WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE
A CRITICAL STUDY
BY
GEORGE BRANDES
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1905
This Work is published in Copenhagen in Three
Volumes, represented by the Three Books of this translation.
The First Book and half of the Second are translated by Mr.
WILLIAM ARCHER; the last half of the Second Book by Mr.
ARCHER, assisted by Miss MARY MORISON; the Third Book by
Miss DIANA WHITE, also with the assistance of Miss MORISON.
The proofs of the whole Work have been revised by Dr.
BRANDES himself.
CONTENTS
BOOK FIRST
I. A BIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE DIFFICULT BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE
II. STRATFORD--PARENTAGE--BOYHOOD
III. MARRIAGE--SIR THOMAS LUCY--DEPARTURE FROM STRATFORD
IV. LONDON--BUILDINGS, COSTUMES, MANNERS
V. POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS--ENGLAND'S GROWING
GREATNESS
VI. SHAKESPEARE AS ACTOR AND RETOUCHER OF OLD PLAYS--GREENE'S
ATTACK
VII. THE "HENRY VI." TRILOGY
VIII. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AND HIS LIFE-WORK--TITUS ANDRONICUS
IX. SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF THE RELATIONS OF THE
SEXES--HIS MARRIAGE VIEWED IN THIS LIGHT--LOVE'S LABOUR'S
LOST--ITS MATTER AND STYLE--JOHN LYLY AND EUPHUISM--THE
PERSONAL ELEMENT
X. LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON: THE FIRST SKETCH OF ALL'S WELL THAT
ENDS--THE COMEDY OF ERRORS--THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
XI. VENUS AND ADONIS: DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE--THE RAPE OF
LUCRECE: RELATION TO PAINTING
XII. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM--ITS HISTORICAL
CIRCUMSTANCES--ITS ARISTOCRATIC, POPULAR, COMIC, AND
SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS
XIII. ROMEO AND JULIET--THE TWO QUARTOS--ITS ROMANESQUE
STRUCTURE--THE USE OF OLD MOTIVES--THE CONCEPTION OF LOVE
XIV. LATTER-DAY ATTACKS UPON SHAKESPEARE--THE BACONIAN
THEORY--SHAKESPEARE'S KNOWLEDGE, PHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
XV. THE THEATRES--THEIR SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENTS--THE
PLAYERS--THE POETS--POPULAR AUDIENCES--THE ARISTOCRATIC
PUBLIC--SHAKESPEARE'S ARISTOCRATIC PRINCIPLES
XVI. THE THEATRES CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE--DID
SHAKESPEARE VISIT ITALY?--PASSAGES WHICH FAVOUR THIS
CONJECTURE
XVII. SHAKESPEARE TURNS TO HISTORIC DRAMA--HIS RICHARD II.
AND MARLOWE'S EDWARD II.--LACK OF HUMOUR AND OF CONSISTENCY
OF STYLE--ENGLISH NATIONAL PRIDE
XVIII. RICHARD III.--PSYCHOLOGY AND MONOLOGUES--SHAKESPEARE'S
POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION--CONTEMPT FOR WOMEN--THE
PRINCIPAL SCENES--THE CLASSIC TENDENCY OF THE TRAGEDY
XIX. SHAKESPEARE LOSES HIS SON--TRACES OF HIS GRIEF IN
KING JOHN--THE OLD PLAY OF THE SAME NAME--DISPLACEMENT
OF ITS CENTRE OF GRAVITY--ELIMINATION OF RELIGIOUS
POLEMICS--RETENTION OF THE NATIONAL BASIS--PATRIOTIC
SPIRIT--SHAKESPEARE KNOWS NOTHING OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
NORMANS AND ANGLO-SAXONS, AND IGNORES THE MAGNA CHARTA
XX. "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW" AND "THE MERCHANT OF
VENICE"--SHAKESPEARE'S PREOCCUPATION WITH THOUGHTS OF
PROPERTY AND GAIN--HIS GROWING PROSPERITY--HIS ADMISSION
TO THE RANKS OF THE "GENTRY"--HIS PURCHASE OF HOUSES AND
LAND--MONEY TRANSACTIONS AND LAWSUITS
XXI. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE--ITS SOURCES--ITS CHARACTERS,
ANTONIO, PORTIA, SHYLOCK--MOONLIGHT AND MUSIC--SHAKESPEARE'S
RELATION TO MUSIC
XXII. "EDWARD III." AND "ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM"--SHAKESPEARE'S
DICTION--THE FIRST PART OF "HENRY IV."--FIRST INTRODUCTION
OF HIS OWN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE IN THE HISTORIC DRAMA--WHY
THE SUBJECT APPEALED TO HIM--TAVERN LIFE--SHAKESPEARE'S
CIRCLE--SIR JOHN FALSTAFF--FALSTAFF AND THE GRACIOSO OF THE
SPANISH DRAMA--RABELAIS AND SHAKESPEARE--PANURGE AND FALSTAFF
XXIII. HENRY PERCY--THE MASTERY OF THE CHARACTER
DRAWING--HOTSPUR AND ACHILLES
XXIV. PRINCE HENRY--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR SHAKESPEARE'S
IMAGINATION--A TYPICAL ENGLISH NATIONAL HERO--THE FRESHNESS
AND PERFECTION OF THE PLAY
XXV. "KING HENRY IV.," SECOND PART--OLD AND NEW CHARACTERS
IN IT--DETAILS--"HENRY V.," A NATIONAL DRAMA--PATRIOTISM AND
CHAUVINISM--THE VISION OF A GREATER ENGLAND
XXVI. ELIZABETH AND FALSTAFF--"THE MERRY WIVES OF
WINDSOR"--THE PROSAIC AND BOURGEOIS TONE OF THE PIECE--THE
FAIRY SCENES
XXVII. SHAKESPEARE'S MOST BRILLIANT PERIOD--THE FEMININE
TYPES BELONGING TO IT--WITTY AND HIGHBORN YOUNG
WOMEN--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING--SLAVISH FAITHFULNESS TO HIS
SOURCES--BENEDICK AND BEATRICE--SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT--THE
LOW-COMEDY FIGURES
XXVIII. THE INTERVAL OF SERENITY--AS YOU LIKE IT--THE ROVING
SPIRIT--THE LONGING FOR NATURE--JAQUES AND SHAKESPEARE--THE
PLAY A FEAST OF WIT
XXIX. CONSUMMATE SPIRITUAL HARMONY--TWELFTH NIGHT--JIBES AT
PURITANISM--THE LANGUISHING CHARACTERS--VIOLA'S INSINUATING
GRACE--FAREWELL TO MIRTH.
