... “O mischief! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,” &c.
This famous passage is so beautiful as to be self-justified; yet, in
addition, what a fine preparation it is for the tomb scene!
_Ib._ sc. 3. Romeo’s speech:—
“Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man,
Fly hence and leave me.”
The gentleness of Romeo was shown before, as softened by love; and now it
is doubled by love and sorrow and awe of the place where he is.
_Ib._ Romeo’s speech:—--
“How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning?—--O, my love, my wife!” &c.
Here, here, is the master example how beauty can at once increase and
modify passion!
_Ib._ Last scene.
How beautiful is the close! The spring and the winter meet;—winter assumes
the character of spring, and spring the sadness of winter.
Shakespeare’s English Historical Plays.
The first form of poetry is the epic, the essence of which may be stated
as the successive in events and characters. This must be distinguished
from narration, in which there must always be a narrator, from whom the
objects represented receive a colouring and a manner;—whereas in the epic,
as in the so-called poems of Homer, the whole is completely objective, and
the representation is a pure reflection. The next form into which poetry
passed was the dramatic;—both forms having a common basis with a certain
difference, and that difference not consisting in the dialogue alone. Both
are founded on the relation of providence to the human will; and this
relation is the universal element, expressed under different points of
view according to the difference of religion, and the moral and
intellectual cultivation of different nations. In the epic poem fate is
represented as overruling the will, and making it instrumental to the
accomplishment of its designs:—
... Διὸς τελείετο βονλή
In the drama, the will is exhibited as struggling with fate, a great and
beautiful instance and illustration of which is the _Prometheus_ of
Æschylus; and the deepest effect is produced when the fate is represented
as a higher and intelligent will, and the opposition of the individual as
springing from a defect.
In order that a drama may be properly historical, it is necessary that it
should be the history of the people to whom it is addressed. In the
composition, care must be taken that there appear no dramatic
improbability, as the reality is taken for granted. It must, likewise, be
poetical;—that only, I mean, must be taken which is the permanent in our
nature, which is common, and therefore deeply interesting to all ages. The
events themselves are immaterial, otherwise than as the clothing and
manifestation of the spirit that is working within. In this mode, the
unity resulting from succession is destroyed, but is supplied by a unity
of a higher order, which connects the events by reference to the workers,
gives a reason for them in the motives, and presents men in their
causative character. It takes, therefore, that part of real history which
is the least known, and infuses a principle of life and organisation into
the naked facts, and makes them all the framework of an animated whole.
In my happier days, while I had yet hope and onward-looking thoughts, I
planned an historical drama of King Stephen, in the manner of Shakespeare.
Indeed, it would be desirable that some man of dramatic genius should
dramatise all those omitted by Shakespeare, as far down as Henry VII.
Perkin Warbeck would make a most interesting drama. A few scenes of
Marlow’s _Edward II._ might be preserved. After Henry VIII., the events
are too well and distinctly known, to be, without plump inverisimilitude,
crowded together in one night’s exhibition. Whereas, the history of our
ancient kings—the events of the reigns, I mean—are like stars in the
sky;—whatever the real interspaces may be, and however great, they seem
close to each other. The stars—the events—strike us and remain in our eye,
little modified by the difference of dates. An historic drama is,
therefore, a collection of events borrowed from history, but connected
together in respect of cause and time, poetically and by dramatic fiction.
It would be a fine national custom to act such a series of dramatic
histories in orderly succession, in the yearly Christmas holidays, and
could not but tend to counteract that mock cosmopolitism, which under a
positive term really implies nothing but a negation of, or indifference
to, the particular love of our country. By its nationality must every
nation retain its independence;—I mean a nationality _quoad_ the nation.
Better thus;—nationality in each individual, _quoad_ his country, is equal
to the sense of individuality _quoad_ himself; but himself as sub-sensuous
and central. Patriotism is equal to the sense of individuality reflected
from every other individual. There may come a higher virtue in both—just
cosmopolitism. But this latter is not possible but by antecedence of the
former.
Shakespeare has included the most important part of nine reigns in his
historical dramas;—namely—King John, Richard II.—Henry IV. (two)—Henry
V.—Henry VI. (three) including Edward V. and Henry VIII., in all ten
plays. There remain, therefore, to be done, with the exception of a single
scene or two that should be adopted from Marlow—eleven reigns—of which the
first two appear the only unpromising subjects;—and those two dramas must
be formed wholly or mainly of invented private stories, which, however,
could not have happened except in consequence of the events and measures
of these reigns, and which should furnish opportunity both of exhibiting
the manners and oppressions of the times, and of narrating dramatically
the great events;—if possible, the death of the two sovereigns, at least
of the latter, should be made to have some influence on the finale of the
story. All the rest are glorious subjects; especially Henry I. (being the
struggle between the men of arms and of letters, in the persons of Henry
and Becket), Stephen, Richard I., Edward II., and Henry VII.
“King John.”