Of this Edition of^^A Book of Homage to
Shakespeare ' ixyo copies have been printed
of which 1000 are for sale
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
TO COMMEMORATE THE THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH MCMXVI
PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY FREDERICK HALL PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
rights reserved
Shakespeare Tercen tetiarii U)l(>
1916
SHAKESPEARE
EDITED BY ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, LITT.D., F.B.A.
HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY COMMITTEE
(C
H-
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO
SHAKESPEARE
EDITED BY ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, LITT.D., F.B.A.
'» \ HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY COMMITTEE
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PA
Jtqo
PRINTED IN ENGLAND.
.,,- ,,,v ,:•.;::;,::. PREFACE ;•:,„!, K;-.,:,;; ;i,.. /, ^
FOR years past — as far back as 1904 — many of us had been looking forward to the Shakespeare Tercentenary as the occasion for some fitting memorial to symbolize the intellectual fraternity of mankind in the universal homage accorded to the genius of the greatest Englishman. We had hoped that, on a site which has already been acquired, a stately building, to be associated with his august name, equipped and adequately endowed for the furtherance of Shakespearian drama and dramatic art generally, would have made the year 1916 memorable in the annals of the English stage.
At a noteworthy meeting held in July 1914 of delegates nominated by many institutions, universities, societies, and other bodies, to consider the question of the observance of the Shakespeare Tercentenary, Lord Bryce as President of the British Academy presiding, it was unanimously resolved, on the motion of the American Ambassador, His Excellency W. H. Page, * That the Tercentenary of the death of Shakespeare should be commemorated in a manner worthy of the veneration in which the memory of Shakespeare is held by the English-speaking peoples and by the world at large '. The delegates, representing the British Empire, the United States, and foreign countries, were constituted as a General Committee, and an Executive Committee was appointed, with Lord Plymouth as Chairman, and myself as Honorary Secretary.
Then came the War ; and the dream of the world's brotherhood to be demonstrated by its common and united commemoration of Shakespeare, with many another fond illusion, was rudely shattered. In face of sterner duties all such projects fell necessarily into abeyance. Some months ago, however, it was recognized (and the call came to us from many quarters at home and abroad) that not even under present conditions should the Shakespeare Tercentenary be allowed to pass unobserved, though the scope of our original programme would of
viii A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
necessity be modified, — though we could not hope to witness even the foundation of the proposed Shakespeare Theatre, nor to welcome, as we had anticipated, the many devotees of the poet who would have wished to participate in our Commemoration.
We knew we should have our friends with us in spirit on the great occasion ; and it seemed to me, in one way at least, possible to link their homage with ours, and to hand down to posterity a worthy Record of the widespread reverence for Shakespeare as shared with the English- speaking world by our Allies and Neutral States, namely, by the publica tion, in honour of the Tercentenary, of a Book of Homage to Shakespeare, with contributions in prose and verse, representing the ubiquity of the poet's mighty influence. Accordingly, encouraged by those whom I ventured to consult, and subsequently with the approval of the Ter centenary Committee, I took upon myself the responsible and onerous task, complicated by present conditions ; and the ready and generous co-operation of one hundred and sixty-six Homagers finds expression in the present volume. Time and space necessitated certain limitations ; and it has not been possible to include many who would have been willing to join in our Homage, and whose tributes to the poet would have been valued by all Shakespearians. The original plan of the book fixed the maximum number of contributors at one hundred. It soon became clear that this would have to be increased, and that the British Empire alone could not well be represented by less than one hundred contributors, with some seventy more representing America, France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Spanish-speaking countries, Portugal, Rou- mania, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Poland, ' Jugoslavia ', Finland, Japan, China, Persia, Armenia — to follow the arrangement of the book, where the nations are grouped by languages, namely, English, Romance, Dutch, Scandinavian, Slavonic, &c. These languages, however, do not exhaust the list, for from British subjects we have tributes, not only in the classic dead languages of antiquity, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit, but also in the living languages of Ireland, Wales, India (Bengalee, Urdu, and Burmese), Egypt (Arabic), and South Africa (the Bechuana dialect).
It is indeed a long-drawn procession that is here presented ; and
PREFACE ix
before it is graciously ushered in by our honoured chieftain Mr. Thomas Hardy, it is my pleasant duty to record my profound thanks to him and to all those who have made it possible for the Book of Homage to come forth amid the throes of this world-travail. I am grateful to many of my contributors for much kind indulgence in difficult and delicate questions ; and I owe a special debt of gratitude to the trusty advisers who have given me the benefit of their valued counsel. I regret that, for various reasons, it has not been possible to give translations in all cases where a full English rendering would have been desirable ; the marginal paraphrases will, I trust, prove helpful, as indicating the general purport of certain contributions in languages not generally known. A few contributions have unfortunately not reached me in time for inclusion in the volume.
While the work has been in progress, we have had to mourn the loss of some whose names would have added lustre to the Roll of our Homagers — the late Mr. Henry James, so noble a link between the English-speaking peoples ; my ever revered and kind friend Mr. Stopford Brooke, to whom, for his Primer of English Literature and its inspiring force, the teaching of English literature, in my opinion, owes more than to any other man of our time ; Canon Ellacombe, the nonagenarian, whose Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare made Shakespeare's Garden of Flowers burgeon forth anew ; Count Ugo Balzani, endeared to many Englishmen, who had been nominated by the Lincei, of Rome, to represent that learned Academy at the Tercentenary Commemoration, who was present at the meeting constituting the General Committee in 1914, and who was preparing his Homage to Shakespeare at the time of his lamented death ; and, lastly, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Roumania, whose memory, as Carmen Sylva, is enshrined in the hearts of those who cherish the tender blossoms of sweet poesy. All these and others should be gratefully remembered, for they are with us in our Homage.
I desire to express my sincerest thanks to many who have helped me in various ways — Mr. Nevill Forbes, Reader in Russian in the Uni versity of Oxford (for his excellent translations of the Russian and other Slavonic contributions) ; Professor Margoliouth, Laudian Professor of
x A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
Arabic in the University of Oxford (for reading the proofs of the Arabic poems, and for summarizing their contents) ; Professor Paul Hamelius, of the University of Liege (for valued assistance with Dutch and Flemish); Sir Charles Eliot, Principal of the University of Hong-kong, and the Rev. S. B. Drake, King's College, London, in respect of Chinese ; Pro fessor Longford (for advice on Japanese) ; Mrs. Rhys Davids (for her good offices in helping me to secure adequate representation of Burmese); Miss Laurence Alma-Tadema ; Mr. Mikhail, an Egyptian student of King's College ; Miss Alice Werner, Miss Winifred Stephens, and Miss Mabel Day.
I would add my best thanks to Mr. J. F. Blumhardt, Professor of Hindustani, University College, London, for generously preparing for me a comprehensive catalogue of all the versions of Shakespeare in the Aryan languages and dialects of India, for a survey I had contemplated of the renderings of Shakespeare into foreign languages.
Finally, I wish to place on record my profound appreciation of the manner in which Mr. F. J. Hall, Controller of the Oxford University Press, and his staff, have carried this work through, under exceptional difficulties. But for Mr. Hall's zeal, and the marvellous organization of the Oxford University Press, the Book could not possibly have been published in time for the Tercentenary. The workmanship speaks for itself. I desire also to express my thanks to Mr. Emery Walker for his share in the artistic side of the volume.
It is my hope that this Shakespeare Tercentenary Book may in augurate the annual issue of a volume of Shakespeare studies, or, at all events, that it may help forward some Shakespearian work ; and to this purpose I propose to devote the profits, if any, accruing from this labour of loyal homage and dutiful reverence, from this Book of Homage to Shakespeare — and to Shakespeare's England.
I. G,
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, W.C. April 20, 1916.
PAGE
THOMAS HARDY, O.M.
To SHAKESPEARE AFTER 300 YEARS . . ^ . . . i
M. H. SPIELMANN, F.S.A.
' THIS FIGURE, THAT THOU HERE SEEST PUT ' . . . 3
AUSTIN DOBSON
THE RIDDLE . . .13
FREDERIC HARRISON, D.C.L., Litt.D., LL.D.
A DREAM OF PARNASSUS 14
LAURENCE BINYON, author of London Visions, &c.
ENGLAND'S POET 21
THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M., President of the British Academy
SOME STRAY THOUGHTS .... . . . 22
HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL GASQUET, author of Henry VIII and
the English Monasteries, &c.
SHAKESPEARE 25
JOHN DRINKWATER, author of Poems of Men and Hours, &c.
FOR APRIL 23, 1616-1916 . . . . . ..'. , 30
REV. WILLIAM BARRY, D.D. (Rome), author of The New Antigone
THE CATHOLIC STRAIN IN SHAKESPEARE . . . .; 31
MRS. ALICE MEYNELL
HEROINES r.( '; .. . 35
Xll
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
JOHN GALSWORTHY, author of The Silver Box, &c.
THE GREAT TREE 37
F. R. BENSON, LL.D.
A STRATFORDIAN'S HOMAGE 39
H. B. IRVING, M.A. (Oxford)
THE HOMAGE OF THE ACTORS 41
GORDON BOTTOMLEY
ON PEACEFUL PENETRATION 43
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, author of Songs of Killarney, &c.
THE FAIRIES' HOMAGE- 47
PROFESSOR W. P. KER, LL.D., F.B.A., University Professor of English Language and Literature, University College, London ; author of Epic and Romance, &c.
CERVANTES, SHAKESPEARE, AND THE PASTORAL IDEA . . 49
EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., LL.D.
THE SONGS OF SHAKESPEARE 52
EVELYN UNDERBILL (MRS. STUART MOORE), author of Mysticism, a Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness, Practical Mysticism, &c.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . . . . . .56
JOHN BURNET, LL.D., Professor of Greek in the University of St. Andrews
SHAKESPEARE AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY . . ... 58
W. MACNEILE DIXON, Litt.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Glasgow ; author of English Poetry from Blake to Browning
IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR WORTHY MASTER SHAKESPEARE . 62
W. H. HADOW, D.Mus., Principal, Armstrong College, Newcastle
SHAKESPEARE AND Music 64
CONTENTS xiii
PAGE
J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND, editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music, &c.
BIANCA'S MUSIC-LESSON ....... 70
WILLIAM BARCLAY SQUIRE, Assistant-Keeper, British Museum ; author of Catalogue of old Printed Music in the British Museum, &c.
SHAKESPEARIAN OPERAS ....... 75
REGINALD BLOMFIELD, R.A., author of History of Renaissance Architecture in England, &c.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . 84
SIR SIDNEY COLVIN, Hon. D.Litt., Oxford, Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, late Keeper of Prints and Drawings, British Museum
THE SACK OF TROY IN SHAKESPEARE'S ' LUCRECE ' AND IN
SOME FIFTEENTH-CENTURY DRAWINGS AND TAPESTRIES . 88
LIONEL CUST, C.V.O., Litt.D., F.S.A., formerly Director of the
National Portrait Gallery
* SHAKESPEARE ......... 100
LIEUT.-COL. SIR RONALD ROSS, K.C.B., F.R.S., Nobel Laureate ; author of Malarial Fever: its Cause, Prevention, and Treatment
SHAKESPEARE, 1916 . 104
W. H. DAVIES, author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
SHAKESPEARE WORKS 105
HENRY BRADLEY, Hon. D.Litt., Oxford, F.B.A., editor of The New English Dictionary
SHAKESPEARE AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE . . i 5 . 106
SIR SIDNEY LEE, Litt.D., F.B.A., University Professor of English Language and Literature, East London College; author of A Life of Shakespeare, &c.
SHAKESPEARE INVENTOR OF LANGUAGE . . no
xiv A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
HERBERT TRENCH, formerly Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford ; author of Deirdre Wedded, &c.
SHAKESPEARE 115
ALFRED NO YES, Hon. Litt.D. (Yale), author of Drake, Forty Singing Seamen, &c.
THE SHADOW OF THE MASTER 116
MRS. C. C. STOPES, author of Shakespeare's Environment, &c.
THE MAKING OF SHAKESPEARE . . . . . .118
THE VERY REV. H. C. BEECHING, D.D., Dean of Norwich
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT 120
A. CLUTTON-BROCK, author of Shelley, the Man and the Poet, &c.
THE UNWORLDLINESS OF SHAKESPEARE 126
MORTON LUCE, author of Shakespeare, the Man and his Work, &c.
THE CHARACTER OF SHAKESPEARE 129
W. F. TRENCH, M.A. (Cantab.), Litt.D. (Dublin), Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin ; author of Shake speare's Hamlet, &c.
SHAKESPEARE : THE NEED FOR MEDITATION .... 135
GEORGE SAINTSBURY, D.Litt., F.B.A., late Professor of English Literature in the University of Edinburgh ; author of History of English Prosody, &c.
SHAKESPEARE AS TOUCHSTONE ...... 137
THE RT. HON. J. M. ROBERTSON, M.P., author of Montaigne and Shakespeare, &c.
THE PARADOX OF SHAKESPEARE 141
W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., Litt.D., F.B.A., formerly Prof essor of Poetry in the University of Oxford ; author of History of English Poetry, &c.
THE TERCENTENARY OF SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH— 1916 . . 146
CONTENTS xv
PAGE
THE RT. HON. SIR J. RENNELL RODD, G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O.,
British Ambassador at Rome ; author of Ballads of the Fleet, &c.
A THOUGHT FROM ITALY . > jj 148
\s JOHN BAILEY, author of Dr. Johnson and his Circle, &c.
A NOTE ON FALSTAFF . . . . . ;1 . 149
E. K. CHAMBERS, C.B., author of The Medieval Stage, &c.
THE OCCASION OF 'A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM' < I . 154
v
OLIVER ELTON, Professor of English Literature in the University of Liverpool ; author of Survey of English Literature, ij8o~ 1830, &c.
HELENA .... . ... j . 161
W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., Fellow of New College, Oxford
ORSINO TO OLIVIA ........ 162
A. C. BRADLEY, LL.D., F.B.A., formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford ; author of Shakespearean Tragedy, &c.
FESTE THE JESTER ........ 164
ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, Litt.D., F.B.A., University Professor of English Language and Literature, King's College, London ; Secretary of the British Academy ; Honorary Secretary of the Shake speare Tercentenary Committee ; editor of The Temple Shakespeare, &c.
BITS OF TIMBER : SOME OBSERVATIONS ON SHAKESPEARIAN
NAMES — ' SHYLOCK ', ' POLONIUS ', ' MALVOLIO ' . . 170
W. W, GREG, Litt.D., author of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, &c.
A CRITICAL MOUSETRAP . . . W' / . . 179
R. WARWICK BOND, Professor of English Literature, University College, Nottingham ; editor of The Complete Works of John Lyly 1600 181
xvi A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT, Professor of Poetry in the Royal Society of
Literature ; author of Admirals all, &c. A NOTE ON ' ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ' . 183
M. W. MACCALLUM, Professor of Modern Literature, University of Sydney; author of Shakespeare's Roman Plays and their Background, &c. THE CAWDOR PROBLEM 186
HUGH WALKER, LL.D., Professor of English Literature, St. David's College, Lampeter; author of Literature of the Victorian Era, &c. THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE ONCE MORE . . . .190
J. W. MACKAIL, LL.D., F.B.A., formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford ; author of The Springs of Helicon, &c.
MOTHER AND SON IN ' CYMBELINE '..... 193
A. C. BENSON, C.V.O., LL.D., President of Magdalene College, Cam bridge ; author of The Upton Letters, &c.
ARIEL 197
RUDYARD KIPLING
THE VISION OF THE ENCHANTED ISLAND .... 200
J. LE GAY BRERETON, author of Elizabethan Drama : Notes and Studies, &c.
DE WITT AT THE SWAN 204
W. J. LAWRENCE (Dublin), author of The Elizabethan Playhouse, &c.
A FORGOTTEN PLAYHOUSE CUSTOM OF SHAKESPEARE'S DAY . 207
THE RT. HON. W. J. M. STARKIE, LL.D., Litt.D., editor of Aristophanes
WIT AND HUMOUR IN SHAKESPEARE 212
A. R. SKEMP, Professor of English in the University of Bristol
SHAKESPEARE .227
CONTENTS xvii
PAGE
R. G. MOULTON, M.A. (Cantab.), Professor of Literary Theory and Interpretation in the University of Chicago ; author of Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, &c.
SHAKESPEARE AS THE CENTRAL POINT IN WORLD LITERATURE . 228
C. H. HERFORD, Litt.D., Professor of English Literature, University of Manchester ; author of The Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, &c.
THE GERMAN CONTRIBUTION TO SHAKESPEARE CRITICISM . 231
G. C. MOORE SMITH, Litt.D., Hon. Ph.D. (Louvain), Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Sheffield; editor of Club Law, &c.
SONNETS, 1616:1916 . . . fl. "'/• . .' . 236
A. W. POLLARD, Assistant Keeper, British Museum; author of Shakespeare's Folios and Quartos, &c.
A BIBLIOGRAPHER'S PRAISE . . . ,. ",*/, , . 238
SIR A. W. WARD, Litt.D., F.B.A., Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge; author of History of English Dramatic Literature, &c.
1616 AND ITS CENTENARIES 241
ISRAEL ZANGWILL, author of Children of the Ghetto, &c.
THE Two EMPIRES ; "•{ . . 248
H. B. WHEATLEY, D.C.L., late President of the Bibliographical Society ; author of Medieval London, &c.
LONDON'S HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE . . . v; . 249
MISS MABEL E. WOTTON
A MEETING-PLACE FOR SHAKESPEARE AND DRAYTON IN THE
CITY OF LONDON . . . .: .. !s,.;? ... . 252
FREDERICK S. BOAS, LL.D., author of University Drama in the Tudor Age, &c.
OXFORD AND SHAKESPEARE . . / :/..* 4 : ,.i . 254
b
xviii A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
ARTHUR GRAY, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge
SHAKESPEARE AND CAMBRIDGE 260
MISS M. DORMER HARRIS, editor of The Coventry Lett Book, &c.
SHAKESPEARE AND WARWICKSHIRE 264
H. J. C. GRIERSON, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Edinburgh ; editor of the Poems of John Donne
SHAKESPEARE AND SCOTLAND ...... 266
THE RT. HON. MR. JUSTICE MADDEN, LL.D., Litt.D., Vice- Chancellor of Dublin University ; author of The Diary of Master Silence, &c.
SHAKESPEARE AND IRELAND ....... 270
DOUGLAS HYDE, (An Craoibhin Aoibhinn), Litt.D., LL.D., author of A Literary History of Ireland, Love Songs of Connacht, &c.
AN RUD THARLA DO GHAEDHEAL AG STRATFORD AR AN ABHAINN
(HOW IT FARED WITH A GAEL AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON) . 275
JOHN EDWARD LLOYD, Professor of History, University College of North Wales, Bangor ; author of A History of Wales, &c.
SHAKESPEARE'S WELSHMEN 280
J. MORRIS JONES, Professor of Welsh, University College of North Wales
I GOF BARDD AVON (To THE MEMORY OF THE BARD OF AVON) . 284 REV. J. O. WILLIAMS, PEDROG (Liverpool)
Y BARDD A GANODD I'R BYD 286
J. W. H. ATKINS, Professor of English Language and Literature, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth ; late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge
SHAKESPEARE AND KING ARTHUR 288
SIR JOHN SANDYS, Litt.D., F.B.A., Public Orator in the University of Cambridge
A GREEK EPIGRAM ON THE TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE . . 291
CONTENTS xix
PAGE
ALEXANDER W. MAIR, Litt.D., Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh ; editor of Hesiod, &c.
GREEK DIALOGUE IN PRAISE OF SHAKESPEARE . ,.^n . 292
SIR HERBERT WARREN, K.C.V.O., President of Magdalen College, Oxford ; late Professor of Poetry, University of Oxford
COMMEMORATIO DORYSSOI ....... 306
THE REV. H. GOLLANCZ, D.Litt., Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew, University College, London ; editor of The Ethical Treatises of Berachya, &c,
HEBREW ODE . v;$: tr. . . ,:, . . ., . . 307
A. A. MACDONELL, Ph.D., F.B.A., Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, author of A History of Sanskrit Literature, &c.
A SANSKRIT PANEGYRIC ....... 310
THE HON. WILLIAM PEMBER REEVES, Ph.D. (Athens) ; Director of London School of Economics ; formerly High Com missioner for New Zealand ; author of The Long White Cloud, a History of New Zealand, &c.
THE DREAM IMPERIAL ........ 312
WILFRED CAMPBELL, LL.D., Canadian poet, author of Lake Lyrics, &c.
SHAKESPEARE . . 'V' . '. '; . v . . 314
CAPTAIN CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, LL.D., Canadian poet, author of The Book of the Native, &c.
To SHAKESPEARE, 1916 . . . . ". '-'. 315
CANON F. G. SCOTT, C.M.G., D.C.L. ; Senior Chaplain, ist Canadian Division, B.E.F. ; author of The Hymn of Empire, and Other Poems, &c. 'SHAKESPEARE' . . . '.-• v . . 'V- . 316
ANANDA COOMARASWAMY, author of The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon, &c.
INTELLECTUAL FRATERNITY . . . . ^ . * v . 317
b 2
xx A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE, D.Litt. ; Nobel Laureate for Literature ; author of Gitanjali ; The Crescent Moon, &c.
SHAKESPEARE . 320
MOHAMMED IGVAL, scholar and advocate (Lahore), and SARDAR JOGUNDRA SINGH, Indian novelist
To SHAKESPEARE : A TRIBUTE FROM THE EAST . . . 322
S. Z. AUNG, Burmese Buddhist scholar and philosopher
FROM THE BURMESE BUDDHISTS ...... 324
MAUNG TIN, M.A., of Rangoon College ; editor of Khuddaka pdtha
SHAKESPEARE : A BURMAN'S APPRECIATION .... 329
HIS EXCELLENCY MOHAMMED H AFIZ IBRAHIM, famous Arabic poet
To THE MEMORY OF SHAKESPEARE 331
HIS EXCELLENCY WALIY AD-DIN YEYEN BEY, Egyptian poet
SHAKESPEARE 333
A SOUTH AFRICAN'S HOMAGE
WILLIAM TSIKINYA-CHAKA 336
CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of California ; editor of Repre sentative English Comedies, &c.
HEART OF THE RACE 340
HORACE HOWARD FURNESS, JUNR., editor of the Variorum Shakespeare
THE HOMAGE OF THE SHAKSPERE SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA . 342
CLAYTON HAMILTON, dramatic critic, author of Stagecraft, &c.
THE PARADOX OF SHAKESPEARE 347
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, Ph.D., LL.D., President of Princeton
University SHAKESPEARE 350
CONTENTS xxi
PAGE
ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON, Litt.D., LL.D., Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Letters ; author of Songs of Liberty, &c.
SHAKESPEARE ......... 351
JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Chicago ; editor of Specimens of the Pre- Shahespearean Drama
Two NEGLECTED TASKS .... ;# j .'• . 353
BRANDER MATTHEWS, Litt.D., Professor of Dramatic Literature, Columbia University ; author of Shakspere as a Playwright
IF SHAKSPERE SHOULD COME BACK ?..... 356
FREDERICK MORGAN PADELFORD, Ph.D., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of Washington ; editor of Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics, &c.
SONNETS : I. SHAKESPEARE. II. THE FOREST OF ARDEN
WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, Professor of English Literature at Yale University
A PLEA FOR CHARLES THE WRESTLER . . V . . 362
FELIX E. SCHELLING, Professor of English Literature in the Uni versity of Pennsylvania ; author of Elizabethan Drama, &c. .
THE COMMON FOLK OF SHAKESPEARE . . . . . 364
OWEN WISTER, M.A. (Harvard), author of The Virginian, &c.
FROM A LOVER OF SHAKESPEARE AND OF ENGLAND . . 373
/
GEORGE SANTAYANA, Litt.D., Ph.D., author of The Life of Reason, &c.
SONNET 377
HENRI CHANTAVOINE
A SHAKESPEARE ;v . .
xxii A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
HENRI BERGSON, de I'Acaddmie fransaise ; Corresponding Fellow
of the British Academy HOMMAGE A SHAKESPEARE ... . 379
MAURICE BOUCHOR, author of Les Chansons de Shakespeare mises en vers francais
SHAKESPEARE ' . . 381
6MILE BOUTROUX, de 1' Academic fransaise ; Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
L'ART ET LA NATURE, DANS SHAKESPEARE ET DANS BACON . 383
ALBERT FEUILLERAT, Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Rennes ; author of John Lyly ; Black- friar Records, &c.
SIMPLES NOTES 387
&MILE HOVELAQUE, Inspecteur GSneVal de Instruction Publique
COMMENT FAIRE CONNA!TRE SHAKESPEARE AUX PETITS FRANCAIS 392
HIS EXCELLENCY J.-J. JUSSERAND, French Ambassador at Washington ; Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy ; author of Histoire litteraire du -peuple anglais
FRAGMENTS SUR SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . 399
IiMILE LEGOUIS, Professor of English Language and Literature at the Sorbonne ; author of The Early Life of Wordsworth
QA ET LA 405
ROMAIN ROLLAND, author of Jean-Christophe, &c.
A MON MEILLEUR AMI— SHAKESPEARE 4! I
PIERRE VILLEY, Professor of French Literature, University of Caen
MONTAIGNE ET SHAKESPEARE .*.... 417
HENRI DE RfiGNIER, de 1' Academic francaise
A SHAKESPEARE 421
CONTENTS xxiii
PAGE
HIS EXCELLENCY JOANNES GENNADIUS, D.C.L., Litt.D., LL.D., Greek Minister
THI MNHMHI TOY KAEINOT KAI EPATEINOT EAKESFTHPOY (To THE
MEMORY OF THE RENOWNED AND GENTLE SHAKESPEARE) . 422
ISIDORO DEL LUNGO, Senator ; author of Women of Florence
DANTE E SHAKESPEARE 427
LUIGI LUZZATTI, Italian Minister
PRO SHAKESPEARE ! . . . . . . 428
CAVALIERE ADOLFO DE BOSIS
SHAKESPEARE . . • > 429
CINO CHIARINI, Professor of English Literature, Florence
SHAKESPEARE 430
PAOLO ORANO, man of letters, Rome
' HAMLET E GIORDANO BRUNO ? ' 432
JOS6 DE ARMAS, Member of the Royal Spanish Academy ; author of El Quijote y su £poca
CONVERSACION DE DOS ALMAS 434
HIS EXCELLENCY SE^OR DON ALFONSO MERRY DEL VAL, Spanish Ambassador
To SHAKESPEARE, FROM A SPANIARD 435
A. MAURA, President of the Royal Spanish Academy
SHAKESPEARE • f? , : -. - . 437
ARMANDO PAL AGIO VALD&S, Member of the Royal Spanish Academy
EL CIELO DE SHAKSPEARE . . . . . .,.-,. . 439
C. SILVA VILD6SOLA, South American publicist
SHAKESPEARE Y LAS LITERATURAS HISPANO-AMERICANAS . . 441
xxiv A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
HIS EXCELLENCY M. TEXEIRA-GOMES, Portuguese Minister
PORTUGUESE TRIBUTE 447
GEORGE YOUNG, M.V.O., late of the British Legation, Lisbon; author of Portugal through its Poetry, &c.
PORTUGAL AND THE SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENARY . . 449
HIS EXCELLENCY NICOLAS MI§U, Envoy Extraordinary and Roumanian Minister
ROUMANIA'S HOMAGE 452
LOUIS FR&D&RIC CHOISY, Professor of Comparative Literature in the University of Geneva
L'!MPERSONNALIT£ DE SHAKESPEARE 454
RENIi MORAX, Swiss poet and dramatist
SHAKESPEARE 457
£MILE VERHAEREN
SHAKESPEARE vu DE PROFIL 460
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
SHAKESPEARE 461
PAUL HAMELIUS, Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Liege
SHAKESPEARE AND BELGIUM 462
REN£ DE CLERCQ, Flemish poet
ALS DEEZ TlJDEN GROOT (GREAT LIKE THESE TlMES) . . 464
CYRIEL BUYSSE, Flemish writer
IN GEDACHTE MET SHAKESPEARE 466
ALBERT VERWEY, Dutch poet
GRATO M' £ 'L SONNO 467
W. G. C. BYVANCK, Librarian of the Royal Library, The Hague
READING SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 468
CONTENTS xxv
PAGE
B. A. P. VAN DAM, M.D., author of William Shakespeare's Prosody and Text
ARE THERE INTERPOLATIONS IN THE TEXT OF ' HAMLET ' ? . 473
OTTO JESPERSEN, Professor of English Philology at the University of Copenhagen ; author of Growth and Structure of the English Language, &c.
A MARGINAL NOTE ON SHAKESPEARE'S LANGUAGE AND A
TEXTUAL CRUX IN ' KING LEAR ' 481
JON STEFANSSON, Ph.D., Icelandic scholar
AN EDDIC HOMAGE TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . . . 484
NIELS M0LLER, Danish poet
PAA VEJ TIL SHAKESPEARE (ON THE WAY TO SHAKESPEARE) . 486
GEORGE BRANDES, LL.D., Professor ; Commander of the Orders of Danebrog and St. Olaf, &c. ; author of William Shake speare
SHAKESPEARE ......... 490
KARL MANTZIUS, Danish actor and scholar ; author of A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times
DENMARK AND SHAKESPEARE 491
VALD. VEDEL, Professor of Literary History, Copenhagen
' PERSONALITY ' ELLER ' IMPERSONALITY ' . . .492
KARL WARBURG, Professor of Literary History in the University of Stockholm
HAMLET i SVERIGE . . . i-vO . . . . 495
C. COLLIN, Professor of English Literature in the University of Christiania
SHAKESPEARE AND THE NORWEGIAN DRAMA . .,»;, . . 499
xxvi A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
PAGE
K. BALMONT, Russian poet and scholar (with translations by NEVILL
FORBES) I. THE GENIUS OF THE SEEING HEART •. . . . 5°6
II. ON THE SHOAL OF TIME 512
III. THE ALL-EMBRACING 5J4
MAXIMILIAN VOLOSHIN, Russian poet (with translation by NEVILL FORBES)
PORTIA 5*6
* AMARI ', Russian poet
ANOTHER RUSSIAN HOMAGE 518
FATHER NICHOLAS VELIMIROVIC, of Belgrade
SHAKESPEARE — THE PANANTHROPOS 520
PAVLE POPOVlC, Professor of Southern Slav Literature in the University of Belgrade; author of A History of Serbian Literature, &c.
SHAKESPEARE IN SERBIA 524
SRGJAN TUSIC, Jugoslav dramatist
THE HOMAGE OF THE JUGOSLAVS 528
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ, Polish novelist ; author of Quo Vadis, &c. (with translation by Miss LAURENCE ALMA-TADEMA)
DLACZEGO MOGLEM CZYTA£ SZEKSPIRA (WHY I WAS ABLE TO
READ SHAKESPEARE) 530
EINO LEINO, Finnish poet
SHAKESPEARE-TUNNELMA (with English translation) . . 534
YRJO HIRN, Professor of Aesthetics and Modern Literature in the University of Helsingfors
SHAKESPEARE IN FINLAND . 536
JUHANI AHO, Finnish man of letters
ENSIMAINEN SUOMALAINEN SHAKESPEAREN ENSI-ILTA SUOMESSA 538
CONTENTS xxvii
PAGE
YUZO TSUBOUCHI, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, Waseda University, Tokyo ; translator of Shakespeare into Japanese
SHAKESPEARE AND CHIKAMATSU 543
GONNOSK& KOMAI, Japanese War Correspondent and poet
To SHAKESPEARE, THE GREATEST CONQUEROR OF ALL . . 547
LIU PO TUAN, Chinese poet (Hong-kong)
CHINESE HOMAGE 548
AHMAD KHAN, Persian scholar
PERSIAN HOMAGE 550
K. H. FUNDUKLIAN, translator of Antony and Cleopatra, &c., into Armenian
ARMENIAN TRIBUTE 551
MISS ZABELLE C. BOYAJIAN, author of Yesterc, a novel dealing with Armenian life, &c.
ARMENIA'S LOVE TO SHAKESPEARE 552
EPILOGUE . .553
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER . . 555
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I. 'THIS FIGURE, THAT THOU HERE SEEST PUT'
1. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Print engraved by Martin Droes-
hout. Probably executed 1622/3. Elaborated from the Proof. From the plate in the First Folio .... Frontispiece
2. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. From the (coloured) effigy, carved
by Garret Johnson the Younger, in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon . . . . .To face p. 4
3. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. (Head only.) From the earliest
Proof (known as ' the Unique Proof ') of the engraving by Martin Droeshout, discovered by J. O. Halliwell[-Phillipps] in 1864, before elaboration for the First Folio. In the possession of Mr. H. C. Folger, of New York. By consent of the Trustees of the Shakespeare Birthplace. (Copyright) . . To face p. 6
4. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. The Chandos Portrait. In the
National Portrait Gallery .... To face p. 8
5. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. (Head only.) Painted by Sir
Godfrey Kneller in 1693, from the Chandos Portrait, for pre sentation to John Dry den. In the possession of the Earl Fitz- william, through whose courtesy it is here, for the first time, reproduced To face p. 10
xxx A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
II. THE SIEGE OF TROY IN SHAKESPEARE'S ' LUCRECE ' AND IN SOME FIFTEENTH-CENTURY DRAWINGS AND TAPESTRIES
6. PLATE I (A). Hector dissuaded from going to battle by his
\\omcnkind and by Priam. From a fragment of one of a series of sketches in the Louvre for tapestries representing the Siege of Troy.
PLATE I (B). A battle of Greeks and Trojans, with Trojan women looking on from the walls. From an engraving after one of a series of tapestries representing the Siege of Troy . To face p. 96
7. PLATE II. The sack of Troy, with the murder of Priam, the sacri
fice of Polyxena, &c. From one of a series of sketches in the Louvre for tapestries representing the Siege of Troy . To face p. 98
8. Bodleian Aubrey MS. 8, fol. 45* . .... To face p. 120
9. The Platt of Frederick and Basilea . . . .To face p. 208
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO
SHAKESPEARE
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
TO SHAKESPEARE <AFTER 300 YEAT(S
BRIGHT baffling Soul, least capturable of themes, Thou, who display 'dst a life of commonplace, Leaving no intimate word or personal trace Of high design outside the artistry
Of thy penned dreams, Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.
Through human orbits thy discourse to-day, Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on In harmonies that cow Oblivion, And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway Not fore- desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.
And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note The borough clocks as usual tongued the hour, The Avon idled past the garth and tower, Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other men's that year accorded a like knell.
B
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe, And thereon queried by some squire's good dame Driving in shopward) may have given thy name, With, ' Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do ;
Though, as for me, I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, 'tis true.
' I' faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
He having elsewhere led his busier life ;
Though to be sure he left with us his wife.'
— * Ah, one of the tradesmen's sons, I now recall . . .
Witty, I've heard . . . We did not know him . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all.'
So — like a strange bright-pinioned bird we find To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile, Then vanish from their homely domicile — Into man's poesy, we weet not whence,
Flew thy strange mind, Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.
THOMAS HARDY.
February 14, 1916.
M. H. SPIELMANN
'THIS FIGURE, THAT THOU HET{E SEEST TUT
* IT is a great comfort, to my thinking/ wrote Charles Dickens to William Sandys the antiquary, seventy years ago, * that so little is known concerning the poet. It is a fine mystery ; and I tremble every day lest something should come out. If he had had a Boswell, society wouldn't have respected his grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological shop-windows/
It is doubtless true enough. The curiosity of the ordinary man, intensified in the hero-worshipper, has little respect for mystery and still less patience with it. The desire of every thinker, the ambition of every reasoning and contemplative mind, is to draw aside the curtain that shrouds the unknown. The more elusive the solution the more ardent the quest : the theologist of every age has sought to probe the nature and mystery of the Godhead Itself.
To the biographer, as Carlyle declared, an authentic portrait of his subject is an urgent necessity : he needs the facial testimony to examine and cross-examine, to ponder, to analyse, to compare. The greatest of those of whom no genuine portraits exist have frequently been a tempta tion which the intellectual artist has not sought to resist. Shakespeare, however, is relatively of our own day. The art of portraiture had reached its zenith at about the time when he was moving upon the world's stage, and its practice, tant bien que mal, was already common in England. The two known portraits of the actor-poet which were brought into existence near the time of his death were the work of craftsmen unhappily but indifferently equipped, and not of poet-artists. Whatever their skill in accurate draughtsmanship and modelling, they lacked the power of rendering life, and the sense of beauty was not theirs.
It is therefore not surprising that, in course of time, people should become dissatisfied with these matter-of-fact and banal representations, so poorly executed by chisel and graver, despite the fact that Shake speare's image had been by them authoritatively recorded. Dissatisfac tion bred doubt ; in some, repudiation ; and in the desire to eliminate
B2
4 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
all grounds for scepticism and to establish or refute the authenticity of the accepted portraits, a small phalanx of noisy, over-articulate de votees clamoured for the opening of Shakespeare's grave in order that the poet's features might be gazed upon and . . . photographed — if, as was believed to be likely, the Stratford soil had stayed the decomposing hand of Death. Alternatively, the skull might be studied, measurements might be taken, diagrams and drawings made, whereby the portraits could be tested, and — had the cold objectivity of the calm proposal found favour and the request been granted — within a few weeks, we may be sure, * society would have had his skull in the phrenological shop- windows '.
But the finer feeling of the nation declared itself against so revolting an experiment which had been so strenuously contended for on both sides of the Atlantic. The argument that similar inquiries had been carried into effect at the hands of the charnel-house explorer in the case of Robert the Bruce, Burns, and a score of others not less celebrated, fell upon ears either deaf or shocked ; and Dickens 's fear lest ' something should come out ' was set at rest, likely enough, for ever. The addi tional proof that was to silence cavillers and confirm still further the confidence of the world in the only two portraits that have any real claim to truth and genuine likeness had to be forgone ; and the effigy in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford and the print by Martin Droeshout were left to stand unassisted, as they easily may, without corroboration dug up out of the desecrated tomb. Without any outrage of sentiment they must justify themselves and vindicate one another. Many persons unfamiliar with the study of iconography and unversed in comparative portraiture may still find difficulty in reconciling some of the more super ficial characteristics of the two likenesses : that is to say, the youthfulness as rendered in Droeshout 's print, with the maturity presented by the Bust.
But how many know these two works as they really are, or were intended to be ? How many have had the opportunity of judging of Shakespeare's face as sculptor and engraver, each in his turn, represented it ? Few — very few indeed. For the bust cannot now be seen, much less judged, behind its coat of colour-decoration which in several important respects contradicts the glyptic forms ; and the print as it appears in the First Folio, and as it is known to the world, is almost a travesty of the plate as Droeshout originally left it.
Let us consider these two portraits, and see how far we should recognize in them the actual lineaments of the man Shakespeare as he lived. First as to the Bust.
•
^ E TO SHAKES?:
m and ablish or refute the nticity of
ill phalanx of nois ulate de-
ung of Shak< 's grave in order that
t be gazed upon and . .otographed — if, as
•d soil had stayed the decomposing
/lit be studied, measurements
be taV d drawings made, whereby the portraits
be test had the cold objectivity of the calm proposal
found favour and the request been gran- ithin a tew weeks, we
may be sure, * society would have had his skull in hrenological
shop- windows '.
But the finer feeling of the nation d< [gainst so revolting
an experiment which had been so strenuously contended for on both sides of the Atlantic. The argument inquiries had been
carried into effect at the hands of the char explorer in the
CMC of Robert the Bruce, Burns, and a score of oti: ss celebrated,
fell upon ears either deaf or shocked ; ami Dickens 's fear lest * something should come out * was set at rest, 1 r ever. The addi
tional proof that \vv ience cavillers and confirm still further the
confidence of the :n the only two portraits that have any real
claim to truth and genuine likeness, h^ <> forgone ; and the effigy
in Holy Trinity Church in Strati »e print by Martin Droeshout
were left to stand unasyisvd ay, without corroboration
dug up out of the desecrate' /.out any outrage of sentiment
they must justify themselves ate one another. Many persons
unfamiliar with the study of ly and ur in comparative
portraitun: may still find difti- the more super
ficial chaj ;cs of the two likeneitet : thai youthfulness
as render oeshout'spr 1 by the Bust.
But how many know th. are, or were
'* ; U 1 - ; ' <.\\ -y of judging of
!a ~ >s turn, represented
few indt ')e seen, much
tet» j» behind it* cur h in several
r-iv' nd the print as it
?irst Fott' world, is almost
-to ir we should
m th< .-uments of the niai. .speare as he
*/r
CjAa,kcjl3
M. H. SPIELMANN 5
In the first place we must dismiss from our recollection nearly all the so-called * plaster casts from the original bust ' from which most people derive their knowledge and receive their strongest impression, and on which they form their opinion concerning Shakespeare's head and features — because the vast majority of these objects are taken, not from the bust itself, but from mere copies of it very inaccurately modelled. We must look at the bust itself, which the younger Garret Johnson cut.
When we examine closely and with attention the sculptor's naive work, we realize to our surprise that this effigy (which, although it gazes with such rapt ineptitude from its niche, appealed with curious force to Chantrey, Landor, Washington Irving, and many others) has been fundamentally modified both as to forms and expression by the polychrome (technically called * beautifying ') applied by a painter who wilfully defied the intention of the sculptor. The painted eyebrows with their strongly arched sweep correspond ill with the carved indica tions of them. The wellnigh formless lips frame a mouth little under stood, it would seem, by the colourist. The full staring pupils, crudely painted in, are barely natural in their doll-like gaze. In all these points and more the painter's misrendering conceals the Shakespeare of the sculptor's chisel, roughly but honestly carved.
Thus with its forms varied and expression changed, features are thrown into inharmonious relief, and true dimensions and actual model ling are gravely prejudiced. If this we owe to the original colouring, supposing it to be unjustified, hardly could we withhold our sympathy from the much-reviled Malone who in 1793 caused the ' beautifying ' to be over-painted with stone-colour ; for even those who fulminated against his vandalism enjoyed, thanks to his so-called ' daubing ', a sight denied to our generation. Not then did Shakespeare's open mouth resolve itself into what has been called * a grin of death ' ; it revealed the parted, speaking lips of one who declaimed, as an actor-poet might, the words he had just set down on the paper at his hand : a conception as simply and naturally imagined as it was clumsily and frankly realized.
