XXIV. SIR WALTER SCOTT. (1771-1832.) ESSAY ON THE DRAMA. [Written before 1819.] THE Drama of England commenced, as we have already observed, upon the Spanish model. Ferrex and Porrex was the first composition approaching to a regular tragedy; and it was acted before Queen Elizabeth upon the 18th of January, 1561, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. It partakes rather of the character of a historical than of a classical Drama, although more nearly allied to the latter class than the chronicle plays which afterwards took possession of the stage. We have already recorded Sir Philip Sidney's commendation of this play, which he calls by the name of Gorboduc from one of the principal characters. Acted by a learned body, and written in great part by Lord Sackville, the principal author of the Mirror for Magistrates, the first of English tragedies assumed in some degree the honours of the learned buskin; but although a Chorus was presented according to the classical model, the play was free from the observance of the unities; and contains many irregularities severely condemned by the regular critics. English comedy, considered as a regular composition, is said to 1 Gorboduc was the father of Ferrex and Porrex, between whom he divided his kingdom, and the plot details the wars consequent thereupon. It is taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Britons. See ante, p. 39. 3 have commenced with Gammer Gurton's Needle. This "right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy," was the supposed composition of John Still, Master of Arts, and afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells. It was acted in Christ Church College, Cambridge, 1575. It is a piece of low humour, the whole jest turning upon the loss and recovery of the needle with which Gammer Gurton was to repair the breeches of her man Hodge; but, in point of manners, it is a great curiosity, as the curta suppellex of our ancestors is scarcely anywhere so well described. The popular characters also, the Sturdy Beggar, the Clown, the Country Vicar, and the Shrew, of the sixteenth century, are drawn in colours taken from the life. The unities of time, place, and action, are observed through the play with an accuracy of which France might be jealous. The time is a few hours- the place, the open square of the village before Gammer Gurton's door the action, the loss of the needle and this, followed by the search for and final recovery of that necessary implement, is intermixed with no other thwarting or subordinate interest, but is progressive from the commencement to the conclusion. It is remarkable that the earliest English tragedy and comedy are both works of considerable merit; that each partakes of the distinct character of its class; that the tragedy is without intermixture of comedy; the comedy, without any intermixture of tragedy. These models were followed by a variety of others, in which no such distinctions were observed. Numerous theatres sprung up in different parts of the metropolis, opened upon speculation by distinct troops of performers. Their number shows how much they interested public curiosity; for men never struggle for a share in a losing profession. They acted under licenses, which appear to have been granted for the purpose of police alone, not of exclusive privilege or monopoly; since London contained, in the latter 2 In 1820 it was ascertained by Collier that Udall's comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, was earlier than Gammer Gurton's Needle. See Collier's History of English Dramatic Poetry, Vol. II., pp. 444 ff., ed. 1831. 3 small furniture. Used metaphorically in PERSIUS, Satires, IV, 52. part of the sixteenth century, no fewer than fourteen distinct companies of players, with very considerable privileges and remunerations. See Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, vol. ii, p. 205. The public, therefore, in the widest sense of the word, was at once arbiter and patron of the Drama. The companies of players who traversed the country, might indeed assume the name of some peer or baron, for the sake of introduction or protection; but those of the metropolis do not, at this early period of our dramatic history, appear to have rested in any considerable degree upon learned or aristocratic privilege. The license was obtained from the crown, but their success depended upon the voice of the people; and the pieces which they brought forward were, of course, adapted to popular taste. It followed necessarily that histories and romantic Dramas were the favourites of the period. A general audience in an unlearned age requires rather amusement than conformity to rules, and is more displeased with a tiresome uniformity than shocked with the breach of all the unities. The players and dramatists, before the rise of Shakspeare, followed, of consequence, the taste of the public; and dealt in the surprising, elevating, and often bombastic incidents of tragedy, as well as in the low humours and grotesque situations of the comic scene. Where these singly were found to lack attraction, they mingled them together, and dashed their tragic plot with an under-intrigue of the lowest buffoonery, without any respect to taste or congruity. The clown was no stranger to the stage; he interfered, without ceremony, in the most heart-rending scenes, to the scandal of the more learned spectators. "Now lest such frightful shows of fortune's fall And laughs and grins, and frames his mimic face, With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd, An ancient stage-trick, illustrative of the mixture of tragic and comic action in Shakspeare's time, was long preserved in the theatre. Henry IV., holding council before the battle of Shrewsbury, was always represented as seated on a drum; and when he rose and came forward to address his nobles, the place was occupied by Falstaff; a practical jest which seldom failed to produce a laugh from the galleries. The taste and judgment of the author himself were very different. During the whole scene, Falstaff gives only once, and under irresistible temptation, the rein to his petulant wit, and it is instantly checked by the prince; to whom, by the way, and not to the king, his words ought to be addressed. The English stage might be considered equally without rule and without model when Shakspeare arose. The effect of the genius of an individual upon the taste of a nation is mighty; but that genius, in its turn, is formed according to the opinions prevalent at the period when it comes into existence. Such was the case with Shakspeare. Had he received an education more extensive, and possessed a taste refined by the classical models, it is probable that he also, in admiration of the ancient Drama, might have mistaken the form for the essence, and subscribed to those rules which had produced such masterpieces of art. Fortunately for the full exertion of a genius, as comprehensive and versatile as intense and powerful, Shakspeare had no access to any models of which the commanding merit might have controlled and limited his own exertions. He followed the path which a nameless crowd of obscure writers had trodden before him; but he moved in it with the grace and majestic step of a being of a superior order; and vindicated for ever the British theatre from a pedantic restriction to classical rule. 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. Such is the action of existing circumstances upon genius and the re-action of genius upon future circumstances. Shakspeare and Corneille was each the leading spirit of his age; and the dif ference between them is well marked by the editor of the latter:"Corneille est inégal comme Shakespeare, et plein de génie comme lui; mais le génie de Corneille étoit à celui de Shakespeare ce qu'un seigneur est à l'égard d'un homme de peuple né avec le même esprit que lui." 4 This distinction is strictly accurate, and contains a compliment to the English author which, assuredly, the critic did not intend to make. Corneille wrote as a courtier, circumscribed within the imaginary rules and ceremonies of a court, as a chicken is by a circle of chalk drawn round it. Shakspeare, composing for the amusement of the public alone, had within his province not only the inexhaustible field of actual life, but the whole ideal world of fancy and superstition; more favourable to the display of poetical genius than even existing realities. Under the circumstances of Corneille, Shakspeare must have been restricted to the same dull, regular, and unvaried system. He must have written, not according to the dictates of his own genius, but in conformity to the mandate of some Intendant des menus plaisirs; or of some minister of state, who, like Cardinal Richelieu, thought he could write a tragedy because he could govern a kingdom. It is not equally clear to what height Corneille might have ascended, had he enjoyed the national immunities of Shakspeare. Each pitched down a land-mark in his art. The circle of Shakspeare was so extensive, that it is with advantage liable to many restrictions; that of Corneille included a narrow limit, which his successors have deemed it unlawful to enlarge. It is not our intention, within the narrow space to which our essay is necessarily limited, to enlarge upon the character and writings of Shakspeare. We can only notice his performances as events in the history of the theatre of a gigantic character, indeed, so far as its dignity, elevation, and importance are consid 4 Corneille is unequal like Shakespeare, and full of genius like him; but the genius of Corneille was to that of Shakespeare what a lord is in respect to a man of the people, born with the same wit as he. 5 Director of minor entertainments. |