In the fourth scene of the fourth act, the poet describes the frame of mind of the hero before he steps on board ship. 'Excitements of his reason and his blood' once more call him to revenge. This monologue, in which Hamlet gives expression to his feelings and thoughts, is only in the quarto of 1604. The folio of 1623 does not contain it. Shakspere, in later years, may have thought that the soul-struggle of his hero had been ended; and so he may have regarded the passage as a superfluous one, in which Hamlet's better self once more asks him to seize the reins of destiny with his own hands.
He sees how young Fortinbras, the delicate and tender prince, 'puff'd with divine ambition, mouthes the invisible event for a piece of land not large enough to hide the slain.' Hamlet philosophises that the man who uses not his god-like reason is but a beast; for—
—He that made us with such large discourseLooking before and after, gave us notThat capability and god-like reason,To fust in us unused.
We further hear how Hamlet reasons about the question as to how 'to be rightly great.' All the thoughts he produces, seem to flow from the pen of the French philosopher. In Essay III. (13) of Montaigne we read the beautiful words that 'the noblest master-work of man is to live for a purpose (yivre d fropos),' and:—'The greatness of the soul does not consist so much in drawing upwards, and haling forwards, than in knowing how to range and to circumscribe itself. It holds everything to be great, which is sufficient in itself. It shows its superiority in more loving humble things than eminent ones.'
To the majesty of the human reason also, Montaigne, in spite of his so often condemning it, knows how to render justice. In Essay I. (40) he remarks: 'Shall we then dare to say that this advantage of reason at which we rejoice so very much, and out of respect for which we hold ourselves to be lords and emperors of all other creatures, has been put into us for our torment? Why strive for the knowledge of things if we become more cowardly thereby? if we lose, through it, the rest and the tranquillity in which we should be without it? … Shall we use the intellect that has been given to us for our greatest good, to effect our ruin; combating the designs of Nature and the general order of things which implies that everyone should use his tools and means for his own convenience?'
Noble thoughts! But it is not enough to play an aesthetic game with them. The energetic English genius wishes that they should regulate our life; that we should act in accordance with them, so that no tragic complication should form itself, which could only be solved by the ruin and death of the innocent together with the guilty. The monologue concludes thus:—
O, from this time forth,My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Nevertheless, Hamlet continues his voyage.
The reader will remember that Montaigne spoke of an instinctive impulse of the will—a daimon—by which he often, and to his final advantage, had allowed himself to be guided, so much so that such strong impulses might be attributed to divine inspiration. A daimon of this kind, under whose influence Hamlet acts, is described in the second scene of the fifth act. The passage is wanting in the first quarto. [48] Hamlet tells Horatio how he lay in the ship, and how in his heart there was a kind of fighting which would not let him sleep. This harassing condition, the result of his unmanly indecision, he depicts in these words:—
Methought I layWorse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Then all at once (how could an impulsive manner of action be better described?), before he could 'make a prologue to his brains,' Hamlet lets himself be overcome by such a daimonic influence. He breaks open the grand commission of others, forges a seal with a signet in his possession, becomes a murderer of two innocent men, and draws the evil conclusion therefrom:—
Let us know,Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us,There's a divinity that shapes our ends,Rough-hew them how we will.
This view we have already quoted from Essay III. (12). In Florio's translation (632):—'Therefore do our dessigns so often miscarry…. The heavens are angry, and I may say envious of the extension and large privilege we ascribe to human wisdome, to the prejudice of theirs: and abridge them so more unto us, by so much more we endeavour to amplifie them.'
Hamlet takes the twofold murder committed against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as little to heart as the 'indiscreet' deed by which Polonius was killed. Then the consolation was sufficient for him that lovingkindness had forced him to be cruel. This time, his conscience is not touched, because—
't is dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites.
With such argumentation every tyranny may be palliated, especially by those who, like Hamlet, think that—
A man's life 's no more than to say 'One.'
Yet another peculiarity of Montaigne's complex being is depicted by Shakspere in the graveyard scene. He shows us every side of this whimsical character who says of himself that he has no staying power for any standpoint, but that he is driven about by incalculable emergencies.
Let us read a passage in Essay II (12), and compare it with Hamlet's enigmatic conduct towards Laertes. Montaigne describes himself in these sentences:—'Being of a soft and somewhat heavy temperament, I have no great experience of those violent agitations which mostly come like a surprise upon our mind without allowing it leisure to collect itself.' In spite of the resistance—he further says—which he endeavoured to offer, even he, however, was occasionally thus seized. He felt these agitations rising and growing in, and becoming master over, himself. As in drunkenness, things then appeared to him otherwise than he usually saw them. 'I manifestly saw the advantages of the object which I sought after, augmenting and growing; and I felt them becoming greater and swelling by the wind of my imagination. I felt the difficulties of my enterprise becoming easier and simpler, my reasoning and my conscience drawing back. But, that fire being gone, all of a sudden, as with the flash of lightning, my mind resumed another view, another condition, another judgment.'
In this manner Hamlet conducts himself towards Laertes. A great grief takes possession of him when he hears of the death of Ophelia: he leaps, like Laertes, into her grave; he grapples with him; he warns him that, though 'not splenetive and rash,' he (Hamlet) yet has 'something dangerous' in him. (He means the daimon which so fatally impelled him against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.) Hamlet and Laertes wrestle, but they are parted by the attendants. Hamlet begins boasting, in high-flown language, of what great things he would be able to do.
The Queen describes Hamlet's rage in these words:—
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;Anon, as patient as the female dove,When that her golden couplets are disclosed,His silence will sit drooping. [49]
In the meantime, the fire with which Hamlet's soul had been seized, is gone, like a flash of lightning. He changes to another point of view—probably that one according to which everything goes its way in compliance with a heavenly decree. The little verse he recites in parting:—
Let Hercules himself do what he may,The cat will mew and dog will have his day,
quite corresponds to such a passive philosophy which has gained the mastery over him, and to which he soon falls a victim.