If we assume that the present colours faithfully reproduce those which were from the first employed, in order to impart an effect of life, it may be deduced that the chromatic scheme was introduced with the view of securing a truer resemblance than the sculptor had achieved. What if the family and friends of the departed poet, dissatisfied with young Garret Johnson's performance, had acted on his advice that a * face-painter ' should be called in — as was a common practice — to give
6 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
the final touch of life which he himself had missed ? The colourist's duty would be to bring the head into truer relation with the facts as these were explained to him. But, even then, it must be remembered that the present colouring is a relatively modern reconstitution of that of 1748-9, before which time the painting was more perfect, according to Halliwell- Phillipps, or contrarily, according to Malone, had not ever defaced the plain stone of the bust. An element of uncertainty on this point and on the value of the chromatic elements of the portrait must neces sarily exist ; yet as to the truth of the main essentials of the sculptured image no doubt can be entertained. For when all is said we must recog nize here, as in the Droeshout print, the particularity of paramount importance, the outstanding characteristic which is the unquestionable test and touchstone of every portrait of the poet — the upright forehead, the dome-like skull, which Professor Arthur Keith has shown to be the * round head ' of the Bronze Age — identified as the physical mark of the true Celt (as Europe understands the term) and the cranial symbol of the world's finest artists and most inspired among the poets and men of imagination.
Nor, in similar fashion, can the full significance of Martin Droes- hout's print be wholly understood, even by those who study it in the First Folio, because it is only in the earliest proof state that the head of Shakespeare can be rightly and fully judged. For there the poet is revealed, it may safely be inferred, as he was in early manhood. It is a face we can accept — the visage of one little more than a youth, with a slight downy moustache, a small lip-beard, a strong chin devoid of growth, and fair eyebrows set low on the orbital ridges of the frontal bone. The forehead is bald, perhaps prematurely, perhaps deliberately shaved, either to conform to the sometime fashion which Hentzner's Elizabethan records tell of, or else for greater ease in playing venerable characters such as old Adam, Kno'well, and the like — such parts, indeed, as young players of the period were commonly entrusted with : when even boy-actors, such as the famous Pavy, might achieve a great reputation by their rendering of them. In any case, it is * a noble front', the full and lofty dome which the Bronze Age had brought here from the Continent, the form that housed brains of poetic genius, capable of the most exalted beauty of conception. So much, indeed, has modern anthropology established. As for the frank young English face- — the calm placidity of its observant gaze, the delicate firmness of features and expression, the characteristic aspect of large sympathy held
I A B< SHAKESPEARE
j », fl ,, uadf bad mJMrrl ? The colourist's duty
Ution with the facts as these
,t be remembered that the
onstitution of that of 1748-9,
,.is more perfect, according to Halliwell-
•\g to Malone, had not ever defaced
bust. An element of uncertainty on this point
and on the value of the chromatic elements of the portrait must neces sarily exist ; yet as to the truth of the main essentials of the sculptured image no doubt can be entertained. For when all is said we must recog nize here, as in the Droeshout print, the particularity of paramount inij -standing characteristic which is the unquestionable
even' portrait oi the upright forehead,
vhich Professor eith has shown to be
the * ; t the Bronze Age- ;fted as the physical mark
of the tr is Europe understands the term) and the cranial
symbol of ti -i's finest artists and most inspired among the poets
and men of imagination.
Nor, in similar fashion, can the full significance of Martin Droes hout 's print be wholly understood, even by those who study it in the First Folio, because it is only in the earliest proof state that the head of tkespeare can be rightly and fu iged. For there the poet is
.d, it may safely be inferred, as he was in early manhood. It is a face we can accept — the visage of one little more thj uth, with
a alight downy moustache, a small lip-beard, a strong chin devoid of growth, and fair eyebrows set low on the orbital ridges of the frontal bone. The forehead is bald, perhaps prematurely, perhaps deliberately shaved, either to conform to the sometime fashion which Hentzner's abethan records tell of, or else for greater ease in playing venerable rers such as old Adam, : 1 the like — such parts, indeed,
players of the p oinmonly entrusted with : when
a .tors, such as the t Pavy, might achieve a great
reputation by their rer ; Q| :,,. In any case, it is * a noble
ill and lofty dome vs Age had brought here
from > >ntinent, the form that housed brains of poetic genius,
capabl e most exalted bea So much, indeed,
has me iropology established. As rank young English
face — the calm placidity of its obtenmnt gaze, the delicate firmness of features and e^pmtion, the char aspect of large sympathy held
M. H. SPIELMANN 7
in control by critical judgement, the strong reserve of individuality — these have survived, in spite of all, the deficiencies of the young Droeshout's art, of his stiffness of rendering, and his still inexperienced hand. We have here, then, Shakespeare of the Sonnets and of Love's Labour 's Lost rather than Shakespeare of the Tragedies.
Not elsewhere, it may be believed, do we come so close to the living Man of Stratford as in the earliest proof of the print, which once be longed to Halliwell-Phillipps but which years ago, alas, was acquired in the United States. Not even in the early proof in the Bodleian Library do we see him with anything like such vivid appearance of truth, because not only is that a darker, heavier impression, but because it is besides a later * state ' of the plate. In this retouched condition we recognize in the worked-up forehead the beginnings of that * horrible hydro- cephalous development ', as Mr. Arthur Benson called it, which in the ordinary print as seen in the First Folio (and grossly exaggerated in the Fourth) has struck a chill sentiment of revolt into the hearts of genera tions of Shakespeare-lovers. In the manifest effort to add an appear ance of advancing years to what had been a picture of ripe adolescence, the inexperienced engraver impaired his plate and produced a portrait almost as wooden as the painted bust. The broad, massive fore head, with the hair growing naturally from the scalp, has here developed a defiant bulbousness and a shape tending towards the conical, with locks sprouting with strange suddenness, wig-like and artificial, from its side. The re-formed and altered eyebrows, the darkened pupils which for merly were fair, the distressing bagginess accentuated under the eyes, the enlarged moustache smudging the upper lip to the confines of the cheeks, the two-days' stubble added to the chin, the over-emphasized line marking the division of jaw and neck, the forced lights and shadows with consequent destruction of harmony and breadth of illumination — these are further defects in the portrait by which Droeshout has made Shakespeare known to all the world. They divest the portrait most grievously of the appearance of life and of the largeness of nature which are such striking qualities in the plate as the engraver first completed and ' proved ' it. Nevertheless, and in spite of all, the eye of ordinary discernment can penetrate this screen of errors, and through the short comings of the artist recognize the life and nature which, with but indifferent success it is true, he has sought to realize and interpret.
Nevertheless, to the unprejudiced beholder, this uncouth print, with all its imperfections — * lamentable ', as Walpole pronounced it, as a work of art — bears in its delineation the unmistakable stamp of
8 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
truth. Ver Huell,1 the enthusiastic biographer and critic of Houbraken and the extoller of his freely-rendered engraving— the most popular of all the renderings — of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, admits that he was carried away by Droeshout's plate and was left cold by Hou braken 's masterpiece of the burin. * The head is fine/ says he, in his estimate of the Dutchman's prodigious performance, ' I might almost say too fine, and I greatly prefer to this idealized bust-piece Martin Droeshout's plate. There, indeed, we see the lineaments which so well realize the author of Romeo not less than of Julius Caesar. What nobility in the forehead ! — with what feeling has the artist rendered the pensive and penetrating expression of the eyes and the gentle irony of a smile that is softened by the sweetness of his soul ! '
Can we doubt that it was for its general truth that the portrait was selected and published in the great Folio in spite of the artlessness of the art, the stiffness of the pose, and the hardness of the execution ? After all, there was no absolute necessity for the inclusion of a portrait at all. There was even available (if the claims made on its behalf could be accepted) the infinitely more romantic, more artistic, Italianate portrait which we call the Chandos. What merit other than that of invaluable authenticity could have constrained Shakespeare's associates and friends to preface his immortal works, which they were about to give to the world in so impressive a form, with an image so indifferently rendered — an image clearly based on an original of the Hilliard or early Zuccaro type, almost c primitive ' in manner ? Surely the only motive and the sole justification for the adoption of such a plate was the recognized genuineness and authority of the record.
Moreover, if we look critically at the two portraits — the one put forth by the poet's admiring friends and fellow workers, and the other by his mourning family and fellow townsmen — we find that in their main essentials they are in substantial agreement and therefore they corroborate one another. We must, of course, bear in mind the widely different circumstances attendant on the production of these portraits and the varied details characteristic of them : — the difference of period — how the one portrait represents the sitter in his early prime, and the other at the time of his death ; the difference of material — how the one is sculptured roughly with the chisel in stone and intended to be viewed at a distance, the other cut in metal by the graver, to be printed on paper and scrutinized from a few inches away ; the difference of personality and outlook of the artists — men of different craft, of 1 Jacobtis Houbraken et son ceuvre, par A. Ver Hiiell, 1875.
M. H. SPIELMANN 9
different individuality, and of difference in artistic conception which they brought to their different tasks. Their sole personal points of contact were that they shared weakness in technique and accomplish ment and that they were called to their work without having the inestimable advantage of sittings from the living model. We see in these two works, notwithstanding undoubted imperfections, the inter- confirmation of the great upright cranium, the straight nose, the large wide-open eyes, even the mode, retained by the poet throughout his life, of the moustache brushed upward and the mass of hair curling heavily over the ears. These two representations, then, support one another in their main essentials, in much the same manner and degree as Chantrey's bust and Raeburn's painted portrait of Sir Walter Scott confirm without exactly resembling one another, or, say, Nollekens's bust and Reynolds 's painting of Laurence Sterne.
However great, therefore, the talent of artists may be, a painter's portrait and a sculptor's bust are rarely in exact agreement save in the salient items of resemblance, especially when years have elapsed between the production of the two likenesses. This is the more marked when unskilled hands have been at work — most marked of all when the por traitists have been called upon to bring into existence a posthumous likeness. When, in the same art, we find two painters such as Nasmyth and Raeburn producing portraits of Robert Burns, at different ages, it is true, but so dissimilar that few persons at the first glance, or even at the second, would assert that the two pictures are supposed to represent one and the same man — we cannot be surprised that the Stratford bust and the Droeshout plate confirm one another mainly on points of major importance and seem to differ only in superficial details and unessentials.
There is a touch of absurdity, or at least of oddness, in the well- nigh universal predilection displayed in favour of the Chandos portrait. That the majority should select for special adulation this rather swarthy face of foreign aspect, mainly in virtue of its relatively picturesque and romantic guise, is perhaps not wholly surprising in a majority. Moreover, it has the advantage over the two authentic portraits in that it represents an obviously living man humanly and naturally represented upon canvas. Even Burger was impressed by its ' refine ment and melancholy ' in spite of its lack of expression, and as a portrait he held it to be a pearl beyond price. But he, like the majority (who have called for at least a dozen reproductions of this
io A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
portrait for each of those of truer value), took it blindly for granted that this placid, sombre, and rather weak-willed, amiable personage really pictures our English Shakespeare of pure midland stock.
It is nothing to them, or very little, that the early history of this painting is more than suspect, and that the traditions woven round it as to origin and early ownership cannot withstand the test of strict investigation. The fact that demonstrably false witness has been borne as to the picture's source, and that fiction mars the tracing of its early passage from hand to hand — that the chain of evidence comprises links which are not merely lamentably weak but which are sometimes found to be not really links at all — has affected little, or scarcely at all, the popularity of the portrait. Too often the subject of grotesque per versions at the hands of engravers reckless and indifferent to truth and character, it has conquered the world, spreading in every land the queerest notion of the type of English manhood.
This is not the occasion on which to enter any more closely than has here been done into the validity of the claims on public confidence of the Chandos portrait ; but the picture cannot be ignored, if only for the reason that the Chandos Shakespeare is undeniably the Shakespeare recognized by all men. It was even published in the form of engraving by the Shakespeare Society itself. The story that it belonged to D'Ave- nant (who, we are told, for the sake of his personal aggrandizement and self-conceit, claimed blood-kinship with his poet-godfather), has gone for much. The knowledge that Sir Godfrey Kneller made an impressive copy of it at the time when it was Betterton's, has gone for a good deal more. For it may well be assumed that Kneller, quintes sence of vanity as he was, would scarcely have demeaned his genius, of which he entertained so fantastic an opinion, by copying a mere fanciful picture which, without authenticity to justify it, could but dis honour his brush. Nor presumably would Dryden have prized it as he did — prized it as Jonson loved Shakespeare, * on this side idolatry ' — nor would he have apostrophized it with such an emphasis of rapture and admiration, had he known it for a copy of doubtful value. There is here, at least, sufficient evidence to show that not more than five-and- seventy years after Shakespeare's death the Chandos portrait was already held in high esteem and was respected as a record of presumably unchallenged truth.
The reproduction in this Book of Homage of Kneller 's famous picture, now for the first time set before the public since it was painted
10
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than ilidence only for akcspeare ished in the form of engraving story that it belonged to D'Ave- bc §ake of his personal aggrandizement ii his poet-godfather), has age that Sir Godfrey Kneller made an hen it was Betterton's, has gone for ii be assumed that Kndk-r, quintes- rcely have demeam his genius, antastic an PYmg a niere
t auther^ it, could but dis-
•ly would Dry den have prized it as Shakespeare, * on this side idolatry ' lized it with such an emphasis of rapture >r a copy of doubtful value. There how that not more than five-and- :'s death the Chandos portrait was already 5 respected as a record of presumably
D this Book of Homage of Kneller's famous irsit time set I he public since it was painted
Jleao from, dir bcdfrtuJ^ncUfr'j •copy' <r£ tfL(> Lt Iza^Li
M. H. SPIELMANN n
two hundred and twenty-three years ago (in 1693), will certainly be welcomed as a matter of singular interest by all who unite to-day in offering tribute to Shakespeare's genius. To the owner of it, the Earl Fitzwilliam, who some years ago courteously permitted me to have the picture photographed, are due our thanks for the gratification with which the publication will be received.
The portrait is much larger than the Chandos ; it is, indeed, a full half-length. The head seems, by its undoubted nobility, to justify Dry den's paean of praise and veneration in that Fourteenth Epistle of 1694 with which he acknowledged and rewarded the painter's offering, in a masterpiece of super-flattery nicely adjusted to Kneller's vast powers of consumption. Who does not remember his lines ? —
4 Shakespear, thy Gift, I place before my sight ; With awe, I ask his Blessing ere I write ; With Reverence look on his Majestick Face ; Proud to be less, tho' of his Godlike Race. His Soul Inspires me, while thy Praise I write, And I, like Teucer, under Ajax fight.'
The face, which so far departs from that of the Chandos portrait as to add a dignity, almost a majesty (as Dryden truly says), quite unknown to the parent-picture, is surely a conception not unworthy to represent the creator of the Plays and Poems. It is not surprising that it should have fired John Dry den's imagination, still less that it should appeal with equal force to ours, seeing that the painter has plainly sought to improve the forms and to modify the Latin character of the original, in the light of Droeshout's print.
It is true that the skull is not the skull figured by the Stratford bust and in the Folio print. Yet the forehead is now much more upright than in the Chandos picture, even though it is not yet perpen dicular enough ; the high cheek-bones have been lowered and brought inwards, whereby the face is become narrower and the corresponding projection of the contour reduced ; the nose is thinner and less aquiline, and the nostrils more refined in modelling, so that the whole feature approximates far more to that in the print. On the other hand, the cheeks have been hollowed and the mouth straightened, while the falling moustache belies the usual mode affected by the Poet and thus defies the tradition of the three portraits which could have served for guidance. Kneller then asserts himself ; he imparts to the eyes a look of intelli gence and elevated thought, and invests the whole with a general air of authority lamentably absent from the original. The result, in spite
12 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
of all discrepancies, is a brave and skilful attempt, felicitously realized, the success made possible by consummate art, to render the Chandos portrait acceptable to the adherents of the more authoritative likeness of the Folio, and to conciliate, as well as art could do it, the objections of the critical. It is clearly a copy from this picture which Ranelagh Barret made for Edward Capell — the portrait which generations of men have seen in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and have criticized for its heavy-handed divarications from the Chandos original.
Here, then, was expressed in the sincerest and most reverential manner possible to them, the homage paid severally by English Poetry and foreign Art of the seventeenth century to Shakespeare's memory in Shakespeare's person. In the spirit of the superlative admiration and esteem thus conveyed in Shakespeare's own century, we of the present, on the three hundredth anniversary of the day when the poet of all time lay down and slept, approach the altar of the world's gratitude and bring our offering of thanks and praise. We may muse upon his personality and picture to ourselves what manner of man was he in outward physical aspect. We can no longer hope to discover a new true portrait of him such as will confirm or correct the true authori tative likenesses we already have. With these we may rest content, for we recognize in their main indications the lineaments of the face which met the gaze of his own day, and the form of the massive head that gave lodging to the sovereign brain, mightiest in powers of humanity and art, that has enriched and ennobled the modern world.
M. H. SPIELMANN.
AUSTIN DOBSON 13
THE <PJDDLE W.S. 1564-1616
WHAT like wert thou, O Riddle of our race, Whose steadfast eye the mind of man could see,
And, by excess of intuition, trace In the rude germ its full maturity ?
Thou, ' of imagination all compact ', Alone among thy fellows, could 'st ally
The thought and word, the impulse and the act, Cause and effect, unerringly. But why ?
Who shall make answer ? To our ken a shade, Thou — for whom souls lay open — art as dark
As shapeless phantoms of the night that fade With daybreak and the singing of the lark.
Men may explore thy Secret still, yet thou, Serene, unsearchable, above them all,
Look'st down, as from some lofty mountain-brow, And art thyself thine own Memorial.
AUSTIN DOBSON,
i4 A BOOK OF HOMAGE. TO SHAKESPEARE
DT^EAM OF TAT^NASSUS
Fresh from letters of Shakespearian friends, and sadly wondering how in this War of Nations our immortal Poet would come to his meed of honour, after three hundred years of mission over the globe, I chanced to raise my eyes to my library wall, whereon there hangs the Arundel copy of RaphaeVs fresco of Parnassus in the Stanza of the Vatican. There Apollo with his lyre holds a conclave of the Muses, round whom are gathered the poets of all ages, whilst blind old Homer chants the Wrath of Achilles and the Burial of Hector, his brother Bards standing wrapt in admiration and awe.
So musing and wandering in thought, I fell asleep in my easy chair and dreamed. And this was my Dream.
THE DREAM
THE Muse Melpomene, with a crown of vine-leaves holding a tragic mask, seemed enthroned on the sacred Mount of Inspiration. Beside her was Thaleia, having a comic mask and a wreath of ivy : both presided at the altar on which I saw a tripod of gold inscribed TW v^io-rca.
Around and below the Muses was gathered a throng, whose noble countenances seemed to be those of familiar friends, and their stately robes denoted various races, manners, and ages. All seemed to be leading towards the altar, that he might receive the tripod, one whom I recognized at once by his lofty forehead, trim beard, flowing locks, and his air of serene thought. He seemed to shrink from their attentions, bewildered almost by their praises, as one hardly worthy of such a prize.
The Muse with a gesture was inviting those around her to express their suffrages in order that by general consent she might award the honour to the most fit. She pointed first to a noble old man with bald head and venerable beard, deep sad eyes, and the shrunken limbs of a mighty veteran in arms. The aged warrior stood forth, and I heard
IFREDERIC HARRISON 15
his solemn voice that rang through the assembly as if he had been Isaiah the son of Amoz calling out to the people of Zion.
* Fair Goddess/ he said, * the golden tripod is his of right, in these latter days of wildly-whirring poesy. The old order changeth. In very truth and no longer in fable, the whole earth reels and quakes. In old times a tragedy was an act of public worship. We gave the people Hymns of Valour and Psalms of contrition for sin. But the ancient Gods and Heroes of seven- foot stature whom we knew are no more. To-day the new generations have thoughts and pleasures, knowledge and interests, that we old soldiers could not share and are ready to cast aside. I have learnt that ours was but a petty corner of the earth : our fears, our hopes, our joys, our loves never roamed over the vast world they tell me is now open to men — a world of which I had but some dim vision, but enough to revolt my very soul. I am too old to learn this new way. I had no heart to mingle Beauty and Mirth with the catastrophes of Fate and the agonies of the Soul which swept through my brain. Let me go back to my lonely seat, where I rest musing on the glories and the faith of Hellas. The prizes of life are for those who are happy and who are young.'
Then there stepped up to him the most beautiful and the most graceful of elders, having the sweetest voice ever uttered by man.
* We too ', he said, * yield willingly the prize of tragedy to this youth. Our ancient world is past. We love to recall how beautiful it was. We hope they now enjoy a world as beautiful and as sunlit as was our rare City of the violet crown. As our glorious Chief has said, we who lived to celebrate our radiant Athene could ill bear the tumultuous trumpet- ings, of which we catch faint echoes in our Islands of the Blessed. If we ever sought to touch the deepest nerves of sympathetic hearts by tales of agony and guilt, we would ever relieve the tension at intervals with soft melodies and ethereal raptures. We are told now of genera tions of men built of sterner mould, who have no need of the rest given by choral visions of pure delight. They say they have other kinds of rest and of relief ; nor do they mind if Pindaric rhapsodies are thrust into the midst of hot action and visible horrors. To us Beauty, Dignity, and Grace were Divine gifts too precious to be forborne for an hour, even in the midst of the most tragic peripeteia. Let us trust these will never be forgotten in the multitudinous blare of Modern Art.'
* Why ! ' called out aloud a nobly bearded Chief who thrust himself boldly before the elder pair, * Did I not tell you that the " grand air >: and obsolete sublimities would weary any public really up-to-date ?
