But the great beauty of this play, as it is of all the genuine writings of Shakespeare, beyond all didactic morality, beyond all mere flights of fancy, and beyond all sublime—a beauty entirely his own, and in which no writer, ancient or modern, can enter into competition with him-is that his men are men; his sentiments are living, and his characters marked with those delicate, evanescent, undefinable touches which identify them with the great delineation of nature. The speech of Ulysses just quoted, when taken by itself, is purely an exquisite specimen of didactic morality; but when combined. with the explanation given by Ulysses, before the entrance of Achilles, of the nature of his design, it becomes the attribute of a real man, and starts into life. When we compare the plausible and seemingly affectionate manner in which Ulysses addresses himself to L Achilles with the key which he here furnishes to his meaning, and especially with the epithet "derision," we have a perfect elucidation of his character, and must allow that it is impossible to exhibit the crafty and smooth-tongued politician in a more exact or animated style. The advice given by Ulysses is in its nature sound and excellent, and in its form inoffensive and kind; the name therefore of "derision which he gives to it, marks to a wonderful degree the cold and self-centred subtlety of his character. Cressida's confession to Troilus of her love is a most beautiful example of the genuine Shakespearian manner. What charming ingenuousness, what exquisite naïveté, what ravishing confusion of soul, are expressed in these words! We seem to perceive in them every fleeting thought as it rises in the mind of Cressida, at the same time that they delineate with equal skill all the beautiful timidity and innocent artifice which grace and consummate the feminine character. Other writers endeavour to conjure up before them their imaginary personages, and seek with violent effort to arrest and describe what their fancy presents to them: Shakespeare alone (though not without many exceptions to this happiness) appears to have the whole train of his characters in voluntary attendance upon him, to listen to their effusions, and to commit to writing all the words, and the very words, they utter. The whole catalogue of the dramatis persone in the play of Troilus and Cressida, so far as they depend upon a rich and original vein of humour in the author, are drawn with a felicity which never was surpassed. The genius of Homer has been a topic of admiration to almost every generation of men since the period in which he wrote. But his characters will not bear the slightest comparison with the delineation of the same characters as they stand in Shakespeare. This is a species of honour which ought by no means to be forgotten when we are making the eulogium of our immortal bard, a sort of illustration of his greatness which cannot fail to place it in a very conspicuous light. The dispositions of men perhaps had not been sufficiently unfolded in the very early period of intellectual refinement when Homer wrote; the rays of humour had not been dissected by the glass, or rendered perdurable by the pencil, of the poet. Homer's characters are drawn with a laudable portion of variety and consistency; but his Achilles, his Ajax, and his Nestor are, each of them, rather a species than an individual, and can boast more of the propriety of abstraction than of the vivacity of a moving scene of absolute life. The Achilles, the Ajax, and the various Grecian heroes of Shakespeare, on the other hand, are absolute men, deficient in nothing which can tend to individualize them, and already touched with the Promethean fire that might infuse a soul into what, without it, were lifeless form. From the rest perhaps the character of Thersites deserves to be selected (how cold and schoolboy a sketch in Homer!) as exhibiting an appropriate vein of sarcastic humour amidst his cowardice, and a profoundness and truth in his mode of laying open the foibles of those about him, impossible to be excelled.. Before we quit this branch of Shakespeare's praise, it may not be unworthy of our attention to advert to one of the methods by which he has attained this uncommon superiority. It has already been observed that one of the most formidable adversaries of true poetry is an attribute which is generally miscalled dignity. Shakespeare possessed, no man in higher perfection, the true dignity and loftiness of the poetical afflatus, which he has displayed in many of the finest passages of his works with miraculous success. But he knew that no man ever was, or ever can be, always dignified. He knew that those subtler traits of character which identify a man are familiar and relaxed, pervaded with passion, and not played off with an eternal eye to decorum. In this respect the peculiarities of Shakespeare's genius are nowhere more forcibly