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and his companion Famulus, having separated ingenious and witty mind, full of fun, and was from their associates, are suddenly encountered so successful both in tragedy and comedy, that by Ludolph and his daughter. He commands he could move an Heraclitus to laughter, and a them to yield themselves prisoners--they refuse, Democritus to tears.'"* and try to draw their swords, when, as Prospero tells Ferdinand,

'I can here disarm thee with this stick,
And make thy weapon drop,'

so Ludolph, with his wand, keeps their swords in their scabbards, paralyses Engelbrecht, and makes him confess his

'Nerves are in their infancy again,

And have no vigour in them,'

So much has been written on 'The Tempest,' and so unnecessary is it for us to analyse the plot or dwell on the charms of the poetry, that we shall here content ourselves with presenting our readers with some brief extracts, having reference to the principal characters, translated from the 'Shaksperes Schauspiele erläutert' of Franz Horn. "In Prospero we have a delineation of

and, when he has done so, gives him over as a peculiar profundity. He was, once, not altoslave to Sidea, to carry logs for her.

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The resemblance between this scene and the parallel scene in 'The Tempest' is rendered still more striking in a late part of the play, when Sidea, moved by pity for the labours of Engelbrecht, in carrying logs, declares to him,

'I am your wife, if you will marry me,' an event which, in the end, is happily brought about, and leads to the reconciliation of their parents, the rival princes."

It appears not the least extraordinary circumstance in this extraordinary question of literary history, that Ayrer did not translate some of Shakspere's own works, particularly those which existed in printed copies. Shakspere, according to Eschenburg, was not known in Germany, as far as can be collected from any mention in books, till nearly the close of the 17th century.—

"The first German author who has given a thought to Shakspere is perhaps Morhof, whose 'Instructions in the German Language' was first printed in 1682. Towards the end of the fourth chapter, On the Poetry of the English,' he is merely named, and Morhof acknowledges that

he had himself seen nothing of his, or of Beaumont and Fletcher's. Not very long afterwards, Benthem, our poet, mentions him in his 'State of the English Schools and Churches,' in chap. xix., among the leading literary characters of England. But all he says of him, and that perhaps only for the first time in the second edition, is the following, which is droll enough: 'William Shakspeare was born at Stratford in Warwickshire; his learning was very little, and therefore it is the more a matter of wonder that he should be a very excellent poet. He had an

gether a just prince, not thoroughly a just man; but he had the disposition to be both. His soul thirsted after knowledge; his mind, sincere in itself, after love; and his fancy, after the secrets of nature: but he forgot, what a prince should least of all forget, that, upon this moving earth, superior acquirements, in order to stand firmly, must be exercised carefully; that the world is full of enemies who can only be subdued by a watchful power and prudence, and that in certain situations the armour ought never to be put off. Thus it became easy for his nearest relation, his brother, with the help! of a powerful neighbouring king who could not resist the offered but unjustifiable advantage, to depose him from his dukedom. But as the pure morals of the prince, although they were perhaps but lazily exercised in behalf of his subjects, had nevertheless acquired their love, and the usurper not daring to make an attack on the lives of the fallen, Prospero saved himself, his daughter, and a part of his magical books, upon a desert island. Here he becomes, what, in its highest sense, he had not yet been, a father listens to him, perhaps because he learned to and prince. His knowledge extends. Nature know and love her more inwardly. Zephyrlike spirits, full of a tender frolicsome humour, and rude earth-born gnomes, are compelled to serve him. The whole island is full of wonders, but only such as the fancy willingly receives, of sounds and songs, of merry helpers and comical tormentors; and

Johan Joachim Eschenburg, über W. Shakspeare,' new edit., Zürich, 1806, p. 497.

