Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 27

46. _Veneration for Shakespear._ Cf. Dennis's letter to Steele, 26th March, 1719: "Ever since I was capable of reading Shakespear, I have always had, and have always expressed, that veneration for him which is justly his due; of which I believe no one can doubt who has read the Essay which I published some years ago upon his Genius and Writings."

_Italian Ballad._ Cf. Dennis's _Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manner_, 1706.

Alexander Pope.

48. _His Characters._ The same idea had been expressed by Gildon in his _Essay on the Stage_, 1710, p. li.: "He has not only distinguish'd his princ.i.p.al persons, but there is scarce a messenger comes in but is visibly different from all the rest of the persons in the play. So that you need not to mention the name of the person that speaks, when you read the play, the manners of the persons will sufficiently inform you who it is speaks."

Cf. also Addison's criticism of Homer, _Spectator_, No. 273: "There is scarce a speech or action in the _Iliad_, which the reader may not ascribe to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it."

50. _To judge of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules._ This comparison had appeared in Farquhar's _Discourse upon Comedy_: "The rules of English Comedy don't lie in the compa.s.s of Aristotle, or his followers, but in the Pit, Box, and Galleries. And to examine into the humour of an English audience, let us see by what means our own English poets have succeeded in this point. To determine a suit at law we don't look into the archives of Greece or Rome, but inspect the reports of our own lawyers, and the acts and statutes of our Parliaments; and by the same rule we have nothing to do with the models of Menander or Plautus, but must consult Shakespear, Johnson, Fletcher, and others, who by methods much different from the Ancients have supported the English Stage, and made themselves famous to posterity." Cf. also Rowe, p. 15: "it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of."-Is it unnecessary to point out that there are no "rules" in Aristotle? The term "Aristotle's rules" was commonly used to denote the "rules of the cla.s.sical drama," which, though based on the _Poetics_, were formulated by Italian and French critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

51. _The Dates of his plays._ Pope here controverts Rowe's statement, p.

4.

_blotted a line._ See note, p. 43. Though Pope here controverts the traditional opinion, he found it to his purpose to accept it in the _Epistle to Augustus_, ll. 279-281:

And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line.

Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

52. Pope's references to the early editions of the _Merry Wives_ and other plays do not prove his a.s.sertions. Though an imperfect edition of the _Merry Wives_ appeared in 1602, it does not follow that this was "entirely new writ" and transformed into the play in the Folio of 1623. The same criticism applies to what he says of _Henry V._, of which pirated copies appeared in 1600, 1602, and 1608. And he is apparently under the impression that the _Contention of York and Lancaster_ and the early play of _Hamlet_ were Shakespeare's own work.

53. _Coriola.n.u.s and Julius Caesar._ Pope replies tacitly to Dennis's criticism of these plays.

_those Poems which pa.s.s for his._ The seventh or supplementary volume of Rowe's and Pope's editions contained, in addition to some poems by Marlowe, translations of Ovid by Thomas Heywood. Like Rowe, Pope has some doubt as to the authors.h.i.+p of the poems, but on the score of the dedications he attributes to him _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Rape of Lucrece_. Both editors ignored the Sonnets. It is doubtful how far Shakespeare was indebted to Ovid in his _Venus and Adonis_. He knew Golding's translation of the _Metamorphoses_ (1565-67); but _Venus and Adonis_ has many points in common with Lodge's _Scillaes Metamorphosis_ which appeared in 1589. See, however, J. P. Reardon's paper in the "Shakespeare Society's Papers," 1847, iii. 143-6, where it is held that Lodge is indebted to Shakespeare.

_Plautus._ Cf. Rowe, p. 9. Gildon had claimed for Shakespeare greater acquaintance with the Ancients than Rowe had admitted, and Pope had both opinions in view when he wrote the present pa.s.sage. "I think there are many arguments to prove," says Gildon, "that he knew at least some of the Latin poets, particularly Ovid; two of his Epistles being translated by him: His motto to _Venus and Adonis_ is another proof. But that he had read Plautus himself, is plain from his _Comedy of Errors_, which is taken visibly from the _Menaechmi_ of that poet.... The characters he has in his plays drawn of the Romans is a proof that he was acquainted with their historians.... I contend not here to prove that he was a perfect master of either the Latin or Greek authors; but all that I aim at, is to shew that as he was capable of reading some of the Romans, so he had actually read Ovid and Plautus, without spoiling or confining his fancy or genius"

(1710, p. vi).

_Dares Phrygius._ The reference is to the prologue of _Troilus and Cressida_. See the note in Theobald's edition, and Farmer, p. 187.

_Chaucer._ See Gildon's remarks on _Troilus and Cressida_, 1710, p. 358.

