broadside told the "Pityfull Historie of Two Loving Italians," or "of a Jew who would for his Debt have a Pound of the Flesh of a Christian," or "of the Moorish Captain and the Merchant's Daughter," and Shakespeare by a magic alchemy transmuted them into Romeo and Juliet, Shylock, and Othello! Some But had Shakespeare no faults?—The answer must be that perfection is not given to mortals. Such faults as he had were the faults of one who had his feet entangled in the meshes of a semienlightened age, and who was diffident of his right to set himself free at once by his own strength. of the scenes and dialogues are repulsive to the taste of the present day, but were not so when he wrote. Coarseness of language does not necessarily imply immorality of principle. Shakespeare is a-head of all other writers of his time in this, that he never indulges in coarseness for its own sake, but introduces it either with the view of illustrating character, or of bringing us back with increased relish to the expression of higher and purer thoughts. He adopts no story which has in itself a vicious tendency. He is not indeed always careful, as more commonplace moralists may be, to make virtue triumph; he sometimes carries his persons, as if indifferently, through right and wrong. But the impression which every one of his works leaves, is that its perusal has contributed to a healthy tone of feeling and to moral invigoration. A few of his plots are loosely formed, and want regularity of design. He not only does not avoid, but seems rather to rejoice in anachronisms. He gives to one age or nation the customs and institutions of another. He intermixes the features of the heroic and feudal times. He puts the names of the Roman gods in the mouths of the Druids; he makes Hector quote Aristotle; and he introduces cannon in the reign of King John. These things may be disagreeable to the antiquary, but they are only motes in the sunshine of Shakespeare's genius. Another fault is imputed to him, traceable to the imitation of the manner of the Italian poets, so prevalent in the latter half of the sixteenth century. It consists in a playful twisting of the meaning of words, suggested sometimes by their sound, and sometimes by their juxtaposition. Shakespeare evidently found pleasure in these concetti, or what Dr. Johnson calls "idle conceits and contemptible equivocations." "A quibble," says the Doctor, who had somewhat ponderous notions of humour, "is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be arousing attention with incidents or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth." They who choose may agree with this Johnsonian criticism; but do not let them forget that Shakespeare, being himself "A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," one who was "not only witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men," cared as little for "quibbles" as Dr. Johnson. They suited the times, and he therefore gave them as thick as Tewkesbury mustard;" but he fails not to say, through Lorenzo, in the "Merchant of Venice,""How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots." In Germany, Shakespeare's supremacy as a dramatic poet has long been admitted. Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Tieck, Schlegel, Ulrici, Gervinus, have done much to naturalize him among their countrymen, and to kindle enthusiasm for his genius. In France, on the other hand, it is comparatively recently that he has met with a reception worthy of the intellect of that country. Before Shakespeare could be thoroughly understood in France a system had to be overturned,—the battle of the orders had to be fought, Aristotle and the unities had to be weighed in the balance. Voltaire allowed Shakespeare the praise only of a clever "barbarian ;" and La Harpe dragged him by the heels behind the triumphal car of Racine. The French poets were unable to conceive of a tragic drama not founded on the Greek model, of which they produced highly successful imitations; but, as was likely to happen with imitations, they were colder and more pompous than the originals. In ancient Greece, where there were fewer shades and diversities of character than there came to be as the world got older, there was a stately grandeur, which to a certain extent atoned for its monotony, in the scenic representation of an illustrious house contending in vain against the inexorable decrees of destiny. But when the same stateliness and severity of artistic rule was transferred on the French stage to the halls of the Cid and the courts of Bajazet and Mahomet, it was certain that human nature would sooner or later rebel, and that, as hair-powder and furbelows went out, Shakespeare and real life would come in. The film fell from the eyes of Le Mercier, Madame De Stael, and Guizot; and France at length owns that Voltaire, who said of Shakespeare that "he was without the least spark of good taste, and without the slightest knowledge of rules," must "pale his uneffectual fire” before the author of "Hamlet." If taste consists in a quick and accurate appreciation of all that is graceful and harmonious, not in artificial life alone, but in the world as God made it, no Frenchman, great or small, had ever half the taste of Shakespeare. Taste is, indeed, too low and technical a term for his intuitive perception of the true and the beautiful, and his exquisite delight in them. In reading a play by Voltaire we imagine of a man "who has lived for a long time in apartments lighted only by wax candles, chandeliers, or coloured glasses-who has only breathed in the faint, suffocating atmosphere of drawingrooms-who has seen only the cascades at the opera, calico mountains, and garlands of artificial flowers." In reading a play by Shakespeare we imagine of a man who was ever in the pure air that encompasses the sights and sounds of external nature, and who found at will -“Tongues in trees, books in the running brook, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." Of his fellow-beings his thoughts were, "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" In the starry wilderness of space he recognized the music of eternity, "Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins: Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it." |