* * * * *
Touching the general state of the Drama a few years before Shakespeare
took hold of it, our information is full and clear, not only in the
specimens that have survived, but in the criticisms of contemporary
writers. A good deal of the criticism, however, is so mixed up with
personal and polemical invective, as to be unworthy of much credit.
George Whetstone, in the dedication of his _Promos and Cassandra_,
published in 1578, tells us: "The Englishman in this quality is most
vain, indiscreet, and out of order. He first grounds his work on
impossibilities; then in three hours he runs through the world,
marries, makes children men, men to conquer kingdoms, murder monsters,
and bringeth gods from Heaven, and fetcheth devils from Hell. And,
that which is worst, many times, to make mirth, they make a clown
companion with a king; in their grave counsels they allow the advice
of Fools; yea, they use one order of speech for all persons,--a gross
indecorum."--In 1581, Stephen Gosson published a tract in which he
says: "Sometimes you shall see nothing but the adventures of an
amorous knight, passing from country to country for the love of his
lady, encountering many a terrible monster made of brown paper; and at
his return so wonderfully changed, that he cannot be known but by some
posy in his tablet, or by a broken ring, or a handkerchief, or a piece
of cockle-shell." And in another part of the same tract he tells us
that "_The Palace of Pleasure, The Ethiopian History, Amadis of
France_, and _The Round Table_, comedies in Latin, French, Italian,
and Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacked, to furnish the
play-houses in London." Which shows very clearly what direction the
public taste was then taking. The matter and method of the old dramas,
and all "such musty fopperies of antiquity," would no longer do: there
was an eager though ignorant demand for something wherein the people
might find or fancy themselves touched by the real currents of nature.
And, as prescription was thus set aside, and art still ungrown, the
materials of history and romance, foreign tales and plays, any thing
that could furnish incidents and a plot, were blindly pressed into the
service.
Whatever discredit may attach to the foregoing extracts on the score
of prejudice or passion, nothing of the sort can hold in the case of
Sir Philip Sidney, whose _Defence of Poesy_, though not printed till
1595, must have been written before 1586, in which year the author
died. "Our tragedies and comedies," says he, "are not without cause
cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor
skilful poetry. You shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the
other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player, when he
comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale
will not be conceived. Now you shall have three ladies walk to gather
flowers, and then we must-believe the stage to be a garden: by-and-by
we hear news of a shipwreck in the same place; then we are to blame if
we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a
hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders
are bound to take it for a cave; while in the mean time two armies fly
in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard
heart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now, of time they are
much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in
love; after many traverses she is delivered of a fair boy; he is lost,
groweth a man, falleth in love, and all this in two hours' space:
which how absurd it is in sense, even sense may imagine, and art hath
taught, and all ancient examples justified. But, besides these gross
absurdities, all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right
comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so
carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders, to play a
part in majestical matters with neither decency nor discretion."
From all which it is evident enough that very little if any heed was
then paid to dramatic propriety and decorum. It was not _merely_ that
the unities of place and time were set at nought, but that events and
persons were thrown together without _any_ order or law; unconnected
with each other save to the senses, while at the same time according
to sense they were far asunder. It is also manifest that the
principles of the Gothic Drama in respect of general structure and
composition, in disregard of the minor unities, and in the free
blending and interchange of the comic and tragic elements, were
thoroughly established; though not yet moulded up with sufficient art
to shield them from the just censure and ridicule of sober judgment
and good taste. Here was a great work to be done; greater than any art
then known was sufficient for. Without this, any thing like an
original or national drama was impossible. Sir Philip saw the chaos
about him; but he did not see, and none could foresee, the creation
that was to issue from it. He would have spoken very differently, no
doubt, had he lived to see the intrinsic relations of character and
passion, the vital sequence of mental and moral development, set forth
in such clearness and strength, the whole fabric resting on such solid
grounds, of philosophy, and charged with such cunning efficacies of
poetry, that breaches of local and chronological succession either
pass without notice, or are noticed only for the gain of truth and
nature that is made through them. For the laws of sense hold only as
the thoughts are absorbed in what is sensuous and definite; and the
very point was, to lift the mind above this by working on its
imaginative forces, and penetrating it with the light of relations
more inward and essential.
At all events, it was by going ahead, and not by retreating, that
modern thought was to find its proper dramatic expression. The
foundation of principles was settled, and stood ready to be built upon
whenever the right workman should come. Moreover public taste was
sharp for something warm with life, so much so indeed as to keep
running hither and thither after the shabbiest semblances of it, but
still unable to rest with them. The national mind, in discarding, or
rather outgrowing the older species of drama, had worked itself into
contact with Nature. And it was the uncritical, popular, living,
practical mind that was to give the law in this business: nothing was
to be achieved either by the word or the work of those learned folk
who would not be pleased unless they could parse their pleasure by the
rules of ancient grammar. But to reproduce nature in mental forms
requires great power of art, much greater, perhaps, than minds
educated amidst works of art can well conceive.
Which brings me to the matter of Shakespeare's SENIOR CONTEMPORARIES.
For here, again, the process was gradual. Neither may we affirm that
nothing had yet been done towards organizing the collected materials.
But the methods and faculties of art were scattered here and there;
different parts of the thing had been worked out severally; and it yet
remained to draw and knit them all up together. It is difficult,
perhaps impossible, to determine exactly by whom the first steps were
taken in this work. But all that was done of much consequence,
Shakespeare apart, may be found in connection with the three names of
George Peele, Robert Greene, and Christopher Marlowe.
* * * * *
PEELE took his first degree at Oxford in 1577, and became Master of
Arts in 1579. Soon after this, he is supposed to have gone to London
as a literary adventurer. Dissipation and debauchery were especially
rife at that time among the authors by profession, who hung in large
numbers upon the metropolis, haunting its taverns and ordinaries; and
it is but too certain that Peele plunged deeply into the vices of his
class.
