Books and Characters, French & English Part 2

This is Browne in his most exquisite mood. For his most characteristic, one must go to the concluding pages of _Urn Burial_, where, from the astonis.h.i.+ng sentence beginning--'Meanwhile Epicurus lies deep in Dante's h.e.l.l'--to the end of the book, the very quintessence of his work is to be found. The subject--mortality in its most generalised aspect--has brought out Browne's highest powers; and all the resources of his art--elaboration of rhythm, brilliance of phrase, wealth and variety of suggestion, pomp and splendour of imagination--are acc.u.mulated in every paragraph. To crown all, he has scattered through these few pages a mult.i.tude of proper names, most of them gorgeous in sound, and each of them carrying its own strange freight of reminiscences and allusions from the unknown depths of the past. As one reads, an extraordinary procession of persons seems to pa.s.s before one's eyes--Moses, Archimedes, Achilles, Job, Hector and Charles the Fifth, Cardan and Alaric, Gordia.n.u.s, and Pilate, and Homer, and Cambyses, and the Canaanitish woman. Among them, one visionary figure flits with a mysterious pre-eminence, flickering over every page, like a familiar and ghostly flame. It is Methuselah; and, in Browne's scheme, the remote, almost infinite, and almost ridiculous patriarch is--who can doubt?--the only possible centre and symbol of all the rest. But it would be vain to dwell further upon this wonderful and famous chapter, except to note the extraordinary sublimity and serenity of its general tone. Browne never states in so many words what his own feelings towards the universe actually are. He speaks of everything but that; and yet, with triumphant art, he manages to convey into our minds an indelible impression of the vast and comprehensive grandeur of his soul.

It is interesting--or at least amusing--to consider what are the most appropriate places in which different authors should be read. Pope is doubtless at his best in the midst of a formal garden, Herrick in an orchard, and Sh.e.l.ley in a boat at sea. Sir Thomas Browne demands, perhaps, a more exotic atmosphere. One could read him floating down the Euphrates, or past the sh.o.r.es of Arabia; and it would be pleasant to open the _Vulgar Errors_ in Constantinople, or to get by heart a chapter of the _Christian Morals_ between the paws of a Sphinx. In England, the most fitting background for his strange ornament must surely be some habitation consecrated to learning, some University which still smells of antiquity and has learnt the habit of repose. The present writer, at any rate, can bear witness to the splendid echo of Browne's syllables amid learned and ancient walls; for he has known, he believes, few happier moments than those in which he has rolled the periods of the _Hydriotaphia_ out to the darkness and the nightingales through the studious cloisters of Trinity.

But, after all, who can doubt that it is at Oxford that Browne himself would choose to linger? May we not guess that he breathed in there, in his boyhood, some part of that mysterious and charming spirit which pervades his words? For one traces something of him, often enough, in the old gardens, and down the hidden streets; one has heard his footstep beside the quiet waters of Magdalen; and his smile still hovers amid that strange company of faces which guard, with such a large pa.s.sivity, the circ.u.mference of the Sheldonian.

1906.

SHAKESPEARE'S FINAL PERIOD

The whole of the modern criticism of Shakespeare has been fundamentally affected by one important fact. The chronological order of the plays, for so long the object of the vaguest speculation, of random guesses, or at best of isolated 'points,' has been now discovered and reduced to a coherent law. It is no longer possible to suppose that _The Tempest_ was written before _Romeo and 'Juliet_; that _Henry VI._ was produced in succession to _Henry V._; or that _Antony and Cleopatra_ followed close upon the heels of _Julius Caesar_. Such theories were sent to limbo for ever, when a study of those plays of whose date we have external evidence revealed the fact that, as Shakespeare's life advanced, a corresponding development took place in the metrical structure of his verse. The establishment of metrical tests, by which the approximate position and date of any play can be readily ascertained, at once followed; chaos gave way to order; and, for the first time, critics became able to judge, not only of the individual works, but of the whole succession of the works of Shakespeare.

Upon this firm foundation modern writers have been only too eager to build. It was apparent that the Plays, arranged in chronological order, showed something more than a mere development in the technique of verse--a development, that is to say, in the general treatment of characters and subjects, and in the sort of feelings which those characters and subjects were intended to arouse; and from this it was easy to draw conclusions as to the development of the mind of Shakespeare itself. Such conclusions have, in fact, been constantly drawn. But it must be noted that they all rest upon the tacit a.s.sumption, that the character of any given drama is, in fact, a true index to the state of mind of the dramatist composing it. The validity of this a.s.sumption has never been proved; it has never been shown, for instance, why we should suppose a writer of farces to be habitually merry; or whether we are really justified in concluding, from the fact that Shakespeare wrote nothing but tragedies for six years, that, during that period, more than at any other, he was deeply absorbed in the awful problems of human existence. It is not, however, the purpose of this essay to consider the question of what are the relations between the artist and his art; for it will a.s.sume the truth of the generally accepted view, that the character of the one can be inferred from that of the other. What it will attempt to discuss is whether, upon this hypothesis, the most important part of the ordinary doctrine of Shakespeare's mental development is justifiable.