XXX. THE REVOLUTION IN SHAKESPEARE'S SOUL--THE GROWING
MELANCHOLY OF THE FOLLOWING PERIOD--PESSIMISM, MISANTHROPY
BOOK SECOND
I. INTRODUCTION--THE ENGLAND OF ELIZABETH IN SHAKESPEARE'S
YOUTH
II. ELIZABETH'S OLD AGE
III. ELIZABETH, ESSEX, AND BACON
IV. THE FATE OF ESSEX AND SOUTHAMPTON
V. THE DEDICATION OF THE SONNETS--THE FRIEND TO WHOM THEY ARE
ADDRESSED
VI. THE "DARK LADY" OF THE SONNETS
VII. PLATONISM, SHAKESPEARE'S AND MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS
--THE TECHNIQUE
VIII. _JULIUS CÆSAR_--THE FUNDAMENTAL DEFECT OF THE DRAMA
IX. THE MERITS OF THE DRAMA--BRUTUS
X. BEN JONSON AND HIS ROMAN PLAYS
XI. _HAMLET_: ITS ANTECEDENTS IN FICTION, HISTORY, AND DRAMA
XII. _HAMLET_--MONTAIGNE AND GIORDANO BRUNO--ANTECEDENTS
IN ETHNOGRAPHY
XIII. THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN HAMLET
XIV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HAMLET
XV. _HAMLET_ AS A DRAMA
XVI. HAMLET AND OPHELIA
XVII. _HAMLET'S_ INFLUENCE ON LATER TIMES
XVIII. HAMLET AS A CRITIC
XIX. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL--ATTACKS ON PURITANISM
XX. _MEASURE FOR MEASURE_--ANGELO AND TARTUFFE
XXI. ACCESSION OF JAMES AND ANNE--RALEIGH'S FATE--SHAKESPEARE'S
COMPANY BECOME HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS--SCOTCH INFLUENCE
XXII. _MACBETH--MACBETH AND HAMLET_--DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM THE
STATE OF THE TEXT
XXIII. _OTHELLO_--THE CHARACTER AND SIGNIFICANCE OF IAGO
XXIV. OTHELLO--THE THEME AND ITS TREATMENT--A MONOGRAPH IN THE GREAT
STYLE
XXV. _KING LEAR_--THE FEELING UNDERLYING IT--THE CHRONICLE
--SIDNEY'S _ARCADIA_ AND THE OLD PLAY
XXVI. _KING LEAR_--THE TRAGEDY OF A WORLD-CATASTROPHE
XXVII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA--WHAT ATTRACTED SHAKESPEARE TO THE SUBJECT
XXVIII. THE DARK LADY AS A MODEL--THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC A
WORLD-CATASTROPHE
BOOK THIRD
I. DISCORD AND SCORN
II. THE COURT--THE KING'S FAVOURITES AND RALEIGH
III. THE KING'S THEOLOGY AND IMPECUNIOSITY--HIS DISPUTES WITH THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS
IV. THE CUSTOMS OF THE COURT
V. ARABELLA STUART AND WILLIAM SEYMOUR
VI. ROCHESTER AND LADY ESSEX
VII. CONTEMPT OF WOMEN--TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
VIII. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA--THE HISTORICAL MATERIAL
IX. SHAKESPEARE AND CHAPMAN--SHAKESPEARE AND HOMER.
X. SCORN OF WOMAN'S GUILE AND PUBLIC STUPIDITY
XI. DEATH OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOTHER--CORIOLANUS--HATRED OF THE
MASSES
XII. CORIOLANUS AS A DRAMA
XIII. TIMON OF ATHENS--HATRED OF MANKIND
XIV. CONVALESCENCE--TRANSFORMATION--THE NEW TYPE
XV. PERICLES--COLLABORATION WITH WILKINS AND ROWLEY--SHAKESPEARE
AND CORNEILLE
XVI. FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER
XVII. SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER--THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN AND HENRY VIII.
XVIII. CYMBELINE--THE THEME--THE POINT OF DEPARTURE--THE MORAL--THE
IDYLL--IMOGEN--SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE--SHAKESPEARE AND CALDERON
XIX. WINTER'S TALE--AN EPIC TURN--CHILDLIKE FORMS--THE PLAY AS A
MUSICAL STUDY--SHAKESPEARE'S ÆSTHETIC CONFESSION OF FAITH
XX. THE TEMPEST--WRITTEN FOR THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S WEDDING
XXI. SOURCES OF THE TEMPEST
XXII. THE TEMPEST AS A PLAY--SHAKESPEARE AND PROSPERO--FAREWELL
TO ART
XXIII. THE RIDE TO STRATFORD
XXIV. STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
XXV. THE LAST YEARS OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE
XXVI. SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH
XXVII. CONCLUSION
INDEX
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
BOOK FIRST
The same year which saw the death of Michael Angelo in Rome, saw the
birth of William Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. The great artist of
the Italian Renaissance, the man who painted the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, was replaced, as it were, by the great artist of the English
Renaissance, the man who wrote _King Lear._
Death overtook Shakespeare in his native place on the same date on
which Cervantes died in Madrid. The two great creative artists of the
Spanish and the English Renaissance, the men to whom we owe Don Quixote
and Hamlet, Sancho Panza and Falstaff, were simultaneously snatched
away.
Michael Angelo has depicted mighty and suffering demigods in solitary
grandeur. No Italian has rivalled him in sombre lyrism or tragic
sublimity.
The finest creations of Cervantes stand as monuments of a humour so
exalted that it marks an epoch in the literature of the world. No
Spaniard has rivalled him in type-creating comic force.
Shakespeare stands co-equal with Michael Angelo in pathos and with
Cervantes in humour. This of itself gives us a certain standard for
measuring the height and range of his powers.
It is three hundred years since his genius attained its full
development, yet Europe is still busied with him as though with a
contemporary. His dramas are acted and read wherever civilisation
extends. Perhaps, however, he exercises the strongest fascination upon
the reader whose natural bent of mind leads him to delight in searching
out the human spirit concealed and revealed in a great artist's work.
"I will not let you go until you have confessed to me the secret of
your being"--these are the words that rise to the lips of such a
reader of Shakespeare. Ranging the plays in their probable order of
production, and reviewing the poet's life-work as a whole, he feels
constrained to form for himself some image of the spiritual experience
of which it is the expression.
I
_A BIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE DIFFICULT BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE_
When we pass from the notabilities of the nineteenth century to
Shakespeare, all our ordinary critical methods leave us in the lurch.
We have, as a rule, no lack of trustworthy information as to the
productive spirits of our own day and of the past two centuries. We
know the lives of authors and poets from their own accounts or those
of their contemporaries; in many cases we have their letters; and
we possess not only works attributed to them, but works which they
themselves gave to the press. We not only know with certainty their
authentic writings, but are assured that we possess them in authentic
form. If disconcerting errors occur in their works, they are only
misprints, which they themselves or others happen to have overlooked.
Insidious though they may be, there is no particular difficulty in
correcting them. Bernays, for example, has weeded out not a few from
the text of Goethe.
It is otherwise with Shakespeare and his fellow-dramatists of
Elizabethan England. He died in 1616, and the first biography of him,
a few pages in length, dates from 1709. This is as though the first
sketch of Goethe's life were not to be written till the year 1925. We
possess no letters of Shakespeare's, and only one (a business letter)
addressed to him. Of the manuscripts of his works not a single line
is extant. Our sole specimens of his handwriting consist of five or
six signatures, three appended to his will, two to contracts, and one,
of very doubtful authenticity, on the copy of Florio's translation of
Montaigne, which is shown at the British Museum. We do not know exactly
how far several of the works attributed to Shakespeare are really his.
In the case of such plays as _Titus Andronicus_, the trilogy of _Henry
VI, Pericles_, and _Henry VIII_, the question of authorship presents
great and manifold difficulties. In his youth Shakespeare had to adapt
or retouch the plays of others; in later life he sometimes collaborated
with younger men. And worse than this, with the exception of two short
narrative poems, which Shakespeare himself gave to the press, not one
of his works is known to have been published under his own supervision.
