*

these supposed laws and their irrevocable validity, and was enamoured of the beauty of the ancient drama -was the next to subject Shakspeare's tragedies to a critical examination, and this was almost equivalent to utter condemnation. He declares 'Othello' to be a 'bloody farce without salt or savour,' and says that 'in the neighing of a horse, or in the growling of a mastiff there is a meaning, there is a lively expression, and, may I say, more humanity, than many times in the tragical flights of Shakspeare.' In Rymer's judgment, almost everything in Shakspeare's plays is so wretched, that, in fact, he is surprised how critics could condescend to honour SO wretched a poet with critical discussions. In defence of the abused poet, thus attacked by the fanatical criticism of a man blinded by his preference for the ancients, appeared John Dennis, and Charles Gildon.† But their standpoint is in reality the same. They simply accuse Rymer of carrying the matter too far in his anger at the veneration paid to Shakspeare by his admirers; this is a new proof that their number, even though consisting of the people, must have been great, or have again commenced to increase. They deny that Shakepeare's plays possess any excellences, any wealth in profound and ingenious sentences, or truth to nature, originality, force and beauty of diction, etc.; and place him far below the ancients in all essential points-in composition, invention, character isation, in short, far inferior to them in poetical art.' Dennis censures Shakspeare more particularly for having paid no heed to 'poetical justice,' and adds, the good and the bad perishing promiscuously in the best of Shakspeare's tragedies, there can be either none or very weak instruction in them.' Gildon also remarks that Shakspeare follows some of the dramatic rules with such skill that one is involuntarily carried away by his plays, but that he as frequently ignores and violates the rules. Hence that his beauties are buried beneath a heap of ashes, isolated and fragmentary like the ruins of a temple, that there is no harmony in them. In short, Shakspeare, he thinks, is not

*The Impartial Critic, or Some Observations on Mr. Rymer's late book, etc., 1693.

†scellaneous Letters and Essays, 1694.

correct, not classic, because he possessed but a very superficial acquaintance with the ancient poets.

There was, however, no need for this critical opposition to Shakspeare's admirers; at least the dramatic art o! the day ran but small risk of becoming too much affected by Shakspeare's genius. It is true that Jeremy Collier, in 1697, published a pamphlet * glowing with Puritanical zeal against the obscenities of Congreve, Vanbrugh and others; and although these dramatists, together with Dryden, Dennis, etc., defended their cause with humour and ingenuity, still the public voice in general sided with the aggressors. After the Stuarts had been driven off the throne, and it had been ascended by the rigidly moral, coldly rational William, not only did the moral and religious spirit of the people, but the ethical and aesthetic feelings of cultured minds also, rebel against that licentiousness which set all morality at defiance, as well as against Lee's eccentricities and Otway's senseless and arbitrary proceedings. However, the clever coarseness of Congreve's comedies gave way only to make room for the senseless shallowness of the Italian opera, for the childish delight in splendid decorations and foreign songs and dances, partly also for the sober regularity of the classics. The French taste, or rather the classics according to the French cut, continued so decidedly to gain predominance that it completely displaced the old English elements of dramatic art, that is, the fundamental type of the drama according to Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, which, in spite of the striving after correctness, had until then been preserved.

Poets like Thomas Southern, who, next to Lee, was the best tragic writer of the day, encouraged this taste, in so far as comic parts were introduced into scenes of the highest tragic pathos in so unconnected and discordant a manner that they could not but have a disturbing effect, all the more so as their idea of the comic was not Sh kspeare's deep humour, but consisted of low jokes and obscene farces. Lee in his eccentricity, on the other hand, converted Shakspeare's pathos, his force of pasion,

Stage.