What, then, is the ordinary doctrine? Dr. Furnivall states it as follows:

Shakespeare's course is thus shown to have run from the amorousness and fun of youth, through the strong patriotism of early manhood, to the wrestlings with the dark problems that beset the man of middle age, to the gloom which weighed on Shakespeare (as on so many men) in later life, when, though outwardly successful, the world seemed all against him, and his mind dwelt with sympathy on scenes of faithlessness of friends, treachery of relations and subjects, ingrat.i.tude of children, scorn of his kind; till at last, in his Stratford home again, peace came to him, Miranda and Perdita in their lovely freshness and charm greeted him, and he was laid by his quiet Avon side.

And the same writer goes on to quote with approval Professor Dowden's

likening of Shakespeare to a s.h.i.+p, beaten and storm-tossed, but yet entering harbour with sails full-set, to anchor in peace.

Such, in fact, is the general opinion of modern writers upon Shakespeare; after a happy youth and a gloomy middle age he reached at last--it is the universal opinion--a state of quiet serenity in which he died. Professor Dowden's book on 'Shakespeare's Mind and Art' gives the most popular expression to this view, a view which is also held by Mr.

Ten Brink, by Sir I. Gollancz, and, to a great extent, by Dr. Brandes.

Professor Dowden, indeed, has gone so far as to label this final period with the appellation of 'On the Heights,' in opposition to the preceding one, which, he says, was pa.s.sed 'In the Depths.' Sir Sidney Lee, too, seems to find, in the Plays at least, if not in Shakespeare's mind, the orthodox succession of gaiety, of tragedy, and of the serenity of meditative romance.

Now it is clear that the most important part of this version of Shakespeare's mental history is the end of it. That he did eventually attain to a state of calm content, that he did, in fact, die happy--it is this that gives colour and interest to the whole theory. For some reason or another, the end of a man's life seems naturally to afford the light by which the rest of it should be read; last thoughts do appear in some strange way to be really best and truest; and this is particularly the case when they fit in nicely with the rest of the story, and are, perhaps, just what one likes to think oneself. If it be true that Shakespeare, to quote Professor Dowden, 'did at last attain to the serene self-possession which he had sought with such persistent effort'; that, in the words of Dr. Furnivall, 'forgiven and forgiving, full of the highest wisdom and peace, at one with family and friends and foes, in harmony with Avon's flow and Stratford's level meads, Shakespeare closed his life on earth'--we have obtained a piece of knowledge which is both interesting and pleasant. But if it be not true, if, on the contrary, it can be shown that something very different was actually the case, then will it not follow that we must not only reverse our judgment as to this particular point, but also readjust our view of the whole drift and bearing of Shakespeare's 'inner life'?

The group of works which has given rise to this theory of ultimate serenity was probably entirely composed after Shakespeare's final retirement from London, and his establishment at New Place. It consists of three plays--_Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_--and three fragments--the Shakespearean parts of _Pericles, Henry VIII._, and _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_. All these plays and portions of plays form a distinct group; they resemble each other in a mult.i.tude of ways, and they differ in a mult.i.tude of ways from nearly all Shakespeare's previous work.

One other complete play, however, and one other fragment, do resemble in some degree these works of the final period; for, immediately preceding them in date, they show clear traces of the beginnings of the new method, and they are themselves curiously different from the plays they immediately succeed--that great series of tragedies which began with _Hamlet_ in 1601 and ended in 1608 with _Antony and Cleopatra_. In the latter year, indeed, Shakespeare's entire method underwent an astonis.h.i.+ng change. For six years he had been persistently occupied with a kind of writing which he had himself not only invented but brought to the highest point of excellence--the tragedy of character. Every one of his masterpieces has for its theme the action of tragic situation upon character; and, without those stupendous creations in character, his greatest tragedies would obviously have lost the precise thing that has made them what they are. Yet, after _Antony and Cleopatra_ Shakespeare deliberately turned his back upon the dramatic methods of all his past career. There seems no reason why he should not have continued, year after year, to produce _Oth.e.l.los, Hamlets_, and _Macbeths_; instead, he turned over a new leaf, and wrote _Coriola.n.u.s_.

