Thou art not noble:
For all th' accommodations, that thou bear'st
Are nurs'd by baseness.
Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by "baseness"
is meant "self-love" here assigned as the motive of all human
actions. Shakespeare meant only to observe, that a minute analysis of
life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination.
Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by "baseness",
by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All
the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles
and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the
quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps
and darkness of the mine.
ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 16-17.)
The soft and tender fork
of a poor worm.
"Worm" is put for any creeping thing or "serpent". Shakespeare supposes
falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds
with his tongue, and that his tongue is "forked". He confounds reality
and fiction, a serpent's tongue is "soft" but not "forked" nor
hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In Midsummer-night's
Dream he has the same notion.
--With doubler tongue
Then thine, O serpent, never adder stung.
ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 32-4.)
Thou hast nor youth, nor age:
But as it were an after dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both.
This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we busy ourselves
in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications
that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languour of age
with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so
that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the
present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events
of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.
ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 36-8.)
When thou'rt old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant.
But how does beauty make "riches pleasant"? We should read "bounty",
which compleats the sense, and is this; Thou hast neither the
pleasure of enjoying riches thy self, for thou wantest vigour: nor
of seeing it enjoyed by others, for thou wantest "bounty". Where
the making the want of "bounty" as inseparable from old age as
the want of "health", is extremely satyrical tho' not altogether
just. --Warburton.
I am inclined to believe that neither man nor woman will have much
difficulty to tell how "beauty makes riches pleasant". Surely this
emendation, though it is elegant and ingenious, is not such as that
an opportunity of inserting it should be purchased by declaring
ignorance of what every one knows, by confessing insensibility of
what every one feels.
ACT III. SCENE ii. (III. i. 137-8.)
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life
From thine own sister's shame?
In Isabella's declamation there is something harsh, and something
forced and far-fetched. But her indignation cannot be thought
violent when we consider her not only as a virgin but as a nun.
ACT IV. SCENE viii. (iv. iii. 4-5.)
First here's young Mr. Rash, &c.
This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very
striking view of the practices predominant in Shakespeare's age.
Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four
fighting men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals
of these pictures were then known.
ACT IV. SCENE xiii. (IV. V. 1.)
Duke. These letters at fit time deliver me.
Peter never delivers the letters, but tells his story without any
credentials. The poet forgot the plot which he had formed.
ACT V. SCENE vii. (V. i. 448.)
'Till he did look on me.
The Duke has justly observed that Isabel is importuned against all
sense to solicit for Angelo, yet here against all sense she solicits
for him. Her argument is extraordinary.
A due sincerity govern'd his deeds,
'Till he did look on me; since it is so,
Let him not die. That Angelo had committed
all the crimes charged against him, as far as he could commit
them, is evident. The only INTENT which his act did not overtake,
was the defilement of Isabel. Of this Angelo was only intentionally
guilty. Angelo's crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify
punishment, whether its end be to secure the innocent from wrong,
or to deter guilt by example; and I believe every reader feels some
indignation when he finds him spared. From what extenuation of his
crime can Isabel, who yet supposes her brother dead, form any plea
in his favour. Since he was good 'till he looked in me, let him
not die. I am afraid our Varlet Poet intended to inculcate, that
women think ill of nothing that raises the credit of their beauty,
and are ready, however virtuous, to pardon any act which they think
incited by their own charms.
ACT V. SCENE viii. (v. i. 479 foll.)
It is somewhat strange, that Isabel is not made to express either
gratitude, wonder or joy at the sight of her brother.
After the pardon of two murderers Lucio might be treated by the
good Duke with less harshness; but perhaps the Poet intended to
show, what is too often seen, that men easily forgive wrongs which
are not committed against themselves.
The novel of Cynthio Giraldi, from which Shakespeare is supposed to
have borrowed this fable, may be read in Shakespeare illustrated,
elegantly translated, with remarks which will assist the enquirer
to discover how much absurdity Shakespeare has admitted or avoided.
I cannot but suspect that some other had new modelled the novel
of Cynthio, or written a story which in some particulars resembled
it, and that Cinthio was not the authour whom Shakespeare immediately
followed. The Emperour in Cinthio is named Maximine, the Duke, in
Shakespeare's enumeration of the persons of the drama, is called
Vincentio. This appears a very slight remark; but since the Duke
has no name in the play, nor is ever mentioned but by his title,
why should he be called Vincentio among the "Persons", but because
the name was copied from the story, and placed superfluously
at the head of the list by the mere habit of transcription? It is
therefore likely that there was then a story of Vincentio Duke of
Vienna, different from that of Maximine Emperour of the Romans.
Of this play the light or comick part is very natural and pleasing,
but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labour
than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time
of the action is indefinite; some time, we know not how much, must
have elapsed between the recess of the Duke and the imprisonment
of Claudio; for he must have learned the story of Mariana in his
disguise, or he delegated his power to a man already known to be
corrupted. The unities of action and place are sufficiently preserved.
HENRY IV
None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the first and second
parts of Henry the fourth. Perhaps no authour has ever in two
plays afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting,
for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occurrences
are diverting, and, except one or two, sufficiently probable; the
incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and
the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment,
and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.
The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part,
is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose
sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues
are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated
by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked, and
when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is great
without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into
a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character
is great, original, and just. Piercy is a rugged soldier, cholerick,
and quarrelsome, and has only the soldier's virtues, generosity
and courage.
But Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe
thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be
admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly
detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with
those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a
glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak,
and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the
defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their
absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the
prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so
proud as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men,
but to think his interest of importance to the duke of Lancaster.
Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary
to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all
qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting
laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of
the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy escapes and
sallies of levity, which make sport but raise no envy. It must be
observed that he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes,
so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may be
borne for his mirth.
The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is
more dangerous than he that with a will to corrupt, hath the power
to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves
safe with such a companion when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.
HENRY V
ACT. II. SCENE iv. (II. iii. 27-8.)
Cold as any stone. Such is the end of Falstaff,
from whom Shakespeare had promised us in his epilogue to Henry
IV. that we should receive more entertainment. It happened to
Shakespeare as to other writers, to have his imagination crowded
with a tumultuary confusion of images, which, while they were yet
unsorted and unexamined, seemed sufficient to furnish a long train
of incidents, and a new variety of merriment, but which, when he
was to produce them to view, shrunk suddenly from him, or could
not be accommodated to his general design. That he once designed
to have brought Falstaff on the scene again, we know from himself;
but whether he could contrive no train of adventures suitable
to his character, or could match him with no companions likely to
quicken his humour, or could open no new vein of pleasantry, and
was afraid to continue the same strain lest it should not find the
same reception, he has here for ever discarded him, and made haste
to dispatch him, perhaps for the same reason for which Addison
killed Sir Roger, that no other hand might attempt to exhibit him.
Let meaner authours learn from this example, that it is dangerous
to sell the bear which is yet not hunted, to promise to the publick
what they have not written.
KING LEAR
The Tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so
strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions and interests
our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the
striking opposition of contrary characters, the sudden changes of
fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a
perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene
which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or
conduct of the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce
to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the
poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it,
is hurried irresistibly along.
On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct it may be observed,
that he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly
received as true. And perhaps if we turn our thoughts upon the
barbarity and ignorance of the age to which this story is referred,
it will appear not so unlikely as while we estimate Lear's manners
by our own. Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation
of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of
a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar. Shakespeare, indeed, by the
mention of his Earls and Dukes, has given us the idea of times more
civilised, and of life regulated by softer manners; and the truth
that though he so nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes
the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the
characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English
and foreign.
My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in the Adventurer very minutely
criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too
savage and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys
the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be
answered, by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an
historical fact, to which the poet has added little, having only
drawn it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am not able to
apologise with equal plausibility for the extrusion of Gloucester's
eyes, which seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatick
exhibition, and such as must always compel the mind to relieve its
distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our authour
well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.
The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly
recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he
is made to co-operate with the chief design and the opportunity
which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and
connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress
this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes
lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.
But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakespeare has
suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause contrary
to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and,
what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this
conduct is justified by the Spectator, who blames Tate for giving
Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares,
that, in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis
has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable
reception of Cato, "the town was poisoned with much false and
abominable criticism," and that endeavours had been used to discredit
and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper,
and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a
just representation of the common events of human life: but since
all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be
persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or,
that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always
rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
In the present case the publick has decided. Cordelia, from the
time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And,
if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I
might relate, that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's
death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last
scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.
ROMEO AND JULIET
ACT I. SCENE ii. (I. i. 181 foll.)
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! &c.
Of these lines neither the sense nor occasion is very evident. He
is not yet in love with an enemy, and to love one and hate another
is no such uncommon state, as can deserve all this toil of antithesis.
ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 25.)
Earth-treading stars that make dark HEAVEN's light.
This nonsense should be reformed thus,
Earth-treading stars that make dark EVEN light.
--Warburton.
But why nonsense? Is anything more commonly said, than that beauties
eclipse the sun? Has not Pope the thought and the word?
Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,
And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the day.
Both the old and the new reading are philosophical nonsense, but
they are both, and both equally poetical sense.
ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 26-8.)
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel,
When well-apparel'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads.
To say, and to say in pompous words, that a "young man shall feel"
as much in an assembly of beauties, "as young men feel in the month
of April," is surely to waste sound upon a very poor sentiment.
I read, Such comfort as do lusty YEOMEN feel. You shall feel from
the sight and conversation of these ladies such hopes of happiness
and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the spring, when the
plenty of the year begins, and the prospect of the harvest fills
him with delight.
ACT I. SCENE iv. (l. iii. 92.)
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
The "golden story" is perhaps the "golden legend", a book in the
darker ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely
embellished, but of which Canus, one of the popish doctors, proclaims
the author to have been homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis.
ACT I. SCENE vi. (1. v. 34.)
Good cousin Capulet.
This cousin Capulet is "unkle" in the paper of invitation, but as
Capulet is described as old, "cousin" is probably the right word
in both places. I know not how Capulet and his lady might agree,
their ages were very disproportionate; he has been past masking
for thirty years, and her age, as she tells Juliet is but eight
and twenty.
ACT I. CHORUS. (II. PROLOGUE.)
The use of this chorus is not easily discovered, it conduces nothing
to the progress of the play, but relates what is already known or
what the next scenes will shew; and relates it without adding the
improvement of any moral sentiment.
ACT II. SCENE vi. (ii. vi. 15.)
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
He that travels too fast is as long before he comes to the end of
his journey, as he that travels slow.
Precipitation produces mishap.
ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 2.)
The day is hot.
It is observed that in Italy almost all assassinations are committed
during the heat of summer.
ACT III. SCENE iii. (III. i. 183.)
Affection makes him false.
The charge of falshood on Bentivolio, though produced at hazard,
is very just. The authour, who seems to intend the character of
Bentiolio as good, meant perhaps to shew, how the best minds, in
a state of faction and discord, are detorted to criminal partiality.
ACT III. SCENE viii. (III. v. 84.)
And, yet, no Man like he doth grieve my heart.
Juliet's equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed
by the loss of a new lover.
ACT IV. SCENE iii. (IV. iii. 2-3.)
Leave me to myself to-night;
For I have need of many orisons.
Juliet plays most of her pranks under the appearance of religion:
perhaps Shakespeare meant to punish her hypocrisy.
ACT V. SCENE i. (V. i. 3.)
My bosom's Lord sits lightly on this throne, &c.
These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakespeare
give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity
of unhappiness? Perhaps to shew the vanity of trusting to those
uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider
as certain foretokens of good and evil.
ACT V. SCENE v. (v. iii. 229.)
