One of these popular fallacies is that Shakespeare practically vanished from the minds of his countrymen when he retired from the stage; and that what reputation he had in his lifetime was due to his prominence as an actor, rather than to his genius as a poet.
The preface of the First Folio (1623) is enough to prove that this was not the case. The tone of the address “to the great variety of readers” is not that of publishers trying to awaken interest in a forgotten personage, by calling attention to works that used to be popular. The language is that of affectionate friends, the references to Shakespeare those of intimate associates whose memories have not healed of the wound inflicted by his death. It was addressed to the public, not with the diffidence that is born of anxiety lest the subject of eulogy should meet with an indifferent welcome, but with the confidence that is
inspired by friendship with a great man who is recognised as a great man.
The second impression of the Folio appeared in 1632, and the spirit of enthusiasm that breathes through the preliminary matter—the publisher’s preface and the various sets of verses—has become in no way weakened. The volume contains, indeed, two of the finest poems of direct personal eulogy that have ever been written—that signed I. M. S., and attributed by Coleridge somewhat fancifully to no less a person than John Milton, and the noble Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare, actually written by Milton in 1630. No sign of decayed reputation here. Nor elsewhere. King Charles I., it is well known, read Shakespeare. Copies of his plays and poems are mentioned in Prince Rupert’s library catalogue. His works were given on the stage, and formed topics of everyday discussion. One might multiply examples of his popularity, but it is striking at shadows.
Another popular error has tinged the traditional notion of Milton’s attitude to Shakespeare. It is supposed that his opinion of Shakespeare underwent a complete change from that exhibited in the lines mentioned above. The error that attributes to Milton this surprising revulsion of feeling is due to a misconception of a certain passage in his Eikonoklastes. Milton wrote thus:
“Andronicus Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, though a most cruel tyrant, is reported by Nicetas to have been a most constant reader of Saint Paul’s Epistles; and by continual study had so incorporated the phrase and style of that transcendent apostle into all his familiar letters, that the imitation seemed to vie with the original. Yet this
availed not to deceive the people of that empire, who, notwithstanding his saint’s vizard, tore him to pieces for his tyranny. From stories of this nature, both ancient and modern, which abound, the poets also, and some English, have been in this point so mindful of decorum as to put never more pious words in the mouth of any person than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse author, wherein the king might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shakespeare, who introduces the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of piety and mortification as is uttered in any passage of this book [i.e. the Eikon Basilike], and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with some words in this place: ‘I intended,’ saith he, ‘not only to oblige to my friends, but my enemies.’ The like saith Richard, Act II. Scene i.:
“‘I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds,
More than the infant that is born to-night: