DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEAR.
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WE shall give for the satisfaction of the reader
what the celebrated German critic, Schlegel, says
on this subject, and then add a very few remarks
of our own.
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"All the editors, with the exception of Capell,
are unanimous in rejecting Titus Andronicus
as unworthy of Shakespear, though they
always allow it to be printed with the other
pieces, as the scape-goat, as it were, of their
abusive criticism. The correct method in such
an investigation is first to examine into the external
grounds, evidences, &c. and to weigh their
worth; and then to adduce the internal reasons
derived from the quality of the work. The critics
of Shakespear follow a course directly the
reverse of this; they set out with a preconceived
opinion against a piece, and seek, in justification
of this opinion, to render the historical
grounds suspicious, and to set them aside. Titus
Andronicus is to be found in the first folio edition
of Shakespear's works, which it was known was
conducted by Heminge and Condell, for many
years his friends and fellow-managers of the same
theatre. Is it possible to persuade ourselves
that they would not have known if a piece in
their repertory did or did not actually belong to
Shakespear? And are we to lay to the charge
of these honourable men a designed fraud in
this single case, when we know that they did
not shew themselves so very desirous of scraping
every thing together which went by the name of
Shakespear, but, as it appears, merely gave those
plays of which they had manuscripts in hand?
Yet the following circumstance is still stronger:
George Meres, a contemporary and admirer of
Shakespear, mentions Titus Andronicus in an
enumeration of his works, in the year 1598.
Meres was personally acquainted with the poet,
and so very intimately, that the latter read over
to him his Sonnets before they were printed. I
cannot conceive that all the critical scepticism
in the world would be sufficient to get over such
a testimony.
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"This tragedy, it is true, is framed according
to a false idea of the tragic, which by an accumulation
of cruelties and enormities degenerates
into the horrible, and yet leaves no deep impression
behind: the story of Tereus and Philomela
is heightened and overcharged under other
names, and mixed up with the repast of Atreus
and Thyestes, and many other incidents. In
detail there is no want of beautiful lines, bold
images, nay, even features which betray the peculiar
conception of Shakespear. Among these
we may reckon the joy of the treacherous Moor
at the blackness and ugliness of his child begot
in adultery; and in the compassion of Titus
Andronicus, grown childish through grief, for a
fly which had been struck dead, and his rage
afterwards when he imagines he discovers in it
his black enemy, we recognize the future poet
of Lear. Are the critics afraid that Shakespear's
fame would be injured, were it established that
in his early youth he ushered into the world a
feeble and immature work? Was Rome the less
the conqueror of the world because Remus could
leap over its first walls? Let any one place
himself in Shakespear's situation at the commencement
of his career. He found only a few
indifferent models, and yet these met with the
most favourable reception, because men are never
difficult to please in the novelty of an art before
their taste has become fastidious from choice
and abundance. Must not this situation have
had its influence on him before he learned to
make higher demands on himself, and by digging
deeper in his own mind, discovered the
richest veins of a noble metal? It is even highly
probable that he must have made several failures
before getting into the right path. Genius is in
a certain sense infallible, and has nothing to
learn; but art is to be learned, and must be acquired
by practice and experience. In Shakespear's
acknowledged works we find hardly any
traces of his apprenticeship, and yet an apprenticeship
he certainly had. This every artist
must have, and especially in a period where he
has not before him the example of a school already
formed. I consider it as extremely probable,
that Shakespear began to write for the
theatre at a much earlier period than the one
which is generally stated, namely, not till after
the year 1590. It appears that, as early as the
year 1584, when only twenty years of age, he
had left his paternal home and repaired to London.
Can we imagine that such an active head
would remain idle for six whole years without
making any attempt to emerge by his talents
from an uncongenial situation? That in the
dedication of the poem of Venus and Adonis he
calls it, "the first heir of his invention," proves
nothing against the supposition. It was the
first which he printed; he might have composed
it at an earlier period; perhaps, also, he did not
include theatrical labours, as they then possessed
but little literary dignity. The earlier Shakespear
began to compose for the theatre, the less
are we enabled to consider the immaturity and
imperfection of a work as a proof of its spuriousness
in opposition to historical evidence, if we
only find in it prominent features of his mind.
Several of the works rejected as spurious, may
still have been produced in the period betwixt
Titus Andronicus, and the earliest of the acknowledged
pieces.
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"At last, Steevens published seven pieces ascribed
to Shakespear in two supplementary volumes.
It is to be remarked, that they all appeared
in print in Shakespear's life-time, with
his name prefixed at full length. They are the
following:--
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"1. Locrine. The proofs of the genuineness
of this piece are not altogether unambiguous;
the grounds for doubt, on the other hand, are
entitled to attention. However, this question is
immediately connected with that respecting Titus
Andronicus, and must be at the same time
resolved in the affirmative or negative.
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"2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This piece was
acknowledged by Dryden, but as a youthful
work of Shakespear. It is most undoubtedly
his, and it has been admitted into several of the
late editions. The supposed imperfections originate
in the circumstance, that Shakespear here
handled a childish and extravagant romance of
the old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag
the subject out of its proper sphere. Hence he
even introduces Gower himself, and makes him
deliver a prologue entirely in his antiquated
language and versification. This power of assuming
so foreign a manner is at least no proof
of helplessness.
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"3. The London Prodigal. If we are not
mistaken, Lessing pronounced this piece to be
Shakespear's, and wished to bring it on the
German stage.
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"4. The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watling
Street. One of my literary friends, intimately
acquainted with Shakespear, was of opinion that
the poet must have wished to write a play for
once in the style of Ben Jonson, and that in
this way we must account for the difference between
the present piece and his usual manner.
To follow out this idea however would lead to a
very nice critical investigation.
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"5. Thomas, Lord Cromwell.
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"6. Sir John Oldcastle--First Part.
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"7. A Yorkshire Tragedy.
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"The three last pieces are not only unquestionably
Shakespear's, but in my opinion they
deserve to be classed among his best and maturest
works.--Steevens admits at last, in some
degree, that they are Shakespear's, as well as the
others, excepting Locrine, but he speaks of all of
them with great contempt, as quite worthless
productions. This condemnatory sentence is
not however in the slightest degree convincing,
nor is it supported by critical acumen. I should
like to see how such a critic would, of his own
natural suggestion, have decided on Shakespear's
acknowledged master-pieces, and what he would
have thought of praising in them, had the public
opinion not imposed on him the duty of admiration.
Thomas, Lord Cromwell, and Sir John
Oldcastle, are biographical dramas, and models
in this species: the first is linked, from its subject,
to Henry the Eighth, and the second to
Henry the Fifth. The second part of Oldcastle
is wanting; I know not whether a copy of the
old edition has been discovered in England, or
whether it is lost. The Yorkshire Tragedy is a
tragedy in one act, a dramatised tale of murder:
the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is extremely
important to see how poetically Shakespear
could handle such a subject.
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"There have been still farther ascribed to
him:--1st. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, a comedy
in one act, printed in Dodsley's old plays.
This has certainly some appearances in its favour.
It contains a merry landlord, who bears
a great similarity to the one in the Merry Wives
of Windsor. However, at all events, though an
ingenious, it is but a hasty sketch. 2d. The
Accusation of Paris. 3d. The Birth of Merlin.
4th. Edward the Third. 5th. The Fair Emma.
6th. Mucedorus. 7th. Arden of Feversham. I
have never seen any of these, and cannot there
fore say any thing respecting them. From the
passages cited, I am led to conjecture that the
subject of Mucedorus is the popular story of Valentine
and Orson; a beautiful subject which
Lope de Vega has also taken for a play. Arden of
Feversham is said to be a tragedy on the story of
a man, from whom the poet was descended by the
mother's side. If the quality of the piece is not
too directly at variance with this claim, the circumstance
would afford an additional probability
in its favour. For such motives were not foreign
to Shakespear: he treated Henry the Seventh,
who bestowed lands on his forefathers for services
performed by them, with a visible partiality.
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"Whoever takes from Shakespear a play early
ascribed to him, and confessedly belonging to
his time, is unquestionably bound to answer,
with some degree of probability, this question:
who has then written it? Shakespear's competitors
in the dramatic walk are pretty well known,
and if those of them who have even acquired a
considerable name, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood,
are still so very far below him, we can
hardly imagine that the author of a work, which
rises so high beyond theirs, would have remained
unknown."--Lectures on Dramatic Literature,
vol. ii. page 252.
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We agree to the truth of this last observation,
but not to the justice of its application to some of
the plays here mentioned. It is true that Shakespear's
best works are very superior to those of
Marlow, or Heywood, but it is not true that the
best of the doubtful plays above enumerated are
superior or even equal to the best of theirs.
The Yorkshire Tragedy, which Schlegel speaks
of as an undoubted production of our author's, is
much more in the manner of Heywood than of
Shakespear. The effect is indeed overpowering,
but the mode of producing it is by no means
poetical. The praise which Schlegel gives to
Thomas, Lord Cromwell, and to Sir John Oldcastle,
is altogether exaggerated. They are very
indifferent compositions, which have not the
slightest pretensions to rank with Henry V or
Henry VIII. We suspect that the German critic
was not very well acquainted with the dramatic
contemporaries of Shakespear, or aware of their
general merits; and that he accordingly mistakes
a resemblance in style and manner for an equal
degree of excellence. Shakespear differed from
the other writers of his age not in the mode of
treating his subjects, but in the grace and power
which he displayed in them. The reason assigned
by a literary friend of Schlegel's for supposing
The Puritan; or, the Widow of Watling
Street, to be Shakespear's, viz. that it is in the
style of Ben Jonson, that is to say, in a style
just the reverse of his own, is not very satisfactory
to a plain English understanding. Locrine,
and The London Prodigal, if they were Shakespear's
at all, must have been among the sins of
his youth. Arden of Feversham contains several
striking passages, but the passion which they
express is rather that of a sanguine temperament
than of a lofty imagination; and in this respect
they approximate more nearly to the style of
other writers of the time than to Shakespear's.
Titus Andronicus is certainly as unlike Shakespear's
usual style as it is possible. It is an accumulation
of vulgar physical horrors, in which
the power exercised by the poet bears no proportion
to the repugnance excited by the subject.
The character of Aaron the Moor is the only
thing which shews any originality of conception;
and the scene in which he expresses his
joy "at the blackness and ugliness of his child
begot in adultery," the only one worthy of Shakespear.
Even this is worthy of him only in the
display of power, for it gives no pleasure.
Shakespear managed these things differently.
Nor do we think it a sufficient answer to say
that this was an embryo or crude production of
the author. In its kind it is full grown, and its
features decided and overcharged. It is not like
a first imperfect essay, but shews a confirmed
habit, a systematic preference of violent effect
to every thing else. There are occasional detached
images of great beauty and delicacy,
but these were not beyond the powers of other
writers then living. The circumstance which
inclines us to reject the external evidence in
favour of this play being Shakespear's is, that the
grammatical construction is constantly false and
mixed up with vulgar abbreviations, a fault that
never occurs in any of his genuine plays. A similar
defect, and the halting measure of the verse
are the chief objections to Pericles of Tyre, if
we except the far-fetched and complicated absurdity
of the story. The movement of the
thoughts and passions has something in it not
unlike Shakespear, and several of the descriptions
are either the original hints of passages
which Shakespear has ingrafted on his other
plays, or are imitations of them by some contemporary
poet. The most memorable idea in
it is in Marina's speech, where she compares
the world to "a lasting storm, hurrying her from
her friends."
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