Who can doubt that Antony bears "the holding" the loudest of all?—

"As loud

As his strong sides can volley." These are not the lords of the world of the French tragedy. Grimm, who, upon the whole, has a leaning to Shakspere, says "Il est assez ridicule sans doute de faire parler les valets comme les héros; mais il est beaucoup plus ridicule encore de faire parler aux héros le langage du peuple."* To make them drunk is worse even than the worst of the ridiculous. It is impossible to define such a sin. We think, with Dogberry, it is "flat burglary as ever was committed." Upton has a curious theory, which would partly make Shakspere belong to the French school. The hero of this play, according to this theory, does not speak "the language of the people." Upton says-" Mark Antony, as Plutarch informs us, affected the Asiatic manner of speaking, which much resembled his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, and very rhodomontade. This style our poet has very artfully and learnedly interspersed in Antony's speeches."+ Unquestionably the language of Antony is more elevated than that of Enobarbus, for example. Antony was of the poetical temperament—a man of high genius—an orator, who could move the passions dramaticallya lover, that knew no limits to his devotion, because he loved imaginatively. When sorrow falls upon him, the poetical parts of his character are more and more developed ; we forget the sensualist. But, even before the touch of grief has somewhat exalted his nature, he takes the poetical view of poetical things. What can be more exquisite than his mention of Octavia's weeping at the parting with her brother?

* * *

*

* *

That stands upon the swell at the full of tide, And neither way inclines."

This, we think, is not "the Asiatic manner of speaking."

Cold is Antony's parting with Octavia:"Choose your own company, and command what cost

Your heart has mind to."

Rapid is his meeting with Cleopatra. She "hath nodded him to her." The voluptuary has put on his Eastern magnificence :— "I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd, Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold Were publicly enthroned."

He rejects all counsel :-"I'll fight at sea." And so

"The greater cantle of the world is lost

With very ignorance.”

Now comes the generosity of his character— of the same growth as his magnificence and recklessness. He exhorts his friends to take his treasure and fly to Cæsar. His self-abasement is most profound :

"I have offended reputation."

But he has not yet learnt wisdom. Cleopatra is present, and then—

"Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates

All that is won and lost: Give me a kiss;
Even this repays me."

He then becomes a braggart; he will challenge Cæsar, "sword against sword." Profound is the comment of Enobarbus :

"I see, men's judgments are A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them, To suffer all alike."

Cæsar's ambassador comes to Cleopatra. He tempts her;-and it almost looks as if she yielded to the temptation. He kisses her hand, at the instant Antony enters :— "Moon and stars!

Whip him."

This is partly jealousy; partly the assertion of small power by one accustomed to unlimited command. Truly Enobarbus says

""T is better playing with a lion's whelp, Than with an old one dying."

A diminution in our captain's brain
Restores his heart: When valour preys on

reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek Some way to leave him."

Enobarbus does leave him. But he first wit

nesses

"One of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots Out of the mind."

Antony puts forth the poetry of his nature in his touching words to his followers, ending in

"Let's to supper; come,

And drown consideration."

When he hears of the treachery of Enobarbus, he again tasks the generosity of his spirit to the utmost :

"Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;
Detain no jot, I charge thee."

He has driven Cæsar "to his camp." All Cleopatra's tresspass is forgotten in one burst of enthusiasm:

"My nightingale,

We have beat them to their beds. What, girl? though gray

Do something mingle with our younger brown; Yet ha' we a brain that nourishes our nerves, And can get goal for goal of youth." Another day comes, and it brings another note :

"All is lost;

This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.” Cleopatra says truly

"He is more mad

Than Telamon for his shield."

The scene which terminates with Antony falling on his sword is in the highest style of the great dramatist,—and that is to give the highest praise. Hazlitt has eloquently said of its magnificent opening-"This is, without doubt, one of the finest pieces of poetry in Shakspere. The splendour of the imagery, the semblance of reality, the lofty range of picturesque objects hanging over the world, their evanescent nature, the total uncer

Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body; here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave."

