Page images
PDF
EPUB

of the moral and political reflections which this author has intermixed with his criticisms.

strangeness of the events that surround him, he is full of amazement and fear; and stands in doubt between the world of reality and the world of fancy. He sees sights not shown to mortal eye, and hears unearthly music. All is tumult and dis- shown the same penetration into political character "Shakespeare has in this play and elsewhere order within and without his mind; his purposes and the springs of public events as into those of recoil upon himself, are broken and disjointed; he every-day life. For instance, the whole design to is the double thrall of his passions and his destiny.liberate their country fails from the generous temRichard is not a character either of imagination or pathos, but of pure self-will. There is no conflict of opposite feelings in his breast. In the busy turbulence of his projects he never loses his self-possession, and makes use of every circumstance that happens as an instrument of his long-reaching designs. In his last extremity we regard him but as a wild beast taken in the toils: But we never entirely lose our concern for Macbeth; and he calls back all our sympathy by that fine close of thought-principled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish ful melancholy.

66

'My way of life

Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have! But in their stead,
Curses not loud but deep; mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dares
not!"-
pp. 26-30.

In treating of the Julius Cæsar, Mr. H. ex-
tracts the following short scene, and praises it
so highly, and, in our opinion, so justly, that
we cannot resist the temptation of extracting
it too-together with his brief commentary.
"Brutus. The games are done, and Cæsar is
returning.
[sleeve,
Cassius. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you
What has proceeded worthy note to-day.

Brutus. I will do so; but look you, Čassius-
The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar's brow,
And all the rest look like a chidden train.
Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes,
As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being crost in conference by some senator.
Cassius. Casca will tell us what the matter is.
Cæsar. Antonius-

Antony. Cæsar?

Casar. Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
Antony. Fear him not, Cæsar, he's not danger

ous:

He is a noble Roman, and well given.

[not:

per and overweening confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. themselves think well of others, and fall a prey to Thus it has always been. Those who mean well their security. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others, because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to any thing but their own un

them. Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. His heart prompted his head. His habitual jealousy made him fear the worst that might happen, and his irritability of temper added to his inveteracy of purpose, and sharpened his patriotism. The mixed nature of his motives made him fitter to contend with bad men. The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another. Tyranny and servility are to be dealt with after their own fashion: them, and finally pronounce their funeral panegyric, otherwise, they will triumph over those who spare as Antony did that of Brutus.

"All the conspirators, save only he,

Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar: He only in a general honest thought Of common good to all, made one of them. pp. 38, 39. The same strain is resumed in his remarks on Coriolanus.

[ocr errors]

Shakespeare seems to have had a leaning to the arbitrary side of the question; perhaps from some feeling of contempt for his own origin; and to have spared no occasion of baiting the rabble. What he says of them is very true: what he says of their betters is also very true; But he dwells less upon it. The cause of the people is indeed but little calculated as a subject for poetry: it admits of rhetoric, which goes into argument and explanation, the mind. The imagination is an exaggerating and but presents no immediate or distinct images to exclusive faculty. The understanding is a dividing and measuring faculty. The one is an aristocratiof poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It aims cal, the other a republican faculty. The principle at effect, and exists by contrast. It is every thing by excess. It puts the individual for the species,

Cesar. Would he were fatter! But I fear him the one above the infinite many, might before right,

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer; and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock'd himself, and scorned his spirit,
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear; for always I am Cæsar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
And tell me truly what thou think'st of him."

A lion hunting a flock of sheep is a more poetical object than they; and we even take part with the lordly beast, because our vanity or some other feelsituation of the strongest party. There is nothing ing makes us disposed to place ourselves in the heroical in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing to be starved, or complaining that they are like to be so: but when a single man comes forward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the last indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their pusillanimity. We had rather, in short, be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power in ourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural to man: But the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave." 69-72.

"We know hardly any passage more expressive-pp. of the genius of Shakespeare than this. It is as if he had been actually present, had known the different characters and what they thought of one another, and had taken down what he heard and saw, their looks, words, and gestures, just as they happened."-pp. 36, 37.

We may add the following as a specimen

There are many excellent remarks and several fine quotations, in the discussions on Troilus and Cressida. As this is no longer an acted play, we venture to give one extract, with Mr. H.'s short observations, which per fectly express our opinion of its merits.

[blocks in formation]

66

Ulysses. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his
Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion; [back,
A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes;
Those scraps are good deeds past;
Which are devour'd as fast as they are made,
Forgot as soon as done: Persev'rance, dear my lord,
Keeps Honour bright: to have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For Honour travels in a strait so narrow,
That one but goes abreast; keep then the path,
For Emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forth-right,
Like to an entered tide they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost ;;

Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, [present,
O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in
Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For Time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
And with his arms outstretch'd as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: thus Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time:

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
That all, with one consent, praise new born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past.'
"The throng of images in the above lines is pro-
digious; and though they sometimes jostle against
one another, they everywhere raise and carry on
the feeling, which is metaphsically true and pro-
found." pp. 85-87.

This Chapter ends with an ingenious parallel between the genius of Chaucer and that of Shakespeare, which we have not room to insert.

with him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself too much i' th' sun;' whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, and could find in the world before him only a dull blank, with nothing left remarkable in it; whoever has known the pangs of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes;' he who has felt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a malady; who has had his hopes blighted and his youth staggered by the apparitions of strange things; who cannot be well at ease, while he sees evil hovering near him like a spectre; whose powers of action have been eaten up by thought; he to whom the universe seems infinite, and himself nothing; whose bitterness of soul makes him careless of consequences, and who goes to a play, as his best resource to shove off, to a second remove, the evils of life, by a mock-representation of them. This is the true Hamlet.

46

It is

We have been so used to this tragedy, that we hardly know how to criticise it, any more than_we should know how to describe our own faces. But we must make such observations as we can. the one of Shakespeare's plays that we think of oftenest because it abounds most in striking reflections on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of humanity. Whatever happens to him, we apply to ourselves; because he applies it so himself as a means of general reasoning. He is a great moralizer, and what makes him worth attending to is, that he moralizes on his own feelings and experience. He is not a commonplace pedant. If Lear shows the greatest depth of passion, HAMLET is the most remarkable for the ingenuity, originality, and unstudied development of character. There is no attempt to force an interest : every thing is left for time and circumstances to unfold. The attention is excited without effort; the incidents succeed each other as matters of course; the characters think, and speak, and act, just as they might do if left entirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point. The ob servations are suggested by the passing scene-the gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music transcript of what might be supposed to have taken borne on the wind. The whole play is an exact place at the court of Denmark, at the remote period in morals and manners were heard of. It would of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements have been interesting enough to have been admitted as a by-stander in such a scene, at such a time, to have heard and seen something of what was going on. But here we are more than spectators. We have not only the outward pageants and the signs of grief,' but we have that within which passes show.' We read the thoughts of the heart, we catch the passions living as they rise. Other dramatic writers give us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature; but Shakespeare, together with his own comment, gives us the original text, that we may judge for ourselves. This is a great advantage.

[ocr errors]

The following observations on Hamlet are very characteristic of Mr. H.'s manner of writing in the work now before us; in which he continually appears acute, desultory, and capricious-with great occasional felicity of conception and expression-frequent rashness "The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effuand carelessness-constant warmth of admi- sion of genius. It is not a character marked by ration for his author-and some fits of extrav-strength of will, or even of passion, but by refineagance and folly, into which he seems to be hurried, either by the hasty kindling of his zeal as he proceeds, or by a selfwilled determination not to be balked or baffled in any thing he has taken it into his head he should

say.

"Hamlet is a name: his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. But are they not real? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own mishaps or those of others; whoever has borne about

ment of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can well be: but he is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and questioning with fortune, and refining on his own quick sensibility,the sport of circumstances, feelings; and forced from the natural bias of his disposition by the strangeness of his situation."pp. 104-107.

His account of the Tempest is all pleasingly written, especially his remarks on Caliban; but we rather give our readers his speculations on Bottom and his associates.

