Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

by any kind of reasoning 'thus and thus,' except that kind which proceeds first by negatives, that kind which proceeds by a method so severe that it contrives to exclude everything but the the cause in nature' from its affirmation, which in practical philosophy becomes the rule' that is, the critical method,-which is for men, as distinguished from the spontaneous affirmation, which is for gods.

[ocr errors]

It is the beginning of these yet beginning Modern Ages, the ages of a practical learning, and scientific relief to the human estate, which this Pastime marks with its blazoned, illuminated initial. It is the opening of the era in which a common human sense is developed, and directed to the commonweal, which this Pastime celebrates; the opening of the ages in which, ere all is done, the politicians who expect mankind to entrust to them their destinies, will have to find something better than 'glass eyes' to guide them with; in which it will be no longer competent for those to whom mankind entrusts its dearest interests to go on in their old stupid, conceited, heady courses, their old, blind, ignorant courses,―stumbling, and staggering, and groping about, and smelling their way with their own narrow and selfish instincts, when it is the common-weal they have taken on their shoulders; - running foul of the nature of things quarrelling with eternal necessities, and crying out, when the wreck is made,' Alack! why does it so?'

This Play, and all these plays, were meant to be pastime for ages in which state reasons must needs be something else than 'the pleasure' of certain individuals, whose disposition, all the world well knows, will not be rubbed or stopped;' or 'the quality,' 'fiery' or otherwise, of this or that person, no matter 'how unremoveable and fixed' he may be 'in his own course.'

[ocr errors]

It was to the far off times;' and not to the near,' it was to the advanced ages of the Advancement of Learning, that this Play was dedicated by its Author. For it was the spirit of the modern ages that inspired it. It was the new Prometheus who planned it; the more aspiring Titan, who would bring down in his New Organum a new and more radiant gift; it

was the Benefactor and Foreseer, who would advance the rude kind to new and more enviable approximations to the celestial summits. He knew there would come a time, in the inevitable advancements of that new era of scientific 'prudence' and forethought which it was given to him to initiate, when all this sober historic exhibition, with its fearful historic earnest, would read, indeed, like some old fable of the rude barbaric past some Player's play, bent on a feast of horrors - some Poet's impossibility. And that was the Play, that was the Plot. He knew that there would come a time when all this tragic mirth-sporting with the edged tools of tyranny-playing a round the edge of the great axe itself— would be indeed safe play; when his Fool could open his budget, and unroll his bitter jests crushed together and infolded within themselves so long and have a world to smile with him, and not the few who could unfold them only. And that that was 'the humour of it.'

Yes, with all their philosophy, these plays are Plays and Poems still. There's no spoiling the 'tragical mirth' in them. But we are told, on the most excellent contemporaneous authority — on the authority of one who was in the inmost heart of all this Poet's secrets that' as we often judge of the greater by the less, so the very pastimes of great men give an honourable idea to the clear-sighted of THE SOURCE

FROM WHICH THEY SPRING.'

[ocr errors]

JULIUS CAESAR;

OR,

THE EMPIRICAL TREATMENT IN DISEASES OF THE COMMON-WEAL EXPLAINED.

Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed,
and a worse, as it happened with Caesar's killers, who brought the
republic to such a pass that they had reason to repent their meddling
with it. *
It must be examined in what condition THE
ASSAILANT is.—Michael de Montaigne.

Citizen. I fear there will a worse one come in his place.
Cassius. He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.

CHAPTER I.

THE DEATH OF TYRANNY; OR, THE QUESTION OF THE PREROGATIVE.

YES

Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean: Is it not, Cassius?

Cassius. Let it be WHO IT IS, for Romans now

Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors.

*

We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar.
Julius Caesar.

YES, when that Royal Injunction, which rested alike upon the Play-house, the Press, the Pulpit, and Parliament itself, was still throttling everywhere the free voice of the nation—when a single individual could still assume to himself, or to herself, the exclusive privilege of deliberating on all those questions which men are most concerned in — questions which involve all their welfare, for this life and the life to come, certainly the Play, the Play was the thing.' It was a vehicle of expression which offered incalculable facilities for evading these restrictions. It was the only one then invented which offered then any facilities whatever for the discussion of that question in particular-which was already for that age the question. And to the genius of that age, with its new

historical, experimental, practical, determination-with its transcendant poetic power, nothing could be easier than to get possession of this instrument, and to exhaust its capabilities.

For instance, if a Roman Play were to be brought out at all, and with that mania for classical subjects which then prevailed, what could be more natural? - how could one object to that which, by the supposition, was involved in it? And what but the most boundless freedoms and audacities, on this very question, could one look for here? What, by the supposition, could it be but one mine of poetic treason? If Brutus and Cassius were to be allowed to come upon the stage, and discuss their views of government, deliberately and confidentially, in the presence of an English audience, certainly no one could ask to hear from their lips the political doctrine then predominant in England. It would have been a flat anachronism, to request them to keep an eye upon the Tower in their remarks, inasmuch as all the world knew that the corner-stone of that ancient and venerable institution had only then just been laid by the same distinguished individual whom these patriots were about to call to an account for his military usurpation of a constitutional government at home.

And yet, one less versed than the author in the mystery of theatrical effects, and their combinations—one who did not know fully what kind of criticism a mere Play, composed by a professional play-wright, in the way of his profession, for the entertainment of the spectators, and for the sake of the pecuniary result, was likely to meet with; - or one who did not know what kind of criticism a work, addressed so strongly to the imagination and the feelings in any form, is likely to meet with, might have fancied beforehand that the author was venturing upon a somewhat delicate experiment, in producing a play like this upon the English stage at such a crisis. One would have said beforehand, that there were things in this comedy of Julius Caesar that would never please.' It is difficult, indeed, to understand how such a Play as this could ever have been produced in the presence of either of those two monarchs who occupied the English throne at that crisis in its

history, already secretly conscious that its foundations were moving, and ferociously on guard over their prerogative.

And, indeed, unless a little of that same sagacity, which was employed so successfully in reducing the play of Pyramus and Thisbe to the tragical capacities of Duke Theseus' court, had been put in requisition here, instead of that dead historical silence, which the world complains of so much, we might have been treated to some very lively historical details in this case, corresponding to other details which the literary history of the time exhibits, in the case of authors who came out in an evil hour in their own names, with precisely the same doctrines, which are taught here word for word, with impunity; and the question as to whether this Literary Shadow, this Name, this Veiled Prophet in the World of Letters, ever had any flesh and blood belonging to him anywhere, (and from the tenor of his works, one might almost fancy sometimes that that might have been the case), this question would have come down to us experimentally and historically settled. For most unmistakeably, the claws of the young British lion are here, under these old Roman togas; and it became the 'masters' to consider with themselves, for there is, indeed, 'no more fearful wild fowl living' than your lion in such circumstances; and if he should happen to forget his part in any case, and 'roar too loud,' it would to a dead certainty 'hang them all.'

But it was only the faint-hearted tailor who proposed to 'leave out the killing part.' Pyramus sets aside this cowardly proposition. He has named the obstacles to be encountered only for the sake of magnifying the fertility of his invention in overcoming them. He has a device to make all even. 'Write me a prologue,' he says, ' and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords; and for the more assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom, the Weaver; that will put them out of fear. And as to the lion, there must not only be another prologue, to tell that he is not a lion,' but you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect, Ladies, or

6

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »