'_Witchcraft_ celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and withered _Murder_,
Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf.'
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. scene iii.:
'_Welcome_ ever smiles,
And _Farewell_ goes out sighing.'
* * * * *
p. v. _Marigolds._ Dr Prior, writing from his place, Halse, near
Taunton, 11 Oct., 1876, says, "I asked in a family here whether they had
ever heard of marigolds being strown on the beds of dying persons, and
they referred me to a book by Lady C. Davies, _Recollections of
Society_, 1873. At p. 129:
"'Is Little Trianon ominous to crowned women?'
"'Passing through the garden,' said the King, 'I perceived some _soucis_
(marigolds, emblems of sorrow and care) growing near a tuft of lilies.
This coincidence struck me, and I murmured:
"Dans les jardins de Trianon
Je cueillais des roses nouvelles.
Mais, helas! les fleurs les plus belles
Avaient péri sous les glaçons.
J'eus beau chercher les dons de Flore,
Les hivers les avaient detruits;
Je ne trouvai que des _soucis_
Qu'humectaient les pleurs de l'Aurore."'
"I am inclined to hold my first opinion that _cradle_ and _death-bed_
refer to the use of the flowers, and not to anything in their growth or
appearance."
p. 1. _My dear L--._ Altho' Prof. Spalding says that L. was an early
and later friend of his, of great gifts and taste, and that he had
visited the New World (p. 108), yet Mrs Spalding and Dr Burton have
never been able to identify L., and they believe him to be a creation of
the author's.--F.
p. 4. _Shakspere had fallen much into neglect by 1634._ "After the death
of Shakspeare, the plays of Fletcher appear for several years to have
been more admired, or at least to have been more frequently acted, than
those of our poet." Malone, _Hist. Account of the English Stage_,
Variorum Shakspere of 1821, vol. ii. p. 224. And see the lists
following, by which he proves his statement.--F.
* * * * *
From the Paper with which Mr J. Herbert Stack opend the discussion at
our Reading of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, he has allowd me to make the
following extracts:--
To judge the question clearly, let us note how far the author
or authors of the _Two N. K._ followed what was the basis of
their drama--Chaucer's Knightes Tale. We have there the same
opening incident--the petitions of the Queens, then the
capture of the Two, then their sight of Emily from the prison
window, the release of Arcite, his entry into Emilia's
service, the escape of Palamon, the fight in the wood, the
decree of Theseus, the prayers to Diana, Venus, and Mars, the
combat, the victory in arms to Arcite, his death, and
Palamon's eventual victory in love. But Chaucer is far
superior to the dramatists. He has no Gaoler's Daughter to
distract our thoughts. The language of his Palamon is more
blunt, more soldierlike, more characteristic. His Emilia,
instead of being equally in love with two men at the same
time, prefers maidenhood to marriage, loves neither, but
pities both. At the end of the _play_ we have something coarse
and hurried: Emilia, during the Tournament, is ready to jump
into anybody's arms, so that he comes victorious; then she
accepts Arcite; and on his sudden death, she dries her tears
with more than the supposed celerity of a modern fashionable
widow; and, before she is the widow of Arcite, consents to
become the wife of Palamon. Contrast this with Chaucer, where
the poem dedicates some beautiful lines to the funeral of
Arcite and the grief of all, and only makes Emilia yield after
years to the silent pleading of the woful Palamon and the
urgency of her brother. Contrast the dying speeches in the two
works. In the play, Arcite transfers Emilia almost as if he
were making a will: "_Item_, I leave my bride to Palamon." In
Chaucer, he says to Emilia that he knows of no man
'So worthy to be loved as Palamon,
And if that you shal ever be a wyf
Forget not Palamon that gentil man.'
Now here we have a play founded on a poem, the original
delicate and noble, where the other is coarse and trivial; and
we ask, 'Was this Shakspere's way of treating his originals?'
