We shall give for the satisfaction of the reader what the celebrated
German critic, Schlegel, says on this subject, and then add a very
few remarks of our own.
'All the editors, with the exception of Capell, are unanimous in
rejecting TITUS ANDRONICUS as unworthy of Shakespeare, though they
always allow it to be printed with the other pieces, as the
scapegoat, as it were, of their abusive criticism. The correct
method in such an investigation is first to examine into the
external grounds, evidences, &c., and to weigh their worth; and then
to adduce the internal reasons derived from the quality of the work.
The critics of Shakespeare follow a course directly the reverse of
this; they set out with a preconceived opinion against a piece, and
seek, in justification of this opinion, to render the historical
grounds suspicious, and to set them aside. TITUS ANDRONICUS is to be
found in the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works, which it
was known was conducted by Heminge and Condell, for many years his
friends and fellow-managers of the same theatre. Is it possible to
persuade ourselves that they would not have known if a piece in
their repertory did or did not actually belong to Shakespeare? And
are we to lay to the charge of these honourable men a designed fraud
in this single case, when we know that they did not show themselves
so very desirous of scraping everything together which went by the
name of Shakespeare, but, as it appears, merely gave those plays of
which they had manuscripts in hand? Yet the following circumstance
is still stronger: George Meres, a contemporary and admirer of
Shakespeare, mentions TITUS ANDRONICUS in an enumeration of his
works, in the year 1598. Meres was personally acquainted with the
poet, and so very intimately, that the latter read over to him his
Sonnets before they were printed. I cannot conceive that all the
critical scepticism in the world would be sufficient to get over
such a testimony.
This tragedy, it is true, is framed according to a false idea of the
tragic, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enormities
degenerates into the horrible, and yet leaves no deep impression
behind: the story of Tereus and Philomela is heightened and
overcharged under other names, and mixed up with the repast of
Atreus and Thyestes, and many other incidents. In detail there is no
want of beautiful lines, bold images, nay, even features which
betray the peculiar conception of Shakespeare. Among these we may
reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor at the blackness and ugliness
of his child begot in adultery; and in the compassion of Titus
Andronicus, grown childish through grief, for a fly which had been
struck dead, and his rage afterwards when he imagines he discovers
in it his black enemy; we recognize the future poet of LEAR. Are the
critics afraid that Shakespeare's fame would be injured, were it
established that in his early youth he ushered into the world a
feeble and immature work? Was Rome the less the conqueror of the
world because Remus could leap over its first walls? Let any one
place himself in Shakespeare's situation at the commencement of his
career. He found only a few indifferent models, and yet these met
with the most favourable reception, because men are never difficult
to please in the novelty of an art before their taste has become
fastidious from choice and abundance. Must not this situation have
had its influence on him before he learned to make higher demands on
himself, and by digging deeper in his own mind, discovered the
richest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly probable that he
must have made several failures before getting into the right path.
Genius is in a certain sense infallible, and has nothing to learn;
but art is to be learned, and must be acquired by practice and
experience. In Shakespeare's acknowledged works we find hardly any
traces of his apprenticeship, and yet an apprenticeship he certainly
had. This every artist must have, and especially in a period where
he has not before him the example of a school already formed. I
consider it as extremely probable, that Shakespeare began to write
for the theatre at a much earlier period than the one which is
generally stated, namely, not till after the year 1590. It appears
that, as early as the year 1584, when only twenty years of age, he
had left his paternal home and repaired to London. Can we imagine
that such an active head would remain idle for six whole years
without making any attempt to emerge by his talents from an
uncongenial situation? That in the dedication of the poem of Venus
and Adonis he calls it "the first heir of his invention", proves
nothing against the supposition. It was the first which he printed;
he might have composed it at an earlier period; perhaps, also, he
did not include theatrical labours, as they then possessed but
little literary dignity. The earlier Shakespeare began to compose
for the theatre, the less are we enabled to consider the immaturity
and imperfection of a work as a proof of its spuriousness in
opposition to historical evidence, if we only find in it prominent
features of his mind. Several of the works rejected as spurious may
still have been produced in the period betwixt TITUS ANDRONICUS and
the earliest of the acknowledged pieces.
'At last, Steevens published seven pieces ascribed to Shakespeare in
two supplementary volumes. It is to be remarked, that they all
appeared in print in Shakespeare's lifetime, with his name prefixed
at full length. They are the following:
'1. LOCRINE. The proofs of the genuineness of this piece are not
altogether unambiguous; the grounds for doubt, on the other hand,
are entitled to attention. However, this question is immediately
connected with that respecting TITUS ANDRONICUS, and must be at the
same time resolved in the affirmative or negative.
'2. PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. This piece was acknowledged by Dryden,
but as a youthful work of Shakespeare. It is most undoubtedly his,
and it has been admitted into several of the late editions. The
supposed imperfections originate in the circumstance, that
Shakespeare here handled a childish and extravagant romance of the
old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the subject out of its
proper sphere. Hence he even introduces Gower himself, and makes him
deliver a prologue entirely in his antiquated language and
versification. This power of assuming so foreign a manner is at
least no proof of helplessness.
'3. THE LONDON PRODIGAL. If we are not mistaken, Lessing pronounced
this piece to be Shakespeare's, and wished to bring it on the German
stage.
'4. THE PURITAN; OR, THE WIDOW OF WATLING STREET. One of my literary
friends, intimately acquainted with Shakespeare, was of opinion that
the poet must have wished to write a play for once in the style of
Ben Jonson, and that in this way we must account for the difference
between the present piece and his usual manner. To follow out this
idea, however, would lead to a very nice critical investigation.
'5. THOMAS, LORD CROMWELL.
'6. SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE--FIRST PART.
