Footnotes
[1.]Esmond, ii. 10. Thackeray was probably recalling a passage in the eighth Tatler.[2.]In the Life of Pope.[3.]Guardian, No. 37 (23rd April, 1713). The paper was written by John Hughes (1677-1720), who had assisted Rowe in his edition of Shakespeare (see Reed's Variorum edition, 1803, ii. p. 149).[4.]Introduction to Shakespeare Restored.[5.]Dialogues of the Dead, xiv., Boileau and Pope.[6.]Memoirs, ed. Birkbeck Hill, 1900, p. 105.[7.]Chap. xviii. That the passage is animated by pique and that amusing jealousy which Goldsmith showed on unexpected occasions is evident from the Present State of Polite Learning, Ch. xi.[8.]Cf. Theophilus Cibber's attack on Garrick's adaptations in his Two Dissertations on the Theatres, 1756.[9.]
See the Prologue to Jane Shore:
“In such an age, immortal Shakespeare wrote,
By no quaint rules, nor hampering critics taught;
With rough majestic force he mov'd the heart,
And strength and nature made amends for art.
Our humble author does his steps pursue,
He owns he had the mighty bard in view;
And in these scenes has made it more his care
To rouse the passions than to charm the ear.”
It must be noted that some of Johnson's arguments had themselves been anticipated in Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, 1736. The volume is anonymous, but has been ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer (see below, p. [liii]). It examines the play “according to the rules of reason and nature, without having any regard to those rules established by arbitrary dogmatising critics,” and shows “the absurdity of such arbitrary rules” as the unities of time and place. It is a well-written, interesting book, and is greatly superior to the Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Hamlet, which appeared, likewise anonymously, in 1752.
For references to other works previous to Johnson's Preface which dispute the authority of the classical rules, see note on p. [126].
Hazlitt confounds Whately with George Mason, author of An Essay on Design in Gardening, 1768. Whately's book was published as “by the author of Observations on Modern Gardening.” His name was given in the second edition, 1808.
J. P. Kemble replied to Whately's Remarks in Macbeth re-considered (1786; republished in 1817 with the title Macbeth and King Richard the Third).
I am indebted to Dr. Aldis Wright for procuring for me the details of Warburton's claims. As a few of the passages were omitted by Theobald in the second edition, the following page references are to the edition of 1733:
(1) P. xix, This Similitude, to Nature and Science, p. xx.
(2) P. xxi, Servetur ad imum, to the more wonder'd at, p. xxii.
(3) P. xxv, That nice Critick, to Truth and Nature, p. xxvii.
(4) P. xxx, For I shall find, to this long agitated Question, p. xxxii. (p. 76).
(5) P. xxxiii, They are confessedly, to Force and Splendor, p. xxxiv. (p. 77).
(6) P. xxxiv, And how great that Merit, to ill Appearance (p. 77).
(7) P. xxxv, It seems a moot Point, to from the spurious, p. xxxvi. (p. 78).
(8) P. xxxix, For the late Edition, to have wrote so, p. xl. (p. 81).
(9) P. xl, The Science of Criticism, to Editor's Labour, p. xli. (pp. 81, 82).
(10) P. xlv, There are Obscurities, to antiquated and disused (p. 84).
(11) P. xlvi, Wit lying mostly, to Variety of his Ideas, p. xlvii. (pp. 84-86).
(12) P. xlviii, as to Rymer, to his best Reflexions (p. 86).
(13) P. lxii, If the Latin, to Complaints of its Barbarity (pp. 89, 90).
The passages which were retained are printed in the present text at the pages indicated above within brackets. Cf. Notes, p. [89].
Such as,
—My Queen is murder'd! Ring the little Bell—
—His nose grew as sharp as a pen, and a table of Greenfield's, &c.
It would be no difficult matter, I think, to prove that all those Plays taken from the English chronicle, which are ascribed to Shakespeare, were on the stage before his time, and that he was employed by the Players only to refit and repair; taking due care to retain the names of the characters and to preserve all those incidents which were the most popular. Some of these Plays, particularly the two parts of Hen. IV., have certainly received what may be called a thorough repair; that is, Shakespeare new-wrote them to the old names. In the latter part of Hen. V. some of the old materials remain; and in the Play which I have here censured (Hen. VI.) we see very little of the new. I should conceive it would not be very difficult to feel one's way thro' these Plays, and distinguish every where the metal from the clay. Of the two Plays of Hen. IV. there has been, I have admitted, a complete transmutation, preserving the old forms; but in the others, there is often no union or coalescence of parts, nor are any of them equal in merit to those Plays more peculiarly and emphatically Shakespeare's own. The reader will be pleased to think that I do not reckon into the works of Shakespeare certain absurd productions which his editors have been so good as to compliment him with. I object, and strenuously too, even to The Taming of the Shrew; not that it wants merit, but that it does not bear the peculiar features and stamp of Shakespeare.
