Chapter 33

—————————— "Such, as giveTheir money out of hope they may believe,May here findtruthtoo."

—————————— "Such, as give

Their money out of hope they may believe,

May here findtruthtoo."

——————————— "Gentle readers, know,To rankour chosen truthwith such a showAs fool and fight is," &c.—

——————————— "Gentle readers, know,

To rankour chosen truthwith such a show

As fool and fight is," &c.—

"To make that onlytruewe now intend."

That the play represented at the Globe in 1613, was merely arevivedplay, wants no other proof than the following:—In a MS. letter of Tho. Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, datedLondon, this last of June, 1613, Lorkin tells his friend, that "No longer since thanYESTERDAY, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the GlobeTHEplay of Hen. VIII.and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched," &c.[444:A]

We would now enquire if it were possible that any rational person writing from London to his friend in the country, concerning anewplay which had been performed, for the first time, but the day before the date of his letter, could make use of language such as this? Must he not necessarily have said,Aplay, orAnew play, called Hen. VIII.? And does not the phraseology which he has adopted, namely, "THEplay of Hen. VIII.," evidently imply that the piece had been long known?

So decidedly, in our opinion, do these two circumstances prove, that it wasShakspeare's Henry the EighthREVIVED, which was performed at the Globe Theatre on St. Peter's day, 1613, that we no longer hesitate a moment in admitting, with the principal commentators, that this tragedy was originally written but a short time anterior to the death of Elizabeth, to whom some elegant and appropriate praise is offered; and that the compliment to James the First, rather forcibly introduced into the closing scene, was composed by our poet expressly for the revival of 1613; admissions which not only seem warranted by the internal evidence of the play, but almost necessarily flow from the establishment of the two inferences for which we have contended.

There is much reason to conclude that, in the long interval between the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the year 1613, our author'sHenry the Eighthhad never been performed; and it is further probable that, on this account, and in consequence of its receiving anewname, anewprologue and epilogue, andnewdecorations of unprecedented splendour, the players might, as Mr. Malone has suggested, have called it in the bills of that time anewplay[445:A]; an epithet which we find Sir Henry Wotton has adopted, when describing the accident at the Globe Theatre, and which, if writing in haste, or with less attention to the history of the stage than occurs in the letter of Mr. Lorkin, he might, from similar causes, naturally be expected to repeat.[445:B]

In adjusting the chronology of this play Mr. Malone has remarked, that Shakspeare, having produced so many plays in the preceding years, "it is not likely thatKing Henry the Eighthwas writtenbefore1601. It might, perhaps, withequal propriety, be ascribed to 1602."[445:C]We have fixed upon the latter date, for this obvious reason, that our enquiries, having led us to supply the preceding year with two plays, it has been thought more consonant to probability to assign it to the less occupied period of 1602. It appears to us, therefore, to have been composed about a twelvemonth previous to the death of the Queen, an event which occurred in March, 1603.

It need scarcely be added, that, from Mr. Gifford's complete refutation of the slander which has been so long indulged in against the character of Ben Jonson, we utterly disbelieve that this calumniated poet had any concern in the revival ofHenry the Eighth.

The entire interest of this tragedy turns upon the characters ofQueen KatharineandCardinal Wolsey; the former being the finest picture of suffering and defenceless virtue, and the latter of disappointed ambition, that poet ever drew. The close of the secondscene of the third act, which describes the fall of Wolsey, and the whole of the second scene of the fourth, which paints the dying sorrows and devout resignation of the persecuted Queen, have, as lessons of moral worth, a never-dying value; and of the latter, especially, it may without extravagance be said, that, in its power of exciting sympathy and compassion, it stands perfectly unrivalled by any dramatic effort of ancient or of modern time.