We are approaching the conclusion of the great drama. Here, again, in order to explain Hamlet's action, or rather his yielding to influences around him, we have to direct the attention of the reader to Essay (III. 10), in which Montaigne tells how easily he protects himself against the dangers of inward agitation by dropping the subject which threatens to become troublesome to him before he is drawn on and carried along by it. The doughty nobleman says that he has escaped from many difficulties by not staking frivolously, like others, happiness and honour, life and everything, on his 'rapier and his dagger.' [50]
There may be some truth in Montaigne's charge that the cause of not a few struggles he has seen, was often of truly pitiful origin, and that such struggles were only carried on from a mistaken feeling of self-respect. It may be true also that it is a bad habit—as he maintains—to proceed still further in affairs of this kind simply because one is implicated. But how strange a confession of a nobleman from whom we at all times expect bravery: 'For want of judgement our hearte fails us.' [51]
Hamlet is engaged in such a struggle with Laertes through the graveyard scene. The King, who has had good cause to study Hamlet's character more deeply than anyone else, reckons upon his vanity in order to decide him to the fencing-match. 'Rapier and dagger' are forced upon weak-willed Hamlet by Osric. [52] How subtle is this satire! For appearance' sake, in order to outshine Laertes, the Prince accepts the challenge. [53] Happiness and life, which he ought long ago to have risked for the purpose of avenging his father and his honour, are now staked from sheer vanity. The 'want of prudence' Hamlet displays in accepting a challenge which he must 'carry out from a (mistaken) feeling of self-respect,' has the 'intolerable' consequence that, shortly before he crosses swords with Laertes, he confesses to Horatio:—'But thou would'st not think how ill all's here about my heart.'
Again, Shakspere, very briefly, but not less pointedly, depicts the way in which Hamlet allows himself to be influenced and driven to a decision. This time the poet does so by bringing in a clearly expressed dogmatic tenet whereby Hamlet's fate is sealed. It is 'ill all about his heart.' He would prefer not going to meet Laertes. [54]
Horatio. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestal their repair hither, and say you are not fit.
The fatalist Hamlet, whom we have seen coming ever closer to the doctrine of Predestination, answers as follows:—
'Not a whit; we defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. [55] If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.'
This time it is a 'Let be!'—even as it was a 'Let it go' when he was sent to England.
Now let us read Montaigne's Essay, [56] 'To Philosophise is to Learn how to Die:'—
'Our religion has had no surer human foundation than the contempt of life. Not only does the course of our reason lead us that way; for, why should we fear to lose a thing which, when lost, cannot be regretted?—but also, seeing that we are threatened by so many kinds of death, is it not a greater inconvenience to fear them all than to endure one? What does it matter when Death comes, since it is inevitable?… Moreover, nobody dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours than that which was before your birth, and concerns you no more.'
No further comment is needed to prove that Hamlet's and Montaigne's thoughts are in so close a connection that it cannot be a mere accident. And the nearer we come to the conclusion of the drama, the more striking become Shakspere's satirical hits.
Hamlet allows his hand to be put into that of Laertes by the King. He does not think of the wrong he has done to Laertes—of the murder of the latter's father, or the unhappiness he has criminally brought upon Laertes' sister. In most cowardly manner, hoping that Laertes would desist from the combat, Hamlet endeavours to excuse his conduct at the grave of Ophelia, by pleading his own madness. Laertes insists on the combat; adding that he would stand aloof 'till by some elder masters of known honour' the decision were given.
Hamlet avenges the death of his father; he kills the criminal, the enemy, when his wrath is up and aflame, and every muscle of his is swelled with indignation—but it istoo late. Together with himself, he has dragged them all into the grave. It is blind passion, unbridled by reason, which does the deed: a sublime satire upon the words of Montaigne in Essay II. (12), 'that the most beautiful actions of the soul proceed from, and have need of, this impulse of passion; valour, they say, cannot become perfect without the help of wrath; and that nobody pursues the wicked and the enemies with sufficient energy, except he be thoroughly in anger.'
Even the kind of death by which Shakspere makes Hamlet lose his life, looks like a satire against Montaigne. The latter, always a coward in regard to death, and continually pondering over it, says: [57]—'I would rather have chosen to drink the potion of Sokrates than wound myself as Cato did.' Their 'virtuous deeds' he calls [58] 'vain and fruitless ones, because they were done from no love of, or obedience to, the true Creator of all things.'
Hamlet dies wounded and poisoned, as if Shakspere had intended expressing his abhorrence of so vacillating and weak-willed a character, who places the treacherous excesses of passion above the power of that human reason in whose free service alone Greeks and Romans did their most exalted deeds of virtue. [59]
The subtlety of the best psychologists has endeavoured to fix the limits of Hamlet's madness, and to find the proper name for it. No agreement has been arrived at. We think we have solved the problem as to the nature of Hamlet's madness, and to have shown why thought and action, in him, cannot be brought into a satisfactory harmony. Every fibre in Shakspere's artistic mind would have rebelled against the idea of making a lunatic the chief figure of his greatest drama. He wished to warn his contemporaries that the attempt of reconciling two opposite circles of ideas—namely, on the one hand, the doctrine that we are to be guided by the laws of Nature; and on the other, the yielding ourselves up to superstitious dogmas which declare human nature to be sinful—must inevitably produce deeds of madness.
The main traits of Montaigne's character Shakspere confers upon the Danish Prince, and places him before a difficult task of life. He is to avenge his father's death. (Montaigne was attached to his father with all his soul, and speaks of him almost in the same words as Hamlet does of his own.) He is to preserve the State whose legitimate sovereign he is. The materials for a satire are complete. And it is written in such a manner as to remain the noblest, the most sublime poetical production as long as men shall live.
The two circles of ideas which in the century of the Reformation began a struggle that is not yet brought to an end, are, in that drama, represented on the stage. The poet shows, by making the gifted Prince perish, on which side every serious thinker ought to place himself. That these intentions of Shakspere were understood by his more intelligent contemporaries and friends, we shall prove when we come to the camp of his adversaries, at whose head a Roman Catholic stood, who launches out in very marked language against the derision of Montaigne as contained in the character of Hamlet.
The noblemen who went to the theatre for the sake of the intellectual attractions (the fairer sex being still excluded from acting on the stage and therefore not forming a point of attraction) were initiated into the innermost secret of what authors meant by their productions. Dekker, in his 'Gulls Horn Book' (c. 6), reports that 'after the play was over, poets adjourned to supper with knights, where they, in private, unfolded the secret parts of their drama to them.'
As in no other of his plays, there is in Shakspere's 'Hamlet'—the drama richest in philosophy—a perfect wealth of life. Argument is pitted against argument; every turn of a phrase is a missile, sharp, and hitting the mark. In not a few cases, the aim and object is no longer recognisable. Here and there we believe we shall be able to shed the light of day upon some dark passages of the past.