The rhyming parts of the Historic plays are all, I think, of an older date than the times of Shakespeare.—There was a Play, I believe, of the Acts of King John, of which the bastard Falconbridge seems to have been the hero and the fool: He appears to have spoken altogether in rhyme. Shakespeare shews him to us in the latter part of the second scene in the first act of King John in this condition; tho' he afterwards, in the course of the Play, thought fit to adopt him, to give him language and manners, and to make him his own.
The reader must be sensible of something in the composition of Shakespeare's characters, which renders them essentially different from those drawn by other writers. The characters of every Drama must indeed be grouped; but in the groupes of other poets the parts which are not seen do not in fact exist. But there is a certain roundness and integrity in the forms of Shakespeare, which give them an independence as well as a relation, insomuch that we often meet with passages which, tho' perfectly felt, cannot be sufficiently explained in words, without unfolding the whole character of the speaker: And this I may be obliged to do in respect to that of Lancaster, in order to account for some words spoken by him in censure of Falstaff.—Something which may be thought too heavy for the text, I shall add here, as a conjecture concerning the composition of Shakespeare's characters: Not that they were the effect, I believe, so much of a minute and laborious attention, as of a certain comprehensive energy of mind, involving within itself all the effects of system and of labour.
Bodies of all kinds, whether of metals, plants, or animals, are supposed to possess certain first principles of being, and to have an existence independent of the accidents which form their magnitude or growth: Those accidents are supposed to be drawn in from the surrounding elements, but not indiscriminately; each plant and each animal imbibes those things only which are proper to its own distinct nature, and which have besides such a secret relation to each other as to be capable of forming a perfect union and coalescence: But so variously are the surrounding elements mingled and disposed, that each particular body, even of those under the same species, has yet some peculiar of its own. Shakespeare appears to have considered the being and growth of the human mind as analogous to this system: There are certain qualities and capacities which he seems to have considered as first principles; the chief of which are certain energies of courage and activity, according to their degrees; together with different degrees and sorts of sensibilities, and a capacity, varying likewise in degree, of discernment and intelligence. The rest of the composition is drawn in from an atmosphere of surrounding things; that is, from the various influences of the different laws, religions and governments in the world; and from those of the different ranks and inequalities in society; and from the different professions of men, encouraging or repressing passions of particular sorts, and inducing different modes of thinking and habits of life; and he seems to have known intuitively what those influences in particular were which this or that original constitution would most freely imbibe and which would most easily associate and coalesce. But all these things being, in different situations, very differently disposed, and those differences exactly discerned by him, he found no difficulty in marking every individual, even among characters of the same sort, with something peculiar and distinct.—Climate and complexion demand their influence; “Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, and love thee after,” is a sentiment characteristic of, and fit only to be uttered by a Moor.
But it was not enough for Shakespeare to have formed his characters with the most perfect truth and coherence; it was further necessary that he should possess a wonderful facility of compressing, as it were, his own spirit into these images, and of giving alternate animation to the forms. This was not to be done from without; he must have felt every varied situation, and have spoken thro' the organ he had formed. Such an intuitive comprehension of things and such a facility must unite to produce a Shakespeare. The reader will not now be surprised if I affirm that those characters in Shakespeare, which are seen only in part, are yet capable of being unfolded and understood in the whole; every part being in fact relative, and inferring all the rest. It is true that the point of action or sentiment, which we are most concerned in, is always held out for our special notice. But who does not perceive that there is a peculiarity about it, which conveys a relish of the whole? And very frequently, when no particular point presses, he boldly makes a character act and speak from those parts of the composition which are inferred only, and not distinctly shewn. This produces a wonderful effect; it seems to carry us beyond the poet to nature itself, and gives an integrity and truth to facts and character, which they could not otherwise obtain: And this is in reality that art in Shakespeare which, being withdrawn from our notice, we more emphatically call nature. A felt propriety and truth from causes unseen, I take to be the highest point of Poetic composition. If the characters of Shakespeare are thus whole, and as it were original, while those of almost all other writers are mere imitation, it may be fit to consider them rather as Historic than Dramatic beings; and, when occasion requires, to account for their conduct from the whole of character, from general principles, from latent motives, and from policies not avowed.