24.Timon of Athens: 1602. The existence of a manuscript play on this subject, to which our author has been evidently indebted, ought, in the absence of all other direct testimony, to be considered as our guiding star. Here, says Mr. Malone, our poet "found the faithful steward, the banquet scene, and the story of Timon's being possessed of great sums of gold which he had dug up in the woods: a circumstance which he could not have had from Lucian, there being then no translation of the dialogue that relates to this subject[446:A];" and, in another place he remarks, that this manuscript comedy "appears to have been written after Ben Jonson'sEvery Man out of his Humour, (1599,) to which it contains a reference; but I have not discovered the precise time when it was composed. If it were ascertained, it might be some guide to us in fixing the date of our author'sTimon of Athens, which I suppose to have been posterior to this anonymous play."[446:B]

Now Mr. Steevens, who accurately inspected the manuscript play, tells us that it appears to have been written about the year 1600[446:C], whilst Mr. Chalmers has brought forward several intimations which, he thinks, prove, that Shakspeare's drama was written during the reign of Elizabeth.[446:D]

These statements, it is obvious, bring the subject into a small compass; for as the anonymous comedy must have been composed after 1599, referring, as it does, to a drama of that date, and as someincidents in Shakspeare's Timon are evidently founded upon it, whilst the death of Elizabeth took place in March, 1603, the play of our poet must necessarily, if Mr. Chalmers's intimations be relied upon, have been completed in the interim.

Indeed the only argument on the other side for fixing the date of this play in 1609, is built upon the supposition that Shakspeare commenced the study of Plutarch in 1605, and that having once availed himself of this historian for one of his plays, he was induced to proceed, untilJulius Cæsar,Anthony and Cleopatra,Timon, andCoriolanus, had been written in succession.[447:A]But, as it has been clearly ascertained by Mr. Chalmers, that Shakspeare was perfectly well acquainted with Plutarch when he wrote his Hamlet[447:B], this supposition can no longer be tenable.

We have fixed on the year 1602 rather than 1601, for the era of the composition of our author's play, as it is equally susceptible of the illustration adduced by Mr. Chalmers, allows more scope for the production of the elder drama, and, at the same time, more opportunity to our poet to have become familiar with a comedy which, there is reason to think, from its pedantic style, was never popular, and certainly never was printed.

Timon of Athensis an admirable satire on the folly and ingratitude of mankind; the former exemplified in the thoughtless profusion of Timon, the latter in the conduct of his pretended friends; it is, as Dr. Johnson observes, "a very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery, but not friendship."[447:C]

But the mighty reach of Shakspeare's mind is in this play more particularly distinguishable in his delineation of the species and causes of misanthropy, and in the management of the delicate shades which diversify its effects on the heart of man. Timon and Apemantusare both misanthropes; but from very different causes, and with very different consequences, and yet they mutually illustrate each other.

The misanthropy of Timon arises from the perversion of what would otherwise have been the foundation of his happiness. He possesses great goodness and benevolence of heart, an ardent love of mankind, a spirit noble, enthusiastic, and confiding, but these are unfortunately directed into wrong channels by the influence of vanity, and the thirst of distinction. Rich in the amplest means of dispensing bounty, he receives, in return, such abundant praise, especially from the least deserving and the most designing, that he becomes intoxicated with adulation, craving it, at length, with the avidity of an appetite, and preferring the applause of the world to the silent approval of his own conscience.

The immediate consequence of this delusion is, that he seeks to bestow only where celebrity is to follow; he does not fly to succour poverty, misfortune, and disease, in their sequestered haunts, but he showers his gifts on poets, painters, warriors, and statesmen, on men of talents or of rank, whose flattery, either from genius or from station, will find an echo in the world. The next result of beneficence thus abused, is that Timon possesses numerousnominalbut norealfriends, and, when the hour of trial comes, he is, to a man, deserted in his utmost need. It is then, that having no estimate of friendship but what reposed on the characters who have left him bare to the storm, and concluding that the rest of mankind, compared with those whom he had selected, are rather worse than better, he gives loose to all the invective which deceived affection and wounded vanity can suggest; feeling, as it were, an abhorrence of, and an aversion to, his species, in proportion to the keenness of his original sensibility, and the agony of his present disappointment.

