and place merely because the story made it convenient for the writer to observe them ; " The Winter's Tale " defies them because its story made the observance of them very troublesome, and indeed almost, if not quite, im- possible. There has been a great deal of ingenious speculation about Shakespeare's system of dramatic art. It is all unfounded, vague, and worthless. Shakespeare had no system of dramatic art. In "King John" the true dramatic history first appears-. " Henry VI." is rather a chronicle dram- atized, and so, almost, is " Richard III. ; " while " Richard II.," as I have before remarked, is a tragic dramatic poem founded upon historical events. " King John " presents the events of a whole reign such as were capable of dramatic treatment wrought into a dramatic form, but without any true dramatic motive, and with a conclusion which, while it is an impressive close of the action, is not a dra- matic catastrophe. We know very little of Shake- speare's real life, and still less of the influence that his experience as a man had upon his utterance as a ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 29 poet ; but it is to be remarked that his only son Ham- net died, at the age of eleven years, in 1596, and that " King John " was written in that year. It would seem as if the lovely character of Arthur (which is altogether inconsistent with the facts of history) was portrayed, and the touching lament of Constance for his loss written, by Shakespeare, with the shadow of this bereavement upon his soul. Premising that one at least of the earlier comedies and the earliest tragedy are almost necessarily passed over, it would be well next to take up " King Henry IV." in its two parts, this having been written directly after " King John." In these plays, which, like " King John," are true " histories " as far as the treatment of their main incidents is concerned, and in the poetical parts of which an increased weight of thought and momentum of utterance is observable, with a free- dom of versification required, and to a certain degree caused, by the former qualities, Shakespeare introduced for the first time a representation of English social life. It was the social life of his own day ; for never was there less the spirit of a literary antiquarian than in William Shakespeare. He was no more antiquarian than prophet. He showed things as they were, or rather as he saw them ; thoughtless as to the past, ex cept as it furnished him material for dramatic treat- ment ; careless of the future, because it could give him no such help. In "Henry IV." we have the highest manifestation of Shakespeare's humor ; but not in Falstaff only, whose vast unctuosity of mind as well as body has, to the general eye, unjustly cast his companions into eclipse. Prince Hal himself is no less humorous than Falstaff, while his wit has a dignity and a sarcastic 30 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. edge not observable in the fat knight's random and reckless sallies. Falstaff, however, is peerless in a great measure because he is reckless, and because Shakespeare, fully knowing the moral vileness of his creature, had yet, as a dramatist, a perfect intellectual indifference to the character of the personage by whom he effected his dramatic purpose. But besides these principals, the attendants upon their persons and the satellites of their blazing intellects, Pointz, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Mrs. Quickly, Justice Shallow, Silence, and the rest, form a group which for its presentation of the humorous side of life has never been equalled in literature. It surpasses even the best of " Don Quixote," as intellectual surpasses practical joking. This history, take it all in all, is the completest, although far from being the highest, exhibition of Shakespeare's varied powers as poet and dramatist. No other play shows his various faculties at the same time in such number and at such a height. The great- est Falstaff is that of the Second Part. He is in every trait the same as he of Part First ; but his wit becomes brighter, his humor more delicate, richer in allusion, and more highly charged with fun ; his impudence attains proportions truly heroic. As the Falstaff of Part Second of " Henry IV." is the best, that of " The Merry Wives " is the least admirable of all the three. In this comedy the Fal- staff is comparatively feeble, and the laughter pro- voked by the scenes in which he appears is in a great measure due to practical joking. This deterioration in the fat knight's quality, and in thatjof-ihe pleasure that he gives, agrees with and supports the tradition that the comedy was written in compliance with the request of Queen Elizabeth, that Falstaff should be ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 31 shown in love. It is not reasonable to suppose that the man who conceived Falstaff would, without exter- nal and superior suggestion, present him as a lover, or had conceived him as capable of the amorous passion ; and his part of this comedy, charming in other respects, has all the air of being produced under constraint. " The Merry Wives " has the distinction and the peculiar interest of being Shakespeare's only comedy of contemporary social life, of which we may be sure that he has given a faithful representation ; and to a desire to do this may be attributed a realistic air which pervades the whole play. Indeed, this is Shake- speare's only play in the real school. We owe to Queen Elizabeth's command, if indeed she gave it, the occasion which offered him an opportunity to show that he could surpass all other dramatists in the real no less than he did in the ideal presentation of daily life and of human nature. This comedy, as we have it in the folio and in subsequent collected editions of the plays, is not as Shakespeare first wrote it. His first sketch, which has come down to us, although imperfectly, shows unmistakable marks of haste in its composition. It was greatly improved in the revision. " The Merry Wives " leads our reader back to Shakespeare's early comedies of social life, of which, although he has read all of them once, he is supposed to have thus far studied only one, " The Two Gentle- men of Verona," its author's first attempt in this department of the drama. How rapidly Shake- speare's power developed, both as dramatist and poet, could not be more clearly apprehended than by the comparison of " The Two Gentlemen of Verona " with his next comedy of its kind, " The Merchant of 32 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Venice." At most only four or five years and there is some reason to believe even less elapsed between the composition of the former and that of the latter play. The former is, for Shakespeare, very weak; faulty in construction, crude in characterization, and, although it contains some charming passages which give promise of the coming man, notably Julia's third speech in Act II. Sc. 7, tame in its poetry. But it is to be observed that, although this is one of his earliest plays, his peculiar mastery of blank verse, in which the dialogue seems perfectly easy, and as natural as Monsieur Jourdain's prose, while its rhythm is as marked as that of a minuet, is shown, although with intervals, from the first scene to the last. Ob- serve it in Valentine's and Proteus's first speeches ; and in the following passage, in which the " unstopped " lines and the occurrence in nine of three with double endings show us that wo should not trust too much to such tokens as a test of the date of composition : Ant. Why, what of him ? Panth. He wondered that your lordship Would suffer him to spand his youth at home, While other men, of slender reputation, Put forth their sons to seek preferment out: Some to the wars to try their fortune there ; Some to discover islands far away ; Some to the studious universities. For any or for all these exercises He said that Proteus, your son, was meet. Act I. Sc. 3. This comedy has been pronounced careless in its composition. I cannot so regard it ; rather it seems to me labored and constrained. The reasons given are chiefly that Valentine is sent to Milan by sea, and that Verona twice occurs in the text where plainly Milan is required. But so did Shakespeare give Bohemia a seacoast in " The Winter's Tale," a play written in ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 33 his maturity. About geography Shakespeare seems to have known little and cared less. And why should it have been otherwise ? As it was, he knew more than was known to ninety-nine in a hundred of his audi- ence. As to the writing twice of Verona instead of Milan, it seems plainly a mere case of heterophemy. Careless or labored, however, " The Two Gentlemen of Verona" stands low in the list of Shakespeare's works, and he seems to have risen almost at a bound into the period when he produced the poetry of " The Merchant of Venice," of " Kichard II.," and of " Ko- meo and Juliet," which were written at about the same time. No more instructive study of Shakespeare could be undertaken than the comparison of " The Merchant of Venice " with "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." The differences most to be noted are in characteriza- tion and, as to poetry, sustained power. As to the former, compare Antonio with Valentine or Sir Thurio, Portia with Silvia, Nerissa with Lucetta, and see how much more clearly outlined are the former than the latter ; how much more vital their fibre ; how much more brain they have behind their eyes. Then look in vain in the earlier play for any figure with which to compare the fierce, fawning, crafty, eager, bloodthirsty Shylock. " The Two Gentle- men of Verona " is a love-play, pure and simple (for the friendly devotion of the two gentlemen, a common incident in the romances of Shakespeare's day, is plainly introduced merely for the purpose of the complications that it brings about) ; and yet compare any or all of it with Scene 2 of Act V., or with the whole fifth act of " The Merchant of Venice." The superior charm of the latter, the greater warmth and earnestness of its passion, must 3 34 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. be at once apparent to the most superficial reader. But the author's advance is shown perhaps more than in any other point in the boldness and freedom with which he handles his material, and in the skill shown in the dramatic construction of his play. In humor the difference is not so greatly in favor of the later work. Launce and his dog are little, if at all, infe- rior to Launcelot Gobbo. In both this play and its predecessor there is a pair of friends ; but beware of being led by that fact into the assumption that they are companion plays, having friendship for their cen- tral idea, and illustrating it by the opposite conduct of Proteus and Antonio. Shakespeare did not write plays with central ideas ; and in all such incidents as those referred to he merely followed the course or the indications of the stories upon which he worked, as will appear* in a very marked manner in the next play that we shall examine. About the period of his life when " The Merchant of Venice " was produced Shakespeare's attention seems to have been chiefly given to Italian literature, then the first and almost the only national literature in the world, and the school and the storehouse of writers of other races. An Italian story of a pair of hapless lovers, which had been repeated in a long and tedious English ballad version, was taken by him as the plot and almost as the substance of his first tragedy. " Romeo and Juliet " was written very soon after " The Merchant of Venice ; " within a year or a year and a half of it. It is in its spirit and senti- ment the most youthful of all Shakespeare's plays, not to say of his tragedies. " Love's Labour 's Lost," his first play, is much older in its cast of thought, and al- though a comedy, much graver and more sententious ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 35 in style than this tragedy. This appearance of greater youthfulness of feeling in his poetry is the result of a greater experience of life. It is a sign that the poet had grown a few years older. There is no gravity so grave, no sententiousness so sententious, no wisdom so didactic, as that of an intelligent young man whose twenty-one or twenty-two years weigh heavily upon his consciousness. About ten years afterward he begins to find out that he and life and the world are young. And so it was that at thirty-two Shakespeare gave the world in a tragedy, the freshest, sweetest breath of life's springtime that ever was uttered by a poet's lips. It is at least probable, however, that the play as we have it in the folio bears the marks of a revision of an earlier composition. The numerous rhymes and the occurrence of very young and extremely fanciful po- etry such, for example, as Juliet's passage contain- ing the request that Romeo should be cut up into little stars (Act III. Sc. 2) favor this inference. Very many wise and subtle theories as to Shake- speare's purpose in this play have been set forth by critics who engage in the task of approfounding him. They have discovered that he wished to show in Romeo the ephemeral quality of one kind of love and the enduring quality of the other, and how the latter drives out the former ; that the play was in- tended as a companion to " Troilus and Cressida," and that the faithful Juliet is presented as an instructive contrast to the faithless Cressida ; and that the moral which the tragedy was written to enforce is, according to one view, the deference due to the wishes of par- ents ; according to the others, the punishment which is sure to fall upon those who cherish family hatred. Ingenious and pretty, but vain fancies. All the inci- 36 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. dents in the play Shakespeare found in the dreary old ballad, the course of events in which he merely adopted without change other than their adornment with the splendor of his thought. The Romeo of the old ballad loves and changes his love just as the Ro- meo of the tragedy does ; Juliet is faithful there just as Cressida is faithless in Chaucer's poem, to which Shakespeare went for his " Troilus and Cressida ; " and from the old story in the ballad, and not from Shakespeare's mind, came any lesson of the duty of filial deference ; for there Juliet gives herself to the enemy of her family just as she does in the tragedy, and comes to the same end. Shakespeare merely dramatized the old ballad to make a play to please his audience, just as any hack playwright might to-day, who was engaged by a manager to do a like task. It merely happened that he was William Shakespeare, and had a peculiar way of doing such things. As to a moral, plainly nothing was further from Shake- speare's thought. The tragedy is hardly tragic, but rather a dramatic love-poem with a sad ending. There are few young men, and fewer young women, with a touch of sentiment, who do not lay down the tragedy after a first reading with the feeling that it would have been sweet to die like Romeo or like Juliet. Not so do we, young or old, read " Hamlet," " Macbeth," " Lear," " Othello." To the second period of Shakespeare's dramatic life belong his most charming comedies, " Much Ado About Nothing," " Twelfth Night," and " As You Like It," which, with " The Merchant of Venice," are much better suited to representation than his later dramas which are ranged under this title. They may well be read in this order directly after " Romeo and Juliet ; " ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 37 and although they are comedies and that is a tragedy, it will be found that they are more thoughtful, more solid, and graver. Shakespeare's growing mastery of his art may be justly estimated by the comparison of two personages in "Much Ado About Nothing," Bene- dick and Beatrice, with two of the same sort, having mentally and morally great likeness to them, Birone and Rosaline, in " Love's Labour 's Lost." The plays are separated in their production by about nine years. Benedick and Beatrice are known the whole world over as types of character, and their speeches are fa- miliar to our ears and upon our lips. Birone and Ro- saline are known only to students of Shakespeare, and they have contributed little or nothing to the world's common stock of pregnant phrases. The student who proposes to enter upon the well- worked field of Shakespearean criticism, or to become his editor, might have his attention directed to certain minute traits of Shakespeare's versification in this second period. But to one who only seeks to enjoy Shakespeare's poetry and his dramatic creations, and to follow the development of his powers, this would be dry, almost arithmetical, and quite unprofitable work. Nor can these traits of mere external form be relied upon with reasonable confidence. Their value as cri- terions depends in a great measure upon the theory of probabilities and of chances ; and this, although it is a safe guide as to the action of mankind, cannot be trusted as regards the action of one man. For in the latter case there enter into the problem the indeter- minable quantities of will, preference, deliberate in- tention, passing freak, and unconscious mood. We may establish a formula by which we may determine with reasonable certainty how many letters will be 38 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. dropped into a certain post-office without addresses, or unsealed, during a year ; but we cannot in the same way determine how many in like condition any one man has dropped in, or will drop in, during the same time ; for we can never be acquainted with all the cir- cumstances and impulses which influence his action. Metrical tests, of whatever kind, have a value in the establishment of the order of production of a poet's works ; but they are secondary and accessory, and must be considered only in connection with all other evidence, external and internal. Merely adding that " King Henry V." may be read now, or, if the student pleases, immediately after the Second Part of " King Henry IV.," I shall pass to the consideration of the plays of the third period. III. PLAYS OF THE THIRD PERIOD. Probably no play of Shakespeare's, probably no other play or poem of a high degree of merit, is so much neglected as " Troilus and Cressida "is. I have met intelligent readers of Shakespeare, who thought themselves unusually well acquainted with his writ- ings, and who were so, who understood him and de- lighted in him, but who yet had never read " Troilus and Cressida." They had, in one way and another, got the notion that it is a very inferior play, and not worth reading, or at least not to be read until after they were tired of all the others, a time which had not yet come. There seems to be a slur cast upon this play, the reason of which is its very undramatic character, and the consequent non-appearance of its name in theatrical records. No one has heard of any actor's or actress's appearance, even in the last cen- tury, as one of the personages in " Troilus and Ores- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 39 sida." Its name has not been upon the play-bills for generations, though even "Love's Labour 's Lost " has once in a while been performed. Hence it is almost unknown, except to thorough Shakespearean readers, who are very few; fewer now, in proportion to the largely increased leisurely and instructed classes, than they were two hundred years ago, much to the shame of our vaunted popular education and diffusion of knowledge. And yet this neglected drama is one of its author's great works ; in one respect his greatest. " Troilus and Cressida " is Shakespeare's wisest play in the way of worldly wisdom. It is filled chock full of sententious and in most cases slightly satirical revelations of human nature, uttered with a felicity of phrase and an impressiveness of metaphor that make each one seem like a beam of light shot into the re- cesses of man's heart. Such are these : In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men. Act I. Sc. 3. The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure ; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise. Act II. Sc. 2. What is aught, but as 't is valued ? Act II. Sc. 2. 'T is mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god. Act II. Sc. 2. A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant. Act II. Sc. 3. 'T is certain greatness once fall'n out with fortune Must fall out with men too; what the declined is He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall ; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer; And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour. Act III. Sc. 3. 40 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Besides passages like these, there are others of which the wisdom is inextricably interwoven with the occa- sion. One would think that the wealth of such a mine would be daily passing from mouth to mouth as the current coin of speech ; and yet of all Shakespeare's acknowledged plays, there are only two, " The Comedy of Errors " and " The Winter's Tale," which do not furnish more to our store of familiar quotations than this play does, rich though it is with Shakespeare's ripest thought and most splendid utterance. The undramatic character of " Troilus and Cressida," which has been already mentioned, appears in its struc- ture, its personages, and its purpose. We are little interested in the fate of its personages, not merely be- cause we know what is to become of them, for that we know in almost any play which has an historical sub- ject ; but the play is constructed upon such a slight plot that it really has neither dramatic motive nor dramatic movement. The loves of Troilus and Cressida are of a kind which are interesting only to the persons directly involved in them ; Achilles's sulking is of even less interest ; and the death of Hector affects us only like a newspaper announcement of the death of some distinguished person, so little is he really involved in the action of the drama. There is also a singular lack of that peculiar characteristic of Shakespeare's dramatic style, the distinction and discrimination of the individual traits, mental and moral, of the various personages. Ulysses is the real N^ hero of the play, the chief, or at least the great, pur- pose of which is the utterance of the Ulyssean view of life ; and in this play Shakespeare is Ulysses, or Ulys- ses Shakespeare. In all his other plays Shakespeare because of the vividness of his imagination, and be- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 41 cause he was putting into a dramatic form old tales and plays in which the characters of his personages were already outlined so lost his personal conscious- ness in the individuality of his own creations that they think and feel as well as act like real men and women other than their creator, so that we cannot truly say of the thoughts and feelings which they express that Shakespeare says thus or so ; for it is not Shakespeare who speaks, but they with his lips. But in Ulysses, Shakespeare, acting upon a mere hint, filling up a mere traditionary outline, drew a man of mature years, of wide observation, of profoundest cogitative power ; one who knew all the weakness and all the wiles of human nature, and who yet remained with blood unbittered and soul unsoured, a man who saw through all shams and fathomed all motives, and who yet was not scornful of his kind, not misanthropic, hardly cynical except in passing moods. And what other man could this be than Shakespeare himself? What had he to do when he had passed forty years but to utter his own thoughts when he would find words for the lips of Ulysses ? And thus it is that " Troilus and Cressida " is Shakespeare's wisest play. If we would know what Shakespeare thought of men and their motives after he reached maturity, we have but to read this drama. Drama it is, but with what other character who shall say ? For, like the world's pageant, it is neither tragedy nor comedy, but a tragi- comic history, in which the intrigues of amorous men and light-o'-loves and the brokerage of panders are in- volved with the deliberations of sages and the strife and the death of heroes. The thoughtful reader will observe that Ulysses pervades the serious parts of the play, which is all 42 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Ulyssean in its thought and language. And this is the reason, or rather the fact, of the play's lack of distinctive characterization. For Ulysses cannot speak all the time that he is on the stage ; and there- fore the other personages, such as may, speak Ulys- sean, with, of course, such personal allusion and peculiar trick or difference as a dramatist of Shake- speare's skill could not leave them without. For ex- ample, no two men could be more unlike in character than Achilles and Ulysses ; and yet the former, hav- ing asked the latter what he is reading, he, uttering his own thought, says as follows, with the subsequent reply : Ulyss. A strange fellow here Writes me : ' ' That man, how clearly ever parted,* How much in having, or without or in, Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes but by reflection, As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them, and they retort that heat again To the first giver." Acini. This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others' eyes ; nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, Not going from itself ; but eye to eye oppos'd, Salutes each other with each other's form, For speculation turns not to itself Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. Act III. Sc. 3. Now these speeches are made of the same metal and coined in the same mint ; and they both of them have the image and superscription of William Shake- speare. No words or thoughts could be more unsuited to that bold, rude, bloody egoist, " the broad Achilles," than the subtle, finely penetrative reply he makes to l /. e., gifted, endowed with parts. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 48 Ulysses; but here Shakespeare was merely using the Greek champion as a lay figure to utter his own thoughts, which are perfectly in character with the son of Autolycus. Ulysses thus flows over upon the whole serious part of the play. Agamemnon, Nes- tor, vEneas, and the rest all talk alike, and all like Ulysses. That Ulysses speaks for Shakespeare will, I think, be doubted by no reader who has reached the second reading of this play by the way which I have pointed out to him. And why, indeed, should Ulysses not speak for Shakespeare, or how could it be other than that he should ? The man who had written "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Othello," and "Macbeth," if he wished to find Ulysses, had only to turn his mind's eye inward ; and thus we have in this drama Shakespeare's only piece of introspective work. But there is another personage who gives character to this drama, and who is of a very different sort. Thersites sits with Caliban high among Shakespeare's minor triumphs. He was brought in to please the mob. He is the Fool of the piece, fulfilling the functions of Touchstone, and Launce, and Launce- lot, and Costard in other plays. As the gravediggers were brought into " Hamlet " for the sake of the groundlings, so Thersites came into " Troilus and Cressida." As if that he might leave no form of human utterance ungilded by his genius, Shakespeare in Thersites has given us the apotheosis of black- guardism and billingsgate. Thersites is only a rail- ing rascal. Some low types of animals are mere bellies with no brain. Thersites is merely mouth ; but this mouth has just enough coarse brain above it to know a wise man and a fool. And the railings of this deformed slave are splendid. Thersites is almost 44 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. as good as Falstaff. He is of course a far lower or- ganization intellectually, and somewhat lower, per- haps, morally. He is coarser in every way ; his humor, such as he has, is of the grossest kind ; but still his blackguardism is the ideal of vituperation. He is far better than Apemantus in "Timon of Athens," for there is no hypocrisy in him, no egoism, and, comfortable trait in such a personage, no pre- tence of gentility. For good downright " sass " in its most splendid and aggressive form, there is in litera- ture nothing equal to the speeches of Thersites. " Troilus and Cressida " is also remarkable for its wide range of style; because of which it is a play of great interest to the student of Shakespeare, who here adapted his style to the character of the matter in hand. The lighter parts remind us of his earlier manner ; the graver are altogether in his later. He did this unconsciously, or almost unconsciously, we may be sure. None the less, however, is the play therefore valuable in a critical point of view, but rather the more so. It is a standing and an un- deniable warning to us not to lean too much upon any one special trait of style in estimating the time in Shakespeare's life at which a play was produced. Moreover, it illustrates the natural course of style development, showing that it is not only gradual, but not by regular degrees ; that is, that a writer does not pass at one period absolutely from one style to another, dropping his previous manner and taking on another, but that he will at one time unconsciously recur to his former manner or manners, and at a late period show traces of his early manner. Strata of his old fashion thrust themselves up through the newer formation. " Troilus and Cressida " is so re- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 45 markable in this respect that the chief of the abso- lute-period critics, the Kev. Mr. Fleay, has been obliged to invent a most extraordinary theory to ac- count for it. His view is that there are three plots interwoven, each of which is distinct in manner of treatment, and, moreover, that each of these was composed at a different time from the other two. He would have us believe that the parts embodying the Troilus and Cressida story were written not only in Shakespeare's earliest manner, but in his earliest pe- riod, those concerning Hector in his middle period, and the Ajax parts in the last. That these three stories were interwoven is manifest; but they came naturally together in this Greek historical play, for it is that, and their interweaving was hardly to have been avoided ; the manner of each is not dis- tinct from that of the other, although there is, with likeness, a noticeable unlikeness. But the notion that therefore Shakespeare first wrote the Troilus and Cres- sida part as a play, and then years afterward added the Hector part, and again years afterward the Ajax and Ulysses part, seems to me only a monstrous con- trivance of an honest and able man in desperate straits to make his theory square with fact. As to detail upon this subject, I shall only make one point. Tag-rhymes, or rhymed couplets ending a scene or a speech in blank verse or in prose, are regarded by the metre-critics (and within reason justly) as marks of an early date of composition. Now in "Troilus and Cressida " these abound. It contains more of them than any other play, except one or two of the very earliest. The important point, however, is that these rhymes appear no less in the Ulysses and Ajax scenes of the play than in the others, a sufficient 46 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. warning against putting absolute trust in such evi- dence. Among those few of Shakespeare's plays which are least often read is " All 's Well that Ends Well." This one, however, is to the earnest student one of the most interesting of the thirty-seven which bear his name ; not only because it contains some of his best and most thoughtful work, but because, being Shakespeare's all through, it is written in two dis- tinct styles, styles so distinct that there can be no doubt that as it has come down to us it is the prod- uct of two distinct periods of his dramatic life, and those the most distant, the first and the last. Its singularity in this respect gives it a peculiar value to the student of Shakespeare's style and of his mental development. There is not an interweaving of styles, as in " Troilus and Cressida ; " the two are distinctly separable, and there is external historical evidence which supports the internal. We have a record in Francis Meres's " Palladis Tamia " of a play by Shakespeare called " Love's Labour 's Won ; " and there is no reasonable doubt that that was the first name of " All 's Well that Ends Well." As the " Palladis Tamia " was published in 1598, this play was produced before that year, and all the evidence, internal and external, goes to show that Shakespeare wrote it soon after " Love's Labour 's Lost," and as a counterpart to that comedy. The difference of its style in various parts had been re- marked upon in general terms ; but I believe that this difference was first specially indicated in the following passage, which I cannot do better here than to quote from the introduction to my edition of the play pub- lished in 1857 ; and I do so with the greater freedom ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 47 because the particular traits which it discriminated have since been insisted upon by the Rev. Mr. Fleay, in his very useful and suggestive, but not altogether to be trusted, " Shakespeare Manual," l to which I have before referred. "It is to be observed that passages of rhymed coup- lets, in which the thought is somewhat constrained and its expression limited by the form of the verse, are scattered freely through the play, and that these are found side by side with passages of blank verse, in which the thought, on the contrary, so entirely domi- nates the form, and overloads and weighs it down, as to produce the impression that the poet, in writing them, was almost regardless of the graces of his art, and merely sought an expression of his ideas in the most compressed and elliptical form. The former trait is characteristic of his youthful style ; the latter marks a certain period of his niaturer years. Con- tracted words, which Shakespeare used more freely in his later than in his earlier works, abound ; and in some passages words are used in an esoteric sense, which is distinctive of the poet's' style about the time when 4 Measure for Measure ' was produced. Note, for instance, the use of ' succeed ' in ' owe and succeed thy weakness,' in Act II. Sc. 4 of that play, and in 6 succeed thy father in manners,' Act I. Sc. 1 of this. It is to be observed also that the advice given by the Countess to Bertram when he leaves Rousillon is so like that of Polonius to Laertes in a similar situation that either the latter is an expansion of the former, or the former a reminiscence of the latter ; and as the 1 Published in 1876. The author has also been led to the same conclu- sions in regard to the text of The Taming of the Shrew, which I set forth in detail in 1857. 48 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. passage is written in the later style, the second suppo- sition appears the more probable. Finally, it is worthy of remark that both the French officers who figure in this play as First Lord and Second Lord are some- what strangely named Dumain, and that in ' Love's Labour 's Lost ' Dumain is also the name of that one of the three attendants and brothers in love of the King who has a post in the army ; which, when taken in connection with other circumstances, is at least a hint of some relation between the two plays." If the reader who has gone thoughtfully through the plays in the course which I have indicated will take up this one, he will find in the very first scene evi- dence and illustration of these views. It is almost entirely in prose, which itself shows the weight of Shakespeare's mature hand. The first blank verse is the speech of the Countess, in which she gives a mother's counsel to Bertram as he is setting out for the wars, as is pointed ont above, and which is un- mistakably of the " Hamlet " period. Then comes a speech by Helen beginning, O were that all ! I think not on my father: And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him, Act I. Sc. 1. and ending with this charming passage, referring to the growth of her love for Bertram : 'T was pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart's table; heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour: But now he 's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here ? Act I. Sc. 1. It is needless to say to the advanced student of ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 49 Shakespeare's style that this is in his later manner. A little further on is Helen's speech to the detestable Parolles, beginning with the mutilated line, " Not my virginity yet," which is followed by some ten, in which she pours out in Euphuistic phrase her love for Ber- tram, saying that he has in her " a mother, and a mis- tress, and a friend, a counsellor, a traitress, and a dear ; " and yet further, His humble ambition, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, His faith, his sweet disaster, with a world Of pretty, fond, adoptious Christendoms That blinking Cupid gossips. Act I. Sc. 1. This will remind the reader of Scott's Euphuist, Sii Piercie Shafton, who, if I remember aright, uses some of these very phrases, in which Shakespeare has beaten Lilly at his own weapons, and made his affected phraseology the vehicle of the touching utterance of real feeling. " Euphues " was published in 1580, when Shakespeare was only sixteen years old; and this passage, although it may have been written or perhaps altered later, was probably a part of the play as it was first produced. The scene ends with the fol- lowing speech by Helen, which, for its peculiar char- acteristics, is worth quoting entire. The reader who will compare it with " Love's Labour 's Lost" and " A Midsummer - Night's Dream " will have not a mo- ment's doubt as to the time when it was written : Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. What power is it which mounts my love so high, That makes me see and cannot feed mine eye? The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes and kiss like native things. 4 50 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose What hath been cannot be : whoever strove To show her merit that did miss her love ? The king's disease my project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me. Act I. Sc. 1. Besides its formal construction and its rhyme, this passage is overmuch afflicted with youngness of thought to be accepted as the product of any other than Shake- speare's very earliest period. Of like quality to this are other passages scattered through the play. For example, the Countess's speech, Act I. Sc. 3, begin- ning, " Even so it was with me ; " all the latter part of Act II. Sc. 1, from Helen's speech, " What I can do," etc., to the end, seventy lines ; passages in the third scene of this act, which the reader cannot now fail at once to detect for himself ; Helen's letter, Act III. Sc. 4, and Parolles's, Act IV. Sc. 3 ; and various passages in the last act. Shakespeare, I have no doubt, wrote this play at first nearly all in rhyme in the earli- est years of his dramatic life, and afterward, late in his career, possibly on two occasions, re-wrote it and gave it a new name ; using prose, to save time and labor, in those passages the elevation of which did not require poetical treatment, and in those which were suited to such treatment giving us true although not highly finished specimens of his grand style. The thoughtful reader who, having followed the course previously marked out, comes to the study of " Hamlet," " King Lear," and " Othello " needs me no longer as a guide, but is prepared to apprehend them justly, not only in their own greatness, but in their relative position as the product of their author's mind in its perfected and disciplined maturity, as the splendid triple crown of Shakespeare's genius. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 51 No other dramatist, no other poet, has given the world anything that can for a moment be taken into con- sideration as equal to these tragedies ; and Shake- speare himself left us nothing equal to any one of them, taken as a whole and in detail. The Roman plays, " Coriolanus," " Julius Caesar," and " Antony and Cleopatra," particularly the last, should now re- ceive his careful attention. In " The Winter's Tale," " The Tempest," and " Henry VIII." he will find the very last productions of Shakespeare's pen, and in the first and the third of these he will find marks of hasty work both in the versification and in the con- struction ; but the touch of the master is unmistakable quite through them all, and " The Tempest " is one of the most perfect of his works in all respects. No true lover of Shakespeare should neglect the "Son- nets," although many do neglect them. They are in- ferior to the plays ; but only to the best parts of them. As to helps to the understanding of Shakespeare, those who can understand him at all need none except a good critical edition. And by a good critical edi- tion I mean only one which gives a good text, with notes where they are needed upon obscure construc- tions, obsolete words or phrases, manners and customs, and the like. Of the plays in the Clarendon Press selected series, 1 better editions cannot be had, partic- ularly for readers inexperienced in verbal criticism. Those who find any difficulty which the notes to those editions do not explain may be pretty sure that, with the exception of a very few passages the corruption of which is admitted on all hands, the trouble is not with Shakespeare or the editor. Shake- 1 Including, I believe, The Tempest, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Richard II., Henry V., Richard III., Coriolanus, Julius Coesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. 52 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. speare read in the way which I have indicated, and with the help of such an edition, has a high educating value, and in particular will give the reader an insight into the English language, if not a mastery of it, that is worth a course of all the text-books of grammar and rhetoric that have been written ten times over. Of criticism of what has been called the higher kind, I recommend the reading of very little, or bet- ter, none at all. Read Shakespeare ; seek aid to un- derstand his language, if that be in any way obscure to you ; but that once comprehended, apprehension of his purpose and meaning will come untold to those who can attain it in any way. In my own edition I avoided as much as possible the introduction of aesthetic criticism, not because of its difficulty, for it is easy and alluring work ; on the contrary, I availed myself of it when it was necessary as an aid to the settlement of the text, or of like questions ; and by its use I ven- ture to think that I succeeded in establishing some points of importance. But in my judgment the duty of an editor is performed when he puts the reader, as nearly as possible, in the same position for the ap- prehension of his author's meaning that he would have occupied if he had been contemporary with him and had received from him a correct copy of his writ- ings. More than this seems to me to verge upon impertinence. Upon this point I find myself supported by William Aldis Wright, 1 who is in my judgment the ablest of all the living editors of Shakespeare ; who brings to his task a union of scholarship, critical judgment, and 1 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and one of the editors of the Cambridge edition. ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 53 common sense which is very rare in any department of literature, and particularly in Shakespearean criti- cism ; and whose labors in this department of letters are small and light in comparison with the graver studies in which he is constantly engaged. He, in the preface to his edition of " King Lear " in the Claren- don Press series, says, " It has been objected to the editions of Shakespeare's plays in the Clarendon Press series that the notes are too exclusively of a verbal character, and that they do not deal with aesthetic, or, as it is called, the higher criticism. So far as I have had to do with them, I frankly confess that aesthetic notes have been deliberately and intentionally omitted, because one main object in these editions is to induce those for whom they are especially designed to read and study Shakespeare himself, and not to become familiar with opinions about him. Perhaps, too, it is because I cannot help experiencing a certain feeling of resentment when I read such notes that I am un- willing to intrude upon others what I should regard myself as impertinent. They are in reality too per- sonal and objective, and turn the commentator into a showman. With such sign-post criticism I have no sympathy. Nor do I wish to add to the awful amaze- ment which must possess the soul of Shakespeare when he knows of the manner in which his works have been tabulated and classified and labelled with a purpose, after the most approved method, like modern tendenz- schriften. Such criticism applied to Shakespeare is nothing less than gross anachronism." Not a little of the Shakespearean criticism of this kind that exists is the mere result of an effort to say something fine about what needs no such gilding, no such prism-play of light to enhance or to bring out its 64 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. beauties. I will not except from these remarks much of what Coleridge himself has written about Shake- speare. But the German critics whom he emulated are worse than he is. Avoid them. The German pre- tence that Germans have taught us folk of English blood and speech to understand Shakespeare is the most absurd and arrogant that could be set up. Shake- speare owes them nothing ; and we have received from them little more than some maundering mystification and much ponderous platitude. Like the western diver, they go down deeper and stay down longer than other critics, but like him too they come up muddier. Above all of them, avoid Ulrici and Gervinus. The first is a mad mystic, the second a very literary Dog- berry, endeavoring to comprehend all vagrom men, and bestowing his tediousness upon the world with a generosity that surpasses that of his prototype. Both of them thrust themselves and their " fanned and win- nowed opinions " upon him in such an obtrusive way that, if he could come upon the earth again and take his pen in his hand, I would not willingly be in the shoes of either. He would hand them down to pos- terity the laughing-stock of men forever. Not Shakespeare only has suffered from this sort of criticism. The great musicians fare ill at their hands. One of them, Schliiter, writing of Mozart, says of his E flat, G minor, C (Jupiter) symphonies, It is evident that these three magnificent works produced consecutively and at short intervals are the embodiment of one train of thought pursued with increasing ardor ; so that taken as a whole they form a grand trilogy. . . . These three grandest of Mozart's symphonies (the first lyrical, the second tragic-pathetic, and the third of ethical import) correspond to his three greatest operas, "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and " Die Zauberflb'te." Now, I venture to say that there is no such consec- ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 55 utive train of thought, and no such correspondence. Ethical import in the Jupiter and in the " Zauber- flb'te," and correspondence between them ! Mozart did not evolve musical camels out of his moral con- sciousness. But a German professor of Esthetik is not happy until he has discovered a trilogy and an inner life. Those found, he goes off with ponderous serenity into the EwigJceit. I have been asked, apropos of these articles, to give some advice as to the formation of Shakespeare clubs. The best thing that can be done about that matter is to let it alone entirely. According to my observation, Shakespeare clubs do not afford their members any opportunities of study or even of enjoyment of his works which are not attainable otherwise. And how should they do so, except by the formation of libraries for the use of their members ? In this respect they may be of some use, but not of much. Few books, a very few, are necessary for the intelligent and earnest student of Shakespeare, and those almost every such student can obtain for himself. As I have said, a good critical edition is all that is required ; and who- ever desires to wander into the wilderness of Shake- spearean commentary will find in the public libraries ample opportunities of doing so. I have observed that those who read Shakespeare most and understand him best do not use even critical editions, except for occasional reference, but take the text by itself, pure and simple. An edition with a good text, brief intro- ductions to each play, giving only ascertained facts, and a few notes, glossological and historical, at the foot of the page, is still a desideratum. 1 Quiet read- 1 Since the first publication of these studies an attempt has been made to supply this need, in the Riverside Shakespeare. 56 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. ing with such an edition as this at hand will do more good than all the Shakespeare clubs ever established have done. I have seen something of such associa- tions, and I have observed in them a tendency on the one hand to a feeble and fussy literary antiquarianism, and on the other to conviviality ; a thing not bad in itself, and indeed, within bounds, much better than the other, but which has as little to do as that has (and it could not have less) with an intelligent study of Shake- speare, although upon after reflection it may assist in the sympathetic apprehension of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. There is hardly anything less admirable to a reasonable creature than the as- semblage at stated times of a number of semi-literary people to potter over Shakespeare and display before each other their second-hand enthusiasm about " the bard of Avon," as they generally delight to call him. Now, a true lover of Shakespeare never calls him the bard of Avon, or a bard of anything ; and he reads him o' nights and ponders over him o' days while he is walking, or smoking, or at night again while he is wak- ing in his bed. If he cannot afford to buy a copy off- hand, he saves up his pennies till he can get one, and he does not trouble himself about the commentators or the mulberry-tree. He would not give twopence to sit in a chair made of it ; for he knows that he could not tell it from any other chair, and that it would not help him to understand or to enjoy one line in " Hamlet," or " Lear," or " Othello," or " As You Like It," or " The Tempest." These remarks have no reference, of course, to such societies as the Shakespeare Societies of London, past and present. They are associations of scholars for the purpose of original investigations, which they print ON READING SHAKESPEARE. 57 for the use of their subscribers, and for the republica- tion of valuable and scarce books and papers having a bearing upon Shakespeare and the literary history of his time. We have no such material in this coun- try. Whoever wishes to go profoundly into the study of Shakespearean, or rather of Elizabethan, literature would do well to obtain a set of the old Shakespeare Society's publications, and to become a subscriber to the other Shakespeare Society, which is doing good thorough work. Clubs might well be formed for the obtaining of these books and others, for the use of their members who cannot afford or who do not care to buy them for their own individual property ; al- though a book really owned is, I cannot say exactly why, worth more to a reader than one belonging to some one else. But all other Shakespeare clubs are mere vanity. The true Shakespeare lover is a club unto himself. THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. SOME years ago, before monitors or even iron-clad ships were thought of, the gigantic man-of-war Penn- sylvania lay at the Washington Navy Yard, soon to become as useless in war as a giant, and to seem al- most as fabulous. Much had been expected of her ; and her colossal size and her enormous battery of one hundred and twenty heavy guns were looked upon with pride by all "true Americans." It was deter- mined that the President of the United States, accom- panied by the members of his Cabinet, the principal officers of the Army and Navy, and other persons of like official distinction, slibuld visit her for an "in- augural " entertainment, and that in honor of the occa- sion he and they should be saluted by the discharge of all her guns. The gentlemen were accompanied by a large number of ladies ; and a party more numerous and representative was probably never gathered on the decks of a national vessel. The salute began, and the discharge of the heavy ordnance, rapid, regular, and continuous, produced a remarkable effect on the civilian visitors. Very soon the men were stunned or worried, and showed strong symptoms of nervous anxiety. The women, on the contrary, to the surprise of all, showed 110 fear, but rather delight, and were cheerfully ex- cited, not concealing an inclination to laugh at and crow over the nervous weakness of their masculine THE LADY GRUACH's HUSBAND. 59 companions. The firing went on, and became a pro- tracted and apparently endless series of tremendous explosions. For the discharge of one hundred and twenty guns at intervals of only three seconds occupies eight minutes (counting one second for the fire) ; and eight minutes, measured by four-second counts, even in silence, seem as if they would never end. But when, as in this case, each period is marked by a roar that stuns the ears, and a concussion that shakes the heavens and the earth and fills the air with flame and smoke, the performance becomes oppressive and tries nervous endurance to the utmost. And on this occa- sion a striking natural phenomenon, full of moral sig- nificance, was presented to the curious student of human nature. It was observed that, as gun followed gun, the men, who were so disturbed at first, became quiet, self-possessed, indifferent, and at last cheerful ; while the women, who at first were so filled with life and gayety, soon showed signs of weariness, then of nervous excitement, and finally of terror, looking for- ward with dread to the inevitable and regularly re- curring shock : so that before the salute was over most of them were in a state of extreme distress, some were hysterical, and some had fainted. Their nerves could bound with elasticity at a single fillip, but succumbed under repeated blows; while the masculine nature toughened under resistance to the protracted strain. This modern instance helps us to understand the story of a woman whose life and actions, with those of a man whose name would have been unknown to the world but for his connection with her, fill an interest- ing chapter in the traditional history of Scotland. Her name was Gruach, and she came of a family whose 60 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. strong and grasping hands had made them what was then called noble. There is reason for believing that she was very beautiful, and yet more for the assurance that she had in a rare degree those winning ways and womanly wiles that give the weaker half of mankind so much influence for good or evil over the stronger. Unimaginative, without tenderness, with a cruel, re- morseless nature and a bright, clear intellect that saw at once the end that she desired and the means of its attainment, she was a type of those female politicians who in the past ages of the world's moral rudeness have sought, and, by intrigue, by suggestion, and by the stimulus of sexual temptation and feminine craft which made the strength of men their instrument, have attained, that great end of woman's ambition, social preeminence. For Gruach was ambitious, so am- bitious that, noble as she was, and called the Lady, she burned, as we are told in old chronicles, with un- quenchable desire to bear the name of Queen. Most women are more ambitious than most men. They find their stimulus to action in the desire and hope of triumph over others ; men theirs in the doing of that which, done completely, insures triumph, which they take gladly enough, it is true, as the due and sign of their superiority. Men love power for its own sake and their pleasure in its conscious exercise ; and, con- tented with its real possession, they are often willing that others should remain ignorant whose head and hand they have obeyed. Women, less imaginative, and, outside of love, more practical and material than men, covet power for the visible elevation which it in- sures to them, and yet more for that which, it enables them to give to those they love. For women who have the womanly nature in its best form are more ambi-, THE LADY GRUACIl'S HUSBAND. 61 tious for those they love than for themselves. They seek and will make great sacrifices for the advance- ment of their brothers, lovers, husbands, children, and sometimes their sisters ; and have been known to re- joice even in the triumphs of their dearest female friends. But where a woman is without tenderness and without the capacity of devotion, and is withal able, crafty, and ambitious, she is the most unscrupu- lous and remorseless creature under the canopy of heaven. A tigress has not less compunction when she bears a white gasping infant off into the jungle. Of such ambitious sort was Gruach ; but like the tigress, whose bright, sleek beauty and sinuous charm seem to have been hers, she also had sexual and maternal instincts, the former stronger and more enduring than the latter. And so she loved, after her kind, and was married to a man whose person pleased her eye, whose spirit and daring roused her sympathy and won her respect, and whose position and whose aspirations were such that she hoped by her union with him to reach the highest round attainable of fortune's ladder. This man was a cousin of the King of Scotland, and, failing heirs of the royal body, the next claimant of the throne. He was a valiant soldier and a great captain ; fearless in combat, and in the field a bold and skilful leader. He too was ambitious, and rest- less under the constraint of inferior position. He had in a great degree what the Lady Gruach was without, imagination and reflection. Yet he liked the stir and bustle of an active life ; and although himself of a kindly nature, he fretted at the benign and gentle rule of his royal cousin, whose nobility and strength of character were tempered by meekness, and at last, when our story opens, by the sobering influence of 62 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. age. This man had, too, a richer although a less stable moral nature than his wife's ; and, unlike her, he was weighted in the race of their ambition with scruples, the heaviest of all clogs on those who make success the end and goal of living. If a man has but steadfast purpose, and is entirely unscrupulous, he may obtain very great advancement with very moderate ability ; and if opportunity and great ability unite in favor of the unscrupulous and persistent man, his road to distinction is so nearly smooth and easy that the obstacles he meets with are only such as furnish him a pleasurable excitement in surmounting or removing them. His chances of suc- cess, however, are exactly in proportion to his utter lack of scruple when he is called upon to decide be- tween a bad course, which may lead towards, and a good one, which may lead from, the object of his am- bition. Thus, suppose a journalist, for instance, to have attained a desired position by fawning, craft, and intrigue, and by the remorseless use of every means that would rid him of men who would thwart his plans, a course which is possible to men who are incapable of discussing or even of apprehending a great principle, and who have only that meanest of all forms of intel- lectual ability, political craft (itself a mere manifesta- tion or outcome of unscrupulousness), such a man, if the change of circumstances should make a change of party, or of principle, or of faith seem necessary to his success, will sell himself and his pledges and his memories with as little scruple as a butcher sells mut- ton from the shambles. We might say that he would sell his soul to the devil, if he had a soul worth the devil's buying. But beside such a man how respect- able is Faust ! And verily he does wisely, and he has THE LADY GRUACH's HUSBAND. 63 his reward. For in one scale is success, and in the other so many scruples as make that dram of ill called failure ; and the object of his life is the former. Now, of this kind was the Lady Gruach ; but her husband, tossed by passion and borne on the strong current of unrestrained desire, and being without anchorage to the firm bottom of well-settled principle, yet feared to cut loose from all moral moorings, and showed in his career how difficult and perplexing it is to be both corrupt and scrupulous. He was of the stirp of Beeth, who called them- selves Mac Beeth ; but in the chronicles, and in the great tragic story founded on them, his name is com- pressed into Macbeth. In their marriage the Lady Gruach and her husband were as happy as such a couple could be. They loved each other ; their posi- tion was exalted, and their means were ample. But she, constantly coveting the crown, and finding him not without ambition? so worked upon him through his fondness for her, and by her steadiness of purpose, that he came to look upon the violent removal of his sovereign Duncan as an act to which he might bring himself ; and at last he satisfied his wife by swearing that he would murder the King and usurp the throne on the first opportunity. But for a time no oppor- tunity was offered. At last, however, it came in a manner least expected. A nobleman named Macdonwald, assisted by the King of Norway and the Thane of Cawdor, headed a revolt against King Duncan ; and Macbeth, whose wishes could not have been accomplished by his tak- ing the second place in a rebellion, stood by his royal kinsman, and fought for the throne which it was his interest to protect, that it might be, if not his, at 64 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. least his nearest cousin's, Duncan. In two battles bloodily fought and gallantly won, Macbeth, assisted by another valiant and able captain named Banquo, crushed the revolt so completely that Duncan, hear- ing of his victory, sent two noblemen immediately with orders for the death of the Thane of Cawclor, and the enduing of Macbeth with the traitor's lost title and dignities. As Macbeth, before the King's messengers had reached him, was marching homeward, he was met upon a heath by three withered, man-like hags, of the sort that by superstition and cruelty in the young, rude ages of the world were made to believe them- selves witches. These hailed him first as Thane of Glamis, which he had recently become by inheritance ; next as Thane of Cawdor, of his succession to which dignity he was ignorant ; and last as King to be there- after. They also hailed his companion and fellow- commander as the father of kings. It is possible that these persons were the disguised agents of a fac- tion inimical to Duncan, who, taking advantage of the belief then existing in witchcraft, adopted this course to egg on these successful generals to an ex- pedition against the throne. But it is more probable that some prophecy of a person who fancied herself gifted with second sight was fitted to the story of Macbeth after his career had become a part of the traditions of Scotland. The verification came so hard on the heels of the seeming prediction as to the thaneship of Cawdor that Macbeth's soul was at once filled with a turbulent conflict of good and evil suggestion as to his attain- ment of the highest honor promised him ; and he immediately thought of his sworn purpose of killing THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. 65 his royal kinsman. He was so wrapped up in self- communing that he paid no attention to the King's noble messengers, but he then reached no decision except that he would take the crown, come to him as it might ; and after starting away from the thought of the murder once or twice, he sought the relief of present quiet in the reflection that, let come what will, we can worry through it with time and oppor- tunity. But although he determined to do nothing, he constantly thought of the violent removal of all living hindrances to his attainment of the throne; for, at his first audience of the King, Duncan declar- ing his eldest son, Malcolm, heir apparent, with the title of Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth immediately said to himself that this new dignity was a step which he must fall down or else o'erleap. But this man was one of those moral cowards who do not speak their evil purposes, or even give them names to them- selves. He would have, as he said, his eye wink at his hand, and yet would have that to be which the eye feared to see when it was done. Thus it was that, in writing a letter to the Lady Gruach, in which he told her of the prediction of the witches, he dropped no hint which even she could understand that he saw the crown nearer than before. And in this letter, written at such a time and under such circumstances, he showed his love for her, and his pleasure that he was able at least to satisfy in part her ambitious cravings. As Gruach was reading her husband's letter, and revolving in her mind the moral feebleness which years had discovered to her in him, and the means that she must use to goad him on to win her triumph, a messenger entered and reported to her that King Db STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Duncan was coming to her castle that very night. She saw so instantly that here was the opportunity for the King's murder, and decided so instantly that it should be done, that, stirred by the great and un- expected news, in the fierce delight of her soul she almost interrupted the messenger by the exclamation, " Thou 'rt inad to say it ! " As she summoned up her spirits to her suddenly imposed task, her husband entered, and she, with no word of endearment or delight to the man that came to her safe from two battles, hailed him by his and her two new titles. Then, in a few words fraught with all the character of the speakers, the die was cast for both of them and for Duncan. He told her that the King was coming there that night, and to her pregnant question, "And when goes hence ? " he, not only knowing well what she meant, but also remembering what he had before sworn to her to do, answered, "To-morrow as he purposes." This he did, wishing at the time that Duncan should not leave the castle alive, and showing this wish in his face. For Macbeth, although a good dissimulator with his tongue, and having a rare gift at making excuses, yet with all his bravery in battle could not, when suddenly startled, control either his nerves or the expression of his countenance. Sur- prise of soul or sense made him start like a frightened horse ; and his face always revealed the emotion that his lips belied. And because of this, Gruach partly pitied and partly despised him ; for she, not free of speech, except in chiding and in exhortation, was free from all such nervous weakness, and stood a shock as if her white breast were marble and her cold blue eyes were sapphires. Without hesitation she set his task clearly before THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. 67 him and undertook its preparation. She had at once to play the gracious and honored hostess before the King, and to keep her husband up to the point of criminality from which he was ever faltering. And he, in his reflective fashion, as the King supped, slunk away and fell to communing with himself about the murder and its consequences ; and after the manner of men who have not the faculty of cutting them- selves loose from that which they have passed, he began to go over again in mind considerations which he should have either yielded to or set finally aside before, and which his wife would not have thought of seriously at all. In this mood of moral vacillation she came upon him, then determined to abandon the murderous project; and, to use a phrase that she applied to herself, she so " chastised him with valor of her tongue " that he repented of his repentance, and undertook the assassination. He did not, how- ever, venture to trust himself, or she did not venture to trust him, to decide the moment when he should take the final step ; and it was arranged between them that her striking on her bell should be the signal for his entrance of the King's chamber. As he was awaiting this summons in the court, his heated imagination caused his eye to be deceived with an illusion. He thought he saw a dagger floating in the air, with its handle toward his hand, and that it moved before him toward Duncan's chamber, blood breaking out upon it as it went. He had an easy task. Gruach had made the two body-guards who slept in the King's chamber drunk, and had emboldened herself by wine, so that when she laid their daggers ready for her husband's use she was tempted to take the business off his hands, but that , 68 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. the old King's face reminded her of her father's, and threw across that dark and awful hour the bright, soft memory of the days when she was without her woman's passions. But she did not yield or flinch a moment. That little gleam of sentiment is the only one that falls upon the figure of this woman, who yet was so sensually attractive that, in spite of her relentless hard- ness, her husband could hardly speak to her, even in the most terrible moments, without some endearing diminutive, word caressings to which she made no response. She waited for him at midnight in the open court, and there he found her as, with his hands all blood, he came from Duncan's chamber. She greeted him with no word of comfort, or sympathy, or even of ex- citement ; and when he looked at his gory hands and spoke of them with horror, she only reproached him with his folly. And then he told her of his emotion while he was doing the murder, and how he heard a voice crying out to those in the castle to sleep no more, for Macbeth was murdering sleep ; and he broke out into tender and touching exclamations about the good angel that he had murdered. All this was so strange to Gruach, so foreign to her nature, that not only could she not comprehend it, she could not apprehend it; and she asked him, with wonder, reproach, and pity in her tones, " What do you mean ? " But his only reply was to tell her again for his soul was filled with frightful imaginings how the voice called on all the house to sleep no more, and proclaimed that he, the murderer of sleep, should sleep no more himself. And yet, even with the stimulus of that dread mo- ment, she could not apprehend his meaning, and asked as she might have asked a servant the day before THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. 69 about a noise in the courtyard, " Who was it that thus cried ? " She was so hard of heart, so literal of ap- prehension. In all their conversation throughout all their lives it was always he who revealed the sight of more in an act or an event than the act or the event itself. Imagination and fancy made his utterance rich with twin-born thoughts, each beautifying and light- ing up the other ; his stout soldier's heart was ever running over with sentiment and tenderness, to all of which she never made response. She saw only the material forms, the literal significance, and the hard necessities of things ; and to meet the latter she bent all the energy of her sinewy soul. And now, seeing that he had in his confusion brought away the dag- gers, she ordered him back with them. He refused to look again upon his work, when she, taking the daggers from him, said she would go, for to her eye the sleeping and the dead were just the same, and that she feared no painted devil. So absolutely unim- pressible and unimaginative was this woman's nature ! And yet in the end it was she who, with unclosed but unseeing eyes, expiated most grievously that murder of innocent sleep which her husband heard clamored through the house ; and it was she who was haunted by the blood of the murdered Duncan. The guilty husband and his guiltier wife went to their chamber, whence they were summoned by the arrival of two noblemen, Macduff and Lenox, who waited upon the King at his command. The murder having been discovered by Macduff, Macbeth entered the King's chamber with Lenox, and there, in a seem- ing frenzy of wrath, drew his sword and slew the two chamberlains, dreading that they should be questioned. While he was absent the Lady entered, and was told 70 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. that Duncan had been murdered. With cool per- ception of the requirement of the situation she ex- claimed, " Woe, alas ! what, in our house ? " and trusted her tongue no further. But when Macbeth came from the scene of his crime, he broke forth into a wordy and fanciful exclamation of grief, very beau- tifully expressed, but too daintily phrased for a gen- uine utterance of manly emotion. lie mourned that he himself had not died before that hour, and declared that from that time there was nothing in the world worth living for. And so when Macduff asked him why he had killed the chamberlains, he answered with a diffuse and overwrought description of his own emo- tions and the dreadful spectacle which had so moved him ; but his speech had not in it the clear and simple ring of honesty. Gruach saw at once that he had blundered in killing the men, and had thus attracted rather than diverted suspicion ; and she saw also that he was overdoing his expression of grief and horror ; and therefore instantly diverted attention from him by seeming to faint and by calling for assistance. She succeeded thus in diverting Macduff's mind, and gained time for consultation. The crime committed, Macbeth, who, when the way before him was clear, was a man of prompt and de- cided action, immediately claimed the succession, which, as the King's two sons had fled and thus brought some suspicion on themselves, he could do with reason ; and went straightway to Scone to be in- vested with the sovereignty. Duncan's sons had vaguely suspected foul play on the part of their cousin ; but there was one man who suspected it with more reason. This was Ban quo, who had heard the tempting prediction of the witches, THE LADY GRUACH's HUSBAND. 71 and to whom on that occasion, and once afterward, Macbeth had dropped a hint that it would be well for them to consult together at a future time for their common benefit ; but the rapid course of events had prevented any communication between them. Ban- quo, however, on Macbeth's suggestion that if his fel- low-general would cleave to him, it should be to his advantage, had assented, with the proviso that he lost no honor by so doing. Macbeth remembered this; and some time having now passed, the presence of his former friend became oppressive to him. For Ban- quo's was a simple and a loyal soul ; and from his eyes looked forth a calm integrity of purpose that fretted Macbeth like a constant, dumb reproach. He could not but remember, too, that the same evil power which had promised him the honors which he now pos- sessed, yet did not quite enjoy, had said that Banquo's issue should sit upon the throne of Scotland, and thus profit by his crime to the exclusion of his own issue. Haunted by this thought, and by the pure and digni- fied serenity of Banquo's presence, he determined that he should die ; and now, having entered upon his ca- reer of crime, he needed no stimulus or support from his wife, and took his measures promptly and alone. Nay, proud of his decision, he not only kept it to him- self, but when Gruach suggested the same action, he, who before had leaned on her, now did not even tell her that he had been beforehand in this matter, but bade her to remain innocent of the intention until she applauded the deed. Complimenting Banquo with wordy dissimulation, Macbeth invited him to be present as chief guest at a banquet ; and discovering that he would ride forth with his son and return in the twilight, he gave orders 72 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. that both should be assassinated. Banquo was slain, although Fleance escaped ; and at the banquet the chief assassin entered and informed him that the most important part of his bloody commission had been executed. This report was soon productive of a strange scene in the banquet-hall ; for Macbeth, who had descended from his state (for so the canopied royal dais at the head of the hall was called), and had taken a seat at the table among his guests, rose to give a general welcome, which he prefaced with an expres- sion of regret for the absence of Banquo. Then, as he turned to take the seat again, he saw it filled with a figure, invisible to all other the figure of the mur- dered Banquo. His excited imagination again tricked his eye ; and he was the victim of a spectral illusion. Losing all self-command, he started back and broke out into exclamations of surprise and terror. His wife, saw at once the nature of his emotion, and, with supreme tact, she readily assured the company that the King was only suffering from an affection to which he had been subject from his boyhood, and going to him she upbraided him as if he had been a ghost-frightened child. The illusion was dispelled, and the festivities were resumed. Macbeth again rose to drink a cup to the general joy of the whole table, and again, possessed with the idea of Banquo's murder, and as if in the genuine boldness of his nature to front it and to face it down, he openly wished for his victim's presence. His wish was satisfied, as far as he was concerned. The idea in his brain was again pictured on his eye ; and Banquo again rose up before him. The guilty man greeted the vision with a shriek, and a conjuration the vivid and terrible earnestness of which was in strik- ing contrast with the fanciful utterance of his assumed THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. 73 emotion on the discovery of the death of Duncan. But his wife had told him at the previous appearance that what he saw was an illusion like that of the dag- ger ; and with prodigious bravery, and an effort for self-possession that showed a power of will greater than he had ever had occasion to exert on the field of battle, he fronted the vision, and, addressing it as if it were real, approached it step by step until he finally faced it down. His wife, however, saw that his mind was too much shattered to be trusted longer, and dis- missed the company with brief decision, but calm and gracious courtesy. They gone, she did not console him, or show one spark of tenderness for the man whom she had driven into this dreadful strait. She replied briefly to his excited speech, and perceiving the cause of the unset- tled condition of his brain, she said to him, " You lack the season of all natures, sleep." It was true. She made no allusion to the cry, proclaiming the end of sleep, that her husband heard sound through the castle as he did his bloody work in Duncan's bedchamber ; probably she did not think of it, for she was yet trou- bled by no such fancies ; but Macbeth had murdered sleep her sleep as well as his. And this is the last that we see of her until she appears before us a rest- less wreck, tossed upon heaving memories, her sleep become a monstrous and perverted mockery of repose, unravelling and rending instead of knitting up her sleeve of care. Macbeth, profoundly shaken by the vision at the banquet, and sorely disappointed in the escape of Fleance, went the next day to consult the three weird sisters. Their incantations procured him assurance that he was safe until Birnarn wood came to Dunsi- 74 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. nane, and that he could be harmed by no man of woman born. But here again he saw the bloody form of Banquo, followed by a long line of his descendants wearing crowns and bearing sceptres. Deeply stirred as he was by this vision, he trusted more to the pre- vious assurance as to his impregnable position, and gave himself up to the tyrannical abuse of the power he had usurped. In his course of crime his nature had become perverted ; and he whose milk of human kindness and whose pure instincts, at war with his base ambition, had provoked the scorn of the unscru- pulous Gruach, abandoned himself to gross excesses of oppression, of debauchery, and of blood. The land groaned under the rule of him who before he became its ruler wished, or fancied that he wished, to attain even his ambitious ends by holy means. He grew old, and his soul became haggard with crime even more than his body with years. His friends fell from him, and he held his throne only by a sway of terror. Duncan's sons and Macduff, whose castle he had sur- prised, and whose wife, children, and retainers he had put to death, now by the aid of England made head against him, and he shut himself up in his castle of Dunsinaiie, secure there until the forest of Birnam came to besiege him, and laughing at all his woman- born enemies. But while her husband thus rioted, with hardening soul, in tyranny and sensual enjoyment, the Lady Gruach (for so she was still called even more than by the name of Queen which she had so coveted) broke down under the protracted consciousness of crime. She found out at last what he had meant when he imagined that he had murdered sleep. Her nights became, even more than her days, an ever-recurring THE LADY GRUACH'S HUSBAND. 75 agony of distracting memories and nervous horror. A disbeliever in spectres, she herself became a living ghost, and haunted the castle through the night, walking through its darkened rooms and dismal pas- sages a crazed somnambulist. Of this her husband knew nothing ; for now their lives were separate. But still, wicked as he was, and wicked as he knew her to be, there lingered in his bad heart more than a memory of his early love. For real love of man for woman and of woman for man is not given because of good, or, God be thanked therefor, withdrawn because of evil. Yet even in this disturbed condition of a strong soul fretted away to feebleness, but not changed in nature, Gruach showed no tenderness. She did not repent ; she did not soften ; she was not excited to an exaggerated, or even to a natural appreciation of her crime. Her speech during her sleep-walking was terrible merely from its vivid memories. It was curt, hard, unyielding, as it had been before. She was op- pressed by the memory of the blood spot on her hand, her little white hand. In her former literal fashion, she wondered that an old man should have so much blood in him, thinking only of the bare physical fact ; while her husband had thought, as he looked on his hands, of so monstrous a crime did their condition seem to him the sign, that they would redden all the waters of all the oceans. But the smell of the blood offended the dainty nostrils of her whose soul, op- pressed by crime, was yet impenetrable to the sense of sin ; and she vanishes from our sight with sighs and groans that move us to horror and to pity, but not to sympathy. Birnam wood did come to Dunsinane, borne thither as a concealment of the numbers of the assailants, who 76 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. were led by a man not naturally born of woman ; and while it was approaching, but before it had been seen, Gruach's soul became too weak to hold its place within her body, and she died. Her husband, to whom life now could bring no joy, and worse, no sorrow, hearing the cry of women in her chamber, was little disturbed by it. He who before, with all his stoutness, had been so promptly apprehensive of terror, was now no longer a man of quick and fine emotion ; and she who had once told him that his starting would spoil all, could she have been present now would have seen him, in the supreme hour of his peril, hear uiistartled the death-cry from the room of the woman he had loved so well. His senses had become dull, his soul hard and callous. But his martial spirit was unbroken, and when he was told that the wood was moving, he roused himself, and although he alternated between defiance and a weariness of life that made the very sunlight seem oppressive, he summoned those who would follow, and then this brave, good-natured, loving, but selfish, weak-souled, and unprincipled man went out to meet the death that he had earned by his yielding to his wife's instigation. " The woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The excuse served the Lady Gruach's husband no better than it did him who yielded to the first temptress. THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. IN the traditionary history of Denmark the story is told of a nobleman who lived at some time after the successful invasions of England by the Danes, and who, being an able and a valiant man, attained distinc- tion, according to the standard of those times, by feats of arms on sea and land which nowadays would be called piracy and robbery. He and his younger brother were made, or made themselves, co-governors of the province of Jutland that part of Denmark that lies nearest Norway. The fame of this nobleman the elder became so great, and his prowess and his enterprise made him so feared by the rulers of neighboring countries, that the King of Norway, being the most disturbed and desiring to bring matters to an issue, desperately challenged him to single combat ; the conditions of which were that a part of Norway corresponding in importance to the province of Jutland should be set up as a stake against the latter, and that both should be the prize of the survivor. The chal- lenge was accepted ; and in this combat the King of Norway was slain, the lands which he had staked on the issue becoming thereupon a part of the realm of Denmark. The King of the latter country (who was called with proud distinction, The Dane, as being the first and foremost of his nation), seeing the martial and politi- 78 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. cal importance of this nobleman, and seeking to bind him firmly to his interests and to forestall any ambi- tious projects which he might form, gave him his daughter in marriage ; and on the death of the father, the successful adventurer, in virtue of his connection with Geruth or Gertrude, for so the princess was called, and by reason of his being foremost in martial prowess and all kingly qualities, claimed and received the throne of Denmark. For royal dynasties were not es- tablished among the Scandinavians in those times, and regular family succession was not settled. The crown was elective ; but unless there was some cogent reason to the contrary, the election was likely to fall upon the son or some other near kinsman of a deceased mon- arch a point of much importance in the sequel of this story. After his elevation the new King seemed to fulfil all the hopes which his previous conduct had awakened. He was beloved of his courtiers and his nobles ; and by no person did he seem to be held in higher estimation than by his wife, through whom, in a great measure, he attained the throne, and whose fondness for her splendid lord and master was exhib- ited so openly as to be the subject of general remark. No king could have fairer prospects of a long and happy reign, or of leaving with greater assurance of certainty his sceptre and kingdom to his son and heir. For Gertrude had brought him a son, who was called after him Amleth, Hamblet, or Hamlet, a lad of high promise, but whose life came, through grief, disap- pointment, turmoil, and disaster, to a tragical ending, partly through the villany of his father's brother Claudius and the wantonness of his mother, and partly through a defect of his own nature. For this uncle, moved to envy at the success of his THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 79 brother, to whom he was much inferior in all points of mind and soul and body that go to the making of a noble man, and moved, too, by one of the meanest of all passions, ambition, which seeks not goodness and greatness with the desire to be good and great, but strives for superiority to others, set his bad heart upon the attainment of his brother's throne ; and as his first step toward the accomplishment of his purpose, he sought to win the affections of his brother's wife, she who was both by birth and marriage the most royal person, excepting her own son, in all Denmark. Her he found a willing prey, and also a ready help in his design. Notwithstanding her seeming fondness for the King, she transferred her fickle love to her brother-in-law ; and after living for a while with him in adultery unsuspected by the King, she consented to, or at least winked at, her husband's murder by her paramour, who at once took his brother's place upon the throne, and like his brother confirmed his seat by a marriage with her, which took place within a few weeks of the death of her husband. At this time Hamlet was a student at college, or at school, the name then given to the highest institu- tions of learning and philosophy. His exact age is not known ; but it could not have been more than twenty years. For we are told that the new King was looking forward with apprehension to the time when his nephew should come to man's estate ; he is spoken of as the young Adonis of the North, and his affection is called a violet in the youth of primy nature ; and all the many references to his age at this time show that he was on the threshold of early manhood. Chief among his friends and companions at the uni- versity was a young gentleman of no estate, but of 80 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. a noble soul and of a simple, strong, and steadfast nature, named Horatio ; who seems to have been somewhat older as well as more staid than himself. Two others, very much his inferiors, named Rosen- crantz and Guildenstem, were also his companions. Even at college the young Hamlet, with an innate dis- position to criticise all things, seems to have studied the characters of those around him ; and he had pre- ferred Horatio, not with the spontaneous liking com- mon to youth, but because he had discovered in him certain admirable qualities fortitude, good faith, firmness of will, and a calm serenity of disposition. Hamlet was intellectually fascinated by a character which he appreciated none the less, but rather the more, because it was the opposite to his own ; while Horatio was pleased with the affability, the princely courtesy, the high discourse, far-reaching thought, and subtle insight of Hamlet. The death of Hamlet's father brought the youthful prince from the university to Elsinore, the capital of Denmark ; whither he went filled with two conflicting thoughts, grief for his father and expectation of suc- ceeding him on the throne. For one of Hamlet's pas- sions was that form of ambition which consists in a love of dignified position and power, without the en- terprise and the hardiness of nature which enable a man to win these for himself. He loved to be gracious and courteous to those around him ; and he desired to stand upon the elevation coming from which his grace and courtesy might be highly prized. But he had not the steady self-assertion and the daring which were necessary to the thrusting of another down who stood in his place, however wrongfully. This partly because of his youth and his studious habits, but partly also THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 81 because of his mental constitution. He arrived at court barely in time for his father's funeral, and found his uncle already in possession of the throne with the consent and hearty support of all his father's nobles and courtiers, and even of his father's widow. His mother, whom he expected to see plunged in an over- whelming sorrow, surprised and disgusted him by an unconcealed fondness for his uncle, and offended him no less by the willing consent which she gave to the extinction of his own present hopes of the succession. The swift marriage of his mother to his uncle rounded and perfected this outrage by its complete disregard of his father's memory, and by the stability it gave to his uncle's position on a throne which Hamlet had looked upon as his own almost certain inheritance. For in him, through his mother as well as his father, centred all the royalty in Denmark. Thus sorely smitten in his two tenderest points, he went about the court moodily, making a show of his anger and his grief ; saying little, doing nothing, fret- ting and sneering, but not forming any designs for the vindication of his father's memory or the attain- ment of his own ambition. For his was one of those natures into which wrong enters like a thorn to wound and rankle, not as a spur to rouse endeavor. In this he was very unlike young Fortinbras, the son of the King of Norway slain by Hamlet's father ; who, al- though a delicate and gentle prince for those rough days, being yet full of spirit and promptitude of soul, seized this moment when the court of Denmark was in a disturbed condition, over which Hamlet was musing and fretting, to set on foot a warlike enter- prise for the recovery of the territory which had been lost to Norway by his father's violent death. The 82 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. threatened war and the moody discontent of Hamlet cast a gloom upon the court, and darkened the royal honeymoon with serious alarm. Hamlet was soon followed to Elsinore by his friend Horatio, who arrived there, if not in time for the late ' King's funeral, at least for the new King's marriage of the ro} r al widow Gertrude. Soon after his arrival, and before he had found an opportunity of seeing his friend the Prince, who, absorbed in his melancholy reveries, seems not to have known or at least to have noticed the presence of his school-fellow, Horatio was told by two soldiers of his acquaintance, gentlemen, but of no rank, of a strange appearance which they had twice seen as they kept watch on a platform of the castle. A ghostly figure had passed and repassed them near the hour of midnight. Clothed in com- plete steel, it moved silently before them ; and from the lifted beaver looked out the sad face of the dead King of Denmark. At the request of one of them the doubting Horatio joined them on their watch, that he might see the apparition. It came ; passed solemnly before the watchers, but neither spoke nor made a sign when it was spoken to, and disappeared at the sound of the midnight cock-crowing. Deeming such a visita- tion portentous, Horatio determined to inform young Hamlet of it ; for he was sure that the ghost, although dumb to others, would speak to him. The next day he found the Prince alone in the hall of state. The new King had held a formal audience that day, had despatched ambassadors to Norway to check the pro- ject of young Fortinbras, and had endeavored, with the Queen's aid, to rouse Hamlet from the moodiness which so troubled the guilty mind of the murderer and usurper. To win the Prince to acquiescence in THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 83 the new state of affairs, lie had assured him of his succession, and had begged him to remain at the court as the first of subjects, the King's chief counsellor and heir. He need not have feared any untoward con- sequences from Hamlet's lonely cogitations. For the Prince had already, in spite of his grief and his anger, and the disturbed state of affairs which gave him op- portunities of avenging his father's death and acquir- ing the crown he so much desired, and which at least made it becoming that he, the first subject in the kingdom, should be present at the capital, determined, in weak despair and dejection of soul, to return to the university. Suspecting him and fearing to trust him out of sight, the King, with the Queen's help, dis- suaded him from this puerile purpose. The audience being ended, the court withdrew ; and Hamlet, left alone, fell, as his wont was, into reverie ; and his thoughts were not of the means by which he could obtain what he thought his right, the throne, but of his mother's sin against sentiment, and of his own disgust, and of his weariness of life. He was ignorant thus far of the adultery and the murder ; yet he fed the bitterness of his soul by thinking that he longed to commit suicide. To this mood he was brought not only by his mother's conduct and his own disappointment, but by his constant neglect of the active duties of his position, and his habit of watching and pondering the conduct of all around him. Hence came his soul's tedium and his fanciful dallying with the thought of a self-sought death. His weariness of life came of too much observation and reflection ; for it is sadly true that they enjoy life most who know and think the least about it. In this mood Horatio found the Prince, and greeting 84 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. frankly and heartily, although respectfully, the close friend who had parted from him hardly a month before, he was surprised to be received, although with perfect courtesy, yet not with instant and complete recognition. This was the result of no hauteur or affectation on the part of Hamlet, but of an inability, common to natures like his, to break off their musings, and, except upon great occasions, bring their faculties suddenly to bear upon what is newly placed before them. Hamlet welcomed Horatio, and then fell into his accustomed jeering. For, as to his mental tone and habit in his daily conversation, he was chiefly a cynic and a humorist. His irony was fine and cutting, but his humor was often broad. Himself an accom- plished and elegant gentleman for his time, a thought- ful man, and of good impulses, he walked through life looking about him with a fine scorn of all that was inferior to himself ; and to this he gave utterance in polished jeers and bitter ridicule. It was only when he was alone, or with some trusted friend like Horatio, or favorite humble follower like a certain player whom he admired, that he gave serious utterance to his sad philosophy. And this was rarely ; for he loved and admired few men well enough to talk with them ear- nestly and admit them to real acquaintance with his soul. Hamlet was much disturbed by Horatio's story, and determined himself to watch that night for the ap- parition. It came ; he recognized it instantly as his father's ghost, and following it alone to a retired place, there learned from it that his father had been murdered by his uncle, and that his mother had for- saken her husband, even during his life, for her brother-in-law. Shocked by this revelation, and roused THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 85 by the exhortations of his father's spirit, Hamlet, on the impulse of the moment, which with him was al- ways equally strong and evanescent, devoted himself solemnly to the fulfilment of the ghost's command. He declared in his heart that he would give up his contemplative, inactive life, and wipe out of his memory all saws, that is, all the sententious maxims that he had formed and cherished there. Whereupon the forma- tion of this resolution reminding him of his cherished habit, and causing him to think how valuable and pleasant these saws were, he at the next moment took out his note-book and wrote down the maxim, that a man might smile and be a villain. Then when his companions joined him he immediately began to jest ; and although he was then sure that what the ghost said was true, as sure as he ever became afterward, and that according to the moral notions of that time, as well as in compliance with the ghost's injunction, he should slay his uncle at his first opportunity, he, now seeing that the usurper had reason to hate and fear him, and being willing to shelter himself from the monarch's malice, and hoping also to divert atten- tion from himself while he thought about thinking what design he ought to form for the avenging of his father, resolved to feign madness. Then he made Horatio and the others swear to keep the vision and this resolution secret. And instead of rejoicing, he cursed himself that he was born to such a duty. Now, there was in the court of Denmark, in a posi- tion like that of chamberlain, an old nobleman named Polonius ; a politician, crafty, prudent, full of worldly wisdom, and withal a very accomplished gentleman, but pompous in manner, in thought somewhat over- subtle, and in speech too wordy. He had a son, 86 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Laertes, a young man of good heart and high spirit, and a daughter, Ophelia, a fond, amorous, sweet, and gentle girl, but weak-souled, easily led, and easily re- buffed. Thrown into Hamlet's company, his comeli- ness and courtesy won her to love him after her feeble fashion; and he, first allowing himself to be loved, came at last to love her in return, and even to talk to her of marriage. Polonius sent Laertes to Paris, and, fearing that Hamlet did not wish to make Ophelia his wife, commanded her to break off her intercourse with him; which she did without much pain or remon- strance. This gave Hamlet a good opportunity to begin impressively the play of his feigned madness ; and some time after the appearance of the ghost, we know not how long, but long enough for Laertes to have become in need of money at Paris, and to have formed new friends and new habits, the Prince startled poor Ophelia by coming before her in a slovenly dress he who was usually a dainty man in his apparel and by wild and melancholy actions ; after which he left her, sighing deeply, but not speaking. She told this to her father, who, immediately inferring that the Prince was mad for his daughter's love, spread the report about the palace. The King, however, ever apprehensive through con- scious guilt, came to fear that Hamlet's apparent mad- ness had another cause ; and after it had continued some time longer, he sent to the university for the Prince's friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to per- form the double office of diverting him and being spies upon his conduct. They came ; and time enough had elapsed ere their arrival for the accomplishment of the purpose of the embassy to Norway ; the ambassadors and the young noblemen reaching Elsinore at the THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 87 same time. On the day that both had audience, Polo- nius, that he might show the King that Hamlet was mad because Ophelia had repelled his love, proposed that a meeting should be contrived between the two, at which himself and Claudius should be hidden ob- servers. The King consented, not believing that Hamlet was love-crazed, but hoping to get at the truth by the help of this new spy. Polonius, left alone and seeing Hamlet coming, sought an encounter of wits with him, in which he was badly worsted. For the Prince indulged his cynical humor to the utmost, and, under cover of his feigned madness, mocked and jeered the old chamberlain to his face, with a rudeness and cruelty which, had not his pretended condition appa- rently voided his conduct of malicious purpose, would have been brutal. When the old man retired, Rosen- crantz and Guildenstern came in, and Hamlet fell to jesting with them, and finally into the utterance of his scornful, misanthropic musings. And he told them, as he told many others on various occasions, that he had sunk into melancholy* Indeed, he accused him- self of insanity to divers persons until almost the day of his death ; a sure evidence, if they had but known it, that he was not mad ; and indeed so weak was his resolve that he confessed with particularity to Guilden- stern and Rosencrantz, as well as to Horatio and to his mother, that he was feigning madness for a pur- pose. He was too unstable and incontinent of soul even to keep his own great secret, but went about mak- ing others swear that they would keep it for him. While he arid his college friends were talking, a company of players arrived at the palace ; and the Hamlet who had just avowed that the earth and the heavens held neither beauty nor joy for him had the 88 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. new-coine ministers of pleasure immediately before him, and began to speak, and to criticise and quote, finally causing the principal player to recite part of a scene. He treated his old favorites in the princely way that sat on him so well, and showed the kindly good nature which was one trait of his character by forbidding the chief actor to mock Polonius. He would sneer at the old counsellor himself, under cover of his feigned madness ; for that took away the appear- ance of design, which is the life of insult ; but he would subject him to no coarser treatment at the hands of his inferiors. With a project half formed, he asked the player if he could, and would, study a speech which he should write, and, of course, did not ask in vain. When the player left his presence, Hamlet fell again to thinking about what he should have done and had left undone ; and because his intellect was ever brighter and higher than his moral nature, he saw himself in his own mind's eye a weakling that he despised. The player, in reciting his speech, had assumed the passion of the part with such fervor and seeming reality that his words pierced Hamlet's heart like an unseen dag- ger, and he reproached himself bitterly that he had done nothing to avenge his father and right himself. And so, feeling that he deserved that self-reproach, because he was sure that his uncle had killed his father, whose death was yet unavenged, he immedi- ately and with much earnestness called upon his brain to furnish him with some device by which he could be made sure that his father had been killed by his uncle ; and thereupon he fell back upon his half -formed reso- lution to have the play of a murder represented before the court at Elsinore, subtly suggesting to himself that perhaps the ghost was a devil, and that he ought to THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 89 have better grounds for revenge than such an appari- tion. Meantime he continued to muse upon the emptiness of life, its rooted wrongs and endless evils ; and he thought, not how to do what he had sworn to his father's spirit, but whether it would not be better to turn his dagger against himself, and thus escape the duty set before him ; and then, ever f orethinking al- though never forecasting, he saw that death, although it would relieve him of his present perplexity, would leave him he knew not where ; and he decided not to die until he had thought somewhat longer over the possible advantages of dying. One day while he was musing in this fashion, the King and Polonius watching in concealment, Ophelia appeared. She had not seen him for many a day, and had long desired to find an opportunity of returning him his letters and his gifts, according to her father's orders. Hamlet at first spoke her fair, and in forget- f ulness that he was mad ; but soon remembering his cue (it being suggested by her presence and her men- tion of his love tokens), and seeking a vent for his cynical humor and his bitterness of soul, he mocked and flouted this poor girl, denying his love for her, and satirizing her sex in her person ; telling her that he was mad, and that the folly and wantonness of women had made him so, bidding her go to a nunnery lest she should become the mother of such a poor thing as a man, and declaring that there should be no more marriages in Denmark. His conduct on this occasion was so hard and cruel, and so far from any semblance of madness, that some of those who have studied his case have concluded that he must have discovered that the King and Polonius were overhearing liim. But 90 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. there is no warrant for such an opinion, which indeed is suggested only as a support to the indefensible as- sumption that Hamlet being good at heart, his conduct must have been always thoroughly estimable and con- sistent ; whereas there are no graver offences or grosser errors than those into which kind-hearted men fall from lack of resolution. This, poor Hamlet saw himself ; for, as he was talking with his friend Hora- tio, whom he loved and trusted more than any other person in the world, he told him that he had chosen him because of his resolute firmness and serenity of soul ; and he declared that of all men those were blessed who were so constituted that they could not be made the sport of fortune, and that the man whom he took to his inmost heart must be one who, like Hora- tio, was not the prey of his own emotions. The play was performed, and accomplished all that Hamlet expected of it ; that is, it assured him of what he knew perfectly well before that his uncle had killed his father. The King fled from the representa- tion of the murder ; the performance stopped ; and the court rose and went out in confusion. Hamlet burst forth into exclamations, and began to talk with Horatio about the event, when he suddenly broke off with a light jest and called for music. Then Rosen- crantz and Guildenstern came to him with a message from his mother bidding him come to her chamber. He received them with ironical compliment, and at once began to jest and to jeer, telling them in earnest, however (that is, with purpose), that they should be- lieve of him two things : first, that he was mad (a sure sign that he was sane), and next, that his grief was that he had been disappointed of the throne. True, he had the King's word for the succession; but he THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 91 said, " While the grass grows the steed starves." The musicians whom he had called for, entering then with their pipes, found that he had already changed his purpose ; he wanted no music ; but the sight of the instruments suggested to him a mode of showing his former friends that he saw through their design. He asked them to play upon the recorder, and they being obliged to refuse because they had not the skill, he burst out upon them in anger, telling them that he saw they were trying to play upon him, and that they would find him harder to play upon than a pipe. Polonius then coming in, Hamlet tried how far his complaisance would lead him to acquiesce in any folly the Prince might utter ; and finding that it knew no bounds, he inferred that the general belief in his mad- ness was well established. Left alone by Polonius, he immediately began to assure himself how very terribly he felt ; communing with himself, as he always did, in a very high style and with a vivid imagination. He thought at this time that he could drink hot blood and do some act so terrible as to affright the face of nature ; but he did nothing but muse and talk after his old fashion. For on his way to his mother's chamber he passed the King's oratory, and there saw him alone, exposed and praying. The thought at once occurred to him that here was his opportunity. But hardly had he half drawn his sword when he thought of a good reason for putting off the execution of his purpose. It was that if he killed the King at prayer he would send him to heaven, and so not punish but reward him ; and that to rightly avenge his father he should kill his murderer at some time when dying he would go straight to hell ! a revelation of a fiendish malignity 92 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. of purpose, if it revealed any purpose whatever. But it revealed none. On the contrary, it merely showed Hamlet's lack of purpose. He pretended to deceive himself with this argument, when all that he really wished was to shuffle away from, and procrastinate, what he felt to be his solemn duty. When Hamlet reached his mother's chamber, Polonius had hidden himself behind the hangings to give the Queen the moral support of the conscious- ness of his presence. But the Prince being very violent in his manner, as was now his way with women (for the effect of his rankling wrong showed itself in this perversion of his nature), she cried out for help, and Polonius answering, Hamlet on the in- stant whipped out his sword, and, with his customary jeer upon his lips, killed the old courtier on the spot ; thinking at the time it was the King, and rejoicing that he had slain him on a momentary impulse, and had thus relieved himself of the intolerable irksome- ness of keeping himself up to the sustained purpose of executing a fixed resolution. The son rated the mother roundly for her sin, and still more roundly for her bad taste in leaving so handsome and gallant a man as his father for such an ugly, vulgar fellow as his uncle. While he was thus thinking of his father, and excited by the recital of his mother's conduct, he became the victim of an optical delusion such a one as troubled Macbeth, a Scottish usurper who saw again and again the figure of a man named Banquo, whom he had caused to be slain. While Hamlet was speaking to his mother about the father whose ghost he and Horatio and Bernardo and Marcellus had seen upon the plat- form, he thought he saw the ghost enter the chamber, THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 93 and thought he heard him speak and chide him that he had let so long a time pass by while he was vex- ing his soul with thoughts of his wrong and his suffering, and dulling the edge of his purpose. But it was not the ghost. For the ghost was visible to every eye, and this that Hamlet saw was invisible to his mother. The ghost wore armor ; but Hamlet saw his father " in his night gown." That was not what we call now a night shirt ; for until a very late period people wore no night dress, but lay in bed quite naked. A night gown was until comparatively late years what we call now a dressing gown, or robe de chambre ; and Hamlet, in his mother's chamber, merely fancied that he saw his father dressed as he had often seen him there in his lifetime. When he was about to part from his mother, he entreated her to refrain herself from his uncle's bed that night ; but he seemed to desire this in a great measure lest the King should wheedle her into a confession of the fact that her son was only craftily feigning madness. And in the consideration of Hamlet's case nothing should be kept more clearly in mind than that from the time we hear of him until his death he was perfectly sane, and a man of very clear and quick intellectual perceptions and strong sound judgment, one perfectly responsible for his every act and every word ; that is, as responsible as a man can be who is constitutionally irresolute, purposeless, and procrastinating. They have done him wrong who have called him undecided. His penetration was like light ; his decision like the Fates' ; he merely left undone. The Queen kept Hamlet's counsel better than he kept it himself, and reported to the King that he was 94 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. as mad as the raging elements. But the King seeing, like Polonius, a method in his madness, and determin- ing that in any case it would be better that he should be put out of the way, sent him to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with sealed letters, pretended as a demand for tribute, but really asking that the Prince should be put to death immediately. As Hamlet went to the port whence he was to em- bark, he met a troop of soldiers marching. They were Norwegian forces, led by young Fortinbras, the son of the man whom Hamlet's father slew. Pie was, like Hamlet, the heir to his father's and his uncle's throne, and the counterproof of Hamlet in this story. They were going to fight for a little patch of ground not worth the cost of the expedition ; and yet the Polacks in possession were prepared for a desperate resistance. When they had passed by, Hamlet sent his companions forward, and began, after his fashion, to muse upon his own motives ; and he discovered and confessed to himself that his habit of thinking and thinking, instead of thinking and doing, had made him to all intents and purposes a coward. And he mercilessly scourged himself, in thought, that he had not slain his uncle and seized the Danish throne ; for which he had .cause, and will and strength and means. For it must be remembered that Hamlet never doubted for a moment that it was his duty to avenge his father's death by his uncle's. Upbraiding himself thus, he declared that from the time of re- ceiving this lesson his thought should be only to do justice on his father's murderer. Poor moral weak- ling! his thought and his intent were just as they ever had been, the straws of every gust of accident. Being suspicious of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 95 the instruments of his uncle on the voyage to England, he purloined their letters, opened and read them, and promptly wrote one ordering them to be put to death, sealed it with his father's seal which he carried with him, and putting this in place of the other, sent them to the fate to which they knew they were taking him. By this little trick he saved his life, and rid himself of two double-faced companions whose fate cannot be mourned. His action here was prompt, but it hardly deserved the name of action. It was the instant fruit of one of those impulses upon which irresolute men sometimes act, without thought and without purpose, and which are little more significant of high mental or strong moral constitution than the snap of an alli- gator's jaws or the spring of a serpent. An encounter with pirates ended in such a way that Hamlet returned to Denmark while his companions went on to their graves in England. During his ab- sence Ophelia had become insane and had drowned herself unwittingly ; and Laertes, having returned from France, had attempted a rebellion in revenge for his father's death at the hands of one of the royal family. Him the King, being informed of Hamlet's unexpected appearance at Elsinore, had induced to undertake the death of his father's murderer ; the plan being that in a fencing match before the court between Hamlet and Laertes, the latter should wound the former with a poisoned and unbated foil. That Ham- let would accept the challenge there appeared to be no doubt. For he was strong of body, a skilful swordsman, and was vain of his accomplishment ; so much so indeed that, in the midst of all his trouble about his father's death and his mother's marriage, the praises of Laertes' fencing, brought from Paris by 9b STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. a French gentleman, so excited his envy that he con- stantly expressed his desire that Ophelia's brother might return that he might challenge him ; and he, the sworn avenger of his father, he who had a king- dom at stake, kept himself well in practice for a bout with foils. Coming to Elsinore after the discovery that the murderer of his father and the seducer of his mother had also treacherously sought his life, he met Horatio, and strolled with him into a churchyard, and there be- gan musing upon life and death, and fell into banter- ing with a clown whom he found digging a grave. Seeing a funeral of some state approach, in which the King and Queen and the court appeared, he retired with Horatio and watched the rites. But it was not until Laertes came forward as chief mourner and spoke of his sister, that Hamlet suspected that he saw the burial of Ophelia. Then, with a sudden and tremen- dous revulsion of feeling, he broke forth into pas- sionate exclamations of love and grief ; and then, too, at that strange, unfitting time, he claimed his royal rank, and announced himself as The Dane. The sud- den turmoil in his unstable soul caused him to pour out this turbid mingling of passionate grief and dis- appointed, weakly self-asserting ambition. Laertes sprang at his throat with the fierce, sharp cry, " The Devil take thy soul! " Hamlet faced him fiercely, for he was no coward, and now was roused to frenzy ; but in his very reply, meant to be a threat, he went into a brief egoistic explanation of his own character and motives. The foes were separated, and Hamlet left the churchyard. The challenge to the fencing match was sent by a fop whose exquisiteness appeared no less in his speech THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 97 than in his clothes and his conduct ; and Hamlet, having now yet another grief laid upon the burden of his soul, amused himself with caricaturing his speech to his face, probing him with irony, and making him go through his little paces, unsuspicious of the exhibi- tion he was making. The challenge was accepted; and not only was Hamlet wounded with the poisoned foil, but by a change of swords Laertes also ; and the Queen, who was present, was poisoned by drinking from a goblet prepared for her son, to make his death the surer. Then Hamlet, learning this^rom Laertes, on the impulse of the moment, with no thought of his long-deferred purpose, and no refer- ence to his father's fate and his mother's crime, but in momentary resentment of that immediate treachery, rushed upon the King and with his last strength slew him. Cut off thus in the early prime of his manhood for by this time he had come to be thirty years old he yet felt, even in the agonies of an envenomed death, that this was the only possible solution of his perplexity, and that to see life fade away was happi- ness. For seeing Horatio seize the poisoned goblet to drink the dregs that he might be with his friend in death, he tore it away from him, and begging him to live and vindicate his honor, he said in the words put upon his gasping lips by him who sent him forth, with just yet tender hand, a warning to all after ages : If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. That story ] I have now told how lamely and inad- equately no one can know better than myself ; but as 1 A criticism by a distinguished writer makes it proper that I should say that this essay was published in April, 1870. 7 98 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. here presented it may help those who can read it as I do to apprehend the lesson that it teaches : that a man may have kindliness, and grace, and accomplish- ment, high thoughts and good impulses, and even a will that can stand firmly up against attack (as it were, leaning against opposition), and yet if he have not strong, urgent, exclusive desire, which compels him to put his impulses and will into action, and seek one single object, if indeed he be not ballasted with prin- ciple and impelled by purpose, he will be blown about by every flaw of fortune, and be sucked down into the quicksand of irresolution : that it is better, with Fortinbras, to make mouths at an invisible event, than, with Hamlet, to be ever peering enviously into the invisible future : that, in the words of the wicked King, which gave the key of Shakespeare's meaning, That we would do, We should do when we would ; for this "would" changes And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing. They may understand, too, how difficult it is for an actor to embody a personage who is of a high mental and moral type, and yet whose characteristic trait is a negative quality ; so difficult, that to present such personage satisfactorily demands a genius almost cor- responding (I do not say equal) to his by whom it was created. In the controversies over the rival Hamlets of the stage, how comes it that critics do not notice one strong and obvious argument against adopting a blonde chevelure the fact that Hamlet's father had black hair? The elder Hamlet's beard was, says Horatio, THE CASE OF HAMLET THE YOUNGER. 99 " as I have seen it in his life a sable silvered." Now, the presumption at least is surely against a black-haired father having a yellow-haired son. On the other hand, how is it that the champions of a ro- bust Hamlet do not make anything of the abundant proofs given in the tragedy that he was meant to be a man of fine physique and bodily strength ? If any- thing ought to be beyond controversy in the play, this ought to be. Hamlet is always spoken of as athletic and vigorous. He and all others describe his father as the very perfection of manly strength and grace. Hamlet flings off Horatio and Marcellus with ease when they endeavor to hold him back from following the ghost. He is taken prisoner by the pirates be- cause he first and alone succeeds in boarding their ship. He is described by the King as such an adept in horsemanship and fencing, and so proud of his ac- complishments, that he always burns to cope in skill and strength with any one who is famed for his mas- tery of such manly exercises. He flings off Laertes in the struggle over the grave. In the fatal fencing scene he is able to tear from the hand of Laertes the poisoned weapon which Laertes had the best reasons in the world for clinging to with all his might and main. He is able, even in his dying moment, to force the poisoned cup from the hands of Horatio. Fi- nally, what is the epitaph pronounced over him by For- tinbras ? Does Fortinbras speak of him as a gentle scholar ? He says : Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage ; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage, The soldiers' music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. 