the grosser stimulant. Before Webster had written 'The Duchess of Malfi' and 'Vittoria Corombona,' Shakspere had produced Lear' and 'Othello.' But there were writers, not of inferior genius, who had committed the same mistake as the author of 'Titus Andronicus'—who use blood as they would "the paint of the property-man in the theatre." Need we mention other names than Marlowe and Kyd? The "old Jeronimo," as Ben Jonson calls it,—perhaps the most popular play of the early stage, and, in many respects, a work of great power, thus concludes, with a sort of Chorus spoken by a ghost:

"Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects,
When blood and sorrow finish my desires.
Horatio murder'd in his father's bower;
Vile Serberine by Pedringano slain;
False Pedringano hang'd by quaint device;
Fair Isabella by herself misdone;

Prince Balthazar by Belimperia stabb'd;
The Duke of Castille, and his wicked son,
Both done to death by old Hieronimo,
By Belimperia fallen, as Dido fell;
And good Hieronimo slain by himself:

Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul."

Here is murder enough to match even 'Andronicus.' This slaughtering work was accompanied with another peculiarity of the unformed drama-the dumb show. Words were sometimes scarcely necessary for the exposition of the story; and, when they were, no great care was taken that they should be very appropriate or beautiful in themselves. Thomas Heywood, himself a prodigious manufacturer of plays in a more advanced period, writing as late as 1612, seems to look upon these semi-pageants, full of what the actors call "bustle," as the wonderful things of the modern stage :"To see, as I have seen, Hercules, in his own shape, hunting the boar, knocking down the bull, taming the hart, fighting with Hydra, murdering Geryon, slaughtering Diomed, wounding the Stymphalides, killing the Centaurs, pashing the lion, squeezing the dragon, dragging Cerberus in chains, and, lastly, on his high pyramides writing Nil ultra—oh, these were sights to make an Alexander."* With a stage that presented attractions like these to the multitude, is it wonderful An Apology for Actors.'

that the young Shakspere should have written a Tragedy of Horrors?

But Shakspere, it is maintained, has given us no other tragedy constructed upon the principle of Titus Andronicus.' Are we quite sure? Do we know what the first 'Hamlet' was? We have one sketch, which may be most instructively compared with the finished performance; but it has been conjectured, and we think with perfect propriety, that the Hamlet' which was on the stage in 1589, and then sneered at by Nash, "has perished, and that the quarto of 1603 gives us the work in an intermediate state between the rude youthful sketch and the perfected 'Hamlet,' which was published in 1604."* All the action of the perfect 'Hamlet' is to be found in the sketch published in 1603; but the profundity of the character is not all there,—very far from it. We have little of the thoughtful philosophy, of the morbid feelings, of Hamlet. But let us imagine an earlier sketch, where that wonderful creation of Hamlet's character may have been still more unformed; where the poet may have simply proposed to exhibit in the young man a desire for revenge, combined with irresolution—perhaps even actual madness. Make Hamlet a common dramatic character, instead of one of the subtilest of metaphysical problems, and what is the tragedy? A tragedy of blood. It offends us not now, softened as it is, and almost hidden, in the atmosphere of poetry and philosophy which surrounds it. But look at it merely with reference to the action; and of what materials is it made? A ghost described; a ghost appearing; the play within a play, and that a play of murder; Polonius killed; the ghost again; Ophelia mad and self-destroyed; the struggle at the grave between Hamlet and Laertes; the queen poisoned; Laertes killed with a poisoned rapier; the king killed by Hamlet; and, last of all, Hamlet's death. No wonder Fortinbras exclaims―

"This quarry cries on havoc."

Again, take another early tragedy, of which we may well believe that there was an earlier sketch than that published

*Edinburgh Review,' vol. lxxi. P. 475.

in 1597-Romeo and Juliet.' We may say of the delicious poetry, as Romeo says of Juliet's beauty, that it makes the charnel-house " a feasting presence full of light." But imagine a 'Romeo and Juliet' conceived in the immaturity of the young Shakspere's power-a tale of love, but surrounded with horror. There is enough for the excitement of an uninstructed audience; the contest between the houses; Mercutio killed; Tybalt killed; the apparent death of Juliet; Paris killed in the churchyard; Romeo swallowing poison; Juliet stabbing herself. The marvel is, that the surpassing power of the poet should make us forget that Romeo and Juliet' can present such an aspect. All the changes which we know Shakspere made in 'Hamlet,' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' were to work out the peculiar theory of his mature judgment—that the terrible should be held, as it were, in solution by the beautiful, so as to produce a tragic consistent with pleasurable emotion. Herein he goes far beyond Webster. His art is a higher art.

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