which he converted into a garden. He is, therefore, never compared with his native predecessors. Criticism goes back for names worthy of being put in competition with his, to the first great masters of dramatic invention; and even in the points of dissimilarity between them and him, discovers some of the highest indications of his genius. Compared with the classical composers of antiquity, he is to our conceptions nearer the character of a universal poet; more acquainted with man in the real world, and more terrific and bewitching in the preternatural. He expanded the magic circle of the drama beyond the limits that belonged to it in antiquity; made it embrace more time and locality; filled it with larger business and action-with vicissitudes of gay and serious emotion, which classical taste had kept divided-with characters which developed humanity in stronger lights and subtler movements-and with a language more wildly, more playfully diversified by fancy and passion, than was ever spoken on any stage. Like Nature herself, he presents alternations of the gay and the tragic; and his mutability, like the suspense and precariousness of real existence, often deepens the force of our impressions. He converted imitation into illusion. To say that, magician as he was, he was not faultless, is only to recall the flat and stale truism, that every thing human is imperfect. But how to estimate his imperfections! To praise him is easy-In facili causa cuivis licet esse diserto -But to make a special, full, and accurate Nothing went before Shakspeare which in any respect was fit to fix and stamp the character of a national Drama; and certainly no one will succeed him capable of establishing, by mere authority, a form more restricted than that which Shakspeare used.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Mise. Pr. Works, vol. iii. p. 336. Shakspeare began his literary career by alterations and adaptations of former dramas and copyright pieces to more popular and poetical purposes. He seems to have extended his desire for emendation to the works of living writers; and, taught by nature, to have done for the writings of University Men what Pope did (with equal offence) for the rhymes and lines of Wycherley. It was the common practice of his age to call in the pen of a living writer to aid with additions the Muse of a fellowdramatist. He soon, however, learned to depend on his own myriad-minded genius, on his own thousandtongued soul.-C. He (Shakspeare) was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have estimate of his imperfections would require a delicate and comprehensive discrimination, and an authority which are almost as seldom united in one man as the powers of Shakspeare himself. He is the poet of the world. The magnitude of his genius puts it beyond all private opinion to set defined limits to the admiration which is due to it. We know, upon the whole, that the sum of blemishes to be deducted from his merits is not great,t and we should scarcely be thankful to one who should be anxious to make it. No other poet triumphs so anomalously over eccentricities and peculiarities in composition which would appear blemishes in others; so that his blemishes and beauties have an affinity which we are jealous of trusting any hand with the task of separating. We dread the interference of criticism with a fascination so often inexplicable by critical laws, and justly apprehend that any man in standing between us and Shakspeare may show for pretended spots upon his disk only the shadows of his own opacity. Still it is not a part even of that enthusiastic creed, to believe that he has no excessive mixture of the tragic and comic, no blemishes of language in the elliptical throng and impatient pressure of his images, no irregularities of plot and action, which another Shakspeare would avoid, if "nature had not broken the mould in which she made him," or if he should come back into the world to blend experience with inspiration.‡ The bare name of the dramatic unities is wanted learning, give him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. DRYDEN-C. If Shakspeare's embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot.DRYDEN, Malone, vol. ii. p. 295.-C. Of the learning of Shakspeare, Mr. Campbell says elsewhere: "There is not a doubt that he lighted up his glorious fancy at the lamp of classical mythology: Hyperion's curls-the front of Jove himself, apt to excite revolting ideas of pedantry, arts of poetry, and French criticism. With none of these do I wish to annoy the reader. I conceive that it may be said of those unities as of fire and water, that they are good servants but bad masters. In perfect rigour they were never imposed by the Greeks, and they would be still heavier shackles if they were closely riveted on our own drama. It would be worse than useless to confine dramatic action literally and immovably to one spot, or its imaginary time to the time in which it is represented. On the other hand, dramatic time and place cannot surely admit of indefinite expansion. It would be better, for the sake of illusion and probability,* to change the scene from Windsor to London, than from London to Pekin; it would look more like reality if a messenger, who went and returned in the course of the play, told us of having performed a journey of ten or twenty, rather than of a thousand miles; and if the spectator had neither that nor any other circumstance to make him ask how so much could be performed in so short a time. In an abstract view of dramatic art, its principles must appear to lie nearer to unity than to the opposite extreme of disunion, in our conceptions of time and place. Giving up the law of unity in its literal rigour, there is still a latitude of its application which may preserve proportion and harmony in the drama.