image, a rich surfeit of the fancy, as that well-known passage beginning, "Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained, and prayed me oft forbearance," sets a keener edge upon it by the inimitable picture of modesty and self-denial. The character of Cloter, the conceited, booby lord, and rejected lover of Imogen, though not very agreeable in itself, and at present obsolete, is drawn with much humour and quaint extravagance. The description which Imogen gives of his unwelcome addresses to her: "Whose lovesuit hath been to me as fearful as a siege:" is enough to cure the most ridiculous lover of his folly. It is remarkable that though Cloten makes so poor a figure in love, he is described as assuming an air of consequence as the Queen's son in a council of state; and with all the absurdity of his person and manners, he is not without shrewdness in his observations. So true is it that folly is as often owing to a want of proper sentiments as to a want of understanding! The exclamation of the ancient critic: "O, Menander and Nature, which of you copied from the other!" would not be misapplied to Shakespear." The other characters in this play are represented with great truth and accuracy, and as it happens in most of the author's works, there is not only the utmost keeping in each separate character; but in the casting of the different parts, and their relation to one another, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we may observe in the gradations of colour in a picture. The striking and powerful contrasts in which Shakespear abounds could not escape observation; but the use he makes of the principle of analogy to reconcile the greatest diversities [1 Act ii., sc. 5.] 2 This is a question which at present we are scarcely competent to decide, as the comic dramas of Menander have come down to us, unfortunately, in a very imperfect, or rather fragmentary shape. In his own day, and even so late as the time of Ovid, they enjoyed, it seems, great popularity.-ED. of character and to maintain a continuity of feeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. In CYMBELINE, for instance, the principal interest arises out of the unalterable fidelity of Imogen to her husband under the most trying circumstances. Now the other parts of the picture are filled up with subordinate examples of the same feeling, variously modified by different situations, and applied to the purposes of virtue or vice. The plot is aided by the amorous importunities of Cloten, by the persevering determination of Iachimo to conceal the defeat of his project by a daring imposture: the faithful attachment of Pisanio to his mistress is an affecting accompaniment to the whole; the obstinate adherence to his purpose in Bellarius, who keeps the fate of the young princes so long a secret in resentment for the ungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigible wickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to the same point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than observed; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind of the author, not from design, but from the force of natural association, a particular train of thought suggesting different inflections of the same predominant feeling, melting into, and strengthening one another, like chords in music. The characters of Bellarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, and the romantic scenes in which they appear, are a fine relief to the intrigues and artificial refinements of the court from which they are banished. Nothing can surpass the wildness and simplicity of the descriptions of the mountain life they lead. They follow the business of huntsmen, not of shepherds; and this is in keeping with the spirit of adventure and uncertainty in the rest of the story, and with the scenes in which they are afterwards called on to act. How admirably the youthful fire and impatience to emerge from their obscurity in the young princes is opposed to the cooler calculations and prudent resignation of their more experienced counsellor! How well the disadvantages of knowledge and of ignorance, of solitude and society, are placed against each other! "Guiderius. Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledg'd, Have never wing'd from view o' the nest; nor know not What air's from home. Haply this life is best, If quiet life be best; sweeter to you That have a sharper known; well corresponding Arviragus. What should we speak of When we are old as you? When we shall hear Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat : The answer of Bellarius to this expostulation is hardly satisfactory; for nothing can be an answer to hope, or the passion of the mind for unknown good, but experience. The forest of Arden in As you like it can alone compare with the mountain scenes in CYMBELINE: yet how different the contemplative quiet of the one from the enterprising boldness and precarious mode of subsistence in the other! Shakespear not only lets us into the minds of his characters, but gives a tone and colour to the scenes he describes from the feelings of their supposed inhabitants He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant [1 Act iii., sc. 3.] sportsmen in CYMBELINE have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in CYMBELINE are only regarded as objects of prey, "The game's a-foot," &c.with Jacques they are fine subjects to moralize upon at leisure, "under the shade of melancholy boughs." We cannot take leave of this play, which is a favourite with us, without noticing some occasional touches of natural piety and morality. We may allude here to the opening of the scene in which Bellarius instructs the young princes to pay their orisons to heaven: 66 Stoop, boys! this gate Instructs you how t' adore the heavens; and bows you Guiderius. Hail, heaven! Bellarius. Now for our mountain-sport, up to yond hill.” What a grace and unaffected spirit of piety breathes in this passage! In like manner, one of the brothers says to the other, when about to perform the funeral rites to Fidele, 66 Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to th' east; 2 My Father hath a reason for't"-3 -as if some allusion to the doctrines of the Christian faith had been casually dropped in conversation by the old man, and had been no farther inquired into. Shakespear's morality is introduced in the same simple, unobtrusive manner. Imogen will not let her companions stay away from the chase to attend her when sick, and gives her reason for it— "Stick to your journal course; the breach of custom Is breach of all.” 4 When the Queen attempts to disguise her motives for [Act iii., sc. 3.] 2 See 'Popular Antiquities of Great Britain,' 1869, ii., 217, 18 where this passage (among others) is quoted.-ED. [ Act iv., sc. 2.] [4 Ibid.] procuring the poison from Cornelius, by saying she means to try its effects on "creatures as we count not worth the hanging," his answer conveys at once a tacit reproof of her hypocrisy, and a useful lesson of humanity "Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart”— MACBETH. "The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen [Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1.] MACBETH and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are usually reckoned Shakespear's four principal tragedies. Lear stands first for the profound intensity of the passion; Macbeth for the wildness of the imagination and the rapidity of the action; Othello for the progressive interest and powerful alternations of feeling; Hamlet for the refined development of thought and sentiment. If the force of genius shown in each of these works is astonishing, their variety is not less so. They are like different creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. This distinctness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence of truth and nature. Shakespear's genius alone appeared to possess the resources of nature. He is "your only tragedy-maker." His plays [1 Act i., sc. 6.] 2 "First printed in the folio of 1623."-DYCE. Macbeth is supposed to have been written in 1605, and represented in the following year. Dr. Simon Forman saw it represented at the Globe in 1610. The present paper may be compared with one in A View of the English Stage, 1818, pp. 58-66.-Ed. |