makes all the heterogeneous elements harm(mise with one another—leaves unanswered but the one question, as to what is the meaning of the appearance of the gods and spirits in act v. 4. I cannot help thinking that the scene is a mistake on Shakspeare's part. It is indeed evident that the poet's object was to intimate that the true power of destiny, which arranges the confused threads of human plans and resolves, deeds and sufferings, and which ties and loosens the complication with an invisible hand, is the divine dispensation of things; and in so far the scene confirms our interpretation of the drama as a whole. But inasmuch as the poet represents this divine power in a direct manner and brings it on to the very stage, he not only disturbs the course of the action, but destroys its dramatic character which inexorably demands that although a higher guidance shall arrange and dispose outward events, circumstances and relations, the fate of the dramatic personages shall nevertheless be the result of their own characters, their own endeavours and intentions, doings and omissions. It is only when viewed from the standpoint of the epic poet and the epic character of the whole, that the scene can be justified. But this very epic character is in reality a fault. For the consequence is that the drama, notwithstanding its harmonious finish, and the excellent delineation of the characters (more particularly the ideal beauty of the figure of Imogen) is nevertheless wanting in unity of interest. Our sympathy is enlisted from too many quarters, none of the figures stand prominently enough forward to raise our interest into deep, sincere sympathy; the rapid change of the scenes and characters, the multiplicity of the given threads disturb our attention and prevent our sympathy, our pity, our fear and anxiety from gaining firm ground. Besides this there is the fact that in consequence of this epic breadth of the arrangement and fulness of the subject, the complication into which the manifold threads have wound themselves, cannot in the end be solved without a certain degree of violence. For even though we admire the clearness and skill with which the action in the closing scene is led to its appropriate end, still there is so little motive in the

Queen's sudden illness, remorse and contrition, in her public confession of all her criminal designs and actions, in Iachimo's change of sentiments, and in Posthumus being summoned before the King (in spite of his being supposed a common Roman soldier), that we cannot avoid suspecting that all of these incidents are introduced merely to assist in bringing the long piece to a hurried termination.

Accordingly it is only very conditionally that I can agree to the extravagant praise which Gervinus lavishes upon this drama. I would rather concur with Coleridge and Tieck-whose views are shared by Knight-in thinking that this varied-woven romantic history had inspired the poet in his youth to try and adapt it to the stage.' This first youthful attempt, which possibly made but a temporary appearance on the stage, Shakspeare may have remodelled long afterwards, towards the end of his poetical career; in the new version the scene with the ghosts and their interview with Jupiter may have been left as it was, perhaps because it had made some impression upon the public, perhaps also for other reasons. Yet as regards language, form and substance, the scene is so distinct and peculiar in character that the majority of the most eminent English critics consider that it was not written by Shakspeare, but an interpolation.

That this remodelling, or if this hypothesis is thought too presumptuous-that the whole piece belongs to the last years of Shakspeare's poetical activity, admits of no doubt; this opinion is supported not only by the language and versification, but also by the more sombre colouring of the whole, and the deep earnestness which pervades it. Besides this, through the discovery of Dr. Forman's Diary by Collier, it now seems probable that it was performed for the first time in 1610 or 1611. Forman does not, it is true, give the date of the performance of Cymbeline' when enumerating the plays he had seen; but he mentions it between two others which he had seen respectively on the 20th of April, 1610, and the 15th of May, 1611, hence it presumably falls to the intermediate period.* Malone† *Collier, New Particulars, etc. p. 22 f. + In Reed, ii. 333 f.

discovered some circumstances which make it seem probable that Cymbeline' and 'Macbeth' may have been written pretty much about the same time, and accordingly assigns it to 1605, which conjecture is shared by Chalmers and Drake, except that the former assigns both pieces to 1606. However, as it is not exactly probable that Forman would have carefully described and characterised old pieces that had been known for years, and as accordingly, the most likely conjecture is that Macbeth' was first brought upon the stage in 1610, I am inclined to believe that Cymbeline' was first performed somewhere towards the beginning of 1611. It did not appear in print till 1623.

6

The sources which supplied the subject-matter of 'Cymbeline,' cannot be determined with any certainty. The old English chronicles of Galfred of Monmouth and Holinshed do, it is true, speak of a semi-mythical King Cymbeline with two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus. But Shakspeare got no more from them than the mere names, the few historical allusions and the approximate period in which the story is played. The old French Miracle play, Miracle de Nostre Dame, comment Ostes, roy d'Espaigne, perdi sa terre,' etc., and its probable source the Roman du roi Flore et de la belle Jehanne,' * do indeed turn upon an intrigue quite similar to the story of the wager between Posthumus and Iachimo; nay, they even contain a couple of features not met with in other well-known versions of the story. And yet it is surely too unlikely that Shakspeare could have known of old French compositions belonging to the fourteenth century. These prove only that the subject, in so far as it concerns the wager, was a very old and popular favourite, and that Shakspeare possibly knew of some earlier and as yet undiscovered French version of it. But he might also have borrowed it from one of Boccaccio's novels,† and perhaps accidentally agreed with the old French sources in those two features which do not exist in Boccaccio. At all events Boccaccio's novel seems the more likely source, although even in this case * In Monmerqué et Michel: Théâtre Français au Moyen-Age, pp. 417 f, 431 f.

† Decameron, ii. 9,

the deviations are so marked that they are pretty much the same thing as a new invention.* No source, however, has been found for the connection of the romance with the history of Cymbeline, the Queen, Cloten and Belarius; all this, and thus in reality the invention of the piece, is probably Shakspeare's own. The old book entitled Westward for Smelts,' from which, as Steevens says, a part of the story is taken, I do not know. Halliwell† gives a short extract from it, but thinks that Steevens must have been mistaken in maintaining that the book appeared as early as 1603, as there is absolutely no trace of an edition earlier than 1620.

*Compare Simrock, l.c., i. 179 f, iii. 205 f.—Grimm, Altdeutsche Wälder, i. 27 f.

†The First Sketch of Shakspeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. London: Iriated for the Shakspeare Society, 1842, p. 135 f.

BOOK VI.

SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

IN considering the thirteen dramas which I have classed together under this head, it is above all things necessary to determine what is the idea of an historical drama, as conceived by Shakspeare. The idea touches upon the relation subsisting between poetry and history, and has been interpreted in various ways from this point of view. But in whatever manner the question be decided, this at least seems to me indubitable, that the only poem which (an bear the name of an historical drama is one which does not-as might be supposed-make arbitrary use of the historical matter, considering it mere material to be employed at will for its own purposes by free alterations, but one that gives a faithful and essentially unaltered picture of actual history, such as is invariably found in Shakspeare. It does certainly seem as if poetry, in doing this, would renounce its independence and thereby its higher aims-its striving tow rds truth in the garb of beauty, its vocation of elevating the soul above common reality -and degrade itself into the mere handmaid of history whose object would be better served by the prosaic representation of the professional historian. But as soon as the historical drama is truly historical, this either does not I appen at all, or at least only in the sense in which it ught to happen, i.e. in which everything that exista serves the course and aim of history.