den of a gross injustice in depriving him of a piece of land. This incident is founded upon a statement of the chronicler, in accordance with the superstition of the times, that where the murdered body of Arden was first laid the grass did not grow for two years, and that of this very field he had wrongfully possessed himself: Shakebag, his companion, were kept in a store- | tercepted by Read, a sailor, who accuses Arhouse of Sir Anthony Ager's, at Preston, by Greene's appointment; and thither came Mrs. Arden to see him, bringing and sending him meat and drink many times. He, therefore, lurking there, and watching some opportunity for his purpose, was willed in any wise to be up early in the morning, to lie in wait for Master Arden in a certain broomclose betwixt Feversham and the ferry (which close he must needs pass), there to do his feat. Now Black Will stirred in the morning betimes, but missed the way, and tarried in a wrong place. "Master Arden and his man coming on their way early in the morning towards Shornelan, where Sir Thomas Cheinie lay, as they were almost come to the broomclose, his man, always fearing that Black Will would kill him with his master, feigned that he had lost his purse. Why, said his master, thou foolish knave, couldst thou not look to thy purse, but lose it? What was in it? Three pounds, said he. Why, then, go thy ways back again, like a knave (said his master), and seek it, for being so early as it is there is no man stirring, and therefore thou mayst be sure to find it; and then come and overtake me at the ferry. But nevertheless, by reason that Black Will lost his way, Master Arden escaped yet once again. At that time Black Will yet thought that he should have been sure to have met him homewards; but whether that some of the lord warden's men accompanied him back to Feversham, or that being in doubt, for that it was late, to go through the broomclose, and therefore took another way, Black Will was disappointed then also." A The incident of the visit to Lord Cheinie is, "Mosbie. Black Will and Shakebag, what What is the deed done? is Arden dead? Saw you not how till now the sky was dark, As Arden and Franklin return they are in : "Many strangers came in that mean time, beside the townsmen, to see the print of his body there on the ground in that field; which field he had, as some have reported, most cruelly taken from a woman that had been a widow to one Cooke, and after married to one Richard Read, a mariner, to the great hindrance of her and her husband, the said Read; for they had long enjoyed it by a lease, which they had of it for many years, not then expired; nevertheless he got it from them. For the which the said Read's wife not only exclaimed against him in shedding many a salt tear, but also cursed him most bitterly even to his face, wishing many a vengeance to light upon him, and that all the world might wonder on him." There is surely great power in the following passage; and the denunciation of the sailor comes with a terrible solemnity after the manifold escapes to which we have been witness : "Read. What! wilt thou do me wrong and threaten me too? Nay, then, I'll tempt thee, Arden; do thy worst. God! I beseech thee show some miracle me, I speak it in an agony of spirit,— Or else be brought for men to wonder at, For curses are like arrows shot upright, the sea, As oft I have in many a bitter storm, And saw a dreadful southern flaw at hand, This charge I'll leave with my distressful wife; My children shall be taught such prayers as these ; And thus I go, but leave my curse with thee." We have next a scene in which, by the device of Alice, Mosbie and Black Will fasten a pretended quarrel upon Arden and his friend; but Mosbie is wounded, and Black Will runs away. A reconcilement takes place through the subtilty of the wife. Arden invites Mosbie with other friends to supper, and the conspirators agree that their deed of wickedness shall be done that night. The Chronicler briefly tells the story :— "They conveyed Black Will into Master Arden's house, putting him into a closet at the end of his parlour. Before this they had sent out of the house all the servants, those excepted which were privy to the devised murder. Then went Mosbie to the door, and there stood in a nightgown of silk girded about him, and this was betwixt six and seven of the clock at night Master Arden, having been at a neighbour's house of his, named Dumpkin, and having cleared certain reckonings betwixt them, came home, and, finding Mosbie standing at the door, asked him if it were supper-time? I think not (quoth Mosbie); it is not yet ready. Then let us go and play a game at the tables in the mean season, said Master Arden. And so they went straight into the parlour; and as they came by through the hall, his wife was walking there, and Master Arden said, How now, Mistress Alice? But she made small answer to him. In the mean time one chained the wicket-door of the entry. When they came into the parlour, Mosbie sat down on the bench, having his face toward the place where Black Will stood. Then Michael, Master Arden's man, stood at his master's back, holding a candle in his hand, to shadow Black Will, that Arden might by no means perceive him coming forth. In their play Mosbie said thus (which seemed to be the watchword for Black Will's coming forth), Now Will stepped forth, and cast a towel about his neck, so to stop his breath and strangle him. Then Mosbie, having at his girdle a pressingiron of fourteen pounds weight, struck him on the head with the same, so that he fell down and gave a great groan, insomuch that they thought he had been killed." The tragedy follows, with very slight variation, the circumstances here detailed. The guests arrive; but Alice betrays the greatest inquietude: she gets rid of them one by one, imploring them to seek her husband, and in the mean while the body is removed. The dramatist appears here to have depended upon the terrible interest of the circumstances more than upon any force of expression in the characters. The discovery of the murder follows pretty closely the narrative of the Chronicler : "Here enter the Mayor and the Watch. Alice. How now, master Mayor? have you brought my husband home? Mayor. I saw him come into your house an hour ago. Alice. You are deceived; it was a Londoner. Mayor. Mistress Arden, know you not one that is call'd Black Will? Alice. I know none such; what mean these questions? Mayor. I have the council's warrant to apprehend him. Alice. I am glad it is no worse. [Aside. Why, master Mayor, think you I harbour any such? Mayor. We are informed that here he is; And therefore pardon us, for we must search. Alice. Ay, search and spare you not, through every room: Were my husband at home you would not offer this. Here enter FRANKLIN. Master Franklin, what mean you come so sad? Frank. Arden thy husband, and my friend, is slain. Alice. Ah! by whom? master Franklin, can you tell? Frank. I know not, but behind the abbey There he lies murder'd, in most piteous case. Mayor. But, master Franklin, are you sure 't is he? Frank. I am too sure; would God I were deceiv'd! Alice. Find out the murderers; let them be known. Frank. Ay, so they shall come you along with us. Alice. Wherefore? Frank. Know you this hand-towel and this knife? Susan. Ah, Michael! through this thy negligence, Thou hast betrayed and undone us all. [Aside. Mich. I was so afraid, I knew not what I did; I thought I had thrown them both into the well. [Aside. Alice. It is the pig's blood we had to supper. But wherefore stay you? find out the murderers. Mayor. I fear me you'll prove one of them yourself. Alice. I one of them? what mean such questions? Frank. I fear me he was murder'd in this house, And carried to the fields; for from that place, See, see, his blood; it is too manifest. Alice. It is a cup of wine which Michael shed. 'Mayor. See, Mistress Arden, where your husband lies.. Confess this foul fault, and be penitent. The more I sound his name the more he bleeds. This blood condemns me, and in gushing forth Speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it. Forgive me, Arden! I repent me now; And would my death save thine, thou shouldst not die. Rise up, sweet Arden, and enjoy thy love, The concluding scene shows us the principal culprits condemned to die :— Mayor. Leave to accuse each other now, And listen to the sentence I shall give: Bear Mosbie and his sister to London straight, Where they in Smithfield must be executed: Bear Mistress Arden unto Canterbury, Where her sentence is, she must be burnt: Michael and Bradshaw in Feversham Must suffer death. Alice. Let my death make amends for all my sin. Mosbie. Fie upon women, this shall be my song." After the play, Franklin, in a sort of epilogue, somewhat inartificially tells us that Shakebag was murdered in Southwark, and Black Will burnt at Flushing; that Greene was hanged at Osbridge, and the painter fled. Bradshaw, according to the 'Chronicle' and the dramatic representation, was an innocent person. The drama concludes with the following apologetical lines :— "Gentlemen, we hope you 'll pardon this naked tragedy, Wherein no filed points are foisted in And needs no other points of glozing stuff." These lines appear to us as an indication that the author of 'Arden of Feversham,' whoever he might be, was aware that such a story did not call for the highest efforts of dramatic art. It was a naked tragedy," "simple no truth,”—requiring filed points" or "glozing stuff." To a very young man, whose principles of art were not 66 66 Alice. Arden, sweet husband, what shall I formed, and who had scarcely any models say? before him, this tragic story might have ap to Shakspere by any of his contemporaries; and yet it must have been a popular play, for it was reprinted forty years after its pub peared not only easy to be dramatized, but a Without doubt there may have been some writer, of whose name and works we know nothing, to whom this play may have been assigned; but if it be improbable that Shakspere had written it, it is equally improbable that any of the known dramatists who had attained a celebrity in 1592 should have written it. It has none of the characteristics of any one of them—their extravagance of language; their forced passion; their overloading of classical allusions ; their monotonous versification. Its power mainly lies in its simplicity. The unhappy woman is the chief character in the drama; and it appears to us that the author especially exhibits in "Mistress Arden" that knowledge of the hidden springs of human guilt and weakness which is not to be found in the generalities of any of the early contemporaries of Shakspere. Still we must be understood as not attempting to pronounce any decided opinion upon the question of authorship. We neither hold with the German critics, whose belief approaches credulity in this and other cases, nor with the English, who appear to consider, in most things, that scepticism and sound judgment are identical. BOOK III. CHAPTER I. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. A CHARGE which has been urged against | calls learning, he had less of invention, so far Shakspere, with singular complacency on the part of the accusers, is, that he did not invent his plots. A writer, who in these later days has thought that to disparage Shakspere would be a commendable task, says, "If Shakspere had little of what the world as regards the fable of his plays. For every one of them he was, in some degree, indebted to a preceding piece."* The assertion that the most inventive of poets was without invention, as far as regards the fable of his * Life of Shakspeare,' in Lardner's Cyclopædia. plays," is as absurd as to say that Scott did not invent the fable of ' Kenilworth,' because the sad tale of Amy Robsart is found in Mickle's beautiful ballad of Cumnor Hall.' The truth is, that no one can properly appreciate the extent as well as the subtilty of Shakspere's invention-its absorbing and purifying power-who has not traced him to his sources. It will be our duty, in many cases, to direct especial attention to the material upon which Shakspere worked, to show how the rough ore became, under his hands, pure and resplendent-converted into something above all price by the unapproachable skill of the artist. It is not the workman polishing the diamond, but converting by his wonderful alchymy, something of small value into the diamond. The student of Shakspere will understand that we here more particularly allude to the great plays which are founded on previous imaginative works, such as 'Romeo and Juliet,' and 'Lear;' and not to those in which, like 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' a few incidents are borrowed from the romance-writers. 66 "But what shall we do ?" said the barber in 'Don Quixote,' when, with the priest, the housekeeper, and the niece, he was engaged in making a bonfire of the knight's library -"what shall we do with these little books that remain ?" "These," said the priest, are probably not books of chivalry, but of poetry." And, opening one, he found it was the 'Diana' of George Montemayor, and said (believing all the rest of the same kind), "These do not deserve to be burnt like the rest, for they cannot do the mischief that those of chivalry have done: they are works of genius and fancy, and do nobody any hurt." Such was the criticism of Cervantes upon the 'Diana' of Montemayor. The romance was the most popular which had appeared in Spain since the days of 'Amadis de Gaul ;'* and it was translated into English by Bartholomew Yong, and published in 1598. The story involves a perpetual confusion of modern manners and ancient mythology; and Ceres, Minerva, and Venus, as well as the saints, constitute the machinery. The one part which Shakspere has borrowed, * Dunlop's 'History of Fiction.' or is supposed to have borrowed, is the story of the shepherdess Felismena, which is thus translated by Mr. Dunlop :- "The first part of the threats of Venus was speedily accomplished; and, my father having early followed my mother to the tomb, I was left an orphan. Henceforth I resided at the house of a distant relative; and, having attained my seventeenth year, became the victim of the offended goddess by falling in love with Don Felix, a young nobleman of the province in which I lived. The object of my affections felt a reciprocal passion; but his father, having learned the attachment which subsisted between us, sent his son to court, with a view to prevent our union. Soon after his departure I followed him in the disguise of a page, and discovered on the night of my arrival at the capital, by a serenade I heard him give, that Don Felix had already disposed of his affections. Without being recognised by him, I was admitted into his service, and was engaged by my former lover to conduct his correspondence with the mistress who, since our separation, had supplanted me in his heart." This species of incident, it is truly observed by Steevens, and afterwards by Dunlop, is found in many of the ancient novels. In 'Twelfth Night,' where Shakspere is supposed to have copied Bandello, the same adventure occurs; but in that delightful comedy, the lady to whom the page in disguise is sent falls in love with him. Such is the Story of Felismena. It is, however, clear that Shakspere must have known this part of the romance of Montemayor, although the translation of Yong was not published till 1598; for the pretty dialogue between Julia and Lucetta, in the first act, where Julia upbraids her servant for bringing the letter of Proteus, corresponds, even to some turns of expression, with a similar description by Felismena of her love's history. We give a passage from the old translation by Bartholomew Yong, which will enable our readers to compare the romance-writer and the dramatist : "Yet to try if by giving her some occasion I might prevail, I said unto her-And is it so, Rosina, that Don Felix, without any regard to |