Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845

But we will not spare, any further, the curious reader the labour of turning over the leaves of his own copy, or of his memory. The truth is, as every reader's recollection at once answers, that the rule for the comedy of Shakspeare, respectively to the social degrees along which it moves, may be worded safely enough from the scheme of persons exhibited above. The comedy of Shakspeare removes itself, by two great strides, from the meaner sort of its auditory; for light-footed, or more seriously-pacing, it loves to tread on floors of state; it associates familiarly with the highly-born and the highly-natured. His Thalia is of a very aristocratic humour. But, more than this, she further distances the vulgar associations and experience of her spectators, by putting between herself and them the Romance of Manners. We have seen the names – Naples, Milan, Verona. Let us pursue the roll-call. In "Twelfth Night," the "scene" is a city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it; – in "Measure for Measure," Vienna; – in "Much Ado about Nothing," Messina; – in the "Midsummer Night's dream," Athens, and a wood not far from it; – in "Love's Labour's Lost," Navarre; – in the "Merchant of Venice," Partly At Venice, and Partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the continent (understand, of Italy;) – in "As You Like It," the scene lies, first, near Oliver's house; afterwards, partly in the Usurper's court, and partly in the forest of Arden; – in "All's Well that End's Well," partly in France, and partly in Tuscany; – in the "Taming of the Shrew," sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in Petruchio's house in the country; – in "The Winter's Tale," (a comedy, wherein only two of the personages die – one eaten,) the scene is sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia; – in the "Comedy of Errors," at Ephesus; – Last of all, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," in Windsor and the parts adjacent. Thirteen comedies lying in Italy, Illyria, Germany, Greece, France, Asia Minor, Sicily, Bohemia, and in that uninhabited island, inhabited by a day-dream, and which lies nowhere. One in England.

We throw every thing together. To Shakspeare the boarded stage is the field of imagination. He comes from the hand of Nature an essential poet. That he is a dramatic poet, should have two reasons. The first, given in his poetical constitution; that the piercing and various inquisition of humanity for which he was gifted; the intimate mastery of passion; and the extraordinary activity of ratiocination which distinguish him, are satisfied only by the Drama. Then, in the accident of the times – that as the stage rose for Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and they for the stage – so, with Shakspeare, in England. At a certain point of the social progression, the theatre becomes the spot where poetry has living power. Shakspeare must seize upon the mind of his countrymen, as Homer took possession of Greece – VIVA VOCE. The silent and retired press is for the dream-like Spenser – for the star-like Milton. To Shakspeare, the Promethean maker of men and women, earthly-moulded if kindled into life with fire from heaven – give a stage and actors! – Give men and women, to personate men and women! – And give three thousand men and women, to throng roundabout, and look and listen – thrill and weep – suspended in one breathlessness! But not because he has deigned to trace upon those actual boards his magical ring, and because within it his powerful art calls up no air-made phantasmagoria, but breathing and sentient substantial humanity; not, therefore, is he less a magician – less a POET – less, if you will, a dreamer. Imagination is the faculty which habitually divides him, as all his brotherhood, from us, the vulgar of mankind. To him the stage is the field of imagination; therefore, he avails himself of all allowed imaginative resources. Distance, in time and place, which renders indefinite; strange, picturesque, poetical manners, and regions, are such legitimate means. In particular, imagination prefers high rank to low, for half a dozen reasons. The outward show, state, pomp, retinue, splendour of costume, of habitation, of all daily accidental conditions; – these allure imagination, which, like grief, "is easily beguiled." Ease, in human life, like that attributed to the heavenly divinities – the ρεια ζωντες – the gods who live at ease, pleases imagination; – which might be justified. But imagination is not a light and idle child, to be won by the mere toy of a throne and robe, crown and sceptre. These are the signs of a universal homage rendered; and in this meaning, besides their natural richness and beauty, pleasing. Again, imagination itself does homage to stately power – not homage servile, as to that from which it dreads evil – but free homage, contemplatively, to a wellspring of momentous effects. The power that invests the person of a sovereign, of necessity clothes him in majesty. Again, many and grave destinies hang about high persons. Each stands for many of less note; and imagination is a faculty, taking delight in the representation of many by one. Besides, high persons carry on high actions; and they are free to act. They will, and straightway they do.

Here, then, is good cause why the imaginative drama, comic or tragic, shall delight in high persons. And you see accordingly, that the plays of Shakspeare, of whatsoever description, move regularly amongst the loftily born – kings, independent dukes, nobles, gentlemen.

"The Emperor of Russia was my father:"

says the falsely accused Hermione, and you sympathize with her proud consciousness, and you THE MORE feel her abhorred indignity.

If Spenser could say, that it belongs to gentle blood to sit well on horseback – much more does the easy and inborn courage and worth of gentle blood bestride bravely, gracefully, lightly, and well, the careering, rearing, bounding, plunging, and headlong rushing horses of human destinies.

The fact, then, is this: – Shakspeare thus views the world; and he frames his idea of the drama accordingly.

What, then, does Pope mean, when he says that Shakspeare "lays his scene amongst tradesmen and mechanics?"

Surely he does not include under tradesmen, great merchants. Not, for example, the "Merchant of Syracusa," the grave and good old Ægæon, condemned to death in the "Comedy of Errors" because Ephesus and Syracusa have war. He and his fortune are as far away as a king with his – from the 'prentices of London. It is not the Venetian merchant, the princely Antonio, with his argosies, spice and silk laden, that Pope regards as letting down the dignity of the sock; nor, we hope, the Jew and usurer, Shylock; the sublime in indignation, when he vindicates to his down-spurned race the parity of the human tempering in body and soul; the sublime in hate, when he fastens like a devil his fangs – or prepares to fasten – in the quivering, living flesh of his Christian debtor.

No! these are not yet the key to the enigma – "tradesmen and mechanics."

In the "Midsummer Night's Dream," "a crew" of six "rude mechanicals," "hard-handed men," "that work for bread upon Athenian stalls," enact TWO scenes wholly to themselves – ONE, which mixes them up with the fairies; and ONE, in the presence of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and of his fair warrior-bride Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons; to say nothing of ONE, or possible TWO fairy scenes, which include one of the said "swaggering hempen homespuns," transformed by faëry.

Is this that "laying" of the "scene amongst tradesmen and mechanics," which has afforded our critic his absolute description of Shakspeare's comedy?

We greatly suspect, that it had too much to do in suggesting the strange misrepresentation.

And is this all?

No! It is not.

There is one play that, by its whole invention, lies nearest the reality, which must be taken as habitually possessing the understandings of an English – a London – audience, in the reign of Elizabeth. It is that one comedy which haunts upon English ground – "The Merry Wives of Windsor." The complexion and constitution of the play lay it in the bosom – the manners are those – of MIDDLE English life.

Here are the persons: – Sir John Falstaff; Fenton, (he is Ann Page's lover, the list of the names assigns him no rank. In conversation with mine host of the Garter, however, he asserts his own quality; with "as I am a gentleman;") Shallow, a country justice; Slender, cousin to Shallow; Mr Ford, Mr Page, two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor; William Page, a boy, son to Mr Page; Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson; Dr Caius, a French Physician; Host of the Garter Inn; Bardolf, Pistol, Nym, followers of Falstaff; Robin, page to Falstaff; Simple, servant to Slender; Rugby, servant to Dr Caius.

There is no need of adding two wives and a daughter. Here is the toning of that which we will take leave to call Shakspeare's only unromantic and unaristocratical comedy.

Was this written to please the "meaner sort" of people who frequented the playhouses?

