the luckless author of the first sketch is like to remain a man as nameless as the deed of the witches in Macbeth, unless some chance or caprice of accident should suddenly flash favouring light on his now impersonal and indiscoverable individuality, seems clear enough when we take into account the double and final disproof of his imaginary identity with Marlowe, which Mr. Dyce has put forward with such unanswerable certitude. He is a clumsy and coarse-fingered plagiarist from that poet, and his stolen jewels of expression look so grossly out of place in the homely setting of his usual style that they seem transmuted from real to sham. On the other hand, he is of all the Pre-Shakespeareans known to us incomparably the truest, the richest, the most powerful and original humourist; one indeed without a second on that ground, for the rest are nowhere." 66 SWINBURNE: A Study of Shakespeare. VII. Salient Features. The Taming of the Shrew is almost the only one of Shakespear's comedies that has a regular plot and downright moral. It is full of bustle, animation, and rapidity of action. It shows admirably how self-will is only to be got the better of by stronger will, and how one degree of ridiculous perversity is only to be driven. out by another still greater. Petruchio is a madman in his senses; a very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth and succeeds in all his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to the life, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete presence of mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill-humour from beginning to end. The situation of poor Katherine, worn out by his incessant persecutions, becomes at last almost as pitiable as it is ludi crous, and it is difficult to say which to admire most, the unaccountableness of his actions or the unalterableness of his resolutions. It is a character which most husbands ought to study, unless the very audacity of Petruchio's attempt might alarm them more than his success would encourage them. HAZLITT: Characters of Shakespear's Plays. VIII. Shakespeare and Italy. The opening of the comedy, which speaks of Lombardy and the University of Padua, might have been written by a native Italian: “Tranio, since for the great desire I had Here let us breathe, and haply institute A course of learning and ingenious studies." The very next line I found myself involuntarily repeating, at the sight of the grave countenances within the walls of Pisa: "Pisa, renowned for grave citizens." They are altogether a grave people, in their demeanour, their history, and their literature, such as it is. I never met with the anomaly of a merry Pisan. Curiously enough, this line is repeated, word for word, in the fourth act. Lucentio says, his father came "of the Bentivolii": this is an old Italian plural; a mere Englishman would write "of the Bentivolios." Besides, there was, and is, a branch of the Bentivolii in Florence, where Lucentio says he was brought up. But these indications, just at the commencement of the play, are not of great force. We now come to something more important; a remarkable proof of his having been aware of the law of the country in respect to the betrothment of Katharina and Petruchio, of which there is not a vestige in the older play. The father gives her hand to him, both parties consenting, before two witnesses, who declare themselves such, to the act. Such a ceremony is as indissoluble as that of marriage, unless both parties should consent to annul it. The betrothment takes place in due form, exactly as in many of Goldoni's comedies:Вар. Give me your hands; God send you joy, Petruchio! 't is a match. Gre. . . . Tra. Amen! say we; we will be witnesses. Instantly Petruchio addresses them as "father and wife "; because from that moment he possesses the legal power of a husband over her, saving that of taking her to his own house. Unless the betrothment is understood in this light, we cannot account for the father's so tamely yielding afterwards to Petruchio's whim of going in his mad attire" with her to the church. Authority is no longer with the father; in vain he hopes and requests that the bridegroom will change his clothes; Petruchio is peremptory in his lordly will and pleasure, which he could not possibly be without the previous Italian betrothment. 66 Padua lies between Verona and Venice, at a suitable distance from both for the conduct of the comedy. Petruchio, after being securely betrothed, sets off to Venice, the very place for finery, to buy "rings and things, and fine array" for the wedding; and, when married, he takes her to his country-house, in the direction of Verona, of which city he is a native. All this is complete, and in marked opposition to the worse than mistakes in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written when he knew nothing whatever of the country. BROWN: Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems. |