A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen

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Title: A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen

Author: William Spalding

Author of introduction, etc.: Frederick James Furnivall

Contributor: John Hill Burton

Release date: March 19, 2011 [eBook #35631]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35631

Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mike Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LETTER ON SHAKSPERE'S AUTHORSHIP OF THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN ***

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mike Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
Libraries)

Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. Words in italics in the original are surrounded
by _underscores_. Words in bold in the original are surrounded by =equal
signs=. Words in a Gothic font in the original are surrounded by +plus
signs+. A row of asterisks represents a thought break. In poetry
quotations, a row of periods indicates an ellipsis. Words in Greek are
transliterated and placed between {curly braces}. A few typographical
errors have been corrected. A complete list follows the text.

A LETTER

SHAKSPERE'S AUTHORSHIP

+The Two Noble Kinsmen;+

AND ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKSPERE'S STYLE
AND THE SECRET OF HIS SUPREMACY.

BY THE LATE

WILLIAM SPALDING, M.A.,

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH AND
AFTERWARDS PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, RHETORIC, AND METAPHYSICS IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREW'S; AUTHOR OF 'A HISTORY OF ENGLISH
LITERATURE,' ETC., ETC.

+New Edition, with a Life of the Author,+

JOHN HILL BURTON, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF
'THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' ETC., ETC.

PUBLISHT FOR

+The New Shakspere Society+

BY N. TRÜBNER & CO., 57, 59, LUDGATE HILL,
LONDON, E.C., 1876.

+Series+ VIII. +No.+ 1

JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

FOREWORDS

This _Letter_ by Prof. Spalding has always seemd to me one of the ablest
(if not the ablest) and most stimulating pieces of Shakspere criticism I
ever read. And even if you differ from the writer's conclusion as to
Shakspere's part, or even hold that Shakspere took no part at all, in
the Play, you still get almost as much good from the essay as if you
accept its conclusions as to the authorship of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.
It is for its general, more than for its special, discussions, that I
value this _Letter_. The close reasoning, the spirited language, the
perception and distinction of the special qualities of Shakspere's work,
the investigation into the nature of dramatic art, the grasp of subject,
and the mixt logic and enthusiasm of the whole _Letter_, are worthy of a
true critic of our great poet, and of the distinguisht Professor of
Logic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics, who wrote this treatise, that at once
delights and informs every one who reads it. No wonder it carrid away
and convinct even the calm judicial mind of Hallam.

Indeed, while reading the _Letter_, one can hardly resist the power of
Prof. Spalding's argument, backt as it is by his well-chosen passages
from the Play. But when one turns to the play itself, when one reads it
aloud with a party of friends, then come doubt and hesitation. One
begins to ask, 'Is this indeed Shakspere, Shakspere at the end of his
glorious career, Shakspere who has just given us Perdita, Hermione and
Autolycus'?

Full of the heavenly beauty of Perdita's flowers, one reads over _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_ flower-song, and asks, pretty as the fancy of a few
of the epithets is, whether all that Shakspere, with the spring-flowers
of Stratford about him, and the love of nature deeper than ever in his
soul--whether all he has to say of the daisy--Chaucer's 'Quene of
flourës alle'--is, that it is "smelless but most quaint"; and of
marigolds, that they blow on death-beds[v:1], when one recollects his
twenty-years' earlier use of them in _Lucrece_ (A.D. 1594):--

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April _daisy_ on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.
Her eyes, like _marigolds_, had sheath'd their light,
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
Till they might open to adorn the day.

Full of the ineffable charm and consistency of Miranda and Perdita, one
asks of Emilia--Chaucer's daring huntress, virgin free, seeking no
marriage-bed--whether Shakspere, at the crisis of her life, degraded her
to a silly lady's-maid or shop-girl, not knowing her own mind, up and
down like a bucket in a well, balancing her lovers' qualities against
one another, saying she'd worn the losing Palamon's portrait on her
right side, not the heart one, her left, &c.; and then (oh dear!) that
Palamon might wound Arcite and _spoil his figure_! What a pity it would
be!

Arcite may win me,
And yet may Palamon wound Arcite to
The spoyling of his figure. O what pitty
Enough for such a chance!

V. iii. 68-71, p. 81, ed. Littledale.

I say, is it possible to believe that Shakspere turnd a noble lady, a
frank gallant nature, whose character he had rightly seizd at first,
into a goose of this kind, whom one would like to shake, or box her ears
well? The thing is surely impossible. Again, is it likely--and again, I
say, at the end of his career, with all his experience behind him, that
Shakspere would make his hero Palamon publicly urge on Venus in his
prayer to her, that she was bound to protect him because he'd believd a
wanton young wife's word that her old incapable husband was the father
of her child? Is this the kind of thing that the Shakspere of Imogen,
of Desdemona, of Queen Catherine, would put forward as the crown of his
life and work? Again I say, it can hardly be.

Further, when at one's reading-party one turns to the cleverest and most
poetic-natured girl-friend, and says, 'This is assignd to Shakspere. Do
you feel it's his?' She answers, 'Not a bit. And no one else does
either. Look how people's eyes are all off their books. They don't
care for it: you never see that when we're reading one of Shakspere's
genuine plays.' Then when you note Prof. Spalding's own admission
in his _Letter_, p. 81, that in Shakspere's special excellence,
characterization, the play is--as of course it is--weak, and that it is
to be compard on the one hand with his weaker early work, and on the
other with his latest _Henry VIII_, more than half of which Fletcher
wrote, you are not surpris'd to find that in 1840,[vii:1] seven years
after the date of his _Letter_, Professor Spalding had concluded, that
on Shakspere's having taken part in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, his
"opinion is not now so decided as it once was," and that by 1847 he was
still less decided, and declared the question "really insoluble." Here
is the full passage from his article on Dyce's "Beaumont and Fletcher,"
in the _Edinb. Review_, July 1847, p. 57:--

"In measuring the height of Beaumont and Fletcher, we cannot
take a better scale than to put them alongside Shakespeare,
and compare them with him. In this manner, an imaginary
supposition may assist us in determining the nature of their
excellence, and almost enable us to fix its degree. Suppose
there were to be discovered, in the library of the Earl of
Ellesmere, or in that of the Duke of Devonshire, two dramas
not known before, and of doubtful authorship, the one being
'Hamlet,' and the other 'The Winter's Tale.' We should be at
no loss, we think, to assign the former to Shakespeare: the
judgment would be warranted alike by the consideration of the
whole, and by a scrutiny of particular parts. But with
regard to the other play, hesitation would not be at all
unreasonable. Beaumont and Fletcher (as an eminent living
critic has remarked to us) might be believed to have written
all its serious parts, more especially the scenes of the
jealousy of Leontes, and those beautiful ones which describe
the rustic festival[vii:2]. Strange to say, a case of this
kind has actually arisen. And the uncertainty which still
hangs over it, agrees entirely with the hesitation which we
have ventured to imagine as arising in the case we have
supposed.

"In 1634, eighteen years after Beaumont's death, and nine
after Fletcher's, there was printed, for the first time, the
play called 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' The bookseller in
his title-page declared it to have been 'written by the
memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher and Mr
William Shakespeare, gentlemen.' On the faith of this
assertion, and on the evidence afforded by the character of
the work, it has been assumed universally, that Fletcher had
a share in the authorship. Shakespeare's part in it has
been denied; though there is, perhaps, a preponderance
of authority for the affirmative. Those who maintain the
joint authorship, commonly suppose the two poets to have
written together: but Mr Dyce questions this, and gives us an
ingenious theory of his own, which assumes Fletcher to have
taken up and altered the work long after Shakespeare's labour
on it had been closed.

"_The question of Shakespeare's share in this play is really
insoluble._ On the one hand, there are reasons making it very
difficult to believe that he can have had any concern in it;
_particularly the heavy and undramatic construction of the
piece, and the want of individuality in the characters_.
Besides, we encounter in it direct and palpable imitations of
Shakespeare himself; among which the most prominent is the
wretchedly drawn character of the jailor's daughter. On the
other hand, there are, in many passages, resemblances of
expression (in the very particulars in which our two poets
are most unlike Shakespeare) so close, that we must either
admit Shakespeare's authorship of these parts, or suppose
Fletcher or some one else to have imitated him designedly,
and with very marvellous success. Among these passages,
too, there are not a few which display a brilliancy of
imagination, and a grasp of thought, much beyond Fletcher's
ordinary pitch. Readers who lean to Mr Dyce's theory, will
desire to learn his grounds for believing that Fletcher's
labour in the play was performed in the latter part of his
life. It appears to us that the piece bears a close likeness
to those more elevated works which are known to have been
among the earliest of our series: and if it were not an
unbrotherly act to throw a new bone of contention among the
critics, we would hint that there is no evidence entitling us
peremptorily to assert that Fletcher was concerned in the
work to the exclusion of Beaumont.

"Be the authorship whose it may, 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' is
undoubtedly one of the finest dramas in the volumes before
us. It contains passages which, in dramatic vigour and
passion, yield hardly to anything--perhaps to nothing--in the
whole collection; while for gorgeousness of imagery, for
delicacy of poetic feeling, and for grace, animation, and
strength of language, we doubt whether there exists, under
the names of our authors, any drama that comes near to
it.[viii:1] Never has any theme enjoyed the honours which
have befallen the semi-classical legend of Palamon and
Arcite. Chosen as the foundation of chivalrous narrative by
Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Dryden, it has furnished one of the
fairest of the flowers that compose the dramatic crown of
Fletcher, while from that flower, perhaps, leaves might be
plucked to decorate another brow which needs them not.

"If the admirers of Fletcher could vindicate for him the
fifth act of this play, they would entitle him to a still
higher claim upon our gratitude, as the author of a series of
scenes, as picturesquely conceived, and as poetically set
forth, as any that our literature can boast. Dramatically
considered, these scenes are very faulty: perhaps there
are but two of them that have high dramatic merits--the
interrupted execution of Palamon, and the preceding scene in
which Emilia, left in the forest, hears the tumult of the
battle, and receives successive reports of its changes and
issue. But as a gallery of poetical pictures, as a cluster of
images suggestive alike to the imagination and the feelings,
as a cabinet of jewels whose lustre dazzles the eye and
blinds it to the unskilful setting,--in this light there are
few pieces comparable to the magnificent scene before the
temples, where the lady and her lovers pray to the gods: and
the pathetically solemn close of the drama, admirable in
itself, loses only when we compare it with the death of
Arcite in Chaucer's masterpiece, 'the Iliad of the middle
ages.'"

All this does but show how well-founded was the judgment which that
sound scholar and able Shaksperian critic, Prof. Ingram,[ix:1] expresst
in our _Transactions_ for 1874, p. 454. My own words on pages 73,
64*,--written after short acquaintance with the play, and under stress
of Prof. Spalding's and Mr Hickson's able Papers, and the metrical
evidence--were incautiously strong. In modifying them now, I do but
follow the example of Prof. Spalding himself. Little as my opinion may
be worth, I wish to say that I think the metrical and æsthetic evidence
are conclusive as to there being two hands in the play. I do not think
the evidence that Shakspere wrote all the parts that either Prof.
Spalding or Mr Hickson assigns to him, at all conclusive. If it could be
shown that Beaumont[ix:2] or any other author wrote the suppos'd
Shakspere parts, and that Shakspere toucht them up, that theory would
suit me best. It failing, I accept, for the time, Shakspere as the
second author, subject to Fletcher having spoilt parts of his conception
and work.

The following scheme shows where Prof. Spalding and Mr Hickson agree,
and where they differ:--

* Here Prof. Spalding and Mr Hickson differ.

Mr Swinburne, when duly clothed and in his right mind, and not exposing
himself in his April-Fool's cap and bells, will have something to say on
the subject; and it will no doubt be matter of controversy to the end of
time. Let every one study, and be fully convinct in his own mind.

To Mrs Spalding and her family I am greatly obligd for their willing
consent to the present reprint. To Dr John Hill Burton, the Historian of
Scotland, we are all grateful for his interesting Life of his old
schoolfellow and friend, which comes before the author's _Letter_. Miss
Spalding too I have to thank for help. And our Members, Mrs Bidder--the
friend of our lost sweet-natured helper and friend, Richard Simpson--and
Mr *****, for their gifts of £10 each, and the Rev. Stopford Brooke for
his gift of four guineas, towards the cost of the present volume.

To my friend Miss Constance O'Brien I am indebted for the annext Scheme
of Prof. Spalding's argument, and the Notes and Index. The side-notes,
head-lines, and the additions to the original title-page[xi:1] are mine.
I only regret that the very large amount of his time--so much wanted for
other pressing duties,--which Mr Harold Littledale has given to his
extremely careful edition of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ for us, has thrown
on me, who know the Play so much less intimately than he does, the duty
of writing these _Forewords_. But we shall get his mature opinion in his
Introduction to the Play in a year or two[xi:2].

F. J. FURNIVALL.

_3, St George's Square, Primrose Hill,
London, N.W., Sept. 27-Oct. 13, 1876._

FOOTNOTES:

[v:1] Unsure myself as to the form of oxlip root-leaves, and knowing
nothing of the use of marigolds alluded to in the lines

"Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,"

also seeing no fancy even if there were fact in 'em, I applied to the
best judge in England known to me, Dr R. C. A. Prior, author of the
_Popular Names of British Plants_; and he says "I am quite at a loss for
the meaning of _cradles_ and _death-beds_ in the second stanza.

"The writer did not know much about plants, or he would not have
combined summer flowers, like the marigold and larkspur, with the
primrose.

"I prefer the reading 'With hair-bells dimme'; for nobody would call the
upright salver-shaped flower of the primrose a 'bell.' The poet probably
means the blue-bell."

On the other hand, Mr Wm Whale of our Egham Nurseries writes: "The
root-leaves of the Oxlip are cradle-shaped, but circular instead of
long. The growth of the leaves would certainly give one an idea of the
stem and Oxlip flowers being lodged in a cradle [? saucer].

"I have seen the marygold[v:A] in my boyish days frequently placed on
coffins; and in a warm death-room they would certainly flower. The
flowers named may be all called Spring-flowers, but of course some
blowing rather later than others."

[v:A] This is called the _Calendula officinalis_, or
_Medicinal Marygold_, not the African or French sorts which
are now so improved and cultivated in gardens.

[vii:1] _Edinb. Review_, July 1840, no. 144, p. 468.

[vii:2] Surely the 'eminent living critic' made an awful mistake about
this. Beaumont and Fletcher write Perdita's flowers, Florizel's
description of her, Autolycus!

[viii:1] In the _Edinburgh Review_ for April 1841, p. 237-8. Prof.
Spalding says that in Fletcher's _Spanish Curate_, "The scene of
defiance and threatening between Jamie and Henrique is in one of
Fletcher's best keys;--not unlike a similar scene in 'The Two Noble
Kinsmen.'" Act III. sc. i.

[ix:1] His Dublin 'Afternoon Lecture' of 1863, shows that he then knew
all that I in 1873 was trying in vain to find a known Shaksperian editor
or critic to tell me.

[ix:2] I name Beaumont because of his run-on lines, &c., and the power I
find in some of the parts of his and Fletcher's joint dramas that I
attribute to him.

[x:1] I cannot get over Chaucer's daisies being calld "smelless but most
quaint." The epithets seem to me not only poor, but pauper: implying
entire absence of fancy and imagination.--F. "Chough hoar" is as bad
though.--H. L.

[xi:1] This was "A Letter / on / Shakspeare's Authorship / of / +The Two
Noble Kinsmen+; / a Drama commonly ascribed / to John Fletcher. /
Edinburgh: / Adam and Charles Black; / and Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown,
Green, and Longman. / London. / M.DCCC.XXXIII."

[xi:2] See the opinion of Mr J. Herbert Stack, an old
_Fortnightly-Reviewer_, in the _Notes_ at the end of this volume.

SKELETON OF PROF. SPALDING'S _LETTER_.

Introduction. Name of the play (p. 2). Historical evidence in favour
of Shakspere's share in the play (6). Incorrectness of the first
and second folios of his works (7). Internal evidence (10). Marked
differences between Fletcher's and Shakspere's styles (11). Shakspere's
versification (11); abruptness (11); mannerisms and repetitions (12);
conciseness tending to obscurity (13); and rapid conception, opposed to
Fletcher's deliberation and diffuseness (14); his distinct, if crowded,
imagery, to Fletcher's vague indefiniteness (15). Shakspere's metaphors
(16), classical allusions (18), reflective turn of mind (20), conceits
(22), personification (25), all differ from Fletcher's manner (26).

Origin of the story of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (26). Sketch of First
Act, and reasons for assigning it to Shakspere (27). Outline of Second
Act, assigned to Fletcher (35). First Scene of Third Act, Shakspere's
(40); Plot of the rest (41). Fourth Act, Fletcher's (44). Description of
Fifth Act, given to Shakspere, omitting one scene (45).

Points of likeness between Shakspere and contemporary dramatists (56).
Impossibility of imitating him (58). Inferiority of the underplot (60).
Reasons for supposing Shakspere chose the subject (62). His studies
(67). Resemblance between classical and romantic poetry (69).
Shakspere's plots contrasted with those of his contemporaries (73); his
treatment of passion (74); unity of conception (78).

Poetical art compared with plastic (83). Greek plastic art aimed at
expressing Beauty and affecting the senses (84); poetry, at expressing
and affecting the mind (86); therefore poetry appeals to wider
sympathies (88). Dramatic poetry the highest form of poetry (92).

Why Shakspere excelled (93). His representations of human nature both
_true_ and _impressive_ (94); he delineated both its intellect and
passion (99). His morality (101); his representations of evil (104).

Conclusion. Summary of the argument as to plot, scenic arrangements, and
execution (105).

LIFE OF PROFESSOR W. SPALDING,

BY HIS SCHOOL-FELLOW AND FRIEND,

JOHN HILL BURTON, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF 'THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' ETC., ETC.

William Spalding was born on the 22nd of May in the year 1809, at
Aberdeen. His father was a practising lawyer as a member of the Society
of Advocates in that town, and held office as Procurator Fiscal of the
district, or local representative of the law officers of the crown, in
the investigation of crimes and the prosecution of criminals. Spalding's
mother, Frances Read, was well connected among the old and influential
families of the city. When he went to school, Spalding was known to be
the only son of a widow. He had one sister who died in early life.
Whatever delicacy of constitution he inherited seems to have come from
his father's side, for his mother lived to the year 1874, and died in
the house of her son's widow among her grown-up grandchildren.

