Farewell, my mother! Farewell, dear, dear mother! These terrible moments I must pass in prayer For the dying-for the dead! Farewell! farewell! The gentleness, fortitude, and constancy of Jane Grey, her solicitude for her husband's life, her quiet acceptance of her own fate, the singleness of purpose and the beauty of her character, act as a foil to the political craft and pusillanimous shrinking from the result of his own acts displayed by Northumberland, and no less to the stormy passion and thirst for revenge in Mary alternating with woman's weakness and remorse. The delineation of the struggle in which the queen's soul is tempest-tost among the winds and waves of passion and native inclination, driven at one time by her imperious will, fortified by the resolve to keep guard over "the true cross and the authentic faith," at another swayed by a passionate craving, a wistful longing, infinitely pathetic, for some real affection, or by an inclination towards clemency and a milder policy,-this delineation can hardly fail to recall the tragic elevation, the "high passions and high actions," of the Elizabethan drama. How finely this recalls the accent of an elder day! The queen's passion is fairly alight, and the sword has been thrown into the scale of vengeance; "the demon wakes within her heart," and her mood passes into frenzy and madness: Is in our hands-yea, in these very veins Of the minor characters, or rather the characters other than protagonist, Northumberland, Jane Grey, and Cardinal Pole are the most finely drawn; and, for the worthless Philip, Sir Aubrey de Vere compels a hatred akin to that which Shakespeare compels for a stronger though hardly more hateful villain in Iago. Mary's passion for Philip cannot be read as a passion real in itself, but as centred on the only possible object for her lifelong repressed affections. She sought some outlet for the sweeter springs beneath the bitter waters of her soul. Gardiner and Cranmer are great historical portraits, worthy of their place in a drama which, with admirable impartiality, describes a period so full of religious passions, and, within the narrow cir cumference of its acts and scenes, depicts the very life and figure of the times as no historian has given or ever can give it,-England vexed with fierce religious discords and civil strife, stained with innocent blood, aflame with hatreds as with martyrs' fires, England, in whose borders the spirit of independence of an already ancient and free people was even now astir, but in which the various elements of the national life were not yet fused, and had not yet been unified as they were to be unified in the reign of Elizabeth. Like characters drawn by all great artists, Sir Aubrey de Vere's portraits are at once individual and typical, at once persons and types. To each individual belongs a personality that differs from all others in the world; but it rests rather than in the field of action, since he is in action uncertain and wavering, and acts from sudden impulses instead of along definite lines of policy. The proper instrument of the intellectual drama, which is mainly concerned with crises in the history of the soul, seems to be, as with Browning, monologue, and it is noticeable that in "Hamlet" the monologues are more frequent and more lengthy than in any other of Shakespeare's tragedies. Mr. de Vere's method is somewhat different. In his finest play he makes a gradual revelation of the character of Alexander, largely by a chronicle in dialogue of the impressions made by his personality upon those in contact with him, partly by Alexander's own words and partly by his actions. How admirable is this when Parmenio, King Philip's old general, corrects his son Philotas' conception of Alexander, and the causes of his success in war: upon a human foundation, an under- | plays itself in the life of his mind structure which is the same for all men. It is a comparatively easy task for the painter to limn a face which we recognize as in the abstract beautiful, or, if possessed of the observant eye, to reproduce features we know and recognize; but to see in every human countenance not its distinguishing lines alone, but those more fleeting which mark a special type, or to inform with human expression some abstract ideal of beauty, argues a power that belongs to the highest imaginative, combined with the highest observant and executive, genius. In Sir Aubrey de Vere's portraiture in “Mary Tudor,” a thought- | ful student will read the features not of individuals alone, but of individuals who belong to a certain age, a certain epoch in the history of England and of the world. Human and personal, they are also racial and peculiar to an epoch. Mary and Jane Grey, English to the core, though of natures widely differing; Northumberland and Cardinal Pole, types of the Englishmen of the period; Philip, the representative of Spain; and Gardiner, of the narrower, stronger Churchmen whose religion And noting not the hindrance. consumed their humanity, and so on throughout the play. To us it seems that it would be difficult to find among English dramas one which would serve better as a gallery, wherein to study the prevailing types of mind during the period of which it treats, than "Mary Tudor." Philotas. One half his victories come but of his blindness, Parmenio. At GranicusBut that was chance. At Issus he was greater; I set small store on Egypt or on Tyre; Philotas. I grant his greatness were his godship sane! But note his brow; 'tis Thought's least earthly temple: Then mark beneath that round, not human eye, Still glowing like a panther's! In his body Sir Aubrey de Vere is greater in the old tradition of the drama, in the representation of action and of character displayed in action. Mr. de Vere, as we shall see, excels, like Browning, in the intellectual drama, the internal development of character amid circumstances rather than its delineation by action, in the actual conflict and clash of forces in the external world. Taken No passion dwells; but all his mind is together, they represent the highest reach in the present century of the drama of action and the drama of thought. Of the drama of thought. or the intellectual drama, "Hamlet" may serve as an example, where the character of the hero dis passion, Wild intellectual appetite and instinct Parmenio. But half you know him. There is a zigzag lightning in his brain That flies in random flashes, yet not errs; His victories seem but chances; link those chances, And under them a science you shall find, Though unauthentic, contraband, illicit, Yea, contumelious oft to laws of war. Fortune that as a mistress smiles on others, Serves him as duty bound; her blood is he, Born in the purple of her royalties. If this be not in the manner of the great masters, we are at a loss to adduce examples of their manner. This passage serves well to illustrate Mr. de Vere's characteristic diction at its best,-"a style," to use Matthew Arnold's luminous description of Wordsworth's best writing, "a style of perfect plainness, relying for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire fidelity it utters." It is a diction which aims at no surprises for the reader. It does not care to goad him into excitement if his imagination or his feelings are dull, and it thus elects to suffer comparative neglect amongst the styles of the day, which ask nothing from the reader, but take upon themselves to electrify his already over-stimulated nerves by the surprising and the ostentatious. "During the last century," writes Mr. de Vere, in his preface to "Alexander the Great," "it was thought philosophical to sneer at the 'Macedonian madman,' and moral to declaim against him as a bandit. Maturer reflection has led us to the discovery that 'a fool's luck' helping a robber's ambition could hardly have enabled a youth but twenty-two years of age when he began his enterprise to conquer half the world in ten years. The ancients made no such mistake. They admired, and therefore they understood." Mr. de Vere's study and presentation of the person and achievements of Alexander bring before us the greatest captain of the ancient world, with the sharpness and reality of outline that time, when counted by centuries, in despite of all historical records does so much to efface. One imperative demand is made upon fictional art,-it must be convincing. And this whether it works in the field of pure invention and repro duces types, or in the field of history and clothes the skeleton records with flesh and blood. The creative artist makes what we may call his only-for it is his fatal-failure, when he fails to be convincing. However roughly his material be handled, however ineffectively he executes detail, if the result leaves the impression of reality, if it convinces the eye and mind, the highest success has been achieved. Verisimilitude can hardly be gained at too dear a cost. Because it must be gained at all costs, an artist who works upon a period other than his own burdens himself with preliminary study. He must himself live the life of the period; he must not only know its outward shows, the dress it wore, its life of field and hearth, its pomp and circumstance, but he must know its inner life, sympathize with its ways of thought, experience its emotions, and feel the truth of its beliefs. Perhaps Mr. de Vere of all living men, partly by natural affinity of mind and partly by reason that he is a poet, has the closest knowledge of, the fullest sympathy with, that period of European history which we are accustomed somewhat vaguely to denominate the Middle Ages. Much of his finest poetry is steeped in the spiritual mood, and might have been composed in the environment, of those ages. He has written what might almost be termed an apology for the Middle Ages in the preface to his "Mediæval Records." But it is a proof of the breadth and intellectual range of his genius that he has produced no greater work than that which deals with the Pagan world and a type of such distinctly Pagan heroism as Alexander. True it is that Mr. de Vere finds in pride the great vice in his character, "the all-pervading vice," as he writes, "which, except in the rarest instances, blended itself like a poison with Pagan greatness, and penetrated into its essence." But in so doing he is not judging Alexander by the standard of Christian virtue, but by a standard which the highest minds among the ancients, such as Alexander's master, Aristotle, might have applied, and by his admiration for Alexander's heroic and intellectual qualities he proves for himself the possession of that openness and independence of mind which are so essential in judgments upon the persons and actions of ages other than our own. Broadly human and sympathetic treatment of any period, however far removed from the present, could hardly fail to be successful; but in "Alexander the Great" our admiration is felt, not alone for the poet, but for the student whose alert eye caught sight of the finer details and possibilities of poetic and dramatic material in the comparatively scanty records of the year 323 B.C. From the hints in Plutarch, Shakespeare reconstructed the main characters in the Roman plays. Mr. de at least, by resource to scepticism, set aside their appeals to higher ideals, and at the worst he can cut the tangled knot with his resistless sword. This only know we- Yet capable, not less, of task heroic. me, Trampling all questionings down. The many aspects of Alexander's character, beside that of its overmastering pride, his poetic mysticism, soldierly decision, marvellous foresight, consummate coolness and dexterity, passion and ardor, subtlety, and an instinct almost animal, are all revealed Vere gleaned a like precious harvest in by Mr. de Vere in firm but delicately the same field; but took the incident which is in some respects the most interesting in Alexander's life, his visit to the Temple in Jerusalem, from Josephus. Of this incident Mr. de Vere makes a poetic and legitimate use in tracing the effect of the religions of the East, and especially of the monotheism of the Hebrews, upon the imperial mind of the soldier-statesman. Alexander's sublime idea of an universal empire. "redeemed from barbarism and irradiated with Greek science and art," proceeded from a mind far other than that which guides the designs of the successful general. As Mr. de Vere says, "His intellect was at once vast and minute, his mind was at once idealistic and practical," and he was keenly susceptible of the reality and moral depth of the religions held by the peoples whom his genius overthrew. But Alexander's pride of power, ministered to by a dazzling series of successes, choked the spiritual fountains of his nature. So self-centred he stands, even in his moments of doubt and in the company of his only friend Hephestion, that his thought cannot travel beyond the circle of the one supreme ambition of his life. From the religions of the conquered peoples he extracts material to feed his quenchless pride; or, if that be impossible, he can contrived strokes; and much more than these. How much of insight he gives us into the heart of the man in this contemptuous reference to Philotas, whom he has put to death on a suspicion of treason unproven:— I, in his place, Had ta'en small umbrage at my days abridged; There lived not scope nor purpose in his life Which death could mar. How affectingly, and with what exquisite appropriateness of scene, does Mr. de Vere introduce us to the only expression of Alexander's feelings which were not wholly centred in himself! With Hephestion, Alexander visits the tomb of Achilles and anoints the pillar that marks the grave; Hephestion lingers: Hephestion. It stood Close by, the loftier; greater love had raised it; Patroclus' tomb. Alexander. "Tis strange I mark'd it not. Hephestion. These two were friends. Alexander. Ay! not in death divided. Hephestion. Therefore, despite that insolent cynic sect, The gods have care for things on earth. Alexander. Hephestion! That which Patroclus to Achilles was Art thou to me-my nearest and minc inmost. In them, not lives alone, but fates were join'd; Patroclus died, Achilles follow'd soon. The character of Alexander, whose "one human affection," his friendship for Hephestion, "did not escape the alloy" of pride, has an historic and philosophical interest; that of Hephestion an interest more near, human and personal. Without Hephestion the drama could not but have lain somewhat outside the realm of ordinary human nature, so far removed are Alexander's character and achievements from those possible for the average man. But in the juxtaposition of these two figures Mr. de Vere has produced a striking contrast of wide intellectual and moral bearings. Alexander touches earth in his love for his friend; Hephestion is ennobled by his preservation of every virtue, especially those distinctively Christian, of simplicity and humility, like Marcus Aurelius, even on the steps, as we may say, of an imperial throne. Alexander, like another Achilles, gathers around his person all the glories of intellect and of power which make him an incarnation of almost divine greatness; and, like Achilles, the dazzling brightness of his day is in imagination still more bright, because the night of death descended upon it all too soon and sudden, with no twilight interspace of lessening greatness to prepare the eye. Alexander may stand for us as the supreme power of intellect, soaring in contemplation, resistless in action, and the worshippers of mind could hardly enthrone a greater deity chosen from among mortals. Hephestion, around whose head play less dazzling lights than those of imperial intellect and power, is a type of moral grandeur, of the beauty of virtue. Mr. de Vere's design, we doubt not, in this contrast was to make comparison between the Greek and the Christian ideals, the glory of the mind, and the greater glory of the soul. It is barely conceivable that any careful student of this drama can assign to it a place second to any produced in the nineteenth century. Nearly all the great poets of the century have essayed drama; almost without exception they have failed. Scott's genius, supreme in narrative fiction, proved too discursive for dramatic bounds. Wordsworth failed because his intellect was contemplative, out of any close sympathy with action. Coleridge, metaphysician and mystic though he was, came nearer success, but did not reach it. Byron was too rigidly confined within the iron circle of his own personality to succeed in dramatic characterization. Landor produced with the statuary's art noble groups of men and women, but could not call them from their pedestals into breathing life. Keats rioted in the glow and passion of color and of music, and the Fates gave him no lease of life wherein to study the world that lay around him. Shelley achieved success in one instance, but his is a drama of hateful night unvisited by the blessed light of day. Tennyson, after a brilliant career in almost every other branch of the poetic art which raised high expectations, gained only a respectable mediocrity in this-the highest. The honors in nineteenth-century drama are all divided between Sir Henry Taylor. Browning, and the de Veres, and to the de Veres the future will confirm the laurel. "Mary Tudor" and "Alexander the Great," as we have said, rank side by side as the highest limits in the |
