By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, The summers of 1592, 1593, and 1594 were so unpropitious, that the minute description of Titania, full of the most precise images derived from the observation of a resident in the country, gives us a far more exact idea of these remarkable seasons than any of the prosaic records of the time. In 1594, Dr. J. King thus preaches at York: "Remember that the spring (that year when the plague broke out) was very unkind, by means of the abundance of rains that fell. Our July hath been like to a February, our June even as an April, so that the air must needs be infected." He then adds, speaking of three successive years of scarcity, “Our years are turned upside down. Our summers are no summers; our harvests are no harvests; our seed-times are no seed-times." There are passages in Stow's Annals," and in a manuscript by Dr. Simon Forman in the Ashmolean Museum, which show that in the June and July of 1594 there were excessive rains. But Stow adds, of 1594, "notwithstanding in the month of August there followed a fair harvest." This does not agree with 66 "The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, It is not necessary to fix Shakspere's description of the ungenial season upon 1594 in particular. There was a succession of unpropitious years, when "The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries." "Our summers are no summers; our harvests are no harvests; our seed-times are no seed-times." Churchyard, in his preface to a poem entitled "Charity,' says, "A great nobleman told me this last wet summer the weather was too cold for poets." The poetry of Shakspere was as much subjective as objective, to use one of the favourite distinctions which we have derived from the Germans. The most exact description of the coldness of the "wet-summer" becomes in his hands the finest poetry, even taken apart from its dramatic propriety; but in association with the quarrels of Oberon and Titania, it becomes something much higher than descriptive poetry. It is an integral part of those wondrous efforts of the imagination which we can call by no other name than that of creation. It is in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," as it appears to us, that Shakspere first felt the entire strength of his creative power. That noble poem is something so essentially different from any * Quoted by Mr. Halliwell in his "Introduction to ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream.”” thing which the stage had previously possessed, that we must regard it as a great effort of the highest originality; conceived perhaps with very little reference to its capacity of pleasing a mixed audience; probably composed with the express intention of being presented to "an audience fit though few," who were familiar with the allusions of classical story, of 66 masque and antique pageantry," but who had never yet been enabled to form an adequate notion of "Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream." The exquisite delicacy of the compliment to "the imperial votaress" fully warrants the belief that in the season of calamity, when her own servants "may not disport her Highness with their wonted and ordinary pastimes," one of them was employed in a labour for her service, which would make all other pastimes of that epoch appear flat and trivial. It is easy to believe that if any external impulse were wanting to stimulate the poetical ambition of Shakspere-to make him aspire to some higher character than that of the most popular of dramatists—such might be found in 1593 in the clear field which was left for the exercise of his peculiar powers. Robert Greene had died on the 3rd of September, 1592, leaving behind him a sneer at the actor who aspired "to bombast out a blank verse. Even had his genius not been destroyed by the wear and tear, and the corrupting influences, of a profligate life, he never could have competed with the mature Shakspere. But as we know that "the only Shake-scene in a country," at whom the unhappy man presumed to scoff, felt the insult somewhat deeply, so we may presume he took the most effectual means to prove to the world that he was not, according to the malignant insinuation of his envious compeer, 66 an upstart crow beautified with our feathers." We believe that in the gentleness of his nature, when he introduced into " A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The thrice three Muses mourning for the death he dropped a tear upon the grave of him whose demerits were to be forgiven in his misery. On the 1st of June, 1593, Christopher Marlowe perished in a wretched brawl, "slain by Francis Archer," as the Register of Burials of the parish of St. Nicholas, Deptford, informs us. Who was left of the dramatists that could enter into competition with William Shakspere, such as he then was? He was almost alone. The great disciples of his school had not arisen. Jonson had not appeared to found a school of a different character. It was for him, thenceforth, to sway the popular mind after his own fashion; to disregard the obligation which the rivalry of high talent might have imposed upon him of listening to other suggestions than those of his own lofty art; to make the multitude bow before that art, rather than that it should accommodate itself to their habits and prejudices. But at a period when the exercise of the poetical power in connection with the stage was scarcely held amongst the learned and the polite in itself to be poetry, Shakspere vindicated his reputation by the publication of the "Venus and Adonis." It was, he says, "the first heir of my invention." There may be a doubt whether Shakspere meant to say literally that this was the first poetical work that he had produced; or whether he held, in deference to some critical opinions, that his dramatic productions could not be classed amongst the heirs of "invention." We think that he meant to use the words literally; and that he used them at a period when he might assume, without vanity, that he had taken his rank amongst the poets of his time. He dedicates to the Earl of Southampton something that had not before been given 66 some to the world. He calls his verses "unpolished lines;" he vows to take advantage of all idle hours till he had honoured the young patron of the Muses with graver labour." But invention was received then, as it was afterwards, as the highest quality of the poet. Dryden says.