Spalding had the usual school and college education of the district. He
attended the elementary burgh schools for English reading, writing, and
arithmetic, and passed on to Latin in the grammar school. In his day the
fees for attendance in that school, whence many pupils have passed into
eminence, were raised from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 10_s._ for each quarter of the
year. Those who knew Spalding in later life, would not readily
understand that as a school-boy he was noticeable for his personal
beauty. His features were small and symmetrical, and his cheeks had a
brilliant colour. This faded as he approached middle age, and the
features lost in some measure their proportions. He had ever a grave,
thoughtful, and acute face, and one of his favourite pupils records the
quick glance of his keen grey eye in the active duties of his class. He
was noticed in his latter years to have a resemblance to Francis and
Leonard Horner, and what Sydney Smith said of the older and more
distinguished of these brethren might have been said of Spalding's
earnest honest face, that "the commandments were written on his
forehead." When he had exhausted his five years' curriculum at the
grammar school, Spalding stepped on a November morning, with some of
his school-fellows, and a band of still more primitive youth, from the
Aberdeenshire moorlands, and the distant highlands, to enter the open
door of Marishal College, and compete for a bursary or endowment. This
arena of mental gladiatorship was open to all comers, without question
of age, country, or creed. The arrangement then followed--and no doubt
still in use, for it has every quality of fairness and effectiveness to
commend it, was this--An exercise was given out. It then consisted
solely of a passage in English of considerable length, dictated to and
written out by the competitors, who had to convert it into Latin. The
name of each competitor was removed from his exercise, and kept by a
municipal officer. A committee of sages, very unlikely to recognise any
known handwriting among the multitude of papers subjected to their
critical examination, sorted the exercises in the order of their merits,
and then the names of the successful competitors were found. My present
impression is that Spalding took the first bursary. It may have been the
second or the third, for occasionally a careless inaccuracy might trip
up the best scholar, but by acclamation the first place was assigned to
Spalding. Indeed, in a general way, through the whole course of his
education he swept the first prizes before him. When he finished the
four years' curriculum of Marishal College, he attended a few classes in
the college of Edinburgh, where the instruction was of another
kind--less absolute teaching, but perhaps opportunities for ascending
into higher spheres of knowledge. It was a little to the surprise of his
companions that he was next found undergoing those "Divinity Hall"
exercises, which predicate ambition to be ordained for the Church of
Scotland, with the prospect, to begin with, of some moorland parish with
a manse on a windy hill and a sterile but extensive glebe, a vista lying
beyond of possible promotion to the ministry of some wealthy and
hospitable civic community. Spalding said little about his views while
he studied for the Church, and nothing about his reasons for changing
his course, as he did, after a few months of study in his usual
energetic fashion. He had apparently no quarrel either with institutions
or persons, stimulating him to change his design, and he ever spoke
respectfully of the established Church of Scotland.

From this episodical course of study he brought with him some valuable
additions to the large stores of secular learning at his command. He had
a powerful memory, and great facilities for mastering and simplifying
sciences as well as languages. He seemed to say to himself, like Bacon,
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province." With any of his friends
who strayed into eccentric by-paths of inquiry he was sarcastic--almost
intolerant, in denouncing their selection. Why abandon the great
literature--the great sciences and the great arts--which the noblest and
strongest intellects in all ages have combined to enrich and bring to
perfection? Master all that has been done in these, in the first place,
and then you may be permitted to take your devious course. In all the
departments of study he seemed to pass over the intermediate agencies,
to contemplate with something like worship the great leading spirits
whose intellectual stature raised them far above the mob. So in
literature, it was in Homer and Shakspeare that he delighted. In the
sciences connected with the analysis and the uses of intellect, he
looked to Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. In the exact sciences, to Galileo,
Tycho Brache and Newton, and so on. In art, he could admit the merits of
a Teniers, an Ostade, or a Morland, in accurately rendering nature, as
he would admit the merit of an ingenious toy. He could not but wonder at
the turbulent power of Rubens, but he was bitter on the purpose these
gifts were put to, in developing unsightly masses of flesh, and motions
and attitudes wanting alike in beauty and dignity. It was in Michel
Angelo, Raphael, and Thorwaldsen, with a select group from those
approaching near to these in their characteristic qualities, that the
young student selected the gods of his idolatry.

This love of art was something new in Spalding's native district. There
all forms of learning were revered, and many a striving rustic devoted
the whole energies of his life to acquire the means of teaching his
fellow-men from the pulpit or the printing press. But art was nought
among them. Spalding was thoroughly attached to his native district, and
could well have said, "I love my fathers' northern land, where the dark
pine trees grow;" but when his thoughts ran on art, he would sometimes
bitterly call the north of Scotland a modern Boeotia. This is not the
place for inquiring how it came to pass, that neglect of art could keep
company with an ardent love of letters, but it is remarkable that the
district so destitute of the æsthetic, gave to the world some
considerable artists. In the old days there was George Jameson; and in
Spalding's own generation, Boeotia produced Dyce, Giles, Philips, and
Cassy as painters, with Brodie as a sculptor. Spalding could not but see
merit in these, for none of them gave themselves to vulgar or purely
popular art. Still he panted after the higher altitudes, and it appeared
to him at one time that in his friend David Scot he had found the
practical master of his ideal field. Scot had, to be sure, grand
conceptions, but he did not possess the gift that enabled the great
masters to abstract them from the clay of the common world. He had the
defect--and his friend seeing it, felt it almost as a personal
calamity--of lapsing into the ungainly, and even the grotesque, in his
most aspiring efforts.

In approaching the time when the book to which this notice is prefixed
was published, one is tempted to offer a word or two of explanation on
its writer not appearing before the world earlier; and when he did
appear choosing so unobtrusive a fashion for his entry. About the time
when his college education ended, there was something like a revival of
literary ambition in Aberdeen, limited to young men who were Spalding's
contemporaries. A few of them appealed for the loudest blasts of the
trumpet of fame, in grand efforts in heroic and satirical poetry, and
their works may be found in the libraries of collectors curious in
specimens of forgotten provincial literature. These authors were
generally clever young men; and like others of their kind, they found in
after life that verse was not the only path to fame or fortune. One of
them became a distinguished pulpit orator. If Paley noticed, as an "only
defect" in a brother clergyman, that he was a popular preacher, Spalding
was apt to take a harsher view of such a failing; nor would he palliate
it on the representation of one who was the friend and admirer of both,
who pleaded the trials that a person so gifted is subjected to, noting
that there were certain eminences that the human head could not reach
without becoming dizzy--as, for instance, being Emperor of Russia,
Ambassador at an oriental court, Provost of a Scotch "Burgh toon"--or a
popular preacher. Another contemporary who courted and obtained
popularity, and still, to the joy of his friends, lives to enjoy it, was
less distasteful to Spalding, though trespassing on his own field of
ambition as a Greek scholar and Homeric critic. But he made the
distinction, that in this instance he thought the homage to popularity
was natural to the man, moving in irresistible impulses unregulated by a
system for bringing popularity in aid of success.

The lookers-on, knowing that Spalding was ambitious, expected to hear
him in the tuneful choir, but he was dumb. He was once or twice, by
those nearest to him, heard in song, and literally heard only, for it is
believed that he never allowed any manuscript testimony of such a
weakness to leave his custody. One satirical performance got popularity
by being committed to memory. It was called "The fire-balloon." In the
year 1828 there was an arousing of public sympathy with the sufferers by
a great conflagration at Merimachi in North America. A body of the
students who had imbibed from the Professor of Natural Philosophy an
enthusiasm about aerostation, proposed to raise money for the sufferers
by making and exhibiting a huge fire balloon. The effort was embarrassed
by many difficulties and adventures affording opportunity for the
satirist. For instance, a trial trip was attempted, and one of "the
committee," who was the son of a clergyman, got hold of the key of his
father's church, and put its interior at the disposal of his colleagues.
The balloon inflated and ascended. The problem of getting it down again,
however, had not been solved. It got itself comfortably at rest in the
roof of a cupola, and the young philosophers then had to wait until it
became exhausted enough to descend.

The literary ambition of young Aberdeen found for itself a very sedate
and respectable looking organ in "_The Aberdeen Magazine_," published
monthly during the years 1831 and 1832, and still visible in two thick
octavo volumes. Spalding was not to be tempted into this project, though
there was a slight touch in it supposed, solely from internal evidence,
to have come from him. A heavy controversy was begun by one calling
himself "a classical reformer," who brought up foemen worthy of his
steel. At the end of the whole was a sting in a postscript, more
effective than anything in the unwieldy body it was attached to. P. S.
As I am no great scholar, perhaps your classical Reformer will have the
goodness to tell me where I can see _The Works of Socrates_. He seems to
allude to them twice [reference to pages]. As he modestly tells us that
he is a much better translator of Homer than Pope was, perhaps he will
be kind enough to favour the world with a translation, to use his own
words, of "those works which have immortalized the name of
Socrates."[xvii-1]

The papers in the Aberdeen Magazine were not all of the sombre cumbrous
kind. There was an infusion of fresh young blood, fired perhaps by the
influence of Wilson and Lockhart in Blackwood's Magazine, but seeking
original forms of its own. For the leader of this school, Spalding had
both esteem and admiration, but it was for far other merits than those
of the brisk unrestrained writer of fugitive literature. This was Joseph
Robertson, afterwards distinguished as an archæologist. He survived
Spalding eight years. No lines of study could well be in more opposite
directions than those of the two men who respected each other. While
Spalding revelled in all that was brightest and best in literature and
art, Robertson devoted himself to the development of our knowledge about
the period when the higher arts--those of the painter and the
sculptor--had been buried with the higher literature, and the classic
languages had degenerated, in the hands of those who, as Du Cange, whose
ample pages were often turned by Robertson, called them, were
"Scriptores mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis." The source of Spalding's
admiration was that Robertson's writing was perfect of its kind, and led
to important and conclusive results. It was in this spirit that he
wrote his own "Letter." It did not fulfil a high aspiration, but it must
be perfect; and it was surely a moment of supreme happiness to him, when
he found the unknown author sought for and praised by so cautious and
reserved a critic as Hallam.

The "Letter" was published in 1833. It is characteristic of its author's
distaste of loud applause, that whenever this, his first achievement in
letters, saw the light, he fled, as it were, from the knowledge of what
was said of it, and wandered for several months in Italy and Germany.
This was an era in his life, for it gave him the opportunity of seeing
face to face, and profoundly studying, the great works of art that had
hitherto only been imaged in his dreams from copies and engravings. He
at the same time studied--or rather enjoyed--nature. In his native north
he had been accustomed to ramble among the Grampians at the head of the
Dee, where the precipices are from 1500 to 2000 feet high, and snow lies
all the year round. In these rambles he encountered hardships such as
one would hardly have thought within the capacity of his delicate frame.
He took the same method of enjoyable travelling in the Apennines--that
of the Pedestrian.

He gave to the world a slight morsel descriptive of his experiences and
enjoyments, in the Blackwood's Magazine of November, 1835. They were
told in so fine a spirit, so free both from ungraceful levity and solemn
pedantry, that the reader only regretted that they were too sparingly
imparted. He thus announced his own enjoyment in his pilgrimage: "Among
the ruined palaces and temples of Rome, and in the vineyards and
orange-groves beside the blue sea of Naples, I had warmed my imagination
with that inspiration which, once breathed upon the heart, never again
grows cold. It did not desert me now as I entered this upper valley of
the Apennines to seek a new colour and form of Italian landscape. Happy
and elevating recollections thronged in upon me, and blended with the
clear sunshine which slept on the green undulating hills." This fragment
is the only morsel of autobiographic information left by its author, and
therefore perhaps the following, taken from among many expressions of a
genial spirit enjoying itself in freedom, may not be unacceptable. He
has crossed the high-lying, bare plain of Rosetto, and reaches the
village of Val san Giovanni, where "shelter was heartily welcome, the
sun was set, snow-flakes were beginning to whirl in the air, and before
we reached the village, a sharp snow-storm had set in." Here he is
taking comfort to himself before a huge wood fire, when "a man entered
of superior dress and appearance to the rest, and behind him bustled up
a little wretch in the government indirect-tax livery, who, never saying
by your leave, pushed a chair to the fire for his master. The gentleman
popped down, and turning to me, 'I am the Podestà,' said he. I made my
bow to the chief magistrate of the place. 'I am the Potestà,' said he
again, and our little squinting spy repeated reproachfully, 'His
excellency is the Podestà.'

"I was resolved not to understand what they would be at, and the
dignitary explained it to me with a copious use of circumlocution. He
said he had no salary from the government--this did not concern
me;--that he had it in charge to apprehend all vagabonds; this he seemed
to think might concern me. He asked for my passport, which was exhibited
and found right; and the Podestà proved the finest fellow possible.
These villagers then became curious to know what object I had in
travelling about among their mountains. My reader will by this time
believe me when I say that the question puzzled me. My Atanasio felt
that it touched his honour to be suspected of guiding a traveller who
could not tell what he travelled for. He took on him the task of reply.
Premising that I was a foreigner, and perhaps did not know how to
express myself, he explained that I was one of those meritorious
individuals who travel about discovering all the countries and the
unknown mountains, and putting all down on paper; and these individuals
always ask likewise why there are no mendicant friars in the country,
and which the peasants eat oftenest, mutton or macaroni? He added, with
his characteristic determined solemnity, that he had known several such
inquisitive travellers. This clear definition gave universal
satisfaction."[xix-1]

Soon after Spalding's return to Scotland, the late George Boyd, the
sagacious chief of the Firm of Oliver and Boyd, thought he might serve
him in a considerable literary project. It was the age of small books
published in groups--of "Constable's Miscellany," "Lardner's
Cyclopedia," "Murray's Family Library," and the like. With these Mr Boyd
thought he would compete, in the shape of the "Edinburgh Cabinet
Library," and Spalding was prevailed on to write for it three volumes,
with the title, "Italy and the Italian Islands." The bulk of the
contributions to such collections are mere compilations. But Scott,
Southey, Macintosh, and Moore had enlivened them with gifts from a
higher literature, and Spalding's contribution was well fitted to match
with the best of these, though he had to content himself in the ranks of
the compilers, until the discerning found a higher place for his book.

The same acute observer who had set him to this task found another for
him in "The History of English Literature." The _Encyclopedia
Britannica_ in the same manner drew him into contributions which
developed themselves into two works of great value, on "Logic," and on
"Rhetoric." That one of so original and self-relying a nature should
have thus been led by the influence of others into the chief labours of
his life, is explained by the intensity of his desire for perfection in
all he did. Once induced to lift his pen in any particular cause, he
could not lay it down again while there remained an incompleteness
unfilled, or an imperfection unremedied.

In a review on his book on Logic, having detected, from "various
internal symptoms of origin," the style and manner of a personal friend
of his own, he wrote to the culprit in this characteristic form, "very
many thanks for the notice. It may do good with some readers who don't
know the corrupt motives by which it was prompted: and it strikes me as
being exceedingly well and dexterously executed. I am quite sorry to
think how much trouble it must have cost you to pierce into the bowels
of the dry and dark territory, so far as the points you have been able
to reach. I am afraid also that you had to gutta-percha your conscience
a little, before it would stretch to some of your allegations, both
about the work and about the science. I see already so much that I could
myself amend--not in respect of doctrine, but in the manner of
exposition--as to make me regret that I am not in a place where the
classes of students are large enough to take off an edition, and so to
give me by and by the chance of re-writing the book. Yet it is
satisfactory to me to have got clearly the start of the publication of
Hamilton's Lectures, and so to anticipate--for some of the points on
which it will certainly be found that I have taken up ground of my
own--the attention of _some_ of the few men who have written on the
science. Any of them who, having already looked into my book, shall
attempt to master Hamilton's system when it appears in his own statement
of it, are sure to find, if I do not greatly mistake, that I have raised
several problems, the discussion of which will require that my
suggestions be considered independently of Hamilton's, and my little
bits of theory either accepted or refuted. I dare say I told you that
early in the winter I had very satisfactory letters from Germany, and
you heard that the book was kindly taken by some of the Englishmen it
was sent to, and set on tooth and nail, though very amicably, by," &c.

Let us go back to the chronology of his personal history, after his one
opportunity of seeing the world outside of Britain. He had joined the
Bar of Scotland before this episode in his life, and on his return he
took up the position of an advocate prepared for practice. This was no
idle ambitious attempt, for he had endured the drudgery of a solicitor's
office for the mastery of details, and had thoroughly studied the
substance of the law. His career now promised a great future. He was
affluent enough to spurn what Pope called "low gains;" he had good
connections, and became speedily a rising counsel. His career seemed to
be in the line of his friend Jeffrey's, taking all the honours and
emoluments of the profession, and occasionally relaxing from it in a
brilliant paper in the _Edinburgh Review_.[xxi-1] To complete the vista
of good fortune he took to be the domestic sharer of his fortunes a wife
worthy of himself--Miss Agnes Frier, born of a family long known and
respected on the Border. They were married on the 22nd of March in the
year 1838.

Perhaps some inward monitor told him that the fortunes before him were
too heavy to be borne by the elements of health and strength allotted to
him. It was to the surprise of his friends that in 1838 he abandoned the
bar, and accepted the chair of Rhetoric in Edinburgh. In 1845 he
exchanged it for the chair of Rhetoric and Logic at St Andrews. The
emoluments there were an inducement to him, since part of the property
of his family had been lost through commercial reverses over which he
had no control; and he was not one to leave anything connected with the
future of his family to chance. It was a sacrifice, for he left behind
him dear friends of an older generation, such as Jeffrey, Cockburn,
Hamilton, Wilson, and Pillans. Then there were half way between that
generation and his own, Douglas Cheape, Charles Neaves, and George Moir;
while a small body of his contemporaries sorely missed him, for he was a
staunch friend ever to be depended on. He was a great teacher, and left
a well-trained generation of scholars behind him. The work of the
instructor, abhorred by most men, and especially by sensitive men, was
to him literally the "delightful task" of the poet who has endured many
a jibe for so monstrous a euphuism. Even while yet he was himself a
student, if he saw that a companion was wasting good abilities in
idleness or vapid reading, he would burden his own laborious hours with
attempts to stimulate his lazy friend. Just after he had passed through
the Greek class of Marishal College, a temporary teacher for that class
was required. Some one made the bold suggestion of trying the most
distinguished of the students fresh from the workshop, and Spalding
taught the class with high approval. As years passed on, the spirit of
the teacher strengthened within him. The traditions of the older
university were more encouraging to the drilling process than Edinburgh,
where the tendency was towards attractive lecturing. So entirely did the
teacher's duty at last absorb his faculties, that the phenomenon was
compared to the provisions in nature for compensating the loss by
special weaknesses or deficiencies, and that the scholar, conscious that
his own days of working were limited, instinctively felt that in
imparting his stores to others who would distribute them after he was
gone, he was making the most valuable use of his acquirements.

It was a mighty satisfaction to old friends in Edinburgh to hear that
Spalding had condescended to seek, and that he had found, that blessed
refuge of the overworked and the infirm, called a hobby. He was no
sportsman. The illustrious Golfing links of St Andrews were spread
before him in vain, though their attractions induced many a man to pitch
his tabernacle on their border, and it was sometimes consolatorily said
of Professors relegated to this arid social region, that they were
reconciling themselves to Golf. The days were long past for mounting the
knapsack and striding over the Apennines or even the Grampians.
Spalding's hobby was a simple one, but akin to the instincts of his
cultivated taste; it was exercised in his flower-garden. We may be sure
that he did not debase himself to the example of the stupid
floriculturist, the grand ambition of whose life is successfully to
nourish some prize monster in the shape of tulip or pansy. He allied his
gentle task of a cultivator of beautiful flowers, with high science, in
botany and vegetable physiology.

Besides such lighter alleviations, he had all the consolations that the
most satisfactory domestic conditions can administer to the sufferer. In
his later days he became afflicted with painful rheumatic attacks, and
the terrible symptoms of confirmed heart-disease. He died on the 16th of
November, 1859.

FOOTNOTES:

[xvii-1] Aberdeen Magazine, II., 350.

[xix-1] Blackwood's Mag., Nov. 1835, p. 669.

