The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 48

'Why dost not speak?

Think'st thou it honourable for a n.o.ble man _Still_ to remember wrongs?'

'Let it be _virtuous_ to be _obstinate_,' let there be no better principle of that ident.i.ty which we insist on in men, that firmness which we call manliness, and the cherished _wrong_ is honour.

It is but an interrogative point, but the height of our affirmation is taken with it. It is a figure of speech and _intensifies_ the affirmative with its irony.

'This a consul? No.'

'No more, but e'en a woman, and COMMANDED By such _poor_ pa.s.sion as the maid that milks, And does the meanest chares.' [QUEEN.]

'Give me that _man_ that is not _pa.s.sion's slave_.

Since my dear soul _was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish her election_, She hath seal'd thee for herself: _for_ thou hast been As one, in suffering _all_, that _suffers_ nothing.

But the man who rates so highly 'this single mould of Marcius,' and the wounded name of it, that he will _forge_ another for it 'i' the fire of burning Rome,' who will hurt the world to ease the rankling of his single wrong, who will plough Rome and harrow Italy to cool the fever of his thirst for vengeance; this is not the man, this is not the hero, this is not THE G.o.d, that the scientific review accepts.

Whoso has put him in the chair of state on earth, or in heaven, must 'revoke that ignorant election.' Whatever our 'perfect example in civil life' may be, and we are, perhaps, not likely to get it openly in the form of an historic '_composition_' on this author's stage, whatever name and shape it may take when it comes, this evidently is not it. This Caius Marcius is dismissed for the present from this Poet's boards. This curule chair that stands here empty yet, for aught that we can see, and this crown of 'olives of endless age,' is not for him.

'Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

Against him first.

'We proceed first by negatives, and conclude after every species of rejection.'

On the surface of this play, lies everywhere the question of the Common-Weal, in its relation to the good that is private and particular, scientifically reviewed, as a question in proportion,--as the question of the whole against the part,--of the greater against the less,--nay, as the question of that which is against that which is not. For it is a treatment which throws in pa.s.sing, the shadow of the old metaphysical suspicion and scepticism on that chaotic unaxiomatical condition of things which the scientific eye discovers here, for the new philosophy with all its new comprehension of the actual, with all its new convergency on practice, is careful to inform us that it observes, notwithstanding the old distinction between 'being and becoming.' This is an IDEAL philosophy also, though the notions of nature are more respected in it, than the spontaneous unconsidered notions of men.

It is the largeness of the objective whole, the historic whole and the faculty in man of comprehending it, and the sense of relation and obligation to it, as the highest historic law,--the _formal_, the _essential law_ of _kind_ in him, it is the breadth of reason, it is the circ.u.mference of conscience, it is the _grandeur_ of duty which this author arrays here scientifically against that oblivion and ignoring of the _whole_, that forgetfulness of the world, and the universal tie which the ignorance of the unaided sense and the narrowness of pa.s.sion and private affection create, whether in the one, or the few, or the many. It is the Weal of the whole against the will of the part, no matter where the limit of that partiality, or 'partliness,' as the '_poor_ citizen' calls it, is fixed whether it be the selfishness of the single self, or whether the household tie enlarges its range, whether it be the partiality of cla.s.s or faction, or the partiality of kindred or race, or the partiality of geographic limits, the question of the play, the question of the whole, of the worthier whole, is still pursued with scientific exaction. It is the conflict with axioms which is represented here, and not with wordy axioms only, not with abstractions good for the human mind only, in its abstract self-sustained speculations, but with historical axioms, axioms which the universal nature knows, laws which have had the consent of things since this nature began, laws which pa.s.sed long ago the universal commons.

It is the false unscientific state which is at war, not with abstract speculation merely, but with the nature of things and the received logic of the universe, which this man of a practical science wishes to call attention to. It is the crowning and enthroning of that which is private and particular, it is the anointing of pa.s.sion and instinct, it is the arming of the absolute--the demon--will; it is the putting into the hands of the ignorant part the sceptre of the whole, which strikes the scientific Reviewer as the thing to be noted here. And by way of proceeding by negatives first, he undertakes to convey to others the impression which this state of things makes upon his own mind, as pointedly as may be, consistently with those general intentions which determine his proceedings and the conditions which limit them, and he is by no means timid in availing himself of the capabilities of his story to that end. The true spectacle of the play,--the princ.i.p.al hieroglyphic of it,--the one in which this hieroglyphic criticism approaches the metaphysical intention most nearly, is one that requires interpretation. It does not report itself to the eye at once. The showman stops to tell us before he produces it, that it _is_ a symbol,--that this is one of the places where he 'prays in aid of similes,'--that this is a specimen of what he calls elsewhere 'allusive' writing. The true spectacle of the play,--the grand hieroglyphic of it,--is that view of the city, and the woman in the foreground kneeling _for it_, 'to her _son_, her _corrected_ son,'

begging for pardon of her corrected rebel--hanging for life on the chance of his changeful moods and pa.s.sions. It is _Rome_ that lies stretched out there upon her hills, in all her visible greatness and claims to reverence; it is Rome with her Capitolian crown, forth from which the Roman matron steps, and with no softer cus.h.i.+on than the flint, in the dust at the rebel's feet, kneels '_to show_'--as she tells us--to show as clearly as the conditions of the exhibition allow it to be exhibited, DUTY as mistaken,--'_as_ mistaken,'--_all the while_ between _the child_ and _parent_.

It is Jupiter that stoops; it is Olympus doing obeisance to the mole-hill; it is the divineness of the universal law--the _formal_ law in man--that is prostrate and suppliant in her person; and the Poet exhausts even his own powers of expression, and grows inarticulate at last, in seeking to convey his sense of this ineffable, impossible, historical pretension. It is as 'if Olympus to a mole-hill should _in supplication nod_; it is as if _the pebbles_ on the hungry beach should _fillip the stars_; as if _the mutinous winds_ should strike the proud cedars against the fiery sun, _murdering impossibility_, to make what _can not be_, slight work,'--what can not _be_.

That was the spectacle of the play, and that was the world's spectacle when the play was written. Nay, worse; a thousandfold more wild and pitiful, and confounding to the intellect, and revolting to its sensibilities, was the spectacle that the State offered then to the philosophic eye. The Poet has all understated his great case. He has taken the pattern-man in the private affections, the n.o.ble man of mere instinct and pa.s.sion, and put _him_ in the chair of state;--the man whom nature herself had chosen and anointed, and crowned with kingly graces.

'As waves before a vessel under sail So men obeyed him, and fell below his stern,'

'If he would but incline to the people, there never was a worthier man.'

Not to the natural private affections and instincts, touched with the n.o.bility of human sense,--not to the loyalty of the husband,--not to the filial reverence and duty of the son, true to that private and personal relations.h.i.+p at least; not to the gentleness of the patrician, true to that private patricians.h.i.+p also, must England owe her _weal_--such weal as she could beg and wheedle from her lord and ruler then. Not from the conquering hero with his fresh oakleaf on his brow, and the command of the G.o.d who led him in his speech and action,--and not from his lineal successor merely, must England beg her welfare then. It was not the venerable mother, or the gentle wife, with her dove's eyes able to make G.o.ds of earth forsworn, who could say then, 'The laws of England are at my commandment.'

Crimes that the historic pen can only point to,--not record,--low, illiterate, brutish stupidities, mad-cap folly, and wanton extravagancies and caprices, in their ideal impersonations--_these_ were the G.o.ds that England, in the majesty of her State, in the sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and _their_ kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To _these_,--men who meddled with affairs of State,--who took, even at such a time, the State to be _their_ business,--must address themselves; for these were the councils in which England's peace and war were settled then, and the Tribune could enter them only in disguise. His _veto_ could not get spoken outright, it could only be p.r.o.nounced in under-tones and circ.u.mlocutions. Not with n.o.ble, eloquent, human appeals, could the soul of power be reached and conquered then--the soul of him 'within whose eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,' the man of the thirty legions, to whom this _argument_ must be dedicated. 'Ducking observances,'

basest flatteries, sycophancies past the power of man to utter, personal humiliations, and prostrations that seemed to teach 'the mind a most inherent baseness,' _these_ were the weapons,--the required weapons of the statesman's warfare then. From these 'dogs of the commonalty' men who were indeed 'n.o.ble,' whose 'fame' did indeed 'fold in the orb o' the world,' must take then, as a purchase or a gift, deliverance from physical restraint, and life itself. These were the days when _England's_ victories were 'blubbered and whined away,' in such a sort, that 'pages blushed at it, and men of heart looked wondering at each other.'

