Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 22

Colax is a subtle connoisseur in love:

Some thing there is peculiar and alone To every beauty that doth give an edge To our desires, and more we still conceive In that we have not, then in that we have.

And I have heard abroad where best experience And wit is learnd, that all the fairest choyce Of woemen in the world serve but to make One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. (I. iii.)

The historical importance of the _Queen's Arcadia_, as the first play to exhibit on the English stage the direct and unequivocal influence of the Italian pastoral drama, is evident to the critic in retrospect, and it is not impossible that it may have lent some extraneous interest to the performance even in the eyes of contemporaries; but the zest of the play for a court audience in the early years of the reign of James I was very possibly the satirical element. The shadowy fiction of Arcadia and its age of gold quickly vanished when the actual or fancied evils of the day were exposed to the lash. The abuse of the practice of taking tobacco flattered the prejudices of the king; the quack and the dishonest lawyer were stock b.u.t.ts of contemporary satire; Colax and Techne, the he and she coney-catchers, have maintained their fascination for all ages.

Pistophanax, the disseminator of false doctrine, who had actually presumed to reason with the priests concerning the mysteries of Pan, was perhaps the favourite object of contemporary invective. The term 'atheist' covered a mult.i.tude of sins. This character appears in the final scene only, and even there he is a mute but for one speech. He is indeed treated in a somewhat different manner from the other subjects of satire in the play.

Thus the discovery that he is wearing a mask to hide the natural ugliness of his features pa.s.ses altogether the bounds of dramatic satire, and carries us back to the allegorical manner of the middle ages. Apart from these figures, who bear upon them the form and pressure of the time, and who are, it must be remembered, the main-spring of the action, there is little of note to fix the attention in this first fruit of the Arcadian spirit in the English drama.

In every way superior to its predecessor is the second venture in the kind made by Daniel after an interval of nearly a decade. Instead of being a patchwork of motives and situations borrowed from the Italian, and pieced together with more or less ingenuity, _Hymen's Triumph_ is as a whole an original composition. The play is preceded by a prologue in which Daniel departs from his models in employing the dialogue form, the speakers being Hymen, Avarice, Envy, and Jealousy[252]. In the opening scene we find Thirsis lamenting the loss of his love Silvia, who is supposed to have been devoured by wild beasts while wandering alone upon the sh.o.r.e--we are once again on the sea-board of Arcadia--her rent veil and a lock of her hair being all that remains to her disconsolate lover. Their vows had been in secret owing to the match proposed by Silvia's father between her and Alexis, the son of a wealthy neighbour[253]. In reality she has been seized by pirates[254] and carried off to Alexandria, where she has lived as a slave in boy's attire for some two years. Recently an opportunity for escape having presented itself, she has returned, still disguised, to her native country, where she has entered the service of the shepherdess Cloris, waiting till the approaching marriage of Alexis with another nymph shall have made impossible the renewal of her father's former schemes.

Complications now arise, for it appears that Cloris has fallen in love with Thirsis, but fears ill success in her suit, supposing him in his turn to be pining for the love of Amarillis. She employs the supposed boy to move her suit to Thirsis, and Silvia goes on her errand to court her lover for her mistress, fearing to find him already faithless to his love for her[255]. On her mission she is waylaid by the nymph Phillis, who has fallen in love with her in her male attire, careless of the love borne her by the honest but rude forester Monta.n.u.s. The varying fortune of Silvia's suit on behalf of Cloris, Thirsis' faith to the memory of Silvia, Monta.n.u.s' jealousy, and Phillis' shame when she finds her proffered love rejected by the boy for whom she has sacrificed her modesty, are presented in a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially advance the business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some spark of hope by narrating her story under fict.i.tious names. This she does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As Silvia ends her tale Monta.n.u.s rushes in, determined to be revenged for the favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs Silvia, and carries off the garland she is wearing, believing it to be one woven by the hand of Phillis. This naturally leads to the discovery of Silvia's s.e.x and ident.i.ty, and supposing her dead, Thirsis falls in a swoon at her side. The last act is, as usual, little more than an epilogue, in which we are entertained with a long account of the recovery of the faithful lovers, thanks to the care of the wise Lamia, an elaborate pa.s.sage again modelled on Ta.s.so, but again falling far short of the poetical beauty of the original.

