CHAPTER III.

PERICLES.

FROM what has already been said, it is evident that the three parts of Henry VI.' as well as The First Part of the Contention' and 'The True Tragedie '—the latter conditionally, on account of the corrupt state of their text must be reckoned among the earliest of Shakspeare's works. Accordingly it is these that have to be taken into consideration in deciding the question as to which of the other plays, published under Shakspeare's name, may be regarded as belonging to his youthful productions. Pericles,' in my opinion, is one of these.

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This play, in spite of its obvious defects (especially in composition), is now admitted by many English critics* to have probably been a work of Shakspeare's. Even Malone was at first of the same view and had rather ably refuted the opinion of Steevens,† who held 'Pericles' to be an older piece which Shakspeare had merely remodelled. It was only subsequently that Malone adopted the Steevens' view. This however is but an additional proof that Malone, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, his great learning, was incapable of giving an impartial and reliable judgment, and that he was also wanting in fine appreciation of the style and the significance of that side of Shakspeare's poetry which was turned towards the Middle Ages. Steevens' arguments are, in reality, more those of a learned philologist than of an æsthetic critic, and unreliable from the very circumstance of his comparing Pericles' only with Shakspeare's later masterpieces, entirely overlooking the fact that the play -whether the work of Shakspeare or not-must have

* Drake, Collier, Charles Knight, Richard Grant White, and others. + Reed's Shakspeare, xxi. 412 f.

Reed, l. c. 393 f.

been written at a time very far removed from the period of Shakspeare's full maturity. Thus he says: 'Be it first observed that most of the choruses in Pericles are written in a measure which Shakspeare has not employed on the same occasion either in The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, or in King Henry the Fifth.' But he does not consider that the chorus-which is represented by the old poet Gower -has a very different purpose to answer here from that in Romeo and Juliet,' and accordingly had to be differently treated, and that, if Shakspeare in his 'Henry V.' and The Winter's Tale' had employed it for purposes similar to those in 'Pericles,' these plays were probably separated from the first appearance of Pericles' by an interval of several decades; accordingly, the different treatment of the chorus proves nothing.

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Steevens further observes: Very little that can tend with certainty to establish or oppose our author's exclusive right in this dramatic performance, is to be collected from the dumb-shows; for he has no such in his other plays, as will serve to direct our judgment. These in Pericles are not introduced (in compliance with two ancient customs) at stated periods, or for the sake of adventitious splendour. They do not appear before every act, like those in Ferrex and Porrex, they are not like those in Gascoigne's Jocaster, merely ostentatious.' These remarks are very true, but again a proof, and moreover a striking, almost irrefutable proof, that the drama was written at a time when dumb-shows were still in vogue, and that Shakspeare, in his finer, artistic tact, felt that pantomime, if it were to continue in use, must no longer be a mere spectacle, but in some way contribute to the development of the action, and be made an integral part of the whole. Steevens also argues that the resemblance, which Malone maintains to exist, between 'Pericles' and 'The Winter's Tale' is not at all striking, and, in fact, that no such parallel passages between it and others of Shakspeare's genuine plays could be adduced, as many such cases of resemblance might be found between Shakspeare and other poets (for instance, with Fletcher in his Two Noble Kinsmen'). Steevens thinks that it is only the diction as a whole that can be taken into account, and that it differs

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greatly from that of Shakspeare's authenticated works, inasmuch as, for instance, in no play of Shakspeare's do we find so many ellipses. This is again true, but also another proof that Malone was as wrong in appealing to 'The Winter's Tale' in order to defend Pericles,' as Steevens was in disputing it by bringing forward some of Shakspeare's later masterpieces. Further, he makes the perfectly correct proposition that inequalities and wildness cannot be received as criterions by which we are to distinguish the early pieces of Shakspeare from those which were written at a later period;' but he again forgets that this proposition tells against himself, inasmuch as even in regard to diction he ought not to have placed so much weight upon irregularities. Yet he is right in maintaining that the diction in 'Pericles' differs considerably from that of Shakspeare's earlier works. This is a point which has been specially emphasised by the more recent opponents of Pericles' (owing to their better appreciation of the object of criticism) and demands careful consideration, which it shall receive as soon as we have finished with Steevens' arguments. The next reason which he adduces in favour of his view, however, scarcely deserves refutation. The author of 'Pericles,' he thinks, has, in regard to his subject-matter, followed his authority (old Gower in his 'Prince Apolyn') much more carefully than was otherwise Shakspeare's custom, as for instance in his 'As You Like It,' 'Hamlet,' King Lear,' etc. statement is incorrect and wholly devoid of proof, in so far as Shakspeare, in many other of his plays, both of an earlier and a later date, nay, in the majority of his dramas, in all of his historical plays, in Romeo and Juliet,' 'Othello,' Macbeth,' Ali's Well that Ends Well,' 'Much Ado About Nothing,' 'Measure for Measure,' 'The Winter's Tale,' etc., has kept as closely to his authorities as in 'Pericles.'