And, when science began first to turn her eye on history, and propose to herself the relief of the human estate, as her end, and the scientific arts as her means, this was the spectacle she found herself expected to endure; this was the state of things she found herself called upon to sanction and conserve. She could not immediately reform it--she must produce first her doctrine of '_true_ forms,' her scientific definitions and precepts based on them, and her doctrine of constructions. She could not openly condemn it; but she could criticise and reject it by means of that method which is 'sometimes necessary in the sciences,' and to which 'those who would let in new light upon the human mind must have recourse.' She could seize the grand hieroglyphic of the heroic past, and make it 'point with its finger' that which was unspeakable,--her scorn of it. She could borrow the freedom of the old Roman lips, to rep.r.o.nounce, in her own new dialect,--not their antic.i.p.ation of her _veto_ only, but her eternal affirmation,--the word of her consuls.h.i.+p, the rule of her n.o.bility,--the n.o.bility of being,--being in the human,--the n.o.bility of manliness,--_the divinity of State_, the _true_ doctrine of it;--and, to speak _truly, 'Antiquitas seculi, juventus mundi._'

CHAPTER VIII.

METAPHYSICAL AID.

'I do not like the fas.h.i.+on of your garments. You will say they are _Persian_ attire; but let them be changed.'-- _The King to Tom o' Bedlam._

'Would you proceed especially against _Caius Marcius_?

Against him _first_.'

It is the cure of the Common-weal which this author has undertaken, for he found himself pre-elected to the care of the people and to the world's tribunes.h.i.+p. But he handles his subject in the natural, historical order, in the chronological order,--and not here only, but in that play of which this is a part,--of which this is the play within the Play,--in that grand, historical proceeding on the world's theatre, which it was given to the author of this play to inst.i.tute.

He begins with the physical wants of men. The hunger, and cold, and weariness, and all the physical suffering and dest.i.tution of that human condition which is the condition of the many, has arrested his human eye, with its dumb, patient eloquence, and it is _that_ which makes the starting point of his revolution. He translates its mute language, he antic.i.p.ates its word. He is setting in movement operations that are intended to make 'coals cheap'; he proposes to have corn at his own price. He has so much confidence in what his tongue can do in the way of flattery, that he expects to come back beloved of all the trades in Rome. He will 'cog their hearts from them,' and get elected _consul_ yet, with all their voices.

'Scribbling seems to be the sign of a disordered age,' says the philosopher, who finds so much occasion for the use of that art about these days. 'It seems as if it were the season for vain things when the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do nothing but what signifies nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort that I shall be one of the last that are called in question; and, whilst the greater offenders are calling to account, I shall have leisure to amend; for it would be unreasonable to punish _the less troublesome_, whilst we are infested with _the greater_. As the physician said to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who, he perceived, had an ulcer in his lungs, "Friend," said he, "it is not now time to concern yourself about your fingers-ends". And _yet_--[_and yet_]--I saw, some years ago, a person whose name and memory I have in very great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there was neither law nor justice put in execution, _nor magistrate_ that performed _his office--no more than there is now_--publish, I know not what pitiful _reformations_, about _clothes, cookery, and law chicanery_. These are amus.e.m.e.nts wherewith to feed a people that are ill-used, _to show that they are not totally forgotten_.'

That is the account of it. That is the history of this innovation, beginning with books, proposing pitiful reformations in clothes, and cookery, and law chicanery. That would serve to show an ill-used people that there was some care for them stirring, some tribunes.h.i.+p at work already. '_What I say of physic generally_, may serve AS AN EXAMPLE OF ALL OTHER SCIENCES,' says _this same_ scribbler, under his scribbling cognomen. 'We certainly _intend_ to comprehend them _all_,'

says the graver authority, 'such as Ethics, Politics, and Logic.'

That is, where we are exactly in this so entertaining performance, which was also designed for the benefit of an ill-used people; for this candidate for the chief magistracy is the _Aedile_ also, and while he stands for his place these spectacles will continue.

It is that physical suffering of 'the poor citizens' that he begins with here. It is the question of the price of corn with which he opens his argument. The dumb and patient people are on his stage already; dumb and patient no longer, but clamoring against the surfeiting and wild wanton waste of the few; clamoring for their share in G.o.d's common gifts to men, and refusing to take any longer the portion which a diseased state puts down for them. But he tells us from the outset, that _this_ claim will be prosecuted in such a manner as to 'throw forth greater themes for insurrection's arguing.'

Though all the wretched poor were clothed and fed with imperial treasure, with imperial luxury and splendour--though all the arts which are based on the knowledge of physical causes should be put in requisition to relieve their need--though the scientific discoveries and inventions which are pouring in upon human life from that field of scientific inquiry which our men of science have already cultivated their golden harvests, should reach at last poor Tom himself--though that scientific movement now in progress should proceed till it has reached the humblest of our human kin, and surrounded him with all the goods of the private and particular nature, with the sensuous luxuries and artistic elegancies and refinements of the lordliest home--that good which is the distinctive human good, that good which is the const.i.tutional human _end_, that good, that formal and essential good, which it is the end of this philosophy to bring to man, would not necessarily be realised.

For _that_, and nothing short of that, the '_advancement_' of the species to that which it is blindly reaching for, painfully groping for--its form in nature, its ideal perfection--the advancement of it to something more n.o.ble than the n.o.bility of a n.o.bler kind of vermin--a state which involves another kind of individual growth and greatness, one which involves a different, a distinctively 'human principle' and tie of congregation, is that which makes the ultimate intention of this philosophy.

The organization of that large, complex, difficult form in nature, in which the many are united in 'the greater congregation'; that more extensive whole, of which the units are each, not simple forms, but the complicated, most highly complex, and not yet subdued complexity, which the individual form of man in itself const.i.tutes; this so difficult result of nature's combinations and her laws of combination, labouring, struggling towards its consummation, but disordered, threatened, convulsed, asking aid of _art_, is the subject; the cure of it, the cure and healthful regimen of it, the problem.

And it is a born doctor who has taken it in hand this time; one of your natural geniuses, with an inward vocation for the art of _healing_, instructed of nature beforehand in that mystery and profession, and appointed of her to that ministry. Wherever you find him, under whatever disguise, you will find that his mind is running on the structure of _bodies_, the means of their conservation and growth, and the remedies for their disorders, and decays, and antagonisms, without and within. He has a most extraordinary and incurable natural bent and determination towards medicine and cures in general; he is always inquiring into the anatomy of things and the qualities of drugs, a.n.a.lysing them and mixing them, finding the art of their compounds, and modifying them to suit his purposes, or inventing new ones; for, like Aristotle, to whom he refers for a precedent, he wishes 'to have a hand in everything.'

But he is not a quack. He has no respect for the old authoritative prescriptions, if they fail in practice, whether they come in Galen's name, or another's; but he is just as severe upon 'the empiricutics,'

on the other hand, and he objects to 'a horse-drench' for the human const.i.tution in the greater congregation, as much as he does in that distinctively complex delicate structure which the single individual human frame in itself const.i.tutes.

Menenius [speaking of the letter which Volumnia has told him of, and putting in a word on this Doctor's behalf, for it is not very much to the purpose on his own] says, 'It gives me an estate of _seven years'_ health, _during which time I will make a lip at the physician_.' A lip--_a lip_--and 'what a deal of scorn looks beautiful on it,' when once you get to see it. But this is the play of 'conservation with advancement.' It is the cure and preservation of the common-weal, to which all lines are tending, to which all points and parentheses are pointing; and thus he continues: 'The _most sovereign prescription_ in _Galen_ is but empiricutic, and to _this_ preservative of no better report than a horse-drench.' So we shall find, when we come to try it--_this_ preservative,--this conservation.