The inherent goodness of Timon on the one hand, and his avarice of praise and flattery on the other, are vividly brought out through the medium of his servants, and of the Cynic Apemantus. The true criterion, indeed, of the worth of any individual, is best found in the estimation of his household, and we entertain a high sense of thevalue of Timon's character, from the attachment and fidelity of his dependants. They, in their humble intercourse with their master, have intimately felt the native benevolence of his disposition, and, to the disgrace of those who have revelled in his bounty, are the only sympathizers in his fate. They call to mind his generous virtues:—

"Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart;Undone by goodness!"

"Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart;

Undone by goodness!"

is the exclamation of his faithful steward; nor are the inferior domestics less sensible of his worth:—

"1 Serv.So noble a master fallen!—and notOne friend, to take his fortune by the arm!—3 Serv.Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,That see I by our faces."[449:A]

"1 Serv.So noble a master fallen!—and notOne friend, to take his fortune by the arm!—

"1 Serv.So noble a master fallen!—and not

One friend, to take his fortune by the arm!—

3 Serv.Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,That see I by our faces."[449:A]

3 Serv.Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,

That see I by our faces."[449:A]

When Flavius visits his master in his seclusion, and with the most disinterested views and the most heart-felt commiseration, offers him his wealth and his attendance, Timon starts back with amazement bordering on distraction, afflicted and aghast at the recognition, when too late, of genuine friendship, and self-convicted of injustice towards his fellow-creatures:—

"Had I a steward so true, so just, and nowSo comfortable? It almost turnsMy dangerous nature wild.[449:B]Let me beholdThy face.—Surely, this man was born of woman.—Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,Perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaimOne honest man,—mistake me not,—but one;No more, I pray,—and he is a steward.—How fain would I have hated all mankind,And thou redeem'st thyself!"[449:C]

"Had I a steward so true, so just, and now

So comfortable? It almost turns

My dangerous nature wild.[449:B]Let me behold

Thy face.—Surely, this man was born of woman.—

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,

Perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim

One honest man,—mistake me not,—but one;

No more, I pray,—and he is a steward.—

How fain would I have hated all mankind,

And thou redeem'st thyself!"[449:C]

If the constitutional goodness of Timon is to be inferred from the conduct of his domestics, the errors which overshadowed it are most distinctly laid open by the unsparing invective of Apemantus. The misanthropy of this character is not based, like Timon's, on the wreck of the noblest feelings of our nature, on the milk of human kindness turned to gall, but springs from the vilest of our passions, from envy, hatred, and malice. He is born a beggar, and his pride is to continue such, while his sole occupation, his pleasure and his choice, is to drag forth the vices, and calumniate the virtues of humanity. For this task he possesses, in the powers of his intellect, the utmost efficiency, and seems, indeed, to have been introduced by the poet for the express purpose of unfolding the conduct of Timon. The two characters, in fact, reciprocally anatomise each other, and with a depth and minuteness which leaves nothing undetected.

The lust of flattery and distinction which burns in the bosom of Timon, finds, even in the height of his prosperity, a sharp, and therefore a wholesome reprover in Apemantus, who tells the Athenian to his face, that "he that loves to be flattered, is worthy of the flatterer," at the same time exposing his limitless and ill-bestowed bounty in the strongest terms; but no good man would choose the hour of adversity and overwhelming distress for a still bitterer torrent of taunts and reproaches, at a period when nothing but additional misery could accrue from the experiment. Such, however, is the object of Apemantus, in his visit to the cave of Timon, and accordingly he experiences the reception which his motives so richly deserve:—

"Tim.Why dost thou seek me out?Apem.To vex thee.Tim.Always a villain's office, or a fool's.Dost please thyself in't!Apem.Ay.Tim.What! a knave too?"

"Tim.Why dost thou seek me out?

Apem.To vex thee.

Tim.Always a villain's office, or a fool's.Dost please thyself in't!

Tim.Always a villain's office, or a fool's.

Dost please thyself in't!

Apem.Ay.

Tim.What! a knave too?"

immediately after which, the unhappy Timon proceeds, with admirable discrimination, to contrast himself and his persecutor; a descriptionwhich, for strength and severity, as well as truth of censure, has never been exceeded:—

"Tim.Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender armWith favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.Had'st thou like us, from our first swath, proceededThe sweet degrees that this brief world affordsTo such as may the passive drugs of itFreely command, thou would'st have plung'd thyselfIn general riot; melted down thy youthIn different beds of lust; and never learn'dThe icy precepts of respect, but follow'dThe sugar'd game before thee. But myself,Who had the world as my confectionary;The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of menAt duty, more than I could frame employment;That numberless upon me stuck, as leavesDo on the oak, have with one winter's brushFell from their boughs, and left me open, bareFor every storm that blows;—I, to bear this,That never knew but better, is some burden:Thy nature did commence in sufferance, timeHath made thee hard in't. Why should'st thou hate men?They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given?If thou wilt curse,—thy father, that poor rag,Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuffTo some she-beggar, and compounded thee,Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! be gone!—If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,Thou hadst been a knave, and flatterer."[451:A]

"Tim.Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm

With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.

Had'st thou like us, from our first swath, proceeded

The sweet degrees that this brief world affords

To such as may the passive drugs of it

Freely command, thou would'st have plung'd thyself

In general riot; melted down thy youth

In different beds of lust; and never learn'd

The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd

The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,

Who had the world as my confectionary;

The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men

At duty, more than I could frame employment;

That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves

Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush

Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare

For every storm that blows;—I, to bear this,

That never knew but better, is some burden:

Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time

Hath made thee hard in't. Why should'st thou hate men?

They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given?

If thou wilt curse,—thy father, that poor rag,

Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff

To some she-beggar, and compounded thee,

Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! be gone!—

If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,

Thou hadst been a knave, and flatterer."[451:A]

In revenge for this correct, but tremendous picture of himself, Apemantus, shortly afterwards, presents Timon with a miniature of his own character, so faithfully condensed, that it comprises, in about a dozen words, the entire history of his life; the indiscriminate generosity of his early, and the extravagant misanthropy, of his latter days:—

"The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends."[451:B]

The widely different fate of these two characters, is, likewise, decisive of the opposite origin and nature of their misanthropical conduct. Timon, that

—————————————— "monument,And wonder of good deeds evilly betow'd,"[452:A]

—————————————— "monument,

And wonder of good deeds evilly betow'd,"[452:A]

dies broken-hearted, a martyr to self-delusion, and to the ingratitude of mankind; whilst Apemantus, wrapped up in constitutional apathy, travels on unscathed, a general and unfeeling railer on the frailty of his species.

25.Measure for Measure: 1603. Mr. Malone's reasons for placing the composition of this play towards the close of 1603, appear to us perfectly unshaken by the arguments which Mr. Chalmers has brought forward for the purpose of referring it to the subsequent year. The validity of the alteration which this gentleman wishes to establish, turns almost altogether on the cogency of the following statement:—"Claudio," he says, "complains of 'the neglected act being enforced against him.' Isabella laments her being the sister of one Claudio, condemned, on theact of fornication, to lose his head. Now, the act which was thus alluded to, though not with the precision of an Old Bailey solicitor, 'was the statute to restrain all persons from marriage, until their former wives, and former husbands be dead,' for which such persons, so offending, were tosuffer death, as in cases of felony. It was against this act, then, which did not operate till after the end of the session, on the 7th of July, 1604, that Shakspeare's satire was levelled."[452:B]

But this very act, it seems from Mr. Chalmers's reference, was passed in the second year of James the First, and how, therefore, could Claudio's complaint of a "neglectedact being enforced against him," apply to a statute thus recently issued, and whose operation had only just commenced? The objection is insurmountable, andClaudio's allusion was most assuredly to the act formerly passed on this subject in the first year of Edward the Sixth.