FRIAR. I will be brief.
It is much to be lamented that the Poet did not conclude the dialogue
with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience
already knew. This play is one of the most pleasing of our Author's
performances. The scenes are busy and various, the incidents
numerous and important, the catastrophe irresistably affecting
and the process of the action carried on with such probability at
least with such congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.
Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the
conversation of gentlemen, to represent the airy sprightliness
of juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition which might
easily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that
he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should
have been killed by him. Yet he thinks him no such formidable
person, but that he might have lived through the play, and died in
his bed, without danger to a poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in
quest of truth, that, in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly
had to the word than the thought, and that it is very seldom to
be rigorously understood. Mercutio's wit, gaiety and courage, will
always procure him friends that wish him a longer life; but his
death is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him
in the construction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of
Shakespeare to have continued his existence, though some of his
sallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was
not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute,
argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime.
The Nurse is one of the characters in which the Authour delighted:
he has, with great subtility of distinction, drawn her at once
loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.
His comick scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetick strains
are always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons,
however distressed, HAVE A CONCEIT LEFT THEM IN THEIR MISERY, A
MISERABLE CONCEIT.
HAMLET
ACT II. SCENE ii. (II. i. 114-17.)
It is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. This is not the remark of a weak man. The vice
of age is too much suspicion. Men long accustomed to the wiles
of life "cast" commonly "beyond themselves", let their cunning go
further than reason can attend it. This is always the fault of a
little mind, made artful by long commerce with the world.
ACT II. SCENE iv. (II. ii.)
Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with
observation, confident of his knowledge, proud of his eloquence,
and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly represented
as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces
that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather
than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest
is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows
that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become
weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the
particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant
in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from
his repositories of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and
gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot
be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden
dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and
entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recovers the leading
principle, and falls again into his former train. This idea of
dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phenomena of
the character of Polonius.
If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the
particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must
allow to the tragedy of HAMLET the praise of variety. The incidents
are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long
tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and
solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive
observations, and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above
the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to
time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and
particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of HAMLET
causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the
heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect
intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the
blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes affectation
to just contempt.
The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The
action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but
there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the
feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he
does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of
sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so
much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.
Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an
agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the
King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last
effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.
The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of
weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art.
A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the
dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.
The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice,
and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability.
The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the
revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him
that was required to take it; and the gratification which would
arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated
by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the
harmless, and the pious.
OTHELLO
ACT V. SCENE vi. (v. ii. 63-5.)
Oh perjur'd woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
And mak'st me call, what I intent to do,
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.
This line is difficult. Thou hast harden'd my heart, and makest
me kill thee with the rage of a MURDERER, when I thought to have
sacraficed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking
a victim.
It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quarto's reads, "Thou
dost stone THY heart:" which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning
then will be, thou forcest me to dismiss thee from the world in
the state of the murdered without preparation for death, when I
intended that thy punishment should have been "a sacrifice" atoning
for thy crime.
I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It
is not to be endured.
The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the
attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical
illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless,
and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection,
inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool
malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs,
and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft
simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of
innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness
to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare's
skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any
modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's
conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him,
are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said
of him as he says of himself, that he is "a man not esily jealous,"
yet we cannot but pity him when at last we find him "perplexed in
the extreme."
There is always danger lest wickedness conjoined with abilities
should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation but the
character if Iago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene
to the last hated and despised.
Event he inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous
in any other piece, not only for their justness but their strength.
Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his want
of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation of Rodegigo's
suspicious credulity, and impatient submission of the cheats which
he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to
be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by
unlawful desires, to a false friend and the virtue of AEmilia is
such as we often find, worn loosely but not cast off, easy to commit
small crimes, but quickend and alarmed at atrocious villanies.
The Scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied but happy
interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story;
and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known
already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.
Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been
occasionally related, there had been little wanting of a drama of the
most exact and scrupulous regularity.