His first dramatic work, _The Arraignment of Paris_, was printed in
1584, the title-page stating that it had been played before the Queen
by the children of her chapel. The piece is vastly superior to any
thing known to have preceded it. It is avowedly a pastoral drama, and
sets forth a whole troop of gods and goddesses; with nothing that can
properly be called delineation of character. The plot is simply this:
Juno, Pallas, and Venus get at strife who shall have the apple of
discord which Até has thrown among them, with directions that it be
given to the fairest. As each thinks herself the fairest, they agree
to refer the question to Paris, the Trojan shepherd, who, after mature
deliberation, awards the golden ball to Venus. An appeal is taken: he
is arraigned before Jupiter in a synod of the gods for having rendered
a partial and unjust sentence; but defends himself so well, that their
godships are at a loss what to do. At last, by Apollo's advice, the
matter is referred to Diana, who, as she wants no lovers, cares little
for beauty. Diana sets aside all their claims, and awards the apple to
Queen Elizabeth; which verdict gives perfect satisfaction all round.
The piece displays fair gifts of poetry; it abounds in natural and
well-proportioned sentiment; thoughts and images seem to rise up fresh
from the writer's observation, and not merely gathered at second hand;
a considerable portion is in blank-verse, but the author uses various
measures, in all which his versification is graceful and flowing.
_The Battle of Alcazar_, written as early as 1589, but not printed
till 1594, is a strange performance, and nearly as worthless as
strange; full of tearing rant and fustian; while the action, if such
it may be called, goes it with prodigious license, jumping to and fro
between Portugal and Africa without remorse. I have some difficulty in
believing the piece to be Peele's: certainly it is not in his vein,
nor, as to that matter, in anybody's else; for it betrays at every
step an ambitions imitation of Marlowe, wherein, as usually happens,
the faults of the model are exaggerated, and the virtues not reached.
Peele could hardly have been cast into such an ecstasy of disorder,
but from a wild attempt to rival the author of _Tamburlaine_, which is
several times referred to in the piece.
_King Edward the First_, printed in 1593, and probably written later
than the preceding, is much better every way. But its chief claim to
notice is as an early attempt in the Historical Drama, which
Shakespeare brought to such perfection. The character of Edward is
portrayed with considerable spirit and truth to history, and is
perhaps Peele's best effort in that line. On the other hand, Queen
Elinor of Castile is shockingly disfigured, and this, not only in
contempt of history, which might be borne with if it really enriched
the scene, but to the total disorganizing of the part itself; the
purpose being, no doubt, to gratify the bitter national antipathy to
the Spaniards. Peele seems to have been incapable of the proper grace
and delectation of comedy: nevertheless the part of Prince Lluellen,
of Wales, and his adherents, who figure pretty largely, and sometimes
in the disguise of Robin Hood and his merry men, shows something of
comic talent, and adds to the entertainment of the piece. The other
comic portions have nothing to recommend them.
_The Old Wives' Tale_, printed in 1595, is little worth mention save
as having probably contributed somewhat to one of the noblest and
sweetest poems ever written.--Two brothers are wandering in quest of
their sister, whom Sacrapant, an enchanter, has imprisoned: they call
her name, and Echo replies; whereupon Sacrapant gives her a potion
that induces self-oblivion. His magical powers depend on a wreath
which encircles his head, and on a light enclosed in glass which he
keeps hidden under the turf. The brothers afterwards meet with an old
man, also skilled in magic, who enables them to recover their sister.
A Spirit in the likeness of a young page comes to Sacrapant, tears off
his wreath, and kills him. Still the sister remains enchanted, and
cannot be released till the glass is broken and the light
extinguished; which can only be done by a Lady who is neither maid,
wife, nor widow. The Spirit blows a magical horn, and the Lady
appears, breaks the glass, and puts out the light. A curtain being
then withdrawn discovers the sister asleep; she is disenchanted, joins
her brothers, and the Spirit vanishes.--The resemblance to Milton's
_Comus_ need not be pointed out. The difference of the two pieces in
all points of execution is literally immense; Peele's work in this
case being all steeped in meanness and vulgarity, without a touch of
truth, poetry, or wit.
_The Love of King David and Fair Bethseba_ is commonly regarded as
Peele's masterpiece. And here, again, we breathe the genuine air of
nature and simplicity. The piece is all in blank-verse, which, though
wanting in variety, is replete with melody; and it has passages of
tenderness and pathos such as to invest it with an almost sacred
charm. There is perhaps a somewhat too literal adherence to the
Scripture narrative, and very little art used in the ordering and
disposing of the materials, for Peele was neither strong nor happy in
the gift of invention; but the characters generally are seized in
their most peculiar traits, and presented with a good degree of vigour
and discrimination; while at the same time their more prominent
features are not worked into disproportion with the other parts.
Peele's contributions to the Drama were mainly in the single article
of poetry: here his example was so marked, that it was bound to be
respected and emulated by all who undertook to work in the same field.
In the development of character, and in the high art of dramatic
composition and organization, he added very little; his genius being
far unequal to this high task, and his judgment still more so. And his
efforts were probably rendered fitful and unsteady by vicious habits;
which may explain why it was that he who could do so well sometimes
did so meanly. Often, no doubt, when reduced to extreme shifts, he
patched up his matter loosely and trundled it off in haste, to
replenish his wasted means, and start him on a fresh course of riot
and debauchery.
* * * * *
GREENE, inferior to Peele as a whole, surpassed him however in
fertility and aptness of invention, in quickness and luxuriousness of
fancy, and in the right seizing and placing of character, especially
for comic effect. In his day he was vastly notorious both as a writer
and a man;--a cheap counterfeit of fame which he achieved with
remarkable ease, and seems not to have coveted any thing better. He
took his first degree at Cambridge in 1578, proceeded Master of Arts
in 1583, and was incorporated at Oxford in 1588; after which he was
rather fond of styling himself "Master of Arts in both Universities."
Soon after 1585, if not before, he betook himself to London, where he
speedily sank into the worst type of a literary adventurer.
Thenceforth his life seems to have been one continual spasm, plunging
hither and thither in transports of wild profligacy and repentance. He
died in 1592, eaten up with diseases purchased by sin.