† The brilliant and able Schlegel has traced the principles of what he denominates the romantic, in opposition to the classical drama; and conceives that Shakspeare's theatre, when tried by those principles, will be found not to have violated any of the unities, if they are largely and liberally un Who can read these lines without perceiving that Shakspeare had imbibed a deeper feeling of the beauty of Pagan mythology than a thousand pedants could have imbibed in their whole lives?"-Life of Shakspeare, p. xvi.-C. *Dr. Johnson has said, with regard to local unity in the drama, that we can as easily imagine ourselves in one place as another. So we can, at the beginning of a play; but having taken our imaginary station with the poet in one country, I do not believe with Dr. Johnson, that we change into a different one with perfect facility to the imagination. Lay the first act in Europe, and we surely do not naturally expect to find the second in America. For some admirable remarks on dramatic unities, Fee Scott's Essay on the Drama (Misc. Pr. Works, vol. vi. pp. 298-321.) Dr. Johnson has numerous obligations to art. derstood. I have no doubt that Mr. Schlegel's criticism will be found to have proved this point in a considerable number of the works of our mighty poet. There are traits, however, in Shakspeare, which, I must own, appear to my humble judgment incapable of being illustrated by any system or principles of art. I do not allude to his historical plays, which, expressly from being historical, may be called a privileged class. But in those of purer fiction, it strikes me that there are licenses conceded indeed to imagination's "chartered libertine," but anomalous with regard to any thing which can be recognised as principles in dramatic When Perdita, for instance, grows from the cradle to the marriage altar in the course of the play, I can perceive no unity in the design of the piece, and take refuge in the supposition of Shakspeare's genius triumphing and trampling over art. Yet Mr. Schlegel, as far as I have observed, makes no exception to this breach of temporal unity; nor, in proving Shakspeare a regular artist on a mighty scale, does he deign to notice this circumstance, even as the ultima Thule of his license. If a man contends that dramatic laws are all idle restrictions, I can understand him; or if he says that Perdita's growth on the stage is a trespass on art, but that Shakspeare's fascination over and over again redeems it, I can both understand and agree with him. But when I am left to infer that all this is right on romantic principles, I confess that those principles become too romantic for my conception. If Perdita may be born and married on the stage, why may not Webster's Duchess of Malfi lie-in between the acts, and produce a fine family of tragic children? Her grace actually does so in Web an excellent paper of Farquhar's; a fact not generally enough known.-C. Mitis. How comes it that in some one play we see so many seas, countries, and kingdoms, passed over with such admirable dexterity? Cordatus. 0, that but shows how well the authors can travel in their vocation, and outrun the apprehension of their auditory.-Every Man out of his Humour. This was said in 1599, and at The Globe, when Shakspeare, that very year, perhaps the performance before, had crossed the seas in his chorus from England to France, and from France to England, with admirable dexterity. Jonson wrote to recommend his own unities, and to instruct his audience; not, as the Shakspeare commentators would have us believe, to abuse Shakspeare, if not in his own house, in the very theatre in which he was a large sharer, and unquestionably the main-stay.--C ster's drama, and he is a poet of some genius, though it is not quite so sufficient as Shakspeare's, to give a "sweet oblivious antidote" to such "perilous stuff." It is not, however, either in favour of Shakspeare's or of Webster's genius that we shall be called on to make allowance, if we justify in the drama the lapse of such a number of years as may change the apparent identity of an individual. If romantic unity is to be so largely interpreted, the old Spanish dramas, where youths grow graybeards upon the stage, the mysteries and moralities, and productions teeming with the wildest anachronism, might all come in with their grave or laughable claims to romantic legitimacy. Nam sic Et Laberi mimos ut pulchra poemata mirer.-HOR. On a general view, I conceive it may be said, that Shakspeare nobly and legitimately enlarged the boundaries of time and place in the drama; but in extreme cases, I would rather agree with Cumberland, to waive all mention of his name in speaking of dramatic laws, than accept those licenses for art which are not art, and designate irregularity by the name of order. There were other poets who started nearly coeval with Ben Jonson in the attempt to give a classical form to our drama. Daniel, for instance, brought out his tragedy of Cleopatra in 1594; but his elegant genius wanted the strength requisite for great dramatic efforts. Still more unequal to the task was the Earl of Sterline, who published his cold “monarchic tragedies," in 1604. The triumph of founding English classical comedy belonged exclusively to Jonson. In his tragedies it is remarkable that he freely dispenses with the unities, though in those tragedies he brings classical antiquity in the most distinct and learnedly authenticated traits before our eyes. The vindication of his great poetic memory forms an agreeable contrast in modern criticism with the bold bad things which used to be said of him in * If the ancients," says Headley, "were to reclaim their own, Jonson would not have a rag to cover his nakedness" a remark that called a taunting reply from Gifford in one of his most bitter moods. Dryden has beautifully said of Jonson, that you may track him everywhere in the snow of the ancients.