—“ A poet is a maker, as the word signifies; and he who cannot make, that is invent, hath his name for nothing." We consider, therefore, that " my invention is not the language of one unknown to fame. He was exhibiting the powers which he possessed upon a different instrument than that to which the world was accustomed; but the world knew that the power existed. We employ the word genius always with reference to the inventive or creative faculty. Substitute the word genius for invention, and the expression used by Shakspere sounds like arrogance. But the substitution may indicate that the actual expression could not have been used by one who came forward for the first time to claim the honours of the poet. It has been argued from this expression that Shakspere had produced nothing original before the "Venus and Adonis " —that up to the period of its publication, in 1593, he was only a repairer of the works of other men. We hold that the expression implies the direct contrary. The dreary summer of 1593 has passed away; "And on old Hyems' chin, and ivy crown, An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds From the 1st of August in that year to the following Christmas the Queen was at Windsor. The plague still raged in London, and the historian gravely records, amongst the evils of the time, that Bartholomew Fair was not held. Essex was at Windsor during this time, and probably the young Southampton was there also. It was a long period for the Court to remain in one place. Elizabeth was afraid of the plague in the metropolis; and upon a page dying within the castle on the 21st of November she was about to rush away from the pure air which blew around the 66 proud keep." But "the lords and ladies who were accommodated so well to their likings had persuaded the Queen to suspend her removal from thence till she should see some other effect."* Living in the dread of "infection," we may believe that the Queen would require amusement; and that the Lord Chamberlain's players, who had so long forborne to resort to the metropolis, might be gathered around her without any danger from their presence. If so, was the "Midsummer Night's Dream" one of the novelties which her players had to produce? But there was another novelty which tradition tells us was written at the especial desire of the Queen herself-a comedy which John Dennis altered in 1702, and then published with the following statement :-"That this comedy was not despicable, I guessed for several reasons: first, I knew very well that it had pleased one of the greatest queens that ever was in the world-great not only for her wisdom in the arts of government, but for her knowledge of polite learning, and her nice taste of the drama; for such a taste we may be sure she had, by the relish which she had of the ancients. This comedy was written at her command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation." The plain statement of Dennis, "this comedy was written at her command," was amplified by Rowe into the circumstancial relation that Elizabeth was so well pleased with the character of Falstaff in "Henry IV." "that she commanded him [Shakspere] to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love." Hence all the attempts, which have only resulted in confusion worse confounded, to connect "The Merry * Letter from Mr. Standen to Mr. Bacon, in Birch's "Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth.” Wives of Windsor " with "Henry IV." We have stated this question fully, and, we hope, impartially, in the Notice of "The Merry Wives of Windsor."* The belief is there expressed, that the comedy was written in 1593, or very near to that time; the circumstance itself being somewhat of a proof that Shakspere was at Windsor precisely at that period, and ready to obey the Queen's command that a comedy suggested by herself should be "finished in fourteen days." In 1593 Elizabeth remained five months in her castle, repressing her usual desire to progress from county to county, or to move from palace to palace. She has completed her noble terrace, with its almost unrivalled prospect of beauty and fertility. Her gallery too is finished, whose large bay window looks out upon the same magnificent landscape. The comedy, which probably arose out of some local incident, abundantly provocative of courtly gossip and merriment, has hastily been produced. The hand of the master is yet visible in it. Its allusions, contrary to the wont of the author, are all local, and therefore agreeable to his audience. As his characters hover about Frogmore, with its farm-house where Anne Page is a feasting; as Falstaff meets his most perilous adventure in Datchet Mead; as Mistress Anne and her Fairies crouch in the castle ditch,-the poet shows that he has made himself familiar with the scenes where the Queen delighted to dwell. The characters, too, are of the very time of the representation of the play, perhaps more than one of them copied from actual persons. In the original sketch Shakspere hardly makes an attempt to transfer the scene to an earlier period. The persons of the drama are all of them drawn from the rich storehouse of the humours of the middle classes of his own day. We may readily believe the tradition which tells us that the Queen was very well pleased with the representation." The compliment to her in association with Windsor, in the last scene, where the drollery is surrounded with the most appropriate poetry, sufficiently indicates the place at which the comedy was performed, and the audience to whom it was presented : 66 "About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: This is one of the few passages which in the amended edition remain unaltered from the original text. |