The images describe the Antony melting into nothingness; but the splendour of the imagery is the reflection of Antony's mind, which, thus enshrined in poetry, can never become "indistinct,”—will always “hold this visible shape." Dryden has also tried to produce a poetical Antony, precisely under the same circumstances. We transcribe a passage:

IN the Address to the Reader prefixed to the first edition, published in 1612, of 'The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' of JOHN WEBSTER, is the following passage:— "Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinions of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial :—

'Non norunt hæc monumenta mori.'" Webster was formed upon Shakspere. He had no pretensions to the inexhaustible wit, the all-penetrating humour of his master; but he had the power of approaching the terrible energy of his passion, and the profoundness of his pathos, in characters which he took out of the great muster-roll of humanity,

66

and placed in fearful situations, and sometimes with revolting imaginings almost beyond humanity. Those who talk of the carelessness of Shakspere may be surprised to find that his praise is that of a right happy and copious industry." It is clear what dramatic writers were the objects of Webster's love. He did not aspire to the “full and heightened style of Master Chapman," nor would his genius be shackled by the examples of "the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson." belonged to the school of the romantic dramatists.

He

Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher are "worthily excellent;" but his aspiration was to imitate "the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light." There were critics at that time who regarded the romantic drama as a diversion for the multitude only; and Webster thinks it necessary to apologize for this deliberate choice "Willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted." He says—“ If it be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi; willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted: for should a man present, to such an auditory, the most sententious

tragedy that was ever written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person, enrich it with the sententious Chorus, and, as it were, 'liven death, in the passionate and weighty Nuntias; yet, after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it; and, ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace

'Hæc porcis hodie comedenda relinques.'" As early as 1602, Webster was a writer for Henslow's theatre, in conjunction with Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Chettle, Heywood, and Wentworth Smith. At a later period he was more directly associated with Dekker alone. His great tragedies of 'The White Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi' were produced at the period when Shakspere had almost ceased to write; and it is probably to this circumstance we owe these original and unaided efforts of Webster's genius. There was a void to be filled up, and it was filled up worthily.

Webster has placed his coadjutor DEKKER next to Shakspere. He looked upon the world with an observant eye; and of him it has been said, that his "pamphlets and plays alone would furnish a more complete view of the habits and customs of his contemporaries in vulgar and middle life than could easily be collected from all the grave annals of the times."* He was confident in his powers; and claimed to be a satirist by as indefeasible a title as that of his greater rival Jonson :-"I am snake-proof; and though, with Hannibal, you bring whole hogsheads of vinegar-railings, it is impossible for you to quench or come over my Alpine resolution. I will sail boldly and desperately alongst the shores of the isle of Gulls; and in defiance of those terrible block-houses, their loggerheads, make a true discovery of their wild yet habitable country."+ Thomas Dekker is certainly one of those who gather humours from all men ; but his wit is not of the highest or the most delicate character. He knows the town, and he makes the most of

| his knowledge. Though he is a "high flyer in wit," as Edward Phillips calls him, yet is he a poet. As he advanced in years, he was wielding greater powers, and dealing with nobler things, than belonged to the satirist. In his higher walk he is of the school of nature and simplicity. Hazlitt speaks of one of his plays, perhaps the best, with true artistical feeling :-"The rest of the character is answerable to the beginning. The execution is, throughout, as exact as the conception is new and masterly. There is the least colour possible used; the pencil drags; the canvas is almost seen through: but then, what precision of outline, what truth and purity of tone, what firmness of hand, what marking of character! . . . . . It is as if there were some fine art to chisel thought, and to embody the inmost movements of the mind in every-day actions and familiar speech."* Dekker acquired some of his satirical propensities, but the tenderness of his heart was also called forth, in the crooked ways and dark places of misfortune. Almost the first record of his life is a memorandum by Henslow of the loan of forty shillings, "to discharge Mr. Dicker out of the Counter in the Poultry." Oldys, in his manuscript notes upon Langbaine, affirms that he was in the King's Bench Prison from 1613 to 1616. His own calamities furnish a commentary to the tenderness of many such passages as the following, in which a father is told of the miseries of his erring daughter :—

"I'm glad you are wax, not marble; you are made

Of man's best temper; there are now good
hopes

That all these heaps of ice about your heart,
By which a father's love was frozen up,
Are thaw'd in these sweet show'rs fetch'd

from your eyes:

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
She is not dead, but lives under worse fate;
I think she's poor."

