Shakspere, and especially if that reader be a “Katharine the curst." The discipline ap- | Pardon for him? If there be one reader of peared to be considered necessary for more than a century afterwards; for we find in 'The Tatler' a story, told as new and original, of a gentleman in Lincolnshire who had four daughters, one of whom was "so imperious a temper (usually called a high spirit), that it continually made great uneasiness in the family," but who was entirely reclaimed by the Petrucio recipe of "taking a woman down in her wedding shoes." We are the happier our fortune-living in an age when this practice of Petrucio is not universally considered orthodox; and we owe a great deal to him who has exhibited the secrets of the "taming school" with so much spirit in this comedy, for the better belief of our age, that violence is not to be subdued by violence. It was he who said, when the satirist cried out "Give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of the infected world" it was he who said, in his own proper spirit of gentleness and truth,— we would say, the indignation which you feel, and in which thousands sympathize, belongs to the age in which you live; but the principle of justice, and of justice to women above all, from which it springs, has been established, more than by any other lessons of human origin, by him who has now moved your anger. It is to him that woman owes, more than to any other human authority, the popular elevation of the feminine character, by the most matchless delineations of its purity, its faith, its disinterestedness, its tenderness, its heroism, its union of intellect and sensibility. It is he that, as long as the power of influencing mankind by high thoughts, clothed in the most exquisite language, shall endure, will preserve the ideal elevation of women pure and unassailable from the attacks of coarseness or libertinism, -ay, and even from the degradation of the example of the crafty and worldly-minded "Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst of their own sex:-for it is he that has de do Most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin." It was he who found "a soul of goodness in things evil," who taught us, in the same delicious reflection of his own nature, the real secret of conquering opposition: "Your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness."" Pardon be for him, if, treading in the footsteps of some predecessor whose sympathies with the peaceful and the beautiful were immeasurably inferior to his own, and sacrificing something to the popular appetite, he should have made the husband of a froward woman "kill her in her own humour," and bring her upon her knees to the abject obedience of a revolted but penitent slave: "A foul contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her loving lord." *As You Like It.' lineated the ingenuous and trusting Imogen, the guileless Perdita, the impassioned Juliet, the heart-stricken but loving Desdemona, the generous and courageous Portia, the unconquerable Isabella, the playful Rosalind, the world-unknowing Miranda. Shakspere may have exhibited one froward woman wrongly tamed: but who can estimate the number of those from whom his all-penetrating influence has averted the curse of being froward? If Shakspere requires any apology for 'The Taming of the Shrew,' it is for having adopted the subject at all-not for his treatment of it. The Kate of the comedy to which this bears so much resemblance, upon the surface,¦ is a thoroughly unfeminine person, coarse and obstreperous, without the humour which shines through the violence of Shakspere's Katharine. He describes his Shrew "Young and beauteous; Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman." She has a "scolding tongue," "her only fault." Her temper, as Shakspere has delineated it, is the result of her pride and her love of domination. She is captious to her father; she tyrannizes over her younger sister; she is jealous of the attractions of that sister's gentleness. This is a temper that perhaps could not be subdued by kindness, except after Petrucio's fashion of "killing a wife with kindness." At any rate, it could not be so subdued, except by a long course of patient discipline, quite incompatible with the hurried movement of a dramatic action. In the scene where Katharine strikes Bianca her temper has been exhibited at the worst. It is bad enough; but not quite so bad as appears from the following description of a French commentator:-" Catharine bat sa sœur par fantaisie et pour passer le temps, malgré les prières et les larmes de Bianca, qui ne se défend que par la douceur. Baptista accourt, et met Bianca en sureté dans sa chambre. Catharine sort, enragée de n'avoir plus personne à battre."* It is in her worst humour that Petrucio woos her; and surely nothing can be more animated than the wooing: "For you are call'd plain Kate, And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst; But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Mr. Brownt has very judiciously pointed out the conduct of this scene as an example of Shakspere's intimate knowledge of Italian manners. The conclusion of it is in reality a betrothment; of which circumstance no indication is given in the other play. The imperturbable spirit of Petrucio, and the daring mixture of reality and jest in his deportment subdued Katharine at the first interview: "Setting all this chat aside, Paul Duport, Essais Littéraires,' tom. ii. p. 305. +Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems.' Thus in plain terms:-Your father hath consented That you shall be my wife;-your dowry 'greed on; And will you, nill you, I will marry you.” Katharine denounces him as "A madcap ruffian, and a swearing Jack;" Petrucio heeds it not :— "We have 'greed so well together, That upon Sunday is the wedding-day." Katharine rejoinds,— "I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first;" but, nevertheless, the betrothment pro ceeds: "Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice, To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day :Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests; I will be sure my Katharine shall be fine. Bap. I know not what to say: but give me your hands; God send you joy, Petrucio! 