Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

This unparalleled strength and distinctness of characterisation, as unfolded in the play before us, has been admirably painted by Mr. Godwin. "The whole catalogue," he observes, "of the Dramatis Personæ in the play of Troilus and Cressida, so far as they depend upon a rich and original vein of humour in the author, are drawn with a felicity which never was surpassed. The genius of Homer has been a topic of admiration to almost every generation of men since the period in which he wrote. But his characters will not bear the slightest comparison with the delineation of the same characters as they stand in Shakspeare. This is a species of honour which ought by no means to be forgotten when we are making the eulogium of our immortal bard, a sort of illustration of his greatness which cannot fail to place it in a very conspicuous light. The dispositions of men perhaps had not been sufficiently unfolded in the very early period of intellectual refinement when Homer wrote; the rays of humour had not been dissected by the glass, or rendered perdurable by the pencil, of the poet. Homer's characters are drawn with a laudable portion of variety, and consistency; but his Achilles, his Ajax, and his Nestor are, each of them, rather a species than an individual, and can boast more of the propriety of abstraction, than of the vivacity of a moving scene of absolute life. The Achilles, the Ajax, and the various Grecian heroes of Shakspeare, on the other hand, are absolute men,

deficient in nothing which can tend to individualise them, and already touched with the Promethean fire that might infuse a soul into what, without it, were lifeless form. From the rest perhaps the character of Thersites deserves to be selected, (how cold and school-boy a sketch in Homer,) as exhibiting an appropriate vein of sarcastic humour amidst his cowardice, and a profoundness and truth in his mode of laying open the foibles of those about him, impossible to be excelled.

"Shakspeare possessed, no man in higher perfection, the true dignity and loftiness of the poetical afflatus, which he has displayed in many of the finest passages of his works with miraculous success. But he knew that no man ever was, or ever can be, always dignified. He knew that those subtler traits of character which identify a man, are familiar and relaxed, pervaded with passion, and not played off with an external eye to decorum. In this respect the peculiarities of Shakspeare's genius are no where more forcibly illustrated than in the play we are here considering. The champions of Greece and Troy, from the hour in which their names were first recorded, had always worn a certain formality of attire, and marched with a slow and measured step. No poet, till this time, had ever ventured to force them out of the manner which their epic creator had given them. Shakspeare first supplied their limbs, took from them the classic stiffness of their gait, and enriched them with an entire set of those attributes, which might render them completely beings of the same species with ourselves."[441:A]

The great defect of this play, which, in other respects, is highly entertaining and instructive, and abounding in didactic morality, expressed with the utmost beauty, vigour, and boldness of diction, is a want of attachment for its characters. If we set aside Hector, who seems to have been the favourite hero with Shakspeare, and his Gothic authorities, there is not a person in the drama, for whom we

feel any sympathy or interest; the Grecian chiefs, though varied and coloured in the highest style of relief, are any thing but amiable, and of the persons involved in the love-intrigue, two are proverbially infamous, whilst the forsaken Troilus appears in too tame and inefficient a light to call forth any share of admiration or regret.

23. King Henry the Eighth: 1602. Few of the plays of Shakspeare have occasioned more difference of opinion, with regard to the era of their production, than this historical drama. Mr. Malone contends that it was written in 1601 or 1602, and that, after having lain by for some years unacted, on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was revived in 1613, under the title of All is True, with new decorations, and a new prologue and epilogue; and that this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on which the Globe Theatre was burnt down, occasioned, it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces, called chambers, on King Henry's arrival at Cardinal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, being injudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre. He also joins with Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer in conceiving, that the prologue, and even some part of the dialogue, were, on this occasion, written by Ben Jonson, to whom he also ascribes the conduct and superintendence of the representation.[442:A]

Mr. Chalmers, on the contrary, believes that this piece was neither represented nor written before 1613, and that its first appearance on the stage was the night of the conflagration above-mentioned. He reprobates the folly of supposing "that Ben Jonson, who was in perpetual hostility with Shakspeare, made adycyons to Henry VIII., or even wrote the prologue for our poet."[442:B]

And, lastly, Mr. Gifford declares it to be his conviction that the tragedy of our poet was produced in 1601; but that, on the supposed revival of it in 1613, neither the prologue was written by Jonson, nor

the play by Shakspeare, the piece then performed being a new play, called All is Truth, constructed, indeed, on the history of Henry the Eighth, and, like that, full of shows, but not the composition of our author. He has here likewise, as every where else, very successfully combated the prejudice and credulity of the commentators, in their perpetual assumption of the enmity of Jonson to Shakspeare.[443:A]

For the arguments by which these conflicting opinions are maintained, we must refer to the respective writings of the combatants, our limits only permitting us to state and briefly to support one or two circumstances which, in our view of them, seem irresistibly to prove, that, in the first place, the play performed on the 29th of June, 1613, was Shakspeare's tragedy of Henry the Eighth; and, secondly, that it was his tragedy revived, with a new name, and with a new prologue, both emanating from himself.