I LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 ! SAN DIEGO 

 
 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE
 
 AFTER THE STRATFORD PORTRAIT 
 
 UUilii
 
 HOW TO READ 
 SHAKSPEARE 
 
 A GUIDE FOR THE GENERAL READER 
 
 JAMES STALKER 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORV 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 
 
 MCMXIII
 
 TO 
 
 A. M. B. D.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book is not intended for the student or the 
 scholar although, it is hoped, to expert eyes the 
 marks of acquaintance with the best authorities 
 may be everywhere visible but for those who 
 would like to be readers of Shakspeare but are 
 deterred by the difficulties of approach. In the 
 English-speaking lands there are multitudes who 
 read the dramatist with intelligence and delight ; 
 but, in this century of universal reading, the 
 numbers enjoying this means of culture might 
 be vastly increased ; and the purpose of this 
 book is to serve as a Murray or Baedeker for 
 those to whom this is to a large extent an un- 
 visited land to let them know how to get there 
 and what there is to see. 
 
 Apart from the mere pleasure of reading, 
 which grows with repetition, I have cultivated 
 an intimacy with these writings chiefly for the
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 purpose of fertilising my own mind by the perio- 
 dical discharge on it of the whole volume of 
 Shakspeare's language and ideas ; and I write 
 in order to facilitate for other intellectual workers 
 the same beneficent inundation. 
 
 But I have also to avow another purpose. 
 Of the poet Burns it was remarked by Rabbi 
 Duncan, the saint and sage, that he is too great 
 a fact to be ignored, and that, therefore, religious 
 teachers should make the most and the best of 
 him. Of Shakspeare the same may be said : he 
 is so great an asset of the English-speaking 
 world that none possessed of intellectual tastes 
 and aspirations can pass him by ; and I should 
 like to show to Christian people how, in spite of 
 not a little which cannot but be repulsive to pure 
 minds, they may reckon these productions of 
 genius, as a whole, among the objects of which 
 it is written, "All things are yours". 
 
 When I think of the great scholars who are 
 devoting their days and nights to the interpre- 
 tation of Shakspeare, I am half ashamed to 
 bring into any kind of competition with their 
 work that which is confessedly a product of 
 leisure-time. But these messieurs will accept 
 the plea, that the readers whom I am seeking
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 are those whom they have missed. I am not 
 offering to take any regular class in the school 
 not even the lowest but I am trying to capture 
 those who, having left the school or even playing 
 truant from it, may be lured, in forgetfulness of 
 text-books and examination-papers, not to study 
 a classic but to read a book. The graver and 
 more exacting is our ordinary occupation, the 
 more do we require a relaxation, to help the 
 mind to recover its tone ; Shakspeare has been 
 mine ; and my services are offered humbly to 
 those approaching him in the same holiday-spirit. 
 Yet I sometimes flatter myself that long practice, 
 in another field, in making crooked things straight 
 and rough places plain may have bred a certain 
 facility in the art of divining the purpose of a 
 play and tracking the continuity of thought from 
 play to play or from one group of plays to another. 
 
 In the quotations I have followed the text of 
 Dyce, checked by that of Gollancz. 
 
 To my friends, Miss Jane T. Stoddart, of 
 London, and Mr. William Murison, M.A., of 
 the Aberdeen Grammar School, I am deeply 
 indebted not only for reading the proofs but for 
 not a few valuable suggestions. 
 
 ABERDEEN, September, 1913. 
 
 b
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES . . . . 115 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE TRAGEDIES 145 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE MINOR POEMS AND THE LIFE OF SHAKSPEARE 179 
 
 THE PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER . . .219 
 A PAGE OF LEARNING ...... 249 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 SHAKSPEARE ON Music 255 
 
 INDICES ........ 283
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES
 
 KING JOHN 
 
 KING RICHARD THE SECOND 
 
 THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH 
 
 THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH 
 
 KING HENRY THE FIFTH 
 
 THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH 
 
 THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH 
 
 THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH 
 
 KING RICHARD THE THIRD 
 
 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 
 
 SHAKSPEARE is a territory so vast that the reader 
 who desires to take possession of it requires to parcel 
 it out into provinces and conquer these one by one. 
 The great divisions are obvious : the plays divide them- 
 selves into Histories, Comedies and Tragedies; and 
 the Sonnets, with the miscellaneous poems, may 
 be reckoned as a fourth division. Some at least of 
 these divisions would, however, require to be sub- 
 divided. Thus the Histories naturally fall into the 
 English and the Ancient ; and the Comedies may be 
 divided into the Gayer and the Graver. 
 
 A very important question for the beginner is, with 
 which of the great divisions he ought to commence. 
 In most editions, if I am not mistaken, the Comedies 
 are printed first, and with these the conscientious and 
 unsophisticated reader is accordingly apt to begin. 
 This, however, is a mistake. A great deal of Shak- 
 speare's poorest work is in the Comedies ; and, besides, 
 these are far more difficult to read than the other plays, 
 being full of obsolete words and phrases, of which the 
 beginner can make little or nothing. I can still 
 
 (3)
 
 4 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 remember how, as a boy, I was put out and discouraged 
 by these obscurities ; and many are, I believe, per- 
 manently alienated from this study by trying to enter 
 by the wrong door. 
 
 It seems to me that by far the best way to begin is 
 with the English Histories. Here you get at once, in 
 King John, a poem of the highest excellence, brilliant 
 in diction and easily intelligible; and the four plays 
 which immediately follow are also simple in language 
 and yet, both in conception and execution, up almost 
 to the author's highest level. 
 
 This, however, is not the only reason for placing 
 the English Histories first. They were the first section 
 of his work which the author completed. He did not, 
 indeed, write them quite continuously : a few of the 
 Comedies and one or two of the Tragedies were mixed 
 up with them : but, with the single exception of Henry 
 the Eighth, which belongs to the very close of his career 
 the English Histories were early work, and the whole 
 set was finished when the other two series were little 
 more than begun. 
 
 It would hardly be too much to say that the Eng- 
 lish Histories made Shakspeare. It is natural for a 
 poet to open his career with subjects belonging to the 
 domain of pure fancy, where the characters and the 
 ncidents are of his own invention and he is at perfect 
 liberty to shape everything according to his own will, 
 as long as he keeps within the bounds of probability.
 
 But there is danger of lingering too long in this region. 
 It is too shadowy and impalpable, and it converts the 
 poet into a dreamer, lost to the sympathies of common 
 men. Shelley is an example of a poet who inhabited 
 this dreamland of fancy too long. In his earliest pro- 
 ductions Shakspeare also dwelt in this ideal world ; 
 but happily at an early period his star led him to the 
 task of dramatizing the reigns of the sovereigns of his 
 country. Here he was brought into close contact with 
 the actual. The outlines of the plot were supplied to 
 him by the record of events, and his fancy had to keep 
 within the bounds thus prescribed. The incidents, at 
 least in their main body and succession, had actually 
 taken place ; the dramatis persona were real men and 
 women. Thus the young poet was kept to reality and 
 learned to know the passions, the ambitions and the 
 sorrows of the heart, not only as these might be con- 
 ceived in the imagination but as they had actually been 
 embodied in historical events. This was the right 
 education for a mind like his ; the fidelity with which 
 he clung to his chosen task proves that he felt it to be 
 so ; and in the results, as they lie before us, we can 
 still trace the rapid and marvellous development which 
 under this discipline, his powers underwent. 
 
 The English Histories are ten in number ; but there 
 is a marked difference in value between the first five 
 and the last five. 1 The latest of all, Henry the Eighth, 
 1 That is, as they are now printed.
 
 being so far separated from the rest in the time of its com- 
 position, stands by itself; and, if the first of all, King 
 John, be also put by itself, there is a great and instructive 
 contrast between the first four and the last four of the 
 eight which remain. 
 
 It would appear that, before Shakspeare arrived in 
 London, to begin the work of his life, there already 
 existed dramatizations of several portions of English 
 history, which were popular with the public. Who 
 their authors were is now uncertain ; the manuscripts 
 were the property of the theatre ; and the proprietors, 
 or those employed by them, could at pleasure add to 
 or take from what had been written, to suit the exi- 
 gencies of time or the tastes of their customers. 
 Probably the very first work which Shakspeare had to 
 do as a writer was the adaptation of some of these plays. 
 Being himself one of the actors, he could see, as he 
 was playing, how they might be improved ; and his 
 employers gave the requisite permission. 
 
 In the three plays which appear in his works as 
 the First, the Second and the Third Parts of Henry 
 the Sixth, it is believed, we possess specimens of this 
 renovating process dramas by old hands which the 
 young playwright remodelled and it is a fine task 
 for literary critics to determine how much is his and 
 how much is old. They have not lacked confidence ; 
 and they tell us that "out of 6043 lines, 1771 were 
 written by some author preceding Shakspeare, 2373
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 7 
 
 by him on the foundation laid by his predecessors ; 
 and 1899 were entirely his own". 1 Of course such 
 estimates are largely conjectural ; but it is impossible 
 to read the three parts of Henry the Sixth without 
 feeling how inferior everything is to the Histories 
 written later : the verse is comparatively unmusical 
 and the thinking thin ; few passages tempt to quotation ; 
 the representation lacks subtlety ; and the plot plods 
 laboriously after the details of the history. If this is 
 Shakspeare at all, you say, it is only his " ' prentice 
 hand". 
 
 But this work had interested the young poet ; the 
 public interest may also have spurred him on ; besides, 
 the three plays represented a series of events which 
 they left incomplete ; and, accordingly, he was induced 
 to write a new drama completing them. This was 
 Richard the Third, which is the first of the historical 
 plays entirely his own. It is a powerful piece and has 
 always enjoyed a great popularity. It is the picture 
 of a villain, who stalks through blood and crime to 
 the object of his ambition ; and in it Shakspeare for 
 the first time handles the great subject of conscience, 
 which was subsequently to play a marked part in his 
 work. Everyone remembers how, on the night before 
 the fatal battle of Bosworth, the ghosts of those 
 whom he has murdered come, one after another, into 
 Richard's tent and summon him, in his dreams, to 
 
 1 EMERSON, Representative Men.
 
 8 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 meet them on the morrow on the battlefield ; and 
 how he starts out of sleep, crying, " Give me another 
 horse; bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jesu," 
 and then, as he lies trembling, confesses : 
 
 My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
 And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
 And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
 
 Although, however, there is a great deal of rough 
 power in this drama, it is, in comparison with the 
 author's later work, a crude performance. King 
 Richard is a conscious villain and hypocrite ; indeed, 
 in the very first scene he declares to himself: 
 
 I am determined to prove a villain ; 
 
 and, all through the play, he never attempts for a 
 moment to mask his villainy from his own eyes. He 
 is a monster of iniquity, such as Shakspeare would 
 never have thought of painting in his maturity, when 
 he had learned that even the hypocrite begins by 
 deceiving himself. A still more unmistakable mark 
 of juvenility is the gross manner in which woman is 
 represented. The Lady Anne is wooed and won by 
 Richard, the murderer of her husband, in presence of 
 the coffin of her father-in-law, whom he has also 
 slain ; and the conduct of Queen Elizabeth is hardly 
 less unwomanly. There could not be a greater con- 
 trast than between these representations of woman
 
 ENGLISH HISTORIES $ 
 
 and that in the person of Queen Katharine in the 
 latest of the Histories, Henry the Eighth. 
 
 No doubt, however, Richard the Third must have 
 brought to the young poet immense applause, for 
 nothing equal to its best passages had ever before 
 been witnessed on the English stage ; he had probably 
 been bitten, too, with the interest of tjie history ; and 
 so he was induced to go on. In the drama which he 
 had just completed, as in the three parts of Henry the 
 Sixth, he had been dealing with the fall of the House 
 of Lancaster, which involved England in the miseries 
 of the Wars of the Roses. The study of these events 
 obtruded on his mind the question of the origin of 
 these wars ; and so he was carried back to the rise of 
 the House of Lancaster in the usurpation of Boling- 
 broke, Duke of Hereford, who dethroned Richard II. 
 and became Henry the Fourth. In working out this 
 phase of the history he composed four plays Richard 
 the Second, Henry the Fourth (in two parts) and Henry 
 the Fifth. These are all closely connected ; and in them 
 we see the genius of the poet coming to maturity. 
 The music of the verse, the mastery of the material, 
 the comprehension of human motives and the de- 
 velopment of character all advance to perfection with 
 astonishing rapidity. The poet is now master of a 
 diction stately, brilliant and answerable to the dignity 
 of history ; yet he handles it with perfect freedom 
 and can modify it to suit the peculiarities of his several
 
 10 MOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 characters ; while in the comic passages, with which 
 the two parts of Henry the Fourth especially abound, 
 he descends without difficulty from this exalted style 
 and abandons himself to the licence of a brilliant prose. 
 In the characters there is now the variety of shading 
 exhibited by human nature ; and they no longer rant 
 in the tone of the stage but converse with the restraint 
 of real life. Passages occur on almost every page 
 which you feel inclined to quote sometimes only a 
 line or two of condensed and proverbial wisdom, 
 sometimes a lengthy outburst of sustained eloquence, 
 sometimes a figure of speech elaborately worked out, 
 sometimes a scene of delicate beauty or moving pathos. 
 
 King John, the first of all the Histories in time, 
 stands by itself, separated in its subject from these 
 four connected dramas ; but it is on the same level of 
 excellence. Henry the Eighth, at the opposite end of 
 the decade of dramas, is also a noble poem, remarkable 
 not only for the fine picture, already alluded to, of an 
 unselfish, patriotic and highminded woman in the 
 person of Queen Katharine, but for the spectacle of 
 Cardinal Wolsey in his splendour and his fall. In 
 this drama, however, Shakspeare is believed to have 
 been again working in collaboration with another 
 dramatist, so that the work is unequal and lacks 
 unity. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, the first five Histories 1 are 
 
 1 That is, as generally printed.
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES it 
 
 those in which we . see Shakspeare at his best ; and 
 the other five serve rather as a foil to make visible by 
 what stages he advanced to perfection. 
 
 The saying of the celebrated Duke of Marlborough 
 is well known, that he knew English history only as 
 he had learned it from these Histories of Shakspeare. 
 But, though this remark has often been praised, it is 
 misleading. No doubt a man might derive a deep 
 attachment to his native country through reading 
 these poems alone ; and this is one of the best results 
 of reading history ; but he could not from Shakspeare 
 obtain anything like so accurate an account of the 
 facts of history as he might from the commonest 
 schoolbook. In the first place, there are great blanks : 
 it is only an inconsiderable number of the reigns of 
 the English monarchs that Shakspeare has drama- 
 tized. Besides, a great deal has been left out even in the 
 reigns with which he has dealt ; and any close inquiry 
 would discover numerous anachronisms. 1 Shakspeare's 
 aim is misunderstood when, in any usual sense, he is 
 regarded as a teacher of historical facts. He was a 
 poet, and selected from the materials supplied to his 
 hand the elements which could be poetically treated. 
 He could not depart very far from fact, for this would 
 have excited protest in the minds of those acquainted 
 
 1 Examples in Ulrici, Shakspeare's Dramatic Art, bk. VI., ch. n.
 
 t2 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 with the history; but he was not nervous ^"about ac- 
 curacy in details. What he had to do was to select 
 out of the materials of a reign those which were poet- 
 ically significant and build these into a structure which 
 should be in itself a thing of beauty, and yet should 
 sufficiently correspond with the facts to justify its 
 name ; and the marvel of the whole thing is, how he 
 could take the common and chaotic materials pre- 
 sented in an ordinary chronicle and transmute them 
 into a coherent, melodious, eloquent poem, which 
 can thrill us with passion or make us shake with 
 laughter or move us to tears. 
 
 Equally mistaken, in my opinion, is the attempt to 
 find in these poems a philosophy of history. German 
 critics have gone most astray in this direction, reading 
 into the poet their own ideas under the pretence that 
 they are expounding his. Ulrici, for example, in the 
 work just quoted, tries to show that Shakspeare, 
 having before him all the forces of the time, such as 
 Chivalry, the Church, the Crown, the Commons, and 
 so forth, has accurately shown their relations to one 
 another and their interaction, 1 making visible, so to 
 speak, the concealed wires by which the puppets of 
 history were moved and the ends towards which 
 Providence was guiding the half-conscious movements 
 of men. This, it seems to me, is a complete ex- 
 aggeration. There is of course a certain amount of 
 truth in it. In the eight central dramas especially
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 13 
 
 there is a close articulation. It is made clear that in 
 the very way in which the Lancastrian dynasty came 
 to the throne there lay the seed and prophecy of its 
 ultimate decline ; and the reader is conscious, all 
 through, of this predetermined fate working itself out. 
 But, on the other hand, Shakspeare displays little 
 apprehension of the crescent forces of English history 
 even in the periods to which his dramas refer. In 
 King John, for example, Magna Charta holds a very 
 insignificant place ; and no emphasis is laid anywhere 
 on the growth of law or religious opinion or the 
 power of the common people. In any philosophical 
 history of England, such as Green's, the development 
 of these forces is exhibited with far more interest 
 than in Shakspeare ; and the reason is, that to write 
 the philosophy of history was not Shakspeare's busi- 
 ness. It is not with the hidden principles by which 
 history is moved that he is concerned, but with the 
 action itself. He approaches the history from the 
 outside and, observing as a spectator its movement, its 
 splendour, its pathos, points out to others its signifi- 
 cant features. What, he asks, took place in those days 
 of old which is worthy to be remembered and to be 
 sung? It is not in abstract forces working behind 
 history that he is interested, but in the passions of the 
 actors : who were the men and women who made the 
 history ? and how did the history mould and develop 
 them?
 
 14 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 There are four outstanding themes, which may be 
 called the pivots round which the poet's thought 
 revolves : these are Patriotism, Royalty, War and 
 Character. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. It is a common criticism that the 
 mind of Shakspeare was so catholic and impartial he 
 was able so perfectly to put himself into the place of 
 every character which he created that it is impossible 
 to tell what his own sentiments were. To a large extent 
 this is true : he knew human nature in all its forms, 
 whether great or mean, and he could enter so sympa- 
 thetically into the views and feelings of king and beg- 
 gar alike that, even when he is expressing an opinion 
 with the greatest force, it is difficult to say whether he 
 is speaking with the force of conviction or only with 
 the borrowed passion of the person of the drama. 
 Occasionally, however, he drops the mask, and there 
 is an accent which betrays that his own heart is 
 speaking. 
 
 Nowhere is this so obviously the case, in these 
 Histories, as when he is giving utterance to patriotic 
 sentiment. Here he is as much himself as Milton in 
 his sonnets or Burns in his songs. The name of 
 England always touches Shakspeare to the quick ; 
 and he cannot utter it without a rush of emotion. 
 He calls England, in allusion to the chalk cliffs of the 
 southern coast,
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 15 
 
 that pale, that white-faced shore 
 Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides 
 And coops from other lands her islanders. 
 
 England, hedged-in with the main, 
 That water-walled bulwark, still secure 
 And confident from foreign purposes. 
 
 The most wonderful passage of this kind is in the 
 dying utterances of John of Gaunt. The King, his 
 nephew, has so mismanaged the revenues that they 
 are all pawned and bonded to creditors, and he, as his 
 uncle tells him, is " landlord of England, not its king." 
 The dying noble is tortured with the shame of his 
 country's condition, and breaks out thus : 
 
 This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 
 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself 
 
 Against infection and the hand of war ; 
 
 This happy breed of men, this little world ; 
 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
 
 Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
 
 Against the envy of less happier lands ; 
 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ; 
 
 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
 
 Feared by their breed and famous by their birth, 
 
 Renowned for their deeds as far from home
 
 16 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 For Christian service and true chivalry 
 As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 
 Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son ; 
 This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, 
 Is now leased out I die pronouncing it 
 Like to a tenement or pelting farm. 
 Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, 
 How happy then were my ensuing death. 1 
 Passages like this must have roused enormous 
 enthusiasm in the auditors who first heard them ; and 
 Shakspeare feeds their fervour by contrasting England 
 and the English character with other nations. He is 
 impatient of the tendency of his countrymen to copy 
 foreign manners, such as 
 
 fashions in proud Italy, 
 Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation 
 Limps after in base imitation. 
 Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity 
 So it be new, there's no respect how vile 
 That is not quickly buzzed into our ears ? 
 
 A large portion of the action of the Histories is 
 occupied with the French wars ; and he is never weary 
 of the contrast between French and English French 
 bragging and English valour, French volubility and 
 English reserve, French polish and English down- 
 
 1 For the sake of facility in reading, some lines have been left out. 
 So also at pp. 22, 23, 24, 25, 33, 34, 35, 73, 90, 92, 93. ^5, 168. 
 169, 173, 174, 177, 234, 239, 261, 267, 271.
 
 THE ; ENGLISH HISTORIES 17 
 
 Tightness, French lightness and English weight. He 
 says that a single pair of English legs could carry three 
 French bodies. An English herald thus addresses the 
 French army, which has landed in England : 
 
 That hand which had the strength, even at your 
 
 door, 
 
 To cudgel you and make you take the hatch ; 
 To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells ; 
 To crouch in litter of your stable-planks ; 
 To lie, like pawns, locked up in chests and trunks ; 
 To hug with swine ; to seek sweet safety out 
 In vaults and prisons ; and to thrill and shake 
 Even at the crying of your nation's crow, 
 Thinking his voice an armed Englishman 
 Shall that victorious hand be feebled here 
 That in your chambers gave you chastisement ? 
 No : know, the gallant monarch is in arms, 
 And, like an eagle, o'er his aery towers, 
 To souse annoyance which comes near his nest. 
 
 The Welsh, Irish and Scotch characters are likewise 
 contrasted with the English, of course to the advantage 
 of the latter. The Welshman, all through Shakspeare's 
 plays, is a favourite butt, with his odd way of pro- 
 nouncing the English language, his pedantry and his 
 self-esteem ; and the fun was probably good at the 
 time, though to us now it is rather heavy. Shakspeare 
 
 does not make much of the Irishman : he left the 
 
 2
 
 18 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 infinite possibilities of drollery lodged in Pat to be 
 bagged by Thackeray. Nor is very much made of the 
 Scot, though Sandy even then, in ways suitable to 
 the times, had learned his trick of fattening his lan- 
 tern jaws on the good things of the South : 
 
 There's a saying, very old and true, 
 
 " If that you will France win, 
 
 Then with Scotland first begin " : 
 For, once the eagle England being in prey, 
 To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot 
 Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs, 
 Playing the mouse in absence of the cat, 
 To tear and havoc more than she can eat. 
 
 As the representative of patriotism in the Histories 
 may be taken Faulconbridge in the first of them. This 
 is one of Shakspeare's most peculiar characters, and 
 he appears to be a pure creation. When first he comes 
 upon the scene, he seems intended for a comic cha- 
 racter ; and there is in him throughout an element of 
 sarcastic criticism ; he makes fun of the convention- 
 alities of life and of the pomp and pretence of war, 
 and not less does he turn his scorn against himself in 
 a tone of raillery that recalls Thackeray ; but, as the 
 action proceeds, his character deepens ; the peril of 
 his country makes a hero of him ; and the play closes 
 with these rousing words of his :
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 19 
 
 This England never did, nor never shall 
 
 Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
 
 But when it first did help to wound itself. 
 
 Now these her princes are come home again, 
 
 Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
 
 And we shall shock them ; nought shall make us rue, 
 
 If England to itself do rest but true. 
 
 ROYALTY. Shakspeare is no demagogue ; he has 
 no idea even of the sovereignty of the people, of 
 which everybody nowadays speaks with so much 
 respect. To him the people was 
 
 The blunt monster with uncounted heads, 
 The still-discordant, wavering multitude. 
 
 In the period of which he was writing in these Histories 
 the most conspicuous and perfect form of human life 
 was that of the king, and he paints it in all its opulence 
 in its dignities, prerogatives and functions. The 
 position that came nearest to it was perhaps that of 
 the great ecclesiastic ; and this also he has portrayed in 
 the proud papal legate Pandulph and the extravagant 
 Cardinal Wolsey. Next came the great nobles ; and 
 these also are described in their ambitions and services ; 
 but it is in the sunshine of the throne that they live, 
 and they wither in its shadow. The middle class 
 hardly appears in Shakspeare except as the hurrahing 
 multitude on a day of triumph : its day and its histor-
 
 20 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 ians were still in the future. As for the multitude, 
 they are, as Falstaff calls them, " food for powder " in 
 the quarrels of their superiors. 
 
 So supreme was the position of the king that he to 
 whom it was vouchsafed was supposed to have been 
 destined for it by the special appointment of Heaven, 
 and it was sacrilege to remove him : 
 
 Not all the water in the rough-rude sea 
 Can wash the balm from an anointed king. 
 The breath of worldly men cannot depose 
 The deputy elected by the Lord. 
 
 But, although this was the accepted theory, which 
 was of course firmly held by those to whom, in the dis- 
 tribution of fortune, had fallen this incomparable lot, 
 yet the divinity that doth hedge a king did not prevent 
 those who were not born to the position from aiming 
 at it. The Histories are full of the attempts of princes 
 to dethrone the Lord's anointed. King John usurped 
 the seat which belonged by right to Arthur ; King 
 Henry the Fourth reigned through the deposition of 
 Richard Second ; Richard Third had to cut ever so 
 many rivals out of the way before he reached the 
 throne. These ambitions are the springs on which 
 the history moves. 
 
 Shakspeare discusses every aspect of the regal 
 position ; and out of these plays there might easily be 
 culled a book of maxims for those in authority:
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 21 
 
 A sceptre snatched with an unruly hand 
 Must be as boisterously maintained as gained, 
 And he that stands upon a slippery place 
 Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up. 
 
 Let not the world see fear and sad distrust 
 Govern the motion of a kingly eye. 
 Be stirring as the time ; be fire with fire ; 
 Threaten the threatener ; and outface the brow 
 Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes, 
 That borrow their behaviours from the great, 
 Grow great by your example. 
 
 Treason is but trusted like the fox, 
 
 Who, ne'er so tame, so cherished and locked up, 
 
 Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. 
 
 When King John, aware of the unsoundness of his 
 own title, resolved to be crowned a second time, a 
 wise councillor said : 
 
 To be possessed with double pomp, 
 To guard a title that was rich before, 
 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
 To throw a perfume on the violet, 
 To smooth the ice, or add another hue 
 Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 
 To seek the beautous eye of heaven to garnish 
 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 
 
 When a king is asked whence he has obtained his
 
 22 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 commission to fight in the quarrel of one who is being 
 wronged, he answers nobly : 
 
 From that supernal Judge that stirs good thoughts 
 
 In any breast of high authority 
 
 To look into the blots and stains of right. 
 
 Those, however, who, whether by inheritance or by 
 force, attained the coveted possession of the crown 
 found that it was not all of velvet. It brought with 
 it a thousand duties which, if performed, wore out the 
 life prematurely and, being neglected, involved the 
 land in confusion. Says a king : 
 
 O God, methinks it were a happy life 
 
 To be no better than a homely swain : 
 
 To sit upon a hill, as I do now, 
 
 To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 
 
 Thereby to see the minutes how they run ; 
 
 When this is known, then to divide the times : 
 
 So many hours must I tend my flock, 
 
 So many hours must I take my rest, 
 
 So many hours must I contemplate, 
 
 So many hours must I sport myself ; 
 
 So many days my ewes have been with young, 
 
 So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean, 
 
 So many months ere I shalljshear the fleece ; 
 
 So minutes, hours, days, months and years, 
 
 Passed over to the end they were created, 
 
 Would bring white hairs into a quiet grave.
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 23 
 
 Ah what a life were this ! how sweet, how lovely ! 
 
 Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
 
 To shepherds looking on their silly sheep 
 
 Than doth a rich-embroidered canopy 
 
 To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? 
 
 And, to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, 
 
 His cold, thin drink out of his leather bottle, 
 
 His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade 
 
 All which secure and sweetly he enjoys 
 
 Is far beyond a prince's delicates, 
 
 His viands sparkling in a golden cup, 
 
 His body couched in a curious bed, 
 
 When care, mistrust and treason wait on him. 
 
 And another far more strenuous king, worn out with 
 labour and ceremony, thus apostrophizes sleep : 
 
 O sleep, O gentle sleep, 
 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
 And hushed with buzzing nightflies to thy slumber, 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody? 
 Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, 
 Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains
 
 24 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 In cradle of the rude, imperious surge, 
 And in the visitation of the winds, 
 Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
 Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 
 With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, 
 That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? 
 Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 
 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude 
 And, in the calmest and most stillest night, 
 Deny it to a king? Then, happy low-lie-down, 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 
 
 The knightliest figure in Shakspeare is a deposed 
 king. Richard the Second is the prey of favourites, 
 wastes his substance and neglects his duties, till a rival, 
 the shrewd and splendid Bolingbroke, profiting by his 
 neglect, thrusts him from his seat. But, in the hour of 
 humiliation, all the king awakens in Richard not, 
 indeed, the royal courage to reassert his claims, but 
 the full sense of the dignity which he has lost, of the 
 opportunities which he has thrown away, and of the 
 God whom he has offended. He bends patiently 
 beneath his heavy fate, as the storm of misfortune 
 breaks over him ; yet, as he goes to his doom, it is 
 with steps more kingly than he has ever walked with 
 before ; and none of Shakspeare's kings in their glory 
 affect us as does this one, when, almost mad with grief, 
 he cries :
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 25 
 
 For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 
 
 And tell sad stories of the death of kings 
 
 How some have been deposed, some slain in war, 
 
 Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, 
 
 Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed 
 
 All murdered. For within the hollow crown 
 
 That rounds the mortal temples of a king 
 
 Keeps death his court ; and there the antic sits, 
 
 Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, 
 
 Allowing him a breath, a little scene, 
 
 To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, 
 
 Infusing him with self and vain conceit, 
 
 As if this flesh, which walls-about our life, 
 
 Were brass impregnable ; and, humoured thus, 
 
 Comes at the last and, with a little pin, 
 
 Bores through his castle-wall ; and farewell king ! 
 
 Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood 
 
 With solemn reverence ; throw away respect, 
 
 Tradition, form and ceremonious duty ; 
 
 For you have but mistook me all this while ; 
 
 I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, 
 
 Need friends. Subjected thus, 
 
 How can you say to me, I am a king ? 
 
 Yet it may be questioned whether there was in 
 Richard the will to repent. 
 
 WAR. In the period to which Shakspeare's His- 
 tories relate England was incessantly at war. There
 
 26 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 were the wars with the French, sometimes on foreign 
 soil and sometimes on the soil of England. Then there 
 followed the Civil Wars, when the claims of the rival 
 roses were being determined. Wherever war is taking 
 place, it must move every section of society ; and it 
 was especially the absorbing interest of the classes 
 with which Shakspeare chiefly concerned himself the 
 kings and the nobles. It was their trade and even 
 their pastime ; for the chief public entertainment was 
 the mimic war of the tournament. Accordingly the 
 pages of these Histories are crowded with war in all 
 its phases. On the eve of an outbreak we hear the 
 country ringing with the hammers of armourers and 
 see the young men selling their all to buy a sword and 
 a horse. Then, amidst sounds confused, the levies 
 are shipped at the seaport ; and now 
 
 behold the threaden sails, 
 Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, 
 Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, 
 Breasting the lofty surge. Oh do but think 
 You stand upon the rivage, and behold 
 A city on the inconstant billows dancing, 
 For so appears this fleet majestical. 
 
 Then we see some French town approached from 
 opposite sides by the contending armies, while the 
 citizens tremble and their magistrates come out on 
 the walls to carry on the difficult negotiations. Per-
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 27 
 
 haps the flags of war are folded up, the dispute 
 being settled by a contract of marriage between two 
 young people of the contending countries, whereon 
 ensues the stately ceremonial of the wedding. Or, 
 if the valour of the troops is put to the proof, then at 
 last the English are carried back again to the shores 
 of Albion, where the inhabitants await them on the 
 white cliffs ; and the conqueror passes on, to enter 
 London in triumph. Shakspeare is very great in the 
 description of pageants; and never does his verse 
 move with a lighter measure than when he is pic- 
 turing the crowds, the flags and the cheering for a 
 victory. 
 
 But, while he unfolds all the splendour of his genius 
 in depicting the glorious side of war, he is not forget- 
 ful of the other side of the lives sacrificed, of the 
 weeping mothers and widows, of the fields torn up 
 and the country harried. Along with brave men 
 there went to the French wars all the tag-rag-and- 
 bobtail of the country ; and multitudes, dishabituated 
 to honest labour in the wars, became, when they 
 returned home, the pests of the country. This class 
 is depicted in Falstaff and his companions the cow- 
 ardly braggadocio Pistol, the fiery-faced Bardolph, the 
 pot-valorous Nym and the rest. 
 
 As the type of those soldiering days we may take 
 Harry Hotspur. This valiant dog-of-war never can 
 get enough of fighting and marches to battle as gaily
 
 28 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 as a maiden to a wedding. He delights in dogs and 
 horses and, when on the back of a horse, feels that he 
 is on his throne. When war is afoot, nothing can 
 stay him not even the dalliance of his lady wife : 
 
 We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns 
 And pass them current too. 
 
 He abhors a dandy, cannot be civil to a bore, and has 
 no patience with poetry. He is irascible and down- 
 right, calling a spade a spade. When he is angry, 
 nothing can stop the torrent of his words. He is 
 generous and would give anything to a friend ; 
 
 But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 
 I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 
 
 It is a thoroughly English and a thoroughly lovable 
 type; and we grieve as we see him falling beneath 
 the stroke of a cooler hand. 
 
 CHARACTER. Already it has been indicated with 
 what variety of character these Histories are crowded ; 
 but it still remains to note the chief efforts at cha- 
 racter-painting. 
 
 The portraits of women in the Histories exhibit a 
 singular monotony ; and the leading feature is a re- 
 markable one. How far it may have been due to the 
 impressions made on him by the study of the history 
 out of which he obtained his materials, or how far it 
 may have been due to memories and experiences of
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 29 
 
 his own in early life, we cannot tell ; but the conception 
 of woman in the Histories is one of infinite sadness. 
 The creed of the young author obviously was, that wo- 
 man was made to mourn. In the three parts of Henry 
 the Sixth and in Richard the Third there is a picture, 
 drawn with great fulness of detail, of Queen Margaret ; 
 and a terrible one it is. She begins life in the pride 
 of beauty, high spirits and a great position. But her 
 husband, the King, is a weakling, who can neither 
 satisfy her heart nor fill his royal station; and she 
 becomes a guilty wife and a bold intriguer, scheming 
 to maintain the position which is slipping from her. 
 But disaster follows disaster : she loses her crown, her 
 husband, her children, and her grandchildren, and 
 sees her enemies exalted to the position which she 
 has lost. As this goes on, she is transmuted into a 
 fateful image of woe, not broken-down and penitent, 
 but hardened, shrill and violent ; and at the last she 
 moves through the scenes as a terrific shape a pro- 
 phetic hag, living wholly in the element of sorrow, 
 but unsubdued by it and glorying in the misfortunes 
 of others. The Lady Constance, in King John, is the 
 same type on a somewhat smaller scale and with the 
 colours more subdued. But still there is unearthly 
 grief; and her words are the outcome of a heart which 
 is all one lake of tears. We gladly call to mind that 
 at this period Shakspeare was able to create, side by 
 side with these appalling figures, two such images of
 
 30 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 female grace and loveliness as Julia in The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona and Portia in The Merchant of 
 Venice. 
 
 While, however, drawing these somewhat weird 
 pictures of women, Shakspeare, in the English Histories 
 has painted his completest portrait of a man. This 
 is the Prince Hal of the two parts of Henry the Fourth 
 and the King Henry the Fifth of the drama which 
 follows. In some respects this is the most perfect 
 creation of Shakspeare' s genius. Having three plays 
 through which to develop the character, he builds it 
 up slowly, exhibiting it fully in every phase ; and he 
 is obviously working with pleasure from beginning to 
 end. In completing his portrait of Brutus in Julius 
 C&sar he says, through the mouth of one of the 
 interlocutors : 
 
 His life was gentle, and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world, This 'was a man ; 
 
 but, fine as the figure of Brutus is, this characterization 
 is far truer of Prince Henry. If anyone wishes to 
 know Shakspeare's conception of a man, here it is. 
 
 Tradition said that Henry the Fifth, after a wild 
 and reckless youth, was sobered by having to assume 
 the responsibility of the crown and thereafter ruled as 
 an able and virtuous king. Following this suggestion, 
 Shakspeare brings the Prince of Wales into contact
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 31 
 
 with loose and wild companions and, side by side 
 with the dazzling world of the court and the camp, 
 unveils a world of rascaldom, whose population consists 
 of the dregs of the army floated home from the 
 French wars, with women to match. These gentlemen 
 are soldiers by profession, but, being out of employ- 
 ment, they are really adventurers of the lowest type, 
 lodging in taverns and picking up a living in any way 
 they can, not even disdaining purse-snatching or 
 highway-robbery at a pinch. 
 
 Those who wish Shakspeare always to write as a 
 philosopher have been exercised about the meaning 
 of these scenes of low life, introduced in such violent 
 contrast with the dignity of history; and they say 
 that the intention is to caricature the real history. 
 Up above, there is the world of royalty and chivalry, 
 with its pomp and ceremony, where everyone is 
 clothed in the glittering robes of dignity and every- 
 thing is expressed in lofty language ; but the dramatist, 
 drawing a broad line beneath this picture, then, below 
 this level of respectability, paints the picture of another 
 world, where the clothing is, so to speak, taken off, 
 men are seen as they really are, and everything is 
 called by its plain name. The highway-robbery of 
 these cutpurses, he means to say, is just the soldiering 
 of the warriors of the great world with the gilt taken 
 off; their coarse carnivals are the counterpart of the 
 banquets and pageants of the upper world, only with
 
 32 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 the ceremony laid aside and the human passions 
 acknowledged. Their bullying and rhodomontade, 
 though they disgust with their coarseness, contain in 
 reality the same sentiments as the speeches of the 
 champions of the tournay and the battlefield, whose 
 words charm us with their eloquence. In this view 
 there may be some truth, because many of the things 
 done in these Histories in the name of chivalry and 
 statesmanship are at heart grossly immoral ; and, 
 while lending to royalty and war the disguise of a 
 splendid language, Shakspeare betrays here and there 
 his sense that a great deal of the dignity is bunkum. 
 No doubt he means also thatthe charm to Prince Hal, 
 when he escaped from the court and the camp and 
 joined his low associates, was to see human nature 
 and human life as they really are, divested of the 
 masks and cloaks of ceremony. But the poet's chief 
 motive probably was the- mere fun of the thing: he 
 knew that his auditors wished to be amused ; and, 
 having struck upon this world of low life and found it 
 entertaining, he pursued his discovery, and in one or 
 two plays made it rather the picture, to which the 
 real history serves as a frame, than the frame to the 
 picture. Some of the scenes descend very low indeed ; 
 and young readers need to be warned not to linger on 
 them, lest they be defiled. 
 
 Of this subterranean world of rascaldom the king 
 is Sir John Falstaff, and he holds his court at the
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 33 
 
 tavern of Mrs. Quickly in Eastcheap. Falstaff is the 
 greatest of Shakspeare's comic characters the greatest 
 comic character in English literature the progenitor 
 of an innumerable succession of such, down to the 
 Sam Wellers and Dick Swivellers of recent days. 
 
 He is a mountain of a man, though, he tells Hal, 
 "When I was about thy years, I could have crept 
 into any alderman's thumb-ring : a plague of sighing 
 and grief: it blows a man up like a bladder". He 
 rules in the kingdom of the tavern ; and its frequenters 
 the drinking, thieving, bragging ex-soldiers, the 
 drawers and the women worship him. His great 
 distinction, however, is the observance of the Heir- 
 apparent, to whom he performs the office discharged 
 by the fool of yore in the courts of kings. He serves 
 as a whetstone for the Prince's wit : "I am not only 
 witty in myself, " he says, " but the cause that wit is in 
 other men " ; and he treasures up fun for the Prince's 
 entertainment. Thus, when he is with Justice Shallow 
 in the country, he says: " I will devise matter enough 
 out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual 
 laughter the wearing-out of six fashions " ; and he 
 adds the shrewd remark : " Oh, it is much that a lie, 
 with a slight oath, and a jest, with a sad brow, will do 
 with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders ". 
 
 He is a mighty swiller of liquor: "If I had a 
 thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach 
 them should be to forswear thin potations and to 
 
 3
 
 34 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 addict themselves to sack ". He is a monstrous 
 bragger : in the war he pretends to consider himself 
 the pivot on which the whole action is turning : " There 
 is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but 
 I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever; but it 
 was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they 
 have a good thing, to make it too common " : though 
 in the battle he turns out an arrant coward and, when 
 danger approaches, lies down and feigns himself dead. 
 He is deeply afflicted with impecuniosity : " I can get 
 no remedy against this consumption of the purse ; 
 borrowing only lingers and lingers it out ; but the 
 disease is incurable ". When, as an officer, he is sent 
 to raise soldiers for the war, he fills his pockets by 
 allowing those drafted to pay for substitutes, till he 
 says : " Such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that 
 have bought out their services, that you would think I 
 had a hundred-and-fifty tattered prodigals lately come 
 from swine-keeping. A mad fellow met me on the 
 way and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets and 
 pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scare- 
 crows ; there is but a shirt and a half in all my company. 
 I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's 
 flat." He tells prodigious lies ; and Harry's diversion 
 is to egg him on to further and further exaggera- 
 tions. But Jack knows well enough the fun he is 
 causing by thus drawing the longbow, and he enjoys 
 as much as anyone the jokes at his own expense.
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 35 
 
 There is a shrewdness in him almost amounting to 
 wisdom, and he has the most dexterous way of getting 
 out of scrapes. Thus, when the Prince, in the disguise 
 of a drawer, overhears him undervaluing him to Doll 
 Tearsheet and, throwing off the disguise, charges him 
 with the treason, Jack has his answer ready : " I dis- 
 praised him before the wicked, that the wicked might 
 not fall in love with him ". 
 
 No scene could be funnier than when they agree 
 that Falstaff should personate the King, Hal's father, 
 and give the Prince a lecture on the wildness of his 
 ways. As if he were on the throne, Jack begins : 
 " Stand aside, nobility ! " and, when the hostess utters 
 an ejaculation, he says, with kingly pomp, " Weep not, 
 sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain " and orders 
 her to be led out of the presence. Then, turning to 
 the Prince, he says : " Harry, I do not only marvel 
 where thou spendest thy time, but also, how thou art 
 accompanied. If thou be son to me, here lies the 
 point why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at ? 
 Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and 
 eat blackberries ? a question not to be asked. Shall 
 the Son of England prove a thief and take purses ? 
 a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which 
 thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in 
 our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient 
 writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company 
 thou keepest : for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee
 
 36 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 in drink, but in tears ; not in pleasure, but in passion ; 
 not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is 
 a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy 
 company, but I know not his name. A goodly, portly 
 man, i" faith, and a corpulent ; of a cheerful look, a 
 pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I 
 think, his age some fifty or, by'r lady, inclining to 
 threescore ; and, now I remember me, his name is 
 Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he 
 deceiveth me ; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. 
 If, then, the tree may be known by his fruit, as the 
 fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it there 
 is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest 
 banish." 
 
 Such is the world of low life into which Prince 
 Henry, fleeing from the ceremonies of the court, loves 
 to descend. But Shakspeare's representation is that, 
 though in it, he is in nowise of it. He goes into it 
 merely as a spectator, to gain acquaintance with real 
 life, and is no more corrupted than the sun is by looking 
 on a dunghill. When he was summoned out of it to 
 take part in the civil war, he instantly answered to the 
 summons ; and, when he appeared in camp, one who 
 saw him thus described him : 
 
 I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 
 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed 
 Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 37 
 
 And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
 
 As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, 
 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus 
 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 
 
 He distinguished himself in the war; yet, after it 
 was over, the attractions of low London drew him 
 back again. His evil courses were a grief to his 
 lather, who spoke ominously of what might befal the 
 nation under such a king ; but other observers were 
 more hopeful : 
 
 You shall find, his vanities forespent 
 Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, 
 Covering discretion with a coat of folly ; 
 As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots 
 That shall first spring and be most delicate. 
 
 His father's death is the turning-point of his career. 
 The dying king deals closely with him ; and the 
 Prince comes out of the death-chamber an altered man. 
 At the same time the responsibility of kingship, 
 descending on his head, steels his resolution. Fal- 
 staff, hearing in the country of the old king's death, 
 hastens to town, thinking that his fortune is now 
 made and squandering places and titles, by anticipa- 
 tion, among his comrades, and he salutes Harry in the 
 old way, as he passes in procession through the 
 street ; but Harry cries :
 
 38 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers ; 
 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester ! 
 
 and forbids him on pain of death to come within ten 
 miles of his person. For a moment Falstaff believes 
 that this is but a jest, and that he will be sent for in 
 private ; but he finds it to be sad earnest. And we 
 are almost sorry for him, as we see him going away 
 broken-hearted to his beggars' kingdom, from which 
 the sun has been removed. He is allowed enough to 
 live on ; but his circle scatters, his companions drifting 
 asunder to their natural ends in the lazar-house or on 
 the gallows. His own end soon ensues ; and the 
 description of it, in the mouth of Mrs. Quickly, is a 
 triumph of Shakspeare's art : "He made a fine end, 
 and went away, an it had been any Christom child. 
 After I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with 
 flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there 
 was but one way ; for his nose was as sharp as a pen ; 
 and a' babbled o' green fields." l 
 
 Harry, being settled on the throne, shoots up as a 
 man of the most varied and perfect genius : 
 
 Hear him but reason in divinity, 
 
 And, all admiring, with an inward wish, 
 
 You would desire the King were made a prelate ; 
 
 Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 
 
 1 Was Falstaff a coward ? Did King Henry treat him fairly ? On 
 both questions see BRADLEY, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, pp. 263, 267, 
 268.
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 39 
 
 You'd say it hath been all-in-all his study ; 
 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 
 A fearful battle rendered you in music ; 
 Turn him to any cause of policy, 
 The gordian knot of it he will unloose 
 Familiar as his garter. 
 
 The most marked strain of his new character, how- 
 ever, is religion : 
 
 The breath no sooner left his father's body 
 But that his wildness, mortified in him, 
 Seemed to die too ; yea, at that very moment, 
 Consideration, like an angel came, 
 And whipped the offending Adam out of him. 
 
 Henry the Fifth is the most deeply religious character 
 in Shakspeare's works. His religion is not fanatical 
 or obtrusive ; but it completely changes the course of 
 his life ; and, ever after this date, with all his gay and 
 manly temper there mingles, at every turn, the ac- 
 knowledgment of God. 
 
 The culminating scene of his life is the Battle of 
 Agincourt one of Shakspeare's most wonderful per- 
 formances. The English army, decimated with disease 
 and hunger, creeps along the shore to Agincourt, 
 while the French, with health, food and many times 
 their numbers, prepare to sweep them into the sea. 
 It seems a fatal moment ; but the King bates not a jot 
 of heart or hope. One of the English leaders having
 
 40 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 involuntarily expressed the wish that they had with 
 them ten thousand more of their countrymen, Harry 
 cries, " No, not a man more from England " : he is 
 certain that their cause is good, and that, with God's 
 help, they can maintain it. We see the good fruit of 
 his old habits of mixing with all sorts and conditions 
 of men as, the night before the battle, he goes through 
 the camp in disguise, talking as a brother-man with 
 everyone ; and, even in this hour of extremity, he cannot 
 refrain from passing a practical joke on a bragging 
 fool with whom he meets. At the breaking of the 
 day he leads his troops to one of the most remarkable 
 victories with which the name of England is adorned ; 
 and his own cheerfulness and valour supply the inspir- 
 ation that puts hope into , the hearts of his fainting 
 men. When all is done, however, he knows nothing 
 of his own heroism : 
 
 O God, Thy arm was here, 
 
 And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, 
 
 Ascribe we all. 
 
 If Prince Harry's example is understood to advocate 
 the " wild oats " theory of life, it is false and misleading ; 
 but, if it be taken to teach how one who has fallen into 
 error, in the heat of young blood, may retrieve himself 
 and, by the grace of God, rise to a full sense of the 
 dignity of life, it has close affinity with the Gospel. 
 I can never help thinking that in Prince Henry we
 
 THE ENGLISH HISTORIES 41 
 
 have a great deal of what Shakspeare himself was, 
 and of what he wished to be. There is no doubt that 
 Shakspeare knew by experience the world of madness 
 and misrule over which he depicted Falstaff as pre- 
 siding; because the life of actors and playwriters in 
 his day bordered closely on rascaldom. Most of his 
 brother-playwrights lived short and violent lives, and 
 several of them perished in tavern-brawls. May we 
 not take these dramas as indications that, though in 
 this world, Shakspeare never liked it ? At all events 
 he rose out of it and quitted it. By incessant labour 
 he clarified his genius and established his fortune ; 
 and may we not hope that, when, as the fruit of his 
 toil, he became a prosperous man and, while still in 
 the maturity of his powers, retired to his native 
 Stratford, to spend the rest of his days far from the 
 revelry of London, it was with King Harry's sense of 
 deliverance from the errors of his youth and with his 
 thankful consciousness of owing everything to God ?
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES
 
 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS 
 
 CORIOLANUS 
 
 JULIUS C/ESAR 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 
 
 THE first great effort of Shakspeare's genius was the 
 series of plays founded on the history of his native 
 country. But it was natural that, when this task was 
 approaching completion, he, who had now perfectly 
 acquired the art of dramatizing history, should turn, in 
 search of subjects, to the history of other countries. 
 And at that period, when the Revival of Learning 
 had just given the literature of Greece and Rome as 
 a fresh possession to the modern world, no foreign 
 history was so likely to attract attention as that of 
 classical antiquity. 
 
 Long before this stage, indeed, Shakspeare had 
 glanced into 'that ancient region. His first play was 
 Titus Andronicus, the personages of which were sup- 
 posed to belong to the later Roman Empire. It is, 
 indeed, doubtful how far this play really belongs to 
 him. It is extremely unlike anything else which we 
 know for certain to be his. There are in it a few 
 striking lines and even passages of greater length ; but, 
 as a whole, it is an extremely crude performance, full 
 of extravagant passages and unnatural crimes. In 
 
 (45)
 
 46 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 short, the life it describes never was on sea or land, 
 but only on the stage. If Shakspeare had any con- 
 siderable hand in it, its principal interest lies in the 
 evidence it affords of how, almost at a single bound, 
 he afterwards passed beyond himself and beyond the 
 style of his predecessors, whose turgid and blood- 
 thirsty extravagances he had condescended for once to 
 imitate. 
 
 Although Titus Andronicus is located in the Im- 
 perial Period, it has little or no connexion with actual 
 history, its incidents being nearly all purely imaginary. 
 Hence Coleridge has characterized it by the happy 
 epithet of pseudo-classical. This name would apply 
 also to another play, belonging to the dramatist's prime, 
 Troilus and Cressida ; which is founded on a love- 
 story taken from the earliest Greek history and em- 
 bodies some incidents of the Trojan War, but cannot 
 be looked upon in any strict sense as an attempt to 
 dramatize history. It is a curious piece and has an 
 important value as a document in Shakspeare's per- 
 sonal history. It seems to have been written at a 
 time when he was disgusted with life, and especially 
 with the character of woman. He turns out the 
 seamy side of everything, satirizing the Homeric heroes 
 and exposing the brutality and cunning which under- 
 lay their chivalry .and splendour. There are some 
 great qualities in the play, side by side with others 
 which are repulsive ; but it has hardly a place in the
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 47 
 
 series of Histories. Timon of Athens would also be 
 one of those Pseudo-classical Dramas, or it may be 
 reckoned among the Tragedies. In it there is much 
 of the disgust with life found in Troilus and Cressida, 
 and it bears not a little resemblance to Hamlet. 
 
 The three plays on classical themes which distinctly 
 belong to the category of Histories are Coriolanus, 
 Julius Ccesar and Antony and Cleopatra. These form 
 the true continuation of the English Histories, and this 
 is a hint which may guide the reader; though there 
 was a long interval of time between the English and 
 these Ancient Histories. All three were written at the 
 height of the author's power, Julius Ccesar coming 
 next after Hamlet, and Antony and Cleopatra and 
 Coriolanus immediately after Othello, King Lear and 
 Macbeth. All three, it will be observed, belong to 
 Roman history ; Shakspeare has no play of the same 
 species taken from the history of Greece. 1 
 
 In contrast with the pseudo-classical plays, these 
 derive their materials directly from history, with only 
 limited invention of character or incident for poetical 
 effect. The source from which Shakspeare chiefly 
 obtained his information was a recently executed 
 
 1 All the plays discussed in this chapter appear in the First Folio 
 among the Tragedies. As for Troilus and Cressida, the editors them- 
 selves seem to have been uncertain where to place it ; and no wonder ; 
 for, as has been said, it is " a History in which historical verisimilitude 
 s openly set at nought, a Comedy without genuine laughter, a Tragedy 
 without pathos ".
 
 48 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 translation of Plutarch, the celebrated biographer of 
 antiquity, who wrote the lives of the most distinguished 
 personages of the ancient world, both Greek and 
 Roman. In the more learned editions of the plays 
 the narrative of Plutarch is usually printed in the 
 introduction, that the student may see to what extent 
 the modern author was indebted to it ; and no one 
 can compare the two versions of the events the 
 ancient and the modern, the prosaic and the poetical 
 without being struck with the closeness, almost 
 slavishness, with which the playwriter adheres to his 
 authority. Thus \njulius C&sar(\& quote the remarks 
 of Gervinus, the German Shakspearian commentator) 
 not only the historical action in general, but single 
 incidents and speeches are taken from Plutarch, nay, 
 even such details as one unacquainted with the ancient 
 biographer would consider in form and manner to be 
 quite Shakspearean : the omens of Caesar's death, the 
 warnings of the augur and of Artemidorus, the absence 
 of the heart in the animal sacrificed, Calphurnia's 
 dream, the peculiar traits of Caesar's character, his 
 remarks about thin people like Cassius, the circum- 
 stance that in the conspiracy no oath was taken, the 
 withdrawal of Cicero, the relation of Portia to Brutus, 
 her temptation, her words, his reply, her subsequent 
 anxiety and death ; the circumstances of Caesar's death, 
 the means taken by Decius Brutus to induce him to 
 leave home, the behaviour of Antony, the murder of
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 49 
 
 the poet Cinna ; further on, the contention of the 
 Republican leaders concerning Lucius Pella, their 
 conversation about suicide, the apparition of the 
 ghost of Caesar, the mistakes in the battle, its double 
 issue, the suicide of Cassius by the same sword with 
 which he had killed Caesar all are taken from Plutarch's 
 narrative, from which the poet had only to omit what- 
 ever would have destroyed the unity of the action. 
 
 Such wholesale literary appropriation and I have 
 omitted some of the details enumerated by Gervinus 
 takes away one's breath. Never was there so mag- 
 nificent a thief as Shakspeare. The mere skeleton of 
 a play he laid hands on wherever he could find it. 
 But all the more wonderful on this account must 
 appear the magic-touch with which everything thus 
 appropriated is made his own and the creative power 
 with which he is able to clothe the skeleton with flesh 
 and beauty, and breathe into it the breath of life. 
 
 Shakspeare, as Ben Jonson, the scholar, has recorded, 
 knew little Latin and less Greek. In short, his ac- 
 quaintance with the ancient world must have been 
 acquired almost, if not altogether, through transla- 
 tions. Yet the atmosphere of the classical ages, which 
 other men learn to feel by long years of study, was 
 so perfectly caught by him, with the childlike instinct 
 of genius, that, scholars have to allow, it could not 
 have been better reproduced even by the most learned. 
 He falls, indeed, into superficial blunders, as when he 
 
 4
 
 50 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 makes one of the Trojan heroes speak of Aristotle or 
 one of the characters in Coriolanus mention Cato ; but 
 it may be doubted whether he was not himself aware 
 of these anachronisms ; and it is infinitely easier to be 
 correct in such trifles than accurately to reproduce the 
 spirit of the ancient world. 
 
 Perhaps this Roman stamp is most distinctly felt in 
 Coriolanus. The characters have the force, the in- 
 dividuality and the severe simplicity of ancient sculpture. 
 As you read, you feel how natural it was that this race 
 should have descended from brothers who were suckled 
 by a wolf; that it should have produced men like 
 Curtius and Cato and women like Lucretia and 
 Cornelia ; that the tramp of its legions should have 
 shaken the world ; that its military roads, uniting 
 country to country, should have been so constructed 
 that they have lasted to the present day ; and that its 
 system of law should have laid the ground-work of all 
 modern legislation. 
 
 In Antony and Cleopatra the mighty force of Rome 
 is also everywhere felt ; but the atmosphere is not so 
 distinctively Roman. The prodigal and magnificent 
 manhood of the hero masters the author and runs 
 away with him, so that he forgets the Roman in the 
 man ; and he departs more from the literal record 
 than in the other plays. Coleridge says of Antony 
 and Cleopatra that it ranks with the four great trage- 
 dies ; and well may he say so ; for the power, accumul-
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 51 
 
 ating as it proceeds, rises in the last two acts into 
 overwhelming sublimity. 
 
 Julius C&sar is, however, the most perfect of these 
 three plays. Its art has, indeed, been objected to, 
 because it is a question who is the hero whether 
 Julius Caesar, after whom it is named, or Brutus. I 
 have heard a German Shakspeare Society discuss this 
 question for hours, when the orators were hidden in 
 clouds of tobacco-smoke, and the arguments were 
 washed down with rivers of bad beer. But, whatever 
 may be said on such a technical point, this is one of the 
 few plays in which Shakspeare exhibits all the resources 
 of a perfect workman. Antony and Cleopatra has 
 a keener human interest and displays a more gigantic 
 power ; but it exhibits also a giant's violence and lack 
 of control ; the material strays about like an unkept 
 wood ; and there are portions which only retard and 
 obscure the movement of the whole. But in Julius 
 CcBsar everything superfluous is pruned away. It is 
 as if the poet had loved his work and gone over it 
 again and again, giving the finishing touches, as a 
 sculptor does to his statue. In Coriolanus the thought 
 is frequently obscure ; you feel as if you were reading 
 a corrupt text ; the interior heat is not intense enough 
 to raise the meaning into relief. But m Julius Ctzsar 
 such is the intensity of the poetic inspiration that the 
 language is resonant, the thought clearly intelligible, 
 and the movement swift and sure from the first page
 
 52 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 to the last. Nowhere else, even in Shakspeare, do 
 you come upon more passages which you would like 
 to quote. In respect of perfection of execution Julius 
 Ccesar among the Histories ranks with Macbeth among 
 the Tragedies and the Merchant of Venice among the 
 Comedies ; but it excels both. I do not say, by any 
 means, that it is the greatest of Shakspeare's plays ; 
 but it is the most perfect ; and, if one wished to tempt 
 anyone who had read nothing of Shakspeare, this would 
 be the play to place in his hands. 
 
 In Coriolanus and Julius Ccesar Shakspeare has 
 chosen for illustration two of the critical moments of 
 Roman history the one the point, in early ages, when 
 aristocracy was passing into democracy, the other the 
 point, in later times, at which the republic was passing 
 into the empire. Antony and Cleopatra is a kind of 
 appendix to Julius Ccesar; and in it the political 
 situation is unchanged. These plays being thus derived 
 from junctures of history when opposite political 
 principles were in violent collision, it might be natural 
 to expect in them the discussion of the rival theories 
 of government. And in Coriolanus at all events, it 
 might be maintained, this expectation is realised. 
 
 History says that, in the earliest ages, Rome was 
 ruled first by kings and then by an oligarchy. But the 
 common people fretted under the government of the
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 53 
 
 nobles and claimed a share in the management of the 
 state which they had helped to create. At last their 
 complaints were rendered so urgent and ominous by 
 the pinch of famine that the nobles had to a certain 
 extent to give way : officers, named tribunes, were 
 created to watch over the interests of the common 
 people, whose voice was also declared to be necessary 
 before the consuls, the highest officers of state, could 
 be duly elected. Of these changes Coriolanus is the 
 bitter opponent ; in him is concentrated the arrogant 
 tradition of the aristrocracy. He hates the common 
 people and ridicules their tribunes. 
 
 Shakspeare gives him full scope. Coriolanus calls 
 the common people to their faces curs and geese, scabs 
 and measles of the state ; they are " the mutable, rank- 
 scented many " ; their tribunes are tritons among the 
 minnows ; when they are perishing of hunger, he 
 dissents from the vote of the senate to give them free 
 corn : 
 
 They say there's grain enough. 
 Would the nobility lay aside their ruth 
 And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry 
 With thousands of these quartered slaves, as high 
 As I could pick my lance. 
 
 He argues with intense conviction that there cannot 
 be two masters in the state :
 
 54 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 My soul aches 
 
 To know, when two authorities are up, 
 Neither supreme, how soon confusion 
 May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take 
 The one by the other. 
 
 The people, being by far the more numerous of the 
 parties in the state, will have the bigger poll ; and, if 
 wisdom cannot act without waiting on the yea or nay 
 of ignorance, it must omit real necessities, and nothing 
 will be done to purpose. 
 
 But Shakspeare introduces a far keener reasoner on 
 the same side in Menenius Agrippa. Menenius is as 
 thorough an aristocrat as Coriolanus, but has far more 
 coolness and shrewdness. Unlike Coriolanus, he has 
 no dislike to mingle with common men, though he has 
 quite as little faith in their virtues. He does not, like 
 Coriolanus, denounce the tribunes, but unmercifully 
 chaffs them taking the coats of office, so to speak, 
 off their backs and showing what mechanic souls are 
 hidden within them. Here is Shakspeare's rendering 
 of his famous fable of the Stomach and the Members : 
 Menenius is surrounded by an angry mob of mutinous 
 citizens, whom he is endeavouring to quiet ; and he says : 
 
 I shall tell you 
 
 A pretty tale ; it may be you have heard it ; 
 But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture 
 To state it a little more.
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 55 
 
 A citizen interrupts : " Well, I'll hear it, sir ; yet you 
 must not think to fob-off our disgrace with a tale ; 
 but, an't please you, deliver ". 
 Menenius resumes : 
 
 There was a time when all the body's members 
 Rebelled against the belly : thus accused it : 
 That only like a gulf it did remain 
 I' the midst of the body, idle and unactive, 
 Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing 
 Like labour with the rest ; where the other instru- 
 ments 
 
 Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 
 And, mutually participate, did minister 
 Unto the appetite and affection common 
 Of the whole body. The belly answered 
 
 "Well, sir," interrupts a too eager listener, "what 
 answer made the belly ? " 
 
 Menenius resumes : 
 
 Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile, 
 
 Which never came from the lungs, but even thus 
 
 For, look you, I may make the belly smile 
 
 As well as speak it tauntingly replied 
 
 To the discontented members, the mutinous parts 
 
 That envied his receipt ; even so most fitly 
 
 As you malign our senators for that 
 
 They are not such as you. 
 
 Here a too impatient citizen interrupts :
 
 56 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Your belly's answer ? What ! 
 The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye, 
 The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, 
 Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter, 
 With other muniments and petty helps 
 In this our fabric, if that they . . 
 
 Should by the cormorant belly be restrained, 
 Who is the sink of the body .... 
 
 . if they did complain 
 What could the belly answer? 
 Menenius replies : 
 
 I will tell you, 
 
 If you'll bestow a small of what you've little 
 Patience a while, you'll hear the belly's answer. 
 
 "Ye' re long about it," interjects a listener ; but Men- 
 enius proceeds : 
 
 Note me this, good friend, 
 Your most grave belly was deliberate, 
 Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered, 
 True is it, my incorporate friends, quoth he, 
 That I receive the general food at first, 
 Which you do live upon ; and fit it is, 
 Because I am the storehouse and the shop 
 Of the whole body ; but, if you do remember, 
 I send it through the rivers of your blood, 
 Even to the court, the heart to the seat o' the brain 
 And, through the cranks and offices of man,
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 57 
 
 The strongest nerves and small inferior veins 
 From me receive that natural competency 
 Whereby they live : and, though that all at once, 
 You, my good friends this says the belly, mark me, 
 
 "Ay, sir," interrupts an interested auditor, "well, 
 well?" 
 
 Though all at once cannot 
 See what I do deliver out to each, 
 Yet I can make my audit up, that all 
 From me do back receive the flour of all, 
 And leave me but the bran. What say you to't ? 
 
 " It was," responds the citizen "an answer, how apply 
 you this ? " 
 
 Menenius proceeds : 
 
 The senators of Rome are this good belly, 
 
 And you the mutinous members ; for, examine 
 
 Their counsels and their cares ; digest things rightly 
 
 Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find, 
 
 No public benefit which you receive 
 
 But it proceeds or comes from them to you, 
 
 And no way from yourselves. What do you think, 
 
 You, the great toe of this assembly 
 
 (pointing to a loquacious citizen, who indignantly re- 
 torts :) 
 
 " I the great toe? why the great toe?" 
 The orator replies :
 
 58 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 For that being one o' the lowest basest, poorest 
 Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost, 
 Thou rascal, that are worst in blood to run, 
 Lead'st first to win some vantage. 
 Rome and her rats are at the point of battle ; 
 The one side must have bale. 
 
 This speech will call to mind the far greater one in 
 Julius Ccesar, in which Antony, over the corpse of 
 the murdered Julius, stirs up the hearts of the popu- 
 lace to mutiny and so works upon them that they, 
 who were on the side of Brutus and the conspirators, 
 cry out for their death and rush about the street 
 in frenzy, calling for blood and fire. 
 
 It can be asserted with truth, I think, that in these 
 Roman plays Shakspeare not only introduces char- 
 acters who look down upon the people, but himself 
 exposes their weaknesses. He dwells with special 
 severity on their inconstancy. An adroit tongue 
 like Antony's can turn them to anything ; and changes 
 of fortune depress or elate them, to one thing constant 
 never. The fickleness of the mob might, in fact, almost 
 be called the theme of Coriolanus. 
 
 On the other hand, the dramatist exhibits with 
 equal impartiality the weakness of the opposite side. 
 If the fickleness of the mob might, with a stretch, be 
 called the motive of this play, the judgment of 
 arrogance, the darling vice of aristocracy, is its obvious 
 subject
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 59 
 
 Coriolanus has all the virtues of his class. He is 
 devoted to his family and proud of his country. He 
 has personal distinction, strength, courage and the 
 power of evoking enthusiasm. He is the kind of man 
 who could save a kingdom in an emergency and produce 
 panic in the ranks of its enemies. But he is devoured 
 by arrogance pride of self and pride of his class. In 
 nothing is this more visible than in his dislike of 
 praise : he depreciates his own services and cannot 
 endure to have a word said about his merits ; but this 
 is only the sensitiveness of a spirit too proud to endure 
 any familiarity. His arrogance assumes the form of 
 a savage contempt of the common people. While his 
 achievements have made him the natural candidate for 
 the highest office in the state, he cannot become consul 
 without the consent of the common people, and to 
 sue for their favour he cannot endure. When at last 
 he is persuaded to do so, he insults the electors instead 
 of petitioning them ; and his insane behaviour culmin- 
 ates in a tumult, in which he is banished from the city. 
 So deeply offended is he that he goes and allies himself 
 with the Volscians, the deadly enemies of Rome, and, 
 at the head of their army, returns to take vengeance on 
 his ungrateful country. Such is the unnatural position 
 into which he is brought by inhuman arrogance. But 
 nature obtains her revenge ; for his mother, with his 
 wife and child, goes out to meet him at the gates of 
 the city, and, under (her entreaties, his resolution breaks
 
 60 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 down. Abandoning the expedition, he returns with 
 the Volscians to their capital, but only to perish in an 
 outbreak occasioned by his fickle conduct. No man is 
 so great that he can afford to live to himself alone ; 
 the most brilliant gifts may only procure their owner's 
 ruin, unless, united with them, be the saving grace of 
 charity. Such is the moral of Coriolanus. 
 
 If the purpose of Shakspeare's writings were to 
 illustrate political principles, we should expect to find 
 in Julius C&sar a discussion of the rival claims of 
 Republicanism and Imperialism ; for this was the 
 issue involved in the conflicts which it describes. 
 We do also find in the play indications of this fact. 
 Caesar is an impersonation of arbitrary power, not 
 very worthily conceived, falling far beneath the Julius 
 Caesar of actual history. Brutus, on the other hand, 
 is the embodiment of republican principles : he is 
 sincerely attached to the tradition of the past and 
 cannot endure to see his country enslaved to Caesar's 
 ambition. But Shakspeare is far less concerned about 
 the Tightness and wrongness of the political creed of 
 Brutus than with the loyalty of his hero to what he 
 believes. Brutus is one of the prime favourites of the 
 dramatist ; next to Henry the Fifth, he may be called 
 his ideal of manhood ; but it is not with his political 
 principles but with the purity and completeness of his 
 character as a man that Shakspeare is concerned. 
 
 If there is any political principle which may be said
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 61 
 
 to be embodied in this play, it is neither Republicanism 
 nor Imperialism, but what may be called the Destiny 
 of the State. Political institutions are neither good 
 nor bad in themselves : they are only good or bad 
 according to circumstances. They are not intended 
 to last forever, but are subject to the law of mutability, 
 which plays so vast a part in human things. The 
 Roman state began with kings and passed on through 
 aristocracy and republicanism to imperialism. Corio- 
 lanus's life was a desperate attempt to stop this evolu- 
 tion at an early stage and keep things forever as they 
 had been ; but the law at the heart of things is mightier 
 than the will of any individual ; and accordingly the 
 evolution proceeded, while Coriolanus, strong as he 
 was, was swept aside. 1 In the same way, when the 
 period depicted in the other play had come, the 
 republican stage of the state, having done its work, 
 was ready to be superseded. It had raised problems 
 which it could not solve and created forces which it 
 could not control. One strong man was needed to 
 take all the threads into his hand and give to Rome's 
 far-extended conquests the unity which the republic 
 could not impress on the vanquished world. Julius 
 
 1 Whose course will on 
 
 The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs 
 Of more strong link asunder than can ever 
 Appear in your impediment. 
 
 Act i. Scene i.
 
 62 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Caesar seemed to be the man ; but Brutus threw 
 himself in the way, resolved to turn back the wheels 
 of change. He succeeded so far as to thwart the 
 ambition of Caesar; but he could not alter the 
 course of destiny : the wheels which he attempted 
 to stop passed over himself and crushed him, as they 
 went. 
 
 His motives are of the highest, but his enterprise 
 contains within itself from the beginning the seeds of 
 failure. More than he is aware, he is the tool of 
 Cassius, his fellow-conspirator, whose motives ,are far 
 from being equally pure. Cassius is inflamed not 
 with zeal for his country's freedom, but with envy that 
 anyone should be greater than himself; as Caesar 
 threatens to be. Of Caesar he says : 
 
 Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus ; and we petty men 
 Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
 
 Caesar had noted the envy of this man and was afraid 
 of it : 
 
 Let me have about me men that are fat, 
 Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights. 
 Yond Cassius hath a lean and hungry look, 
 He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous.
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 63 
 
 Would he were fatter ! but I fear him not ; 
 
 Yet, if my name were liable to fear, 
 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 
 So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much, 
 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 
 Quite through the deeds of men ; he loves no plays, 
 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music ; 
 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 
 
 As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit 
 
 That could be moved to smile at anything. 
 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease 
 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
 
 And therefore are they very dangerous. 
 
 When Caesar was murdered, Cassius wished Antony 
 to be sacrificed too, but Brutus would not hear of it : 
 he was too noble to make use of the means necessary 
 to accomplish the end he had in view. Those who 
 rallied to his standard were too like himself dreamy 
 and visionary, men of the closet rather than of the 
 camp, as is indicated by a poet rushing into the gen- 
 eral's tent with his advice on the eve of battle. Worst 
 of all, the cause, which was holy in the eyes of Brutus, 
 had at the outset been stained with murder ; and this 
 disturbed his conscience, as is indicated by the spectre 
 of the assassinated Caesar, which appeared in his tent 
 and warned him that he would meet him again at 
 Philippi. The attempt to restore the republic failed,
 
 64 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 and Brutus perished along with the cause of which he 
 had constituted himself the champion. The reasons 
 of his failure are indicated in detail in the play ; but 
 the true cause is rather in the atmosphere than actually 
 expressed : it was that the hour had come. 
 
 If the political motive can be admitted only in a 
 modified sense in Coriolanus and Julius Ccesar, the 
 psychological interest comes clearly into predominance 
 in Antony and Cleopatra. The political movement is, 
 indeed, still going on : the republic is passing away, 
 and its enormous possessions are steadily and inevitably 
 accumulating in the hands of Octavius, who, though 
 not the ablest of the competitors for them, yet, by his 
 self-control and perseverance, proved himself to be the 
 man whom the times required. From another point 
 of view this play may be held to illustrate another 
 momentous feature of the age namely, how Rome, 
 though she conquered the East, was herself con- 
 quered by Eastern magnificence and luxury. But 
 it is the great character of Antony which fascinates 
 Shakspeare; and on its delineation he expends an 
 almost superhuman power. 
 
 Antony already plays a leading part in the play of 
 Julius Caesar. Reference has been made to the 
 extraordinary speech with which he detached the 
 populace of Rome from the cause of the conspirators ;
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 65 
 
 and he was one of the leaders by whom Brutus and 
 Cassius were defeated at Philippi. 
 
 The Roman world, which Julius Caesar had all but 
 made his own, fell, at his death into the hands of three 
 men Antony, Octavius and Lepidus. But, in the 
 nature of things, it had ultimately to become the 
 property of one of the three ; and the question was, 
 which of them was to be the favourite of destiny. 
 Lepidus had little chance : he was a weak man and 
 a drunkard : this is how Antony and Octavius speak 
 of him, when they are alone together : 
 
 This is a slight, unmeritable man, 
 
 Meet to be sent on errands : is it fit, 
 
 The threefold world divided, he should stand 
 
 One of the three to share it ? 
 
 Though we lay these honours on this man, 
 To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, 
 He shall but bear them as an ass bears gold, 
 To groan and sweat under the business, 
 Either led or driven, as we point the way ; 
 And, having brought our treasure where we will, 
 Then take we down his load and turn him off, 
 Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears 
 And graze in commons. 
 
 The chances of Octavius were better, though his powers 
 were not brilliant. But Antony appeared to be the 
 
 5
 
 66 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 man. Pompey says of him, " His soldiership is twice 
 the other twain ". Of his great past even Octavius, 
 his rival, confesses : 
 
 Antony, when thou once 
 
 Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slewest 
 Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel 
 Did famine follow ; whom thou foughtst against, 
 Though daintily brought up, with patience more 
 Than savages could suffer .... 
 
 . . thy palate then did deign 
 The roughest berry on the rudest hedge ; 
 Yea, like a stag, when snow the pasture sheets, 
 The bark of trees thou browsedst ; on the Alps, 
 It is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh, 
 Which some did die to look on ; and all this 
 Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek 
 So much as lanked not. 
 
 Agrippa said of him : " A rarer spirit never did steer 
 humanity ". 
 
 After Caesar's death the third part of the world was 
 his ; and the chances were more than even that he 
 might win the whole. But, when the play called by 
 his name opens, he is in Egypt, bound captive by his 
 unlawful passion for Cleopatra, the queen of that 
 country. They are passing their time in lust and 
 revelry, and he has forgotten home, honour and fortune. 
 His affairs urgently require his presence in Italy, where
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 67 
 
 his rivals are profiting by his absence ; but he cannot 
 drag himself away from the sensual stye in which he is 
 wallowing. 
 
 At last he hears of his wife's death and, by a desper- 
 ate effort, quits Egypt and appears in Italy. Here he 
 soon picks up the threads of his affairs and takes his 
 proper place. He renews his alliance with Octavius 
 by marrying his sister. But, in no long time, the fatal 
 spell drags him back to Egypt again. The deserted 
 Octavia returns to her brother, who at once prepares 
 for revenge ; and to revenge Octavia is at the same 
 time to grasp Antony's share of the Roman world. 
 They meet at the battle of Actium, where Cleopatra 
 accompanies Antony, confusing his brain and thwarting 
 his counsels by her presence. In the height of the 
 action she suddenly takes to flight ; whereupon he, 
 
 like a doting mallard, 
 Leaving the fight in height, flies after her. 
 
 When he has time to reflect, he is overwhelmed with 
 shame and remorse ; but, as soon as Cleopatra rejoins 
 him, he is quickly comforted and pronounces her kiss 
 or one of her tears to be worth all that is won or lost. 
 Octavius pursues the pair to Alexandria, where 
 Antony, turning at bay, fights so desperately that for 
 one day fortune promises to crown him with victory. 
 But the voluptuary, thus encouraged, abandons himself, 
 even in this crisis, to his passion :
 
 68 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Come, 
 
 Let's have one other gaudy night ; call to me 
 All my sad captains, fill our bowls once more ; 
 Let's mock the midnight bell. 
 
 The next day the ships of Cleopatra desert in the 
 midst of the battle, and all is lost. Antony sees that 
 she, who has so long vowed to him infinite love, has 
 betrayed him, and he curses her false heart in the terms 
 it deserves. There is for him only one way of escape 
 from the intolerable humiliation of being led through 
 Rome at the wheel of Octavius' car of triumph ; and, 
 as with his own hand he gives away his life, it is with 
 the horrible conviction that she for whom he has 
 sacrificed everything duty, empire and life itself is 
 about to cast herself into the arms of his rival. Yet 
 even at this point his infatuation returns : the suicidal 
 blow having been so awkwardly inflicted as not to 
 terminate his life at once, he crawls once more to 
 Cleopatra's feet and dies begging for one last kiss. 
 
 It is an awful picture of the infatuation of passion 
 and its fatal consequences. Antony is the Prodigal 
 Son of Shakspeare's works, but a prodigal who never 
 comes home. 1 
 
 1 When our viciousness grows hard 
 Oh misery on't I the wise gods seal our eyes ; 
 In our own filth drop our clear judgments ; 
 Make us adore our errors ; laugh at's, while we strut 
 
 To our confusion. 
 
 Act iii. Scene ii.
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 69 
 
 From the rich materials accumulated in these three 
 dramas many other features might be selected. 
 
 For example, the prevalence of suicide is note- 
 worthy. An extraordinary number of the characters 
 terminate their existence with their own hands. Even 
 Brutus, who expresses himself as opposed to suicide 
 on principle, resorts to it when his affairs appear to 
 be in desperation. This was the Roman way ; and it 
 is a characteristic trait of heathenism, in which the 
 sense of responsibility for life was imperfectly de- 
 veloped. 
 
 Another outstanding feature is the regard paid to 
 omens. Where faith in the loving providence of God 
 is undeveloped, superstition seizes eagerly on any 
 hints by which the will of the gods and the secrets of 
 the future may be supposed to be indicated ; and the 
 demand for these signs brings forth the supply. 
 Events like the death of Caesar were supposed to be 
 portended by signs in the heavens and unusual dis- 
 turbances in the frame of the world ; and Shakspeare 
 renders these rumours with weird sublimity. 
 
 A feature which these ancient historical plays 
 possess, in common with the modern ones, is a fond- 
 ness for pageants. To Shakspeare nothing is more 
 congenial than to describe a holiday, when some great 
 general returns from the wars, and the city pours itself 
 into the streets to meet him, the onlookers swarming 
 up posts and crowding roofs, windows and other
 
 70 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 coigns of vantage, while the enthusiasm of a common 
 joy pervades all classes. 
 
 There are many of the minor characters of these 
 plays which well deserve particular analysis. But we 
 will restrict ourselves to a closing notice of the re- 
 markable group of women they contain. 
 
 First, there is Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, 
 " the she-wolf," as Heine calls her, " who suckled the 
 wolf Caius Marcius with her milk of iron ". " When 
 he was yet tender-bodied," she says, " and the only 
 son of my womb ; when youth with comeliness plucked 
 all gaze his way ; when, for a day of kings' entreaties, 
 a mother should not sell him an hour from her behold- 
 ing ; I considering how honour should become such 
 a person ; that was no better than picture-like to 
 hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir was 
 pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to 
 find fame. To a cruel war I sent him ; from whence 
 he returned his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, 
 daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he 
 was a man-child than now in first seeing he had 
 proved himself a man. Hear me profess sincerely : 
 had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none 
 less dear than my good Marcius, I had rather have 
 eleven die nobly for their country than one volup- 
 tuously surfeit out of action." She had instilled into 
 him the pride of his manhood and the pride of his 
 class ; and he had learned the lesson too well. When
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 71 
 
 his career was like to be wrecked because he would 
 not condescend to canvass the common people, she 
 had to entreat him to pocket his pride, and she even 
 stooped to urge him to dissemble, arguing that it was 
 no more base, for the attainment of a noble end, to 
 use the art of dissimulation in the contests of peace 
 than to employ stratagem, as he was wont to do, in 
 the conduct of war. Her power over him, whom no 
 one else could manage, was proved when, at the gates 
 of Rome, she turned him back from his purpose ; but 
 she had to expiate what had been unnatural in his 
 training by hearing immediately of his death at the 
 hands of the Volscians. 
 
 Shakspeare loves to present characters in contrast ; 
 and no more striking contrast is possible than that 
 between Coriolanus's mother and his wife, Valeria. 
 The latter is such a woman as Thackeray loved to 
 paint : a woman without words " my gracious silence " 
 Coriolanus calls her despised by her own sex as 
 destitute of spirit ; wholly absorbed in her home, her 
 husband, her son ; full of tenderness, tremors and tears ; 
 yet a perfect woman, benign, modest, beautiful and 
 able to satisfy and enthral the heart of a strong man. 
 
 It is a marvellous evidence of the variety which 
 Shakspeare was able to impart to characters funda- 
 mentally alike that between the savage virtue of 
 Volumnia on the one hand and the shrinking tender- 
 ness of Valeria on the other he could create a figure like
 
 72 HOW TO RfeAD SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Portia, the wife of Brutus. She is the true Roman 
 matron strong and dignified, fit to participate in all 
 the secrets of her husband and able to assert her own 
 rights, yet watching over his life and honour like a 
 guardian angel, dissolved in anxieties, when he is in 
 danger, and no longer able to sustain the burden of 
 life, when he is taken from her. If Volumnia is the 
 image of the stern qualities by which in the earliest 
 ages the Roman state was built up, it is because in its 
 greatest days there were at Rome wives and mothers 
 like Portia that the stamp of Rome upon the world is 
 indelible, and the Roman name remains forever a 
 synonym for manliness and righteousness. 
 
 The whole diameter of being separates such women 
 from Cleopatra, the voluptuous daughter of the 
 East, the swart queen of Egypt, the serpent of old 
 Nile, as Antony calls her. In comparison with them 
 she is but a glorious weed ; yet she arrests the eye, 
 like a poppy among corn ; and on her portraiture the 
 dramatist lavishes all the resources of his art. 
 
 Antony is not the first whom she has fascinated. 
 The divine Caesar himself had been ensnared by her 
 charms, and so had Pompey the Great. But 
 
 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety ; other women cloy 
 The appetites they feed ; but she makes hungry 
 Where most she satisfies.
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 73 
 
 Would you know how she captured Antony at 
 their first meeting ? She went to meet him at Tarsus : 
 
 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
 Burned on the water ; the poop was beaten gold ; 
 Purple the sails and so perfumed that 
 The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were 
 
 silver, 
 
 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
 The water which they beat to follow faster, 
 As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
 It beggared all description ; she did lie 
 In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue, 
 O'erpicturing that Venus where we see 
 The fancy outwork nature : on each side her 
 Stood pretty, dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 With diverse-coloured fans, whose wind did seem 
 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool 
 And what they undid did. 
 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 
 So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes 
 And made their bends adornings ; at the helm 
 A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle 
 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands. 
 
 And so forth. In short, she carried Antony off to 
 her palace in Egypt, where she confounded his senses 
 with such a succession of never-ending pleasures that 
 he completely abandoned to her both his heart and
 
 74 
 
 his fate. When they went to fish, she would have 
 divers under water, to affix the trout to his hook. 
 She would put her " tires and mantles " on him and 
 gird on herself " his sword Philippan". A thousand 
 diversions she could invent ; and, as his passion rose, 
 she could meet it with its equal, or with arts of 
 hesitancy and coyness which only inflamed it the more. 
 Her sole object was to keep him beside her in Egypt, 
 and as far as possible from Rome, where his duties 
 lay. When he leaves her, she is distracted with passion 
 and sends a score of letters after him every day ; 
 when she hears of his marriage to Octavia, she is mad 
 with rage and jealousy, till she is informed that her 
 rival is small in stature, plain in appearance and cold 
 in disposition in short, one whom she has no fear of 
 outdazzling. Her anticipations prove too correct ; 
 for Antony soon returns to Circe's pen. 
 
 There is not in Cleopatra a single noble thought. 
 She squanders the resources of Egypt and loves to 
 have her messages carried by kings ; yet at a pinch 
 she can stoop to lying and even theft in money- 
 matters. When the ring of fate closes about Antony, 
 and his fall is inevitable, she deserts him and enter- 
 tains designs on the heart of his conqueror, the cool 
 Octavius. Yet at the last moment and here is 
 Shakspeare's wonderful knowledge of human nature 
 she discovers that her love is far deeper than she 
 has been aware ; and she is actually at the same
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORIES 75 
 
 moment both betraying Antony and loving him so 
 passionately as to be able to die with him. Of such 
 contradictions is the heart of woman capable. 
 
 There are few passages in all literature so im- 
 pressive as those closing scenes in which, turning 
 away from her traitorous bargaining for her own life, 
 she at last realises what is the real state of her heart, 
 and learns that she is 
 
 No more but e'en a woman, and commanded 
 By such poor passion as the maid that milks 
 And does the meanest chares. 
 
 All the greatness of Antony comes back on her ; and 
 she declares that, he being gone, " there is nothing 
 left remarkable beneath the visiting moon". 
 
 The officers of Octavius, who intend to adorn his 
 triumph by exhibiting her to the gaze of Rome, have 
 hemmed her in ; but she eludes their vigilance and 
 gets a number of asps conveyed into the tower in 
 which she is confined, by a countryman carrying a 
 basket of grapes. That is a wonderful scene, when 
 she tells her women to array her once more in all the 
 splendour of her royal robes and, thus attired, applies 
 the reptile to her breast, bidding it be angry and dis- 
 patch, and with its sharp teeth the " knot intrinsicate 
 of life untie ". The murderous bite she declares to be 
 " as sweet as balm, as soft as air " ; and, smiling in 
 reply to a pitying exclamation of her attendant, she 
 says :
 
 76 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Peace, peace, 
 
 Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, 
 That sucks the nurse asleep ? 
 