[xxi-1] The following list of her father's contributions, drawn up by
Miss Mary Spalding, is believed to be complete.

No. 144. July 1840. Recent Shaksperian literature. (Books by Collier,
Brown, De Quincey, Dyce, Courtenay, C. Knight, Mrs Jameson, Coleridge,
Hallam, &c.)

No. 145. October 1840. Introduction to the Literature of Europe, by
Henry Hallam.

No. 147. April 1841. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. With an
Introduction. By George Darley.

No. 164. April 1845. 1. The Pictorial Edition of the Works of
Shakespeare. Edited by Charles Knight.--2. The Comedies, Histories,
Tragedies, and Poems of William Shakespeare. Edited by Charles
Knight.--3. The Works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an
entirely new collation of the old editions; with the various Readings,
Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the English Stage. By J.
Payne Collier, Esquire, F.S.A.

No. 173. July 1847. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. By the Rev.
Alexander Dyce.

No. 181. July 1849. 1. Lectures on Shakespeare. By H. N. Hudson.--2.
Macbeth de Shakespeare, en 5 Actes et en vers. Par M. Emile Deschemps.

_ib._ King Arthur. By Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 2nd edition, London, 1849,
8vo.

A LETTER

SHAKSPEARE'S AUTHORSHIP

OF THE DRAMA ENTITLED

_THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN_.

My dear L----, We have met again, after an interval long enough to have
made both of us graver than we were wont to be. A few of my rarely
granted hours of leisure have lately been occupied in examining a
question on which your taste and knowledge equally incline and qualify
you to enter. Allow me to address to you the result of my inquiry, as a
pledge of the gratification which has been afforded me by the renewal of
our early intercourse.

Proud as SHAKSPEARE'S countrymen are of his name, it is singular, though
not unaccountable, that at this day our common list of his works should
remain open to correction. [Sidenote: The list of SHAKSPERE'S works is
not yet settled.] [Sidenote: Are all his in his publisht "_Works_"?]
Every one knows that some plays printed in his volumes have weak claims
to that distinction; but, while the exclusion even of works certainly
not his would now be a rash exercise of prerogative in any editor, it is
a question of more interest, whether there may not be dramas not yet
admitted among his collected works, which have a right to be there, and
might be inserted without the danger attending the dismissal of any
already put upon the list. [Sidenote: Six "Doubtful Plays:" none by
Shakspere.] A claim for admission has been set up in favour of Malone's
six plays,[1:1] without any ground as to five of them, and [1:2]with
very little to support it even for the sixth. [Sidenote: Ireland's
forgery, _Vortigern_.] [Sidenote: The folly of supposing _Vortigern_
genuine.] Ireland's impostures are an anomaly in literary history: even
the spell and sway of temporary fashion and universal opinion are causes
scarcely adequate to account for the blindness of the eminent men who
fell into the snare. The want of any external evidence in favour of the
first fabrication, the Shakspeare papers, was overlooked; and the
internal evidence, which was wholly against the genuineness, was
unhesitatingly admitted as establishing it. The play of 'Vortigern' had
little more to support it than the previous imposition.

There are two cases, however, in which we have external presumptions to
proceed from; for there are traditions traceable to Shakspeare's own
time, or nearly so, of his having assisted in two plays, still known to
us, but never placed among his works. [Sidenote: Shakspere said
(absurdly) to have helpt in Ben Jonson's _Sejanus_.] The one, the
'Sejanus', in which Shakspeare is said to have assisted Jonson, was
re-written by the latter himself, and published as it now stands among
his writings, the part of the assistant poet having been entirely
omitted; so that the question as to that play, a very doubtful question,
is not important, and hardly even curious. But the other drama is in our
hands as it came from the closets of the poets, and, if Shakspeare's
partial authorship were established, ought to have a place among his
works. [Sidenote: _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ attributed to Shakspere and
Fletcher; and rightly so.] It is, as you know, THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN,
printed among the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, and sometimes
attributed to SHAKSPEARE and FLETCHER jointly. I have been able to
satisfy myself that it is rightly so attributed, and hope to be able to
prove to you, who are intimately conversant with Shakspeare, and
familiar also with the writings of his supposed co-adjutor, that there
are good grounds for the opinion. [Sidenote: It is unjustly excluded
from _Shakspere's Works_.] The same conclusion has already been reached
by others; but the discussion of the question cannot be needless, so
long as this fine drama continues excluded from the received list of
Shakspeare's works; and while there is reason to believe that there are
many discerning students and zealous admirers of the poet, to whom it is
known only by name. The beauty of the work itself will make much of the
investigation delightful to you, even though my argument on it may seem
feeble and stale.

[Sidenote: I. Historical or External Evidence.]

[Sidenote: II. External Evidence, p. 10.]

The proof is, of course, two-fold; the first branch emerging [2:1]from
any records or memorials which throw light on the subject from without;
the second, from a consideration of the work itself, and a comparison of
its qualities with those of Shakspeare or Fletcher. You will keep in
mind, that it has not been doubted, and may be assumed, that Fletcher
had a share in the work; the only question is,--Whether Shakspeare
wrote any part of it, and what parts, if any?

The Historical Evidence claims our attention in the first instance; but
in no question of literary genuineness is this the sort of proof which
yields the surest grounds of conviction. [Sidenote: I. External
Evidence.] Such questions arise only under circumstances in which the
external proof on either side is very weak, and the internal evidence
has therefore to be continually resorted to for supplying the defects of
the external. It is true that a complete proof of a work having been
actually written by a particular person, destroys any contrary
presumption from intrinsic marks; and, in like manner, when a train of
evidence is deduced, showing it to be impossible that a work could have
been written by a certain author, no internal likeness to other works of
his can in the least weaken the negative conclusion. [Sidenote:
Historical evidence cannot exclude internal, unless the former is
complete.] In either case, however, the historical evidence must be
incontrovertible, before it can exclude examination of the internal; and
the two cases are by no means equally frequent. It scarcely ever happens
that there is external evidence weighty enough to establish certainly,
of itself, an individual's authorship of a particular work; but the
external proof that his authorship was impossible, may often be
convincing and perfect, from an examination of dates, or the like.
Since, therefore, external evidence against authorship admits of
completeness, we are entitled, when such evidence exclusively is founded
on, to demand that it shall be complete. Where by the very narrowest
step it falls short of a demonstration of absolute impossibility, the
internal evidence cannot be refused admittance in contravention of it,
and comes in with far greater force than that of the other. There may be
cases where authorship can be made out to the highest degree, at least,
of probability, by strong internal evidence coming in aid of an external
proof equally balanced for and against; and even where the extrinsic
proof is of itself sufficient [3:1]to infer improbability, internal
marks may be so decided the opposite way, as to render the question
absolutely doubtful, or to occasion a leaning towards the affirmative
side. [Sidenote: Internal evidence the true test for _The Two N. K._]
These principles point out the internal evidence as the true ground on
which my cause must be contested; but it was not necessary to follow
them out to their full extent; for I can show you, that the external
facts which we have here, few as they are, raise a presumption in favour
of Shakspeare's authorship, as strong as exists in cases of more
practical importance, where its effect has never been questioned.

[Sidenote: _The Two N. K._ printed in 1634 as by Fletcher and
Shakspere.]

The fact from which the maintainers of Shakspeare's share in this drama
have to set out, is the first printing of it, which took place in 1634.
In the title-page of this first edition,[4:1] the play is stated to be
the joint work of Shakspeare and Fletcher. [Sidenote: Steevens's
doubts.] It is needless to enumerate categorically the doubts which have
been thrown, chiefly by the acute and perverse Steevens, on the credit
due to this assertion; for a few observations will show that they have
by no means an overwhelming force, while there are contrary presumptions
far more than sufficient to weigh them down. [Sidenote: A.D. 1634 was 18
years after Shakspere's death, 9 after Fletcher's.] The edition was not
published till eighteen years after Shakspeare's death, and nine years
after Fletcher's; but any suspicion which might arise from the length of
this interval, as giving an opportunity for imposture, is at once
removed by one consideration, which is almost an unanswerable argument
in favour of the assertion on the title-page, and in contravention of
this or any other doubts. [Sidenote: No motive to forge Shakspere's
name, as he (Sh.) had then fallen into neglect.] There was no motive for
falsely stating Shakspeare's authorship, because no end would have been
gained by it; for it is a fact admitting of the fullest proof, that,
even so recently after Shakspeare's death as 1634, he had fallen much
into neglect. Fletcher had become far more popular, and his name in the
title-page would have been a surer passport to public favour than
Shakspeare's. If either of the names was to be [4:2]fabricated,
Fletcher's (which stands foremost in the title-page as printed) was the
more likely of the two to have been preferred. It appears then that the
time when the publisher's assertion of Shakspeare's authorship was made,
gives it a right to more confidence than it could have deserved if it
had been advanced earlier. If the work had been printed during the
poet's life, and the height of his popularity, its title-page would have
been no evidence at all. And when the assertion is freed from the
suspicion of designed imposture, the truth of it is confirmed by its
stating the play to have been acted by the king's servants, and at the
Blackfriars. [Sidenote: _2 N. K._ acted at the Blackfriars (in whose
profits Shakspere had once a share).] It was that company which had been
Shakspeare's; the Globe and Blackfriars were the two theatres at which
they played; and at one or the other of these houses all his
acknowledged works seem to have been brought out. The fact of the play
not having been printed sooner, is accounted for by the dramatic
arrangements and practice of the time: the first collected edition of
Shakspeare's works, only eleven years earlier than the printing of this
play, contained about twenty plays of his not printed during his life;
and the long interval is a reason also why the printer and publisher are
different persons from any who were concerned in Shakspeare's other
works. The hyperbolical phraseology of the title-page is quite in the
taste of the day, and is exceeded by the quarto editions of some of
Shakspeare's admitted works.

[Sidenote: Custom of authors writing plays together.]

Was the alleged co-operation then in itself likely to have taken place?
It was. Such partnerships were very generally formed by the dramatists
of that time; both the poets were likely enough to have projected some
union of the kind, and to have chosen each other as the parties to it.
[Sidenote: Shakspere followed this custom, though rarely.] Although
Shakspeare seems to have followed this custom less frequently than most
of his contemporaries, we have reason to think that he did not wholly
refrain from it; and his favourite plan of altering plays previously
written by others, is a near approach to it. [Sidenote: Fletcher very
often.] As to Fletcher, his name is connected in every mind with that of
Beaumont; and the memorable and melancholy letter of the three
players,[5:1] proves him to have coalesced with other writers even
during that poet's short [5:2]life. This is of some consequence,
because, if the two poets wrote at the same time, it would seem that
they must have done so previously to Beaumont's death; for Shakspeare
lived only one year longer than Beaumont, and is believed to have spent
that year in the country. There is no proof that the drama before us was
not written before Beaumont's death (1615), and it is only certain that
its era was later than 1594. [Sidenote: Fletcher's co-authors.] After
the loss of his friend, Fletcher is said to have been repeatedly
assisted by Massinger: he joined in one play with Jonson and Middleton,
and in another with Rowley. [Sidenote: His sonship to a bishop, no
hindrance.] His superior rank (he was the son of a bishop) has been
gravely mentioned as discrediting his connection with Shakspeare; but
the same objection applies with infinitely greater force to his known
co-operation with Field, Daborne, and the others just named; and the
idea is founded on radically wrong notions of the temper of that age.
[Sidenote: Fletcher's burlesquing Shakspere is no argument against their
having written together.] There is scarcely more substance in a doubt
raised from the frequency with which Shakspeare is burlesqued by
Beaumont and Fletcher. Those satirical flings could have been no reason
why Fletcher should be unwilling to coalesce with Shakspeare, because
they indicate no ill feeling towards him. [Sidenote: Shakspere pokes fun
at Kyd, Peele, Marlowe.] They were practised by all the dramatic writers
at the expense of each other; Shakspeare himself is a parodist, and
indulges in those quips frequently, not against such writers only as the
author of the Spanish Tragedy, but against Peele and even Marlowe, his
own fathers in the drama, and both dead before he vented the jests,
which he never would have uttered had he attached to them any degree of
malice. And therefore also Fletcher's sarcasms cannot have disinclined
Shakspeare to the coalition, especially as his personal character made
it very unlikely that he should have taken up any such grudge as a testy
person might have conceived from some of the more severe.

But the circumstance on which most stress has been laid as disproving
Shakspeare's share in the drama in question, is this. [Sidenote: The _2
N. K._ not in the First Folio of Shakspere's Works, 1623, put forth by
Shakspere's fellows.] While the first edition of it was not printed till
1634, two editions of Shakspeare's collected works had been published
between the time of his death (1616) and that year, in neither of which
this play appears; and it is said that its omission in the first folio
(1623), in particular, is fatal to its claim, since Heminge and
[6:1]Condell, who edited that collection, were Shakspeare's
fellow-actors and the executors of his will, and must be presumed to
have known perfectly what works were and what were not his. I have put
this objection as strongly as it can be put; and at first sight it is
startling; but those who have most bibliographical knowledge of
Shakspeare's works, are best aware that much of its force is only
apparent. The omission in the second folio (1632) should not have been
founded on; for that edition is nothing but a reprint of the contents of
the first; and it is only the want of the play in this latter that we
have to consider. [Sidenote: But the First Folio is not of much
authority.] Now, you know well, that in taking some objections to the
authority of the First Folio, I shall only echo the opinions of
Shakspeare's most judicious critics. It was a speculation on the part of
the editors for their own advantage, either solely or in conjunction
with any others, who, as holders of shares in the Globe Theatre, had an
interest in the plays: for it was to the theatre, you will remark,
and not to Shakspeare or his heirs personally, that the manuscripts
belonged. [Sidenote: It was just a speculation for profit;] The edition
shews distinctly, that profit was its aim more than faithfulness to the
memory of the poet, in the correctness either of his text or of the list
of his works. Even the style of the preface excites suspicions which the
work itself verifies. [Sidenote: designd to put down the Quartos, which
yet it copies.] One object of it was to put down editions of about
fifteen separate plays of Shakspeare's, previously printed in quarto,
which, though in most respects more accurate than their successors, had
evidently been taken from stolen copies: the preface of the folio,
accordingly, strives to throw discredit on these quartos, while the
text, usually close in its adherence to them, falls into errors where it
quits them, and omits many very fine passages which they give, and which
the modern editors have been enabled by their assistance to restore.

[Sidenote: The Table of Contents of the First Folio of Shakspere's Works
is of less worth.]

Here it is, however, of more consequence to notice, that the authority
of the Table of Contents of the Folio is worse than weak. The editors
profess to give all Shakspeare's works, and none which are not his: we
know that they have fulfilled neither the one pledge nor the other.
There is no doubt but they could at least have enumerated Shakspeare's
works correctly: but their knowledge and their design of profit did
[7:1]not suit each other. [Sidenote: It lets in two Plays that are not
Shakspere's.] They have admitted, for plain reasons, two plays which are
not Shakspeare's. Their edition contains about twenty plays never before
printed; it was evidently their interest to enlarge this part of their
list as far as they safely could. [Sidenote: _1 Henry VI_,] The
pretended First Part of Henry VI., in which Shakspeare may perhaps have
written a single scene,[8:1] but certainly not twenty lines besides, had
not been printed, and could be plausibly inserted; it does not seem that
they could have had any other reasons for giving it a place. [Sidenote:
and _Titus Andronicus_.] The Tragedy of the Shambles, which we call
'Titus Andronicus,' if it had been printed at all, had been so only
once, and that thirty years before; therefore it likewise was a novelty;
and a pretext was easily found for its admission. The editors then were
unscrupulous and unfair as to the works which they inserted: professing
to give a full collection, they were no less so as to those which they
did not insert. [Sidenote: _Troilus and Cressida_] 'Troilus and
Cressida,' an unpleasing drama, contains many passages of the highest
spirit and poetical richness, and the bad in it, as well as the good, is
perfectly characteristic of Shakspeare; it is unquestionably his.
[Sidenote: is not in the Table of Contents.] It does not appear in
Heminge and Condell's table of contents, and is only found appended,
like a separate work, to some copies of their edition. Its pages are not
even numbered along with the rest of the volume; and if the first
editors were the persons who printed it, it was clearly after the
remainder of the work. If they did print it, their manner of doing so
shews their carelessness of truth more strongly than if they had omitted
it altogether. They first make up their list, and state it as a full one
without that play, which they apparently had been unable to obtain; they
then procure access to the manuscript, print the play, and insert it in
the awkward way in which it stands, and thus virtually confess that the
assertion in their preface, made in reference to their table of
contents, was untrue. At any rate, a part of their impression was
circulated without this play. [Sidenote: _Pericles_ is not in the
volume, and yet is in part Shakspere's.] 'Pericles' also is wholly
omitted by those editors; it appears for the first time in the third
folio (1666), an edition of no value, and its genuineness rests much on
the internal proofs, which [8:2]are quite sufficient to establish it. It
is an irregular and imperfect play, older in form than any of
Shakspeare's; but it has clearly been augmented by many passages written
by him, and therefore had a right to be inserted by the first editors,
upon their own principles. [Sidenote: The editors of the First Folio put
forth an incomplete book.] These two plays then being certainly
Shakspeare's, no matter whether his best or his worst, and his editors
being so situated that they must have known the fact, their edition is
allowed to appear as a complete collection of Shakspeare's works,
although its contents include neither of the two. They probably were
unable to procure copies; but they were not the less bound to have
acknowledged in their preface, that these, or any other plays which they
knew to be Shakspeare's, were necessary for making up a complete
collection. It in no view suited their purposes to make such a
statement; and it was not made. [Sidenote: We cannot trust the Editors
of the First Folio.] In short, the whole conduct of these editors
inspires distrust, but their unacknowledged omission of those two plays
deprives them of all claim to our confidence. The effect of that
omission, in reference to any play which can be brought forward as
Shakspeare's, is just this, that the want of the drama in their edition,
is of itself no proof whatever that Shakspeare was not the author of it,
and leaves the question, whether he was or was not, perfectly open for
decision on other evidence. It leaves the inquiry before us precisely in
that situation. Why Heminge and Condell could not procure the
manuscripts of 'Troilus,' 'Pericles,' or the 'Two Noble Kinsmen,' I am
not bound to shew. As to the last, Fletcher may have retained a partial
or entire right of property in it, and was alive at the publication of
their edition. Difficulties at least as great attach to the question as
to the other two rejected plays, in which the strength of the other
proofs has long been admitted as counterbalancing them. But the argument
serves my purpose without any theory on the subject. [Sidenote: The
First Folio no evidence against _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The state of
it entitles me, as I conceive, to throw the First Folio entirely out of
view, as being no evidence one way or the other.

Laying the folio aside then, I think I have shewn that, in the most
unfavourable view, no doubts which other circumstances can throw on the
assertion made in the title-page of the first edition of the 'Two Noble
Kinsmen,' are of such strength as to ren[9:1]der the truth of it
improbable. [Sidenote: Strong internal evidence will prove it in part
Shakspere's.] Strong internal evidence therefore will, in any view,
establish Shakspeare's claim. But, if the consideration first suggested
be well-founded, (as I have no doubt it is,) namely, that the statement
of the publisher was disinterested, there arises a very strong external
presumption of the truth of his assertion, which will enable us to
proceed to the examination of the internal marks with a prepossession in
favour of Shakspeare's authorship.

