burden, and if she thinks doubtingly of the morrow, as likely to bring new anxieties and new cares; if unbidden tears brim her eye, he can chase away both doubts and tears "What! we have many goodly days to see, The liquid drops of tears that you have shed, 1 King Richard III.,' act iv. 4. 220 XXII. CLIMBING THE STEEPS. FEW will believe in a period of Shakespeare's life when he was unknown to the Muse. He was a poet by birth; and rhythm came to him intuitively, as soon as he began to think. If Voltaire made rhymes in his cradle, how much more Shakespeare! No doubt there was an epoch when he was seized with a new impulse-when this rudiment of poesy struck out and unfolded itself. He had possessed the faculty from the beginning, but now it became a power; and with the first conviction of its existence he recognized his vocation. It was to deliver the whole story of existence, in every sphere and relation, in every phase and aspect. He must give expression to the thoughts and form to the images that thronged through his mind, and were ever reflected there, as in a wizard mirror. The tender aspirations of love, and its passionate emotions, with the sullen broodings of hate, and its fierce impulses all the motives of man, all the susceptibilities of woman, and the common frailty of both: these were to be the themes of his Muse. And he must carry the tale through the infinite diversity of Nature, portraying in the recital her phenomena and features in all their grace, beauty, and sublimity. It is related of Albertus Magnus that he once amazed the Count of Holland, who had come to visit him, by transforming a little court-yard into a garden, threaded by a meandering stream, and girt with woods, which resounded with the song of birds. The imagination of Shakespeare was no less potent; for it changed the alley of the crowded city into a beauteous landscape, and conjured up at will green hills and smiling valleys, wild moor, and shady forest. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, saw, as in a dream, meads dotted with sheep, fields yellow with harvest, and hedges hung with the wild rose, or laden with blossom. And he could bring up the birds too, and raise a concert from "the nightingale's complaining note," "the "love-song" of the robin red breast, the "lark that tirra-lirra chants," the finch,' the "thrush and the jay." There was no feature of nature hid from that eye, no point overlooked, nor tint forgotten. As he sat by the midnight lamp, or lay awake on his pillow, when the great city was hushed, and nothing broke the universal stillness, he was busy with this magic, and the scenes that he created, unlike the illusions of Albertus Magnus, are around us still. 2 He called poetry "sweet," and well called it; for it gave him a retreat from the world, beyond its influence-a world of his own. Here he sat, as in a hermitage, and mused on the vanity of this mortal coil, its pleasures and sorrows, its trials and triumphs-such stuff as dreams are made of. He must act his part and bear his burden; but that done, he could withdraw into himself. Thus neither his own poverty, nor the reverses of his parents, neither privation nor suffering, could break his spirit, or subvert his fortitude : "Though fortune's malice overthrow my state, My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel."6 MIND was his world; and here he could defy the malice of fortune, which, though able to mar his best-laid projects 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona,' act v. 4. in life, was powerless against the airy nothings to which he gave a local habitation and a name. He could have been but a short time on the stage before he became known to Sir Philip Sidney, and it was apparently about the same time that he made the acquaintance of Spenser. Both these illustrious men were play-goers, and both were in England in 1584, Spenser having been driven here by the Irish rebellion, while Sidney had not yet proceeded to the Netherlands. Walter Scott tells us that Sidney was such an admirer of Shakespeare, that he slept with his sonnets under his pillow, just as Alexander, a more renowned but not greater hero, made a pillow of the 'Iliad', and though he does not mention his authority, he doubtless had ground for the statement. The facts we now adduce that Shakespeare came to London before the death of Sidney, and enjoyed the protection of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester-lend it confirmation. The point is of great importance in his history; for it affirms the existence of the bulk of his sonnets before he was twenty years of age; and, indeed, induces a belief that they were his letter of introduction to Sidney. At that time, literary productions, and particularly poems, were rarely given immediately to the printer, but were circulated by the author in manuscript, among his patrons and friends; and Sidney's own Arcadia' was passed about in this way, and only reached the press four years after his death. It was by sending him a portion of his Fairy Queen' that Spenser attracted his notice; and Shakespeare may have fallen in with the custom of the day, in the hope that his compositions might be brought before the great Earl, who would recognize his name, and perhaps consider that the lad he had saved from prison was not so black as he was painted. However this may be, he would soon become known to Sidney by his adaptations of old plays, amongst the first of which we must place the two Parts of King Henry IV.,' which, as well as the drama of King Henry V.,' were founded on a wretched stock-play, called 'The Famous Victories of Henry V.' Shakespeare took up the names of the old characters, and many of the incidents, working them in with new, and rejecting the dialogue and colouring. No one has hitherto placed the two Parts of King Henry IV.' at an earlier date than 1590, but we shall presently show that they must have been produced before 1586, and they are so tinged with the impressions now in Shakespeare's mind, that we may safely assign them to 1584. The First Part transforms the low buffoon of the old piece into the witty knight, who is said by Oldyss to be a reminiscence of a Stratford man; Prince Henry is changed from a rascal into a mere amiable sort of scapegrace, sowing wild oats, but animated by noble intentions-as if Shakespeare designed to lead his friends to the same impression of himself; and finally, both knight and prince are carried off to Warwickshire, to the spot first in his thoughts, the neighbourhood of his native town. This reflection of home deepens in the Second Part, a proof that it followed quickly on the First, while the feeling was still fresh. Here he takes his revenge on Sir Thomas Lucy, and carries his scapegrace through another stage, finally bringing him to turn over a new leaf, as he has done himself. The drift of the two pieces must have been understood by those who knew his history, and he would accomplish a great object, if it tended to remove any prejudice created against him by his past misconduct. Whether this was achieved or not, the play could hardly fail to bring back the story to the memory of his old protector, the Earl of Leicester, and he was not deterred by his antecedents from securing such an ally. Bishop Warburton penetrated the allegory in Midsummer Night's Dream,' and maintained 1 King Henry IV., Part I.,' act iv. 2., " A Public Road near Coventry." |