Dennis hands down the tradition – which he may have had from Dryden, who may have had it from Sir W. Davenant – that "the comedy was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, and by her direction." At all events, and whatsoever other tastes it courted and may have gratified, it won the favour of the highest audience. The quarto edition of 1602, describes it as having been "divers times acted by the right honourable my Lord Chamberlaine's servants, both before her Maiestie, and else-where;" and in the accounts of the Revels at Court, in the latter end of 1604, it figures as performed on the Sunday following November first, "by his Majestie's plaiers."

We have thus, in part explicitly and in part summarily, documented the TONE, if it may be so called, of Shakspeare's Comic Theatre – being impelled so to do, first of all, by the duty of contradicting, the most injurious and utterly groundless characterization of a critic, whom we cite with the highest esteem and applause; further, by the fear that the positive and unqualified averment of a high and critical authority might entrap a docile and easy reader into an unhappy misrecollection of his own true and clear knowledge upon the matter. Thirdly, we were not sorry to find ourselves engaged in clearing up, once for all, our own hitherto somewhat confused and insecure impressions. In the fourth place, we do always rejoice, and are irresistibly swayed from our equipoise, and are liable to be hurried any lengths, when we fall in with any opportunity of talking in any way about Shakspeare. But in particular we are glad to be obliged to approve and authenticate any general and grounding views of his poetry; and it came not amiss to our humour, in this day of the world, to show how tenderly and reverently the Spirit, who has the most lovingly, largely, and profoundly comprehended humanity, viewed the mistrusted and assailed institutions which have all along built and sustained the societies of men. If there is "beauty" that "maketh beautiful old rhyme," there is verse that reacts upon its matter; the poetry of Shakspeare shall stand in the place of a more easily fallible political science, to strengthen, whilst it adorns, the old pillars of man's world. Song can draw down the moon from the sky – song shall draw and charm many a rugged, uncouth, untamed understanding to a more submissive political docility.

But, indeed, there lurked one other less ambitious motive. What could the accurate Pope mean by this most inaccurate description of his author? We presume that there is an answer. The eulogy which precisely describes Shakspeare, is Pope's own. The imputations against Shakspeare, of which Pope will palliate the edge, are not Pope's. They are the impeachments laid by the adversary, which Pope, zealous of mitigating, too largely and hastily concedes. Standing, then, in bare and sharp opposition, as they do, to the fact, they may serve us as constituting a fact in themselves. They attest the opinion of the day – opinion, at least, prevalent high and wide, since Pope allows it. We can understand the opinion itself only as a confused and excessive exaggeration of the admixture which Shakspeare allowed to the lower comic, in comedy and in tragedy; as a protest – in which how far did Pope join? – against that admixture. The conclusion which this day will draw, must be, that the criticism of Shakspeare in polite circles, at that day, stood low.

"Another cause (and no less strong than the former) may be deduced from our author's being a player, and forming himself first upon the judgments of that body of men whereof he was a member. They have ever had a standard to themselves, upon other principles than those of Aristotle. As they live by the majority, they know no rule but that of pleasing the present humour, and complying with the wit in fashion; a consideration which brings all their judgment to a short point. Players are just such judges of what is right, as tailors are of what is graceful. And in this view it will be but fair to allow, that most of our author's faults are less to be ascribed to his wrong judgment as a poet, than to his right judgment as a player.

"By these men it was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce ever blotted a line. This they industriously propagated, as appears from what we are told by Ben Jonson in his Discoveries, and from the preface of Heminges and Condell to the first folio edition. But in reality (however it has prevailed) there never was a more groundless report, or to the contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences; as the comedy of the Merry Wives of Windsor, which he entirely new writ; the History of Henry VI., which was first published under the title of The Contention of York and Lancaster, and that of Henry V., extremely improved: that of Hamlet, enlarged to almost as much again as at first, and many others. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise by some, and to this his errors have as injudiciously been ascribed by others. For it is certain, were it true, it could concern but a small part of them; the most are such as are not properly defects, but superfœtations; and arise not from want of learning or reading, but from want of thinking or judging: or rather (to be more just to our author) from a compliance to those wants in others. As to a wrong choice of the subject, a wrong conduct of the incidents, false thoughts, forced expressions, &c., if these are not to be ascribed to the aforesaid accidental reasons, they must be charged upon the poet himself, and there is no help for it. But I think the two disadvantages which I have mentioned, (to be obliged to please the lowest of people, and to keep the worst of company,) if the consideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear sufficient to mislead and depress the greatest genius upon earth. Nay, the more modesty with which such a one is endued, the more he is in danger of submitting and conforming to others against his own better judgment."

