Antony and Cleopatra, with their trains, and eunuchs fanning her, come slowly down the stage on the other side. Then Philo continues: Look where they come. Take but good note, and you shall see in him Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see. By this time the procession has come forward and we overhear the talk of the lovers. Throughout the scene Demetrius and Philo have no share in the action; they stand aside and play the part of a chorus; their conversation interprets to the audience the meaning of what is going forward on the stage. Where the action is so complex as it commonly is in Shakespeare's plays, a great part of it must necessarily be set forth in report or narration. He divides the ancient functions of the messenger like those of the chorus, among the characters of the play. Many of his most memorable scenes- the wedding of Petruchio, the death of Ophelia, the interview of Hotspur, on the field of battle, with the popinjay lord, are narrated, not exhibited. Yet for all his use of this indirect method, Shakespeare puts too much on his stage, and sometimes violates the modesty of art. To his audience he must have seemed notable for restraint; they were inured to horrors; and he gave them no hangings, and no slow deaths by torture. Titus Andronicus may be left out of the account, as a work of youthful bravado. But the blinding of Gloucester on the stage, though casuistry has been ready to defend it, cannot be excused. This is the chief of his offences; in comparison with this the bringing in of the hot irons, in King John, and the murder of Macduff's young son, in Macbeth, are venial transgressions, which may be happily slurred over in the acting. The day for discussing the notorious unities in connection with Shakespeare's drama is long past. Romantic poetry created its own drama, and acknowledges no unity save that which is equally binding on a poem or a prose story-the unity of impression. Nowhere is the magic of Shakespeare's art greater than here. He reduces a wild diversity of means to a single purpose; and submits the wealth of his imagination and knowledge to be judged by this one test. His landscape, his moonlight and sunlight and darkness, his barren heaths and ver durous parks, are all agents in the service of dramatic poetry. "It is almost morning," says Portia, at the close of The Merchant of Venice,-and the words have an indescribable human value. When Claudio, in Much Ado, has paid his last tribute to the empty tomb of Hero, and all things are arranged for the final restoration of happiness, Don Pedro speaks : Good morrow, masters: put your torches out. The wolves have prey'd, and look, the gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy East with spots of grey. But the best instance of this alliance of poetry with the drama is to be found in As You Like It. The scene is laid, for the most part, in the forest of Arden. A minute examination of the play has given a curious result. No single bird, or insect, or flower, is mentioned by name. The words "flower" and "leaf" do not occur. The trees of the forest are the oak, the hawthorn, the palm tree, and the olive. For animals, there are the deer, one lioness, and one green and gilded snake. The season is not easy to determine; perhaps it is summer; we hear only of the biting cold and the wintry wind. "But these are all lies," as Rosalind would say, and the dramatic truth has been expressed by those critics who speak of "the leafy solitudes sweet with the song of birds." It is nothing to the outlaws that their forest is poorly furnished with stage-properties; they fleet the time carelessly in a paradise of gaiety and indolence, and there is summer in their hearts. So Shakespeare attains his end without the bathos of an allusion to the soft green grass, which must needs have been represented by the boards of the theatre. The critical actuaries are baffled, and find nothing in this play to assess; Shakespeare's dramatic estate cannot be brought under the hammer, for it is rich in nothing but poetry. CHAPTER V STORY AND CHARACTER IN the Folio Shakespeare's work is divided into three kinds-Comedy, History, and Tragedy. The classification of the plays under these headings is artificial and misleading. Cymbeline appears among the Tragedies; while Measure for Measure, a play ■ Euch more tragic in temper, is numbered with the Caomedies. Richard II. is a History; Julius Caesar isha Tragedy. Troilus and Cressida, in consequence 0 tf some typographical mishap, was inserted, with jee pages unnumbered, between the Histories and the Tragedies. # The section headed Histories contains the his I t morical plays dealing with English kings. This sort of h play, the Chronicle History, flourished during the la hst fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, and owed its topularity to the fervour of Armada patriotism. Tthe newly awakened national spirit made the people iquick to discern a topical interest in the records bygone struggles against foreign aggression and 0 |