"Bottom the Weaver is a character that has not had justice done him. He is the most romantic of

never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself ‘a tun of man.' His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own vices, that it does not seem quite certain whether the account of his hostess' bill, found in his pocket, with such an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with only one half-penny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself, as a trick to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious caricature of himself.

mechanics; He follows a sedentary trade, and he is accordingly represented as conceited, serious, and fantastical. He is ready to undertake any thing and every thing, as if it was as much a matter of course as the motion of his loom and shuttle. He is for play ing the tyrant, the lover, the lady, the lion. He will roar that it shall do any man's heart good to hear him; and this being objected to as improper, he still has a resource in his good opinion of himself, and will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.' Snug the Joiner is the moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement and discretion in all things. You see him with his rule and compasses in his hand. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am "The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part slow of study. You may do it extempore,' says a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-posQuince, for it is nothing but roaring. Starve-session, which nothing can disturb. His repartees ling the Tailor keeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. I believe we must leave the killing out when all's done.' Starveling, however, does not start the objections himself, but seconds them when made by others, as if he had no spirit to express his fears without encouragement. It is too much to suppose all this intentional: but it very luckily falls out so."—pp. 126, 127.

[ocr errors]

Mr. H. admires Romeo and Juliet rather too much-though his encomium on it is about the most eloquent part of his performance: But we really cannot sympathise with all the conceits and puerilities that occur in this play; for instance, this exhortation to Night, which Mr. H. has extracted for praise !-

"Give me my Romeo-and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with Night," &c.

We agree, however, with less reservation, in his rapturous encomium on Lear-but can afford no extracts. The following speculation on the character of Falstaff is a striking, and, on the whole, a favourable specimen of our author's manner.

"Wit is often a meagre substitute for pleasureable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humour and goodnature; an overflowing of his love of laughter, and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease and over-contentment with himself and others.He would not be in character if he were not so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence of his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon, or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again: and lavishly pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain it snows of meat and drink.' He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen. Yet we are not left to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupify his other faculties, but ascends me into the brain, clears away all the dull, crude vapours that environ it, and makes it full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes.' His imagination keeps up the ball long after his senses have done with it. He seems to have even a greater enjoy. ment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal and exaggerated descriptions which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking; but we

are involuntary suggestions of his self-love; instinc
tive evasions of every thing that threatens to inter-
rupt the career of his triumphant jollity and
self-complacency. His very size floats him out of
all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he
turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with
every occasion and at a moment's warning. His
natural repugnance to every unpleasant thought or
circumstance, of itself makes light of objections,
and provokes the most extravagant and licentious
answers in his own justification. His indifference
to truth puts no check upon his invention; and the
more improbable and unexpected his contrivances
of them, the anticipation of their effect acting as a
are, the more happily does he seem to be delivered
stimulus to the gaiety of his fancy. The success of
one adventurous sally gives him spirits to undertake
another: he deals always in round numbers, and
his exaggerations and excuses are open, palpable,
monstrous as the father that begets them.""
pp. 189-192.

[ocr errors]

It is time, however, to make an end of this. We are not in the humour to discuss points of learning with this author; and our readers now see well enough what sort of book he has written. We shall conclude with his remarks on Shakespeare's style of Comedy, introduced in the account of the Twelfth Night.

"This is justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakespeare's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too goodnatured for comedy. It has little satire, and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind; not despise them, and still less bear any ill-will towards them. Shakespeare's comic genius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it. He gives the most amusing exaggeration of the prevailing foibles of his characters, but in a way that they themselves, instead of being offended at, would almost join in to humour; he rather contrives opportunities for them to show themselves off in the happiest lights, than renders them contemptible in the perverse construction of the wit or malice of others.

"There is a certain stage of society, in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those, who would impose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and sa tire, such as we see in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. But there is a period in the progress of manners anterior to this, in which the foibles and follies of individuals are of nature's planting, not the growth of art or study; in which they are therefore

unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can but have their whim out; and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasure from humouring the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, than wish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may be called the comedy of nature; and it is the comedy which we generally find in Shakespeare.Whether the analysis here given be just or not, the spirit of his comedies is evidently quite distinct from that of the authors above mentioned; as it is in its essence the same with that of Cervantes, and also very frequently of Molière, though he was more systematic in his extravagance than Shakespeare. Shakespeare's comedy is of a pastoral and poetical cast. Folly is indigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, unchecked luxuriance. Absurdity has every encouragement afforded it; and nonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs riot in a conceit, and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turn the meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. And yet the relish which he has of a pun, or of the quaint humour of a low character, does not interfere with the delight with which he describes a beautiful image, or the most refined love. The clown's forced jests do not spoil the sweetness of the character of Viola. The same house is big enough to hold Malvolio, the Countess

Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. For instance, nothing can fall much lower than this last character in intellect or morals: yet how are his weaknesses nursed and dandled by Sir Toby into something high fantastical;' when on Sir Andrew's commendation of himself for dancing and fencing, Sir Toby answers, Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? Are they like to take dust, like Mrs. Moll's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig! I would not so much as make water but in a cinque-pace. What dost thou mean? Is this a world to hide virtues in? I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was framed under the star of a galliard!'-How Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown afterwards chirp over their cups! how they rouse the night-owl in a catch, able to draw three ouls out of one weaver!' What can be better than Sir Toby's unanswerable answer to Malvolio, Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?'In a word, the best turn is given to everything, instead of the worst. There is a constant infusion of the romantic and enthusiastic, in proportion as the characters are natural and sincere: whereas, in the more artificial style of comedy, everything gives way to ridicule and indifference; there being nothing left but affectation on one side, and incredulity on the other."-pp. 255-259.

[ocr errors]

(February, 1822.)

Sardanapalus, a Tragedy. The Two Foscari, a Tragedy. Cain, a Mystery. By LORD BYRON. 8vo. pp. 440. Murray. London: 1822.*

It must be a more difficult thing to write a good play-or even a good dramatic poemthan we had imagined. Not that we should, a priori, have imagined it to be very easy: But it is impossible not to be struck with the fact, that, in comparatively rude times, when the resources of the art had been less carefully considered, and Poetry certainly had not collected all her materials, success seems to have been more frequently, and far more easily obtained. From the middle of Elizabeth's reign till the end of James', the drama formed by far the most brilliant and beautiful part of our poetry, and indeed of our literature in general. From that period to the Revolution, it lost a part of its splendour and originality; but still continued to occupy the most conspicuous and considerable place in our literary annals. For the last century, it has been quite otherwise. Our poetry has ceased almost entirely to be dramatic; and, though men of great name and great talent have occasionally adventured into this once fertile field, they have reaped no laurels, and left no trophies behind them. The genius of Dryden appears nowhere to so little advantage as in his tragedies; and the contrast is truly humiliating when, in a presumptuous attempt to heighten the colouring, or enrich the simplicity of Shakespeare, he bedaubs with ob

* I have thought it best to put all my Dramatical criticisms in one series: and, therefore, I take the tragedies of Lord Byron in this place-and apart from his other poetry.

scenity, or deforms with rant, the genuine passion and profligacy of Antony and Cleopatra -or intrudes on the enchanted solitude of Prospero and his daughter, with the tones of worldly gallantry, or the caricatures of affected simplicity. Otway, with the sweet and mellow diction of the former age, had none of its force, variety, or invention. Its decaying fires burst forth in some strong and irregular flashes, in the disorderly scenes of Lee; and sunk at last in the ashes, and scarcely glowing embers, of Rowe.

Since his time-till very lately-the school of our ancient dramatists has been deserted: and we can scarcely say that any new one has been established. Instead of the irregular and comprehensive plot-the rich discursive dialogue-the ramblings of fancy-the magic creations of poetry-the rapid succession of incidents and characters-the soft, flexible, and ever-varying diction-and the flowing, continuous, and easy versification, which characterised those masters of the golden time, we have had tame, formal, elaborate, and stately compositions-meagre stories-few personages-characters decorous and consistent, but without nature or spirit—a guarded, timid, classical diction-ingenious and methodical disquisitions-turgid or sententious declamations-and a solemn and monotonous strain of versification. Nor can this be as

cribed, even plausibly, to any decay of genius among us; for the most remarkable failures have fallen on the highest talents. We have already hinted at the miscarriages of Dryden.

[ocr errors]