 When all is over, the waiting- woman adjusts on the 
 dead queen's head the crown, which has fallen a little 
 awry, and then, applying to her own breast another of 
 the reptiles, follows her mistress into the unknown. 1 
 
 1 Heine, who knew this kind of woman too well, has a chapter on 
 Cleopatra, in his Shakspeare's Maidens and Women, which makes the 
 reader shiver with its realism and unearthly cleverness.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 
 
 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS 
 
 Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 
 
 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 
 
 As You LIKE IT 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT OR WHAT You WILL
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 
 
 SHAKSPEARE made himself by the historical plays, 
 and these form the true gateway into the world of his 
 thought. But even earlier than the working of this 
 enriching vein the composition of his earliest Comedies 
 had begun ; and, during the first half of his life as an 
 author, the writing of historical plays and the making 
 of comedies went on side by side. Indeed, the com- 
 position of comedies went on during his entire life as 
 a dramatist ; and the Comedies number nearly half 
 of all his plays. The audience in a theatre wants 
 primarily to be amused, and the dramatist has to give 
 what the public asks. The Comedies formed part of 
 the day's work which Shakspeare had to perform, 
 although there is far less of the man himself in them 
 than in the historical plays. 
 
 It is generally allowed that there is a marked contrast 
 between the comedies of Shakspeare's earlier and 
 those of his later life. The former are gayer, the 
 latter graver ; and the date fixed upon as the water- 
 shed is the year 1600. Up to this date he wrote ten 
 comedies, the names of which are printed on the op- 
 posite page, and these form the theme of the present 
 chapter. 
 
 (79)
 
 8o HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Among the learned there has been a great deal of 
 discussion about what Comedy is ; and the different 
 theories are far from uninteresting ; but, when we are 
 dealing with Gayer Comedies, there can be little 
 difficulty in determining what their object is. It is 
 to excite laughter. 
 
 Man is said to be the only animal that can laugh ; 
 and it is a precious privilege. As the Scripture says, 
 "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine". It is 
 a kind of piquant and titillating sauce, appointed by 
 Nature to be taken along with the daily bread of work, 
 which would otherwise be too dry and indigestible. 
 It is a kind of sunshine, which imparts buoyancy to the 
 step and prevents the journey of life from becoming 
 too tedious. It is a power imparted to human beings 
 in very varying degrees. As one of these Gayer 
 Comedies says, 
 
 now, by two-headed Janus, 
 
 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time 
 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
 And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper ; 
 And others of such vinegar aspect, 
 That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, 
 Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. 
 
 To laugh well, however, requires a good deal of 
 wisdom. It is possible to laugh too much it doeth 
 good, says Solomon, " like a medicine " that is, when
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 81 
 
 taken now and then, with plenty of work and other 
 kinds of seriousness in between but to feed on 
 medicine would be a perilous experiment. Another 
 secret of the wisdom of laughter lies in laughing at 
 the right things and not at the wrong ones. And we 
 may take as the guide to the wisdom of Shakspeare 
 in this part of his writings the question What are 
 the things at which he makes us laugh ? 
 
 In these plays there are figures introduced which 
 have been expressly created for the purpose of pro- 
 voking laughter. These are the Fools, of whom 
 Touchstone, in As You Like //, is perhaps the most 
 distinguished. In the Age of Chivalry there was 
 attached to the establishment of lords and ladies 
 a professional fool, who wore motley and cap and bells. 
 He was a privileged character, who was allowed to say 
 anything to anybody. He went about making jokes 
 on the business of life, as a clown does on the business 
 of a circus ; but, if he happened to be a man of shrewd- 
 ness and sense, he might be a true teacher, because he 
 was permitted to utter unpalatable truths. As Shak- 
 speare says, "he uses his folly like a stalking-horse, 
 and, under the presentation of that, he shoots his wit ". 
 And elsewhere the poet says : 
 
 This fellow's wise enough to play the fool ; 
 And to do that well craves a kind of wit ; 
 He must observe their mood on whom he jests, 
 6
 
 82 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The quality of persons, and the time ; 
 Not, like the haggard, 1 check at every feather 
 That comes before his eye. This is a practice 
 As full of labour as a wise man's art. 
 
 " Full of labour " he calls the business of the fool ; and 
 it must be confessed that to us now at all events it is 
 a laborious task to follow the fooling of these plays. 
 It turns to a large extent on puns and other plays 
 upon words, which no doubt were easily comprehended 
 by the first hearers, but now require as much com- 
 menting as obscure passages in the classics. There 
 are pages upon pages on which the light of wit 
 must once have shone as brightly as the morning 
 sunshine on the drops of dew ; but time has rendered 
 them as dry as sand and as opaque as clay. You may 
 with great labour master every difficulty; but in 
 nine cases out of ten the game is not worth the candle. 
 There are other figures on a level with the fools 
 such, for example, as the Men's Men. When a young 
 gentleman goes forth from home on his travels, he is 
 always accompanied by a confidential servant, who 
 not only fetches and carries for him. and assists him 
 in every kind of adventure, but also plays the fool for 
 his amusement. Of these one or two, like the im- 
 mortal Launce in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, who 
 is always accompanied by his dog Crab, are still 
 
 1 Untrained hawk.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 83 
 
 amusing ; but the wit of most of them has fallen, 
 through the lapse of time, into a woefully withered 
 condition, consisting as it does almost entirely in 
 verbal quibbles and contemporary allusions. Some- 
 times, for their blunders, they come in for a beating 
 from their masters ; and it is easy to understand how 
 such scenes would make the pittites of Shakspeare's 
 day roar with delight ; but it is hard work, at this 
 distance of time, to extract amusement from such 
 horseplay. The Women's Women that is to say, the 
 handmaidens who attend on the heroines resemble 
 the men's men in the liberty they are allowed with 
 their tongues ; but in none of them, I suspect, is there 
 any permanent vitality, except it be " the little villain " 
 Maria, as she is called by Sir Toby Belch, in Twelfth 
 Night, who presides over the orgies and practical jokes 
 of that play with such inventive gaiety. 
 
 The men's men, as I have called them, are constantly 
 falling into mistakes with their words they will say 
 "repose" instead of "compose"; "expectoration" 
 instead of " expectation," and the like and Shakspeare 
 extracts a great deal of wit of this kind out of his 
 humbler characters. Indeed, the mark with him of 
 the lower orders is that language baffles them. Thus 
 Dogberry and Verges, who represent the police, 
 go blundering over the Queen's English at every 
 sentence. It may be remarked, in passing, how old is 
 the practice of making the police the butt of popular
 
 8 4 
 
 jokes ; and Shakspeare's charge against them is exactly 
 the modern one, expressed in the music-hall line, that 
 the bobby's duty is to walk the other way. Says 
 Dogberry to the guard, "This is your charge you 
 shall comprehend all vagrom men ; you are to bid any 
 man stand in the Prince's name ". " But how," asks 
 the Second Watch, "if a' will not stand?" "Why, 
 then," replies Dogberry, "take no note of him, but let 
 him go ; and presently call the rest of the watch 
 together, and thank God you are rid of a knave." 
 
 There are other minor characters out of whose diffi- 
 culties with the Queen's English mirth is extracted 
 such as the French Doctor practising in England. 
 The Welshman comes in for very severe handling in 
 this respect ; Shakspeare being almost as hard on him 
 as Thackeray is on the Irishman. Sir Hugh Evans, in 
 The Merry Wives of Windsor, is the chief example ; 
 and the last straw in poor Sir John FalstafFs burden 
 of humiliation in that play is that he has lived to 
 stand at the taunt of one who makes fritters of 
 English and says "sheese" and "putter" instead of 
 " cheese " and " butter ". 
 
 On the other hand, there are characters whose 
 amusing quality is their command of language. 
 Shakspeare rather makes fun of the Schoolmaster, for 
 example, because he thinks the sky is more to him 
 than other men if he knows the Latin name for it. 
 " Sir," says Sir Nathaniel, of one who knows no Latin,
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 85 
 
 " he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of a 
 book ; he hath not ate paper, as it were ; he hath not 
 drunk ink ; his intellect is not replenished ; he is only 
 an animal, only sensible in the duller parts : 
 
 And such barren plants are set before us that we 
 
 thankful should be 
 Which we of taste and feeling are for those parts 
 
 which do fructify in us more than he." 
 
 Observe the "taste and feeling" of the grammar and 
 the versification of these lines ! 
 
 Similar to the self-satisfied delight of the school- 
 master in Latin is the use by certain characters of an 
 inflated, theatrical mode of speaking. Such is the 
 extraordinary dialect in which Pistol, one of FalstafFs 
 minions, always talks ; and there is even more swagger 
 in the language of mine host of the Garter Inn in The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor. He does not make use of 
 language, but is carried away by it ; it flows from him 
 like a torrent. 
 
 In this, Shakspeare was caricaturing the theatrical 
 dialect of his day, which was artificial and inflated, 
 full of sound and fury, blood and thunder. Indeed, 
 one of the conspicuous sources of amusement in these 
 Comedies is the ridicule cast on the manners and cus- 
 toms of the stage. Shakspeare frequently introduces 
 a play within a play that is to say, a portion of his
 
 86 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 own play consists of the performance of another play, 
 which is not supposed to be of his composition, but is 
 written in the conventional stage-dialect of the day. 
 Shakspeare was seeking to introduce nature and good 
 sense ; and he takes this way of exposing the crudities 
 of other dramatists. 
 
 Still more amusing is his exposure of the persons 
 who at that time took upon themselves the art of 
 acting. They were the most illiterate mechanics the 
 tailor, the weaver, the joiner, the bellows-mender but 
 such was their self-conceit 'that they were ready to 
 perform anything on a moment's notice. 
 
 The prince of these stage-quacks is Bottom, the 
 weaver, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream : he is the 
 very genius of stupidity, the very incarnation of self- 
 conceit. The play which he and his fellow-mechanics 
 propose to perform is Pyramus and Thisbe ; and he 
 chooses for himself the leading rdle. "What is 
 Pyramus?" he asks, "a lover, or a tyrant?" and, 
 when he is told, " a lover," he exclaims, " That will 
 ask some tears in the true performance of it : if I do 
 it, let the audience look to their eyes ; I will move 
 storms." Yet he is not satisfied with this part; he 
 wishes that Pyramus were not a lover, but a tyrant : 
 " My chief humour is for a tyrant : I could play 
 Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make 
 all split.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 87 
 
 The raging rocks 
 And shivering shocks 
 Shall break the locks 
 
 Of prison-gates ; 
 And Phibbus' car 
 Shall shine from far 
 And make and mar 
 
 The foolish Fates. 
 
 This was lofty ! Now name the rest of the players. 
 This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein ; a lover is 
 more condoling." 
 
 When the other players are named for their parts, 
 he is not satisfied : he thinks he could do every part 
 better himself. Thus he will do Thisbe as well as 
 Pyramus : 
 
 " An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too ; 
 I'll speak, in a monstrous little voice 
 ' Thisne, Thisne ' Ah Pyramus, my lover dear, 
 Thy Thisbe dear and lady dear." 
 
 Someone else is named for the Lion's part; but 
 Bottom cries : " Let me play the lion too. I will 
 roar that it will do anyone's heart good to hear me ". 
 Someone objects that this might frighten the ladies ; 
 whereupon he says : " I will roar you as gently as 
 it were any sucking dove, I will roar you an 'twere 
 any nightingale".
 
 88 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Thus the first source of Shakspeare's comedy may 
 be said to be Words words used by those who can 
 make them into playthings and words mastering others 
 and making them ridiculous. For language is a 
 strange thing : it is like a steed, which, when it has its 
 master on its back, can be made to show the prettiest 
 paces, but is able to unship the unskilful rider, who 
 tries to mount, and send him sprawling in the mire. 
 Language is the poet's own instrument : and Shak- 
 speare knew all its possibilities. 
 
 Another source of his comedy and a still more 
 copious one is Love. This, indeed, is the subject of 
 which all these plays are full. It appears in an end- 
 less variety of forms ; and over everyone of them 
 there shimmers the iridescence of mirth. 
 
 Shakspeare's very first comedy Loves Labour's Lost 
 has for its hero Ferdinand, King of Navarre, who, 
 along with his three lords Biron, Longaville and 
 Dumain has vowed to devote three years to books 
 and study and never during this period to look upon 
 a woman's face. All the arrangements are made, the 
 precincts of the palace being strictly garrisoned against 
 the access of the other sex, when it is remembered 
 that the Princess of France is coming on business of 
 state, which will brook no delay. A temporary sus- 
 pension of the rules, therefore, becomes inevitable ; and
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 89 
 
 the Princess, accompanied by her three attendants 
 Rosaline, Maria and Katharine pitches her tent on 
 a flowery meadow outside the gates. The sequel may 
 be easily guessed. The four ascetic students fall 
 desperately in love ; each of them tries to hide it from 
 the rest ; but they all find each other out in the most 
 amusing way; and four marriages are imminent at 
 the close ; though the ladies prescribe a year of delay, 
 that their forsworn lovers may do penance for their 
 broken vows. 
 
 This fable will strike some readers as familiar, even 
 if they have not read Loves Labour's Lost. It was 
 borrowed by Tennyson as the plot of The Princess ; 
 and this circumstance will afford any young student 
 who may wish to test his critical abilities the oppor- 
 tunity of comparing two great poets. 
 
 Shakspeare's treatment is full of spirit and " go " 
 from beginning to end. It is especially remarkable 
 for one very strong character Biron, one of the King's 
 companions. He is full of sardonic mirth, shrewd 
 criticism of life, and self-mockery ; he reminds one not 
 a little of one of Thackeray's finest characters 
 Pendennis's friend, George Warrington and, indeed, 
 one would surmise that in him we have a good deal of 
 Shakspeare himself. He divines from the first the 
 hollowness of the resolution of the Prince and his 
 companions ; he is the first to confess to himself that 
 he has been pierced by the shaft of love ; in fact, he
 
 90 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 acts as the chorus of the play all through ; and at the 
 
 close he sums up the truth of the whole : 
 Consider what you first did swear unto 
 To fast, to study, and to see no woman 
 Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. 
 Say, can you fast ? Your stomachs are too young, 
 And abstinence engenders maladies. 
 And, where that you have vowed to study, lords, 
 Why, universal plodding prisons up 
 The nimble spirits in the arteries. 
 But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, 
 Lives not alone immured in the brain 
 But, with the motion of all elements, 
 Courses as swift as thought in every power 
 And gives to every power a double power, 
 Above their functions and their offices. 
 It adds a precious seeing to the eye 
 A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind ; 
 A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound 
 When the suspicious head of theft is stopped ; 
 Love's feeling is more soft and sensible 
 Than are the tender horns of cockled snails ; 
 Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste ; 
 For valour is not love a Hercules, 
 Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ? 
 Subtle as Sphinx ; as sweet and musical 
 As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair. 
 And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 91 
 
 Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. 
 Never durst poet touch a pen to write 
 Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs ; 
 Oh then his lines would ravish savage ears 
 And plant in tyrants mild humanity. 
 From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive ; 
 They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ; 
 They are the books, the arts, the academes, 
 That show, contain and nourish all the world, 
 Else none at all in aught proves excellent 
 
 This omnipotence of love, to conquer the most 
 recalcitrant, is illustrated again in Much Ado About 
 Nothing, where Benedick, on the one hand, is as re- 
 solved to be a bachelor as Beatrice, on the other, is to 
 die a maid ; yet Nature, assisted by a little pleasant 
 deception on the part of their friends, easily forces 
 them beneath the golden yoke. 
 
 Love is, indeed, a serious enough matter, and some 
 may be indignant that it should form a theme for 
 laughter. Yet it has its ludicrous aspects ; and at 
 these there is no harm in laughing. 
 
 Its signs, or marks, for example. These are given 
 in these comedies on many occasions. Thus, in the 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, Valentine asks his man 
 Speed, " How know you that I am in love ? " to which 
 that worthy answers : " Marry, by these special marks: 
 first, you have learned to wreathe your arms like a
 
 92 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 malcontent ; to relish a love-song like a robinred- 
 breast ; to walk alone like one that had the pestilence ; 
 to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C ; to 
 weep like a young wench that had buried her gran- 
 dam ; to fast like one that takes diet ; to watch like 
 one that fears robbing ; to speak puling, like a beggar 
 at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, 
 to crow like a cock ; when you walked, to walk like 
 one of the lions ; when you fasted, it was presently 
 after dinner ; when you looked sadly, it was for want 
 of money ; and now you are so metamorphosed with a 
 mistress that, when I look upon you, I can scarcely 
 think you my master." The witty Rosalind, in As 
 You Like //, being asked what a lover should be like, 
 replies : " A lean cheek ; an eye blue and sunken ; a 
 beard neglected. Then your hose should be ungar- 
 tered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, 
 your shoe untied, and everything about you demons- 
 trating a careless desolation." 
 
 Other observers, however, have noted marks exactly 
 the opposite the lover blossoms out into a dandy, in 
 the hope of pleasing the eyes of his lady : " I have 
 known when he would have walked ten miles afoot to 
 see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights 
 awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet ". 
 
 Love is capable of a thousand extravagances ; and 
 these Shakspeare loved to paint. Who but he can 
 lend a voice to love's hyperbole of admiration? In
 
 THE 'GAYER COMEDIES 93 
 
 the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Valentine, who has 
 been a despiser of love, meets with his fate ; and 
 he says : 
 
 Life is altered now ; 
 
 I have done penance for contemning love. 
 O gentle Proteus, love's a mighty lord. 
 Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep, 
 Upon the very naked name of love. 
 
 Proteus claims the right of preferring his own fiancee ; 
 to which Valentine replies : 
 
 And I will help thee to prefer her too. 
 She shall be dignified with this high honour 
 To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth 
 Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss 
 And, of so great a favour growing proud, 
 Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower, 
 And make rough winter everlastingly. 
 
 " Why, Valentine," replies Proteus, " what braggardism 
 is this ? " But Valentine replies : 
 
 Pardon me, Proteus ; all I can is nothing 
 
 To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing. 
 
 She is alone. 
 
 She is mine own. 
 
 And I as rich in having such a jewel 
 As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, 
 The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
 
 94 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 In A Midsummer-Nights Dream there is a juice 
 which the sportive Puck squeezes into sleeping eyes, 
 with the result that, when they awake, they adore the 
 first object upon which they chance to alight. Thus 
 enchanted, even Titania, the dainty queen of the 
 fairies, takes into her lap the ass-head of Bottom and 
 thus apostrophizes that transformed weaver : 
 
 Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, 
 
 While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, 
 And stick muskroses in thy sleek, smooth head, 
 
 And kiss thy large, fair ears, my gentle joy. 
 
 Is not the insinuation, that love is such a spell, able 
 to transform the world and to make things appear to 
 loving eyes very different from what they are ? 
 
 It is worthy of note that the scenes of these gay 
 comedies are nearly all laid in places remote such as 
 Venice, Padua, Illyria, the Forest of Arden, and the 
 like. The truth thus shadowed forth is, that love 
 creates a world of its own, very unlike the everyday 
 world of reality. By love human beings are lifted 
 above the common earth, receiving the password into 
 a region of fantasy, illuminated by a light that never 
 was on sea or land. In this fairyland we see the 
 bright creatures of Shakspeare's fancy roaming the 
 faithful but too ventuiesome Julia ; the wellnigh dis- 
 traught Helena; the sprightly Rosalind, "a gallant 
 curtle-axe upon her thigh, a boarspear in her hand " ;
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 95 
 
 the brave Orlando; the melancholy Orsino ; and all 
 the rest. They are in search of one another in that 
 land of mystery and glamour; for, as one of these 
 Comedies says, "the course of true love never did 
 run smooth ". Too often they love the wrong people. 
 Jack is sighing for Jill, but Jill is sighing not for 
 him, but for James or Peter, who in his turn is sigh- 
 ing not for her, but for someone else. Hence the 
 weary pursuit; hence a hundred disappointments. 
 Yet everything comes right in the end, and true love 
 has its reward. 
 
 Sometimes it is crabbed experience which, having 
 outlived its own illusions, tries to keep youthful 
 hearts apart ; but these generally manage to elude the 
 Argus-eyes and get their own way. A brilliant 
 example is that of sweet Anne Page in The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor. When the night of her marriage 
 arrived, her father intended her to marry the stupid 
 and tongue-tied Slender, and her mother thought she 
 was safe in the hands of the rich Dr. Caius ; but she 
 gave them all the slip and appeared as a married 
 woman under the escort of the handsome Fenton. 
 
 The most astonishing wooer of all is Petruchio in 
 The Taming of the Shrew. The heroine Kate seems 
 untameable as a wildcat ; she bites her own sister 
 and makes every man fly from her frowning looks 
 and blistering tongue. But Petruchio, having taken 
 her in hand, so completely eclipses the most extra-
 
 96 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 vagant flights of her ill-temper by waywardness of his 
 own that she follows him first in bewildered astonish- 
 ment and ultimately in genuine submission. It is 
 not a pleasing piece ; and we are glad to learn that it 
 was not of Shakspeare's invention he merely worked 
 over an old play yet at the bottom of its extra- 
 vagance there is a true idea that temper and 
 selfishness may be cured by seeing themselves in 
 another. Kate was impenitent as long as she was 
 shut up in herself; but, when she saw the visage of 
 her own ill-humour in the mirror of her husband's mad- 
 ness, she learned how absurd had been her own conduct 
 and became a reasonable member of society. 
 
 In married love the only thing that Shakspeare 
 laughs at is jealousy. This he does in The Comedy of 
 Errors, where, however, the satire directed against 
 Adriana, the jealous wife, is lacking in lightness of 
 touch. In The Merry Wives of Windsor the treatment 
 is much more successful ; and Ford, the jealous 
 husband, is converted to the most unbounded con- 
 fidence in his wife and to a much more healthy 
 estimate of the world. 
 
 A few words may here be said of Shakspeare's treat- 
 ment of illicit love. It is too well known how this 
 subject has monopolized the stage. There have been 
 periods when it has been almost the sole theme, 
 the plot of every drama hovering round some indecent 
 incident. Too often marriage was made a mock of;
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 97 
 
 the wronged husband was jeered at ; and the bold 
 seducer and the gay but unfaithful wife were the hero 
 and heroine. In some quarters to this day these are 
 the staple situations on the stage. Now, if anything of 
 the kind were to be found in Shakspeare, it would be 
 in his Gayer Comedies ; but nothing of the sort exists 
 there. In these plays there is a certain amount of 
 coarseness. In the by-play of conversation the inter- 
 locutors take liberties which belong to a state of 
 manners that has happily passed away ; and the changes 
 are rung with wearisome iteration on a few words 
 and phrases of a dubious character. Even to the 
 women, such as Rosalind, in As You Like It, there is 
 attributed a licence which is anything but womanly, 
 and is no doubt to be accounted for partly by the 
 fact that in Shakspeare 's time the female parts were 
 played by men, women not being permitted to appear 
 on the stage. But, in studying these Comedies closely, 
 I have been impressed by the fact that indecency 
 never enters into the substance of the plot : in some 
 degree it may adhere to minor details, but it never is 
 the pivot on which the action turns. 
 
 The only one of these ten dramas in which illicit 
 love has a prominent place is The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, where Sir John Falstaff assails the virtue of 
 Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford; but the gay knight is 
 represented as at that stage of his career when his 
 fortunes are not only on the decline, but verging 
 
 7
 
 98 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 towards desperation. Even his ancient hangers-on, 
 Pistol, Nym and the rest, are quitting his service, as 
 rats forsake a sinking ship. It is less under the impulse 
 of passion that he goes a-wooing than under the 
 constraint of impecuniosity : as he confesses himself, 
 he makes love to Ford's wife, "because, the report 
 goes, she hath all the rule of her husband's purse, and 
 he hath a legion of angels " an angel being a coin of 
 the period. Mrs. Ford and her gossip, Mrs. Page, 
 are merry wives, but as honest as they are merry. 
 Falstaff has insulted them by sending to both an 
 identical love-letter at the same time. But each, in 
 her innocence, tells the other ; and then they concoct 
 together a scheme of revenge. Under pretence of 
 encouraging him, they bring him to the house of Mrs. 
 Ford, but only in time to be terrified by her husband, 
 bursting-in to search for him with the town at his 
 heels ; so that Sir John, to save his skin, is glad to 
 creep into a clothes-basket and be carried away out of 
 the house as dirty linen. By which, says he, " I 
 suffered the pangs of three several deaths : first, an 
 intolerable fright, to be detected by the jealous husband ; 
 next to be compassed, like a good bilbo, 1 in the 
 circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head ; 
 and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, 
 with stinking clothes, that fretted in their own grease. 
 Think of that a man of my kidney think of that 
 
 1 Spanish sword.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 99 
 
 that am as subject to heat as butter a man of con- 
 tinual dissolution and thaw it was a miracle to escape 
 suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I 
 was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch 
 dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing 
 hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe." One lesson 
 was not enough for the hoary sinner ; but the merry 
 wives gave him as many as he required, being assisted 
 in the final stages by their husbands, to whom they 
 had communicated their secret ; till at last, the fat 
 knight was so thoroughly punished and humiliated 
 that, as he himself affirmed, " it was enough to be the 
 decay of lust and late walking through the realm". 
 
 Another source of comedy of a dubious nature 
 is Drunkenness ; and the bacchanalian poetry of such 
 an author as Burns shows what rollicking fun can be 
 made out of it. Of this there is not much in Shaks- 
 peare's Comedies, though there is a good deal in the 
 comic scenes of the Historical Plays. The Taming 
 of the Shrew opens with what is called an Induction, 
 in which Christopher Sly, a tinker, is discovered dead- 
 drunk on a bench in front of an alehouse, by a hunting 
 lord, who chances to be passing that way. The lord 
 is in a merry mood, and has him carried into the best 
 room of the house, where he is surrounded with every 
 luxury and, when he awakes, is greeted by a host of 
 servants, as if he were a lord. They inform him that 
 he has just recovered from an illness, in which he
 
 ioo HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 laboured under the hallucination that he was a tinker ; 
 but, being now happily restored to his senses, they 
 urge him to realise his true position. One of the 
 entertainments they provide for him is to witness the 
 performance of a play ; which turns out to be The 
 Taming of the Shrew. This Induction is capitally 
 written, and the fun is well kept up. In Twelfth 
 Night there are some very hilarious drinking scenes, 
 the principal hero of which is Sir Toby Belch, who 
 makes the hours spin-by with singing of songs and 
 drinking of healths. His apology for his conduct is, 
 that he is drinking the health of the lady his niece, 
 under whose protection he lives ; and, says he, " I'll 
 drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat 
 and drink in Illyria ; he is a coward and a coistrel \ 
 that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' 
 the toe like a parish-top". 
 
 One more dubious subject of Comedy is Religion. 
 Against it laughter may be directed ; and it has not 
 infrequently been. The temptation to do so was 
 strong in Shakspeare's days, because Puritanism, 
 which was coming into prominence, was not with- 
 out certain peculiarities which invited ridicule. In 
 Twelfth Night the house-steward Malvolio is called 
 a Puritan ; and he is unmercifully made a fool 
 of by Sir Toby Belch and Maria, his sharp-witted 
 coadjutrix. It is against him that Sir Toby's fam- 
 
 1 Paltry fellow.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 101 
 
 ous witticism is levelled : " Dost thou think, be- 
 cause thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes 
 and ale?" But Malvolio's Puritanism is only men- 
 tioned incidentally ; the pomposity of his manner and 
 the ambition of his desires, against which the ridicule 
 is directed, have nothing religious about them ; and 
 there is in this play no sneering at the habits of a 
 religious life or attempt to prove as was so common 
 among playwriters of a later date that a profession 
 of religion is identical with hypocrisy. 
 
 I have enumerated the principal subjects from which 
 the mirth of these Gayer Comedies is evoked ; but such 
 an enumeration is far from suggesting all the variety 
 of material, of situation and character embraced. 
 While laughter is their primary object, much matter 
 of a serious and even tragic character is introduced. 
 Thus in the Two Gentlemen of Verona we have a 
 contest between the forces of friendship and those of 
 love ; in As You Like It a most suggestive account 
 of the comparative virtues of town and country life ; 
 and it would scarcely be too much to characterize 
 A Midsummer-Nights Dream as a great poetic dis- 
 course on the powers of the imagination. As the 
 dramatist matures in the practice of his art, the de- 
 velopment of character becomes more prominent and 
 mere incident less conspicuous ; thus the Comedy of
 
 102 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Errors, an early piece, is little better than a farce, 
 while As You Like It, written eight years later, 
 abounds with the subtlest analysis of character and 
 at every step suggests meanings which do not lie 
 upon the surface. 
 
 It would be easy, anywhere in these plays, to lift up 
 handfuls of sayings wise, witty and perfectly expressed. 
 Take a few collected almost at random : 
 
 This on Book-learning 
 
 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. 
 
 This on Word-mongers 
 
 They have been at a great feast of languages 
 and stolen the scraps. 
 
 This on Old Fools 
 
 The blood of youth burns not with such excess 
 As gravity's revolt to wantonness. 
 
 This on a Jest 
 
 A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 
 
 Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 
 
 Of him that makes it.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 103 
 
 This on a Bad Jest 
 
 O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, 
 As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock 
 on a steeple. 
 
 This on Sorrow 
 
 Everyone can master a grief but he that has it. 
 This on the same 
 
 For there was never yet philosopher 
 That could endure the toothache patiently, 
 However they have writ the style of gods. 
 
 This again on the same 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venemous, 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 This on Travel 
 
 Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. 
 This on Time 
 
 Time is the nurse and breeder of all good. 
 This on Blarney 
 
 That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man 
 If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. 
 
 This on Gossip 
 
 What great ones do, the less will prattle of.
 
 104 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 This on Mutability 
 
 And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, 
 And then from hour to hour we rot and rot. 
 
 Like all Shakspeare's plays, these Comedies contain 
 passages, scattered not too sparsely here and there, in 
 which the poet's genius rises to its full height, and the 
 beholder is struck dumb with admiration of its gi- 
 gantic proportions. Such is the well-known discourse 
 on the Seven Ages in As You Like It, from the lips 
 of the melancholy Jacques : 
 
 All the world's a stage, 
 
 And all the men and women merely players : 
 They have their exits and their entrances, 
 And one man in his time plays many parts, 
 His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 
 Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
 And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel 
 And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
 Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
 Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
 Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 
 Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
 Seeking the bubble reputation 
 Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 
 In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 105 
 
 With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
 Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 
 And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
 Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, 
 With spectacles on nose and pouch on side ; 
 His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
 For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice 
 Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
 That ends this strange, eventful history, 
 Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 
 
 In strong contrast to this bright, realistic picture 
 is the astonishing outburst on the power of imagination 
 in A Midsummer-Night's Dream : 
 
 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
 
 Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 
 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
 
 The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
 
 Are of imagination all compact. 
 
 One sees more devils than vast hell can hold 
 
 That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic, 
 
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to 
 
 heaven, 
 And, as imagination bodies forth
 
 io6 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shaps, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name. 
 
 As has been already hinted, there is less of Shak- 
 speare to be found in these Comedies than in the 
 rest of his work. They display the toil of the play- 
 wright fully more than the inspiration of the poet. 
 Some of them appear to have been written in haste, 
 and the different parts do not hang well together. In 
 the plots there is no great inventiveness ; a few tricks 
 of the playwright's art, such as mistaken identity and 
 the assumption by women of male attire, are repeated 
 to satiety ; and some of the incidents, thus motived, 
 are far from convincing. In one or two cases Shak- 
 speare appears only to have touched up the work of 
 older dramatists. Many pages of the dialogue in 
 several of the plays are hopelessly obsolete, and the 
 wit in them is as stale as exploded soap-bubbles. In 
 the Comedies, in short, are to be found most of the 
 withered leaves in the garland of Shakspeare's fame. 
 
 Yet there is at least one of these dramas which 
 reaches a point of perfection attained by only three or 
 four other plays in the poet's entire repertory. In The 
 Merchant of Venice the execution is, as has been already 
 hinted, as perfect as that of Julius Casar among the 
 Historical Plays or Macbeth among the Tragedies.
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 107 
 
 This drama is founded, indeed, on several stories, 
 which played their part in the literature of different 
 countries before Shakspeare took possession of them ; 
 but he has twisted the various strands into a single 
 thread with initimable deftness, leaving no loose ends. 
 It is as if the subject had found the genius of the 
 author in its happiest mood and excited his powers to 
 their fullest exercise ; accordingly, from beginning to 
 end, everything moves with the lightness and grace 
 of a bird on the wing ; and there is nothing out of 
 date ; the colours are like those of the great Renais- 
 sance paintings as fresh as if they had been laid on 
 the canvas yesterday. 
 
 The theory has recently been started that the motive 
 of this play was merely to fall in with the fury of the 
 multitude against the Jewish race. A Jewish doctor, 
 it seems, was executed in London for a plot against 
 the life of the Queen shortly before its production ; 
 and, in such circumstances, any picture exhibiting a 
 Jew in a hateful or ludicrous light was certain of 
 popularity. The gods in the gallery would simply 
 howl with delight at Shylock rushing through the 
 streets shrieking : 
 
 My daughter ! Oh my ducats ! O my daughter ! 
 Fled with a Christian ! Oh my Christian ducats ! 
 Justice ! the law ! my ducats and my daughter ! 
 A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
 
 io8 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Of double ducats, stolen from me by my daughter ! 
 
 And jewels, two stones two rich and precious 
 stones ! 
 
 Stolen by my daughter ! Justice ! Find the girl ! 
 
 She hath the stones upon her and the ducats ! 
 There may be truth in this ; but, if so, it only shows 
 how the genius of Shakspeare, when truly excited, 
 carried him above the aims and passions of the hour. 
 For even Shylock is much more than the monster of 
 usury, the contemptible victim of the "hep, hep, 
 hep " of the mob. The consciousness of a great 
 people and the agony of a thousand years of persecu- 
 tion breathe in his words : 
 
 "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a 
 Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, 
 passions ? fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
 weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the 
 same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
 and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do 
 we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? if 
 you poison us, do we not die? and, if you wrong us, 
 shall we not revenge ? If we are like you in the rest, 
 we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a 
 Christian, what is his humility? Revenge! If a 
 Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be 
 by Christian example ? Why, revenge. The villainy 
 you teach me I will execute ; and it shall go hard but 
 I will better the instruction."
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 109 
 
 In Shylock's defeat and humiliation Shakspeare 
 appears to have no pity on him ; but that is a sig- 
 nificant story which Heine, the German poet, himself 
 a Jew, relates that, when he saw the play acted in 
 London, an English lady, sitting near him, burst into 
 tears, at the end of the fourth act, and cried out, 
 " The man is being wronged ". At certain points so 
 keen is the pain as almost to entitle the play to a place 
 among the Tragedies. 
 
 The Merchant of Venice is, like the Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona, a story of friendship but friendship on 
 a far higher level than in the earlier play. Antonio, 
 the hero, is a Venetian merchant, of dignified and 
 melancholy temperament, but full of genial humanity 
 and 
 
 one in whom 
 
 The ancient Roman honour more appears 
 Than any that draws breath in Italy. 
 
 He is extremely rich, his wealth being, however, afloat 
 in vessels which are scattered over all the seas. 
 
 When his friend Bassanio asks him for a loan, in 
 order that he may go to Belmont and prosecute his 
 suit for the hand of the heiress Portia, he never thinks 
 of refusing, though he has no ready money on hand, 
 but applies to the leading Jew usurer on the Rialto 
 for the sum required. This request gives Shylock his 
 chance ; for he has against Antonio a deep and ancient 
 grudge :
 
 i io HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, 
 In the Rialto, you have rated me 
 About my moneys and my usances. 
 Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, 
 For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. 
 You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, 
 And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, 
 And all for use of that which is mine own. 
 Well, then, it now appears you need my help. 
 Go to, then ; you come to me and you say, 
 " Shylock, we would have moneys " you say so 
 You that did void your rheum upon my beard, 
 And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
 Over your threshold ; moneys is your suit 
 What should I say to you ? Should I not say, 
 " Hath a dog money ? is it possible 
 A cur can lend three thousand ducats " ? Or 
 Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key, 
 With bated breath and whispering humbleness, 
 Say this : 
 
 " Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last ; 
 You spurned me such a day ; another time 
 You called me dog ; and for these courtesies 
 I'll lend you thus much moneys " ! 
 
 He agrees, however, not only to lend the money, 
 but to do so without taking interest. Only he adds, 
 as if by way of pleasantry, that he will take a bond
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES in 
 
 from Antonio, binding him, in case the money be not 
 repaid, in three months, to give the lender, in lieu of 
 interest, a pound of flesh from his body. To this 
 condition Antonio laughingly assents, knowing that, 
 long before this date arrives, several of his ships will 
 have come into port. 
 
 The best laid schemes of mice and men, however, 
 " gang aft agley" ; and at the expiry of the time Antonio 
 has no money ; for not one of his ships has come in, 
 one after another of them having suffered misfortune. 
 Shylock has been keeping his eye on the possible 
 chance of the bond being forfeited ; his temper has 
 meantime been rendered savage by the elopement of 
 his daughter with a Christian, a friend of Antonio's ; 
 and, as the time draws near and he hears of Antonio's 
 losses, an inhuman fever begins to burn in his blood. 
 
 At length, the date having expired and the bond 
 being forfeited, he has Antonio in court and is 
 demanding the pound of flesh. In one hand he 
 carries the scales, to weigh it, and in the other the 
 knife, ready to cut it off. To all entreaties he is deaf, 
 declaring that he will take nothing else than what is 
 in the bond. By the law of the city, it seems, he 
 cannot be denied ; and the minds of those with whom 
 the court is crowded are on the rack to witness the 
 horrible denouement when a new advocate appears 
 upon the scene, to plead the cause of the accused. 
 
 This is Portia, the bride of Bassanio, for whose
 
 ii2 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 necessities the borrowed money was procured. Bas- 
 sanio's suit has prospered ; he has successfully passed 
 through the ordeal of choice appointed by Portia's 
 dead father for the wooers of his daughter ; and he 
 has won not only her hand but her heart. In the 
 very crisis of his happiness, however, he hears of the 
 peril of his benefactor, and instantly hurries off, to see 
 if he can succour him. Portia, left behind, is visited 
 by a bright inspiration : she will be the advocate of 
 Antonio, the friend of her husband, and deliver him 
 from the grasp of Shy lock. She hastily consults a 
 friend, a renowned doctor of law, and, having received 
 instructions from him, appears in the court in the nick 
 of time, so well disguised in the gown and wig of an 
 advocate that even Bassanio does not recognise her. 
 
 Portia is one of Shakspeare's most charming crea- 
 tions. Among his other women he has divided his 
 gifts, but to her he has given them all. She is fresh, 
 simple and gay, refined and sincere, and gifted with 
 unmatchable eloquence. Her appearance in court 
 casts a spell over the audience ; and slowly she pro- 
 ceeds to unfold her plea. She admits that the bond 
 is forfeited, and that the law cannot refuse the pound 
 of flesh. It looks as if she were giving the case away. 
 Then she makes an overwhelming appeal to Shylock 
 to have mercy; but he is as obdurate as the flinty 
 rock. At last she discloses her line of argument: 
 Shylock has been promised a pound of flesh ; but in
 
 THE GAYER COMEDIES 113 
 
 the bond there is no mention of blood; and, if, in 
 taking the flesh, he take one drop of that, the whole 
 force of the law will be used against him. Thoroughly 
 discomfited, Shylock asks to have his money and to be 
 allowed to go off. But Portia arrests him as one who 
 has conspired against the life of a Venetian citizen ; 
 and the lowest punishment for this is the forfeiture of 
 all his wealth, one half of which shall go to Antonio and 
 the other to the state. 1 
 
 Portia retires from the court without being dis- 
 covered and hurries home before the arrival of her 
 husband, on whom, however, she has contrived, 
 even after the solemn scene in court, to play off a 
 merry prank, which shall afford food for laughter 
 when they meet again. In the last act she re-enters, 
 at midnight, the splendid home which is to be the 
 scene of her wedded happiness, while the full-moon 
 shines on the marble terraces, and gentle music 
 floats over the banks of flowers ; and, as we follow the 
 youthful figure, radiant with the bliss of doing good, 
 from the encompassing air above her the words seem 
 to breathe which she uttered in the court-of-law and 
 which contain Shakspeare's noblest definition of the 
 essence of Christianity : 
 
 1 The fine due to the state is, however, ultimately remitted, and 
 Antonio is to administer the other half for the benefit of the Jew's 
 daughter and her husband. So, it may be argued, Shylock makes not 
 so bad a bargain. Yet, I am certain, it is the design of the play not 
 only to humiliate but punish the Jew. 
 
 8
 
 H4 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The quality of mercy is not strained. 
 
 It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
 
 Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : 
 
 It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
 
 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes 
 
 The throned monarch better than his crown : 
 
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
 
 The attribute to awe and majesty, 
 
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 
 
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway : 
 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings ; 
 
 It is an attribute to God Himself; 
 
 And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
 
 When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
 
 Though justice be thy plea, consider this 
 
 That, in the course of justice, none of us 
 
 Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy ; 
 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 
 The deeds of mercy.
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES
 
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 
 
 PERICLES 
 
 CYMBELINE 
 
 A WINTER'S TALE 
 
 THE TEMPEST
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 
 
 ABOUT the year 1600, when Shakspeare was six-and 
 thirty years of age and had still sixteen years of his 
 earthly course to run, his genius underwent a natural 
 modification. His comic vein, out of which the bril- 
 liant series of his Gayer Comedies had been produced, 
 ceased to yield material of the same quality and 
 quantity ; and his muse turned, by preference, to tragic 
 themes. This was the period in which his great 
 tragedies came into existence. Yet he still went on, 
 at intervals, writing comedies, though without the 
 same riotous abundance of inspiration. To this period 
 belong six productions which we may designate his 
 Graver Comedies ; their titles are printed on the 
 opposite page. 
 
 Another name which has been proposed for these 
 or for some of them is Romances. As a rule they 
 have not the compactness of comedies, but rely for 
 
 1 In the First Folio Cymbeline appears among the Tragedies ; while, 
 by a lucky chance, The Tempest stands first among the Comedies 
 that is, first in the entire volume where, by its perfection, it may 
 have lured readers on who might have been dismayed by some of the 
 earlier comedies. There seems to be no order in the arrangement of 
 the Comedies or the Tragedies in the First Folio ; but the English 
 Histories follow the chronological order of the reigns.
 
 ii8 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 their interest more on the story they tell. Pericles, for 
 example, in total defiance of the dramatic unities, moves 
 from country to country and skips from year to year, 
 telling a story on which, it would appear, the audience 
 of Shakspeare's day hung with straining interest, al- 
 though in our minds it rather awakens surprise that 
 Shakspeare can have had any hand in putting together 
 such an incoherent medley. AlFs Well That Ends Well 
 is not unlike, in construction, to a modern novel. It 
 is Shakspeare's version of the ever-fresh story of the 
 Prodigal Son, who goes from home in search of adven- 
 ture, but really in flight from his own happiness, and 
 comes to himself after a bitter experience of the empti- 
 ness of the world. Several of the characters bear a 
 striking resemblance to those of Thackeray's Pendennis 
 the heroine to Laura, the Countess to Pendennis' 
 mother, Lafeu to Major Pendennis, and Parolles to 
 Captain Costigan ; although it must be confessed that, 
 in such a comparison, the dramatist is a sufferer, his 
 version of the sowing of a young man's wild oats and 
 of his redemption through the love of woman being 
 but a rude and slight sketch in comparison with the 
 perfect picture painted by the hand of the great master 
 of the modern novel. 
 
