made on ; "and this is man, as Shak- a miserable mechanical linkwork of speare has conceived him. No writer, thought, the complete idea, that is, an not even Molière, has penetrated so inner representation, so abundant and far beneath the semblance of common full, that it exhausts all the properties sense and logic in which the human and relations of the object, all its inmachine is enclosed, in order to disen- ward and outward aspects; that it extangle the brute powers which consti- hausts them instantaneously; that it tute its substance and its mainspring. conceives of the entire animal, its How did Shakspeare succeed? and color, the play of the light upon its by what extraordinary instinct did he skin, its form, the quivering of its out livine the remote conclusions, the stretched limbs, the flash of its eyes leepest insights of physiology and psy- and at the same time its passion of the hology? He had a complete imagina- moment, its excitement, its dash; and Lion; his whole genius lies in that beyond this its instincts, their corposi complete imagination. These words tion, their causes, their history; so that seem commonplace and void of mean- the hundred thousand characteristics ing. Let us examine them closer, to which make up its condition and its understand what they contain. When nature find their analogues in the im we think a thing, we, ordinary men, we agination which concentrates and re only think a part of it; we see one flects them there you have the artist's side, some isolate mark, sometimes conception, the poet's-Shakspeare's; two or three marks together; for what so superior to that of the logician, of is beyond, our sight fails us; the in- the mere savant or man of the world, finite network of its infinitely-compli- the only one capable of penetrating to cated and multiplied properties escapes the very essence of existences, of exus; we feel vaguely that there is some- tricating the inner from beneath the thing beyond our shallow ken, and this outer man, of feeling through symvague suspicion is the only part of our pathy, and imitating without effort, the idea which at all reveals to us the great irregular oscillation of human imaginabeyond. We are like tyro-naturalists, tions and impressions, of reproducing quiet people of limited understanding, life with its infinite fluctuations, its apwho, wishing to represent an animal, parent contradictions, its concealed recall its name and ticket in the mu-logic; in short, to create as nature seum, with some indistinct image of its hide and figure; but their mind stops there. If it so happens that they wish to complete their knowledge, they lead their memory, by regular classifications, over the principal characters of the animal, and slowly, discursively, piecemeal, bring at last the bare anatomy before their eyes. To this their idea is reduced, even when perfected; to this also most frequently is our conception reduced, even when elaborated. What a distance there is between this conception and the object, how imperfectly and meanly the one represents the other to what extent this muti-I AM about to describe an extra lates that how the consecutive idea, disjointed in little, regularly arranged and inert fragments, resembles but slightly the organized, living thing, created simultaneously, ever in action, and ever transformed, words cannot explain. Picture to yourself, astead of tis poor dry idea, propped up by * Tempest, iv. I. creates. This is what is done by the other artists of this age; they have the same kind of mind, and the same idea of life: you will find in Shakspeare only the same faculties, with a still stronger impulse; the same idea, with a still more prominent relief. CHAPTER IV. Shakspeare. dinary species of mind, perplexing to all the French modes of analysis and reasoning, all-powerful, excessive, master of the sublime as well as of the base; the most creative mind that ever engaged in the exact copy of the details of actual existence, in the dazzling caprice of fancy, in the profound com plications of superhuma: passions; a nature poetical, immoral, inspired, superior to reason by the sudden revelations of its seer's madness; so extreme in joy and grief, so abrupt of gait, so agitated and impetuous in its transports, that this great age alone could have cradled such a child. I. Of Shakspeare all came from within -I mean from his soul and his genius; circumstances and the externals con were imprudent. While yet nine teen years old, he married the daughter of a substantial yeoman, about eight years older than himself-and not too soon, as she was about to become a mother.* Other of his outbreaks were no more fortunate. It seems that he was fond of poaching, after the manner of the time, being "much given to al! unluckinesse in stealing venison and rabbits," says the Rev. Richard Davies; t "particularly from Sir Thomas times imprisoned, and at last made him Lucy, who had him oft whipt and somefly the country; but his re tributed but slightly to his development.* He was intimately bound up with his age; that is, he knew by experience the manners of country, court, venge was so great, that he is his and town; he had visited the heights, this time Shakspeare's father was in Moreover, about Justice Clodpate." depths, the middle ranks of mankind; prison, his affairs were not prosperous, nothing more. In all other respects, and he himself had three children, folhis life was commonplace; its irregu-lowing one close upon the other; he larities, troubles, passions, successes, must live, and life was hardly possible were, on the whole, such as we meet for him in his native town. He went with everywhere else.t His father, a to London, and took to the stage: took glover and wool-stapler, in very easy, the lowest parts, was a "servant " in the circumstances, having married a sort of theatre, that is, an apprentice, or per. country heiress, had become high-bail-haps a supernumerary. They even said iff and chief alderman in his little