Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 25

But however just it might be to demolish _Falstaff_ in this way, by opening to us his bad principles, it was by no means _convenient_. If we had been to have seen a single representation of him only, it might have been proper enough; but as he was to be shewn from night to night, and from age to age, the disgust arising from the _close_ would by degrees have spread itself over the whole character; reference would be had throughout to his bad principles, and he would have become less acceptable as he was more known: And yet it was necessary to bring him, like all other stage characters, to some conclusion. Every play must be wound up by some event, which may shut in the characters and the action. If some _hero_ obtains a crown, or a mistress, involving therein the fortune of others, we are satisfied;-we do not desire to be afterwards admitted of his council, or his bed-chamber: Or if through jealousy, causeless or well founded, _another_ kills a beloved wife, and himself after,-there is no more to be said;-they are dead, and there an end; Or if in the scenes of Comedy, parties are engaged, and plots formed, for the furthering or preventing the completion of that great article Cuckoldom, we expect to be satisfied in the point as far as the nature of so nice a case will permit, or at least to see such a manifest _disposition_ as will leave us in no doubt of the event. By the bye, I cannot but think that the Comic writers of the last age treated this matter as of more importance, and made more bustle about it, than the temper of the present times will well bear; and it is therefore to be hoped that the Dramatic authors of the present day, some of whom, to the best of my judgment, are deserving of great praise, will consider and treat this business, rather as a common and natural incident arising out of modern manners, than as worthy to be held forth as the great object and sole end of the Play.

But whatever be the question, or whatever the character, the curtain must not only be dropt before the eyes, but over the minds of the spectators, and nothing left for further examination and curiosity.-But how was this to be done in regard to _Falstaff_? He was not involved in the fortune of the Play; he was engaged in no action which, as to him, was to be compleated; he had reference to no system, he was attracted to no center; he pa.s.ses thro' the Play as a lawless meteor, and we wish to know what course he is afterwards likely to take: He is detected and disgraced, it is true; but he lives by detection, and thrives on disgrace; and we are desirous to see him detected and disgraced again. The _Fleet_ might be no bad scene of further amus.e.m.e.nt;-he carries _all_ within him, _and what matter_ where, _if he be still the same_, possessing the same force of mind, the same wit, and the same incongruity. This, _Shakespeare_ was fully sensible of, and knew that this character could not be compleatly dismissed but by death.-"Our author," says the Epilogue to the Second Part of Henry IV., "will continue the story with Sir _John_ in it, and make you merry with fair _Catherine_ of _France_; where, for any thing I know, _Falstaff_ shall dye of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions." If it had been prudent in _Shakespeare_ to have killed _Falstaff_ with _hard opinion_, he had the means in his hand to effect it;-but dye, it seems, he must, in one form or another, and a _sweat_ would have been no unsuitable catastrophe. However we have reason to be satisfied as it is;-his death was worthy of his birth and of his life: "_He was born_," he says, "_about three o'clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly._" But if he came into the world in the evening with these marks of age, he departs out of it in the morning in all the follies and vanities of youth;-"_He was shaked_" (we are told) "_of a burning quotidian tertian;-the young King had run bad humours on the knight;-his heart was fracted and corroborate; and a'

parted just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide, yielding the crow a pudding, and pa.s.sing directly into __ARTHUR'S BOSOM__, if ever man went into the bosom of __ARTHUR__._"-So ended this singular buffoon; and with him ends an Essay, on which the reader is left to bestow what character he pleases: An Essay professing to treat of the Courage of _Falstaff_, but extending itself to his Whole character; to the arts and genius of his Poetic-Maker, SHAKESPEARE; and thro' him sometimes, with ambitious aim, even to the principles of human nature itself.

NOTES.

Nicholas Rowe.

2. _Some Latin without question_, etc. This pa.s.sage, down to the reference to the scene in _Henry V._, is omitted by Pope. _Love's Labour's Lost_, iv. 2, 95; _t.i.tus Andronicus_, iv. 2, 20; _Henry V._, iii. 4.

3. _Deer-stealing._ This tradition-which was first recorded in print by Rowe-has often been doubted. See, however, Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886, ii., p. 71, and Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 27, etc.

4. _the first Play he wrote._ Pope inserted here the following note: "The highest date of any I can yet find is _Romeo and Juliet_ in 1597, when the author was 33 years old, and _Richard the 2d_ and _3d_ in the next year, viz. the 34th of his age." The two last had been printed in 1597.

_Mr. Dryden seems to think that Pericles_, etc. This sentence was omitted by Pope.

5. _the best conversations_, etc. Rowe here controverts the opinion expressed by Dryden in his _Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age_: "I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Johnson; and his genius lay not so much that way as to make an improvement by it. Greatness was not then so easy of access, nor conversation so free, as now it is" (_Essays_, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 175).

_A fair Vestal._ _Midsummer Night's Dream_, ii. 1, 158. In the original Rowe adds to his quotations from Shakespeare the page references to his own edition.

_The Merry Wives._ The tradition that the _Merry Wives_ was written at the command of Elizabeth had been recorded already by Dennis in the preface to his version of the play,-_The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe_ (1702): "This Comedy was written at her command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as Tradition tells us, very well pleas'd at the Representation." Cf. Dennis's _Defence of a Regulated Stage_: "she not only commanded Shakespear to write the comedy of the _Merry Wives_, and to write it in ten day's time," etc. (_Original Letters_, 1721, i., p. 232).

_this part of Falstaff._ Rowe is here indebted apparently to the account of John Fastolfe in Fuller's _Worthies of England_ (1662). But neither in it, nor in the similar pa.s.sage on Oldcastle in the _Church History of Britain_ (1655, Bk. IV., Cent, XV., p. 168), does Fuller say that the name was altered at the command of the queen, on objection being made by Oldcastle's descendants. This may have been a tradition at Rowe's time, as there was then apparently no printed authority for it, but, as Halliwell-Phillips showed in his _Character of Sir John Falstaff_, 1841, it is confirmed by a ma.n.u.script of about 1625, preserved in the Bodleian.

Cf. also Halliwell-Phillips's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886, ii., pp. 351, etc.; Richard James's _Iter Lancastrense_ (Chetham Society, 1845, p. lxv.); and Ingleby's _Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse_, 1879, pp. 164-5.

_name of Oldcastle._ Pope added in a footnote, "_See the Epilogue to_ Henry 4th."

6. _Venus and Adonis._ The portion of the sentence following this t.i.tle was omitted by Pope because it is inaccurate. _The Rape of Lucrece_ also was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. The error is alluded to in Sewell's preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespeare, 1725.

_Eunuchs._ Pope reads "Singers."

The pa.s.sage dealing with Spenser (p. 6, l. 34, to p. 7, l. 36) was omitted by Pope. But it is interesting to know Dryden's opinion, even though it is probably erroneous. _w.i.l.l.y_ has not yet been identified.

8. _After this they were professed friends_, etc. This description of Ben Jonson, down to the words "with infinite labour and study could but hardly attain to," was omitted by Pope, for reasons which appear in his Preface.

See pp. 54, 55.

_Ben was naturally proud and insolent_, etc. Rowe here paraphrases and expands Dryden's description in his _Discourse concerning Satire_ of Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare,-"an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric" (ed. W. P. Ker, ii., p. 18).

_In a conversation_, etc. The authority for this conversation is Dryden, who had recorded it as early as 1668 in his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, at the conclusion of the magnificent eulogy of Shakespeare. He had also spoken of it to Charles Gildon, who, in his _Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy_ (1694), had given it with greater fulness of detail. Each of the three accounts contains certain particulars lacking in the other two, but they have unmistakably a common source. Dryden probably told the story to Rowe, as he had already told it to Gildon. The chief difficulty is the source, not of Rowe's information, but of Dryden's. As Jonson was present at the discussion, it must have taken place by 1637. It is such a discussion as prompted Suckling's _Session of the Poets_ (1637), wherein Hales and Falkland figure. It cannot be dated "before 1633" (as in Ingleby's _Centurie of Prayse_, pp. 198-9). The Lord Falkland mentioned in Gildon's account is undoubtedly the _second_ lord, who succeeded in 1633, and died in 1643. Dryden may have got his information from Davenant.

