Part 2 — CHAPTER IX.

PERIOD OF SHAKSPEARE'S COMMENCEMENT AS A DRAMATIC POET—CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF HIS GENUINE PLAYS—OBSERVATIONS ON PERICLES; ON THE COMEDY OF ERRORS; ON LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST; ON HENRY THE SIXTH, PART THE FIRST; ON HENRY THE SIXTH, PART THE SECOND, AND ON A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM—DISSERTATION ON THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, AND ON THE MODIFICATIONS WHICH IT RECEIVED FROM THE GENIUS OF SHAKSPEARE.

We have, in a former portion of this work[256:A], assigned our reasons for concluding that, on Shakspeare's arrival in London, about the year 1586 or 1587, his immediate employment was that of an actor; and we now proceed to consider the much agitated question as to the era of his first attempts in dramatic poetry. That this was subsequent to the production of his Venus and Adonis, we possess his own authority, when he informs us that the poem just mentioned was the first heir of his invention; and though we enjoy no testimony of a like kind, or emanating from a similar source, as to the period of his earliest effort in dramatic literature, yet, if we be correct in referring the composition of his Venus and Adonis to the interval elapsing between the years 1587 and 1590[256:B], the epoch of his first play cannot, with any probability, be placed either much anterior or subsequent to the year 1590. That it occurred not before this date, may be presumed from recollecting, that, in the first place, the prosecution of his amatory poem and the acquirement of his profession as an actor, might be sufficient to occupy an interval of two years; and, in the second place, that no contemporary previous to 1592, neither Webbe in 1586[256:C], nor Puttenham in 1589[256:D], nor Harrington in February, 1591[257:A], has noticed or even alluded to any theatrical production of our author.

That it took place, either in 1590, or very soon after that year, must be inferred both from tradition, and from written testimony. Aubrey tells us, from the former source, that "he began early to make essays in dramatique poetry, which at that time was very lowe, and his plays took well[257:B];" and from the nature and extent of the allusions in the following passage from Robert Greene's Groatsworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance, there can be no doubt that, not only one play, but that several had been written and prepared for the stage by our poet, anterior to September, 1592.

It appears that this tract of Greene's was completed a very short time previous to his death, which happened on the third of the month of the year just mentioned, and that Henry Chettle, "upon whose perill"[257:C] it had been entered in the Stationers' register on September the 20th, 1592, became editor and publisher of it before the ensuing December.[257:D]

Greene had been the intimate associate of Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, and he concludes his Groatsworth of Witte with an address to these bards, the object of which is, to dissuade them from any further reliance on the stage for support, and to warn them against the ingratitude and selfishness of players: "trust them not;" he exclaims, "for there is an upstart crowe BEAUTIFIED WITH OUR FEATHERS, that with his tygres heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes hee is as well able to bombaste out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac-totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrey."[257:E]

To Mr. Tyrwhit we are indebted for the first application of this passage to Shakspeare, who, as might naturally be expected, feeling himself hurt at Greene's unmerited sarcasm, clearly pointing to him by the designation of the only Shake-scene in a country, and not well pleased with Chettle's officious publication of it, expressed his sentiments so openly as to draw forth from the repentant editor, about three months after his edition of the Groatsworth of Witte, an apology, which adds further weight to the inferences which we wish to deduce from the language of Greene. In this interesting little pamphlet which, under the title of Kind Harts Dreame, we have had occasion to quote more at large in an earlier part of the volume[258:A], the author, after slightly noticing Marlowe, one of the offended parties, and speaking highly of the demeanour, professional ability, and moral integrity of Shakspeare, closes the sentence and the eulogium by mentioning "HIS FACETIOUS GRACE OF WRITING, THAT APPROVES HIS ART."

From these passages in Greene and Chettle, combined with the traditionary relation of Aubrey, we may legitimately infer, first, that he had written for the stage before the year 1592; secondly, that he had written during this period with considerable success, for Aubrey tells us, that his plays took well, and Chettle that his grace in writing approved his art; thirdly, that he had written both tragedy and comedy, Greene reporting, that he was well able to bombast out a blank verse, and Chettle speaking of his "facetious grace in writing;" fourthly, that he had altered and brought on the stage some of the separate or joint productions of Marlowe, Greene, Lodge, and Peele; the words of Greene, where he terms Shakspeare a "crowe beautified with OUR feathers, that with his tygres heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes," &c. implying, not only that he had furtively acquired fame by appropriating their productions, but referring to a particular play, through the medium of quotation, as a proof of the assertion, the words tygres heart wrapt in a player's hide being a parody of a line in the Third Part of King Henry the Sixth: or what we, for reasons which will be speedily assigned, have thought proper to call the Second Part,—

fifthly, that he had already excited, as the usual consequence of success, no small degree of jealousy and envy; hence Greene has querelously bestowed upon him the appellation of upstart, and has taxed him with a monopolising spirit, an accusation which leads us to believe, sixthly, that he had written or prepared for the stage SEVERAL PLAYS anterior to September, 1592; this last inference, which we conceive to be fairly deduced from the description of our poet as an absolute Johannes fac-totum with regard to the stage, will immediately bring forward again the question as to the precise era of our author's earliest drama.

Now to warrant the charge implied by the expression, an absolute fac-totum, we must necessarily allow a sufficient lapse of time before September, 1592, in order to admit, not only of Shakspeare's altering a play for the stage, but of his composing either altogether, or in part, both tragedy and comedy on a basis of his own choice, so that he might, as he actually did, appear to Greene, in the capacities of corrector, improver, and original writer of plays, to be a perfect fac-totum.

And, if we further reflect, that the composition of the Groatsworth of Witte most probably, from indisposition, occupied its author one month, as he complains of weakness scarce suffering him to write towards the conclusion of his tract, and that we cannot reasonably conclude less than two years to have been employed by Shakspeare in the execution of the functions assigned him by Greene; the period for the production of his first drama, will necessarily be thrown back to the August of the year 1590; an era to which no objection, from contradictory testimony, can with any show of probability apply; for, though Harrington, whose Apologie for Poetrie was entered on the Stationers' books in February, 1591, has not noticed Shakspeare, yet, if we consider that this treatise was, in all likelihood, completed previous to the close of 1590, we shall not wonder that a play, performed but three or four months before the critic finished his labours, unappropriated too, there is reason to think, by the public at that time, and unacknowledged by the author, should be passed over in silence.

Having thus endeavoured to fix the era of our poet's commencement as a dramatic writer, it remains to ascertain which was the first drama that, either wholly or in great part, issued from his pen; a subject, like the former, certainly surrounded with many difficulties, liable to many errors, and only to be illustrated by a patient investigation of, and a well-weighed deduction from, minute circumstances and conflicting probabilities.

The reasons which have induced us to fix upon Pericles, as the result of a laborious, if not a successful, enquiry, will be offered, with much diffidence, under the first article of the following Chronological Arrangement, which, though deviating, in several instances, from the chronologies of both Chalmers and Malone, will not, it is hoped, on that account be found needlessly singular, nor unproductive of a closer approximation to probability, and, perchance, to truth.

For the sake of perspicuity, it has been thought eligible to prefix, in a tabular form, the order which has been adopted, the observations confirmatory of its arrangement being classed according to the series thus drawn out; and here it may be necessary to premise, that the substance of our commentary, with the exception of what may be requisite to establish a few new dates, will be chiefly confined to critical remarks on each play, relieved by intervening dissertations on the super-human agency of the poet.

Chronological Table.

1. Pericles, 1590.

2. Comedy of Errors, 1591.

3. Love's Labour's Lost, 1591.

4. King Henry the Sixth, Part I. 1592.

5. King Henry the Sixth, Part II. 1592.

6. Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1593.

7. Romeo and Juliet, 1593.

8. Taming of the Shrew, 1594.

9. Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1595.

10. King Richard the Third, 1595.

11. King Richard the Second, 1596.

12. King Henry the Fourth, Part I. 1596.

13. King Henry the Fourth, Part II. 1596.

14. The Merchant of Venice, 1597.

15. Hamlet, 1597.

16. King John, 1598.

17. All's Well That Ends Well, 1598.

18. King Henry the Fifth, 1599.

19. Much Ado About Nothing, 1599.

20. As You Like It, 1600.

21. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601.

22. Troilus and Cressida, 1601.

23. King Henry the Eighth, 1602.

24. Timon of Athens, 1602.

25. Measure for Measure, 1603.

26. King Lear, 1604.

27. Cymbeline, 1605.

28. Macbeth, 1606.

29. Julius Cæsar, 1607.

30. Antony and Cleopatra, 1608.

31. Coriolanus, 1609.

32. The Winter's Tale, 1610.

33. The Tempest, 1611.

34. Othello, 1612.

35. Twelfth Night, 1613.

1. Pericles, 1590. That the greater part, if not the whole, of this drama, was the composition of Shakspeare, and that it is to be considered as his earliest dramatic effort, are positions, of which the first has been rendered highly probable by the elaborate disquisitions of Messrs. Steevens and Malone, and may possibly be placed in a still clearer point of view by a more condensed and lucid arrangement of the testimony already produced, and by a further discussion of the merits and peculiarities of the play itself; while the second will, we trust, receive additional support by inferences legitimately deduced from a comprehensive survey of scattered and hitherto insulated premises.

The evidence required for the establishment of a high degree of probability under the first of these positions necessarily divides itself into two parts; the external and the internal evidence. The former commences with the original edition of Pericles, which was entered on the Stationers' books by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's plays, on the 20th of May[262:A], 1608, but did not pass the press until the subsequent year, when it was published, not, as might have been expected, by Blount, but by one Henry Gosson, who placed Shakspeare's name at full length in the title-page.

It is worthy of remark, also, that this edition was entered at Stationers' Hall together with Antony and Cleopatra, and that it, and the three following editions, which were also in quarto, were styled in the title-page, the much admired play of Pericles. As the entry, however, was by Blount, and the edition by Gosson, it is probable, as Mr. Malone has remarked, that the former had been anticipated by the latter, through the procurance of a play-house copy.[263:A] It may also be added, that Pericles was performed at Shakspeare's own theatre, The Globe. The next ascription of this play to our author, is found in a poem entitled The Times Displayed in Six Sestyads, by S. Sheppard, 4to. 1646, dedicated to Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and containing, in the ninth stanza of the sixth Sestiad, a positive assertion of Shakspeare's property in this drama:—

This high eulogium on Pericles received a direct contradiction very shortly afterwards from the pen of an obscure poet named Tatham, who bears, however, an equally strong testimony as to Shakspeare being the author of the piece, which he thus presumes to censure:—

To these testimonies in 1646 and 1652, full and unqualified, and made at no distant period from the death of the bard to whom they relate, we have to add the still more forcible and striking declaration of Dryden, who tells us, in 1677, and in words as strong and as decisive as he could select, that

The only drawback on this accumulation of external evidence is the omission of Pericles in the first edition of our author's works; a negative fact which can have little weight when we recollect, that both the memory and judgment of Heminge and Condell, the poet's editors, were so defective, that they had forgotten Troilus and Cressida, until the entire folio and the table of contents had been printed, and admitted Titus Andronicus, and the Historical Play of King Henry the Sixth, probably for no other reasons, than that the former had been, from its unmerited popularity, brought forward by Shakspeare on his own theatre, though, there is sufficient internal evidence to prove, without the addition of a single line; and because the latter, with a similar predilection of the lower orders in its favour, had, on that account, obtained a similar, though not a more laboured attention from our poet, and was therefore deemed by his editors, though very unnecessarily, a requisite introduction to the two plays on the reign of that monarch which Shakspeare had really new-modelled.

It cannot, consequently, be surprising that, as they had forgotten Troilus and Cressida until the folio had been printed, they should have also forgotten Pericles until the same folio had been in circulation, and when it was too late to correct the omission; an error which the second folio has, without doubt or examination, blindly copied.

If the external evidence in support of Shakspeare being the author of the greater part of this play be striking, the internal must be pronounced still more so, and, indeed, absolutely decisive of the question; for, whether we consider the style and phraseology, or the imagery, sentiment, and humour, the approximation to our author's uncontested dramas appears so close, frequent, and peculiar, as to stamp irresistible conviction on the mind.

The result has accordingly been such as might have been predicted under the assumption of the play being genuine; for the more it has been examined, the more clearly has Shakspeare's large property in it been established. It is curious, indeed, to note the increased tone of confidence which each successive commentator has assumed in proportion as he has weighed the testimony arising from the piece itself. Rowe, in his first edition, says, "it is owned that some part of Pericles certainly was written by him, particularly the last act;" Dr. Farmer observes that the hand of Shakspeare may be seen in the latter part of the play; Dr. Percy remarks, that "more of the phraseology used in the genuine dramas of Shakspeare prevails in Pericles, than in any of the other six doubted plays[265:A]," and, of the two rival restorers of this drama, Steevens and Malone, the former declares;—"I admit without reserve that Shakspeare,

is visible in many scenes throughout the play;—the purpurei panni are Shakspeare's, and the rest the productions of some inglorious and forgotten play-wright;"—adding, in a subsequent paragraph, that Pericles is valuable, "as the engravings of Mark Antonio are valuable not only on account of their beauty, but because they are supposed to have been executed under the eye of Raffaelle[265:B];" while the latter gives it as his corrected opinion, that "the congenial sentiments, the numerous expressions bearing a striking similitude to passages in his undisputed plays, some of the incidents, the situation of many of the persons, and in various places the colour of the style, all these combine to set the seal of Shakspeare on the play before us, and furnish us with internal and irresistible proofs, that a considerable portion of this piece, as it now appears, was written by him. The greater part of the three last acts may, I think, on this ground be safely ascribed to him; and his hand may be traced occasionally in the other two divisions."[266:A] Lastly, Mr. Douce asserts, that "many will be of opinion that it contains more that he might have written than either Love's Labour's Lost, or All's Well that Ends Well."[266:B]

For satisfactory proof that the style, phraseology, and imagery of the greater part of this play are truly Shakspearean, the reader is referred to the commentators, who have noticed, with unwearied accuracy, all the numerous coincidences which, in these respects, occur between Pericles and the poet's subsequent productions; similitudes so striking, as to leave no doubt that they originated from one and the same source.

If we attend, however, a little further to the dramatic construction of Pericles, to its humour, sentiment, and character, not only shall we find additional evidence in favour of its being, in a great degree, the product of our author, but fresh cause, it is expected, for awarding it a higher estimation than it has hitherto obtained.

However wild and extravagant the fable of Pericles may appear, if we consider its numerous chorusses, its pageantry, and dumb shows, its continual succession of incidents, and the great length of time which they occupy, yet is it, we may venture to assert, the most spirited and pleasing specimen of the nature and fabric of our earliest romantic drama which we possess, and the more valuable, as it is the only one with which Shakspeare has favoured us. We should therefore welcome this play, an admirable example of "the neglected favourites of our ancestors, with something of the same feeling that is experienced in the reception of an old and valued friend of our fathers or grandfathers. Nay, we should like "it" the better for "its" gothic appendages of pageants and chorusses, to explain the intricacies of the fable; and we can see no objection to the dramatic representation even of a series of ages in a single night, that does not apply to every description of poem which leads in perusal from the fire-side at which we are sitting, to a succession of remote periods and distant countries. In these matters, faith is all-powerful; and, without her influence, the most chastely cold and critically correct of dramas is precisely as unreal as the Midsummer-Night's Dream, or the Winter's Tale."[267:A]

Perfectly coinciding in opinion with this ingenious critic, and willing to give an indefinite influence to the illusion of the scene, we have found in Pericles much entertainment from its uncommon variety and rapidity of incident, qualities which peculiarly mark the genius of Shakspeare, and which rendered this drama so successful on its first appearance, that the poets of the time quote its reception as a remarkable instance of popularity.[267:B]

A still more powerful attraction in Pericles is, that the interest accumulates as the story proceeds; for, though many of the characters in the earlier part of the piece, such as Antiochus and his Daughter, Simonides and Thaisa, Cleon and Dionyza, disappear and drop into oblivion, their places are supplied by more pleasing and efficient agents, who are not only less fugacious, but better calculated for theatric effect. The inequalities of this production are, indeed, considerable, and only to be accounted for, with probability, on the supposition, that Shakspeare either accepted a coadjutor, or improved on the rough sketch of a previous writer; the former, for reasons which will be assigned hereafter, seems entitled to a preference, and will explain why, in compliment to his dramatic friend, he has suffered a few passages, and one entire scene, of a character totally dissimilar to his own style and mode of composition, to stand uncorrected; for who does not perceive that of the closing scene of the second act, not a sentence or a word escaped from the pen of Shakspeare, and yet, that the omission of a few lines would have rendered that blameless and consistent, which is now, with reference to the character of Simonides, a tissue of imbecillity, absurdity, and falsehood.[268:A]

No play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand of Shakspeare than Pericles, and fortunately his share in its composition appears to have been very considerable; he may be distinctly, though not frequently, traced, in the first and second acts; after which, feeling the incompetency of his fellow-labourer, he seems to have assumed almost the entire management of the remainder, nearly the whole of the third, fourth, and fifth acts bearing indisputable testimony to the genius and execution of the great master.

