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THE 
 
 DRAMATIC UNITIES 
 
 SHAKESPEARE: 
 
 A LEHER ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOODS 
 EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. 
 
 t*^" BY THE 
 
 KEY. N: J/HALPIN, A.B., M.E.I. A. 
 
 " Ut pictura P<.»es)s." 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 HODGES AND SMITH, GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 1849. 
 

 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 PHINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PHESS, 
 
 BY 31. H. GILL. 
 
TO THE EDITOR 
 
 BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. 
 
 Dublin, Nov. I2th, 1849. 
 Sir, 
 
 Up to a late hour on the lOth of this month 
 I was under the happy delusion that I was in possession 
 of a secret, which, in due time, would secure to me the 
 undisputed honour of the original and sole discoverer. 
 But alas! for human expectations. Upon the 10th inst. 
 I read, for the first time, in the Number of your Maga- 
 zine for the current month, an article of great merit, 
 entitled Dies Boi^eales, and therein, with no less surprise 
 than disappointment, I found my secret, as I believe, an- 
 ticipated, and the venerable Christopher North claiming 
 to be the first and only discoverer of an arcanum^ which 
 he very properly announces, with all the weight of 
 capital letters, to be *' an astounding discovery,"- — a 
 discovery " that will astound the whole world, and de- 
 mand a NEW criticism of the entire Shakespearian 
 drama." This discovery is that of the Laws of Unity, 
 by which Shakespeare modelled his drama ; and I fully 
 concur in the descriptive epithets he has applied to it. 
 
 MM756i 
 
LEi'i'E^ rtO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 "AstoTinding," — not so much that such a code was in- 
 vented and established by such an intellect as Shake- 
 speare's, — but " astounding," inasmuch as, that it has 
 escaped detection for the three centuries which have 
 nearly elapsed since the great master-mind, which in- 
 vented, put it into practice; a secret, certain to revo- 
 lutionize the whole system of dramatic criticism by 
 reason of its harmony with truth and nature, but never 
 until now discovered. This, therefore, must needs be 
 considered as the greatest and most important discovery 
 in literature which modern times have produced. It 
 can, therefore, be to you no wonder, if, with good and 
 strong grounds, I should, at the earliest moment pos- 
 sible, put in my claim to be considered, if not the origi- 
 nal and only discoverer of such a secret, an original and 
 independent discoverer, at the least. 
 
 From so much of Christopher North's develop- 
 ment of those laws as he has published, I conceive his 
 discovery to be identical with my own ; or, if not cor- 
 responding at all points, so similar as to amount to the 
 same thing: 
 
 " Facies non omnibus una, 
 
 Nee di versa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum." 
 
 I do not mean to question Christopher North's claims 
 to the honour of being an original discoverer of this 
 "astounding" secret. I am quite sure that, whatever 
 was competent tomymindw^as as accessible, if not more 
 so, to his; and for the honour of the great poet, whom 
 we both equally reverence, I rejoice that the truth of this 
 theory receives, from the simultaneous discovery of two 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 
 
 independent and original inquirers, the accumulative evi- 
 dence of a double discovery, on grounds and by processes 
 nearly the same. All I mean to assert is, that I, too 
 am an original discoverer of the same great secret, per- 
 fectly independent of any other ; and that I know of no 
 means by which my discovery could have been conveyed 
 to Christopher Norths nor his to me. I never heard of 
 his, until the 10th of the present November [Appendix 
 A). I have no acquaintance with the gentleman ; I am 
 not even certain of his name. I know of him only as 
 Christopher North, the sobriquet^ as it is commonly sup- 
 posed, of the venerable Professor Wilson of Edinburgh. 
 We both live in separate countries; we have no ac- 
 quaintances or friends in common, that I am aware of; 
 and I doubt that he has ever heard of the name or the 
 existence of such a person as myself. There never was 
 any communication between us, either personally or by 
 letter, on this or any other subject; and though I have 
 in confidence imparted my secret to many of my private 
 friends, they are gentlemen on whose honour, prudence, 
 and secresy I have the most implicit reliance. 
 
 Strange as it may be, then, the same important dis- 
 covery (if his and mine should indeed turn out to be the 
 same) has been made at or about the same time by two 
 minds perfectly distinct from and independent of each 
 other; and this affords another instance, to the many 
 already on record, of the frequency with which great 
 truths make themselves concurrently known to two or 
 more original and independent inquirers at or about the 
 same time. 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 The honour, then, of an original discoverer I now 
 claim. I willingly concede to Christopher North, or the 
 gentleman for whom this name stands sobriquet^ the 
 priority (by a few days) of laying his discovery before 
 the world. But I claim for myself credit, that, within one 
 day of my having read or heard of his publication, I came 
 forward with old manuscript writings, and committed 
 them to the press for immediate publication, as a suffi- 
 cient and satisfactory proof that, long before the enun- 
 ciation of Christopher North's discovery, I was in pos- 
 session of the same or a similar discovery, the results of 
 which I Avas at the time preparing, with such speed as 
 a scanty leisure would permit me, to lay before the pub- 
 lic. Now is the time for me to urge my claim — now or 
 never. 
 
 Of this *' astounding discovery," therefore, which is 
 to "demand a new criticism of the entire Shakespearian 
 drama," I now proceed to give you a history of the 
 origin and progress in my mind, up to the day on which 
 the Number of your Magazine for the present month fell 
 into my hands. 
 
 It is now nearly twenty years since (with unaffected 
 blushes and sincere regret I say it) this important dis- 
 covery made itself known to me during a perusal of the 
 Twelfth Night. I caught it from a comparison of the 
 times and dates assigned to the action of that drama ; 
 and comparing those again, with the similar phenomena 
 of such of other Plays of Shakespeare, as readily pre- 
 sented themselves to my memory, I found the identity 
 of system which (with very few and rare exceptions) 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 
 
 pervades and governs them all. I contented myself 
 at the time with noting down on a loose slip of paper 
 the remarkable fact ; and, placing this note among the 
 leaves of the drama I had been reading, closed the vo- 
 lume, with the intention of giving the subject a closer 
 and more accurate investigation at some future time of 
 greater leisure. Being, however, at that period of my 
 life, actively engaged in the duties of an extensive and 
 laborious curacy in the diocese of Meath, I was never 
 able to resume my research with the minuteness and 
 accuracy requisite for the full and satisfactory assurance 
 of the truth of my conjecture ; the thought, therefore, 
 was laid aside for the time, and remained in abeyance; 
 until, after having removed my residence to Dublin, in 
 the year 1835, the subject was again brought to my 
 mind by the accident of the slight note already men- 
 tioned coming to my hands on a re-perusal of the same 
 drama. I had now a better opportunity of examining 
 the question ; for, disengaged reluctantly from clerical 
 duties, I felt myself now at liberty for more secular 
 studies ; and accordingly, from time to time, I prepared 
 myself for the full development of my discovery before 
 the public, by drawing up analyses of the several dramas 
 of Shakespeare, especially of such of them as presented 
 apparently the greatest difficulties to our recognition 
 of a presiding art and law having governed the mind of 
 the great poet in their composition. 
 
 But even now my progress was necessarily slow. My 
 time was absorbed in literary pursuits of a diiferent 
 kind, and it was very seldom, and then at hours bor- 
 
8 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 rowed from needful rest and exercise, that I could apply 
 myself to this cherished object. Nevertheless I conti- 
 nued to accumulate the materials of a formal treatise, 
 which I hoped at some time or other to complete ; and 
 with this view I drew up the analyses of very many of 
 the most important of the plays; the manuscripts of 
 which, in their original blotted state, I have placed in 
 the hands of my publisher, as a sort of muniment of my 
 claims to originality. 
 
 To several of my literary friends, in the meanwhile, 
 I communicated, from time to time, the interesting dis- 
 covery I had made, and, for the advantage of conversa- 
 tion and discussion of the subject with men of cultivated 
 minds, imparted to them the essential principles, toge- 
 ther with illustrative details of the novel theory. The 
 earliest of those confidences was made to my friend and 
 College class-fellow, J. Anster, Esq., LL. D., M. R. I. A., 
 the distinguished translator of the Faust. It is upwards 
 of ten (say twelve) years, since he and I have been in 
 the frequent habit of discussing the matter. But it is 
 only fair to say that he never thought so highly of the 
 value of my discovery as I did myself; and that to this 
 moment I am doubtful to what extent — if at all — it 
 meets his concurrence. (See Appendix B.) 
 
 At various subsequent times, in like manner, I made 
 my conceptions known to Samuel Ferguson, Esq., 
 M. R. I. A., Barrister at Law, who has never ceased in 
 the interim to urge me to the execution of my design, 
 lest the incidents of mortality, or the fortune of another 
 discoverer, should anticipate my intent ; (^Appendix C.) 
 
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 
 
 to George Petrie, Esq., LL. D., M. K. I. A., R. H. A., 
 Author of the Inquiry into the Origin and Uses of the 
 Round Towers in Ireland {Appendix D) ; and in the 
 number of the literary friends I consulted from time 
 to time, I may include Marmion Savage, Esq., A. M., 
 M. R. I. A. ; John Finlay, Esq., LL. D., M. R. L A., 
 Chairman of the County of Louth, and Author of a 
 learned Treatise on the Law of Renewals, &c. ; John 
 Francis Waller, Esq., A. M., M. R. I. A., &c. ; Henry 
 Maunsell, Esq., M. D., F. R. C. S. I.; the Rev. Doctor 
 Greham, Head Master of the Royal School of Enniskil- 
 len; my brother, C. Halpin, Esq., of Cavan, L. R.C. S.I., 
 M.D., &c. ; and other members of my own immediate 
 family. From all these I could, if necessary, produce 
 vouchers of the accuracy of my statement ; but, con- 
 ceiving such a cloud of witnesses quite superfluous, I 
 content myself with giving, in the form of an Appendix, 
 the testimony of a few. 
 
 Having thus. Sir, fortified my title to the honours of 
 an orz^maZ discoverer of the Shakspearian laws of unity, 
 I now proceed to give you such a draft — such a rude 
 outline — of the laws themselves, as, I trust, will, to you 
 especially^ be satisfactory proof that I am also an in- 
 dependent discoverer; and that I am no more indebted 
 to C. N., directly or indirectly, for my theory, than he 
 can be conscious of being indebted to me, or anybody 
 else, for his. But, considering the circumstances under 
 which I now write, the peine foHe et dure of either at 
 once vindicating my title, or for ever hereafter holding 
 
10 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 my peace, my present exposition of the matter must 
 needs be a very inadequate one ; and I shall have to 
 compress into a very narrow limit, and in a very hasty 
 manner, the results of a long and laborious inquiry, to 
 be re-collected from a multiplicity of blotted manu- 
 scripts, and which, for due and orderly development, 
 would require much space and uninterrupted leisure. 
 
 I had often heard, with pain, Shakespeare denounced 
 as a " barbarian" in letters, as one who knew not the 
 laws of the art which he was practising, or, knowing, 
 despised and rejected them; thus producing the noblest 
 specimens of the drama which the world ever witnessed 
 under no better guidance than that of caprice ot chance! 
 
 I knew something of the (apparently) boundless 
 powers of Shakespeare's intellect, and its inexhaustible 
 resources. I knew also of his vast industry as a drama- 
 tist and an actor; and of the signal prudence which 
 enabled him, from comparative indigence, to amass in a 
 few years a fortune that, measured by the value of our 
 present money, would amount to nearly (if not more 
 than) £2000 per annum. 
 
 I conceived that such a man was not likely to start 
 upon his career of fame and fortune without guide, rule, 
 or compass ; and I concluded, therefore, that before he 
 set himself down for life to an arduous professional 
 pursuit, he had well considered all the premises, and 
 carefully possessed himself of all the means requisite to 
 insure success. I thence inferred that he was not a 
 mere barbarian in letters, not so ignorant, or so regard- 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 1 1 
 
 less of dramatic law, as critics, French and English, 
 have described him. 
 
 But I considered above all things that the first and 
 great passion of a mighty and original Intellect is the 
 loveof the BE avtiful; that without symmetry there is 
 no beauty ; without order, no symmetry ; and no order, 
 without law. That which is the offspring of law can- 
 not be the result of either chance or caprice ; and 
 knowing that Shakespeare had designedly produced a 
 lengthened series of works of the most consummate 
 beauty, I felt instinctively that they were, and must 
 have been, the issues of an intellect in which the prin- 
 ciples of law, order, symmetry, and beauty, were pre- 
 dominant qualities. 
 
 Those qualities Shakespeare possessed in the highest 
 degree, either by nature or acquirement. If by nature, 
 he became, like Homer and the other great originals, a 
 law unto himself. If by acquirement, he learned his 
 rules from existing models. 
 
 Of such models there were two before him : the Eng- 
 lish, as practised by his contemporaries, Lylie, Greene, 
 Peele, Lodge, and Marlow; and the Grecian, as prac- 
 tised by the ancients — ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, 
 &c. 
 
 The old English dramatic muse was truly barbarian. 
 Unrestrained by laws, she ran riot into the wildest ex- 
 travagance of time, place, and fable. The fable might 
 include as many extraneous side-plots as w^ere requisite 
 to round out a five, six, or seven act play. Place ranged 
 freely through the continents of the old world. The Battle 
 
12 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OP 
 
 of Alcazar (ascribed to Peele) travels visibly from Eu- 
 rope to Africa and back again ; and Mario w's Tamerlane is 
 still more ambitiously locomotive, adding Asia also to 
 his territorial rambles : and time was stretched almost to 
 the crack of doom. The action of Lylie's Endymion, for 
 instance, extends through forty mortal years, half of 
 the term spent on the journey of Eumenides to Thessaly, 
 and the remainder on his return to Cynthia's Court. 
 The time of Doctor Faustus, the masterpiece of Mar- 
 low, is formally measured into four-and-twenty years, 
 the gaps and interstices of which remain open, uncon- 
 cealed, and unguarded; the whole course of incidents 
 forming the most inartificial, straightforward, and dis- 
 continuous series of adventures that can be imagined 
 as the offspring of Chaos. Their imitations of nature 
 resembled a Chinese landscape, all foreground. There 
 is no doubt but that Shakespeare must have known this 
 disorganized and disorderly congeries of undramatic 
 effects. Is it any wonder that he utterly rejected it? 
 
 The Grecian drama came next under our poet's 
 review. If he must be presumed not scholar enough to 
 read it in the original Greek,* yet he could not have 
 failed to be acquainted with its structure through the 
 medium of translations, however unskilfully made, or 
 
 * The critics should not be too sure of this. There is in my posses- 
 sion evidence of the most authentic kind, quite sufficient to satisfy me 
 that of one (or perhaps more) of the English Universities, as then ex- 
 isting, William Shakespeare was a student. Is not this an " astound- 
 ing discovery," which kept itself perdue from the critics until the 
 middle of the nineteenth century ? 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 13 
 
 through the excellent disquisition on its laws by Sir 
 Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesie, a work de- 
 servedly popular in its day. The captious rivalry, 
 moreover, of Ben Jonson, who piqued himself on his 
 complete mastery in the Greek school, would irresistibly 
 challenge our poet's attention to those boasted unities. 
 They form in themselves a very beautiful and artistic 
 code, too well and generally known to require descrip- 
 tion here ; but, in the articles of time and place, — at least 
 as interpreted to us by the critics, — far too arbitrary and 
 narrow for the full display of character, or for the na- 
 tural or even probable development of a great and noble 
 action in its just proportions; an inconvenience so op- 
 pressive to the genius of the poets, that they did not 
 scruple boldly to violate the law of place ; and of the 
 restrictions of time they disembarrassed themselves by 
 dividing the action of their subject into separate parts, 
 — three, or perhaps more, — and hence their system of 
 Trilogies, or three separate dramas, consisting of so 
 many different stages or periods of the main action, — all 
 successively exhibited at the same theatre and on the 
 same day. 
 
 It is not likely that, with all the regularity of this 
 code, and all the authority in its favour, an intellect 
 of such grasp and power as Shakespeare's would have 
 rested content with its trammels. That he knew it 
 well is plain from his frequent allusions to it, and 
 his apologies for the non-observance of its rules in 
 his performances; that he could practise it, had he 
 chosen, the Comedy of Errors and the Tempest afford 
 
14 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 conclusive proof. But that he purposely rejected it as 
 it stood, or modified it into something much better, 
 something more natural and more consonant with our 
 experience of the on-goings of actual life, is manifest 
 from the choruses interposed between the Acts of his 
 Henry the Fifth, in which he, at once, acknowledges the 
 necessity of a law, and lays down with more or less 
 precision the new code of unities upon which his own 
 drama was constructed. These choruses form a canon 
 of criticism, with which no person who desires to under- 
 stand the drama of Shakespeare should be unacquainted. 
 
 Let us now consider his code, and the manner in 
 which he has obeyed it throughout the whole range of his 
 dramatic works. 
 
 1. Unity of subject or fable is an essential quality 
 in any work of Art, in every department of the Arts. 
 Whether in a ballad or a history, whether in statuary or 
 architecture, in painting or music, unity of design is so 
 absolute a necessity, that its absence or infringement 
 mars the beauty and excellence of the production, what- 
 ever it may be. In this respect Shakespeare is perfectly 
 regular. Through all his pieces this unity of fable pre- 
 vails ; and wherever it appears to be infringed, it will be 
 found, on the slightest examination, that the several parts 
 constitute a whole of which each part is the sine qua non 
 of the rest. Thus the Merchant of Venice is supposed by 
 the critics to be constructed of two fables, very artfully 
 united, viz., the fortunes of Bassanio and Portia, and 
 the misfortunes of Antonio and Shy lock. But the fable 
 is absolutely one and the same. The borrowing of the 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 15 
 
 money on a bond is the sine qua non of the marriage 
 between Bassanio and the wealthy heiress; and this 
 marriage again, the sine qua non of Antonio's deliverance 
 from death and the confiscation of Shylock's property. 
 Even the elopement of Jessica with a Christian husband, 
 and laden with Jewish wealth, is a circumstance essen- 
 tial to the barbarity of Shylock's pursuit of vengeance. 
 There is in no one drama of Shakespeare an instance in 
 which the bonds of unity are less stringent than the 
 sine qua non condition. 
 
 11. The Unity of Place is a condition which the Greek 
 lawgivers themselves did not think worthy of a rigid 
 observance. Thus Euripides, in The Suppliants^ during 
 the transit of a single ode, marches an army from Athens 
 to Thebes, where the battle is fought, and whence the 
 general returns victorious; and in the Trachinians of 
 Sophocles, the voyage from Thessaly to Euboea is thrice 
 accomplished in the course of the piece. Nor was Terence 
 more straight-laced than his masters. The action of his 
 Heautontimorumenos commences in a city, migrates for 
 a space to the country, and thence it returns to town. 
 Place, or, rather, the distance between two places ^4^9^ 
 
 treated by Shakespeare simply as an element of time; that 
 is to say, the time necessarily occupied in measuring the 
 interval, whether on foot or by any sort of vehicle. 
 Time and pAace, in Shakespeare's system, are 
 
 " a just equinox^ 
 The one as long as the other." 
 
16 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 His distances, therefore, never exceed " twenty miles"* 
 by land, or the " narrow seas"| by water; and whenever 
 he wants the advantage of an indefinite idea of time and 
 distance, he systematically sends one party by sea and 
 another by land to the same place. Thus, in the Mer- 
 chant of Venice, Bassanio goes first from Venice to Bel- 
 mont by water, and Jessica and Lorenzo by land. In the 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, Valentine and Protheus travel 
 by sea from Verona to Milan, and Julia by land; the 
 poet's object being, first, to create an indefinite idea o£ 
 the distance between the two places, and next, to check 
 off the difference by means of the several modes of tra- 
 versing the interval in a given time. 
 