8. Pope condensed the pa.s.sage thus: "Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for some time, told 'em, That if _Shakespear_ had not read the Ancients, he had likewise not stollen anything from 'em; and that if he would produce,"

etc.

9. _Johnson did indeed take a large liberty._ The concluding portion of this paragraph from these words is omitted by Pope.

The _Menaechmi_ was translated by "W. W.," probably William Warner. It was licensed in June, 1594, and published in 1595, but, as the preface states, it had been circulated in ma.n.u.script before it was printed. The _Comedy of Errors_, which was acted by 1594, may have been founded on the _Historie of Error_, which was given at Hampton Court in 1576-7, and probably also at Windsor in 1582-3. See Farmer's _Essay_, p. 200,

This pa.s.sage dealing with Rymer is omitted by Pope. He retains of this paragraph only the first two lines ( ... "Shakespear's Works") and the last three ("so I will only take," etc.).

Thomas Rymer, the editor of the _Fdera_, published his _Short View of Tragedy_ in 1693. The criticism of _Oth.e.l.lo_ and _Julius Caesar_ contained therein he had promised as early as 1678 in his _Tragedies of the Last Age_. His "sample of Tragedy," _Edgar or the British Monarch_, appeared in 1678.

11. _Falstaff's Billet-Doux ... expressions of love in their way_, omitted by Pope.

12. _The Merchant of Venice_ was turned into a comedy, with the t.i.tle the _Jew of Venice_, by George Granville, Pope's "Granville the polite,"

afterwards Lord Lansdowne. It was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1701.

The part of the Jew was performed by Dogget. Betterton played Ba.s.sanio.

See Genest's _English Stage_, ii. 243, etc.

_is a little too much_ (line 13). Pope reads _is too much_.

_Difficile est_, etc. Horace, _Ars poetica_, 128.

_All the world_, etc. _As you like it_, ii. 7. 139.

13. _She never told her love_, etc. _Twelfth Night_, ii. 4. 113-118: line 116, "And with a green and yellow melancholy" is omitted.

Pope omits _a pa.s.sage or two in_ (line 34).

_ornament to the Sermons_. Cf. Addison, _Spectator_, No. 61: "The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made frequent use of punns. The Sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the Tragedies of Shakespear, are full of them."

14. Pope omits _former_ (line 5).

_Caliban._ Cf. Dryden's Preface to _Troilus and Cressida_ (ed. W. P. Ker., i., p. 219) and the _Spectator_, Nos. 279 and 419. Johnson criticised the remark in his notes on the _Tempest_ (ed. 1765, i., p. 21).

Note. _Ld. Falkland_, Lucius Gary (1610-1643), second Viscount Falkland; _Ld. C. J. Vaughan_, Sir John Vaughan (1603-1674), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; _John Selden_ (1584-1654), the jurist.

_Among the particular beauties_, etc. This pa.s.sage, to the end of the quotation from Dryden's Prologue, is omitted by Pope.

16. _Dorastus and Faunia_, the alternative t.i.tle of Robert Greene's _Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time_, 1588.

17. Pope omits _tyrannical, cruel, and_ (line 36).

18. _Plutarch._ Rowe's statement that Shakespeare "copied" his Roman characters from Plutarch is-as it stands-inconsistent with the previous argument as to his want of learning. His use of North's translation was not established till the days of Johnson and Farmer.

_Andre Dacier_ (1651-1722) was best known in England by his _Essay on Satire_, which was included in his edition of Horace (1681, etc.), and by his edition of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle (1692). The former was used by Dryden in his _Discourse concerning Satire_, and appeared in English in 1692 and 1695; the latter was translated in 1705. In 1692 he brought out a prose translation, "with remarks," of the _Oedipus_ and _Electra_ of Sophocles. Rowe's reference is to Dacier's preface to the latter play, pp.

253, 254. Cf. his _Poetics_, notes to ch. xv., and the _Spectator_, No.

44.

19. _But howsoever_, etc. _Hamlet_, i. 5. 84.

20. _Betterton's_ contemporaries unite in praise of his performance of Hamlet. Downes has an interesting note in his _Roscius Anglica.n.u.s_ showing how, in the acting of this part, Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's coaching: "Sir William _Davenant_ (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the author, Mr.