The early nineteenth century was too readily convinced by Coleridge and
Hazlitt that they were the first to recognise and to explain the greatness
of Shakespeare. If amends have recently been made to the literary ideals
of Pope and Johnson, the reaction has not yet extended to Shakespearian
criticism. Are we not still inclined to hold the verdicts of Hume and
Chesterfield as representative of eighteenth-century opinion, and to find
proof of a lack of appreciation in the editorial travesties of the
playhouse? To this century, as much as to the nineteenth, Shakespeare was
the glory of English letters. So Pope and Johnson had stated in
unequivocal language, which should not have been forgotten. “He is not so
much an imitator as an instrument of Nature,” said Pope, “and ’tis not so
just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks through him”; and
Johnson declared that “the stream of time, which is continually washing
the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the
adamant of Shakespeare.” But Pope and Johnson had ventured to point out,
in the honesty of their criticism, that Shakespeare was not free from
faults; and it was this which the nineteenth century chose to remark.
Johnson’s Preface in particular was remembered only to be despised. It is
not rash to say that at the present time the majority of those who chance
to speak of it pronounce it a discreditable performance.
This false attitude to the eighteenth century had its nemesis in the
belief that we were awakened by foreigners to the greatness of
Shakespeare. Even one so eminently sane as Hazlitt lent support to this
opinion. “We will confess,” says the Preface to the _Characters of
Shakespeare’s Plays_, “that some little jealousy of the character of the
national understanding was not without its share in producing the
following undertaking, for we were piqued that it should be reserved for a
foreign critic to give reasons for the faith which we English have in
Shakespeare”; and the whole Preface resolves itself, however reluctantly,
into praise of Schlegel and censure of Johnson. When a thorough Englishman
writes thus, it is not surprising that Germany should have claimed to be
the first to give Shakespeare his true place. The heresy has been exposed;
but even the slightest investigation of eighteenth-century opinion, or the
mere recollection of what Dryden had said, should have prevented its rise.
Though Hazlitt took upon himself the defence of the national intelligence,
he incorporated in his Preface a long passage from Schlegel, because, in
his opinion, no English critic had shown like enthusiasm or philosophical
acuteness. We cannot regret the delusion if we owe to it the _Characters
of Shakespeare’s Plays_, but his patriotic task would have been easier,
and might even have appeared unnecessary, had he known that many of
Schlegel’s acute and enthusiastic observations had been anticipated at
home.
Even those who are willing to give the eighteenth century its due have not
recognised how it appreciated Shakespeare. At no time in this century was
he not popular. The author of _Esmond_ tells us that Shakespeare was quite
out of fashion until Steele brought him back into the mode.(1) Theatrical
records would alone be sufficient to show that the ascription of this
honour to Steele is an injustice to his contemporaries. In the year that
the _Tatler_ was begun, Rowe brought out his edition of the “best of our
poets”; and a reissue was called for five years later. It is said by
Johnson(2) that Pope’s edition drew the public attention to Shakespeare’s
works, which, though often mentioned, had been little read. Henceforward
there was certainly an increase in the number of critical investigations,
but if Shakespeare had been little read, how are we to explain the
coffee-house discussions of which we seem to catch echoes in the
periodical literature? The allusions in the _Spectator_, or the essays in
the _Censor_, must have been addressed to a public which knew him. Dennis,
who “read him over and over and still remained unsatiated,” tells how he
was accused, by blind admirers of the poet, of lack of veneration, because
he had ventured to criticise, and how he had appealed from a private
discussion to the judgment of the public. “Above all I am pleased,” says
the _Guardian_, “in observing that the Tragedies of Shakespeare, which in
my youthful days have so frequently filled my eyes with tears, hold their
rank still, and are the great support of our theatre.”(3) Theobald could
say that “this author is grown so universal a book that there are very few
studies or collections of books, though small, amongst which it does not
hold a place”; and he could add that “there is scarce a poet that our
English tongue boasts of who is more the subject of the Ladies’
reading.”(4) It would be difficult to explain away these statements. The
critical interest in Shakespeare occasioned by Pope’s edition may have
increased the knowledge of him, but he had been regularly cited, long
before Pope’s day, as England’s representative genius. To argue that he
had ever been out of favour we must rely on later statements, and they are
presumably less trustworthy than those which are contemporary. Lyttelton
remarked that a veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of the
national religion, and the only part in which even men of sense are
fanatics;(5) and Gibbon spoke of the “idolatry for the gigantic genius of
Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an
Englishman.”(6) The present volume will show how the eighteenth century
could almost lose itself in panegyric of Shakespeare. The evidence is so
overwhelming that it is hard to understand how the century’s respect for
Shakespeare was ever doubted. When Tom Jones took Partridge to the gallery
of Drury Lane, the play was _Hamlet_. The fashionable topics on which Mr.
Thornhill’s friends from town would talk, to the embarrassment of the
Primroses and the Flamboroughs, were “pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and
the musical glasses.” The greatest poet of the century played a leading
part in erecting the statue in the Poets’ Corner. And it was an
eighteenth-century actor who instituted the Stratford celebrations.
During the entire century Shakespeare dominated the stage. He was more to
the actor then, and more familiar to the theatre-goer, than he is now. It
is true that from Betterton’s days to Garrick’s, and later, his plays were
commonly acted from mangled versions. But these versions were of two
distinct types. The one respected the rules of the classical drama, the
other indulged the license of pantomime. The one was the labour of the
pedant theorist, the other was rather the improvisation of the theatre
manager. And if the former were truly representative of the taste of the
century, as has sometimes been implied, it has to be explained how they
were not so popular as the latter. “Our taste has gone back a whole
century,” says the strolling player in the _Vicar of Wakefield_,(7)
“Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and all the plays of Shakespeare are the only
things that go down.” The whole passage is a satire on Garrick(8) and a
gibe at Drury Lane: “The public go only to be amused, and find themselves
happy when they can enjoy a pantomime under the sanction of Jonson’s or
Shakespeare’s name.” But, whatever was done with Shakespeare’s plays, they
were the very life of the theatre. When we remember also the number of
editions which were published, and the controversies to which they gave
rise, as well as the fact that the two literary dictators were among his
editors, we are prompted to ask, What century has felt the influence of
Shakespeare more than the eighteenth?
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The century’s interest in Shakespeare shows itself in four main phases.
The first deals with his neglect of the so-called rules of the drama; the
second determines what was the extent of his learning; the third considers
the treatment of his text; and the fourth, more purely aesthetic, shows
his value as a delineator of character. The following remarks take these
questions in order; and a concluding section gives an account of the
individual essays here reprinted. Though the phases are closely connected
and overlap to some extent, the order in which they are here treated
accords in the main with their chronological sequence.