State of National Development.

43

whom it is acute;" and that he is "thankful for it." It was, indeed, however "foolish and extravagant" in appearance, a valuable inheritance, derived, as another poet reminds us, from "a hundred years of controversy, involving every great political, and every dear domestic, interest." The same writer judiciously refers us to the style of the sermons of the time, and the eagerness of the Protestants to distinguish themselves by long and frequent preaching, as proving that, "from the reign of Henry VIII. to the abdication of James II., no country ever received such a national education as England." But the general state of development is imperfect, and exhibits, therefore, many ridiculous qualities, of which the comic poet rightly avails himself. There are also many pretenders to "the gift" who are fair butts; and likewise the vulgar ignorant, who "imitate" their betters "abominably," and misapply the phrases in fashionable use. The coxcomb Spaniard Armado, and his precocious page Moth, with the clown Costard, are representatives of these. All equally "draw out the thread of their verbosity finer than the staple of their argument." And even so does the play itself, which has scarcely any argument of action, but abundance of dialogue teeming with verbal affectations, and devoted mainly to their exposure. There is no incident, no situation, no interest of any kind;-the whole play is, literally and exclusively, "a play on words."

While looking upon all this from the absurd side, the dramatist is, nevertheless, careful to suggest to the thoughtful student of his work, by means of some

beautiful poetry, aphoristic sentences, and other finely artistic devices, that above these negative instances, when exhausted, there will be found to preside an affirmative and prior principle, which is indeed the spirit of the age, whereby the "Providence which shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will," is conducting and guiding the world in its progresses to "a consummation devoutly to be wished." A philosophical, nay, a pious, design and purpose lies at the bottom of all the whimsicalities that misrepresent what they should embody;-in so doing, however, not especially singular; since the most serious and grave solemnities must also needs fall infinitely short of the verities they symbolise.

Nor has Shakspere left this very curious Aristophanic drama without its Chorus. It is the witty Biron who fills that office; whose shafts, however, are not directed against the euphuism of the time, but against the attempted asceticism which the progress and catastrophe of the play are destined to explode. Early he reminds the king that study is little benefited by the practices proposed. "Study," says he,

How

Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks:

Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books."

easy was it to apply all this to religion and government! There had been a break-up to all such

The Influence of Woman.

45

"base authority;" and an authority not base had to be constituted in its stead. But obsolete canons were useless; original perception alone could find the remedy. They having failed, Biron accordingly returns to the charge:

"When would you, my lord, or you, or you,

Have found the ground of study's excellence,
Without the beauty of a woman's face? . .
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such learning as a woman's eye? ..
-Love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But with the motion of all elements
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.

Let us once lose our oaths, to find ourselves,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn ;

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can sever love from charity?"

Here, indeed, is a justification for Luther and his broken vows. The very genius of the Reformation inspires this drama. The wife is enthroned instead of the vestal; and the married man cares no longer for the song of the cuckoo, or the menace of horns. Biron, who utters these sayings, is himself a convertite. Like an incipient Benedick, he had allowed himself, indulging a satirical disposition, to rail at women; but love has now brought him to his right

wits.

By the plentiful use of negative instances, the poet was enabled to place in a ridiculous light both the new learning and the old asceticism; and thus preserved a dramatic impartiality which would recommend his play to both parties. He dreaded to demonstrate a bias. Yet we shall do well to note in Biron's eulogies of woman a seriousness and earnestness which contrasts with the sport that ever attends the phrase-mongering portion of the drama. He solemnly adjures his hearers,

"For Wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,
Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for Men's sake, the authors of these women,
Or Women's sake, by whom we men are men,"

to restore that reverence for Beauty, the vision of which, in woman's form, "adds a precious seeing to the eye." All this is terribly in earnest. How different from the child-wit of Moth, even in its most ponderous and direct shape!--for example, "They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps;" in which excerpt even the serious fact is communicated through a comic vehicle.

The composition of this play, if duly considered, may serve to dissipate many errors regarding the qualities of mind needful to a man's becoming a dramatist. First and foremost, we find in this comedy a reliance on the poetic capacity. There is no extraneous action, no borrowed story, but the very materials of it are made out of the poet's own mind; he trusts, not to his fable, but to his own wit and fancy. The logic of wit and the conceits of poetry are its

Purpose of the Drama.

47

twin-factors. The orthographer, the grammarian, the philosopher, and the classical student then come in, to give form to the matter; all disguised in the mask of a word-trickster, who revels in his privilege, yet affects to abuse you for permitting him to exercise it. While, therefore, the play is purely a creation out of nothing, the dialogue presents itself as a scholastic laboratory, where phrases are passed off for thoughts, and verbal exaggeration must be accepted for humour. It is not on the business of the stage, the rapidity or complication of action, or the interest of the story, that the poet depends,-these would have all been alien to the spirit, design, and purpose of the work; but on the activity of the thought, the intellectual combination of ideas, and the logical juxtaposition of verbal signs. He had faith that out of these an effective play could be generated; and it was so. Foreign materials, also, are doubtless rendered available; the observations of character implied in the different dramatis persona. These are, as confessed by Coleridge, such as a country-town and a schoolboy's experience might supply,-the Curate, the Schoolmaster, and the Armado,-which latter, even in the transcendental critic's time, was, he tells us, "not extinct in the cheaper inns of North Wales." In the Boyet and Biron, however, we recognise rôles requiring a courtier's acquaintance with things courtly, and a certain amount of worldly knowledge; while, in Costard, Moth, and Dull, we perceive a dramatic art scarcely excelled in the poet's more mature productions. So early had he perceived that law of dramatic