A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English

his fulness of subject matter, his variety in the change of scenes, in short, all the most characteristic features of the old English theatre, into pure caricature. As early as the seventh decade, therefore, Rymer made an attempt to introduce French tragedy. In 1678 appeared his tragedy. 'King Edgar or the English Monarch,' which is worked out quite in accordance with the French classic models, but is so undramatic, prosaic, and tedious, that it passed without producing any effect. However, towards the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth century translations from the French (of Corneille, Racine, Deschamps, Molière and others) continued on the increase, and already created more effect. Dennis, Gildon, ant others, through their criticisms spread the notion of the exclusive æsthetic value of the classic drama, and of the so called Aristotelian rules. Addison's Cato' (1713) confirmed and finished what had been prepared even by Ben Jonson's 'Catiline.' After Addison had proved that the English language was as able as the French to supply the place of action by long rhetorical speeches, and to moralise as tediously, as pathetically, and as sentimentally, and to be as diffuse, as fro ty, and as unnatural, in short, as correct as the French, the supremacy of the French classic style gained decided ascendancy. In place of tragedies like those of Beaumont and Fletcher's, and Dryden's, etc., there appeared those of Ambrose Philips, Aaron Hill, J. Hughes, L Theobald, Thomson and others; and in place of comedies in the style of Ben Jonson, Shadwell, Congreve, etc., those of Charles Johnson, Fielding, Cibber, and others, which were all worked upon French models, the comedies more or less in the style of Molière.* surely cannot be maintained that this change was a favourable one. On the contrary, the works of Otway and Lee, of Dryden, Shadwell and Congreve, as compared with the dramatic productions of the eighteenth century may be said to resemble a rich, late summer of the flourishing age of Shakspeare, as opposed to a barren winter.

It

*Of course the differences of style in the domain of comedy was not so distinctly marked, for the old English comedies of intrigue and Molière's comedies were much more nearly allied than Shakspeare's tragedies and those of Racine.

CHAPTER II.

SHAKSPEARE DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

THE period during which the French taste predominated was nevertheless the very period during which the fame of Shakspeare and the interest in his works again made considerable progress. Periods that are poor in production, periods of reflection and criticism, not only give rise to the imitation of foreign writers, but generally also induces the nation to take a more lively interest in its own literature of the past. Addison's and Steele's favourable criticisms of Shakspeare, which they published in their celebrated paper, The Spectator,' notwithstanding their preference for the French classical style, startled the admirers of the real classics, and hence it was perhaps they who more especially contributed to spread the interest in Shakspeare's works in circles of learned culture.

It was about this time that Nicholas Rowe published his edition of Shakspeare. Rowe was himself a popular writer of tragedies, whose inaccuracies were indeed censured, but who in fact possessed more appreciation for genuine poetry than poetic talent (as his preference for Shakspeare proves); however, his writings were nevertheless favourably received on account of the elegance of his diction and the flowing gracefulness of his verse. His already-mentioned edition of Shakspeare is the first critical and correctly printed edition, and owing to its intrinsic merits and its more convenient form was well fitted to supplant the four folios, the only editions until then published. Rowe had also collected data and traditions concerning the life of Shakspeare, and arranged a biography of the poet, which is prefixed to his works. Rowe, it is true, fully acknowledges the validity of the Aristotelian rules, and in regard to æsthetics he throughout favours the taste prevailing in his day, but remarks that 'it

would be hard to judge him (Shakspeare) by a law which he knew nothing of,' and excuses him for not having observed these rules on account of his having lived in a state of almo-t universal licence and ignorance. Rowe's edition is still very defective, for it is based upon the text of the last folio of 1685, and the latter, although, comparatively speaking, correctly printed, had by no means wholly avoided the carelessness, the slovenliness, and incorrectness of the print of the three earlier editions. Again, although Rowe maintains, in the dedication to the Duke of Somerset, that he had compared the various old editions with one another, and thus, as far as he was able, restored the correct readings, still he had evidently not done this, and thinking that the question consisted merely about misprints, has only corrected corrupted passages as he thought fit. However, these corrections are often very happy, and were suggested by fine poetical tact. The traditions he collected in regard to Shakspeare's life are not only most valuable to us, but likewise brought the person of the poet nearer to the people of Rowe's own day. The public troubled themselves as little about his æsthetic judgment as about his critical procedure, but were glad to possess a better, more convenient and cheaper edition of Shakspeare, and thanked him by making a great demand for his work.

The appearance of this edition, in spite of its imperfection, marks a second period in the history of the Shakspearian drama. The taste of the age and the principles of aesthetic criticism, it is true, long remained devoted to the French classic style, but the large number of new editions which each in its way endeavoured, so to say, to conciliate the spirit of the age with Shakspeare's works, sufficiently proves that a change in the mind and the taste of the nation was preparing; this change in the course of time gradually became distinctly apparent, and led the drama from the French classic style back to that of Shakspeare. It was in this spirit of conciliation that Pope-who perceived the insufficiency of Rowe's edition. --formed the ambitious resolve to win for himself an everlasting name as an art-critic and literary-historian, and at the same time to honour the immortal poet, by