Much of Greene's notoriety during his lifetime grew from his prose
writings, which, in the form of tracts, were rapidly thrown off, and
were well adapted both in matter and style to catch a loud but
transient popularity. One of them had the honour of being laid under
contribution for _The Winter's Tale_. In these pieces, generally, the
most striking features are a constant affecting of the euphuistic
style which John Lily had rendered popular, and a certain incontinence
of metaphors and classical allusions, the issue of a full and ready
memory unrestrained by taste or judgment; the writer galloping on from
page to page with unflagging volubility, himself evidently captivated
with the rolling sound of his own sentences. Still, his descriptions
often have a warmth and height of colouring that could not fail to
take prodigiously in an age when severity or delicacy of taste was
none of the commonest. Several of his prose pieces are liberally
interspersed with passages of poetry, in which he uses a variety of
measures, and most of them with an easy, natural skill, while his cast
of thought and imagery shows him by no means a stranger to the
springs of poetic sweetness and grace, though he never rises to any
thing like grandeur.
_The History of Orlando Furioso_ was acted as early as 1591, and
probably written some time before. The plot was partly founded on
Ariosto's romance, partly invented by Greene himself. The action, or
what stands for such, is conducted with the wildest license, and shows
no sense or idea of dramatic truth, but only a prodigious straining
after stage effect; the writer trying, apparently, how many men of
different nations, European, African, and Asiatic, he could huddle in
together, and how much love, rivalry, and fighting he could put them
through in the compass of five Acts. As for the fury of Orlando, it is
as far from the method of madness as from the logic of reason; being
none other than the incoherent jargon of one endeavouring to talk
stark nonsense.
_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, belongs, by internal marks, to about the
same period as the preceding, but is not known to have been printed
till 1597. Each Act opens with a chorus by Venus. Medea, also, is
employed to work enchantments, and raises Homer's Calchas, who comes
forth "clad in a white surplice and a cardinal's mitre." This play,
too, is crammed from first to last brimful of tumult and battle; the
scene changing between Italy and Turkey with admirable lawlessness;
and Christians of divers nations, Turks, and a band of Amazonian
warriors, bestriding the stage with their monstrous din.
Both of these pieces are mainly in blank-verse, with a frequent
interspersing of couplets. In the latter piece, allusion is made to
"the mighty Tamburlaine," thus indicating the height which Greene was
striving to reach, if not surpass. In fact, both pieces have plenty of
Marlowe's thunder, but none of his lightning. Even the blank-verse
reads like that of one accustomed to rhyme, and unable to get out of
his wonted rut. And the versification runs, throughout, in a stilted
monotony, the style being made thick and turgid with high-sounding
epithets; while we have a perfect flux of learned impertinence. As
for truth, nature, character, poetry, we look for them in vain; though
there is much, in the stage noise and parade, that might keep the
multitude from perceiving the want of them.
In _The Scottish History of James the Fourth_, probably written some
time after the two preceding, the author seems to have got convinced
that imitation of Marlowe was not his line, and that he could do best
by working his own native vein: accordingly, considerable portions of
it are in prose and rhyme; while the style throughout is disciplined
into a tolerable degree of sobriety and simplicity. Though purporting
to be a history, it has scarce any thing of historical matter. It
opens with a comic scene betwixt Oberon, King of Fairies, and Bohan,
an old Scottish lord, who, disgusted with the vices of Court, city,
and country, has withdrawn from the world with his two sons, Slipper
and Nano, turned Stoic, lives in a tomb, and talks broad Scotch. King
Oberon has nothing in common with the fairy king of _A Midsummer
Night's Dream_, except the name. The main plot of the drama is as
follows:
King James marries Dorothea, the daughter of Arius, King of England.
Before the wedding is fairly over, he falls in love with Ida, the
Countess of Arran's daughter, makes suit to her, and is rejected with
horror. He then sets himself to work to get rid of his Queen, turns
away from his old counsellors, and gives his ear to an unscrupulous
parasite named Ateukin. Through his influence, the King forms a scheme
for assassinating the Queen; who gets information of the plot,
disguises herself in male attire, and escapes, with Nano in her
company. The parasite's agent overtakes her, finds out who she is,
fights with her, and leaves her for dead. During the fight, Nano runs
for help, and soon returns with Sir Cuthbert Anderson, who takes her
to his house, where her wounds are healed, both Sir Cuthbert and his
wife supposing her all the while to be a man. Meanwhile Ida gives
herself in marriage to Lord Eustace, with whom she has suddenly fallen
in love upon his asking her hand. The King now begins to be devoured
by compunctions on account of the Queen, believing her to be dead. The
King of England also gets intelligence how his daughter has been
treated, and makes war on her husband. When they are on the eve of a
decisive battle, Dorothea makes her appearance, to the astonishment of
all the parties: she pleads tenderly for her repentant husband, and a
general reconciliation takes place; Ateukin and his abettors being
delivered over to their deserts.
This play has something of what may not unworthily be called
character. The parts of Ida and the Queen are not without delicacy and
pathos, showing that the author was not far from some right ideas of
what womanhood is. Ateukin's part, too, is very well conceived and
sustained, though the qualities of a parasite are made rather too
naked and bald, as would naturally result from the writer's ambition
being stronger than his love of nature and truth. The comic portions
are much beyond any thing we have met with in that line, since _Ralph
Roister Doister_ and _Misogonus_. The versification is endurably free
from gas, and the style in many parts may be pronounced rather tight
and sinewy.
_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ was printed in 1594, but acted as early
as 1591. The hero is Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward
the First; the heroine, Margaret, a keeper's daughter, known as "the
fair maid of Fressingfield." The Prince, who is out on a hunting
excursion with Lacy and several other friends, and Ralph Simnel, the
Court Fool, meets with Margaret, and his fancy is at once smitten with
her, while she has no suspicion who he is. At Ralph's suggestion, he
sends Lacy, in the disguise of a farmer's son, to court Margaret for
him, and sets out on a visit to Friar Bacon at Oxford, to learn from
the conjurer how his suit is going to speed. Lacy thinks the Prince's
aim is not to wed the girl, but to entrap and beguile her; besides,
his own heart is already interested; so he goes to courting her in
good earnest for himself. Meanwhile the Prince with his company, all
disguised, arrives at Friar Bacon's; and, through the conjurer's art,
learns what Lacy is doing. Soon after, he comes upon Lacy, poniard in
hand, meaning to kill him on the spot. Margaret, being present,
intercedes for her lover, and takes all the blame of his course to
herself. The Prince then lays siege to her in person, but she vows she
will rather die with Lacy than divorce her heart from his, and finally
reminds him of his own princely honour; whereupon he frankly resigns
her to his rival's hand.
