"Yet it must be observed, that when his performances had merited the protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had succeeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years are manifestly raised above those of his former. The dates of his plays sufficiently evidence that his productions improved, in proportion to the respect he had for his auditors. And I make no doubt this observation would be found true in every instance, were but editions extant, from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was composed, and whether writ for the town or the court."
Pope here apologises for the very middling sort of company which Shakspeare, in his Comedies, obliges us to keep, by the obligation he was under of "holding the mirror up to" his hearers, who being, for the most part, "the meaner sort of people," would only duly recognise and sympathize with "images of life drawn from those of their own rank." And so we have a pardonable cause, wherefore "our author's" (like "almost all the old") Comedies, HAVE THEIR SCENE among TRADESMEN and MECHANICS;" and some excuse for the degradation of history by the historical plays, which strictly follow the common OLD STORIES or VULGAR TRADITIONS of that sort of people.
The DEFENCE is kindly; and bears with it, we must acknowledge, a specious air. In the mean time, here lacks surely something to the regular ordering of the trial. Where, we should be glad to know, is the CORPUS DELICTI? Before justifying, let us hear some witnesses to the OFFENCE. Let us call over the Comedies. Here is the roll of them.
The Tempest!—Dramatis Personæ:—Alonso, King of Naples;—Sebastian, his Brother;—Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan!—Antonio, his Brother, the usurping Duke of Milan!—Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples!—Gonzalo, an honest old Counsellor of Naples!—Adrian, Francisco, Lords!—Really, we are afraid that all the ignobler males left, Caliban, a savage and deformed Slave; Trinculo, a Jester; Stephano, a drunken Butler; the Master of a Ship, the Boatswain, and Mariners—will not, any more than Miranda, with Ariel and the Spirits who personate in Prospero's masque, and who clear out the playbill, suffice to lay THE SCENE of the "Tempest" AMONG tradesmen and mechanics. Next come, handsomely cloaked and feathered in old Italian garb, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona!"
But we will not spare, any further, the curious reader the labour of turning over the leaves of his own copy, or of his memory. The truth is, as every reader's recollection at once answers, that the rule for the comedy of Shakspeare, respectively to the social degrees along which it moves, may be worded safely enough from the scheme of persons exhibited above. The comedy of Shakspeare removes itself, by two great strides, from the meaner sort of its auditory; for light-footed, or more seriously-pacing, it loves to tread on floors of state; it associates familiarly with the highly-born and the highly-natured. His Thalia is of a very aristocratic humour. But, more than this, she further distances the vulgar associations and experience of her spectators, by putting between herself and them the Romance of Manners. We have seen the names—Naples, Milan, Verona. Let us pursue the roll-call. In "Twelfth Night," the "scene" is a city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it;—in "Measure for Measure," Vienna;—in "Much Ado about Nothing," Messina;—in the "Midsummer Night's dream," Athens, and a wood not far from it;—in "Love's Labour's Lost," Navarre;—in the "Merchant of Venice," Partly At Venice, and Partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the continent (understand, of Italy;)—in "As You Like It," the scene lies, first, near Oliver's house; afterwards, partly in the Usurper's court, and partly in the forest of Arden;—in "All's Well that End's Well," partly in France, and partly in Tuscany;—in the "Taming of the Shrew," sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in Petruchio's house in the country;—in "The Winter's Tale," (a comedy, wherein only two of the personages die—one eaten,) the scene is sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia;—in the "Comedy of Errors," at Ephesus;—Last of all, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," in Windsor and the parts adjacent. Thirteen comedies lying in Italy, Illyria, Germany, Greece, France, Asia Minor, Sicily, Bohemia, and in that uninhabited island, inhabited by a day-dream, and which lies nowhere. One in England.
We throw every thing together. To Shakspeare the boarded stage is the field of imagination. He comes from the hand of Nature an essential poet. That he is a dramatic poet, should have two reasons. The first, given in his poetical constitution; that the piercing and various inquisition of humanity for which he was gifted; the intimate mastery of passion; and the extraordinary activity of ratiocination which distinguish him, are satisfied only by the Drama. Then, in the accident of the times—that as the stage rose for Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and they for the stage—so, with Shakspeare, in England. At a certain point of the social progression, the theatre becomes the spot where poetry has living power. Shakspeare must seize upon the mind of his countrymen, as Homer took possession of Greece—VIVA VOCE. The silent and retired press is for the dream-like Spenser—for the star-like Milton. To Shakspeare, the Promethean maker of men and women, earthly-moulded if kindled into life with fire from heaven—give a stage and actors!—Give men and women, to personate men and women!—And give three thousand men and women, to throng roundabout, and look and listen—thrill and weep—suspended in one breathlessness! But not because he has deigned to trace upon those actual boards his magical ring, and because within it his powerful art calls up no air-made phantasmagoria, but breathing and sentient substantial humanity; not, therefore, is he less a magician—less a POET—less, if you will, a dreamer. Imagination is the faculty which habitually divides him, as all his brotherhood, from us, the vulgar of mankind. To him the stage is the field of imagination; therefore, he avails himself of all allowed imaginative resources. Distance, in time and place, which renders indefinite; strange, picturesque, poetical manners, and regions, are such legitimate means. In particular, imagination prefers high rank to low, for half a dozen reasons. The outward show, state, pomp, retinue, splendour of costume, of habitation, of all daily accidental conditions;—these allure imagination, which, like grief, "is easily beguiled." Ease, in human life, like that attributed to the heavenly divinities—the ρεια ζωντες—the gods who live at ease, pleases imagination;—which might be justified. But imagination is not a light and idle child, to be won by the mere toy of a throne and robe, crown and sceptre. These are the signs of a universal homage rendered; and in this meaning, besides their natural richness and beauty, pleasing. Again, imagination itself does homage to stately power—not homage servile, as to that from which it dreads evil—but free homage, contemplatively, to a wellspring of momentous effects. The power that invests the person of a sovereign, of necessity clothes him in majesty. Again, many and grave destinies hang about high persons. Each stands for many of less note; and imagination is a faculty, taking delight in the representation of many by one. Besides, high persons carry on high actions; and they are free to act. They will, and straightway they do.
Here, then, is good cause why the imaginative drama, comic or tragic, shall delight in high persons. And you see accordingly, that the plays of Shakspeare, of whatsoever description, move regularly amongst the loftily born—kings, independent dukes, nobles, gentlemen.
"The Emperor of Russia was my father:"
says the falsely accused Hermione, and you sympathize with her proud consciousness, and you THE MORE feel her abhorred indignity.
If Spenser could say, that it belongs to gentle blood to sit well on horseback—much more does the easy and inborn courage and worth of gentle blood bestride bravely, gracefully, lightly, and well, the careering, rearing, bounding, plunging, and headlong rushing horses of human destinies.