To the doughty friends of Shakspere, this French Knight of the Order of St. Michael, who says [60] that, if his freedom were in the least encroached upon, or 'if the laws under which he lives threatened merely the tip of his finger, he would at once betake himself to any other place to find better ones;' but who yet lets everything around him go out of joint without offering a helping hand for repair, because 'the maintenance of States is probably something beyond our powers of understanding' [61]—verily, to Shakspere's doughty friends, such a specimen of humanity as Montaigne must have been quite a new and strange phenomenon. They were children of an age which achieved great things because its nobler natures willingly suffered death when the ideals of their life were to be realised. In them, the fire of enthusiasm of the first Reformation, of the glorious time of Elizabeth, was still glowing. They energetically championed the cause of Humanism. The sublime conceptions of their epoch were not yet marred by that dark and gloomy set of men whose mischievous members were just beginning to hatch their hidden plans in the most remote manors of England.
The friends of Shakspere well understood the true meaning of Hamlet's words: [62]—'What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?' [63] They easily seized the gist and point of the answer given to the King's question: [64]—'How fares our cousin Hamlet?' when Hamlet replies:—
Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish!
Surely, some of them had read the Essay 'On the Inconsistency of ourActions,' and had smiled at the passage:—
'Our ordinary manner is, to follow the inclination of our appetite—this way, that way; upwards, downwards; even as the wind of the occasion drives us. We never think of whatwe would have, but at the moment wewould have it; andwe change like that animal(the chameleon) of which it is said that it takes the colour of the place where it is laid down.' [65]
Shakspere's teaching is, that if the nobler-gifted man who stands at the head of the commonwealth, allows himself to be driven about by every wind of the occasion, instead of furthering his better aims with all his strength and energy of will, the wicked, on their part, will all the more easily carry out their own ends. He therefore makes the King say: [66]—
That we would do,We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes…
Shakspere's friends understood the allusion contained in the first act, after the apparition of the Ghost, when Hamlet calls for his 'tablets.' They knew that the much-scribbling Montaigne was meant, who, as he avows, had so bad a memory that he could not receive any commission without writing it down in his 'tablets' (tablettes). This defect of his, Montaigne mentions over and over again, and may have been the cause of his many most ludicrous contradictions. [67]
After Hamlet has written down the important fact that 'one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—at least, I am sure it may be so in Denmark,' he exclaims:—'Now to my word!' That 'word' undoubtedly consists of the admonition addressed to him by the Ghost, that Hamlet, after having heard his duty, also should fulfil it—that is:—
'So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.'
But he only recollects the last words of the Ghost; and Hamlet's parole, therefore, is only this:—
Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me!
The value of Montaigne's book is harshly treated in the second scene of the second act. To the question of Polonius as to what he is reading, Hamlet replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.' [68]
The ideas of Shakspere as to the duties of a writer were different, indeed, from the contents of the book which Hamlet characterises by his exclamation.
As to Polonius' answer: 'Though this be madness, yet there's method in it,' the public had no difficulty in finding out what was meant by that 'madness,' and to whom it applied.
What may the great master have thought of an author who, as Montaigne does, jots down everything in kaleidoscopic manner, just as changeful accident brings it into his head? In Essay III. (2) we read:—
'I cannot get a fixed hold of my object. It moves and reels as if with a natural drunkenness. I just seize it at some point, such as I find it at the moment, when I amuse myself with it. I do not describe its essence, but its volatile passage … from one minute to the other.'
Elsewhere he prides himself on his method of being able to write as long as there is paper and ink.
Hamlet says to the players: 'We'll e'en to it like French falconers: fly at anything we see.' Montaigne's manner of spying out and pouncing upon things cannot be better depicted than by comparing it with a French falconer's manner. In the first act already, Hamlet, after the ghost-scene, answers the friends who approach, with the holla-call of a falconer:—
Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come, bird, come!
Furthermore, Hamlet says in act ii. sc. 2:—'I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handshaw (heronshaw!).' Now, the north-west wind would drive Montaigne back into his native province, Perigord, where, very likely according to Shakspere's view, he ought to have remained with his sham logic. The south wind, on the contrary, brings the able falconer to England. The latter possesses such a penetrating glance for the nature of things as to be able to distinguish the bird (the heronshaw) that is to be pursued from the hawk that has been unhooded and cast.
In the second scene of the fifth act, between Hamlet and Horatio (to the weak-minded Osrick the words spoken there are incomprehensible), the excellent qualities of Laertes are apparently judged. [69] This whole discussion is meant against Montaigne; and in the first quarto the chief points are wanting. Florio calls Montaigne's Essays 'Moral, Political, and Military Discourses.' [70] Osrick praises the qualities of the cavalier who has returned from France; and Hamlet replies that 'to divide him inventorily would dizzy the arithmetic of memory.'
The further, hitherto utterly unexplained, words ('and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail') seem to have reference to the sonnet [71] by which the third book of the Essays is dedicated by Florio to Lady Grey. Montaigne is praised therein under the guise of Talbot's name, who, 'in peace or war, at sea or land, for princes' service, countries' good, sweetly sails before the wind.' In act ii. sc. 2, the north-north-west and the south wind were already alluded to, which are said to influence Hamlet's madness.
The translators and admirers of Montaigne are meant when Hamlet says that 'to make true diction of him, his semblable' must be 'his mirror; and, who else would trace him, his umbrage—nothing more.' That is, one must be Montaigne, or become his absolute admirer, 'his umbrage,' 'his semblable,' in order to do justice to him. The whole scene is full of allusions, easily explainable from the point of view we have indicated. So also, the reference to self-knowledge ('to know himself) —an art which Montaigne never learnt and the 'two weapons' with which he fights, are full of deep meaning.
It was probably no small number of men that took delight in the French essayist. No doubt, the jest of the gravedigger is directed against them, when he says that if the mad Hamlet does not recover his wits in England, it is no great matter there, because there the men are as mad as he.
Montaigne, especially in Essay III. (2) and III. (5), brings forward indecencies of the most shameless kind. We quite bear in mind what period it was when he wrote. Our manners and ideas are totally different from those of the sixteenth century. But what indignation must Shakspere have felt—he who had already created his noblest female characters, Helena and Olivia; and who had sung his paean of love, 'Romeo and Juliet'—when he read the ideas of the French nobleman about love and women! Nowhere, and on no occasion, does Shakspere in his dramas, in spite of phrases which to-day we qualify as obscene ones, lower the ideal of the womanly character—of theewig Weibliche.
But let us read Montaigne's view: [72]—
'I find that love is nothing else than a thirst of enjoying a desired subject; nor that Venus is anything else but the pleasure of emptying one's seminary vessels, similar to the pleasure which Nature has given us in discharging other parts.'
Now, this significant quality also, of saying indecencies without shame, Hamlet has in common with Montaigne. No character in Shakspere's dramas uses such language as Hamlet; and in this case, let it be observed, it is not used between men, but towards the beloved one! We shall remark upon his relations with Ophelia later on.
The frivolous Montaigne speaks of love as one might do of a good dish to be enjoyed at every degree of age, according to taste and inclination. In Essay III.(4) we learn how, in his youth, 'standing in need of a vehement diversion for the sake of distraction, he made himself amorous by art and study.' Elsewhere he tells what great things he was able, as a young man, to achieve in this line. [73] He, therefore, does not agree with the sage who praises age because it frees us from voluptuousness. [74]
He, on the contrary, says:—'I shall never take kindly to impotence, whatever good it may do me.'
Montaigne, the old and young lover, is lashed in act v. sc. I, in disfigured verses of a song sung by the grave-digger, which dates about from the year 1557, and at Shakspere's time probably was very popular. In the original, where the image of death is meant to be represented, an old man looks back in repentance, and with great aversion, upon his youthful days when he found pleasure in love. The original verse stood thus:—
I lothe that I did love,In youth that I thought swete,As time requires for my behove,Methinks they are not mete.
Until now, no sense could be made of the first verse which the gravedigger sings. It runs thus:—
In youth, when I did love, did love,Methought it was very sweet,To contract, OH! the time, for, AH! my behove,O, methought, there was nothing meet.
Let it be observed what stress is laid on the 'Oh!'—the proper time, and the 'Ah!'—the delight felt at the moment of enjoyment. The meaning of the old verse is changed in such a manner as to show that old Montaigne looks back with pleasure upon the time of his dissolute youth, whilst the author of the original text shrinks back from it.
The second verse [75] is a further persiflage of the old song. Its reading, too, is changed. It is said there that age, with his stealing steps, as clawed the lover in his clutch [76] and shipped him into the land as if he 'never had been such.'
By none has the relation between Ophelia and Hamlet been better felt and described than by Goethe. He calls her 'the good child in whose soul, secretly, a voice of voluptuousness resounds.' Hamlet who—driven rudderless by his impulse, his passion, his daimon, from one extreme to the other—drags everything that surrounds him into the abyss, also destroys the future of the woman that might truly make him happy. He disowns and rejects her whom Nature has formed for love. At a moment when fanatical thoughts have mastered his reason, he bids her go to a nunnery.
Once more we must point to the Essay in which Montaigne lays down his ideas about woman and love. French ladies, he says, study Boccaccio and such-like writers, in order to become skilful (habiles). 'But there is no word, no example, no single step in that matter which they do not know better than our books do. That is a knowledge bred in their very veins … Had not this natural violence of their desires been somewhat bridled by the fear and a feeling of honour wherewith they have been provided, we would be dishonoured (diffamez).' Montaigne says he knows ladies who would rather lend their honour than their 'coach.' [77]
'At last, when Ophelia has no longer any power over her own mind,' says Goethe, 'her heart being on her tongue, that tongue becomes a traitor against her.' [78]
In the scene of Ophelia's madness, we hear songs, thoughts, and phrases probably caught up by her from Hamlet. The ideal which man forms of woman, is the moral altitude on which she stands. Now, let the language be called to mind, which Hamlet, before the players' scene, uses towards his beloved!
Ophelia's words: 'Come, mycoach[79]' will be understood from the passage in Montaigne above quoted. The meaning of: 'Oh, how thewheelbecomes it!' has reference to a thought developed by Montaigne in Essay III. (11), [80] which we cannot render here, as it is opposed to every feeling of decency.
All commentators agree in thinking that the character of Laertes is in direct contrast to that of Hamlet. In the first quarto, the figure of Laertes is but rapidly indicated. Only that scene is worked out where he cries out against the priest who will not follow his sister to the grave:—
A ministering angel shall my sister be.When thou liest howling.
In the second quarto only, we meet with the most characteristic speeches in which the strong-willed Laertes, [81] unmindful of any future world, calls for revenge with every drop of his indignant blood:—
To Hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devils!Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!I dare damnation….… Both the worlds I give to negligence,Let come what comes …… to cut his throat i' the church.
That passage, too, is new, in which Ophelia's madness is explained as the consequence of blighted love:—
Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine,It sends some precious instance of itselfAfter the thing it loves.
Her own reason, which succumbs to her love, is the precious token.
In the same way, those words are not in the first quarto, in which Laertes gives vent to the oppressed feelings of his heart, on hearing of the death of his sister:—
Nature her custom holds,Let shame say what it will. When these (the tears) are gone,The woman will be out.
All those beautiful precepts, also, which Laertes gives to his sister, are wanting in the quarto of 1603. [82]
Hamlet is the most powerful philosophical production, in the domain of poetry, written at the most critical epoch of mankind—the time of the Reformation. The greatest English genius recognised that it was everyone's duty to set a time out of joint to right. Shakspere showed to his noble friends a gifted and noble man whose life becomes a scourge for him and his surroundings, because he is not guided by manly courage and conscience, but by superstitious notions and formulas.
This colossal drama ranges from the thorny, far-stretching fields which man, only trusting in himself, has to work with the sweat of his brow, to that wonder-land of mystery—
Where these good tidings of great joy are heard. [83]
If the principles that are fought out in this drama, in tragic conflict, were to be described by catchwords, we might say: Reason stands against Dogma; Nature against Tradition; Self-Reliance against Submission. The great elementary forces are here at issue, which the Reformation had unchained, and with which we all have to reckon.
Shakspere's loving, noble heart beautifully does justice to the defeated Hamlet by making him be borne to his grave 'like a soldier,' with all the honouring 'rites of war.' The poet who knew the human heart so well, no doubt had seen many brave and gifted men who, after having been to Wittenberg's Halls of Intellectual Freedom, and become disciples of Humanism, once more were turned into slaves of dogmas which, under a new guise, not less restricted the free use of reason than the tenets of the old faith had done:—
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,Looking before and after, gave us notThe capability and god-like reasonTo fust in us unused.
The life of the most gifted remains fruitless if, through fear of what may befall us in a future world, we cravenly shrink back from following the dictates of our reason and our conscience. From them we must take the mandate and commission for the task of our life; not from any mysterious messenger, nor from any ghost out of Purgatory. On the way to action, no 'goblin damned' must be allowed to cross our path with his assumed terrors. That which we feel to be right we must do, even if 'it be the very witching time of night, and hell breathes contagion into the world.'