Among other entertainments of the scene, we have a trial of national
skill between Bacon and Bungay on one side, and Vandermast, a noted
conjurer from Germany, on the other. First, Bungay tries his art, and
is thoroughly baffled by the German; then Bacon takes Vandermast in
hand, and outconjures him all to nothing. Bacon has a servant named
Miles, who, for his ignorant blundering in a weighty matter, is at
last carried off by one of his master's devils. The last scene is
concerned with the marriage of Prince Edward and Elinor of Castile,
and is closed by Bacon with a grand prophecy touching Elizabeth.
Here, again, we have some fair lines of characterization, especially
in the Prince, Lacy, Margaret, and Ralph. The heroine is altogether
Greene's masterpiece in female character; she exhibits much strength,
spirit, and sweetness of composition; in fact, she is not equalled by
any woman of the English stage till we come to Shakespeare, whom no
one has ever approached in that line. It scarce need be said that the
play is quite guiltless of any thing worthy to be named _dramatic
composition_. But it has a good deal of dramatic poetry, that would be
almost charming, had not Shakespeare spoilt every thing of the kind
that was done before he taught men how to do it.
The comedy of _George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_, printed in
1599, is ascribed to Greene, but, it seems to me, not on very strong
grounds. I can hardly believe it his; certainly the style and
versification are much better than in any other of his plays; nor
does it show any thing of that incontinence of learning which he seems
to have been unable to restrain. The blank-verse, too, is far unlike
Greene's anywhere else.
The story of the piece is quite entertaining in itself, and is set
forth with a good deal of vivacity and spirit. Among the characters
are King Edward of England, King James of Scotland, the Earl of
Kendall, with other lords, and Robin Hood. George a Greene is the
hero; who, what with his wit, and what with his strength, gets the
better of all the other persons in turn. Withal he is full of high and
solid manhood, and his character is drawn with more vigour and life
than any hitherto noticed. The piece opens with the Earl of Kendall
and his adherents in rebellion against the State. The Earl sends Sir
Nicholas Mannering to Wakefield, to demand provision for his camp. Sir
Nicholas enters the town, and shows his commission: the magistrates
are at a loss what to do, till the hero comes amongst them, outfaces
the messenger, tears up his commission, makes him eat the seals, and
sends him back with an answer of defiance.
Greene was concerned, along with Thomas Lodge, in writing another
extant play, entitled _A Looking-Glass for London and England_. This
is little better than a piece of stage trash, being a mixture of
comedy, tragedy, and Miracle-Play; an Angel, a Devil, and the Prophet
Hosea taking part in the action. The verse parts are in Greene's
puffiest style, the prose parts in his filthiest.
Greene probably wrote divers other plays, but none others have
survived that are known to be his.
* * * * *
MARLOWE, the greatest of Shakespeare's senior contemporaries, was
baptized in St. George's church, Canterbury, on the 26th of February,
1564, just two months before the baptism of Shakespeare. He took his
first degree at Cambridge in 1583, became Master of Arts in 1587, and
was soon after embarked among the worst literary adventurers in
London, living by his wits, and rioting on the quick profits of his
pen. His career was brief, but fruitful,--fruitful in more senses than
one. He was slain by one Francis Archer in a brawl, on the 1st of
June, 1593.
His first dramatic work was _Tamburlaine the Great_, in two parts;
printed in 1590, but written before 1588. In this work, what Ben
Jonson describes as "Marlowe's mighty line" is out in all its
mightiness. The lines, to be sure, have a vast amount of strut and
swell in them, but then they also have a good deal of real energy and
force. Marlowe has had much praise, perhaps more than his due, as the
introducer of blank-verse on the public stage; it being alleged that
the previous use of it was only in what may be called private
theatricals. Be that as it may, he undoubtedly did much towards
_fixing_ it as the habit of English dramatic poetry. _Tamburlaine_ had
a sudden, a great, and long-continued popularity. And its success may
have been partly owing to its faults, inasmuch as the public ear, long
used to rhyme, needed some compensation in the way of grandiloquent
stuffing, which was here supplied in abundance.
The scene of these two plays, which are substantially one, takes in
the whole period of time from the hero's first conquest till his
death; so that the action ranges at large over divers kingdoms and
empires. Except the hero, there is little really deserving the name of
characterization, this being a point of art which Marlowe had not yet
reached, and which he never attained but in a moderate degree, taking
Shakespeare as the standard. But the hero is drawn with grand and
striking proportions, and perhaps seems the larger, that the bones of
his individuality stand out in undue prominence; the author lacking
that balance of powers which is requisite, to produce the symmetry and
roundness met with in the higher forms of Nature. And he knew not,
apparently, how to express the hero's greatness _in word_, but by
making him bethump the stage with tempestuous verbiage; which, to be
sure, is not the style of greatness at all, but only of one trying to
be great, and _trying_ to be so, because he is not so. For to talk big
is the instinct of ambitious littleness. But Tamburlaine is also
represented _in act_ as a most magnanimous prodigy: amidst his
haughtiest strides of conquest, we have strains of gentleness mingling
with his iron sternness; and he everywhere appears lifted high with
generous passions and impulses: if he regards not others, he is
equally ready to sacrifice himself, his ease, pleasure, and even life,
in his prodigious lust of glory.
As to the rest, this drama consists rather of a long series of
speeches than any genuine dialogue. And the persons all speak from one
brain, the hero talking just like the others, only more so; as if the
author had no way to discriminate character but by different degrees
of the same thing: in which respect the work has often reminded me of
divers more civilized stage preparations, such as Addison's _Cato_,
Young's _Revenge, et id genus omne_. For the proper constituent of
dramatic dialogue is, that the persons strike fire out of each other
by their sharp collisions of thought, so that their words relish at
once of the individual speaking and the individual spoken to. Moreover
the several parts of this work are not moulded together in any thing
like vital unity; the materials seem bundled up arbitrarily, and for
stage effect, instead of being assorted on any principle of organic
coherence; every thing thus going by the author's will, not by any law
of reason or art. But this is a high region, from which there was in
that age but one man big enough to be seen; so it's no use speaking of
the rest. Therewithal the work affects us, throughout, as a dead-level
of superlatives; everywhere we have nearly the same boisterous wind of
tragical storm-and-stress: so that the effect is much like that of a
picture all foreground, with no perspective, no proportionateness of
light and shade, to give us distinct impressions.