town; that he had begun still lower, and tha but when Shakspeare was nearly four- to earn his bread he had held gentleteen he was on the verge of ruin, mort-men's horses at the door of the theagaging his wife's property, obliged to tre. At all events he tasted misery, resign his municipal offices, and to re- and felt, not in imagination, but in fact, move his son from school to assist him disgust, forced labor, public discredit the sharp thorn of care, humiliation the power of the people. He was a comedian, one of "His Majesty's poor players," §-a sad trade, degraded in all ages by the contrasts and the falsehoods which it allows: still more degraded then by the brutalities of the crowd, who not seldom would stone the actors, and by the severities of the mag istrates, who would sometimes condemn them to lose their ears. He fe't in his business. The young fellow ap plied himself to it as well as he could, not without some scrapes and frolics: if we are to believe tradition, he was one of the thirsty souls of the place, with a mind to support the reputation of his little town in its drinking powers: Once, they say, having been beaten at Bideford in one of these ale-bouts, he returned staggering from the fight, or rather could not return, and passed the night with his comrades under an apple tree b the roadside. Without doubt he had already begun to write verses, to rove about like a genuine poet, taking part in the noisy rustic feasts, the gay allegorical pastorals, the rich and bold outbreak of pagan and poetical lite, as it was then to be found in an English village. At all events, he was not a pattern of propriety, and his passions were as precocious as they *Halliwell' Life of Shakspeare. 1 Born 1564, died 1616. He adapted plays as early as 1591. The first play entirely from ais pen appeared in 1593.-PAYNE COLLIER. it, and spoke of it with bitterness : "Alas, 'tis true I have gore here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear.". And again : When in disgrace with fortune † and men's I all alone beweep my outcast state, And look upon myself and curse my fate, With what I most enjoy contented least ; We shall find further on the traces of this long-enduring disgust, in his melancholy characters, as where he says: " For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, But the worst of this undervalued po sition is, that it eats into the soul. In the company of actors we become actors it is vain to wish to keep clean, if you live in a dirty place; it cannot be. No matter if a man braces himself; necessity drives him into a corner and sullies him. The machinery of the decorations, the tawdriness and medley of the costumes, the smell of the tallow and the candles, in contrast with the parade of refinement and loftiness, all the cheats and sordidness of the representation, the bitter alternative of hissing or applause, the keeping of the highest and lowest company, the habit of sporting with human passions, easily unhinge the soul, drive it down the slope of excess, tempt it to loose manners, green-room adventures, the loves of strolling actresses. Shakspeare escaped them no more than Molière, and grieved for it, like Molière: ⚫'O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, That did not better for my üfe provide Than public means which public mannert breeds.". are They used to relate in London, how his comrade Burbadge, who played Richard III. having a rendezvous with the wife of a citizen, Shakspeare went before, was well received, and was pleasantly occupied, when Burbadge arrived, to whom he sent the message that William the Conqueror came be fore Richard III. We may take this as an example of the tricks and some what coarse intrigues which planned, and follow in quick succession on this stage. Outside the theatre he lived with fashionable young nobles Pembroke, Montgomery, Southamp ton, and others, whose hot and licen tious youth gratified his imagination and senses by the example of Italian pleasures and elegancies. Add to this the rapture and transport of poetical nature, and this kind of afflux, this boiling over of all the powers and desires which takes place in brains of this kind, when the world for the first time opens before them, and you will understand the Venus and Adonis, "the first heir of his invention." In fact, it is a first cry, a cry in which the whole man is displayed. Never was seen a heart so quivering to the touch of beauty, of beauty of every kind, so delighted with the freshness and splendor of things, so eager and so excited in adoration and enjoyment, so violently and entirely carried to the very essence of voluptuousness. His Venus is unique; no painting of Titian's has a more brilliant and delicious coloring ; § no strumpet-goddess of Tintoretto or Giorgione is more soft and beautiful: "With blindfold fury she begins to forage, Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil... . And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth, Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey, Paying what ransom the insulter willeth; Whose vulture thought doth pitch the pries so high, Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste, And where she ends she doth anew begin.” ↑ All is taken by storm, the senses first, he eyes dazzled by carnal beauty, but the heart also from whence the poetry overflows; the fulness of youth inuniates even inanimate things; the country looks charming amidst the rays of he rising sun, the air, saturated with brightness, makes a gala-day: "Lo, there the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty ; Who doth the world so gloriously behold That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." + An admirable debauch of imagination and rapture, yet disquieting; for such a mood will carry one a long way. § No fair and frail dame in London was without Adonis on her table.