He seems never to have sanctioned any publication, or to have read a
single proof-sheet. The 1623 folio of his plays, issued after his death
by two of his actor-friends, purports to be printed "according to the
True Originall Copies;" but this assertion is demonstrably false in
numerous instances in which we can test it--where the folio, that is
to say, presents a simple reprint, often with additional blunders,
of the old pirated quartos, which must have been based either on the
surreptitious notes of stenographers or on "prompt copies" dishonestly
acquired.
It has become the fashion to say, not without some show of justice,
that we know next to nothing of Shakespeare's life. We do not know for
certain either when he left Stratford or when he returned to Stratford
from London. We do not know for certain whether he ever went abroad,
ever visited Italy. We do not know the name of a single woman whom he
loved during all his years in London. We do not know for certain to
whom his Sonnets are addressed. We can see that as he advanced in life
his prevailing mood became gloomier, but we do not know the reason.
Later on, his temper seems to grow more serene, but we cannot tell
why. We can form but tentative conjectures as to the order in which
his works were produced, and can only with the greatest difficulty
determine their approximate dates. We do not know what made him so
careless of his fame as he seems to have been. We only know that he
himself did not publish his dramatic works, and that he does not even
mention them in his will.
On the other hand, enthusiastic and indefatigable research has
gradually brought to light a great number of indubitable facts, which
furnish us with points of departure and of guidance for an outline of
the poet's life. We possess documents, contracts, legal records; we can
cite utterances of contemporaries, allusions to works of Shakespeare's
and to passages in them, quotations, fierce attacks, outbursts of
spite and hatred, touching testimonies to his worth as a man and to
the lovableness of his nature, evidence of the early recognition of
his talent as an actor, of his repute as a narrative poet, and of
his popularity as a dramatist. We have, moreover, one or two diaries
kept by contemporaries, and among others the account-book of an old
theatrical manager and pawnbroker, who supplied the players with money
and dresses, and who has carefully dated the production of many plays.
To these contemporary evidences we must add that of tradition. In
1662 a clergyman named John Ward, Vicar of Stratford, took some notes
of information gathered from the inhabitants of the district; and in
1693 a Mr. Dowdall recorded some details which he had learnt from the
octogenarian sexton and verger of Stratford Church. But tradition is
mainly represented by Rowe, Shakespeare's first tardy biographer. He
refers in particular to three sources of information. The earliest is
Sir William Davenant, Poet Laureate, who did nothing to discountenance
the rumour which gave him out to be an illegitimate son of Shakespeare.
His contributions, however, can have reached Rowe only at second hand,
since he died before Rowe was born. Naturally enough, then, the greater
part of what is related on his authority proves to be questionable.
Rowe's second source of information was Aubrey, an antiquary after the
fashion of his day, who, half a century after Shakespeare's death,
visited Stratford on one of his riding-tours. He wrote numerous short
biographies, all of which contain gross and demonstrable errors, so
that we can scarcely put implicit faith in the insignificant anecdotes
about Shakespeare preserved in his manuscript of 1680. Rowe's most
important source of information, however, is Betterton the actor, who,
about 1690, made a journey to Warwickshire for the express purpose of
collecting whatever oral traditions with regard to Shakespeare might
linger in the district. His gleanings form the most valuable part of
Rowe's biography; contemporary documents subsequently discovered have
in several instances lent them curious confirmation.
We owe it, then, to a little group of worthy but by no means brilliant
men that we are able to sketch the outline of Shakespeare's career.
They have preserved for us anecdotes of little worth, even if they are
true, while leaving us entirely in the dark as to important points in
his outward history, and throwing little or no light upon the course of
his inner life.
It is true that we possess in Shakespeare's Sonnets a group of poems
which bring us more directly into touch with his personality than
any of his other works. But to determine the value of the Sonnets as
autobiographical documents requires not only historical knowledge but,
critical instinct and tact, since it is by no means self-evident that
the poet is, in a literal sense, speaking in his own name.
II
_STRATFORD--PARENTAGE--BOYHOOD_
William Shakespeare was a child of the country. He was born in
Stratford-on-Avon, a little town of fourteen or fifteen hundred
inhabitants, lying in a pleasant and undulating tract of country, rich
in green meadows and trees and leafy hedges, the natural features of
which Shakespeare seems to have had in his mind's eye when he wrote
the descriptions of scenery in _A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You
Like It_, and _A Winter's Tale._ His first and deepest impressions of
nature he received from this scenery; and he associated with it his
earliest poetical impressions, gathered from the folk-songs of the
peasantry, so often alluded to and reproduced in his plays. The town of
Stratford lies upon the ancient high-road from London to Ireland, which
here crosses the river Avon. To this circumstance it owes its name
(Street-ford). A handsome bridge spanned the river. The picturesque
houses, with their gable-roofs, were either wooden or frame-built.
There were two handsome public buildings, which still remain: the fine
old church close to the river, and the Guildhall, with its chapel and
Grammar School. In the chapel, which possessed a pleasant peal of
bells, there was a set of frescoes--probably the first and for long the
only paintings known to Shakespeare.
For the rest, Stratford-on-Avon was an insanitary place of residence.
There was no sort of underground drainage, and street-sweepers and
scavengers were unknown. The waste water from the houses flowed out
into badly kept gutters; the streets were full of evil-smelling pools,
in which pigs and geese freely disported themselves; and dunghills
skirted the highway. The first thing we learn about Shakespeare's
father is that, in April 1552, he was fined twelvepence for having
formed a great midden outside his house in Henley Street--a
circumstance which on the one hand proves that he kept sheep and
cattle, and on the other indicates his scant care for cleanliness,
since the common dunghill lay only a stone's-throw from his house. At
the time of his highest prosperity, in 1558, he, along with some other
citizens, is again fined fourpence for the same misdemeanour.
The matter is not without interest, since it is in all probability to
these defects of sanitation that Shakespeare's early death is to be
ascribed.
Both on his father's and his mother's side, the poet was descended from
yeoman families of Warwickshire. His grandfather, Richard Shakespeare,
lived at Snitterfield, where he rented a small property. Richard's
second son, John Shakespeare, removed to Stratford about 1551, and went
into business in Henley Street as a tanner and glover. In the year
1557 his circumstances were considerably improved by his marriage with
Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a well-to-do yeoman
in the neighbourhood, who had died a few months before. On his death
she had inherited his property of Asbies at Wilmecote; and she had,
besides, a reversionary interest in a larger property at Snitterfield.
Asbies was valued at £224, and brought in a rental of £28, or about
£140 of our modern money. The inventory appended to her father's will
gives us a good insight into the domestic economy of a rich yeoman's
family of those days: a single bed with two mattresses, five sheets,
three towels, &c. Garments of linen they do not seem to have
possessed. The eating utensils were of no value: wooden spoons and
wooden platters. Yet the home of Shakespeare's mother was, according to
the standard of that day, distinctly well-to-do.
His marriage enabled John Shakespeare to extend his business. He had
large transactions in wool, and also dealt, as occasion offered, in
corn and other commodities. Aubrey's statement that he was a butcher
seems to mean no more than that he himself fattened and killed the
animals whose skins he used in his trade. But in those days the
different occupations in a small English country town were not at all
strictly discriminated; the man who produced the raw material would
generally work it up as well.
John Shakespeare gradually rose to an influential position the little
town in which he had settled. He first (in 1557) became one of the
ale-tasters, sworn to look to the quality of bread and beer; in the
following year he was one of the four "petty constables" of the town.
In 1561 he was Chamberlain, in 1565 Alderman, and finally, in 1568,
High Bailiff.
William Shakespeare was his parents' third child. Two sisters, who died
in infancy, preceded him. He was baptized on the 26th of April 1564; we
do not know his birthday precisely. Tradition gives it as the 23rd of
April; more probably it was the 22nd (in the new style the 4th of May),
since, if Shakespeare had died upon his birthday, his epitaph would
doubtless have mentioned the circumstance, and would not have stated
that he died in his fifty-third year [_Ætatis_ 53].
Neither of Shakespeare's parents possessed any school education;
neither of them seems to have been able to write his or her own name.
They desired, however, that their eldest son should not lack the
education they themselves had been denied, and therefore sent the boy
to the Free School or Grammar School of Stratford, where children
from the age of seven upwards were grounded in Latin grammar, learned
to construe out of a schoolbook called _Sententice Pueriles_, and
afterwards read Ovid, Virgil, and Cicero. The school-hours, both in
summer and winter, occupied the whole day, with the necessary intervals
for meals and recreation. An obvious reminiscence of Shakespeare's
schooldays is preserved for us in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (iv. I),
where the schoolmaster, Sir Hugh Evans, hears little William his _Hic,
Hæc, Hoc_, and assures himself of his knowledge that _pulcher_ means
fair, and _lapis_ a stone. It even appears that his teacher was in fact
a Welshman.
The district in which the child grew up was rich in historical memories
and monuments. Warwick, with its castle, renowned since the Wars of the
Roses, was in the immediate neighbourhood. It had been the residence,
in his day, of the Earl of Warwick who distinguished himself at the
battle of Shrewsbury and negotiated the marriage of Henry V. The
district was, however, divided during the Wars of the Roses. Warwick
for some time sided with York, Coventry with Lancaster. With Coventry,
too, a town rich in memories of the period which he was afterwards to
summon to life on the stage Shakespeare must have been acquainted in
his boyhood. It was in Coventry that the two adversaries who appear in
his _Richard II.,_ Henry Bolingbroke and the Duke of Norfolk, had their
famous encounter. But in another respect as well Coventry must have had
great attractions for the boy. It was the scene of regular theatrical
representations, which, at first organised by the Church, afterwards
passed into the hands of the guilds. Shakespeare must doubtless have
seen the half-mediæval religious dramas sometimes alluded to in his
works--plays which placed before the eyes of the audience Herod and the
Massacre of the Innocents, souls burning in hell, and other startling
scenes of a like nature[1] (_Henry V_., ii. 3 and iii. 3).
Of royal and princely splendour Shakespeare had probably certain
glimpses even in his childhood. When he was eight years old Elizabeth
paid a visit to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Stratford--the Sir Thomas Lucy who was to have such
a determining influence upon Shakespeare's career. In any case, he
must doubtless have visited the neighbouring castle of Kenilworth,
and seen something of the great festivities organised by Leicester in
Elizabeth's honour, during her visit to the castle in 1575. We know
that the Shakespeare family possessed a near and influential kinsman
in Leicester's trusted attendant, Edward Arden, who soon afterwards,
apparently on account of the strained relations which arose between
the Queen and Leicester after the fêtes, incurred the suspicion or
displeasure of his master, and was ultimately executed.
Nor was it only mediæval mysteries that the future poet, during his
boyhood, had opportunities of seeing. The town of Stratford showed a
marked taste for secular theatricals. The first travelling company
of players came to Stratford in the year when Shakespeare's father
was High Bailiff, and between 1569 and 1587 no fewer than twenty-four
strolling troupes visited the town. The companies who came most
frequently were the Queen's Men and the servants of Lord Worcester,
Lord Leicester, and Lord Warwick. Custom directed that they should
first wait upon the High Bailiff to inform him in what nobleman's
service they were enrolled; and their first performance took place
before the Town Council alone. A writer named Willis, born in the
same year as Shakespeare, has described how he was present at such a
representation in the neighbouring town of Gloucester, standing between
his father's knees; and we can thus picture to ourselves the way in
which the glories of the theatre were for the first time revealed to
the future poet.
As a boy and youth, then, he no doubt had opportunities of making
himself familiar with the bulk of the old English repertory, partly
composed of such pieces as he afterwards ridicules--for instance,
the _Cambyses_, whose rant Falstaff parodies--partly of pieces
which subsequently became the foundation of his own plays, such as
_The Supposes_, which he used in _The Taming of the Shrew_, or _The
Troublesome Raigne of King John_, or the _Famous Victories of Henry the
Fifth_, which supplied some of the material for his _Henry IV._
Probably Shakespeare, as a boy and youth, was not content with seeing
the performances, but sought out the players in the different taverns
where they took up their quarters, the "Swan," the "Crown," or the
"Bear."
The school course was generally over when a boy reached his fourteenth
year. It appears that when Shakespeare was at this age his father
removed him from the school, having need of him in his business. His
father's prosperity was by this time on the wane.
In the year 1578 John Shakespeare mortgaged his wife's property,
Asbies, for a sum of £40, which he seems to have engaged to repay
within two years, though this he himself denied. In the same year the
Town Council agrees that he shall be required to pay only one-half of
a tax (6s. 8d. in all) for the equipment of soldiers, and absolves him
altogether from payment of a poor-rate levied on the other Aldermen.
In the following year he cannot pay even his half of the pikemen-tax.
In 1579 he sold the reversion of a piece of land falling to him on
his mother-in-law's death. In the following year he wanted to pay off
the mortgage on Asbies; but the mortgagee, a certain Edmund Lambert,
declined to receive the money, for the reason, or under the pretext,
that it had not been tendered within the stipulated time, and that
Shakespeare had, moreover, borrowed other sums of him. In the course of
the consequent lawsuit, John Shakespeare described himself as a person
of "small wealthe, and verey fewe frends and alyance in the countie."
The result of this lawsuit is unknown, but it seems as though the
father, and the son after him, took it much to heart, and felt that a
great injustice had been done them. In the Induction to _The Taming
of the Shrew_, Christopher Sly calls himself "Old Sly's son of Burton
Heath." But Barton-on-the-Heath was precisely the place where lived
Edmund Lambert and his son John, who, after his death in 1587, carried
on the litigation. And this utterance of the chief character in the
Induction is, significantly enough, one of the few which Shakespeare
added to the Induction to the old play he was here adapting.
From this time forward John Shakespeare's position goes from bad to
worse. In the year 1586, when his son was probably already in London,
his goods are distrained upon, and no fewer than three warrants are
issued for his arrest; he seems for a time to have been imprisoned
for debt. He is removed from his position as Alderman because he
has not for a long time attended the meetings at the Guildhall. He
probably dared not put in an appearance for fear of being arrested
by his creditors. He seems to have lost a considerable sum of money
by standing surety for his brother Henry. There was, moreover, a
commercial crisis in Stratford. The cloth and yarn trade, in which most
of the citizens were engaged, had become much less remunerative than
before.
We find evidence of the painful position in which John Shakespeare
remained so late as the year 1592, in Sir Thomas Lucy's report with
reference to the inhabitants of Stratford who did not obey her
Majesty's order that they should attend church once a month. He is
mentioned as one of those who "coom not to Churche for fear of processe
for debtte."
It is probable that the young William when his father removed him from
the Grammar School, assisted him in his trade; and it is not impossible
that, as a somewhat dubious allusion in a contemporary seems to imply,
he was for some time a clerk in an attorney's office. His great powers,
at any rate, doubtless revealed themselves very early; he must have
taken early to writing verses, and, like most men of genius, must have
ripened early in every respect.
[1] We find reminiscences of these scenes in Hamlet's expression, "He
out-herods Herod," and in the comparison of a flea on Bardolph's nose
to a black soul burning in hell-fire.
III
_MARRIAGE--SIR THOMAS LUCY--DEPARTURE FROM STRATFORD_
In December 1582, being then only eighteen, William Shakespeare married
Anne Hathaway, daughter of a well-to-do yeoman, recently deceased, in
a neighbouring hamlet of the same parish. The marriage of a boy not
yet out of his teens, whose father was in embarrassed circumstances,
while he himself had probably nothing to live on but such scanty
wages as he could earn in his father's service, seems on the face of
it somewhat precipitate; and the arrangements for it, moreover, were
unusually hurried. In a document dated November 28, 1582, two friends
of the Hathaway family give a bond to the Bishop of Worcester's Court,
declaring, under relatively heavy penalties, that there is no legal
impediment to the solemnisation of the marriage after one publication
of the banns, instead of the statutory three. So far as we can gather,
it was the bride's family that hurried on the marriage, while the
bridegroom's held back, and perhaps even opposed it. This haste is the
less surprising when we find that the first child, a daughter named
Susanna, was born in May 1583, only five months and three weeks after
the wedding. It is probable, however, that a formal betrothal, which
at that time was regarded as the essential part of the contract, had
preceded the marriage.
In 1585 twins were born, a girl, Judith, and a boy, Hamnet (the name
is also written Hamlet), no doubt called after a friend of the family,
Hamnet Sadler, a baker in Stratford, who is mentioned in Shakespeare's
will. This son died at the age of eleven.
It was probably soon after the birth of the twins that Shakespeare
was forced to quit Stratford. According to Rowe he had "fallen into
ill company," and taken part in more than one deer-stealing raid upon
Sir Thomas Lucy's park at Charlecote. "For this he was prosecuted by
that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to
revenge that ill-usage he made a ballad upon him.... It is said to
have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him
to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family
in Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in London." Rowe
believed this ballad to be lost, but what purports to be the first
verse of it has been preserved by Oldys, on the authority of a very old
man who lived in the neighbourhood of Stratford. It may possibly be
genuine. The coincidence between it and an unquestionable gibe at Sir
Thomas Lucy in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ renders it probable that
it has been more or less correctly remembered.[1] Although poaching
was at that time regarded as a comparatively innocent and pardonable
misdemeanour of youth, to which the Oxford students, for example,
were for many generations greatly addicted, yet Sir Thomas Lucy, who
seems to have newly and not over-plentifully stocked his park, deeply
resented the depredations of young Stratford. He was, it would appear,
no favourite in the town. He never, like the other landowners of the
district, requited with a present of game the offerings of salt and
sugar which, as we learn from the town accounts, the burgesses were
in the habit of sending him. Shakespeare's misdeeds were not at that
time punishable by law; but, as a great landowner and justice of the
peace, Sir Thomas had the young fellow in his power, and there is every
probability in favour of the tradition, preserved by the Rev. Richard
Davies, who died in 1708, that he "had him oft whipt and sometimes
imprisoned." It is confirmed by the substantial correctness of Davies'
further statement: "His revenge was so great, that he is his Justice
Clodpate [Shallow],... that in allusion to his name bore three louses
rampant for his arms." We find, in fact, that in the opening scene of
_The Merry Wives,_ Justice Shallow, who accuses Falstaff of having shot
his deer, has, according to Slender's account, a dozen white luces
(pikes) in his coat-of-arms, which, in the mouth of the Welshman, Sir
Hugh Evans, become a dozen white louses--the word-play being exactly
the same as that in the ballad. Three luces argent were the cognisance
of the Lucy family.
The attempt to cast doubt upon this old tradition of Shakespeare's
poaching exploits becomes doubly unreasonable in face of the fact that
precisely in 1585 Sir Thomas Lucy spoke in Parliament in favour of more
stringent game-laws.
The essential point, however, is simply this, that at about the age of
twenty-one Shakespeare leaves his native, town, not to return to it
permanently until his life's course is nearly run. Even if he had not
been forced to bid it farewell, the impulse to develop his talents and
energies must ere long have driven him forth. Young and inexperienced
as he was, at all events, he had now to betake himself to the capital
to seek his fortune.
Whether he left any great happiness behind him we cannot tell; but it
is scarcely probable. There is nothing to show that in the peasant
girl, almost eight years older than himself, whom he married at the
age of eighteen, Shakespeare found the woman who, even for a few
years, could fill his life. Everything, indeed, points in the opposite
direction. She and the children remained behind in Stratford, and he
saw her only when he revisited his native place, as he did at long
intervals, probably, at first, but afterwards annually. Tradition and
the internal evidence of his writings prove that he lived, in London,
the free Bohemian life of an actor and playwright. We know, too, that
he was soon plunged in the business cares of a theatrical manager and
part-proprietor. The woman's part in this life was not played by Anne
Hathaway. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare
never for a moment lost sight of Stratford, and that he had no sooner
made a footing for himself in London than he set to work with the
definite aim of acquiring land and property in the town from which he
had gone forth penniless and humiliated. His father should hold up his
head again, and the family honour be re-established.
[1] It runs:--
"A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse;
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it;
He thinkes himself greate
Yet an asse in his state
We allowe by his eares but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befalle it."
IV
_LONDON--BUILDINGS, COSTUMES, MANNERS_
So the young man rode from Stratford to London. He probably, according
to the custom of the poorer travellers of that time, sold his horse
on his arrival at Smithfield; and, as Halliwell-Phillips ingeniously
suggests, he may have sold it to James Burbage, who kept a livery
stable in the neighbourhood. It may have been this man, the father of
Richard Burbage, afterwards Shakespeare's most famous fellow-actor, who
employed Shakespeare to take charge of the horses which his customers
of the Smithfield district hired to ride to the play. James Burbage had
built, and now owned, the first playhouse erected in London (1576),
known as _The Theatre_; and a well-known tradition, which can be
traced to Sir William Davenant, relates that Shakespeare was driven
by dire necessity to hang about the doors of the theatre and hold the
horses of those who had ridden to the play. The district was a remote
and disreputable one, and swarmed with horse-thieves. Shakespeare
won such favour as a horse-holder, and was in such general demand,
that he had to engage boys as assistants, who announced themselves
as "Shakespeare's boys," a style and title, it is said, which long
clung to them. A fact which speaks in favour of this much-ridiculed
legend is that, at the time to which it can be traced back, well on in
the seventeenth century, the practice of riding to the theatres had
entirely fallen into disuse. People then went to the play by water.