The truth of these affirmations will be evident, if we give a slight attention to the sentiment and character which are developed in the scenes before us. It has been repeatedly declared, that Pericles, though teeming with incident, is devoid of character, an assertion which a little scrutiny is alone sufficient to refute.

Shakspeare has ever delighted in drawing the broad humour of inferior life, and in this, which we hold to be, the first heir of his DRAMATIC invention, no opportunity is lost for the introduction of such sketches; accordingly, the first scene of the second act, and the third and sixth scenes of the fourth act, are occupied by delineations of this kind, coloured with the poet's usual strength and verisimilitude, and painting the shrewd but honest mirth of laborious fishermen, and the vicious badinage of the inhabitants of a brothel. Leaving these traits, however, which sufficiently speak for themselves, let us turn our view on the more serious persons of the drama.

Of the minor characters belonging to this groupe, none, except Helicanus and Cerimon, are, it must be confessed, worthy of consideration; the former is respectable for his fidelity and integrity, though not individualised by any peculiar attribution, but in Cerimon, who exhibits the rare union of the nobleman and the physician, the most unwearied benevolence, the most active philanthropy, are depicted in glowing tints, and we have only to regret that he fills not a greater space in the business of the drama. He is introduced in the second scene of the third act, as having

to assist, in a dreadfully inclement night, some shipwrecked mariners:

His prompt assistance on this occasion calls forth the eulogium of some gentlemen who had been roused from their slumbers by the violence of the tempest:

They are here interrupted by two servants bringing in a chest which had been washed on shore, and which is found to contain the body of Thaisa, the wife of Pericles, on a survey of which, Cerimon pronounces, from the freshness of its appearance, that it had been too hastily committed to the sea, adding an observation which would form an excellent motto to an Essay on the means of restoring suspended animation:

The disinterested conduct and philosophic dignity of Cerimon cannot be placed in a more amiable and striking light, than in that which they receive from the following declaration, worthy of being inscribed in letters of gold in the library of every liberal cultivator of medical science:

If we now contemplate the two chief personages of the play, Pericles and Marina; and if it can be proved that these occupy, as they should do, the fore ground of the picture, are well relieved, and characteristically sustained, nothing can be wanting, when combined with the other marks of authenticity collected by the commentators, to substantiate the genuine property of Shakspeare.

Buoyant with hope, ardent in enterprise, and animated by the keenest sensibility, Pericles is brought forward as a model of knighthood. Chivalric in his habits, romantic in his conceptions, and elegant in his accomplishments, he is represented as the devoted servant of glory and of love. His failings, however, are not concealed; for the enthusiasm and susceptibility of his character lead him into many errors; he is alternately the sport of joy and grief, at one time glowing with rapture, at another plunged into utter despair. Not succeeding in his amatory overture at the court of Antiochus, and shocked at the criminality of that monarch and his daughter, he becomes a prey to the deepest despondency:—

Affliction, however, of a more unequivocal kind soon assails him; he is shipwrecked on the coast of Greece, and compelled to solicit support from the benevolence of some poor fishermen. His address to these honest creatures is truly pathetic:—

From this state of dejection he is suddenly raised to the most sanguine pitch of hope, on perceiving the fishermen dragging in their net to shore a suit of rusty armour. Enveloped in this, he determines to appear at Pentapolis the neighbouring capital of Simonides, as a knight and gentleman; to purchase a steed with a jewel yet remaining on his arm, and to enter the lists of a tournament then in preparation, as a candidate for the hand of Thaisa, the daughter of the king. His exultation on the prospect, he thus expresses to his humble friends:

The same rapid transition of the passions, and the same subjection to uncontrolled emotions mark his future course; the supposed deaths of his wife and daughter immerse him in the deepest abstraction and gloom; he is represented, in consequence of these events, as

We are prepared therefore to expect, that the discovery of the existence of these dear relatives should have a proportionate effect on feelings thus constituted, so sensitive and so acute; and, accordingly, the tide of rapture rolls in with overwhelming force. Nothing, indeed, can be more impressively conducted than the recognition of Marina; it is Shakspeare, not in the infancy of his career, but approaching to the zenith of his glory.—Conviction on the part of Pericles is accompanied by a flood of tears; why, says his daughter,

Nature appeals here to the heart in a tone not to be misunderstood.

Ecstasy, however, cannot long be borne, the feeble powers of man soon sink beneath the violence of the emotion, and mark how Shakspeare closes the conflict:

It might be imagined that the above scene would almost necessarily preclude any chance of success in the immediately subsequent detail of the discovery of Thaisa; but the poet has contrived, notwithstanding, to throw both novelty and interest into this the final dénouement of the play. Pericles, aided by the evidence of Cerimon, recognises his wife in the character of high Priestess of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; the acknowledgment is thus pathetically painted:—

To the many amiable and interesting female characters with which the undisputed works of our poet abound, may be added the Marina of this drama, who, like Miranda, Imogen, and Perdita, pleases by the gentleness, and artless tenderness of her disposition; though it must be allowed that Marina can only be considered as a sketch when compared with the more highly finished designs of our author's maturer pencil; it is a sketch, however, from the hand of a master, and cannot be mistaken.

Pericles commits his infant daughter, accompanied by her nurse Lychorida, to the protection of Cleon and Dionyza:—

The affectionate attachment of Marina to this friend of her infancy, and her deep-felt sorrow for her loss, advantageously open her character in the first scene of the fourth act, where she is introduced strewing the grave of Lychorida with flowers.

a passage, the leading idea of which, Shakspeare has transplanted with the same pleasing effect into his Cymbeline.[276:C]

Scarcely has Marina lamented the decease of her faithful attendant, when envy and malignity conspire against her life in the bosom of one who ought to have been her surest safeguard against misfortune. Dionyza, perceiving her own daughter eclipsed by the beauty and accomplishments of her ward, resolves upon her destruction, and bribes a wretch, named Leonine, to the commission of the deed. The dialogue which takes place on this occasion, between the ruffian and his intended victim, places the artless simplicity of the latter in a very pleasing point of view.

Marina snatched from this villain by the sudden intervention of pirates, is sold by them to the keeper of a brothel at Mitylene, a situation which appears to her still more dreadful than that from which she has so narrowly escaped. She laments that Leonine had not executed his orders, or that the pirates had not thrown her overboard, and exclaims in language equally beautiful and appropriate,—

Indebted to her talents and accomplishments, which she represents to her purchasers as more likely to be productive than the wages of prostitution, she is allowed to quit the brothel uninjured, but under a compact to devote the profits of her industry and skill to the support of her cruel oppressors.

The mild fortitude and resignation which she exhibits during this humiliating state of servitude, and the simple dignity which she displays in her person and manners, are forcibly delineated in the following observations of Pericles, who, roused from his torpor by her figure, voice, and features, and interested in her narrative, thus addresses her:—

a picture which is rendered yet more touching by a subsequent trait; for Lysimachus informs us

To this delightful sketch of female tenderness and subdued suffering, nearly all the interest of the last two acts is to be ascribed, and we feel, therefore, highly gratified that sorrows so unmerited, and so well borne, should, at length, terminate not only in repose, but in positive happiness. The poet, indeed, has allotted strict retributory justice to all his characters; the bad are severely punished, while in Pericles and his daughter, we behold

To whom, may it now be asked, if not to Shakspeare, can this play with any probability be given? Has not the above slight analysis of its two principal characters, with the quotations necessarily adduced, fully convinced us, that in style, sentiment, and imagery, and in the outline and conception of its chief female personage, the hand of our great master is undeniably displayed?

We presume, therefore, both the external and internal evidence for much the greater part of this play being the composition of Shakspeare may be pronounced complete and unanswerable; and it now only remains to enquire, if there be sufficient ground for considering Pericles, as we have ventured to do in this arrangement, as the FIRST dramatic production of our author's pen.

It is very extraordinary that the positive testimony of Dryden as to the priority of Pericles, especially if we weigh well the import of the context, should ever have admitted of a moment's doubt or controversy. Nothing can, we think, be more plainly declaratory than the lines in question, which shall be given at length:—

This passage, if it mean any thing, must imply, not only from the bare assertion of one line, but from all the accessory matter, that Pericles was the first young flight of Shakspeare, that it was the first offspring of his dramatic muse, his first play. That this was the meaning of Dryden, and not merely that Pericles was produced before Othello, will be further evident from recollecting the occasion of the Prologue whence these lines are taken. It was written to introduce the first play of Dr. Charles D'Avenant, then only nineteen years of age, and the bard expressly calls it "the blossom of his green years," the "rude essay of a youthful poet, who may grow up to write," expressions which can assimilate it with Pericles only on the supposition that the latter was, like Circe, a firstling of dramatic genius.