100 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Whatever may be said for or against other peculiari- ties in the personation of " Hamlet," the evidence is irresistible in support of the presentation of the prince as a young man of splendid physique, nobly accom- plished in all manly exercises. The delicate student theory has nothing whatever to sustain it except the odd notion that a man of undecided character, much given to casuistry and easy philosophizing, must neces- sarily be lank, lymphatic, and feeble. THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. ABOUT three hundred and fifty years ago, when Venice was in the height of her power and the full flower of her glory, and when she was engaged in con- stant warfare with the Turk, there was among her senators one named Brabantio, who was held in honor by his fellows and by the Duke, or Doge, himself. The mistress of his household was his young daughter, Desdemoua, whom he loved the more tenderly because her mother had died in her childhood, and the girl had grown to early womanhood watched over only by his fatherly eye, and had gradually come to fill a wife's and a daughter's place both in his household and in his heart. The lack of the restraint of a mother's solicitude and cautions had developed in Desdemona an inde- pendence of character and a self-reliance to which otherwise she might not have attained ; and this inde- pendence her position as the head of the domestic es- tablishment of a member of the proudest and most powerful oligarchy of modern Europe greatly strength- ened and confirmed. Desdemona's nature was gentle, submissive, and self-sacrificing, but at the same time earnest, frank, and passionful ; and the result of the influence of such a life as hers upon such a nature was a union of boldness, or rather of openness, both in thought and in action, with a warmth and tender- 102 sVutilES IN SHAKESPEARE. ness of feeling and a capacity of self-devotion which are found only in women of highly and delicately strung organizations. With an imagination which wrought out for her grand ideals, and a soul finely attuned to all the higher influences of life, she was yet a careful housekeeper, and gave herself up loyally to the duties imposed upon her by her position in her father's house. Notwithstanding her beauty, her rank, and her accomplishments, she had suffered herself to be little wooed, and had not inclined her ear to the voice of any lover. This was partly because of her youth, partly because of her preoccupation, but chiefly rather because she cherished in her soul such a lofty ideal of manhood that there were few noble gentlemen even in Venice who could captivate her eye, or touch her heart. One young Venetian named Roderigo had be- come deeply enamored of her beauty. He could not love her as she would be loved, and still less could she look upon him with an eye of favor ; for he was a silly snipe a compound of self-conceit and folly and foppery ; a coarse but feeble animal, with an outside fantastically tricked out by his tailor. About this time there appeared in Venice a valiant soldier of fortune named Othello. In person he was a stalwart, swarthy Moor, and some persons have sup- posed that he was a negro ; but without reason, for he was born in one of the Barbary States on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, where his family was of noble rank, and on one side at least of kingly blood. Even the worst enemy he had, in reviling him, did not call him a negro, or a blackamoor, but a Bar- bary horse. This Othello was a man of such valor, such military skill, and such strength of character, that having obtained service under the Venetian State, THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 103 he soon rose to high rank in its army, and became one of the most trusted of the Venetian captains. Brabantio admired, and loved, and trusted him, and received him often at his palace ; and yet withal he held himself above this swarthy military adventurer ; partly as a proud Venetian noble, and partly with that lofty arrogance which the fair-skinned man has al- ways shown to his dark-skinned brother. And thus it happened that although Othello was really one of the most distinguished men in Venice, and visited Bra- bantio's house as an intimate, and thus saw the beau- tiful Desdemona often, her father never thought of him as a possible lover of his daughter. There was another reason which threw the old senator off his guard in this respect. Othello was more than old enough to be Desdemona' s father. His black locks were streaked with gray, and his manner was grave, reserved, and silent. Had Desdemona's mother been alive, she would have been more cautious ; for women, especially those who have had experience of the world, know that youth is not always the surest passport to the heart of a woman, even when she herself is young and beautiful. While Brabantio and Othello talked, Desdemona listened, and soon there crept into her ears a delight she had never known before. She came to look upon Othello's visits as the greatest happiness of her life ; and as she gazed upon this gallant soldier, she ere long saw in him not a dark-visaged, half-barbarous military adventurer, but her ideal of manhood, to whom she was willing to give a woman's love, and whom she could joyfully accept as the absolute owner and master of her body and her soul. The very fact that he had wandered from country to country, offering 104 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. his sword now to this sovereign, now to that, fighting strange and savage people, encountering peril almost for peril's sake, and visiting places which, although not many miles from the Mediterranean shores, were then more inaccessible from Venice and less known there than the remotest region in the world is now, cast over him an alluring charm in the eyes of this gentle, home-keeping, thoughtful maiden. It made the successful soldier seem in her eyes a sort of conqueror of the world ; and, without even a summons to sub- mit, she yielded to the conqueror all of the world of which she was mistress, herself. She did not hesitate to show the interest she felt in him, and when he was telling his strange and perilous adventures to her father, she would hasten from her household duties to sit with them and gaze and listen. Othello, himself as modest as a maid, conscious, with all his self-reliance, of his unsettled position in the world, of his dark skin, and of the difference in years between him and this beautiful girl, at last could not mistake the nature of her interest in him, and was captivated even more by the sweet flattery of her spontaneous love than by her grace and beauty. All that he had of fame or fortune he had won by his sword, at peril of his life, through fierce endeavor. But here was one of the bright prizes of life, a decora- tion that he could not have hoped for, a happiness of which he had hardly dreamed, laid down before him, to be taken for the asking. And yet he did not ask. He who would have wrested a crown from a king, or laid his mailed hand upon the green turban of a sul- tan, timidly shrunk back from lifting to his arms the beautiful enamored daughter of a Venetian senator. At last Desdemona asked him to tell her in her own THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 105 eager ears the whole story of his life ; and when she had listened with sighs and signs of sympathy, and still he looked, but spoke not, she told him that her heart longed for such a man as he had shown himself to be, and that if he knew one man who could tell her such another story, that would be a sure way to woo her. At such an avowal what self -distrust would hesitate ? and then he told her what she so longed to hear. The first step taken, eagerness and ardor replaced self-distrust and timidity in the great soldier's breast. Of what he had won he would take immediate posses- sion. And yet he knew that the senator would refuse, almost with scorn, to give a Moorish military adven- turer his daughter. This Desdemona knew well also ; and so when Othello proposed a secret marriage, she at once consented ; but under all their circumstances this end was not easily accomplished. During his brief wooing, and while he was making his arrangements for the secret marriage, Othello had one confidant. This was a man much younger than himself, one Michael Cassio, a Florentine, whom he loved and trusted ; and whom, for his gallantry and his great accomplishment in the military and engineering science of the day, no less than for his own personal affection for him, he had recently made his lieutenant. Cassio was one of those men, not infrequently found among those who make arms their profession, who unite solid abilities and thoroughness of acquirement to a handsome person, a gay, bright nature, and a fondness and fitness for elegant social life. Of these men, gallant among the gallant, brave among the brave, brilliant in society, self-collected in the field, and capable in affairs, Cassio was a typical example. He was trusted by all, and admired and loved by all, 106 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. except the envious. He was just the man who might naturally have been himself the lover of Desdemona ; but although among her many admirers, he had never enrolled himself as one of her lovers. He entered heartily into the scheme of his general, and served him as faithfully and efficiently in love as he had done in war ; and by his aid Othello privately married Desdemona. Among Othello's officers was a rival of Cassio's, lago, possibly a somewhat older man, certainly a more experienced soldier, and one of great and widely recognized ability. He was so highly thought of by Othello himself, as well as by others, and his repu- tation had been so long established, that he had him- self expected to be made the Moor's lieutenant ; and some of the great ones in Venice had made personal application to Othello in his behalf. But the great captain had preferred the less experienced but better educated man, and had, however, given to his rival the secondary although important and distinguished post of standard-bearer, or ancient, 1 to lago's disap- pointment and disgust. For the latter had counted much upon his reputation and his popularity, and with reason. lago was one of those men who early in life set themselves to the task of making friends as a means of ensuring success. His manners were singularly frank, and of an apparent spontaneous simplicity and heartiness. He seemed disposed to take a kindly interest in every person with whom he came into con- tact. There was an openness and candor in his man- ner, and a readiness to sympathize with others and to l Ensign came to be called ancient from the pronunciation of s as sli: ensign beiug pronounced enshin. THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 107 serve them, a plain downrightness of speech, and a freedom in his way of giving advice, that made him sought as a confidant, and won him the sobriquet of "honest." No one could doubt for a moment the sincerity of such an open-faced, easy-going fellow, who to his heartiness and simplicity of manner added a prudence and an intuitive knowledge of the world which, added to his genial manners, won him general trust and confidence. In all kinds of trouble " honest lago " was consulted ; and in no kind did he with- hold his aid, or at least his sympathy and his advice. For he was not one of your squeamish, stuck-up Pharisees who give offence by holding themselves above the weaknesses of common mortals ; and so even the little creature Roderigo, who hoped to corrupt Desdemona's chastity by rich presents, went to him for counsel and assistance. Othello, who wished to marry her, went to Cassio. One person might have been expected to feel some doubts of lago's perfect honesty and good fellowship, his wife Emilia ; but it would seem that she did not. A handsome woman, of strong passions and weak principle, she had been captivated by his bright, cheery manner, and his soldierly bearing. Nor was his manly vigor without attractions to her maturer years ; and, as not infrequently happens in the case of such a woman and such a man, they married, she for a kind of besotted fondness, he for some point of interest. She was still a woman of such personal attractions, and so free in her talk and her behavior, that there was scandal about her and Othello ; un- justly, however, for she still continued fond of lago, although it would seem that her life with him could not but have led her to suspect sometimes that his gay off-hand manner concealed a crafty, selfish nature. 108 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. When Othello had safely married Desdemona Le had no further concealment in the matter, which came to the ears of Roderigo and lago on the evening of the wedding-day. They went instantly together to the house of Brabantio, hoping that Desdemona's father, by the exercise of his senatorial influence, could seize the person of his daughter before the con- summation of the marriage ; Roderigo's motive being love of the bride, lago's, in part a cold, interested hate of the husband. For the giving of the lieu- tenancy to Cassio had roused all the low passions of his base, malignant nature; and although the Moor had advanced him, his disappointment at not getting the higher place so rankled in his venomous bosom that his whole mind was now bent upon the ruin of the lieutenant at whatever torture of the general. He already dimly saw that Desdemoua's marriage to the former, the presence of the noble-hearted, hand- some Cassio, and the senseless passion of the weak Roderigo might be united to serve his purpose. His motive, however, was mixed, and was largely mer- cenary, the hope of gain in his pretended service of the rich fool, Roderigo. It so happened that on this very night news reached Venice of an expedition of the Turks against the island of Cyprus, which was at that time a dependency of the Venetian State ; and as Brabantio was on his way to arouse his friends for the recovery of his daughter, he was met by Cassio and other messengers who had been sent out to summon him, as well as Othello, to a council called at the Doge's palace, to decide what course should be taken against the Otto- man. The messengers had already come upon Othello in the street, where he was talking with lago, and THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 109 had bidden him to the council. lago had told Cassiq that their general had just married he did not say whom ; and Cassio, faithful to the last, had pretended ignorance of the lady's name. When Brabantio saw Othello, in his wrath he forgot his dignity, and would have assaulted him ; and for a moment a bloody contest between the two parties was imminent. But Othello's composed relf-reliance was not to be thus disturbed. With a word he checked the impending fray, re- minding both friend and foe, with a gentle touch of pride and scorn that sat well upon him, that as to whether the question were to be decided by arms Othello might disregard both the provocation of the one and the officious partisanship of the other. The Moor was not a man to permit a street brawl about his wife between his friends and those of his father- in-law. Hearing of the council, Brabantio at once decided to lay his grievance before the Duke and his fellow senators. He did not overrate their sympathy or their readi- ness to espouse his cause ; for although they were in the midst of a consultation upon the public peril, and although Othello, who entered the council chamber with him, was greeted by the Duke with an announce- ment that he must immediately proceed against the Ottoman, when Brabantio broke in upon the council of war with the declaration that the Moor had stolen away his daughter, he was not only listened to, but Othello was at once put upon his defence. Calm in his consciousness of right, and in his knowledge of the importance of his services to the Venetian State, he simply told the story of his wooing ; nor did he, in his semi-barbarian freedom from the convention- alism of European society, conceal that he had not 110 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. asked Desdemona to be his wife until she had very plainly hinted that she longed to have him do so. Othello was a magnanimous, high-minded man, but he was not quite a European gentleman. The Duke and the senators saw in his story the perfect justifica- tion of his conduct ; and even Brabantio, although he resented the implication that Desdemona, who had slighted the admiration of so many young Venetian nobles, had been half the wooer of her swarthy, middle-aged lover, was compelled to admit that if what Othello said was true, his ground of paternal complaint lay only against his daughter. Desdemona was sent for ; and with perfect modesty, but with the most unreserved frankness, she avowed her love for Othello, and that her duty was now to him first and to her father afterward. That question was thus briefly ended ; and Brabantio resigned his daughter to the Moor, with the caution that the woman who had deceived her father might deceive her husband. Othello had occasion, although no cause, to remember this warning. But another question immediately came up, in the dis- cussion of which there was not a new, but a further revelation of Desdemona' s nature. Othello must in- stantly set out for Cyprus ; and he asked that during his absence his wife might be placed in a position be- coming the military rank of her husband, and her own breeding. Thus Othello, under the pressure of the time, consented, although reluctantly, to leave his maiden bride behind him ; but she was not willing to be left. Nor did she conceal the nature of her feeling. She said plainly that she loved the Moor to live with him ; that to do so she had set at naught all the social restraints with which she had been surrounded ; and THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. Ill that were she to remain in Venice while he went off to Cyprus, the rites for which she loved him were bereft her. It is a remarkable fact, and one which has a bearing upon the conventional notions which are professed, if not quite believed in European society, upon such subjects, that notwithstanding her previous conduct toward Othello, and notwithstanding this con- fession of the sentiments and passions of unmitigated nature, we do not feel the slightest doubt of the purity and the modesty I will not wrong womanhood by saying the chastity of Desdemona. The result was that the young bride, her appeal being supported by the eager request of her few hours' hus- band, had her way. The little fleet which set sail im- mediately for Cyprus bore Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and lago, whose wife, Emilia, attended the general's wife as her maid and companion. Roderigo also found a place in the expedition. Othello was in one ship ; Desdemona, escorted by lago, in another ; Cassio in a third. They were separated by a storm ; and Cassio's ship arrived first at the island. The next to reach the shore was that which carried Desdemona, who was welcomed by the islanders, with Cassio at their head, lago lost no time ; and at once began to found his plot upon the assiduous attention and courtesy which the handsome and gallant lieutenant, in conformity to the manners of the time, lavished upon the beautiful wife of his friend and general. Cassio was no more than courtly, and Desdemona's heart was in Othello's ship ; but they kept gayly up the light gallantries of their society. She, to beguile her anxious longing, assumed a merry air, and seemed to amuse herself with lago ; and he, in the brief time that the party passed upon the strand before the arrival of Othello, managed to 112 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. exhibit his wit, his blunt cynicism, his grossness of nature, and his craftiness. His wit all tended to the degradation of womanhood; his eyes and his thoughts were given entirely to the enmeshing of Desdemona in a pretended intrigue with Cassio. When Othello after his arrival had retired with Desdemona, and the rest had followed them, lago re- mained with Roderigo to fill his shallow pate with vile slanders and gross suggestions, which had as their starting point a pretended fickle passion of Desdemona for Cassio, and with temptations which were to in- volve Roderigo in an attempt to bring Cassio into dis- grace, and to bleed money into lago's hungry pocket. For it is around Cassio, the most admirable, the most lovable, and the most brilliant figure in this story, that all its events revolve. It was Cassio's ruin, not Othello's or Desdemona's, that lago chiefly sought. It was to his hate of Cassio that he was ready to sacrifice his general and his general's wife. The ancient was a man, and of course he could not brook with favor the insult which scandal said that Othello offered him in tile person of his wife ; but he was not s6 loving a hus- band, or of so delicate a sense of honor, that he could not and would not have borne this affront, if to do so had been to his interest. Indeed, it seems that he had endured it quietly, and that we should not have heard of it as a motive to his base action, had it not been for the favor shown by Othello to Cassio. It was the ele- vation to the lieutenancy of the man whom he sneered at as a Florentine arithmetician that galled the ancient, and determined him to sacrifice the happiness, and if necessary the lives, of all who stood in the way of his base ambition and his greed of gold. Moreover he suspected that the handsome young soldier had, no less THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 113 than the Moor, won the favor of Emilia. And more than all he hated him for his goodness, and for the love all bore him for the daily beauty in his life, which he felt as a ceaseless, silent reproach of his own moral ugliness. Cassio is the central figure of this tragical story, the single object of lago's machina- tions. The Turkish fleet had been scattered and wrecked by the storm, which had only separated the Venetian ships ; and Othello directed a triumphant rejoicing to be proclaimed in Cyprus. Cassio as lieutenant had a general supervision of the police of the garrison, the details of which he left to lago's management ; and the ancient determined that night to bring the lieuten- ant to disgrace in the eyes of his general. Cassio, with all his manly merit and admirable qualities, was not without points of weakness in his nature ; and one of these, which may be called almost physiological, and against which, to his credit, he watched carefully, was an extreme sensitiveness to the excitement of wine. He could not safely drink as most men then drank, or even as many do now. The draught which steadier stomachs and stronger heads bore unmoved disturbed and inflamed his more sensitive organization. In this mere fact there was no degradation to Cassio ; no more than there is to some men in their painful susceptibility to vegetable poisons, such as that of the ivy vine, which others handle with impunity. It was a mere trait of his physiological organization. If he had not guarded himself against it, he would have been culpable ; but this he did. Of that which others took freely he denied himself the little which unsettled his otherwise steady brain. But on occa- sion of the rejoicings lagq managed to overcome Cas- 8 114 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. sio's resolutions, and to bring him to drink the one draught that was fatal to his self-control. The design- ing ancient apparently threw himself with his whole soul into the revel ; in which he, not Cassio or even Roderigo, sang jolly drinking songs. The result was that the lieutenant, the officer of the night, got raving drunk, and had a brawl with Roderigo which grew to such proportions that Othello himself was brought down from Desdemona's bridal bed to quell it. In his wrath he cashiered his beloved lieutenant on the spot. lago might now have been content ; for if Cassio's disgrace was confirmed, he himself might have been sure of the lieutenancy. But he knew well the mag- nanimity of Othello's nature, and his love of Cassio ; and he knew also how strongly his rival's virtues and accomplishments would plead in his behalf, not only with Othello, but with all to whose advice and en- treaties the general would be apt to listen. Moreover the fiends of envy, hatred, and jealousy had now taken possession of him, and were running riot in his soul ; and having once tasted of the hellish draught that they had brewed to celebrate their triumph, it operated upon him morally as wine did upon Cassio physically ; he longed to drench his soul in it for the mere delight he felt in the sulphurous excitement. Therefore, not only to make Cassio's destruction sure, but to feed full his lust of revenge and wickedness, he determined to carry out his half-formed plan of involving in mortal animosity the two men who had provoked in him such kind of jealousy as his sordid soul could feel. Assum- ing his honest, sympathizing, confidential manner, he condoled with Cassio upon his misfortune, made light of it, and advised him to solicit Desdemona's influence THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 115 with her husband for his restoration ; assuring him that Othello could deny her nothing. His purpose was to represent to Othello that Desdemona, upon whose kind feeling for Cassio he knew that he could rely, was interceding for her paramour. The plot succeeded ; for it was well laid, the materials were at hand, and the conditions were those of nature. Cassio easily enlisted the sympathies of Desdemona in his cause ; and she pleaded for him, not only for kind- ness' sake, and for her admiration and regard for the man, but because she believed that she was doing her husband a benefit by striving to bring back into his service so brave a soldier and so accomplished an offi- cer. She felt, too, a debt of gratitude to Cassio for his good offices in helping her to her husband, and re- membered with a delicious pleasure how, when she, with womanish craft, had dispraised the man she loved, Cassio had defended him, and thus by opposing her had fixed himself forever in her good graces. lago soon found his opportunity. Cassio was beg- ging of Desdemona the intercession in his behalf which she heartily promised, when Othello was an- nounced, and the lieutenant, dreading to meet his superior until his peace was made, retired precipi- tately, just as Othello entered, accompanied by lago. Desdemona lost no time, but at once began her inter- mediatory office, and plied her husband with all the arguments she could use, and with all the blandish- ments of a consciously beautiful and beloved woman. When she retired, having won more than half a prom- ise from her husband, lago dropped a hint contain- ing just that little element of perverted truth that makes a lie more malignant and effective, that Cassio had shunned Othello because he felt guilty that he 116 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. should be round in private with Desdemona. He had some difficulty in effecting a lodgment of suspicion in Othello's mind ; but at last, with fiendish craft, he accomplished it; and from that moment he worked this vein of mischief with unceasing pertinacity and subtle skill, until at last the rough, swarthy, middle- aged soldier's soul was filled with the wretched thought that his beautiful wife was listening favorably to the guilty suit of this handsome, splendid young Floren- tine gallant. lago, however, felt the need of some material evi- dence in support of his insinuations ; and as time wore on, and some week or two had passed, accident pro- vided him with what he sought. 1 Othello had given Desdemona a handkerchief, re- markable in itself, and dear to them both as the first token of his love. It was supposed, according to the superstition of the time, to have peculiar virtues be- cause it had been woven with spells by an Egyptian sibyl. lago, from a vague notion that it might be useful to him in his plans, had often begged his wife Emilia to steal it from Desdemona. But although the not over scrupulous waiting gentlewoman was will- ing to oblige her husband in this respect, the young wife guarded the token so carefully that Emilia had not been able to accomplish the theft. One day, how- ever, when she was in attendance upon Desdemona, Othello had come in tormented with jealousy, and his wife, supposing that he was ill, had offered to bind his brow with the handkerchief, which he had petulantly thrust aside, so that it fell upon the floor. Emilia saw the opportunity of obliging her husband, picked up 1 This lapse of time is assumed as a necessary condition of the narrative. I doubt if it could be demonstrated. THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 117 the silken token, and concealed it just as he came in. She was in some doubt whether to give it to him ; but soon he snatched it from her only half unwilling hand ; and the circle of this caitiff's evidence was completed. To drop the handkerchief where Cassio should find it, and to tell Othello that he had it, was matter of course. The consequences might have been sufficient to lago's purpose in any case ; but fortune helped him. Cassio, with a weakness not uncommon in men of his sort, had become enamored of a beautiful courtesan, Bianca, who doted on him ; and to her he gave this handkerchief. And one day, after Othello had in vain demanded the handkerchief from the distracted Desdemona, and while he was watching Cassio, who should come in, stung with jealousy, but Bianca, to fling the handkerchief into Cassio's face as the gift of a new mistress ; and thus the Moor saw, as he sup- posed, his first love-token to Desdemona in the hands of the cast-off mistress of his wife's paramour. This had happened just after lago had set Othello on the watch to see how lightly Cassio spoke to him of Desdemona and her love, the real subject of their talk being Bianca. For lago, with a craft and cruelty be- yond that anywhere related of the devil and his angels, went steadily on, under his guise of honesty and hearty affection for Othello, to lead him into a frenzy of jeal- ousy, which would ensure Cassio's death. Whether Desdemona lived or died, he did not care, not the tell- ing of a lie ; and as for Othello, so he might have re- venge by torturing him with suspicion, he would have much rather had him live, that he might be his lieuten- ant. How he effected his purpose, subtly suggesting oc- casion of jealousy while openly warning Othello against it ; how he seemed devoted, heart and soul, to the man 118 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. whom he was slowly and coolly driving mad ; how at last, when the Moor's blood was thoroughly infused with the venom that lay under this aspic tongue, he changed his tactics, and turning directly round, bore false witness against Cassio and Desdemona, it is needless to set forth in detail. One point is to be re- marked as to Othello. When his suspicions were aroused to that exasperating pitch which is not cer- tainty, but adds to all the settled pain of certainty the irritating torment of suspense, he suddenly turned upon lago and demanded with dreadful threats that he should prove Desdemona unchaste, menacing him with worse than a dog's death if he should fail to do so. Othello could conceive of no middle course or com- promise in this matter. He was not really jealous, as a woman is jealous, of his rival. His pang was that which was inflicted by the consciousness of a mon- strous, hideous wrong inflicted by the hand he most loved of the sight of that which he held purest and best, self-fouled and smirched before his eyes. Had Desdemona been in his thought still chaste, she might have admired the handsome Cassio to the top of her bent ; she might even have ceased to love her hus- band, and the depths of Othello's soul would have been untroubled. And even now he was ready to be- lieve in her absolutely ; and had lago failed to prove his accusations by an accumulation of evidence that would have convinced any mind, the Moor would still have given his heart and his trust wholly to Desde- mona, and would have spurned her accuser to de- struction. Meantime Cassio pressed his suit to Desdemona, to use her power to bring him again into Othello's THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 119 favor; and Desdemona, as unsuspecting as Cassio himself of any peril to either in so doing, lost no op- portunity to entreat Othello to take back his cashiered lieutenant, clenching with every sweet entreaty the suspicions that lago had driven through Othello's heart. When at last Othello saw the handkerchief re- turned by Bianca to Cassio, he determined to kill Desdemona, and asked lago to get him poison ; but he, partly in craft, not to be implicated in the murder, partly in diabolical ingenuity and delight which his base soul had developed in the details of the dread- ful business he was managing, advised Othello rather to strangle her in her bed ; tempting him with the thought that she would then be sacrificed upon the very place made sacred by the marriage vow which she had violated. The suggestion captivated the imagination of Othello, and he decided to do the murder that night. He might have relented for all the while his love for Desdemona was unabated had it not been that just at this time an incident occurred in which Cassio again was honorably involved, and which indirectly confirmed his suspicions. Ludovico, a kinsman of his wife's, arrived from Venice with despatches from the Senate to Othello, and, entering with Desdemona, he presented them. They recalled Othello, and gave his place to Cassio. To inquiries which Ludovico naturally made about Cassio, Desdemona replied with perfect simplicity, owning her grief for the breach be- tween the lieutenant and her husband, and avowing her regard for Cassio ; and when she heard that Othello was called back to Venice, and that Cassio would have his office, she, longing to be at home again, and rejoicing at Cassio's good fortune, said that she 120 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. was glad to hear this news. All these expressions of natural feeling, made as she was talking apart with her kinsman, drove Othello mad, and at the last, calling her devil, he struck her. She did not for a moment resent the injury and insult, offered her in the pres- ence of Ludovico and the other messengers from Venice, but merely said, " I have not deserved this ; " and from this time, through all the foul abuse that Othello heaped upon her until she took her death from his hands, she, slandered, outraged, and finally mur- dered, clung, in the innocency of her pure, warm nature, to the love that was proving her destruction. The blood in his half -savage veins now running fire, Othello went straight to Desdemona's chamber to ac- cuse her openly of adultery. He found Emilia there, and endeavored to get from her some testimony in sup- port of the evidence he already had ; but in vain. Emilia spoke out stoutly for the honor of the mistress that she loved. Being sent for her, she returned with her, and remained until Othello, addressing her as if she were Desdemona's bawd, requested her to leave them alone together ; doing this with a motive that prompted a like action soon after. When Emilia had gone out, Othello began his accusation of Desdemona, but at first not in plain terms. And she, chaste, lov- ing, unsuspecting, did not at first understand him ; but supposing that he was angered at being recalled, and that he regarded her father as the instigator of his re- moval, she prayed him not to lay the blame on her, and in a most touching manner reminded him that if he had lost her father's favor, so had she. At last she sus- pected what was passing in his thoughts ; and finally she heard herself be-strumpeted by the very lips for whose kisses she had committed her downright violence THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 121 and storm of fortunes. Yet more and worse : Othello having said the worst that man can say to woman, not content with this, called in Emilia, and before his wife's eyes paid her the wages of her assumed bawdry ; doing this, however, not so much to insult his wife as to torment his own soul by putting Desdemona on the lowest grade of womanhood, and his intercourse with her on the lowest footing. In his frenzy he tore open his own wound to pour in fire. Emilia, leaving Desdemona stunned with the blow her heart had received from Othello's hand, went out to bring in lago to her mistress's succor. For not even yet did lago's very wife suspect that this honest fellow had any hand in the dreadful business that was going on. And when lago, with expressions of won- der and sympathy, asked how all this could be, his wife answered him that she was sure some villain, some subtle scoundrel, had invented slanders against her mistress to get some office ; and the simple, honest fel- low replied, " Fie, there 's no such man ; it is impos- sible." Now Emilia made her answer in no sarcastic mood, and with no covert meaning. It is important to remember, as indicative of the sort of man lago was, and of the hold which his blunt, off-hand, honest- seeming manner had given him upon all, that not one of those who knew him most intimately, not even his very wife, suspected his agency in this tragedy until its last dreadful scene was enacted. Emilia, although her breast was disturbed by some vague general doubts as to lago, had no suspicions of him in regard to Desde- mona, and loved and trusted him to the last. And now the inevitable end was near. lago, pro- fessing to avenge Othello's wrong, had undertaken to kill Cassio that night, that the two paramours might 122 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. be taken off together. But he was too crafty to use his own sword when another's was at his hand. Rod- erigo and his ridiculous passion for Desdemona here come in again as the incongruous element which is found in all human affairs ; and lago, by persuading Roderigo that if he would but kill Cassio, he might possess Desdemona, brought him up to the desperate point of assassination. Cassio, however, was pro- tected by a secret, or flexible coat of mail, worn under his doublet, and when Roderigo assaulted him he was unhurt, and himself wounded Roderigo severely. But lago, who had been watching the event, rushed in from behind, cut Cassio in the leg, and fled. Cassio's outcries brought assistance, and it came partly in the person of lago, who reentered in his shirt, with a light in one hand and a sword in the other, and who immediately avenged Cassio by stabbing Roderigo to death. This lago did, not only to rid himself of Roderigo's evi- dence against him, but to secure himself in the posses- sion of the money and jewels of which he had cheated the poor fop, with the pretence of giving them to Des- demona. The catastrophe of this great tragedy was brought about quite as much by the mercenary as by the malicious motives of him by whom it was con- trived. Othello entered his wife's bed-chamber to put her to death almost as if he were a priest about to perform a human sacrifice at the command of his supreme deity. The turbulence of his passion had subsided, and before the death-bed of his love he stood rather heart-broken than revengeful. He was a minister of justice, called upon to execute judgment upon the best beloved of his soul. He might have rushed upon her and smothered her sleeping ; for she slept, although THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 123 she had had vague apprehensions of some impending evil. Othello, however, went quietly to Desdemona's bed, and talked to her and kissed her till she awoke. Then she, not yet suspecting his purpose, asked him to come to bed. His answer revealed at once the end before her ; but she was still ignorant of the cause of his murderous intent ; so much so that she simply asked him what it was, almost as for mere informa- tion. Then he told her that she had given his hand- kerchief to Cassio, and she to her instant denial added the entreaty that he would send for the man and ask him. And not till now was the turning point of this long story passed, and hopelessly. For if Othello had thought Cassio was alive, he, whatever his belief in regard to Desdemona, would, being the man he was, have surely sent for him, and the whole matter would have been explained. But he answered Desdemona that Cassio had confessed his guilt with her, and that honest lago had for that reason stopped his mouth for- ever. Then Desdemona, simple and outspoken, even in her extremity, exclaimed, " Alas ! he is betrayed, and I am undone." This seeming lament for her lover before her husband's face put fire to Othello's soul, and in a moment he wrought his dreadful ven- geance. As he stood horror-stricken before the body of her who had been his wife, he heard the voice of Emilia outside calling him in alarm ; and then again he heard it not ; knowing nothing but the thought of what he had just done. Emilia when she gained admittance told him of the murderous fray, and that Cassio was not killed ; and while she was relating this, Desde- mona revived a moment to say that she was falsely murdered, to accuse herself of her own death, and to 124 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. utter with her dying breath her undying love for Othello. Emilia, whose tongue was always free, who always had " the courage of her opinions," and the blemishes in whose character were atoned for by a cer- tain magnanimity of soul, spoke her mind plainly as to the nature of Othello's act ; and when he told her that her husband was the accuser of Desdemona she was at first absolutely incredulous ; but on Othello's reiteration of his assertion, with commendation of lago's honesty, the possibility of its truth dawned upon her, and she cursed him bitterly. Then she gave the alarm, which brought in all who were within call, including lago. Her first words were prompted by her remaining confidence in this vilest of all men known in story ; so double-faced was he even to his wife, and so trust-inspiring was the face he showed the world. She called upon him to speak and dis- prove the assertions of Othello, confidently uttering her own disbelief that he was such a villain as those assertions made him, and showing, as well as saying, that her heart was full of many woes. Here and throughout this final scene of the tragedy, which was also to be the final scene of her own life, this loose- mannered, loose-tongued woman rose into a grandeur of self-abandonment and devotion to truth and love in which she towered above all others present, even Othello himself, and became the ruling spirit of the catastrophe. lago, seeing Desdemona dead, and believing Cassio to be so, had no longer a motive for concealment, and owned that he had told Othello the story that had maddened him, which he said was true. Emilia in- stantly ranged herself on the side of the right, and gave her husband the lie ; feeling as she did so that it THE FLORENTINE ARITHMETICIAN. 125 would be at the cost of her life. The complication was soon explained, and Othello by a few words found that he was the murderer of an innocent, loving wife, for whose life he would have given his own ten times over. He rushed at lago with his sword ; but the man who a few days before would have slain or scattered a company of lagos missed his aim ; and the villain, after mortally wounding his wife, escaped, and the valiant Moor, as he was called, was easily disarmed. He got another sword ; but he felt that it was harmless in his unnerved hand, and thenceforth he abandoned himself to his great despair. Soon the wounded Cassio, the noble and innocent occasion of all this sorrow, was brought in with his enemy a prisoner in his train ; not, however, to suffer death at the hands of Othello, who, again attacking, only succeeded in wounding him. In the hope of involving Othello's fate with his, and thus of possibly escaping the full punishment of his crime, he had confessed that the Moor and he had plotted Cassio's death ; and this confession Ludovico then an- nounced. Their intended victim, bleeding in body and in soul, but with his noble heart still full of love, said only, " Dear general, I never gave you cause." And then the great captain, coming to him and bowing his head and abasing himself before his young subordi- nate, said, " I do believe it, and I ask your pardon." It was all that Othello could then do. And now lago, completely baffled, took temporary refuge in the sullen silence behind which guilt often skulks, and refused to utter one word in explanation of the machinations which had brought about this awful catastrophe. For Othello, being the man he was, there remained but one exit from the unspeakable and unendurable position in which he stood ; and he took it quickly. 126 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Disarming the suspicions of those around him by the calm delivery of a message to the Venetian Senate, and by the relation of a vengeance he had taken upon a malignant Turk, with his own hand he pierced his bursting heart, and dying by Desdemona's side breathed his last breath upon her lips. Of all the chief personages in this sad story, only he who was the pivot and the central figure of it lived to witness its end ; and he saw it in sad triumph. Brabantio had sunk under the desertion of the daughter who had been the light of his home and the darling of his old age ; the silly Roderigo, and Emilia who had, at least, the nobility of faith and truth and love, had met death at la go's hands ; Othello and Desdemoiia lay lifeless in each other's arms, a sacrifice to the revenge of a mercenary, slighted hypocrite ; and the spotted monster lago was borne out to end his life in torture at the discretion of his intended victim, the Florentine arithmetician ; for Cassio ruled in Cyprus. THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEK WHO knows where the Forest of Arden is ? Who cares to know, that has dipped his lips in the springs of beauty and delight that are ever flowing there ? Such a man hardly deserves to enjoy if indeed he can really feel the cool twilight charm that dwells beneath its high bending boughs, or the bright gleams that gild the green sward of its open glades. Certain men far gone in membership of the Universal Geo- graphical and Egotistical Society, which has existed in all times and in all lands, have indeed discovered that this forest was in France, near the river Meuse, between Charlemont and Rocroy, not far from the town where the French met their final defeat in their last war, Sedan. But as for me, I believe that this en- chanted and enchanting forest was not far from the seacoast of Bohemia ; or mayhap that it was that very wood near Athens through which Hermia and Lysan- der, Helena and Demetrius pursued each other with such Puck-bewitched cross-purposes, where the slayer of the Minotaur and the Queen of the Amazons hunted and made stately court, while Oberoii and Ti- tania quarrelled and made up about her little hench- man, and glorious Nick Bottom, crown-prince of all egoists, sought to play the lion, and like many egoists ended in playing the donkey ; or that perhaps it was in the midst of the still- vex'd Bermoothes, which, not- 128 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. withstanding certain solemn proof that it was the Ber- mudas, I am sure was one of those floating, wandering islands that gladdened and misled the happy mariners of three or four centuries ago, who were not brought down to that sorrowful barrenness of soul that comes of knowing everything. Wherever this Forest of Arden is or may have been, it is the scene of a story that makes it more than any other the home of idyllic romance in the world's memory. We think of it without giving it locality. There dukes unknown to heralds and genealogists, banished from nameless principalities by revolutions unheard of in history, sought refuge and found happi- ness, living lives of impossible delight. There lovers, fleeing from each other, met like mountains removed with earthquakes, where they had least hope of meet- ing. There shepherds, and Court-fools, and English hedge-priests, and lions, and gilded serpents, and palm trees were found together without the slightest seem- ing incongruity ; and there the dukes and their cour- tiers passed their time in hunting and moralizing, and singing sylvan songs with echo for their chorus. The special Duke with whose happy deposition our tale begins had left behind him, at the court of his usurping brother, a daughter named Rosalind, who so loved and was so beloved by her cousin Celia that to part them needlessly was even beyond the cruelty of the man who had ruined and banished her father. And this Rosalind was one of those women of whom, happily for mankind, there are always some in the world that are beloved by everybody. She was good, she was witty, she was beautiful ; but above all, she was lovely. Goodness, wit, and beauty, even when combined, do not always win love from all men ; and THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 129 chiefly they do not always win it from all women. There is a special gift of loveliness or lovability, which, strange to say, is not always accompanied by goodness. This gift Rosalind had, added to all her other qualities ; and it was for her loveliness that she was loved. She eclipsed her cousin, the daughter of the reigning duke ; but the cousin endured and even rejoiced in that supe- riority in her which she might have resented in another. Among the other persons who were or who should have been attached to his fortunes, the banished Duke left behind him three sons of Sir Roland de Bois, one of his most faithful adherents. Two of them were, it should seem, too young to go with him into his exile ; but the elder, Oliver, was a selfish churl in a gentleman's place, and he became a fawning courtier to the usurper, and an oppressor of his youngest brother (who bore his father's name, Orlando), robbing him of even his slender birthright, and striving to crush his manly spirit and grind him down into a condition little above peasanthood. Driven into rebellion, Or- lando at last one day quarrelled with his elder brother, and took him by the throat with a hand which, if he had clinched it, would have quieted his unnatural re- vilings forever. For Orlando was not only a hand- some, well-shaped man, but he had the grip of a prac- tised wrestler. This his brother knew, and hoped by his fondness for that perilous sport to rid himself of one, the untaught graces of whose life affronted him with a daily reproach. There was to be a match be- fore the court the next day, and he gave the Duke's wrestler (who as champion challenged all comers) to understand that he would be glad to see Orlando's neck well broken. The two princesses were at the wrestling ; and as 130 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. they saw Orlando offer himself to contend with the victorious champion, who had already left three of his opponents with broken bones upon the ground, they became his partisans, and entreated him not to ex- pose himself to defeat, with danger of maiming or even of death. But he was in a mood at once des- pairing and determined ; and touched although he was by the interest which these fair, high-born ladies took in him, he refused to withdraw, saying in the bitterness of his heart, which was made more bitter even by the sight of so much loveliness so far beyond his reach, that if he were foiled, there would be only one shamed that was never gracious, and if killed, he should but leave a place that would be better filled when he had made it empty. But fortune rained favors from the eyes of one at least of these ladies ; and Rosalind's heart leaped with joy as she saw him throw the bony prizer of the Duke speechless to the ground. His victory caused inquiry as to who he was ; and when the Duke found that he was the son of his old enemy, he flung away in anger. Another tie then quickly bound Rosalind to Orlando ; for she demurely said to herself, and then spoke it out to Celia, that as her father had loved Sir Roland as his soul, she could not but feel some duty of deep interest in his son. And so they both congratulated and cheered the con- queror; and Rosalind, who acted always upon im- pulse, and in whom a pure heart played the part of discretion, took a chain from her neck and asked Or- lando to wear it for her ; knowing in her heart that, according to the usages of chivalry, then not quite for- gotten, this would make him her knight, if he would only choose to think so ; but that if he did not, it would be merely a princely crowning of his victory. THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 131 The sudden light of so fair a fortune dazed Or- lando ; and he stood speechless while the ladies walked away. But Rosalind had chained herself to him, and at every lingering- step she felt the bond tightening upon her. Had he been bold, she might have been startled into shyness ; but as he was shame- faced and speechless, her heart spoke for him and called her back; and with a demure mockery which was characteristic of her talk, she said to her cousin Celia that her pride fell with her fortunes, and turning she asked him what he would, and if he called. But he, like some modest, brave men, was speechless be- fore a woman whose every tone was sinking into his heart as she showed him that he had only to ask and have. Whereupon Rosalind began to compliment him upon his wrestling ; and then, provoked beyond restraint at her own emotion and his reserve, stam- mered out in her impulsive way that he had over- thrown more than his enemies. And so they parted. Had Rosalind been one whit less pure and true, and perhaps we should say less beautiful and lovely, she would have lost some womanly charm in this tender assault upon her bewildered lover for such Orlando had become in those bright, brief moments. And in either case she had begun a perilous game, and one likely to be fatal to any woman who, even with all Rosalind's charms to load the dice, was not ready to set the fortunes of her heart upon one cast. She did not shut her eyes to her position ; for she was clear-headed as well as brave ; and soon after- ward she confessed her love to Celia, mocking herself with a rueful wit as she told it. For Rosalind, with all the sweetest and tenderest traits of woman's na- ture, had not only wit, which not a few women have, 132 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. but humor, which is the possession of very few women indeed. And in this she differed from a far-away cousin of hers named Beatrice, whose tongue had a sting in it like the snapping-thong of a carter's whip. But in Rosalind's wit there was never any sting ; and the sweetness of her nature and her humor working together made her laughing sallies the mere overflow of a gay, impulsive heart. An- other difference between these ladies was that Bea- trice always exercised her wit upon others, while Rosalind was as often as otherwise witty at her own expense. The Duke, suspicious with the consciousness of guilt, and angered by the success of a son of his old enemy over his retainer, turned upon his niece and drove her from his court. Celia refused to part from her cousin, and they left the palace together in dis- guise ; Rosalind assuming the dress and character of a young man, which she could the better do because of her height (for she was a stately beauty), her gay- ety of heart and her self-reliance. She felt the wrong of her uncle's anger, and she resented it with as much spirit as if she had not been dependent upon him al- most for her daily bread. Celia too stood up, but with more calmness, for her cousin. But at once Rosalind's light heart rose with a rebound, and she went out upon her exile as if she were on her way to a merrymaking. With them, for cheer and for pro- tection, the princesses took the Court-fool, a fellow named Touchstone, one of the wisest and most cynical of his race, who had under his motley coat a genuine love of his old master's daughter. As for centuries in Europe all roads led to Rome, so in the world and the time in which these charming THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 133 people lived, all roads led to Arden. And why not ? How should it be otherwise, since thus we would have them, and the very title of this story is "As You Like It " ? So Rosalind went straight from her gruff uncle to her father, and, as it proved, to her lover. For Orlando had found his brother even more his en- emy than the usurping Duke ; and warned by Adam, an aged and faithful attendant, who loved him dearly, they turned their steps away from home together, and where should they too wander but into the Forest of Arden ; there was positively no other place in the world where they could go. There the Duke was living with a few followers, happier than he had ever been in his palace. For he had a clear conscience, a healthy body, and a con- tented spirit ; and with these a man can be happy anywhere, and under any privation, so that he does not suffer pain, hunger, or anxiety. Among his friends was one Jaques, a gentleman who was not of much use in killing venison, or in other woodcraft ; for be- sides that he was in the first place an old man, so old as to be past hunting or fighting, he was much more given to musing and to morbid moralizing than to more active employments. They called him the mel- ancholy Jaques ; but melancholy had not then quite the exclusive meaning of silent musing sadness that it afterward acquired ; and hence the character of this personage has been universally misunderstood. Then melancholy conveyed the notion of what we some- times call a bilious disposition, and was even used where we now use monomania. Jaques himself de- scribed his melancholy to Rosalind, when they met one day in the forest ; and in describing it he told her first what it was not. And of the kinds of melancholy 134 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. that it was not were these : the courtier's melancholy, the soldier's melancholy, and the lawyer's. Now courtiers, soldiers, and lawyers are by no means pecul- iarly inclined to sadness, and musing, and silence. On the contrary, the courtier's melancholy, as Jaques said, is proud, the soldier's is ambitious, and the law- yer's is politic. Hence we see that what Jaques meant by melancholy was what we now call cynicism a sullen, scoffing, snarling spirit. And this Jaques had. He was simply a cynic, and a very bitter one. And his cynicism had come from two causes, one of which wo learn from himself directly, and the other indirectly from his talk and from what we are told of him. He said himself that it came from the sundry contemplation of his travels, which by often rumina- tion wrapped him in a most humorous sadness. And by humorous, again, he meant something quite differ- ent from what we now generally understand by the same word. He would not have called Falstaff humorous at least not with regard to his jests, but only, if at all, because of his indulging a peculiar humor of mind. His own humorous sadness was a sadness of ill-humor. His humor was cynicism ; and it tinged all his views of life and of his fellow-men, so that when he thought over his travels and his ex- perience of the world, which had been wide, and had extended through many years, he took a gloomy view of life and a low view of mankind. He was one of those men who believe in nothing good, and who, as the reason of their lack of faith in human nature and of hope of human happiness, and their want of charity, tell us that they have seen the world. This sort of man has generally reached middle age, and is likely to be one who has himself lived in his youth a THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 135 loose, pleasure-seeking, selfish life. And such had been the life of Jaques, before he began to decline into the vale of years. One day, soon after Rosalind with Celia and Touch- stone had come to the forest, Jaques lighted upon the Fool as he lay basking in the sun and railing at For- tune. For Touchstone, too, was a cynic, and veiled his sneers under the form of such jests as were then tolerated in men of his condition. Soliloquizing, Touchstone was taking the saddest, blackest view of human life, looking upon it as a mere hourly passage through growth and decay. This so chimed with Jaques's own humor, that the gloominess of the Fool made him cheerful, and his lungs began to crow like chanticleer; and soon coming where the Duke was, he broke out into praise of the Fool the only words of commendation that we know of his utterance with re- gard to any human creature. He wished he was a Fool, and began to snarl as usual ; saying that if he had only free scope for his bitter tongue, he would cleanse the foul body of the infected world, if it would only patiently receive his medicine. Whereupon the Duke, who, in his honest, trustful, charitable soul and cheerful spirit, was as- unlike Jaques as one man could be unlike another, and who, alluding to his disposi- tion to carp and sneer, had before said of him that he was " compact of jars," broke out upon him with re- proaches, and told him some plain truth : that his own life had been so sinful that he had no right to censure others ; that he had been a libertine, sensual and brutish ; and that what he called his melancholy and his medicine was the mere disgorging upon others of the foulness with which his own mind had been in- fected. 136 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. In brief, Jaques was Falstaff without his fat and his humor. While the Duke and Jaques were talking thus, as they were about to sit down to meat Orlando rushed in, sword in hand, and demanded food, upon pain of death to any that refused. Whereupon Jaques, who at first sneered at him, said, alluding to his aged in- ability to fight, " An you will not be answered with reason, I must die." But when Orlando told the Duke that poor Adam, his old attendant, was fainting with hunger and weariness, he was made welcome, and sent out to bring in his faithful servant. When he had gone the Duke turned to Jaques, and told him to mark that others were unhappy, and played more woe- ful parts than theirs. This hint was enough to start Jaques off upon a more than usually characteristic out- pouring of his cynicism. His reply was that all the world was only a stage, and that the men and women in it were merely players. Their birth and death he called mere entrance and mere exit. Then, stirred up by the welcome, degrading thought, he gave his com- panions a specimen of a cynic's table talk, and as he ate garnished the feast, bit by bit, with a view of life in all its stages, describing the infant, the schoolboy, the young lover, the manly soldier (for then most gentlemen in their prime were soldiers), the justice, and the old man, each in scoffing and disparaging terms. In fact he seized the occasion to sneer at the representatives of the whole human race. 1 1 This view of Jaques's character, and of the spirit and meaning of his censures, was first set forth in Shakespeare's Scholar (New York, 1854), a book well known in Germany. This is mentioned because the same appreciation has been proclaimed since that time (as I find by refer- ence, having read only the English version of the work) by one of those German critics whom some people, themselves generally included, regard THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 137 Directly after their arrival in Arden Rosalind and Celia bought a sheepcote and a flock, and engaged the services of a shepherd named Corin. Upon this Corin, and upon another clown in the forest, did Touchstone vent his cynicism, using his licensed tongue as a dou- ble-edged sword, to slash the rustic folk among whom he was, and the courtiers whose society he had left ; in which attacks the courtiers got the worst of it, be- cause Touchstone knew them the better, and because their artificial life laid them the more open to attack. Among the Court-fools of the day Touchstone was distinguished by the dryness and causticity of his wit. No softness of manner won love for him, no playful- ness of disposition gavo any charm to his fooling, no sentiment tempered the keen blast of his wit, which blew steadily in all places and in all companies. He was a purely intellectual jester ; was self-possessed, and as having taught readers of English blood and speech how to appreciate Shakespeare. He has done so only with this remark : " The melancholy which this man [Jaques] imbibes from every occasion has always seemed to most readers, and especially to most actors, as mild, human, and attractive, and they represent it as such; but it is rooted, on the con- trary, in a bitterness and ill humor," etc. (Shakespeare. G. G. Gervinus. Leipsic. 1862) This "always" was true until four years before the work of Gervinus was published. No one of Shakespeare's plays has suffered more from the preparers of the acting copies than this; no one of Shakespeare's characters is so misrepresented on the stage as Jaques. On the stage, for instance, it is Jaqnes who pities the poor wounded stag; but Shakespeare's Jaques does no such thing; that passage belongs to one of the banished Duke's attendant lords. The real Jaques only makes the poor brute's sufferings the occasion of sneers at mankind. The effect of the stage Jaques has been to unsettle even the best judgments in regard to the character. I am surprised to find such a sound and thoughtful Shake- spearean critic as Mr. Hudson still infected by it (Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters, 1872); and even the author of Friends in Council is betrayed into such a misapprehension as to say (in the Essay on Despair) that Jaques's melancholy was " innate." Shakespeare makes Jaques him- self tell us that his melancholy was "compounded" and "extracted," the fruit of his long observation of mankind, of his knowledge of the world. 