_Coriola.n.u.s_ is certainly a remarkable, and perhaps an intolerable play: remarkable, because it shows the sudden first appearance of the Shakespeare of the final period; intolerable, because it is impossible to forget how much better it might have been. The subject is thick with situations; the conflicts of patriotism and pride, the effects of sudden disgrace following upon the very height of fortune, the struggles between family affection on the one hand and every interest of revenge and egotism on the other--these would have made a tragic and tremendous setting for some character worthy to rank with Shakespeare's best. But it pleased him to ignore completely all these opportunities; and, in the play he has given us, the situations, mutilated and degraded, serve merely as miserable props for the gorgeous clothing of his rhetoric. For rhetoric, enormously magnificent and extraordinarily elaborate, is the beginning and the middle and the end of _Coriola.n.u.s_. The hero is not a human being at all; he is the statue of a demi-G.o.d cast in bronze, which roars its perfect periods, to use a phrase of Sir Walter Raleigh's, through a melodious megaphone. The vigour of the presentment is, it is true, amazing; but it is a presentment of decoration, not of life. So far and so quickly had Shakespeare already wandered from the subtleties of _Cleopatra_. The transformation is indeed astonis.h.i.+ng; one wonders, as one beholds it, what will happen next.

At about the same time, some of the scenes in _Timon of Athens_ were in all probability composed: scenes which resemble _Coriola.n.u.s_ in their lack of characterisation and abundance of rhetoric, but differ from it in the peculiar grossness of their tone. For sheer virulence of foul-mouthed abuse, some of the speeches in Timon are probably unsurpa.s.sed in any literature; an outraged drayman would speak so, if draymen were in the habit of talking poetry. From this whirlwind of furious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, this splendid storm of nastiness, Shakespeare, we are confidently told, pa.s.sed in a moment to tranquillity and joy, to blue skies, to young ladies, and to general forgiveness.

From 1604 to 1610 [says Professor Dowden] a show of tragic figures, like the kings who pa.s.sed before Macbeth, filled the vision of Shakespeare; until at last the desperate image of Timon rose before him; when, as though unable to endure or to conceive a more lamentable ruin of man, he turned for relief to the pastoral loves of Prince Florizel and Perdita; and as soon as the tone of his mind was restored, gave expression to its ultimate mood of grave serenity in _The Tempest_, and so ended.

This is a pretty picture, but is it true? It may, indeed, be admitted at once that Prince Florizel and Perdita are charming creatures, that Prospero is 'grave,' and that Hermione is more or less 'serene'; but why is it that, in our consideration of the later plays, the whole of our attention must always be fixed upon these particular characters? Modern critics, in their eagerness to appraise everything that is beautiful and good at its proper value, seem to have entirely forgotten that there is another side to the medal; and they have omitted to point out that these plays contain a series of portraits of peculiar infamy, whose wickedness finds expression in language of extraordinary force. Coming fresh from their pages to the pages of _Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_, one is astonished and perplexed. How is it possible to fit into their scheme of roses and maidens that 'Italian fiend' the 'yellow Iachimo,' or Cloten, that 'thing too bad for bad report,' or the 'crafty devil,' his mother, or Leontes, or Caliban, or Trinculo? To omit these figures of discord and evil from our consideration, to banish them comfortably to the background of the stage, while Autolycus and Miranda dance before the footlights, is surely a fallacy in proportion; for the presentment of the one group of persons is every whit as distinct and vigorous as that of the other. Nowhere, indeed, is Shakespeare's violence of expression more constantly displayed than in the 'gentle utterances' of his last period; it is here that one finds Paulina, in a torrent of indignation as far from 'grave serenity' as it is from 'pastoral love,' exclaiming to Leontes:

What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?

What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling In leads or oils? what old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny, Together working with thy jealousies, Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine, O! think what they have done, And then run mad indeed, stark mad; for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.

That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant And d.a.m.nable ingrateful; nor was't much Thou would'st have poison'd good Camillo's honour, To have him kill a king; poor trespa.s.ses, More monstrous standing by; whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter To be or none or little; though a devil Would have shed water out of fire ere done't.

Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts, Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemished his gracious dam.

Nowhere are the poet's metaphors more nakedly material; nowhere does he verge more often upon a sort of brutality of phrase, a cruel coa.r.s.eness.

Iachimo tells us how:

The cloyed will, That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub Both filled and running, ravening first the lamb, Longs after for the garbage.

and talks of:

an eye Base and unl.u.s.trous as the smoky light That's fed with stinking tallow.

