The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 14

Raise me this beggar, and _deny't_ that lord.--

Warburton reads 'denude.'

I cannot see the necessity of this alteration. The editors and commentators are, all of them, ready enough to cry out against Shakspeare's laxities and licenses of style, forgetting that he is not merely a poet, but a dramatic poet; that, when the head and the heart are swelling with fullness, a man does not ask himself whether he has grammatically arranged, but only whether (the context taken in) he has conveyed, his meaning. 'Deny' is here clearly equal to 'withhold;' and the 'it,' quite in the genius of vehement conversation, which a syntaxist explains by ellipses and _subauditurs_ in a Greek or Latin cla.s.sic, yet triumphs over as ignorances in a contemporary, refers to accidental and artificial rank or elevation, implied in the verb 'raise.' Besides, does the word 'denude' occur in any writer before, or of, Shakspeare's age?

[Footnote 1: It is, of course, a verse,--

Aches contract, and starve your supple joints,--

and is so printed in all later editions. But Mr. C. was reading it in prose in Theobald; and it is curious to see how his ear detected the rhythmical necessity for p.r.o.nouncing 'aches' as a dissyllable, although the metrical necessity seems for the moment to have escaped him. Ed.]

[Footnote 2: 'Your' is the received reading now. Ed.]

ROMEO AND JULIET.

I have previously had occasion to speak at large on the subject of the three unities of time, place, and action, as applied to the drama in the abstract, and to the particular stage for which Shakspeare wrote, as far as he can be said to have written for any stage but that of the universal mind. I hope I have in some measure succeeded in demonstrating that the former two, instead of being rules, were mere inconveniences attached to the local peculiarities of the Athenian drama; that the last alone deserved the name of a principle, and that in the preservation of this unity Shakspeare stood preeminent. Yet, instead of unity of action, I should greatly prefer the more appropriate, though scholastic and uncouth, words h.o.m.ogeneity, proportionateness, and totality of interest,--expressions, which involve the distinction, or rather the essential difference, betwixt the shaping skill of mechanical talent, and the creative, productive, life-power of inspired genius. In the former each part is separately conceived, and then by a succeeding act put together;--not as watches are made for wholesale,--(for there each part supposes a pre-conception of the whole in some mind)--but more like pictures on a motley screen. Whence arises the harmony that strikes us in the wildest natural landscapes,--in the relative shapes of rocks, the harmony of colours in the heaths, ferns, and lichens, the leaves of the beech and the oak, the stems and rich brown branches of the birch and other mountain trees, varying from verging autumn to returning spring,--compared with the visual effect from the greater number of artificial plantations?--From this, that the natural landscape is effected, as it were, by a single energy modified 'ab intra' in each component part. And as this is the particular excellence of the Shakspearian drama generally, so is it especially characteristic of the Romeo and Juliet.

The groundwork of the tale is altogether in family life, and the events of the play have their first origin in family feuds. Filmy as are the eyes of party-spirit, at once dim and truculent, still there is commonly some real or supposed object in view, or principle to be maintained; and though but the twisted wires on the plate of rosin in the preparation for electrical pictures, it is still a guide in some degree, an a.s.similation to an outline. But in family quarrels, which have proved scarcely less injurious to states, wilfulness, and precipitancy, and pa.s.sion from mere habit and custom, can alone be expected. With his accustomed judgment, Shakspeare has begun by placing before us a lively picture of all the impulses of the play; and, as nature ever presents two sides, one for Herac.l.i.tus, and one for Democritus, he has, by way of prelude, shown the laughable absurdity of the evil by the contagion of it reaching the servants, who have so little to do with it, but who are under the necessity of letting the superfluity of sensoreal power fly off through the escape-valve of wit-combats, and of quarrelling with weapons of sharper edge, all in humble imitation of their masters. Yet there is a sort of unhired fidelity, an 'ourishness' about all this that makes it rest pleasant on one's feelings. All the first scene, down to the conclusion of the Prince's speech, is a motley dance of all ranks and ages to one tune, as if the horn of Huon had been playing behind the scenes.

Benvolio's speech--

Madam, an hour before the wors.h.i.+pp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east--

and, far more strikingly, the following speech of old Montague--

Many a morning hath he there been seen With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew--

prove that Shakspeare meant the Romeo and Juliet to approach to a poem, which, and indeed its early date, may be also inferred from the mult.i.tude of rhyming couplets throughout. And if we are right, from the internal evidence, in p.r.o.nouncing this one of Shakspeare's early dramas, it affords a strong instance of the fineness of his insight into the nature of the pa.s.sions, that Romeo is introduced already love-bewildered. The necessity of loving creates an object for itself in man and woman; and yet there is a difference in this respect between the s.e.xes, though only to be known by a perception of it. It would have displeased us if Juliet had been represented as already in love, or as fancying herself so;--but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rus.h.i.+ng into his pa.s.sion for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy; and we should remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of his own making, which is never shown where love is really near the heart.

When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

The character of the Nurse is the nearest of any thing in Shakspeare to a direct borrowing from mere observation; and the reason is, that as in infancy and childhood the individual in nature is a representative of a cla.s.s, just as in describing one larch tree, you generalize a grove of them,--so it is nearly as much so in old age. The generalization is done to the poet's hand. Here you have the garrulity of age strengthened by the feelings of a long-trusted servant, whose sympathy with the mother's affections gives her privileges and rank in the household; and observe the mode of connection by accidents of time and place, and the childlike fondness of repet.i.tion in a second childhood, and also that happy, humble, ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, the check of her superiors!--

Yes, madam!--Yet I cannot choose but laugh, &c.

In the fourth scene we have Mercutio introduced to us. O! how shall I describe that exquisite ebullience and overflow of youthful life, wafted on over the laughing waves of pleasure and prosperity, as a wanton beauty that distorts the face on which she knows her lover is gazing enraptured, and wrinkles her forehead in the triumph of its smoothness!

Wit ever wakeful, fancy busy and procreative as an insect, courage, an easy mind that, without cares of its own, is at once disposed to laugh away those of others, and yet to be interested in them,--these and all congenial qualities, melting into the common 'copula' of them all, the man of rank and the gentleman, with all its excellencies and all its weaknesses, const.i.tute the character of Mercutio!

Act i. sc. 5.

'Tyb'. It fits when such a villain is a guest; I'll not endure him.

'Cap'. He shall be endur'd.

What, goodman boy!--I say, he shall:--Go to;-- Am I the master here, or you?--Go to.

You'll not endure him!--G.o.d shall mend my soul-- You'll make a mutiny among my guests!

You will set c.o.c.k-a-hoop! you'll be the man!

'Tyb'. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.

'Cap'. Go to, go to, You are a saucy boy! &c.--

How admirable is the old man's impetuosity at once contrasting, yet harmonized, with young Tybalt's quarrelsome violence! But it would be endless to repeat observations of this sort. Every leaf is different on an oak tree; but still we can only say--our tongues defrauding our eyes--'This is another oak-leaf!'

Act ii. sc. 2. The garden scene:

Take notice in this enchanting scene of the contrast of Romeo's love with his former fancy; and weigh the skill shown in justifying him from his inconstancy by making us feel the difference of his pa.s.sion. Yet this, too, is a love in, although not merely of, the imagination.

Ib.

'Jul'. Well, do not swear; although I joy in thee, I have no joy in this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden, &c.

With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safety of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act iii. sc. 1. of the Tempest. I do not know a more wonderful instance of Shakspeare's mastery in playing a distinctly rememberable variety on the same remembered air, than in the transporting love-confessions of Romeo and Juliet and Ferdinand and Miranda. There seems more pa.s.sion in the one, and more dignity in the other; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly fondness of Miranda, might easily pa.s.s into each other.

'Ib.' sc. 3. The Friar's speech:--

The reverend character of the Friar, like all Shakspeare's representations of the great professions, is very delightful and tranquillizing, yet it is no digression, but immediately necessary to the carrying on of the plot.

'Ib.' sc. 4.

'Rom.' Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? &c.--

Compare again, Romeo's half-exerted, and half real, ease of mind with his first manner when in love with Rosaline! His will had come to the clenching point.

'Ib.' sc. 6.