 The incidents on which these Graver Comedies 
 chiefly turn are the reconciliation of husbands and 
 wives, who have been separated by jealousy, the finding 
 of children, who have been lost, the reunion of parted
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 119 
 
 friends and the forgiveness of injuries ; and it is im- 
 possible not to wonder whether the preoccupation of 
 the poet's mind with such themes had any connexion 
 with his personal history. The year in which he 
 returned to his native Stratford-on-Avon, where he 
 spent his closing years, though still writing for the 
 London theatres, and where, it is understood, he had 
 left his wife and family during his residence in the 
 metropolis, is not accurately known ; but probably his 
 visits to the place had become more frequent before he 
 finally settled there, and his mind had been becoming 
 more and more set on escaping from the excitement of 
 the city and living permanently among the sights and 
 sounds of the country. 
 
 There is in Cymbeline a fervid description of the 
 enjoyments of the country, coupled with a severe 
 criticism of the manners and customs of refined society, 
 put into the mouth of Belisarius, who is a brother of 
 the king but banished from the court. In this play, 
 too, and in A Winter s Tale, there are charming 
 descriptions of country sights, but especially of flowers. 
 Perdita, in the latter play, says : 
 
 Here's flowers for you, 
 Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, 
 The marigold that goes to bed with the sun 
 And with him rises weeping ; 
 
 and later she speaks of
 
 120 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 daffodils, 
 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
 Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
 Bright Phoebus in his strength a malady 
 Most incident to maids bold oxlips and 
 The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
 The flower-de-luce being one. 
 
 And, in the same play, Autolycus sings : 
 
 When daffodils begin to peer 
 
 With hey ! the doxy over the dale 
 
 Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, 
 For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 1 
 
 Of course Shakspeare might have written such praises 
 of country-life at any period of his history, for he had 
 the experiences of his youth, spent in the country, to 
 draw upon ; but, occurring, as these do, in his later life, 
 
 1 If the literary pilgrim happen to visit Stratford-on-Avon when the 
 stream of visitors is not flowing, he may spend a delightful hour in 
 the garden of the birth-house, where specimens are growing of the 
 flowers, shrubs and trees mentioned in the plays. In one of those 
 laborious books which only a German could have written I find it 
 stated that there are a hundred-and-thirteen plants mentioned in 
 Shakspeare's works; and there they stand everyone with chapter 
 and verse. According to the same authority the animals mentioned 
 are a hundred-and- forty-four. KLOEPPER, Shakespeare-Realien : Alt- 
 Englands Kulturleben im Spiegel von Shakespeare* Dichtungen.
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 121 
 
 they may betoken either his yearning for the land- 
 scapes of Warwickshire or his enjoyment of them 
 after his return. 
 
 The brightest element in these plays is the number of 
 young people they contain, radiant with the bloom of 
 youth and running over with animal spirits. These 
 have been lost to their parents, and for a time their lot 
 is obscured by misfortunes ; but ultimately they are 
 found and restored to their rightful condition. One 
 would be glad to believe that these figures are a 
 reflection of the poet's happiness in his own children, 
 with whom he was reunited in the latter part of his 
 life. Marina in Pericles, Miranda in The Tempest, 
 with her lover Ferdinand, Perdita in The Winter's Tale, 
 with her lover Florizel, Diana in All's Well That Ends 
 Well, and Guiderius and Arviragus, the two sons of the 
 king in Cymbeline, belong to this attractive group. 
 
 The most charming of them all is Perdita. She is 
 a king's daughter, but, having been lost in infancy, 
 she is brought up in the house of a shepherd, who is 
 supposed to be her father. In this lowly household 
 she is engaged in the offices of a milkmaid ; but she 
 is, as someone calls her, "the queen of curds and 
 cream " and, as another observer says, " the prettiest 
 lowborn lass that ever ran on the greensward ". Her 
 beauty has attracted the attention of the son of the
 
 122 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 king of the land of her exile, who, in defiance of the 
 supposed discrepancy of their conditions and the 
 wrath of his father, has avowed his love and resolved 
 to wed her. His vows are warm enough : 
 
 When you speak, sweet, 
 I'd have you do it ever ; when you sing, 
 I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; 
 Pray so ; and, for the ordering your affairs, 
 To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you 
 A wave o 1 the sea, that you might ever do 
 Nothing but that ; move still, still so 
 And own no other function ; each your doing, 
 So singular in each particular, 
 Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds 
 That all your acts are queens. 
 
 There is hardly a brighter page in Shakspeare's entire 
 works than the festival of the sheep-shearing, when 
 she presides over the scene, but so modestly that the 
 old shepherd, her supposed father, has to rally her 
 spirits by recalling the example of his own old wife: 
 
 Fie, daughter, when my old wife lived, upon 
 This day she was both pantler, butler, cook, 
 Both dame and servant ; welcomed all, served all, 
 Would sing her song and dance her turn ; now here 
 At upper end o' the table, now i 1 the middle ; 
 On his shoulder, and his ; her face o' fire
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 123 
 
 With labour, and the thing she took to quench it, 
 She would to each one sip. You are retired, 
 As if you were a feasted one, and not 
 The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid 
 These unknown friends to 's welcome ; for it is 
 A way to make us better friends, more known. 
 Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself 
 That which you are, mistress o' the feast ; come on, 
 And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, 
 As your good flock shall prosper. 
 
 Then ensue the revels of the country-festival, over 
 which seems to blow the fresh air from the hills of 
 everlasting youth, while the spirits of love, fun and 
 melody attend the frolicsome rustics. 
 
 It seems to me, however, that another influence 
 must have contributed to the creation of these bright 
 figures in Shakspeare's imaginary world. It is on 
 record that his fame as a dramatist secured for him 
 the entree to the higher ranks of society, and that he 
 had several intimate friends among the nobility. In 
 the existence of the wealthy and nobly-born there is 
 no feature so prepossessing as the beauty and high- 
 spirit of their children. Whatever may be the effect 
 of wealth and long descent on morals, there can be 
 no question that breeding, as it is called, exercises the 
 happiest influence on the physical development, im- 
 parting especially to the young in this section of 
 society an external charm which nothing can surpass.
 
 124 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The exclamation of Miranda, in The Tempest, at sight 
 of the courtiers, is exactly such as might have escaped 
 from the breast of a poet born in the bourgeois class 
 at sight of a group of young people in some lordly 
 house : 
 
 Oh wonder ! 
 
 How many goodly creatures are there here ! 
 How beautous mankind is ! Oh brave new world, 
 That has such people in't ! 
 
 Shakspeare insists much, in these plays, on the effects 
 of gentle blood. The lost children of queens and 
 kings, though brought up as rustics, betray, by the 
 refinement of their manners and by their soaring 
 aspirations, that their origin has been regal. Thus, 
 in Cymbeline, the lost sons of the King, though brought 
 up by their banished uncle as huntsmen and unaware 
 of their descent, are constantly revealing a spirit above 
 their condition, so that their uncle exclaims : 
 
 How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature ! 
 These boys know little they are sons to the king, 
 Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. 
 They think they're mine; and, though trained up 
 
 thus meanly 
 
 I' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit 
 The roofs of palaces ; and nature prompts them, 
 In simple and low things, to prince it much beyond 
 The trick of others ;
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 125 
 
 and again : 
 
 O them goddess, 
 
 Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazonest 
 In these two princely boys They are as gentle 
 As zephyrs, blowing below the violet 
 Not wagging his sweet head, and yet as rough, 
 Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind 
 That by the top doth take the mountain-pine 
 And make him stoop to the vale ! 'Tis wonder 
 That an invisible instinct should frame them 
 To royalty unlearned, honour untaught, 
 Civility not seen from other, valour 
 That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop 
 As if it had been sowed. 
 
 This is a different reading of human nature from that 
 to which we are accustomed in this democratic age ; 
 but it agrees with the teachings of the modern theory 
 of heredity and evolution. Shakspeare was no 
 leveller : he believed that 
 
 Clay and clay differs in dignity 
 Whose dust is both alike. 
 
 It is more than likely that the delightful figures 
 of grown-up children with which these plays of his 
 later life abound may have owed something to Shaks- 
 peare's own most intimate personal experiences; but 
 it is a much more risky suggestion to hint that possibly
 
 126 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 the figures of noble women, equally conspicuous in 
 these plays, may have had something to do with his 
 domestic relations. Every reader of Shakspeare has 
 wondered, many a time, what manner of human being 
 the woman was to whom was appointed the singular 
 lot of being the wife of this greatest of all men of 
 genius who was six-and-twenty when he married her 
 in his nineteenth year, whom he left in Stratford-on- 
 Avon when he went forth to seek his fortune in the 
 world and, as far as is known, never invited to join 
 him in London, but whom he went back to live with 
 in the closing years of his life. What sort of person 
 did he, who had seen and experienced so much, find 
 her to be after the comparative estrangement of these 
 long years ? was she, in any degree, fit to be the partner 
 of the thoughts of that mighty mind ? There is some 
 evidence that his father's house was one in which 
 earnest religion prevailed, and there is better evidence, 
 also, that the same influence was conspicuous in his 
 own family in the next generation. Religion, where 
 it is experimental and scriptural, is able to deepen and 
 refine natures which have had no advantages of educa- 
 tion or society ; and it has been conjectured that the 
 wife of Shakspeare, in her loneliness, may have been 
 thrown back on this resource. Did he, on his return, 
 find her to be worthier than he had supposed and 
 worthier, perhaps, than he deserved? His later 
 Comedies, at any rate, abound with women who have
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 127 
 
 been separated from their husbands, who have been 
 misunderstood and suspected, but who have ever been 
 loyal and whose excellences have, in the long run, been 
 discovered and acknowledged. 
 
 It is common to praise the women of Shakspeare's 
 plays, in the bulk, as perfect and matchless expositions 
 of female character, and especially as being in every 
 instance true to nature. So accepted is this criticism 
 that anyone dissenting from it lays himself open to 
 the taunt that, by so doing, he betrays his own incom- 
 petence. Yet true criticism is best served by everyone, 
 who has studied the subject with an open mind, saying 
 what he feels ; and, I confess, I am not an unlimited 
 admirer of Shakspeare's women. It has been already 
 mentioned that in his day the female characters in the 
 theatre were not played by women, but by boys 
 dressed up as women ; and this circumstance could 
 not but have a strong, if unconscious, influence on the 
 mind of the play writer. Some of Shakspeare's women 
 seem to me exactly this smart young men in women's 
 clothing. Such is the awful heresy I hold ; and I am 
 quite aware how dangerous it is to avow it. But now, 
 let me add, how fervently I love and admire many of 
 the women of Shakspeare. This, indeed, is a theme 
 which has inspired more than one able pen. Mrs. 
 Jameson and Lady Martin have written on it ; and the 
 poet Heine has a book entitled " Shakspeare's Maidens 
 and Women". Among Shakspeare's natural and
 
 128 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 successful pictures of women there are few that equal 
 those of these Graver Comedies. What portrait of a 
 woman could surpass Hermione, whose solidity of 
 character and patience under injury have something of 
 that monumental quality which seems to be indicated 
 when she stands before her unjust but repentant 
 husband as a statue, but ready to sink into his embrace ? 
 or than Imogen, who, when charged with unfaithful- 
 ness to her husband, asks with a pudency of virtue 
 white as the innocence of infancy, "What is it to be 
 false " ? or than Isabella, whose glowing chastity cannot 
 be moved even by the entreaties of a brother over 
 whose head death is suspended, if she will not yield ? 
 These are not all the noble women of this group of 
 plays, but I must not omit the very modern Paulina of 
 A Winter's Tale, who has so tart a tongue for the 
 self-importance and self-deception of men and is, at 
 the same time, so tender and loyal a friend to the 
 Queen she serves. 
 
 Side by side with these good women, we have in 
 the Graver Comedies a group of nearly equally good 
 men, mostly kings and princes, such as the Duke in 
 Measure for Measure and the King of France in AWs 
 Well That Ends Well. Shakspeare was partial to the 
 princely character, and he employs these royal figures 
 as the mouthpiece for uttering his deepest thoughts on 
 the course of the world and the management of man's 
 life. For the same purpose he employs royal coun-
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 129 
 
 cillors, like Gonzalo in The Tempest and Lafeu in All's 
 Well That Ends Well men whose wits have been 
 sharpened by intercourse with all sorts and conditions 
 of men and whose criticism of life has more of salt in 
 it than that of their royal masters. From the lips of 
 such characters there fall moral maxims and eloquent 
 outbursts of wisdom highly characteristic of the poet ; 
 indeed, this is the feature which chiefly marks out the 
 Shakspearean drama and lifts even the least consider- 
 able of Shakspeare's plays up into a region which is 
 all his own. 
 
 Let me cull, almost at random, a handful of such 
 choice sayings : 
 On the Seasonableness of Speech 
 
 The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness 
 And time to speak it in : you rub the sore 
 When you should bring the plaster. 
 On Blessings in Disguise 
 
 Some falls are means the happier to arise. 
 On Providence 
 
 Fortune brings in some boats that are not 
 
 steered. 
 On Self-help 
 
 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. 
 9
 
 130 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 On Obscure Virtue 
 
 From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, 
 The place is dignified by the doer's deed. 
 
 On Laws not enforced 
 
 We must not make a scarecrow of the law, 
 Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, 
 And let it keep one shape, till custom make it 
 Their perch and not their terror. 
 
 On Gentleness 
 
 Oh, it is excellent 
 
 To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous 
 To use it like a giant. 
 
 On the principle, observed by St. Augustine, that 
 past sins may be made the stepping-stones to virtue 
 
 They say, best men are moulded out of faults 
 And, for the most, become much more the better 
 For being a little bad. 
 
 On Responsibility for Talents 
 
 Heaven doth with us as we with torches do 
 Not light them for themselves for, if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely 
 
 touched 
 
 But to fine issues ; nor Nature never lends 
 The smallest scruple of her excellence,
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 131 
 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 Herself the glory of a creditor, 
 Both thanks and use. 
 
 On Little Things 
 
 He that of greatest works is finisher 
 Oft does them by the weakest minister. 
 So Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shown, 
 When judges have been babes. 
 
 On Popularity 
 
 I love the people, 
 
 But do not like to stage me to their eyes. 
 Though it do well, I do not relish well 
 Their loud applause and Aves vehement ; 
 Nor do I think the man of safe discretion 
 Who does affect it. 
 
 On Death, by one not prepared to die : 
 
 Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
 
 This sensible, warm motion to become 
 
 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 
 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds 
 
 And blown with restless violence round about 
 
 The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
 
 Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
 
 132 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Imagine howling : 'tis too horrible ! 
 The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
 That age, ache, penury and imprisonment 
 Can lay on nature is a paradise 
 To what we fear of death. 
 
 As has been already hinted, the comic element is 
 not very prominent in these Graver Comedies ; and, 
 it must be added, what there is of it is not particularly 
 successful. The author, indeed, strains after it ; but 
 it is gone, like the buoyant step of youth. Besides, a 
 good deal of what was amusing to the audiences for 
 which Shakspeare wrote is now like salt which has 
 lost its savour. Unfortunately, too, it must be con- 
 fessed that in nearly all of these plays a considerable 
 part of the action turns on incidents and ideas which 
 are to our minds revolting and nauseous, though to 
 the playgoing public of Shakspeare's age they appear 
 to have been acceptable and entertaining. 
 
 Parolles, in All's Well That Ends Well, is a kind 
 of reproduction of the character of Falstaff, but his 
 heavy wit is stiff as a poker in comparison with the 
 nimble genius of that prince of jesters. There is, 
 however, played on him a practical joke, which is 
 rather amusing. He is a braggart and a coward ; 
 and his fellow-soldiers, to test his vaunted valour, 
 propose to him an adventure, which he does not dare
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 133 
 
 to decline namely, to recover a drum, left on the 
 field of battle. He goes forth alone, shaking in his 
 shoes, and, whilst he is discussing with himself the 
 propriety of inflicting some wounds on his own person, 
 to cause it to be believed that he has been fighting , 
 he is surrounded by a band of his own comrades in 
 disguise, who talk a jabber of nonsensical sounds, to 
 make him think they are the enemy, and carry him off, 
 blindfolded, to the general ; by whom he is examined 
 through an interpreter, to make him think he is in the 
 enemy's head-quarters. In abject fear of death, he 
 tells everything he knows about the numbers and the 
 plans of his own side, slanders his officers and, in 
 short, proves himself an irredeemable poltroon and 
 liar ; whereupon the bandage is removed from his 
 eyes, and he sees himself surrounded by the jeering 
 faces of his fellow-soldiers. 
 
 A situation not dissimilar to this appears in Measure 
 for Measure, where Lucio, an inveterate gossip and 
 scandalmonger, in conversing with the Duke, whom 
 he does not recognise in the disguise of a friar, begins 
 to throw out hints disparaging to the Duke's own 
 character, and is drawn on from one pretended reve- 
 lation to another, till he has thoroughly blackened 
 his friend and benefactor, who thereupon throws off 
 his disguise and confounds his accuser. The whole 
 play of Measure for Measure is occupied with the 
 unmasking of a hypocrite, and in this operation there
 
 134 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 of course resides a grim irony ; but it is too painful 
 for mirth. Indeed, though Measure for Measure is 
 counted, technically, among the Comedies, it is, in its 
 total scope, one of the most solemn and tragic of all 
 the poet's productions. 
 
 In the beginning of The Tempest there occurs a de- 
 scription of a shipwreck into which a good deal of 
 amusement is infused. The King and his councillors, 
 who are on board, come on deck ; but the boatswain 
 shouts to them : " Keep your cabins ! " and, when one 
 asks him if he knows to whom he is speaking, he 
 replies, pointing to the angry billows, "What care 
 these roarers for the name of king ? " When another 
 says, " Remember whom thou hast on board," he 
 answers promptly, " None that I love more than my- 
 self. You are a councillor if you can command these 
 elements to silence and work the peace of the present, 
 we will not hand a rope more ; use your authority : 
 if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and 
 make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance 
 of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts (to the 
 sailors), Out of our way, I say ! " (to the King and 
 councillors). 
 
 There is another scene of the same drift in Pericles ; 
 but the wit has a sharper point : " Master," says one 
 sailor, " I marvel how the fishes live in the sea " ; to 
 which the answer is given : "Why, as men do a-land : 
 the great ones eat up the little ones. I can compare
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 135 
 
 our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale : a' plays 
 and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at 
 last devours them all at a mouthful. Such whales 
 have I heard on o' the land, who never leave gaping 
 till they've swallowed the whole parish church, steeple, 
 bells and all." " But, master," rejoins the first speaker* 
 " if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day 
 in the belfry." "Why, man?" "Because he should 
 have swallowed me too ; and, when I had been in his 
 belly, I would have kept up such a jangling of the 
 bells, that he should never have left till he cast bells, 
 steeple, church and parish up again." 
 
 The cheeriest of all these Graver Comedies is A 
 Winter's Tale, in which appears one of Shakspeare's 
 most comic characters Autolycus, of whom it may be 
 said, as Falstaff said of himself, that he is not only 
 witty himself, but the cause of wit in others, because 
 he has been the prototype of not a few comic figures 
 in later English literature, such as George Eliot's witty 
 pedlar Bob Jakin, who is an undeniable imitation of 
 Autolycus, and Dickens' travelling auctioneer, Doctor 
 Marigold, whose flow of language is obviously imitated 
 from the same source. Autolycus is a discharged serv- 
 ing-man, who, under stress of circumstances, has taken 
 to the trade of thieving ; or, to use his own phrase, he 
 is a "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles". He first 
 appears lying apparently wounded in the highway and 
 crying out at the pitch of his voice for help, as a clown
 
 136 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 passes, who runs to discharge the function of the Good 
 Samaritan and, as he does so, is softly relieved of his 
 purse. At the sheep-sheering festival Autolycus is the 
 soul of the fun, astonishing the rustics with his torrent 
 of words, singing ballads and selling them, commending 
 the stock of his pack with a song : 
 
 Lawn as white as driven snow, 
 
 Cypress black as e'er was crow, 
 
 Gloves as sweet as damask roses, 
 
 Masks for faces and for noses, 
 
 Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, 
 
 Perfume for a lady's chamber, 
 
 Golden quoifs and stomachers 
 
 For my lads to give their dears, 
 
 Pins and poking-sticks of steel, 
 
 What maids lack from head to heel, 
 
 Come buy of me, come, come buy, come buy, 
 
 Buy lads, or else your lasses cry 
 
 Come buy ; 
 
 and then, when his customers are fascinated with their 
 purchases, plying his light fingers in the neighbourhood 
 of their purses. Autolycus is a thief, but he pays for 
 what he steals with his jokes and high spirits ; or, as 
 Professor Dowden says, " he does not trample on the 
 laws of morality, but dances or leaps over them with 
 so nimble a foot that we forbear to stay him ".
 
 137 
 
 There is an abject way of reading Shakspeare, too 
 prevalent at the present time, which worships every- 
 thing written by him and bestows on one and all of 
 his works the same unlimited admiration. This is 
 objectionable for many reasons, but especially for this 
 one, that, if our superlatives are thrown away in this 
 prodigal fashion, we cannot get the use of them when 
 they are really applicable. The fact is, Shakspeare is 
 a very unequal writer ; and among the Graver Come- 
 dies there are some so good as to excite wonder that 
 the author who produced them should have fathered 
 others so thin in substance and so disjointed in con- 
 struction. 
 
 There is one of these plays especially that leaves 
 the rest completely behind and takes rank with 
 The Merchant of Venice, Julius Ccesar, Henry the 
 Fifth, and the very choicest of the poet's productions. 
 This is The Tempest, which is usually printed first in 
 editions of the poet's works, a position to which it is 
 well entitled, although it was in reality written last, 
 or very nearly last, of all his dramas. Here there is 
 no skipping from country to country and from year to 
 year, as in some of the Romances : all is compact and 
 coherent, and the action is comprehended within a 
 few hours ; every part of the action is in easy and 
 graceful motion ; every scene contributes to the effect 
 of the whole, and nothing could be dispensed with ; 
 the language is sustained at a high level throughout ;
 
 138 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 and, every here and there, a passage occurs of match- 
 less beauty or sublimity. 
 
 It is the story of Prospero, Duke of Milan, sup- 
 planted in the government of his dukedom by his 
 scheming brother Antonio, who, with the assistance 
 of the King of Naples, has driven him from his throne 
 and country, committing him, along with the infant 
 named Miranda, to a rotten and crazy vessel, in the 
 expectation that they will never more be heard of. 
 But, cast by destiny on a desert-island, Prospero 
 has lived till his daughter has grown to ripe girlhood 
 or the verge of womanhood, when, one day, his 
 enemies namely, his brother Antonio and the King 
 of Naples, with Ferdinand, the son of the latter, and 
 a number of courtiers suffer shipwreck on the coast 
 of this island and gather in various groups to the place 
 where Prospero lives, who, having them completely in 
 his power, recovers his dukedom, while his daughter 
 becomes the wife of Ferdinand and, thus, the future 
 Queen of Naples. 
 
 Prospero, while still at Milan, had been a great 
 student. In fact, it was preoccupation with his 
 studies which lost him his dukedom. When forced 
 to quit his country, he was able to take his books with 
 him, and, in the loneliness of the desert-island, he be- 
 came a great magician. By his art he delivered the 
 island from the witch Sycorax and compelled her 
 misshapen offspring Caliban to become his servant.
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 139 
 
 This half-man, half-beast is one of the strangest pro- 
 ducts of Shakspeare's fancy. His name is said to be 
 formed from the word " cannibal " ; and the idea of so 
 odd a creature is said to have been suggested by 
 certain books of travel, published in Shakspeare's day, 
 which contained accounts of savage men seen in 
 remote corners of the globe. In Caliban, Shakspeare 
 anticipates much which is occupying the attention of 
 our age about the development of the man out of the 
 brute. Apparently his opinion was, that the last thing 
 to be developed would be the moral sentiment ; for 
 Caliban has brains and cunning ; but he has learned 
 language only to curse, he is haunted by perpetual 
 terror, and his talent is employed in shirking work 
 and plotting mischief. Shakspeare was no believer 
 in "the noble savage". 
 
 Prospero has established close relations with the 
 opposite section of the spirit-world ; and the special 
 instrument of his will is Ariel, whom he has delivered 
 from the power of the witch Sycorax and thus bound 
 to his service with the force of gratitude. This is one 
 of Shakspeare's most delightful creations. He is not 
 quite so light and airy as Puck in A Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream, but he belongs to the same family. 
 He has more intellect ; and he flies like lightning 
 hither and thither along the threads of the magician's 
 webs of purpose, keeping every portion in order and 
 making all work to one central point. It turns out
 
 140 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 that it is Ariel who has raised the tempest which has 
 flung the strangers on Prospero's island. It is he 
 who guides the different groups to Prospero's cell 
 first, Ferdinand, the King's son, who, at sight of 
 Miranda, plunges madly in love, while she, who has 
 never seen any man before except her father and 
 Caliban, is stupefied with amazement at his beauty 
 and straightway loses her heart ; then the King and 
 the courtiers, but not before the King's brother has 
 virtually become his murderer and the King himself 
 has repented of what he did to Prospero 
 
 Methought the billows spoke and told me of it ; 
 The winds did sing it to me ; and the thunder, 
 That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
 The name of Prospero 
 
 then the drunken butler Stephano, with his bottle- 
 holder Trinculo, with whom Caliban strikes up a 
 friendship, proposing to them a design for the murder 
 of Prospero, which is merrily foiled by Ariel ; last of all 
 the mariners, who come up in time to complete the 
 picture. Ariel is here and there and everywhere : 
 he flames like lightning on the sinking ship ; he pours 
 drowsiness, when necessary, upon waking eyes ; he 
 makes music in the air ; he spreads a banquet before 
 hungry guests and snatches it away again when they 
 are on the point of eating ; he prevents the King of 
 Naples from being murdered ; and he plunges Stephano
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 141 
 
 and Trinculo up to the ears in a vile-smelling bog. 
 He is Prospero's faithful and indefatigable servant ; 
 yet he is pining to be free ; and the reward of his great 
 services at this crisis in Prospero's fortunes is that he 
 is to be set at liberty. 
 
 Powers almost divine are ascribed to Prospero, such 
 as the raising of the storm and the knowledge he 
 possesses of the designs of his adversaries. He might 
 almost be called an embodiment of Providence that 
 Providence which frustrates the plots of the wicked 
 and makes all things work together for good to the 
 righteous. But it probably comes nearer the author's 
 thought to say, that he is an embodiment of Wisdom, 
 and that Ariel is Science, working to the hand of 
 wisdom and fulfilling its designs. The supreme effort 
 of wisdom, however, is forgiveness : Prospero says 
 of his enemies, when they are completely in his 
 power : 
 
 Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the 
 quick, 
 
 Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury 
 
 Do I take part ; the rarer action is 
 
 In virtue than in vengeance : they being penitent, 
 
 The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
 
 Not a frown further. 
 
 It is difficult not to believe that, in some places at 
 least, Prospero is Shakspeare himself. The island, 
 about which it is suggestively stated,
 
 142 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The isle is full of noises, 
 
 Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not 
 Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments 
 Will hum about mine ears ; and sometimes voices, 
 That, if I then had waked after long sleep, 
 Will make me sleep again ; and then in dreaming 
 The clouds, methought, would open, and show riches 
 Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I waked, 
 I cried to dream again 
 
 this island must surely be the enchanted realm of 
 poesy ; and Ariel is the spirit of poetry, able to raise 
 and still the tempest, to curb sensuality, to terrify guilt, 
 to bring lovers together and to reward honest labour. 
 The different groups formed from the ship-wrecked 
 crew are an epitome of the different sections of man- 
 kind or of the characters to be found in the poet's 
 works, while the spirits with which the air is thronged 
 are an intimation that in the poet's world, as in heaven 
 and earth there are more things than are dreamed of 
 in the ordinary man's philosophy. Ariel's passionate 
 desire to be free, in spite of his attachment to his master, 
 to whom he has rendered so long and splendid service, 
 is a hint of the strain implied in poetic production and 
 of the longing for release from the business of the 
 theatre. It sounds like a plain intimation of the 
 poet's resolution to retire from active life when Prospero 
 says, towards the end of the play :
 
 THE GRAVER COMEDIES 143 
 
 This rough magic 
 I here abjure .... 
 
 I'll break my staff, 
 Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 
 And deeper than did ever plummet sound 
 I'll drown my book. 
 
 And, when, still later, he intimates that he will retire 
 to Milan, where every third thought will be his grave, 
 the reference to the poet's own retiral can hardly be 
 mistaken. 
 
 The Tempest is like a great piece of music, capable 
 of expressing many meanings ; and there is one thought 
 still, behind, which is the profoundest of all. If this 
 island, in the atmosphere of which musical sounds 
 floated and magical forces worked, represented the 
 realm of poetry, and especially represented the stage 
 that is, the little world on the surface of which 
 the poet's genius displayed the passions and the 
 principles which govern the great world then the 
 dropping of the curtain and the vanishing of the 
 scene might easily suggest the final catastrophe of the 
 world itself. This thought is not foreign to Shak- 
 speare's other writings, but it is expressed in The 
 Tempest in lines as grand as any he ever penned, 
 occurring at the close of a tableau of classical divinities, 
 presented as a play within the play :
 
 144 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 These our actors, 
 
 As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 
 Are melted into air, into thin air, 
 And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 The cloud-capped-towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this insubstantial pageant, faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on ; and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 In this thought, that our so solid-seeming earth is only 
 a transient phantasm, and that the hot and stormy 
 ambitions of men are only the tossings of an uneasy 
 dream, there is a solemnity almost biblical. In short 
 this passage is the echo of a hundred texts of Holy 
 Writ; and, in order to make the truth complete, 
 we have only to add, from the same source, the re- 
 flection, that behind these fleeting appearances there 
 lies a reality which the mutations of time can never 
 touch, because it is embodied in Him who is the same 
 yesterday and today and forever.
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 
 
 10
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET 
 
 HAMLET 
 
 OTHELLO 
 
 KING LEAR 
 
 MACBETH
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 
 
 IT is generally allowed that the crowning achieve- 
 ments of Shakspeare's genius are the four Tragedies 
 which he penned in the first five or six years of the 
 seventeenth century, when he had reached the matur- 
 ity of his powers, being about forty years of age 
 Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth to which, 
 however, must be added Romeo and Juliet, a splendid 
 effort in the same species of drama written some years 
 earlier. These five are not, indeed, his only tragedies ; 
 for several of his Histories would come under this de- 
 signation ; but they may conveniently be treated by 
 themselves. 
 
 First, we have to ask what Tragedy is. If a comedy 
 is a play written to move laughter, a tragedy is one 
 written to draw tears. People like to laugh, but they 
 also like to weep not real tears, indeed, which are 
 very different things but tears that can be easily 
 wiped away. It is one of the mysteries of our nature 
 that, while real grief is so abhorrent, counterfeit grief 
 should afford pleasure. But the fact is undeniable, 
 
 (147)
 
 148 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Children like to hear a story that makes them cry ; the 
 novel-reader considers no seal of the author's ability so 
 certain as tears shed at the concluding chapter ; and 
 it is a compliment even to a sermon that it has made 
 the hearers wipe their eyes. The success of a tragedy 
 lies in this delicious commotion of feeling which it ex- 
 cites in the last act, where the most prominent person- 
 ages usually come to a violent end, the carnage being 
 sometimes very extensive indeed. 
 
 "The tears of things" are the themes of tragedy. 
 The hero is a person apparently destined by nature 
 for happiness, but who somehow misses it and sinks 
 under an accumulation of misfortunes, while others also 
 are dragged down in his fall. The brighter his pros- 
 pects have been and the more he has seemed to deserve 
 a happy lot, the deeper is the pity stirred by his fate. 
 What could exceed the pathos of the end of Othello ? 
 The hero is of a noble nature, as even his worst enemy 
 confesses, and has served the state during a lifetime 
 of danger and sacrifice, while Desdemona wins all 
 hearts by her breeding, her frankness, her gaiety, her 
 innocence, her wifely devotion ; yet the happiness they 
 might have enjoyed together is turned into mortal 
 horror. The tears caused by the drama must not be 
 too bitter ; and so, while the fortunes of his heroes are 
 sinking in the night of disaster and death, Shakspeare 
 generally allows the faint dawn of a better day to 
 become visible at the back of the clouds, to suggest
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 149 
 
 that good will yet come out of present evil. This is 
 most manifestly the case in Romeo and Juliet, where, 
 it is evident at the close, the death of the youthful 
 lovers will lead to the reconciliation of the Montagues 
 and Capulets and the banishment of civil broils from 
 the state. 
 
 But the most characteristic feature of the Shak- 
 spearean tragedy is that the catastrophe is always the 
 outcome of some defect in the character of the hero. 
 In Macbeth, which is in some respects the most tragic 
 of all these productions, this is perfectly manifest ; for 
 it is ambition that ruins the hero, who is, at the outset, 
 a brave and honoured soldier of his king and country. 
 In Othello jealousy is the passion which plays havoc 
 with the character of the hero and the fortunes of 
 those around him. King Lear's overfondness is at the 
 root of all his misfortunes. It has been denied that in 
 Romeo and Juliet Shakspeare at all disapproves of the 
 conduct of the hero and the heroine ; but again and 
 again, not only through the mouth of Friar Laurence 
 but even through their own mouths, he indicates that 
 their love has been too rash and precipitate to come to 
 good. As Friar Laurence says, giving the moral of 
 the whole, 
 
 violent delights have violent ends 
 And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder, 
 Which, as they kiss, consume : the sweetest honey
 
 150 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Is loathsome in his own deliciousness 
 And in the taste confounds the appetite. 
 Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so ; 
 Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. 
 Yet the catastrophe is not due solely to the defects 
 of the hero : there is always a conspiring cause outside. 
 For it is the nature of temptation that, when there is 
 a defect within, it is made to quicken and grow by 
 influences from without, and sin is always a birth from 
 the union of inclination and opportunity. Evil is em- 
 bodied not only in the individual heart, but in every- 
 one's environment ; and external influences may bring 
 guilt so near that it is almost inevitable never, how- 
 ever, quite inevitable; for it always requires the co- 
 operation of our own evil will to bring the act to birth. 
 The tempter may be a man or a woman. In Macbeth 
 it is Lady Macbeth, in Othello it is lago. Or temp- 
 tation may arise from something more remote and 
 general. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet the co-operating 
 evil is found in the feuds of the rival houses and the 
 feebleness of the sovereign power, which has allowed 
 these to go on unchecked. Thus the Prince says, in 
 the final scene : 
 
 Capulet, Montague, 
 
 See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, 
 That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love ; 
 And I, for winking at your discords, too, 
 Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished.
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 151 
 
 But there may be a cause of the catastrophe even 
 more remote. This is made manifest especially in 
 Macbeth, where, behind Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, 
 there is the sinister influence of the Witches, who stir 
 up the latent ambition in the hero's mind and suggest 
 to him the crime which proves his ruin. These 
 mysterious beings belong to a world of evil, lying out- 
 side the circle of humanity, in which, under one form 
 or another, mankind has always believed ; and there 
 can be no doubt that such beliefs are due to a feeling 
 that in misfortune there is an element not wholly 
 accounted for either by the faults of the sufferers or 
 by the wills of their human tempters. It is as if there 
 were invisible wills, mixing unaccountable drops in the 
 cup of man's destiny, as the Witches mingle the queer 
 ingredients in their pot : 
 
 Fillet of a fenny snake 
 In the caldron boil and bake, 
 Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
 Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 
 Adder's fork and blindworm's sting, 
 Lizard's leg and howlet's wing 
 For a charm of powerful trouble 
 Let the hell-broth boil and bubble. 
 
 Here the Shakspearean drama approaches to that of 
 the Greeks, in which the catastrophe is generally due 
 not to the fault of the hero or even to temptation pro- 
 ceeding from those around him, but to fate, to the
 
 152 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 envy of the gods at the excess of human happiness, or 
 to the nemesis of some unexpiated crime, which has 
 come down as an heirloom to the hero without his 
 having participated in its commission or even perhaps 
 being aware of its existence. The greater wholesome- 
 ness of the moral taught by the modern poet is un- 
 questionable, when he holds men and women to be 
 responsible for their own misfortunes, because they 
 bring them on themselves either through defects in 
 their own character or by yielding to temptation. This 
 is his usual procedure, though occasionally he plays 
 with other influences to which human beings have 
 ascribed their calamities, such as those of the heavenly 
 bodies. In King Lear he makes one of his characters 
 say : " This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, 
 when we are sick in fortune often the surfeit of our 
 own behaviour we make guilty of our disasters the 
 sun, the moon and the stars ; as if we were villains by 
 necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves 
 and traitors by spherical predominance, drunkards, 
 liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planet- 
 ary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine 
 thrusting-on ". 
 
 The central interest of these Tragedies, then, is to 
 show how the defect in a noble character, partly by 
 the force of its own inherent tendency and partly by 
 the force of circumstances, grows and grows, till it be- 
 comes predominant, placing the hero at variance with
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 153 
 
 the moral order of the world, which, however, cannot 
 be turned aside but, sweeping on to its inevitable goal, 
 crushes all who have attempted to impede its course. 
 It has been pointed out that, in this series of dramas, 
 Shakspeare has exhibited this course of events as taking 
 place in different sections of human life : in Romeo and 
 Juliet the happiness ruined is that of betrothed lovers, 
 and the canker is precipitancy ; in Othello the ruined 
 happiness is that of a married couple, and it is destroyed 
 by jealousy ; in King Lear the relationship is that of 
 father and children, and the canker at the root is over- 
 fondness ; in Macbeth we enter the wider society of 
 the state, which is overthrown by ambition ; and in 
 Hamlet the problem is the most complex of all, as the 
 play deals with nearly all the social relationships. 
 
 As I have already hinted, Macbeth is the purest and 
 most rapid of all these Tragedies, and in it, accordingly, 
 we see the elements of tragedy in their simplest form. 
 
 At the outset, the hero is seen returning from 
 successful war, which he has been waging in the 
 service of King Duncan, who is well aware of his 
 merits and forward to reward them. In the company 
 of Banquo he is crossing an open heath, when they 
 come upon the Witches, engaged in their incantations, 
 who announce to Macbeth that he is to become Thane 
 of Glamis and Thane of Cawdor and King of Scots,
 
 154 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 and to Banquo, that he is to be the ancestor of a line 
 of kings. On Banquo this announcement makes no 
 impression, as he " neither begs nor fears their favour 
 nor their hate," but it takes instant effect on Macbeth, 
 a clear sign that it has appealed to something in his 
 breast, where the seed of treachery to his king must 
 have been already sown. When, immediately after- 
 wards, he finds himself actually created Thane of 
 Cawdor and Thane of Glamis, he is worked up to the 
 highest excitement by the certainty thus afforded that 
 the rest of the prediction will likewise be fulfilled. In 
 this mood he returns home ; but meantime he has 
 apprised Lady Macbeth by letter of the Witches' 
 prophecy and its partial fulfilment ; and she is far more 
 completely carried away with the dream of ambition 
 than he, and thus is prepared to screw his courage to 
 the sticking place. For she is afraid that his ambition 
 is not equal to the task of climbing the ladder of crime, 
 which she sees to be the path to the throne. Thus 
 she apostrophizes him in his absence : 
 
 Glamis thou art and Cawdor, and shalt be 
 
 What thou art promised ; yet do I fear thy nature : 
 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
 
 To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great, 
 
 Art not without ambition ; but without 
 
 The illness should attend it. What thou would'st 
 
 highly 
 That would'st thou holily ;
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 155 
 
 and then she goes on, as conscious of a more resolute 
 purpose in her own breast ; 
 
 Hie thee hither, 
 
 That I may pour my spirits in thine ear 
 And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
 All that impedes thee from the golden round 
 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
 To have thee crowned withal. 
 
 Thereupon a messenger announces to her the 
 unexpected tidings that King Duncan is on his way 
 to spend a night under her roof, when, in an instant, 
 the crime to be perpetrated flashes on her, and she 
 thus soliloquizes : 
 
 The raven himself is hoarse 
 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
 Under my battlements. Come, you spirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
 And fill me, from the crown to the toe, topfull 
 Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse, 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
 Th' effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts 
 And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 
 Wherever in your sightless substances 
 You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night,
 
 156 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
 To cry, ' Hold, hold ! ' 
 
 Such is the temptress to whom Macbeth returns 
 home ; and in the awful crime of the ensuing night 
 she is the moving spirit. He would have shrunk back, 
 realising the horrible breach of hospitality and re- 
 membering the kindness he had received from King 
 Duncan : 
 
 We will proceed no further in this business ; 
 
 He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought 
 
 Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
 
 Which should be worn now in their newest gloss, 
 
 Not cast aside so soon ; 
 
 but she spurs on his laggard purpose, urging him to 
 seize the opportunity placed by fortune in their way. 
 She lays the dagger ready for doing the murderous 
 deed, and says : 
 
 Had he not resembled 
 My father, as he slept, I had done it. 
 
 Her husband, after perpetrating the deed, forgets 
 to leave matters in the chamber of horrors in such a 
 posture as to incriminate the guards and is afraid to 
 go back again ; but she cries, "Give me the daggers," 
 and goes to lay them in the hands of the sleeping
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 157 
 
 sentinels, while she smears their faces with the mur- 
 dered King's blood. 
 
 Thus have he and she seized the glittering fruit ; 
 but no sooner is it snatched than their pleasure turns 
 to ashes in their mouths; for the conscience within 
 them awakes in all its majesty ; they eat their meals 
 in fear, and night by night are shaken with terrible 
 dreams. One of the most impressive scenes in the 
 play is that in which Lady Macbeth appears walking 
 in her sleep and repeating to herself the circumstances 
 of the murder. She cannot get the blood washed off : 
 " Here's the smell of the blood still ; all the perfumes 
 of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand ". 
 
 Macbeth finds that one crime makes another 
 necessary. What would be the profit of sitting on 
 the throne, if the inheritance of it were to pass to 
 another ? And the Witches, who had promised him 
 the crown, had promised to Banquo that his descend- 
 ants should occupy the throne. Therefore Banquo 
 must perish. But, though he added to his great crime 
 this other deed of blood, he failed to secure the murder 
 ofFleance, the son of Banquo, who escaped. In like 
 manner the sons of King Duncan escaped to England, 
 where they were joined by the best of the Scots nobles, 
 and an army was collected to punish the guilty 
 usurper, who meantime plunged deeper and deeper 
 into crime, burning down the castle and massacring 
 the family of Macduff, who had fled to the South,
 
 158 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The wretched man's mind is petrified with images of 
 fear, presented to his eyes by a guilty conscience : he 
 sees the dead Banquo, sitting in his place at the table, 
 and hears a voice saying, "Sleep no more". Lady 
 Macbeth's derangement ends in death ; and the lonely 
 man is informed that the avenging army from the 
 South has invaded the kingdom. He pulls himself 
 together for a last effort, but it is with despair in his 
 heart : 
 
 I have lived long enough ; my way of life 
 Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf; 
 And that which should accompany old age, 
 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
 I must not look to have, but, in their stead, 
 Curses not loud but deep. 
 