 And this is the invariable practice of Shakespeare. 
 
 It is, however, in his treatment of the unity of Time 
 as a dramatic element that Shakespeare has (I believe) 
 invented, but (most certainly) carried into execution, a 
 species of unity more true, natural, and comprehensive, 
 and not less artistic and symmetrical, than that of the 
 ancients, and which far surpasses in its illusive powers 
 " all Greek, all Roman art." The narrow limits which 
 Aristotle has graciously extended to a single revolution 
 
 * 1 know but of one exception, and that is where the Prince says : 
 " Go, Poins, to horse to, horse ; for thou and I 
 Have thirty miles to ride ere dinner time." 
 
 1 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 3. 
 f This expression, which was the ordinary name of the Straits 
 between Dover and Calais, invariably suggests to the English mind a 
 voyage which may be made in a couple of hours, with a favourable 
 wind, or even in less time, with such gales as the poet can supply at 
 will. 
 
Blackwood's magazine. . 17 
 
 of the sun, that is to say, to four-and- twenty hours, are 
 by far too cabined and confined, either for the complete 
 evolution of a noble and comprehensive action, or for the 
 full and satisfactory development of the human cha- 
 racter. With respect to the action, it must needs be 
 compassed within an arbitrary limit of from three to 
 four-and-twenty hours, partly visible to the spectator, — 
 a limit too short for any great transaction, — and partly 
 audible, through the dull, cold, and uninteresting nar- 
 rative of the Nuncius. With reference to character, we 
 can know but that brief phase of it which displays 
 itself in the sudden and short transit of a single day, 
 and in a single passion. It requires, in our actual ex- 
 perience of the world, weeks or months to become ac- 
 quainted with the whole man, his passions, and his 
 temperament, ere we can be probably assured that his 
 character and conduct upon any given occasion is in 
 harmony with what we know of him in his general, 
 ordinary, and habitual developments. In these respects 
 it must be acknowledged that Shakespeare's system has 
 infinitely the advantage of the Grecian. Of the Medea 
 of Euripides we know no more than the single phase in 
 which we behold her in the play called by her name. 
 With the Hamlet of Shakespeare we have, as it were, a 
 life-long acquaintance : we know, in the single trans- 
 action before us, the accordance ofhis present behaviour 
 with the tenor of his general conduct. 
 
 But how is this long acquaintance to be reconciled 
 with the confessedly brief period in which it has actu- 
 ally been acquired ? Dramatic time is a very different 
 
18 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 thing from natural time. While natural time has no limit 
 but that of experience, dramatic time has limits which 
 the dramatist cannot pass without merging into barba- 
 rity. But there is a natural law limiting the time of 
 the drama; and if we ask ourselves what is the drama, 
 the answer will help us to ascertain the natural limit, 
 and to distinguish it from the arbitrary. 
 
 The i)rama, then is the imitation, by gesture, and 
 IN dialogue, of an action which the spectator is 
 privileged to witness with unbroken (or sleepless) 
 
 attention, at a single sitting or " WATCH." 
 
 Its limit, therefore, as to time, corresponds with the 
 period, more or less extended, during which a spectator 
 may be supposed to be a sleepless witness of a transac- 
 tion sufficiently interesting and important to engage his 
 attention thoughout that watch. But, measured into days 
 or hours, what the length of that watch may be is a mat- 
 ter of some doubt. Shakespeare's own idea of a man's 
 capability of watchfulness may be collected from what 
 lago says of Cassio : 
 
 " And do but see his vice; 
 'Tis to his virtue a just equinox, 
 The one as long as the other ; . . . . 
 He'll watch the horologe a double set, 
 If drink rock not his cradle.' 
 
 Othello, Act II. Sc. 3 
 
 Four-and-twenty hours, say the commentators; but 
 as the Italian horologe numbers upon its dial-plate 
 twenty-four hours, a " double set" or round, i. e., forty- 
 eight hours, is the true time meant. *' I feel it unplea- 
 sant to appeal to my own experience; but, having no 
 
Blackwood's magazine. 19 
 
 other voucher at hand, lam constrained to do it."* On 
 many occasions I have involuntarily outwatched the 
 Florentine ; and, upon one occasion at least, by twelve 
 or fourteen hours. In my '' salad days" of undergra- 
 duatecy, Sir Walter Scott's enchanting novel of Wa- 
 verley fell into my hands; and being bound to return 
 the volumes very quickly, and being much occupied by 
 business during the day, I sat up during two successive 
 summer nights at its perusal ; nor did I feel any desire 
 or necessity for sleep, until the usual bed-time on the 
 third night; an interval of no unpleasant watchfulness 
 of six-and- fifty hours at the least, voluntarily endured. 
 I need not add that, so occupied, I scarcely knew how 
 time passed. Supposing then that every one could do 
 what Shakespeare has suggested, or I have done myself, 
 I would assume a natural limit to the watch, — say forty- 
 eight or fifty-six consecutive hours ; and I affirm that 
 within that period the action of the Shakespearian 
 drama is — almost universally — comprehended, and gene- 
 rally very much within that term. Now any other limi- 
 tation, such as three, six, twelve, or twenty- four hours, 
 is an arbitrary and unnatural law ; improbable, and 
 needless where the true law so obviously reveals itself; 
 and in this respect, I say, Shakespeare's law transcends 
 the law of the Greeks and Eomans, and altogether 
 eclipses the lights of the French school. 
 
 By this limitation, transactions which, according to 
 
 our experience in life, would naturally occupy weeks or 
 
 months, nay years, are dramatically drawn within the 
 
 compass of a few consecutive hours; just as the almost 
 
 * Cowpcr's Preface to his Translation of Homer. 
 
20 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OP 
 
 interminable views of the landscape are represented, in 
 all verisimilitude, on the uniform plane surface of a few- 
 feet of canvass. Indeed Shakespeare appears to have done 
 for time what the painter has done for space^ — thrown it 
 into PERSPECTIVE, and given to the remote and to the near 
 its proper and distinctive place, colouring, and charac- 
 ter, as each exists in the natural world. The one, upon the 
 upright, plane, and (except colouring) unvaried surface 
 of a small sheet of canvass, presents to the spectator's eye 
 a landscape embracing space from its nesirest foreground 
 through all the varieties of hill and valley until the 
 distances melt into the imperceptible line where the 
 green earth or the blue sea melts into the undistinguish- 
 able horizon ; the other, within the undisturbed loop- 
 hole of a single watch, gathers up the passages and events 
 of a transaction, from its remotest manifestations down 
 to its perfect and present consummation. The arts of 
 both are of a homogeneous nature, and may be at once 
 characterized and distinguished by the analogous names 
 
 of the PERSPECTIVE OF SPACE and THE PERSPECTIVE OF 
 
 TIME. The painter produces his effects by means of lights 
 and shades, by the force of his foreground colouring, 
 by atmospheric effects, and the gradual feebleness of 
 his back-ground or distant tints. The poet produces 
 his, by a series of dates skilfully graduated through 
 a course of events, from that which is actually vi- 
 sible and palpable to the eyes, to those transmitted 
 only to the ears, or suggested to the spectator's imagi- 
 nation, through a hundred different channels, until the 
 impression left upon his mind is an impression com- 
 posed of the visible and the audible, the natural and 
 
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 21 
 
 the dramatic, the real and the illusory. Shakespeare 
 knew at least as well as Horace that 
 
 " Segnius irritant aniinum demissa per auresy 
 Quam quae sxmtoculis suhjecta fidelihus.''^ 
 Upon this well-known principle he contrived what 
 one may term a chronometer consisting of a double series 
 of time or dates; the one illusory, suggestive, oxidi natu- 
 ral; the other artistical, visible, and dramatic; the first 
 of which may be called the protr active series, the 
 latter, the accelerating : and out of the impressions, 
 thus unequally created, he constructed a dramatic sys- 
 tem unknown to the world before his time, and un- 
 practised ever since. He was the first discoverer, and, 
 as far as my observation goes, the last practitioner of 
 an art which realizes in its full sense the canon of the 
 Roman critic — 
 
 " UT PICTURA POESIS/* 
 
 I do not conceive it to have been the poet's desire to 
 impress the spectator or the reader of his works with a 
 rigid belief in the extremes of either series of his dates ; 
 to insinuate that the accelerating gave the only true, or 
 the protractive the altogether false idea of the time 
 of his action. On the contrary, I maintain that, by 
 means of this double series of dates, — of his " two 
 clocks" (according to the happy illustration of Chris- 
 topher North), — he meant to produce an illusory effect 
 on the mind (such as people actually experience in the 
 theatre), disabling it from ascertaining the genuine du- 
 ration of the action, and only permitting it to form, out 
 of the elements of both series, such a dim, hazy, and 
 indistinct conception as may, nay must, arise from the 
 involution of measures of time so artfully intermingled. 
 
 c 
 
22 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF 
 
 The obvious intent of this illusory process is to lead 
 the imagination to conceive, that within the compass of 
 a narrow but uninterrupted watch, it may have wit- 
 nessed an entire transaction, more or less extended, from 
 beginning to end — the present and the past, through- 
 out all the intermediate gradations of old Father " Time 
 with his pentarchy of tenses;" in some such way as 
 the observer beholds in a painted landscape the whole 
 space enclosed within the visible horizon, with all its 
 hills and valleys, woods and rivers, from the foreground 
 close at hand, to the dim spire or the shadowy mountain, 
 distant many, many miles, although every point of the 
 plane, upright surface before us is equally distant from 
 the observer's eye. 
 
