FullReads

[Footnote 36: Ld. Falkland,
Ld. C. J.
Vaughan,
and Mr.
Selden.]

Shakespear, who, taught by none, did first impart
To Fletcher Wit, to lab’ring Johnson Art:
He, monarch-like, gave those his subjects Law,
And is that Nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach’d that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Johnson crept and gather’d all below:
This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest,
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since out-writ all other men,
‘Tis with the drops which fell from Shakespear‘s pen.
The(37) Storm which vanish’d on the neighb’ring shoar,
Was taught by Shakespear‘s Tempest first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
But Shakespear‘s Magick could not copied be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he.
I must confess ’twas bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar Wits allow,
Which works by Magick supernatural things:
But Shakespear‘s Pow’r is Sacred as a King’s.

Prologue to The Tempest, as it is alter’d by Mr. Dryden.

[Footnote 37: Alluding to the Sea-Voyage of
Fletcher
.

It is the same magick that raises the Fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Witches in Macbeth, and the Ghost in Hamlet, with thoughts and language so proper to the parts they sustain, and so peculiar to the talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these Plays I shall have occasion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr. Shakespear. If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these by those rules which are establish’d by Aristotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian stage, it would be no very hard task to find a great many faults: But as Shakespear liv’d under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to consider him as a man that liv’d in a state of almost universal licence and ignorance: There was no establish’d judge, but every one took the liberty to write according to the dictates of his own fancy. When one considers that there is not one play before him of a reputation good enough to entitle it to an appearance on the present Stage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatick Poetry so far as he did. The Fable is what is generally plac’d the first, among those that are reckon’d the constituent parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not, perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the first properly to be thought of in the contrivance and course of the whole; and with the Fable ought to be consider’d the fit Disposition, Order, and Conduct of its several parts. As it is not in this province of the Drama that the strength and mastery of Shakespear lay, so I shall not undertake the tedious and ill-natur’d trouble to point out the several faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather taken either from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly made use of ’em in that order, with those incidents, and that extent of time in which he found ’em in the Authors from whence he borrow’d them. So The Winter’s Tale, which is taken from an old book, call’d The Delectable History of Dorastus and Faunia, contains the space of sixteen or seventeen years, and the Scene is sometimes laid in Bohemia, and sometimes in Sicily, according to the original order of the Story. Almost all his historical Plays comprehend a great length of time, and very different and distinct places: And in his Antony and Cleopatra, the Scene travels over the greatest part of the Roman empire. But in recompence for his carelessness in this point, when he comes to another part of the Drama, The Manners of his Characters, in acting or speaking what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet, he may be generally justify’d, and in very many places greatly commended. For those Plays which he has taken from the English or Roman history, let any man compare ’em, and he will find the character as exact in the Poet as the Historian. He seems indeed so far from proposing to himself any one action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, ’tis The Life of King John, King Richard, etc.
What can be more agreeable to the idea our historians give of Henry the Sixth, than the picture Shakespear has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the same with the story; one finds him still describ’d with simplicity, passive sanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easie submission to the governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho’ at the same time the Poet do’s justice to his good qualities, and moves the pity of his audience for him, by showing him pious, disinterested, a contemner of the things of this world, and wholly resign’d to the severest dispensations of God’s providence. There is a short Scene in the second part of Henry VI., which I cannot but think admirable in its kind. Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder’d the Duke of Gloucester, is shewn in the last agonies on his death-bed, with the good King praying over him. There is so much terror in one, so much tenderness and moving piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his Henry VIII. that Prince is drawn with that greatness of mind, and all those good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his reign. If his faults are not shewn in an equal degree, and the shades in this picture do not bear a just proportion to the lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either colours or skill in the disposition of ’em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to Queen Elizabeth, since it could have been no very great respect to the memory of his Mistress, to have expos’d some certain parts of her father’s life upon the stage. He has dealt much more freely with the Minister of that great King, and certainly nothing was ever more justly written, than the character of Cardinal Wolsey. He has shewn him tyrannical, cruel, and insolent in his prosperity; and yet, by a wonderful address, he makes his fall and ruin the subject of general compassion. The whole man, with his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly describ’d in the second Scene of the fourth Act. The distresses likewise of Queen Katherine, in this Play, are very movingly touch’d; and tho’ the art of the Poet has skreen’d King Henry from any gross imputation of injustice, yet one is inclin’d to wish, the Queen had met with a fortune more worthy of her birth and virtue. Nor are the Manners, proper to the persons represented, less justly observ’d in those characters taken from the Roman History; and of this, the fierceness and impatience of Coriolanus, his courage and disdain of the common people, the virtue and philosophical temper of Brutus, and the irregular greatness of mind in M. Antony, are beautiful proofs. For the two last especially, you find ’em exactly as they are describ’d by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespear copy’d ’em. He has indeed follow’d his original pretty close, and taken in several little incidents that might have been spar’d in a Play. But, as I hinted before, his design seems most commonly rather to describe those great men in the several fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to take any single great action, and form his work simply upon that. However, there are some of his pieces, where the Fable is founded upon one action only. Such are more especially, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. The design in Romeo and Juliet is plainly the punishment of their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and animosities that had been so long kept up between ’em, and occasion’d the effusion of so much blood. In the management of this story, he has shewn something wonderfully tender and passionate in the love-part, and very pitiful in the distress. Hamlet is founded on much the same Tale with the Electra of Sophocles. In each of ’em a young Prince is engag’d to revenge the death of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concern’d in the murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers. There is in the first part of the Greek Tragedy, something very moving in the grief of Electra ; but as Mr. D’Acier has observ’d, there is something very unnatural and shocking in the Manners he has given that Princess and Orestes in the latter part. Orestes embrues his hands in the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is perform’d, tho’ not immediately upon the stage, yet so near, that the audience hear Clytemnestra crying out to AEgysthus for help, and to her son for mercy: While Electra, her daughter, and a Princess, both of them characters that ought to have appear’d with more decency, stands upon the stage and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this not raise! Clytemnestra was a wicked woman, and had deserv’d to die; nay, in the truth of the story, she was kill’d by her own son; but to represent an action of this kind on the stage, is certainly an offence against those rules of manners proper to the persons, that ought to be observ’d there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct of Shakespear. Hamlet is represented with the same piety towards his father, and resolution to revenge his death, as Orestes ; he has the same abhorrence for his mother’s guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is heighten’d by incest: But ’tis with wonderful art and justness of judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing violence to his mother. To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father’s Ghost forbid that part of his vengeance.