On the other hand, as the intellectual destiny of Shakspeare was to be the greatest of dramatists, the trade of a player had its advantages. He learned absolutely what a stage is, what actors can do, and what audiences are. Charles Lamb feebly maintained, that Shakspeare's Plays are unfitted for acting, by being above it. They are above reading too; at least, they are above most – why not say the truth at once – above all readers of them. Yet it would be a pity to leave them unread. They are the best fitted of all plays for acting; for of all plays they best possess the stage, and command the audience. In thus extolling the essential poetry of Shakspeare, he condemns his practical understanding, his art. He oversteps, too, the inabilities of the histrionic art. The inabilities of the histrions themselves, is another matter. The difficulty of understanding Shakspeare, must not be turned into the impossibility of representing him when understood. The power, art, science, capacity, what you will, with which he has fitted his works to their immediate use, shows itself remarkably in this, that as the stage grows in its material means, the play comes out in power, splendour, majesty, magnificence, as if the stage but grew to the dimensions of that which it must contain; and it must have been hundreds of times felt in the green-room, that only the Plays of Shakspeare try, and form actor and actress, foster and rear them to the height of their possible stature.

"But as to his want of learning, it may be necessary to say something more: there is certainly a vast difference between learning and languages. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or another. Nothing is more evident than that he had a taste of natural philosophy, mechanics, ancient and modern history, poetical learning, and mythology: we find him very knowing in the customs, rights, and manners of antiquity. In Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar, not only the spirit, but manners of Romans are exactly drawn: and still a nicer distinction is shown between the manners of the Romans in time of the former and of the latter. His reading in the ancient historians is no less conspicuous, in many references to particular passages, and the speeches copied from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, as well be made an instance of his learning as those copied from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben Jonson's. The manners of other nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, French, &c., are drawn with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature or branch of science he either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent, if not extensive knowledge; his descriptions are still exact; all his metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each subject. When he treats of ethic or politic, we may constantly observe a wonderful justness of distinction as well as extent of comprehension. No one is more a master of the poetical story, or has more frequent allusions to the various parts of it. Mr Waller (who has been celebrated for this last particular) has not shown more learning this way than Shakspeare. We have translations from Ovid published in his name, among those poems which pass for his, and for some of which we have undoubted authority, (being published by himself, and dedicated to his noble patron, the Earl of Southampton.) He appears also to have been conversant in Plautus, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his plays. He follows the Greek authors, and particularly Dares Phrygius, in another; although I will not pretend to say in what language he read them. The modern Italian writers of novels he was manifestly acquainted with; and we may conclude him to be no less conversant with the ancients of his own country; from the use he has made of Chaucer in Troilus and Cressida, and in the Two Noble Kinsmen, if that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was; and indeed it has little resemblance of Fletcher, and more of our author than some of those that have been received as genuine.

"I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the partisans of our author and Ben Jonson; as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said, on the one hand, that Shakspeare had none at all; and because Shakspeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted, on the other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakspeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed every thing. Because Jonson did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakspeare wrote with ease and rapidity, they cried, he never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of opposition ran so high, that whatever those of the one side objected to the other, was taken at the rebound, and turned into praises; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them objections."