 " Time and the hour" does not permit me, under the 
 peculiar circumstances which call forth this letter, to 
 develope the various subtle and truly artistic devices by 
 which the poet carries into operation the complicate ma- 
 chinery of such a system. It must suffice for the present 
 to say, that I am ready at any time, when called upon, 
 or as due leisure shall be allowed me, to give to the 
 public what I hope will prove a satisfactory account of 
 them. Meanwhile, in illustration of what I have said, 
 I must submit to you an analysis of one of Shakespeare's 
 dramas, which, for the purpose of putting my friend 
 Dr. Anster in full possession of my views, I drew up, in 
 the form of a letter to him, early in the spring of the 
 present year, — in February, perhaps; but certainly not 
 later than April. I had not finished it, when indiffe- 
 rent health, and a pressure of business on my leisure, 
 interrupted my progress ; and it has lain in my desk, a 
 
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 23 
 
 fragment, until the 10th inst., when I first met the dis- 
 covery of Christopher North, in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 I now publish this fragment in the exact state in which 
 I left it : thinking it better to go before the public with 
 all my imperfections on my head, than to bring the 
 authenticity of my MS. into question by any alterations 
 or additions. Such, as I originally wrote it (the oc- 
 casional blottings and erasures which are incident to 
 first sketches always excepted), you have the following 
 
 TIME-ANALYSIS OF THE MEECHANT OF 
 VENICE. 
 
 ** You wish to have an outline of my theory respecting 
 Shakespeare's management of time as a dramatic element. 
 It would require an essay of greater length than I have 
 now leisure for, to put you in possession of the whole 
 subject; but probably an illustration of his system, by 
 the analysis of a drama, apparently the most irregular 
 in this respect, will enable you to trace the process for 
 yourself, and, if not satisfy — convince you, at least, that 
 there is something more than mere fancy at the root of 
 my conviction. 
 
 '* Of the Merchant of Venice the received opinion is, 
 that the time of the dramatic action, including the term 
 of the bond, extends to somewhat more than three 
 months. This I conceive to be an illusion contrived by 
 means of a double series of dates, one which protracts, 
 the other which accelerates the action ; and that, in 
 virtue of the latter, the dramatic time of the play is com- 
 prised within thirty-nine consecutive hours. 
 
 D 
 
24 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 " The transaction naturally divides itself into two 
 distinct periods^ — with the interval between them, 
 
 " 1. The first period ranges from the opening of the 
 action and the borrowing of Shylock's money, to the 
 embarkation of Bassanio and his suite for Belmont : 
 
 *' 2. The second includes the time between Bassanio's 
 arrival at Belmont and his return to it, accompanied by 
 Antonio, after the trial : 
 
 "3. And the intej^val between those two periods is con- 
 eurrent with the time of the bond, whatever that may be. 
 
 " Let us now examine each period of visible action by 
 the dates exactly laid down in the text ; and then fix 
 the interval by the same rule, 
 
 "ACCELERATING SERIES. 
 " I. The action then commences with Bassanio's soli- 
 citation of the loan of three thousand ducats, and Anto- 
 nio's direction to his friend to ' go presently inquire 
 where money is to be had' (Act I. Sc. 2). Bassanio goes 
 on his mission forthwith ; meets with Shylock, agrees 
 upon the terms, and invites him to dinner. The Jew 
 consents to lend the money, but declines to ' smell pork' 
 with the Christian, and he leaves the scene, directing the 
 borrower to ' meet him forthwith at the notary's ;' mean- 
 while he will 
 
 'go and purse the ducats straight ; 
 
 See to his house, left in the fearful guard 
 
 Of an unthrifty knave ; and presently 
 
 He will be with them [Bassanio and his friend].' 
 
 Act I. Sc. 2. 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 25 
 
 " As the invitation to dinner implies the time at which 
 this part of the transaction takes place ; and as the din- 
 ner hour in Shakespeare's day was twelve o'clock, the 
 time at which the action of the play commences is 
 clearly indicated at a little before noon on the first day, 
 say at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The first Act, 
 therefore, cannot occupy more than a single hour. 
 
 " The second Act, Sc. 2, shows us Bassanio, having 
 touched the ducats, making rapid preparations for his 
 journey, giving to Lorenzo directions to stow his pur- 
 chases orderly, and hasten his return : 
 
 * Return in haste, for I do feast to-night 
 My best-esteemed acquaintance : hie thee, go.* 
 
 " The supper hour, we also learn in the same scene, 
 is fixed ioT five o'cloch in the afternoon of the same day. 
 ' Let it be so hasted,' says Bassanio, ' that supper be 
 ready at the farthest hjfive of the clock.' At nine the 
 supper party breaks up, and Bassanio embarks for Bel- 
 mont. Thus, — 
 
 * Antonio. Fye, fye, Gratiano ! where are all the rest ? 
 
 the wind is come about ; 
 
 Bassanio presently will go aboard.' 
 
 Act II. So. 6. 
 
 And thus the time occupied by the transaction of the 
 first period is exactly limited to ten consecutive hours, 
 viz. : 
 
 d2 
 
26 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 HOURS. 
 
 From the opening of the action to dinner time, 1 
 From dinner time (12 o'clock) to supper (5 
 
 o'clock), 5 
 
 From supper (5 o'clock) to the embarkation 
 (9 o'clock), 4 
 
 First period, 10 
 
 '' II. The second period of action begins with Bassa- 
 nio's arrival at Belmont, and ends with his return to it, 
 in company with Antonio, after the trial. 
 
 " His arrival at Belmont is announced in the last scene 
 of the second Act, thus : 
 
 * Servant. Madam, there is alighted at your gate 
 
 A young Venetian, &c. 
 Nerissa. — Bassanio, lord love, if thy will it be !' 
 
 And with those words ends the second Act. 
 
 " The second scene of Act the Third presents Bassanio 
 to Portia (not indeed a new acquaintance, nor now for 
 the first time ; for she had met (see Act I. Sc. 2) at her 
 father's house, ' the Venetian, the scholar, and the 
 soldier that had come thither in company of the Marquis 
 of Montferrat, — whose name was Bassanio') ; but in 
 this scene Bassanio has his first interview, in the capa- 
 city of a suitor, with Portia; and the dialogue shows 
 there has been no delay between the announcement of 
 his arrival and his waiting upon the lady. She prays 
 him to pause, to tarry, — but he is too impatient to let 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 27 
 
 a moment interpose between his arrival and the decision 
 of his fortune : 
 
 * Portia. I pray you, tarry ; pause a day or two. 
 
 Before you hazard 
 
 Bassanio. Let me choose, 
 
 For, as I am, I live upon the rack. 
 .... let me to my fortune and the caskets :* 
 Act III. Sc. 2. 
 
 and, forthwith proceeding to his election, he wins the 
 inestimable prize. 
 
 " Scarcely, however, has he done so, than the melan- 
 choly tidings reach him of the bankruptcy and peril of 
 Antonio; and, under the directions of Portia, he 
 
 * First, goes with her to church, and calls her wife ;' 
 
 Ihid. 
 and forthwith 
 
 * Leaves her on her wedding day,* 
 
 Ibid, 
 
 under the positive engagement, however, that he will 
 not sleep till Ms return* 
 
 * Bassanio No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay ; 
 
 No rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.' 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 " Considering the very early hours which our forefa- 
 thers, from the highest rank to the lowest, were used 
 to keep in Shakespeare's time, it is not too early to 
 assign this scene and the departure of Bassanio for 
 Venice to about eight o'clock in the morning. 
 
 " Portia has made up her mind at once to follow him, 
 nay, even to be home again ' before her husband^ though 
 she knows how speedily he has bound himself to return. 
 
28 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 This resolve is put into execution (Act III. Sc. 4), after 
 she has made short preparation for her toilet, given the 
 charge of her household to Lorenzo, and despatched a 
 letter to the Doctor Bellario at Padua, with directions 
 to her messenger to meet her with the Doctor's answer 
 at the Tranect with all expedition. 
 
 * Portia waste no time in words, 
 
 But get thee gone ; I shall be there before thee.' 
 Act III. Sc. 2. 
 
 " This Tranect was the water- passage or ferry between 
 the islands on which Venice was built and the mainland 
 on which Belmont stood; and, therefore, was in the 
 direct line between her residence and the city to which 
 she was going. The distance between the two points 
 is clearly indicated by her speech to Nerissa, urging her 
 to speed : 
 
 ' But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device 
 When I am in my coach, which stays for us 
 At the park gate ; and therefore haste away, 
 For we must measure twenty miles to-day.* 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 " Interpreted by the meaning of Bassanio's vow to re- 
 turn without sleeping^ and Portia's resolution to be back 
 again at Belmont before him, these twenty miles must 
 include the whole day's journey which the lady had to 
 make: that is, ten miles to Venice, and ten more re- 
 turning. Venice, then, is but ten miles from Belmont, 
 and the distance might be easily traversed, with a pair 
 of horses to her coach, in a couple of hours. Taking, 
 then, eight o'clock, a. m., for the time of the casket 
 scene, and allotting four hours for the marriage cere- 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 29 
 
 mony, tlie preparations for the journey, and the journey 
 itself, Portia may have arrived at Venice by noon^ and 
 taken her place in court after the trial had been begun. 
 But a very short time elapses at the trial scene (only 
 the time of representation), when she again sets out on 
 her return to Belmont, without even waiting for dinner ; 
 thus : 
 
 * Duke. Sir, I entreat you with me home to dinner. 
 Portia. I humbly do desire your grace of pardon. 
 I must away this night toward Padua, 
 And it is meet I presently set forth.' 
 
 Act IV. So. 1. 
 
 *' Again, she refuses an invitation from Bassanio, with 
 ' that cannot be ;' and having made no delay further 
 than drawing up the deed which Shylock is to sign, and 
 transmitting it to him, she sets out homeward-bound. 
 
 ' Portia "We'll away to-night^ 
 
 And be a day before our husbands home.' 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 1. 
 
 " Bassanio delays some while longer. 
 
 . . . . ' In the morning early will we both 
 
 Flv toward Belmont,' 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 1, 
 
 quoth he to Antonio; and in the Fifth Act (which 
 consists but of a single scene), we find him arriving in 
 the garden there, some short time after his lady. 
 " The Fifth Act opens by moonlight. 
 