That Dryden, who wrote this prologue in 1675, possessed, from his approximation to the age of Shakspeare, many advantages for ascertaining the truth, none will deny. When the former had attained the age of twenty, the latter had been dead but thirty-five years, and the subsequent connection of the modern bard with the stage, and his intimacy with Sir William D'Avenant, who had produced his first play in 1629, and had been well acquainted with Heminge and the surviving companions of Shakspeare, would furnish him with sufficient data for his assertion, independent of any reliance on the similar declarations of Shepherd and Tatham.

Taking the statement of Dryden, therefore, as a disclosure of the fact, it follows, of course, from what has been previously said on the epoch of Shakspeare's commencement as a dramatic writer, that Pericles must be referred to the autumn of the year 1590, an assignment which the consideration of a few particulars will tend to corroborate.

In the first place, it may be remarked, that the numerous dumb shows of this play, are of themselves a striking presumptive proof of its antiquity, indicating that Shakspeare, who subsequently laughed at these clumsy expedients, thought it necessary, at the opening of his career, to fall in with the fashion of the times, with a fashion which had reigned from the earliest establishment of our stage, which was still in vogue in 1590, but soon after this period became an object of ridicule, and began to decline.

Mr. Malone has remarked, that from the manner in which Pericles is mentioned in a metrical pamphlet, entitled Pimlyco or Runne Red-cap, 1609, there is reason to conclude that it is coëval with the old play of Jane Shore[282:A]; and this latter being noticed by Beaumont and Fletcher in conjunction with The Bold Beauchamps[282:B], a production which D'Avenant classes, in point of age, with Tamburlaine and Faustus[282:C], pieces which appeared in or before 1590, he infers, perhaps not injudiciously, that Pericles has a claim to similar antiquity, and should be ascribed to the year 1590.[283:A]

But a still stronger conclusion in favour of the date which, we think, should be assigned to Pericles, may be drawn from a suggestion of Mr. Steevens, which has not perhaps been sufficiently considered. This gentleman contends, that Shakspeare's Prince of Tyre was originally named Pyroclés, after the hero of Sidney's Arcadia, the character, as he justly observes, not bearing the smallest affinity to that of the Athenian statesman. "It is remarkable," says he, "that many of our ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit Sidney's worthies on the stage: and when his subordinate agents were advanced to such honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, their leader, should be overlooked? Musidorus (his companion), Argalus and Parthenia, Phalantus and Eudora, Andromana, &c. furnished titles for different tragedies; and perhaps Pyrocles, in the present instance, was defrauded of a like distinction. The names invented or employed by Sidney, had once such popularity, that they were sometimes borrowed by poets who did not profess to follow the direct current of his fables, or attend to the strict preservation of his characters.—I must add, that the Appolyn of the Story-book and Gower could have been rejected only to make room for a more favourite name; yet, however conciliating the name of Pyrocles might have been, that of Pericles could challenge no advantage with regard to general predilection.—All circumstances therefore considered, it is not improbable that our author designed his chief character to be called Pyrocles, not Pericles, however ignorance or accident might have shuffled the latter (a name of almost similar sound) into the place of the former."[283:B]

The probability of this happy conjecture will amount almost to certainty, if we diligently compare Pericles with the Pyrocles of the Arcadia; the same romantic, versatile, and sensitive disposition is ascribed to both characters, and several of the incidents pertaining to the latter are found mingled with the adventures of the former personage, while, throughout the play, the obligations of its author to various other parts of the romance may be frequently and distinctly traced, not only in the assumption of an image or a sentiment, but in the adoption of the very words of his once popular predecessor, proving incontestably the poet's familiarity with and study of the Arcadia to have been very considerable.[284:A]

Now this work of Sidney, commenced in 1580, was corrected and published by his sister the Countess of Pembroke, in 1590, and the admiration which it immediately excited would naturally induce a young actor, then meditating his first essay in dramatic poetry, instantly to avail himself of its popularity, and, by appropriating the appellation of its principal hero, fix the attention of the public. That Shakspeare long preserved his attachment to the Arcadia, is evident from his King Lear, where the episode of Gloster and his sons is plainly copied from the first edition of this romance.[284:B]

The date assigned to Pericles, on this foundation, being admitted, it follows of course, that Shakspeare could not have had time to improve upon the sketch of a predecessor; and yet from the texture of some parts of the composition, we are compelled to infer, that in this first effort in dramatic poetry, he must have condescended to accept the assistance of a friend, whose inferiority to himself is distinctly visible through the greater part of the first two acts, a position the probability of which seems to have induced Mr. Steevens to yield his assent to Dryden's assertion. "In one light, indeed, I am ready," remarks this acute commentator, "to allow Pericles was our poet's first attempt. Before he was satisfied with his own strength, and trusted himself to the publick, he might have tried his hand with a partner, and entered the theatre in disguise. Before he ventured to face an audience on the stage, it was natural that he should peep at them through the curtain."[285:A]

The objections which have been made to this priority of Pericles in point of time, may be reduced to three, of which the first is drawn from the non-enumeration of the play by Meres, when giving a list of our poet's dramas, in 1598.[285:B] But if it were the object of Shakspeare and his coadjutor to lie concealed from the public eye, of which there can be little doubt, since the former, as hath been remarked, having never owned his share in it, or supposing it to be forgotten, was afterwards willing to profit by the most valuable lines and ideas it contained[285:C], the omission of Meres is easily accounted for; yet granting that our author had been well known as the chief writer of Pericles, the validity of the objection is not thereby established, for we find in this catalogue neither the play of King Henry the Sixth, in any of its parts, nor the tragedy of Hamlet, pieces undoubtedly written and performed before the year 1598.

A second objection is founded on the title-page of the first edition of Pericles, published in 1609, where this drama is termed "the late and much admired play."[285:D] It is obvious that from a word so indefinite in its signification as late, whether taken adverbially or adjectively, nothing decisive can result. To a play written eighteen years before, the lexicographic definitions of the term in question, namely, in times past, not long ago, not far from the present, may, without doubt, justly apply; but we must also add, that it is uncertain whether the word is meant to refer to the period of the composition of the play, or to the date of its last representation; lately performed being most probably the sense in which the editor intended to be understood.

Lastly, Mr. Douce is of opinion that three of the devices of the knights in act the second, scene the second, of Pericles, are copied from a translation of the Heroicall Devises of Paradin and Symeon, printed in 1591, which, if correct, would necessarily bring forward the date of the play either to this or the subsequent year; but from this difficulty we are relieved even by Mr. Douce himself, who owns that two out of the three are to be found in Whitney's Emblems, published in 1586, a confession which leads us to infer that the third may have an equally early origin.[286:A]

From the extensive survey which has now been taken of the merits and supposed era of this early drama, the reader, it is probable, will gather sufficient data for concluding that by far the greater part of it issued from the pen of Shakspeare, that it was his first dramatic production, that it appeared towards the close of the year 1590, and that it deserves to be removed from the Appendix to the editions of Shakspeare, where it has hitherto appeared, and incorporated in the body of his works.

2. Comedy of Errors, 1591. That this play should be ascribed to the year 1591, and not to 1593, or 1596, has, we think, been fully established by Mr. Chalmers[286:B], to whom, therefore, the reader is referred, with this additional observation, that, from an account published in the British Bibliographer, of an interlude, named Jacke Jugeler, which was entered in the Stationers' books in 1562-3, it appears that the Menæchmi of Plautus, on which this comedy is founded, "was, in part at least, known at a very early period upon the English stage[286:C]," a further proof that versions or imitations of it had been in existence long prior to Warner's translation in 1595.

As the Comedy of Errors is one of the few plays of Shakspeare mentioned by Meres in 1598, and as we shall have occasion to refer more than once to the catalogue of this critic, it will be necessary, before we proceed farther in our arrangement, to give a transcript of this short but interesting article. It is taken from his "Palladis Tamia. Wit's Treasury. Being the second part of Wit's Common Wealth," 1598, and from that part of it entitled "A comparative discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets."

"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakspeare, among y^e English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness his Gẽtlemẽ of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labor's Lost, his Love Labour's Wonne, his Midsummer's-Night Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice: for tragedy, his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."[287:A]

Some of the commentators, and more particularly Ritson and Steevens, have positively pronounced this play to have been originally the composition of a writer anterior to Shakspeare, and that it merely received some embellishments from our poet's pen: "On a careful revision of the foregoing scenes," says the latter gentleman, "I do not hesitate to pronounce them the composition of two very unequal writers. Shakspeare had undoubtedly a share in them; but that the entire play was no work of his, is an opinion which (as Benedick says) 'fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake.' Thus, as we are informed by Aulus Gellius, lib. iii. cap. 3. some plays were absolutely ascribed to Plautus which in truth had only been (retractatæ et expolitæ) retouched and polished by him."[287:B]

We have frequently occasion to admire the wit, the classical elegance, and the ingenuity of Mr. Steevens, but we have often also to regret the force of his prejudices, and the unqualified dogmatism of his critical opinions. That the business of the Comedy of Errors is better calculated for farce than for legitimate comedy, cannot be denied; and it must also be confessed that the doggrel verses attributed to the two Dromios, contribute little to the humour or value of the piece; but let us, at the same time, recollect, that the admission of the latter was in conformity to the custom of the age in which this play was produced[288:A], and that the former, though perplexed and somewhat improbable[288:B], possesses no small share of entertainment.

This drama of Shakspeare is, in fact, much more varied, rich, and interesting in its incidents, than the Menæchmi of Plautus; and while in rigid adherence to the unities of action, time, and place, our poet rivals the Roman play, he has contrived to insinuate the necessary previous information for the spectator, in a manner infinitely more pleasing and artful than that adopted by the Latin bard, for whilst Plautus has chosen to convey it through the medium of a prologue, Shakspeare has rendered it at once natural and pathetic, by placing it in the mouth of Ægeon, the father of the twin brothers.

In a play of which the plot is so intricate, occupied in a great measure by mere personal mistakes, and their whimsical results, no elaborate developement of character can be expected; yet is the portrait of Ægeon touched with a discriminative hand, and the pressure of age and misfortune is so painted, as to throw a solemn, dignified, and impressive tone of colouring over this part of the fable, contrasting well with the lighter scenes which immediately follow, a mode of relief which is again resorted to at the close of the drama, where the re-union of Ægeon and Æmilia, and the recognition of their children, produce an interest in the denouëment, of a nature more affecting than the tone of the preceding scenes had taught us to expect.

As to the comic action which constitutes the chief bulk of this piece, if it be true that to excite laughter, awaken attention, and fix curiosity, be essential to its dramatic excellence, the Comedy of Errors cannot be pronounced an unsuccessful effort; both reader and spectator are hurried on to the close, through a series of thick-coming incidents, and under the pleasurable influence of novelty, expectation, and surprise; and the dialogue, so far from betraying the inequalities complained of by Ritson and Steevens, is uniformly vivacious, pointed, and even effervescing. Shakspeare is visible, in fact, throughout the entire play, as well in the broad exuberance of its mirth, as in the cast of its more chastised parts, a combination of which may be found in the punishment and character of Pinch the pedagogue and conjurer, who is sketched in the strongest and most marked style of our author.

If we consider, therefore, the construction of the fable, the narrowness of its basis, and that its powers of entertainment are almost exclusively confined to a continued deception of the external senses, we must confess that Shakspeare has not only improved on the Plautian model, but, making allowance for a somewhat too coarse vein of humour, has given to his production all the interest and variety that the nature and the limits of his subject would permit.

3. Love's Labour's Lost: 1591. In the first edition of Mr. Malone's Chronological Essay on Shakspeare's Plays, which was published in January, 1778, the year 1591 is the date assigned to this drama, an epoch, which, in the re-impression of 1793, was changed in the catalogue for the subsequent era of 1594, though the reasons given for this alteration appeared so inconclusive to the chronologist himself, that he ventures in the text merely to say,—"I think it probable, that our author's first draft of this play was written in or before 1594[289:A]," a mode of expression which leaves as much authority to the former as the latter date. In short, the only motive brought forward for the present locality of this piece in Mr. Malone's list, where it appears posterior to A Midsummer-Night's Dream, the Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of the Shrew, is, that there is more attempt at delineation of character in it than in either the first or second of the plays just mentioned[290:A], a reason which loses all its weight the moment we seriously contrast this comedy with its supposed predecessors, for who would then think of assigning to the very slight sketches of Biron and Katharine, any mark of improvement, either in poetic or dramatic strength, over the imaginative powers of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, or the strong, broad, and often characteristic outlines of The Taming of the Shrew!

The construction, indeed, of the whole play, the variety of its versification, the abundancy of its rhymes, and the length and frequency of its doggrel lines, very clearly prove this comedy to be one of our author's very earliest compositions; indications which originally disposed Mr. Malone to give it to the year which we have adopted, and which induced Mr. Chalmers to assign it to 1592, though why he prefers this year to the preceding does not appear.

Of Love's Labour's Lost, as it was performed in the year 1591, we possess no exact transcript; for, in the oldest edition which has hitherto been found of this play, namely that of 1598, it is said in the title-page to be newly corrected and augmented, with the further information, that it had been presented before Her Highness the last Christmas; facts which show, that we are in possession not of the first draft or edition of this comedy, but only of that copy which represents it as it was revived and improved for the entertainment of the Queen, in 1597.

The original sketch, whether printed or merely performed, we conceive to have been one of the pieces alluded to by Greene, in 1592, when he accuses Shakspeare of being an absolute Johannes fac-totum of the stage, primarily and principally from the mode of its execution, which, as we have already observed, betrays the earliness of its source in the strongest manner; secondarily, that, like Pericles, it occasionally copies the language of the Arcadia, then with all the attractive novelty of its reputation in full bloom[291:A], and thirdly, that in the fifth act, various allusions to the Muscovites or Russians, seem evidently to point to a period when Russia and its inhabitants attracted the public consideration, a period which we find, from Hackluyt[291:B], to have occupied the years 1590 and 1591, when, as Warburton and Chalmers have observed, the arrangement of Russian commerce engaged very particularly the attention, and formed the conversation, of the court, the city, and the country.[291:C]

It may be also remarked, that while no play among our author's works exhibits more decisive marks of juvenility than Love's Labour's Lost, none, at the same time, is more strongly imbued with the peculiar cast of his youthful genius; for in style and manner, it bears a closer resemblance to the Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece, and the earlier Sonnets, than any other of his genuine dramas. It presents us, in short, with a continued contest of wit and repartee, the persons represented, whether high or low, vying with each other, throughout the piece, in the production of the greatest number of jokes, sallies, and verbal equivoques. The profusion with which these are every-where scattered, has, unfortunately, had the effect of throwing an air of uniformity over all the characters, who seem solely intent on keeping up the ball of raillery; yet is Biron now and then discriminated by a few strong touches, and Holofernes is probably the portrait of an individual, some of his quotations having justly induced the commentators to infer, that Florio, the author of First and Second Fruits, dialogues in Italian and English, and of a Dictionary, entitled A World of Words, was the object of the poet's satire.

If in dramatic strength of painting this comedy be deficient, and it appears to us, in this quality, inferior to Pericles, we must, independent of the vivacity of its dialogue already noticed, acknowledge, that it displays several poetical gems, that it contains many just moral apophthegms, and that it affords, even in the closet, no small fund of amusement; and here it is worthy of being remarked, and may, indeed, without prejudice or prepossession, be asserted, that, even to the earliest and most unfinished dramas of our poet, a peculiar interest is felt to be attached, not arising from the fascination of a name, but from an intrinsic and almost inexplicable power of pleasing, which we in vain look for in the juvenile plays of other bards, and which serves, perhaps better than any other criterion, to ascertain the genuine property of Shakspeare; it is, in fact, a touchstone, which, when applied to Titus Andronicus, and what has been termed the First Part of Henry the Sixth, must, if every other evidence were wanting, flash conviction on our senses.

4. King Henry the Sixth: Part the First: 1592;

5. King Henry the Sixth: Part the Second: 1592:

It will be immediately perceived that this arrangement is intended to exclude what has very improperly, in modern times, been ascribed to Shakspeare as the First Part of HIS King Henry the Sixth. The spuriousness of this part, indeed, has been so satisfactorily proved by Mr. Malone, that no doubt can be supposed any longer to rest on the subject; and, if any lingered, it would be still further shaken by what has since transpired; for, from the discovery of Mr. Henslowe's Accounts, at Dulwich College, it appears that this play was never entitled, as Mr. Malone had conjectured, to its present appellation, but was simply styled as it is here entered, Henry the Sixth, and had no connection with the subsequent plays of Peele and Marlowe on the same reign. The entry is dated the 3d of March, 1591, and the play being the property of Lord Strange's company, and performed at the Rose theatre, with neither of which Shakspeare had, at any time, the smallest connection, render the external testimony still more confirmatory of Mr. Malone's position, as to the antiquity, priority, and insulated origin of this drama.[292:A] The internal evidence, however, is quite sufficient for the purpose; for the hand of Shakspeare is nowhere visible throughout the entire of this "Drum-and-trumpet-Thing," as Mr. Morgan has justly termed it.[293:A] Yet that our author, subsequent to his re-modelling The first Part of the Contention, and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke, might alter the arrangement, or slightly correct the diction of this play, is very possible,—an interference, however trivial, which probably induced the editors of the first folio, from the period in which this design was executed, to register it with Shakspeare's undisputed plays, under the improper title of The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth.[293:B]

As this drama therefore, which we hold to contain not ten lines of Shakspeare's composition, was, when originally produced, called The Play of Henry the VI., and in 1623, registered The Third Part of King Henry the VI.; though, in the folio published during the same year, it was then for the first time named the first part, would it not be allowable to infer, that the two plays which our poet built on the foundations of Marlowe, or perhaps Marlowe, Peele, and Greene, though not printed before they appeared in the folio, were yet termed, not as they are designated in the modern editions, the second and third parts, but as we have here called them, the first and second parts? Such, in fact, appears to have been the case; for, since the publication of Mr. Malone's Essay, an entry on the Stationers' Registers has been discovered[293:C], made by Tho. Pavier, and dated April, 19th, 1602, of "The 1st and 2d pts of Henry VI. ij. books[294:A];" which entry, whether it be supposed to apply to the original Contention and True Tragedy, or to an intended edition of the same plays as altered by Shakspeare, clearly proves, that this designation of first and second was here given either to the primary or secondary set of these two plays, and, if applied to one set, would necessarily be applicable to, and used in speaking of, the other.

These two plays then, founded on The First Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, and on the Second, or The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, written by Marlowe and his friends about the year 1590[294:B], we conceive to have been brought forward by Shakspeare with great and numerous improvements, in 1592.

The vacillation of the commentators in determining the era of our author's two parts of Henry the Sixth, has been very extraordinary. The year 1592 was fixed upon in 1778; this, in 1793, was changed to 1593, or 1594; and in 1803, to 1591; while Mr. Chalmers, in 1799, had adopted the date of 1595!

That these plays had received their new dress from the hand of Shakspeare, previous to September, 1592, is, we think, irreversibly established by Greene's parody, in his Groatsworth of Wit, on a line in the second of these productions, an allusion which, with the context, can neither be set aside nor misapplied: that they were thus re-modelled in 1592, rather than in 1591, will appear highly probable, when we reflect that, in the passage where this parody is found, Shakspeare is termed, in reference to the stage, an absolute Johannes factotum, an epithet which, as we have before remarked, implies that our poet had written and altered several pieces before that period, and had the two parts of Henry the Sixth been early in the series, that is, immediately subsequent to Pericles, the indignation of Greene, no doubt, had been sooner expressed; for we find him writing with great warmth, under a sense of recent injury, and under the pressure of mortal disease; "albeit weakness," says he, "will scarce suffer me to write;" a time which certainly would not have been chosen for the annunciation of his anger, had the supposed offence been given, and it must have been known as soon as committed, a year or two before. We feel confident, therefore, from this chain of argument, that the two parts of Henry the Sixth included in our catalogue, were not brought on the stage before 1592, and then only just in time to enable poor Greene to express his sentiments ere he left this sublunary scene.

The plan which Mr. Malone has adopted in printing these plays, that of distinguishing the amended and absolutely new passages from the original and comparatively meagre text of Marlowe and his coadjutors, seems to have been caught from a hint dropped by Mr. Maurice Morgan, who, speaking of these two parts of Henry VI., observes, that "they have certainly received what may be called a thorough repair.—I should conceive, it would not be very difficult to feel one's way through these plays, and distinguish every where the metal from the clay."[295:A]

It will not be denied that the task thus suggested, has been carried into execution with much skill and discrimination, and furnishes a curious proof of the plastic genius and extraordinary powers of adaptation with which our poet was gifted in the very dawn of his career. Compared with the pieces which he had hitherto produced, a style of far greater dignity, severity, and tragic modulation, was to be formed, and accordingly those portions of these plays which emanated solely or in a high degree from the mind of Shakspeare, will be found in many instances even not inferior to the best parts of his latest and most finished works, while, at the same time, they harmonise sufficiently with the general tone of his predecessors, to preclude any flagrant breach of unity and consistency in the character of the diction and versification, though, to a practised critic, the superiority of our author, both in the fluency of his metre, and the beauty and facility of his expression, may be readily discerned.

Contrary to the common opinion, a strong and correct delineation of character appears to us the most striking feature in the two parts of this historical drama. That sainted, but powerless phantom, Henry of Lancaster, interests our feelings, notwithstanding the imbecillities of his public conduct, by the pious endurance of his sufferings, and the philosophic pathos of his sentiments. How much his patient sorrow and plaintive morality, depicted as they are amid the desolations of warfare, arrest and fascinate our attention by the power of contrast, perhaps no apathy can refuse to acknowledge. Mournfully sweet, indeed, are the strains which flow from this unhappy monarch, when, for an instant retired from the horrors of the Field of Towton, he pours forth the anguish of his soul, and closes his reflections with a picture of rural repose, glowing with such a mellow and lovely light amid the shades of regal misery which surround it, as to awaken sensations that steal through the bosom with a holy and delicious warmth.

Between this character, and that of Richard of Gloucester in the same play, what a strength of contrast! so decided is the opposition, indeed, that not a shadow, not an atom of assimilation exists. The ferocious wickedness of this hypocritical and sarcastic villain is as vividly and distinctly drawn in the Second or Last Part of Henry the Sixth as in the tragedy of Richard the Third, the soliloquies in Acts the third and fifth as clearly developing the structure of his mind as any scene of the play distinguished by his regal title.

Nor do the other leading personages of these dramas exhibit less striking touches of the strong characterisation peculiar to our poet. The portraits of King Edward, and Queen Margaret, of the Dukes of York and Warwick, of Humphrey of Gloster and Cardinal Beaufort, are alike faithful to history and to nature, while the death of the ambitious prelate is unparalleled for its awful sublimity, its terrific delineation of a tortured conscience; a scene, of which the impressions are so overpowering, that, to adopt the language of Dr. Johnson, "the superficial reader cannot miss them, the profound can image nothing beyond them."[297:A]

As these two parts, therefore, whether we consider the original text, or the numerous alterations and additions of Shakspeare, hold a rank greatly superior to the elder play of

a production which, at the same time, offers no trace of any finishing strokes from the master-bard, it would be but doing justice to the original design of Shakspeare to insert for the future in his works only the two pieces which he remodelled, designating them as they are found in this arrangement, and which seems, indeed, merely a restoration of their first titles. This may the more readily be done, as there appears no necessary connection between the elder drama, and those of Shakspeare on the same reign; whereas between the two plays of our author, and between them and his Richard the Third, not only an intimate union, but a regular series of unbroken action subsists.

If, however, it should be thought convenient to have the old play of Henry the Sixth within the reach of reference, let it be placed in an Appendix to the poet's works, dislodging for that purpose the disgusting Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, which has hitherto, to the disgrace of our national literature, and of our noblest writer, accompanied every edition aspiring to be complete, from the folio of 1623 to the re-impression of 1813!

5. A Midsummer-Night's Dream: 1593. In endeavouring to ascertain the order in which Shakspeare's plays were written, it would seem a duty, on the part of the chronologist, where no passage positively indicates the contrary, not to attribute to the poet the composition of several pieces during the course of the same year; for, admitting the fertility of our author to have been, what it unquestionably was, very great, still, without some certain date annihilating all room for conjecture, it would be a gross violation of probability to ascribe even to him the production of four or even three of his capital productions, and such productions too, in the space of but twelve months. This, however, has been done, in their respective arrangements, twice by Mr. Malone, and six times by Mr. Chalmers, the latter gentleman having allotted to our dramatist not less than seventeen plays in the course of only five years! Surely such an attribution is, of itself, sufficient to stagger the most willing credulity, particularly when we find that, during the course of this period, occupying the years 1595, 1596, 1597, 1598, and 1599, four such plays as the following are appropriated to one year, that of 1597,—Henry IV. the Second Part, Henry V., The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet. Now as these pieces, so far from resembling the light and rapid sketches of Lopez de la Vega or of Heywood, are among the most elaborate of our author's productions, and as no data with any pretensions to certainty can be adduced for the assignment in question, we must be allowed, notwithstanding the ingenuity and indefatigable research of Mr. Chalmers, to doubt the propriety of his chronological system.[298:A]

Acting, therefore, on this idea, that where no decisive evidence to the contrary is apparent, not more than two plays should be assigned to our bard in the compass of one year, and being firmly persuaded, from the argument which has been brought forward, that the two parts of Henry the Sixth were the product of the year 1592, while, at the same time, we agree with the majority of the commentators in considering the Midsummer-Night's Dream as an early composition, it has been thought most consonant to probability to give to the latter, in lieu of the epoch of 1592, or 1595, or 1598, its present intermediate station; and this has been done, even though the plays on Henry the Sixth, being built on the basis of other writers, cannot be supposed to have occupied so much of the poet's time as more original efforts.

