Complex Structure.

CHAPTER II.

(a) Conventional-Shakspere's choice of epic subjects, such as Lear," and his introduction of episodes into the ground-plan-" Troilus and Cressida"-These dramas not written for the sake of popularity, but for his own satisfaction as an artist -They are transcendental in their character; but they are also conservative as against the reactionists of his age, and intended to reëstablish conventions, disturbed by revolution, but designed to be better secured by the Reformation-The reconstruction of order and authority henceforth his aim-Differences between Shakspere and Homer - Analogies between him and Bacon-" Cymbeline"This play also in favour of marital conventions-Treats of a period more civilised than the two former plays-Mulmutius Dunwallo, the legendary founder of our laws-Shakespere's knowledge and art-Dr. Johnson's incompetency as a dramatic critic-Shakspere's testimony in favour of woman and of marriage—“A Winter's Tale" -Ballad literature-Second marriages.

(b) Universal-Ideal and purely Poetic-Imagination-" Macbeth”— -Superstition-Pertains to the age as well as to the hero-The weird-sisters used as exponents of his mental state-Correction of some mistakes usually made as to the relative positions of Macbeth and his wife-The symbolic nature of this tragedy, and its treatment-The English equally superstitious with the Scotch at the period of the action-The relative nexus of religion and superstition-Political motives, with the superstitious, dominate right— Lady Macduff-The cluster of Roman plays-" Coriolanus". "Julius Cæsar". (6 Antony and Cleopatra."

(c) Abstract and Intellectual-The purely imaginative and ideal play of "The Tempest"-Shakspere's two last, and somewhat incomplete, dramas of "Timon of Athens" and "Henry VIII.”— The Globe Theatre burned down.

(a) CONVENTIONAL.

A COMPARATIVELY simple structure had sufficed Shakspere in the composition of the two preceding plays. He now manifestly emulated a more epic and com

plex method. He sought a story with episodes; and he found one in that of King Lear, or, more properly speaking, he made it such. He resorted to the legendary period of English history for his leading materials, for in that period the imagination could assert its privileges; and he added to those materials. an incident from the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, that by the help of an episode he might invest his tragedy with an epic character. For the former he went to Geoffrey of Monmouth and Camden, and also derived something-but that something not much— from a previous drama on the subject, which had been conceived and executed in the spirit of a chronicle-play. This was not the spirit in which Shakspere undertook the mighty argument. His King Lear is emphatically a tragedy, and the greatest of all tragedies. Mark, I say the greatest of all tragedies-not the greatest of all dramas. Tragic elements are alone those of which this marvellous work is compounded; and they are mingled and balanced with consummate art. To some Shakspere's Lear may appear an irregular, somewhat chaotic work; to me it appears, both in its inner spirit and its outward form, the most artistic work in the world.

The leading incident of the first act, derived from the old legend, has been condemned. The justification for this, however, is contained in the statement, it is "derived from the old legend." The advantage proposed to himself by a dramatist in selecting a story from an old chronicle, a legend, or a romance, is, that in so doing he goes out of himself and takes

something from authority; thus, in the first instance, securing the element of objectivity in the original argument of his work. Thereupon he can all the more confidently let the subjective supervene, and gradually pervade it with that inner life whose foun`tain is in himself. He thus gets rid of the responsibility of asserting the probability of the main incidents, but accepts them as admitted actualities, and also as things which it would be unlikely that he would have invented.

Coleridge on this point remarks, that Lear is the only serious performance of Shakespere the interests and situations of which are derived from the assumption of a gross improbability; whereas Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedies are, almost all of them, founded on some out-of-the-way accident or exception to the general experience of mankind. Beaumont and Fletcher, no doubt, in this way sought to give an appearance of objectivity to their themes; but we think that Shakspere's practice is better grounded. Our transcendental critic proceeds to remark on the poet's matchless judgment in treating his borrowed materials. First, allowing the improbability of Lear's conduct in the first scene, he asserts as his stand-point that "it was an old story rooted in the popular faitha thing taken for granted already, and consequently without any of the effects of improbability;" and secondly, he contends that "it is merely the canvas for the characters and passions-a mere occasion for -and not, in the manner of Beaumont and Fletcher, perpetually recurring as the cause and sine qua non

of, the incidents and emotions. Let," he adds, "the first scene of this play have been lost, and let it only be understood that a fond father had been duped by hypocritical professions of love and duty on the part of two daughters to disinherit the third, previously, and deservedly, more dear to him; and all the rest of the tragedy would retain its interest undiminished and be perfectly intelligible. The accidental is nowhere the groundwork of the passions; but that which is catholic, which in all ages has been, and ever will be, close and native to the heart of manparental anguish from filial ingratitude, the genuineness of worth though coffined in bluntness, and the execrable vileness of a smooth iniquity."

A consideration of Lear naturally leads us back to the subject and prevailing spirit of Shakspere's first tragedy, Hamlet. Both are based on filial obligation. Yet how different the treatment! The first, a simple straightforward development of a single story; the second, a complex illustration of the great theme, by means of a leading action with interdependent episodes. The venerable paternity is also produced, not as a shadow from the spirit-world, but an actual living person with material surroundings. And on this depends much of the majesty which we all feel to belong to this drama. It is, indeed, owing to this that Lear is the most sublime of Shakspere's works.

We have said this tragedy is the greatest in the world. Its subject is the greatest. Paternal love, suffering violence, and, being angered, becoming awful

Paternal Love.

297 as it is divine. The most awful of exhibitions is a Wroth Love. Wonderful is Shakspere in representing the antagonisin of the sentiments. Reflect that all representation is by antagonism. O, that it were not so that in purity, the pathetic, as the ground of the sympathetic, might be rendered substantially present, even as now it is accidentally visible in antipathy and conflict! The relation which connects father with child, and the mother with the father, should be even the same as makes the father at one with the Love, of which the father's heart is, in all its beatings, but the pulse, and the paternal affections but the noblest throes. There is a power, a central band, as it were, by which the divinity of Love unites two elements, and synthesises them in results, both visible and invisible. What is earth itself but a relation, by which Love's divinity reconciles men and animals? Of this the paternal sentiment is an application, and progresses from the universal relation which is the matrix of all, and to which, as to a common parent, both father and child must be referred. To it all self-will, which is so often substituted for the universal relation whereof it is the lowest mode, should be surrendered; so that in one spiritual being all intellect and energy should conspire to a purpose and an end simply divine.

ན་

But in dramatic art we must be content with negative instances. Lear must, accordingly, be portrayed as a human father. Yet his love must have been strong and high, which, even in dotage, could think of divesting itself of all, for his offsprings'