Bolingbroke's to mawkishness or sentimentality. But it is incapable of
active offence. It makes for the peace and goodwill not merely of
nations among themselves, but of the constituent elements of each
nation within itself. It unifies human aspiration and breeds social
harmony.
Very different is the phase of the patriotic instinct which is
portrayed in the more joyous, more frank, and more impulsive
characters of Faulconbridge the Bastard in the play of _King John_,
and of the King in _Henry V._ It is in them an inexhaustible stimulus
to action. It is never quiescent, but its operations are regulated by
morality and reason, and it finally induces a serene exaltation of
temper. It was a pardonable foible of Elizabethan writers distinctly
to identify with the English character this healthily energetic sort
of patriotism--the sort of patriotism to which an atmosphere of
knavery or folly proves fatal.
Faulconbridge is an admirable embodiment of the patriotic sentiment in
its most attractive guise. He is a manly soldier, blunt in speech,
contemning subterfuge, chafing against the dictates of political
expediency, and believing that quarrels between nations which cannot
be accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or the
other, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He is
the sworn foe of the bully or the braggart. Cruelty is hateful to him.
The patriotic instinct nurtures in him a warm and generous humanity.
His faith in the future of his nation depends on the confident hope
that she will be true to herself, to her traditions, to her
responsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will be at once
courageous and magnanimous:--
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
Faulconbridge's patriotism is a vivacious spur to good endeavour in
every relation of life.
Henry V. is drawn by Shakespeare at fuller length than Faulconbridge.
His character is cast in a larger mould. But his patriotism is of the
same spirited, wholesome type. Though Henry is a born soldier, he
discourages insolent aggression or reckless displays of prowess in
fight. With greater emphasis than his archbishops and bishops he
insists that his country's sword should not be unsheathed except at
the bidding of right and conscience. At the same time, he is terrible
in resolution when the time comes for striking blows. War, when it is
once invoked, must be pursued with all possible force and fury:--
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war blows in his ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.[35]
[Footnote 35: On this point the Shakespearean oracle always speaks
with a decisive and practical note:--
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
(_Hamlet_, I., iii., 65-7.)]
But although Henry's patriotic instinct can drive him into battle, it
keeps him faithful there to the paths of humanity. Always alive to the
horrors of war, he sternly forbids looting or even the use of
insulting language to the enemy. It is only when a defeated enemy
declines to acknowledge the obvious ruin of his fortunes that a sane
and practical patriotism defends resort on the part of the conqueror
to the grimmest measure of severity. The healthy instinct stiffens the
grip on the justly won fruits of victory. As soon as Henry V. sees
that the French wilfully deny the plain fact of their overthrow, he is
moved, quite consistently, to exclaim:--
What is it then to me if impious war,
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats,
Enlinked to waste and desolation?
The context makes it clear that there is no confusion here between the
patriotic instinct and mere bellicose ecstasy.
The confusion of patriotism with militant aggressiveness is as
familiar to the Shakespearean drama as to the external world; but it
is always exhibited by Shakespeare in its proper colours. The
Shakespearean "mob," unwashed in mind and body, habitually yields to
it, and justifies itself by a speciousness of argument, against which
a clean vision rebels. The so-called patriotism which seeks expression
in war for its own sake is alone intelligible to Shakespeare's
pavement orators. "Let me have war, say I," exclaims the professedly
patriotic spokesman of the ill-conditioned proletariat in
_Coriolanus_; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's
spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy,
lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.... Ay, and it makes men
hate one another." For this distressing result of peace, the reason is
given that in times of peace men have less need of one another than in
seasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the cry: "The wars
for my money." There is irony in this suggestion of the mercantile
value of war on the lips of a spokesman of paupers. It is solely the
impulsive mindless patriot who strains after mere military glory.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
(I. _Henry VI._, I., ii., 133-5.)
No wise man vaunts in the name of patriotism his own nation's
superiority over another. The typical patriot, Henry V., once makes
the common boast that one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen, but
he apologises for the brag as soon as it is out of his mouth. (He
fears the air of France has demoralised him.)
Elsewhere Shakespeare utters a vivacious warning against the patriot's
exclusive claim for his country of natural advantages, which all the
world shares substantially alike.
Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't;
In a great pool, a swan's nest: prithee, think
There's livers out of Britain.[36]
[Footnote 36: _Cymbeline_, III., iv., 139-43.]
It is not the wild hunger for war, but the stable interests of peace
that are finally subserved in the Shakespearean world by true and
well-regulated patriotism. _Henry V._, the play of Shakespeare which
shows the genuine patriotic instinct in its most energetic guise, ends
with a powerful appeal to France and England, traditional foes, to
cherish "neighbourhood and Christianlike accord," so that never again
should "war advance his bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair
France."
However whole-heartedly Shakespeare rebukes the excesses and illogical
pretensions to which the lack of moral or intellectual discipline
exposes patriotism, he reserves his austerest censure for the
disavowal of the patriotic instinct altogether. One of the greatest of
his plays is practically a diagnosis of the perils which follow in the
train of a wilful abnegation of the normal instinct. In _Coriolanus_
Shakespeare depicts the career of a man who thinks that he can, by
virtue of inordinate self-confidence and belief in his personal
superiority over the rest of his countrymen, safely abjure and defy
the common patriotic instinct, which, after all, keeps the State in
being. "I'll never," says Coriolanus,
"Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man were author of himself,
And knew no other kin."[37]
[Footnote 37: _Coriolanus_, V., iii., 34-7.]
Coriolanus deliberately suppresses the patriotic instinct, and, with
greater consistency than others who have at times followed his
example, joins the fighting ranks of his country's enemies by way of
illustrating his sincerity. His action proves to be in conflict with
the elementary condition of social equilibrium. The subversion of the
natural instinct is brought to the logical issues of sin and death.
Domestic ties are rudely severed. The crime of treason is risked with
an insolence that is fatal to the transgressor. With relentless logic
does the Shakespearean drama condemn defiance of the natural instinct
of patriotism.
III
It does not, however, follow that the patriotic instinct of the
Shakespearean gospel encourages blind adoration of state or country.
Intelligent citizens of the Shakespearean world are never prohibited
from honestly criticising the acts or aspirations of their fellows,
and from seeking to change them when they honestly think they can be
changed for the better. It is not the business of a discerning patriot
to sing pæans in his nation's honour. His final aim is to help his
country to realise the highest ideals of social and political conduct
which are known to him, and to ensure for her the best possible
"reputation through the world." Criticism conceived in a patriotic
spirit should be constant and unflagging. The true patriot speaks out
as boldly when he thinks the nation errs as when, in his opinion, she
adds new laurels to her crown. The Shakespearean patriot applies a
rigorous judgment to all conditions of his environment--both social
and political.
Throughout the English history plays Shakespeare bears convincing
testimony to the right, and even to the duty, of the patriot to
exercise in all seriousness his best powers of criticism on the
political conduct of his fellow-citizens and of those who rule over
him.
Shakespeare's studies of English history are animated by a patriotism
which boldly seeks and faces the truth. His dramatic presentations of
English history have been often described as fragments of a national
epic, as detached books of an English _Iliad_. But they embody no epic
or heroic glorification of the nation. Taking the great series which
begins chronologically with _King John_ and ends with _Richard III._
(_Henry VIII._ stands apart), we find that Shakespeare makes the
central features of the national history the persons of the kings.
Only in the case of _Henry V._ does he clothe an English king with any
genuine heroism. Shakespeare's kings are as a rule but men as we are.
The violet smells to them as it does to us; all their senses have but
human conditions; and though their affections be higher mounted than
ours, yet when they stoop they stoop with like wing. Excepting _Henry
V._, the history plays are tragedies. They "tell sad stories of the
death of kings." But they do not merely illustrate the crushing
burdens of kingship or point the moral of the hollowness of kingly
pageantry; they explain why kingly glory is in its essence brittle
rather than brilliant. And since Shakespeare's rulers reflect rather
than inspire the character of the nation, we are brought to a study of
the causes of the brittleness of national glory.
The glory of a nation, as of a king, is only stable, we learn, when
the nation, as the king, lives soberly, virtuously, and wisely, and
is courageous, magnanimous, and zealous after knowledge. Cowardice,
meanness, ignorance, and cruelty ruin nations as surely as they ruin
kings. This is the lesson specifically taught in the most eloquent of
all the direct avowals of patriotism which are to be found in
Shakespeare's plays--in the dying speech of John of Gaunt.
That speech is no ebullition of the undisciplined patriotic instinct.