As I wish to make you a convert to the affirmative opinion, it may be
wise to acquaint you that you will not be alone in it, if you shall
finally see reason to embrace it. [Sidenote: Early annotators on
Shakspere narrow-minded.] Shakspeare, you know, suffered a long eclipse,
which left him in obscurity till the beginning of last century, when he
reappeared surrounded by his annotators, a class of men who have
followed a narrow track, but yet are greater benefactors to us than we
are ready to acknowledge. The commentators have given little attention
to the question before us; but some of the best of them have declared
incidentally for Shakspeare's claim; and though even the editors who
have professed this belief have not inserted the work as his, this is
only one among many evil results of the slavish system to which they all
adhere. [Sidenote: Yet Pope, Warburton, Farmer, believe _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_ genuine: so does Schlegel.] We have with us Pope, Warburton,
and above all, Farmer, a man of fine discernment, and a most cautious
sifter of evidence. The subject has more recently been treated shortly
by a celebrated foreign critic, the enthusiastic and eloquent
Schlegel,[10:1] who comes to a conclusion decidedly favourable to
Shakspeare.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: II. Internal evidence.]

There still lies before us the principal part of our task, that of
applying to the presumption resulting from the external proof, (whatever
the amount of that may be,) the decisive test of the [10:2]Internal
Evidence. Do you doubt the efficacy of this supposed crucial experiment?
It is true that internal similarities form almost a valueless test when
applied to inferior writers; because in them the distinctive marks are
too weak to be easily traced. [Sidenote: Shakspere's work specially fit
for the Internal Evidence test.] But, in the first place, great authors
have in their very greatness the pledge of something peculiar which
shall identify their works, and consequently the test is usually
satisfactory in its application to them; and, secondly and particularly,
Shakspeare is, of all writers that have existed, that one to whose
alleged works such a test can be most confidently administered; because
he is not only strikingly peculiar in those qualities which
discriminate him from other poets, but his writings also possess
singularities, different from, and opposite to, the usual character of
poetry itself.

I cannot proceed with you to the work itself, till I have reminded you
of some distinctive differences between the two writers whose claims we
are to adjust, the recollection of which will be indispensable to us in
considering the details of the drama. [Sidenote: Differences between
Shakspere and Fletcher to be discusst.] We shall then enter on that
detailed examination, keeping those distinctions in mind, and attempting
to apply them to individual passages; and, when all the scenes of the
play have thus passed successively before us, we shall be able to look
back on it as a whole, and investigate its general qualities.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Shakspere's and Fletcher's versification contrasted.]

The first difference which may be pointed out between Shakspeare and
Fletcher, is that of their versification. You have learned from a study
of the poets themselves, in what that difference consists. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's.] Shakspeare's versification is broken and full of pauses,
he is sparing of double terminations to his verses, and has a marked
fondness for ending speeches or scenes with hemi-stitches. [Sidenote:
Fletcher's.] Fletcher's rhythm is of a newer and smoother cast, often
keeping the lines distinct and without breaks through whole speeches,
abounding in double endings, and very seldom leaving a line incomplete
at the end of a sentence or scene.[11:1] And the opposite taste of the
two poets in their choice and arrangement [11:2]of words, gives an
opposite character to the whole modulation of their verses. [Sidenote:
Modulation of Fletcher's verse: of Shakspere's.] Fletcher's is sweet and
flowing, and peculiarly fitted either for declamation or the softness of
sorrow: Shakspeare's ear is tuned to the stateliest solemnity of
thought, or the abruptness and vehemence of passion. The present drama
exhibits in whole scenes the qualities of Shakspeare's versification;
and there are other scenes which are marked by those of Fletcher's; the
difference is one reason for separating the authorship.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's images and words in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.]

You will notice in this play many instances of Shakspeare's favourite
images, and of his very words. Is this a proof of the play having been
his work, or does it only indicate imitation? In Shakspeare's case,
such resemblance, taken by itself, can operate neither way. [Sidenote:
Shakspere a mannerist in style, and] Shakspeare is a mannerist in style.
He knew this himself, and what he says of his minor poems, is equally
true of his dramatic language; he "keeps invention in a noted
weed[12:1];" and almost every word or combination of words is so marked
in its character that its author is known at a glance. [Sidenote:
wanting in variety. Shakspere repeats himself.] But not only is his
style so peculiar in its general qualities, as scarcely to admit of
being mistaken; not only is it deficient in variety of structure, but it
is in a particular degree characterised by a frequent recurrence of the
same images, often clothed in identically the same words. You are quite
aware of this, and those who are not, may be convinced of it by opening
any page of the annotated editions. So far, then, this play is only like
Shakspeare's acknowledged works. It is true, that one who wished to
write a play in Shakspeare's manner, would probably have repeated his
images and words as they are repeated here; but Shakspeare would
certainly have imitated himself quite as often. [Sidenote: The likeness
to Shakspere in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, and the repetitions of him, are
likely to be by him.] The resemblance could be founded on, as indicating
imitation, only in conjunction with other circumstances of dissimilarity
or inferiority to his genuine writings; and where, as in the present
case, there seems to be reason for asserting that the accompanying
circumstances point the work out as an original composition of his, this
very likeness and repetition become a strong argument in support of
those concomitant indications. [12:2]Such repetition is more or less
common in all the play-writers of that age. The number of their works,
the quickness with which they were written, and the carelessness which
circumstances induced as to their elaboration or final correction, all
aided in giving rise to this. [Sidenote: Massinger also repeats himself
much. Fletcher but little.] But all are not equally chargeable with it;
Beaumont and Fletcher less than most, Massinger to an extent far beyond
Shakspeare, and vying with the common-places of Euripides. May not the
professional habits of Shakspeare and Massinger as actors, have had some
effect in producing this, by imprinting their own works in their
memories with unusual strength? Fletcher and his associate were free
from that risk.

[Sidenote: Singularity of Shakspere's style.]

It would not be easy to give a systematic account of those 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.

[Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote:
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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: Fletcher
diffuse.] Fletcher is diffuse both in his leading thoughts and in his
illustrations. [Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere, not Fletcher.]

[15:2]Honoured Hippolita,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain
The scythe-tusked boar; that, with thy arm as strong
As it is white, wast near to make the male
To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord
(_Born to uphold creation in that hon|our
First Nature styled it in_) shrunk thee in|to
The bound thou wast o'erflow|ing, | at once subdu|ing |
Thy force and thy affection;--Soldieress!
That equally canst poise sternness with pit|y;--
Who now, I know, hast much more power o'er | him
Than e'er he had on thee;--_who owest[15:3] his strength
And his love too, who is a servant to
The tenor of thy speech_!

Is this like Fletcher? I think not. It is unlike him in versification
and in the tone of thought; and you will here particularly notice that
it is unlike him in abruptness and brevity. It is like Shakspeare in all
these particulars.

[Sidenote: Shakspere hardly ever vague,]

I have said that Shakspeare, often obscure, is scarcely ever vague; that
he may fail to express all he wishes, but almost always gives distinctly
the part which he is able to convey. [Sidenote: Fletcher unable to grasp
images distinctly.] Fletcher is not only slow in his ideas, but often
vague and deficient in precision. The following lines are taken from a
scene in the play under our notice, which clearly is not Shakspeare's. I
would direct your attention, not to the remoteness of the last conceit,
but to the want of distinctness in grasping images, and the inability to
see fully either their picturesque or their poetical relations.

[Sidenote: Fletcher, not Shakspere.]

_Arcite._ We were not bred to talk, man: when we are armed,
And both upon our guards, then _let our fur|y,
Like meeting of two tides, fly strongly from | us_.

. . . . .

_Palamon._ Methinks this armour's very like that, Ar|cite,
Thou worest that day the three kings fell, but light|er.

_Arc._ That was a very good one; and that day,
I well remember, you out-did me, cous|in:
... When I saw you charge first,
_Methought I heard a dreadful clap of thund|er
Break from the troop_.

_Pal._ _But still before that flew
The lightning of your valour._--Act III. scene vi.

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphorical, but seldom has long description.]

[16:1]Shakspeare's style, as every one knows, is metaphorical to excess.
[Sidenote: His thought and imagination work together.] His imagination
is always active, but he seldom pauses to indulge it by lengthened
description. I shall hereafter have occasion to direct your observation
to the sobriety with which he preserves imagination in its proper
station, as only the minister and interpreter of thought; but what I
wish now to say is, that in him the two powers operate simultaneously.
He goes on thinking vigorously, while his imagination scatters her
inexhaustible treasures like flowers on the current of his meditations.
His constant aim is the expression of facts, passions, or opinions; and
his intellect is constantly occupied in the investigation of such; but
the mind acts with ease in its lofty vocation, and the beautiful and the
grand rise up voluntarily to do him homage. He never indeed consents to
express those poetical ideas by themselves; but he shows that he felt
their import and their legitimate use, by wedding them to the thoughts
in which they originated. [Sidenote: Shakspere's truths and their
imagery glorify one another.] The truths which he taught, received
magnificence and amenity from the illustrative forms; and the poetical
images were elevated into a higher sphere of associations by the dignity
of the principles which they were applied to adorn. [Sidenote: Metaphor
the strength of poetry; simile its weakness.] Something like this is
always the true function of the imagination in poetry, and dramatic
poetry in particular; and it is also the test which tries the presence
of the faculty; metaphor indicates its strength, and simile its
weakness. [Sidenote: Fletcher is diffuse in description and simile,
loses the original thought in it,] Nothing can be more different from
this, or farther inferior to it, than the style of a poet who turns
aside in search of description, and indulges in simile preferably to the
brevity of metaphor, to whom perhaps a poetical picture originally
suggested itself as the decoration of a striking thought, but who
allowed himself to be captivated by the beauty of the suggested image,
till he forgot the thought which had given it birth, and on its
connexion with which its highest excellence depended. [Sidenote: is poor
in metaphor, and picturesque.] Such was Fletcher, whose style is poor in
metaphor. His descriptions are sometimes beautifully romantic; but even
then the effect of the whole is often picturesque rather than poetically
touching; and it is evident that lengthened description can still less
frequently be dramatic. In his descriptions, it is observable that the
poetical relations introduced in illustration [17:1]are usually few, the
character of the leading subject being relied on for producing the
poetical effect. [Sidenote: Fletcher's and Shakspere's descriptions
contrasted.] Fletcher's longest descriptions are but elegant outlines;
Shakspeare's briefest metaphors are often finished paintings. Where
Shakspeare is guilty of detailed description, he is very often laboured,
cold, and involved; but his illustrative ideas are invariably copious,
and it is often their superfluity which chiefly tends to mar the general
effect. [Sidenote: Metaphor in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is Shakspere's.]
In the play that you are to examine, you will find a profusion of
metaphor, which is undoubtedly the offspring of a different mind from
Fletcher's; and both its excellence and its peculiarity of character
seem to me to stamp it as Shakspeare's. I think the following passage
cannot be mistaken, though the beginning is difficult, and the text
perhaps incorrect.

[Sidenote: Instances of Shakspere's metaphors.]

They two have _cab|ined_
In many as dangerous, as poor a corn|er--
Peril and want contending, they have _skiffed_
Torrents, whose raging _tyranny_ and _pow|er_
I' the least of these was dreadful; and they have
Fought out together where _Death's self_ was _lodged_,
Yet FATE hath BROUGHT THEM OFF. Their _knot_ of love,
Tied, _weaved_, ENTANGLED, with so true, so long,
And with a _finger_ of so deep a cun|ning,
May be _outworn_, never _undone_. I think
Theseus cannot be _umpire_ to himself,
_Cleaving his conscience into twain_, and do|ing
Each side like justice, which he loves best.--Act I. scene iii.

The play throughout will give you metaphors, like Shakspeare's in their
frequency, like his in their tone and character, and like his in their
occasional obscurity and blending together.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's classical images.]

We have been looking to Shakspeare's imagery. You will meet with
classical images in the 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Do not allow any
ill-applied notion of his want of learning to convert this into an
argument against his authorship. You will recollect, that an attachment
of this sort is very perceptible in Shakspeare's dramas, and pervades
the whole thread of his youthful poems. It is indeed a prominent quality
in the school of poetry, which prevailed during the earlier part of his
life, perhaps during the whole of it. In his early days, the study of
[18:1]Grecian and Latin literature in England may be said to have only
commenced, and the scenery and figures of the classical mythology broke
on the view of the student with all the force of novelty. [Sidenote:
Elizabethan literature tinged with classicism.] All the literature of
that period is tinged with classicism to a degree which in our satiated
times is apt to seem pedantic. It infected writers of all kinds and
classes: translations were multiplied, and a familiarity with classical
tales and history was sought after or affected even by those who had no
access to the original language. Shakspeare clearly stood in this latter
predicament, his knowledge of Latin certainly not exceeding that of a
schoolboy: but the translated classics enabled him to acquire the facts,
and he shared the taste of the age to its full extent. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's classical allusions.] His admiration of the classical
writers is vouched by the subjects and execution of his early poems, by
numerous allusions in his dramas, particularly his histories, by the
subjects chosen for some of his plays, by one or two imitations of the
translated Latin poets,[19:1] and by many exotic forms in his language,
derived from the same secondary source. Correct tameness is the usual
character of classical allusion in authors well versed in classical
studies. [Sidenote: Milton's classical allusions.] [Sidenote:
Fletcher's.] Even Milton, who has drawn the most exquisite images of
this kind, has sometimes remembered only, where he should have invented:
and Fletcher, whom we have especially to consider, is no exception to
the rule; his many classical illustrations are invariably cold and poor.
[Sidenote: Shakspere's treatment of mythology.] Shakspeare's
mythological images have something singular in them. They are incorrect
as transcripts of the originals, but admirable if examined without such
reference; they are highly-coloured paintings whose subjects are taken
from the simplicity of some antique statue. [Sidenote: His _Venus and
Adonis_.] The 'Venus and Adonis' has some fine and some overcharged
pictures thus formed from the hints which he derived from his
books.[19:2] He received the mythological images but imperfectly, and
his fancy was stimulated without being [19:3]clogged. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's treatment of classical mythology;] He stood but at the
entrance of those visionary forests, within whose glades the heroes and
divinities of ancient faith reposed; he looked through a glimmering and
uncertain light, and caught only glimpses of the sanctity of that world
of wonders: and it was with an imagination heated by the flame of
mystery and partial ignorance that he turned away from the scene so
imperfectly revealed, to brood on the beauty of its broken contours, and
allow fancy to create magnificence richer than memory ever saw. The
occurrence of classical allusions here, therefore, affords no reason for
doubting his authorship even of those passages in which they are found:
and if we could trace any of his singularities in the images which we
have, the argument in his favour would be strengthened by these. Most of
the allusions are too slightly sketched to permit this; but one or two
are like him in their unfaithfulness. We have "Mars' drum" in the 'Venus
and Adonis'; and here beauty is described as able to make him spurn it:
the altar of the same deity is alluded to as the scene of a Grecian
marriage. The "Nemean lion's hide" is here, as his nerve in 'Hamlet.'
[Sidenote: specially in Arcite's prayer in Act V. scene i.] But the most
characteristic use of this sort of imagery is in the prayer in the first
scene of the Fifth Act. [Sidenote: This scene is certainly Shakspere's.]
The whole tenor of the language, the solemnity and majesty of the tone
of thought, the piling up of the heap of metaphors and images, and the
boldness and admirable originality of their conception, all these are
Shakspeare's; and the fact of this accumulation of feeling, thought, and
imagination, being employed to create, out of a fragmentary classical
outline, a picture both new in its features and gorgeously magnificent
in its filling up, is strongly indicative of his hand, and strikingly
resembles his mode of dealing with such subjects elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's tendency to reflection.]

You will be furnished with a rule to guide your decision on many
passages of the drama otherwise doubtful, by having your notice slightly
directed to what will fall more properly under our consideration when we
look back on the general scope of the play,--I mean Shakspeare's
prevailing tendency to reflection. The presence of a spirit of active
and inquiring thought through every page of his writings is too evident
to require any proof. It is exerted on every object which comes under
his notice: it is serious when its theme is lofty; and when the subject
is familiar, [20:1]it is contented to be shrewd. [Sidenote: His own
active and inquiring thought, is the only quality of his own that he's
given _all_ his characters.] He has impressed no other of his own mental
qualities on all his characters: this quality colours every one of them.
It is one to which poetry is apt to give a very subordinate place: and,
in most poets, fancy is the predominating power; because, immeasurably
as that faculty in them is beneath its unequalled warmth in Shakspeare,
yet intellect in them is comparatively even weaker. With inferior poets,
particularly the dramatic, inflation of feeling and profusion of imagery
are the alternate disguises which conceal poverty of thought. [Sidenote:
Fletcher's thought, small beside Shakspere's.] Fletcher is a poet of
much and sterling merit; but his fund of thought is small indeed when
placed beside Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's worldly wisdom, and
solemn thought.] He has, indeed, very little of Shakspeare's practical,
searching, worldly wisdom, and none of that solemnity of thought with
which he penetrates into his loftier themes of reflection. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's Imagination the handmaid of his Understanding.] This quality
in Shakspeare is usually relieved by poetical decoration: Imagination is
active powerfully and unceasingly, but she is rebuked by the presence
of a mightier influence; she is but the handmaid of the active and
piercing Understanding; and the images which are her offspring serve but
as the breeze to the river, which stirs and ripples its surface, but is
not the power which impels its waters to the sea. As you go through this
drama, you will not only find a sobriety of tone pervading the more
important parts of it, but activity of intellect constantly exerted.
[Sidenote: Note the mass of general truths and maxims in this part of
_The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] But what demands particular notice is, the
mass of general truths, of practical, moral, or philosophical maxims,
which, issuing from this reflective turn of mind, are scattered through
Shakspeare's writings as thick as the stars in heaven. The occurrence of
them is characteristic of his temper of mind; and there is something
marked in the manner of the adages themselves. They are often solemn,
usually grave, but always pointed, compressed, and energetic;--they vary
in subject, from familiar facts and rules for social life to the
enunciation of philosophical truths and the exposition of moral duty.
You will meet with them in this drama in all their shapes and in every
page [of Shakspere's part of it].

[Sidenote: Shakspere's reach of thought.]

Shakspeare's reach and comprehension of thought is as remarkable as its
activity, while Fletcher's is by no means great, and in this respect
Massinger comes much nearer to him. The simplest fact has many dependent
qualities, and may be related by [21:1]men of different degrees of
intellect with circumstances differing infinitely, a confined mind
seeing only its plainest qualities, while a stronger one grasps and
combines many distant relations. Shakspeare's love of brevity would not
have produced obscurity nearly so often, had it not been aided by his
width of mental vision. [Sidenote: Passages in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_
too comprehensive for Fletcher.] There are many passages in the play
before us which seem to emanate from a mind of more comprehension than
Fletcher's. Look at the following lines. The idea to be expressed was a
very simple one. Hippolita is entreating her husband to leave her, and
depart to succour the distressed ladies who kneel at her feet and his;
and she wishes to say, that though, as a bride, she was loth to lose her
husband's presence, yet she felt that she should act blameably if she
detained him. Fletcher would have expressed no idea beyond that; but on
it alone he would have employed six lines and two or three comparisons.
Hear how many cognate ideas present themselves to Shakspeare's mind in
expressing the thought. The passage is obscure, but not the less like
Shakspeare on that account.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's pregnancy and obscurity.]