 ' Lorenzo. — How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank !* 
 ** A courier enters and announces that 
 
 * His mistress will before the break of day 
 Be here at Belmont.' 
 
30 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 " And she herself, having, to dally with the time, 
 
 * strayed about, 
 
 By holy crosses, where she knelt and prayed 
 For happy wedlock hours,' 
 
 shortly afterwards makes her appearance, while still the 
 lamplight in her hall is distinctly visible, — 
 
 (' The light we see is burning in my hall'), — 
 as she enters at a distance ; so that it is still but dusky 
 morn when she has finished her journey; and it is 
 
 (* Such as the day is when the sun is hid'), 
 when Bassanio, entering, fulfils his promise that be- 
 twixt his departure and return 
 
 ' No bed should e'er be guilty of his stay, 
 No rest be interposer 'twixt them twain.' 
 
 " Now, that the whole transaction took place in sum- 
 mer, is evident from finding the household of Portia 
 enjoying the beauties of the gardens of Belmont through- 
 out a moonlight night ; and considering the shortness of 
 the Italian summer night, and that it is yet but faint and 
 dusky dawn when the whole party re-assemble in the 
 garden, we cannot place the final close of the dramatic 
 action at a later hour than about two o'clock of the 
 anorning after the trial : that is to say, the second portion 
 of the visible action cannot have occupied more time 
 than between eight o'clock, a. m., of one day, and two 
 o'clock in the forenoon of the succeeding, that is to say, 
 eighteen consecutive hours. 
 
 '' Here, then, we have two distinct periods of time, 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 31 
 
 every hour of which is ascertained and plainly accounted 
 for ; the first beginning with the loan, and ending with 
 Bassanio's embarkation for Belmont ; the second com- 
 mencing with his arrival there, and terminating with 
 the close of the drama. In the interval, whatever that 
 be, comes the expiration of the bond. What is that 
 INTERVAL? The received opinion takes it to he three 
 montJis. Thus : 
 
 * SirrLOCK Three thousand ducats, — well ! 
 
 Bassajjio. — Aye, sir, for three monthsj' 
 
 Act L Sc. 3. 
 
 " It is my conviction, on the contrary, — a conviction 
 which lean justify to demonstration by the text, — that 
 the interval is really but a single night; that night, to 
 wit, which intervenes between Bassanio's embarkation 
 and his arrival at Belmont, — that night, in fact, which 
 elapses between Jessica's flight with Lorenzo and her 
 father's fresh and bitter objurgations on the following 
 morning ; and that, consequently, the received period of 
 the bond is an illusory period. Let us observe the pro- 
 gress of events. 
 
 " It was agreed upon that the fair fugitive and her lover 
 (Jessica and Lorenzo) should take parts in a mask to 
 be given at Bassanio's supper, and thence elope in the 
 same ship with him. The mask, however, is suddenly 
 put off by a favourable change of the wind, and Bassanio 
 embarks and sets sail without them. But though — 
 through some delay on their part — not on board his 
 vessel, the Jewess and her lover set out upon their 
 flight very shortly afterwards in a gondola. She is 
 
32 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 missed by her father immediately on his return from 
 Bassanio's supper ; his suspicions naturally fall upon 
 Bassanio, in whose friendship Lorenzo was known to 
 hold a high place; the hue and cry is raised, and the 
 following is a narrative of the events connected with 
 this episode: 
 
 ' Salarino. Why man, I saw Bassanio under sail ; 
 
 With him is Gratiano gone along ; 
 
 And in their ship, / am sure, Lorenzo is not. 
 Salanio. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke ; 
 
 Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship. 
 Salarino. He came too late, the ship was under sail : 
 
 But there the duke was given to understand, 
 
 That in a gondola were seen together 
 
 Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica. 
 
 Besides, Antonio certified the duke, 
 
 They were not with Bassanio in his ship.* 
 
 Act II. Sc. 8. 
 
 "The fact, not very important in itself, is thus strongly 
 impressed upon the mind of the audience, in order to 
 fix with precision the time and manner of Jessica's 
 elopement, and to show that it took place on the same 
 night, and almost at the same moment, as Bassanio's 
 embarkation, viz., at nine o'clock in the evening of the 
 first day's action. 
 
 '' Thus, in the eighth scene of the second Act we find 
 Shylock in his first agonies of rage at his daughter's 
 flight, ' so strange, outrageous, and so variable,' that 
 
 * All the boys in Venice follow him, 
 Crying, — his stones, his daughter, and his ducats :* 
 
 and, in the first scene of the ensuing Act we find him 
 in the same continued and unabated state of excitement 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 33 
 
 and frenzy, charging Salarino and Salanio with being 
 accessaries and accomplices to the flight and robbery. 
 ' You knew,' says he, addressing those gentlemen, 'you 
 knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daugh- 
 ter's flight:' and their provoking and sarcastic answer 
 is : ' That's certain ; I, for my part, know the tailor 
 that made the wings she flew withal.' They then 
 continue to banter him and aggravate his temper, and, 
 as this is obviously a continuation of Shylock's first in- 
 temperate rage, and the first interview, since the elope- 
 ment, between him and his comfortable neighbours, 
 whom (suspecting their knowledge of the facts) he 
 would naturally soon seek out to obtain information, it 
 cannot, by any stretch of fancy, be supposed to have 
 taken place later than the^r^^ day (or rather morning) 
 after the event, with the interval only of the intervening 
 night. This scene then, be it remembered, is the first 
 in the third Act ; and we have seen at the close of the 
 preceding Act (11. 9), that Bassanio had in the meanwhile 
 arrived at Belmont. Thus the incident of Jessica's 
 elopement overlaps at both ends the coincident journey 
 of Bassanio ; and whilst it proves that the time occupied 
 by both is as nearly as possible the same (Jessica and 
 Lorenzo arriving at Belmont during Bassanio's first in- 
 terview with Portia), demonstrates that time to have 
 been nothing longer than the single night which in- 
 tervenes between Shylock's immediate search for his 
 daughter, and his unabated fury and resentment on the 
 following morning. Measuring then this incident in 
 hours, from nine o'clock p. m. of the first day's action^ 
 
34 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 to eight o'clock A. M. of the second day, during which 
 the bond expires, or becomes forfeit, the interval is 
 eleven hours. 
 
 " This view is confirmed by another consideration: 
 the ascertained distance between Belmont and Venice. 
 
 "We have already seen that the distance between the 
 two points is but ten miles. What then was Bassanio 
 about for the three months supposed to have elapsed be- 
 tween the signing of the bond and its forfeiture? Was 
 he cruising about the Gulf of Venice? — or did his pas- 
 sage of the Tranect ocQM^y all that time? Lorenzo and 
 Jessica, who left Venice by a gondola about the same 
 time that he did, arrived by land from thence nearly as 
 soon as himself; and Salerio, who must have left Venice 
 on the day after them^ performs the same feat. Did they, 
 likewise, spend three months upon the journey which 
 Portia could traverse in her coach twice within twenty 
 hours? In short, did Bassanio waste ninety-one days 
 upon a voyage by sea, when he might, as he subsequently . 
 did in company with Antonio, have reached his des- 
 tination in a couple of hours?* Certainly not. There 
 is, therefore, some strong illusion as to the period of the 
 
 (a) '* ' A couple of hours.' Thus Bassanio, after the trial, proceed- 
 ing towards Antonio's house, he says to him : 
 
 * In the morning early will we both 
 
 riy toward Belmont.' 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 1 (at the end). 
 
 " The ' earliest in the morning' at which they could have departed 
 would be after twelve o'clock at night. But we find them both ar- 
 riving at Portia's dwelling in the dusk of a summer's dawning, say 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 35 
 
 bond ; and, if we observe the proofs, we must admit the 
 contrivance to be profoundly artistical. 
 
 "PROTRACTIVE SERIES. 
 
 " The bond upon which ostensibly the money is lent is 
 a bond for ' three thousand ducats at three months ;' that 
 upon which it is really advanced is a bond substituted 
 for the former, through the affected good nature and 
 kindliness of Shy lock. The first was, of course, the ordi- 
 nary mercantile bond of the country, bearing the usual 
 interest, payable at a certain specified date, and, doubt- 
 less, subject to the usual penalty of double the amount 
 on forfeiture. Of the second we know little or nothing 
 beyond the penalty on forfeiture — ' a pound of flesh,' 
 &c. It is ' a merry bond,' drawn, signed, and sealed in 
 ' a merry sport.' It bears no interest, indeed, but we 
 are left in ignorance of the sum really advanced, or of 
 the time and place when and where it should become 
 payable. The Jew's own description of the instrument 
 is in the following very ambiguous terms: 
 
 * Go with me to a notary : seal me there 
 Your single bond ; and, in a merry sport, 
 If you repay me not on such a day^ 
 
 at two o'clock, A. M. * This night,' says Portia, just as the friends 
 are about to enter, — 
 
 * This night, methinks, is but the day-light sick ; 
 It looks a little paler ; 'tis a day 
 Such as the day is when the sun is hid.' 
 
 Act V. Sc. 1. 
 
36 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 In such a place^ such sum^ or sums, as are 
 
 Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit 
 
 Be nominated for an equal pound 
 
 Of your fair flesh,' &c 
 
 Act I. Sc. 3. 
 
 " To luretlie merchant more effectually into his snare, 
 the Jew represents this proffer as an act of disinterested 
 kindliness : 
 
 * I would be friends with you, and have your love ; 
 
 Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with ; 
 
 Supply your present wants, and take no doit 
 
 Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me : 
 
 This is kind I offer.' 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 And further, to disarm them of all suspicion, he sneers 
 at the absurdity of their supposing that, in any case, he 
 would think of exacting the forfeiture. ' Pray you,' 
 quoth he, 
 
 * Pray you, tell me this ; 
 
 If he should break his day, what should I gain 
 
 By the exaction of the forfeiture ? 
 
