To please me, a poem must be either music or sense; if it is neither, I
confess I cannot interest myself in it.
* * * * *
The first act of the Virgin Martyr is as fine an act as I remember in any
play. The Very Woman is, I think, one of the most perfect plays we have.
There is some good fun in the first scene between Don John, or Antonio, and
Cuculo, his master[1]; and can any thing exceed the skill and sweetness of
the scene between him and his mistress, in which he relates his story?[2]
The Bondman is also a delightful play. Massinger is always entertaining;
his plays have the interest of novels.
But, like most of his contemporaries, except Shakspeare, Massinger often
deals in exaggerated passion. Malefort senior, in the Unnatural Combat,
however he may have had the moral will to be so wicked, could never have
actually done all that he is represented as guilty of, without losing his
senses. He would have been, in fact, mad. Regan and Goneril are the only
pictures of the unnatural in Shakspeare; the pure unnatural--and you will
observe that Shakspeare has left their hideousness unsoftened or
diversified by a single line of goodness or common human frailty. Whereas
in Edmund, for whom passion, the sense of shame as a bastard, and ambition,
offer some plausible excuses, Shakspeare has placed many redeeming traits.
Edmund is what, under certain circumstances, any man of powerful intellect
might be, if some other qualities and feelings were cut off. Hamlet is,
inclusively, an Edmund, but different from him as a whole, on account of
the controlling agency of other principles which Edmund had not.
It is worth while to remark the use which Shakspeare always makes of his
bold villains as vehicles for expressing opinions and conjectures of a
nature too hazardous for a wise man to put forth directly as his own, or
from any sustained character.
[Footnote 1: Act iii. sc. 2.]
[Footnote 2: Act iv. sc. 3.:--
"ANT. Not far from where my father lives, a lady,
A neighbour by, bless'd with as great a beauty
As nature durst bestow without undoing,
Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then,
And bless'd the home a thousand times she dwelt in.
This beauty, in the blossom of my youth,
When my first fire knew no adulterate incense,
Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness;
In all the bravery my friends could show me,
In all the faith my innocence could give me,
In the best language my true tongue could tell me,
And all the broken sighs my sick heart lent me,
I sued and served: long did I love this lady,
Long was my travail, long my trade to win her;
With all the duty of my soul, I served her.
ALM. How feelingly he speaks! (_Aside_.) And she loved you too?
It must be so.
ANT. I would it had, dear lady;
This story had been needless, and this place,
I think, unknown to me.
ALM. Were your bloods equal?
ANT. Yes; and I thought our hearts too.
ALM. Then she must love.
ANT. She did--but never me; she could not love me,
She would not love, she hated; more, she scorn'd me,
And in so poor and base a way abused me,
For all my services, for all my bounties,
So bold neglects flung on me--
ALM. An ill woman!
Belike you found some rival in your love, then?
ANT. How perfectly she points me to my story! (_Aside_.)
Madam, I did; and one whose pride and anger,
Ill manners, and worse mien, she doted on,
Doted to my undoing, and my ruin.
And, but for honour to your sacred beauty,
And reverence to the noble sex, though she fall,
As she must fall that durst be so unnoble,
I should say something unbeseeming me.
What out of love, and worthy love, I gave her,
Shame to her most unworthy mind! to fools,
To girls, and fiddlers, to her boys she flung,
And in disdain of me.
ALM. Pray you take me with you.
Of what complexion was she?
ANT. But that I dare not
Commit so great a sacrilege 'gainst virtue,
She look'd not much unlike--though far, far short,
Something, I see, appears--your pardon, madam--
Her eyes would smile so, but her eyes could cozen;
And so she would look sad; but yours is pity,
A noble chorus to my wretched story;
Hers was disdain and cruelty.
ALM. Pray heaven,
Mine be no worse! he has told me a strange story, (_Aside_.)" &c.--ED.]
* * * * *
The parts pointed out in Hieronimo as Ben Jonson's bear no traces of his
style; but they are very like Shakspeare's; and it is very remarkable that
every one of them re-appears in full form and development, and tempered
with mature judgment, in some one or other of Shakspeare's great pieces.[1]
[Footnote 1:
By Hieronimo Mr. Coleridge meant The Spanish Tragedy, and not the previous
play, which is usually called The First Part of Jeronimo. The Spanish
Tragedy is, upon the authority of Heywood, attributed to Kyd. It is
supposed that Ben Jonson originally performed the part of Hieronimo, and
hence it has been surmised that certain passages and whole scenes connected
with that character, and not found in some of the editions of the play,
are, in fact, Ben Jonson's own writing. Some of these supposed
interpolations are amongst the best things in the Spanish Tragedy; the
style is singularly unlike Jonson's, whilst there are turns and particular
images which do certainly seem to have been imitated by or from Shakspeare.
Mr. Lamb at one time gave them to Webster. Take this, passage, in the
fourth act:--
"HIERON. What make you with your torches in the dark?
PEDRO. You bid us light them, and attend you here.
HIERON. No! you are deceived; not I; you are deceived.
Was I so mad to bid light torches now?
Light me your torches at the mid of noon,
When as the sun-god rides in all his glory;
Light me your torches then.
PEDRO. Then we burn day-light.
HIERON. _Let it be burnt; Night is a murd'rous slut,
That would not have her treasons to be seen;
And yonder pale-faced Hecate there, the moon,
Doth give consent to that is done in darkness;
And all those stars that gaze upon her face
Are aglets on her sleeve, pins on her train;
And those that should be powerful and divine,
Do sleep in darkness when they most should shine._
PEDRO. Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words.
The heavens are gracious, and your miseries and sorrow
Make you speak you know not what
HIERON. _Villain! thou liest, and thou dost nought
But tell me I am mad: thou liest, I am not mad;
I know thee to be Pedro, and he Jaques;
I'll prove it thee; and were I mad, how could I?
Where was she the same night, when my Horatio was murder'd!
She should have shone then; search thou the book:
Had the moon shone in my boy's face, there was a kind of grace,
That I know--nay, I do know, had the murderer seen him,
His weapon would have fallen, and cut the earth,
Had he been framed of nought but blood and death," &c._