There is enough for the excitement of an uninstructed audience: the contest between the houses; Mercutio killed; Tybalt killed; the apparent death of Juliet; Paris killed in the churchyard; Romeo swallowing poison; Juliet stabbing herself. The marvel is, that the surpassing power of the poet should make us forget that 'Romeo and Juliet' can present such an aspect. All the changes which we know Shakspere made in 'Hamlet,' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' were to work out the peculiar theory of his mature judgment— that the terrible should be held, as it were, in solution by the beautiful, so as to produce a tragic consistent with pleasurable emotion. Herein he goes far beyond Webster. His art is a higher art. CHAPTER II. PERICLES. THE external testimony that Shakspere was the author of 'Pericles' would appear to rest upon strong evidence; it was published with Shakspere's name as the author during his lifetime. But this evidence is not decisive. In 1600 was printed 'The first part of the true and honourable history of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, &c. Written by William Shakespeare ;'* and we should be entitled to receive that representation of the writer of 'Sir John Oldcastle' as good evidence of the authorship, were we not in possession of a fact which entirely outweighs the bookseller's insertion of a popular name in his title-page. In the manuscript diary of Philip Henslowe, preserved at Dulwich College, is the following entry :-"This 16 of October, 99, Receved by me, Thomas Downton, of Phillip Henslow, to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton, and Mr. Wilson and Hathway, for the first pte of the Lyfe of Sr Jhon Ouldcasstell, and in earnest of the Second Pte, for the use of the compayny, ten pownd, I say receved 10 li."+ The title-page of 'Pericles,' in 1609, might have been as fraudulent as that of 'Sir John Oldcastle' in 1600. The play of 'Pericles,' as we learn by the original title-page, was "sundry times acted by his Majesty's servants at the Globe." The proprietary interest in the play for the purposes of the stage (whoever wrote it) no "Some of the copies have not Shakespeare's name on the title." COLLIER. 'Diary of Philip Henslowe;' edited by J. Payne Collier. doubt remained in 1623 with the proprietors of the Globe Theatre-Shakspere's fellowshareholders. Of the popularity of 'Pericles' there can be no doubt. It was printed three times separately before the publication of the folio of 1623; and it would have been to the interest of the proprietors of that edition to have included it amongst Shakspere's works. Did they reject it because they could not conscientiously affirm it to be written by him, or were they unable to make terms with those who had the right of publication? It is a most important circumstance, with reference to the authenticity of 'Titus Andronicus,' that Meres, in 1599, ascribed that play to Shakspere. We have no such testimony in the case of 'Pericles; but the tradition which assigns it to Shakspere is pretty constant. Malone has quoted a passage from 'The Times displayed, in Six Sestiads,' a poem published in 1646, and dedicated by S. Shephard to Philip, Earl of Pembroke :— "See him, whose tragic scenes Euripides Crew,' 1652, speaks slightingly of Shakspere, and of this particular drama :— "But Shakespeare, the plebeian driller, was Founder'd in his Pericles, and must not pass." Dryden, in his prologue to Charles Davenant's 'Circe,' in 1675, has these lines: “Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight, Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces, write; But hopp'd about, and short excursions made From bough to bough, as if they were afraid, And each was guilty of some slighted maid. Shakspeare's own Muse his Pericles first bore; The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor. "T is miracle to see a first good play: All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmasday." The mention of Shakspere as the author of 'Pericles' in the poems printed in 1646 and 1652 may in some respect be called traditionary; for the play was not printed after 1635, till it appeared in the folio of 1664. Dryden, most probably, read the play in that folio edition. Mr. Collier says, "I do not at all rely upon Dryden's evidence farther than to establish the belief as to the authorship entertained by persons engaged in theatrical affairs after the Restoration." But is such evidence wholly to be despised? and must the belief be necessarily dated "after the Restoration?" Dryden was himself forty-four years of age when he wrote "Shakspeare's own Muse," &c. He had been a writer for the stage twelve years. He was the friend of Davenant, who wrote for the stage in 1626. Of the original actors in Shakspere's plays Dryden himself might have known, when he was a young man, John Lowin, who kept the Three Pigeons Inn at Brentford, and died very old, a little before the Restoration; and Joseph Taylor, who died in 1653, although, according to the tradition of the stage, he was old enough to have played Hamlet under Shakspere's immediate instruction; and Richard Robinson, who served in the army of Charles I., and has an historical importance through having been shot to death by Harrison, after he had laid down his arms, with this exclamation from the stern republican, "Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently." It is impossible to doubt then that Dryden was a competent reporter of the traditions of the stage, and not necessarily of the traditions that survived after the Restoration. We can picture the young poet, naturally anxious to approach as closely to Shakspere as possible, taking a cheerful cup with poor Lowin in his humble inn, and listening to the old man's recital of the recollections of his youth amidst those scenes from which he was banished by the violence of civil war and the fury of puritanical intolerance. We accept, then, Dryden's assertion with little doubt; and we approach to the examination of the internal evidence of the authenticity of 'Pericles' with the conviction that, if it be the work of Shakspere, the foundations of it were laid when his art was imperfect, and he laboured somewhat in subjection to the influence of those ruder models for which he eventually substituted his own splendid examples of dramatic excellence. There is a very striking passage in Sidney's 'Defence of Poesy,' which may be taken pretty accurately to describe the infancy of the dramatic art in England, being written some four or five years before we can trace any connection of Shakspere with the stage. The passage is long, but it is deserving of attentive consideration: "But they will say, how then shall we set forth a story which contains both many places and many times? And do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of Poesy, and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As for example, I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calecut: but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner the ancients took by some Nuntius, to recount things done in former time, or other place. “Lastly, if they will represent an History, they must not (as Horace saith) begin above, but they must come to the principal point | bited in detail. There was a book no doubt of that one action which they will represent. familiar to that young poet; it was the 'ConBy example this will be best expressed. I fessio Amantis, the Confessyon of the Louer,' have a story of young Polydorus, delivered, of John Gower, printed by Caxton in 1493, for safety's sake, with great riches, by his fa- and by Berthelet in 1532 and 1554. That ther Priamus, to Polymnestor, king of Thrace, the book was popular, the fact of the publiin the Trojan war time. He, after some years, cation of three editions in little more than hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to half a century will sufficiently manifest. make the treasure his own, murthereth the That it was a book to be devoured by a child; the body of the child is taken up; youth of poetical aspirations, who can doubt? Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight That a Chaucer and a Gower were accessible to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. to a young man educated at the grammarWhere, now, would one of our tragedy-writers school at Stratford, we may readily believe. begin, but with the delivery of the child? That was not a day of rare copies; the bounThen should he sail over into Thrace, and tiful press of the early English printers was to spend I know not how many years, and for the people, and the people eagerly detravel numbers of places. But where doth voured the intellectual food which that press Euripides? Even with the finding of the bestowed upon them. 'Appollinus, The Prince body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Tyr,' is one of the most sustained, and, perof Polydorus. This needs no farther to be haps, altogether one of the most interesting, enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it." of the old narratives which Gower introduced into the poetical form. What did it matter to the young and enthusiastic reader that there were Latin manuscripts of this story as early as the tenth century; that there is an Anglo-Saxon version of it; that it forms one of the most elaborate stories of the 'Gesta Romanorum?' What does all this matter even to us, with regard to the play before us? Mr. Collier says, "The immediate source to which Shakespeare resorted was probably Laurence Twine's version of the novel of 'Appollonius, King of Tyre,' which first came out in 1576, and was afterwards several times reprinted. I have before me an edition without date, 'Imprinted at London by Valentine Simmes for the widow Newman,' which very, likely was that used by our great dramatist.” * Mr. Collier has reprinted this story of Laurence Twine with the title- Appollonius, Prince of Tyre: upon which Shakespeare founded Pericles.' We cannot understand this. We have looked in vain throughout this story to find a single incident in 'Pericles,' suggested by Twine's relation, which might not have been equally suggested by Gower's poem. We will not weary our readers, therefore, with any extracts from this narrative. That the author of 'Pericles' had Gower in his thoughts, and, what is more important, that he felt that Between this notion which Sidney had formed of the propriety of a tragedy which should understand "the difference betwixt reporting and representing," there was a long space to be travelled over, before we should arrive at a tragedy which should make the whole action manifest, and keep the interest alive from the first line to the last without any "reporting" at all. When 'Hamlet' and 'Othello' and 'Lear' were perfected, this culminating point of the dramatic art had been reached. But it is evident that Sidney described a state of things in which even the very inartificial expedient of uniting description with representation had not been thoroughly understood, or at least had not been generally practised. The "tragedywriters begin with the delivery of the young Polydorus, and travel on with him from place to place, till his final murder. At this point Euripides begins the story, leaving something to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. It is not difficult to conceive a young dramatic poet looking to something beyond the "tragedy-writers" of his own day, and, upon taking up a popular story, inventing a machinery for "reporting," which should emulate the ingenious device of Euripides in making the ghost of Polydorus briefly tell the history which a ruder stage would have exhi *Farther Particulars,' p. 35. his audience were familiar with Gower, is, we think, sufficiently apparent. Upon what other principle can Gower perpetually take up the dropped threads of the action? Upon what other principle are the verses spoken by Gower, amounting to several hundred lines, formed upon a careful imitation of his style; so as to present to an audience at the latter end of the sixteenth century some notion of a poet about two centuries older? It is perfectly evident to us that Gower, and Gower only, was in the thoughts of the author of 'Pericles.' We call the play before us by the name of 'PERICLES,' because it was so called in the first rudely printed copies, and because the contemporaries of the writer, following the printed copies, so called it in their printed books. But Malone has given us an epigram of Richard Flecknoe, 1670, 'On the Play of the Life of PYROCLES.' There can be little doubt, we think, as Steevens has very justly argued, that Pyrocles was the name of the hero of this play. For who was Pyrocles? The hero of Sidney's 'Arcadia.' Steevens "It is remarkable that many of our says, ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit Sidney's worthies on the stage; and, when his subordinate agents were advanced to such honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, their leader, should be overlooked?" To a young poet, who, probably, had access to the ‘Arcadia,' in manuscript, before its publication in 1590, the name of Pyrocles would naturally present itself as worthy to succeed the somewhat unmanageable Appollinus of Gower; and that name would recommend itself to an audience who, if they were of the privileged circles, such as the actors of the Blackfriars often addressed, were familiar with the 'Arcadia' before its publication. After 1590 the 'Arcadia' was the most popular work of the age. It will be seen, then, that we advocate the belief that 'Pyrocles,' or 'Pericles,' was a very early work of Shakspere, in some form, however different from that which we possess. That it was an early work, we are constrained to believe; not from the evidence of particular passages, which be deficient in power, or may devoid of refinement, but from the entire con struction of the dramatic action. The play is essentially one of movement, which is a great requisite for dramatic success; but that movement is not held in subjection to a unity of idea. The writer, in constructing the plot, had not arrived to a perfect conception of the principle "That a tragedy is tied to the laws of Poesy, and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience." But with this essential disadvantage we cannot doubt that, even with very imperfect dialogue, the action presented a succession of scenes of very absorbing interest. The introduction of Gower, however inartificial it may seem, was the result of very profound skill. The presence of Gower supplied the unity of idea which the desultory nature of the story wanted; and thus it is that, in "the true history" formed upon the play which Mr. Collier has analysed, the unity of idea is kept in the expression of the title-page, as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient poet, John Gower." Nevertheless, such a story we believe could not have been chosen by Shakspere in the seventeenth century, when his art was fully developed in all its wondrous powers and combinations. With his perfect mastery of the faculty of representing, instead of recording, the treatment of a story which would have required perpetual explanation and connection would have been painful to him, if not impossible. 66 Dr. Drake has bestowed very considerable attention upon the endeavour to prove that 'Pericles' ought to be received as the indisputable work of Shakspere. Yet his arguments, after all, amount only to the establishment of the following theory: -- "No play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand of Shakspeare than 'Pericles,' and fortunately his share in its composition appears to have been very considerable: he may be distinctly, though not frequently, traced in the first and second acts; after which, feeling the incompetency of his fellow-labourer, he seems to have assumed almost the entire management of the remainder, nearly the whole of the third, fourth, and fifth acts bearing in written? By no means. We agree with Mr. Hallam that in parts the language seems rather that of Shakspere's "second or third manner than of his first." But this belief is not inconsistent with the opinion that the original structure was Shakspere's. No other poet that existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century-perhaps no poet that came after that period, whether Massinger, or Fletcher, or Webster-could have written the greater part of the fifth act. Coarse as the comic scenes are, there are touches in them unlike any other writer but Shakspere. Horn, with the eye of a real critic, has pointed out the deep poetical profundity of one apparently slight passage in these unpleasant scenes :— disputable testimony to the genius and exe- | presented in the form in which it was first cution of the great master.”* This theory of companionship in the production of the play is merely a repetition of the theory of Steevens: "The purpurei panni are Shakspeare's, and the rest the productions of some inglorious and forgotten play-wright." We have no faith whatever in this very easy mode of disposing of the authorship of a doubtful play-of leaving entirely out of view the most important part of every drama, its action, its characterization, looking at the whole merely as a collection of passages, of which the worst are to be assigned to some âme damnée, and the best triumphantly claimed for Shakspere. There are some, however, who judge of such matters upon broader principles. Mr. Hallam says, "Pericles is generally reckoned to be in part, and only in part, the work of Shakspeare. From the poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of any effective or distinguishable character (for Marina is no more than the common form of female virtue, such as all the dramatists of that age could draw), and a general feebleness of the tragedy as a whole, I should not believe the structure to have been Shakspeare's. But many passages are far more in his manner than in that of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted."+ Here "the poverty and bad management of the fable" "the want of any effective or distinguishable character," are assigned for the belief that the structure could not have been Shakspere's. But let us accept Dryden's opinion, that 66 Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore," with reference to the original structure of the play, and the difficulty vanishes. It was impossible that the character of the early drama should not have been impressed upon Shakspere's earliest efforts. Sidney has given us a most distinct description of that drama; and we can thus understand how the author of 'Pericles' improved upon what he found. Do we therefore think that the drama, as it has come down to us, is *Shakspeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 268. History of Literature,' vol. iii. p. 569. "Mar. Are you a woman? Bawd. What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? Mar. An honest woman, or not a woman." Touches such as these are not put into the work of other men. Who but Shakspere could have written "The blind mole casts Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell, the earth is throng'd By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for 't." And yet this passage comes naturally enough in a speech of no very high excellence. The purpurei panni must be fitted to a body, as well for use as for adornment. We think that Shakspere would not have taken the trouble to produce these costly robes for the decoration of what another had essentially created. We are willing to believe that, even in the very height of his fame, he would have bestowed any amount of labour for the improvement of an early production of his own, if the taste of his audiences had from time to time demanded its continuance upon the stage. It is for this reason that we think that 'Pericles,' which appears to have been in some respects a new play at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was the revival of a play written by Shakspere some twenty years earlier. |