The opening of "Timon" was selected on account of its artful preparation for and relation to what it precedes. It shows the forethought and skill of its author in the construction or opening out of his play, both in respect to the story and the feeling; yet even here, in this half-declamatory prologue, the poet's dramatic art is also evident. His poet and painter are living men, and not mere utterers of so many words. Was this from intuition?—or because he found it easy to make them what he conceived them, and felt that it would add to the life of his introduction, though he should scarcely bring them forward afterwards? No doubt the mind's eye helps the mind in character-drawing, and that appropriate language springs almost uncalled to the pen, especially of a practised writer for the stage. But is his scene a dream which he can direct, and which, though he knows it all proceeds from himself, yet seems to keep just in advance of him,—his fancy shooting ahead and astonishing him with novelties in dialogue and situation? There are those who have experienced this condition in sickness, and who have amused themselves with listening to a fancied conversation having reference to subjects of their own choosing, yet in which they did not seem to themselves to control the cause of the dialogue or originate the particular things said, until they could actually hear the voices rising from an indistinct whisper to plain speech. I knew an instance, (which at least is not related in the very curious work of M. Boismont on the "Natural History of Hallucinations,") where an invalid, recovering from illness, could hear for half a night the debates and doings of an imaginary association in the next chamber, the absurdity of which often made him laugh so that he could with difficulty keep quiet enough to listen; while occasionally extracts would be read from books written in a style whose precision and eloquence excited his admiration, or whose affecting solemnity moved him deeply, though he knew perfectly well that the whole came from his own brain. This he could either cause or permit, and could in an instant change the subject of the conversation or command it into silence. He would sometimes throw his pillow against the wall and say, "Be still! I'll hear no more till daybreak!" And this has taken place when he was in calm health in mind, and, except weakness, in body, and broad awake. What was singular, the voices would cease at his bidding, and in one instance (which might have startled him, had he not known how common it is for persons to wake at an hour they fix) they awoke him at the time appointed. Their language would bear the ordinary tests of sanity, and was like that we see in daily newspapers; but the various knowledge brought in, the complicated scenes gone through, made the whole resemble intricate concerted music, from the imperfect study of which possibly came the power to fabricate them. That they were owing to some physical cause was shown by their keeping a sort of cadence with the pulse, and in the fact, that, though not disagreeable, they were wearisome; especially as they always appeared to be got up with some remote reference to the private faults and virtues of that tedious individual who is always forcing his acquaintance upon us, avoid him however we may,—one's self.
Shall we suppose that Shakspeare wrote in such an opium dream as this? Did his "wood-notes wild" come from him as tunes do from a barrel-organ, where it is necessary only to set the machine and disturb the bowels of it by turning? Was it sufficient for him to fore-plan the plots of his plays, the story, acts, scenes, persons,—the general rough idea, or argument,—and then to sit at his table, and, by some process analogous to mesmeric manipulations, put himself into a condition in which his genius should elaborate and shape what he, by the aid of his poetic taste and all other faculties, had been able to rough-hew? How far did his consciousness desert him?—only partially, as in the instance just given, so that he marvelled, while he wrote, at his own fertility, power, and truth?—or wholly, as in a Pythonic inspiration, so that the frenzy filled him to his fingers' ends, and he wrote, he knew not what, until he re-read it in his ordinary state? In fine, was he the mere conduit of a divinity within him?—or was he in his very self, in the nobility and true greatness of his being and the infinitude of his faculties, a living fountain,—he, he alone, in as plain and common a sense as we mean when we say "a man," the divinity?
These are "questions not to be asked," or, at least, argued, any more than the question, Whether the blessed sun of heaven shall eat blackberries. The quality of Shakspeare's writing renders it impossible to suppose that it was produced in any other state than one where all the perceptions that make good sense, and not only good, but most excellent sense, were present and alert. Howsoever "apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes" his brain may be, it never gambols from the superintendence of his reason and understanding. In truth, it is the perfectness of the control, the conscious assurance of soundness in himself, which leaves him so free that the control is to so many eyes invisible; they perceive nothing but luxuriant ease in the midst of intricate complexities of passion and character, and they think he could have followed the path he took only by a sort of necessity which they call Nature,—that he wrote himself quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,—leaving out only a few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is now standing behind or at the wing, and counting the money in the house, that they are beguiled of their tears or thrown into such ecstasies of mirth.