|| Perhaps Shakspeare perceived that he had transcended the bounds, for the tone of his next poem, the Rape of Lucrece, is quite different; but as he has already a mind liberal enough to embrace at the same time, as he did afterwards in his dramas, the two extremes of things, he continued none the less to follow his bent. The "sweet abandonment of love" was the great occupation of his life; he was tender-hearted, and he was a poet: nothing more is required to be smitten, deceived, to suffer, to traverse without pause the circle of illusions and troubles, which whirls and whirls round, and never ends. He had many loves of this kind, amongst others one for a sort of Marion Delorme, T a miserable deluding despotic passion, of which he felt the • Venus and Adonis, l. 548–553. ↑ Ibid. 1. 55-60. + Ibid. 1. 853-858. Compare the firs: pieces of Alfred de Muset, Contes d'Itale et a'Espagne. Crawley, quoted by Ph. Chasles, Etudes sur Shakspeare. A famed French courtesan (1613-1650), the heroine of a drama of that name, by Victor Hugo, having for its subject-matter: parifies everything."-TR. "Love burden and the shame, but from which, nevertheless, he could not and would not free himself. Nothing can be sadder than his confessions, or mark better the madness of love, and the sentiment of human weakness: "When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies." So spoke Alceste of Célimène; † but what a soiled Célimène is the creature before whom Shakspeare kneels, with as much of scorn as of desire ! "Those lips of thine, What have profaned their scarlet ornaments And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine, Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee." + This is plain-speaking and deep shame. lessness of soul, such as we find only in the stews; and these are the intoxi cations, the excesses, the delirium into which the most refined artists fall, when they resign their own noble hand to these soft, voluptuous, and clinging ones. They are higher than princes, and they descend to the lowest depths of sensual passion. Good and evil then lose their names; all things are inverted: "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose! That tongue that tells the story of thy days, Making lascivious comments on thy sport, Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise; Naming thy name blesses an ill report." § What are proofs, the will, reason, honor itself, when the passion is so absorbing? What can be said further to a man who answers, "I know all that you are going to say, and what does it all amount to?" Great loves are in undations, which drown all repugnance and all delicacy of soul, all precon. ceived opinions and all received prin ciples. Thenceforth the heart is dead to all ordinary pleasures: it can only feel and breathe on one side Shak speare envies the keys of the instru ment over which his mistress' fingers *Sonnet 138. †Two characters in Molière's Misanthrope. The scene referred to is Act v. & 7.-TR. + Sonnet 143. § ĺbid. 95. run. If he looks at flowers, it is she | fellow, his own dearest friend, whom whom he pictures beyond them; and he has presented to her, and whom she the extravagant splendors of dazzling wishes to seduce. poetry spring up in him repeatedly, as oon as he thinks of those glowing black eyes: From you have I been absent in the spring, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, him." He saw none of it: 'Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, 'The forward violet thus I did chide: If not from my love's breath? The purple pride, Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.' The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair: A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee."t Passionate archness, delicious affectations, worthy of Heine and the contemporaries of Dante, which tell us of long rapturous dreams concentrated on one object. Under a sway so imperious and sustained, what sentiment could maintain its ground? That of family? He was married and had children,-a family which he went to see once a year; " and it was probably on his return from one of these journeys that he used the words above quoted. Conscience? "Love is too young to know what conscience is." Jealousy and anger? 66 ! For, thou betraying me, I do betray "Two loves I have of comfort and despair, And when she has succeeded in this, he dares not confess it to himself, bu suffers all, like Molière. What wretch edness is there in these trifles every day life! How man's oughts in stinctively place by Shakspeare's side ière), also a philosopher by nature, but the great unhappy French poet (Mol more of a professional laugher, a mocker of old men in love, a bitter railer at deceived husbands, who, af ter having played in one of his most approved comedies, said aloud to a friend, "My dear fellow, I am in deNeither glory, nor work, nor invention spair; my wife does not love me! satisfy these vehement souls: love alone can gratify them, because, with their senses and heart, it contents also their brain; and all the powers of man, imagination like the rest, find in it their concentration and their employment. "Love is my sin," he said, as did Mus set and Heine; and in the Sonnets we find traces of yet other passions, equally abandoned; one in particular, seemingly for a great lady. The first half of his dramas, Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, preserve the warm imprint more completely; and we have only to consider his latest women's character, to see with what * Sonnet 144; aiso the Passionate Piz grim, 2. This new interpretation of the Sonnets is due to the ingenious and learned conjectures of M. Ph. Chasles.-For a short history of the se Sonnets, see Dyce's Shakspeare, i. pp. 96-(2. This learned editor says: "I contend that My nobler part to my gross body's trea- allusions scattered through the whole series son." § Repulses? are not to be hastily referred to the persona. circumstances of Shakspeare."-TR. Miranda, Desdemona, Viola. The follow ing are the first words of the Duke in Twelfth Night: "If music be the food of love, play on; |