CHAPTER VI

THE LAST PHASE

IN the plays of Shakespeare's closing years there is a pervading sense of quiet and happiness which seems to bear witness to a change in the mind of their author. In these latest plays-Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest-the subjects chosen are tragic in their nature, but they are shaped to a fortunate result. Imogen and Hermione are deeply wronged, like Desdemona; Prospero, like Lear, is driven from his inheritance; yet the forces of destruction do not prevail, and the end brings forgiveness and reunion. There is no reversion to the manner of the Comedies; this new-found happiness is a happiness wrung from experience, and, unlike the old high-spirited gaiety, it does not exult over the evil-doer. An all-embracing tolerance and kindliness inspires these last plays. The amiable rascal, for whom there was no place in the Tragedies, reappears. The outlook on life is widened; and the children-Perdita and Florizel, Miranda and Ferdinand, Guiderius and Arviragus—

SER

are permitted to make amends for the faults and misfortunes of their parents. There is still tragic material in plenty, and there are some high-wrought tragic scenes; but the tension is soon relaxed; in two of the plays the construction is loose and rambling; in all three there is a free rein given to humour and fantasy. It is as if Shakespeare were weary of the business of the drama, and cared only to indulge his whim. He was at the top of his profession, and was no longer forced to adapt himself to the narrower conventions of the stage. He might write what he liked, and he made full use of his hard-carned liberty.

The sense of relief which comes with these last plays, after the prolonged and heightened anguish of the Tragedies, seems to suggest the state of convalescence, when the mind wanders among happy memories, and is restored to a delight in the simplest pleasures. The scene is shifted, for escape from the old jealousies of the Court, to an enchanted island, or to the mountains of Wales, or to the sheep-walks of Bohemia, where the life of the inhabitants is a peaceful round of daily duties and rural pieties. The very structure of the plays has the inconsequence of reverie: even The Tempest, while it observes the mechanical unities, escapes from their tyranny by an appeal to supernatural agencies, which in a single

day can do the work of years.

All these character

istics of matter and form point to the same conclusion, that the darkness and burden of tragic suffering gave place, in the latest works that Shakespeare wrote for the stage, to daylight and ease.

The Tragedies must be reckoned his greatest No

achievement, so that it may sound paradoxical to speak of the sudden change from Tragedy to Romance as if it betokened a recovery from disease. Yet no man can explore the possibilities of suffering, as Shakespeare did, to the dark end, without peril to his own soul. The instinct of self-preservation keeps most men from adventuring near to the edge of the abyss. The inevitable pains of life they will nerve themselves to endure, but they are careful not to multiply them by imagination, lest their strength should fail. For many years Shakespeare took upon himself the burden of the human race, and struggled in thought under the oppression of sorrows not his That he turned at last to happier scenes, and wrote the Romances, is evidence, it may be said, that his grip on the hard facts of life was loosened by fatigue, and that he sought refreshment in irresponsible play. And this perhaps is true; but the marvel is that he ever won his way back into a world where play is possible. He was not unscathed by the ordeal: the smell of the fire had passed on him. There are

own.

many fearful passages in the Tragedies, where the reader holds his breath, from sympathy with Shakespeare's characters and apprehension of the madness that threatens them. But there is a far worse terror when it begins to appear that Shakespeare himself is not aloof and secure; that his foothold is precarious on the edge that overlooks the gulf. In King Lear and Timon of Athens and Hamlet there is an unmistakable note of disgust and disaffection towards the mere fact of sex; and the same feeling expresses itself faintly, with much distress and uncertainty, in Measure for Measure. It is true that the dramatic cause of this disaffection is supplied in each case; Lear's daughters have turned against him, Timon's curses are ostensibly provoked by special instances of ingratitude and cruelty and lust, Hamlet's mind is preoccupied with the horror of his mother's sin. But the passion goes far beyond its occasion, to condemn, or to question, all the business and desire of the race of man. The voice that we have learned to recognise as Shakespeare's is heard, in its most moving accents, blaspheming the very foundations of life and sanity. Those who cannot find in the Sonnets any trace of personal feeling may quite well maintain that here too the passion is simulated; but the great majority of readers, who, holding no theories, are yet vaguely aware of Shakespeare's presence and control, will

recognise what is meant by this worst touch of fear. Some, recognising it, have conceived of Shakespeare as a man whose mind was unbalanced by an excess of emotional sensibility. The excess may be allowed; it is the best part of his wealth; but it must not be taken to imply defect and poverty elsewhere. We do not and cannot know enough of his life even to guess at the experiences which may have left their mark on the darkest of his writings. We do know that only a man of extraordinary strength and serenity of temper could have emerged from these experiences unspoilt. Many a life has been wrecked on a tenth part of the accumulated suffering which finds a voice in the Tragedies. The Romances are our warrant that Shakespeare regained a perfect calm of mind. If Timon of Athens had been his last play, who could feel any assurance that he died at peace with the world?

The retirement to Stratford cut him off from the society of writers of books; and, incidentally, cut us off from our last and best opportunity of overhearing his talk. If he had continued in London, and had gathered a school of younger men around him, we should have heard something of him from his disciples. He preferred the more homely circle of Stratford; and he founded no school. Doubtless, when he was giving up business, he made over some of his