The Midsummer-Night's Dream, then, is the first play which exhibits the imagination of Shakspeare in all its fervid and creative power; for though, as mentioned in Meres's catalogue, as having numerous scenes of continued rhyme, as being barren in fable, and defective in strength of character, it may be pronounced the offspring of youth and inexperience, it will ever in point of fancy be considered as equal to any subsequent drama of the poet.

There is, however, a light in which the best plays of Shakspeare should be viewed, which will, in fact, convert the supposed defects of this exquisite sally of sportive invention into positive excellence. A unity of feeling most remarkably pervades and regulates their entire structure, and the Midsummer-Night's Dream, a title in itself declaratory of the poet's object and aim, partakes of this bond, or principle of coalescence, in a very peculiar degree. It is, indeed, a fabric of the most buoyant and aërial texture, floating as it were between earth and heaven, and tinted with all the magic colouring of the rainbow,

In a piece thus constituted, where the imagery of the most wild and fantastic dream is actually embodied before our eyes, where the principal agency is carried on by beings lighter than the gossamer, and smaller than the cowslip's bell, whose elements are the moon-beams and the odoriferous atmosphere of flowers, and whose sport it is

it was necessary, in order to give a filmy and consistent legerity to every part of the play, that the human agents should partake of the same evanescent and visionary character; accordingly both the higher and lower personages of this drama are the subjects of illusion and enchantment, and love and amusement their sole occupation; the transient perplexities of thwarted passion, and the grotesque adventures of humorous folly, touched as they are with the tenderest or most frolic pencil, blending admirably with the wild, sportive, and romantic tone of the scenes where

and forming together a whole so variously yet so happily interwoven, so racy and effervescent in its composition, of such exquisite levity and transparency, and glowing with such luxurious and phosphorescent splendour, as to be perfectly without a rival in dramatic literature.

Nor is this piece, though, from the nature of its fable, unproductive of any strong character, without many pleasing discriminations of passion and feeling. Mr. Malone asks if "a single passion be agitated by the faint and childish solicitudes of Hermia and Demetrius, of Helena and Lysander, those shadows of each other?"[300:A] Now, whatever may be thought of Demetrius and Lysander, the characters of Hermia and Helena are beautifully drawn, and finely contrasted, and in much of the dialogue which occurs between them, the chords both of love and pity are touched with the poet's wonted skill. In their interview in the wood, the contrariety of their dispositions is completely developed; Hermia is represented as

and in her difference with her friend, threatens to scratch her eyes out with her nails, while Helena, meek, humble, and retired, sues for protection, and endeavours in the most gentle manner to deprecate her wrath:

And in an earlier part of this scene, where Helena first suspects that her friend had conspired with Demetrius and Lysander to mock and deride her, nothing can more exquisitely paint her affectionate temper, and the heartfelt pangs of severing friendship, than the following lines, most touching in their appeal, an echo from the very bosom of nature itself:—

Of the Fairy Mythology which constitutes the principal and most efficient part of this beautiful drama, it is the more necessary that we should take particular notice, as it forms not only a chief feature of the superstitions of the age, but was, in fact, re-modelled and improved by the genius of our poet.

The utmost confusion has in general overshadowed this subject, from mixing the Oriental with the Gothic system of fabling, the voluptuous or monstrous Fairies of eastern and southern romance, with those of the popular superstition of the north of Europe; two races in all their features remarkably distinct, and productive of two very opposite styles both of imagery and literature.

The poets and romance writers of Spain, Italy, and France, have evidently derived the imaginary beings whom they term Fairies, whether of the benignant or malignant species, from the mythology of Persia and Arabia. The channel for this stream of fiction was long open through the medium of the crusades, and the dominion of the Moors of Spain, more especially when the language of these invaders became, during the middle ages, the vehicle of science and general information. Hence we find the strongest affinity between the Peri and Dives of the Persians, and the two orders of the Genii of the Arabians, and the Fairies and Demons of the south of Europe.

The Peri, or as the word would be pronounced in Arabic, the Fairi, of the Persians, are represented as females of the most exquisite beauty, uniformly kind and benevolent in their disposition, of the human form and size, and, though not limited to our transient existence, subject to death. They are supposed to inhabit a region of their own, to play in the plighted clouds, to luxuriate in the hues of the rainbow, and to live upon the exhalations of the jessamine and the rose.[303:A]

Contrasted with these lovely essences, the Dives are described as males of the most hideous aspect and ferocious temper; in their stature, monstrous, deformed, and abominable; in their habits, wicked, cruel, and unrelenting.

Very similar in their attributes, but with less beauty and brilliancy in the delineation of the amiable species, were the good and bad Genii of the Arabians; and, as in Persia, a Genistan, or Fairy-land, was allotted to the benignant class.

From these sources, then, is to be deduced that tone of fiction which pervades the romantic and poetical literature of the warmer European climates, especially in all that relates to the fair and beautiful of Oriental conception. In the Fairies of Boiardo and Ariosto, in the metrical and prose romances of France and Spain, and in the Lays of Marie; in their Fata Morgana, Urgande, and Mourgue La Faye, and in the superhuman mistresses of Sir Launfale and Sir Gruelan, we readily discern their Persian prototype, the Peri, Mergian Banou.[303:B]

And to this cast of fiction, derived through the medium of the Italians, was Spenser indebted for the form and colouring which he has appropriated to his Fairies; beings, however, still more aloof from the Gothic popular elves than even the supernatural agents of the bards of Italy, as connecting with their orientalism, a continued allegorical, and, consequently, a totally abstract character.

For the origin, therefore, or prima stamina of the Fairies of Shakspeare, and of British popular tradition, we must turn to a very different quarter, even so far northward as to Scandinavia, the land of our Gothic progenitors. The establishment of the two kingdoms of the Ostrogoths and Wisigoths, on the shores of the Euxine Sea, by colonies from the Scandick peninsula, took place at a very early period, and the consequence of these settlements was the speedy invasion and conquest of the southern provinces of the Roman empire; for Denmark and Germany having submitted to the arms of the Goths, these restless warriors seized upon Spain in 409, entered Italy and captured Rome in 410, invaded France in 412, and commenced their conquest of England in 447. Upon all these countries, but most permanently upon England, did they impose their language, and a large portion of their superstitions. Such were their influence and success, indeed, in this island, that they not only compelled us to embrace their religious rites, but totally superseded our former manners and customs, and planted for ever in our mouths a diction radically distinct from that to which we had been accustomed, a diction which includes to this day a vocabulary of terms relative to our poetical and superstitious creeds which is alike common to both nations.[304:A]

Long, therefore, ere the Arabians began to disseminate their literature from the walls of Cordova, were the Goths in full possession not only of the Spanish peninsula, where their empire attained its height in the year 500, but of the greater part of this island. The Moors, it is well known, did not enter Spain until 712, consequently the Scandinavian emigrants had the opportunity of three centuries in that fine country, for the gradual propagation of their poetical credulity. Long, also, before the Crusades, the second supposed source of oriental superstition, could produce their imagined effect, are we able to trace the Fairy Mythology of the Goths in all its essential features. The first Crusade, under Godfrey, terminated in the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099, and the speediest return of any of its adventurers may be ascribed to the year 1100; but so early as 863 do we find the belief of the Fairies established in Norway, and even introduced into our own country at an epoch as remote as the year 1013. The metrical fragments of Thiodolf, bard to Harold Fairhair, who ascended the throne of Norway in 863, bear testimony to the first of these assertions. Thiodolf was an antiquary of such pre-eminence, that on his poetry was founded the early history of his country, and among the reliques of his composition is one recording an adventure of Svegder, the fourth King of Sweden, which clearly proves that Fairies and Fairy-land had even then become a portion of the popular creed. Svegder is represented as having made a vow to seek Fairy-land, and Odin, from whom he was descended. For this purpose he traverses, with twelve chosen companions, the wastes of the Greater Scythia; but, after consuming five years in vain in the pursuit, he returns home disappointed. In a second attempt, however, he is, unfortunately for himself, successful. In the east of Scythia rises suddenly from the plain so vast a mass of rock, that it assumes the appearance of an immense structure or palace. Passing by this pile with his friends, one evening after sunset, having freely enjoyed the pleasures of the banquet, Svegder was surprised to behold a Dwergur, a Fairy or Dwarf, sitting at the foot of the rock. Inflamed by wine, he and his companions boldly advanced towards the elf, who, then standing in the gates or portal of the pile, addressed the king, commanding him to enter if he wished to converse with Odin. The monarch, rushing forward, had scarcely passed the opening of the rock, when its portal closed upon him and the treacherous Fairy for ever![305:A]

That the diminutive Being here introduced was of the race of Fairies, subsequently described in the Volupsa of Sæmund under the appellation of Duergs or Swart-Elves, and who were placed under the direction of two superiors called Motsogner and Durin[306:A], is evident from the Gothic original of Thiodolf's fragment, which opens by declaring that this being who guarded the entrance of the enchanted cave, was one of the followers of Durin, who shrank from the light of day; and then immediately classes him with the Dwergs[306:B], an appellative which the Latin translators have rendered by the terms pygmæi and nani, pygmies and dwarfs.