-C. Namely, the song of Night, in the masque of "The Vision of Delight." "Break, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud."-p. 117. His lyrical poetry forms, perhaps, the most delightful a former period; as when Young compared him to a blind Samson, who pulled down the ruins of antiquity on his head and buried his genius beneath them.* Hurd, though he inveighed against the too abstract conception of his characters, pronouncing them rather personified humours than natural beings, did him, nevertheless, the justice to quote one short and lovely passage from one of his masques, and the beauty of that passage probably turned the attention of many readers to his then neglected compositions. It is indeed but one of the many beauties which justify all that has been said of Jonson's lyrical powers. In that fanciful region of the drama (the Masque) he stands as pre-eminent as in comedy; or if he can be said to be rivalled, it is only by Milton. And our surprise at the wildness and sweetness of his fancy in one walk of composition is increased by the stern and rigid (sometimes rugged) air of truth which he preserves in the other. In the regular drama he certainly holds up no romantic mirror to nature. His object was to exhibit human characters at once strongly comic and severely and instructively true; to nourish the understanding, while he feasted the sense of ridicule. He is more anxious for verisimilitude than even for comic effect. He understood the humours and peculiarities of his species scientifically, and brought them forward in their greatest contrasts and subtlest modifications. If Shakspeare carelessly scattered illusion, Jonson skilfully prepared it. This is speaking of Jonson in his happiest manner. There is a great deal of harsh and sour fruit in his miscellaneous poetry. It is acknowledged that in the drama he frequently overlabours his delineation of character, and wastes it tediously upon uninteresting humours and peculiarities. He is a moral painter, who delights overmuch to show his knowledge of moral anatomy. Beyond the pale of his three great dramas, "The Fox," "The Epicene, part of his poetical character. In songs and masques, and interludes, his fancy has a wildness and a sweetness that we should not expect from the severity of his dramatic taste. It cannot be said, indeed, that he is always free from metaphysical conceit, but his language is weighty with thought, and polished with elegance. Upon the whole, his merits, after every fair deduction, leave him in possession of a high niche in our literature, and entitle him to be ranked (next to Shakspeare) as the most important benefactor of our early drama.-CAMPBELL, article Jonson, in Brewster's Encyclopædia.-C. or Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist," it would not be difficult to find many striking exceptions to that love of truth and probability, which, in a general view, may be regarded as one of his best characteristics. Even within that pale, namely, in his masterly character of Volpone, one is struck with what, if it be not an absolute breach, is at least a very bold stretch, of probability. It is true that Volpone is altogether a being daringly conceived; and those who think that art spoiled the originality of Jonson, may well rectify their opinion by considering the force of imagination which it required to concentrate the traits of such a character as "The Fox;" not to speak of his Mosca, who is the phoenix of all parasites. Volpone himself is not like the common misers of comedy, a mere money-loving dotard—a hard, shrivelled old mummy, with no other spice than his avarice to preserve him; he is a happy villain, a jolly misanthrope-a little god in his own selfishness, and Mosca is his priest and prophet. Vigorous and healthy, though past the prime of life, he hugs himself in his arch humour, his successful knavery and imposture, his sensuality and his wealth, with an unhallowed relish of selfish existence. His passion for wealth seems not to be so great as his delight in gulling the human “vultures and gorecrows" who flock round him at the imagined approach of his dissolution; the speculators who put their gold, as they conceive, into his dying gripe, to be returned to them a thousand-fold in his will. Yet still, after this exquisite rogue has stood his trial in a sweat of agony at the scrutineum, and blest his stars at having narrowly escaped being put to the torture, there is something (one would think) a little too strong for probability, in that mischievous mirth and love of tormenting his own dupes, which bring him, by his own folly, a second time within the fangs of justice. "The Fox" and "The Alchemist" seem to have divided Jonson's admirers as to which of them may be considered his masterpiece. In confessing my partiality to the prose comedy of "The Silent Woman," consi The plot of The Fox is admirably conceived; and that of The Alchemist, though faulty in the conclusion, is nearly equal to it. In the two comedies of Every Man in his Humour, and Every Man out of his Humour, the plot deserves much less praise, and is deficient at once in interest and unity of action; but in that of The Silent dered merely as a comedy, I am by no means forgetful of the rich eloquence which poetry imparts to the two others. But "The Epicene," in my humble apprehension, exhibits Jonson's humour in the most exhilarating perfection.