'The south fog rot him!' Cloten bursts out to Imogen, cursing her husband in an access of hideous rage.

What traces do such pa.s.sages as these show of 'serene self-possession,'

of 'the highest wisdom and peace,' or of 'meditative romance'? English critics, overcome by the idea of Shakespeare's ultimate tranquillity, have generally denied to him the authors.h.i.+p of the brothel scenes in _Pericles_ but these scenes are entirely of a piece with the grossnesses of _The Winter's Tale_ and _Cymbeline_.

Is there no way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers?

says Posthumus when he hears of Imogen's guilt.

We are all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; And that most venerable man, which I Did call my father, was I know not where When I was stamped. Some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seemed The Dian of that time; so doth my wife The nonpareil of this--O vengeance, vengeance!

Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained And prayed me, oft, forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't Might well have warmed old Saturn, that I thought her As chaste as unsunned snow--O, all the devils!-- This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,--was't not?

Or less,--at first: perchance he spoke not; but, Like a full-acorned boar, a German one, Cried, oh! and mounted: found no opposition But what he looked for should oppose, and she Should from encounter guard.

And Leontes, in a similar situation, expresses himself in images no less to the point.

There have been, Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now, And many a man there is, even at this present, Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm, That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't, Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened, As mine, against their will. Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it, From east, west, north and south: be it concluded, No barricade for a belly, know't; It will let in and out the enemy With bag and baggage: many thousand on's Have the disease, and feel't not.

It is really a little difficult, in the face of such pa.s.sages, to agree with Professor Dowden's dictum: 'In these latest plays the beautiful pathetic light is always present.'

But how has it happened that the judgment of so many critics has been so completely led astray? Charm and gravity, and even serenity, are to be found in many other plays of Shakespeare. Ophelia is charming, Brutus is grave, Cordelia is serene; are we then to suppose that _Hamlet_, and _Julius Caesar_, and _King Lear_ give expression to the same mood of high tranquillity which is betrayed by _Cymbeline, The Tempest_, and _The Winter's Tale_? 'Certainly not,' reply the orthodox writers, 'for you must distinguish. The plays of the last period are not tragedies; they all end happily'--'in scenes,' says Sir I. Gollancz, 'of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.' Virtue, in fact, is not only virtuous, it is triumphant; what would you more?

But to this it may be retorted, that, in the case of one of Shakespeare's plays, even the final vision of virtue and beauty triumphant over ugliness and vice fails to dispel a total effect of horror and of gloom. For, in _Measure for Measure_ Isabella is no whit less pure and lovely than any Perdita or Miranda, and her success is as complete; yet who would venture to deny that the atmosphere of _Measure for Measure_ was more nearly one of despair than of serenity? What is it, then, that makes the difference? Why should a happy ending seem in one case futile, and in another satisfactory? Why does it sometimes matter to us a great deal, and sometimes not at all, whether virtue is rewarded or not?

The reason, in this case, is not far to seek. _Measure for Measure_ is, like nearly every play of Shakespeare's before _Coriola.n.u.s_, essentially realistic. The characters are real men and women; and what happens to them upon the stage has all the effect of what happens to real men and women in actual life. Their goodness appears to be real goodness, their wickedness real wickedness; and, if their sufferings are terrible enough, we regret the fact, even though in the end they triumph, just as we regret the real sufferings of our friends. But, in the plays of the final period, all this has changed; we are no longer in the real world, but in a world of enchantment, of mystery, of wonder, a world of s.h.i.+fting visions, a world of hopeless anachronisms, a world in which anything may happen next. The pretences of reality are indeed usually preserved, but only the pretences. Cymbeline is supposed to be the king of a real Britain, and the real Augustus is supposed to demand tribute of him; but these are the reasons which his queen, in solemn audience with the Roman amba.s.sador, urges to induce her husband to declare for war:

Remember, sir, my liege, The Kings your ancestors, together with The natural bravery of your isle, which stands As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters, With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of 'Came, and saw, and overcame'; with shame-- The first that ever touched him--he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his s.h.i.+pping-- Poor ignorant baubles!--on our terrible seas, Like egg-sh.e.l.ls moved upon the surges, crack'd As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof The famed Ca.s.sibelan, who was once at point-- O giglot fortune!--to master Caesar's sword, Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright And Britons strut with courage.

It comes with something of a shock to remember that this medley of poetry, bombast, and myth will eventually reach the ears of no other person than the Octavius of _Antony and Cleopatra_; and the contrast is the more remarkable when one recalls the brilliant scene of negotiation and diplomacy in the latter play, which pa.s.ses between Octavius, Maecenas, and Agrippa on the one side, and Antony and En.o.barbus on the other, and results in the reconciliation of the rivals and the marriage of Antony and Octavia.

