I propose to return to the old catholic doctrine which has been illuminated by so many disciples of Shakespeare, and to speak of him as our great national poet. He embodies and exemplifies all the virtues, and most of the faults, of England. Any one who reads and understands him understands England. This method of studying Shakespeare by reading him has perhaps gone somewhat out of vogue in favour of more roundabout ways of approach, but it is the best method for all that. Shakespeare tells us more about himself and his mind than we could learn even from those who knew him in his habit as he lived, if they were all alive and all talking. To learn what he tells we have only to listen.
I think there is no national poet, of any great nation whatsoever, who is so completely representative of his own people as Shakespeare is representative of the English. There is certainly no other English poet who comes near to Shakespeare in embodying our character and our foibles. No one, in this connexion, would venture even to mention Spenser or Milton. Chaucer is English, but he lived at a time when England was not yet completely English, so that he is only half-conscious of his nation. Wordsworth is English, but he was a recluse. Browning is English, but he lived apart or abroad, and was a tourist of genius. The most English of all our great men of letters, next to Shakespeare, is certainly Dr. Johnson, but he was no great poet. Shakespeare, it may be suspected, is too poetic to be a perfect Englishman; but his works refute that suspicion. He is the Englishman endowed, by a fortunate chance, with matchless powers of expression. He is not silent or dull; but he understands silent men, and he enters into the minds of dull men. Moreover, the Englishman seems duller than he is. It is a point of pride with him not to be witty and not to give voice to his feelings. The shepherd Corin, who was never in court, has the true philosophy. 'He that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.'
Shakespeare knew nothing of the British Empire. He was an islander, and his patriotism was centred on
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands.
When he speaks of Britons and British he always means the Celtic peoples of the island. Once only he makes a slip. There is a passage in King Lear (IV. vi. 249) where the followers of the King, who in the text of the quarto versions are correctly called 'the British party', appear in the folio version as 'the English party'. Perhaps the quartos contain Shakespeare's own correction of his own inadvertence; but those of us, and we are many, who have been blamed by northern patriots for the misuse of the word English may claim Shakespeare as a brother in misfortune.
Our critics, at home and abroad, accuse us of arrogance. I doubt if we can prove them wrong; but they do not always understand the nature of English arrogance. It does not commonly take the form of self-assertion. Shakespeare's casual allusions to our national characteristics are almost all of a kind; they are humorous and depreciatory. Here are some of them. Every holiday fool in England, we learn from Trinculo in The Tempest, would give a piece of silver to see a strange fish, though no one will give a doit to relieve a lame beggar. The English are quarrelsome, Master Slender testifies, at the game of bear-baiting. They are great drinkers, says Iago, 'most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English'. They are epicures, says Macbeth. They will eat like wolves and fight like devils, says the Constable of France. An English nobleman, according to the Lady of Belmont, can speak no language but his own. An English tailor, according to the porter of Macbeth's castle, will steal cloth where there is hardly any cloth to be stolen, out of a French hose. The devil, says the clown in All's Well, has an English name; he is called the Black Prince.
Nothing has been changed in this vein of humorous banter since Shakespeare died. One of the best pieces of Shakespeare criticism ever written is contained in four words of the present Poet Laureate's Ode for the Tercentenary of Shakespeare, 'London's laughter is thine'. The wit of our trenches in this war, especially perhaps among the Cockney and South country regiments, is pure Shakespeare. Falstaff would find himself at home there, and would recognize a brother in Old Bill.
The best known of Shakespeare's allusions to England are no doubt those splendid outbursts of patriotism which occur in King John, and Richard II, and Henry V. And of these the dying speech of John of Gaunt, in Richard II, is the deepest in feeling. It is a lament upon the decay of England, 'this dear, dear land'. Since we began to be a nation we have always lamented our decay. I am afraid that the Germans, whose self-esteem takes another form, were deceived by this. To the right English temper all bragging is a thing of evil omen. That temper is well expressed, where perhaps you would least expect to find it, in the speech of King Henry V to the French herald:
To say the sooth,—
Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,—
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am:
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it;
So tell your master.
That speech might have been written for the war which we are waging to-day against a less honourable enemy. But, indeed, Shakespeare is full of prophecy. Here is his description of the volunteers who flocked to the colours in the early days of the war: