away Benedick, Beatrice, Dogberry, and the reaction of the former on the character of Hero,—and what will remain? In other writers the main agent of the plot is always the prominent character; in Shakspere it is so, or is not so, as the character is in itself calculated, or not calculated, to form the plot. Don John is the main-spring of the plot of this play; but he is merely shown and then withdrawn. 5. Independence of the interest on the story as the ground-work of the plot. Hence Shakspere never took the trouble of inventing stories. It was enough for him to select from those that had been already invented or recorded such as had one or other, or both, of two recommendations, namely, suitableness to his particular purpose, and their being parts of popular tradition,-names of which we had often heard, and of their fortunes, and as to which all we wanted was, to see the man himself. So it is just the man himself, the Lear, the Shylock, the Richard, that Shakspere makes us for the first time acquainted with. Omit the first scene in "Lear, "and yet everything will remain; so the first and second scenes in the "Merchant of Venice." Indeed it is universally true. 6. Interfusion of the lyrical-that which in its very essence is poetical-not only with the dramatic, as in the plays of Metastasio, where at the end of the scene comes the aria as the exit speech of the character,—but also in and through the dramatic. Songs in Shakspere are introduced as songs only, just as songs are in real life, beautifully as some of them are characteristic of the person who has sung or called for them, as Desdemona's " Willow," and "The greater part, if not all of his dramas were, as far as the names and the main incidents are concerned, already stock plays. All the stories, at least, on which they are built, pre-existed in the chronicles, ballads, or translations of contemporary or preceding English writers." -Biographia Literaria, Satyrane's Letters, Letter ii. Ophelia's wild snatches, and the sweet carollings in "As "Marry, and I'm glad on't with all my heart; melts away into the lyric of Mortimer ;— Henry IV. Part I. Act III. Scene 1. 7. The characters of the dramatis persona, like those in real life, are to be inferred by the reader;-they are not told to him. And it is well worth remarking that Shakspere's characters, like those in real life, are very commonly misunderstood, and almost always understood by different persons in different ways. The causes are the same in either case. If you take only what the friends of the character say, you may be deceived, and still more so, if that which his enemies say; nay, even the character himself sees himself through the medium of his character, and not exactly as he is. Take all together, not omitting a shrewd hint from the clown or the fool, and perhaps your impression will be right; and you may know whether you have in fact discovered the poet's own idea, by all the speeches receiving light from it, and attesting its reality by reflecting it. Lastly, in Shakspere the heterogeneous is united, as it is in nature. You must not suppose a pressure or passion always acting on or in the character;-passion in Shakspere is that by which the individual is distinguished from others, not that which makes a different kind of him. Shakspere followed the main march of the human affections. He R entered into no analysis of the passions or faiths of men, but assured himself that such and such passions and faiths were grounded in our common nature, and not in the mere accidents of ignorance or disease. This is an important consideration, and constitutes our Shakspere the morning star, the guide and the pioneer, of true philosophy. SECTION II. ORDER OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS.1 VARIOUS attempts have been made to arrange the plays of Shakspere, each according to its priority in time, by proofs derived from external documents. How unsuccessful these have been might easily be shown, not only from the widely different results arrived at by men, 1 For convenience of comparison with later Shaksperian criticisms Prof. Dowden's arrangement is subjoined : : 1. Pre-Shaksperian Group. Touched by Shakspere. Titus Andronicus: 1588-90. 1 Henry VI.: 1590-1. 2. Early Comedy. Love's Labour's Lost: 1590. Comedy of Errors: 1591. Two Gentlemen of Verona: 1592-3. 3. Marlowe-Shaksperian Group. Early History. 4. Early Tragedy. Romeo and Juliet: 1591 ? 1596-7? 5. Middle History. 6. Middle Comedy. Merchant of Venice: 1596. all deeply versed in the black-letter books, old plays, pamphlets, manuscript records and catalogues of that age, but also from the fallacious and unsatisfactory nature of the facts and assumptions on which the evidence rests. In that age, when the press was chiefly occupied with controversial or practical divinity,-when the law, the church and the state engrossed all honour and respectability, 7. Later History. History and Comedy united. Henry V.: 1599. 8. Later Comedy. A. Rough and boisterous. B. Joyous, refined, romantic. Twelfth Night: 1600-1. c. Serious, dark, ironical. All's Well that Ends Well: 1601-2? Measure for Measure: 1603. Troilus and Cressida: 1603 ? revised 1607 ? 9. Middle Tragedy. Julius Cæsar: 1601. 10. Later Tragedy. Othello: 1604. Lear: 1605. Macbeth: 1606. Antony and Cleopatra: 1607. Coriolanus: 1608. Timon of Athens: 1607-8. 11. Romances. Pericles: 1608. Cymbeline: 1609. Tempest: 1610. Winter's Tale: 1610-11. |