This

Accordingly, there remain but two more of Steevens' arguments deserving consideration. In the first place, the circumstance that Pericles' is not admitted into the first folio edition of 1623 by Heminge and Condell. In regard to this point, however, Malone and Drake * justly * Life and Times of Shakspeare, ii. 205 f.

draw attention to the fact that Heminge and Condell have also entirely omitted 'Troilus and Cressida,' and did not remember this undoubtedly genuine work of Shakspeare's till after the whole edition, and even the table of contents, had been printed. It is also very possible that, as 'Pericles' had appeared in print several times before the year 1623, Heminge and Condell may not have been able to induce the proprietors of these editions to assign to them the copyright of the play, and were therefore compelled to omit it from their collection. Hence it follows that the omission of a play in the first folio is no proof of its spuriousness; but neither does it follow, as most English critics think, that the admission of a play by Heminge and Condell is a sufficient guarantee of its genuineness. For in all cases, and particularly under the circumstances of the time, it was a very different matter to leave out a thing, from confounding one thing with another. Shakspeare's friends could admit into their collection only such plays of which they had obtained the copyright; they might also, owing to the number of scattered plays, have lost sight of one or other, or have omitted it for some special, perhaps accidental and personal reason. But considering how well acquainted they were with Shakspeare's style and with the results of his labours, they could not mistake the works of other writers for his compositions. Accordingly, even this argument proves nothing against 'Pericles,' and moreover, the objection is opposed by other and positive proofs of its genuineness. Not only is the play expressly ascribed to Shakspeare by S. Shephard, in a work that appeared in 1646, and by another less well-known poet, Tatham, in 1652, but Dryden also (in his Prologue to (harles Davenant's tragedy, Circe') says of it:

"Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore."

Now Dryden was on intimate terms with Sir William Davenant, the son of the hostess at Oxford (Shakspeare's supposed mistress), who lived in friendly intercourse with Heminge and Condell and others of Shakspeare's associates, and may, as already said, occasionally have given himself out to be a son of Shakspeare's. Therefore I think Dryden's distinct assurance of the authenticity of the

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play, deserves to be credited, at least, as long as it is not refuted by better arguments than those of Steevens. all events, the testimonies adduced clearly prove, as Ch. Knight justly remarks, that according to the annals of the stage Pericles,' up to the year 1675, was generally regarded as a work of Shakspeare's.

Lastly, the first quarto edition of Pericles' appeared with Shakspeare's full name on the title-page, and moreover during the poet's lifetime (in 1609, by H. Goson), a circumstance which indeed does not prove as much in regard to those times as it would in our own day, but which must nevertheless not be left wholly unnoticed. For although the same circumstance might be adduced in the case of three other plays-'A Yorkshire Tragedie,' 'The London Prodigal,' and 'Sir John Oldcastle '—still, as Collier observes, the original title-page of the last-mentioned play was subsequently cancelled, probably at Shakspeare's own request. We are not certain that the same was not done with "The London Prodigal.' 'A Yorkshire Tragedie,' however, may be Shakspeare's work: at all events, there is as little proof of the contrary, as of the spuriousness of 'Pericles.'

Steevens' last argument applies to the composition and to the characterisation of the play. He says: "Next be it remarked that the valuable parts of Pericles' are more distinguished by their poetical turn than by variety of character, or command over the passions. The drama before us contains no discrimination of manners (except in the comic dialogues) and very few traces of thought— in short, is little more than a string of adventures so numerous, so inartificially crowded together, and so far removed from probability, that, in my private opinion, I must acquit even the irregular and lawless Shakspeare of having constructed the fabrick of the drama; ...the scenes are rather loosely tacked together, than closely interwoven. We see no more of Antiochus after his first appearance. His anonymous daughter utters but one unintelligible couplet and then vanishes. Simonides, likewise, is lost as soon as the marriage of Thaisa is over; and the punishment of Cleon and his wife, which poetic justice demanded, makes no part of the action, but is related in a kind of