This Doctor has a great opinion of nature. He thinks that 'the physician must rely on her powers for his cures in the last resort, and be able to make prescriptions of _them_, instead of making them out of his own pre-conceits, if he would not have of his cure a _conceit_ also.' His opinion is, that 'nature is made better by no mean, but she herself hath made that mean;'--

'So o'er that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes...

...This is an art Which does _mend nature_, _change_ it rather: but _The art itself_ is nature.'

That is the Poet's view, but the Philosopher is of the same opinion.

'Man while _operating_ can only _apply or withdraw_ natural bodies, nature internally _performs_ the rest.' Those who become _practically_ versed in nature are the mechanic, the mathematician, the alchemist, and _the magician_, but _all_, as matters now stand with faint efforts and meagre success.'... 'The syllogism forces _a.s.sent_ and not _things_.'

'_The subtlety of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the understanding._ The syllogism consists of propositions, these of words, words are the signs of notions, notions represent things. If our notions are fantastical, the whole structure falls to the ground; but they are for the most part improperly abstracted and deduced from _things_.'

There is the whole of it; there it is in a nut-sh.e.l.l. As we are very apt to find it in this method of delivery by aphorisms; there is the sh.e.l.l of it at least. And considering 'the torture and press of the method,' and the instruments of torture then in use for correcting the press, on these precise questions, there is as much of the kernel, perhaps, as could reasonably be looked for, in those particular aphorisms; and 'aphorisms representing a _knowledge broken_, do _invite_ men to inquire further;' so _this_ writer of them tells us.

With all his reliance on nature then, and with all his scorn of the impracticable and arrogant conceits of learning as he finds it, and of the quackeries that are practised in its name, this is no empiric. He will not approach that large, complex, elaborate combination of nature, that laboured fruit of time,--her most subtle and efficacious agent, so prolific in results that amaze and confound our art, --he will not approach this great structure with all its unperceived interior adaptations,--with so much of nature's own work in it, --hehas too much respect for her own 'cunning hand,' to approach it without learning,--to undertake its cure with blind ignorant experiments. He will not go to work in the dark on this structure, with drug or surgery. This is going to be a scientific cure. 'Before we proceed any further, _hear me speak_.' He will inquire beforehand the nature of this particular structure that he proposes to meddle with, and get its normal state defined at the outset. But that will take him into the question of structures in general, as they appear in nature, and the intention of nature in them. He will have a comparative anatomy to help him. This a.n.a.lysis will not stop with the social unit, he will a.n.a.lyze him. It will not stop with him. It will comprehend the principles of all combinations. He will not stop in his a.n.a.lysis of _this_ complexity till he comes to that which precedes all combination, and survives it--the original simplicity of nature. He will come to this cure armed with the universal 'simples;' he will have all the original powers of nature, 'which are not many,' in his hands, to begin with; and he will have more than that. He will have the doctrine of their combinations, not in man only, but _in all the kinds_;--those despised kinds, that claim such close relations.h.i.+p-- such wondrous relations.h.i.+p with man; and he will not go to the primitive instinctive nature only for his knowledge on this point. He will inquire of art,--the empiric art,--and rude accident, what latent efficacies they have detected in her, what churlish secrets of hers they have wrung from her. You will find the gardener's and the farmer's reports, and not the physician's and the surgeon's only, inserted in his books of policy and ethics. The 'nettles' theory of the rights of private life, and his policy of foreign relations.h.i.+ps, appears to this learned politician to strengthen his case a little, and the pertinacious refusal of the 'old crab trees' to lend their organizations, such as they are, to the fructification of a bud of n.o.bler kind, is quoted with respect as a decision of nature in another court, on this same question, which is one of the questions here. For the principle of conservation as well as the other principles of the human conduct, appears to this philosopher to require a larger treatment than our men of learning have given it hitherto.

And this is the man of science who takes so much pains to acknowledge his preference for 'good _compositions_'--who thinks so much of good _natural _compositions and their virtues, who is always expressing or betraying his respect for the happy combinations, the sound results, the luxuriant and beautiful varieties with which nature herself ill.u.s.trates the secret of her fertility, and publishes her own great volume of examples in the Arts.