In his earlier years he based his _Romeo and Juliet_ on
Brooke's poem of the same name--a fine work, and little
disfigured by the coarseness of the time. Yet he pruned it of
all really offensive matter, and has given us a perfect
love-story, as ardent as it is pure. His skill in omission is
remarkably shown in one respect. In Brooke's poem, Juliet,
reflecting when alone on Romeo's sudden love, remembers that
he is an enemy to her house, and suspects that he may intend
dishonourable love as a base means of wreaking vengeance on
hereditary foes. It seems to me that a thought so cunning is
out of character with Juliet--certainly would have been felt
as a stain on Shakspere's Juliet. That Shakspere deliberately
omitted this, is known by one slight reference. Juliet says to
Romeo,
'If thy intent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage.'
That is all--no cunning caution, no base doubt.
Now if in this original, and in this play, we trace the very
manner of Shakspere's working--taking up gold mixed with
dross, and purifying it in the furnace of his genius--are we
to suppose that later in life, with taste more fastidious,
even if his imagination were less strong, he carried out a
converse process; that he took Chaucer's gold, and mixed it
with alloy? That, I greatly doubt. Also, would he imitate
himself so closely as he is imitated in certain scenes of the
_Two N. K._?
Another point. Love between persons of very different rank has
been held by many dramatists to be a fine subject for the
stage. Shakspere never introduces it. _Ophelia_ loves a
Prince, and _Violet_ a duke, and Rosalind a Squire's son; but
gentlehood unites all. Helena in _All's Well_ is a
gentlewoman. With anything like levelling aspirations
Shakspere had clearly no sympathy. In no undoubted play of his
have we, so far as I remember, any attempt to make the love of
the lowly born for the high a subject of sympathy: there is no
Beggar maid to any of his King Cophetuas. Goneril and Regan
stoop to Edmund through baseness; Malvolio's love for Olivia
is made ridiculous. The Gaoler's Daughter of the _Two N. K._
stands alone: like the waiting-maid in the _Critic_, she goes
mad in white linen, and as painfully recalls Ophelia, as our
cousins the monkeys remind us of men.
In some other respects the poem is far superior to the play.
Chaucer introduces the supernatural powers with excellent
effect and tact--so as to soften the rigour of the Duke's
decrees. In the Temple, Palamon, the more warlike in manners
of the two, is the more reckless and ardent in his love: of a
simpler nature, Venus entirely subdues and, at the same time,
effectually befriends him. He prays to her not for Victory:
for that he cares not: it matters not how events are brought
about 'so that I have my lady in mine arms.' Arcite, the
softer and more refined knight, prays simply for Victory. If
it be true that love changes the nature of men, here we have
the transformation. The prayer of each is granted, though they
seem opposed--thus Arcite experiences what many of those who
consulted old oracles found, 'the word of promise kept to the
ear, broken to the hope.' Then in the poem Theseus freely
forgives the two knights, but decides on the Tournament as a
means of seeing who shall have Emilia. In the play he decides
that one is to live and marry, the other to die. The absurdity
of this needless cruelty is evident: it was possibly
introduced to satisfy the coarse tastes of the audiences who
liked the sight of an executioner and a block.
In fact I would say the play is not mainly Shakspere's because
of its un-Shaksperean depth. Who can sympathize with the cold,
coarse balancing of Emilia between the two men--eager to have
one, ready to take either; betrothed in haste to one, married
in haste to another--so far flying in the face of the pure
beauty of the original, where Emilia never loses maidenly
reserve. Then the final marriage of the Gaoler's Daughter is
as destructive of our sympathy as if Ophelia had been saved
from drowning by the grave-digger, and married to Horatio at
the end of the piece. The pedantry of Gerrold is poor, the fun
of the rustics forced and feeble, the sternness of Theseus
brutal and untouched by final gentleness as in Chaucer.
Another argument against Shakspere's responsibility for the
whole play is the manner in which the minor characters are
introduced and the underplot managed. A secondary plot is a
characteristic of the Elizabethan drama, borrowed from that of
Spain. But Shakspere is peculiar in the skill with which he
interweaves the two plots and brings together the principal
and the inferior personages. In _Hamlet_ the soldiers on the
watch, the grave-diggers, the players, the two walking
gentlemen, even Osric, all help on the action of the drama and
come into relation with the hero himself. In _King Lear_,
Edmund and Gloster and Edgar, though engaged in a subsidiary
drama of their own, get mixed up with the fortunes of the King
and his daughters. In _Othello_, the foolish Venetian Roderigo
and Bianca the courtesan have some hand in the progress of the
play. In _Romeo and Juliet_, the Nurse and the Friar are
agents of the main plot, and the ball scene pushes on the
action. In _Shylock_, Lancelot Gobbo is servant to the Jew,
and helps Jessica to escape. I need not multiply instances, as
in _Much Ado about Nothing_, Dogberry, &c. As far as my own
recollection serves, I do not believe that in any play
undoubtedly Shakspere's we have a single instance of an
underplot like that of the Gaoler's Daughter. It might be
altogether omitted without affecting the story. Theseus,
Emilia, Hippolyta, Arcite, Palamon, never exchange a word with
the group of Gaoler's Daughter, Wooer, Brother, two Friends
and Doctor; and Palamon's only remembrance of her services is
that at his supposed moment of execution he generously leaves
her the money he had no further need of to help her to get
married to a remarkably tame young man who assumes the name of
his rival in order to bring his sweetheart to her senses. If
this underplot is due to Shakspere, why is there none like it
in all his works? If these exceedingly thin and very detached
minor characters are his, where in his undoubted plays are
others like them--thus hanging loosely on to the main
machinery of a play? Nor must we forget that if this underplot
is Shakspere's, it is his when he was an experienced
dramatist--so that after being a skilful constructor and
connecter of plot and underplot in his youth, 'his right hand
forgot its cunning' in his middle age.
Two other arguments. In the Prologue of the play, written and
recited when it was acted, there are two passages expressing
great fears as to the result,--one that Chaucer might rise to
condemn the dramatist for spoiling his story,--another that
the play might be damned, and destroy the fortunes of the
Theatre[115:1]. Is this the way in which a play partly written
by Shakspere--then near the close of his successful stage
career--would be spoken of on its production?
Another argument is, if Shakspere, using Chaucer's poem as a
model, spoiled it in dramatising it[115:2], then as a poet he
was inferior to Chaucer--which is absurd.
Following high authorities, anybody may adopt any opinion on
this play and find backers--the extremes being the German
Tieck, who entirely rejects the idea of Shakspere's
authorship, and Mr Hickson, who throws on him the
responsibility for the whole framework of a play and the
groundwork of every character. I should incline to the middle
opinion[116:1], that Shakspere selected the subject, began the
play, wrote many passages; had no underplot, and generally
left it in a skeleton state; that Fletcher took it up, patched
it here and there, and added an underplot;--that Fletcher, not
Shakspere, is answerable for all the departures from Chaucer,
for all the underplot, and for the revised play as it stands.
There is nothing improbable in this. After Shakspere retired
to Stratford, Fletcher may have found the play amongst the
MSS. of the Theatre, and then produced it after due changes
made--not giving the author's name. At that time it was the
custom that a play remained the property of the company of
actors who produced it. That the Blackfriars Company did _not_
regard the play as Shakspere's is pretty plain--for in the
edition of 1623, published by Heminge and Condell of that
company, Shakspere's own fellow-players, the play is not
included. Nor does the part authorship account for the
omission, as plays with less of Shakspere's undoubted
authorship are there included. But the omission is
intelligible if the play had been so Fletcherised that it was,
when acted, generally regarded as Fletcher's. Fletcher was
alive in 1623 to claim all as his property; but in 1634 he was
dead. Then the publisher, knowing or hearing that Shakspere
had a share, printed _his_ name, after _Fletcher's_, as part
dramatist. Thus I return to the older verdict of Coleridge and
Lamb, that Shakspere wrote passages of this play, perhaps also
the outlines, but that Fletcher filled up, added an underplot,
and finally revised.
FOOTNOTES:
[115:1] Does not this as much imply that Fletcher knew he had spoiled
what Shakspere would have done well?--H. L.
[115:2] But this is confessedly the case with Chaucer's _Troilus_.--F.
[Not quite. In _Troilus_ the travestie is intentional: in the _Two N.
K._ Chaucer is solemnly Cibberised.--J. H. S.]
[116:1] Also my view--though I hesitate to express a firm opinion on the
matter--PERHAPS Shakspere worked on the 1594 play as a basis?--H. L.
INDEX.
ALFIERI. His intensity, p. 91.
Apollo, the statue, 87.
_As you like it_, 75, 100.
BEAUMONT. Partnership with Fletcher, 2, 5, 6, 62, 63, 73.
Beautiful, the, in Art, 85, 89.
Bridal Song in _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 27.
Characterization, Shakspere's, 94.
CHAUCER. Correspondences in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ with the _Knight's
Tale_, 40, 45, 53;
differences from it, 35, 39, 44, 48, 54;
his classical subjects, 65, 66;
influence on Shakspere, 67, 68, 72;
school founded by him, 67;
version of the story, 26.
Classical allusions in contemporary writers, 18, 19.
Classical mythology in Shakspere, 19;
poetry, 71;
story, 64.
Contemporary dramatists. Their licentiousness, 102;
points in common with Shakspere, 56, 57;
representations of passion, 95, 96;
stage effects, 74;
subjects, 63, 73.
DANTE, 91.
Date of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ 1634, 4.
Didactic poetry, 92.
Editors, Shakspere's first, 6-8.
Epic poetry, 92.
Evidence as to authorship of the _Two N. K._, Historical, 3-5;
Internal, 10-25.
Fine art, 86.
FLETCHER. His co-authors, 5, 6;
diffuseness and elaboration, 14;
differences between him and Shakspere, 57;
his 'men of pleasure,' 42, 102;
popularity, 4;
plots 63, 66;
poverty in metaphor, 17,
and in thought, compared with Shakspere, 20, 21.
His rhythm, 11;
his share in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_: all second act, five scenes in
third act, all fourth act, one scene in fifth act, 35-40, 42-45,
59;
his slowness of association, 37;
vague, ill-graspt imagery, 16, 36;
want of personification, 25;
wit, 23.
Folios, Shakspere's first and second, 6-9.
FORD. Choice of plots, 74;
'Death of Annabella,' 80.
Greek arts of design, poetry contrasted with modern, 71, 83.
Hamlet, 94, 104, 106.
_Henry VIII_, 109.
Imagination, 90, 93.
Invention defind by Alfieri, 92 _n._
Jailer's daughter, 61.
Jaques, 100, 101.
JOHNSON, Dr Sam, 102.
JONSON, BEN. Comparative failure in delineating passion, 95, 96;
his plots and Shakspere's, 36, 62, 73;
his humour, 23;
his likeness to Shakspere, 57;
partnership with Fletcher, 6;
'Sejanus' untoucht by Shakspere, 2.
Laocoon, the sculpture, 87.
_Lear_, the end of, 76, 94, 99.
LESSING'S _Laocoon_, 83;
principles of plastic art, 83, 86.
LODGE, 64.
LYLY. His faults, 22.
_Macbeth_, 104.
MARLOWE, 56, 64.
MASSINGER. Reach of thought, 21, 57;
repetitions, 12;
sensational situations, 74.
Metaphor. Shakspere's metaphorical style, 16;
examples, 24, 31-33;
simile and metaphor, 17.
MIDDLETON, 57.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, 75, 109.
MILTON. Inequality of early and late work, 106;
love of early legend, 72;
powerful conception, 13;
purity of mind, 103;
use of language, 13.
Origin of the story of _Two N. K._, 38.
_Othello_, Act III, 75, 99, 104.
_Palamon and Arcite_ by Edwards, 66.
Passions the chief subjects of poetry, 92.
PEELE, 64.
_Pericles_, 8, 65.
Personification, 25, 26, 31.
Plots of plays by Shakspere and others, contrasted, 63.