It is a solemn announcement of the truth that the greatness and glory,
with which nature and history have endowed a nation, may be dissipated
when, on the one hand, the rulers prove selfish, frivolous, and
unequal to the responsibilities which a great past places on their
shoulders, and when, on the other hand, the nation acquiesces in the
depravity of its governors. In his opening lines the speaker lays
emphasis on the possibilities of greatness with which the natural
physical conditions of the country and its political and military
traditions have invested his countrymen. Thereby he brings into lurid
relief the sin and the shame of paltering with, of putting to ignoble
uses, the national character and influence. The dying patriot
apostrophises England in the familiar phrases, as:--
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle....
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands:
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world.
(_Richard II._, II., i., 40-58.)
The last line identifies with the patriotic instinct the aspiration of
a people to deserve well of foreign opinion. Subsequently the speaker
turns from his survey of the ideal which he would have his country
seek. He exposes with ruthless frankness the ugly realities of her
present degradation.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds,--
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
(_Richard II._, II., i., 61-6.)
At the moment the speaker's warning is scorned, but ultimately it
takes effect. At the end of the play of _Richard II._, England casts
off the ruler and his allies, who by their self-indulgence and moral
weakness play false with the traditions of the country.
In _Henry V._, the only one of Shakespeare's historical plays in which
an English king quits the stage in the full enjoyment of prosperity,
his good fortune is more than once explained as the reward of his
endeavour to abide by the highest ideals of his race, and of his
resolve to exhibit in his own conduct its noblest mettle. His
strongest appeals to his fellow-countrymen are:--
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you;
* * * * *
Let us swear
That you are worth your breeding.
The kernel of sound patriotism is respect for a nation's traditional
repute, for the attested worth of the race. That is the large lesson
which Shakespeare taught continuously throughout his career as a
dramatist. The teaching is not solely enshrined in the poetic
eloquence either of plays of his early years like _Richard II._ or of
plays of his middle life like _Henry V._ It is the last as well as the
first word in Shakespeare's collective declaration on the true
character of patriotism. _Cymbeline_ belongs to the close of his
working life, and there we meet once more the assurance that a due
regard to the past and an active resolve to keep alive ancestral
virtue are the surest signs of health in the patriotic instinct.
The accents of John of Gaunt were repeated by Shakespeare with little
modulation at that time of his life when his reflective power was at
its ripest. The Queen of Britain, Cymbeline's wife, is the personage
in whose mouth Shakespeare sets, not perhaps quite appropriately, the
latest message in regard to patriotism that he is known to have
delivered. Emissaries from the Emperor Augustus have come from Rome to
demand from the King of Britain payment of the tribute that Julius
Cæsar had long since imposed on the island, by virtue of a _force
majeure_, which is temporarily extinguished. The pusillanimous King
Cymbeline is indisposed to put himself to the pains of contesting the
claim, but the resolute queen awakens in him a sense of patriotism and
of patriotic obligation by recalling the more nobly inspired attitude
of his ancestors, and by convincing him of the baseness of ignoring
the physical features which had been bestowed by nature on his domains
as a guarantee of their independence.
Remember, sir my liege,
The kings your ancestors, together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters,
With sands, that will not bear your enemies' boats,
But suck them up to the topmast.
(_Cymbeline_, III., i., 16-22.)
The appeal prevails, and the tribute is refused. Although the
evolution of the plot which is based on an historical chronicle
compels the renewed acquiescence of the British king in the Roman tax
at the close of the play, the Queen of Britain's spirited insistence
on the maritime strength of her country loses little of its
significance.
IV
Frank criticism of the social life of the nation is as characteristic
of Shakespearean drama as outspoken exposition of its political
failings. There is hardly any of Shakespeare's plays which does not
offer shrewd comment on the foibles and errors of contemporary English
society.
To society, Shakespeare's attitude is that of a humorist who invites
to reformation half-jestingly. His bantering tone, when he turns to
social censure, strikingly contrasts with the tragic earnestness that
colours his criticism of political vice or weakness. Some of the
national failings on the social side which Shakespeare rebukes may
seem trivial at a first glance. But it is the voice of prudent
patriotism which prompts each count in the indictment. The keenness of
Shakespeare's insight is attested by the circumstance that every
charge has a modern application. None is yet quite out of date.
Shakespeare rarely missed an opportunity of betraying contempt for the
extravagances of his countrymen and countrywomen in regard to dress.