That the fairy mythology of the Goths must have been known to this island about the year 1013, appears from a song composed by Sigvatur, who accompanied Canute to England as his favourite bard, on the invasion of his father Swain at the above era. Sigvatur describes himself as warned away from a cottage by its housewife, who, sitting at the threshold, vehemently forbids his approach, as she was preparing a propitiatory banquet of blood for the Fairies, with the view of driving the war-wolf from her doors.[306:C] The word in the original here used for the Fairies, is Alfa, Elves, a designation which we shall find in the Edda applied generically to the whole tribe, however distinct in their functions or mode of existence.

Not only can we prove, indeed, the priority and high antiquity of the Gothic fairy superstitions on the unquestioned authority of Thiodolf and Sigvatur, but we can substantiate also the very material fact, that the scattered features of this mythology were collected and formed into a perfect system nearly a quarter of a century before any of the first crusaders could return to Europe. About the year 1077, Sæmund compiled the first or Metrical Edda, containing, among other valuable documents, the "Voluspa," a poem whose language indicates a very remote origin[307:A], and where we find a minute and accurate description of the Duergar or Fairies, who are divided into two classes, of which the individuals are even carefully named and enumerated, a catalogue which is augmented in the Prose Edda composed by Snorro in 1215[307:B], and still further increased in the "Scalda," written, it is supposed, about a year or two afterwards.

Having thus endeavoured to show that the Fairy Superstitions of the Goths were possessed of an antiquity sufficiently great to have procured their propagation through the medium of Scandinavian conquest and colonisation, long anterior to any oriental source, and that the genius of eastern fabling, when subsequently introduced into the south, was of a character totally distinct from the popular superstition of the north of Europe, we hasten to place before the reader a short sketch of the genealogy, attributes, and offices of the Gothic elves, in order that we may compare them with their poetical offspring, the popular fairies of Britain, and thence be able to appreciate the various modifications and improvements which the system received from the creative imagination of Shakspeare.

Under the term Norner the ancient Goths included two species of preternatural beings of a diminutive size, the Godar Norner, or Beneficent Elves, and the Illar Norner, or Malignant Elves. Among the earliest bards of Scandinavia, in the Voluspa, and in the Edda of Snorro, these distinctions are accurately maintained, though under various appellations, either alluding to their habits, their moral nature, or their external appearance. The most common nomenclature, or division, however, was into Liös-alfar, or Bright Elves, and Suart-alfar, or Dock-alfar Swart, or Black Elves, the former belonging to the Alfa-ættar, or tribe of alfs, fauns, or elves, the latter to the Duerga-ættar, or tribe of Dwarfs.[308:A]

The Alfs and Dwergs, therefore, the Fairies and the Dwarfs, or, in other words, the Bright and the Swart Elves of Scandinavia form, together with a somewhat larger species which we shall have occasion shortly to mention, the whole of the machinery of whose origin we are in search.

Of this Alfa-folch, Elfin-folk, or Fairy-people, the Liös-alfar, or Bright Elves, were supposed to be aërial spirits, of a beautiful aspect, sporting in the purest ether, and inhabiting there a region called Alf-heimur, Elf-ham, or Elf-home. Their intercourse with mortals was always beneficent and propitious, and when they presided at a nativity, happiness and prosperity were their boon.[308:A] They visited the cottages of the virtuous and industrious poor, blessing and assisting their efforts[309:A], and danced in mazy rounds by moonlight on the dewy grass, to the sound of the most enchanting music, leaving on the sward circular and distinct traces of their footsteps of a beautiful and lively green, vestiges of what in the Swedish language was called the Elf-dans, a word which has been naturalised in our own tongue.[309:B] The bright elves were also considered as propitious to women in labour, and desirous of undertaking all the duties of the cradle[309:C]; in short, wherever a fairy of this species was found, whether in the palace, the cottage, or the mine, it was always distinguished by a series of kind or useful offices.

In almost every respect the reverse of this benevolent race were the Suart-alfar, or Swart Elves, who were neither spirits nor mortals, but of an intermediate nature, dwelling in the bowels of the earth, in mountains, caves, or barrows, of the same diminutive size as the bright elves, but unpleasing in their features, and though sometimes fair in their complexions, often dark and unlovely.[309:D] They were the dispensers of misfortune, and consequently their attendance at a birth became the harbinger of a predominating portion of [310:A]evil; mischief, indeed, either in sport or anger, seems to have been their favourite employment. They, like those of the more friendly tribe, visited the surface of the earth at midnight, but the circular tracery of their revels was distinguished from the green ringlets of the beneficent kind, by the ground being burnt and blasted wherever their footsteps had been impressed.[310:B]

Among this species was also classed the Incubus, by the Scandinavians termed Mara, Meyar, or the Mare; by the Saxons Alf or Alp; by the Franconians Drud[310:C], a fairy who haunted those who slept, and oppressed them by sitting on their chest. This elf was likewise considered as exerting a baneful influence at noon-time over those who heedlessly gave themselves to sleep in the fields, and was deemed particularly dangerous, at this hour, to pregnant women.[310:D] To the mischievous power of these Swart-elves was also ascribed, by the Gothic nations, the loss or exchange of children, who were borne away from the parental roof previous to the rites of baptism, and oftentimes an idiotic or deformed bantling was substituted in the place of the stolen infant.[310:E] Generally were they found, indeed, spiteful and malicious in all their agency with mankind, whether in a playful or a serious mood; frequently injuring or destroying the cattle, riding the horses, plaiting their manes in knots, terrifying and leading wandering or benighted peasants astray, by voices, cries, by peals of laughter or delusive lights.[311:A]

With all these evil propensities, however, they are uniformly represented by our Northern ancestors as singularly ingenious, and endowed with great mechanical skill, particularly that variety of the Suart-alfar termed Bergmanlein or Mountain-dwarfs, who were believed to inhabit caves and mines and barrows[311:B], and to be frequently and audibly employed in forging swords and armour of such excellent temper and strength as to be proof not only against the usual accidents of warfare, but against all the arts of magic and incantation.[311:C] This craft was denominated Duerga Smithi, or Fairy-Smithery[311:D], and was sometimes exercised in the formation of enchanted rings, and of automata which by the proper management of secret springs would transport their conductors through the air.[311:E] By the Swedes and Germans, also, these subterranean dwarfs, virunculi montani, were supposed to be sometimes busy in the laborious occupation of excavating the rocks, and to be occasionally useful to the miners in detecting latent veins of ore; but their agency was more generally deemed pernicious, and they were held to be the artificers of accident, the raisers of exhalations, and the exploders of the fire-damp.[312:A] It should also be added, that, as the frequent inmates of barrows and sepulchral vaults, they were considered as the guardians of hidden treasures, which they protected under the form of diminutive old men with corrugated faces[312:B]; while as the haunters of the mine, they affected the dress of the workmen, appearing in a shirt or frock, with a leathern apron.[312:C]

Beside these two species of the fairy tribe, the Bright and Swart Elves, a larger kind was acknowledged by the ancient Germans, under the appellations of Guteli and Trulli, who were esteemed not only harmless, but so friendly to mankind, that they delighted in performing the domestic offices of the household, such as cleaning the dishes, bringing in wood, grooming the horses, &c.[312:D], labouring chiefly in the night-time, and often assuming the human stature, form, and garb.[312:E]

Such are the leading features of the Fairy Mythology of the Goths, which appears to have been introduced into Britain as early as the eleventh century, and to have gradually become a part of the popular creed, though subsequently modified by the influence of Christianity, by the intermixture of classical associations, the prevalence of feudal manners, and other causes. Accordingly, we find Gervase of Tilbury, in the thirteenth century, detailing, in his Otia Imperialia, many of the peculiar superstitions of the Scandinavian system as common to this country; and in the following age, Chaucer, impressed with the high antiquity of these fables, refers even to the age of Arthur as the period of their full dominion:—