who, though long since dead, continues to
work even from the grave. **** In
Caliban there is a curious mixture of devil,
man, and beast, descending even to the fish
species. He desires evil, not for the sake of
evil or from mere wickedness, but because it
is piquant, and because he feels himself
oppressed. He is convinced that gross in-
justice has been done him, and thus he does
not rightly feel that what he desires may be
wicked. He knows perfectly well how
powerful Prospero is, whose art may perhaps
even subdue his maternal god Setebos, and
that he himself is unfortunately nothing but
a slave. Nevertheless, he cannot cease to
curse, and certainly with the gusto of a
virtuoso in this more than liberal art. What-
ever he can find most base and disgusting he
surrounds almost artistically with the most
inharmonious murmuring and hissing words,
and then wishes them to fall upon Prospero
and his lovely daughter. He knows very
well that all this will help him nothing, but
that at night he will have 'cramps,' and
'side-stitches,' and be 'pinched by urchins,'
but still he continues to pour out new curses.
He has acquired one fixed idea-that the
island belonged to his mother, and, con-
sequently, now to himself, the crown prince.
The greatest horrors are pleasant to him, for
he feels them only as jests which break the
monotony of his slavery. He laments that
he had been prevented from completing a
frightful sin,- would it had been done,' &c.;
and the thought of a murder gives him a
real enjoyment, perhaps chiefly on account
of the noise and confusion that it would
produce.

Prospero shows his great human wisdom | warded. He is the son of a witch, Sycorax, particularly in the manner with which he, as the spiritual centre, knows how to conduct his intercourse with friends and foes. First, with his daughter. Miranda is his highest, his one, his all; nevertheless there is visible a certain elevation, a solemnity, in his behaviour towards her, peculiarities which, even with the deepest love, the severely tried and aged man easily assumes. Indeed, much as the pure sense of his daughter must have long cheered him, he deems it good to relate to her now for the first time the history of his earlier sufferings, when he has mastery over, and the power to punish, his adversaries. That his narration should have the effect of sending Miranda to sleep (at least his repeated inquiries as to whether she attends show that he fears it) has given occasion to many explanations, into the worth or worthlessness of which we shall not here inquire. Perhaps the following idea may give some light :-The wonderful acts occasionally like the music upon Jessica in the fifth act of The Merchant of Venice:' the external miracles of Nature scarcely affect Miranda upon an island where Nature herself has become a wonder, and the wonders become Nature. But for her, even on that account, there are only so many greater wonders in the heart and life of man. She has certainly seen untamed wildness and perverseness in Caliban; but he appears to her not as a man, but only as a foolish swearing monster, whom she does not fear, because he is the bond-slave of her powerful father, in whose quiet wisdom she continually confides. But the checkered course of the world, its wild passions, are to her wholly strange; and the relation of such wonders might well affect her in the manner her father fears."

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Caliban, who, in spite of his imperfect, brutish, and half-human nature, as the son of a witch, is something marvellously exciting, and as pretender to the sovereignty of the island something ridiculously sublime, has been considered by every one as an inimitable character of the most powerful poetic fancy; and, the more the character is investigated, the more is our attention re

"Recognising all this, yet our feelings towards him never rise to a thorough hatred. We find him only laughably horrible, and as a marvellous though at bottom a feeble monster highly interesting, for we foresee from the first that none of his threats will be fulfilled. Caliban could scarcely at any time have been made out more in detail, but we are well enabled to seize upon the idea of his inner physiognomy from the naked sketch of his external form. He is, with all his foolish rage and wickedness, not entirely

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vulgar; and though he allows himself to be imposed upon, even by his miserable comrades, (perhaps only because they are men, and, if ugly, yet handsomer than himself,) he everywhere shows more prudence, which is only checked because he considers himself more powerful than he really is. Indeed, he stands far higher than Trinculo and Stephano."

66 Opposed to him stands Ariel, by no means an ethereal, featureless angel, but as a real airy and frolicsome spirit, agreeable and open, but also capricious, roguish, and, with his other qualities, somewhat mischievous. He is thankful to Prospero for his release from the most confined of all confined situations, but his gratitude is not a natural virtue (we might almost add not an airy virtue); therefore he must (like man) be sometimes reminded of his debt, and held in check. Only the promise of his freedom in two days restores him again to his amiability, and he then finds pleasure in executing the plans of his master with a delightful activity. "We noticed in passing the featureless angel,' and it requires no further indication where to find such beings; for no one will deny that these immortal winged children (so charming in many old German pictures), with their somewhat dull immortal harps, and, if possible, their still more dull and immortal anthems, cause a not less immortal tediousness in the works of many poets. Shakspere did not fall into this error, and it is in the highest degree attractive to observe the various and safe modes in which he manages the marvellous. In the storm he achieves his object by the simplest means, while, as has been already indicated, he represents Nature herself, and certainly justly, as the greatest miracle. When he

has once in his own gentle way led us to believe that Prospero, through his high art, is able to overrule Nature-and how willingly do we believe in these higher powers of man!-how completely natural and, to a certain degree, what merely pleasant trifles, are all the wonders which we see playing around us! These higher powers, also, are not confined to Prospero alone; Ferdinand and Miranda have, without any enchanted wand or any prolix instruction, full superiority over the wonders of Nature, and they allow them to pass around them merely as a delightful drama; for the highest wonder is in their own breasts-love, the pure human, and even on that account holy, love.

"Even the pure mind and the firm heart, as they are shown in old Gonzalo, are armed with an almost similar power. With our poet, a truly moral man is always amiable, powerful, agreeable, and quietly wards off the snares laid for him. This old Gonzalo is so entirely occupied with his duty, in which alone he finds his pleasure, that he scarcely notices the gnat-stings of wit with which his opponents persecute him; or, if he observes, easily and firmly repels them. What wit indeed has he to fear, who, in a sinking, ship, has power remaining to sustain himself and others with genuine humour? Shakspere seems scarcely to recognise a powerless! virtue, and he depicts it only in cases of need; so everything closes satisfactorily. The pure poetry of nature and genius inspires us; and when we hear Prospero recite his far too modest epilogue, after laying down his enchanted wand, we have no wish to turn our minds to any frivolous thoughts, for the magic we have experienced was too charming and too mighty not to be enduring."

CHAPTER IV.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

THE original quarto edition of "Troilus and Cressida,' printed in 1609, bears the following title: The famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the Beginning of their Loues, with the Conceited Wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written by William Shakespeare. London, Imprinted by G. Eld, for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the Spred Eagle in Paules Churchyeard, ouer against the great North Doore, 1609.' In the same year a second edition was put forth by the same publishers, in the title-page of which appears, "As it was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants at the Globe." No other edition of the play was published until it appeared in the folio collection of 1623.

The first quarto edition of 1609 contains the following very extraordinary preface:

"A never writer to an ever reader.

"News.

́Eternal reader, you have here a new play,

never staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar, and yet passing full of the palm comical; for it is a birth of your brain, that never undertook anything comical vainly; and were but the vain names of comedies changed for the titles of commodities, or of plays for pleas, you should see all those grand censors, that now style them such vanities, flock to them for the main grace of their gravities; especially this author's comedies, that are so framed to the life, that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives, showing such a dexterity and power of wit, that the most displeased with plays are pleased with his comedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted worldlings as were never capable of the wit of a comedy, coming by report of them to his representations, have found that wit there that they never found in them

selves, and have parted better witted than they came; feeling an edge of wit set upon them more than ever they dreamed they had brain to grind it on. So much and such favoured salt of wit is in his comedies, that they seem (for

their height of pleasure) to be born in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty than this: and had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not (for so much as will make you think your testern well bestowed), but for so much worth as even poor I know to be stuffed in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best And believe

comedy in Terence or Plautus, this, that when he is gone, and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English Inquisition. Take this for a warning, and at the peril of your pleasures' loss and judgments, refuse not, nor like this the less for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you, since by the grand possessors' wills I believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed. And so I leave all such to be prayed for (for the states of their wit's healths) that will not praise it. Vale."