It exalts, and not degrades, the memory of Shakspeare to think of him in this manner, as a man: for he was a man; he had eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, and so forth, the same that a Jew hath; a good many people saw him alive. Had we lived in London between 1580 and 1610, we might have seen him,—a man who came from his Maker's hand endowed with the noblest powers and the most godlike reason,—who had the greatest natural ability to become a great dramatic poet,—the native genius and the aptness to acquire the art, and who did acquire the highest art of his age, and went on far beyond it, exhibiting new ingenuities and resources, and a breadth that has never been equalled, and which admits at once and harmonizes the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce, and, in language, the loftiest flights of measured rhetoric along with the closest imitation of common talk;—and all this he so used, so elaborated through it the poetic creations of his mind, in such glorious union and perfection of high purpose and art and reach of soul, that he was the greatest and most universal poet the world has known.
Rowe observes, in regard to Shakspeare,—"Art had so little and Nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean that his fancy was so loose and extravagant as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; but that what he thought was commonly so great, so justly and rightly conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first sight."
The last sentence is true; but Mr. Rowe really means to say that he was as great an artist as natural poet,—that his creative and executive powers wrought in almost perfect spontaneity and harmony,—the work of the making part of him being generally at once approved by the shaping part, and each and both being admirable. When a man creates an Othello, feigns his story and his passion, assumes to be him and to observe him at the same time, figures him so exactly that all the world may realize him also, brings in Desdemona and Iago and the rest, everything kept in propriety and with the minutest perfection of detail, which does most, Art or Nature? How shall we distinguish? Where does one leave off and the other begin? The truth of the passion, that is Nature; but can we not perceive that the Art goes along with it? Do we not at once acknowledge the Art when we say, "How natural!"? In such as Iago, for example, it would seem as if the least reflective spectator must derive a little critical satisfaction,—if he can only bring himself to fancy that Iago is not alive, but that the great master painted him and wrote every word he utters. As we read his words, can we not see how boldly he is drawn, and how highly colored? There he is, right in the foreground, prominent, strong, a most miraculous villain. Did Nature put the words into his mouth, or Art? The question involves a consideration of how far natural it is for men to make Iagos, and to make them speaking naturally. Though it be natural, it is not common; and if its naturalness is what must be most insisted on, it may be conceded, and we may say, with Polixenes, "The Art itself is Nature."
There is a strong rapture that always attends the full exercise of our highest faculties. The whole spirit is raised and quickened into a secondary life. This was felt by Shakspeare,—felt, and at the same time controlled and guided with the same strictness over all thoughts, feelings, passions, fancies, that thronged his mind at such moments, as he had over those in his dull every-day hours. When we are writing, how difficult it is to avoid pleasing our own vanity! how hard not to step aside a little, now and then, for a brilliant thought or a poetic fancy, or any of the thousand illusions that throng upon us! Even for the sake of a well-sounding phrase we are often tempted to turn. The language of passion,—how hard it is to feign, to write it! how harder than all, to keep the tone, serious, or whatever it may be, with which we begin, so that no expressions occur to break it,—lapses of thought or speech, that are like sudden stumbles or uneasy jolts! And if this is so in ordinarily elevated prose, how much more must it be so in high dramatic poetry, where the poet rides on the whirlwind and tempest of passion and "directs the storm." There must go to the conception and execution of this sort of work a resolved mind, strong fancies, thoughts high and deep, in fine, a multitude of powers, all under the grand creative, sustaining imagination. When completed, the work stands forth to all time, a great work of Art, and bulwark of all that is high against all that is low. It is a great poetic work, the work of a maker who gives form and direction to the minds of men.
In a certain sense, it is not an extravagance to say that all who are now living and speak English have views of life and Nature modified by the influence of Shakspeare. We see the world through his eyes; he has taught us how to think; the freedom of soul, the strong sense, the grasp of thought,—above all, the honor, the faith, the love,—who has imparted such noble ideas of these things as he? Not any one, though there were giants in those days as well as he. Hence he has grown to seem even more "natural" than he did in his own day, his judges being mediately or immediately educated by him. The works are admired, but the nobleness of soul in him that made them is not perceived, and his genius and power are degraded into a blind faculty by unthinking minds, and by vain ones that flatter themselves they have discovered the royal road to poetry. What they seem to require for poetry is the flash of thought or fancy that starts the sympathetic thrill,—the little jots,—the striking, often-quoted lines or "gems." The rest is merely introduced to build up a piece; these are the "pure Nature," and all that.
And it is not to be denied that they are pure Nature; for they are true to Nature, and are spontaneous, beautiful, exquisite, deserving to be called gems, and even diamonds.
"The sweet South,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor":—