A Stratford tradition represents that Shakespeare first entered the
theatre in the character of "servitor" to the actors, and Malone
reports "a stage tradition that his first office in the theatre was
that of prompter's attendant," whose business was to give the players
notice of the time for their entrance. It is evident, however, that he
soon rose above these menial stations.
The London to which Shakespeare came was a town of about 300,000
inhabitants. Its main streets had quite recently been paved, but were
not yet lighted; it was surrounded with trenches, walls, and gates; it
had high-gabled, red-roofed, two-story wooden houses, distinguished by
means of projecting signs, from which they took their names--houses in
which benches did duty for chairs, and the floors were carpeted with
rushes. The streets were usually thronged, not with wheel-traffic, for
the first carriage was imported into England in this very reign, but
with people on foot, on horseback, or in litters; while the Thames,
still blue and clear, in spite of the already large consumption of
coal, was alive with thousands of boats threading their way, amid the
watermen's shrill cries of "Eastward hoe!" or "Westward hoe!" through
bevies of swans which put forth from, and returned to, the green
meadows and beautiful gardens bordering the stream.
There was as yet only one bridge over the Thames, the mighty London
Bridge, situated not far from that which now bears the name. It was
broad, and lined with buildings; while on the tall gate-towers heads
which had fallen on the block were almost always displayed. In its
neighbourhood lay Eastcheap, the street in which stood Falstaffs tavern.
The central points of London were at that time the newly erected
Exchange and St. Paul's Church, which was regarded not only as the
Cathedral of the city, but as a meeting-place and promenade for
idlers, a sort of club where the news of the day was to be heard, a
hiring-fair for servants, and a sanctuary for debtors, who were there
secure from arrest. The streets, still full of the many-coloured life
of the Renaissance, rang with the cries of 'prentices inviting custom
and hawkers proclaiming their wares; while through them passed many
a procession, civil, ecclesiastical, or military, bridal companies,
pageants, and troops of crossbow-men and men-at-arms.
Elizabeth might be met in the streets, driving in her huge State
carriage, when she did not prefer to sail on the Thames in her
magnificent gondola, followed by a crowd of gaily decorated boats.
In the City itself no theatres were tolerated. The civic authorities
regarded them with an unfriendly eye, and had banished them to the
outskirts and across the Thames, together with the rough amusements
with which they had to compete: cock-fighting and bear-baiting with
dogs.
The handsome, parti-coloured, extravagant costumes of the period are
well known. The puffed sleeves of the men, the women's stiff ruffs,
and the fantastic shapes of their hooped skirts, are still to be seen
in stage presentations of plays of the time. The Queen and her Court
set the example of great and unreasonable luxury with respect to the
number and material of costumes. The ladies rouged their faces, and
often dyed their hair. Auburn, as the Queen's colour, was the most
fashionable. The conveniences of daily life were very meagre. Only of
late had fireplaces begun to be substituted for the open hearths. Only
of late had proper bedsteads come into general use; when Shakespeare's
well-to-do grandfather, Richard Arden, made his will, in the year 1556,
there was only one bedstead in the house where he lived with his seven
daughters. People slept on straw mattresses, with a billet of wood
under their heads and a fur rug over them. The only decoration of the
rooms of the wealthier classes was the tapestry on the walls, behind
which people so often conceal themselves in Shakespeare's plays.
The dinner-hour was at that time eleven in the morning, and it was
reckoned fashionable to dine early. Those who could afford it ate rich
and heavy dishes; the repasts would often last an inordinate time, and
no regard whatever was paid to the minor decencies of life. Domestic
utensils were very mean. So late as 1592, wooden trenchers, wooden
platters, and wooden spoons were in common use. It was just about this
time that tin and silver began to supplant wood. Table-knives had
been in general use since about 1563; but forks were still unknown in
Shakespeare's time--fingers supplied their place. In a description of
five months' travels on the Continent, published by Coryat in 1611, he
tells how surprised he was to find the use of forks quite common in
Italy:--
"I obserued a custome in all those Italian Cities and
Townes through which I passed, that is not vsed in any
other country that I saw in my trauels, neither doe I
thinke that any other nation of Christendome doth vse it,
but only Italy. The Italian and also most strangers that
are commorant in Italy doe alwaies at their meales vse a
little forke when they cut their meate. For while with their
knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meate out of
the dish, they fasten their forke which they hold in their
other hand vpon the same dish, so that whatsoeuer he be
that sitting in the company of any others at meale, should
vnaduisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers from
which all at the table doe cut, he will giue occasion of
offence vnto the company, as hauing transgressed the lawes
of good manners, in so much that for his error he shall be
at the least brow-beaten, if not reprehended in wordes....
The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian
cannot by any means indure to haue his dish touched with
fingers, seing all men's fingers are not alike cleane."[1]
We see, too, that Coryat was the first to introduce the new appliance
into his native land. He tells us that he thought it best to imitate
the Italian fashion not only in Italy and Germany, but "often in
England" after his return; and he relates how a learned and jocular
gentleman of his acquaintance rallied him on that account and called
him "Furcifer." In one of Ben Jonson's plays, _The Devil is an Ass_,
dating from 1614, the use of forks is mentioned as lately imported
from Italy, in order to save napkins. We must conceive, then, that
Shakespeare was as unfamiliar with the use of the fork as a Bedouin
Arab of to-day.
He does not seem to have smoked. Tobacco is never mentioned in his
works, although the people of his day gathered in tobacco-shops where
instruction was given in the new art of smoking, and although the
gallants actually smoked as they sat on the stage of the theatre.
[1] _Coryat's Crudities_, ed. 1776, vol. i. p. 106.
V
_POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS--ENGLAND'S GROWING GREATNESS_
The period of Shakespeare's arrival in London was momentous both in
politics and religion. It is the period of England's development into
a great Protestant power. Under Bloody Mary, the wife of Philip II.
of Spain, the government had been Spanish-Catholic; the persecutions
directed against heresy brought many victims, and among them some of
the most distinguished men in England, to the scaffold, and even to the
stake. Spain made a cat's-paw of England in her contest with France,
and reaped all the benefit of the alliance, while England paid the
penalty. Calais, her last foothold on the Continent, was lost.
With Elizabeth, Protestantism ascended the throne and became a power
in the world. She rejected Philip's courtship; she knew how unpopular
the Spanish marriage had made her sister. In the struggle with the
Papal power she had the Parliament on her side. Parliament had at once
recognised her as Queen by the law of God and the country, whilst
the Pope, on her accession, denied her right to the throne. The
Catholic world took his part against her; first France, then Spain.
England supported Protestant Scotland against its Catholic Queen and
her Scottish-French army, and the Reformation triumphed in Scotland.
Afterwards, when Mary Stuart had ceased to rule over Scotland and taken
refuge in England, in the hope of there finding help, it was no longer
France but Philip of Spain who stood by her. He saw his despotism in
the Netherlands threatened by the victory of Protestantism in England.
Political interest led Elizabeth's Government to throw Mary into
prison. The Pope excommunicated Elizabeth, absolved her subjects
from their oath of allegiance, and declared her a usurper in her own
kingdom. Whoever should obey her commands was excommunicated along
with her, and for twenty years on end one Catholic conspiracy against
Elizabeth treads on another's heels, Mary Stuart being involved in
almost all of them.