here a new play, never staled with the stage, In 1609, then, the reader is told, “You have never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar;" and he is further exhorted-"refuse not, nor like this the less for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude." The reader is also invited to spend a sixpence upon this play :-"Had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, for so much as will make you think your testern well bestowed." Never was one of Shakspere's plays set forth during his life with such commendation as here abounds. His Comedies "are so framed to the life, that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives." The passage towards the conclusion is the most remarkable :-"Thank Fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you, since by the grand possessors' wills I believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed." We have here, then, first, a most distinct assertion that, in 1609, 'Troilus and Cressida' was a new play, never staled

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with the stage. This, one might think, would be decisive as to the chronology of this play; but in the Stationers' books is the following entry :-"Feb. 7, 1602. Mr. Roberts. The booke of Troilus and Cresseda, as yt is acted by my Lo. Chamberlen's men." Malone assumes that the Troilus and Cressida' thus acted by the Lord Chamberlain's men (the players at the Globe during the reign of Elizabeth) was the same as that published in 1609. Yet there were other authors at work upon the subject besides Shakspere. In Henslowe's manuscripts there are several entries of monies lent, in 1599, to Dekker and Chettle, in earnest of a book called 'Troilus and Cressida.' This play, thus bargained for by Henslowe, appears to have been subsequently called “ 'Agamemnon.' The probability is, that the rival company at the Globe had, about the same period, brought out their own "Troilus and Cressida ;' and that this is the play referred to in the entry by Roberts in 1602; for if that entry had applied to the 'Troilus and Cressida' of Shakspere, first published in 1609, how are we to account for the subsequent entry in the same registers made previously to the publication of that edition? Altogether the evidence of the date of the play, derived from the entry of 1602, appears to us worth very little.

And here arises the question, whether the expressions in the preface "never staled with the stage "—"never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar,"-"not sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude," mean that the play had not been acted at all, or that it had not been acted on the public stage. There is a good deal of probability in the conjecture of Tieck upon this subject: -“In the palace of some great personage, for whom it was probably expressly written, it was first represented; according to my belief for the King himself, who, weak as he was, contemptible as he sometimes showed himself, and pedantic as his wisdom and short-sighted as his politics were, yet must have had a certain fine sense of poetry, wit, and talent, beyond what his historians have ascribed to him. But whether the King, or some one else of whom we have not received

the name, it is sufficient to know that for this person, and not for the public, Shakspere wrote this wonderful comedy." The proprietors of the Globe Theatre were clearly hostile to the publication of Shakspere's later plays; and, in fact, with the exception of'Lear,' and 'Troilus and Cressida,' no play was published between 1603 and Shakspere's death. Now, in the title-page of the original Lear,' published in 1608, there is the following minute particularity :-" As it was played before the King's Majesty at Whitehall upon St. Stephen's night in Christmas holidays, by his Majesty's Servants playing usually at the Globe, on the Bank's side." From this statement it appears to us highly probable that, in the instances both of 'Lear❜ and 'Troilus and Cressida,' the plays were performed, for the first time, before the King; that the copies so used were out of the control of the players who represented these dramas; and that some one, authorized or not, printed each play from the copy used on these occasions. Let us look again at the passage in the preface to Troilus and Cressida' under this impression:-" Thank Fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you, since by the grand possessors' wills I' believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed." There is an obscurity in this passage. "I believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed" is quite unintelligible, if “the grand possessors" had been the proprietors of the Globe Theatre. But suppose the grand possessors to be, as Tieck has conjectured, some great personage, probably the King himself, for whom the play was expressly written, and a great deal of the obscurity of the preface vanishes. By the grand possessors' wills you should have prayed for them (as subjects publicly pray for their rulers) rather than been prayed (as you are by players who solicit your indulgence in prologues and epilogues).

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"The original story," says Dryden, "was written by one Lollius, a Lombard, in Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, as a satire on the inconstancy of women. I find nothing

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