138 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. stood upon his Fool dignity ; and was not to be led off into playful pranks on the one side or the weakness of sentiment on the other. He was one of your self- conscious men of the world who look at everything as a disinterested bystander ; only with a motley dress he had a motley speech, such as was permitted to Court- fools. Hence he and Jaques were so accordant. While Touchstone was bewildering Corin with scoffs at his shepherd's life that were over-subtle for his rus- tic understanding, Rosalind came upon them reading some verses which she had found stuck up on a tree, as was the fashion, it would seem, in the Forest of Arden. The verses were strangely enough in praise of a woman of her own name. She read them aloud ; whereupon Touchstone began to sneer at them, and offered to rhyme so eight years together, and in fact began the eight years immediately, after no very de- cent fashion, when Celia came up, also reading some verses, and they too deified the name of Rosalind ; for Orlando had nothing to do but to hunt and to write love verses. Rosalind let Celia read her lines, and then began to ridicule them in merry mood ; for not- withstanding her position, her heart was ever gay, and she took her exile almost as a welcome holiday from the formalities of court life, and enjoyed it as if it were what saucy boys, such as she pretended to be now, call a lark. You may suppose that she suspected who had written these verses. Possibly she might have done so if she were not in the Forest of Arden ; but she did not. Remember that she did not know that Or- lando was in the forest, and what was yet more impor- tant to her, she did not know that he loved her. He had received all her sweet tokens of warm interest at the wrestling-ground like a lifeless block ; and there THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 139 she had left him standing in dazed silence. And that she did not suspect any inclination on his part toward her, she showed on the first day of her arrival in Ar- den, when she overheard a young shepherd named Silvius confessing his love for a shepherdess, Phebe, who scorned him ; and when he went away she con- fessed that in searching his wound she had found her own, and broke out : Jove ! Jove ! this shepherd's passion Is much upon my fashion. And this knowledge that she had given her love unasked to a man who had not even shown the slight- est interest in her was ever afterward an abiding consciousness in her heart and motive in her con- duct. Now Celia saw at once how matters were and began to tease her tall cousin, dropping hints about the chain, and pretending that Rosalind must know who was the verse-writer, and saying it was wonderful how people who had been separated could meet, until at last Rosalind exclaimed, " Good, my complexion ! " that is, in the phrase of the day, My good girl, re- member what I really am what is my nature " dost thou think, though I am caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition ? " And she heaped questions upon Celia with most petitionary vehemence, until her cousin told her plainly that it was Orlando, adding in her ignorance of what was in store for herself that he had tripped up the wrestler's heels and Rosalind's heart both in an in- stant. When she saw that Celia was in earnest about Orlando's being in Arden, Rosalind's first thought was that she was there before her lover in man's apparel, and what she should do with her doublet and hose. Then she poured out questions more rapidly than be- 140 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. fore, asking what he was doing, what he said, what he came there for, where he dwelt, and so forth and so on ; dropping slyly in among her inquiries, as if it were merely one of the heap, the most important of them all, " Did he ask for me ? " While Rosalind and Celia were talking of this strange event, who should enter but Orlando himself, and Jaques with him ! The seeming page and shep- herdess slipped aside and listened ; and in spite of the old saw that listeners hear no good of themselves, there Rosalind had the joy of hearing Orlando confess his love and exult in it in the very teeth of the jeers of Jaques against the tender passion, and his scoffs at this particular manifestation of it. Jaques and Or- lando soon parted for they were ill-sorted company and then Rosalind, reassured by what sho had heard Orlando say, recovered her spirits, and, confi- dent in her disguise, determined to speak to Orlando like a saucy lackey, and " chaff " him. And she began very boldly, "Do you hear, forester?" and when he answered she asked, " What is 't o'clock ? " But when Orlando, giving her as good as she sent, told her there was no clock in the forest, she showed at onco what was uppermost in her heart by saying, " Then there 's no true lover in the forest ; " adding that if there were he would mark the time by sighing every minute, and groaning every hour ; for her merry spirit, now that she had heard him say that he loved her, mocked the very passion that she shared. And then she launched forth into sallies of wit which might well have become a saucy young fellow. But any direct question to her brought her straight back to her woman's consciousness. For when Orlando asked her where she lived, she answered, "With this shep- THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 141 herdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat ; " which most unmanlike com- parison showed well enough that verily there was no doublet and hose in her disposition. She led him soon to talk upon the subject most pleasant to her ears by making sport of the man that hung odes upon hawthorns and elegies upon brambles, all deifying the name of Rosalind ; and to this poor love-shaken fellow she offered to give some good coun- sel. Orlando confessed of course that he was the man ; whereupon more scoffing : She believed none of it ; he was no lover ; he had not the marks upon him ; and if he were he could not make her believe so. But then, dropping out of her badinage, Was he indeed the man that wrote the verses ? and with a shy tender- ness of tone and her yearning consciousness that she had loved him before he had asked her, Was he really in love as much as his rhymes spoke ? Of course he protested ; and then again her spirit rebounded, and she shot off on a tirade against love, winding up with an offer to cure him of what she called his madness, if he would come and make love to her, a saucy lad, in the person of that Rosalind he made so much of. Sur- prised perhaps, but unhesitating, he agreed to do so for what pleasanter pastime could there be in Arden ? and besides, this saucy young chap had a certain look that reminded him of Rosalind, so that at first he thought that he was Rosalind's younger brother and with this agreement they parted. And now what joy to Rosalind ! Day after day did Orlando follow the rank of osiers by the murmur- ing stream which led to the cottage that hung in the skirts of the forest like fringe upon a petticoat ; and there he found the pretty lad always waiting for him, 142 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. impatient for his coming, and yet concealing her woman's longing with her assumed boyish sauciness. There, with Celia by, she teased him, alternately allur- ing him to make love to her as if she were indeed his very Rosalind, and flouting him as if she were the merry lad who had promised to cure him of his fond- ness. She had even gone so far in her vicarious per- formance of the duties pertaining to Rosalind as to bring it about that he should kiss her, and had attained to very subtle discrimination as to the quality of his kisses ; a feat less strange and difficult then than it would be now ; for then, all men, even if not of the same family, did occasionally kiss each other. What golden times were those when every day brought an ever fresh delight ; and what sweet revenge for the giving of her love unasked, to hear him declare each day his love un- changeable for the Rosalind whom he thought far away, and removed from him as much by distance as by cir- cumstance ! And what a conscious wealth of happi- ness in the knowledge that at any moment she could raise him to the highest heaven of delight by simply telling him that she was Rosalind indeed ! Was she never tempted to the revelation? Yes; a hundred times it trembled upon her lips, and we may be sure would have been uttered, in spite of her doublet and hose, were it not that she was in the Forest of Arden. And he, seeing her daily and talking with her, looking into her eyes, and hearing the voice that so moved him on the day of his victory over the wrestler did he not divine who this bright, handsome lad really was ? It should seem that he must have done so. But yet we must remember that he had seen both Rosalind and Celia in their own persons but once ; that then Rosa- lind was in her woman's weeds, which added to her THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 143 height, and made her seem much larger than this slip of a lad, who was witty and saucy, while the Rosalind that he remembered was dignified and gentle, or at most tender. And if, notwithstanding all this, we must believe that a lover's eye would have penetrated the disguise, we must remember that the lover had upon him the enchantment of the Forest of Arden. But, hardest point of all, Celia, who saw all this real love-making that pretended to be sham she who had no personal interest in the deceit, and who was dying to see her cousin really happy would she not have told Orlando his good fortune ? Yes, verily ; mortal woman could not have kept that secret had not she too been under the spell constantly murmured by the leaves of the Forest of Arden. So the secret was kept, and Rosalind fell every day a fathom deeper in her love ; fretting if Orlando did not keep tryst to the minute, and relieving her pretty anger by abusing him to Celia ; who, demure little puss as she was, agreed that he was a faithless fellow, a very Judas Iscariot among lovers, and then was snapped np and soundly rated for her complaisance, as indeed the sly girl knew and hoped would happen. One day Jaques met Rosalind and Celia, and, capti- vated with the wit of the seeming page, he begged his better acquaintance. But Rosalind had heard what Jaques was, and had little liking for him ; and more- over she had matters on hand more to her mind ; for she was expecting Orlando, who, after that provoking fashion of men, would make her wait while he was oc- cupied in his business of hunting or of attending on the Duke. And, besides, we must remember that although the affair was very much in earnest with her, with him it was mere pastime and make-believe. So Rosalind 144 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. turned off Jaques by breaking jests upon him as a traveller. While this was going on Orlando came up and said, " Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind ; " whereupon the surly Jaques, shrinking from any such gallant and well-framed speeches, went hastily away. But did Rosalind turn at once to Orlando as he stood there expectant of her greeting ? Not she. He was behindhand, and must be punished ; and so she pre- tended not to see him r and keeping her eyes upon Jaques as he walked off she called after him, " Fare- well, monsieur traveller : Look you lisp and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country ; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola." Then as Jaques disappeared in the winding forest path, she turned on her lover, and, seeming to discover him, broke forth, " Why, how now, Orlando, where have you been all this while ? " and fell to teasing him after her bright, gay, pretty fashion. She was more than usually keen ; but after she had relieved herself a little in this way she began to hunger again for as- surances of his love, and asked him of course as Ganymede (for that was her boy name), and only in her assumed character of Rosalind to woo her, as- suring him that she was in a coming-on mood that day, and might consent. At last she thought that it would be great sport and greater happiness to see how the marriage service would sound between her and Orlando. She soon contrived to bring about the proper situation. Or- lando consented, and Celia was to be the priest. But Rosalind, in her mingled gayety and earnestness, took the words out of her sister's mouth, tutored Orlando, THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 145 and spoke her own part without tutoring. Then, still in her merry mood, but with the shadow of her great anxiety beginning to fall upon her heart, she asked him to tell her how long he would have his Rosalind after he had possessed her; nor when he answered, lover-like, " Forever and a day," could his ardor check the chill that fled along her veins, and she an- swered, " Say a day without the ever. No, no, Orlando ; men are April when they woo, December when they wed ; maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives." But sud- denly, remembering that this was rather playing her own part, Rosalind, than the part she played, a saucy page playing Rosalind, or rather, perhaps, caught by the ever quick returning flood of her own gayety, she cast loose from sentiment and began in swift phrases a satire on her sex : u I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen ; more clamorous than a parrot against rain ; more new-fangled than an ape ; more giddy in my desires than a monkey ; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain," and so on, rattling down her little jests upon him as thick as hail that comes from a summer cloud while half the heavens are bright, half gloomy. But the sky was soon all clear, and she was again the light- hearted Rosalind. Again, until he said that he must leave her for two hours ; and then, demurely seeming to assume a forlornness that she really felt, she said, " Alas ! clear love, I cannot lack thee two hours." But Orlando had to go to attend the Duke at dinner ; yet he promised to return at two o'clock ; for then dukes dined, in castles as well as in forests, at mid- day. Then she took the airs of a woman who pre- tends to feel that she is neglected, and talked of 10 146 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. dying ; and then again remembering how she had often waited for him, broke out in seeming jest, but in real earnest, with a denunciation of him as a break- promise if he were one minute behind his hour. And when he had gone, and Celia threatened her with dis- covery because of the scandalous way in which she had misused her sex, she pleaded that she was out of her depth in love, and confessing that she could not be out of sight of Orlando, went to find a shady nook where she might think of him and of her love for him until he came back. Again, however, Orlando failed to show an ardent lover's punctuality ; but this time with new reason. While Rosalind was trying to divert herself with the mooning Silvias, who had brought her a love letter from his own mistress, who had been captivated by the pretty Ganymede, a man entered and asked the way to her sheepcote. At once, however, he recog- nized her and Celia by a description he had heard of them, and he told them a strange story : How Orlando had found a man sleeping in the forest with a green and gilded snake about his neck, and a hungry lioness watching him, ready to spring when he should move ; how the snake, seeing Orlando, slipped away, who thereupon had recognized his cruel elder brother (for he too, having been driven out by the usurper, had come to this marvellous Forest of Arden), and turned away twice to leave him to the fate that he deserved, but yielding to that kindness which is ever nobler than revenge, turned back and fought the lioness and slew her ; when, added the teller of the story, with self- revealing forgetfulness, " from miserable slumber I awoke." He had a bloody napkin in his hand, which Orlando had bid him take to the youth he called his THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 147 Rosalind to plead his apology for failing to keep his appointment. Then Rosalind swooned away fainted in dead earnest ; for 110 Orlando was by to see her make believe to be herself. But hardly had she re- covered when she resumed her part, and craftily called Orlando's brother's attention to her admirable coun- terfeiting and begged him to report its excellence to Orlando himself. And then she let off, even in her wan weakness, a joke the kind of which was quite characteristic of her and peculiar to her situation. For when Orlando's brother told her to counterfeit to be a man she answered, " So I do ; but i' faith I should have been a woman by right." This bit of fun was purely for her own comfort and solace ; for the point of it could not be seen by him to whom it was addressed. So when, some days before, the Duke had met her in the forest and questioned her, and asked her of what parentage she was, she had an- swered, u Of as good as he ; " whereupon he laughed and let her go. He, however, had laughed only at the pertness of the pretty boy ; but what delight it must have given this she sauce-box to make that answer to her own father ! Rosalind, however, with all her love of fun and her delight in cross purposes, had ever an eye to the honor as well as to the happiness of her real self ; and now she saw that matters had gone so far that they must be brought to a fitting conclusion. As if to help her to the end that she desired, Orlando's brother and Celia had fallen into such furious fondness for each other that they must be married immediately. At this, Orlando was well pleased ; but it caused him to express his grief that his own longing for his Rosalind could not be satisfied. Whereupon master Ganymede told 148 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. him an enormous fib : that he had learned the black art of a magician, and that by means of potent charms he could set his Rosalind before him, and he might marry her if he would. (The sly dog said nothing upon the important question whether the real princess would be willing to be married.) And then came up Silvius and Phebe ; and Rosalind led the whole party into a game of cross-purposes about their loves and their marriage, taking part herself, and bringing the farce to an end by promising them all their satisfac- tion on the morrow. Orlando was so well content with this promise that it might seem to some that he now suspected, or was even sure, of the identity of Ganymede and Rosalind. And one solemn teller of the tale, who treats its light surface play of wit and joy with characteristic effort at profundity, 1 says that Orlando's brother Oliver saw through her disguise at the fainting scene and told his discovery to Orlando, who thereafter knew with whom he had to do. But this is mere profound evolution of moral probabilities which have no place in the Forest of Arden, and shows strange ignorance of the facts of the true story. For the next morning, the Duke and Orlando meeting, the Duke asked Orlando if he be- lieved that the boy could do all that he had promised ; and the lover answered that he alternately doubted and believed, adding a comparison that has become a sententious expression of that condition of mind : " As those that fear they hope and know they fear." And again, when afterward the Duke remarked some like- ness between Ganymede and his daughter, Orlando agreed to the likeness, adding, however, "But, my good lord, this boy is forest born." Their doubts, 1 Gerviuus, in the book before mentioned. THE TALE OF THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 149 however, were soon resolved ; for while Touchstone, who had come in with a country wench whom his courtly wit had captivated, was explaining' to Jaques the virtues of a lie seven times removed, the very God of Marriage, great Hymen himself (who lived with the lionesses and the snakes and the English hedge-priests in the Forest of Arden), entered, leading the very, very Rosalind, decked in woman's garments (for there were trees that bore those mysterious although neces- sary articles in the Forest of Arden) ; and there was a great scene of recognition ; and the Duke gave his daughter to Orlando ; and they all coupled just as you like it ; and Rosalind, after teasing them with her wit and enjoying their bewilderment, said : Whiles a wedlock hymn we sing, Feed yourselves with questioning; That reason wonder may diminish How thus we met, and these things finish. Rosalind's woodland escapade was over; and al- though she had enjoyed it to the full, the merry girl was well content. For her sallies of wit were but the bright bubbles that floated from the rapids and shal- lows of her lighter moods over the deep-channelled flow of her really sober nature. She had been sadly in earnest from the time when her heart took the part of a better wrestler than she, and he overthrew more than his enemies. But the wondrous tale of the wondrous Forest of Arden is not quite finished. To them all, as they stood there ready to worship Hymen, there entered Jaques de Bois, the second son of old Sir Roland, who told them that as Frederick, the usurping Duke, was on his way with a mighty power to take his brother and his followers and put them to the sword, he was met by an old religious man, who with few words converted 150 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. him both from his purpose and from the world such power had hermits in that marvellous Forest of Arden and that he himself had become a hermit, bequeath- ing his crown to his banished brother. Amid all this joy, did the moralizing Jaques find any cause for his rejoicing ? No ; he was too set in the ways of his peculiar melancholy. The sight of so much real happiness was more than he could bear; and he too withdrew to hide his chagrin in a hermit's cell. The pleasure of others filled his breast with bile and envy ; and, with a few civil words to the gentle- folks and a snarl at his fellow cynic Touchstone by way of wedding benison, he disappeared, leaving the honest hearts to their well won happiness. THE BACON-SPIAKESPEARE CRAZE. WOULD to heaven there were unquestionable evi- dence that Bacon did write the plays contained in the famous folio volume published at London in 1623 ! Would that, as there is now a consensus of critical opinion that the lady of the last century who decided that it was Ben Jonson who " wrote Shikspur " was wrong (although even that, it would seem, is not sure beyond a doubt), it might be made as clear as the sun in the heavens that her rival female critics of our own day are right in proclaiming Francis Bacon the man ! True, this decision, like the other, affects in no way the value or the interest of the plays. It neither les- sens nor enlarges their significance as regards the ma- terial, the mental, or the moral condition of the Eng- lish people at the time when they were produced. For the statesman-philosopher and the player-poet were strictly contemporaries, and lived at the same time in the same city. The question (if it were a question) is not at all akin to that, for example, which has been so long discussed, and which is not yet decided, as to the authorship of the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey." For that is not a mere effort of curiosity to find out whether those poems were produced by a blind ballad-singer who spelled his name H o m e r, or by an open-eyed epic poet of some other name, but a question as to the period of the production of the poems, as to their pur- 152 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. pose, as to the condition of the society in which they were produced, as to the intellectual record embodied in their language, and as to the historical value of the incidents which they profess to record. It is a ques- tion which touches the origin, the character, and the development of the most remarkable people and the brightest, richest, and most influential civilization of antiquity. But whether " Hamlet," " King Lear," and " Othello " were written by Francis Bacon or by Wil- liam Shakespeare, or by John Smith, so they were written by an Englishman, in London, between the years 1590 and 1610, affects in no way their literary importance or interest, their ethnological or their so- cial significance, their value as objects of literary art, or their power as a civilizing, elevating influence upon the world. The question (if it were a question) is merely a large variety of that small sort of literary puzzles which interest pene-literary people, of the sort who are disturbed to the profoundest shallows of their minds by uncertainty as to who is the author of that foolish saying, " Consistency, thou art a jewel," and who search volumes of Familiar Quotations and vex other folk with letters there-anent, in hopes to allay the agitation of their souls. 1 For one, I avow myself wholly indifferent upon this subject. What is Shakespeare to me, or what am I to Bacon ? They are no more. Even what they were when they lived concerned only themselves and their personal friends. What they did is of the greatest moment to the world for all time ; but it would be of 1 Or who spring to critical life in the discovery that Hamlet should say that he is "to the manor born." I have certainly received fifty letters, in- deed many more than fifty, suggesting this new reading. A man who could make it should no more be trusted with a copy of Shakespeare than a boy of nine years with a revolving razor. THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 153 the same value, the same interest, the same potential influence, whether the " Novum Organum " and the "Comedy of Errors" were written by either of them, or by both, or by neither, or whether Shakespeare wrote the " Novum Organum " and Bacon the " Com- edy of Errors." I am no partisan of William Shake- speare's. I take no whit more interest in him, qua William Shakespeare, than the United States troops seemed to take in the battle sometimes called the Bla- densburg races. I should not feel aggrieved or injured to the value of the pen with which I am writing if it were proved that the Stratford yeoman's son, who went to London and became rich in the theatrical business, was as incapable of writing his very name as his father and his mother were ; but every man of com- mon sense and even a little knowledge of the literary and dramatic history of the times of Elizabeth and James I. has the right to feel aggrieved and injured when the productions of the two greatest minds of modern times are made the occasion of a gabble of controversy, the sole foundation of which is a petty parade of piddling, perverted verbal coincidences, which have no more real significance than the likeness of the notes of two cuckoos, or of two cuckoo clocks. And therefore placeat Dils that there might be dis- covered, under the hand and seal of William Shake- speare, a confession that he was an impostor, and that the Earl of Southampton and Ben Jonson and John Heminge and Henry Condell, and the people of Lon- don generally, were dupes, and that Francis Bacon did write " Titus Andronicus " and the " Comedy of Er- rors," and so forth through the list. There would be so much more passed to the credit of him who perhaps was " the greatest, wisest," but was surely not " the 154 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. meanest, of mankind." l That is all. This fuss would be over, " and soe well ended." The subject is one upon which some very worthy and very " literary " people are in a sad state of mind, and about which they have been going on in a more or less spasmodical way for some years ; and now there conies about it a stout handsome volume of six hun- dred and twenty-five pages, which represents so much genuine enthusiasm and such an amount of honest, thorough, systematic work on the part of an intelli- gent, accomplished gentlewoman, that to treat it as it must be treated, only upon its merits, is an ungrateful and almost a forbidding task. 2 The occasion of this volume and the substance of it are furnished by some memorandums of words, phrases, proverbs, adages, and so forth in Bacon's handwriting, which seem to have been made by him, perhaps for reference, and possibly for the improvement of his style. They fill fifty sheets or folios, as we are told, and thoy are pre- served in the well-known Harleian Collection of man- uscripts in the British Museum. Known long ago, they were described by Spedding, Bacon's able and accomplished editor, who, however, did not deem them of sufficient importance to be included in his great edition of Bacon's writings. It would have been well if they had been left to moulder in their fitting ob- scurity ; for they tell the world nothing that it did not know before, and so far as Bacon himself is concerned 1 Sec Evenings with a Reviewer, by James Spedding, 2 vols. Svo, 1883, in which Macaulav is ground slowly into fine dust: see also The Personal History of Lord Bacon, by Hep worth Dixon. 2 The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies (being private notes, circa 1594, hitherto unpublished) of Francis Bacon, illustrated and elucidated by passages from Shakespeare. By Mrs. Henry Pott. With Preface by E. A. Abbott, D. D. Boston : Houghtou, Miffliu Co, THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 155 they add nothing to his reputation either for wisdom or for knowledge, certainly nothing for scholar- ship or for critical acumen. In fact, they are at best only the dust and sweepings of his study ; such stuff as everybody, except those whose literary appetite is a small sort of curiosity about distinguished people, would gladly see put to real service to mankind in the kindling of fires or other like domestic function. Their editress, however (Spenser says " poetress," and Ben Jonson " conqueress ; " why may we not say " ed- itress"?), brings them now to light with a higher pur- pose than the mere gratification of petty literary curi- osity. She fancies (fancies ! believes, with a faith which would remove mountains, if faith indeed were such an uncommon carrier) that they establish beyond all reasonable doubt the claim which she and a few fond fellow-worshippers have set up for Bacon to the authorship of the plays which William Shakespeare, in his lifetime, claimed as his ; which all his personal friends, and more, his personal enemies, believed to be his ; and which have been accepted as his for nearly three hundred years, not only by the world in general, but by all the scholars and critics who were thoroughly informed upon the subject : a not illaudable pur- pose, and one which she has pursued with such a touching union of fervor and singleness of heart, and such perfection of that candor which disdains to take advantage by any concealment or dexterous perver- sion, common accompaniments of enthusiasm, that the result of her labors cannot be contemplated without sadness, and, moreover, without sorrow that it may not be treated with patience, hardly with de- corum. The theory which this great mass of unconnected 156 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. memorandums is published to sustain is simply this : Bacon must have written out these words and phrases and proverbs for his own use. Some few of them are found in his acknowledged writings, but the most of them he did not use in those writings ; and between these, and indeed between a great number of them, and certain passages of the Shakespeare plays there is (so says enthusiasm) such likeness, either in word or in thought, that the unavoidable conclusion is that he wrote the plays. The logic is of the lamest; for it ignores practically, if not avowedly, the fact that these words and phrases and adages are in their very essence the common property of the world, were the common property of the world at the time that Bacon wrote them down ; and that Bacon made notes of them for his own convenience chiefly because they were such common property. Moreover, the painful and elaborate deploying of the passages in the plays which are supposed to sustain this theory, or, to speak right- ly, this fancy, exhibits no identity of phrase or of thought which will sustain this conclusion, or indeed a conclusion of any kind, about them. There is only one way of showing what and how great the failure is ; and that is the examination of some of the most striking of the sixteen hundred and fifty-five notes which, with their accompanying illus- trative passages, make up the bulk of this big book, The process may be wearisome ; but if our task is to be performed at all, it is unavoidable. The very first memorandum which is illustrated is most characteristic of the whole of this inept and ab- surdly inconclusive performance. It is, " Corni contra croci. Good means against badd, homes to crosses." (Promus, 2.) THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 157 This is illustrated by five passages from the plays, of which here follow three : And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross. 3 Henry VI., Act IV. Sc. 4. And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you do cross his humour. 1 Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 2. I love not to be cross'd. He speaks the mere contrary. Crosses love not him. Love's Labour 's Lost, Act I. Sc. 3. This is a hapless beginning ; for except in the last line of the last quotation, "cross," although it has the same sound and is spelled with the same letters, is really not the same word that appears in Bacon's memorandum. Although etymologically the same, as an expression of thought it is not the same ; for it means a wholly different thing. The cross in the "Promus" adage is the material cross (+), produced by the setting together of two straight rods or sticks at right angles. It is the cross of the crucifix, used fig- uratively to represent the influence of divine goodness and self-sacrificing love. On the other hand, the horns of this adage are the horns of Satan, which are used to typify the spirit of evil. Thus the opposition of good and evil was expressed. Moreover, the cruci- fix, or any cross, as that of a sword-hilt, was supposed, even in Bacon's time, to have the power of exorcising evil spirits. Satan himself could not face it. An im- pressive scene it is in " Faust " where the throng of armed men draw their swords, and present to Mephis- topheles, not their points or their edges, but their cross-hilts, from the sight of which he hides his eyes and shrinks away. This is the cross, and this the meaning, of the " Promus " adage. But in all the in- stances cited above from Shakespeare the word "cross" 158 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. means merely opposition, movement against, and (ex- cept in the third and fourth cases) consequent dis- aster. "Misfortune's cross " is, This disastrous stroke of misfortune ; " When you do cross his humour " is, When you do vexatiously run counter to his humor. So in the other cases. In these passages there is not the remotest suggestion of the cross of the crucifix which is to be opposed, as a token of divine love and power, to the horns of Satan, as the embodi- ment of evil. The notion of any connection between them and the adage is preposterous. We are told at the end of the illustrative passages that the word oc- curs " thirty times " in Shakespeare's plays, which any one might see by consulting Mrs. Clarke's Concord- ance. So it might have occurred three thousand times, and with just as little significance or pertinence to the matter in hand. As well cite in illustration of the " Pronms " adage, Cross patch, Draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin; and very much better, Ride a cock horse To Danbury-cross, for at Danbury there was such a cross as Bacon had in mind. Because this is the first example, and because it is so very characteristic and typical an example of these marvellous illustrations of the coincidences between the Shakespeare plays and Bacon's " Promus," more time and attention have been given to it than can be spared to those which follow ; through the fretful ar- ray of which we must push rapidly. We turn a leaf, and at the top of the page we find, " Nolite dare sanctum canibus, Give not that THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 159 which is holy unto dogs " (Promus, 11) ; which is il- lustrated by the following passage from " As You Like It:"- Ctlia. Why cousin ! . . . not a word ? JRos. Not one to throw at a dog. Ctlia. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs. Act I. Sc. 3. Again a typical example of a sort of " illustration " which swarms through these pages. It is absolutely without importance, and without significance of any kind. For as the reader will doubtless have already seen, the words in the " Promus " are from the New Testament (Matt. vii. 6) ; they were known all over Europe, and had surely been in constant colloquial use for centuries before Bacon was born. And there are hundreds of just such meaningless illustrations in this volume. It is difficult to keep one's countenance, even if the effort should be made, when we find Bacon's memo- randum (Promus, 24) of Virgil's " Procul, o procul este profani " (Away, away, ye profane), illustrated by Falstaff 's outbreak upon Nym and Pistol : Rogues, hence ! avaunt ! vanish like hailstones ! go ! Merry Wives, Act I. Sc. 3. In the newest fangle of Shakespearean, or anti-Shake- spearean, criticism are we required to assume as a pos- tulate that a dramatist of the Elizabethan period was unable to use his mother tongue in a plain, direct, and somewhat effective manner, without reference to a commonplace book of the Latin classics ? Our next example is one of a sort not uncommon, in which the same word occurs in both " Promus " and play, but with a meaning wholly and absolutely oppo- site. It is the following : " Semper virgines furice " (Promus, 43) ; in which Erasmus notes the remark- 160 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. able fact that ths Furies are always represented as maidens, as angels are always masculine. The illus- tration here is from " Much Ado About Nothing : " Her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. Act I. Sc. 1. In this speech, Benedick, on the contrary, expresses his surprise ; he regards it as an extraordinary com- bination that virginal beauty should be accompanied by sharp temper and a shrewish tongue, a union that would not have astonished Erasmus, nor, indeed, Bacon. These illustrations of Bacon's commonplacing by the Shakespeare plays frequently present us, on the one hand, an adage or a phrase so long known the civilized world over that no repetition nor use of it by any writer in any language, within the last five hun- dred years, would be stronger proof of acquaintance with any other writer who also used it than the as- sertion that there was a sun in the heavens ; and, on the other, a string of passages which have not only no relation to the phrase to be illustrated, but none to each other ; and which are like a class in a district school, Yankees, Irish, Germans, French, and Ital- ians, all bawling out together at the word of com- mand, some right and some wrong, none with any real understanding of what they are saying, and having in blood, in speech, or in purpose no semblance of kindred, coherence, or unity. Of this sort is the following : " Etjustificata est sapientia a filiis sids, Wis- dom is justified of her children." (Promus, 249.) This, again, is from the New Testament (Matt. xi. 19"), and was the common property of Europe for THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 161 turies before Bacon's time ; its English form having been nearly as well known as the Ten Commandments or the Lord's Prayer three hundred years before Ba- con was born. It means, we need hardly say, that the children of wisdom justify (that is, prove) their par- entage by their conduct ; they " behave as sich," an adage as nearly true as " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," or as " Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined." This has the following illustra- tions : And make us heirs of all eternity. Love's Labour's Lost, Act I. Sc. 1. Earthly godfathers of heaven's lights. 76. This child of fancy. Ib. The first heir of my invention. Dedication to Venus and Adonis. The children of an idle brain. Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 4. What possible connection or relation is discoverable between these passages and the declaration in regard to the children of wisdom ? There is none, except that in the one, as in the others, the idea of childhood or of heirship is presented. Had Elizabeth given her young Lord Keeper a monopoly of these? Passing rapidly on, among these memorandums we find the very familiar phrase " Prima facie " (Pro- mus, 299) ; the illustration of which (Love at first sight, " As You Like It," Act III. Sc. 5 ; " Troilus and Cressida," Act V. Sc. 2 ; " Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2) I pass by in mute admiration, as I do that of our next example, " A catt may look on a kynge " (Promus, 489) ; which is supposed to be the origin of the fol- lowing question and answer : Ben. What is Tybalt ? Mer. More than prince of cats. Romeo and Juliet, Act IT. Sc. 4. That is, I would pass it by, leaving it to stand in staring ineptness and puerility, but for its flagrant 11 162 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. exhibition of a kind and degree of ignorance of Shakespeare's writings which is characteristic of the Bacon-saving Shakespearean. For the reason of Juliet's cousin being called prince of cats by the witty Mercutio is that " Tybert, Tybalt, Thibault " (all really one name), means a cat, just as " Gri- malkin " and " Tabby " do in English. Tybert is the name of the cat in the Middle Age apologue, " Rey- nard the Fox." And in the old Italian story of " Ro- meo e Julietta," which furnishes the whole substance of the Shakespeare tragedy, Juliet's cousin is named Tibaldo. This story was translated by Arthur Brooke into an English poem, " Romeus and Julietta," and published at London in 1562 ; and this poem it is that was dramatized into the great English tragedy. In it, Juliet's cousin's name is Tybalt. So far, then, is it from being true that he was called prince of cats be- cause Francis Bacon wrote among his commonplaces, " A catt may look on a kynge " (shade of Aristotle, what an inference !), that it is absolutely impossible that the " Promus " memorandum had any connection with Mercutio's speech. For Juliet's quarrelsome kinsman was made known to all English readers by his typical name in a rhymed story, which was well known (and which soon became popular) at a time when the future philosopher and Lord Chancellor was in long clothes, he having been born in the year be- fore that in which Brooke's "Romeus and Julietta" was published. His u Promus " memorandum could have had no more to do with the calling Tybalt prince of cats than it had with the origin of u Puss in Boots." " Neither too heavy nor too hot " (Promus, 651), a saying which was applied to a bold thief, who would steal anything not too heavy or too hot for him to THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 163 carry, is illustrated by sixteen passages from the plays, not one of which has the slightest connection with it or similarity to it, except the presence of one of the two common English words, " heavy " and " hot ; " as may be gathered from the fact that the first is, " Are you so hot, sir ? " (1 Henry V., Act III. Sc. 2), and the last, " Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus too light." (Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 2.) Perhaps one of the most startling of these illustra- tions is that of " a ring of gold on a swynes snout " (687) ; which degrading satirical comparison is pre- sented as the origin of Romeo's beautiful extrava- O gance "like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." The absurdity of this is not all apparent without a consid- eration of the whole of the lover's simile : Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear : Act I. Sc. 5. which is but a variation of the passage in the XXVIIth Sonnet: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. It would seem, then, that the solemn figure of Night with her dark, begemmed robe was suggested to the author of Romeo and Juliet by a pig's snout, with a ring in it to keep him from rooting. That memorandum 706, " Laconismus" from Eras- mus's " Adagia," should be illustrated by " Like the Romans in brevity " is fairly Irish in its blundering ; as the Laconians were not Romans, but Greeks, which Francis Bacon surely knew. But as the illus- tration is from "King Henry IV.," perhaps it was the embryo Pistol who put in his oar here. He was in 164 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. the habit of talking of Trojan Greeks and Phrygian Turks, and the like two-headed monsters. Many others of Bacon's " Promus " memorandums are from Erasmus ; and at meeting among them the one here following, every true " American " heart must flutter with joy and pride : " Riper than a mulberry. (^Maturior moro, Of a mild, soft-mannered man, etc.) " (Promus, 869.) Did Bacon, tell us, did he, looking forward nearly three centuries, project his all-creative mind into the dramatic future of this country, and in this memorandum give the New World the germ of the great mulberry, Colonel Mulberry Sellers ? It must be S0o The colonel, beyond a doubt, was a mild, soft- mannered man. How, indeed, is it possible that any- body could have dreamed of a mulberry, unless the word had been previously commonplaced by Bacon ! Perish the thought! The discovery of the " Promus " establishes, beyond a question, that Mulberry Sellers is Bacon's boon to " America." In like manner we learn that Charles Reatle has hitherto been most unjustly credited with the concep- tion of one of his own novels ; for as number 959 of the "Promus " memorandums we find " Love me little, love me long ; " and what more is needed to show where Mr. Reade found the title and the motive of his charming book ? In memorandum lf)44, "Soleil qui luise au matin, femme qui parle latin, enfant nourrit de vin, ne vient point a bonne fin" who can hesitate for a moment at discovering that we have the origin of that admirable poetical embodiment of common sense and common experience, Whistlin' gals an' crowin' hens Never comes to no good ends ? THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 165 But this part of our subject is becoming too grave and serious, and I must bring it to a close with an illustration of a lighter and more amusing nature ; to wit, the following : " Nourriture passe nature" (Promus, 1595.) This adage, it need hardly be said, means that breeding is a second nature, stronger than that with which a man is born. Would it be believed, without the evidence of black and white before us, that, in proof that Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays, the first and principal illustration of this adage is the fol- lowing passage from Pericles ? Those mothers, who, to nonsle up their babes Thought nought too curious, are ready now To eat those little darlings whom they lov^d. So sharp are hunger's teeth, that man and wife Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life. Act I. Sc. 4. The italic emphasis of the third line is mine ; and I have thus distinguished it, because as an illustration of " Nourriture passe nature " it surpasses all the Shakespearean jokes that I have had the good fortune to encounter. There are five hundred mortal octavo pages of proofs and illustrations, of which the fore- going are fair examples, that Francis Bacon wrote Mr. William Shakespeare's thirty-seven comedies, his- tories, and tragedies ! One more of them shall delay us a moment. "Promus" memorandum 1404 is "O the ; " and this wholly senseless union of words is seriously illustrated by the following passages, of which it is assumed to be the origin : " O the heav- ens!" "O the devil!" U O the time!" U O the gods!" "O the good gods!" "O the vengeance!" " O all the devils ! " " O the Lord ! " " O the blest gods I " It is needless to give the titles of the plays 166 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. from which they are taken. When Benedick said that he should die a bachelor he did not think that he would live to be married. When I wrote the fore- going assertion about Shakespearean jokes I had not read this number of the " Promus " and its illustra- tions. They bear the palm. The fair editress might have deprived us of our laugh if she had perceived that the meaningless " O the," which could be the origin of nothing, is a mere irregular phonetic spelling of oath, othe, in which the first letter was accidentally separated from the second. This is shown by the im- mediately following memorandums : (1405) " O my L[ord] S r ," (1406) "Beleeveit," (1409) "Mought it please God that," or, " I would to God." Why Bacon wrote down phrases like this, here and else- where, seems inexplicable ; but that is not to the purpose. What is evidently regarded as the strong point of this array of evidence in favor of the Baconian origin of the Shakespeare plays is folio 111 of the " Promus." It is endorsed by Bacon, "Formularies and Elegan- cies ; " and it contains forty-five memorandums (1189- 1233) of phrases either of salutation or of compli- mentary remark in connection with the time of day, or what has been known time out of mind in the En- glish language, and among people of English blood and speech, as giving the time of day. First among these memorandums is " Good morrow " (1189) ; we find also among them " Good matens " (1192), " Good betimes " (1193), " Bon iouyr, Bon iour bridegroom e " (1194), " Good day to me, and good morrow to you " (1195), and the pretty conceit, " I have not said all my prayers till I have bid you good morrow " (1196). Here Bacon's enthusiastic champion throws down the THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 167 gauge and takes a stand so boldly, and maintains it so earnestly, that it would be both unfair and unwise not to set forth fully the point upon which she joins issue. It is asserted that this folio generally, and particu- larly in these phrases of morning salutation, supports " a reasonable belief that these 4 Promus ' notes are by the same hand that penned 4 Romeo and Juliet.' " The ground of this reasonable belief is that these forms of salutation, although they " are introduced into almost every play of Shakespeare, . . . certainly were not in common use until many years after the publication of these plays," and that " it appears to be the case " (risum teneatis /) that " they were of Bacon's intro- duction." This is insisted upon again and again : as, for example, " It certainly does not appear that, as a rule, any forms of morning and evening saluta- tion were used in the early part of the sixteenth cen- tury, nor, indeed, until after the writing of this folio (111), which is placed between the folios dated Decem- ber, 1594, and others bearing the date January 27, 1595 ; " and again, " It seems to have been the prac- tice for friends to meet in the morning, and to part at night, without any special form of greeting or valedic- tion ; " and again, " In Ben Jonson's plays . . . there is hardly one, except in ' Every Man in his Humour/ where you twice meet with ' good morrow.' But this play was written in 1598, a year after ' Romeo and Juliet' was published, and four years after the date usually assigned to that tragedy. ' Good morrow ' might have become familiar merely by means of ' Ro- meo and Juliet ; ' but it does not appear that it had become a necessary or common salutation," etc. And yet again, " It is certain that the habit of using forms 168 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. of morning and evening salutation was not introduced into England prior to the date of Bacon's notes, 1594." This is the most amazing assertion, and this the most amazing inference, that exists, to my knowledge, in all English critical literature. If the assertion had been made in connection with another subject, and the inference had been drawn in regard to a point of less general interest than the influence of Bacon or of Shakespeare upon the manners and speech of their time, or even if they had not been here trumpeted so triumphantly as a note of victory, they might well have been passed by in smiling silence. But the cir- cumstances give them an importance not their own ; and the confident manner in which they are set forth, with an array of citation that may be mistaken for proof, might mislead many readers whose knowledge of the subject is even less than that which is shown by the enthusiastic and well-read compiler of this volume. First, the fact asserted is in its very nature so in- credible that it could not be received as established upon any merely negative evidence. That any civil- ized, or half-civilized, people of the Indo-European race should have existed in the sixteenth century without customary salutation and valediction at morn- ing and evening could not be believed, upon the mere absence of such phrases in their literature. Such ab- sence, if it existed, would have to be accounted for upon some other supposition. This is one of those cases in which reasoning a priori is of more weight than negative evidence. A society so beyond civility as to be without forms of salutation would be one in which neither a Bacon nor a Shakespeare would be possible. THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 169 Leaving this point without further remark, it is to be said simply that the assertion is absolutely untrue ; and with the assertion goes, of course, the inference drawn from it. The fair advocate of Bacon herself furnishes evidence against it. For she is very candid ; and indeed, were her knowledge and her critical ability only equal to her candor and her industry, she would have produced a very valuable and interesting work, or none at all. She has painfully searched an incredi- ble number of books of the Elizabethan and post- Elizabethan period, for the purpose of illustrating and maintaining her thesis, and has even catalogued the results of her examination. Hence, alone, her careful readers are able to see, even if they did not know it before, that such forms as "good morrow," "good night," " good bye," and the like, are used by these writers of that time : Gascoigne, Stubbs, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and Heywood ; all of them men who wrote between 1580 and 1620 ; and to these there might be numerous additions. Is it to be believed that these writers put into the mouths of their person- ages phrases of this nature which were not in common colloquial use ? But we are told that people began suddenly, and all at once, to say " good morrow," and the like, to each other, because Francis Bacon had elaborated those phrases in his " Promus," and intro- duced them in his " Romeo and Juliet " to the English people. Bacon is made equivalent to the hunger which " expedivit [Persius's] psittaco suum x at P " Will any one not bitten and mad with the Bacon-Shake- speare oestrum believe this, or pause for one moment in doubt over its preposterous incredibility? But even our Bacon enthusiast is, in candor, obliged to confess one fact which is mortal to the theory which 170 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. she has undertaken to maintain. We are told in a footnote, and in one of the appendices, that since the volume was compiled its editress, or some one for her, has discovered that the salutation " good morrow " occurs in the dialogue of John Bon and Master Per- son [parson], which was printed in 1548, nearly half a century before Bacon jotted down his " Proinus," and, what is something to the purpose, thirteen years before he was born : The Parson. What, John Bon ! Good morrowe to thee ! John Bon. Novve good morrowe, Mast. Person, so mut I thee. 1 The fact that Gascoigne had written in 1557, before Bacon was born, two poems, " Good Morrow " and " Good Night," had been set aside, or " got over," by the astonishing plea that these were only titles, and not colloquial uses of these phrases ! (But if they were not known as salutations, with what propriety were they used as titles?) And as to John Bon and Master Person, there is a despairing attempt to show that " good morrow " was not a morning salu- tation, and that " the first use for that purpose seems to be in 4 Eomeo and Juliet.' " Great Phoebus, god of the morning ! For what, then, was " good morrow " used ? Surely, the force of self-delusion could no fur- ther go. To have given so much time to the examination of this frantic fancy would have been more than wasteful, were it not that within its petty convolutions is in- volved another, which is of as much importance as anything can be that is connected with this subject. It is fortunate, ad hoc, that the point was made ; for it is fatal to the whole bearing of this " Promus " upon the Bacon theory of the Shakespeare plays. It is so 1 " So mut [or mote] I thee " = so might I thrive ; so may I prosper. THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 171 because we have, according to the Bacon-saving-Shake- speare folk themselves, Bacon's own testimony that English people, of all sorts and conditions, were in the constant habit of using salutations, particularly in the morning. In the Second Part of "King Henry VI.," Act III. Sc. 1, is the following passage : Queen. We know the time since he was mild and affable, And if we did but glance a far-off look, Immediately he was upon his knee, That all the court admir'd him for submission. But meet him now, and be it in the morn, When every one icill (jive the time of day, He knits his brows and shows an angry eye, And passeth by, etc. The bearing of this passage is such, it is so broad, so clear, so direct, and its testimony comes from such a quarter, that it might be well to leave the point upon which it touches without another word of remark ; but it may also be well to set forth its full importance and significance. It will be seen that here, according to those who proclaim that Bacon is Shakespeare, and that they are his prophets, Bacon himself declares that at the time when lie wrote this passage "every one" in England said "good morning ; " that it was recognized as so general and absolute a requirement of good man- ners that the omission of it gave occasion for censure. Now this passage, although it is found in the Second Part of " King Henry VI.," appears originally, word for word, in a play of which Bacon (or, as some un-illu- minated people believe, Shakespeare) was one of the writers, called " The First Part of the Contention of the Two Noble Houses of York and Lancaster," which was worked over into the " Henry VI." play, and which must have been in existence in the year 1591, as it is referred to in a book published in 1592. Whence we 172 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. see that this declaration of Bacon the playwright as to giving the time of day " in the morn " by " every one " antedates the memorandum of Bacon the " Promus " writer at least three years. According, therefore, to people with whose fancies we are now dealing seri- ously, Bacon himself tells us that he did not teach the people of England to bid each other good morrow by writing " Romeo and Juliet ; " and perhaps even they the Bacon-Shakespeare folk are now beginning to suspect that the writer of " John Bon and Master Person " and the poetGascoigne, when they used " good morrow " and " good night," were simply repeat- ing phrases which were even commoner than mere household words, and had been so in England for cen- turies. And yet again, this passage, which appears in " The First Part of the Contention " and in the Second Part of " King Henry VI.," is one of those as to the author- ship of which there is no doubt. Whatever his name was, the writer of it was the writer of the Shakespeare plays. Whoever wrote that passage wrote also " As You Like It," " Hamlet," " King Lear," and " Othel- lo," and the rest. And this man, as we have seen, was not the one who felt it necessary to potter over a " Prornus " of elegancies in salutation to justify him in the use of " good morrow." For, moreover, this man had used this phrase in at least five plays which pre- ceded the "Promus" and "Romeo and Juliet." It occurs (as any one may see by referring to Mrs. Clarke's Concordance) in " Love's Labour 's Lost," " The Two Gentlemen of Verona," " Titus Androni- cus," "King Richard III.," and "A Midsummer- Night's Dream," all of which are earlier than " Romeo and Juliet," as it should seem that any person who THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 173 ventured to write upon this subject would know. 1 That " Romeo and Juliet" brought "good morrow" into use in England as a morning salutation is impos- sible ; the notion that any writer brought it into use in the reign of Elizabeth, or within centuries of that reign, is, to any person competent to have an opinion upon the subject, ridiculously absurd. We have, however, not yet seen the extreme of the ignorance which is displayed in this attempt to show that the writer of the " Promos " was also the writer of " Romeo and Juliet." In this folio (111) of the " Promus," memorandum 1200 is " rome ; " upon which we find the following comment in the Introduc- tory Essay to this volume : " Ono can scarcely avoid imagining that the solitary word ' rome,' which is entered six notes (44) farther on in the ' Promus ' with a mark of abbreviation over the e, may have been a hint for the name of the bridegroom himself. It has been suggested that * rome ' may be intended for the Greek word PU/J.T) = strength^ and that the mark may denote that the vowel (e) is long in quan- tity. The objection to this suggestion is that Bacon frequently uses a mark of abbreviation, whilst in no other Greek word does he take any heed of quantity ; but were it so, it would not ex- 1 What rashness may, and generally does, accompany the effort to transmute Shakespeare into Bacon is shown here in regard to this very question of the date of the production of Romeo and Juliet. It is re- marked in the Introductory Essay (page G8), "The publication of R'imeo and Juliet is lixed at 1597, and its composition has been usually ascribed to 1594-5. . . . Recently, however, Dr. Delias has proposed the date 15!)2 for the composition of Romeo and Juliet, on the ground that a cer- tain earthquake which took place in 1580 is alluded to by the Nurse (I. iii.) as having happened eleven years ago." Wonderful discovery on the part of the German doctor! Wonderful discovery of the German doctor by our editress! This point as to the bearing of the Nurse's earthquake on the date of the play was made by Tyrwhitt more fhan a hundred years nyo, and has been discussed by every considerable editor since. The notes upon it in Furness's variorum edition of Romeo and Juliet lill two pages. Pro- posed by Dr. Delius! But if English-speaking folk will run after strange High German gods they cannot complaiu if they are led into trouble. 