In 1585 Elizabeth opened the war with Spain by sending her fleet to the
Netherlands, with her favourite, Leicester, in command of the troops.
In the beginning of the following year, Francis Drake, who in 1577-80
had for the first time circumnavigated the world, surprised and took
San Domingo and Carthagena. The ship in which he had achieved his great
voyage lay at anchor in the Thames as a memorial of the feat; it was
often visited by Londoners, and no doubt by Shakespeare among them.
In the years immediately following, the springtide of the national
spirit burst into full bloom. Let us try to picture to ourselves the
impression it must have made upon Shakespeare in the year 1587. On
the 8th of February 1587 Mary Stuart was executed at Fotheringay,
and the breach between England and the Catholic world was thus made
irreparable. On the 16th of February, England's noblest knight and
the flower of her chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney, the hero of Zutphen,
and the chief of the Anglo-Italian school of poets, was buried in St.
Paul's Cathedral, with a pomp which gave to the event the character
of a national solemnity. Sidney was an ideal representative of the
aristocracy of the day. He possessed the widest humanistic culture, had
studied Aristotle and Plato no less than geometry and astronomy, had
travelled and seen the world, had read and thought and written, and was
not only a scholar but a soldier to boot. As a cavalry officer he had
saved the English army at Gravelines, and he had been the friend and
patron of Giordano Bruno, the freest thinker of his time. The Queen
herself was present at his funeral, and so, no doubt, was Shakespeare.
In the following year Spain fitted out her great Armada and despatched
it against England. As regards the size of the ships and the number
of the troops they carried, it was the largest fleet that had ever
been seen in European waters. And in the Netherlands, at Antwerp and
Dunkerque, transports were in readiness for the conveyance of a second
vast army to complete the destruction of England. But England was equal
to the occasion. Elizabeth's Government demanded fifteen ships of the
city of London; it fitted out thirty, besides raising a land force of
30,000 men and lending the Government £52,000 in ready money.
The Spanish fleet numbered one hundred and thirty huge galleons, the
English only sixty sail, of lighter and less cumbrous build. The young
English noblemen competed for the privilege of serving in it. The great
Armada was ill designed for defying wind and weather in the English
Channel. It manœuvred awkwardly, and, in the first encounters, proved
itself powerless against the lighter ships of the English. A couple
of fire-ships were sufficient to throw it into disorder; a season of
storms set in, and the greater number of its galleons were swept to
destruction.
The greatest Power in the world of that day had broken down in its
attempt to crush the growing might of England, and the whole nation
revelled in the exultant sense of victory.
VI
_SHAKESPEARE AS ACTOR AND RETOUCHER OF OLD PLAYS--GREENE'S ATTACK_
Between 1586 and 1592 we lose all trace of Shakespeare. We know only
that he must have been an active member of a company of players. It is
not proved that he ever belonged to any other company than the Earl of
Leicester's, which owned the Blackfriars, and afterwards the Globe,
theatre. It is proved by several passages in contemporary writings
that, partly as actor, partly as adapter of older plays for the use of
the theatre, he had, at the age of twenty-eight, made a certain name
for himself, and had therefore become the object of envy and hatred.
A passage in Spenser's _Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, referring to a
poet whose Muse "doth like himself heroically sound," may with some
probability, though not with certainty, be applied to Shakespeare. The
theory is supported by the fact that the word "gentle" is here, as so
often in after-life, attached to his personality. Against it we must
place the circumstance that the poem, although not published till 1594,
seems to have been composed as early as 1591, when Shakespeare's muse
was as yet scarcely heroic, and that Drayton, who had written under the
pseudonym of Rowland, may have been the poet alluded to.
The first indubitable allusion to Shakespeare is of a quite different
nature. It occurs in a pamphlet written on his deathbed by the
dramatist Robert Greene, entitled _A Groat's Worth of Wit bought with
a Million of Repentance_ (August 1592). In it the utterly degraded
and penniless poet calls upon his friends, Marlowe, Lodge or Nash,
and Peele (without mentioning their names), to give up their vicious
life, their blasphemy, and their "getting many enemies by bitter
words," holding himself up as a deterrent example; for he died, after
a reckless life, of an illness said to have been induced by immoderate
eating, and in such misery that he had to borrow money of his landlord,
a poor shoemaker, while his landlord's wife was the sole attendant of
his dying hours. He was so poor that his clothes had to be sold to
procure him food. He sent his wife these lines:--
"Doll, I charge thee, by the loue of our youth and by my
soules rest, that thou wilte see this man paide; for if
hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the
streetes.
"ROBERT GREENE."
The passage in which he warns his friends and fellow-poets against the
ingratitude of the players runs as follows:--
"Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow,
beautified with our feathers, that with his _Tygers heart
wrapt in a Players hide_, supposes he is as well able to
bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an
absolute _Johannes fac totum_, is in his owne conceit the
only Shake-scene in a countrie."
The allusion to Shakespeare's name is unequivocal, and the words about
the tiger's heart point to the outburst, "Oh Tyger's hart wrapt in a
serpents hide!" which is found in two places: first in the play called
_The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of the
good King Henrie the Sixt_, and then (with "womans" substituted for
"serpents"), in the third part of _King Henry VI_., founded on the
_True Tragedie_, and attributed to Shakespeare. It is preposterous to
interpret this passage as an attack upon Shakespeare in his quality as
an actor; Greene's words, beyond all doubt, convey an accusation of
literary dishonesty. Everything points to the belief that Greene and
Marlowe had collaborated in the older play, and that the former saw
with disgust the success achieved by Shakespeare's adaptation of their
text.
But that Shakespeare was already highly respected, and that the attack
aroused general indignation, is proved by the apology put forth in
December 1592 by Henry Chettle, who had published Greene's pamphlet.
In the preface to his _Kind-harts Dreame_ he expressly deplores his
indiscretion with regard to Shakespeare:--
"I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault,
because my selfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill
than he exelent in the qualitie he professes. Besides,
diuers of worship haue reported his vprightnes of dealing,
which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in
writing, that aprooues his Art."
We see, then, that the company to which Shakespeare had attached
himself, and in which he had already attracted notice as a promising
poet, employed him to revise and furbish up the older pieces of their
repertory. The theatrical announcements of the period would show us,
even if we had no other evidence, that it was a constant practice to
recast old plays, in order to heighten their powers of attraction. It
is announced, for instance, that such-and-such a play will be acted
as it was last presented before her Majesty, or before this or that
nobleman. Poets sold their works outright to the theatre for such sums
as five or ten pounds, or for a share in the receipts. As the interests
of the theatre demanded that plays should not be printed, in order that
rival companies might not obtain possession of them, they remained in
manuscript (unless pirated), and the players could accordingly do what
they pleased with the text.
None the less, of course, was the older poet apt to resent the
re-touches made by the younger, as we see from this outburst of
Greene's, and probably, too, from Ben Jonson's epigram, _On Poet-Ape_,
even though this cannot, with any show of reason, be applied to
Shakespeare.
In the view of the time, theatrical productions as a whole were not
classed as literature. It was regarded as dishonourable for a man to
sell his work first to a theatre and then to a book-seller, and Thomas
Hey wood declares, as late as 1630 (in the preface to his _Lucretia_),
that he has never been guilty of this misdemeanour. We know, too, how
much ridicule Ben Jonson incurred when, first among English poets, he
in 1616 published his plays in a folio volume.