Poetry. Characteristics, 90, 91;
contrast with plastic art, 84-86;
dramatic poetry the highest form, 92;
its true functions, 82;
its true subject, Mind, 90;
aims, 98;
and limitations, 95;
mental effect of poetry, 89.
SCHLEGEL on the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 10.
SHAKSPERE. Arrangement of plots, 73-78;
belongs to the old school, 62, 64;
characteristics of his style, 11, 28, 32, 34, 44, 46, 57-59;
choice of his subjects, well-known stories, 62-66;
conceits and word-play, 22, 23, 41;
conciseness, 13;
contrast to Fletcher, 57;
detaild description over-labourd, 17, 54;
difficulty of imitating Shakspere, 58,
distinctness of his images, 61.
His familiar images sometimes harsh and coarse, 29;
imagination, 93, 94;
mannerism, 12;
Metaphors, 16, 17, 24;
morality, 101-103;
obscurity, 14;
over-rapid conception, 13;
personification, 25, 26;
range of power, 105, 106;
repetition, 12;
representations of evil, 104;
share in the play: first act, one scene in second act, fifth act all
but one scene, 59;
sober rationality, 98;
stage spectacles avoided by him, 78;
studies, 67, 68;
tendency to reflection, 20, 21, 100, 101;
his thought, active, inquiring, put into all his characters, 20;
treatment of all human nature, 98, 99;
unity of conception, 79-81;
versification, 11;
wit, 23.
Sketch of the _Two N. K._, 26-55.
Spectacle. How Shakspere avoided stage spectacles, 78.
SPENSER, 68, 72.
_Tempest_, 74, 94, 107.
Theseus, the centre of the _Two N. K._, 27.
_Timon_, 101.
_Titus Andronicus_, 8.
_Troilus and Cressida_, 8, 65;
Shakspere's only bitter play, 101.
_Two Noble Kinsmen._ Date, 4;
origin of its story, 38;
plot chosen by Shakspere, 72;
sketch of it, 26, 55;
Shakspere's parts of it, 27-35, 40, 45-55, 59, 77;
Fletcher's parts, 35-40, 42-45, 59;
Summary of the argument for Shakspere's authorship, 105;
Table of the opinions on, p. vi., see too p. 10;
temper of the whole play, 82;
underplot not Shakspere's, 60, 62;
leading idea of the play, 81.
_Venus and Adonis_, 19, 25, 54.
Venus de Medici, statue, 87.
WORDSWORTH. The poetical interest of all outward things to, 91.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
The following words use an oe ligature in the original:
Boeotia
Phoebus
phoenix-like
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page xvii: [original has extraneous quotation mark]P. S. As I
am no great scholar
Page 36: [Sidenote: II.[period missing in original] i. one of
the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote.]
Page 40: [Sidenote: Act II. scene v. (Weber, sc. vi.
[original has extra parenthesis]Littledale), are all
Fletcher's.]
Page 43: [Sidenote: Act III. scene iv. v. Fletcher's.[period
missing in original]]
Page 53: [Sidenote: Chaucer's[letter "s" missing in original]
celestial agency to work out the plot.]
Page 63: [Sidenote: Beaumont and[word "and" missing in
original] Fletcher's.]
Page 85: [Sidenote: Expression in Painting and Sculpture is a
borrowd quality.[period missing in original]]
Page 113: [original has quotation mark]To judge the question
clearly
Page 118, under "Shakspere": distinctness of his images,
61[page number missing in original].
[104:1] page 107[original has 7]
[115:1] he had spoiled what Shakspere[original has Shakpere]
would have done
Some sidenotes are repeated on successive pages in the original. The
following sidenotes are in the original, but, because of duplication,
they have been omitted from this text.
Page 8: [Sidenote: It contains two plays not Shakspere's:]
Page 50: [Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber, or sc. iii.
Littledale).]
Page 52: [Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; or iii.
Littledale).]
Page 53: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv.
Littledale) Shakspere's.]
Page 54: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv.
Littledale).]
Page 55: [Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv.
Littledale).]