thought and greatness of mind, no feeling for the organic rounding of the subject, and therefore is generally diffuse and inconsistent in his delineation of character, careless in his motives, arbitrary in composition, and with no idea of the ethical effect of the drama; he may be said to be the Massinger of his day, whom the Restoration called back into life, as Shadwell may be said to represent an 'improvement upon' Ben Jonson, and Lee a mad Shakspeare. Connected with the above poets are Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, as the most gifted and most popular writers of comedy towards the end of the century, but they are fil ed with the frivolous, immoral, licentious spirit which proceeded from the Court of Charles II. and his successors They were eminently ingenious, humorous, and lifelike in their writings, and distinguished for the rich variety of their characters--which have more the form of portraits, and were generally satiricaland for their clever management of the action and drastic treatment of the dialogue; but were offensively obscene, by representing the loosest immorality in the most bareficed manner; they did not possess either nobility of sentiment, or any appre iation for that higher beauty which alone raises ait above the low apeing of common reality.

No wonder, therefore, that Shakspeare even though not entirely forgotten, did not enjoy any great consideration in those circles where the above-mentioned poets reaped such decided success and applause.

And yet, immediately upon the reopening of the theatres, a new edition of Shakspeare's works was made and appeared in 1664; this was a mere reprint of the second folio with the orthography modernised, and with the addition of seven plays, only the smaller number of which —as we have seen-were justly ascribed to Shakspeare. Twenty one years later a new edition was again issued, no doubt because, in spite of its many defects, the last was sold out, and Shakspeare's works were still in demand. That this demand continued after 1685 into the eighteenth century, is proved by Rowe's edition of Shakspeare, issued in 1709, in seven octavo volumes (a second edition of which appeared in 1714, not five years afterwards), and

*

by the long series of independent editions of Shakspeare, more or less critical in character, which followed Rowe's last edition at short intervals during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These facts clearly prove, as Ch. Knight justly maintains, that ignorance and misapprehension alone could have given rise to the current opinion that Shakspeare's works had gradually become wholly forgotten; the above facts show, on the contrary, that Shakspeare has at all times-although with fluctuationsenjoyed a popularity with the English people, greater almost than that of any other poet.

But it was by the people alone that he was held in this continued favour. In the opinion of learned critics, and in the circles of the Court and the aristocracy, Shakspeare sank far below the level of that esteem and honour which he had occupied in the estimation of his contemporaries. For while Milton-the only mind kindred to Shakspeare's own during the seventeenth century— speaks of him in a poem prefixed to the second folio of 1632, as

'Dear son of memory, great heir of fame

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.'

and again in 1645, in his 'L'Allegro' calls him—

'Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,'

James Shirley, in the prologue to his drama 'The Sisters, which appeared in 1640, says that Shakspeare, who at one time had been so great a favourite, has now but few friends; J. Tateham, also, an unimportant versifier in the metaphysical style, calls him (in a poetic encomium to R. Brome's Jovial Crew of Merry Beggars,' 1652), the plebeian driller,' by which epithet he evidently meant to say that Shakspeare's plays at that time found favour only with the people. The author of the ⚫ Historia Histrionica: an Historical Account of the English Stage, etc.' (London, 1699), in enumerating the plays performed during the last decades before the Revolution, mentions

Studies of Shakspere, p. 505 ff.

of Shakspeare's only 'Henry IV.,' Hamlet' and 'Othello.' among a great number of pieces by Ben Jonson, Mas-inger, Beaumont and Fletcher; and Dryden, in speaking of the two latter, says, 'their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage, two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakspeare's.' The play during the representation of which, in the winter of 1648, the theatre was attacked by soldiers, and the actors and the public dispersed, was Beaumont and Fletcher's The Bloody Brother.' The performance with which Davenant, in 1656, opened his so-called Entertainments' in Routland's House, was an operetta in the style of the time, a masque furnished with music; the play with which he opened the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, after the Restoration, was one of his own productions, 'The Siege of Rhodes.' Killigrew's company also inaugurated their new house in Drury Lane, in 1662, with Beaumont's and Fletcher's Humorous Lieutenant,' and in 1695, the famous Betterton, as director of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, began with Congreve's 'Love for Love.'

Accordingly, after the Restoration, Shakspeare's plays were still performed, it is true however, not only comparatively seldom, but what was worse, they were generally not given in their original form,-in fact, they were remodelled to suit the taste of the age. Thus The Tatler, a daily paper to which Addison was a contributor, on one occasion quotes some lines from 'Macbeth,' but from Davenant's distorted version of the drama; and N. Tate, in the dedication to his edition of King Lear,' as acted at the Duke's Theatre, revived with alterations, calls the original, an old piece with which he had become acquainted through a friend. Most of Shakspeare's plays were revised in this manner, by more or less unskilful hands, during the years between 1665 and 1740. Davenant and Dryden began with The Tempest,' which was printed in 1670; Davenant then proceeded with Measure for Measure,' Much Ado About Nothing,' and 'Macbeth' (the two former appeared in 1673, the latter in 1674); Antony and Cleopatra,' in 1677, fell into Sedley's hands; Timon of Athens' in 1678 into Shadwell's. Tate, after putting 'King Lear' to rights, did the same also with Henry VI,

'Richard II.' and 'Coriolanus;' his version of the latter

appeared in 1682. 'Cymbeline' was remodelled and printed in the same year by Durfey; Titus Andronicus' in 1667 by Ravenscroft; 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' in 1692, by an anonymous writer; The Taming of the Shrew,' in 1698, by Lacy; 'Henry IV.' and 'Richard III.' in 1710 by Betterton and Cibber, etc. All these versions are essentially the same in character; as a rule, only such passages as were most effective on the stage were left unaltered, but in all cases the editors en deavoured to expunge the supposed harshnesses of language and versification: powerful passages were tamed down and diluted, elegant passages embellished, tender passages made more ten ler; the comic scenes were provided with additional indelicacies, and it was further endeavoured to make the aim of the action more correct by the removal of some supposed excrescences, or by the alteration of the scenic arrangement and the course of the action. Davenant had even furnished Macbeth' and The Tempest' with mus c, songs, and dances, and was so successful with this species of barbaric_ornamentation, and with his own so-called operas and decorations, that he succeeded in eclipsing Killigrew's company, which had hitherto outstripped him in the public favour.

The opinion which is expressed upon Shakspeare, in this maltreatment of his plays by dramatic poets and directors of theatres, is expressly corroborated in the works of the leading æsthetic critics of the day. Denham (in his Ode upon the Death of Cowley, 1667) speaks in commendation of Shakspeare, but as far inferior to 'immortal' Cowley; we quote the passage:

'By Shakspeare's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines,

Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines.

Old Mother Wit and Nature gave
Shakspeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spencer and in Jonson, Art

Of slower Nature got the start.

But both in him (Cowley) so equal are,

None knows which bears the happiest share.'

Edward Philipps, the nephew and pupil of Milton, speaks of Shakspeare in even higher terms of admiration in his

Theatrum Poetarum,' 1675, he calls him' the Glory of the English stage;' yet in his preface he speaks of Shakspeare's unfiled expressions, his rambling and undigested fancies, the laughter of the critical,' but adds, that in spite of these failings he must be confess't a poet above many that go beyond him in literature some degrees.'

6

Dryden in a similar manner speaks of Shakspeare as a man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid, his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. . However, others are now generally preferred to him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson never equall'd them to him in their esteem. And in the last King's Court, when Ben's reputation was at its highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspeare far above him.' Dryde.as his remarks on Shakspeare clearly prove-was, as a poet, powerfully attracted by him and an enthusiastic admirer of his; but it is equally clear from his remarks that, as a critic, he looked upon him in quite a different light, expressly pointing out the invariable irregularity of Shakspeare's plays, regretting that he did not know of, or at least rarely observed the Aristotelian laws of the three unities, and expressing his surprise that the plays should nevertheless produce so powerful an effect.

Thomas Rymer t-who likewise based his views upon

* Essay on Dramatic Poesie, 1668.

†The Tragedies of the Last Age, Considered and Examined by the Practice of the Ancients, 1678, and A Short View of Tragedy, its Original Excellency and Corruption, with some Reflexions on Shakespeare, rtc., 1693.