illustrated than in the play we are here considering. The champions of Greece and Troy, from the hour in which their names were first recorded, had always worn a certain formality of attire, and marched with a slow and measured step. No poet till this time had ever ventured to force them out of the manner which their epic creator had given them. Shakespeare first supplied their limbs, took from them the classic stiffness of their gait, and enriched them with an entire set of those attributes which might render them completely beings of the same species with ourselves. Yet, after every degree of homage has been paid to the glorious and awful superiorities of Shakespeare, it would be unpardonable in us, on the present occasion, to forget one particular in which the play of Troilus and Cressida does not eclipse, but on the contrary falls far short of its great archetype, the poem of Chaucer. This, too, is a particular in which, as the times of Shakespeare were much more enlightened and refined than those of Chaucer, the preponderance of excellence might well be expected to be found in the opposite scale. The fact, however, is unquestionable, that the characters of Chaucer are much more respectable and loveworthy than the correspondent personages in Shakespeare. In Chaucer Troilus is the pattern of an honourable lover, choosing rather every extremity of want and the loss of life than to divulge, whether in a direct or an indirect manner, any thing which might compromise the reputation of his mistress, or lay open her name as a topic for the vulgar. Creseide, however (as Mr. Urry has observed), though she proves at last a "false unconstant whore," yet in the commencement, and for a considerable time, preserves those ingenuous manners and that propriety of conduct which are the brightest ornaments of the female character. Even Pandarus, low and dishonourable as is the part he has to play, is in Chaucer merely a friendly and kind-hearted man, so easy in his temper that, rather than not contribute to the happiness of the man he loves, he is content to overlook the odious names and construction to which his proceedings are entitled. Not so in Shakespeare: his Troilus shows no reluctance to render his amour a subject of notoriety to the whole city; his Cressida (for example, in the scene with the Grecian chiefs, to all of whom she is a total stranger) assumes the manners of the most abandoned prostitute; and his Pandarus enters upon his vile occupation, not from any venial partiality to the desires of his friend, but from the direct and simple love of what is gross, impudent, and profligate. For these reasons Shakespeare's play, however enriched with a thousand beauties, can scarcely boast of any strong claim upon our interest or affections. It may be alleged, indeed, that Shakespeare, having exhibited pretty much at large the whole catalogue of Greek and Trojan heroes, had by no means equal scope to interest us in the story from which the play receives its name: but this would scarcely be admitted as an adequate apology before an impartial tribunal. [From Verplanck's "Shakespeare." *] The play is, in all respects, a very remarkable and singular production; and it has perplexed many a critic, not, as usual, by smaller difficulties of readings and interpretation, but by doubts as to the author's design and spirit. Its beauties are of the highest order. It contains passages fraught with moral truth and political wisdom-high truths, in large and philosophical discourse, such as remind us of the loftiest. disquisitions of Hooker, or Jeremy Taylor, on the foundations of social law. Thus the comments of Ulysses (i. 3) on the universal obligation of the law of order and degree, and the confusion caused by rebellion to its rule, either in nature or in society, are in the very spirit of the grandest and most instructive eloquence of Burke. The piece abounds, too, in passages of the most profound and persuasive practical ethics, and grave advice for the government of life; as when, in the third act, Ulysses (the great didactic organ of the play) impresses upon Achilles the consideration of man's ingratitude "for good deeds past," and the necessity of perseverance to "keep honour bright." Other scenes again, fervid with youthful passion, or rich in beautiful im; agery, are redolent with intense sweetness of poetic fancy. Such is that splendid exhortation of Patroclus to Achilles, of which Godwin has justly said that "a more poetical passage, if poetry consists in sublime, picturesque, and beautiful imagery, neither ancient nor modern times have produced." "Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak, wanton Cupid Be shook to air." Nor is there any drama more rich in variety and truth of character. The Grecian camp is filled with real and living *The Illustrated Shakespeare, edited by G. C. Verplanck (New York, 1847), vol. iii. p. 4 of T. and C. |