The primary source of the fable ofMeasure for Measure, is to be traced to the fifth novel of the eighth decade of the Ecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, which was repeated in the tragic histories of Belle Forest; but Shakspeare's immediate original was the play ofPromos and Cassandraof George Whetstone, published in 1578, and of which the argument, as given by the author, has been annexed by Mr. Steevens to Shakspeare's production. On this elder drama, and on Shakspeare's improvements on its plot, the following pertinent remarks have been lately made by Mr. Dunlop:—"The crime of the brother," he observes, speaking of Whetstone's comedy, "is softened into seduction: Nor is he actually executed for his transgression, as a felon's head is presented in place of the one required by the magistrate. The king being complained to, orders the magistrate's head to be struck off, and the sister begs his life, even before she knows that her brother is safe. Shakspeare has adopted the alteration in the brother's crime, and the substitution of the felon's head. The preservation of the brother's life by this device might have been turned to advantage, as affording a ground for the intercession of his sister; but Isabella pleads for the life of Angelo before she knows her brother is safe, and when she is bound to him by no tie, as the Duke does not order him to marry Isabella. From his own imagination Shakspeare had added the character of Mariana, Angelo's forsaken mistress, who saves the honour of the heroine by being substituted in her place. Isabella, indeed, had refused, even at her brother's intercession, to give up her virtue to preserve his life. This is an improvement on the incidents of the novel, as it imperceptibly diminishes our sense of the atrocity of Angelo, and adds dignity to the character of the heroine. The secret superintendence, too, of the Duke over the whole transaction, has a good effect, and increases our pleasure in the detection of the villain. In the fear of Angelo, lest the brother should take revenge 'for so receiving a dishonoured life,with ransom of such shame,' Shakspeare has given a motive to conduct which, in his prototypes, is attributed to wanton cruelty."[454:A]

OfMeasure for Measure, independent of the comic characters which afford a rich fund of entertainment, the great charm springs from the lovely example of female excellence in the person of Isabella. Piety, spotless purity, tenderness combined with firmness, and an eloquence the most persuasive, unite to render her singularly interesting and attractive. To save the life of her brother, she hastens to quit the peaceful seclusion of her convent, and moves, amid the votaries of corruption and hypocrisy, amid the sensual, the vulgar, and the profligate, as a being of a higher order, as a ministering spirit from the throne of grace. Her first interview with Angelo, and the immediately subsequent one with Claudio, exhibit, along with the most engaging feminine diffidence and modesty, an extraordinary display of intellectual energy, of dexterous argument, and of indignant contempt. Her pleadings before the lord deputy are directed with a strong appeal both to his understanding and his heart, while her sagacity and address in the communication of the result of her appointment with him to her brother, of whose weakness and irresolution she is justly apprehensive, are, if possible, still more skilfully marked, and add another to the multitude of instances which have established for Shakspeare an unrivalled intimacy with the finest feelings of our nature.

The page of poetry, indeed, has not two nobler passages to produce, than those which paint the suspicions of Isabella as to the fortitude of her brother, her encouragement of his nascent resolution, and the fears which he subsequently entertains of the consequences of dissolution:—

"Isab.O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,And six or seven winters more respectThan a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?The sense of death is most in apprehension;And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,In corporal sufferance finds a pang as greatAs when a giant dies.Claud.Why give you me this shame?Think you I can a resolution fetchFrom flowery tenderness? If I must die,I will encounter darkness as a bride,And hug it in mine arms.Isab.There spake my brother; there my father's graveDid utter forth a voice!"[455:A]

"Isab.O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension;

And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

Claud.Why give you me this shame?Think you I can a resolution fetchFrom flowery tenderness? If I must die,I will encounter darkness as a bride,And hug it in mine arms.

Claud.Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

Isab.There spake my brother; there my father's graveDid utter forth a voice!"[455:A]

Isab.There spake my brother; there my father's grave

Did utter forth a voice!"[455:A]

On learning the terms which would effect his liberation, his astonishment and indignation are extreme, and he exclaims with vehemence to his sister,—

"Thou shalt not do't;"

but no sooner does this burst of moral anger subside, than the natural love of existence returns, and he endeavours to impress Isabella, under the wish of exciting her to the sacrifice demanded for his preservation, with the horrible possibilities which may follow the extinction of this state of being, an enumeration which makes the blood run chill:—

"Claud.O Isabel!Isab.What says my brother?Claud.Death is a fearful thing.Isab.And shamed life a hateful.Claud.Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;This sensible warm motion to becomeA kneaded clod; and the delighted spiritTo bathe in fiery floods, or to resideIn thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,And blown with restless violence round aboutThe pendent world; or to be worse than worstOf those, that lawless and incertain thoughtsImagine howling!—'tis too horrible!The weariest and most loathed worldly life,That age, ach, penury, and imprisonmentCan lay on nature, is a paradiseTo what we fear of death.Isab.Alas! alas!"[456:A]

"Claud.O Isabel!