Shakspere broke with all antiquated doctrines. He was one of the foremost Humanists in the fullest and noblest meaning of the word. [84]
1: Essay II. 12.
2: Essay I. 26.
3: The whole contents of this chapter may be said to be condensedinto two lines of Shakspere:—
'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'
4: Essay III. 13.
5: See Bacon's Essay 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' where he says that 'dissimulation followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity: so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree,' &c.
6: The following are Hamlet's modes of asseveration:— 'Angels and ministers of grace,' 'All you host of Heaven,' 'God's love,' 'God and mercy,' 'God's willing,' 'Help and mercy,' 'God's love,' 'By St. Patrick,' 'God-a-mercy,' 'By my fay (ma foi),' 'S' blood (God's blood),' 'S' wounds,' 'God's bodykins,' 'By'r Lady,' 'Perdy (Pardieu),' 'By the rood (Cross),' 'Heavenly guards,' 'For love and grace,' 'By the Lord,' 'Pray God,' &c.
7: New Shakspere Society (Stubbs,Abuses in England), 1879, p. 131.
8: Act ii. sc. 2.
9: Act ii. sc. i.
10: This description is wanting in the first quarto. The passages there are essentially different; there is no allusion to Hamlet's mental struggle.
11: About various allusions and satirical hints in this scene later on.
12: Florio, 21; Montaigne, I. ii.
13: Essay III. i.
14: Isaiah, ch. iii. v. 16.
15: The word 'ecstasy,' which is often used in the new quarto, is wanting in the first edition where only madness, lunacy, frenzy—the highest degrees of madness—are spoken of.
16: In the old play their names are 'Rosencroft' and 'Guilderstone.'Reynaldo, in the first quarto, is called 'Montano.' This change of name in adramatis personaof minor importance indicates, in however a trifling manner, that the interest excited by the name of Montaigne (to which 'Montano' comes remarkably near in English pronunciation) was now to be concentrated on another point.
17: Essay I. 40.
19: Essay II. 27, p. 142.
20: Essay III. 4, p. 384.
21: Rather sharp translations ofsonge-creux, as Montaignecalls himself (Florio, i. 19, p. 34). 'I am given rather todreaming and sluggishness.'
22: ''S wounds' (God's wounds)—a most characteristic expression;used by Shakspere only inHamlet, in this scene, and againin act v. sc. 2.
23: As yet, Hamlet has but one ground of action—namely, the one which, after the apparition of the Ghost, he set down in his tablets: 'that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark.'
24: Act ii. sc. 2.
25: Essay I. 19.
27: Tacitus,annal. xiii. 56.
28: Essay I. 19.
29: Act. i. sc. 2.
30: Shakspere already uses this expression inKing John(1595) for purposes of mirthful mockery. He makes the Bastard say to the Archduke of Austria (act iii. sc. i):—'Hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs!'—a circumstance which convinces us that Shakspere knew the Essays of Montaigne from the original at an early time. We think it a fact important enough to point out that Florio translatespeau d'un veauby 'oxe-hide' (fo. 34). We cannot think of any other explanation than that the phrase in question had become so popular throughKing Johnas to render it advisable for Florio to steer clear of this rock. Jonson, in hisVolpone(act. i. sc. i), makes Mosca the parasite say in regard to his master: 'Covered with hide, instead of skin.'
31: Florio's translation: 'If it be aconsummationof one's being' (p. 627). Shakspere: 'aconsummationdevoutly to be wished.' This word is only once used by Shakspere in such a sense. It occurs in another sense inKing Lear(iv. 6) andCymbeline(iv. 2), but nowhere else in his works.
32: Monologue of the first quarto:—
'To be, or not to be, I there's the point,To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:No, to sleepe, to dreame, I, mary there it goes,For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,And borne before an everlasting judge,From whence no passenger ever returned,The undiscovered country, at whose sightThe happy smile, and the accursed damned.But for this, the joyful hope of this,Whol'd beare the scornes of flattery of the world,Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?The widow being oppress'd, the orphan wronged,The taste of hunger, or a tyrants raigne,And thousand more calamities besides,To grunte and sweate under the weary life,When that he may his full quietus make,With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,But for a hope of something after death?Which pushes the brain and doth connfound the sence,Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have,Than flie to others that we know not of.I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of us all.Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembered.
33: On closely examining the copy of Montaigne's Essays in the British Museum, which bears Shakspere's autograph on the title-page, we found—long after our treatise had been completed—that on the fly-leaf at the end of the volume is written:Mors incrta, (Written somewhat indistinctly, meaning probablyincerta. It might also be an abbreviation of 'incertam horam' [incr. ho.], as contained in the Latin verse on p. 626:—
Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horamQuaeritis, et qua sit mors aditura via.)
626, 627. These two numbers, apparently, refer to the corresponding pages of Montaigne's work, which contain nothing but thoughts about the uncertainty of the hour of death and the hereafter. On p. 627 there is the speech of Sokrates, which in Florio's translation, as shown above, bears such striking resemblance to Hamlet's monologue. There are other Latin sentences on the same fly-leaf, pronounced by Sir Frederic Madden to be written by a later pen than Shakspere's. To us, at any rate, the above words and numbers appear to proceed from a different hand than the other sentences. Judgments thereon from persons well versed in the writings of that time would be of great interest.
36: Act iii. sc. 2.
37: III. 12 (Florio, 626).
38: We do not doubt that this is a sly thrust at Florio, who, in the preface to his translation, calls himself 'Montaigne's Vulcan,' who hatches out Minerva from that 'Jupiter's bigge brain'.
39: Florio, 476.
40: Florio, 592: 'Thus goe the world, and so goe men.'
43: Clarendon: 'Circumstance of thought' means here the detailsover which thought ranges, and from which its conclusions areformed.
44: 'Index,' in our opinion, does not signify here either thetitle, or prologue, or the indication of the contents of a book,but is an allusion to the Index of the Holy See and its thunders.
45: Montaigne, III. 10; Florio, 604: 'Custome is a second nature, and no less powerfull…. To conclude, I am ready to finish this man, not to make another. By longe custome this forme is changed into substance, Fortune into Nature.'
47: This is wanting in the first quarto, like the whole conclusionof this scene.
48: This whole scene between Horatio and Hamlet consists of thefollowing four lines in the old quarto:—
Hamlet. Beleeuve me, it greeuves me much, Horatio,That to Laertes I forgot myselfe:For by myselfe methinkes I feel his greefe,Though there's a difference in each other's way.
Does this not look like a draught destined to be the kernel of ascene? The end of the scene where Osrick comes in, is also muchshorter in the older play.
49: Florio, 330: 'We amend ourselves by privation of reason and by her drooping.' Hamlet's conduct is only to be explained by his quietly sitting down until his reason should droop.—II. 12.
50: Florio, 608.
51: Florio, 609.
52: This whole scene is nearly new (in the first quarto it is a mere sketch). There are in it several direct allusions to Montaigne's book, on which we shall touch later on.
53: Here the dramatist, in order to paint a trait of vanity in Hamlet's character, uses a device. He makes the latter say that, since Laertes went into France, he (Hamlet) has been in continual practice. Yet we know (act ii. sc. 2) that he had given up his accustomed exercise. In that scene the poet wishes to describe Hamlet's melancholy; in the other, his vanity. He chooses the colours which are apt to produce quickest impressions among the audience.
54: Act v. sc. 2.
55: See St. Matthew x.29.
59: The Queen describes Hamlet as 'fat, and scant of breath.' Here is Montaigne's description of himself (Essai II. 27):—'J'ay, au demourant, la taille forte et ramassee; le visage non pas gras, mais plein, la complexion entre le jovial et le melancholique, moyennement sanguine et chaude.' Florio's translation, p. 372:—'As for me, I am of a strong and well compact stature, my face is not fat, but full, my complexion betweene joviall and melancholy, indifferently sanguine and hote—('not splenetive and rash').
62: Act iii. sc. 1.
63: We shall now oftener touch upon satirical passages uttered by the character himself against whom they are directed. The true dramatist gives the public no time to think over an incident in full leisure. Every means—as we have already shown before—is welcome to him, which aids in rapidly bringing out the telling traits of his figures. No surprise need therefore be felt that Hamlet, though representing Montaigne, sneers at, and morally flagellates, himself.
64: Act iii. sc. 2.
66: Act iv. sc. 7.
67: I. 9, 25; II. 10, &c. If an attentive reader will take the trouble to closely examine that part of the scene in Shakspere'sTempest(act ii. sc. 1) wherein the passage occurs, which he borrowed from Essay I. 30—'On Cannibals'—and compare it with this most 'strange Essay,' he will clearly convince himself that Shakspere can only have made use of it as a satire on Montaigne's defective memory, which entangles this author in the most ludicrous contradictions. Gonzala declares that, if he were king of the isle on which he and his companion were wrecked, he would found a commonwealth as described in the above passage. He concludes this description, saying he would have 'no sovereignty.'
Sebastian justly remarks: 'Yet he would be king on't;' and Antonio continues by saying: 'The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.'
Even such is the contradiction in Montaigne's fanciful Essay 'On Cannibals,' where, towards the end, he speaks of a captain who holds authority over these savages, not only in war, but also in peace, 'that when he went to visit the village of his dependence, they cut him paths through the thick of their woods, through which he might pass at ease.' The beginning of this Essay described the commonwealth of these cannibals as tolerating no politic superiority, no use of service, no occupation, &c. 'What short memory! much wanting tablets!'
In the above-mentioned scene of theTempestSebastian makes the remark: 'No marrying 'mong his subjects,' which evidently is also meant as a hit against Montaigne's anti-matrimonial ideas, which we dwelt upon in the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia.
68: Jonson, long afterwards, had not forgotten this hit against Montaigne. InEpicoene(1609) he makes Cleremont say:—'When we come to have grey heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members … then we'll pray and fast.'
69: This whole passage of act v. sc. 2 (106-138) is again only to be found in the quarto of 1604, not in the folio edition of 1623. In later years the poet may have struck it out, as being only comprehensible to a smaller circle of his friends. In the same way that passage of act iv. sc. 4, which only contains thoughts of Montaigne, was not received into the folio of 1623.
70: This is their title in Florio's translation:Morall, Politike, Millitarie Discourses of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, Knight of the noble order of Saint Michaell, and one of the Gentlemen in ordinary of the French King Henry III. his Chamber.
71: The sonnet runs thus:—
To the Right Honourable Ladie Elizabeth Grey. (She was a daughter of Count Shrewsbury, a Talbot.) Of honorable TALBOT honored farre, The forecast and the fortune, by his WORDMontaignehere descrives; what by his Sword, What by his wit; this, as the guiding starre; That, as th' Aetolian blast, in peace or warre, At sea, or land, as cause did use afforde,Avant le vent, to tacke his sails aboarde, So as his course no orethwart crosse might barre, But he would sweetly sailbefore the wind; For Princes service, Countries good, his fame. Heire-Daughter of that prudent, constant kinde, Joyning thereto of GREY as great a name, Of both chief glories shrining in your minde, Honour him that your Honor doth proclaime.'
We have already learned from the preface of the first book of theEssaishow Florio was 'sea-tosst, weather-beaten,' 'ship-wrackt,' 'almost drowned,' when exerting himself to capture the whale—Montaigne—and drag him through 'the rocke-rough Ocean' with the assistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to 'a guide-fish.' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel. Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a well-directed hit.
72: Essay III. 5.
73:Ibid. 13.
74:Ibid. 2.
75: The quarto of 1623 has only the third verse.
76: The old song has the word 'crouch.'
77: Essay III. 5, p. 460. Florio, p. 529.
78: We think it is worth while to quote the following verse Montaigne (III. 5) mentions when speaking of that nature of woman, which he thinks suggests to her every possible act of libidinousness:—
Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columboCompar, vel si quid dicitur improbius,Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro,Quantum praecipue multivola est mulier.
Florio translates (514):—
No Pigeons hen, or paire, or what worse nameYou list, makes with hir Snow-white cock such game,With biting bill to catch when she is kist,As many-minded women when they list.
Is not this the character of Ophelia, as described by Shakspere—thevirgin inclining to voluptuousness in Goethe's view?
79: Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5. InEastward Hoe, Marston, Chapman, and Jonson make capital out of this word, and use it as a sneer against Hamlet and Ophelia. We shall return to this point later on.
80: Florio, 617.
81: Act iv. sc. 5.
82: Laertes, act i. sc. 3:—
For nature crescent does not grow aloneIn thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,The inward service of the mind and soulGrows wide withal.
Montaigne, II. 12; Florio, 319:
The mind is with the body bred we do behold,It jointly growes with it, it waxeth old.—Lucr. xliii. 450.
83: Goethe'sFaust.