The learning of Shakspeare! Pope, like Dryden, has said well upon it. Shakspeare, the personal friend of men of highest rank, learning, genius; and reading in the English language as much as he chose of the wit and wisdom there entreasured, inherited the mind of the world. What will you have more? That he shall read his own spirit; and, therefore, is he above all men learned. As for that seeming wildness and irregularity of his style, which many are inclined, even at this day, to set down to his imperfect education, we beg you to recollect his more elaborated rhymed poems; his Venus and Adonis; his Rape of Lucrece; his Passionate Pilgrim; his Sonnets. And are you quite sure that some of the most finished, the strictest composition as to language and verse, of his age, shall not be found there, far beyond the experience or even comprehension of Dr Parr and all his scholars?

Reader beloved from old, and with whom we have ever loved, on pleasant landing-place in spacious article, lovingly to confabulate – while printer's devil, forgetful of copy, in the far depths of Altisidora indulged in snoreless sleep – reader, beloved anew, tell us who were the Greeks? "They were that division of mankind in which Homer took mortal existence. Homer spoke Greek." Good. And so, three or five thousand years hence, somebody will be asking somebody, who were the English? "Oh! they inhabited the island in which Shakspeare was born! Then, and a little while before and after. Shakspeare spoke English. He was an Englishman." Good. Ay, ay, rough and ready, and gentle reader, in what civilized part of Central Africa such question and reply will be made, we predict not; but you and we feel, that when and wheresoever the little dialogue shall occur, we two shall have for ourselves our own sufficient share of posthumous reputation, and eke Charles Knight. These twelve volumes always lying on their own line of our table, are Charles' edition of Shakspeare, alone of all our valuables uninsured at the Sun, for they are bound in asbestos. And now, obedient reader, listen to us lecturing, like a philosophical critic as we are, on Pope's Essay on Criticism, involved in these ten volumes, edited twenty years ago by William Roscoe, now with the saints.

Essay on Criticism! What does one expect? Criticism, be it noted, has two phases. This is the first. In its origin, it follows now afar, now close upon the works out of which it has arisen. It describes the methods which genius has half-instinctively, half-thoughtfully followed. It brings out into clear statement, certain movements and felt workings of genius; and it defines formal imitation to workers that shall come. It appears, therefore, as an embodying of rules. This is, in the main, the shape in which criticism appears in classical antiquity. This was the meaning of the name with Pope and his contemporaries. "Dicta sunt omnia," remarks Quinctilian, (insisting upon the order in which nature produces, first, the arts themselves, poetry or eloquence, in power – operative; then, the deduction and exposition of the method,) "antequam præciperentur." And so in Pope and his contemporaries, we read of nothing but RULES – RULES – RULES! At this day, the word then in honour, grates, albeit a smooth one, upon one's ear. It seems to depress and to tame, to shut up and imprison thought, which would range and soar, and asks breath, and vigour, and liberty, from true criticism. The truth is, that since that day the world has turned round, and we are turned philosophers. Thus the second phasis has arisen. We want no longer the rules, but the PRINCIPLES – the facts or the laws in our nature, and the nature of things about us, which have given out the rules; whence they flowed to Homer and to Demosthenes. We will drink from the fountains; not even from those "golden urns!" And with right and with reason, for we, too, are the children of nature. Besides, we will JUDGE Homer and Demosthenes. Without doubt, criticism, founded as an art empirical, tends continually to its second phasis, of a science grounding an art. And it is to be hoped, that something towards this profounder constitution has been attained, and that we, in following down our critics, shall follow out some part of such a progress. In the mean time, let us not rate our predecessors too low, merely upon the showing of their own modesty. Do not believe that Aristotle could propound a rule, through which a principle did not gleam out. And, in sooth, when this Essay sprang from the brain of Pope, – were not, possibly, the papers lying in the desk of Addison, in which he began, for our literature, the deliberate and express examination into the Philosophy of Criticism, within the domain of the beautiful in Art and Nature?