54. _Ben Johnson._ Pope is here indebted to Betterton. Cf. his remark as recorded by Spence, _Anecdotes_, 1820, p. 5. "It was a general opinion that Ben Jonson and Shakespeare lived in enmity against one another.

Betterton has a.s.sured me often that there was nothing in it; and that such a supposition was founded only on the two parties, which in their lifetime listed under one, and endeavoured to lessen the character of the other mutually. Dryden used to think that the verses Jonson made on Shakespeare's death had something of satire at the bottom; for my part, I can't discover any thing like it in them."

_Pessimum genus_, etc. Tacitus, _Agricola_, 41.

_Si ultra placitum_, etc. Virgil, _Eclogues_, vii. 27, 28.

55. _Dryden._ _Discourse concerning Satire, ad init._ (ed. W. P. Ker, ii., p. 18).

_Enter three Witches solus._ "This blunder appears to be of Mr. Pope's own invention. It is not to be found in any one of the four folio copies of _Macbeth_, and there is no quarto edition of it extant" (Steevens).

56. _Hector's quoting Aristotle._ _Troilus and Cressida_, ii. 2. 166.

57. _those who play the Clowns._ "Act iii., Sc. 4" in Pope's edition, but Act iii., Sc. 2 in modern editions.

58. _Procrustes._ Cf. _Spectator_, No. 58.

_Note 2._ In the edition of 1728, Pope added to this note "which last words are not in the first quarto edition."

59. _led into the b.u.t.tery of the Steward._ "Mr. Pope probably recollected the following lines in _The Taming of the Shrew_, spoken by a Lord, who is giving directions to his servant concerning some players:

Go, Sirrah, take them to the _b.u.t.tery_, And give them friendly welcome every one.

But he seems not to have observed that the players here introduced were _strollers_; and there is no reason to suppose that our author, Heminge, Burbage, Lowin, etc., who were licensed by King James, were treated in this manner" (Malone).

_London Prodigal._ After these seven plays Pope added in the edition of 1728 "and a thing call'd the _Double Falshood_" (see Introduction, p.

xlv). It will be noted that he speaks incorrectly of "eight" plays. In the same edition he also inserted _The Comedy of Errors_ between _The Winter's Tale_ and _t.i.tus Andronicus_ (top of p. 60).

60. _tho' they were then printed in his name._ His name was given on the t.i.tle-page of _Pericles_, _Sir John Oldcastle_, the _Yorks.h.i.+re Tragedy_, and the _London Prodigal_.

Lewis Theobald.

64. _above the Direction of their Tailors._ Cf. Pope, p. 51. The succeeding remarks on the individuality of Shakespeare's characters also appear to have been suggested by Pope.

65. _wanted a Comment._ Contrast Rowe, p. 1.

66. _Judith_ was Shakespeare's younger daughter (cf. Rowe, p. 21). It is now known that Shakespeare was married at the end of 1582. See Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 18-24.

68. _Spenser's Thalia._ Cf. Rowe, pp. 6, 7. The original editions read "_Tears of his Muses_."

69. _Rymers Fdera_, vol. xvi., p. 505. _Fletcher_, _i.e._ Lawrence Fletcher.

_the Bermuda Islands._ Cf. Theobald's note on "the still-vext Bermoothes,"

vol. i., p. 13 (1733). Though Shakespeare is probably indebted to the account of Sir George Somers's s.h.i.+pwreck on the Bermudas, Theobald is wrong, as Farmer pointed out, in saying that the Bermudas were not discovered till 1609. A description of the islands by Henry May, who was s.h.i.+pwrecked on them in 1593, is given in Hakluyt, 1600, iii., pp. 573-4.

70. _Mr. Pope, or his Graver._ So the quotation appears in the full-page ill.u.s.tration facing p. x.x.xi of Rowe's Account in Pope's edition; but the ill.u.s.tration was not included in all the copies, perhaps because of the error. The quotation appears correctly in the engraving in Rowe's edition.

72. _New-place._ Queen Henrietta Maria's visit was from 11th to 13th July, 1643. Theobald's "three weeks" should read "three days." See Halliwell-Phillips, _Outlines_, 1886, ii., p. 108.

_We have been told in print_, in _An Answer to Mr. Popes Preface to Shakespear.... By a Stroling Player_ [John Roberts], 1729, p. 45.

73. _Complaisance to a bad Taste._ Cf. Rowe, p. 6, Dennis p. 46, and Theobald's dedication to _Shakespeare Restored_; yet Theobald himself had complied to the bad taste in several pantomimes.

_Nullum sine venia._ Seneca, _Epistles_, 114. 12.