174 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. tiuguish the possibility that the word may have been intended as a hint for the name of Romeo, alluding perhaps to the strength of the love which is alluded to in the following passages," etc. If what we have seen before is amazing, the gravity of this is astounding. A hint for the name of the bridegroom ! An allusion in Greek to the strength of his passion ! Why, who that has the slightest and most superficial acquaintance with the origin of Shake- speare's plays does not know that the name of the bridegroom in this tragedy was furnished by the old poem, of which it is a mere dramatization, a poem familiar to the people of London for years before the tragedy was produced, or the " Promus " memoran- dums written, and that it came into that poem from a story which had been told and retold by various writ- ers for generations ? The " name of the bridegroom " was settled in Italy, centuries before Bacon or Shake- speare could write it. The writer of the tragedy took all its principal personages, and their names with them, from the old poem, and he would not have thought of such a thing as changing the name of its hero. He chose his plot because it was that of the old popular story of the sad fate of the two lovers, Romeo of the Montagues and Juliet of the Capulets, with which he wished to please his audience by putting it before them in a dramatic form. There was no occa- sion for a hint as to the name of the bridegroom ; he had been baptized long before. It seems very strange to be obliged to treat such fancies even with a semblance of respect ; but these are characteristic of the methods by which this foolish fuss is kept up and is pressed upon the attention of the uninformed, or the more easily deceived, half-in- formed, as if it were a serious literary question. THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 175 As to this " Promus " memorandum " rome," if it has any connection with " Romeo and Juliet," which is not at all probable, it may possibly be of this na- ture : The Italian pronunciation of Romeo is Romeo ; but Brooke, in his poem " Romeus and Juliet," pub- lished in 1562 (and consequently Shakespeare in his tragedy), accented it upon the first syllable, whether in the Latin or the Italian form, as will appear by the following passage : Fayre Juliet tourned to her chayre with plesaunt cheere, And glad she was her Humeus approched was so neere. At thone side of her chayre her lover Romeo And on the other syde there sat one cald Mercutio. The distortions of proper names, in this manner, by English writers of the Elizabethan period are mon- strous and ridiculous. For example, Robert Greene, a university scholar, not only deprives poor Iphigenia entirely of the ei in her name, I^ty^veia, but actually pronounces it Xf-fig-in-ay : You '11 curse the hour wherein you did denay To join Alphonsus with Jphigena. And so by marriage of Iphigena You soon shall drive the danger clear away. Alphonsus, Act III. Now it is just not impossible that Bacon, having read Brooke's poem, or seen Shakespeare's play, made a memorandum, imperfect and obscure, as to either the proper pronunciation, or the customary English mis- pronunciation of the e in Romeo ; but, nevertheless, we may be pretty sure that his " rome "had no more to do with Romeo than his "good morrow" with the appearance of that phrase in Shakespeare's plays, or its use by English people. 176 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. To one stumbling-block in the path of the Bacon- Shakespeare theorists they seem to be quite blind, the " Sonnets." They busy themselves with Bacon's writings, with the plays, and the concordance ; and with their eyes fixed upon the one point which they hope to attain, these headlong literary steeple-chasers, with their noses in the air, look right over this obsta- cle, which is one of many, each one of which would bring them to the ground. They have little to say about it ; and what they do say is not all to the pur- pose. If there is one fact in literary history which, upon moral grounds, and upon internal and external evidence, is as certain as any recorded fact in general history, or as any demonstrated mathematical propo- sition, it is that the writer of the plays was also the writer of the sonnets, both of which bear the name of Shakespeare. In spirit, in manner, and in the use of language, their likeness is so absolute that if either one of the two groups had been published anony- mously, there would have been no room for doubt that it was by the writer of the other. Now the sonnets, or a considerable number of them, had been written before the year 1597 ; for, as all students of the lit- erature of the period know, they are mentioned by Francis Meres in his "Palladia Tamia," which was published in 1598. They were not then published ; they were not written for the public, as Meres tells us ; they were not printed until eleven years after- wards, when they were procured for publication in some surreptitious or ^wcm-surreptitious way. Meres mentions them as Shakespeare's " sugred sonnets among his private friends." Now, if Bacon wrote the plays, he also wrote the sonnets : and consequently we must believe that the lawyer, philosopher, and THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 177 statesman, who at twenty-six years of age had planned his great system of inductive investigation, who never took his eye from that grand purpose, who was strug- gling with unpropitious fortune, who was a ceaseless place-hunter, who had difficulty in procuring the means of living in modest conformity to his position as a gen- tleman of good birth and high connection, who was a hard-working barrister conducting great public as well as private causes, an active member of Parliament and a scheming, if not an intriguing, courtier, occu- pied himself, not only in writing plays, for which he might have got a little (for one like him a very little) money, but in writing fanciful sonnets, not an occa- sional sonnet or two, but one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, more than Wordsworth bestowed upon the world, which were not to be published or put to any profitable use, but which he gave to an actor, to be handed about as his own among his private friends, for their delectation and his own glory. This Bacon did, or he did not write the plays. That he did so is morally impossible ; and indeed the supposition that he could have done so is too monstrously absurd to merit this serious examination of its possibility. Be- sides all which, there are many of these sonnets, and they by no means the least meritorious or the least characteristic of them, that are of such a nature in their subjects and their language and their allu- sions that any one at all acquainted with Bacon's tastes or his moral nature would hesitate at accept- ing them, would revolt from accepting them, as his, even upon positive and direct testimony. Bacon cer- tainly did not write the sonnets; and therefore, as certainly, he did not write the plays. (It shames me to seem to rest such a decision upon a formula of 12 178 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. grave and sober reasoning.) There is no visible avoid- ance of this conclusion. And now we are face to face with what is, after all, the great inherent absurdity (as distinguished from evidence and external conditions) of this fantastical notion, the unlikeness of Bacon's mind and of his style to those of the writer of the plays. Among all the men of that brilliant period who stand forth in the blaze of its light with sufficient distinction for us at this time to know anything of them, no two were so elementally unlike in their mental and moral traits and in their literary habits as Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare ; and each of them stamped his individuality unmistakably upon his work. Both were thinkers of the highest order ; both, what we somewhat loosely call philosophers : but how different their philosophy, how divergent their ways of thought, and how notably unlike their modes of expression ! Bacon, a cautious observer and investigator, ever look- ing at men and things through the dry light of cool reason ; Shakespeare, glowing with instant inspiration, seeing by intuition the thing before him, outside and inside, body and spirit, as it was, yet moulding it as it was to his immediate need, finding in it merely an occasion of present thought, and regardless of it ex- cept as a stimulus to his fancy and his imagination : Bacon, a logician ; Shakespeare, one who set logic at naught, and soared upon wings compared with which syllogisms are crutches: Bacon, who sought, in the phrase of Saul of Tarsus, that Shakespeare of Christianity, to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good ; Shakespeare, one who, like Saul, loosed upon the world winged phrases, but who recked not his own rede, proved nothing, and held fast both THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 179 to good and evil, delighting in his Falstaff as much as he delighted in his Imogen : Bacon, in his writing the most self-asserting of men ; Shakespeare, one who when he wrote his plays did not seem to have a self : Bacon, the most cautions and painstaking, the most consistent and exact, of writers ; Shakespeare, the most heedless, the most inconsistent, the most inexact, of all writers who have risen to fame : Bacon, sweet sometimes, sound always, but dry, stiff, and formal ; Shakespeare, unsavory sometimes, but oftenest breath- ing perfume from Paradise, grand, large, free, flowing, flexible, unconscious, and incapable of formality : Ba- con, precise and reserved in expression ; Shakespeare, a player and quibbler with words, often swept away by his own verbal conceits into intellectual paradox, and almost into moral obliquity : Bacon, without hu- mor ; Shakespeare's smiling lips the mouthpiece of humor for all human kind : Bacon, looking at the world before him and at the teaching of past ages with a single eye to his theories and his individual pur- poses ; Shakespeare, finding in the wisdom and the folly, the woes and the pleasures, of the past and the present merely the means of giving pleasure to others and getting money for himself, and rising to his height as a poet and a moral teacher only by his sensitive in- tellectual sympathy with all the needs and joys and sor- rows of humanity : Bacon, shrinking from a generali- zation even in morals ; Shakespeare, ever moralizing, and dealing even with individual men and particular things in their general relations : both worldly-wise, both men of the world, for both these master intel- lects of the Christian era were worldly-minded men in the thorough Bunyan sense of the term : but the one using his knowledge of men and things critically in 180 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. philosophy and in affairs ; the other, his synthetically, as a creative artist: Bacon, a highly trained mind, and showing his training at every step of his cautions, steady march ; Shakespeare, wholly untrained, and showing his want of training even in the highest reach of his soaring flight : Bacon, utterly without the poetic faculty even in a secondary degree, as is most appar- ent when he desires to show the contrary; Shake- speare, rising with unconscious effort to the highest heaven of poetry ever reached by the human mind. To suppose that one of these men did his own work and also the work of the other is to assume two mira- cles for the sake of proving one absurdity, and to shrink from accepting in the untaught son of the Stratford yeoman a miraculous miracle, one that does not defy or suspend the laws of nature. Many readers of these pages probably know that this notion that our Shakespeare, the Shakespeare of " As You Like It " and " Hamlet " and " King Lear," was Francis Bacon masking in the guise of a player at the Globe Theatre is not of very recent origin. It was first brought before the public by Miss Delia Ba- con (who afterwards deployed her theory in a ponder- ous volume, with an introduction by Nathaniel Haw- thorne, who did not advocate it) in an article in " Putnam's Magazine " for January, 1856. Some time before that article was published, and shortly after the publication of " Shakespeare's Scholar," it was sent to me in proof by the late Mr. George P. Putnam, with a letter calling my attention to its importance, and a request that I would write an introduction to it. After reading it carefully and without prejudice (for I knew nothing of the theory, or of its author, and, as I have already said, I am perfectly indifferent as to the THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. 181 name and the personality of the writer of the plays, and had as lief it should have been Francis Bacon as William Shakespeare) I returned the article to Mr. Putnam, declining the proposed honor of introducing it to the public, and adding that, as the writer was plainly neither a fool nor an ignoramus, she must be insane ; not a maniac, but what boys call "loony." So it proved : she died a lunatic, and I believe in a lunatic asylum. I record this incident for the first time on this occa- sion, not at all in the spirit of I-told-you-so, but mere- ly as a fitting preliminary to the declaration that this Bacon -Shakespeare notion is an infatuation ; a literary bee in the bonnets of certain ladies of both sexes, which should make them the objects of tender care and sym- pathy. It will not be extinguished at once ; on the contrary, it may become a mental epidemic. For there is no notion, no fancy or folly, which may not be developed into a "movement," or even into a " school," by iteration and agitation. I do not despair of seeing a Bacon- Shakespeare Society, with an array of vice-presidents of both sexes, that may make the New Shakspere Society look to its laurels. None the less, however, is it a lunacy, which should be treated with all the the skill and tenderness which modern med- ical science and humanity have developed. Proper re- treats should be provided, and ambulances kept ready, with horses harnessed ; and when symptoms of the Bacon-Shakespeare craze manifest themselves, the pa- tient should be immediately carried off to the asylum, furnished with pens, ink, and paper, a copy of Bacon's works, one of the Shakespeare plays, and one of Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's Concordance (and that good lady is largely responsible for the development of this harm- 182 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. less mental disease, and other " fads " called Shake- spearean) ; and the literary results, which would be copious, should be received for publication with defer- ential respect, and then committed to the flames. In this way the innocent victims of the malady might be soothed and tranquillized, and the world protected against the debilitating influence of tomes of tedious twaddle. As to treating the question seriously, that is not to be done by men of common sense and moderate knowl- edge of the subject. Even the present not very seri- ious, or, I fear, sufficiently considerate, examination of it (to which I was not very ready, 1 but much the contrary) provokes me to say almost with Henry Per- cy's words, that I could divide myself and go to buf- fets for being moved by such a dish of skimmed milk to so honorable an action. It is as certain that Wil- liam Shakespeare wrote (after the theatrical fashion and under the theatrical conditions of his day) the plays which bear his name as it is that Francis Bacon wrote the " Novum Organum," the " Advancement of Learning," and the " Essays." We know this as well as we know any fact in history. The notion that Ba- con also wrote " Titus Andronicus," " The Comedy of Errors," " Hamlet," "King Lear," and "Othello " is not worth five minutes' serious consideration by any reasonable creature. 1 As the editor of The Atlantic Monthly will bear witness. KING LEAK. 1 I. THE TEXT. MR. HORACE HOWARD FURNESS who, although he is doubly a doctor, can afford to be spoken of as if he were only a gentlemen has added a fourth play and a fifth volume to the new variorum edition of Shakespeare's works which he has begun, and which it is to be hoped that he will have the health, the en- durance, and the perseverance to complete. The plays which he has heretofore given us are " Romeo and Juliet," "Macbeth," and "Hamlet." The scale on which he works is so grand that the first and the sec- ond of these plays fill, each of them, with their various readings, notes, and commentaries, a large octavo vol- ume, while for " Hamlet " two such volumes are re- quired. The fifth volume, now before us, contains " King Lear." A variorum edition of a great writer is so called, as most of the readers of these pages probably know, because it presents, with his text, all of the work of his various editors and commentators which in the judgment of the variorum editor is necessary to a critical study of that text, and all the various read- ings of all previous editions which are of any au- thority or interest. Thus, as Mr. Furness remarks in his preface to the present volume, " the attempt is 1 A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness, Ph. D., LL. D. Vol. V. King Lear. Philadelphia : J. B. Lip- pincott & Co. 1880. 184 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. here made to present on the same page with the text all the various readings of the different editions of 'King Lear,' from the earliest quarto to the latest critical edition of the play, together with all the notes and comments thereon which the editor has thought worthy of preservation, not only for the pur- pose of elucidating the text, but at times as illustra- tions of the history of Shakespearean criticism ; " and yet to this there are added, in the appendix, essays on the text, on the date of the composition of the play, on the source of the plot, the duration of the action, the insanity of Lear, the great actors of the principal part, and the costume of the play, Tate's version of it, selections from English and German criticisms of it, and its bibliography, a work the magnitude, we might almost say the enormity, of which can be ap- preciated only by those who have some practical ac- quaintance with such labors. There have been several variorum editions of Shake- speare's plays. Indeed, as every editor has almost of necessity availed himself of the labors of all of his predecessors and quoted them, every amply critical edition has been more or less a variorum ; but the only editions which have really this character in any ap- proach to completeness are those known as Johnson and Steevens's, 1785, in ten volumes ; Malone's, 1790, in ten volumes ; Reid and Steevens's, 1813, in twenty- one volumes ; and Boswell's Malone, 1821, also in twenty-one volumes. The great Cambridge edition, by William George Clark and W. Aldis Wright, in nine volumes, is a complete variorum as to readings, but not as to notes and comments. Of these Boswell's Malone is the standard variorum, and is always meant by editors and commentators when they cite "the KING LEAR. 185 Variorum." That of Reid and Steevens is some- times cited as "the variorum of 1813." But even the former of these does not approach Mr. Furness's work in the vastness of its plan, or in its systematic arrange- ment, or in the thoroughness of its execution. And the activity of Shakespearean criticism between 1821 and 1880, and the searching and almost scientific study of the English language and its literature dur- ing the last twenty-five years, have resulted in the ac- cumulation of a mass of critical material upon this subject since Malone's time which makes a new va- riorum edition of Shakespeare almost a literary neces- sity of the day. It is to the honor of the American! branch of English literature that the labor of supply- ing this need has been undertaken by one of our scholars and critics ; and still more to its honor that this labor has been performed thus far with the wide range of knowledge, the acumen, the judgment, the taste, and, it may well be added, the invariable good temper which are displayed by Mr. Furness. To the general reader it may seem that the poet is editorially overlaid in this great edition. The text of " Hamlet " may be printed in large type on sixty or seventy duodecimo pages ; and indeed it was origi- nally published in a small quarto pamphlet of that size. In the new variorum, Hamlet fills two ponder- ous octavo volumes. But it is to be remembered that the purpose of a variorum editor is not to produce a pocket edition of his author for popular use. It is not supposed that any one who wishes to take " Ham- let " with him on a summer excursion will put the new variorum edition into his travelling-bag, or the old variorum, for that matter. Boswell's Malone's Shakespeare was quite as much overlaid for its time 186 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. as Furness's is ; and even more, for it was filled with rubbish which subsequent editors have swept into the dust-bin. A variorum edition professes to give what is necessary for the critical study of its author, and even, as Mr. Furness says, to illustrate the history of the critical literature of which he is the source and the subject. The doing of this involves the preservation of much which is, in the judgment of the variorum editor himself, of little intrinsic value. It is easy to laugh and sneer at the editors and commentators of Shakespeare; and some of them, in their dulness of apprehension no less than in the voluminous superfluity and feeble triviality of their criticism, are indeed "fixed figures for the time of scorn to point his slow unmoving finger at." But not a little of the scoffing to which they as a class have been subjected is the mere effervescence of the ignorance of the scoffers, which with some folk is a very sparkling quality. Many even of those who read and enjoy Shakespeare talk of being content with " the text " itself without note or comment. But what text? Such objections to editorial labor on Shakespeare can be made by candid and intelligent persons only in utter ignorance of the state in which the text of Shakespeare's plays has come down to us. The "text of Shakespeare," when thus spoken of, means merely the text which the speakers have been in the habit of reading. But that very text, they may be sure, is the result of the painful labors, through many generations, of the very editors of whom they speak so slightingly. Shakespeare did not publish his plays himself and read the proofs with the assistance of a good corrector of the press. Would that he had done so ! They KING LEAR. 187 were, some of them, obtained by their first publishers surreptitiously ; they were printed from imperfect manuscripts, or from mutilated stage copies ; and then they were printed with less care than is now given to the printing of a handbill. The very edition issued by his fellow-actors after his death, the great First Folio, 1623, a perfect copy of which is worth twenty-five hundred dollars and upwards, is incomplete and full of errors. The first edition of u Hamlet," 1603, is in many passages absolutely unreadable, and is in fact an absurd jumble of what Shakespeare wrote. The " authentic " edition of 1623, besides being full of perplexing errors of the press, is very incomplete. If the text of Shakespeare were put before these captious amateur critics uncorrected by editorial labor and without comment, they would not recog- nize many parts of it ; they would not believe that it was " Shakespeare, " and they would be right ; and besides this, in numberless passages in which they would really have " Shakespeare " they would be un- able to understand him. The truth upon this point is that the text of Shake- speare's plays has come down to us from his own time with such imperfection and such variety of presenta- tion that to form it into a self-consistent whole re- quires a degree of scholarship and of critical acumen beyond that required by the text of any other great poet of the past, excepting Homer, whose poems lived only in the mouths of rhapsodists and in the memory of hearers for hundreds of years before they were put upon paper. As to Shakespeare's writings, there is such variety of authority in regard to them and the authority is so conflicting in many cases, they are so lame and mutilated in every " authoritative " form, that they are just in the condition to need and to pro- 188 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. voke the most careful critical recension of the most capable scholarship. If their condition had been con- trived by some malicious spirit for this very purpose, it could not have been better adapted to that end. And then, the writings which exist in this deplorable state are the crown of all literature and the glory of the English race. What wonder that Shakespeare has editors and commentators ! That some of these have been men whose feebleness of intellect has been equalled in degree only by their presumption does not essentially affect this question. Let us look at a few passages of " King Lear " in the light of these remarks, which must seem trite to persons who have a moderate acquaintance at first hand with the subject. In the very first scene, and in the fifth and sixth lines of that scene, we find this discrepancy between the " authorities." One of them has, " for equalities are so weighed that curiosity in nature can make choice of cither's moiety ; " while the other reads, " that curiosity in neither can make choice," etc. Which of these is the text of Shakespeare ? The latter, which is the reading of the folio of 1623, has been generally and finally accepted ; but much might be said in favor of " curiosity in nature." And then what does " curi- osity in neither" mean? It might puzzle some of the carpers at Shakespearean editing to tell. This, merely by way of showing how soon we come upon a stumbling- block in " the text of Shakespeare." And it may be not without interest to my readers for me to point out what I believe to be the origin of this particular variation between the texts of the two old editions, which has never been done an omission that seems remarkable. It is due, I am sure, to what is called a misprint by the ear. KING LEAR. 189 Except in extraordinary cases, compositors put words in type, not letters ; and a skilful and practised compositor will sometimes set up a phrase of a dozen words, or of a score, without referring to his copy. Manifestly, therefore, he spells with his type the sound that he has in his mind. Now in Shakespeare's time the sounds of nature and neither were almost identi- cal. The first syllable of neither was pronounced nay, and iti had the sound of dth (and sometimes even of d and ), as we. now hear it sounded by Irish speakers of English. 1 Whether, therefore, the compositor in this instance had nature or neither before his eyes, he had in his mind's ear the one, or nearly one, sound with which an Irishman utters both words. This cause of confusion was aggravated, if the text of the quarto in which " nature " appears was taken down, as it may have been, from a recital of the scene. Misprints and miswritings by the ear were the cause of not a little confusion in the old texts of Shake- speare. And what does Regan mean when, according to the text of 1623, which Mr. Furness adopts, she says to her father, I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys Which the most precious square of sense professes. Act I. Sc. 1. What is a precious square ? What is a square of sense ? How can a square of sense profess ? As to the last point, it seems to me clear that the text of the folio of 1623 here furnishes an example of another sort of misprint, the misprint by repetition. If a 1 See my "Memorandums of English Pronunciation in the Elizabethan Era," vol. xii. of my first edition of Shakespeare ; aiso the "Irish Pro- nunciation " in chap. V. of Every-Day English, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 190 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. man has spoken or written a word once, such is the action of the mind that he is likely, even without rea- son, to repeat it ; and this likelihood is much greater if the word is suggested by kindred thought or a like form in another word. Hence compositors sometimes repeat words which they have just put in type ; and hence in this case I am sure the compositor repeated profess^ although he had possesses before his eyes. The quarto has, " Which the most precious square of sense possesses." But this still leaves us with the precious square of sense upon our hands. What can it mean ? Let us see how some of the ablest of Shake- speare's editors and commentators have explained it. Warburton said that " square of sense " refers to " the four nobler senses, sight, hearing, taste, and smell." Dr. Johnson said, " Perhaps square means only com- pass, comprehension." Hudson accepts the whole phrase as meaning " fullness or wealth of sensibility or capacity of joy." Aldis Wright's explanation is " that which the most delicately sensitive point of my nature is capable of enjoying." The erudite German scholar, Dr. Schmidt, who has undertaken to instruct us in the meaning of Shakespeare's words, says that the phrase means " choicest symmetry of reason, the most normal and intelligent mode of thinking ; " thus producing the most extravagant and far-fetched and would-be-profound-seeming of all these somewhat over- subtle and very unlike explanations. Certainly the variety of sense extracted from these four words is remarkable. But does any one of these paraphrases satisfy the intelligent Shakespeare lover whose mind is clear and unmuddled by the study of various read- ings, the most distracting and bewildering of all mental occupations, one which I sometimes think (and KING LEAR. 191 perhaps my readers may think) tends to idiocy? I will venture to say that it does not. Hence it has been supposed to be corrupted, and " precious sphere of sense," " spacious sphere of sense," " spacious square of sense," and even " precious treasure of sense " have been proposed as readings. I fear that it must be left as it stands, with the humble confes- sion that it is a dark saying. And what are we to make of Cordelia's entreaty to her father when she says, according to both the old authorities, I yet beseech your majesty, that you make known It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, No unchaste action or dishonour' d step, That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour. Act I. Sc. 1. Were young princesses then so apt to commit murder that it was enumerated as a matter of course among the slips to which they were liable? Or was the gen- tle, loving, self-sacrificing Cordelia an exception in this respect in the eyes of her doting father a mur- deress by distinction? The case is very perplexing. Hence the corrector of the Collier folio read " no vicious blot nor other foulness," Mr. Collier remark- ing that " the copyist or the compositor miswrote or misread no other ' murther ; ' " and the change was ac- cepted by some editors with great expression of relief and satisfaction. Walker, that much overrated com- mentator, overrated because of the impression which a formal, systematic arrangement produces on many minds, declared without hesitation that we should read, " It is no vicious blot, umber, or foulness ; " an emendation so feeble, far-fetched, and foolish that it might have been made by Zachary Jackson. Keight- 192 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. ly would read, " no vicious blot, misdeed, or foulness," which is well enough in itself ; but why not read any- thing else with an m in it as well as misdeed ? Against the Collier reading " nor other foulness," it is to be objected, first, that the suggestion of a misprint of murther for no other, although plausible as to the folio, does not touch the quarto, where we not only also have murder, but find it spelled with a d ; next, and more important, vicious blot and foulness are so nearly the same in meaning, so absolutely the same in turpitude, that even a writer far inferior to Shake- speare would not make the latter alternative to the former. But finally comes Hudson, and says with that fine insight which he often shows, " I suspect that Cor- delia purposely uses murder out of place, as a glance at the hyperbolical absurdity of denouncing her as ' a wretch whom nature is ashamed to acknowledge.' ' Cordelia has a touch of demure satire in her composi- tion, and this is the only explanation which seems to me at all suitable, although I cannot regard it as sat- isfactory. In the second scene of Act II., Kent, according to the earliest authority, the quarto, says of Oswald, the f opling villain whom he instinctively so hates, Such smiling rogues as these, Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain Which are too intrench t' unloose; but the folio reads, " Which are t' intrence t' unloose." Which is the text of Shakespeare, and what does either reading mean? No one could answer either question until it occurred to a learned and acute com- mentator of the last century, named Upton, that in- trence of the folio was a misprint for intrinse, a short form of intrinsecate, like reverb for reverberate ; in- KING^LEAB. 193 trinsecate being an Anglicized form of the Italian in- trinsecare, to entangle, which was used by a few writ- ers of the Elizabethan age. And here again I suggest, and indeed am sure, that we have an example of the misleading influence of pronunciation upon the print- er's art. For the intrench of the quarto is merely a phonetic spelling of intrinse. 1 We have still a rem- nant of this pronunciation. Not uncommonly provin- cial people, and Mr. Lincoln's " plain people," talk of " renching [for rinsing] clothes," or say " rench [for rinse] those glasses." Just so intrinse was pro- nounced intrench. The pronunciation rench for rinse is but the survival of an old fashion. As to the word intrinse, it means merely entangled, knotted ; but what would have become of this passage were it not for Shakespearean editors? Lear, consciously deceiving himself, I think (I can indicate his state of mind with brevity no otherwise), says to Eegan, when, cursing Goneril, he flies to his second daughter, No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give Thee o'er to harshness. Act II. Sc. 4. This is the folio reading ; the quarto reading in the second line is " tender-hested." The word is spelled with the old-fashioned long J\ which might easily be a misprint for /; but it is to be remarked that both of the quarto impressions, although they differ here typo- graphically, have "tender-AesteJ." In any case, how- ever, what will the advocate of an unedited text of Shakespeare do here ? Is either reading " the text of Shakespeare " ? What does either a tender-hefted nature or a tender-hested nature mean? It is said 1 See "Memorandums," etc., before cited, under S, which was often pronounced sh. 194 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. that as heft means handle, tender-hefted " means smooth or soft handled, and is here put for gentleness of dis- position." Another explanation is that tender-hefted means "delicately housed, daintily bodied, finely sheathed." The latter is given in the " Edinburgh Review," and also by Aldis Wright, the Cambridge editor, who adds, " Regan was less masculine than Goneril." Was she ? She assists at the most fright- ful and revolting scene in all tragedy, introduced by Shakespeare, I believe, partly to show the savage nature of the times he was depicting, the tearing out of Gloucester's eyes ; and she, with her own " ten- der-hefted " hand, kills the servant who assists her husband in the act. She seems to me rather the worse of the two elder sisters. But whether she is so or not, can we accept any one of these explanations of this strange compound word ? I think that they are all not only much too far-fetched, but entirely from the pur- pose. Rowe, Shakespeare's first editor, read " tender- heartcd nature," a very plausible emendation, which other editors have adopted. But how came this sim- ple and hardly-to-be-mistaken phrase to be misprint- ed in both the old impressions, which were separated by a space of fifteen years, and which were put in type from different "copy"? This question is one of a sort that Shakespeare's editors have not unfrequently to pass upon. " Tender-hefted " is inexplicable con- sistently with common sense and Shakespeare's use of language. " Tender-hearted " is inadmissible against the reading of both quarto and folio. After all, is it not the f in the folio that is the misprint, and is not the quarto right ? Did not Shakespeare write tender- hested nature ; that is, tenderly commanded, tenderly ruled, tenderly ordered nature ? If he did not, I, for KING LEAR. 195 one, give up the passage as inexplicable and hopelessly corrupt. When Regan urges Lear to return to Goneril and live with her with half his stipulated train, he breaks out, Return to her, and fifty men clismiss'd ! No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To wage against the enmity o' th' air, To be a comrade with the wolf and owl, Necessity's sharp pinch. Return with her? The old copies agree in this reading. The meaning of the phrase "necessity's sharp pinch" is plain enough; but what does Lear imply in it ? What is its connec- tion? The Collier folio has " and liowl necessity's sharp pinch," which I am sorry to see that Mr. Furness adopts. Lear surely did not mean to speak of howling the sharp pinch of necessity. The first line of Regan's speech, to which this of Lear is a reply, seems to make the passage clear. She says to him, " I pray you, father, being weak, seem so ;" that is, submit to the hard necessity of your condition. To this Lear, choleric, proud, and kingly, replies, [Shall I yield to] necessity's sharp pinch [and] return with her ! The phrase is merely an elliptical interrog- ative exclamation. It seems to me that to a reader who is in sympathy with the scene it hardly needs ex- planation, and that the Collier folio reading is insuf- ferable. But I must bring this consideration of particular passages to a close ; and I shall remark upon only one more, which, as it stands in both the quarto impres- sions and in all subsequent editions, is certainly one of the most incomprehensible ii! all Shakespeare's plays. In the scene in which Gloucester loses his eyes, he, referring to the driving of old Lear out into the 196 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. storm, says boldly to Began, as the passage appears in the quartos, in the variorum of 1821, in the Cambridge edition, in the Globe, and my own : If wolves had at thy pate howl'd that stern time Thou shouldst have said : " Good porter, turn the key." All cniels else subscrib'd: but I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children. Act III. Sc. 7. The folio has, " All cruels else subscribe" But whether we read subscribe or subscribed, what is the meaning of this phrase ? Its obscurity is so great that the notes upon it fill, in small type, the whole of one of Mr. Furness's ample pages. How it was that I came to pass it without remark in my first edition I cannot undertake to say. It was a strange oversight. Dr. Johnson says that subscrib'd means "yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion ; " but what help does that give ? Aldis Wright says that " all cruels else subscrib'd" means "all other cruelties being yielded or forgiven." Moberly, the able editor of the Rugby edition, says that it means " all harsh- ness, otherwise natural, being forborne or yielded from the necessity of the case." Schmidt, whom it is the fashion now to regard as an " authority " of weight on Shakespeare's words, because he has made an alphabetical catalogue of them with explanations, says, " ' All cruels ' can mean nothing else but all cruel creatures," and that the passage means, " everything which is at other times cruel shows feeling or regard ; you alone have not done so." Mr. Furness, in despe- ration, it would seem, makes this phrase a part of the supposed instructions to the porter, and reads, Thou shouldst have said : " Good porter, turn the key, All cruels else subscribe." But I shall see, etc. with this paraphrase : " Thou shouldst have said, ' Good KING LEAR. 197 porter, open the gates ; acknowledge the claims of all creatures, however cruel they may be at other times.' " It is not necessary to quote or to remark upon any other of the explanations ; and I feel that I cannot err in saying that none of these is at all satisfactory, and that among them Schmidt's is the least acceptable. But it seems to me also that after all there is little diffi- culty in the passage, except in the word " cruels," and that that is far from being inexplicable. It means, I believe, all cruelties, all occasions of cruelty, a use of language quite in Shakespeare's manner. The folio gives the true reading with the proper punctuation according to the fashion of the time. There is a full stop after " Good porter turn the key," and a colon after " subscribe," thus : Thou shoudst have said, Good Porter turne the key. All Cruels else subscribe: but I shall see The winged Vengeance overtake such Children. Now in such passages in old books a colon has the power which in more modern punctuation is expressed by a comma, and merely marks off the subject of an assertion. " Subscribe " is here used in the sense of attest, guaranty, a use common with Shakespeare, and not uncommon nowadays, and but in a sense which it also has at present, that. The construction of the passage (which really should not require all this ex- planation) is, then, this : After Gloucester has told Regan that she should have told the porter to open the door, he utters the solemn asseveration, All other such cruelties attest, that I shall see swift ven* geance overtake such children. So Albany says This shows you are above, You jtisticers, that these our nether crimes, So speedily can venge. Act IV. Sc. 2. 198 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Let the passage be printed just as it is in the folio, with the mere (and usual) substitution of a comma for the old colon : Thou shouldst have said, Good porter turn the key. All cruels else subscribe, but I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children. Mr. Furness's perception of the supreme difficulty of this passage as it is usually printed is only an indica- tion of his fitness for the great work that he has under- taken. In his apprehension of Shakespeare's thought he shows generally that combination of sensitiveness and common sense which goes to the making of a first- rate editor of a great poet, and which most of all is required in the editor of Shakespeare. Dyce, for ex- ample, had great learning and good judgment ; but he lacked that power of apprehension which comes from a condition of the mind sympathetic with the moods of a great poet, and consequently, with all his learning and his ability, he produced a second or third rate critical edition of this author. I hope that in quoting several notes upon the pas- sage, Ingratitude, then marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child Than the sea monster ! Act I. Sc. 4. the object of which is to show what particular swim- ming beast the sea monster is, Mr. Furness was, as he says in his preface, merely illustrating the history of Shakespearean criticism. For surely never was criti- cal conjecture more wasted than in attempting to re- move the vagueness of that image by giving the sea monster a specific name. For vagueness not only ex- cites terror, but enhances horror, and is indeed a con- stant element in the awful, and in all the exciting KING LEAR. 199 causes of the great apprehensive emotions. To give Lear's sea monster a name and a form is to drag him down from the higher regions of poetry into the plain prose of natural history. He becomes at once a pos- sible inmate of an aquarium, or an item in the Great- est Show on Earth. Who thanks Upton for suggest- ing that Shakespeare made Lear compare ingratitude to a " hippopotamus," or another commentator for de- ciding sagely that it was " a whale " that Shakespeare had in mind ? Hudson objects that a hippopotamus is not a sea monster, but a river monster (indeed, have we not the famous showman's assurance that the name " is derived from liippo, a river, and potamos, a horse"?), and he might have added with equal pro- priety that a whale, although it is the largest of post- diluvian animals, is not at all hideous. But, O gentle critic, it is not because the hippopotamus is a river haunter, or because the whale is not repulsive, that these suggestions are injurious to the passage, but be- cause they belittle it. You do, as might be expected of you, much better when you say, " If the poet had any particular animal in view, I suspect it was the one that behaved so ungently at old Troy." For what was that particular Trojan animal? The poets did not know themselves any more than Shakespeare did. It was simply a sea monster. Your " if " is a very po- tent and pertinent little word. Shakespeare, be sure, had no particular animal even in his own mind's eye. The sea has always- been in the popular mind the home of monsters, huge, horrible, shapeless, pitiless, insatiable ; and to excite the vague dread which is born of ignorance and fancy was the poet's purpose. His end was mystery ; why endeavor to reduce his mystery to certainty? Must we in all things be so " scientific" 200 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. as to substitute positive knowledge for an undefined loathing ? Must we classify and pigeon-hole the very causes of our emotions ? The poet worked in a way directly converse to this, having a directly opposite end in view, when he made Edmund (Act I. Sc. 2) say, "My cue is villanous melancholy," etc., and end his speech, "jfa, sol, la, mi." It has been pointed out by two musicians, who are among Shakespeare's commentators, that this suc- cession of notes is " unnatural and offensive " and "distracting." But Aldis Wright says that Mr. Chappell informed him that " there is not the slight- est foundation " for this view of the passage, and that " Edmund is merely singing to himself, in order to seem not to observe Edgar's approach." Mr. Chap- pell is a very accomplished musician ; and he is none the less so because he has, in my judgment, misappre- hended this passage. True, a desire to seem not to observe Edgar's approach is the occasion of his sing- ing to himself ; but why does he sing as he does ? Why does he not begin, as a singer naturally would (not singing an air), on the tonic? thus, The notes which he sings are these : 1 -| \ Now to any musical ear this succession of notes sug- gests a discord that must be resolved by the chord of the tonic : KING LEAR. 201 This resolution would have been implied if Edmund had gone on, as he naturally would have done, and sung fa, sol, la, mi, fa : t-* - * p h-= 'tr But, beginning on the sub-dominant, he stops short of the tonic upon the leading note of the scale ; and this when he has just said, u These eclipses do portend these divisions/' divisions being used in a double sense, that of distraction, and the musical sense in which Shakespeare often uses it of a rapid succession of notes. Surely it could not have been by chance that Shakespeare, a musician, did this. It is as if this chord were played and not resolved ; a discipline to which Mr. Chappell, because he is an accomplished musician, would, I suspect, not like to be subjected. In a speech of Gloucester's, the close of which has already been commented upon, he, speaking of the storm which plays such an important part in this trag- edy that it may almost be numbered among the dra- matis personce, says of it, The sea, with such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up, And quench'd the stelled tires. Act III. Sc. 7. This is the reading of the folio and of the quartos ; but is " buoy'd up " to be accepted without question ? Mr. Furness and all the best editors leave it undis- turbed ; but in both the Collier folio and the Quincy folio " luoyd up " is changed to " boiVd up." Heath, 202 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. who is among the good Shakespeare commentators, says that buoyed is " used here as the middle voice in Greek, signifying to buoy or lift itself up ; " and if ths word is to be retained this doubtless is the sense in which it must be taken. But Schmidt takes exactly the opposite view of the word, and says that the verb is " used here transitively, and the phrase means, the sea would have lifted up the fixed fires and extin- guished them." Now buoy is a strange word. It has come to mean in English just what it does not mean etymologieally. A buoy (Dutch boei) is a chain, a fetter ; and a buoy is so called not because it floats, but because it is chained to its place. But because it does float its name has been understood and used to mean a float, and has also been made a verb meaning to float or lift up ; and buoyant, instead of meaning chained down, as by rights it should, has come to mean light and ready to move freely about and above. 1 11 warrant that many persons have thought that buoyant in its very sound suggested lightness and mo- bility, and that there was some connection between this and its meaning. Such notions are generally mere fancies. The word came into the English lan- guage, with other of our maritime phrases, in the six- teenth century. But did the change in its meaning take place so early as the sixteenth century, or even as the early part of the seventeenth century, when " King Lear " was written ? I doubt that it did. I doubt that any evidence can be produced even that buoy was used as a verb at all at that period. None, at least, has been recorded in any publication known to me. We have it as a noun, meaning a fixed mark upon the water, but with no other meaning. These facts point to the improbability of the word's being KING LEAR. 203 used in the extraordinary sense in which it must be used in this passage, and give a seeming strong sup- port to the reading " would have boiVd up," which presents a natural, although a hyperbolical, picture of the foaming sea raised as high as heaven by the storm. But there is one consideration that destroys the force of all these facts. It is this : that buoy, being unknown as a verb in Shakespeare's time, buoyed could not have been put in type by a compositor, or written by a copyist, who had boiled before his eyes. Neither would or could thus have changed a well- known word into one that was unknown. The very fact that buoy as a verb was unknown, or almost un- known, in Shakespeare's time shows that Shakespeare must have written buoyed. Besides, it would be like a poet, and like Shakespeare among poets, to see in a buoy not its fixed position, but its floating and appar- ently self-sustaining power. If, therefore, it was, as I am inclined to think it will be found to be, that Shakespeare, in his free and no-verbal-critic-fearing use of language, was the first to make buoy a verb, his use of it as a reciprocal verb, making the sea buoy up (Heath's middle voice), is explained. He was not using a word which already had an established mean- ing. The old reading " would have buoy'd up " must be retained, with the sense that the sea rose so high that it would have extinguished the stars. For Schmidt's notion that it buoyed up the stars and also put them out is not only absurd in itself, but lacks support in the sense in which the word was used in Shakespeare's day. The remarks made above upon the influence of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time upon his text lead to some others upon the same subject. First, this 204 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. play which we call " King Leer" was known to Shake- speare and his contemporaries as " King Lare" This is not only certain from the general pronunciation of the combination ea as ay at that time, 1 but from the spelling of the name in the old play which preceded Shakespeare's, and in the old chronicles in prose and in verse. This is invariably Leir ; and the combi- nation ei then indicated the same sound which it still indicates in weight, freight, obeisance, etc. One of the Fool's little rhyming speeches is re- markable on the score of pronunciation : Nuiicle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry and take the Fool with thee. A fox, when one has caught her, And such a daughter, Should sure to the slaughter, If my cap would buy a halter: So the fool follows after. Act I. Sc. 4. As to the rhymes of the first three lines, there is of course no difficulty ; and when it is taken into con- sideration that the I in such words as halter, falter, falcon, etc., was silent in Shakespeare's time, 2 almost the whole of the apparent difficulty has disappeared. For no one at all familiar with the rustic, that is the old-fashioned, pronunciation of daughter, slaughter, and after will then fail to see that the Fool pro- nounced these rhyming words thus : A fox, when one has cart her, And such a darter, Should sure to the slarter, If my cap would buy a harter: So the fool follows arter. Upon the passage usually printed, Half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! Act IV. SQ. 6. 1 See the "Memorandums," etc., cited above. 2 See Chapter XV. in Every-Day English. KING LEAR. 205 Mr. Furness has a sound and sensible note. The old copies spell "samphire" sampire, and Mr. Furness says, " I think that the old spelling should be re- tained ; it shows the old pronunciation and the deri- vation ; thus spelled, and pronounced sampeer, all who are familiar with the sandy beaches of New Jersey will recognize in it an old friend." He is right beyond a doubt. That Shakespeare wrote the rhyming speech of the Fool remarked upon just above I am not sure. It is not at all equal to the other rhymes vented by the same personage in the same scene ; and not only so, it is of a different sort. A similar speech, unquotable here, of this wonderful personage, at the end of the first act, has been under the gravest suspicion as to its authenticity since Steevens's time. I expressed the opinion, in my own edition, that the Merlin proph- ecy uttered by the Fool at the end of the second scene of Act III. is also spurious, and gave my reasons there- for. Critical opinion seems to be settling itself in favor of this view of the passage. The Cambridge editors (Clark and Aldis Wright) throw suspicion also upon the soliloquy beginning, When we our betters see bearing our woes, with which Edgar closes the sixth scene of Act III. They say, referring to its having been retained by all previous editors, "In deference to this consensus of authority we have retained it, though, as it seems to us, internal evidence is conclusive against the supposition that the lines were written by Shakespeare." It is in favor of this opinion, and also of a like judgment upon the two passages mentioned before, that in each case the suspected speech comes at the end of a scene, and is spoken by a personage who re- 206 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. mains while the others go out. This is just the place in which to look for interpolations. They are, in the first place, easily made in such situations, because the writer of them is freed from the necessity of harmon- izing them with anything immediately succeeding; and, next, because of a stage demand for them. For if there is anything dear to an actor's soul it is to be left alone upon the stage to occupy the attention of an already excited audience, and to have the curtain fall or the scene shut upon his soliloquy and his soli- tary figure. I have no doubt that it was a common thing on the easy-going stage of Shakespeare's time for an actor to beg some one of the many playwrights who were always hanging about the theatres, hungry for shillings and thirsty for sack, to write a few lines for him, just a little bit for him to close the scene with. Hamlet's instructions to the players show that Shakespeare had suffered in this way, especially at the hands of those who played his Fools. As to this soliloquy of Edgar's, it must be ad- mitted by every considerate and appreciative reader that both in thought and in rhythm it is wholly un- like the scene which it closes, and, with a few excep- tions which I shall point out, unlike the rest of the play. It is hardly more than a succession of almost trite moral reflections put in a sententious form, and written in verse as weak, as constrained, and as for- mal as that of a French tragedy. I quote it, not only that this may be seen, but for the purposes of a comparison to be made hereafter : When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. Who alone suffers, suffers most i' th' mind, Leaving free things and happy shows behind. But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip KING LEAR. 207 When grief hath mates, and bearing, fellowship. How light and portable my pain seems now When that which makes me bend makes the King bow : He childed as I father'd! Tom, away! Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray, When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee, In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee. What will hap more to-night, safe 'scape the King! Lurk, lurk ! Act III. Sc. 6. What have these piping couplets to do with the grand, deep diapason of the blank verse of King Lear ! A reader with an ear and a brain will be likely to say, Nothing. But let us pause awhile before we make a final decision, and, turning to the first scene, look at a speech of Kent's, who is just banished : Fare thee well, king; sith thus thou wilt appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here. The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, That justly think'st and hast most rightly said 1 . And your large speeches may your deeds approve That good effects may spring from words of love. Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu ; He '11 shape his old course in a country new. Act I. Sc. 1. And these prim platitudes are uttered by the man who only a few lines before speaks in this style : Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart : Be Kent unmannerly When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man? Thinkst thou that duty shall^have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound, When majesty stoops to folly. . . . Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon thy foul disease. Revoke thy doom; Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat, I '11 tell thee thou dost evil. Act I. Sc. 1. Not only would it seem that the speeches were written by different poets, but that they were written for different personages. And there is a trace of the same weakness, consciousness, and constraint in these 208 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. rhymed speeches by Goneril and by Cordelia toward the end of this scene : Gon. Let your study Be to content your lord, who hath received you At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted. Cor, Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides : Who cover faults, at last them shame derides. Act I. Sc. 1. This brings us to the point that such is always the style of the rhymed soliloquies in these plays. If Shakespeare wrote them all, we must infer that the production of didactic poetry in rhyme crippled his mind and fettered his pen. Compare Edgar's speech, quoted above, which is the occasion of these remarks, with Friar Laurence's soliloquy in the third scene of Act II. of " Romeo and Juliet." I quote a few lines for present convenience : O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give, Nor aught so good but strain' d from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; And vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower Poison hath residence, and medicine, power ; For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. This is precisely the style of thought and of verse that we find in Edgar's speech in question. The rhythm, the very sound of the lines, in the two pas- sages is almost the same. What could be more like these lines from Edgar's speech, But then the mind much suffering doth o'erskip When grief hath mates, and bearing, fellowship, than these from the friar's : Within the infant rind of this small flower Poison hath residence, and medicine, power ? KING LEAR. 209 Plainly, it seems to me, if upon evidence of style and structure we refuse to accept one of these speeches as of Shakespeare's writing, we must also refuse to accept the other. Their metal is not only out of the same mine, but is minted with the same die. But may we be sure that Shakespeare wrote either of them? If we once begin to suspect and to reject, where are we to stop ? And in his day play-writing was such a mere trade, such a mere manufacture of material for the use of the theatre, and playwrights were so con- stantly at work together upon great jobs and small jobs, and Shakespeare in his own day was only one of these, that we can accept nothing as absolutely his that does not bear plainly upon it the royal image and superscription. The one point to be constantly kept in mind in the critical consideration of Shakespeare's dramas is that they were written by a second-rate actor, who, much against his will, was compelled to live by the stage in some way, and whose first object was money, to get on in life. He wrote what he wrote merely to fill the theatre and his own pockets ; he wrote as he wrote, because he was born the poet of poets, the dramatist of dramatists, the philosopher of philosophers, the most world-knowing of all men of the world. There was as much deliberate purpose in his breathing as in his play-writing. In Edgar's speech in question there is a single word which makes much against its authenticity. He, alone and supposed to be merely thinking aloud, calls himself Tom. This naturally he would not do ; this he does not do in any other instance when he is alone. He reserves that name for company, and to use his own phrase in regard to his assumed character, " daubs 14 210 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. it " only for their benefit. This one consideration is almost conclusive against the authenticity of the speech. I have considered only a few of the questions in re- gard to the text of this tragedy which are suggested by Mr. Furness's thorough and discriminating edition of it, the study of which must hereafter be a prime object with every critical reader of Shakespeare. II. PLOT AND PERSONAGES. Shakespeare was forty-one years old when he wrote " King Lear." Just at the time of life when a well- constituted, healthy man has attained the maturity of his faculties, he produced the work in which we see his mind in all its might and majesty. He had then been an actor some fifteen years, and of his greater plays he had written " Romeo and Juliet," " The Mer- chant of Venice," " King Henry IV.," " Much Ado about Nothing," " As You Like It," " Hamlet," and " Measure for Measure." In the case of a writer whose work was of a nature that left him personally out of it, it is not safe to infer the condition of his mind from the tone of his writings. But it is worthy of remark that "King Lear" quickly followed "Meas- ure for Measure," and came next to it as an original play, and was itself followed next by "Timon of Athens," and that in these three plays the mirror that is held up to human nature tells more revolting and alarming truths than are revealed in all his other plays together. Not in all the rest is the sum of the counts of his indictment of the great criminal so great, so grave, so black, so damning. Hardly is there to be gathered from all the others so many personages who KING LEAR. 211 are so bad in all the ways of badness as the majority of those are which figure in these three. It is, however, apart from this fact that these plays are so strongly significant of Shakespeare's judgment of mankind in his forty-second year. For, types of badness as these personages are, what they say is ten- fold more condemnatory than what they do. The aphoristic anthology of "Measure for Measure," "King Lear," and " Timon of Athens " would make the blackest pages in the records of the judgments against mankind. Moreover, the chief dramatic motives of all these plays are selfishness and ingratitude ; while in two of them, " King Lear " and " Timon," we find the principal personage expecting to buy love and words of love and deeds of love with bounteous gifts, and going mad with disappointment at not receiving what he thinks his due. For Timon in the forest, although he is not insane, is surely the subject of a self- inflicted monomania. Difficult as it is to trace Shake- speare himself in his plays, we can hardly err in con- cluding that there must have been in his experience of life and in the condition of his mind some reason for his production within three years, and with no in- termediate relief, of three such plays as those in ques- tion. And the play which came between " Measure for Measure" and "King Lear," " All's Well that Ends Well," although it is probably the product of the working over of an earlier play called "Love's Labour 's Won," can hardly be said to break the con- tinuity of feeling which runs through its predecessor and its two immediate successors. In " All 's Well " we have Parolles, the vilest and basest character, al- though not the most wickedly malicious, that Shake- speare wrought ; and its hero, Bertram, is so coldly 212 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. and brutally selfish that it is hard to forgive Helena her loving him. Indeed, the tone of the play finds an echo in the last lines of the Clown's song : With that she sighed as she stood. And gave this sentence then ; Among nine bad if one be good, Among nine bad if one be good, There 's yet one good in ten. Act I. Sc. 3. Was it by sheer chance and hap-hazard that Shake- speare reverted to this unpleasant story and these re- pulsive personages at the time when, within three years, he wrote "Measure for Measure," "King Lear," and " Timon of Athens " ? Although, in " King Lear," Shakespeare owed less to the authors from whom he took his plot than was cus- tomary with him in such cases, the general notion that he owed little (which seems to me rather confirmed than shaken by what Mr. Furness says) is altogether erroneous. The truth is that in regard to plot, inci- dents, personages, and their characters he (as his man- ner was) owed, not everything, but almost everything to his predecessors. In the construction of the tragedy all that is his is the uniting of two stories, that of Lear and that of Gloucester, which he wrought into one, by mighty strength and subtle art welding them together white-heated in the glowing fire of his imagi- nation ; and the change which he made in the issue of the fortunes of Lear and of Cordelia ; for in the legend Cordelia triumphs, reseats her father on the throne, succeeds him, is at last rebelled against by the sons of Goneril and Regan, deposed, and put in prison, " wherewith she took suche griefe, being a woman of manlie courage, and despairing to recover libertie there, she slue herself." Verily, these are great ex- KING LEAR. 213 ceptions; the latter even one that suggests Shake- speare's own declaration that " there 's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Never- theless, the fact that he did find in the work of fore- gone writers, in chronicle, in legend, in poem, in play, and in novel, all the rest of the framework, the skele- ton, of this his masterpiece, is one the importance of which in the formation of a judgment of his methods, of his purposes, and of the one apparent limit of his genius cannot be overrated. Most readers of Shakespeare probably know that the story of Lear and his three daughters is of great antiquity, and was told by many writers in prose and verse who preceded Shakespeare. He, we may be sure, read it in Holinshed and in the old play of " King Leir." The division of the kingdom ; the ex- travagant professions of love by Goneril and Regan ; the reserve of Cordelia ; the wrath of the disappointed old King ; the endeavor of Kent (called Perillus) to avert the consequences of his anger from his youngest daughter ; the marriage of the elder sisters to Corn- wall and Albany, and of the youngest to the King of France ; Lear's living with the former alternately, attended by a retinue of knights ; the ingratitude of Goneril and Regan ; the return of Cordelia to Britain with a French army to reestablish her father, all this was material made to Shakespeare's hand. And not only this : the different characters of the per- sonages in this story all existed in germ and in outline before he took it up as the subject of this tragedy. So as to the story of Gloucester and his two sons, which was told by Sir Philip Sidney in his " Arcadia." Shakespeare found there the father, loving, kind hearted, but suspicious, and weak in principle and in 214 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. mind ; the bastard, an ungrateful villain ; the legiti- mate son, a model of filial affection ; the attempt of his suspicious and deceived father to kill him ; and even the loss of Gloucester's eyes, and his contrivance to commit suicide by getting his son to lead him to the verge of a cliff, whence he might cast himself down : all is there, the incidents, the personages, and their characters. How absurd, then, are the attempts to make out a " philosophy " of Shakespeare's dramas, to find out their " inner life," to show that this or that incident An them had a profound psychological purpose and / meaning ! He simply took his stories and his persoii- ( ages as he found them, and wrought them into such \ dramas as he thought would interest the audiences \ that came to the Globe Theatre. And they were in- terested in the stories, in the personages, and in their fortunes. They read little ; and they saw the stories on the stage instead of reading them in a printed page. He made the stories thus tell themselves as no man had ever done before, or has done since, or may do hereafter. Doing this, he accomplished all his purpose, and fulfilled all their desire. The poetry, the philosophy, the revelation of knowledge of the world and of the human heart, in which he has been equalled by 110 other of the sons of men, were all merely incidental to his purpose of entertaining his hearers profitably to himself. Being the man that his father had begotten him and his mother had borne him, if he did the former he must do the latter. If he made any effort at all, it was as easy for him to write in his way as it was for the other playwrights of his time to write in theirs. He talked as he wrote, and wrote as he talked. One of the few facts that KING LEAK. 215 we know concerning Shakespeare is this one. Ben Jonson tells it of him. He poured out the rich fruit- age of his exhaustless fancy and his ever-creating im- agination, until his hearers were borne down and over- whelmed with it. And his fellow-actors, in presenting the first authentic edition of .his plays to the world, said, " And what he thought he uttered with that eas- inesse that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." That it was the story that he told upon the stage, and his way of telling it, which interested the public of his day, is shown by the history of the text of this very drama. To us it is a great tragedy, the greatest dramatic poem in all literature ; but when its great success created a demand for it, to be read as well as seen, it was published as " Mr. William Shakespeare his true chronicle historic of the life and death of King Lear and his three daughters, with the unfortunate life of Edgar, sonne and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humour of Tom of Bedlam, as it was played," etc. It was not the dramatic poem, but the true chronicle history that captivated the pub- lic mind, which also was interested, it would seem, no less in the strange masquerade of an earl's son in the shape of a Bedlam beggar (the least impressive and the least valuable part of the play as a work of art) than in the woes of the self-dethroned monarch. But there was another drama founded upon the story of King Lear ; and the immeasurable superiority, in the public judgment, of the new dramatic version of that story is evinced by the anxiety of its publisher to advertise which one he had for sale. The pronoun Ms was then used as a mere form of the possessive case, as we use the apostrophe with s. "Mr. Benjamin 216 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Johnson his comedy of Every Man in his Humour " was merely Mr. Benjamin Johnson's comedy, etc. But on the title-pages of the first and of the second edition of this tragedy, his was not only printed in large italic capital letters, but made a line by itself, thus, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HIS TRUE CHRONICLE HISTORIE, ETC., in order that the buyer might have no doubt as to which " King Lear " he was getting. This use of his at that time is unique. Now what was it that this Mr. William Shakespeare, a second-rate, money-making actor at the Globe Thea- tre at the Bankside, did to set all London running after his u King Lear," in disregard to any other? What it was may be shown by simply comparing two corresponding passages, one in the old play and one in the new, which the readers of Mr. Furness's edition are enabled to do by his very full abstract of the for- mer, from which he makes copious extracts. In the old play, when King Lear disinherits Cordelia, he says to her, Peace, bastard impe, no issue of King Leir, I will not heare thee epeake one tittle more. Call me not father if thou love thy life, Nor these thy sisters once presume to name : Looke for no helpe henceforth from me or mine ; Shift as thou wilt, and trust unto thyself. After Lear, Goneril, and Regan have gone out, Peril- lus, the Kent of the old play, says, Oh, how I grieve, to see my lord thus fond, To dote so much upon vain flattering words! Ah, if he but with good advice had weigh'd The hidden tenure of her humble speech, Reason to rage should not have given place, Nor poor Cordelia suffer such disgrace. KING LEAR. 217 Let the reader now turn to Shakespeare's play (for I cannot spare more room to quotation), and read Lear's speech to Cordelia, beginning Let it be so : thy truth then be thy dower Act I. Sc. 1. and the after broken dialogue between Lear and Kent, that splendid tilt between tyranny and indepen- dence, in which independence for the time goes under ; and by this brief comparison he will find the great al- though not the only secret of Shakespeare's power revealed. It will be seen (and ^it is important to re- mark) that the conception of the scene and of the feelings and opinions of the personages was much the same in the writers of both passages. All that Shake- speare did here is suggested by what his predecessor had done. But the work of one is trite, common- place, dull, flat, stupid, dead; to describe worthily that of the other, in its fitness to the strange, rude scene, in its revelation of the emotions of the speakers, and above all in its exuberant vitality, would require a command of words equal to that of him who wrote it. There is no other so grandly fierce an altercation to be found on any page. The mature man at the hun- dredth reading finds it stir his blood just as it first did when the downy hair of his cold young flesh stood up, as he felt alternately with the despotic old king and with his bold, faithful, loving servant. And yet, regarded in itself, and simply on its merits, the action in this whole scene, excepting that of Kent, is so unreasonable and unnatural as to be almost ab- surd ; yes, quite absurd. The King's solicitation of the flattery of his daughters is absurd, unworthy of a reasonable creature ; the flattery of the elder sisters is nauseously absurd ; the reserve of Cordelia is foolishly 218 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. absurd ; the instant change of feeling in the king is absurd to the verge of incredibility. But for this Shakespeare is not responsible, except in so far as he is made so by the choice of the story. For all this is in the story ; and it is the story that is absurd, not Shakespeare. What he did was to see in it its great capability of dramatic treatment, notwithstanding its absurdity. Lear's purposed division of his kingdom, his behavior to his daughters and their behavior to him, and his consequent disinheritance of the young- est are a postulate which is not to be questioned. They are absurd, but without their absurdity there would have been no play. Let us accept their absurd- ity, say nothing, and be thankful. For with the disin- heriting of Cordelia the absurdity stops short ; it does not last one moment longer ; it does not infect one line of any subsequent speech. To this remark there is one exception, the scene in which Gloucester is deluded into believing that he has thrown himself from Dover cliff. But again, this incident is from the story in Sidney's " Arcadia," which Shakespeare used. True, he develops and enriches it, and gilds its absurdity with crusted gold of thought and language, but he does not essentially change it ; giving thus (for he might have omitted this incident or have altered it) an illustration of his habitual copiousness of imagination and of fancy, and of his no less habitual parsimony, if not of his poverty, of constructive skill. In its first scene is deployed the whole potentiality of the tragedy. The germ of every character, the spring of every dramatic motive developed during the whole five acts is to be found there ; and every per- sonage of any importance is there, excepting the FooJ. and the legitimate Edgar, who after all is not a very KING LEAR. 219 important or a very dramatic person, and who is chiefly interesting to that part of an audience which likes to be called upon to sympathize with virtue in distress, and to have its curiosity excited by seeing a nobleman in the disguise of a beggar. JEdgar per- forms, however, a very useful function as a provoca- tive to the half -insane sententiousness of Lear in the hovel and at the farm-house (Act III. Sc. 4 and 6), and as a means to help the progress of the play and to bring it to a close. He is a very good young man ; but, like many other good young men, he is not inter- esting in himself ; he is only the occasion of our in- terest in others. The drama neither rests upon him, nor is moved by him ; and yet without him it would halt. Among all the personages of the tragedy who take a sufficient part in the action to fill any space in the mind's eye of the reader, or to dwell in his memory, Edgar is the only one whose character and conduct are entirely beyond reproach. For in this play, in which from its first scene to its last our minds are kept upon the stretch of tense anxiety, the people whose hopes and fears we share and whose woes pierce us with a personal pang are no model men and women. Strength and weakness, good and ill, even nobility and meanness, appear in them side by side, mingled in varying proportions. Like Lear's hand, they all smell of mortality. Some, indeed, as Edmund, Goneril, and Regan, are mere reptiles or wild beasts in human form, and yet even these are not allowed to go entirely without our sympathy ; but the best of them, Cordelia, is infected with a vice of soul which taints her whole being, until it is purged thence by the sorrow with which it floods her loving heart. 220 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. The first scene shows us, as I have said, the char- acters of all these personages with more or less com- pleteness. The very first sentence, Kent's speech, " I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Al- bany than Cornwall," shows us that Lear had the gift to know men, as the subsequent conduct of Albany and Cornwall proves. Gloucester's second speech, in regard to his bastard son and that son's mother, reveals his weakness, the sin which doth most easily beset him, and no less the frankness of his nature, his boldness in assuming the responsibility of his acts, his capacity of love and confidence. Lear comes in, and instantly dominates the scene; somewhat because of his royalty of station, but far more because of his majesty of person and of bearing. At once his grand figure casts a shadow that lies all along his life to its dark end. We readers of Shakespeare know that end ; but did we not know it, could we fail to see, or at least to apprehend, what must be the end when that haughty heart, as loving as a woman's and as weakly exacting, not content with love shown in life, but craving assurance of it in flattering words, strips itself of the fact of royalty, and, hoping to retain the semblance, lays itself down unshielded by a crown before the claws and fangs of Goneril and Regan, those she-monsters of a dark and monster-bearing age ? The man who detected the superior nature of Albany in the two suitors who were recommending themselves to his favor, and who yet could be wilfully blind to the cruelty and selfishness of their wives because they were his daughters, and who could turn in wrath upon his little favorite, his last and least, and disinherit her because she did not pour out in fulsome words the love which he knew she bore him, ethically deserved an end KING LEAR. 221 of grief, and was psychologically a fit subject of in- sanity. And by what marvellous untraceable touch of art is it that Shakespeare has conveyed to us that Lear, in his casting off Cordelia, is half conscious all the while that he is doing wrong ? The intuitive per- ception of the fitness of such a man to be the central figure in such a tragedy as this, and of the moral righteousness of the afflictions which he lays upon him and the sad inevitableness of the end to which he brings him, is a manifestation of Shakespeare's dra- matic genius hardly less impressive than his execution of the work itself. *[ Lear, although of a kindly, loving nature, and in certain aspects very grand and noble, is yet largely capable of a very mean passion, revenge, the basest of the three passions the others being pride, and its offspring jealousy which cause the chief misery of . human life, llevenge says not to the wrongdoer, v You shall do me right, you shall make restoration; those are the words of justice ; but, I have suffered, and therefore I wish you to suffer. I will pray in my heart, if not with my tongue, that you may suffer, and if I have my opportunity I will make you suffer at my own hand, although I know that this will do nothing to right the wrong that you have done. This is revenge. Lear, stung by the ingratitude of Goneril, prays openly, and manifestly prays with his whole heart, that she may undergo all the sorrow and pain that can be borne by woman. It is frightful to hear this old man, in the revulsion of feeling, imprecate misery illimitable upon his own daughter. He prays in general terms for inexpressible anguish to fall upon her ; he prays for particular ills and pains with hor- rible and almost loathsome specification : 222 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall On her ingrateful top ! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, with lameness ! Act II. Sc. 4. He has before this poured out the gall of his bitterness upon Goneril herself in what is usually called his curse. But it is not a curse ; it is a prayer, a passionate plea to the powers of nature that they will inflict upon her the extreinest agony of soul that can be felt by woman. He asks that it may come in all its complete- ness ; he omits nothing, not even the laughter and con- tempt that women feel so much more keenly than men do. The prayer would shock and revolt the whole world, were it not that it closes with those lines that cause sympathy to flash like a flame from the hearts of all born of woman : That she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child ! Act I. Sc. 4. And he deliberately threatens revenge, if we may say that after Goneril's treatment of him he does anything deliberately : No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both That all the world shall I will do such things What they are yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth. Act II. Sc. 4. Poor raving, impotent threatener, menacing others with nameless terrors ; himself condemned to suffer the extremity of grief as the consequence of his own folly, and to die with just enough intellect to know the utterness of his misery ! His very insanity, or the exciting cause of his in- sanity, Lear brings upon himself. For he is not driven out into the storm, or driven out at all ; al- KING LEAR. 223 though he speaks, and leads others to speak, as if he were, and such has consequently been the general ver- dict. But after his threat, without one word from Regan or from Cornwall, he rushes into the open, and himself seeks in the storm what is at first a grateful and sympathetic companionship of turbulence (Act III. Sc. 2). Regan will not have any of his hundred knights, but she will take him. Detestable as she and her husband are in their stony, cruel selfishness, we feel that so far as the King's action is concerned, there is some reason in what they say when he turns his back upon them and shelter : Corn. Let us withdraw; 't will be a storm. Meg. The house is little : the old man and 's people Cannot be well bestow' d. Corn. 'Tis his own blame; ' hath put himself from rest And must needs taste his folly. Reg. For his particular, I 'II receive him gladly. But not one follower. Act II. Sc. 4. Shakespeare meant that this should be considered, and also intentionally made Lear by exaggeration misrep- resent his treatment. And this brings to mind that, except with childish or unthinking readers, the two elder sisters are at first not altogether without reason for the conduct at which he rages himself into frenzy. His proposed sojourn with them alternately, accompanied by a retinue of a hundred knights, was inherently sure to breed confu- sion and disturbance. Malicious art could not have devised a plan better fitted to bring itself to an end in turmoil and exasperation. It is with some sympa- thy with Goneril that every man or woman of family experience hears her complaint about the throng of men, " so disordered, so debosh'd and bold," that they made her castle " seem like a riotous inn." We know 224 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. that it could not have been otherwise. And yet her father at once breaks forth, " Darkness and devils ! Saddle my horses ! " There is no justification of Lear's conduct, hardly any excuse for it, up to the time when he rushes out into the storm. He was not insane ; he had not even begun to be insane before that time ; and after that time we may almost say that he seeks madness. In the fury of his wrath as an offended king, and of his mor- bid grief as an outraged father, his intellect commits a sort of suicide. As other men throw themselves into the water, he throws himself into the storm, hoping to find oblivion in the counter-irritation of its severity. The robustness of his frame and the strength of his will sustain him for a while ; and it is his old brain which first gives way, as he felt that it would, and yet was reckless of the danger. From the time when Lear first shows signs of break- ing down, which is in the scene before the hovel (Act III. Sc. 4), where he meets Edgar disguised as poor Tom, I abandon all attempt to follow the gradual yet rapid ruin of his mind, which, like some strong and stately building sapped at its foundation, first cracks and crumbles, then yawns apart, and rushes headlong down, scattering its not yet quite dismembered beau- ties into confused heaps ; leaving some of them stand- ing in all their majesty, with their riven interiors baldly exposed to view. Others (but I know them not) may have the words in which to picture this de- struction; but I confess that I have not, except in the futile way of recording the quickly succeeding stages of the catastrophe and cataloguing the items of the ruins. From this point the action of Lear's mind may be KING LEAR. 225 apprehended, may even be comprehended, but to any good purpose, it seems to me, neither analyzed nor de- scribed. I can only contemplate it in silence, fasci- nated by its awf ulness and by what all must feel to be its truth. For the strange inexplicable power of this sad spectacle is that we who have not been insane like Lear, although like him we may have been foolish and headstrong, yet know that here is a true representa- tion of the wreck of a strong nature, which has not fallen into decay, but has been rent into fragments. In the preceding scene Lear is not insane. The speech beginning, Let the great gods That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads Find out their enemies now, merely shows the tension of a mind strained to the last pitch of possible endurance, like a string upon a mu- sical instrument which is stretched to the very point of breaking. But the string is not yet broken ; the instrument is still in tune. These words at the close of the speech, I am a man More sinned against than sinning, show that the speaker is still capable of a logical de- fence of his own actions ; and his next utterance, " My wits begin to turn," is evidence that they have not yet turned. Men who are insane believe that they alone are reasonable ; and when Lear at last is crazed he makes no allusion to the condition of his intellect. When, at the end of this act, he returns to the feeble semblance of himself, in that pathetic passage in which he recognizes Cordelia, he says, " I fear I am not in my perfect mind," a sure sign that his mind, al- though at once senile and childish, is no longer dis- tracted. 15 226 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. After this he sinks rapidly ; but in his speech to Cordelia, when they are brought in prisoners, in which he says that they will sing in prison " like birds in a cage," and " laugh at gilded butterflies," he has not be- come again insane. The tone of his mind has gone ; he has passed even the pride of manliness, and has fallen to a point at which he can look upon the rem- nants of his former self without anger, and even with a gentle pity. Of all the creations of dramatic art this is the most marvellous. Art it must be, and yet art inexplicable. We might rather believe that Shake- speare, when he was writing these scenes, could say in Milton's phrase, Myself am Lear. Strangest, per- haps, of all is the sustained royalty of Lear's madness. For Lear, mad or sane, is always kingly. His very faults are those of a good-natured tyrant ; and in his darkest hours his wrongs sit crowned and robed upon a throne. In looking upon his disintegrated mind, it is no common structure that we see cast down ; it is a palace that lies before our eyes in ruins, a palace, with all its splendor, its garniture of sweet and deli- cate beauty, and its royal and imposing arrogance of build. To us of the present day who have a just apprecia- tion of " King Lear " it is unactable, as Lamb has said already. It stands upon too lofty a plane ; its emo- tions are too mountainous to be within the reach of mimic art. The efforts of actors of flesh and blood to represent it are as futile as the attempts of the stage carpenter to represent that tempest with the rattling of his sheet-iron and the rumble of his cannon-balls. Nor has there been any actor in modern days who united in himself the person and the art required for the presentation of our ideal of King Lear. Gar- KING LEAR. 227 rick was too small ; Kean too fiery and gypsy-like ; Kemble was physically fit for it, but too cold and ar- tificial. As to any of the later actors, it is needless to describe the unfitness which they themselves have so ably illustrated. Lear's daughters form a trio that live in our minds like three figures of the old mythology. My own ac- quaintance with " King Lear " began at a time when fairy stories had not lost their interest for me, if indeed they have lost it, or will ever lose it, and I associated Cordelia and her sisters with Cinderella and her sisters, and the likeness still lingers with me. Perhaps there is no other similarity than the cruel selfishness of the two elder women and the sweet and tender beauty of the youngest in both stories. And Cordelia, with all her gentle loveliness and charm, the influence of which pervades the play as the perfume of a hidden lily of the valley pervades the surround- ing air, had one great fault, which is the spring of all the woes of this most woful of all tragedies. That fault was pride, the passion which led to the first re- corded murder. Her pride revolted when she saw her royal father accept the oblation of her sisters' false-hearted flattery ; and she shrank from laying down the offering of her true affection upon the altar which she felt they had profaned. When, like Cain, she saw that her sacrifice was rejected, she let her pride come between her and the father whom she so fondly loved. It was her pride and her determina- tion to subdue her rivals, as much as her filial affec- tion, that led her to invade her country with a foreign army, to restore him to his throne. And with her pride went its often attendant, a propensity to satire, the unloveliest trait that can mar a lovely woman's character. 228 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. When, in the first scene, she demurely says, The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes Cordelia leaves you : I know you what you are, etc., we feel that it is sharply said, but also that it might better have been left unsaid ; and we sympathize a little with Regan in her retort, " Prescribe not us our duties," and with Goneril in hers, that Cordelia may now best turn her attention to pleasing the husband who has received her " at fortune's alms." Plutarch tells us rightly that ill deeds are forgiven sooner than sharp words. But it must be admitted that Cordelia's pride stands her in good stead when, in Hudson's happy phrase, " she so promptly switches off her hig- gling suitor " with Peace be with Burgundy ; Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife. But her pride and her speech to her sisters helped to destroy her father, and to put a halter round her own neck. Edmund suggests lago ; but, with other minor differ- ences, differences of person and of manner, there is this great unlikeness between them : Edmund is not spontaneously vile. His baseness and cruelty have an origin not only comprehensible, but with the bonds of a certain sort of sympathy. It was not his fault that he was illegitimate. He was no less his father's son than Edgar was ; and yet he found himself with a branded stigma upon his name. This is not even a palliation of his villainy ; but it is a motive for it that may be understood. If Edmund had been born in wedlock, he would still have been a bad man at heart ; but he might have lived a reputable life and have done little harm. There are more such reputable men than we suspect. As it is, he uses all his gifts KING LEAR. 229 of mind and of person to gain his selfish ends. He' has great ability and no scruples, absolutely none. When these qualities are combined, as in him they were combined with a fine person and attractive manners (and as they also were combined in lago), the resulting power for evil is incalculable, almost un- limited. Both the sisters feel Edmund's personal at- traction, and respect his courage and enterprising spirit ; and the astute Cornwall sees his ability, and says to him, " Natures of such deep trust we shall much need." He has a touch of man's nature in him that is absent in lago. He prizes the preference of women. When he is dying, slain by Edgar, and the bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in, he says, Yet Edmund was beloved ; The one the other poisoned for my sake, And after slew herself. Act V. Sc. 3. And, as if brought by this feminine influence, bad as it was, within the range of human affections, he in- stantly does all that he can to stay the execution of his sentence of death upon Lear and Cordelia. lago goes out, a cold-blooded, malignant villain to the last. And this suggests to me Shakespeare's effort to mitigate the horrors of that revolting scene in which Gloucester's eyes are torn out. The voice of humanity, otherwise stifled there, is heard in the speech and em- bodied in the action of the serving-man, who, with words that recall those of Kent to Lear in the first scene, breaks in upon his master, fights him, kills him, and is himself slain by the hand of Regan, an outburst of manhood which is a great relief. Al- though Shakespeare found the incident of the loss of Gloucester's eyes in the old story, and used it in a 230 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. way which illustrated at once the savage manners of the time in which his tragedy was supposed to be acted and the cruelty of Cornwall and Regan, he in- tuitively shrank from leaving the scene in its other- wise bare and brutal hideousness. One personage of importance remains who cannot be passed by unconsidered in an attempt to appre- ciate this drama. It needs hardly to be said that this is the Fool. What Shakespeare did not do, as well as what he did do, as a playwright has no better proof or illustration than in his Fools. He did not invent the personage ; he found it on the stage. Indeed he invented nothing ; he added nothing to the drama as he found it ; he made nothing, not even the story of one of his own plays ; he created nothing, save men and women, and Ariels and Calibans. What he did with the Fool was this. This personage is the result- ant compound of the Vice, a rude allegorical person- age constantly in the old Moral Plays, with the court jester. He was a venter of coarse and silly ribaldry, and a player of practical jokes. Only so far back as the time of Shakespeare's boyhood, the Fool's part was in most cases not written, and at the stage direc- tion, " Stultus loquitur " (the Fool speaks) he per- formed his function extempore; and thus he con- tinued to jape and to caper for the diversion of those who liked horse-play and ribaldry. But Shakespeare saw that the grinning toad had a jewel in his head, and touching him with his transforming pen shows him to us as he appears in " As You Like It," in "Twelfth Night," in All's Well that Ends Well," and last of all, and greatest, in " King Lear." In this tragedy the Fool rises to heroic proportions, as he must have risen to be in keeping with his sur- KING LEAR. 231 roundings. He has wisdom enough to stock a college of philosophers, wisdom which has come from long experience of the world without responsible relations to it. For plainly he and Lear have grown old to- gether. The king is much the older; but the Fool has the marks of time upon his face as well as upon his mind. They have been companions since he was a boy ; and Lear still calls him b'oy and lad, as he did when he first learned to look kindly upon his young, loving, half-distraught companion. The rela- tions between them have plainly a tenderness which, knowingly to both, is covered, but not hidden, by the grotesque surface of the Fool's official function. His whole soul is bound up in his love for Lear and for Cordelia. He would not set his life " at a pin's fee " to serve his master ; and when his young mistress goes to France he pines away for the sight of her. When the King feels the consequences of his headstrong folly, the Fool continues the satirical comment which he begins when he offers Kent his coxcomb. So might Touchstone have done ; but in a vein more cynical, colder, and without that undertone rather of sweet- ness than of sadness which tells us that this jester has a broken heart. About the middle of the play the Fool suddenly dis- appears, making, in reply to Lear's remark, " We '11 go to supper in the morning," the fitting rejoinder, 44 And I '11 go to bed at noon." Why does he not re- turn ? Clearly for this reason ; he remains with Lear during his insanity, to answer in antiphonic commen- tary the mad king's lofty ravings with his simple wit and homespun wisdom ; but after that time, when Lear sinks from frenzy into forlorn imbecility, the Fool's utterances would have jarred upon our ears. The 232 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. situation becomes too grandly pathetic to admit the presence of a jester, who, unless he is professional, is nothing. Even Shakespeare could not make sport with the great primal elements of woe. And so the poor Fool sought the little corner where he slept the last time functus officio. I see that in the last paragraph I am inconsistent ; attributing to Shakespeare, first, a deliberate artistic purpose, and then, with regard to the same object, a dramatic conception, the offspring of sentiment. Let the inconsistency stand ; it becomes him of whom it is spoken. Shakespeare was mightily taken hold of by these creatures of his imagination, and they did be- fore his eyes what he did not at first intend that they should do. True, his will was absolute over his genius, which was subject to him, not he to it ; but like a wizard he was sometimes obsessed by the spirits which he had willingly called up. In none of his dramas is this attitude of their author so manifest as in this, the largest in conception, noblest in design, richest in sub- stance, and highest in finish of all his works, and which, had he written it alone (if we can suppose the exist- ence of such a sole production), would have set him before all succeeding generations, the miracle of time. STAGE ROSALINDS. MOST readers of Shakespeare have a very clear ideal of Rosalind. They may be in doubt as to the physi- cal and mental traits of others of his women, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Portia, or even Juliet; but the heroine of " As You Like It " lives in their eyes as well as in their hearts and minds, a very firmly and deeply engraven personage. This is partly because Shakespeare himself has done so much more to help us in forming a conception of Rosalind than he has done in regard to any other of his women, except Imo- gen. For it is worthy of special remark that he has given us hardly a hint as to his own idea of the per- sonal appearance, or even of the mental and moral constitution, of these prominent figures of his dramatis personcB. We are left to make all this out for our- selves from their actions and their words, or from the impression which they make upon those by whom he has surrounded them. This, indeed, is the dramatic way. As the dramatist never speaks in his own per- son, he must needs describe by the lips of others ; but those others are beings of his own creation, and he can make them say what he pleases, the one about the others. It would seem, then, that a poet could hardly fail to delight his own sense of beauty by putting into the mouth of some of his personages descriptions of the charms of the women around whom centres so 234 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. much of the interest of mimic life upon the stage ; that he would, as fitly he might, at least cause his lovers to tell us something of the womanly beauty and the womanly charm by which they have been en- thralled. Many dramatists have done this, but not Shake- speare. He was content to show us his women as they lived, and loved, and suffered, and came at last to joy in their love, or to grief, one of them, in her ambi- tion. And it would seem that he did this simply be- cause he did not care to do otherwise ; because he had not himself any very precise conception as to particu- lar details of person, or even of character, as to most of his women. He took an old play, or an old story, the incidents of which he thought would interest a mixed audience, and this he worked over into a new dramatic form, making it, quite unconsciously, and al- together without purpose, scene by scene and line by line, immortal by his psychological insight and the magic of his style. If the action marched on well, and the personages and the situations were interesting, he was content ; and he concentrated such effort as he made making very little, for he wrote his plays with a heedless ease which is without a parallel in the his- tory of literature upon the scene immediately in hand, without much thought as to what had gone be- fore or what was to come after. That was determined for him mostly by the story or the play which he had chosen to work upon ; and the splendid whole which he sometimes, but not always, made, was the unpre- meditated and, I am sure, the almost unconscious re- sult of an inborn instinct of dramatic effect of the highest kind, and an intuitive perception of what would touch the soul and stir the blood of common STAGE ROSALINDS. 235 healthy human nature. These were his only motives, his only purposes. For all that we know of his life and of his dramatic career leaves no room for doubt that, if his public had preferred it, he would have written thirty-seven plays like " Titus Andronicus " just as readily, although not just as willingly, as he wrote "As You Like It," " King Lear," "Hamlet," and " Othello." Therefore it was to return to our first point that he did not trouble himself to paint us portraits of his heroines. That he should do so was not down on his dramatic brief : his audiences were interested, and therefore he was interested, chief- ly, if not only, in the story that was to be set forth in action. How bare his dramas are of personal description will hardly be believed by those who have not read them carefully, with an eye to this particular. He shows us, as I have remarked before, the effect which his personages produced upon each other ; but he says very little of the means by which the effect was pro- duced ; and this is more remarkable as to his women than as to his men, because we naturally expect in a poet or a novelist a greater interest in the personal at- tractions of women. But Shakespeare passes all this by in generalities. Romeo says tha,t Juliet's beauty 44 teaches the torches to burn bright " that it " hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear ; " the love-sick Duke in " Twelfth Night " says that Olivia was so beautiful that he " thought she purged the air of pestilence : " but neither of these enamored men says a word, or drops a hint, to tell us whether these wondrous women were fair or dark, or tall or short, whether they were formed like fairies or like the Venus of Melos. Of Portia we know, by a chance 236 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. line, that she was golden-haired ; but it is by no means certain that even this touch of personal description was not suggested by the auri sacra fames of the for- tune-hunting adventurer who wins the beautiful heir- ess rather than by the desire to give a touch of color to the picture of the heroine. 1 It is only when Shakespeare comes to paint the love- liest and most perfect of all his women, Imogen, who indeed seems to have been both his idol and his ideal, that he describes the beauty of which Leonatus is the hardly deserving possessor. And yet, even here again, it is by no means certain that his unwonted particularity in this respect is not the mere conse- quence of the peculiar nature of the domestic story that is interwoven with the political drama of Cymbe- iine, King of Britain. Imogen's beauty must be described, because it is partly the occasion of the wager which is the spring of the love action of the drama ; because it impresses her unknown brothers ; and because some particular knowledge of it is ob- tained by the villain of the play, " the yellow la- chimo," and is descanted on by him as proof of his boasted success in his assault upon her chastity. Rosalind's beauty was different from Imogen's; more splendid and impressive, if perhaps less tender and cherubic. Unless I am in error, we all think of Imogen as rather a little below than above the stand- ard height of woman's stature. Rosalind was notably tall ; a girl who at middle age would become magnifi- cent. She was fair, with dark lustrous hair, and eyes perhaps blue, gray, or perhaps black, according as the 1 And her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece ; Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her. Act I. Sc. 1. STAGE ROSALINDS. 237 man who thinks of her has eyes black, brown, or blue ; but I am pretty sure that they were of that dark olive green which has all the potentiality of both blue and black, and which is apt to accompany natures which combine all the sensuous and mental charms that are possible in woman. She was of a robust yet firm and elastic rather than robust physical and moral nature ; her vigor and her spring being, nevertheless, tempered by a delicacy of rare fineness, which had its source in sentiment, sentiment equally tender and healthy. Such was the woman who is the central figure of the most charming ideal comedy in all dramatic literature. Shakespeare's plays were written with a single eye to their presentation on the stage. They attained with great distinction the objective point of their pro- duction. Their author, known to the world now as the greatest of poets, and the subtlest, profoundest, and truest observer of man and of the world, was known to the public of London in his own day chiefly as the most successful and popular of playwrights. His plays were performed to full houses, when those by the best of his fellow dramatists hardly paid the expenses of production. We may be sure that in writing them, and in superintending the placing them on the stage (which doubtless fell to his hands), he was undisturbed by that lofty ideal of signification and of character which now makes their worthy per- formance, for his most loving students and admirers, in some cases almost impossible. "King Lear," "Hamlet," "Antony and Cleopatra," "The Tem- pest," and we might almost say " Romeo and Juliet " are now lifted too high into the realms of fancy and imagination to be within the reach of any actor whose merely human voice rivals the dialogue " 'twixt his 238 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. stretched footing and the scaffoldage." The comedies are more within the reach of ordinary human en- deavor ; for comedy moves upon a lower plane, deals with commoner and humbler events of man's life ex- periences. But, among the comedies, some of the most charming involve in their proper presentation a perplexity which is of a purely physical nature. Con- spicuous among these are his two most beautiful works in ideal comedy, " As You Like It " and " Twelfth Night." The difficulty in question is caused by the fact that in these comedies the heroines appear during the greater part of the play in male attire ; and that not only do they go about before us dressed as men and acting as men, but appear to their lovers as men, and deceive them, almost from Enter to Exeunt. Of these plays, " As You Like It " presents the greatest difficulty of this kind, and with that we shall now chiefly concern ourselves. It is first to be said, however, that for this contriv- ance for the production of dramatic movement and the exciting of dramatic interest the author is not properly responsible. He found these incidents and these en- tanglements in the stories which he undertook to dramatize, and which he chose because they were already in favor with the public he sought to please. The masquerading of a young woman in man's attire was a favorite device with all the story-writers and play-writers of the sixteenth century, in whose works Shakespeare found the material for most of his dramas. l " As You Like It " is built out of the material of one of these stories ; rather, indeed, it is one of these stories made playable by Shakespeare's 1 Remark, for example, all the love tales told in the course of Don Quixote. STAGE ROSALINDS. 239 skill as a dramatist, and lifted by him unconsciously into the realms of immortality by his poetic uplook and his sweet and universal sympathy. Almost whether he would or would not, he was obliged to make his heroine go through her prolonged parade of sexual deception. And now to consider this in regard to its possibility : first, for Shakespeare's audience ; next, as the Scotch lassie wished her partner to consider love, " in the aibstract." Briefly, the case is this : Rosalind meets Orlando in the orchard of the Duke's palace, talks with him, sees him wrestle, talks with him again, falls in love with him, and captivates him by her beauty and her grace, and by that subtle emanation of her sex's power when moved by love which is one of its strongest and most enchaining influences. She leaves him so under the influence of her personality that, stirred by all these motives, and by the sympathy of such a woman in his moody and desperate condition, he loves her before they meet again. Within a few days they do meet in the Forest of Arden ; he in his proper person ; she in the person of a saucy young fellow, who is living a half -rural, half-hunter life on the edge of the Forest. There she encounters him on many occasions, during what must have been a con- siderable period of time, some ten days or a fortnight ; and there, also, she meets her father, the banished Duke, and Jaques, a cynical old gentleman, of much and not very clean worldly experience. By none of these persons is her sex suspected. She even whee- dles Orlando into playing, like child's play, that she is his Rosalind ; and all the while it never enters his head that this pretty, wayward, wilful, witty lad is the beautiful woman whose eyes and lips won him to 240 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. return the love that she had given him unasked. Now this is simply impossible ; absolutely impossible ; phys- ically impossible ; morally impossible ; outrageously impossible. It is an affront to common sense, a defi- ance to the evidence of our common senses ; impossible now, impossible then, impossible ever, unless under the conditions which Shakespeare prescribes for it, which conditions are violated by every Rosalind that I ever saw upon the stage, and most of all by the last of them, who not only erred in this respect with all her sisters, but who, among the many bad Rosalinds that I have seen, was indisputably the worst. 1 In judging of what Shakespeare did in " As You Like It," and other plays of similar construction, we must first of all take into consideration the conditions under which he wrote. The most important of these from our present point of view is that, in his day, there were no actresses upon the stage ; all women's parts, 3 r oung and old, were played by men. This was added to the marvel of his creation of enchanting womanhood, that he was writing those women's words for actors who had to be shaved before they were ready to go on with their parts. But in plays like " As You Like it " the complication was yet greater. There was a double inversion. His woman's 1 And yet this lady is singularly endowed with all the physical traits required for an ideal Rosalind. I would not publicly blazon her beau- ties and catalogue her charms ; nor on the other hand point with invid- ious finger at deficiencies and superfluities that make us wonder what must be the common standard of the country in which she, aspukherrima, bears off the golden apple. I shall only say that both above and below the waist, in its upper as well as its lower limbs, her figure is notably like that of a fine, well-grown lad; and that her face, even in the wonderful setting of the jewel eyes, which with the line of the nose is the finest part of it, might well be that of an uncommonly pretty young fellow of Anglo- Saxon or Anglo-Norman blood. STAGE ROSALINDS. 241 words, his self-revealing, almost self-creating woman's words, were to be spoken not only by a man pretend- ing to be a woman, but by a man pretending to be a woman who pretended to be a man. Shakespeare, however, was surely troubled by nothing of this. He struck right at the heart of things, and made his wo- man for us as she lived in his imagination. Whether Anne Page was to be presented by an Anne Page, or by a lubberly postmaster's boy, or whether she was not to be presented, it was quite the same to him. If he was to make her at all, he must make her as he did. To produce her thus was just as easy for him as for an inferior workman to turn out his clumsy creature, who might indeed be a postmaster's boy in petticoats. But so far as performance was concerned, or stage illusion, or whatever we may call that impression which we receive from the mimic life of the theatre, this performance of women's parts by young men was of the greatest importance when we come to consider the representation of female personages who assume the dress and the character of men. For in the first place, as it will be seen, the male guise was then not disguise. What the spectator saw before his eyes was actually a young man, who might or might not, upon occasion, assume certain feminine airs and graces with more or less success. And this physical fact was of the more importance, because in these plays, generally, the woman is disguised during the greater part of the performance, and takes on her woman's weeds again, if at all, only in the last scene. Nor does the reverse of the action present any diffi- culty at all equal to that which has been thus over- come. A handsome, smooth-faced young man, skilled in the actor's art, and disguised by wig and paint, 16 242 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. could very easily present a face to his audience which they would not think for a moment of doubting was that of a woman ; and when he was playing the wo- man scenes of his woman's part, all that was distinc- tively masculine in his person would be entirely con- cealed by his woman's dress. In his woman's scenes, his disguise would be so easy that to a skilled and practised actor they would present no difficulty that would give him a moment's trouble. This was even more the case in Shakespeare's day than it is now. For then the dress of a lady, with its high ruff, its stiff stomacher, and its huge farthingale, destroyed in every case all semblance to the lines of woman's figure as nature has bounteously vouchsafed it to us. No one can study the portraits of gentlewomen of the time of Elizabeth and James I. without seeing that the human creatures within that portentous raiment might just as well, for all their semblance to woman, be mas- culine as feminine. And if there had not been almost equal absurdity and extravagance in some parts of male costume of that day, the difficulty in this matter of disguise would have been rather in the acceptance of the pretending man as a woman in masquerade. For, referring to the impossibility above set forth that Rosalind could have been mistaken for a young man by her lover, we see that, even if her face were masked or hidden, and her dress revealed her woman's form as it does upon our stage, no man who had sufficient appreciation of a woman's beauty to deserve to possess it could be deceived in the sex of Ganymede for one .moment. That this is true will hardly be disputed by any woman ; certainly by no observant man. And yet it would seem as if the Rosalinds all of them laid STAGE ROSALINDS. 243 themselves out to defy both Shakespeare and common sense in this matter to the utmost of attainable pos- sibility. When they come before us as . Ganymede they dress themselves not only as no man or boy in England, but as no human creature within the narrow seas, was dressed in Shakespeare's time. Instead of a doublet, they don a kind of short tunic, girdled at the waist and hanging to the knee. They wear long stockings, generally of silk, imagining them to be hose, and ignorant, probably, that in Shakespeare's time there were not a dozen pair of silk hose in all England. Nevertheless they go about with nothing but tight silk stockings upon their legs, amid the un- derwood and brambles of the Forest of Arden. With some appreciation of this absurdity, one distinguished actress in this, part wears long buttoned gaiters, which are even more anachronistic than the silk stockings. Upon their heads they all of them, without exception, wear a sort of hat which was unknown to the mascu- line head in the days of Elizabeth and James, a low-crowned, broad - brimmed something, more like what is known to ladies of late years as a "Gains- borough " than anything else that has been named by milliners. If a man had appeared in the streets of London at that day in such a hat, he would have been hooted at by all the 'prentices in Eastcheap. There was not in all the Forest of Arden a wolf or a bear, of the slightest pretensions to fashion, that would not have howled at the sight of such a head-gear. Briefly, the Rosalinds of the stage are pretty, impossible mon- sters, unlike anything real that ever was seen, unlike anything that could have been accepted by their lovers for what they pretend to be, and particularly unlike that which Shakespeare intended that they should be. 244 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Let us see what Shakespeare did intend his Rosa- lind to be when she was in the Forest of Arden. And first, as we have already seen, he provided carefully for one important part of the illusion in making his heroine " more than common tall." He evidently con- ceived Rosalind as a large, fine girl, with a lithe, al- though vigorous and well-rounded figure. But when he sends her off with Celia, to walk through lonely country roads and outlaw-inhabited forest glades, he takes special care to leave us in no doubt as to the extent as well as the nature of her concealment, not only of her sex but of her personal comeliness. She reminds Celia that " beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold ; " and then they go into the particulars of their disguise in speeches, one part of which is al- ways cut out, amid the many curtailments to which this play is subjected for the stage. Celia says not only, " I '11 put myself in poor and mean attire," but also, "and with a kind of umber smirch my face." "The like do you," she adds to Rosalind; "so shall we pass along and never stir assailants." Plainly, when the young princesses set forth on their wild ad- venture, they did all that they could to conceal the feminine beauty of their faces. Celia puts herself in the dress of a woman of the lower classes. Rosalind assumes not merely the costume of a young man, but that of a martial youth, almost of a swashbuckler. She says that she will have " a swashing and a martial outside," as well as carry a boar-spear in her hand, and have a curtle-axe upon her thigh. And, by the way, it is amusing to see the literalness with which the stage Rosalinds take up the text, and rig them- selves out in conformity with their construction, or it may be the conventional stage construction, of it. STAGE ROSALINDS. 245 They carry, among other dangling fallals, a little axe in their belts, or strapped across their shoulders. But Rosalind's curtle-axe was merely a court-lasse, or cut- lass, or, in plain English, a short sword, which she should wear as any soldierly young fellow of the day would wear his sword. Thus, browned, and with her hair tied up in love- knots, after the fashion of the young military dandies of that time, with her boar-spear and her cutlass, she would yet have revealed her sex to any discrimi- nating masculine eye, had it not been for certain pe- culiarities of costume in Shakespeare's day. These were the doublet and the trunk-hose. Rosalind, in- stead of wearing a tunic or short gown, cut up to the knees, like the little old woman who " went to market her eggs for to sell " when she fell asleep by the king's highway, should wear the very garments that she talks so much about, and in which I never saw a Rosalind appear upon the stage. A doublet was a short jacket, with close sleeves, fitting tight to the body, and coming down only to the hip, or a very little below it. Of course its form varied somewhat with temporary fashion, and sometimes, indeed, it stopped at the waist. To this garment the hose (which were not stockings, but the whole covering for the leg from shoe to doublet) were attached by silken tags called points. But during the greater part of Shakespeare's life what were called trunk-hose were worn ; and these, being stuffed out about the hips and the upper part of the thigh with bombast, or what was called cotton-wool, entirely reversed the natural outline of man's figure between the waist and the middle of the thigh, and made it impossible to tell, so far as shape was con- cerned, whether the wearer was of the male or female 246 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. sex. Rosalind, by the doublet and hose that Shake- speare had in mind, and makes her mention as an out- side so very foreign to the woman nature that is within, would have concealed the womanliness of her figure o even more than by her umber she would have dark- ened, if not eclipsed, the beauty of her face. This concealment of forms, which would at once have be- trayed her both to father and lover, was perfected by a necessary part of her costume as a young man living a forest life : these were boots. An essential part of Rosalind's forest dress as Ganymede is loose boots of soft tawny leather, coming up not only over leg, but partly over thigh, and almost meeting the puffed and bombasted trunk-hose. To complete this costume in character, she should wear a coarse russet cloak, and a black felt hat with narrow brim and high and slightly conical crown, on the band of which she might put a short feather, and around it might twist a light gold chain or ribbon and medal. Thus disguised, Rosalind might indeed have defied her lover's eye or her father's. Thus arrayed, the stage Rosalind might win us to be- lieve that she was really deluding Orlando with the fancy that the soul of his mistress had migrated into the body of a page. This Rosalind might even meet the penetrating eye of that old sinner Jaques, experi- enced as he was in all the arts and deceits of men and women, in all climes and in all countries. With this Rosalind Phebe indeed might fall in love ; and a Phebe must love a man. Nor are the perfection of Rosalind's disguise and the concealment of her sex from the eyes of her com- panions important only in regard to her supposed rela- tions with them. It is essential to the development of her character, and even to the real significance of what STAGE ROSALINDS. 247 she says and does. The character of Rosalind plainly took shape in Shakespeare's mind from the situations in which he found her. The problem which he, in the making of an entertaining play, unconsciously solved was this : Given a woman in such situations, what manner of woman must she be to win the man she loves, to charm her friends, to defy respectfully her usurping uncle, and to bewilder, bewitch, and delight her lover, meeting him in the disguise of a man? And what sort of woman must she be to do all this with the respect, the admiration, and the sympathy of every man, and moreover of every woman, in the world that looks on from the other side of the foot- lights, which are the flaming barrier about that en- chanted ground, the Forest of Arden ? The woman that he made to do all this had, first of all, her large and bounteous personal beauty. But this, although a great step toward winning such wide admiration and sympathy, is but one step. It is hardly necessary to say that it is Rosalind's character, revealed under the extraordinary circumstances in which she is placed, that makes her the most charming, the most captivating, of all Shakespeare's women ; one only, the peerless Imogen, excepted. Now Rosalind's char- acter is composed mainly of three elements, too rarely found in harmonious combination: a proneness to love, which must plainly be called amorousness; a quickness of wit and a sense of humor which are the most uncommon intellectual traits of her sex; and combined with these, tempering them, elevating them, glorifying them, a certain quality which can only be called an intense womanliness, a muliebrity, which ra- diates from her and fills the air around her with the influence like a subtle and delicate but penetrating 248 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. perfume of her sex. Her distinctive quality, that which marks her off from all the rest of Shakespeare's women, is her sense of wit and humor, in combination with her womanliness. Others of his women, notably Viola and Imogen, are as loving, as tender, and as womanly. No other is witty and humorous and wo- manly too; for example, notably, Beatrice, who is very witty, but not very womanly, nor indeed very loving. Now the position in which Kosalind figures in the four acts which pass in the Forest of Arden brings out, as it would seem no other could bring out, her wittiness and her humorousness in direct relation to and combination with her sensitive, tender, and pas- sionful nature. Rosalind, for all her soft, sweet ap- prehensiveness and doubt about Orlando's value of that which she has given to him before he had shown that he desired it, enjoys the situation in which she is placed. She sees the fun of it, as Celia, for example, hardly sees it ; and she relishes it with the keenest ap. petite. If that situation is not emphasized for the spectators of her little mysterious mask of love by what is, for them, the absolute and perfectly probable and natural deception of Orlando, Rosalind lacks the very reason of her being. To enjoy what she does and what she is, to give her our fullest sympathy^ we must not be called upon to make believe very hard that Orlando does not see she is the woman that he loves ; while at the same time we must see that he feels that around this saucy lad there is floating a mysterious atmosphere of tenderness, of enchanting fancy, and of a most delicate sensitiveness. More- over, we must see that Rosalind herself is at rest about her incognito, and that she can say her tender, STAGE ROSALINDS. 