Thus strangely remote is the world of Shakespeare's latest period; and it is peopled, this universe of his invention, with beings equally unreal, with creatures either more or less than human, with fortunate princes and wicked step-mothers, with goblins and spirits, with lost princesses and insufferable kings. And of course, in this sort of fairy land, it is an essential condition that everything shall end well; the prince and princess are bound to marry and live happily ever afterwards, or the whole story is unnecessary and absurd; and the villains and the goblins must naturally repent and be forgiven. But it is clear that such happy endings, such conventional closes to fantastic tales, cannot be taken as evidences of serene tranquillity on the part of their maker; they merely show that he knew, as well as anyone else, how such stories ought to end.

Yet there can be no doubt that it is this combination of charming heroines and happy endings which has blinded the eyes of modern critics to everything else. Iachimo, and Leontes, and even Caliban, are to be left out of account, as if, because in the end they repent or are forgiven, words need not be wasted on such reconciled and harmonious fiends. It is true they are grotesque; it is true that such personages never could have lived; but who, one would like to know, has ever met Miranda, or become acquainted with Prince Florizel of Bohemia? In this land of faery, is it right to neglect the goblins? In this world of dreams, are we justified in ignoring the nightmares? Is it fair to say that Shakespeare was in 'a gentle, lofty spirit, a peaceful, tranquil mood,' when he was creating the Queen in _Cymbeline_, or writing the first two acts of _The Winter's Tale_?

Attention has never been sufficiently drawn to one other characteristic of these plays, though it is touched upon both by Professor Dowden and Dr. Brandes--the singular carelessness with which great parts of them were obviously written. Could anything drag more wretchedly than the _denouement_ of _Cymbeline_? And with what perversity is the great pastoral scene in _The Winter's Tale_ interspersed with long-winded intrigues, and disguises, and homilies! For these blemishes are unlike the blemishes which enrich rather than lessen the beauty of the earlier plays; they are not, like them, interesting or delightful in themselves; they are usually merely necessary to explain the action, and they are sometimes purely irrelevant. One is, it cannot be denied, often bored, and occasionally irritated, by Polixenes and Camillo and Sebastian and Gonzalo and Belarius; these personages have not even the life of ghosts; they are hardly more than speaking names, that give patient utterance to involution upon involution. What a contrast to the minor characters of Shakespeare's earlier works!

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that he was getting bored himself. Bored with people, bored with real life, bored with drama, bored, in fact, with everything except poetry and poetical dreams. He is no longer interested, one often feels, in what happens, or who says what, so long as he can find place for a faultless lyric, or a new, unimagined rhythmical effect, or a grand and mystic speech. In this mood he must have written his share in _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, leaving the plot and characters to Fletcher to deal with as he pleased, and reserving to himself only the opportunities for pompous verse. In this mood he must have broken off half-way through the tedious history of _Henry VIII_.; and in this mood he must have completed, with all the resources of his rhetoric, the miserable archaic fragment of _Pericles_.

Is it not thus, then, that we should imagine him in the last years of his life? Half enchanted by visions of beauty and loveliness, and half bored to death; on the one side inspired by a soaring fancy to the singing of ethereal songs, and on the other urged by a general disgust to burst occasionally through his torpor into bitter and violent speech?

If we are to learn anything of his mind from his last works, it is surely this.

And such is the conclusion which is particularly forced upon us by a consideration of the play which is in many ways most typical of Shakespeare's later work, and the one which critics most consistently point to as containing the very essence of his final benignity--_The Tempest_. There can be no doubt that the peculiar characteristics which distinguish _Cymbeline_ and _The Winter's Tale_ from the dramas of Shakespeare's prime, are present here in a still greater degree. In _The Tempest_, unreality has reached its apotheosis. Two of the princ.i.p.al characters are frankly not human beings at all; and the whole action pa.s.ses, through a series of impossible occurrences, in a place which can only by courtesy be said to exist. The Enchanted Island, indeed, peopled, for a timeless moment, by this strange fantastic medley of persons and of things, has been cut adrift for ever from common sense, and floats, buoyed up by a sea, not of waters, but of poetry. Never did Shakespeare's magnificence of diction reach more marvellous heights than in some of the speeches of Prospero, or his lyric art a purer beauty than in the songs of Ariel; nor is it only in these ethereal regions that the triumph of his language a.s.serts itself. It finds as splendid a vent in the curses of Caliban: