a sympathetic relationship with all things the force and richness of whose inner life assimilate all the forms of human activity around him.* In this respect no modern poet comes nearer to Shakespeare than does Robert Browning. And in the Prologue to his "Ferishtah's Fancies," written September 12, 1883, in his 72d year, he has expressed, with a wonderful touch, what is as applicable to the varied ingredients of a Play of Shakespeare, as to the "Fancies" which it is meant to characterize. Shakespeare surpasses all other dramatists, both of ancient and modern times, in the natural evolution of his dialogue — the natural evolution- the way in which one speech depends on, and is evolved out of a preceding speech. It is quite unnecessary to give special examples of this. They can be found wherever one happens to open the Plays. This natural evolution of the dialogue indicates how completely the poet identified himself with his scenes. And with what skill little intervals are filled up with side-dialogues ! For example: in Julius Cæsar, A. II. Sc. i. 86-112, the conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and Trebonius, call upon Brutus, before the day breaks. After Cassius has presented his companions to Brutus, who welcomes them all, he entreats a word aside with Brutus. While they whisper apart, Decius says to the others: "Here lies the east; doth not the day break here? Casca. No. Cinna. O, pardon, sir, it doth ; and yon gray lines, that fret the clouds, are messengers of day. Casca. You shall confess that you are both deceived. Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises; which is a great way growing on the south, weighing the youthful season of the year. Some two months hence, up higher towards the north he first presents his fire; and the high east stands, as the Capitol, directly here." *In connection with this subject, see Mr. Hales's Paper on the Porter Scene in Macbeth, New Shakspere Society Transactions, 1874, p. 262; and Contrasting Scenes in the “Shakespeare Key," by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, pp. 50, 51. The Scenes noted are, Henry VIII., A. V. Sc. iii.; Romeo and Juliet, A. IV. Sc. v. 96 et seq.; Macbeth, A. II. Sc. iii. 1-45; Hamlet, A. V. Sc. i.; Othello, A. III. Sc. i.; Antony and Cleopatra, A. V. Sc. ii. 241–281. The private conference over, Brutus turns to the others and says: "Give me your hands all over, one by one." etc. How simple, and as a matter of course, all this seems! And yet it demanded a perfect identification on the part of the poet with his characters their situations and their circumstances. The side-dialogue may be regarded, too, as indicating the conspirators' deep sense of what they have entered upon; and they endeavor to persuade themselves that they are calm and self-possessed under it, by their off-hand talk, during the conference of Brutus and Cassius, about where lies the east and the direction of the Capitol. This talk on ordinary matters, at a time of great import, is not unlike the minute observation which attends a great intensity of feeling.* Thomas De Quincey, in his Life of Shakespeare, contrasts Shakespeare's dialogue with that of the French and the Italian drama (perhaps a little too strongly, as is his wont): "Among the many defects and infirmities of the French and of the Italian drama, indeed, we may say of the Greek, the dialogue proceeds always by independent speeches, replying indeed to each other, but never modified in its several openings by the momentary effect of its several terminal forms immediately preceding. Now, in Shakespeare, who first set an example of that most important innovation, in all his impassioned dialogues, each reply or rejoinder seems the mere rebound of the previous speech. Every form of natural interruption, breaking through the restraints of ceremony under the impulses of tempestuous passion; every form of hasty interrogative, ardent reiteration when a question has been evaded; every form of scornful repetition of the hostile words; every impatient continuation of the hostile statement; in short, all modes and formula by which anger, hurry, fretfulness, scorn, impatience, or excitement under any movement whatever, can disturb or modify or dislocate the formal bookish style of commence * See "Crossing Speeches," in "The Shakespeare Key": by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, pp. 69-73. ment, these are as rife in Shakespeare's dialogue as in life itself; and how much vivacity, how profound a verisimilitude, they add to the scenic effect as an imitation of human passion and real life, we need not say. A volume might be written illustrating the vast varieties of Shakespeare's art and power in this one field of improvement; another volume might be dedicated to the exposure of the lifeless and unnatural result from the opposite practice in the foreign stages of France and Italy. And we may truly say, that were Shakespeare distinguished from them by this single feature of nature and propriety, he would on that account alone have merited a great immortality." What material for an artistic education is everywhere present in Shakespeare! In the minutest details of his art, and in the management of the general dramatic action! There is no clap-trap, no getting up of the unexpected and surprising, to which Dryden and his contemporaries attached so much importance, no tricky inventions. The whole organism of a play is made to serve the soul of the play. And instead, too, of that mechanical unity of action, which the classical plays of modern times more or less exhibit, there is that higher vital unity which results from a dominant, all-pervading, moulding and unifying feeling. THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. Lady Bab. Did you never read Shikspur? Mrs. Kitty. Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? THE HE question which was raised, some years ago, and which Shakespeare Plays, is one which no more calls for an answer than a question which might be raised by some bumptious quidnunc, as to whether the Canterbury Tales were not written by John Gower, or the Faerie Queene, by Sir Walter Raleigh, or the Dunciad, by Dean Swift, or Tam O'Shanter, by some Scottish philoso pher, or other. There's not a particle of evidence to begin with, of a kind even to raise the faintest suspicion, that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, Gentleman, was not the author of the Plays and Poems attributed to him. The question as to the authorship of these wonderful products of dramatic genius, started with the mere assumption that a man circumstanced as was William Shakespeare, and with no scholastic training, could not have written the Plays; and Lord Bacon was, accordingly, selected from the many great men of the time, as having the most august intellect, and, ergo, as being the most likely to have produced the Plays. The assumption, of course, involved the idea that great intellectual ability, of a signally analytic and inductive order, would, of itself, be equal to the production of works which exhibit the most signally synthetic and intuitive order of mind which has yet been known among men. The learning which the Plays exhibit it has been thought impossible for a man in Shakespeare's position to have possessed. When the transcendent power of the Plays is considered, the learning, strictly speaking, which is secreted in them, is surprisingly little. The Plays bear more emphatic testimony than do any other masterpieces of genius, to the fact that great creative power may be triumphantly exercised without learning (I mean the learning of the Schools). But the knowledge and the wisdom with which they are gloriously illuminated, are the greatest possible which man has yet, in his whole history, shown himself capable of possessing—just that kind of knowledge and wisdom which Shakespeare, assuming the requisite constitutional receptivity, was most favorably circumstanced to acquire. A notion prevails in these days of a diseased analytic consciousness that the only way to know in any given direction, is to make a large number of observations in that direction, and when one has, say, a flour barrel full of jottings, to turn them out on the floor, and to get down on hands and knees and sort 'em into some result ! But there is such a thing as a direct perception of truth; and of a kind of truth which can never be attained to by the mere grubbing and delving intellect, however great that intellect may be. This direct perception of truth is an attribute of man's spiritual nature. When a man's spiritual nature is adequately quickened, and in the requisite harmony with the constitution of things (and there can be no artistic or creative power in any one who is not to a greater or less degree, so conditioned), he takes cognizance of the workings of nature and of the life of man, by direct assimilation of their hidden principles-principles which cannot be reached through an observation, by the natural intelligence, of the phenomenal. He may thus become possessed of a knowledge, or rather wisdom, far beyond his conscious observation and objective experience. By direct assimilation of hidden principles, I mean, that assimilation which results from the response of spirit to spirit. All spirit is mutually attractive, as all matter is; and, if it is not |