249 witty, boy-masked sayings undisturbed by the least consciousness that Orlando's eyes can see through the doublet and hose, which at once become her first con- cern, her instant thought, when she is told plainly that he is in the Forest of Arden. The perfection of her disguise is thus essential to the higher purpose of the comedy. Rosalind was fair ; but after having seen her in her brilliant beauty at the court of her usurping uncle, we must be con- tent, as she was, to see it browned to the hue of forest exposure, and deprived of all the pretty coquetries of personal adornment which sit so well upon her sex, and to find in her, our very selves, the outward seem- ing of a somewhat overbold and soldierly young fel- low, who is living, half shepherd, half hunter, in wel- comed companionship with a band of gentlemanly outlaws. Unless all this is set very clearly and unmis- takably before us by the physical and merely exter- nal appearance of our heroine, there is an incon- gruity fatal to the idea of the comedy, and directly at variance with the clearly defined intentions of its writer. That incongruity always exists in a greater or less degree in the performance of all the Rosalinds of the stage. I can make no exception. In case of the best Rosalinds I have ever seen, the supposition that Orlando was deceived, or that any other man could be deceived, in the sex of Ganymede was absurd, pre- posterous. They all dress the page in such a way, they all play the page in such a way, that his woman- hood is salient. It looks from his eye, it is spoken from his lips, just as plainly as it is revealed by his walk and by the shape and action of the things he walks with. That they should dress the part with 250 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. female coquetry is, if not laudable, at least admissible, excusable. The highest sense of art is perhaps not powerful enough to lead a woman to lay aside, before assembled hundreds, all the graces peculiar to her sex ; but surely no artist, who at this stage of the world's appreciation of Shakespeare ventures to undertake the representation of this character, ought to fail in an apprehension of its clearly and simply defined exter- nal traits, or in the action by which those traits are revealed. It is the function of comedy to present an ideal of human life in a lightly satirical and amusing form. A comedy without wit, without humor, without the occasion of laughter, not necessarily boisterous, nor even hearty, fails as a comedy, although it may not be without interest as a drama. " As You Like It " is supremely successful in this respect. It does not provoke loud laughter ; I believe that I never heard a " house laugh " at any performance of it at which I was present ; but during its last four acts we listen to it with gently smiling hearts. It is filled with the atmosphere of dainty fun. Rosalind herself enjoys the fun of her strange position ; she delights in her own humorous sallies almost, if not quite, as much as Falstaff revels in his. She is divided between the pleasure which she derives from the mystification of Orlando and the sweet trouble of her desire to make sure of his love. Now this peculiar trait of her character cannot be fully developed unless she carries out to the utmost extreme her assumption of manhood, while she is in Orlando's company. To him she must indeed seem as if she had " a doublet and hose in her disposition." She must not lift a corner even of her mental gar- STAGE ROSALINDS. 251 ments, to show him the woman's heart that is trem- bling underneath. She wheedles him into making love to her (by a contrivance somewhat transparent to us, it is true, but not so easily seen through by him, and which, at any rate, must be accepted as a necessary condition of the action of the play), but the slightest attempt at open love-making to him on her part is ruinous ; it destroys at once the humor and even the charm of the situation. We see at once that it would have startled Orlando, and opened his eyes very wide indeed. And yet she must show us, who are in her secret, all the time "how many fathom deep she is in love." That outbreak of tender anxiety when she suddenly asks him, " But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?" reveals everything to us, who know everything already ; but to Orlando it is a very simple and natural question. He need not understand the sad, sweet earnestness of the in- quiry. True, indeed, she does with woman's art con- trive in some mysterious way that Orlando shall kiss the youth whom he in sport doth call his Rosalind, which, because of the kissing customs of those days, she might bring about more easily and safely than she could now. But Shakespeare is wisely content to let us know by her own sweet well-kissed lips, that this act of her vicarious love-making has been duly and repeatedly performed. It takes place in secret, in some of those interviews which he did not venture to set before our eyes, so instinctively cautious was he not to break down the illusion which is the very heart and centre of this delightful work of dramatic art. Incongruity is an essential element of the ridicu- lous ; and the humor of the action of the play (apart from its words) consists in the constantly presented 252 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. inconsistency between Rosalind's external appearance and her inward feeling. She must seem to Orlando, and she must seem to us (although we know to the contrary) to be a young man, or we lose the humor of half that she says and does, which she herself enjoys with a zest quite as great as ours. This trait of her character, mentioned before, cannot be too strongly insisted upon. It is shown in her answer to her father (which she tells to Celia), who asked her of what parentage she was. " I told him," she replies, "of as good as he." Now Rosalind took great de- light in thus "chaffing" her own father. The ab- surdity of the situation, the preposterousness of the question from him to her, and the humor of her answer made her eyes dance with pleasure. Viola and Imogen wore their doublets and hose with a differ- ence. For these reasons the complete disguise of Rosa- lind, her absolute sinking of her feminine personality, is of the utmost importance in the effective repre- sentation of this play. Must I say, however, that this matter of external seeming, although of unusual moment and significance, is but the mere material con- dition and starting-point of the action, which reveals to us the soul and mind of this captivating woman, in whom tenderness and archness, passion and purity, are ever striving with each other, and whose wit and way- wardness are ever controlled in the end by innate modesty? And by modesty I do not mean either chastity or shame ; which I say, because the three things are by so many people strangely and injuriously confounded. Rosalind, we may be sure, was chaste ; Orlando had no cause of trouble on that score. But as an ideal woman, she was as far above the belittling STAGE ROSALINDS. 253 of common shame as a Greek goddess. But, besides her chastity, she was modest. Modesty is a grace- ful distrust of one's own value and importance, and h quite as frequently found in men as in women. AVomen thoroughly unchaste are not infrequently en- chantingly modest ; women as chaste as she-dragons (if she-dragons are particularly distinguished for this virtue) are often ungraciously immodest. And so it is with the inferior and conventionally limited sensation I cannot call it sentiment of shame. Women who are both unchaste and immodest have in many cases a shrinking bodily shame (determined mostly, if not absolutely, by the custom of their day), which is thoughtlessly lacking in some women of true purity and of the sweetest and most winning modesty of soul. To return to Rosalind. It will be found that, not- withstanding her readiness to put a man's clothes upon her body and a man's boldness over her heart, not- withstanding her very plain speech upon subjects which nowadays many a harlot would wince at, the real Rosalind, underneath that saucy, swaggering, booted-and-sworded outside, was sweetly modest ; and that, notwithstanding her birth and her beauty, and the mental superiority of which she must have been conscious, she was doubting all the while whether she was worthy of the love of such a man as Orlando, and thinking with constant alarm of that more than half confession that she had made, unwooed, to him upon the wrestling-ground. The absolute incongruity be- tween the real Rosalind and the seeming Ganymede is the very essence of the comedy of her situation. One example of this, which I have never seen properly em- phasized upon the stage : v At the end of the first in- 254 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. terview with Orlando in the Forest, after she has wheedled him into wooing her as Kosalind, she asks him to go with her to her cot. Itos. Go with me to it, and I '11 show it to you : and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you goV Orl. With all my heart, good youth. Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? Act III. Sc. 2. Now here most Kosalind s go shyly off with Celia, and leave Orlando to come dangling after them ; but when I read this passage I see Ganymede jauntily slip his arm into Orlando's, and lead him off, laughingly lecturing him about the name ; then turn his head over his shoulder, and say, " Come, sister ! " leav- ing Celia astounded at the boundless " cheek " of her enamored cousin. 1 Kosalind, poor girl, with all her strength and elas- ticity, is not always able to stand up firmly against the flood of emotion which pours over her heart. For example, after the mock marriage, her doubts again be- gin to overwhelm her, and she asks Orlando how long he would have her ; a question which her situation makes touchingly pathetic. (This cry of woman for love ! It would be ridiculous, if it were not so sadly, piteously earnest, amid all its pretty sweetness.) And then the doubting, half-made bride, looking forward, in love man thinks only of the present, woman is always looking forward ; for love makes her future, utters that sad little bit of commonplace generality about man's wearying of the woman he has won and 1 I have used the words " cheek " and "chaff," in connection with Ros- alind, because they convey to us of this day the nature of her goings-on as no other words would: and Shakespeare himself, who always treats slang respectfully, although he contemns and despises cant, would be the first to pardon me. STAGE ROSALINDS. 255 has possessed, thinking, plainly, all the while of her- self and what may come to her ; when suddenly, rec- ollecting her part, and that she is in danger of show- ing what she really is, she breaks sharply off, and with rapid raillery and shrewish accent she pours out upon him that mock threat, beginning, " I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen." And again in this scene, when Orlando parts from her, and promises to return in two hours, her badinage wavers very doubtfully between jest and ear- nest, between humor and sentiment ; but she catches herself before she falls, and beginning, " By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me," and so forth, again takes refuge in exaggerated menaces of her coming displeasure. All this is charming, even when but tolerably well set forth, and by such Rosalinds as we customarily see upon the stage ; but how much it usually falls short of the effect which Shakespeare imagined can be known only to those who can see that in the mind's eye, or who shall see it, some time, in reality. On the other hand, our stage Rosalinds are not wo- manly enough when they are out of sight of Orlando and of other men ; when, indeed, from reaction and relaxed nerves, they should be womanly even unto womanishness. When Rosalind is with Celia she is the more woman-like of the two ; the more capricious, sensitive, tender, passionf ul, apprehensive. It is Celia, then, who, after her mild fashion, assumes the wit and the female cynic. But our stage Rosalinds give us a lukewarm rendering of both phases of the behavior of the real Rosalind. They offer us one epicene mon- ster, instead of two natural creatures. They are too woman-like when they are with Orlando, and too man- 256 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. like when they are with Celia. And when is it that we have seen a stage Rosalind that showed us what the Rosalind of our imagination felt at the sight of the bloody handkerchief ? I never saw but one : Mrs. Charles Kean. The last that I saw behaved much as if Oliver had shown her a beetle, which she feared might fly upon her ; and in the end she turned and clung to Celia's shoulder. But as Oliver tells his story the blood of the real Rosalind runs curdling from her brain to her heart, and she swoons away, falls like one dead, to be caught by the wondering Oliver. Few words are spoken, because few are needed ; but this swoon is no brief incident ; and Rosalind recovers only to be led off by the aid of Oliver and Celia. And here the girl again makes an attempt to assert her manhood. She insists that she counterfeited, and re- peats her assertion. Then here again the stage Rosa- linds all fail to present her as she is. They say " coun- terfeit " with at least some trace of a sly smile, and as if they did not quite expect or wholly desire Oliver to believe them. But Rosalind was in sad and grievous earnest. Never word that she uttered was more sober and serious than her " counterfeit I assure you." And the fun of the situation, which is never absent in " As You Like It," consists in the complex of incongruity, the absurdity of a young swashbuckler's fainting at the sight of a bloody handkerchief, the absurdity of Rosalind's protest that her swoon and deadly horror were counterfeit, combining with our knowledge of the truth of the whole matter. All this may be very true, our gently smiling man- ager replies ; but do you suppose that you are going to get any actress to brown her face and rig herself up so that she will actually look like a young huntsman, STAGE ROSALINDS. 257 and play her part so that a man might unsuspectingly take her for another man ? O most verdant critic, do you not know why it is that actresses come before the public ? It is for two reasons, of which it would be hard to say which is the more potent : to have the pub- lic delight in them, and to get money. It is in them- selves personally that they wish to interest their audi- ences, not in their author or his creations ; those furnish but the means and the occasion of accomplishing the former. Hence it is that in all modern plays, in all (practically) that have been written since actresses came upon the stage, the women's parts must be at- tractive. We cannot ask an actress under fifty years of age to (in stage phrase) " play against the house." Above all, we cannot ask an actress of less than those years to put herself, as a woman, before the house in anything but an attractive form. She must have an opportunity to exhibit herself and her " toilettes ; " especially both, but particularly the latter. And, O most priggish and carping critic, with your musty no- tions about what Shakespeare meant, and such fusty folly, the public like it as it is. They care more to see a pretty woman, with a pretty figure, prancing saucily about the stage in silk-tights, and behaving like neither man nor woman, than they would to see a booted, doubletted, felt-hatted Rosalind, behaving now like a real man and now like a real woman. To which the critic replies, O most sapient and worldly wise manager, I know all that ; and, moreover, that it is the reason why, instead of a Rosalind of Shakespeare's making, we have that hybrid thing, the stage Rosalind. 17 ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. THE civil war which ended by placing the Puritans in power, and making Oliver Cromwell King of Eng- land under the name of Lord Protector, had for one of its consequences a solution of dramatic continuity which is of great importance in the history of the English theatre. The glories of the Elizabethan drama, indeed, had faded away rapidly during tho reign of Charles I., having begun to wane in the later years of his father. It was in the traditions of the stage that the break was so sudden and so complete. In 1642 the Elizabethan school of acting came to an end with the compulsory closing of the theatres ; and although only eighteen years elapsed before they were reopened, in that time not only had all the old school of actors passed away, but with them had disappeared the taste which they had formed. At the return of Charles II. the theatres were reopened ; but the old English drama was not revived. Shakespeare's plays, Beaumont and Fletcher's, Jonson's, were not per- formed. A new drama appeared in England, that known as the drama of the Restoration, a base thing, witty but flimsy, and as devoid of real humor as of serious strength ; and with it came a new school of acting. Consequently, when, after many years of smut and smirk, Shakespeare's plays began to be per- formed again, the actors were thrown wholly upon ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 259 their own resources ; they were without any guide to the conception of his characters. Their predecessors before the Commonwealth had the benefit of tradi- tions which came, during an interval of little more than twenty-five years, directly down from Shakespeare himself, and which, but for that great political and social upturning of England, would have remained unbroken to the present day. The new school of actors were obliged, in theatrical phrase, to " create " the Shakespearean characters anew, without the guid- ance of the dramatist, who in almost all cases, it need hardly be said, has a formative influence upon the first presentation of his personages to the public. Hence there was a great loss to the world ; for the traditions of the stage are among the most enduring of immaterial things. How enduring they are, even as to minute points, is shown by evidence which is clear and unmistakable in regard to a trifling piece of stage " business " in " Hamlet." In the scene of that tragedy in which the imagined appearance of the Ghost interrupts the interview between Hamlet and his mother, it was the modern custom, until very lately, for the Prince to spring from his seat with such vio- lence as to throw down the chair on which he was sit- ting. Now in 1709 Nicolas Rowe published the first edited collection of Shakespeare's plays ; and each play had a frontispiece illustrating one of its most conspicuous scenes. The frontispiece to "Hamlet" illustrates the scene in question, and shows us Hamlet in an enormous flowing wig, startled out of his pro- priety, and his chair flung down in the foreground. We thus see that even this little trick was handed down from actor to actor, and held its place upon the stage for more than a hundred and fifty years. In all 260 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. plays that have kept the stage for a long time there are traditional points not only like this, but of a more subtle and more important sort in regard both to char- acter and action, which, without affecting the indi- viduality of the principal actors, perpetuate certain traits and outlines of the visible play, and which we may be sure had more or less the approval of the author, many of them, doubtless, being of his sugges- tion. It is thus that Moliere's and Corneille's and Racine's dramas are performed at the Theatre Fran- c,ais. And but for the interruption caused by the civil war, and the success of the Puritans, we may be sure that we should have had Shakespeare's own no- tions of his personages handed down to us from actor to actor. For he was not only the author of his plays (although some folk will have it that they were writ- ten for him by Bacon), but an actor in them : he was on the stage, ready to give direction and suggestion to his brother actors who assumed the principal parts. The loss of these traditions is irreparable and deplorable. Among the personages of his dramas who have suf- fered by this loss, and who are presented as he did not conceive them, are Jaques in "As You Like It," and the Fool in " King Lear." There has been no greater affront to common sense than the usual presentation of this Fool upon the stage as a boy, except the putting a pretty woman into the part, dressed in such a way as to captivate the eye and divert the attention by the beauty of her figure. It is disturbing enough to see Ariel, sex- less, but, like the angels, rather masculine than femi- nine, represented by a woman dressed below the waist in an inverted gauze saucer, and above the waist in a perverted gauze nothing ; but to see Lear's Fool thus travestied is more amazing than Bottom's brutal trans- ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 261 lation was to his fellow actors. This Fool is a man of middle age, one who has watched the world and grown sad over it. His jesting has a touch of heart-break in it which is prevented from becoming pathetic only by the cynicism which pertains partly to his personal char- acter and partly to his office. He and Kent are about of an age Kent, who when asked his age, as he comes back disguised to his old master, says, " Not so young as fco love a woman for her singing, nor so old as to dote on her for anything ; I have years on my back forty- eight " a speech which contains one of the finest of Shakespeare's minor touches of worldly-wise character drawing. Jaques, as we see him on the stage, is a sentimental young man, who wanders about the Forest of Arden, mooning and maundering in a soft and almost silly way ; a sweet-voiced young fellow, with dark eyes and dark curls, who is pitiful of wounded stags, and given to moods of tender melancholy ; a moralizing dandy, whom the real Jaques would have made the butt of his ridicule. Shakespeare's Jaques is an elderly man of the world, a selfish, worn out, captious, crusty, clever cynic. In person he should be represented as a portly man of some sixty years of age, with gray in his beard, a head partly bald, and a constant sneer upon his lips. This view of his character has been generally accepted of late years by critics of Shake- speare, although no actor has had the hardihood to displace the traditionary young sentimentalist of the stage, and give us the elderly cynic that Shake- speare conceived and wrought out with his finest skill. The modern stage tradition as to Jaques had its origin at a time more than a hundred years after Shake- speare's death ~^- when. " _4 You Like It " began to 262 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. come upon the stage again, and when the word melan- choly had been narrowed in its significance. We may be sure that but for the civil war and the Puritans, tradition would have given us a Jaques of a very dif- ferent character. A much greater we cannot say grander or nobler conception of Shakespeare's has suffered in like manner from the interruption of the traditions of the Elizabethan stage. I mean lago. It cannot be that the lago of the modern stage is, either in external appearance or in his characteristic traits, the man who deceived and betrayed Desdemona, Cassio, and Othello. lago, as Shakespeare presents him to any careful and thoughtful student of the tragedy, is en- tirely unlike the coarse although crafty villain who has held possession of the stage from the time of the re- vival of the Shakespearean drama until the present day. The latter is a creature of conventional and theatrical traits of person and of action, whom Shake- speare would not have allowed to occupy the stage for a single scene. Most of the lagos that I have had the opportunity of observing I cannot say of study- ing, for they were of such rude making, were such mere animated human formulas, that they neither re- quired nor admitted study would not have deceived a school-girl. Desdemona would have been far be- yond their shallow scheming, and Othello would have brushed them out of the way with a back blow of his mailed hand. Even the best of them, although gifted and accomplished men, failed entirely to apprehend Shakespeare's ideal of this master villain of the world's literature. The worst lago probably that ever appeared was he who played " ancient " to the greatest of Othellos, Sal- ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 263 vini, on his first visit to the United States. Upon this lago Othello would have set his heel in their first in- terview and crushed him out of existence like a noisome venomous reptile, an insect ; for he had not the dignity of a vertebrate animal. And yet this actor merely presented in a very complete and much elabo- rated way the common stage conception of the evil genius of the great tragedy. That conception is a subtle, fawning, crawling hypocrite, who, for some not very apparent reason, wishes to do as much harm as he can, and who accomplishes his ends by unscrupu- lous lying of more or less ingenuity. The character of this personage rests upon the foundations of malice and hypocrisy ; and the object of those who represent him is to present an embodiment of malice and hy- pocrisy, pure and simple. The result is a very exag- gerated form of a very commonplace scoundrel. Sal- vini's ancient was quite perfect of his kind, and therefore attained the eminence of being the most in- sufferable and aggressively offensive lago that ever trod the stage. He managed- in dress and in carriage, as well as in face, so to advertise his malice, and above all his hypocrisy, that he was in very deed the most loathsome creature, morally and physically, that I ever looked upon. Such a caitiff lago was in soul, but not in seeming. Before going on to consider the various passages of the tragedy which indicate Shakespeare's conception of this personage hardly inferior to any of his cre- ations in its union of complexity and strength, and perhaps the most widely known of all of them as a type it may be well to describe the real lago, who, so far as my knowledge goes, has never been pre- sented on the modern stage. 264 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. lago was a young man, only twenty-eight years old, the youngest of all the men who figure in the tragedy, excepting, possibly, Roderigo. He says of himself that he has looked upon the world for four times seven years. Brave, and a good soldier, he was also of that order of ability which lifts a man speedily above his fellows. His manners and his guise were of a dash- ing military sort ; and his manner had a corre- sponding bluntness, tempered, at times, by tact to a warm-hearted effusiveness, by the very tact which prompted the bluntness. For that, although not ex- actly assumed, was consciously adopted. Nevertheless, he had little spontaneous malice in his composition ; and unless for some good reason he would rather serve than injure those around him. He made him- self liked by all, and was regarded not only as a man of great ability in his profession and of sagacity in affairs, but as a warm-hearted, " whole-souled " man, and the very prince of good fellows. Being all this, and being genial and sympathetic, he was eminently popular. He was, moreover, a heartless, selfish, cold- blooded, unprincipled, and utterly unscrupulous scoun- drel. It was because he was this manner of man that he was able to work that woeful ruin in which the love of Othello and Desdemona ends, a ruin which in its extremity, however, he did not plan, and did not at first desire. In fact, he had no inclination to do need- less harm to any one ; he would not have gone out of his way to tread upon a worm if it had kept out of Ms way, and been no barrier to his success in life. It need hardly be said that no such lago has been seen upon the stage for the last two hundred years ; there is not a memory or record of him. The elder ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 265 Booth's lago was an admirable performance, almost wonderful in its force and keeping. I saw it in my boyhood just as this great actor was staggering off the stage ; and nothing equal to it have I ever seen except Rachel's performances. But it was the simple, strong representation of a hardened, crafty villain, a monster of hate and of cruelty. The climax of the whole per- formance was in the Parthian look which lago, as he was borne off wounded and in bonds, gave Othello, a Gorgon stare, in which hate seemed both petrified and petrifying. It was frightful. Edwin Booth's conception of the character, although not so clear and strong, is finer, more delicate, and more complex. His lago is not externally a mere hardened villain, but a super-subtle Venetian, who works out his fiendish plans with a dexterous lightness of touch and smooth sinuosity of movement that sug- gest the transmigration of a serpent into human form. And in his visage, and above all in his eye, burn the venorn of his soul ; which makes his face at times look snake-like, as we say, erroneously, how- ever ; for the eyes of a snake do not burn and flash ; on the contrary, they have their hideous look because of a dull and stony malignancy of expression. But even Edwin Booth's lago, although much finer and more nearly consistent with itself and with the facts of the tragedy than any other that is known to the annals of the stage, is not the lago that Shakespeare drew, and whose lineaments, moral and physical, have just been set before the reader. The chief cause of the general failure to present this character truly is the disposition and habit of the stage a disposition and habit not unknown to real life to divide men into classes, and to regard them individually as the embodiment of 266 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. some one passion, or motive, or type of character, lago is a crafty hypocrite ; and therefore the stage has sought to set before us his hypocrisy and his craft in such a manner that they in combination are lago. The best lago of the modern stage is hypocrisy and craft embodied, as we have just seen, and he is noth- ing else. Now the truth is that the embodiment of such a simple combination of moral baseness and men- tal subtlety was not in Shakespeare's mind, and is a quite impossible agent and element of the confusion and disaster of the tragedy. The most strongly marked external traits of Shake speare's lago, the lago who was known in Venice and rose rapidly in general favor there, were honesty and a warm heart : honesty of the kind which is notably outspoken and trustworthy; warmth of heart which seems to have sympathy for all men, not only in all their hopes and sorrows, but in all their little likings and small personal vanities. Is there any wonder that such a man was popular and got on in the world, that he was in favor with the best and greatest ? For he was not a mere flatterer, however skilful. The most marked trait in this bold soldier's character was his good faith. As if with a premonition of the com- ing misconception and misrepresentation of his crea- ture, and to put his seeming character beyond misap- prehension, Shakespeare applies the epithet " honest '* to him no less than sixteen times in the course of the tragedy. Such a description we may almost say such a labelling of another of his personages is not to be found in all the multitude that throng through his thirty-seven dramas. And this is the more worthy of note because in the Italian story out of which the play was made there is no hint of this trait to lago's char- ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 267 acter, nor indeed of any of his complex moral and mental constitution. He is absolutely and exclusively Shakespeare's conception. His trustworthiness, be- cause of his truthful nature and his warm and friend- ly heart, is to those around him the attractive trait of his character up to, and even past, the catastrophe which his cruelly indifferent selfishness brings about. Othello, after he has killed Desdemona, pauses in his agony to call his tormentor and destroyer " my friend, honest, honest lago." All the principal personages of the tragedy, Desdemona and Cassio included, thus regard him ; although Cassio, himself a soldier, is most impressed by lago's personal bravery and mili- tary ability. In speaking of him, he not being pres- ent, the lieutenant calls him " the bold lago," and in his presence says to Desdemona that she " may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar." But Othello was chiefly attracted by his honesty and kind- ly nature. He speaks of him ta the Senate as a man " of honesty and trust," calls him fct most honest," says he is of " exceeding honesty," and indeed shows in all his conversation with him his absolute unquestioning reliance upon his good faith, a good faith which is not mere uncontaminated purity from deceit, but an active, benevolent honesty, which seeks the best good of others. For loving-kindness was hardly less than honesty an attractive feature of lago's external character. Othello constantly speaks of the love that he finds in his " ancient." His sympathies are always ready, al- ways manifest. When Cassio is involved in the brawl, Othello, in the first outburst of his wrath, says : Honest lago, that laok'st dead with grieving, Speak, who began this V On thy love, I charge thee. Act II. Sc. 3. 268 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. The man deceived even his wife ; for she, speaking the next day to Desdemona of Cassio's disgrace, says, I warrant it grieves my husband As if the case were his. Act III. Sc. 3. Now it is plain that lago had no particular reason or occasion to deceive his wife on this point. He merely showed to her what he showed to everybody, a readi- ness to sympathize with the joys and sorrows and wishes of those around him. Emilia, a woman of the world, a woman of experiences, who knew her husband better than many wives know theirs, is yet imposed upon by this skin-deep warmth and surface glow of his character. It is not until the climax of the trag- edy that even she is undeceived. In the eyes of his friends and acquaintances lago was not merely an honest man and a good-natured one, after the semblance of ordinary honesty and good nature. These traits were salient in him ; they dis- tinguished him from other men. And they were his noted peculiarities of character among his acquaint- ances long before he had any temptation to reveal his real and inner nature, which, until the temptation came, was possibly but half known to himself, although indeed he had a certain consciousness of it in his feel- ing of instinctive aversion to the sweetness and no- bility of soul showed in Cassio's daily life. The occa- sion that revealed him completely to himself was the elevation of Cassio to the lieutenancy, this being a place second in rank to that of a general officer. For this honest, warm-hearted, effusively sympa- thetic man was a soldier of such approved valor and capacity, and so highly regarded, that when the lieu- tenant-generalship became vacant, notable men of ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 269 Venice concerned themselves to have the young officer promoted to the place ; for which they made personal suit to Othello, an incident which in itself shows not only lago's military distinction, but his success in attaching others to his interests. And Shakespeare, as if to put the full complement of lago's personal gifts beyond a question (he gives to lago's character a particularity of description as rare with him as that which he gives to Imogen's beauty), makes Othello say of him that he " knows all qualities, with a learned spirit of human dealings." Indeed, there is hardly a man of Shakespeare's making, except Hamlet, who is set before us as possessing the manifold personal gifts, accomplishments, and attractions which won for lago the distinction and favor which he enjoyed in the highest society of Venice. As to the make of him, and what he really was, lago by a very evident special design of the dramatist re- veals himself fully in the first scene. After setting forth the promotion of Cassio as the cause of his ill- will to Othello, and expressing his contempt for such honest knaves (that is, merely such honest serving- men) as do their duty for duty's sake, he says, Others there are Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, Do well thrive by them, and when they have linM their coats Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul; And such a one do I profess myself. Act I. Sc. 1. And again, in his soliloquy at the end of the first act, he shows us the same selfish, unscrupulous nature, but no disposition to malice, or even to needless mischief, only a cruel heartlessness. Even the Roderigos of the world would have remained unharmed by him, un- 270 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. less he could have gained something by their injury. The very man who " makes a corner " in stocks or in provisions, by which he ruins the acquaintance with whom he dined yesterday and brings unknown widows and children to want, is not freer from personal malice towards his victims than lago was from ill-will towards his. He would much rather have attained his ends by doing them a service. But let a worm or a friend bar his way, and he would rack and rend the one just as quickly and coolly as he would crush the other. Some other traits of lago's character, which are manifested incidentally, notably a certain coarseness, and a lack of any tenderness or sentiment towards women, or any faith even in the best of them, I pass by with mere allusion ; although those which I have now particularly mentioned are made by Shakespeare, with a great master's subtleness and truth, marked ele- ments in the composition of such a man. In the creation of lago the author of Othello had, as I have already remarked, no help or hint from the story out of which he made his tragedy, nor from any precedent play, so far as we know, a rare isolation and originality in Shakespeare's personages. The lago of the Italian story is a coarse, commonplace vil- lain, who differs from Shakespeare's lago in this very point : that he is a morose, malicious creature. His soul is full of hatred ; he has the innate spontaneous malignity which some critics have found in lago, and have attributed to the creative powers of Shakespeare, but which Shakespeare's creation is entirely and not- ably without. It was no mere villain, however black, no mere em- bodiment of cruelty, however fiendish, that Shake- speare saw in his idea of lago. In that conception ON THE ACTING OF I AGO. 271 and in its working out he had a much more instruct- ing, if not instructive, purpose. Such a purpose he seldom seems to have ; nor does his own feeling toward his evil creatures manifest itself except on very rare occasions, and then slightly and by implication. But upon lago he manifestly looked with loathing and with horror, although he spent upon him the utmost powers of his creative art. In lago Shakespeare has presented a character that could not have escaped his observation ; for it is of not uncommon occurrence except in one of its ele- ments, utter un scrupulousness. But for this, lago would be a representative type, representative of the gifted, scheming, plausible, and pushing man, who gets on by the social art known as making friends. This man is often met with in society. Sometimes he is an adventurer, like lago, but most commonly he is not ; and that he should be so is not necessary to the perfection of his character. The difference in social conduct between him and a genuine man is that this one is simply himself, and forms friendships (not too many) with those whom he likes and those who, tak- ing him as they find him, like him ; while the other lays himself out to make friends, doing so not always with the direct and specific purpose of establishing a social connection, but because it is his nature to ; as the sea monster which preys upon its own kind throws out its alluring bait which is part of itself, whether there are fellow-fish in sight or not. This is not only his way of getting on, but his way of going through life. He accomplishes his purpose somewhat by flat- tery, of course, but less by direct flattery than by an ever-springing sympathy, and a readiness to help others in the little affairs in which their vanity or their pleasure is concerned. 272 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. Sympathy in purposes and tastes is the finest, sub- tlest, most insidious flattery ; the lack of it repels shal- low souls and thoughtless minds as surely as a rock will turn aside a shallow brook, and how many men are there who are not shallow, and who do think ? As to helpfulness, you may be ready to watch with men when they are ill, to fight for them when they are in peril, to relieve them when they are in trouble ; but if you are careless about their little vanities and their lit- tle pleasures, you will be set down by most of them as ill-natured, selfish, and cold-hearted. The opportuni- ties of doing real service are rare ; the union of op- portunity and ability is still rarer; but every day brings occasion to gratify the prurience of your neigh- bor's vanity by the tickling of direct flattery, or to soothe it with the soft caress of seeming sympathy. The men who become popular, the women who achieve social success (except by the brute force of sheer money), are not those who are ready to visit the father- less and the widow in their affliction, or who have in their hearts that charity which seeketh not its own, which thinketh no evil, but which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ; they are rather they who do seek their own, and who think much evil, but who are ready to minis- ter to the vanity and to serve the interests of those around them. And chiefly they are the former ; for not only are opportunities of service, even in small matters, comparatively rare, but the memory of ser- vice, substantial although it be, is not fed upon daily, like the words and sympathetic acts that are so hun- grily swallowed into the bottomless maw of human vanity. He who once promoted his friend's interest in a serious matter is less sure of being remembered ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 273 with pleasure and gratitude than he who daily burns sweet-smelling incense before his nostrils. Therefore, if you would get on, if you would make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteous- ness, as, if you are provident, you will, if you would become popular, flatter ; flatter in every way, by word and deed; flatter everybody, without dis- crimination. For although this ought to make your praise actually worthless, even as flattery, the number of those who will remember anything else than this sign of your good-will to them, and their pleasure while they were in the company of such a warm- hearted and truly appreciative person as you are will be so small that, in reckoning the social forces which you have to mano3uvre, they need not be counted. Nor let your flattery stop with words. Be ready to further all the little projects of your acquaintances in which their personal vanity is involved. Help your stupid, pompous, ambitious friend to a place on a com- mittee that will bring his name into print in a desirable connection. Do all you can to make the receptions of his awkward, vulgar, overdressed wife brilliant, and yet more important do all that you can to make her believe that they are brilliant. If to such charm- ing social qualities you can add a reputation for candor and good faith, which you can do by your art, if you are worthy of the highest social honors, and in which you will be aided by the readiness of people to believe in the candor of such an appreciative and sympathetic person as you are, you will attain the height of popularity, and find all around you ready to promote your interests and rejoice in your good fortune. You will have made everybody your friend. This sort of friend-maker is, as I have said, common 18 274 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. enough ; but he rarely attains perfection, because he is rarely able to prevent his own personal likings and dislikings from influencing his conduct in some degree, and dulling the flavor of his flattery, or checking the effusiveness of his sympathy. He has, however, one quality in which he is complete : he is thoroughly selfish, to the bottom of his soul. Amid all his good-fellowship, his conviviality, with all his heartiness of manner, his cheering speeches, and his ready sym- pathy, he has a sharp outlook for his own interest. The one constant thought of his life is to get on. This man who falls in with your humor, who slaps you (morally, if not physically) on the back, who makes you feel so well satisfied with yourself, and who is so ready to help you, if not to that which you really need, to that which you vainly fancy, if not to the favor of Desdernona, to that of Bianca, has a single eye to his own advantage and his own profit. Watch him, and see how he prospers. See how, although he makes friends of all, he attaches himself to the power- ful, the rich, the successful ; but chiefly see how he uses all, rich and poor, great and small, for his own advancement. Watch him closely enough, and you will discover that this genial fellow, who radiates loving-kindness, is at heart stonily indifferent to any- thing but self. It was this kind of man that Shakespeare chose as the type of supremest villany. His lago is first and chiefly the most popular young man in Venice. He has assiduously made himself so, because he knows that all his ability (which he does not in the least overrate) will not help him on so much as popularity will ; and that popularity brings not only success in the long run, but immediate opportunities of gain. ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 275 He makes friends everywhere, with the great ones of the state, but no less with the Roderigos. He wins everybody to trust him, in matters good and bad in- differently, that their confidence may be his profit. Thus far lago's character is one not rare in any society nor at any time. Yet it has been misappre- hended ; and the cause of its misapprehension is the one element in which it is peculiar. lago is troubled with 110 scruples, absolutely none. He has intellectual perceptions of right and wrong, but he is utterly with- out the moral sense. He has but one guide of conduct, self-interest. We hear it said of this or that man that his ruling motive is self-interest, and that he is unscrupulous. But, fortunately for the world, men who are wholly without scruples, and who know no other guide of conduct than self-interest, are so very rare that few of us have the opportunity of observ- ing them. Very selfish and very unscrupulous men we may all see. We may suffer from them ourselves ; and if we do not we may loathe them for their cruel disregard of the interests and the happiness of others, when these clash with their interests or their pleasures. But almost all such men have a limit, if not to their selfishness, at least to their moral unscrupulousness. They will be very bold and very disregardful of right and wrong up to a certain point ; and that may be near the vanishing point of moral sense. But there is a degree of moral recklessness at which they stop ; and the consequence frequently is failure and some- times ruin, failure and ruin which might have been turned into success by pushing past the scruple, and disregarding everything, everything but the selfish end in view. Well for the world's peace that it is so. For if to ability a man unites thorough unscrupulous- 276 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. ness, there is no limit to the evil he may do ; abso- lutely none, except the limit which is put by the end of him. Now to his ability, his popular manners, his reputa- tion for honesty and courage, and his supreme selfish- ness lago added that great accomplishment and per- fection of complete villany, an absolute indifference to right and wrong. It was mere indifference. He had no special preference for wrong-doing. If by doing right he could have prospered as well as by doing wrong, he would have done right, because right- doing is more respectable and popular and less trouble- some than wrong-doing. But for right and wrong in themselves he had neither like nor dislike ; and there was no limit to the degree of wrong that he was ready to do to attain his ends, this fellow of exceeding honesty, who knew all qualities with a discerning spirit, and whose daily life was an expression of love and sympathy. And his capacity of evil was passive as well as active. He did not quite like it (for some unexplained reason) that there was reason to suspect his wife with Othello ; but yet he had borne the scandal prudently, lest resentment might interfere with his promotion. But when Cassio was made his general's lieutenant the disappointed man coolly reck- oned the former fact as one of the motives of his action. His main purpose, however, indeed his only real purpose, was to ruin Cassio and get his place. As the readiest and the most thorough method of ruining Cassio was to ruin Desdemona with him, well : Desdemona must be ruined, and there an end ; no more words about the matter. But her ruin in this way must surely involve her death at Othello's hands. Well, then she must be murdered by her husband ; ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 277 that 's all. But this would torture Othello. No matter. All the better, perhaps, serve him right for prefer- ring that theorizing military dandy to the place which belonged to a better soldier. lago, however, had no thought of driving Othello to suicide. Far from it. Had he supposed the train he laid would have exploded in that catastrophe, he would at least have sought his end by other means. For Othello was necessary to him. He wanted the lieu- tenancy ; and he was willing to ruin a regiment of Cassios, and to cause all the senators' daughters in Venice to be smothered, if that were necessary to his end. But otherwise he would not have stepped out of his path to do them the slightest injury ; nay, rather would have done them some little service, said some pretty thing, shown some attaching sympathy, that would have been an item in the sum of his popularity. There is no mistaking Shakespeare's intention in the delineation of this character. He meant him for a most attractive, popular, good-natured, charming, sel- ' fish, cold-blooded and utterly unscrupulous scoundrel. The fact that pains are taken to show us that his very wife had confidence to the last not only in the good- ness of his heart, but, notwithstanding his suspicions of her (which she well knew), in his good faith to Othello, can have but one meaning and one purpose. As to the presentation of lago on the stage, the indications are that it should be somewhat in this wise : His make-up and costume should be that of a dashing young military officer. In the first act he should wear velvet and lace. In the second, when he lands from the ship, he should be in armor, breastplate and back-piece, cuirasses, vant-bras, and gorget, which he should retain throughout this act ; 278 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. nor afterwards should he be without a marked mili- tary exterior. His manner and bearing should be re- markable for ease, frankness, and an overflowing kindness ; and in particular he should be gay in a soldierly and slightly blunt fashion. He should seem to carry the lightest heart of all the personages of the drama, and should be the last one of them whom a spectator uninformed as to the nature and story of the play would suppose to have an evil design or a selfish purpose, but, on the contrary, the one whom such a person would pick out as the warmest hearted, the most trustworthy, and the merriest of them all. His manner towards Othello should be that of a subordi- nate to a heroic superior whom he loves and almost worships. To Desdemona he should bear himself with a mixture of deference, admiration, and coarse mas- culine cynicism. To Cassio he should behave like a brother in arms, with perhaps an occasional slight ex- cess of deference to his superior officer, indicative of the jealousy that rankles in his bosom. To Emilia he should carry himself with a blunt and over-topping marital good-nature. And he should avoid all side glances of spite and hate and suspicion ; and except when he is quite alone, and communing with himself, no one either off the stage or on it should see the slightest reason to suspect that he is a villain, or to doubt the genuineness of his gayety and good-nature. It is worthy of remark that in the carousal scene, in the beginning of the second act, he is the gayest of all. He alone sings a drinking-song ; and soon again he sings a jolly ballad. His is the only singing voice heard in the course of the drama, except poor Desde- mona's. His distinguishing external traits are sincer- ity, warmth of heart, and a light-hearted, soldierly ON THE ACTING OF IAGO. 279 gayety. His utter baseness and cold cruelty of soul should appear in the heartiness and simplicity of his manner in the scenes in which he tempts and tortures Othello, and in the quick alternation between his friendly and sympathetic interviews with Roderigo and Cassio and his killing the one and wounding the other. Both these murders (murders in intent) were, however, merely to remove in the quickest and surest way obstacles to his purpose. His only exhibition of personal malice is in the killing his wife, who is the chief cause of the final failure of his schemes. He does not slay her with any purpose of avenging her imputed dishonor of him with the Moor ; there is no such saving likeness between even the savage sides of their natures. He rather had submitted to that wrong in politic silence, willing to accept it as one of the steps in his promotion. This is the lago that Shakespeare drew, a man whom he had seen, and whom we all have often seen, moving through society and making friends on every side, and who yet at bottom is utterly selfish, stony- hearted, and grasping. The dramatist added to the traits of this common type only the element of abso- lute unscrupulousness, which, although rare, is possi- bly not so rare as the course of events might lead us to suppose. The moral of lago's part in the tragedy is : Distrust the man whose peculiar faculty, or chief desire, is to make friends. He is likely to be selfish ; and if selfish he needs only temptation and opportu- nity to be a scoundrel. There is but one difficulty about this presentation of lago. I am inclined to think that the average modern theatre-goer would regard it as a tame and spiritless performance ; and the business of the actor is to please the average theatre-goer. GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. WHEN, some eleven or twelve years ago, Mr. Collier's annotated second folio copy of Shakespeare's works sank finally out of sight, there was reason to hope that no fur- ther attempts would be made upon the text of that much- abused author. And indeed it may be safely assumed that no changes will hereafter be made in it of sufficient impor- tance to bring a considerable reputation to any new editor or new edition. Since the time spoken of, two editions of note have been published ; one edited by the Rev. Al- exander Dyce (his second), which appeared in 1864-66, and the Cambridge edition, edited by the Rev. William George Clarke, M. A., and William Aldis Wright, both of Trinity College, the publication of which, although it began in 1863, was not finished until 1866. The latter work is the most valuable single contribution that has been made to Shakespearean literature. Its editors announced, as one of its distinctive features, that its text was based on a thorough collation of the four folios, and of all tho quarto editions of the separate plays, and of subsequent editions and commen- taries. In this respect, however, it does not differ from the first edition produced by the present writer. 1 The peculiar value of the Cambridge edition consists in the presentation 1 The Works of William Shakespeare: the Plays edited from the folio of MDCXXIII., with various readings from all the editions and all the commentators, Notes, Introductory Remarks, a Historical Sketch of the Text, an Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama, a Memoir of the Poet, and an Essay upon his Genius. The date of this edition has been incorrectly given by some editors and bibliographers as 1859-65. The Comedies were published in 1857 ; the Histories, in 1859 ', GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 281 at the foot of the page, without comment, of all the various readings of every passage, whether found in the four folios, in the quartos, in subsequent editions, or proposed in the works of commentators who did not become editors, and in the printing literatim of the text of such quarto editions as differ so much from that accepted by the editors that the variation could not be shown in notes. The readings printed at the foot of the page are given in the order of time in which they were introduced into the text or pro- posed; and thus, for all ordinary purposes, even in the critical study of the text, the reader finds himself com- pletely furnished. The text of the Cambridge edition is not intended for general readers of Shakespeare. Its editors admitted no conjectural reading because they thought it " better system or grammar or sense " than that of the folio, unless they also thought the reading of the latter " altogether impossible ; " and, moreover, to be received into their text, a conjectural emendation must appear " the only probable one." If the defect can be made good in more ways than one, equally plausible or at least equally possible, they have allowed the corruption to remain intact, while the proposed emendations are offered in the footnotes to the choice of the reader. This, however, in no way diminishes the great, and it may be safely said, the inestimable value of this edi- tion to the critical student of the poet. For him no one edition will supply its place, while it supplies the place not only of many editions, but of many books of comment be- sides. Mr. Dyce's edition (1864-66) is called the second ; and it is the second edition of Shakespeare that he prepared for the press. But it is not properly so styled if there is an implication that the latter work has any other connec- tion with the former than that they both are the produc- the Tragedies, in 1862 ; and the first volume, containing memoir, essays, etc., in 1865. The Comedies were published before the appearance of Mr. Dyce's first edition (in 1857), and both Comedies and Histories before Mr. W. S. Walker's Critical Examination, etc. (18603. 