The praise of industry belongs to Dekker, though its fruits were poverty. He lived to a considerable age, and he laboured to the last at play or pamphlet. But the amount

* Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.'

In

of his productions becomes almost insignificant when compared with the more than "copious industry" of THOMAS HEYWOOD. He was a scholar, having been educated at Cambridge at Peterhouse, it is said; but he became an actor as early as 1598, being then a sharer in Henslow's company. 1633 he claimed for himself the authorship, entirely or in part, of two hundred and twenty dramas. Many of his two hundred and twenty dramas were probably such short pieces as 'The Yorkshire Tragedy.' Heywood had the power of stirring the affections, of moving pity and terror by true representations of the course of crime and misery in real life. Charles Lamb has summed up the character of his writings in three lines:'Heywood is a sort of prose Shakspeare. His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the poet, that which in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature." Winstanley, not a very trustworthy authority, speaking of Heywood's wonderful fertility, says—“ He not only acted himself almost every day, but also wrote each day a sheet; and that he might lose no time, many of his plays were composed in the tavern, on the back side of tavern bills; which may be an occasion that so many of them are lost."

66

:

FRANCIS BEAUMONT was a boy at the period to which our slight notice of his great coadjutor Fletcher belongs*. The poetical union of Beaumont and Fletcher has given birth to stories, such as Aubrey delights in telling, that their friendship extended even to a community of lodging and clothes, with others matters in common that are held to belong to the perfection of the social system. We neither believe these things entirely, nor do we quite receive the assertion of Dr. Earle, that Beaumont's "main business was to correct the overflowings of Mr. Fletcher's wit." Edward Phillips repeats this assertion. They first came before the world in the association of a title-page in 1607. The junior always preceded the elder poet in such announcements of their works; and this was probably determined by the alphabetical arrangement. We have many

*Book vi. chap. i. page 264.

indications that Beaumont was regarded by his contemporaries as a man of great and original power. It was not with the exaggeration of a brother's love that Sir John Beaumont wrote his affecting epitaph upon the death of Francis :—

"Thou shouldst have follow'd me, but death to blame

Miscounted years, and measur'd age by fame." He was buried by the side of Chaucer and Spenser, in the hallowed earth where it was wished that Shakspere should have been laid :—

"Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold
tomb.

To lodge all four in one bed make a shift,
For until doomsday hardly will a fifth,
Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain,
For whom your curtains need be drawn
again."

*

When Shakspere's company performed at Wilton, in December, 1603, it is more than probable that there was a young man present at those performances, whose course of life might have been determined by the impulses of those festive hours. PHILIP MASSINGER, who in 1603 was nineteen years of age, was the son of a gentleman filling a service of trust in the household of the Earls of Pembroke. At this period Philip was a commoner of St. Alban Hall, Oxford. "Being sufficiently famed for several specimens of wit, he betook himself to making plays." This is Anthony Wood's account of the dedication of Massinger to a pursuit which brought him little but hopeless poverty. Amongst Henslow's papers was found an undated letter, addressed to him by Nathaniel Field, with postscripts signed by Robert Daborne and Philip Massinger. Malone conjectures that the letter was written between 1612 and 1615, Henslow having died in January, 1616. The letter, which is a melancholy illustration of the oft-told tale of the misfortunes of genius, was first given in the additions to Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage: '

* Elegy on Shakespear, by W. Basse.