And so, in this new case, we have two judges, and the curious fact that the instructor refers to the student and the student to the instructor as the sole authority for the soundness of the decision.
The "Introduction" of Professor Thorndike to his "Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere" sufficiently shows the animus of his essay: he cites the libel of Greene, and intimates that it is an accusation of plagiarism which we have rejected, but which "contains an element of truth worth keeping in mind"; he repeats in positive words the charge of Professor Wendell that Shakspere began by "imitating or revamping the work of others"; that "Titus Andronicus" and "Henry VI.," "so far as they are his, are certainly imitative of other plays of the time," and adds that "Richard II." and "Richard III." show the influence of Marlowe's tragedies, and "Love's Labour's Lost" of Lilly's comedies.
We have sufficiently answered as to "Henry VI.," "Titus Andronicus," and "Love's Labour's Lost." There is no proof offered as to the histories of the two Richards. The assertion is made without authority or example, without even the application of the usual "verse-tests" by which authorship is so conveniently determined.
Having repeated the erroneous and unsupported statements of his master, Professor Thorndike announces that after these early "imitations" little attention has been given to Shakspere's subsequent indebtedness to his contemporaries, for the reason that "to most students it has seemed absurd," while to him it is clear that "Hamlet" and "Lear" "contain traces of the 'tragedy of blood type'"; that "a closer adherence to current forms can be seen in the relation between the 'Merchant of Venice' and the 'Jew of Malta,'" "or in the many points of similarity between 'Hamlet' and the ... tragedies dealing with the theme of blood revenge," and that "characters ... are often clearly developments of types familiar on the stage," "as for example, Iago is a development of the conventional stage villain." He is certainly correct in saying that to most students these assumptions "seem absurd." Let us examine them briefly, for the purpose of learning whether they deserve any more serious adjective.
Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" appeared about 1589. As the author announces in the prologue, it is based upon Machiavel's theory of life—pure selfishness. The Jew makes war upon all the world, for the gratification of his passion for revenge; he poisons his daughter "and the entire nunnery in which she had taken refuge"; he kills, he betrays, he prepares a burning caldron for a whole garrison,—"tragedy such as this is simply revolting. The characters of Barabas and of his servant, and the motives by which they are stimulated, are the mere coinage of extravagance; and the effect is as essentially undramatic as the personification is unreal." The conduct of the drama is in keeping with the character of this incomprehensible monster of vindictiveness; he is "without shame or fear, and bloodthirsty even to madness." His bad schemes are always successful; but the action proceeds without connection, the characters come and go without apparent cause; the three Jews, the monks and nuns, the mother of Don Mathias "appear and disappear so unexpectedly, and are interwoven with the action in so entirely an external manner, that the defects of the composition are at once apparent."
If this seems a good model for Shakspere's Shylock, it will seem impossible, when Barabas shows us his own portrait:
"As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls;
Sometimes I go about and poison wells;
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves
I am content to lose some of my crowns;
That I may, walking in my gallery,
See 'em go pinion'd along by my door.
Being young, I studied physic, and began
To practice first upon the Italian;
There I enriched the priest with burials,
And always kept the sexton's arms in use,
With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells;
And after that was I an engineer,
And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany,
Under pretence of helping Charles the Fifth,
Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.
And after that was I an usurer,
And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting,
And tricks belonging unto brokery,
I filled the jails with bankrupts in a year,
And with young orphans planted hospitals,
And every moon made some or other mad,
And now and then one hung himself for grief,
Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll,
How I with interest tormented him.
But mark how I am bless'd for plaguing them;
I have as much coin as will buy the town.
But tell me now, how hast thou spent thy time?"
And the servant answers in sympathetic lines:
"Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire,
Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley slaves.
One time I was an ostler in an inn,
And in the night-time secretly would I steal
To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats;
Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd,
I strewed powder on the marble stones,
And therewithal their knees would rankle so
That I have laughed a-good to see the cripples
Go limping home to Christendom on stilts."
Undoubtedly, the "groundlings" shouted with delight when this fiend was plunged into the boiling caldron which he had heated for others. Barabas dies, "in the midst of his crimes, with blasphemy and cursing on his lips; everything is the same at the end as it was from the beginning."