SHAKESPEARE : HIS MIND AND ART.*

THERE never was a writer who approached so closely as Shake- speare to the absolutely impersonal. Others, even when they do not obtrude their personality, never fail to reveal themselves. Milton is discernible through Paradise Lost, and no one can have read the Divina Commedia without forming a considerable ac- quaintance with Dante's sentiments and opinions ; at any rate, such as would enable him, without the slightest difficulty, to say whether his author's proclivities were Guelph or Ghibelline, or who were his friends, and who his foes. But it is not so with Shake- speare. Was he a Catholic or a Protestant, a Monarchist or Republican ? On which side were his sympathies enlisted in the Civil War he describes so well ? Scott, indeed, charges him with Lancastrian partialities, but the accusation is placed in the mouth of a descendant of a Yorkist family, where it simply amounts to a confession that the poet's impartiality was far too thorough to suit the zeal of an enthusiastic partisan. With a fidelity which is enchanting or merciless, as the case may be, he reproduces the figures which nature presents to his observation, Cordelia and Edmund, Ingo and his victim, but for aught that appears his sympathies are as much with the one as the other :— " He nor commands nor grieves, Pleads for itself the fact ; As unrelenting Nature leaves Her every act."

This being so, it is needless to expatiate on the difficulty of the task which Professor Dowden has set himself, in the execution of which he has evidently spared neither thought nor pains—making himself, by way of preliminary, master of all the literature on the subject, Transatlantic and Continental, as well as English—and which, in the excellent book before us, he has performed with remarkable success. He seeks not only to penetrate through the plays to the man who stands behind them, but to describe the various phases of development through which his mind passed, as shown by the peculiarities of the works of dif- ferent periods of his life. Evidently such an object requires less an exhaustive study of each play, than such a perception of • Shakapere: his Mind and Art. By Edward Dowden, LL.D. London : Henry 8. Mug and Co.

its salient features as may suffice for the purpose of effective com- parison ; and accordingly, he does not attempt minute analysis of every individual drama. It is matter of regret, however, that he should have felt himself compelled to reserve " Troilus and Cressida" for future criticism, not being as yet able to see his way "clearly through certain difficulties respecting its date and ethical significance," for one would have much liked to see this interesting but difficult play treated by so skilful a hand.

Professor Dowden repudiates the notion that there was a con- sciously moral purpose in the Elizabethan drama. Receptivity and the power of accurately reproducing in all its varieties the life which he saw around him were the essential requirements of tfie dramatist, although as " a faithful presentation of the facts of the world does not leave us indifferent to good and evil, but rouses within us, more than all maxims and all preaching can, an inextinguishable loyalty to good," his art had a distinctly moral tendency. But not consciously so,— "There is perhaps no body of literature which has less of an express tendency for the intellect than the drama of the age of Elizabeth. It is the outcome of a rich and manifold life ; it is full of a sense of enjoyment, and overflowing with energy ; but it is for the most part absolutely devoid of a conscious purpose. The chief play-wright of the movement declared that the end of playing, ' both at the first and now, was and is to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature.' A mirror has no tendency."

Again, in speaking of " Romeo and Juliet," he quotes Gervinits's opinion on the subject

"In accordance with his view that the Friar represents the chorus in this tragedy, Gervinus discovers as the leading idea of the piece a lesson of moderation ; the poet makes his confession that ' excess in any enjoy- ment, however pure in itself, transforms its 'sweet into bitterness, that devotion to any single feeling, however noble, bespeaks its ascendancy ; that this ascendancy moves the man and woman out of their natural spheres.' " adding the curt comment that " it is somewhat hard upon Shakespeare to suppose that he secreted in each of his dramas a central idea for a German critic to discover ;" and proceeds, in further deprecation of the criticism, to poke fun at Gervinus about Cordelia's view of the filial relation and Portia's (of "Julius Caesar ") of wifely loyalty.

People are apt to talk of Shakespeare's manner as if it were, so to speak, a stereotyped quality ; and no doubt there are certain characteristics which, although in different degree, are every- where apparent, as, for instance, his wit, humour, and truth to nature, or, as Professor Dowden prefers to call it, his loyalty to fact,—though, by the way, the latter became much firmer and great differences were introduced into the management of the 'former, as time went on. If the assertion of a French critic is correct, that " l'art a besoin d'un energique parti pris ; pour exciter l'amour du bien et la haine du mal ll tree des types absolus, qu'on chercherait vainement dans le spectacle du monde reel," Shakespeare's claims to the name of artist must fall to the ground, for his procedure is exactly the reverse of all this. But Mr. Fronde is here a more trustworthy guide, who says "the greatness of a poet depends upon his being true to nature, without insisting that nature should theorise with him, without making her more just, more philosophical, more moral than reality, and in difficult matters leaving much to re- flection which cannot be explained," describing in these words Shakespeare's method with an accuracy which could not be sur- passed. He makes nature exactly as just, as philosophical, and as moral as reality, and no more, About the requirements of a " shallow poetical justice " he troubles himself not at all, nor does he ever attempt to give an answer to the mysterious questions which life raises, contenting himself with stating them fully and. fairly :—

" There are certain problems which Shakspere at once pronounces in- soluble. He does not, like Milton, propose to give any account of the origin of evil. He does not, like Dante, pursue the soul of man through circles of unending torture, or spheres made radiant by the eternal presence of God. Satan, in Shakspere's poems, does not come voyaging on gigantic vans across Chaos to find the earth. No great deliverer of mankind descends from the heavens. Here, upon the earth, evil is— such was Shakspere's declaration in the most emphatic accent. Iago actually exists. There is also in the earth a sacred passion of deliver- ance, a pare redeeming ardour. Cordelia exists. This Shakspere can tell for certain. But how lago can be, and why Cordelia lies strangled across the breast of Lear—are these questions which you go on to ask? Something has been already said of the severity of Shakspere. It is a portion of his severity to decline all answers to such questions as these. Is ignorance painful ? Well, then, it is painful. Little solutions of your large difficulties can readily be obtained from priest or philosophe. Shakspere prefers to let you remain in the solemn presence of a mystery. He does not invite you into his little church or his little library brilli- antly illuminated by philosophical or theological rnshlights. You remain in the darkness. But you remain in the vital air. And the great night is overhead."

But instead of one manner, it would be much more to the purpose to talk of at last three,—an Early, Middle, aud hate manner ; for structural arrangement, type of character (and notably of female character), in short, almost everything, down to the very form of his verse, underwent considerable change at various stages of his career.' The conceits, the quibbles, and the comparatively diffuse diction of "Love's Labour's Lost" and 4,The Two Gentlemen of Verona" are hardly more clearly dis- tinguishable from the concise terseness, the crowding ideas, and ventences weighty with thought of the later plays, than are the rtymed quatrains and couplets, the succession of balanced lines, with unvaried cm.sura and regular ending, of the former, from the

abrupt diction, the broken lines, the :varied caesuras, and the double endings which characterise the latter.

He may correctly divide Shakespeare's intellectual activity into four periods. First, the period of the early Comedies, when the poet was, as it were, feeling his way, uncertain of the fittest direction for the development of his powers. Second, the period of the Histories, when, not caring as yet to deal with the abstruser soul-questions presented by tragedy, perhaps feeling incompetent to handle them to his own satisfaction, he occupied himself with the finite issues of worldly success and failure presented by history ; turning" with a long, easeful sigh of relief," at the con- clusion of his graver labours, to the composition of some of the most joyous comedies that ever flowed from his pen. This is the time at which he wrote "Much Ado about Nothing," with its playful wit-encounters between Beneclick and Beatrice ; -" As You Like It," with its saucy, loving Rosalind, its philosophising Jacques, and inimitable Touchstone ; together with " Twelfth Night," the brightest and tenderest of all. Third, the period in which he gave to the world his great Tragedies, and which contains but one comedy, and that one in which the tragic woof is so closely interwoven with the warp of comedy, and the graver background so distinctly visible, that it seems almost like a tragedy in disguise. Fourth, that in which, after portraying the deepest emotions of the soul, " the sorrow and evil of the earth," and standing baffled before the insoluble mysteries of life, he concluded his artistic career by imagining Prospero and Miranda, Perdita and Her- mione,—to say nothing of Autolycus, that most charming of all 4' snappers-up of unconsidered trifles " that ever were " littered tinder Mercury."

