When Cicero said:
“But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves,”
he uttered a truism which might well serve us a warning to all critics, especially those of Shakespeare. But the great poet often builded better than he knew. Shakespeare to us is what we can get from him. Because Pescetti was no Shakespeare is no reason for interpreting his efforts in an unkindlier spirit. His critics have, however, judged him by his fellows; often, apparently, without reading him. We cannot attempt to measure his influence in his own day by our modern standards. What is tedious to us was not necessarily so to the Elizabethans. It may be well to remember that even among Shakespeare’s contemporaries the Senecan drama had its advocates.[[142]] There are few purple patches in “Cesare” to catch the eye of the romantic dramatist; probably as a tragedy, Pescetti’s drama had as little attraction for Shakespeare as it has for us. But to a dramatist who never scrupled to appropriate suitable material wherever he could find it, “Cesare” must have appeared well worth investigation. It presented, in convenient dramatic form, material which served to supplement his own selections from the scattered pages of Plutarch. With the sure perception of genius the great poet took from the Italian the matter best suited to his purpose and discarded the rest.
It is for this reason that “Cesare” is worthy of notice. It is for this reason that the obscure pedagogue of Verona, whose pedantic personality lay buried beneath the controversial debris of three centuries, deserves to stand to-day among that humbler brotherhood whom association with our greatest dramatist has preserved for the curious admiration of the literary world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Sir William. Poetical Works—Glasgow, Maurice Ogle & Co., 1872. 3 vols.
Anders, R. H. D. Shakespeare’s Books—A Dissertation on Shakespeare’s Reading and the Immediate Sources of his Works. Berlin, 1904.
Appian. Appiani Alexandrini Romanarum Historiarum quae Supersunt Graece et Latine cum Indicibus. Didot. Paris, 1877.
The Roman History of Appian of Alexandria. Translated from the Greek by Horace White. 2 vols. London, George Bell & Sons, 1899.