84: We must mention that John Sterling, in an essay on Montaigne (Westminster Review, 1838), makes the following introductory remarks:—'On the whole, the celebrated soliloquy inHamletpresents a more characteristic and expressive resemblance to much of Montaigne's writings than any other portion of the plays of the great dramatist which we at present remember, though it would doubtless be easy to trace many apparent transferences from the Frenchman into the Englishman's works, as both were keen and many-sided observers in the same age and neighbouring countries. But Hamlet was in those days no popular type of character; nor were Montaigne's views and tone familiar to men till he himself had made them so. Now, the Prince of Denmark is very nearly a Montaigne, lifted to a higher eminence, and agitated by more striking circumstances and severer destiny, and altogether a somewhat more passionate structure of man. It is not, however, very wonderful that Hamlet, who was but a part of Shakspere, should exhibit to us more than the whole of Montaigne, and the external facts appear to contradict any notion of a French ancestry for the Dane, as the play is said to have been produced in 1600, and the translation of the English not for three years later.'
During our long search through the Commentaries written onHamlet, we also met with the following treatise: 'HAMLET;ein Tendenzdrama Sheakspeare's(sic!!)gegen die skeptische und kosmopolitische Weltanschauung des Michael de Montaigne, von G. F. Stedefeld, Kreisgerichtsrath. Berlin, 1871.'
The author of the latter-mentioned little book holds it to be probable that Shakspere wrote hisHamletfor the object of freeing himself from the impressions of the famous French sceptic. He regards this masterwork as 'the Drama of the Doubter;' as 'the apotheosis of a practical Christianity.' Hamlet, he says, is wanting in Christian piety. He has no faith, no love, no hope. His last words, 'The rest is silence,' show that he has no expectation of a future life. He must perish because he has given up the belief in a divine government of the world and in a moral order of things.
We believe we have read the Essays of Michel Montaigne with great attention. We not only do not regard him as a 'sceptic' in the sense meant by Mr. Stedefeld, but we hold him, as well as Hamlet, to be an adherent of the so-called 'practical Christianity' —at least, of what both Montaigne and Hamlet reckon to be such. This 'practical Christianity,' however, is a notion somewhat difficult to define.
We now proceed to an inquiry into the 'controversy between Jonson and Dekker,' which has been repeatedly mentioned before.
Shakspere, we shall find, was implicated in it in a very large degree. Instead of indicating, however, that controversy by the designation under which it is known in literature, it would be more correct to put SHAKSPERE'S name in the place of that of Dekker. Many a reader who perhaps does not fully trust yet our bold assertion that Hamlet is a counterfeit of Montaigne's individuality, will now, we hope, be convinced by vouchers drawn from dramas published in 1604 and 1605, and which are in the closest connection with that controversy. We intend partly making a thorough examination of, partly consulting in a cursory manner, the following pieces:—
1. 'Poetaster' (1601), by Ben Jonson. 2. 'Satiromastix' (1602), by Thomas Dekker. 3. 'Malcontent' (1604), by John Marston. 4. 'Volpone' (1605), by Ben Jonson. 5. 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), by Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston.
In 'The Poetaster' Ben Jonson makes his chief attack upon Dekker and Shakspere. In 'Satiromastix,' Dekker defends himself against that attack. In doing so, he sides with Shakspere; and we thereby gain an insight into the noble conduct of the latter. Between Jonson and Shakspere there had already been dramatic skirmishes during several years before the appearance of 'The Poetaster.' We shall only be able to touch rapidly upon their meaning, considering that we confine ourselves, in the main, to a statement of that which concerns 'Hamlet.'
After Jonson, in his 'Poetaster,' had exceeded all bounds of decent behaviour with most intolerable arrogance, Shakspere seems to have become weary of these malicious personal onslaughts; all the more so because they were apparently put into the mouth of innocent children. So he wrote his 'Hamlet,' showing up, therein, the loose and perplexing ideas of his chief antagonist, who belonged to the party of Florio-Montaigne.
Hamlet, as we shall prove beyond the possibility of cavil, is the hitherto unexplained 'purge' in 'The Return from Parnassus,' which 'our fellow Shakspere' administered to Ben Jonson in return for the 'pill' destined for himself in 'The Poetaster.' After the publication of 'Hamlet,' Jonson wrote his 'Volpone' as a counterblast to this drama. Now 'Volpone,' and the Preface in which the author dedicates it to the two Universities, furnish us with the evidence that our theory must be a fact; for Jonson therein defended both the party of Florio-Montaigne and himself.
Moreover, we shall adduce a series of proofs from 'The Malcontent' and from 'Eastward Hoe.'
A drama, written by an unknown author, and printed in 1606, offers us a valuable material wherewith to make it clear that, at that time, a very bitter feud must have raged between Jonson and Shakspere; for it is scarcely to be believed that it would have been brought on the stage had a larger public not been deeply interested in the controversy. 'The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony,' [1] is the title of the play, mentioned several times before, in which this controversy is referred to in clear words. Philomusus and Studioso, two poor scholars who in vain had sought to pursue their calling as medical men, resolve upon going to the more profitable stage. They are to be prepared for it by two of the most famous actors from the Globe Theatre (Shakspere's company), Burbage and Kemp. Whilst these are waiting for their new pupils, [2] they converse about the capabilities of the students for the histrionic art. Kemp, in words which show that the author must have had great knowledge of the stage, condemns their ways and manners, mocking the silly kind of acting which he had once seen in a performance of the students at Cambridge. Burbage thinks they might amend their faults in course of time, and that, at least, advantage could be taken of them in so far as to make them write a part now and then; which certainly they could do. To this Kemp replies:—
'Few of the University pen plaies well; they smell too much of that writerOvidand that writerMetamorphosis, and talk too much ofProserpinaandJupiter. Why, here's our fellowShakespeareputs them all down—I, andBen Jonsontoo. O thatBen Jonsonis a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill; [3] but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him spurge that made him bewray his credit.'
Burbage answers:—'It's a shrewd fellow indeed.'
For the better understanding of this most interesting controversy, the centre of which Hamlet forms, it is necessary that we should give a characteristic of Shakspere's adversary, Ben Jonson, whose individuality and mode of action are too little known among the general reading public.
Ben Jonson, born in 1573, in the neighbourhood of Westminster, was the posthumous child of a Scot who had occupied a modest position at the Court of Henry VIII., but who, under Queen Mary, had to suffer long imprisonment, probably on account of his religious opinions. His estates were confiscated by the Crown. After having obtained his liberation, he became a priest of the Reformed Church of England. Two years after his death, his widow, the mother of Ben, again married: this time her husband was a master bricklayer. The education of the boy from the first marriage, who at an early age showed talent for learning, was not neglected. It is assumed that friends of his father, seeing Ben's ability, rendered it possible for him to enter Westminster School, and afterwards to study at the University of Cambridge. In his seventeenth or eighteenth year, probably from a want of means, he had to give up the career of learning, in order to follow the simple calling of his stepfather. It may be easily understood that Ben was little pleased with the use of the trowel; he fled to the Netherlands, became a soldier, and took part in a campaign. After a year, the youthful adventurer, then only nineteen years old, came back to London. He talks of a heroic deed; but the truthfulness of his account may well be doubted. He pretends having killed an enemy, in the face of both camps, and come back to the ranks, laden with his spoils.
After his return to London, Jonson first tried to earn his livelihood as an actor. His figure [4] and his scorbutic face were, however, sad hindrances to his success. Soon he gave up the histrionic attempts and began to write additions to existing plays, at the order of a theatrical speculator, of the name of Philip Henslowe. The only further detail we have of Jonson's doings, down to 1598, [5] is, that he fell out with one of his colleagues, an actor (Jonson's quarrelsome disposition as regards his comrades commenced very early), and that finally he killed his antagonist. We then find him in prison where a Catholic priest induced him to become a convert to the Roman Church which, after the lapse of about twelve years, he again left, returning to the Established Protestant Church of England. Jonson himself afterwards said once that 'he was for any religion, as being versed in both.' [6] It is, therefore, not to be assumed that he once more changed from conviction. His reconversion appears rather to have been a prudential act on his part, in order to conform to the religious views of the pedantic James I., and thus to obtain access at Court, which aim he indeed afterwards reached; whereas he had not been able to obtain that favour under Elizabeth. [7]
It is not known by what, or by whom, Ben Jonson was saved from the near prospect of the gallows. In 1598 his name is mentioned as one of the better-known writers of comedies, by Francis Meres, in his 'Palladis Tamia.' His first successful comedy was, 'Every Man in his Humour.' Fama says that the manuscript which the author had sent in to the Lord Chamberlain's Company, was on the point of being rejected when Shakspere requested to have the play given to him, read it, and caused its being acted on the stage. This anecdote belongs, however, to the class of traditional tales of that age, whose value for fixing facts is a most doubtful one. It is more certain that Ben, at the age of twenty, took a wife; which contributed very little to the lessening of his chronic poverty with which he constantly had to struggle. It does not appear that the union was a very happy one; for he relates that he once left his wife for five years.
A diary written by an unknown barrister informs us, February 12, 1602: 'Ben Jonson, the poet, nowe lives upon one Townesend and scornes the world.' [8] In the society of gallants and lords, the young poet felt himself most at home. All kinds of mendicant epistles, sonnets, dedications, petitions, and so forth, which he addressed to high personages, and which have been preserved, convince us that Jonson neglected nothing that could give an opportunity to the generosity of liberal noblemen to prove themselves patrons of art in regard to him. He boasts on the stage of being more in the enjoyment of the favour of the great ones than any of his literary contemporaries. [9] Modesty was certainly not a mitigating trait in the character of hot-tempered Jonson, whose wrath was easily roused.
Convinced of the power of his own genius, he most eagerly wanted to see the value of his work acknowledged. Not satisfied with the slow judgment his contemporaries might come to, or the niggardly reward they might confer; nor content with the prospects of a laurel wreath which grateful Posterity lays on the marble heads of departed eminent men, this pretentious disciple of the Muse importunately claimed his full recompense during his own life. For the applause of the great mass, the dramatist, after all, has to contend. Jonson strove hard for it; but in vain. A more towering genius was the favourite of the age. Ben, however, laid the flattering unction to his soul that he was above Shakspere, [10] even as above all other contemporary authors; and he left nothing unattempted to gain the favour of the great public. All his endeavours remained fruitless. On every occasion he freely displays the rancour he felt at his ill-success; for he certainly was not master of his temper. In poems, epistles, and epigrams, as well as in his dramas, and in the dedications, prologues, and epilogues attached thereto, he shows his anger against the 'so-called stage poets.' We shall prove that his fullest indignation is mainly directed against one—the very greatest: need we name him?
Jonson, resolved upon making the most of his Muse in a remunerative sense, well knew how to obtain the patronage of the highest persons of the country; and his ambition seems to have found satisfaction when, afterwards, a call was made upon him, on the part of the Court, to compose 'Masques' for Twelfth-Night and similar extraordinary occasions. He produced a theatrical piece in consonance with the barbaric taste prevailing in Whitehall, which gave plenty to do to the machinists, the decorators, and the play-dresser of the stage. With such a division of labour in the domain of art, it is not easy, to-day, to decide to whom the greater merit belongs, among those concerned, of having afforded entertainment to the courtiers. Dramatic or poetical value is wanting in those productions of Jonson.
From his poems, as well as from the 'Conversations with Drummond,' we know that among the patronesses of Jonson there were Lucie Countess of Bedford and Elizabeth Countess of Rutland—two ladies to whom Florio dedicated a translation of Montaigne. Lady Rutland's marriage was a most unhappy one. In the literary intercourse with prominent men of her time she appears to have sought consolation and distraction.
Jonson's relations with this lady must have been rather friendly ones, for 'Ben one day being at table with my Lady Rutland, her husband coming in, accused her that she keept table to poets, of which she wrott a letter to him (Jonson), which he answered. My lord intercepted the letter, but never chalenged him.' [11]
From the same source which makes this statement we take the following trait in Jonson's character, which is as little calculated as his passionate quarrelsomeness to endear him to us. Sir Thomas Overbury had become enamoured of unhappy Lady Rutland. Jonson was asked by this nobleman, who at the same time was a poet, to read to the adored one a lyrical effusion of his; evidently for the purpose of fomenting her inclinations towards the friend who was languishing for her. Ben Jonson relates that he fulfilled Overbury's wish 'with excellent grace,' at the same time praising the author. Next morning he fell out with Overbury, who would have him to make an unlawful proposal to Lady Rutland.
But how, we may ask, was it possible that Jonson's noble friend could at all think of trying to use him as a go-between in this shameful manner? Are we not reminded here of the position of thirsty Toby Belch towards the simple Aguecheek, if not even of honest [12] Iago in his dealings with the liberal Rodrigo? Neither in Olivia's uncle, nor in Othello's Ancient is it reckoned a merit to have omitted doing pimp service to friends. Their policy of taking advantage of amorous inclinations, although they did not even try to promote them by the reading of poetical productions, remains not the less contemptible.