 The Witches had promised that, till Birnam should 
 come to Dunsinane, he should not suffer defeat ; but, 
 when he saw the enemy advancing with branches 
 plucked from this wood, like a moving forest, he 
 realised how the powers of evil had paltered with him 
 in a double sense, keeping the word of promise to the 
 ear but breaking it to the hope; and, though with 
 reckless valour he plunged into the battle, his end was 
 a foregone conclusion, and he fell by the hand of 
 Macduff, the man whose wife and children he had 
 cruelly murdered.
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 159 
 
 In Othello, the kindling of the passion of jealousy, 
 till it becomes a devouring fire, consuming everything 
 that comes in its way, is depicted with equal skill. 
 But here what chiefly fascinates is the figure of the 
 tempter behind the principal actor. Lady Macbeth, 
 in spite of her unwomanly ferocity, yet, when the 
 paroxysm of guilty passion is over and the deed done, 
 becomes a woman again, suffering the tortures of re- 
 morse, and at last loses her reason and even her life in 
 expiation of her guilt. But lago is a villain who has 
 no idea what remorse is. He acknowledges the noble- 
 ness of Othello's nature and is able to appreciate the 
 sweetness of Desdemona, but, for a slight done him 
 by the former and in order to mount a single step 
 on the ladder of promotion, he is the cause of the 
 death not only of them both, but also of others involved 
 in their downfall. In one passage he attempts to 
 justify his conduct and to argue that he is not a villain ; 
 but it is only in fun : his selfishness is perfect ; nothing 
 causes him a moment's compunction ; and he does not 
 hesitate to adopt any means to attain his end. Out- 
 wardly he wears a mask of good humour so well that 
 those nearest to him do not suspect his hypocrisy ; 
 but his own wife exposes his treachery ; and, in spite 
 of the many doublings of the fox, the teeth of the trap 
 close upon him at last. 
 
 In Regan and Goneril, the undutiful daughters of 
 King Lear, we have, if possible, still more revolting
 
 160 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 examples of unredeemed wickedness. Their conduct 
 is utterly abominable, and their figures are such as we 
 should expect from the blood-and-thunder dramatists 
 who preceded Shakspeare rather than from him, as, 
 indeed, in the whole drama of King Lear, there is 
 an unnatural exaggeration which, I confess, takes away, 
 for me, very much of the pleasure which others seem 
 to have derived from reading it. It is a defect that 
 Shakspeare does not account for such utterly graceless 
 figures as I ago, Regan and Goneril. Perhaps he holds 
 that there are human beings who have derived from 
 nature a double or treble dose of original sin and are 
 irredeemably bad from the beginning an opinion in 
 which there are a good many who would agree with 
 him and for which, I suspect, a great deal of proof 
 could be easily accumulated. 
 
 The principal interest in the Tragedies of Shakspeare 
 is the development in the leading characters of the 
 passions which ultimately bring them to ruin, this 
 involving the influence on them of the personages and 
 events by which this development is stimulated, as 
 well as the reaction in the body of surrounding 
 circumstances, by which the wrong is ultimately crushed 
 out of existence. The scene of the poet is a little 
 image of the mighty world ; and it terminates, as the 
 great world will do, with a judgment-day, in which all 
 are rewarded according to their deeds. Herein consists 
 the majesty of the Shakspearean drama. It postulates
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 161 
 
 a moral order of the universe, which is inherent in the 
 frame of things and slowly but inevitably overcomes 
 and pulverises everything that erects itself in opposition 
 to it. This divine element, ever at work in the con- 
 stitution of nature, has its counterpart in conscience, 
 which in the breast of a Macbeth sheds on crime so 
 searching a light, while it produces in the minds of the 
 spectators, witnessing the punishment of wrongdoing, 
 a solemn sense of satisfaction and approval. The poet 
 who can thus shape a world with righteousness at its 
 core is a true creator, and the skill with which he 
 disposes events in the fictitious world of his invention 
 is an imitation of the Providence by which the real 
 world is governed. 
 
 But, side by side with this predominant interest, there 
 are minor sources of interest, which invest these 
 productions with attraction and illustrate the genius of 
 their author. 
 
 For instance, the scenery in which the drama is laid 
 is generally most appropriate. This has been specially 
 noted in Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, and has been 
 used to support the contention that Shakspeare must 
 have travelled in Scotland and Italy. There is some 
 slight evidence that the company of players to which 
 he belonged travelled as far north as Aberdeen ; and 
 
 it would be pleasant to be able to believe, that the 
 
 II
 
 1 62 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 sense of the open air and of the windy expanses of 
 heather in Macbeth is a reminiscence of personal 
 observation in the land of the mountain and the flood. 
 Does not the following description sound very like the 
 recollected experience of a balmy day spent amidst the 
 ruins of Tantallon or some similar bit of character- 
 istically Scottish scenery? 
 
 This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air 
 
 Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
 
 Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer, 
 
 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 
 
 By his loved mansionry, that the heavens' breath 
 
 Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, 
 
 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
 
 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : 
 
 Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, 
 
 The air is delicate. 
 
 In Romeo and Juliet the atmosphere is as unmis- 
 takably Italian. Juliet is only fourteen an age at 
 which our girls are still playing with their dolls but, 
 in the more forcing climate of the South, girls are 
 already women. Under the potent influence of love 
 she shoots up into the fulness of womanhood in a 
 day, and is clear in vision, prompt in action, and un- 
 shaken in resolution and loyalty. Such protestations 
 of affection as she and Romeo pour into each other's 
 ears after the acquaintance of a few hours belong not
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 163 
 
 to the modesty of the cold North, but to a climate in 
 which the sultriness of the nights harmonizes with the 
 warmth of lovers' vows and where love is uttered to 
 the accompaniment of the songs of nightingales. 
 
 Another feature of the art of these plays is the 
 skilfulness of their commencements. In Macbeth, for 
 example, the action opens with a momentary glimpse 
 of the Witches on the barren heath ; and the sight of 
 their weird figures and the sound of their incantations 
 at once put attention on the strain, to learn what is 
 to follow. In King Lear, with equal skill, the aged 
 monarch is at once introduced partitioning his king- 
 dom among his daughters, and curiosity is aroused to 
 learn what will be the results of this strange pro- 
 cedure. In Romeo and Juliet the opening is more 
 elaborate, but it gives an admirable idea of the lawless 
 condition of the city of Verona and of the extremely 
 strained relations between the Montagues and the 
 Capulets. 
 
 Shakspeare is not so successful with his endings, 
 either in these Tragedies or in his plays in general. 
 The action often nearly comes to a dead halt at the 
 very point where it ought to hasten to a close, and 
 the dramatist has numbers of unexplained matters on 
 hand, which he cannot get rid of satisfactorily in the 
 space at his disposal ; so that he has to huddle things 
 up at the close or to introduce a deus ex machina to 
 solve the problem.-^- Many a much inferior author is a
 
 1 64 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 better story-teller: it is in reflections by the way and 
 in the invention of memorable scenes that Shakspeare 
 excels, rather than in the composition and symmetry 
 of the whole. 
 
 A third and a very copious source of subordinate 
 interest is in the minor characters. These sometimes 
 illustrate the main theme of the drama in a kind of 
 side-play. Thus, in King Lear, the subject is the 
 parental and filial relation ; but this is illustrated not 
 only by Lear and his daughters, who occupy the fore- 
 ground, but also by the Duke of Gloster and his two 
 sons, Edgar and Edmund, who play their part in the 
 background. In other cases the subordinate characters 
 illustrate, by contrast, the qualities of the principal 
 ones. Thus, in Othello, the pure and manly love of 
 the hero is thrown into contrast by the dandy pursuit 
 of Desdemona by Roderigo, and the deep and de- 
 termined wickedness of I ago is thrown into darker 
 shadow by the generous frankness and even by the 
 failings of Cassio. It may be because he is a member 
 of my own profession that I have a special partiality 
 for Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He is the 
 spiritual brother of the Duke in Measure for Measure, 
 who not only wears the disguise but has the heart of a 
 clergyman. Shakspeare, unlike Thackeray, was in- 
 dulgent in his judgment of the clerical profession, 
 making its members the mouthpiece of wisdom and 
 charity. Friar Laurence sympathizes with the star-
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 165 
 
 Crossed lovers and assists their schemes, though he 
 chastises their impetuosity with the rebukes of ex- 
 perience. His speeches accompany the whole course 
 of the action as a chorus of mild and placid wisdom ; 
 yet he is not incapable of kindling into fiery indigna- 
 tion ; for, when Romeo threatens to commit suicide 
 in his cell, because he is to be banished for a time 
 from the society of Juliet, he exclaims : 
 
 Hold thy desperate hand. 
 
 Art thou a man? Thy form cries out, thou art. 
 Thy tears are womanish ; thy wild acts denote 
 The unreasonable fury of a beast. 
 Thou hast amazed me. By my holy order 
 I thought thy disposition better tempered. 
 What, rouse thee, man ! Thy Juliet is alive, 
 For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead 
 There thou art happy. Tybalt would kill thee, 
 But thou slewest Tybalt there art thou happy too. 
 The law, that threatened death, becomes thy friend 
 And turns it to exile there art thou happy. 
 A pack of blessings lights upon thy back ; 
 Happiness courts thee in her best array ; 
 But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench, 
 Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love. 
 Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. 
 
 Even in the Tragedies Shakspeare occasionally avails 
 himself of the popularity of comic incidents and
 
 i66 MOW to READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 characters. For this he has been censured on account 
 of the incongruity of making people laugh when they 
 have come to weep. But he can be defended on the 
 ground that all events have two faces one to turn to 
 the weeping and another to the laughing philosopher 
 and because where there is shadow there must also 
 be sunshine. If the drama is an image and picture of 
 life, it must exhibit laughing figures as well as weeping 
 ones, for every street in the world contains both. 
 
 In King Lear the depth of gloom is oppressive, and 
 it is no doubt in order to relieve this a little that a 
 comic figure is kept moving in and out from the be- 
 ginning to the end of the action. This is the King's 
 Fool, who, taking advantage of the licence of his office, 
 keeps up a running comment of irony on the progress 
 of events. He strongly disapproves of his master's 
 conduct in giving away his kingdom in his own life- 
 time ; for he says to Lear : 
 
 " Give me an egg, nuncle, and I will give thee 
 
 two crowns." 
 Lear. " What two crowns shall they be ? " 
 
 " Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle 
 and eat up the meat, the two crowns of 
 the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' 
 the middle and gavest away both parts, 
 thou borest thine ass on thy back o'er the 
 dirt. Thou had'st little wit in thy bald
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 167 
 
 crown, when thou gavest thy golden one 
 away." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "Canst thou tell how an oyster makes his 
 shell?" 
 
 Lear. "No." 
 
 " Nor I neither ; but I can tell why a snail has a 
 house." 
 
 Lear. "Why?" 
 
 " Why, to put his head in ; not to give it away 
 to his daughters, and leave his horns with- 
 out a case." 
 
 Yet, in spite of his shrewd perception of his master's 
 folly, he sticks to him through all his misfortunes 
 with the most touching loyalty, and he is, in short, 
 the most pathetic and lovable of all fools. 
 
 In Romeo and Juliet, also, the comic element receives 
 pretty free play. Mercutio, the friend of Romeo, has 
 a merry tongue, to which, indeed, he gives only too 
 unhindered course, allowing it to dally sometimes with 
 those things of which it is a shame even to speak. 
 From him we get the famous description of Queen 
 Mab, one of the figures of that fairy world which 
 Shakspeare delighted so much in delineating :
 
 1 68 rfoW TO READ SHAKSPEARtf 
 
 She is the fairies' midwife ; and she comes 
 
 In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 
 
 On the forefinger of an alderman, 
 
 Drawn with a team of little atomies 
 
 Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep ; 
 
 Her waggonspokes made of longspinners' legs, 
 
 The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, 
 
 Her traces of the smallest spiders' web, 
 
 Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams, 
 
 Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film ; 
 
 Her waggoner a small greycoated gnat, 
 
 Not half so big as a round little worm 
 
 Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid ; 
 
 Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, 
 
 Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, 
 
 Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. 
 
 And in this state she gallops night by night 
 
 Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; 
 
 O'er courtiers knees, that dream on court' sies straight; 
 
 O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees ; 
 
 O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream. 
 
 Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 
 
 And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; 
 
 And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, 
 
 Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, 
 
 Then dreams he of another benefice ; 
 
 Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 
 
 And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 169 
 
 Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 
 Of healths five-fathom deep ; and then anon 
 Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
 And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two 
 And sleeps again. 
 
 To a hot-tempered soldier Mercutio says : " Thou ! why, 
 thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or 
 a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt 
 quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other 
 reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. Thou hast 
 quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, be- 
 cause he hath wakened thy dog lying asleep in the 
 sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing 
 his new doublet before Easter, and with another for 
 tying his new shoes with old riband ? And yet thou 
 wilt tutor me from quarrelling." So incorrigible a 
 humourist is he that he jokes even in the article of 
 death. When he is fatally stabbed by Tybalt, his 
 friend Romeo, under whose arm the sword has passed, 
 says, " Courage, man ; the hurt cannot be much " ; 
 and his answer is all the sadder because of its air of 
 merriment : " No, it is not so deep as a well, nor so 
 wide as a church-door. But 'tis enough, it will serve. 
 Ask for me to-morrow, and you will find me a grave 
 man." 
 
 Of all the Tragedies of Shakspeare the favourite
 
 i;o HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 is Hamlet. Indeed, this is universally acknowledged 
 to be the supreme product of dramatic genius in modern 
 times, the only possible rival to it being the Faust of 
 Goethe. 
 
 Yet it cannot be contended that Hamlet is, from 
 every point of view, the best of our author's works. 
 It has not the movement and the pace of Macbeth ; 
 it is not, like Julius Ccssar or The Tempest, a work 
 without a flaw, without a word too much or a word 
 too little "one entire and perfect chrysolite " it 
 lacks the delicate and haunting charm of The Merchant 
 of Venice. The play within the play, performed 
 before the King and Queen, at Hamlet's instigation, 
 in order to probe the conscience of these evildoers, 
 is on a theme which no company of actors would 
 have dared to represent before the court in the 
 circumstances, and is, therefore, altogether unnatural 
 and out of place. There are other improbabilities and 
 incongruities, which mar the artistic effect; and the 
 interest falls off towards the end, the last two acts 
 being nothing like so fine as the first three. 
 
 Still, in spite of these defects, this drama holds the 
 foremost place. If it does not do so by its perfec- 
 tion as a whole, it effects it by the vast numbers of 
 good things it contains. It has nearly all the minor 
 sources of interest already noted in the other tragedies. 
 For instance, it begins well, the apparition of the ghost 
 of the murdered king putting curiosity and attention
 
 THE TRAGEDIES i?i 
 
 on the stretch. The minor characters are decidedly 
 interesting. There is Horatio, the friend of Hamlet, 
 who draws forth from the hero this matchless descrip- 
 tion of friendship : 
 
 Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice 
 
 And could of men distinguish, her election 
 
 Hath sealed thee for herself; for thou hast been 
 
 As one in suffering all that suffers nothing ; 
 
 A man that fortune's buffets and rewards 
 
 Hast ta'en with equal thanks ; and blessed are those 
 
 Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, 
 
 That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger 
 
 To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 
 
 That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him 
 
 In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
 
 As I do thee. 
 
 There is Ophelia, whose treatment at the hands of the 
 hero is one of the puzzles of this play on which the 
 commentators have expended a world of speculation 
 without doing much to clear up the mystery, but who, 
 in her fondness, her sufferings and her fate, is one of 
 the most unique and pathetic of Shakspeare's female 
 characters. And there is her father Polonius, perhaps 
 the most effectively painted of all the minor figures 
 in Shakspeare's vast gallery of portraits the type 
 of the courtier and councillor, with unbounded con- 
 fidence in the virtue of his own advice, with maxims
 
 i?2 MOW TO READ 
 
 i 
 
 and proverbs ready for every occasion, and with a 
 formality and tediousness sufficient to drive any poor 
 child of nature mad that comes within range of his 
 longwinded eloquence. There is a strong dash of 
 comedy in the portraiture of this worthy ; and the comic 
 element is supplied in this play in considerable quantity. 
 It is, however, of grim and sardonic quality, the 
 principal scene of this kind being in the churchyard, 
 when the gravediggers, engaged in making the last 
 resting place for Ophelia, exchange grim pleasantries, 
 as they perform their ghastly function. 
 
 But in Hamlet, more than in any of the other 
 Tragedies, the interest is concentrated on the hero- 
 on his character, his relations with the other figures 
 of the play, and the catastrophe in which he is ulti- 
 mately involved. His speeches, of which he is very 
 liberal, are the finest things of the kind in existence ; 
 and the opportunities of declamation which they afford 
 to actors doubtless account, to some extent, for the 
 popularity of this play. His advice to the players, for 
 example, seems expressly written for the purpose oi 
 giving an elocutionist a chance ; but, as Shakspeare's 
 own calling was that of an actor, it has also an un- 
 rivalled autobiographical interest : " Speak the speech, 
 I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on 
 the tongue. But, if you mouth it, as many of your 
 players do, I had as lief the towncrier spoke my lines. 
 Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 173 
 
 thus, but use all gently ; for, in the very torrent, tem- 
 pest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you 
 must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it 
 smoothness. Oh it offends me to the soul to hear 
 a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 
 tatters to very rags to split the ears of the ground- 
 lings ... I would have such a fellow whipped. 
 Be not too tame neither, but let your 
 own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to 
 the word, the word to the action, with this special 
 observance, that you overstep not the modesty of 
 nature. Oh, there be players that I have seen play 
 and heard others praise, and that highly not to 
 speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent 
 of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor 
 man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have 
 thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, 
 and not made them well, they imitated humanity 
 so abominably." 
 
 Hamlet is a young prince, with all the advantages 
 the world can offer 
 
 The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
 The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
 The observed of all observers 
 
 yet he is completely out of temper with the world. 
 And this is always a popular figure ; for, as we like
 
 174 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 to weep artistic tears, however much we may deprecate 
 real ones, so the most fashionable and conventional 
 people enjoy hearing conventionality belaboured, as 
 Hamlet attacks it : 
 
 O God, O God, 
 
 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world. 
 
 " I have of late lost all my mirth ; and it goes so 
 heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, 
 the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most 
 excellent canopy, the air this brave o'erhanging 
 firmament this majestical roof fretted with golden 
 fire appears no other thing to me than a foul and 
 pestilent congregation of vapours. . . . Man delights 
 not me ; no, nor woman neither." So far gone is 
 he in this world-weariness that he has had thoughts 
 of getting rid of the burden of life by his own 
 act, and some of his most eloquent speeches are on 
 the subject of suicide ; as, for example, the one, 
 too well known to be quoted, beginning, " To be, or 
 not to be, that is the question ". Such thoughts, too, 
 are always popular, as was proved by the sensation 
 produced throughout Europe by The Sorrows of 
 Werther. Even those who have not the slightest 
 desire really to get quit of life like to trifle with the 
 edge of the razor, and they feel a kind of tragic exalt- 
 ation in so doing.
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 175 
 
 But, passing from these causes of the popularity of 
 this play, which lie on the surface, what do we find 
 to be the central quality of Hamlet's character? what 
 is the passion which sweeps him from the path leading 
 to happiness and, at the close, involves him and others 
 in ruin ? It is not any passion, but rather the absence 
 of passion. This is the peculiarity of Hamlet, that 
 the catastrophe is due not to what is done but to what 
 is not done. l 
 
 Through the apparition of his father, the late 
 King of Denmark, Hamlet learns that his mother and 
 the husband she has married with unseemly haste 
 after the death of the late king are murderers, and he 
 is summoned to avenge the crime by which he has 
 lost a father and perchance a throne. He appears to 
 dedicate himself without hesitation and reserve to the 
 dreadful task ; for he says to the ghostly visitant : 
 
 Remember thee ? 
 
 Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat 
 In this distracted globe. Remember thee? 
 
 1 " ' The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right.' 
 
 In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to Hamlet's 
 whole procedure. To me it is clear that Shakspeare meant, in the 
 present case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a 
 soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view the whole piece 
 seems to me to be composed. There is an oak tree planted in a costly 
 jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom ; the 
 roots expand, the jar is shivered." GOETHE : Wilhelm Meister 
 (Carlyle's Translation), i. 200.
 
 176 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Yea, from the table of my memory 
 
 I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, 
 
 All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past 
 
 That youth and observation copied there ; 
 
 And thy commandment all alone shall live 
 
 Within the book and volume of my brain, 
 
 Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by Heaven ! 
 
 But, when he turns from the resolution to the execu- 
 tion, he finds the deed abhorrent to both the habits of 
 his past and the temper of his mind, which have been 
 those of the scholar and the philosopher. He, there- 
 fore, hesitates and waits for a convenient season ; and, 
 as he waits, his resolution cools. He argues that he 
 requires better proof of the guilt of the man he has to 
 slay than the word of an apparition a very good 
 argument, but one which, it is evident, he uses only 
 as an excuse ; for, after he has received proof positive 
 by means of the play performed before the King and 
 Queen, he hesitates still. Once he gets an excellent 
 opportunity, as he comes upon the King at prayer; 
 but he invents the excuse that, if the guilty man were 
 slain at his prayers, his soul might go to heaven. 
 
 With manufactured reasons like these he defers the 
 disagreeable duty ; although he scourges himself with 
 terms of contempt for putting it off. When he sees 
 the actors weeping in the performance of their parts, 
 he cries :
 
 THE TRAGEDIES 177 
 
 Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! 
 Is it not monstrous, that this player here 
 But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 
 Could force his soul so to his own conceit 
 That, from her working, all his visage wanned, 
 Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, 
 A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 
 With forms to his conceit ? and all for nothing ! 
 For Hecuba ! 
 
 What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ? 
 Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak 
 Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 
 And can say nothing. . . . Am I a coward ? 
 So, when the soldiers of Fortinbras march past, he 
 reflects that they are risking their lives for nothing, 
 while the strongest and most sacred reasons fail to 
 move him to strike the necessary blow. 
 
 At last he does strike, but it is rather by chance 
 than of set purpose ; and he loses his own life in the 
 same hour ; for his culpable delay has set in motion 
 the forces of retribution, from which there is no escape. 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that, in our author's 
 greatest tragedy, the catastrophe is brought about not 
 by something done, but by something left undone. 
 It recalls many a warning word of the Gospel ; for 
 the Great Teacher spoke of the final verdict of con- 
 demnation as being due to the neglect rather than to 
 the misuse of talents. More perhaps fail through 
 
 12
 
 i;8 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 missing the opportunities provided by Providence than 
 through yielding to the propensities of passion. When 
 the voice of duty is clearly heard, the answer to the 
 call cannot be too prompt, too much consideration only 
 abating the glow of resolution and robbing action of 
 its force. A great poet of our own day has crushed 
 into a stanza the moral of Hamlet : 
 
 We cannot kindle when we will 
 
 The fire which in the heart resides ; 
 The spirit bloweth and is still, 
 In mystery our soul abides. 
 But tasks in hours of insight willed 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
 
 THE MINOR POEMS 
 AND THE LIFE OF SHAKSPEARE
 
 VENUS AND ADONIS 
 
 THE RAPE OF LUCRECE 
 
 THE SONNETS 
 
 A LOVER'S COMPLAINT 
 
 THE PHCENIX AND TURTLE 
 
 THRENOS 
 
 THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MINOR POEMS 
 AND THE LIFE OF SHAKSPEARE 
 
 THERE are many places which attract the tourist 
 through association with the names of famous people 
 but disappoint expectation, because the relics of the 
 past have almost entirely disappeared. This is not 
 the case with Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of 
 Shakspeare. As it is approached from Leamington, 
 the station next to it, Wilmcote by name, suggests 
 to the memory Mary Arden, his mother, who was 
 born there. Then, when the visitor descends from 
 the train at Stratford-on-Avon itself, a few minutes 
 take him to the house of the poet's birth ; and about 
 the identity there seems to be no doubt. 1 A few 
 minutes more will take him to the school in which 
 the boy Shakspeare was educated and which still 
 serves the same purpose for the children of the town. 
 Between these lies the property which he purchased 
 in his manhood, in order to spend in it the evening 
 of life ; and, although the building has disappeared, 
 the garden still remains, having been enlarged so as 
 
 1 Some think the adjoining house was the birthplace. 
 
 (181)
 
 1 82 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 to form a public pleasure-ground. At the eastern 
 end of the town, by the bank of the Avon and in the 
 midst of noble trees, stands Trinity Church, in which 
 he lies buried. About a mile from the town is the 
 hamlet of Shottery, in which is preserved the cottage 
 one of three connected houses running upwards 
 from the road in which he courted his bride ; and 
 not more than three miles away, in another direction, 
 stands the handsome mansion of Charlecote, sur- 
 rounded by a noble park, associated with an escapade 
 of his youth. 
 
 The Stratford-on-Avonians are well aware how 
 valuable an asset is the memory of their fellow-towns- 
 man, and they have converted the whole town into a 
 kind of monument to his honour, crowding every 
 place in any way belonging to him with relics and 
 furnishing these with intelligent ciceroni, to explain 
 everything to the curious visitor. The stream of 
 pilgrims flows at the rate of about a hundred a day 
 on an average, although of course it swells in the 
 holiday-months and ebbs in the winter-season. For 
 a parallel to such popularity we must go to the 
 birthplace of Robert Burns at Ayr, to which there 
 flows annually a still larger stream of visitors, or to 
 the scene of Martin Luther's imprisonment at Eisenach, 
 which Carlyle declared to be the most sacred spot he 
 had ever visited on earth, or to the shrine of Saint 
 Francis at Assisi. In Mediaeval England the cor-
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 183 
 
 responding spot was Canterbury, to which pilgrims 
 flocked to visit the tomb of Thomas Becket ; but 
 Shakspeare is the saint of Modern England, or rather 
 the saints have been displaced by a poet. 
 
 It is appropriate that Stratford should be the shrine 
 of Shakspeare, because he was a true Stratford-on- 
 Avonian, the place of his birth exercising a strong 
 spell over his heart. Though his fame now fills the 
 world, there was a time when to himself it was of im- 
 measurable consequence to be well spoken-of by the 
 gossips in the streets of Stratford, and, in spite of the 
 flight of his fancy, embracing the entire realm of 
 nature, he had in unusual degree the desire, by which 
 ordinary men are haunted, when they have gone forth 
 into the world in search of fortune, to be an owner of 
 property in the place of his birth, as well as to return 
 thither for repose, after the battle of life had been 
 successfully fought out. An additional appropriate- 
 ness may perhaps be discerned in the relation of the 
 place to the rest of England. On the outer wall of 
 the pump-room at Leamington there is a large map 
 of the surrounding neighbourhood, on which a spot is 
 marked as being the centre of England, and this is 
 only a few miles from Stratford-on-Avon ; so that he 
 who was destined to voice most successfully the senti- 
 ments of Englishmen was born at the very heart of 
 their country. 
 
 At Stratford-on-Avon, then, William Shakspeare was
 
 1 84 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 born in the month of April, 1 564. The precise day is 
 not known ; only the date of his baptism, 26 April, 
 being preserved in the church-register. The twenty- 
 third is usually assumed to have been the day of birth, 
 perhaps to correspond with the day of his death, which 
 was 23 April, 1616. He was the third of the seven 
 children of John Shakspeare, glover, corn-merchant or 
 butcher he may have been all three and there is an 
 old tradition that William, in early youth, assisted 
 his father in his trade, though, according to other 
 traditions, he is said to have been in his youth a 
 schoolmaster or a lawyer's clerk. The father was a 
 man of repute in the little community, advancing so 
 far as to be a councillor and even treasurer and chief 
 magistrate of the town ; but, in the midtime of life, 
 his private fortunes declined, until they were restored 
 through the prosperity of his famous son. 1 Of the 
 
 1 In Shakespeare Puritan and Recusant the Rev. T. Carter has en- 
 deavoured to prove that the poverty into which John Shakspeare sank 
 was due to the fines imposed upon him as a Puritan, especially for 
 non-attendance at the meetings of the Corporation, from which he ab- 
 sented himself when the business to be done that of persecuting his 
 co-religionists was contrary to his convictions. He is of opinion, be- 
 sides, that it was partly feigned, the persecuted man transferring his 
 property nominally to relatives, in order to escape the demands of the 
 law ; and there is certainly a discrepancy, difficult to explain, between 
 the notices of his poverty and the property he is known to have held 
 at the same time. Mr. Carter appears to me to have proved that the 
 father of the poet did not adhere to the old religion, as has been fre- 
 quently assumed ; he has made out a plausible case also for his Puritan-
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 185 
 
 mother we would gladly know more than we do, 
 genius being so often inherited from that side of the 
 stock. It is probable that she was of somewhat better 
 social condition than her husband, as she brought him 
 a property situated in the neighbouring hamlet whence 
 she came, which, however, slipped from his grasp in the 
 decline of his affairs. 
 
 Ben Jonson's well-known remark has been already 
 quoted that Shakspeare had little Latin and less 
 Greek ; but it was of immense consequence for his 
 subsequent career that he had a little of both. This 
 he obtained at the Free Grammar School, which 
 existed before his time on an ancient foundation ; and 
 the position of the father was such as to assure to 
 his son the best education obtainable there. French 
 and Italian would have been useful to him in subse- 
 quent life, in the collection of such materials as are re- 
 quired by a dramatist for the purposes of his profession ; 
 and it is probable that he may have been sufficiently 
 acquainted with either or both of these languages to 
 
 ism ; but, when he goes on to conjecture that the son's adventure among 
 Sir Thomas Lucy's deer may have been an act of revenge for the 
 persecution inflicted on his father by a bench on which this Justice 
 sat, he seems to have nothing solid to go upon. Mr. Carter's book, 
 however, sheds a flood of light on the religious history of Warwick- 
 shire at that time ; and, when one sees how much can be learned, 
 through the diligent investigation of local records, about a man so 
 obscure as Shakspeare's father, one ceases to be surprised at the com- 
 pleteness with which the biography of the son has been pieced to- 
 gether.
 
 1 86 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 be able to dig out the information they concealed. 
 As, however, his was an age when, in the flush of the 
 Renaissance, not only the literatures of the ancient 
 world but the literary masterpieces of Italy and France 
 were being zealously translated into English, it is sel- 
 dom certain whether Shakspeare went to the originals 
 or contented himself with translations. His references 
 to schoolmasters are not over-respectful ; but from this 
 it would not be safe to underestimate the debt he 
 owed to them. Though he missed the advantages of a 
 university education, he enjoyed as good opportunities, 
 short of these, as the times afforded. 
 
 It is useless to indulge in conjectures as to the kind 
 of scholar he must have been, though one may wonder 
 what was thought of him by the schoolmasters whose 
 names local antiquarians are still able to supply. His 
 precocity manifested itself in a different way when, at 
 the age of eighteen, he married a woman several years 
 older than himself. This was Anne Hathaway, who 
 resided, as has been already remarked, in the neigh- 
 bouring hamlet of Shottery ; and her social position 
 appears to have differed little, if anything, from his 
 own. Very soon there was born to them a daughter, 
 and a son and another daughter followed. 
 
 What means Shakspeare had at this time for sup- 
 porting a wife and family we do not know ; but the 
 next incident in his life is one which betokens either 
 extreme necessity or a recklessness ill-befitting the
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 187 
 
 condition of the head of a family. He was caught 
 deer-stealing on the estate of Charlecote the local 
 chauffeur will undertake to point out to the visitor the 
 very spot where this took place and was brought as 
 a culprit before Sir Thomas Lucy, the owner of the 
 property, who, though satirised, as Justice Shallow, 
 in The Merry Wives of Windsor, would appear to 
 have been a gentleman of credit and cultivation. The 
 estate is still in the family, and in the parks round the 
 mansion-house are to this day to be seen numbers of 
 deer, the successors of those on which the larceny of 
 the youthful Shakspeare was practised. 
 
 The consequence of this escapade was that Shak- 
 speare fled the country, not taking his family with him ; 
 and he turned up in London in a penniless condition. 
 His first occupation there, tradition alleges, was to 
 hold the horses of the gentry visiting the theatre. 
 Soon, however, he found his way inside, becoming a 
 player of minor parts ; and from these he advanced 
 by degrees to be a regular member of the theatrical 
 company, though he never specially shone as an actor, 
 being excelled by others, especially by Richard Burbage, 
 the most renowned actor of the day. With him and 
 others he at length became a joint-proprietor 1 ; and 
 in 1599 they opened a new theatre, the Globe, on the 
 south side of the Thames, where their business flour- 
 
 1 Or at least joint-participant in the receipts.
 
 1 88 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 ished to such a degree that his share in it grew to be 
 a valuable property. The company made annual 
 tours in the provinces, and thus Shakspeare may have 
 been brought into occasional contact with his family 
 in Warwickshire. 
 
 For us, however, the most interesting portion of his 
 activity in London has still to be mentioned. Plays, 
 in those days, were, as has been mentioned on an 
 earlier page, the property of the theatres in which they 
 were represented, being kept in manuscript under lock 
 and key ; and the management were entitled to adapt 
 them to any occasion, adding or subtracting as the 
 taste or temper of the audience might require. It is 
 easy to understand how any actor who could be de- 
 pended upon to perform such work when it was re- 
 quired would hold a secure position in the company, 
 and at such tasks Shakspeare proved a skilful hand. 
 There were plays by other dramatists in possession of 
 the company, when he joined it, and these he renovated 
 and improved. He displayed facility in collaborating ; 
 and, as Raphael, the greatest of painters, exhibited 
 wonderful skill in borrowing hints of all kinds from 
 other artists, so this greatest and most original of all 
 literary artists was always ready to borrow either 
 materials or modes of treatment from his contem- 
 poraries. From tinkering the productions of others 
 he advanced to the composition of dramas of his own ; 
 and these he poured forth at an average rate of about
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 189 
 
 a couple in the year, till he had acquired perfect 
 mastery, and none could match him. 
 
 In the birth-house at Stratford there hangs an en- 
 graving of London as it was when Shakspeare arrived 
 in it, which enables the onlooker to realise how 
 inconsiderable at that time was the city which has 
 now swollen to such unholy dimensions. The real city 
 then lay between the Tower and St. Paul's, with some- 
 thing beyond at either end. Where Hampstead now 
 stands may be seen, on this map, only a lonely mill 
 among the fields. There was but a thin line of 
 habitations on the south side of the river. Yet it is a 
 tribute to the intelligence of the infant city that it was 
 able to appreciate the plays of Shakspeare, certain of 
 which present no inconsiderable difficulty even to the 
 leisurely reader at the present day. They were always 
 popular, some of them, like Richard the Third and 
 Macbeth, achieving instant and unqualified success. 
 They were, however, most popular among the culti- 
 vated classes ; Queen Elizabeth exhibiting marked 
 partiality for them, and King James the First, when 
 he ascended the English throne, having them performed 
 in great numbers at court, in spite of his Scottish 
 training and early prepossessions. Yet rivalry was 
 not wanting. There were other theatres and other 
 theatrical companies besides those in which Shakspeare 
 played. That was the Age of the Drama in England ; 
 and, when Marlowe, Chapman, Kyd, Lyly, Peele,
 
 190 
 
 Greene, Ben Jonson, Drayton, Marston, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher were matching their powers against 
 competitors, there can be no doubt, these would have 
 their own admirers, and no single author could claim 
 unquestionable superiority ; though time has decided 
 on Shakspeare's side, and his fame has cast all others 
 into the shade. 
 
 His plays, like those of others, remained the property 
 of the company in which he acted, and the text of 
 them must have been subject to the usual alteration ; 
 so that there must still be in the text many interpolated 
 passages, which it is now impossible to correct ; and, 
 indeed, it cannot be denied that there are plenty of 
 passages which admirers of Shakspeare could wish to 
 be due to other hands. 1 Not one of the plays was 
 published by himself during his lifetime. Some fif- 
 teen of them were issued by publishers to supply the 
 literary appetite created by hearing them performed ; 
 but these were piratical productions, and they abounded 
 with mistakes. Such little booklets are what are now 
 known as the Quartos ; they were sold for sixpence ; 
 but good copies now fetch hundreds of pounds. It 
 
 1 That Shakspeare suffered keenly from the tendency of the actors 
 to add jokes of their own to the text of his plays may be gathered 
 from the concluding lines of Hamlet's Address to the Players : " Let 
 those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for 
 them ; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some 
 quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime 
 some necessary question of the play be then to be considered : that's 
 villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it ".
 
 was not till eleven years after his death that an 
 authoritative edition of thirty-six of the plays was 
 given to the world by two of his fellow-actors and 
 fellow-proprietors, Heming and Condell. This was 
 a single volume in good print and cost a pound ; but 
 a good copy of this First Folio, as it is called, would 
 now cost thousands of pounds. Pericles was added 
 in the third edition, bringing the total number of plays 
 up to thirty-seven. In the same edition were in- 
 cluded several additional plays, ascribed to Shak- 
 speare ; but, though some of these are not without an 
 interest of their own, as specimens of the drama of the 
 time, not one of them is now recognised as from the 
 master-hand. 
 
 The only productions of his genius the publication 
 of which proceeded directly from himself were two 
 poems, not dramatical, Venus and Adonis and The 
 Rape of Lucrece, which appeared in 1593 and 1594 
 respectively. The first of these is a mythological 
 story, telling how Venus, the goddess of love, pursued 
 with unwelcome attentions the beautiful boy Adonis, 
 who was too deeply enthralled with the pleasures of 
 the chase to have time to spare for the tender passion, 
 and how at length she saw him slain by the tusk of a 
 wild boar which he was hunting. This piece may 
 have been written some time before it was published ; 
 at anyrate it is obviously a youthful production, and 
 in its passion it is too gross and luscious for the taste
 
 192 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 of the present day ; yet the workmanship is perfect, 
 especially the description of the horse of Adonis, 
 breaking loose from its tether and whinnying after a 
 companion which has appeared in the distance. 1 The 
 other piece retells a well-known story from the early 
 history of Rome how to Lucrece was adjudged the 
 prize of chastity; but how King Tarquin, inflamed 
 thereby, coveted her beauty and stole from the camp 
 by night to make spoil of it ; and how, in consequence 
 of this deed of cruelty and shame, kings ceased to 
 rule at Rome, and the government became a republic. 
 The narration is sustained with the same grace and 
 mastery; but, as every single detail is minutely 
 described, with long speeches between one incident 
 and another, the reading grows tedious to a modern 
 mind. Indeed, an American critic has gone so far as 
 to say that wild horses could not drag readers to those 
 poems now ; but that they suited the taste of the age 
 in which they were produced was proved in the way 
 most gratifying to a poet by numerous editions being 
 called for by the public. 
 
 Both of these poems were dedicated to the Earl of 
 Southampton, a patron of letters several years younger 
 than the author ; and to the same person Shakspeare 
 
 1 What does the author mean when he calls this " the first heir of 
 his invention " ? was it written earlier than the plays he had been 
 writing for several years ? or did he look on it as " poetry " in a 
 different sense from the handiwork of the playwright ?
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 193 
 
 was to give a much more significant tribute of friend- 
 ship by addressing to him more than a hundred sonnets, 
 which, along with another set addressed to a woman, 
 were published in 1609, but not by Shakspeare him- 
 self or, as far as is known, with his consent. More 
 than ten years before their publication these are heard 
 of as circulating in manuscript, as were the sonnets of 
 many other poets at the same time ; and someone, 
 having obtained a copy and being minded to turn 
 a dishonest penny, made a book of them, which failed, 
 however, to make a mark, no second edition being 
 called for during the poet's lifetime. 
 
 About no other production of his muse has there 
 been such an unlimited amount of discussion. The 
 poet Wordsworth, in a sonnet of his own, affirmed 
 that in the Sonnets Shakspeare had unlocked his heart, 
 to which Robert Browning replied, " If so, the less 
 Shakspeare he ; " thereby, however, drawing the re- 
 tort from Swinburne, "No whit the less like Shak- 
 speare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning ". The 
 latest great Shakspearean scholar, Sir Sidney Lee, has 
 laboured long and hard to prove that the Sonnets 
 came from the surface, not from the depths, of Shak- 
 speare' s heart and fancy. Sonneteering was a phase 
 and craze of the time. All the young frequenters of 
 Parnassus were pouring forth such compositions by 
 the score. They imitated Italian and French models. 
 They copied one another. Ideas, images, quips of 
 
 13
 
 194 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 fancy, rhymes and exaggerations were common prop- 
 erty. Shakspeare was just like the rest. He wrote 
 one sequence on a patron and another on a mistress ; 
 but any other theme would have answered as well. 
 He was merely practising on his instrument. Here 
 and there, indeed, a deeper note is evoked, as, for 
 example, when he gives vent to his chagrin at having 
 to follow the profession of an actor ; but in such a 
 number of sonnets, proceeding from such a pen, a few 
 happy hits were inevitable, and the wonder rather is 
 that there are not more of them. Had the Sonnets 
 formed a secret record to which the poet confided his 
 deepest reflections during many years, it might have 
 been reasonable to search in them for the history of 
 his heart; but the majority were composed within 
 a comparatively limited period in 1593 and 1594, 
 this critic believes and they reflect only a transient 
 mood. 
 