282 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. tion of the same author ; for one differs from the other as much as if they were the work of two editors of different taste and different critical views. Mr. Dyce was one of the most cultivated of that modern school of critics which has made the study and the restoration of Shakespeare's text a special study. He had an acquaintance both wide and minute with all the literature of Shakespeare's time, and he had, besides, high training and very considerable acquire- ments in general literature and in art. Having a compe- tent fortune, he was able to pursue his studies and his grate- ful labors at pleasure, and to mature his opinions and his plans before he began the task of preparing his work for the press. His editions of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe ex- hibited the qualities of mind which have here just been most respectfully awarded to him ; and it seemed as if, with this preparation and practice, he might have been reason- ably expected to produce the ideal edition of Shakespeare. But he did not. He issued two within seven years (the first in 1857) ; and unlike as they were, they both fell about equally short of that degree of merit which is necessary to distinguished excellence and permanent reputation. They showed learning and faithfulness, and one very valuable quality, intellectual candor. The mental traits of which they exhibited the lack were clear perception, imagination, and the power of sympathy. Mr. Dyce seemed never able to step from the outside of the poet's work inward, and to think with him. Critical sagacity has recently been attrib- uted to him ; but sagacity was just the quality he lacked. As a critic and editor he was entirely deficient in formative power. His fastidiousness led him to be generally timid, but he was sometimes bold, or rather rash. An example of what he would and could do when he made a rush past the bounds of his usual self-limitation, is shown in a reading which is praised in an article in the " Edinburgh Ke view " * which attracted much attention at the time of its publication, and is still referred to in Shake- i July, 1869. GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 283 spearean criticism. At the end of Hamlet's censure (Act I. Sc. 4) of the Danish custom of carousal is this passage : The dram of eale Doth all the noble substance of a dout To his own scandal. There is no sense in this, and yet there is the suggestion of a very fine sense, and one which points and barbs the well-aimed sentence that it tips. Few thoughtful and ap- prehensive readers of Shakespeare can fail to see, though dimly, the idea he meant to present to them ; but, neverthe- less, the efforts of a hundred and fifty years of textual criticism have not been able to restore that passage, which is left undisturbed in my own edition, and, of course, in the Cambridge. Mr. Dyce reads : The dram of evil Doth all the noble substance oft debase, To his own scandal. This affords a good sense, and one entirely in accordance with that of the whole speech ; indeed, this very emendation must have occurred to all editors, and to many readers out- side the critical circle. There is but one objection to it : to edit Shakespeare's text thus is to rewrite it in all obscure passages. Decide what you would like to have, and put it boldly into the text. This is the very reverse of what is done by the Cambridge editors ; and Mr. Dyce's text is therefore readable from the beginning of " The Tempest " to the end of " Cymbeline." How near it is, in disputed passages, to what Shakespeare wrote, is another question. In this re- spect, however, it will compare pretty well with that of other modern editors ; but notwithstanding the editor's many qualifications for his task, it is very far from having any dis- tinctive merit. The reason of this I happen to know. Mr. Dyce is no longer living, and his death is mourned by all who knew him ; for he was one of the most estimable of men, as well as one who had done good service in the field of letters. He was a man for whom, although I never saw him, I had a very high respect, and whom I had reason 284 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. to regard with a somewhat warmer feeling than that of a mere literary acquaintance. This, and my deference to his age (he happened to he born in the same year with my father) and his position, prevented me from saying during his life \vhat there is no reason that I should not say now, that in my opinion he was one of the most unsuccessful of Shakespeare's editors. With all my deferential respect for him, I was prepared for this result before the appearance of the first of his three editions. The records of his literary life are now, within certain limits, the property of the world ; and I may, therefore, with propriety, mention a fact to which, during his life, I did not give publicity. When his first edition that of 1857 was passing through the press, he wrote to me that there would be much delay in its appearance, because after the most of it was ready for the printer, and half was actually in type, he changed his views upon so many and such important points that the consequent alterations obliged him not only to rewrite much of his copy, but to cancel a large part of what had already been printed, amounting to half the work. This letter, while it raised my respect for the writer's faithfulness to his intellectual convictions, much lowered my estimate of Mr. Dyce as a critic and, consequently, as an editor. A man who, being at leisure to pursue his studies, had lived a purely literary life, who had the experience given by the editing of four other Elizabethan dramatists, who was at the ripe age of sixty years, and who, after preparing himself thoroughly for an edition of Shakespeare, could change his views upon so many and such important points when he was nearly through his labors that he was obliged to destroy no small part of what he had already sent to press, must be without any principles of criticism, and not only so, but without any opinions really worthy of the name. I no longer expected from him what I had expected and hoped for and had al- most presumed to promise on his behalf an edition of the highest quality ; l and when his edition did appear I was 1 See Shakespeare's Scholar, p. 30, and passim. GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 285 not disappointed. It was full of valuable matter, and of in- structive criticism ; it was carefully and minutely edited ; but it was nothing more. It was dry, vague, unsatisfactory, without unity of purpose, without character. I was, there- fore, not surprised, although again I received the shock of an unfavorable impression, when he wrote to me, in 1862, that he was preparing a second edition of his Shakespeare, and that he was " glad to have the opportunity of altering it from beginning to end, in fact of making it very, very dif- ferent, both in text and notes, from the former edition." Here was (in fact) a third edition of Shakespeare within seven years, from a man of Mr. Dyce's acquirements and experience, each edition differing greatly from the other, both in text and notes. Could instability and lack of intel- lectual character and purpose be more clearly shown ? The edition, when it appeared, fully justified the editor's predic- tion of its variation from its predecessor. Except for its in- dications of the same feeble, vacillating mind, it might have been the work of another man than the editor of the first edition. It was in some respects better, in others worse than that one. And I do not doubt that if Mr. Dyce had lived a few years longer he would have given us yet a third, or rather a fourth edition, differing greatly from either of its predecessors, and being, like the last, in some respects better, and in others worse, than its predecessor. 1 To his second edition Mr. Dyce appended a glossary so copious that it fills a large octavo volume : a glossary gener- ally correct, which at this stage of Shakespearean, linguis- tic, and antiquarian study, it could hardly fail to be, even if compiled by a less accomplished scholar than he. It is largely composed of definitions, or longer glosses, quoted from the pages of other Shakespearean critics and editors ; but while it adds little to our previously acquired knowledge of Shakespeare's words and phrases, and even in a much l This opinion, published in 1869, I found on my visit to England in 1876 (my first) supported in private conversation by that of the best Shakespearean scholars in the country. 286 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. less degree aids in their apprehension, it may be trusted, with comparatively rare exceptions, by the general reader. It has, however, in a notable degree, the great fault of ex- cessive superfluity ; which, indeed, is more than a fault a vice ; begetting in the reader indolence of mind, distrust of himself, distrust of his knowledge of his mother tongue, misapprehension of the condition and character of that tongue now and in the days of Shakespeare. The Dyce glossary includes (on a rough calculation) some six thousand items. It attains this dimension, in the first place, by including not only all obsolete, but all unusual words, com- mon words used in uncommon senses, and with shades of meaning, however clear and obvious which are at all pecu- liar, to Shakespeare ; not only words, but phrases ; not only words and phrases, but proverbial sayings, however com- mon in literature and however well-known at this day; with explanations of customs more or less obsolete, and allusions more or less obscure. Besides all this, much of which it need hardly be said errs on the side of excess, it is superfluous in giving definitions of words and explana- tions of phrases which are in common use by all writers of English at the present day, and which are now daily on the lips of all English-speaking people, and by repetitions which are merely the use of the same word as verb or as substantive in the singular and in the plural. We find, for example, these words and glosses ; abate = to lower, to depress : abide to sojourn, to tarry awhile : abso- lute = determined : blench= to start off, and then blenches = starts or aberrations, etc. : dumps = low-spirited : crab = wild-apple : close = secret : bold = confident : fearful timid : farrow = a litter of pigs : merit = reward : unprized = not valued : trenchant = cutting, sharp : blent blended : hangman = an executioner : happiness =. good fortune : don = to put on : doff= to put off : tell = to count : kindle = to incite : impawn = to pawn or pledge : and hundreds of others which are in equally common every-day use by all writers and speakers of English. Under the letter " F " I find five GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 287 separate items, filling one third of an octavo page, made of the word face, used in senses known to every one, as " to patch," "to face down," "to carry a false appearance," etc. ; two in like manner of fee ; of foot, five ; for has seven glosses, all equally needless ; foree, five ; free does not escape three, one of them being " liberal " ! and front we are actu- ally told means " to oppose " ! Indeed, under this chance- chosen letter, " F," I find three hundred and thirty items, more or less, of which at least one hundred and seventy-five are of the superfluous sort just exampled. With all this, to be sure, there is much which is valuable, interesting and in- structive. Thus made, however, no wonder that the glossary printed in large type fills a large octavo volume. But why not print Johnson's or Webster's dictionary as a Shakes- peare glossary, and have done with it ? I hoped that I had finished forever with various read- ings and conjectural emendations ; but perhaps I can make it worth while for my readers and myself to consider briefly some of the points presented by the Edinburgh re- viewer, and also some others which he did not touch upon. After pointing out correctly, although with some super- fluity of iUustration, that in these lines spoken by Polonius, in " Hamlet," And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlaces, and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out, Act II. Sc. 1. windlaces does not mean windlasses, but a winding and cir- cuitous course, and also that when Laertes, commenting upon Ophelia's distribution of her flowers, calls her speech a " document in madness," document has its etymological meaning, "teaching," the reviewer turns his attention to Ophelia's " virgin crants." As to the latter word there is not the least room for doubt. It is the German kranz, a garland, used as a plural. But the reviewer makes much of showing that the burial of a maiden in the north of Europe is still appropriately marked, as in the case of Ophelia, by the presence of her " virgin crants and maiden strewments." 288 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. The fact is of some little interest in the history of manners and customs ; but it has nothing to do with the elucidation or illustration of Shakespeare's text. If that were to be edited after this fashion, there would be no end to the labors of editors, and hardly a limit to the number of vol- umes required for a thoroughly annotated edition. The reviewer then turns to the following passage in "Macbeth:" And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late ; Whom you may say, if 't please you, Fleance kill'd ; For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late. Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donaldbain To kill their gracious father ? Act III. Sc. 6. As to this, he quotes the criticism and the reading in " Shakespeare's Scholar," but seems to be ignorant that the view there taken was abandoned in my edition of 1857-62. He shows, what no one with a respectable knowledge of the language was ignorant of, that want was and is used in the north of England and in the lowlands of Scotland in the sense of " do without ; " thus, a farmer asked to lend his horse will reply that he himself " cannot want the horse to- day." A mare's-nest of the largest sort. For u do with- out " is exactly the sense that here must be done without. The speaker surely means to ask, Who can be ivithout the thought how monstrous it was for Malcolm and for Donald- bain to kill their gracious father ? The critic then shows elaborately that sight was used in Shakespeare's day in the sense of " acquaintance," " skill ; " and that cheapen meant "to examine a thing offered for sale, with a view of buying it," saying, in the first instance, and implying in the last, that, of these senses, u neither critics nor lexicographers seem to be aware " a more erroneous charge than which could scarcely be made. No man fit to edit Shakespeare could be ignorant of the use of those words in those senses. He takes three pages to show that bezonian (" Under which king, bezonian speak or die ! ") GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 289 is obviously used by Pistol simply as a thrasonical phrase of martial contempt for the bucolic mind, the word having been used in Shakespeare's time to mean a rustic, clownish person. This also was well known. In my edition bezonian is compared to pleeb, the cadet cant of West Point for a rustic recruit ; and in Cotgrave's Dictionary, a well-known authority to all Shakespearean scholars, triquerelles is de- nned as "slender and small chitterlings or links, also a rascal companie or a roguish crue of base and rude bezo- nians, ignorant clowns, scoundrels, thag-rags." The obscure compound, tender-hefted, in Lear's speech, Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give Thee o'er to harshness, Act II. Sc. 4. is explained by the reviewer as meaning "tender-bodied, delicately-organized, or, more literally, finely-fleshed," be- cause heft means " handle," and " tender-hefted " must be " finely sheathed." A most manifest mare's-nest, and one at which every editor of Shakespeare must have looked, and passed by on the other side. Lear's thought has no refer- ence to Regan's body, but to her soul. What had her body or her beauty to do with giving her over to harshness ? There is possibly a misprint of tender-hearted, although we all shun such a simple relief of our difficulty, and linger in the sweet obscurity of tender-hefted. Of a like superfluousness are the pages which this writer gives up to showing the meanings of balk, lurch, hilding, and zany, all of which are well known to every competent English scholar. For instance, he is at much pains to show, by argument and illustration, that zany means " not so much a buffoon and mimic as the obsequious follower of a buffoon and the attenuated mime of a mimic," and that " this feature of the early stage has descended to our own times, and may still continually be found in all its vigor in the performances of the circus." Had he turned to my edition, published twelve years before, he would have found the following note on " Twelfth Night," Act I. Sc. 5 : 19 290 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. "No better than fools' zanies." Those who have happened to see an old New England Primer with the cut of a zany for the Z, need not be told that Donee was wrong in saying that the zany was the fool's bauble. A zany was a fool's fool, or a clown that followed a tumbler and vaulter. His representative is to be found in the modern circus. And in Duffeet's poems (A. D. 1676) are the following lines : These shallow designs and the plots that you. cast Can never prevail on a woman that 's chaste. If such humorous folly can raise love in any, Scaramouch will be sooner preferred than his zany. Page 60. With this more than sufficient notice of an article which is the fruit of learning and critical ability, but which re- ceived much more attention than was due to the novelty of the opinions or the illustrations of Shakespeare that it pre- sented, I pass to the consideration of a few passages in the text upon which there possibly remains some little to be said. In "The Comedy of Errors," Act IV. Sc. 4, Dromio of Ephesus says to his master, who has reproached him with being sensible to nothing but blows, like an ass, " I am an ass indeed : you may prove it by my long ears." The point of Dromio's reply depends upon a pronunciation which yet survives among people of his class in England, who pro- nounce ears, years. The context shows this plainly ; for Dromio goes on to say, " I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have received nothing but blows." The Cambridge editors would print 'ear, mak- ing an elision of y. But this is not only quite unnecessary, but would also take the life of the little _ joke of the speech. To preserve that, it is only necessary to pronounce ears as the Cambridge editors must hear it pronounced by the col- lege scouts every day. Moreover, like most well-known wits, Shakespeare is credited with much wit and some wisdom that is not his. An instance of this is Dogberry's famous apophthegm, " Comparisons are odorous." The humor of the mere blun- der may be Shakespeare's ; but the saying is to be found GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 291 in contemporary authors, and notably in the following pas- sage from the first chapter of the second part of "Don Quixote : " Y es posible que vuesa merced no sabe que las comparaciones que se hacen de ingenio a ingenio, de valor a valor, de hermosura a hermosura, y de linage a linage, son siempre odiosas y mal recebidas V that is, Is it possible that your honor does not know that comparisons made between genius and genius, courage and courage, beauty and beauty, birth and birth, are always " odious " and ill received ? This part of " Don Quixote " was not published until fifteen years after the publication of " Much Ado about Nothing ; " but Cervantes, doubtless, was not indebted to Shakespeare even for the word " odious." The adage, we may be sure, was common to all Europe. In " Love's Labour 's Lost " the name of Armado's page has been always printed Moth, even in my own edition, in which, however, it was asserted and maintained that the proper spelling and pronunciation of the name is Mote; the comparison intended being not to the insect but to the mote of the sunbeam. This was shown on the one hand by the following passage from the same play, in which Shake- speare spelled mote, moth : You found his moth, the King your moth did see, and this from King John (Act IV. Sc. 1) : Hubert. None but to lose your eyes. Arthur. heaven, that there were but a moth in yours ! This spelling is consequent upon the pronunciation of th as t in Shakespeare's time, which was asserted in my edition, to be denied stoutly in several quarters, by Mr. Marsh among others; but he, having become convinced of the soundness of the opinion in question, with his usual candor acknowledged his error. In support of the change which I propose in the passage which is the occasion of this note, I cite the following passage from a MS. of the fifteenth cen- tury : Cast the beame out of thine own eye, then thou maiest see a mothe in another man's. Reliquiae Antiquae, I. 207. 292 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. In the scene in which Mote (or Moth) first appears, he himself makes a pun which rests upon the very pronuncia- tion of th to which he owes his ambiguous name. Armado is seeking justification for his passion for Jacquenetta by asking for examples of great men who have been in love. Mote suggests Samson, and adds that the woman that he loved was of " sea- water-green " complexion. Armado then says that Samson must have " surely affected her for her wit." To which the page replies, " It was so, sir ; for she had a green wit." What does this reply mean ? Nothing to us ; unless we remember, what every one of Shakespeare's audience knew, that in their time withe was pronounced wit. Delilah's " green wit " was not only the wit that Armado had in mind, but the " green withes " with which she bound Samson when she sought to betray him to the Philistines. 1 The same play has (Act IV. Sc. 3), according to the folio, the following lines : For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye ? Here Mr. Collier's annotated folio gave us " Teaches such learning," etc., which reading is taken into the text of my edition. The reading of the folio leaves the context without meaning, a defect which is remedied by the reading brought forward by Mr. Collier. The correction seems to me to be supported by the following passage in Florio's translation of Montaigne's " Essays " a book there is good reason for be- lieving that Shakespeare read, and a passage from which he paraphrased in " The Tempest." It is at least probable that he had this one in mind when writing " Love's La- bour 's Lost." The company of faire and society of honest women is likewise a sweet commerce to me. Nam nos quoque oculos eruditos habemus ; for we also have learned eyes. In the first scene of " The Merchant of Venice '' is the following passage in a speech by Bassanio : In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight i Judges xvi. 7,8. GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 293 The self-same way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth. " To find the other forth " has been pronounced by an ac- complished critic of Shakespeare's language " neither Eng- lish nor sense." It is, to be sure, somewhat strange to us, but it is both English and sense, although the simple expla- nation of it has not been given. Forth is used thus in Frobisher's account of his voyage, A. D. 1578 : On the other side the company a shoare feared that the captayne, having lost his shyppe, came to seek forth the fleete for his relief e in his poore pinesse. Hakluyt Society's Ed., p. 270. And in " The Comedy of Errors," Act I. Sc. 2, we have, " Who failing there to find his fellow/or^." Plainly, in all these examples, forth is equivalent to out ; to seek forth is to seek out, as we now say ; to find forth is to find out. The connection of the ideas expressed by both the words is clear. That which goes forth goes out. The phrase is in- teresting as an example of the strangeness and the obscurity that may be the consequence of the use of a common word in a sense which, although it is quite closely connected with its radical meaning, is a little removed from that to which it is generally limited. The merry Gratiano in the " Merchant of Venice " illus- trates a great change that has taken place in the manners and customs of our daily life during the last two hundred years, when, assuring his patron that he will assume the airs of a pattern of sobriety, he says to Bassanio, " Never trust me more if I do not " while grace is saying, hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh and say Amen. Act II. Sc. 2. Nothing would seem ruder to us than for a party of gentle- men to sit down to table with their hats on. But such was the practice in the best society of Shakespeare's time the hat being removed only by the more punctilious while grace was said, and then resumed. John Florio says, in his " Second Fruites " (1591), " Let us make a law that no 294 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. man put off his hat or cap at the table. . . . This is a kinde of courtesie and ceremonie rather to be avoided than otherwise at table." Hence we see that the removal of the hat at table was regarded as a mark of extreme fastidious- ness, or perhaps of exceeding deference to some eminent person. The following passage in " The Winter's Tale " has been made the subject of much not very fruitful comment. Her- mione speaks, addressing Leontes : I appeal To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes Came to your court, how I was in your grace, How merited to be so : since he came With what encounter so uncurrent I Have strain'd, etc. etc. Act III. Sc. 2. The difficulty is in the word uncurrent, for which a sense in accordance with the context has not been discovered. It was suggested in my first edition that the passage is corrupt in the word uncurrent ; and I am inclined to the opinion that we should read " with what encounter so occurrent." There is a hint of such a use of occurrent in the following whimsical passage in " The Opticke Glass of Humors : " Another ridiculous foole of Venice thought his shoulders and buttockes were made of glasse, wherefore he shunned all occurrents, and never durst sit down to meat. Page 139. In the fourth act of the same play the clown, attempting to check the chattering of Mopsa, Dorcas, and the other shepherdesses, cries, according to the folio, " Clamour your tongues, and not a word more." Clamour is retained by the Cambridge editors, and by some others ; but it cannot be correct. Charm, chamber, chommer, clammer, and chawmer have been brought forward as emendations, of which the first is far the best. But it substitutes one syllable for two, and leaves our unaccounted for. The word for which clam- our is a slight misprint is probably chambre, which appears twice in Udall's "Apophthegms of Erasmus," where the context assures us of its meaning : GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 295 For critics menaced and thretened him that oneless he chaumbred his tongue in season, etc. . . . repair or chambre the tauntinge of his tongue. 1 Book I. In " Richard II." is a passage which has given occasion for much conjectural emendation. A gardener says of Bolingbroke : O, what pity is it That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land As we this garden ! We, at time of year, Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees, Lest being over proud with sap, etc. Act III. Sc. 4. What is the meaning of "at time of year," in which read- ing all the old copies, folios and quartos, concur ? Should we not read at time of vere, i. e., ver spring, the time when trees are proud with sap ? That emendation would be supported by the following passage in Skelton's verses on "Time:" The rotys take theyr sap in time of vere, In time of somer flowers fresh and grene, In time of harvest men their come shere, In time of wynter the north wynde waxeth kene, So bytterly by tinge the flowres be not sene. Here we have in time of vere, summer, harvest, winter. The inducement to take vere into the text is very great. But compare the following passage from Andrew Borde's " Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge : " In the forest of St. Leonardos, in Southsex, there dothe never sing night- ingale, although the foreste rounde aboute in time of year is replenyshed with nightingales. But y being an easy misprint of v, particularly in black- letter, may not the same error have been committed in Borde and in Shakespeare ? Falstaff exclaims (King Henry IV., Part L, Act IV. Sc. 3), " Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket pick'd," and the phrase " take mine ease in mine inn " has been regarded as an instance of Shakespeare's 1 And yet when I came to edit the "Riverside " edition (1883), I shrank from this reading. The word is one which Shakespeare would not have been likely to use. 296 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. curious felicity of expression, like " discourse of reason," " comparisons are odious," and others ; whereas, like them, it is a mere familiar phrase of his period, used by him with- out thought, and as matter of course. Archbishop Cran- mer, in his " Confutation of Unwritten Verities," published A. D. 1582, has this passage : What should he neecle to toile herein himselfe? or why shoulde he not like a gentleman, take his ease in his inne ? Page 74. It has been clearly enough shown that sack which some folk would have it was a mixture, like metheglin, for instance was nothing more or less than sherry wine ; but the following quaint passage from HowelTs letters, written about 1645, is not only confirmatory on this point, but an in- teresting contribution to the history of toping among our forefathers : For Sherries and Malagas well mingled pass for Canaries, in most tav- ernes, more often than Canary itself. . . . When Sacks and Canaries were brought in first among us they were us'd to be drunk in Aquavitae meas- ures ; and 'twas held tit only for those to drink of them that carried their legs in their hands, their eyes upon their noses, and an almanack in their bones. But now they go down every one's throat, young and old, like milk. Book II. p. 54. The mention of Adonis's gardens in " Henry VI.," Part L, Act I. Sc. 6, gave Bentley the opportunity of remarking that there is no authority for the existence of any such gar- dens, in Greek or Latin writers ; the K^TTOL 'Avuov," Basileion, Chap. X. 1, and passim. And see also many instances of this form in the works of Shakespeare's predecessors and contemporaries ; as for example : As wise as Sabci, or as beautiful As was bright Lucifer before his fall. Indeed, in our early literature Saba was the commoner form of the name. For " that runaway's eyes may wink," Mr. Walker says " Read Cynthia's eyes, etc. Possibly, indeed, the word may have been written by mistake without a capital cinthiaes ... which would render the error more easy. A writer in * The Gentleman's Magazine ' proposes, ' That Luna's eyes/ 376 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. etc., and adds, ' We have in " Pericles " the very same ex- pression, This by the eye of Cynthia hath she vow'd.' This latter passage might have led him to the true reading." In the names of Shakespeare and common-sense, what have the two passages in " Romeo and Juliet " and " Pericles " to do with each other ? What is the relation between them ? What the likeness, other than that there is an " eye " in both ? O Fluellen, your salmons, your salmons ! This con- fidently produced emendation is not only one of the very worst of the many needlessly proposed in this passage, but, what is of most importance, it is noteworthy for its manifestation of a thorough misapprehension of the passage, that need by no means be exhibited even in elaborating a conjectural reading which on the whole is quite unacceptable. By this time I think it must be pretty plain to my read- ers that what with articles of twenty and thirty pages, like those I have just remarked upon, and others that merely suggest what had been already taken into the text or adopted as interpretation, and others which are of too trivial a na- ture for remark, Mr. Walker's " Critical Examination " is not a work of much value or interest to the critical student of Shakespeare's text ; certainly not one which should be treated with any deference. Its real worth is shown, as I have before remarked, by the fact that, although it was pub- lished twenty-four years ago, it has had scarcely any effect upon the text. Even Mr. Dyce, although he is led by his friendly consideration for Walker's editor to refer to the book much oftener than he had need, adopts little or noth- ing from it. When Walker ventures into textual emenda- tion he nearly always goes astray in an alarming manner. And yet he is the author of one of the happiest restorations in the received text : " Her infinite cunning and her -mod- ern grace," for " Her insuite comming," etc., of the folio (All's WeU That Ends Well. Act. V. Sc. 3), which I believe I was the first to welcome publicly. 1 If, like one l Shakespeare's Scholar, 1854, GLOSSARIES AND LEXICONS. 377 of his earliest critics, we must say, " Very often we find our- selves differing from Mr. Walker on readings and inter- pretations," with him we must also add, " but we seldom differ from him without respect for his scholarship and care," scholarship and care, but not insight, as to either thought or language. INDEX. ABHOR, 315. About, 316. Abraham Cupid, 317. Achilles, 42. Acknowledge, 318. Adagia, 1G3. Add, 318. Addison, 310. Adonis's gardens, 296. Adriana, 12. .Eneas, 43. Agamemnon, 43. Aguize, 319. Ainsworth's Dictionary. 397. Aire. 367. Albion's England, 398. Albany, 197. Allan Cunningham, 334. Allegiance, 371. All 's Well that Ends Well, 8, 46. An authority, 362. An-hungry, 315. A, or An, used for one, 314. Anne Page, 241. Antony and Cleopatra, 51, 237. Apophthegms of Erasmus, 294. Apply, 316. Arcadia, Sir Philip Sidney's, 213. Archaic and Pro. Dictionary, 350. Archery, 319. Arden, forest of, 27, 239, 261. Ariel, 230, 260. Arrivance, 319. Art and act, 365. Arthur, 29. Ascaunt, 319. Asaemblance, 320. Ask, 320. As You Like It, 7, 36, 210, 256, 260. As you have done, 371. Athens, 127. Attaint, 320. Ay, 320. BACON, Miss Delia, 180. Bacon-Shakespeare Craze, the, 151. Bacon (smoked), 321. Bailey, 348. Bait, 321. Barbary, 102. Barren labors, 313. Batten, 322. Bawd-born, 322. Beadle, 323. Bearward, 323. Beatrice, 10, 37, 248. Beaumont and Fletcher, 169, 258. Beethoven, 23. Beeth, 63. Behove, 323. Bends adoruings, 318. Bent, 323. Benedick, 10, 37. Ben Jonson, 153, 167, 169, 215, 352. Bermudas, the, 128. Bevel, 323. Bezonian, 319. Bible, 7, 299, 315. Billingsgate, 324. Birone, 10, 37. Blackstone, 315. Blue-eyed, 324. Bodykins, 324. Body, 324. Bohemia, 32. Bone, 324. Boswell's Malone, 184. Bottom, 15, 260. Bow-hand, 234. Brabantio, 101. British Museum, 154. Brooke, Arthur, 162, 175. Buckle, 316. Bung, 326. Buoy'd, 201. Burial with head to the East, 299. Buttery, 326. Buz, 326. CALDECOTE, 333. Caliban. 43, 230. Cambridge editors, 21, 184, 333, 355. Cambridge edition, 280. Canker-blossom, 327. Capell, 333. Capulets, 174. Carlyle, 305. Carve, 327. Case of Hamlet the Younger, 78. Cassio, 105, 208. Castle, 328. Celia, 127. Cervantes, 291. Chappell, 200. 380 INDEX. Charles!., 258. Charles II. , 250, 360. Cheapen, 288. Chuttes, 337. Cinderella, 227. Clarendon Press, 51, 53. Clarke, Rev. Wm. George, 184, 280. Clamour, 294. Claudius, 78. Clear-stories, 329. Clown's song, 212. Clubs, Shakespeare, 55. Cock-a-hoop, 308. Coleridge, 54. Colours, 330. Collier, 191, 333. Commentators, the, 186. Comedy of Errors, 10, 14, 17, 27, 40, 153. Comparisons are odorous, 290. Concordance, Mrs. H. H. Furness, 300. Condell, Henry, 153. Constance, 29. Consistency, thou art a jewel, 152. Consummation, 329. Contention of York and Lancaster, 21, 171. Contrive, 316. Control, 364. Cordelia, 212, 219. Coriolanus, 51. Corneille, 260. Corni contra croci., 156. Cornwall, 213, 220. Cotgrave, 350. Cowden-Clarke, Mrs., 158, 172, 300. Creature, 366. Cresset, 330. Crestless, 330. Crocodile, 335. Cromwell, Oliver, 258. Cruels else subscribe, 196. Curfew, 330. Curiosity in nature, 188. Curtle-axe, 245. Cymbeline, 236. D ANBURY-CROSS, 158. Dane, The, 77, 96. Daughter, 204, Daywoman, 331. Delius, Dr., 173. Denmark, 77. Desdemona, 101. Detest, 364. Diana, 145. Divorce, 331. Dixon, Hepworth, 154. Document, 287. Do, de, 331. Doll Tear-Sheet, 358, 375. Don Giovanni, 54. Don Quixote, 30, 291, 309. Dote, 331. Double-henned, 331. Doublet, 245. Dover cliff, 218. Dowle, 332. Dram of eale, 283.. Dryden, 355. Duncan, King, 63. Duusinaiie, 73. Dyce, Rev. Alexander, 280, 283, 297, 317, 323, 336. EDEN, 296. Edgar, 200. Edmund, 200. Edinburgh Review, 194, 282. Eight wild boars, 326. Elizabeth, Queen, 15, 30, 142, 153, 173. Elizabethan, 159, 169, 258, 312. Elsinore, 80. English idiom, 326. English pronunciation, 342, 368. Entitled, 332. Entreatuient, 333. Erasmus, 159, 163, 294. Essay on Authorship of Henry VI., 21. Etjtistificala. etc., ICO. Eternal, 333. Euphues, 10, 49. Every-day English, 332. Eysel, 335. FARTHINGALE, 242. Fa, sol, la, mi, 200. Falstaff, 29, 30, 31, 250. Fatal screech owl, 373. Faust, 157. Fencer, 335. Fetch, 335. Field of the Cloth of Gold, 278. First play to read, 7. Figaro, 54. Fleay, Rev. F. G., 22, 45. Fleance, 73. Florio, 329, 352. Florentine Arithmetician, The, 102. Fly by an eagle, 327. Fool, 204, 230, 260. Folio, the first, 187, 189, 365. Foruscites, 330. Formularies and Elegancies, 166. Forth, 292. Frame, 336. Friends in Council, 137. Full, 336. Furness, Dr. Horace Howard, 183, 185, 196, 317, 333, 336. GANYMEDE, 146, 242, 249. Garrick, 226. Gascoigne, 169, 170, 172. Genesis, 317. Geruth or Gertrude, 78. German commentators, 304. Gervinus, 54, 137. Glossary, Dyce's, 285, 327, 355. Globe edition, 301. Globe Theatre, 214, 216. Good-morrow, 167, 173. Good-bye, Good-night, 169. Goneril, 193. Gorbellied, 336. Gossip, 337. Grammarian, 313. INDEX. 381 Greene, Robert, 23, 175, 282, 349. Green one red, 325. Green wit, 292. Grimalkin, 1G2. Guildenstern, 80. Gyves, 337. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS, 350. Halliwell, 319, 333. Hamlet, 3G, 50, 78, 237, 259. Hamnet, 29. Hand in hand, 338. Happily, 367. Harleian collection, 154. Harkness, 22. Hats on, 293. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 180. Head, 338. Heat, 338. Heavy thick, 372. Heminge, 153. Henry IV., 8, 29, 38, 171, 210. Henry V., 36. Henry VI., 5, 21, 23, 27. Heywood, 169. Historical plays, 19, 26. Hob, 339. Hole, 339. Holinshed, 213, 216. Homer, 151, 187. Hope, 374. Horatio, 80. Howell's letters, 296. Hudson, 190, 192. Hymen, 149. IAGO, 106, 228. Iphigenia, 175. Imogen, 179, 235. Ingredience, 363. Infernal, 334. Infinite cunning, 376. Insanity, Lear's, 224. Interpolations, 206. Intrinse, 192. In the quill, 297. Irish, 1G3, 332. Is instead of have, 323. It, its, 374. JAMES I., 153, 242. Jaques, 133, 261. Jealousy of women, 12. Joan, a spell for, 570. Johnson and Stevens, 184. Julius Cassar, 51. Jupiter symphony, 54. Jutland, 77. KARES, OTTO, 305. Kean, Mrs. Charles, 256. Kemble, John, 226. Kent, 192. Kersey, 348. King Lear, the Text, 183. King Lear, Plot and Personages, 210. King John, 26, 29. Knight, 333. Knight's Pictorial Edition, 21. Koblmg's Englische Studien, 305. LACONISMUS, 163. Lady Gruach's Husband, The, 58. Laertes, 86. Land-damn, 339. Laid on with a trowel, 308. Lapsed, 308. Learning for beauty, 292. Leonatus, 236. Lettsom, Mr., 327. Lilly, John, 10, 47. Little quill, 311. Littleton, 328. Lockhart, 304. Lodge's Eu. Golden Legacie, 304, 315. London, 13, 20, 152, 243. Long ears, 290. Love's Labour 's Won, 46. Love's Labour 's Lost, 5, 9, 11, 17, 27, 34, 46. Lucrece, 8. MACAOLAY, T. B., 154. Macbeth, 63. Macdonwald, 63. Malcolm, 65. Malone, 184, 333. Mallory's King Arthur, 329. Marcellus, 92. Manners and customs, 293. Marlowe, 5, 21,23, 210, 309,311, 353, 367. Measure for Measure, 8, 47, 54, 210. Mediterranean, 102. Mephistopheles, 157. Merchant of Venice, 8, 32, 34, 210. Meres, Francis, 46, 176. Merry Wives of Windsor, 8, 30, 31. Michael Angelo, 23. Midsummer-Night's Dream, 10, 17, 24,27- Middleton, 350. Mien, 339. Milton, 226, 296. Minerva, 309. Mine ease in mine inn, 295. Minotaur, the, 127. Mirrored there, 298. Moberly, 196. Modern editors, 283, 325, 333, 339, 340, 355, 363. Moliere, 260. Montagues, 174. Montaigne's Essays, 292. Moral plays, 230. MOSG in the chine, 340. Moth, 291. Mozart, 23, 54. Much Ado about Nothing, 8, 36, 210. My, 340. NAG, 340. Napping, 340. Native, 340. Ne, 341. Necessity's sharp pinch, 195. Neither too heavy, etc., 162. Nestor, 93. 382 INDEX. New Testament, 159, 160. New-fangled, 341. Nolite dare, etc., 158. Noseless, 341. Note on Mr. Walker's Critical Examina- tion, 364. Nourriture passe nature, 165. Novum Organum, 153, 182. Norway, 77. OBEBON, 127. Obsolete words, 303. O'ergalled, 341. O'er-perch, 341. Offal, 342. Old-Castle, 328. Olivia, 342. Once in a month, 314. One, 342, 368. On the Acting of lago, 258. On Reading Shakespeare, 1. Ooze, 342. Ophelia, 86. Organ-pipe, 342. Orlando, 129, 248. Oswald, 192. O the, 165. Othello, 12, 50, 102, 235. Overbury, Sir Thomas, 328. PALLADIS TAMIA, 46, 176. Papers, the, 298. Parcel-gilt, 350. Path, 363. Peele, George, 5, 21, 23, 282. Pennsylvania, man-of-war, 58. Pericles, 5, 165. Perugine Madonna, 10. Persius, 169. Pfeffer, Dr., 306. Philological and Critical Nonsense, 358. Philologer, 362. Pilgrim's Progress, 7. Pitch, pight, 309. Placket, 342. Plagiarisms, 22. Plato, 279, 299. Plautus, 10, 163. Plays of first period, 1. Plays of second period, 19. Plays of third period, 38. Plays to pass over, 4. Plutarch, North's, 228, 318. Polack, 304. Pott, Mrs. Henry, 154. Praise of woman, 11. Precious square, 189. Pregnant, 350. Prima facie, 161. Prince Hal, 29. Procul o procul, etc. , 159. Proper names, 365. Puritans, 258. Puss in Boots, 102. Putnam, George P., 180. Putter out, and point-blank, 311. QUICKLY, Mrs., 315, RABELAIS, Urquhart's, 339, 357. Racine, 260. Rachel, 265. Raphael, 10, 23. Reade, Charles, 164. Readings without comment, 281. Regan, 189. Reid and Steevens, 184. Remember thy courtesy, 351. Revolting truths, 210. Richard II., 25. Richard III., 22, 23, 25, 27. Ring of gold, etc., 163. Riper than a mulberry, 164. Rolfe, 317, 333, 336. Romeo and Juliet, 7, 8, 34, 39, 167, 210. Rome, 173. Rosalind, 127, 236. Rosaline, 10, 37. Rowe, 194, 259. Runaways, 353, 375. SABA, 356, 375. Sack, 296. Salvini, 262. Samphire, 204. Satan, 157. Saul of Tarsus, 178. Scandinavians, 78. Schluter, 54. Schmidt, Dr. Alexander, 190, 196, 300. Scott, Sir Walter, 1. Seal, 354. Self-slaughter, 299. Sell one a bargain, 322. Semper virgines furia, 159. Seneca, 163. Shakespeare Lexicon, 300, 302. Shakespeare's Scholar, 287, 327, 376. Shafton, Sir Piercie, 49, 285. Sheep biter, 310. Shent, 354. Shenstone, 355 Shoal, 321. Sickel, 356. Sight, 298. Simular man, 374. Sincere, 356. Skin between the brows, 355. Slave, 303. Sleaded, 304. Social life, 29. Soldi qui luise, etc., 164. Sonnets, the, 8, 176. Southampton, Earl of, 153. Spedding, James, 154. Spenser, 155, 295, 309, 355. Squeaking Cleopatra, 325. Stage Rosalinds, 233. Step-mother, 357. Strange suspicions, 372. Stratford, 153. Study, 357. Superfluous glosses, 286, 289, 301, 302. Suicide, 299. Supreme excellence, 20. Swift, 344. Swits and spurs, 356. INDEX. 383 TALE OF THE FOREST OP ARDKN. 127. Tate, 184. Tempest, the, 7, 27, 61. Tender-hefted, 193, 289. Terminology, 312. Terminations, 374. Textual emendation, 375. Theatre Francais, 2t>0 Theobald, 355. The, 358, 375. Thersites, 43. Tidy, 358. Timon of Athens, 44, 210. Titus Andronicus, 5, 153. Tom Brown's School-days, 306. Touchstone, 132, 231. ^Toward, 358. Tragedy of Duke of York, 21. Troilus and Cressida, 8, 35, 36, 39. Trunk hose, 245. Two Gentlemen of Verona, 18, 24, 31. Tybalt, 161. ULIUCI, 54. Ulysses, 40. Uncurrent, 294. Upton, 192, 199. VARIORUM, the, 184. Varlet, 360. Venice, 101, 266. Venus and Adonis, 8. Venus of Melos, 2, 235. Vere, time of, 295. Vice, 230. Virgin crants, 287. Viol, 350. Viola, 248. WALKER, 334. Want, 288. Warburton, 190. Washington Navy Yard, 58. Waverly novels, 7, 343. Weeping-smiling, 371. Well-a-near, 361. Where, 361. Whittle, 331. Wince or winch, 361. Windlaces, 287. Winter's Tale, 8, 27, 51. Wordsworth, 177. Wright, William Aldis, 52, 184, 190, 194, ZANY, 289. tatttiarD anfc SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. A Club of One. An Anonymous Volume, $1.25. Brooks Adams. The Emancipation of Massachusetts, crown 8vo, $1.50. John Adams and Abigail Adams. Familiar Letters of, during the Revolution, I2mo, $2.00. Oscar Fay Adams. Handbook of English Authors, i6mo, 75 cents ; Handbook of American Authors, i6mo, 75 cents. Louis Agassiz. Methods of Study in Natural History, Illus- trated, i2mo, $1.50; Geological Sketches, Series I. and II., I2mo, each, $1.50; A Journey in Brazil, Illustrated, I2mo, $2.50 ; Life and Letters, edited by his wife, 2 vols. I2mo, $4.00; Life and Works, 6 vols. $10.00. Anne A. Agge and Mary M. Brooks. Marblehead Sketches. 4to, $3.00. Elizabeth Akers. The Silver Bridge and other Poems, i6mo $1.25. Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Story of a Bad Boy, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.50; Marjorie Daw and Other People, I2mo, $1.50; Prudence Palfrey, I2mo, $1.50; The Queen of Sheba, I2mo, $1.50; The Stillwater Tragedy, I2mo, $1.50; Poems, House- hold Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25; The above six vols. I2mo, uniform, $9.00; From Ponkapog to Pesth, i6mo, $1.25 ; Poems, Complete, Illustrated, 8vo, $3.50 ; Mercedes, and Later Lyrics, cr. 8vo, $1.25. Rev. A. V. G. Allen. Continuity of Christian Thought, I2mo, $2.00. American Commonwealths. Per volume, i6mo, $1.25. Virginia. By John Esten Cooke. Oregon. By William Barrows. Maryland. By Wm. Hand Browne. Kentucky. By N. S. Shaler. Michigan. By Hon. T. M. Cooley. 2 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's Kansas. By Leverett W. Spring. California. By Josiah Royce. New York. By Ellis H. Roberts. 2 vols. Connecticut. By Alexander Johnston. (fit Preparation.) Tennessee. By James Phelan. Pennsylvania. By Hon. Wayne MacVeagh. Missouri. By Lucien Carr. Ohio. By Rufus King. New Jersey. By Austin Scott. American Men of Letters. Per vol., with Portrait, i6mo, $1.25. Washington Irving. By Charles Dudley Warner. Noah Webster. By Horace E. Scudder. Henry D. Thoreau. By Frank B. Sanborn. George Ripley. By O. B. Frothingham. J. Fenimore Cooper. By Prof. T. R. Lounsbury. Margaret Fuller Ossoli. By T. W. Higginson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry. Nathaniel Parker Willis. By H. A. Beers. (In Preparation.) Benjamin Franklin. By John Bach McMaster. Nathaniel Hawthorne. By James Russell Lowell. William Cullen Bryant. By John Bigelow. Bayard Taylor. By J. R. G. Hassard. William Gilmore Simms. By George W. Cable. American Statesmen. Per vol., i6mo, $1.25. John Quincy Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. Alexander Hamilton. By Henry Cabot Lodge. John C. Calhoun. By Dr. H. von Hoist. Andrew Jackson. By Prof. W. G. Sumner. John Randolph. By Henry Adams. James Monroe. By Pres. D. C. Gilman. Thomas Jefferson. By John T. Morse, Jr. Daniel Webster. By Henry Cabot Lodge. Albert Gallatin. By John Austin Stevens. James Madison. By Sydney Howard Gay. John Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. Standard and Popular Library Books. 3 John Marshall. By Allan B. Magruder. Samuel Adams. By J. K. Hosmer. Thomas H. Benton. By Theoc ore Roosevelt. Henry Clay. By Hon. Carl Schu.rz. 2 vols. (In Preparation.) Martin Van Buren. By Edward M. Shepard. George Washington. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 2 vols. Patrick Henry. By Moses Coit Tyler. Martha Babcock Amory. Life of Copley, 8vo, $3.00. Hans Christian Andersen. Complete Works, 10 vols. I2mo, each $1.00. New Edition, 10 vols. I2mo, $10.00. Francis, Lord Bacon. Works, 15 vols. cr. 8vo, $33.75 ; Pop- ular Edition, with Portraits, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $5.00 ; Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, 8vo, $5.00; Life and Times of Bacon, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $5.00. L. H. Bailey, Jr. Talks Afield, Illustrated, i6mo, $1.00. M. M. Ballon. Due West, cr. 8vo, $1.50 ; Due South, $1.50. Henry A. Beers. The Thankless Muse. Poems. i6mo,$i.25. E. D. R. Bianciardi. At Home in Italy, i6mo, $1.25. William Henry Bishop. The House of a Merchant Prince, a Novel, I2mo, $1.50; Detmold, a Novel, i8mo, $1.25; Choy Susan and other Stories, i6mo, $1.25 ; The Golden Justice, i6mo, $1.25. Bjornstjerne Bjornson. Complete Works. New Edition, 3 vols. I2mo, the set, $4.50; Synnove Solbakken, Bridal March, Captain Mansana, Magnhild, i6mo, each $1.00. Anne C. Lynch Bo tt a. Handbook of Universal Literature, New Edition, I2mo, $2.00. British Poets. Riverside Edition, cr. 8vo, each $1.50; the set, 68 vols. $100.00. John Brown, A. B. John Bunyan. Illustrated. 8vo, $4.50. John Brown, M. D. Spare Hours, 3 vols. i6mo, each $1.50. Robert Browning. Poems and Dramas, etc., 15 vols. i6mo, $22.00; Works, 8 vols. cr. 8vo, $13.00; Ferishtah's Fancies, cr. 8vo, $1.00; Jocoseria, i6mo, $1.00; cr. 8vo, $1.00; Par- leyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day, i6mo or cr. 8vo, $1.25. Works, New Edition, 6 vols. cr. 8vo. $10.00. William Cullen Bryant. Translation of Homer, The Iliad 4. Houghton^ Mifflin and Company's cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 2 vols. royal 8vo, $9.00 ; cr. 8vo, $4.00. The Odyssey, cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 2 vols. royal 8vo, $9.00 ; cr. 8vo, $4.00. Sara C. Bull. Life of die Bull. Popular Edition. 121110, $i-5- John Burroughs. Works, 7 vols. i6mo, each $1.50. Thomas Carlyle. Essays, with Portrait and Index, 4 vols. I2mo, $7.50; Popiilar Edition, 2 vols. I2mo, $3.50. Alice and Phoebe Gary. Poems, Household Edition, Illus- trated, I2tno, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25 ; Library Edition, including Memorial by Mary Clemmer, Portraits and 24 Illus- trations, 8vo, $3.50. Wm. Ellery Channing. Selections from His Note-Books, $1.00. Francis J. Child (Editor?. English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Eight Parts. (Parts I.-IV. now ready). 410, each $5.00. Poems of Religious Sorrow, Comfort, Counsel, and Aspiration. i6mo, $1.25. Lydia Maria Child. Looking Toward Sunset, I2mo, $2.50; Letters, with Biography by Whittier, i6mo, $1.50. James Freeman Clarke. Ten Great Religions, Parts I. and II., i2mo, each $2.00 ; Common Sense in Religion, I2mo, $2.00 ; Memorial and Biographical Sketches, I2mo, $2.00. John Esten Cooke. My Lady Pokahontas, i6mo, $1.25. James Fenimore Cooper. Works, new Household Edition, Illustrated, 32 vols. i6mo, each $1.00; the set, $32.00; Fire- side Edition, Illustrated, 16 vols. I2mo, $20.00. Susan Fenimore Cooper. Rural Hours. i6mo, $1.25. Charles Egbert Craddock. In the Tennessee Mountains, i6mo, $1.25; Down the Ravine, Illustrated, $1.00; The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, i6mo, $1.25; In The Clouds, i6mo, $1.25. C. P. Cranch. Ariel and Caliban. i6mo, $1.25 ; The ^Eneid of Virgil. Translated by Cranch. 8vo, $2.50. T. F. Crane. Italian Popular Tales, 8vo, $2.50. F. Marion Crawford. To Leeward, i6mo, $1.25 ; A Roman Singer, i6mo, $1.25; An American Politician, i6mo, $1.25. M. Creighton. The Papacy during the Reformation, 4 vols. 8vo, $17.50. Richard H. Dana. To Cuba and Back, i6mo, $1-25; Tw The Lady of the Aroostook, I2mo, $1.50; The Undiscovered Country, I2mo, $1.50. Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby, i6mo, $1.00 ; Tom Brown at Oxford, i6mo, $1.25 ; The Man- liness of Christ, i6mo, $1.00; paper, 25 cents. William Morris Hunt Talks on Art, 2 Series, each #1.00. 8 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's Henry James. A Passionate Pilgrim and other Tales, ismo, $2.00; Transatlantic Sketches, I2mo, $2.co ; Roderick Hud- son, I2ino, $2.00; The American, 121110, $2.00; Watch and Ward, i8mo, $1.25 ; The Europeans, I2mo, $1.50; Confidence, I2mo, $1.50; The Portrait of a Lady, I2mo, $2.00. Aima Jameson. Writings upon Art Subjects. New Edition, 10 vols. i6mo, the set, $12.50. Sarah Orne Jewett. Deephaven, i8mo, $1.25 ; Old Friends and New, i8mo, $1.25 ; Country By-Ways, i8mo, $1.25 ; Play- Days, Stories for Children, square i6mo, $1.50; The Mate of the Daylight, i8mo, $1.25 ; A Country Doctor, i6mo, $1.25 ; A Marsh Island, i6mo, $1.25 ; A White Heron, i8mo, $1.25. Rossiter Johnson. Little Classics, 18 vols. i8mo, each $1.00 ; the set, $18.00. Samuel Johnson. Oriental Religions: India, 8vo, $5.00; China, 8vo, $5.00 ; Persia, 8vo, $5.00 ; Lectures, Essays, and Sermons, cr. 8vo, $1.75. Charles C. Jones, Jr. History of Georgia, 2 vols. 8vo, $10.00. Malcolm Kerr. The Far Interior. 2 vols. 8vo, $9.00. Omar Khayyam. Rubaiyat, Red-Line Edition, square i6mo., $1.00 ; the same, with 56 Illustrations by Vedder, folio, $25.00 ; The Same, Phototype Edition, 4to, $12.50. T. Starr King. Christianity and Humanity, with Portrait, i2mo, $1.50 ; Substance and Show, i6mo, $2.00. Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare. Han- dy-Volume Edition. 32mo, $1.00. Henry Lansdell. Russian Central Asia. 2 vols. $10.00. Lucy Larcom. Poems, i6mo, $1.25 ; An Idyl of Work, i6mo, $1.25 ; Wild Roses of Cape Ann and other Poems, i6mo, $1.25 ; Breathings of the Better Life, i8mo, $1.25 ; Poems, Household Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25 ; Beckonings for Every Day, i6mo, $1.00. George Parsons Lathrop. A Study of Hawthorne tSmo, $1.25. Henry C. Lea. Sacerdotal Celibacy, 8vo, $4.50. Sophia and Harriet Lee. Canterbury Tales. New Edition. 3 vols. I2mo, $3.75. Charles G. Lelaud. The Gypsies, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; Algonquip Legends of New England, cr. 8vo, $2.00. Standard and Popular Library Books. 9 George Henry Lewes. The Story of Goethe's Life, Portrait, I2mo, $1.50; Problems of Life and Mind, 5 vols. 8vo, $14.00. A. Parlett Lloyd. The Law of Divorce, cloth, $2.00 ; sheep, $2.50. ' J. G. Lockhart. Life of Sir W. Scott, 3 vols. i2mo, $4.50. Henry Cabot Lodge. Studies in History, cr. 8vo, $1.50. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Complete Poetical and Prose Works, Riverside Edition, n vols. cr. 8vo, $16.50; Po- etical Works, Riverside Edition, 6 vols. cr. 8vo, $9.00 ; Cam- bridge* Edition, 4 vols. I2tno, $7.00; Poems, Octavo Edition, Portrait and 300 Illustrations, $7.50; Household Edition, Illus- trated, I2mo, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; Red- Line Edition, Portrait and 12 Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $1.00 ; Library Edition, Portrait and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Christus, Household Edition, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; Cabinet Edition, $1.00 ; Prose Works, Riverside Edition, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $3.00; Hyperion, i6mo, $1.50 ; Kavanagh, i6mo, $1.50; Outre-Mer, i6mo, $1.50; In the Harbor, i6mo, $1.00; Michael Angelo : a Drama, Illustrated, folio, $5.00 ; Twenty Poems, Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50 ; Translation of the Divina Commedia of Dante, Riverside Edition, 3 vols. cr. 8vo, $4.50 ; I vol. cr. 8vo, $2.50 ; 3 vols. royal 8vo, $13.50 ; cr. 8vo, $4.50; Poets and Poetry of Europe, royal 8vo, $5.00; Poems of Places, 31 vols. each $1.00; the set, $25.00. James Russell Lowell. Poems, Red-Line Edition, Portrait, Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Hoiisehold Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75 ; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25 ; Library Edition, Portrait and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50; Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Fire- side Travels, I2mo, $1.50 ; Among my Books, Series I. and II. I2mo, each $2.00; My Study Windows, I2mo, $2.00 ; Democ- racy and other Addresses, i6mo, $1.25; Uncollected Poems. Thomas Babington Macaulay. Works, *o vols. I2mo, $20.00. Mrs. Madison. Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison, i6mo, $1.25. Harriet Martineau. Autobiography, New Edition, 2 vols. I2mo, $4.00; Household Education, i8mo, $1.25. H. B. McClellan. The Life and Campaigns of Maj.-Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. With Portrait and Maps, 8vo, $3.00. G. W. Melville. In the Lena Delta, Maps and Illustrations, 8vo, $2.50. io Houghton, Mifflin and Company's T. C. Mendenhall. A Century of Electricity. i6mo, $1.25. Owen Meredith. Poems, Household Edition, Illustrated,, I2mo, $1-75; cr. Svo, full gilt, $2.25; Library Edition, Por- trait and 32 Illustrations, Svo, $3.50 ; Lucile, Red-Line Edi- tion, 8 Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, 8 Illus- trations, $1.00. Olive Thorne Miller. Bird-Ways, i6mo, $1.25. John Milton. Paradise Lost. Handy- Volume Edition. 32mo, $1.00. Riverside Classic Edition, i6mo, Illustrated, $1.00. S. Weir Mitchell. In War Time, i6mo, $1.25; Roland Blake, i6mo, $1.25. J. W. Mollett Illustrated Dictionary of Words used in Art and Archaeology, small 4to, $5.00. Montaigne. Complete Works, Portrait, 4 vols. I2mo, $7.50. "William Mountford. Euthanasy, Kmo, $2.00. T. Mozley. Reminiscences of Oriel College, etc., 2 vols. i6mo, $3.00. Elisha Mulford. The Nation, Svo, $2.50; The Republic of God, Svo, $2.00. T. T. Munger. On the Threshold, i6mo, $1.00 ; The Freedom of Faith, i6mo, $1.50 ; Lamps and Paths, i6mo, $1.00 ; The Appeal to Life, i6mo, $1.50. J. A. W. Neander. History of the Christian Religion and Church, with Index volume, 6 vols. Svo, $20.00 ; Index, $3.00. Joseph Neilson. Memories of Rufus Choate, Svo, $5.00. Charles Eliot Norton. Notes of Travel in Italy, i6mo, $1.25 ; Translation of Dante's New Life, royal Svo, $3.00. Wm. D. O'Connor. Hamlet's Note-Book, i6mo, $1.00. G. H. Palmer. Trans, of Homer's Odyssey, 1-12, Svo, $2.50. Leighton Parks. His Star in the East. Cr. Svo, $1.50. James Parton. Life of Benjamin Franklin, 2 vols. Svo, $5.00 ; Life of Thomas Jefferson, Svo, $2.50; Life of Aaron Burr, 2 vols. Svo, $5.00 ; Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. Svo, $7.50 ; Life of Horace Greeley, Svo, $2.50 ; General Butler in New Orleans, Svo, $2.50 ; Humorous Poetry of the English Lan- guage, I2mo, $1.75; full gilt, $2.25; Famous Americans of Recent Times, Svo, $2.50 ; Life of Voltaire, 2 vols. Svo, $6.00; The French Parnassus, I2mo, $1.75 ; crown Svo, $3.50; Cap- tains of Industry, i6mo, $1.25. Standard and Popular Library Books. n Blaise Pascal. Thoughts, i2mo, $2.25; Letters, i2mo, $7.25. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The Gates Ajar, i6mo, $1.50; Beyond the Gates, i6mo, $1.25; Men, Women, and Ghosts, i6mo, $1.50; Hedged In, i6mo, $1.50; The Silent Partner, i6mo, $1.50; The Story of Avis, i6mo, $1.50 ; Sealed Orders, and other Stories, i6mo, $1.50; Friends: A Duet, i6mo, $1.25 ; Doctor Zay, i6mo, $1.25 ; Songs of the Silent World, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25 ; An Old Maid's Paradise, i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; Burglars in Paradise, i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; Madonna of the Tubs, cr. 8vo, Illustrated, $1.50. Phillips Exeter Lectures : Delivered before the Students of Phillips Exeter Academy, 1885-6. By E. E. HALE, PHILLIPS BROOKS, Presidents McCosH, PORTER, and others. i2mo, $1.50. Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt. Selected Poems, i6mo, $1.50. Carl Ploetz. Epitome of Universal History, I2mo, $3.00. Antoniii Lefevre Pontalis. The Life of John DeWitt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, 2 vols. 8vo, $9.00. Margaret J. Preston. Colonial Ballads, i6mo, $1.25. Adelaide A. Procter. Poems, Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Red* Line Edition, small 4to, $2.50. Progressive Orthodoxy. i6mo, $1.00. Sampson Reed. Growth of the Mind, i6mo,-$i.oo. C. F. Richardson. Primer of American Literature, iSmo, $ .30. Riverside Aldine Series. Each volume, i6mo, $1.00. First edition, $1.50. I. Marjorie Daw, etc., by T. B. ALDRICH; 2. My Summer in a Garden, by C. D. WARNER ; 3. Fireside Travels, by J. R. LOWELL ; 4. The Luck of Roaring Camp, etc., by BRET HARTE ; 5, 6. Venetian Life, 2 vols., by W. D. HOW- ELLS ; 7. Wake Robin, by JOHN BURROUGHS ; 8, 9. The Biglow Papers, 2 vols., by J. R. LOWELL ; 10. Backlog Studies, by C. D. WARNER. Henry Crabb Robinson. Diary, Reminiscences, etc. cr. 8vo, $2.50. John C. Ropes. The First Napoleon, with Maps, cr. 8vo,$2.oo. Josiah Royce. Religious Aspect of Philosophy, i2mo, $2.00. Edgar Evertson Saltus. Balzac, cr. 8vo, $1.25 ; The Phi- losophy of Disenchantment, cr. 8vo, $1.25. John Godfrey Saxe. Poems, Red-Line Edition, Illustrated, 12 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Household Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75 ; full gilt, cr. Svo, $2.25. Sir "Walter Scott. Waverley Novels, Illustrated Library Edition, 25 vols. I2mo, each $1.00 ; the set, $25.00 ; Tales of a Grandfather, 3 vols. 121110, $4.50; Poems, Red-Line Edition Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, $1.00. W. H. Seward. Works, 5 vols. Svo, $15.00; Diplomatic His- tory of the War, Svo, $3.00. John Campbell Shairp. Culture and Religion, i6mo, $1.25] Poetic Interpretation of Nature, i6mo, $1.25 ; Studies in Po- etry and Philosophy, 161110, $1.50; Aspects of Poetry, i6mo, $1.50. William Shakespeare. Works, edited by R. G. White, Riv- erside Edition, 3 vols. cr. Svo, $7.50 ; The Same, 6 vols., cr. Svo, uncut, $10.00; The Blackfriars Shakespeare, per vol. $2.50, net. (In Press.) A. P. Sinnett. Esoteric Buddhism, i6mo, $1.25; The Occult World, i6mo, $1.25. M. C. D. Silsbee. A Half Century in Salem. i6mo, $1.00. Dr. William Smith. Bible Dictionary, American Edition, 4 vols. Svo, $20.00. Edmund Clarence Stedman. Poems, Farringford Edition, Portrait, i6mt>, $2.00; Household Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75; full gilt, cr. Svo, $2.25; Victorian Poets, I2mo, $2.00; Poets of America, I2mo, $2.25. The set, 3 vols., uniform, I2mo, $6.00; Edgar Allan Poe, an Essay, vellum, iSmo, $1.00. W. W. Story. Poems, 2 vols. i6mo, $2.50; Fiammetta: A Novel, i6mo, $1.25. Roba di Roma, 2 vols. i6mo, $2.50. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Novels and Stories, 10 vols. i2mo, uniform, each $1.50; A Dog's Mission, Littie Pussy Willow, Queer Little People, Illustrated, small 4to, each $1.25 ; Uncle Tom's Cabin, 100 Illustrations, Svo, $3.00 ; Library Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $2.00 ; Popular Edition, I2mo, $1.00. Jonathan Swift. Works, Edition de Luxe, 19 vols. Svo, the set, $76.00. T. P. Taswell-Langmead. English Constitutional History. New Edition, revised, Svo, $7.50. Bayard Taylor. Poetical Works, Household Edition, i2mo, $1.75 ; cr. 8vo t full gilt, $2.25 ; Melodies of Verse, iSmo, vel- Standard and Popular Library Books. 13 lum, $1.00; Life and Letters, 2 vols. I2mo, $4.00; Dramatic Po- ems, I2mo, $2.25 ; Household Edition, I2mo, $1.75; Life and Poetical Works, 6 vols. uniform. Including Life, 2 vols. ; Faust, 2 vols. ; Poems, I vol. ; Dramatic Poems, i vol. The set, cr. 8vo, $12.00. Alfred Tennyson. Poems, Household Edition, Portrait and Illustrations, I2mo; $1.75; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25; Illus- trated Crown Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $5.00 ; Library Edition, Portrait and 60 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50; Red-Line Edition, Portrait and Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50 ; Cabinet Edition, $1.00; Complete Works, Riverside Edition, 6 vols. cr. 8vo, $6.00. Celia Thaxter. Among the Isles of Shoals, i8mo, $1.25 ; Poems, small 4to, $1.50 ; Drift- Weed, i8mc, $1.50 ; Poems for Children, Illustrated, small 4to, $1.50 ; Cruise of the Mys- tery, Poems, i6mo, $1.00. Edith M. Thomas. A New Year's Masque and other Poems, i6mo, $1.50; The Round Year, i6mo, $1.25. Joseph P. Thompson. American Comments on European Questions, 8vo, $3.00. Henry D. Thoreau. Works, 9 vols. 121110, each $ij;o; the set, $13.50. George Ticknor. History of Spanish Literature, 3 vols. 8vo, $10.00; Life, Letters, and Journals, Portraits, 2 vols. I2mo, $4.00. Bradford Torrey. Birds in the Bush, i6mo, $1.25. Sophtis Tromholt. Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis, Illustrated, 2 vols. $7.50. Mrs. SchuylerVan Reiisselaer. H. H. Richardson and his Works. Jones Very. Essays and Poems, cr. 8vo, $2.00. Annie Wall. Story of Sordello, told in Prose, i6mo, $1.00. Charles Dudley Warner. My Summer in a Garden, River- side Aldine Edition, i6mo, $1.00 ; Illustrated Edition, square i6mo, $1.50; Saunterings, iSmo, $1.25; Backlog Studies, Illustrated, square i6mo, $1.50; Riverside Aldine Edition, i6mo, $1.00; Baddeck, and that Sort of Thing, i8mo, $1.00; My Winter on the Nile, cr. 8vo, $2.00 ; In the Levant, cr. Svo, $2.00; Being a Boy, Illustrated, square i6mo, $1.50; In the 14 Standard and Popular Library Books. Wilderness, i8mo, 75 cents ; A Roundabout Journey, I2mo, $1.50. William F. Warren, LL. D. Paradise Found, cr. 8vo, $2.00. William A. Wheeler. Dictionary of Noted Names of Fic- tion, i2mo, $2.00. Edwin P. Whipple. Essays, 6 vols. cr. 8vo, each $1.50. Richard Grant White. Every-Day English, i2mo, $2.00; Words and their Uses, I2mo, $2.00; England Without and Within, I2mo, $2.00; The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys, i6mo, $1.25 ; Studies in Shakespeare, I2mo, $1.75. Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. Stones, 12 vols. I2mo, each $1.50; Mother Goose forXrrown Folks, I2mo, $1.50; Pansies, i6mo, $1.25; Daffodils, i6mo, $1.25; Just How, i6mo, $1.00; Bon- nyborough, i2mo, $1.50; Holy Tides, i6mo, 75 cents; Home- spun Yarns, I2mo, $1.50. John Greenleaf Whittier. Poems, Household Edition, Illus- trated, I2mo, $1.75 ; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25 ; Cambridge Edi- tion, Portrait, 3 vols. I2mo, $5.25 ; Red- Line Edition, Por- trait, Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Cabinet Edition, $r.oo; Library Edition, Portrait, 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Prose Works, Cambridge Edition, 2 vols. I2mo, $3.50; The Bay of Seven Islands, Portrait, i6mo, $1.00; John Woolman's Jour- nal, Introduction by Whittier, $1.50; Child Life in Poetry, selected by Whittier, Illustrated, T2mo, $2.00; Child Life in Prose, I2mo, $2.00; Songs of Three Centuries, selected by Whittier: Household Edition, Illustrated, I2mo, $1.75; full gilt, cr. 8vo, $2.25; Library Edition, 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50 ; Text and Verse, i8mo, 75 cents ; Poems of Nature, 4to, Illustrated, $6.00 ; St. Gregory's Guest, etc., i6mo, vellum, $1.00. Woodrow Wilson. Congressional Government, i6mo, $1.25. J. A. Wilstach. Translation of Virgil's Works, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $5.00. Justin Winsor. Reader's Handbook of American Revolu- tion, i6mo, $1.25. W. B. Wright. Ancient Cities from the Dawn to the Day- light, i6mo, $1.25. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing the books to the Circulation Dtr DUE AS STAMPED BELOW I MAY 10 1984 | RETD MAY 3 1984 >A$ X / flfCElVFfl ** v c L/ f # / 7 jnnc ' \77J 'HCULATION Dpf t i UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 U ELIBRARIES "51427 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOF&IA LIBRARY*