‘Glory to thee in the highest, thou confidant of our Creator!’
(Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_, Delille and Landor).
* * * * *
2 _Henry VI._ iii. 3.—The lines beginning with the one which follows are
not in the old play and are Shakespeare’s own:
‘O thou eternal Mover of the heavens,’ etc.
Johnson’s note is: ‘This is one of the scenes which have been applauded
by the criticks, and which will continue to be admired when prejudices
shall cease, and bigotry give way to impartial examination. These are
beauties that rise out of nature and of truth; the superficial reader
cannot miss them, the profound can image nothing beyond them.’ We talk
idly of Johnson’s pompous redundance. His sentences are balanced, and it
is therefore supposed that the second part repeats the first, but the
truth is that each part contains a new thought. It was his manner to
throw successive ideas into this form. Those who are acquainted with his
history and his awful mental struggles will find infinite pathos in this
restrained comment.
* * * * *
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_.—Shakespeare’s overlooking quality, as that of
a god surveying human affairs, is shown in this play:
‘When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.’
. . .
‘Her dotage now I do begin to pity.’
. . .
‘And think no more of this night’s accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.’
. . .
All this night’s storm from a drop of magic juice! Oberon has been
watching Titania’s courtship of Bottom. She sleeps, and he touches her
eyes with Dian’s bud:
‘Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen’
* * * * *
_Romeo and Juliet_.—The love of Juliet is a thing altogether by itself,
not to be classed, never anticipated by any other author, and not
imitable. It is sensuous. Look at her soliloquy, ‘Gallop apace, you
fiery-footed steeds,’ etc., and yet it is woven through and through with
immortal threads of fidelity and contempt of death:
‘O! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower.
. . .
Or bid me go into a new-made grave.’
How great this girl is! If I were to meet her, how I should be awed!
The Juliets I have seen on the stage fail here. They do not bend my
knees in that adoration which is inspired by the sea and stars. The love
of Romeo for Juliet and of Juliet for Romeo does not stimulate passion,
but rather controls it. I never become hot in reading the play. What a
solemnity there is in its movement! The lovers are not merely two human
beings with no other meaning. The Eternal Powers are at work throughout.
Romeo’s love for Rosaline is taken over from Brooke’s poem. Shakespeare
adds the touch that it was not genuine. He makes Friar Laurence say:
‘O she knew well!
Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell.’
The love for Rosaline is different altogether from the love for Juliet.
‘O heavy lightness! serious vanity!’
is artificial.
Shakespeare also follows Brooke in Juliet’s momentary outburst against
Romeo when she hears of Tybalt’s death, but the contradiction of the echo
by the nurse is Shakespeare’s own:
‘Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame.’
Apart from the quarrel between the Montagus and Capulets, we feel that
the love between Romeo and Juliet could have no other than a tragic end.
This world of ours conspires against such passion.
* * * * *