qualities which combine to constitute Shakspeare's singularity of style. Some of them lie at the very surface, others are found only on a deeper search, and a few there are which depend on evanescent relations, instinctively perceptible to the congenial poetical sense, but extremely difficult of abstract prose definition. Several qualities also, which we are apt to think exclusively his, (such, for instance, as his looseness of construction,) are discovered on examination to be common to him with the other dramatic writers of his age. Such qualities can give no assistance in an inquiry like ours, and may be left wholly out of view. But I think the distinctions which I can specify between him and Fletcher are quite enough, and applicable with sufficient closeness to this drama, for making out the point which I wish to prove.
Qualities of Shakspere's style: energy, obscurity, abruptness, brevity (in late plays).
No one is ignorant that Shakspeare is concise, that this quality makes him always energetic and often most impressive, but that it also gives birth to much obscurity. He shows a constant wish to deliver thought, fancy, and feeling, in the fewest words possible. Even his images are brief; they are continual, and they crowd and confuse one another; the well-springs of his imagination boil up every moment, and the readiness with which they throw up their golden sands, makes him careless of fitly using the wealth thus profusely rendered. He abounds in hinted descriptions, in sketches of imagery, in glimpses of illustration, in abrupt and vanishing snatches of fancy. Shakspere never vague. But the merest hint that he gives is of force [13:1]enough to shew that the image was fully present with him; if he fails to bring it as distinctly before us, it is either from the haste with which he passes to another, or from the eagerness induced by the very force and quickness with which he has conceived the former. Milton and language. It has been said of Milton that language sunk under him; and it is true of him in one sense, but of Shakspeare in two. Shakspere's new meanings and new words.Shakspeare's strength of conception, to which, not less than to Milton's, existing language was inadequate, compelled him either to use old words in unusual meanings, or to coin new words for himself.[13:2] But his mind had another quality powerful over his style,
which Milton's wanted. Milton slow, Shakspere rapid, Milton's conception was comparatively slow, and allowed him time for deliberate expression: Shakspeare's was rapid to excess, and hurried his words after it. When a truth presented itself to his mind, all its qualities burst in upon him at once, and his instantaneousness of conception could be represented only by words as brief and quick as thought itself. specially in reflective passages. This cause operates with the greatest force on his passages of reflection; for if his images are often brief, his apophthegms are brief a thousand times oftener: his quickness of ideas seems to have been stimulated to an extraordinary degree by the contemplation of general truths. He forces speech to bear a burden beyond its strength. And everywhere his incessant activity and quickness, both of intellect and fancy, engaged him in a continual struggle with speech; it is a sluggish slave which he would force to bear a burden beyond its strength, a weary courser which he would urge at a speed to which it is unequal. He fails only from insufficiency in his puny instrument; not because his conception is indistinct, but because it is too full, energetic, and rapid, to receive adequate expression. It is excess of strength which hurts, not weakness which incapacitates; he is injured by the undue prevalence of the good principle, not by its defect. Shakspere's obscurity. The obscurity of other writers is often the mistiness of the evening twilight sinking into night; his is the fitful dimness of the dawn, contending with the retiring darkness, and striving to break out [14:1]into open day. Fletcher most unlike Shakspere. Scarcely any writer of Shakspeare's class, or of any other, comes near him either in the faults or the grandeur which are the alternate results of this tendency of mind; but none is more utterly unlike him than the poet to whom, some would say, we must attribute passages in this play so singularly like Shakspeare. Fletcher diffuse. Fletcher is diffuse both in his leading thoughts and in his illustrations. He amplifies, is elaborate, not vigorous. His intellect did not present truth to him with the instant conviction which it poured on Shakspeare, and his fancy did not force imagery on him with a profusion which might have tempted him to weave its different suggestions into inconsistent forms; he expresses thought deliberately and with amplification; he paints his illustrative pictures with a careful hand and by repeated touches;
his style has a pleasing and delicate air which is any thing but vigorous, and often reaches the verge of feebleness. Take a passage or two from the work before us, and do you say, who know Fletcher, whether they be his, or the work of a stronger hand.
Shakspere. Fletcher could not have written these passages,
He only áttributes
The faculties of other instruments
To his own nerves and act; commands men's ser|vice,
And what they gain in't, boot and glory too.
... What man
Thirds his own worth, (the case is each of ours,)
When that his action's dregged with mind assured
'Tis bad he goes about?—Act I. scene ii.
Dowagers, take hands:
[15:1]Let us be widows to our woes: Delay
Commends us to a famishing hope.—Act I. scene i.
I do not quote these lines for praise. The meaning of the last quotation in particular is obscure when it stands alone, and not too clear even when it is read in the scene. But I ask you, whether the oracular brevity of each of the sentences is not perfectly in the manner of Shakspeare. A fragment from another beautiful address in the first scene is equally characteristic and less faulty:—
Shakspere, not Fletcher.