These observations have brought me so near to the regions of Poetic magic (using the word here in its strict and proper sense, and not loosely as in the text), that, tho' they lie not directly in my course, I yet may be allowed in this place to point the reader that way. A felt propriety, or truth of art, from an unseen, tho' supposed adequate cause, we call nature. A like feeling of propriety and truth, supposed without a cause, or as seeming to be derived from causes inadequate, fantastic, and absurd,—such as wands, circles, incantations, and so forth,—we call by the general name magic, including all the train of superstition, witches, ghosts, fairies, and the rest.—Reason is confined to the line of visible existence; our passions and our fancy extend far beyond into the obscure; but however lawless their operations may seem, the images they so wildly form have yet a relation to truth, and are the shadows at least, however fantastic, of reality. I am not investigating but passing this subject, and must therefore leave behind me much curious speculation. Of Personifications however we should observe that those which are made out of abstract ideas are the creatures of the Understanding only: Thus, of the mixed modes, virtue, beauty, wisdom and others,—what are they but very obscure ideas of qualities considered as abstracted from any subject whatever? The mind cannot steadily contemplate such an abstraction: What then does it do?—Invent or imagine a subject in order to support these qualities; and hence we get the Nymphs or Goddesses of virtue, of beauty, or of wisdom; the very obscurity of the ideas being the cause of their conversion into sensible objects, with precision both of feature and of form. But as reason has its personifications, so has passion.—Every passion has its Object, tho' often distant and obscure;—to be brought nearer then, and rendered more distinct, it is personified; and Fancy fantastically decks, or aggravates the form, and adds “a local habitation and a name.”
But passion is the dupe of its own artifice and realises the image it had formed. The Grecian theology was mixed of both these kinds of personification. Of the images produced by passion it must be observed that they are the images, for the most part, not of the passions themselves, but of their remote effects. Guilt looks through the medium, and beholds a devil; fear, spectres of every sort; hope, a smiling cherub; malice and envy see hags, and witches, and inchanters dire; whilst the innocent and the young behold with fearful delight the tripping fairy, whose shadowy form the moon gilds with its softest beams.—Extravagant as all this appears, it has its laws so precise that we are sensible both of a local and temporary and of an universal magic; the first derived from the general nature of the human mind, influenced by particular habits, institutions, and climate; and the latter from the same general nature abstracted from those considerations: Of the first sort the machinery in Macbeth is a very striking instance; a machinery, which, however exquisite at the time, has already lost more than half its force; and the Gallery now laughs in some places where it ought to shudder:—But the magic of the Tempest is lasting and universal.
There is besides a species of writing for which we have no term of art, and which holds a middle place between nature and magic; I mean where fancy either alone, or mingled with reason, or reason assuming the appearance of fancy, governs some real existence; but the whole of this art is pourtrayed in a single Play; in the real madness of Lear, in the assumed wildness of Edgar, and in the Professional Fantasque of the Fool, all operating to contrast and heighten each other. There is yet another feat in this kind, which Shakespeare has performed;—he has personified malice in his Caliban; a character kneaded up of three distinct natures, the diabolical, the human, and the brute. The rest of his preternatural beings are images of effects only, and cannot subsist but in a surrounding atmosphere of those passions from which they are derived. Caliban is the passion itself, or rather a compound of malice, servility, and lust, substantiated; and therefore best shewn in contrast with the lightness of Ariel and the innocence of Miranda.—Witches are sometimes substantial existences, supposed to be possessed by, or allyed to the unsubstantial: but the Witches in Macbeth are a gross sort of shadows, “bubbles of the earth,” as they are finely called by Banquo.—Ghosts differ from other imaginery beings in this, that they belong to no element, have no specific nature or character, and are effects, however harsh the expression, supposed without a cause; the reason of which is that they are not the creation of the poet, but the servile copies or transcripts of popular imagination, connected with supposed reality and religion. Should the poet assign the true cause, and call them the mere painting or coinage of the brain, he would disappoint his own end, and destroy the being he had raised. Should he assign fictitious causes, and add a specific nature, and a local habitation, it would not be endured; or the effect would be lost by the conversion of one being into another. The approach to reality in this case defeats all the arts and managements of fiction.—The whole play of the Tempest is of so high and superior a nature that Dryden, who had attempted to imitate in vain, might well exclaim that
“——Shakespeare's magic could not copied be,
Within that circle none durst walk but He.”
The censure commonly passed on Shakespeare's puns, is, I think, not well founded. I remember but very few, which are undoubtedly his, that may not be justifyed; and if so, a greater instance cannot be given of the art which he so peculiarly possessed of converting base things into excellence.
“For if the Jew doth cut but deep enough,
I'll pay the forfeiture with all my heart.”
A play upon words is the most that can be expected from one who affects gaiety under the pressure of severe misfortunes; but so imperfect, so broken a gleam, can only serve more plainly to disclose the gloom and darkness of the mind; it is an effort of fortitude, which, failing in its operation, becomes the truest, because the most unaffected pathos; and a skilful actor, well managing his tone and action, might with this miserable pun steep a whole audience suddenly in tears.