_The Jew of Malta_ shows very considerable advance towards a chaste
and sober diction, but not much either in development of character or
composition of parts. Barabas the Jew is a horrible monster of
wickedness and cunning, yet not without strong lines of individuality.
The author evidently sought to compass the effect of tragedy by
accumulation of murders and other hellish deeds; which shows that he
had no steady ideas as to wherein the true secret of tragic terror
lies: he here strives to reach it by overfilling the senses; whereas
its proper method stands in the joint working of the moral and
imaginative powers, which are rather stifled than kindled by causing
the senses to "sup full of horrors." The piece, however, abounds in
quick and caustic wit; in some parts there is a good share of dialogue
as distinguished from speech-making; and the versification is far more
varied and compact than in _Tamburlaine_. Still the work, as a whole,
shows little that can properly be called dramatic power as
distinguished from the general powers of rhetoric and wit.
_The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus_, probably written before
1590, exhibits Marlowe in a higher vein of workmanship. I think it
must be acknowledged that he here wields the right elements and
processes of tragic effect with no ordinary subtlety and power.
Faustus, the hero, is a mighty necromancer, who has studied himself
into direct communion with preternatural beings, and beside whom Friar
Bacon sinks into a tame forger of bugbears. A Good Angel and a Bad
Angel figure in the piece, each trying to win Faustus to his several
way. Lucifer is ambitious to possess "his glorious soul," and the hero
craves Lucifer's aid, that he may work wonders on the Earth. At his
summons, Mephistophilis, who acts as Lucifer's prime minister, visits
him to negotiate an arrangement. I must quote a brief passage from
their interview:
"_Faust_. Tell me, what is that Lucifer thy lord?
_Meph_. Arch-regent and commander of all spirits.
_Faust_. Was not that Lucifer an angel once?
_Meph_. Yes, Faustus, and most dearly lov'd of God.
_Faust_. How comes it, then, that he is Prince of Devils?
_Meph_. O, by aspiring pride and insolence!
For which God threw him from the face of Heaven.
_Faust_. And what are you that live with Lucifer?
_Meph_. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer,
And are for ever damn'd with Lucifer.
_Faust_. Where are you damn'd?
_Meph_. In Hell.
_Faust_. How comes it, then, that thou art out of Hell?
_Meph. Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it_:
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?
_O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.
Faust_. What! is great Mephistophilis so passionate
For being deprivéd of the joys of Heaven?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess.
Go, bear these tidings to great Lucifer:
Seeing Faustus hath incurr'd eternal death,
Say, he surrenders up to him his soul,
So he will spare him four-and-twenty years,
Letting him live in all voluptuousness;
Having thee ever to attend on me,
To give me whatsoever I shall ask,
To tell me whatsoever I demand,
To slay mine enemies, and aid my friends,
And always be obedient to my will."
This passage, especially the hero's cool indifference in questioning
about things which the fiend shudders to consider, has often struck me
as not altogether unworthy to be thought of in connection with Milton.
The result of the interview is, that Faustus makes a compact with
Lucifer, draws blood from his own arm, and with it writes out a deed
of gift, assuring his soul and body to the fiend at the end of
twenty-four years. Thenceforth he spends his time in exercising the
mighty spells and incantations thus purchased: he has the power of
making himself invisible, and entering whatsoever houses he lists; he
passes from kingdom to kingdom with the speed of thought; wields the
elements at will, and has the energies of Nature at his command;
summons the Grecian Helen to his side for a companion; and holds the
world in wonder at his acts. Meanwhile the knowledge which Hell has
given him of Heaven haunts him; he cannot shake off the thought of
what the awful compact binds him to; repentance carries on a desperate
struggle in him with the necromantic fascination, and at one time
fairly outwrestles it; but he soon recovers his purpose, renews his
pledge to Lucifer, and finally performs it.
This feature of the representation suggests a great thought, perhaps I
should say, principle of man's moral being, which Shakespeare has more
than once worked upon with surpassing effect. For it is remarkable
that, in _Macbeth_, the thinking of the Weird Sisters (and he cannot
choose but think of them) fires the hero's moral and imaginative
forces into convulsive action, and thus causes him to shrink back from
the very deed to which the prophetic greetings stimulate him. So,
again, in _Hamlet_, the intimations of the Ghost touching "the secrets
of its prison-house" kindle the hero full of "thoughts beyond the
reaches of his soul," which entrance him in meditation, unstring his
resolution, and render him morally incapable of the office to which
that same Ghost has called him.
_The Jew of Malta_, has divers passages in a far higher and richer
style of versification than any part of _Tamburlaine_. The author's
diction has grown more pliant and facile to his thought; consequently
it is highly varied in pause and movement; showing that in his hand
the noble instrument of dramatic blank-verse was fast growing into
tune for a far mightier hand to discourse its harmonies upon. I must
add that considerable portions both of this play and the preceding are
meant to be comical. But the result only proves that Marlowe was
incapable of comedy. No sooner does he attempt the comic vein than his
whole style collapses into mere balderdash. In fact, though
plentifully gifted with wit, there was not a particle of real humour
in him; none of that subtle and perfusive essence out of which the
true comic is spun; for these choice powers can hardly live but in the
society of certain moral elements that seem to have been left out of
his composition.