To the question whether, during the period of the Tragedies, Shakespeare's soul was in a state of revolt against the world, as some are so fond of asserting, Professor Dowden replies unhesi- tatingly in the negative, believing, indeed, that the serene light which irradiates the later plays betokens a sense of conquest achieved, and self-mastery won, but rejecting altogether the 4' Sturm and Drang" period of Shakespeare's life as existing only in the imagination of his German critics :— " This period during which Shakspere was engaged upon his great tragedies was not, as it has been sometimes represented, a period of de- pression and of gloom in Shakspere's spiritual progress. True, be was now sounding the depths of evil as he had never sounded them before. But his faith in goodness had never been so strong and sure.

Were his delight in man and woman, his faith and joy in human goodness, stained with sullenness and ignoble resentment, could be have discovered Horatio and Kent, Cordelia and Desdemona? No. If the sense of wrong sank deep into his soul, if life became harder and more grave, yet he surmounted all sense of personal wrong, and while life grew more severe, it grew more beautiful.'

Quot homines, tot sententhe,—and we do not, of course, pretend in all things to agree with our author. Though he does not fall into the error of some of the Germans, who find system and deep-laid design everywhere, and would almost have us believe that each play is part of a deliberately organised whole, he hardly seems sufficiently to regard Shakespeare as "the needy youth who left his native town, probably under pressure of poverty," and became a struggling playwright, whose first duty must have been to fill the house. Nor can we concur in some of his verdicts on individuals. Space forbids an enumeration of these points of difference, which are, moreover, as far as his purpose is concerned, of very small importance, but we may mention two or three.

To begin with the play of "Hamlet." If Polonius had been such a contemptible old charlatan as Professor Dowden describes, he could scarcely have obtained and preserved such esteem and affection from his children. Again, he is hard—contemptuously hard—on Ophelia. No doubt she has not the quick intelligence and independent strength of Juliet, nor the direct resolute will and practical efficiency of Helena (who certainly is, as he puts it, "abundantly courageous"), but it does not follow that she should be such a poor creature as he represents her. He seems to us entirely to misread the scene where Hamlet found her sewing in her closet, and he sneers at her docility to her father's orders, as if filial obedience were altogether blameworthy. Surely it is not without its good points.

In the play of " Macbeth," too, he regards Lady Macbeth's swoon as real, and caused by horror at the murder of the grooms ; whereas to us it has always appeared a feint, to distract attention from the ill-timed fit of loquacity which was seizing her husband. It is not likely that a lady who had so lately announced, with cynical indifference, her intention of gilding the grooms' faces with Duncan's blood, should be so completely overcome by the news of their sudden death. As has been already said, howeVer, these and such like objections do not, even if well founded, diminish the merit of this able performance.

A few words in conclusion. The book before us nowhere directly notices the controversy raised by those who would fain persuade us that Bacon wrote the plays which go under Shakespeare's name, its author presumably refusing even to entertain seriously a proposition so absurd. But a conviction of the distinct personality of these two great men could hardly be more clearly expressed than in the following passage, which we commend to the attention of the misguided individuals referred to :—

"Let us, remaining at the same point of view, glance now at Bacon and the scientific movement. Bacon and Shakspere stand far apart. In moral character and in gifts of intellect and soul we should find little resemblance between them. While Bacon's sense of the presence of physical law in the universe was for his time extraordinarily de- veloped, ho seems practically to have acted upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are not inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by Shakspere in the minutest as well as in the greatest concerns of human life. Bacon's superb intellect was neither disturbed nor im- pelled by the promptings of his heart. Of perfect friendship or of per- fect love he may, without reluctance, be pronounced incapable. Shak- spore yielded his whole being to boundless and measureless devotion. Bacon's ethical writings sparkle with a frosty brilliance of fancy, playing over the worldly maxims which constituted his wisdom for the conduct of life, Shakspere reaches to the ultimate truths of human life and character through a supreme and indivisible energy of love, imagine • tion, and thought."