Isab.What says my brother?

Claud.Death is a fearful thing.

Isab.And shamed life a hateful.

Claud.Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;This sensible warm motion to becomeA kneaded clod; and the delighted spiritTo bathe in fiery floods, or to resideIn thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,And blown with restless violence round aboutThe pendent world; or to be worse than worstOf those, that lawless and incertain thoughtsImagine howling!—'tis too horrible!The weariest and most loathed worldly life,That age, ach, penury, and imprisonmentCan lay on nature, is a paradiseTo what we fear of death.

Claud.Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling!—'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,

That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

Isab.Alas! alas!"[456:A]

"It is difficult to decide," remarks Mr. Douce, "whether Shakspeare is here alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. May not the whole be a mere poetical rhapsody, originating in the recollection of what he had read in books of Catholic divinity? for it is very certain, that some of these were extremely familiar to him."[456:B]

Of our author's predilection for the imposing exterior, and fanciful, but often sublime, reveries of the Roman Catholic religion, we have already taken some notice; and, in reference to the very interesting part which the Duke assumes in this play, under the disguise of a monk, it is the observation of the learned and eloquent Schlegel, "that Shakspeare, amidst the rancour of religious parties, takes a delight in painting the condition of a monk, and always represents his influence as beneficial. We find in him none of the black and knavish monks, which an enthusiasm for the protestant religion, rather than poetical inspiration, has suggested to some of our modern poets. Shakspeare merely gives his monks an inclination to busy themselves in the affairs of others, after renouncing the world for themselves; with respect, however, to pious frauds, he does not represent them as very conscientious. Such are the parts acted by the monk inRomeo and Juliet, and another inMuch Ado about Nothing, and even by the Duke, whom, contrary to the well-known proverb, the cowl seems really to make a monk."[456:C]

26.King Lear: 1604. Both the chronologers have assigned to this tragedy the date of 1605; but it appears to us more probable that its production is to be attributed to the close of the year 1604. It certainly was written between the publication of Harsnet'sDeclaration of Popish Impostures, in 1603, and the Christmas of 1606; for Shakspeare undoubtedly borrowed, as the commentators have justly observed, the fantastic names of several spirits from the above mentioned work, whilst in the entry of Lear on the Stationers' Registers, on the 26th of November, 1607, it is expressly recorded to have been played, during the preceding Christmas, before His Majesty at Whitehall.

It is from the following facts, as established by Mr. Chalmers, together with two or three additional circumstances, that we have been induced to throw back a few months the era of the composition of this play. "Lear is ascertained," observes Mr. Chalmers, "to have been written, after the month of October, 1604; say the commentators: (or rather says Mr. Malone) For, King James was proclaimed Kingof Great Britain, on the 24th of October, 1604; and, it is evident, that Shakspeare made a minute change in an old rhyming saw:—

———————————— "Fy, fa, fum,I smell the blood of anEnglishman;"

———————————— "Fy, fa, fum,

I smell the blood of anEnglishman;"

which Shakspeare, with great attention to the times, changed, in the following manner:—

"His word was still, Fie, foh, fum,I smell the blood of aBritishman."

"His word was still, Fie, foh, fum,

I smell the blood of aBritishman."

But, the fact is, that there was issued from Greenwich a royal proclamation, on the 13th of May, 1603; declaring that, till a compleat union, the King held, and esteemed, the two realms, aspresentlyunited, and as one kingdom; and, the poets, Daniel and Drayton, who wrote gratulatory verses, on his accession, spoke of the two kingdoms, as united, thereby, into one realm, by the name of Britain;and of the inhabitants of England and Scotland, as one people, by the denomination of British." And he then adds, in a note: "Before King James arrived at London, Daniel offered to him 'A Panegyrike congratulatory, delivered to the King's most excellent Majesty at Burleigh-Harrington in Rutlandshire;' which was printed, in 1603, for Blount, with a Defence of Rhime:—