Portia says of her English suitor Faulconbridge, the young baron of
England: "How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in
Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his
behaviour everywhere." Another failing in Englishmen, which Portia
detects in her English suitor, is a total ignorance of any language
but his own. She, an Italian lady, remarks: "You know I say nothing to
him, for he understands not me nor I him. He hath neither Latin,
French, nor Italian. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas! who can
converse with a dumb show." This moving plaint draws attention to a
defect which is not yet supplied. There are few Englishmen nowadays
who, on being challenged to court Portia in Italian, would not cut a
sorry figure in dumb show--sorrier figures than Frenchmen or Germans.
No true patriot ought to ignore the fact or to direct attention to it
with complacency.
Again, Shakespeare was never unmindful of the drunken habits of
his compatriots. When Iago sings a verse of the song beginning,
"And let me the cannikin clink," and ending, "Why then let a
soldier drink," Cassio commends the excellence of the ditty.
Thereupon Iago explains: "I learned it in England, where indeed
they are most potent in potting; Your Dane, your German, and
your swag-bellied Hollander--drink, ho!--are nothing to your
English." Cassio asks: "Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?"
Iago retorts: "Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead
drunk," and gains, the speaker explains, easy mastery over the German
and the Hollander.
A further stroke of Shakespeare's social criticism hits the
thoughtless pursuit of novelty, which infected the nation and found
vent in Shakespeare's day in the patronage of undignified shows and
sports. When Trinculo, perplexed by the outward aspect of the hideous
Caliban, mistakes him for a fish, he remarks: "Were I in England now,
as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there
but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man;
any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to
relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian."
Shakespeare seems slyly to confess a personal conviction of defective
balance in the popular judgment when he makes the first grave-digger
remark that Hamlet was sent into England because he was mad.
"He shall recover his wits there," the old clown suggests, "or if he
do not, 'tis no great matter there."
"Why?" asks Hamlet.
"'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he."
So, too, in the emphatically patriotic play of _Henry V._, Shakespeare
implies that he sees some purpose in the Frenchman's jibes at the
foggy, raw, and dull climate of England, which engenders in its
inhabitants, the Frenchman argues, a frosty temperament, an ungenial
coldness of blood. Nor does the dramatist imply dissent from the
French marshal's suggestion that Englishmen's great meals of beef
impair the efficiency of their intellectual armour. The point of the
reproof is not blunted by the subsequent admission of a French critic
in the same scene to the effect that, however robustious and rough in
manner Englishmen may be, they have the unmatchable courage of the
English breed of mastiffs. To credit men with the highest virtues of
which dogs are capable is a grudging compliment.
V
To sum up. The Shakespearean drama enjoins those who love their
country wisely to neglect no advantage that nature offers in the way
of resisting unjust demands upon it; to remember that her prosperity
depends on her command of the sea,--of "the silver sea, which serves
it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against
the envy of less happier lands"; to hold firm in the memory "the dear
souls" who have made "her reputation through the world"; to subject at
need her faults and frailties to criticism and rebuke; and finally to
treat with disdain those in places of power, who make of no account
their responsibilities to the past as well as to the present and the
future. The political, social, and physical conditions of his country
have altered since Shakespeare lived. England has ceased to be an
island-power. The people rule instead of the king. Social
responsibilities are more widely acknowledged. But the dramatist's
doctrine of patriotism has lost little of its pristine vitality, and
is relevant to current affairs.
IX
A PERIL OF SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH[38]
[Footnote 38: This paper was first printed in _The Author_, October
1903.]
I
For some years past scarcely a month passes without my receipt of a
communication from a confiding stranger, to the effect that he has
discovered some piece of information concerning Shakespeare which has
hitherto eluded research. Very often has a correspondent put himself
to the trouble of forwarding a photograph of the title-page of a late
sixteenth or early seventeenth century book, on which has been
scrawled in old-fashioned script the familiar name of William
Shakespeare. At intervals, which seem to recur with mathematical
regularity, I receive intelligence that a portrait of the poet, of
which nothing is hitherto known, has come to light in some recondite
corner of England or America, and it is usually added that a
contemporary inscription settles all doubt of authenticity.
I wish to speak with respect and gratitude of these confidences. I
welcome them, and have no wish to repress them. But truth does not
permit me to affirm that such as have yet reached me have done more
than enlarge my conception of the scope of human credulity. I look
forward to the day when the postman shall, through the generosity of
some appreciative reader of my biography of Shakespeare, deliver at my
door an autograph of the dramatist of which nothing has been heard
before, or a genuine portrait of contemporary date, the existence of
which has never been suspected. But up to the moment of writing,
despite the good intentions of my correspondents, no experience of the
kind has befallen me.