Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 34

A syllable wanting! Had this Seward neither ears nor fingers? The line is a more than usually regular iambic hendecasyllable.

_Ib._-

"With one man satisfied, with one rein guided; With one faith, one content, one bed; _Aged_, she makes the wife, preserves the fame and issue; A widow is," &c.

Is "apaid"-contented-too obsolete for B. and F.? If not, we might read it thus:-

"Content with one faith, with one bed apaid, She makes the wife, preserves the fame and issue;"-

Or, it may be,-

... "with one breed apaid"-

that is, satisfied with one set of children, in opposition to,-

"A widow is a Christmas-box," &c.

Colman's note on Seward's attempt to put this play into metre.

The editors, and their contemporaries in general, were ignorant of any but the regular iambic verse. A study of the Aristophanic and Plautine metres would have enabled them to reduce B. and F. throughout into metre, except where prose is really intended.

"The Humorous Lieutenant."

Act i. sc. 1. Second Amba.s.sador's speech:-

... "When your angers, _Like_ so many brother billows, rose together, And, curling up _your_ foaming crests, defied," &c.

This worse than superfluous "like" is very like an interpolation of some matter of fact critic-all _pus, prose atque venenum_. The "your" in the next line, instead of "their," is likewise yours, Mr. Critic!

Act ii. sc. 1. Timon's speech:-

"Another of a new _way_ will be look'd at."

"We must suspect the poets wrote, 'of a new _day_.' So immediately after,

... Time may For all his wisdom, yet give us a day."

Seward's Note.

For this very reason I more than suspect the contrary.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Speech of Leucippe:-

"I'll put her into action for a _wastcoat_."

What we call a riding-habit,-some mannish dress.

"The Mad Lover."

Act iv. Masque of beasts:-

... "This goodly tree, An usher that still grew before his lady, Wither'd at root: this, for he could not woo, A grumbling lawyer:" &c.

Here must have been omitted a line rhyming to "tree;" and the words of the next line have been transposed:-

... "This goodly tree, _Which leafless, and obscur'd with moss you see_, An usher this, that 'fore his lady grew, Wither'd at root: this, for he could not woo," &c.

"The Loyal Subject."

It is well worthy of notice, and yet has not been, I believe, noticed hitherto, what a marked difference there exists in the dramatic writers of the Elizabetho-Jacobaean age-(Mercy on me! what a phrase for "the writers during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.!")-in respect of their political opinions. Shakespeare, in this, as in all other things, himself and alone, gives the permanent politics of human nature, and the only predilection which appears, shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the populacy. Ma.s.singer is a decided Whig;-Beaumont and Fletcher high-flying, pa.s.sive-obedience, Tories. The Spanish dramatists furnished them with this, as with many other ingredients. By the by, an accurate and familiar acquaintance with all the productions of the Spanish stage previously to 1620, is an indispensable qualification for an editor of B. and F.;-and with this qualification a most interesting and instructive edition might be given. This edition of Colman's (Stockdale, 1811) is below criticism.

In metre, B. and F. are inferior to Shakespeare, on the one hand, as expressing the poetic part of the drama, and to Ma.s.singer, on the other, in the art of reconciling metre with the natural rhythm of conversation,-in which, indeed, Ma.s.singer is unrivalled. Read him aright, and measure by time, not syllables, and no lines can be more legitimate,-none in which the subst.i.tution of equipollent feet, and the modifications by emphasis, are managed with such exquisite judgment. B.

and F. are fond of the twelve syllable (not Alexandrine) line, as:-

"Too many fears 'tis thought too: and to nourish those."

This has often a good effect, and is one of the varieties most common in Shakespeare.

"Rule A Wife And Have A Wife."

Act iii. Old Woman's speech:-

... "I fear he will knock my Brains out for lying."

Mr. Seward discards the words "for lying," because "most of the things spoke of Estifania are true, with only a little exaggeration, and because they destroy all appearance of measure."-Colman's note.

Mr. Seward had his brains out. The humour lies in Estifania's having ordered the Old Woman to tell these tales of her; for though an intriguer, she is not represented as other than chaste; and as to the metre, it is perfectly correct.

_Ib._-

"_Marg._ As you love me, give way.