A principal character of the works of a very great author is, that in
them each man can find that for which he seeks, and in a form which
includes his own view.
With Shakespeare, as one of the greatest of the great, this is
pre-eminently the case. One reader looks for simply dramatic interest,
another for natural philosophy, and a third for morals, and each is
more than satisfied with the treatment of his own special subject.
It is scarcely a matter of surprise, therefore, that the musical
student should look in Shakespeare for music, and find it treated of
from several points of view, completely and accurately.
This is the more satisfactory, as no subject in literature has been
treated with greater scorn for accuracy, or general lack of real
interest, than this of music.
This statement will admit of comparatively few exceptions, one of
which must here be mentioned.
The author of "John Inglesant," Mr Shorthouse, whether he "crammed"
his music or not, has in that book given a lively and quite accurate
picture of the art as practised about Charles I.'s time.
There is no need here to name the many well-known writers who have
spoken of music with a lofty disregard for facts and parade of
ignorance which, displayed in any other matter, would have brought on
them the just contempt of any reviewer.
The student of music in Shakespeare is bound to view the subject in
two different ways, the first purely historical, the second (so to
speak) psychological.
As for the first, the most superficial comparison of the plays alone,
with the records of the practice and social position of the musical
art in Elizabethan times, shews that Shakespeare is in every way a
trustworthy guide in these matters; while, as for the second view,
there are many most interesting passages which treat of music from the
emotional standpoint, and which clearly shew his thorough personal
appreciation of its higher and more spiritual qualities.
Hamlet tells us, and we believe, often without clearly understanding,
that players are _the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time_, and
that the end of playing, both at the first and now, was, and is, to
hold the mirror up to nature, and _to shew the very age and body of
the time, his form and pressure_.
The study of this one feature of the "age and body" of Shakespeare's
time, with the view of clearly grasping the extreme accuracy of the
"abstract and brief chronicle" to be found in his works, will surely
go some way to give definiteness and force to our ideas of
Shakespeare's magnificent grip of all other phases of thought and of
action.
The argument recommends itself--"If he is trustworthy in this subject,
he is trustworthy in all."
To a professional reader at all events, it argues very much indeed in
a writer's favour, that the "layman" has managed to write the simplest
sentence about a specialty, without some more or less serious blunder.
Finally, no Shakespeare student will deny that some general help is
necessary, when Schmidt's admirable Lexicon commits itself to such a
misleading statement as that a virginal is a kind of small pianoforte,
and when a very distinguished Shakespeare scholar has allowed a
definition of a viol as a six-stringed guitar to appear in print under
his name.
Out of thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare, there are no less than
thirty-two which contain interesting references to music and musical
matters _in the text itself_. There are also over three hundred stage
directions which are musical in their nature, and these occur in
thirty-six out of thirty-seven plays.
The musical references in the text are most commonly found in the
comedies, and are generally the occasion or instrument of
word-quibbling and witticisms; while the musical stage directions
belong chiefly to the tragedies, and are mostly of a military nature.
As it is indispensable that the student of Shakespeare and Music
should have a clear idea of the social status and influence of music
in Shakespearian times, here follows a short sketch of the history of
this subject, which the reader is requested to peruse with the
deliberate object of finding every detail confirmed in Shakespeare's
works.