Though much unlike|ly
I should be so transported, _as much sor|ry
I should be such a suitor_; yet I think,
Did I not, by the abstaining of my joy,
_Which breeds a deeper longing_, cure the sur|feit
_That craves a present medicine_, I should pluck
All ladies' scandal on me--Act I. scene i.

It would be well if Shakspeare's continual inclination to thought gave
rise to no worse faults than occasional obscurity. It was not to be
hoped that it should not produce others. His tone of thinking could
not be always high and serious; and even when it flowed in a lofty
channel, its uninterrupted stream could not always be pure. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's conceits and quibbles.] His judgment often fails to perform
its part, and he is guilty of conceit and quibble, not merely in his
comic vein, but in his most deeply tragical situations. He has indeed
one powerful excuse; he had universal example in both respects to
justify or betray him. But he has likewise another plea, that his
constant activity of mind, and the wideness of its province, exposed him
to pe[22:1]culiar risks. A mind always in action must sometimes act
wrongly; and the constant exercise of the creative powers of the mind
dulls the edge of the corrective. It was not strange that he who was
unwearied in tracing the manifestations of that spirit of likeness which
pervades nature, should often mistake a resemblance in name for a
community of essence,--that he whose mind was sensible to the most
delicate differences, should sometimes fancy he saw distinction where
there was none;--it was not strange, however much to be regretted, that
he who left the smooth green slopes of fancy to clamber among the craggy
steeps of thought, should often stumble in his dizzy track, either in
looking up to the perilous heights above, or downwards on the morning
landscape beneath him. [Sidenote: Shakspere's faults.] While the most
glaring errors of the tropical Euphues are strained allegorical
conceits, Shakspeare's fault is oftener the devising of subtle and
unreal distinctions, or the ringing of fantastical changes upon words.
[Sidenote: Lyly's faults.] Lily's error was one merely of taste;
Shakspeare's was one of the judgment, and the heavier of the two, but
still the error of a stronger mind than the other; for the judgment
cannot act till the understanding has given it materials to work upon,
and those fanciful writers who do not reflect at all, are in no danger
of reflecting wrongly. [Sidenote: Shakspere's evil genius triumphs in
his puns.] Shakspeare's evil genius triumphs when it tempts him to a
pun--it enjoys a less complete but more frequent victory in suggesting
an antithesis; but it often happens that this dangerous turn of mind
does not carry him so far as to be of evil consequence. It aids its
quickness and directness of mental view, in giving to his style a
pointed epigrammatic terseness which is quite its own, and a frequent
weight and effect which no other equals. Where, however, this antithetic
tendency is allowed to approach the serious scenes, it throws over them
an icy air which is very injurious, while it often gives the comic ones
a ponderousness which is altogether singular, and but imperfectly
accordant with the nature of comic dialogue. [Sidenote: Characteristics
of his wit.] The arrows of Shakspeare's wit are not the lightly
feathered shafts which Fletcher discharges, and as little are they the
iron-headed bolts which fill the quiver of Jonson; but they are weapons
forged from materials unknown to the others, and in an armoury to which
they had no access; their execution is [23:1]resistless when they reach
their aim, but they are covered with a golden massiveness of decoration
which sometimes impedes the swiftness of their flight. But whether the
effect of these peculiarities of Shakspeare be good or evil, their use
in helping an identification of his manner is very great. [Sidenote:
Contrast with Fletcher's.] Nothing can be more directly opposite to them
than the slow elegance and want of pointedness which we find in
Fletcher, who is not free from conceits, but does not express them with
Shakspeare's hard quaintness, while he is comparatively quite guiltless
of plays on words. The following instances are only a few among many in
the present drama, which seem to be perfectly in Shakspeare's manner,
and to most of which Fletcher's works could certainly furnish no
parallel, either in subject or in expression.

[Sidenote: Passages by Shakspere, not Fletcher.]

Oh, my petition was
Set down in ice, which, by hot grief uncan|died,
Melts into tears; so sorrow, wanting form,
Is pressed with deeper matter.--Act I. scene i.

Theseus speaks thus of the Kinsmen lying before him in the field of
battle desperately wounded:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphors.]

Rather than have them
Freed of this plight, and in their morning state,
Sound and at liberty, I would them dead:
But forty thousand fold we had rather have | them[24:1]
_Prisoners to us than Death_. Bear them speedi|ly
From _our kind air, to them unkind_, and min|ister
What man to man may do.--Act I. scene iv.

A lady hunting is addressed in this strain:

Oh jewel
O' the wood, O' the world!--Act III. scene i.

In the same scene one knight says to another,--

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.]

This question sick between us,
By bleeding must be cured.

[24:2]And the one, left in the wood, says to the other, who goes to the
presence of the lady whom both love--

You talk of feeding me, to breed me strength;
You are going now to look upon a sun,
That strengthens what _it_ looks on.--Act III. scene i.

The two knights, about to meet in battle, address each other in these
words:--

_Pal._ Think you but thus;
That there were aught in me which strove to shew
Mine enemy in this business,--were't one eye
Against another, arm opposed by arm,
I would destroy the offender;--coz, I would,
Though parcel of myself: then from this, gath|er
How I should tender you!

_Arc._ I am in la|bour
To push your name, your ancient love, our kin|dred,
Out of my memory, and i' the self-same place
To seat something I would confound.--Act V. scene i.

And afterwards their lady-love, listening to the noise of the fight,
speaks thus:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.]

Each stroke laments
The place whereon it falls, and sounds more like
A bell than blade.--Act V. scene v.

Shakspeare's fondness for thought, the tendency of that train of
thought to run into the abstract, and his burning imagination, have
united in producing another quality which strongly marks his style, and
is more pleasing than those last noticed. [Sidenote: Shakspere's
personification of mental powers, passions.] He abounds in
Personification, and delights particularly in personifications of mental
powers, passions, and relations. [Sidenote: In _Venus and Adonis_.] This
metaphysico-poetical mood of musing tinges his miscellaneous poems
deeply, especially the Venus and Adonis, which is almost lyrical
throughout; and even in his dramas the style is often like one of
Collins's exquisite odes. [Sidenote: Fletcher uses it but little.] This
quality is common to him with the narrative poets of his age, from whom
[25:1]he received it; but it is adopted to no material extent by any of
his dramatic contemporaries, and by Fletcher less than any. [Sidenote:
Shakspere's distinctive use of Personification.] The other dramatists,
indeed, are full of metaphysical expressions, of the names of affections
and faculties of the soul; but they do not go on as Shakspeare's
kindling fancy impelled him to do, to look on them as independent and
energetic existences. This figure is one of the most common means by
which he elevates himself into the tragic and poetic sphere, the
compromise between his reason and his imagination, the felicitous mode
by which he reconciles his fondness for abstract thought, with his
allegiance to the genius of poetry. [Sidenote: The _Two Noble Kinsmen_
is rich in personifications which must be Shakspere's.] 'The Two Noble
Kinsmen' is rich in personifications both of mental qualities and
others, which have all Shakspeare's tokens about them, and vary
infinitely, from the uncompleted hint to the perfected portrait.

[Sidenote: Instances of these.]

Oh Grief and Time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour!--Act I. scene i.

Peace might purge
For her repletion, and retain anew
Her charitable heart, now hard, and harsh|er
Than Strife or War could be.--Act I. scene ii.

A most unbounded tyrant, whose success
Makes heaven unfeared, and villainy assured
Beyond its power there's nothing,--almost puts
Faith in a fev|er,| and deifies alone
Voluble Chance.--Act I. scene ii.

This funeral path brings to your household graves;
Joy seize on you again--Peace sleep with him!

Act I. scene v.

Content and Ang|er
In me have but one face.--Act III. scene i.

Force and great Feat
Must put my garland on, where she will stick
The queen of flowers.--Act V. scene i.

[Sidenote: Instances of Shakspere's Personification in _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_.]

Thou (_Love_) mayst force the king
To be his subject's vassal, and _induce
Stale Gravity to dance_;--the pollèd bachelor,
_Whose youth_, (like wanton boys through bon|fires,)
[26:1]_Has skipt thy flame_, at seventy thou canst catch,
And make him, to the scorn of his hoarse throat,
Abuse young lays of love.--Act V. scene ii.

Mercy and manly Cour|age
Are bed fellows in his visage.--Act V. scene v.

_Our Reasons are not proph|ets,
When oft our Fancies are._--Act V. scene v.

The hints which you have now perused, are not, I repeat, offered to you
as by any means exhausting the elements of Shakspeare's manner of
writing. They are meant only to bring to your memory such of his
qualities of style as chiefly distinguish him from Fletcher, and are
most prominently present in the play we are examining. [Sidenote: In
bits of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_ several of Shakspere's distinctive
qualities are often combin'd.] When we shall see those qualities
instanced singly, they will afford a proof of Shakspeare's authorship:
but that proof will receive an incalculable accession of strength when,
as will more frequently happen, we shall have several of them displayed
at once in the same passages. Your recollection of them will serve us as
the lines of a map would in a journey on foot through a wild forest
country: the beauty of the landscape will tempt us not seldom to diverge
and lose sight of our path, and we shall need their guidance for
enabling us to regain it.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The story of _Palamon and Arcite_.]

The story of PALAMON AND ARCITE is a celebrated one, and, besides its
appearance here, has been taken up by other two of our greatest English
poets. Chaucer borrowed the tale from the _Teseide_ of Boccaccio: it
then received a dramatic form in this play; and from Chaucer's antique
sketch it was afterwards decorated with the trappings of heroic rhyme,
by one who fell on evil days, the lofty and unfortunate Dryden.
[Sidenote: Character of the story of Palamon and Arcite.] It treats of a
period of ancient and almost fabulous history, which originally belonged
to the classical writers, but had become familiar in the chivalrous
poetry of the middle ages; and retaining the old historical characters,
it intersperses with them new ones wholly imaginary, and, both in the
Knightes Tale and in the play, preserves the rich and anomalous
magnificence of the Gothic cos[27:1]tume. [Sidenote: Theseus the centre
of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] The character round which the others are
grouped, one which Shakspeare has introduced in another of his works, is
the heroic Theseus, whom the romances and chronicles dignify with the
modern title of Duke of Athens; and in this story he is connected with
the tragical war of the Seven against Thebes, one of the grandest
subjects of the ancient Grecian poetry.

[Sidenote: First Act of _Two Noble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's.]

The whole of the First Act may be safely pronounced to be Shakspeare's.
The play opens with the bridal procession of Theseus and the fair Amazon
Hippolita, whose young sister EMILIA is the lady of the tale. While the
marriage-song is singing, the train are met by three queens in mourning
attire, who fall down at the feet of Theseus, Hippolita, and Emilia.
They are the widows of three of the princes slain in battle before
Thebes, and the conqueror Creon has refused the remains of the dead
soldiers the last honour of a grave. The prayer of the unfortunate
ladies to Theseus is, that he would raise his powerful arm to force from
the tyrant the unburied corpses, that the ghosts of the dead may be
appeased by the performance of fitting rites of sepulture. The duty
which knighthood imposed on the Prince of Athens, is combated by his
unwillingness to quit his bridal happiness; but generosity and
self-denial at length obtain the victory, and he marches, with banners
displayed, to attack the Thebans.

This scene bears decided marks of Shakspeare.--The lyrical pieces
scattered through his plays are, whether successful or not, endowed with
a stateliness of rhythm, an originality and clearness of imagery, and a
nervous quaintness and pomp of language, which can scarcely be mistaken.
[Sidenote: The Bridal Song can't be Fletcher's.] The Bridal Song which
ushers in this play, has several of the marks of distinction, and is
very unlike the more formal and polished rhymes of Fletcher.

[Sidenote: Act I. sc. i.

The Bridal Song is Shakspere's.]

. . . . .

Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime's harbinger,
_With her bells dim_:
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
_Marigolds on death-beds blowing_,
Lark-heels trim:
All, dear Nature's children sweet,
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
[28:1]_Blessing their sense_:
Not an _angel of the air_,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence!

. . . . .

[Sidenote: Dialogue in I. i. has the characteristics of Shakspere's
style: is crowded, obscure, alliterative, clear and yet confus'd, has
fulness and variety, originality and true poetry.]

But the dialogue which follows is strikingly characteristic. It has
sometimes Shakspeare's identical images and words: it has his quaint
force and sententious brevity, crowding thoughts and fancies into the
narrowest space, and submitting to obscurity in preference to feeble
dilation: it has sentiments enunciated with reference to subordinate
relations, which other writers would have expressed with less grasp of
thought: it has even Shakspeare's alliteration, and one or two of his
singularities in conceit: it has clearness in the images taken
separately, and confusion from the prodigality with which one is poured
out after another, in the heat and hurry of imagination: it has both
fulness of illustration, and a variety which is drawn from the most
distant sources; and it has, thrown over all, that air of originality
and that character of poetry, the principle of which is often hid when
their presence and effect are most quickly and instinctively
perceptible.

_1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) For pity's sake, and true gentility's,
Hear and respect me!

_2 Queen._ (_To Hippolita._) For your mother's sake,
And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair | ones,
Hear and respect me!

_3 Queen._ (_To Emilia._) Now for the love of him whom Jove hath
marked
The honour of your bed, and for the sake
Of clear virginity, be advocate
For us and our distresses! This good deed
Shall rase you, out of the Book of Trespasses,
All you are set down there.

These latter lines are of a character which is perfectly and singularly
Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's gravity and seriousness.] The shade
of gravity which so usually darkens his poetry, is often heightened to
the most solemn seriousness. The religious thought presented here is
most alien from Fletcher's turn of thought.--The ensuing speech offers
much of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere sometimes harsh and coarse.]
His energy, sometimes confined within [29:1]due limits, often betrays
him into harshness; and his liking for familiarity of imagery and
expression sometimes makes him careless though both should be coarse, a
fault which we find here, and of which Fletcher is not guilty.
[Sidenote: His bold coinages of words:] Here also are more than one of
those bold coinages of words, forced on a mind for whose force of
conception common terms were too weak.

[Sidenote: to _urn_ ashes;]

[Sidenote: to _chapel_ bones.]

_1 Queen._ We are three queens, whose sovrans fell before
The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured
The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites,
And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.
He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
To _urn_ their ashes, nor to take the offence
Of mortal loathesomeness from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the air
With stench of our slain lords. Oh, pity, Duke!
Thou purger[29:2] of the earth! draw thy fear'd sword,
That does good turns i' the world: give us the bones
Of our dead kings, that we may _chapel_ them!
And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note,
That for our crowned heads we have no roof
Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's,
And vault to every thing.

[Sidenote: Shakspere reflective.]

We now begin to trace more and more that reflecting tendency which is so
deeply imprinted on Shakspeare's writings:--

_Theseus._ . . . . .
King Capanëus[29:3] was your lord: the day
That he should marry you, at such a seas|on
As it is now with me, I met your groom
By Mars's altar. You were that time fair;
Not Juno's mantle fairer than your tress|es,
Nor in more bounty spread: your wheaten wreath
Was then nor threshed nor blast|ed |: Fortune, at you,
Dimpled her cheek with smiles: Hercules our kins|man
(Then weaker than your eyes) laid by his club,--
He tumbled down upon his Némean hide,
[30:1]And swore his sinews thawed. O, Grief and Time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour!

_1 Queen._ Oh, I hope some god,
Some god hath put his mercy in your man|hood,
Whereto he'll infuse power, and press you forth,
Our undertaker!

_Theseus._ Oh, no knees; none, wid|ow!
Unto the helmeted Bellona use | them,
And pray for me, your sol|dier.|--Troubled I am.
(_Turns away._)

[Sidenote: A Shakspere fancy.]

[Sidenote: A Shakspere simile.]

_2 Queen._ Honoured Hippolita, ...
... dear _glass of la|dies_!
Bid him, that we, whom flaming war hath scorch'd,
Under the shadow of his sword may cool us.
Require him, he advance it o'er our heads;
Speak it in a woman's key[30:2], like such a wom|an
As any of us three: weep ere you fail;
Lend us a knee;--
But touch the ground for us no longer time
_Than a dove's motion when the head's pluckt off_:
Tell him, if he i' the blood-siz'd field lay swol|len,
Shewing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon,
What you would do!

. . . . .

_Emilia._ Pray stand up;
Your grief is written on your cheek.

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_3 Queen._ Oh, woe!
You cannot read it there: there,[30:3] through my tears,
Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream,
You may behold it. Lady, lady, alack!
He that will all the treasure know o' the earth,
Must know the centre too: he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart. Oh, pardon me!
Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
Makes me a fool.

_Emilia._ Pray you, say nothing; pray | you!
Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in't,
Knows neither wet nor dry. If that you were
The ground-piece of some painter, I would buy | you,
To instruct me 'gainst a capital grief indeed;
(Such heart-pierced demonstration;) but, alas!
Being a natural sister of our sex,
Your sorrow beats so ardently upon | me,
That it shall make a counter-reflect against
My brother's heart, and warm it to some pit|y,
Though it were made of stone: Pray have good com|fort!

[Sidenote: Shakspere simile,]

. . . . .

[31:1]_1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) ... Remember that your fame
Knolls in the ear o' the world: what you do quickl|y,
Is not done rashly; your first thought, is more
Than others' labour'd meditance; your premed|itating,
More than their actions: but, (oh, Jove!) your ac|tions,
Soon as they move, _as ospreys do the fish_,
Subdue before they touch. Think, dear duke, think
What beds our slain kings have!

[Sidenote: metaphor.]

_2 Queen._ What griefs, our beds,
That our slain kings have none.

Theseus is moved by their prayers, but, loth to leave the side of his
newly wedded spouse, contents himself with directing his chief captain
to lead the Athenian army against the tyrant. The queens redouble their
entreaties for his personal aid.

[Sidenote: Shakspere personification.]

_2 Queen._ We come unseasonably; but when could Grief
Cull out, as _unpang'd Judgment_ can, fitt'st time
For best solicitation!

_Theseus._ Why, good la|dies,
This is a service whereto I am go|ing,
Greater than any war: it more imports | me
Than all the actions that I have foregone,
Or futurely can cope.

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor, force.]

_1 Queen._ The more proclaim|ing
Our suit shall be neglected. When her arms,
Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall
By warranting moonlight _corslet_ thee,--oh, when
Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall
Upon thy tasteful lips,--what wilt thou think
Of rotten kings or blubberd queens? what care,
For what thou feel'st not; what thou feel'st, being a|ble
To make Mars spurn his drum?--Oh, if thou couch
But one night with her, every hour in't will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shall remember nothing more than what
That banquet bids thee to.

. . . . .

_Theseus._ Pray stand up:
I am entreating of myself to do
That which you kneel to have me. Perithous!
Lead on the bride! Get you, and pray the gods
For success and return; omit not any thing
In the pretended celebration. Queens!
Follow your soldier....
... [32:1](_To Hippolita._) Since that our theme is haste,
I stamp this kiss upon thy currant lip:
Sweet, keep it as my token!...

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.]

_1 Queen._ Thus dost thou still make good the tongue o' the world.

_2 Queen._ And earn'st a deity equal with Mars.

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_3 Queen._ If not above him; for
Thou, being but mortal, mak'st affections bend
To godlike honours; _they themselves, some say,
Groan under such a mas|tery_.|

_Theseus._ As we are men,
Thus should we do: being sensually subdued,
We lose our human title. Good cheer, la|dies!
Now turn we towards your comforts. (_Exeunt._)

[Sidenote: Act I. scene ii.]

The second scene introduces the heroes of the piece, Palamon and Arcite.
They are two youths of the blood-royal of Thebes, who follow the banners
of their sovereign with a sense that obedience is their duty, but under
a sorrowful conviction that his cause is unjust, and their country
rotten at the core. The scene is a dialogue between them, occupied in
lamentations and repinings over the dissolute manners of their native
Thebes. [Sidenote: has the characteristics of Shakspere.] Its broken
versification points out Shakspeare; the quaintness of some conceits is
his; and several of the phrases and images have much of his pointedness,
brevity, or obscurity. The scene, though not lofty in tone, does not
want interest, and contains some extremely original illustrations. But
quotations will be multiplied abundantly before we have done; and their
number must not be increased by the admission of any which are not
either unusually good or very distinctly characteristic of their author.
Some lines of the scene have been already given.

[Sidenote: Act I. scene iii.]

The third scene has the farewell commendations of the young Emilia and
her sister to Perithous, when he sets out to join Theseus, then before
the Theban walls, and a subsequent conversation of the two ladies.
[Sidenote: is probably all Shakspere's.] Much of this scene has
Shakspeare's stamp deeply cut upon it: it is probably all his. [Sidenote:
Act I. scene iii. has the characteristics of Shakspere.] It is
identified, not only by several others of the qualities marking the
first scene, but more particularly by the wealth of its allusion, and
by a closeness, directness, and pertinency of reply which Fletcher's
most spirited dialogues do not reach. It presents more than one
exceed[33:1]ingly beautiful climax; a figure which repeatedly occurs in
the play, and is always used with peculiar energy.

SCENE--_Before the Gates of Athens.--Enter Perithous, Hippolita, and
Emilia._

_Perithous._ No further.

_Hippolita._ Sir, farewell. Repeat my wish|es
To our great lord, of whose success I dare | not
Make any timorous question; yet I wish | him
Excess and overflow of power, an't might | be,
To dure ill-dealing Fortune. Speed to him!
Store never hurts good governors.

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor,]

_Perithous._ Though I know
His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they
Must yield their tribute there. (_To Emilia._) My precious maid,
Those best affections that the heavens infuse
In their _best-tempered pieces_, keep _enthroned_
In your dear heart!

_Emilia._ Thanks, sir! Remember me
To our all royal brother, for whose speed
The great Bellona I'll solicit; and,
Since in our terrene state, petitions are | not,
Without gifts, understood, I'll offer to | her
What I shall be advised she likes. Our hearts
Are in his army, in his tent.

[Sidenote: phrase.]

_Hippolita._ In's bos|om!
We have been soldiers, and we cannot weep
When our friends don their helms or put to sea,
Or tell of babes broacht on the lance, or wom|en
That have sod their infants in (and after eat | them)
The brine they wept at killing them; then if
You stay to see of us such spinsters, we
Should hold you here for ever.

. . . . .

_Emilia._ How his long|ing
Follows his friend!...
Have you observëd him
Since our great lord departed?

_Hippolita._ With much la|bour,
And I did love him for't.[33:2]...

[Sidenote: Female friendship: the description has Shakspere's
characteristics.]

[34:1]The description of female friendship which follows is familiar to
all lovers of poetry. It is disfigured by one or two strained conceits,
and some obscurities arising partly from errors in the text: but the
beauty of the sketch in many parts is extreme, and its character
distinctly that of Shakspeare, vigorous and even quaint, thoughtful and
sometimes almost metaphysical, instinct with animation, and pregnant
with fancy; offering, in short, little resemblance to the manner of any
poet but Shakspeare, and the most unequivocal opposition to Fletcher's.

_Emilia._ Doubtless
There is a best, and reason has no man|ners
To say, it is not you. I was acquaint|ed
Once with a time when I enjoy'd a play|fellow----
You were at wars when she the grave enrich'd,
(Who made too proud the bed,) took leave o' the moon,
Which then look'd pale at parting, when our count
Was each eleven.

_Hippolita._ 'Twas Flavina.

[Sidenote: Shakspere fancy.]

_Emilia._ Yes.
You talk of Perithous' and Theseus' love:
Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seas|oned,
More buckled with strong judgment; and their needs,
The one of the other, may be said to wat|er
Their intertangled roots of love.--But I
And she I sigh and spoke of, were things in|nocent,--
Loved for we did, and,--like the elements,
That know not what nor why, yet do effect
Rare issues by their operance,--our souls
Did so to one another. What she liked,
Was then of me approved; what not, condemned.
No more arraign|ment.| The flower that I would pluck,
And put between my breasts, (then but begin|ning
To swell about the blossom,) she would long
Till she had such another, and commit | it
To the like innocent cradle, where, phoenix-like,
They died in perfume; on my head, no toy
But was her pattern; her affections, (pret|ty,
Though happily her careless wear,) I fol|low'd
For my most serious decking.--Had mine ear
Stolen some new air, or at adventure humm'd
From musical coinage,--why, it was a note
Whereon her spirits would sojourn, rather dwell | on,
And sing it in her slumbers.--This rehears|al
[34:2](Which, every innocent wots well, comes in
Like old importment's bastard) has this end,
That the true love 'tween maid and maid may be
More than in sex dividual....

[Sidenote: Act I. scene iv. Shakspere's.]

The fourth scene is laid in a battle-field near Thebes, and Theseus
enters victorious. The three queens fall down with thanks before him;
and a herald announces the capture of the Two Noble Kinsmen, wounded and
senseless, and scarcely retaining the semblance of life. [Sidenote: Has
Shakspere's words and quibbles.] The phraseology of this short scene is
like Shakspeare's, being brief and energetic, and in one or two
instances passing into quibbles.

[Sidenote: Act I. scene v. is Shakspere's.]

The last scene of this act is of a lyrical cast, and comprised in a few
lamentations spoken by the widowed queens over the corpses of their dead
lords. It ends with this couplet:

The world's a city full of straying streets,
And death's the market-place, where each one meets.

[Sidenote: Act II. not Shakspere's.]

In the Second Act no part seems to have been taken by Shakspeare.
[Sidenote: The prose of II. i. is not from Chaucer,] It commences with
one of those scenes which are introduced into the play in departure from
the narrative of Chaucer, forming an underplot which is clearly the work
of a different artist from many of the leading parts of the drama. The
Noble Kinsmen, cured of their wounds, have been committed to strait and
perpetual prison in Athens, and the first part of this scene is a prose
dialogue between their jailor and a suitor of his daughter. The maiden's
admiration of the prisoners is then exhibited. [Sidenote: and is very
dull: it is not Shakspere's.] You will see afterwards, that there are
several circumstances besides the essential dulness of this prose part,
which fully absolve Shakspeare from the charge of having written it.

[Sidenote: The verse of Act II. scene i.]

The versified portion of this scene, which follows the prose dialogue
among the inferior characters, presents the incident on which the
interest of the story hinges, the commencement of the fatal and
chimerical passion, which, inspiring both the knights towards the young
Emilia, severs the bonds of friendship which had so long held them
together. The noble prisoners are discovered in their turret-chamber,
looking out on the palace-garden, which the lady afterwards enters. They
speak [35:1]in a highly animated strain of that world from which they
are secluded, and find themes of consolation for the hard lot which had
overtaken them. The dialogue is in many respects admirable. [Sidenote:
The verse of Act II. scene i. has the characteristics of Fletcher:
double endings, end-stopt lines, vague images,] It possesses much
eloquence of description, and the character of the language is smooth
and flowing; the versification is good and accurate, frequent in double
endings, and usually finishing the sense with the line; and one or two
allusions occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, may be in
themselves a strong presumption of his authorship; the images too have
in some instances a want of distinctness in application or a vagueness
of outline, which could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's
acknowledged writings. [Sidenote: but romantic;] The style is fuller of
allusions than his usually is, but the images are more correct and
better kept from confusion than Shakspeare's; some of them indeed are
exquisite, but rather in the romantic and exclusively poetical tone of
Fletcher, than in the natural and universal mode of feeling which
animates Shakspeare. [Sidenote: slack dialogue.] The dialogue too
proceeds less energetically than Shakspeare's, falling occasionally into
a style of long-drawn disquisition which Fletcher often substitutes for
the quick and dramatic conversations of the great poet. [Sidenote: II.
i. one of the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote.] On the whole,
however, this scene, if it be Fletcher's, (of which I have no doubt,) is
among the very finest he ever wrote; and there are many passages in
which, while he preserves his own distinctive marks, he has gathered no
small portion of the flame and inspiration of his immortal friend and
assistant. In the following speeches there are images and phrases, which
are either identically Fletcher's, or closely resemble his, and the
whole cast both of versification and idiom is strictly his:--

[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.]

_Palamon._ Oh, cousin Ar|cite!
Where is Thebes now? where is our noble coun|try?
Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more
Must we behold those comforts; never see
The hardy youths strive in the games of hon|our,
Hung with the painted favours of their la|dies,
Like tall ships under sail; then start among | them,
And as an east wind leave them all behind | us
Like lazy clouds, while Palamon and Ar|cite,
Even in the wagging of a wanton leg,
Outstript the people's praises, won the gar|lands,
[37:1]Ere they have time to wish them ours. Oh, nev|er
Shall we two exercise, like twins of hon|our,
Our arms again, and feel our fiery hors|es
Like proud seas under us! our good swords now,
(Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er wore,)
Ravish'd our sides, like age must run to rust,
And deck the temples of the gods that hate | us:
These hands shall never draw them out like light|ning
To blast whole armies more.

[Sidenote: Picture fully wrought out.]

[Sidenote: Romantic, pathetic sketch.]

_Arcite._ ...
The sweet embraces of a loving wife,
Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand cu|pids,
Shall never clasp our necks: no issue know | us;
No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see,
To glad our age, and like young eagles teach | them
Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say,
"Remember what your fathers were, and con|quer."
--The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments,
And in their songs curse ever-blinded For|tune,
Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done
To youth and Nature.--This is all our world:
We shall know nothing here but one anoth|er,--
Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes;
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see | it:
Summer shall come, and with her all delights,
But dead-cold winter must inhabit here | still!

_Palamon._ 'Tis too true, Arcite! To our Theban hounds,
That shook the aged forest with their ech|oes,
No more now must we halloo; no more shake
Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine
Flies like a Parthian[37:2] quiver from our rag|es,
Struck with our well-steel'd darts....

In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as
characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced.
[Sidenote: Lines from II. i. on page 38, of slow orderly development of
ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics.] It is marked by a slowness
of association which he often shews. Several allusions are successively
introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can
anticipate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind
through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but
branches, of which one original thought is the root. [Sidenote: No leap
to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere.] All this is the
work of [37:3]a less fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than
Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps,
and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would
have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:--

[Sidenote: All workt out thro' every step.]

_Arcite._ ... What worthy bless|ing
Can be, but our imaginatiöns
May make it ours? and here, being thus togeth|er,
We are an endless mine to one anoth|er:
We are one another's wife, ever beget|ting
New births of love; we are fathers, friends, acquaint|ance;
We are, in one another, families;
I am your heir and you are mine; this place
Is our inheritance; no hard oppress|or
Dare take this from us....

But the contentment of the prison is to be interrupted. The fair Emilia
appears beneath, walking in the garden "full of branches green,"
skirting the wall of the tower in which the princes are confined. She
converses with her attendant, and Palamon from the dungeon-grating
beholds her as she gathers the flowers of spring. He ceases to reply to
Arcite, and stands absorbed in silent ecstasy.

_Arcite._ Cousin! How do you, sir? Why, Palamon!

_Palamon._ Never till now I was in prison, Ar|cite.

_Arcite._ Why, what's the matter, man?

_Palamon._ Behold and won|der:
By heaven, she is a goddess;

_Arcite._ Ha!

_Palamon._ Do rev|erence;
She is a goddess, Arcite!

The beauty of the maiden impresses Arcite no less violently than it
previously had his kinsman; and he challenges with great heat a right to
love her. [Sidenote: The sharp and spirited quarrel between the Kinsmen,
not Shakspere's.] An animated and acrimonious dialogue ensues, in which
Palamon reproachfully pleads his prior admiration of the lady, and
insists on his cousin's obligation to become his abettor instead of his
rival. It is spirited even to excess; and probably Shakspeare would have
tempered, or abstained from treating so sudden and perhaps unnatural an
access of anger and jealousy, and so utter an abandonment to [38:1]its
vehemence, as that under which the fiery Palamon is here represented as
labouring.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.]

_Palamon._ If thou lovest her,
Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wish|es,
Thou art a traitor, Arcite, and a fel|low
False as thy title to her. Friendship, blood,
And all the ties between us, I disclaim,
If thou once think upon her!

_Arcite._ Yes, I love | her!
And, if the lives of all my name lay on | it,
I must do so. I love her with my soul;
If that will lose thee, Palamon, farewell!
I say again I love, and, loving her
I am as worthy and as free a lov|er,
And have as just a title to her beau|ty,
As any Palamon, or any liv|ing
That is a man's son!

_Palamon._ Have I call'd thee friend!

. . . . .

_Palamon._ Put but thy head out of this window more,
And, as I have a soul, I'll nail thy life to't!

_Arcite._ Thou dar'st not, fool: thou canst not: thou art fee|ble:
Put my head out? I'll throw my body out,
And leap the garden, when I see her next,
And pitch between her arms to anger thee.

[Sidenote: Fletcher has left out Chaucer's making the Knights 'sworn
brethren.']

In transferring his story from Chaucer, the poet has here been guilty of
an oversight. The old poet fixes a character of positive guilt on
Arcite's prosecution of his passion, by relating a previous agreement
between the two cousins, by which either, engaging in any adventure
whether of love or war, had an express right to the co-operation of the
other. Hence Arcite's interference with his cousin's claim becomes, with
Chaucer, a direct infringement of a knightly compact; while in the
drama, no deeper blame attaches to it, than as a violation of the more
fragile rules imposed by the generous spirit of friendship.

In the midst of the angry conference, Arcite is called to the Duke to
receive his freedom; and Palamon is placed in stricter confinement, and
removed from the quarter of the tower overlooking the garden.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene ii. (Weber, sc. iii. Littledale) is
Fletcher's.]

In the second scene of this act, Arcite, wandering in the
[39:1]neighbourhood of Athens, soliloquizes on the decree which had
banished him from the Athenian territory; and, falling in with a band of
country people on their way to games in the city, conceives the notion
of joining in the celebration under some poor disguise, in the hope of
finding means to remain within sight of his fancifully beloved mistress.
[Sidenote: Act II. scene ii. iii. (Weber, sc. iii. iv. Littledale),]
Neither this scene, nor the following, in which the jailor's daughter
meditates on the perfections of Palamon, and intimates an intention of
assisting him to escape, have any thing in them worthy of particular
notice.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene iv. (Weber, sc. v. Littledale),]

In the fourth scene, Arcite, victorious in the athletic games, is
crowned by the Duke, and preferred to the service of Emilia.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene v. (Weber, sc. vi. Littledale), are all
Fletcher's.]

In the last scene of the second act, the jailor's daughter announces
that she has effected Palamon's deliverance from prison, and that he
lies hidden in a wood near the city, the scenery of which is prettily
described.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Act III. scene i. is Shakspere's.]

Nothing in the Third Act can with confidence be attributed to
Shakspeare, except the first scene. This opening scene is laid in the
wood where Palamon has his hiding-place. Arcite enters; and a monologue,
describing his situation and feelings, is, as in Chaucer, overheard by
Palamon, who starts out of the bush in which he had crouched, and shakes
his fettered hands at his false kinsman. [Sidenote: Arcite's first
speech has Shakspere's clear images, and familiar dress, nervous
expression, &c.] A dialogue of mutual reproach ensues; and Arcite
departs with a promise to return, bringing food for the outcast, and
armour to fit him for maintaining, like a knight, his right to the
lady's love. The commencing speech of Arcite has much of Shakspeare's
clearness of imagery, and of the familiarity of dress which he often
loves to bestow upon allusion; it has also great nerve of expression and
calmness of tone, with at least one play on words which is quite in his
manner, and one (perhaps more) of his identical phrases. The text seems
faulty in one part.

[Sidenote: Act III. sc. i. is Shakspere's.]

[Sidenote: Shaksperean phrases.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere phrase.]

_Arcite._ The Duke has lost Hippolita: each took
A several laund. This is a solemn rite
They owe bloom'd May, and the Athenians pay|it
_To the heart of ceremony_. Oh, queen Emil|ia!
Fresher than May, sweeter
Than her _gold buttons_ on the boughs, or all
[40:1]The enamell'd knacks o' the mead or garden! Yea,
We challenge too the bank of any nymph,
That makes the stream seem flowers!--Thou,--oh jew|el
_O' the wood, o' the world_,--hast likewise blest a place
With thy sole presence. In thy rumina|tion
That I, poor man, might eftsoons come between,
And chop on some cold thought!--Thrice blessed chance,
To drop on such a mistress! Expecta|tion
Most guiltless of | it.| Tell me, oh lady For|tune,
(Next after Emily my sovran,) how far
I may be proud. She takes strong note of me,
Hath made me near her, and this beauteous morn,
(The primest of all the year,) presents me with
A brace of horses; two such steeds might well
Be by a pair of kings back'd, in a field
That their crowns' titles tried. Alas, alas!
Poor cousin Palamon, poor prisoner!...
... If
Thou knew'st my mistress breathed on me, and that
I _cared_ her language, lived in her eye, oh coz,
What passion would enclose thee!

There is great spirit, also, in what follows. Some phrases, here again,
are precisely Shakspeare's; and several parts of the dialogue have much
of his pointed epigrammatic style. The massive accumulation of
reproaches which Palamon hurls on Arcite is, in its energy, more like
him than his assistant; and the opposition of character between Palamon
and his calmer kinsman, is well kept up; but the dialogue cannot be
accounted one of the best in the play.

[Sidenote: Shaksperean string of epithets.]

_Palamon._ ... Oh, thou most perfid|ious
That ever gently look'd! The void'st of hon|our
That e'er bore gentle token! Falsest cous|in
That ever blood made kin! call'st thou her thine?
I'll prove it in my shackles, in these hands
Void of appointment, that thou liest, and art
A very thief in love, a chaffy lord,
Not worth the name of villain!--Had I a sword,
And these house-clogs away!

[Sidenote: Shaksperean word-play.]

_Arcite._ _Dear cousin Pal|amon!_

_Palamon._ _Cozener Arcite!_ give me language such
As thou hast shewed me feat.

_Arcite._ Not finding in
[41:1]The circuit of my breast, any gross stuff
To form me like your _blazon_, holds me to
This gentleness of answer. 'Tis your pas|sion
That thus mistakes; the which, to you being en|emy,
Cannot to me be kind....

[Sidenote: Act III. scene ii.]

In the second scene, the only speaker is the jailor's daughter, who,
having lost Palamon in the wood, begins to shew symptoms of unsettled
reason. There is some pathos in several parts of her soliloquy, but
little vigour in the expression, or novelty in the thoughts.

[Sidenote: Act III. scene iii.]

The third scene is an exchange of brief speeches between the two
knights. Arcite brings provisions for his kinsman, and the means of
removing his fetters, and departs to fetch the armour. [Sidenote: is
probably Fletcher's, and not Shakspere's.] In most respects the scene is
not very characteristic of either writer, but leans towards Fletcher;
and one argument for him might be drawn from an interchange of sarcasms
between the kinsmen, in which they retort on each other, former amorous
adventures: such a dialogue is quite like Fletcher's men of gaiety; and
needless degradation of his principal characters, is a fault of which
Shakspeare is not guilty. You may be able, hereafter, to see more
distinctly the force of this reason. The scene contains one strikingly
animated burst of jealous suspicion and impatience.

_Arcite._ Pray you sit down then; and let me entreat | you,
By all the honesty and honour in | you,
No mention of this woman; 'twill disturb | us;
We shall have time enough.

_Palamon._ Well, sir, I'll pledge | you.

. . . . .

_Arcite._ Heigh-ho!

_Palamon._ For Emily, upon my life!--Fool,
Away with this strained mirth!--I say again,
That sigh was breathed for Emily. Base cous|in,
Darest thou break first?

_Arcite._ You are wide.

_Palamon._ By heaven and earth,
There's nothing in thee honest!...

[Sidenote: Act III. scenes iv. v.]

In the next two scenes, placed in the forest, the jailor's daughter has
reached the height of frenzy. [Sidenote: Gerrold has no spark of
humour.] She meets the country[42:1]men who had encountered Arcite, and
who are now headed by the learned and high-fantastical schoolmaster
Gerrold, a personage who has the pedantry of Shakspeare's Holofernes,
without one solitary spark of his humour. They are preparing a dance for
the presence of the duke, and the maniac is adopted into their number,
to fill up a vacancy. The duke and his train appear,--the pedagogue
prologuizes,--the clowns dance,--and their self-satisfied Coryphaeus
apologizes and epiloguizes. [Sidenote: Act III. scene iv. v.
Fletcher's.] Some of Fletcher's very phrases and forms of expression
have been traced in these two scenes.

[Sidenote: Act III. scene vi.]

We have then, in the sixth and last scene of this act, the interrupted
combat of the two princes. [Sidenote: Fletcher's, not Shakspere's.] The
scene is a spirited and excellent one; but its tone is Fletcher's, not
Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Has not Shakspere's grasp of imagery.] The
raillery and retort of the dialogue is more lightly playful than his,
and less antithetical and sententious; and though there are fine images,
they are not seized with the grasp which Shakspeare would have given,
sometimes harsh, but always at least decided. Some of the illustrations
have been quoted (page 17). The knightly courtesy with which the princes
arm each other is well supported; and their dignity of greeting before
they cross their swords, is fine, exceedingly fine. Nothing can be more
beautifully conceived than the change which comes over the temper of the
generous Palamon, when he stands on the verge of mortal battle with his
enemy. [Sidenote: Fletcher's sweet versification and romantic
phraseology.] His usual heat and impatience give place to the most
becoming calmness. The versification is very sweet, and the romantic air
of the phraseology is very much Fletcher's, especially towards the end
of the following quotation.

_Palamon._ My cause and honour guard | me.

(_They bow several ways, then advance and stand._)

_Arcite._ And me my love; Is there aught else to say?

_Palamon._ This only, and no more: Thou art mine aunt's | son,
And that blood we desire to shed is mu|tual;
In me, thine; and in thee, mine. My sword
Is in my hand, and, if thou killest me,
The gods and I forgive thee! If there be
A place prepared for those that sleep in hon|our,
I wish his weary soul that falls may win | it!
Fight bravely, cous|in;| give me thy noble hand!

_Arcite._ Here, Palamon; this hand shall never more
[43:1]Come near thee with such friendship.

_Palamon._ I commend | thee.

_Arcite._ If I fall, curse me, and say I was a cow|ard;
For none but such dare die in these just tri|als.
Once more farewell, my cousin.

_Palamon._ Farewell, Ar|cite.
(_They fight._)

[Sidenote: Act III. scene vi.]

The combat is interrupted by the approach of the Duke and his court;
and Palamon, refusing to give back or conceal himself, appears before
Theseus, and declares his own name and situation, and the presumptuous
secret of Arcite. [Sidenote: is in Fletcher's style.] The scene is good,
but in the flowing style of Fletcher, not the more manly one of
Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Death-penalty for the losing knight, a good
addition to Chaucer.] The sentence of death, which the duke, in the
first moments of his anger, pronounces on the two princes, is recalled
on the petition of Hippolita and her sister, on condition that the
rivals shall meantime depart, and return within a month, each
accompanied by three knights, to determine in combat the possession of
Emilia; and death by the block is denounced against the knights who
shall be vanquished. Some of these circumstances are slight deviations
from Chaucer; and the laying down of the severe penalty is well
imagined, as an addition to the tragic interest, giving occasion to a
very impressive scene in the last act.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Act IV. all Fletcher's.]

The Fourth Act may safely be pronounced wholly Fletcher's. [Sidenote:
Wants all the leading features of Shakspere's style.] All of it, except
one scene, is taken up by the episodical adventures of the jailor's
daughter; and, while much of it is poetical, it wants the force and
originality, and, indeed, all the prominent features of Shakspeare's
manner, either of thought, illustration, or expression. There are
conversations in which are described, pleasingly enough, the madness of
the unfortunate girl, and the finding of her in a sylvan spot, by her
former wooer; but when the maniac herself appears, the tone and subjects
of the dialogue become more objectionable.

[Sidenote: Act IV. scene ii.]

In the second scene of this act, the only one which bears reference to
the main business of the piece, Emilia first muses over the pictures of
her two suitors, and then hears from a messenger, in presence of Theseus
and his attendants, a description, (taken in [44:1]its elements from the
Knightes Tale,) of the warriors who were preparing for the field along
with the champion lovers. [Sidenote: Emilia's soliloquy on the pictures,
not Shakspere's.] In the soliloquy of the lady, while the poetical
spirit is well preserved, the alternations of feeling are given with an
abruptness and a want of insight into the nicer shades of association,
which resemble the extravagant stage effects of the 'King and No King,'
infinitely more than the delicate yet piercing glance with which
Shakspeare looks into the human breast in the 'Othello'; the language,
too, is smoother and less powerful than Shakspeare's, and one or two
classical allusions are a little too correct and studied for him.
[Sidenote: Act IV. scene ii. Fletcher's.] One image occurs, not the
clearest or most chastened, in which Fletcher closely repeats himself:--

[Sidenote: His description of Arcite, paralleld in his _Philaster_.]

What a brow,
Of what a spacious majesty, he car|ries!
Arched like the great-eyed Juno's, but far sweet|er,--
Smoother than Pelop's shoulder. Fame and Hon|our,
Methinks, from hence, as from a promontor|y
Pointed in Heaven, should clap their wings, and sing
To all the under-world, the loves and fights
Of gods and such men near them.[45:1]

[Sidenote: Act V. is Shakspere's,]

In the Fifth Act we again feel the presence of the Master of the Spell.
Several passages in this portion are marked by as striking tokens of his
art as anything which we read in 'Macbeth' or 'Coriolanus.' The whole
act, a very long one, may be boldly attributed to him, with the
exception of one episodical scene.

[Sidenote: except scene iv. (Weber: sc. ii. Littledale).]

The time has arrived for the combat. Three temples are exhibited, as in
Chaucer, in which the rival Knights, and the [45:2]Lady of their Vows,
respectively pay their adorations. One principal aim of their
supplications is to learn the result of the coming contest; but the
suspense is kept up by each of the Knights receiving a favourable
response, and Emilia a doubtful one. [Sidenote: Act V. sc. ii.[45:3] (i.
L.) is lower in key.] [Sidenote: Act V. sc. i. iii. (Weber: both i.
Littledale) are Shakspere's all through.] Three scenes are thus
occupied, the second of which is in somewhat a lower key than the other
two; but even in it there is much beauty; and in the first and third the
tense dignity and pointedness of the language, the gorgeousness and
overflow of illustration, and the reach, the mingled familiarity and
elevation of thought, are admirable, inimitable, and decisive. From
these exquisite scenes there is a temptation to quote too largely.

[Sidenote: Act V. scene i.]

In the first scene, Theseus ushers the Kinsmen and their Knights into
the Temple of Mars, and leaves them there. After a short and solemn
greeting, the Kinsmen embrace for the last time, Palamon and his friends
retire, and Arcite and his remain and offer up their devotions to the
deity of the place. [Sidenote: Spirit and Language Shakspere's.] A fine
seriousness of spirit breathes through the whole scene, and the language
is alive with the most magnificent and delicate allusion. In Arcite's
prayer the tone cannot be mistaken. [Sidenote: His reflection on Fortune
and strife.] The enumeration of the god's attributes is coloured by all
that energetic depth of feeling with which Shakspeare in his historical
dramas so often turns aside to meditate on the changes of human fortune
and the horrors of human enmity.[46:1]

. . . . .

_Theseus._ You valiant and strong-hearted enemies,
You royal germane foes, that this day come
To blow the nearness out that flames between | ye,--
Lay by your anger for an hour, and dove|-like,
Before the holy altars of your Help|ers
(The all-feard Gods) bow down your stubborn bod|ies!
Your ire is more than mortal: so your help | be!

. . . . .

[Sidenote: Shakspere phrases.]

_Arcite._ ... Hoist | we
Those sails that must these vessels port even where
The Heavenly Limiter pleases!

. . . . .

[46:2]Knights, kinsmen, lovers, yea, my sacrifi|ces!
True worshippers of Mars, whose spirit in you
Expels the seeds of fear, and the apprehen|sion
Which still is father of it,--go with me
Before the god of our profession. There
Require of him the hearts of lions, and
_The breath of tigers, yea the fierceness too,
Yea the speed also!_ to go on I mean,
Else wish we to be snails. You know my prize
Must be draggd out of blood: Force and great Feat
Must put my garland on, where she will stick
The queen of flowers; our intercession then
Must be to him that makes the camp _a ces|tron
Brimmd with the blood of men_: give me your aid,
And bend your spirits towards him!

(_They fall prostrate before the statue._)

[Sidenote: Shakspere's own work,]

Thou mighty one! that with thy power has turn'd
Green Neptune into purple,--whose approach
Comets prewarn,--_whose havock in vast field
Unearthèd skulls proclaim_,--whose breath blows down
The teeming Ceres' foyson,--who dost pluck
_With hand armipotent from forth blue clouds_
The masoned turrets,--that both mak'st and break'st
The stony girths of cities;--me, thy pup|il,
Young'st follower of thy drum, instruct this day
With military skill, that to thy laud
I may advance my streamer, and by thee
Be styled the lord o' the day: Give me, great Mars,
Some token of thy pleasure!

(_Here there is heard clanging of armour, with a short thunder, as the
burst of a battle; whereupon they all rise and bow to the altar._)

[Sidenote: Shakspere again.]

Oh, great Corrector of enormous times!
_Shaker of o'er rank states!_ Thou grand Decid|er
Of dusty and old ti|tles;|--_that heal'st with blood
The earth when it is sick_, and cur'st the world
O' the pleurisy of people! I do take
Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name
To my design march boldly. Let us go! (_Exeunt._)

[Sidenote: Palamon's prayer in V. ii (i. L.) not equal to V. i. or iii.
(i. L.), but is yet clearly Shakspere's.]

The passionate and sensitive Palamon has chosen the Queen of Love as his
Patroness, and it is in her Temple that, in the [47:1]second scene, he
puts up his prayers. This scene is not equal to the first or third,
having the poetical features less prominently brought out, while the
tone of thought is less highly pitched, and also less consistently
sustained. But it is distinctly Shakspeare's. The rugged versification
is his, and the force of language. [Sidenote: Even the incompetent old
husband bit is his.] One unpleasing sketch of the deformity of decrepit
old age, which need not be quoted, is largely impressed with his air of
truth, and some personifications already noticed are also in his manner.

[Sidenote: Act V. scene ii. (Weber; i. Littledale) is Shakspere's.]

[Sidenote: A Shakspere touch.]

_Palamon._ Our stars must glister with new fire, or be
To-day extinct: our argument is love!

. . . . . (_They kneel._)

Hail, sovereign Queen of Secrets! who hast pow|er
To call the fiercest tyrant from his rage
To weep unto a girl!--that hast the might
Even with an eye-glance to choke Mars's drum,
And turn the alarm to whis|pers!|...
What gold-like pow|er
Hast thou not power upon? To Phoebus thou
Add'st flames hotter than his: the heavenly fires
Did scorch his mortal son, thou him: The Hunt|ress
All moist and cold, some say, began to throw
Her bow away and sigh. Take to thy grace
Me thy vowd soldier,--who do bear thy yoke
As 'twere a wreath of roses, yet is heav|ier
Than lead itself, stings more than net|tles:--
I have never been foul-mouthed against thy law;
... I have been harsh
To large confessors, and have hotly askt | them
If they had mothers: _I_ had one,--a wom|an,
And women 'twere they wronged....
Brief,--I am
To those that prate and have done,--no compan|ion;
To those that boast and have not,--a defi|er;
To those that would and cannot,--a rejoi|cer!
Yea, him I do not love, that tells close offices
The foulest way, nor names concealments in
The boldest language: Such a one I am,
And vow that _lover never yet made sigh
Truer than I_....

(_Music is heard, and doves are seen to flutter: they fall upon their
faces._)

[48:1]I give thee thanks
For this fair token!...

[Sidenote: Emilia's Prayer is surely Shakspere's.]

Emilia's Prayer in the Sanctuary of the pure Diana, forming the third
scene, is in some parts most nervous, and the opening is inexpressibly
beautiful in language and rhythm. Several ideas and idioms are
identically Shakspeare's.

[Sidenote: Act V. scene iii. (Weber; i. Littledale) Shakspere's]

_Emilia._ (_Kneeling before the altar._) Oh, sacred, shadowy, cold,
and constant Queen!
_Abandoner of revels!_ mute, contemplative,
Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure
As wind-fanned snow!--who to thy _female knights_
Allow'st no more blood than will make a blush,
Which is there order's robe!--I here, thy priest,
Am humbled 'fore thine altar. Oh, vouchsafe,
With that thy rare _green eye_,[49:1] which never yet
Beheld thing maculate, look on thy virg|in!
And,--sacred silver Mistress!--lend thine ear,
(Which ne'er heard scurril term, into whose port
Ne'er entered wanton sound,) to my petit|ion
Seasoned with holy fear!--This is my last
Of vestal office: [49:2]I'm bride-habited,
But maiden-heart|ed.| A husband I have, appoint|ed,
But do not know him; out of two I should
Chuse one, and pray for his success, but I
Am guiltless of election of mine eyes.[49:2]

. . . . .

(_A rose-tree ascends from under the altar, having one rose upon it._)

See what our general of ebbs and flows
Out from the bowels of her holy al|tar
With sacred act advances! But one rose?
If well inspired, this battle shall confound
Both these brave knights, and I a virgin flow|er
Must grow alone unplucked.

(_Here is heard a sudden twang of instruments, and the rose falls from
the tree._)

[49:3]The flower is fallen, the tree descends!--oh, mis|tress,
Thou here dischargest me: I shall be gath|ered,
I think so; but I know not thine own will;
Unclasp thy mystery!--I hope she's pleased;
Her signs were gracious. (_Exeunt._)

[Sidenote: Act V. scene iv. (Weber; ii. Littledale) is stuff.]

The fourth scene, in which the characters are the jailor's daughter, her
father and lover, and a physician, is disgusting and imbecile in the
extreme. It may be dismissed with a single quotation:

_Doctor._ What stuff she utters!

[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; iii. Littledale). Its strangeness.]

The fifth scene is the Combat, the arrangement of which is unusual.
Perhaps there is nothing in every respect resembling it in the circle of
the English drama. Theseus and his court cross the stage as proceeding
to the lists; Emilia pauses and refuses to be present; the rest depart,
and she is left. She then, the prize of the struggle, the presiding
influence of the day, alone occupies the stage: within, the trumpets are
heard sounding the charge, and the cries of the spectators and tumult of
the encounter reach her ears; one or two messengers recount to her the
various changes of the field, till Arcite's victory ends the fight. The
manner is admirable in which the caution, which rendered it advisable to
avoid introducing the combat on the stage, is reconciled with the pomp
of scenic effect and bustle. [Sidenote: Shakspere's hand is in it.] The
details of the scene, with which alone we have here to do, make it clear
that Shakspeare's hand was in it. The greater part, it is true, is not
of the highest excellence; but the vacillations of Emilia's feelings are
well and delicately given, some individual thoughts and words mark
Shakspeare, there is a little of his obscure brevity, much of his
thoughtfulness legitimately applied, and an instance or two of its
abuse. The strong likeness to him will justify some quotations.

In the following lines Theseus is pleading with Emilia for her presence
in the lists:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ You must be there:
This trial is as 'twere in the night, and you
The only star to shine.

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

[50:1]_Emilia._ I am extinct.
There is but envy in that light, which shews
The one the other. Darkness, which ever was
The dam of Horror, who does stand accursed
Of many mortal millions, may even now,
By casting her black mantle over both
That neither could find other, get herself
Some part of a good name, and many a mur|der
Set off whereto she's guilty.[50:2]

. . . . .

One good description is put into the mouth of Emilia after she is left
alone:--

[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; or sc. iii. Littledale). Shakspere's
hand in it.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Emilia._ Arcite is gently visaged; yet his eye
Is like an engine bent, or a sharp weap|on
In a soft sheath: Mercy and manly Cour|age
Are bedfellows in his visage. Palamon
Has a most menacing aspect: his brow
Is graved, and seems to bury what it frowns | on;
Yet sometimes 'tis not so, but alters to
The quality of his thoughts: long time his eye
Will dwell upon his object: melanchol|y
Becomes him nobly; so does Arcite's mirth:
But Palamon's sadness is a kind of mirth,
So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad,
And sadness mer|ry:| those darker humours that
Stick unbecomingly on oth|ers,| on him
Live in fair dwelling.

After several alternations of fortune in the fight, she again speaks
thus of the two:

... [51:1]Were they metamor|phosed
Both into one--oh why? there were no wom|an
Worth so composed a man! their single share,
Their nobleness peculiar to them, gives
The prejudice of dispar|ity,| value's shortness,
To any lady breathing....

(_Cornets: a great shout, and cry_, Arcite, victory!)

[51:2]_Servant._ The cry is
Arcite and victory! Hark, Arcite, vic|tory!
The combat's consummation is proclaimed
By the wind instruments.

[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere reflection.]

_Emilia._ Half-sights saw
That Arcite was no babe: god's-lid! _his rich|ness_
_And costliness of spirit looked through |him_: | it could
No more be hid in him than fire in flax,
Than humble banks can go to law with wa|ters
That drift winds force to raging. I did think
Good Palamon would miscarry; yet I knew | not
Why I did think | so.| _Our Reasons are net proph|ets
When oft our Fancies are._ They're coming off:
Alas, poor Palamon!

Theseus enters with his attendants, conducting Arcite, as conqueror, and
presents him to Emilia as her husband. Arcite's situation is a painful
one, and is well discriminated: he utters but a single grave sentence.

_Theseus._ (_To Arcite and Emilia._) Give me your hands:
Receive you her, you him: be plighted with
A love that grows as you decay!

_Arcite._ Emily!
To buy you I have lost what's dearest to | me,
Save what is bought; and yet I purchase cheap|ly,
As I do rate your value.

. . . . .

[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.]

_Theseus._ (_To Arcite._) Wear the gar|land
With joy that you have won. For the subdued,--
Give them our present justice, _since I know
Their lives but pinch them_. Let it here be done.
The sight's not for our seeing: go we hence
Right joyful, with some sorrow!--Arm your prize:
I know you will not lose | her.| Hippolita,
I see one eye of yours conceives a tear,
The which it will deliv|er.|

_Emilia._ Is this, winning?
Oh, all you heavenly powers! where is your mer|cy?
But that your wills have said it must be so,
And charge me live to comfort this unfriend|ed,
This miserable prince, that cuts away
A life more worthy from him than all wom|en,
I should and would die too.

[52:1]_Hippolita._ Infinite pity,
That four such eyes should be so fixed on one,
That two must needs be blind for't. (_Exeunt._)

[Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. Littledale) is clearly
Shakspere's.]

The authorship of the last scene admits of no doubt. The manner is
Shakspeare's, and some parts are little inferior to his very finest
passages. Palamon has been vanquished, and he and his friends are to
undergo execution of the sentence to which the laws of the combat
subjected them. The depth of the interest is now fixed on these
unfortunate knights, and a fine spirit of resigned melancholy inspires
the scene in which they pass to their deaths.[52:2]

(_Enter Palamon and his knights, pinioned; jailor, executioner, and
guard._)

_Palamon._ There's many a man alive that hath outlived
The love of the people; yea, in the self-same state
[53:1]Stands many a father with his child; some com|fort
We have by so considering. We expire,--
And not without men's pity;--to live still,
Have their good wishes. We prevent
[53:2]The loathsome misery of age, beguile
The gout and rheum, that in lag hours attend
For grey approachers. We come towards the gods
Young and unwarped, not halting under crimes
Many and stale; that sure shall please the gods
[53:3]Sooner than such, to give us nectar with | them,--
For we are more clear spir|its!|...

_2 Knight._ Let us bid farewell;
And with our patience anger tottering for|tune,
Who at her certain'st reels.

_3 Knight._ Come, who begins?

_Palamon._ Even he that led you to this banquet shall
Taste to you all....

. . . . .

Adieu, and let my life be now as short
As my leave-taking. (_Lies on the block._)

If we were in a situation to give due effect to the supernatural part of
the story, the miserable end of Palamon would affect us with a mingled
sense of pity and indignation. He has been promised success by the
divinity whom he adored, and yet he lies vanquished with the uplifted
axe glittering above his head. Both the drama and Chaucer's poem assume
the existence of such feelings on our part, and hasten to remove the
cause of them. [Sidenote: Chaucer's celestial agency to work out the
plot.] A way is devised for reconciling the contending oracles; and the
catastrophe which effects that end, is, in the old poet, anxiously
prepared by celestial agency.[53:4] Arcite has got the victory in the
field, as his warlike divinity had promised him; and an evil spirit is
raised for the purpose of bringing about his death, that the votary of
the Queen of Love may be allowed to enjoy the gentler meed which his
protectress had pledged herself to bestow. These supernal intrigues are,
in the play, no more than hinted at in the way of metaphor.

A cry is heard for delay of the execution; Perithous rushes in, ascends
the scaffold, and, raising Palamon from the block, announces the
approaching death of Arcite, with nearly the same circumstances as in
the poem. While he rode townwards from the lists, on a black steed which
had been the gift of Emily, he had been thrown with violence, and now
lies on the brink of dissolution. [Sidenote: Description of Arcite's
mishap is bad, but Shakspere's.] The speech which describes Arcite's
misadven[54:1]ture has been much noticed by the critics, and by some
lavishly praised. With deference, I think it decidedly bad, but
undeniably the work of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Over-labourd, involvd,
hard, yet Shakspere's, with his words and thoughts.] The whole manner of
it is that of some of his long and over-laboured descriptions. It is
full of illustration, infelicitous but not weak; in involvement of
sentence and hardness of phrase no passage in the play comes so close to
him; and there are traceable in one or two instances, not only his
words, but the trains of thought in which he indulges elsewhere,
especially the description of the horse, which closely resembles some
spirited passages in the Venus and Adonis. It is needless to quote any
part of this speech.

[Sidenote: End of the _Two Noble Kinsmen_.]

The after-part of this scene, which ends the play, contains some
forcible and lofty reflection, and the language is exceedingly vigorous
and weighty. In Chaucer, the feelings of the dying Arcite are expressed
at much length, and very touchingly; in the play, they are dispatched
shortly, and the attention continued on Palamon, who had been its
previous object:--

(_Enter Theseus, Hippolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chair._)

_Palamon._ Oh, miserable end of our alli|ance!
The gods are mighty!--Arcite, if thy heart,
Thy worthy, manly heart, be yet unbro|ken,
Give me thy last words. I am Palamon,
One that yet loves thee dying.

_Arcite._ Take Emil|ia,
And with her all the world's joy. Reach thy hand:
Farewell! I've told my last hour. I was false,
But never treacherous: Forgive me, cous|in!
One kiss from fair Emilia!--'Tis done:
Take her.--I die!

_Palamon._ Thy brave soul seek Elys|ium!

. . . . .

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ _His part is played; and, though it were too short,
He did it well._ Your day is lengthened, and
The blissful dew of heaven does arrose | you:
The powerful Venus well hath graced her al|tar,
And given you your love; our master Mars
Hath vouched his oracle, and to Arcite gave
The grace of the contention: So the de|ities
Have shewed due justice.--Bear this hence.

_Palamon._ Oh, cous|in!
That we should things desire, which do cost | us
[55:1]The loss of our desire! that nought could buy
Dear love, but loss of dear love!

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ ... Palamon!
Your kinsman hath confessed, the right o' the la|dy
Did lie in you: for you first saw her, and
Even then proclaimed your fancy. He restord | her
As your stolen jewel, and desired your spir|it
To send him hence forgiven! The gods my jus|tice
Take from my hand, and they themselves become
The executioners. Lead your lady off:
And call your lovers from the stage of death,
Whom I adopt my friends.--A day or two
Let us look sadly, and give grace unto
The funeral of Arcite; in whose end,
The visages of bridegrooms we'll put on,
And smile with Palamon; for whom, an hour,
But one hour since, I was as dearly sor|ry,
As glad of Arcite; and am now as glad,
As for him sorry.--Oh, you _heavenly charm|ers_!
What things you make of us! For what we lack,
We laugh; for what we have, are sorry still;
Are children in some kind.--Let us be thank|ful
For that which is, and with you leave disputes
That are above our question.--Let us go off,
And bear us like the time! (_Exeunt omnes._)

You have now before you an outline of the subject of this highly
poetical drama, with specimens which may convey some notion of the
manner in which the plan is executed. But detached extracts cannot
furnish materials for a just decision as to the part which Shakspeare
may have taken even in writing the scenes from which the quotations are
given. If I addressed myself to one previously unacquainted with this
drama, I should be compelled to request an attentive study of it from
beginning to end. [Sidenote: Two authors wrote _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.]
Such a perusal would convince the most sceptical mind that two authors
were concerned in the work; it would be perceived that certain scenes
are distinguished by certain prominent characters, while others present
different and dissimilar features. [Sidenote: Fletcher was one.] If we
are to assume that Fletcher wrote parts of the play, we must admit that
many parts of it were written by another person, and we have only to
inquire who that other was. [Sidenote: The other was Shakspere.] Without
recurring to any external presump[56:1]tions whatever, I think there is
enough in most or all of the parts which are evidently not Fletcher's,
to appropriate them to the great poet whose name, in this instance,
tradition has associated with his. Even in the passages which have been
here selected, you cannot but have traced Shakspeare's hand frequently
and unequivocally. The introductory views which I slightly suggested to
your recollection, may have furnished some rules of judgment, and
cleared away some obstacles from the path; and where I have failed in
bringing out distinctly the real points of difference, your own acute
judgment and delicate taste must have enabled you to draw instinctively
those inferences which I have attempted to reach by systematic
deduction.

[Sidenote: Fletcher easily distinguisht from Shakspere.]

In truth, a question of this sort is infinitely more easy of decision
where Fletcher is the author against whose claims Shakspeare's are to be
balanced, than it could be if the poet's supposed assistant were any
other ancient English dramatist. If a drama were presented to us, where,
as in some of Shakspeare's received works, he had taken up the ruder
sketch of an older poet, and exerted his skill in altering and enlarging
it, it would be very difficult indeed to discriminate between the
original and his additions. [Sidenote: Shakspere's Histories: their
fault.] He has often, especially in his earlier works, and in his
histories more particularly, much of that exaggeration of ideas, and
that strained and labouring force of expression, which marked the
Hercules-like infancy of the English Drama. [Sidenote: Marlowe.]
[Sidenote: Marlowe's magnificence like Shakspere sometimes.] The
stateliness with which Marlowe paces the tragic stage, and the
magnificence of the train of solemn shews which attend him like the
captives in a Roman procession of triumph, bear no distant likeness to
the shape which Shakspeare's genius assumes in its most lofty moods. And
with those also who followed the latter, or trode side by side with him,
he has many points of resemblance or identity. [Sidenote: Jonson.]
[Sidenote: Massinger.] [Sidenote: Middleton.] Jonson has his seriousness
of views, his singleness of purpose, his weight of style, and his
"fulness and frequency of sentence;" Massinger has his comprehension of
thought, giving birth to an involved and parenthetical mode of
construction; and Middleton, if he possesses few of his other qualities,
has much of his precision and straightforward earnestness of
expression.[57:1] In examining isolated passages with the view of
ascertaining whether they were written by Shakspeare or by any of those
other [57:2]poets, we should frequently have no ground of decision but
the insecure and narrow one of comparative excellence. [Sidenote:
Fletcher and Shakspere contrasted.] [Sidenote: They differ in _kind_.]
When Fletcher is Shakspeare's only competitor, we are very seldom driven
to adopt so doubtful a footing; we are not compelled to reason from
difference in _degree_, because we are sensible of a striking
dissimilarity in _kind_. [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.]
[Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.]
[Sidenote: Shakspere.] [Sidenote: Fletcher.] [Sidenote: Shakspere.] We
observe ease and elegance of expression opposed to energy and
quaintness; brevity is met by dilation, and the obscurity which results
from hurry of conception has to be compared with the vagueness
proceeding from indistinctness of ideas; lowness, narrowness, and
poverty of thought, are contrasted with elevation, richness, and
comprehension: on the one hand is an intellect barely active enough to
seek the true elements of the poetical, and on the other a mind which,
seeing those finer relations at a glance, darts off in the wantonness of
its luxuriant strength to discover qualities with which poetry is but
ill fitted to deal; in the one poet we behold that comparative
feebleness of fancy which willingly stoops to the correction of taste,
and in the other, that warmth, splendour, and quickness of imagination,
which flows on like the burning rivers from a volcano, quenching all
paler lights in its spreading radiance, and destroying every barrier
which would impede or direct its devouring course. You will remark that
certain passages or scenes in this play are attributed to Shakspeare,
not because they are superior to Fletcher's tone or manner, but because
they are unlike it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's work unlike Fletcher's.] It
may be true that most of these possess higher excellence than Fletcher
could have easily reached; but this is merely an extrinsic circumstance,
and it is not upon it that the judgment is founded. [Sidenote: Test
between Shakspere and Fletcher.] These passages are recognized as
Shakspeare's, not from possessing in a higher degree those qualities in
which Fletcher's merit lies, but from exhibiting other qualities in
which he is partially or wholly wanting, and which even singly, and
still more when combined, constitute a style and manner opposite to his.

Indeed, since Fletcher is acknowledged to stand immeasurably lower than
Shakspeare, the excellence of some passages might perhaps in itself be
no unfair reason for refusing to the inferior poet the credit of their
execution. But an analysis of the means by which the excellence is
produced places us beyond [58:1]the necessity of resorting, in the first
instance at least, to this general ground of decision, which must,
however, be taken into view, when we have been able to assume a position
which entitles us to take advantage of it. [Sidenote: Shakspere's
external qualities in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_.] [Sidenote: Are they
imitations?] In many parts of this play we find those external qualities
which form Shakspeare's distinguishing characteristics, not separately
and singly present, but combined most fully and most intimately; and it
is consequently indisputable that we have, either Shakspeare's own
writing, or a faithful and successful imitation of it. [Sidenote:
Imitation of Shakspere difficult.] It is not easy to perceive with
perfect clearness why it is that imitation of Shakspeare is peculiarly
difficult; but every one is convinced that it is far more so than in the
case of any other poet whatever. [Sidenote: Why it is so.] The range and
opposition of his qualities, the rarity and loftiness of the most
remarkable of these, and still more, the coincident operation of his
most dissimilar powers, make it next to impossible, even in short and
isolated passages, to produce an imitation which shall be mistaken for
his original composition: but there is not even a possibility of success
in an attempt to carry on such an imitation of him throughout many
entire scenes. [Sidenote: Given, his outside dress, ask whether his
spirit is inside it.] Where the external qualities of a work resemble
his, the question of his authorship can be determined in no other way
than by inquiring whether the essential elements, and the spirit which
animates the whole, are his also; and that inquiry is not one for
logical argument; it can be answered only by reflection on the effect
which the work produces on our own minds. [Sidenote: The poetic sense
alone can judge.] The dullest eye can discriminate the free motions of
the living frame from the convulsed writhings which art may excite in
the senseless corpse; the nightly traveller easily distinguishes between
the red and earthy twinkling of the distant cottage-lamp, and the cold
white gleam of the star which rises beyond it;--and with equal quickness
and equal certainty the poetical sense can decide whether the living and
ethereal principle of poetry is present, or only its corporeal clothing,
its dead and inert resemblance. [Sidenote: By the emotion it creates,
must Shakspere's work be judgd.] The emotion which poetry necessarily
awakens in minds qualified as the subjects of its working, is the only
evidence of its presence, and the measure and index of its strength. If
we can read with coldness and indifference the drama which we are now
examining, we must pronounce it to [59:1]be no more than a skilful
imitation of Shakspeare; but we must acknowledge it as an original if
the heart burns and the fancy expands under its influence,--if we feel
that the poetical and dramatic spirit breathes through all,--and if the
mind bows down involuntarily before the powers of whose presence it is
secretly but convincingly sensible. [Sidenote: And his part of _The Two
Noble Kinsmen_ witnesses for itself.] I cannot have a doubt that the
parts of this work which I have pointed out as Shakspeare's will the
more firmly endure this trial, the more closely and seriously they are
revolved and studied.

[Sidenote: Shakspere's share of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.]

The portions of the drama which, on such principles as these, have been
set down as Shakspeare's, compose a large part of its bulk, and embrace
most of the material circumstances of the story. [Sidenote: Act I.]
[Sidenote: Act III. sc. i.] [Sidenote: Act V. except scene iv.] They
are,--the First Act wholly,--one scene out of six in the Third,--and the
whole of the Fifth Act, (a very long one,) except one unimportant scene.
These parts are not of equal excellence, but the grounds on which a
decision as to their authorship rests, seem to be almost equally strong
with regard to each.

We have as yet been considering these scenes as so many separate pieces
of poetry; and they are valuable even in that light, not less from their
intrinsic merit than as being the work of our greatest poet. If it be
true merely that Shakspeare has here executed some portions of a plan
which another had previously fixed on and sketched, the drama demands
our zealous study, and is entitled to a place among Shakspeare's works.
An examination of separate details cannot enable us to form any more
specific opinion as to the part which he may have taken in its
composition.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Is the design of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's?]

But there is a further inquiry on which we are bound to enter, whatever
its result may be,--whether it shall allow us to attribute to Shakspeare
a wider influence over the work, or compel us to limit his claim to the
subsidiary authorship, which only we have yet been able to establish for
him. We must now endeavour to trace the design of the work to its
origin; we must look on the parts in their relation to the whole, and
investigate the qualities and character of that whole which the parts
compose. Such an analysis is essential to an appreciation of the real
merit of the drama, and suggests views of far-greater inte[60:1]rest
than any which offer themselves in the examination of isolated passages.
And it is likewise necessary as a part of the inquiry which is our
object, not merely because it may tend to strengthen or modify the
decisions which we have already formed, but because it will allow us to
determine other important questions which we have had no opportunity of
treating. [Sidenote: Yes, it is.] It will justify us, if I mistake not,
in pronouncing with some confidence, that this drama owes to Shakspeare
much more than the composition of a few scenes,--that he was the poet
who chose the story, and arranged the leading particulars of the method
in which it is handled.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The tragic-comic underplot not Shakspere's.]

Before we enter the extensive and interesting field of inquiry thus
opened to us, it may be well that I explain the reasons which seem
distinctly to exclude from Shakspeare's part of the work one
considerable portion of it,--the whole of the tragi-comic under-plot. I
have as yet assigned no ground of rejection, but inferiority in the
execution; but there are other reasons, which, when combined with that,
remove all uncertainty. Slightly as this subordinate story has been
described, enough has been said to point out remarkable imitations of
Shakspeare, both in incident and character. [Sidenote: Fletcher's
borrowings in the underplot, from Shakspere.] The insane maiden is a
copy of Ophelia, with features from 'Lear'; the comments of the
physician on her sickness of the mind, are borrowed in conception from
'Macbeth'; the character of the fantastic schoolmaster is a repetition
of the pedagogue in 'Love's Labour Lost'; and the exhibition of the
clowns which he directs, resemble scenes both in that play and in the
'Midsummer Night's Dream.' All these circumstances together, or even one
of them by itself, are enough to destroy the notion of Shakspeare's
authorship. The likeness which is found elsewhere to Shakspeare's style,
(and which is far closer in those other parts of the play than it is
here,) is an argument, as I have shewn, in favour of his authorship; the
likeness here in character and incident is even a stronger one against
it. [Sidenote: Shakspere doesn't imitate himself in character as he does
in style.] In neither of these latter particulars does Shakspeare
imitate himself as he does in style. In some of his earlier plays indeed
we may trace the rude outlines of characters, chiefly comic, which he
was afterwards able to develope with [61:1]greater distinctness and more
striking features; but though the likeness, in those cases, were nearer
and more frequent than it is, the transition from the rude block to the
finished sculpture is the allowable and natural progress of genius.
[Sidenote: He doesn't reproduce a figure badly.] The bare reproduction
of a figure or a scene already drawn with clearness and success, stands
in a very different situation; and, even if it should be nearly equal to
the original in actual merit, it creates a strong presumption of its
being no more than the artifice of an imitator. Where the inferiority of
the execution is palpable, the doubt is raised into certainty.
[Sidenote: Shakspere could not have turned his Ophelia into the Jailer's
daughter of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.] In the case before us, it is
impossible to receive the idea of Shakspeare sitting down in cold blood
to imitate the Ophelia, and to transfer all the tenderness of her
situation to a new drama of a far lower tone, in which also it should
occupy only a subordinate station. He could not have been guilty of
this; he neither needed it, nor would have done it of free will; and,
therefore, I could not have believed it to be his, though the execution
had been far better than it is. [Sidenote: This Daughter is an utter
failure.] But the inferiority is decided; the imitation produces neither
vigour of style nor depth of feeling; in short, Shakspear

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