 A pound of man's flesh, taken from a man, 
 
 Is not so estimable, profitable neither, 
 
 As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say, 
 
 To buy his favour I extend this friendship ; 
 
 If he will take it, so ; if not, adieu ; 
 
 And, for my love, I pray you, wrong me not.' 
 
 Ibid. 
 " A penalty like this was not, with due time for pre- 
 paration, likely to be incurred ; still less, under such pro- 
 fessions, to be enforced. The terms are agreed to, and 
 Shylock proceeds alone to give the notary ' directions 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 37 
 
 for this merry bond.' Antonio, in his reliance on the 
 Jew's reasoning and assurances, signs and seals the in- 
 strument, perhaps without examination ; and the deed 
 being legally drawn up, and the penalty not unprece- 
 dented, he must abide the consequences of his own rash 
 act.* 
 
 " Correct, however, in its technical forms, as this 
 ' merry bond' may have been, we yet know that in some 
 respect it was fraudulent in its substance ; for, at the 
 trial, Shylock is charged with having 
 
 * Indirectly and directly too 
 Contriv^ed against the very life 
 Of the defendant/ 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 1. 
 
 'DeVeciZy,' by proceeding with knife, scales, and weights, 
 to exact the fatal forfeiture; and ' indirectly^'' no doubt 
 by ^oiaiQ, fraudulent contrivance in the deed. What could 
 this fraud have been ? Comparing the date of the ex- 
 ecution of the bond with the date of its expiring, we 
 are led to the irresistible conclusion, that the fraud lay 
 either in the omission of any date or period at all, or the 
 substitution of a false one ; and, in the latter case, we 
 must suppose it was payable, according to a very usual 
 practice among merchants, at sights or on demand. This 
 
 * " He has been warned of the danger ; but persists. 
 * Bassanio. You shall not seal to such a bond for me, 
 Ajctonio. Why, fear not, man ; I will not forfeit it.' 
 
 " And again : 
 
 ' Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.' 
 
 Act I. Sc. 3." 
 
38 TIME ANALYSIS OP 
 
 view entirely reconciles the apparent discrepancy be- 
 tween the actual time of Bassanio's journey to Belmont, 
 and the time of the bond's arrival at maturity ; and 
 Shakespeare has taken care to account for the relentless 
 rapidity with which Shylock takes savage advantage 
 of his fraud. For no other purpose does he introduce 
 the otherwise extraneous episode of Jessica's elopement 
 with Lorenzo, in company, as it was thought, with An- 
 tonio's friend, and laden with her father's diamonds 
 and ducats, than to exasperate the Jew's hatred of the 
 Christian merchant, and to precipitate his revenge. 
 Whilst yet raging for his daughter's flight, he has heard 
 of Antonio's (supposed) ' loss by sea ;' he hears, also, 
 from Tubal, of ' divers of Antonio's creditors coming 
 to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break ;' and 
 knowing, by the recent transaction between them, that 
 the merchant had neither ' money nor commodity to 
 raise a present sum,' he rushes forthwith to demand 
 payment, exclaiming, as he goes, ' I will have the heart 
 of him if he forfeit.' Antonio is unprepared for such 
 a sudden and unexpected demand. The bond is dis- 
 honoured ; the penalty is incurred. The Jew proceeds 
 to his revenge ; and for this characteristic trait we are 
 prepared by the foreboding words of Antonio : 
 ' If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not 
 
 As to thy friends ; (for when did friendship take 
 
 A breed of barren metal of his friend ?) 
 
 But lend it rather to thine enemy ; 
 
 Who, if he break, thou may*st with better face^ 
 
 Exact the penalties.'' 
 
 Act I. Sc. 3. 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 39 
 
 " Now, it is to be observed that Shy lock had lent the 
 money 'as to o, friend;"* but the real or affected exaspe- 
 ration of his daughter's elopement enables him to ' exact 
 the penalty with better face,' and he loses not a moment 
 to resume his enmity. 
 
 " On no other grounds, indeed, can the bankruptcy — 
 if such it must be called — of Antonio, be reconciled with 
 the fact of his absolute solvency. He was as wealthy 
 at the time of his forfeiture and trial as he was either 
 when he contracted the debt, or as afterwards, when he 
 learns at Belmont that his 
 
 Are richly come to harbour suddenly^ 
 
 Act V. So. 1, 
 
 that is, before they were expected. And yet, supposing, as he 
 did at first, that the bond had three months to run, they 
 were expected ' within two months,' or, as he adds, — 
 
 'a month before 
 
 This bond expires^ I do expect return 
 
 Of thrice three times the value of this bond.' 
 
 Act I. Sc. 3. 
 
 " The argosies, then, did arrive, laden with treasure, 
 a very long time, indeed, before a bond for three months 
 could have run its course ; how, then, could Antonio 
 have forfeited the penalty if the actual bond had the 
 supposed time to run out ? No: the fact is, Antonio 
 was never really a bankrupt at all. He was, indeed, at 
 the opening of the action, in want of ready money, just 
 as he was when the payment of the bond was rigidly 
 exacted on demand y or at sight; but on both occasions 
 
 E 
 
40 TIME ANALYSIS OP 
 
 he had credit to any amount he might require. Shy- 
 lock did not scruple to advance him three thousand 
 ducats on his single security ; and ere his trial he had at 
 his command 
 
 'six thousand ducats to deface the bond ; 
 
 Double six thousand, and then treble that.' 
 
 Act III. So. 2. 
 
 " How then is it possible that a bond whose expira- 
 tion must have been so long foreseen as the suppositious 
 one at three months, and enforced by such a rigorous 
 penalty, could have been suffered to expire by a man 
 having such resources, such securities, such credit, and 
 such friends, as Antonio had? Nothing but surprise, 
 sudden, unexpected, and rigorously taken advantage of, 
 could have reduced him to a state of forfeiture ; and 
 nothing could have reduced him to such a surprise, ex- 
 cept the fact that the bond to which he had set his seal 
 was unconditionally payable on demand or at sight. Shy- 
 lock knew this well ; he knew, from the transaction of 
 the previous day, Antonio's want of ' money or com- 
 modity to raise a present sum ;' and, payment not being 
 forthcoming on the instant, he seized with rapacity the 
 advantage w^hich the law allowed him, and insisted on 
 the penalty. This is the plain account of the matter. 
 It reconciles the apparent with the real time of the 
 drama ; and it shall be presently made to appear why 
 the poet resorted to this artifice for ostensibly protract- 
 ing the duration of the action. 
 
 " The interval during which the bond expires being thus 
 limited to the corresponding interval between Bassanio^s 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 41 
 
 embarkation and his arrival at Belmont^ namely, from 
 nine o'clock in the afternoon of the first day, and eight 
 o'clock in the forenoon of the following, we ascertain 
 with precision the whole duration of the dramatic time of 
 the action. Thus: 
 
 HOURS. 
 
 For the first period, 10 
 
 For the second period, 18 
 
 For the interval between both, . . 11 
 
 Total duration, 39 
 
 *' It is not to be denied, however, that many scenes, 
 incidents, and habitudes^ in the progress of the play, 
 suggest to the imagination of the spectator a greater ex- 
 tension of time than that which is really displayed to 
 his senses. But these apparent retardations of the action 
 are merely illusory, and are effected by contrivances 
 which, on being examined, are found to be purely arti- 
 ficial, and perfectly reconcileable with that series of dates 
 which give the true and visible time of the dramatic 
 action. Amongst the more remarkable of those pro- 
 tractive contrivances is the suppositious period through 
 which the bond has to run. We forget that there are 
 two bonds spoken of, and that the one is surreptitiously 
 substituted for the other; one bearing date at three 
 months, — * three thousand ducats for three months,' — 
 a phrase iterated and re-iterated until it has taken en- 
 tire possession of the imagination ; and another to which 
 no date whatever is assigned, beyond the vague sugges- 
 tion of ' such a day.' The substitution of one for the other 
 E 2 
 
42 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 takes place in ' a merry sport,' which niakes the chief 
 party concerned, and consequently the spectators, indif- 
 ferent and inattentive to this part of the transaction ; 
 and we hear no more of either bond until the forfeiture. 
 It is plain that in this case the poet — for his purpose — 
 has taken advantage of the first impression on the mind 
 of the spectator; and that the spectator, unconscious of 
 the trick, remains under the delusion, until his reason 
 compels him to reconcile the apparent discrepancy be- 
 tween the suppositious period of the bond and its actual 
 expiration. 
 
 " Another of those pro tractive expedients occurs in 
 the several scenes at Belmont, interposed between parts of 
 the main action previous to Bassanio's successful venture 
 on the caskets. To those scenes there are two considera- 
 tions which give an air of considerable lapses of time, 
 viz. : first, the vague idea of the distance between Bel- 
 mont and Venice, suggested by the necessity of a sea 
 voyage, ere yet we have learned the real distance be- 
 tween the places, and from this we catch the notion of 
 a corresponding remoteness in time ; and secondly, the 
 number of suitors whom Portia has to be freed from, ere 
 the good fortune of Bassanio can come to its trial. But 
 those difficulties vanish on examination, and it becomes 
 evident that those scenes occupy no more time than the 
 intervals between the parts of the main action carried 
 on by Bassanio and his friends. As soon, for instance, 
 as we know that Belmont is but ten miles distant from 
 Venice, the imaginary remoteness of time as well as 
 place vanishes ; we can easily discern how the second 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 43 
 
 scene of the first Act, — that between Portia and Nerissa, 
 discussing the merits of the several suitors, — occupies 
 the interval only between the first and the third scene 
 of the same Act, namely, the time employed by Bassanio 
 in discovering a money-lender. Then for the disposal 
 of Portia's suitors. It is true she has many to be freed 
 from. There is the Neapolitan Prince ; the County Pa- 
 latine ; the French Lord, Mons. Le Bon ; Faulconbridge, 
 the young Baron of England; the Scottish Lord, his 
 neighbour ; the young German, the Duke of Saxony's 
 brother; the Prince of Morocco; and the Prince of Ar- 
 ragon. But ' they come like shadows, so depart ;' ' while 
 we shut the gate upon one wooer,' says Portia, ' another 
 knocks at the door.' (Act L Sc. 2). Unwilling to risk 
 the conditions, six of them have already determined to 
 ' return to their homes, and to trouble the lady no 
 more with their suit.' (Ibid.) Of the two who remain 
 to try their fortune, the Prince of Morocco, who arrives 
 at Belmont some hours before Bassanio leaves Venice, 
 on the first day of the action, makes no longer delay 
 than to dine with the lady, repair to the temple to be 
 sworn to the conditions, to make an unhappy choice 
 among the caskets, and be forthwith despatched : 
 
 * Cold, indeed ; and labour lost : 
 
 Then, farewell heat ; and welcome frost. 
 
 Portia, adieu ! I have too grieved a heart 
 
 To take a tedious leave.' 
 
 Act II. Sc. 7. 
 
 "And finally, the Prince of Arragon's dismissal takes 
 place in Act IL Sc. 9, and at some hour between the em- 
 
44 
 
 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 barkation of Bassanio at Venice and his arrival at Bel- 
 mont, apparently a short time only before the latter 
 event. The whole adventure is rapidly transacted : 
 * Nerissa. Quick^ quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight ; 
 The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath, 
 And comes to his election presently. 
 {Enter Arragon, his train ; Portia, vnth her^s, ^c.)* 
 
 " He proceeds forthwith to ' unlock his fortunes,' loses 
 the prize, and bids adieu ; and ere Portia has left the 
 scene the arrival of Bassanio is announced. It is cer- 
 tain, therefore, that, whatever air of protraction the bus- 
 tle and variety of those scenes may give, they all, in rea- 
 lity, take place in the corresponding intervals between 
 parts of the main action, without in the slightest degree 
 really retarding its progress. 
 
 " Another of those delusive expedients will be found 
 in the scene (Act III. Sc. 1) between Shylock and Tubal. 
 If we take this scene au pied de la lettre, we shall ima- 
 gine that Tubal has been to Genoa and back again, be- 
 tween the elopement of Jessica and this interview with 
 her father. 
 
 ' Shylock. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa ? hast thou 
 
 found my daughter? 
 Tubal. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.' 
 
 It is plain, from this equivocal answer, and the various 
 reports which follow, that, with the malice ascribed to 
 him and all his race in this play,* Tubal is through- 
 
 * " See in the preceding speech of Salarino : * {Enter Tubal). 
 Here comes another of the tribe ; a third cannot be matched, unless the 
 devil himself turn Jew.' *' 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 45 
 
 out playing on the irritated feelings and passions of 
 his countryman. He has been in Genoa, indeed, and is 
 just returned from it; but it does not appear that he 
 went thither in quest of Shy lock's daughter. Nor does 
 Shylock's address to him, however artfully worded, 
 necessarily imply any such purpose. It consists of two 
 distinct questions ; the first touching his mission to Ge- 
 noa, which was probably mercantile, — ' What news 
 from Genoa?' — the second touching that which was 
 uppermost in the speaker's mind, the flight of his daugh- 
 ter with his ducats, — ' Hast thou found my daugh- 
 ter;' as much as to say, 'Perhaps you don't come to 
 speak to me, in my present troubles, about business ; 
 but you may have heard something of my daughter, and 
 are come to impart it.' Tubal's answer is indirect : he 
 says nothing of Genoa, but admits that he had often 
 came where he heard of Jessica {perhaps in Venice since 
 his return), but without being able to find her ; and he 
 continues, throughout the succeeding dialogue, to rub 
 and irritate the twofold passion under which the mind 
 oi his friend was labouring; now tickling him with the 
 misfortunes of Antonio, and now goading him with the 
 extravagance of his daughter. In pursuance of this 
 good-natured project, he designedly confounds the two 
 topics of Shylock's inquiry; and, when pressed upon one 
 point, dexterously rides off upon the other. Thus, in 
 the following masterly passage, when Shylock, dwelling 
 upon his daughter's ill-conduct, complains that ' there 
 is no ill luck stirring, but what lights on his shoulders ; 
 
46 TIME ANALYSTS OF 
 
 no sighs, but of his breathing; no tears, but of his 
 shedding,' Tubal observes: 
 
 'Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa, — 
 Shylock. What, what, what ? ill luck, ill luck ? 
 TuBALj-^hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis. 
 Shylock. I thank God, T thank God : — Is it true ? is it true ? 
 Tubal. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. 
 Shylock. I thank thee, good Tubal : good news, good news : ha ! ha ! 
 
 — Where? in Genoa ? 
 Tubal. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore 
 
 ducats ! 
 Shylock. Thou stick'st a dagger in me : — I shall never see my gold 
 
 again : Fourscore ducats at a sitting ! fourscore ducats ! 
 Tubal. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to 
 
 Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. 
 Shylock. I'm glad of it ; I'll plague.him ; I'll torture him : I'm glad 
 
 of it. 
 Tubal. One of them showed me a ring, that he had of your daughter 
 
 for a monkey. 
 Shylock. Out upon her ! Thou torturest me, Tubal : it was my 
 
 turquoise ; 
 
 Tubal. But Antonio is certainly undone. 
 
 Shylock. Nay, that's true, that's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an 
 
 officer, bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of 
 
 him, ' 
 
 " From all this we perceive, as clearly as we see the 
 malice and revengefulness of Shylock, the extreme ma- 
 liciousness and cruelty of Tubal's disposition, and may 
 fairly infer that, to indulge his humour at his friend's 
 expense, he would not scruple to strain a point. He 
 is a manifest liar. He reports the loss of one of An- 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 47 
 
 tonio's argosies, and confirms his statement by averring 
 that he had it from ' some sailors that escaped the 
 wreck.' Good evidence this, and out of the mouths of 
 many witnesses. But we know (at the last) that Antonio 
 has sustained no loss at all, — no wreck, — and that Tu- 
 bal's story is a falsehood invented for the nonce. ' Sweet 
 lady,' quoth Antonio to Portia, — 
 
 * Sweet lady, you have given me life, and living ; 
 
 For here I read for certain, that my ships 
 
 Are safely come to road.* 
 
 Act V. Sc. last. 
 
 " Again, if by his speech, as given in all the editions, 
 Tubal means to say that Jessica had ' spent in Genoa, 
 as he heard, one night, fourscore ducats,' we know also 
 that he must be a liar ; for Jessica was not at Genoa at 
 all. In fact she had not reached many miles from Ve- 
 nice, when, between that city and Belmont, she and her 
 lover were overtaken by Salerio, who was hastening to 
 acquaint Bassanio with the news of Antonio's misfor- 
 tunes, and persuaded to accompany him thither ; thus : 
 
 * Lorenzo For my part, my lord, 
 
 My purpose was not to have seen you here ; 
 But meeting with Salerio by the way, 
 He did entreat me, past all saying nay, 
 To come with him along. 
 Salerio. I did, my Lord, 
 
 And I have reason for it.' 
 
 " The fugitives, therefore, had not been to Genoa, and 
 consequently they were either foully belied by Tubal ; 
 
48 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 or his speech — which I rather suspect to be the case — 
 is very grossly misprinted. 
 
 " This speech is given as quoted above, in all the edi- 
 tions. A slight change, however, — not in the words nor 
 even in the letters, but merely in the pointing, — would 
 restore it to consistency with the real state of the facts, 
 without at all abating of its malice. He has been just 
 telling of what he heard in Genoa : 
 
 ' Tubal.. Antonio, — as I heard in Genoa, — hath an argosy cast away. 
 
 I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. 
 Shylock. I thank thee, good Tubal : good news, good news : ha ! 
 
 ha ! — where ? — in Genoa V 
 
 That is to say, ' Where did you hear this good news ? — 
 was it in Genoa ?' Tubal, however, is too intent on his 
 malicious purpose to give a direct reply, but, bursting 
 into a scandalous tale of his friend's daughter, interpo- 
 lates, by parenthesis, his answer to the Jew's question. 
 The passage should probably be printed thus : 
 
 * Shylock where ? — in Genoa ? 
 
 Tubal. Your daughter spent — (in Genoa), — as I heard, one night, 
 fourscore ducats.' 
 
 Such interruptions and suspensions in the midst of a 
 sentence, — in order to answer, ere one forgets, or is led 
 away from the subject, — a question — are not unusual in 
 conversation ; the dialogue of Ben Jonson abounds with 
 them, nor is that of Shakespeare destitute of examples. 
 They are very natural, and, if not distinctly marked by 
 the due inflection of the voice, may mislead the hearers : 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 49 
 
 still more likely would they be, if not with equal dis- 
 tinctness marked in the manuscript, to mislead the 
 printers. I think this must have been the case in this 
 instance, otherwise the anxious inquiry of the Jew re- 
 specting the whereabouts of Tubal's well-attested nar- 
 rative will remain without an answer, and his statement 
 must be taken as a wilful untruth. There is nothing, 
 therefore, in this scene which necessarily impedes the 
 more rapid action which we have already traced ; for I 
 suppose that the greedy burst of malice with which Shy- 
 loch instructs Tubal to ' bespeak him an officer 2i fort- 
 night before,' will suggest nothing more than the ex- 
 treme impatience of the cruel creditor to glut his re- 
 vengeful animosity with the utmost certainty and with 
 the shortest delay. 
 
 " Another suspension of time seems to be suggested 
 by a short speech of Jessica's, immediately after her ar- 
 rival at Belmont, and while the party there are discuss- 
 ing the intelligence of Antonio's forfeiture. Salerio 
 observes of Shylock, that 
 
 * none can drive him from the envious plea 
 
 Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.' 
 
 Act III. Sc. 2. 
 And Jessica subjoins: 
 
 * When I was with him, I have heard him swear 
 
 To Tubal, and to Chus, his countrymen, 
 
 That he would rather have Antonio's flesh 
 
 Than twenty times the value of the sum 
 
 That he did owe him.' 
 