 This is a comforting theory, especially for those 
 baffled with the effort to discern for themselves the 
 depth and perfection ascribed to these compositions ; 
 yet the conflict of opinions is not likely to abate 
 except for a time ; for the mystery is too tempting, 
 and " that they were made from the material of ex- 
 perience is certain ". 1 
 
 While every aspect of this problem has been argued 
 out to the point of exhaustion, the battle of words has 
 
 1 SIR WALTER RALEIGH, Shakespeare.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 195 
 
 waxed specially hot round the dedication "To the 
 only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr. W. H." 
 Every kind of conjecture as to the identity of this 
 W. H. has been indulged in, down to the suggestion 
 that he may have been William (that is, Shakspeare) 
 Himself; but, as Sir Sidney Lee has pointed out, it 
 has been forgotten that, since Shakspeare did not 
 publish the Sonnets, it is not likely that he wrote the 
 dedication. This was done, in all probability, by the 
 publisher; and, W. H. being the "begetter" in the 
 sense of the partner-thief who furnished a copy to the 
 publisher, it is not worth while to enquire after his 
 identity. In forgetfulness of this, an elaborate case 
 has been made out in favour of another noble patron 
 of letters, the Earl of Pembroke, whose initials would 
 appear ot have been W. H. ; but there is no proof 
 that Shakspeare had intimate relations with him, where- 
 as the dedication of the two earlier poems to the Earl 
 of Southampton renders it highly probable that it was 
 to him the Sonnets were penned too. They appear 
 to be the record of a friendship passing, like that of 
 Jonathan and David, the love of women ; but it is 
 impossible to be certain how far the sentiment ex- 
 pressed in them was real ; there being in literature 
 nothing less trustworthy in this respect than the 
 language passing between patron and client. The 
 sentiment in the other series of sonnets, addressed to 
 a mistress, might naturally be supposed to smack more
 
 196 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 of reality ; but, as the affection to which they give 
 vent is not kindling and crescent, but exhausted and 
 expiring, they lack the glow of true passion. The 
 two series are connected by the singular circumstance, 
 that the hero of the first series had stolen from the 
 sonneteer the heroine of the second ; yet he who has 
 been thus defrauded declares his love for his patron to 
 be so strong that he is willing to resign to him his 
 mistress not a very natural situation for a poet. 1 
 
 In addition to the three important productions 
 above enumerated, there are included in the Complete 
 Works a few other poems A Lover's Complaint, 
 The Phcenix and Turtle, Threnos and The Passionate 
 Pilgrim. These are of trifling value ; indeed, the last- 
 mentioned, though issued by a pirate-publisher under 
 Shakspeare's name, is known to contain nothing really 
 his which is not to be found elsewhere in his works, 
 while it contains a number of pieces by other authors. 
 In all, however, these Minor Poems amount in bulk to 
 about a couple of the Plays ; and it would be a fine 
 question for discussion in a literary society, whether, 
 without the Plays, the Poems would have given their 
 
 1 The Earl of Southampton was born eight years before Shakspeare 
 and survived him the same length of time. Becoming involved in 
 1600, along with the Earl of Essex, in a conspiracy against Queen 
 Elizabeth, he was imprisoned till the accession of James I., when he 
 obtained release and mounted high in royal favour. See references in 
 Sonnet 107. He died in Holland, on the way to assist the Elector 
 Palatine, son-in-law of King James, in his wars against the Catholics.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 197 
 
 author an enduring place in the history of English 
 literature. In such a discussion, however, it ought not 
 to be forgotten that, as a lyric poet, he has to be 
 credited, besides, with the Songs scattered throughout 
 his plays. It may not, indeed, be always quite certain 
 that he was the author of these ; because the dramatists 
 appear not infrequently to have introduced songs 
 current at the time, though not of their own com- 
 position ; and Shakspeare, with his gift of adaptation, 
 may have been the very man thus to borrow touches of 
 colour to please the taste of his customers. Yet enough 
 of the Songs have so individual a note as to guarantee 
 their origin ; and they contribute not a little to exalt 
 his position as a lyric poet; though the Sonnets are 
 his securest guarantee of greatness here, many of them 
 being unforgettable both through depth of thought 
 and felicity of expression. 1 
 
 Shakspeare's earthly fortunes may be considered as 
 culminating soon after James the First ascended the 
 English throne ; for that monarch was so warm a 
 patron of him and his company as to appoint them 
 the King's Servants and permit them to rank at Court 
 with the Grooms of the Chamber ; and, in this char- 
 acter, Shakspeare actually walked in the procession in 
 which King James entered London, wearing a cloak of 
 
 1 The following numbers, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, n, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 29, 
 31. 32, 53- 55, 58, 61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 74, 76, 91, 95, 99, 102, 104, 105, 
 106, no, in, 116, 121, 128, 129, 130, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 
 145, 146, 147 are the present writer's favourites.
 
 i9 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 scarlet, which was the king's gift. By this time he 
 and his fellow-actors had outlived a danger which had 
 for some years threatened their prosperity the com- 
 petition of a troupe of boy-actors recruited from the 
 choristers of the Chapel Royal, which for a time was 
 the rage of the town. In this dispute, to which serious 
 reference is made in the play of Hamlet^ Shakspeare 
 was on the one side and Ben Jonson on the other ; and 
 most of the actors and dramatists of the day were in- 
 volved. Ultimately Shakspeare seems to have played 
 the part of peacemaker ; and the friendship between 
 him and Ben Jonson became more closely knit. To 
 this period are, therefore, to be referred those wit- 
 combats 2 at the Mermaid Tavern, commemorated by 
 an author of the time as witty as either of them, which 
 have so touched the fancy of posterity and to which a 
 living poet is at this moment giving delightful em- 
 bodiment. 8 Through the eyes of Thomas Fuller we 
 can still "behold those two, like a Spanish great gal- 
 leon and an English man-of-war ; Master Jonson, 
 like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, 
 but slow in his performances ; Master Shakspeare, 
 with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter 
 in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and 
 
 1 Act ii. Scene 2. 
 
 2 But in my copy of Fuller it is " wet-combats ". 
 
 8 ALFRED NOYES, Tales of the Mermaid Tavern, appearing in 
 Blackwood's Magazine.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 199 
 
 take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his 
 wit and invention." 
 
 In Troilus and Cressida there is a remarkable pass- 
 age in which Shakspeare has depicted the strain and 
 effort by which anyone living in the glare of public 
 life has to sustain his reputation, 1 and in an image 
 borrowed from his own profession, a popular pro- 
 verb characterizes the unwisdom of a public character 
 
 1 Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 
 Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, 
 A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes. 
 Those scraps are good deeds past ; which are devoured 
 As fast as they are made, forgot as soon 
 As done. Perseverance, dear my lord, 
 Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang 
 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail 
 In monumental mockery. Take th' instant way ; 
 For honour travels in a strait so narrow 
 Where one but goes abreast. Keep, then, the path ; 
 For emulation hath a thousand sons, 
 That one by one pursue. If you give way, 
 Or hedge aside from the direct forth-right, 
 Like to an enter' d tide, they all rush by, 
 And leave you hindmost ; 
 Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, 
 Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, 
 O'er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present, 
 Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours ; 
 For time is like a fashionable host, 
 That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand, 
 And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, 
 Grasps-in the comer : welcome ever smiles, 
 And fareweirgoes out sighing.
 
 200 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 lingering too long upon the scene and outstaying his 
 welcome. Strange it is to think of fears of this kind, 
 natural enough in ordinary men, haunting a genius of 
 such brilliance and versatility ; yet he not only felt 
 such doubts but acted on them ; for we see him at a 
 comparatively early period beginning to furnish for 
 himself a nest far from the scene of his professional 
 labours ; and he actually retired to his native place 
 whilst still on the safe side of fifty. 
 
 Shakspeare was one-and-twenty when he came to 
 London in 1585 ; by the time he was six-and-twenty 
 he had established an independent footing as a dra- 
 matist, his first entirely original play, Love's Labour's 
 Lost, belonging to the year 1590; and thenceforward 
 the intellectual effort of production went on incessantly 
 for a score of years, his last great original composition, 
 The Tempest, appearing in 1610. But, before these 
 strenous years had run half their course, there was 
 evidence that he was accumulating money and, for the 
 investment of it, turning his thoughts to his native 
 town. The first sign of his rising fortune may be 
 discerned in an application, in 1596, by his father for 
 a coat-of-arms, this action being in all probability 
 prompted by the son, who in 1599 actually came into 
 the use of this distinction in the shape of a falcon 
 grasping a spear evidently a play upon his name. 
 But, in 1597, his fellow-townsmen obtained much 
 more conclusive evidence of his prosperity, when he
 
 MIN>R POEMS AND LIFE 201 
 
 purchased the largest house in the town, styled the 
 New Place ; and, although he did not immediately 
 occupy the house, he continued, year after year, to 
 improve the property, by planting a fruit-orchard and 
 in other ways. When, in 1601, his father died, he 
 inherited his own birthplace and an adjoining house in 
 Henley Street; and, in 1602 and 1610, he purchased 
 considerable tracts of arable and pasture land. To 
 these acquisitions there has to be added the purchase, 
 in 1605, of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old 
 Stratford, Bishopton and Welcombe. At length, per- 
 haps in 1611, when he was forty-seven years of age, 
 having sold his interest in the theatre at London, he 
 settled down as a retired gentleman at the New Place. 
 Thus was he reunited to his family, from which he 
 must have been practically separated during his 
 London career. His only son had died in boyhood, 
 in 1596. His elder daughter, Susanna, was married, 
 in 1607, to a physician of the name of Hall, who seems 
 to have been a man of energy and ingenuity in his 
 profession, with strong Puritan leanings ; she is said 
 to have resembled her father both outwardly and in- 
 wardly ; and on her tombstone it is declared, 
 
 Witty above her sex, but that's not all, 
 Wise to salvation was good Mrs. Hall. 
 
 His second daughter, Judith, was married, in the year 
 of her father's death, to Thomas Quiney, a vintner.
 
 202 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The elder daughter had one daughter and the younger 
 three sons, but the last direct survivor of the poet was 
 a granddaughter, who, by a second marriage, became 
 the wife of a knight ; and the portraits of Sir John 
 and Lady Barnard, now to be seen in the birth-house, 
 are manifestly those of gentlefolks. 
 
 The point in his domestic relations on which fuller 
 information would be welcome than seems to be attain- 
 able is his relation to his wife. In the annals of art 
 there is a painter who, quitting his home and his young 
 wife in the North of England, rose to the highest 
 eminence in his profession in London, where he never 
 disclosed that he was the father of a family, but lived 
 in romantic relations with a notoriety of the time, till, 
 growing old and ill, he returned to the North Country, 
 where his wife, taking him in, nursed him tenderly 
 till he died ; and in " Romney " Lord Tennyson has 
 pronounced judgment on the case, his verdict being, 
 that the forgiveness granted by the slighted wife was 
 worth infinitely more than all the paintings even of 
 George Romney. Anything like the same grossness 
 of neglect has not been imputed to Shakspeare ; but 
 his wife also was a wronged woman. In his will he 
 left to her his second-best bed ; and this has been in- 
 terpreted as a joke at her expense. But it would 
 have been a very poor joke, coming from such a man ; 
 and, if it was intended to wound her, after he was in- 
 accessible to retaliation, it was a dastardly act.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 303 
 
 Happily, however, this interpretation is purely con- 
 jectural ; and the legacy may, on the contrary, have 
 conveyed to the recipient some suggestion of tender- 
 ness. In the chapter on the Graver Comedies it has 
 been already noticed that in several of the latest plays 
 there occur incidents of lost relatives being found and 
 the estranged being reconciled ; and we are permitted 
 to indulge the hope that, when Shakspeare returned 
 to his home, he found it more a scene of dignity and 
 affection than he had expected, or was perhaps en- 
 titled to expect. It has also been already mentioned 
 as well ascertained that in the family of Dr. Hall, his 
 son-in-law, religion, of the Puritan type, had secured a 
 strong footing ; and, if it be assumed that his wife, in 
 her virtual widowhood, had sought consolation in this 
 quarter, the key will perhaps fit the lock better than 
 any other explanation of the situation. 1 
 
 1 Perhaps there was Puritanism still earlier in the family. In the 
 work quoted in a previous note the Rev. Thomas Carter has en- 
 deavoured to prove that Shakspeare's father was a Puritan ; and one 
 of his proofs is that John Shakspeare defaced the images and sold the 
 ecclesiastical vestments of a church at Stratford. To this Sir Sidney 
 Lee replies that these were acts officially performed by a member of 
 the Corporation. But, if this argument be valid against Mr. Carter, 
 it is equally conclusive against his own argument, that John Shak- 
 speare could be no Puritan because he welcomed actors to Stratford ; 
 for this act might as easily as the others have been purely official. 
 Another proof adduced by Sir Sidney is, that, in a book of the time, 
 Puritans are said to have regarded coat-armour with abhorrence, 
 whereas John Shakspeare made application for a grant of arms. But,
 
 204 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Thus had he who, in his youth, had quitted his 
 native town in a condition little better than that of a 
 vagabond returned to it as a man of property and con- 
 sideration, with still apparently plenty of time to spare, 
 while far away, in the big world, his fellow-townsmen 
 were aware, his name was mentioned with a swelling 
 rumour of fame. Whether he enjoyed the five years 
 of retirement accorded to him or whether, like com- 
 moner men who have tried the experiment of abandon- 
 ing business at an early age, he found time lying 
 heavy on his hands, who can tell? No doubt there 
 would be occasional visits to London, where we hear 
 of him acquiring a property after this ; and he may 
 even have produced or collaborated in producing 
 one or two dramas for his fellow-players ; but it must 
 be confessed that the record of his remaining years at 
 Stratford-on-Avon is a chronicle of small beer in com- 
 parison with the achievement and excitement of his 
 life in London. From his father he is said to have in- 
 herited a taste for litigation ; and we hear of him 
 engaging in several trifling disputes of this kind. Now 
 and then one or two old comrades from the capital 
 or from the greenroom would invade his privacy, and 
 
 though some Puritans may have been of this mind, it does not follow 
 that all were. A modern Puritan, well known to the present writer, 
 having been created a lord, was challenged by another Puritan for 
 occupying an inconsistent position ; whereupon he replied, not without 
 humour, that, if there were to be no lords, he could not see how Christ 
 could be King of kings and Lord of lords.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 205 
 
 over their cups they would fight their battles over 
 again. From such a merry meeting with Michael 
 Drayton and Ben Jonson, there is an old tradition, he 
 contracted a fever from which he died. Of similar 
 weight is the gossiping legend, that he formed one of 
 a company of boon-companions who fared forth to 
 cope in a drinking-bout with the topers of a neigh- 
 bouring village ; and not only were they ignominiously 
 defeated but, sleeping the night in the open air on the 
 way back, suffered in health through the adventure. 
 
 Such rumours have the pettiness of the little town 
 and the uncertainty of local gossip ; and the reverent 
 reader of Shakspeare will turn away from them and seek 
 to ascertain, from the poet's latest works, what were 
 the ideas with which he occupied his most thoughtful 
 hours. Happy will he be if, taking with him The 
 Tempest, certainly written during this closing period, 
 he is privileged to plunge into some rural solitude in 
 the neighbourhood of Stratford, and, starting from 
 these pages, over which there broods a tranquillity 
 like the peace of God, he is able to piece together, 
 from his recollections, the elements of this great 
 thinker's view of the world. Here, he will feel, is the 
 region in which this man habitually moved ; and, 
 whatever may have been his faults and follies, this 
 was the real Shakspeare ! 
 
 If it were true, as has been sometimes alleged, that 
 Shakspeare exhibits little or no sympathy with religion
 
 206 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 or with Protestantism, it would not be impossible 
 though we should regret it to repeat, even in reference 
 to such a genius, the sad but true words : " The 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God, for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can 
 he know them, for they are spiritually discerned ". 
 This would not be without analogy even in his own 
 case ; because, as has been pointed out above, he has 
 no eye for what is now regarded by the philosophical 
 historian as most important in the portions of English 
 history referred to in his historical plays the growth 
 of constitutional liberty, the emergence of the middle 
 class, the beginning of the participation by the people 
 in the government of the country in which they have 
 been born. Nor was it without example in another 
 who was as much the representative of the age as 
 Shakspeare himself. Queen Elizabeth never under- 
 stood the feelings of her own people about religion ; 
 but these were growing more widespread and convinced 
 as she grew old ; and, while she still tried to be the 
 same gay and gorgeous personage she had been in her 
 prime, delighting in magnificent progresses from one 
 country-house to another, the population looked coldly 
 on, half-smiling at her affectations and, half-pitying 
 her as an unregenerate old woman. But it would 
 have been strange if, as a student of human nature 
 Shakspeare had been indifferent to the part played in 
 human life by religion or if, as an observer of history,
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 207 
 
 he had not felt the thrill of the Reformation in Eng- 
 land ; and a really intimate examination of his works 
 will assure anyone that the case stands far otherwise. 
 Shakspeare's acquaintance with the Bible is very 
 remarkable, 1 and it has been ascertained that the 
 quotations are seen to be both more exact and more 
 numerous when the Genevan Version is consulted, 
 which was evidently the translation used by the poet. 2 
 The late Bishop Wordsworth, who published a work 
 on Shakspeare's quotations from the Scriptures, not 
 only proved the number of these to be surprisingly 
 large, by citing them all, but showed that the concep- 
 tion of the universe embodied in Shakspeare's works 
 is, in all its main features, derived from the Bible. 3 
 
 1 There is great force in the remark of Mr. Carter that " a man may 
 learn much in later life and be able to quote with some degree of freedom, 
 but he never attains the power evidenced by Shakspeare, unless he 
 has from his earliest days been trained in Bible study. Before words 
 and phrases rise instinctively to the thought and pen as vehicles of 
 expression, they must have been lodged in the mind in the earliest 
 days of youth." His inference is, that the boy Shakspeare was brought 
 up in a home where the Bible was much used ; and he has attempted 
 to prove that this home was connected with several others of like 
 sentiments and good social standing in the town. It is certain that 
 Puritanism was very prevalent in Warwickshire at the time, and that 
 some of its leading lights were settled in the county, such as Cartwright 
 at Warwick and Byfield at Stratford-on-Avon. A son of the latter 
 was one of the secretaries of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. 
 
 2 Halliwell Phillipps, The Version Shakspeare Used. 
 
 J In this work, entitled Shakspeare's Knowledge and Use of the 
 Bible, the following extraordinary statement is made : " Take the 
 entire range of English literature; put together our best authors, who
 
 208 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 No one can read the Sonnets without being made 
 aware that the author was thoroughly acquainted with 
 the struggle between the spirit and the flesh described 
 in the seventh chapter of Romans. In sombre dramas 
 like Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida it 
 can be seen how intimately he was familiar with the 
 deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the natural 
 heart ; and the workings of conscience have never, in 
 all literature, been described to the life as in Henry 
 the Sixth, Richard the Third and Macbeth. But it is 
 in the happier dramas, such as The Merchant of 
 Venice and The Tempest ', that the presence of Christian 
 sentiment is most powerfully felt. Again and again 
 he dwells not only with emphasis but with deep feeling 
 on the need of the divine mercy for all, even the best 
 of men having nothing else to depend upon in view 
 of the Judgment Day. This thought, so characteristic 
 of the Reformation indeed, what but it was the Refor- 
 mation? is not only exquisitely expressed in The 
 Merchant of Venice but wrought into the very substance 
 of that great drama, in which Shylock stands for the 
 principle that the pound of flesh is to be extracted to 
 
 have written upon subjects not professedly religious or theological, and 
 we shall not find, I believe, in them all united, so much evidence of 
 the Bible having been read and used, as we have found in Shakspeare 
 alone ". The author was Bishop of St. Andrews, and had been tutor to 
 Mr. Gladstone. He had chosen a fine theme, and he executed his task 
 with ability and thoroughness ; but here and there he injures his argu- 
 ment by overdoing it ; and it is difficult to believe that this sentence 
 it not a case in point.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 209 
 
 the last scruple, but the wise and gentle Portia is the 
 exponent of a nobler and a thoroughly biblical philo- 
 sophy. A passage like the speech of Portia, already 
 quoted, on " the quality of mercy " shows how deep 
 was the sympathy of Shakspeare with the views of the 
 relation of sinful human beings to a holy God which 
 were republished by the Reformers but were first 
 heard again to quote the words of the poet 
 
 in those holy fields 
 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed 
 For our advantage on the bitter cross. 
 
 The electrifying effect of a passage like the following 
 on an audience which had passed through the exper- 
 iences of Elizabeth's reign can easily be imagined : 
 
 Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name 
 So slight, unworthy and ridiculous, 
 To charge me to an answer, as the Pope. 
 Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England 
 Add thus much more that no Italian priest 
 Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
 But, as we under Heaven are supreme head, 
 So, under Him, that great supremacy 
 Where we do reign do we alone uphold, 
 Without the assistance of a mortal hand. 
 So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart 
 To him and his usurped authority, 
 14
 
 210 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 No isolated quotations can, however, do justice to 
 the religious depth of Shakspeare's view of the world. 
 In all his dramas God is immanent in human life. Not 
 only is there a conscience in man's nature speaking as 
 the voice of God, but there is a righteousness at the 
 heart of things incessantly working its way to the 
 surface. Goodness, however it may be depressed and 
 impeded, is always on the way to victory ; but wicked- 
 ness, however lofty for the present its pretensions may 
 be, is always verging towards downfall and exposure. 
 Nor is God only immanent in the world : He is at the 
 same time sovereign above it and omnipotent around 
 it. This earthly life, with all the visible frame of things, 
 is only an islet in the ocean of eternity, and the day 
 will come when the islet will be submerged and will 
 disappear; but man will still continue and still be 
 under the rule of God through the long ages of eternity. 
 
 Sir Sidney Lee, author of the standard Life of 
 Shakspeare, who is unsympathetic towards the religious 
 element in the dramatist, is rendered uneasy by the 
 fact, that a preacher, " doubtless," he says, "of puritan 
 proclivities," was entertained at Shakspeare's residence 
 in 1614. He seems to forget that, at that time, a 
 preacher, even if a Puritan, would have been a clergy- 
 man and would have officiated in the Anglican Church. 
 What difficulty is there in supposing such a person to 
 have been entertained at the New Place when on a 
 visit to the town ? Let us hope that he was a con-
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 211 
 
 genial spirit, and that the hospitality was enjoyed by 
 both host and guest. That Puritanism was spreading 
 at Stratford when Shakspeare returned to the town 
 is proved by a deliverance against stage-plays by the 
 Corporation at this very time. 
 
 However little Shakspeare may have been estimated 
 at his true worth by his fellow-townsmen during the 
 years when he was moving about amongst them as an 
 ordinary citizen, there was appropriate dignity in at 
 least the last act, when he was buried in a grave 
 seventeen feet deep in the chancel of the Parish Church. 
 The spot, in itself, would indicate that the buried man 
 had been a person of consequence, even had there not 
 been erected, before 1623, on the wall above the grave, 
 a bust of the poet in the act of writing, which still 
 survives in a state of excellent preservation. 
 
 This represents a man of wellknit frame, with a 
 strong face and high sloping forehead, and, though 
 not executed with a great deal of skill, it must, it may 
 be presumed, have been sufficiently like the original to 
 justify its erection. A decided resemblance to it is 
 borne by a portrait now preserved in a fireproof safe in 
 the birth-house, which displays much spirit and is prob- 
 ably to be preferred to all other representations ; but 
 whether it was copied from the bust or the bust from it 
 cannot now be ascertained. 1 A portrait, also preserved 
 
 1 This is the portrait reproduced as frontispiece to the present 
 volume. I prefer it for the reasons stated ; but connoisseurs do not 
 as a rule, value it highly.
 
 212 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 at Stratford, from which the frontispiece prefixed to 
 the first folio edition of the works was copied, exhibits 
 a certain amount of resemblance to the bust ; and its 
 truth to the original was certified in the strongest 
 terms in lines accompanying the woodcut from the pen 
 of Ben Jonson. Thus both of these likenesses are 
 authenticated ; but all other representations of the 
 lineaments of the man are more or less conjectural. 
 Certain it is that, even in outward aspect, he was a 
 good specimen of manhood, agreeable in conversation 
 and gentle in manners. "Gentle" was, indeed, the 
 term which occurred most naturally to his contempor- 
 aries when they wished to characterize him. 1 
 
 Was Shakspeare himself conscious of being the 
 genius we now know him to have been ? or were his 
 contemporaries aware how great a personality they 
 had amongst them ? 
 
 In the Sonnets the author frequently promises that 
 his lines will immortalise him to whom they were ad- 
 dressed ; but at that time every sonneteering poetaster 
 was making the same boast to his patron. From the 
 
 1 Shakspeare's last Will and Testament, after a few words of intro- 
 duction, proceeded : " First, I commend my soul into the hands of 
 God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only 
 merits of Jesus Christ to be made partaker of life everlasting ". Sir 
 Sidney Lee remarks that this was a conventional form ; this is true ; 
 but so is Mr. Carter's remark, that it was a Puritan, not a Catholic 
 form.
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 213 
 
 pages of contemporary writers, in both verse and prose, 
 a very handsome collection of tributes to his memory 
 can be made ; but appreciations of no less intensity 
 have been showered on authors whose names have 
 been written in water. It was only when the Works 
 of Shakspeare were published in a complete and per- 
 manent form that the foundations of his fame were 
 securely laid ; for then it was as inevitable that the 
 human mind should find out his greatness as it is that 
 crumbs should attract the sparrows or honey the bees. 
 The very size of the volume was a challenge ; for, 
 whatever repulsions or defects might be encountered 
 in it, there was bound up with these a body of work 
 so solid, together with individual passages so sublime 
 and beautiful, that every reader of capacity was re- 
 warded and drawn back again to the feast. As a 
 mere collection of stories the book could not but form 
 an imperishable possession of the English race, as has 
 been perceived by those who, like Charles and Mary 
 Lamb, have, in the interest of the young, retold these 
 tales from Shakspeare. In the perusal of these stories 
 and histories there rise on the reader the figures and 
 fortunes of a series of characters so numerous and 
 lifelike as to form not so much a gallery of portraits 
 as a world of living men and women. The entire work 
 is seasoned with wit and wisdom with reflections on 
 human life and shrewd criticisms on human nature, 
 with rules to guide conduct, and with the enunciation
 
 214 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 in just and moving language of those principles on 
 which depend the dignity and the welfare of both indi- 
 viduals and nations. Every beginner is astonished at 
 the number of lines and passages with which he is 
 acquainted already, because these have passed into the 
 common speech and dialect of men. Except the Bible, 
 there is no other book from which so dazzling a collec- 
 tion of beauties or so complete a body of proverbs and 
 maxims can be culled. But the most all-pervading 
 element is that which has been styled the " meta- 
 physical " namely, the sense of the universe, as bodied 
 forth by the poet's imagination, being surrounded and 
 interpenetrated by something impalpable and immea- 
 surable call it thought, wisdom, righteousness, love, or 
 what you will through which it is ordered and unified, 
 evolving towards a perfection never attained yet sunk 
 as a promise and a hope at the centre of all existence. 
 As the foundation of Shakspeare's fame was laid by 
 the first publication of his Complete Works, so has 
 the best service been rendered to it by the continued 
 republication of these. By a long series of editors, 
 uninterrupted down to the present day Rowe, Pope, 
 Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson, Cappell, 
 Steevens, Malone, Dyce, Knight, Aldis Wright, Gol- 
 lancz and many others the text has been purified, 
 the obscurities have been cleared up, and the thought 
 illustrated, till the reader can complain of no want of 
 assistance. Indeed, a serious danger of an opposite
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 215 
 
 description has arisen ; for comment has been accumu- 
 lating to such a degree that the general reader is in 
 danger of being debarred from the text itself by 
 mountains of learned rubbish. These obstacles ought, 
 however, to be disregarded, the reader accepting only 
 as much of explanation as is absolutely required and 
 then committing himself, without bias or preconcep- 
 tion, to the actual thought and mind of the author 
 himself. 
 
 The lowest stage of appreciation in England was 
 during the eighteenth century, when Hume, the his- 
 torian, for example, passed judgment on Shakspeare 
 in terms which now stand as the severest judgment 
 on himself. Hume was influenced by Voltaire, who 
 called Shakspeare a barbarian ; and the French mind 
 has, on account of its own constitution, not a little 
 difficulty in comprehending our great poet. 1 It has, 
 however, since Voltaire's days, made the attempt not 
 without success ; and there stands in the city of Paris 
 a monument to Shakspeare. 
 
 To the German mind the task of appreciation has 
 always been far more easy and congenial. In Ger- 
 many there have long existed excellent translations, 
 and Germans have taken the lead in expositions of 
 the mind of the poet. The commentaries of Ulrici, 
 
 1 Even Chateaubriand, leader of the Romantic movement, said that 
 he preferred Racine to Shakspearr, as he did the Apollo Belvedere to 
 an uncouth Egyptian statue.
 
 216 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Gervinus, Elze, Kreyssig and others are accessible in 
 English, and so are the incomparable chapters on the 
 Women of Shakspeare from the pen of the poet 
 Heine. In not a few German universities prelections 
 on Shakspeare form a regular feature of the curriculum, 
 and in the great cities of the Fatherland the plays of 
 Shakspeare hold a leading place in the repertoire of 
 the theatres. There is in Germany a Shakspeare 
 Society, with aims similar to the English ones. 
 
 It is, however, to America that we must look for the 
 principal assistance in the preservation and exploita- 
 tion of this asset of the Anglo-Saxon race. There 
 the merits of the best products of English genius have 
 frequently been both detected earlier and rewarded 
 more adequately than at home; and in everything 
 that concerns the appreciation and interpretation of 
 Shakspeare, in particular, Americans at least rival 
 native scholars and admirers. It is not without sig- 
 nificance that, on entering the town of Stratford-on- 
 Avon, the visitor has his attention first solicited by a 
 handsome fountain gifted by an American citizen ; 
 and, if he desires not only to see the objects but to 
 feel the atmosphere of the place, he cannot do better 
 than entrust himself to the guidance of the American 
 writers, such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne and William Winter. Washington Irving 
 especially has thrown over the whole town and 
 neighbourhood the glamour of his genius ; though
 
 MINOR POEMS AND LIFE 217 
 
 there is now far more to see than there was in his 
 day, through the accumulation and intelligent ex- 
 hibition of objects of interest in such show-places 
 as the birth-house and Nash's House, next door to the 
 New Place, but especially in the Memorial Theatre, 
 erected on the riverside, in which annual performances 
 take place of select plays, whilst under the same roof 
 there has been collected an extensive library of 
 Shakspearean literature, as well as a picture-gallery, 
 containing the Droeshout Portrait of Shakspeare him- 
 self, together with a profusion of portraits of actors 
 and actresses in favourite Shakspearean parts, and 
 many other objects illustrating in various ways the 
 influence of Shakspeare on art. 1 
 
 1 The most singular contribution from America is, however, what 
 is known as the Bacon-Shakspeare Controversy, in which hundreds 
 of books and articles have been published, to prove or disprove that 
 the author of Shakspeare's works was Lord Bacon. Productions of 
 such wisdom and perfection could not, it was thought, have proceeded 
 from an obscure player, but must have been the work of the greatest 
 intellect of the age. Some professed even to find in the works 
 themselves a cryptogram affirming the Baconian authorship ; others 
 preferred the safer supposition of a great author unknown. At a 
 time when it could be assumed that little or nothing was known of 
 the man Shakspeare, the emergence of such a speculation may not 
 have been unnatural ; and the writing on both sides may have done 
 something to stimulate investigation into Shakspeare's personal his- 
 tory; but the course of Shakspeare's life is now so well traced out 
 and his personality set in so clear a light, that it would be a credit to 
 mankind if the posthumous work of Mr. Andrew Lang on the subject, 
 Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown, were allowed to close
 
 218 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The Stratford -on- A vonians have done well for 
 themselves by converting their town into a monu- 
 ment to the immortal poet, every industry in the 
 place profiting from the presence of such multitudes, 
 attracted from every quarter of the globe by his fame. 
 But, at the same time, they have done well for the 
 country and the world, by concentrating at one spot 
 so much that is suggestive of the various ways in 
 which Shakspeare has contributed to the culture and 
 advancement of mankind, and that makes real to the 
 imagination him who, as a boy, played in their streets 
 and, in his maturity, walked among them as their 
 fellow-citizen. But the visitor must be of dull and 
 shallow apprehension who, as he paces in a meditative 
 hour by the margin of the Avon, where the footsteps 
 of Shakspeare must often have fallen, is not haunted 
 with deeper thoughts with the mystery, for example, 
 of so many ordinary lives passing, generation after 
 generation, down into oblivion, but this one emerging 
 from among them to shine on forever with so starry 
 a radiance and justest of all in such circumstances 
 will be the reflection, that "this also cometh forth 
 from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel 
 and excellent in working". 
 
 this controversy. I do not know whether it is in earnest or in ridicule 
 of the Bacon-Shakspeare theory that a book, entitled Lord Rutland 
 est Shakespeare, has been issued by a Monsieur Demblon, professor 
 at Brussels and deputy in the Belgium Chamber.
 
 THE PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
 
 THE PLAYS 
 IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 
 
 In the foregoing pages the plays have been arranged 
 according to subject ; but it is of great advantage to 
 study them also in the order of their production ; and, 
 therefore, their titles are subjoined in chronological 
 order. 
 
 On the ascertainment of the chronology there has 
 been expended by scholars an immense amount of 
 labour, every source of information being explored ; 
 yet the results are only approximate ; and in the dates 
 given below no painful accuracy is attempted ; it being 
 enough for our purpose to know when or whenabout 
 any drama was produced. 
 
 The dates of publication of the Quartos is a guide 
 for about half of the plays, though of course the 
 publication may not always have synchronized with 
 the writing of a play. Then, there are allusions in 
 contemporary literature, the most important of these 
 being the following passage in Meres' Palladis Tamia, 
 Wifs Treasury, published in 1598 : "As Plautus and 
 Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy 
 ampng the Latins, so Shakspeare among the English is 
 
 (221)
 
 222 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 the most excellent in both kinds for the stage : for Com- 
 edy witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his 
 Love's Labours Lost, his Love s Labour 's Won (probably 
 All's Well That Ends Well], his Midsummer Night's 
 Dream and his Merchant of Venice ; for Tragedy, his 
 Richard the Second, Richard the Third, Henry the Fourth, 
 King John, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet ; " 
 by which twelve of the plays are certified to have been 
 in existence before the end of the sixteenth century. 
 There are also internal tests, such as the youthfulness 
 or maturity of the thinking, though these are not so 
 easy to apply. A test of great value has been discov- 
 ered in the versification, that of the earlier being 
 stiff and formal in comparison with that of the later 
 plays, which is much more flowing and unconstrained ; 
 this freedom being secured by running on one line 
 into another and by the use of weak and feminine 
 endings, as they are called, by which the voice, as it 
 utters the words, is carried trippingly into the next 
 line. Of all such indications the minutest study has 
 been made ; and from them indispensable assistance is 
 derived for following the development of the dramatist's 
 mind and art. 
 
 Besides the chronological order, I venture to give 
 an original and independent estimate of the compar- 
 ative value of each play, though this is done with the 
 consciousness that anything of the kind must be ten- 
 tative and provisional, as even one's own estimate
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 223 
 
 may alter on closer acquaintance. Yet there is so 
 much uncritical worship of everything proceeding from 
 so great a genius that the general reader may be en- 
 couraged by such a recognition of varieties of value to 
 read with his own eyes and to trust his own judgment. 
 If it be asked how the relative merits of so many 
 pieces of high excellence can be determined, it may be 
 answered that it can only be attempted after frequent 
 reading of them all. The consent of the best judges 
 must also be observed, though I have been guided by 
 this only to a limited extent. The theme of a drama 
 being ascertained, we must investigate how it has been 
 worked out and with what effect, and whether all the 
 materials have been brought into unity with this 
 leading thought. Are the actions of the characters 
 motived ? and does the unfolding of the theme come to 
 a harmonious and satisfying close? The number of 
 striking and memorable characters is likewise a test, 
 whether these be comic as in comedies, pathetic as in 
 tragedies, or heroic as in histories. Fine passages, 
 which one returns to read again and again, or would 
 like to read to others, or which have so passed into 
 the current speech of mankind as to be often quoted 
 in speeches or sermons, books or conversation, supply 
 an obvious guide, whether these be prolonged out- 
 bursts or figures of speech or little bits of proverbial 
 wisdom. Such are some of the indications, of which 
 one will in one case be more decisive and another in
 
 224 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 another ; but there will always remain plenty of room 
 for difference of opinion. 
 
 A few notes on each play are added, which are not 
 the product of the moment, but have slowly accu- 
 mulated during the reading of years ; and, since these 
 are intended not for reading so much as for reference, 
 I have not, in transcribing them, been careful to delete 
 every phrase or remark that may have been already 
 used in the preceding pages. In the order and the 
 dates I have closely followed the arrangement adopted 
 by Sir Sidney Lee, except at the very beginning, 
 where we are obviously dealing with the work of the 
 dramatist's apprentice hand ; but an eye has been kept 
 also on the conclusions of other authorities. 
 
 1. TITUS ANDRONICUS. About 1590. Class D. 
 This play is a dish of horrors. Yet, I imagine, it may 
 have been Shakspeare's, written in imitation of similar 
 work by others before he had framed his own con- 
 ception of the drama. It is by no means commonplace. 
 The force of the play lies in the incarnate devil Aaron. 
 
 2. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. 
 About 1 590. Class D. Subject, the Destruction of a 
 Country by Internal Factions ; see it expressed in the 
 last lines of Act iv., Scene 3 :
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 225 
 
 While the vulture of sedition 
 Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders, 
 Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss 
 The conquest of our scarce-cold conqueror. 
 
 The uncles and the great-uncles of the King, through 
 strife among themselves, lose France. Talbot is a 
 great character, but Joan of Arc is poorly conceived. 
 There are no comic characters or scenes. The second 
 Act is particularly good. It is not necessary to read 
 any history of the time beforehand, everything being 
 made intelligible by the drama itself; though this is 
 not the case in others of the historical plays. 
 
 3. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. About 1591 ; revised 
 1 597- Class B. Subject, Nature, though expelled with 
 a fork, will always come back again. Execution in parts 
 bright and strong ; yet a great deal of mere verbal quib- 
 bling. There is one strong character, Biron, uho sees 
 through the fad from the first and criticizes life in a 
 mocking spirit. Deep speculation on Words, which run 
 away with Armado, make slaves of Ho'ofernes and Sir 
 Nathaniel, bowl-over Costard and Jacquenetta, but are 
 wielded by Moth, who represents the pride of the 
 young poet in his weapon, as well as his perception 
 of the contrast in the world between words and things, 
 learning and experience, study and action. Curious 
 self-criticism, put into the mouth of Biron, near the 
 end of the play, for the use of 
 
 15
 
 226 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, 
 Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, 
 Figures pedantical. 
 
 4. Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 1591 or 1593. 
 Class D. Subject, Love and Friendship. Bright 
 and thin in execution ; huddled up at the close. Julia 
 a sunny creation. Proteus' name significant of the 
 extravagances and changes of love. But Launce is 
 the gem. 
 
 5. A COMEDY OF ERRORS. About 1591. Class D. 
 A mere farce of incident without character. The jeal- 
 ous wife, Adriana, may have biographical significance, 
 and the lines on liberty in Act I., Scene I, hint the 
 mature Shakspeare. 
 
 6. THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. 
 About 1592. Class C. The subject is Ambition's 
 Ladder; or, if Henry be the hero, the subject may 
 be the Unfitness of Feeble Piety for the Game of Life. 
 This is a very powerful play. York is clearing all 
 rivals and obstacles out of the way. Henry, though 
 weak and bookish, yet is invested with a touching and 
 benignant kingliness ; what a contrast to his masculine, 
 guilty Queen ! The Cardinal, worldly and profane, is 
 an impressive figure, especially in his end. Cade is 
 but crudely conceived. The second Scene of the first 
 Act is finely executed.
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 227 
 
 7. THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. 
 About 1592. Class D. The subject is simply the 
 history of the time, without any dominant idea. Still, 
 the mild prophetic piety of Henry ; over against his 
 figure, the terrible one of Queen Margaret. What an 
 image of life and of woman ! The same conception of 
 woman recurs in the next play. 
 
 8. KING RICHARD THE THIRD. About 1592 or 
 1593. Class B. The subject is Conscience. Ulrici 
 says, it is Tyranny. Richard is a hypocrite, inhumanly 
 gross. Great contrast between the rush and com- 
 pression of events here and their tedious movement 
 in the foregoing play. There is great power in this 
 play, especially in the last Act, but no delicacy or 
 subtlety. The view of woman is extremely low. 
 
 9. KING RICHARD THE SECOND. About 1593. 
 Class B. The subject is the Plague of Favourites ; 
 see it expressed especially in the last Scene of the 
 third Act. The execution is perfect, everything 
 being clearly expressed, and the language sometimes 
 suggesting the dazzling force of action, at other times 
 the gay spirit of chivalry. Patriotism very prominent, 
 embodied especially in John of Gaunt, with whom is 
 contrasted the ease-loving King. Yet the latter be- 
 comes kingly in his fall, especially in the wonderful 
 third Act. Observe in the third Scene of the fifth 
 Act the reference to Prince Hal :
 
 228 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 As dissolute as desperate ; yet through both 
 I see some sparkles of a better hope, 
 Which elder years may happily bring forth. 
 
 10. ROMEO AND JULIET. About 1593 or 1597; 
 the first sketch may be as early as 1591. Class B. 
 Subject, the Course of True Love. The execution 
 is fluent and natural, but much better in the last 
 three than in the first two acts. Juliet's character 
 is especially great ; she is a perfect incarnation of 
 love ; and her passion makes a complete woman of 
 her, calm, resolute, straightforward ; love is a light 
 which for one glorious hour illuminates her destiny, 
 but then a fire which destroys her. Romeo's love is 
 much less pure, though more passionate. In the 
 first Act he is in love with another, Rosaline ; he is 
 a sentimentalist, loving woman rather than a woman. 
 The Friar's judgment on him is severe in the third 
 Scene of the third Act. Ulrici's remark is acute, that 
 Juliet is more her nurse's than her mother's child, 
 bearing the stamp of the nurse's sensuousness. There 
 is something extremely fine in Friar Laurence old, 
 yet the confidant of the young and the friend of the 
 whole town ; the reverence of his whole appearance 
 is conveyed without being expressed. 
 
 11. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 15 94 or 1596. 
 Class A. The subject is Friendship. Antonio for friend- 
 ship sacrifices himself; Shylock almost destroys friend-
 
 t>LAYS !N f CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 229 
 
 ship ; but Bassanio brings back the usury of help ; 
 and, at the close, after encountering many dangers, 
 friendship is triumphant. Ulrici says that the subject 
 is Summum Jus Summa Injuria that is to say, law 
 requires correction from equity. The execution is 
 brilliant in the last degree. The play is, in fact, per- 
 fection itself, the various threads of interest being 
 easily woven into a harmonious whole, and the three 
 principal characters Antonio, Shylock, Portia taking 
 rank with the foremost of the dramatist's creations. 
 In this play there is a fuller working-out of several 
 ideas already found in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
 which has the same subject. 
 
 12. KING JOHN. 1594 or 1596. Class B. The 
 subject is Patriotism, embodied in the Bastard ; see it 
 expressed in the last lines of the play, already quoted 
 in the first chapter of the present work, top of p. 16. 
 Such passages are frequent, and they have a ring of 
 tender and powerful emotion. Maternal love is so 
 fully treated in the person of Constance as to be 
 almost the theme. Shakspeare is now master of a 
 peculiar heroic diction, with sustained eloquence, 
 absolute clearness, and passages of power occurring 
 constantly. The Bastard is a typical Englishman, 
 free, self-scornful, loyal, strenuous, proud of England 
 "the large composition of this man". Exquisite 
 beauty in the episode of Arthur.
 
 230 MOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 13. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. About 1594 
 or 1597. Class A. The subject is the Power of 
 Imagination ; see it expressed at the commencement 
 of the first Scene in the fifth Act. Imagination 
 creates the fairy world for those in the condition of 
 Theseus and Hippolyta. It is lacking in the players, 
 who give their audience no credit for it. The play is 
 more a mask than a comedy, and was composed, it is 
 reported, for a wedding attended by Queen Elizabeth, 
 to whom reference is made as " a fair vestal throned by 
 the West ". The execution is wonderful for both com- 
 plexity and simplicity, the various groups Theseus 
 and Hippolyta, Lysander and Demetrius, Oberon and 
 Titania, Bottom and the players being loosely but 
 skilfully connected, like wheel within wheel. There is 
 no development of character ; but all the fairy world is 
 exquisitely perfect. The mockery of the plays and 
 players of the day culminates in Bottom, the very 
 genius of stupidity, whose self-satisfaction is infinite. 
 Midsummer Night was a time for spells and general 
 intercourse with the spirit world. 
 
 14. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. About 1 595 ; 
 rewritten 1602. Class C. The subject is the Prodigal 
 Son. There is much obscurity in the language, but 
 the story is interesting, and the characters are singu- 
 larly individual and attractive. Helena is a kind of
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 231 
 
 Ruth, treading without stain a path beset with in- 
 delicacy. In the King a noble picture of old age. 
 
 15. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. About 1595. 
 Class D. The subject is Homoeopathy : Katharina is 
 cured by seeing her own ill-temper caricatured : see it 
 expressed in the second Act : 
 
 And where two raging fires meet together, 
 They do consume the thing that feeds their fury. 
 
 The play is a prolonged farce, in which are allowed 
 all kinds of impossibilities. 
 
 1 6. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE 
 FOURTH. About 1596 or 1597. Class A. The sub- 
 ject is Ingratitude. The execution is simple and 
 direct. Probably the comic incidents were intended 
 to be a kind of fantastic illumination round the text 
 of the history; but the comedy becomes the picture, 
 the history being but the frame. Hotspur is the image 
 of an irascible dog-of-war, delighting in fighting as 
 a huntsman in the chase a thoroughly English type. 
 Prince Hal a genius, fond of seeing life in all, even its 
 lowest, aspects, yet capable of everything high and 
 chivalrous. 
 
 17. THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE 
 FOURTH. Same date and class as preceding. The 
 subject is an Uncorrupted Prodigal ; see it expressed 
 in the fourth Scene of the fourth Act :
 
 232 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The prince will, in the perfectness of time, 
 Cast off his followers, etc. 
 
 The history is, still more, merely a frame to the portrait 
 of Falstaff, with his impecuniosity, his lying, boasting, 
 cowardice, his skill in getting out of difficulties, his 
 shrewdness, his knack of coining epithets. Prince 
 Henry is very lovable; see the contrasted estimates 
 of his character, by his father and the Earl of Warwick, 
 in the fourth Scene of the fourth Act. Shallow in the 
 country, gloating over the revels of his youth in the 
 city, is proud to entertain Sir John. 
 
 1 8. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. About 
 1598. Class B. Said to have been written at the 
 command of Queen Elizabeth, who desired to see 
 Falstaff in love. The subject is, that women may be 
 merry and yet honest ; see it expressed in the second 
 Scene of the fourth Act : 
 
 We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, 
 Wives may be merry, and yet honest too. 
 
 The execution is effective in a superlative degree ; 
 the play is fuller of "go" than anything else of Shak- 
 speare's. Though living in very abject rascaldom, 
 Sir John has a kind of greatness ; even at the end he 
 is asked to supper! 
 
 19. HENRY THE FIFTH. About 1599. Class A. 
 The theme is the Prodigal Come Home. King Henry
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 23$ 
 
 is Shakspeare's greatest favourite; see the picture of 
 him in the Chorus at the end of the third Act. He is 
 afraid of the responsibilities of war yet, when in it, a 
 lion-heart, eager for honour. The execution is in the 
 highest regal style, yet with fringes of the comic. 
 Falstaff's friends are the dregs of a warlike period, 
 floated home from the French Wars. Even in death 
 Falstaff is endowed with a kind of grace. 
 
 20. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. About 1599. 
 Class C. The subject is perhaps the Power of Hymen. 
 Claudio is so obvious a victim that he allows another 
 to do his courting, and, when Hero disappears, he 
 consents at once to marry her cousin ; Benedick is 
 stubborn, yet has to yield. There is some capital 
 writing, especially in the fourth Act ; but, as a whole, 
 the plot is not well developed. Don John's work is 
 unmotived ; so is Don Pedro's wooing on Claudio's 
 behalf. Claudio is a hero who is not worthy of the wife 
 he gets, his appearances in the last Act being specially 
 unbecoming. Benedick and Beatrice are the real hero 
 and heroine, but their half of the play is but loosely 
 connected with the other half that of Claudio and 
 Hero. Many characters and incidents in this play 
 occur elsewhere : compare Benedick with Biron in 
 Love's Labour's Lost, Friar Francis with Friar Laurence 
 in Romeo and Juliet, the deception of Benedick with 
 the Malvolio scenes in Twelfth Night, Hero's restor-
 
 234 tiOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 ation with Herraione's. The title is anything but 
 lucid ; and the attempts to explain it are themselves 
 much ado with no result. If the above guess at the 
 subject be right, the title may simply mean that the 
 obstacles to Hymen's course are of no use. 
 
 21. As You LIKE IT. About 1599. Class B. 
 The subject is Town and Country Life ; see it ex- 
 pressed at the commencement of the first Scene of the 
 second Act: 
 
 Are not these woods 
 
 More free from peril than the envious court ? 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything : 
 I would not change it. 
 
 The court is a scene of wrong and evil passions ; but 
 even the Duke and Oliver are transmuted as soon as 
 they approach the forest. The first two acts are 
 strong, promising something which does not come ; 
 for in the subsequent acts we pass into dreamland, 
 and there is a great deal of padding. Rosalind is 
 very well developed, but Orlando, after beginning 
 well, turns into a cypher. The melancholy Jaques is 
 a rout, who has tried everything and is always on the 
 outlook for new sensations, but is always dissatisfied 
 with his actual condition. Charles Knight is ex-
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 235 
 
 tremely happy in characterizing Touchstone, his idea 
 being that, released from the artificiality of court-life 
 and restored to the healthful influences of nature, he 
 ceases to be a fool and becomes a man, falling 
 genuinely in love ; so that in future, instead of being 
 a loose, irresponsible hanger-on, he will be a married 
 man, occupying a place of his own in the system of 
 things. Several passages like " There be three things " 
 in the Book of Proverbs. Great passage on the 
 Seven Ages in the last Scene of the second Act. 
 
 22. TWELFTH NIGHT. About 1600. Class B. But 
 Mr. Masefield considers this the best English comedy. 
 Twelfth Night or Bean-king's Festival twelfth day 
 after Christmas : to whomsoever falls a bean, hidden 
 in a cake, he becomes king of the revels and, choosing 
 a queen, establishes a burlesque kingdom, in which all 
 kinds of fun and frolic, including games of chance, are 
 carried on. Reason why this name given to play not 
 very clear ; perhaps the subject is a Burlesque World, 
 out of which all are at last released. Ulrici thinks the 
 subject is the fantastical choice of partners practised 
 on Twelfth Night. There are two sets of personages 
 and scenes. Those around Olivia, among whom the 
 pompous Malvolio is central, are very amusing. Viola 
 is bright; but the "little villain" Maria is the gem. 
 Sir Toby a very modern character. The Duke is a 
 lover of music and speaks of it in an accent of his
 
 $36 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 own. Puritanism satirised in Malvolio. The whole 
 is a comedy of errors, and perhaps there is no further 
 design than the unravelling of these "Thus the 
 whirligig of time brings in his revenges" (near the 
 end of last Act), and deposits all the characters in 
 their own places. Sir Sidney Lee considers this and 
 the two preceeding plays Shakspeare's "three most 
 perfect essays in comedy". 
 
 23. JULIUS CESAR. About 1601. Class A. The 
 subject is the Portraiture of a Man, this being, how- 
 ever, not Caesar, but Brutus ; see it expressed at the 
 very end of the play : 
 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world, " This was a man ! " 
 
 Like Prince Hal, Brutus is one of Shakspeare's prime 
 favourites, sincere, truthful, unsuspicious, placable ; 
 see his motives for the murder of Caesar in the first 
 Scene of the second Act. The execution is as perfect 
 as that of the Sistine Madonna : not a morsel of super- 
 fluity ; e.g. , Cassius' discourse on where the sun rises 
 is an indication of the pedant, who does not sleep 
 o'nights, and the rushing-in of the poet, in the third 
 Scene of the fourth Act, to give his advice, hints the 
 kind of elements which have found their way into the 
 army of the enthusiasts. Brutus' revolt was the work
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 237 
 
 of bookish men, even Cassius being a philosopher ; but 
 the fruits fall to the men of action. Coleridge says 
 that the scene between Brutus and Cassius, in the 
 third Scene of the fourth Act, is one of those which 
 convince him that Shakspeare was superhuman. Yet 
 Antony's speech is greater still. This play should be 
 read along with Antony and Cleopatra. The mob as 
 fickle as in Coriolanus. 
 
 24. HAMLET. 1602 or 1604. Class A. The sub- 
 ject is the Contrast between Ideal and Real. Goethe's 
 idea, in the criticism of this play in Wilhelm Meister y 
 is the right one : an artistic nature, intending a life of 
 pure, independent creation, summoned to a practical 
 task, for which it proves to be unfit. The execution 
 is full of passages affording opportunities to actors, 
 with whom it is, therefore, popular ; but it is not totus, 
 teres atque rotundus, likeju/zus Ccesar or The Tempest. 
 There is a tendency to verbiage ; and it is absurd to 
 suppose that any actors would have played such a 
 piece as the interlude in such a court at such a time. 
 Nevertheless, the verdict of the world, giving to this 
 drama the foremost place, is no doubt just. In the 
 same way, there are plays of Goethe more immaculate 
 than Faust. 
 
 25. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. About 1603 or 1609. 
 Class C. The subject is War with^the Gilt off. The 
 madness of Greece, in wasting its resources on Helen
 
 238 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 of Troy, is exhibited in miniature in the frenzy of 
 Troilus for Cressida. Love is here only a sensual 
 passion and a mad pursuit, exciting men to their ruin 
 for nothing. It is the same view as is set forth in the 
 second section of the Sonnets. Ulrici supposes a 
 satire on the revival of antiquity and on Ben Jonson. 
 The heroes of Troy were only powerful brutes ; observe 
 the horribly vulgar way in which Hector is slain by 
 Achilles. The Greeks are at bottom more barbarous 
 than the Trojans. In the minds of Pandar and 
 Thersites love and war are imaged with all the chivalry 
 and romance absent But even Ulysses, who looks 
 from a higher level, has to acknowledge the baseness 
 and brutality ; he at once penetrates Cressida, and, 
 therefore, he assists at the disillusionment of Troilus. 
 At the end of the first Scene, in the fourth Act, Diomedes 
 puts the whole case with brutal plainness. The lan- 
 guage and the entire treatment gave an extraordinary 
 impression of power, capable of wielding any subject 
 in any manner. 
 
 26. OTHELLO. About 1604. Class A. The subject 
 is Marriage. In spite of Ulrici, I think Shakspeare 
 intended in this play to expound the rationality which 
 underlies conventionalism. Marriage where there is 
 difference of age, station and race, is likely to prove 
 unfortunate, even though the favoured party have, 
 like Othello, virtue and services. His disadvantages
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 239 
 
 make him jealous; the Moorish nature, held down 
 by virtue, reasserts itself. lago is almost the hero ; 
 and then the play would be a history of selfishness. 
 In lago's speeches extraordinary clearness and vigour. 
 He is a thorough disbeliever in human nature, especially 
 in woman ; but Emilia, by turning upon her husband 
 at last, proves him mistaken. lago to be compared 
 with Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles. 
 Desdemona is like one of Thackeray's women, utterly 
 lost in the man she loves; something exquisitely 
 touching in her inability to believe in any woman's 
 unfaithfulness. Frequent references to drunkenness, 
 as in Macbeth. 
 
 27. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 1603 or 1604. 
 Class B. The subject is Pharisaism. The title is ex- 
 plained in the Duke's speech at the close of the 
 third Act: 
 
 He who the sword of Heaven will bear 
 
 Should be as holy as severe. 
 
 Shame to him whose cruel striking 
 
 Kills for faults of his own liking ! 
 Sensual sin in every degree. The execution is of 
 sombre magnificence, and there is a world of cha- 
 racter: Angelo in the centre, the dazzling purity of 
 Isabella, the levity of Lucio, the mild wisdom of the 
 Duke. The expedient in which Mariana is a tool 
 occurs also in All's Well That Ends Well; and in both 
 of these plays religion is prominent.
 
 240 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 28. MACBETH. 1605 or 1606. Class A. The 
 subject is Sorcery ; see it expressed in the last Scene 
 of the last Act : 
 
 And be these juggling fiends no more believed, 
 That palter with us in a double sense, 
 That keep the word of promise to our ear 
 And break it to our hope ; 
 
 and again, in the third Scene of the first Act : 
 
 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
 The instruments of darkness tell us truths ; 
 Win us with honest trifles, to betray's 
 In deepest consequence. 
 
 Or, the theme may be the Effect of False Ambition 
 on a Noble Nature. Conscience, also, is here in all 
 its majesty and revenge. The execution is marked by 
 the most blood-curdling power. In Lady Macbeth is 
 exhibited the badness of the bad among women. The 
 comic supernatural in A Midsummer Night's Dream ; 
 the ideal supernatural in The Tempest; between these 
 the Witches in this play. The composition of a drama 
 on a Scottish theme may have been a compliment to 
 James the First, a priceless patron to the dramatist. 
 
 29. KING LEAR. 1605 or 1606. Class B. The 
 subject is the Filial Relation : its beautiful side in 
 Cordelia and Edgar, the reverse in Goneril, Regan and 
 Edmund. But may not the evil in children be due to
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 24! 
 
 the parents' faults? Gloster's sin is apparent; Lear 
 also has a filthy mind, the dregs of which may reappear 
 in the wild-beast nature of his daughters ; see this 
 hinted as the theme in the last Scene of the last 
 Act: 
 
 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to plague us. 
 
 There is much in this play about the Uses of Adver- 
 sity. In the execution there is a good deal of obscurity 
 and confusion, yet a rude, primordial strength pervades 
 the whole. Lear is bombastic, till he loses his reason, 
 when his figure becomes gigantic. " Nothing in poetry 
 is bolder or more wonderful," says Dowden, "than the 
 scene on the night of the storm in the hovel, where 
 the King, whose intellect has now given way, is in 
 company with Edgar assuming madness, the Fool 
 with his forced pathetic mirth, and Kent." Count 
 Tolstoi passed on this play very depreciatory criticism 
 on account of the monstrosity of Lear's daughters ; 
 but Dowden has this excuse for the unnatural ele- 
 ments : " The reader is asked to grant certain data, and 
 then to observe what the imagination can make of 
 them". Is this, however, convincing? This is one 
 of the places where I find it difficult to agree with the 
 greatest critical authorities, who raise this drama to 
 the front rank. 
 
 30. TIMON OF ATHENS. 1607 or 1608, or 1610. 
 16
 
 MOW TO READ SHAKSPEAkE 
 
 Class C. The subject is Philanthropy turning infcb 
 Misanthropy. Certainly Timon's latter stage is only 
 his former one in a new phase. Apemantus is the 
 man who has never loved ; but Timon comes round 
 to his view only in appearance. Timon's hate kills 
 himself, that of Apemantus is a feather in his cap ; 
 Alcibiades is the practical man, whose disappointment 
 with men, instead of killing him, dictates new achieve- 
 ment. The theme may be Money ; for the play is 
 full of this subject. Ulrici supposes Shakspeare to be 
 satirising, in the Painter and the Poet, the servile art 
 of his time. The execution is very unequal, the two 
 strands that of Timon and that of Alcibiades being 
 but poorly connected. Yet what a language Shak- 
 speare invents for Timon ! This play may profitably 
 be read along with Hamlet. 
 
 31. PERICLES. About 1608. Class D. The sub- 
 ject is fully stated in the last eighteen lines. If any- 
 thing in this play be Shakspeare's, it is the story of 
 Marina in the last three acts. There are fragments 
 of striking character-painting especially Cerimon and 
 Marina. Resemblances to Measure for Measure are 
 traceable; and there are anticipations of certain things 
 in The Tempest, A Winter's Tale and Cymbeline 
 compare Cerimon with Prospero, Pericles with Leontes, 
 and note the three significant names, Marina, Perdita, 
 Miranda.
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 243 
 
 32. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1607 or 1608. 
 Class A. The subject is Passion in its Splendour and 
 Ruinous Issues. Antony is a kind of Samson, prodigal, 
 magnanimous, full of possibilities, but utterly befooled 
 by women and wine. Cleopatra's people love her; 
 and there are fragments here and there of nobleness 
 in spite of the horrid, bawdy atmosphere of the palace. 
 This play ought to be read after Julius Coesar, which 
 is more perfect in execution, but not perhaps so great 
 on the whole. 
 
 33. CORIOLANUS. About 1608. Class B. The 
 subject is Pride; which is in complete possession of 
 the hero, making him unnatural and the foe of his own 
 household ; yet it is defeated by the tribunes and 
 overcome by his mother; but it finally ruins him. 
 The execution is throughout on a high level, and the 
 characters have the crispness of outline and the relief 
 of ancient statuary. Especially Volumnia, the typical 
 Roman matron. Menenius describes himself in the 
 first Scene of the second Act. Great scene the third 
 of the last Act. The inconstancy of the mob is 
 so prominent that it might almost be called the theme 
 of the play. 
 
 34. CYMBELINE. 1609 or 1610. Class B. The 
 subject is Chastity. The chastity of Imogen is assailed 
 by misfortune, by the malignity of her stepmother, by
 
 244 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 her father's anger, by Cloten's brutality and by lach- 
 imo's slander, but it holds-on through all and is justified 
 at last. The nobility of highborn natures is much in- 
 sisted on. Also contrast of town and country life, espec- 
 ially in the third Scene of the third Act, which may be 
 an, indication of the longing for country -life, which Shak- 
 speare gratified soon after the composition of this play 
 by retiring to Stratford-on-Avon. Ulrici thinks the 
 theme to be, that man is not the maker of his own 
 destiny and has no right to try to make his neighbour's. 
 The execution is in Shakspeare's highest style; yet 
 there is an element of obscurity in the later acts, and 
 the unravelling of the threads at the close is somewhat 
 clumsily accomplished. lachimo is a kind of lago and 
 the Queen a kind of Lady Macbeth. 
 
 35. A WINTER'S TALE. 1610 or 1611. Class 
 C. The subject is Jealousy. To be read along with 
 Othello. Powerful picture of the madness of jealousy 
 in the first Act. In explanation of the name see the 
 remark near the beginning of the first Scene of the 
 second Act: "A sad tale's best for winter". The 
 whole is more like a modern novel than anything else 
 of Shakspeare's ; and the bustling, self-willed, loyal 
 Paulina, as well as Florizel's love, might occur in 
 a novel of the present day. The noble nature of 
 Perdita, coming out amidst her rude surroundings, 
 resembles that of the princes in Cymbtline.
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 245 
 
 36. THE TEMPEST. i6iiori6i2. Class A. The 
 subject is Wisdom or, perhaps, the Power of Poetry ; 
 for without doubt Prospero is Shakspeare himself; 
 Ariel is the spirit of poetry ; able to raise and still the 
 tempest, to curb sensuality, to terrify guilt, to bring 
 lovers together; and the breaking of the ' magician's 
 wand means retirement from the dramatist's occu- 
 pation. The drama, however, is like a great piece of 
 music, capable of many interpretations. What is free- 
 dom? is a question much before the author's mind. 
 The execution is so simple and perfect that nothing 
 finer could be even wished in any work of human 
 art. 
 
 37. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. About 1612. 
 Class C. The subject is Ambition, in Wolsey, or 
 Queenly Greatness, in Catharine. The whole lacks 
 unity; the first act is obscure, and the last one is 
 tagged-on ; yet the three middle acts are fuller of 
 human interest than almost any play of Shakspeare' s. 
 The Queen, with her love of the people, her wisdom, 
 her unselfish considerateness, her forgiving spirit, is a 
 noble creation. Wolsey is extremely impressive too. 
 The nobility, envious of the clergy, do not show well, 
 but Buckingham is a fine figure. Great scene of Anne 
 Bullen and the Old Lady. This drama is said to have 
 been written by Shakspeare in collaboration with 
 Fletcher; but it seems to me more like a great effort
 
 246 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 made by an inferior dramatist than an inferior work of 
 the supreme one. 
 
 Thus, it will be seen, there are ten or a dozen which 
 may be called the Best Plays of Shakspeare. In 
 these the conception is so massive and original, or the 
 execution so perfect, or conception and execution are 
 both so felicitous, as to secure for the author the peerless 
 place he holds in our literature. The present writer is 
 sensible of a strong partiality for those plays in which 
 the execution is unexceptionable ; and, from remarks 
 made here and there already, it'may have been gathered 
 that he would not have much hesitation in assigning 
 to five or six, on this account, a place by themselves ; 
 but other elements may be entitled to equal weight, 
 and so the number suggested above may stand. 
 Secondly, there are about as many which may be 
 styled the Next-Best Plays. Owing to something 
 disagreeable or unnatural in the plot or, oftener, to 
 some lack of unity and thoroughness in the working- 
 out of the design, these do not quite attain to such 
 perfection as the very best ; yet they are work of a 
 high class, with plots and characters which form part 
 of the common knowledge of the cultivated and with 
 multitudes of passages or lines familiar in men's mouths 
 as household words. On this level Shakspeare can 
 match himself with other dramatists at their best,
 
 PLAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 247 
 
 though he hardly matches himself at his best. Thirdly, 
 there may be about the same number of plays con- 
 structed of slighter materials and put together hurriedly 
 by the playwright to meet the demands of the hour. 
 These the general reader is not likely to read more 
 than once, and he will not be endangering his literary 
 salvation if he does not read some of them at all. It 
 goes against the grain to acknowledge such a " tail " 
 among Shakspeare's works ; but one is not a real 
 reader at all as long as one stands in stupefaction 
 before everything written by even the greatest genius, 
 and it is impossible to perceive the greatness of a 
 Hamlet or a Henry the Fifth, unless one sees the 
 contrast between it and one of the inferior plays. Yet 
 even the latter enter into the total bulk of work by 
 which Shakspeare impresses the mind of the world ; 
 and in even the least hopeful of them a careful reader 
 will find lines and phrases which he cannot forget. 1 
 
 1 At the last moment I perceive that both the above estimates are 
 accommodated to conventional opinion ; and I shall be doing better 
 service to the general reader by transferring the markings from my 
 working copy ot Shakspeire; though I am well aware that, in so 
 doing, I am taking my life in my hands. This third estimate may. 
 indeed, be almost taken as that of another man as it dates back a 
 considerable time. It was made after close, critical and repeated 
 reading, and without the slightest thought of publication. So far am 
 I from wishing to im ose it on anyone else that I have not even ad- 
 hered to it myself; but it is reproduced for the sake of encouraging 
 others to form an independent judgment. Advantage is taken of the 
 opportunity to arrange the plays in the usual order,
 
 248 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 The Tempest, Class A; The Two Gentlemen of Verona, E; The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, C ; Measure for Measure, C ; Tht Comedy 
 of Errors, F ; Much Ado about Nothing, E ; Love's Labour's Lost, C ; 
 A Midsummer-Night's Dream, C ; The Merchant of Venice, A ; As 
 You Like It, C ; The Taming of the Shrew, F ; All's Well that Ends 
 Well, D ; Twelfth Night, C ; The Winter's Tale, D ; 
 
 King John, A B; King Richard the Second, A B; First Part of 
 King Henry the Fourth, A B ; Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, 
 A B; King Henry the Fifth, B; First Part of King Henry the 
 Sixth, G ; Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, C ; Third Part of 
 King Henry the Sixth, E ; King Richard the Third, D ; King Henry 
 the Eighth, D ; 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, C; Coriolanus, B; Titus Andronicus, G; 
 Romeo and Juliet, B; Timon of Athens, C; Julius Casar, A; Mac- 
 beth, A; Hamlet, A; King Lear, B; Othello, C; Antony and -Cleo- 
 patra, A B ; Cymbeline, B C ; Pericles, F.
 
 A PAGE OF LEARNING
 
 A PAGE OF LEARNING 
 
 ALTHOUGH, in the preface, it has been stated that 
 this book is not intended for scholars, yet a page of 
 learning may be added for the sake of any disposed 
 to proceed further and for the purpose of indicating 
 wherein Shakspearean learning consists. 
 
 First, there is the question of the edition to get. 
 The first I ever used was a single volume, costing 
 only a shilling and published, I well remember, by 
 one of the name of Dick. It was trying to the eyes ; 
 but there are single-volume editions, at a reasonable 
 rate, unexceptionable in this respect, such as the 
 Globe, the Leopold and that in the Oxford Poets. 
 The edition I have used most is that of Dyce, in eight 
 volumes, one of which is a glossary ; there are ample 
 notes, especially on the text. On single plays I have 
 used the volumes of Professor Aldis Wright in the 
 Clarendon Press Series ; the introductions and notes 
 leave nothing to be desired. But, of late years, I have 
 used most the dainty volumes of the Temple Shak- 
 speare, edited by Gollancz. 1 
 
 1 There is now a new Clarendon Press Series, edited by J. C. Smith ; 
 and I am told that Blackies' (Warwick) and the Pitt Press (Verity) 
 editions of single plays are nrstrate. 
 
 (25D
 
 252 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Next to a good edition of the text, one requires a 
 really good dictionary of words and phrases, and this 
 is found to perfection in Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon}- 
 A concordance is also a necessity, and this is furnished 
 in Mrs. Cowden Clarke's Complete Concordance to 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 To scholarship, in the more technical sense, belong 
 such subjects as (i) Grammar; see Abbott's Shake- 
 spearean Grammar ; (2) Versification ; see the works 
 on this topic of Bathurst and Sidney Walker ; (3) 
 Sources of the Plots ; see Hazlitt's Shakspere's Library 
 and the introductions by Dr. Aldis Wright, already 
 mentioned ; (4) Shakspeare's Place in the History of 
 the Drama ; see Boas' Shakspere and His Predeces- 
 sors ; in Dyce's notes there are choice quotations from 
 contemporary and earlier literature; (5) the Music 
 for the Songs ; see Cowling's Music on the Shake- 
 spearean Stage and Nay lor' s Shakespeare Music. On 
 such topics immense labour has been expended not 
 only by individual authors but by Shakspearean 
 societies, both English and German, in the trans- 
 actions of which will be found notes and essays on 
 every conceivable subject in any way connected with 
 the dramatist. 
 
 Soaring into a higher region are works dealing with 
 
 1 Also Foster, A Shakespeare Word-book and Onions, The Oxford 
 Shaktsptare Glossary.
 
 A PAGE OF LEARNING 253 
 
 the mind and art of Shakspeare, to quote the title of 
 one of the best from the pen of Professor Dowden. 
 In these inquiry is made to ascertain what subject 
 was possessing the mind of the poet when he was 
 writing each of his dramas, and which aspects of it 
 appealed to him. Then his conception of the world 
 is sought, as this is exhibited in connected series of 
 dramas, such as those of a certain literary species or 
 those belonging to successive periods of his life. Thus 
 may at length be grasped his criticism of life as a 
 whole. In philosophical inquiries of this kind the 
 Germans excel ; and I have long had a special relish 
 for the work of Ulrici in this department, as being 
 delicate, penetrative and convincing. This critic was 
 a considerable figure in German philosophy in his day. 
 In appearance he resembled the late Professor John 
 Stuart Blackie, and had not less than he the look of 
 a man of genius. I have heard him lecture on Shak- 
 speare in his old age at the University of Halle. All 
 remarks on Shakspeare which the general reader may 
 come across proceeding from Coleridge, De Quincey, 
 Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, Lowell, Swinburne, Pater, 
 Saintsbury are worthy of attention. At the head 
 of the small books on the subject stands Dow- 
 den's Primer ; but those by Sir Walter Raleigh, Dr. 
 Herford and Mr. John Masefield are also excellent. 
 A repertory of superior criticism, rather bewildering in
 
 254 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 extent, will be found in the fifth volume of The Cam- 
 bridge History of English Literature, and no less 
 worthy of attention is the relevant portion of Periods 
 of European Literature. In the opinion of not a few 
 the high- water-mark in present-day criticism is touched 
 in Mr. A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy, 
 
 Finally, a good Life of Shakspeare is indispensable, 
 to gather everything up; and the latest is the best, 
 that of Sir Sidney Lee, obtainable at different prices.
 
 APPENDIX 
 SHAKSPEARE ON MUSIC
 
 SHAKSPEARE ON MUSIC 1 
 
 " SHAKSPEARE on Music " is a large enough subject to supply 
 material for more than one lecture, and I must begin with 
 throwing overboard a portion of it in which some of my 
 hearers would doubtless be deeply interested, but which I do 
 not intend to treat. I could imagine a lecture being given by 
 a musical antiquarian on such points as the state of music 
 in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, as 
 this is brought out in Shakspeare's works ; on the musical 
 instruments mentioned by Shakspeare; on the tunes to 
 which his songs were set ; on the extent of his own know- 
 ledge of music ; and so on topics belonging to the sphere 
 of the History or the Antiquities of Music. But I have 
 not space for such investigations in this lecture; nor, if I 
 had, do I possess the necessary knowledge. Such an in- 
 quiry could only be done well by a musical expert ; but in 
 competent hands it might be made very interesting. 
 
 On one of the points mentioned I may be allowed 
 perhaps a single remark : I should very much doubt if 
 Shakspeare had any special technical knowledge of music 
 beyond what was sure to be picked up by one who, as a 
 theatrical manager, must often have employed musicians. 
 
 1 A Lecture delivered to the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen, 
 24 October, 1912. 
 
 (257) 17
 
 258 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 There is, indeed, in The Taming of the Shrew, a music- 
 lesson, given by one of the characters, through whose lips 
 the dramatist speaks ; which might seem to imply that he 
 possessed the knowledge of a music-teacher. But in the 
 same scene there is a Latin lesson, given by another of the 
 characters. Yet we know that Shakspeare had little Latin 
 and less Greek. The pupil who enjoys the benefit of these 
 instructions is Bianca, the playful sister of Katharina the 
 Shrew ; and both her teachers are desperately in love with 
 her. Here is how the Latin lesson proceeds, as the teacher 
 construes for his fair pupil's benefit : 
 
 Hie ibat : as I told you before 
 Simois : I am Lucentio 
 Hie est : son unto Vincentio of Pisa 
 Sigeia tellus : disguised thus to get your love 
 Hie steterat: and that Lucentio who comes a-wooing 
 Priami: is my man Tranio 
 Regia : bearing my port 
 
 Celsa senis : that we might beguile the old pantaloon. 
 Even a little Latin, you see, might have qualified the teacher 
 for this lesson ; and the knowledge of music needed for the 
 other is, it will be seen, on a par with it. 
 
 Madam, before you touch the instrument, 
 To learn the order of my fingering, 
 I must begin with rudiments of art : 
 To teach you gamut 1 in a briefer sort, 
 More pleasant, pithy and effectual, 
 Than hath been taught by any of my trade ; 
 And there it is in writing fairly drawn. 
 1 The scale.
 
 APPENDIX 259 
 
 B. Why, I am past my gamut long ago. 
 
 H. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio. 
 
 B. (reads) Gamut I am, the ground of all accord, 
 
 A re : to plead Hortensio's passion. 
 
 B mi : Bianca, take him for thy lord. 
 
 C fa ut : that loves with all affection, 
 
 D sol re : one clef, two notes have I, 
 
 E la mi : show pity or I die. 
 
 Browning is perhaps amongst our English poets the one 
 who has written most expressly on music; and he, it is 
 understood, has done so with all the knowledge of an adept. 
 Shakspeare wrote from the point of view of the common man. 
 This is his point of view about most subjects : he knows 
 about them only what is common to all. The difference 
 lies in the keenness of insight, the comprehensiveness of 
 grasp, the depth of feeling, the power of expression 
 peculiarly his own. He is the supreme expresser of the 
 impressions common to all. 
 
 It is so with regard to music. The musical antiquary can 
 stand above him and define for us the limits of his know- 
 ledge ; and he may be able to prove that he was ignorant of 
 the technicalities of musical science. But we do not go to 
 Shakspeare for these technicalities, which we can get from 
 common men. We go to him, to hear him speak of music 
 as a part of life and to hear justice done to its power ; for 
 he, if anyone, will pluck out for us the heart of its mystery. 
 
 In this lecture, therefore, all that will be attempted will 
 be to bring together, and to string on a loose and rather 
 thin thread of philosophy, the chief sayings on the subject 
 uttered by him whom the English-speaking people of the
 
 260 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 world regard as the man among them who has best ex- 
 pressed their common experiences. I might have entitled 
 my lecture Shakspeare on the Mystery and the Power of 
 Music. These two words at least express the course which 
 our remarks will follow. 
 
 FIRST, THEN, THE MYSTERY OF MUSIC. 
 
 It is the fashion at the present day to begin to study 
 everything in the very egg ; and among the dreary current 
 speculations as to the origin of things you will find now and 
 then the attempt made to imagine how music arose. Philo- 
 sophers tell you that the very simplest elements of music are 
 certain involuntary sounds which escape from our lips in 
 states of strong emotion : the sighed ah ! of grief, the bright 
 oh ! of joy, which come out unawares, are musical sounds ; 
 and human music, they tell you, had at one time proceeded 
 no further. Then they speculate on who the first shaggy 
 savage was who, by putting two or three of these notes 
 together, became the first musical composer, and how he 
 was stimulated to do so. But these philosophers forget 
 that the world was full of music before any man uttered a 
 musical note. Or are we to suppose that the lark had to 
 learn her notes and the nightingale her song by the same 
 laborious steps by which man became a musician, and that 
 the practice of their notes began only after man had attained 
 some degree of proficiency ? There is surely music in the 
 sighing of the wind in the forest, in the resounding echoes 
 of the thunder, and in the breaking of the waves on the 
 shore. Perhaps the finest illustration in Shakspeare of this 
 natural music is a description of the music of the hounds.
 
 APPENDIX 261 
 
 It is put into the mouths of Theseus and Hippolyta in A 
 Midsummer- Nigh fs Dream; but it evidently describes a 
 scene witnessed by Shakspeare himself from some height 
 of the rich Warwickshire country in which he was brought 
 up: 
 
 Go, one of you, find out the forester, 
 And, since we have the vaward l of the day, 
 My love shall hear the music of the hounds. 
 Uncouple in the western valley ; let them go. 
 We will, fair queen, up to the mountain-top, 
 And mark the musical confusion 
 Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 
 Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, 
 
 When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear 
 With hounds of Sparta ; never did I hear 
 Such gallant chiding ; for, besides the groves, 
 The skies, the fountains, every region near 
 Seemed all one mutual cry : I never heard 
 So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 
 
 It is surely in some such experience of the glad open-air life 
 of nature, and not in the conjectures of the dry philosopher, 
 that we are to seek for the origin of music, if, indeed, it is 
 worth while to poke in the primeval mud for the origin of 
 such things at all. 
 
 Whatever may have been the origin of music, the next 
 step was to find out the means of producing it with the best 
 effect. With this inquiry man is still occupied ; but many 
 of the means are very old ; and they are very simple. Of 
 
 1 The van.
 
 262 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 all the arts, music is the one which reaches its ends by the 
 simplest means. Architecture requires for its purposes very 
 expensive and cumbrous materials. The same is true of 
 sculpture. Painting uses simple means; and strange it is 
 how a few strokes of a pencil or a little dust, mixed with oil 
 and spread on the surface of a canvas, can be made to call 
 up before the mind the breadth and distance of a landscape 
 or the characters and emotions of some great historic scene. 
 But the means employed by music are simpler than even 
 those of painting ; for all that is required is the vibration 
 produced in a tense string by the impact of the hand or the 
 vibration produced in a column of air by the breathing of 
 the lips. In a short time the vibrations cease, and the 
 material in which they have taken place returns to the state 
 in which it was before, having lost none of its own properties, 
 though in the process it has given out that which may have 
 yielded to the hearers an exquisite delight "Is it not 
 strange," it is asked in Much Ado About Nothing, " that 
 sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies"? 
 
 It is strange that out of the shaking of such a trivial thing 
 there can be extracted a thing so precious; and it is re- 
 markable that humanity so early in its history discovered 
 how, out of the materials of the world around it, to extract 
 this secret, which lay hidden in them, while other secrets 
 such as electricity have had to wait to so late ages before 
 being brought to light. These potentialities, which science 
 is only now discovering, were latent in the substances which 
 contain them from the beginning ; and who knows how 
 many other qualities, the fountains of future splendour and 
 delight for the life of man, may yet be latent in the common-
 
 APPENDIX 263 
 
 est materials of the world? But the chemistry which 
 extracts music goes back beyond the dawn of history. What 
 could be more surprising than that in a column of air, 
 imprisoned in the narrow cylinder of a flute, there should 
 be confined an influence capable of searching with a glowing 
 stream of feeling the hidden corners of the soul, if only the 
 art is discovered of disengaging it from the substance in 
 which it lurks ? Is not this more wonderful than the fairy 
 stories of the genii in the Arabian Nights, which the word 
 of the magician could let loose ? 
 
 There is a passage in Hamlet in which this mystery is so 
 touched upon as to show that it had fully presented itself to 
 the mind of Shakspeare. To Guildenstern, who had been 
 sent by the King to sound him, Hamlet, indignant at being 
 thus spied upon, proffers a flute and says : 
 
 Will you play upon this pipe ? 
 G. My Lord, I cannot. 
 H. I pray you. 
 G. Believe me, I cannot. 
 H. I do beseech you. 
 G. I know no touch of it, my lord. 
 
 H. Tis as easy as lying, govern these ventages J with your 
 fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and 
 it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are 
 the stops. 
 
 G. But these cannot I command to any utterance of 
 harmony ; I have not the skill. 
 
 H. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make 
 
 1 Stops.
 
 264 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to 
 know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my 
 mystery ; you would sound me from the lowest note to the 
 top of my compass ; and there is much music, excellent 
 voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. Do 
 you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? Call me 
 what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet 
 you cannot play upon me." 
 
 The most exquisite and effective of all the means of 
 music is the simplest and most natural the human voice. 
 Although I am no physiologist, I suppose it combines 
 the properties both of a stringed instrument and a wind 
 instrument : it is both a fiddle and a flute. In some 
 directions, no doubt, it is surpassed by other instruments : 
 it cannot produce the volume of sound of the trumpet or 
 send notes so far; but it is an instrument of marvellous 
 range and variety ; and it surpasses all other instruments 
 in this, that it has the power of laying hold of another art 
 as powerful as music and twining it into the most intimate 
 union with itself, so as to produce a double effect. The 
 human voice, when it sings, not only emits sounds like 
 other instruments, but utters words, which may be the 
 highest efforts of the art of the poet. Shakspeare has noted 
 this characteristic of the music of the human voice in a 
 powerful image : 
 
 Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews, 
 Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, 
 Make tigers tame and huge leviathans 
 Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
 
 APPENDIX 265 
 
 In the same passage from which this is taken, he notes 
 a circumstance on which the effect of music depends, and 
 which may therefore be counted among the means of music. 
 It is a point to which he often refers. Indeed, there is no 
 aspect of music, if I am not mistaken, on which he touches 
 so frequently as its dependence for its full effect on the 
 surroundings in which it is heard. He especially dwells on 
 the power of the night-time to enhance the pleasure of 
 music. The silence, in which it is distinctly heard; the 
 darkness, concealing the surrounding objects which might 
 distract the mind; the peace, into which people relapse 
 after the work of the day is over all help it. In The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona, he says, 
 
 The night's dead silence 
 Will well become such sweet complaining grievance. 
 
 In The Merchant of Venice the thought is played with in an 
 exquisite passage devoted to the glorification of music. The 
 friends who are awaiting at Portia's country-house the 
 return of those who have been taking part in the great trial- 
 scene go out upon the lawn at night, and one of them 
 says : 
 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
 Here will we sit and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears ; soft stillness and the night 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 
 and, when Portia approaches, she also, hearing the music 
 in the distance, unfolds the same delicate philosophy, but 
 gives it a wider application :
 
 266 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Nothing is good, I see, without respect ; 
 Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. 
 
 Nerissa. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 
 
 Portia. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark 
 When neither is attended ; and, I think, 
 The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 
 When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
 No better a musician than the wren. 
 How many things by season seasoned are 
 To their right praise and true perfection. 
 
 In this gay talk there is the shrewdest philosophy ; and it 
 reaches up into the highest things : " A word fitly spoken," 
 says the wise man, " how good it is ! " and he says again, 
 " A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of 
 silver ". 
 
 On the contrary, music, like other things, when it is out 
 of season, loses all its charm. Of this there is an amusing 
 instance in Much Ado About Nothing, where Benedick, the 
 enemy of matrimony, after hearing a love-song, with which 
 the rest of the company have been charmed, breaks out 
 thus : 
 
 " An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, 
 they would have hanged him, and I pray God his bad voice 
 bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night- 
 raven, come what plague could have come after it." In 
 contrast with this take a passage expressing the same idea 
 in a pathetic form, from the sad story of Richard the Second, 
 the weak king who became great only in the dignity with 
 which he bore his fall :
 
 APPENDIX 267 
 
 Music do I hear? 
 
 Ha, Ha ! keep time ; how sour sweet music is 
 When time is broke and no proportion kept ! 
 So is it in the music of men's lives. 
 And here have I the daintiness of ear 
 To check time broke in a disordered string, 
 But for the concord of my state and time 
 Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. 
 This music mads me ; let it sound no more ; 
 For, though it have holp madmen to their wits, 
 In me it seems it will make wise men mad. 
 
 Perhaps the profoundest part of the mystery of music 
 is the nature of the pleasure which it affords. Can we tell 
 why one note delights and another jars ? 
 
 Some have attempted to explain it by mathematics. 
 There are certain heads, said to be grown in large numbers 
 particularly about Aberdeen, to which everything in heaven 
 and earth is a matter of arithmetic, by which they have 
 attempted to explain the deepest problems of philosophy 
 and even of religion. Now, no doubt music can be stated 
 in terms of arithmetic ; for each note has its own definite 
 number of vibrations in the atmosphere ; and there are 
 certain fixed proportions which must be maintained between 
 those notes which will coalesce in harmony. But this only 
 lifts the mystery one step further back; for, though we 
 know that a pleasant sound represents a certain number of 
 vibrations in the atmosphere and a harsh one another 
 number, we have only put our difficulty into other terms ; 
 for why should a note which stands for one number of 
 vibrations be agreeable and one which stands for another
 
 268 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 number disagreeable? We no more know why such notes 
 as Do or Sol are satisfying and triumphant, or why such 
 notes as Me and La produce a feeling of pathos, than why 
 a sweet thing tastes sweet and a sour thing does not. 
 There is one kind of music for the soldier, to hearten him 
 for the conflict, another for the lover, to lighten his sighing : 
 as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing says of the soldier 
 turned lover : " I have known him when there was no music 
 with him but the drum and the fife ; and now had he rather 
 hear the tabor and the pipe " : but why in different sounds 
 there should reside such diverse properties, it would tax the 
 greatest philosopher to tell. 
 
 On the general question, however, of what the nature of 
 the pleasure is which music gives, there has been a good 
 deal of not unprofitable speculation. No weightier hint on 
 the subject has ever, it appears to me, been thrown out 
 than the remark of Aristotle about a kindred art, when he 
 says that tragedy purges the soul with pity and with fear. 
 What he meant by this purgation has been made a great 
 puzzle ; but it is not, I think, very difficult to divine. If 
 we take the most literal meaning of the word, it will lead 
 us to the true meaning. A man employed in a close atmo- 
 sphere at a grimy occupation soon gets into an uncomfortable 
 state. He may hardly know what is wrong with him or why 
 he feels uneasy ; but it is because certain of the functions 
 of his body are not exercised, or are inadequately exercised : 
 the delicate pores of the skin are stopped up, or certain 
 parts of the lungs are receiving insufficient exercise, and 
 certain muscles are prevented from working. What he 
 needs is a bath and a brisk walk in the open-air; so that
 
 APPENDIX 269 
 
 the pores of the body may be opened and the pent-up limbs 
 brought into play ; and, when he gets this purgation, he 
 feels as if he were recreated and restored to himself. 
 
 Now, art does for the mind what this does for the body. 
 The mind is a far more complex thing than even the body. 
 It contains very varied powers, on the full and healthy exer- 
 cise of which the pleasure of existence depends. If any of 
 these are unexercised, they are apt to become sources of 
 discomfort or even seats of disease, just like the stopped-up 
 pores or unexercised limbs of the body. Yet common life 
 does not adequately exercise them all. It especially fails 
 to bring into play the higher, more intense and delicate 
 emotions, such as pity and terror, mentioned by Aristotle, 
 and others like them. These emotions are not for the work- 
 a-day world : they would interfere with its operations, which 
 for the most part must be carried on under the strong and 
 calm control of will and intellect. Yet the soul demands 
 the exercise of its capacities ; the nobler and finer emotions 
 need their own fulfilment no less than the commoner powers 
 which do the world's work. And art is the bath or pur- 
 gation by which they are released and brought into play. 
 At least it is one of the means by which this is done. 
 
 Music is a kind of world beside, and yet outside, the work- 
 a-day world, into which he who is choked and begrimed with 
 the work of the day may enter and be refreshed. I never 
 myself hear an evening's good music without feeling that I 
 am skirting the edge of a region of vast and unknown ex- 
 tent, the provinces of which I have hardly learnt to name, 
 but a visit to which is as refreshing to the jaded mind as 
 a bath and a pleasant scamper in the open-air are to the
 
 270 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 begrimed miner or the pent-up operative. One character in 
 Shakspeare says to another : 
 
 Preposterous ass, that never read so far 
 To know the cause why music was ordained. 
 Was it not to refresh the mind of man 
 After his studies or his usual pain ? 
 
 Music may thus be called a diversion ; not merely, how- 
 ever, in the sense of a pastime though it is that but in 
 the deeper sense of that which diverts the current of the 
 soul from its too well worn channel into the more devious 
 and flowery ways where it is good that it should sometimes 
 wander. Music sets free a struggling emotion and carries it 
 forward in a natural and regulated progress, till, when it has 
 expended itself, the soul is delivered from it and left in 
 peace. Hence the soothing influence which music exerts, 
 lulling the mind and even the body to slumber. This is 
 what the Duke in Twelfth Night, the only prominent cha- 
 racter in any of Shakspeare's plays in whom music is a 
 leading feature, means in the subtle speech with which the 
 play opens, though he complains that, in his case, emotion 
 is too fierce to be exhausted and allayed by the charm of 
 music : 
 
 If music be the food of love, play on ; 
 
 Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, 
 
 The appetite may sicken, and so die. 
 
 That strain again ! it had a dying fall. 
 
 Oh it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound 
 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 
 Stealing and giving odour ! Enough, no more ;
 
 APPENDIX 271 
 
 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. 
 O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, 
 That, notwithstanding thy capacity 
 Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, 
 Of what capacity or pitch soever, 
 But falls into abatement and low price 
 Even in a minute ; so full of shapes is fancy 
 That it alone is high fantastical. 
 
 But music, besides guiding emotion to its fruition, has 
 considerable power of exciting it where it does not already 
 exist. This is seen most clearly perhaps in military music, 
 the mere sound of which, when it is good, makes the breast 
 swell with warlike emotion and disposes the limbs to march. 
 But, according to Shakspeare, music may be used to excite 
 other emotions also, even in resisting souls. One of the 
 commonest devices tried by sighing lovers, in his plays, for 
 moving the cold hearts of their mistresses, is the playing of 
 music under their windows. Here is the advice given to a 
 despairing swain in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : 
 
 You must lay lime to tangle her desires 
 
 By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes 
 
 Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows. 
 
 Much is the force of heavenbred poesy. 
 
 After your dire-lamenting elegies, 
 
 Visit by night your lady's chamber-window 
 
 With some sweet concert : to their instruments 
 
 Tune a deploring dump. 
 
 This, or else nothing, will inherit her. 
 
 I do not suppose that in our day ladies are much disturbed
 
 272 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 by such attempts to win their affections, which the house-dog 
 in the country, and the policeman in the city would be 
 rather apt to frustrate. But the ladies have in our times 
 at this point turned the tables on the gentlemen ; for their 
 music is one of the nets in which masculine hearts are 
 entangled; and many a bachelor has secretly formed the 
 resolution of Shakspeare's Benedick that, if he ever marry, 
 the queen of his home shall be a good musician. 
 
 In passing, let me say that on the two functions of music 
 just explained its power to express feeling and its power 
 to excite feeling are based respectively the Protestant and 
 the Catholic theories of the use of this art in worship. 
 Protestantism allows music mainly to express feeling. It 
 expects the worshipper to come to the house of God with 
 feeling already moving at the centre; and it lends him 
 music only to help it out, to accelerate and regulate its 
 motion, to give it wings, so to speak, that it may reach its 
 object. The Roman Catholic Church, on the contrary, 
 begins at the outside, with the display of art and the sub- 
 duing power of music, in the hope of awakening the spirit 
 to go out and unite itself with the fervour and rush of what 
 is going on. The danger in the case of Protestantism is 
 that the soul may be cold, having no impulse in itself and 
 too little to provoke it from without ; the danger in the 
 other case is that the display outside should be accepted in 
 lieu of the genuine impulse within, and aesthetic delight be 
 substituted for spiritual emotion. 
 
 Thus far I have spoken ot the mystery of music, and 
 perhaps I have ventured deeper into the mystery than it
 
 APPENDIX 273 
 
 was wise to attempt in a popular lecture. The other branch 
 of the subject is 
 
 THE POWER OF Music. 
 
 Here we are on less difficult ground, for which we have 
 in what has gone before cleared the way. 
 
 The power of music is a favourite theme with all the 
 poets, and Shakspeare revels in it. In ancient art the 
 symbol of the influence of music was Orpheus, the great 
 musician of the mythological ages. I have quoted already 
 one description from Shakspeare of the power of Orpheus' 
 music ; and here is another, in the form of a song : 
 
 Orpheus with his lute, made trees 
 And the mountain-tops that freeze 
 
 Bow themselves, when he did sing ; 
 To his music plants and flowers 
 Ever sprung : as sun and showers 
 
 There had made a lasting spring. 
 
 Everything that heard him play, 
 Even the billows of the sea, 
 
 Hung their heads, and then lay by ; 
 In sweet music is such art 
 Killing care and grief of heart 
 
 Fall asleep or, hearing, die. 
 
 In the more prosaic modern world the stocks and stones 
 are not seen to be so susceptible. Whether flowers show 
 any susceptibility to music I am not aware; they are 
 certainly far more sensitive to other external impressions 
 than was believed even a few years ago. Some of them 
 even catch their own food, as a spider catches a fly. But at 
 
 18
 
 274 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 all events the susceptibility to music begins a good way below 
 man in the scale of intelligence. Dogs, elephants and even 
 seals, I believe, will dance to music. Everyone who has 
 lived in the country and happened, as a boy, to accompany 
 a band of music along roads intersecting the fields, in which 
 horses and cattle were feeding, knows the sensation which a 
 stirring strain produces among the dumb but not deaf brutes. 
 Shakspeare has described it with matchless felicity. No 
 doubt he had seen it; and this, like many more of his 
 finest pieces, is a reminiscence of his boyhood in the fields 
 on the pleasant banks of Avon. The passage occurs in The 
 Merchant of Venice, a drama peculiarly rich in references to 
 music : 
 
 For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
 
 Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
 
 Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
 
 Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 
 
 If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, 
 
 Or any air of music touch their ears, 
 
 You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
 
 Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze 
 
 By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet 
 
 Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods ; 
 
 Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, 
 
 But music for the time doth change his nature. 
 
 Among men, I suppose, this influence embraces all, from 
 the most savage to the most refined : none can withstand 
 it. There are differences, however: it is not the same 
 music which appeals to every class. In 4 Afidsummer-
 
 APPENDIX 275 
 
 Night's Dream, that daintiest melange of fun and beauty, 
 when Bottom the Weaver is resting his ass's head in the lap 
 of Titania, the queen of the fairies, whom a perverse spell 
 has caused to fall in love with him, she asks him, 
 
 " Wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love ? " 
 and he answers, 
 
 " I have a reasonable good ear in music. 
 Let us have the tongs and the bones." 
 
 The tongs and the bones were the highest of poor Bottom's 
 musical aspirations. And there is a class which prefers the 
 tongs and the bones to all other music still. I remember a 
 worthy magistrate, who had exerted himself to provide some 
 innocent entertainment to keep the loungers of the streets 
 out of the public-house on Saturday nights, complaining to 
 me that he could not get that class to come to hear any 
 music unless the performers were dressed up with woolly 
 wigs and corked faces. The tongs and the bones are the 
 symbol of the crude, laughable and vulgar ; and poor 
 Bottom's ideal reigns in the music-hall; it invades the 
 concert-hall and the drawing-room ; and sometimes it does 
 not spare even the Church itself. The tongs and the bones 
 and all they stand for are the terror of the true 
 musician. 
 
 There is, however, an opposite extreme, which is quite 
 as objectionable, or at all events quite as fatal to musical 
 progress. If Bottom loves the tongs and the bones, the 
 professional musician is too apt to affect a music which is a 
 mere display of skill, and a refined society falls into the 
 pretence of delighting in what can never command the
 
 276 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 popular ear or move the common heart. This is the rock 
 on which many an attempt to foster the public taste suffers 
 shipwreck. Hundreds of the pieces played and sung in the 
 drawing-room and the superior concert-hall are simply ex- 
 hibitions of dexterity, in nine cases out of ten wretchedly 
 rendered, because they are far above the powers of those 
 who attempt them, and barren as the sand to nine out of 
 ten of the hearers. Melody is the soul of music ; and 
 nothing in which there is not a sweet, full vein of melody 
 will ever be food for the taste of the mass even of cultivated 
 men. In reading a treatise on aesthetics by the philosopher 
 Hegel, I was glad to observe that he adopted this doctrine 
 enthusiastically, again and again avowing his partiality for 
 the music of Italy on account of its possession of this 
 quality. Shakspeare adopted it too. An eminent critic 
 has said that, thoroughly as the great dramatist sinks him- 
 self in his characters, you can here and there feel that the 
 man himself is uttering his own sentiments through the 
 mouth of the character speaking. I have no doubt that he 
 does so when he makes the Duke in Twelfth Night, who, as 
 I have said, is the musical expert among his more heroic 
 characters, express his musical preferences in the following 
 terms : 
 
 O fellow, come, the song we had last night ! 
 
 Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain : 
 
 The spinsters and the knitters in the sun 
 
 And the free maids that weave their thread with bones 
 
 Do use to chant it : it is silly sooth, 
 
 And dallies with the innocence of love 
 
 Like the old age.
 
 APPENDIX 277 
 
 There was a new style of music, brought from France, in 
 Shakspeare's day, as we learn from another of his plays, 
 which wearied and annoyed him : he preferred the old plain 
 song, which the lacemakers and the knitters in the sun 
 could enjoy. And the best music of a country will always 
 be that which springs from the soil and can take a strong 
 grasp of the popular ear and heart. Of course the public 
 taste needs improvement ; but those who aim at this must 
 be prepared to begin with it where they find it; and it is 
 marvellous how it will answer to a sympathetic hand. 
 
 But, I venture to think, there is another sphere where 
 the spread and improvement of this heaven-sent source of 
 pleasure is even more to be desired ; and that is in the 
 homes of the people. Our British society is distinguished 
 from that of the Continent by no feature more markedly 
 than by this, that, while the Frenchman or the German 
 seeks the enjoyment of his leisure-hours out-of-doors, the 
 sober Englishman or Scotsman seeks it at home. It is not 
 desirable to change this; and, therefore, the true progress 
 of the country can be marked more distinctly by nothing 
 else than by the growth of sweetness and brightness in the 
 homes of the people. A man rather above the condition 
 of a working-man once told me that he invested a ten- 
 pound-note in the purchase of an American organ: "And 
 that," he added, " has turned out to be the best investment 
 I have ever made. It has refined my sons and daughters, 
 who spend their evenings at home instead of on the streets, 
 as they used to do ; and especially it keeps them in on the 
 Sunday evening, when it is a sight to see them gathered 
 round the instrument singing hymns." That was in the
 
 278 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 house of a man, as I have said, somewhat above the con- 
 dition of a working-man, but I do not despair of seeing a 
 similar sight in many a working-man's dwelling ; and there 
 could be few better omens for the true prosperity of the 
 country. 
 
 It would thus appear that music may be a moral power ; 
 and there may be a connexion between music and character. 
 Shakspeare takes a very severe view of the man who has no 
 taste for music. In the play of Julius Casar, the hero, 
 speaking of Cassius and noting this defect in him, draws 
 from it a very unfavourable inference. The same defect is 
 noted in Othello, who, in spite of some fine qualities, is a 
 mutilated and untrustworthy nature. But in the The Mer- 
 chant of Venice we find the most sweeping judgment : 
 
 The man that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils ; 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
 And his affections dark as Erebus ; 
 Let no such man be trusted. 
 
 This is pretty hard on men not gifted with a musical ear ; 
 although it is right to say, in the interest of many worthy 
 persons, that the power of enjoying music is a different 
 *hing from the power of producing it ; and many take a 
 keen delight in listening who are not themselves able to 
 produce a note. 
 
 If the man who is destitute of music be so villainous, it 
 might naturally be thought though it would not be a strict 
 inference in logic that those who have music in their souls
 
 APPENDIX 279 
 
 should be patterns of all the virtues. And there is one 
 virtue in which all singers are well known to be supreme 
 the virtue of modesty. There is a coyness, a hesitancy, a 
 blushing sweetness about all musical performers which the 
 most inexperienced cannot have overlooked. Everybody 
 knows how unconscious singers are of their own merits, 
 how they depreciate their own acquirements, how much 
 they need to be pressed to make the smallest exhibition of 
 their hidden power. Shakspeare could not of course pass 
 over so obvious a feature of this subject. In Much Ado 
 About Nothing Don Pedro says : 
 
 Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. 
 B. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice 
 
 To slander music any more than once. 
 D.P. It is the witness still of excellency 
 
 To put a strange face on his own perfection. 
 
 And so on ; the song that follows being prefaced with a long 
 struggle between the pressing of the audience and the 
 singer's reluctance. We have all seen this struggle, and we 
 know how childlike and sincere it is. 
 
 But, with the exception of this outstanding virtue, Shak- 
 speare is somewhat niggardly in the excellences he bestows 
 on the practisers of this art. His musicians and his works 
 abound with many companies of them are, it must be 
 confessed, rather a ragged, losel and vagrant generation ; 
 so that it would appear that, though the absence of music 
 implies, according to Shakspeare, serious inferences as to 
 character, the presence of it does not necessarily imply the 
 corresponding excellences.
 
 280 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Perhaps the practice of any art be it painting or poetry, 
 music or oratory which is occupied with the representation 
 of fine and noble feeling is exposed to the danger of a kind 
 of playacting. The expression of feeling can be given 
 without the presence of the feeling itself; and the artist 
 within, if he does not resist his temptation, may become 
 a mask instead of a man. Art often cuts itself off from life 
 and reality, and becomes a languid and unmanly dream, 
 instead of rising, as it ought to do, out of life and returning 
 back to life again. In the music of the Church, the temp- 
 tation to make music something by itself a source of 
 aesthetic delight, an artistic display not infrequently pre- 
 sents itself. But, so cultivated, music is a deception and 
 a degradation. It only attains to its true dignity when it 
 submits to the great law of the Gospel, that honour consists 
 in service when it makes itself the servant of the Scrip- 
 ture, and the servant of the labouring and heavy-laden souls 
 of men, breathing on the smoking flax of their emotion, till 
 it glow like the Burning Bush with the love and praise of 
 God. 
 
 This naturally turns our eyes to the highest of all the 
 aspects of our subject, on which we shall bestow a single 
 glance and then have done. 
 
 In such emotions of the soul, vague and mysterious, yet 
 sweet and sometimes inexpressibly delightful, as are minis- 
 tered to by music some have discerned not the least 
 impressive intimations of man's immortality ; and to such 
 suggestions Shakspeare was not insensible. In the passage 
 which I am about to quote he makes use of the very old 
 notion of the music of the spheres : the spheres of heaven,
 
 APPENDIX 281 
 
 it was supposed by the primitive poetic mind, make music 
 as they turn on their axes, just as, if small things may be 
 compared to great, a top, as it revolves, creates a humming 
 sound ; but their sound is an exquisite music, in which each 
 of the spheres is for ever enveloped ; and not only so, but 
 the music of all the spheres mingles in a vast chorus of praise 
 to the great Creator. To this sublime fancy Shakspeare 
 has given the sublimest expression : 
 
 Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines l of bright gold : 
 There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Dcth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 
 
 This idea that in the soul there is a music hidden which 
 cannot at present find expression, but that elsewhere there 
 are conditions amidst which it will blossom as in a kindly 
 and congenial home is surely a profoundly Christian one. 
 Only this home is not in the stars, but beyond the stars. 
 If, under the leadership of the Son of man, we are walking 
 in the good and narrow way, it is to a world filled with 
 music we are travelling ; for, every time the door of heaven 
 is opened in Holy Writ, a burst of melody comes from 
 within. To artistic natures not only is this one of the most 
 potent attractions of the future, but it lends to even the 
 music of this world its deepest significance : 
 
 1 Plates.
 
 282 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Happy the man whose mind has grasped the key 
 That opes the golden gates of harmony : 
 
 While round him surge the discords and the jars 
 Of life's strange medley, yet his thoughts may be 
 
 A true rehearsal even of the bars 
 That guide the chorus of eternity. 1 
 
 1 Edwards.
 
 INDICES
 
 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS 
 
 I. The Tempest; II. The Two Gentlemen of Verona; III. The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor; IV. Measure for Measure; V. The Comedy 
 of Errors; VI. Much Ado about Nothing; VII. Love's Labour's 
 Lost; VIII. A Midsummer-Night's Dream; IX. The Merchant of 
 Venice; X. As You Like it; XI. The Taming of the Shrew; XII. 
 All's Well that Ends Well ; XIII. Twelfth Night; XIV. The Winter's 
 Tale; 
 
 XV. King John; XVI. King Richard the Second; XVII. First 
 Part of King Henry the Fourth ; XVIII. Second Part of King Henry 
 the Fourth ; XIX. Henry the Fifth ; XX. First Part of King Henry 
 the Sixth ; XXI. Second Part of King Henry the Sixth ; XXII. Third 
 Part of King Henry the Sixth; XXIII. King Richard the Third; 
 XXIV. King Henry the Eighth ; 
 
 XXV. Troilus and Cressida ; XXVI. Coriolanus; XXVII. Titus 
 Andronicus; XXVIII. Romeo and Juliet; XXIX. Timon of Athens; 
 XXX. Julius Csesar; XXXI. Macbeth; XXXII. Hamlet; XXXIII. 
 King Lear; XXXIV. Othello; XXXV. Antony and Cleopatra; 
 XXXVI. Cymbeline; XXXVII. Pericles. 
 
 Pa 
 
 ge 2. 
 
 XXIV. v. 3 
 
 
 2. 
 
 XXIV. i. i 
 
 
 IS- 
 
 XV. ii. i 
 
 
 15. 
 
 XV. ii. 2 
 
 
 15- 
 
 XVI. ii. i 
 
 
 16. 
 
 XVI. ii. i 
 
 
 17- 
 
 XV. V. 2 
 
 
 18. 
 
 XIX. i. 2 
 
 
 19. 
 
 XV. v. 7 
 
 
 19. 
 
 XVIII. (indue.) 
 
 
 20. 
 
 XVI. iii. 2 
 
 
 21. 
 
 XV. iii. 4 
 
 
 21. 
 
 XV. v. i 
 
 
 21. 
 
 XVII. V. 2 
 
 
 21. 
 
 XV. iv. 2 
 
 
 22. 
 
 XV. ii. i 
 
 
 22. 
 
 XXII. ii. 5 
 
 
 23- 
 
 XVIII. iii. i 
 
 Page 25. 
 
 XVI. iii. 2 
 
 
 26. 
 
 XIX. iii. chorus 
 
 
 28. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 : 3 
 
 
 28. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 iii. i 
 
 
 30. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 v. 5 
 
 
 33- 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ii. 4 
 
 
 33- 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . i. 2 
 
 
 33- 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . V. I 
 
 
 33. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 iv. 3 
 
 
 34. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . i. 2 
 
 
 34- 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . i. 2 
 
 
 34- 
 
 XVII. 
 
 iv. 2 
 
 
 35- 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . ii. 4 
 
 
 35- 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ii. 4 
 
 
 36. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 iv. I 
 
 
 37- 
 
 XIX. ii. 4 
 
 
 38. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 v. 5 
 
 
 38. 
 
 XIX. i 
 
 3
 
 286 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Page 38. 
 
 XIX. 1. I 
 
 
 39- 
 
 XIX. i. i 
 
 
 40. 
 
 XIX. iv. 3 
 
 
 40. 
 
 XIX. iv. 8 
 
 
 53- 
 
 XXVI. iii. i 
 
 
 53- 
 
 XXVI. i. i 
 
 
 54- 
 
 XXVI. iii. i 
 
 
 54- 
 
 XXVI. i. i 
 
 
 62. 
 
 XXX. i. 2 
 
 
 65- 
 
 XXX. iv. i 
 
 
 66. 
 
 XXXV. i. 4 
 
 
 66. 
 
 XXXV. v. i 
 
 
 67. 
 
 XXXV. iii. 10 
 
 
 68. 
 
 XXXV. iii. 13 
 
 
 70. 
 
 XXVI. i. 3 
 
 
 72. 
 
 XXXV. ii. 2 
 
 
 75- 
 
 XXXV. iv. 15 
 
 
 75- 
 
 XXXV. v. 2 
 
 
 76. 
 
 XXXV. v. 2 
 
 
 80. 
 
 IX. i. i 
 
 
 81. 
 
 X. v. 4 
 
 
 81. 
 
 XIII. iii. i 
 
 
 83. 
 
 XIII. ii. 5 
 
 
 84. 
 
 VI. iii. 3 
 
 
 84. 
 
 HI. v. 5 
 
 
 85- 
 
 VII. iv. 2 
 
 
 86. 
 
 VIII. i. 2 
 
 
 90. 
 
 VII. iv. 3 
 
 
 91. 
 
 II. ii. i. 
 
 
 92. 
 
 X. iii. 2 
 
 
 92. 
 
 VI. ii. 3 
 
 
 93- 
 
 II. ii. 4 
 
 
 94. 
 
 VIII. iv. i 
 
 
 94- 
 
 X.i.3 
 
 
 95- 
 
 VIII. i. i 
 
 
 98. 
 
 HI. i. 3 
 
 
 98. 
 
 III. iii. 5, 
 
 
 99. 
 
 III. v. 5 
 
 
 too. 
 
 XIII. i. 3 
 
 
 101. 
 
 XIII. ii. 3 
 
 
 102. 
 
 VII. i. i 
 
 
 IO2. 
 
 VII. v. i 
 
 
 102. 
 
 VII. V. 2 
 
 
 102. 
 
 VII. V. 2 
 
 
 103. 
 
 II. ii. i 
 
 
 103. 
 
 VI. iii. 2 
 
 
 103. 
 
 VI. v. i 
 
 
 103. 
 
 X. ii. i 
 
 
 103. 
 
 II. i. i 
 
 Page 103. 
 ., 103. 
 103. 
 
 II. iii. i 
 II. iii. i 
 
 XIII. i. 2 
 
 
 104. 
 
 X. ii. 7 
 
 
 , 104. 
 
 X. ii. 7 
 
 
 , 105. 
 
 VIII. v. i 
 
 
 , 107. 
 
 IX. ii. 8 
 
 
 , 108. 
 
 IX. ii. 8 
 
 
 , 109. 
 
 IX. iii. 2 
 
 
 , no. 
 
 IX. i. 3 
 
 
 "4- 
 
 IX. iv. i 
 
 
 119. 
 
 XIV. iv. 4 
 
 
 ,, I2O. 
 
 XIV. iv. 2 
 
 
 ti I21 - 
 
 XXXVI. iv. 
 
 4 
 
 , 122. 
 
 XIV. iv. 4 
 
 
 
 , I2 4 . 
 
 I. V. I 
 
 
 
 , 124. 
 
 XXXVI. iii. 
 
 3 
 
 
 , 125. 
 
 XXXVI. iv. 
 
 3 
 
 
 , 125. 
 
 XXXVI. iv. 
 
 2 
 
 
 , 128. 
 
 XXXVI. ii. 
 
 5 
 
 
 , 128. 
 
 XXXVI. iii. 
 
 4 
 
 
 , 129. 
 
 I. ii. i 
 
 
 
 , 129. 
 
 XXXVI. iv. 
 
 2 
 
 
 , 129. 
 
 XXXVI. iv. 
 
 3 
 
 
 , 129. 
 
 XII. i. i 
 
 
 
 , 130. 
 
 XII. ii. 3 
 
 
 
 , 130. 
 
 IV. ii. i 
 
 
 
 , 130. 
 
 IV. ii. 2 
 
 
 
 , 130. 
 
 IV. v. i 
 
 
 
 , 130. 
 
 IV. i. i 
 
 
 
 , 131. 
 
 XII. ii. i 
 
 
 
 , 131. 
 
 IV. i. i 
 
 
 
 , 131. 
 
 IV. iii. i 
 
 
 
 , 134- 
 
 Li. i 
 
 
 
 , 134- 
 
 XXXVII. ii. 
 
 Z 
 
 
 , 135- 
 
 XIV. iv. 2 
 
 
 
 , 136. 
 
 XIV. iv. 4 
 
 
 
 , I 4 0. 
 
 I. iii. 3 
 
 
 
 , 141. 
 
 I. V. I 
 
 
 
 , I 4 2. 
 
 I. iii. 2 
 
 
 
 , 143- 
 
 I. V. I 
 
 
 
 , 144. 
 
 I. iv. i 
 
 
 
 , 149- 
 
 XXVIII. ii. 
 
 6 
 
 
 I5- 
 
 XXVIII. v. 
 
 3 
 
 
 , 151. 
 
 XXXI. iv. i 
 
 
 
 , 152. 
 
 XXXIII. i. 2 
 
 
 , 154- 
 
 XXXI. i. 3 
 
 
 
 , 154- 
 
 XXXI. i. 5 
 
 
 
 , *55- 
 
 XXXI. i, 5 

 
 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS 
 
 287 
 
 ige 156. 
 
 XXXI. i. 7 
 
 156. 
 
 XXXI. ii. 2 
 
 ,, 157- 
 
 XXXI. v. i 
 
 158. 
 
 XXXI. ii. 2 
 
 158. 
 
 XXXI. v. 3 
 
 162. 
 
 XXXI. i. 6 
 
 165. 
 
 XXVIII. iii. 3 
 
 166. 
 
 XXXIII. i. 4 
 
 ,, 167. 
 
 XXXIII. i. 5 
 
 , 168. 
 
 XXVIII. i. 4 
 
 , 169. 
 
 XXVIII. iii. i 
 
 , 171. 
 
 XXXII. iii. 2 
 
 , 172. 
 
 XXXII. iii. 2 
 
 , 173. 
 
 XXXII. iii. i 
 
 , 174- 
 
 XXXII. i. 2 
 
 , 174- 
 
 XXXII. ii. 2 
 
 , 174- 
 
 XXXII. iii. i 
 
 , 175- 
 
 XXXII. i. 5 
 
 , 177- 
 
 XXXII. ii. 2 
 
 , 199. 
 
 XXV. iii. 3 
 
 , 209. 
 
 XVII. i. i 
 
 > 209. 
 
 XV. iii. i 
 
 , 225. 
 
 XX. iv. 3 
 
 , 226. 
 
 VII. V. 2 
 
 , 228. 
 
 XVI. v. 3 
 
 , 229. 
 
 XV. i. i 
 
 Page 231. 
 
 XI. ii. i 
 
 M 
 
 232. 
 
 XVIII. iv. 4 
 
 > 
 
 236. 
 
 XXX. v. 5 
 
 
 239- 
 
 IV. iii. 2 
 
 M 
 
 2 4 I. 
 
 XXXIII. v. 3 
 
 
 
 2 5 8. 
 
 XL iii. i 
 
 
 26l. 
 
 VIII. iv. i 
 
 H 
 
 262. 
 
 VI. ii. 3 
 
 M 
 
 263. 
 
 XXXII. iii. 2 
 
 
 
 264. 
 
 II. ii. 2 
 
 
 265. 
 
 II. iii. 2 
 
 
 265. 
 
 IX. v. i 
 
 > 
 
 266. 
 
 VI. ii. 3 
 
 
 267. 
 
 XVI. v. 5 
 
 
 
 268. 
 
 VI. ii. 3 
 
 ,, 
 
 27O. 
 
 XI. iii. i 
 
 )) 
 
 270. 
 
 XIII. i. i 
 
 
 271. 
 
 II. iii. 2 
 
 H 
 
 273- 
 
 XXIV. iii. i 
 
 >! 
 
 27 4 . 
 
 XI. v. i 
 
 
 275- 
 
 VIII. iv. i 
 
 ,, 
 
 276. 
 
 XIII. ii. 4 
 
 
 
 2 7 8. 
 
 IX. v. i 
 
 
 279. 
 
 VI. ii. 3 
 
 1 
 
 28l. 
 
 IX. v. i
 
 INDEX OF PERSONS AND THINGS 
 
 ABBOTT, 252 
 
 Aberdeen, 161, 267 
 
 Actors, 173, 177, 190, 237 
 
 Adversity, 241 
 
 Agincourt, 39 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well, 116, 
 
 118, 121, 128, 129, 132, 230, 239 
 Ambition, 149, 240, 245 
 America, 216, 217 
 Anachronisms, n 
 Animals, 120, 274 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 44, 47, 50, 
 
 51, 52, 237, 243 
 Ariel, 139, 141 
 Aristocracy, 52, 58 
 Aristotle, 268 
 Arrogance, 58 
 Art, 280 
 As You Like It, 78, 81, 92, 101, 
 
 102, 105 
 
 Augustine, St., 136. 
 Autolycus, 120, 135 
 
 BACON-SHAKSPEARE controversy, 
 
 217 
 
 Barnard, Lady, 202 
 Becket, 183 
 Best plays, 246 
 Biron, 88, 89, 233, 255 
 Birth-house, 120, 181 
 Blarney, 103 
 Boas, 252 
 Book-learning, 102 
 Bottom, 86, 94, 230, 275 
 Boy-actors, 198 
 Bradley, 253 
 Breeding, 123, 124 
 Browning, Robert, 193, 259 
 
 Brutus, 30, 51, 58, 61-4, 69, 236 
 Burbage, 187 
 Burns, 14, 182 
 Byfield, 207 
 
 CALIBAN, 139 
 
 Cappell, 214 
 
 Carter, Rev. T., 184, 203, 207 
 
 Cartwright, 207 
 
 Catholicism, 272 
 
 Character, 28-41, 101 
 
 Charlecote, 182 
 
 Chastity, 243 
 
 Chateaubriand, 215 
 
 Chivalry, 12, 31, 32, 46, 81 
 
 Church, 12, 245 
 
 Civil War, 26 
 
 Clarke, Mrs. Cowden, 252 
 
 Coleridge, 46, 50, 237, 253 
 
 Comedy, 80 
 
 Comedy of Errors, 78, 96, 102, 226 
 
 Commons, 12 
 
 Concordance, 252 
 
 Conscience, 7, 157, 161, 170, 208, 
 
 210, 227, 240 
 Conventionalism, 238 
 Coriolanus, 41, 44, 47, 50, 51, 237, 
 
 243 
 
 Councillors, 21, 128, 134, 171 
 Cowling, 252 
 Crown, 12, 19, 22 
 Cymbeline, 116, 119, 121, 242, 243 
 244 
 
 DE QUINCEY, 253 
 Death, 137 
 Democracy, 52 
 Dickens, 33, 135 
 
 (288)
 
 INDEX OF PERSONS AND THINGS 289 
 
 Dowden, 136, 241, 253 
 Drama, 189 
 Drunkenness, gg, 239 
 Dyce, 214, 251, 252 
 
 ECCLESIASTICS, 19 
 Editions, 251 
 Editors, 214 
 Eliot, George, 135 
 Elze, 216 
 Emerson, 7 
 
 England, 14, 15, 16, 19, 27, 40, 
 229 
 
 FALSTAFF, 20, 27, 32-6, 84, 97-9, 
 
 132, 135, 232, 233 
 Faulconbridge, 18 
 Favourites, 227 
 Filial relation, 240 
 First Folio, 117, 191, 212, 213 
 Flowers, 119, 273 
 Fools, 81, 102, 166 
 Forgiveness, 119, 141 
 "Foster, 252 
 
 France, 16, 17, 26, 215, 277 
 Francis, St., 182 
 Freedom, 245 
 French Wars, 16, 27, 31 
 Friendship, 101, 109, 128, 171, 226, 
 
 228 
 Fuller, Thomas, 198 
 
 GENEVA Bible, 207 
 Gentleness, 136 
 Germany, 215 
 Gervinus, 48, 216 
 Goethe, 170, 175, 237, 239 
 Gollancz, 214, 251 
 Gossip, 103 
 Greek drama, 151 
 Green, 13 
 
 HALL, Dr., 202 
 
 Hall, Mrs., 201 
 
 Halliwell Phillipps, 207 
 
 Hamlet, 47, 146, 170-8, 198, 242, 
 
 247, 263 
 Hanmer, 214 
 Hawthorne, 216 
 
 Hazlitt, 252, 253 
 
 Hegel, 276 
 
 Heine, 70, 74, 109, 127, 216 
 
 Heredity, 125 
 
 Herford, 253 
 
 Hermione, 128 
 
 Home, 278 
 
 Homoeopathy, 23 
 
 Hotspur, 27, 231-2 
 
 Hume, 215 
 
 Hymen, 233, 238, 272 
 
 Hypocrites, 8, 101, 133, 159, 227 
 
 IDEAL and Real, 237 
 Imagination, 101, 105, 229 
 Immortality, 281 
 Imogen, 128 
 Imperialism, 60 
 Ingratitude, 231 
 Instruments, 252, 257 
 Irishmen, 17, 84 
 Irving, Washington, 216 
 Isabella, 128 
 Italy, 16, 162 
 
 JAMES THE FIRST, 189, 196, 197, 
 
 240 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., 127 
 Jealousy, 96, 118, 153, 159, 244 
 Jesting, 102, 103 
 Jews, 107 
 
 John of Gaunt, 15, 227 
 Johnson, 214 
 Jonson, Ben, 49, 185, 198, 205, 
 
 210, 238 
 
 Judgment-day, 208 
 Julia, 30 
 Julius Cctsar, 30, 44, 47, 48, 51, 
 
 52, 58, 60, 64, 106, 137, 170, 236, 
 
 237. 2 43. 278 
 
 KING HENRY THE FOURTH, 2, g, 
 
 10, 30, 231 
 King Henry the Fifth, 2, 9, 137, 
 
 232, 247 
 King Henry the Sixth, 2, 6, 9, 29, 
 
 208, 224, 226, 227 
 King Henry the Eighth, 2, 4, 5, 
 
 10, 245
 
 290 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 King John, 2, 4, 6, 10, 13, 29, 229 
 King Lear, 47, 146, 153, 160, 163, 
 
 164, 240 
 
 King Richard the Second, 2, g 
 King Richard the Third, 2, 7, 8, 
 
 9, 29, 189, 208, 227 
 Klopper, 1 20 
 Knight, Charles, 235 
 Kreyssig, 216 
 
 LAMB, Charles, 213, 253 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 217 
 
 Laughter, 80, 166 
 
 Launce, 82 
 
 Laurence, Friar, 149, 164, 228, 
 
 233 
 
 Laws, 130 
 Lee, Sir Sidney, 193, 195, 203, 
 
 210, 224, 236, 254 
 Little things, 137 
 London, 27, 37, 189, 200, 204 
 Love, 88, 101, 122, 140, 149, 153, 
 
 163, 164, 214, 226, 228, 229, 232, 
 
 2 35. 238, 242, 271 
 Love's Labour's Lost, 78, 88, 200, 
 
 225, 235 
 
 Lover's Complaint, 180, 196 
 Lowell, 253 
 Luther, 182 
 
 MACBETH, 47, 52, 106, 146, 149, 
 
 151-8, 162, 163, 189, 208, 239, 
 
 240 
 
 Magna Charta, 13 
 Marlborough, Duke of, u 
 Martin, Lady, 127 
 Maseneld, 235, 253 
 Measure for Measure, 116, 128, 
 
 133, 134, 164, 208, 239, 242 
 Melody, 276 
 Menenius Agrippa, 54-8 
 Men's men, 82 
 Merchant of Venice, 30, 52, 78, 
 
 106-14, 137, 170, 208, 228, 265, 
 
 274, 278 
 
 Mercy, 112-14, 208 
 Meres, 221 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, 78, 84, 
 
 85, 95, 96, 97. 232 
 
 Middle class, 19 
 
 Midsummer-Night's Dream, 78, 86, 
 94, 101, 105, 139, 230, 240, 251, 
 
 274 
 
 Milton, 14, 239 
 Misanthropy, 241 
 Modesty, 279 
 Money, 242 
 Much Ado About Nothing, 78, 91, 
 
 233, 266, 268, 279 
 Multitude, 20, 27, 53, 243 
 Music, 236, 252, 257-82 
 Mutability, 104 
 
 NAYLOR, 252 
 New Place, 201, 210 
 Next-best plays, 246 
 Nobles, 19, 26 
 Noyes, Alfred, 198 
 
 OCTAVIUS, 64-8 
 Omens, 69 
 Onions, 252 
 Orpheus, 273 
 
 Othello, 47, 146, 148, 151, 159, 
 164, 238, 244 
 
 PAGEANTS, 27, 69 
 
 Passion, 243 
 
 Pater, 253 
 
 Passionate Pilgrim, iSo, 196 
 
 Patriotism, 14-9, 227, 229 
 
 Paulina, 178 
 
 Perdita, 119, 121 
 
 Pericles, 116, 118, 121, 135, 191, 
 
 242 
 
 Pharisaism, 239 
 Philanthropy, 241 
 Philosophy of history, 12, 13 
 Phoenix and Turtle, 180, 196 
 Plants, 120 
 Plutarch, 48 
 Poetry, 142, 245 
 Police, 84 
 
 Pope, The, 209, 214 
 Popularity, 137 
 Portia, 30 
 Pride, 243 
 Prince Hal, 30, 35, 227, 231
 
 INDEX OF PERSONS AND THINGS 291 
 
 Prodigal Son, 118, 230, 233 
 Prospero, 138, 141 
 Protestantism, 206, 208, 209, 272 
 Providence, 12, 129, 141, 161, 178 
 Pseudo-classical plays, 46-7 
 Puritanism, too, 203, 207, 210, 236 
 
 QUARTOS, 190, 221 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, 107, 189, 206, 
 
 230, 232 
 
 Queen Mab, 168 
 Queen Margaret, 29 
 Quiney, Mrs., 201 
 
 RALEIGH, Sir Walter, 194 
 Rape of Lucre ce, 180, 191 
 Raphael, 188 
 Religion, 30, TOO, 113, 126, 177, 
 
 205, 211, 239 
 Republicanism, 52, 60, 63 
 Revival of learning, 45 
 Righteousness, 161, 210, 214 
 Romances, 117 
 Romeo and Juliet, 146, 149, 153, 
 
 164, 167, 228, 233 
 Romney, 202 
 Rowe, 214 
 Royalty, 19, 25, 124, 245 
 
 SAINTSBURY, 253 
 
 Scenery, 161 
 
 Schmidt, 252 
 
 Schoolmaster, 84, 186 
 
 Scotland, 161, 240 
 
 Scotsmen, 17, 18 
 
 Scripture, 139, 206, 208, 218, 235, 
 
 270 
 
 Selfishness, 239 
 Seven ages, 103 
 Shakspeare, his birth, 184 
 father, 126, 184, 203, 205 
 
 mother, 185 
 school, 185 
 
 - wife, 119, 125, 126, 182, 
 
 185, 202 
 - children, 119, 121, 186 
 
 development, 5, 9 
 in London, 6, 187 
 
 adapting old plays, 6 
 
 Shakspeare, actor, 6, 187, 194 
 
 his verse, 7, 9, 27 
 
 sources, 12, 48, 49, 252 
 
 learning, 49, 186 
 
 predecessors, 45, 160 
 
 personal sentiments, 15 
 
 patriotism, 15 
 
 genius, 212 
 
 conception of the world, 253 
 
 art, 163, 253 
 
 knowledge of the Bible, 207 
 
 of music, 258 
 
 comedies, 79 
 
 made by histories, 5 
 
 four great tragedies, 47 
 
 his graver period, 117 
 
 and Prince Hal, 48 
 
 himself in Prospero, 141 
 
 his complete Works, 191, 213 
 poems, 191 
 
 songs. 197 
 
 return to Stratford, 119, 200 
 
 - prosperity, 197 
 
 investments, 200, 204 
 
 ! enters society, 123 
 
 I entertains Puritan preacher, 
 
 2IO 
 
 I coat-of-arms, 200 
 
 Mermaid Tavern, 198 
 
 death, 184 
 
 burial, 211 
 
 his appearance, 211 
 
 portraits, 211, 217 
 
 monuments, 211 
 
 will, 212 
 
 Shelley, 5 
 
 Shottery, 182 
 
 Shylock, 107-14, 208 
 
 Sin, 130, 150, 160, 208, 239, 241 
 
 Smith, J. C., 251 
 
 Sonnets, 180, 192, 208, 212, 238 
 
 Sorcery, 240 
 
 Sorrow, 103 
 
 Southampton, Earl of, 192, 195, 
 
 196 
 
 State, 61, 64, 153 
 Steevens, 214 
 Stratford-on-Avon, 41, 181, 183, 
 
 216
 
 292 HOW TO READ SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Suicide, 6g, 174 
 Swinburne, 193, 255 
 
 TALENTS, 130 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, 78, 95, 99, 
 
 231 
 
 Tears, 148 
 Tempest, The, 116, 121, 124, 129, 
 
 134, 137-44, 170, 200, 205, 208, 
 
 237, 240, 245 
 Temptation, 150 
 Tennyson, 89, 202 
 Thackeray, 18, 84, 118, 164, 239 
 Theatre, 6, 85, 97, 127, 132, 143, 
 
 172, 187, 188 
 Theobald, 214 
 Threnos, 180, 196 
 Time, 103 
 
 Timon of Athens, 44, 241 
 Titus Andronicus, 44, 45, 224 
 Tolstoi, 241 
 Tongs and bones, 275 
 Touchstone, 81 
 Town and country, rot, 119, 234, 
 
 244 
 
 Tragedy, 147 
 Travel, ro3 
 Tribunes, 53, 54, 243 
 Troilus and Cressida, 44, 46, 47, 
 
 199, 208, 237 
 Trojan War, 46, 237 
 Twelfth Night, 78, 83, 100, 233, 
 
 270, 276 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, 30, 78, 
 82, 91, 93, rot, 109, 226, 267, 
 271 
 
 ULRICI, n, 12, 215, 228, 229, 235, 
 238, 244, 253 
 
 i VALERIA, 71 
 
 I Venus and Adonis, 180, 191, 192 
 
 Versification, 222, 252 
 
 Virtue, 138 
 
 Voice, 264 
 
 Voltaire. 215 
 \ Volumnia, 70 
 
 WAR, 18, 25, 237 
 
 Wars of the Roses, 9, 13 
 
 Warwickshire, 121, 188, 207, 261 
 
 Welshmen, 17, 84 
 
 Winter, William, 216 
 
 Winter's Tale, 116, 119, 121, 128, 
 
 135, 242, 244 
 
 Wisdom, 129, 141, 213, 239, 245 
 Witches, 151, 153, 157, 163, 240 
 Wolsey, 10, 19, 226, 245 
 Woman, 8, 28, 70-5, 97, 118, 227, 
 
 233, 239. 240 
 Women's women, 83 
 Words, 83-8, 102, 129, 225 
 Wordsworth, 193 
 Wordsworth, Bishop, 207 
 ! Wright, Aldis, 214, 251, 252 
 
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