* With due admiration for "The Alchemist," I cannot help thinking the jargon of the chemical jugglers, though it displays the learning of the author, to be tediously profuse. "The Fox" rises to something higher than comic effect. It is morally impressive. It detains us at particular points in serious terror and suspense. But "The Epicene" is purely facetious. I know not, indeed, why we should laugh more at the sufferings of Morose than at those of the sensualist, Sir Epicure Mammon, who deserves his miseries much better than the rueful and pitiable Morose. Yet so it is, that, though the feelings of pathos and ridicule seem so widely different, a certain tincture of the pitiable makes comic distress more irresistible. Poor Morose suffers what the fancy of Dante could not have surpassed in description, if he had sketched out a ludicrous Purgatory. A lover of quiet man exquisitely impatient of rude sounds and loquacity, who lived in a retired street-who barricadoed his doors with matresses to prevent disturbance to his ears, and who married a wife because he could with difficulty prevail upon her to speak to him-has hardly tied the fatal knot when his house is tempested by female eloquence, and the marriage of him who had pensioned the city-wakes to keep away from his neighbourhood, is celebrated by a concert of trumpets. He repairs to a court of justice to get his marriage, if possible, dissolved, but is driven back in despair by the intolerable noise of the court. For this marriage how exquisitely we are prepared by the scene of courtship! When Morose questions his intended bride about her likings and habits of life, she plays her part so hypocritically, that he seems for a moment impatient of her reserve, and with the most ludicrous cross-feelings wishes her to speak more loudly, that he may have a proof of her taciturnity from her own lips; but, re -a Woman, nothing can exceed the art with which the circumstance upon which the conclusion turns is, until the very last scene, concealed from the knowledge of the reader, while he is tempted to suppose it constantly within his reach.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Misc. Prose Works, vol. vi. p. 341.-C. The art of Jonson was not confined to the cold observation of the unities of place and time, but appears in the whole adaptation of his incidents and characters to the support of each other. Beneath his learning and art he moves with an activity which may be compared to the strength of a man who can leap and bound under the heaviest armour.* The works of Jonson bring us into the seventeenth century; and early in that century, our language, besides the great names already mentioned, contains many other poets whose works may be read with a pleasure independent of the interest which we take in their antiquity. Drayton and Daniel, though the most opposite in the cast of their genius, are preeminent in the second poetical class of their age, for their common merit of clear and harmonious diction. Drayton is prone to Ovidian conceits, but he plays with them so gayly, that they almost seem to become him as if natural. His feeling is neither deep, nor is the happiness of his fancy of long continuance, but its short April gleams are very beautiful. His Legend of the Duke of Buckingham opens with a fine description. Unfortunately, his descriptions in long poems are, like many fine mornings, succeeded by a cloudy day. "The lark, that holds observance to the sun, Quaver'd her clear notes in the quiet air, And on the river's murmuring base did run, Whilst the pleased heavens her fairest livery wear; The place such pleasure gently did prepare, The flowers my smell, the flood my taste to steep, And the much softness lulled me asleep. When, in a vision, as it seem'd to me, Triumphal music from the flood arose." Of the grand beauties of poetry he has none; but of the sparkling lightness of his best manner an example may be given in .... * He (Jonson) was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what Daniel is "somewhat a-flat," as one of his contemporaries said of him, but he had more sensibility than Drayton, and his moral reflection rises to higher dignity. The lyrical poetry of Elizabeth's age runs often into pastoral insipidity and fantastic carelessness, though there may be found in some of the pieces of Sir Philip Sydney, Lodge, Marlowe, and Breton, not only a sweet, wild spirit, but an exquisite finish of expression. Of these combined beauties Marlowe's song, "Come live with me, and be my love," is an example. The "Soul's Errand,” by whomsoever it was written, is a burst of genuine poetry. I know not how that short production has ever affected other readers, but it carries to my imagination an appeal which I cannot easily account for from a few simple rhymes. It places the last and inexpressibly awful hour of existence before my view, and sounds like a sentence of vanity on the things of this world, pronounced by would be theft in other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represented old Rome to us in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies we had seen less of it than in him.-DRYDEN.-C. † Bolton, in his Hypercritica, 1622.-C. Vide these Selections, p. 116. D |