Taken as a whole, and partly through being unenc.u.mbered with the satyric machinery of the _Queen's Arcadia, Hymen's Triumph_ is a distinctly lighter and more pleasing composition. At least so it appears by comparison, for Daniel everywhere takes himself and his subject with a distressing seriousness wholly unsuited to the style; we look in vain for a gleam of humour such as that which in the final chorus of the _Aminta_ casts a reflex light over the whole play[257]. Again an advance may be observed, not only in the conduct of the plot, which moves artistically on an altogether different level, and even succeeds in arousing some dramatic interest, but likewise in the verse, which has a freer movement, and is on the whole less marred by the over-emphatic repet.i.tion of words and phrases in consecutive lines, a particularly irritating trick of the author's pastoral style, or by the monotonous cadence and painful padding of the blank verse. Daniel was emphatically one of those poets, neither few nor inconsiderable, the natural nervelessness of whose poetic diction imperatively demands the bracing restraint of rime. It is noteworthy that this applies to his verse alone; such a work as the famous _Defence of Rime_ serves to place him once for all among the greatest masters of 'the other harmony of prose.'

_Hymen's Triumph_ contains many more pa.s.sages of notable merit than its predecessor. There is, indeed, one pa.s.sage in the _Queen's Arcadia_ which will bear comparison with anything Daniel ever wrote, but it stands in somewhat striking contrast with its surroundings. This is the opening of the speech in which Melibaeus addresses the a.s.sembled Arcadians, and well deserves quotation.

You gentle Shepheards and Inhabitors Of these remote and solitary parts Of Mountaynous Arcadia, shut up here Within these Rockes, these unfrequented Clifts, The walles and bulwarkes of our libertie, From out the noyse of tumult, and the throng Of sweating toyle, ratling concurrencie, And have continued still the same and one In all successions from antiquitie; Whil'st all the states on earth besides have made A thousand revolutions, and have rowl'd From change to change, and never yet found rest, Nor ever bettered their estates by change; You I invoke this day in generall, To doe a worke that now concernes us all, Lest that we leave not to posteritie, Th' Arcadia that we found continued thus By our fore-fathers care who left it us. (V. iii.)

Such pa.s.sages are more frequent in _Hymen's Triumph_. Take the description of the early love of Thirsis and Silvia, instinct with a delicacy and freshness that even Ta.s.so might have envied[258]:

Then would we kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus In that first garden of our simplenesse We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardnes; Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew What she would have me, yet not have me, know. (I. i.)

Thirsis, who is the typical 'constant lover' of pastoral convention, and does

Hold it to be a most heroicke thing To act one man, and do that part exact,

thus addresses his friend Palaemon in defence of love:

Ah, know that when you mention love, you name A sacred mistery, a Deity, Not understood of creatures built of mudde, But of the purest and refined clay Whereto th' eternall fires their spirits convey.

And for a woman, which you prize so low, Like men that doe forget whence they are men, Know her to be th' especiall creature, made By the Creator as the complement Of this great Architect[259] the world, to hold The same together, which would otherwise Fall all asunder; and is natures chiefe Vicegerent upon earth, supplies her state.

And doe you hold it weakenesse then to love, And love so excellent a miracle As is a worthy woman? (III. iv.)

The sententious pa.s.sages, the occurrence of which we previously noted in the _Queen's Arcadia_, likewise appear. Thus of dreams:

Alas, Medorus, dreames are vapours, which, Ingendred with day thoughts, fall in the night, And vanish with the morning;[260] (III. ii.)

and of thoughts:

They are the smallest peeces of the minde That pa.s.se this narrow organ of the voyce; The great remaine behinde in that vast orbe Of th' apprehension, and are never borne. (III. iv.)

At times these utterances even possess a dramatic value, as where, bending over the seemingly lifeless form of his beloved Silvia, Thirsis exclaims:

And sure the G.o.ds but onely sent thee thus To fetch me, and to take me hence with thee. (IV. v.)

The two plays we have been considering are after all very much what we should expect from their author. A poet of considerable taste, of great sweetness and some real feeling, but deficient in pa.s.sion, in power of conception and strength of execution, writing for the court in the recognized role of court-laureate, and unexposed to the bracing influence of a really critical audience--such is Samuel Daniel as seen in his experiments in the pastoral drama. We learn from his commendatory sonnet on the 'Dymocke' _Pastor fido_ that he had known Guarini personally in Italy, an accident which supplies an interesting link between the dramas of the two countries, and might suggest a specific incentive to the composition of his pastorals, were any such needed. So far, however, from that being the case, the only wonder is that the adventure was not made at an earlier date, a problem the most promising explanation of which may perhaps be sought in the rather conservative taste of the officiai court circle, which tended to lag behind in the general advance during the closing years of Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James new life as well as a new spirit entered the court, and is quickly found reflected in the literary fas.h.i.+ons in vogue. It was in 1605 that Jonson wrote in _Volpone_:

Here's Pastor Fido ...

... All our English writers, I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; Almost as much, as from Montagnie: He has so moderne, and facile a veine, Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare. (1616, III. iv.)

On the whole, perhaps, Daniel's merits as a pastoral writer have been exaggerated. His dependence on Italian models, particularly in his earlier play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the _Queen's Arcadia,_ of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion--a point in which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of narrative as compensation--and of his failure to do justice to such scenes when forced upon him.[261] If the atmosphere of certain scenes is purer than is the case with his models, it is in large measure due to his failure to master the style; if his conception of virtue is more wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into penning pa.s.sages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[262] On the other hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is true, may be said to be rather the _qualites de ses defauts_. The verse is at least smooth; it is courtly and scholarly, and sometimes graceful; the language is pure and refined, and habitually simple. The sentiment, if at times finicking, is always that of a gentleman and a courtier. Moreover, in reckoning his qualifications as a dramatist, we must not forget to credit him with the plot of _Hymen's Triumph_, which is on the whole original, and is happily conceived, firmly constructed, and executed with considerable ability.

With Daniel begins and ends in English literature the dominant influence of the Italian pastoral drama. No doubt the imitation of Ta.s.so and Guarini is an important element in the subsequent history of pastoralism in this country, and to trace and define that influence will be not the least important task of the ensuing chapters. No doubt it supplied the incentive that induced a man like Fletcher to bid for a hopeless success in such a play as the _Faithful Shepherdess_, and placed a heavy debt to the account of Thomas Randolph when he composed his _Amyntas_. But in these cases, as in others, wherever the author availed himself of the tradition imported from the Ferrarese court, he approached it as it were from without, seeking to rival, to acclimatize, rather than to reproduce. Nowhere else do we find the tone and atmosphere, the structure, situations, and characters imitated with that fidelity, or attempt at fidelity, which makes Daniel's plays almost indistinguishable, except for language, from much of the work of the later Italians.[263] To minimize with many critics Daniel's dependence on his models, or to emphasize with some that of Fletcher, is, it seems to me, wholly to misapprehend the positions they occupy in the history of literature, and to obscure the actual development of the pastoral ideal in this country.

Chapter V.

The Three Masterpieces

I

Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The first of these is, of course, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_. In the case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ has prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism be cla.s.sed Thomas Randolph's _Amyntas_, which, however inferior to the others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English examples of the kind.

These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence.

When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it proved a complete failure.[264] An edition appeared without date, but before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no reason to believe that the _Sad Shepherd_ was taken in hand for another quarter of a century almost. The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was revived long after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by comparison with Montagu's _Shepherds Paradise_ acted the year before. It was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it met with some measure of success.

The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was the earliest, and long remained the only, deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of Ta.s.so and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a lyrical gift almost unsurpa.s.sed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the att.i.tude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to a.n.a.lysis to show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure.

In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to Ta.s.so and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, that the _Faithful Shepherdess_ may more properly be regarded as written in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the _Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_, the _Faithful Shepherdess_ would never have come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis.

Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly superfluous seer in the _denoument_ make up the whole sum so far as the _Pastor fido_ is concerned, while the _Aminta_ cannot even show as much as this. In the _Faithful Shepherdess_ we find not only the potent herbs, holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well and the actual presence of the river-G.o.d, who rises, not to pay courtly compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265].

Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by imitating the very t.i.tle of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known it, that of Contarini's _Fida ninfa_[266].

A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; in Thenot a wors.h.i.+pper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, hardly other than a comic character. The river-G.o.d and the satyr, the priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae.

The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning.

Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range themselves once more and pose in their former att.i.tudes as soon as the first grey light of morning s.h.i.+mmers through the mullioned windows.

Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis'

innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night.

The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece.

It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained desire, and violent l.u.s.t, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory ill.u.s.trative of certain aspects of love[267]. So regarded much of the absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pa.s.s unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the _Faithful Shepherdess_ was among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing abstract ideas, such as chast.i.ty, desire, l.u.s.t, they strip themselves of every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent.

What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three centuries, to realize the mental att.i.tude of the author in approaching the composition of his play. In order to do this a closer a.n.a.lysis of the piece will be necessary.

The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: 'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and most n.o.ble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for certaine sometimes are[268]. In his preface to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the _Queen's Arcadia_, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted pa.s.sage writes: 'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and pa.s.sions, which must be such as may agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and state. This pa.s.sage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a pa.s.sage of some interest in the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a G.o.d is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in 1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's _Pastor fido_, it is perhaps not fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same author's _Compendio della poesia tragicomica_. What is important to note is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory.

Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous pa.s.sion, indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more tumultuous sides of human pa.s.sion represented, for it is impossible so to regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many changes of garment--

Molti averne, uno G.o.derne, e cangiar spesso.

Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but because in such a case it was the abstract relations.h.i.+p among the characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that Fletcher deliberately intended to ill.u.s.trate a set of psychological conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other fas.h.i.+oning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to ill.u.s.trate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmans.h.i.+p. In the case of the present play he had to fas.h.i.+on characters _in vacuo_ and then weave them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea.

So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superst.i.tion of the middle age. Again comparing the _Faithful Shepherdess_ with Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he comes to create _in vacuo_ he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy.