The Scots Magazine. SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND, 1564-1616.1 BY G. J. S. THRE PART I. HREE centuries have gone since Shakespeare was the delight of the London playgoer, and in that time oblivion has dealt capriciously with his memory. Truly in this instance she hath "scattered her poppies." If ever any writer's fame owed nothing to his personal charm, that may be said of Shakespeare's Herein he is separated from all those whose influence on their race has been as much produced by an unique personality as by their works. It may have been a wayward freakishness, as in Goldsmith and De Quincey, a hyper-sensitiveness as in Charles Lamb, or a rugged impetuosity as in Thomas Carlyle, but in all these cases we feel that the man was greater than his work; and often when we 1 Authorities. Halliwell-Phillipps' "Life." Sidney Lee's "Life." George Brandes' " Study of Shakespeare." Winter's "Shakespeare's England.” Green's" Short History of English People." Bishop of London's Article—“Elizabethan London," in Cornhill, January, 1900. come to reckon our debt to the gifted dead, we find it hard to say whether it is to the printed words or to the uncaptured spirit that we owe most. With Shakespeare we have none of these doubts: the man has been, and will be, comparatively nothing to us; it is to his works that he owes his immortality, and to these alone. It may be said, indeed, that Shakespeare himself has long ceased to exist. His lineal descendants were extinct within 60 years of his death, and it is only after the most diligent research that the bare outlines of his life have been gathered from the intervening centuries. Shakespeare had the complete dramatic instinct; his plays were distinct from his own personality. His characters revealed themselves and human nature, not him; and it is thus that we have been left to disentomb from the contemporary literary and social records, and from tradition, what we know of the poet. Even yet we do not know precisely when or where he was born, how long he was at school, when he left it, what he began to work at, when he was married, or the details of his after-career. We have not a single letter of his, not even a line of his manuscript is known to be extant, and five or six signatures are the only specimens of his handwriting which we possess. But if Shakespeare, as a man, had little influence on his race, either in his life-time or afterwards, it may as truly be said that his genius was not the effect of his environment. In that sense he was, and is, an enigma: we cannot account for him in that way; and we think it will be abundantly clear from what we have to say, that Shakespeare's genius was neither the product of heredity nor of circumstances. At the same time, we must not push our conclusions too far; we believe that Shakespeare was, as a man, essentially one of his time, and his works, however magnificently inexplicable in their literary expression and imaginative conception, were largely in form and substance influenced by recent and contemporary life. He expressed himself through the literary channels in vogue in his day-the drama, the sonnet, and song; he found his material, to a great extent, in the history of his own country. The immortal sonnets, for instance, were not a spontaneous revelation of his deepest experiences; it is questionable (we are told) if they contain any autobiographical material whatsoever. What we do know is that Shakespeare chose the sonnet-form because that medium was one of the fads of European literature at the end of the sixteenth century. Nor did he write the dramas for literary ambition; he cared so little about the crown of fame that he not only allowed others to publish both his sonnets and his plays without protest, but he ignored the printing of works, with his name attached as author, although he never penned a line of them. To Shakespeare, writing dramas was only an incident of his career as an actor. In that capacity, and as one interested as a proprietor in various theatres, he wrote the plays, which then passed into the hands of the theatre-manager, and for which he probably received about £10 each, equivalent in our money to £100 or so. It may seem strange to us that Shakespeare should have been so blind to his posthumous fame as a dramatist, more especially when we consider that even whilst he lived he was regarded as a prince of these, and his works were regularly performed before royalty. Unfortunately the modern law of copyright was non-existent and accordingly, if any piratical publisher obtained the manuscript of a play from one of the actors or elsewhere, he was entitled to print it without obtaining either the theatremanager's or the author's consent, and to retain all profits arising from the sales. The poet himself never published a single drama. When we consider the unauthoritative printing of actors' copies, subject as these were to emendations of the theatre-manager, the alterations required by the exigencies of time and circumstance in performances, not to speak of the idiosyncracies of individual actors, we need not be surprised at the corrupt state of the Shakesperian text; and we may be thankful that his two theatrical friends, Hemmings and Condell, were so zealous for the literary reputation which he himself despised, that to preserve it, or, as they said, "to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare," they gathered together the celebrated folio edition of his plays some years after his death; thus handing down to posterity a text which, in the absence of the poet's own authoritative revision, they had made as free from error come to reckon our debt to the gifted dead, we find it hard to say whether it is to the printed words or to the uncaptured spirit that we owe most. With Shakespeare we have none of these doubts the man has been, and will be, comparatively nothing to us; it is to his works that he owes his immortality, and to these alone. It may be said, indeed, that Shakespeare himself has long ceased to exist. His lineal descendants were extinct within 60 years of his death, and it is only after the most diligent research that the bare outlines of his life have been gathered from the intervening centuries. Shakespeare had the complete dramatic instinct; his plays were distinct from his own personality. His characters revealed themselves and human nature, not him; and it is thus that we have been left to disentomb from the contemporary literary and social records, and from tradition, what we know of the poet. Even yet we do not know precisely when or where he was born, how long he was at school, when he left it, what he began to work at, when he was married, or the details of his after-career. We have not a single letter of his, not even a line of his manuscript is known to be extant, and five or six signatures are the only specimens of his handwriting which we possess. But if Shakespeare, as a man, had little influence on his race, either in his life-time or afterwards, it may as truly be said that his genius was not the effect of his environment. In that sense he was, and is, an enigma: we cannot account for him in that way; and we think it will be abundantly clear from what we have to say, that Shakespeare's genius was neither the product of heredity nor of circumstances. At the same time, we must not push our conclusions too far; we believe that Shakespeare was, as a man, essentially one of his time, and his works, however magnificently inexplicable in their literary expression and imaginative conception, were largely in form and substance influenced by recent and contemporary life. He expressed himself through the literary channels in vogue in his day-the drama, the sonnet, and song; he found his material, to a great extent, in the history of his own country. The immortal sonnets, for instance, were not a spontaneous revelation of his deepest experiences; it is questionable (we are told) if they contain any autobiographical material whatsoever. What we do know is that Shakespeare chose the sonnet-form because that medium was one of the fads of European literature at the end of the sixteenth century. Nor did he write the dramas for literary ambition; he cared so little about the crown of fame that he not only allowed others to publish both his sonnets and his plays without protest, but he ignored the printing of works, with his name attached as author, although he never penned a line of them. To Shakespeare, writing dramas was only an incident of his career as an actor. In that capacity, and as one interested as a proprietor in various theatres, he wrote the plays, which then passed into the hands of the theatre-manager, and for which he probably received about £10 each, equivalent in our money to £100 or so. It may seem strange to us that Shakespeare should have been so blind to his posthumous fame as a dramatist, more especially when we consider that even whilst he lived he was regarded as a prince of these, and his works were regularly performed before royalty. Unfortunately the modern law of copyright was non-existent and accordingly, if any piratical publisher obtained the manuscript of a play from one of the actors or elsewhere, he was entitled to print it without obtaining either the theatremanager's or the author's consent, and to retain all profits arising from the sales. The poet himself never published a single drama. When we consider the unauthoritative printing of actors' copies, subject as these were to emendations of the theatre-manager, the alterations required by the exigencies of time and circumstance in performances, not to speak of the idiosyncracies of individual actors, we need not be surprised at the corrupt state of the Shakesperian text; and we may be thankful that his two theatrical friends, Hemmings and Condell, were so zealous for the literary reputation which he himself despised, that to preserve it, or, as they said, "to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare," they gathered together the celebrated folio edition of his plays some years after his death; thus handing down to posterity a text which, in the absence of the poet's own authoritative revision, they had made as free from error |