_January, 27, 1827._
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~Garrick Plays.~
No. I.
[From “King John and Matilda,” a Tragedy by Robert Davenport, acted in
1651.]
John, not being able to bring Matilda, the chaste daughter of the old
Baron Fitzwater, to compliance with his wishes, causes her to be
poisoned in a nunnery.
SCENE. _John. The Barons_: they being as yet ignorant of the murder,
and having just come to composition with the King after tedious wars.
Matilda’s hearse is brought in by Hubert.
_John._ Hubert, interpret this apparition.
_Hubert._ Behold, sir,
A sad-writ Tragedy, so feelingly
Languaged, and cast; with such a crafty cruelty
Contrived, and acted; that wild savages
Would weep to lay their ears to, and (admiring
To see themselves outdone) they would conceive
Their wildness mildness to this deed, and call
Men more than savage, themselves rational.
And thou, Fitzwater, reflect upon thy _name_,[32]
And turn the _Son of Tears_. Oh, forget
That Cupid ever spent a dart upon thee;
That Hymen ever coupled thee; or that ever
The hasty, happy, willing messenger
Told thee thou had’st a daughter. Oh look here!
Look here, King John, and with a trembling eye
Read your sad act, Matilda’s tragedy.
_Barons._ Matilda!
_Fitzwater._ By the lab’ring soul of a much-injured man,
It is my child Matilda!
_Bruce._ Sweet niece!
_Leicester._ Chaste soul!
_John._ Do I stir, Chester?
Good Oxford, do I move? stand I not still
To watch when the griev’d friends of wrong’d Matilda
Will with a thousand stabs turn me to dust,
That in a thousand prayers they might be happy?
Will no one do it? then give a mourner room,
A man of tears. Oh immaculate Matilda,
These shed but sailing heat-drops, misling showers
The faint dews of a doubtful April morning;
But from mine eyes ship-sinking cataracts,
Whole clouds of waters, wealthy exhalations,
Shall fall into the sea of my affliction,
Till it amaze the mourners.
_Hubert._ Unmatch’d Matilda;
Celestial soldier, that kept a fort of chastity
’Gainst all temptations.
_Fitzwater._ Not to be a Queen,
Would she break her chaste vow. Truth crowns your reed;
Un_match’d_ Matilda was her name indeed.
_John._ O take into your spirit-piercing praise
My scene of sorrow. I have well-clad woes,
Pathetic epithets to illustrate passion,
And steal true tears so sweetly from all these,
Shall touch the soul, and at once pierce and please.
[_Peruses the Motto and Emblems on the hearse._
“To Piety and Purity”--and “Lillies mix’d with Roses”--
How well you have apparell’d woe! this Pendant,
To Piety and Purity directed,
Insinuates a chaste soul in a clean body,
Virtue’s white Virgin, Chastity’s red Martyr!
Suffer me then with this well-suited wreath
To make our griefs ingenious. Let all be dumb,
Whilst the king speaks her Epicedium.
_Chester._ His very soul speaks sorrow.
_Oxford._ And it becomes him sweetly.
_John._ Hail Maid and Martyr! lo on thy breast,
Devotion’s altar, chaste Truth’s nest,
I offer (as my guilt imposes)
Thy merit’s laurel, Lillies and Roses;
Lillies, intimating plain
Thy immaculate life, stuck with no stain;
Roses red and sweet, to tell
How sweet red sacrifices smell.
Hang round then, as you walk about this hearse,
The songs of holy hearts, sweet virtuous verse.
_Fitzwater._ Bring Persian silks, to deck her monument;
_John._ Arabian spices, quick’ning by their scent;
_Fitzwater._ Numidian marble, to preserve her praise,
_John._ Corinthian ivory, her shape to praise:
_Fitzwater._ And write in gold upon it, In this breast
Virtue sate mistress, Passion but a guest.
_John._ Virtue is sweet; and, since griefs bitter be,
Strew her with roses, and give rue to me.
_Bruce._ My noble brother, I’ve lost a wife and son;[33]
You a sweet daughter. Look on the king’s penitence;
His promise for the public peace. Prefer
A public benefit.[34] When it shall please,
Let Heaven question him. Let us secure
And quit the land of Lewis.[35]
_Fitzwater._ Do any thing;
Do all things that are honorable; and the Great King
Make you a good king, sir! and when your soul
Shall at any time reflect upon your follies,
Good King John, weep, weep very heartily;
It will become you sweetly. At your eyes
Your sin stole in; there pay your sacrifice.
_John._ Back unto Dunmow Abbey. There we’ll pay
To sweet Matilda’s memory, and her sufferings,
A monthly obsequy, which (sweet’ned by
The wealthy woes of a tear-troubled eye)
Shall by those sharp afflictions of my face
Court mercy, and make grief arrive at grace.
_Song._
Matilda, now go take thy bed
In the dark dwellings of the dead;
And rise in the great waking day
Sweet as incence, fresh as May.
Rest there, chaste soul, fix’d in thy proper sphere,
Amongst Heaven’s fair ones; all are fair ones there.
Rest there, chaste soul, whilst we here troubled say:
Time gives us griefs, Death takes our joys away.
This scene has much passion and poetry in it, if I mistake not. The last
words of Fitzwater are an instance of noble temperament; but to
understand him, the character throughout of this mad, merry, feeling,
insensible-seeming lord, should be read. That the venomous John could
have even counterfeited repentance so well, is out of nature; but
supposing the possibility, nothing is truer than the way in which it is
managed. These old playwrights invested their bad characters with
notions of good, which could by no possibility have coexisted with their
actions. Without a soul of goodness in himself, how could Shakspeare’s
Richard the Third have lit upon those sweet phrases and inducements by
which he attempts to win over the dowager queen to let him wed her
daughter. It is not Nature’s nature, but Imagination’s substituted
nature, which does almost as well in a fiction.
(_To be continued._)
[32] Fitzwater: son of water. A striking instance of the compatibility
of the _serious pun_ with the expression of the profoundest sorrows.
Grief, as well as joy, finds ease in thus playing with a word. Old
John of Gaunt in Shakspeare thus descants on his _name_: “Gaunt, and
gaunt indeed;” to a long string of conceits, which no one has ever yet
felt as ridiculous. The poet Wither thus, in a mournful review of the
declining estate of his family, says with deepest nature:--
The very name of Wither shows decay.
[33] Also cruelly slain by the poisoning John.
[34] i. e. of peace; which this monstrous act of John’s in this play
comes to counteract, in the same way as the discovered Death of Prince
Arthur is like to break the composition of the King with his Barons in
Shakspeare’s Play.
[35] The Dauphin of France, whom they had called in, as in
Shakspeare’s Play.
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~Literature.~