_Edward the Second_, probably the latest, certainly much the best, of
Marlowe's dramas, was printed in 1598. Here, for the first time, we
meet with a genuine specimen of the English Historical Drama. The
scene covers a period of twenty years; the incidents pass with great
rapidity, and, though sometimes crushed into indistinctness, are for
the most part well used both for historic truth and dramatic effect;
and the dialogue, generally, is nervous, animated, and clear. In the
great article of character, too, this play has very considerable
merit. The King's insane dotage of his favourites, the upstart vanity
and insolence of Gaveston, the artful practice and doubtful virtue of
Queen Isabella, the factious turbulence of the nobles, irascible,
arrogant, regardless of others' liberty, jealous of their own, sudden
of quarrel, eager in revenge, are all depicted with a goodly mixture
of energy and temperance. Therewithal the versification moves,
throughout, with a freedom and variety, such as may almost stand a
comparison with Shakespeare in what may be called his earlier period;
as when, for instance, _King Richard the Second_ was written. It is
probable, however, that by this time, if not before, Marlowe had begun
to feel the power of that music which was to charm him, and all others
of the time, out of audience and regard. For we have very good
evidence, that before Marlowe's death Shakespeare had far surpassed
all of that age who had ever been competent to teach him in any point
of dramatic workmanship.
Marlowe is of consequence, _mainly_, as one of the first and greatest
improvers of dramatic poetry in so far as relates to diction and
metrical style; which is my reason for emphasizing his work so much in
that regard. But, as this is a virtue much easier felt than described,
I can best show what it is, by giving a taste of it; which however
must be brief:
"_Edw_. What, Lord Arundel, dost thou come alone?
_Arun_. Yea, my good lord, for Gaveston is dead.
_Edw_. Ah, traitors! have they put my friend to death?
Tell me, Arundel, died he ere thou cam'st,
Or didst thou see my friend to take his death?
_Arun_. Neither, my lord; for, as he was surpris'd,
Begirt with weapons and with enemies round,
I did your Highness' message to them all,
Demanding him of them, entreating rather,
And said, upon the honour of my name,
That I would undertake to carry him
Unto your Highness, and to bring him back.
_Edw_. And, tell me, would the rebels deny me that?
_Spen_. Proud recreants!
_Edw_. Yea, Spenser, traitors all!
_Arun_. I found them at the first inexorable:
The Earl of Warwick would not bide the hearing;
Mortimer hardly; Pembroke and Lancaster
Spake least; and when they flatly had denied,
Refusing to receive me pledge for him,
The Earl of Pembroke mildly thus bespake:
'My lords, because our sovereign sends for him,
And promiseth he shall be safe return'd,
I will this undertake, to have him hence,
And see him redeliver'd to your hands.'
_Edw_. Well, and how fortunes it that he came not?
_Spen_. Some treason or some villainy was cause.
_Arun_. The Earl of Warwick seiz'd him on the way;
For, being deliver'd unto Pembroke's men,
Their lord rode home, thinking the prisoner safe;
But, ere he came, Warwick in ambush lay,
And bare him to his death, and in a trench
Strake off his head, and march'd unto the camp.
_Spen_. A bloody part, flatly 'gainst law of arms!
_Edw_. O, shall I speak, or shall I sigh, and die?
_Spen_. My lord, refer your vengeance to the sword
Upon these barons; hearten up your men;
Let them not unreveng'd murder your friends;
Advance your standard, Edward, in the field,
And march to fire them from their starting-holes.
_Edw_. I will have heads and lives for him as many
As I have manors, castles, towns, and towers!--
Treacherous Warwick! traitorous Mortimer!
If I be England's king, in lakes of gore
Your headless trunks, your bodies will I trail,
That you may drink your fill, and quaff in blood,
And stain my royal standard with the same;
You villains that have slain my Gaveston!--
And, in this place of honour and of trust,
Spenser, sweet Spenser, I adopt thee here;
And merely of our love we do create thee
Earl of Gloucester and Lord Chamberlain.
_Spen_. My lord, here is a messenger from the barons,
Desires access unto your Majesty.
_Edw_. Admit him.
_Herald_. Long live King Edward, England's lawful lord!
_Edw_. So wish not they, I wis, that sent thee hither."
This, to be sure, does not read much like, for instance, Hotspur's
speech, beginning,
"O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,"
nor is there any thing in Marlowe that does. In the passage quoted,
however, (and there are many more like it,) we have the rhymeless
ten-syllable iambic verse as the basis; but this is continually
diversified, so as to relieve the ear and keep it awake, by occasional
spondees, dibrachs, anapests, and amphibrachs, and by the frequent use
of trochees in all parts of the verse, but especially at the
beginning, and by a skilful shifting of the pause to any part of the
line. It thus combines the natural ease and variety of prose with the
general effect of metrical harmony, so that the hearing does not
surfeit nor tire. As to the general _poetic_ style of the performance,
the kindling energy of thought and language that often beats and
flashes along the sentences, there is much both in this and in
_Faustus_ to justify the fine enthusiasm of Drayton:
"Next, Marlowe, bathéd in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had: his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."
Before leaving the subject, I must notice a remark by Charles
Lamb,--the dear, delightful Charley. "The reluctant pangs," says he,
"of abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakespeare
scarce improved in his _Richard the Second_; and the death-scene of
Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or
modern, with which I am acquainted." Both the scenes in question have
indeed great merit, but this praise seems to me far beyond the mark.
Surely, there is more of genuine, pity-moving pathos in the single
speech of York,--"As in a theatre the eyes of men," etc.,--than in all
Marlowe's writings put together. And as to the moving of terror, there
is, to my mind, nothing in _Edward the Second_ that comes up to
_Faustus_; and there are a dozen scenes in _Macbeth_, any one of which
has more of the terrific than the whole body of _Faustus_. And in the
death-scene of Edward, it can hardly be denied that the senses are
somewhat overcrammed with images of physical suffering, so as to give
the effect rather of the horrible than the terrible.
Others, again, have thought that Marlowe, if he had lived, would have
made some good approach to Shakespeare in tragic power. A few years
more would no doubt have lifted him to very noble things, that is,
provided his powers could have been kept from the eatings and
cripplings of debauchery; still, any approach to that great Divinity
of the Drama was out of the question for him. For, judging from his
life and works, the moral part of genius was constitutionally
defective in him; and, with this so defective, the intellectual part
cannot be truly itself; and his work must needs be comparatively weak
in those points of our being which it touches, because it does not
touch them all: for the whole must be moved at once, else there can be
no great moving of any part. No, no! there was not, there could not
have been in Marlowe, great as he was, a tithe of Shakespeare, for
tragedy, nor any thing else. To go no further, he was, as we have
seen, destitute of humour; the powers of comedy evidently had no place
in him; and these powers are indispensable to the production of high
tragedy: a position affirmed as long ago as the days of Plato; sound
in the reason of the thing; and, above all, made good in the instance
of Shakespeare; who was _Shakespeare_, mainly because he had _all_ the
powers of the human mind in harmonious order and action, and _used_
them all, explicitly or implicitly, in every play he wrote.