On the other hand, we see that not only Shakespeare's genius, but his
personal amiability, the loftiness and charm of his nature, disarmed
even those who, for one reason or another, had spoken disparagingly
of his activity. As Chettle, after printing Greene's attack, hastened
to make public apology, so also Ben Jonson, to whose ill-will and
cutting allusions Shakespeare made no retort,[1] became, in spite of
an unconquerable jealousy, his true friend and admirer, and after his
death spoke of him warmly in prose, and with enthusiasm in verse, in
the noble eulogy prefixed to the First Folio. His prose remarks upon
Shakespeare's character are introduced by a critical observation:--
"I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour
to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned)
he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he
had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this but for their
ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their
friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own
candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on
this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest,
and of an open and full nature; had an excellent phantasy,
brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed
with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he
should be stopped: _Sufflaminandus erat,_ as Augustus said
of Haterius."
[1] He is said to have procured the production of Jonson's
first play.
VII
_THE "HENRY VI." TRILOGY_
One might expect that it would be with the early plays in which
Shakespeare only collaborated as with those Italian pictures of the
best period of the Renaissance, in which the connoisseur identifies
(for example) an angel's head by Leonardo in a Crucifixion of Andrea
del Verrocchio's. The work of the pupil stands out sharp and clear,
with pure contours, a picture within the picture, quite at odds with
its style and spirit, but impressing us as a promise for the future. As
a matter of fact, however, there is no analogy between the two cases.
A mystery hangs over the _Henry VI_. trilogy which neither Greene's
venomous attack nor Chettle's apology enables us to clear up.
Of all the works attributed to Shakespeare, this is certainly the one
whose origin affords most food for speculation. The inclusion of the
three plays in the First Folio shows clearly that his comrades, who had
full knowledge of the facts, regarded them as his literary property.
That the two earlier plays which are preserved, the _First Part of
the Contention_ and the _True Tragedie_ (answering to the second
and third parts of _Henry VI_.), cannot be entirely Shakespeare's
work is evidenced both by the imprint of the anonymous quartos and
by the company which is stated to have produced them; for none of
Shakespeare's genuine plays was published by this publisher or played
by this company. It is proved quite clearly, too, by internal evidence,
by the free and unrhymed versification of these plays. At the period
from which they date, Shakespeare was still extremely addicted to the
use of rhyme in his dramatic writing.
Nevertheless, the great majority of German Shakespeare students,
and some English as well, are of opinion that the older plays are
entirely Shakespeare's, either his first drafts or, as is more commonly
maintained, stolen texts carelessly noted down.
Some English scholars, such as Malone and Dyce, go to the opposite
extreme, and regard the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. as the
work of another poet. The majority of English students look upon these
plays as the result of Shakespeare's retouching of another man's, or
rather other men's, work.
The affair is so complicated that none of these hypotheses is quite
satisfactory.
Though there are doubtless in the older plays portions unworthy of
Shakespeare, and more like the handiwork of Greene, while others
strongly suggest Marlowe, both in matter, style, and versification,
there are also passages in them which cannot be by any one else than
Shakespeare. And while most of the alterations and additions which are
found in the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. bear the mark of
unmistakable superiority, and are Shakespearian in spirit no less than
in style and versification, there are at the same time others which
are decidedly un-Shakespearian and can almost certainly be attributed
to Marlowe. He must, then, have collaborated with Shakespeare in the
adaptation, unless we suppose that his original text was carelessly
printed in the earlier quartos, and that it here reappears, in the
Shakespearian _Henry VI_, corrected and completed in accordance with
his manuscript.
I agree with Miss Lee, the writer of the leading treatise[1] on these
plays, and with the commentator in the Irving Edition, in holding
that Shakespeare was not responsible for all the alterations in the
definitive text. There are several which I cannot possibly believe to
be his.
In the old quartos there appears not a line in any foreign language.
But in the Shakespearian plays we find lines and exclamations in
Latin scattered here and there, along with one in French.[2] If the
early quartos are founded on a text taken down by ear, we can readily
understand that the foreign expressions, not being understood, should
be omitted. Such foreign sentences are extremely frequent in Marlowe,
as in Kyd and the other older dramatists; they appear in season and out
of season, but always in irreconcilable conflict with the sounder taste
of our time. Marlowe would even suffer a dying man to break out in a
French or Latin phrase as he gave up the ghost, and this occurs here in
two places (at Clifford's death and Rutland's). Shakespeare, who never
bedizens his work with un-English phrases, would certainly not place
them in the mouths of dying men, and least of all foist them upon an
earlier purely English text.
Other additions also seem only to have restored the older form of the
plays--those, to wit, which really add nothing new, but only elaborate,
sometimes more copiously than is necessary or tasteful, a thought
already clearly indicated. The original omission in such instances
appears almost certainly to have been dictated by considerations of
convenience in acting. One example is Queen Margaret's long speech in
Part II., Act iii. 2, which is new with the exception of the first
fourteen lines.
But there is another class of additions and alterations which surprises
us by being unmistakably in Marlowe's style. If these additions are
really by Shakespeare, he must have been under the influence of Marlowe
to a quite extraordinary degree. Swinburne has pointed out how entirely
the verses which open the fourth act of the Second Part are Marlowesque
in rhythm, imagination, and choice of words; but characteristic as are
these lines--
"And now loud howling wolves arouse the jades
That drag the tragic melancholy night,"
they are by no means the only additions which seem to point to Marlowe.
We feel his presence particularly in the additions to Iden's speeches
at the end of the fourth act, in such lines as--
"Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;
Thy hand is but a finger to my fist;
Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon;"
and especially in the concluding speech:--
"Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!
And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,
So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.
Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels
Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,
And there cut off thy most ungracious head."
There is Marlowesque emphasis in this wildness and ferocity, which
reappears, in conjunction with Marlowesque learning, in Young
Clifford's lines in the last act:--
"Meet I an infant of the house of York,.
Into as many gobbets will I cut it,
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did:
In cruelty will I seek out my fame"--
and in those which, in Part III., Act iv. 2, are placed in the mouth of
Warwick:--
"Our scouts have found the adventure very easy:
That as Ulysses, and stout Diomede,
With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,
And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds;
So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,
At unawares may beat down Edward's guard,
And seize himself."
And as in the additions there are passages the whole style of which
belongs to Marlowe, or bears the strongest traces of his influence,
so also there are passages in the earlier text which in every respect
recall the manner of Shakespeare. For example, in Part II., Act iii. 2,
Warwick's speech:--
"Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh,
And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?"
or Suffolk's to Margaret:--
"If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
And in thy sight to die, what were it else,
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe,
Dying with mother's dug between its lips."
Most Shakespearian, too, is the manner in which, in Part III., Act ii.
I, York's two sons are made to draw their characters, each in a single
line, when they receive the tidings of their father's death:--
"_Edward_. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.
_Richard_. Say, how he died, for I will hear it all."
Again, we seem to hear the voice of Shakespeare when Margaret, after
they have murdered her son before her eyes, bursts forth (Part III.,
Act v. 5):--
"You have no children, butchers! if you had
The thought of them would have stirred up remorse."
This passage anticipates, as it were, a celebrated speech in _Macbeth_.
Most remarkable of all, however, are the Cade scenes in the Second