't is a match. Gre. Tra. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses." "Father and Wife," says Petrucio. The betrothment is complete; and Katharine acknowledges it when Petrucio does not come to his appointment:— "Now must the world point at poor Katharine, And say-Lo! there is mad Petrucio's wife, If it would please him come and marry her." The "taming has begun; her pride is touched in a right direction. But Petrucio does come. What passes in the church is matter of description, but the description is Shakspere all over. When we compare the freedom and facility which our poet has thrown into these scenes with the drawling course of the other play which deals with the same incidents, we are amazed that any one should have a difficulty in distinctly tracing his "fine Roman hand." Nor are the scenes of the under-plot in our opinion less certainly his. Who but Shakspere could have written these lines? "Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move, And with her breath she did perfume the air; Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her." Compare this exquisite simplicity, this tender | Petrucio's character is assumed. Whatever and unpretending harmony, with the bombastic images, and the formal rhythm, of the other play; the following passage, for example: "Come, fair Emelia, my lovely love, Brighter than the burnish'd palace of the sun, The eyesight of the glorious firmament, In whose bright looks sparkles the radiant fire Wily Prometheus slily stole from Jove." And who but Shakspere could have created Grumio out of the materials which supplied the stupid Sander of 'The Taming of a Shrew?' That "Ancient, trusty, pleasant, servant Grumio," is one of those incomparable characters who drove the old clowns and fools off the stage, and trampled their wooden daggers and coxcombs for ever under foot. He is one of that numerous train that Shakspere called up, of whom Shadwell said that "they had more wit than any of the wits and critics of his time." When Grumio comes with Petrucio to wed, he says not a word; but who has not pictured him "with a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on the other-a very monster in apparel; and not like a Christian footboy, or a gentleman's lackey?" We imagine him, like Sancho or Ralpho, somewhat under-sized. His profound remark, "considering the weather, a taller man than I would take cold," is indicative equally of his stature and his wit. In the scene with Curtis, in the fourth act, he is almost as good as Launce and Touchstone. But we are digressing from Petrucio, the soul of this drama. Hazlitt's character of him is very just :-" Petrucio is a madman in his senses; a very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to the life, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete presence of mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill-humour from beginning to end." The great skill which Shakspere has shown in the management of this comedy is established in the conviction which he produces all along that he may say, whatever he may do, we are satisfied that he has a real fund of good humour at the bottom of all the outbreaks of his inordinate self-will. We know that, if he succeeds in subduing the violence of his wife by a much higher extravagance of violence, he will be prepared not only to return her affection, but to evoke it, in all the strength and purity of woman's love, out of the pride and obstinacy in which it has been buried. His concluding line, "Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss me, Kate," is an earnest of his happiness. Of the 'Induction' we scarcely know how to speak without appearing hyperbolical in our praise. It is to us one of the most precious gems in Shakspere's casket. The ele gance, the truth, the high poetry, the consummate humour, of this fragment are so remarkable, that, if we apply ourselves to compare it carefully with the Induction of the other play, and with the best of the drain some degree obtain a conception, not only matic poetry of his contemporaries, we shall of the qualities in which he equalled and excelled the highest things of other men, and in which he could be measured with them, but of those wonderful endowments in which he differed from all other men, and to which no standard of comparison can be applied. Schlegel says, "The last half of this prelude, that in which the tinker in his new state again drinks himself out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his former condition, from some accident or other is lost." We doubt whether it was ever produced; and whether Shakspere did not exhibit his usual judgment in letting the curtain drop upon honest Christopher, when his wish was accomplished at the close of the comedy which he had expressed very early in its progress : ""T is a very excellent piece of work, madam lady; 'Would 't were done!" Had Shakspere brought him again upon the scene, in all the richness of his first exhibi tion, perhaps the impatience of the audience | ventured to continue him. Neither this would never have allowed them to sit through fragment, nor that of "Cambuscan bold," the lessons of "the taming-school." could be made perfect, unless we could have had farces enough founded upon the "Call up him that left half told legend of Christopher Sly, but no one has The story." We BOOK IV. INTRODUCTION. THE Dramas of Shakspere are in no particular more remarkable than in the almost complete absence of any allusion to their author -any reference to his merely personal thoughts and circumstances-any intimation, that might naturally enough have been conveyed in Prologue or Epilogue, of the relations in which the Poet stood with regard to his audience. There are only ten of his plays in which any one of the characters, at the conclusion, comes forward as an actor to deprecate censure or solicit applause. There are only two out of these ten plays in which the Author, through the actor, directly addresses the spectators. In the Epilogue to The Second Part of Henry IV.' the Dancer says, in a light manner, "Our humble Author will continue the story." In the concluding Chorus to Henry V.,' the Poet, then in the very zenith of his popularity, addresses himself to the audience, of course through the actor, more seriously and emphatically : "Thus far, with rough and all unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story; In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. Small time, but in that small most greatly lived This star of England: fortune made his sword By which the world's best garden he achieved, And of it left his son imperial lord. Henry the sixth, in infant bands crown'd king Of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing, That they lost France, and made his Eng land bleed: Which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take." "The story" which the author "hath pursued thus far" is the story which began with the deposition of Richard II. The story of the triumphant progress of the house of Lancaster, up to the period when the son of Bolingbroke had "achieved the world's best garden," had been told by the poet in four dramas, of which Henry V.' was the concluding one. These dramas had been linked together with the most scrupulous care, so that, although for the purposes of representation there were necessarily distinct pauses in the action, they were essentially one great drama. They were written, it is highly probable, almost consecutively; for not only does the external evidence show that they were given to the world during the last three years of the sixteenth century, but their whole dramatic construction, as well as their peculiarities of style, determine them to belong to one and the same period of the poet's life, when his genius grasped a subject with the full consciousness of power, and revelled in its own luxuriance, whether of wit or fancy, without timidity. But there was another great division of the story, which had been previously told. As the glories of the house of Lancaster, consummated in the victory of Agincourt, had been traced through these four great dramas, so the ruin of the house of Lancaster, and all the terrible consequences of the struggles between that house and the other branch of the Plantagenets, even up to the final termination of the struggle at the field of Bosworth, had been developed in four other dramas of an earlier date : "Henry the sixth, in infant bands crown'd king Of France and England, did this king succecd; Whose state so many had the managing, land bleed: Which oft our stage hath shown." Of this other series of dramas thus described -the second in the order of events, the first in the order of their composition and performance-"the bending author" in his Chorus to Henry V.' makes no equivocal mention. The events which "lost France" and made "England bleed" had the "stage" of Shakspere often "shown," in dramas which had long been familiar to his audience, and were unquestionably in the highest degree popular. As early as 1592 Thomas Nashe thus writes:-"How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb he should triumph again on the stage; and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that represents his person, behold him fresh bleeding!"* In 1596, when Ben Jonson produced his 'Every Man in his IIumour,' he accompanied it with a Prologue †, levelled against what appeared to him the absurdities of the romantic drama, in which is this passage:— *Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Devil.' + Gifford has clearly demonstrated that the Prologue appeared originally with Jonson's first comedy, and was not appended long afterwards, as the commentators have supposed, for the sake of sneering at Shakspere's later dramas. "With three rusty swords, And help of some few foot and half-foot words +, Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars." That the play in which the brave Talbot triumphed "again on the stage" was what we call 'The First Part of Henry VI.,' there can be no reasonable doubt; that what we call the Second and Third Parts of 'Henry VI.,' and perhaps Richard III.,' were those in which were fought over "York and Lancaster's long jars," is equally clear. Shakspere, as it appears to us, does not hesitate to adopt this series of plays as his own. The author of 'Henry V.' asks that the success of these earlier dramas should commend his later play to a favourable reception : "For their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take." For a critical study of the plays of Shakspere there is an important advantage in tracing the growth of his powers through the probable order in which his dramas were produced. Following out this principle strictly, we should treat of Henry VI.' and 'Richard III.' before 'Richard II.,' 'Henry IV.,' and 'Henry V.' But, on the other hand, we may consider this series of eight plays as the development of a great idea of dramatic unity, conceived, it may be, by the poet in his carliest period, although produced in detached portions, and not grouped into one "story" till 'Henry V.' completed the series. The circumstances which suggested "the story" would naturally arise out of his youthful position. The "story" of the Wars of the Roses was presented to him with ancestral and local associations. When Shakspere was about five years of age, a grant of arms was made by the College of Heralds to his father. The father was unquestionably engaged in business of some sort in Stratford-upon-Avon; he was an agriculturist, in all likelihood; but he lived in an age when the pride of ancestry was not lightly regarded, and when a distinction such as this was of real and per Jonson, in another place, has translated the "sesquipedalia verba," by this phrase. |