 Ihid, 
 
 This language at first sight seems to apply that Shy- 
 
50 TIME ANALYSIS OF 
 
 lock was in the habit of expressing himself thus to his 
 family and friends at home ; and doubtless so he was. We 
 know of his long-standing enmity against Antonio ; but 
 we must beware of thinking that those expressions had 
 immediate reference to the transaction going on be- 
 tween them. That Jessica was speaking of her father's 
 hahit is clear from this, that since the day on which the 
 bond was contracted she has never been at home, never 
 been with him, so as to overhear any of his conversation 
 with his countrymen on the subject. In fact she has 
 had but a single interview with him between the seal- 
 ing of the bond and her own elopement; and, having 
 ourselves been ear and eye witnesses to that interview, 
 we know that no such conversation took place between 
 her father and his countrymen on that occasion. We 
 must, therefore, understand her as speaking of conver- 
 sations and transactions />rzor^o thehond, and her speech 
 to be nothing more than evidence of the general and 
 habitual hatred of the Christian merchant which her 
 father was wont to express, ^ while she was with him,'* 
 i. e. before she eloped or the bond existed. Nor is her 
 expression of ' twenty times the sum,' &c., to be taken 
 for more than a common mode of indicating an inde- 
 finite amount. The whole passage, therefore, presents 
 no obstacle to the rapid current of action whose real 
 progress we have already ascertained. 
 
 " There remains but one more note of retardation to 
 be considered, and it is easily disposed of. Shortly after 
 his arrest, Antonio, weighed down with his calamities, 
 observes : 
 
THE MERCHANT OP VENICE. 51 
 
 * These griefs and losses have so 'bated me, 
 That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh 
 To-morrow to my bloody creditor.' 
 
 Act III. Sc. 2. 
 
 " By this expression it would, at first sight, appear 
 that the forfeiture, the arrest, the trial, and the execu- 
 tion of sentence, did not, or were not intended to 
 succeed in such rapid succession as we have already 
 assigned. But this is the miscalculation of the mer- 
 chant, not of the poet. Antonio may have expected 
 that he would not have been brought to trial until ' to- 
 morrow ;' or he may have hoped that the execution would 
 have been held over till the ' morrow :' and the passage 
 shows nothing more than the natural tenacity with 
 which a man clings to the slenderest hope of a pro- 
 longed existence. 
 
 " It is not to be doubted, however, that, for reasons to 
 be now developed, it was the poet's intention that those 
 procrastinating scenes and sentences should give to his 
 action the appearance of occupying a longer extension 
 of time than that in which it is dramatically transacted. 
 He knew that the drama, being an imitation, a simili- 
 tude of nature, is not nature itself, but a copy, whose 
 excellence depends on the amount of illusion with which 
 the poet can invest it. He knew, therefore, that dra- 
 matic time is not natural time ; that the former consists 
 not of the arbitrary segment assigned it by the laws of 
 the Greek or the French schools, — whether that be co- 
 equal with the performance on the stage, or with a 
 
52 CONCLUSION. 
 
 period of twelve hours, or with a single revolution of 
 the sun, — but of that period during which the spectator 
 may be supposed capable of watching, without any in- 
 terruption, or interval of sleep, the progress of an ac- 
 tion sufficiently interesting to keep his attention alive 
 and fixed." ********* 
 
 ****** 
 
 I believe I need not, and I know I cannot at the pre- 
 sent, add anything to what I have already said. Upon 
 such a system as I have now set forth, I assert all, with 
 certain specified exceptions, the genuine tragedies and 
 comedies of Shakespeare to have been written, and that 
 the laws herein propounded are, in a great degree, if not 
 invariably, applicable to even his historical plays. I as- 
 sert also my belief that by these laws the genuineness 
 of all the plays ascribed to him may be tested, and 
 proved or disproved, according as this system pervades 
 their structure or otherwise. 
 
 If such a method were to be found in this, or in ano- 
 ther instance only, it might be considered the result of 
 an unconsidered and hap-hazardous style of composi- 
 tion. But if we find it to be the prevailing, invariable, 
 and, as it were, constitutional habit of a long series of 
 works (thirty at least in number) more or less dis- 
 tinctly characterized by it, and issuing from the same 
 intellectual mint, we are reduced to the moral necessity 
 of receiving it as the result of a regulated system — of an 
 established law, I have in private traced its operations 
 
CONCLUSION. 53 
 
 throughout the greater portion of Shakespeare's dra- 
 matic works ; and I pledge myself, if health and time 
 be spared me, to carry my investigations quite through, 
 and to be ready, should the public require it, to com- 
 municate to the world the results of my investigations 
 through the Press. 
 
 The exceptions spoken of are what may be properly 
 called his Chorus Plays, which, constructed upon a 
 different principle, common to him with several drama- 
 tic poets of his time, such as Hey wood. Chapman, Jon- 
 son, &c., do not come within his methods, and yet are not 
 exempt from traces of them. 
 
 And now, Sir, permit me, in concluding this hasty 
 communication, to assure you of the high respect with 
 which I have ever regarded the Magazine which you 
 conduct, and the undiminished admiration in which I 
 hold the talents of the venerable Christopher North, or 
 the person for whomsoever that sobriquet stat nominis 
 urribra. And, expecting nothing but candour and fair 
 play at your hands, 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 Most respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 Nicholas John Halpin. 
 
 1 4, Seville-place^ Dublin. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 (A.) 
 
 " Dublin, November 12, 1849. 
 
 *' The Rev. N. J. Hal pin procured a copy of Blackwood's Magazine 
 for the present November (409th Number), on the 10th inst. ; and I 
 have every reason to believe that he then met with the account of 
 Christopher North's discover)' of the Shakespeare Unities for the first 
 time. On the following day he put into my hands for immediate pub- 
 lication the manuscript entitled " The Time Analysis of the Merchant 
 of Venice," with directions that it should be printed without addition 
 to, or alteration of, the original fragment. 
 
 " George Smith." 
 
 (B.) 
 
 " Dublin, 5, Lower Gloucester-street, 
 " November 17, 1849. 
 
 "My dear Halpin. — I perfectly remember your having, some 
 ten or twelve years ago, and frequently in the interval, mentioned to 
 me what you conceived to be the law by which Time is regulated in 
 the Shakespearian drama, and which law, you told me, was so strictly 
 observed by Shakespeare, and by him alone of the dramatists of his 
 age, that to your mind, you said, it would be a test to determine, in 
 any disputed case, whether a play was rightly ascribed to him or not. 
 While I quite remember your stating this to me, and your illustrating 
 F 
 
66 APPENDIX. 
 
 it by an examination of the Merchant of Venice, 1 must also acknow- 
 ledge that, thinking the determination of such a proposition depended 
 on an examination of minute details, I was rather a listener to your 
 theory than one feeling that he was in the position to give or to withhold 
 his assent. To my own mind, the illusion, through the whole of such 
 a play as the Merchant of Venice or Macbeth, is so little disturbed by 
 what maybe shown to be the improbabilities or impossibilities, of either 
 story, that I do not feel any interruption of enjoyment from causes of 
 this kind. This I suppose to be the case with most readers, perhaps 
 with most spectators of the plays. Your object, as I understand you, 
 is to exhibit by what artifices the great poet succeeds in producing 
 this effect, and prolonging the illusion, in spite of the impossibilities 
 or improbabilities of the storj'- with which he has to deal. The in- 
 quiry is one of the highest interest, and I am exceedingly glad of any 
 accident that has the good effect of causing you to publish your views 
 on the subject. 
 
 " I am, my dear Halpin, 
 
 " Your's faithfully, 
 
 "John Anster. 
 " To the Rev, N. J. Halpin, 
 " Seville-place:' 
 
 (C.) 
 
 " 9, Upper Gloucester-st., Dublin, 
 '' November 11, 1SA9. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Halpin, — I perfectly recollect your having ap- 
 prized me, prior to the year 1844, that you had discovered, in the 
 construction of Shakespeare's plays, a peculiar law of time, consistent 
 with the continuous performance of each play, without violating any 
 of the proprieties of time, notwithstanding the occurrence of long sup- 
 posed intervals between the incidents. I suggested to you, when you 
 first mentioned your discovery, that you should illustrate the title of 
 your essay on the subject, which I understood you were then preparing, 
 with a dial-plate, as indicating the nature of the investigation. I have 
 
APPENDIX. 57 
 
 very often, since then, urged you to make your discovery public, and 
 you have always expressed your settled intention of doing so, when- 
 ever time would permit you to perfect the illustration of the rule by a 
 complete analysis of all the plays. 
 
 " I am, my dear Mr. Halpin, 
 
 " Very truly your's, 
 
 *' Samuel Ferguson. 
 " The Rev, Nicholas J. Halpin^ 
 " Seville-place.^^ 
 
 (D.) 
 
 "21, Great Charles- street, Dublin, 
 *' November 17, 1849. 
 " My dear Mr. Halpin, — T have the most distinct recollection of 
 your having imparted to me your discovery — as you stated it to be 
 — of the dramatic laws with respect to the unities which govern the 
 drama of Shakespeare, and that I was greatly struck with the deep 
 thoughtfulness of your theorj'^, and its applicability, in many respects, 
 to the principles of my own art. That Shakespeare had done for 
 time that which the painters had done for distance^ namely, thrown 
 it into perspective, appeared to me a conception and an achievement 
 worthy of so capacious an intellect as his ; and I felicitated you then, 
 and do now, on your being, as I conceive, the first and original dis- 
 coverer of so profound a mystery. 
 
 "Though I cannot speak with perfect certainty as to the exact 
 year in which you first interested me by your communication, I have 
 a positive conviction that it could not have been less than eight or nine 
 years ago ; and, in the interim, you and I have frequently discussed 
 the subject again at our social meetings. 
 
 " Believe me ever, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Most respectfully and truly your's, 
 
 " George Petrie. 
 " To the Rev. N. J. Halpinr 
 
 THE END. 
 
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