The exquisite taste and fine observation of Addison, produced only the solemn mawkishness of Cato. The beautiful fancy, the gorgeous diction, and generous affections of Thomson, were chilled and withered as soon as he touched the verge of the Drama; where his name is associated with a mass of verbose puerility, which it is difficult to conceive could ever have proceeded from the author of the Seasons and the Castle of Indolence. Even the mighty intellect, the eloquent morality, and lofty style of Johnson, which gave too tragic and magnificent a tone to his ordinary writing, failed altogether to support him in his attempt to write actual tragedy; and Irene is not only unworthy of the imitator of Juvenal and the author of Rasselas and the Lives of the Poets, but is absolutely, and in itself, nothing better than a tissue of wearisome and unimpassioned declamations. We have named the most celebrated names in our literature, since the decline of the drama, almost to our own days; and if they have neither lent any new honours to the stage, nor borrowed any from it, it is needless to say, that those who adventured with weaker powers had no better fortune. The Mourning Bride of Congreve, the Revenge of Young, and the Douglas of Home [we cannot add the Mysterious Mother of Walpole-even to please Lord Byron], are almost the only tragedies of the last age that are familiar to the present; and they are evidently the works of a feebler and more effeminate generation-indicating, as much by their exaggerations as by their timidity, their own consciousness of inferiority to their great predecessors-whom they affected, however, not to imitate, but to supplant. But the native taste of our people was not thus to be seduced and perverted; and when the wits of Queen Anne's time had lost the authority of living authors, it asserted itself by a fond recurrence to its original standards, and a resolute neglect of the more regular and elaborate dramas by which they had been succeeded. Shakespeare, whom it had long been the fashion to decry and even ridicule, as the poet of a rude and barbarous age*, was reinstated in his old supremacy: and when his legitimate progeny could no longer be found at home, his spurious issue were hailed with rapture from foreign countries, and invited and welcomed with the most eager enthusiasm on their arrival. The German

[ocr errors]

It is not a little remarkable to find such a man as Goldsmith joining in this pitiful sneer. In his Vicar of Wakefield, he constantly represents his famous town ladies, Miss Carolina Amelia Wilhel. mina Skeggs, and the other, as discoursing about high life, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses!" And, in a more serious passage, he introduces a player as astonishing the Vicar, by informing him that Dryden and Rowe's manner were quite out of fashion-our taste has gone back a whole century; Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and, above all, the plays of Shakespeare, are the only things that go down." "How!" says the Vicar, "is it possible that the present age can be pleased with that antiquated dialect, that obsolete humour, and those overcharged characters which abound in the works you mention?" No writer of name, who was not aiming at a paradox, would venture to say this now

imitations, of Schiller and Kotzebue, caricatured and distorted as they were by the aberrations of a vulgar and vitiated taste, had still so much of the raciness and vigour of the old English drama, from which they were avowedly derived, that they instantly became more popular in England than any thing that her own artists had recently produced; and served still more effectually to recal our affections to their native and legitimate rulers. Then followed republications of Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ford, and their contemporaries-and a host of new tragedies, all written in avowed and elaborate imitation of the ancient models. Miss Baillie, we rather think, had the merit of leading the way in this return to our old allegiance-and then came a volume of plays by Mr. Chenevix, and a succession of single plays, all of considerable merit, from Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Maturin, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Barry Cornwall, and Mr. Milman. The first and the last of these names are the most likely to be remembered; but none of them, we fear, will ever be ranked with the older worthies; nor is it conceivable that any age should ever class them together.

We do not mean, however, altogether to deny, that there may be some illusion, in our habitual feelings, as to the merits of the great originals-consecrated as they are, in our imaginations, by early admiration, and associated, as all their peculiarities, and the mere accidents and oddities of their diction now are, with the recollection of their intrinsic excellences. It is owing to this, we suppose, that we can scarcely venture to ask ourselves, steadily, and without an inward startling and feeling of alarm, what reception one of Shakespeare's irregular plays-the Tempest for example, or the Midsummer Night's Dreamwould be likely to meet with, if it were now to appear for the first time, without name, notice, or preparation? Nor can we pursue the hazardous supposition through all the possibilities to which it invites us, without something like a sense of impiety and profanation. Yet, though some little superstition may mingle with our faith, we must still believe it to be the true one. Though time may have hallowed many things that were at first but common, and accidental associations imparted a charm to much that was in itself indifferent, we cannot but believe that there was an original sanctity, which time only matured and extended-and an inherent charm from which the association derived all its power. And when we look candidly and calmly to the works of our early dramatists, it is impossible, we think, to dispute, that after criticism has done its worst on them-after all deductions for impossible plots and fantastical characters, unaccountable forms of speech, and occasional extravagance, indelicacy, and horrors--there is a facility and richness about them, both of thought and of diction-a force of invention, and a depth of sagacity-an originality of conception, and a play of fancy-a nakedness and energy of passion, and, above all, a copiousness of imagery, and a sweetness and flexibility of verse, which is altogether unri

« PreviousContinue »