to the force of external circumstances, may be clearly traced the Dang's apparent irresolution and impotence of will.' Sidney was a special favorite of Queen Bess,” and, when wishing to sail with Sir Francis Drake on an expedi tion against the Spaniards in the West Indies, was expressly forbidden, because of Elizabeth's anxiety, "lest she should lose the jewel of her dominions." Though no brilliant achievement illustrated his short life, the singular beauty of his character won for him the universal love and esteem of his countrymen. "The nobility of his nature and the winning courtesies in which its gentle magnanimity expressed itself, took captive all hearts while he lived, and have since kept sweet his memory. Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, he lives in the history of his country as a rare and finished type of English character, in which the antique honor of chivalry is seen shading into the graces of a modern gentleman. His sonnets are of rare merit; and his Arcadia is a work of indisputable genius, flushed with the light of a fine imagination, and its purity and tenderness of sentiment gives an authentic reflex of the lovely moral nature of the writer." The universal esteem in which he was held was strikingly manifested at his death, when a general mourning was observed throughout the country. Another parallel is noted in the plaintive verses of the wits and poets of his day. They lament him, "The prince of noblesse and chivalry," in language, which naturally suggests Ophelia's moaning over her distracted lover: "Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, The glass of fashion and the mould of form. Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!" Others, again, see in Hamlet a reflex of Shakespeare himself. The Prince is generally conceded to be in advance of 1 Cf. E. K. Chambers' "Hamlet", Introd. # Fox Bourne's "Memoirs of Sir Sidney". his age. It may, then, well be questioned how came the Poet to create a character so foreign to the spirit of his times? In the light of history, we are wont to view the Elizabethan era as ardent and vigorous. It was animated by a spirit which, restless at home, looked abroad, and, enamored of maritime greatness, reached out to enterprises of discovery and colonization. Laertes rather than Hamlet was its exponent. The national life, wholly absorbed in material growth and development, was little troubled with vexed questions and intellectual subtleties. What, therefore, so stirred the Poet's soul as to prompt him to create a character so remarkable and born out of time? We know that Shakespeare was not Hamlet, but, nevertheless, he seems to touch him on many sides. "The concentration of interest, the intensity of feeling, the hushed passion which characterize the play, make us feel that it has some exceptionally close relation to the Poet's own experience, and that, in an unusual degree, his personality pervades it." Is there perhaps something to connect the tragedy with the happenings of his own life and the development of his own spirit? Is there anything in the fact that it was produced in the tragic period of his dramatic labors and immediately precedes his two most sombre dramas? In their creation, we seem to see the creator's world-weariness reflected, and to catch his repeated sighs for a peaceful rest from the turmoil of a religious persecution which was harassing so many of his friends. Commentators are in agreement that a dark shadow had fallen upon the Poet, overclouding his spirits, and filling his mind with gloom. He was stirred to his inmost soul, and, in the grand series of tragedies composed at this period, reveals the thoughts and feelings then most agitating his troubled mind. In them he struggles with the stern realities of life as he felt them under the political abuses and religious "Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man". 3 Mabie: ᅡ persecution of the day; in them he emphasizes the weaknesses of human-kind in its baseness, lawless lust, ungoverned jealousy, serpent-like ingratitude, disregard of human rights. and shameless treachery; and over all he holds, as a moralist, the terrors of conscience and the unfailing vengeance of the sword of fate. Some commentators ignore the cause of this gloom as something unfathomable, others assign only partial reasons, and others again explain it in a manner wholly unsatisfactory. This, no doubt, is due to one-sided views, which arise from the perusal of imperfect or distorted histories of those troublesome times. But modern authors, less biased and more critical, enable the open-minded reader to see light amid darkness. Former historians, following in the wake of their predecessors, were accustomed to repeat the story of the golden days of Elizabeth, and to portray with magic pencil the unprecedented happiness of her people. The sunlit cloud, however, bears a very dark side, as is shown by the dismal picture drawn by Catholic writers of the same period. The nation was divided by religious dissensions into opposite parties of almost equal numbers, the oppressed and the oppressor. The operation of the penal statutes had ground many ancient and opulent families to the dust; and, enriched by their impoverishment, new families had sprung up in their place; and these, as they shared the plunder, naturally eulogized the new anti-Catholic system to which they owed their wealth and ascendency. But their prosperity was not the prosperity of the nation; it was that of one half obtained by the legalized robbery of the other. It is evident that neither Elizabeth nor her ministers understood the benefits of civil and religious liberty. The great stain on the character of Elizabeth, affirms Macaulay, is the fact that, being herself an Adiaphorist without scruples about 4 Cf. Furnival apud Gervinue, Introduction, & Of. 'Lingard's History of England", vol. VI, C. 9, p. 664. Edition.) e Essays, "Lord Burghley and his Times''. (Edinburgh conforming to the Catholic Church when conformity was expedient, she yet subjected that Church to a persecution even more odious than that of her sister Mary. "The persecutions of her reign," writes Hallam, "were often most infamously conducted. In fact, our courts of justice were little better than a cavern of murderers." 8 To see that Hamlet's gloom reflects the Poet's own, it is necessary to glance at that period of his life. When in 1586 Shakespeare fled to London to escape the persecution of the hated Puritan, Sir Lucy, it is more than likely that he was implicated in the religious turmoil of the times." He found the city a seething caldron of civil and religious strife. The Catholic gentry, notwithstanding the patriotism which prompted them to stand with the government against the friendly Catholic king of Spain, were still groaning under the pressure of incessant persecution. A spirit of unrest was prevalent, and mutterings of discontent were heard on every side. Elizabeth was accused of being under the thumb of her favorites, Leicester and Burghley. Though the Earl of Essex, after the death of Leicester, held the first place in the affections of the Queen, he was for many reasons in open opposition to Burghley, her prime-minister. With the hope of deposing him from power, he reckoned on the aid of the old nobility, who were suffering from oppression; upon a body of merchants, smarting under confiscations; and upon the severely persecuted Catholics, who looked on him as their bitterest enemy. With Essex, the leader of the party, was associated the Earl of Southampton. If the former, the greatest patron of learning in his day, was a warm friend of the Poet, still more so was the latter, to whom, as to an intimate friend and most lavish patron, Shakespeare dedi"Shakespeare's Family" by C. Stopes, C. VIII. "During this period, 142 priests were put to death, because of the exercise of their religious ministry; 90 more died prisoners in the Tower, while of the nobility and other distinguished laity 62 suffered martyrdom. Hundreds of the Catholic gentry, and thousands of the lower classes were fined into poverty, imprisoned, whipped, or had their ears pierced with hot irons for (Guggenberger, "General History of the Christian Era". consience sake". Vol. II, p. 296.) cated his chief poems. Essex, as an advocate of the liberal principle of religious toleration, had won over the Catholic party by openly proclaiming that "it was not an essential part of the reform worship, to persecute Catholics to death on account of their religion." His associate, Southampton, was cradled amid Catholic surroundings; and the traditional associations of his family, as well as his known friendship with Essex, naturally led the Catholic party to look upon the one and the other, as leaders in their attempt to regain freedom of religious worship. With these noble patrons, Shakespeare aligned himself. To promote their cause, by voicing popular discontent and by propagating the idea of deposing the minister of Elizabeth, he wrote his drama, The Uncrowning of Richard II.' In this play, the king is pictured as a mere puppet in the hands of worthless and ignoble favorites. The kingdom is bought and sold. England once glorious for conquests abroad, is now shamefully conquered at home by miscreant ministers, who in rapacity have leased out the realm like a "paltry farm." This drama, winning popularity, was repeatedly enacted, and even attracted the notice of the Queen and her ministers. In witnessing the play, Elizabeth recognized her proxy, and exclaimed to Lombarde and her attendants, "Know ye not that I am Richard the Second?''1o Burghley also felt that it reflected and caricatured his own policy of government. At his death in 1598, he was succeeded by Cecil, who continuing his father's course, was even more, energetic in opposition to Essex. It is remarkable that about this time, after Richard II had become somewhat trite, Shakespeare's new tragedy of similar import, was enacted upon the London stage. In Julius Caesar, noble patriots conspire the destruction of a at man who at the expense of the people's rights and liberties, ambitioned absolute sovereignty. Nothing tended more than Richard Simpson: "Politics of Shakespeare's Historical Plays''. 10 Fleay: The Chronicle History of the London Stage". |