* * * * *
Shakespeare had one or two other senior contemporaries of whom I must
say a few words, though it is not likely that they contributed much,
if any thing, towards preparing him. John Lily, born in 1554, and
Master of Arts in 1576, has considerable wit, some poetry; withal a
certain crisp, clever, conceited mannerism of style, which caused him
to be spoken of as "eloquent and witty"; but nothing that can be
properly termed dramatic talent. His persons all speak in precisely
the same vein, being indeed but so many empty figures or puppets,
reflecting or propagating the motions of the author himself. His
dramatic pieces, of which we have nine, seven in prose, one in rhyme,
and one in blank-verse, seem to have been designed for Court
entertainments, but were used more or less on the public stage,
chiefly by the juvenile companies. They are all replete with that
laboured affectation of fine writing which was distinguished at the
time as Euphuism. One of his main peculiarities stands in using, for
images and illustrations, certain imaginary products of a sort of
artificial nature, which he got up especially for that purpose; as if
he could invent better materials for poetic imagery than ancient
Nature had furnished! Still, it is not unlikely that we owe to him
somewhat of the polish and flexibility of the Shakespearian dramatic
diction: that he could have helped the Poet in any thing beyond mere
diction it were absurd to suppose.
I have already spoken of Thomas Lodge as joint author with Greene of a
good-for-nothing play. We have one Other play by him, entitled _The
Wounds of Civil War_, and having for its subject "the true tragedies
of Harms and Sylla," written before 1590, but not printed till 1594.
It is in blank-verse; which however differs from the most regular
rhyming ten-syllable verse in nothing but the lack of consonous
endings.--Lodge is chiefly memorable in that one of his prose pieces
was drawn upon for Shakespeare's _As You Like It_.
* * * * *
We have now reached the time when Shakespeare's hand had learnt its
cunning, so far at least as any previous examples could teach it.
Perhaps I ought to add, as showing the prodigious rush of life and
thought towards the drama in that age, that, besides the authors I
have mentioned, Henslowe's _Diary_ supplies the names of thirty other
dramatists, most of whom have propagated some part of their
workmanship down to our time. In the same document, during the twelve
years beginning in February, 1591, we have the titles recorded of no
less than two hundred and seventy pieces, either as original
compositions, or as revivals of older plays. As all these entries have
reference only to Henslowe's management; and as, during that period,
except for some short intervals, he was concerned with the affairs of
but a single company; we may thence conceive how vastly fertile the
age was in dramatic production.
After all, it is hardly possible for us to understand how important a
part dramatic exhibitions played in the life of "merry England in the
olden time." From a very early period, the interest in them was deep,
general, and constant; it grew with the growth of civilization; it
became complicated with all the mental, moral, and social habitudes of
the people; and, in fact, whatever "seed-points of light" got planted
in the popular mind had no way but to organize themselves into that
shape. Those old plays, such as they were, with their rude, bold
attempts to combine religion and mirth, instruction and sport, may
almost be described as having been the nerves upon which the whole
mental character of the nation formed itself. The spirit which began
so early to work in them kept on asserting itself more and more
strongly from age to age, till the Drama became emphatically a popular
passion; as indeed must always be the case before any thing deserving
the name of a National Drama can possibly arise. And it is quite
surprising how long this spirit, so universal and so intense, was
restrained from putting on so much of institutional form and
expression as is implied in having buildings erected or adapted for
its special use and service. For we have thus far heard of nothing in
the character of temples provided for the liturgies of the Dramatic
Art.
The spirit in question, however, did at last reach such a measure of
strength, that it could no longer be restrained from issuing in a
provision of that sort. The play-house known as the _Blackfriars_ was
established in 1576, and was owned and run by the company to which
Shakespeare afterwards belonged. Two others, called _The Theatre_ and
_The Curtain_, were probably started about the same time, as we find
them in operation in 1577. Before the end of the century, the city and
suburbs of London had at least eight more in full blast. And there
were, besides, ever so many strolling companies of players carrying
the mysteries of their craft into nearly all parts of the kingdom. So
that the Drama may well be judged to have been, in the Poet's time,
decidedly a great institution. In fact, it was a sort of fourth estate
of the realm; nearly as much so, indeed, as the Newspaper Press is in
our time. Practically, the Government was vested in King, Lords,
Commons, and Dramatists, including in the latter both writers and
actors; the Poet thus having far more reason than now exists for
making Hamlet say to the old statesman, "After your death you were
better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live."