'7. A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY.
'The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakespeare's,
but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best and
maturest works. Steevens admits at last, in some degree, that they
are Shakespeare's, as well as the others, excepting LOCRINE, but he
speaks of all of them with great contempt, as quite worthless
productions. This condemnatory sentence is not, however, in the
slightest degree convincing, nor is it supported by critical acumen.
I should like to see how such a critic would, of his own natural
suggestion, have decided on Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpieces,
and what he would have thought of praising in them, had the public
opinion imposed on him the duty of admiration. THOMAS, LORD
CROMWELL, and SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE, are biographical dramas, and
models in this species: the first is linked, from its subject, to
HENRY THE EIGHTH, and the second to HENRY THE FIFTH. The second part
of OLDCASTLE is wanting; I know not whether a copy of the old
edition has been discovered in England, or whether it is lost. THE
YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY is a tragedy in one act, a dramatized tale of
murder: the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is extremely
important to see how poetically Shakespeare could handle such a
subject.
'There have been still farther ascribed to him: 1st. THE MERRY DEVIL
OF EDMONTON, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's old plays.
This has certainly some appearances in its favour. It contains a
merry landlord, who bears a great similarity to the one in the MERRY
WIVES OF WINDSOR. However, at all events, though an ingenious, it is
but a hasty sketch. 2nd. THE ACCUSATION OF PARIS. 3rd. THE BIRTH OF
MERLIN. 4th. EDWARD THE THIRD. 5th. THE FAIR EMMA. 6th. MUCEDORUS.
7th. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM. I have never seen any of these, and cannot
therefore say anything respecting them. From the passages cited, I
am led to conjecture that the subject of MUCEDORUS is the popular
story of Valentine and Orson; a beautiful subject which Lope de Vega
has also taken for a play. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM is said to be a
tragedy on the story of a man, from whom the poet was descended by
the mother's side. If the quality of the piece is not too directly
at variance with this claim, the circumstance would afford an
additional probability in its favour. For such motives were not
foreign to Shakespeare: he treated Henry the Seventh, who bestowed
lands on his forefathers for services performed by them, with a
visible partiality.
'Whoever takes from Shakespeare a play early ascribed to him, and
confessedly belonging to his time, is unquestionably bound to answer,
with some degree of probability, this question: who has then written it?
Shakespeare's competitors in the dramatic walk are pretty well known,
and if those of them who have even acquired a considerable name, a
Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood, are still so very far below him, we can
hardly imagine that the author of a work, which rises so high beyond
theirs, would have remained unknown'--LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE,
vol. ii, page 252.
We agree to the truth of this last observation, but not to the
justice of its application to some of the plays here mentioned. It
is true that Shakespeare's best works are very superior to those of
Marlow, or Heywood, but it is not true that the best of the doubtful
plays above enumerated are superior or even equal to the best of
theirs. THE YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY, which Schlegel speaks of as an
undoubted production of our author's, is much more in the manner of
Heywood than of Shakespeare. The effect is indeed overpowering, but
the mode of producing it is by no means poetical. The praise which
Schlegel gives to THOMAS, LORD CROMWELL, and to SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE,
is altogether exaggerated. They are very indifferent compositions,
which have not the slightest pretensions to rank with HENRY V or
HENRY VIII. We suspect that the German critic was not very well
acquainted with the dramatic contemporaries of Shakespeare, or aware
of their general merits; and that he accordingly mistakes a
resemblance in style and manner for an equal degree of excellence.
Shakespeare differed from the other writers of his age not in the
mode of treating his subjects, but in the grace and power which he
displayed in them. The reason assigned by a literary friend of
Schlegel's for supposing THE PURITAN; OR, THE WIDOW OF WATLING
STREET, to be Shakespeare's, viz. that it is in the style of Ben
Jonson, that is to say, in a style just the reverse of his own, is
not very satisfactory to a plain English understanding. LOCRINE, and
THE LONDON PRODIGAL, if they were Shakespeare's at all, must have
been among the sins of his youth. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM contains
several striking passages, but the passion which they express is
rather that of a sanguine tem-perament than of a lofty imagination;
and in this respect they approximate more nearly to the style of
other writers of the time than to Shakespeare's. TITUS ANDRONICUS is
certainly as unlike Shakespeare's usual style as it is possible. It
is an accumulation of vulgar physical horrors, in which the power
exercised by the poet bears no proportion to the repugnance excited
by the subject. The character of Aaron the Moor is the only thing
which shows any originality of conception; and the scene in which he
expresses his joy 'at the blackness and ugliness of his child begot
in adultery', the only one worthy of Shakespeare. Even this is
worthy of him only in the display of power, for it gives no
pleasure. Shakespeare managed these things differently. Nor do we
think it a sufficient answer to say that this was an embryo or crude
production of the author. In its kind it is full grown, and its
features decided and overcharged. It is not like a first imperfect
essay, but shows a confirmed habit, a systematic preference of
violent effect to everything else. There are occasional detached
images of great beauty and delicacy, but these were not beyond the
powers of other writers then living. The circumstance which inclines
us to reject the external evidence in favour of this play being
Shakespeare's is, that the grammatical construction is constantly
false and mixed up with vulgar abbreviations, a fault that never
occurs in any of his genuine plays. A similar defect, and the
halting measure of the verse are the chief objections to PERICLES OF
TYRE, if we except the far-fetched and complicated absurdity of the
story. The movement of the thoughts and passions has something in it
not unlike Shakespeare, and several of the descriptions are either
the original hints of passages which Shakespeare has engrafted on
his other plays, or are imitations of them by some contemporary
poet. The most memorable idea in it is in Marina's speech, where she
compares the world to 'a lasting storm, hurrying her from her
friends'.