"The course of true love" does not all "run | opinion. Malone has, with great hardihood, smooth" in these opening scenes. We have asserted that the part of the fable which the love that is crossed, and the love that is relates to the quarrels of Oberon and Titania unrequited; and, worse than all, the unhap- was "not of our author's invention." He piness of Helena makes her treacherous to has nothing to show in support of this, but her friend. We have little doubt that all the opinion of Tyrwhitt, that Pluto and this will be set straight in the progress of Proserpina, in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale,' the drama; but what Quince and his com- were the true progenitors of Oberon and pany will have to do with the untying of Titania; that Robert Greene boasts of having this knot is a mystery. performed the King of the Fairies, and that Greene has introduced Oberon in his play of 'James IV. Malone's assertion, and the mode altogether in which he speaks of this drama, furnish a decisive proof of his incompetence to judge of the higher poetry of Shakspere. Because the names of Oberon and Titania existed before Shakspere, he did not invent his Oberon and Titania! The opinion of Mr. Hallam may correct some of the errors which the commentators have laboured to propagate. "The MidsummerNight's Dream' is, I believe, altogether original in one of the most beautiful conceptions that ever visited the mind of a poet, the fairy machinery. A few before him had dealt in a vulgar and clumsy manner with popular superstitions; but the sportive, beneficent, invisible population of the air and earth, long since established in the creed of childhood, and of those simple as children, had never for a moment been blended with human mortals' among the personages of the drama. Lyly's 'Maid's Metamorphosis ' is probably later than this play of Shakspeare, and was not published till 1600. It is unnecessary to observe that the fairies of Spenser, as he has dealt with them, are wholly of a different race.”* To offer an analysis of this subtle and ethereal drama would, we believe, be as unsatisfactory as the attempts to associate it with the realities of the stage. With scarcely an exception, the proper understanding of the other plays of Shakspere may be assisted by connecting the apparently separate parts of the action, and by developing and reconciling what seems obscure and anomalous in the features of the characters. But to follow out the caprices and illusions of the loves of Demetrius and Lysander, of Helena and Hermia;-to reduce to prosaic description the consequence of the jealousies of Oberon and Titania;-to trace the Fairy Queen under the most fantastic of deceptions, where grace and vulgarity blend together like the Cupids and Chimeras of Raffaelle's Arabesques; and, finally, to go along with the scene till the illusions disappear-till the lovers are happy, and "sweet bully Bottom" is reduced to an ass of human dimensions ;—such an attempt as this would be worse even than unreverential criticism. No, the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream' must be left to its own influences. "It is probable," says Steevens, "that the hint of this play was received from Chaucer's Knight's Tale.'" We agree with this *Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 338. CHAPTER III. ROMEO AND JULIET. 'ROMEO AND JULIET' was first printed in the year 1597, under the following title:-'An excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants.' The second edition was printed in 1599, under the following title: The most excellent and lamentable Tragedie, of Romeo and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, and amended: As it hath bene sundry times publiquely acted, by the right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants.' The subsequent original editions, and the folio of 1623, are founded upon the quarto of 1599, from which they differ very slightly. The quarto of 1599 was declared to be "newly corrected, augmented, and amended." There can be no doubt whatever that the corrections, augmentations, and emendations were those of the author. There are typographical errors in this edition, and in all the editions, and occasional confusions of the metrical arrangement, which render it more than probable that Shakspere did not see the proofs of his printed works. But that the copy, both of the first edition and of the second, was derived from him, is, to our minds, perfectly certain. We know of nothing in literary history more curious or more instructive than the example of minute attention, as well as consummate skill, exhibited by Shakspere in correcting, augmenting, and amending the first copy of this play. We would ask, then, upon what canon of criticism can an editor be justified in foisting into a copy, so corrected, passages of the original copy, which the matured judgment of the author had rejected? Essentially the question ought not to be determined by any arbitrement whatever other than the judgment of the author. Even if his corrections did not appear, in every case, to be improvements, we should be still bound to receive them with respect and deference. We would not, indeed, attempt to establish it as a rule implicitly to be followed, that an author's last corrections are to be invariably adopted; for, as in the case of Cowper's Homer,' and Tasso's 'Jerusalem,' the corrections which these poets made in their first productions, when their faculties were in a great degree clouded and worn out, are properly considered as not entitled to supersede what they produced in brighter and happier hours. Mr. Southey has admirably stated the reason for this in the advertisement to his edition of Cowper's 'Homer.' But, in the case of Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet,' the corrections and augmentations were made by him at that epoch of his life when he exhibited "all the graces and facilities of a genius in full possession and habitual exercise of power." ""* The augmentations, with one or two very trifling exceptions, are amongst the most masterly passages in the whole play, and include many of the lines that are invariably turned to, as some of the highest examples of poetical beauty. These augmentations, further, are so large in their amount, that, in Steevens's reprint, the first edition occupies only seventy-three pages; while the edition of 1609, in the same volume, printed in the same type as the first edition, occupies ninety-nine pages. The corrections are made with such exceeding judgment, such marvellous tact, that of themselves they completely overthrow the theory, so long submitted to, that Shakspere was a careless writer. Such being the case, we consider ourselves justified in treating the labour of Steevens and other editors, in making a patchwork text out of the author's first and second copies, as utterly worthless. We most readily acknowledge our own particular obligations to them; for, unless they had collected a great mass of materials, no modern edition could have been properly undertaken. But we, nevertheless, cannot conceal * Coleridge's 'Literary Remains.' "I never shall forget it,Of all the days of the year" our opinion, that as editors they were rash, | All this particularity with reference to the and as critics they were cold and unimagi- earthquake— native; and we hold it to be the highest duty to attempt to undo what they have done, when they approach their author, as in their manufacture of a text for 'Romeo and Juliet,'" without reverence." We believe, as they did not, "that his own judgment is entitled to more respect than that of any or all his critics;"* and we shall attempt to vindicate that judgment on every occasion, upon the great principle laid down by Bentley:-"The point is not what he might have done, but what he has done." In attempting to settle the Chronology of Shakspere's plays, there are, as in every other case of literary history, two species of evidence to be regarded-the extrinsic and the intrinsic. Of the former species of evidence we have the one important fact that a 'Romeo and Juliet,' by Shakspere, however wanting in the completeness of the 'Romeo and Juliet' which we now possess, was published in 1597. The enumeration of this play, therefore, in the list by Francis. Meres, in 1598, adds nothing to our previous information. In the same manner, the mention of this play by Marston, in his tenth satire, first published in 1599, only shows us how popular it was: "Luscus, what's play'd to-day? i' faith, now I was for the audience. The poet had to exhibit the minuteness with which unlettered people, and old people in particular, establish a date, by reference to some circumstance which has made a particular impression upon their imagination; but in this case he chose a circumstance which would be familiar to his audience, and would have produced a corresponding impression upon themselves. Tyrwhitt was the first to point out that this passage had, in all probability, a reference to the great earthquake which happened in England in 1580. Stow has described this earthquake minutely in his Chronicle, and so has Holinshed. "On the 6th of April, 1580, being Wednesday in Easter week, about six o'clock toward evening, a sudden earthquake happened in London, and almost generally throughout all England, caused such an amazedness among the people as was wonderful for the time, and caused them to make their earnest prayers to Almighty God!" The circumstances attendant upon this earthquake show that the remembrance of it would not have easily passed away from the minds of the people. The great clock in the palace at Westminster, and divers other clocks and bells, struck of themselves against the hammers with the shaking of the earth. lawyers supping in the Temple " ran from the tables, and out of their halls, with their knives in their hands." The people assembled at the theatres rushed forth into the fields, lest the galleries should fall. The roof of Christ Church, near to Newgate Market, was so shaken, that a large stone dropped out of it, killing one person, and mortally wounding another, it being sermontime. Chimneys toppled down, houses were shattered. Shakspere, therefore, could not have mentioned an earthquake with the minuteness of the passage in the Nurse's speech without immediately calling up some associations in the minds of his audience. He knew the double world in which an excited audience lives,-the half belief in the world The Reasoning such as this would, we acknowledge, be very weak if it were unsupported by evidence deduced from the general character of the performance, with reference to the maturity of the author's powers. But, taken in connection with that evidence, it becomes important. Now, we have no hesitation in believing, although it would be exceedingly difficult to communicate the grounds of our belief fully to our readers, that the alterations made by Shakspere upon his first copy of Romeo and Juliet,' as printed in 1597 (which alterations are shown in the second copy as printed in 1599), exhibit differences as to the quality of his mind of poetry amongst which they are placed | audience, the play was produced, as well as during a theatrical representation, and the written, in 1591. half consciousness of the external world of their ordinary life. The ready disposition of every audience to make a transition from the scene before them to the scene in which they ordinarily move,-to assimilate what is shadowy and distant with what is distinct and at hand,—is perfectly well known to all who are acquainted with the machinery of the drama. Actors seize upon the principle to perpetrate the grossest violations of good taste; and authors who write for present applause invariably do the same when they offer us, in their dialogue, a passing allusion, which is technically called a clap-trap. In the case before us, even if Shakspere had not this principle in view, the association-differences in judgment—differences in the of the English earthquake must have been cast of thought-differences in poetical power strongly in his mind when he made the-which cannot be accounted for by the Nurse date from an earthquake. Without reference to the circumstance of Juliet's age, "Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen,"― he would naturally, dating from the earthquake, have made the date refer to the period of his writing the passage instead of the period of Juliet's being weaned :"Then she could stand alone." But, according to the Nurse's chronology, Juliet had not arrived at that epoch in the lives of children till she was three years old. The very contradiction shows that Shakspere had another object in view than that of making the Nurse's chronology tally with the age of her nursling. Had he written, ""T is since the earthquake now just thirteen years," we should not have been so ready to believe that 'Romeo and Juliet' was written in 1593; but as he has written, ""T is since the earthquake now eleven years," in defiance of a very obvious calculation on the part of the Nurse, we have little doubt that he wrote the passage eleven years after the earthquake of 1580, and that, the passage being also meant to fix the attention of an growth of his mind during two years only. 6 Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, These lines are not in the first copy; but "The earth, that 's Nature's mother, is her tomb," look like the work of one who had been reading and thinking more deeply of nature's mysteries than in his first delineation of the benevolent philosophy of this good old man. But, as we advance in the play, the development of the writer's powers is more and more displayed in his additions. The critical reader may trace what has been added by the foot-notes in the 'Pictorial' and 'Library' editions. Tieck, who, as a translator of Shakspere, and as a profound and beautiful critic, has done very much for cultivating the knowledge, built upon love, which the Germans possess of our poet, has not been trammelled by Malone and Chalmers, but has placed 'Romeo and Juliet' amongst Shakspere's early plays. We have no exact statements on this subject by Tieck; but, in a very delightful imaginary scene between Marlowe and Greene, he has made Marlowe describe to his brother dramatist the first performance of Romeo and Juliet' of which he had been witness*. Tieck has made this imaginary conversation a vehicle for the most enthusiastic praise of this play. Marlowe describes the performance as taking place at the palace of the Lord Hunsdon. He had expected, he says, that one of his own plays would have been performed; but he found that it was 66 that old poem, which we have all long known, worked up into a tragedy." After Marlowe has run through the general characteristics of the play, with an eloquent admiration, mingled with deep regret that he himself had been able to approach so distantly the excellence of that "out-sounding mouth, which a godlike muse has herself inspired with the sweetest of her kisses," he thus replies to Greene's inquiry as to who was the poet :-"Wilt thou believe?-one of Henslowe's common comedians, who has already served him many years on very low wages." ." "And now, if thy fever has passed," said Greene, “let us look on this thing in the broad light. This is merely such a passing apparition as we have seen many of before-admired, gaped at, praised without limit but full of faults and imperfections, and soon to be altogether forgotten." "The * Dichterleben,' von Tieck: Berlin, 1828, p. 128, &c. same thing," said Marlowe, "the same words were whispered to me by my base envy, when I observed the universal delight, the deep emotion, of every spectator. I endeavoured to comfort myself therewith, and again to recover my lost honours in this miserable manner. I fled from the company; and the house-steward, who had acted as an assistant, gave me the manuscript of the play. In my lonely chamber I sat and read the whole night, and read again,—and each time admired the more; for much that had appeared to me episodical or superfluous acquired, on more exact examination, a significancy and needful fulness. The good house-steward gave me also another poem, which the author has not yet quite completed, 'Venus and Adonis,' that I might read it in my nightly leisure. My friend, even here, even in this sweet narrative,even in this soft speech and voluptuous imagery,-in this intoxicating realm, where I, till now, only looked upon likenesses of myself,—I am completely, completely beaten. O this man, this more than mortal! to him (I feel as if my life depends on it) I must become the most intimate friend or the most bitter enemy. Either I will yet find my way to him, or I will succumb to this Apollo, and he may then speak over my outstretched corpse the last words of praise or blame." Tieck has thus decidedly placed the date of the performance of 'Romeo and Juliet' before 1592,—for Greene died in that year, and Marlowe in the year following. The 'Venus and Adonis,' which is here mentioned as not quite completed, was published in 1593. Tieck built his opinion, no doubt, upon internal evidence; and upon this evidence we must be content to let the question rest. |