and, as appears by a note in the Stationers' Registry, by the Lord Chamberlain's company. Now, this was the very time when Ben Jonson brought forward his "Poetaster," and generally attacked the popular theatre, while he advocated the Aristotelian rules and the ancient model. While, therefore, Dekker was employed on his "Satiromastix," Shakspeare replied to Jonson more or less promptly with his "Troilus and Cressida ;" but in all probability with a hasty sketch of the whole at first. In this form it may have been acted once or twice at the small winter theatre at Blackfriars, or, as Tieck supposes, before the Court only, and subsequently withdrawn from the stage, when Jonson was beaten, as we have seen, for a time, and the public interest in the dispute had evaporated. But about 1608, the party of Ben Jonson sprung up more active and more powerful than ever. Thereupon Shakspeare entirely remodelled the picce as it appears in the quarto; and in its present shape I refer it to 1608 or 9.

The "Merry Wives of Windsor," on the other hand, must have been written as early as 1599 or 1600. For it is entered in the Stationers' Registry the 18th of January, 1601, and that it was not composed much earlier is proved by its language and general character. The arguments which Chalmers adduces for placing it before "Henry the Fourth," and as early as 1596, are satisfactorily refuted by Drake, who, however, with Malone, places it as much too late, in 1601, for we may safely assume that no play was ever printed, before it had been acted at least once. A comparison of the two old quartos with the folio of 1623, furnishes another proof of the unceasing care with which Shakspeare retouched his compositions. When Shakspeare made this revision is uncertain; Malone says in 1603, but Tieck several years later. I cannot see any valid ground for either opinion.

From what sources Shakspeare borrowed the materials of these two pieces is, to my mind, a question of indifference. The invention in both is obviously of secondary importance; the chief interest in one lies in the character of Falstaff, and the view of classical antiquity of the other. For the "Merry Wives of Windsor" he may have made use of translations of some tales

of Giovanni Fiorentino and Straparola (see Stevens' Note; Simrock, &c. i. 201 f.; iii. 221, &c.) As to "Troilus and Cressida," the work of Eschenberg will afford every information. Whether in the structure of it he followed an older piece of the same title by Dekker and Chettle, and mentioned in Henslowe's Diary, the 7th and 16th of April, 1599 (Reed's Shakspeare, iii. 391), admits not of determination, but is, no doubt, highly probable.

342

SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS.

IN an examination of the thirteen dramas which we have classed together under this head, the preliminary question is, to ascertain Shakspeare's notion of an historical drama. In the first, then, it is evident that to deserve this name for his composition the poet must not dispose absolutely of his historical matter, nor employ it simply as materials which he is at liberty to mould and fashion at will; but that his primary duty is to give, as Shakspeare invariably does, a true, accurate, and faithful likeness of the actual history. In this procedure poesy evidently renounces its own independence, and becomes, what in a high sense it ought to be, the handmaid of history. For poems of this kind can have no other end in view than to exhibit in clear artistic transparency the profound and inmost meaning of historical events, and consequently the true essence of history itself. And thus the historical drama appears to coincide in its end and design with the idea of dramatic art in general. The former, however, cannot attain to this end in the same way that the latter secures it. For this is at liberty to choose its own subjectmatter, and to give it a form in accordance with the poetic end it had in view in selecting it. It is therefore able to weave the historical idea so intimately into the characters of the dramatic personages, and into the particular motives of the action, as to allow the epic and lyric elements to coalesce, and to reflect in the subjectivity of the actors the whole objectivity of the art in its full significance. In actual history, on the contrary, the progress of development is governed by certain general laws and principles, which in their extent greatly transcend the life and influence of the individual agents. Into this progress the subjective enters, it is true, with a free self-determination either to promote or to obstruct it; the activity of individuals influences and regulates in some measure even the history of the world. But still this

interference is only a single constituent in the composite organization of the whole, which advances continually onwards, and comes to no actual conclusion, and stops together with the activity of the individual; although for the purposes of study certain epochs may be pointed out in history more or less significant, but at the same time more or less arbitrary. In the historical drama, accordingly, so far as it is truly historical, the subjective side of mind, the influence of the acting characters on the whole of the action, and consequently the lyrical element of dramatic art, must retire more and more into the background, while with the greater value and influence of the objectve in the universal organism of the historical development, a corresponding importance is acquired by the epic element. Conversely the character of the so-called domestic drama, with its deep affecting sentiment, is best preserved when the poet is most free from the objective organism of history, and moves in a narrow definitely limited sphere, in which the subjective is decidedly paramount, and the tragic development of the whole entirely dependent on the modes of thinking and acting of the several personages; in short, when the lyrical element of dramatic art preponderates over the epical.

Whatever, according to this view, the historical drama loses in dramatic perfection, i. e. in point of form, is more than compensated in another respect. By its very nature it is not closely shut up within itself; but by reason of the preponderance of the epical element, it stretches, as it were, beyond its own immediate limits, and connecting itself with a second or even a third drama, becomes thereby a member of a greater whole; and is thus enabled to exhibit history in a larger mass and more extensive relations, after the manner of an Epos. In so far as the general objective condition of a people, which is the proximate expression of the leading ideas of history, and on whom the principal springs of all larger historical developments ultimately rest, invariably outlives the subjective influence of individuals, an historical drama cannot stand alone, but must refer both to prospective and antecedent relations, of which other single dramas may be the exponents. Thus, for instance, the dethronement of Richard the Second was

immediately followed by the accession of Henry the Fourth, without producing any fundamental change in the general political condition of the English nation. A single historical drama is but a link in the great series of important and fundamental revolutions which make up the progressive development of history; while in the cycles into which historico-dramatic poetry spontaneously adjusts itself, whatever is universal in the mind and character of entire ages and people is brought more closely and immediately before us than in the pure drama, where it is exhibited mediately only in the counsels and actions of individuals. Here, however, national-not to say human-character appears in clear, distinct, and vivid personality, as the free, self-originated, and organic result of manifold independent causes; and the infinite and wonderful work of history, such as it shapes itself beneath the hand of the eternal master-artist, unfolds itself in broad and deep outline before us. And even the subjective activity of individuals gains power and significance in the wider circle of time and place which the dramatic history unfolds. Since the deed is there exhibited as continuing, in its effects and consequences, far beyond the lifetime of its author, we become, for the first time, acquainted with its intrinsic importance; we shudder to contemplate the lasting serious and frightful results to which-apparently a trifling and insignificant act-one brief moment has given birth; we hear on all sides the awful warning, that man dies not with his earthly decease, but in his deeds still continues to live in the world as well as out of it.

Furthermore, history in itself is neither tragic nor comic: it is only by reason of the particular poetic view under which the human mind contemplates its several moments, that it becomes one or the other. Neither the tragic annihilation, nor the comic paralysis of individual counsels, have any independent validity; they are there only as particular constituents of the organic whole, and are only so far of authority as they exercise an influence on it and its development. The whole, although under its different aspects it may appear successively tragic or comic, cannot in itself be regarded either as tragedy or comedy, and since it contains both within itself it must be superior to either of them.