"Lo here the glory of a greater dayThanEnglandever heretofore could seeIn all her days. ———— ———— ————And now she is, and now in peace thereforeShake hands with union, O thou mightie state,Now thou art allgreat Britain, and no more,No Scot, no Englishnow, nor no debate."[458:A]

"Lo here the glory of a greater day

ThanEnglandever heretofore could see

In all her days. ———— ———— ————

And now she is, and now in peace therefore

Shake hands with union, O thou mightie state,

Now thou art allgreat Britain, and no more,

No Scot, no Englishnow, nor no debate."[458:A]

We see here, that even before James took possession of his capital, poetry had adopted the very language which Shakspeare has used in his Lear: and that, as early as the 13th of May, 1603, a proclamation had been issued, declaratory of the King's resolution to hold and esteem the two realms as united, and as forming but one kingdom.

These two events, therefore, were of themselves, a sufficient ground for the alteration which our bard thought proper to introduce, and which, if it occurred, as we suppose, anterior to the definitive proclamation of October, 1604, must have been considered, by the monarch, as the greater compliment, on that very account.

A strong additional argument in favour of this chronology, may be drawn from the attempt made in 1605, to impose on the public the old play ofKing Leirfor the successful drama of our author. This production, which had been entered at Stationers' Hall in 1594, was, with this view, re-entered on the Stationers' books on the 8th of May, 1605, and the entry terminates with these words, "as it waslatelyacted."[458:B]

Now, as it was intended that the expressionlatelyshould bereferred, by the reader, to our author's play, for which this was meant to be received, it follows, as an almost necessary consequence, from the common acceptation of the term, that theLearof Shakspeare had been acted some months anteriorly, and was not then actually performing, an inference which agrees well with the date which we have adopted, but cannot be made to accord with Mr. Malone's supposition of Shakspeare's tragedy appearing in April, 1605, and the spurious claimant in May, when there is every reason to conclude that our poet's drama was then nightly, or, at least, weekly delighting the public.

Another circumstance in support of the era which we have chosen for this play, is to be derived from the consideration, that, in Mr. Malone's arrangement,Cymbelineis assigned, and, in our opinion, correctly assigned, to the year 1605, while, in consequence of the removal ofThe Winter's Taleto the epoch of 1613, a change founded on apparently substantial grounds, the year 1604 is left perfectly open to the admission for which we contend.

To the numerous sources mentioned by the[459:A]commentators, whence Shakspeare may have drawn the materials of hisLear, is to be added the celebrated French Romance, entitledPerceforest, which, next to theGesta Romanorum, and theHistory of Geoffrey of Monmouth, is the oldest authority extant. The story of King Leyr, as here related, corresponds, in all its leading features, with the fable of our poet.[459:B]

Of this noble tragedy, one of the first productions of the noblest of poets, it is scarcely possible to express our admiration in adequate terms. Whether considered as an effort of art, or as a picture of the passions, it is entitled to the highest praise. The two portions ofwhich the fable consists, involving the fate of Lear and his daughters, and of Gloster and his sons, influence each other in so many points, and are blended with such consummate skill, that whilst the imagination is delighted by diversity of circumstances, the judgment is equally gratified in viewing their mutual co-operation towards the final result; the coalescence being so intimate, as not only to preserve the necessary unity of action, but to constitute one of the greatest beauties of the piece.

Such, indeed, is the interest excited by the structure and concatenation of the story, that the attention is not once suffered to flag. By a rapid succession of incidents, by sudden and overwhelming vicissitudes, by the most awful instances of misery and destitution, by the boldest contrariety of characters, are curiosity and anxiety kept progressively increasing, and with an impetus so strong, as nearly to absorb every faculty of the mind and every feeling of the heart.