* * * * *
The foregoing review, brief and inadequate as it is, may answer the
purpose of imparting some just notion of the growth and progress of
the English Drama till it reached the eve of its maturity. The
allegorical drama had great influence, no doubt, in determining the
scope and quality of the proper drama of comedy and tragedy; since, by
its long discipline of the popular mind in abstract ideas, or in the
generalized forms of ethical thought, it did much towards forming that
public taste which required and prompted the drama to rise above a
mere geography of facts into the empyrean of truth; and under the
instructions of which Shakespeare learned to make his persons
embodiments of general nature as well as of individual character. For
the excellences of the Shakespearian Drama were probably owing as much
to the mental preparation of the time as to the powers of the
individual man. He was in demand before he came; and it was that
pre-existing demand that taught and enabled him to do what he did. If
it was the strength of his genius that lifted him to the top of the
heap, it was also the greatness of the heap that enabled him to reach
and maintain that elevation. For it is a great mistake to regard
Shakespeare as standing alone, and working only in the powers of his
individual mind. In fact, there never was any growth of literature or
art that stood upon a wider basis of collective experience, or that drew
its form and substance from a larger or more varied stock of
historical preparation.[5]
[5] Since the passage in the text was written, I have met with
some well-drawn remarks of a like drift in Froude's _History of
England_, Chapter I.: "The chroniclers have given us many
accounts of the masques and plays which were acted in the Court,
or in the castles of the noblemen. Such pageants were but the
most splendid expression of a taste which was national and
universal. As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of
the great dramas of Athens, itinerant companies wandered from
village to village, carrying their stage furniture in their
little carts, and acted in their booths and tents the grand
stories of the mythology; so in England the mystery-players
haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, tap-rooms,
or in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and
transacted on their petty stage the entire drama of the
Christian Faith. We allow ourselves to think of Shakespeare or
of Raphael or of Phidias as having accomplished their work by
the power of their own individual genius; but greatness like
theirs is never more than the highest degree of an excellence
which prevails widely round it, and forms the environment in
which it grows. No single mind in single contact with the facts
of nature could have created out of itself a Pallas, a Madonna,
or a Lear: such vast conceptions are the growth of ages, the
creations of a nation's spirit; and artist and poet, filled full
with the power of that spirit, have but given them form, and
nothing more than form. Nor would the form itself have been
attainable by any isolated talent. No genius can dispense with
experience; the aberrations of power, unguided or ill-guided,
are ever in proportion to its intensity, and life is not long
enough to recover from inevitable mistakes. Noble conceptions
already existing, and a noble school of execution, which will
launch mind and hand at once upon their true courses, are
indispensable to transcendent excellence; and Shakespeare's
plays were as much the offspring of the long generations who had
pioneered his road for him as the discoveries of Newton were the
offspring of those of Copernicus."
Dryden, in one of his occasional pieces, represents the Poet's ghost
as saying,
"Untaught, unpractis'd, in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first, the stage";
and such has been the common belief. But the saying is far from true;
and Shakespeare's ghost must have sipped large draughts of Lethe, to
be capable of speaking thus. For, though the least that he did is
worth more than all that was done before him, and though his poorest
performances surpass the best of his models; it is nevertheless
certain that his task was but to continue and perfect what was already
begun. Not only were the three forms of comedy, history, and tragedy
in use on the English stage, but the elements of these were to some
extent blended in the freedom and variety of the Gothic Drama. The
usage also of dramatic blank-verse stood up inviting his adoption;
though no one before or since has come near him in the mastery of its
capabilities; his genius being an inexhaustible spring of both mental
and verbal modulation. Nor can all this be justly regarded as any
alleviation of his task, or any abatement of his fame. For, to work
thus with materials and upon models already prepared, without being
drawn down to their level and subdued to their quality, requires, if
possible, a higher order and exercise of power than to strike out in
a way and with a stock entirely new. And so the absorbing, quickening,
creative efficacy of Shakespeare's genius is best seen in this, that,
taking the Drama as it came to his hand, a thing of unsouled forms and
lack-lustre eyes, all brainless and meaningless, he at once put a
spirit into it, tempered its elements in the proportions of truth,
informed its shapes with grace and virtue, and made it all alive, a
breathing, speaking, operative power. Thus his work naturally linked
in with the whole past; and in his hands the collective thought and
wisdom of ages were smelted out of the earth and dross wherein they
lay imbedded, and wrought into figures of undecaying beauty.
It is indeed true that the Drama shot ahead with amazing rapidity as
soon as it came to feel the virtue of Shakespeare's hand. We have
nothing more dreary, dismal, and hopeless than the course of the
English Drama down to his time. The people would have dramatic
entertainments, and hundreds of minds, apparently, were ever busy
furnishing them wooden things in dramatic form. And so, century after
century, through change after change, the work of preparation went on,
still scarce any progress, and no apparent result, nothing that could
live, or was worth keeping alive. It seemed as if no rain would ever
fall, no sun ever shine, to take away the sterility of the land. Yet
all of a sudden the Drama blazed up with a splendor that was to
illuminate and sweeten the ages, and be at once the delight and the
despair of other nations and future times. All this, too, came to pass
in Shakespeare! and, which is more, the process ended with him! It is
indeed a singular phenomenon, and altogether the most astonishing that
the human mind has produced.
Yet even here we should be careful of attributing too much to the
genius of the individual man. It was rather the genius of the age and
nation springing into flowerage through him,--a flowerage all the
larger and more eloquent for the long delay, and the vast accumulation
of force. For it is remarkable that when the Warwickshire peasant
entered upon his work, with the single exception of Chaucer, not one
good English book had been written. Yet he was far from being alone in
thus beginning and perfecting the great workmanship which he took in
hand. Before _Hamlet_, _Othello_, and _The Tempest_ were written,
Romantic Poetry had done its best in Spenser, Philosophical Divinity
in Hooker, Civil and Moral Discourse in Bacon. All these alike are
unapproached and unapproachable in their several kinds. We have
nothing more tuneable and melodious than Spenser's verse; no higher
and nobler eloquence than Hooker's prose; no practical wisdom of
deeper reach or more attractive garb than Bacon's _Essays_. Yet they
did not learn their cunning from Shakespeare, nor did Shakespeare
learn his cunning from them. The language was then just ripe for the
uses of such minds; it had the wealth of much learning incorporated
with it, yet had not been cast into rigidity nor dressed into primness
by a technical and bookish legislation; it had gone on for centuries
gathering in and assimilating stores from Nature and from Religion; it
was rich with the life of a nation of brave, free, honest,
full-souled, and frank-hearted men; it was at once copious, limber,
and sinewy, capable alike of expressing the largest and the subtlest
thought, the deepest and strongest passion, the most tender and
delicate feeling; wit could sport itself for ever, humour could trim
its raciest issues, imagination could body forth its sweetest and
awfullest visions, in the furnishings of the English tongue. And so
these four great thinkers found it equal, apparently, to all their
thoughts and powers. They were all, though each in a different sort,
its masters, not its slaves. They used it, but they did not make it.
And the thought which they found it capable of expressing must have
pre-existed in some form, else the language could not have stood
ready, as it did, for their use. The truth seems to be that, for
reasons which we cannot fathom, and in ways past our finding out, the
time had now come, the mental life of the nation was fully grown to a
head, so as to express itself in several forms at the same time; and
Shakespeare, wise, true, and mighty beyond his thought, became its
organ of dramatic utterance; which utterance remains, and will remain,
a treasury of everlasting sweetness and refreshment to mankind.