16 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
I was myself a prophet of " modernity ", of the " new woman ", of the " real man ". That youth from the Island of the West only followed my lead of realism and of romance. I vote for him, for he quite freed the world of your Marathonian conventions and superstitious mysteries.'
* Ah ! my old anarchist friend/ cried out a jovial reveller who had been making mouths at the last speaker behind a comic mask, ' Yes ! you opened new ways indeed ; but you have yet to prove that it was opened in the right way. To make the Gods chop logic and to turn heroes into street beggars would vulgarize, not modernize, Art. I too vote for the young one, who still seems unaware how close he is to some old friends. His virago Queen might kill her Sovereign but not her own babies, nor did she mount up off the stage to heaven in a dragon car. And when he brought on a veteran King in rags, the poor old man was not a disguised Hero but stark mad, and yet withal he felt himself to be — and he looked it — every inch a King. There was nothing sordid in his rags.
* Again, gracious Ladies, let me add that our friend here wears his comic wreath just as well as his tragic wreath. None of us old fellows ever pretended to wear both. He alone has mingled both : he made Mirth and Terror — Fantasy and Reality — join in one irresistible dance of glorious life. I never tried my hand at Terror or Pity, just as old Marathon there never touched the lyre of Mirth or the scourge of Satire. Our candidate for the supreme prize joined Awe and Loveliness, Mirth and Horror, Fun and Fantasy ; making both embrace to the begetting of a radiant progeny of immortal sons and daughters that shall outlive Time. Him, O ye divine mistresses of the Mount of Inspiration, O ye bards of fame and name — him I proclaim to be in truth —
' Euge ! Optime ! ' — called out an Imperial Roman in his toga marked with a broad purple band, looking for all the world like a Nero in melodrama ; ' surely, the gentle youth only adopted and developed my scheme of Art. They often tell me that I was too fond of violence, of blood, of stage surprises ; that I relied too much on oratory, machinery, and ghosts. Ah ! sweet Goddesses of a gentler race, you, I trust, never saw a Roman tribunal nor an amphitheatre, nor ever heard a Roman mob yell over a hecatomb of gladiators. I only gave them what they loved. Our young friend's " general " public would have blood too — enjoyed a stage heaped with corpses, and I dare say forced him to show them tortures, monsters, and ghosts enough. He had to do what I did to please them rather than myself. And he used, as so many
FREDERIC HARRISON 17
other later poets did, not a few of the inventions they all borrowed from me.'
Now here I noticed a group of poets standing together and quite apart, whose elaborate costumes and air of superior refinement seemed to mark them out as masters of some special culture. Two of them had a mien of almost religious solemnity, whilst two others seemed to beam with keen wit and native humour. With the measured cadences of a speech of subtle modulation and an air of studious courtesy, the younger of the foremost pair stood forth and spoke thus.
' Our humble obeisance to the August Ladies who so graciously preside over us to-day ! In our time we sought to maintain in all things the superb manner of the Grand Monarch we served and of the elegant society whose favour we enjoyed. Even in the hour of deepest passion, we felt that deportment must not be forgotten. High Art means tone, a harmony of colour, just balance of values, imperturbable self-restraint. We hear that in the new age these essentials have been too little prized. Alas ! we know that our ancient dynasty is no more. Republicans and heretics have it all their own way. A new world, they cry, demands a new Art. Be it so ! We shall not dispute their claim. Culture has its own world still : and there it has more crowns than it can wear with grace and ease in an age of tumult and change.'
' There is no need to retire/ called out a rasping voice behind the last speaker, and I saw one thrust himself forward, one whose curled wig, lace frill and ruffles, eye of hawk and biting lips seem the embodi ment of an entire age. * The ancients can never be dethroned,' he cried ; ' good manners, sense, truth, realities can never be displaced by extravagance, brutalities, and the ravings of genius run mad.'
Then I saw the last speaker roughly pulled back by a passionate orator with the voice of a sea-captain on his quarter-deck in a gale. He shouted out : * Romance, Nature, Passion rule this age : the fetters of old times are broken : Democracy has triumphed : and the life of democrats is cast in a world of variety, tumult, and spasm. All hail to our immortal master, who shows us humanity freed from the bonds of antique superstition ! '
I saw too a venerable poet in a Spanish cloak of the Renascence, whose towering front, pointed beard, and flowing locks might recall to us our own poet had he lived to reach some eighty years. He stood apart, spoke low, but he beamed a look of agreement and welcome. When appealed to by others for his vote, he said simply : * I too accept your verdict, though I belong to a different world of thought, of manners,
c
i8 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
and of faith. Those whom I knew, they who knew me, had ways of their own, their own ideals to worship, their own honour to guard. It was to glorify these that I laboured. There is room for us all, if each of us in truth holds fast to himself, his people, and his saints.'
Little too was said by another whose Roman features I could not forget, having seen them carved in marble on his tomb in Santa Croce. ' The world has passed on far beyond me and the heroes and demigods with whom I held converse in spirit. Republican as I am by my reason, I stand fast by all that is heroic, noble, and proud. There is no field for us of the Old Guard now. We leave to you the field of the new world of which we know so little, to whose favours we so rarely aspire.' And he wrapped around his noble head the martial cloak he wore, and he with drew as if he had been Julius as he fell at the base of the Statue of Pompeius.
And now the Muse, beaming on our poet, seemed to be inviting him to come forward to receive the prize, so clearly awarded by the general voice of his brother bards. Then there stepped forth a truly magnificent personage, whose grand countenance might serve for the Olympian Zeus of Pheidias, albeit he wore the civilian dress of a modern Teuton.
* Gracious Ladies and brother Spirits,' he said, * our friend here is still so much overcome by the welcome he has received that he shrinks from attempting to express his thanks in person, and he begs me to speak in his name. As we two sate apart communing together on the boundless range of our Art, he assures me that he was hardly conscious of intending all the profound ideas that his friends of the later times have discovered for him. He vows that he never put himself personally to his audience at all, and yet they now try to make him out a dozen different men rolled into one. He says that he never enjoyed such training, nor pretended to such learning, as have those who have spoken in his honour. His life had given him little leisure for study, nor was he free to work out in ease all his thoughts, as he would have desired. He was a servant of his Sovereign, a humble member of a working guild, and the simple minister to the enjoyments of the gallants and good fellows of his time. How many a page, he almost moaned out to me in our private talks, he would have torn up, blotted out, or re-written, if he ever had any sort of idea that his too hurried words would be remembered by any but those who first heard them in public. Once or twice in his life, he says, he did deliberately revise and publish to the
FREDERIC HARRISON 19
world some pieces of his work to which his whole soul was given. Too often, he now learns, his compositions have been impudently plundered, grossly misread, and carelessly printed. His short life has been one of storm and stress, of jollity and good fellowship, of lightning work to meet peremptory calls which his official duties would not suffer him to neglect. Too often, he assures me, his name had been used to cover that which was none of his. So conscious is he of this, and that even some of his own was far from his best, that he wishes me to speak in his name.
* Let me add one word more. All of those who have spoken to-day lived long lives of ease and devotion to their art : all but one of them lived to an honoured old age. Such was not the lot of our friend, who ended his bodily life, after years of trouble and of labour, much earlier than they. And when he gave up his daily task of supplying incessant new matter for his colleagues, and had withdrawn in the maturity of his powers to his native town, where he might recast all that he cared to leave to the future — then by a sudden stroke he came to an unexpected end. It was for this reason that his work has needed such generations of interpreters and commentators — of which my own countrymen, we are proud to believe, have been the most generous and the most indus trious. We all hail him — but for the negligible accident of his birth — to be one of our own most cherished glories.'
* Sir ! ' called out a burly figure in a short wig, surrounded by a group of admiring friends — and the big man spoke with the voice of one who never suffered contradiction — * Sir ! you are quite right to admit that our poet was not always at his best vein, and did sometimes forget common-sense, nature, and plain speech. We have quite cleared up these occasional slips at home, whilst our foreign friends have made mountains out of molehills. And as to the " accident of birth "/ he said to a short man, with a singularly speaking countenance, whose arm he held, * why ! Davy, we of the West Midlands think it no " accident " at all. Sir ! it is the hub of this world, and our man is its King.'
Here I noticed a somewhat hectic youth with a big head and a shock of red hair, call out in a thin shrill voice — * No ! I will not allow a word of his to be wrong. It was all so sublime, ineffable, ecstatic ! ' But his passionate utterance was lost in the tide of applause from the throng that pressed on behind him. They came on in their thousands, bearing the standards of their nations. I could see the Tricolour in many bands and of many colours, some upright, some crosswise, the Stars and
C 2
20 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
Stripes, Black Eagles, Lions, Strange Beasts — even the Dragon and the Chrysanthemum flag. Long serried ranks of the Poets of all ages, races, and speech, poured on in troops that seemed unending. All by voice and gesture invited the Muse to confer on him the Golden Tripod.
But here my Dream ended — as Dreams do end— just as the great award was about to be made.
FREDERIC HARRISON.
LAURENCE BINYON 2i
To other voices, other majesties, Removed this while, Peace shall resort again. But he was with us in our darkest pain And stormiest hour : his faith royally dyes The colours of our cause ; his voice replies To all our doubt, dear spirit ! heart and vein Of England 's old adventure ! his proud strain Rose from our earth to the sea-breathing skies.
Even over chaos and the murdering roar
Comes that world- winning music, whose full stops
Sounded all man, the bestial and divine;
Terrible as thunder, fresh as April drops !
He stands, he speaks, the soul-transfigured sign
Of all our story, on the English shore.
LAURENCE BINYON,
22 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
SOME STT^AT THOUGHTS
As the editor of this volume tells me it is desired to include in it stray thoughts jotted down without the formality of an essay, even if they do no more than suggest some points or lines of thought on which readers may agree with or differ from the writer, I have put down a few such points. One of them has often been noted, but it may be noted again, because it comes more and more back to whoever, in reading other great poets, cannot help comparing them to Shakespeare. He is the one among them all who least bears the imprint of a particular time or a particular local environment. Many critics have proved to their own satisfaction that he could only have been an Englishman of the sixteenth century. Heinrich Heine's famous dictum notwithstanding, we can all bring plenty of arguments to show that Shakespeare's genius was an English genius, in the legitimate line of English poetical develop ment, with Chaucer before him, with Milton and Dry den and many another after him, however much he surpassed them all. Nevertheless, the fact remains that we can quite well think of him as detached from any age or country in a sense in which we cannot so think of Dante or Ariosto, Milton or Moliere or Goethe. And with this goes the fact that there is no great writer whose personal character and tastes and likings we can so little determine from his writings. We cannot even tell whether he had any, and what, political opinions. There is nothing to indicate, or even to furnish material for conjecturing, what religious doctrines he held— a thing more remarkable in his time than it would be in ours. Many ingenious attempts have been made to fix upon particular passages as conveying views that were distinctively his own, but when all is said and done how little positive result remains. We do not even know what places he had visited nor what he had read, nor what poets had influenced him. He knew some Latin, but in the Roman plays there is no trace of Virgil or Lucan. There is but little trace in Troilus and Cressida of Homer, except in the character of Thersites, probably inspired by Chapman's translation of the Iliad.
VISCOUNT BRYCE 23
The story is of course post-classical, but the action is laid in Troy. Was he ever at Dover, where men gathered samphire on the cliffs ? Had he ever seen the misty mountain tops at dawn ? The Malvern hills, not visible from Stratford, were the nearest hills one could call mount ains, though by no means lofty. (So one may ask whether Bunyan's Delectable Mountains in the Pilgrim's Progress were the chalk downs of Bedfordshire.) Or did his imagination vivify what he had heard of as readily as what he had seen ? His mind seems to mirror everything alike, as the surface of his gently flowing Avon mirrors whirling clouds and blue sky, the noonday rays and the dying glow of sunset.
This detachment, this habit of presenting all types of character, all phases of life and forms of passion, with the same impartial insight, may perhaps be said to belong to every great dramatist. It is the drama tist's business. Moliere is an example. Yet each of the other great dramatists has provided us with better data for guessing at what he was himself than Shakespeare has done. In him the intellect is strikingly individual in its way of thinking and its way of expressing thought, but it is all developed from within, having caught up very little from time or place, and it seems somehow distinct from the man, as others saw him moving about in the daily life of London or Warwickshire. We recognize now and then in other poets something that we call Shakespearian because it reminds us of Shakespeare's peculiar forms of expression. But this distinctive quality in his thought and style, marked though it is, does not reveal the man ; perhaps not even in the Sonnets, which seem, if one may venture an opinion on so controversial a subject, to be rather dramatic than personal.
Dante has an amazing range of thought and power of making his characters live, but how intensely personal he is ! So also — not to speak of men like Horace or Pope, who weave themselves into the texture of their verse — so is Lucretius, so are Petrarch, Milton, Wordsworth, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Leopardi, and in less measure Pindar and Virgil. We feel as if we could get near them and imagine them as they were in life. Of all the great imaginative works, those which are likest to Shakespeare's in this impersonality of the author, this supreme gift of seeing all phases of life and presenting them all with the same fidelity to the infinite variety of nature, are the Homeric poems and especially the Iliad. (Think of Nestor and Achilles, Priam and Andromache.) There is in those poems something of what one may call (if the apparent contradiction be permissible) the sympathetic aloofness of Shakespeare. His aloofness is neither cold nor cynical : it is the detachment needed
24 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
for an observation which sees calmly, and therefore can mete out equal justice to all that it sees.
One is tempted to connect with this detached attitude in Shake speare his apparent indifference to fame. A poet's want of interest in the fate of his own work is so rare that it might lead us to fancy that he did not know how good that work was. (Read and consider what Robert Browning says about him in Bishop Blougram's Apology.) Is there any parallel in the great masters of literature to this indifference ? Can it be explained by the spontaneity and seeming absence of effort with which he composed, as if this made him feel that there could be nothing wonderful in what came to him so easily ? Did he enjoy the process of creation so much as not to care what happened to the product when the process was over ? Or are we to think that that sense of the insignificance and transitoriness of all human things, which is every now and then discerned as an undercurrent of his thought, extended itself to his own work ? When the time came when he had no longer occasion to write, did he, like Prospero, break his wand, with no sigh of regret ?
We shall never exhaust the Shakespearian problems. A time may come when scholars will be much more nearly agreed than they are now as to which of the plays, or which parts of the doubtful plays, are really from his hand, just as scholars are more agreed now than they were seventy years ago as to the date and authorship of most of the books of the New Testament. But the questions we ask about the relation of the genius to the man will remain, and may be no nearer solution when the next centenary arrives.
BRYCE.
CARDINAL GASQUET 25
THERE are few, probably, who have not derived from Shakespeare's writings at least some part of the inspiration of their lives, and have not found in his wise words practical encouragement in times of difficulty and distress. In these anxious days, when the whole power of England and its Allies is engaged in the defence of liberty and justice, no words of any modern writer could light the fires of national pride and devotion as do Shakespeare's lofty expressions of patriotism and affection for his country, —
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle.
The thought of the great and ever-watchful fleet, to which we owe to-day so much, recalls the lines, —
O, do but think,
You stand upon the rivage, and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing, For so appears this fleet majestical.
Whilst to those who are able and yet hesitate to take up the burden of the struggle the poet seems to say, —
Who is he, whose chin is but enriched With one appearing hair, that will not follow Those call'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France ?
But probably it is the personal debt that we owe to the inspiring words of the * immortal bard ' that draws us to him and demands our individual homage. Speaking for myself, I confess that I owe to the penetrating fire of his verse more than I can say. I was fortunate enough in my early days to have my lot cast in a school where by long tradition a play of Shakespeare was acted each year, and I well remember the effect of the atmosphere we breathed during the weeks of preparation, when the rhythm of the Poet's incomparable language was always ringing in our ears. Alas ! — at least in my opinion — modern requirements have caused this annual feast of Shakespearian poetry to be discontinued, and in
26 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
its place is possibly substituted some play, studied like the classic of a past age.
In reality Shakespeare should never be regarded as the poet of past times. His position in the world of letters is similar to that of Dante. What must strike any observer who lives in Italy is the influence exerted by the latter over the people, even in these days. His verses seem to come to their lips on every occasion as the truest expression of their inmost feelings. It should be the same with us in regard to Shakespeare, for his words aptly give form to almost every lofty thought, even in our days. Why this is so is clear. His poems do not merely express the peculiar sentiments of the age in which they were written ; nor describe only characters with which we are no longer familiar. They are for every age : and for this reason, because they represent nature as it is at all times. * Nothing ', wrote Dr. Johnson, ' can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.' And in applying this truth to Shakespeare he says that he ' is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature ; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world. . . . They are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual ; in those of Shakespeare, it is commonly a species.'
This explains the attraction which the immortal works of our great national poet has for us to-day, and it is the fundamental reason for the willing homage we pay to his genius.
My special admiration for his plays and poems is based, too, on other considerations. I am astonished at the accurate knowledge he displays of the moral teachings and doctrines of the Church. His ethics are irreproachable. Conscience, according to Shakespeare's philosophy, is man's supreme guide ; God's law should be the rule of his life. Man's free will, strengthened by prayer and God's grace, can master his lower nature and enable him to rise to better things and gain for him an ever lasting reward. His whole conception of the dignity and position of man is lofty and true. Indeed, one of the most beautiful and accurate expressions of the Christian life to be found in any lay writer occurs in Sonnet CXLVI.
CARDINAL GASQUET 27
To Shakespeare man's nature is complex. If his soul can reach into the unseen world, his body is but of the earth and has appetites in common with the beasts. How clearly, for example, Hamlet puts this teaching : * What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form, in moving, how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! '
Or again : how clearly the poet states his belief in the existence of the immortal soul that man holds from God, and in the responsibility he incurs on this account :
What is man,
If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Then as to morality in general : however coarse the poet may appear to us at times, in words, jests, or insinuations, according to the manner of his age, no professed moralist could be more severe on vice than he shows himself in his poetry. To him God is no mere abstract force or principle, but the Almighty Creator of all things, who has a personal care of all who have come from His hands. He is the * high all-seer ' and has countless eyes to view men's acts. He is omniscient ; knows when we are falsely accused ; never slumbers nor sleeps ; reads the hearts of men, and in Heaven * sits a Judge, that no king can corrupt '. He is our Father, cares for the aged, feeds the ravens and caters for the sparrow. He is the widow's * champion and defence ' ; is the * upright, just, and true disposing God ' ; is the one supreme appeal — ' God above deal between thee and me '. He is the guardian of the night, * when the searching eye of heaven is hid ', &c. He
To believing souls Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
Mercy is His attribute : * 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ', and His mercy constrains us to be merciful to our brethren. All human duties and obligations are founded on our duty to Him. Kings and all in authority are His deputies and ministers. Man and wife are united in Him, and therefore marriage is indissoluble. This great God, too, is the Lord of armies.
O ! thou, whose captain I account myself, Look on my forces with a gracious eye; Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath. That they may crush down with a heavy fall
28 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
The usurping helmets of our adversaries. Make us thy ministers of chastisement, That we may praise thee in thy victory! To thee I do commend my watchful soul, Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes ; Sleeping and waking! O defend me still!
Instances might be multiplied almost indefinitely of the true, solid teaching on Christian faith and morals which is to be found in Shake speare's plays and poems. If only for this reason I gladly bow in homage to him for his imperishable work.
But my admiration and reverence for his name are strengthened by his very reticence, for what he might have said under the peculiar circumstances of the times in which he lived and did not say. In the * spacious days ' o£ Queen Elizabeth, and at the beginning of the seven teenth century, the clergy as a class, with the monks and nuns of the old religion, were not popular. The friar, the monk, and the priest were at this time considered to be fair game for the coarse jest and ribald witticism of poet and playwright. To attack their fair name would have been to tickle the ears of the crowd. Yet we may search the plays of Shakespeare through and through, and not find any such trait. On the contrary, the liberality of his treatment of the clergy is apparent every where, and even his sympathy is evidenced in more than one instance. A striking example of this is to be seen in his play of King John, not so much by what he wrote as by what he omitted to write. It is certain that in this play he revised the old play of The Troublesome Reign of King John, which contains a ribald scene describing the ransacking of an abbey. Shakespeare deliberately omitted this scene in re-casting the play. That it must have been deliberate we can hardly doubt, since he makes few such omissions. Here, then, the poet had an opportunity of appealing to the coarse tastes of his age and of ingratiating himself with all who desired to blacken the reputations of those who belonged to the * old order ', and refused to take it. We can see in the works of some of his contemporaries, such as Greene in his Friar Bacon, or Marlowe in his Jew of Malta, what excellent capital for popularity he set aside as unworthy of his muse.
In the same way, in dealing with English history, it is remarkable that he left on one side subjects which might have purchased popularity. The overthrow of the Papal authority, as it was treated in the anonymous play of The Troublesome Reign of King John, or in The Faerie Queene ; the gunpowder plot, as used by Ben Jonson in his Catiline ; the destruc tion of the Armada, as treated by Dekker ; the glorification of Elizabeth,
CARDINAL GASQUET 29
as added by Fletcher to Henry VIII, were all subjects which would certainly lend themselves to catching the popular sentiment, and which we can have no doubt were of set purpose left on one side by Shakespeare. This deliberate silence, therefore, and this refusal to bid for popularity by joining in the chorus of defamation of the past so freely indulged in by other writers of his day, in my opinion raises Shakespeare to a pedestal high above, not merely his contemporaries, but above even such illustrious men as Spenser and Milton. If we grant that it was aesthetics, and high art rather than ethics which counselled him to take this course, even this does not detract from the largeness of mind which preserved him from the temptation to pander to the prejudices of the time.
For this reason, too, I honour and reverence the memory of this great poet, and am pleased to respond to this call for homage.
F. A. CARD. GASQUET,
ROME,
PALAZZO DI S. CALISTO IN TRASTEVERE.
30 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
FOR ^fPHL 23RD
1616-1916
ONE thing to-day
For England let us pray —
That, when this bitterness of blood is spent,
Out of the darkness of the discontent
Perplexing man with man, poor pride with pride,
Shall come to her, and loverly abide,
Sure knowledge that these lamentable days
Were given to death and the bewildered praise
Of dear young limbs and eager eyes forestilled,
That in her home, where Shakespeare's passion grew
From song to song, should thrive the happy-willed
Free life that Shakespeare drew.
JOHN DRINKWATER, BIRMINGHAM.
WILLIAM BARRY
THE CATHOLIC ST^IJV IN SHAK£SPEACKIL
' To one that knew nothing of Christian beliefs ', said Lafcadio Hearn, * the plays of Shakespeare must remain incomprehensible.' For religion lays bare the heart of a nation, even as it shapes its law and custom. Carry le has anticipated the interpreter of Japan. * In some sense ', he allows, * this glorious Elizabethan era with its Shakespeare, as the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The Christian Faith, which was the theme of Dante's song, had produced this Practical Life which Shakespeare was to sing.' Hence the supreme poet could never be a Puritan. The question is not so much personal to the man of Stratford-on-Avon, whether he conformed to the Church by law established or stood out as a recusant. We pay homage to something larger and deeper than the individual who has become its mouthpiece during all future days ; we recognize the genius, rightly so termed, that sums up and for ever crystallizes an otherwise extinct world by means of him. Therefore, to quote Carlyle once more, he is * the noblest product ' of Catholicism ; but, I hasten to add, he appears amid the splendours kindled by a new morning, by the Renaissance, of a literature no longer mediaeval. There is, then, a Catholic strain in Shakespeare, crossing and entangling the modern, with remarkable consequences.
Elizabethan drama rose out of the mystery and morality plays of which the origin must be sought in the Roman Mass. Their aim was distinctly religious, while Scripture and the legends of the Saints fur nished their matter. Shakespeare, taking a wider scope and setting history on the stage, did, nevertheless, contrive in Macbeth an instance of the * morality ' made perfect ; for, with a depth and directness never surpassed, it reveals the law of conscience avenging itself on guilt by an inward working. The witches and their shows are but a phantasm ;
32 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
the chief agent of doom is the sinner, sicklied or driven mad under stress of self-accusation. Richard III, not so profound, discovers con science in the persons and events that visibly at last bear down on the culprit and smite him before battle. So far, the colouring is Christian rather than simply Catholic. But what I may term the atmosphere of Romeo and Juliet, of the Merchant of Venice, and the Comedies, their warmth, ease, and grace of movement, so unmistakably Italian, would vanish away if we took from them the religious background; and this must be mediaeval, since it was neither Pagan nor Puritan. Not many years later its glow was gone. If we reflect upon the secret of living art, which is as little antiquarian as it is prophetic afar off, we shall feel that the Catholic past in England, its continuation in Italy, afforded just the perspective in time and space that Shakespeare needed to hold the mirror up to nature. Even his Roman plays strike home by virtue of this ever fresh quality. It comes out in Henry VIII, if we grant that Shakespeare is the author of Queen Katharine's speeches ; to my mind, A Winter's Tale, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, bear each a character derived from long Catholic usage now passing into Renaissance forms. Henry V is a crusader in spirit ; in Henry VI, spiteful as it is against Joan of Arc, we light upon the prophecy, now fulfilled, that the Maid shall take the place of St. Denis and inspire the armies of France. In King John, which reads fiercely anti-Papal, the poet has omitted from his revised copy a scene that dishonoured monasticism. He chants, too, with a pathos not un touched by reminiscence of its fall, the * bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang '. His Friar Lawrence lingers in our thoughts of Verona 's lovers, as a purely human, even all too human, figure. But the grandest of his Catholic creations lives in Measure for Measure. The * votarist of Saint Clare ', Isabella, remains * a thing enskied and sainted ' among the heavy shadows of vice, hypocrisy, or scepticism, hanging over this difficult drama. Was her name a family tradition ? Isabella Shakespeare, to whom the Stratford house claimed kinship, had once been Prioress of the Benedictine cloister at Wroxall. Measure for Measure, as a story of the * Virgin- Martyr ', is painfully impressive by its insistence on law which cannot be broken. Its theme, from the earliest ages familiar to Catholic ears, holds in it a transcendent Puritanism.
I was once asked whether in Shakespeare's plays any reference could be found in praise of the Madonna, our Lady St. Mary. There is one, I think, in All 's Well that Ends Well, which Dante himself
WILLIAM BARRY 33
might have signed. The Countess, grieving over Bertram, her wayward son, cries out,
What angel shall
Bless this unworthy husband ? He cannot thrive, Unless her prayers, whom Heaven delights to hear, * And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath Of greatest justice. — Act III, Sc. iv.
None but the Queen of Angels, as the Litany of Lore to invokes her, can be thought of under such high language as able by prayer to * re prieve ' a sinful soul. Surely it is not Helena, though a pilgrim to St. James of Compostella, whom these words fit. Or, if so, they are significant of a loftier faith where the full scope and grandeur of them had been long acclaimed by Christendom. But other lines bearing the mystic seal occur to me ; as, for instance, when we read in Macbeth of * the Lord's anointed temple ', and how sacrilege has stolen thence
* the life of the building '. Catholic dogma will turn imagery like this to its profit, to the hidden life of Christ in the tabernacle, and to the sanctuaries which were violated in a day of rebuke and blasphemy. It does not follow that Shakespeare had these outrages in mind, but they darkened the history of a time only just gone by. Like Virgilian currents of suggestion, the pensive sayings in which our dramatist abounds bear us to many shores. At length we come with Shakespeare into the open sea where all the winds are struggling ; we reach the incoherence of Hamlet and Lear's pessimism, on which from Prosperous fairy island the pale sunshine falls as in a dream.
The ' incoherence of Hamlet ' is the play itself. No Puritan half way house can be seen anywhere ; but the Catholic faith in Purgatory, penance, sacraments, judgement, is here at death-grips with a sceptical doubt, the very heart of the prince who knows not how to flee from his own question. It is Kant's Dream of a Ghost-seer, flung into drama with unheard-of magnificence and equal melancholy ages before the philosopher, but a forecast which was beginning to be realized even while Shakespeare wrote. Faith has become a point of interrogation ; nothing stands sure ; love and life take us in if we trust them ; and
* the rest is silence '. Acute critics have detected in what I will call the pessimist dramas, Hamlet , Measure for Measure, Othello, Lear, and even The Tempest, an influence which they charge to Montaigne, the French
* captain of the band '. It may be thus ; but ' der Geist, der stets ver- neint ', the Everlasting No, walked about London streets, when he was not haunting a Gascon squire at home. The fall of a universal
D
34 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
religion in many lands must have brought forth a doubt such as attends on earthquake. Europe has been asking of its wisest ever since, * Canst thou minister to a mind diseased ? ' Hamlet is * Everyman '. And King Lear outdoes the meditative Dane, with his frenzied shriek, the last word of anarchism :
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, They kill us for their sport.
But I will make my bow to Prospero, sometime Duke of Milan, Catholic and Italian, a beautiful old man, magician and father of Miranda, whom I have known since I was a lad of six, and now I revere him as the master of dreams which the crowd calls science, but I glimpses of God's angels moving the wide universe. Hamlet will not always be incoherent. The all-embracing Catholic Faith, out from whence our Shakespeare came, looks upon him as its child of genius, with starry eyes and a heart deep as man's deepest sorrow — which is not to have found his God. He will find, for he has suffered. And, by the miracle that yet is to be wrought, Hamlet's incoherence will turn in that day to the * marriage of true minds ', when Faith weds with Life, and Love with Knowledge.
WILLIAM BARRY. ST. PETER'S, LEAMINGTON.
ALICE MEYNELL 35
HEROINES
THOUGHTS about Shakespeare cannot pretend to be new. There fore it is enough that the thoughts of us all should be practised rather than spoken. It might, for example, be insolent for any man to say that Shakespeare is a magnificent humourist for every age, yet to the thinking of our age a very tedious wit ; but the man who would not venture to say this aloud knows his Second Part of Henry IV, for its humour, through and through, and has not read Love's Labour 's Lost, for its wit, more than perhaps once. We all know Shakespeare as it were privately, and thus a demand for words about him touches our autobiography. What we think about Shakespeare is part of the public's privacy as well as of our own. For we are all more than content to be like Poins, to whom Prince Henry says, * Thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks ; never a man's thought keeps in the roadway better than thine.' We are safe in the middle of the roadway in our thoughts of Shakespeare. Very few men have tried to be original in regard to Shakespeare, and their dreary experiment had best be for gotten. It will probably not be imitated. Shakespeare's greater readers have done no more than multiply one affection, one praise. Ruskin and Emerson are only more articulate than the rest of their respective nations. It is true that Ruskin seemed to make a kind of discovery when he showed this fact in the dramas — that Shakespeare has no heroes, but only heroines. The * discovery ' only seems ; Ruskin states the matter, but every simple reader knows that Juliet was steadfast and wise in stratagem and Romeo rash, Juliet single-hearted and Romeo changeable ; that Imogen was true and that Posthumus Leonatus was by her magnanimity awarded a kind of triumph when all he should have hoped from her mercy was pardon ; that Hermione forgives her lord his suspicion, and the theft of her child, and sixteen years of innocent exile, without a word of forgiveness. Every reader knows the indomit able will of Helena, who condescends to pursue and win a paltry boy, and sweetly thinks herself rewarded by the possession of that poor
D 2
36 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
quarry ; the lovely simplicity of Desdemona, which lies as that of a frightened child lies, to save herself from the violence of the noble savage whom she loves ; the inarticulate and modest devotion of Virgilia to a great man not too great for insane self-love ; Cordelia 's integrity and self-possession among raving men ; Isabella's courage in face of a coward brother ; Viola's valour and her single love in search of the contre-coup of her Duke's affections ; Julia, true to a juggling lover ; Queen Katharine betrayed by a hypocrite ; nay, the maid called Barbara who was forsaken. Barbara, Desdemona, Juliet, Imogen, Virgilia, Miranda, Viola, Hermione, Perdita, Julia, Helena, the other Helena, Mariana, Rosalind, were all enamoured, all impassioned, and all constant.
Why did Shakespeare make heroines and not heroes ? It was assuredly because Shakespeare had a master passion for chastity, and because this quality was most credible, in a world not governed by theology, there where he attributed it, lodged it, and adored it — in this candidatus exercitus of women.
There is one thing that additionally and adventitiously proves this passion of Shakespeare's spirit, and that is his abstention from the brilliancy and beauty wherewith he knows how to invest the wanton : his vitality in Cressida, his incomparable splendour in Cleopatra. Yet stay — is not Cressida alone in inconstancy ? and is it not a senseless action to name Cressida in Cleopatra's glorious company ? Shakespeare, able to make unparalleled Cressidas, made only one. Cleopatra is clean, not by water but by her * integrity of fire '. She too is constant, she too is * for the dark ', for eternity. She entrusts her passion to another world. Let her stand close to the majestic side of Hermione, even though Hermione might not permit Perdita to kiss her.
Does this recognition of Shakespeare's master passion look like the claim to a discovery ? Heaven forbid, for it should not.
ALICE MEYNELL.
JOHN GALSWORTHY 37
THE
WHEN the human spirit, joyful or disconsolate, seeks perch for its happy feet, or stay for flagging wings, it comes back again and again to the great tree of Shakespeare's genius, whose evergreen no heat withers, no cold blights, whose security no wind can loosen.
Rooted in the good brown soil, sunlight or the starshine on its leaves, this great tree stands, a refuge and home for the spirits of men.
Why are the writings of Shakespeare such an everlasting solace and inspiration ?
Because, in an incomprehensible world, full of the savage and the stupid and the suffering, stocked with monstrous contrasts and the most queer happenings, they do not fly to another world for compensation. They are of Earth and not of Heaven. They blink nothing, dare every thing, but even in tragedy never lose their sane unconscious rapture, their prepossession with that entrancing occupation which we call ' life '. Firm in reality, they embody the faith that sufficient unto this Earth is the beauty and the meaning thereof. Theirs is, as it were, the proud exuberance of Nature, and no eye turned on the hereafter ; and so they fill us with gladness to be alive — though * the rain it raineth every day '.
Truth condescended for a moment when Shakespeare lived, with drew her bandage and looked out ; and good and evil, beauty and distortion, laughter and gloom for once were mirrored as they are, under this sun and moon.
What a wide, free, careless spirit was this man Shakespeare's — incarnate lesson to all narrow-headed mortals, with strait moralities, and pedantic hearts ! And what a Song he sang ; clothing Beauty for all time in actuality, in strangeness, and variety !
* He wanted arte,' Ben Jonson said ; * I would he had blotted a thousand lines ! ' No doubt ! And yet, Ben Jonson : What is art ?
In every tree, even the greatest, dead wood and leaves shrivelled from birth, abound ; but never was a tree where the rich sap ran up more freely, never a tree whose height and circumference were
38 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
greater, whose leaves so glistened ; where astonished Spring fluttered such green buds ; breezes made happier sound in Summer, whispering ; the Autumn gales a deeper roaring ; nor, in Winter, reigned so rare a silent beauty of snow.
In this Great Tree, I think there shall never be, in the time of man,
' Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.'
JOHN GALSWORTHY.
March, 1916.
F. R. BENSON 39
HOMAGE
1 OH, I see,' said a friend one day, at the end of a performance of Hamlet, ' you Stratfordians are trying to Shakespearize England.' * The world, too, if we can/ I replied.
But primarily we are only wandering actors, not philanthropists, and as artists it is not ours to say this is right or this is wrong, only this is life as it has been, as it is, and as it may be if you will have it thus ; and as artists our desire is to take part in some of the most perfect dramas that the world has ever seen or will see.
The size and shape of the theatres alter, the patterns of scenery and conventions of art- expression change, but the eternal truths of existence remain the same for all ages.
It is such truths that the poet embodies in his work ; truths that deal with the strong things of life ; the sigh of the sea, the trumpet-note of the thunder, the song of the bird, the sunlight and the dark, the fall of a leaf from the tree, of a star from Heaven, the nightingale's lament, the buzzing of a gnat — all blend in the magician's melody. Love pleads, Life struggles, Death flings wide the gates of understanding, all created things are busy — the song of Drama, doing and being.
If we can interpret the poet's meaning, we shall have told our audi ence something of the touch of Nature that makes the whole world kin, something of the realization of brotherhood through patriotism and the intensification of national life. We shall have shown them something of the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ; something of the great peace enthroned in the human heart. We shall have given them glimpses of the pendulum of human progress, swinging between free development for the individual and the preservation of the racial type — liberty under the law.
Hither come pilgrims from the ends of the earth to enrich them selves and their fellows with those ideas for which Shakespeare stands as the representative genius of our race, as the master-poet of the world.
' I have found the heart of England ', preached the sage from
4o A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
Bengal, * in Stratford-on-Avon, and it was as the heart of Shakespeare ; faithful, yet tolerant, and gentle as it was strong/
With the rhythmic balance of Hellenic movement, and with all the fervour of Hebraism, Shakespeare touches the secret springs of character, reveals the wisdom and tenderness of Mother Earth, interprets the language of bird and beast and flower, and manifests a Catholic Chris tianity that acknowledges, in all charity, its debt to and dependence upon a noble paganism.
* And I will lead you forth to play in the sunshine, close to the waterfall, in a land of vines and sunshine, yea, and of men that sing far, far away for ever.'
F. R. BENSON. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
H. B. IRVING 41
THE HOMAGE OF THE
To Shakespeare — the man of the theatre, the actor, the manager — we of the theatre pay peculiar homage. To the men of letters, the critics and commentators, we leave Shakespeare the poet, but with this reservation, that to understand truly Shakespeare and his work it is necessary to understand something of, and to have some sympathy with, the theatre ; to recognize more fully than some writers are willing to allow, the considerable part which Shakespeare's sense of the theatre and experience of its art played in the development of his genius. The art of the theatre is as individual a thing as the art of painting or sculpture, and entirely separate and distinct from the art of the poet or novelist. Its conditions are circumscribed and peculiar, the talent or genius for it a thing apart. No play can live in the theatre by purely literary merit ; poetic genius alone cannot make an actable play. The theatre has, at times, incurred undeserved reprobation at the hands of those who have thought that success as poets or story-tellers must imply success in the theatre ; that, if they condescended to bring their work on to the stage, they would have no difficulty in achieving the same success which had attended them in their own particular art. They have forgotten that the favours of the Dramatic Muse are as difficult to secure, and must be as artfully won, as those of any other of the Muses. The poor lady has sometimes suffered rudely at their hands because she has preferred the persistent and laborious suitor to one too confident and condescending in his approach. We of the theatre know that Shakespeare as a playwright lives on the stage to-day apart from his contemporary dramatists because he, alone of them all, was not only the greatest poet but the one great dramatist among them. He knew from inside and respected the medium through which he worked, the temper of an audience, those secrets of dramatic effect which, to the playwright, represent the mechanism of the well-told story or the well- ordered poem. In short, Shakespeare knew his business as a man of the theatre ; he was a master-craftsman in his day, a journeyman at
42 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
times, a genius not of the closet but of the stage ; and for that very reason, and that alone, his plays hold their own in the theatre to-day, in all languages and among all civilized peoples.
As actors we owe our homage to Shakespeare. Never more than in this hour of our country's fate has he been an inspiration to the men of his calling to acquit themselves well, * to make mouths at the in visible event, exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death and danger dare '. And when some would seek to strip from this actor's brows, because he was an actor, the laurels of his genius, we reply that those who know something of the world of the theatre, its rivalry, never more keen than in Shakespeare's day, who can picture the sur roundings in which he worked and strove for success, are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that it would have been impossible, by all the laws of sense and probability, for a dramatist in Shakespeare's position to have foisted on to his colleagues and the public the work of another brain. So sensational and vital a secret of authorship could never have been kept in the small world of the theatre of that day, a world of active competition and, we know in Shakespeare's case, bitter jealousy. We of the theatre realize this, and to us such a consideration is answer enough to the utmost efforts of perverse ingenuity. Strong in our faith we pay our homage to this actor who has given to our English theatre an heritage of which we, by our own unaided efforts, have striven in the past — and are striving to-day — to be the worthy repositories. Our greatest desire must be ever to follow faithfully the example of those two loyal players who preserved for posterity the work * of so worthy a friend and fellow as was our Shakespeare '.
H. B. IRVING.
GORDON BOTTOMLEY 43
ON TEACEFUL TENETT^ATION
IN time of war it is well to do homage to the first Englishman who has subjugated the enemy. The characteristic thoroughness of the Teutonic appreciation of Shakespeare is the best proof of the com pleteness of his triumph.
But an infinitely harder task still awaits him : the subjugation of England is yet unachieved, and it is only when that age-long conflict is complete that we shall be able to celebrate any Shakespearian anni versary appropriately, and render him the only homage which would convince him, if he could return among us, that his countrymen believe in his glory and value his achievement at its surpassing worth.
Not marble nor a gilded monument can accomplish what Shake speare asks from us ; a service in Stratford Church may commemorate the enclosing of his dust ; but only in that newer temple on the banks of Avon can the fitting rite be held, and while it stands solitary in the English shires it would be impossible to persuade his spirit, if we knew how to invoke it, that the tribute of our commemoration is sincere or anything more than a detachable ornament perfunctorily pinned on to the fabric of our modern life for occasions of display.
Shakespeare's infinite variety would turn that of Cleopatra into a monotony if they could be set in comparison ; yet age would appear to have withered it, custom to have staled it, if his position in his own country were the only standard of judgement. For several generations it has seemed a noble thought, a piece of profound wisdom, to say that he is too great for the theatre and that he can only yield his innermost riches to the student in his closet. This may well be true when the student in his closet is the actor busied in identifying himself with his part ; but in its larger application this doctrine that Shakespeare can best be worshipped in a temple built without hands has been held long enough for us to ask what its results are, and to note that during its currency the English theatre has descended from level to level of debasement and cheapness.
44 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
It is certainly not too soon to urge that it might be well to try worshipping him in temples built with hands again. Most of the great poetry in the world was written for the sake of its sound in men's mouths ; it should be apparent that this was especially so in the case of dramatic poetry, yet a mischievous by-product of the invention of printing has been the gradual production of the idea, now almost become an instinct, that poetry is half a visual art, a pleasure of the eye to be gained by the look of words on printed pages. Yet Milton, sounding his lines in dark ness, thought as little of testing poetry by such a standard as Shakespeare did when he supplied his theatre with manuscripts and left them there. Messieurs Mouth and Company are as truly the real publishers for poetry as they were in the days of Aeschylus, and England will never know the wonder and delight and awe-stirring powers of Shakespeare until his words are heard ten thousand times oftener than they are printed, until his plays become again part of the daily routine of English theatres rather than the hors-d'oeuvre of festivals, and the total seating accommo dation of English theatres has become at least as great and as well distributed as the total seating accommodation of English churches and chapels.
If he had been born before the Reformation this first essential would have been his from the beginning, for he would have worked for the universal employer that gave complete and endless opportunities to those great Italian dramatists Giotto and Giovanni Bellini and Tintoretto. The church was then the theatre ; and sometimes it seems as if the theatre will never be universal again, or realize its opportunities adequately, until it returns to the church — or, indeed, until the church realizes the dramaturgic nature of its ceremonies and teaching, and becomes a theatre.
In the Middle Ages Shakespeare thus would have been sure of an auditorium and an instructed audience in every parish, and he would have been a national possession to Englishmen in a way that he never has been yet. In the beginning of the nineteenth century such an oppor tunity, though in a lesser degree, began to seem possible ; modest theatres with stock companies sprang up in most of the comfortable country towns in every shire, and energy and resource showed itself everywhere in the number of great plays taken in hand, the sustained interest of provincial audiences in serious drama, and the number of competent actors which the system produced. But the commercial development of England came and altered the balance of importance of the provincial towns, and was followed by the railways, which
GORDON BOTTOMLEY 45
centralized the satisfaction of the community's needs at a few nodal points ; and the whole organization disappeared.
The loss was very real. I have in mind the district with which I am most familiar, a rocky, thinly populated stretch of country on the north west coast of England. A hundred years ago its life and activities centred about two market-towns at its borders : to-day those towns persist little changed, perhaps rather larger and more prosperous under modern conditions. Their amusements are administered in a couple of picture-palaces and a modest concert-hall at which a musical comedy touring company occasionally pauses for three nights : no one would think it worth his while to build a theatre in either of them, no one in his senses would think it possible to maintain a stock company in such a theatre even if it were built ; yet in each of them there exists intact the physical structure of what was a well-appointed theatre in the days of Mrs. Siddons and Kean, and in one of those theatres — now a cheap dancing academy — Kean once acted, the townsfolk still proudly record. Kean once acted, and perhaps Wordsworth and De Quincey applauded ; for there De Quincey edited the local paper, and thither Wordsworth must come when he would take coach for the outer world. But neither Irving nor Forbes- Robertson ever acted there, and it is safe to assume that the bicentenary of Shakespeare's death had interest and reality in many mountain villages and fell-side farms where its tercentenary will pass unrevered or unknown.
In devising a National Memorial to keep Shakespeare's achieve ment more vividly and constantly in the minds of his countrymen, it is inevitable that a metropolitan theatre, where all great plays may find performance regardless of dividends, and where the passage of time may create a school of great acting and severe technique, should seem most worth working for. The need for such a theatre is paramount and even peremptory, if only to provide a standard and an authority from which young poets may revolt, and upon which youth in general may spend its passion for contradiction, in the profitable and well-trained fashion which the Royal Academy of Arts has taught to six generations of brilliant painters. In passing it may be urged that, when such a theatre is consummated, it might well profit by the modern discoveries in theatre construction and scenic management which have not yet reached London, and indeed make every experiment which has no attraction for syndicates or shareholders.
But when such a theatre is finished, the task of building Shake speare's memorial in a nation's mind will only be begun. Perhaps it
46 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
will not be thought irrelevant that a rustic and provincial writer should insist, even tediously, that decentralization and universal penetration alone can complete the work. Such touring companies as those of Mr. F. R. Benson do something, and something considerable : the isolated enterprise of Mr. Barry Jackson and Mr. John Drinkwater has raised in Birmingham the most modern theatre in England, and practises in it, with a stock company, the performance of Shakespeare's plays and those of his great companions, not on red-letter days alone, but as part of a daily duty. If such a theatre as the Birmingham Repertory Theatre were to be built in every prosperous town in England, Shake speare would have come into his own before the arrival of his quater- centenary ; but the inertia and indifference and dislike of innovation, the demand for the minor gaieties and the baser sentimentalities now prevalent, can only be overcome by a public effort. If the Memorial Committee could enlarge its scheme to include provincial memorial theatres, and companies to carry the seldom-seen plays to every part of England, Shakespeare might soon be the popular dramatist in his own country that he is in the rest of Europe.
I yield my homage earnestly and eagerly to the creative force that worked instinctively and easily in Nature's way, and with results that were Nature's own ; to the mastery of the deep springs of mirth, of a superb sense of design working with human bodies as its integers, and of life's supreme illumination by tragic splendour, which can still make the world seem for a little while as vivid and august to lesser men as it was continually to the miracle-worker himself ; but I cannot help regretting that the corporate homage of Shakespeare's countrymen should still be so imperfectly at Shakespeare's service.
GORDON BOTTOMLEY.
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES 47
THE FAIRIES' HOMAGE
EACH bough hung quiet in its place
O'er Stratford's starry lea, Yet round and round with giddy race I saw the dead leaves flee, In and out In eerie rout — A sight most strange to see. And then I heard with quick heart-beat Multitudinous fairy feet Marching come With elfin hum And music faint and sweet.
Within a beech's hollow trunk,
Whose bursting buds had strowed Those red, dead eddying leaves, I shrunk And breathless there abode, While those fine Fays in line
Past me flowed and flowed. 'Twas Shakespeare's Fairy Host indeed. Oberon and Titania lead ; Then, good Troth ! Puck, Cobweb, Moth, Pease-blossom, Mustard Seed.
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
Thereat, the climate, changing quite,
Yields Athens to the view, Beneath whose bright Midsummer Night Puck plays his pranks anew — Works Bottom 's strange And monstrous change ; Befools four lovers true : And in requital for her harms To Oberon, Titania charms From sleep to wake Bewitched and take An Ass-head to her arms !
That marvellous Dream on English Air
Dissolves, — the Host moves on, I follow them from out my lair O'er moonlit meadows wan; Till round the porch Of Stratford Church Like bees they swarm anon ; While * Hail, all Hail ! ' their homage-cry Swells sweetly up into the sky, * For, Master Will, Thy magic skill Has made us live for aye.'
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES,
W. P. KER 49
SHAK£SPEAT(E, <AND THE TASTOT(AL IDEA
ENGLAND and Spain in the great age seem to have had a common understanding of many things ; they agreed in many points of art without debate or discussion, or any overt communication, as far as one can make out. No form of verse in French or Italian resembles English verse in its rules and licences as does the Spanish measure called arte mayor. Even the trick of the heroic couplet used as a tag at the end of a blank- verse tirade is common to Lope de Vega and Shakespeare.
In several passages Cervantes might almost be translating Sir Philip Sidney. The great dialogue on romance and the drama at the end of the first part of Don Quixote (1605) is more like the Apologie for Poetrie than many things that have been quoted by * parallelists ' as evidence of plagiarism :
What greater absurdity can there be in drama (says the Curate) than to bring in a child in swaddling clothes at the beginning of the first act and to find him in the second a grown man and bearded ? ... As for the observance of place what can I say except that I have seen a play where the first act began in Europe, the second in Asia, the third ended in Africa, and if there had been a fourth it would have passed in America, and so the play would have comprehended the four quarters of the world.
In the previous chapter the Canon of Toledo, speaking undoubtedly the opinions of Cervantes, had described an ideal of romance with all that devotion to classical ideals which is so strong in Sidney. The author of Don Quixote, writing the first great modern novel and talking about the art of romance, gives as his ideal of prose fiction a work in which all the characters are noble classical types — * the wit of Ulysses, the piety of Aeneas, the valour of Achilles, the sorrows of Hector ; treating of which the author with the freedom of the prose form may vary his style, and be epic, lyric, tragical, comical, or what you will ' — ending with the weighty sentence : * For Epic can be written not only in verse but in prose.'
It might be a description of Sidney's Arcadia ; it is a prophecy of the last work of Cervantes, Persilesy Sigismunda, the serious and classical
50 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
romance in which he imitated Heliodorus. Heliodorus, thirty years before, had been saluted by Sidney as an author of prose epic (which is the same thing as heroical romance) :
For Xenophon who did imitate so excellently as to give us effigiein jiisti imperii, the portraiture of a just empire, under the name of Cyrus (as Cicero saith of him) made therein an absolute heroical poem. So did Heliodorus in his sugred invention of that picture of love in Theagenes and Chariclea. And yet both these write in prose, &c.
Cervantes is somewhere between Sidney and Shakespeare in his respect for the classical idols. Sidney and Cervantes are subdued, as Shakespeare is not, in presence of the great authorities. The imposture of the Renaissance, the superstitious worship of literary ideas, is shown most clearly in reference to Heliodorus. There must be something in prose corresponding to epic poetry. So Heliodorus is made into the pattern of heroic romance, almost equal to Homer. He satisfies the conditions of an abstract critical theory. Sidney and Cervantes — occasionally — revel in terms of literary species. So does Shakespeare, as we know ; this is the sort of intellect that Shakespeare names Polonius.
Cervantes spent a great deal of time in the service of conventional literary ideals ; but if he wrote the Galatea, he also wrote Don Quixote^ and he belonged to a country that was fond of fresh life in its stories. Shakespeare kept out of the danger of Arcadia, and paid respect to no literary ideas (such as heroic poem or heroic romance), however much they might be preached about by the critics. But Shakespeare had few prejudices ; that * great but irregular genius ' did not scruple to use the tricks of classical tragedy (e.g. stichomythia), if it suited his purpose to do so, and he was not going to renounce Arcadia because Polonius and his friends were eloquent about the pastoral idea. Shakespeare and Cervantes agree in certain places with regard to pastoral. They agree in playing a double game about it. Pastoral is ridiculed in the penance of Don Quixote ; yet the story of Don Quixote is full of the most beautiful pastoral episodes — Marcela the best of them, it may be. As You Like It is of course the play where Shakespeare criticises pastoral, and shows the vanity of it, and how different from the golden world are the briers of the forest of Arden and the biting of the northern wind. We are not seriously taken in by this hypocrisy ; we know that in spite of Touchstone we too are in Arcadia, in the rich landscape along with youth and fair speech. Touchstone leaves Arcadia much as it was, and the appeal to the dead shepherd proves how harmless is his negative attitude.
W. P. KER 51
In the story of Preciosa, the Spanish gipsy, the first of the Novelas exemplar es, Cervantes plays for an effect like that of Shakespeare's green wood in As You Like It. The scene is not Arcadia, but Madrid and the country about Toledo, Estremadura and Murcia. The gipsies of the story are rogues and vagabonds. But the story is a pastoral romance none the less ; the free life of the gipsies is praised in such terms as turn the hardships into pleasant fancies. Preciosa has just enough of the gipsy character to save the author from instant detection ; she is good at begging, and she has the professional lisp.1 But her world is Arcadia, the pure pastoral beauty where Florizel and Perdita also have their home. And here, to end, it may be observed that Cervantes and Shakespeare with Preciosa and Perdita have been glad to repeat the old device of the classical comedy. They might perhaps have done without it, but for the sake of Preciosa and the other long-lost child we spectators will always applaud loudly when the box of baby-things — irrjplSiov yj/&>/>to>tarc»j/ — is produced in the last scene, to bring back the heroine to her own again.
W. P. KER.
1 ' i Quierenme dar barato ? cenores, dijo Preciosa, que como gitana hablaba ceceoso, y esto es artificio en ellos, que no naturaleza.' — CERVANTES, La Gitanilla de Madrid.
E 2
52 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
THE SONGS OF
AMONG the * co-supremes and stars of love * which form the con stellated glory of our greatest poet there is one small splendour which we are apt to overlook in our general survey. But, if we isolate it from other considerations, it is surely no small thing that Shakespeare created and introduced into our literature the Dramatic Song. If with statistical finger we turn the pages of all his plays, we shall discover, not perhaps without surprise, that these contain not fewer than fifty strains of lyrical measure. Some of the fifty, to be sure, are mere star-dust, but others include some of the very jewels of our tongue. They range in form from the sophisticated quatorzains of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (where, however, comes * Who is Silvia ? ') to the reckless snatches of melody in Hamlet. But all have a character which is Shakespearean, and this regardless of the question so often raised, and so incapable of reply, as to whether some of the wilder ones are Shakespeare's com position or no. Whoever originally may have written such scraps as
* They bore him bare-faced on the bier ' and * Come o'er the bourne, Bessy, to me ', the spirit of Shakespeare now pervades and possesses them.
Our poet was a prodigious innovator in this as in so many other matters. Of course, the idea and practice of musical interludes in plays was not quite novel. In Shakespeare's early youth that remarkable artist in language, John Lyly, had presented songs in several of his plays, and these were notable for what his contemporary, Henry Upchear, called
* their labouring beauty '. We may notice that Lyly's songs were not printed till long after Shakespeare's death, but doubtless he had listened to them. Peele and Greene had brilliant lyrical gifts, but they did not exercise them in their dramas, nor did Lodge, whose novel of Rosalynde (1590) contains the only two precedent songs which we could willingly add to Shakespeare's juvenile repertory. But while I think it would be rash to deny that the lyrics of Lodge and Lyly had their direct influence on the style of Shakespeare, neither of those admirable precursors
EDMUND GOSSE
53
conceived the possibility of making the Song an integral part of the development of the Drama. This was Shakespeare's invention, and he applied it with a technical adroitness which had never been dreamed of before and was never rivalled after.
This was not apprehended by the early critics of our divine poet, and has never yet, perhaps, received all the attention it deserves. We may find ourselves bewildered if we glance at what the eighteenth-century commentators said, for instance, about the songs in Twelfth Night. They called the adorable rhapsodies of the Clown * absurd ' and * unintelli gible ' ; ' O Mistress mine ' was in their ears * meaningless ' ; * When that I was ' appeared to them * degraded buffoonery '. They did not perceive the close and indispensable connexion between the Clown's song and the action of the piece, although the poet had been careful to point out that it was a moral song ' dulcet in contagion ', and too good, except for sarcasm, to be wasted on Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. The critics neglected to note what the Duke says about ' Come away, come away, Death ', and they prattled in their blindness as to whether this must not really have been sung by Viola, all the while insensible to the poignant dramatic value of it as warbled by the ironic Clown in the presence of the blinded pair. But indeed the whole of Twelfth Night is burdened with melody ; behind every garden-door a lute is tinkling, and at each change of scene some unseen hand is overheard touching a harp-string. The lovely, infatuated lyrics arrive, dramatically, to relieve this musical tension at its height.
Rather different, and perhaps still more subtle, is the case of A Winter's Tale, where the musical obsession is less prominent, and where the songs are all delivered from the fantastic lips of Autolycus. Here again the old critics were very wonderful. Dr. Burney puts 1 When daffodils begin to peer ' and ' Lawn as white as driven snow ' into one bag, and flings it upon the dust-heap, as * two nonsensical songs ' sung by * a pickpocket '. Dr. Warburton blushed to think that such 1 nonsense ' could be foisted on Shakespeare's text. Strange that those learned men were unable to see, not merely that the rogue-songs are intensely human and pointedly Shakespearean, but that they are an integral part of the drama. They complete the revelation of the com plex temperament of Autolycus, with his passion for flowers and millinery, his hysterical balancing between laughter and tears, his impish mendacity, his sudden sentimentality, like the Clown's
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown !
54 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
It is in these subtle lyrical amalgams of humour and tenderness that the firm hand of the creator of character reveals itself.
But it is in The Tempest that Shakespeare 's supremacy as a writer of songs is most brilliantly developed. Here are seven or eight lyrics, and among them are some of the loveliest things that any man has written. What was ever composed more liquid, more elastic, more delicately fairy-like than Ariel's First Song ?
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands: Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd, —
The wild waves whist.
That is, not * kissed the wild waves ', as ingenious punctuators pretend, but, parenthetically, * kissed one another, — the wild waves being silent the while.' Even fairies do not kiss waves, than which no embrace could be conceived less rewarding. Has any one remarked the echo of Marlowe here, from Hero and Leander,
when all is whist and still, Save that the sea playing on yellow sand Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land?
But Marlowe, with all his gifts, could never have written the lyrical parts of The Tempest. This song is in emotional sympathy with Ferdinand, and in the truest sense dramatic, not a piece of pretty verse foisted in to add to the entertainment.
Ariel's Second Song has been compared with Webster's * Call for the robin redbreast ' in The White Devil, but, solemn as Webster's dirge is, it tolls, it does not sing to us. Shakespeare's * ditty,' as Ferdinand calls it, is like a breath of the west wind over an Aeolian harp. Where, in any language, has ease of metre triumphed more adorably than in Ariel's Fourth Song, — * Where the bee sucks ' ? Dowden saw in Ariel the imaginative genius of English poetry, recently delivered from Sycorax. If we glance at Dryden's recension of The Tempest we may be inclined to think that the * wicked dam ' soon won back her mastery. With all respect to Dry den, what are we to think of his discretion in eking out Shakespeare's insufficiencies with such staves as this :
Upon the floods will sing and play And celebrate a halcyon day ; Great Nephew Aeolus make no noise, Muzzle your roaring boys.
and so forth ? What had happened to the ear of England in seventy years ?
EDMUND GOSSE
55
As a matter of fact the perfection of dramatic song scarcely sur vived Shakespeare himself. The early Jacobeans, Heywood, Ford, and Dekker in particular, broke out occasionally in delicate ditties. But most playwrights, like Massinger, were persistently pedestrian. The only man who came at all close to Shakespeare as a lyrist was John Fletcher, whose * Lay a garland on my hearse ' nobody could challenge if it were found printed first in a Shakespeare quarto. The three great songs in Vakntinian have almost more splendour than any of Shake speare's, though never quite the intimate beauty, the singing spon taneity of ' Under the greenwood tree ' or * Hark, hark, the lark '. It has grown to be the habit of anthologists to assert Shakespeare's right to ' Roses, their sharp spikes being gone '. The mere fact of its loveli ness and perfection gives them no authority to do so ; and to my ear the rather stately procession of syllables is reminiscent of Fletcher. We shall never be certain, and who would not swear that * Hear, ye ladies that are coy ' was by the same hand that wrote ' Sigh no more, ladies ', if we were not sure of the contrary ? But the most effective test, even in the case of Fletcher, is to see whether the trill of song is, or is not, an inherent portion of the dramatic structure of the play. This is the hall-mark of Shakespeare, and perhaps of him alone.
EDMUND GOSSE.
56 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
WILLIAM
DIED APRIL 23, 1616
AND then — the rest ? What did he find In the unfettered universe of mind,
To whom one star revealed
Complete and unconcealed The maze of various man, in coloured music wrought —
God's rich creative thought Of ardour, grief, and laughter all compact — And more, beyond the patch of fenced fact, Where at the edge of dream the air 's alive with wings, Showed him the hidden world of delicate fair things ?
With what new zest,
His inward vision healed Of rheumy Time, and from the clipping zone
Of Space set free,
He roamed those meadows of Eternity Where the storm blows that comes from the unknown To shake the crazy windows of the soul
With gusts of strange desire !
Thrust by that favouring gale Did he set out, as Prospero, to sail The lonely splendours of the Nameless Sea ?
Where did he make the land ? Upon what coasts, what sudden magic isles ?
EVELYN UNDERBILL 57
And what quick spirits met he on the strand ?
What new mysterious loves swifter than fire
Streaming from out the love that ever smiles,
What musical sweet shapes, what things grotesque and dear
We know not here, What starry songs of what exultant quire
Now fill the span Of his wide-open thought, who grasped the heart of man ?
Saints have confest
That by deep gazing they achieve to know The hiddenness of God, His rich delight ;
And so There 's a keen love some poets have possest,
Sharper than sight
To prick the dark that wraps our spirits round And, beyond Time, see men in its own light.
Those look upon His face,
These in a glass have found The moving pageant of His eager will : All the nobility and naughtiness,
Simplicity and skill
Of living souls, that do our dusk redeem With flaming deed and strangely-smouldering dream. Great contemplator of humanity ! 'Twas thus you saw, and showed to us again The one divine immortal comedy : Horror and tears, laughter and loveliness,
All rapture and all pain Held in one unity's immense embrace,
Set in one narrow place. Now, in the unwalled playhouse of the True, You know the life from which that drama drew.
EVELYN UNDERBILL.
A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
SHAK£SPEA1{E *AND GT{EEK PHILOSOPHY
SHAKESPEARE has given us the finest interpretation in any language of one of the central doctrines of Greek philosophy. That does not mean, of course, that he was a student of the subject in the ordinary sense. Though I am convinced that his classical attainments were far more considerable than is sometimes supposed, I do not suggest that he had read Plato's Timaeus. What I claim for him is something more than that, namely, that he was able to disentangle the essential meaning of the Pythagorean doctrines preserved in that dialogue, though these were only known to him through a very distorted tradition. Milton knew them well in their original form ; but his Platonism, nobly as it is expressed, yet lacks a touch which is present in Lorenzo's brief dis course on Music in Act V of the Merchant of Venice. It may be worth while to add that such sympathetic interpretation of Greek thought was quite * out of the welkin ' of Francis Bacon.
The commentators fail to throw much light on Lorenzo's theory. They do not appear to have heard of Plato's Timaeus, though that dialogue has had more influence on European literature than almost any work that could be named, and though it is the ultimate source of so much that is best in English literature in particular. Above all, they do not possess the clue to the whole discourse, namely, the Pythagorean doctrine of Music as the * purgation ' (K.a.6apais) of the soul. Let us see whether, with that clue in our hands, we can follow Lorenzo's argument more closely, and state his theory rather more fully than the exigencies of dramatic art have allowed him to state it himself.
Let us start from the words * Such harmony is in immortal souls ', and note at once that the term * harmony ' in this connexion does not bear its modern meaning. Greek music had no harmony in our sense, and apuovia meant * scale ' or * octave '. Now the sun, the moon, and the five planets, along with the heaven of the fixed stars, were believed to form a harmony in this sense, an octave scale, the intervals of which were determined by the distances between the planetary orbits. That
JOHN BURNET 59
octave has its counterpart in the immortal soul of each one of us ; for the circular motions of the soul of man only reproduce on a smaller scale the mightier revolutions in the soul of the world, which are just the paths of the heavenly orbs. Were it not for the earthly and perish able nature of the body, our souls would therefore sound in perfect unison with the grander music of the Cosmos. As it is, there is a cor poreal barrier between the Soul of Man and the Soul of the World. The function of Music is to overcome this barrier, and it can do so because it is able to reach the soul, while its scales reproduce the intervals of the celestial diapason. It is thus an intermediary between the uni verse and ourselves. So, when we hear music, our nature is changed for the time, the motions of our * spirits ' are brought into accord .with those of the heavenly bodies, and we are at one with what is highest. We see rudimentary traces of this even in some of the animals. On the other hand, a human soul from which music can elicit no response is altogether out of tune with the Soul of the World. It is not only the body in this case that bars the way ; the soul itself rings untrue. All that is Pythagorean doctrine, and in the light of it Lorenzo's speech becomes quite clear.
It is curious that Lorenzo says nothing about the * crystal spheres '. As a matter of fact, these are a later addition to the doctrine, and are not to be found in the Timaeus. It almost looks as if Shakespeare saw them to be irrelevant, as in fact they are. He does, however, introduce one modification of the imagery, which gives us a valuable hint as to the channels through which it reached him. In the Myth of Er in Plato's Republic we read that there is a Siren on each of the planetary rings who sings in monotone her proper note in the octave. Lorenzo substitutes angels and cherubim, and that goes back in the long run to * Dionysius the Areopagite '. We may fairly infer that the theory of the celestial * harmony ' reached Shakespeare, as it reached Dante, in a mediaeval dress, and it is not hard to see how that may have come about.
Plato's Timaeus was never wholly lost to western Europe, as his other dialogues were ; for the greater part of it was accessible in the Latin version of Chalcidius (fourth century A. D.), with an elaborate commentary based mainly on Posidonius. In that commentary the doctrine is to be found, Sirens and all. It is, says Chalcidius, the con sortium corporis which causes the ratio harmonica in the human soul to fade away into oblivion, so that the souls of the many are * unmodu lated '. Music is the cure (medeld) for this ; for it alone can recall the motions of our soul when they deviate from their orbits (exorbitantes)
60 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
to the original concord (ad veterem symphoniam). In general, we may say that Posidonius, who was specially interested in early Pythagorean- ism, made use of his knowledge to illuminate the obscurities of the Timaeus y and that Chalcidius handed on the torch to the Middle Ages.
The School of Chartres was the legitimate successor of Plato's Academy, and its teaching was based on the work of Chalcidius. In the twelfth century Bernard Silvester of Tours sought to rival the Timaeus itself in his De mundi universitate, and it was he that made the terms Macrocosm and Microcosm familiar. They are not to be found in Greek, though Philo and others speak of man as a tuKpo? or Ppaxv? /coV/ioy, the brevis mundus of Chalcidius. It is here too that personified Nature makes her appearance, practically for the first time. Then comes the De planctu naturae of Alan of Lille, to whom Chaucer refers his readers for a description of the goddess Nature, and from whom he borrows her designation as ' God's vicar general '. The Platonism of Chartres was popularized by Jean de Meung's continuation of the Roman de la Rose, and by the fifteenth century the leading doctrines of the Timaeus were common property, especially in England. There was an eager desire to know more of Plato, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, procured a translation of the Phaedo and the Meno from Sicily. Inevitably this interest in Platonism was reflected in the Morali ties of the next age, which betray their affiliation to the school of Chartres by the leading part they often assign to Nature, a personification practi cally unknown in continental literature till a later date, but of the highest importance for English poetry and English science. Obvious examples are the Interlude oj the Four Elements (though that is Aristotelian, not Platonic), and The Marriage of Wit and Science, the very title of which is pure Plato. It is a probable conjecture that Shakespeare's Platonism first came to him from sources of this kind, which would account for the angels and the cherubim, though we must not exclude other possi bilities. It is certain, at any rate, that there was a vast mass of floating traditional lore, of Pythagorean and Platonic origin, in the England of Shakespeare's youth, and that he was just the man to be influenced by it.
The ' muddy vesture of decay ' deserves a few words to itself. The Pythagoreans generally spoke of the body as the tomb or prison of the soul, but there was also an old Orphic doctrine that the body was the soul's garment (\LTWV). At a later date this was revived in Gnostic circles and the ' vesture ' was identified with the coats of skins
JOHN BURNET 61
t) made by God for Adam and Eve. The image was adopted by Porphyry and his successors, and so passed into mediaeval Platonism. The epithets * muddy ' (xoMs) and * of decay ' (<j)0apTo?) reveal the origin of the phrase, however it may have reached Shakespeare. He can hardly have got it from St. Paul ; for * muddy ' is a more accurate rendering of x°iK°s than the terrenus of the Vulgate or the * earthy ' of the English version.
The result of all this is that Shakespeare has picked out the pure gold from the dross with an unerring instinct. The Aristotelian and Scholastic accretions which disfigured the doctrine have all dropped away, and the thought of Pythagoras stands revealed in its original simplicity. We need not wonder at that. The sympathetic insight into another soul, which is the gift of the interpreter, is at bottom the same thing as dramatic genius. It is, after all, no great marvel that the creator of Hamlet and Falstaff could also recreate Pythagoras from the stray hints tradition had preserved.
JOHN BURNET.
ST. ANDREWS.
62 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
IN T^EMEMBT^ANCE OF OUR WOTITHY MASTER SHAKESPEAT(E
A Quatorzain in the commendation oj Master William Shakespeare and
his Country y wherein the Author hath imitated, albeit imperfectly,
the manner of our Elizabethan poets.
OUR own Thou art, and England's self in Thee,
Drest in the rare perfections of thy book,
As some fair queen may in her mirror look
To learn where lies her beauty's mystery.
Thyself art England, all the world may see,
Her tongue, her pen ; so has thy Muse outgone
The quire of Castaly and Helicon
And quite o'erpassed their starry Italy.
Thus hast thou conquered Time who conquers men,
And writ alone her virtue's argument ;
Here is our England's wealth : what wonder then
That this thy page breeds more astonishment
Than that famed garden set i' the ocean seas
Or fabled fruit of the Hesperides.
W. MACNEILE DIXON 63
The chief ground and matter of this sonnet resteth upon a tale set forth by the philosopher and mythologian Plato, in the tenth book
of his nOAITEIA.
As on the spindle of Necessity
Roll the bright orbs of being, ring on ring,
To the unwearied song the Sirens sing,
Nor age nor falter on the eternal way ;
So in thy Heavens, child of destiny,
On music's wide imperishable wing,
All years above or season's reckoning,
Star follows star in crystalline array.
There too the Fates enthron'd may each one see,
Calm memorable goddesses, and mark
How the lot falls to that man or to this,
And ponder in his heart each firm decree,
Ere on the ultimate ocean he embark
Himself to hear the doom of Lachesis.
W. MACNEILE DIXON.
THE UNIVERSITY,
GLASGOW.
64 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
SHA%ESPEA1(E <AND MUSIC
THERE is no English poet to whom music has been a more intimate and vital source of inspiration than it was to Shakespeare. His lyrics are the purest melodies in our language : his plays are instinct with the impulse and delight of song : it is music that soothes the love sickness of Orsino, that fills the starry night when Lorenzo and Jessica exchange their vows, that sets the fairies circling round the couch of Titania, that pours new enchantment over the magic of Prospero's isle. The whole air is filled with the concourse of sweet sounds : under Sylvia 's window, in Katherine's chamber, before the porch of Mariana's moated grange : Cleopatra cannot go a-fishing without her minstrels, the jolly hunters in Arden Forest celebrate their quarry with a rousing chorus. Even in the darkest hours of tragedy music comes as a relief and a consolation : Desdemona sings of her forebodings ; Ophelia of her broken heart ; Edgar, on the storm-swept heath, breaks into half-forgotten fragments of wild melody. And behind all these grave matters of character and incident, of suspended fortunes and final issue, stretches the broad country-side which Shakespeare loved ; the dancers on the village- green keeping time to the pipe and tabor ; the reapers * three-man song-men all and very good ones, but they are most of them means and basses ' ; Autolycus with his pack of ballads singing along the footpath way ; roisterers joining in a catch at the ale-house door : a coppice of wood-notes, artless and untaught, carolling for very joy and fullness of life.
It is therefore notable that the age of Shakespeare was also the greatest and most fertile in the history of our national music. The first English madrigal was printed in 1588 : for a generation before that we had held honourable rivalry with the Flemish and Italian church composers ; during the generation which followed we may claim to have won our way to pre-eminence. Tallis, who died in 1585, summed up in his own work all the strength and skill, all the vigour and learning which the music of his time could attain : William Byrd, his
W. H. HADOW 65
younger colleague — perhaps his pupil — added a new sweetness of melody, a new grace of style, and, what is of far greater moment, a sense of the depth and mystery of music which is comparable to that of Shakespeare himself. And close upon Byrd follows a noble procession of madrigal composers : Weelkes and Wilbye, Bennet and Bateson, Morley who calls Byrd * my loving master ', and Gibbons who was honoured by his collaboration : to the Triumphs of Oriana twenty-five Englishmen contributed, and every work is a masterpiece. Nor were the performers less conspicuous. Dowland was the most famous lutenist in Europe : Bull and Philips were among the most famous organ-players : the pieces in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book testify to an astonishing degree of skill and proficiency. And all this garden of delights grew from a soil ready prepared for it. Music, in Elizabeth's reign, was taken for granted as a part of every one's education. ' Supper being ended/ says Philomathes,1 * and Musicke bookes (according to the custome) being brought to the table : the mistresse of the house presented me with a part earnestly requesting me to sing. But when after many excuses, I protested unfainedly that I could not, every one began to wonder. Yea, some whispered to others demanding how I was brought up.' Queen Elizabeth was a skilful performer on the virginals, and readily forgave the indiscreet ambassador who had overheard her, on his assurance that she played better than Mary Queen of Scots. Many of the instrumental pieces which still survive are severally dedi cated to lords and ladies of the court : some are marked with special instructions for the patrons who were to play them : some are by amateur composers, Robert Hales, for instance, and * Mr. Daniells ', and Captain Tobias Hume whose ' profession hath been that of arms * and whose music * hath been always generous because never merce- narie '. It is true that the society of Shakespeare's time anticipated our own in the hospitable welcome which it offered to the artists of foreign countries. * Some there be', says Campion in 1613, 'who admit only French and Italian aires, as if every country had not its proper aire which the people thereof naturally usurp in their music.' But, apart from passing fashion, such generosity was the intercourse of nations which could meet on terms of comradeship, and was repaid, at least in part, by the respect that was shown to our musicians abroad. The wealthier houses in Shakespeare's time had at disposal a large variety of musical instruments. The organ was rarely to be found among them, though Chappington and Dalham were famous organ-
1 Morley, A plaine and easie introduction to Practical! Mnsicke, p. i.
F
66 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
builders, but the regal, a small portative organ, was not uncommon, and the virginal * stood in high favour among the ladies of the household. It is the more noteworthy that Shakespeare never mentions either of these by name (he uses ' virginalling ' as a metaphor in The Winter's Tale), and that his only description of a virginal player has been censured by careful critics for a technical mistake. The recorders 2, which provide Hamlet with a text, were ripple-flutes of special construction, bored with not less than eight holes and usually kept in a quartet of differing compass that they might harmonize together into a consort. The same practice obtained with the viols — treble, alto, tenor, and bass — the last of these being the viol da gamba which Sir Andrew Aguecheek * played better than any man in Illyria '. The * leero ' viol — the Italian lira da braccio — is occasionally mentioned as an under study : the * scoulding violins ', as Mace calls them, though sometimes used in ensembles, were still harsh and untuneful ; fitter for the country fair than for the ears of civilized society. But by far the most popular of all instruments was the lute. As a manly accomplishment it ranked but little below the sword — indeed Richard Crookback morosely complains that grim-visaged War had given it place : it formed an essential part of every song accompaniment from Dowland to Campion : in the very barbers' shops, where now we have newspapers and comic prints, a lute hung ready to solace the waiting customer. Three or four kinds of guitar are also mentioned in the compositions of the time — the cittern, flat-backed and wire-stringed, to the carved head of which Holofernes the schoolmaster is disrespectfully compared ; the pandora which, in spite of its outlandish name, seems to have been invented by a Londoner ; the orphereon, dainty in shape but rather awkward to handle ; yet though all these had their votaries — the Imperial Votaress among them — they never challenged the pre-eminence of the lute proper. The accusation that it was expensive in strings is indignantly denied by its champion Thomas Mace, and if true marks its only fault : it was graceful in shape and sweet in tone, effective but not exacting, and the music for it was written in a tablature which is one of the easiest forms of notation ever invented. A few other instruments might be added — the transverse flute, the harp, the various kinds of flageolet — but even without these there is enough to show that the virtuoso of the time had an abundance of choice.
1 The name virginal was then commonly applied to all keyed instruments in which the string was plucked with a quill.
2 See Christopher Welch's Six Lectures on the Recorder.
W. H. HADOW 67
Combinations of instruments, so ordered as to produce a harmo nious scheme of colour, were as yet somewhat crude and primitive. The four viols often doubled and sometimes replaced the singers in a madrigal : the bass viol supported the lute in the accompaniments of ' aires ' : more elaborate were the consort lessons of Morley and Rosseter, written for treble and bass viols, pandora, cittern, and recorder, and larger bands of what was commonly called * broken music ' were employed for masques and at wedding-feasts.1 The louder instruments — hautbois, shawms, trumpets, cornets, sackbuts, and drums — were usually reserved for occasions of special state and pageantry, and their choice seems to have aimed more at volume than at balance of sound.2 Indeed one of the oddities of nomenclature is the current adoption of the word * noise ', without any malicious intent, for a band of musicians and more distinctively of string-players. When the drawer at the Boar's Head bids his fellow * see if thou cannot find out Sneak's noise ' he is merely making use of an accepted technical term. It is the more remarkable because the ' chamber ' music of the time, and especially that played upon strings, would seem to our ears soft in tone, and — except for a few dance measures — grave in character. A valuable piece of evidence on the whole subject may be found in the third Century of Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum :
All concords and discords of music are (no doubt) sympathies and antipathies ot sounds. And so likewise in that music which we call broken music, or consort music, some consorts of instruments are sweeter than others (a thing- not sufficiently yet observed) as the Irish harp and base viol agree well ; the recorder and stringed music agree well ; organs and the voice agree well, &c. : but the virginals and the lute, or the Welsh harp and Irish harp, or the voice and pipes alone, agree not so well. But for the melioration of music there is yet much left (in this point of exquisite consorts) to try and inquire.
For some reason, not yet sufficiently explained, the stream of ecclesiastical music which had been since the days of Henry VII one of the chief glories of English art began at the close of the century to run for a while with thinner and shallower volume. Byrd published nothing between 1591 and 1607 : Morley wrote some pieces for the church service, but his heart was in ballet and madrigal : Bering, Tomkins, Gibbons, belong to the later period. It would, perhaps, be indiscreet to attribute to this the fact that Shakespeare makes hardly
1 See Galpin's Old English Instrtiments of Music, ch. xv, 4 The Consort.'
2 The band which played at Queen Elizabeth's funeral comprised seven each ot violins, recorders, and flutes, six hautbois and sackbuts, six ' lutes and others ', four * drums and fifes ', and no less than twenty -two trumpets. See The King's Music, by H. C. de Lafontaine, p. 45.
F 2
68 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
any mention of church music, except of the unorthodox sort illustrated by the dirge in Much Ado About Nothing. Falstaff incredibly maintains that he lost his voice * singing of anthems ', but even he admits that he has * forgotten what the inside of a church is made of ', and of his fellow choristers there are few or none. At the same time Shakespeare good-humouredly banters an abuse from which our church music has often suffered — the forcible adaptation to sacred words of incongruous secular melodies. The * puritan ' in The Winter's Tale, who * sang psalms to hornpipes *, is hardly a caricature : Greensleeves, in spite of Mistress Page's protest, was actually * moralized to the Scriptures ' and used as a hymn. Among the secular vocal forms the madrigal held pride of place : next came the aires and ballets, of lighter character and, as a rule, of more recurrent rhythm. The aires add an interesting chapter to the history of the solo song. Dowland writes them in four parts, * so made that all the parts together or either of them severally may be sung to the lute orpherion or viol de gambo '. Campion, a few years later, writes in the first instance for the solo voice, but adds that * upon occasion they have been filled in with more parts which whoso pleases may use, who likes not may leave '. It is possible that the difference marks a definite advance in the skill and proficiency of the singer. Most of Shakespeare's soloists are boys or women, and of the two most notable exceptions one is, for a vocalist, unusually profuse in apologies.1
There were four chief types of instrumental music : descriptive pieces, like Mundy's * Weather ' and the * Stag hunt ' of Tobias Hume ; airs with variations ; fantasies or fancies, not the artless ditties of Justice Shallow but elaborate contrapuntal pieces which developed during this period into the organized structure of the fugue ; and, most widely beloved of all, the dance-measures. The first English collection of dances appears to be that which Anthony Holborne published in 1599, but before this there were many examples in common use : the pavan, called par excellence ' the measure ', and described by Beatrice as * full of state and ancientry ' ; the galliard or sink-a-pace, which followed it as the humorous servant follows the hero in a Spanish comedy ; the almain, with its strong rhythm and its texture of crotchets ; the jig, as * hot and hasty ' as courtship, * and full as fantastical '. The choice is narrower than that of contemporary French music, narrower even than that of our own seventeenth century, but it bears full witness to the joy and delight of dancing, and it spreads through the plays from
1 Much Ado About Nothing, II. in.
W. H. HADOW 69
the pageantry of Capulet or Leonato to the Hay of honest Dull, and the bergomask of the Athenian clowns.
When music entered so deeply into the life of the people it is natural that it should occupy a considerable place in dramatic repre sentation.1 The performance usually began with a flourish of trumpets, their cue given, as Dekker said, by * the quaking prologue ' ; trumpets and drums were used for the entry of great personages, or for the martial music of battles ; the banquet in Timon has its consort of hautbois, As You Like It ends with a dance, Twelfth Night with a song. The dumb-shows were accompanied by instruments often specially chosen for dramatic effect : dance-music whiled away the time between the acts of Comedy, and not improbably between the acts of Tragedy as well. Private theatres, influenced no doubt by Italian usage, em ployed highly skilled bands of performers and installed them in a music- room at the side of the stage : public theatres, where the accommodation was narrower and the musicians of humbler rank, sent them to the tiring-room or the balcony, or some other place of makeshift, where the audience criticized them unmercifully and often interrupted them to call for a favourite tune. It was all very simple and unsophisticated, but it had far more vitality than the self-conscious and Alexandrine art of a later day.
For the central characteristic of all our Elizabethan music is its spontaneity. Not that it was unlearned — the madrigal composers were men of immense learning — but from highest to lowest it was infused with the large elemental feelings of our common humanity. The same spirit of adventure which animated explorers and seamen ran through every pulse of the national life : the vigour and manhood which could do everything because it dared everything, conquered the provinces of art as it overran the Indies or circumnavigated the globe. There is no truth in the saying that the arts have prospered best amid a decadent people : they are the natural expression of chivalry and fearlessness and high enterprise. Shakespeare consummated the greatest age in our history : it is no coincidence that he found among his contemporaries a music which we have never surpassed.
1 See, on this subject, Mr. Cowling's excellent monograph Music on the Shakespearean Stage.
W. H. HADOW.
70 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
S MUSIC-LESSON
VERY few of Shakespeare's plays deal with music as minutely as is done in The Taming of the Shrew. The lover's disguise as a music- master, that situation which Beaumarchais and Rossini turned to such good account in later years, amply justifies a freer use of technical terms than Shakespeare allows himself elsewhere. And it is curious that even apart from the character of Hortensio, another musical allusion is made, in the scene where Petruchio wrings Grumio by the ears, and says ' I'll try how you can sol-fa and sing it ! ' It would almost seem as though, in view of the very technical passage that was to come in Act in, Shakespeare felt at liberty to make a joke that only the more musical people in the audience would understand. Besides the use of the syllables sol-fa in musical notation, these two were used, of course by derivation from the other meaning, to denote the stick or roll of paper for beating time. It is at least possible that the order to Grumio to knock at Hortensio 's door implies that the servant had a stick in his hand.
In the scene where Hortensio has the lute broken over his head appears the pun on the word * fret ' which was afterwards repeated in Hamlet. There the joke is a little forced, for a recorder, being a wind instrument, has no frets. Frets are an essential feature of instru ments of the lute family ; they are the fixed or movable bars across the fingerboard which make it easier for the player to keep in tune, and the absence of which gives the violin and its kindred the great power of slight gradations in pitch, as well as making them the hardest of all to play. The epithet * twangling Jack ', later in Hortensio 's tale of Katharine's behaviour, is of course the common allusion to the little pieces of wood that hold the quill or leather plectra in the early keyboard instruments, such as the virginal and harpsichord. To call a lutenist a * fiddler ' or to allude to the virginal would no doubt be as much of an insult in
J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND 71
Shakespeare's time as it was, down to the end of last century, to call any musical person a ' fiddler ' ; there must be many living who remember the term being applied to musical people generally as a sneer.
Coming now to the longest of the musical passages in the play, the lesson in the gamut in which Hortensio declares himself as Bianca's lover, it is clear that the music-lesson is a parallel, more or less close, to the Latin lesson given by Lucentio, and as that is pure nonsense — that is to say, as the Latin words have no sort of connexion with the con versation of the lovers — it is possible to assume that the musical terms are equally removed from the phrases used by Hortensio. But I think that the music-lesson has a little more method than the Latin one, or at least there are in it more suggestions taken from the musical terms used. As I fear that very few musicians in the present day could honestly say with Bianca, that they are * past the gamut long ago ' (at least, in the sense of having learnt it in their youth), perhaps a short explanation of its nature may not be out of place, since it served a very real purpose in the music of its time, and without some knowledge of what that purpose was, we shall be, like many of the older editors of the plays, at a loss to explain some of Horten sio 's love-making.
As soon as the art of music was freed from the dominion of the old modes (usually called * ecclesiastical ' for no reason except that the plain-song of the Church preserved them in written music), and found it possible to pass from one key to another nearly related to it, they saw that there was a key on each side, as it were, of the central or * natural ' key of C, to which modulation could readily be effected. That of G, the scale of which was called the hexachordum durum , had all the notes of its hexachord inside the scale of C, since the differential note, F, on which the modulation chiefly depended, lay outside the hexachordum durum. On the other side of the hexachordum naturale (the first six notes of the scale of C), there lay the hexachordum molle (the scale of F), so-called because its characteristic fourth note must be flattened in order to conform to the pattern of the others, in which the first semitone must always occur between the third note and the fourth. The old syllables, derived from the initial syllables of a hymn * Ut queant laxis ', to St. John Baptist, were useful as showing the place of the semitones, whatever the pitch. So the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la always stood for the first notes of the major scale, with a semitone always between mi and fa. In order that the starting-points of these three scales should
72 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
be remembered, a table was constructed in which the scales were given with their * sol-fa ' equivalents :
THE GAMUT
|
F |
|||
|
£ |
In |
la sol |
|
|
C B |
sol Ufn |
fa |
|
|
A 0 |
la mi sol re |
flim — re |
|
|
F *' E |
la |
fa ut |
ui — |
|
D |
la sol |
re ut |
_ — — — — |
|
B II? |
t>fa tjmi |
||
|
G |
sol re ut fa ut |
.b la mi D — sol re - C fa ut B mi- A re
At the same time the table showed the great stave of eleven lines, on which, using also the spaces between them, all the notes of the seven hexachords were included, there being one line above the gamut, called now the treble F. Here we have the usual two staves of pianoforte music, with the line for middle C shown as dotted. On this line was placed the C clef, that stumbling-block to the readers of to-day. The names by which the individual notes were known were made up by reading across the table. Thus the highest note was called * E la ', the next ' D la sol ', and so on. As the gamut was always taught from the bottom, the first note, from which the table took its name, was called * Gamma ut ' or * Gamut ', because the Greek letter was used for the note that had been added below the limits of the old tetrachords (called Tr/joo-Aa/ijQai/d/iei/oy). As the second hexachord does not start until the note C, the two notes between it and the lowest have only one name each, * A re ' and * B mi '. The beginning of the second hexachord is indicated by the name ' C fa ut ', and the remaining two notes of the
J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND 73
first hexachord are ' D sol re ' and ' E la mi '. These names were used, down to the times of the old English Church composers, for the keys in which their anthems and services were composed. What we should now call the key of E minor, for example, was known as that of * E la mi ', and afterwards as * the key of E with the lesser third '.
As I have already said, the first necessary alteration of note took place at the upper B, since it served not only as the third, or mi of the major scale, but as the fourth, or fa of the scale beginning on F. In this capacity it had to be flattened, to make it a semitone above the mi, the note A. The two forms of the note B were expressed by two forms of the written letter, one by the round b of the cursive alphabet, the other by the gothic letter b. These two are of course the origin of the modern signs for the flat (i>) and sharp (#) 1 respectively.
Bearing in mind as much as may be of this dull explanation, let us consider the written gamut which Bianca reads aloud. The first line,
Gamut I am, the ground of all accord,
describes the lowest note of the scale, and sets forth Hortensio's con viction that he is an eligible suitor for Bianca. In the line
4 A re,' to plead Hortensio's passion
is it too fanciful to suppose that the name of the note suggests the French a or Italian «, and the form of the phrase * to ' plead, as though he would have given it in full, ' a rappresentare Tamore ' or some such words ? The note B naturally suggests Bianca 's name, and on this note I shall have something more to say presently. One is reminded of the old joke in Punch about a song with the refrain ' Be mine ' being appro priately set to music in the key of B minor. So little knowledge had the printers of the Quarto and the Folios that in them the name of the note stands as * Beeme '. The next line possibly derives its form of phrase from the word ' ut ', although the relative use of the word * that * does not of course represent the conjunction. Leaving for later consideration the next line, it may be pointed out that the key called 'E la mi J is elegiac in character, and might very well have such words as 4 have pity ' set to it. The preceding line, ' " D sol re," one clef, two notes have I/ is the one puzzling thing in the verse, for there is no possible sense in which that step of the scale can be said to have two notes. The appro-
1 It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that the sign for the natural (&) is another modification of the same letter, introduced later than the other two signs. The sharp and flat were anciently used to restore the original pitch after an accidental, as we now use the natural.
74 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
priateness of the words to Hortensio's disguise is obvious, but how do they fit the gamut ? The only note of which they can be true is the higher B, the octave above * B mi '. For, as explained above, this note has to take on two forms, B flat and B natural, according to the different hexachords to which it belongs. Are we to suppose that Shakespeare did not know this, or that he made Hortensio ignorant of what he pro fessed to teach ? I think he wanted the quip about the ambiguity of the note B somewhere in his verse, yet to go regularly up the scale for five lines more till he got to the upper B would have lengthened out the scene unduly ; besides, * B mi ' was already appropriated to Bianca, so that he just transferred the ambiguous character of that note to one for which there was no special pun.
It will be noticed that in the table given above the place of the notes on the musical stave is taught side by side with the useful, if arbi trary, syllables which contain the germ of that well-known adaptation of the gamut by Miss Glover, known throughout the British dominions as the * Tonic Sol-Fa Notation '. The principle that not merely the starting-points of the hexachords, but any and every note of the scale, can be viewed as the ut or do (as the tonic, or keynote, is now called) of its own scale, is of inestimable value, and the modern develop ment of the gamut, the * modulator ' which hangs in every elementary schoolroom at the present moment, contains many important truths, of some of which most Tonic Sol-Fa teachers seem unaware. It is a sad pity that the syllables have become divorced from the staff notation in too many cases, so that proficiency in their utterance is popularly supposed to be * reading * music at sight. If the two systems had always been kept together, with the syllables used as an introduction to the staff, as they are in the gamut, the diffusion of real musical skill through out the country would be far greater than it is now. Those who find in the prevalence of the * new * notation the chief obstacle to real advance in the training of choirs in difficult music, will be inclined to say with Bianca :
I like it not:
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice, To change true rules for odd inventions.
J. A. FULLER- MAITL AND.
W. BARCLAY SQUIRE 75
FROM time to time various attempts have been made to compile a complete bibliography of music connected with Shakespeare's plays and poems. The most elaborate, if not the most correct, was the List of all the Songs and Passages in Shakspere which have been set to Music, issued in 1884, as No. 3 of Series VIII of the publications of the New Shakspere Society. But this list was in many respects incomplete and inaccurate. The work, indeed, is one of very great difficulty and would require not only considerable research but also more musical knowledge than was possessed by the authors of the New Shakspere Society's list. To accomplish it properly some sort of classification would be absolutely necessary. In the first rank might be placed Incidental Music (vocal and instrumental) intended, like the Shakespearian settings of Arne, to accompany stage performances of the various plays ; another category should include vocal settings of words by Shakespeare, not primarily intended for stage performance ; a third class would be devoted to instrumental and vocal works inspired by, or intended to illustrate musically, works by Shakespeare ; while a final section could be devoted to operas founded on subjects derived from the plays. As a contribution to the last of these categories the present notes have been drawn up. They have no claim to completeness and are only to be looked upon as hints or suggestions for future workers. At the outset very great difficulties are encountered, for of all branches of theatrical literature that of operatic librettos has been most neglected by biblio graphers. Usually printed for special occasions in very small editions, the librettos of operas have often appeared without complying with the registration formalities of the Copyright Acts, and, in England at least, have consequently seldom found their way into public libraries. Even when they have done so, they have generally been entered under the names of the authors, and who, among many, could say off-hand who are the authors of even such well-known works as Beethoven's Fidelio, Verdi's Trovatore, or Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel ? When, as in
76 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
the case of the great mass of operas on Shakespearian subjects, we have to deal with a number of works which have only enjoyed an ephemeral existence, the difficulty is multiplied indefinitely, and we are forced to have recourse to the standard opera-dictionaries of Clement and Larousse and Riemann, where the works are entered under their titles. But here fresh difficulties are encountered, for it is often impossible to tell from their titles whether the operas are really based on Shakespeare, and even whether they are operas at all, or only productions of Shake speare's plays interlarded with additional music, as in the case of the many so-called operas for which Sir Henry Bishop was responsible in London in the early part of the nineteenth century. Of late the neglected subject of opera-librettos seems to have attracted the attention of biblio graphers. The Library of Congress (Washington) has acquired what is probably the richest collection of such works, and Mr. O. G. Sonneck, the librarian in charge of the musical department, has issued an admi rably exhaustive catalogue of the earlier part of the collection. The British Museum has also turned its attention to librettos and has ac quired some valuable collections, which have been incorporated in the printed general Catalogue. The whole of this has been recently read through and the librettos re-catalogued under the names of the operas, with a view to the publication of a libretto-catalogue somewhat on the lines of the Library of Congress Catalogue. This work is at present still in manuscript, but it has been made use of in drawing up the follow ing notes. In their preparation it has been thought best to adopt an alphabetical arrangement under the names of the different plays : where a play is omitted it is to be understood that no opera on the subject has been discovered.
Antony and Cleopatra.
There is a long list (under * Cleopatre ') in the Dictionnaire Lyrique of Clement and Larousse, and another list (under * Kleopatra ') in Riemann Js Opern-Handbuch of operas in which Cleopatra is the heroine, but it is doubtful whether any of these can be said to be based on Shake speare's play. Enna's Cleopatra (1894), Masse 's Nuit de Cleopatre (1885), Massenet's CUopdtre (1914), and Collin de Blamont's ballet CUopdtre (1748), have no connexion with the play. The Antonius und Kleopatra of J. C. Kaflka (1779) and of Count E. F. von Sayn- Wittgenstein (1883), and R- Kreutzer's ballet Les Amours d'Antoine et de CUopdtre (1808) seem possibly, from their titles, to be founded on Shakespeare.
W. BARCLAY SQUIRE 77
As You Like It.
The play was turned into an opera by P. A. Rolli for Francesco Maria Veracini and produced as Rosalinda during the composer's visit to London in 1744. There are other operas with the same name : La Rosalinda, by G. M. Capelli (Venice, 1692) and by M. A. Ziani (Venice, 1693), but these have no connexion with Shakespeare's comedy, nor has the Rosalinda of J. Lockman and J. C. Smith (London, 1740). There are also two operas called Rosalinde by N. A. Strungk (Leipzig, 1695) and F. van Duyse (Antwerp, 1864) as to which information is wanting. As You Like It was played in London in 1824, arranged as an opera by Bishop.
The Comedy of Errors.
A musical pasticcio by Bishop was concocted on the play and pro duced in London in 1819.
Coriolanus.
Numerous old Italian operas on Coriolanus, generally entitled Caio Marzio Coriolano, are recorded in the dictionaries, but it is un certain whether any of them are founded on Shakespeare.
Hamlet.
The librettos of the earlier Italian works on Hamlet were generally by Apostolo Zeno and P. Pariati ; the French adaptation by Ducis was made use of later. Operas by the following composers are recorded (in chronological order) : C. F. Gasparini (Rome, 1705 — played in London in 1712), Domenico Scarlatti (Rome, 1715), G. Carcano (Venice, 1742), Caruso (Florence, 1790), Foppa (Padua, 1792), Andreozzi (Genoa, 1793), Count von Gallenberg — a * Pantomime tragique ' — (Paris, 1816), Mercadante (Milan, 1823), Mareczek (Briinn, 1840), Buzzola (Venice, 1848), Moroni (Rome, 1860), Faccio — book by Boito — (Genoa, 1865), Ambroise Thomas (Paris, 1868), A. Stadtfeld (Bonn, 1881), and A. Hignard (Nantes, 1888). Of all these, only Ambroise Thomas's opera survived for a time. To judge by the few excerpts that have been published, Faccio 's work was the most remarkable of the long series ; it had the advantage of an admirable libretto, in which Shakespeare's tragedy was closely followed.
78 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
Julius Caesar.
There are innumerable operas — mostly of the eighteenth century — on Julius Caesar y as to which Riemann and Clement and Larousse may be consulted. But it is very doubtful whether any of them are founded on Shakespeare.
King Henry IV.
The early career of Henry V has formed the subject of a certain number of operas, but most of these (e. g. Herold's La Gioventh di Enrico V (Naples, 1817), and Pacini's work with the same title (Rome, 1821)) have nothing to do with Shakespeare. An exception is Merca- dante's Gioventh di Enrico V (Milan, 1834), the libretto of which, by F. Romani, is founded on Shakespeare's Henry IV. Further informa tion is desirable as to P. J. de Voider 's Lajeunesse de Henri Cinq (Ghent, c. 1825) and other operas on the same subject recorded in the dictionaries. The Falstaff scenes may have been used in some of the operas of that name, but they are here entered under The Merry Wives of Windsor.
King Lear.
The earliest opera on this tragedy seems to be the Cordelia of C. Kreutzer (Donaueschingen, 1819) ; the same title is borne by works by Seme'ladis (Versailles, 1854) and Gobati (Bologna, 1881). A Lear by A. Reynaud saw the light at Toulouse in 1888. The Cordelia of the Russian composer N. T. Solowiew (1885) is founded on Sardou's La Haine ; the subject is quite different from Shakespeare's tragedy. It is well known that Verdi at one time thought of taking Lear as the subject of an opera, but unfortunately the idea was never carried out.
King Richard HI.
G. Salvayre's Richard HI (Petrograd, 1883) is founded on Shake speare's play, though much altered. The Riccardo III of G. B. Meiners (Milan, 1859), on tne other hand, has no connexion with the English poet. As to the Richardus Impius Angliae Rex of J. Eberlin (Salzburg, 1750) and the Riccardo HI of L. Canepa (Milan, 1879), information is lacking.
W. BARCLAY SQUIRE 79
Macbeth.
Much incidental music has been written for Macbeth, but the subject has not escaped the attention of librettists. It was treated as a Ballo tragico by F. Clerico (Milan, 1802), and again as a Ballo mimico by C. Pugni (Milan, 1830) — a very curious work, in the sleep walking scene of which Lady Macbeth kills her own son, thinking he is Duncan !
The earliest opera on the subject seems to be the Macbeth of H. Chelard (Paris, 1827), played in London in 1832, the libretto of which was by the composer of the Marseillaise, Rouget de PIsle, who has given Duncan a daughter and introduced the sleep-walking scene before the discovery of the King's murder. Taubert's Macbeth (Berlin, 1857) follows the tragedy fairly closely. There is an early opera on Macbeth by Verdi, originally produced in Florence in 1847 and revised and partly rewritten for Paris in 1865. In spite of some fine passages there is little in the work to foreshadow the composer's great achieve ments in Otello and Falstaff : the opera is written in the conventional Italian idiom of the day and it has never survived. The most recent musical drama on Shakespeare's tragedy is the Macbeth of E. Bloch, played at the Paris Opera Comique in 1910. It is interesting to note that in 1809 there was published the First Act of a libretto on Macbeth by J. von Collin : sketches by Beethoven for an overture and chorus in this were printed by G. Nottebohm in the Musikalisches Wochenblatt for 1879.
The Merchant of Venice.
The only opera on this play was composed by C. Pinsuti and pro duced at Milan in 1874. Clement and Larousse record a Dutch opera on the subject, by J. A. Just, performed at Amsterdam about 1787, but this work is the Koopman van Smyrna, first produced at Bonn in 1782.
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
An obscure violinist named Papavoine seems to have been the first to use this play as the foundation of an opera. His work, entitled Le Vieux Coquet, was produced in Paris in 1761, but was withdrawn after one performance. There are German operas on the play by P. Ritter (Mannheim, 1794) and Ditters von Dittersdorf (Oels, 1796) as
8o A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
to which little seems to be known. Salieri's Falstaff t osia Le ire Burle (Dresden, 1799) has a good libretto, printed in Italian and German. A musical version of the play, chiefly by Braham, Horn, and Parry, was produced in London in 1823. An Italian opera — Falstaff —by Balfe (London, 1838), Otto Nicolai's Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (Berlin, 1849), Adolphe Adam's Falstaff (Paris, 1856), and Verdi's Falstaff (Milan, 1893) complete the list. It is curious that the Merry Wives should have given rise to two operas like that of Nicolai — which has enjoyed longer popularity than any other Shake spearian opera — and the Falstaff of Verdi, a work of consummate genius which the public has never yet appreciated at its real value.
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
This is one of the earliest of Shakespeare's plays which was laid hands on for operatic purposes. It was turned by some anonymous adaptor into a (so-called) opera, with admirable music by Henry Purcell, produced in London in 1692. The adaptation is very curious, for Shakespeare's dialogue is partly retained, while the musical additions have the least possible relation to the play, with the result that not one word of Shakespeare's has been set by Purcell. Other operas on the play are The Fairies , by J. C. Smith (London, 1755), and (probably) Manusardi's Un Sogno di Primavera (Milan, 1842) ; Busby's Fair Fugitives (London, 1803), which is given in some dictionaries as founded on Shakespeare, has nothing to do with the play, nor have Ambroise Thomas's Songe d'une Nuit d'fite (Paris, 1850) and Offen bach's Reve d'une Nuit dy£ti (Paris, 1855). The Zarzuela El Sueno de una Noche de Verano, by Gaztambide (Madrid, 1852), probably belongs to the same category as the two last-named works. A musical version of Shakespeare's play was produced by Bishop in London in 1816 and the Clowns' Masque forms the foundation of the Pyramus and Thisbe of Leveridge (London, 1716) and of Lampe (London, 1745).
Much Ado About Nothing.
There are four operas founded on this play, viz. Beatrice et Benedict, by Berlioz (Baden-Baden, 1862) ; Beaucoup de Bruit pour rien, by P. Puget (Paris, 1899); Much Ado About Nothing, by Stanford (London, 1900) and Ero, by C. Podesta (Cremona, 1900).
W. BARCLAY SQUIRE 81
Othello.
Rossini's Otello (Naples, 1816) enjoyed a long run of popularity, but seems now to be defunct ; a Ballo Tragico, arranged by S. Vigano (composer not stated), was produced in Milan in 1818, and the same place saw in 1887 the first performance of Verdi's Otello, the composer's operatic masterpiece. A * Juguete comico lirico ' by M. Nieto, entitled Oteloy Desdemona (Madrid, 1883), has nothing to do with Shakespeare's tragedy.
Romeo and Juliet.
This play has formed the basis of a very large number of operas and ballets, with various titles. The earliest seems to be a Dramma per musica in two Acts, published at Berlin in 1773, without any com poser's name. It was followed in quick succession by works on the same subject by G. Benda (Gotha, 1776), J. G. Schwanenberg (Leipzig, 1776), L. Marescalchi (Rome, 1789), S. von Rumling (Munich, 1790), Dalayrac (Paris, 1792), Steibelt (Paris, 1793), Zingarelli (Milan, 1796), Porta (Paris, 1806), I. Schuster (Vienna, 1808), P. C. Guglielmi (London, 1810), Vaccai (Milan, 1825), Bellini (Venice, 1830), a ballet without composer's name (Milan, 1830), F. Gioja — a ballet (Milan, 1833), Marchetti (Trieste, 1865), Gounod (Paris, 1867), A. Mercadal (Mahon, 1873), Marquis d'lvry (Paris, 1878), and H. R. Shelley (published in New York, 1901). An operatic version of Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette symphony was published in Paris c. 1880.
The Taming of the Shrew.
A musical version, chiefly by Beaham and T. S. Cooke, saw the light in London in 1828, but the only real opera on the play is H. Goetz's Der Widerspdnstigen Zdhmung (Mannheim, 1874), an excellent work which seems to have fallen into undeserved neglect. The ballad farce A Cure for a Scold (London, 1735) is founded on Shakespeare's play, but considerably altered (by James Worsdale). V. Martin's Capricciosa corretta (Lisbon, 1797), mentioned in some of the dictionaries, has an entirely different plot.
The Tempest.
There is more difficulty in giving a correct list of operas on this play than in any other case, owing to the uncertainty as to dates and to
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82 A BOOK OF HOMAGE TO SHAKESPEARE
the habit which musical lexicographers have of assuming that every work called La Tempesta, Der