Victims of frailty, of calamity, or of vice, in an age remote and barbarous, the actors in this drama are brought forward with a strength of colouring, which, had the scene been placed in a more civilised era, might have been justly deemed too dark and ferocious, but is not discordant with the earliest heathen age of Britain. The effect of this style of characterisation is felt occasionally throughout the entire play, but is particularly visible in the delineation of the vicious personages of the drama, the parts of Goneril, Regan, Edmund, and Cornwall being loaded, not only with ingratitude of the deepest dye, but with cruelty of the most savage and diabolical nature; they are the criminals, in fact, of an age where vice may be supposed to reign with lawless and gigantic power, and in which the extrusion of Gloster's eyes might be an event of no infrequent occurrence.

Had this mode of casting his characters in the extreme, been applied to the remainder of theDramatis Personæ, we should have lost some of the finest lessons of humanity and wisdom that ever issued from the pen of an uninspired writer; but, with the exception of a few coarsenesses, which remind us of the barbarous period towhich the story is referred, and of a few incidents rather revolting to credibility, but which could not be detached from the original narrative, the virtuous agents of the play exhibit the manners and the feelings of civilisation, and are of that mixed fabric which can alone display a just portraiture of the nature and composition of our species.

The characters of Cordelia and Edgar, it is true, approach nearly to perfection, but the filial virtues of the former are combined with such exquisite tenderness of heart, and those of the latter with such bitter humiliation and suffering, that grief, indignation, and pity are instantly excited. Very striking representations are also given of the rough fidelity of Kent, and of the hasty credulity of Gloster; but it is in delineating the passions, feelings, and afflictions of Lear, that our poet has wrought up a picture of human misery which has never been surpassed, and which agitates the soul with the most overpowering emotions of sympathy and compassion.

The conduct of the unhappy monarch having been founded merely on the impulses of sensibility, and not on any fixed principle or rule of action, no sooner has he discovered the baseness of those on whom he had relied, and the fatal mistake into which he had been hurried by the delusions of inordinate fondness and extravagant expectation, than he feels himself bereft of all consolation and resource. Those to whom he had given all, for whom he had stripped himself of dignity and power, and on whom he had centered every hope of comfort and repose in his old age, his inhuman daughters, having not only treated him with utter coldness and contempt, but sought to deprive him of all the respectability, and even of the very means of existence, what in a mind so constituted as Lear's, the sport of intense and ill-regulated feeling, and tortured by the reflection of having deserted the only child who loved him, what but madness could be expected as the result? It was, in fact, the necessary consequence of the reciprocal action of complicated distress and morbid sensibility; and, in describing the approach of this dreadful infliction, in tracing its progress, its height, andsubsidence, our poet has displayed such an intimate knowledge of the workings of the human intellect, under all its aberrations, as would afford an admirable study for the enquirer into mental physiology. He has also in this play, as in that of Hamlet, finely discriminated between real and assumed insanity, Edgar, amidst all the wild imagery which his imagination has accumulated, never touching on the true source of his misery, whilst Lear, on the contrary, finds it associated with every object, and every thought, however distant or dissimilar. Not even the Orestes of Euripides, or the Clementina of Richardson, can, as pictures of disordered reason, be placed in competition with this of Lear; it may be pronounced, indeed, from its truth and completeness, beyond the reach of rivalry.

Of all the miseries incident to humanity the apprehension of approaching loss of reason is, perhaps, the most dreadful. Lear, on discovering the ingratitude of his eldest daughter, feels compunction for his treatment of the youngest: "I did her wrong," he exclaims, and such is the violence of the shock and the keenness of his sufferings, that, even in this first conflict of resentment and sorrow, he deprecates this heaviest of calamities:—

"O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!"[462:A]

But when Regan, following the example of her sister, inflicts upon him still greater dishonour, the fearful assurance is intimately felt, and he predicts its visitation in positive terms:—

—————————— "You think, I'll weep;No, I'll not weep:—I have full cause of weeping; but this heartShall break into a hundred thousand flaws,Or ere I'll weep.—O, fool, I shall go mad!"[462:B]

—————————— "You think, I'll weep;

No, I'll not weep:—

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or ere I'll weep.—O, fool, I shall go mad!"[462:B]

Nothing can impress us with a more tremendous idea of this awful state of mind, than the feelings of Lear during his exposure to thetempest. What, under other circumstances, would have been shrunk from with alarm and pain, is now unfelt, or only so, as a relief from deeper horrors:—

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